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mypoisonedvine · 4 years

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Discretion (40s!Bucky x Reader oneshot)

Summary: In a sense, joining the Army made Bucky Barnes into a man. He’s certainly grown in a legal sense. However, there’s one other aspect of ‘becoming a man’ that he hasn’t quite achieved yet, and he’s tired of hearing all his Army buddies talk smack about it. So, he decides to consult an expert.

Word Count: 6.6k, and it’s basically alllllll smut so, wooo.

Quick random note: before anyone freaks out saying this poor prostitute is getting underpaid, inflation is an important factor here. $5 in 1940 is worth nearly $100 today. So, she’s actually getting a pretty good deal here. Also, wow, inflation is crazy.

“Hello?” came the nervous voice from your porch, after you failed to answer the first knock.

You opened the door to find an Army soldier, young and bright-eyed, wearing his more formal uniform, and looking like a fish out of water.

“Oh,” the man-- barely a man, but technically so-- said as he saw you, “are you… is this apartment 13?”

“That’s… what it says on the door, I hope.”

“Yes, well, I just wanted to make sure…” he began. “I just, I heard there was a woman that lived here, who…”

You gave him an expectant look, waiting for him to say it, but he choked a bit on the words.

“A woman that, um, a lady-- uh, it’s probably just a joke, or a rumor or something--”

“You heard that the woman living in apartment 13 get visits from soldiers?” you finally completed for him.

“Uh, yeah,” he agreed. “Is that-- is it you?”

“Yes, sir,” you answered with a small smile, “I’m quite the patriot. Would you like to come in?”

“Thank you,” he nodded, stepping past you once you opened the door fully. He jumped a little when you shut the door behind him, but took his hat off anyway and tucked it under his arm.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“No, thank you,” he refused.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking you to pay first.”

“Of course,” he nervously agreed, pulling out a wallet, “all I have is this five…”

“That’ll do,” you nodded, “just leave it on that dresser. How’d you hear this rumor about the woman in apartment 13?”

"I got your information from my bunkmate; he gave a, uh, glowing recommendation."

You smiled a little. "Is that so?"

“And maybe a little more detailed than I personally needed to know,” he added with a frown. You laughed.

“Yes; I may exercise discretion, but many clients do not.”

“You see… a lot of guys, then?”

“Don’t worry yourself with that,” you dismissed. “It’s just you here now. Let’s talk about you.”

“Right,” he nodded, sounding like he’d rather not do that.

“You seem a little out of your element,” you presumed.

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“Sweetheart… is this your first time?” you asked gently.

“Of course, I’ve never seen a prostitute before-- is that… the right word?”

“You know that’s not what I was asking, darlin’. Are you a virgin?”

He looked away but nodded. “Uh, yes, I am.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of, sweetheart, you’re young.”

“Not so young, I’m 18.”

“That is, in fact, ‘so young,’” you frowned.

“If you say so. The Army’s made me grow up fast, though.”

“I’m sure it has,” you acquiesced. “Why don’t you have a seat on that sofa?”

He did as you asked, and you took a seat next to him, tucking your legs up on the cushions and leaning your head on your hand. He looked at you with a nervous smile, wiping his palms on the legs of his trousers.

“So, your chest says ‘Barnes,’” you observed, pointing to it.

“Oh, yes,” he nodded, “James Barnes, but, everyone calls me Bucky.”

“Is that what you would like me to call you?”

“Uh, yes.”

“Alright, Bucky,” you agreed, trying the name out, “it’s nice to meet you.”

You shook his hand, introduced yourself, and he smiled a little. “He told me your name. I thought it was pretty. Not… not necessarily what I expected.”

“What did you expect? I guess a stereotypical hooker name, right? Like Satine or Violetta or something?”

“I-- I don’t know,” he laughed. You tilted your head to look at his face.

“You sure you’re a virgin, honey? You have that heartbreaker look about you.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he laughed nervously, looking to the floor. “Yes, I’m sure. I think I would’ve noticed.”

“I just mean, you could probably find some sweet little thing to do it with, especially when you’ve got this uniform on.”

“You know, you say that, and I suppose you’re right… and yet…”

“So what was it, then? Are you... waiting for the right person?” you asked coyly, your fingers trailing up his leg lightly. He watched your hand’s path with wide-blown eyes and shaky breaths.

“Uh,” he stammered, “no, definitely not-- definitely not that.”

“Good,” you smiled, “because I am all kinds of wrong for you. But you’re not alone, you know. A lot of people think it’s best to get it out of the way with someone like me, that way you’re ready when you meet somebody you want to take home to Ma.”

“R-right,” he nodded, “I’m not sure I’ve thought it through that much.”

“You’re just tired of waiting,” you posited. “You just really, really need to know how it feels to be with a woman.”

“Yeah,” he nodded with a sigh as your touch wandered impossibly close but never really got to where he wanted, “something like that.”

“Sounds good to me,” you smiled, pulling your hand away; he seemed simultaneously disappointed and relieved.

"So…” he began, “what do we do? I mean, what do you do?"

"Anything you want, hun. Within reason, I suppose."

“...anything?” he asked with wide eyes.

“Let’s not get too caught up in that,” you laughed. “Let’s start simple. Get undressed for me please, darling. I'd like to look at you."

He stood up and faced you, and you waited on the sofa expectantly as he began to work open his jacket, and undo his tie.

His trousers were next, and you noted the sense of urgency as he kicked off his shoes. You smiled a little as you watched him strip: it was an enjoyable sight, certainly.

Soon he was naked except for his underwear, which he nervously fiddled with but didn't remove.

"Well? You plan to do it with those still on?"

He laughed a little, and blushed. "It's just that… I'm not sure…"

"It's okay if you're not ready, son. We don't have to do anything you don't want to... I can give you the money back if you don't wanna--"

"No!" he interrupted sharply, then softened. "No, I wanna… I want to. I'm just a little afraid, because… this is usually the part where things go wrong. They see it and they change their mind."

"I'm sure I've seen worse," you soothed, "just let me get a look at it, alright?"

He nodded a little as he reached for the waistband again, and finally pulled the fabric down.

You tried to keep a poker face when you saw his cock, but it was the exact opposite of what you'd expected based on his nervousness. That said, you understood now why girls changed their mind when they saw it. It was an absolute beast, easily one of-- if not the-- biggest you'd encountered in all your work. It made the rest of him look a little more lean by comparison… and it wasn't even fully hard.

"It's… it's not too big, is it?"

"No, it's… I can handle it," you said with mostly-authentic confidence, but you figured your face showed your hesitation.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"Let's not worry about that now. We need to get you at full mast first anyway."

"Am I gonna be alone in my nudity here?"

"If you want me to get undressed, sweetheart, all you have to do is ask."

"If only it were always so simple," he laughed, but then his face got more serious. "Um, can you stand up, please?”

You did as he said, and looked to him for your next command.

“Um, take off your heels,” he proposed, and you did. “Could you… please take off your blouse?" You nodded and unbuttoned it revealing the slip underneath. "And… and your skirt, please." You shimmied it off as well, and let the slip fall away without making him ask for it.

“You have a great body,” he praised. “Turn around,” he demanded, but then added a softer “please.”

You did as he asked, facing the opposite wall and feeling the heat of his stare on your back.

“Wow,” he breathed, “you’re… you look great.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” you smiled, turning to face him again. “Come over here,” you requested, curling your finger. He obeyed, stepping towards you until his body was just inches from yours, his eyes scanning your face.

You wrapped your hand around his length, feeling it get a little harder in your grip.

"Oh," he sighed shakily.

"Anybody ever touched you here before?"

"N-no, ma'am. I mean, through my clothes, once or twice, but never like this… oh, your hands are so soft."

You hummed in encouragement as you stroked him a little more firmly, watching his face as his eyes fluttered shut.

“Can-- can I touch you?”

“Of course,” you cooed, and felt his arms wrap around you before trailing up your sides. He looked down at you again.

“You have… really nice breasts,” he said in a low voice.

“Thank you,” you smiled. “You can feel them, you know.”

“I know,” he nodded, “I’m, uh, working up to that.”

You giggled a little and felt his hands move in more.

He kissed you suddenly and you reciprocated; his lips were unexpectedly soft, yet his kiss was more demanding than the rest of him had been so far. It caused arousal to tingle between your legs, something you hadn’t felt from a kiss in quite some time.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he pulled back, “I should’ve asked first…”

“Don’t worry so much,” you scolded, “I’ll stop you if I’m upset, I can take care of myself. And a kiss is the least of my concerns.”

“But sometimes it’s against the rules.”

“I don’t have any rules,” you shrugged.

“That seems dangerous,” he shuddered.

“It’s gone alright for me so far-- and I have a weapon in case it goes sideways.”

“Where?!” he asked with wide eyes.

“Hmm, if I told you that, it would defeat the purpose, darling.”

“True,” he relented. “But, you do trust me, right?”

“As best I can,” you replied coolly. “I don’t know you very well.”

“Would you like to get to know me better?”

You grinned. “Very much so.”

His hands finally trailed up to your breasts, delicately cradling them as he took in a deep breath. His thumbs traced over your nipples and you jumped a bit at the jolt of sensation.

“Is this alright?” he asked gently.

“Yes,” you nodded. “Do you like the way I’m stroking your cock?”

He seemed a bit uncomfortable with that language, and swallowed before answering. “Y-yes, I do.”

“Why don’t you have a seat in that chair, sweetheart?”

“What… what’s gonna happen there?” he asked as if he really didn’t know. Did he really not know?

“I’m just going to show you something,” you dismissed. He took the seat, looking up at you from it with an adorable nervousness in his eyes. You followed him and dropped to your knees, pushing his legs apart a little as you leaned in.

“Oh,” he sighed.

“So you do know what’s going to happen here,” you smiled.

“I… have a few ideas,” he admitted.

You wrapped your hand around him again and his grip on one of the arms of the chair tightened. “Why don’t you ask me nicely, soldier?”

“We both know what’s gonna happen,” he protested.

“Yeah, but I’d rather you say it.”

“Alright,” he relented. “Please, uh, put… put it in your mouth.”

You would’ve preferred he used the correct term instead of ‘it’, but you saw the look on his face and decided to show a little mercy. Holding his erection firm, you leaned down and licked the head lightly before taking it between your lips. He gasped a little, a hand instantly wrapping around your arm. You weren’t sure if he wanted you to stop, but figured he would say something if he did, so you just got to work, using a spit-slicked hand to cover the (significant) portion of him that your mouth couldn’t reach. The other hand started a path up his thigh before cupping his balls.

Soon you were in a simple pace of bobbing your head, opening your throat, twisting your hand… that part felt like a routine, but the way he gasped and moaned and squirmed underneath you made it feel new.

“Oh, oh god,” he whimpered, his hand sliding up your shoulder to wrap around the back of your neck. “Please slow down, please, before I-- I don't want to, in your mouth, oh please please stop I--"

"It's alright," you soothed, pulling off of him. "You don't have to finish yet. The session doesn't end when you come, though."

“It doesn’t?”

“You paid for the hour.”

“Well, what’s the difference?”

"You're 18,” you recalled, “I bet you can go twice in a row can't you?"

"Sometimes I can, when I'm really…" he trailed off.

"Are you really?"

"Yes," he nodded feverishly. "Very, very really."

"So, how's about I don't stop this time, and you finish in my mouth first?"

"That's an option?!"

"Did you not know people did that?"

He blushed a little. "I didn't think girls would let you…"

"Most girls won't. Hopefully you can appreciate that I am not like most girls."

"Yeah," he chuckled, "I can."

You started back again, a little more lackadaisical in your pace this time, focusing now on licking for a moment, looking up at him all the while. The way he looked back at you would make you think you’d hung the moon or something.

He hesitantly weaved his hand into your hair, but pulled away.

“It’s okay to grab it, sweetie.”

“I wouldn’t want to mess up your curls,” he explained.

“If my curls are intact at the end of this, you did something wrong,” you laughed.

“Oh… okay.”

“Do whatever feels right, honey. You can pull me around with it. Or just let me get to work. But don’t be embarrassed.”

“Yes ma’am,” he nodded.

You took him into your mouth again, applying more pressure with your tongue this time, and forcing yourself not to smile when you felt his hand on the back of your head, not pushing you down but just stroking your hair.

“I’m not gonna take very long,” he admitted with a low voice. “It won’t be much longer, oh god, you’re so good… it feels really, really good.”

You doubled your efforts, gripping him a little tighter, taking him a little deeper into your throat; he responded by bucking his hips up into your throat.

“Oh god, oh my god, oh my fucking god,” he moaned, “fuck, I’m gonna-- oh god-- can I? I’m so close, oh fuck.”

You did your best to nod although you weren’t sure he could feel it. You couldn’t believe he was still asking permission, having come this far.

“Yes, yes, yes, like that, oh god, fuck, I-- yes!”

He yelped, and the hand in your hair tightened as you felt his cock flexing and pulsing in your mouth. You hummed and looked up at him, only to find him staring at you with the most erotic mixture of shock, longing, and pleasure on his face. His mouth was hung slack and he used your hair to pull you up a little, so he could look at you better as he filled your mouth with his seed. It was that perfect balance of sweet and filthy that made a surge of wetness gather at your opening. Honestly, you’d be surprised if it wasn’t running down your thigh at this point.

“Shit,” he laughed a little, sounding exhausted, “that was… you look so good with my cock in your mouth.”

His hand relaxed and you slowly pulled off of him, adding some pressure to make sure you had every last drop on your tongue. He shivered, and smiled.

"Can… can I see it?" he asked.

You leaned back a little and opened your mouth, letting his spend pool on your tongue.

"Oh… wow," he said softly, his hand running over your cheek. "Are you… gonna spit it out?"

You closed your lips and swallowed it, and he gasped a little. "No," you answered with a smirk, "but I am gonna rinse my mouth out now if you don't mind."

"Not at all," he nodded, and you stood up, grabbing a crystal glass and taking it to your sink to fill with water. "It doesn't taste too bad, does it?"

"No, I don't mind the taste," you answered, "it's mainly for your comfort. A lot of guys don't like to taste it later on if they wanna kiss."

As you brought the glass to your lips, you felt a hand on your shoulder and you turned to see him standing behind you, looking at you with a familiar expression-- want.

"Let me taste myself on you," he requested. "I want to taste what you've done to me."

You set the glass aside and let him pull you into him, kissing him back as his tongue instantly began to slide against yours. He hummed into you, his hand sliding up to tangle in your hair, the other tightening at your waist.

You let yourself really fall into it, really think that this was a real kiss, just a guy and a dame on a date, irrelevant to what you had just done and that you were both naked and that you were going to do it all again at 6:30, and 7:30, and 9:00.

When he pulled back, and traced his thumb over your cheek, you were the one that had to stop yourself from leaning in and kissing him again.

“Can we get on the bed?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah, that seems like a good idea.”

You started to pull back so you could get on with the whole ‘walk to the bed’ plan, but then he suddenly scooped you up into his arms and you yelped in surprise.

Of course, it was just a walk across the room, but you let your head fall onto his shoulder anyways.

He dropped you rather unceremoniously on the mattress, but before you could complain he was climbing on top of you, caging your head in with his hands.

“You are beautiful,” he announced suddenly. “Why do you do this? You seem like you could find a husband real easy.”

“You’d think,” you smirked.

“Do to a guy what you just did back there,” he laughed, motioning his head back towards the chair, “and I’m sure he’d be breaking out a ring in no time.”

“Well, I just did it to you,” you recalled, “so where’s my diamond?”

“I meant a guy who wasn’t about to ship out to some godforsaken European village,” he explained.

“Yeah, not many of those left.”

He sat back and ran his hands over your legs. “You’ve got great legs.”

“Want me to open ‘em?”

“Of course I do, but I’m trying to be a gentleman about it.”

You laughed. “Let go of that dream.”

“Alright,” he nodded. “Open your legs, then.”

You bit your lip in response to the more dominant tone, and did it. You felt pretty exposed with him staring at you like that, but you were used to the feeling.

He reached out with two fingers and slid them along the trail of arousal inside your thighs.

“So wet,” he observed.

“Mmhmm,” you agreed.

“Is it always like this? Or is it just for me?”

“I prefer not to talk about my other clients during an appointment,” you frowned.

He leaned down, hovering over you again, with a serious look on his face. His fingers moved up to slide between your folds; he breathed slowly as if to calm himself.

“I won’t ask anything else, just tell me the truth,” he requested.

“It’s… been a while since I’ve reacted so strongly,” you admitted. “I hope that satisfies your curiosity.”

“I wanna taste it,” he whispered, “I wanna taste you.”

“Well, I’m not gonna stop you,” you smiled.

He leaned down to kiss you, softly, before beginning to trail down your body.

You closed your eyes, hoping to distract yourself from the sense of desperation growing in your gut, but he stopped. “Open your eyes,” he demanded. You did, and he continued only once you watched him kiss along your stomach, hips, thighs.

“Oh god, Bucky, just get on with it, please,” you begged.

“All you had to do was ask,” he grinned.

Shit, where had this guy come from? Amazing what one blowjob’ll do to a man’s attitude.

He licked a stripe right through your folds and you gasped. He did it again, this time putting enough pressure on your clit to make your leg twitch. He took note and repeated the movement, before finally wrapping his lips around it and sucking. You felt your back arch and you had to break the eye contact before you hurt yourself.

He stopped for a moment to speak. "Is this good? Am I doing it right?"

This Bucky was more familiar, and made your heart clench a little bit.

"Yes, sweetheart, you're doing great."

"Are you gonna come?"

You laughed a bit. "Well, that'll take a little while…"

"That's okay. I wanna make you come. I've got time. We've got time, don't we? There's 40 minutes left in the hour. Is that enough?"

You were taken aback by his desire to pleasure you. "Um, yes, I think I can manage to come in the next 40 minutes."

He got back to work suddenly, and you laced your hands into his hair. He moaned a bit against your skin as he licked and sucked urgently. You could’ve stood for a bit more a build-up but you certainly didn’t mind him cutting to the chase, either.

He hit the perfect spot and you involuntarily pulled him into you; he seemed to get the message, gasping for breath against you as he lapped at your clit incessantly.

He stopped only to spin his tongue in circles around it and sparks of energy lit up your skin until the hairs on the back of your neck were standing up.

"Oh, oh god," you moaned, "I'm gonna… you're going to make me come."

"Really?!" he exclaimed, voice muffled with your sex in his mouth.

"Yes, oh god, yes, just keep going."

It was a slow but sure build as you felt your body tensing up, your toes curling and your fingers unintentionally pulling his hair. He didn’t seem to mind, though he did encourage you as much as he could.

"Please come, please come, come for me," he whimpered.

“Bucky, I will, fuck, I’m gonna come.”

“Do it,” he begged, “oh god, I want you to.”

And your own moans mixed in with his as you started to rub your hips against his face, all of it culminating in a shock of pleasure as you came, your whole body feeling like a rubber band pulled until it finally snapped.

“Fuck!” you yelped as you reached the peak, loud enough to worry someone outside would hear.

He kept going until you had to pull him off of you, mustering all your strength to sit up and kiss him again. It was messy and wet with your come and you didn’t mean to moan against him but you did, and his hands felt so strong and rough in the most perfect way as they pressed against your back.

“Did you come?” he asked as he pulled back. You nodded. “Really? Oh my god,” he laughed. “I can’t believe I just made this amazing woman make those amazing noises.”

“I can very much believe it,” you replied. “You’ve got a talent, Barnes.”

“Probably not one that the Army can use, right?” he laughed.

“Let’s hope not.”

He laid you back down, kissing you one more time before sitting up and observing the way his cock cast a shadow over your opening.

You waited for a moment, but got a little nervous when he didn’t move.

“Is everything alright?” you asked.

"Yeah, it’s just… it's very peculiar," he breathed, “to have a beautiful woman lying naked underneath me… waiting for me."

It's very peculiar for a man to make me wait this long, you thought to yourself.

"All I have to do now is-- is push in," he added like he barely believed it.

"Mmhmm," you agreed.

"Do… do you want me to?"

"Yes, Bucky, I do," you answered, hoping that your slight impatience didn't show through. “Do you want to be inside me?"

"God, yes," he sighed.

"Then what's stopping you?"

"It's… it's a lot," he explained, and though you couldn't tell if he meant physically or mentally, your response was the same either way.

"Look at me, sweetheart," you encouraged, and he did. "Do whatever you want to do, that's what I'm here for. But as a woman, as the person underneath you right now… please put your cock in me."

He let out a shaky breath as you said that, and reached down to guide his head towards your entrance.

“Just, not all at once,” he said, somewhat to himself. “A little at a time.”

“Sure,” you nodded.

He pressed forward, just barely, and you hissed at the stretch even when it was just such a small piece. You could tell this was going to be an interesting ordeal already.

"Ohhhhhhh my god," he gasped, his voice getting shaky and a little higher-pitched. "Oh, my head is inside you, oh my god," he rushed as he looked down to where your bodies were joined, "oh fuck…"

"How does it feel?" you asked sweetly.

"Warm, so warm it’s almost hot. And-- and slippery… really wet, and smooth, and did I mention it's warm?"

"Yes, you did."

"'Cause it's so warm oh my god."

You laughed a little, but then he moved in a bit more and you had no choice but to moan. You forced your body to relax, but even then he was a lot to take. The edge of pain was more enjoyable than you cared to admit, and you felt yourself get even wetter, as if you weren’t already soaked.

“It’s-- it’s tight. You’re tight, fuck, so tight around me,” he groaned.

He pushed forward a bit more and your hand shot out to his thigh instinctively, holding him back.

"Does it hurt?" he asked with the sweetest tone of concern to his voice.

"A little," you admitted. "Just… take it slow, alright? There's no rush."

"Okay."

After a deep breath, you nodded for him to move forward again and both of you made an almost pained noise, for slightly different reasons.

"Stop," you winced.

"What did I do wrong?"

"No, baby, you're fine, I just need a little more time."

"Okay," he nodded, but you saw the desperation on his face.

"You're so good," you soothed, "you're doing so well, I can't wait to feel all of you."

"Fuck," he groaned, "don't… don't talk like that."

"Why not?"

"I don't want this to be over too soon."

"Give me a little more," you instructed, and he did, both of you moaning as your head fell back.

"Oh, baby," he praised. "Can I call you 'baby'?"

"Yes," you laughed, "you can call me anything."

"Please let me fuck you," he sighed, "please let me fuck you, please please please I need to be all the way in--"

"Go ahead," you nodded, and finally he pushed the rest of himself inside you, burying his cock to the hilt.

"Oh," he gasped, "oh, oh my god, fuck."

You hissed in a breath through your teeth, feeling your back arch somewhat without your input. He leaned down and wrapped his arms around you, his face burrowing into the curve of your neck.

“Can we just… stay like this? For a minute?” he asked weakly.

“Yes, of course,” you nodded, running your fingers down his back until he shivered under your touch.

After a few moments passed with only the sound of your collective breathing filling the room, you felt his hips shifting a little.

“It’s okay to move,” you whispered, “I want you to. I want you to fuck me.”

He pulled back just barely before moving in again, setting a slow and intimate pace. Each stroke was a little deeper than the last, and pulled another shaky breath from both of you.

“Oh my god, yes,” he hissed, pulling you closer.

“Bucky,” you moaned, sort of just to hear his name again, and he smiled, leaning down to kiss your neck. It felt wonderful, but you needed more, so you guided him to your lips by his hair; he kissed you, deep and hungry and needy, as he started to move faster.

"Oh god," he moaned, still so close to you that his lips brushed with yours as he spoke, "oh my god, baby, it feels so good, you feel so good."

“You too,” you nodded, “you feel good too.”

“I wanna fuck you so hard,” he admitted with a whimper.

“Do it,” you challenged, “I can take it. I want it.”

And just like that, his hips were slamming into you, fast and desperate. You nearly screamed as you felt him fill you more than you thought was possible, and more than anything it was, simply put, intense.

“Oh fuck, Bucky!” you yelped, wrapping your legs around his hips. He gasped, baring his teeth a little.

“You like that?” he asked, his voice so raw it was nearly a growl.

“Yes,” you nodded, “fuck me harder.”

He laughed a little, and bit your lip lightly as he obeyed, holding your hips down to pump into you faster, deeper, and so hard you knew you would feel it tomorrow.

“Oh, fuck, yes,” you sobbed, accidentally digging your fingernails into his shoulders.

Pleasure surged through you as his cock somehow managed to apply pressure in all the right places, and you could barely believe that you were already tumbling down into another orgasm.

“I wanna come inside you,” he hissed, his lips right against your ear, his hands pulling you onto him by your hips. “I wanna feel my come inside you.”

“Please,” you whimpered, “I want it. Oh my god, I want it.” You weren’t sure which of you was more shocked by that statement.

"Are you gonna come? I'm so close. I want you to come with me. Please, baby, I wanna make you come,” he gasped.

If his cock inside you wasn't enough, which it was, his words certainly pushed you over the edge. His innocence and desperation were understandably endearing but also shockingly hot. You didn't often feel very special in this line of work, but something about this felt special.

“Yes, I’m gonna come,” you promised, “just don’t stop.”

A series of increasingly-louder moans poured from his lips, and finally it culminated in a gasp of your name as he spilled inside you, burying himself as deep as he could.

It was the way he said it that sent you spiraling into pleasure, and you felt your entire body tighten and release a few times as you wrapped your arms around his shoulders.

The first thing you perceived as you came down from your high was that you were gross and sweaty; the second thing you perceived was that you didn’t care as much as you thought you would.

“Thank you,” he murmured sleepily.

“Don’t thank me, darlin’, I’m not doing you any favors,” you chuckled.

“You liked it though, right? It was good for you?” he asked nervously, sitting up a little to look down at you.

“Certainly,” you smiled. “I thought that was obvious.”

“I was worried you would fake it,” he admitted, “but then you, uh, you tightened around me and… if that’s fake, consider me fooled.”

“Not fake,” you assured, “I’ve no interest in fooling you anyhow.”

He hummed a little, running a finger across the side of your face. “Maybe, but I’m a fool for you regardless.”

You scoffed, looking away. “Don’t go falling in love with me, soldier. Not gonna do either of us any good.”

“Alright, I won’t,” he smiled, “but maybe I could see you again?”

“As long as the money’s coming, honey, you can visit as often as you like.”

“You got a loyalty program? Punch card?”

You shoved his shoulder as you laughed. You didn’t think you’d ever laughed this much with a client before. “No, I don’t.”

He fell down beside you, and pulled you closer until you felt like your entire body was wrapped in his arms. “Can I just hold you until the hour’s up?”

“Of course,” you smiled, melting into his warm embrace. “My next appointment isn’t until 6:30. You can stay until then, if you’d like. But I’ll have to get up at some point to shower and fix my hair.”

“I won’t overstay my welcome,” he decided, and you felt oddly disappointed.

“You’re always welcome here.”

“Provided I’ve got the money?”

“Of course,” you agreed.

“And once I ship out? Could I… write to you?”

“Write?! I’m sure you’ll have better things to do than be pen pals with a Long Island hooker.”

“And you’ll probably be too busy,” he added with a hint of sadness gracing his tone.

“Gimme a call when you get back,” you offered instead, “how’s that sound?”

“You’re assuming I’ll get back in one piece.”

“Eh, I don’t mind if you’ve got a few pieces missing,” you smirked. “Just, keep this one intact for me,” you grinned as you gripped him between his legs.

“I’ll certainly do my best,” he laughed. “Rather fond of it myself.”

You did see him again, and he was the client you lied to the least, and the one you looked forward to the most. Mainly because he was so fun to talk to, but certainly not unrelated to the quality of the sex. He did get cockier over time, even going so far once as to make you say that he was the only one who could make you come like that. And even if it was true, you knew it was a really bad idea to be panting “only you” over and over during sex with a client. You figured he thought it was a lie, and you decided to convince yourself it was too. The conversations were the best, and worst, part of seeing him. Afterwards he’d always stay for the full hour, lie next to you and tell you about other girls he’d met, how knowing you had made it all easier, and you were genuinely happy for him even if an unfamiliar tinge of jealousy knocked on your brain.

And you did also get some letters from him after he deployed, like he promised, for quite some time. Those hurt even more than those pillow talk conversations, because he got a lot more sentimental, and a lot more honest. He asked you to send a picture that he could keep for morale; he talked about how a part of him was always gonna love you.

It was never the part he made decisions with, though, and you stopped replying when it got too hard to keep doing what you did because you could only think of him. You told him in your last letter that you weren’t interested in falling for a client at all, let alone one who was surely gonna get blown up-- and you really regretted saying that, but it got the point across and he stopped writing. If only you’d known then that it wouldn’t make your work any easier, and that it wouldn’t make you get over him. The last time you saw him was on a newsreel at the cinema-- you nearly threw up when you saw him, covered in dirt and blood, that innocent look entirely gone from his eyes.

“Is that your soldier?” the woman sitting next to you asked quietly when she saw your eyes get watery.

“No,” you answered softly, and you hated yourself for ever thinking that it made a fucking difference, as if this would be any worse if you could honestly say ‘yes,’ as if you could choose not to be attached just because you’d told him to get lost. You really hoped that he was somebody’s soldier, that somebody was gonna be there for him when he got back.

You had no way of knowing that he didn’t get back. And it was probably better that way. In your mind, James Barnes got a happy ending, the white picket fence and wife and family that he deserved. And at least he got it somewhere, right?

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes smut #winter soldier x reader #winter soldier smut #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x y/n #winter soldier fanfiction #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan smut #sebastian stan x y/n

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vydante · 3 years

Text

Restart | END | Avengers x Male! Reader

I am discontinuing my Restart series because I've simply lost creative juices for it. That's it, no elaborate or other reason. Anyways, I didn't want to just end it on the last chapter, and as someone who loves to overshare (especially if it's unsolicited), I thought some might like to see what drafts I had in plan, going chapter by chapter.

It goes up to Ch. 20 with additional bonus chapters, and chapters where I wasn't sure where they were going to be placed in the timeline.

If you have any comments, let me know! I'd love to read them :)

Here goes! Warning: very long, since the formatting is weird! The reader will be referred to as (Name) and "you", as in the story.

Right after Ch. 12 (Circumvention), are 2 special chapters (High Caliber Bullet) & (America's Sweethearts).

(High Caliber Bullet)'s basic plot was that Barnes, now # amount of weeks since the last chapter, has gained some freedoms and can now go out and about with either (Name) or DAHLIA for supervision (via his phone, and through the cameras everywhere).

In this particular chapter, he basically goes out for a typical grocery run with DAHLIA "accompanying" him, since before, he remembers (Name) telling him that "I won't always be there with you". But something bad happens! Wooo! (Maybe an attempted robbery, I didn't have the details sorted out yet.)

Either way, DAHLIA loses contact with him, and she tries to contact you ASAP, but it takes a little while since your dumbass was asleep the whole time! Wow! The suit had to manually power on and shake you awake.

Anyways, the only thing I had "written down" after that was that, after a failed search attempt for James, you go back home and are greeted with a surprise... "Kabedon"? Or, you're pinned to the walls by James... Or, rather, the Winter Soldier!

You're not sure what's going on, only that, "Wow, Barnes is acting weird. Why is he suddenly Russian? Wh- Okay, wow, he's suddenly gotten a lot closer. Now, wait a fuckin' minute-!"

Either way, you and James make a discovery of a second personality living inside his body- the Soldier! Or Winter, I'm still unsure which I would have gone for. If you're familiar with certain WinterIron tropes, this is one of them. Anyways, that's the end of that chapter, or what I had written so far, anyway.

This chapter is really important to the canon of Restart since it establishes Soldier, but it didn't fit into my initial plans of 10 chapters an arc, so. That's why it's a "special" chapter.

The next "special" chapter after that was (America's Sweethearts). I had written 2 "chunks" of text for this chapter. The main plot is, basically, you and Steve spent a platonic (promise!) Valentine's Day together. Hence the title. Cute, right? This was referenced in Ch. 9 (Revelation) during Future! Steve's reminiscing.

Anyways, below the next text is what I had written for that chapter. It will be in normal text.

No other thoughts on that, so let's move on.

"You live like this?"

In his defense, Steve's apartment wasn't messy in the slightest. In fact, it was the other way around- everything was too clean, too pristine, too detached. The only saving grace he's getting from standing in the middle of his apartment is the fact that compared to the chilly Brooklyn weather, it was almost obnoxiously warm in his apartment.

Not only did he have the heater going on, but he had another separate, portable heater blasting hot air in the corner.

(Sometimes, and only sometimes, Steve will stand in front of the heater and slowly spin around like a rotisserie chicken. The heat feels good, in his defense.)

The heat was something that you, thankfully, didn't comment on as you shed your jacket and slung it around the coat hanger near the door. You're wearing an over-sized tee- Thor's tee, he absentmindedly notes- and some sweats, both like and unlike the (Name) he often sees.

(It's not uncommon for Steve to glance at a newspaper or TV still shot and see you with your hair slicked back and dressed head to toe in a suit so expensive he's confident it costs at least a few years' worths of a typical New Yorker's rent.

Neither is uncommon to see you on the front cover of Men's Magazine, wearing a simple tee that shouldn't look that good on you but still does and posing confidently for the camera.

But despite all that, all of the clearly flattering outfits you could possibly wear at the tips of your fingers, often Steve will see you wear a disparagingly obnoxious, dirty shirt, and an old pair of sweats as your go-to outfit.)

(No, he will never admit that he really likes seeing you like that. Even with the mysterious smudged substance often found on the bottom of your sweats, as if you had swing danced in mud and crude oil.)

Regardless, while he often questions your private life fashion choices (and this is coming from a man who willingly wears khakis), he at least knows why you're wearing what you are, given the fact that he's also dressed in an overused tee and some joggers.

"What's wrong with my apartment? Not up to par with your penthouse standards?" Steve jests.

"Steve. Please." You threw him an unimpressed glare, much to Steve's never-ending amusement.

You glanced back to the inside of the apartment and squinted at it with what Steve could only describe as a rich man's scrutinizing gaze, before shrugging nonchalantly. You strolled into his apartment with a confidence Steve can still never get used to, one that reminds him so much of Tony's, and even Howard on his bad days.

(He understands why Tony doesn't like it when he brings Howard up, as he belatedly realizes that Howard didn't die the same man he knew him as, but he never understood why you've suddenly gotten bitter about Howard as well.)

He follows you into the hallway, and if it weren't for the fact that this was his apartment, he would've looked like a lost puppy following its new owner.

His apartment's not really that big, so it doesn't take long before you've both reached the living room. A simple TV, simple couch, simple table. Nothing really exciting in his living room, but it serves its purposes, in Steve's opinion.

(This is the end of that chunk. Next is where I picked up in writing. Short time skip, they both fall asleep and now Steve's waking up.)

It was the change in the smell that woke him up.

It's always the scent of fresh linen that greeted him early in the morning, something that's become so attuned to his everyday life. So when, instead, popcorn and sweets drifts his way, for a brief second his heart rate jumps.

'What?', his mind asks as he opens his eyes, bleary but cautious.

'Oh,' his mind responds back at him when his eyes drift down to your sleeping form laying splayed right on top of him, body glued to his side. You're mainly hogging the blanket, but he doesn't really mind as he runs hot 24/7.

'Oh', his mind repeats softly, as something deep unfurls from his stomach and rises to his throat, clenching up and unable to say anything as his eyes fixate themselves on your steady breathing. Your lips are too close to his neck, each breath too warm, even for him. His skin burns where it meets yours, and absently he thinks, 'this is nice'.

'Yeah,' he lifts his hand to brush away a strand of hair away from your eyes, 'This is nice.'

Steve blearily throws a glance at the clock on his nightstand. 4 more minutes until he'd typically wake up and start his day with a morning jog.

'No,' his body protests.

'Okay,' his mind agrees without a fight.

He carefully reaches over and presses the silence button on his alarm. Above him, a breathy exhale escapes your lips at the sudden movement, and if possible, you curl closer to him than you were before. He pauses, unsure if you're going to wake up or not, but relax when he realizes that you're still in a deep slumber.

(Another break. Next sentence was supposed to be the final sentence of the chapter.)

In the end, neither of you commented about how Steve had missed his daily morning run as his limbs were straddled in between yours.

Ch. 13 (Upheaval) and 14 (Airlocked) are short in terms of drafting, so I'll combine them into one section here. Ch. 13 (Upheaval) was about taking down SHIELDRA in a better manner than the mess that was CA:TWS. And (Name) also forces Steve and Natasha to fess up immediately about Tony's parent's murderer. ((Name) threatens them.)

As for Ch. 14 (Airlocked), it's pretty much a filler chapter of sorts. (Name) graduates, there's now an official class-action lawsuit against Ross, also now keeping an eye on Baron Zemo, and we see some progression on Barne's therapy session. Not much, but some.

I really was not looking forward to these two chapters, as I knew they were gonna be boring as hell.

Ch. 15 (Spiralling) has actual written chunks. It's basically about the early prevention of Ultron. The Avengers go to a Sokovian HYDRA base, take out baddies, and the Super Twins get captured first- wow! But not before Wanda does... something to (Name), causing you to hallucinate and lose contact with the team- uh oh!

But don't worry! You get run over by a car. Lol. Below is what I had written for it, sans minor text.

A/N: In Ch. 7 (Summer), there was a 'dream-sequence' that happened where (Name) was on Titan with Tony, Peter, Stephen, and the GOTG. I've now decided that in canon, (Name) was not on Titan- instead, you were on Earth instead during IW helping at Wakanda. Just a brief plot-hole wrap-up; let's imply that (Name) had watched video footage of the fight at Titan via Tony's suit afterward, and that's where the nightmare came from. Okay bye.

(VERY abrupt start into the story, not meant to be the start of the chapter in the final draft, just where I wanted to start writing. Intro to Wanda.)

You jerked your head, catching a glimpse of brunette hair in the corner of your eyes. You swung your gauntlet instinctively and made instant contact with whatever was next to you. Flutters of red wisps followed your eyes, and you instantly knew what just happened as a body dropped next to you.

You grunted and leaned onto the nearest wall, watching the girl's limp body with caution. Your shoulder plate lifted, and a tranquilizing dart connected to her thigh.

Just in case.

"Guys, I- I've been- ugh..." You wanted to vomit, the pounding in your head worsening with each millisecond that passes. Already, your surroundings distort you with each blink, walls melting and the floor sinking in on itself. "I've been- com-," you swallowed back your bile, "-compromised... Sending- location... Ergh..."

You didn't even have enough time to hear a response before the whole world around you shifted. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to calm your thundering heartbeat. The pounding got worse as the armor around you dissipated into nothing but the under-suit you were wearing. Before, where there were the shouting and gunshots, is now replaced with an eerie silence filled with just your laborious breathing.

You didn't know the full extent of what visions you were about to see, but you needed to remember that none of this is real. Scientifically, that was your only safe haven from possibly losing your mind for what's about to come. And it was worse because you had no idea what visions you'd see. Would you see Thanos? The Chitauri, just like your father once had? Or would it be something more close to home; the bunker? Tony's dead body, splayed with vomit around him, frostbitten to the touch and still like a marbled statue?

Ready to go up and arms at whatever it was you're about to see, you cautiously opened your eyes.

(Line break, there's meant to be an "oh shit" line, like "Only, you were met with eyes far too similar to yours." but I still didn't know what I wanted to do for the hallucination sequence. Maybe meeting an older you, a younger you, or your dream life without the Avengers or meta-humans.)

(Below is an abrupt shift in the story; same general setting, but outside POV! What I had was dialogue only, alternating between people in bold, as a POV switch.)

(Name) "Guys, I- I've been- ugh... I've been- com-compromised... Sending- location... Ergh..."

(Steve) "Apex, do you copy? (Name)!"

(Steve) "Shit, (Name) isn't answering! Tony!"

(Tony) "Got his location, he's inside the base. J.A.R.V.I.S., what's his status?"

(J.A.R.V.I.S.) "I'm sorry, Sir, but it appears that I am not in contact with his suit."

(Tony) "Wha- the hell do you mean you're not in contact?!"

(J.A.R.V.I.S.) "I cannot connect to his suit; it appears that Young Sir has somehow deprogrammed me from his suit."

(Tony) "Wha-!"

(J.A.R.V.I.S.) "However, it seems as if there is an A.I. present nonetheless. Though..."

(J.A.R.V.I.S.) "I do not recognize the code. Would you like me to attempt at forming a mode of communication?"

(Tony) "Yeah, just- God, make sure (Name)'s okay, please."

(J.A.R.V.I.S.) "On it."

(J.A.R.V.I.S.) "Establishing a connection."

(DAHLIA) "Mister Stark?"

(Tony) "Wha- I'm sorry- who are you?"

(DAHLIA), ignoring Tony, "An enhanced got to (Name). The operative is down, but (Name)'s experiencing hallucinations. I can't get through to him- you need to get to him, now. I fear he may hurt himself more than he already has."

(DAHLIA) "And if I may be privy to a request?"

(Tony) "What?"

(DAHLIA) "Don't bring Rogers." (I don't remember why I wrote this bit.)

(Steve) "Any updates on (Name)?"

(Tony) "Yep, and by the looks of it," there was a loud boom coming from the base, and as Tony looked up to see an all too familiar suit fly out of the building. Or, rather, flying was an interesting way to put it- it was more of a free-falling more than anything else.

(Steve) "What was that?"

(Tony) "That was (Name), and he's not havin' a great time I'll tell you that."

His voice was light and joking, but he'd be lying if he didn't say that his heart wasn't in his throat by the sight of you flying out of the building and falling back into the forests.

(Line break, another POV switch)

Steve sprinted towards the loud boom, movements quick and calculated, but mind racing a thousand miles an hour. He saw a red and gold glint fly up above him, zipping in and out between trees gracefully.

(Line break, but no switch, same place. Another story POV shift, sort of. Steve makes contact with (Name), or so he thinks.)

"(Name)? Hey, do you copy?"

The suit was eerily silent, glowing eyes that once gave comfort to the soldier now bringing nothing but an awful, gripping dread; one that he'd get when there were Nazi soldiers nearby, but he couldn't tell where even with his enhanced senses. The suit gave away nothing that usually screamed out everything that was you- no head swaying, no restless and constantly shifting feet, only a stillness that looked so unnatural. Almost as if there was no one in there.

"(Name)?"

There was no response from you.

The hairs on Steve's neck stood up, everything in his system suddenly screaming to get out of there, run, leave, get away from the suit, but he ignored it as he took a cautious step forward.

Again, you didn't seem to react.

Then, the suit took a step forward.

Then another one.

And another one.

"(Name)-"

Before he could say anything more, the suit lunged forward. Only for a moment could Steve react, but even he wasn't as fast as you could be when you're in the suit. He raised his shield, ready to be shot at, but only the sound of harsh metal on metal makes it to his ears. By the sounds of it, it sounded like Tony had managed to land a direct hit on you, from wherever position he was at. Cautiously, Steve lowers his shield to look.

But instead of the familiar red and gold suit of armor greeting him, it's the sight of two (color) suits wrestling on the ground with each other that manages to sucker-punch all air from his lungs.

(Basically, you went bat shit insane and got out of the older suit, then prematurely activating the nano suit instead, in a fit of panicked hallucination. The older suit, now operating by DAHLIA, was trying to protect Steve from being ambushed by (Name), and now they're wrestling.)

(Another big break, but I think I had a hallucination sequence from (Name)'s POV planned here. Not sure what I was gonna do here since I planned this like, maybe in 2018, early 2019. It's... 2021 now...)

"-(Name)!"

Your eyes widened as the world around you suddenly shifts out of existence, and instead, you're outside in the dim, snowy alps once again. Someone called out to you, you don't know who, but there's a light in the corner of your eyes that's so goddamn bright. You turn your head in the direction of the light, and amidst all of the yelling and gunshots, DAHLIA's cool, chilling voice rings the loudest in your ear.

"Aborting protoc-"

And then the world turned black.

Ch. 16 (Enflamed) also has written text. Basically, you're recovering from being caught slipping by a car, the team is now aware of certain secrets you've been keeping behind their backs, and you realize that you have to get back to Barnes to let him know you're okay.

This chapter was meant to be focused on the twins, but I guess I forgot that as I was "writing" it. Basically, the gist was that their parent's deaths weren't by officially licensed Stark tech (maybe even a counterfeit since Stark weapons are the best, and don't malfunction as it did in WandaVision ep. 8). Maybe HYDRA was the one that did it in order to recruit more people. Or something like that. Basically, Tony wasn't the one who authorized those weapons to be sold and used there, but it was Stane. Either way, they get their own healthy moment to mourn and lament over it all.

Here's the text below. Italics for a dream sequence, since you were unconscious/ in a coma from being bOnked on by a car.

"Hey, sweetheart."

You smile, turning around to face the voice only to be greeted with lips on yours. You chuckle, amused that this was the first thing you'd be greeted with, but lean into the kiss anyways as you wrapped your fingers around their cheek.

They pull back first, but their eyes are warm as they smile, lingering in the space between the two of you. Where their hands laid on your hips, your skin burned bright hot, but you paid no mind to it.

(There's supposed to be more, maybe foreshadowing, but I stopped here in terms of the dream sequence. Jump cut to another POV, but you're waking up!)

(Name) "Hnng..."

(Steve) "Stay down! You're in no condition to move at all, just- just rest, okay? The doctors- and- your dad are coming."

(Steve) "How're you feeling? You want some water?"

You tried to turn your head to look at the blonde but hissed suddenly.

(Name) "S'nnof'a' b'ch..." (Son of a bitch.)

Steve helped you settle back onto your pillow- which even he'll admit doesn't look like the most comfortable setting in the world.

"Language, (Name)..."

He reprimanded, but there's no heat in his words as he's just so thankful that you're even capable of forming any words, no matter how profane they may be.

Beside him, Clint laughs a bit too loud for comfort. Steve wants to tell him to be quiet, as he's sure you're sensitive to noise right now, but God he can't blame the archer for his overwhelming relief.

Lord knows Clint wasn't the only one to stress over their youngest Avenger.

"First words after a damn coma, and it's 'son of a bitch'! I told you he's a fighter!"

"Of course he is, he's a Stark after all."

All eyes turn to see the billionaire and assassin walk into the room. They look clean and pristine as always, but by the slight sheen of sweat on both of them, Steve knew they rushed here as soon as word spread that you were awake.

(Natasha) "Tooting your own horn a little much there?"

Natasha's smile betrays her words as she looks fondly from the senior Stark to the junior. Even the ironclad wall she has up 24/7 has a soft spot for the team's junior member.

(Especially for the junior member, but you didn't hear that from Steve.)

(Tony) "It's both of our horns, excuse you."

Tony turns his attention to you and places a gentle hand on your shoulder.

"You sure took a hit back there, champ."

"Mmm... 'm feel like a... Nn... A damn Make A W'sh kid...", (Mm, am feeling like a damn Make A Wish kid...) your eyes, though blown out from still being drugged up, wandered across each Avenger. You frowned, then smirked- well, as best as you could, anyways.

"Where's th' Hul'k? T'or?" (Where's the Hulk? Thor? (As a joke, since usually the whole gang visits, but they're missing))

"Relax junior, you're not that special. We can only afford so many Avengers to visit you."

Despite his harsh words, Tony places a kiss right on your forehead. Your eyes flutter closed, lashes delicately batting as Tony leans away.

(Big block of nothing, there were supposed to be more text here, more dialogue or something. Same setting!)

(Tony) "So. We need to talk about what happened back there. Y'know. The brand-smackin' new A.I. that's in your suit- she's been awfully quiet. Oh, and the- lord, the thing's a work of art- the- what is it? Nanite suit? That's in a collar- a collar? I mean, I'm not one to judge questionable fashion statements, but-"

(Steve, or someone else) "Tony."

(Tony) "Right- but, we are going to talk about all that, okay?"

"L'ter, ple's? Am tir'd..." (Later, please? Am tired.)

"An' b'sides, chok'r's fun..." (And besides, chokers are fun.)

(Line break, basically, you remember you have a certain Winter Soldier that's been sitting at home without any word from you.)

’Oh fuck.’

(Big line break, basically, you get discharged from the hospital, and now you visit the safehouse Barnes is in to check up on him.)

It was eerily quiet when you opened the door to the safe house. You limped into the door, thankful that the ride on the way back, there were no paparazzi to see you leave at all. (Really, Happy should get a raise.) Lord knows how much of a rile that'll get out of the news media.

'Avengers' Golden Boy: Fatally Injured?' or something dumb like that.

You'd love to roll your eyes, but the tension that's coiling up in your gut surpasses the want as you slowly step into the house. It's warm, more so than the slow brewing chill that's been tempering outside. James never liked the cold, but even so, the house was warmer than you remembered. His shoes are still near the doorway, in the exact place that you remembered it to be, so he definitely hasn't gone anywhere.

(Though, the alerts that were on your phone from DAHLIA definitely show that he wanted to.)

For a brief moment, you were concerned that there wasn't enough food; but even then, DAHLIA would still be up, so she could place an online order to refill the fridge at a moment's notice, so it's not like James (even with his super-soldiered appetite) would starve himself here.

You quietly slipped out of your shoes, slowly as to not incur another cramp in your back, and stepped into the hallway barefooted. You glance into each room you pass by, but not a single sign of the soldier was anywhere to be found.

You stopped when you stood in front of one specific lounge room; yours and James' favorite lounge room.

Lurking into the room, you glanced around.

The room looked exactly like how it did days before when you were still conscious. There are a few mugs strewn about. Most empty, conjoined in one area of the table (James' area), but there's one that's filled with your favorite drink. A drink that you don't remember making for yourself.

And it's placed right in front of your favorite chair, too. Something squeezes at your heartstrings as you couldn't help but smile fondly.

It's gone cold, you absently note as you dip a finger into it. Wiping your finger on your pants, you grabbed it and the rest of the empty cups, making a note to place them into the dishwasher when you make it into the kitchen.

"James?"

You called out, but only your voice echoed back. The cups quietly rattled with each step, and it's not long before you make it into the kitchen. It, too, looks the same, but there's a thin layer of dust only a clean freak would notice. The sink is empty and clear of any beads of water. Unused for a little bit, you concluded.

Yeesh.

You placed all of the cups into the dishwasher, which was also dry and empty as well. Sighing, you turned on the machine and jumped out of your skin when you felt a pair of built arms wrap themselves around you tightly.

It only takes a split second for you to realize that, no, this is not some ax murderer that's about to choke the life out of you, it's just James.

James who, apparently, is holding you flush against his chest, fingers curling themselves against your bandaged abdomen. You held back a wince of pain, careful not to make your breathing waver, as James nuzzle his whole head against the crook of your neck.

(Honestly, for someone named the Winter Soldier, he sure is warm because whew, boy-)

"Ja-"

"I thought you were gone."

His name is caught in your throat as James' voice- gritty, deep, unused- rumbles into your skin. You freeze, unsure of what to say to that as you shuddered, suddenly breathless as he mouths at your neck. Your ears turn bright red as he takes that moment to speak up, not once letting up on his fingers ghosting a trail on each muscle on your abdomen.

"You were gone. One second you were in my arms, and the next... The next, DAHLIA's tellin' me you're in a damn coma."

You winced, not sure how to respond to both what he said or the growl that accompanied it. You looked up at the camera that was in a nearby corner and threw it a withering glance, feeling slightly betrayed by DAHLIA for telling James that.

Thankfully (or probably not), James isn't really looking for a response as he continues on.

"Моя звездная пыль (My stardust)," Russian slips out, bringing a chill up your spine as bits of Winter spills out from James' fingertips, "The witch got to you, didn't she?"

Goosebumps raised on your skin, and to your silence, James snarled. You can barely feel his teeth graze on your nape, and you really don't know if you should feel embarrassed or something else.

And wow, okay, maybe you should tell James to ease up on the "hug", because holy shit, his grip's getting tighter and it's starting to actually hurt.

(Ah, he might tear the stitches.)

"HYDRA сукa...! Я убью ее...!" (HYDRA bitch...! I'll kill her...!)

You huffed, still red in the face as he hasn't even nudged away from letting you go. You patted his forearm, signaling for him to loosen up his grip, and to his credit, he does. Barely, but it was still something.

"I dunno what ya' just said in Russian, but I know what Hydra сукa means. No cussing in Russian, only in English."

He mumbles something incoherent into your shoulder, rubbing circles into your stomach with a tantalizingly slow speed. You coughed; in literally any other situation this would be one of the hottest things you've ever experienced, but considering that James was more Winter than James right now, and your stomach is literally burning in pain from the rubbing, you opted to ignore the fact that you really liked that James was this close and spoke up.

"Not to alarm you or anything, but uh, if you keep rubbing my stomach like that," your breath hitched, the pain starting to become a little too much, "I'm gonna pass out from the pain," you said, with clenched teeth.

(End of what I had written down. Anyways, not sure where I was gonna go from here.)

Ch. 17-20 are relatively short in terms of what I had written down.

Ch. 17 (Reconditioning) has 3 things typed down:

integrating the twins, thoughts of integrating bucky

supreme distrust between you and the twins

meanwhile maybe thoughts from twins abt you? you're around their age

3rd bullet introduces the idea that they might be love interests. Maybe. Shrugs. That chapter would be heavier on the character developments of the twins, both as their own persons and their relationship with you, specifically. They don't like you because you're Tony's son, still some bitter feelings there, and you don't like them because... Well... there's just a lot of bad feelings. They helped kill J.A.R.V.I.S. in your original timeline. Wanda basically fucked off with Vision. She antagonized Tony. (And there is a hypocrisy there since I would've written you to have done the same thing there. (Name) isn't perfect.)

You just didn't get along with Pietro since, back when he wasn't dead, you were immature and not yet accustomed to dealing with people who're purposefully frustrating/ teasing/ mocking/ etc. Nothing really personal with him, it's Wanda that you had beef with. But you'll get over it one day.

Ch. 18 (Longstanding) is shorter.

you and james have a talk, and after a year or two being solitary, you agree that he should be in the avengers

he joins the avengers

That's it, that's the chapter.

Ch. 19 (Accountability) deals with newer Accords (not a Sokovian one! Just from the proposed need for accountability).

It goes better around this time, as basically all of the Avengers agree to it, with their own caveats of course. Steve especially, but of course, he's willing to work with the governments about it this time around. Also, Peter Parker gets introduced, in accordance with the "underaged enhanced/ superheroes" clause, or some bull like that.

Ch. 20 (Wakanda) is basically the intro to CA:CW but like, civilized. No bombing since Zemo still has his family. Introduces Wakanda, and T'Challa as a potential love interest. If you're interested in IronPanther, I highly recommend reading the IronPanther Collection by Okyverlo on AO3. It's great and got me a lot of interest in T'Challa as a love interest.

As for official chapters with the plot, that's about it. I wasn't sure what to do afterward.

There were some loose ideas I had about what would happen to (Name). Maybe the truth is revealed, that you're actually from the future, and Dr. Strange separates past and future you into two separate bodies. Future! you into your original future body, and past! you into the current body. Past! you still have the same memories and thoughts that future! you had, but with less angst. Future! you is noticeably more depressed and just a bummer. Lol.

And after that, 2023! you would go back to the future where you belonged, and Past! you would stay in the present since, duh, that's still Past! you's original timeline. It's a little confusing when I type it down haha.

I was thinking maybe 2023! you would pair up with Steve since you realized how burdensome it is to continue to resent someone. Now you understood what Tony meant.

And Past! you would definitely pair up with James, but maybe Steve too. A nice lil' polygamous relationship.

Now here's the other, non-official chapters.

2 What If's, and 3 Specials, in the order they're listed at the moment.

What If (2013 Counterpart) plays with an initial idea I had, where Past! (Name) was actually sent into the future into 2023! (Name)'s body during the prologue. Not sure where I was gonna go with this chapter, but I really wanted to mess with that possibility, and show just how immature and teenager-y Past! you were.

What If (Swapped Places) plays with the idea that you and Tony, in the original timeline, had swapped places. You were on Titan with Spiderman, Dr. Strange, and the GOTG, while Tony was on Earth with everyone else. That's all I had planned. Maybe you actually won and managed to get the gauntlet off of Thanos when you realized that Peter Quill was about to go crazy over his ex's death, and you knocked him down in time.

Special (Find My Body, Only At The Oak Tree), deals with you and your depression over the reality that you might have to relive the blip again, and aside from the Avengers, you really don't have anyone else and nothing's worth really living for at this point. I actually have a lot written for this one. Not sure if I wanted this to be canon.

Trigger warning: suicidal tendencies.

(Below is the general idea I had for the plot.)

(names) birthdays across the years so far

we see slow mental deterioration of (name) as he aches

we see as we reach closer and closer to the deadline, (name) dreads even thinking about thanos and wants to die before even looking at him, a symbol of their failure

lowkey highkey suicidal

___

The first time you celebrated your 17th birthday was in 2014.

The second time you celebrated your 17th birthday was also in 2014... Obviously.

The first time you celebrated your 17th birthday, the whole tower was flooded with people who you knew and people who you couldn't care to know. It was filled with what little was left of your friend group outside of the Avengers; it was also filled with the rich, the pompous, the irritating of New York.

You got into a yelling match with your dad that night, over something you couldn't even bother to remember, and stormed off into your room, fuming as the party still went on without their birthday boy present.

(It's always like that as if you're replaceable. Surely, you must be; the Avengers can and will, if need be, exist without you.)

The second time you celebrated your 17th birthday, you told your dad you wanted it to be small and personal. Only the Avengers were there, as a few days ago did you spend a pre-birthday celebration with some of your high school 'friends' (which only mainly consisted of playing Smash Bros Brawl in your room and eating an ungodly amount of junk food as you fake laughed along with their shitty jokes.) (Steve promptly made you burn those calories off in training.).

(What Steve doesn't know is that you purposefully ate that much to train with him; otherwise, you had the whole day off the next day.

You didn't want to be alone.)

It was sweet as everyone gave their gifts to you (which you already knew what it was, but said nothing of it), and as everyone got drunk off of the expensive liquor or Asgardian mead, you quietly snuck out of the building and back into the safe house where James was waiting for you.

(He waits, but how much of it is because he has no other choice?

It is not like that, you keep reminding yourself.

Who is to say, other than you?

James never says anything of it, and you start to wonder if he feels as if he has no choice.

As if he feels like he's been made another prisoner, once again.

At what point, what is separating the distinction between you and HYDRA, in his mind?

You're not too keen on finding out the answer anytime soon.)

The whole way there, you thought of nothing in particular.

You quietly celebrated with him too, shared a few slices of cake he made just for you before you quietly said goodnight to him. He kissed you on the cheek, said a simple goodnight, and slipped away into his own bedroom.

Meanwhile, you spent the rest of the night drinking too much alcohol, alone, in the dark of your room, staring at nothing in particular, thinking about nothing in particular.

The next morning, you jokingly wished you had just died last night as you're bent over the toilet emptying your stomach contents.

___

The first time you celebrated your 18th birthday, you spent it outside in another country with your friends.

The second time you celebrated your 18th birthday party, you rented out a bumper kart arena with the Avengers.

The first time you celebrated your 18th birthday, you tried desperately to hang onto the remaining friends you had outside of the Avengers, a chance to feel normal for once. You practically went hiking across Europe and into Asia over the week of your birthday, and by God did you visit so many places. From the Louvre to the casinos in New Deli, you trekked everywhere with your friends and acted as a cash pig for their endeavors under the guise of celebrating your birthday. Least to say, you always got 'accidentally' blackout drunk on multiple occasions, oblivious to their actions.

Later you found out and cut them off instantly without another word. They didn't seem to notice that you stopped talking to them.

It hurt.

Pointless of you to try to maintain that friendship.

So on your next 18th birthday, having long forgone those friendships ages ago, you suggested going bumper karting with the Avengers. Bruce operated as the 'coach' of sorts, but he seemed to have enjoyed it as well.

It was fun, obviously.

It went on for a few hours, as you all had made up mini-games to play along with as they got bored of chasing after each other aimlessly for half an hour. A few games had you pairing up with some of the Avengers; the other had them actually using their skills to try to maim each other.

(Wanda at one point lifted everyone into the air as Pietro zoomed through the rink; though, he did slip and slam into the wall. Everyone laughed, but it was interrupted as Wanda promptly dropped everyone out of shock.

Everyone was too busy in their own shock as well to notice your labored breathes, wild crazed eyes, or how you clawed viciously at your throat at the sight of Wanda's red wisps. Your fingers were tinted a sick vermilion.

Thankfully, the arena was relatively dim, so no one could tell what just happened.)

It was fun. Everyone didn't hold their shoves back, and when things riled up, it turned into who would break a bone first. No one did, but everyone was definitely sore afterward. Of course, the enhanced ones didn't limp as much, but it made your limp nothing out of the ordinary.

(You tried your most damn not to just collapse completely, both exhaustion and pain threatening to snap your spine into little bits and pieces.

You jokingly wished it did.)

Thankfully, during the whole ordeal, no one noticed how you didn't avoid obvious hits, instead opting to just get harshly jostled in your kart and neck snapped haphazardly to the side at the sudden jolt. Or how you 'accidentally' keep forgetting to put on your seat belt or keep your fingers inside the kart.

Or at least, if they noticed, no one said anything as you limped around the tower the next day, bruises marred everywhere on your skin, a sheen of sweat blanketed on your skin throughout the whole day.

___

The first time you celebrated your 19th birthday, you were too swamped with both college and SI to actually... Celebrate.

You didn't even realize it was your birthday. No one did, actually; it took one of your professors to comment on how your name was trending on Twitter to actually get you to realize what the day was.

But even that didn't change your schedule, and as you moved on with your day, so did Twitter and the Avengers.

You never got to celebrate your 19th birthday, too swamped with other things to care.

The second time you celebrated your 19th birthday, you had too much free time in the world.

It ended up being just like your 17th. The Avengers had a little get-together (they remembered this time; what made it so different?) and all of them got drunk wildly off their asses. Once again, you slipped away from the main lounge, and stalked silently, blank-faced, towards a balcony.

You adjusted your collar appropriately and stood there. You stared outside into the bustling busy streets of New York, the city that never sleeps.

(Strange, that it's named that when often times it's the quietest whenever you're there to see it.)

You spend maybe 10 minutes standing there, staring into the oblivion that is New York.

And then, you climbed onto the railings.

Standing there, there was no rush of adrenaline that coursed its way through your veins, nor was there any fear or dread.

Only an overwhelming and crippling exhaustion that made waves through your body. No longer are you in your 19-year-old body, but your 27th. No longer are you in your younger, former self; one that shone brightly above the others, aspiring as both a heroic figure and one that would help pave the way towards a better, peaceful world.

No, instead, your soul feels like it's settled deep into your bones, an aching tire that keeps rocking and rattling at your already fractured, beaten down body, laughing at how pathetic you look.

(You're so tired.

You just wanted to live normally.

You never can, you eventually come to realize on your first 24th birthday.

That thought, now fully realized, would come to permeate it's way deep into your bones.)

All you wanted to do was to just take one step forward, off of the railing that you're so delicately balanced upon, and dive into air headfirst.

Really, all it takes is just one step.

And truly, you've never felt more at peace as your body dropped from the railings, descended quickly towards the streets below you.

What should've been a quick few seconds of a dive felt like an eternity drowning in a bottomless pool. The lights of New York flashed and beamed at you, but it changed rapidly from one to another. Your throat closes, shuttering, and you want so desperately to start screaming.

Only, no one would hear them.

The winds would carry away your screams, rushing a sound of its own that would overpower yours.

You wonder, absently, was this similar to what Rhodey felt that day?

Well.

You'd never really find out, now, will you?

Too late to ask.

(There's no way to get back home.

You can never see Morgan again- the Morgan that called you her big Care Bear, the Morgan that cried and threw a temper tantrum because you forgot to give her a goodnight kiss.

You can never see mom and dad again- while they're still here, it's just not the same. You'll never get to see the same Pepper who was so relieved just to see you alive after the Battle of Wakanda, even if you were practically on your death bed. You'll never get to see the same Tony who you spent hours crying into the shoulder of after the Blip.

You can never see the same Steve, Natasha, Rhodey, anyone, ever again.

Years spent just trying to be better, to help the world, to mend and build any relationships you could, gone.

And even if they weren't?

There's just no way to get back home anymore. Not back to the person you used to be.)

The next day, you got an earful from your parents when photos of your falling body appear all over the internet. All the meanwhile, you're not really listening to them, just staring right back at them.

Odd.

('When did you start looking at me with contempt?', you'd ask one day.

Tony just stares at you, then out the window. In his hand, he's holding a cup of coffee; in yours, water. You've since stopped drinking anything remotely sugary, caffeinated, or alcoholic, though you've never told anyone why.

'When did you start mistaking concern with contempt.', he responded, though it was more of a statement rather than a question.

You stared at him, then followed his gaze out the window.

Neither of you says anything, even as the hours go by in the blink of an eye.)

(That's all I had written down so far. Not sure where I wanted to go with this afterwards.)

Special (Vapidity, Testament To Absence) deals with future DAHLIA realizing what it means to mourn someone.

The house is empty.

It is an irrelevant thought, DAHLIA notes.

Technically speaking, the house has been empty quite often than not; after all, you were a busy man with an equally busy schedule. Being the CEO of SI and a huge contributing factor to the world's rebuilding made it more or less impossible for you to stay at home for long. Though, she also doesn't linger long in the house, either. But she's still there regardless, even if she's also with you on the other side of the planet for diplomatic reasons.

She knows of the emptiness inside this house; it was never an unfamiliar concept.

But with this emptiness, she's never once associated loneliness with it either.

It's a bit better when Virginia occasionally comes around to the house to do some maintenance. She might even bring along little Morgan with her.

("You keep saying she's a pest, but I know I sure as hell ain't the one that keeps shifting the TV to the kids' channels when she's around," you comment, not even taking your eyes off of the pan. DAHLIA says nothing towards your accusations, instead opting to tell you that you're burning your eggs.

You aren't, but she says nothing amidst your panic.)

A few others occasionally visit, too, much to DAHLIA's internal disapproval.

Rogers used to visit every day ever since she first noted the emptiness. His behavior was also peculiar. He'd prowl around the house, pausing here and there at random parts of the house. He'd often just... Stand there, seemingly looking at nothing for a long period, before jolting back and continue what he was doing. She's thankful that he hasn't noted her silence when he's around.

Often Banner would come along too, and he'd be talking quietly with Rogers. As of recently, they've stopped visiting though. Probably because of the recent news (that (Name) might still be alive, just lost in time), DAHLIA almost bitterly notes.

James ("Just call him Rhodey- literally no one calls him James nowadays." you laugh, eyes crinkling with amusement) visits too. He doesn't linger for long, but he makes sure to check up on DAHLIA, help tend to the flowers... She'd even dare say she wishes he'd visit more often.

Peter also visits here and there as well. He often comes with Morgan and Virginia, but there have been a few occasions where he's come here by himself. He'd spend most of his time in the garden, your favorite place. And when he's alone, she'd given him privacy out of respect, but even at a long distance, she can hear him talking by himself. He'd come back eyes red and swollen, but he's always smiling afterward.

A few others have visited too, but not as often as the others. Though, none of that really helps negate the emptiness she feels as she wordlessly navigates through a routine she devoted herself to after your disappearance.

And the final chapter, Special (Chemically Compromised) is basically a fluff filler with (Name) chaperoning Peter's field trip, inspired by an Instagram post.

Written in bits and pieces, unfinished. Not sure if I wanted it to be romantic (the name implies it in a nerdy way) or just a fun, platonic, "dude you're literally embarrassing me" way.

(Peter) "I can't believe you're doing this...!"

(Name) "What? What's wrong with this?"

Pan to (Name) dressing like he's a Typical, Normal Civilian Man, but it's clearly (Name) Stark, son of Tony Stark, and an Avenger.

(Peter) "I don't need you to chaperone my field trip...! May could've done this-"

(Name) "No, she really couldn't, sweetheart. She's got a busy shift, and even told me that no one else's parents was free."

(Name) "Listen- this really could have gone worse if, say, Tony, knew. God knows Tony would've dropped everythin' and just embarrass ya- he did that shit to me every chance he got," Peter winces, almost forgetting that Tony was still your dad, and a chill ran up his spine as he imagined what it would have been like for you.

(Peter) "But still..."

(Name) "Don't worry, I'll just wear a cap and sunglasses."

(Peter) "That can't possibly work."

(Name) "You'd be surprised- Sam's standin' down there, right near that phone booth."

Peter's head snapped over to where you were pointing at, and indeed, right on the floors of the Manhattan streets, there was a relatively built black guy that's wearing a cap, sunglasses, and a brown leather jacket. Peter tilted his head.

He hasn't been around Sam all that much, but he still knows what the Avenger looked like. But even then, he wasn't sure if that man was actually Sam. He's built right, but Peter can't see much of his hair or eyes. Plus, he's kind of far away.

He squinted at the man, before glancing back at you, now unsure of himself.

(Peter) "That's really the Falcon?"

You stared at him, before snorting.

(Name) "Nah, I'm joshin' ya, that's just some random guy...", you glance at the man, sniffing, "... Probably."

That's... pretty much it. That's all I had for Restart, as far as writing goes.

Now here are some closing thoughts, just to wrap all of this up nice and tight, sort of.

I'm not really happy with how the initial chapters were paced and how they were written. My writing style has mildly changed, and if I had the motivation to, I'd love to rewrite them. But alas, I don't.

I think about this story often; or at least, variations of it. It's like when you daydream, and you restart it but to the left. But unfortunately, writing a plot without too many plot holes while remaining as canonically correct as possible, and making it interesting without being a complete word-by-word remake of the movies, is difficult.

I'm not sure if I would ever pick up this story again, especially since this whole chapter told you what I had in store anyways.

Thank you to those who took the time out of their day to write nice and encouraging comments about this story. It's unfortunate it had to end this way, but I'm glad it happened anyways. And hopefully, it's the same for you.

And remember: the one thing writers love to do is talk about their story! If you have any other comments, questions, or just general thoughts about the story, I'd love to discuss it further!

Anyways. If you're reading this now, thanks for sticking with Restart for as long as you did.

_____

Masterlist

_____

I know I had people on the tagged list, but it’s a bit hard to get them all as URL’s change, so I opted not to. Sorry!

#male reader #avengers x male reader #steve rogers x male reader #bucky barnes x male reader #avengers #reader insert #avengers x reader #restart

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shnuggletea · 4 years

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More of the AWARD WINNING FANFICTION! Wooo I don't see myself getting tired of that. Thank you all for voting, reading, reviewing, and just being amazing people in general. Cause even if all you did was read, you still made my day. I write to share and to have you guys come back and say "we love what you're doing there" really makes me want to keep on. My ego is going to get so big guys, I'm not even kidding. Thank you @feudalconnection for hosting and to everyone that took the time to read, nominate, and vote!

Many of you expressed... interest in some loving between the lovely couple. This chapter has my response to that! Get ready for some heat!

Fanfiction HERE

AO3 HERE

Chapter Eleven

"So Kagome, how are things?"

Maten sat across from her, next to Inuyasha who had graced them with his presence for this meal. A rare occurrence and now Maten and his brother sat with them as well. Their table was getting so full.

"I'm fine. How are you? Your bones have healed nicely."

He chuckled and blushed slightly. Her eyes danced to Inuyasha just in time to catch him rolling his eyes. Hiten sat his elbows on the table and rubbed his hands together as if making up a master plan. "Have you been in the basement lately?"

She wasn't really sure what she was allowed to say about that, again glancing at Inuyasha who gave her a small shake of his head. "Yeah, a little."

"Naraku's going to be really gunning for you then. That prick, it's not like you have a choice." Maten growled.

"They still have you going into the basement? Why didn't you tell us, Kagome?"

Shippo's eyes were large and glistening as if saddened not to be in the loop. She quickly patted his head affectionately. "Oh, it's so… boring and gross down there. I didn't think it was a big deal."

The things one has to tell children to keep them appeased. Shippo smiled again and wagged his tail. It was so adorable, she couldn't stop herself from also giving him a fierce hug. Kagome just didn't understand why Inuyasha was frowning so deeply when she looked at him again. Miroku was grinning like the cat that got the canary. But that wasn't really anything new, he always had that face when Inuyasha was upset. A strange Ying-Yang the two of them were.

Miroku was still looking at Inuyasha out of the corner of his eye when he leaned his face onto his palm, his elbow resting on the table. "And Koga has left you alone as well, right? Since becoming my woman?"

Inuyasha cringed as did Maten. The two of them looked at one another for a silent moment but it was full of disdain as if sizing one another up. All of that was then turned onto Miroku, still grinning like a fool while two powerful demons glared down at him.

A distraction was needed big time. "So uh… do you guys celebrate Christmas in here?" That did it, all eyes on Kagome in shock before bursting into laughter. All except Shippo who, sadly, just looked confused. "A simple 'no' would suffice." She muttered.

"What's Chriksmas?"

They sobered at that, Shippo's small voice questioning made them all morose, Kagome the most. But then it made her determined, jumping up from her seat and pumping a fist up towards her chest. "I'm going to make Christmas come this year!"

"How? We all know you're 'magical' but unless you got a unicorn hidden up your ass…" Inuyasha started but then stopped and she realized it was because he was now staring at her butt.

Hopping over her chair, she only stumbled a little bit. "I have my ways! Just you wait and see!"

Storming away, she didn't stop until she was standing before the Warden's office door. She hadn't really thought up of a plan at all but Shippo's confused voice kept playing over and over in her head. Christmas was meant to be spent with loved ones. Full of joy and presents and cake and fried chicken… okay so she seriously doubted she could get all those things but it was worth a try.

The guards in the hall had barely noticed her existence so when they suddenly shifted and tensed, she noticed, only to get grabbed hard by her bicep and dragged away from the door. Even without seeing his wild, white hair, she knew who it was. Cause no one else dared to mess with her lately or as much as Inuyasha did.

"Are you NUTS?! Leave it alone, Kagome!"

"Did you see Shippo's face?!"

He stopped now that they were out of earshot of the Warden's door and the few guards nearby. "Yes. It's the same look on all the younger one's faces when you mention things like Christmas, holidays in general, or birthdays. But it ain't worth whatever the Warden is gonna ask you for in return for some shitty decorations and bullshit gifts!"

Bowing her head, she knew he was right. "It's just… not right."

"There's a lot of shit in here that ain't right, Mate."

She giggled a little, even though she was still sad. "You know, we don't share a cell anymore. We aren't cellmates so I'm not your Mate."

"Aren't you?"

Confused, she pulled her eyes from his chiseled chest to his face, finding him completely serious. They were really close, when had they gotten so close? Had they been like this since he stopped dragging her? She hadn't even noticed or cared. Inuyasha's attention was the only attention she ever wanted but it was rare and fleeting. This was the first time they had been alone since he showed her his weakness almost a month ago.

She studied his eyes, watching the golden color of them as they burned like coals in a fire. And he studied hers, dancing, twitching left and right. It wasn't until the pad of his thumb brushed her cheekbone that her heart picked up its pace, galloping inside her chest. He glanced down, right at her heart, telling her he heard it. It didn't deter or stop him, his claws gently scratching her scalp as he dug his fingers into her hair. Wearing it up, as he suggested, he couldn't get very deep. It forced him to place his paw on top of her strands, seeming irritated about it until he began rubbing the shell of her ear with his thumb.

"You are so… " He started but then stopped. "Koga isn't bothering you anymore, is he?"

With his face an inch or so from hers and his warm breath covering her skin as he spoke, the question felt so strange. Given the reason Koga left her alone was thanks to Miroku stroking her ass daily. "Y… yyeah."

"Good." For some reason, that caused him to drop his touch and step away. "Then the plan is working."

He was a foot away when two demons turned onto the hall they had been sharing, looking over the shell shocked Kagome with little interest and continuing on their way. Inuyasha kept on, not looking back with his hands shoved in his pockets. But she swore she saw him shaking.

oOo

Inuyasha was right, she couldn't go to the Warden for something as silly as Christmas decorations. But she could make some gifts.

No one took note of the silly White as she carefully scoured the yard, the early, cold December air not keeping anyone from their time in the open. She was pretty sure Demons weren't bothered by things like temperature. Kagome had to keep moving or freeze to death, which helped with her cover as she looked for anything worthwhile around the yard, the infirmary, even the shitty 'crafts' room that had more cobwebs than a haunted house. She was pretty sure there were some ghosts inside it too.

The few that looked her way didn't seem to care or find it strange that the yard was littered with teeth. It had freaked her out at first but since no one showed any interest when she picked a few up, Kagome had to assume they were shed naturally or something. They weren't very large, not much longer than the Kanine from a human's mouth. Most showed how little dental hygiene was taken seriously, the teeth porous and decayed straight through in places. But being a demon tooth, they all had survived past some damage and were strong as well as pearly white.

Using the odd things she found around; teeth, beads, pretty rocks, and surgical thread, Kagome felt pretty good about her offerings. They weren't anything special but they were better than nothing!

The 'craft' room also had a few scraps of pretty paper she used to wrap her gifts as well as make a handful of paper cranes. Which gave her an idea.

There were far too many children in the place but she was able to gather them all up. One of the benefits of being 'the doctor' she knew all of them when she made them come for a check-up. A few were still angry for the shots she gave them but they needed to be immunized with the runes making them susceptible to disease. The ones that had been inside since before they could remember, or who had an adult to ask for them, got shots. None of them had a parent in here with them and shivered at the thought.

Luckily, there weren't too many otherwise Kagome wouldn't have gotten approval for the drugs. And she would have probably gone into a depressed spiral if there were a lot of children who had never seen the 'outside' before.

She didn't dare think about the ones that weren't lucky enough to make it into this prison, taken by Shikon instead.

Now, surrounded by blue, their eyes were rapt with fascination as she taught them how to make paper cranes. Bright colored paper that matched their bright hair or eyes or skin. One little girl had pretty dark pink skin with beautiful golden hair. The 'craft' room was nearly overflowing with origami paper and she had to assume they used to use it as some kind of therapy for the more violent inmates.

Even with a few funky, Kagome and the children made long strands of cranes that they ran around to hang anywhere they could. If they didn't get ripped down by a Guard or pissy Demon, then she hoped the decorations would stay up year-round.

They really brightened up the place.

Down to her last strand, she slowly approached Inuyasha's cell, everyone stuck inside thanks to the rain outside. He sat on his bed, as usual, book in his hands. She crept up but she knew he was aware of her, his ears flipping back and dipping to his skull. She had to assume he did that to try and hide the small twitch they did, which he failed, the tips dancing ever so slightly as she carefully made it to the open bars.

Taking her eyes off him for a second, she got up on her toes and tied the bright, rainbow-colored strand to the top of his cell bars, making sure to knot it tight for when the door closed later that night.

When she fell back to her heels, there was no shock that his eyes were on her. She had felt them go to her as soon as she tipped up on her toes. They were wide and quivering. "Merry Christmas, Inuyasha."

Amber orbs shot back to the cranes then pushed back to his book. He said nothing and again she wasn't shocked. Nor offended. In the last eight months, she had learned how Inuyasha worked. And she knew exactly how he felt when he said nothing.

He was happy. And that terrified him.

oOo

It was interesting, now that Kagura had a small bump, how the crowds parted for her. It was as if the other Demons were enamored, the life that grew inside Kagura more than just a baby demon. Kagome could see it in their eyes as Kagura passed.

The baby was treasured.

And not just by its parents, Sesshomaru never showed emotion except when around Kagura now. It melted Kagome's heart, watching as Sess protected Kagura from zero threats, sat her down, and either made her eat or comforted her in some manner. Today, it was to rub her shoulders, sitting her in his lap while the others gossiped around the picnic table.

Using her shirt, Kagome had all the gifts she's made tossed into the 'bowl' she created. It made the frigid air waft up her belly and ribs so she was trying to hurry, tossing the crudely wrapped presents to all those who sat at the table. Kagome was glad the creepy teenager had stopped hanging out with Kagura's group, she didn't make her a gift.

It was seconds later that Jakotsu, Kanna, Kagura, and even Sesshomaru were holding up the strands that held one demon tooth and a few pretty beads around it.

"Oooooooh no one has given me jewelry before! Does it usually look this… dull?" Jakotsu wined but Kagome expected that.

Sesshomaru ignored the noise, looked sternly up at her, but that was how he always looked. "This is truly an amazing gift. I'm surprised you could pull this off in here."

He didn't say any more, putting his on quickly and fixing Kagura's on. The other two looked confused but given Sesshomaru's eagerness, they followed suit.

Crossing the yard, she gave Miroku, Shippo, Maten, and Hiten theirs. She put three teeth on Shippos just in case. The rest of the Demons didn't give a care, not receiving a gift. Which was why she felt the fire on the back of her neck, glancing behind to find Koga glowering at her. He couldn't seriously think she would give him anything after all he did to her and her friends?

Inuyasha was nowhere in sight, a usual occurrence as of late, but she wasn't going to give him his gift in public anyway. She understood his angry distance but that didn't mean she wanted his cruelty when she handed him the gift she worked hard on for weeks. Even if it was faked.

He would be stopping by the infirmary in a couple of days anyway, new moon and all.

After they put them on, Kagome insisted they all put the necklace under their shirts. She didn't know who in here knew the significance but if anyone knew it could spell trouble. Sesshomaru already had his crew hide them but not take them off. So he clearly understood and knew the value. He was an old Demon, that much was obvious. Kagome had no clue how many were as old as him in the prison. Or if the Warden was knowledgeable.

More than a gift, her presents were worth the risk in her mind. Especially if they worked as she hoped they did.

oOo

The hot shower had made her finger burn, getting so cold outside from handing out her presents it was a wonder she didn't get frostbite. As much as she hated the idea, Kagome was pretty sure she'd have to wait until Spring before she could go outside again.

It was still a few days away from Christmas but she knew she was going to freeze, going around handing them out. Freetime was her only chance and with everyone still heading outside, she hadn't had a choice. So she timed it with her shower day, planning to warm up immediately after.

Only getting the luxury three times a week, Kagome shared the shower with many other demons. Kanna stood next to her and Kagura was on the other side. The two didn't take as long as she did tonight, enjoying the steaming water more than usual. It warmed her all the way down to her shaking bones.

"I'm exhausted," Kagura moaned, looking over at Kagome, "you okay if I head out first?"

Kagome had no fears. "Of course! I'll see you tomorrow."

A few moments later and Kanna shut off her stream and wrapped a towel around herself. "I'm off," was all the quiet girl said and it was more than usual.

A female guard stood ideal, bored, while the rest either wrapped a little white towel around themselves tight or just walked around nude. Kagome was the former, covering her body from even female eyes but also caging in the residual warmth of the water on her heated skin. A few laughed oddly as they passed her, dressed again and out the door. It was weird, she was completely alone. Even the guard had left already but Kagome wasn't the one they needed to guard. All those that were in need of watch had left already.

She opened her locker and blinked a few times. Then quickly opened the one next to it. And the next. And then next. But they were all empty.

Her clothes were gone.

No one had gone out in White scrubs, she would have noticed that. Someone took them and did something with them. What, she didn't know but in her freaked out haze, she started searching all over the showers and in the lockers. But her clothes or the clothes of anyone else weren't there.

All she had was her towel.

The keys to the infirmary had been in her pocket so they were also missing. As much as she trusted running around all the other demons in a towel, she trusted the guards even less. They would probably take her infirmary keys away for good. Or make her do something terrible to get them to unlock the door. All of her clothes were in there as well. Kagome was well and screwed.

There was really only one choice and she wasn't sure it was all that good. Going to the door, she took a deep breath and the handle in her hand. Then she pulled with all her might and darted out. Not stopping, not even to look at the guards, Kagome moved as fast as her human legs would take her. It didn't help that she was wet and on her bare feet, it made cutting corners difficult as she slipped around on the tile floor. All the warmth she had gained from her shower was wasted, the jail not that warm to begin with and now she was running through it with nothing to speak of on her body.

She passed Demons, all stopping short of what they were doing to look at her. They were shocked. So was she, but she didn't stop. Especially when a few turned from what they were doing and started to follow her. She took a quick and panicked glance behind herself to see a handful of men creeping behind her. With their speed, they could easily catch her, they were just enjoying the chase.

Skidding around the last corner, she pushed her lungs and legs to their limit, grabbing the bars of the cell to swing herself inside. Inuyasha jumped upright and then to his feet, his book falling to the floor. "What the fuck?!"

"Clothes….stolen….shower…..no keys….." She panted.

Kagome wasn't sure Inuyasha could understand or if he was even listening, his eyes glazed over as he stared up and down her body. He shook his head hard and then shuffled towards the cell door. "And you came here?"

"Where else...could I go….?"

"I don't know, Kanna? Kagura? One of your female friends?! Hell, even Jakostu would have been safer!"

She honestly hadn't even considered it. Partly because she didn't know where their cells were other than on the other side of the prison from the showers. But mostly because Inuyasha was the one she trusted most.

Kagome tried to think of a reply, planning on just being honest when the gaggle of men following her appeared at the door. Inuyasha was the only thing between them and her and Kagome suddenly regretted coming here. It put Inuyasha at great risk.

Standing tall, he didn't hesitate to face the crowd, holding his head up high. He only moved if one of them tried to look around him to her, shifting his weight to keep her blocked from sight as much as possible. She stood still, frozen with worry and fear for her 'Mate' as he stood up for her in a very public manner.

"We saw her first." One growled.

"Doesn't fucking matter, cause I got her first," Inuyasha growled back.

Kagome felt like meat, the first time truly understanding how precarious her well being was here. All it took was some missing clothes and she was up for grabs. It was sickening and terrifying all at once.

A different one chuckled, "Then you should hand her over when you're done."

"Sharing is caring," another one mocked.

Stepping back, Inuyasha grabbed his cell door and slammed it shut in an impressive show of strength. It wobbled a little from the abuse, even with the runes in place, Inuyasha made thick iron shudder from his strength.

The group got the message and backed up. But stayed in eyesight, watching. It made her skin crawl.

Inuyasha stepped up to her, towering over Kagome and she simply looked up. Maybe he expected her to back up or cower but she had absolutely no fear of him even as his eyes glowed red in the dim room. Without saying a word, he pulled off his shirt and handed it to her. Kagome tried to take it without fumbling but Inuyasha's naked chest was before her. So close she could feel the heat of his skin on her arms and cheeks.

And he definitely had the body to support his show of strength.

"Put that on and get in the bed." She nodded, carefully getting her arms and head in while dodging the tucked end of her towel when she pulled it over her torso. "Under the sheets and don't come out."

She had the wet towel off and on the floor when she tiptoed to the bed. Inuyasha growled and took deep breaths behind her before she ducked under the sheet as ordered. When she rolled over to look at him, his eyes were still red and on her. He soon turned and stood by the door instead.

Watching his back, she was happy his hair was up on top of his head because his taut muscles were rolling with tension. It made her warm all over. But not enough, the cold bleeding through the walls. Kagome was cold on a regular evening with all her clothes on. Tonight, she was freezing.

It wasn't long until her shivering body had Inuyasha's attention again. "Goddammit." He fussed before turning on his heel and climbing into the bed next to her. "Face the wall!"

She had been watching him, unable to take her eyes off of him. At his harsh tone, she turned and looked at the white-painted cinder blocks instead. As soon as she settled, Inuyasha's arms surrounded her. There was no control, her body so cold she snuggled as deep as possible into his hold.

The lights went out and she knew the rabble after her was long gone. Warm and relaxed, she took in her situation completely. Inuyasha had one arm under her head between the gap of her neck and the mattress. The other hand rested on her belly, splayed fingers making it cover her from her belly button to her ribs. And she was naked, nothing other than Inuyasha's shirt on her skin. The shirt that he never replaced with another, his bare arms and chest pressing into her. It had their arms skin against skin.

All that and she felt nothing but safe, cocooned in the only person she truly and deeply trusted enough to be like this with. And Kagome didn't just mean inside the prison. Inuyasha was easily the only man she trusted in the world.

But he was still tense and she could tell it was more than just the situation that had him upset. She was about to ask, wiggling a little to get more comfortable when he whispered hard in her ear. "Be still!"

Stopping any and all movements, he sighed heavily and dropped a little of his anger. It probably wasn't going to get any better than this. "I'm sorry, Inuyasha. I know I put you at risk…"

"You're damn right you did. Why the hell did you come here?!"

"Because I…" she hesitated, not sure how he would take what she felt but he had to know it already, "I trust you."

His hold tightened, pressing her harder into his hard body. "I'm still a man dammit." She was very aware of that fact, feeling his manhood press into her backside currently. A very large manhood at that. "Of all the crazy stunts… this has to be the most emasculating thing anyone has ever done to me. You trust me? Great. Do you even see me as a man or just a fucking demon? Cause either one could and wants to do very bad things to you right now and I'm struggling to keep from doing all of it."

A shiver ran up her spine and she was anything but cold. Not with his body pressed to hers and his so-called threats in her ear. "I do think of you as a man…" He scoffed, making her bounce so he then groaned. "I do! Just because I trust you doesn't change that fact…"

"You are naive and stupid, Wench. You shouldn't trust anyone this much!"

Looking down, her human eyes could just make out the shape of his hand as it rested on her stomach. The muscles flexed and jumped with the tiny movements he made, trying to control himself. This was why she trusted him because she knew he wouldn't do a damn thing to her. And even if he did….

"I came to you because I trust you but also… because anything you could do to me would be… wanted."

It took him a second, either out of shock or confusion, but soon the hand on her belly fisted, taking fabric in with it. His claws scratched but didn't break her skin, once again showing the amount of control he possessed.

His head fell to the back of hers hard, pushing and nuzzling at the same time as he cleared away her damp hair and pressed his lips heavily to the back of her neck. She grabbed his hand, squeezing it just as tight as it gripped his shirt on her. A small shift and he had a hand on her shoulder, wrapped around from under her neck, holding her still against him as he continued to layer her neck with kisses. Each was slow and thick, coating her skin with warm wetness. Kagome closed her eyes to it, her spine shaking along with her heart.

Inuyasha made his way back up her neck, his mouth pressing to her lobe and pushing out a hard shiver from her. "This isn't… this isn't what I want for you and me… for us."

She didn't understand but then she did. Releasing her hold on his hand, she waited for him to let her go in return. "I understand."

The hand on her shoulder squeezed hard. "Do you? This is fucked up. So fucked up Kagome! Meeting you like this? When we aren't terrified of one another, we're terrified of what will be done to us!"

"How else would we have ever found one another? I don't believe in fairy tales. I'm not some little girl looking for an asshole on a white horse. I can take care of myself in any situation and I never needed you, Inuyasha…."

"I know that…"

"But I want you." He was silent, and his grip was unchanging. "I want you… as a friend and as more… as someone dear to me. You're a good person, Inuyasha and you deserve more than this life."

Shifting so quickly, she was breathless when Kagome found herself on her back, Inuyasha holding himself over her and his glowing red orbs piercing her. "Why are you saying this?! What are you going to do?!"

She hadn't meant to give herself away but as the days to Kagura's due date slipped away, she was running out of options. Kagome would have no choice if Inuyasha found out beforehand, he would take any means necessary to stop her.

So she reached up, cupping his cheek and he leaned into it, closing his eyes tight. "Nothing. I just think you need to hear it."

He fell back beside her, pulling her in tight to his side again with a heavy sigh. "I should get a Sainthood after this or something."

"You get Sainted after death. How about Knighthood instead?"

He chuckled, pressed a kiss to her temple, and she used his arm and chest as her pillow for the rest of the night. Because, even though friends, it would likely be the only night they had like this ever.

#inuyasha #inuyasha fanfiction #inuyasha fandom #inuyasha x kagome #prison AU #sharing one bed #some heat #award winner #faulkner writing #shnuggletea

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

Text

Reviewcaps: Amphibia: Swamp and Sensibility / Wax Museum

This week Anne tries to treat life like a ABCFamily Original Movie with predictable results while Kermit the frog cameos and the rest of the family wonder into a few possible Jordan Peele Movies. Then Anne stumbles into a Gravity Falls Homage and Frog Stan nearly murders her because that’s our boy. That’s our boy right there. Be warb under the cut.

Wooo hoo! While this one’s a little wait both due to work on another review for a certain episode, this was a decent episode to cap off our long road trip. We’re now one week away from Marcy debuting and also Keith motherfucking David.

I have no idea what enlisted is or what the hell is going on here but it’s keith david casually laying on a bicyle in full uniform. How could I not?

Before we get to this week here’s last week’s recap, as tumblr ate it for reasons.. as you can also see if you click on my blog I tided up my subpages, so amphibia reviews can now be found in the general disney section along with ducktales and star vs. Now that’s out of the way our last episodes before marcy and keith, i’m a day behind, let’s a go.

Swamp and Sensiblility

I”m also going to try going a bit looser.. still recapping what happens but not beat for beat as it’s gotten tiring and I sometimes strain for jokes especially when tired. So this week The Plantars find themselves stranded in Ribbiton, the most expensive city in amphibia after betsy breaks her reigns and, not having any other options are forced to stay with Hop Pop trying to keep the kids from getting distracted by the luxury. Thankfully they find an old friend: It’s One Eyed Wally!

Actually got an outside gif to work! Also hooray! But I did really like wally after his spotlight episode last season and his insane plan with the explosives that wound up paying off.. that’s some Wolverine level thinking.. no really he once cut the wires open in a sewer during a rainstorm so when the water inevitibly hit them it’d cause a blackout and hopefully help the x-men when it did if things had gone sideways.. which by the time it did, it did and they had. So good on you guys. Anyways turns out Wally’s a rich boy but he’s gone too far because he know it don’t matter anyway.. and has been hiding his true self from his family, so the plantars showing up really dosen’t help. Thankfully he’s able tos top them from talking or correcting his father assuming their the help and our family takes lord rich asshole up on his offer to stay the night at their mansion, which in what I assume is a nod to gravity falls has peacocks on the lawn, though this being Amphibia their giant and deadly and you shouldn’t look right at them.

Once in their fancy guest room, Anne wonders...

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Wally explains, as I did he’s hiding himself. Anne sees parallels with a movie she was watching at the start of the episode from point to pop and lock which looks like my own personal hell.. aka an abc family original movie back before it became freeform, which is a more fitting name for what the network horrifcally mutated into over time so fair enough. It’s better than say keeping the names MTV or TLC long after either of those acronyms is at all accurate.. and at least with MTV they have almost 40 years of brand recognition to justify it with. But yeah it’s about a ballerina who wants to hip hop dance, you’ve seen the story a million time.. and a plot repeated here about a kid wanting to live their dreams but worrying their family won’t accept them or knowing they won’t, with wally, while not carrying for the money, not wanting to loose his family or his beloved bug... which reminds me of that Pokemon episode with James and his growlithe only without a carbon copy of jesse trying to use bdsm to make james obey which is not how that works Jessebelle. That’s not how any of that works. What.. what even was that episode.. I mean somehow it was really good and makes me question why Jesse and James never hooked up but still, what WAS that.

Anyways, while Anne decides to interfere, the Plantars get a great montage of wondering into various creepy shit with toad saunas, rich people smashing things, and one frog in a peacock outfit among actual peacocks.. just.. yeah.. real Jordan Peele/Blumhouse “Rich white people are fucking terrifying” shit.. which is accurate. Thankfully instead of getting trapped in their own bodies or forced to star in the boy, our heroes make it back to Anne. At dinner Anne outs wally as a frigging weirdo with predictable results. Yeah the one flaw I can find with this episode is it’s REALLY predictable up to this point: Anne watches a movie, is obviously going to encounter someone with similar problems, then tries using that movie as real life, it fails but then somehow workso ut in the end or dosen’t but the person is happy anyway. What does spice it up though is the final act, as Wally decides fuck it , he’s going to take control of his own life and issues a family challenge against his dad to do so, something Anne, and me honeslty, had forgotten about from last season as that was 30 years ago and one of the less memorable episodes. Still nice bit of continuity. But with wally lacking a mount because his dad’s a prick, Anne pitches in to fix her screw up and we get a decently shot sequence, and amontage, as Anne and Wally play rich polo against wally’s dad. Oh and of course the more notable part of this, Kermit the Frog here, if sadly the minty fresh matt vogel one instead of the sadly fired Steve Whitmire.. still not over that but oddly Vogel does a better job here than on muppets now as I genuinely could not tell it was him so it works. But yeah, it’s not Vogel doing a voice but Kermit DOING voicework for amphibia, because Muppets get wonderfully meta and Disney wanted to keep this gimmick going. yes going, as last year Fozzy did voice acting for Big City Greens... I fucking love this and hope disney keeps doing it for all their shows. Do Owl House next.

Anywho Kermit commentates and it’s okay, they don’t do much with him but the sheer novelty of Kermit playing a thinly veiled copy of himself that still looks like a muppet still kinda works. Anyways wally ends up winning via hair accordion (”How long has that been in there?” “At least a full season”) and his dad dosen’t want Wally to leave the family.. which neither does he, he just wants to be accepted, his father accepts him, reveals he also likes music, happy end. Final Thoughts: As you can tell I kinda breezed through this one but unlike other just okay episodes lately i’ts not half bad and while using a stock plot, it does use it cleverly, and to help flesh out a character we like.. it’s still very by thenumbers but the neat setting of the rich people mansion, the plantars journey through it’s creepy bowels and kermit the frog cameoing all really help boost what otherwise would’ve just be “the episdoe before the gravity falls homage” it still was but it was enjoyable enough. It’s just in a day where disney said gay rights and i’ts sister episode is again an homage to one of Disney’s greatst shows in it’s storied animated television history, it’s also easy to forget. If nothing else it was nice to have Wally back. I do think that helped. As you can probably also tell these road episodes have been wearing on me.. while their not BAD, and some are infact quite excellent, a few like this one, quarallers pass, and the acting and western episodes, are just.. eh. The character flaws they bring up are only one episode and they don’t really felsh out the charcters enough. Even here while it’s nice to get more dimension to wally i’ts not really by much. They just feel fairly stock in a show that while using some stock plots usually can do so creatively. I think that’s the core problem: it’s not that these are TERRIBLE it’s just I expect better form the show in a typical episode, and from the interesting setups the road brings, especially since it DOES deliver on them in other episodes and i’m kinda glad this stretch is finished next week. That being said it does go out on one hell of a note..

Wax Museum So after weeks of anticipation, our road trip ends on an episode that was hyped up before the season even began.. a weird move given this is week 5 and i’d of saved the interviews for closer like Disney does with ducktales, but regardless, this one was worth the wait. First my quick, since I tend to go overboard on my thoughts on shows, thoughts on Gravity Falls: It’s fucking excellent. I stand by calling it one of disney channels best shows and while certaint hings could’ve used more time, like Dipcifica seriously I have no idea why tease that and then do nothing with it when they still had plenty of time left int he series even with Ford. But yeah a few minor quibbles aside the series was really good, left us wanting more which after seeing other shows sputter into flames at the end, hello Star Vs, I can live with. So yeah I was hyped for this one, especially since Amphibia creator Matt Braley not only worked on Gravity Falls but got Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch’s blessing.. and of course, Alex being a peach of a guy, just yesterday he proudly cooed over the fact Dana Terrance actually got Disney to have a bisexual lead character after he struggled to get anything remotley LBGTQ into gravity falls. He’s a good guy. And a weirdo but he’s my kind of weirdo. But being so nice, he naturally agreed to return as stan expy the curator and frog soos. While that is all we get, I do get not wanting to shohorn 80 refrences to the show in or get a ton of voice actors to come back for a cameo, nor try and include the twins due to the plot of this episode really not working with them around, thougH I WOULD have appricated frog mcgucket, but eh, you can’t get everything you want. Said plot is again simple but really intresting: The Plantars stop in a small town and are dead broke, but Anne casually taking off her hood and being reminded she’s seen as a freak ends up as a lucrative buisness opprotunity as naturally small town yokels are fine with gawking. So with the plantars now having actual money to see the sighs Anne settles on the curosity hut, our mystery shack for the evening. The rest of the plantars, especially Polly who sees some eyes move, are utterly unverved byt he place and by it’s owner, the curator, our stan pines.. or stan ponds if you will. I mean if the series has a chuck and other normal names here an there, including Polly, then it’s not a stretch to say his first name stayed the same. Anyways, Stan shows the family around, including Air Mantis, because hell yes and some gnomes and other callbacks to gravity falls.. but I like how theirs only a handful to gravity falls monsters. There’s plenty of refrences but the episode wisely goes more for the FEEL of Gravity Falls: The creepy setting, weirder monsters (even if amphibia dosen’t shy away from weird , last episode had sheep bugs and all), and spooky vibe from the curosity hut all feel like the tone Gravity Falls went for, which is similar enough to amphibia the two mesh well. Plus the curator is basically a SLIGHTLY more evil stan pines... SLIGHTLY., and Braly naturally having worked on the show nails the character in writing while Hirsch steps back into the roll like it was just yesterday. It feels like a love letter to what the show was rather than just “hey remember this cool thing from it”, with still plenty of nice nods here and there.

Anyways back to the actual plot, the rest of the Plantars decides to leave because this place gives them the creeps as does Stan, but once htey leave Anne finds something: A skipman! Which is a great name for a portable cd player.. seriously I had one of those early in high school, the skipping really was constant hell. If anyone ever complains about mp3s, smack em. I do not miss that era. Have a bit of nostalgia for it sure, but I do not actually MISS it.

Anyways, yeah this is a big deal and it’s nice that even in the homage to it’s parent show, we get a rather big plot point: something else came from Earth and given Anne dosen’t recognize it as Marcies, though It still could be but I highly doubt it, it didn’t come with the three of them, meaning there were humans BEFORE.. possibly centuries in amphibia time given what we’ve seen so far. After all a great calamity had happened, it somehow invovles the box that brought anne here... no one says time travel can’t be involved. And it’ll raise even more in a minute. But first Stan offers a million coppers for it. not being made of money Anne instead bargins on her weirdness: One day of performance in exchange for the discman. Sounds good Stan. He certainly doesn’t have any evil plans. Wink... he’s telling you he’s winking because one eye’s under an eyepatch. Naturally Stan has less than good intetions and ominously plots to frog soos.. which I absolutley love how they just call him frog soos, who postulates on multiverse theroy because he’s apparently been licking himself agian. Oh that soos... I always knew he was on something. Also while he dosen’t get a high from it I don’t doubt human soos also licks himself for unrelated reasons.

Anyways the rest of the family are skpetical of Anne meeting stan at night.. which is fair. I wouldn’t want my nieces or nephews, and one of the nephews is around anne’s age, around stan alone for any length of time. I mean he’s fine with his own family but I know i’d find them in a child size armadillo suit having been fed questionable canned meats after having to dance for gawking yokels. Plus stan has resting “Call the police fan” so HOp Pop wants to just discuss it in the morning first before remotley trusting this guy. But anne impulsively decides to just sneak out when their asleep. More on that in a bit. Naturally trusting the strange man she just met who presumibly traffics ladypugs in this reality and constnatly looks like he wants your wallet goes poorly as Stan traps Anne and plans to incase her in wax like the other exibits. The plantars realize anne is missing and rush in with Polly trying to face her fear and ending up freeing ah orrifying monster “This is way worse’ indeed. Meanwhile Stan is annoying anne who’s praying for the wax to get her in one of the best bits of the episode.. because of COURSE stan would talk inncoently to someone he’s kdinapped while eating canned beef. To me it’s another nice touch: While the caretaker IS more of a villian than stan, for obvious reasons, given he’s put a random person behind glass just for not buying things, dressed his own grandson up in a humilating wolf suit and had soos use a fucking boiler for his employee break room, it’s not a hgue stretch to say a pre-character development, i.e. pre dipper and mabel to convince him to be slightly better, Stan would kidnap a bunch of freaky wax creatures. It’s also why i’m okay Jason Ritter and Krystin Schall didn’t return. Their great and I woul’dve loved to have dipper and mabel back.. but the episode just dosen’t work with them in it even as a cameo, and they could easily show up in a followup later if they choose to bring this character back. Probably not but hey stranger things have happend. Stan does however reveal something important: He got the discman from newtopia.. where a bunch of OTHER artifacts are. Thankfully before that information becomes useless to Anne, Sprig and Hop Pop show up to the rescue and Stan fights them thinking their cops as he dosen’t want to go back to frog jail. And even once he finds out their not, he still wants a new attraction because this is stan and again, as good as he is by series end, or at least marginally better, I still wouldn’t put it past him to put sentient creatures in wax. This however backfires as once Polly frees the creature above sprig and hop pop free the rest, and the giant throng of monsters drags Stan off, with blood popping up.. though he assures us it’s just wax so he could show up again. Probably not. He also offers htem 10 perecent, and goes up to 11.5 but that’s as far as we go. Goodbye again stan. I’ll miss you buddy. Seriously I absolutley loved the character and even with a shifter copy it was really nice to have him back for an episode. The family carts Anne off and back at the campsight Anne bemoans not getting the skipman.. luckily Sprig grabbed it on their way out, because h’es a good friend, but Hop Pop and Pollly are annoyed at anne for once again recklesly endangering herself without considering them and forcing them to save her (As polly pefectly puts it I”m tired of facing my fears anne) And that’s why I saved that: this episode deconsturcts anne’s tendency to act before she reallyt hinks or consult anyone else and actually has the family confront her on it, though she does genuinely apologize so hopefully it’ll stick. But yeah now newtopia offers even more promise and anne offers hop pop an accidental laser to the eye vai the skipman to close out the episode. Final Thoughts: As you can probably tell If reaking loved this one. Instead of just apping gravity falls, as I pointed it out i more felt like a gravity falls episode in miniture, mixed with Amphibia to still feel like it belonged in amphibia, and with Stan back just slightly more evil. Slightly. Alex Hirsch was as always a massive delight and it was a treat to have him back, and it was a really damn good note to close the road trip out on after some middling episodes, toadcatcher excluded. Not much else to say, it was really damn good, easily the seasno’s second best after toadcatcher. Next Time: MARCY. KEITH DAVID. Ants? Good times. Until then you can find more disney reviews under the disney tab on my blog including the entire season of amphibia thus far and season 3 of ducktales thus far. Until we meet again, courage.

#amphibia #gravity falls #wax museum #swamp and sensiblity #anne boonchuy #reviews #recaps #disney channel #alex hirsch #matt braley #stan pines #soos #frog soos #the curator

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mingtiddies · 4 years

Text

prince!soonyoung

genre: fluff, a little funny if you squint your eyes, prince au

word count: 1918

warnings: suggestive, but it’s nothing explicit

a/n: here i come with yet another prince au, one of my favorites bc of how the story goes although i still think it could be a lot better

with everything that’s going on these i also wanna remind everyone to always wash your hands thoroughly, stay home and/only go out when it’s necessary, if you can’t stay home because of your job, please be extra careful, protect yourselves and those around you 💖

● prince soonyoung

● he was living his best life

● bothering prince jihoon every other day

● also to see jihoon’s law adviser

● sometimes going to see prince seungkwan and prince seokmin

● almost never in his own kingdom

● “have you seen the prince?” all over the palace

● all the princes around him seemed to be forced into marriage but ended up finding someone they loved to marry

● prince soonyoung had never thought about his future as a husband and king, seeing as his parents never mentioned a bride to him

● he had never even heard the staff whisper about it

● usually if there was something important to know he could easily find out through the staff’s incessant gossiping

● he had found out about some of his surprises this way

● but nothing ever regarding his non-existent love life

● except for some people saying he was old enough to find himself a bride

● (he didn’t really see the point of it since he wouldn’t be crowned king until his father died, and thank god, his father was very much healthy)

● so imagine his surprise

● when he came home one day from prince jihoon’s kingdom and found you

● he wondered who you were

● you couldn’t be staff because you dressed too nicely

● and you couldn’t be daughter of a duke or of an official because of the colors you wore

● “why is it so hard for your staff to keep you in place?”

● “you really shouldn’t be going around so much in other princes’ kingdoms”

● “a princess?”

● he thought that one out loud

● you smiled and nodded, “princess y/n”

● but why tf was a princess in his palace

● “we should dive straight into wedding preparations, we don’t have much time”

● WEDDING????

● prince soonyoung had thought before about how he would react when his parents told him that it was time for him to find someone to marry

● whether they’d give him a choice of bride, or just force someone on him

● "a wedding? when????"

● "next week"

● what he most definitely did not expect was to find out he was getting married within days of meeting his bride

● ran to find his parents for an explanation

● they didn’t have one

● the king and queen encouraged him to spend all of his free time with you to get to know you

● which was an epic failure

● seeing as our dearest prince soonyoung liked to spent his time out of his own kingdom

● you did the only thing you could do and followed him everywhere to try

● if you can’t beat em, join em, they said

● you ended up leaving the entirety of the wedding preparations to the staff so you could follow soonyoung and try to get to know him as much as you could

● which, wasn’t difficult at all, he seemed comfortable around you and had opened up to you pretty quickly

● “shouldn’t we have gone on dates before getting married?”

● loved to joke around

● it was harmless and cute

● somehow, sometime before the wedding, he had become so much more open to you that you felt like you’d known each other for more than 5 days lmao

● soonyoung was a simple man

● the fact that you followed him everywhere, yet gave him space, kinda made his heart go wild

● he thought it was cute that you tried so hard to convince him to stay home, even though you were with him in another kingdom

● also found it funny because it always failed

● luckily for you when they said you’d get married in 7 days after meeting each other, it meant the festivities would start there

● so like day 1 for guests to arrive

● some princes from the closest kingdoms were invited and they were so shocked that soonyoung was gonna get married all of a sudden lmao

● day 2 was for the press conference, to announce the engagement and marriage

● day 3 was for the engagement party

● which was so weird for both of you because suddenly you were engaged and it felt more real than it did at first

● at some point soonyoung had to stay in place

● day 4 was for the rest of the royal guests to arrive while the royal families had a feast for dinner

● and then came the wedding

● soonyoung was very calm about this

● he trusted his parents to have chosen the right fit for him and the kingdom

● and you had grown on him quite fast

● you had your first official kiss at the wedding

● which made things so awkward for both of you

● almost like best friends suddenly having to kiss and making the friendship awkward

● except you had known each other for like less than two weeks

● but if only that was the worst of it lmao

● because after the part where everyone’s like wooo newly weds

● his parents tell you that you have to consume the marriage

● like right away

● otherwise it gives a timetable to get the marriage annulled and well

● the goal here is for you to stay married

● “wait what?”

● “WHY HASN’T ANYONE TOLD ME THIS? HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS?”

● it’s a bit hush-hush in the family, only the royal family knows about it

● so like, it’s not even public knowledge

● so now things are even more awkward than they were after the kiss

● because you now have to have sex with your husband whom you have met like 12 days ago

● cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool

● the actual worst part of it is having to have someone make sure the two of you consume your marriage

● which used to be done by someone peeping

● but now it’s a medical procedure after

● and then of course you have to go back to the after party

● prince soonyoung tried his best to make things light hearted

● and fun

● despite the absolute awkwardness

● “just pretend we’ve known each other for years”

● “that’s not very hard, you opened up to me so fast that i actually thought we were best friends”

● “okay then uh, pretend we’ve been in love for years then”

● strangely it worked a little better

● the whole thing was still very much embarrassing and if none of you ever mentioned it again it would be too soon

● simultaneously the best and worst experience of your entire life

● (over time you learned to love those moments in bed with him but that’s because you ended up falling in love lol)

● getting dressed was soooo awkward and the room was so silent

● you asked if the test was really necessary and if they couldn’t just take your word for it

● you tried

● soonyoung had gone to change for the after party

● when your test was over you went to change and went back to party

● but soonyoung had waited for you outside of your chambers

● yeet

● the party had just begun and you had to make an entrance as... well...the future king and queen

● prince soonyoung confides a lot in prince jihoon even though jihoon only listens to half of the things he says

● so when soonyoung gets the chance to be away from you for a second and is with jihoon

● he mentioned the bedding ceremony

● jihoon did a double take

● one because “a what now?”

● and two because “why the fuck are you telling me this?”

● and then soonyoung can’t find you anymore lmao

● you’re just avoiding him for the time being

● because well, you met days ago and just had sex hours after getting married

● will you ever not think about how awkward that was?

● no

● with that said once soonyoung realized he couldn’t find you anywhere, he almost alerted the guards

● while trying to hide you spotted who you were told was prince seungkwan’s wife

● you decided you had nothing to lose and asking a prince’s wife advice/comparing experiences would probably make you feel better/less weird

● so after talking a little bit

● and after she clearly saw how nervous you were

● you asked if you could ask a personal question

● more like a few personal questions

● so you asked about her and seungkwan’s first time (not in details)

● also asking if she’d felt weird or awkward or nervous after

● she answered with no problem and asked why you wanted to know in return

● yeet yeet

● so you told her about the bedding ceremony and having met soonyoung days ago

● if that hadn’t just happened to you, you probably would’ve laughed at her reaction

● but it had, so you didn’t

● “is that why you’re asking me? because you feel nervous, weird and awkward?”

● “i guess it’s normal... i mean you’ve only met recently and all of this was forced on you, but i wouldn’t worry too much about it”

● she kept giving you words of encouragement

● and that’s around when soonyoung found you

● “hey i couldn’t find you anywhere i was starting to get seriously worried”

● seungkwan’s wife left you and you realized you’d been kinda secluded and hidden from the rest of the party

● “we haven’t talked since...and yeah...i didn’t get to ask if you were okay?”

● “not exactly the time and place to talk, but i am, i’m okay”

● “even...?”

● he didn’t need to finish because you knew what he meant

● you kinda wished he hadn’t mentioned it, even implicitly

● you nodded and he stared at you

● “you sure you’re okay? your face is turning red”

● you hated how he could make you so flustered without explicitly saying anything

● like nothing had happened

● and your face was burning in embarrassment

● and he was just making it worse

● “are you? we just got married and had sex”

● okay maybe you shouldn’t have blurted it out, out of frustration because it made you more embarrassed saying it out loud

● buuut, maybe his reaction had been worth it

● because now it was his turn to be flustered

● it made you feel a tiny bit better

● he simply nodded in response

● and of course, for it to be funnier to you, you used his own words on him

● “you sure you’re okay? your face is turning red”

● little gap where he just stared at you

● “woah, you’re shameless”

● “I’M SHAMELESS?? YOU’RE THE ONE WHO ˢᵃⁱᵈ ⁱ ᶠᵉˡᵗ ᵍᵒᵒᵈ”

● the way you lowered the volume of your voice almost made him laugh

● but you were becoming infuriating

● “WOAH! i can’t believe you had to mention that right now as if you hadn’t told me to not stop”

● there was another gap and then suddenly the two of you burst out laughing

● “this marriage is definitely gonna be okay”

● and you couldn’t disagree

● by laughing it off, the nervousness seemed to lift off your shoulders

● so you guessed you would indeed be okay

● as long as you had prince soonyoung by your side

● and as long as he had you by his

● years from then you both found it so funny

● the next time you got intimate, you called it your first time, saying the bedding ceremony didn’t count lmao

● almost like trying to erase it from history

● you did consider removing bedding ceremonies from being a requirement

● you also promised yourselves to not introduce your child to their partner a week before having to get married

● so either introduce them as teens so they could grow together or giving your child time and opportunities to find someone

● it might have worked for you and prince soonyoung but there was no guarantee that it would work again

seungcheol ║ jeonghan ║ joshua ║ junhui ║ soonyoung ║ wonwoo ║ jihoon ║ seokmin ║ mingyu ║ minghao ║ seungkwan ║ vernon ║ chan

#seventeen scenarios #seventeen imagines #seventeen bulletpoint #soonyoung #hoshi #soonyoung imagines #hoshi imagines #soonyoung bulletpoint #hoshi bulletpoint #prince!seventeen #prince au #prince!soonyoung #prince!hoshi #svt #svt imagines

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rosesformark · 5 years

Text

allure - mark lee : [01]

genre: angst, fluff, college au, fratboy!mark

pairing: mark lee x reader

word count: 2.3k

synopsis: attention and affection, the things he thrived off and wanted most in the world. but would it be at the expense of the one he loves most?

A/N: wooo i’m really excited to start this mark lee fic :)) this is just the beginning, the juicy parts has yet to come hehe. but how is this for an intro? I’m not sure how long this will be but i do want to make it pretty lengthy. any feedback is welcomed!! uwu i always say this but your requests haven’t been forgotten, i’m just taking my time with them to avoid rewriting the same plots since a lot of you asked for angst!! LOL btw i love mark and i hope you enjoy reading :> stay tuned for mORRrreEEE

MAR. 27, 2019

[2:37 AM]

“Let’s run away together.”

His sheets, a solid black, matched the night sky outside the window, moonlight filtering the bedroom with a mute but silvery atmosphere. The blankets were snuggly wrapped around both your frames as his words drifted softly through the air. His arms wound around your shoulders, squeezing slightly as you snuggled deeper into his neck.

His blunt words made your heart stutter, the endless possibilities popping into your head. You quickly shot them down though, not daring to raise your hopes up.

“That’s quite a bold statement,” you say. Nevertheless, a giggle went past your lips as you looked up and met his eyes. He held them steadily as his eyes, that you swore held the stars, began to crinkle and his cheekbones slowly became more prominent. He let out a chuckle and pressed his lips firmly against the crown of your head, holding you tighter if that was even possible.

“I’m serious, even if it’s for one week. Let’s just leave this place together where no one can find us and we can do whatever the hell we want.” Normally, when one uses his choice of uncertain words, it would scare you. But, you knew him, you knew that with the air of determination he had at that moment, held some sort of truth that eased your restless thoughts at open-ended promises. Mark was always a dreamer, he liked being on his feet and would constantly tell you of his ambitions and goals. Whether it be outings with the boys or over the top dates with you, he never failed to achieve them to the best of his ability.

Realistically speaking though, you both were young college students so what could you actually do? So, you decided to play along, “When would you have the time? The frat needs you, they would hate for me to take away their big,” you were left with a bitter taste as you said the last few words. Except for a few, most of Mark’s frat buddies absolutely detested when he suddenly stopped sleeping around and getting pissed off drunk nearly every night. Which was after he had started seeing you.

The idea though, of you and him together. It sounded so delightfully sweet and selfish that you couldn’t help the blush passing through your cheeks, heart fluttering. You pulled the covers up underneath your chin.

Mark rustled a bit, ruffling the sheets and turning to face you better. “Don’t think about them for now, it’s just you and me.” His signature smirk could be seen through the dark as he slowly intertwined his fingers in yours.

“Mark, you didn’t even tell them about us yet…”

“Shh, that’s not as important.” Your heart sunk at his statement and it showed in the way you slightly pulled away from him. He immediately caught your actions and moved to stop you, placing the palm of his hand against the dip of your back. Hurriedly, he continued, “What’s important is how we feel. Whats between us. You know how I feel about you so don’t worry about it,” he softly caressed your cheek, eyes dipping down to meet yours as he whispered softly, “Okay?”

You were hesitant for a moment. He always did this, always avoided talking about your relationship yet making endless promises like the hopeless romantic he is.You couldn’t help it though. His black hair fluttered against his eyes and compared to daytime Mark, with his wavy hair parted, he looked so loving and adorable. Looking into his deep eyes, the moonlight hit them in a way where it seemed like they were endless, with you falling deeper and deeper into their abyss. This was your favorite Mark, the Mark that let down his walls and wasn’t afraid to show his emotions towards you.

You exterior started melting as he softly rubbed your back, he knew your weaknesses and used them well to his advantage when he wanted you to cave. You mumbled a soft okay and he broke out into a grin. He then proceeded to press you into his chest as his nose nuzzled itself into your hair.

“That’s my girl.”

⋯

MAR. 27, 2019

[8:42 AM]

You cursed as you continued walking towards the campus library. Struggling to carry the intimidating amount of books piled into your arms, you really wished Kyungsoo didn’t called for the incredibly last minute meeting.

You had to unwillingly untangle yourself in the morning from Mark’s arms, if Kyungsoo had not said that it was an extreme, super duper emergency, you would not have left the boy you were so infatuated with for the world.

Imagine your distaste when Kyungsoo followed up with a text stating “coffee shop”, indicating a simple study session and not an extreme, super duper emergency. But alas, he was your best friend and if he knew that the reason you couldn’t come was because you were with campus heartthrob, frat boy and apparently fuck boy ahoy Mark Lee, you would never hear the end of it.

So, in the end, you snuck out of Mark’s room and into yours to grab at least what looked to be five thick textbooks. As you glared at the stack in your arms, you regretted being in such a rush that you didn’t even notice two of the books weren’t even yours.

You let out a loud groan as in the midst of your struggle, said textbooks decided to fall off your stack and topple on the cement ground. You stopped for a moment and unsteadily shoved the other three books in the crook of your arm; without thinking, you leaned down to grab the two textbooks while forgetting about the laws of physics and managing to lose grip on the other three.

As if in slow motion, and also at the moment you seemed to be questioning whether higher education was worth it, two pairs of arms shot out to help you. One pair went for the books already on the ground while the other pair caught your three books in mid fall and immediately helped straighten them in your arms.

You let out a sigh of relief as your eyes trailed the arms that were gripping yours. Your eyes widened as they met a pair of familiar, dark brown eyes that just last night, you shamelessly were staring in. Mark’s lips turned up into a grin as his fingers lingered near your waist, you felt the blood rush to your face as you realized just how close you two were standing.

Mark opened his mouth and was ready to speak when a loud cough from your side made you jump back. Mark hardly flinched as his arms remained in their position, gripping nothing but air. Which would’ve been funny to look at if it weren’t for Kyungsoo’s questioning eyes boring into yours, clearly directed at how close you were towards the campus heartthrob and had made no indication of pushing him away.

You avoided his gaze as he thrust out the textbooks that had fallen on the floor to you. You hands almost gripped the smooth covers when all of the sudden Mark snatched the textbooks out of Kyungsoo’s hand, quite roughly if you may add.

Kyungsoo immediately shot his signature glare as Mark merely smirked at him, “Ah thanks man, these were mine actually.” It was only then that you put two together and realized those textbooks were probably ones that Mark had left over the last time you had a study date. You internally pinched yourself for your stupidity.

“Are you sure? Y/n clearly was the one who dropped it in the first place.”

“Yeah, I’m sure, don’t worry about it.”

You could tell that Mark’s unbothered tone irked Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo never liked Mark, something about what happened when they were in highschool and adding Mark’s reputation on top of that, it was needless to say that Mark absolutely grinded Kyungsoo’s gears. His protective side was practically bursting at this point, which normally would warm your heart but considering its towards Mark, not so much. Before Kyungsoo started something, you jumped in to retort, “Yeah, he dropped them. You must’ve seen wrong, Soo.”

You mustered up the most innocent face you could as Kyungsoo’s eyes darted back and forth between you and Mark. You were about to crack when finally, Kyungsoo turned around and muttered, “Okay, let’s go then,” proceeding to walk in the direction of the coffee shop.

You didn’t make two steps before Mark pulled you back by the elbow, making you slightly lose your balance and crash into his chest from behind. You sprang away just in case Kyungsoo turned back to catch your flustered being as you sent daggers towards Mark’s teasing face. Even with the previous tension from before, he still maintained a relaxed state that was also shown through his clothing for the day, grey sweatpants paired with a simple white tee that made you glance again at his broad shoulders.

“You forgot something, love” If it wasn’t for the blatant pet name that caught you off guard, it was definitely the quick peck to your forehead that although made your heart flutter, also made you worriedly glance around for anyone that caught the intimate action.

Mark let out a small chuckle and used his hand that wasn’t holding the textbooks to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “Why you so worried, love?”

“Because you keep calling me love when anybody could hear, Mark”

He ignored your statement, pouted and spoke softly, “You left so early this morning you didn’t even notice you took my books with you.”

“You wouldn’t even have been able to take them since they were at my dorm.”

“True, but since you lose track of how many books you have, it made you accidentally take them from your stack and carry them all across campus before you realized they weren’t yours.”

“Aren’t you a smart one today?”

He let out a loud laugh and drew back his hand that made you instantly crave for it again. “I wish I could kiss you right now, you’re being so cute and sassy.”

“Then why don’t you?”

He didn’t answer and simply smiled at you. The smile that showed all of his teeth but with the knowing fact that it always made you melt so you would forgive him for his actions.

He once again, ignored your prying questions, “Are you still coming to the party tonight?” he leaned in to your ear and whispered, “We’ll have more time to do what we want.”

You shuddered at his deep voice and the suggestiveness that came with it, cheeks burning as Mark smirked at his clear effect on you.You were about to answer before a pair of girls interrupted you to catch Mark’s attention.

“Mark! C’mon, we’ll be late to class.” Their high pitched voices called out to him as they gazed longingly at Mark’s presence. The green monster immediately jumped out the longer they stared at him, even more so when he turned around and gave them a charming grin, obnoxiously living up to the campus heartthrob name.

“I’ll see you later, baby.” He flashed you a smile that you knew were only reserved for you. It still didn’t hurt any less though when he started walking with the girls and made no move to push them away when one of them linked arms with him. You stared at his back as you were left with a highly disappointed feeling.

You and Mark weren’t official, yes. But he sure as hell did act the part when and only behind closed doors. You’ve had numerous talks about this but they always ended with Mark somehow diverting the conversation elsewhere and you were left with the feeling of unsettledness.

He never reciprocated other girls actions but he sure didn’t stop them. Mark has always told you that only you could affect him in a that way but judging by his reputation and past experiences you’ve seen, he has always thrived off of other’s attention and affection.

You snapped out of your daze just as your phone buzzed in your pocket. Pulling it out, you saw that you had several messages from “m :)”.

9:23 AM >> baby, don’t be jealous

9:23 AM >> you know i only have eyes for you

9:23 AM >> pls come to the party tho, i miss you already and i want to spend time with you :(

what if i don’t want to spend time w you? << 9:24 AM

9:24 AM >> you can’t lie to me and you know it

9:24 AM >> cmon, it’ll be fun!

9:24 AM >> cause you’ll be there with me ;)

You chuckled at his reply and stared at his contact picture. It was a picture of you two cuddling while playing around with Snapchat filters. Pink hearts danced around your heads as his face was pressed on top of yours, his hair messily sprayed on top his head, you were smiling widely and he was adorably pouting. It was such a lovey-dovey, borderline cringe worthy couple photo but it never failed to warm your entire being. You only wished you could display it on your lock screen for the world to see.

Your smile broke when Kyungsoo’s face flashed across the screen indicating a phone call coming through, making you gasp. You had completely forgot about the study session with him and had let him walk on his own when you were preoccupied with Mark. Purposely declining the call, you pivoted your feet and immediately started jogging towards the coffee shop, Potted. In the midst of your jog, you sent a few quick texts to Mark and started sprinting as Satansoo started flashing in the very deep pits of your mind.

I’ll be there << 9:27 AM

but not for you >:( << 9:27 AM

9:27 AM >> whatever you say, love. can’t wait to see you tonight :)

⋯

#mark lee #mark lee fic #nct mark lee #nct mark #nct mark fic #mark lee angst #mark lee scenario #mark lee writing #nct 127 #nct u #nct #mark lee x reader #mark lee x you #im super excited for this:)#i also lowkey have another mark fic planned but thats for the future hehe #hope you enjoy reading!#writings:allure

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dkronpa · 5 years

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Chapter 2: Lost in Sacrificial Fate ~Trial~

Wooo! The trial is finally done, this is a pretty long one so hopefully you guys don’t mind that. Hope ya’ll enjoy

Bold are blue statements

Bold and italic are yellow statements

“Now, let’s begin with a simple explanation of the class trial! You’re votes will determine the outcome of this, you will debate on a variety of topics regarding the murder and then try to identify ‘whodunit’. If you can correctly guess the culprit, then the culprit alone will be punished…but if you guess the wrong one. I’ll punish everyone besides the culprit! Now…where will this trial go? I hope it’s good!”

“There’s not really much to discuss though, is there? It’s kinda obvious who the killer is in this case.” Shinko-san started off.

“It’s obvious? But I still don’t have any idea, even after the investigation.” Yokozawa-san said.

“No need to worry, that’s why I’m here to show you all how this case went down. Simply put, Irunami died because of a freak accident when the lighting rig fell. Everyone in the audience is a witness to that. So, whoever was working the lighting must be the one that’s accountable. So, it has to be Okanaya that’s the culprit of the case!” Shinko-san declared.

“E-eh?! Me again?!”

“Did you seriously not even put that together? Of course, if the lighting rig was what killed Irunami-chan, then the one working the lighting rig would be the most suspicious.” Kurosaki-san sighed with a smirk.

“Bullshit! You can’t just say I’m the killer because of that! B-besides, surely that wouldn’t be reason enough for me to be responsible! M-Monokuma?!”

“Weeeeeell…even if its an accident, the one who ultimate caused the accident is still gonna be the culprit for that death.” It was an ambiguous answer that didn’t say Okanaya-san was the culprit.

“Aren’t we moving a little quickly?” Ishikawa-san interrupted. “To simply decide Okanaya-sama as the culprit at the start of the trial would be foolish. Shinko-sama, please keep your rash accusations to yourself, I would prefer it if you didn’t hurt our chances passing the trial.”

“Huh?! The fuck did you say to me?! Do you know who you’re talking to, bitch?!” Shinko-san growled.

“Save your breaths for the discussion, would you?” Amaterasu-san stepped in. “The problem here is if this case is an accident or not, and if it is an accident, does that necessarily mean it was Kobo-chan’s fault.”

“It definitely wasn’t me! I’m telling you all now!” Okanaya-san said again. Was Irunami-san’s death an accident…? We need to figure that out first.

-Non-Stop Debate 1-

Truth Bullets/Lie Bullets:

Broken Spotlight/Undamaged Spotlight

Okanaya-san’s Account/Okanaya-san’s Mistake

Lighting Rig/Metal Pole

Amaterasu: If you guys don’t decide whether this case is an accident or not, we can’t progress…

Toson: Obviously…The murder happened on accident….and Okanaya is responsible.

Kobo: Don’t just say that! This could’ve been on purpose!

Karma: You do realise that if it was on purpose then you’d have to be the killer, right…? You were the only one working the lighting rig

Kobo: N-no way! It ain’t that easy! The killer…could’ve sabotaged the lighting rig!

Karma: Oh! I guess that’s true! Then maybe the case is a real homicide!

Ryuu: (We first need to decide if this case is a homicide or an accident…how am I supposed to prove that?)

“No, that’s wrong!”

“Shinko-san, I don’t think Irunami-san died from an accident. When I was talking to Okanaya-san during the investigation, he told me that he made sure that the lighting rig was secured last night. So, if it really was secure, I doubt it would’ve just fell on accident at just the right time to kill Irunami-san.”

“Okanaya told you that…? Hmm…usually I wouldn’t believe the words of a suspect-“

“Didn’t we do that for you the last trial?” Kurohiko-san pointed out.

“-but I checked the lighting rig as well, just to make sure Okanaya didn’t fuck it up…and yeah, it was secure. Totally forgot about that.”

“How convenient of you to forget that.” Okanaya-san snarled.

“However, that doesn’t mean the killer isn’t Okanaya. It just means the murder was on purpose. With his own testimony, we know the lighting was secure the night before and that means the lighting rig needed to be released by someone. Namely, the only person working the lighting rig.” Shinko-san said.

“Huh…? Well, maybe it was sabotaged or something the night before and it had nothing to do with Okanaya-kun.” Yokozawa-san suggested.

“We all finished at 9 every night, so it’s not impossible to say that someone just snuck into the auditorium after we all left.” Ram-san said. No…simply getting would be pretty difficult because…

My logic follows!

“Shinko-san, you locked door at night after rehearsals, right? Then the door wouldn’t be unlocked until we started again in the morning.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t want anyone going in and messing with stuff without supervision. And because of that, nobody could’ve gotten into the auditorium outside of any rehearsal times.” Shinko-san confirmed.

“Could someone sabotage the lighting rig before the performances began that morning? We did not start the show until 12:30 or so.” Asano-san suggested.

“No, that’s not possible either. I was by the ropes for the lighting rig as soon as we got in that morning and didn’t leave until the murder happened, nobody had the chance to fuck around with the lighting rig.” Okanaya-san shook as head.

“I feel like you’re too honest for your own good.” Graves-san laughed.

“The honesty is appreciated though. Makes our job a lot easier.” Sly-san said.

“Did you do it though Okanaya-kun…? Did you kill Irunami-kun…?” Hachi-san’s voice trembled with a mix of anger and anguish.

“Hell no! Now that I know it wasn’t an accident, I’m gonna prove I didn’t have anything to do with this! Don’t worry Hachi, we’ll find out who did this and sent them straight to hell!” I believe him. I really don’t think Okanaya-san is the killer, so I need to prove that either there was a way to sabotage the lighting rig, or that the lighting rig didn’t need to be sabotaged.

-Non-Stop Debate 2-

Truth Bullets/Lie Bullets

Cables/Razor Wire

Shinko-san’s Account/Shinko-san’s Mistake

Lighting Rig/Metal Rod

Vent System/Bolted Vent Grates

Kobo: I’m not the killer…! I’m gonna prove it to you all!

Doi: Since Irunami’s death was on purpose…doesn’t that mean the killer had to be near the lighting rig?

Kobo: Yeah, but somebody else could’ve done that!

Ram: The door was locked…

Tsukiko: Could there be another way into the auditorium?

Tomoe: Maybe the killer used a set-up!

Kobo: Or the lighting rig didn’t need to be sabotaged!

Ryuu: (Something someone said…I think that might be the key to this.)

I agree with that!

“Ishikawa-san may be right. Even if the door was locked, there should’ve been another way to get into the auditorium. During the investigation, Graves-san decided to check the vent system and found that it went throughout the whole building. ‘Every floor, every room’ were her words.”

“It’s true! Look at all the dust on me!” Graves-san spread her arms to show off her dirty outfit.

“I wasn’t gonna mention it…but if there was another way to get into the auditorium…” Yokozawa-san nodded understandingly.

“Yeah. Then it’s way too early to say that Okanaya-san is the killer!”

“God, fine!” Shinko-san conceded defeat.

“So, at some point the killer went into the auditorium after we all finished up for rehearsals and messed around with the lighting rig. That’s good and all but where do we go from there…?” Graves-san asked.

“Well…I don’t know if this is worth out time or not, but…I wasn’t there for the moment that Irunami-san was killed, so I don’t fully get what happened. Could we maybe go over what happened?” Kurohiko-san asked.

“Same for me. I was backstage when it all happened, so I want a clarification too.” Amaterasu-san second.

“It’s important we all stay on the same page, so we should go over it.” Ram-san agreed.

-Non-Stop Debate 3-

Truth Bullets/Lie Bullets

Lighting rig/Metal Rod

Fog Machines/Dry Ice Buckets

Broken Spotlight/Undamaged stagelight

Kurosaki-san’s Set/Kurohiko-san’s Set

Shinko-san’s Filiming/Shinko-san’s Absence

Shinko-san’s Account/Shinko-san’s Mistake

Ram: When the show started…everything seemed normal…

Doi: I know that Kurosaki-san and I went on first…but after that I didn’t come back….

Tomoe: Shinko-kun’s movie played fine as well…There was nothing wrong with the movie.

Amaterasu: And afterwards was Sadao-chan.

Tomoe: Yeah, Irunami-kun came on stage…but when he called Shinko-kun to the stage…that’s when the lighting rig fell and struck him over the head…!

Yuuki: There was a broken stage light on the ground too. It must have broken off on impact.

Ryuu: (…this is just supposed to be a recollection of what happened…so why does something feel off?)

No, that’s wrong!

“…um…” Even though I objected, I don’t really know where I’m supposed to go with this. Everyone’s staring at me, so I need to at least raise the concern. “K…Kurosaki-san, about what you said…you said the stage light broke off of the lighting rig when it hit Irunami-san, right?”

“Is there something wrong with that? You’re not gonna suggest the lighting rig wasn’t the murder weapon, are you?” Sly-san asked.

“It’s not that. The spotlight had blood on it, so I don’t that it’s the murder weapon…it’s just…the part of the spotlight that attaches to the lighting rig…it isn’t damaged.”

“Huh? What do you mean it’s not damaged, does that matter?” Yokozawa-san said.

“Yeah, it’s definitely weird. The lights have this kind of metal hoop that goes right around the lighting rig’s pole. Makes it fuckin’ difficult to position then right. There’s no way one could fall off without that hoop being broken off.” Okanaya-san explained.

“Oh! Then it’s like a condom!” Graves-san nodded.

“It is definitely not like a condom.” Yokozawa-san said with disgust.

“Eh…? So, you’ve used one before?” Graves-san tilted her head.

“I see. It is good you are enjoying life, Yokozawa-sama.” Ishikawa-san smiled and giggled.

“Th-that isn’t it! M-more importantly, why isn’t that spotlight’s attachment broken off?!” Yokozawa-san threw us back into the discussion. It’s suspicious. Really suspicious.

“Ah~ Maybe we should take a step back!” Kurosaki-san suddenly chimed up.

“Oh great. I almost forgot about you and now my headache is back.” Shinko-san complained.

“Ehhhh!? Shinko-chan, don’t be mean to me!”

“Wh-who the hell are you being so informal with?! Die, will you?!” Shinko-san’s face flushed.

“Kurosaki, what do you mean by taking a step back?” Sly-san interrupted.

“Well, it’s pretty easy to tell why the spotlight’s attachment isn’t broken, right? There’s no need to discuss it at full length.” There’s no reason to discuss it at full length…then is the reason the spotlight’s attachment isn’t broken something simple…?

My logic follows!

“You’re saying that the spotlight that hit Irunami-san was never attached to the lighting rig, right? That’s why it’s attachment was never broken.”

“Perfecto! Nagata-kyun, we think so much alike!” I definitely don’t want to hear that from you…

“Wait, if the spotlight was never attached to the lighting rig then how did it manage to get onto the stage? Furthermore, how on earth was it able to strike Irunami-sama?” Ishikawa-san asked. That’s the new question, huh…seems we’ll need to figure that out next.

-Non-Stop Debate 4-

Truth Bullets/Lie Bullets

Fog Machines/Dry Ice Buckets

Broken Spotlight/Undamaged Spotlight

Kurosaki-san’s Set/Kurohiko-san’s Set

Air Cannon/Fog Vacuum

Trap Door/Regular Floor

Kurohiko-san’s Clothes/Irunami-san’s Clothes

Tsukiko: There must’ve been a chance for the spotlight to make its way onto the stage.

Kobo: Maybe it was always on stage…? But we just couldn’t tell.

Tomoe: Or maybe Irunami-kun brought it on with him?

Amaterasu: Or there was some kind of fancy trick used…like balancing the spotlight on the lighting rig…and it fell onto Sadao-chan.

Doi: Talk about suspension of belief…

Tomoe: Are we overthinking it…?

Ryuu: (How did the spotlight get onto the stage…? We need to figure that next…)

I agree with that!

“I think Amaterasu-san said. There was a trick used to get the spotlight onto the stage. When I was investigating underneath the stage, I found that there was a trap door that worked by alternating two different wooden panels between the stage and underneath the stage.”

“Ah! If that trap door was used, then the killer could get the spotlight onto the stage!” Ram-san concluded.

“Exactly. I think that’s exactly what the killer did!”

“That can’t be real!”

“Hold on now Nagata-kun, there’s a massive problem with that! Sure, I can understand the killer using the trap door to get the spotlight onto the stage, but if that’s the case then now did, they manage to hit Irunami-kun with the stage light and kill him?!” Hachi-san objected.

-Rebuttal Showdown Vs. Tomoe Hachi-

Truth Blades:

Broken Spotlight

Trap Door

Ram-san’s Account

Kurohiko-san’s Clothes

Kurohiko-san’s Account

Tomoe: Sure, the trap door could have used to get the spotlight onto the stage, but that doesn’t tell us how it struck Irunami-kun! Irunami-kun died right there on stage so how could the spotlight have hit him when it was underneath the stage?

Ryuu: Isn’t it possible that we’re missing something? There could’ve been some sort of set up used!

Tomoe: Some sort of set up…? There’s no kind of set up that would work! And there’s no way Irunami-kun hit himself so if there was no way for it to happen…then the spotlight wasn’t brought to the stage by the trap door!

Ryuu: (I can feel something in the back of my mind…some kind of new possibility with the evidence we have…)

I’ll cut through that argument!

“Actually…Irunami-san might’ve not died on stage like we originally thought.”

“H-huh?!” Hachi-san frowned.

“When I was investigating Irunami-san’s dressing room I found Kurohiko-san’s regular clothes in a bag-“

“You found my clothes and didn’t tell me?!”

“You wouldn’t have wanted to wear them. When Nagata-kun looked at those clothes there was blood found on them, if I remember.” Yokozawa-san recalled.

“B-blood on my clothes…?” Kurohiko-san paled. “H-hold on, y-you aren’t gonna accuse me, right?!”

“Doi-chan isn’t the killer.” Amaterasu-san said.

“I agree! I cannot see Kurohiko-kun being the killer!” Asano-san added.

“N-no, I’m not saying that. Kurohiko-san was in his stage clothing ever since his set with Kurosaki-san…after all somebody should’ve seen him enough times to prove that…”

It’s you!

“Kurohiko-san told me that he saw Amaterasu-san a lot whilst searching for his clothes. I’m sure she can confirm that Kurohiko-san was in his stage outfit the whole time after Kurosaki-san’s set.”

“Yeah, he was.” Amaterasu-san stated.

“Though how exactly does this all mean that Kurohiko isn’t the killer?” Sly-san asked.

“Th…that’s not really the point I was trying to make. Rather than proving Kurohiko-san can’t be the killer…his clothes actually prove that Irunami-san didn’t die on stage in front of us like we originally thought. Nobody would’ve been close enough to Irunami-san when that lighting rig fell for blood to get on those clothes…”

“So…you’re saying that Sadao died somewhere else?” Graves-san thought for a moment. “It makes sense…between that blood and the broken spotlight, it’s obvious that Sadao never made onto the stage.” Never made it onto the stage…come to think of it…someone mentioned something else that points to the fact that Irunami-san never made it to the stage.

Here’s my proof!

“Ram-san pointed out that Irunami-san died in his regular outfit despite the fact that she and Asano-san made a stage outfit for him.”

“Are you saying that…Irunami-kun was in his normal clothing because he was dead before he got on stage…? But, if that’s the case then what did we see on the stage?” Ram-san asked.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking for a while that we kind of believed all this way too easily. I mean…we all saw Irunami-kun from the audience. So, that must’ve been him.” Hachi-san said.

…they have a point. I’m positive that Irunami-san wasn’t alive when he was on stage, so who was it that came on during his set...? “Let’s think of it this way then. If Irunami-chan being in his normal clothes proves he didn’t make it to the stage, then whatever had his stage clothes would be what appeared during his set.” Kurosaki-san said. Whatever…was in Irunami-san’s stage clothes?

Here’s my proof!

“There was a stunt dummy underneath the stage that was wearing Irunami-san’s clothing. Kurosaki-san, are you suggesting that what we saw on stage was that dummy…?”

“Oui! Very well done, Nagata-kyun~! If the killer utilized that dummy, then it becomes easy to act as if Irunami-chan is on stage!” Kurosaki-san explained.

“No, it doesn’t.” Hachi-san disagreed. “It explains the silhouette. But it’s not that simple…but there’s two other problems. One, why didn’t we notice? Second, how did the dummy move around the stage?”

“Okanaya-kun was right next to the stage, shouldn’t he have noticed if the figure on the stage was Irunami-kun or not…?” Yokozawa-san said. Not necessarily…if the killer used that thing then they could’ve stopped anyone from realising that it was actually a dummy.

Here’s my proof!

“Couldn’t the killer have disguised the dummy with the fog machines? There was a lot of fog on the stage that we could barely see who it was on the stage. Because of that, we just assumed that Irunami-san was on stage because it was his set.”

“And it explains why Okanaya-kun wouldn’t have realised despite being so close to the stage.” Ram-san continued.

“Okay…that takes care of problem one, but what about how the dummy was moved around the stage…? That still hasn’t been explained.” Kurohiko-san said.

“We’ve come too far to be wrong here! I’m sure if put our heads together we can figure this out as well!” Ram-san smiled. Yeah, she’s right…the solution is somewhere, we just need to find it.

-Non-stop Debate 5-

Truth Bullets/Lie Bullets

Kurosaki-san’s Set/Kurohiko-san’s Set

Remote Control Car/Broken Toy

Cables/Razor Wire

Air Cannons/Fog Vacuums

Dummy/Undamaged Dummy

Ram: The killer must have had a way to move the body around the stage! I’m sure we can find it!

Kobo: Should we just guess…? Maybe the killer used wires? They could’ve controlled the dummy like a puppet!

Tomoe: Did they use magic?! They could’ve done it with a trick!

Sly: Also, possible they carried the dummy around.

Karma: Or the dummy is haunted…and levitated around the stage by itself!

Doi: D-don’t say it’s a ghost!

Ryuu: (Someone brought up an idea that might be possible given what I know…)

I agree with you!

“Sly-san might be onto something. There might have been a method of carrying the dummy around the stage. When I was investigating underneath the stage, there was a remote-control car sitting there. The same car that Amaterasu-san was looking for to use in her performance.”

“Amaterasu was gonna use a remote-control car…? For singing…?” Sly-san raised an eyebrow.

“Not just any kind of remote-control car. This car was specially equipped and suitable for someone like the Ultimate Thief. This car was modified with a claw that would be used to pickpocket people.” I explained.

“I was gonna distract everyone when I was singing and use the car to steal stuff. Had it all planned out.” Amaterasu-san said.

“Right. If the killer used the claw on the remote-control car then it’s possible to transport the dummy around.”

“He’s right…the arm the claw is attached to is super long and I made sure the car wouldn’t tip over despite any weight on it. It totally should’ve been able to carry around the dummy.” Amaterasu-san confirmed.

“Then it’s settled. There are no more problems with Irunami-san not dying on stage like we originally thought-“

“I see your flaws!”

“Don’t fuck around now, Nagata-kun! There’s still a massive problem that you haven’t answered!” Yokozawa-san interrupted.

“H-huh…? There’s still more?”

“Geez, you didn’t even realise it…? Guess I have no choice but to explain…”

-Rebuttal Showdown Vs Junpei Yokozawa-

Truth Blades:

Asano-san’s Account

Kurohiko-san’s Account

Shinko-san’s Account

Okanaya-san’s Account

Ram-san’s Account

Junpei: You’re saying that everything has been proven but that’s not the case. You still haven’t explained Irunami-kun’s voice when he came on stage to do his set. If you can’t explain the voice then you haven’t really explained anything!

Ryuu: Are you really saying that after all the evidence presented that Irunami-san was still killed on stage?

Junpei: We all heard Irunami-kun’s voice, that’s undeniable! It was clear as day, he even called up Shinko-kun to the stage! There wasn’t anything unusual about his set until that moment, aside from the fog machines!

Ryuu: (I get Yokozawa-san’s point, but even so…)

I’ll cut through that argument!

“No, there was something unusual about Irunami-san’s set. When I was talking to Shinko-san about the performance he said it was strange. It was like Irunami-san was repeating everything he was saying during the rehearsal stages word-for-word.”

“Now that you mention it…” Amaterasu-san murmured.

“But that’s not all. Hachi-san, you and Irunami-san recorded your sets so you could watch them back, right? Would it not have been possible to use Irunami-san’s set from there when they sent the dummy out on stage?”

“P-probably…there are speakers underneath the stage. If you plugged the recorder in there, you could play it out over the speakers.” Hachi-san nodded.

“So…Irunami-kun seriously didn’t die on the stage…? And all of that stuff we talked about is seriously what the killer did…?” Yokozawa-san said in disbelief. “How…? How the hell did someone even come up with a plan like that?”

“It’s obvious, right? The killer’s just one crafty bastard.” Okanaya-san said.

“If that’s the case we can finally rule out Kobo-chan.” Amaterasu-san said.

“Oi!”

“But even though we’ve established the method, are we actually any closer to finding the killer…?” Ram-san asked.

“Hmm…well, the Monokuma File doesn’t mention the time of death, right? Maybe we should try and figure out when Irunami-kun died?” Yokozawa-san suggested.

“Check everybody’s alibis, right…? Yeah! We can do that! Let’s figure it out ASAP!” Hachi-san said with determination. The time of death…I wonder, do we have anything to show when it could’ve been?

-Non-Stop Debate 6-

Truth Bullets/Lie Bullets:

Monokuma File 2/Monokuma’s Mistake 2

Kurohiko-san’s Account/Kurohiko-san’s Mistake

Talent Show Line-up/Scraped Line-up Plan

Rehearsal Schedule/Night-Time Announcement

Shinko-san’s Filming/Shinko-san’s Absence

Kurosaki-san’s Set/Kurohiko-san’s Set

Junpei: Since the Monokuma File doesn’t include the time of death…do we have any way to pinpoint when Irunami-san died?

Mami: Irunami-kun must have died during the talent show

Kobo: During it…? How do you figure that?

Tomoe: It’s not impossible…did someone see him?

Mami: I do not believe anybody saw him…however, something could have happened…something that could have only happened during the murder. That would give us the time of death.

Yuuki: Was Senorita Asano always so cryptic?

Ryuu: (We can’t determine alibis without figuring out the time of death…so how do we go about figuring that out…?)

I agree with that!

“Yeah…something did happen. Something that could have only happened during the murder. Remember how I mentioned earlier that Kurohiko-san’s clothes had blood on them? Well, Kurohiko-san’s clothes could have only went missing during the set with Kurosaki-san. That must have been around the time of the murder!”

“That’s not necessarily true. Couldn’t Kurohiko have killed Irunami before the talent show and then simply changed into his stage outfit…?” Shinko-san asked.

“Nope! I can disprove that theory right now!” Kurosaki-san chimed. “You see, Monsieur Kurohiko and I shared a changing room and we were in there the whole time getting prepared for our set-in various ways, so he had no opportunity to kill Irunami-chan in his regular clothing. Not to mention that, even if he did, I would’ve noticed the blood.”

“V…various ways…?” Shinko-san repeated.

“Wh-why the hell are you saying weird things?!” Kurohiko-san protested.

“So that is the kind of man you are, Kurohiko-kun.” Asano-san nodded understandingly.

“And there wasn’t a chance for Doi-chan to kill Sadao-chan after his set either. I saw him too often backstage while I was searching for my car and not once did, I see him in his regular clothing.” Amaterasu-san joined.

“And in turn, I saw Amaterasu-san way too often for her to have a chance to sneak underneath the stage and set up all that stuff with Irunami-san’s body. In fact, I saw Amaterasu-san only a few seconds before the lighting rig fell and she should’ve had the remote for the toy car with her, but she didn’t.” Kurohiko-san said.

“So, you two are each other’s alibis. At least that sorts them out.” Yokozawa-san said. “So we know there’s about half an hour of time where the killer could’ve killed Irunami-kun whilst Kurosaki-kun and Kurohiko-kun were on stage.”

“A whole half an hour of knife tossing…” Kurohiko-san shivered from the memory.

“And majority of the others were in the audience at the time, right? So, they obviously have alibis.” Sly-san said. That actually brings our suspect list down…huh?

“Wait…is there anybody left then…? Wasn’t everyone either on stage or in someone’s sights in that time frame…?” I asked.

“Okanaya was working the lights in the wings. Would anybody see him…?” Sly-san asked.

“I was standing with Okanaya during Kurosaki’s set waiting for my turn, so he has an alibi for that time. We saw Amaterasu a lot as well, she was really pacing back and forth around backstage.” Shinko-san said. Then…who’s even left at this point…?

“One person.” Kurosaki-san said. Huh? “One person is left. Out of our whole group, only one person standing here doesn’t have an alibi for when me and Kurohiko-san were on stage. One person who nobody saw until the murder.”

“…w-wait…” It suddenly dawned on me. Out of everybody here, the only person that wasn’t seen until the murder…that was…

…that person is the culprit? That can’t be right though…

The culprit…is you!

“…Hachi-san?”

“Huh? What’s up?” Hachi-san asked, not quite realising it yet.

“If we go by everybody’s accounts, the only person left without an alibi for Kurosaki-san’s set would be you…” But can that be right…?

“Hold on, there’s clearly a problem with that! A big one!” Ram-san cried. “H-Hachi-san and Irunami-kun were best friends! It just doesn’t make sense for Hachi-san to be the killer, don’t you think?!”

“Friends?” Kurosaki-san repeated slowly. “Sorry, but if you start saying lines like that then I’ll start laughing. Laughing so hard I might piss myself, so please don’t start joking around.” It was quick. It’s always quick when Kurosaki-san’s malicious expression reveals itself that I can’t help getting caught off guard. “Friends don’t exist in the class trial, only victims and killers. Those are our only relationships to each other…”

“That’s not true!” Ram-san yelled, surprising everyone in the room. “…a-ah, what I mean to say is…I want to believe in the friends I made here, if I can’t believe in them then there’s nothing I can believe in…s-so, I want to believe in the friendship Irunami-kun and Hachi-san had…”

“R-Ram-chan…” Hachi-san murmured. They let out a breath and looked at me. “Okay…if you’re gonna try and point to me as the killer then I want some serious proof because not having an alibi by itself doesn’t mean anything.”

“If that’s the case, where were you during Kurosaki’s set?” Sly-san asked.

“I was preparing for my tricks and stuff. Irunami-kun and I had a switching places acting at the end of his set, so I had to set up for that, but I also had to set up for my own tricks. I didn’t have any time to go and kill Irunami-kun.” Hachi-san explained.

“So pathetic…” Kurosaki-san sighed. “I don’t even want to get into a debate because this is so pathetic…you were killing Irunami-chan and setting up all your tricks for the murder. Not the show.”

“Th-that’s not true…!” Hachi-san said.

“Kurosaki, can you just shut up…?” Okanaya-san growled. Kurosaki-san looked at him for a moment and smiled with a nod. “Let’s actually talk about this shit properly. Hachi, you’re saying there ain’t any evidence saying you’re the killer, but you actually got anything specific…?”

“S…specific…?” Hachi-san thought for a second. “…ah! I got it! The lighting rig! The killer obviously had to make the lighting rig fall somehow, but it’s not been established how that was done! If you can’t prove I could’ve knocked the lighting rig down, then I can’t be the killer!”

“They’ve got a point. The lighting rig was part of the killer’s cover-up so if Hachi-san didn’t knock it down, they can’t be the killer.” Kurohiko-san frowned. The method of knocking down the lighting rig…it’s true we didn’t decide on what it was, but will that really prove who the killer is?

-Non-stop Debate 7-

Truth Bullets/Lie Bullets

Okanaya-san’s Account/Okanaya-san’s Mistake

Lighting Rig/Metal Rod

Hachi-san’s Magic Classes/Irunami-san’s Hypnosis Classes

Rehearsal Schedule/Absence List

Air Cannons/Fog Vacuums

Tomoe: If you can’t connect the lighting rig falling to me…then I can’t be the killer!

Kobo: So, the issue is how the lighting rig fell.

Tsukiko: Perhaps the cables were severed?

Kobo: It’s stupid to say, but…maybe the wind knocked it down?

Toson: Dumbass, we were inside…there was no wind!

Amaterasu: Couldn’t Tomoe-chan have climbed up and released them?

Toson: You’re just acting to be voted for, aren’t you? Nobody could’ve climbed all the way up there!

Ryuu: (Let’s think carefully about this. The answer might be a little ludicrous, but if it’s the only answer…)

No, that’s wrong!

“No, Shinko-san…I think Okanaya-san may be onto something by saying it was the wind. When I was talking to Yokozawa-san, he started talking about these air cannons that Irunami-san was planning to use during his performance. Pretty powerful ones.”

“Powerful is an understatement, they could send a person flying from the other side of the stage.” Kurohiko-san said.

“Urp!” Hachi-san went pale. So…that really might be it.

“Who was in charge of setting up the air cannons for Irunami-san’s act?” I asked.

“That was…Hachi. Hachi and Irunami were helping each other set up their sets.” Shinko-san spoke, realising what everything meant. “H…hold the fuck up! Are you really gonna say that Hachi set up an air cannon to knock the lighting rig down?!”

“E-e-easy now! That doesn’t mean anything! S-sure, I set the air cannons, but someone could’ve changed their positions! Amaterasu-chan was walking back and forth between the wings and backstage, right?!” Hachi-san argued.

“Can you prove that Amaterasu touched the air cannons?” Sly-san asked.

“Can you prove she didn’t?! B-besides, if that’s all you got then I don’t have anything else to say! Those air cannons don’t tie to me at all! You can’t tie the air cannons to me!” Did I not already do that…? So, Hachi-san wants something more than what I already showed…something that might link to the air cannons…

Here’s my proof!

“Hachi-san, I have just one question. How do you do your wind trick?”

“…huh?” Hachi-san somehow went paler.

“You told me about those magic classes you gave to some of the group, and a wind trick. How did you do that magic trick…? Did you maybe use the air cannons?”

“I…I…”

“Not to mention that everybody who was at those magic classes has an alibi for the murder…! So even though some of us knew how to do that trick, none of us could’ve actually killed Irunami-kun!” Yokozawa-san said.

“So…it’s really true, huh…? Hachi-san really killed Irunami-kun…!” Ram-san covered her mouth.

“HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD ON!!!!” Hachi-san bellowed. “It’s all…circumstantial! Because…because…you still haven’t established where Irunami-kun died! Where did Irunami-kun die?!”

Irunami-san…the most likely place he died would be…

My logic follows!

“It would’ve been to risky to kill him underneath the stage. Kurohiko-san had left his clothes there, so he was definitely going to go there at some point. The only place I can think of…is Irunami-san’s dressing room.”

“But, other than on Kurohiko-kun’s clothing, there was no blood in there, correct?” Asano-san said.

“Irunami-sama had thick, curly hair, when he was hit, a lot of the blood would’ve been soaked in by his hair, so a lack of blood isn’t so strange.” Ishikawa-san said.

“So, you’re saying Tomoe-chan killed Sadao-chan and then took his body underneath the stage and set it up for the switch when the lighting rig fell.” Amaterasu-san clarified, “Then…isn’t there another problem, isn’t there…?”

“Another problem? What do you mean?” Kurohiko-san raised an eyebrow.

-Non-stop Debate 8-

Truth Bullets/Lie Bullets

Vent System/Bolted Vent Grates

Costume Rack/Empty Rack

Trap Door/Regular Floor

Hachi-san’s Account/Hachi-san’s Mistake

Amaterasu: The killer must’ve had a way to get Sadao-chan underneath the stage…the problem is that Tomoe-chan would’ve had to pass through the backstage area to get underneath the stage…wouldn’t that have been impossible…?

Toson: Right…Amaterasu was going back and forth around backstage…but she didn’t see Hachi at all….

Tomoe: Yeah…! Yeah! See? I’m not the killer then! Thanks Amaterasu-chan, you’re the best!

Ryuu: (I don’t doubt that Irunami-san was killed in his dressing room…was there a method of getting Irunami-san’s body underneath the stage without being seen?)

No, that’s wrong!

“That wouldn’t be a problem at all. Remember earlier how I mentioned the vent system? It’s possible for Hachi-san to move Irunami-san’s body through there, right? That way they could’ve gotten Irunami-san’s body underneath the stage without being seen.”

“Oh yeah! The vents are huge, it would be super easy to push a body through there or drag it!” Graves-san said.

“Nononononononono!!” Hachi-san pleaded. “It’s all wrong! This is all wrong I’m telling you!”

“With this…all the mysteries have been solved. Hachi-san killed Irunami-san, took his body to underneath the stage then set up the switcheroo trick to make it seem like he died on stage, then joined us in the audience.”

“…huh?” Hachi-san thought for a second. “…yeah! That’s not possible, Nagata-kun! Not possible at all…! Because if I was in the audience at the moment of the lighting rig falling, then how could I have pulled the lever to activate the trap door?!”

“A-ah…!” Th-they still have more in them…but I can feel it. This has to be the final hurdle before Hachi-san confesses…okay, I’ll break through this and end this trial!

-Argument Armament Vs. Tomoe Hachi-

Tomoe: There’s no way I could have been in two places at once, so I couldn’t have pulled the lever for the switcheroo trick! Your whole basis is wrong because I’m not the killer, I could never be the killer!

Tomoe: Stop it already…I just want to find Irunami-kun’s killer! I want to find the truth more than anyone, so why are you accusing me?! I’m innocent I tell you, I’m innocent, I won’t let you say I killed my friend!

Tomoe: Just leave me alone! It’s all a trick by the true killer, you’re being tricked! I won’t allow this killer to get away, so just stop it already! It’s impossible, completely impossible for me to be the killer!

Ryuu: This is the end!

Tomoe: How could I have done the switcheroo from the audience?

Remote Control!

“You could have easily activated the trap door from the audience, as long as you had its remote control.”

“R-r-remote?!” Hachi-san repeated.

“Kurohiko-san told me about it when he was explaining the trap door to me. He said that practically everything in the auditorium was remote controlled. Kurohiko-san, that includes the trap door, right?”

“Y…yeah. Trap door, speakers, fog machines, lights…everything.” Kurohiko-san confirmed.

“And if you were using remote controls, you wouldn’t have had a moment where you could safely dispose of them, right? After all, Hachi appeared right after the lighting rig fell…so, if we searched you, would we find the remotes?” Sly-san asked.

“Gh!”

“You clearly blundered when you volunteered to watch over Irunami-sama’s body, but if you did not it may have been suspicious that you did not wish to be with Irunami-sama after his passing. A conundrum you clearly had not prepared for…” Ishikawa-san theorised.

“And that’s that…any more objections, Hachi-san?” I asked. Hachi-san simply let their mouth hang open, unable to form any kind of coherent words or phrases.

“Hey, I’m still kind of fucked here…this was really complicated, so can we go over it all from the start?” Okanaya-san asked. Yeah…I’ll summarise these events and end this case once and for all.

“This is the truth of the incident!”

Act 1

This case is a pretty complicated one, so I'll try my best to explain it all thoroughly since it relied heavily on a certain trick. First the killer needed to prepare beforehand for the actual murder so they decided, with the work of Irunami-san and Shinko-san, that they would all work to put on a talent show as a cover for the murder. They were going to use their set time in the talent show as their alibi and as a way to frame Okanaya-san.

Act 2

First the killer prepared a dummy and dressed it up as Irunami-san. Then rigged the lighting bar for the actual talent show by setting up some of the air cannons to hit the lighting rig at full blast. They did this all the night before the talent show, knowing that nobody else from the stage crew would be around so they were free to do what they needed to.

Act 3

Next was the actual day of the murder, the first few acts went on as normal. However, at this moment, the killer went backstage to Irunami-san's dressing room and used a spare stage light to bludgeon him to death, dressed in Kurohiko-san's clothes to avoid the blood getting on their clothes. Next the killer got changed out of Kurohiko-san's clothes and into their own.

Act 4

Then they took the stage light and Irunami-san's body and placed them on the lift for the trapdoor underneath the stage by transporting them through the vents and swapped their bloody clothes out for the stage outfit on the rack, then hiding the bloody clothes in a bag in Irunami-san’s dressing room. Then they took the dummy dressed as Irunami-san and used Amaterasu-san’s remote control car to hold it up. Now it was ready to go on stage.

Act 5

The dummy went on as Irunami-san and the killer joined the audience through the vent, saying it was part of the trick Irunami-san was planning and waited until the dummy was hovering over the trap door and released the lighting bar by using an air cannon, letting it crash onto the stage. They then used the button for the trap door to switch the dummy with Irunami-san's actual body and feigned innocence, thinking we'd all believe the tech crew was to blame for Irunami-san's 'accidental' death and we didn’t even realise Irunami-san never made it to the stage because of the fog machines.

And this was the trick you used to fool us all...it’s curtains for you: Tomoe Hachi, the Ultimate Illusionist!

“And that’s all…did I get anything wrong…?”

“I…” Hachi-san was quiet for a moment before letting out a sigh. They then flashed a smile. “Wow, Nagata-kun! You really did it! You figured out all of my tricks and saw past my illusions!”

“H…Hachi-san…” Ram-san murmured.

“Oh? Is that it? Have you all decided now…? Well, if that’s the case, let’s all proceed to the voting tim-“

“Can we hold off for a moment?” Ishikawa-san interrupted. “I apologise, but before we proceed to the voting…how do we wish to handle this matter?”

“What do you mean?” Amaterasu-san asked.

“Do you not recall…? The motive for this particular trial?” Huh…? The motive…the motive, if I remember…

My logic follows!

“A wish…if the killer wins the class trial, they get a wish granted. Any wish they want.”

“Y-you’re not gonna suggest we let Hachi win the class trial, are you?!” Shinko-san growled.

“Why not…? If we allow Hachi-sama to win then we may be able to end this killing game. I fail to see any problem with this idea.” Ishikawa-san smiled.

“Th-that true…” Shinko-san murmured.

“Hold on now, we can’t trust someone like Hachi-san! They killed Irunami-san after all!” Kurohiko-san argued.

“Nagata…what do you think…?” Okanaya-san looked at me. What did I think…? I can see it from both sides…if I’m honest, my gut is telling me…

“…I don’t think we should let Hachi-san use their wish.”

“N-Nagata-kun?!” Ram-san squeaked.

“I’m sorry! I know it sounds cruel but…there’s no way this killing game would end that easily! There’s a trick to Monokuma’s motive, I know it! We just can’t take the risk! Please…Ram-san, I know it’s hard but you have to believe in me…I don’t like it either…”

Ram-san looked to the ground, tugging at her hair so much that her hairband was shifting out of place. “…alright then…I’ll…I’ll trust you.” She said with determination.

“No way! We can end this once and for all! We can’t let this opportunity pass us up!”

“It’s too risky! We can’t!”

“I sense the discord!”

“Ah…I suppose it’s pretty late in the trial, but if seems you’re all at an impasse. This is a very important topic, so I think it’s time for the morphing trial grounds…!” Monokuma announced, pulling out the key from before and causing the trial podiums to change formation.

-Scrum Debate, begin!-

"Should we let Tomoe use their wish?"

"We shouldn't!" - Ryuu, Kobo, Ram, Mami, Sly, Amaterasu, Yuuki

"We should!" - Tomoe, Toson, Karma, Doi, Junpei, Tsukiko

Junpei: We should let Hachi-san use their wish to end this killing game!

(Okanaya-san!)

Kobo: It’s way too risky! We don’t know if Hachi will use their wish the way we want them too!

Toson: We’ve already trusted a killer in our group, so what’s the difference here?

(Sly-san!)

Sly: I may be a killer, but I’m not the culprit in this case. These are two different matters.

Karma: We can prevent anyone from having to be executed. Isn’t that a good thing?

(I’ll deal with this!)

Ryuu: There’s no way Monokuma would let us fail a class trial without anyone being executed!

Tsukiko: Can we not trust Hachi-sama to do the right thing in the end?

(Asano-san!)

Mami: Hachi-san sacrificed their best friend in the group. Are we expected to trust them even after that?

Tomoe: Please, let me end this killing game once and for all! I can do it, I promise!

(Ram-san!)

Ram: Even if you say that…we can’t guarantee the killing game will end because of the wish!

“This is our answer!”

“I’m sorry everyone…I’m sorry…Hachi-san…but if we don’t vote correctly, who knows what might happen?! Our lives are on the line, can we really afford to be taking risks right now?!”

“You…you are right…” Ishikawa-san conceded. “Even though I do not wish the endless slumber upon anyone…what am I to do when there are so many other lives in front of me that could be jeopardised?”

“Shit…shit! Fuck this! Fuck this whole class trial, why can’t we just have it be easy?!” Yokozawa-san slammed his fists onto the podium.

“Then…you’re done…? We can proceed with the vote…?” Monokuma asked. “Great! Then please select who you believe is the culprit from the screen in front of you! Will you pick the right choice…? Or the dreadfully wrong one…? What’s it gonna be? What’s it gonna be…?”

We watched as the Monokuma roulette wheel spun around, out faces each passing the needle before it eventually stopped on Hachi-san’s icon. Bouquets of flowers popped from the sides of the roulette wheel…we had voted. And the class trial was over.

#DKronpa #Chapters #fanganronpa #fangan ronpa

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ayyosuga · 6 years

Text

The Pleasure Collection | If You Insist Drabble Epilogue

Genre: Smut/Fluff (you’re welcome)

Word Count: 3k whoops

Request: Jungkook 87 💓 || “I saved you a seat.” Thanks @michhjeon!

As soon as your Uber pulls up in front of your apartment building, you accidentally shout a quick thank you! and scurry toward your little home. Jungkook is waiting for you, and every cell in your body is buzzing with gleeful energy. Not only is this the first time he's really available to spend time with you in well over two weeks (thank you, night shift), but it's a day that is cause for celebration. The promotion he earned meant he would be working exclusively day shifts from here on out, which meant your schedules would finally sync up.

In the months since you and Jungkook finally confessed to each other, you lived for the nights he was off work and you didn't have class. Yes, you had skipped class on a few occasions, but it was well worth it in your opinion. You didn't think you could ever tire of his presence; it was a special gift that you treasured dearly.

And now, he is just upstairs. You race up the steps to your door, ignoring the way you're huffing and puffing from exertion. You blast through the door and Jungkook jumps. Something falls from his hands to the floor with a soft splat, but you don't care enough to investigate. You're a bit preoccupied by the sight of him.

"Jungkook!" You squeal, dropping your bag and running to him, heart melting at the curve of his smile and his cute little round cheeks.

When you reach him, he scoops you up into his arms, twirling you around and nuzzling into your neck. You laugh cheerfully and he squeezes you to him, enveloping you in his comforting warmth. "Hey, cutie."

He eventually sets you down, and you cup his face with both hands. "It's good to see you."

"You too," he coos. "I've been waiting for you."

Your eyes dart down to his lips before you capture them with your own, eagerly indulging in your boyfriend's kiss. He devours you, and there is no question of what is on his mind. As his lips work their way down to your throat, you breathily comment, "You seem pretty eager."

Jungkook pulls away and tucks your hair behind your ears. "I just can't help myself around you."

"You better be careful," you chide. "You're gonna inflate my ego."

With a snarky smirk he responds, "The bigger the better, right? You know all about that."

You press your hips against his, noticing the semi-hard bulge he's hiding. "Why don't you put your money where your mouth is and remind me just how much better bigger can be."

He kisses you powerfully and picks you up once more, allowing you to wrap your legs around his waist before carrying you into the bedroom. You hold onto him for dear life, forever nervous by the way he just lifts you up and moves you around like a doll. Jungkook is strong, so you never doubt his ability to hold you up, but he's reckless. That's what makes you squeak and cling to him as he nears the bed, hoping he won't throw you onto the mattress as he has done in the past.

"Oh relax, would you? I'll be nice." He chuckles lowly as he turns to sit on the edge of the bed, keeping you in his lap. With a cocky grin, he grabs the back of his collar and pulls the t-shirt over his head, dropping it onto the floor. How can such a simple gesture be so sexy?

He's quick to hook his fingers under the hem of your shirt once his is off, and you gladly let him strip you. Your bra doesn't stay on much longer, either, and as soon as your breasts are exposed Jungkook buries his face in your chest, pecking and biting and licking and nipping. A flash of heat bursts between your thighs as his mouth claims your breasts, working you into a frenzy without so much as a touch to your most sensitive spot. It's truly amazing, the way he has always known how to handle you.

Eventually his hungry mouth makes its way up along your throat to your jawline, finally landing on your lips. A searing combination of pleasure and joy fills you with each kiss, and you can't help the bubbly laughter that overcomes you.

Jungkook pulls away in confusion, but he mirrors your smile. "What are you laughing about?"

"I just-" you giggle as you take in the sight of him and try to form appropriate words for what exactly it is that you're feeling. Love tries particularly hard to escape your lips, but you bury it deep within you, not entirely sure that you're ready to let that one slip out yet. Instead, you opt for a much more long-winded version of a similar sentiment. "You make me really happy, Jungkook, and I just really like you a lot and I'm really, really happy."

"Me, too." He chuckles and leaves a quick kiss on your collarbone. "Why don't you take those leggings off so I can make you even happier, yeah?"

That's honestly the only good reason you have to climb off of him, and you're more than willing to finish stripping for him. He scoots back further onto the bed as you remove the rest of your clothing, and like some shithead frat boy he cat calls you from his reclined position among the pillows,

"Wooo!" He hollers. Jungkook thinks it's just hilarious to hit on you all the time, even though you are already together. "Hey Miss Legs, let me get those digits."

"Stooopppp," you groan with a smile. Okay, so maybe it's kind of endearing.

"Come here, I've saved you a special seat." He beckons you sleazily, watching hungrily as you slink onto the bed. "Let me have a taste."

A sensual burst of adrenaline shoots through your abdomen at his words. It's no secret between the two of you how much you love riding Jungkook's face, and yet you still manage to feel butterflies whenever he suggests it. The memory of his tongue exploring your folds is enough to leave you dripping, which you know Jungkook will gratefully devour. As you climb on top of him to straddle his gorgeous mouth, you purr, "You really know how to take care of a girl."

He winks up at you and darts his tongue across your sensitive skin, lapping up the evidence of your arousal. A hushed moan leaves your vocal cords, resonating softly in your chest as his tongue works its magic, dragging tantalizingly across your skin and circling the apex of your slit. You hold onto the headboard for support, squeezing it hard as Jungkook sends pleasure shooting through you, his delightfully warm and wet mouth completely closing around your sex and sucking gently. Each beautiful tugging sensation against your clit makes you squirm and you lose yourself in the feeling, arching your back as you rock against his lips.

"Oh my God, Jungkook..." One hand finds purchase in his hair, and he lets out a soft growl as you tug, which creates a delightful vibration against your core. You continue rocking and gasping for air as the sweet pleasure within you builds, and you just about tip over the edge when you glance down at his half-lidded, sultry expression. He looks so gorgeous between your thighs and you think you may never truly know how you got so lucky.

Jungkook's hands grope at your ass and thighs as he brings you closer and closer to your high, flicking and circling his tongue around your sensitive bud until the coil inside of you finally snaps, releasing powerful waves of pleasure through your veins. It leaves you feeling lightheaded and Jungkook supports you as you climb off, collapsing onto the bed now that all energy has been zapped from your bones.

He wipes his lips with the back of his hand as he turns to face you. You've rolled onto your stomach, and he runs his fingers delicately down your spine. "How did that feel?"

You shiver under his touch, a blissful smile on your lips. "Wonderful."

While you recover, he slips out of his jeans and boxers to match you in your nude state. And before you can start to sit up, Jungkook hovers over you, hands diligently digging into the muscles in your back. The massage is peppered with kisses to your shoulders, neck, and spine, and you sigh gratefully.

Jungkook lowers himself, straddling one of your legs and supporting himself with one arm while the other hand travels down to your ass cheek, squeezing gently. In an oddly patronizing yet lustful tone, he murmurs into your ear, "How's my little babygirl doing?"

You eagerly play along without questioning the use of nickname, fully embracing it and wanting nothing more than to hear him say it again. Raising your hips off the bed, you press against his already hardened cock. "She's doing so good, but she wants more, sir."

His cock twitches against you when you call him sir, and you're pleased by the minute reaction. The fingers that were massaging your ass make their way further between your thighs, dragging across your soaked skin before pressing just beyond your entrance. "Is this what my babygirl wants?"

With a soft whimper, you shift your hips back in an attempt to chase his fingers as he pulls away. "Yes, please..."

Jungkook presses a hand against your lower back, encouraging you to flatten against the bed. "Just relax, baby. I'm gonna take care of you."

You listen and surrender, enraptured by the powerful aura Jungkook exudes. Typically he erred on the side of playful and that was wonderful in its own right, but this is a very welcome change. The way he bites your neck and grinds his dick against your ass is incredibly possessive, and it feels absolutely perfect to be his.

His fingers find your slit once more, but it isn't long before they abandon your core and allow his cock to come play. The tip of his dick glides easily between your lips thanks to the combination of your arousal and Jungkook's saliva, and he seductively murmurs, "I'm gonna be so good to you, babygirl. You're gonna cum just for me."

Jungkook's moan blends with yours as he slides his length past your entrance, filling you to the brim with his perfect cock. It stretches you and pleases you and nothing could ever be more wonderful than being so full, and you're reminded of those three things with each thrust. His movements are easy, languid as he makes love to you, leaving lazy kisses on your shoulder. You savor every second of him, of his body against yours, thanking him with a chorus of moans.

"You feel amazing," he sighs, lips brushing against the juncture of your shoulder and neck. "So fucking good and you're all mine."

You feel your cheeks grow warm as you notice his possessive tone. You're not sure what has gotten into him, but you're definitely not complaining. "I'm all yours, Jungkook."

"That's right, fuck." His voice is gruff, strained, and then he's pulling away from you, leaving your poor slit gaping and weeping at the loss. With a grab of your hips, he instructs you to flip over, and he quickly situates himself between your legs once more.

You feel a little embarrassed about how flushed you surely are, but you simply can't help the effect he's having on you. He too appears a bit red in the face and chest, and you think he must be just as smitten as you.

Jungkook's gaze tracks over your face and an awe-filled smile comes to his lips, causing his eyes to crinkle slightly at the corners. "Fuck, you're gorgeous."

Before you can respond, his lips come crashing down on yours, capturing you in a deep kiss that's full of a certain emotion that you're afraid to acknowledge. It conveys his whole heart, passionately spoiling you with the depth of his caring. You cup his face, hoping to share your whole heart with him as well.

Briefly, his hand reaches between your legs to line himself up with your entrance, and then he is blissfully rolling his hips into yours again, pleasure consuming you entirely. Between his lips and his cock, your heartbeat is forced into overdrive, pounding heavily as he ruins you.

Eventually Jungkook's lips trail down to your neck before abandoning your skin completely, allowing you both to start breathing again and giving him the opportunity to rock into you even harder. One of his arms scoops under your shoulder as the other hand claims your ass cheek, squeezing it and lifting your hips to adjust the angle. His cock hits just the right spot within you, and you cry out in pleasure.

The heat coming off of his body as he exerts himself is enough to make you break out in a sweat, and his panting breath is hot on your skin. This is your favorite kind of warmth, when Jungkook is buried deeply inside of you, your nipples rubbing against his chest. You've never had a more fabulous sex life, and physically connecting with Jungkook in this way is one of the better things in your life.

"J-Jungkook..." you stutter as your high nears. "Jungkook, please, I-I'm..."

He lifts off of you just enough to really look at you, and you swear you've never seen a man so beautiful. His smile is sweet, voice like honey as he asks, "Are you ready to cum for me, babygirl?"

"Y-yes..."

With his torso hovering over yours, he reaches a deeper angle by curving his back, hips mercilessly pounding into you. In just a few more strokes, your eyes pinch shut and your walls clench tightly around Jungkook's cock. You completely unravel beneath him, practically sobbing as your body is wracked with ecstasy. Jungkook is murmuring something sweet, but you can't make out the words over the sounds coming out of your own mouth, and suddenly you are very, very wet, like exceptionally, out-of-the-ordinary wet.

Jungkook notices, too, slowing his pace now that you're coming down. You look up at him in confusion. "Did you just finish too?"

He lets out a short laugh. "No, I think that's all you."

Your cheeks flush. Had you just squirted? You didn't even know you were capable of that. "Oh my God..."

Jungkook laughs again and presses a sweet kiss against your lips, all hooded eyes and low voice. "You did such a good job, babygirl, cumming for me like that."

He rocks into you again, but he's gentle and steady, careful not to push you too far after you just reached your climax. You know that it's his turn, now, and you speak up, hoping you can help him along. "I came so hard. You even made me squirt with that perfect cock of yours."

With a low whimper, he screws his eyes shut, focusing on his own pleasure for the first time all night.

"Now I'm so fucking wet and it's all because of you. I bet you can hardly stand it," you continue, and you revert back to your earlier role. "Don't fight it anymore. Fill me up with your cum. Please, sir."

"Fuck." Jungkook's eyes fly open, but only long enough for him to pinpoint your mouth, eyeing his target before crashing into you with a kiss. Fervently, he kisses you, but soon he parts, a strangled moan leaving his throat as he bucks hard. Your fingers card through his hair as he spills into you, turning into a beautiful moaning mess.

Eventually he collapses off to the side, rolling onto his back and breathing hard. His skin glistens with sweat, the result of all of his hard work.

"It's so hot in here," he pants, grabbing your hand and placing the knuckles against his cheek. With a disgruntled sigh, he kisses your fingers before releasing them. "Your hands are actually warm for once."

You laugh and stick your foot on his thigh. "What about my toes?"

"Warm." Jungkook looks over at you skeptically. "Are you even my girlfriend?"

"It's amazing what a mind-blowing orgasm can do to a woman," you joke, rolling onto your side to face him. You still can't get over the fact that you squirted. "That was kind of crazy, wasn't it?"

"You mean the fucking flood that came out of your vagina? Yeah, that was nuts." He laughs when you smack him on the chest, knowing full-well that he deserved it. Backpedaling, he covers himself with: "No, I thought it was awesome. You must have really enjoyed it."

"I did." You smile as you lace your fingers between his. "Why are you so good to me?"

"Because I lov-" His eyes widen in shock as he cuts his sentence short, but it wasn't so short that your mind couldn't fill in the blanks.

You gawk at him in surprise after a quiet moment passes. "What were you about to say?"

He closes his eyes, looking disappointed in himself as he takes a deep breath. "I made you a cake."

"What?" Clearly, that's not what he was going to say. "No, don't try to weasel your way out of this one."

"I'm not! I made you a cake, I swear." He stares up at the ceiling, pressing his lips into a tight line.

"Really?"

"Yeah. But I dropped it when you came in." He sighs. "You scared me, bursting through the door like that."

You laugh, remembering the sound of the cake making contact with the floor. "So that's what that was."

Jungkook chuckles with you, finally reconnecting his gaze with yours and holding your hand. "It was a very special cake with a very special message for my very special girl."

Your heart flutters within your chest at the mischievous glint in his eyes. "What was the message?"

He shrugs playfully. "Now you'll never know, since it's all busted up."

"Jungkook!" You go to smack his chest, but he catches you by the wrist and yanks you toward him, causing you to roll onto his chest. Looking down at him, you smile. "What secrets are you trying to keep from me?"

"It's not a secret, I just like seeing you all riled up." Jungkook softly pets your hair. "The cake said 'I heart ur booty.' And I'm not even kidding about that. That's exactly what I wrote."

With a roll of your eyes, you let out a sigh. "I expect nothing more from you."

"But it's more than that," he continues, sweetly caressing your cheek. "I was thinking about you a lot because it feels like forever since I last saw you, and I don't think that you really know how much you mean to me, how much I appreciate being with you, and... I just want you to know that I love you."

All of your walls and previous inhibitions come down as you finally allow yourself to fully express your feelings. "I love you, too, Jungkook."

His kiss never tasted so sweet.

#kkreationsnet #bangtan bookclub #jungkook smut #officer jungkook #bts smut #officer jungkook smut #bts jungkook #jungkook scenario #officer jungkook scenario #bts jungkook scenario

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wayward-wren · 6 years

Text

Detroit: Remain Human - Chapter one.

Summary: A year after the android uprising and things have settled down somewhat in Detroit. But tensions are still running high and the humans are not as accepting as the androids as was hoped. Then, while investigating a crime scene, Connor and Hank find evidence of an android murderer. Alice doesn't return home from school. And Markus gets word that androids are goings missing. The uneasy coexistence between humans and androids is threatened and those who want to keep it strong need to act fast before their world crumbles around them.

Warnings: Bit of blood/violence. Major character death maybe.

Pairings: Luther/Kara. Hank & Connor (not ship. Don’t tag as ship)

A/N: Wooo new story! with a really original title, I know *glances at pile of unfinished fics* *Coughs and shoves pile away* Let’s go!

| A03 | Next Chapter |

The music was almost as loud as the siren as the car screeched to a halt. Police lights flashed, lighting up the crime scene and casting reflections in the puddles left over from a rainfall earlier that day. Connor stepped out of the passenger door, sending droplets of water flying as he placed his foot in a puddle. He sighed, glancing over the car roof to his partner, Hank, who was currently heaving himself out of the driver’s seat. He was muttering to himself again.

“Why do we always get called out at the worst time,” he complained, leaning against the car door.

“It’s our job, Lieutenant,” Connor said simply.

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean I have’ta like it.” With a sigh, Hank straightened out and pushed himself off the car. “Alright. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Connor examined the surrounding area. It was a simple and well-kept residential area; houses with neat gardens lit dimly by the glow of street lamps. The house in question was surrounded by a small group of people, kept at bay by the holographic police tape, that Connor and Hank shouldered their way through. The house itself looked much the same as the buildings around it, recently painted, lawns mowed and well kept; a respectable place to live.

One striking difference told this house apart from those surrounding it. A noticeable smashed window, glass shards littering the garden and glass below. It looked like it had been broken from inside, and Connor scanned the area around for any further clues. At first glance, nothing came to light and he decided to investigate more thoroughly after the briefing.

Hank was already in conversation with Ben Collins when he stepped up the stairs outside the house and joined them on the deck.

“…got a call from one of the neighbours who heard the window smash,” Collins was saying as Connor arrived. “Dispatch found the dead body of a Thomas Wilson– and traces of red ice. We thought it best to call you up.” Hank muttered something unsavoury about red ice under his breath as the briefing continued. “The victim was a well-respected businessman, well off, though his fortune had gone down after the androids got equal rights. He’s a widower with two sons, one currently living with him. The crime scene is being documented, but I’ll leave you to what you do best.” Collins nodded at Hank and turned to leave. Connor stepped to the side, knowing from experience that he was expected to move.

“Alright,” Hank said reluctantly. “Let’s get this over with.” He moved into the house, cursing red ice under his breath.

Connor turned his attention to the garden, examining the broken window and the garden below it. From the state of the garden, it looked like someone had leapt out the window. Satisfied for now, he moved inside.

The scene that greeted him was like many he had seen during the last year; a dead body, a mess of a scene, and a story waiting to be discovered. The body was slumped in the corner of the living room and Hank was already crouching over it. A quick facial recognition scan and Connor confirmed the victim as Thomas Wilson.

Working efficiently, Connor examined the room, piecing together what had happened. From what information he could gather, the victim and suspect had been sitting the sofas, across from each other. The suspect had attacked the victim with a knife, leaping across the table and knocking a couple of glasses over, spilling water onto the floor. He had then stabbed the victim, who had tried to run but had been stabbed again as he escaped.

Having seen enough, Connor’s next course of action was to investigate the kitchen for any further clues. But first, he joined Hank by the window.

“Found anything?” Hank asked.

“Not really. From what I can tell the attack was unprovoked.” He frowned, noticing for the first time a bullet hole in the window frame. “Have you seen any signs of a gun, Lieutenant?”

“Nah, nothing like that. Did find that though.” He nodded to a smoking pipe on the cabinet in the corner – obviously used for red ice. “This case has nothing to do with stopping the epidemic. We need to find the source – not those who take it. Especially not after they’re already dead.” He scowled, turning to look out the smashed window.

“I was going to look in the…” Connor trailed off, something catching his eye. He frowned, moving closer to the window. A small smear of blue liquid was sticking to the shattered glass. Ignoring Hank’s disgusted look, Connor dipped his finger into it and brought it to his mouth.

“Thirium,” he said after a second of analysing.

“The killer was an android?” Hank asked.

“That’s a possibility,” Connor said slowly, glancing at the officers moving around the room.

“That’s not good,” Hank muttered.

Connor frowned, wiping his fingers clean on his pants. It really wasn’t good. Only a year after the android uprising and tensions were still high. If an android was killing humans that conflict could arise again very quickly. And that was not something any of the androids wanted to go through again. Not after they had fought so hard for freedom.

“Don’t tell anyone yet,” he said quietly. He wanted Markus to know before any of the humans did. Hank nodded.

“Makes sense. Don’t want the humans all upset.” He sighed, turning his attention back to the room. “This is a dead end. What are we even doing here.”

“We need to learn what happened,” Connor said.

“Just because red ice is on scene suddenly it’s an excuse to call us in.” He snorted. “This job’s simple enough even Reed could do it.”

“It’s worth a look around – maybe we can learn who his supplier was and find another lead. I’ll investigate the kitchen.”

Hank nodded absently, crossing his arms and looking around the room, lost in thought. Connor left him to it and moved into the kitchen.

The kitchen was a good size and seemed undisturbed. A large table filled the middle of the room, a few chairs sitting around it. There didn’t seem to be any clues in here, but Connor began to move around the room anyway.

He was halfway around when he paused, hearing something. A small noise coming from the pantry, like an animal in distress. Wary, Connor moved towards the pantry, carefully pushing the door open.

A loud bang rang through the kitchen. Connor jumped back, a bullet whistling past his head. A curse came from the other room, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Hank and a couple of other officers rush through. He shook his head, gesturing for them to stay back, and turned to the figure huddled in the pantry.

It was a boy – maybe twelve years old - gripping a gun tightly in his hand. He was shaking and obviously terrified. Connor crouched down, holding his hands where the boy could see them.

“It’s alright,” he said calmly. “I’m not going to hurt you.” The boy stared at him but slowly began lowering the weapon. “My name is Connor. I’m a police officer – I’m here to help.” He held out his hand, slowly. “May I have the gun?”

Shakily and warily, the boy reached forward, handing the gun to Connor. The android gently took it from him, flipped the safety on and slid it across the floor - out of reach.

“What’s your name?” Connor asked, though he already knew from facial recognition. The boy looked up, blinking.

“Sam,” he muttered.

“Can you tell me what happened, Sam?”

The boy dropped his gaze, obviously remembering.

“A man showed up. He was asking about an old android we used to own. Then he pulled out a knife and…” He trailed off, squeezing his eyes shut and hugging his legs.

“Do you remember anything about the android this man was asking about?” Connor asked. Sam shook his head.

“It was a couple years ago. I think she got stolen or something.”

“Do you have an android working for you?”

“No,” the boy said, shaking his head. “Dad didn’t want to hire anyone.”

“Alright. Just a few more questions. How long has your father been taking red ice?”

The boy looked down, seemingly embarrassed.

“Since Mom died. About a year ago. I tried to get him to stop.”

“Do you know anything about that?”

Sam frowned, scuffing his shoes on the tiles of the floor.

“I know where he gets it from,” he said quietly.

“That would be a big help.”

“I followed him one day.” He seemed rather proud of that fact. “He was over in Virginia Park area.”

“Thank you,” Connor said, standing. He stepped back and let one of the other officers take over, helping the boy up and talking softly to him. Hank moved beside him.

“So we got your lead after all,” he said.

“It appears so. However, I’m more worried about the motive of the killer. It appears he was an android – if the thirium is anything to go by. And who is the android he’s looking for?”

“Beats me,” Hank muttered.

“Whatever the case, I need to let Markus know what is happening.”

| Next Chapter |

#detroit become human #D:BH #detroit become human fanfiction #fanfiction #Connor (DBH)#Hank (DBH)#my fanfics

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minijenn · 6 years

Text

Universe Falls Chapter 51

SURPRISE BITCHES!!!! AHAHAHAHAHAH GUESS WHO WROTE AN ENTIRE ORIGINAL CHAPTER OF UNIVERSE FALLS PRETTY MUCH ENTIRELY UNDER WRAPS! YEAH THAT”S RIGHT FUCKIN ME! AND WOOO BOY IS THIS ONE A FUCKING DOOZY TOO! ARC 6 OPENS WITH ANGST AHAHAHAHAH But yeah this one is like... completely original and it kinda is mostly a bunch of character interaction, going downward from the last chapter and whatnot,, yadda yadda whatever whatever. Either way, I hope you enjoy it because its time for some BOMBSHELLS AHAHAHAH WOO BABY!

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/172209617169/universe-falls-chapter-50-part-2

Chapter 51: Lost and Found

WLICWC YPDVS NDR CSDRGP D POE WMMP WS RPPIMMHV WSDX TTPI FZUKOE ZLAE RRCP ZES WRWT SDW NZZ GOXH XO WLKHE EYT EKI QFHWTTRR RPPEIYV: HIO USSP GS WSDX WLV VIRKX?

A teardrop splashed onto the page, staining it as the hand writing the letter stilled. A tug of grief pulled at the writer’s heart, grief that prompted even more tears as they continued their letter.

“I should have told them.”

Their script was flowing and elegant, but their message was sad and solemn, though hard to make out through their pressing tears. Still, it was a message that needed to be relayed all the same, even if they weren’t sure their intended recipient would ever receive them.

“If I had just let them know about the danger we were facing from the beginning, then maybe none of this would have happened…”

They sighed, pausing to shake their head remorsefully. It seemed as though regrets of the past never really died, no matter how much time and healing passed.

“But I did what I had to… for them… for us…”

The very act of writing the letter itself was becoming almost too painful to bear, given the nature of it, but they had put this off long enough. If they didn’t finish this now, then chances are, they never would.

“If you were still here, then I know you’d understand…”

The letter was nearing its end now, but even so, it still felt incredibly incomplete. After all, there was so very much to say that a simple handwritten page couldn’t ever hope to contain it all.

“But you’re gone… and its all my fault… just like everything else…”

Another tear slipped down their cheek, just one more do add to the almost endless flow that had begun even before they had ever sat down to write this letter. A letter that could only ever serve as a forever insufficient, eternally empty way of reckoning with the wrongs of the past.

“And I’m so, so sorry… for everything I’ve done…”

Steven awoke with a gasp, his eyes wide as soon as they opened as his mind reeled from whatever it was he had just dreamt about. By all accounts, what he had just seen made no sense to him whatsoever, but what made even less sense was the fact that his cheeks were damp with tears. Apparently, the very same tears he seemed to have shed in his unexplainable, context-free dream.

Yet that wasn’t all. As the young Gem slowly pulled himself up out of bed and wiped his face dry, he couldn’t help but feel weighed down by a wave of immense guilt, guilt that he couldn’t really pin the source down for. After all, the only things he had fallen asleep with last night had been worry and uncertainty given everything that had happened the previous day and all that had been uncovered, but for once, he had been relatively free of any tangible guilt. So then why did he feel like he had done something so horribly, unforgivably wrong?

For a moment, Steven simply sat on the edge of his bed, trying to sort these mysterious, almost random feelings out, quite alarmed by just how heavy they seemed to be. And yet, his focus was soon diverted away from his own confusion emotions as he overheard quiet voices coming from the front porch. Steven’s brow furrowed as he recognized these voices to be those of the Gems, and given just how shaken they had all been the last time he saw them the previous night, he couldn’t help but tiptoe down from the loft and press against the wall near the door to listen to what they were saying.

“There’s no denying that he was close to Rose,” Garnet said, leaning against the railing as Pearl hung close to her, though Amethyst was oddly somewhat distanced from them. “The journals alone are proof of that.”

Steven quickly realized that the Gems had to be talking about Ford based on this mention of the journals, and even though he felt somewhat bad for eavesdropping on them, he couldn’t resist. Especially given the apparent and now forgotten camaraderie between them that the young Gem still wanted to know more about.

“W-well even if they do, that doesn’t mean we can just take everything he told us yesterday at face value,” Pearl huffed crossly. “For all we know, he could have been fabricating any given part of all that just to… to save face or something.”

“As far as I can tell, he’d have no reason to lie,” Garnet shook her head, her manner seemingly calm, though there was still some uncertainty beneath it. “And the evidence does add up: our gems on the portal, what happened in the bunker and with the Society… Everything points to the fact that there was indeed a time that we worked together with Stanford. We just don’t remember it.”

“And that’s exactly the problem!” the white Gem moaned impatiently. She paused for a moment, anxiety filling her features before she spoke up again, her voice even softer as she clasped her hands together tightly. “G-Garnet? I… I know this is ridiculous to even bring up but… what Stan said yesterday about Rose knowing something regarding our memories… you don’t think-?”

“H-hey! Ste-man!” Amethyst suddenly spoke up with a tightly forced grin upon noticing Steven standing on the other side of the screen door. The young Gem flinched, having wanted to remain discreet, but still, he emerged from the house nonetheless somewhat sheepishly as Amethyst continued greeting him. “H-how ya feeling? You somehow manage to get some shut-eye after, uh… everything that went down yesterday?”

“Y-yes,” Pearl chimed in, offering her young ward a placating smile. “We know that a lot happened yesterday, what with the agents, the portal and everything else, s-so if you feel like you need to talk through any of it, t-then we’re right here to listen.”

Steven frowned as he took in the warm, but ultimately fake smiles each of his guardians were offering, smiles that were merely serving as masks for much deeper, underlying dread and apprehension. “Uh… I think I’m ok…” Steven said evenly enough, though this wasn’t entirely the truth. For much like the Gems, he too was quite concerned by the accusation that his mother had some knowledge of what happened to their missing memories, an accusation that, by all accounts, he didn’t want to believe just as much as they didn’t. Still, he didn’t bring this up just yet, at least not so directly. “But um… i-is there anything you guys wanna talk about?”

The Gems exchanged a surprised glance at this, but even so, Amethyst played it off. “Uh… like what?”

“Like…” Steven bit his lip, unsure of where he really wanted to go. After all, there was so much to talk about in light of what happened in the past 24 hours alone that it felt like he’d never truly be able to cover it all. Still, he figured he’d start with at least one of his pressing curiosities. “Like, are you guys… mad at Mr. Ford for… well, for what happened back when Mom was still around?”

“Steven, we don’t remember what happened back then,” Pearl sighed, glancing away. “And even if we did, we’d be hard pressed to forgive Stanford based on everything he told us about that disastrous machine of his…”

“Well, to me it seems like he just made a mistake…” Steven said somewhat sympathetically. “And he made it sound like it was a mistake that he was pretty sorry about and that he did just about everything he could to try and fix.”

While Amethyst and Pearl didn’t share this sentiment, Garnet couldn’t help but smile somewhat at this as she placed a gentle hand on top of her young ward’s head. “Maybe you’re right, Steven,” she said, catching her teammates off guard somewhat. “But there’s only one way we can know for sure: we need to find our lost memories, once and for all. There can be no more putting this off. As of right now, it’s the only way we can finally learn what really happened for ourselves and why.”

“But how are we supposed to do that?” Amethyst asked hesitantly. “We still got like, no clues about what happened to them. Well, unless you wanna believe what Stan said,” the purple Gem scoffed harshly upon mentioning the conman, her ire towards him over his betrayal still quite apparently. “Which I sure as heck don’t.”

“Neither do I,” Pearl asserted firmly. “There’s no way Rose had any involvement in what happened to our memories. More likely than not, that was just another one of Stan’s countless lies and after everything we’ve seen and heard yesterday, I’d say he’s just about the least credible source of information out there!”

“Well… what about Mr. Ford?” Steven suggested thoughtfully. “I mean, he seems like he’s really smart; he did write the journals and he built that portal, so… maybe he might be able to help us figure this out.”

The Gems were hesitant about this idea, to say the least, their expressions alone conveying that none of them were really too keen on asking the author for help in this matter. Still, given the fact that they had essentially no leads, none of them could deny that the assistance of a proven genius would be rather welcome in solving this long ongoing mystery. Or at least getting somewhere closer to the truth than they had ever been before. Which was why, when Pearl and Amethyst looked to her for the final verdict on this plan, Garnet simply shrugged, showing that she was every bit as clueless as they were for a change. “It’s worth a try.”

A great deal could change over the course of 30 years; this was something that Ford was well aware of, largely since it was a matter of common logic. But what exactly had changed during his absence was what the author hadn’t been able to anticipate, and as he reacclimated himself to his native dimension, he was quick to find that some changes were much more alarming than others. For example, the discovery that he now had a great niece and nephew was fitting, welcome even given that he had never really had the chance to be much of an uncle prior to the portal incident. The revelation that Rose was no longer around and the Gems bore no recollection of him, however, was much more shocking and much more disheartening, to the point that he was still largely trying to process it all himself. But at the moment, the change that Ford found the most appalling and offending was what Stan had apparently done to his home over the past 30 years, both cosmetically and functionally.

What was once his proud and stately research base had been transformed into a tacky, homely tourist trap dubbed the “Mystery Shack”, of all things. Ford scoffed to himself as he stood outside of it, sketching the changes to its exterior out in his third journal as a form of venting his frustrations. It was bad enough that Stan had embezzled his name, but to turn his property, his home into a tawdry, fabricated sideshow for mindless vacationers to pass through and sink their money into was perhaps the most disrespectful slight his brother had made against him yet. Which was why Ford had absolutely no qualms about sending Stan the harshest glare he could muster upon noticing the conman emerge from the shack a moment later.

“Mornin’, Sixer,” Stan greeted casually enough, even though he was still aware he was essentially walking on eggshells with his brother now. Which, of course, was far from what he had wanted after finally saving him after 30 years, but even so he had no choice to accept the tense state of things between them. For now, at least. “What are you up to? Makin’ up for lost time by writing more ‘nerd notes’ in those ‘nerd books’ of yours?”

Ford’s glower deepened somewhat upon hearing this teasing, teasing that he would have laughingly accepted from Stan back when they were kids, but now only saw with contempt and bitterness. Much like how he viewed his brother in general at the moment. “Two things,” he began coldly as he shut the journal. “One: my journals are not so-called ‘nerd books’. They’re important, highly detailed chronicles of my research of Gravity Falls, and after wrongfully using their knowledge for the past 30 years now, I’d think you’d have finally come to understand that, Stanley.”

“Yeesh, I almost forgot how annoying you are when you get into one of your little ‘genius’ rants,” Stan rolled his eyes at Ford’s sour scolding. Still, the author paid his callous remark no mind as he continued.

“Two: care to explain the meaning of this?” he nodded to the Mystery Shack, his expression alone conveying that he was far from supportive of it.

“What’s there to explain?” Stan shrugged. “Like I said yesterday, I did what I had to do to keep things up and running here. It gave me a way to keep your bills paid so I could stay here and keep working on your dumb portal. When you think about it, the Mystery Shack pretty much saved both our butts, whether you wanna admit that or not.”

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I didn’t want to be saved?” Ford asked sharply. “That perhaps I was willing and ready to sacrifice my own wellbeing for the sake of protecting the entire universe by wanting the portal to remain deactivated forever?”

“Ugh, you sound just like Rose used to with all that self-righteous garbage,” Stan remarked dryly. “No wonder you two were such good friends; you two are probably the some of the most pretentious know-it-alls the world’s ever seen. Well, you and Pearl.”

Ford’s reaction to this was much harsher than Stan had been expecting as he took a step closer, his expression fierce with genuine fury. “Say what you want about me, but you will not disrespect Rose Quartz like that,” he growled bitterly. “She is—was one of the closest and most trusted friends I’ve ever known, even despite everything that regrettably went wrong between us. In fact, Stanley, I’d even say that she’s done more for me than you ever have.”

It took every ounce of willpower Stan had in him to keep himself from punching his brother square in the face upon hearing this. Because how dare he uphold the honor of the Gem who had stubbornly tried to keep him trapped in another dimension for thirty years as opposed to take the side of his own brother who had risked so much and worked so hard to save him. But even if he didn’t intend to physically harm Ford, that still didn’t stop Stan from lashing out and grabbing his brother by the collar of his sweater and sending him an incredibly harsh glare. “Listen here, Sixer,” he began, his tone chillingly hostile. “You’re kidding yourself if you think that stupid pink broad was some kinda perfect saint, because she was just about the exact opposite of that. She was nothing but a lying, stubborn, selfish bi-”

“Grunkle Stan? Grunkle Ford?” Stan instantly cut himself off upon hearing Mabel’s confused questioning. The brothers starkly turned to see their nibblings both emerging from the shack, Dipper a good bit behind Mabel, though neither of the kids seemed to be in really high spirits as they looked to their uncles questioningly upon seeing how Stan was holding onto Ford rather threateningly. “What’s going on?”

Stan was quick to release Ford after a beat of somewhat awkward silence and both brothers readily scowled away from each other, giving the younger twins a pretty good impression of what was going on, despite their uncles’ attempts at playing it off. “Uh, n-nothing!” Stan remarked with a forced, fake smile. “Me and your Grunkle Ford were just, uh… we were…”

“We were just… catching up,” Ford finished, sending another critical glance Stan’s way before he turned to address his nibblings with a much softer expression. “Anyway… Good morning, children. How are you feeling? Neither of you are suffering from any sort of portal radiation from yesterday, are you?”

“Uh, no, I don’t think so…” Mabel said, innocently shaking her head. “But I am going through a bit of a sugar rush from the baker’s dozen of super chocolatey chunk cupcakes I had for breakfast!”

Ford took pause, looking to his niece with apt concern upon hearing this, though he didn’t get much of a chance to ask Stan about her nutrition habits before Dipper cut in. “Don’t worry, Mabel’s pretty much on a perpetual sugar rush,” he said dismissively, ignoring his sister’s flustered scoff as he perked up while addressing the author. “B-but anyway, Great Uncle Ford, I was just wondering… Did you really take on a Gremloblin on your own? What do you think the secret behind the bottomless pit really is? Have the Gems ever told you any huge secrets about the war or Homeworld? Do you think there are any ghosts out there above a category ten? Did you and the Gems ever try to find a way to fix corrupted Gems? What did you do when-”

“Ah, s-slow down, my boy,” Ford interupted with something of a bemused chuckle at this round of rapid-fire, curious inquiries. “Based on all those questions, it seems as though you really weren’t kidding yesterday when you said you read my journals.”

“Oh, several times over, at least,” Dipper said with clear pride over this fact. “Well… to be honest, the only one I’ve really gotten the chance to read is the third one, but it’s still super informative!”

“Hm…” Ford duly noted, raising an eyebrow as he flipped through the later pages of the journal still in his hands. “So I would be correct in assuming that you were the one who made all these… additions to this one, then?”

Dipper’s excited manner faltered upon noticing that Ford looked less than pleased about the notes he had compiled on his own within journal 3 throughout the summer. “Um, y-yeah, I… sorry…” he muttered, glancing down sheepishly as he realized his unintentional slight against the author. After all, he could have never even considered that when he first began recording his findings on the journal’s empty pages, but now he wished he had never written anything on them at all in light of the disapproval he had apparently garnished from his longtime unknown idol.

Mabel was the first to pick up upon her brother’s newfound fretfulness, but as soon as she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, Dipper was quick to pull it away with returned bitterness, refusing to so much as even glance over at her. Proof that he was still just as upset with her as he had been last night, something that only served to make Mabel feel even worse about it all.

Stan readily noticed the shared, silent despondency of both his nibblings, and he was quick to blame Ford for it as he sent him a sharp, almost furious glare. The author himself didn’t really notice that though as much as he did his own tactlessness towards his nephew in particular, but before he could make an attempt to apologize for it, the informal family gathering was suddenly interupted.

“Hey, Mr. Pines!” Soos exclaimed with a cheerful grin as both him and Wendy showed up for their shift. “And hey, Mr. Pines!” the handyman greeted again, this time to Ford as he passed him by.

“’Sup, Stan Two?” Wendy nodded to the author sardonically, already well informed of his arrival thanks to Soos’ thorough recounting of the tale. “Nice turtleneck.”

While Ford was rather confused by the pair’s arrival, Stan spoke up with something of a relieved sigh, glad that his employees unknowingly broke through the ongoing tension. “Glad to see you two are actually both on time for a chance,” he remarked, crossing his arms. “I don’t expect any customers today, but as you can tell, the shack is kinda torn up from yesterday’s fiasco, so get to work and make this place look a little less like a sci-fi portal exploded underneath it, ok?”

“You got it, Mr. Pines!” Soos grinned with an eager thumbs up as him and Wendy headed off, though he didn’t hesitate to express his excitement to his coworker in a frenetic whisper. “See? I told you, Wendy! There really are two Stans around here now! Isn’t it great?!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Wendy remarked dryly, pulling her phone out of her pocket and disinterestedly texting away. “Of course, it would’ve been better if you hadn’t kept me up until 3 AM last night telling me about it.”

“Oh yeah…” the handyman frowned briefly, though he hardly let this dim his innocent elation over it all. “Sorry! Next time we have a bunch of huge truthbombs drop on us, I’ll only keep you up till 2 AM to tell you about them!”

“…Gee, thanks, Soos,” Wendy deadpanned, rolling her eyes as the pair went about their respective tasks for the day.

“Stanley,” Ford began as soon as the cashier and the handyman were out of earshot. “Who are those two… young adults?”

“Uh, my employees, poindexter,” Stan said. “You already met Soos yesterday, and the sarcastic one is Wendy. Might as well get used to seeing them around here, just like the Gems. Speaking of which…” The conman let out an aggravated sigh as he nodded ahead to the Gems and Steven as they came down for the temple, their expressions all rather tense and uncertain as they approached the Pines, who returned their gazes just as stiffly.

“Uh, h-hey, you guys,” Steven greeted them with a small, but genuine smile.

“Hi, Steven,” Mabel said just as awkwardly, though her smile faded as she glanced to the rest of her family. Dipper still stood alongside her, but he refused to spare either her or the young Gem another glance, Stan’s expression was still set in a cold scowl away from just about everyone, and Ford was clearly apprehensive and anxious as he gave the Gems only a terse nod of greeting. One that none of them made any sort of effort to return.

“So… um… h-how is everyone after, uh… yesterday…?” Steven asked unsteadily, rather concerned that the Gems hadn’t stepped forward to address Ford concerning their memories yet, like they had previously planned.

“We… could be better…” Mabel noted, rubbing her arm as she looked over to Dipper once more. “R-Right, bro-bro?”

Of course, Dipper didn’t bother giving her any sort of response as he instead turned away from her even more, his arms crossed as he let out a small, almost bitter sigh. Steven and Mabel exchanged a silent, worried glance at this, realizing that he was still clearly upset with them from what happened yesterday. Though exactly why he was still carrying this grudge so heavily and adamantly was beyond either of them.

Even so, a bout of general uneasy silence lingered between both the Pines and the Gems, none of them quite sure of what to say in the aftermath of all that had unfolded, mostly as a result of no one really knowing where they stood with each other now. Things between the kids alone were shaken and soured, but then there was the tenuous, largely forgotten ties between Ford and the Gems, not to mention the distain still very much present between Stan and Ford themselves. Really, it was as though they were all on unstable ground with each other, friendships fractured, relationships ruined, and everything else left in just as many shambles as the shack standing before them currently was.

Still, that didn’t mean there could be no attempt at fixing at least some of it.

“Hey, uh… Amethyst?” Stan spoke up, looking to the purple Gem apprehensively as she finally spared a glare in his direction. “I, uh… um… I was thinkin’ of blowing off some steam after everything that’s happened with a good ol’ Revenge Trip tonight. Are you along for the ride or what?”

“I dunno,” Amethyst muttered, her arms tightly crossed as she scowled away from him. “I think I’m gonna be busy doing just anything but that.”

Everyone was rather taken aback by the fire in the purple Gem’s tone as she said this, especially Stan as he flinched back, as if her harsh words had actually hurt him, which in a way, they did. Fortunately, they didn’t linger in the air for too long before Ford cut in, collectively addressing all of the Gems, though not without clearing his throat somewhat awkwardly. “So, h-how are you three doing? Have you happened to recall any of your memories of our… time together?”

“A-actually…” Pearl began, averting the author’s gaze as she spoke tightly. “That’s… why we’re here… we… w-well, we were hoping that… we… you-”

“We need your help,” Garnet finally finished where Pearl was unable to out of pride.

“Oh, r-really?” Ford asked, somewhat surprised by this request. “With what?”

“With finding our lost memories,” the Gem leader continued just as evening. “At this point, we’re not sure who else we can go to aid us with this, and so we have no choice but to ask you.”

Ford took pause, both confused and somewhat offended by the Gems’ apparent hesitance to seek his assistance, something that Steven in particular noticed and quickly made an attempt to clarify. “Uh, I-I think what they meant is that we think you could really help us figure all this out, Mr. Ford,” he said with a warm, hopeful smile. “Your journals already proved to us how great you are at solving mysteries, so this one’s bound to be a cinch for you!”

The author finally grinned at this, clearly glad for this vote of confidence as he began to exude the very same confidence himself. “Ah, yes, well in that cause, I’d be more than happy to help in any way I can, just as I said I would yesterday,” Ford said, adjusting his glasses as he offered the Gems a genuinely friendly smile, one that none of them returned, though their expressions did soften somewhat. “Now, I suppose the best place to start would likely be… Oh! I know! The memory gun! Back when Fiddleford built that infernal contraption, I had always doubted that it would be able to work on Gems, but seems as though it could be the very thing responsible for stripping you three of your memories!”

“Uh… yeah, we already figured that,” Amethyst huffed, rolling her eyes.

“And that wretched Society of the Blind Eye didn’t have our memories in their archives,” Pearl added with a frown. “So where exactly are they? And who would dare to even take them in the first place? And why?”

“…Those are all very good questions…” Ford noted thoughtfully. “We have the answer as to how, but everything else is still up in the air… Which means that we’ll need to look into a variety of possible scenarios that could have resulted in the loss of your memories. Its bound to be a lengthy process, given how many sheer possibilities there are, so we’ll have to be patient and hope for the best in analyzing each of them.”

“Ugh, we’re tired of waiting!” Amethyst groaned hotly. “We’ve been waiting to figure this junk out all summer! We want our memories back now!”

“That’s… understandable…” the author remarked, trying his best to remain tactful amidst the Gems’ mutually thin patience. “But relatively unlikely. I’m sorry to say this, but to me it seems as though finding the key to restoring your memories could take quite some time, if we can even find it at all.”

Despite their shared disappointment upon hearing this sum of probability, the Gems didn’t get to voice it as a familiar horn blared out, followed by the arrival of a familiar van. Greg sped into the shack’s lot, slamming on the breaks as he stuck his head out the window rather frantically. “Steven! Thank goodness you’re ok!” he cried, jumping out of the vehicle to rush over to embrace his son. “I wanted to come check on you as soon as I saw that huge explosion of light on this end of town, but the road here was blocked off by this huge tree and they only just cleared it out this morning! Heck, it took so long to get over here that I even managed to pick Connie up along the way.”

“Steven! Dipper! Mabel!” Connie called as she hopped out of the van herself and hurried over to her friends. “Are you guys alright? I haven’t been able to get in touch with any of you since the other day! What’s been going on!?”

“I think the better question is what hasn’t been going on…” Dipper remarked somewhat dryly.

“Connie! You’ll never believe what happened!” Steven exclaimed. “We just-”

“Wait! I wanna tell her!” Mabel excitedly cut in. “So it all started when Grunkle Stan got arrested by these government agents-”

“And they tried to take me and the Gems away too-” Steven interjected before Mabel carried on.

“So we tried to prove his innocence only to find out that he-”

“That he had all these fake IDs and this huge machine under the shack-”

“Which turned out to be this crazy powerful portal that his long-lost twin brother came out of-”

“And he wrote the journals and he used to work with my mom and the Gems years ago but-”

“But they kinda hate each other now and everything’s all awkward and weird and confusing-”

“But we’re trying to sort it all out by finding the Gems’ lost memories by thinking about all the ways they could have lost them!”

“Pretty intense, huh?” Mabel finished this rapid-fire tale, one that left Connie aptly confused as she tried and failed to catch up with it all.

“Uh… what?”

“Long story short,” Dipper cut in much more calmly. “Is that Grunkle Stan’s been hiding an interdimensional portal under the shack all summer that he opened up again to bring his brother back here.”

“Ohh…” Connie mused in understanding. “That makes much more sense! Well… kind of. The whole ‘interdimensional portal’ thing is something you guys will definitely have to fill me in on later.”

“Would you believe that’s hardly even the craziest part of it all?” Dipper asked with a small, but growing smile of excitement as he dropped down to a whisper. “The craziest and the best part is that Stan’s brother, our Great Uncle Ford, just so happens to be the author of the journals himself!”

“Wait, what!?” Connie gasped, completely stunned upon hearing this and knowing full well just how baffling this mystery had been to them all for the entire summer. “You guys finally met the author?! And he’s your uncle?! No way!”

“Way!” Mabel chimed in brightly. “And you gotta meet him too, Connie! Come on!” Before Connie could really even respond to this, Mabel and Steven were pulling her over to where Ford was still in the midst of conversing with the Gems, largely not paying much mind to the two new arrivals as the continued discussing matters of memory. Or at least they were until Mabel blithely interupted. “Grunkle Ford, this is our friend, Connie!”

“I-it’s an honor to meet you, sir!” Connie said with an amazed smile as she shook the author’s hand. “Your work is so fascinating! Honestly, if it wasn’t for your journal then we probably wouldn’t have made it out of half of what we’ve been through this summer alive!”

“Oh, well… that’s… good to hear…” Ford noted, unsure of what to really make of that, though he offered Connie a small smile all the same. “What’s really fascinating (and rather concerning) though is just how many children seemed to have read through my research over the course of this summer alone…”

“Uh, we probably shouldn’t tell him that Gideon had his second journal then, should we?” Steven whispered somewhat awkwardly.

“Wait a second,” Greg interjected, having overheard the conversation. “I-I can’t believe it… You’re him!” The former rock star’s jaw was dropped as he approached the author, clearly in a state of disbelief that nobody else really understood. “You’re Stanford!”

“Um… yes?” Ford raised a confused eyebrow, unsure of what the former rock star’s apparent amazement was all about.

“Wow! This… this is incredible! I never thought I’d ever get the chance to actually meet you myself!” Greg exclaimed with an incredulous chuckle. “After all, Rose said you were basically gone for good but then again, Mr. Pines has been working on that portal to try and bring you back all these years, so I guess it’d only make sense that he’d finally get it up and running eventually.”

“Yeah, Greg,” Stan deadpanned, not noticing the Gems’ growing expressions of absolute shock beside him over what Greg was divulging. “Told ya I’d figure it out.”

“Heh, well, I’m sorry for ever doubting you, I guess,” the former rock star grinned, flusteredly rubbing the back of his neck before he turned back to Ford. “But man, if only Rose were here! She’d be so happy to see you again! Well… happy and maybe a little upset about the whole portal thing but still, she’d-”

“Excuse me,” Ford interupted rather stiffly. “But… who are you exactly?”

“Oh, right, sorry!” Greg laughed again as he shook the author’s hand warmly. “I’m Greg Universe; Steven’s dad.”

Ford was silent for a moment upon hearing this as he looked between the former rock star and the young Gem, his brow furrowing and his expression largely not changing as he put the pieces together. “So you and Rose were… I see…”

“Y-yeah, she… used to talk a lot about you,” Greg remarked, still grinning slightly. “In fact, she even-”

“Greg!” Pearl’s very sharp exclamation interupted the conversation, prompting the young rock star to glance over at the Gems. All three of whom looked simultaneously dumbfounded and outraged all at once. “You knew about the portal?!”

“I, uh… oh!” Greg gasped, his eyes wide as he looked between the angry trio in newfound fear. “D-did I say portal? I-I… I meant, um… I didn’t know anything about any… w-well, you see, I-”

“Forget it, Greg,” Stan remarked, rolling his eyes at his former employee’s hectic attempt to explain. “The jig is up. They already know about everything.”

“No, we don’t!” Pearl scoffed, completely appalled. “We don’t know a thing about what’s happened to our missing memories and we certainly don’t know why Greg, of all people would know more about all this than we do!”

“D-Dad?” Steven spoke up apprehensively. “You don’t… y-you wouldn’t know anything about what happened to the Gems’ memories about Mr. Ford and the portal… would you?”

Greg froze up at this, this question completely catching him off guard, especially as he looked to the Gems starkly. All three of them were silently demanding answers, answers that he had no idea how to give, even if he could. So instead, he went with the easier alternative. “N-no,” he shook his head, his voice shaky as he tried to sound as convincing as possible. “R-Rose… Rose never told me anything about that. I’m sorry…”

“What do ya mean Rose never told you about that?!” Amethyst spat harshly. “Seems like she sure had a heck of a time telling you everything else!”

“Everything she didn’t bother telling us…” Garnet added, clearly hosting a glare underneath her shades.

“W-wha—no!” Pearl exclaimed hotly. “You two can’t be serious! Rose couldn’t have known what happened to our memories! It makes no sense!”

“What doesn’t make any sense is that she would have told Greg about all of this and not us,” Garnet remarked, adjusting her shades as she tried to remain as calm and as rational as possible.

“M-maybe she just never got the chance to?” Steven offered anxiously. “L-like… maybe your memories were erased right after I was born.”

“But that wouldn’t make add up,” Dipper interested, shaking his head. “Grunkle Stan said something about their memories being erased almost 22 years ago.”

“Well, I mean, as far as I know,” Stan said with a small shrug, unwitting eliciting ire from the Gems with such a remark.

“And how exactly would you know that?” Pearl asked, glaring coldly at the conman. “Unless you happened to have some hand in all this yourself, Stan!”

“Ugh, seriously, with this whole accusation thing again?” Stan scoffed. “I already told you, I don’t know anything about what happened! And even if I did, why would I keep something like that hidden from you three for so long?”

“Oh gee, I dunno, Stan,” Amethyst growled sharply. “Maybe for the same reason you kept that dumb machine hidden from us! Or those fake IDs! Or every other stupid secret you’ve been sitting on for years now without even thinking about being honest for a change!”

“It seems as though you would have a pretty good motive,” Garnet nodded. “With us not knowing about the portal, that likely made it easier for you to work on it without us trying to stop you like Rose would have wanted.”

“A-and for all we know you probably recruited Greg back when he used to work here to help you keep all this under wraps,” Pearl huffed angrily, shooting a fierce glance over at the former rock star as well. “Both of you were in on this for all these years! You must have thought that you weren’t going to get caught, but you are, so you might as well just admit it, Stan, and tell us where our memories are already!”

“I ain’t admitting nothing because I didn’t do anything!” Stan protested adamantly. “Even if I did keep this whole portal thing under wraps from just about everyone else, I never went after your memories to keep you three from getting in my way! That’d be just stupid!”

“Well, then it sounds like it would be exactly your kind of plan, Stan,” Pearl remarked crossly.

“Oh I’ll show ya what my kinda plan is!” the conman exclaimed, beyond infuriated by these groundless allegations to the point that things quickly devolved into an all-out shouting match on both sides. With both Stan and the Gems as outright outraged as they were, they held nothing back as they argued brutally, all of them acting off emotions rather than any real logic as they held their grounds against each other. The others were all rather surprised to see things heat up so aggressively, especially the kids as they stood on the sidelines, watching in dismay as everything seemed to explode in absolute fury all at once.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Gems so mad before…” Connie muttered, her eyes wide in alarm.

“Me either…” Mabel agreed stiffly. “But I don’t get it. Why do they think Stan got rid of their memories? He’d never, ever do something like that!”

“Yeah, just like he wouldn’t run an incredibly dangerous portal underneath the Mystery Shack, right?” Dipper asked, his tone quite dour as he crossed his arms and largely dropped out of the conversation.

“Uh, w-well, either way, we’re not gonna figure out what really happened to the Gems’ memories with everyone arguing like this,” Steven said earnestly. “Come on, you guys, we have to do something!”

Mabel and Connie were quick to follow after the young Gem, intent on trying to make peace between the conman and the Gems. Dipper, on the other hand, hung back somewhat, his hands shoved into his vest pockets as he instead glanced over at Ford, opting to discreetly listen in on the conversation that was just striking between him and Greg.

“Hey, uh… M-Mr. Pines?” the former rock star began rather awkwardly.

“Please, call me Stanford.”

“Oh, um, ok, Mr. Stanford,” Greg continued, still being as respectful as he could. “I just, uh… W-well I know the Gems aren’t really in the mood to hear this right now, but I didn’t… I wasn’t-”

“You didn’t have anything to do with what happened to the Gems’ memories?” Ford finished presumptuously, glancing the former rock star up and down. “Well, I figured that much, considering how you and Rose were apparently… ahem, together. At the same time, I also don’t think Stanley was responsible for this either. My brother may be a lying, unscrupulous cheapskate, but despite his many faults, it seems highly unlikely that he’d do something as lowbrow as outright take a person’s—or Gem’s, for that matter—memories . Then again, I suppose there really is no way to know for sure until we figure this mess out once and for all.”

“Um, yeah, about that…” Greg took in a somewhat unsteady breath. “I… Well, Rose, she-” The former rock star cut himself off, dropping his voice down to a serious whisper. “Look, she missed you… a lot. Heck, almost every time she brought you up, she’d end up blaming herself for what happened to you.”

“But it wasn’t her fault,” Ford said, his tone softening quite a bit upon hearing this.

“Well, of course it wasn’t,” Greg agreed. “But you know Rose; she always felt so much for everyone, especially her friends.”

“That she did…” the author remarked with a fond smile in the pink Gem’s memory. “And our friendship was one I always valued very highly. I only wish… I wish I could have had the chance to speak to her one last time, even if it was only for the sake of saying a proper farewell… I still can’t believe she’s really gone…”

“A lot of the time, neither can I…” the former rock star glanced down sadly. “But, she always wanted one last chance to talk to you too, which was why… right before she had Steven she sat down and wrote everything she never got the chance to say to you out. She said she didn’t know if you’d ever make it back here, but if you ever did, then she wanted you to have it. So she gave it to me to hold onto, just in case, and now that you actually are back, well, you might as well have it.”

Ford was rather surprised to hear that Rose had apparently left him some sort of note, but all the same, he followed Greg over to his van, where the former rock star dug around the back of the vehicle for a bit before finally finding what he was looking for. “Aha! Here it is,” he grinned as he pulled a light pink envelope out and presented it to Ford. “And here you go. To be honest, nobody’s ever seen what it says before. I just… didn’t think it’d be right to read something that she only meant for you, you know?”

The author was silent at first, his eyes wide as he held the envelope, apparently the last message Rose Quartz herself had left for him, as though it was the most precious and fragile thing in the entire world. And given just how much the fact that it existed at all meant to him, it very well could have been. “I… T-thank you… Greg,” Ford said, absolutely genuine in this sentiment.

“You’re welcome,” the former rock star said warmly, nodding his affirmation before stepping away to give the author some privacy as he opened the envelope up. Ford wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, even as he initially glanced over the lengthy page Rose had written for him, but even so, it was as though he could hear her lovely voice saying every word to him as he read it silently to himself.

Dear Stanford,

If you’re reading this letter, then that means that you’ve finally made it home, back to Earth and back to Gravity Falls, where you truly belong. A part of me, a part that dismisses all of the danger this world would be put in if such a thing ever did happen, has spent the past 16 years hoping this day would come, and that I’d be there for it, to welcome you back with open arms. But… I know I’ll never get that chance… I’ve made a choice… I want to do something that no Gem has ever done before, to create something that this world has never seen before… But the only way I can do that is at the expense of myself… A sacrifice not too dissimilar to one you were willing to make the last time we met.

But even so, if this letter has found its way to you, then I’m no longer around, or at least I’m not around in the way you were used to. Because in a sense, I’ll forever be a part of the child I’m about to have, a child I hope you’ll hold nothing against, even despite everything that went wrong between us.

Speaking of which… I feel as though I owe you another apology for, well, everything really. Not a day goes by that I don’t regret how hard and fast our friendship fell apart… Even before you fell into that portal, there had been so many times when I wanted to go down the hill and pour my heart out to you, but I never ended up working up the nerve. Funny, isn’t it? How I had all the courage in the world to stand against my former home and fight for this planet until the bitter end, but I didn’t have enough to walk a few feet and simply tell you “I’m sorry”?

You need to know that if there had been another way to bring you back, even if it was just for a second, I would have taken it. But the portal was far too risky; I knew that. That’s why I did what you asked and kept the third journal hidden safe and sound, even from your brother (You never told me you had a brother, by the way). I tried everything I could to right our wrongs and fix our mistakes…

And in the process, I only ended up causing so many more.

Its much too… risky to divulge everything here, but… something happened several years ago. Something that none of us were prepared for, though I should have been prepared. It was a threat I knew, a threat we both knew… a threat swept through our lives and nearly took everything away in the process. And I wasn’t able to do anything to stop it.

I Can only myself to blame for what happEned that awful night. I should hAve told them. If I had just Let them know about the danger we were faCing from thE beginning, then maybe none of this would have haPpened… But I did what I had to… for them… for us… If you were still hEre, then I know you’d undeRstand… But you’re gone… and iTs all my fault… just like everything else… And I’m so, so Sorry… for everything I’ve done…

I need, need you to know that, Stanford. I need Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl to know that. I need my child to know that. I need everyone I’ve wronged because of this to know that. I never wanted to hurt any of you, I promise that. I just wanted to save you, my friends, this planet, everything I truly care about. But it seems I’ve only managed to hurt them all instead. Which means I suppose the key to healing them lies not with me, but with whoever comes next… And I have the upmost confidence that they’ll succeed where I have failed.

There are so many more things I want to say to you, Stanford, but I know there would never be enough time to write it all out. I had thought to offer you one final apology but that just didn’t seem right, as sorry as I truly am. So instead of lingering on the shadows permeating our past, I’ll leave you with a reminder of the light that once shined through it instead.

Do you remember the first time we met? Amethyst had pointed out your six fingers to the rest of us, and at the time, I had thought that was the most spectacular thing about you. Little did I know that I’d quickly find out that there was so much more to be amazed when it came to you, Stanford. Your intelligence, your determination, your passion, all these things and more made me realize that you were by far one of the most special humans I’ve ever had the privilege of getting to meet, and believe me, I’ve met plenty. There were times when I saw it: you underestimating your own brilliance and abilities, but those were things I never once doubted. Which is why, despite how impossible things might seem right now, I encourage you to hold onto the words you wrote at the start of the journal you entrusted to me years ago, words that I hope will inspire you and comfort you, even when I can’t:

“Ad astra per aspera”: To the stars through difficulties.

Yours truly,

Rose Quartz

Ford had never been one to get too emotional, but he was unable to stem the silent flow of tears as he finished reading Rose’s final words to him. Up until that point, the author hadn’t put too much thought into the pink Gem’s absence; of course, he knew that she wasn’t around anymore in place of Steven existing, but some small, irrational, yet persistent part of him still wanted to believe that it wasn’t true. That Rose would make her long-awaited appearance and that everything would go back to the way it was supposed to be. And yet, upon reading her last message intended for him himself, the truth of it all finally sunk in once and for all: Rose Quartz really was gone, most likely never to return. Even after 30 seemingly endless years of longing and remorse, he’d never get to speak to her, laugh with her, apologize to her, to simply see her ever again. It was a crushing reality, to the point that it was almost unbearable, to know that he’d be forever separated from one of his closest and most cherished friends, left with only a page of ultimately unfeeling letters to remember her by.

Yet at the same time, three of his other most invaluable friends were still there, still present and still alive and well. The only problem was they held no recollection of the bond they used to share, the camaraderie they used to uphold. A deep sense of loneliness filled Ford as this wave of realization washed over him yet again, a kind of loneliness that he hadn’t even ever felt traversing the empty voids of the multiverse. The author truly wanted to help restore the Gems’ memories to them, to the point of near desperation almost, but if he was perfectly honest with himself, even he didn’t know where to start with such an arduous task. By all accounts, the chances of things ever returning to even a shadow of how they used to be seemed incredibly slim, to the point that Ford was beginning to lose hope that such a thing was even a possibility at all.

Despite the still-ongoing argument between Stan and the Gems, Ford paid none of them any mind as he looked down to Rose’s letter again, its ending catching his attention in particular. “Which is why, despite how impossible things might seem right now, I encourage you to hold onto the words you wrote at the start of the journal you entrusted to me years ago, words that I hope will inspire you and comfort you, even when I can’t: “Ad astra per aspera”: To the stars through difficulties.”

“To the stars through difficulties…” Ford muttered to himself, taking in a steadying breath. It was a Latin phrase he had always been very fond of, one he had heard during his college years and kept close to his heart throughout his studies, both academically and in Gravity Falls. He had always seen it as a call to greatness, an affirmation of aspiration, no matter how daunting circumstances might seem. But now, the author began to realize that perhaps it held another meaning as well; perhaps it wasn’t just a message of upwards inspiration. Perhaps it was also just what Rose had said: a message of hope, of comfort, a promise that even though the road ahead seemed dark and uncertain, the stars of something better could still be reached regardless if one only worked hard and persevered enough to get to them. And while this was only a mere small spark of hope, it was one Ford decided to hold onto nonetheless, as the final piece of encouragement Rose had to offer for him. Encouragement that could perhaps at last lead them towards the answers they were all looking for.

Ford couldn’t profess to understanding everything concerning what Rose had spoken of in her letter, but several parts of it came across as somewhat bizarre to the author, to the point of being downright cryptic almost. Ford had never known Rose to be so indirect; the pink Gem, with her relative lack of understanding when it came to human subtlety, had always been very literal and forward in her conversations with him. Yet the vagueness in her letter threw the author off, especially when she sparsely described whatever apparently disastrous event had transpired quite some time ago. Certainly there must have been a reason that Rose hadn’t just written it all out if it was so significant and horrific; because instead of transcribing it all, the pink Gem had left only clues, breadcrumbs really to something that already seemed to lead to something so much more.

“I’ve only managed to hurt them all instead. Which means I suppose the key to healing them lies not with me, but with whoever comes next… And I have the upmost confidence that they’ll succeed where I have failed.”

“Whoever comes next…” Ford read once again, initially confused by what this meant until he happened to finally glance up from the letter and over to the still-brawling group just a few feet away. Or more specifically, towards Rose’s son, Steven.

The author was somewhat hesitant, knowing that he was really just working off mere conjecture alone as he approached the young Gem, Rose’s letter still in hand. In truth, Ford was still rather confused about exactly how the pink Gem had managed to reproduce at all, much less with a human, but his curiosity about Steven’s no-doubt bizarre hybrid biology would have to wait. After all, a far more pressing question needed answers now.

“Excuse me, um… Steven, was it?” Ford addressed the young Gem, placing a hand on his shoulder to pull his attention away from the ongoing fight between Stan and the Gems. Despite the tension behind them, Steven offered the author a friendly smile and a nod of patient confirmation, prompting him to go on, even as the other kids took notice of this almost random interaction. “Rose—I mean, your mother left this letter behind for me before she-” Ford cut himself off tightly; just because he had accepted the reality that Rose was gone didn’t make it any easier for him to admit it out loud. “A-anyway, the nature of this note implies something that I’m rather unclear of, something that she made it sound like only you can figure out.”

As Ford handed the letter off to Steven for him to see it, the quarrel between Stan and the Gems gradually fizzled out as they glanced over to the exchange between the author and the young Gem. An exchange that just about every single one of them disapproved of on some level, especially Stan. “Ford, what did I say about-” the conman’s sour callout was interupted by his brother, who put a silent hand up before patiently turning his attention back to Steven. The young Gem himself was focused on his mother’s letter, his eyes wide as he skimmed over it and tried to make sense of its more mysterious parts, though he did glance back up at Ford as he slowly knelt down to his level.

“Steven, this-” Ford stopped short, his brow furrowing, almost as if he wasn’t entirely sure how to put this, though he continued on a moment later anyway. “I should be honest… I have reason to believe that this letter might hold our first real, tangible clues about what’s happened to the Crystal Gems’ memories.”

Upon hearing this, Pearl was more than ready to speak up in heated protest against it, though Garnet quickly stopped her. “Wait,” she urged, keeping her sights trained on the conversation unfolding before them, one that could prove to be very helpful in their most pressing cause.

“Which is why I feel compelled to ask…” Ford continued, hesitantly but earnestly. “Would you be willing to help me decode the clues your mother left behind and uncover the truth behind this mystery once and for all?”

Steven didn’t answer this right away, instead taking a moment to glance back at his guardians somewhat apprehensively. Amethyst’s expression showed a general sense of apathy towards the situation at large, while Pearl intently shook her head in staunch disapproval over such an idea. Garnet, on the other hand, looked to the young Gem expectantly, with a air about her that told him that this was his choice to make alone. And as Steven turned to the author once more and took in his sincere, solemn, almost sad even, he found that it wasn’t that hard of a choice to really make.

“W-well, I’d love to help, Mr. Ford, I really would,” Steven said with a small but fretful smile. “But… I’ve never met my mom before. She stopped, uh… being around when I was born, so I didn’t get the chance to really know what she was like which means I might not be the best person to figure out what she tried to say here…”

“Oh…” Ford’s expression fell in slight disappointment as he rose to stand. “Well, I suppose that… does make things complicated, doesn’t it?”

“Well… even if I don’t know a lot about Mom myself, that still doesn’t mean we haven’t figured anything out about her,” Steven ventured, taking a glance over at Dipper, Mabel, and Connie. “In a way, we’ve… kinda been learning more about her all summer in some… pretty crazy ways.”

“Yeah, that’s right!” Mabel spoke up brightly. “Like the time we found her light canon out here near the shack and used it to blow that Red Eye to smithereens!”

“Wait, you… you kids found the light canon Rose asked me to hide away years ago?” Ford asked, aptly surprised.

“Yeah and we’ve been to hear healing fountain,” Dipper added intently.

“And her hidden armory,” Connie said with a nod.

“Heck, we even found her sword and its scabbard!” Steven’s smile widened with confidence. “And we’ve solved a bunch of other huge mysteries too!”

“And that’s why they call us the Mystery Kids!” Mabel chimed daringly.

“So I think that between the four of us,” Steven went on. “Maybe we can figure out what the deal with Mom’s letter is and if it has anything to do with the Gems’ memories!”

“Oh… well, are you sure you kids are really up for a task this… daunting?” Ford asked, not entirely convinced of their merit.

“Oh believe us, we’ve been up against plenty of daunting odds this summer,” Connie assured with a bit of an ironic laugh.

“Yeah, nothing stumps us as long as we’re working together!” Mabel boldly proclaimed. “Right, you guys?”

“Right,” Steven and Connie affirmed with clear resolve, though Dipper was noticeably silent as he glared away from the rest of the group. The young Gem in particular took notice of this, his heart sinking a bit as he realized that part of his impromptu plan still wasn’t working; the Mystery Kids were still fractured in some way, and as long as they were, then chances were, they wouldn’t be getting anywhere to any degree. Including fixing the past and moving forward into the future, things that all needed to be done sooner rather than later, as far as Steven was concerned.

“Uh, Dipper?” he began with a small, anxious smile. “You’re on bored with us in this too, aren’t you?”

Of course, Dipper didn’t respond to this right away, instead looking to the young Gem with a rather incredulous scowl, one that said everything that words didn’t really need to about how he was feeling about both him and Mabel at the moment. In truth, the pair was surprised that he was carrying this apparent grudge out for so long, neither of them really understanding why the decision they had made in the heat of the moment before that blinding portal still upset him so much. But at the same time, it was something of a small relief when Dipper let out a relenting sigh, even if his manner didn’t lighten up at all as he made it very clear on where he stood in all this. “Fine, whatever,” he complied sourly. “But only until we figure out what happened with the Gems’ memories.”

“Well… i-it’s a start…” Mabel said to Steven as Connie looked between her three friends in confusion, not knowing where this apparent tension between them all really came from.

“Uh… what’s going on with you guys today?” she asked with a concerned frown.

“It’s a… long story…” Steven whispered to her. “We’ll fill you in later.”

“Well,” Garnet spoke up, her hands on her hips and a hint of a coy smile on her face as she looked from her teammates to the kids. “I don’t know about you two, but for me, there’s no one I’d rather trust with a mystery like this than the Mystery Kids themselves.”

“Yes, well then,” Ford said, still somewhat uncertain about this plan of action. “Reasonably the best thing to do first would to be to carefully analyze Rose’s letter for any of its more subtle, possibly leading details. Then depending on whatever we uncover, we can work from there to-”

“I said,” Garnet interjected, crossing her arms. “We were going to trust the kids with this one.”

“Oh …r-right…” the author cleared his throat as he backed off, somewhat flustered as he let the kids investigate the matter on their own.

“Uh, well actually, Mr. Stanford’s plan seemed like it’s a pretty good one,” Connie shrugged, reading Rose’s letter from over Steven’s shoulder.

“Yeah, there does seem to be something off about this letter…” Dipper noted, putting his bitterness aside as he became invested in this mystery himself. “Like this paragraph right here. Some of the letters are just… randomly capitalized for some reason. Why would Rose do that?”

“Well, normally she wouldn’t,” Pearl cut in pointedly. “Rose’s handwriting was impeccable, just like everything else she did.”

“So… that probably means she had a good reason to do that,” Steven mused. “And in only this part of the letter too… weird…”

“Maybe she was just really tired when she wrote that part?” Mabel suggested, though even she didn’t really buy into such a theory too much.

“Or maybe…” Dipper trailed off as a newfound idea came to him, one that he was quick to act on. “Quick, someone write this down!”

Connie was quick to do so, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen as she recorded all of the letters that Dipper read out, each one of them bizarrely and improperly capitalized within Rose’s letter. Everyone else watched this work with baited breath, hoping that perhaps it would lead them to some kind of answer, though by the time they were done, the results they had gotten were… less than conclusive.

“Ok, so it all adds up to… CEALCEPERTS…?” Connie read, raising a baffled eyebrow as she did.

“Uh… I’m pretty sure that’s not a word…” Mabel frowned before quickly perking up. “Though it does kinda sound like seal-experts! Oh! What if Rose wanted to tell everyone that she was secretly a seal expert!?”

A beat of doubtful silence passed at this bizarre limb before Steven went off on another one. “CEALCEPERTS…” he repeated, looking to the letter once more. “Does that mean anything to any of you guys?” he asked both Ford and the Gems collectively.

“No,” Ford said, equally confused by this odd clue.

“Not at all,” Garnet remarked as the other two Gems shook their heads.

“Dad?” Steven ventured, hoping that perhaps the former rock star might have some kind of idea.

“Sorry, kiddo, I got nothing,” Greg shrugged. “What about you, Mr. Pines?”

“Ugh, heck if I know,” Stan rolled his eyes impetuously. “I think I’ve had enough of dealing with Rose and her little ‘mysteries’ for one day. I’m takin’ off. I have a feeling you nerds will be just fine without my ‘help’.”

And with that, the conman turned on his heel and headed for the shack, not bothering to spare another glance back at either the Gems or at Ford as aggravated as he was with them both. “Just as well,” Ford scoffed, rolling his eyes at his brother’s attitude. “Stanley wouldn’t have been much help in this anyway. Or much help in anything else, really.”

“I heard that!” Stan shot back crossly, though he didn’t bother to stick around and protest it any further.

“Hm… what if this CEALCEPERTS thing isn’t really a word…?” Connie theorized, tapping her pen against the page thoughtfully. “What if it’s… something else?”

“Oh yeah!” Dipper exclaimed in realization. “For all we know, it could be a message written in code, or an acronym, or heck, even an anagram!”

“What’s an anagram?” Steven asked curiously.

“It’s when the letters of a word are all mixed up and out of order,” Connie explained, sitting on the ground so she could work properly. “Like, for instance if we took CEALCEPERTS here and tried to turn it into something else using just the letters it has in it.”

“Oh I think I got one!” Mabel said, looking over the bizarre word once more. “Maybe this is supposed to be two words? Like… CASTLE CREEP?”

“Or… LACE SCEPTER?” Dipper tried, though he was quick to denounce the result. “No, that can’t be it…”

“Um… what about CREPE SELECT?” Steven guessed with a shrug.

“Or it could be ELECT RECAP…” Connie mused. “But none of these make any sense… There’s got to be one that-”

“Wait,” Dipper interupted, his eyes wide with realization as he worked through this in a different way. “PACER… PLACER… PLACE… It’s some kind of place… And then what’s left makes… ERECTS or…” he trailed off with a stunned gasp before revealing what he had uncovered. “SECRET… SECRET PLACE! That must be what its supposed to say! Secret place!”

“Secret place?” Amethyst asked dubiously. “Uh… like what?”

“Maybe its talking about some place that was a secret to Mom?” Steven purposed thoughtfully. “Like… oh! I know! Mom’s secret armory!”

“Steven!” Pearl quickly chastised upon mention of the pink Gem’s hidden sanctum. A sanctum that she would much prefer to keep the relative secret that it was.

“Oops… sorry, Pearl…” the young Gem rubbed the back of his neck. “I kinda forgot about the whole secret part of it…”

“Wait… Rose’s armory…?” Ford asked knowingly. “The one buried under the town cemetery? I’ve been there before. Rose took me to see it years ago after I asked her about advanced Gem weaponry. It’s really quite impressive!”

“What?! She took you to—oh… that’s right…” Pearl grumbled, crossing her arms with a scowl as she recalled the journals’ mention of the armory.

“Armory?” Amethyst asked, confused. Confusion that Garnet mirror as well. “What the heck are you guys talking about?”

“Well… why don’t we all just go there together?” Mabel suggested. “After all, it does sorta seem like it’s the place that anagram thingy in Rose’s letter is talking about, so its probably worth checking out, right?”

“Wha—no!” Pearl protested adamantly. “We can’t all just go to Rose’s private sanctum like its some kind of… field trip! It’s already been defiled by far too many intruders already! We should just leave it well enough al-”

“Pearl,” Garnet interjected calmly, placing a hand on her frustrated teammate’s shoulder. “We know this place, whatever it is, was special for both you and Rose. But if there’s anything there that could possibly lead us towards the whereabouts of our memories, then we have to go investigate it.”

“B-but…” the white Gem’s argument weakly fizzled out as she realized Garnet was right. If Rose’s letter indeed pointed towards any leads in particular, then the armory was most likely the exactly that. And as much as she wanted to preserve that special place’s sanctity, she wanted to reclaim her and her teammates’ lost memories even more. “A-alright…” she sighed reluctantly as she began to lead the way towards the cemetery, feeling as though she was breaking something important and cherished between herself and her former liege as she did. “Then… let’s go…”

Since there was no warp pad leading to Rose’s armory, the collective group of the kids, the Gems, and Ford had to walk across town to get there, in a trek that was spent mostly in stiff, awkward silence. Along the way, however, Steven, Mabel, and Dipper all managed to fill Connie in on more of the details of what had happened over the past two days, each of them telling her disconnected accounts that both confused her and allowed her to understand the newfound division among them at the same time. A division that, for all intents and purposes, she found wise not to take a clear stance on, lest that create even more of a rift between them all than there already was.

Things were still in a relative state of silence even as the group ventured into Rose’s armory, the vast, cavernous hold still just as pristine and stately as ever. And while the kids, Pearl, and Ford were largely unphased by its familiar, sparkling interior, Garnet and Amethyst were quite amazed by it, seeing as how they had never once step foot into this secret sanctum that belong to their longtime leader.

“Well, uh… here we are,” Steven announced as he stepped up onto the central platform. “Mom’s armory.”

“Incredible…” Garnet murmured, adjusting her shades amidst looking around the cave.

“Seriously…” Amethyst agreed, her eyes wide and her jaw dropped. “Why didn’t Rose ever tell us about this place? Its not like we would have went and blabbed about it to anyone.”

“M-maybe because it was just… really special to her,” Steven ventured with a bit of a reassuring smile.

“Then why’d she show it to these two?” Amethyst nodded over to Pearl and Ford.

“Well she showed it to me because I was her most trusted confidant!” the white Gem proclaimed with a proud smile that quickly disappeared as she glanced over at the author. “Or at least… I thought I was…”

“Rose brought me here purely for the sake of historical research, I can assure you,” Ford clarified conclusively.

“Oh, right, research…” Pearl scoffed coldly. “Research about her private sanctum that you went and liberally recorded in those infernal journals of yours for the entire world to see, right?!”

“T-that was never my intention!” Ford protested earnestly. “I only wanted to-”

“That’s enough,” Garnet interupted staunchly as she wisely stepped between the pair. “We are not getting into another argument today. We need to focus on finding answers, no matter where and what they might be.”

“Well then, this is as good a place as any to start looking,” Steven said as he tapped his hand down onto the central switch, which instantly lit up the moment he made contact with it. Ford and the Gems all watched in apt amazement as the young Gem cycled through each of the weapon collections the armory had to offer, with Mabel and Connie both helping him out by poking him in the right places to get them to appear. However, none of the armory’s contents seemed to point towards any further clues, from the Armor of the Fallen, to the Axes of Ages, to the Heretic’s Anguish, to even the Quatizine Trio. Even some of the collections the kids themselves had never seen before were ultimately fruitless in anything that told of missing memories or untold secrets, aside from the existence of the armory itself. And by the time they had been through everything, the majority of the group was starting to get quite frustrated by the lack of any real, tangible hints they were still facing.

“Ugh, this is stupid,” Amethyst groaned impatiently as Steven began going through the weapons once more, just to make sure there wasn’t anything they had missed. “Wherever our memories are, its pretty obvious they’re not here, so why are we still wasting our time doing this?”

“Because Rose’s letter pointed towards a secret place,” Garnet reiterated. “And, given the fact that so few actually knew about this armory, I’d say it was exactly that.”

“W-well even if this place was a secret, I don’t see any reason why our memories would have been stored here anyway,” Pearl said pointedly. “Especially since, as we’ve said multiple times, Rose had nothing to do with their erasure!”

“No, of course she wouldn’t have,” Ford agreed with complete sincerity as he looked over the pink Gem’s letter to him again. “However, she did imply that she might have known what happened to them after they were taken. Which means that the leads she’s offered for us are the best we have to go off of for right now.”

“If those leads are even pointing towards our memories,” Pearl countered. “Which, for all we know, they not be at all.”

Based on this bout of speculation, a round of heated debating broke out between Ford and the Gems, one that wasn’t quite an argument, though given how on edge they all were, it could have very well been mistaken for one. The kids watched in unanimous dismay as the adults bickered, knowing that such contention seemed to be a running theme today, one that didn’t show any signs of breaking any time soon.

“Ugh, more fighting…” Mabel sighed with an exasperated frown. “How are we ever gonna figure any of this stuff out if everyone just keeps getting mad and yelling at each other?”

“I guess its because everyone’s just a little tense…” Steven noted sympathetically. “Especially the Gems; they won’t really tell me a lot about it but… its sorta like everything’s just been turned upside down for them and they don’t understand why or how. It can’t be easy for them.”

“Well… do you think finding their memories will really fix that?” Connie asked worriedly.

“I…. don’t know… Maybe?” Steven replied, honestly. “I think what’s bothering them the most right now is the chance that Mom might have actually known about what happened to them, but… that doesn’t make any sense… Why would she keep a secret like that from them for all those years?”

“Well, she did keep this whole armory thing a secret from Amethyst and Garnet for a whole bunch of years, it sounds like,” Mabel pointed out.

“Yeah, but… this is different,” Steven frowned fretfully. “This armory was hers’. But the Gems’ memories belonged to them. If she knew all this time, then why would she keep something that’s theirs hidden from them, especially something this important? Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl were her best friends, so why wouldn’t she trust them with their own memories?”

“Oh gee, I don’t know, Steven,” Dipper spoke up, his tone quite cross and sardonic as he glared at his sister and the young Gem. “Why wouldn’t Rose trust her friends on something really important? Then again, its not like you and Mabel really know anything about putting your trust in the right people, now would you?”

“Uh… what are you talking about, bro-bro?” Mabel asked, exchanging a confused, but still concerned glance with Steven upon hearing this.

“Are you serious?” Dipper asked in harsh disbelief. “You guys still don’t get what the problem is here?”

“W-with the Gems?” Steven guessed, though even as he said it, he knew that wasn’t the focus of this conversation anymore.

“No, with us!” Dipper exclaimed in unbridled frustration. “With what you guys did yesterday! You two saw what the journals said; that portal could have torn the universe apart and killed us all! And you both were in the perfect places to put a stop to it and save us all but you just… didn’t!”

“B-but everything turned out fine!” Mabel protested, not understanding her brother’s perspective on this. “We’re all still ok and now we even have Grunkle Ford around! Aren’t you happy about getting the chance to meet him seeing as how he’s the author you’ve been just about dying to find all summer?!”

“Well, of course I am!” Dipper snapped, his hands in tight fists at his sides. “But that’s not the point! The point is that you guys knew something really bad could have happened, and who did you decide to trust about it in the end? Not me, you know, your twin brother, one of your best friends? No, you decided to trust Stan, a literal conman who we just found out had been lying to us about basically everything all summer!”

“Dipper, we didn’t decide to trust Mr. Pines over you,” Steven clarified gently. “It was just a really intense, heat of the moment sort of thing and we were being pressured on both sides and things just sort of… happened.”

“Things just ‘sort of’ happened?” Dipper repeated with a cold scoff. “Oh what you mean like how you guys ‘sort of happened’ to go have a little ‘chat’ with Peridot even after the Gems and I told you not to? Or, Steven, like how you ‘sort of happened’ to keep me trapped in a fusion with you just so you could feel good!? Or, Mabel, how you ‘sort of happened’ to not help me with the laptop which left me with only a psychotic, sadistic demon to turn to for help!? Or how you guys just ‘sort of happen’ to always do stuff like this! You always have to do what works for you guys, what you guys think is right. Well maybe what’s right for you two isn’t always right for everyone else, did you ever think about that?! Oh, well, of course you didn’t because you two just hate thinking about anything even remotely unpleasant, don’t you!?”

“Whoa, hold on-” Connie attempted to intervene upon seeing how heated things were getting, though Mabel quickly, angrily interupted her.

“Dipper, none of that is fair and you know it!” she exclaimed sharply. “I thought we already settled all this! What happened with the invasion or with Bill is none of our faults and neither is what happened yesterday! Don’t you get it?! If we had shut down that portal yesterday, then Grunkle Stan would have never gotten to see his brother again! He wasn’t trying to destroy the world; he was trying to save his family! I totally would have done the same thing if you were the one trapped in some nightmare dimension like Grunkle Ford was!”

“Would you have, Mabel?” Dipper asked dubiously. “Because if we’re being perfectly honest here, I don’t think you would. After all, I’m always the one who has to end up sacrificing the things I want and need for you, not the other way around! If Bill was right about one thing, it was that. And you pretty much just proved that completely yesterday by not hearing me out about hitting that shutdown switch! The one time I ask you to do something that could have potentially saved the entire world and you don’t even listen to me!”

“Dipper, I—we wanted to listen to you!” Mabel argued back intensely, and by now, Ford and the Gems had start to take notice of the effective shouting matching that was unfolding pretty much between just the twins at this point. “But your problem is that you think way too much with your head and never with your heart! Because me and Steven went with our hearts yesterday and they turned out to be right! Why can’t you just accept that!?”

“Because you didn’t trust me!” Dipper reiterated fiercely, clearly upset enough that he was almost to the point of tears, though he held them back nonetheless. “How many times do I have to say it?! A few weeks ago you guys made such a big deal about how important it was that we stand together and listen to each other, but then you two turned around and did the exact opposite of that! Do you guys even know what that felt like to me? It was like you guys just… shut me out, like you-”

Steven suddenly interupted with a sharp gasp of realization upon hearing this, his eyes growing wide as he finally hit what very well could be a breakthrough in everything. “L-like what Mom did to the Gems…” he muttered, his eyes wide as he stared up to the nearby pink platform.

“Steven?” Connie frowned in confusion, the twins doing the same as they wondered how any of this related back to the argument at hand.

“Pearl,” Steven began, looking to the white Gem as he started to work of this realization. “You said that Mom used to keep a lot of secrets because she wanted to protect everyone?”

“W-well… yes…” Pearl nodded, unsure of where her young ward was going with this. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, if that’s true, then that means Mom didn’t keep secrets from you guys because she didn’t trust you…” Steven continued, pacing around in the shallow water of the cave as he continued thinking thins out. “She did it to keep you guys safe from… something…”

“Something…” Amethyst repeated, raising an eyebrow. “Like… what?”

“I… don’t know…” Steven shook his head. “But I don’t think that’s the important thing here anyway. What’s important is that she did trust you guys, and she trusted you too, Mr. Ford, didn’t she?”

“W-well, I’d like to think that she did,” Ford remarked, glancing down in slight shame. “For a time anyway…”

“Well, she trusted you enough to show you armory, and a bunch of other things too!” Steven assured thoughtfully. “But… what if there were things that she still kept secret from everyone, things that she didn’t ever tell anyone about ever, because she wanted to keep her friends safe from something really bad.”

“Well what kinda secret would that be?” Amethyst asked, hands on her hips.

“It would be something like… hm…” the young Gem had to take pause from his ongoing line of reasoning here, knowing that he was still missing one essential piece out of this growing puzzle. A piece that had to be something that neither the Gems nor Ford had any prior knowledge of. A piece that could very well lead to the answers they were all still so desperate to find. A piece that, as it finally dawned upon Steven in another burst of sudden realization, was much more pinker and fluffier than he thought it would be. “Lion!”

“Lion?” everyone save for Ford asked rather incredulously, all of them now completely lost by the young Gem’s newfound, bizarre conclusion.

“We gotta get back to the temple, right now!” Steven implored, splashing loudly through the cave as he ran towards its exit, the others all curiously following after him. “Come on!”

No one really understood what Steven had in mind for his impromptu plan as they arrived back at the temple, save for the fact that it apparently involved Lion. Almost as soon as they all stepped inside, however, the young Gem wasted no time in frantically rushing forward and urgently calling for his pink pet, knowing that time was of the essence in solving this longstanding mystery now.

“Lion!” he shouted, glancing around for the pink beast as the others filed in behind him. “Lion! Come on out! We need you to-”

The young Gem was interupted as the pink beast suddenly leapt down from the loft above, nearly knocking him down in the process. As Steven re-steadied himself, he let something of an exasperated huff out upon seeing his comforter draped over his pet’s head. “Ugh, Lion!” he groaned, pulling the blanket off of him. “How many times do I have to tell you!? My bed is for me to sleep on, not for you, even when I’m not here!”

“By Tesla’s coil…” Ford muttered in amazement as he stepped forward to take a better look at the pink beast. “T-that lion is pink!”

“Uh, yeah, tell us something we don’t know,” Amethyst rolled her eyes.

“What a scientific marvel!” the author continued with an impressed smile. Lion sent him an unenthused glare but surprisingly didn’t growl at him as he curiously approached him. “And he’s so tame too! Certainly, he has to have some sort of magical or supernatural origins! Where on earth did you find him?”

“In the desert, a few months before this summer started,” Steven replied, stroking his pink pet’s fur. “But… he has this huge tree inside his mane, i-it’s a little hard to explain, but there are a whole bunch of stuff in there. Stuff that I think used to belong to my mom… Its where we found her sword and this tape she left for me, and there’s a lot of other things in there too. A-and…” he turned to the Gems as he briefly paused, clearly nervous as he purposed his latest idea to them. “Maybe it’s the ‘secret place’ Mom’s letter talked about. Maybe… its where your memories are.”

“Oh, Steven, don’t be ridiculous,” Pearl scoffed. “The chances of our memories being hidden inside Lion’s mane are even lower than them being at the armory.”

“It’s a good guess,” Garnet assured, placing a hand on her young ward’s shoulder. “But it just doesn’t seem very likely.”

“No!” Steven protested, pulling his shoulder away. “Garnet, you said that we have to investigate anything that could lead us to where your memories are. Well I really do think that whatever’s inside Lion’s mane could at least help us get closer to finding them! Please, just… trust me on this, ok? It’s worth a look, isn’t it?”

The Gems said nothing to this, instead exchanging an uncertain glance before they all backed off to allow Steven the room to do what he needed to. The young Gem himself took in a deep, steady breath as he nodded to Lion, who simply tilted his chin up, granting his master access to the pocket dimension tucked away inside his pastel mane. And, taking in a deep breath and letting go of any reservations about what he might find, Steven jumped right in.

The grassy fields of Lion’s mane were just as calm and peacefully silent as Steven always knew them to be, though unlike the countless times he had visited them before, this time, something felt… different. It was as though the very atmosphere, or lack there of rather, that covered the seemingly boundless space was filled with something ominous and unsettling, almost as if it knew what he was there looking for.

And it wasn’t happy about it.

Even so, Steven forced himself to ignore the growing dread in his own heart as he pressed forward through the tall grass, the large, pink tree still afar off in the distance, though it loomed closer with each step he inched towards it. As he ventured closer, his breath dutifully held and his eyes focused on his destination, the young Gem couldn’t help but think about his mother. Rose Quartz, the leader of the Crystal Gems, who saved so many and gave so much. Who harbored so many secrets, both big and small. Who had left so much confusion and uncertainty behind. Who, the more he learned about, the more he seemed to know nothing about at all.

“She was more than just nice,” his father had told him with a warm, earnest smile of deepest affection and love. “She was sweet, and selfless, and funny, and brave, and beautiful, and amazing…”

“Your mother always believed that trust was something that shouldn’t be given away so easily,” Garnet had said, but Steven couldn’t help but question that supposed belief now, in spite of it all. “She believed it was something that should be earned, and that everyone should be given the chance to earn it.”

“I don’t know what kind of sweet, little fluffy lies the Gems have been feeding you, kid, but your mom was far from the amazing, perfect, flawless goddess those three thought she was!” Stan had harshly criticized, with a kind of disdain that the young Gem now understood the reasoning behind. Disdain that, in a way, he even saw as somewhat reasonable, at least from the conman’s perspective.

“She was always, always thinking of humanity, of the earth, of her fellow Crystal Gems over herself,” Pearl had said with a loving sigh of adoration, one that perhaps, Steven started to realize, carried some biases to it all their own.

“I was always able to bear my secrets to her, just as she often entrusted her own secrets to me,” the journal had read and Ford still echoed his sentiments of deepest respect for the pink Gem even now. Sentiments that, much like the Gems’ refused to be shaken. “I can only hope she’ll understand. She has to understand. She’s the only one I still completely trust…”

“Then again, I’m hardly surprised,” Bill had said during a moment of such high intensity that it had barely even registered again in Steven’s mind until now. “After all, your mom did the exact same thing way back when before just making everybody forget about it later on!”

Steven had to take in a sharp gasp of realization upon recalling this callous remark, to the point that he was forced to stick his head outside of Lion’s mane ever so briefly to catch it. He didn’t even bother sticking around to answer anyone’s pressing questions as he quickly shoved himself back inside, his mind absolutely reeling by what the dream demon had said several weeks ago no. There was no way, no way Bill could have been right about that; certainly it had to have been just another one of his infamous lies and deceitful ploys. The idea that Rose had known where the Gems’ memories had been all this time was bad enough; but the implication that she had been the very one to take them in the first place was something else altogether. Certainly, it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. Because…

“Take care of them, Steven…” Rose had said herself to him in a tape made years ago. A tape filled with so much warmth and love and sincerity that it usually pushed all thoughts of his mother’s shadowed secrets away. But not this time. Because as Steven scaled the hill leading to the tree, the only thing left in place of that warmth was a bitter chill, in place of that love was fear, in place of that sincerity was doubt, more doubt that he had ever really felt before. She had entrusted him with the Crystal Gems, with the protection of the earth and everything upon it. Those were burdens he could handle, burdens that were heavy yes, but manageable. But she had also left him with her secrets, with the ghosts of her past still unreckoned in the present, with all the horrible mistakes she might have made. With all the things that he knew he wasn’t strong enough to carry, even if he wanted to.

And as he finally reached the tree and happened to peer just beyond the chest resting near its base, he found just about the heaviest burden she could have left him with.

His heart sank with a feeling of absolute woe as he caught sight of it: an unassuming glass tube, the very same kind the Society of the Blind Eye had once horded en masse. It lay gently in the low grass, a label pressed to its side that bore a very simple designation written in a deceptively beautiful script:

“Crystal Gems’ Memories”

Steven’s hands were shaking as he reached down to pick the tube up, grasping it ever so gently as he pulled it into his grasp. Tears had started to well up in the young Gem’s eyes as the realization crashed down upon him all at once that it was all true. That Rose really had been keeping this momentous secret from her teammates, from her friends all this time. That she had barred them from the truth, truth that they had agonized over missing for so very long now, truth that she could have very well stolen away from them herself. Truth that he had finally, finally found, and truth that he had every intention of returning to who it rightfully belonged to.

Something that his mother had apparently never bothered to od.

Since he was starting to run out of air, Steven quickly bounded down the hill, practically leaping out of Lion’s mane and back into the house as he landed on the floor clumsily. As tense as everyone was, no one really bothered to give him too much of a chance to catch his breath as they all crowded around him, eager to hear his findings.

“Steven, are you ok?” Mabel asked with concern upon noticing the tears streaming down the young Gem’s face.

“Did you find anything in there?” Connie asked, equally worried as Steven slowly pushed himself up to sit.

“Uh… y-yeah…” he muttered morosely, looking down to the memory tube held tightly in his arms. “I… I think I did…”

Steven let out a sad sigh as he held the tube up for the Gems to see, a unified gasp of shock escaping them as they realized what it was. The young Gem had always imagined this to be a moment of immense relief and joy for his guardians; the long awaited reunion with their lost memories should have been exciting and liberating. But instead, it only felt like a betrayal of the absolute worst kind.

“T-those are… they can’t be…” Pearl whispered, wrapping her hands around Garnet’s arm tightly.

“T-they are…” the Gem leader said weakly, not even hiding the dismay in her tone.

“B-but… but why were they… in there all this time?” Amethyst asked, shaking her head in disbelief.

Garnet took in a deep breath, steadying herself for her teammates as resolve filled her expression. “There’s only one way to find out,” she said, looking to the memory tube first, and then to her teammates. “Gems?” she offered, though neither Amethyst nor Pearl seemed very keen on taking the initiative. “Alright then, I’ll go first.”

The others all watched in tentative silence as Garnet took the tube, placing her palms against both of its end tips. However, the moment she did so, a spark of energy rushed from the tube to the two gemstones making contact with it, eliciting a gasp of surprise from the Gem leader as she went rigid and still. For a moment, her expression only conveyed shock; her jaw dropped and her eyes unreadable underneath her shades. No one else had any idea what she could have been seeing, what memories she was recalling, what secrets she was learning, but in the end, it all proved to be too much for her as she let out a sharp, distraught cry, her hands flying away from the tube as she stumbled backwards. The tube itself nearly shattered on the ground, but fortunately, Pearl managed to catch it just in time as the others all looked to the compromised Gem leader in concerned alarm.

Garnet said nothing as she backed against the far wall, her shades disappearing to reveal her trio of eyes, all huge with terror and oncoming tears in an expression of unabridged fear that none of them had ever seen on her before. Her breathing was shallow and uneven, a hand pressed tightly against the side of her head as she shook it repeatedly, as sign of how unable she was to comprehend what she had just seen.

“G-Garnet…” Steven asked, taking a small, hesitant step towards her. “A-are you… ok?”

The Gem leader didn’t respond, her eyes darting downward as she remained in her state of silent, frantic panic, completely unresponsive to everyone else around her. Pearl and Amethyst in particular were quite stunned to see their usually steadfast leader so shaken, and as they looked to the memory tube again, they were both left wondering if reclaiming what she just had was even worth it at all. “W-what did she see just now?” Amethyst asked quite apprehensively.

“I-I don’t know…” Pearl said, warily eyeing the tube once more. “Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been that bad, right?”

Amethyst simply shrugged in response to this, something that Pearl took with a readying sigh as she began to lift the tube up to the gem on her forehead, knowing that was how Garnet had absorbed the memories contained therein. And much like Garnet, Pearl’s expression went completely blank as she touched it to her gemstone, though it only took a moment or two for the same kind of horror to fill her eyes as she let out nothing short of a scream of anguished fear. The white Gem practically threw the memory tube away from her, though Amethyst managed to nab it with a well timed stretch of her arm before it could hit the wall. All the same, Pearl let out another heartbroken cry as she quickly collapsed to her knees, choking on several sobs all the while as she wrapped her arms tightly around herself.

“H-how could we… w-we were tricked, we didn’t… what have we done?!” she cried miserably, her voice rising in yet another agonized shriek before she broke down into the same, tearful, inconsolable state Garnet was still in. The kids, Ford, and Amethyst could all only watch their absolute breakdowns with apt alarm, none of them having the faintest idea about what apparent horrors their previously lost memories could hold. The purple Gem in particular looked down at the tube anxiously, knowing that if she were to gain those memories herself, then she’d likely fall apart just as her teammates had. And yet…

“Amethyst, wait,” Steven stopped her as she began to pull the tube towards the gem on her chest. “Y-you don’t have to…”

The purple Gem’s expression turned grave as she heard this, shaking her head solemnly as she spared another pitied glance towards Garnet and Pearl. “Yeah… I do…” she muttered despondently, taking in a deep breath before she placed the tube against her gem. Just like her teammates, it took a moment for Amethyst to really respond to whatever secrets the tube held inside it, but when she did, her reaction wasn’t one of shock or grief. It was anger. The purple Gem let out an appalled gasp, her eyes igniting with furious fire as she ripped the memory tube away from her, letting out a fierce shout as she slammed it hard into the ground, shattering it into hundreds of irreparable pieces.

“She lied to us!” Amethyst practically screamed with fury, her fingers tightly knitted into her messy hair. “All this time! All these years and she couldn’t even bother to tell us anything just so she could hide her own mistakes!? How could she do this to us?!”

“Do what?” Ford asked, both immensely concerned and immensely curious as he addressed all three of the Gems. “What happened? What did you see?”

As soon as the author asked this, the Gems all snapped their gazes over to him, each of them wearing some variation of a hostile scowl, something that Ford was genuinely caught off guard by. “W-what did we see?” Pearl began coldly, wiping her tears away and replacing them with anger as she stood. “I’ll tell you what we saw! We saw-”

“Pearl,” Garnet quickly cut in, still against the wall, though her expression had hardened somewhat. Her shades were still gone as she sent an intentful glance towards the kids, silently telling her teammate that what they had witnessed was something that didn’t need to be discussed in front of them.

The white Gem heeded her leader, though all the same, she turned to Ford briefly, whispering only two words that none of the kids were able to hear, though they left the author completely in shock. “W-what?” he stammered, hoping he had heard Pearl wrong, though she didn’t bother to repeat herself as she abruptly turned on her heel and marched towards the temple, letting out another remorseful, bitter sob as she did. Amethyst followed soon after, grumbling hotly to herself as she stormed into her room, not even sending another glance back at the stunned group behind her. Garnet lingered just a moment longer, her three-eyed sights fixated on the broken remains of the memory tube on the ground before her, as if it held any of the answers she was failing to find.

“G-Garnet?” Steven spoke up apprehensively, taking a step towards the shaken Gem leader. Garnet briefly glanced up at him, her eyes filled with pain, regret, fear, and a million other things at once as she prepared to speak to him, only to end up saying nothing at all. Instead, she simply summoned her shades once again, standing upright as she too retreated inside the temple, unable to even begin describing the horrors her and her teammates had just seen.

“W-wait!” Ford called after her, rushing up to the temple gate just as it closed. “Please, just tell me what happened! W-what did he—what did Rose do to…” The author trailed off, stilling his knocking on the door as he let out a defeated sigh and hung his head in shame, knowing that, based on the incredibly small amount of information he had so far, he couldn’t help but blame himself for it all.

“G-Grunkle Ford?” Mabel spoke up anxiously. “Are the Gems… ok?”

Ford hesitated in turning back to face the kids, but when he did it was with a small, largely fake smile of reassurance. “Ah… um… t-they will be. There’s no doubt that whatever memories they just recalled were… somewhat intense. It’s understandable that they’d need a little time to… adjust, so to speak…”

“It was Mom, wasn’t it?” Steven asked, his back turned to everyone else as he instead stared at the portrait of his mother rather coldly. “She was the one who erased their memories. That’s why they were hidden in Lion’s mane; she put them there. Like Amethyst said, s-she lied to them…”

“I-I… I’m not sure if she… M-maybe she just… She…” Ford stammered, clearly unsure of what to say as he looked to the serene portrait of the pink Gem himself. The author knew there was much that he could have said, not just to the kids, but to the Gems, to himself really, in a moment like this. Unspoken regrets, unkept promises, unabashed guilt; but in the end, he said none of it, opting to take the same route of silence as the Gems had by making a swift retreat of his own. “I… don’t know…” he mumbled to the kids as he passed by them, his tone and his manner both low and remorseful. Yet all the same, he did stop briefly as he began to step outside, offering the kids something of a bittersweet smile as he left them with a few genuine words of affirmation. “You know, despite how everything turned out, you kids really did come through and figure this conundrum out, and that’s something to be proud of. The four of you really make quite an impressive team.” Ford let out a small, somewhat sad laugh as he finally left, though not before muttering one final, wistful statement to himself. “Just like myself and the Gems did back in the day, I suppose…”

And with that, the author departed, leaving the kids alone in a state of heavy silence as they all tried to wrap their heads around everything that had just happened. There was no doubt that something significant had changed with the restoration of the Gems’ memories, but exactly what that something was was largely unclear. However, Steven hardly even thought of this apparent change as he instead continued staring at the picture of his mother, his hands slowly clenching into tight fists at his side as his despair started to grow into frustration. Which in turn, quickly grew into a rare kind of anger he was powerless to control.

“I can’t believe it…” he began, quietly at first, though his volume quickly rose as the others all looked to him in confusion. “All this time, all this time we’ve been trying to figure out what happened to the Gems’ memories, and the answer was always right here! Mom took their memories! They were her friends and she stole from them without even thinking about how much it might hurt them!”

“Oh, Steven…” Connie frowned, wanting to comfort the young Gem amidst his upset anger. “M-maybe she had to erase their memories. Whatever the Gems saw… it looked like it really scared them. Maybe that was her way of helping them deal with that.”

“But why couldn’t she think of another way?!” Steven exclaimed, distraught as he began to intensely pace back and forth. “Why did she have to go and take something that was so important to them and just… just hide them for so long without telling anyone?! She didn’t give them a choice or anything, she just did it to try and fix whatever happened, but it didn’t fix anything at all! It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t right! It’s just like-!” The young Gem cut himself off with a sharp gasp, his eyes widening as he realized he had no right to be upset with his mother for such a momentous mistake. After all, he had nearly done the exact same thing to one of his own friends just a few mere days ago.

Steven’s eyes welled up with tears, a guilty sob escaping him as he looked to Dipper, who, up until that point, had only been watching the young Gem’s outburst in concerned alarm. However, his surprise only grew as Steven suddenly rushed towards him, pulling him into a tight, sorrowful hug that admittedly caught Dipper completely off guard.

“S-Steven, what-”

“Dipper, I-I’m so sorry!” the young Gem cried morosely. “I finally understand why you were so upset with me and Mabel about what happened yesterday! Its because we didn’t trust you! B-because I didn’t trust you, a-and that’s why I almost erased your memories back when we were dealing with the society! I thought you couldn’t handle it all but I was wrong! I was only thinking about how bad I felt then, about how scared I was yesterday that I didn’t even t-think about how… about… about anything else! You’re right… I-I… I’m selfish… Just like my mom was…”

Dipper had to take pause upon hearing all this, still lost in surprise as he felt the young Gem sob miserably while still maintaining their embrace. For the first time, he couldn’t help but feel guilty himself for the grudge he had been holding onto so tightly ever since that portal blew open. A grudge that, in light of everything they had uncovered and everything that they had been through together, seemed far too petty and unimportant to really hold a place in his heart any longer.

And yet, before he could let it go, Mabel spoke up, her tone shaken yet sincere as she managed to join in on the hug between the boys herself. “Dipper, I… I’m sorry too…” she said, much softer than Steven had, though tears were starting to fill her eyes as well. “You were right… we really did shut you out. We broke our promise to stick by each other and be a team, and then we—I guess I just thought that things would get better on their own, so I didn’t even try to make it right… J-just like I always do, right?”

“Mabel, no…” Dipper protested softly, gently pulling himself out of Steven and Mabel’s shared embrace. “Y-you guys didn’t… I was just…” He trailed off, trying to focus everything he wanted to say to them both down to something concise, meaningful. And once he did, he couldn’t help but do so with a remorseful sigh. “I… I was wrong. About Stan, about the portal, about… well, just about everything. In fact, when it comes to the big things this summer, there’s probably about only a handful of times when I’ve actually been right. And I guess I was just so tired of being wrong about everything all the time that I wanted to blame it on someone other than myself so… maybe I sort of just… pinned it all on you two. Which is something else that’s wrong, when you think about it, because you guys totally don’t deserve that. You did what you thought was right. And… in the end, it turned out for the best. I mean, it brought Great Uncle Ford back to where he belongs, it led to us finding the Gems’ memories—for better or worse—it gave us the answers to so many of the questions we had this summer. So… I’m sorry for holding it all against you guys. What happened yesterday… it changed pretty much everything. But the one thing that it shouldn’t change because of any of it is us.”

“And it won’t,” Mabel assured with a small, but steadily growing smile. “Remember what we talked about last night? About not getting all stupid like Stan and Ford, and heck, even the Gems did? Well, we’re not gonna turn out like them. We’re better than that, all four of us are!”

“That’s right!” Steven agreed as they welcomed Connie into their quickly developing group hug. “Because we’re…”

“The Mystery Kids!” they all chimed in together, laughing warmly as they all pulled together, both physically and symbolically. The past few days, the past few weeks really had been tumultuous for all four of them, through trials ranging from Homeworld invasions to battles against demons both external and internal to even interdimensional portals and hidden memories sealed away. But even despite all the strain it had been put under, their bond was a resilient one, built to last under the pressure stacked against it without crumbling apart. What was lost between the kids had been found, and as long as they kept sight of it, so it would remain.

And yet… even despite the comforting assurance of their newly-secured friendship, the kids still had their worries. Worries of the past they still knew nothing about, about the mistakes and terrors laying dead but not buried somewhere years before any of them were even born. Anxiety about the present, about how things were now as shaken and shattered as they were in light of everything they had learned.

And most of all fears of the future, of what they’d find as they moved onward into the unsteady, uncertain darkness ahead, where literally anything or anyone could lie in wait.

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