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the-haikyuu-trash · 2 years

Text

Matsukawa Issei || “he’s cute.”

tags : just hs crush fluff, she/her pronouns, female reader

a/n: its concerning how im active again in haikyuu, fandom and writing fluff because i want to (65 followers omg… tysm! Im flustered because you guys🥹🫶)—i cant find a manga panel of matsukawa issei and hMp, realistically speaking if any of the hq characters were real, i’ll have a crush on him and sakusa. anyways, hope u enjoy my silly little one shot because of my silly little scenarios running in my silly little mind likes and reblogs are super appreciated!!

The first time (Name) really had a crush on someone was back then on kindergarten, she couldn’t remember the boy who gave her small flowers every recess anymore.

The second time was when she was in first year of highschool, her third year senior who was a captain of the soccerclub but alas, he had a girlfriend after he graduated, leaving (Name) all pouty and muttering in her class when girls flocked to her sides, showing her a post between the former soccer captain and his pretty girlfriend. “hmp, i’m never having crush again.” Was she said when they teased her for not acting fast.

The third time however…

Her cousin, Iwaizumi Hajime, made sure his words get into her head, drilling them and make sure it’ll never slip out of her mind that she’s not going to visit him in his practice match because Oikawa and her would be an unstoppable annoying duo but (Name) honestly didn’t care and claims to be “the fun cousin” as she prepares herself to hurl herself if she saw her favorite cousin in the practice match.

It was a practice match between Karasuno, her school and Aoba Johsai, her cousin’s school today and (Name) couldn’t miss up the opportunity to see her cousin on action again, after all, her school volleyball club didn’t put up much of a fight anymore but seeing two promising players this year, she was immediately hooked. Also, it’s been a long time since she saw Iwaizumi played and by the talk of her classmates, he’s popular along with Oikawa that makes her proud.

But confidence wasn’t on her side today, standing in front of the unfamiliar school gates with a wince, she grip the strap of her bag and anxiety was filling her up. (Name) could have joined Kiyoko, knowing they’re good close friends but by the looks of it, the manager of the crows is busy, didn’t had the heart to disturb her classmate because she wanted to annoy her cousin for good old times.

She’s shy. Even with the happy exterior, (Name) is absolutely a shy school girl when she’s by herself.

Placing both of her hands in her cheeks, she gives a few soft pats, encouraging herself to walk forward. She could do this, she will not get lost, she’s the fun cousin—

Her eyes suddenly landed on two tall third years, walking together at school and by the look of their uniform, they’re from the volleyball club! Must be Iwaizumi’s teammates! Forget her shyness! Surprising her favorite cousin is her priority! With that, she finds herself walking toward them, placing a practice friendly smile on her lips. “Excuse me!”

Oh My God.

Stopping in front of the two men towering over her figure, she looks up to dark haired who’s looking at her with eyebrows raised in question, his dark eyes looking at her carefully. Unconsciously, she grasp the strap of her bag as she looks at this man features and her mind went blank for a moment because:

“Holy shit, he’s cute.” She thought, (Name) forgot about what she’s going to say but when he tilts his head to the side, waiting for her to speak up, (Name) cleared her throat, fighting the oncoming heat threatening to spread across her cheeks. “I— I, can you please point me the way to the practice match…” giving herself a pat on the back to complete a sentence but mentally slapping herself because she sounded rude and quiet.

Matsukawa heard her, loud and clear, but he’s not going to act blind when he can see the red tinge by the tip of her ears, Hanamaki noticed it too and he shot his bestfriend a knowing look when it’s obvious Matsukawa finds her cute because her confidence earlier was now melting to a shy one and from the way he’s holding back a grin.

Matsukawa Issei heard her but he’s going to prolong their conversation with this cute girl, he’ll make sure he’ll make her remember this time.

(Name) couldn’t handle the blush spreading her cheeks anymore when the tall dark haired attractive volleyball player leaned down slightly to get a better hearing of her words, (his perfume hits her nose, he smelled really good too, can’t this guy have one flaw?) and hummed as if asking her to repeat again— making words lotched up on her throat and screaming at herself to focus, this is very first time (Name) was ready to melt into a puddle of embarrassment.

“Sorry for disturbing you, but I was wondering if you could point the direction of the gym for me? I’m here to visit my cousin.” (Name) said, this time with more confidence, acting as if him leaning down didn’t make her flustered and voice higher than usual, her fingers now playing at the zipper of her bag that goes noticed to the two third years. Hanamaki was eyeing her hands with a teasing smile (making her more embarrassed, was she that obvious?) while Matsukawa fought a grin breaking when she struggled to keep eye contact.

Cute, the tall middle blocker thought.

“Ah,” he stood back in full height, flashing her a smile before pointing the gym not far from them. “Right there, are you going to watch the practice match?” Matsukawa was lowkey hoping she’ll say yes and cheer for (him) his team.

Tall, handsome and his voice is deep too.

This is exactly (Name)’s type—

Before she could answer him, she saw Iwaizumi storming up behind, eyes narrowing at Matsukawa’s head before landing at her, making her wave her hand at him.

She actually forgot she came here for Iwaizumi.

(Name) didn’t get a chance to greet him her cousin who landed his palm of Matsukawa’s back, making him wince at the contact and pouted to see his vice-captain throwing a glare at the both of them.

“Don’t make my cousin uncomfortable—“ she wasn’t though. “—and start warming up, we’re about to start and you, come with me.” With that he grabbed her arm, making the girl yelp in surprise before throwing a quick thanks at Matsukawa’s direction but avoiding his gaze when he finally lets out a grin, making him more ten times attractive.

Out of earshot, (Name) looks at the grumbling Iwaizumi and smiled, the blush was still present on her cheeks. “Bro, your teammate is a total cutie. What’s his name?“ To which Iwaizumi only rolled his eyes, he can’t find his confidence to tell her that his teammate was her first crush back in kindergarten who she keeps telling young Iwaizumi she’s gonna get married and he’s invited when she shows the flowers Matsukawa gave her.

—

“Hey, isn’t that the girl you had a crush on kindergarten, giving her flowers and corny things like that?” Hanamaki grinned when Matsukawa rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish smile.

“Yeah and for your information, I still have a crush on her, i’m going to ask for her number later.”

Yep, Matsukawa Issei will make sure (Name) hold onto the promise they both shared when they were in kindergarten because even though it sounds corny, he’s still head over heels for (Name) only.

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fruitcoops · 3 years

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So this is sort of similar to the people writing fanfic about the lions but can you imagine the YouTube edits? Like the videos that are just "Cap having heart eyes for Loops for 10 minutes straight" or "Loops lovingly dragging Caps name through the mud for 3 minutes" like those kinds of things and I can just imagine them doing reaction videos and it just being funny and the world just loving coops

Okay so this wasn't a specific fic request but I got carried away with imagining videos and....here you go. SW credit goes to @lumosinlove, but Grace and Anna are mine! Bonus points to anyone who remembers the easter egg in this one!

Message From: Gracie

ANNA HOLY SHIT

Anna frowned at her phone screen, squinting to read around the spiderweb crack decorating the upper corner. She had tried to convince herself that it was cool, goth, edgy, but in the end she had to admit that it was just irritating. In a tragic turn of events, packing tape couldn’t fix everything.

Message To: Gracie

Wtf did I do

Two weeks of radio silence, then unexplained accusations. Anna shook her head as the grey bubble disappeared for a third time and turned back to her computer. Grace may have been her favorite cousin—and favorite person, if she was being honest—but very few things came between Anna and video editing. Especially editing for a Lions meme video. She had a whole 2,341 followers to attend to, after all.

Message From: Gracie

DID YOU SEE THE FUCKING INTERVIEW???

Message To: Gracie

Wow thank you so helpful

Message From: Gracie

Skip to 2:45 bestie

A link popped up just as Anna cut a segment from the sleep study video, where Loops’ heart eyes were in full effect. It was a rare, precious find for fan editors like herself.

“Come on,” she groaned. Maybe introducing Grace to the deepest parts of her hockey obsession was a mistake. But, really, what else was she supposed to do when she learned her cousin, who didn’t even live in Gryffindor, got to meet her favorite players just by chilling in a café? What kind of cosmic joke was that?

She narrowed her eyes at the embed of the link, then stifled a shriek. Impossible. How had she missed an upload?

As if on cue, her computer pinged with a new notification from the Lion Pride channel. “Oh, fuck me,” she muttered, scrambling to save her half-done video and pressing play.

The interviewer asked basic questions, ones she had heard the answers to a million times while curating her content. It always felt funny to hear people refer to Cap as ‘Sirius’—it was too official, too formal. She had spent countless hours on the compilations of his softer moments, and they were her most popular videos. Cap Having Heart Eyes for Loops for 10 Minutes Gay. Cap Being an Actual Puppy for Six and a Half Minutes. Everyone Wanting Cap Cuddles for Fifteen Minutes. Every Time Cap Smiles When Someone Mentions His Godson. The list was endless. She loved it.

She did a silent fist pump when she saw the interviewer had snagged both Cap and Loops; that would give her a whole new stream of workable content. If she was lucky, she could expand on her series of Loops Lovingly Roasting His Friends, part…fuck it, who was even counting anymore?

Anna was so caught up in her excitement that she nearly forgot about Grace’s suggestion. I’ve never skipped through a video on the first watch before, she thought hesitantly. But maybe just this once…

Her cursor hovered over the 2:45mark. She closed her eyes, and clicked it.

“—have you been adjusting to life as a celebrity?” the interviewer asked. Anna nearly rolled her eyes when Loops laughed. That question had been used far too often to be interesting anymore.

“It’s had its ups and downs,” Loops said with a smile. “Mostly, though, the fans have been incredible and just knocked my socks off with their support.”

“Really? What’s your favorite part of the Lions fanbase?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “Their creativity, for sure. There was a video a while back where we reacted to some of the comments people left, and this person on Twitter made an absolutely beautiful collage of photos.”

“I have it saved to my phone,” Sirius added.

One more clip for the simp video. Anna made a note on the small corner space of her European History notes. The degree can wait for ten more minutes.

“Do you have a favorite creator?”

The interviewer was clearly teasing, but Loops’ smile was genuine. “I don’t know about a favorite, but there’s this person on YouTube who makes a shit ton of videos and they’re hysterical. I saw one the other day about—god, what was it again?”

“Every time I smile when people mention Harry,” Sirius answered around a laugh. “Can you blame me?”

Anna didn’t hear the next question. A ringing noise filled her ears as she sat, frozen, on her shitty dorm mattress and listened to her literal heroes talk about her dorky little channel. “Holy fuck,” she blurted after a moment of silence. “Holy fuck.”

“—subscribed?” The man’s voice snapped her back to reality.

“Of course I am!” Loops said. “You think I’m passing up a chance to watch a compilation of my friends making stupid decisions for the entire internet to see?”

A noise that would have been a shriek if Anna had any breath left in her body escaped her lungs; she clamped a hand over her mouth and shakily exited from the video before going to her YouTube account. 800 new notifications. 700 new followers in the last quarter hour. She was pretty sure she blacked out for a second from sheer shock and joy.

Message To: Gracie

What

Message From: Gracie

You’re famous!

Message To: Gracie

What

Message From: Gracie

I bet he knows your stuff better than he remembers me tbh

“They know me,” she whispered, staring at her computer. The unfinished video showed a perfect frame of Loops’ soft smile as he watched Cap get his toothbrush stuck in his pajama shirt. Somehow, the thought was both exhilarating and horrifying. What if they thought she was a creep? She wasn’t, not really, just a bored college student with not enough free time for a job but too much to keep herself busy with schoolwork. Her 2,341—no, 3,052—followers were just other hockey nerds looking for time to kill.

And the subject of those videos was one of her subscribers.

Anna slipped her headphones back on and began to edit like it was her last day on earth. Her fingers flew across the keyboard on muscle memory while her brain fizzed. Perfect, she thought. It has to be perfect.

In four hours, it was done. She sat back, panting, then hunched over again and began tapping out a title card.

Hello. Idk if anyone saw the new Lion Pride video today (linked below if anyone wants to see why I’m dying right now) but apparently Remus Lupin is subscribed to this channel and has been for a while.

Hi Loops. I’m Anna. You met my cousin once and she said she liked your sweater.

Now that that’s out of the way, please enjoy the next five minutes of our new rookie being the sappiest mf in existence (except for his fiancé). Mr. Lupin, please tell Hattie I say hello.

She pressed upload, peeled her headphones off, and collapsed backward on her bed.

Message To: Gracie

If I die here, tell the world I did it doing what I loved

Message From: Gracie

Will do

OH FUCK YOU FOR BRINGING UP THE SWEATER I SOUND LIKE A CREEP

Anna covered her itchy eyes with her forearm and settled in for a long, long nap. Her brain still needed to repair a few circuits.

#remus lupin #sirius black #coops #anna #grace #sweater weather #lumosinlove #my fic #fanfic #ocs #hattie #lion pride

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manonblaqkbeak · 3 years

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Sugar, sugar

(genuinely hate coming up with titles lol)

this is just rowaelin being pining idiots, one of my fave tropes for day 11--delayed love confession

just a note, the lifestyle in this fic is more of a background note and doesnt really take centre stage in this fic. it’s one ive been tempted to write for a while tbh but didnt really get around to it until now

cw: very, very light smut (like barely non existent, but just in case), a lil bit of swearing

enjoy! :)

3k words (officially my longest fic, yay!)

Every thought in Aelin's mind was blank. She trudged through her apartment that she shared with Nehemia, absentmindedly kicking off her heels that Rowan purchased for her months ago. Then the light jacket she wore joined the shoes, the fabric was perfectly soft and perfect for the autumn chill.

It was yet another piece of item that Rowan purchased for her. A lot of the things she had know were thanks to Rowan, either from his own wallet or from the biweekly allowance he sent her—a generous allowance that was a thousand times better than her weekly paycheck from the bookstore she'd been working at since she turned twenty-two; her business degree had turned out to be useless and so she turned to the bookstore that had been her stable job for three years.

Aelin barely touched her weekly wage now, it was practically buried underneath the money the Rowan gave her.

Because Rowan Whitethorn, thirty-five and a successful CEO who was well known, was her sugar daddy. Had been now for fourteen months. But he was more than that, more than just a man that paid her to spend time with him. He respected her, was loyal to her, listened to her and responded with actual sentences instead of a word or two like other men she had dated. He was charming, didn't treat her like she was nothing but arm candy, and she knew him so well, as he knew her, and each fortnight she sometimes forgot their whole arrangement, but she was sharply reminded when she received the notification from her bank that the two and a half thousand dollars that Rowan sent her was now in her savings account.

When she agreed to their arrangement after several get-to-know you dates, Rowan had wanted to give her three and a half grand every week, and gods Aelin had been tempted because she had never had so much money in her life, but told him that it was far too much and negotiated.

Two and a half thousand was the lowest that Rowan was willing to go, and even though Aelin only knew him for two weeks at that point, she could tell that he would not budge, so she agreed to the amount.

The first time that money had landed in her account, Aelin had thought that maybe she had imagined the whole thing, but the money was a sharp reminder of what she know was—a sugar baby. Those words still didn't feel like they applied to her.

And he still spent money on her when they spent time together. Just last week he gifted her with diamond earrings in the shapes of roses with a necklace to match. She wore them tonight, not because he bought them for her but because she genuinely loved the pieces.

Needing something sweet—despite the fact she had only finished her chocolate hazelnut gelato twenty minutes ago—she dug through her fridge and found the brownies that Nehemia had baked the other day. She told herself that she would leave some for her long-time friend, but Aelin really doubted that would happen.

Aelin relished in the cold air of the fridge as she found the new can of whipped cream on the top shelf. The fridge was one of the first things she purchased with the money she was now being gifted with (and after that came a new washer and dryer, a dish-washing machine and television. Almost everything in her apartment was brand new now, the food were actual brands instead of the generic, tasteless shit. She had bras that fit her properly and were so damned comfortable that she forgot she was wearing them half the time).

The old fridge was a cheap hunk of junk that she and Nehemia purchased off Facebook marketplace for a hundred dollars, it barely kept things cold, but with expensive rent and bills and general life things, Nehemia and her couldn't afford anything better.

Which was how she ended up in this situation. Picking up more shifts barely gave them anything extra, because the economy right now in Terrasen was shit. Nehemia had made a joke about needing sugar daddies, and Aelin, knowing that Nehemia could never really do such a thing, had decided that maybe it was a good idea.

Nehemia had told Aelin that she was insane for pursuing such a thing, and that she had only been joking, but Aelin was not and that she could handle herself if things went wrong.

Nehemia had told her not to do anything, but Aelin was determined and started her search. It had taken a while to find a website that was genuine and didn't make her feel like she had to scrub her eyes out with bleach.

She created her page in private, because she not only was Nehemia against the idea, but so was Elide and Lysandra—she didn't dare tell Aedion what she was doing. Her cousin could be an overprotective pain in her ass at times, and Aelin was very well aware that if Aedion caught wind of what she was doing, he would have locked her up in her room without any type of device so she couldn't go forward with her plan.

She appreciated their concern, she did, but she was a consenting, tax-paying adult, and if she wanted to use her time to get paid spending time with a rich man, then Aelin was allowed to do exactly that.

It wasn't prostitution, she had looked it up, because it was the sugar babies that had the power and so that was how it went with her and Rowan.

Aelin didn't even have sex with Rowan until it was the sixth month anniversary of her and Rowan's...relationship (and gods, it was the best sex Aelin ever had. Rowan was a generous and completely unselfish lover).

He was the first one she came across on the site and almost drooled down herself when she saw his picture. Silver hair, pine-green eyes, a beautiful tattoo down the length of his left arm and tanned skin, he was stupidly attractive and only ten years old than her.

Aelin messaged him first only after being on the site for ten minutes, deciding that surely he was the best one and that she needn't bother to look at any other candidates.

They hit it off straight away, and after deciding on a restaurant to meet at, Aelin had informed Nehemia of the matter, which she was promptly met with question after question: why can't a thirty-four year old man find someone his own age? Is he one of those men that can't date a woman five minutes older than him because of some stupid made up reason? How do you know for certain that it's him in the picture? What if he's cat-fishing you? What if he's a freak, or a killer? What if he's just pretending to be rich to kidnap you? What if, what if, what if?

And so after a heated discussion, Nehemia had come along on her date-that-wasn't-really-a-date and sat a few tables away from her and Rowan, watching them—especially him—the entire time like a hawk.

Aelin had completely forgotten that her friend was there, so enraptured by Rowan and what he did and how he saw life.

It had been fourteen months of seeing Rowan and genuinely enjoying spending time with him and weeks ago, she realised that she wanted it to be something more. That she had come to care for him, not because of the money, but purely because it was Rowan and he made her feel seen and he wasn't afraid of her, because she had once been told by an ex that she could be too much and that he couldn't handle all her baggage.

Aelin wanted a life with him.

So Aelin told Rowan she loved him when he dropped her off tonight after their dinner and a movie date, telling him how she felt, and he had said thank you. He gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek and went home, leaving behind the pine-and-snow scent of him.

Aelin really wanted to find a hole to crawl into and die.

She was scarfing down her third brownie when Nehemia's bedroom door opened, her friend clad in an old matching pj set, her slippers shuffling across the tile.

“What happened? Are you okay?” her friend asked upon seeing Aelin's guttered look. Her dark brows furrowed. “Did that bastard hurt you? If he did, I'll—”

“He didn't do anything,” Aelin interrupted her friend. Taking the food, Aelin planted herself on the teal blue velvet sofa Rowan gave her for Yulemas last year, ignoring the scent of not just him, but of them both from when he came over after work just the other day with pizza and a DVD that she insisted that she watched because it was too good not to, when they forgot all about the movie as Rowan buried himself inside her, leaving hickeys all over her neck that she had to cover up with thick concealer.

Nehemia joined her on the couch, her friend momentarily forgetting for now that she had walked in on her and Rowan just moments after they finished, muttering under her breath in Eyllwe as she glared at them defiling the couch, and gave her a look that Aelin knew that Nehemia would listen to every word that came out from her.

And when Aelin was done recounting the story, all Nehemia could come up with was, “Oh.”

“Yes, 'oh,'. I've probably fucked up the whole thing. So don't be surprised if I call you on your lunch break tomorrow telling you he's broken things off.”

“Aelin, I don't think he will. I know that I'm not the biggest fan of your...situation—”

“I'm aware,” Aelin said, cutting her friend off. “You still won't let me buy you a new mattress, even though yours is hard as a brick and lumpy as hell. I've told you that you can pay me—”

“Aelin,” Nehemia said, “we're not talking about mattresses right now. As I was saying, I doubt he'll break things off because I've seen the way he looks at you. I still think he's too old for you, but he cares for you. You probably just caught him by surprise.”

“How does he look at me?” Aelin was observant, but sometimes when she was with Rowan, all her observation skills went out the window.

“Like he loves you,” Nehemia said, no hint of doubt in her voice.

Aelin sighed, her feelings slowly starting to crush her. “I guess I'll just have to take your word for it.”

Sighing once more, Aelin put the food back in the fridge, showered and went to bed, forgoing her usual night texting ritual with Rowan.

She really wasn't looking forward to tomorrow.

X X X X X X

Rowan couldn't concentrate, which wasn't a good thing, since his job dealt with having to concentrate all the time. But no matter what mind-focusing techniques he did, he couldn't stop thinking about Aelin.

Couldn't stop thinking about how she said she was in love with him. How her beautiful eyes had been sparkling when she said those words to him. And how the light in them dimmed when he said thank you and kissed her on the cheek, telling her that he would talk to her later. But he hadn't texted her, nor did she.

I love you, Rowan. I'm in love with you.

Thank you. He really couldn't believe that was what he said. Felt like an utter fool and a bastard as he realised he probably crushed her heart. Aelin didn't like being vulnerable, and she had been when she said those words and he had gone and fucked it all up.

Rowan loved Aelin, he did, but he truly wasn't prepared for those words. He loved how on the weekends they would be up at one am, baking chocolate goodies, dancing in the quiet kitchen, humming quietly to Aelin's classical music playlist, with her wearing not the nightgowns that he loved, but one of his old hoodies.

He didn't think that he would get along with her so well once they met, thinking that their online interactions were nothing but a fluke. He was moments away from deleting the profile because he didn't actually create it, but Fenrys had, his friend grumbling that he needed a girlfriend, with Rowan arguing that creating a profile on a sugar daddy site was not dating but probably the opposite, when Aelin messaged him.

His life-long friend didn't listen, much to Rowan's annoyance—but he didn't grab his phone out of his friends hand; Rowan blamed it on the several whiskys he had downed by that point.

Aelin bewitched him on that first meet up. She was intelligent as hell and funny, and creative and beautiful. He was aware of why she was on the date with him, but he didn't care, just as long as he got to see her again.

Fourteen months later and Rowan was still bewitched. He wanted to be with her on a permanent basis, but wasn't completely sure how to take that step.

Clearly, Aelin had taken that step for them, and Rowan was the worlds biggest moron.

I love you, Rowan. I'm in love with you.

Thank you.

Groaning, Rowan turned away from his computer and looked at the skyline, ignoring the buildings to instead watch the puffy clouds drift by.

Aelin loved watching the clouds, loved stargazing, loved questioning about the universe and what the skies held.

He never really paid any of that stuff attention, not until he met her.

Rowan didn't want to lose her, didn't want her to think that he was about to break up with her over this. He had to see her, so he grabbed his keys and wallet, told his secretary to hold his calls for the rest of the day, and went to visit Aelin.

X X X X X X

It had been an usually busy day for a Wednesday and Aelin was glad for her lunch break as she trudged up to the roof of the shopping centre. She wasn't really allowed up here, but she wanted some fresh air and to feel the sun against her skin as she sat down and dug into her lunch—fast food, unfortunately for her, because she was so frazzled from last night that she completely forgot about making a pack lunch.

Rowan hadn't called her, or texted her. Not even an email had been sent her way.

Aelin hated that she felt so damned mopey. She was an independent woman, but gods, even a good morning text would have been fine.

She finished her lunch, popping several mints into her mouth to get rid of the onion taste, when the roof door crashed open and a familiar hulking figure came into view.

He must have spoken to Elide to find her here.

Aelin's brow furrowed. “Rowan, what are you doing here?” Oh gods, surely he wasn't going to break up with her, she still had hours to go; there'd be no way she could work if she had tears in her eyes.

Taking her hands in his, Aelin stood up. She steeled herself against whatever he was going to say.

“I love you, Aelin. I'm in love with you, too,” Rowan said, his eyes soft and full of genuine love. Aelin's heart shot up into her throat. “I want a life with you. I want us to buy a home, one that has warmth and character, and a big garden. I want a dog. And kids too, if you want, I know that you've never mentioned it, but if you don't want any then that is completely fine. I want to support you in whatever endeavors you want to take, and if you ever want to go back to university, then I'll support you, or if you want to find a way to use your business degree, I'll help you with that, too. Whatever you want Aelin, I'll give it to you, as long as you're by my side, I'll be happy.”

Aelin was silent for so long that Rowan thought that maybe he shocked her into silence. But eventually, she smiled, one that was dazzling in its beauty that it took his breath away.

“You love me?”

“I do, Aelin, I love you.”

She kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”

Rowan groaned at the amusement in her tone, in her eyes. “You're never going to let me live that down, are you?”

She smirked. “Definitely not. It'll be a nice story to tell our children...one day. For now, I think we should contend with being proper significant others.”

Rowan nodded, smiling. “I like the sound of that.”

“Good, because I need to get back to work, since I'm no longer accepting your allowances. I won't deny the use of your credit card, but other than that, you are no longer my sugar daddy.”

It was Rowan's turned to smirk, and it was the one that made her core clench. “How about I be 'daddy' instead?”

Aelin snorted, even as she clenched around nothing again. Smacking his arm lightly, Aelin kissed him. “Only if you behave,” she said against his lips, “and now I really need to go back to work.”

Rowan walked her back, their fingers laced together, and as she turned to say goodbye, Aelin said, “I'll see you later, daddy.”

Rowan groaned, and it took everything in him not to take her hand and into his car to have his wicked way with her.

By the time he thought of a response, Aelin was already back to work, helping a customer with an impressive stack of books in her arms.

But she knew he was still there, because the way she swayed her hips to the counter was all for him, and when she saw him watching her, Aelin winked, making Rowan's heart flutter in his chest.

He really did love her. And he would live with her teasing him for the rest of his life, just as long as she was with him.

#rowaelin #rowaelinmonth #my work

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peakywitch · 4 years

Text

Little Hands - Michael Gray

PART ONE

MASTERLIST

WORD COUNT: 2K

warnings: none (i think this one has angst?)

gif: @oberelias

A knock on the bar door caught Harry's attention. He immediately knew who it was. He opened the door, seeing the young woman from a half hour ago.

"Y/N?" he asked, not understanding anything. A girl of about 17 years, crying at the door of the Garrison. Harry thought he would never see such a thing.

"Sorry Harry, I had nowhere to go..." she sobbed; Harry invited her in and poured her a glass of water as she sat down at the bar.

“Are you better?" he asked her, after a few minutes.

The girl had been staring at the glass of water since Harry had offered it to her. The silent tears kept falling from her eyes. What will I do now? She would go home alone. She would forget about being a teacher and would have to dedicate herself to whatever she could, so her son would have something to eat.

Her son.

Y/N still didn't get it. She was seventeen, a minor, and her ex-boyfriend had just left her. She could not abort, she had found out too late.

"What the fuck am I going to do..." she whispered, asking Harry.

"You in trouble?" he asked, worried that she was hurt.

"Yes, in a giant problem." She replied, drinking more water.

“I think whatever it is, you can work it out. If you have people who want you by your side, you'll be fine." He said, as he rearranged the liquor bottles.

“The person I love doesn't want to be with me, Harry. He said horrible things to me and I…”The poor girl bursted into tears, Harry felt so out of place.

The man, not knowing what to do, approached the small kitchen that was at the back of the bar and took out some pieces of brownie that were carefully protected. When he returned to her side, he opened the noisy bag, filling the Garrison with a strong chocolate smell.

"You know?" he asked “My mother was a baker, and she made the best cakes in town. She made these brownies when I was sad or had a broken heart." He smiled wistfully; Y/N's red eyes focused on him “Last night, I felt a heavy sadness. And all I could think of was brownies." He placed the two brown squares on a gray plate. "I firmly believe, these brownies will heal you a bit." He held out the plate to the crying girl, she tried to grab one "Wait, not yet."

He reached under the bar, pulling out a glass bottle of milk: “There is a kitten that had a baby, and in the morning when I am leaving, I serve her some on a plate outside. But a broken heart deserves a sip to accompany brownies. "

She poured the milk into a pint, and told her she could eat now.

Between brownies, laughter, and some milk, she was able to stop crying and laughed at some stories Harry was telling her.

When night fell, Y/N stayed in one of the rooms upstairs. Harry had offered it to her for free, as Y/N had been very good company while he set up the pub for that Friday night. However, she insisted that she would return the favor by cleaning up on Saturday morning with him. Also, she wanted to see the kitten and her baby.

Ten o'clock at night showed up on the clock, telling Y/N that in two hours this hellish day would end. She was lying with her dress still on. The poor deluded woman had thought she would return home with… Michael. The more she thought about the subject, the more her heart ached.

“I won’t be with you, get rid of him. It would be easier. "

It was final: she would be a single mother.

Michael entered the pub at ten o'clock, tired, nervous, angry, sad, helpless, and heartbroken. He was disappointed in who he was. He had been infuriated by the fact that this new person that he was, had hurt Y/N. Michael could be called Henry, Benjamin, Patrick, or Mirtha. It didn't matter his name, he loved Y/N. So when he walked into the private booth at the Garrison alone, Tommy knew why. How was he going to find her, if she was as far as she was near?

"I thought I told you not to come back if it wasn't with her, Michael." said his cousin.

Gray sat down dejectedly in one of the chairs. He snorted and poured himself a whiskey.

“Looked everywhere. Shit, I even walked into that disgusting station with idiot Campbell. I looked in every square, on the outskirts, I asked in each hostel: nothing. I know her, she got on the train hours ago and she must be in her bed crying." His gaze was so lost on the beer bucket on the table, that he did not notice the knowing looks of his cousins.

“Tom,” said Arthur “go on. Tell ‘im. Look at ‘im.”

John slipped a chuckle.

"Tell me what?" Michael asked, looking at Thomas. "Tommy, if you know something, please tell me ..."

"Michael," tommy cleared his throat, "you well know that nothing happens here without me knowing."

"Here? Small Heath? As I said, I don't think…” the Shelby interrupted his cousin.

“No, here like the Garrison. And I think you forgot that if you go upstairs, you will find a lodging that I mount..."

Michael didn't let him finish, cutting him off as he stood up abruptly.

"You knew all this damn time where she was!?" he roared.

"I have known for a few hours." he answered calmly, after drinking more Scotch.

Before Michael could say anything, Tommy spoke again: "Third door to your right."

And just like that, Michael came out of the booth like a bullet. He crossed the bar quickly, no matter who he shoved in his way. The stairs were climbed even faster, leaving him in a matter of seconds in front of Y/N's door.

He breathed. He realized how nervous Y/N must have been. He knocked on the door with a simple double knock.

Both knocks woke her up, bringing her back into the world. She stopped and approached the door carefully. Meanwhile, Michael was dying of nerves.

"Who is it?" Y/N asked.

"Me." Michael said.

"Who is Me?" she ask.

Y/N recognized that voice, of course she did. But she didn't know who the person with the voice was. She felt totally alien to this Michael Gray. Henry would never, ever have yelled at her.

"Y/N... lovey, please..." he begged.

"Do not call me that way. You don't feel that about me. Neither do I, I don't know you. "

Y/N was being too harsh for her liking, but Michael knew perfectly well that he deserved never to see her again.

“Y/N, I need to talk to you. Please…”he asked, he was about to cry.

"No. Goodbye." She sentenced.

Michael sighed in frustration. He sat in the doorway; he would sleep on the floor if necessary.

Now what can I do? If he opened the door, it would bother her even more. But if he left her alone, he would lose her forever.

"Y/N..." began the boy, and waited for an answer, nothing.

"Do you want me to leave you alone?" he asked again.

Silence.

"Well, here goes nothing." He sighed.

“Hello Y/N, my name is Michael Gray. I was born in 1903, and when I was four years old my father passed away. I was taken away from my mother, Polly, when I was five. I had a sister, they also separated us. The government changed my name to Henry. I was in an orphanage for about three years, until the Johnson, a very nice couple, adopted me. I grew up in the suburbs in a beautiful house with an apple tree in the garden. I met my first friend, she had your name, you know? "

Y/N was sitting on the other side of the door, listening to her favorite person speak. When she hear herself in the story, she smiled through tears.

“When she asked me to play family, I always pretended to propose to her. I never knew why. After a while I realized: the girls did not have germs. Then she started to seem like the prettiest girl, then the most beautiful young woman. I was in love with her for several years, I realized late. But one day..." Michael smiled wistfully" One day I plucked up the courage... a year ago and something, maybe. And I told her everything that happened to me with her. She kissed me and we started dating. She would come to my house after school. We would eat apples from the tree and study a little. And then we’d kiss a lot in the neighbor's barn at night. "

Y / N gave a little laugh, and that triggered Michael's pulse.

“Then I reconnected with my family, with the Shelbys. And I was so mad at the Johnsons for keeping my true story from me… they had told me, they’d abandoned me. When Tommy told me the truth, I was blinded by the pain of the lie and the thrill of finding my family. I did not realize that by meeting my old family, I would be abandoning one that was beginning to grow, you know?" They both wiped away tears.

“So, my girlfriend, she came to my homwtown angry, alone and pregnant. She was super, super angry and sad. And she told me everything, and I never felt worse. For having abandoned her, for seeing her cry about it and for abandoning her again when she told me she was pregnant. So..." he sighed "I am this, a simple stranger, who tells the story of his life, to the love of his life. Hoping that she forgives him. Because, you know, I know she knows I'm a bloody idiot. I mean, when we kissed for the first time, I accidentally bit her lip and left a small scar. "

They both laughed, listening to each other and wiping their tears.

“So…yeah. If you ever see her, tell her that for me, I know she doesn’t want to see me.” Michael said, with remarkable sadness.

Y/N wiped away her tears and gently pulled her hair. She stand up and knocked on the door three times. She then heard Michael stand up quickly.

"Who is this?" Michael asked.

"My name is Y/N, can I come into your life... again?" she asked, crying.

Michael's heart began to skip multiple beats and his smile spread across his face. He opened the door and saw his girlfriend standing, tired and crying. When their eyes connected, both bodies exploded into a loving embrace. They were both crying, they missed each other.

"I’m so sorry Y / N, so, so, so, sorry..." he stroked her hair.

"I love you, Michael Gray. But the next time you leave without saying goodbye, I will kill you with my bare hands. "

"Your hands are little, lovey, you can’t." She laughed, while Michael was filling her face with kisses.

"So, wait to see what a woman with little hands does to you at three in the morning when you don't want to take care of your baby."

Michael stopped the kisses and looked into her eyes.

"For a moment I had forgotten." Laughed Michael.

"Oh my God." Y/N joined in on her boyfriend's laughter.

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qvid-pro-qvo · 4 years

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Hello sweetie. May I have 7) “I dreamt about you last night.”, 14) “Can I have this dance?”, “I couldn’t live without you.” and “I’m yours, in every way possible.” with Sonny Carisi (I'm heads over heels for that man) with female reader, please. Thanks :) - @reading--mermaid

for @reading--mermaid. sonny carisi x female!reader.

word count: 2240

rating: e for everyone, because a wedding brings everyone together, for better or for worse, but in this case definitely for the better (pretty much fluff! tw: mentions of alcohol.)

For the moment, you remember why you wish you could be an only child.

“You’re bringing your boyfriend. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

“You know, when I dreamt about you last night, I completely forgot about the part where you’re absolutely insane,” you comment mildly. Your hand reaches for your glass, and Jane just sighs. “Guess it just slipped my mind.”

“Uh-huh. So he’s coming, then?”

Your sister is glaring at you from across the table, but you don’t look at her, focusing instead on the brunch menu.

“Seems like I might try the scallops today,” you hum, and she just rolls her eyes.

“You’re allergic to seafood, dumbass, and you’re bringing your boyfriend.”

“No, I’m not, Jane.” Your voice is firm, and when she narrows her eyes at you, it’s your turn to give the dramatic roll. “Look. I don’t want to bring him. Barb’s my friend, and I love her, and I’m excited for her, but that wedding is going to be shitshow. The last thing I want is to scare him off because dear old Uncle Phil decides to get too rowdy and Aunt Julia decides to drink two bottles of wine instead of one at the reception.”

“That’s just how weddings work,” Jane counters, and when you open your mouth again to argue, she raises her hand. “It’s a shitshow, but it’s sweet. You’re a bridesmaid, sweetheart. And unless you want one of the bridal party trying to flirt with you all night, your boyfriend is the perfect protection. Plus, I want to meet him!”

With a sigh, you lift up your hand to tie your hair back, your scrunchie forcing the mess into a bun. “You’ve met him,” you say, with no lack of petulance, but Jane just sighs.

“Once. For like, ten minutes, in passing. You’re both always busy, and not only that, but I know Mom and Dad wouldn’t mind meeting the guy that you’re basically swooning over every time you talk to them on the phone. How long’s it been that you’ve been gushing about him? A year?”

That makes your brows raise, and Jane can surely see them even over the menu. “They’re coming, then? For sure?”

“For sure. Uncle Phil paid for their flight. Said he wanted the whole family there, and that means every brother they can manage.” There’s a moment of silence as Jane glances around. The waiter still hasn’t come for your order, and so she busies herself with a drink of water before speaking again, letting you ruminate on the fact. “Just. Think about it. Please? For me?”

So, you do. You think. And while the prospect of Sonny meeting your… eclectic family is terrifying; you can’t help but think that he’s… well. He’s Sonny. And when you think about him meeting your parents, finally…

With a sigh, you put down the menu, interlock your fingers, and when you look up, your sister is flashing her puppy eyes at you.

“Fine. Fine! I’ll ask. And if he’s not busy, which he always is, I’ll bring him,” you relent, just to get her to stop looking at you like that. There are practically tears in her eyes. Immediately she breaks out into a grin, a little cackle added on. “But you owe me the name of your firstborn. I don’t care what David says, sister’s honor.”

“No shit,” Jane returns. You shake on it, making you chuckle. “Easiest deal I’ve ever made.”

Sonny says yes. Immediately. No hesitation. It’s a testament to how fantastic he is that when you bring it up over takeout that night, he seems absolutely delighted at the prospect.

Of course, you try to warn him.

“You might not be available the day of,” you point out.

His response is easy as he takes off his jacket, drapes it over the back of your couch. “If you give me the date, I’ll take time off right now. Liv’ll be fine with it, you know that.”

“My parents will be there,” you warn, and while the moment gives him pause, he ends it with a smile.

“Good.”

Good. Good. To meeting the parents? You want to poke him, see if he’s an alien or something, but he’s still smiling and all you really can do is kiss him for it.

“You know, all of my family is a pain in the ass,” you state bluntly, a last ditch effort. He snorts, and you reach to stab him with your plastic fork, the takeout he brought home not yet opened up and dug into. “I’m serious! It’ll be a mess, okay, and if I can spare you that –“

He just chuckles, reaching to pull you into his embrace. You melt into it – by this point his button down is off, leaving just his undershirt. He smells like home, and you can’t help but sink into the feeling. “Sweetheart, that’s family. Trust me, all right? You’ve met my sisters, you’ve met my parents. It’s about time that I return the favor.”

When he kisses your temple, you’re realizing with a twist of your lips that he’s unfortunately pretty damn great.

“You know, you won’t be able to really talk to me until the first dances,” you tell him, just for shits and giggles, and that earns you another kiss, this one on your cheek, your neck, your jaw, behind your ear.

“But I’ll be able to see you.”

So, it’s done. The car is rented, the hotel is booked, and when the weekend of comes around, and the two of you hop into your car and make the three-hour ride up.

Of course, the wedding is about as much of a pain as you expected it to be.

It should be noted that you love being there for your cousin, and she looks absolutely stunning her gown. It’s not the gown, or your own dress (which is plain and deep burgundy, styled perfectly with a matching lip). It’s not the ceremony, which makes you tear up, as her and her wife seal the deal with a kiss that you hoot and holler at. It’s not the food or the drinks or the venue or anything else that came together for Barb’s perfect day.

It’s the family.

Aunt Julia goes just as hard as you expect her to. Uncle Phil’s jokes are crude, but… inevitably get a laugh from one side of the family or the other. Your nieces are chaos incarnate, and half your time as bridesmaid is spent wrangling the dog that was made the ring bearer, your bathrobe getting caught on every doorhandle in the place. By the time the reception comes around, you’re exhausted and close to tipping over, navigating the intricacies of a big family with poise and grace you’re sure God probably gave you just for that day or something.

It’s a mess.

It’s your mess.

And Sonny, that day? Well. Sonny… is Sonny.

Sonny helps you catch the dog the first time it escapes (and the second time, and the third time). Sonny, due to some last-minute stomach bug, ends up helping out as usher, and makes every single family member he escorts to their row and aisle and seat smile. Sonny, at his place at the table where your parents sit, spends the whole night chatting them up, and you and your sister at the table with the bride and groom, can only watch from a distance.

“He’s crushing it,” Jane tells you. David’s sitting there, too, and he’s also enraptured with your boyfriend. The weariness of the day starts to wear off, and now that the pictures are done the drink in front of you is white wine and your belly is full. “Don’t look now, but I think Dad’s writing the invitations for Thanksgiving.”

There’s a pride that fills you, then. It’s been coming the whole day, but in that moment, you feel like you’re about to burst. You’re grinning, and when he glances over to where you are, well.

“You know what? Let him,” you say, and your eyes don’t leave Sonny as he winks and goes back to his story. “He really is crushing it.”

Soon the meal is done. There’s cake, and laughter, and you watch as Barb shoves her piece into Meredith’s face with unbridled glee. At that point you look around for your boyfriend, but he’s nowhere to be found. Neither are your parents for that matter, and you’re sliding out of your heels so you can troll around, eating cake, looking around for them.

Eventually, though, they come back. It’s in the middle of the first dance when you feel the familiar presence behind you, and his hands move to wrap around your waist as you watch the brides sway together, the rest of their lives ahead of them.

“Just in time,” you tease. “I thought I’d have to go solo out there.”

He turns you, so your vision of the brides is now full of him. You haven’t got to linger on it yet, but right here and now, he looks stunning. While the men in the bridal parties have black suits, Sonny’s is a beautiful navy, with a pocket square that matches the color of your dress (you’re almost ninety percent sure it’s from that lawyer he knows, but you don’t bring it up, kind of hoping he’ll keep the full ensemble). “And keep the world from seeing my awesome dance moves? No way.”

You giggle. The wine, the meal, the end of the day approaching. You’re loose, and he’s smiling, which makes you grin. “Saw you dodging the chocolatey fingers of my nieces and baby cousins,” you point out, and his eyes widen for a second before he glances around, peeks over your shoulder.

“Yeah, just, uh, don’t tell ‘em where I am. I think it’s part of their game to see who gets the most fingerprints on me by the end of the night.”

The DJ announces the end of the first dance, welcoming the bridal parties onto the floor. Sonny lights up at this, and offers his hand to you. “Can I have this dance, beautiful?”

Your smile softens, just a tad. “I thought you’d never ask.”

The music is slow, but not glacial, and Sonny starts it off by holding you proper. Soon enough, though, you’re moving into each other, and your head is resting on his shoulder, the slow sway of the brides what you’re mimicking. It’s gentle, and sweet, and for the moment you allow yourself to close your eyes.

Everything else slips away. All that’s left is the music and Sonny against you. Your dress brushes against your feet, still bare and cold against the dance floor, but nothing can bring you out of this ecstasy.

His voice is low against your ear, almost raspy as the song fades into something new, and the DJ announces the rest of the group can join with their significant others. “You know, I had a good time with your parents,” he murmurs, and you laugh lazily against him.

“I noticed. Be careful, I think my mom was thinking of kidnapping you so you can tell her all the Carisi family recipes.”

“Now those are top secret,” he informs you, seriousness in his tone, and when you pull back to look at him there’s mirth, even with his little pout.

“Obviously. I’ll distract, and you’ll hit the road.”

He laughs now, and it’s easy. It’s like breathing, the two of you. “Right. Well. We did talk about other things, while I was ensuring the safety of my family’s legacy.”

That peaks your interest, and you raise a manicured brow. “Like what?”

For a moment, he pauses. He’s caught, looking at you, under the lights, and for a moment you think he’s not going to say anything at all. But then he leans in, presses your foreheads together, and the world stops.

“I told ‘em… I told ‘em I’m yours, in every way possible. I told ‘em how I couldn’t live without you, and I told ‘em how I don’t want to.”

Your breath catches in your throat, and when you blink a couple of tears fall. “Sonny…”

“I told them, how one day, I’m gonna propose, and I’m gonna ask you to marry me. And I told them, how I really, really, hope you say yes.” His voice is definitely raw, now, and your swallow is tight. “You don’t have to say anything right now. Of course not, I’m not proposing now, but. I just… I need you to know how much you mean to me. How much being a part of your family, how much it means to me. And… I hope you want to be a part of mine.”

The slow music ends. The DJ is cheering now, and the crowd is clapping, and soon something more upbeat starts. But you’re stopped, in the middle of the dance floor, and before you can think you’re pulling him into a deep kiss, pressing up into it on your toes.

When you pull back, your mascara is running. But you don’t care. You couldn’t possibly care less. “If you think I’m saying anything but yes, whenever the hell you ask me, Dominick, I –“

He kisses you again. And when the world fades away once more, it’s because the two of you know that your whole lives are ahead of you, too.

#prompt fill #sonny carisi x reader #sonny carisi #dominick carisi jr #female!reader #law and order: svu #my fic #fluff #tw alcohol #mentions of alcohol

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ahoge-fish · 3 years

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Good luck in studies Gigi! you are gonna ace them all! >:3 tell me more about Alex been a student! how was her daily lifes before been that bizarre hah

Dvshjabdja thank you I really need it ;v;💖💖💖💖 especially after writing literally 2 steps of a math problem that I just dropped because I DON'T UNDERSTAND SHIT-

But let's start from the highest to the lowest grades👀👀👀 (because I started writing from high school and I'm too lazy to switch places)

Alex is (and also was before the trip) that type of person that makes friends with everyone. So she knows the older students and loves meeting the newbies, she's friend with teachers and janitors.

She gets in trouble a lot, but always manages to risolve the problem before it becomes a big one. Jotaro is like her babysitter, telling her "don't do that, you'll regret it." "the teachers will be so mad if they find out about this and you'll get in serious trouble."

But sometimes he gets along with the things that she does cuz, y'know he's Jotaro Kujo and he's the first one to go against the school's rules. He's also curious of what will happen and so they sometimes get in trouble together.

And that's when Kakyoin joins them: he's the real babysitter of those two. He's a good boy, he follows the rules, gets good grades-

but wait, then why is he helping Alex and Jotaro creating a bonfire made with leafs in the back of the school?

Welp, guess that these three are a real problem.

This is all in high school tho. In middle school at first she was calm and a little bit shy, but then she started to become more confident in the middle of the 6th grade, after she defended two girls from some bullies. Lil Joot watched her from afar and was proud of her :'') (if the situation would've become worse he would've stepped in ofc)

In 7th grade, she saved a boy that was on those folding stairs that you can bring around. He fell from those and Alex with her stand saved him from breaking his dumb head. The boy instead of thanking her, was so scared about floating in the air for like 2 seconds that he started calling him a "witch" and ran away.

Since he was a popular boy, when he told everyone about this, everyone believed him and they started calling her "witch". But she couldn't care less.

Instead of letting those mean people get on her feelings, she started vibing and joking with them about all of this. Jotaro at first didn't like how some students called her, but he let it go because he saw that Alex didn't care.

In elementary school, she was in her developing fase from really shy and insecure to being confident juuuust a little bit.

She started school in Japan from second grade and she didn't talk to anybody at first. Because she had still to learn the language but also because she was shy. She knew a few words, but she was scared that kids would've made fun of her in case she mispronounced them.

But in the third day that she was there, during a break, she was doodling on a piece of paper some marine animals and her stand, Kubary Fighter, playing with them.

Jotaro, also being an ocean nerd from a young age, saw what she was drawing and seated near her.

He knew that she didn't know how to talk Japanese, so he stayed silent. But for letting her know that he liked what she was drawing, he pointed at the paper and then smiled.

After that, they drew together and started to spend more time with one another and eventually they became friends :)

Jotaro always defended her from the bullies. He was like Alex's inspiration, a hero. Whenever he did that she always looked at him with big eyes and with a "wow" expression.

H e m u s t p r o e c t l i t t l e A l e x . That was his goal.

In the first years of elementary school and kindergarten in Italy, she was just really shy and insecure. Michael (her biological father) made her feel like that. Son of a bi-

She didn't speak and people from her school thought that she was mute. For this reason, kids made fun of her, making her rise her insecurities.

She always sat alone and never answerd back to the kids' insults.

Isabella (her mother) was the only one on her side ;v;

When she picked little Alex from school, she always brought her to the beach, knowing that it was the only place that let her calm herself after those rough days.

So as you can see Alexandra developed all of her confidence thanks to Jotaro, that came into her life and made it a lot better ;v; this is so cute I swear- 💖💖💖💖💖

Also wow while I was writing this my cousin sent on our friend group chat the math problems, bless her 😌

Edit: I forgot to tell the grades that she has in school. She's pretty good at everything, but in math physics she's a big no no XDD Jotaro and Kakyoin help her in these subjects. This is like a sacrifice for those two since she really doesn't understand a thing HAHAHAHAHA very much like me :'')

#I-don't-know-how-to-call-it #jjba oc #sdc oc #alexandra parker #jotaro kujo #noriaki kakyoin

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mystech-master · 3 years

Text

F/GO High School/Modern AU BS

Me and @rex101111 have been talking about a modern/HS AU ft. as many Chaldean servants as possible. Here are the ideas we came up with (I am pretty much cut and pasting our message convo, so this is a mixture of both me and Rex's ideas):

Gil is the douchbag Senior everyone hates but his dad owns the school or whatever so he can do whatever he wants. The only decent person who willingly hangs out with him is his childhood friend Enkidu who's hoping he can un-douch his bro. He has kid Gil as his little brother and Caster Gil as his older bro who both agree that he sucks (Gil is the loser middle child of the family), Caster Gil wonders what Enkidu sees in his shit head brother. "He's too good for you." "Blow it out your ass." "One day he's going to wise up, see how much of a shit you are, and when you're all alone don't come crying to me." Caster Gil is in college studying political science, Kid Gil goes to a fancy boarding school. Archer Gil goofs off and throws parties

Scathach is a swimming class teacher, mainly b/c I recall underwater training being a part of Cu's regiment under her tutelage. People were jealous of the Cus for like two seconds when they find out the swim teacher is their mom, then they see her having them do an extra twenty laps and ignoring when OG Cu starts floating in the water. "CU DIED!" "YOU'RE NOT HUMAN!" while Scathach is like "you have two seconds to stop playing around before I ACTUALLY drown you" and he's back to doing laps.

Yeah with 4-5 Cus (if you count Setanta from Arcade) that is like 5 brothers.

Nightingale as school nurse, she is friends with Asclepius who works at a hospital associated with the school (strictly professional, but the students think otherwise).

Side note, keep in mind you can have multiple servants be the same type of teacher, just for different classes/grades.

King Hassan is the old Religious History teacher. Every one thinks he's older then the rock is the school is made out of. He has a scary face and a scarier voice but most students consider him the most fair and patient teacher in the whole school. He always gets a lot of food gifts before Ramadan form the students. (A few students, such as the Guda twins and Mash, call him gramps.) The other Hassans are his grandkids, like actual grandkids. He's super strict with them because he expects a lot from them. He always praises them when they do well though. He made sure they ALL got into his class and they've been living in fear ever since. They love their grandpa but by Allah they know not to disappoint him. The only one to ever get out of anything is kid Hassan (one of the hundred face). Cursed Arm is oldest, then Asako (the main hundred face), then Serenity.

"I am very disappointed in ALL of you, have you all lost your heads? I swear I-*to kid Hassan*-ah no Habibi not you you're fine here have a candy-*back to the rest*-I KNOW you're better than this!"

VERY traditional guy, Cursed Arm mutters "Oh for God's sake" while doing a pop quiz and King Hassan looms over him and growls, "No Blaspheming In This Class Room"

For the various Artoria/Arturias, I imagined Lancer and Lancer Alter being sisters, so Saber Alter is a cousin. That leaves everyone else to just be sisters with one brother. Mother Lartoria owns a casino and gas her own yacht in reference to the summer event where she became a Ruler. If you want MHX could be a part of the family as a massive fucking Star Wars nerd. MHXX and MHX Alter are her mom and sister (so MHXX is a third sister for the two Lancer Artorias)

For Irisviel, I remember in one of the Nero Fest things that she was called Therapist Iri. Maybe she starts to get into that b/c she wants to help her adoptive son Shirou (instead of a big fire like in Zero it can be an orphanage fire thing, similar situation but a much smaller scale) , so she is the school therapist/psychiatrist. Like Maruki in P5 Royal.

Iskandar died in his 30s, Waver is around his 30s as Lord El Melloi II. The two are old college friends who still hang out and Alexander is Iskandar’s kid.

If you guys want you can see this as the two being gay dads since I know that ship is popular.

Fran had an abusive father before Babbage and Moriarty got involved. In the og story, Frankenstien has a scientific mindset like his creator, here Fran has a talent in the field, but she also hates it b/c it reminds her of him. Like imagine being talented at the thing your abusive parent was good at/known for. Moriarty tried to get it into her that SHE'S the one with the talent, not her college dropout bum of a father, "From you tell me of him Victor couldn't engineer his way out of an argument with a cat, you have a magnificent mind my dear, not letting it flourish to spite him would be a horrible waste...it's your talent, your skill. Not his." He smiles that smile she loves that scares every one but she knows he only smiles like that when he is absolutely convinced of something, "and you can out perform him without breaking a sweat."

Moriarty teaches Fran sign language while Babbage teaches her some engineering.

Jekyll is going for a major in medicine with a minor in law (in the actual irl story Dr. Jekyll was a doctor in medicine and law).

For science associated servants, you got da Vinci, Babbage, Edison, and Tesla as possible science teachers.

The Jeanne sisters. Without the Avenger BS, the reason Jalter (or Joan as one series of fics calls her) could hate her here is just inferiority complex and being compared to her perfect saint big sister all her life. Joan does have her talents, based on the summer event an, but again she doesn't acknowledge her own talent b/c of her always being compared to her older sister., in the 7 counterfeit events she is a really good artist. And it is the typical thing of Jeanne actually being scared out of her wits of being less than perfect because of all the expectations thrust on her. She gets one A- and runs to the bathroom crying and Joan has to swallow her pride and actually have a conversation with her sister for the first time in years. Jeanne Alter lily puts up Christmas decorations super early, much to Jeanne Alter/Joan's displeasure.

"IT JUST TURNED NOVEMBER CHILL TF OUT!"

"CHRISTMAS!"

Martha is Jeanne's BF since middle school and has this HUGE dog that scares everyone and growls at anyone expect Martha and Jeanne. She calls him Terry.

Rex loves Penthesilea. and we talked at length about the situation between her and Achilles. Can you not tell that he likes a woman who can kick his ass *gestures to all of his Baiken posts*

Rex's idea: I think they had a fight when they were little and Achilles, being a little shit back then, made fun of her for being a girl, and Penth has been sore about it ever since. She keeps running into big misogynistic meatheads that reminded her of that and she just got angrier over the years. She's a wrestler and can knock out just about every dude in school by herself. Achilles is very regretful about back then and wants to apologize but Penth ain't having any of it.

My idea: I thought they were on opposing HS sports teams and when Achilles handed her ass to her he forgot to drink his respect women juice and then Penth got all pissed.

In this AU, Penth and Hippolyta's dad was a general who taught them how to kick the ass of men twice their size since they were seven or something.

Penth surprises everyone when a festival comes up and she gets picked to be the one to organize everything...and does a spectacular job. Another surprise is that she plans on being a business major when she goes to college (Obligatory Amazoness CEO jokes)

Bedivere is the Arturia Pendragon family butler with a prosthetic arm. He's also the security guard, last guy that tried to steal something or cause trouble got slapped right out of the window he sneaked in from.

Francis Drake and Artoria Alter Lancer are work friends (referencing them both being associated with the Wild Hunt in F/GO's lore).

Beni-Enma is the short and shorter tempered lunch lady, last kid who mouthed off at her during lunch got smacked upside the head with her spoon. She's sweet, but if you're in detention and have to help her in the kitchen she's a mini Gorden Ramsey, "IT'S RAW DECHI!!!" She can also come into the home EC class where Shirou is her best student. Also her roasting of the other girls like in her quest. Getting Fs in Beni's class is the worst, because it isn't just an F, it's a meticulous dressing down of exactly why letting into a kitchen should be considered a war crime, dechi.

The three Avenger Nobus are three different people. 1st Ascension is basically Archer Nobu, then you got Oda Kipposhi, and then the mom is Ascension 3 with Demon King Nobunaga. The youngest Ascension 1 Nobu is a musician. Demon King Nobu is one of those "super scary but also super polite people that only makes them scarier" type, basically a female koei Nobunaga from samurai warriors (check out some cutscenes form the games with him, he's a treat).

Imagine Demon King Nobu mom in a business suit.

Suzuka Gozen and Sei Shonagon are the textaholics who always talk in slang to the point of it sounding like they speak a different language. Murasaki is the librarian but Sei is like that ONE student who just makes her job so much harder.

Every week it's "No phones in the library Miss Shonagon." while Sei rolls her eyes and types out twitter post like "fugly ol librarian at my school needs a life lol"

Oui Katsushika is a gifted art student, and her dad (not a floating little octopus), is just a normal dude with a squid/octopus like beard. She's the teacher's pet in De Vinci's art class.

Eresh and Ishtar come from a rich family, Ereshkigal is the older sister so she had a shit load of responsibility to take over the family business while Ishtar basically gets to party her life away. Rin is the cousin they each try and swing their way. Eresh wants Rin to keep up her studies and get into a good university, Ishtar wants Rin to loosen the fuck up and admit that she likes that scrawny Emiya kid already.

BB is the host of a talk show downtown so she is kind of an absentee mom. Meltryllis has prosthetic legs that she specifically asked to be made into stilts b/c she wanted to be taller, and Passonlip has a massive rack that makes life difficult (either people staring, people assuming she's gonna be a home wrecker b/c said staring must be intentional, etc.), and of course he also has prosthetic arms to match her canon claws, obviously not as massive.

Hijikata is a very serious police officer but his wife Carmilla just uses this to have fun in the bedroom. They have two Dobermans. Hijikata's route has him patrolling near the school so most of the kids know as that scary police dude that has a picture of his wife in his pocket. One day a famous Idol called Eli-chan~ (yes spelled with the ~) is about to perform in the town and the kids can't stop talking about her, so Hijikata overhears. But, being the serious dude he is he shrugs it off until he sees a picture of this "Eli-chan~" and realizes it's his sister-in-law that came to visit and suddenly the influx of parasitic paparazzi near his house start making sense.

Carmilla: "Now you see why I hate them?", Hijikata: "No you cannot send the dogs after them honey."

She almost ran one of them over in her, very expensive, car and when that reporter says she should be locked up Hijikata corrects that would only happen if she had hit him...and she would be fined. For littering.

Okita Alter being Hijikata's partner, while Okita is her younger sister who's looked up to Hijikata since she was a little kid but she has asthma and such so she's afraid she might not get accepted.

Sigurd owns a metalworks shop (referencing his myth where he was raised by the dwarf Reginn), he met his wife Brynhildr when she was disowned by her overly controlling father.

Ozymandias, Nitocris, and Cleopatra are all the high board members of a company. Nitocris specifically got wind of Scheherazade's abusive husband situation and after getting said husband arrested, she offered Scheherazade a job.

Atalanta is a college student/TA who worked with Achilles' dad who ends up at their HS for a program or something, Achilles' dad has told him a lot about her.

Amakusa Shirou is an uncle married to the CEO of Babylon Gardens Pharmaceuticals, Semiramis. Semiramis herself is kinda chill if REALLY scary. She had to be pretty cutthroat to get to her position in the company, but Amakusa Shirou helped her mellow out, but she is still a massive tsundere.

"You know you COULD poison their lunch." "Semi, dear, I'm not going to poison my coworker's sandwich for being an ass." "It wouldn't kill them! Just a bit in their peanut better and they'll be stuck on the toilet for a week, no harm no foul."

Rex initially said Taiga would be an overly enthusiastic gym teacher but then I remembered that she was a homeroom/English teacher in Fate canon, but either or can do if you wanna be unique.

For Quetzalcoatl, Wrestling club supervisor when she isn't the senior year gym teacher. Some of the male students laughed that they didn't think a woman would know anything about wrestling. Two piledrives later, the students have earned a new appreciation for the importance on how not to be two pieces of shit. She's big on Lucha as in canon and during Halloween she gets JAGUARMAN to have an exhibition fight with her. They make a show of it but later on Taiga admits that Quatz could have CRUSHED her if they were actually fighting. She takes the wrestling club out for homemade Mexican food after tournaments

For Siduri, there's a bunch of rumors she's dating Caster Gil but it's strictly professional, Caster respects her too much to consider that. Archer Gil hits on her relentlessly, she manages to wound his ego more severely then anyone else simply by being unfailingly polite in her rejections and treating him like what he is, a teenage punk jumping higher than he can handle to land.

Ibaraki is Shuten's adoptive little sister after she was taken from an abusive mother, hence why Ibaraki looks up to her. Ibuki is either Shuten's big sister who had to take on a guardian role, or just her mom. Shuten and Ibuki have a bit of a strained relationship because Shuten saw the way Ibuki acted as they grew up, taking more and more responsibilities onto herself and refusing any distractions. And she decided that her biggest nightmare is to wake up one morning and realize she's turned into Ibuki so she tries to do everything to avoid that, hence their relationship not being the best. Ibaraki is kinda stuck in the middle because she wants to side with Shuten but she sees where Ibuki is coming from. Messy.

Caren is still Kotomine’s daughter, but he isn’t a good dad and in rebellion she sleeps around despite being a woman of god. Including sleeping with local punk Angra Mainyu. Angra Mainyu seems like a bad guy but he has a shit load of issues due to being blamed for everything going wrong in his old town, eventually coming to believe them and thinking he will cause nothing but problems. Caren banging him gives him a type of closeness he’s never felt, but under very warped circumstances.

For the Tamamo family, Vitch totally fucked her way up a corporate ladder or something, imagined Tamamo Cat working at a Cat Cafe if she were a Student. Tamamo no Mae accidentally fed her prev BF a food he was allergic too, and that kind of haunted her and scared her rep. IDK basically she seriously fucked up a previous relationship, either on purpose or accidentally, and that kind of hurts her deeply so she wants to start over with Hakuno.

Nero and Tamamo no Mae are rivals over this one guy.

Kiichi Hougen is the adoptive mom, Benkei is the family friend/uncle, Taira is Ushiwaka's older sister. Taira isn't on the best of terms with her family, some drama way back caused a rift and nowadays Ushi is the only one who's willing to talk to her and visit. Benkei never lets her go alone because he doesn't trust Taira one bit. Taira and Ushiwaka are Kintoki and Tomoe's cousins (I say Tomoe b/c apparently her husband and Ushiwaka were half cousins, with their grandpa having kids with their grandmas. I tried to make a whole family tree out of a few servants).

These are the ideas we had the most to talk about, if you guys have any suggestions for your fav servants in this AU, let either me or Rex know. Or just reblog and say them here. Who knows maybe you have a much better idea for a Servant we already mentioned.

#fgo #fate series #fate grand order #high school/modern au #high school au #f/go #fate/grand order

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urdearestmom · 3 years

Text

I'll Walk With You

hello everyone shocked to see me posting yet again???????

i said after i posted that oneshot rehashing 3x06 that i was going to one day write something where mike and max have an actual conversation.... and here it is!! for your reading pleasure :)

i think i did them and their dynamic justice with this and i'm super proud of how it turned out. we're unlikely to ever get something like this in the show but i'm hoping s4 at least gives us them being actual friends so that i can infer that something like this happened between seasons lol

Max’s house is silent as the grave. She isn’t surprised, it’s been like this nearly all the time since the summer. Her stepfather will drink himself back to sleep on the couch, and her mother will say nothing. Max won’t say anything either. The day has barely begun and it’s already shit.

Most of the time she escapes the horrible atmosphere inside her house by going to school, but it’s Spring Break now and she has nowhere to be. She’ll be stuck with her thoughts all day if she doesn’t find something else to do, so after nearly two hours of trying in vain to entertain herself, she decides to head out and see if Lucas is free. She knows Dustin already left town with his mom the night before, and she’s not willing to have Mike third wheel her and Lucas, so she hopes he’s down to go do something with her. He’s good at distracting her from the inescapable cycle of guilt and anger she feels constantly nowadays.

Except when she gets to his house, his parents are in the garage putting things into the trunk of the family car. She stops at the sight. Erica is nowhere to be seen but Lucas is standing in the front doorway and sees Max coming right away. He meets her in the street.

“Max, hey,” he says. “What’s up?”

Max gestures to his house. “I came to see if you wanted to hang out, but it looks like you guys are going somewhere.”

Lucas frowns. “I thought I told you, we’re going to visit my cousins in Chicago for a few days.”

Lord, a few days? Lucas must see it on her face because he scrambles to assure her it’s not for the whole week.

“I’ll be back Wednesday,” he promises.

“Today’s Sunday,” she protests. She knows there’s literally nothing to be done about it, but it still sucks. What’s she going to do all week?

“I swear I told you,” Lucas repeats.

“Yeah. Yeah,” Max answers. “You probably did. I’m sorry, just… forgot.”

He frowns again. Max has been forgetting a lot of things lately. She’s not sure why, it just feels like everything in her life is too much and her brain can’t handle it the way it should. Freshman year has not been the greatest so far.

“You okay?” He asks her, reaching for her hands, and his concern makes her heart squeeze painfully in her chest. He’s probably the only person who actually cares about her well-being, seeing as her mom clearly doesn’t.

Max nods. “Yeah. I just didn’t want to be at home, but I guess I’ll find something else to do. Bye, Lucas,” she says, squeezing his fingers gratefully before turning away to bike off back down the street.

“Hey!” He calls. She turns back. He motions to the big house next door, equally familiar to her. “Mike’s still home, maybe you can ask him?”

Max crosses her arms. “Like he would want to hang out with me,” she scoffs.

Lucas sighs. “Look, I know he can be a bit of an ass sometimes-”

“That’s putting it lightly.”

“-But he’s not a bad person, Max, you know that. He’s dealing with a lot right now,” Lucas finishes.

Max rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well, he’s not the only one,” she says bitingly. She has never gotten along with the third boy in their group and at this point she isn’t sure she ever will. She’s also not really in the mood to look at his stupid face today, considering it’ll more than likely start an argument and she doesn’t have the energy for that.

“I know,” Lucas says. “I know. But you’re both my best friends and I think you guys are more alike than you think. If you just gave each other another chance, you’d get along.”

Max doesn’t reply. She doesn’t really know what to say because she knows Lucas is only trying to help her with what he thinks is the current best solution, but she doesn’t want to agree with him either.

“Just think about it,” he continues. “He’s the only one not going anywhere so if you really need to see someone…”

She gets what Lucas is implying, but really? “He’d probably laugh in my face if I showed up at the door. I’d rather stay home.”

At that, Lucas raises his arms in surrender. “I’m just saying he wouldn’t turn you away. We don’t lie to each other, alright?”

Max shrugs in response. “Whatever. I’ll figure something out.”

Lucas steps forward quickly to hug her. Pulling back, he keeps his hands on her arms. “I wrote my cousins’ phone number on the back of your math worksheet yesterday if you need it.”

She gives him a tiny nod and he returns it with a small smile, dropping his arms back to his sides.

“I’ll see you first thing Thursday morning,” he adds.

“Thursday,” she repeats, putting one foot back on her bike pedal. “Got it.” What’s she supposed to do until Thursday?

The answer, as it happens, is absolutely nothing. For the rest of Sunday afternoon, Max rides around town with no destination. She stops in a park for a while, sitting down and pulling up blades of grass and sprinkling them around her. A man walking his dog gives her a weird look and she flips the bird at his back. That action feels oddly satisfying, even if he didn’t see it. In the evening she makes her way back to her house, and everyone pretends like she didn’t just spend the entire day gone.

Monday dawns looking and feeling exactly the same, except Max decides to get a start on some homework. This way when Lucas comes back she’ll be free to hang out with him without the thought of her assignments hanging over her head. Her mom leaves to go to work and all it does is make Max hyper aware of Neil’s movements across the house. He’s supposed to go to work too, but Max isn’t sure he will. In fact, she sort of suspects he’s either quit or been fired. He’s missed too many days.

When she’s tired of writing and the lines of her character analysis of Mercutio are starting to blur into the equations on her algebra worksheet, she goes into the kitchen to find something to eat. Neil’s gone, so she makes herself a ham and cheese sandwich and stands by the sink to eat it. She feels exhausted, and it’s barely afternoon.

Hours later, she wakes up from a nap to the sun near setting and the noises of her mom puttering around the kitchen making dinner. The first thing her gaze lands on is the clunky walkie-talkie sitting on her desk, and her thoughts spring to the boys. Specifically, what Lucas said to her the day before.

Maybe it has more merit than she first gave it. It’s true that she doesn’t get along with Mike at all, but she might be willing to try again at some point, if only to appease Lucas. She had wanted to when they all first met. She liked the other boys just fine, but she could tell from the get-go that Mike was their ringleader and his opinion could sway the others. If she wanted to truly feel like a part of the group, they all had to be on board. Even after that, things weren’t so terrible between them; at least until summer and all the drama with El and then everything else that happened. Now, Max’s headspace is too occupied by other problems to care much about trying to repair her somewhat-friendship with him, and Mike has become more and more reclusive by the day. She even thinks she saw him smoking once, down at the far end of the field, which, although she isn’t an expert, she feels is extremely uncharacteristic.

Everything’s just weird now. There’s too many empty holes in all their lives.

Dinner is mostly quiet; nobody in this house ever says anything that has any true meaning anyway. Maybe it’s better this way. Neil ends up on the couch joined by his bottle of whiskey and Max’s mom shoos her away after she’s cleared the table, so Max retreats back to her room. The silence is almost deafening, and she wishes that dumb walkie-talkie on her desk would crackle. What she wouldn’t give for someone to say real words to her.

She considers calling Lucas, but she doesn’t want to bother him with her problems when he’s supposed to be having fun with his cousins. She also doesn’t want Neil to ask who she’s calling. In the end, she ends up tidying her room, gathering up all her comic books and folding the clothes she has on the floor before placing them on her chair. The walkie seems like it’s calling out to her as she glances at it every five seconds, and then finally lets her frustration out on it by snatching it up and launching it at her bed. She doesn’t want to break it, but she did want to throw it. Why does she keep looking at it? It’s not like anyone’s going to call her on it. The only people who might are both out of town.

Her emotions war inside of her. On the one hand, she knows what she wants, what she needs. She needs to talk to someone freely so it has to be someone who relates to what she’s seen, because being stuck virtually alone inside her house for the next few days until Lucas gets back is going to drive her insane. Unfortunately the only person she can think of is someone she isn’t on good terms with, which makes her angry for even having the thought. Is she really desperate enough to potentially embarrass herself?

Damn Lucas for putting the idea in her head. She’s sure she never would’ve considered it on her own. Damn Lucas and his stupid advice, damn Dustin for ever speaking to her that day and getting her involved in all their mess, and damn Mike for hating her from day one.

Damn her for going to talk to him anyway. She sneaks out her window, just as she has done to meet Lucas so many times, except it’s after nine and it’s dark out. She brings the walkie with her.

On the way, she wonders why she’s even doing this. She supposes it would make it easier for Lucas and Dustin when they all hang out together (which is getting rarer every week) if she and Mike aren’t constantly at each other’s throats about something or other. She also remembers something El said to her on the phone a while ago that she had forgotten about until this very moment. El had heard enough complaints from both of them about each other and was just wishing they would stop fighting. Max had scoffed at it and been about to launch into another rant about just how much of a jerk Mike was when El had said she didn’t care if they weren’t friends, she just wanted them to stop being so mad all the time.

Max kind of agrees with her. Being angry all the time is exhausting, and there are way worse things in her life to be angry about than Mike Wheeler and his dumb attitude. If she can make peace with him, maybe she won’t feel so out of place around her own friends. And maybe, if they can get over everything that’s happened between them, it’ll give her hope that the rest of her life might look up one day, too.

It’s only when she gets to his house that she realizes she doesn’t know what she wants to say. Maybe it doesn’t have to be a whole conversation, maybe just seeing each other for five minutes will give her enough stability to stay in her house until Lucas returns and she can talk to him instead. She just needs to be around someone who knows the things she’s been through since she moved here, someone who looks at her and knows why she is the way she is. Her mom can never know and will never understand, and Neil is too scary to ever think about approaching him with anything at all.

She drops her bike in the grass by the back of the house, making her way to the basement door where she knows the boys like to be. He’s probably in there still. Her stomach is roiling with nerves, scared that he’ll open the door and glare at her like he usually does, but she remembers there’s another way he looks at her sometimes. There are moments at school, when she passes the gym or sees the basketball team, where Max gets overwhelmed at the memories of her dead stepbrother. It’s almost like she can smell him, the way he used to get up in her face when he yelled at her and the way he looked when he died apologizing to her. It’s moments like that when Dustin and Lucas will be distracted with some petty disagreement that she looks to Mike and his gaze contains solidarity instead of hostility; reassurement that he knows what it feels like to be reminded at every turn of someone you cared about who is gone. He was there, too, and saw Billy sacrifice himself at the last moment just as she did. It’s not an image either of them can forget.

It’s this that gives her the courage to rap her knuckles on the glass pane of the basement door and wait for an answer. When she waits ten seconds and nothing happens, she frowns and knocks again. He wouldn’t know it’s her, why would he ignore it?

She pushes her face up to the door again and tries to see inside, her breath fogging against the glass, and then realizes all the lights in the basement are off.

“Shit,” she says quietly. She doesn’t want to show up at the front door at this time of night. His mom will probably answer and Max doesn’t want to explain herself. She wanders around to the front of the house anyway, looking at which lights are on. There’s one on the ground floor that flickers and seems like it might be a TV, and there’s one on in a room on the second floor. That room has pink wallpaper, though, so Max decides to assume it’s not the one she’s looking for. The middle upstairs window is dark, and the one on the left has the blinds pulled halfway down, but she spots a familiar figure walking past it in the half second her eyes jump to it. Bingo.

She takes a breath to steel herself before bringing the walkie-talkie out of her jacket pocket and pressing down on the button. “Mike, do you copy? It’s Max. Over.”

The walkie crackles with static for a few seconds, and then clears up as an answer comes through. “Yeah, I copy. What do you want? Over.”

“Can you come outside?”

It crackles again in the silence, and Max thinks that maybe this was insane and she should just go home. Then, “You’re outside?”

The blinds lift all the way up and Max sees Mike’s expression change from confused to surprised, like he didn’t actually believe she was there. In a second, he has the window pulled up too and his head sticking out of it.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, his tone of voice anxious, and Max realizes he probably thinks something horrible has happened. In his head, there’s likely no other reason she of all people would show up at his house at close to ten at night.

“Nothing happened, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she says, glancing away from him above her and noticing she’s standing in front of the front door. This is not a good place to be. “I just- didn’t want to be alone.”

She looks back up to find him staring at her like she’s grown another head. “So you came to me?”

Max huffs and crosses her arms. “Well, there’s no one else to go to!”

“Keep your voice down!” He hisses. “Do you want my mom to hear you?”

She glares. She’s starting to think that this was a bad idea after all.

After a few seconds of mutinous eye contact, Mike puts a hand to his forehead exasperatedly. “Give me a minute, I’ll meet you at the basement door.” He shuts the window and pulls the blinds down without another word, so Max heeds the order and circles back around to where she left her bike. A few moments later, he comes out the door shrugging on a jacket over what looks like-

“Are those Star Wars pyjamas?” She asks, her mouth twisting into a teasing little smile. What does El see in this guy? As far as she knows, Lucas isn’t this completely nerdy.

He gives her a flat look. “Why do you have to have a problem with everything that I do?”

She frowns. “It was just a question. Relax, jeez.”

In response, Mike puts his hands in his pockets and looks at her. “So what do you want to do?”

Max balks for a second, awkwardness taking over her. This is so weird. She’s never willingly chosen to spend any of her time alone with Mike, and now she doesn’t know what to do.

“Um… just- walk around, maybe?”

He shrugs at her answer and starts walking toward the line of trees behind the house, where there’s a little path that leads off to the next street. Max follows quietly, a little moonlight shining down on them, and she thinks that the silence between them doesn’t feel as explosive as it usually does.

Somewhere along the way, after they’ve crossed another street and gone down a path between two houses, Mike takes something shiny out of his pocket and starts playing with it, and Max sees that it’s a lighter.

“What’s that for?” She asks.

“Lighting things up,” he says.

“You smoke?”

“Only sometimes.”

“So what’s it for the other times?”

He looks at her and his eyebrows furrow for a quick second, seemingly surprised that she inferred something about him correctly.

Mike shrugs again. “Sometimes I go out to the woods and set dead leaves on fire one at a time just to watch them burn. It’s weird how something that was alive once can just disintegrate right in front of you.”

Max isn’t sure what to say to that, but she offers something anyway. “Sometimes I steal my stepdad’s Bowie knife. Use it to stab trees,” she says casually. “Sometimes I even carve that I hate him into them.”

She’s never told Lucas that. Something in her knows that he wouldn’t relate, that his way of dealing with his anger is much calmer and reserved, but Mike’s admission of low-level violence makes her feel less crazy for her own. Maybe Lucas was right in saying they’re more alike than they think they are.

They come out of the trees behind the houses, and the path continues down a hill to a small playground area. There's a swing set that Max sits down on, the cold rubber biting through the fabric of her jeans and making her shiver. The chains creak when Mike sits in the one next to her. He’s digging through his pockets for something.

Max is almost surprised when he pulls out a box of cigarettes and plucks one from the pack, lighting it, but given what he’d just told her two minutes ago it’s not that shocking. He takes a pull from it and then blows the smoke out into the air slowly.

“You want some?” He asks, turning to her.

She remembers the choking sensation she’d felt that time Billy had offered her a drag from his cigarette, and then her mom’s reaction to it.

“Yeah, why not.” Maybe if she still smells like smoke tomorrow, her mom will care enough to ask where she’s been.

Mike hands it to her and the tips of his fingers are warm. “You’ve smoked before?”

“Once,” Max says.

He nods and watches her, and she tries not to let the hot, ashy air she breathes in make her choke. She holds it for a few seconds and then blows it out, and it makes her feel less nervous than she was before about this whole situation.

The pair of them sit there in the darkness for a few minutes, sharing the cigarette in silence, before Max thinks to ask a question she never got a real answer for.

“Why do you hate me so much?”

Mike doesn’t look at her, sucking in another breath of smoke. “I don’t hate you.”

“You sure act like you do.”

“Oh, and you don’t?” He says sarcastically, still not looking at her. “If I hated you why would I be here right now?”

“Well, if I hated you, why would I have come talk to you?” She retorts, trying to restrain the irritation she knows is probably written all over her. If she doesn’t rein herself in, she knows this is going to go south quicker than she wants it to.

He laughs dryly. “You said it yourself. You only came because there’s no one else.”

Max bites back the anger that’s trying to rise. He does have a point there, but she’s not going to tell him that. He’s also not answering her question.

“Fine. Maybe you don’t hate me.”

“I don’t.”

“What’s your problem with me then?”

He hands her the end of the cigarette to finish and grabs onto the chains of the swing, dragging the toes of his Converse through the grass.

“You’re always starting shit with me for no reason and it makes me so tired,” he says. “Like, we’d be friends just fine if we didn’t argue every other day.”

“And whose fault is that…” Max murmurs under her breath, dropping the cigarette stub to the ground and putting it out with her foot.

Mike turns to her sharply. “Uh, yours? You made El break up with me! How am I supposed to forget that?”

“I already told you I didn’t make her!” Max says loudly. Why is he still on this? As far as Max is aware, they’re basically back together anyway so it’s not like it made a difference. “And how am I supposed to forget how shit you made me feel the first week I was here?”

He looks away again. “I was pretty rude, I’ll give you that.”

She scoffs. “That’s underrating it. You were a total asshole.”

He pushes himself forward a little bit and then lets himself swing back. “I guess I never really apologized for that. I do regret it.”

Max stays silent and waits for him to continue. He’s slumped over in the swing, looking smaller and sadder than she’s ever seen him look, and her heart twinges. She recognizes the defeat present in the way his shoulders are hunched, the complete and utter exhaustion at the state of their lives painted on his face. It’s what she sees every day when she looks in the mirror.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t like you, or something,” he tells her. “I was jealous that Lucas and Dustin seemed like they were moving on when I was so…”

“Messed up?” She offers.

Mike shrugs. “Yeah. And part of it was out of concern for you, too.”

Max furrows her brows in confusion. That’s new. “Concern?” She asks, shaking her head slowly. Her hair swings around her face like a curtain, blocking her vision, but she wants to look at Mike and see how he explains this. She tucks it away behind her ear.

“Yeah,” he says again. “I could see how fucked up Will was, and I knew how fucked up I was. And Dustin and Lucas are good at pretending stuff doesn’t affect them but I know it did. It does.”

“And?”

“And I didn’t want someone new getting mixed up in our shit, okay?” He bursts out, meeting her curious gaze once again. “I didn’t want someone else to have to experience the stuff we did. I thought if I made it obvious that I didn’t want you there, you would leave. You know now, but when Lucas told you we couldn’t tell you stuff for your own safety it was the truth.”

Max thinks about that. She supposes it makes sense. She has noticed that Mike tends to be the guy that worries about everyone else’s safety, and always wants to get to the bottom of the problem before anyone gets hurt. Lucas is the same and it’s something she admires about him, but it’s overtly obvious in Mike when he’s always the one stressing about coming up with plans. Lucas is a little more go-with-what-the-adults-say.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you,” Mike finally says, and his expression is earnest. He’s a bad liar anyway, so Max knows that he means it. Speaking of his lies… she has something to apologize for too.

“I’m sorry too,” she says. “For judging your relationship too fast.”

He makes a weird noise when he registers what she said, almost like a laugh but kind of mad, too. “Yeah, and for making my girlfriend dump me.”

Max reaches out towards him and smacks his arm, a spike of irritation fuelling her. “Mike, how many goddamn times do I have to tell you I didn’t make her?”

“Well, what the hell did you say to her to make her do that?!” He exclaims.

The peace of the previous moment is gone and Max crosses her arms over her chest defensively. “From what she told me, it sounded like you were just lying straight to her face so you didn’t have to see her. All I did was tell her that if you did it again, she should dump your ass. You did it to yourself.”

Mike throws his arms up. “Hopper made me lie! He told me if I didn’t, he wouldn’t let me see her anymore. You seriously think I wouldn’t want to spend time with her? After everything we went through?”

She thinks for a second about the way he’d looked when El had walked back into their lives; the way he had seemed to drop all the negativity he’d been carrying around the second she came through that door. Max remembers thinking she’d never been so sure about someone’s presence in her life.

He’s still on a roll. “What, is that why you’ve dumped Lucas, like, seven times? You just break up with him the second he does something you don’t like without even letting him explain himself?”

Bringing that up is a sore point. Max feels incredibly guilty for the way she’s treated Lucas in the past, and she’s trying to be better. She’d told him once that she knew she could be a jerk like her stepbrother sometimes, that she was angry just like he was, but that she didn’t want to be like him. And then she turned around and behaved exactly like him, manipulating Lucas’ reactions and dumping him over and over because she knew he would come back. It made her feel like she was in control, the dominant one, the complete opposite of what she saw in her mother and what she felt in her house every day.

But she had come to a point where she realized that one day, Lucas would get fed up with her. There would come a day when he wouldn’t stand for it anymore and he’d leave her permanently, and Max didn’t think she could live with that. From then on, she had decided to try harder with him and make things better, to talk about her feelings more. It’s always going to be difficult for her, but Lucas is worth it.

“Don’t say that like you know anything about why I did that,” she says sharply, gripping so tightly onto the chain of the swing that the cold metal feels like ice in her hand.

Mike glares back at her, indignant. “Oh, that’s rich! Like you knew anything about me when you said that shit to El!”

Max stands up suddenly. “I’m tired of the lies, Mike! Do you know what it’s like to live in a house where your mom will watch your brother get beat up and leave the room so she can pretend it didn’t happen? Where she doesn’t care where you go or how you feel or what’s going on with you because if she doesn’t ask, she doesn’t have to lie to herself that it’s okay? Where we all just don’t talk about anything and pretend it’s all fine when it isn’t?”

She’s breathing hard and he’s staring up at her with wide eyes, accustomed to her outbursts by now but not like this. Max sits back down on the swing, hard.

“I broke up with Lucas a lot because it made me feel like I had control,” she admits. “I needed to feel like I was in charge of the situation. I get enough of being treated second-class at home, and I don’t want to be like my mom, ever.”

She looks back at Mike on the other swing and he doesn’t look mad at her anymore, only like he’s processing what he’s just heard. It lets her own anger drain out of her.

“When El told me what you said, it reminded me of my mom,” Max continues. “She seemed so confused on why you would do that and to me it looked like you were just using her when you wanted her and dropping her when you didn’t. My mom kind of… disappears into whoever she’s dating and just goes along with whatever they do, and it looked like that for me,” she finishes.

“I get it,” he says, and Max raises her eyebrows. “I mean, I don’t get it personally, my parents aren’t like that. I just meant I get where you’re coming from. It makes sense why you would think that way.”

“I didn’t want the same thing that happens to my mom to happen to El,” Max adds. “She is her own person, and she of all people deserves the chance to be that.”

At last, they find common ground. “I agree,” Mike replies. “She’s been through enough in her life. And I’m happy you and her are friends now,” he adds. “Seriously. It was kind of weird to imagine her having girl problems or something and talking to my sister about it. I’m glad she has you.”

“I’m glad she has you,” Max says, and Mike looks shocked to hear her say it. “I might not get why, but I know you make her happy somehow. Even if you do wear Star Wars pyjamas.”

“Hey!” He says, offended. “You recognizing it means you’ve seen it too. And I know for a fact you read comics, so you’re just as much of a nerd as me.”

Max shrugs, giving him the point. “At least I can beat you at arcade games.”

“Is that a challenge?” He asks, swinging closer as if to intimidate her.

Max laughs, and it’s a real laugh for the first time in what feels like forever. “You’re on.”

“Tomorrow,” Mike suggests. “Twelve o’clock. I’ll meet you there.”

“Bring painkillers,” she warns him. “You’re gonna need them after I’m done kicking your ass at every. Single. Game.”

“You won’t beat me at Galaga,” he says proudly.

“Wanna bet?”

They stand up and shake hands, and his feels pleasantly warm. It’s a nice change from the frozen chain she was holding onto.

“Loser gets us fries,” Mike adds, and Max agrees to it. As if of one mind, they both turn back up the path they came from.

They’re back across the two streets they crossed and almost all the way back to Mike’s house when Max speaks again.

“So are we good?” She asks. She feels good about having aired out all the conflict she had with him, and he’s had this dumb smile on his face the whole time they’ve been walking back, which she’s choosing to take as a good sign.

“Yeah,” he says, looking at his feet. “We’re good.” He smiles wider.

It brings a small smile to Max’s own face. Having friends feels nice. “Why are you smiling like that?”

He coughs a little, scratching his head. “Just thinking about how happy El will be when she finds out we’re not enemies anymore.”

Max rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “You are so whipped.”

He shrugs as if to say, what can you do?

“I think Lucas and Dustin will benefit from having us not trying to kill each other every five seconds, too,” she says.

“Definitely.”

“Although I’ll probably still be annoyed by half the things you say.”

Mike makes a face like he’s not surprised to hear that. “Don’t worry about it. You’re still annoying, I just like you now. No more actual fighting.”

“Good,” she replies, feeling happier than she has in days as they arrive back in his backyard. She can faintly see her bike lying in the grass.

Mike has the door to the basement halfway open by the time she’s sitting on her bike ready to ride away, and at the last second lays a hand on her arm.

“Hey, anytime you need somewhere to go… I’m usually home,” he says, looking at her directly. It’s a simple thing to say, but she knows what he means by it. He’s telling her that he understands that sometimes her house is not a home, and that she’s always welcome in his if she needs it.

“Thanks,” she responds, and for once she is truly thankful for Mike Wheeler’s existence.

“Well, good night,” he answers, and awkwardly salutes her out of nowhere.

Max squints at him confusedly for a second. “I’ll... see you tomorrow,” she says haltingly.

He looks kind of embarrassed and shuts the door quickly, and Max rides off back to her house. That was random.

However, she is looking forward to tomorrow. She has a feeling Mike’s going to be the type of friend she’s constantly competing with, ribbing back and forth to see who can be worse just like they usually do, but this time knowing they’re both forgiven for their mistakes. It’s different from her other friendships for sure, but she thinks it’ll be good. Lucas is going to be pleased.

Maybe the wait until Thursday won’t be so bad after all.

#YALL please let me know what you think of this #i have so many thoughts on this pairing #SO MANY #also if you liked it please rb to share so more people can read it!! <3 #stranger things #stranger things 2 #stranger things 3 #stranger things fanfiction #urdearestmom

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thejudgingtrash · 4 years

Note

Virgin Percy and chad Annabeth omg

Here you go, love! :D Also kids feel free to stay away. It’s sfw/nothing explicit is going on, everyone is an adult but obviously there are small references about sex.

Let me swing that cliched trope, anon! :D also thank you again Torie @percyheartsannabeth ^^

Red Solo Cup (WC: 2.4k)

It didn’t come as a surprise to Percy that Annabeth rushed past him into his apartment and threw herself onto the sofa. She basically was at home at the Jackson’s and a more than welcome guest. “What happened?” Percy asked.

“Broke off with Ethan,” the blonde shrugged and grabbed his cherry coke. Another boyfriend that the college freshman dumped, another nonchalant reaction from his 19-year-old friend. Percy had learned early on not to ask Annabeth why her relationships didn’t work out. His best friend would rage into a monologue for hours and talk about every little detail. Every single one.

From the small size of a penis, to the number of warts her ex’s grandma had. Every detail. Percy had been burned more than once before.

“Well another one bites the dust,” the young woman said and turned her favorite show on. Percy had to admit. He was jealous. Whereas Annabeth was living her fullest and free as a bird with relationships and flings, he didn’t. Instead of hanging out with new friends, he stayed in and babysat his sister. His interactions were mostly limited to group chats. The Dominican rarely got out. Percy didn’t know whether it was social anxiety speaking or just an extreme case of introversion.

He looked okay, passable. According to some of Annabeth’s girlfriends he was cute and looked exotic, although he didn’t like that word. Having light eyes and a deep complexion shouldn’t count as looking exotic. Percy wasn’t built like his cousin Charles Beckendorf and he also didn’t have the charm of Annabeth’s ex Luke Castellan. Or the coolness of Annabeth’s latest fallen boyfriend Ethan Nakamura. But he was passable. More than fine. Not a huge slob, a great listener, an amazing cook and a great friend. So how come he never had a real relationship. How come that he never had been kissed, that he still remained a virgin to that day? Was his quietness that off putting? Percy just hoped that he wouldn’t join the crazy ranks of 40-year-old incels spewing their bullshit online and potentially harming people. He just wanted to find his soulmate he could cover in his baking goods.

“What’s going on?” asked Annabeth who was confused at his silence. Percy was usually way more talkative and would fight for the remote control because he hated watching her dramas.

“I don’t know. I’d really like to meet someone to talk to,” he confessed and didn’t dare to look her in the eyes.

“Huh? What do you mean? We’re talking right now.” She took another sip from his drink.

Percy rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I’d like to have a relationship. Explore crushes and love and all of that.”

Annabeth was surprised. She didn’t know that being single annoyed him that much. “Oh please. Relationships are overrated. Trust me.”

“It’s not just that. I haven’t got any experience.” Percy was a terrible flirter. Sweaty palms, accelerated heartbeat, and stuttering. Middle school and high school had been hell. “I haven’t even kissed someone and I’m nearly twenty!”

“So what? You’re making a deal out of this. It’s so weird and just not like you. That literally doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of life. Don’t force it. When you’re ready, you’re ready.” His friend shrugged. “Also, if I remember correctly, we have kissed before.”

A sloppy wet kiss that Percy buried deep into the darkest pits of his mind.

“Come on, Annabeth.” Percy rolled his eyes. He almost would have been offended if he hadn’t been so tired. “That was in ninth grade and part of truth or dare.”

Annabeth crossed her arms. “I still think that counts!” she disagreed.

Percy just sunk into the sofa and sighed. “Alright. How many people have I kissed that haven’t been you?”

Annabeth remained quiet. Percy had a point. He really didn’t go out to meet new people. Meet new friends or acquaintances. Meet someone who he could see as a date. The blonde felt uneasy and licked her lips. Her gaze rested on the young man next to her who had a sour expression on her face and continued watching Grey’s Anatomy against his wishes.

“Okay, Mr. I’d like a relationship. There’s a party next week at Reyna’s,” Annabeth started and caught his attention.

“You want to have some experiences? That’ll be the place to be and see what you’ve got. You’re in?”

Percy had to admit. He felt uneasy and nervous. But then he sealed his fate and nodded.

“Okay, let’s go to bed, I’m tired.” Annabeth and he sleeping in the same bed was a habit they had ever since they were nine and it never stopped.

The week passed. Seminars and classes had been attended and assignments were half way done. Friday evening was the time where everyone was finally letting loose. Percy was getting ready in his room.

Annabeth’s advice was a text she had sent an hour earlier which only said don’t show up naked, wear something comfortable. Not particularly helpful. He settled for a white dress shirt and dark jeans. Perhaps too much, perhaps too little. He wasn’t a party person so he wouldn’t know. It wasn’t much until he saw Annabeth in front of Reyna’s house where people were already drinking and laughing in front of it. She was speaking to a little group of people and seemingly cracked a joke as they began to laugh.

“Percy!” She waved him over. She looked good in her jeans and the dark crop top. Lose golden curls that rested on her shoulders. The group dissolved and entered the house.

Annabeth examined him. “You look good,” she smiled.

“Likewise.”

Annabeth’s mouth was agape. Then she laughed. “You really need a lesson in flirting. Let me be your teacher.” He’d rather not. Annabeth in hunting mode was something you only wanted to witness once.

As soon as they stepped into the house, they were greeted by clouds of weed, sweat and cheap alcohol. A brunette shadow walked up to them.

“Perseus! You made it!” Reyna hugged him and he stiffly hugged her back. Yes, he was that bad with people. Even people he had known for years.

“Hi Reyna,” he laughed. Reyna raised an eyebrow and looked at Annabeth. The native Puerto Rican thought that Percy would bounce like he always did.

“Reyna!” Thalia, Reyna’s girlfriend called for her.

“Okay, see you guys around.” Reyna excused herself.

Annabeth turned to Percy. “Alright. Let’s scout and watch out for some prey for you.”

“You’re making it sound like you’re Bear Grylls ready to fight for some survival shit.” Percy was weirded out. Party Annabeth was scary.

Annabeth laughed and slapped his shoulder. “That’s basically the spirit.”

He followed her into the living room which was full of drunkards shouting and grinding over the worst DJ Khaled remix that he has ever heard. Before Annabeth could talk about the plans she had in her mind for Percy, the fates had other intentions for them.

“Oh hey! Annabeth, right?” Some blond schmuck approached them. He looked like a trust fund baby that has never heard the word no in his life before.

“Octavian! Oh my god, it’s been a while!” They hugged and Percy felt incredibly awkward. Being the third wheel was not fun.

“Who’s that?” Octavian eyes the tall young man behind her.

“Oh, that’s just Percy, don’t mind him.” Ouch. That hurt.

“I’m going to get myself something to drink. You two have fun,” Percy decided. Annabeth waved and promptly forgot about him.

Percy fought his way to the kitchen. He had forgotten how rude drunk and high people could be, especially when they loved to block paths. As he entered the kitchen, he ran into someone. A young woman with auburn hair and a frown on her face.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, are you okay?” He asked and helped her stand up right.

“Oh yeah. I’m just tired of this place. Why did I agree to come to this party?” she sighed and was glad that the cute stranger wasn’t part of the annoying drunk crowd.

“I feel you. I hate this,” he sighed. They both shared a smile and a laugh.

“Why did we agree to this?” she giggled.

“I guess we like to torture ourselves,” Percy chuckled. She was nice. Found an instant liking to her. “Percy,” he introduced himself.

“Call me Calypso,” she smiled. An instant connection had been made.

“Want to drink something? Non-alcoholic that is?” Percy proposed and hoped that his voice didn’t crack.

“Gladly,” she left and took his hand.

It dawned Annabeth slowly. She had forgotten something. Didn’t she come to this party with an intention? Not just drinking and dancing. But something else. The college student had been talking to Octavian, danced with him, talked a bit with his friends and now they were alone again. It was abundantly clear that he was interested in a short fling.

“Oh fuck,” she remembered what she had forgotten. Or more who she had forgotten. Percy. Where was he?

“Huh?” Octavian asked.

“I’ve got to check in on a friend, don’t move, I’ll be right back,” the blonde smiled and winked.

“Oh, alright.” Octavian said. He was trapped in Annabeth’s web. Just the way she liked it.

Annabeth looked out for Percy. She had seen her friends Piper, Clarisse, Hazel and Reyna again but none of them had seen him. Annabeth checked her phone. Apart from Instagram stories that had been shared frantically, no new messages. Percy was the type to text her immediately should he leave. Hell, he would have told her in person.

She reentered the living room with a frown on her face. Her gray eyes scanned the area and actually found his messy black haircut on the dancefloor fairly easy. Percy and dancing. A smile slipped onto Annabeth’s face. Then it dropped. Percy wasn’t working it in the middle of the room alone. He had his hands around the waist of a curvy small brunette. Percy had gotten his wish. The entire purpose of this operation was to meet someone new. And the way he threw his head back to laugh proved that he fairly enjoyed himself.

Annabeth felt a thing and that one thing only: boiling rage. Her feet acted immediately. She marched to the dancefloor and pushed everyone aside that had been in her way until she got to Percy and the mysterious girl at his side.

“Percy! There you are!” Annabeth said and threw herself onto him in a hug and broke his embrace with the stranger. Then she grabbed him and pulled him out of the crowd. Confused, the mystery girl followed them.

Percy was perplexed and looked down at Annabeth, who was behaving very oddly. That was not the usual chill Annabeth he knew. Percy looked to Calypso and saw the hurt in her eyes. Oh no, she must think we’re together, he thought.

“Uh, Calypso this is Annabeth, a friend of mine,” Percy explained and saw how the brunette visibly relaxed.

“Best friend you meant to say,” Annabeth corrected and stole his red solo cup. She had to admit that being reduced to a friend hurt her way too much. Her smile cracked at the taste of soda instead of a delicious liquor. She had forgotten that Percy was a non-drinker in the heat of the moment. She needed something that would wash her annoyance away. Annabeth shook hands with that Calypso girl.

“Calypso, like the dance?” she asked with a slightly condescending tone.

“Uh yeah, exactly. Like the dance.” Calypso said and raised an eyebrow as Annabeth got a hold of Percy’s arm.

Percy looked back to Annabeth and gently tried to pry her off. Her grip only tightened, and her fingernails dug into his skin.

“And what is this supposed to be?” Calypso asked and pointed at Annabeth who claimed Percy’s complete right side. She sounded annoyed.

“Nothing,” Annabeth innocently smiled. The cold harsh look in her eyes said something else.

“Um, Annabeth, weren’t you talking with that Octavian guy? Or what was his name?” Percy’s discomfort was clear, and Annabeth ignored the hint.

“Oh yes, but I’d rather spend my time with you!” she grinned and didn’t let go of him.

“Sorry girlie but it’s clear that you’re ruining our moment.” Calypso’s hand waved between her and Percy.

“What moment? Am I not allowed to hang out with my best friend?” The irritation in Annabeth’s voice rose. Percy and Calypso looked at her in shock.

“If he’s your best friend, then I’m pretty sure that you’ll see enough of him? Just leave.” Calypso rolled her eyes.

“What if I don’t want to?” Annabeth innocently pouted and tilted her head. “Percy’s always there for me which is what I want right now. Sorry Calypso. We’re having a moment right now.”

Calypso’s mouth pressed into a thin line. Annabeth enjoyed seeing her frustration rise up.

“Alright, listen Annabeth normally I wouldn’t say this but you-” Calypso’s eyes widened. Annabeth had turned Percy’s head to herself and pressed a kiss onto his lips.

Percy’s eyes widened before they automatically shut down. Annabeth was an excellent kisser and her soft lips felt like a dream. Percy had to admit that he enjoyed the kiss. He enjoyed it way too much. Then he broke it off. Shock was written on his face and his eyes wandered from the all too pleased Annabeth to a speechless and hurt Calypso.

“I can’t believe it.” Calypso shook her head, turned around and left.

Annabeth smiled a victorious grin. Then she looked up to Percy and saw him for the first time. Not as a friend, but as a handsome guy that she happened to know all too well. His sea green eyes scanned her face and his lips were slightly parted.

“Annabeth, what in the fuck was that-” Annabeth cut him off with yet another kiss that she deepened. This time Percy didn’t break the kiss off. He held her tight and touched her warm back. He felt her grinning between the kisses.

“Come with me.” Annabeth said. She didn’t give him a choice. She took his hand and dragged him out of the building. Party be damned, they could celebrate at home amongst other activities. Alone.

“What are you doing? Where are we going?” Percy asked.

“Oh,” she said and turned around to look him in the eyes. “I’m just making sure that no one else is bothering you.”

The End

Tbh, I don’t mind me some hot girl Annabeth... Thanks again for the suggestion, anon!

All Cookout Fics

Cute/Cursed Cookout Writing Prompts

#pjo #percy jackson #mel's little cookout #percabeth #annabeth chase #percabeth fanfiction #pjo fanfic #percy jackson fanfiction #percy jackson and the olympians #mel writes

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elsanna-shenanigans · 3 years

Text

December Contest Submission #17: Karen's yard

words: ca. 2100 setting: mAU lemon: no cw: alcohol use, buzzed driving, Karen

Anna was staring at her reflection in the round, ball-like sphere ornament colored in Halloween orange. She looked like a fish, she thought. Like one of those orange fish with creepy eyes and their brains sticking out. She was wondering when Elsa was going to come out of the damn room. She was growing impatient, and she was not the impatient kind. Not at all.

The sound of a rubber chicken caught her attention. She turned around, found Elsa standing there, cringing at said chicken that lay under her foot like a limpy, screaming creature. And what the hell was Elsa wearing?

“You look like a fucking Christmas present.” The chicken protested.

“That’s the point,” she said.

“But a cringy one. Like the one your distant aunt gives you and you hate it but have to smile anyway and say thank you and then leave it in your closet for the rest of eternity.” She scanned her again. “Your face looks very cute, though.”

“You just insulted my entire outfit, am I supposed to thank you for calling my face cute?”

“Yes.”

She stepped closer. “You look like an oompa loompa.”

“I was aiming for citizen of Whoville.”

“No. Oompa loompa. The original version.”

“I don’t even know the original version so your insult falls flat.”

Elsa shrugged.

There was a party they were supposed to attend. Elsa knew somebody who knew somebody else, and their cousin, and whatever. It spread like gossip. Or was it wildfire? No. The gossip did the spreading and the wildfire was the analogy. Anyway, Anna was very excited to go to this Christmas thing because it’s been a while since she’s attempted to get drunk off eggnog. And so what if she looked like Willy Wonka’s fucking spawn?

It was cold outside. Hella. My-ass-is-frozen-and-my-teeth-will-fall-off-from-so-much-chattering cold. Anna could not think. She could not even respond when Elsa asked her if she wanted to stop by Starbucks and get a hot chocolate. But she shook her head. I don’t want hot chocolate I want alcohol your honor. So the party it was. Elsa drove like a grandma. Ice was her excuse but Anna was not having it. She drove like a grandma on summer too. And on spring. And on the fall when you couldn’t decide whether you wanted to cozy it up in your bed or dig yourself a nice dead-leaf grave.

“We’ll get there tomorrow and nobody will get to appreciate my oompa loompa costume.”

“You’ve disgraced enough eyes as it is.”

“Only yours.”

“Mine are the only ones that matter.”

“Who taught you to be so vain?”

“You.”

Anna nodded. The wig nodded with her. Both were proud nods. “I’ve taught you well.”

They almost veered off the road at some point; almost drove into a snowman, Santa and the horse-looking reindeer that were set up on the obnoxiously decorated yard of some Karen’s house. It’s the ice, Elsa said again. But nah. She was a slow driver and a shitty driver too. Anna would have offered to get behind the wheel but she was even shittier. So she prayed instead, and played Mariah Carey’s Christmas album until she was sure she hated it with her whole being.

The house was warm at least. Its smell, however, was a concoction of spilt American beer—the cheap kind that tasted like piss when lukewarm—and the cinnamon scent of those generic candles everyone hated but went on buying anyway because they were so cheap.

Anna made a beeline for the kitchen. She forgot who it was they were here for. The cousin of the friend of the coworker or something. Anyway, bless them for keeping the place stocked up with alcohol for those souls who come to this abode feeling thirsty as shit. Elsa trailed after her, and bless her too, just because.

“What are you getting?” Anna asked her.

“Whatever you’re getting.”

“That’s insanely unoriginal.”

“I’m not the alcoholic one here.”

Anna laughed. She placed her hands on her warm, lovely, rosy, pinchable cheeks and said, “Elsa. Do you think the people who came here tonight did it because they like to sit on a stranger’s couch? No. They came here because they like the taste of free alcohol.”

“I’ll take a cranberry vodka.”

“That’s my baby.” She made two cranberry vodkas because Elsa wasn’t the unoriginal one here. It was Anna. Plot twist.

The cranberry vodka tasted hideous though, but free plus alcohol equals you drink it anyway. Then Anna remembered the eggnog. But there was no eggnog. And what Christmas party didn’t have at least some crappy eggnog? So she stuck to cranberry vodka and to Elsa’s side for good measure. They spent a good amount of time looking for the friend of the cousin, etc. so that Anna could meet them and they found him in the most obvious of places: the couch. He was bulky, had a goofy grin and whatnot. His name was Kristoff. Another plot twist.

Anna could have sworn he’d seen him before, and when Elsa told her it was from that one time they ran into him at a gay bar everything made sense. Then she smiled to herself because that had been a hell of a good time. Elsa elbowed her in the ribs, gently, with love. ‘Not here,’ her eyes said. Well, you can’t blame her for fantasizing. Or you can. But also blame it on the alcohol. And on Elsa’s stamina.

“So, Anna.” Who’s talking? “Elsa’s told me a lot about you.” It’s Kristoff.

“All good things, yeah?”

“All great things.”

Anna nodded proudly and so did her wig.

“What’s your costume?” he asked.

“I’m an oompa loompa.”

“I didn’t know that movie was Christmas-themed.”

“Everything with snow in it is Christmas-themed, Kristoff.”

“Oh.”

So she’s enlightened Kristoff with her knowledge and now it was time to move on. What a himbo. She wondered if it was him who kept playing Mariah Carey. That would make sense.

They stopped by the kitchen for a refill and eventually moved to the side, right by the corner where you stand if you kinda know the host but not really but you don’t wanna seem awkward and look like you’re not having a good time. Anna kept looking at the green bow that Elsa had glued to her sweater. It was distracting. But Elsa kept thinking she was staring at her breasts and she wasn’t. Well, she was. But that wasn’t the point of this paragraph.

Mariah Carey gave way to Michael Bublé and then Anna was 110% sure it was gay himbo Kristoff who was controlling the music. But she couldn’t be mad. This was his house and if he wanted to blast overplayed Christmas music until everyone’s ears—even the neighbors'—bled, then that was entirely up to him. It’ll stay in his conscience. Or maybe not. He was a white boy. Nothing ever stuck. Anna was still having fun, however, and so was Elsa. She kept giving her the look. The one that said, ‘Let’s get out of here or else I’ll find us a place in this house where I can get my hands on you without having to keep it PG13.’ But they’d just gotten here, Anna thought. So she wasn’t having it just yet. She liked to tease.

But not too much, because by the third cranberry vodka she was all up and ready to go. Or maybe it was the fourth. Who cared? Anna didn’t. Willy Wonka sure didn’t. Elsa was already grabbing her coat, so she didn’t care either. The perks of dating an introvert.

It was shit cold outside, but that wasn’t news.

“I’ll drive,” Anna joked and giggled. She was so funny.

“Are you drunk?” Elsa threw the keys at her anyway. Anna caught them, so she was probs just tipsy. “Why are you entrusting me with the car?”

“It’s the suburbs. We can go at fifteen and be fine.”

PREPARE TO DIE!!!! Anna calmly thought. They went inside the car. What’s that oompa loompa doing in a car? she thought as well, and laughed again.

“Are you sure you’re not drunk?” Elsa asked. Her cheeks were rosy pink and her eyes were kinda glassy. And why was she so goddamn pretty?

“I’m more sober than you are.”

“That’s a first.”

She wiggled her eyebrows. “Aren’t you glad I keep being your first in everything?”

Elsa pulled at her wig. She took that as a yes.

Anna took the fifteen to heart even though it felt so. damn. slow. She felt worse than somebody’s grandma. Hell, she felt worse than Elsa.

“I’m getting dizzy.”

“But I’m only going at fifteen. I’m practically crawling.”

“Can you stop the car?”

Oompa loompa stopped the car and ugly Christmas gift exited. Anna didn’t realize they had stopped outside of the same house that Elsa almost drove into hours earlier until they were standing in front of it, Elsa taking big gulps of cold air and Anna just standing there, being her Anna self. The wig kept itching so she took it off.

“Are you okay, babe?”

Elsa nodded slowly. “I think you put too much vodka in that last drink.”

“You made that one.”

“Oh.”

Anna reached for her hand and walked her into the white suburban mom’s front yard. The deer really did look like horses and Santa Claus looked like the creepy uncle you try to stay away from. The snowman looked like everybody else’s nightmares. They stood in the yard, both of them staring at the fireplace that burned in the living room—with everything hella open, by the way. Who kept the curtains drawn during these hard times? And where was the All-American family? Was this meant to be a horror story?

“We look like total creeps right now,” Anna muttered.

She saw Elsa nod from her peripheral vision. Then she felt a hand wrap around her arm. “Sit with me for a while.”

“Uh, here? I’m not sure we’re allow—okay, yes. Okay.” She sat down with Elsa on the snow knowing she’d regret it soon. Like, a moment long. However long that was.

Elsa hugged her, nuzzling her neck. It tickled, but in a nice way. “I’ll keep you warm,” she mumbled.

“I doubt that.”

“I can try.”

“You really are drunk,” Anna laughed.

“And you smell like feet.”

“Okay. Ew. That was the wig.”

“Sure, Jan.”

“Who’s Jan.”

“My lover.”

“Ah.” Her ass was beginning to go numb. “Do I really smell like feet?”

“No, you smell like Anna.”

She smiled like an idiot. “I bet your lover could never,” she said.

“No,” Elsa mumbled, still close to her neck. “That’s why I love you the most.”

Anna decided it was enough sitting so she kinda just flipped over and pushed Elsa to the ground—cause she didn’t mind the snow and the cold and whatnot—so that she could place herself on top of her. Elsa was laughing but that was probably because she was drunk. Under different circumstances she’d be the one questioning whether it was a good idea to make out on some stranger’s yard.

But they didn’t make out then—PLOT TWIST NUMERO TREE!

Anna got too distracted watching Elsa laugh, in a non-creepy way. Because real talk: Anna was stupidly in love. She was in love in the cheesiest of ways. In an ‘I want to spend the rest of my chaotic life with you’ kinda way. She was in love with Elsa in a way that made her know she looked like an idiot when she stared at her but didn’t care anyway. She was in love with Elsa in a way Jan could never. And she knew Elsa was in love with her, too. Because honestly, who looks at you as though you’re the most precious thing in the world even though you look like one of Willy Wonka’s factory workers on a bad day? No one, your honor, that’s who. So somewhere deep down she knew what was coming before she even got the chance to register her own words.

“Marry me.”

Elsa fixed her eyes on her. The laugh became a giggle. “What?”

“Marry me, Elsa.”

All the metaphors in the fanfic world about Elsa’s blue eyes go here. It’s as though they lit up at those words, or maybe it was the yard’s obnoxious, bright lights. They will never know. The only thing Anna will remember with perfect clarity about that night will be Elsa’s response.

“Yes.”

#elsanna #submission #december 2020 contest #prompt: warmth #cw: alcohol use #cw: drunk driving #cw: Karen

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watchmegetobsessed · 4 years

Text

Different - Adam Sackler (pt. 3)

thank you soooo much for all the love and support you’ve been showing to this series, this means so much to me! this series has been pretty dear to my heart so I’m happy that so many of you like it! this part is a little shorter than the previous ones, but for the sake of the plot this is where I had to cut it. given the fact how fast I’m writing the story, I’ll probably stick to the daily posting, and there will be approximately 5 parts all together, meaning 2 more until the end! as always, feedback is very much appreciated!

series summary: Hannah lets you move in with her and Adam as you are her second cousin and in need of a place to live. Your relationship with Adam starts rocky, but things soon seem to be taking a turn.

pairing: Adam Sackler x Reader

word count: 3.3k

PART 1 - PART 2

masterlist

It’s been hard on Adam as well and he has been struggling just as hard as you. The past couple of weeks has left him with a lot of emotions and he has been working on sorting them out, but it’s a situation he hasn’t faced just yet. Following Hannah’s departure Adam definitely had fears, but it took some time for him to realize they weren’t about her, but more about you. Living with you alone, with no third person scared him, because he has already been having inappropriate thoughts about you before and now that Hannah was away, he felt like he had one less thing to keep him in his place.

He knows it’s not okay to watch you do your everyday things and think about how much he loves to just look at you, that catching himself thinking about you several times a day is not what he should be doing and that the endless jealousy he felt when he found out that you are going on a date scared him more than almost anything in life. When you told him the truth that’s hard to accept for the both of you, he kind of realized you were right, but when he lied in his bed that night, sleepless from his racing thoughts, he still couldn’t make himself believe it’s best if he keeps himself away from you. He has tried that already and it ended with him sleeping in your bed after that night you got drunk. There is just something in you that keeps pulling him in and he can do nothing against it. And slowly, he realizes he doesn’t want to do anything. He is tired of fighting with himself.

He wants to know where this could lead, he just doesn’t know how to figure it out in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone.

A few days later Tyler asks you out on a second date to which you say yes and because of everything that went down you don’t tell Adam. Hannah is set to come back for the weekend exactly when you are going to go out with him again so you think it’s the perfect timing.

The week goes by pretty uneventfully. You and Adam hang out on evenings, usually having dinner together when he gets home in time from work, but when he doesn’t, you’re still up when he arrives so you just watch TV together for a while before you feel like you can’t keep your eyes open any longer. He is nice, chatty, seems to be okay with where you two are heading and it brings you a little peace too, knowing that you might have finally found balance.

Coming home from work that Friday, when you walk into the apartment Hannah greets you with a scream.

“Hey!” she throws herself on you and you barely catch her keeping your balance.

“You’re back!” you chuckle hugging her.

“Yeah, just got here like twenty minutes ago. How are you?”

“I’m good! Everything is fine.”

As you reply Adam walks out of their bedroom and joins the three of you, kissing the top of Hannah’s head and a rush of jealousy washes over you by this small gesture. It’s been quite long since you saw them together and almost forgot the fact that they are really a couple.

“How was living with Adam without me? Did he drive you crazy?” she asks grinning, glancing up at Adam and you notice the anxious look in his eyes that he tries to cover with a warm smile.

Did he drive you crazy? Kind of, and you guess he knows the answer too, he is just scared what you might tell Hannah, but you are not a petty person.

“No, he was alright,” you exhale smiling.

“Good, I’m glad you two got along well,” she nods as you and Adam look at each other and chills run down your spine from the look he gives you before turning back to Hannah. “We are having dinner at that new place a few corners from here, you wanna join us?”

“I’m sure you’d rather be alone.”

“No, I want you to come! This is my time for everyone here, not for just Adam. We’ll have the rest of the weekend together.” “Yeah, but…” you sigh, not wanting to go into the details why you don’t want to go, but she forces it out of you.

“What, do you have a date or something?”

“I…”

“You do!” she gasps. “Who’s the guy? Oh my God Y/N, that’s amazing!”

“Is this the Tyler guy again?” Adam sternly asks and looking at him you can’t really decide what his expression means.

“Yeah.”

“Wait, you’ve met him already? So it’s not the first date?”

“No, we had one already.”

“Is he taking you to dinner?”

“No, he said we are going to this art gallery opening.” “Okay, then you can have an early dinner with us, tell us everything about him and then meet him, this is just perfect!”

“I think she doesn’t want to share the details, Hannah,” Adam chimes in, trying to hold his girlfriend back, but she is just too stubborn and you both know that.

“I demand to be told about it! Go, get ready, we are leaving in thirty,” she urges you and you just know you can’t say no to her.

An hour later the three of you are sitting at a small table in this restaurant that you just can’t tell if it’s Italian or Japanese, but you let this detail slip.

“So, let’s hear everything! How did you meet him, what is he like, is he treating you right?” Hannah seems excited to hear all about Tyler, but she is probably the only one feeling that way at the table.

“Maybe not everything,” Adam mumbles, his eyes focused on the menu even though you’ve already ordered. Hannah dismisses his comment.

“Um, we work at the same place, he is on HR. He is nice, I guess,” you shrug, feeling nervous to talk about it all, especially with Adam sitting right in front of you.

“Is he cute?”

“He… is.”

“Has he kissed you? Or have you already slept with him?”

“Hannah,” Adam growls and she looks at him confused as you try not to choke on your own saliva by her blunt questions.

“What?” she growls turning to Adam. “Out of the three of us you are the least prude person, so what is your problem?”

“We are in a fucking… restaurant. Have some morals,” he quietly tells her, but she just rolls her eyes at him before turning back to you.

“Um, nothing has happened yet,” you say and your eyes meet Adams. You wish you could read his thoughts right at that moment, because there is something in his eyes, but you just can’t tell what it is.

“Oh, he is moving slow, how romantic,” she smiles to herself as you just awkwardly nod. You don’t share the detail that he has tried to kiss you last time, you just ducked and his lips ended up on your cheeks. You were really not into getting physical so fast and luckily he seemed to understand and accept your decision.

“So, how is Iowa?” you ask with the pure intention of diverting the attention away from you to her. You watch her face drop a little, but then her smile is back a moment later.

“Oh, it’s nice. I don’t have many classes, so I have tons of time to write.”

“That’s nice! I’m glad you are enjoying your time.”

“Yeah!” she nods, but you feel like it’s not genuine.

The rest of the dinner is just as awkward as the beginning was. You hate sitting there and watching Hannah and Adam be affectionate with each other. This is a whole new level of third-wheeling, because when they kiss at one point, you catch Adam’s eyes on you and it makes you want to scream. The intensity of the moment is just throwing you over the edge, you hate this, you hate seeing them together and you just don’t understand. It’s not like a new thing, you literally lived together for months before she left, what’s so different now?

You can’t wait for the moment it’s time for you to leave and when it finally comes you basically flee.

“It’s been great to talk, I hope you’re gonna have a nice evening together!” you say forcing yourself to smile before hugging Hannah goodbye and heading towards the exit.

You’re almost out the door when someone grabs your wrist and turning back you see Adam standing in front of you.

“Wait, I just…”

He struggles to find the right words as you wait for him to finally tell you what he wants.

“Yes, Adam?” you urge him to speak.

“What I told you before the last date still stands.”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” you furrow your eyebrows at him confused.

“That if you need help, just call me.”

“Thanks, but I’m sure everything is going to be alright. Besides, just enjoy your time with Hannah.”

That second part comes out a little spicier than you intended, you can actually see the change in his eyes, but before he could say anything else you just turn around and walk out.

You take a few minutes to yourself outside in the cold night air. This past few hours has been harder on you than you would actually admit and now the thought of them spending the rest of the evening together just makes you want to cry even though this is the most normal thing to happen on the planet since they are a couple.

You hate this, you really do, because you really thought things are going to get better after what went down recently between you and Adam, but Hannah’s return just made it a hundred times harder and made you feel worse than ever.

When you finally get your shit together you head to the subway because you are already a little late.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t get your mind fully away from Adam and it shows. Tyler is trying his best to make this evening as nice as possible, but you just can’t wait to go home, crawl into bed and cry yourself to sleep probably. The date cuts shorter than last time as you tell him you’d really like to head home when he suggests to go for a walk just like last time.

“Thanks for everything, Tyler,” you smile at him when you arrive to your building.

“I hope you didn’t find it too boring,” he chuckles scratching the back of his neck.

“No! I really liked it, so thank you.”

“Alright…” There is a short pause before he steps closer and he tries to kiss you again.

And you turn away, again.

But this time, the reaction is a little different.

“Okay, this is not cool, Y/N,” he sighs, clearly frustrated by the situation.

“I’m sorry?”

“This is not middle school where you hold hands for six months straight before you let the guy kiss you for the first time.”

“Are you mad because I’m not kissing you? I’m really not feeling well, this is why I would rather not.”

“Why do I feel like you’ll always have an excuse? You know what? Last time I let it slip because I thought you are just a little shy, but this gotta be something else.”

The fact that he is pissed at you for such a nonsense thing is making you mad as well, wanting to just punch him right now.

“Grow up and learn to respect others, Tyler,” you spat at him, but he just scoffs.

“You telling me to grow up is the joke of the month, honestly. Other girls usually ask me to come up at this point and you don’t even let me kiss you, this is just ridiculous!”

“Well I’m not like other girls!” you retort and you are just about to turn around and leave this unbelievable conversation when he grabs your wrist and yanks you back, causing you to almost lose your balance and fall.

“I’m not fucking done with you! You can’t just walk away from me when I’m still talking!” he sneers through his teeth, hand gripping your wrist tightly.

“Let me go, asshole,” you hiss at him trying to free yourself, but he is just too strong and his hold is starting to get really painful, probably already leaving a mark on your skin.

He is just about to say something else when the door to the building flies open and the next thing you know is that someone just throw a punch at Tyler, and he lets go of you to cover his nose that immediately starts bleeding.

“Oh shit,” you gasp, in shock at the sudden events and you turn to see a very angry looking Adam, shaking his hand lightly and he definitely looks like he is ready to kill Tyler any moment.

“You better get the fuck away from here, you fucker, before I break your neck!” he warns him and Tyler stares back in shock, the blood staining his shirt.

For a moment you feel like he is going to hit back, but then he decides it’s better to leave. He mumbles something under his breath before spitting on the pavement right in front of you and then walks away.

“Are you okay?” Adam turns to you, the threatening tone is long gone from his voice, turning soft in just a heartbeat. He cups your face in his hands, checking if you have anything on you, but there’s nothing, just pure shock in your eyes.

“I-I’m alright. It’s just my hand,” you whimper, feeling the tears building up in your eyes as it all crashes at you once. He gently takes your hand, taking a look at it and it’s a deep shade of red and you’re already sure it’s going to bruise by the morning.

“Come on, let’s go back inside,” he softly says wrapping an arm around your shoulders as he pulls you to his side and walks you up to the apartment.

You sit on the couch, sniffing quietly as he gets you an icepack, and you still can’t believe this just happened.

“Here,” he sighs joining you on the couch, handing you the icepack. You mumble a faint thank you as you push it to your skin, hissing at the sudden coldness of it. “Are you sure he didn’t hurt you anywhere else?”

“No, he didn’t have the chance, you arrived in time,” you say with a sad smile.

“What the fuck happened though?” he asks with a grimace, running his fingers through his hair.

“He… got mad at me because I didn’t want to kiss him. He said we are not in middle school and girls usually ask him to go up at this point. Told him I’m not like that and he didn’t take it well.”

“That dickhead!” he curses shaking his head.

“How did you know you had to come down? And where’s Hannah?” The questions start to flow into your mind as you slowly adjust to the happenings around you. The apartment seems quiet, you’re more than sure she is not home.

“She went out with Jessa and Marnie,” he shrugs and you find it odd that she spends her first night out with friends instead of being with Adam, but you don’t say anything about it.

“And my other question?” you ask remembering he never answered the first question.

“Huh?”

“How did you know you had to come down?”

“I uhh… I was just looking out the window and spotted you two. When I saw his annoying ass face turn from a smile into that fucking frown I knew something was about to happen.”

“Were you waiting by the window?” you quietly ask.

“What? No, I wasn’t.”

“So it was all one big coincidence?”

“Yeah,” he nods, but you see right through him and he knows it too. “Okay, fuck it! I was waiting at the window, you happy now?”

“But why?”

“Why? Because I’m one big fucking loser and I wanted to see the fucker you are seeing. I wanted to see how you look at him, if he makes you laugh, if he is what you deserve.”

He exhales sharply, pouring his heart out finally. He has been holding it all back for too long and he just can’t keep himself back anymore.

“I hated the thought of you being with someone, I could barely sit still after you left and when Hannah said she is meeting her friends I just came home and stood at the fucking window like some fucking creep, waiting for you to finally come home.”

You stare at him completely shocked at his sudden confession, not knowing what to do or say, but one thing is for sure; his words are making your heart flip.

“I can’t keep pretending like I’m fine with just being friends with you, because I’m not! And it’s literally the worst feeling ever, and I—“

He doesn’t get to finish, because without really thinking through what you are doing you move forward and press your lips to his, kissing him hard, dropping the icepack from your hand to cup his face in your palms.

It takes him a moment to realize what’s happening, but when he finally does, he doesn’t waste any more seconds. Wrapping his arms around you he pulls you to his lap and you put a knee on each of his sides, pressing up against him while your lips move in sync.

You feel him in every bit of your body, it’s like electricity. You’ve thought about what it would like to kiss him before, but reality is nothing like those ridiculous daydreams. The way he pulls on your bottom lip, how his fingers dive into your hair on the back of your head and feeling his broad shoulders under your palms, it’s just making your mind explode. You want to kiss him every day for the rest of your life, feel his plump lips on yours all the time, the weight of his arms around your body, the way his hair sticks to your forehead upon touching.

It all crashes when you suddenly hear Hannah’s laugh coming from outside and in a blink of an eye you push him away and jump off him, shocked at what you just did. The two of you stare at each other for a moment at a complete loss of words for what just happened, but when you hear Hannah’s key wiggle in the lock you decide it’s time to disappear.

Covering your mouth with your hand you run into your room and shut the door closed just when she walks in. You press your back against it sliding down to the floor and you hear their conversation while you just sit there in utter shock.

“Y/N?” she calls after you. “I wanted to ask how her date went,” she sadly sighs.

“Um, she… It wasn’t the best,” you hear Adam answer and your throat closes up at hearing his voice.

“Really? What did she say?”

“The dude was a dick. I think she just wants to sleep it off,” he cleverly says so Hannah won’t come into your room to interrogate.

You hear him talk about her evening before they move into their bedroom and the voices become too muffled to make out what they are saying. You don’t know how long you sit there on the floor, but after a while you just blankly crawl up to the bed and pulling the covers over your head you pray to wake up with an easier heart, because right now it feels like you are carrying a rock in your chest, thinking about what you just did.

general/forever taglist for Adam Driver

i do separate taglists for different people, but not for different works of mine! if you ask to be on my Adam taglist, you’ll be tagged in all of my Adam fics!

@superdriver @siren-queen03 @holacherrycola90 @spencer-is-amazing @unusual-kindred-spirits @hailthemightywoecloud @holy-kylo-stars @kowalskibro-adamdriverblog @hurricanesunset

if you’d like to be taken off or added to the list, please let me know!

#adam #sackler #driver #adam driver #adam sackler #adam sackler imagine #adams ackler au #adam sackler imagines #adam sackler fanfiction #adams ackler fanfictions #adam sackler fiction #adams ackler story #adam driver imagine #adam driver fanfiction #adam sackler x you #adam sackler x reader #adam sackler x y/n #hbo girls

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goliath-de-senfina-sango · 4 years

Link

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Danny Phantom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Danny Fenton & Wesley Weston Characters: Danny Fenton, Wesley Weston, Jazz Fenton, Maddie Fenton Additional Tags: Walker is mentioned repeatedly, Phantom Family AU, Revelations, being a lil shit is genetic apparently, Danny swears in stars and constellations and space stuff, Wes swears with cuss words Summary: Prompt from Tumblr: I wish you would write a fic about Danny being a little shit to Vlad by revealing him to Wes. Wes comes over and nearly gets Danny’s half life ended, which leads to further family revelations that leave Danny’s head spinning.

Danny Fenton was having a weird and not particularly pleasant week. His Dad had finally encountered the Box Ghost, who took one look at him and glitched out like a Bethesda character before apparently regaining his memories. Apparently, the Box Ghost was Jason Fenton, older brother of Jack Fenton. The Box Ghost was Danny’s Uncle. That was weird as fuck to discover, especially when he implied that Box Lunch would be a person he’d have to deal with soonish. He was going to have a cousin. His already living cousin, Wes, had decided later that week to ruin Danny’s life by asking him right in front of Jazz and Mom if he still had that giant green dog thing he’d crashed a game with. Danny dragged him up to the third floor of Fentonworks, shoved him into his room, and learned very quickly that Wes had figured out that he was Phantom the moment he focused on him. “Orion, man, you can’t just imply I’m a ghost in front of Mom or Dad!” “Why not?” Wes stared at him like he’d grown a second head - he hadn’t, he knew the sensation - and Danny took a moment to redirect the energy surging to his eyes over his skin and outward. It blanketed the room in a wave and left what Tucker had described as the feeling of touching an old tv and feeling static on your fingers all over the place. Wes rubbed his arm and raised a brow at him. “Wes, tell me what Jack Fenton is going to think if you tell him ‘hey that ghost kid you shoot at all the time is your kid’? Actually, no, how the fuck did you even figure it out?” “You look like you put on your suit and then someone turned on the color inversion filter on their camera. Blue skin, white hair, black and white suit.” Wes paused and poked Danny’s cheek, looking him in the eye. “Your eyes should be orange instead of green though if that were the whole case. How’d this happen? Last time I talked to you, you n Tucker were talking about building a motorcycle that could fly.” “The hoverbike has sorta been put on hold, I’ll admit,” Danny grumbled, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. He pulled his hands away from his face and Wes was still there, tall and stupid and overly observant. “If I tell you what happened, do you promise not to out me to my parents?” “I-should I treat this like you’re in the closet?” Wes snorted at the idea. “Closeted dead guy. Alright, I can get that. But uh, if you’re dead, why are you still…” he wiggled his hand and then gestured at Danny’s room. “In a house with ghost hunters?” “Well, to start with, I’m not actually dead. Not entirely, anyway.” Danny sat down on his bed and Wes followed, and after taking a moment to triple check that Vlad’s bugs weren’t in his room with another wave of energy, Danny told Wes the story of the Accident. It was a short story, but he was slow about it. He’d never really discussed it with anyone, Sam and Tucker just sort of knew better than to bring it up and Jazz probably thought he’d tell her himself in his own time. By the time he finished, Wes looked almost as uncomfortable with the situation as Danny felt. “You know, not to sound like a cheesy 90’s cartoon character but this is why you shouldn’t give in to peer pressure.” Danny snorted and laughed at that, and Wes grinned even when Danny elbowed him. “Ok, so I’m putting together that you did a bunch of dumb shit and found yourself decided to be a superhero. What the fuck was up with the dog, or the mayor getting kidnapped? Your eyes were fuckin red when you stole a bunch of shit that one time too.” “Ok in order of what all happened: Axiom labs euthanized their guard dogs and one of them came looking for his squeaky toy but forgot where it was and no matter how many times I shoved Cujo back into the portal-” “ Cujo ?” Wes snorted and ruffled Danny’s hair. “Have you been reading the stuff Sam gives you or did your emo phase just never really end? You have the emo bangs.” “I do not!” Danny huffed, running a hand through his curly hair that, well, Wes couldn’t really ruin a mess, could he? “You’re the one with actual bangs, sasquatch hunter.” “Acknowledging that Big Foot is real doesn’t mean I’m gonna go and shoot it.” Wes crossed his arms and rested them on Danny’s head. “By the way, any idea when that growth spurt is due?” “Bold words for someone with his shins within targeting range.” “I can and will put you in a headlock Astroboy.” “I can slam dunk you through a hoop like your precious balls.” Wes said nothing to this and simply leaned more onto Danny’s head. “If I snap my neck because of you I’m suing. Anyway no matter how often I yeeted Cujo back into the Ghost Zone-” “I beg of you to call it something cooler. Call it the afterlife even, just. Please.” “He just kept digging his way out. So, I looked at his tag, saw that he came from Axiom, and we ended up in there, while getting shot at by the Red Huntress-” “Valerie, right?” “H-” “She appeared as the Huntress literally the same time the dog shit was happening, and I am getting increasingly worried that no one has noticed that she sounds the same in her Red Huntress suit as she does in the Nasty Burger mascot suit.” Wes dropped his arms to Danny’s shoulder, but still rested his chin in his hair, humming loudly. Danny slid into that spot between and snorted when Wes fell onto the bed. “I can’t tell you how pissed she was that I outed her to her dad about being the Huntress so that she wouldn’t get herself killed fighting Pariah Dark. Pretty sure if you tell her or anyone else about that, she’ll shoot you.” “I mean, it’d probably get her swarmed by so much hostility she stops shooting at you, so that’d be a plus. I’d just come back and bug you anyway.” “You’re a jerk, but I guess you’re alright.” Danny flopped back. “The mayor thing was a ghost, this douche bag prison warden named Walker in the GZ who decided that since I broke out of his prison I owe him over a thousand years and he’d make my home a prison instead.” Wes stared at him, clasped his hands flat against each other, and took a deep breath. “There are so many things wrong in that sentence. Why were you in ghost prison?” “I did ghost crimes.” Wes looked and sounded like he was in some deal of pain, and Danny couldn’t help but grin. “Dad’s anniversary present for Mom fell through the portal while I was cleaning up by shooting things into their proper place,” he covered Wes’ mouth as he opened it, “and so I flew in after it, but it was a ‘real world item’ as though the Ghost Zone is fake somehow, and that was ‘Against The Rules’ according to Walker.” Danny rolled his eyes. “I got the present out and back to Dad but I had to like, get to him at your mom’s place.” “Did you fly all the way from Minnesota to Arkansas for a present?” “Arcturus, no, not with my powers.” Danny laughed, laying back on his bed. “That’d take me like, 8 hours at top speed. No, I used the Speeder.” “Have you modified it to get into space?” “Not yet.” “Do you have permission to mod it for space travel?” “Do I have permission to be dead?” “Touche.” “Anyway, Walker is stronger than me, even when possessing a human, so when all eyes and cameras were on me he possessed the mayor and dragged me back inside to make it look like I was dragging him in. Whole invasion was his idea.” “Danny?” “And then with the robberies when my eyes were red, did you know about Circus Gothica? Cause me and some other ghosts were under the control of the ring master of the circus, Freakshow, who had this freakin crystal ball thing that could control ghosts attached to his staff. It shattered after a very long fall, thank Astrea.” “That’s really fucked up. You’ve had a fucked up life.” “Yeah.” Danny shrugged. “I guess I have.” “Know what’s more fucked up about this?” Wes had a too big grin on his face and Danny narrowed his eyes. “Do you remember my mom’s last name?” “Wal..ker… no. ” The two of them were thundering down the stairs in seconds, Danny half shouting in the livingroom. “ Mom was your dad, by chance, a law enforcement officer, or jail warden or something?” Mom looked up at him from the staff she was tinkering with on the table - note to self, sterilize the table before dinner - and blinked at him a couple of times before smiling and nodding. “Why yes, he did. Warden James Lamont Walker ran the Spittoon prison when he was alive. He was a good man, if a bit strict. To my and Alicia’s fury and grief he was murdered during a prison break.” Mom stared off in the distance, the air around her curling with a dark cold that Danny was sure only he could see. Then she softened up a bit and smiled softly at them. “Why?” “No reason, auntie, I was just curious about something and Danny thought we should ask you.” Wes played with the hem of his shirt while maintaining eye contact and Danny wondered if he had a tell for awkwardness like that. Then he realized he was rubbing the back of his neck. “Do you have any pictures of him?” “Oh, yes! They’re in the shed! My boxes are actually labelled.” “Uh oh, careful, Dad might hear of organization and come to tear it up,” Danny said with a laugh, half dragging Wes out the back door. When they were out of his mom’s considerable ear shot, Danny said softly, but with feeling, “Fuck.” “Got locked up by grandpa, huh? That’s like, the worst way to get grounded ever .” Wes snickered and watched Danny run-walk up to the shed, hand glowing so softly you could only see it by staring directly at it as he turned the knob. “There are odds, slim ones, that this is a whole different Walker. It might even be his first name.” “Who the hell names their kid Walker?” “Walter, Wayne and Wesley Weston.” “Alright then.” For a few minutes the two of them searched through the mess known as the Fenton Family Shed for a box with a label neither had thought to ask for. Eventually, they found one labeled Scrapbooks and carefully eased it out of the mess of it all. “Y’knonw, Danny,” Wes said as they opened the box and started flipping through scrapbooks with just enough care not to damage them. “I’m feelin kinda good about investigating a ghost with you. Is this how it is with you n your boyfriend and best friend?” Danny almost tore a page out, turning to stare at Wes. He must’ve felt the temperature drop for a second because he looked up with a raised brow. “What?” “Boyfriend?” “Tucker. Tucker Foley.” Danny’s jaw dropped and Wes’ confusion morphed into a shit eating grin. “You know, Tucker spends most of his time with you Foley? The one you build shit with all the time? The nerd that you get sick in sync with? I’ve seen you lose a pencil and then he puts one behind your ear while you look for the one you lost. You made him a custom gaming computer disguised as a console.” Danny’s face burned red as a tomato at this point and he shoved Wes. “Shut up I’m not dating Tucker!” “I have to ask Jazz about this now, you’re killing me.” Wes snorted and flipped a page. He blinked down at the scrapbook and pointed at a picture. “James Walker. This look anything like him?” Danny took the book and looked at the picture. Looked at the several pictures of the man with his daughters, wearing a black pinstriped suit in a handful of them. And he let out a long, loud groan. “I hate this week, I hate it so much.” Wes started cackling and Danny scowled. “That reminds me.” He kicked Wes in the shins and grinned. “Much better. Also, Wes, I gotta tell you. I’m not one of a kind, as far as my living status goes.” “Oh what, there’s another Schrodinger’s little shit flying around out there?” Wes rubbed his ankle and hissed. “Well, you didn’t hear it from me, but that fruitloop we call a mayor may have been elected because he possessed literally everyone that was voting.” Wes went silent and stared at him, and Danny nodded. “Think you can pester him instead of me? He wants to kill Dad and thinks that he can get Mom if he does that.” “Danny. My Dad works for Masters.” “This puts you in the perfect position to mess with him, I say. Just act like you’re there to see your dad.” “You oblivious asshole. I fuckin love you, cous.” “Same here, skyscraper.”

#Danny Phantom #Danny Fenton #Wes Weston #Jazz Fenton #Maddie Fenton #Walker #james walker #Box Ghost #fanfiction #fanphiction #phanfiction #phanphiction #phanfic #fanfic #fanphic #phanphic #prompt fill #Rexy Writes #Phantom Family AU

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luxurylives · 4 years

Text

Missing Pieces Part 5

Pairing: No pairing

Book(s): Ride or Die: A Bad Boy Romance

Word Count: 3,736

Rating: T (Mild language)

Summary: Logan and Vanessa flee the law firm as a chase ensues.

Author’s Note: I intended for part four to be the final part during the last Ride or Die Appreciation Week, but I decided to go ahead and arrange a multipart finale. Pixelberry Studios owns the characters. The De la Cruz couple is from High School Story (I made up the first names). Thank you so much to those who read!

Tagging: @liam-rhys @desireepow-1986 @brightpinkpeppercorn @rodappreciationweek @mfackenthal @leelee10898 @choicesarehard @client-327

“…and it appears that is it”.

Logan exhaled as he looked up at Duke who began putting the will away.

“Listen, I can let your cousins know you were here— “.

Logan shook his head and rose from his seat. “No it’s fine, thank you”.

“I almost forgot to mention that Teresa set up separate trusts for each of you”.

“Trusts?”

“Yes, and she declared Hilary Williams as the Successor Trustee”.

“Wow…how much did she leave me?”

“One-thousand, you’ll receive the funds on your twenty-seventh birthday”.

A moment of silence swept through the office; Logan sat trying to make sense of the situation. Perhaps he could ask Duke for help? After all, he was a lawyer, and most importantly, he knew his grandmother.

Before Logan could speak, Duke glanced at his watch and cursed under his breath. “I don’t mean to rush you, but I have to catch an early flight tomorrow morning”.

“Um...thank you” Logan extended his hand to Duke who gave him a firm shake.

“Take care of yourself Logan”.

Logan waved goodbye and stepped out into the hallway. As he began walking towards the elevator, he froze at the sound of thundering footsteps and screaming.

“Is anyone here!? Duke! Where are you?!”

Logan turned to see a short, slender woman running in his direction, waving her hands frantically. “Duke!”

Duke emerged from his office with a bewildered look on his face. “Vivian, what is it?”

“There are masked men in the building with guns!”

Logan froze and stared at the woman as she ran towards Duke.

“Guns? What are you talking about?”

“I forgot my keys and was heading back up to get them…and...and THAT is when I saw them! Poking around! There is a body in the stairwell!”

“Here get in my office, I’ll call 911” Duke quickly ushered her inside and pulled out his phone.

As soon as Duke’s back was turned, Logan sprinted towards the stairwell, praying Vanessa didn’t leave.

Vanessa ran down the hallway trying office after office and closet after closet hoping to find an unlocked door. The footsteps behind her had faded, meaning she lost them. Suddenly she came to an office that was unlocked and immediately jerked the door open. Once she was inside, she dropped to the floor and crawled underneath the nearest desk.

“My phone…my phone” she frantically whispered to herself. Her hands were shaking and beads of sweat formed on her forehead. As she fumbled to call 911, she noticed the battery life was extremely low.

Suddenly, the door opened, and heavy footsteps began to pace around the office, slowly they inched closer to the desk.

Oh god no…Please, please no… she thought.

“¡Oye! ¿Qué estás haciendo?”

Against her better judgment, Vanessa peaked from underneath the desk. The masked figure turned towards the doorway to face whoever was on the other side.

“Pensé que la niña estaba aquí”.

Vanessa bit her lip, the only words she understood were niña and aquí.

“No pierdas el tiempo con ella, encuentra a Logan. Él es el que Javier quiere”.

Vanessa slowly glanced at her phone, the screen was dim, and the battery percentage had declined tremendously.

“Si encuentras a la chica, deshazte de ella. ¡Ahora vámonos!”

As soon as they left, Vanessa crept out from under the desk and slowly stood up. How could she have been so stupid to trust Logan? More importantly, how was she going to get herself out of this situation? After taking a deep breath, she silently stepped into the hallway.

Logan crept down the stairs of the stairwell and briefly checked over his shoulder. Vanessa told him she would wait downstairs, but did she make it the lobby? Or did she completely ditch him? He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, now was not the time to panic.

Eventually, he reached a landing but froze, in front of him was a body surrounded in a pool of blood. “Shit…”.

Before he could react, the door flew open, and the color drained from his face. However, he relaxed once he realized who was standing in front of him. “Vanessa, we have to get out of here”.

“If you think I am going anywhere else with you, then you are mistaken,” she answered coldly.

Logan glanced over her shoulder to see two masked figures emerge from around the corner, further down the hall. Time appeared to stand still as one of them raised a gun and the other reached for their own.

“Duck!” Logan shouted.

BAM

Vanessa dropped to the floor and Logan reeled back into the stairwell.

BAM

With his back against the wall, Logan began moving towards the stairs but froze when a hand reached for his feet.

“You bastard! You were about to leave me!”

Logan instantly helped her up and they began running down the stairs with the gunmen hot on their heels.

BAM

They ducked once more as they continued down the stairs.

BAM

“Where is the parking garage?!”

“I think it’s this floor!?” Vanessa threw open a random door and began digging in her purse for the keys.

For a split second, both of them breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the empty garage, their shoes pounding against the concrete.

“Hurry up!” Logan shouted as he looked over his shoulder.

The gunmen burst through the door now joined by a third, Logan cursed underneath his breath.

“Oh my god! Where are they?!” Vanessa rummaged through her purse ruthlessly.

“Vanessa, come on!”

Something sharp pricked her finger, Vanessa pulled out the car keys and frantically pushed the alarm button.

ERNT-ERNT-ERNT-ERNT

“There!” Vanessa pointed towards the car and darted towards the driver’s seat.

“Hell no! I’m driving!”

Before she could protest, Logan was on her side and snatched the keys out of her hand. Vanessa looked over to see the gunmen retreating to their vehicle, her blood ran cold at the sound of police sirens blaring in a distance.

Once Logan was inside, he started up the car, and Vanessa climbed in after him. As soon as the engine came alive, they pulled out of the parking spot and sped towards the exit.

As he tore through the streets, Logan's thoughts drifted back to the Mercy Park Crew and each job they did together. If there was a way to go back in time, he knew he would do it in a heartbeat especially if he could be reunited with Ellie. This life was becoming too much for him, something told him to go back to Detroit, but he didn’t he stayed in California thinking it may blow over.

“Watch where you are going!” Vanessa screamed.

Logan snapped out of his thoughts as he blared through a red light and multiple car horns echoed around him. A few other cars swerved out of the way narrowly missing each other.

“You need to focus! Do you even know where you are going?!”

Logan turned to Vanessa, she stared back at him, eyes filled with rage. “Now would be a good time to explain yourself!”

“Even if I did, you probably wouldn’t believe me” he answered coldly.

“I just want the truth dammit!”

An eerie silence swept through the car as Logan turned to face her. “For starters, my name isn’t Marco”.

Vanessa rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Skip to the part about the illegal street racing and Mercy Park Crew! What was this trip really about?”

Logan sighed and quickly ran through most of the jobs he and the crew did together, who was in the crew, what happened with Brent, how Ellie came into the picture, the night he took Ellie to prom, and what happened the night they brought down the Brotherhood.

“So throughout all of this, it did not occur to you one of your previous…’ quests’ would come back to bite you in the ass?!”.

Logan sighed as the buildings whizzed by, luckily, they were getting closer to being out of the city.

“Well, something tells me that you know who was chasing us, care to enlighten me?”

Suddenly, police sirens echoed in the distance. Logan bit his lip as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

“It’s your bartender friend and whoever he is involved with!”

Logan turned to face Vanessa with a bewildered look on his face. “Javier!?”

“Look out!”

Logan turned to see a black SUV pull up on their side, the windows rolled down to reveal guns aimed at their car.

“Hold on!”

BAM

Logan jerked the car around a corner, thinking it was a street, only to see it wasn’t.

“You are not on the road!”

BAM BAM

“Don’t you think I know that?!”

Both of them turned towards each other, with a fearful look. The police sirens were growing closer…but they had no idea which direction they were coming from.

Logan slammed on the horn as pedestrians ran out of the way and tables, chairs, potted plants, carts, and trash bins sprang up and over the car. The SUV trailed behind in hot pursuit inching closer and closer.

BAM BAM

“You’ve been to Boston before! How the hell do we get out of here!?”

Vanessa’s heart raced as she looked out the windows, trying to place her surroundings. Were they in Willow Creek? West End? South End? Hyde Park? Dorchester?

“Vanessa!”

BAM

Vanessa came to her senses at the sound of another gunshot and pointed up ahead. “I don’t remember this neighborhood…I think it’s Rivermont?! Turn right up ahead and keep going straight and make a left! The highway should be up ahead…I think…”

Logan winced but he didn’t have time to question her, all of the months he spent tearing through the Los Angeles streets with the Mercy Park Crew took control. With fierce precision, he veered right and sent the sedan gliding down a narrow one-way street, people cleared the way screaming and shouting.

“Okay turn—”.

Logan ignored her and veered left through another narrow street which eventually widened, and to his relief, the highway was in a distance.

Vanessa tightened her seatbelt and whirled around to see if they were in the clear, luckily the only thing behind them was debris of whatever they sped through.

Logan sped into oncoming traffic, causing a few vehicles to halt and blow their horns. Within minutes they were on the highway. Once he felt the coast was clear, he exhaled and relaxed into his seat.

That evening they made it back to the bed and breakfast in Birchport. As soon as Logan parked the car in the back, he and Vanessa trudged up to their room.

“You two look exhausted!”

They turned to see Cesar and Althea behind the front desk, smiling cheerfully.

“Yeah...we had a very long day” Vanessa answered. “We’re going to head up and get some sleep…”.

“Before you go, we had someone check-in and they were our one-hundredth guest since we took over from Eleanor Harlenay!”

Logan inched closer to the stairs and briefly exchanged a knowing look with Vanessa.

“Oh congratulations, look we— “.

“And we would love it if you joined us for dinner tonight! Cesar is going to barbeque, and I’ll be making lumpias! I don’t expect you to go back out after the day you’ve had but it would mean a lot for both of you to be there”.

“Can we have some to think about it?” Vanessa asked innocently.

“Sure but don’t think too long, the grill will be fired up soon!” Cesar replied enthusiastically.

Logan and Vanessa returned a smile before they continued up the stairs toward their room. Once they were inside and the door was closed, Vanessa angrily threw her purse on the couch.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?!”

Logan anxiously paced the room, uncertain of what to do.

“Logan!”

Logan whirled around to face Vanessa. “Dammit, I am trying to think” he hissed.

“What the hell are we supposed to do?! We cannot stay here after what just happened!”

Logan paced the room once more and ran his hands through his hair.

“I mean my grandparent’s car is damaged, and the police are probably looking for both of us…”

Logan took a deep breath and collapsed in a nearby chair.

“Come on! You have to have some kind of idea!?”

Logan took a deep breath as he reached for his phone and unlocked the screen. He stared at the picture he and Ellie took at prom, desperately wishing he could go back to that night.

Vanessa started to speak again but stopped, shouting wasn’t going to solve anything. Instead, she folded her arms and leaned against the wall.

“Look, I’m sorry I lied to you”.

Vanessa turned towards him; a tear slid down her cheek. “You know I started to have feelings for you, I trusted you, I confided in you…”.

Logan looked up from the screen and sighed. “Vanessa, Ellie and I— “.

“No I get it, I’m not her. I have to ask, was having sex with me that night an attempt to forget about her?”

Logan silently rubbed his forehead and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry”.

Vanessa shook her head as she crossed the room towards the window, she looked down to see Cesar warmly greeting someone with a complicated handshake.

“I’m sorry but you and I…it can’t happen. Ellie means too much for me and I made a promise that I would return to her”.

Vanessa turned to face him, after a moment she shook her head. “Fine, but you cannot carry on like this”.

“Look, I do not want to get into this right now. What do you know about Javier?”

“Chelsea called me earlier, but my phone died,” Vanessa said and took a seat on the couch.

Logan rose from his chair and started to walk towards his bag sitting in the corner. “Do you need my charger?”

“I have one” Vanessa turned her purse upside down, allowing the contents to spill onto the coffee table.

Once her phone was plugged in, they sat on the couch and watched Chelsea’s messages flood the notification bar.

“Sixteen messages and four voicemails?”

They exchanged a tense look before Vanessa tapped the voicemail notification.

“You have four unheard messages. First unheard message”.

BEEEP

“Vanessa, where are you?! Logan is not to be trusted! Call me as soon as you get this okay?”

After listening to the prompts, she went on to the next message.

“Second unheard message”.

BEEEP

“Okay so I went by the Lilac Palm again and I saw Javier and the manager talking to some guys...it looked sketchy, you need to call me!”

Before Vanessa played the next one, Logan placed his hand on her wrist. “Hold on, what do the texts say?” Logan asked.

“Shouldn’t we listen to the voicemails?”

“Let’s look at the texts”.

Vanessa shrugged and proceeded to open them. “Okay, so Chelsea says she spoke to Ingrid and Ellie knows some guy named Colt…”.

“Teppei’s son”.

“Teppei is the guy who died after that one job, right?”

Logan shook his head, to this day, the sight of Teppei’s car going up in flames haunted him.

Vanessa reached over and rubbed his back before she continued. “Chelsea said she found something at Javier’s place, something about a 2008 67 Komoda?”.

“Komoda…?” Logan bit his lip as his voice trailed off. Where did he hear that before?

“I’m pretty sure it’s some fancy car...were you guys going to steal it or something?”

Logan rubbed his chin and shook his head. “I’m trying to remember but…nothing is coming to mind”.

“Let’s just play the rest of the voicemails” Vanessa closed out the messages and tapped the icon.

“Vanessa you need to call me, Ingrid talked to Brent and all three of us managed to find Ellie and speak to her. We tried to convince her to take us to the garage, but she didn’t, instead, we met at the beach— “.

Bzzzz bzzzzzzz Bzzzz bzzzzzzz

“It’s my phone,” Logan said. “Hello?”

“Hey, we need to talk”.

Logan covered the phone with his hand and turned towards Vanessa. “It’s Ellie”.

“Put her on speaker,” Vanessa said as she closed out the message from Chelsea.

Logan stared at Vanessa for a moment but did as he was told, at this point there was no use in hiding anything.

“Ellie, I’m with Vanessa Kingsley…she’s sitting next to me”.

Ellie was silent but then let out a troubled sigh. “Yeah, I met her friend Chelsea McIntyre today…both of you are in Boston…together”.

Logan winced at the tone of her voice; it was full of suspicion with a hint of anger. “Look it’s not— “.

“We can talk about it later, what is going on?”

Logan quickly updated her on everything that had happened since they left California to the car chase earlier.

“Oh my god…” Ellie’s said as her voice trailed off. “…so Javier is probably— “.

“Look, any information you have would be helpful right now” Vanessa interjected harshly.

Before Ellie responded, she took a deep breath. “Right, Ximena and Toby are here too, I’m putting you on speaker”.

“Hey! I haven’t heard from you in forever!” Toby called out cheerfully.

“Uh Toby, we spoke to him earlier…” Ximena said.

“I miss you guys,” Logan said. “But right now we need to focus, does anyone remember Teppei mentioning Javier? I’m starting to wonder if that is his real name…” Logan replied.

“I’m pretty sure it’s an alias” Ximena sighed.

“Well whether it is or not…Chelsea told me that she found pictures of your car at Javier’s place. Along with pictures of Mona’s Yottsume Halberdier and a gun…she mostly asked questions about what we knew,” Ellie said.

“Yeah, but we don’t know anything, and I even went back to the garage but there is nothing left since it burned down” Toby chimed in.

Ximena let out a sigh before speaking. “The only person who may know something is Colt”.

“And none of us have seen or heard from him since we split up…” Logan said.

“Well…I did see him at a salsa club one night in Las Mente” Toby said.

Vanessa and Logan shared a bewildered look. “Toby, when did you see him there!?” Logan shouted.

“I think it was a couple of weeks ago…or maybe three weeks ago…why?”

“Me, Vanessa, Chelsea, and Javier went to that club”.

“You know Chelsea and Javier left pretty quickly that night, I thought it was the alcohol and how handsy they were, but now I wonder…” Vanessa’s voice trailed off as she met Logan’s eyes.

“Maybe Colt was also there that night and Javier saw him?” Logan said.

“And to save face he knew he had to leave, and Chelsea was his cover”.

“Okay but that doesn’t explain why Javier is after us? Does anyone know where Mona is?” Ximena chimed in.

Ellie sighed and spoke up. “Look, I think Toby and I should go to this club to see if Colt will be there and if he is, corner him and find out what is going on and Ximena could go to the Lilac Palm for a stakeout”.

“Ellie wait— “.

“Logan, I don’t want to hear it, based on what you are telling me I think I know what Colt is trying to do”.

Logan stared down at the phone with a confused look on his face, the tone in her voice sent a chill down his spine. “What are you talking about?”

Ellie took a deep breath before she responded. “Before we split up…Colt told me that he would ‘law low for a while…but then I’ll rebuild the garage. Rebuild the crew’ and he said, ‘the other part knows this life isn’t over for me’”.

“And when did he say this to you?”

“It was the night the FBI took Jason Shaw away; Colt came to see me, and we had a moment— “.

“A moment?” Logan inquired as his tone elevated.

“Oh boy…” Toby chimed.

“Why are you raising your voice? You are over a hundred miles away with some girl you met at a bar, how do you think I feel?!”

“Ellie, listen to me, I—”.

Vanessa immediately, cut him off. “Are you being serious right now?! Minutes ago we were chased through downtown Boston with bullets flying at us and you’re worried if something is going on between us?”

“I don’t like your tone Vanessa, then again after meeting Chelsea today, I am not surprised. It’s like that saying, ‘birds of a feather flock together’”.

“Can we focus…please?” Ximena groaned.

“I’m sorry but didn’t you make a deal with a dirty cop and rat out your friends?” Vanessa fired back.

“I’m sorry but didn’t your dad didn’t make some ‘bad investments’ that caused hundreds of people to lose their jobs?”

Vanessa bit her lip and took a deep breath, to this day her father’s misdeeds haunted her.

“And do not get me started on what I read in Taffeta Weekly about your social-climbing, bottle-hugging mother— “.

“At least I have a mom” Vanessa hissed.

“You know what Vanessa!? You are so lucky I am over a hundred miles away! Or else I—”.

“Alright, that is enough!” Logan shouted.

Vanessa threw up her hands as she got up from the couch and stormed to the other side of the room.

“We can sit around and have a therapy session later, right now we need to focus; I agree with Ellie, going to that club is our best shot to getting to the bottom of this” Ximena said.

“I’m game,” Toby said. “So we’ll head out tonight and touch base later?”

“Sounds good,” Logan said.

An uncomfortable silence descended upon the group before Ellie spoke. “Alright…talk soon”.

Before Logan could respond, she hung up the phone. Over a hundred thoughts began to swirl through his mind, Logan swiftly rose from the couch and rushed over to Vanessa.

“Vanessa,” he said coldly.

Vanessa took a deep breath and turned towards him, directly meeting the fury in his eyes.

“Don’t you ever speak to Ellie that way”.

“She said—”.

Logan took another step forward, forcing Vanessa to recede against the wall. “Do not speak to Ellie that way…ever”.

Vanessa shook her head slowly. “Okay”.

Logan turned on his heel and headed for the bedroom. Once he was inside, he slammed the door behind him and collapsed on the bed.

#rodaw #choices fanfic #ride or die: a bad boy romance #choices fanfiction #ride or die #choices rod #choices stories you play

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chenle-dressed-in-black · 4 years

Text

baldrs, neos, and kangs~ pt.1

NCT mafia au with my own oc named Kang Sooyoung, who is a young girl born into one of the coldest mafias of them all. She’s trying to live on her own and cut ties with her family, but with everyone either looking out for her or waiting to kill her, it’s a lot harder than it sounds.

relevant people in this story who will appear a lot (every nct member appears at some point): johnny suh, dong sicheng, nakamoto yuta, and kim doyoung

warnings: language

word count: 1.6k

m.list

series m.list

Sooyoung picks up her phone each time it rings, which is admittedly a bad habit she should start working on. “Hello?”

Her cousin, Gwen, mouths a question at her. Who is it? She’s sprawled across her purple velvet, four-poster bed. Her bare feet hang off the side of the bed lazily. She looks like she doesn’t have a care in the world, so nothing new there.

“Are you even home?” It’s Sicheng, but Sooyoung should’ve expected that. “You’re not, are you?”

He sounds irritated, which puzzles her. Gwen makes a face at her across the room. Sooyoung’s confused silence is enough to propel Sicheng into an exasperated explanation. “We’re going to the new Chinese restaurant tonight. You promised we could.”

“Oh.” She feels like shit. Gwen shakes her head and theatrically puts her hands on her forehead in feigned disapproval, but not surprise. Her thick, wavy hair doesn’t move with the gesture. “I completely—”

“You forgot.” Sicheng steals the words right out of her mouth flatly. “You’re with your cousin, who’s having an emotional breakdown, so it completely slipped your mind. You’re really sorry, but we can do it another night next week.”

Sooyoung frowns, but she’s hopeful. “We can?”

“No,” he deadpans. “I’m going home next week like I do every year the first week of spring.”

Gwen gracefully stands up, walking over to her cousin, who’s standing in the middle of the room on a plush fake-animal rug. Holding out her hand for the phone, she waits until a reluctant Sooyoung gives it over. Gwen takes a deep breath. “It’s not Sooyoung’s fault my boyfriend dumped me, Sicheng,” she says in a perfectly calm, sultry voice. “You know she’ll make it up to you.”

There’s a huff. “I know you’re family, but I don’t understand why Sooyoung is the one who has to solve all of your problems.”

“I’ll let that slide, lover boy.” Sooyoung’s eyes goes wide at that comment, but Gwen just shrugs her off. “I’m giving the phone back to the nice Kang now.”

Sooyoung claws at the phone, shoving it back up to her ear. “I promise we’ll find another time. I’m not blowing you off.”

“Okay.” He’s clearly impartial at best and deeply upset at the worst. “Whatever you say. Gwendolyn should learn how to solve problems herself. She’s supposed to be the one who looks after you.”

Sicheng is gone before she can say anything. Sooyoung tosses the phone onto a plush chair, flopping down onto her cousin’s bed. She screams into the blanket. This marks the third time she has postponed the restaurant outing with him. Neither time before was intentional. The first time, Gwen came down with the stomach flu while her parents were off doing a black-market bypass surgery in Indonesia, so there was no one else but Sooyoung to take care of her. When Sicheng heard, he offered to bring soup and stay to help, but Gwen said she would rather die than let that boy see her with sweat matting her long black waves to her forehead and laugh at her with his dyed hair and evil eyes.

They don’t get along well. Obviously. Anyway, the excuse Gwen used to keep Sooyoung in the clear this time was the same as last time. Except she was the one who dumped her terrible boyfriend. That didn’t stop her from sobbing into Sooyoung’s shoulder all night, though.

Now, the third time around, Gwen’s not-so-ex-boyfriend cut ties with her again. Trouble and bad consequences are stray dogs she shouldn’t have fed. They follow her everywhere. Sooyoung was honestly not completely sure what was happening between Gwen and Yuta. She dumped him, but then he showed up at her apartment in sobs and begged for one more chance. She agreed, of course. Gwen’s parents reached out to Sooyoung immediately, urging her to convince their reckless daughter to leave that troublesome Neo boy once and for all. So, Yuta ended things with her again, apparently. She isn’t sure how Gwen and Yuta can even keep up.

It’s also Wednesday, which means that Sooyoung cannot go to her apartment. Sicheng knows everything about her, but not this. “No wonder he hates me,” says Gwen wistfully. “I’d hate me to if I were him. Me and my relationship problems are such a cock-blocker.”

“He was really upset.” Sooyoung sighs. “I feel bad.”

“Of course he’s upset. The love of his life keeps ditching him for her rash cousin. And Sicheng has to spend his week being told he’s a coward for not killing more people.”

“I wish you wouldn’t make a joke out of his feelings. It’s really not fair,” replies Sooyoung. “I’m not what most people would call , ‘emotionally available.’”

Gwen snaps her fingers. “But you should be, because we both know that Johnny left to go all Neo City. He’s not coming back, sweetie. I love you, but it’s the truth.”

“We don’t know if that’s what happened,” she says weakly, because she knows that is exactly what happened.

“You need to let him go.” Gwen puts a gentle hand on Sooyoung’s shaking shoulder. “The way Sicheng has. Johnny’s ignoring the most wonderful girl he’ll ever know and ditching the most annoying best friend he ever had. I’ll tell you what’s going on: Johnny Suh is an asshole.”

While she makes self-destructive choices in her own personal life, she is extremely gifted at advising others. Right now, Sooyoung is being reprobated by the offender. “You’re one to talk about letting go.”

Gwen drops her brown hand, returning it to her side as her expression goes cold. “At least I’m not delusional.” She’s staring hard at her cousin, black eyes afire. “I’m trying to help, but you wanna deflect everything to me.”

“Maybe someone should!” Sooyoung, who never yells, is screaming at the top of her lungs. “All you do is tell me to get over Johnny, but you’re still sleeping with Yuta!”

“If you don’t truly let him go soon,” says Gwen slowly, “I fear how much he will hurt you, in the end. Look what he’s done to you already. I can’t even blame him for this anymore; it’s just you.”

The way she stays so collected after being insulted makes Sooyoung want to scream even louder. Does nothing bother you? That’s what she wishes she could yell, but suddenly she feels afraid that she won’t be able to control whatever comes out of her mouth if it opens again. She’s taken aback by herself. Before she can think once about it, Sooyoung is spinning on her heels and running out of the apartment.

Once she is gone, Gwendolyn stands in the middle of her bedroom for a long time without moving an inch. She’s stunned, frankly. That didn’t seem like Sooyoung at all. If anything, the person she who just screamed at her reminds her of Hyeyoung. And, for god’s sake, that is not a good thing. A buzzing sound yanks her out of her thoughts, sending her over to the nightstand. Her eyes take over her face. It’s Hyeyoung who’s calling her, which only has one explanation: somebody died.

“What happened?”

But Gwen isn’t the one who asks, which worries her more, for some reason. She’s already looking for shoes. “What are you talking about?”

“She’s not homeless, is she?” Hyeyoung inquires manically. “No way, because you’d let her stay with you. So what’s going on?”

Having secured a pair of combat boots, Gwen is tearing through her messy walk-in in search of her favorite leather coat. “That’s a great question. Here’s another one: why the hell did you call me?”

“I miss you, too, cousin.”

Gwen’s heading for the door now. “Answer the question.”

“Sooyoung passed out in the middle of the street.” There’s accusation in her voice that Gwen doesn’t like one bit. “It looked like she was having a hard night and I’m betting you know why.”

“Where did you take her?” asks a jogging Gwen. “. . . Unless you left her there.”

“Of course I didn’t!” cries Hyeyoung. “I brought her home, obviously.”

As she is about to reach a taxi, she cannot resist. “You mean your parents’ house?”

“Where else? That’s Sooyoung’s home! You need to watch out before—”

With a carefree laugh, Gwen says, “Don’t threaten me, darling.”

She hangs up before Hyeyoung can scream into the phone like a death-metal vocalist. Someone is calling her name behind her; she spins. “Sicheng?”

He stops running once he’s caught up to her. “I need to talk to Sooyoung.”

The taxi has already been taken by another passenger and it speeds by. Gwen’s heading toward another with him on her tail. “She’s not here.”

“Was she lying earlier?” he asks, his nose wrinkling in confusion. “But I heard your voice on the phone.”

And he trusts Sooyoung, but Sicheng doesn’t need to speak for either of them to know that. “We got into a fight and she left.”

“Is she at her apartment? I really need to see her.”

Gwen is unphased by his urgency, since she matches it. “She’s at my aunt and uncle’s. Apparently she fainted in the street. I’m going to see her right now; this is all my fault.”

Sicheng, who does not commonly pass up a free opportunity to make a jab at the contentious girl, only asks: “Can I come with you?”

Opening the backseat of a taxi, Gwen shrugs. “I can’t stop you.” She scoots over to make room for him. After a few minutes, she clears her throat. “I need you to promise me something, though.”

Sicheng nods for her to continue.

“As soon as we know she’s okay, you have to help me get her out of there. Hopefully before she wakes up; Sooyoung is gonna freak the fuck out if she sees her family. I don’t know how much she’s told you about what happened—”

“Sooyoung didn’t tell me anything about why she left.”

“Trust me on this,” Gwen pleads. “The faster she’s out, the better.”

“Okay,” he declares, meeting her eyes. “I’ll help you.”

series m.list

#nct #nct mafia #nct au #nct mafia au #dong sicheng #johnny suh #kpop #kpop au #kpop mafia au #oc #kpop oc #kpop mafia oc

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silvernugfoot · 4 years

Text

The Contact

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION Rated: General Audiences Words: 2374

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"We know nothing of Tevinter," Josephine quipped in, her quill pausing mid-stroke as she looked at her colleagues.

"I might know someone who can help with that." Varric entered the dark hall and everyone turned to look at him. "Everyone acting all inspirational jogged my memory, so I sent a message to an old friend."

Jaca's eyebrows shot up. He wasn't talking about who she thought he was, was he?

"He's crossed paths with Corypheus before and may know more about what he's doing. He can help," Varric reassured.

Jaca crossed her arms with a crooked smile on her lips while Grier inhaled to reply.

"I'm always looking for new allies," she said excitedly, knowing that if it was someone Varric knew, they must be reliable. "Introduce me."

Varric exchanged a quick glance with Jaca, and side-eyed Cullen.

"Uhm... Parading about might cause a fuss," Varric added as his eyes shifted around the hall. "It's better for you to meet privately. On the battlements. Trust me," he sighed. "...it's complicated." He left without another word.

Jaca sniggered to herself. "Yeah," she sighed heavily. "I'm not going to miss this."

Grier looked confusedly at her cousin. Jaca gave her a strained smile, but just as she was about to explain, Leliana spoke up.

"If it is who I think it is, Cassandra is going to kill him," she noted and left the hall. Jaca and Cullen nodded in silent agreement.

"Come, cousin," Jaca said, patting Grier on the shoulder. "We shouldn't keep them waiting."

"Please keep me out of this," Cullen added, then left after Leliana.

"Well, we are ready to move onwards with these matters, at your leisure," Josephine concluded. She watched everyone leave the hall before exiting herself.

Jaca and Grier entered the upper courtyard, crossed it and climbed onto the ramparts.

"Who are we meeting? Do you know?" Grier asked Jaca.

"It's possible. But if I'm wrong I don't want to get your hopes up, so I'm not gonna take a guess."

Grier grunted annoyedly, but said no more on the subject. They walked unhurriedly up to the north-west corner of the battlements where Varric already waited. He was leaning against the cold stone, looking a lot like the cat that got the canary.

"Varric," Grier moaned. "Why the secrecy? Just tell me who you've invited already!"

Varric threw his hands up in defeat, but didn't have time to reply before a voice from behind them interrupted.

"Well, I'll be damned!"

Jaca and Grier turned to see who must have followed closely behind them. Garrett Hawke's face lit up when he came down the steps of the ramparts to where they had gathered. "I didn't know you were part of the Inquisition." He made a beeline for Jaca and gave her a giant hug that crushed her every rib.

"Yeah, I'm the one they call Inquisitor," Jaca chuckled awkwardly and patted the tall man on the back. As he let her down, straightened and took a step back, Jaca brushed her hair behind her ear and gestured to Grier. "And this is Grier, the one they call the Herald of Andraste."

Garrett gave her the same wide smile and bowed dramatically. "A pleasure, my lady... I expected the Herald and Inquisitor to be the same person? The rumours I've heard on the way sure sounded like it."

"Maybe they get us confused," Jaca laughed. They may have been cousins, but it wasn't by blood, so the similarities in their looks confused even them.

"Whatever it is, my job is too big for one person to handle alone," Grier explained with a slight blush on her cheeks and eyes trying not to meet Garrett's. "And Jaca excels at the diplomatic aspects of the job."

"Oh, I'm not actually that good," Jaca protested. "I just like doing the paperwork no one else wants to deal with." She glanced pointedly at her cousin, eliciting a chuckle from Garrett.

"Which allows me to go out there and keep the south of Thedas in check," Grier grimaced.

"However things are divided, I also hear a lot of good things about you, which is why I came to help," Garrett said. "Even if Varric hadn't invited me, I might have written him eventually to ask if you might need me. But then I got word about Corypheus, and that..." His face turned grim, losing any sign of the warm aura he usually radiated. "That is my unfinished business. Now I need to be here."

"I'm sure your help will be invaluable, Hawke," Varric said from the sidelines.

"Thanks, but I do worry about leaving Anders alone..."

"Anders?" Jaca gasped without realising. She bit her lip when Garrett turned to look at her.

Varric sighed and scratched his neck as the ramparts fell into a momentary silence.

"Yeah," Garrett confirmed. "We have been traveling together since what happened in Kirkwall."

"Oh." Suddenly Jaca didn't know how to feel about Hawke anymore. The man she had once looked up to as a good guy with an awful sense of humour was harbouring the man who had caused the Chantry explosion.

"Uhm, maybe we should have a drink, and Hawke and I'll tell you two everything about Corypheus," Varric suggested, stepping in to put some distance between Jaca and Garrett.

Jaca swallowed hard and turned away from them. "No, it's okay. You three go. I... I need a moment."

Varric nodded and immediately ushered Grier and Garrett to follow him away from there.

Grier had fallen as silent as her cousin but simply because she wasn't sure how to break the sudden chill that had set over them. Varric however knew how to handle both parties after years of first-hand experience. He began chatting as they descended the ramparts.

"Wait." Garrett stopped. "She never met Anders in Kirkwall, did she?" he said, pointing back over his shoulder. "So why–"

"Take the hint, Hawke," Varric sighed, but explained nonetheless. "She was a victim of the explosion. I can bet you there's some serious trauma left in her from that."

"Not just trauma," Grier added quietly from behind the pair. "Scars. Emotional and physical."

Garrett sighed heavily and looked at her with glistening eyes. "I'm sorry. I never condoned Anders' actions, but I do understand why he did what he did. And I couldn't execute the man I love because– I just couldn't."

Grier nodded. "I understand. And now I've heard both sides of the story, more or less. But you should tell her that too... once she's cooled off."

"Good idea," Varric agreed. "But let's get inside. Jaca will join us when she's ready."

"How bad are they?" Garrett asked Grier. They had settled down around the lone, small table in the Herald's Rest that someone had hauled to the third floor, to keep from curious eyes and ears.

"What?" Grier asked into her tankard, glancing at him over the rim.

"Jaca's scars." Garrett looked down at the tabletop, grasping his own tankard tightly in both hands.

"She's covered in them," Varric affirmed grimly. "You wouldn't know from the way she's dressed, and she carries herself like she's never in pain, but..."

"Yeah, they must hurt a lot," Grier said. "I heard Bull say that it's one of the reasons she doesn't sleep well."

"When you say 'covered in them'..?" Garrett added.

"All of her left side, from shoulder to knee.” Varric confirmed. “She told me what had happened after the explosion. Crushed by debris; unconscious and trapped beneath it for who knows how long; days, if not weeks, in a healer's hands to close the wounds; concussion; thinking we were all dead in the uprising too..."

"Shit," Garrett sighed. "We never knew she was alive either. I'd asked her to take Beast out on his usual walk that day, but in all the following chaos I forgot about it. I only remembered once I got home and wasn't greeted by that slobbering mess of love. I searched all over for him and Jaca, but–"

"It's not your fault," Varric reassured him. “And I know she doesn’t blame you.”

“I don’t.”

The trio turned to the tower door where Jaca stood, looking down at them. She silently joined them at the table, taking a seat by her cousin, but keeping her eyes from any one else’s. She was trying hard not to get over-emotional. When she didn’t speak for a long while, Grier continued their discussion.

“So, what do you know about Corypheus?” she asked, and Garrett proceeded to tell them every single detail about what had happened in the Vimmark mountains, where he had tracked down the ancient Darkspawn and his dwarven followers, including some of the Grey Wardens.

“You know, the Seeker had been looking for you since all of that happened, right?” Varric said once Hawke seemed to have told the whole story and lifted his tankard to his lips. “I don’t know if she admires you or hates you. Maybe both. At times I could swear she had feelings for you… though she’s never met you.”

Garrett looked at his friend with a single raised brow.

“I know one thing for sure,” Grier added, also looking at the dwarf. “She is definitely going to kill you once she hears Hawke’s at Skyhold. Thanks to you.”

Varric sighed heavily. “Anyway I could convince you to supply me with some protection?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be there. I’ll make sure she doesn’t actually kill you.”

“I’m sure you can manage alone?” Jaca asked. All the while during Hawke’s recollection of the past events, she’d been silent. Now, she looked at Grier and Varric inquisitively.

“Of course,” Grier assured her. “Cassandra will be mad. But I’ll be there to mediate.”

“Okay.” Jaca got up and made to leave the group when Garrett stood from his seat.

“Jaca,” he said. He wasn’t sure if he should stop her, but he needed to talk things out with her. She had been a friend once. He would have liked it if they could be once more. “Do you mind if I..?” He gestured vaguely and tilted his head. Jaca shrugged in response. The two of them left the tavern and headed back up onto the ramparts where the wind had picked up and grey clouds released a light snowfall upon the fortress.

Jaca shuddered in the cold, but welcomed it. The air was fresh, which helped clear her muddled mind.

“How are you?” Hawke asked, walking slowly beside her.

Jaca kept her eyes on the floor in front of her as she replied: “I’m alright.”

“I’m sorry. For everything that happened.”

“Me too.” Jaca stopped. Tears stung her eyes, and she hurried to wipe them away. “About Beast.”

Garrett’s beloved mabari had died in the destruction of Kirkwall, having been at Jaca’s left side the moment it had happened.

“It’s not your fault,” Hawke assured. He wanted to hug her, but held back, still unsure of where they stood. “No one is to blame for that.” He paused briefly. “You said you don’t blame me, but I know you must blame Anders, judging by the way you reacted before.”

Jaca simply nodded.

“I blamed him too. Partly, at least.” Garrett sighed heavily. “I’m not sure who he is anymore,” he explained. “But it’s not entirely Anders’ fault. What happened to the Chantry is. But not the rebellion. Not the mass murder of the mages in Kirkwall that spread throughout Thedas. Please don’t blame him for that.”

Jaca pondered Hawke’s words for a long while. “Okay,” she said eventually. He was right. The rebellion couldn’t be put on a single man, no matter how much she disliked him. Grand-Enchanter Fiona had had her hands in the matter, deciding to push for the freedom of the mages when the majority of them had voted against it. And if rumors were to be believed, even that instance hadn’t been the first stone to start rolling down that hill.

“I wish none of it had ever happened,” Jaca sighed. She’d stopped crying, but still felt an immense sadness at the thought of all the lives that had been lost. She’d never been against the Circle. In fact, it had been home to her when her adoptive family had disinherited her once her magic had manifested. It had been a safe haven to many. She didn’t argue against the fact that it needed reform. The Templar Order had definitely gone out of hand, but the Circles did their job: they protected mages from the outside world and themselves.

“Why are you still with him if you think he’s changed?” she wondered, finally looking up to meet Garrett’s eyes. “If you don’t think Anders is who he used to be, and you don’t like that - judging by your tone just now - then why..? Why stay with him? You said you didn’t condone his actions.”

“I didn’t. I still don’t,” Hawke confirmed. “Innocent people died in Kirkwall because of him. So many more were hurt.” He glanced down Jaca’s covered body, but didn’t mention her specifically. “The Chantry, including Mother Elthina, couldn’t have done anything to stop Meredith. I couldn’t do anything. Orsino couldn’t. Meredith was too far gone to listen to reason. The only way Kirkwall’s Circle could have been saved from her would have been to have contacted the Divine. But once she finally interceded, it was already too late for our city.”

Jaca nodded in agreement. This was a difficult subject. It made her mind spin to think of all the what ifs. There was nothing that could be done about that now.

“So?” she asked. “What about Anders?” Hawke still hadn’t replied to her questions about him.

“It’s complicated,” Garrett sighed and ran a hand over his beaded face.

“No more than the subject of the mage rebellion,” Jaca argued, her face stiff and her voice turned cold as ice.

Now Hawke was the one to nod.

You think you can save him, Jaca thought to herself as she watched Hawke choose his words with care. Not everyone can be saved. “Not everyone wants to be saved,” she muttered.

As if hit by something, Hawke jerked at her words. She was right. “Maybe not,” he admitted.

#my works #Jaca #Grier #Garrett #Inquisitor #Varric

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