#If anything the park cats should be focusing more on teaching her when NOT to trust. Like... judgement. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

buckys-black-dress · 3 years

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a fine line, part two

a/n: here she is, our promised part two of afl!!! honestly i love writing this series and it has almost all my fav things in one fic, so yup. anyways, again, thank you for reading/sharing/liking my work !! luv u all, x -ali

wc: 5.8k !!!

The tension in the room was palpable.

And although no one knew you two were working together by verbal confirmation, it was clear from the way you were both reacting.

Bucky was rarely this quiet, so it was obvious what was going on.

Also the fact that you seemed frozen in place.

“Y/N? Everything okay?” Wanda’s soft voice filtered in next to you.

You nodded, trying to break away from James’ gaze.

“Mhm, who’re you working with?” You ask, moving away from the topic at hand.

“Oh, you know Professor Vision? He teaches Comp Sci.” Wanda is now visibly blushing, making you curious.

“Ooh, does Wanda have a crush?” Natasha chimes in as she sidles up next to you two. “I got Banner. How about you, Y/N?”

“I uhh, I got... Barnes.” You mumble under your breath.

“Who? I didn’t catch what you said there.” Natasha’s eyebrows furrowed.

“I... I got Dr. Barnes.” You said, not even daring to look up at your friends.

“...Oh. Well, that should be... interesting...” Wanda comments.

“...Yeah. It’ll probably be fine!” Natasha tries to comfort you, but there’s a stirring feeling in your stomach that almost makes you feel sick.

“He said there was no way to change it... right?” You ask feebly, trying to hold out hope.

“No... and I wouldn’t want to go head to head with Fury.” Wanda frowns.

“Great.” You conclude, taking a deep breath. “You know what, I can do this. It’s fine, I’ll be fine.” You tell the girls, gathering your things and filing out of the office as people began to leave.

Wanda and Natasha were left watching your retreating form, staring at each other.

“I’ll be surprised if they make it to the end of next week.” Natasha says, earning a shove in her arm from Wanda.

Bucky watched you leave the office, and the gears were most definitely turning in his head.

You spent the rest of the week keeping mostly to yourself, trying to mentally prepare for what you’d have to face next week.

In the email sent out by Fury, he explained that you and your partner should have a lesson outlined prior to Monday so you could get right into teaching. He also explained that you would have to share all of your classes, and somehow correlate the two subjects that each professor taught.

English and History, seems easy, right?

Wrong.

Every idea you’ve emailed James has been shot down, and your patience was wearing thin. You didn’t like being unprepared, and the week would be coming to a close soon.

So naturally, you did what anyone else would do, and knocked on James’ office door until he answered.

“I’m comin’ jeez, would ya hold on?” You hear his voice, muffled by the door, until he swings it open, coming face to face with you. “What do you need, Y/L/N?”

“Oh, lovely to see you too, Dr. Barnes. I just wanted to know if you were actually interested in making our lesson plan. If we’re going to be spending the next few weeks together, we might as well have a plan. And I thought your input might be better, since you’re clearly not a fan of what I’ve shown you so far.” You rambled, moving to stand in the middle of his office, laptop in hand.

“You know, maybe if you sent anything good, I would’ve worked with ya on it. But I just don’t think your style of teaching fits me. It’s too... too intimate. You’re too far up your students’ asses. You get too close, too personal with them.” James explains to you.

You can only scoff at this.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, James, but my students and I have great relationships. If my students don’t like me, or what I teach, they’ll be more inclined to hand in subpar work. But if I make my expectations clear from the start, they’ll know what they have to do to earn an A in my class. That’s why my first two semesters here have been averaging with A’s all across the board.” You explain as simply as you can, because you felt like James was ridiculing you and the way you teach. You worked hard to get where you are today, and you know that’s why your students love coming to class.

Bucky stared at you for a few seconds, trying to process the information you dropped on him.

“So... your students... like you?” He asks, tentatively, almost.

“...Yes? I know you don’t like me, so it might hard to believe that others do, but I don’t think I’m that unappealing.” You scoff, looking at the floor to avoid Bucky’s eyes. “Anyways, do you have any ideas?”

Bucky’s chest tightened with guilt. After the incident at the bar, he was trying to not be as rude to you. He was trying to be more humane, in Steve’s words.

“I... Maybe we can take a look at some of the stuff you sent before. Maybe if you explain it to me face-to-face I’ll understand it better.” Bucky says, and you nod. “Take a seat, we’re gonna be here a while.”

As a few hours passed, you and James actually started a pretty solid outline for lessons. You started working on your first lesson, which would be the origins of literature. You could both talk about it, and you could both bring different aspects to the table.

“On average, how many kids do you have in your classes, Y/N?” James asks you, and your head snaps up at the mention of your first name. You had a moment where you imagine him calling you that way more often, making your throat run dry.

“Uhm,” you cleared your throat, “my biggest class is about thirty students, maximum.” You tell him.

“Really? My smallest is forty...” He tells you, scratching his chin. “Also very male dominated, I’ve noticed.”

You freeze, trying to process this. It’s only ten more kids... you’ll be fine, right?

“You alright, there, Y/L/N?” James chuckles, to which you let out a weak one. You weren’t used to large crowds, they made you anxious, nervous, like you were losing your footing.

“I-I’m fine. Yeah, all good, let’s get back to work.” You tell him, focusing back on your lesson plan.

“It’s uh, getting a bit late. Thinking we should head home soon.” James looks at you a bit longer, trying to gauge your mood.

“Uh- oh, what time is it?” You ask, squinting and cursing yourself for leaving your glasses in your office.

“It’s almost 7:30...” He tells you.

“Oh, I have to go! Lucy, she’s been all alone, I have to feed her!” In a panic, you begin gathering your belongings.

“Lu- Who’s Lucy?” James asks in clear confusion at your sudden panic.

“My cat! Oh, poor baby, she’s probably wondering where I’ve been...” You trail off, making sure you’ve gathered everything you need.

“W-wait, can I get your number?” James asks, and you both freeze.

“M-my number?” You ask, not bothering to hide your shock.

“Well, we’re gonna need to discuss the lesson plan somehow...” He tells you.

“Oh... well, here...” You pull off a post-it note from the pad on his desk and quickly scribble down your number, handing it to him. “I’m not usually on my phone too much, so if I don’t answer within a few hours, try shooting me an email.” You explain, making your way out the door.

“Have a good night, James.” He hears you say quietly before you turn away from the doorframe, and he hears the resonating shutting of your office door not even five minutes later.

Bucky sits in his chair, not having moved an inch from when you left. He stares at the blue post-it with your number scribbled on it.

He picked it up, inspecting it further.

Your handwriting was neat, but flourishing and borderline cursive because of how quickly you wrote.

Bucky pulls out his phone and inputs the number, saving your contact.

Y/N Y/L/N

He then types out a message:

Just wanted to text you so I wouldn’t lose your number. Hope Lucy is okay.

And he hits send, deciding to pack up his things, trying to understand why he chose to include your cat in his message.

And on your end when you check your phone after parking in your apartment building’s parking, you see a message from an unknown number. You choose to not answer until you’ve made it into your apartment and feed Lucy.

You open your messages, staring at it. Something in your chest fluttered, but you pass it off as your hunger, waiting for your dinner to warm up in the oven.

Hi James. Lucy is fine, thanks for worrying. Have a good night.

You send it off, saving his contact but choosing to not look at your phone until after you’ve finished everything that you needed to do.

After finishing some grading, doing the dishes, and adding to the lesson plan, you decide to settle into bed with a book. You check your phone while brushing your teeth.

James Barnes: Good to hear. Do you think we could work on the lesson plan over lunch tomorrow? Just so we can get ahead of the game.

Y/N Y/L/N: Sounds good. Are we still going to also meet up after classes?

It takes a few minutes before your phone dings again.

James Barnes: Yep. Do you want to just come by my place after? Kind of getting stir-crazy in my office. We could also order food.

You stare at your phone. Are you going crazy? Why is he being so... kind?

Before you could even respond, another ping pulls you back out of your thoughts.

James Barnes: You could also bring Lucy with you, if you don’t want to leave her alone at home for too long.

Okay, now you were sure you were going insane. He was being way too nice. Where was this attitude a year ago, when you’d first met him?

But then again, it wouldn’t hurt, right? You were trying to get out of your comfort zone...

Y/N Y/L/N: Sure, that’s good. Are you sure it would be okay if I brought Lucy? I wouldn’t want to impose on your personal space.

His reply was almost instant.

James Barnes: No, I don’t mind at all. Alpine would love the company.

Before you could even wonder who Alpine was, you remember your previous conversation with Steve once.

‘Bucky also has a cat...’

Y/N Y/L/N: Okay, then I’ll be there. You also have a cat?

James Barnes: Oh, yeah. He’s the sweetest. *1 Attachment.*

Opening the image, you see a fluffy, stark white cat. He had big eyes that anyone would swoon over. You look at the foot of your bed where Lucy is curled up into a ball, fast asleep. You carefully snap a picture, smiling at her.

Y/N Y/L/N: I’ll admit, he’s cute. But can he compete with her? *1 Attachment*

You smile, seeing the typing bubble, waiting for him to respond.

James Barnes: Doll, no one can compete with Al. But I can’t deny, Lucy’s a gem.

Reading over the message at least seven times, your eyes keep lingering over the first word. Doll. It was in a loop in your head, the only thought you were having was that one word.

Why did he call me that? Is he flirting with me? No... he doesn’t even like me! But then why would he be talking to me right now? And why would he send me a picture of his cat...

And now your hands were working faster than your brain, typing out a quick response with your stomach doing backflips.

Y/N Y/L/N: Alright, whatever you say, Bucky. I’m heading to bed, good night.

And you don’t wait for a response before shutting off your phone and plugging it in, putting it on do not disturb and abandoning it on your nightstand, flipping open your book. You were trying to clear your thoughts but miserably failing.

Unbeknownst to you, Bucky responded with a wide smile at the sight of you using his nickname.

James Barnes: Sweet dreams, Y/N.

That night, Bucky fell asleep with Alpine on the pillow next to him, but a wide smile on his face and his stomach full of butterflies.

Little did he know, so were you.

The next day, you woke up feeling like a brand new woman. You got a decent amount of sleep. You got out of bed and made coffee before you left the house. You arrived to school way earlier than usual.

To be honest, you didn’t know what was going on.

James was being nice. To you. Why the sudden change of heart? Or maybe he was going back to acting like an asshole when he sees you in person. You didn’t really know what to expect.

Honestly, what you expected the least was for a knock to be heard on your door, 15 minutes before your first class of the day.

“Come in!” You say, expecting a student or maybe Natasha or Wanda.

But the door swings open, and there’s James. He’s standing there with two paper bags, undoubtedly from the bakery down the street.

“Hi.” He says. Not offering anything. No explanation, no emotion. No indication of our conversation last night.

“Hi. Did you need something?” You ask, and for once, it wasn’t in a dismissive or cold tone.

“Uh, no. Just wondering if you’ve eaten anything yet today?” James asks, holding up the bags in his hand.

“Uhm... no...” You tell him, not understanding why he was asking.

“Oh, well I have an extra croissant, if you’d like.” He holds up the bags once again.

“Sure, you can sit in here to eat if you’d like...” You offer, not sure of the water you were treading in.

“Oh, thanks.” He sits down and you both pull out the pastries and start eating. “So, how’s Lucy today?” James asks, a slight smirk on his face. You honestly couldn’t tell if he was making fun of you or not.

“Uh, she-she’s good. Clingy as usual. How’s Alpine?” You return the question.

“Same for him, also clings to me like a koala when I leave, I always feel bad, but I don’t really have a choice.�� You both giggle at the remark, nodding in agreement.

“I understand. Lucy’s still a kitten too, so she’s been getting attached a lot. But I think I need her just as bad as she needs me.” You tell him, and you don’t know why.

“Oh... no boyfriend?” James asks, and now you really can’t tell if he’s pulling your leg.

“Oh-” You giggle, covering your mouth. “That’s funny. No, no boyfriend.” You continue to laugh until you fall back into silence, and James is just watching you.

“What’s so funny?” He asks, genuinely perplexed at your reaction.

“James, I don’t think either of us are idiots. I don’t think I come off as girlfriend material to most guys.” You laugh again.

It became quiet, and you look back to your computer, ready to end this awkward conversation. You knew you had your insecurities, but it had always been hard for you to put yourself out there. Especially for guys. Your anxiety and introverted nature really put a pause on your already non-existent dating life.

Besides, you’ve always been alone. And you didn’t think that would be changing any time soon.

“Okay, well I’m gonna head out. I have a class to prepare for. See you tonight?” James asks, getting up from his seat across from you.

“Y-Yeah, I’ll see you then. Could you text me your address and what time I should be there?” You ask, also gathering your lecture notes and laptop.

“Sure thing, Y/N. Bye.” He waves, leaving. As soon as he steps out, you hear the clicking of heels against the laminate flooring.

“Why was Bucky in here?” Natasha’s gravelly voice asks, looking confused as ever.

“He just brought me a croissant, we were talking about our lesson plan for next week.” You explain to her. “Walk with me to my lecture?” You ask, pointing out the door.

“Sure,” she agrees, waiting for you to lock the door, “so, have things been... civil between you two?” Natasha asks tentatively.

“Actually, yes. He’s not all that bad. I’m going to his place after classes to work on the lesson plan, he asked me yesterday to even bring Lucy over so she could meet Alpine.” You tell her.

“Oh- wow, really? He’s being so... nice to you...” She responds.

“I-I know... I don’t understand why... He made it clear he doesn’t really enjoy my company.” You respond.

“Yeah... Well, this is new. I hope he keeps up with it.” She pats you on the shoulder as you reach the lecture hall.

“Yeah, me too.” You say, turning to her before going in.

“Hey, can I stop by your office for something at lunch?”

“Sure, see you then!” You tell her, setting up for your class.

Lunch time comes around, and Natasha was already waiting for you when you finished your class by lunchtime. You remembered James also asking to come by to eat with you and work, so you tried to make it quick with Natasha.

“So, you and Bruce already finished your lesson plans?” You ask, looking for a booklet she needed.

“Yeah, he’s fun to work with. Kinda a nerd, but he knows his shit.” She says, smiling and leaning against your desk. “Any reason you’re in a rush?” She asks, catching you off guard.

“Oh, uh, James is coming to eat here so we can get ahead on the lesson.” You tell her, looking back through your drawer.

“That’s... interesting.” Natasha’s brows were drawn together. “You two seem to have a lot of time allotted together.”

“Well, we have only a little of our lessons done, and we really don’t want to show up unprepared. You know how much I hate that.” You tell her, finally finding what she needed.

Outside your office, James was just about to walk in when he heard your voices.

“Yeah... Just wondering, did he ever... apologize for what he said that one night?” Nat asks.

“Uhm, n-no. He’s been really kind to be as of late, so I’m assuming we’re turning a new leaf... But he makes me... nervous sometimes. Just a few days ago, he wouldn’t even look at my lesson plan ideas. He looked like he would rather violently bash his skull in than work with me. I’m just- I’m confused. What made him change his mind?” You think out loud, really wondering if James’ behavior was genuine.

“Y/N, I know you’ve been through a lot, but I think you should give him a chance. Don’t be so weary. If he’s being nice, don’t question it. I don’t know why he was like that with you from the beginning, but you shouldn’t have to beat yourself up over the fact that he’s actually treating you with respect.” Natasha puts her hand over yours, meeting your gaze.

“Y-Yeah. I know. I know I deserve respect, but it’s been hard lately. Ever since my family stopped talking to me, I feel like a failure. They don’t understand that I deserve that respect either. They think teaching is a shit job, they think I won’t get anywhere in life with it. I’m just sick and tired of them acting like I didn’t work hard to get where I am today.”

I talked to my brother the other day, and he said the same thing they’ve been saying since I started my PhD. ‘You’re not gonna get anywhere with this, you should get a boyfriend, we want grandkids.’ Like, okay! I get it! But where the hell am I supposed to find a guy when the cute one doesn’t even like me!? And my last boyfriend was in my undergrad. I feel a like teenager. I have literally no romantic life.” You huff out, absolutely tired of this.

“I- Y/N, I’m so sorry. You deserve a family that’s supportive of you and your passions. I hope Wanda and Carol and I have maybe helped you, kind of like a work family, y’know?” She holds your hand tighter. “We’ll always be here for you.”

You smile, walking around your desk to hug her.

“Thank you, Nat. I appreciate you all so much. I don’t think you’ll ever really know.” You hug her tightly before letting go. “James should be here any minute now, but we’ll talk more after class?”

“You betcha, but don’t think I forgot what you said... Maybe he does like you.” She says, and your face turns beet red.

“Natasha, no. I think he’s made it very clear he’s not into me. Like, at all. I’m surprised we’re even working together. I didn’t think he would cooperate.” You laugh. “Okay, seriously, you gotta go. I don’t want him to walk in on us talking about him.”

“Okay, okay, talk later. Bye, Y/N.” She says, making her way out, and Bucky pushes himself against the wall, hoping she wouldn’t see him.

“Don’t forget what we talked about, yeah?” She says to him, not even looking back. Natasha only stops when she doesn’t hear his response, turning around. “Listen to me, Bucky. We may be friends, but so are Y/N and I. I don’t know if it was me or Steve who finally knocked some sense into the dumb head of yours, but if she comes to me again, crying, telling me she can’t take it from you anymore, I promise; you’ll be off this faculty faster than you can say ‘tenure.’ Now, am I understood, Barnes?” Natasha concludes, completely in Bucky’s personal space.

“I- yes. I understand.” He gulps, looking down at his hands. “I-I’ve been trying. To be nice to her. I know what I did before was wrong, but I’m trying, okay? Steve and I had a... a long talk.”

“Yeah, whatever. This better not just be a one-time-thing. From here on out, I want no complaints from her. She’s been through enough shit, and she doesn’t need any more from you. I have somewhere to be, and so do you.” Natasha says, parting ways and letting Bucky release a breath he didn’t know he was holding in.

He composes himself one last time, and walks into your office.

“Hi, James.” You give him a soft smile, “Take a seat, we’ve got work to do.”

When your last lecture finished, you made your way home to get what you needed to head to James’ apartment. He’d texted you the address and told you you could come by any time after 6:30.

You were thinking back on your lunch break with him. He was quiet, almost nervous to be sitting in front of you, and you couldn’t understand for the life of you why.

It was uncharacteristic of him to be so demure, and you wonder why he was suddenly so shy. Before, he wouldn’t have hesitated to make a remark, or take a jab at you. But now, he was quiet as a mouse.

It was concerning, to say the least.

So, on your way to his apartment, which was a solid 15 minutes drive, you call Natasha for advice.

“Hey. Can I talk to you about something?” You ask while you drive.

“Yeah, everything alright?” Natasha’s voice filters through your car’s speakers.

“Oh, I’m fine, but did something happen with James? He was acting so... odd today... He was so quiet, so nice. His behavior has been so different lately.” Your brows were furrowed, genuinely trying to crack this puzzle.

“Uh... well, isn’t it a good thing?” She asks.

“I mean, yes, but did someone say something to him?” You ask, puzzled.

“Uh, no...” lie, “maybe he’s just turning over a new leaf, Y/N. I think you should stop worrying yourself over it so much. And if you really want answers, just confront him about it.” Natasha concludes.

“...Okay. You’re right. I think I’m just reading too much into this. I need to go, I’m almost there. Thanks, Nat.” You tell her.

“Bye, Y/N. Good luck.” And the line goes dead.

“Looks like it’s just me and you now, Luce.” You look over at her carrier in the seat next to yours, where she’s curled up into a ball inside.

Once you park and text James to let him know you’re on your way up, you sling your laptop bag over your shoulder and grab Lucy’s carrier.

As you make your way inside, you stop at the concierge desk, where an older man with grey hair and glasses greets you. His name tag reads Stan.

“Hi, I’m here to see James Barnes?” You tell him, looking at the grandiosity of the lobby.

“Ah, yes, Ms. Y/L/N?” He asks, and you nod. “He said he was expecting you. Not that I don’t trust you, but I just need a form of ID before I can let you up.” You nod again, handing over you driver’s license.

He hands it back, giving an approving nod.

“Elevators are to the right, he’s in 12B.” Stan tells him, and you give him appreciative ‘thank you’ before you scurry to the elevator.

When you knock on his door, it takes a second for him to open it, a faint ‘Al, one second!’ resonating through the door, making you snort out a laugh.

“Hey, sorry about that. Come in,” Bucky finally appears, swinging his door wide open.

You walk in, setting down Lucy and taking your shoes off.

“So, is Alpine friendly with other cats?” You ask, weary of unzipping the carrier.

“Of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be?” He asks, but stops when he sees your expression fall.

“S-Sorry, I wasn’t trying to imply anything, It’s just- Lucy’s a bit shy, but she typically likes other cats.” You say, looking down at her.

“I-I’m sorry- that was rude. I wasn’t trying to sound like an ass, I swear. Alpine’s friendly with other cats, but he needs a little time to warm up to other people. Don’t take it personally if he isn’t too fond of you at first.” He laughs, directing you to his couch where Alpine was perched.

“Oh, hi baby!” You coo, holding out your hand to Alpine. He tentatively inspects you with his eyes, first, and then sniffs you. He then, his head buts against your hand, asking for affection.

Bucky’s eyebrows shoot up, shocked at how friendly Alpine was being. He barely even looked at Steve and Sam when they come by. But here he was, purring and shoving himself against you.

“Well, I think Lucy won’t have a problem with him at all.” You smile, bringing the carrier over to the end of the couch and unzipping it, letting Lucy move at her own pace.

At first, she just wearily looks at Alpine and the unfamiliar setting. She then looks at you, where you encouragingly coo at her, making sure she was comfortable.

Bucky gazes at the whole scene with a soft look, watching as Lucy slowly saunters out of the carrier, sniffing Alpine and the couch. Soon enough, Alpine sniffs back, and they start playing with each other, forgetting their owners completely.

You both laugh at how well they were getting along, and the contrast between the black and white furs making it that much better.

“Well, should we get started?” You ask, finally turning to Bucky with a big smile.

In that moment, his throat goes dry, and all he can think is... She has a beautiful smile.

“James? Everything alright?” You ask, breaking him out of his trance.

“I- Yes! Sorry, got distracted for a minute... Would you prefer Italian or Chinese for dinner?” He asks, shaking his head and trying to change the subject.

“Uhm, I don’t mind, whatever you’d like.” You smile, grabbing your laptop.

“So... Italian, then?” He asks with a light laugh.

“Sure.” You answer. “Where can we sit to work?”

“Oh, the table’s fine, we can eat while we work, too. Let me go order really quick.” He excuses himself after pointing to his dining table, and heading into the kitchen.

When Bucky reaches the kitchen, he takes a second to compose himself. He pinches in between his brows, his eyes squeezed shut. He didn’t know why he was acting like a teenager, he felt himself get flustered around you.

After he pulls himself together, he orders the food and comes back outside, finding you focused on something extremely intently on your screen.

“James, what do you think for something like this for a more interactive activity?” You ask, turning your computer to him, waiting for him to read the plan, biting your lip nervously.

“This- this is awesome, doll. This looks really good, the students would love this.” He tells you, reading over it one more time.

“O-Oh, thanks.” You thank him shyly, stomach fluttering while looking down at your lap again.

Suddenly, the doorbell rings, breaking the silence.

“Oh, the food-” James moves to grab his wallet, but you grab his wrist, stopping him.

“James, you’ve already been so hospitable, let me get it-” You say, but he shakes off your hand and shakes his head.

“No, I can’t let you do that, I insist,” he responds, beating you to the door and handing the delivery man his card, letting him ring it up quickly.

You huff, sitting back down in your spot with a pout.

“James, you suck,” you huff, visibly annoyed. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Well, I did. Now, let’s eat. You good with red wine?” He asks, pulling out two wine glasses.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” You say, unpacking the food as he pours some wine.

As he sets down some plates, he sees your expression still pouty, like a child.

“Y/N, stop pouting.” You look so cute. “You can get it next time.” I wish I could kiss you.

“Oh, there’s gonna be a next time?” You ask, your face turning red yet again.

“I mean, we’re going to have to make more lesson plans, depending on how long Fury keeps this up.” He laughs, but you freeze at his words.

It’s true, you think to yourself, we’re probably going back to how it was before when this is all over. That’s probably why he’s being nice to me.

“Hey, you alright? Did I say something?” James asks, a concerned look on his face.

“N-No, you’re good. Sorry. Ready to eat?” You ask, changing the subject.

“Yeah... You sure everything’s okay?” He asks again, trying to make sure.

“James, everything is okay, please. Let’s just eat.” You smile, placing a hand over his in reassurement.

Dinner was delicious, and now you and James were sipping on wine while working, occasionally checking on Lucy and Alpine.

“Hey, do you think a group project could work? I usually give some to my students, I have a template I follow, but you could change it to your liking-” James tells you, but you cut him off with your thoughts.

“James, can I ask you a question?” You ask, hovering a hand over his.

“S-Sure. What’s up?” He sounds weary.

“You know, before we started this project, you like... loathed me.” You say. “Why?” Your voice breaks at that last word, barely getting it out of your throat.

“I... I just-” He takes a deep breath and looks down, grabbing your hand, “I thought you were... snobby, stuck up. I thought you came to this school thinking you were better than everyone else, that you were here to one-up us all.”

And before you could cut him to deny it with your shaking head, he continues.

“And I know now that I was wrong. I-I’m so sorry for the way I spoke to you, especially at the bar. After you left and Steve took me home, he basically yelled at me and told me how what I thought of you was completely off. I shouldn’t have assumed all those things about you, and I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me, one day.” He concludes, holding onto your hand so tightly to convey just how sorry he was.

“I- Oh, James. Y-You know, I never meant to come off that way. I just- I’ve always had trouble making friends and talking to people, and things have been hard recently. I never meant to make you o-or anyone else, for that matter, to feel that way. I’m so sorry.” You say, tears prickling behind your eyes.

“Y/N, doll.” James moves out of his seat, wrapping you in his arms. “I can’t even tell you how much I wish I was more open-minded, more patient. Ever since Steve and Nat have talked to me, I’ve been just-”

“Nat? What has Natasha told you?” You stop him, pulling away.

“She- she just told me to stop. She told me you’ve been going through a lot, and that I wasn’t making it any better for you so-”

“Did she say what? Why would she tell you about my personal life-” You begin to ramble and waving your hands around.

“Doll, no she didn’t-”

“She had no right to say-”

But before you could continue, Bucky cuts you off.

With his lips.

Against yours.

Bucky was kissing you.

Oh my god, he’s kissing me!

You pull away looking at him in utter shock.

“Wh- What did you do that for?”

“I just- You were rambling, but I didn’t know how else to stop you.” James says, a blush creeping up his neck.

“So you kissed me?” You ask incredulously.

“Uh- yes?” He says, more like asks.

“I uh... I have to go.” You say, looking anywhere but his eyes as you gather your items, hunting down Lucy and putting her in her carrier; much to her protest and distaste.

“Y-Y/N, please, don’t go. Let’s just talk!” James pleads, but you’re not listening.

“N-No, I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ll see you in class next week. Bye, James.” You huff out, running to the nearest stairwell.

A part of you wanted him to run after you, but you needed time to process... whatever that was.

Did he kiss you because he liked you? Or because he wanted to shut you up?

You cut the drive home into half, the first thing you do after getting through your door is calling Natasha.

“Nat, I fucked up...” Your voice was weak through the phone.

And back in Bucky’s apartment, he dialed Steve’s number.

“Steve, I fucked up... real bad.” He meekly provides, his head in his hands.

a/n: oh boy. what’s gonna happen ??? hmmm... let me know down below! hope you guys enjoyed ;)

also, did y’all peep my stan lee cameo? :)

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky imagine #bucky barnes fic #bucky x reader #bucky barnes series #prof!bucky #professor!bucky #prof!bucky x prof!reader #college professor au #enemies to lovers #bucky and alpine #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes fluff

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hadtochangemyurlquick · 3 years

Note

do you have any headcanons for the unsinkable 8?

sure do!

dot gets a “world’s best dad” mug as a joke gift from the gang on her birthday and she immediately gets into dad jokes. one of her fave is pronouncing kind like the kind in “goodkind” whenever she’s talking to Shelby, and to sneak it into the conversation as much as possible. it is quite literally sooooooo dumb.

Dot: it takes all kinds, thank you kindly, that is so kind of you, ect.

Shelby: get a hobby

Nora doesn’t stop counting days. she keeps track of them in a notebook and has a “days since the island” count that the girl’s periodically ask her about. but she also has a “days since I’ve last been kissed” and a “days since leah got out of rehab” and a “days since toni’s mom last used” and a “days since fatin played the cello” and a “days since Dot had a panic attack” and a “days since Rachel had a bad food day” and too many others to name. most of the ones the girls know about but sometimes in conversation they’ll offhandedly mention something and Nora will input a highly specific number that makes everyone realize how tight she’s keeping track of things

Rachel has perfect pitch. she doesn’t realize she does, doesn’t really care that she does, but Fatin finds out and starts demanding she help with the cello which is when they learn Rachel can sing. like, sing intensely amazingly. she doesn’t really care enough to pursue a music career but sometimes she’ll post a jam session with shelby or something on insta, and get tons of support. there’s a running gag that they should release an ep and while everyone in the eight is very musical and artistic, it’s all in entirely different ways. Fatin really is classically trained, Shelby is partial to country, Toni loves rap while Dot loves heavy metal. Martha and Rachel both love pop but have wildly different opinions regarding it and Nora listens to a ton of indie by artists no one has heard of before. once they tried to put a song together just for shits and giggles and it entirely collapsed within five minutes

Shelby and Toni don’t want to settle down and they don’t want to conform to capitalism and while the island sucked in every way it sucked they also don’t want to live as separated from nature as Shelby was forced to for most of her life. they end up buying a van and living out of their car, just driving around Texas. they visit the girls a lot, but they enjoy the freedom of not having to go anywhere or do anything but having the only responsibility be to themselves. Toni gets pretty into nature photography, which brings in some income, and Shelby starts learning other instruments just for fun: guitar, flute, violin, sort of whatever she happens to run into. she asks Fatin to teach her the cello and gets a flat and very understandable “no way in hell i’d rather get trapped on an island again” in response

Martha starts a little animal rescue and falls in love with the the boy who runs the cafe across the street and it’s like a gross rom com. he’s stupid, though not a himbo bc he’s kinda mean at first, more of a womanizer than anything. it’s this frustrating enemies to lovers where Martha cannot stand him and his perfect abs and his passion for cooking and his attention to detail. whenever there’s a new development the entire gang has to hear about it individually on a phone call from her. his meanness comes from a place of insecurity, pushing her away so that he never has to put himself out there bc he doesn’t think he’s good enough bc he’s mean bc the insecurity (vicious cycle, you get it), and once he’s kinda forced to bc c’mon, it’s Martha, if any of us met her we’d all instantly fall in love, he transforms into a himbo, stupid pretty and also stupid. they adopt four dogs, six cats, three guinea pigs, a chinchilla, two hamsters, an aquarium filled with fish, five birds, and so on and so on. once Martha asked Toni to pet sit and Toni faked her death for seven weeks. they also end up having like a stupid amount of kids. like so many kids. it’s a zoo it really is. and they still have that animal rescue and cafe right across from one another. sometimes they’ll send their employees to pass notes to each other and when Rachel found out she stopped talking to Martha for nine days bc it was soooo gross.

Fatin’s approach to life is very very strange. she makes a decision and she goes for it. like once she decided she was gonna summit Mount Kilimanjaro, and she trained for it and did it and then was like “okay great never climbing a mountain again, i no longer care.” she got elected to congress and she stayed there for a single term, she got a doctorate in musical theory then gave up music, got a million subscribers on youtube then gave up social media, just running through things like she’s running through a bucket list. she learned to speak five languages, (one of those martha’s language, can’t remember the name of it, typing too quick to look it up) then stopped. successfully campaigned for an area to be named a natural park so it would stay protected and gave up activism. like, she just runs around on side quests doing shit. she got her boating license, her pilots license, a real estate license, a license to practice law, and a license to kill. sometimes one of the girls would come with her on her grand crusade (Dot climbed the mountain with her, Toni and Shelby learned the language with her, Rachel helped her in her music classes, Leah helped with the activism) but like sometimes she’d just be doing stuff on her own. and she was learning to be okay with that.

Leah starts collecting really old books. and it’s not really a big deal at first it’s just her at a garage sale or a used book store picking up a title that feels nice against her fingers or that she recognizes the author of, until suddenly it is a big deal. until she has people calling her asking her to pick up a box or else they’ll get thrown away. entirely on accident she becomes well versed in book preservation and restoration, building a library and releasing it to the public, keeping copies of books that went out of print ages ago with signatures by authors who’s hands have rotted away in their graves. it’s a lot of little work, a lot of careful focused work so her brain can’t run away from her, and a lot of isolated work too. some days she wakes up and realizes she hasn’t talked to the other girls for weeks and it’s tangible, the missing them. the books stack up higher and higher in her shelves. when she’s dead and gone someone will write a biography describing all of the incredible work she did for the preservation of history and writing. the island will be a footnote.

#gus writes #the wilds #gus answers #some of this is in the process of being a fic #some of this was made up on the spot

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captainkappa · 3 years

Text

Fanfic:: Sunday Run

Like many people, I fell hard and fast for Din/Luke and ended up writing this fic surprisingly fast for my standards.

Luke goes for his Sunday run. He’s just not expecting to be passed by such a large group of people

Modern AU, Meet Cute

Link to AO3

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

As sunlight streamed in from the edges of the window shade, Luke had to remind himself that even if it hardwired his body to wake up at 6 a.m. on a weekend, teaching was a fulfilling career.

He stared at his phone’s clock as if it’d personally offended him before dropping it on the floor and turned back over to hopefully catch some more sleep.

When he next opened his eyes, he was aware of the scratching at his door. He groped around on the floor, annoyed that his half-asleep self hadn’t thought to use the perfectly good nightstand that was right there. His fingers found purchase and squinted against the bright flash of the screen.

7:19 a.m.

Good enough.

Luke pulled himself out of bed, scrubbing a hand over his face before going about his morning routine on autopilot. He opened the door to start making breakfast and was unsurprised to find a put-out Artoo sitting just outside his door, tail flicking as angrily as a cat could.

“What?”

Artoo continued to stare at him. Luke walked over to the cat’s food dish, finding it a quarter of the way full, with a small spot in the center with no food.

“Oh, come on, that’s not empty. You were not about to starve last night.”

The cat did not look convinced but happily munched when Luke refreshed it with new food and water.

He started breakfast, only pausing to answer a text, to reassure Leia that he’d be over at her place for dinner. He leaned against the counter as he ate, glancing over to Artoo who looked very keen on stealing some.

“It’s not eggs today, buddy. I got too much shell in it last time.”

He’d wanted to try cracking an egg one handed, not wanting to get his prosthetic dirty. It hadn’t gone well.

Artoo didn’t look impressed then, and he didn’t look impressed now, letting out a meow.

Luke rested his elbows down. “Do you think I should actually go on a run today, buddy?”

Sunday runs were a fickle part of his schedule. If he was at his best, he’d do five miles every Sunday morning before enjoying the rest of his day off, but sometimes the looming threat of the work week or the effects of last week made him skip. The past couple of weeks, though, he’d been on a streak, but he was just getting tired of looking at the same buildings in his neighborhood.

Artoo said nothing, shifting in his spot to lick his leg.

He sighed, “You’re right, I should.”

He left the plate in the sink to clean up later and finished getting ready for his run. He slipped a sock on his elbow and attached one of his cosmetic prosthetic arms, not needing to be interrupted by someone wanting to know his life story just to tell him he’s “so brave.”

(If the person was an asshole about feeling entitled to his life, Luke made up an increasingly incredulous story involving sharks or killer bees or both in the case of one annoying woman in a checkout lane. If they were nice, they got the condensed version, car accident. Very few people knew of the argument beforehand he’d had with his father, how he’d gotten in the car furious, how that blinded him to the drunk driver swerving into his lane.)

Slipping on his shoes and gave Artoo a passing scritch on the head. The cold, early spring air was a shock, but he resisted the urge to go back to swap out his shorts for sweatpants. He’d warm up as he ran. When he got into his car, the check engine light flashed as it had for the past two weeks and like he’d done for the past two weeks, he ignored it, muttering about how he’d get it checked when he had the funds. Teaching was emotionally fulfilling; it just wasn’t monetarily fulfilling.

The car rumbled to life and he turned out of his neighborhood. As he’d gotten dressed for the day, he’d landed on a park he’d gone to a couple of times before, hoping a change of scenery would help in keeping the motivation to run.

For a Sunday morning, it was pretty quiet. The park had only opened a half hour before and there were maybe five other cars in the lot. Once there, he stretched in the parking lot and picked a trail in the wooded area. He hoped he’d be avoiding most of the runners picking pathed paths rather than the more natural ones.

Luke went for his phone and sighed, realizing he’d forgotten his earbuds. He shrugged to himself before jogging his way over the path. Hopefully nature would give him something to look at. Maybe he’d even practice some of that mindfulness Uncle Ben kept talking about.

Asphalt gave way to packed earth as he arrived at the start of the path. He gave himself one last quick stretch before starting to run in earnest. Trees surrounded him on all sides, growing thicker as the path leaned to the right. The trees were still bare from winter, allowing more sunlight through the branches. The path was firm packed earth, with some tree roots poking out of the ground.

To his right, the forest gave way to a lake and then a river, the earth slowly sloping downward until he was running beside a sharp decline, nothing so dangerous as to need a fence, but noticeable that Luke made sure to be aware of where his feet landed. If he couldn’t afford a major car repair, he certainly couldn’t afford to trip and fall down that hill.

Luke took in a purposeful breath, pushing away thoughts of money. Maybe mindfulness could be the goal of today. He thought back to how Uncle Ben had described it. Start from the bottom. Focus on your feet, keeping light steps as-

“On your left!”

He glanced over at the woman passing him and gave her a polite nod, which she returned. Her black hair was pulled into a ponytail, bouncing as she jogged past.

That was okay, other runners were a normal part of going to parks. He’d just have to recenter himself, start again. Focus on the feeling of running shoes on ground-

“Make way!”

He looked over to see a bald man passing him, gaining speed as he yelled something to the woman ahead. Luke couldn’t make out the specifics, but he could hear her laugh.

Okay, not everyone can be a considerate runner, but that wouldn’t damper his spirit.

He found his rhythm again, focusing on the trees around him, the purpose in each step he took, how running made him feel. It almost a decent replacement for music.

“Incoming!”

Almost.

Luke nearly stumbled at that loud introduction as a short woman with wild curly hair grinned at him and passed him.

He didn’t have time to process that when he heard a man with a soft Southern accent say from behind him, “Pardon me.”

Luke looked up and damn near blushed when the man gave him a wink as he passed. Any ability to practice mindfulness went out the window as he watched the man jog ahead in front of him. But who could blame him for having his thoughts wander, who jogged in a cowboy hat?

He took a deep breath. It was fine. So what if he was used to peaceful runs with little interruption? So what if his thoughts were turning to annoyance as this trail was more crowded and loud than he was used to? Luke could handle that.

Luke was just getting in the mind when there was a cough and he turned to see two women power walking behind him. They paused their conversation to give him a look that forced him to step off the path to let them by, some dirt and rocks coming loose and falling the short ways down the hill. He gave a polite hello that neither of them returned.

He busied himself with stretching, ready to get back to running when-

“On your left.”

An annoyed comment was on the tip of his tongue, but the steely gaze of the woman in all black made him clam up.

He checked his phone briefly, the app he used informing him he was nearly halfway to his target. A satisfied thrum filled his body and he got back on the trail, focusing on getting the burn back in his legs, how he knew it’d feel good later to know he’d gotten out early and was able to jog amongst nature.

There, it wasn’t that hard to get back in the jogging mood.

“Passing.”

Luke didn’t even have time to register why that voice sounded familiar as the man accidentally clipped his shoulder. He stumbled, his shoe catching a root sticking out of the ground and pitching himself sideways off the side of the hill. His life flashed before his eyes as he blindly reached out for a branch, a twig, anything to keep him from tumbling down. For a moment he was surprised when his hand grabbed onto something soft before he was quickly righted, a hand on his shoulder and prosthetic.

Heart pounding in his ears, he could only barely make out the man in front of him – who saved him – asking if he was okay. He just nodded, only aware he was being led to sit until there was firm ground underneath him.

As his pulse calmed, he looked at the man who was now kneeling in front of him and, wow, way he handsome. Dark brown curls slightly matted by sweat, light brown skin showing beneath a gray shirt, sunglasses perched on his nose, but most noticeable was the baby carrier on his chest. The child, who couldn’t be more than 18 months old, was looking at Luke with wide eyes, arms outstretched.

“Are you alright?” the man asked again, voice low with concern.

Luke swallowed before finding his voice, “Yeah, just got tripped up by that one guy.”

The other man nodded and stood up. He offered a hand to Luke and Luke, still buzzing with adrenaline, falling on habits he thought he’d forgotten since the accident, offered his right hand, not realizing his mistake until the man pulled with more force than expected and pulled off Luke’s prosthetic with a soft ‘pop.’

The sunglasses hide the man’s face, but Luke can see the man’s growing confusion and embarrassment. Not wanting to put the poor guy through that, Luke surged up to his feet, gently taking the arm from the man and gave him a slight smile.

Luke knew he should something along the lines of “it’s fine, don’t worry about it!’ but that’s not what comes out.

Instead, Luke looked to the man (and when had he gotten this close to realize there’s a slight stubble on his chin) and said, “Guess you don’t know your own strength, huh?”

Before the man can react, Luke turned and continued running in the direction he was going, passing the group of people who had passed him minutes before. A couple of them nod, some shout out to him “Where’re you going in a hurry?” and “What happened to your arm?”

(The bald guy said the last one. It just pushes him harder.)

Thankfully, a branch in the path opened up and even though he hadn’t run a full five miles, he banked to the left, closer toward the parking lot. He didn’t stop until his car came into view, trying to catch his breath as the adrenaline passes through him. He reattached his hand, flexing the other one that had cramped up from holding it so tightly.

“Don’t know your own strength.” Who the hell are you, Skywalker? Han wouldn’t even pull a line like that… okay maybe he would.

He shook his head, trying to put the man out of his mind. He halfheartedly stretched in front of his car, a bone-weariness setting in after everything that just makes him want to already be home in front of the TV.

Opening the car door, he fell into his seat. He pressed the keys into the ignition and turned the car on. It rumbled more than it usually did before making a noise like defeat and falling still.

“No, no, no!” he mumbled, trying the key again. Nothing.

The check engine light blinked as if to say. “I told you so.”

With a groan, his head fell onto the steering wheel, startling him as he accidentally hit the horn. He readjusted so he could wallow without informing everyone in a 500-yard radius how fucked he was. He didn’t know how long he sat like that, the logistics of repair crews and carpooling to work making his mind run overtime.

There was a crick forming in his neck and back when a familiar, high pitched voice called out.

“You good – oh it’s you!”

Luke looked up and saw the short woman with the wild curly hair standing close by.

He cleared his throat, not wanting to add ‘crying in front of strangers’ on his list of things he did today.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“You havin’ engine trouble?”

“Yeah, I-” and before he could say more, the lady had moved to the front of his car, popped open the hood, and was waist deep in his car.

“Not bad condition,” she said, “considering it’s an X-Wing. Don’t see too many of these older models out here.” She leaned around the hood, “I’ll need to get underneath to see how bad it really is.”

“Do you… work at a repair shop?”

She waved a hand. “Kid, I own a repair shop!” And before he could dispute being called a “kid” at the age of 28, there was a slightly sweaty business card for Motto’s Motors in his hand. It was close by his neighborhood, closer to the one he normally went to.

He was about to ask about prices, when the woman with her hair in a ponytail walked over.

“Everything okay here, Peli?”

The woman elbows deep in his car, Peli apparently, started explaining the car situation and then Cara turned to him with a glint of recognition.

“Hey there!”

Luke nodded a hello, and somehow, that led to the rest of their group (they were all a group, who jogged with this many people?) surrounding the car and introducing themselves to Luke, first Cara, then Mayfeld, Cobb, Bo-Katan, Koska, Fennec, Boba, Din and Grogu in the carrier. He’s surprised when, instead of going back to their own cars, they stay and talk around his, dragging him into conversations and asking his opinion on matters that seem like they have history. Luke glanced about, trying to follow everything, when his eyes catch on Din hanging off awkwardly to the side.

Finally, Peli shut the hood with a thunk and wiped her hands on her sweatpants. “I’ll give the boys a call, they can get a tow truck out here. I’m sure one of us can give you a drive down.”

Any arguments against accepting die on his tongue as she gives him a look that could melt icecaps. And there are no protests from her friends as they all start talking over each other once again, this time about car organization. Before he can comprehend, he’s handed his keys over to Peli, a loud call has been sent to Peli’s “boys,” and he and Din have been left in the parking lot. Standing together, Luke can better tell that he’s only a few inches shorter than the other man, but that doesn’t help him feel any less intimidated in the silence. Still wearing the sunglasses, Din doesn’t look all too happy, but it’s hard to tell.

“You know the um, arm thing? It’s fine, it’s just cosmetic, you didn’t rip any wires out or anything. I don’t even know how those fancy robotic prosthetics work anyhow, they were always out of my budget…” Too late, Luke realized he was rambling.

“So, it’s fine,” he finished lamely. Din nodded, but the air between them hasn’t seem to have cleared.

“You really don’t have to do this,” Luke said. “I can just grab an Uber.”

“No, it’s fine,” Din said, pulling out his keys.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, just… not a fan of being volunteered for stuff.”

He couldn’t tell if that made him feel better or not. Of course Din wasn’t a fan of being Luke’s chauffer for the morning, he had a kid. Luke slipped in the front passenger seat as Din spent his time buckling up the kid in the backseat, whispering to him. He couldn’t help but sneak a peak at the two through the rearview mirror, heart melting a little at the sight of how Din seemed to relax around the kid.

Having heard far weirder names among his kindergarten classes, Luke just nodded. Soon, Din was in the front seat, turning the car on.

“You ready?”

Luke nodded again and Din put the car in reverse, resting his hand on the back of Luke’s seat to back out of the parking spot. The car filled with an awkward silence as they exited the park, but Luke hadn’t expected much else, content to stare out the window and watch the familiar landscape pass them.

They had barely made it onto the highway where Peli’s shop was when Luke could hear Grogu fussing in the back. Without taking his eyes off the road, Din placed a free hand on top of the baby seat.

“It’ll be okay, don’t worry,” he said quietly, but Grogu continued to fuss.

“Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he- he just doesn’t like being alone back there. I had picked up some of my friends, so he was fine in the way in, but they managed to pack themselves into two cars so-”

He was cut off by a cry from Grogu that filled up the car. Din leaned further to the side, tapping his hand on the seat. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, I’m still here.”

That calms the cry, but Luke can still sense that Grogu wasn’t fully pleased.

Luke barely had to think about it when he spoke up. “Pull over.”

Din briefly broke eye contact with the road to glance at Luke. “What?”

“Pull over, I’ll sit in the back.”

“It’s fine, he’ll be-”

“Din.”

Din glanced over to him again.

“I’m the reason your friends aren’t able to in the car with him. I’ll be fine sitting in the backseat.”

He looked like he was going to say something, but instead he pulled his arm back, flipping on the turn signal to merge with the right shoulder. Another cry bubbled up from Grogu as they came to a stop, and Luke barely waited for the car to go into park before he’s out of his seat and in the backseat. It’s sort of a tight squeeze with the baby seat in the middle, but Luke doesn’t say anything.

Grogu looked up at him as he sat down. There were still some tears down his face and Luke carefully wiped them away.

“Hey buddy,” he said with a smile. “It’s alright.”

The kid babbled happily and reached out for him. Luke chuckled and held out a finger for Grogu to grab. The kid has a firm grasp, strong enough Luke knows he’s not getting his finger back anytime soon.

He lifted his head to tell Din they were ready to start moving again, but he paused, taken aback by the look Din is giving him. The sunglasses were still on, but he can tell something had shifted. Din is looking right through him, almost like when he was kneeled in front of him on the trail.

Luke swallowed down his shock. “We’re ready.”

Din just nodded and turned back in his seat, merging back into the early afternoon traffic. Now the car was filled with Grogu’s happy baby talk and Luke felt comfortable making small talk. He offered that he was a kindergarten teacher, which he could tell made Din relax even more. All he got from Din was he worked security, but Luke had never been one to mind talking, and it felt like no time has passed until they were turning into a garage with “Motto’s Motors” spray painted above.

Peli was already there, under his car, surrounded by the people Luke can only assume are “her boys.” Before he was fully out of the car, still extracting his finger from Grogu’s vice like grip, Peli was chewing him out for not taking the car in earlier. Thankfully, it was expected to be a small fix and she should be able to get it back to him tomorrow. They talked price as Din wrestled Grogu out of the baby seat. The cost was more than he wanted to hear, but not as bad it could have been, so he took solace that he won’t have to sacrifice too much of his wallet.

Luke was about to turn back to ask Din if he could trouble him for a ride home, when Peli called out, “Mando, tell everyone they can start brunch without me!”

Din nodded as Luke’s stomach sank.

“Am I forcing you to miss out on something?” he asked, looking from Peli to Din.

Din looked like he was going to say something before getting cut off by her, “Don’t worry about it! We do this every Sunday; we can afford to be a little late!”

“You do this every week? That’s nice,” he said with a smile to Din.

“Yeah,” Peli added, like she’d suddenly gotten an idea. “You know what, we probably have room in the carpool for one more, if you want to join?”

“What, me? I couldn’t-”

“It’d be okay,” Din said. “My friends all seem to like you… as does Grogu.”

Grogu cooed in his arms. Luke looked up to Din, holding eye contact for a minute before breaking into a smile.

“Alright then, I’ll come next week.”

#dinluke #skydalorian #my fanfic #kappa writes #god the more i think about this fic the more ridiculous i realize it is #but im still posting it!#bc i have no self control which is evident from the nearly 4k words of this i wrote #the mandalorian #star wars #sw

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libsterslobsters · 3 years

Text

I'm Gonna Crawl: Post 1

(Divided because of length)

Post 2

Summary: Five years. That's how long the reader and Bucky have been apart (although for him, it was only five minutes) Now with Thanos defeated and both of them taking up the mantle of Avengers, can their relationship return to what it was? Or will they have to discover a new normal?

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x fem! enhanced! super-soldier! Reader (Reader can see pieces of the future in visions as well as speak every language)

Warnings: Angst, fluff, language

Author's note: Tumblr is being a poo-poo head and won't let me post the whole fic because it's too long, so this is a two parter.

*************************************************

The text comes when she’s in the middle of teaching English feminine and masculine pronouns. Immediately, she knows it’s something important. There’s a very limited amount of people she’s allowed to filter through the “do not disturb” status she sets her phone in while she’s in the classroom. Her first though is Barnes, but at this point, he’s memorized her schedule even more thoroughly than she has, so it’s unlikely he’s responsible for the disturbance. Pepper, maybe? But no, she’s a powerful enough woman that if she needed anything, she could simply ask and it would be hers. Peter? It’s within normal high school hours, so if he’s messaging her, she’ll give him a lecture next time she sees him for texting in class. That only leaves one person, or rather, organization. As she instructs her students to come up with a few examples of common words which can be said different ways to demonstrate masculine and feminine, then takes a moment to check her phone, her suspicions are confirmed. Rhodes. The Avengers.

“You guys keep working. That’s an example of an English masculine. Now what would the feminine be?” A chorus of ‘gals’ follows her out the door. Once she’s rounded the corner, she dials the number, completely skipping the texting process. The line only rings once before Rhodey answers.

“Hello?”

“Soothsayer. What is it?”

“You need to come in. We’ve got a mission, and it has to be you.” She lets out a silent groan before asking,

“How much time have I got to square things away at work?”

“Wheel’s up in ninety minutes. You need to be here at least fifteen before to read over your orders.” Her boss isn’t going to be happy, but it’s doable.

“Right. I think I just got a crippling migraine. I’ll call you back later.”

“Thanks. I owe you one.”

“You’re damn right.” She mutters it as the line goes dead.

Thirty minutes later, she’s on her way after giving the sub her notes and her boss a bullshit excuse. So far, no one’s worked out that she’s one of the people who fought in the battle against Thanos, and she hopes to keep it that way.

She speeds across the city, driving a little faster than is responsible, but her reflexes are fast enough to cover for it. If this is going to be the sort of mission where they need her brawn as well as her brains, she’d like a few minutes to warm up before she has to hop on a quinjet. Grabbing her go-bag (complete with weapons, her suit, and a set of spare cosmetics), she jumps out of the car as soon as it’s parked in front of the newly rebuilt Avengers compound. Warm up, and make a call to-

“Well, look who the cat dragged in.” She turns her head towards the voice, catching sight of Sam and-

“What’d you tell them? Stomach flu?” Barnes. Okay, maybe she won’t have to call him after all, but that brings up more questions than answers.

“Migraine.” She falls into step next to him while Sam rushes on ahead. “They called you too, huh?”

He nods, grimacing. “Looks like it’s something big.” Obviously. If they’ve called in both him and Sam, not just one or the other, then it’s a guarantee the situation is FUBAR. Plus her? She’s usually in the background. If she’s being pulled then-

“You alright?” She nods, smiling with more confidence than she feels.

“Yeah. Just wish I knew what we were getting into. If they want both unstable super soldiers-” It’s a joke, which thankfully, he gets.

“Then the situation must be pretty hairy.” That’s putting it lightly. They’ve never been called up together before. Never.

If the mounting evidence weren’t enough to clue her in that this is going to be major, the final factor would be, after Rhodes explains to all three of them that with the return of so many people to Earth, a former dictator who disappeared in the snap has gathered up his forces and is attempting to usurp a now-peaceful democracy in hopes of using the territory to levy compliance from surrounding nations. Usually that wouldn’t be their thing, but when the words “dirty bomb” and “gamma radiation” are brought into play, it’s no mystery as to why they’re being called in.

It’s about what she expected. Falcon is running point, Winter Soldier is the man on the grassy knoll (she shudders when Rhodey goes with that particular descriptor because of a confession several years back just after he woke up in Wakanda; “I really hope I’m remembering this wrong and it was just a dream, but I think I was behind what happened to the president.”), and she’s on evac and rescue, making sure there’s as few civilian casualties as possible. However, when the briefing is called to a close, it’s a total shock that Sam is let go while she and Barnes are told to stay back.

Rhodes sits at the edge of his desk, arms crossed, wearing his most serious expression. “You two have completed the appropriate training hours together, correct?”

“Yes.” They say it at the same time, and she has to bite her cheek to keep from yelling out, “Jinx!” It was a requirement after the defeat of Thanos that the two of them specifically learn how to work together as a team, play off of each other’s strengths, just in case something truly catastrophic happened. She also trained with Bucky and Sam as their third. What she’s wondering is, why ask a question Rhodes clearly knows the answer to? He’s the one who set up the training, after all.

“And you’re comfortable working as a squad?” She catches Bucky’s eye, and it’s clear that he’s come to the same conclusion as her: this isn’t what Rhodey is really after.

“We’re fully capable, yes.” He’s the one that answers, while she reaches out into the unknown, hoping for a vision. No dice.

With a sigh, Rhodey stands.

“What I mean is, can you be objective out there on the battlefield? Can you work together like anyone else?” This time, she’s the one to speak up.

“Can we be objective? Yes. Can we work together like anyone else? No, but that was your goal with the training program.”

“You wouldn’t have called the two of us up if you didn’t need what we can do together.”

For a moment, she feels sympathy for Rhodes. The poor man is clearly struggling to make a point. That’s when it hits her, a vision of what he’s prepared for them to do. As soon as it passes, she kicks Barnes’ chair leg lightly, which is enough that he gets the message.

“Just say it, because she’s already seen it.” She wouldn’t want to be in Rhodes’ position for the world right now with the news he’s about to deliver.

“Fine.” Rhodey nods. “If we get in a tight spot, someone is going to have to draw fire. It can’t be Barnes for obvious reasons.” Part of their mission is to obtain stolen scientific data located deep inside enemy lines. She’s smaller and therefore faster, can fit into tight places more easily, but he’s been trained to go unnoticed, and what’s more, to incapacitate anyone who sees more than they should. It’s an obvious choice. She’s in essence the diversion, the boy crying wolf while the real thief makes off with the shepherds’ wallets. Her size and speed will work to her advantage, as well as the fact that they won’t recognize her, so they won’t know right away that she’s the decoy, whereas the second they have eyes on him or Sam, they’ll know to batten down the hatches.

She doesn’t have to look beside her to know what he thinks of that idea. She can practically feel him seething. But, it’s a scenario that, along with Sam, they’ve trained for.

“What I need to know is that, once the bullets start flying, you won’t fall back on instinct and run to protect each other. Out there, you are not a couple. You’re teammates, fellow soldiers, nothing more. Got it?”

She keeps her eyes focused on Rhodey’s face as she nods, otherwise hers will show what she’s feeling. “Agreed.”

“Barnes?” There’s a pause, so long she’s about to kick his chair leg again just to get a reaction.

“Understood.”

“Good.” Rhodes’ posture immediately changes. “Now, suit up. Quinjet is leaving at 1300 hours.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

“Oh!” Bucky looks up from the building schematics he’s studying at the surprised noise from the woman next to him. “This one’s actually not bad.”

“Which one?” He leans towards her, scanning the house listing on her phone. “Nah. I don’t like the look of that roof.”

“True, but it says here they’re willing to knock some off the asking price if we’re willing to do our own repairs-”

A groan issues from the other side of the jet.

“Are you two really searching realtor.com while we’re on our way to save the world?” Sam asks, scowling.

“No, of course not.” She shakes her head, smirking. “It’s zillow.” That reminds him-

“Scroll down. Let’s see when it was built.” It looks like… ah. “Hard no. That thing’s older than me.”

“And like you, it has character.” It’s too good of an opportunity to pass up. He sees an opening, and he’s going for it.

“Did you just compare me to a house?” She snickers.

“Now that you mention it, there are some similarities. Good bones, had some renovations done, could use some landscaping-”

“You know, you could’ve just said ditch the beard.”

She gasps, clutching a hand to her chest. “I would never!”

“Alright, I’m gonna stop you there.” Sam holds up a hand. “If you’re gonna talk about his hair anywhere below the neck, I’m gonna open up the hatch and jump out.” It would be a more effective threat if he wasn’t already wearing his wings.

“Mind out of the gutter, Sam.” She half-heartedly scolds before returning to examine her phone. “The market is just shit right now but there’s got to be something listed that’s less expensive than renting an apartment in the middle of Brooklyn…” That’s what all of this is about, really. After the snap (at least from what he’s read) the price of renting was lower than it had been since the fifties. Now that everything is back to normal, everyone and their mother is looking for a place to rent. Not that he can blame them. He’s one of the returned, after all.

“I guess we could move into the complex once it’s repaired. Just for a little while-”

“Nope.” Sam cuts them off. “Hell no. It’s enough that I gotta deal with you and Judge Dredd here being all domestic on missions. If I have to hear you two going at it, I’m gonna lose my shit.”

He may not understand the pop culture reference, but he caught the sexual one. The truth is, they haven’t slept together since he returned. It’s not like things have been platonic; they shower together, cuddle, and make out like teenagers walking down lovers’ lane. However, five years is a long time (even if for him, it was barely more than an instant), and while he’s ready to resume their sex life, he’s not going to push in case she’s not there yet.

Before he can go too far down that rabbit hole, the intercom crackles to life and their pilot announces that it’s time for the drop. He’s not a huge fan of parachuting (falling to his near death and losing an arm sort of took the magic out for him), but he calls on what remains of his training now that HYDRA’s brainwashing has been deactivated and puts on an emotionless front.

“Com links on.” As Sam speaks, he activates his own com. “Everyone getting a signal?” He is, and if the face she just made is anything to judge from so is she. “Okay. I drop first, then on my mark, Winter Soldier drops; five seconds later, Soothsayer follows. Copy?”

“Copy.”

Sam shoots them a grin that doesn’t completely hide his nerves. “Good luck.”

As soon as his partner’s exited the plane, he catches her eye. “Love you. See you on the other side.”

“Love you. Come back in one piece.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

Even before Sam hits the ground, he knows it’s going to be a shit show. Even though he doesn’t activate his com to tell them as much, it’s obvious as the super soldier plummets past him that his chute didn’t open. Sam might worry about this if it weren’t for the fact he saw Steve jump out of many a plane without anything to keep him from free falling. Their tag-along, however? She has activated her coms (either that or she forgot to deactivate them) and she lets out a gasp. That’s all, a gasp, but it’s enough to put Sam on edge. This is why coupling up is dangerous in this line of work. Your affection can work to your disadvantage.

Because he can’t have his team scattered, worrying about each other, he asks, “Barnes, do you copy?”

“Copy, Falcon. Don’t think I’ll be doing that again.”

“Oh, you are so getting shit for that when we get home.” He rolls his eyes.

“Let’s cut the chitchat. We have a mission. On my mark, Soothsayer heads into the encampment to lead any P.O.W.s and civilians away. Copy?”

“Copy.”

He lands just before she does, and as soon as she’s detached her shoot, he gives her the go ahead.

Any thought that they might have succeeded in having the element of surprise on their side goes out the window when a shot whizzes past his head.

“Barnes, cover me.”

“Copy.”

Even with the rain of bullets from his own personal sniper, he barely gets past the first defensive line in one piece. He takes out at least a dozen hostiles, incapacitating when he can, eliminating where he must. Just outside the main fortress, he asks,

“Come in, Winter Soldier. How many hostiles between you and my position?”

“Eighteen.” A muffled shot follows the statement. “Seventeen.”

“Alright. Clear a path. Let’s show these sons of bitches what they get when they threaten innocent lives.”

He thinks that maybe they’ll be able to turn it around when they find their human target fairly easily and are able to capture and incapacitate. The orders, however, were not just to bring him in alive but also to seize the assets they’ve lost before a bomb squad and team of radiation specialists comes in and sweep the place. The only way he’ll be able to get their target back to the jet unharmed (not to mention survive himself) is if they do the one thing he was hoping it wouldn’t come to.

“Soothsayer, this is Falcon. Come in. Over.”

“Copy, Falcon.”

“Winter Soldier is going in. Deploy “big bad wolf” initiative.” In other words, go get shot at while at the same time covering me.

“Copy. Be advised, there are hostages in the building. I repeat, hostages in the building. Over.” For a moment he wonders if she saw it in a vision or if one of the people she’s just helped escaped has started talking out of gratitude, but pushes it to the side. He has biggest issues.

“Winter Soldier, Soothsayer, get into place. On my signal, we move.”

“Copy.”

“Three… two… one… go!”

Sam kicks off into the air, thanking whoever the hell out there invented this tech that he doesn’t have to fly with an extra 250 pounds of dictator in his arms (Redwing is handling that). Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Soothsayer making a run for it, shooting as she goes. Where the hell did she get the gun? Problems for later.

He’s just about to radio into the jet to see if the ‘package’ was delivered when the shots turn in his direction. He returns fire at the same time a dagger flies past his head.

“Throw it a little closer next time Soothsayer. I dare you.” It’s muttered under his breath.

“So you wanted a sniper’s bullet in your back?” Damned super hearing.

“Aren’t you supposed to be causing a distraction?”

“I am. Close your eyes and cover your ears.” He complies just in time for the flashbang to go off over his head.

“Fuck! You could’ve told me that’s what you were doing!” There’s no reply. “Soothsayer?” A grunt followed by the sound of impact comes over the com.

“Little busy. Hold up.” Hand to hand, if he had to venture a guess. More shots are fired, and he flies lower, returning them, kicking a few assailants in the head as he goes.

“Winter Soldier, this is Falcon. Come in.”

“I read you.”

“Do you have eyes on the target?”

“Almost there. There’s a few more obstacles than we thought.”

“Copy. Over and-” He doesn’t get to finish the sentence as a yell of “Get down!” pierces the night.

It all happens in slow motion. He reaches for the shield, but he can already hear the gun discharge. A force runs into him, knocking him to the ground. Realization hits him: it’s her. He doesn’t see the bullet impact, but he hears her cry out. On instinct, he covers both of their vital organs with the shield, and that’s when he sees the splotch of red blooming from her right shoulder, which so happens to have acted as a human barrier, blocking what would have most assuredly have been a kill shot to the head for him.

“Falcon, Soothsayer, come-” There’s a muffled shout over the com, followed by more sickening thuds and a few shots.

“Barnes?” He hears a whisper of movement from behind him, and without looking, fires. “Barnes, do you copy?” As he speaks, several hostiles gang up on him at once. Using the shield to it’s full advantage, he knocks two off their feet, kicks another in the gonads, then chin, and punches two more’s lights out. He starts on the one that’s left, but out of nowhere, the hostile’s legs go out from under him. What-

“This is Barnes. I have the target. Moving hostages out now.”

Sam opens his mouth to speak again, but a tug at his ankle draws his attention. She’s sitting up, features drawn in pain and still bleeding, her fist bloody from the last hostile’s face.

“Don’t tell Barnes.”

Internally groaning, he speaks again. “Copy. Meet us back at the ship. Over and out.” Grabbing her good arm, he hauls her to her feet and drapes her body over his shoulder. “Pretty sure the blood’s gonna tip him off. And the bullet hole.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

“It’s not that bad.” This has to be the tenth time she’s repeated that sentiment in the past five minutes since arriving back at the quinjet, and yet it’s still not making an impression. As she stands yet again, Sam gives her good shoulder a hard push.

“Sit your serum-ed up ass down. You’re gonna bleed out if-” She narrows her eyes at the man with the shield. “Fine. You’re still dripping blood everywhere.” Yeah, well, it’s not like it hit a major vein or artery. She saw it coming, after all. Still… it fucking hurts.

“Shouldn’t you be hailing Barnes again?”

“Who’s in charge here? You or me?” She thinks about snapping back with something truly brutal, but bites her tongue. “Only thing you should be worrying about is how we’re gonna get that slug out of you.”

“Give me a pair of pliers and I’ll do it myself.”

“The hell you will.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! It’s-” Before she can repeat herself again, the door opens. Her breath seizes in her throat a she takes in Barnes’ appearance. Dear God.

“Target acquired?” Sam nods and motions towards the back of the plane.

“What about you? Package secure?” With a thump, a black bag is dropped onto the floor between them. Sam opens his mouth (more than likely to make a sarcastic remark about being careful with the brain child of at least a dozen scientists worldwide), but before he can-

“You’re hit.” He’s in front of her, crossing the narrow space in just two strides.

Biting back a wince, she stares pointedly at the oozing bullet wound in his thigh. “So are you.”

“It’s nothing.” She’s about to call bullshit (that’s a fuck ton of blood, and also she doesn’t remember that cut on his forehead last time she saw him), but he turns away, fixing Sam with a hard stare. “Why didn’t you say we had a man down?”

“Not a man-” She starts.

“And technically, she never went completely down. Plus-” She knows what he’s going to say, and mouths a silent ‘Don’t’, which Sam ignores. “-she told me not to.” There it is. She’s never gonna hear the end of this.

Returning his gaze to her, he asks, “You told him-”

“It wasn’t a big deal. Can we talk about this later?”

“I second that.” Sam nods. “Preferably when you’re not both about to bleed out in the air.” Bucky’s lips twitch momentarily, and she barely contains her own smirk. They’re not about to bleed out. Still-

“You want to go first with the pliers, or do you want me to?”

“For the last time, no one is using pliers to go spelunking for bullets. Aren’t you two supposed to be smart?” She raises an eyebrow in Bucky’s direction, and he smirks.

“Technically, I think the serum just turned us into better soldiers. Not geniuses.”

“Right, and since it would take us what?” She glances at her phone, checking the time. “Five hours to get home? More than likely we would’ve already started to heal pretty significantly around the bullet and would have to disrupt that so they could dig them out.”

“So, pliers.” She nods.

“Pliers.”

With a groan, Sam stands and, digging around in the compartment overhead, produces a first aid kit.

“Fine, but if either of you starts to hemorrhage, don’t come crying to me.”

Rolling her eyes at his retreating back, she asks, “The question still stands. You want to be the surgeon first or the patient?”

“That depends.” Bucky motions to her own bullet wound. “Is that as bad as it looks, or worse?”

She attempts a shrug, but the motion makes her wince. “It’s just a scratch.” The look on his face tells her he’s not convinced.

“Then I guess I’ll dig yours out first. If push comes to shove, I can fix myself up.” This time, she’s with Sam. The hell he will. She’ll just power through.

“Alright.” She motions to the few members of the TACK team still hanging around. “If you don’t want to see me shirtless, I’d suggest you find somewhere else to be, or at least look away.” Shockingly few heads turn at her words. “Okay smart-asses. What I mean is give a lady some privacy and avert your eyes.” There. That’s more like it.

She’s kinda pissed off that she’ll have to junk the suit. It was a new one. Even more infuriating is that when she goes to unzip it, thanks to her injured shoulder she can’t manage it, and what’s worse, she lets out a groan of pain.

“Easy. Let me help.” If they were alone, she’d make an off-colored joke (something along the lines of “any excuse to get me undressed”), but she swallows it down and grits her teeth as the material tugs at her wound. She’s just going to have to toughen up and rip it off like a band-aide.

“I think there’s a water bottle somewhere, so we could soak-” Bracing herself, she gives the material a sharp tug, completely exposing herself. “-or you could just do it the hard way.”

“After all these years, why would I start doing things the easy way now?” She feels more than hears the short intake of breath that signals a laugh.

“Good point. Hold tight while I check the kit.” Taking advantage of the brief lull, she closes her eyes. She’s not exactly squeamish, but there’s something about seeing a bullet lodged in her shoulder that’s somewhat unsettling. “Alright. This is gonna sting, and then it’s gonna hurt like a son of a bitch.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” That one earns her an actual snicker.

Sure enough, it does sting. That is, if by “sting” you meant “feels like I scrubbed myself with a sandpaper washcloth and then rinsed off with vodka.” Still, she manages to keep still and wipe any expression of pain from her face as the disinfectant is poured on, completely soaking her.

“Sorry.” She shakes her head.

“Nothing a towel won’t take care of.”

He’s in front of her now, so she opens her eyes, concentrating hard on his face so she won’t look down.

“You alright?” It’s completely false, but she pastes on a smile.

“Splendid. Thinking of taking this up as a hobby, actually.” He frowns.

“You couldn’t just take up embroidery like a normal person?”

“No one-” Her breath catches as he starts to probe for the bullet. It was a distraction. “-takes up embroidery as a hobby anymore.” Deep breaths. She needs to take deep breaths.

“Shit.” Shit? That’s not comforting. “Do you want the good news first or the bad news?”

“Dealer’s choice.”

“Good news, it’s in one piece. Bad news-” He looks up, holding her gaze. “It’s lodged pretty far in there, Doll.” Of course it is. Just her luck. “Do you want to wait ‘til we get home, or-”

“Just do it.” Once more, she closes her eyes. “Sooner we get it out, sooner the super soldier mojo can do it’s thing.”

“You sure?” She nods.

“Just do me a favor. Don’t tell me when you start pulling it out. I don’t want to know.”

It’s silent, no one saying a word. Still, she clings to the little sounds she can make out in order to keep herself occupied. The engine running. The air filtration system. Her own jagged breaths and his measured ones. Despite her attempts at distraction, she can feel it the moment he starts easing the bullet out of her shoulder. On instinct her body seizes up, and she has to force herself to relax each muscle. It’ll only be more painful if she’s tense.

“Do you want something to squeeze? Maybe a hand to hold?”

Taking a slow, deep breath, she answers.

“That depends. How much do you like that arm?” If she takes out the pain on anything else, she’s almost certain she’d crush it.

“I’m sort of attached to it, so-” She chuckles, and that’s when the bullet slides free. “And, next time you make fun of my corny jokes, I get to remind you of this.”

The patching up process is simple from there. The bleeding is easily staunched and although it’s in an awkward place, they manage to bandage her without much trouble. She’s so nervous, she expects her hands to shake as she takes her turn and, with her good arm, digs the bullet out of Barnes (his is in fragments but luckily, a vision hits and shows her the shards’ locations), but surprisingly, her hands are steady. She glances up at his face just as she pulls the last shard out, but of course, he’s shut down, completely expressionless.

Finally, the quinjet touches down outside of what used to be the Avengers’ compound. Normally they would disembark, then head straight off to a debriefing, but under the circumstances, Sam calls it a night and tells them to get some rest, then come in tomorrow to go over mission reports. As they watch Falcon climb into his car and drive away, it hits her how terribly exhausted she really is. Between her bum shoulder and his bum leg, neither of them is really fit to drive home, so-

“Think we can get a cab this time of night?” Great minds think alike, it seems.

“I don’t know, but I’m willing to give it a try.”

It’s only once they’re home safely and she’s climbed into bed that she allows herself to wonder if they’re ever going to talk about today.

#marvel #captain america #the winter soldier #bucky x reader #fanfiction #bucky x y/n #bucky fic #post endgame #part 1

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ilguna · 4 years

Text

Metanoia - Chapter Five (f.o)

Summary: you will be crowned victor of the 75th hunger games.

Word Count; 4k

Warnings; swearing

NOTES: i give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

It’s really funny how they set a uniform to wear for the private session with the gamemakers. They haven’t really done that before, and you know that because of your years of mentoring. They don’t have a set outfit that they want the tributes to wear. Sure, they have guidelines, but nothing this strict.

It’s a tracksuit jacket that goes up to your throat. You zip it up all the way, squinting at yourself in the mirror, because this wouldn’t have been your first choice for a uniform. You don’t look too terribly bad, it’s just the fact that you’ve never worn something so… hideous.

Despite this all, you pull your hair out of your face again, it’s even messier than it has been the past three days for training. Progressively, you’ve begun to care less about what you look like. You’ve been zeroing in on as many skills as you can gather like a hoarder. You spent the first day just training, and the last two days learning the useful stuff. The shit they don’t teach in the academy.

It was a good couple of days, even if you were forced to make conversation with the hogs of the stations. The good news is that Cecelia is much more tolerable than Woof. Woof is incompetent, the man will die in the bloodbath. He doesn’t move fast, he doesn’t think straight, and he’ll be a target for you.

You weren’t expecting very much out of him in the first place. He goes right onto the list of the other imcompetent competitors. The list has tripled past your expectations. These games are going to be a walk in the park.

Brutus is already waiting in the main room when you get out there. He’s got an orange in his hand, already peeled. He looks up when you enter, and without a word, stands and heads for the door. This afternoon, Neysa and Edmond will be nowhere in sight. You haven’t seen Theo in days, but that’s no matter.

Neysa and Edmond will be consulting with the stylist to make sure that the interview outfits are matching. Amias is already working with whoever is working with Brutus, but it’s for more understanding. Neysa knows what you would like to wear, and Edmond will have an idea for what Brutus would like.

Brutus holds out a single orange slice.

You prick it from his fingers popping it in your mouth. When you bite down, the juice explodes in your mouth. It’s sweet, a little tangy. You don’t pride yourself with oranges, since they’re such a rare thing to come across in District Two. You guys might be rich and a favorite, but it doesn’t mean you get everything that you desire.

The elevator brings you down to the same floor you’ve been for the past three days. The ride is short, the doors open, you guys step out and head towards the room where you’ll be waiting to be called in. This shouldn’t take very long. After everyone gets inside the room, it’s only three people before it’s your turn.

Walking in, there’s only a couple of people here already. A few of which you’ve actually talked to, during your time of rotation in the training room. Cashmere and Gloss already sit by the wall up front, so you allow Brutus to go in first, since you’ll be sitting on the end of the row.

There’s three rows of four to fit all twenty-four of you in here. The way that things are laid out in here kinda make sense, but you wish that they had allowed District Two to be up against the wall. You’d rather be leaning against the cold concrete while your body is beginning to heat up.

You’re not mad, you’re not embarrassed, this is something that doesn’t belong to you again. It could very well be nerves, again. Since it basically feels the exact same as it did last time…

Maybe the jacket is too much, because there is no reason why you should be feeling like it’s ninety degrees because you’re anxious. You unzip it, and then slip out of the jacket. The second that it’s done though, there’s a whistle behind you.

Gloss turns to look to see who it is, but it doesn’t take a genius to know who’s going to keep harassing you. It’s Finnick, and he’s probably just come in here with Mags. You haven’t turned around since you got inside, mainly because you don’t care who comes in or out. You just want the room to be full already so this show can get started.

“Welcome to the gun show.”

“I really can’t wait until I can knock your fucking teeth out.” you roll your eyes, even if he can’t see it.

Finnick laughs, “I’m not that bad.”

“You are that bad.” you say, “I still don’t know what your goal is.”

“I thought we could be friends.”

“You thought wrong, my friends are sitting right here.”

Brutus snickers but doesn’t say anything, you can practically hear him ask, ‘we’re friends?’

If he’s thinking that, then so are Cashmere and Gloss, but they’re clearly smart enough not to say anything about it. At least they have some intuition that’s telling them that you don’t want to be talking to Finnick. And the best way to escape a conversation is to set grounds, even if they are lies.

“Who says you have to stop there?” Finnick asks.

“For fuck’s sake, just leave me alone.”

If Finnick has anything else to say, he gives it up. The silence is instant, and you welcome it in with open arms. Besides from the occasional ‘whoosh’ of the automatic doors, or the whispers of tributes talking to each other, the room is quiet.

In no time, the room is full of all the tributes, and Gloss is being called in for his evaluation. As the clock ticks, you can feel yourself grow more anxious. It’s like a bottomless pit in your stomach, or as if you’ve been told that you’re being broken up with. It’s more of a grief feeling.

It’s awful, you don’t like it.

You look down at your wrist, reading over the words again. You run your thumb over them as if they’ll wipe off easily. Of course, they don’t budge even in the slightest. The whole idea of soulmates is crazy.

It’s a dumb concept. Who says that you have to end up with them, anyway? There’s plenty of people that you know, that never followed the rules because they didn’t care. There’s also the fact that you never know if that person is actually alive. It’s not like they fade after the person dies. They’re still as brand new as the day you got them.

You always thought that you’d be able to just overcome it, but with your repelling personality, no dice. That’s fine, you don’t like anyone, anyway. You’ll be content enough to live out the rest of your life in District Two, with two kids--Tanith and Zavian. One who won’t leave you alone, and the other won’t bother to visit.

You won’t be alone forever, you have them, and the occasional person who’s ballsy enough to visit you in your big, old, grand house. And if you can find a single animal you could get as a pet, you’d consider having them around, too. Turn your whole house into a zoo, like the old man that used to live next door, back when you weren’t a victor.

His house was overflowing with animals. Dogs, cats, he had two horses, a cow and a mule in his backyard. In his house were the chickens, goats and pigs. His house was covered in hay and smelt like piss and shit because he never cleaned it. He was too old and too stupid to be running something like that. However, you think he got taken down two years after your win. You went to visit your old house for a few things that you’d remembered that you wanted to move in and the house was just… gone. Like a controlled fire had taken it out.

You can’t say that you feel bad for him, he’s the entire reason why the street smelled so bad. In an upper-class neighborhood like yours, you’re surprised the neighbors hadn’t taken him out any earlier. He’s also the reason why you never opened the windows or doors for more than ten minutes… and why you never went in the backyard, either.

Brutus’ name is called. You fist-bump him, “Good luck.”

“Thanks.” he says.

Cashmere passes him on the way in, she gives you a dainty smile, and then continues her walk out of the room. It’s Brutus, and then it’s you.

“Is The (Y/n) Rosecelli nervous?” Finnick asks.

“I’m not.”

“You’re bouncing your leg like you’re trying to get it to fall off.”

You hadn’t even realized it. You stop immediately, leaning into your hands as you rub your face, “I’m not nervous, someone else is.”

“Someone else?”

You look over your shoulder at Finnick, “As much as playing stupid looks on you, don’t start now.”

Finnick is quiet, and then he sputters out a laugh, “You have a soulmate?”

“Everyone does. Mine just happens to be emotional, which is a total drag.” you hiss, “I don’t need to be feeling like this right now.”

The urge to bounce your leg again is like an itch, and you can’t help but to give in.

“I heard taking deep breaths are a fantastic way to calm yourself down.”

You ignore Finnick, it’s not your emotion. You’re confident. You’re excited. You’re enthusiastic. You’re calm. You have nothing to be worried about. You’re going to do great.

You can feel it all start to cease.

You’re an amazing fighter. You’re going to get great scores. You know what you want to do. You’re going to win. You’re the best one here.

One deep breath in, slowly letting it out, it’s like the anxiety wasn’t even there in the first place. Your leg stops, you cross them to ensure it, and continue repeating things to yourself. A much needed ego boost to keep your hands from shaking and your mind from collapsing.

Whoever your soulmate is, you’re beginning to hate them. They’re fucking up basically everything. It’s embarrassing, and you’re never embarrassed.

“Wow--”

“Zip it.” you snap, eyes focused on the door.

“District Two, (Y/n) Rosecelli. Report for individual assessment.” the voice over the intercom says.

You uncross your legs, throwing your jacket over your arm as you stand. You move out of the aisle and head towards the door. On the way in, you see Brutus with a grin on his face.

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.” you say.

You pull the jacket on now, zipping it up to your throat, because the room is air conditioned. With no one being in here, it makes the room colder. There’s no body heat to be worrying about. Even with the jacket on, you can still feel the cold air through it.

You stand in front of the gamemakers, looking up at them. Plutarch Heavensbee--the new head gamemaker after the last one was killed. Word travels between mentors and victors like disease. Obviously it had to do something with the berries that Katniss and tried to eat. The fact that they were inside the arena in the first place was heinous enough. But to use it against the gamemakers, and Crane allowing it to happen…

“You have ten minutes to present your chosen skill.” Plutarch says.

You give a quick nod, wandering over to the nearest hologram station. You got to play around with it on the first day, and realized that going up to the hardest mode wasn’t even hard. It was medium. You broke a sweat after doing it for the third time in a row, and the gamemakers have definitely seen you mess with it before.

They have to assess you over a period of days, not just one. The private session is designed to show off anything that you wouldn’t want the other tributes knowing.

Which is exactly why you skip over all the regular throwing stations, and head right into the bow and arrow one. They have their own tv holograms that they’ll be able to watch you from.

It’s not a skill you necessarily like. It helps with distance fighting, but since bow and arrows have been associated with Katniss, you’ve basically faded this into nothing. However, you pick up the bow, playing around with the strings to test the tightness. A quiver of arrows is pulled over your shoulder after.

You program the game easily, but before you step in, you turn around and fire an arrow just to see how awful the bow is. It’s not too bad, it’s actually fairly similar to the one they have at the academies. These ones are just tighter because they’re brand new.

You go inside after that. The holograms start off fairly easy. Now that you’re inside, you can see why it was so easy for Katniss to know where they’d be coming from before they were generated. The way that the orange beams move is a clear giveaway.

It takes one arrow for each person, always the center of the chest. If they’re moving, then you make an exception for the head, since it’s the next best thing to wipe someone out immediately.

You can feel yourself go into concentration mode. The beam moves, you spin around. You release the arrow at first chance, nailing the hologram. You grab another arrow, the beam moves, you spin around, release the arrow, get the hologram. Over and over until it’s finally done.

You wish you had some sort of watch so you could know when your time is up, but you decide that this is enough. You place the bow back where it came from, as well as the quiver, which has three arrows left. The arrows inside of the station will be cleaned up by some poor avox, it’s not your job.

You step right in front of the gamemakers again, waiting for them to dismiss you. When they do, you thank them, and then leave the room. You can hear them call in Beetee next, and you pass him on your way out too. Just before you also leave the little waiting room, Finnick and you make eye contact.

And on his face is a half-smile, half-smirk.

You plop down on the couch, leaning back against the cushions. Caesar Flickerman introduces the name of the game: tribute training scores. The entire couch is full. From right--where you’re sitter--to left, it sits Amias, Neysa, Edmond, Brutus and Brutus’ stylist. On the adjacent chair sits Theo.

He won’t look in your direction, it’s humorous.

Caesar starts it almost immediately, beginning with boys. Gloss lands himself an eleven, and Cashmere gets herself a ten, which makes you wonder how badly she messed up during her session. She’s supposed to be a career, not some average moron. Anyone with basic capabilities can get a ten.

Next is Brutus, he gets a nice eleven, which makes you all cheer for him in excitement. You want to hold your breath for your own, but you realize that’s not a reaction you would have. So, instead you give a big smile and lean back, crossing your arms. Confidence will get you out of this.

“District Two, (Y/n) Rosecelli with a score of eleven.” He gives a big smile, and you give a look to Brutus.

“And that is how it’s done!”

Brutus laughs, the two of you lean over for high-fives before going back to watching Caesar. Beetee and Wiress get boringly sad and average scores, but there’s not much to expect from them either. They didn’t do anything that would be entertaining over those three days. They get sevens.

The smile fades from your face once Finnick comes up. Your face straightens out and you lean forward. Brutus notices this, “Interested?”

“I gotta know how easy he’ll be to kill.”

“District Four, Finnick Odair with a score of eleven.” Caesar says, “And District Four, Mags Flannagan with a score of six.”

Finnick’s score is no surprise, but you are a little worried over Mag’s. She could have at least gotten a seven considering she did just about the same that Beetee and Wiress did. You suppose it makes sense in a way, though. She’s not going to be a good fighter, and they have to consider that too.

At least you and Finnick are on the same playing field, but he’ll be torn between protecting himself and Mags. You don’t really want to be the one to kill her, but another matching pair of District Four skulls on your arm is just too tempting.

You bring your arm over, looking at it as Caesar announces the next scores. You’ve got quite a collection. You didn’t kill any of District One’s tributes, but you did kill your district mate because it had come down to you two. If you want to keep traditions, Brutus would have to go on too. You wonder if he knows that part of your history.

It skips over District Three, but you got both from four. None from five or six, but you got the doubles on seven, the guy from eight and the girl from ten--oh, and the girl from twelve that had ran into the cornucopia like a dumbass. The total comes out to eight, which really is quite a lot.

Except that year a ton of people had ran into the cornucopia, more than usual. The girls from ten and twelve, and the boy from four had run in. As for the other five, that same day you took out the boy from eight. Your allies had taken out others, since they wanted at least something they could take credit for.

Four on the first day, and the other four in the span of a week. You were the one with the most kills, you were showered with gifts. No one really stood a chance, not even your district mate. You kept track of the tributes throughout the entire game by carving lines into your arm. The second that the twenty-second guy was dead, you turned on your mate immediately.

It was too quick, it had taken the gamemakers by surprise. The way you turned, grabbed his head with one hand and used your sai’ to stab right through. He crumpled to the ground like a sack of flour, and you stood in the middle of that field, waiting for your crowning.

An entire minute of silence, which made you doubt that you were the winner. You had to count the cuts on your arms to double-check. You had done it each time after you’d heard a cannon, it should be accurate. And while you waited for them to announce your win, after you were sure it was yours, you made that final line.

Obviously they had wanted some fight, looking back on it. The final two should have been easy entertainment, and even sentimental, considering you guys were both from District Two. But there was no hesitation, you were already exhausted from fighting the last guy, and you just wanted it to be over with.

The reason behind why you’d chosen to wipe out the District Four tributes is funny, in some sick way. Of course, your games were right after Finnick’s, and you absolutely hated the way he won. Using his nets to drag people into the water and then uses his trident on them.

It’s the entire reason why you spared nothing for either of the four tributes. You didn’t even fuck with them a little bit like your allies had wanted. You killed them, and you made sure that the cannon had gone off before you’d even bothered to move on. You were so paranoid that they would try something like Finnick had done, again.

As much as people don’t want to admit it, you pay attention to things. Your brain is always turning. You’re keeping track of things, remembering plans and techniques. If you come up across anyone inside of the games, then you’ll know how to act. What they favor more in fights and all that. Not to mention, people like the morphlings and where they like to hide in the trees, what they’re looking for specifically.

It’s a whole ‘nother reason why you’re a perfect candidate. You’re prepared.

Anyway, districts five and six both get that same average score as three. Johanna Mason lands herself a nice ten, and her district mate Blight gets a nine. Not surprising for Johanna, but it is for Blight. Normally guys get higher training scores--and that’s not a sexist thing either.

It’s how your first games went. You had gotten a nine, and it must have been something you’d done during your training days. Unlike other districts, the careers aren’t really told to keep from showing off their skills. In fact, you’re encouraged to. It’s an intimidation tactic to weasel out the weaklings.

And you’re typically ordered to pick your favorites that look like good allies, and after private training day--which is then when you’re able to see the score--you send a formal request for them to be in the alliance. It’s a whole thing, more trouble than it’s actually worth, and it doesn’t happen very often because of it.

District eight through eleven get mainly average scores, there’s a few who stand out more than the others. And then it hits District Twelve.

“District Twelve--” Caesar’s face twists unexpectedly, “--Peeta Mellark, with a score of twelve.”

“What?” you nearly yell, pushing yourself up into a better seating position, “How?”

“That’s--”

“District Twelve, Katniss Everdeen with a score of twelve.”

“That’s impossible.” the blood must have drained from your face, and there’s a faint feeling that overcomes you, “No, no--no!”

No one has ever hit twelve. Twelve is the highest and one is the lowest. People have gotten close to twelve, clearly. You’ve got an eleven and a few others do too, but twelve…

“What did Katniss say to our alliance invitation?” Brutus asks, “Neysa!”

Neysa looks worried too, “Uh--Haymitch told me that she said no, or that she was at least thinking about it.”

You allowed Brutus to send in that request after watching Katniss shoot those arrows, but it was only Brutus that was asking. You weren’t included in it. Had Katniss said yes, she would have been dragged into the alliance altogether, whether you like it or not, you would have had to make friends.

And there’s a very good reason as to why she probably said no. It’s the alliance thing with Finnick, isn’t it?

You pucker your lips, “Neysa I need a moment with you.”

She looks over at you, Caesar Flickerman has long since been forgotten. She nods a little bit, everyone else in the living room looks confused as to why you couldn’t have just said it in front of them too.

You bring Neysa as far as you can manage without making it suspicious. Even then, you’re dropping your voice to a whisper, and turning your back to the living room so Brutus won’t be able to read your lips.

“What is it?”

“Tell the District Four mentors that I want to be allies with Finnick,” you say before you can catch yourself and change your mind, “And I don’t mean for him to join us, I mean for me to join them.”

“Them?” Neysa looks suspicious.

Shit, “Finnick and Mags. What else would I have meant?”

It was a smooth recovery, enough to get her off your back.

“You’d just leave everyone like that?” Neysa doesn’t like this, you can hear it in her tone of voice, “It’s just as much of a dumb idea as running solo is--”

“I just want to see what he says, I don’t have my mind set in stone.” You give her a look, “Neysa, come on.”

“Fine, but you will tell me your plan if it works out like you’re envisioning.”

“I wouldn’t dream of leaving you out of the loop.” You tell her.

“Is there anyone else?” she asks.

You think for a moment on who would be dumb enough to accept but smart enough to do it too. A light bulb then goes off, “Peeta Mellark.”

#ilguna #finnick odair #finnick odair imagine #finnick odair oneshot #finnick odair fanfic #finnick odair x reader #finnick odair metanoia #metanoia #metanoia chapter five

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rideonwings · 4 years

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The Enevitable Cliche Quarantine Story

Pairing: Hiccup/Astrid

Summary: Stranger-Neighbors lean on each other during the quarantine.

A/N: It’s cliche and silly, but dammit, I think a lot of us need something cute and fluffy these days. There’s more written, I’m just struggling to focus on continuing, so maybe posting this will make me work on it more. Generally I don’t post things until they’re further along, but if you like it maybe I’ll get my ass in gear.

Day 1:

Astrid

After yesterday’s official announcement, once the panic had settled to a mild simmer, and once she’d stocked her fridge and pantry to the fullest possibly capacity with anything she could find left in the vacant grocery store, Astrid was left sitting on her couch coming to the realization that she had an unknown expanse of open time to fill and not a whole lot of ideas on how to fill it.

Sure, she had her thesis to finish, and the gym she worked at part time had asked her to film a few workout classes a week for their clientele to follow along with, but, in the normal state of things, she was the type of person to fill her days with errands, exercise, and activity. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been in her apartment past 10:00am. A shelter-in-place was the opposite of all of those things.

Even if she wasn’t particularly social, Astrid thrived on routine. Her days were scheduled, regimented, and tidy, bouncing from teaching classes at the gym to study sessions with her colleagues in her DPT program to her waitressing job at night. She wasn’t really sure what to make of this crazy concept of ‘flex time’. She strolled around her apartment a few times, looking for things to pick up or organize, leaning down to scratch her cat between the ears every time she walked passed. Finally, she sighed, flopping her arms against her side heavily and collapsed onto the couch. She flipped through her Netflix account and selected an old favorite, grabbed a blanket, and tried to embrace her new normal.

Hiccup:

Honestly, he should have paid more attention. He’d known the world was reeling with the impacts of this virus, but he hadn’t really thought about its application to his life until his boss had sent out an email yesterday and then basically forced everyone to leave the premises until further notice. As Hiccup was packing up all of the equipment he would need to work from home for the next… while, he’d joked with Fishlegs that he should have stopped at the store earlier.

It had been a joke, and yet, now, as he roamed the grocery store looking for anything remotely appetizing, he felt woefully unprepared. As someone who didn’t spend a lot of time at home, mostly rolling out of bed, walking the dog and shuffling off to work where he’d stay way longer than he should have, he wasn’t entirely sure what ‘staples’ consisted of. He could cook, was a good cook in fact, he just never made the time for it. Now he was trying to figure out how to make a meal out of kidney beans and frozen brussel sprouts. At least he had toilet paper.

Finally, he stumbled out of the store into the deceptively beautiful day, rolling a cart of completely random supplies to his car and wondering if he should get gas before the world ended. When he pulled up to his apartment a few minutes later, he looked up to his balcony window as he always did to see Toothless’ smiling face in the window, tail wagging hurriedly, as he waited for his owner to come inside. At least he wouldn’t be alone during this.

Day 2:

Astrid

Astrid never would have believed that you could get sore from sitting on the couch all day, and yet, as she rose from bed that morning, she felt the unmistakable pull of pained muscles in her lower back.

“Gods,” she moaned, “This is going to be the month ever.”

She’d stayed up way later than normal, watching old episodes of her favorite tv shows to bring her comfort, though in reality, she’d mostly just stared through the screen and let her mind wander. Now, bending over to touch her hands to the floor, she knew that if she was going to survive this pandemic, she’d need to figure out a way to schedule her days, even when there was nothing to fill them with. Maybe she could learn to cook? For someone as health obsessed as she was, she lived predominantly on protein shakes, microwaved lunches and cheese and crackers. Half of the groceries she’d bought over the last week she had no idea what to do with.

Astrid turned on her coffee maker and fed Stormfly, continuing to stretch out cramped muscles as the scent of coffee filled the apartment. The sun was shining brightly from her balcony window, so once she’d filled a mug just the way she liked it, she opened the sliding door and curled herself into one of the padded wicker chairs her mom had dropped off one day after cleaning out her garage in preparation for her move across the country.

As she sat there and sipped at her drink, she tried to remember the last time she’d actually been out here. It wasn’t exactly secluded: the balcony itself was only about 12 feet long and 5 feet wide, with a few feet of gap between it and the one next to it, though it looked out onto a fairly nice part of town with a park.

She didn’t really know her neighbors, either. The man in the unit to her right seemed to work opposite schedules as her, waking up later than her and coming back when she was getting ready for bed. She’d only really seen him from afar, walking his dog or getting in and out of his car on the weekends, but she thought he was about her same age. Her other neighbor was a cranky old man that never spoke to her and made it clear that he preferred it that way. The few times they’d bumped into each other at the mail slot he’d been gruff and rude, and honestly, she hadn’t tried to be nice after that. It hadn’t seemed worth the effort.

It wasn’t exactly warm out, being late March and all, but she pulled her bare legs into her hoodie and enjoyed the quiet. Astrid tried to remember the last time she’d felt like she didn’t have to be somewhere, turning to face the sun more directly. After a while Stormfly edged out onto the balcony and curled up next to her, adding to her feeling of contentment.

An explosion of noise erupted from her right, jerking her out of her trance and spilling her remaining coffee all over the cement as she jumped. She whipped around to find the source, noticing her neighbor’s black dog with his nose pressed against the window, staring intently at Stormfly, who had poked her head up to return the glare, apparently unimpressed with the dog’s theatrics. Astrid swore under her breath as she wiped coffee from her hoodie sleeve, cursing the dog for ruining a nice moment.

“Toothless, Gods, what is wrong with you?!” She heard from inside the unit. She looked over to see the dog’s owner glaring at the excited animal before he opened the door slowly, letting the dog onto the balcony. The dog - a black lab - slinked onto the balcony like spilled ink and came directly to the railing, still looking at Stormfly and sniffing interestedly but refraining from barking. “I’m sorry if he scared you,” the man said, running his hands through his longish hair and looking decidedly sleepy. “He’s not actually trying to attack you or your cat, he just wants a friend.”

Astrid nodded, still feeling a little annoyed at the disruption, but accepting the apology. She shifted, picking Stormfly off of her lap and putting her down. “It’s okay, he just surprised me.”

“Sorry, he’s always crazy in the morning.” The neighbor-guy said, his tousled hair falling over his eyes as he scratched the dog, who wiggled ridiculously in response, looking up at his owner adoringly. “Once he’s had his walk he’ll calm down.”

Astrid smiled despite herself at the dog’s happy reaction. “You still get to take him on walks?”

Neighbor-guy shrugged. “I’d assume so, as long as I stay away from crowds and other people. Otherwise I’m going to have to send the government a bill for carpet cleaning.”

Astrid snickered. “I’m not sure they’ll have that in their budget after all this is over.”

Neighbor-guy smiled, and Astrid was struck by how cute it was. “I’m going to go take him out. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck.” Astrid replied, standing from her chair as they went back through their sliding door. She then made her way back inside to refill her mug before opening her computer to work on her thesis. Maybe she’d lucked out and found someone to keep her company during all this.

Hiccup

As eerie as it had been to walk Toothless in the nearly deserted streets and parks of their town, Hiccup had taken advantage of the extra time in his day to really tire his buddy out, walking for nearly two hours while simultaneously calling into conference calls for work and enjoying the sunshine.

Now, settled back in his apartment, his stump was throbbing as a result of the extra activity. He wrapped a cold, wet washcloth around the base of his left leg and settled onto his balcony with his computer and a beer, because why not? It was after noon!

Popping in his headphones, he opened his CAD program and began refining some specs on his latest project. While the extra screens on his workstation would have been helpful for this, he was perfectly content out here. Toothless nestled against him at the seat of his chair.

Hiccup lost track of time, alternating between chatting with Fishlegs and uploading revisions to their project board. He hardly noticed when his make-shift ice pack dried and fell off his leg. He was finally jostled out of his focused state when Toothless jumped up from beneath him, trotting over to the railing bordering the neighboring unit. Hiccup turned to see what the dog was getting up to, only to see the woman next door coming out onto the balcony again, her cat curled around her heels. She smiled at him, waving hesitantly. He pulled the headphones from his ears and returned her wave. “Hey.”

“I see you survived.” She said with mild amusement. Her bright blue eyes - so bright that he could distinguish their color even from this distance - trailed down to Toothless, before catching on his half-leg. “Oh!” She exclaimed softly, her hand flying to her mouth.

Hiccup instinctively folded his knee, tucking his stump underneath him. “Don’t worry, that wasn’t a casualty of this morning’s trip, it’s old.” He said, trying to lighten her reaction. “As far as I know, this virus isn’t known for removing limbs.”

“No… I…” The blonde blushed, her hand clenching reflexively at her side. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have reacted that way. It just surprised me.”

Hiccup smiled kindly. “It’s fine, really. People don’t expect it. I guess Toothless and I both are full of surprises.” He said, gesturing to the dog’s own stump, which fell just short of his hock. Astrid’s eyes widened again and she came to crouch at the bars of her railing.

“I never noticed when I saw you walking him, he moves so well!” She said, reaching towards the lab instinctively, though her hand fell a few feet short. “You two match.”

“Yeah, we took that dog / owner costume thing one step too far.” Hiccup joked and she laughed. “He has a little mini-prosthetic to match mine, he just doesn’t need to wear it in the house.”

The girl pulled her chair up closer to the bars and sat down. “I’m Astrid.” She said, reaching down to scratch her cat between the shoulder blades. “And this is Stormfly.”

Hiccup reached towards her and mimed shaking her hand. “I’m Hiccup, and this is Toothless.”

“Two very unusual names.” Astrid commented.

“Yeah, we’re aware.” He responded with a smile. “I was a runt, his baby teeth were late coming in… it’s amazing we’ve survived this long.”

Astrid smiled - Gods, she had a nice smile - and stood. “I’ll be right back.” She ducked back into her house and came back a few minutes later with a glass of wine. “I liked your idea.” She said, gesturing to his beer, which was nearly empty, it’s dregs warm. “Though it seems a bit early.”

Hiccup shrugged. “Maybe. It honestly feels like there are no rules right now.”

“Are you working? I don’t mean to disturb you if you are, I was just getting a little stir-crazy in my place.”

“Yeah, but nothing too time consuming. I could use a break.” Hiccup replied, reaching to drink the last sip of his beer. “Let me grab another one.” He stood from his seat, hopping on his good leg through the door. He’d intentionally set up his apartment furniture at perfect distances so he could hop without his prosthetic or a crutch when he needed to, using chairs, tables and desks as handholds along the way.

In a few minutes he was seated back outside, facing his new neighbor-friend.

“Is this six feet, do you think?” He said jokingly, gesturing to the distance between them. “I am just over 6’2”, I could lay down across the bars to measure it more accurately.”

Astrid smiled into her wine glass. “I think we’re probably good, as long as we agree to sneeze in the other direction.” She took a sip before gesturing to his computer. “What were you working on?”

“It’s a diagram for an artificial knee,” he said, “trying to improve the rotational capacity of an older model of knee replacements.”

Astrid’s eyebrows rose. “Wow, that’s…. Cool. What do you do exactly?”

“I’m a biomechanical engineer for a company that basically improves medical equipment. You?”

Astrid tucked her hair behind her ears. “I work as a physical trainer at a gym, and I’m getting my Doctorate of Physical Therapy and a masters in history. I work as a waitress too, but obviously that’s probably not going to last with all this happening.”

“Cool about the Doctorate, sorry about the waitressing gig.” Hiccup replied, noting the concern on her face.

“It’s fine, it’s not like that was what I wanted to do, it just helped pay the bills. I’m still getting paid for the time being, and the gym pays me as long as I keep doing a few online videos, but it’s just generally going to be a little scary for a while.”

Hiccup felt instantly guilty and lucky for his own situation, knowing that he was in stable employment that wouldn’t be severely impacted. He instinctively wanted to offer to help her in any way she needed, but bit his tongue. He hardly knew her, after all.

“I’m sorry.” He said, not knowing what else to say. “Hopefully everyone gets with the program and we can shorten the lifespan of this thing so we can get back to normal soon.”

Astrid nodded, frowning slightly. “Yeah, hopefully.”

They sat in an awkward silence for a few minutes. Then, Astrid laughed weakly. “There’s no reason to play the pity game, though, right? We’re only on day two. Honestly, I’m more worried about how I’m going to feed myself for the next few weeks.”

Hiccup smiled weakly, noting her attempt to deflect from her real anxieties. “Were you not able to grab groceries?”

“Oh, no I’m fully stocked, unfortunately, I have no idea how to cook half of the things in my pantry.”

Hiccup laughed, glad for the break in the tension. “Well, I could probably help you with that. I myself have the most random selection of food known to man in my fridge, so I’ll need to get really creative with my meals.”

Astrid laughed. “Maybe we can potluck this situation. I have a startling amount of ramen in my pantry for someone that doesn’t like ramen.”

“How do you not like ramen? Even when you put an egg in it?”

It was Astrid’s turn to look at him skeptically. “Why would I put an egg in it?”

Hiccup’s jaw dropped. “What? You don’t know?” Astrid shook her head. “It changes everything, it makes it totally amazing. How did you possibly make it through college without adding egg to your ramen??” He said jokingly.

Astrid shrugged, giggling. “By not eating much ramen, I guess. It’s not exactly health food.”

Hiccup smiled, tweaking his eyebrow at her. “Feeling adventurous?”

10 Minutes Later -

“Okay, the water is boiling.” Astrid called from her kitchen. Hiccup sat on the railing of his balcony, legs hanging over the side as he gripped the bars.

“Okay, add the noodles and seasoning, then crack your egg into a separate bowl and whisk it.” He called, only able to see her part of her back as she worked at her stove. “Once the noodles start to soften, add the egg mixture and start stirring it in.”

Astrid complied, turning around to look at him. “It looks gross, it’s all clumpy.”

“You gotta stir it more, really mix it in there.”

“Okaaay…”

After a few minutes, she looked over her shoulder at him, her expression changed. “Oh, it looks creamy now.”

“There you go, that’s what should be happening.” Hiccup said, heart warming at her smile.

“That’s so cool!”

“Right? Once you get the hang of it, you can add all kinds of veggies and stuff to it to make it even more delicious, you just have to get the timing right on it.” He maneuvered himself down from the railing back onto his porch.

“One step at a time, Gordon Ramsay.” She said sarcastically. There was the sound of dishes clinking, and after a few more minutes, she came out onto the balcony holding two bowls with paper towels under them. “Err.. I am not really sure if we’re supposed to be sharing dishes and food, but… it’s too much for me to eat alone.”

Hiccup shrugged, reaching across the bars to take a bowl from her. “I’ll accept the risk in this situation.”

They sat in their respective chairs, enjoying their late afternoon snack and chatting. Hiccup couldn't remember the last time he’d enjoyed a conversation with someone this much, especially someone he’d never spoken to before that day.

They sat out in their separate spaces until the sun began to dip, only going inside to grab drinks or use the facilities, or once, for Hiccup to let Toothless out on another short walk. Finally it got to be a little too chilly to be enjoyable, and they began to clean up their areas.

Before she went inside, Astrid turned to him with a small smile. “See you tomorrow?” She asked, a teasing sort of hope in her eyes.

Hiccup smiled brightly. “Definitely.”

#hiccstrid #hiccstrid fanfic #hiccstrid fanfiction #hiccup/astrid #fanfiction #fanfic #httyd #how to train your dragon #mywriting

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gabriel-agreste-has-no-rights · 3 years

Link

One of these days I’ll remember to crosspost all these chapters. Anyway here’s Chat and Rena bonding

XXX

Adrien awoke to the sound of the shower running.

“Nngh… Plagg?” He mumbled, only to remember that he’d slept transformed. Ladybug’s handmade masks were great, but his tended to slip off his face if he turned over in his sleep. The last thing he wanted was for her to pay an early-morning visit and discover his identity.

Not that Ladybug ever visited their secret base in the mornings. But he kept hoping anyway.

The water was still running. Had the metal plate behind the colander come unlatched? It was more reliable than the plunger they’d originally installed, but it could still be finicky.

He stretched before rolling off the couch. If the shower had turned on by accident, he’d better fix it before all their water ran out. Ladybug didn’t want to use Longg’s powers more often than necessary.

He shuffled over to the bathroom door and—

“Hey, creep! What’s your problem?”

Adrien jumped back and blinked, and his eyes finally focused on the orange fox hovering in front of his face.

“Trixx?”

“Duh. Why are trying to barge in on my holder? Didn’t anyone ever teach you to knock?”

“Wh—I didn’t know she was here,” he said honestly. “What’s Rena doing here at” —he checked the clock on the microwave Carapace had bought— “five in the morning?”

“Plumbing maintenance at my apartment,” Rena’s voice filtered through the door over the sound of running water. “Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Er, uh—sorry!” He backed away from the door and parked himself on the couch again. Somehow he hadn’t thought through the implications of having a shower in the base. Sure, he’d used it several times—but more often than not, he was the only one here. It felt weird to be sharing the space with Rena Rouge, who he still didn’t know that well. LIke suddenly getting a new roommate.

He’d never had a roommate before.

He shouldn’t complain—he’d come here because there was a chance he’d have company. Even when he didn’t, the underground base felt more alive than his sterile apartment, with its grey-washed walls and decor supplied by his father’s new interior design line. As if his living space was just another walk-in advertisement.

Besides, this was where he’d left his Switch.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Trixx asked, spinning circles around Adrien’s head. “You homeless or something?”

“What? No.” He shook his head, trying to get rid of the dizziness.

“Huh. Rena and Ladybug think you are. Since you’re always here.”

His cheeks flushed. They’d talked about him? It was almost sweet that they worried.

“Plus, you’re always buying fancy stuff, like your video games, and the expensive take out boxes you always leave in the trash, and the shampoo that smells like roses—”

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

“—I mean, it would make sense, if you blew all your money and ended up on the streets. Or under them, I guess.” Trixx shrugged.

The kwami had a point. Maybe Adrien should curtail his spending if he didn’t want to give away his identity.

“It’s nothing like that. I just get take out a lot because I’m not much of a cook.”

“Finally, something the amazing Chat Noir is bad at.” The door opened, revealing Rena Rouge in ripped jeans and a denim jacket with an Anansi logo sewn over the shoulder. Huh. He’d never pegged her as an MMA fan. Her hair was still wrapped up in a black towel, but she’d slipped her mask on over it.

“I keep meaning to learn,” he said.

Marinette would probably be willing to teach him, but she was always busy with classes or projects. Nino had practically called him a lost cause after he’d managed to burn a grilled cheese. He knew Alya was an amazing cook, but he worried a little about how incompetent he’d look next to her.

“Then today’s your lucky day.” Rena smiled, spinning a spatula around her finger.

“You—you’d do that?” Adrien perched on his knees, crossing his arms over the back of the couch.

“Why not? You’re afraid you’ll burn the base down?”

He probably wouldn’t. At least the walls were solid stone, and there weren’t any maids who would report his mess to his father.

“That face isn’t very reassuring,” Trixx said.

“Don’t worry, he’ll do fine.” Rena yanked him up by his arm. “Trixx, will you plug in the griddle?”

“Aye-aye, Captain Rouge!” The kwami saluted and connected the hot plate to the extension cord.

Rena grinned. “Arrrg, excellent job first mate Trixx! Now, hoist the cooking spray!”

Trixx searched the shelf and pulled out the metal canister. He popped off the lid, which went rolling off across the floor. Rena picked it up and put it on the kwami’s head like a little hat, and they both laughed together.

Adrien found himself smiling too. He and Ladybug had definitely made the right choice in letting her keep her miraculous full-time.

“Alright, swashbuckler Chat. Your turn at the helm.” Rena Rouge positioned him in front of the griddle, then sprayed down the surface.

“What? Already?” His eyes widened.

“No better way to learn than by sailing straight into the cannons.”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure there’s a lot better ways to learn. Ways that don’t involve getting exploded.” He didn’t even know how to work a griddle. There was a knob on the side with numbers. A temperature gauge? And there was some kind of tray sticking out of the bottom. He didn’t have a clue what that was for.

“Just don’t Cataclysm anything and you’ll be fine.” Rena patted his arm. She grabbed a carton of eggs from the polka-dotted fridge and set them on the counter. A bowl and a whisk joined it; she really had stocked the whole kitchen. All he’d contributed was some blackberry ice cream, which he ate straight out of the carton.

“Alright. No Cat—”

She slapped her hand over his mouth. “Don’t say it!”

“Right, right. My bad.” He blushed. He really was a disaster. Good thing Ladybug wasn’t here to see him like this—not that she’d be surprised.

Rena shook her head with a chuckle. “I can’t believe I ever thought you and Ladybug were cool.”

“Hey! Ladybug’s very cool.” He put his hands on his hips.

“Okay, Ladybug’s still cool. But admit it. You’re both just big doofuses under those masks.” She poked his nose, at the spot where his mask met skin.

“Joke’s on you. We’re doofuses even with the masks.”

She laughed. “Fair enough. It’s comforting, though.” She cracked an egg into the bowl. Why she was putting it there and not on the hot surface, he didn’t know. “I’m just a normal girl outside of the mask. It’s nice to know you guys are the same way.”

“I can’t say I’m a normal girl, but I get what you mean.” He grinned. “It’s funny. Carapace told me the same thing. I guess we lose some of our mysterious appeal when you look too closely, but… I like that.”

“Really?” She cracked another egg, then washed her hands under the tap he and Ladybug had set up.

“Yeah. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I want people to trust us. But sometimes people expect too much if they don’t see our flaws, too.”

She pressed a whisk and the bowl of eggs into his hands. “Stir.”

He nodded.

“That makes sense,” she said in response to his earlier comment. “Illusions can be useful, but they don’t hold up under pressure.”

“Exactly.” He stirred the eggs. Not fast enough; Rena took his hand and demonstrated how to beat the yolks to a runny mixture.

“Cheese, milk, and bacon bits, First mate Trixx.”

“Arggg,” he said, disappearing into the fridge.

“You do like cheese and bacon, right?” Rena asked Adrien.

He smiled. “Who doesn’t?”

Once Trixx delivered the ingredients, they mixed them into the egg goop. It looked pretty gross, like a soup gone wrong. But Rena instructed him to dump it on the griddle anyway.

The mixture sizzled on impact. Man, that smelled way better than it looked.

“We’ll flip it in about a minute or two. Omelettes cook pretty fast.”

He stared at the eggs as they slowly turned from translucent yellow to opaque white. It was soothing, watching tiny bubbles pop as the change took place. Why had he been so nervous about cooking again?

“This really is your first time making eggs, huh,” Rena commented.

“That obvious?” He blushed a little. “It’s pretty much my first time making anything.”

“You sure you aren’t homeless?” Trixx asked, poking his stomach. “You look like you eat enough. But every kit should know how to feed himself.”

Adrien’s ears and tail drooped. He really should know. If he ever wanted to cut ties with his father and his company, he’d need to live more frugally.

“Don’t give him such a hard time. There’s a first time for everything.” Rena brushed Trixx aside, then handed Adrien a spatula. “Here. Flip the omelette.”

She said it like an order, but she was smiling. He thought he could hear the message hidden behind the words: I’m not going to judge you. I know you can do it.

After living under the weight of his father’s doubts, it was a breath of fresh air.

“Thanks.” He smiled.

(It wasn’t just for the spatula.)

XXX

“So, you spend the night here a lot?” Rena asked as they ate their breakfast. She’d taken off her hair towel, and it hung on the back of her chair to dry.

He shrugged. “Not too often.”

By that, he meant he slept over five nights out of the week rather than all seven. Nathalie still came to check on him every Tuesday, and Thursday evenings were spent with his old bodyguard.

“How’d you learn to cook like this?” He asked to change the subject. The omelette was light and fluffy in his mouth, with just the right amounts of salt, pepper, and cheese. And it had only taken them around five minutes.

“My mom’s a pretty amazing cook. She had me flipping omelettes before I learned how to walk.”

Adrien tried to keep the wistful look from his face. His mom had always had chefs to cook for them, even before she disappeared. If he’d ever asked, would she have had recipes to share with him? Maybe Aunt Amelie would know.

“This was fun. Makes up for how sucky my morning started, at least a little bit.” Rena smiled, cleaning the rest of her plate. She took Trixx’s too; she’d placed the kwami’s breakfast on a little saucer.

Adrien still wasn’t done—he’d wanted to savor the first (edible) food he’d cooked himself.

“I’m sorry you had a rough morning,” he said. “Anything I can do to help?”

“You can do the dishes, catboy.” She winked and slung her bulky purse over her shoulder. “I’ve got to hit the road. Can’t miss the sunrise, or I’ll have gotten up this early for nothing.”

“Sunrise?”

“For my photography portfolio. Nice shots of superheroes are one thing, but but I’ve gotta have a little bit of diversity.”

“I didn’t know you did photography,” He said. Of course, there was a lot he didn’t know about the other heroes. “You should get some of your photos developed. I bet they’d make this place a lot brighter.”

“Not a bad idea. This place could use some livening up.”

She smiled at him over her shoulder before calling out, “Trixx, let’s pounce!”

Orange light washed over her, replacing her outfit but leaving her purse and fake mask. She hung the mask back on its hook before pushing open the door.

“And Chat Noir?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re here for you. Me, Ladybug, Carapace—if you ever need anything, you call us, alright?”

She might have phrased it as a question, but her eyes said it was an order. It felt… weird, having someone other than Ladybug worrying about him.

But he could get used to weird.

He smiled. “Alright.”

Maybe they didn’t need photos after all. The room already felt a little brighter.

#chat noir #rena rouge #rena & chat #home base #fic tag #tali writes

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krackheadkulture · 4 years

Text

The Mysteries of Hogwarts | Stray Kids Hogwarts AU

CHAPTER 7: FEARS

“Look, it’s nothing! I didn’t even harm or hurt you but someone else… so would you forgive me?” Hana asked, facing one of the walls of the Potions classroom, for the nth time. She had came into the class ten minutes earlier to prepare a statement for herself to Andrea and it was definitely an abnormal sight to see one of Slytherin’s most wicked talking to the wall as if the wall would start answering back. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to say to make it up to you but at least… just talk to me again?”

“By saying sorry? That’s more than enough,” the voice that Hana had known spoke out, causing the Slytherin to jump in surprise. She turned around to find the Hufflepuff looking at her emotionless, her eyes barely avoiding the Slytherin.

“I’m not that good at sorries, you know that. And when did you even come to class? Aren’t you… usually, late?” Hana asked, raising her eyebrows as she crossed her arms across her chest.

“I think you’re talking about yourself, Park Hana,” Andrea rolled her eyes before making her way to her seat. “I don’t even think I’m that important to you at all, given the fact that you don’t even know when I ever come into the class at all.”

“That’s because you’re always earlier than me? When have you ever seen me earlier to a class other than today?” Hana snapped. She could feel her anger raising in her and she was trying her best to not burst out. “Did you not know how hard I tried not to fall asleep for today?”

“Well, you don’t have to anymore,” Andrea cut in, not looking at Hana at all. “You don’t even seem to care for my feelings at all, or even Chan’s.”

Hana bit her lips, still staring at one of her best friend. She opened her lips to counterattack but closed them back. She knew that it was useless to have an outburst in the middle of ‘apologizing’ so she just rolled her eyes and darted out of the class without saying another word. Who cares if she was going to miss another class after all? Not Andrea.

✰

Hana did not know where she was going, but she just kept walking, storming through the crowds of students streaming into their respective classes until the corridors were finally empty. She had no goals to where she was going to go except for being as far away from Andrea or anyone else. But her simple wish can never be fulfilled at all.

Her pace slowed down when she realised she had travelled almost halfway around the school… in about ten minutes, which was a record to her. She then started to walk slowly, watching the ever moving staircases, the pictures on the wall fidgeting or screaming at others and the elves rushing down the corridor past her. She had seen all these for the past five years but it still looked new to her- since she had always been with her friends, talking and having fun. It had been long since she had ever walked alone through the school. She could feel hatred filling up her. Why did she not fight Andrea back when she had the chance? Why did she not fight back hard enough to redeem the forgiveness from her friend? Should she turn around to get back into class to find Andrea again? Should she-

Her thoughts were disrupted when she heard a heated argument heading her way. She looked up, just in time to see a Slytherin and a Gryffindor turning into her corridor, shouting and pushing one another.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone? Is my life just a part of your game, Lee Minho?” The Gryffindor hissed. Hana could see the steam coming out of Yoonmi’s ears as the pair walked closer to Hana.

“It had been ever since you were born,” Minho snickered, rolling his eyes. He tore his eyes from Yoonmi and made eye contact with his other Slytherin housemate. He gave her a sly smirk. “Hey there, Hana,” he said. This caused Yoonmi to stop as well, looking up to find her friend staring dully at the pair. “Could you be a dear and tell this Gryffindor to stop fighting me when I’m always right? Or… would you like to teach her a lesson as well for messing with a fellow Slytherin.”

Hana bit her lower lips in annoyance and rolled her eyes. “Stop, Minho. You should know better than this. I don’t mess with my friends and you should know that as well. And if I were you, I would think twice before messing with other people who are related to me, aka my friends,” Hana replied in a low voice before proceeding to walk past them. She brushed past Minho but refused to look at him as she disappeared into the corner, finally deciding of the place she wanted to head to now, away from all the disturbance and annoyance.

✰

The curtains fluttered around the windows, making the room flickered in and out of darkness. It had been a couple of hours since Potions class but Hana had been sitting on the same spot at the highest step of the small room, staring out of the window in silence. She watched so many things happening from the window in the past hours: from students gossiping in small groups as they headed from one class to the next, teachers chasing down students, the owls fluttering next to their owners… She was so out of it that she did not realised that her cat had found her, until it rested itself comfortably onto Hana’s lap.

“Oh hey there,” Hana finally looked away from the window. She smiled weakly as she brushed the fur of her beautiful black cat, its bright Heterochromia eyes sparkling as they focused on its owner. “How did you find me, Cleo?”

Cleo let out a soft meow as it closed its right Blue eye and opened, to be fixated on its owner.

“I’m sorry for not finding you,” she whispered. “I was… out of it for a while, I guess. It’s still… amazing how you managed to find me.” Cleo replied with a purr before closing both of its eyes. “It kind of hurts… that Andrea still wouldn’t forgive me.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if you just apologize to her with a ‘I’m sorry’?” Another voice answered, interrupting Hana’s conversation with her cat. Cleo jumped out of Hana’s lap at the voice and disappeared into the shadows.

Hana bit her lower lips once again in annoyance before turning to find the intruder leaning on the door frame at the only ajar door of the room. “What do you want, Hwang Hyunjin?” Hana’s voice was low but threatening. “How did you even find this room?”

“You’re not the only one with secrets, Park Hana,” Hyunjin smirked as he started taking slow steps away from the door, the door closing leisurely behind the handsome Slytherin. Hana watched annoyingly as Hyunjin stopped at the first step of the stairs. “Besides, this room is not hard to find… if you look hard enough.”

“You’re not making sense but whatever,” Hana said quietly, tearing her attention from Hyunjin. She was still looking out of the window, but there were now no one.

“Classes have finally end,” Hyunjin commented. “How long have you been here?”

“It doesn’t matter to you,” Hana replied plainly. “A couple of hours.”

“To blow off some steam?”

Hana looked at Hyunjin again. She wanted to snap at him for ruining her perfectly silent moment but there was something different about him now than before. His sharp eyes that gleamed whenever Hana saw him anywhere in the school were now softened, the annoying smirk that hung on his face had dropped. Hana could finally see how plump and soft his pink lips were. She knew he was concerned and he was willing to help her in any way she needed. “Yes,” she replied quietly.

Hyunjin gave her a gentle smile before walking up the stairs slowly until he reached her step. “Mind… mind if I sit here? I would love to listen so I can try to help in any… way that I can?”

The corners of Hana’s lips raised a little before falling flat. “The great Hwang Hyunjin stuttered?” She raised her eyebrow, earning an eye roll from the latter. Hana quickly scooted a little to the left so her shoulders were pressed to the brick wall as Hyunjin settled himself next to her.

Neither of them said another word until the curtains snapped sharply, causing the both of them to jump, startled.

“Woah!” Hana exclaimed, jumping a little before feeling Hyunjin’s hands holding her arms, steading her so she would not roll down the stairs. She did not realised how fast her heart was beating until she heard the sound pounding in her ears.

“You okay?” Hyunjin asked, removing his hands around her when she stopped moving. Hana gave a small nod and Hyunjin gave her a tiny smile. “I… I heard… I mean, I know that Chan incident tore the relationship between… you and your… Hufflepuff friend-”

“Her name’s Andrea.”

“Yeah… Andrea….” He drifted off. He did not know how to continue. “Well, I do know that you tried to fix your relationship but… it did not work out as well as you might have thought it would.”

“How did you know about that?” Hana asked.

“Here and there… people are willing to tell me anything they heard and that… was something I heard,” Hyunjin replied.

“And I assume that right now, you want to mock me and laugh at me now? Don’t you? It… A Slytherin shouldn’t have left when a problem isn’t solved yet.”

“No… no, why would I ever say that?” Hyunjin asked. “I’m… I’m just… glad that you didn’t use that old Slytherin method that… you know… a typical Slytherin would do.”’

Hana snorted. “A Slytherin should fight until he or she truely wins?”

Hyunjin chuckled. “Yeah... that old… saying.”

“Then what do you think I should do now? I can’t just go to Andrea and tell her that the one and only Hwang Hyunjin helped me or something like that… or can I?” Hana laughed as well.

“There’s something that you can do, and I really think you know that too,” Hyunjin raised his eyebrows. “You can just apologise to her with a ‘I’m sorry’. It always work and I bet she would love to hear that simple word from you too. It isn’t that hard if you tried only once… am I not right?”

“But-”

“Put that Slytherin stereotype behind you. You’re not abandoning it or anything, you’re just… giving all the other Slytherins another path to choose from than being all mean and sly since as you know, all of us are not like that at all. We’re… vulnerable… we’re… nice? I don’t know but I know you are your own person and not the typical Slytherin everyone else pictures,” Hyunjin said, still remaining eye contact with the girl in front of him.

Hana pressed her lips together, registering everything the person she least expected that would give her any advice said. Andrea was one of her best friends and are best friends not suppose to glue to one another no matter what?

A smile perked up from the corners of Hana’s lips. It grew wider until the pearl white teeth could be seen behind her lips. “You’re… you’re right. It’s not that hard to say… sorry… right?”

“It’s not hard to try and adapt to a new change,” Hyunjin replied. “You’re Park Hana, what can you not do?”

“You’re… you’re surprisingly right, Hwang Hyunjin. I’m Park Hana, the one and only. What can’t I do for my friends?” She grinned, standing up from the stairs. “I’m going to see her right this instant now!”

“Go you,” Hyunjin said. “Once you’re done, tell me about it. I’ll be at the Quidditch field. And… you do know you’re always welcome to watch the trainings. I mean, Slytherin supporting Slytherin… that’s all.”

Hana chuckled and nodded her head. “I’ll tell you about it once we make up. I never knew I would ever say this in my entire existing life, but thank you, Hwang Hyunjin.” She grinned before disappearing through the door.

✰

“About time you arrived,” Haeun commented without looking up from the Transfiguration book in her hands as Andrea approached her, taking a seat next to the Ravenclaw. “We were supposed to meet here earlier, you know that.”

“Well, I’m only a minute or two late. It’s not as if the world is going to collapse or Park Hana is ever going to say the words ‘I’m sorry’ to me at all,” Andrea replied softly. She stuffed her hands in a yellow puffer jacket she had swapped out of her Hufflepuff robe right after her last class of the day. Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and her cheeks were flushed red from the cold breeze. It was finally autumn and Andrea hated it. It was not that she had a bad memory or anything during the autumn, but autumns just made her a little nuts. The gentle cold breeze tickled her nose, making her sneeze every few seconds. The leaves that fluttered down the trees would sometimes disrupt Andrea’s vision, and this would always result into her bumping into someone or tripping over something.

“What did she do this time?” Haeun asked. She closed her book and placed the thick clothed book on her lap gently before giving her fullest attention to the Hufflepuff.

“Nothing…” Andrea drifted off.

“Nothing is ever okay when you sound all… depressed and… just not you at all, Andrea. Tell me. You do know you can tell me anything and I also don’t expect you to look this awful when we reach the Quidditch field for Jeongin’s audition,” Haeun said, brushing the astray hair that had fallen out of her loose ponytail. She pushed her gold-rimmed circle glasses up her nose so she could observe her friend’s troubled looking face. “You haven’t been this angry at Hana before until… today.”

“After the prank she pulled on Bang Chan, I don’t think I can respect her anymore,” Andrea confessed almost immediately. This topic had been sitting on her heart for the couple of days ever since the incident and she dared not bring it up to anyone, even the closest of her friends. “She… she hurt me- I mean not physically or mentally at me, but at someone who might mean something to m-” Andrea cut herself off, not wanting Haeun to suspect anything about her little… or maybe major crush on the greatest Gryffindor in the history of Hogwarts.

“Andrea, I… you can say it. I… I knew about your… love interest- or maybe all of us know about it. I’m not saying it was that obvious… but yeah, it was obvious enough,” Haeun explained. “But I’m sure Hana knows what she is doing. I mean, she didn’t hurt you at all right? Because she’s your friend and she loves you.”

“As if,” Andrea muttered under her breath and raised her eyebrow as she watched behind Haeun. The familiar figure in a green robe was striding towards the duo. “Speak of the devil.”

“Andrea Choi!” Hana stalked to the bench her two friends were sitting on, partially ignoring Haeun since her eyes were fixated on the Hufflepuff. “I know you don’t wanna talk to me right now… but I’m just going to say it because if I don’t, I don’t even think I’ll ever get the chance to anymore. I regretted playing that prank on Chan. I didn’t know it would hurt you that badly but I knew you like him so I thought it might grab his attention or something but god, I was so wrong and… I’m sorry,” Hana finished.

Haeun raised her eyebrows and looked at Andrea. “Did our Park Hana-”

“Just apologized?” Andrea completed the sentence as she continued to stare at her Slytherin friend with a glint of excitement. “Are you sure you’re Park Hana, the one who doesn’t ever apologize?”

“Don’t you dare make me apologize once more,” Hana gritted her teeth.

Andrea chuckled a little before wrapping her arms around the Slytherin into an embrace. “You’re forgiven,” Andrea said.

“W-wait, that’s it?” Hana’s eyes widen as she tried to remove herself from Andrea. “Y-you’re not going to try hard to forgive me?”

“You have suffered enough and hearing a sorry once from you once is more than enough. Let’s say… I’m honoured to be the first person you apologized to,” Andrea smiled.

“And since we’re all in great terms now! Park Hana, you’re invited to join us to watch Jeongin’s audition and I don’t take a no for an answer!” Haeun grinned and grabbed her two friends by their arms, pulling them along by her side as they made their way towards the Quidditch field.

✰

There were usually not a lot of people at the Quidditch field during trainings, but when the trio reached the field, it was packed, as if there was actually a match ongoing. The three of them were flustered as they tried to search for seats near the Hufflepuff’s trainings.

“Why… on earth is it very… crowded?” Haeun asked as she settled herself into her seat as Hana and Andrea filled in next to her. “I don’t remember Jeongin having these many fans before-”

“I think they’re here for the Slytherin’s team,” Andrea replied, nodding towards the second house on the Quidditch team.

Opposite the Hufflepuff team settled the emerald green jerseys of the Slytherins. The players were on the field rounded up in a circle as they did their stretches. Haeun could see Haechan, the captain of the Slytherin team, discussing some important instructions to the closed knitted group. It might look normal for most but it did not for any of the three of them.

“Haeun?” A voice called out from behind. The trio tore their attention from the teams on the field and looked around, to find another Ravenclaw standing quietly behind them.

“Seungmin?” Haeun raised her eyebrow. There was a hint of smile on her lips but it faded out immediately. “Are you here to spectate Jeongin’s audition too?”

“Actually, no,” Seungmin replied. He tugged on the backpack behind his back and pushed up his black circle glasses. “I thought you might be here, and I wanted to talk to you about something...“ He glanced at both her friends before adding another word. “Alone.”

Haeun glanced from Hana to Andrea before back to Seungmin with another smile. “Sure,” she agreed. “I’m sure Jeongin is happy enough to have his two other friends supporting him.” She stood up before following Seungmin and the two of them disappeared into the tunnel that exited from the field.

There were awkwardness hanging in the air when Haeun left. Hana was glancing back and fro from the emerald green to the bright yellow teams on the field. Her attention was grasped from the teams when Andrea finally spoke.

“I knew something was strange with Slytherin’s team!” She said, drawing Hana’s attention. Hana gave her a questioned look before the Hufflepuff continued. “Their star player… Hwang Hyunjin isn’t with the team yet. Where is he anyways?” Hana shrugged right as soon as Andrea stood up from her seat. “Oh look! It’s almost Jeongin’s turn! Time to cheer and hype him up before his audition! I’ll be right back!” At that very moment, Andrea jumped from the bench and ran down the stairs to the field where she found Jeongin. Hana smiled a little when she noticed a wider smile approaching Jeongin’s face as soon as Andrea reached him.

Her attention drifted shortly to the Slytherin team once again. Andrea’s voice replayed and replayed in her mind. She could not help but wonder over her comment. She glanced at some of the members that she knew, from the team captain, Haechan, to the only chaser she recognised as the infamous Kim Doyoung whom Chenle had been chatting and rumbling over again and again whenever he got the chance to. But there was someone missing, and that was Hwang Hyunjin.

Did he not called her over just a couple of moments ago, inviting her to watch the Quidditch training? Where on earth was he then- Her thoughts were interrupted when a voice called her.

“Is this seat taken?” The familiar voice of Hwang Hyunjin asked as he took a seat next to the perplexed girl.

“I was going to say yes, but you sat on it,” she replied quietly, no emotions were written on her face at that moment. She could feel the stares coming from the girls surrounding the two of them, snaring and gossiping immediately at her. “Aren’t you suppose… to join your team now?”

He smirked slightly before leaning towards Hana, his lips barely touching the tip of her ear as they moved, lowering his voice. “I thought they,” he glanced around the stadium at all the students whom had their eyes on the duo now, “would be gone even if I’m not here, but god, they are stubborn as heck,” he whispered.

“And they are good at staring daggers at me too,” Hana commented. “If anything happens to m-”

“If anything happens, I will deal with them personally but let me emphasise again, if and they are not going to even touch you,” Hyunjin’s hushed voice ticked Hana’s ear. “And I thought that maybe if we had a moment together, they would leave me.”

“I don’t think so,” Hana replied before Hyunjin moved away, chuckling.

“Well, at least I tried,” he said before standing up to join his team. “Thanks… for coming.”

Hana acknowledged it with a slight raise of her eyebrow as she watched as the Slytherin boy stray further.

She thought everything was going to be fine until she felt a sharp pain, fingernails dragging into her shoulder. She yelped and glared at the person who grabbed her attention. “What is your problem?” Hana snarled, yanking the grip off her shoulder. She whipped her head and found a very pretty Gryffindor staring down at her, a group of friends behind her. “Have you ever heard of minding your own business?”

“Rich coming from a snake like you,” the Gryffindor snapped. Hana had never seen her before but she assumed that she was probably in a class a year or two higher than her. “What were you doing with our Hyunjin?”

“If I’m a snake, so is he,” Hana commented, earning a frustrated snicker from the girl. “Anyways, save it. You can keep him, I’m not even interested anyways… but I know he wouldn’t be interested in your rich attitude either,” She turned around, planning to walk away when she paused again. “And isn’t following and worshipping a boy like a cult too old for you already? Get over it.” And with that, Hana rolled her eyes and exited the stadium. It was really a pity to not be able to watch the match but what was more important to Hana? Hyunjin or her guts? Definitely the latter.

Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

#stray kids #stray kids hogwarts #stray kids hogwarts au #bang chan #lee minho #lee know #seo changbin #hwang hyunjin #changbin #hyunjin #jisung #han jisung #felix #lee felix #seungmin #kim seungmin #jeongin #in #yang jeongin

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labyrinthof-fan-fiction · 3 years

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Dancing with Dragons: Hippogriff’s Wings {2}

Part 1

Masterlist

Charlie Weasley x OC

Summary: Lyssa has always dreamed of working with dragons, the chance to do so for a whole year was not one she would ever think about passing up. Romania was a far stretch from home, but it would be worth it.

A/N: Here we go part 2. Also so sorry for late updates on pretty much everything, I have been super scattered. One day I will make a cohesive plot plan, but today, is not that day.

Warnings: None, just my intense love for awkward dragon boys.

Word Count: 1,678

Working in Romania was a dream come true. For years Lyssa had dreamed of getting the chance to work with dragons. She had loved her job in the States with the different creatures, the nifflers, pukwudgies, even the horned serpents. But dragons had always been her end game. It had been simple luck that the Opaleye had decided to take up residence in Mount Rushmore. Well, maybe it wasn’t luck for George Washington’s likeness. Lyssa felt that was one of the moments where she was most grateful for magic, because how would you explain to Americans that their first leader’s likeness had been burst to rubble? No doubt someone would assume it was a conspiracy, or more likely a terrorist attack. The latter seemed more likely with the climate of the country.

After introductions the Romanian team took the lead and directed the American team towards the Reserve. The Opaleye in her cage was levitated on the way several wizards held their wands towards the cage as they made their way deeper into the dense forest. Rushwing remained close to Lyssa, as was usual, although she couldn’t shake a strange feeling in her gut. She had never seen Rushwing bow so quickly to another person. After the instance she could feel the eyes of her teammates on her, a few of them have never received a bow from the hippogriff, what made this man, Charlie Weasley, so special?

Her mind had been so focused on that interaction that she missed the redhead appearing at her left side, the opposite side of the hippogriff.

“So, you’ll be staying with us for a while.” He said awkwardly, Lyssa turned her eyes to meet his, they were a deep chocolate brown, she could feel herself almost get lost in them.

“It seems that way, you will be stuck with me.” She said, a smile on her face.

He chuckled, but didn’t say anything past that, his eyes watching her face. Her eyes grew wide as they came upon the Reserve. It was larger than she had expected, she could see huts surrounding the area, followed by large paddocks. It was beautiful, something she had been dreaming of doing in America, but knew would never be possible.

“Welcome, to Dragon Park.” Owen said, laughing, the rest of the American team let out a few laughs. The Romanian crew looked confused.

“It’s a film reference.” Lyssa said, seeing the confusion cross Charlie’s face.

He shook his head, “Americans.” Lyssa rolled her eyes, she knew that European wizards were removed from muggle culture, but American wizards had become more integrated with it than before, or at least the younger ones were.

Lyssa had wondered what the atmosphere at the Dragon Reserve would be, she glanced around as the group made their way towards a large open paddock. A man stood at the paddock’s gate, something about him seemed familiar.

“About time you showed up. Americans are always tardy.” He grumbled, a sparkle in his eyes as he surveyed the group in front of him.

“And you Brits are always so pompous.” Owen answered, jogging up to the man and greeting him with a hug, which caused the other man to stiffen slightly. “I’ve missed you cousin.” The other man grimaced at Owen’s words.

“Yes, yes, that’s fine,” The man said, pushing Owen off his body. “Hello, I am Kingsley Riley, head of the Reserve. Welcome to all of you. We are excited for this partnership, and cannot wait for what will come from it.” His tone did not echo his sentiments, a few of the American crew shuffled their feet. “Now let’s get this Opaleye into her new home.”

The crews began to move levitating the cage into the paddock. Charlie found his way next to Lyssa. “You might want to leave him out here.” He tilted his head toward the hippogriff.

Lyssa nodded and turned to the hippogriff, one hand under the creature’s chin. “Go on,” She murmured, the hippogriff fluffed his feathers and flew into the sky.

Charlie watched her as she turned towards him, curiosity obvious in his eyes, but they had a job to do.

“Alright, Reserve rules, we need to make sure we get this dragon out without hurting her, and without any of you getting eaten.” Boris said, grunting as one of the Romanian crew nudged him with an elbow. “So, if you’re not of our reserve, get your butts out of the paddock.”

The Americans glanced around, looking to Owen for leadership. “You heard the man, let’s get out of their way and let the professionals take it away.”

Charlie chuckled, noticing Lyssa had stopped just inside the gate. “Come on, you’re going to be spending lots of time here, you might as well learn the ropes.”

A small smile came across her lips, she trotted to his side. “What should I do?”

“Have your wand ready, be prepared to run. Opaleyes tend to be relatively docile. They’re one of the calmer breeds, if this was a Horntail we’d be having a very different discussion. How are you at tranquilizing spells?” He asked.

“I’d say decent.” She answered, “Took down a Rougarou last week.”

Charlie had to take her word for it, he was not familiar with the American creatures, he was barely adept at creatures native to Europe outside of dragons. She walked next to him as he walked to the front of the cage. Boris eyed Lyssa, "You sure that’s a good idea, Weasley?” He grunted.

“She’s going to have to learn sooner or later, might as well be sooner.” Charlie answered, nodding his head to the open space beside him. “We’ll have them open the door and let her wander out, Reggie will shrink the cage once she’s out, hopefully she just walks out, no harm no foul. She starts getting agitated, get out.”

“Alohomora.” One of the Romanian crew cast, the door to the cage gliding open. The Opaleye raised her head, green cat-like eyes scanning the world around her. Her neck extended and she shook her head. Slowly she stretched her front legs, iridescent scales glimmering in the sunlight. A rumble shuddered through her chest as she made her way out the cage gate.

Lyssa’s head turned towards Charlie, their eyes met, he expected to see terror in her eyes, but he saw himself mirrored in her expression. Pure joy filled her face, a smile wide on her lips. His heart picked up speed, he blinked and broke their eye contact. The dragon let out a puff of air, head turning to each of the wizards in front of her. Her head stopped when she reached Lyssa. She slightly cocked her head at Lyssa. Charlie grunted, moving steadily to position himself between the dragon and girl.

The dragon snorted at him, then turned her head towards the sky. Her back legs bent and she jumped into the air, wings catching the wind and allowing her to glide into the sky. A breath escaped through Charlie’s lips he turned to Lyssa, smile still on her lips.

“Amazing.” She murmured.

“C’mon, better get out and let her get comfortable.” He said, leading Lyssa out of the Opaleye’s paddock.

Boris came behind him and cracked his hand onto the taller man’s shoulder. “Nice work out there.” A twinkle in his eyes. Charlie nodded to him, biting his tongue, not wanting to goad him. “So, what did you think of the dragon, missy?”

“I think she’s amazing, I can’t wait to learn more.” She answered.

“Luckily for you, you’ll be learning from our best. Charlie here will teach you everything you need.” Boris said, giving Charlie a parting wink before heading down one of the paths leading to the huts.

Kingsley’s voice carried to the pair. “Weasley, why don’t you give her a tour, take her to her hut. We’ll all meet in back in the mess hall once she’s settled.”

“Yes, sir.” Charlie answered, turning to Lyssa. “Let’s get you settled.”

Lyssa nodded and followed him down a path away from the group. They remained in silence for a few moments, before Charlie began to speak again.

“You’ll be in the hut next to mine. My last neighbor got moved to the family huts, got married. So there was an opening. That way if you need anything you can find me.” He started babbling. Lyssa let a small smile grace her lips, she glanced down at the ground. “So, you seem to pack light….”

Lyssa chuckled, “It would seem that way, but looks can be deceiving.” She put her hand to her mouth and let out a whistle, Charlie looked up at the sound of wings. The hippogriff landed in front of them. Charlie noticed a few packs on the creature’s sides, that looked like they had been shrunken down to make it easier for the creature. Charlie couldn’t hide his face, he was impressed. Hippogriffs barely let anyone ride them, but to carry packs as well? That was unheard of. “He’s special.” Lyssa said, not offering more information.

Charlie stopped outside of a hut. “Here it is, your home while you’re here with us. Mine is right across the path. Let’s get you unpacked and then we’ll head to dinner.” He started lifting packs off the hippogriff and into the hut. Lyssa followed him into the hut, taking the final packs off Rushwing and letting him fly off into the forest, it had been a long flight, he needed to hunt.

Lyssa stepped over the threshold, it was a small hut, a bed in the corner across from a basic kitchenette. A closet was carved into the wall by the bed, a dresser was against the wall next to the bathroom.

Charlie stepped in front of her. “Anything else?”

“That’s everything.” She answered, glancing around the hut.

“It’s not much, but it’s a roof over your head.” He said.

Even though it was across an ocean and a new place, she couldn’t help but feel that this was home. “It’s perfect.” She murmured.

#charlie weasley #charlie weasley x oc #charlie weasley x fem!oc #charlie weasley fic #dancing with dragons #part 2

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thorne93 · 4 years

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Inside the Criminal Mind (Part 39)

Prompt: You’re married to Dr. Spencer Reid of the BAU, and are a distinguished doctor yourself on the team. You’re sent down to Miami, Florida for teaching and as a side request from the FBI, to investigate a string of missing persons. When you think you’ve figured out who the unsub is, your life becomes more complicated than you ever could’ve imagined.

Word Count: 3091

Warnings: (throughout the fic –>) death, blood, gore, killings, language, disturbing mental notions, mentions of rapes/murder/etc (You know, Dexter and Criminal Minds related business)

Notes: Thank you so much to @arrow-guy, @carryonmyswansong, and @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo - without each of you, I couldn’t have finished, written, or properly navigated this story. Each of you helped me fish out details that were incredibly important to me. Beta’d by @carryonmyswansong and @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo… Aesthetic by @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo

This is a crossover of Criminal Minds x Dexter. First time writing Dexter.

Also, the timeline is after Season 1 of Dexter, but during season 14-ish of Criminal minds into Season 15. Enjoy!!!

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JJ knelt beside him too, across from you.

"What happened?" she wondered, no accusation in her voice.

"I don't know," you admitted. "I was only gone an hour or two. He was perfectly fine when I left." You stared at his body in horror, wondering what went wrong. Wondering if it was your fault.

Soon, an ambulance, police, and firefighters arrived.

You rode with Spencer to the hospital and JJ said she'd let the team know and be behind you. You were trying to keep your crying back, but it was hard as the EMTs worked on him.

Finally, you got to the hospital where Garcia and JJ met you. The doctors asked you questions and you focused long enough to answer them quickly and directly. Then they wheeled him away to the CCU. JJ and Garcia said they were being called in, so you nodded, telling them to go, that the team needed them.

With trembling hands, you called Diana, Spencer’s mom. In a little under an hour, Diana arrived and Spencer was out of the CCu, but he wasn’t doing much better. The doctor informed you of the options.

“The conservative approach would be surgery. It may reduce the swelling around his brain faster. There is risk, it could cause seizures and even more bleeding.”

You nodded and asked them to give you a moment. You spoke with Diana and as you were weighing your options, he began to seize again, causing monitors to go off everywhere. You went around the side of the bed and hugged Diana, trying to comfort her and not focus on your own pain.

Your husband was dying and you had no idea if he even loved you anymore.

When they finally got him calmed down, and the seizing stopped, someone appeared in the doorway of Spencer’s hospital room. You turned your head, and it was Max.

A million emotions slammed into you at once, but the main one was confusion.

“What are you doing here?” you asked. Diana turned to see the newcomer.

“Who’s this?” she asked.

“A friend of Spencer’s,” you answered absentmindedly. Max looked like a lost puppy. Maybe she didn’t realize you’d be here. “Diana, I’ll be right back.” You stood up and walked towards Maxine. “Do you wanna go grab some coffee?” you offered. You weren’t about to sit in the same room with her as your dying husband. You wanted her far away from him.

“Sure,” she said, looking a little afraid.

You two walked to the cafeteria and got coffee, sitting down.

“So, what are you doing here? Who told you he was here?”

“JJ.”

“Ah, I should’ve figured that out.”

“I’m uh, sorry for showing up like this--”

“Why did you show up, knowing now that he’s a married man?” you took a deep breath and remembered what Dexter had taught you. “How do you and JJ know each other?” you figured this would be a good start to finding out more.

“After the thing with Cat, we talked for a bit. Your team had briefed me about what might have happened and then afterwards, she said she was close to Spencer and gave me her number in case I had any more questions about what had happened. Then, I got the text about him being in the hospital. She said I might want to know.”

This fueled the fire within you about JJ. she had no reason to tell her about what was going on with your husband. “So….how did you and my husband meet?” This was the most awkward situation you were in and you just wanted this to get over with. “It seems you’ve become the center of his attention and that’s not something I'm okay with.”

She twiddled her fingers, toying with her coffee cup. “Yeah, I’m probably not your favorite person. Um, we met at the park. My nephew was talking to him, then he started to have a panic attack and Spencer came over and did a magic trick to distract him. It really impressed me, that a guy could take time out of his day to make a boy he didn't know happy and feel better.”

“Spencer’s always had a soft spot for kids, he’s a great uncle.” You smiled fondly hearing that he had helped a child in need. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy he was able to help but how does that in turn end up with you and him constantly being together?” You took a sip of your coffee. “Wasn’t there a point where you asked if he was seeing anyone or if he was married?” You couldn’t see how that would never cross a person’s mind

“It did, but we were having such a good time, I didn’t want to think anything was wrong. He never talked about you, and I never thought to bring it up. He seemed so sweet and decent, I didn't think there was any way he could do something like that.”

“You never thought to ask if he was single or taken?” That sounded incredulous to you. “Did he ever ask you?” At that point you were starting to believe that the man you loved really didn’t love you and this was just a confirmation. “I’m going to be frank with you. He and I are going through a tough situation and JJ was the cause of it and then you showed up and things got worse, I’d really appreciate it if you could tell me what exactly it was that you two did so much that he couldn’t bat an eye at me.” You moved your hands under the table to hide their trembling.

She took a breath. “Okay, well, first of all, I didn’t mean to make anything worse. I’ve never intended to cause issues in a marriage. But, all we did was go to lunch, dinner… We went to a few museums and shops. He gave me a couple of things.”

“Were there ever moments where you two got to be closer than friends?” You massaged one temple trying to think things through like Dex had told you to. “I’m just trying to figure all this out and I’d like to know everything, if you could tell where you guys went and what you did I would really appreciate that.” You were being sincere as much as it pained you, this needed to be done there was so much you were unsure of and Max was the key to knowing the truth. “ Do you have pictures by any chance?”

“I have a few. Yeah.” She pulled her phone out and began to show you pictures. “This was us at the science museum. This was us at the park.” She glanced at you, making a face of worry. “I know this is probably really weird, but as you can see we’re never kissing or holding hands.” She put her phone away, sighing before trying to list everywhere they went. “We talked about books, movies, a little bit about his work, but that was only for a few minutes. He gave me some of his favorite books to read, and showed me a few poems. He told me places I should go visit.”

Hearing all of this was hurting you far worse than you thought it would. He gave her the books that you had given to him, the places they went to were some of the few places that only you and him had ever gone to.the same poems he showed to her were the ones he would recite to you when he felt that they were meant for you. Your shoulders sag and you wanted to hate her but you couldn’t she did know he was married he chose to keep that from her. He chose to keep you hidden from his life to someone else and that, that's what broke your heart. “Did he ever hint at wanting more than what you two had?” you hoped this would give you the answer to the question that's still gnawing at you.

“Not really, no. He made it clear he liked being around me but…” She bit her lip. “I was falling for him. I was going to tell him I loved him, soon. Probably the next time we met. That was before I found out he was married though. But I still can’t turn off those feelings, that's why I came to the hospital, I think…. Because I love him, and if he died…”

“If he died what? He died knowing that you fell in love with him?!” you winced hearing your voice rise. “I’m sorry but knowing that he’s married you shouldn’t have even thought of that, it’s bad enough I had to deal with JJ doing the same shit while I was away for work but I don’t need someone else doing that and especially not now when he’s like this.”

“I know. I shouldn’t be here but… I had to be true to myself. I love Spencer, and I wanted to tell him that, but… I won’t get in the way of your marriage. I’d still like to be his friend and I won’t let us go anywhere past that.”

“I don’t really know much about you so it’s hard for me to even trust you’ll keep that promise and that you won't try later on.” you finished your coffee cup “But I do appreciate you telling me everything that’s happened.”

She nodded. “Of course. If I was married, I’d want the same courtesy. Besides, you’re really intimidating.” She nervously laughed.

“You smiled a little at that. “I don’t do it on purpose, it's just part of the job.” you make a move to leave. “I should probably get back. I need to check on Spencer.”

“Right, yeah, of course. I’m just gonna go. I’m so sorry to have come, but… now at least you know the truth. I hope whatever damage I caused, you two can fix it.”

“I’ll let him know you stopped by to say hello, and I hope we can fix this too.” You nod your head and head back to the room.

You headed back, and Diana had a hold of his hand. A few hours later, he opened his eyes and he was fully awake. After they ran some more tests, they cleared him. His bleeding had stopped and he was going to be okay. Diana said she was tired and she went back to the live-in home, wishing you both a good night.

Now that Spencer was finally lucid, you were sitting beside his bed, holding his hand.

“Hey,” you softly said. “I thought I lost you there for a while. I came home from the hotel and found you on the floor. I’ve never been more scared in my life.”

Spencer smiled at you.

“I wondered if the last thoughts in your head were about Max,” you admitted with a bit of an embarrassed laugh.

He shook his head. “No. They weren’t about Max. I was thinking about the case. Everett Lynch is still alive.”

“We know, sweetie,” you assured. “The team is tracking him, we’ll find him.” You bit your lip to look down for a second. “Spencer, I talked to Dexter, and actually Max stopped by too.”

“Oh? What did they have to say?”

You noticed he didn’t ask about why Max was here. “I had talked to Dexter and he made me realize that I was overreacting and I didn’t give you a chance to explain yourself and try to see your side of this.” You looked away from him, not being able to meet his eyes about Max.

“Well, that’s good. He won’t hurt any more women… Y/N… I’m so sorry that you were put in the position to even think I was thinking of another woman before I collapsed… I never should’ve done that to you. You’re right. I was completely in the wrong for keeping you a secret from each other. I just… It was nice to talk to someone who had nothing to do with work, or Miami, any of it. It was a breath of fresh air. But I made you feel second best, and you’ve never done that to me. Ever… I should’ve paid you the same respect.”

“Thank you, Spence…” You really didn’t know what to say. Things were happening left and right and you didn’t know what to believe. “I just wish you’d thought of giving me that respect before all of this happened.” You still couldn’t look at him. “We spoke… Maxine and I.”

He made a look of uncertainty and worry. “Really? How did that go? She came by? What did she have to say? Why was she here?”

“She… She came to see you and well we got to talking and she confessed that she’s in love with you and that if you died she wanted to do right to herself and tell you.” you moved yourself away from him a bit. “She told me about everything Spencer. The places you guys went to, the books you gave her” you looked away trying to calm your emotions. “Why Spencer? What happened to those places being just for us, I gave you those books.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Nothing. And everything. I know the case in Miami is done but that doesn’t mean my head or my heart were in the right place. I was in profiler mode the whole time we were down there. Working the case, protecting you. Then we got back here,and reality hit me of everything that had happened. And I just wanted the taste of a normal life for a little bit with someone that wasn’t on the team or even you. It wasn’t a romantic choice. It could’ve been anyone. It just happened to be her. I’m sorry that she told you she loves me… That.. that was never my intention. I just wanted a friend, a close friend, a good friend like you and Dexter. I needed to digest everything that happens, and at the same time, be away from it all with someone who could just be my friend, not a profiler or a killer. But I don't love her… at all. I love you, and only you. It’s always only been you, I swear.”

“Spence, it's hard for me to believe that, all of the things she told me you did were the exact same thing we did when we first got together, how do you expect me not to feel like i’ve been pushed aside for someone new,” There was no stopping the tears. “Like you said she’s outside of all of this I wouldn’t put it past you to move on from me.”

He reached over, taking your hand and sitting up on his elbow. “The last thing I will ever want or do is move on from you. I didn’t spend the last several months using every waking moment trying to protect you and your freedom because I don’t love you more than anyone in this world. I made a mistake. I distanced myself from you, but to be fair, you did it too.” He held up his hand to stop you from protesting. “I’m not faulting you. I know why you did it. I’m keenly aware as to why you did what you did. But the fact remains that when both of us are afraid of hurting the other person, we distance ourselves. The only problem with that logic is, the distancing ourselves does hurt. I did this all wrong. I know I did. But Max is just a friend. I was caught up with feeling.. No longer bogged down by our work, or the Miami business. For that, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for making you feel second best. I’m sorry for not making you a priority. I’m sorry for making you feel anything but all the love I have for you. I'm sorry for not handling my emotions better and coming to you when I had a problem. I can’t fix what I did, or correct my mistakes, but I’m here now, telling you that none of it matters to me anymore. All I want, all I’ve ever wanted, is you.”

“You mean it? You're not just saying this to get me to not overthink? It’s been hell, Spence. Every time I wanted to be with you, it’s like you didn’t think twice to run to meet with Max.” You looked up at him. “I was honestly waiting for you to tell me that you were leaving, that you never wanted to see me again, I wanted to blame you for this but I blame myself because if it hadn’t been for me you wouldn’t have had to find confidence and search for someone else to find some semblance of normalcy.” You wiped the tears away, not wanting to get too emotional.

He leaned all the way up and put his hand on the side of your face. It was some of the first physical contact you’d had in forever since this whole Maxine thing began. “No,” he cooed. “No, none of this is your fault, don’t even think that. I’m an adult. I should've handled it better. It’s just… well you already know I’m envious of you and Dexter. Between JJ, and Miami, and Dexter, and Maxine and our jobs in general. So much has been so messy with us lately, I didn’t even know how to begin talking to you about it. That’s my fault. Not yours. It’s a reflection of me, not you. I got caught up in distancing myself so far away from work, that I distanced you too, and I never meant to do that. I just… I want us to find our way back to each other. That’s all.”

“I would really like that too, just please no more lies?” you asked of him as you leaned into his touch realizing you’d been very deprived of his touch. “What do you say when we go back I cook you up some of your favorite foods to make you feel better?” you hoped that this would be a good start to getting back to what you two had before everything went wrong.

“Yes, please. No more lies. I swear. I’m done with Maxine. It’ll just be about us, from now on.” He promised, leaning forward to kiss you and it felt like you could finally breathe again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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#inside the criminal mind #spencer reid fic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #dexter #dexter fic #dexter morgan #dexter morgan fic

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personasintro · 5 years

Text

Hope World; 02 | jhs

Before you start reading — I just want to let you know, you’re beautiful just the way you’re. Please love yourselves!

synopsis; You’ve decided to try dancing class, but the one who teaches you how to dance actually hates you.

warnings: swearing

words count: 6.6k

chapters: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06

masterlist link

“This song is supposed to be sexy, you know.” Hoseok speaks after you stop dancing. His voice neutral — he made it sound like some statement.

“Are you calling me unsexy?” You ask unbelievably turning around to look at him — not really sure if you want to hear his answer. Knowing him, he’ll probably mock you or make fun of you.

Silence. He didn’t say anything playing the music again. He stands behind you, making you look back at him but his hands grab your hips turning you back. You shouldn’t feel his touch so pleasing, but yet you do. You try to act normal simply staring at your reflection. He is looking somewhere else, not really paying any attention to the mirror in front of you. The music stars playing and you wait couple of seconds when you feel his hands guiding your hips. He’s moving his hips as well, making sure both of your movements are synchronized. You can’t lie — the reflection of both of you moving your hips slowly to the music is hot. You suddenly feel your body getting hotter feeling his hands linger on your body.

“Okay, now let’s try it without me guiding you.” He says putting his hands away, no longer touching you. You hate how disappointment flashes through you. What the hell, Y/N?! It’s the guy who is annoyed by your presence!

You see him starting to move his hips and you quickly join, trying to feel the music. Still feeling his presence behind you, however, you can’t feel his touch. Too focused you don’t notice Hoseok, who stops moving giving you little bit space. It’s when you look into the mirror, seeing him simply watching you. You stop turning around biting the inside of your cheek. “Was it okay?”

“Yeah,” He simply nods, not adding anything more to it. “Listen, I have to cancel our next practice.” He says suddenly grabbing his phone from the floor, when the music stops.

“Oh,” You say, not really sure what to say.

“Our next practice is on Thursday, right?” He checks up with you walking to his stuff scattered on the floor.

“Yes,” You say grabbing your own stuff. It’s time to leave, your practice is the last one for today. “Can we reschedule it on Saturday or Sunday? Whatever works for you.” You propose, draping the bag over your shoulder walking closer to him.

“I don’t do weekends.” He says simply packing all of his stuff.

You stand there watching him pack and thinking, how can you solve this. “You can practice home, no?”

You could, but you barely have any space. Plus, if even you don’t want to admit it loudly — you need his guidance. “It’s not the same.” You simply explain quietly.

“I’ve already something important. I’ll see you in two weeks.” He says, not really bothering with you.

You almost huff, turning around and leaving with quiet ‘bye’. You don’t hear him saying anything back, not really surprised at this point. You got used to his personality and attitude towards you.

Putting your leather jacket on, not really caring you didn’t change your clothes. You would, but that would mean you’d abstain Hoseok and you don’t want to deal with his attitude once again. He was pretty decent today, so not wanting to ruining it, you left without changing. You’re little bit sweaty anyway and putting all those clean clothes on your sweaty body makes you disgusted.

Stepping out of the building, the chilly air hits your face and it makes you scowl. You walk down the stairs when you hear whistling. You turn around seeing two guys not far away from you, cigarettes in both of their hands. “Hey kitty!” They call out to you with chuckle, making you cringe.

Smiling at them ironically you show them your middle finger. Their laughter stops immediately giving you cold glare. You shouldn’t probably do such a thing, you should ignore them. But you hate those kind of guys, thinking they can catcalling you just because... well not apparent reason. They probably think how cool and hot they’re which bothers you even more.

“That wasn’t nice, kitty.” One of them, the taller one says walking towards you. You feel your heart beating faster and brain panicking thinking about possible escape. Smirk lingering on his lips making him look even more disgusting. Although it’s making you even more panicked knowing this doesn’t mean anything good. Holding your breath you watch with wide eyes at the guy, only like a meter away from you. He’s looking at you like you’re his prey. You quickly shift your eyes to the other guy, who simply watches him with almost admirable expression.

This isn’t good.

Strong arm sneaks around your shoulder making you almost jump. “Is everything alright?” You hear deep and almost threatening voice. Hoseok.

You look sideways seeing his sharp jawline being locked looking coldly at the guy in front of you. He’s no longer walking towards you, Hoseok’s voice making him stop. Your beating heart calms down little bit feeling safe with Hoseok. Wanting nothing more than move closer to him to let all the fear disappear. “Do you want something or?” He barks at the guy, when no one answer his first question. You almost jump from his louder voice.

The guy puts his hands in surrender backing out without any words. He quickly comes back to the other one, both of them watching the two of you. Before you properly look at them, Hoseok turnes you around — hand still around your shoulders clenching it little bit harder. He walks you to his car which he opens in the process. He leads you to the passenger seat, opening the door for you. You quickly sit not questioning him. As long as you are far away from those guys.

When he sits in the driver seat, he doesn’t start the engine — simply looking in front of himself. Awkwardly sitting there, you’re about to say probably lame ‘thank you’, when his voice booms around the car. “What the fuck did you think?” He barks at you just like he did with that guy back there, however he’s slightly louder this time.

“Me? What did I do?” You ask offended not really getting why he’s so rude to you.

“Why didn’t you ignore them? Do you know how dangerous they could be?!” He almost yells, sighing annoyingly right after.

“I fucking know, Hoseok!” You yell at him suddenly, not expecting him and by judging his look, neither did he. “How is this even my fault? They were fucking rude to me.” You say more calmly this time, not really in the mood for fighting. You’re still processing what happened. God knows what would happened if he didn’t come to save you.

“Giving them middle finger isn’t exactly a smart thing.” He says ironically making you even more pissed.

“You know what? Thank you. But I’m not really in the mood for this. I’m just gonna go and—“ You say already going to open the door when you hear little click. He locked the door. “What are you doing? Unlock it.” You demand turning around to look at him.

His brown eyes simply watched you. “No.”

“I’m not kidding. Let me out.” You say trying to sound stern, but he only shakes his head.

“You’re fucking dumb, I swear.” He says suddenly turning the engine on. “You want to go, then go. But they’re still standing there and I’m sure the minute you step out of this car they’ll be back. You’re playing with fire.” He simply explains, surprisingly calm.

He’s right. Even though you’re so angry at him, more at his attitude, he’s right. You know you wouldn’t be safe all alone in the streets. With them in the streets. “Fine.” You mumble already turning your head towards the window.

“Fine. Now give me your address.” He demands and you quickly obey appreciating him for giving you a ride.

None of you say one word on the way to your home, awkward silence filling the car. Even radio wasn’t playing and the only thing you could do, was staring out of the window appreciating the city. Thankfully, it only took five minutes ride to your apartment building. He parked exactly at the front of the entrance. Quickly unbuckling your seatbelt you get out of the car. Leaning little bit so you could see him better. He neutrally looks straight at you, making you caught off guard little bit. “Thank you.” You say staring right back into his dark eyes. Both of you knowing, you’re not only thanking for the ride.

He simply nods, so you shut the door walking to the entrance. You’re debating whether to wave him or something, but decide not to when you hear his car roar and just like that, he’s gone. You watch his car disappear, sigh leaving your lips.

Walking inside your little apartment, familiar scent filling your nose. You sadly sigh when there’s no one. You moved here to get out from your family — as sad as it sounds, it’s true — you wanted to live in peaceful environment, trying to be on your own. You thought you’d get used to being alone, but it’s been one year since you moved out already, and you still feel like something is missing. Someone who’s waiting for you when you come home. You could get a cat or a dog, but since you’re barely home — it wouldn’t be really a smart decision.

You’re taking your shoes off, when your phone rings announcing you coming call. You almost roll your eyes when big ‘MOM’ flashes on the screen. You love your mom and appreciate everything she has done for you, she raised you after all. But her constant nagging at you was one of the reasons why you actually left. You wouldn’t mind talking with her, if she isn’t actually video calling you. You accept the call already knowing what’s about to happen.

Her face appears on the screen, little bit blurry but you can still see her. “Hey, mom.” You sigh walking to your little couch, finally sitting after a long day.

“Why haven’t you called?” She’s not greeting you back, her question thrown at you right after. Little scowl is on her perfect face.

“I’m sorry, I was so busy.” You say trying to balance the phone on your table with a book, so you don’t have to hold your phone. “I just came home.”

“Well, you look awful so I believe you.” She says with little laugh.

You laugh with her, but your laugh is fake. Trying not to show how her words are affecting you. “You look chubby.” She comments suddenly.

Your heart clenches by her words and you quickly bit your lip to prevent it from going downwards. “Do I?” You ask quietly, checking yourself in the camera. You have little bit of belly fat, but other than that you don’t look any different than the last time she saw you. Plus your weight has been probably the same, not really sure since you don’t check it anymore. Too scared your mom’s right.

“Yes. Are you active enough? Maybe you should try running, me and your dad are going for the run almost everyday.”

Mentally rolling your eyes, you simply nod to her words. “I am. I’m having a dance class once a week, I actually came from one right now. That’s why I look awful.” You try to convice your mom and also yourself, for your look.

The worst thing about it is, you don’t think you look awful. Okay, your skin is little sweaty and cheeks flushed but other than that, you don’t look that bad. But your mom words are having some kind of spell on you. You suddenly feel ugly and all you want to do it wash all the sweat and trying to look as best as you can, even though you’re home alone and you’d probably go sleep right away after your shower.

“Honey, once a week isn’t enough.” She comments and you feel like crying. You’re never enough for her. “If it’s about money, I’ll pay for your additional classes.”

“It’s not about money. It’s exhausting dancing even a once week since I’ve an actual job.” You stand up for yourself.

“I know, but you could always try harder.” She says with soft look and it makes you even more sad.

You just nod, grabbing your phone. “I’ve to go and take a shower. I’ll talk to you later, mom. Bye.” You say with fake smile.

She smiles at you saying ‘bye’ before your call ends. And yet again, you’re alone in your small apartment with all the thoughts.

“I’m gonna have chicken salad, thank you.” You say kindly at the waitress, sensing Namjoon’s weird look your way.

The waitress writes it down before nodding and leaving your table. “Chicken salad? What have you done with my food lover Y/N?” Namjoon says amusingly but his smile fades away when he sees your serious gaze.

“I’m just craving for some salad.” You say simply while shrugging your shoulders.

“Yeah, and I’m not really in the mood for hiking anymore.” He says sarcastically and you roll your eyes at his comparison. “What’s going on?”

“Am I fat, Joonie?” You ask suddenly, making him caught off guard at your question. He looks at you, watching him with sad gaze. You look like little kid with eyes full of sadness.

“Are you kidding me? You look good.” He says after awhile watching your face. He knows something isn’t right. He had to practically drag you out of your apartment. You only texted but even your replies were weird, so Namjoon decided to take the matters into his hands. But when he was inviting you — more like begging you — for a dinner he didn’t expect this. His brows furrows when you give him no response back. It’s like you’re not present, deep in thoughts while little scowl is on your lips. “Where is this coming from?” He asks again gently, not trying to push too much.

You’re usually very cheerful person and most of the time both of you are joking around. But now the atmosphere is different. “I think I’ve gained a little bit of weight.” You speak, when the waitress puts the chicken salad in front of you. You almost don’t see any chicken in it, making your scowl even deeper.

“Even if you did, what’s wrong with that?” His voice booms, suddenly louder than before when the waitress leaves. Softness disappearing and he’s already staring at you with knowing eyes. “You didn’t gain any weight. Who told you that?”

The waitress comes back putting delicious steak meal in front of him, your mouth already watering at the sight. “Nobody.” You lie straight through your teeth, making him snort.

“Nobody your mom?” He calls you out of your lie. You don’t even question him how does he know that. Namjoon knows this isn’t coming from your own head. You’ve always loved your body and didn’t have any self conscious issues. But then your mom and her complains about you happened and you’d usually cry on his shoulder telling him how she’s not right. But now it’s like you believe her every word. And there’s nothing worse than human feeling ugly and self conscious.

“Y/N,” Namjoon calls out to you softly while you’re ruffling with a fork in your salad. It looks too plain for you to eat. You look up to him seeing his saddened and almost pitiful look. That’s exactly why you didn’t want to tell him. He’ll just feel sorry for you trying to change your opinion about yourself. “Don’t listen to her.”

“It’s easy thing to say,” You almost bark at him but quickly stop yourself. “Sorry.” You add immediately cursing at yourself for being such a bitch to him. He’s only trying to help you and be your best friend.

“Nah, it’s okay.” He just sways his hand at you giving you reassuring smile. “Hey, isn’t that your dance teacher?” He asks suddenly, his gaze somewhere behind you.

You turn around seeing Hoseok smiling widely, something you haven’t seen for a really long time. Tall woman with dark hair stands right beside him — his hands moving to her lower back leading her to their table. Both of you stare at them and your brows deeply furrow and you almost growl like some mad dog. You were supposed to have your dance practice, but he cancel it. You didn’t think too much about it not really care why he cancel it. The fact that he cancel it just because of date annoys and pisses you off at the same time. You were supposed to have dance practice right this moment and here he is. Grinning at the woman. They tell the waitress their order before they start talking.

“Wow, he’s a dick.” You say and sip on the wine Namjoon ordered. You didn’t think you’d drink, but now you do need it. “I can’t believe he canceled our practice because of this.” You huff gulping the whole wine.

Namjoon watches you amusingly. “Don’t get drunk. I don’t want to deal with your drunk ass for a long time.” He comments and you roll your eyes.

“I already apologized, what else do you want from me?” You ask when you remember the last time you got wasted. You were so clingy shouting on the whole street how much Namjoon means to you. It wouldn’t be that bad if you didn’t try to find him date. Shouting how great man he is and well, how big his dick is. How do you know that? Let’s say you walked out on him when he wasn’t changing his clothes. It wasn’t your fault, he was super quiet and didn’t lock his door.

“For you to stop drinking.” He says dumbfounded and you almost give him middle finger. But remember you’re in restaurant you restrain yourself and give him cold stare.

“I don’t know why you’re really mad. I said your dick is big. Would you be happier if I said it’s small?” You say quite loudly and Namjoon curse at you.

“I would be happier if you’d shut up back then. The whole street knows my dick size.” He says grumbly but amusement his eyes. He’s happy you’re finally smiling not thinking about ridiculous things like your weight.

You’re too busy messing around with Namjoon to notice Hoseok’s eyes on you. He spots you randomly while looking around the restaurant admiring the expensive environment. Annoyed look appearing on his face as soon as he sees you. You’re there laughing about something Namjoon said. He never saw you laughing like that.

His date, Hyeri, turns around and spots you. She stops talking looking at Hoseok. “Do you know her?”

His eyes quickly move away from you looking at Hyeri’s brown eyes. “Sort of.” He mumbles not really with enthusiasm.

“Oh, is she your ex?” She asks with opened mouth and Hoseok almost spits his water.

“No!” He says quickly shaking his head. “She’s in my dancing class.” He answers.

She turns around one more time glancing at you, both of them actually. But both of them are caught of guard when you look at them as soon as they do. Your talk with Namjoon ended when you felt eyes on you. And of course, Hoseok and his date are looking at you.

Yours and Hoseok’s face are covered in annoyance when your eyes meet, yours also with little anger in them. Waiting for him to look away, you’re surprised when he doesn’t. Instead you’ve a staring contest which makes you even angrier. What a dick!

Namjoon is questionably looking at you across the table but when he turns around he sees Hoseok. “I’ve never seen so much annoyance in someone’s look.” He speaks and that’s when Hoseok looks away. There is no chance he could hear Namjoon, simply looking away when he saw Namjoon looking.

“Yeah, I know. He hates me for no apparent reason.”

“Come on, I think hate is little bit too much.”

You don’t respond simply eating your salad which tastes too healthy.

Hoseok, on the other hand, is carefully listening to his date but he can’t shake the feeling of annoyance. It’s like you’re everywhere.

You finally eat your salad after some time. Namjoon was kind enough and asked if you want to swipe your meals or order something different, but you declined. You were too busy sipping on your wine not noticing how much of wine you actually drank.

“Okay, I think you’ve had enough.” Namjoon says when he sees your red cheeks and slightly brighter eyes than usual.

“Oh, come on. I’m not drunk.” You grumble but hiccup in the process — Namjoon giving you knowing look.

The waitress already took your empty plates and Namjoon payed for everything which you didn’t like at all. You were offering for paying your half but he insisted.

When you are about to walk out, you see Hoseok and that woman right behind you. You stop turning around to face them. You look straight at Hoseok with hands crossed over your chest with one eyebrow raised. “Hi, Hoseok. What are you doing here?” You ask with fake smile, quiet ‘shit’ leaving Namjoon’s mouth when he saw you talking to Hoseok.

“What does it look like?” You hear him mumble, his date giving him shocked look.

“Dick.” This time you mumble but not so quiet.

“What did you say?” He growls eyes shooting narrows at you.

“I said you, mmphhh-” Namjoon’s hand slaps against your mouth preventing you for talking. You’re trashing with your hands trying to free yourself but Namjoon is so much more stronger.

“It was nice seeing you. Bye.” He turned you around still his hand on your mouth, while you’re cursing at him.

When you’re both outside of the restaurant, he finally frees you and you don’t wait — “Why the hell would you do that?! I was ready to curse at him so bad!” You raise your fist in threatening manner but you’re looking really funny.

Namjoon laughs patting your head. “You’ll thank me tomorrow.”

The next practice came really fast — your Saturday evening spent in the practice room once again. Your last encounter with Hoseok was... weird and hazy. You weren’t that drunk so you remember you were about to confront him but thankfully Namjoon stopped you before you could. That would be super embarrassing for you.

On your way to the dance practice — only few minutes away from the building — you see the same guy who was approaching you before. Luckily Hoseok stopped him but this time, you’re on your own.

Your stomach nervously clenches when he sees you already walking to you. You’re thinking about running, your panicking face giving you away when he puts his hands in surrender. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He says but you still don’t believe him.

He puts few meters between the both of you, letting you have your own space not wanting to make you uncomfortable. “I wanted to apologize for the last time.”

You’re quiet for awhile. “I don’t care, leave me alone.” You say trying to sound harsh but instead your little shivering voice gives you away.

“Okay, just tell your boyfriend I won’t be a problem anymore.”

Your boyfriend?

“What?”

He looks dumbfounded for a second. “Your boyfriend. I don’t want any troubles.”

“What do you mean by my boyfriend?” You ask curiously, fear slowly fading away.

“That guy who was with you. Your boyfriend, right?” He asks with a raised brow already questioning you. Does he mean Hoseok?

“Oh, yeah.” You nod knowingly trying to fool him.

“Once again, sorry.” He says before quickly disappearing.

You let out the big breath you were holding quickly walking to the studio. Hoseok? What did he mean by your boyfriend and ‘I don’t want any troubles’? Did he get so scared from his intimidating look? Well, he can be intimidating, but guy like him couldn’t get absolutely scared of that only.

Your practice is surprisingly pretty much normal and it makes you feel weird. Hoseok is barely talking to you, only pointing out your mistakes and explaining to you without any insults or jabs like usually. On the other hand you’re mostly quiet, only nodding to his explanations.

When your class ends, you instantly grab your water bottle chugging almost all of it in one go. Hoseok is packing his own stuff when you’re staring at him. “Hey,” You speak catching his attention. He turns to you only halfway still packing his stuff. “Did you tell something to that guy?”

He pauses his movements but then continue again. “What guy?”

“That guy in front of the building. You know that one—“

“Yeah, I know. What about him?” He interrupts you. He’s rude but you’re curious so you’ll let it slide this time.

“I met him before I came here and...” You say and he turns around abruptly listening to you. His sudden attention making you surprised and kind of shy to keep talking, but nevertheless you continue. “He said something like he doesn’t want any troubles from you. Something like that.”

He’s quiet for awhile before coughing, picking up his sport back. “And?”

“Well he stopped me,” You start seeing his eyes rummaging through your body, almost like looking for something. “And he made it sound like you said something to him. You really scared him.”

“And what if I did?” He asks looking up at you with those dark brown eyes. So he did say something to him.

“Nothing. I wanted to thank you, I guess. It looks like he won’t bother me anymore.” You say softly.

“It doesn’t mean someone else won’t try. You’re an adult you should be able take care of yourself.”

“I’m taking care of myself. What are you talking about?” You ask defensive, your hands in fists without you realizing it.

“Are you, though? You’re not reliable. You’re rummaging through the streets all alone in this time. Buy a fucking car or ask your boyfriend to come get you. He brings you food and umbrella but can’t fucking make sure you’re safe.” He bursts out with venom in his voice making you look at him with wide open mouth.

You haven’t definitely expected this sudden outburst. Once again with that boyfriend insult. If you didn’t know him, you’d say he sound jealous. But it only looks like he’s only angry. And that’s the truth. Hoseok doesn’t really know why he outburst at you so much. But you irritate him to the point he’s in no control. You’re annoying to him and for some reason he doesn’t like your presence. You’re like little baby who always needs someone to take care of you. It’s like you’re not thinking rationally. And it pisses him off so much.

“My boyfriend? Why are you even insulting Namjoon? And I’m not reliable? I don’t know who’s the one who canceled our practice to go on fucking date!” You yell at him, your voice booming throughout the room.

“You went on it as well! What’s the difference?!” He yells back, his voice red from the anger.

“It wasn’t date! And I wasn’t the one who canceled it!”

He says massaging his temples trying to calm down himself but fails miserably when another insult comes your way. “Fuck, you irritate me so much!”

“Likewise!” You yell back trying to hold back yourself and not jumping at him and ruining his pretty face.

“Excuse me?!”

“You heard me, you asshole!” You scream and screech when he’s suddenly right in front of you. Your voice a few inches away from each other. You can see little sweat on his voice but he still looks and smell amazing. It’s not fair!

“Say that again.” He dares you with low voice and you almost shudder from the sudden vibration of his voice.

“Are you deaf or something?” You ask amusingly and it makes him narrow his eyes at you.

His eyes shifting on your face, you starting to feel uncomfortable from his sudden closeness. But you can’t help and feel little tinkling in the pit of your stomach.

“You’re fucking childish.” He spits and all the tinkling is far forgotten.

You gasp feeling rightfully insulted. “Me? You’re fucking childish, Hoseok! You know what? You hate me for no reason! That’s fucking childish!” You spit back at him — almost screeching how loud your voice is.

Because in fact — you’ve really no idea why he hates you so much. It’s not like you gave him any reason, at least you think so.

He is speechless for a moment, surprised by your sudden confidence. You’ve never talked to him this disrespectfully but he couldn’t really think you’d be respectful when he isn’t. He stands there sending you killing glares debating what should he do next. “I’m done here.” You say already turning around ready to pick up your own stuff and leave.

But you’re surprised when he grips your shoulders turning you around to face him once again. He pushes your body into the mirror, not too strong but you’re still surprised by the coldness of the glass and his actions. “You want to know why I despite you?” He growls into your face. You can feel his breath and see all the imperfections on his face, but nevertheless he still looks good.

He’s not waiting for your answer. “You’re not taking none of this seriously! You want to dance? Then do something for it! You annoy me so fucking much! You’re everywhere I go!”

He’s insane. That’s the first thing that crosses your mind. You’re not taking this seriously? What should you do? “I’m not taking this seriously? I came here to have dance classes. I’m not going on any competition.” You say calmly already tired from all the screaming and arguing.

“This is exactly it! You’re wasting my fucking time!”

Your blood starts to boil at his words. You’re paying his for your classes and the reason why you’re taking it in the first place, is none of his business. You pay him and that’s it. “Okay, then I’ll leave!” You scream into his face.

He growls pushing you into the mirror — his hand gripping your neck. His touch isn’t rough at all, he’s simply holding you in place. Although you should be freaking out by his hand on your neck, you’re not. You feel rush of adrenaline in your body and the sudden tickling in the pit of your stomach comes back. You almost want to laugh at that — you’re getting turned on by his actions. He’s staring straight into your eyes with hateful gaze. Both of your eyes snaps to each other’s lips and you feel sudden tension. But not only some tension — sexual tension. You’re both breathing heavily, your faces flushed and bodies really close to each other. You can feel the heat vibrating from his body. You hate yourself for wanting to kiss him so bad. What surprises you most is his look. He’s looking at you almost hungrily and you’re sure he’s feeling it too. The sexual tension in the air. He rest his forehead against yours, your noses slightly touching. He breathes out and pulls away.

“We should go,” He speaks turning around not even looking at you. You’re standing there frozen not believing what almost happened. “I’ll give you a ride.” He speaks but you only snort in response.

You pick up your sport bag not bothering putting the jacket on or even changing your clothes. “No, thanks. I’m wasting your time anyway.” You huff trying to leave but he stands in front of the door before you could. You know you’re acting childish and after everything you’d really appreciate a ride home, even if it’s from him. But the things he said to you made you so angry. You just want to be away from him and his awful attitude.

You both stand there staring at each other with cold eyes. “Stop being childish.” He sighs.

“You’re such a dick.” You spit pushing him into his chest and man, is it hard. He’s probably working out because his body is tough. He doesn’t move an inch simply clenching his jaw. “What? Am I being childish again?” You say ironically provoking him.

And it works. In one swift movement he pushes your body, back colliding with the door. He’s trapping you there with his hands — each one on the sides of your head. He smashes your lips together so hard that your head smashes against the door as well, but you don’t care. You’re embarrassed because you’re enjoying the feeling of his lips on yours. And you hate for it — because it feels too good. It doesn’t last very long when he pushes himself off you, his eyes slightly wide. He can’t believe he kissed you. He wasn’t planning any of it and you can see his panicky look.

“Sorry,” He speaks, fingers brushing through his hair in nervous state.

“Why are you apologizing?” You ask with raspy voice.

“I shouldn’t have, uh, kissed you. I don’t know what came over me. You’ve a boyfriend and still—“

“I don’t,” You speak rolling your eyes off. “Namjoon isn’t my boyfriend, never was.” You explain.

He opens his mouth but quickly closes it. “Doesn’t matter, I shouldn’t have jumped onto you.” He says regretting what he did. He’s having a inner battle with himself.

“I’d have pushed you away, if I didn’t like it.” You say before you can really think about your words and how they might sound like.

He closes his eyes for a second before looking at you. “Let’s go. I’ll drive you home.” He mumbles. You’re ready to complain when he shuts you up with another of his cold glares. Great.

You haven’t seen Hoseok for almost a week. After he drove you, which the whole way to your home was filled with silence again, he simply left. You didn’t even expect nothing more from his. You couldn’t believe he kissed you. But his words stacked with you.

You annoy me so fucking much.

You’re wasting my fucking time.

You thought you’d simply try and ignore those words but you can’t. You don’t really want to see him anymore — at least not know. Thoughts about how you should simply cancel those dance practices have crossed your mind couple of times. That’s why you’ve decided not to come on today’s practice. Texting Hoseok “sorry can’t come tonight”, not really expecting any answer.

But then you texted the same text twice in upcoming weeks. You had a lot of thinking to do and you’ve finally came to conclusion. You decided to simply cancel all your dance practices.

Your heart nervously hummers in your chest when you’re in front of the familiar door — the practice room. You hear loud music booming inside and you know you’ll miss this place, even not so beautiful memories are there. Not bothering with knocking — he wouldn’t hear it anyway — you walk in seeing couple of other guys dancing.

You can see Hoseok almost immediately, him standing in the middle perfectly moving his body. Black cap is covering his hair but you can still see his face in the reflection of the mirror.

You lean against the wall simply watching them dancing. All of them are really good, including Jungguk — whom you can see wearing all black. You recognize him after some time.

You’re watching their dancing in the mirror and you almost gasp when Hoseok notices you. His eyes looking at you for a moment before adverting his gaze. The song is coming to an end and all of them starts breathing heavily. Everyone walking to their bags already chunking the water. Jungguk notices you and waves at you with bunny smile. You wave him back with friendly smile noticing Hoseok coming your way.

“I wasn’t expecting you.” He says with breathy voice. You missed his voice. You want to slap yourself as soon as these words crosses your mind.

What the hell, Y/N?

“Yeah, I came to give you this.” You say, white envelope in your hands. Paper hiding the money you’re supposed to give him for your dance classes.

“You could’ve give it to me on our next class. You didn’t have to bother.” He shrugs taking the envelope.

“About that,” You start, suddenly feeling nervous. Your hands are getting sweaty and your heart starts beating little bit faster. Why are you so nervous? “I’m done.”

“Done?” He’s taken a back for awhile his eyebrows furrowing little bit not really understanding you.

“With our classes. I won’t be going anymore.” You say confidently.

It’s hard to read his emotions when he’s looking at you with absolutely neutral look. Almost like he didn’t hear you, but you know he did.

“Look, if it’s because of the kiss—“

“No,” You interrup him while shaking your head. “It’s because it’s not good for the both of us. We clearly don’t like each other, you made it really clear.” You explain your exact feelings.

He just stands there staring at you, like he’s not believing you. “Thanks for the classes. You’re really good teacher. Goodbye, Hoseok.” You say with slight smile quickly leaving out of the room, not waiting for his response. It didn’t look like he was going to give you one.

But what you don’t know is — Hoseok still standing on his spot hating the weird feeling inside him. You telling him goodbye, hinting that you won’t see each other makes him panicking. And he hates that weird confusing feeling. Of course it touches every teacher when his ‘student’ leaves. But this is somehow different. Even though you annoyed the shit out of him, how Hoseok always thought so, he awfully dislikes the fact that you simple left. What Hoseok doesn’t know is Jungguk standing a few meter away from him, hearing the whole conversation between you and him.

His brows furrowed walking towards Hoseok. “What did you do to her?” He speaks and Hoseok quickly turns around to Jungguk.

“What do you mean?” He acts like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but the weird heavy feeling is still in his chest.

“I don’t know her that well, but I’m sure she didn’t deserve any of your shit attitude. I didn’t know you’re such an jerk, hyung.” He says. In other times Hoseok would probably scold him for talking to him that way, but this time he doesn’t. He knows Jungguk is right.

“She annoyed me so much. You wouldn’t understand. She didn’t take the dance seriously. She wouldn’t practice and I don’t really know why she applied for this in the first place.” He tries to justify his behavior towards you but he fails miserably when Jungguk ironically snorts.

“So what? Not everyone takes it so seriously. Not everyone has this passion for the dance, like you do. You can’t really hate someone because of that. She payed you for the dance classes and that’s it.”

He hates how his younger friend is right. He feels so stupid for treating you that way. You still annoy him but he never felt regret before. But now, he knows that awful feeling. It’s regret.

“You better make it better, because you’re much more better person than that.”

Jungguk’s words echoing in Hoseok’s head and yet again, he hates how right Jungguk is.

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swimmingnewsie · 4 years

Text

Of Coffee and Cookies (Chapter 2)

I’m glad to see everyone enjoyed the first chapter! I’m having a lot of fun writing this AU, getting to explore these characters in a new way. I hope you all continue to enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing it.

Enjoy!

Link to Chapter 1 Link to AO3

—

When Elsa was working, she could ignore many things. She had missed many a visitor because she was focused so intently on a research article. Many phone calls and texts went unanswered in the swarm of working on her dissertation. Anna had always told her she was jealous of her focus, but in reality it was easy to get swept up in it all. If she was working, she wasn’t worrying, and that worked well enough for her. But there was one breach in that focus.

Well, three breaches actually: Olaf, Marshmallow, and Bruni.

Like she could everything else, Elsa could ignore her cats whines and meows as they played with one another, desperate to distract their owner. Anna kept them occupied during the daytime before she went to work, but nighttime was all her responsibility. But there was only so much she could take, before she could give into their pleas. So, Elsa usually went to Anna’s work for her lunch break, dropping off food often forgotten in their fridge and set up shop in the cafe for a bit to work, leaving her small friends to do their own thing until she came back from working. Then it was playtime, much to the delight of her small friends.

Today, however, the stars had aligned in Anna remembering to bring her lunchbox and Elsa having a breakthrough idea for her latest project, leaving her to work uninterrupted for five hours after her lecture. Well uninterrupted until Olaf decided he had enough and that it was supper time, pawing at Elsa’s legs meowing for attention.

“All right, all right,” she murmured, her annoyance gone when the white cat crawled up into her lap. “I guess it is dinner time, huh,” she said looking up at the clock, stroking his fur. 7:28. Certainly a productive evening for sure.

“Come on. Go find your brothers. “ Elsa dropped Olaf and sent him off while she went to the kitchen. She was surprised that they hadn’t whined earlier for food. Unless, she had ignored it. And now her cats were actually starving and it was all her fault and-

“Breathe,” she told herself, catching the thought pattern. “They’re fine. They aren’t going to starve because I fed them an hour late.” Elsa shook her head and got back to the task at hand, opening the bag of dry food. All three of her cats ran at the sound of their food, Bruni and Marshmallow swatting at her legs. It gave her a good laugh. “Settle, you two. I can only pour so fast.”

All three cats content in eating, Elsa wandered to her pantry to figure out what she needed to do for her own food. She ended up settling on a simple pasta meal for her and Anna, a bit too frayed to get into cooking like she normally would. Then it occurred to her to check her phone, see if Anna was doing okay at work.

Three new messages. That was odd.

Two were from Anna telling her about her day and reminding her to eat at some point and give their cats a snuggle for her. “Already taken care of that,” Elsa laughed to herself. She was grateful for her sisters messages.

But the third message was odd.

Hi, thank you for getting my coffee today! I had a really rough one and needed it. Maybe we can talk again sometime?

It was an unknown number, and she hadn’t stepped foot in the cafe today. Maybe it was a wrong number?

I’m sorry I think you might have the wrong number? I didn’t buy anyone coffee today? Sorry.

She responded and was ready to move on until her phone vibrated once more.

Is this not Elsa? I’m sorry, I’m reading the phone number off a coffee cup it’s hard to read.

She was ready to kill Anna when she got home. She dialed the familiar number on her phone, ready to demand an explanation.

“Mermaid’s Siren on 5th and Oak, this is Kristoff. How can I help you?”

“Hey Kristoff, it’s Elsa,” she said trying to keep her composure. “How long until Anna’s last ten?”

“I’d guess about thirty minutes? What’s up? Is everything okay?”

Elsa subconsciously nodded. “We’re fine. It seems my sister is quite the trickster and I’m going to kill her.”

“So she texted you?”

Elsa huffed. “So you knew about this?”

“I didn’t see the phone number until after I handed it out. Sorry, Els.” She could hear him sigh over the phone, just as exasperated as she was. “So are you going to text her back?”

“What am I going to say? ‘Sorry my sister is playing matchmaker and even though you’re really pretty this is not the way to go about it.’?”

“So you do think she’s pretty.” Elsa could almost hear the smirk in his voice. “Look, maybe you should talk to her. You’ve certainly got your foot in the door. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Elsa sighed. “You’re no help. Get back to work, I’ll bug Anna in 30.”

“Alright, talk at you soon, Elsa.”

I am. It appears my sister Anna has been meddling again. Sorry about that. She thinks I don’t socialize enough. But I hope your coffee was good!

Friendly, but not too serious. Secretly, Elsa hoped the woman texted her back as she turned back to her stove. And sure enough, a small buzz went off, making her heart flutter.

Well it’s nice to meet you regardless. I’m Honeymaren, but my friends call me Maren. It was actually tea and it was delicious! Well even if your sister is a trickster maybe we could get together and talk some time? Always nice to have more friends.

Elsa felt the blood rushing to her face, infinitely glad she was home alone at the moment. Honeymaren- no Maren- wanted to be friends? This was not how she was expecting this night to go. She was still certainly irritated that Anna had given her phone number out without telling her. But maybe this was worth pursuing.

I teach MWF until 3:00 but after that one day? Or TR my schedule is a bit more flexible.

She sent out the message before she could chicken out. Why was she even nervous? It was just an offer to hang out. “Because you’ve had an anxiety disorder since you were 12, stupid,” she mumbled. She called herself a name, she noted. “Not stupid. Reframe the thought. You’re just feeling bashful. It’s okay to have nerves.” Recovery was annoying to remember sometimes.

The buzz took her attention again.

I teach everyday haha. How is Tuesday at 4:00? Maybe we could grab a coffee and take a walk?

It made her smile. Anna would probably tease the poor girl relentlessly, but they wouldn’t be in the shop long even if she did.

That sounds perfect.

Elsa was still going to yell at her sister later. But maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

—

“Mare, you’re going to get coffee and go for a walk. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Maren sighed as she drove them. She had decided to drive Ryder to the gym so that she had an out if need be. “It just feels this way. I don’t know, something just feels different.”

Ryder rolled his eyes, situating himself. “You’re a math teacher, not an English teacher. Stop reading too much into this and enjoy yourself.”

Maren stuck her tongue out at her brother. “You only say that because you haven’t been on a date since we were 16.”

“Low blow.” He dramatically turned away from her, staring out the window.

“Doesn’t make it any less true,” she teased affectionately as she pulled into the gym’s parking lot. “Get going, you bum. Your boys are waiting. See you around 6:00?”

He gave her a light shove with his backpack. “Yeah. Let me know if you all need a little longer. Or a hotel room.”

Maren shoved her brother right back. “Now who’s reading too much in things?”

“Always be prepared and remember a condom!” Ryder laughed as he left the car. He blew her a kiss, and she flipped him off. Traditional parting words.

Maren knew she was overthinking. Like her brother had said, it really was just a cup of coffee and a walk. Even if she hoped that perhaps this could become something more. She barely knew anything about Elsa. She was her favorite barista’s sister. She spent an inordinate amount of time reading about microbiology and glaciers. She was the most gorgeous woman Maren had ever met in her life. That wasn’t much if anything to build a relationship on. And yet, she still felt that desire to know more.

Before she knew it, she had pulled into the parking lot of Mermaid’s Siren. It was packed as always for the time of day. Perhaps it really was better that they were going out instead of enjoying a cup in the cafe. They’d have more privacy to say the least.

Entering the cafe, she couldn’t see the girl’s signature platinum blonde hair anywhere. It had always fascinated her, she had never seen someone with hair like that that seemed natural. Perhaps it was natural, it just seemed odd in contrast to her sister’s vibrant red hair. Taking a deep breath, she headed to the register and gave her order to the barista- it was one of the younger kids today. She thanked the young girl, paid, and went to a table to wait.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to wait long. Elsa ran into the cafe a few minutes later obviously a bit panicked over her lateness. “Elsa?” she asked cautiously.

“Hi- um- Hi, Maren,” Elsa said, clearly out of breath. “I’m- I’m sorry I’m late. Were you waiting long?”

“No, not long at all,” Maren gave a small laugh. Elsa was cute when she was flustered like this. The few stray strands falling out of her braid only exaggerated the feeling. “Go ahead and order. There’s no rush.” Elsa hurried off with a silent thanks. Maren couldn’t wait to see where this would go.

—

“So you’re a teacher too?”

“Sort of. Graduate student, teaching assistant, researcher, somewhat a professor? It’s a big mess when you get to the doctoral level as far as what your actual job is. But it pays enough for the apartment and the cats, so who am I to complain?”

Elsa could feel herself truly relaxed as they walked, something she hadn’t felt with a stranger in quite some time. Maren had suggested that they went to walk over to a nearby park and there couldn’t have been a better idea. The leaves were just starting to change color as the early autumn breeze brushed by them. It was quiet but not silent and everything just felt right.

Elsa’s thoughts on her employment made Maren laugh. It was such a beautiful sound, something she wished would never vanish. “Well, at least they pay you better than me. Teaching 150 eleven-year-olds does not pay as much as I put in. But like they say, you don’t get into education for the money.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” Elsa agreed. “If you take out the tuition remission, I’d say it’s a lot closer than you think.” The worries started to creep in the back of her head. You weren’t supposed to talk about things like wages and pay on a first date. No no, that establishes some power dynamic. Wait was this even a date? It felt like a date. But she didn’t even know-

Maren nodded oblivious to Elsa’s worries. “I’m sure I’ll know soon enough. I wanna go back and get my masters soon. I just- I love it so much and want to know even more, be that about math or about teaching. Did you have to take the GRE?”

Elsa sighed, happy the topic had changed to a more neutral topic. “Unfortunately yes. I’m a biologist! I shouldn’t have to go and take a vocabulary test there is no list to study from!”

Maren laughed again making Elsa’s heart warm. “Precisely! I’m just having so much trouble studying for it because of that. It’s stupid. They should just keep the argument and math sections. Those are the important ones. Or at least weight them differently based on your programs.”

A lightbulb went off in Elsa’s mind. “Well, I could help you study if you want? I did pretty well, 165.” Shit. Power dynamics again. She needed to stop this before she came off as some arrogant-

“Seriously? I would love that!”

Thank goodness. The anxieties melted as Elsa smiled and nodded at her. “Absolutely. Maybe this weekend? We could meet up at the cafe again, get some things started? I’m sure I’ve got my notes still.”

“Perfect. The only thing I have going is brunch with my parents and Ryder- shit!” Maren’s eyes widened. “Sorry, I just, what time is it?”

Elsa waved her hand. “No no, don’t worry. I’ve said far worse before. 6:05. Got somewhere to be?”

“I was supposed to pick up my brother at 6:00. I’m sorry to cut this short,” Maren said, embarrassment evident. “But yes, let’s plan on this weekend. I’ll text you tonight.”

“Don’t worry about it, I understand,” Elsa said, calmness in her voice. “We’ll talk tonight.”

Honeymaren smiled and reached for Elsa’s hands. She grabbed them, bringing them close to her face before pressing a light kiss on her knuckles. “I can’t wait. Until then, m’lady.”

“Good- good night then,” she sputtered, stunned by what just happened.

Elsa stood in awe watching as Maren walked back to her car, her mind playing the afternoon over and over again. She analyzed every interaction from how Maren had grabbed her hand running to look at the lake to the way she listened to her talk about microbiology. She was too anxious for this kind of thing. Or too gay. Or both.

Her phone buzzed bringing her attention back to the present.

Mermaid’s Siren 1PM Saturday? I’ll buy your coffee

She smiled.

Perfect.

#frozen #elsamaren #frohana #snow sisters #ice bros #christ i wrote 2300 words #i love these nerds #my fic

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the-sweetest-dragon · 4 years

Text

A Summer Like Never Before

- A Summer Job AU - No Pennywise - Georgie is still alive - Mostly tomfoolery -

Fandom: It

Characters: Ben, Eddie, Richie, Bev, Bill, Stan, Mike

Word Count: 1613

Ships: Eventual Benverly, Reddie, Stan x Patty

Warnings: Out of character behavior

AN: Hi! This is the seventh chapter of this series, so I have done a chapter for each loser! I’m at a bit of an impasse on which one to write for next and would love to know who’s story you’re most interested in seeing next! I have big plans for everyone of course, but knowing who you’d like to hear about would allow me to set those plans in motion. Thank you to everyone who has been reading! <3

Tags: @nerdsarebetter @audder17 @just-another-shipper-01 @sapphic-bottlexap

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six

_________________________________________

Chapter Seven

Ben Hanscom is a good person. An exceedingly good person, in fact. He had grown into himself a lot the last few years, had finally figured out what worked for him and stuck to it. Ben was no longer that chubby middle schooler that Bower’s liked to terrorize. Ben had started working out to help lose some more of the baby fat that stuck around far too long. He was looking, and feeling, good for once. And the one person he wanted to notice these changes, never seemed to look at him long enough to see them. Until now.

Ben fixed his hair in the bathroom mirror for the third time that evening. He wanted it to look just right for her. Bev was always well put together in public, every hair in place. It wasn’t that way when she was alone with the Losers, where she was crazy creative and downright wild. It had taken a few weeks for her to return to that wildness after the breakup, but she was recovering quickly, something that made Ben’s heart soar with happiness.

He’s brought out of his thoughts by a banging on the bathroom door. Ben sighs and walks out of the bathroom.

“Sorry Benny. Just wanted to make sure you hadn’t fallen in,” his mother says with a soft smile. Ms. Hanscom was a little odd, but Ben rarely worried about it. She loved him and that’s what mattered to Ben. He smiles back at her. “Ready for your date tonight? You’ve got the flowers and everything?”

“Yeah, picked them up this afternoon at Stan’s shop. He recommended daffodils, said those were her favorite.” Stan also said that Bill had never once given Bev flowers, which had made Ben both sad and happy, a conundrum he wasn’t sure how to solve. Sad because she deserved to be given flowers at any given chance, and happy because he would be the first to give her any. Ben grabs the wrapped bouquet from the kitchen table and heads out the door, keys to his mother’s car in hand.

“Alright, well you tell her hi from me ok? And take care of my car!” she yells after him. Ben walks backwards out the door, waving to his mom before he leaves.

Once outside and in the car, Ben takes a few moments to compose himself. He had been nervous the whole day, worrying over what to wear and what to say until his mom reminded him that this was Bev. Ben closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths, then turns the car on. He puts it in reverse and pulls out of his driveway, the radio playing softly in the background.

The drive to Bev’s aunt's house is short, which helps keep his nerves from fraying. As he pulls into the driveway he spots Bev sitting outside, her bright red hair softly shining in the late afternoon light. She’s smiling and sketching in her notebook when she notices Ben’s there. He watches her stand and wave at him, before disappearing into the house. Ben waits with bated breath, focusing on the chalk art in the driveway instead of his quickly fraying nerves.

When she comes back out a few moments later, Ben is stunned at how amazing she looks. Of course he always thinks she looks amazing, but this felt different. She had dressed up for him, because they were going on a date, something he had dreamed about since he moved to Derry in middle school. Bev had pulled her hair into a bun on the top of her head, with small pieces of hair falling around her face. The light caught the tendrils of hair and made them shine like a halo around her.

She reached the door of the car and gave a slight pull, frowning when it didn’t open. Ben scrambled to open the passenger door, smiling apologetically. Bev throws herself in, bouncing slightly in her seat. Ben felt his palms grow damp with nerves. This wasn’t the first time they had been in a car together, but it was certainly the first time they had been alone in a car together. Bev turned to him and smiled.

“So, what’s the plan New Kid? We just gonna sit here in my driveway or what?” she asks. Ben bites his lip and smiles. Before divulging the plan, he reaches behind her to retrieve the flowers from the backseat and hands them to her. Her eyes go wide and glossy, as if she’s trying not to cry. Ben panics slightly.

“I’m sorry! I thought they would be a good idea but obviously I was mistaken. You don’t have-” Bev cuts him off with a soft laugh.

“I’m not upset Ben. This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” She smiles and takes the flowers from him, her green eyes sparkling. Ben breathes a sigh of relief. Bev straps herself in, balancing the flowers between her knees. “Where are we going?”

Ben, being a hopeless romantic, had planned a very nice dinner in an Italian restaurant one town over. He had read that it was the most romantic spot in town and that was the atmosphere he wanted to create. Ben didn’t expect Bev to immediately fall in love with him, but he desperately wanted her to at least agree to another date. And the way to get another date is to make the first one as good as possible.

“We are going to a restaurant.” Ben smiles and starts to drive. “You look amazing by the way. Did you make it?” Bev made a lot of her own clothes, something that Ben thought was incredible. He couldn’t imagine how difficult that must be.

“I did actually, yeah.” Bev smiled and smoothed out the skirt of her dress. The deep green sundress was lovely and detailed sunflowers were embroidered on the hem. “Took me about three days to get everything to look right. I don’t think I hemmed it short enough though.” Ben choked a little, but turned it into a cough. Bev glances over with a sly smile on her face.

“Not short enough? Is that even a thing?” he tried to joke. Bev laughed, loud and happily. It was like music to Ben’s ears.

Ever since the breakup Bev had felt far away. Something had changed and Ben couldn’t figure out what it was. He thought that she had just been sad, but it wasn’t just sadness over a breakup. Something had happened between them that could never be repaired, but Ben knew better than to dig into things that were better left uncovered.

They drove peacefully for awhile, conversation flowing easily. Both are very excited to be done with high school and move on to other things, though Bev confided that she wasn’t sure she’d be going to college.

“What would you want to do then? College isn’t for everyone you know. Lots of people have very successful lives without going to college,” he says when they pull into the parking lot of the restaurant. A poignant pause is the response he gets, and Ben looks over to see silent tears streaming down Bev’s face. He unbuckles himself and leans over the console to take one of her hands. “What’s the matter Bev? Did I say something wrong? I didn’t mean-”

Bev once again cuts him off, but this time with her lips crashing into his. Shocked at first, Ben isn’t sure what to do, but then he relaxes and kisses her back. They stay like that for a few moments, lips pressed together and Ben lets himself enjoy the moment. However, the moment Ben’s moves his hand to hold her face, Bev backs away.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” she says quickly. Ben shakes his head, but she doesn’t stop talking. “That came out of nowhere I’m so sorry.” She dabs at her face and eyes, trying to rid herself of the lingering tears. Ben waits patiently, knowing that she’ll open up when she’s ready. Bev takes a deep breath, steadying herself before speaking.

“Everyday I get told that I should go to college, that it’s the only way to be successful in life. I get pushed into going on tours of colleges I don’t care about and know that I don’t have the grades to get into.” Ben nods; out of all the Losers, Bev had the worst report card. It’s not that she isn’t smart, but that the school doesn’t teach her anything worthwhile for her to learn.

“Lots of older people don’t understand that college doesn’t necessarily help you get a job anymore. Sure, it can help you gain knowledge but lots of careers don’t require that kind of knowledge.” Ben smiles softly at Bev, hoping that his words have helped at all. “And I think that whatever you do, you’ll be amazing at. College education or not.” Bev smiles, nodding along with his words.

“Thank you Ben. I needed that.” She pauses a minute, her eyebrows scrunching together slightly. “I’m sorry for kissing you. That probably came out of left field.”

“Don’t apologize. I’ve been thinking about kissing you since eighth grade when-” This time, Ben stops himself realizing that he’s said too much. Bev’s eyebrows are in her hair, they’re raised so high. Her eyes have widened to the size of saucers and Ben mentally scolds himself for being so dumb. “I’m sorry! I’ve said too much!” Bev’s look of surprise turns into a sly look that reminded Ben of a cat who had caught a canary. He was in for it now.

“Since eighth grade huh?”

#benverly #ben hanscom #beverly marsh #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #stanley uris #bill denbrough #mike hanlon #it #it chapter 2 #it chapter one #losers club #it losers #losers #a summer like never before

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hot-wiings · 4 years

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Requested By: Wattpad User

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[Edited: 11-18-19]

"Hey! That's pretty good!" "Wha-! No one asked you!" I've got myself just a little bit of love. That I wanna spend on you. But baby, I'll never get that chance. To dance that romance with you. Oh, No, cause. You're always hitting. And kicking. And putting me down. I hope you don't mean what you say. But I keep seeing you stickin' around. Like you/I can't get enough. So I stay and I wonder. How my hand would feel. Intertwined with yours. As of now though. "What are you doing?" Nothing but closed doors. My girl's a Dere. A Tsun-Tsundere. Just saying hi gets me a punch in the face. And if I should compliment her, she starts to chase.

Shoto Todoroki sat with you on the grounds of UA. You liked to sit outside for your lunch period and draw. Shoto was allowed to sit next to you on the condition he didn't talk or bother you.

You were mean to Shoto, so why did you make his heart flutter? It was stupid, but he liked talking to you. He liked complimenting you even though he knew you would just hit on him or yell at him. He liked having your attention, whether you were nice or mean.

“That's really good.”

“Shut up. Did I ask you?”

Shoto stands up from the ground and ruffles your hair as you glare at him.

“Learn to take a compliment.”

“Just go away before I punch you.”

Shoto walks away knowing you would punch him. Shoto knew he could be closed off and hard to get to know, but he was seriously trying to gain your trust. He was hoping you would warm up to him but nothing seemed to be working and it made him feel quite unlovable.

But today, instead of punching him you gave him a warning instead. That's progress, right?

"Hey! That was a direct attack!" Oh, no! The wild cat found my hiding place! "Stupid Octopus! Take it back!" "So, uh, how am I an octopus?" "How am I a cat!?" "Well-uh. Cats are cute!" "Go away!" Can we get along? You're so headstrong. There's no way, go away, now so long! Just talk to me and you will see. That's not fair, using flair you dummy. I've got myself just a little bit of love. That I wanna spend on NOT you. Cuz baby, I'm afraid you'll say. That it's not okay with you. Oh, Oh, cuz. You're always laughing. And joking. You look like a clown. But I hope you mean what you say. "I do." And I wonder what you would think. If I let my pride down, let it sink.

You frowned as you walked down the halls of UA and made your way towards your dorm room. It was a shitty day. You just wanted to lay down in your bed and sleep.

Classes were hectic today. A hero, Enji Todoroki, Shoto’s father, came and watched your classes for the day. He wanted to view Shotos progress as a hero. As a result, Shoto was with him practically the whole day.

You barely got to talk to Shoto today. When you did talk to him, he was really cold towards you. You couldn't help but feel he was cold because you’re always mean to him. Technically speaking, if he hated you it was fair. You are mean to him. He just didn't understand. You had a hard time expressing your feelings.

As you walked down yet another hall you overheard people talking. Your inner spy got the better of you and you just had to eavesdrop. You followed the voices to an empty classroom. The closer you got, you discovered it was Shoto and his father.

“I’m trying. I'm improving.”

“You call that improving? I should take you out of this school and teach you myself.”

“You can't!”

SMACK!

“Don't talk back to me boy.”

“I’m sorry, father. Please let me continue my schooling here.”

“You better improve by next semester, or else I'm pulling you.”

You hear heavy footsteps come to the door and you rummage through your bag to make it look like you weren't just eavesdropping.

“Out of my way.”

Enji brushes right past you, pushing you slightly to the side. How rude, you didn't want his filthy hands on you.

You hesitantly make your way into the classroom. Shoto was leaning against the teacher's desk, hand rubbing his red cheek.

“I’m not in the mood for whatever you have to say.”

It made sense now. It made sense why he was so cold today. If you had known his father treated him like this, you wouldn't have treated him as harsh as you do. Not that you try to be harsh, your conversations just ended like that.

“I- um... Your father shouldn't have done that.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

You walked over to him and put your hand over the hand that was covering his red cheek. He slightly flinched and guilt-filled your body out of fear you unintentionally hurt him.

“You're great Shoto. Just because you lost a spar against Bakugo doesn't mean shit.”

“Thanks.”

You remove your hand and leave the classroom with a small smile on your face. You hadn't ever spoken that nice to him before. You were making progress.

Could we hold hands, kiss? Live our lives in gentle bliss? "We could." "Ah! I'm not talking about you!" You're not my Prince in this. I'm not a Dere. A Tsun-Tsundere. I have a jello heart, I'm not that mean! I'm not blushing, I was just rushing and forgot the sunscreen! "Your smile is really cute, though." You'll never see it from underneath my pigtails! "Alright. I just wanted to let you know." "Uh-um hey..." "Are you okay?" "Yeah well..." Hey, hey are you free-free today? Oh ho ho. Why do you want to know? It's not like I like you okay! Alright cool, where do you want to go? We could rent a boat and sail. Find a bunny and feed it some juicy kale. "No that sounds really stupid."

You were in the girl's bathroom when Mina Ashido and Toru Hagakure cornered you and bombarded you with questions.

“What's your deal with Shoto?”

“What do you mean?”

“We mean do you like him?”

You scoff and squeeze past them.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

You walk out of the bathroom to which Mina and Toru just follow you.

“We can see you clearly like him. You're mean to him but you always stare at him. You also don't have a logical reason to hate him.”

“You can tell us. Were all girls here, we wouldn't tell anyone.”

You bite your lip and contemplate telling them. You were closer to them out of anyone else in the class and you were all girls. This was a safe space. You slower you’re walking pace so you can walk beside them.

“I- I love him... I just don't know how to say that to him. I always panic when I'm around him and then the first thing that comes to my mind is to say something mean. I just can’t deal with confrontations.”

“Maybe write your feelings in a letter?”

“Yeah. You could leave it in his bag, or put it in his desk.”

“And risk him rejecting me? No thanks... He probably hates me from the way I've been acting anyway.”

You should have been paying more attention. You should have thought over telling Mina and Toru. Or at least told them in your dorm away from the public ears. Shoto was standing behind you a few feet away.

“[Y/N]... You love me?”

“I... I wasn't talking about you, you dork!”

I was. I love you so much.

“If you weren't talking about me then who were you talking about? I’m the only one you’re mean too.”

“Katsuki. I was talking about Katsuki.”

I wasn't. I was talking about you.

“You love... Katsuki? Angry, swearing Katsuki?”

“Yeah. Love him. The world doesn't revolve around you Shoto.”

I love him like a brother!

With a frown on his face, Shoto grIps his bag hard and turns around to walk away.

“You suit each other. I hope he makes you happy.”

We suit each other because we share the same fucking genes.

Okay well, how about a classy dinner by candlelight. Or scary stories til midnight. So then I could hold you tight. Ba da ba da ba. "And get Cheeto crumbs on me?! No Way!" Ooookay I think you're a little dense. I really don't like all of this talk. You have in the present tense. Baba da ba da. So listen here, buddy. It's all just a big fantasy. You see inside of your head! No! So just say goodbye! "Eh-whatever." Baba da ba da! I'm not a Dere. A Tsun-Tsundere. (My girl's a Dere a Tsun-Tsundere.) Hey! I can kick your butt even in this dress! UH! I digress! So let's just go to the park I guess. "Pffffft You wouldn't even know what to bring." Oh, come on, will you please just say yes! "Geez Fine. Baka Tako. It's not like I'll enjoy it or anything."

Shoto sighed as he lost to Deku again. They were playing games in Shoto’s dorm, but he wasn't focusing on the game. His mind kept going to you. He thought for sure you liked him, but now he felt like a fool.

You liked Katsuki. Of course, you did. Katsuki was good looking and strong, he could appease you in ways Shoto could not. It made sense. He saw you guys bickering a lot, you both had a colorful tongue and before the dorms, Katsuki and you would walk home together. You would make a cute couple.

Shoto felt inferior and worthless.

“You're practically letting me win. What's bothering you?”

“I thought [Y/N] liked me.”

“She does.”

“She doesn't. She told me he loved Katsuki.”

Deku gives out a little chuckle.

“Yeah, like a brother.”

“No. Like a lover, she said so herself.”

“Shoto. [Y/N] is Katsuki’s sister.”

Shoto stands up from the couch, shocked and bewildered.

“Wait, so she lied to me?”

Shoto smiles and takes off down the hallway towards your dorm room. He rapidly knocks on your door, too impatient to wait for you to open it.

“Shoto?”

Shoto grabs your shoulders and presses his lips against yours. After noticing you don't pull away, he deepens the kiss.

“What did you do that for?”

“I know you have a hard time expressing your feelings, so I’ll confess mine instead. I love you. I love you even when you threaten to punch me for calling you cute.”

“Even when I call you stupid.”

“Especially then.”

A blush adjourns your face and you anxiously bite your lip.

“Are you free tomorrow night?”

“For you, I'm always free.”

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the-shadow-of-atlantis · 5 years

Text

It Wasn’t

Summary: Selina underestimated how much she cared

Tagging: @lizartgurl @thespacebuns @melyaliz @coffee-randomness @speedypan @gobydana

Read Earlier Parts Here

It wasn’t supposed to come this far, Selina thought as she waited for the light to turn green. The plan was simple she would date Bruce Wayne and just happen to target the rich he hung out with. She wasn’t supposed to be in this deep, but still she couldn’t help herself she couldn’t help but fall for him, and she couldn’t help but want to be there for Annabella.

~~~~~

“Hi Selina!” Annabella greeted with a smile when the door opened, she was carefully perched in Bruce’s arm.

Selina smiled back as she grabbed her coat and walked into the hallway.

“Hello kitten. Bruce.” She nodded and held onto Bruce’s free arm.

“I know a small place we can have lunch. Hopefully away from prying eyes.” Bruce said as they began to walk.

“Sounds good.”

“When can I see the kitties?” Annabella asked looking back at the door.

“After lunch sunshine.” Bruce said giving her a kiss on the cheek.

“Okay.” Annabella mumbled as she tucked her head into the crook of his neck.

By the end of the day it was Annabella who had Selina caught. There was just something about that little girl that she couldn’t help but want to make happy. It was adorable seeing how Bruce would talk to her and make her be heard. It was heartwarming to see her walking around her apartment attempting to herd all the cats so she could hug them all at once.

~~~~~

Selina sighed as the light finally turned as she sped down the road. It wasn’t supposed to go this deep yet when she found out the truth she couldn’t help but stay.

~~~~~

“Hi Selina!” Annabella greeted cheerfully as she hopped into the apartment, she paused to tug on the bright blue leash that was attached to her cat.

“Come on Mr. Kitty, you’ll love the kitties here they’re very friendly.” Annabella encouraged the cat who was carefully sniffing the air as if expecting some sort of danger.

“Sorry, she insists on bringing him everywhere now that the leash came in.” Bruce explained as he stayed by the doorway.

“It’s alright, I like the little guy anyway.” Selina smiled watching as Mr. Kitty eyed the other cats warily.

“Are you sure you don’t mind watching her? I could just ask my assistant to look over her while I’m in the meeting.”

“Go.” Selina insisted. “She’ll have more fun here anyways.”

Bruce nodded before calling out to his daughter who came running back.

“I’ll be back at lunch time.” He said as he knelt down and kissed her cheek. “Be good sunshine.”

“Bye papa.” She hugged him and returned to her spot in the middle of the living room.

Selina busied herself with paper work as Annabella sang along to the kids show that was on. She helped Annabella color when she offered.

“Selina?” Annabella asked as Selina came back from the door holding the takeout that was ordered.

“Yes kitten?” She asked as she moved to the kitchen and began putting the food into plates, Bruce should be on his way over soon and even though she couldn’t cook to save her life she did know how to make takeout look presentable.

“Do you know Español?” Annabella asked focused on the show Dora that was playing as she pet Mr. Kitty who sat in her lap.

“Un poquito.” Selina admitted and heard Annabella gasp.

“Really?” She asked excitedly. “Yo también. Pero no tan… Good. I’m still learning.”

“Oh, that’s good.”

“Yeah, papa says it’s good to learn more languages.” Annabella adjusted her hold on Mr. Kitty and focused back on the show.

Selina slightly frowned, she had heard rumors about Annabella’s mother but never thought much about them. Now she couldn’t help but be curious.

When Bruce showed up Annabella spent the entire time they are talking about what she did and showing her father the drawings. Bruce smiled as he listened occasionally asking her about what she drew or what she learned. When they finished Selina and Bruce stayed in the kitchen as Annabella went back to play.

“Thank you for watching over her, Alfred should be back tomorrow.” Bruce said.

“No problem, she’s a joy to have around.” Selina paused. “I’ve been meaning to ask, you never speak of her mother but I can’t help but wonder what she’d think about you having a girlfriend around your daughter.”

She studied Bruce carefully, he seemed to stiffen a bit and his gaze shot towards Annabella. She was distracted however apparently trying to teach small group of cats how to read.

“Her mother is not interested in her.” Bruce said bluntly making Selina look at him in shock. “I know what the tabloids say about my daughter, and I know you do not believe what they say. I met her mother once we had a night together I don’t remember much from it. I only found out about Annabella because her grandmother thought it be best if I knew of her. Her mother was going to give her up but I couldn’t let that happen, even more so when she was born early. Her mother may not want anything to do with her but Annabella is my world, I’d do anything to keep her safe.”

Selina stayed quiet as she watched the little girl play with the cats. She remembered how quickly the small girl latched on to her since that night. Selina was in too deep but at the same time she wasn’t sure she wanted to get out.

~~~~~

Gotham wasn’t the right place to raise a child. Selina thought as she pulled into the parking lot and ran out cursing as the cold rain came down on her. She knew first hand about Gotham and so did Bruce. This place was toxic it sucks the innocent out of everyone. Yet Annabella seemed to almost be immune to it, she just brought so much good into everything. No matter how much certain people tried to bring her down there were still those that would be there to defend her.

~~~~~

Selina was watching Annabella who was trying to reach the little food on the table that was laid out.

“She eats so much.” She heard a woman say a couple feet next to her, if Selina could hear them she knew Annabella could too.

“That girl is gonna be fat if she keeps it up.”

“And so messy too. Absolutely no manners.”

Selina took a long sip of her champagne. Annabella had gotten her hands on a little ball of food but was munching on it with a sad face. Selina was about to walk over but stopped when she saw a pretty blonde woman kneel down next to the young girl that she recognized from some magazine covers.

“Hello.” She smiled sweetly and Annabella smiled back.

“Hi Cici.”

“Whatcha eating?” Cici asked.

“I thought it was the bread with chocolate but this one tastes funny.” Annabella pouted at the food in her hand.

“You got the crab stuffed one.” Cici laughed as she looked at the table.

She grabbed a napkin so Annabella could get rid of the cursed food and gave her the one she was reaching for.

“Here eat an extra one for me.” Cici said handing her another one shooting a small glare at the women next to Selina. “I love your hair.”

“Thanks.” Annabella’s face lit up. “Selina did it. She’s good with hair.”

Cici looked up and Selina waved.

“I see, why don’t you go back to Selina, don’t want to give your dad another scare now do you?”

“Okay, bye Cici.” Annabella waved and hopped back to Selina.

Selina gave Cici a small smile and a nod as she picked up Annabella, Cici nodded back and turned to mingle with the rest. Bruce showed shortly after.

“Papa can we go to McDonalds? The food here tastes funny.” Annabella wrinkles her nose a bit, making Bruce chuckle.

“Sure sunshine I could use a burger myself. Selina?”

“I’m in.” Selina said giving a sly smile to the women who were glaring at them now.

~~~~

“I’m here to see Annabella Wayne.” Selina panted as she reaches the front desk. “She was admitted a couple hours ago.”

The woman at the front desk blinked up at Selina a bit startled by her appearance.

“Ms. Kyle?” A familiar voice said.

Selina turned and found Alfred standing outside the little gift shop with a coffee.

“It’s alright Miss she’s with me.” Alfred said to the woman at the desk.

Alfred handed her his jacket and began to lead her through the halls.

“Is she okay?” Selina asked.

“She’s fine now. Sleeping but she did give us a bit of a scare.”

“I thought it was just a small cough.” Selina rubbed her face. “I should have mentioned it sooner.”

“It’s alright Ms. Kyle we thought the same too until her fever kicked in.” Alfred sighed. “Turns out she has broncitis, which has triggered her asthma immensely.”

Selina nodded as the continued through the halls. Alfred stopped in front of a room and ushered Selina to enter. The lights were dimmed but she could see Annabella laying in the bed with a mask over her head. Curled up next to her was her cat Mr. Kitty who lifted his head up when the door opened once he saw it was just Selina he put his head back down and closed his eyes.

“Selina.” Bruce said standing up from the chair he was sitting in. “What-“

“I got worried after you called I had to see how she was doing.” She said as she approached him and gave him a hug. She felt his shoulders relax a bit.

“She’s fine now though she’s going to have to be in here for a couple of days.” Bruce explained, Selina nodded.

“Sir I do suggest you get something to eat now.” Alfred spoke up.

“Go.” Selina urged. “I’ll stay with her.”

Bruce seemed to contemplate it for awhile but gave in.

“I wont be long.” He said kissing Selina’s forehead, he stroked Annabella’s cheek before finally leaving the room along with Alfred who said would bring her a coffee.

Selina sat down at the chair Bruce had been occupying and scooted closer to Annabella’s bed. She stroked the little girls hair out of her face and smiled.

“I honestly never pictured myself to get so attached to someone like your father.” She whispered. “I defiantly never pictured to be so attached to you, but your so special its hard not to. You’re such an amazing and smart girl I cant wait to see what you’ll do. I want to promise you that I’ll always be there for you, but I’m honestly scared to promise that. I’m scared to promise anything because I think eventually my luck will run out. But I can promise one thing, I promise that I will protect you, maybe not to the extent that your father does, but I will be here to keep you safe. After all I always look after my little kittens.”

After a couple of minutes Annabella stirred letting out a small cough, groaning she rubbed her eyes and looked around.

“Selina?” She whispered before coughing again, Mr. Kitty got up and began licking her cheek as if trying to make her feel better.

“Hey shh little kitten your okay.” Selina said as she rubbed her arm.

“You came.” She said with a smile as she pet Mr. Kitty on the head.

“Of course I had to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m okay. Just tired.”

“Go back to sleep then little kitten. Your daddy and I will be here when you wake up.” Selina whispered giving Annabella a small kiss on her forehead as the little girl slowly fell back asleep.

#oc x catwoman #catwoman imagine #batsis imagine #oc x bruce wayne #throughout the years

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