#why was *I* the one always getting fussed at and told off and lectured about how rude i was for not getting back to people in a timelymanne

[dredshirtroberts]

listen. I know my family is bad at communication and acknowledgement of receipt of Thing but when the one thing that consistently happens semi-annually is that I get fussed at for not confirming I received something, it irks me a smidge.

Like if I'm expected to always confirm "Hey I got your [communication/gift]" then why aren't they doing it back? Especially considering the communication in this instance has really actually very important information they will want to know if they want to stay in contact with me.

Like????

Even if I'd just gotten a "K" in response, like. at least it would have let me know they got the damn thing. I sent this email TWO WEEKS AGO and only one person responded - and it was practically immediate too. Like... i know folks are busy, i know shit's going on. I get it. But it would help me feel so much less like I'm suddenly a pariah in the family out of nowhere if like one of the people I'd sent this to had just responded in some way shape or form.

I'd have answered a phone call - i wouldn't have liked it, but i'd have done it. A letter in the mail to my current address even. a message in a bottle probably wouldn't get to me because i'm pretty far from the beaches of the great lakes, and also they're even farther, but like. something right?

my sister at least confirmed she got it and just forgot to respond. i imagine that's what happened with everyone else because we have the same mental illnesses and look. i do it too. but also? also?? i was hounded to respond quickly to things, i was told off every time i wasn't responding within a half hour of any communication. I was asked instantly the next time they saw me if I'd gotten it, even if i hadn't had a chance to see the thing yet.

So forgive me, family, if I'm a little peeved off that all y'all are allowed to "forget to respond" for two whole fucking weeks and then a few extra days (because it's been 2 weeks, 3 days exactly) when i can't let something sit in the mailbox for 2 days because i couldn't get to my mailbox easily while living on my own without getting a phone call or text or email that there should be something waiting in there for me.

*enraged screeching*

#literally the deadline i gave them for my address change was Monday #technically they have until the 8th but i didn't give them that room because i feared they'd use it #and my birthday is this upcoming week and like. idk i was kind of looking forward to maybe getting a card or two perhaps that's silly of me #to look forward to receiving specifically birthday correspondence for my birthday idk man #like i don't have a lot of space to judge i'm also really bad at keeping up lines of communication but when someone sends you #an update with a deadline about when they're moving and to where exactly #and also a big update on a health issue that like. they've mentioned MULTIPLE times #it's generally considered courteous to at least SAY YOU RECEIVED THE MESSAGE even if you didn't have a chance to read the whole thing yet #like???????? #angry i am so angry #like yay my sister responded to the text IT TOOK 2 WEEKS AND ME POKING HER ABOUT IT #again i know. i know people are busy and have other things going on #why did *I* have to be the one who came up with work arounds and ways to avoid doing this to other people when no one else does it for me? #why was *I* the one always getting fussed at and told off and lectured about how rude i was for not getting back to people in a timelymanne #but it's fine for them to IGNORE ME FOR 2 FUCKING WEEKS #like fuck *off* with that bullshit i'm so fucking......... #i mean it. about the others. if my grandparents i sent this to and my other aunt don't respond they don't get any more updates on me #i don't tell them when i move next or where i've gone. if i change my phone number again they don't get it. #like. if you're not going to do me the courtesy of saying ''i got your message you sent'' #AFTER I'VE SENT A FOLLOW UP TWO WEEKS LATER #then you don't get to stay in touch because you clearly do not care about it. #....i already feel like i'm extremely unwantable and like no one will ever desire to stick with me long term #having the family members i spent the majority of my life being around not respond to me does not help that #the SINGULAR person in a whole list of recipients who responded quickly (and also thoroughly but that was *wholly* unexpected) #was someone I barely got a chance to know when I was young because of weird family drama I don't care about #because it doesn't fucking matter y'all are adults now act like it #like. the most supportive member of my family is a woman i thought disliked me on principle because i was my father's child #and it turns out no it's my dad who's the fucked up one who judged her children just because they were hers #cause he hates his sister for some fucking reason. #when she's genuinely the nicest and kindest person i've ever met in my whole family like???

[berberriescorner]

“Loud and Wrong”

Characters: Kevin Atwater x Black!Reader.

Summary: Kevin and wifey have a minor disagreement.

Warnings: Fluff and a dash of spicy talk.

Word Count: 2,000+.

A/N: Well, lovelies. I've been having sleepless nights lately. Dealing with some ish. Life be life-inggg and it's keepin' my ass up at night *le sigh*. Tired of my mind racing. So to cut off intrusive thoughts I gave it a go and worked on some of my WIPS. My head quieted down enough for me to finish one. I've got some other things I've been working on as well. Fingers crossed I can finish some other works🤞🏾. This isn't heavily edited, but I hope you still enjoy it my loves🫶🏾. Here's to hoping I haven't lost my spark as a writer 😩😆🤷🏾‍♀️.

“The disrespect in this household is at an all-time high. Just going to sit there and eat in my face like that.”

Your husband called you earlier as he was leaving the precinct. He informed you that Halstead, Ruzek, and Voight wanted to watch the game tonight. Kevin called to see if it’d be okay for them to watch it at the house. Once he had confirmation that it was cool with you, he mentioned they’d be stopping for food. He offered to pick you up something as well, but you declined. You weren’t feeling well, so you didn’t have a taste for anything. Kevin asked if you were sure. After confirming, the call ended with “I love you.” Going against his better judgment, he found himself in the hot seat.

“What are you talking about, baby? How did I disrespect you?” Kevin’s senses prickled, and he braced himself for a lecture.

“So, you didn’t bring me any food? Give me some of your wings, babe,” you plead.

Not thinking it through, he let his temper get the best of him. Kevin fussed, “Did you, or did you not say you weren’t hungry? No, baby, you do this every time. You should’ve told me to get you some food. Why do you do that?”

Your eyebrows raised, “Am I not allowed to change my mind?”

“Don’t answer that,” Adam fake coughed, “loaded question.”

Ignoring his best friend, you smirked as Voight’s hand met the back of Ruzek’s head, and he whispered an apology.

“I’m not even that hungry. I just want a couple of wings and some fries.”

“Which means you want all my flats and the crispy fries. That’s the best part of the meal. If you changed your mind, there was plenty of time to call me back and ask for something. Why not do that? Am I right, or am I missing something here,” he directed the last question at the guys. They had been sitting in uncomfortable silence, trying to remain neutral. Neither Ruzek nor Halstead wanted any part of the exchange.

“Kev, give that beautiful woman some food. Always keep your wife happy,” Voight replied.

“I’m not in it, Bro,” Jay replied, while Adam held his hands up, wanting no part of the conversation.

“You should listen to Voight. Besides, I did text you.”

“No, you didn't. I had my phone on me the entire time, love.”

“Oh, so now I’m a liar? Okay, bet,” you responded, tone clipped. You sat beside Kevin with your arms crossed, giving him the silent treatment.

It had only been a few minutes when it started driving him crazy. “Here, ma. Just take some. I guess I can order some more food.”

“I’m good. Liars don’t get rewarded. Right?”

“Man, whatever,” he responded, kissing his teeth as he shook his head. “I’ll gladly enjoy my food.”

His phone signaled a text from Halstead. The men made eye contact as Jay’s facial expression signaled for Kevin to read it.

“Bro, are you crazy? Don’t argue with a pregnant woman. She’s growing your child. The least you could do is just go with it, even if she’s acting a little dramatic. It’s not her, it’s the hormones, brother 😏.”

Kevin sighed, knowing Jay was right. Not even bothering to respond, he backed out of the message. His movements halted as he noticed an unread message. Turns out you had texted him an order.

Feeling like a jerk, he locked his phone, sliding it back into his pocket. Not saying a word, he grabbed his to-go box, gently placing it in yours. His lips left a juicy kiss on your cheek, trailing up to the left temple before he spoke, “You're right, baby. I should’ve ordered extra food, just in case. Eat this, and I’ll just order some more.”

“Mm, am I right? Or did you finally see my text message? Jackass.”

He couldn’t even be mad because you were right. The doorbell sounded, leaving a confused look on your husband's face. Dumping the box back onto his lap, you turned to Voight.

“Could you help me up? Please,” you asked, voice soft and angelic.

Kevin quickly placed his food on the coffee table. “Stop playing, mama. I can get the door.” You rolled your eyes, “I’ll get it,” you snapped. Kevin stood there tilting his head to the side, burning with attitude. Voight inserted himself, “You two play nice and put this to rest. I’ll get the door.”

“Nonsense, you’re our guest,” you responded, but Voight was already up, halfway to the door.

Hank was only gone a few minutes. He returned to the family room, smiling and chuckling to himself. “Mrs. Atwater. I never want to be on your bad side. Kevin–Bro. I don't know how you'll pull yourself out of this one.”

Kevin looked at Voight quizzically. He watched as his boss laid a fatherly kiss on his wife's temple. It fully registered for him as he witnessed the man hand her an Uber Eats bag. The same logo they had all gotten their dinner from was written in big, bold letters on the receipt attached. The two of you glared at one another as you dug in and devoured a handful of fries.

The room erupted in laughter as Kevin rolled his eyes. Unlike the other men in the room, he found nothing funny.

“When did you order food?”

“The minute you called me a liar.”

Kevin pinched the bridge of his nose.

I love the hell out of this woman, but she gon’ drive me crazy.

“You cannot be serious. Let's not pretend you didn't know I’d give in and share my food. Why must you be so damn petty, woman?”

“Just hush. It’s over. Sit down, eat your food, and enjoy the game. I know I will,” you responded with a devious smirk.

Kevin groaned in irritation as he reclaimed the spot next to you. You felt his pillowy, soft lips press against your cheek, moving to that spot behind your ear. He smiled at the shiver his actions pulled from you. Fighting back a grin, you playfully rolled your eyes. With a mouthful of chicken, you responded, “Still not forgiven. You'll have to do more groveling than that, boo.”

He leaned close, whispering in your ear, “That's cute. Trust me, love. I have my ways. Daddy knows how to make it up to you. Wait until I get you alone.”

“Bro! We can hear you,” Adam complained.

“I’m beginning to wonder how this isn’t your second or third baby, Kev,” Voight teased.

Hank joked as the other two sat there, blushing like crazy. Covering your face, you awkwardly laughed with embarrassment.

“I’d get up and leave you to fend for yourself, but I can’t exactly make a run for it these days,” you ribbed Kevin.

As you were about to shrink into yourself sheepishly, the doorbell went off, and you left Kevin to deal with taunts and teases from his work family. With a firm grasp of his forearm and shoulder, you lifted off the couch. Looks of admiration rained upon you as each man watched the cute waddle you made toward the entrance.

Damn near breathless from the short distance, you took a moment to catch your breath. “Baby? Are you good?” You waved him off, telling him to calm down, and pulled open the door. Burgess and Upton’s eyes shone with excitement as they started to make a fuss over your growing baby bump. You chuckled as they questioned why you’d been the one to answer. The minute the three of you entered the living room, Burgess crossed the room, bopping Adam and Kevin upside the head as Upton chastised Halstead and Voight.

“Ladies, please. Don’t be too hard on the fellas. They all offered, but I refused,” you waved your hands. “You guys know I’m stubborn.

“As hell,” Kevin interjected.

“You want static with me so bad,” you sassed.

Kevin threw his hands up in surrender and bit his lip, slightly turned on by your attitude. Behind that sexy smirk was playfulness and something else you couldn’t quite figure out. Adam cleared his throat, “Ladies, not to be disrespectful, but can you stop giving us a hard time? We promise to behave if you just let us watch the game.”

Kim rolled her eyes, mumbling, “You’re making it very hard to like you right now. The couch is calling your name.”

Before Adam could dig himself into a deeper hole, you directed the women toward the kitchen where your peace and sanctuary awaited you.

“I’ll take this,” you said, snatching your wings from Kevin’s grasp. “I’m not sharing either,” you mocked. He nodded his head, sucking his bottom lip in. “Alright, ma. Keep it up. I’m keeping a tally.” You chuckled, turning to head further into the kitchen. You had to have the last word.

“When will you stop with these hollow, empty threats, dear sweet husband?”

Kevin’s head pushed back into the couch cushion behind him as he watched you walk away. He groaned to himself, or so he thought.

“Leave that poor woman alone, bro,” Adam joked.

“I can’t help it. That woman knows how to keep me on my toes, and I live for it.”

Every man in the living room had been hyper-focused on the game except for the man of the house. The sassiness you had given him earlier had heat simmering inside him. Your attitude always sparked a desire in him. His hands vibrated with a need to grab a handful of you. Kevin wanted nothing more than to have a moment alone with you.

Pulling himself from his lustful thoughts, he cleared his throat, “I’m going to go grab another beer. Anybody want one?”

The crew nodded “yes” in unison, eyes still fixated on the television screen. Kevin leaned against the kitchen archway, listening to the animated conversation among the women. You could feel his eyes on you, and a smile pulled at the corners of your lips.

“Is there something that you need, Mr. Atwater,” you questioned with a playful edge.

Your eyes connected with his before slowly trailing down to his bottom lip, tucked between his teeth. Hidden behind the lip bite was a sinful smirk that screamed trouble. Kim and Hailey’s stares bounced between the two of you. Clearing her throat, Kim stuttered, “You know think I hear Adam calling? Hailey, you want to join me? We’ll meet you two in the living room, yeah,” she questioned, both women not giving you time to respond.

“Traitorous heifers,” you mumbled under your breath.

You stood behind the kitchen island, arms crossed, watching Kevin make slow, calculated strides toward you. He stepped behind you, gently grabbing your waist and turning you to face him. The giant man towered over you, licking his soft, plump lips. The action alone caused you to bite back a moan. He bent lower as his mouth ghosted over your own.

“You still mad at me, baby?”

“Mad? No. Irritated, yes,” you finished, neck rolling a bit.

Kevin chuckled lightly, and in a flash, he grasped your hips, lifting you and depositing you onto the counter. Standing between your parted thighs, he leaned in and trailed his lips from your chest to the side of your neck. It slipped your mind that the house wasn’t empty, and a moan escaped your lips.

“Shhh, mamas. Don’t forget we have company.”

“Then let me down,” you gasped as his lips gently suckled your flesh.

“Not a chance in hell. Got you right where I want you now.”

“K-Kevin, seriously. You're getting me all wound up. The baby finally settled and stopped kicking me every five minutes. Don't get her started up again. Down. I want too get down,” you whined like a toddler.

“Tell me you're no longer irritated. I don't want to beef with you anymore, love. If you promise we’re good, I'll let you down,” he smirked.

“You're so irritating,” you responded playfully, rolling your eyes. “Fine, we're good!”

His hand cupped your chin as he pecked your lips continuously. It sent you into a fit of giggles. Your hand daringly wrapped around his throat to the best of its ability. Kevin groaned, pulling his plump lip between his teeth.

“I know that look. What you tryna do with a house full of guests, Mr. Atwater?”

Before your husband could reply, Voight’s voice boomed from the living room, “You two aren't as discreet as you believe yourselves to be. Atwater, halftime is over. Leave that sweet woman alone.”

“Yes sir!”

His lips landed a kiss on your forehead as he promised, “I'm taking your fine ass on a date tomorrow night.”

Kevin swept you off the counter, helping you find your footing as your swollen feet met the hardwood floors. He leaned in giving you one last sensual kiss, promising to ravish you once the two of you were alone.

Hope you all enjoyed it! Feel free to love, reblog, and leave a comment, lovelies🩵.

Tagging:

@darqchilddaydreamz @4everbrookemarie @starrynite7114 @nightlywords7 @amorestevens @sunshine-flower @boomclapxox @astoldbychae @percosim

@skyesthebomb @tbugger01 @thatbrowngruul

#berberriescorner #loud and wrong #kevin atwater x black!reader #kevin atwater x reader #kevin atwater #daddy kevin #chicago pd #chicago pd imagine #chicago pd fanfic #chicago pd fanfiction #black fanfiction #black fanfic writer #black writer #jay halstead #adam ruzek #kim burgess #hank voight

[cowboyfromh3ll]

I thought of maybe a fic where the reader is Annabelle and Dutch's daughter, and Arthur ends up falling in love with her and they have to keep their relationship a secret from Dutch

The Passion Of Lovers

(Arthur Morgan x Dutch’s Daughter!Reader)

Warnings: uhh slightly suggestive

Your father often told you, “The passion of lovers is for death.”. It was a tired statement. One you had heard a thousand times, and one that marked the beginning of another autocratically superfluous lecture as to why you were supposed to stay away from men, and not date anyone he did not approve of (Not that he ever approved of anyone to begin with). As the daughter of Dutch Van Der Linde, you were raised to have nothing but the highest of expectations. You were spoiled rotten, a gesture that he hoped would show not only his love for you, but also served as a distraction for the lifestyle that you lived. You supposed living in a tent in the woods wasn’t the most illustrious thing in the world. There were certainly more girls your age out there privileged enough to live a life far more cushioned than your own, but you considered yourself fortunate enough.

And of course, the money you did get was nice. Not only that, your father made sure that you, and every member of the gang, knew that you were a top priority, and your needs came first. They were there to protect you at all costs. It was as close as one could get to being treated like royalty in a gang of outlaws on the run.

Especially after your mother had passed. Oh, how your father increased in overbearingness. You were never allowed to be out on your own. He would insist on accompanying you on every single errand you went off to do. And if he wasn’t available to accompany you, he would send you off with his most trusted men.

One of them being Arthur Morgan.

As grown as you were, and as much as you believed you could take care of yourself, you did quite like his company. Having a burling and intimidating man standing by your side certainly slowed the frenetic pace at which idiot men would hit on you during your daily errands. Some who were still bold enough got told off as he moved you behind him, the more unfortunately confident ones being decked square in the face. It was always quite amusing seeing Dutch fuss over his beloved daughter once she got back from town, a clearly disheveled and bruised Arthur standing next to her, indicating something had happened.

You’d briefly explain how Arthur had protected you from an extremely assertive man, and you’d be pampered and coddled even more by Dutch. Arthur got his praise of course, eventually becoming your primary caretaker when Dutch wasn’t around. At some point, he had more so begun assuming the job, jumping up whenever you said you were heading into town rather than waiting for Dutch’s appointment. You’d approach Arthur privately, and only after Arthur had agreed to accompany you, you would inform your father of your departure.

“The passion of lovers is for death.” you’d repeat in your head. But you did not care. While you were more or less required to give Dutch a full report of what you had done while you were out, down to what roads you went down and what items you glanced at, you did omit some details.

You certainly weren’t about to recount to your father the details of you and Arthur’s haste, open mouth kisses. Your hushed exchanges of “I love you”. The way you held onto Arthur’s arm while in town, leaning on his bulking figure. You certainly would not tell him that, never.

Perhaps Dutch had never foreseen his plan backfiring in such a way. His intentions had been to keep men away from you, but your very own personal bodyguard who was supposed to scare those same men away, ended up pining after you. Arthur had been the one who fell first. Prior to your arrangements, he had found you quite beautiful. But like any man who got in the proximity of Dutch’s daughter, he was strictly prohibited from getting too friendly with you. Though any time allotted for the two of you to be alone proved to be more than enough to get to know you. Being alone with you actually helped Arthur realize just how little he knew you before, despite the fact you were in the gang for as long as he was. To be honest, besides your beauty, he found your overindulgence in money to be quite baffling, especially considering the position the rest of the gang was in. His initial reaction was to find you snobbish, but while it was true you were spoiled rotten, you had your rebellious side, which he came to love.

Your biggest gesture of rebellion had been dating Arthur. Dutch had hoped his money and gifts could keep your young female mind away from boys for long enough, but this ended up backfiring as well. You were left with no unsatisfied desires except one, and that was relationships. And your fulfillment in every other aspect only seemed to highlight the severity of your only predicament. Just weeks after you and Arthur had begun your hidden love affair, you had begun to realize just how much of you was left untapped emotionally. He introduced you to a world of experiences you would’ve otherwise never been able to experience with Dutch’s knowledge of your personal life.

While the arrangement itself was risky, the two of you never did indulge in risky behavior around camp. As painstaking as it was watching Arthur sleep alone on his cot, no one there to soothe and aide his loneliness, it was all worth it in the end. This meant no overt friendliness besides the allowed amount by your father. No secret kisses, no lascivious brushing of the limb, no leering gazes that would catch the attention of anyone. Nothing at all. You did not even let the girls in one your secret.

Hushed gossip sessions would become, in a way, amusing for you. Their compassionate admissions of sympathy for you in being disallowed to date were met with “That’s just how it is”. Before dating Arthur you might’ve agreed with them, wallowing in your own self pity at how your feminine urges were left unfulfilled. You might’ve snickered along with them over a boy you found cute. But now, whenever they did bring up a possible bachelor to you, you dismissed them with a wave of your hand, clicking your tongue in disapproval before saying “He’s not my type.”. There was some truth in it, you doubted the son of the general store owner could keep you satisfied the same way Arthur did. Dating a regular man would be more akin to torture than it would be pleasureable.

The girls often insisted your father had gotten to you; how his discourse over relationships and dating and the passion of lovers was so deeply ingrained in your brain, that even you had begun to believe it and take it to heart. You could argue that the only thing your father had ingrained in you were impossibly high standards, that and the ability to sneak around and lie with competence so incredibly exceptional it seemed to be a genetic inheritance that ran through your blood.

Arthur’s companionship seemed to be the last puzzle piece to the bigger picture. You often thought of eloping altogether, but you knew you could not escape your father forever. His embraces and osculations were enough to sate your desires until the next time you were alone with him. Going on last minute dates and copulating in the middle of the woods made the prolonged and agonizing wait seem not so bad.

Perhaps the passion of lovers had been the death for some. Namely your mother. But Arthur was more than capable of protecting you from such a fate. The passion of lovers was for life.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The Passion Of Lovers - Bauhaus 🦇

#red dead redemption 2 #red dead fandom #red dead redemption 2 x reader #red dead redemption community #van der linde gang x reader #writing #red dead fanfiction #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x reader fluff #secret relationship #Dutch's Daughter Reader

[itsalinh]

I mean some people clearly do not pay any attention to the show they are watching because what the heck??

1. Lucy is not the villain. She’s not trying to get in the way of Hawk and Tim, ever.

Gosh the sheer amount of hate towards her the past two weeks is insane. How come women in every gay show always receive the hate? Well, maybe some writers were actually lazy and the fastest way the could think of was to villanize women so they could have less a problem to think about. But this is not the case for FT where every character shows their own color, and they have reasons for every action they take.

Yes, she married Hawk. But it was bc everybody expected them to do that since, idk, the very beginning? Bc she adored him and trusted him enough? And not to mention Hawk asked her to marry him? Remind y’all, she’s also the victim of the era.

Yes, she burnt Tim’s letter. It was crazy enough to hear your own mother lecturing you to shut up about your husband’s outside behaviours as long as he comes back home at the end of the day. But actually receiving a letter from his ex-lover, whom is a man, saying that he was still in love with your man, was on another level! Lucy had every right to confront Hawk and made a fuss about everything. Yet she was so calm and reasoned, knowing that if she threw a tantrum then everybody’d know her husband was gay and they’d all suffer. Lucy knew for a fact that even if Hawk did receive the letter, he wouldn’t have done anything at all, so nothing changed.

And I love that she told Tim about it. She did not regret anything, nor felt any shame, just a plain announcement that she knew everything from the start of this marriage already. She did what had to be done. She could’ve been upset with Tim for bringing danger and misery to her family, but she just simply told him about the letter and let the man go. Splendid writing!

2. Hawk is gay. Hawk is not bisexual.

Never know I have to clarify this obvious fact. Him being married to a woman and having sex with her does not mean he’s bisexual. That’s just what gay men do to hide their true nature and to live peacefully in this world. Maybe not the US, but many countries nowadays still do not approve same-sex marriage, and queer people still have to marry someone they don’t love just to have “a shield” to cover for themselves. Has Hawk ever shown any interests in women? No. Has Hawk ever had sex with another woman besides his wife? No. Was it true that all of his sex partners now and then were men? Yes. So, that’s your answer. He’s gay as fuck.

3. Hawk is not the only person to blame. Tim is also at fault.

Roast me later, hear me out.

Hawk is a shitty person, I agree. He has done so many cruel things to his lover, his wife, and his child, and he continues to do so bc he’s a shitty person.

But, after all the shitty things Hawk did, Tim came back to him. Hawk warned Tim about their relationship very early. “But Skippy, that’s all it was, that’s all it can be. I’m sorry.”. Tim was soft for Hawk, so he accepted that easily. He’d love to love, rather than not having love at all. Hawk broke up with Tim on the day before Christmas, he was prepared to end it all so that Tim wouldn’t rely his emotions too much on him. For some reasons they got back to each other again, only to be separated one more time 6-7 months later. Tim made Hawk promise not to write, yet he was the one to break the promise. 14 years later, Tim couldn’t help himself but seeing Hawk again, sneaking outside his house just to witness his “happy” family. He was aware of the pain and guilt, but he was so lost in love, his “consuming love”, he gave in every time.

I know Tim did not deserve any of this, he had a pure heart and he gave it all to Hawk. That’s why we love him, and we feel pity for him too. But he had choices he was not willing to make, so it’s on him too yk.

4. There’s more to Tim’s guilt.

After jerking off with Hawk, Tim immediately forced Hawk to leave him. But why people only mentioned that it was bc he felt guilty with God? I believe he had 2 things to be sorry for. 1 is the reason everybody was talking about, God. The 2nd one, I’m pretty sure he felt guilty towards Lucy too. He couldn’t hold himself, he missed his man so damn much, and he let his heart took over for a sec. Tim knew he shouldn’t bc that was so wrong, and he did something really really awful to someone who’s having a wife and two children at home. He hated himself for it.

—

If you hate Lucy or Hawk, please block me I’m begging you bc I can’t stand another person interpret them wrongly like that. For the sake of my mental health, please block me with your every power!

#fellow travelers #linhstfu #sometimes I think to myself am I watching the same show as them #bc clearly how the hell they could think of that?

[foggystarrs]

Saw you did headcanons! Any way you could do headcanons for the Glamrocks??

Ofc!! Since you didn’t specify what kind of headcanons, I just did general ones! Hope u enjoy!

Freddy:

☆ The father figure. I feel like he’s always lecturing the others (in good nature ofc!). He just wants them to do the best they can!

☆ I feel like he would deffo be a facebook dad. Like if he had social media he would be like: “Performed today! #fun #music #happy”

☆ Literally everyone loves him, he’s the most loved animatronic out of the main four in the pizzaplex.

☆ He usually hums to himself when he is alone or waiting. Quietly humming and tapping his feet to the beat.

☆ Super polite. Will literally never interrupt you while you are speaking. He’s a great listener and gives great advice when needed.

☆ He’s great at comforting others and gives amazing hugs.

Roxy:

⚡︎ She’s always brushing her hair or taking care of it. She has to look the best always. She’s the best.

⚡︎ She’s actually deeply insecure. Since she was made as a replacement for Foxy, she feels like she doesn’t live up to him, that’s why she’s always fussing about how she looks.

⚡︎ She’s kind of sassy to adults, often giving them attitude or completely ignoring them. If you want to befriend her, you’ll have to earn her respect.

⚡︎ She’s a sweetheart to kids though. She cares about them deeply.

⚡︎ One time a kid told her they thought her hair looked goofy and she played it off at the time, acting all confident like she didn’t care. She cried about it in her room later.

⚡︎ She often gets into fights with Monty, nothing too serious. Just teasing each other and annoying each other. She makes fun of his sunglasses.

⚡︎ She often hangs out with Chica after hours. She’s got a soft spot for her but DON’T tell her she said that!

Chica:

♡ The sweetest ever, she’s nice to everyone.

♡ I feel like she paints her nails in her free time, she uses normal paint to do it so that it stays longer during her shows. They always end up getting chipped though because of how often she plays guitar and rummages through the trash.

♡ Her and Roxy hang out the most, they often have sleepovers after hours. She sneaks out of her room to go to hers.

♡ She’s literal besties with Monty. She’s probably one of the only people that can calm him down when he gets super mad. They sometimes hang out and have jam sessions together.

♡ She also hangs out with Freddy, but those ones rarely happen since he’s always super busy with performances, photo ops or rehearsal. I guess being the face of the franchise has its down sides.

♡ If she isn’t sneaking out to hang out with one of the other Glamrocks, she’s sneaking out to find any leftovers in the trash. She loves food! One time a security guard caught her but thankfully they were either not paid enough to care or nice enough to not snitch.

♡ Her food escapades often lead to a trip to Parts and Service though. She gets into accidents often, with the trash compactor or her wires malfunctioning due to the food getting stuck in between them.

Monty:

✧ Anger issues. Like really bad anger issues.

✧ He’s trying to do better though, but sometimes it’s like he can’t control himself. He tends to have tantrums in his room.

✧ He absolutely hates being compared to Bonnie due to what happened.

✧ He’s also insecure, he can sympathize with Roxy in that aspect since they were both meant to be “replacements” of sorts.

✧ He doesn’t like anyone going in his room, mostly because the staff gave up on trying to clean it. So, seeing it in its messy state reminds him of those tantrums and he doesn’t want anyone to see him and associate him with that. The only exception is Chica sometimes but he just prefers going to the other’s room when they hang out.

✧ He’s terrible at comforting people. He tries but he always gets super awkward. Like, what are you supposed to do when someone is sobbing and stuff? He can barely comfort himself as is, imagine with someone else.

✧ He has beef with the Daycare Attendant. Don’t ask him how it started, don’t even mention that little clown dude in his presence. It won’t end well.

✧ If you befriend him he’ll have your back no matter what. This man is LOYAL. Will literally fight for any of his friends.

And that’s it! I got tired TwT

But I hope you enjoyed!! Thanks for reading!

#requests #requests open #fnaf security breach #fnaf headcanons #headcanons #five nights at freddy's security breach #five nights at freddy's #fnaf sb #security breach #roxanne security breach #roxanne wolf #glamrock animatronics #fnaf glamrock chica #glamrock chica #montgomery gator #glamrock freddy #fnaf monty #fnaf roxanne #fnaf glamrock freddy

[magniloquent-raven]

happy slightly late birthday @mourntheantagonist 💕💕💕💕💕 have some billy angst (with a happy ending because i gotta) i hope u like it 😭

(read on ao3)

~~tag list ppl @growup-thatbeautiful @spreckle @prettyboy-like-you ~~

**

When Billy was four years old he got his first lecture about looking presentable. He’d been playing in the garden while his parents were getting ready to leave, and had gotten his nice pants all muddy. 

His mother fussed, a worried crease between her brows while she rinsed the dirt from Billy’s pudgy fingers. They were already running late and her in-laws weren’t the forgiving type. But as much as she hurried to clean him up while Neil was distracted with trying to find his keys (Billy had hidden them the night before, he didn’t want to see his grandparents), there were still conspicuous streaks all over his clothes and his fingernails sported tiny crescents of packed soil underneath. 

Neil was not pleased. 

He wouldn’t be seen with Billy looking like that. His son looking unkempt and uncared for would reflect poorly on him, and he’d never hear the end of it from his parents. 

So Billy was sent upstairs to change. To wash his face. Comb his hair. Neil gave him a list and if he forgot a single thing there’d be hell to pay. They were already late so he might as well take the time to clean up properly, and learn to be responsible for his own appearance while he was at it. 

The thing is though, Billy’s mother had gotten ready in a rush, intending to help Neil search for his keys, and in her haste she hadn’t bothered to put away her makeup bag. 

A tube of something shimmery was sticking out of the half-zipped opening, and he felt compelled to peek inside, poke through the contents. There were tiny plastic cases of crumbly colours, a few sticky pencils with cracked caps, brushes and a sponge smeared with different shades of tan and pink. It was all so fascinating. He liked the dry, powdery smell. And the clack of things bumping into each other as he rooted around. 

It all just felt…good. He could see why his mother liked it. Plus, she always looked so nice. Billy wanted to be pretty like that.

And Neil told him to make himself presentable, right? He said to be responsible and take care of his appearance, like a grown-up would. So.

Billy had gotten pretty good at reading by then, but the makeup labels still confused him. There were so many words he didn’t know.

He just grabbed the first thing that caught his eye. A little bottle of pink goop, with a wand attached to the lid and tiny strawberries printed on the outside. He’d seen his mom use this before, he knew what it was for. 

It smeared a little on the corner of his mouth, but after he wiped it off—with a tissue, not his sleeve, Neil would be mad if he wiped it on his sleeve—it looked alright. It maybe even looked nice. He thought so anyways, with a tiny little spark of pride in his heart. 

His father did not agree. 

His mother spotted him coming down the stairs before Neil did, and Billy didn’t understand the flash of panic that crossed her face. Didn’t understand why her gaze darted frantically from Billy to Neil, like she was helplessly counting the seconds until a bomb no one could defuse went off. 

Billy wouldn’t remember everything his father said, but he’d remember how it felt to listen to him. Every stab of guilt at the sight of frustrated tears in his mother’s eyes over the argument she got into with Neil, because he knew it was his fault. His fault for thinking it wasn’t wrong for him to want the things he wanted. 

He felt a part of himself being cut away that day, and he’d carry that scar for the rest of his life.

**

When Billy was eight years old he rode his bike past a bookshop in a part of the city he’d never been to before. 

Neil always told him to stay away from that whole street, but it would’ve taken him an extra ten minutes to go around on his way home and he was tired. He figured Neil would never find out. It would be fine. 

He’d never thought about why Neil had warned him off in the first place, but he figured it out pretty quick when an old man in a neatly tailored sundress walked out of the bookshop he was cycling past. 

His heart slammed into his mouth, and his jerked his head to look away so quickly he nearly steered his bike into a wall. 

The man was tall, and had the physique of someone who might’ve been muscular in their youth but had softened with age. He had a short, tidy beard, but his hair was long and frizzy, falling around his shoulders in silver waves. 

And he was wearing a lacy blue dress, held up by ribbon straps tied into bows. 

Every day for the next three weeks, Billy rode his bike down that street as slowly as possible.

There was a rainbow sticker on the bookshop’s front window, sun-faded but still vibrant, that always caught his eye and made his heart beat a little faster. It felt dangerous, being there, but he couldn’t stop. Even though when he got home afterwards his legs felt like jelly, and he’d start to sweat every time Neil looked at him because it felt like his indiscretions were written in sharpie on his forehead and his father was about to notice. 

After twenty-three days of scoping out the bookshop he ran into the old man again. Almost literally. Billy had to swerve dramatically to avoid him because he’d been so busy staring at the people holding hands across the street that he hadn’t noticed the man’s cane sticking out across the sidewalk. 

He barely caught himself before he tipped over, and stood at an awkward angle clutching his bike, his face burning, stammering apologies, until the man waved him off with a smile. 

His name was Gilbert Grey, and it turns out he lived above the shop—his shop. He’d seen Billy, every day, desperately trying to look like he wasn’t cataloging every inch of this place he wasn’t supposed to be. 

Billy braced himself for a reprimand that never came.

**

When Billy was nine years old, Gil threw him a party.

He’d been complaining—slouched on the bench outside Gil’s shop and pouting into his styrofoam cup of hot chocolate—about Neil punishing him. He hadn’t been paying attention during his last baseball game, and he missed what should have been an easy catch. It lost them the whole game, and Neil wouldn’t let him hear the end of it. Then he brought home a report card with two Cs on it, and to cap it all off, he ruined Neil’s nicest watch when he spilled maple syrup at breakfast. 

So he made it very clear Billy’s birthday would not be celebrated this year. He’s getting too old to have shit just handed to him anyways.

Gil did not agree. He didn’t agree with a lot of the stuff Neil said. 

The weekend after Billy’s miserable ninth birthday (the only highlight had been his mother slipping a note and a cookie into his lunch for the day), when he stopped by the bookshop there were streamers everywhere. It was kind of a mess, honestly, coloured paper draped along the shelves and hanging from the ceiling and tangled together in the corners where too many had been taped in one place. 

He didn’t understand until Carla—Gil’s only full-time employee, a girl with spikes in her nose and a penchant for glittery eyeshadow—walked out from behind the counter with cake. The icing was smushed on one side of the plastic dome it sat under, and there was a bright yellow clearance sticker on top, but Billy was over the moon. 

The only gift he got that year was a brown eyeliner pencil that Carla had bought for herself, and didn’t want once she realized she hadn’t grabbed the black one. She warned him not to poke his eye out with it. He hugged her ‘round the middle and left tearstains on her t-shirt. 

**

When Billy was eleven years old his mother left. Everything changed after that. Neil was stricter. Billy was angrier. At everything. At everyone. At himself, most of all. Maybe if he hadn’t caused so much trouble she would’ve stayed. Maybe she wouldn’t have been so at odds with Neil if Billy hadn’t been around causing arguments between them all the time. 

Maybe she would have loved him enough to bring him along if he wasn’t such a fucking freak. 

He’d only used his eyeliner a couple times. Mostly it stayed hidden away under his mattress. Just having it used to be comforting. But after his mother left he thought about throwing it out all the time.

He stayed away from the bookshop for two weeks. When he finally went back he broke down before Gil had a chance to say hello.

The tea he made tasted like burnt grass and didn’t help, but listening to him ramble about the stray cat he’d been feeding did. A little. 

It was nice to have a moment or two in a place where nothing had changed. To be assured that he still had a place somewhere. 

Gil let Billy look through a trunk of old clothes upstairs while he busied himself with stuff people need to do when they own a business. Books with numbers and things. Billy wasn’t paying attention. The second Gil told him he could try on whatever he wanted he couldn’t hear anything else. 

The dresses hung loosely around Billy’s ankles, most of them too long to walk in. He didn’t want to be anywhere but in front of a mirror anyways. It didn’t matter that they hung off his shoulders and bunched oddly in places, he felt beautiful.

**

Three days before Billy’s seventeenth birthday, Neil found out. About everything.

He’d gotten complacent. Neil had his new annoying girlfriend and her shitty little brat to dote on, Billy didn’t matter anymore. He didn’t need micromanaging constantly because there were more important things, like figuring out how to hide the fact that he’s a raging piece of shit from a woman long enough to trick her into marrying him.

Or whatever.

Point is, Billy thought he had a little wiggle room. And he was wrong. Because of course he was.

He’d never find out how Neil caught him, but the how didn’t matter when his world was falling apart around him. Neil knew he’d been hanging out with queers. He tore Billy’s room apart and found every hidden thing he’d stashed away over the years. His eyeliner stub. The tube of lipgloss he saved when Neil started throwing everything away after the divorce. Skirts tucked away under old gym equipment in his closet. 

It all ended up in the garbage. 

The first thing out of Neil’s mouth that wasn’t a slur was, what if Max had seen that shit.

That hurt more than being called a fag.

**

Six days after Billy’s seventeenth birthday Neil finally took the padlock off his door and let him out. The first thing he did when he got his car keys back was drive to the bookshop.

He had to pull over three buildings down when he spotted police tape.

His body knew what had happened before his brain did. The thought wouldn’t come. Wouldn’t connect. But his knees still gave out when he staggered closer to make sure, and his jeans tore when he hit the pavement.

The broken window blurred, tears burning as they welled up faster than he could shed them. Yellow tape rustled, a line waving in the wind. The bench he used to sit on to drink his shitty hot chocolate was half-visible, an armrest caught on the windowsill keeping it propped up, tilted through the shattered glass. 

He waited for hours but no one stopped by. He needed someone to stop by. He needed Gil to see him through the window of his tiny apartment and come outside to tell him it’s not what he thinks. 

He didn’t go home that night.

Instead of the lecture he expected when he saw Neil the next morning all he got was a lukewarm warning and an appraising look that saw too much.

**

Fourteen days after his seventeenth birthday Neil read out the obituary of one Gilbert Grey, aged 79, and ended with a scoff. He didn’t even look at Billy. Susan fussed over her plate of eggs, oblivious. Max watched him with narrowed eyes.

Billy didn’t bother excusing himself before he fled to the bathroom, barely keeping his breakfast down long enough to make it to the toilet.

**

Billy didn’t think he’d make it to his nineteenth birthday. Wasn’t sure if he wanted to. Hawkins was hell before he found out there were actual monsters lurking in the shadows. He was trying his hardest to be everything Neil wanted him to be here, joining the basketball team, keeping his grades up, taking girls on dates, and most importantly, only associating with the right kind of people. 

None of it was ever enough for Neil, their team rarely won games, Billy was just barely scraping a B in Math, the girls he dated were too trashy. It was always something. All Billy was managing to do was fuck up his life and lose what little he had that he actually cared about. 

And then there was Steve Harrington. Walking around this backwater fucking town with no goddamn clue what he was doing to Billy just by existing. 

Billy promised himself he’d leave all that queer shit in California. He was a different person there. 

All that denial went out the window the second he saw Steve and a white-hot wave of want crashed over him. He wasn’t going to be able to ignore this. Especially not when Hawkins High had the worst fucking shower set-up Billy had ever seen, and he was forced to stand inches away from Steve’s wet naked body when he wasn’t allowed to even look. 

He’d spent months before the move training himself to keep that shit on lock, but two days of proximity with Steve had already broken his resolve. 

It was terrifying. Wanting things this badly never ended well for Billy. The things he wanted just weren’t things he was allowed to have. 

So he may have taken that fear out on Steve Harrington’s pretty face. 

It tore him up inside, but at least he’d ruled out any possibility of getting closer to Steve and landing them both in a hospital if he ever slipped up around Neil. If Neil even suspected how Billy felt about him…

But it didn’t matter anymore. None of it did. 

All his turmoil over Steve and all the shit Neil put him through, years of Billy worrying and looking over his shoulder and feeling sick to his stomach every time he got close to being happy. All of it felt hollow now. 

A week before he turned nineteen, Neil left Hawkins. He just…left. While Billy was still in physical therapy, Susan was working two jobs to help pay his medical bills and Max was constantly hovering over his shoulder like a ginger hummingbird, and…Neil quietly served Susan divorce papers, before disappearing.  

He didn’t say goodbye to Billy. He’d barely been able to look at him since last summer. Now that he wasn’t just a queer and a fuck-up, but a cripple too. 

Billy had shaped his life around this man’s whims, and now he didn't know how to live with whatever was left behind.

Susan told him he could stay, and Max told him that he fucking better, but Billy had no clue why. He could barely stand the person he’d become, he wasn’t sure why anyone else would put up with him. 

Neil certainly hadn’t, and that person was his goddamn creation. 

He’d resented his father for years, hated him and every scar he’d ever left, and now…he should’ve been relieved but instead he felt gutted. And felt like a piece of shit for caring so much. 

It didn’t help that Billy kept repeating his old mistakes, even after he had no reason to. He’d just dig himself deeper and deeper, pushing Max away when she tried to be helpful, refusing to talk to Susan, carrying on his father’s legacy in some twisted fucking way. And it was making him miserable. 

Because that’s what Neil would’ve wanted. 

**

When Billy was twenty years old, Steve Harrington kissed him for the first time. 

He thought they only spent time together because they had to. Because of Max, and El, because they chauffeured the same kids around and so they had to communicate sometimes. He thought he was being selfish, taking what he could get, offering Steve a cigarette or two while they waited around. He couldn’t handle more than that. 

Because he wasn’t allowed to have more. He wasn’t allowed to have good things. Neil might not be around to ruin them anymore, but Billy was a big boy, he could take responsibility for it himself. Afterall, Neil taught him everything he knew. 

Billy’s hand shook the entire drive home, his knuckles split and swollen, radiating heat and pain in waves, sharper every time he flexed his fingers. He could still feel Steve’s lips pressed to his, no matter how much he tried to focus on anything else. He’d been so gentle. Shy. His kiss was a question and Billy answered with the only words he’d been taught.

**

Two weeks later, Max found out. 

Steve’s black eye had faded—or so Billy had been told, he hadn’t seen him since he’d bloodied his face a second time—but Billy’s hand was still stiff. Still hurt when he moved his fingers. It didn’t help that he’d made a habit of clenching his fist whenever he thought about that night, and he’d thought about it often.

It was all he thought about.

Should’ve known Max, the nosy brat, would wheedle the truth out of Steve. Once she sets her mind to something, she pushes as much as she needs to to succeed. And Billy would admire that about her if she wasn’t set on grilling him about why he’d flipped the fuck out.

He can’t tell her. It’s not something he could put into words. And even if he could, it wouldn’t be any of her fucking business.

It took half an hour of her pestering for him to snap at her, and storm out before he did anything he couldn’t take back. 

And of course that was when he ran into Steve. When he was trying to clear his head. 

The last thing he expected to come out of Steve’s mouth was an apology, but suddenly there one was, and Billy had to take a solid thirty seconds to remember how to breathe and get his brain working again.

It didn’t make sense. Steve didn’t make sense. Billy expected him to shatter like glass when he dropped him, but here he was, intact and offering…something. Peace. Assurance.

Max had been trying to care about him ever since the Mind Flayer shit, constantly on edge and yelling at him about keeping up with his meds and all that shit, and El had been refusing to leave him alone even though they never actually spoke to each other, and now Steve was here, trying to be invited in too, and Billy was so tired of barricading the door. 

So he offered an apology of his own.

**

Three years later Billy comes home to find Steve sitting on the couch, his back straight, hands folded in his lap, looking like he’s posing for a family portrait, complete with awkward grimace that’s pretending to be a smile.

“Am I about to get dumped?”

Steve flails, fingers unclasping and waving in the air, “No!” He yelps, shooting out of his seat, pausing, and then sitting back down, looking even more like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. “No. I just…wanna talk to you about something?”

“That’s never good,” Billy says flatly, shucking his jacket and busying himself with his boots so he has time to school his features. It takes him four tries to untie one of the knots, his bitten-down fingernails scraping uselessly and his hands shaking too badly to get a good grip.

“I mean—shit, I’m doing this all wrong. It’s not bad. I really hope it’s not bad, anyways. Um.”

“Spit it out, pretty boy.”

“Iboughtyousomething.”

Billy walks over to perch on the edge of the coffee table, watching Steve carefully. “Slower.”

“You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to, it wasn’t expensive or anything, I just saw it and—okay that’s a lie, I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I went looking. And I found something I think would…” He bites his lip, and stares down at his hands. “I bought you something.”

“O—kaay…?”

“It’s…” Another pause. Steve lets out a breath. “Can I just show you? And you can tell me if you hate it.”

“...Okay.”

Steve takes his hand and leads him to their bedroom. His palm is sweaty, and he grips a little too tight, but Billy lets him.

There’s lingerie on their bed. 

The bedding has been tucked and smoothed and made neater than it’s been since they bought the mattress, and delicately laid right in the middle there’s a pale blue negligee. It looks like it would fall to Billy’s mid-thigh, with a split up each side, made of sheer fabric, floral designs stitched into the bodice. The thin straps are capped with tiny ribbons tied into bows. 

Billy doesn’t get a good look at it before the room starts to get blurry.

“Billy, hey,” Steve breathes out softly, reaching out to cup his cheek. “I—I can return it if you—”

“No.”

Steve’s eyes go wide. “Oh. Then…?”

“I don’t hate it.”

There’s a pause, like Steve’s waiting for Billy to elaborate. He bites his bottom lip. “Alright. That’s…a relief.” His thumb rubs along Billy’s cheekbone, a gesture that’s meant to comfort him as much as Billy. “Seriously, I’ve thought about you in stuff like that, just. So much. It’s actually embarrassing. I was worried you wouldn’t like it.”

Billy’s eyes fall shut, and he leans into Steve’s touch. “I love it.” He exhales slowly. “I really do. It’s just…”

It’s just the first time he puts it on he’s probably going to cry. 

He might not be able to do it at all without panicking.

He’s afraid Steve will leave if he finds out how much he actually wants this.

“When I was a kid I used to go to this bookstore…”

#billy hargrove #gnc billy hargrove #harringrove #stranger things #a raven's writing desk

[catherine-the-doll-ballerina]

@hydesjackiespuddinpop This a chapter from a deleted fic I wrote way before the cast for T9S was announced.

Now that dinner was over, Leia was currently standing in front of the sink, scrubbing away at the pile of dirty plates and silverware. 

Leia recalls when Red mentioned Eric would always come up with some bullshit excuse, to get out of doing the dishes.

Honestly she didn’t know what the big fuss was about. It’s just dishes. Leia came to the conclusion that her dad was just lazy.

 When she was finished, Leia was outside, sitting in the lawn chair reading Tiger Beat magazine. 

It was 8 0’clock the sun hadn't quite gone down yet.  Also it was much cooler outside than it was this afternoon.

“So, I’ve heard you've been having trouble at home.” The voice makes Leia stop reading the juicy celebrity gossip.

“Huh? Who told you that?” She asks, staring at the figure standing above her.

“Doesn’t matter, is it true?” Hyde pulled out a chair. 

“Ugh.” Leia sighed dramatically. 

“Come on kid, fess up.” Hyde prodded.

Leia's whole body tensed in anger. “With all due respect. I’m not obligated to answer your questions.” 

“If you’re worried about me judging you, don’t. That’s not my intention.” Hyde said genuinely. 

“Then what is your intention?”

“To figure you out.” Hyde says, looking at his now pissed-off niece directly in her hazel eyes.   

Leia gave him a puzzled look.

“It’s just.” He sighed. “You seem like a well-mannered kid. Who wouldn’t dream of getting into trouble.”

“So, because I’m polite, that must mean I follow every rule, mommy, and daddy, sets for me?”

“Leia.” Hyde lets out a deep breath. “That’s not what I meant.”

“If you’re so damn curious, why don’t you go and ask them.” Leia barked.

Hyde was slightly shocked that Leia snapped at him like that.

“Sorry.” She muttered. 

“It’s okay.” Hyde ran his hand over his beard.

“I didn’t do anything wrong. Mom and dad, totally overreacted.” Leia stated.

“Meaning?” Hyde pushed.

“You wanna know? Fine I’ll tell you. This past school year, I’ve been staying out all night drinking and getting high.” Leia revealed. “And before you lecture me, I wasn’t going to wild parties or anything. I’m not that stupid.”

Kids make shit up all the time. Maybe his niece was exaggerating. Hyde looked for any deception in her eyes. But there was none. Leia was telling him the truth.   

“Then where were you, drinking and getting high?” His voice filled with worry.

“At a friend's house. And sometimes at the skatepark.” Leia admits.

“Well, that makes it so much better.” Hyde says sarcastically. 

“Oh my god!” Leia exasperated. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“How old are these friends of yours?” Hyde inquired.

Leia didn’t want to answer that question. “Between the ages of 15 and 19.” She reluctantly confesses.

“So, they're older.” Hyde stated.

“There’s one that’s my age.” Leia huffed.

“Why are you hanging around older kids?”

“Because they're fun, and not boring, like some of my other classmates.” Leia said.

“Leia.” Hyde scoffed. “Really?”

“What?”

“You realize how stupid that sounds.”

“How is that stupid?” Leia asked. “Is having fun, like a crime or something.”

“No. Having fun isn’t a crime, but you need to be careful.” Hyde warned her.

“Of what?” Leia asked, cluelessly. 

“Oh, I don’t know. Getting caught by the cops.” Hyde mentioned. Or getting taken advantage of by some lowlife.”

“Ok, if you’re worried about the 19 year old, she’s a girl.”

Hyde crossed his arms. “What about the 18 year old?” 

Leia rolled her eyes.

“Leia, I’m not going to sit here and pretend, I’m some sort of saint. I did all the things that you’re currently doing, and you wanna know something else? So did your mom and dad.”

Leia’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding me?”

Hyde shook his head. “Nope.”

“So, you’re telling me, my parents, who freaked out at me for smoking weed, used to do the same thing?”

“Daily.” Hyde confirmed.

“Oh, that does it. I’m calling them up right now, and telling them what you just told me.” Leia gets up, and storms towards the door.

“Leia, don’t.” Hyde follows after her, blocking the screen door.

“Why not?” Leia raised her voice. “This whole time I’ve felt guilty over nothing.”

“They just want you to be safe.” Hyde explains to her.

“They’re massive hypocrites.” She plopped back down in the chair.

“That may be true. But you have no business hanging around 18 year olds.” He scolds.

“They’re not bad people.”

“Well, they’re not good either.” Hyde countered. “If they were, they wouldn’t get a young girl like yourself, drunk.”

Like her parents, Hyde put all of the blame on her friends. Leia felt frustrated by that. If it wasn’t them, Leia would find another group of troublemakers to spend her time with.

Leia knows it’s because her dad thinks of her as his innocent little girl, who is being corrupted by a bunch of hooligans. 

“It was my choice.” Leia gritted through her teeth. “Not theirs.”

“Still. Kids that age shouldn't even want to hang out with a 13/14 year old.” He tried to reason with her.

“You’re acting as if I’m hanging around some creep in his 20s. I’m a teenager, so it would only be natural for me to be friends with other teenagers. Even if they’re a little older.” Leia argued.

“You aren’t hearing me.”

“Oh, my ears are wide open.” Leia sassed.

“Really? I couldn’t tell.” Hyde said clearly frustrated.

Leia recognized the irritated look in her uncle's eyes; she knew the look very well. Donna and Eric had given their daughter the same exact look many times this past year.

“Leia, did your dad tell you what happened to his sister?”

“I know she died of an accidental overdose .” Leia responded, with sadness laced in her voice.

“Then you should understand why he worries about you.”

“I don’t do hard drugs. I smoke weed, that’s it.” She murmured. 

“You also drink.” Hyde brings up.

“Fine you win.” Leia threw her arms in the air. “I’m a shitty daughter, that causes her parents nothing but pain.”

 “You’re not a shit daughter. You just aren’t making the best decisions.” Hyde rubbed her arm. 

She raised her eyebrows. “So, you don’t think they hate me?”

Utterly surprised she would ask that. Hyde instantly wanted to get that idea out of her head. “Your parents? Hell no. Why would you think that?”

“Because my behavior mirrors my dead aunt.” 

“Leia, I promise they don’t hate you.”

“Was she as awful as my mom and dad had described her?” Leia wonders.

Hyde scratches his head awkwardly. “It’s complicated.” 

“How is it complicated? It seems pretty simple to me. Was she a bad person or not?” Leia asks again, not giving in.

“I don’t want to bad mouth someone who’s not here to defend herself. Besides that, she wasn’t my sister. I don’t feel it would be appropriate for me to say whether or not she was a good person.”

“Do you think my dad’s sad that she's gone? I know from what he told me, that the two of them never got along.” Leia paused for a moment. Her eyes moved down to her lap. “But, she’s still his sister. You can’t tell me for a second he doesn’t have at least one happy memory of her.”

“I’m sure he does. I’ve known your dad since I was 9 years old. And I remember when he and Laurie used to spend their summer in Kelso’s backyard jumping on his trampoline.”

“What changed? How can you wake up one day, and suddenly hate your sibling.”

“ I don’t know what happened.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Laurie changed when she got to middle school.”

“I wish I would have had a chance to get to know her.” Leia frowned. “Do you think she would have liked me?”

“I think she would have had a soft spot for you.” Hyde gave a half smile.

“That’s nice to know.”

“If Lauire was still here, I guarantee she would have clued you in on your dad’s embarrassing memories, just to get a rise out of him.” Hyde smirked.

A devious look appeared on Leia’s face upon hearing that. “Since you’re here, why don’t you be the one to fill me in.”

“Nice try, But no. The last thing I need is to get an angry call from your dad.” Hyde said.

 “Make sure to put in a good word for me, when you do talk to him.”

“Only if you swear to stay out of trouble.” Hyde tries to make a deal with her.

“So far, I have been.”

“I’m talking about when you go home.” Hyde makes himself clearer.

Leia didn’t know if she could keep that promise. Her friend group in Madison was already established. She couldn’t just drop them. Leia got lucky, with how easily her friends at Point Place fell into her lap. How could she be so sure it would happen again?  

“I’ll try.” It wasn’t a complete lie. Leia decided she wouldn’t indulge in weed or alcohol as much. 

“And make sure to stay away from those older kids.” Hyde demanded. “Never mind, by the time you get home, they’ll be in college. Or in prison.”

“Ha, ha. You’re so funny.” Responded with a hint of snark.

“Alright, good talk.” Hyde slapped his knee. “Before I go, what did we promise ourselves we would do?”

Leia lets out a dramatic sigh. “Keep out of trouble.”

“What do you know? You are capable of listening.” Hyde jokes.

Leia squinted at her uncle; she felt like ripping that smug smile that rested on his face, right off. But she didn’t do that. Leia kept her composure. And lastly, not that she would admit it out loud, but she did take every argument her uncle made to heart.

#leia forman #steven hyde #that 90s show #that 70s show #eric forman #donna pinciotti

[empires-au-ideas]

Two episodes away from finishing tma so </3 I'm coping and emotionally prepared (<- lying)

Writing nature wives annoying coworkers to lovers is very amusing, I will say.

Edit: finished tma. What the fuck.

The Riffs Archives! Take this!

...

Peace and Quiet

Tw for death by car accident

...

[Click]

Pix:

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about, Katherine.

Katherine:

Well I don't get why you can't just wait till Shelby gets back to record the statement, it's HER job, after all.

Actually... where did you say Shelby went?

Pix:

The Archivist had a meeting to attend. Now-

Katherine:

Thank you so much for that... CRYSTAL CLEAR explanation. Truly.

Pix:

Just-

[Low rumbling rises, then fades]

hrmmm.

It's one statement, Katherine. I'd prefer it be recorded and filed before the Archivist got back.

You're an archival assistant now, Katherine. Do try and keep up.

And stop wasting the tape on the recorders. They're for statements only.

[Door opens and closes]

Katherine:

Well, I was doing JUST FINE in the research department. And I didn't even turn this stupid thing on in the first place!

Fine...

[Paper shuffling]

Katherine:

Statement of- oh Jeez.

Okay, that makes a little more sense.

Statement of Shelby Shubble, regarding a childhood trip to her family home. Statement given June 25th, 2015. Jeez, almost seven years ago-

Oh, right. Uhm-

Statement begins.

Katherine (statement):

I've lived with my grandmother my whole life. She doesn't really talk about it, but through my own digging and what probably counts as snooping, I found out both of them died in a car crash, just after I was born.

Now, my grandma did the best she could. She was like, the grandma archetype. Cookies, knitting, "my grand child can do no wrong", all that good stuff.

But she did have her limits. I had not been an easy child to raise, nor an easy student to teach. I was hyper, I needed to be told things multiple times, but I also HATED being told to do things.

But it all got too much for my grandma... I think in sixth grade. I was called into the principal's office I think for throwing my samples for a science lab across the room because I wasn't understanding it. I stand by it to this day, it was the teacher's fault for yelling at me instead of telling me how to actually do the lab.

The silence was suffocating in the car ride home. I always liked having noise in the background of whatever I was doing incase I didn't feel like doing it anymore, that way I could just say the noise was distracting me. It also made me feel less alone. Hearing people talking was grounding, or birds chirping, or even the buzzing electricity in my house just reminding me there were other people, other living things on earth.

This all went down right before spring break, so I wad dreading the lecture I was about to be given. I knew it'd just end with me grounded. She lectured me about controlling myself, having more respect for those STUPID teachers-

But surprisingly? I was not grounded. Well. Sort of?

See, for some reason my grandma had kept my parents' house all those years. So instead of spending spring break in the dreary old suburbs where I had no friends and nothing to do, I was too be sent away to a place where I can find possibly more answers about my parents (at the time I hadn't figured out what happened to them yet, so this would be a big break through).

And I loved my grandma, I loved her so so so much, but I nearly cried out in joy when I heard she wouldn't be staying in the house with me.

That's just what being twelve does to you I guess.

I tried to keep he relief- the excitement off my face. It was the Thursday before my week off and I was to arrive on Sunday, so I spent two days packing and the Saturday making a checklist of what I wanted to find out at the house.

Sunday consisted of a three hour drive, listening to the car radio and singing songs, stopping for ice cream at one point, my grandma always did a terrible job at making sure I knew I was in trouble.

And I tried to do my homework in the car, I really did! But the sound of traffic and all the sights on the way distracted me. Hardly my fault. That's probably what I told myself, which is funny, because that's what I tell myself now.

The house was in the middle of the woods by a lake, so grandma warned me that it got pretty misty. She said there was a bike in the shed I could use to go to the town nearby incase of emergencies, but only for emergencies. I was going to be picked up on Friday.

It was a... really strange thing to entrust a kid- a twelve year old with.

I hugged my grandma goodbye and dumped all my school stuff I was SUPPOSED to be doing in the corner of the room. I immediately took to exploring, because as much as I loathed school, I loved learning new things and was just over all way to curious of a child.

It was a tall house, two stories, the shed, and an attic. The spider on the handle to the attic door deterred me from there the first day though, so i was stuck exploring probably the more boring stuff. A few framed photos of my parents, though they weren't smiling in any of them, an office with a bunch of finance papers, nothing too special.

It wasn't until the sun set and I tried to go to bed that I realized how quiet it was.

I was in the woods on the outskirts of town. But I heard no crickets, birds, even the shaking of the leaves was muted. I wasn't even that far from the road, so it was freaky to not even hear CARS. As much as I used the excuse of noise distracting me, the silence was way more tantalizing.

I immediately went downstairs and tried to do my homework, I just needed a distraction from the lack of noise. A whole weeks worth of homework done in one night.

And I couldn't even tell. I start homework at eleven, after trying to sleep through the silence for two hours, and I check the clock again and it's seven. I looked outside in a panic, but also relieved I had got some work done, and that the silence didn't drive me insane.

But the windows were still dark, like the sun never rose at all. I thought maybe the world ended, and I didn't notice because I was too lazer focused on homework. That I should have investigated WHY there was no noise last night. No noise because every living thing on earth died and I didn't even notice.

I opened the blinds, only to see absolutely nothing. A pure, neutral grey covered the world, the window burned my hand it was so cold.

So that was the fog.

I could distract myself though the spider was gone from the attic, so I was able to go up there. I'm not even particularly scared of spiders, never have been, so I don't know why it stopped me in the first place.

The attic was dusty and dull, full of boxes and brown cases. The whole thing was overlayed in that same grey. The way it was clear the attic hasn't been touched by humans in years, the quiet, it made me feel like I was truly alone. Just me.

I rummaged around in there for a bit, it was taking my mind off things, distracting me from the pit of despair in my stomach I hadn't realized was growing. It had always been there, with me having no friends, my teachers not helping me in favor of praising their "star students", never quite understanding the secret codes hidden in facial expressions or tones, but with no one around me the pit was threatening to grow, then burst.

I found some... odd letters. One of them mentions you guys, so I've attached it to the statement. It was from my dad I think, he was NOT HAPPY with someone named Conal, I'll tell you that much.

But after opening a few cases I found it. The solution to my problems. A record player. All the records they had were old, even for my parents probably, but I felt myself loosen up, knowing I could hear another human voice and have it fill the silence.

And for the next day I was relaxed. I double checked- triple checked my homework, it was rather boring now that I was done with the only thing I was supposed to be doing all week.

I doodled on old papers in the office, I tried baking, I caught up on some desperately needed sleep, it was... rather nice. If my spring break was spent making cookies, drawing and writing stories, and finding out secrets, I was content.

I was running over the decorative books and judging how boring the contents actually were for the millionth time when night came, the fog hadn't cleared up all day so I couldn't really tell, but it was eight. The record player made a noise and there was no more music. No more voices.

In an instant I am overcome with dread. What kind of twelve year old wastes their spring break dying of boredom in some musty old house? I was drained from trying to come up with new ideas for stories all day. I made cookies and cake but hadn't eaten them. My homework was so checked over my teacher might even give me a "nice job" stamp.

They did, they handed my papers back to me the following Wednesday, with numbers almost in the nineties for the first time ever. I had to meet with about half of them after school as they interrogated me on why I didn't do that kind of work on all my assignments.

Laying there on the couch with covers that itched just enough to notice, but not worth my effort to remove them, I was unmoving. I was twelve... why did it feel like my whole life was passing me by?

Why was it so much easier for everyone else? And if it was so easy, so natural, why didn't they explain it to me? Why did they leave me so far behind, when did I GET behind?

I must have laid there for hours before the tears stung my eyes. There. A feeling. It got me out of the depth and reminded me where I was, how I was feeling, and what was causing it.

The quiet.

I shot up and ran through the fog, I hadn't even been outside since grandma dropped me off, so I hadn't explored the shed or any of the surrounding area, not that I could with the fog. But I didn't care. I felt my way to the bike. It was probably later than eleven at this point, I couldn't see with the fog, I barely knew my way back to town...

But I didn't care. I just craved to be by another person.

The whole way was grey, but it did feel like the fog was lifting up. Luckily there were no cars or people on the road, they probably would have hit me. It was dark, and the bike was probably made before reflective tape was even a thing.

The town was quiet, which made sense, as it was the dead of night. But there were no lights on. And still no sounds. No rustling leaves. No cars. Or any noises from the houses.

But it looked like everyone had vanished seconds prior. There was food at the outdoor tables. Car doors open in parking lots, a trunk open like someone was about to put groceries in. But no people. It felt like I had just barely miss them, if I had gone a little quicker I wouldn't have been left behind.

And I was tired. I couldn't sleep for obvious reasons. So I sat at a park bench, the playground swings still swaying a bit, like someone had only just gotten off of them. And I waited.

And waited.

And waited

There was no sun, but I had been counting. I had sat at the bench for probably six hours. No people whatsoever.

After the realization his me, that I've been sat in complete silence for six hours, the fog comes into my vision again. I don't waste time stumbling back to where I had locked my bike and started riding to the house, even though I couldn't see a thing.

I get my way to a side door eventually and get inside, where the fog just barely goes away. Just enough to read the sticky note on the coffee table.

"Be back soon!"

Another on the fridge.

"Went off to school!"

Another in the office, on the paper I had been doodling on.

"Remember to water the plants!"

None of which had been there before. The creepiest thing about it was the pen in the office, still warm from the hands of another person. It... it truly did trouble me how much I yearned for the pen. It troubles me now still.

I gathered up all the notes, even the one on the paper with my drawing,cand threw them in the shredder.

I left to the town at around eleven, and waited for six hours at the park bench. An hour there and back, so that means from six to two thirty I was crying. It was noise at least. But even my sobs were muffled, like I was underwater.

I'm snapped out of it by a car door closing. I run to the window, filled with blinding sunshine as the fog had completely disappeared without me noticing. It was my grandma's car.

Which... no. I hadn't been crying for that long. It was only supposed to be Tuesday as well, when she was supposed to pick me up on Friday. I don't know if I realized it at the time though, I think I was just so relieved she was getting me out.

Her smile was so warn as she asked how my stay was. I don't remember saying a thing, but she keeps smiling, so I don't think I ever told her what happened. I remember her remarking that I had grey hairs now, she joked it was from all the homework.

The car ride home was the best thing I have ever experienced. The tired going over every piece of gravel and shaking the whole car. The radio. Grandma's humming. Hearing the other cars go by.

I still can't do silence. I'm always moving now, always watching other people to make sure they don't vanish either. The grey in my hair won't leave, but I think that's fine.

I always thought it was sound that I didn't want. I don't want the QUIET. Hardly my fault. How am I supposed to stay calm if I can't sense when someone's by my side?

Statement ends.

Katherine:

Oh... Jeez.

So. Shelby supernaturally acquired detachment issues. Nice.

Uhm... not sure how to do follow up for this one? It sounded like Pix doesn't was Shelby to know I've read the statement...

Why did Pix want ME to read the statement?

But it's cool. It's cool, if there's one thing I trust Shelby to do, it's to take this stuffy old place way to seriously. I doubt she'd try and prank the institute like one of those false statement givers.

Oh, and I should probably read the letters attached as well.

Katherine (statement):

Dear Gemini Tay, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute,

I know you are well aware of what we have planned by now, it's probably hard for you folk to miss a whole area of land you can't see.

But my wife and I thought it'd be wise to advise your institute to stay out of our business. You know how much our family hates the spotlight.

Everyone knows what you did to the Buried, to your own brother to stop it. It's an easy way to make enemies.

From

Mr. Shubble

End of letter.

Katherine:

So... yeah. It sounds like Shelby's parents were supervillains, so that's fun. And he talked about Fwhip... Fwhip only moved away? I didn't think Gem did anything to him.

And whatever was going on at the house, I hope the grandma had no idea, for Shelby's sake.

Ugh. I swear, if this whole thing was a ploy to get me to cooperate with Shelby more-

Whatever.

[Click]

[Click]

Pix:

Katherine.

Katherine:

Ugh. What now, Pix? I'm almost off the clock, and I felt sick after reading that statement.

I don't like feeling sick.

So I swear if you have ONE MORE THING for me to do-

Pix:

Well I'm sorry to make you do work during work hours, Katherine.

Shelby will be back tomorrow, and she... won't exactly be in the best of conditions. You can have the day off tomorrow-

Katherine:

Yes!

Pix:

As long as it is spent looking after Shelby.

Katherine:

What?!

Pix, come ON. You know how much me and Shelby don't get along. If she's not in "the best of conditions", SURLY she'll want someone she ACTUALLY LIKES around.

Pix:

Well for how she's feeling, what she's experienced, I do not trust Sausage to take care of her in his state. Nor do I trust Fwhip, in general.

And I know it's not the same, but you've been sick before. So I thought you'd be best equipped for the job.

Katherine:

How the HELL do you know-

Pix:

Because I look over the statements, Katherine. Is it so hard to believe I'm just a normal man working at his job?

Katherine:

Maybe, if that job wasn't HERE. And if you weren't so cryptic a the time.

...

So, do you know how to fix it?

Pix:

I've been sorting through artifact storage to see if we have anything, but I'm not done yet. Rest assured, I'm not yet so "cryptic" that I won't tell you if I've found a cure.

Katherine:

Great. Cuz nothing bad EVER comes out of artifact storage.

Pix:

I've helped many people, Katherine. I'm not trying to hurt you, not while you're already hurting.

Be at the institute on time tomorrow, Shelby will probably be late, but you'll have to clean up the room you've been staying in to keep her there.

Katherine:

And now she's taking my room...

Pix:

And what did I say about the tape recorders?!

Katherine:

Oh, screw off!

[Click]

#the riffs archives au #empires smp au #empires smp s2 #tma x esmp #esmp x tma #shubble #katherine elizabeth gaming

[aik-membrane]

OOC: Heart-Aik: Aik Membrane's Prequel

Chapter Ten /tw: children in distress/pain

Ft @ambassador-d1b

<May 11th, 2005>

Aik had spent everyday working on the implants, hoping to use them to bring Dib relief. Even though Dib was quiet, from the brain activity that Aik saw, he could tell Dib was in pain.

He was frustrated that the only computer Membrane let him use was so far across the lab from Dib, and with so much equipment jammed in here, if Aik wanted to go check on Dib, he couldn't do it quickly like he could with Cor.

And Membrane spent every second in the lab, hovered over Dib with equipment. And Aik found that extremely suspicious.

What work was there left for Membrane to do on Dib? Aik was doing it all now. Why was Membrane so busy with Dib when Aik was the one designing and building the implants?

Well, today Aik wanted to find out. Because even at seven months and older, Dib wasn't talking, and Aik was sure that Membrane had been doing something to the boy behind his back.

Aik crumpled up a piece of paper and placed it in the nearby garbage chute. That thing was oddly large, since Membrane used it to throw out broken equipment, and Aik had no idea where it went or how long of a fall it was. He didn't want to know either.

He left his computer and approached Membrane, who was fussing over a data sheet a short distance away from Dib in the canister.

"Professor, what are you doing?" Aik crossed his arms.

"Huh? Oh, don't worry about it, go work on the implants," Membrane said. "I'm busy."

"Why?" Aik asked.

"Quit asking questions," Membrane huffed.

"What have you been doing to Dib?" Aik continued.

"I haven't done anything," Membrane sighed heavily.

"You're lying."

"No, I'm not, I've been working, now stop wasting time," Membrane growled.

Aik narrowed his eyes at Membrane and clenched his fist. "If you're going to keep making clones, then at least have the decency to take care of them and stop being such a- such a- bitch!"

Membrane glared at Aik, but before he could lecture the boy, Aik stomped off to his computer.

He figured Membrane wasn't going to tell him. But he had a computer now, and brain power. Time to put that to work to find out what Membrane had been doing.

He went over to his computer and began opening every monitoring tab on Dib he access to. He didn't have any clearance to review the history of the monitoring, but he had a plan to bypass it. He would have to delete his simulation hobby to make room for this though. Just before he could get started on that, Membrane approached him from behind. "Aik Nil Membrane, you stop behaving so disrespectfully and grow up!"

Aik growled and turned to face Membrane, accidentally bumping his computer mouse as it was clicking on the simulation file. He would never find this out, but that bump uploaded the file directly into the brain monitor over Dib, and carried out the simulation with Dib inside the canister. It was short at least.

"I'm working, like you told me too!" Aik spat.

"I've just about had it with you," Membrane growled. "You're disrespectful, insane, violent, and you can't even do as you're told."

"I AM doing what you told me!" Aik hissed.

"And you're a rotten liar," Membrane added.

"You're lying! You said you'd take care of them! And yet I'M the one taking care of them!" Aik growled.

"You are not allowed to go near Dib until the implants are done, I'm blocking off that part of the lab from you until you finish,"

"What? You can't do that!" Aik stood up.

"I can and I will. It's about time you learned your place, you're lucky I tolerate you at all. Now stop being such a brat," Membrane huffed, went over to a robot and turned it on. It was the same robot he always used to make structural changes inside the lab.

Aik darted back to Dib in the canister before Membrane could catch up with him.

"Aik!" Membrane ran after Aik.

"I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm going to try to help you," Aik said to Dib, putting his hand against the canister.

Dib moved slightly, looking at Aik, even though his perception was still clouded.

Before Aik could say anything else, Membrane grabbed him off the ground.

"Hey!" Aik tried to bite and scratch Membrane, but it didn't dissuade the professor. He pulled Aik back into the white room and pushed him inside, shutting and locking the brand new door the robot had just installed.

Aik stifled an angry growl and began muttering furiously, kicking at the door once just to let off some steam. He went over to his shelf, grabbed the package of shirts, and tucked it into his belt. He was going to keep that with him from now on. It was comforting. And Membrane knew he had it, maybe Aik could even use it to hide tools since the professor wouldn't think to check there. He tried to touch the lock on the door, it shocked him

"Ack! Seriously!" Aik spluttered angrily, shaking out his hand.

He tried to work a way out for an hour, but before he had a workable plan, Membrane opened the door again. "You can go back to work now. And I took access from the monitoring equipment, since you abused it with that garbage you uploaded for Dib."

Aik was too pissed to fully register what Membrane was saying about the uploading. "What the hell is wrong with you! Let me see my brother!" Aik hissed.

"No, I'm teaching you a lesson," Membrane said, leaving the entrance.

Aik growled and darted after him. The entire lab had been split with a wall right down the middle. Aik's side and Dib's side. The door to exit the lab entirely was on Dib's side, the door keeping Aik away from Dib was military grade locks and electrified metal. "What the. Are you crazy!! You can't do this!"

"I can and I will," Membrane said, heading to the lab exit. "You are not seeing Dib until the implants are complete."

Before Aik could protest further, he left, shutting the door behind him.

After a moment of shock, Aik growled and went to the computer. For Dib's sake he was going to finish the implants. But he was going to plan to sneak into the other half of the lab as soon as possible. Membrane couldn't stop him.

<July 15th, 2005>

Aik couldn't figure out how to get into the other lab. Every single time he tried something, Membrane caught him just before he succeeded. And he couldn't dedicate all his time to breaking into the other half of the lab, he needed to finish the implants before Dib got too sick.

But Dib being alone with Membrane for two months drove Aik crazy. He was so close to completing the implants. But he didn't believe Membrane would let him see Dib once they were complete.

So he had a different backup plan. He had fashioned a knife from some scrap metal. It was more like a shank, but it would still work. He hid it on his desk for now, if he were going to need it he would hide it in the envelope with the shirts. He would have to be careful to not move the envelope too much if he did that, he didn't want to tear them. There was a card hidden with it, something that should help with the locks. Hopefully.

Membrane entered Aik's section while Aik was typing at his computer.

"How is it going?" The Professor asked.

"They're done," Aik said sharply.

"Good."

"Now let me see Dib."

"No, not until they're installed and he's more stable," Membrane said. "I'll start manufacturing the implants."

"You're not going to let me see Dib??" Aik yelled.

"No, you're no-"

"Go away, you liar!"

Membrane held up a hand. "Aik, I think maybe we shou-"

"Go. Away," Aik repeated.

Membrane sighed. "Look, kid-"

"Membrane, I am BUSY doing YOUR job, now get the fuck out," Aik hissed.

Membrane opened his mouth to speak, but quickly closed it again. He was silent for a moment.

Aik growled under his breath and kept working.

"Why are you so hostile and violent?"

"Membrane, I'm going to lose my shit at you, get out!"

Membrane sighed and left.

Aik slipped his hand under the desk and whipped out his card. Just as the door began to shut, he flicked the card with perfect aim and it jammed into the lock at just the right second. The door didn't lock, which means the electrical shocks wouldn't activate. And the professor didn't notice.

"Yes!" Aik cheered silently. He looked at the designs on his computer. Dib was going to be okay, thanks to them. But Aik had to see his brother. He wasn't waiting any longer.

He grabbed the shank from under the desk, slipped it into the envelope just in case, and bolted to the door.

#iz dib #iz dib membrane #iz ocs #professor membrane #aik membrane #iz fanfiction #project eternal #heart aik #invader zim oc #dib iz #invader zim dib #dib membrane

[queenshelby]

My Friend’s Father (Part Six)

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Warning: Age Gap, Mild Sexual References

Words: 1,937

Notes:

I have decided to make this into a series.

Alright, no judgment. This was a dream of mine and I felt like I had to write it down. Everyone in this Fic is over the age of 18 and this Fic is in no way based on Cillian’s real family life. It’s pure filth.

 *************************

The Afternoon Before (Cillian’s POV)

Before the opening, Denise had the opportunity to show both of her parents the art which she had created.

Neither of them had seen the photographs before and were rather excited to see what all the fuss was about.

‘Alight, alright…here they are’ Denise said with excitement and, whilst her mother smiled and told her how beautiful they were, Cillian gulped harshly in surprise.

‘Dad, do you not like them?’ Denise asked as he stood there, chin dropped and speechless.

‘They are amazing’ he confirmed although he wished that he had some warning beforehand when it came to the content of the pictures.

Cillian wasn’t sure whether he should look at the pictures in detail or whether he should try and look away. Seeing you like this was difficult and his manhood soon began to stir as his eyes gazed over your perfectly shaped breasts and your messy hair.

The Opening Night

You stood in front of the large mirror in your bedroom at your parent’s house just outside Galway and tried hard to clip your hair up which had always been a struggle.

Somehow, you managed and the tucked-up hair allowed you to show off your exposed shoulders and back.

The black dress you had chosen for the gallery opening was made out of stretchy fabric. It was simple but yet elegant and left the entirety of your back exposed while a rim of fabric ran across your neck.

You were lucky that your breasts were small as there was no way you could wear a bra with your dress and you certainly didn’t need to.

The dress was flattering around your hips and finished just below your knees.

‘You look nice’ Connor said as he picked you up from your house and, fortunately for you, your father wasn’t home in order to make a scene about your revealing outfit. Your parents were strictly catholic and wouldn’t have approved, nor did they approve of Connor who, in their opinion, was way too old for you.

‘I look nice, do I?’ you chuckled, having hoped for him to choose a different word perhaps, such as ‘beautiful’ or ‘stunning’.

‘Yes, very nice…let’s go, huh?’ he then said and you nodded, following him to the car.

The drive to the gallery took only 15 minutes and, after Connor had handed his car keys to the valet, you walked inside the building where, almost immediately, you spotted Denise and both of her parents.

‘Oh wow, you look amazing’ you said to Denise before giving her a big hug. As usual, her clothes were colourful and unique.

‘So do you in your sexy black dress…Connor, isn’t she stunning?’ Denise winked, before saying hello to him also.

‘Yeah, she looks nice’ Connor then said, causing Cillian, who was standing behind Connor, to cock an eyebrow. You noticed him looking at you with burning eyes, clearly having noticed the fact that you weren’t wearing a bra.

‘Hey Y/N’ he then said, before giving you a friendly hug as well before you greeted Denise’s mother the same way.

Breathing in Cillian’s scent took your breath away and you immediately forgot about Connor by your side until Denise took it upon herself to introduce Cillian and her mother to Connor as well.

Just as you got talking, the others arrived and it was Amalie who stole the show, wearing the shortest dress she could have possibly found.

You couldn’t help but notice that Connor was staring at her and it was obvious to you that he would have liked it if you wore something more revealing like her.

‘Can’t walk in heels Y/N?’ Amalie then asked sarcastically and you shook your head, wearing nice but flat sandals with your dress.

‘I never saw the point of high heels. They are rather impractical, don’t you think?’ you asked, but Amalie ignored your question and immediately began to hit on Cillian instead which was rather amusing to watch.

***

After the initial chat, you allowed Denise and her parents to talk to some of the other artists and guests and disappeared into the crowd with Connor, trying to hunt down the photographs Denise had taken and which you had not yet seen.

‘You didn’t tell me you knew Cillian Murphy’ Connor said somewhat surprised and you told him that he was just Denise’s father so you didn’t think to mention it. Of course, you would never have wanted Connor to know that you had, in fact, slept with Cillian.

‘Whoah…and you also didn’t tell me that you look like this beneath all your clothes’ Connor then said all of a sudden, interrupting you mid-sentence, as he glanced over to where the photographs of you were displayed.

‘Well, if you had bothered to take off my clothes first before we had sex then you would have known’ you winked as you grabbed one of the glasses of champaign from the bar.

‘We were short of time but, perhaps, I can make it up to you tonight’ Connor then winked and you couldn’t help but roll your eyes, thinking back at this one night a week or so go which was the first and last time you had sex.

‘Apparently you were short for time, yes’ you said teasingly, reminding him that, after ten minutes of missionary, he realised that the football was on and left you high and dry and certainly dissatisfied.

‘Tonight, you can show me what’s under this dress and I will worship this body of yours’ Connor said and his comment made you chuckle.

‘We will see’ you smirked and, just as you did, Cillian walked past the two of you and smiled.

You hoped that he didn’t hear any of this but, then again, if he did, you hoped that it made him at least a little bit jealous.

‘So, what do you think?’ you then suddenly heard Denise ask from behind and, because you were so busy starring at her father, you didn’t realise that she was there.

‘These pictures are amazing Denise’ you said as you were extremely happy with the result.

‘That’s what dad said too actually’ she then said, causing you to blush.

***

As the evening went by and Connor had one glass of wine after another and making several inappropriate and rather controlling remarks, you knew it was time to leave but, Denise didn’t want you to go just yet and, in the end, you told Connor to take a taxi home and that you would see him in the morning.

Luckily for you, he agreed and you were beyond embarrassed by his behaviour as he was trying to dictate what you could do and what you couldn’t as the night went on.

‘He is…uhm…interesting Y/N’ Denise’s mother then said before continuing on and asking you whether you don’t think that he’s a bit too old for you.

‘Oh, I see, you spoke to my parents’ you chuckled as you watched Cillian sip on his glass of wine while cocking an eyebrow.

‘I am just saying, I can see their concerns’ she went on to say, causing Denise to roll her eyes and it was at this point when Cillian interrupted his ex-wife.

‘That’s enough. I think she’s old enough to make her own decisions’ Cillian said and it wasn’t until, some point later when you followed Cillian down one of the hallways to get your coats from the cloak that you had some privacy and Cillian voiced his concerns.

***

‘Be careful alright’ he said after he told you that he was concerned that Connor acted in a controlling way and that he didn’t like the way he was speaking to you.

‘This is not how I meant it Y/N. I am just trying to look out for you’ he said and you couldn’t help but laugh, which is when he pulled you around the corner of the hallway, worried about someone listening to your conversation.

‘Listen, I don’t need you to tell m what to do. I am not your child’ you huffed out somewhat irritated by his comments and you weren’t sure whether it was his concerns that bothered you or the fact that he never contacted you again.

‘Look out for me? That’s funny. It really is’ you chuckled before asking him why he had never contacted you after your visit to Dublin.

‘Why would I have contacted you? I made it pretty clear that, what happened between us, was a mistake. It can’t happen again’ Cillian huffed out and, just as he did, you shook your head in disbelieve.

‘Alright, that’s fine…but stay out of my private life then, please. I don’t need this kind of lecture about who I should be with and who I shouldn’t be with from you’ you said angrily.

‘Common Y/N, you can’t tell me that you actually have feelings for a guy like this. You are more sensible than that’ Cillian said with frustration.

‘I think neither of us have been acting sensibly lately Cillian, wouldn’t you agree?’ you asked, raising your eyebrows.

‘That’s not the same Y/N. Like you said, it was just sex between us. But with him, it’s more than that isn’t it? You are dating him, are you not?’ Cillian then asked sternly.

‘Oh my god, are you jealous?’ you asked angrily.

‘I am not fucking jealous. Why would I be jealous?’ Cillian then asked annoyed.

‘How the fuck do I know. I don’t know how the hell your brain works. After all, you made the same mistake twice. Once, I can understand, but twice?’ you asked with fury.

‘And so did you’ Cillian blurted out.

‘Uhm, yeah, but I didn’t say it was a mistake, you did. For me, it wasn’t’ you huffed out.

‘Fuck, this isn’t going anywhere, is it?’ Cillian then conceded angrily and you shook your head.

‘No, it’s not, just leave me alone, okay?’ you then huffed out angrily and, just as you did, you could feel Cillian’s hands on your hips and your back pressed against the wall behind you near the stairway.

There was an awkward silence between you as you stared into each other’s eyes and, just after Cillian looked over to both sides to ensure that you were alone, he pressed his lips onto yours firmly.

You parted your lips slightly, allowing his tongue to invade your mouth as you gave into this kiss. Your hands were soon tangled in the top of his hair while his hands were caressing your face.

But then, all of a sudden, you pulled away and shook your head.

‘No…no I am not letting you do this again’ you huffed out before walking off.

Whilst you wanted him badly, you didn’t want him to walk away from you again, saying it was a mistake.

   Tag List:

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@peaky-cillian​

@severewobblerlightdragon​  @ysmmsy​  

#cillian murphy #cillian murphy smut #cillian murphy x reader #cillian murphy imagine #cillian murphy x y/n #cillian murphy x you

[triggerhappyimagines]

If it's okay could I request how the dr3 boys would react to their s/o being accidentally shrunk during one of Miu's experiments or something? I thought it would be a good opportunity for lots of fluff and protectiveness hehE

this was actually very fun to write, thank you for requesting anon!! also, i apologize if some of these scenarios sound repetitive, i wrote the ones i had instant ideas for first, and then sort of left myself stuck trying to think of something for the others that didn’t sound exactly like everything else i’d already written...

also, just for fun, i decided to write a little scenario for Miu, too! i hadn’t planned on it at first, but her involvement in this particular request made me want to write for her and i couldn’t help myself,,,, this is my first time writing an imagine-type thing for her so i can only hope i did her justice aha~

warnings: a little bit of swearing

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:

Shuichi Saihara

— VERY CONCERNED!!! VERY VERY CONCERNED!!!

— you’re so small!! what if you get lost?! what if someone steps on you?! what if you fall off something and die?! what if-

— you’ll have to calm him down before he gives himself an aneurysm lol

— somehow he’s more worried than you are. Miu says she’ll be able to get you back to normal in no time, so why shouldn’t you trust her? Shuichi could give you about a thousand reasons but that’s beside the point

— if it were up to him he would hold you and not let go unless he absolutely has to in order to make sure you don’t get hurt or stuck somewhere but obviously that’s unrealistic

— to an extent, it’s cute how worried he is about you, but it does get annoying from time to time

— i mean, you’re shrunk, not stupid. you know to stay away from edges of tables and other things you could fall from, not to wander off, etc.

— but as frustrating as Shuichi can be you really can’t get upset with him because dammit he’s so cute when he gets protective and you love him so so much

Rantaro Amami

— honestly he’s not super concerned at first

— he trusts you to be careful and not get yourself killed, and he trusts Miu to get you back to normal somehow, so why should he be worried?

— though he’ll still be pretty chill for the most part, he will start to be more protective of you when he starts to fully process the sheer number of tragic deaths you could succumb to in your current shrunken state

— this protectiveness takes the form of him offering you way more assistance than you need

— it’s nice that you want to help out, rantaro, but your s/o doesn’t need you to help them find something to sit on, c’mon now

— he kind of enjoys the way you literally fit right into the palm of his hands

— additionally, there’s now a very small, feral urge in the back of his mind to brush and style your hair like his sisters always used to do with their dolls

— he’ll probably never mention it, but don’t be too surprised if he all of a sudden takes a strong liking to playing with your hair once you’re back to normal

Kokichi Ouma

— did you expect him to treat this situation with the proper concern and caution it deserves? because if so i have bad news for you-

— he thinks it’s so funny how small you are

— like, so funny Miu has to physically intervene to get him to stop cracking up at your tiny form

— obviously you don’t think it’s as funny as he does

— right away he’s thinking of ways he could use your size to his advantage to mess with somebody

— at one point he decides it would be really funny to pretend he’s going to step on you which essentially translates to pretending he’s going to murder you but once you chew him out and explain to him how mean that was he actually feels really bad for upsetting you

— while he’s nowhere near as small as you are now, Kokichi is a rather petite guy, so the size difference between the two of you isn’t quite as drastic as it is between you and the taller guys

— since he’s a little less likely to accidentally smush you, he’s able to sorta cuddle you as if you were a small stuffed animal

— and btw being gently held and all snuggled up in his arms like that??? HEAVEN. LITERAL HEAVEN

Gonta Gokuhara

— if i had to choose someone who’s the least likely to accidentally get you killed while you’re shrunk, it would be Gonta

— i mean, he handles bugs that are much smaller and delicate than you are now, and if he can take such good care of them, obviously he’ll be able to take care of you no problem!

— you draw the line at him putting you in the little bug box he carries with him, though. you’re a human being, not a beetle!

— he likes to have you sit on his shoulders! they’re so broad that there’s plenty of room for you, too

— his hair is long enough for you to hang onto it to keep your balance if you need to!

— being so tiny also really puts into perspective just how gentle Gonta is

— yes, you’ve seen firsthand how he’s able to handle delicate little insects, and he’s always gentle with you, too, but being in the position of an insect in the palm of his hand, so to speak, is so much different

— you’ve never had anyone touch you with so much care, solicitude, and just pure love before and it’s honestly the most incredible feeling in the world

K1-B0

— another very concerned boy

— (s/o) is tiny???? how??? WHY??? HUH??

— at he’s pretty concerned about his knowledge of how humans work and fears he knows much less than he thought

— nobody ever told him they could shrink!!! he didn’t know humans could do that!! that’s because they can’t, kiibo, but i appreciate the concern

— once you explain what happened to him - how you were helping Miu out when her current experiment decided to malfunction and go apeshit, making you the size of a doll in the process - he’s a little less confused but also a lot more angry

— he makes sure to give Miu a thorough lecture on lab safety! he can’t have his s/o getting hurt just by being in the same room as her!!

— don’t worry, he’ll simmer down once you assure him that you’re okay!

— similar to Gonta, Kiibo is very careful with you! he knows you’re much more fragile than he is under normal circumstances, but now that you’re so little he’s even more worried about how susceptible to injury you are

— when he holds you or touches you, he does so with the utmost precision and care, as if you’re made of glass and would shatter if he laid his hands on you incorrectly

— he won’t tell you this, but he’s really looking forward to the day Miu is able to get you back to normal just so he won’t need to be so anxious about your safety anymore

— it’s hard work worrying about the person you love!!

Kaito Momota

— another one who’s probably not as phased by the situation as he should be

— but when Miu told him that she’d accidentally shrunk his s/o, he didn’t think that meant "i shrunk your s/o and don’t have a way fix it at this point in time"

— so when he realizes that now he has to help make sure you don’t, idk, die, he’s a little annoyed. not with you, though!

— i mean, technically he doesn’t *have* to help you out, but it would be a real dick move if he didn’t lol

— he lets you sit up on his shoulder, or in the pocket of his jacket!

— at first he doesn’t totally process that you’re a little more fragile than usual, so he may accidentally manhandle you from time to time

— just be sure to tell him if he’s holding you strangely, or if you’re starting to get uncomfy

— his priority is making sure you’re taken care of and he's not about to let himself of all people get in the way of that!!

Korekiyo Shinguuji

— he’s very worried about you, but he’ll try to hide it

— the last thing he wants to do is make your situation more stressful than it needs to be by fussing over you to no end

— it’s not that he doesn’t think you can take care of yourself anymore! he just doesn’t think the world is safe enough for you anymore!

— if you catch on to his anxiety and decide to question him about it, he’ll most likely go off on a tangent about how ‘humans are at the top of the food chain’ and ‘there’s a reason most predators are large and most prey is small’ and ‘in nature small creatures are naturally put in constant danger" or something

— while you may not necessarily appreciate him comparing you to a small prey animal, you know his heart is in the right place

— he just wants to protect you!!

— Kiyo has pretty large, slender hands, and you fit in his palm rather comfortably

— under normal circumstances, he’s incredibly gentle with you, and his delicacy of his touches increases tenfold now that you’re so tiny

— in a strange way, it almost feels like he handles you the same way he would handle some sort of fragile, ancient artifact that could be destroyed with just the smallest slip of the hand

— frankly, it’s a bit of an unusual sensation, albeit in a good way!! it’s nice to be touched so gently, y’know?

Ryoma Hoshi

— he’s glad to have a chance to be the tall one in the relationship... lol i’m jk... or am i?

— unlike the other guys, Ryoma doesn’t really dote on you and assume you need his help for everything, mostly because he knows firsthand what it’s like to be so much smaller than someone

— he doesn’t really like being treated like he’s helpless, or needs constant aid from taller people, so he’s mindful of the way he responds to the situation as not to end up behaving exactly like those who frustrate him to no end

— of course if you need him for anything, whether it’s helping you go from one place to another, or just wanting some love from your boyfriend, he’s always right there for you!

— however, sometimes he needs to go get someone taller than him to help you out with something, which he really Does Not Enjoy™️, so before you ask him to help you get something from up high (by your current standards, ofc) be sure to ask yourself if it really can’t wait until you’re back to normal lol

— like with Kokichi, the size difference between you and Ryoma isn’t all that drastic compared to some of the others, so he also manages to cuddle you without much issue. it’s a little awkward at first, but at least there’s no fear he might accidentally lay on top of you and squish you to death

— perks of having a boyfriend who’s 3’5", y’know?

Miu Iruma

— you’ve always enjoyed helping Miu out in her lab, and it isn’t uncommon for her to request your assistance with something, but up until now nothing has ever really... gone wrong in there, at least not majorly

— somehow, whatever shrinking device she’d been working on decided to have an absolute freak attack and target you, not the watermelon she was about to test it on, and now you’re about ten times smaller than you should be

— at least it works... right?

— she’s very apologetic and honestly feels so incredibly guilty that she could have possibly let something like this happen to you

— you’re honestly not very upset at first. she can fix it and you’ll be back to normal in no time, right? ...right?

— now is not the best time for Miu to be telling you about how she hasn’t yet developed a way to reverse the shrinking properties of her latest invention, but unfortunately she doesn’t really have another choice

— in the meantime, she takes it upon herself to whip up a few things to make your new life as a tiny person easier until she can dedicate her time to finding out how to get you back to normal

— you’re a little surprised at the sheer amount of robotic tools and gadgets provided to you that she just had laying around, as well as how quickly she’s able to throw together little devices to help you get around quicker, or reach things up high

— if there was any doubt that she was truly upset that her experimentation could have gone so wrong, it all vanishes the second she places her lips on your head (you may be small but that’s not going to stop her from kissing you!!) and says she’s never going to let herself put you in harms way ever again

— she loves you more than anything in the world, and would spend the rest of her life trying to undo the damage she caused if she had to! that’s how much you mean to her <3

#mod nagito #drv3 x reader #danganronpa x reader #danganronpa scenarios #shuichi saihara x reader #shuichi saihara #rantaro amami x reader #rantaro amami #kokichi ouma x reader #kokichi ouma #gonta gokuhara x reader #gonta gokuhara #k1 b0 x reader #kiibo x reader #k1 b0 #kiibo #kaito momota x reader #kaito momota #korekiyo shinguji x reader #korekiyo shinguji #ryoma hoshi x reader #ryoma hoshi #miu iruma x reader #miu iruma #drv3 imagines #drv3 scenarios

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt for "Close" or "Reforged": NMJ & Baxia goes to the Nie tombs to accompany someone. The spirits sensed a saberspeak translator FINALLY exists and traps them. Everyone thought the place hostile, but the sabers just want NMJ listen to their ramblings/demands/complaints/lectures... and also to do something about that "basketcase" saber spirit sealed further in. They're sick of listening to it! Do something, Nie descendant!

ao3

“Tell me something about yourself,” Lan Xichen said one day when he was a teenager, lying on his back in a field in the Cloud Recesses with his best friend in the whole world, excluding family. “Something secret.”

Nie Mingjue, lying beside him, hummed for a moment, thinking about it. “When I was a kid – about Wangji’s age now – I got stabbed in the stomach during a fight,” he said eventually. “Everyone thought I was going to die, and I mean they really thought it, but then I didn’t.”

“Wow,” Lan Xichen said, having meant something more along the lines of ‘a girl let me touch her chest behind the garden shed once’. “Everyone must have been very glad you were all right.”

“Mostly,” Nie Mingjue said, his voice and gaze distant. “Once they let me out.”

“Of your sickbed?”

Nie Mingjue blinked and shook his head as if to wake up. “Enough about me,” he said. “What about you? What’s your secret? Is it about that He sect girl and the shed again?”

“It was not,” Lan Xichen insisted, even though it totally had been. He was very proud of it. “I wasn’t thinking of anything in particular!”

-

When Nie Mingjue told Lan Xichen about his family’s curse, he didn’t actually tell him directly.

He brought him to a room, with tea and food set out, had him sit, and then vanished, sending Nie Zonghui to tell him instead. It was horrifying, of course, but in the same manner as the whole war they’d just endured had been horrifying – nothing that would make Nie Mingjue blush.

“Why didn’t he just tell me himself?” Lan Xichen asked, mostly because he couldn’t really be upset at Nie Mingjue for being in the process of slowly dying, even if that’s what he really wanted. “Did he think I wouldn’t be able to stand it or something?”

“Or something,” Nie Zonghui said. “It’s not about you, Zewu-jun. It’s about him.”

Lan Xichen frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s a sensitive subject for him,” Nie Zonghui said. “Especially the saber tombs – and after what happened when he was younger, I can’t really blame him.”

“When he was younger? What happened?”

“Did he never say? He said that he’d already told you: when he was young – eight or nine, I think – he was in a fight, and got stabbed…”

“Oh, yes, that,” Lan Xichen said. “I know about that…what does that have to do with cultivation?”

“It was his first fight carrying Baxia,” Nie Zonghui explained. “She wasn’t even fully forged, but he grabbed her out of the smithy and wielded her against those invaders.”

Nie Mingjue had not said anything about invaders.

“He saved the lives of several other children,” Nie Zonghui continued, and Nie Mingjue hadn’t said anything about that, either. “Shed his first blood on his blade – even took his first life, all the things that function as a marker of adulthood. Defeat evil, rescue the innocent, all that. So when they thought he was going to die, they decided to give him the honors of an adult.”

For some reason, that made something sink in Lan Xichen’s stomach.

“When you say honors…” he started.

“He was taken to the saber tombs,” Nie Zonghui said. “To die as his honored ancestors had.”

They must have been very sure that he would not live.

“But he didn’t die,” Lan Xichen said, and Nie Zonghui hesitated. “What are you not telling me?”

“Sect Leader Nie was left there to die alone, as is customary,” Nie Zonghui said. “When they returned after three days to collect his body for cremation, they found him still breathing, much to everyone’s surprise…after, there were rumors that he had died.”

“What? How? He’s walking around even now.”

“They thought he had been possessed,” Nie Zonghui explained. “By one of the saber spirits. It caused some trouble, later. Anyway, ever since then, he doesn’t talk about it directly – and nor should you.”

“But –”

“I think that’s enough of an explanation for now,” Nie Zonghui said firmly, and no matter how Lan Xichen entreated him, he said no more.

-

“Oh, sure, we have plenty of stories about saber spirit possession,” Nie Huaisang said when Lan Xichen asked in a roundabout fashion. “All sorts! I grew up on them, naturally. Temporary, permanent, through birth or misadventure – that one story about the generation of Nie women where everyone was female, whether born or misaligned –”

That did sound somewhat interesting, actually, but not exactly what Lan Xichen was looking for at the moment.

“What happens in cases of possession?” he asked, pretending to be casual. “You know, if someone thinks someone else is possessed – speaking generally, of course?”

“Generally?” Nie Huaisang frowned and tapped his fan against his lips. “I mean, in the case of temporary possession, you usually try to exorcise the spirit – usually through traditional means, like arrays or talismans or incantations, but sometimes if you think they’re trying to steal a human life permanently, through discomfort.”

“Discomfort?”

“Oh, you know. Excess exercise, denying food, hurting them. Show them that they’d rather not be human after all, that sort of thing.”

“…what if they’re wrong about the possession?” Lan Xichen asked, a cold chill going down his spine.

Nie Huaisang shrugged. “It’s supposed to be pretty obvious? Someone who has the strength of a guai instead of a human, who refuses to die when a normal person would, someone rigid and unyielding with barely any flexibility – more metal than human – unusually angry, full of bloodlust and an unquenchable desire to destroy evil –”

“That could describe your whole family tree, Huaisang,” Lan Xichen said. That could describe your brother.

“Sabers reflect their masters,” Nie Huaisang said cheerfully. “So it makes sense that it would, doesn’t it?”

“But –”

“Oh, don’t fuss, er-ge! I’m sure the elders wouldn’t just go around assuming someone’s secretly a saber for no reason,” Nie Huaisang said. “Now, let me tell you about the generation of women story – it’s one of my favorites –”

-

“Da-ge refused to let me play for him again,” Jin Guangyao commented, and Lan Xichen frowned.

He wasn’t an idiot – he knew how bad the relationship between his two sworn brothers was – but although he’d hoped that this would help repair some aspects of that, his primary goal with the Song of Clarity was to improve Nie Mingjue’s health.

(Sabers could suffer from qi deviations, too. Not that Nie Mingjue was possessed by a saber or anything.)

“Did he say why?” Lan Xichen asked.

“He was busy this week,” Jin Guangyao said mournfully. “Visiting his family tombs, apparently.”

Lan Xichen blinked. “The – Nie family tombs?”

Jin Guangyao had been speaking casually, clearly thinking of it as some excuse meant to fob him off, but perhaps there was something about Lan Xichen’s face that caught his interest. “Yes, he said there was some issue there that he had to deal with personally. Is there something the matter with that?”

“No,” Lan Xichen said, and then frowned. “At least, I don’t think so? I’ll speak with him about not skipping more sessions, A-Yao; don’t worry.”

He excused himself shortly thereafter and went to Qinghe on the first possible excuse.

“Where’s your sect leader?” he asked one of the guards.

Their frozen expression said everything he needed to know.

-

“Xichen?” Nie Mingjue said, blinking at him. “Is that you?”

“No, it’s Wangji,” Lan Xichen said. “Of course it’s me!”

“I meant that more in the ‘what are you doing in my family tombs’ sense,” Nie Mingjue said.

Lan Xichen allowed that that was a fair question. A better one, however…

“What are you doing in your family’s tombs?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “If the Song of Clarity isn’t working, we can try something else!”

“Xichen –”

“It is far, far too early for you to even think of coming down here –”

“Xichen –”

“And may I say, that’s a barbaric tradition anyway, I don’t care if your ancestors did it, locking up a child is just –”

“Xichen.”

Lan Xichen stopped.

Nie Mingjue was rubbing the back of his head, and his cheeks were red. “I heard a rumor that one of the old masterless sabers got loose,” he said. “I was just checking it out. I wasn’t coming here to – to reside.”

“…oh,” Lan Xichen said, and felt rather stupid. And then, trying to change the subject, he said, “How’d you hear about the saber getting loose? I thought no one came here unless there was a death.”

“Oh, the sabers told me,” Nie Mingjue said.

“Oh, I guess…wait. What?”

-

“So you…hear them,” Lan Xichen said. They were seated on the foot of one of the statues guarding the tombs, which was a bit rude but Nie Mingjue didn’t seem to mind and they were, after all, his ancestors. “The saber spirits.”

“Since I was child, yes,” Nie Mingjue confirmed.

“And you don’t think this is – odd?”

Nie Mingjue shrugged. “They gave me spiritual energy so that I could survive. It left a mark, I think.”

Lan Xichen nodded.

He tried to figure out how to phrase his next question.

“I’m fairly certain I am not a saber spirit possessing a human corpse.”

“Oh, good,” Lan Xichen sighed. “I had no idea how to ask.”

Nie Mingjue knocked their shoulders together. “You can always just ask. I’m your friend. Corpse or not.”

“Please don’t make jokes about that,” Lan Xichen said mournfully, even if it was a little funny. “I’d miss you if you were a corpse.”

“Well, depending on the state of the corpse…”

Lan Xichen snickered, even though he really didn’t mean to. It wasn’t actually funny.

-

“So is it just sabers?”

“Not always. Why? You want to know what Shuoyue thinks of you?”

Lan Xichen stared at him. “Can you?”

“Either directly or indirectly,” Nie Mingjue said. “Even if the weapon doesn’t want to talk to me directly, they usually don’t have a choice when Baxia is pushing them.”

“…do swords have a lot to say?”

“Not as much as saber spirits. But more than you might think.”

“What does she think of me, then?”

“She likes you. You’re good to her. Except when you wield her overhead because you keep tensing a muscle in your back that makes the strike a little wonky, so she’d prefer you stick with forward thrusts or low cuts until you get that fixed.”

Lan Xichen started laughing.

-

“If I die outside, make sure I’m brought here,” Nie Mingjue said. “I think I’d enjoy the company.”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Lan Xichen promised, and he meant it, too. “I promise.”

#mdzs #lan xichen #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #my fic #my fics #something secret #bittersweet #tkpartisan #I have not seen Fatal Journey so I couldn't include the bit about the crazy one #sorry

[its-deputy-caleb]

If you're feeling up to writing a bit of Mikey, could I please request him being an asshat to everyone and being told off by his S/O after he asks Jack if he wants to earn a dollar?

(You know the part where he says to ask Arthur about the stick up his butt?)

He's such a dickhead and I find myself telling the screen off when he does it! 😂

OR

His S/O giving him a slap and a bollocking after he kicks Cain, then they fuss over Cain and force Micah to make friends with him.

I dunno, it's up to you 😂 You could write any scenario you want, I'll still love it 😘😘

i am always up to writing for a bit of mikey (that nickname is so cute) but ngl i had no idea how to write this or put this together. I watched the clips again so i could get it accurate but i changed it bc i didn't know if u wanted a happy ending or not but i hope i delivered <33 also u asked for either and i gave u both :)

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

Clemens Point was a strange place with even stranger people. After leaving valentine in a hurry it seems the entire gang was on edge and ready to blow like a stick of dynamite. It seems having to act like upstanding heartfelt citizens to the Grays and the Braithwaites has meant everyone is that aggravated and pent up.

On more than one occasion you’d seen Sadie lose it when Pearson got to pushy with chores and it seems Abigail and John couldn’t stand to have a normal conversation for five minutes before one of them broke. It wasn’t much better with Dutch and Hosea who were constantly disagreeing on the right moves for the gang, although they were much more civil about it.

You did your best to keep out of everyone’s way, to avoid the confrontation but knowing your luck you’d end up getting involved one way or another.

You were returning to camp one sweltering hot afternoon with Sadie after you finished collecting the gang’s weekly stock from the general store. You were only half listening to the hustle around the camp as you were too busy listening to Sadie tell you all about Pearson’s dear aunt Cathy. You stepped off the wagon and headed to the back to start unloading some of the supplies when the sound of Micah’s voice could be heard talking to Jack.

“How’d ya like to earn a dollar?”

His voice with thick with malice as he hunched over the wooden table. In Micah’s hands was a silver nickel that he fiddled with between his fingers, much like you’d seen of him do with his knife. Your eyes found Jack who was almost reluctant to get anywhere near the man who you knew scared him. However, being the innocent child that he was his eyes lit up at the sight of something shiny.

“A dollar? Sure.”

You carried the heavy bag of potatoes over to Pearson’s wagon as you went back for another round of supplies but you kept the boy in the corner of your eye.

“Well…go on up to old Arthur Morgan, ask him about the pole he’s got stuck up his ass and I’ll give ya a dollar.”

Micah’s face lit up in a smirk, his accent thick and his typical evil giggle falling from his mouth. He sat back on the chair, satisfied at the mischief he’s caused.

Before you could get anywhere Jack had run off to where Arthur was sitting in his tent, reading over a letter. You placed another round of ammunition into Strauss’ wagon, dropping it hastily and running as you saw Arthur walk right up to Micah with a murderous look in his eye.

“I’ll give you a dollar if you shut your—“

Arthur didn’t get to finish his insult before you stepped in front of him with a soft hand on his shoulder. You gave him a soft smile and a nod, quietly saying to your dear friend that you’d handle this.

With that you turned with your own look of anger directed to Micah. Everyone knew you loved him but they also knew you didn’t hesitate to call him out and get him to behave when you had to.

“Micah leave the damn boy alone!”

He scoffed like he wasn’t offended you didn’t defend him and instead chose to call him out. Micah’s hands came up in his signal of fake defeat as he slowly backed away from his place at the table, acting as if he was nothing more than the innocent bystander and not the one who nearly ended up on the ground with a broken nose for starting it.

You watched as Micah lingered around the edge of the camp, his eyes trained to yours as he lit a cigarette but you ignored him. Instead you walked over to Jack, smiling softly and taking his hand to lead him to the river’s edge.

“Common, why don’t we go see if we can find any beautiful rock on the sand, hmm? I’m sure your mother would love such a beautiful gift.”

-

Of course, it wasn’t more than a few days later when you ran into trouble again with Micah. You’d spent your time ignoring him mostly, instead choosing to go hunting with Charles and Arthur, practice your throwing knives with Javier and help teach Jack to read. You knew how badly it pissed Micah off to do things without him but he needed to understand that there was a way to treat people, especially with people you considered family.

You rolled up your sleeves, using your forearm to wipe the sweat from your forehead as you picked up the knife and started cutting carrots and potatoes for tonights stew.

“Are you a good boy? Yes you are! The best boy”

Your head came up to notice bill sitting against the log by the campfire, scratching under Cain’s chin and giving the energetic dog pats along the back. You couldn’t help but smile at the new addition to the gang and how happy it made you to see Bill less stressed. It seemed that having Cain made everyone feel more caring and loving.

All except Micah.

“You’re the fool that feed’s him Marion. He ain’t nothing more than a filthy mongrel and an extra mouth to feed.”

Micah had stood from his place on the opposite side of the campfire to antagonise Bill. A frustrated noise leaves you as you slam the knife down on the wooden bench, ready to storm over there and chew Micah’s ear off. You take a step forward only for Miss Grimshaw, who was working next to you, to grab your arm and stop you before you get any further.

“There is a time and a place dear, don’t make it worse.”

Of course you knew Susan was just trying to keep another argument from happening but you push past her when you see Micah inching towards Cain who had left his spot at Bill’s feet to hide by a wagon. In a split second decision you pick the knife you’re cooking with and use it like a throwing knife to get his attention. The knife swings through the air, not getting near anyone, it wasn’t like you actually wanted to stab Micah no matter how badly he could get on your nerves and watched as it got wedged into the tree behind him.

Micah’s head shot up, his foot moving away from Cain and stared dumbfounded and shocked, unused to seeing you so skilfully throw a knife but your practices paid off. You walked right into his personal space, taping your finger against his chest.

“Don’t. You. Dare”

Micah’s first response was to try and sweet-talk his way out of it like he always does but you were in no mood to deal with his slyness.

“Dare to do what sweetheart? Common now… weren’t gonna do nothin—“

Your hand came to give Micah a crisp slap across the cheek, apart of you was shocked that you’d even do such a thing but the other half of you was furious.

“Don’t underestimate for a minute that I won’t dump you right now and throw you out of camp Micah. I’m not some stranger you can sweet-talk when you get in trouble. I swear, if I see you go anywhere near Cain the knife isn’t going to hit the tree next time.”

Micah’s eyebrows shoot up in shock as you lecture him in front of almost the entire gang. Even Dutch put his book down when he heard your slap. He was lost for words, truely, having now other thought as he watched you walk away back to preparing tonights stew. He didn’t move from his place until he heard you whistle for Cain to sit by your feet, where he went and meandered off into the forest to give you space. All he knew was that he must have fucked up bad if you threatened to leave him.

-

A few hours later you’d managed to calm down, watching the sunset after Ms Grimshaw gave you the rest of the night off to relax at how pent up you were. Now sitting here you couldn’t help but feel like you may have over reacted but Micah had pushed your buttons one too many times and if Micah was going to listen to anyone it would be you. You let out a soft but hearty sigh as the tension and stress from your shoulders left with your breath. Your body relaxed against the tree and you watched the sun gently dip below the horizon.

It was well and truely dark before you heard the rustling of grass and the thud of someone sitting next to you. You thought it may have been Arthur coming to check on you but that thought died when arms wrapped around your waist and you felt Micah rest his chin on your shoulder, his stringy hair tickling your face at the gentle breeze.

“…M’ sorry…”

A very quiet and forced apology was pulled from Micah as he cuddled into you, mumbling it into your shoulder at the pain of actually having to apologise.

“Sorry won’t cut it Micah. You have to stop treating people that I care about— people that are family better.”

Micah sighs, the defeated, tired one that shows he’s willing to listen because no matter how badly he stirs up trouble, the thought of losing you is enough to have him turn his mind around.

“I know…gonna make it up to ya I promise.”

A soft and very cautious kiss is placed on your shoulder with Micah knowing he’s still not forgiven by you yet.

“You’re damn well gonna make it up to me. Firstly you’re apologising to Jack first thing tomorrow and secondly you need to pull your weight for this gang— and no I’m not talking about robbing another coach. To start you can sit on guard duty with me and you can wash my clothes.”

“I’ll just buy you new clothes”

You give Micah a death glare as you tilt your head to look at him. Instantly his teasing smirk leaves and his arms come to wrap tighter around your body, resting his hands on your stomach and intertwining your fingers.

“Alright, alright… guard duty ain’t so bad.”

You sit together for a while in a comfortable silence. All the energy from today had left you and you no longer had it in you to keep arguing. You’d hold Micah to his promise to do better but for now you leant back into his embrace and rested your head against his.

“Can I at least sleep in the tent tonight?”

You smiled softly as you hummed in contemplation just to tease him. Micah hadn’t come to sleep in your shared tent since the day he messed with Jack and both of you had missed each other despite the frustration and anger you had.

“Hmm, we’ll see.”

Micah thinks you’ve said no, panicking internally but is stopped when you turn your head and place a soft kiss to his cheek over the mark from where you’d slapped him not so long ago. It wasn’t the kiss that he wanted but he still needed to make it up to you before you gave him what he wanted.

You reached a soft hand up behind you, cradling his head and rubbing your thumb over his sore cheek.

“Is your cheek okay?”

Micah let out a gravelly noise, deep from his chest as he leaned into your hand.

“Ain’t gotta worry sweetheart, I’ve survived much worse”

You don’t get to reply when a tentative and cautious Cain makes his way over to the two of you. You pat your leg and he curls up beside you with his head resting on your leg and his tail thumbing, relaxed and happy.

Micah on the other hand was not relaxed or happy as he tensed up and moved away from the dog and you. If it wasn’t for your hand holding the back of his head he probably would’ve jumped away.

“Micah Cain isn’t going to hurt you, he just wants attention like you. See? No need to be afraid.”

To prove your point you reach a hand out and gently brush over his short, grey fur, watching as he perks up.

“I ain’t afraid!”

You would’ve believed him if you didn’t catch the waver in his voice but you knew. You knew after seeing him be spooked by the animal more than once around camp.

The hand that was still intertwined with his gently guided his hand pat Cain, letting him slowly get comfortable to him.

It took some time but finally Micah had gotten used to Cain enough to realise he was clearly not a threat. At some point Cain had moved over to Micah’s side, resting beside him as the night became later.

A yawn left you and you slowly sank into Micah’s embrace, your eyelids falling shut as you dozed, clearly exhausted.

Holding Micah to his promise was a job for tomorrow, but for now you let yourself fall asleep in his arms, the tent be damned.

#in the video micah is totally scared of cain #the man is terrified lmao #im also addicted to the nickname mikey now #adroable #and ignore the errors i have not edited this #micah bell x reader #micah bell imagine #micah bell #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2

[charming-mage]

The Search For Marinette Dupain-Cheng

This is my take on my prompt The Search For Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

You know, I always wondered about Marinette taking care of Akumas while overseas. If she takes too long, she’ll scare her loved ones half to death. Can’t rush too much or else she risks losing her miraculous because of it. Since no one is aware of her identity, she doesn’t have anyone to cover for her.  Friends who are unaware of the truth will cover her for so long before they have to fess up.

In salt fics, the class usually doesn’t care where Marinette is on Gotham trips. Here, they give a shit.

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In which Lila messes with some signs and Marinette gets lost when she comes back late (via Kaalki) after dealing with an Akuma attack in France. 

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The two week school field trip in Tokyo was supposed to be an enjoyable experience. There’s booked reservations at classy restaurants, a fancy hotel with a big pool, shows, and tours throughout Tokyo. Lila is most looking forward to the fashion expo. If she doesn’t do something soon, it looks like she’ll miss out on that too. Marinette been missing for two days and Lila is already sick of it. 

All because she miscalculated in a spur of the moment plan.

“Marinetteeee! Where are you,” shouts a crying Alya. The girl spots a few tourists and shoves a flier in their faces. Nino joins in with his own fliers. “Have you seen my friend Marinette Dupain-Cheng? Cutest French girl you’ve ever seen with a heart of gold. So kind she’d innocently help a stranger, unaware they’re a bad guy.” The tourists each give a half hearted ‘no’ before speed walking away.

“Walk faster Lila! Marinette can be anywhere.”

Lila puts on a concerned mask. “Of course.”

All this time wasted just because she moved some signs. 

She hadn’t meant for Marinette to go missing. Only to buy some time so she can guilt trip Adrien to be her partner for the fashion expo. 

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The day before, the class went to a big nature park. It’s notable for its many trails. The deeper you went into the park, the denser the trees are. They all partnered up and to her dismay she got Nathaniel instead of Adrien. The best thing about the artist is that he gets so into drawing the sights he doesn’t notice when she wanders off. It gave her more time to plot how to switch partners with the least amount of fuss.

During one of her secret plotting sessions, she heard a very loud conversation farther down the trail she’s on. Rose shouts for Marinette to not split up, and Marinette screams back a blatant lie about wanting to see a moose in the Relaxation Trial. Also to not expect her for forty minutes. Total hypocrite this girl is. ‘We can only be friends if you stop lying.’ Sure, and it’s okay for only Marinette to lie. Everyone else who does so is bad. Can’t even tell Rose you honestly want to ditch her.

When Lila noticed the Relaxation Trail sign nearby, an idea formed in her head. She ducked into a bush to hide. When Marinette ran into the trail and her map fell out of her bag Lila burst into action. 

It took a little adjustment to the multiple sign post. It wasn’t too hard as the signs on the pole were already a little loose. Just needed to switch the sign that led back to the meetup with the Reflection Trial sign. According to the map, the Reflection one is a winding trial leading to a dead end. Marinette would be forced to walk all the back as the park employees told them it’s easy to get lost if you go off the trial. Aside from putting some sticks on the map, it was left mostly alone as she wanted her rival to use it to get back to base. She may not have liked Marinette, but she didn’t want anything horrible to happen to her.

By the time it got dark, Marinette still hadn’t gotten back to the meetup point. Forty minutes had already flown by. Lila hadn’t noticed as she was trying to convince Adrien to switch partners and tell everyone it was his idea. If Marinette was here the noisy girl would have interfered. 

Rose’s cry of alarm got the others to find out Marinette was missing. The goodie two shoes wasn’t answering Rose’s calls. A quick check near the Relaxation Trial sign revealed Marinette’s map had flown into a bush.

The field trip went downhill from there. 

The police were called. Afterwards, it’s discovered the cameras in that area were down much to Lila’s relief. Even though she feels a bit responsible, she’s not admitting to anything. Even if she did confess, it’s not like it’ll help the police. Doing so will get her in huge trouble and gain scrutiny in her actions from then on. How will telling what she did help find Marinette? It’d be for nothing.

When it comes down to it, Lila’s self preservation is above Marinette’s well being.

Some good fun will keep her mind from unpleasant things. Too bad no one besides Lila is interested in the scheduled events. This is a vacation, so going to a few events is a must. The class just want to spend time searching for Marinette. The transfer student wouldn’t have minded hanging up missing posters or spreading the word. This class takes it to another level.

Every waking moment is spent looking for Marinette. Breaks become a treasured time. They walk many miles each day. Max posts missing posters in Japanese forums. Alya bothers the police for updates. Adrien even got Chole (who stayed in Paris) to pull some strings to get more attention in the local news.

Because of Marinette’s disappearance, they have to stay in groups of at least three. No exceptions. So if Lila wants to do anything, she needs to convince any group she’s in to go with her.

It’s more challenging than expected.

Day 5

"Hey guys, why don’t we take our break inside the museum we were supposed to go to? It has air conditioning and we can look at some stuff for a bit while we’re sitting down.”

“Sorry Lila, I’m not in the mood to admire art.”

“I agree with Nathaniel. Just doesn’t feel right.”

Day 8

“Let’s go on the sightseeing tour. We can look for Marinette while we’re on it.”

“No thanks.”

“Nah, a taxi is better as we can choose where to drive.”

Day 10

“.....my leg injury is acting up. It’s okay to leave me here. I don’t mind.”

“No way Lila. We’re not leaving you alone on a bench outside Universal Studios. What if we lose you too?”

“.............”

Day 11

Lila has had it with these people. Reservations and events have been canceled. Solemn, awkward moping. Refusal to do anything but looking for Marinette. The only event left is the one she’s been most looking forward to: the fashion expo. Through some maneuvering and sneakiness, no one remembered to cancel the expo tickets.

There’s no way in hell she wants to miss this event: a lecture by Edna Mode herself. There’s rumors circling the fashion industry the famous designer is going to explore a new clothing line. Along with finding a muse for it.

The previous class activities can be let go without much struggle. Not this one, though. This could be the golden ticket to a very prestigious job. Even more than being a Gabriel model.

There’s a chance things might go right this time. The group is filled by pushovers Adrien, Rose, and Juleka. As long as she stays firm, they’ll go along with her plan.

With the directions in mind, Lila manages to slyly maneuver the group to walk outside Tokyo Big Sight. The sight of the Edna Mode banners hanging outside the arena fills her with excitement.

Lila coughs for their attention. “Guys, it’s time for our lunch break. We need the energy to keep this up.”

Rose reluctantly says, “Oh you’re right Lila. Can you pass out our lunches please?” 

“Sure thing.” She reaches into the bag and whoops. There’s conveniently no lunch bags in there. “Oh no guys, there’s only water bottles in here.”

“It’s okay Lila, we can buy some food nearby.” Rose digs out her phone. “Hmm... I think there’s a cheap fast food place nearby.”

“There’s no need to look far. We can just go into the expo. They have to have some food near the entrance.”

There’s silence at her words.

Juleka narrows her eyes. “Why do I feel you just want to go to the expo?”

Lila is surprised Juleka of all people is calling her out. “No, no. It’s just, why walk more when there’s food right here.”

“Lila, do you not care about finding Marinette?,” a sad Rose asks.

“How could you say that? Of course I do! We worked so hard and we deserve a break. Marinette would understand.”

Rose snaps. “Understand? Every minute counts! We might never see Marinette ever again. She could be injured and alone, kidnapped, or worse! If one of us was missing, she wouldn’t give up.”

The fire in Rose’s eyes startles Lila. Never thought she’d see the bubbly girl break her happy persona. 

“No one said anything about giving up. Besides, the police are looking-”

“That doesn’t mean we should sit by and do nothing.” Rose tears up. “It’s my fault Marinette is gone. If I didn’t let her run off on her own, she would still be here.”

Juleka gives a comforting hug to Rose. 

Adrien speaks up. “I know you don’t like Marinette, but I never thought you would sink so low. It’s one thing if you’re not interested in helping. It’s another to actively interfere in something our friends care about.”

“I d-d-o care. We can pick up search after we eat.” It’s not like Lila wanted to prevent them from searching for Marinette. Ms. Bustier has forbidden anyone from being on their own. So she needed someone to be with her in order to do something. 

Lila spent so much time reassuring them, they missed the lecture.

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“---Breaking News! A French teenager stopped a missile launch by terrorists. Marinette Dupain-Cheng went missing during her class’ field trip. Miraculously, she disabled their base of operations, rescued a Princess, fought against pirates, escaped on the back of a deer, got their leader to surrender to the authorities-”

“That’s our every day Ladybug.” Alya hugs the TV with tears of joy. “Obviously she’d save the day while missing.” The reporter actually hissed when a stranger tried to tell her to stop hogging the TV. No one attempted removing her after that.

Since Ms. Bustier is currently with the police to bring Marinette back, there’s no one to reign in the partying classmates. Alix somehow convinced the hotel to give them a big complementary celebration cake. 

The only person not celebrating is an angry Lila. Glaring at her phone, the headlines riles her up every time she sees it.

Edna Mode’s First Baby Fashion Line

The Inspiration Behind the New Designs

“My godson is my inspiration-”

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Jack-Jack is Edna’s muse. Lol.

To save you a google search, this park mentioned in this fic is made up. It’s based on a bunch nature parks I’ve been to before. Tokyo does have parks and nature trials, though. In case you missed it, an attack happened in the late afternoon and Marinette got back at night (when it got dark) in Japan Standard Time. Keep in mind there is a 8 hour difference between these countries.

With this completed, I can finish chapter two of Dupont’s Worst Nightmare. :)

#lila salt #lila rossi #miraculous ladybug #answeredprompt #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #thesearchformarinettedupaincheng

[senju-sekhmet]

'Hot’ is just a matter of definition

Summary: It felt like any other morning - you surely felt like every other morning - except for a certain kind of warmth. Perhaps some soreness that made your muscles ache? Of course you wouldn't slow down simply for feeling a bit hot - Tobirama strongly disagrees. 5600 words I really wanted to do a funny comfort piece, so this is a little self-indulgent! It sat on my shelf for a while before I was happy with it, smh. Thanks for all the help, @avversiera-writes 🥺 Warnings! Illness, fever talks, and slightly suggestive undertones (SFW though!) Read on AO3!

The first sign should’ve been this awful chill that ran through your bones the moment you opened your eyes. It was an early rise, like usual, but something was different. Blinking slowly, your lazy gaze found the window and the brilliant, red sunrise that was hinted at by how the crimson hues were hitting the buildings you could peek at. 

And unsurprisingly, the man whose arms were wrapped around you, legs intertwined with yours gave a rather disgruntled huff as he registered your movement. Tobirama would fiercely deny being clingy (That’s ridiculous!) but despite the two of you usually falling asleep on each side of the bed (that is, if you went there at the same time or haven’t been down to friskier activities before), he’d  always  find his way around your body during the night somehow to completely enclose it with his. No, he wasn’t just a bit clingy, he was a real cuddler. One time you dared to make a small tease about such being the case, but you were only met with fierce denial, a bright red face and incoherent mumbling (Childish… I do not  cuddle…). It was adorable, really.

Honestly though, you wouldn’t deny loving it, either. To know that in the privacy of your bedroom, one might argue the most private room of a house, he’d become this relaxed was endearing - charming, even - especially considering in public, he was vastly different about physical affection.

Except when you wanted to really rise up; then the complaints started. Unless Tobirama got up before you did, his limbs would tangle yours more and he’d make miffed grunts. All within the time limit the two of you had for the morning, of course.

This morning, though?

You shifted a little bit from your position to lay more on your back, to which Tobirama gave yet another unamused sound. Your muscles ached slightly. Maybe you needed to stretch a bit today. 

“Nnnghn…”, he mumbled, and the arm that was wrapped around your chest to hold your shoulder tightly snuck a little higher to caress your neck.

“Tobi…”, you sweetly began, a whisper. 

“Hm,” came the answer, but this time a lot more conscious - and ponderous. One scarlet eye blinked open and Tobirama’s forehead was worried by fine wrinkles. “Hmmm,” he hummed again, the hand on your neck trailing up even higher, to your cheek.

You chuckled a little bit at the comical embrace he was giving you. “What’s up?”

His other eye opened and out of nowhere - “You’re hot.”

You blinked. “Why, I wasn’t expecting such unabashed, eloquent flattery in the early morning.”

He rolled his eyes and sighed exasperatedly. “Your body temperature is above average. Quite a lot, in fact.” You let your eyebrows tilt up in a rather hurt pout. “That is the least sexy way I’ve ever heard someone say ‘You’re hot’.”

Tobirama gave a low growl then suddenly and you only felt the bed shift - then he was above you, steading himself with an arm on each side of your chest, legs still tangled. If it wasn’t for the deep frown etched into his mien, you’d find this, in fact,  hot  . “That is because I am in no way referring to your looks, Y/n!” Although momentarily - momentarily - his gaze flickered down your body, covered in nothing but a light nightgown.

You raised an eyebrow expectantly. 

His scarlet stare was right back at you, burning in intensity - and yet there was a glint of something in them. “I am, of course, not saying you could not be considered metaphorically ‘hot’,” he began then, his baritone voice low and sultry, clinging to something.  Something that was wiped away in the blink of an eye when it became stern only. “But right now you are also hot  literally.”

You wanted to roll your eyes at him and tell him that has got to be the second worst way of being told you’re hot, but before you could get a word out, the man had plastered his hand on your forehead and you felt his chakra connecting to your network; smoothing over it gently in an inward caress you reciprocate swiftly, tenderly. You’d never grow tired of this. Of course, it lasted only a moment - he intensified the connection to gain a closer look at your body, his presence inside of you growing stronger as he took to examine you briefly in order to ascertain the origin of the ‘hotness’ you chose to flippantly call it.

Except you were not having any of it. “Tobirama, I’m fine, honestly.” Your hand moved to grasp the wrist of his arm to gently remove it from your forehead.

His presence inside you instantly flickered - bristled. “Y/n,” came the prompt, stern answer and you could swear the pressure on your forehead, hips and legs increased slightly.

This was getting ridiculous. “This is absurd. I feel good, so what if I’m  extra hot? Might be getting a cold, there is no need to fuss.”

His eyes flew open again to spare you a furious glare. “For a common cold it’d be very unusual to be burning up as you are,” he began firmly and you had to forcibly bite back on commentary or another eye roll lest his lecture would grow. “Now if you’ll keep your smart mouth closed for a few more moments, I could finish this.”

You jutted your lower jaw forward. “You love my smart mouth.”

His eyebrows rose slowly and for a few seconds, he seemed entirely impassive. Suddenly, you felt his chakra inside of you jolt, zigzagging through your network so abruptly you gasped. It wasn’t unpleasant so much as it was unexpected - and intense. Momentarily his presence within you was so strong, so potent, you felt you could nearly grasp his thoughts and emotions with your own chakra - and yet at the same time, he was so active, so seizing - it felt quite possessive.

“You’re-”, you huffed, ready to retaliate letting your chakra swell to retort.

“Quiet, let me work,” he grunted, closing his eyes again, focusing on the connection you two shared. The smirk in his voice had been unmistakeable, though, as was the slight tilt of the corner of his mouth.

Unfair. He was being unfair. However you weren’t swayed, either. “There’s no need for this. And you need to relax.” Again you felt the connection swell though, much more gentle as he continued the examination and you were given just a low, warning rumble to let him get it done. Only a moment later he gave another disgruntled hum, his scarlet gaze now mustering you now.

You crossed your arms in front of your chest. “Well? Happy now?” you snapped, perfectly miffed. On the one hand the concern was endearing, on the other hand...

His face was scrunched in deep ponder. “I’m unsure. I can’t pinpoint anything for sure, but perhaps there was something about your lungs-”

You felt yourself bristle. “I’m not staying here on some cryptic ‘perhaps’ from my very overprotective husband. May I, now?” Already, you wriggled beneath him to free yourself and get up. Your muscles really did ache a bit - you definitely needed a stretch.

Tobirama’s gaze narrowed again. “I don’t think you should be moving around today, Y/n.”

That did it. Darkly, you articulated every word perfectly clear: “Tobirama, I’m not joking. Move.”

Reluctantly - as you could tell by his stiff body - he shifted to the side to release you. His intense gaze never left you, though you couldn’t spare him more than another roll of your eyes at this point.“This might only be the tip of the iceberg," he warned, you could  hear  the frown in his baritone voice still.

However, you had already gotten up and were standing, staring down at Tobirama with equal sternness. “Or you need to rein it in again.” You shrugged as though that’d ease the soreness in your muscles - it didn’t - and then tilted your head a little. “I feel a bit cold, in fact, so how about that.”

His scarlet eyes widened slightly at that statement. Promptly he scrambled to get out of bed himself. “Y/n-”, he began, downright chastising - but you had already spun around and were heading for the bathroom of your house.

“Enough fussing, dear husband, we have a lot of work to do,” you reminded him in a playful tone. Talking of work was bound to get his focus elsewhere than your imaginary symptoms.

_______

Or so you thought.

Once you finished in the bathroom (admittedly, you did feel a little bit lightheaded) you headed to join him in the living area for a small breakfast (and maybe, just maybe also a bit shaky?). The heady smell of tea hung in the air; you couldn’t help but smile lightly. However the room felt quite cold - had he opened the windows? Tobirama already was sitting cross-legged at the low table, reading documents he had strewn over it last night. When you entered the room, his head snapped up and the scarlet gaze had you pinned, eyes narrowing again.

“Don’t,” you sternly cut him off before he could even say anything like ‘Get back into bed’, shaking your head before sitting down across from him, pouring yourself a cup of tea for yourself.

Tobirama rested his chin on his balled fist. The frown must be etched into his face at this point. “You look pale.” His baritone voice was deceptively smooth.

Your hand clenched around your cup of tea, eyebrows furrowing. “You know, I could say the same about you.”

A single white eyebrow arched up. “Unsurprising, as my complexion is rather pale.” The fine smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth again.

You crossed your arms defensively. A shiver ran down your spine. Since when was the room so cold? “I am very well capable of judging myself to see if I am fit for work. Which I am.”

The smirk faded and he dropped his hand to the table, straightening himself. You had to drag your hand over your face in order to keep yourself from rolling your eyes at him again. As you did so you couldn’t help but notice - your face  did  feel a bit warmer.

“Why are you being so stubborn about this, Y/n?”, Tobirama began, his deep voice stern again. You blinked to find his scarlet eyes staring at you intensely again, his facial features hard as ever. Maybe it was your imagination, but there might have been a tinge of worry to his tone. “I’m not imagining anything. If I had to take a guess, you’re actually not telling me everything.” He tilted his head. “Are you feeling dizzy?”

An exasperated groan escaped your mouth before you could help it, but this time you did roll your eyes. Your hand slapped down on the table. “For the last time, Tobirama - I’m fine. It’s just a little fever - did you open a window or something? It’s so cold in here, I’m shivering.” You ran your palms over your arms, feeling the chill creep into you.

You didn’t think this was possible, but the wrinkles of Tobirama’s frown became even deeper. “I did not, Y/n.” 

You blinked in surprise. “Huh.” As much as you hated to admit it, Tobirama’s fever theory might hold more merit than you wanted to give him credit for. Worse yet, you had to tell him.

Tobirama’s intense stare was wrought with worry at this point, bereft of any of the smugness you might’ve been expecting from him. “Are you ready to believe me now?” he inquired drily, his voice carrying a caustic note.

You sighed and crossed your arms in front of your chest, leaning back slightly. Momentarily you dared to close your eyes - when you did, your eyelids felt weird against your eyes, the ache in your muscles seemed worse - you couldn’t help but sigh. “Maybe.”

Tobirama was rubbing his temples with his thumb and index finger when you were eyeing him again, the fingers of his other palm were drumming impatiently against the table. “A monumental progress, compared to earlier, I’d say,” he commented, still rather drily.

“I’ll just work on what paperwork I’ve left at home, then.”

His palm slammed so swiftly on the table you jolted in shock, concerned for the paper under his cup of tea. Luckily though, he had drunk enough of it already. However his gaze - the scarlet stare was burning from intensity again. He didn’t just look pissed - he was furious. “What is it going to take to make you rest? Lie in bed? Sleep?”

Your mouth hung slightly open at his sudden outburst. Of course, you had guessed he wasn’t  pleased  with your negligence of your symptoms, but this right now seemed rather over the top. “I can… read in bed?”

Tobirama continued to stare as though you had just suggested to strip naked and run through the village.

“It’s just reading, Tobi.”

“What’s so difficult about staying in bed and recovering?” he snapped, perfectly exasperated now. Suddenly he sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, ran a hand through his white, spiky hair and rose to his feet swiftly. “Alright. Let’s get you to bed first.” The tension in his tone was tangible and briefly, you contemplated just… humoring him. For a bit?

He rounded the table to offer you his hand in order to get up, which you gingerly took. With a courageous tug he helped you to your feet - and your vision blackened momentarily. You swayed forward; Tobirama already seized your waist with his free arm pulled you flush against his body to steady you. His deep voice was next to your ear when he spoke; your hand grasped his black shirt for support. “Y/n?”, he was done veiling the concern in his tone with fury.

You shook your head. “Just a brief dizziness.” Already, your vision cleared; though your heart still pounded in your ears. “I’m - I’m okay.”

Tobirama didn’t take time to comment that but rather started guiding you towards your shared bedroom. His frown was etched into his forehead again, his lips a tight line. All the time he’d glance over to you with his sharp glance, but the tension never left the taut muscle of his jaws. His arm remained tight around your waist for the whole way back to bed too; he wasn’t letting go at all. Not that you minded. You did feel a little bit wobbly, and even if it just was to humor him, you wouldn’t take any chances now. Once in the bedroom his grip turned utterly tender; carefully he helped you lie down and pulled the blanket up to your chin. 

You gave a wistful sigh as your sore muscles finally got their rest again and the blanket was warming you. “Maybe… this isn’t such a bad idea, after all,” you mumbled, hopefully quiet enough Tobirama wouldn’t hear you.

He did, of course. With a dry chuckle he was already turning towards the window. “You’d be astonished how many good ideas I have, Y/n,” he quipped, closing the blends of the bedroom to render it a lot darker.

“How am I going to read like this?”, you promptly inquired, propping yourself up on your elbows again to rise in protest.

Tobirama cast a dark glare your way and instantly stalked over to your side again; sitting down on the bedside to push you back down onto the mattress with a certain kind of stern finality that still held a marvellous amount of gentleness to his touch. “You aren’t. Sleep now. I’ll leave you water and tea here and get you your documents later.”

With a sigh and yet another roll of your eyes you allowed him to pull the blanket up again once you were back on your back. “Are you, now.”

Tobirama rose to his feet again and simply regarded you with one quirked up eyebrow. “You are correct. We should wait and see how you are feeling later, actually.”

“You’re impossible. As if you’d be lying in bed just because of a little fever rather than work,” you bit back, perfectly miffed again.

Tobirama was unimpressed, though. “I’m being realistic. And unluckily for you, I’m not the one running a fever. Now, I have to drop off some documents for elder brother and check some other things at the office, then I’ll make sure to stick around,” he announced, but before you had any chance to tell him how truly, utterly, lucky you felt to have him hound your recovery, he was out of the door - which he closed, of course.

He had all but ignored your notion that he, in fact, would never stay in bed.

Well, maybe some sleep really would help you.

________

 Tobirama’s steps were spurred on by the same urgency that he had coaxed you into bed with earlier in the morning. He despised that out of all the days at the Hokage’s office, today seemed to be tedious and slow going. Naturally, everyone around him was subject to his mood, but right now his patience was thinner than usual. As a result, everyone kept out of his way - which was good, because then he’d work quicker - but also bad, because some of these things he couldn’t finish alone. Did he feel bad for snapping at someone for a simple slip up in the inbox? Absolutely not. Order was vital. Or shouting that some instructions for the training regimens at the academy still had not been finished? Please, these things had been due for one day already. 

If everyone just worked a tad faster -

It was futile.

He had to blame himself in part, really - he had been foolish enough to think he’d be done here swiftly and therefore had not left a shadow clone with you. Better yet, sent a shadow clone here to deal with these  menial tasks as he had dubbed them by now.

But that admission of guilt didn’t exactly do anything to improve his mood. Right now, he was standing in front of his elder brother’s broad desk while he was signing off permits for the growing commercial district of the village. Once that was done - Tobirama could finally use his hiraishin seal to get out of here.

That also most likely was the reason he was staring Hashirama down like a hawk, arms crossed in front of his chest, muscles tense. The scarlet glare was dark enough, bystanders might think he’d go for his brother’s throat any time.

Hashirama wasn’t fazed in the slightest, though. Tobirama’s moods have long since stopped to really impress him. Now, he didn’t make a point of being extra slow, but he made sure to keep track of all these things he was supposed to sign.

Even so - “You seem extra sour today, Tobirama.”

“Really? Whatever made you notice, elder brother?”, he answered drily, physically restraining himself from barking at his brother to just keep reading and not talk to him.

Hashirama raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to tell me, or will you keep spewing sarcasm?”

Tobirama rolled his eyes and gazed at the ceiling momentarily - was there any point in delaying proceedings to tell him? But then again, maybe his brother could help. His gaze swept back to Hashirama. “Y/n is sick. I want to get back home quickly.”

Hashirama sat down the paper he’d been holding and furrowed his eyebrows. “Sick? What’s wrong?”

“She’s running a fever. Now, the quicker we finish, the quicker I’ll be back to check on her.” Tobirama’s grip on his arms tightened. While his brother’s concern was charming - it was just delaying his return to you. He was late anyway. What if you were worse off now? Inadvertently his mien darkened a fair deal, and the glare he regarded Hashirama with was nothing short of lethal now.

Hashirama’s concern wasn’t subsiding, either. “Then go. I can finish this alone. If I have any questions, I’ll ask you later. Do you want me to come by in the evening?”

Tobirama blinked. The suggestion was convenient - too convenient for his liking, almost. His duty towards the village came first. Hashirama’s even more so. You, on the other hand…

He pinched the bridge of his nose, clenching his teeth. Why was nothing ever easy? He hated himself for it right now, he didn’t want to say this - no, he wanted to say, ‘Very well, yes, thank you’ - but no. “The village comes first.”

Hashirama sighed - and then smiled. “Very well. Then I order you to get back home.”

Tobirama’s eyes widened slightly. His brother couldn't seriously be ordering him to - but no, actually he could. He opened his mouth to protest - but with a wave of his hand he dismissed himself. He’d take this gift for what it was. “Thank you, elder brother. It would be good if you visited later.”

He simply nodded. “Give Y/n my well wishes.”

Already, the world lurched around Tobirama as he invoked his hiraishin seal in your shared living room. And in the blink of a second, he was standing in it - heading straight for the bedroom. Finally. He should have been here much sooner.

Before he entered, he could hear it - wheezing sounds. Quiet, but laboured breaths from the room you should be resting in. And by the sounds of it, you had been - a miracle. He frowned. Or, a very bad sign. Your adherence to medical orders was almost as bad as Tobirama’s. He quickened his steps, his heartbeat uncomfortably fast now. “Curses,” he muttered under his breath - why, why had he not left a shadow clone with you? 

With more force than intended he slid open the bedroom’s door. You still were in the bed, tucked in - and a fine sheen of sweat glistened on your skin. Your breaths were sounding rattled.

“Y/n,” Tobirama called, chastised almost, as though somehow it was your fault it had gotten this bad. The truth was he was shocked - utterly shocked - and worried. This wasn’t just a fever anymore; he didn’t need to examine you to know his hunch had been correct this morning: Pneumonia.

“Tobi…?”, came your slurred reply, the sheets rustled as you were sitting up.

Instantly he crossed the room to sit down at your side on the bed, his forehead drawn into a deep frown. You were glancing at him through glazed eyes, blinking a few times just before a coughing fit wrecked your entire body.

“M’sorry… Tobi…,” you whimpered after you were suitably recovered.

He had to blink at that. Were you apologizing? “What?” Tobirama’s hands grasped around your upper arms, he shook his head. “Lie down again, alright?” Your skin was scorching now. You whined uneasily again, tilting your head a little. “Y’sounded so mad right now… you were so mad this morning, too…”, you murmured, but you allowed Tobirama to coax you into lying down again, pulling the blanket over you. If the paleness was anything to go by, your blood pressure was low.

This wasn’t looking good.

“I’m - I’m not mad, love,” he churned out as his hand moved to your forehead to assess your condition again. What nonsense-

But before he could place it there, you had seized it with both palms and pressed it to your chest, your eyes comically wide now. “You’re… not mad? But… you were right… I think… I am a little sick, Tobi. Maybe?”

Tobirama couldn’t have prevented the coarse grunt he gave even if he had wanted to. “Not just a little, Y/n.” Gently, he tried to move his hand out of your grasp, but it only served to tighten it around it.

Your gaze was trained on him, and for a moment, you did nothing but stare. Tobirama’s frown deeped - then suddenly, you shook your head so slowly, he wondered if you even registered the movement. “Nah… You’re right… but I’m not  that  sick. You can be so… smug when you’re right…”, you mumbled - no, you …  giggled?

Tobirama’s gaze widened slightly as you spoke. Had you taken any medicine that didn’t agree with you? Was the focus of your infection perhaps not the lung, but the brain? “... Y/n? May I examine you?”

Your lower lip quivered. “Tobi,” you wantonly moaned now. “I don’t… want you to be mad ‘cause I didn’t… believe you, though,” you gave a sigh - at least that’s what Tobirama thought you wanted to do - but it ended in more coughs.

With a cocked eyebrow he continued to observe the theater that unfolded before him, your grip on his hand was steely. At least your strength seemed to be faring well. The same couldn’t be said for your mind.

“You get so… snappy when you’re pissed,” you continued suddenly, your gaze sweeping down to the hand you clutched like a stuffed animal. Your thumbs started caressing it and your lips formed a small pout. “That’s kinda… exhausting… but also funny sometimes, you know? … your sarcasm, mhm…,” you continued, trailing off into more incoherent mumbling.

Tobirama restrained himself from rolling his eyes at your nonsense and simply opted for using his other hand if you weren’t going to relinquish the one you were  cuddling  now. Softly, he placed it on your cheek and closed his eyes. Already, his chakra began to graze over your network -

Except then you  nuzzled  into his touch, throwing off his focus. His eyes flew open. “Y/n,” he reprimanded sternly, “Let me focus for a moment here, alright?”

You hummed contently, though. “You’re always so… focused, Tobi… Super focused...”

Tobirama really fought to say his next words in the nicest way possible - “Y/n, you aren’t just hot right now, you are burning up, please let me-”

You giggled then suddenly, your face turning so the tip of your nose would brush over his palm. “You said it again.”

Tobirama huffed exasperatedly. “What?”

“I’m hot. You said I’m hot.” More giggles followed - which were interrupted by another coughing fit of yours. Surprisingly, you had the decorum to turn your face to the side Tobirama’s hand wasn’t facing.

However, Tobirama’s patience was running seriously thin - and the last thing he wanted to do was snapping at you of all people. Not to mention in your current state, you probably would not take it well. He didn’t think he could stomach you crying on top of all this.

But then you were nuzzling into his hand again as your hands kept coddling his other to your chest and Tobirama seriously wondered if there was no way to just… gently knock you off whatever trip you were on.

“Y/n,” he began sternly, “You’re seriously ill. I need to examine you now, alright? Will you please let me do that? And stop doing… that?”, he tried to keep his voice even, calm - pleading - but what came out was annoyed.

Your eyes widened instantly. “T-Tobi,” you stuttered, “I’m… s-sorry… you don’t think I’m hot…?”, you asked, as if that was the most important thing in the world right now.

With those doe eyes you were giving him, Tobirama was sure you were convinced it was.

He gritted his teeth.

His dignity didn't want to do this. His logic considered this a stellar idea, though. 

“My love, you are the single, hottest being in the world. Nothing, not even a volcano, compares to your hotness. I see you, I feel you, and every time I’m in awe because of said hotness. I’d never, ever question just how hot you are,” he retorted instantly, with ground teeth, comically tilted up eyebrows and sheer desperation made him fall in line with your utter nonsense if this was what it took to make this work, somehow. 

It did the trick. Your eyes lit up as though he’d just recited a love poem he’d carefully written, no, crafted just for you - in fact, he was surprised you weren’t reaching up to try and kiss him or something like that. Tobirama on the other hand was proud he hadn’t choked on the sheer idiocy he had just uttered.

“Tobirama,” you sobbed happily, grinning broadly. “I knew you do think so…”, you continued, nodding fiercely, “You sometimes give me these… stares… and when we-”

Tobirama’s eyes flew wide open. “Y/n?”

You stopped mid-sentence, your mouth open, eyes wide. “Yes?”

“Can my very hot wife keep still for a moment?”, he inquired, mustering all the pitiful shreds of his patience - and pride - that were left to make his baritone voice sugar-sweet.

Luckily, it worked. You smiled broadly and nodded before stilling completely.

Finally. His hand rested on your cheek more firmly now and once more he closed his eyes. Usually he’d let his chakra caress yours first, but right now he was convinced that’d just do all kinds of  funny  things to you, and before this could get any more embarrassing, he increasing the connection right away to begin examining you. His chakra pelted your network as the workings of your body were revealed to his inner eye: what had been subtle, and easy to miss this morning was a roaring fire now. Undoubtedly the source of your ‘hotness’ - your left lung’s upper lobe was ridden with infection. The whole area was stuffed with mucus. Your heart beat with an elevated frequency, and your blood pressure had dropped.

Surprisingly your brain showed no abnormality at all. It must be the fever talking, literally.

Providing serious medical support in cases of infection went beyond his combat medicine skills. All he could do was support your lung a little by clearing the alveoles a bit - letting his chakra chop away at the stuffed airways that were supposed to be free. Tedious, straining work that wouldn’t help permanently unless the root of the problem was tackled effectively, but it should make breathing easier and lower the burden of infection. 

You on the other hand were making satisfied hums that barely reached his ears as he was sunken in his concentration, entirely wrapped up in the microscopic surgery he was performing, basically.

When he was finished - rather, when the labyrinth of your lungs’ smallest airways was beginning to drive him insane for how his chakra always seeped into yet another corner that was ridden with disease - he retreated.

By the time he opened his eyes, you were sleeping soundly - a fact he was thankful for. He needed to organise some antibiotic medicine for you, and somehow he had a distinct notion you wouldn’t take well to him leaving.

 ________

 Luckily, medicine was easily available as was his brother’s aid - Hashirama came swiftly when a shadow clone of Tobirama’s informed him of your state. With his brother’s medical jutsu and the medicine, your recovery was fast. Around evening, your fever had gone down substantially.

By the next morning, the fever’s haze had cleared. Tobirama was sitting on the edge of the bed with a scroll in his lap as you were blinking slowly at him, wiping sleep out of your eyes. You felt uncomfortably warm - too warm. With a sweep of your arm, the pushed the blanket aside.

Tobirama looked up and his scarlet eyes mustered you intently. He raised an eyebrow, but the smirk that was plastered on his lips was reaching his glance. “How’s your hotness feeling?”

You rolled your eyes and groaned. “Too hot.”

The smirk became a sly grin as he bit back on laughter. You could tell by the way the corners of his mouth wrinkled. Already, he began to sit up, setting his scroll aside. “To think such a thing was possible - I’m in  awe,” he supplied ironically, heading for the door.

Your eyebrows shot up. Time to strike back - it was one thing to quip about your silly remarks during your high fever, but he'd get his share, too. "And to think I made the very eloquent Tobirama Senju say things like not even a volcano compares to my hotness." The smirk on your lips grew as you watched the blood rush to your husbands cheeks.

It did the job. Instantly, his jaw was taut. "Y/n you are well aware I only said so because-"

"Everyday you are in awe because of my  hotness. How  lewd, Tobi," you continued, licking your lips.

He balled his fists, his expression darkened. "You were seriously ill and all you were concerned with was cuddling my hand and being complimented on your looks." Slowly, his arms crossed in front of his chest, his own smirk returning to his lips as he raised one eyebrow. "What does that say about your priorities?"

You turn up your palms and grinned boldly. "I'd say my priorities are damn fine. Just like my looks, as you testified," you winked and raised your hand to blow over a kiss at Tobirama. 

Who caught it, entirely unfazed. The fine eyebrow arched even higher. "I'm glad at least one of us is thinking of the important things then," his tone was perfectly sarcastic now. He turned to leave again. "I'll still see what I can do to tame that incredible amount of hotness."

You whistled to call him back quickly. "Can't you come and lie here, use your calm and cool body for that?"

His head tilted to give you a glance from the side again, an eyebrow rising slowly. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

You flashed a grin. "I'd love it."

For a moment, Tobirama was silent. A fine, sly grin spread over his lips as he dipped his head towards you - his baritone voice soft. "Well, too bad for you. A couple of wet towels will do a lot better to lower your temperature than my body, which, by the way, is just a few degrees less, ah, hot than yours." With a wink of his own he was out of the bedroom’s door.

With a dissatisfied grunt, you slumped back into the bed.

Did he just call himself hot?

#tobirama #tobirama senju #tobirama x reader #tobirama senju x reader #sekhmet writes

[obeiii-mee]

Hi there! Im back, tysm for doing my HC ;;/ it was super cute, i really liked Mammons and Satans!! If you dont mind if i ask for another? Hdjsks Recently, i slipped while walking home with some pals and scrapped my knee. It wasnt too bad, but it sure looked bad lmao If you can could you do HCs for the boys reacting to MC slipping and scrapping there knee while walking w them? Im sure Mammon would have a heart attack hfjd Tysm!! Keep up the good work♡

Thank you so much! I hope your knee gets better and that it wasn’t too painful! The brothers would all be panicking in their own way but I agree, Mammon would faint or something lmao.

Hope this was OK.

————————————

The Brothers with an MC who fell and scraped their knee:

Lucifer:

-It was a miracle you managed to convince him to come out on a walk with you at all

-The man doesn’t know when to take a break from his work

-He’s more likely to accept if it’s you asking tho, he has an obvious soft spot for you

-The others call him a suck up behind his back because of it

-You were so happy that you managed to pry Lucifer away from his desk, you were basically skipping alongside him

-Long story short, you tripped over your own two feet and fell

-Luckily, your knees and palms were the only things that got a bit scruffy

-Well, actually your right knee looked as if someone tried removing your entire knee cap with a scalpel, skin and all but adrenaline was kicking in and you couldn’t feel much

-You’ve never seen Lucifer freeze the way he did then

-His mind just drew a blank

-You were about to shrug it off and call it a day, get up and continue your walk but daddy Lucifer can’t have that

-He has six younger brothers (and a younger sister at some point) he is pretty experienced when it comes to treating injuries

-You aren’t walking for the rest of the day, let me make this clear

-He will carry you back to the House of Lamentation no matter how much you protest

-In case it wasn’t obvious already, Lucifer gives off massive dad vibes and now he’s bandaging your leg while you’re laying down on his bed

-While the rest of the brothers watch the two of you from behind the door frame because they are all equally worried

-Get ready for the three hour lecture coming your way

-He’s pissed and amused at the same time tbh

-Silly human, falling over like that and hurting themselves

-Lord Diavolo forbid you try to get out of that bed, he will drag you back and make sure you stay there until your knee is better (kinky)

Mammon:

-He was on his merry way to the casino to blow off all of Lucifer’s money and you tagged along solely for the purpose of making sure he didn’t spend all of Lucifer’s money

-You’d both be done for if he did

-But I guess fate really had it out for you on that day since your foot slipped on....something and you tripped

-Both of your knees looked bloody and damaged as hell but you were more irritated than anything

-Mammon on the other hand did a fucking double take and almost passed out

-He screeched his lungs out

-One look at your injured knees and he was ready to drag you all the way to the human realm on foot to find you a doctor

-“MC ARE YOU OK WHY THE FUCK IS THERE SO MUCH BLOO-HOLY SHIT STAY STILL DON’T MOVE! THE GREAT MAMMON WILL FIX THIS...SOMEHOW.”

-It was very dramatic, he cried

-You stood up to prove that you were alright because you thought he was going to have a seizure soon enough

-OK, that helped him calm down a little

-At least now he knew your legs weren’t about to get torn off and you weren’t on the verge of death

-Fuck the casino, you were going home

-Like Lucifer, don’t expect you will walk home by yourself

-He will carry you, a bit embarrassed by his initial freak out but still eyeing your wound, concerned

-As soon as you get home and the other brothers help you out because he’s shit at bandaging, he just sits in his own pool of misery and guilt

-Your poor knees wouldn’t be so jacked up if you hadn’t come along with him today

-He was so determined to make it up to you, he stayed by your bedside like a loyal puppy with a wagging tail (flashback to the animal event)

-Overall, he almost went into cardiac arrest and was too panicked to realise you were fine

-You thought he was smothering and overprotective before? Good luck for the rest of the week

Levi:

-“See, this is why I don’t like going out. There’s always some normie laying on the groun- OH MY LORD DIAVOLO, MC IS THAT YOU?? ARE YOU OK?”

-HIS HENRY ALMOST DIED ON THE NEWLY POLISHED FLOOR OF AN ANIME CONVENTION, HE HAS VERY MIXED EMOTIONS

-You fell knees first and hurt them quiet badly but you could stand, even if the pain made you twitch a little

-This confused Levi because you looked fine even though your knees certainly didn’t

-You told him you felt alright and it wasn’t that big of a deal and he absolutely rolled with it

-But you guys still went home after that

-He said it was because you bled all over your cosplay but that’s just him being a tsundere

-Levi is usually very shy when it comes to physical contact but he firmly insisted that he help you walk home

-I mean, he knows you said you were feeling OK and maybe humans just have a lot of tolerance for injuries like that

-But he still felt it was necessary that he took you home and checked out your injuries

-He kept the mood light while disinfecting you’re wound with some help from Satan by talking about how the convention went

-High low-key relieved seeing you walk around like normal two minutes after that

-He started bitching to you about how you made him miss his the event but he didn’t mean any of it

-“Stupid normie, making me miss my favourite Ruri-chan event. You’re lucky I love you and think you’re cute....did I just say that out loud??”

Satan:

-Oh dear, why would you go out for a walk in the middle of a rainstorm? What were you thinking?

-Actually, it was Satan’s idea

-He may be a demon and the prince of Wrath no less, but he is such a sappy, cheesy bastard at times

-He definitely thinks that walking and kissing in the rain is very romantic (bet he read something like that in an erotica)

-You know what’s not romantic blondie? Slipping on a very small puddle and potentially fracturing your leg

-It was just a scraped knee but you were frustrated enough to be extra

-He’s helping you up before you even have the chance to realise you fell in the first place

-Your knee was looking pretty bad so you guys went home just to avoid any further casualties

-He’s actually chuckling all the way back while you playfully glare at him because how dare he laugh at your misery?

-Date night was ruined but at least he got to take care of you

-He knew your knee must have hurt and he felt bad but he couldn’t help but giggle a bit to himself because your fall was so comical

-Ah but he does enjoy fussing over you for the rest of the night a bit too much

Asmo:

-You thought Mammon was melodramatic?

-Take a look at this fucking guy

-He actually screeches even louder than his brother and probably falls to his knees too (but not really because those pants were expensive)

-His screams definitely got the attention of at least 10 random passerbyers

-He’s actually on the verge of crying

-I mean, can you blame him?? Look at your beautiful knees!! They were ruined

-He felt so bad for you, he actually babied the hell out of you that day

-“Asmo, it’s fine. It’s just a scrap.”

-“A SCRAP, MC IT LOOKS LIKE YOUR KNEE IS ABOUT TO FALL OFF YOUR POOR SKIN-“

-It was just a scrap but Asmo’s secret talent is being extra as fuck

-He totally spilled all the tea to the rest of the brothers when he got home

-And then he ushered you into his room

-Funnily enough, he’s pretty good with injuries. Not as much as Satan and Lucifer but still

-He pampered you for the next few hours but that image of your skin being all grazed like that will forever haunt him

-How can you not be so bothered by it?? He’d die if he was in your place

-I love Asmo just because of how dramatic he is

Beel:

-Your shoelaces were undone and of course that meant a fun little trip to the floor of Hell’s Kitchen

-Beel didn’t notice you fell at first, he was concentrating on his food and assumed you were next to him

-But then he realised that you weren’t and for a moment he thought you disappeared or something

-Before he turned to find you laying on the floor, curled up because life was pain and you were suffering

-“Are you OK? Or are you just tired? Belphie does that a lot when he’s tired.” Or depressed one might say

-But for real, he’s good at identifying serious wounds and less serious wounds since he’s an athlete

-He can tell your knees were bleeding way more than they should have from just a simple scrap

-He slinged you over his shoulder and carried you, calmly, back home, with a burger still in his hand

-He’s actually really collective and talked to you while cleaning up your injury to take your mind off the pain

-He knows humans are a little more fragile than demons so even though he knows it’s not a big deal, he can’t help but worry

-It’s kinda hard falling around him tho because chances are, he will actually catch you even if he happens to hold something

-He’s sad if you’re sad so please don’t cry he will bandage your scraped knee do you want the last bit of his burger to make you feel better?

-Comfort hugs afterwards!

-Which is awesome because Beel gives out best hugs :)

Belphie:

-Ah yes, another beautiful day at RAD

-Walking alongside with your grumpy and sleepy boyfriend when a random demon bumps into you

-Wel not bumps, more like shoves you so hard you fall down and tear the fabric of your pants

-While the dude shrugs it off and speeds away

-You were a bit pissed off because rude

-But Belphie was fucking fuming

-He felt so offended on your part

-I mean, the nerve of him

-He was tired as shit but he wanted to chase after him and throw hands, possibly fill his pillow with rocks and hit him over the head with it

-He forced himself to focus on you first before hunting the moron down

-He was a bit concerned when he didn’t see you come back up after you fell

-Turns out, you scraped your knee pretty horribly and now you were bleeding all over the floor

-He’s even more quiet than usual as he helps you up and half carries you to your next class

-He starts taking care of your knee in the middle of DevilDom history he doesn’t give a flying fuck

-He’s still furious by the time he gets home and most of his brothers know to leave him be when he makes that scary ass face

-No talk to him

-He angy

-“Does your knee still hurt?”

-“A bit but it’s not-“

-“Come nap with me.”

-“Why?”

-“Naps shall cure your pain.”

-“...”

-“Nah but for real come take a nap with me.”

-Next day at school, the dude from yesterday walks by him and Belphie smashes his head against the wall

-Before walking away as if nothing happened

-I stan protective Belphie

These HCs are really bad but I love them anyway

Al~

#obey me #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me imagines #obey me leviathan #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me satan #⭐️ requests #☂️ demon brothers #🌸 comfort #💞 Protective Bois