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#and even worse bc she is nice in her own way she’d be careful about cross-contamination and everything
hey-scully-itsme · 4 months
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one of my coworkers seems to have a different understanding of polite refusals than I do and it’s driving me nuts because when I try and hold firm and say ‘no, I’m good, but thank you!’ when she offers me soup for the millionth time she keeps coming back with it. I know social signals can be confusing and some people feel the need to refuse before accepting but we once went back and forth literally for days about one soup until I caved.
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karatekels · 7 months
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A request with KK3 Terry please and make it as dark/non-con as possible! But OFC always make changes if you have to cause I’d enjoy it no matter what.
I thought of Daniel who warns reader to not go see Terry again cause he actually caught on that she likes him. (I thought this happens right after the events where Miyagi fought Terry & Kreese). She’s shocked to hear about it since she did come to trust Terry and even look up to him. But she listens to her friend (at first). I thought that later she’d get into a dangerous situation at night close by the dojo where a group of men follow her and her first instinct is to go to the dojo in hope of Terry, even after Daniel’s warning. She’s obviously scared and is already imagining the worst things in her head. Thankfully Terry’s there to save her in the last moment and even offers to take care of her since she seems so shaken by it. What she didn’t expect is that it’ll get only worse with him and he expects some kind of “reward” from her for always treating her so nicely, even “going out of his way” to save her, and simply bc he’s had enough of waiting 👀 Make sure to make him cruel enough when he forces himself on her and that he even says smth like “Maybe you should’ve listened to Danny-boy.” (implying that he was there, hiding & watching when Daniel informed her about it). She gives in partway. She knows she doesn’t stand a chance anyway. Also make him throw some comments at her maybe about how pathetic she is, but that he still wants her and only her and she’ll always be his (or whatever else comes to ur mind). And that even when she enjoyed it by the end, she still feels dirty and used. Somewhat empty even and heartbroken. Your goal: Make me cry a bit for her okay
We are starting out the month living up to the title of Dark Desires October with this one! Today also marks the 1 year anniversary of this blog, so HOORAY!
This will be in two parts, and the actual non-con will happen in the next part (though there is attempted sexual assault in this chapter as well). If that’s not something you want to read, I would recommend sitting this one out!
For the rest of you degenerates who are still here… I hope you enjoy.
TW: attempted assault; assault; attempted sexual assault; attempted rape; violence; will lead to non-con in part 2
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Unjust Reward: Chapter 1
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At 10:02 in the morning, an insistent knocking starts at your front door. You giggle quietly, calmly finishing putting your shoes on. Your neighbour and friend (it was weird, calling a 17 year-old a friend when you were in your early twenties, but it was true), Daniel LaRusso, had called late last night, leaving a message on your answering machine. He had sounded panicked, saying that he needed to talk to you as soon as possible and would be coming over in the morning. Calling and leaving your own message, you had amended that to 10AM today.
It wasn’t that you weren’t taking whatever Danny was worried about seriously, but the kid had a tendency to be overdramatic and blow things out of proportion. You weren’t sure if it was a guy thing, a kid thing, or a karate thing, but Daniel always seemed to be on edge about some situation or another.
Grabbing your bag and your sunglasses, you head for the front door, opening it suddenly and catching Daniel’s fist half-raised in the air. You see the cuts and bruising on his knuckles, and hope that they weren’t from pounding on the door. He had been training very intensely with Terry Silver, a new sensei that had come to the Valley a couple of weeks ago, so it was probably from that.
Sensei Terry Silver…
You were kind of crazy about him.
He was the definition of tall, dark and handsome; nearly six and a half feet tall and strong, with long black hair and bright blue eyes. He had a wicked smile and positively oozed charm, to the point that you were frequently tongue-tied in his presence. Terry was very hands-on with his training, based on what you’d seen when you’d come by the dojo to meet Daniel after a training session. You’d found yourself jealous of the boy on more than one occasion, watching Terry’s hands adjust his hips and help him stretch.
“Calm down, Danny! Where’s the fire?” you joke, looking at him with a smile that he doesn’t return. Instead, he grabs your wrist, urgently tugging you towards him.
“Come on, Y/N – we need to talk, it’s important!” he hisses, looking like he’s seen a ghost.
“Should we go inside?” you ask, holding your front door ajar, but he shakes his head.
“No, we gotta find somewhere he doesn’t know about; he’s got eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Who does?” He just shakes his head, refusing to answer you, and you’re starting to get really worried about whatever it is that’s bothering him. You close and lock the door, letting him drag you down the street by the arm. You don’t see how anywhere outside could be more private than your own home, especially seeing as he was likely drawing attention by tugging at your wrist like this, but you knew how difficult it was to talk Daniel out of something when he had set his mind to it.
After a few blocks, you head into a local park, finding an unoccupied bench in a clearing. He gestures for you to sit but doesn’t join you on the bench, instead pacing back and forth in front of you and looking around intently.
“Okay, we should be safe to talk here; we can see if anyone tries to listen in.”
“Daniel, what is going on?” you demand, mildly frustrated by all of the theatrics but mostly concerned about what the source of his panic was.
“It’s Mr. Silver.”
“Is something wrong with Terry? Is he hurt?” you ask, your heart racing at the thought. Terry was big, and strong, and a professional martial artist; if something had hurt him, then it was definitely something to be feared. But Daniel shakes his head.
“No, he’s not hurt; he’s the problem. He’s dangerous!”
“Danny, he’s helping you train for the tournament. Was he just being hard on you?” you ask soothingly, feeling relieved. This was closer to what you had anticipated: Daniel blowing something out of proportion.
“No, listen!” he cries, though he’s trying to keep his voice down. He sounds like that dangerous mix of angry and scared that caused men to be unpredictable, and it has you nervous. “Y/N, I… I can tell that you like Mr. Silver a lot,” he says knowingly, and you blush, feeling like you were being told about ‘the birds and the bees’ by a kid. Had you been that obvious about your feelings for Terry?
“Please don’t go see him again. He’s not good for you; he’s not good for anyone. Listen…”
Daniel’s eyes are wide and scared, and you feel yourself shiver as he describes what had happened at the Cobra Kai dojo last night. Terry had made up everything; Kreese dying, being a down-on-his-luck sensei, wanting to train Danny so he could protect himself… The whole thing had been a nest of lies, part of a plan to get revenge on a teenager for winning a karate tournament.
It was ridiculous; it was insane. It was unbelievable… wasn’t it?
You think back to your own experiences with Terry. You’d been completely speechless the first time he’d come over and spoken to you while Daniel had been changing into his regular clothes. He had looked at you with such intensity, even if he had given you a charming smile the whole time. You’d tried to make small talk with him, and despite how awkward you felt around him, something about him kept drawing you in day after day. It was like you were addicted to the discomfort, the nervousness that you felt around him. He was like one of those Venus flytraps; he looked dangerous, but was still so alluring that prey found itself coming closer anyway, until the trap snapped shut.
As much as you didn’t want to believe it, you could see Terry as someone dangerous, hiding beneath a façade. And, if Mr. Miyagi had fought him, then this wasn’t just Daniel being overdramatic. This was serious.
Your heart clenches once, painfully; you didn’t really know Terry that well, sure. But you had really wanted to. It was like saying goodbye to a relationship that had never really begun, and as this had been the first time you had really felt strongly for someone as an adult, it hurt all the more.
But you had no reason to not believe Daniel’s words, and you would not be a fly caught in a trap.
“Danny, I… I’m so sorry. I’m sorry he hurt you, and I’m sorry I didn’t see him for what he was. I’m so glad that you’re alright,” you say, letting out a sigh of relief. Daniel was such a small kid, and Terry was a big guy – if he had wanted to, he could’ve really hurt the boy, or worse.
“Please tell me you won’t go see him again,” he begs, and you can hear the fear in his voice. Poor kid; this had really done a number on him.
“I won’t, Danny. I promise. But there’s still something I don’t understand: why couldn’t you have told me this in my apartment?”
“Oh. That.” Daniel says morosely, pulling out a few pages of a magazine out of his jeans pocket and handing them to you.
Smoothing them out, you see that the man being written about in the article is… Terry. But, instead of the humble, down-to-earth man you’d come to (sort-of) know, he was photographed in expensive-looking suits and (in your opinion) gaudy jewelry.
“He’s not some broke guy; he’s a billionaire. And Mike Barnes? Snake, and Dennis? He’s working with them; actually, they’re working for him.”
“He hired a bunch of teenaged goons to attack you?! You and Jessica?!” you shriek, glad that the girl had gone home to Ohio. What kind of monster paid people to harass children?!
“He’s got people everywhere, and he’s a good liar, and he’s a war vet, like Kreese was… is.” Clearly, that man’s death being a hoax was taking some time for the boy to adjust to in his head. “My uncle told me that guys that fought in Vietnam, a lot of them are… messed up.”
You nod sharply, pressing your mouth into a thin line. Terry was dangerous in many ways: a martial artist, a large man, a billionaire with infinite resources… mix in PTSD from the War and he had the potential to be a real monster. You shudder again.
“You’re right, Daniel. We should both stay away from him.”
Daniel’s head snaps up as the sound of a branch snapping comes from the treeline. Before you can reach out to stop him, he sprints towards the source of the noise with a yell, tearing through trees as if he expects Terry or one of his goons to be hiding among the leaves.
“Daniel, stop!” you cry out, quickly moving over to him and dragging him away from the trees. Putting your hands on his shoulders, you lock eyes with him. “There’s no one there, okay? And this is a park, in the middle of the day; no one is going to hurt us here.”
His chest is heaving as he tries to take deep, calming breaths, but he’s still very much on edge. Eventually, his shoulders slump, and you feel like you can let him go without him charging off to fight something.
“Listen to me, Daniel. Terry is probably very dangerous; you’re right about that. He isn’t someone that you can fight against and win. And I’m not saying that because you’re not a great fighter,” you say when he opens his mouth to protest, “I’m saying it because he isn’t going to play by the rules. You could get hurt, or worse. You have to promise me you’ll stay away from him, and keep yourself safe.”
“B-But, what if he –” he stutters, and you interrupt him, knowing just how to nip his desire to play hero in the bud.
“He might not stop at you, Daniel,” you point out, clenching your hands into fists to keep your body from trembling at the thought. “He could go after Mr. Miyagi, or me, or anyone. Best to not let him get to you; he’s like a ticking time bomb, and we don’t know what could set him off. Promise me you’ll stay out of trouble; stay with Mr. Miyagi as often as you can. I’m sure he’ll ease up after the tournament.”
Daniel’s forehead creases, and there’s a stubborn look in his eye, but he relents after a moment.
“Okay, fine. And you’ll stay safe too, right?”
“Yes, Danny – I promise. I won’t go near him or that dojo again.”
Daniel lets out a sigh of relief, and insists on accompanying you to the grocery store on your walk home.
“Daniel, you may be taking this a bit too far,” you tease as he helps you carry your things.
“Gotta keep you safe,” he huffs, having insisted on taking the heavier items.
“If anything, this is making me less safe, Daniel. After all, I’m not the karate champion; he’s not after me! You're just putting a target on my back,” you joke, but the boy seems insistent on taking this very seriously. You suppose that that’s better than the alternative.
He walks you to your door, ignoring your protests.
“Thank you, Daniel.” You’re grateful for the help, and the concern, but you had never been someone who liked relying on the support of others. “Now, please don’t do anything silly like risk yourself trying to stand guard, alright? I’m going to be fine.” You’re not sure if you’re trying to convince him or yourself.
“Fine, fine. I’ll give you a call tonight though, alright?” Daniel insists, and you agree, parting ways for the day as you seal yourself in your apartment.
---
You spend the afternoon cleaning the apartment and watching TV, trying not to dwell on what Daniel had told you. You make sure to double-check that every window is locked as you move from room to room, cleaning thoroughly; it was a good way to work off all of this nervous energy.
The fact that Daniel didn’t think you were safe to talk in your own apartment has you on edge. Terry didn’t know where you lived – even if Daniel had told him you used to be neighbours in the now-demolished apartment building, he shouldn’t know where you lived now. And even if he did, it’s not like he could get inside… right?
By the time you’ve eaten dinner and done the dishes, you’re feeling more comfortable in your home again, and decide to relax further by running yourself a nice bath. You sink into the hot water and bubbles, letting the tension from the day escape you, closing your eyes…
The phone rings from the other room, startling you. You glare through the doorway at the offending noise. Daniel had said he was going to call you, but surely you could just call him back when you were out of the bath.
You decide to let the phone ring out, and hear your voice on the answering machine, telling the caller to leave a message after the ‘beep.’ The machine beeps, and there’s silence for a long moment.
“Hello, Y/N.”
The bath water suddenly feels ice cold. That wasn’t Danny.
“It’s Terry Silver.”
He didn’t need to introduce himself; you’d recognize that voice anywhere.
“You haven’t come by the dojo in a few days; I’ve missed seeing that pretty face. You know that we have a lot to talk about, and we should. You know where to find me.”
The message ends there, and you curl into a ball in the tub, resting your forehead on your knees as you force yourself to take deep, steady breaths. Your body is covered in goosebumps, though the water is still steaming.
Why was Terry calling you? Why was he acting like everything was fine? If you two had a lot to talk about, then he had assumed that Daniel had told you what he’d done, and should know that you wouldn’t want to talk to him about it. So was he just calling to scare you?
Taking a deep breath, you force your body to move, pulling the stopper out of the drain and standing up; there was no way you’d be able to enjoy the bath now. You dry off and head to your bedroom, rooting around your dresser for your winter pyjamas – you were freezing, despite the hot bath and it being the middle of the summer. Maybe some tea would help…
You walk into the kitchen and set the kettle to boil. Selecting a sleepy time teabag from your collection, you open the cupboard and grab a mug, moving back to the stove.
The phone rings again and you yelp, dropping your cup on the floor where it shatters. Ignoring the mess for the moment, you reach over and move the kettle off the element before gingerly hopping onto the counter, not wanting to get glass on your bare feet. Sitting next to the phone now, you find that you can’t move away from it as it continues to ring. Would it be him again?
The machine plays your voice again, the beep sounding ominous. You hold your breath, your gaze locked on the answering machine.
“Y/N?! Are you –”
You scramble to pick up the phone, feeling overwhelmed with relief.
“Hey Danny! Yes, I’m fine,” you say, trying to keep your voice from shaking.
“Y/N! Why didn’t you pick up?” he demands, clearly worried that you’re not taking this seriously enough.
“I wanted to make sure it was you first, and not Terry calling.” Well, that was true, at least…
“Oh. That’s… that’s a really smart idea,” Daniel says, sounding appeased. “So, everything was normal today?”
“Yeah, I guess, all things considered…” You would not be telling him about Terry calling; it was exactly the type of thing that would have him camping out outside your front door, determined to protect you.
“And everything is alright with you and Mr. Miyagi? No goons ruining the shop or stealing the bonsais?”
“Yeah, nothing happened today. But we can’t let our guard down!”
You hum in agreement; you don’t think you’ll be letting your guard down any time soon.
You agree to check in with Daniel regularly over the next few days; there was only a week or so before the tournament, and hopefully all of this would blow over after that.
You sleep fitfully with the bedroom light on, though you’re not sure how exactly this makes you feel safer.
***
You’re on your way home from work a few days later, hopping off the bus at the stop closest to your house. It was late, and the streets were pretty much deserted in Reseda at this time of night. Your car was in the shop, and you forgot how much longer it took to get home by bus. But it was only a twenty minute walk or so to your apartment, so you aren’t worried.
That is, you weren’t worried until five minutes or so into your trek home.
A low whistle comes from behind you, and you jump, turning to look back even though you know you shouldn’t. A group of four men are following you, maybe fifty feet away. They’d been very quiet up to this point, but now that you’ve spotted them they are getting more rowdy, laughing and shoving each other.
“Look at that; she stopped when you whistled! What a well-trained, pretty little thing,” one of them comments, pitching his voice to carry over to you.
You turn back around, picking up your pace as quickly as you can without breaking into a run, scanning the area for a sign of someone else nearby who might be able to help. You hear the men laugh behind you, and they sound a lot closer.
“Where are you going, beautiful?”
“Why don’t you come have a drink with us; we’ll show you a good time!”
You come up to an intersection, and still, no one else is around. You have a decision to make. It was eight blocks to Daniel and Mr. Miyagi, six blocks to your apartment or… three blocks to the Cobra Kai dojo.
You veer right, sprinting down the street towards the dojo, tears blurring your vision, your heart racing as your feet pound the pavement; you hear one of them shout and can hear them coming after you. Even if Terry hated Daniel, even if he hated you, there was no way he was enough of a monster to stand by and let these men attack you. Please, let him still be there…
You’ve made it two blocks, but you can hear them getting closer, and even with the adrenaline pumping through you, you’re quickly starting to get tired, your breath burning in your throat. You try to push yourself further, you’re almost there… and you roll your ankle, making you stumble to the ground with a yelp.
You make to scramble to your feet, the skin on your palms and your knees burning as the night air hits the fresh scrapes, but quickly find yourself surrounded by the men.
“Poor thing, did you hurt yourself?” one asks mockingly, smirking down at you.
“Come with me, baby. I’ll take real good care of you,” leers another, making to grab your arm.
“Stay away from me,” you say weakly, your voice coming out as a hoarse whisper. It feels like your throat is closing up; you can’t scream, you can barely breathe.
One comes behind you, forcing his hands underneath your arms to pull you to your feet, and something about him touching you sets you off. You kick back with your leg, hitting him in the knee, making him let go of you; you send an elbow into his stomach and he lets out a pained grunt.
You move to run again – you were only a few doors away from the dojo – but a hand fists in your hair and shoves you over to a slab of raised concrete that housed a few plants. The hand at the back of your head pushes you down, bending you over the concrete, and you hit your head hard on the rough concrete, right on your browbone above one of your eyes and making you cry out with pain.
You’re pulled up by your hair again with a whimper, the man holding you pressing himself against your back.
“I’m sorry, gorgeous – did I hurt you?” he asks, his tone patronizing. “Here, let’s give that pretty little head of yours a softer spot to rest.”
He bends you over the concrete again, this time pushing you face first in the dirt. The men howl and jeer at your position, goading the other man as he holds both your wrists behind your back in his free hand. He grinds his hips against your butt, and you realize with a sickening feeling that he’s hard.
“Please, please don’t!” you beg, trying to make yourself heard as your voice is muffled by the dirt.
“Let me at her first,” growls a man from the side. “The little bitch deserves what’s coming to her for attacking me.”
Your pleas are completely drowned out as the men start to argue, closing in on you as you’re pinned down, their hands grabbing at your clothes. You can’t see, you can’t move, and your heart is thudding so loudly in your ears that you can barely hear.
And then one of them screams.
You’re paralyzed with fear, even as the man holding you down releases you, and you hear the sounds of fighting all around you as you slowly manage to push yourself off the dirt, curling into a ball on the ground. You know you should run away, but you just can’t.
After what seems like forever, you hear footsteps approaching you in the now silent night. Burying your face further in your knees, your whole body trembles.
“Y/N?”
The sound of your name startles you enough to look up, and your eyes meet the familiar blue of Terry’s. Even crouched down on the ground next to you, you still have to crane your neck to look up at him. You breathe a sigh of relief; your intuition had been right. Terry had saved you.
“T-Terry?” you stammer, quickly moving from feeling numb to feeling very overwhelmed. “Oh G-God, Terry! They… they…” Your face crumples as you let out an anguished sob, curling up into a ball again and hiding your face.
You feel his large, warm hand touch your upper arm, trying to offer you comfort without startling you.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay!” he murmurs soothingly. “Why don’t you come inside? I’ve got a first-aid kit, I’ll help patch you up. That’s quite a gash on your forehead.”
You whimper, but force yourself to nod, and he gently helps you to your feet. Looking around, you see two of the men collapsed on the sidewalk, the other two nowhere to be found. Still, the sight of them has you trembling so hard you’re worried you’ll fall over.
“Ssshh, it’s alright. They can’t hurt you anymore. Can you walk?”
You bob your head jerkily and move to walk the short distance to the dojo, but you stumble almost immediately. Before you even come close to hitting the ground, Terry has caught you, sweeping you up into his arms and carrying you bridal style over to Cobra Kai. He doesn’t put you down once you reach the front door, merely shifting you so that he has a free hand to open the door and taking you inside.
Walking past the large training area, Terry takes you to a back office, somewhere you’ve never been before. He sets you down on a cot – you knew that he had stayed somewhat regularly in the dojo, or at least, that’s what he’d told you – and orders you to stay put, leaving you alone in the room.
You sit up, leaning against the wall, trying not to cry. This has put you in a very awkward and potentially dangerous situation; just because Terry had saved you from a terrible fate didn’t mean that everything you now knew about him stopped being true. He was still unpredictable, unstable, violent… and possibly very upset with you.
You had to get out of there.
Before you even manage to climb off the bed, Terry is back, looming in the doorway with an armful of things. You freeze, and he comes around to the side of the cot, kneeling in front of you.
“I locked the doors, just to be safe. No one can get in here, I promise,” he reassures you in a soothing voice as he looks through the first-aid kit. You feel yourself start to relax despite your better judgement. Looking at the ground, you see that in addition to the first-aid kit he’s brought over the top of a karate gi, an empty bowl, a bottle of water, and a small towel.
“What’s all that for?” you ask quietly, your voice cracking as you speak. Terry looks up at your face before following your gaze to the objects on the floor.
“You have dirt all over your face; I want to make sure to clean you up so that your cut doesn’t get infected,” he replies calmly, filling the bowl with the water and dipping the towel to get it damp. “And the gi is for you; I thought you might be cold, especially if you go into shock.”
He picks it up, tossing it around your shoulders and loosely tying it at your waist. You slip your arms into the sleeves; it’s far too large for you, and as you take in a deep breath you notice that it smells like Terry. This must be one of his. Despite your better judgement, the scent has you relaxing slightly.
“It looks good on you,” he comments with a comforting smile, and you feel yourself blush. You force yourself to remember what Daniel had told you; you can’t let your guard down around him.
He lifts the damp towel to your face, and your eyes flutter closed as he wipes the dirt and blood away. The cloth presses against your cut and you let out a whimper that makes Terry murmur an apology. He was being so gentle with you.
Once he’s finished with the towel, you open your eyes, and his face is much closer to yours than you had anticipated it being. He takes your chin in his hand, staring at your face intently, and your whole body is rigid with tension.
“I don’t think you need stitches,” he informs you quietly after a moment. “A bandage will be fine. I’ll need to disinfect it, and that will probably hurt a bit, okay?”
You hesitate, again finding it difficult to speak, but eventually give him a nod.
“Lay down.”
“What? Why?” you ask, leaning away from him as you start to panic. He shushes you again, but it’s less comforting than the last time he did it.
“I don’t want the disinfectant getting in your eye is all,” he coos, his hands gentle but firm as he guides your body to the side and lays you on your back on the bed. You force yourself to take deep breaths.
“Oh. Sorry,” you mutter the apology, hoping you haven’t offended him for some reason.
“It’s a perfectly reasonable reaction,” he murmurs, rifling through the first-aid kit. “You just had a traumatic experience, after all,” he adds after a moment. “Okay, this is gonna sting. Do you want to squeeze my hand?” he asks, offering it to you.
You set your mouth in a firm line, your body tense in anticipation of the pain, and grab fistfuls of the blanket beneath you in both hands. Terry doesn’t seem at all bothered by your rejection, leaning over you and applying the cold gel to your wound. It stings terribly, and you bite your lip, clenching your eyes shut and trying not to make a noise.
You force your eyes open after a long moment of silence, and see that Terry’s eyes are still on your face, watching your reaction with an intense expression. Something in your belly clenches.
He looks away, choosing a bandage and applying it over your eye, though you think he presses down on it more firmly than necessary.
“There,” he says softly, surveying his work; he’s still holding your head in his hands. “All better.”
He’s doing it again – using that weird, magnetic pull he has to draw you in, make you feel… well, definitely not safe, but like you want to stay on this dangerous precipice with him.
“Thank you,” you say, speaking more loudly than necessary as you move to climb off the bed, intentionally disrupting the intimate atmosphere. You had to get away from him before he sunk his claws into you; in some ways, he felt more dangerous than the men he had saved you from.
“Y/N, wait,” he says, putting a hand on your shoulder and keeping you in place.
“I have to get home, I–”
“I’ve missed you.”
You freeze at his words, staring straight ahead at his chest.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
You force yourself to breathe again – when did it get so difficult?
“You know why,” you whisper after a long moment, still refusing to look at him. Suddenly, the gi top that had just felt so warm and comforting feels like a straightjacket, and your fingers move to untie it and take it off. You feel his gaze track the motion, but he doesn’t stop you.
“I haven’t done anything to you, Y/N.”
“You’ve been lying to me ever since I met you, Terry!” you snap, your wariness disappearing for a moment.
“I have not,” he growls, setting off alarm bells in your head. “I’ve never lied to you. I’ve never hurt you. I just saved your ass, for fuck’s sake!”
“What about Danny? What about Mike and Snake and–”
Terry’s hand covers your mouth suddenly. You fall silent as a jolt of desire like electricity courses through you. You hate the feeling with every fibre of your being.
“I never lied to him either, and I certainly never hurt him. He just didn’t bother asking the right questions.”
“You’re trying to get out of this on a technicality?” you say once you’ve pried his hand off of your face. He shrugs, an amused smile twisting his lips.
“I’m very good at what I do, Y/N. I have my reasons to make sure LaRusso loses the tournament, and I feel very justified in the training methods I’ve used. I don’t see what any of that has to do with you, though.”
“You’re messing with a kid!”
“Please. He’s practically an adult, and he’s certainly old enough to face the consequences of his actions. But be honest – that’s not why you’re scared of me, sweetheart. What’s the real problem you have with me?”
You’re quiet, biting your lip as you contemplate how to begin to answer his question.
“I know what it is,” he croons, his voice almost musical as he stands over you, moving to brace himself with his hands on either side of you. You lean back as his face gets dangerously close to yours. “You’re scared of what you feel when you look at me, isn’t that right? Scared of what you know you want, thinking about me as you lay awake at night?”
Your heart is beating in your throat, your face heating up.
“I… No, I…”
“Ssshhh,” Terry whispers, closing the distance between your faces once more. You can’t move, you can’t think, you can’t breathe. “It’s okay that you’re scared, babygirl. Let me show you what you really want…”
Cradling your head in his hands gently, he pulls you close, kissing you with a passion and a bruising force that is anything but gentle. You brain seems to short-circuit from the intensity of the kiss, and for a brief moment you’re kissing him back; the desire overwhelming you as he stokes it into a burning flame with his lips and tongue. You force yourself to fight through the dizziness, your head spinning.
“Mmhn… Terry… NO!” you say firmly, shoving him in the chest. He moves back a couple of steps, his head cocked as he looks down at you. The moonlight streams in from the window behind him, his eyes glinting brightly at you. He doesn’t seem upset with you.
He also doesn’t seem deterred.
“Don’t fight this, doll. I’ve seen the way you look at me; I know you want it,” he purrs in a husky voice, smirking at you as he slowly approaches the bed once more.
He couldn’t do this… He wouldn’t do this… He had just saved you from those men trying to do this exact thing!
“No, Terry,” you insist, climbing off the side of the bed, your eyes fixed on him. “I don’t want this. Please stay away from me,” you beg, backing through the doorway. The last thing you see is his mouth twisting into a predatory grin that makes you turn and run.
Scrambling, you make your way to the front of the dojo and go to tug the door open.
It doesn’t budge.
“Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?” you hear Terry sing menacingly from the office; the sound of it sends shivers down your spine. He laughs maniacally, like a hyena, before appearing in the doorway, calm as can be. “Double-sided locking system; I thought we might be needing it.”
A sense of dread roots you to the spot, and you feel your teeth chattering.
“You… you planned this?” you say, your voice barely more than a high-pitched whisper, but the sound carries through the silence of the dojo.
“I have far more than just Barnes, Dennis and Snake at my disposal,” he says, giving you a cruel smile. “Those guys were more than happy to go after you for free; I mostly paid them to let me kick their asses without them bitching about it or giving me away.”
“Why?!” you ask frustratedly. As much as you didn’t want to admit it, you knew that if Terry had wanted to get you here, he could have done so himself, without needing to stage an attack. This was madness.
“I wanted to see if you’d come to me for help, even knowing what Danny-Boy told you. And you did!” he says, sounding delighted, like he’s praising a child for picking up their toys. He slowly approaches you, and you try to maintain the distance between you, but it’s no use. He’s bigger, he knows what he’s doing, and you’re terrified.
“Guess you shoulda listened to Danny-Boy, huh?”
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Part 2
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For every action, a reaction - Chapter 2 - Acceleration
Pairing: Raven Scientist (Victoria Van Gale/The Raven Leader)
Summary: Taking a step back from our poetry nerds, this instalment focuses on academic research projects, less than legal shenanigans, and most importantly, two coworkers who are smart enough to be geniuses in their respective areas but apparently not enough to confess.
Over the span of two decades.
Seriously.
Somebody has to do something. Before all their students lose their minds.
Updates weekly.
Notes: I didn’t want to think up a new name for Raven so eh. Now we’re all using his nickname. Which is Raven. bc I said so. Btw, the end of this chapter happens on the same day as Carpe Diem’s chapter 7. They were planned to intersect all along, so if you like CD, maybe it’d be nice to go give that a re read for the context :)
Read it on ao3: (Carpe Diem verse) (previous chapter) (this chapter)
Going to the Sunday Market with his cousin was something Ed looked forward to every month. At this point, they already recognized most of the stalls, even if they changed occasionally. Most times, they didn’t even buy anything, it was just fun to walk around pointing out nice or bizarre things to each other, failing to pronounce the name of vegetables they had never even heard of in the farmer’s area, taking the time to be with each other without the day to day hustle hanging over them. But he couldn’t say he was mad about not spending this one outing with her. This time, he had an actual mission to accomplish in the market.
And it was one that he wouldn’t even have to spend his time with if all people were as effective as his cousin and simply asked their crushes out on dates. 
As soon as he told Johanna and her new… friend that he was going to take a look around on his own, he walked away purposefully to where he knew his professor’s stall would be. It was generally at the same place, so the only question was whether or not she’d be there herself that weekend. Edmund got his answer as soon as he caught sight of the stacks of honey jars, which were being taken care of by a younger woman as Birgitta herself talked (presumably about their conservation initiatives) to a client who had just made his purchase.
He waited a couple of feet away for her to be free again, and luckily enough she caught his sight as soon as the buyer had gone away.
“Edmund!” She said, as warm as ever. “How nice to see you here!”
“Afternoon, professor.” Even though professor Bloom had long since become intimate enough with him to call him by his first name, he had never been able to do the same, no matter how many times he had been told he was allowed to. “I was hoping I’d find you around. I just wanted to thank you, the lecture last Friday was great.”
“That’s too kind. I know it must be despairing to watch the same facts being flung at you every year.”
“Aw, come on, don’t do that. They’re not the same ones, they get worse.”
Birgitta snorted, which to him was a good sign. He needed her in a good mood if he wanted to have any hope of what he was going to say landing correctly.
"Besides, you and your wife look so cute that it balances out the despair.”
His move had been a bold one, and she blinked a couple of times in quick succession as she whipped her head up to meet his gaze. 
“My what?”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” He feigned innocence, hoping that his cupid impulses didn’t cost him his advisor. “Is she your girlfriend, then? I shouldn’t have assumed-”
“No, no!” By now Birgitta was blushing hard and putting her hands up in front of herself in a ‘I’ll stop you right there’ gesture. The vendor, who was probably one of the people who worked with her in the land trust, was watching them with a smile wanting to blossom on her lips. Clearly she’d seen some shit as well. “Victoria and I are just friends, actually.”
“Really?” He tried to sound as surprised as he could, and not at all the way he actually wanted to sound (that being like a cop trying to force the truth out of the person they were questioning, which would probably be more effective). “Oh, my bad. She just looks at you like she’s so lovesick, you know? Anyway, thanks for the lecture again. I’ll see you Tuesday for the mentoring?”
The delivering of a lot of information at the same time had the desired effect of not allowing her to question it, and she was only able to weakly mumble that yes, their appointment remained before declaring that she needed some air and walking away from them and from the market. 
Both Edmund and the vendor watched her cross the street, turning her back to the cluster of people and activity that the square currently was. After a moment, the younger woman huffed out the laugh she’d been holding back.
“Thank you.” She sighed. “Maybe this time it won’t go over her head.”
Before walking away to find his favourite stalls (he really deserved to go see the cool wood carver after this), Edmund nodded at her in recognition.
“I did it for us all, sister.”
.........
Mondays are awful. They are awful because you have to get into weekday mode again after having turned it off. They’re awful because you have to eat leftovers from the weekend since you don’t have time to cook more food. They’re awful because, if you procrastinate on doing your chores during the weekend, your house is now dirtier than ever and you have to simply find the time to deal with that. But that Monday sucked in particular because Raven was pretty sure he was doing something illegal.
Thinking thunder was cool, he realised, had been his downfall. It was liking thunder that had led him down this path in his life. It had been what brought him to study Weather Science in the University of Trolberg, which got him into contact with professor Van Gale. She, in turn, had listened to him talk about wanting to study how weather events like lightning, thunder and storms were made and if it was possible for humans to create them, and said that she was going to begin a research project that dealt with very similar things. He remained in the university for his Masters, and got the only spot that was available in her project.
And now here he was, unwillingly helping her commit sabotage.
He didn’t even know why she wanted him to look over her plans. She was a genius, and much better at the mechanical part of what they did than him (really, it was as if she’d studied as much engineering as climatology in her life), so his only guess was that she didn’t want him to feel left out.
A true shame, that, since he very much wanted to be left out of this.
“Are you okay, Raven?” His flat mate’s voice cut through his thoughts. “You’ve been sighing a lot for the last fifteen minutes.”
Checking in with himself, he noticed that both his hands were in his dark, straight hair, gripping tight. He took them out and smoothed over his head, hoping he hadn’t ruined his ponytail too bad. Next, he straightened his posture and schooled his features into something that didn’t look as much like the anguish he was feeling.
“Oh, I’m just reading some things Dr. Van Gale sent me. She remains very distressed about the lack of funding for our project. It all keeps going to professor Ahlberg.”
Alfred put his phone down on the kitchen table and sat down in front of him, reaching out to touch one of his hands to his. “I’m sorry something is distressing you so. Is there anything that can be done?”
“Against a professor’s project? Hardly.” Both Raven and Alfred jumped at the voice. The third person they shared their flat with, Tontu, was suddenly sitting at the table with them even though neither had seen him coming, a bowl of fruit loops and milk in his hands despite it being six in the afternoon. Raven could swear that that man popped out of nowhere, sometimes. “You could try doing something against the professor himself, though.”
Staring fixedly at Tontu, like sometimes he couldn’t believe that he was real, Alfred cleared his throat. “Yeah, maybe Raven can store that idea away for another time.”
“Whatever. Anyway, I was just on the phone with my family. Timtum told me to say hi to you guys.”
“Uh, send our hellos to him as well.” Raven said as Tontu stood up and walked away to the kitchen sink. After he was out of earshot, Alfred turned to him again.
“Do you think those are the actual names in his family?”
They had never had the courage to ask if ‘Tontu’ was really his name. They weren’t sure if they wanted the answer. Raven just shrugged and tried to go back to the conversation in a way that didn’t continue to touch on Victoria or her academic nemesis.
“Anyway… you texting Bart?”
Alfred had been giggling at his phone for the past ten minutes, which had been another thing to help Raven completely immerse himself in Van Gale’s emails. He hated the pang of jealousy he felt when he thought too much about his flatmate and his older boyfriend, so he had had no better option than to read through his mentor’s madness, really.
“Oh, no!” He chirped. “I’m talking to Jo, actually. She went out with a girl she likes yesterday and now she’s losing her mind about it. I shouldn’t be having as much fun as I am with this, honestly.”
Resting his chin on his hand, Raven sighed as Alfred kept going on. At least someone was having a good time.
…......
Birgitta had to do something. She didn’t know what, though. Was there even an appropriate way to react to the fact that the person you’ve yearned for for nearly two decades might feel the same? It wasn’t even a certainty, but rather a guess made by a student who had done nothing but watch them lecture together. He could very well have been wrong. Victoria had been a dear friend for a long time, it was to be expected that she was sweet to her, it didn’t have to mean anything else.
But even if that was the case, the fact that it was driving Birgitta this insane was a sign that she had to do something about it. It would swallow her alive otherwise.
She waited far longer than she should have, telling herself that she was waiting for the right moment and ending up losing momentum. It was only one week after Edmund had talked to her, on a Monday, that she had enough nerve to reach out.
She had waited until the end of the day, because of course she had. Busying herself with all sorts of tasks hadn’t been enough to settle her mind down, and she spent the entire day feeling like her insides were frozen because of how anxious the thought of having that conversation was making her. It would have been worse if she had done it in the beginning of the day, though. Regardless of what Victoria told her, she knew she would not be able to focus afterwards. 
It must have been around eight in the evening when Birgitta locked her office’s door. She had waited so long that if it were any other professor she wanted to talk to, she would have had to worry about them having gone home already. Not Victoria, though. That woman spent as much time in the university as someone who lived off campus could.
The path to Victoria’s lab was a familiar one; Birgitta had been there many times before to spend time with her under the pretence of learning more about her research on cloud seeding. Sure enough, when she got there, there was light coming from under the lab’s door, even though the corridors were mostly empty. After certifying herself for the seventh time since she left the office that her outfit wasn’t dirty with soil, leaves, or animal fur, as it tended to be, Birgitta took a deep breath and knocked gently on the door.
“Good evening, Victoria!” She called out, knowing that if her friend thought it was someone else it was entirely possible that she’d pretend to not be there just so she didn’t need to open the door and talk to someone. “Birgitta here. May I come in?”
“Yes, of course!”
Her voice sounded like she’d been caught by surprise, which was understandable. Birgitta wasn’t usually around in the university at this time. Turning the doorknob, she noticed that not even forcing the door forward allowed it to open.
“It is locked, though, you know.”
“Oh!” The sound of Victoria hastily getting up from a wheelie chair came from the other side, and soon so came the metallic cling of a key against the door. “Sorry!”
Victoria’s face was slightly pinker than usual, and her lopsided smile made a dimple appear on the left side of her face. Yes, Birgitta was going to have to confess to this woman. She’d simply been left with no other option.
“No worries. May I come in?”
Opening the door wider gesturing for her to come inside, Victoria stepped out of the way and allowed her to come closer. Birgitta was vaguely aware of the sound of the door being closed again while she looked around, trying to find something to say.
“Sorry to interrupt you.” She said, noticing that Victoria’s laptop was open and the screen bright at her desk. “I can come back later, if you want me to!”
“No, not at all!” Four words that wrecked Birgitta’s hopes of leaving that building with her dignity intact. “I was just stalking a coworker to see if I can find dirt on them.”
The scientist had walked closer to her again, and Birgitta blinked at her. After all these years, it sometimes still impressed her how blunt she was. It was most endearing, really.
“Well, as long as it’s not me…”
“What- No!” She exclaimed, making Birgitta chuckle. “No, no, you probably don’t even know the woman. It’s just that a friend of mine told me she’s not having, let’s say, the greatest experience with a specific literature professor, and I wanted to see if there might be any reasons for it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” She said, assuming that the friend was one that Victoria mentioned every once in a while, seeing as Raven, the only other student who she knew Victoria had contact with, had nothing to do with literature. The thought reminded her to thank the heavens that he wasn't in the lab at that moment. “Found anything yet?”
“Maybe, maybe not. It will require further research.”
She shook her head fondly. As Birgitta looked around, there were many gadgets and boards filled with annotations that she knew she could point out and spend hours talking to Victoria about, but that hadn’t been why she had come. Postponing this conversation had been how she’d ended up with years and years of heartache.
“Tell me, Victoria, can I talk to you about something? It’s good, don’t worry, but it’s serious. So I understand if you’re tired or don’t want to do this now for any other reason.”
Seemingly switching into Business Mode, Victoria turned to her like someone who hadn’t realised she was supposed to be taking this visit more seriously, and nodded eagerly. Birgitta didn’t miss the way she began to fidget with the hem of her lab coat.
“Feel free to say whatever you want to. Would you like to sit down?”
“It’s fine, don’t worry.” She took a deep breath. They were grown women, damnit, the world wouldn’t end over a crush. “I got a comment… about our lecture together, and I wanted to talk it through with you.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. A student told me he got the impression you have feelings for me.”
All that came from Victoria was a stunned silence, but Birgitta followed on, knowing it must sound like an accusation so far.
“And I just wanted to come clean to you, because <em>I</em> have been interested in you as more than a friend for the longest time now, but I never said anything because, well, I thought you were happy with how things are. But since he said this, I thought it might be worth a shot to actually talk to you about the matter.”
“Yes.”
Victoria had been staring at some point to the side of her face when she began, but brought her gaze directly to her eyes as she continued. Birgitta had barely finished talking when that one word came.
“Pardon?”
“I- sorry, I’m not entirely convinced that this is happening, hold on.” She took a couple of seconds to breathe and organise her thoughts, and then looked back at Birgitta. “He was right, your student. I do have feelings for you. I’d apologise for letting them show, since I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I’m guessing that it wasn’t an issue, right?”
Google, how do I make it any more explicit that I like someone than telling them I like them?
“It wasn’t. I was happy to hear that because honestly, it was getting embarrassing to just sustain this crush on you and do nothing about it.”
Putting her feelings out there so bluntly would have felt embarrassing too, if only each word didn’t make Victoria look happier and more at ease.
“If you were sitting on it for as long as I have.” She began, her dimples showing again. “Then it got embarrassing for us both a long time ago, Birgitta.”
Even though she had already admitted how she felt, it was the quip that released the tension that had built up on her chest and shoulders, a cage being flung open and allowing her anxiety to fully dissipate. It was okay. They would be fine.
“Reluctantly, I’ll have to agree.” She chuckled, knowing her blush mirrored the one in Victoria’s cheekbones. “Will you go out on a proper date with me, then? I’m free tomorrow after my tutorings, if you want to go have dinner in the city.”
Victoria’s grin widened and she gripped the labcoat’s hems even tighter, holding herself back from doing more energetic movements in her excitement.
“I would love that.”
………
Raven arrived at the lab the following day with tension levels so high that Victoria could swear that their weather equipment should be able to pick it up. They didn’t turn them on, though. Currently their work had turned towards… other things.
“Quit complaining, for heaven’s sake.” She said, unable to hold back any longer after an hour of building the base for small gadgets with him. Not even knowing that she had a date with Birgitta later that day made it any easier to stand his constant whining; she imagined that the small recording device she wore at her lapel in order to keep track of experiments would be filled with his sighing, now. “You know Erik Ahlberg is a tool and that his project shouldn’t even exist. We aren’t doing anything wrong.”
Not morally, at least. Legally? Yeah, they probably were.
“I’m not worried about whether or not it’s right, Victoria!” He put his tools down on the desk with a clang, making Victoria jump in her seat both at the loud noise it made and at the use of her first name. It was generally a sign that he was really mad at her, which wasn’t really an uncommon occurrence however much she tried to avoid it. “I’m worried about the very real possibility of us getting caught! Even if your plan works out, these devices won’t turn to nothing when they self-destruct! They’ll still be there, and if anyone finds them, it won’t be hard to trace them back to you. They have to have some control over the materials that are bought with the university’s money, don’t they?”
He sighed deeply, putting his hands on his lap. His copper skin looked pale, and there were bags under his eyes. For the first time, Victoria stopped to consider the toll that what she had asked her student for must be taking on him. 
Raven was a good boy, he really was. She had tried to nourish his interest and give him a good shot, a good opportunity to learn new things and to work on exciting research that would no doubt give him a CV that couldn’t be ignored.
What was she doing instead?
“I know you have good reasons, doc. I do, and I agree. But I’m afraid. I’ve fought hard to be here. My family is counting on me. If I lost it all, and left with a criminal record, no less… I’m not sure what they’d do. I’m not sure what I’d do, either.”
“I know.” She answered, even though a new, more terrifying scenario was coming to her mind. “That’s why we need to do this. We haven’t been able to do a quarter of what we could yet! And only because Ahlberg is getting all the funds, somehow! Isn’t allowing this to happen just another way of disappointing the people who put their trust in us?”
“Maybe it is.” He sounded as tired as he looked as he got up from his bench, his voice slurred as if it pained him to speak. “But at least it isn’t dishonest. It’s not… morally dubious. I don’t know. I need a break, be back in ten.”
Walking away to the door quicker than she would have been able to stop him, Raven left her alone at the lab, only her and her swirling thoughts. 
If their devices were found, they would be traced back to them. She had been aware of it. Raven’s innocence was easy enough to forge. There was nothing written or drawn in his handwriting that didn’t have to do with their official project, and she could simply give her word that her student was innocent. After all, why would a researcher try to protect someone they had nothing other than a professional link to? He would simply be innocent, and there would be nothing to prove him guilty.
Not Birgitta, though. Victoria could remember as if it were yesterday how angry she’d been when Ahlberg’s project got approved. It’s an absurd!, she had declared while they took a stroll through the campus. And a complete disservice! We’re over here, giving our lives to debunk the myth that troll flies are dangerous, and that idiot shows up promoting the opposite thing!
She had protested the continuation of his research however way she could, back in the day. She had sent essays to the dean, the university’s board, the research ethics committee, even to Erik Ahlberg himself to try and stop it. But despite her best efforts, the project not only flourished but also became the one that received the best grants in the whole university. To this day, it was something that Birgitta was openly bitter about, though her efforts were now concentrated at protecting that species in her lands.
And if she was dating Victoria, and their sabotage was caught, the dots would be wrongly connected and the blame would fall directly on her lap. She would lose all her prestige and the job that she loved.
What a terrible gift that would be.
Victoria didn’t know how, but her phone ended up in her hands. Time seemed to be jumping from moment to moment without her realising as her mental cogs worked, trying to find which was the least worse way out of the grave she’d dug for herself (because there really was no ‘better’ way out). Unfortunately, she found herself in hers and Birgitta’s conversation.
And began typing.
………
As he was waiting for his tutoring to begin, Edmund didn’t even remember what he had done the former week at the market. All he was doing was trying to remember the points he wanted to discuss with his advisor in the new material he had sent her, which he had revised on the Saturday afternoon during which Johanna had left him alone at the house. He only hoped that the fact that he had sent it in a hurry when his cousin had arrived back home, so that he could hear her ramble about the Pilqvists, hadn’t too heavily impacted the quality of the text he had submitted. 
The sound of a door banging brought him back to reality. Abigail, the one other student that professor Bloom was currently mentoring, had just left her office looking like she’d tasted something sour.
“Everything alright?” He asked his friend, earning an eye roll in response.
“With me? Yeah, sure. Be warned, though, Bloom is in one hell of a mood today.”
The woman walked down the corridor without another word, leaving Edmund to face whatever would come next alone. Swallowing down his anxiousness, he stepped forward and knocked on Birgitta’s door.
...……
[7 unanswered messages]
Victoria 💙
Birgitta, hi
i’m so sorry. i know what i said and i meant it, but i cant see you later
it’s better that we dont keep in touch for some time, actually
i know it doesnt make sense but please believe that its for the best
im trying to do the right thing
i promise
im so sorry
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khytal · 1 year
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octopus adventurer 2 thoughts :)
-negatives first (this is the only one). my biggest criticism is how the beastlings were handled; we got rid of the awful dancer design but received “‘savage and uncivilized’ natives” in return. which. what the fuck
-if you liked ot1 to any degree you will enjoy the sequel I can almost guarantee it (but try the demo first)
-there are improvements in nearly every aspect (essentially there’s a lot more variety in everything, but especially the sprites for both regular characters and enemies)
-most importantly the party feels like they’re actually traveling together :) and the crossed paths chapters are fun, although I wish they were a little longer x)
spoilers section (only to be read if you’ve seen the credits roll)
ochette: -aside from the shit subplot between the colonizers and beastlings (which was resolved by abruptly slapping a bandaid on it in ochette’s last chapter) I thought ochette’s story was passable -it wasn’t anything super special but I like ochette as a character. she’s fun and honest and her travel banter was very sweet (especially the one about gil’s piano playing wahhh) -she also gets the “tempest on the battlefield” song, which only plays 3 other times in the game so. yeah :]
castti: -hey check out how hard i can cry -my favorite comparison between alfyn and castti is that even though both of them were forced to take a life to save several others, for alfyn it made him reconsider what it meant to save lives while castti had ZERO qualms about killing trousseau -apothecaries also get the best pre-boss fight prelude themes for no reason -idk how else to describe castti other than “strong”. in more ways than one. she’s my favorite of the girls for sure -and she definitely had one of my favorite stories (although I guessed pretty early on that malaya was already dead x’) ). I love how her path/job actions played into the last few scenes o(-<
throné: -yeah hi what the fuck -genuinely just. what the fuck -i don’t even know what to say. I love throné I like that she’s socially awkward but not necessarily shy, and she’s not exactly closed off either -she’d look better with pants (it’d also be way more practical for her job) but that’s beside the point I guess -good god her last chapter had me reeling. I thought they were going to reveal at the garden that all of the blacksnakes were like. clones grown in a laboratory and that’s what the garden was but it was so much worse. wdym this guy’s been fucking for decades -oh also shoutout to the writers for letting throné actually go through with killing mother in front of the little girl desperately begging her not to do it (bc usually that leads to “maybe i should reconsider” but that didn’t happen and it was nice for a change lmao)
osvald: -you know how I said I didn’t really care much for him. yeah that opinion flipped by chapter 4 -idk if this is accurate or not but the travel banter between him and the rest of the party felt like it got more amicable as it went on (obviously this is. tracked in the “wasted time” series but I mean in like other travelers’ conversations) -I’m glad he got his daughter back, and that he at least plans on reuniting with her instead of being like “no I must stay away for her own good forever” -also the voice acting is really good. it’s really good across the board but especially for osvald’s last 2 chapters
partitio: -sorry before i say anything I need to mention that partitio’s ch1 is one of the 4 times that “tempest on the battlefield” plays and it’s SO funny to me that it’s even there. because otherwise the song plays during 3 major, high-stakes confrontations and meanwhile partitio’s here beating up some thugs in the mines sdkjfhgkjdf. anyway -i love him he’s everything to me -honestly surprised that they managed to make partitio more connected to the overarching plot than agnea, who was only tied in because she encountered tanzy. the fact that he’s so selfless that he was able to give one of the antagonists hope in humanity.,.,.,augh -the scent of commerce stuff was fun and I liked that that, along with his story, really did end up taking him all over solistia -he doesn’t kill anyone BUT he was absolutely prepared to end giff’s life in ch1 so I 100% believe that he wouldn’t have any issues with committing murder under very specific circumstances (hope this explains why I put “murder is okay” for him in that one meme) -huge props to his VA. unfortunately “yeehaw” is now a part of my vocabulary because partitio was my protagonist and I have 104 hours logged lmao -also something he and alfyn (my fave from ot1) have in common is saxophone being their associated instrument x)
agnea: -she’s so sweet I love her.,,.. -her story was also really good!! again nothing special but I enjoyed the execution + her final fight was really cool (esp with the unique song wahhh) -did not think she would be one of my favorites but she’s definitely up there :)
temenos: -temenos. -I ended up liking him a lot more than I expected x’) -me when characters have a seemingly infallible, confident mask and it only slips because they’re angry on behalf of another. me when temenos does this twice for crick’s sake o(-< -god. what do you MEAN crick is dead. orz
hikari: -in ch2 I was like “haha what if kazan betrays hikari” and I was relieved when that wasn’t the case. and then I went into the final chapter. -ngl i did tear up a little in the scene after the fight with rai mei. the voice acting was fantastic there -also the travel banter with osvald where hikari smashes osvald’s train of thought by going “but you have magic”. lmao -I really expected a moment where the cursed blood forces hikari to take a life against his will and he has to deal with the consequences afterward but that didn’t happen. probably because mugen was the endgame rather than figuring out what the cursed blood was -related note everything about the archmage dar’qest went in one ear and out the other I do NOT remember what he did x’) -other than that I liked hikari a lot. I’m glad he wasn’t a brooding character, though he’s not exactly one for jokes. he’s just very humble and polite. straightforward
final chapter: -I was so SO excited that there were scenes where all of the travelers got to talk together. one of the few things I desperately wanted out of ot2 and I got it :’D -ALSO I’m glad that this was a mandatory chapter bc it really pulled everything together in a much better way -my only complaint about it is that at vidania, only the protagonist you chose talks. and I know hikari has a comment about kazan before entering vidania but it’s just a little weird that they don’t all have something to say when directly facing kazan/vide. like of all the times to cop out on the travelers being together.,...,,.lmao -having all 8 travelers on the screen was SO cool btw -the epilogue was really sweet too I had a huge grin on my face when it was over :’)
thanks for reading all this sorry that it’s so long o(-< anyway this is a standout sequel it’s very very very good. easily one of my favorite 2023 games so far
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thenexusofsouls · 2 years
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(Dinah/Michael, bc I'm away from my laptop but I NEED MORE SOFT) She assumed it was some kind of dramatic, action packed fight in the rain that Michael returned from, bursting through the door, bleeding, battered, soaked. She never came with him to these things, she knew she was of no use there. She wished she was, if only to keep her guardian angel safe. She didn't know how he even made it back to the museum on his own, on the British Isles, storms can be riskier.
"Michael!" She gasped, immediately leaving her desk and running to him. She was frightened, worried sick waiting up for him, she never could sleep knowing he was out there. Tearfully, she through her arms around the beaten man, not minding the blood and water. "I thought.. you were gone so long, and with the storm I... I had to stay, I had to wait for you, I..." Say it, say you love him. But no words really came out, she simply parted from him a bit, and placed a gentle hand on his cheek, she was always gentle, even if he was unharmed. But this time her teary eyes searched his cut, bloodied and bruised face, and couldn't keep her heart from bursting with empathy and gratitude. Softly, but slowly, with hesitation, Dinah kissed the fallen angel on the lips, only for a few seconds before parting, clearing her throat. "It gets... dangerous, out there, with the wind picking up the waves, I thought if the fight didn't kill you... I didn't want to lose you, I was.. afraid, I always am." She thought he'd think she was an idiot for being so forward, but she didn't want to let him go, she wanted to kiss him again and again so he feels all the love he deserves.
It had become a regular thing, demons lurking in the vicinity and Michael taking the fight to the rather than let them close in on the artifact... and Dinah. Why wait? He knew what they were there for and what they wanted to do. The only problem was, they were actual demons and he... was... some mortal with the memories and soul-weariness of an angel. A lotta good that did him in battle. Without fast healing, angelic durability, and wings, he was a poor match for demons. This was his duty, though. He didn’t feel he had much of a choice in the matter.
Michael hadn’t expected Dinah to still be awake when he got back. If he had, he might’ve tried to clean up a little better in the rain, because he knew how much the sight of blood, specifically his blood, tended to upset her. But with the way she yelled his name and ran to hug him the moment he crossed the threshold, he knew he’d screwed up royally. He tried not to wince in pain as she hugged him, for that would only make her feel worse. It... it was nice to be hugged, though. It was nice to have someone waiting up for him. Someone who cared...
“I’m sorry...” he whispered in an exhausted, raspy voice. “I’m alright.” No he wasn’t. He was beat halfway to hell, tired, in pain, hungry, and cold. Michael wasn’t about to tell Dinah any of that, though. But then before he knew it... she was... kissing him? He didn’t know what to make of that. He’d never been kissed before in his life. It was a human thing, mostly, and beyond that, Michael had never had anyone he’d wanted to kiss before. But as Dinah did so, his surprise melted into gratitude and affection and he smiled softly, his eye lingering on hers.
Judging by her expression, she clearly thought she’d overstepped. Rather than let her continue on in her awkward state, Michael cupped her face and kissed her again, this time a bit more passionately. At least now there would be absolutely no confusion about where his feelings were at on the subject....
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mc-lukanette · 3 years
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do you have any lukanette ideas with chat/adrien salt? the newest episode reignited my annoyance towards him and his stans acting like he didn’t do anything wrong is not helping. i mean, flirting with ladybug while he’s dating kagami? getting excited over a possible akumatization?? and since i know that behavior won’t be addressed bc adrien is “perfect” and “the love square is endgame” therefore he gets a pass for any bad behavior, i was hoping for some fanmade salt (and lukanette is always a great addition to any story)
I can appreciate how starved you guys are to hear me salt on this blog.
But yeah, I came up with something considering that quite a bit of Chat’s behavior happens before Truth appears in “Lies.”
So hear me out--
Truth is a threat, considering that Luka is the only hero outside of Ladybug intended to be a planner. All others take orders directly from Ladybug herself, but Viperion could plan on his own.
This means that Truth realizes quickly that his strategy of asking for the heroes’ identities isn’t going to work because they’ll shout over him every time. He has to get creative and comes up with the idea to divide the heroes.
He comments on their teamwork, perhaps saying vaguely about how their teamwork can’t outmatch his and Pharo’s. Chat obviously takes the bait, talking on and on about how he and Ladybug are the best team and that they’re made for each other.
“Really?” Truth asks casually. “You’ve never done anything against her?”
Chat Noir responds, his white lips moving to say, “Of course I have!”
Ladybug gapes, and Chat looks calm for a second before his eyes immediately widen in panic.
He tries to say that it’s not what he means, but Truth’s power is active, so he just blurts out, “That’s exactly what I mean!”
He tries to cover his mouth with his non-Cataclysm hand, but gets shot by Pharo.
“I told Theo Barbot that we were dating and it got him akumatized!”
“You did what?!” Ladybug asks, having never heard this before.
Chat doesn’t stop - he can’t - and his mouth keeps moving. He admits that he sacrifices himself because he knows it won’t matter since Ladybug will fix it, and it means he’ll always leave an impression on her. He admits that he didn’t care when Nadja or Alya were egging on the LadyNoir ship because he feels like Ladybug will come around eventually. He admits that he doesn’t take her seriously when she goes off on him because “she’s cute when she’s angry.” He admits that he wanted an akuma to happen even though he knew Ladybug was busy, just because he wanted to spend time with her. He admits to telling his kwami he’d quit while Paris was underwater if he didn’t spill what Ladybug was hiding.
Honestly, even Truth at this point is like, “man I wanted to divide your teamwork, not your entire relationship.”
Ladybug eventually manages to snap out of her trance and deal with the whole situation (mostly by herself), but the damage is done. Even after the akuma has been purified and Truth turns back into Luka, Chat’s words linger and Ladybug ignores him.
“Are you okay, Luka?”
“Huh? Ah, yeah, thanks...”
Chat is awkwardly standing nearby, his tail in both hands as he fiddles with it. “So--ah... Bugaboo--”
“Don’t,” Ladybug cuts in, not even looking at him. “Is that why you use that nickname when I’m mad? To butter me up? Try to earn points? Do you think it’s funny?”
“No, no!” He waves his hands frantically. “It’s not--”
“See, the thing is that now I won’t know whether you’re lying or not,” she points out, the situation feeling all to familiar to when Tikki lied to her, only this was worse. She honestly wanted to trust Chat Noir; he was her partner, irreplaceable in the sense that he was there from the start.
But maybe not irreplaceable elsewhere.
“I wouldn’t lie to you!” he swears.
“But you’ll keep things from me,” she counters. She sighs, gently taking Luka’s hand and helping him stand, then addressing him as she says, “I’ll take you home, alright?”
Luka’s gaze briefly flickers between the two of them, but he asks no questions and nods. “Thank you.”
She guides him up the staircase to take him up to the balcony, Chat Noir rushing over to stand at the bottom of the steps.
“M’lady--!”
Ladybug turns to him with a silencing glare. “I really don’t want to be around you right now. We’ll talk later when I’m ready.”
(He’s going to be in for a long talk when they finally meet back up again, and suddenly, he isn’t so eager for an akuma to come rushing by to force them to come back together as a team.)
And with that, Ladybug goes up to the balcony, takes Luka in her arms, and leaves. Things are quiet at first, her taking in a few breaths of the night air as she tries to relax.
The past few days had been a mess, and that was putting it lightly. The kwami, dating, the akuma (that Chat Noir had apparently been soooo excited about), and now this big revelation. The stress must show on her face too, as she can occasionally feel Luka’s concerned gaze on her.
In a way, it’s nice, just having her boyfriend care like this, even when she’s in a mask. He’d put up with way more for her than she felt like he should’ve, and she knew that he’d disagree if she even dared to voice that thought.
Without really thinking, she starts talking to him. She talks about Ladybug, about everything; being thrown into this life that she didn’t ask for, and being happy to save Paris but sad at the emotional toll it takes. She tells him about all the friends who tease her for her lateness, and while it might’ve been funny at first - she was genuinely absent-minded at times - it doesn’t become as funny when knowing that it was something that couldn’t be helped.
“...I’m sorry you’re going through that,” Luka says in an offer of comfort. He sighs, not recoiling from her but it feels like he’s distant anyway. “I know it didn’t help that I was akumatized. I hope I didn’t do anything to Marinette.”
Her gaze softens; of course he’s thinking of her again. It’s Luka, she has no right to be surprised.
Chat Noir, meanwhile, was just thinking of himself.
“Actually,” she corrects, something occurring to her, “I think you might’ve helped in your own way.”
Luka tilts his head at her, puzzled.
She changes course just slightly, specifically to a spot not too far from the Liberty; one that is very familiar to both of them, and she can tell by the way his brows raise that he’s surprised by where she’s about to land.
Underneath the bridge, in the spot where he’d initially asked her - when she was Marinette - where she’d always been going, just before he got akumatized.
She sets him down, then paces around to try and clear her head.
“...Like I said, I didn’t get a lot of choice in this,” she begins. “I tried to give my miraculous up once in the beginning, but there was so much pressure and everything was going wrong. Then, things would just--happen around me, things that I couldn’t really think of--and this is coming from me!” She turns to him dramatically, gesturing to herself. “I imagine things going wrong all the time and I still can’t predict when they actually do!”
Luka chuckles lightly at that, but otherwise stays quiet, unsure of where she’s going with this but giving her his full attention.
“Me becoming the new guardian of the miraculouses so out of nowhere... it was a lot, and suddenly I had a bunch of kwami around my room who all wanted to get into my stuff or mess around. I didn’t choose to let them out; it just happened when I was trying to see how the box with all the miraculouses worked.” She groans a bit, rubbing her forehead as she paces around again. “Then in came Shadow Moth and all the akuma showing up, and now I’m even busier. I can’t even make time for my boyfriend.”
There’s a flicker of emotion in Luka’s eyes at that, but he doesn’t say anything, though his fingers twitch slightly at his sides.
“Then--” She looks down. “--there’s Chat Noir. I didn’t choose him either; the old guardian chose him for me, and he wasn’t even fully trained. I was Chat’s partner and that was it; I didn’t get a choice to give up, it just... was, and I have to deal with whatever the relationship--” She makes a face at the word. “--we have is, because if something goes wrong then everything can go wrong, and then Paris is in danger.”
She shakes her head, realizing that she’s rambling. She continues staring quietly at the ground, then releases the tenseness in her shoulders.
“But...” She looks up to meet Luka’s gaze. “I did choose you, Luka. I finally got to choose something for me, and the only thing I regret about it is everything that I can’t choose. You chose me and I chose you and...” She almost laughs. “It’s weird that it’s that simple for once.”
He’s clearly pieced the puzzle together by now but hasn’t quite processed the result. She can see the whisper of her name on his lips and she smiles at him, taking a step back and spreading her arms wide.
“You’re my real partner, Luka. You get me, you care about me, and we’re similar but different and it’s great.” She swallows, feeling her nerves building a little but pushing forward enthusiastically nonetheless. “So I want to make a choice for us, because we trust each other and I want to give you something no one else has.”
Then, she closes her eyes, taking a breath and briefly tightening her hands into fists.
“Tikki, spots off.”
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a-libra-writes · 3 years
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okay so like what i thought of was basically it’s a stark reader(robb’s twin) like in the hc, BUT up until theon left to go recruit his father they had a kind of unspoken thing going on and we’re clearly in love with each other just neither one had the guts to say it(theon would even pick out whores specifically bc they looked like the reader) and so(like in the hc) roose bolton captures her and their direwolf at the red wedding to marry her to ramsay. who subsequently becomes slightly(but let’s be honest this is ramsay) obsessed with her, and one day her direwolf makes its way into the kennels only to find and lay next to theon. it refuses to come out and even snarls in a protective way if someone tried to get theon out of the kennel. the servants decide that the best way to get the direwolf out is with its owner, reader and theon have a ready reunion and he kind of snaps out of reek for a short period of time. butttttt then ramsay gets jealous and chaos ensues :))))) hope you like it!!!! yeah it is kind of based off of the hc you did lol
first of all how dare you anon???????? i thought about this ask way too much today and it HURTS
So lets start with this. Theon was ten when he was taken from his family, he’s witnessed his home be invaded and the castle walls destroyed. Heard about his older brothers being murdered. May have seen their heads on spikes. Taken from his sweet mother, and older sister, probably didn’t see his uncles and father??? there sure as shit weren’t any nice goodbyes.
Yes Ned didn’t approve of this whole thing, but he saw it as a better alternative to another war coming up. Robert saw it as mercy; he wasn’t destroying the whole Greyjoy line or burning their keep to the ground.
So with all of that, he arrives in Winterfell, where it’s freezing. Travelled with the man that may have led to the deaths of his older brothers. Meets this man’s wife, who clearly isn’t happy he’s there. And meets this man’s children, who are young and just staring at him and his strange clothes. 
Now that we’ve got that out of the way....
I really like Theon and Robb’s friendship, and how it almost progressed to the level of Jon and Robb’s brotherhood, but not quite. I think that’s because he’s older by several years in the books, and while Jon is “at least” Stark, Theon is not. He’s a hostage. A potential danger. Catlyn likely doesn’t want her oldest anywhere near him but if Robb is going off to play with the Ironborn boy, why can’t Y/N? She’ll sneak out if she has to! She wants to talk to him and ask him questions. He’s annoyed by a stupid girl trailing him around, and tells her as much. 
I like to think they have an annoying sibling relationship for a while, and Y/N is very fascinated with him, but she also has a great deal of empathy because she starts to realize his situation. She’s still a child, but she knows he was taken from his family and struggles to understand why her father would do that. Ned tries to explain it to her, but I think it’ll always feel wrong to her, so even if Theon teases her and she teases back, she’s always nice to him even when her mother tries to discourage them socializing.
And of course, my favorite trope.  They get older and start to realize feelings, she grows into a beautiful lady and still wants to hang out with him and Robb. She still smiles at him during feasts and comes to watch him practice at archery and still glares at anyone who dares insult him. “You’ll do well to keep your words to yourself, especially where it pertains to matters you don’t understand,” She’ll sneer at lordlings who come in to gawk at the Ironborn. Theon loves it when she talks “like a lady” to annoying guests and lords. She speaks far more casually with him and her siblings. 
His crush is intense!!!! It’s so much. It hits him early and puberty + Theon brain just makes it worse. Like you said, he absolutely picks whores that look similar to her - I HC he generally seeks whores at an early age bc 1) thats just an OK thing to do for young men in Westeros and 2) he’s really lacking in physical affection and acceptance in general. 
He has no chance with a Lady Y/N Stark. Not a single fucking chance, but he still daydreams. When he was younger especially, when he hoped the Starks would accept him, when he thought he’d never return home - maybe they’d see him like a son, maybe, if he was good. Maybe if he was good enough, she’d ... but no. That’s all pipe dreams. The older he gets, the more he knows it, but knowing doesn’t help the bitterness.
I think it’d be even worse if Y/N saw him in a more romantic light than a familial or platonic one. The yearning. The pain!! The shared glances after touching each other’s hands, wondering if the other person knows or cares as much, but never knowing for sure because how the hell can you ask that? How would it ever be appropriate? 
There’s so much to this. Ramsay just adds a dozen layers of angst and complications 😂
Obviously Theon’s betrayal and “death” would break her heart, among other things. The war is not kind to the Starks. She has a lot of pain by the time she’s married to Ramsay. 
Also YOU’RE BREAKING MY HEART like the idea of her direwolf sniffing out Theon, even after all that, or just seeing him and instantly curling up. Theon’s half asleep, half delirious, but he feels the warmth of the fur and for a wild moment believes it’s Grey Wind. He feels the wet nose on his face and the wolf gently licks his wounds. This isn’t the hounds that snap at him and bring their fleas. The wolf curls up with him, and it’s probably the most peaceful sleep Theon’s had in months.
Later Y/N realizes her direwolf has been gone for hours and searches for it in a panic. She doesn’t want to go into the dungeons, she hates them, hates the sounds and the smells coming from them, but she doesn’t know where else to look. She’s sick to her stomach wondering why her wolf is down there, what if Ramsay -? No. He wouldn’t... would he?
And yes, Ramsay’s men have been trying to get Theon out per their master’s orders and can’t. The direwolf refuses. Theon has to crawl out on his own, all bones and scars and scabs and wounds, and the wolf sticks to his legs. Shows its teeth to anyone even looking at him. That’s when Y/N hears the commotion and comes down, she has no idea who this old man is - then... Recognition. Terrifying, heart-wrenching recognition.
When she holds him, she’s not sure who falls down first. It could be either of them; Theon from weakness and shock, her from heartache and relief. And he’s Theon again. He says his name, and her’s, and it’s hard for him to think straight and get the words out. But there is I’m sorry.
She demands an explanation from Roose. There’s no point in hiding it now. And she turns on Ramsay for it, and lord knows he won’t feel guilty about it. I feel like Theon would get slightly better treatment now, both because the direwolf is at his heels as much as Y/N’s and now she has a close eye on him. If anything else happens, she’s going to raise hell in the Dreadfort. All the anger and fire and outrage has been stoked again. Ramsay is not pleased with any of these developments.
And yeah if she and Theon had romantic feelings, this is about to get much more complicated :^)
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highqueenofelfhame · 3 years
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An: I’ll add tags later, i just wanted to get this posted because I’m like pretty happy with it, it’s alright. So i hope you guys enjoy! I’ll also attach links and stuff later, I’m posting this from my iPad and i just am too lazy for the tagging process. Me wants to sleep. This is part of the Disney au! Shoutout to @tangledraysofsunshine and @punkassbookjockey26 for the help on this one! This is mostly fluff (i know, how wild) but don’t worry i’m working on some angst for you soon. Fafs update soon too! I’ve already started on it and I’m going to keep working on it as the week goes. Thankfully it’s an easy chapter for me to write bc i have plenty of OG stuff to pull from. Okay, anyway! Enjoy!!
With every second that ticked by, it was getting harder and harder not to rummage through his belongings like she lived there. Even worse was that Rowan was sneaking glances at her with a smirk on his lips like he knew she wanted to. It made her scowl, a frown line appearing between her eyebrows as she glared into his back.
“I’m making you dinner, and you’re still finding a reason to be unhappy with me?” He asked her, putting down the spatula and turning to lean against his counter. The man looked criminally good in an ivory cable-knit sweater and dark jeans, an outfit combination that Aelin had never seen him in before. Thinking back on it, she was positive that when he wasn’t in a costume at work, she had only ever seen him in jeans and a t-shirt. There was also the single flannel he’d worn on Halloween, but all of that was simply incomparable to how he looked now.
“You said dinner would be ready ages ago.”
“I said it would be ready in half an hour when you got here, which was twenty minutes ago. I still have ten minutes before you get to hound me about lying.”
“Maybe if you’d prepared an appetizer…” she teased, hoping with every cell in her body that he knew she was kidding. When Rowan had said he wanted to cook her dinner, she’d been floored. The only meal that she could successfully make was breakfast, and the options were limited. Additionally, she couldn’t remember the last time a romantic interest had cooked for her at all. Probably Sam several years earlier, and it had been so bad they’d relented and settled on drive-thru burgers instead.
Rowan’s eyes narrowed at her, and she knew she’d missed the mark with her joke. The date had been going well so far; not much could have been ruined. He’d kissed her hello once, or four times, then told her to make herself at home. Rowan even had a beautiful arrangement of kingsflame at the table in the dining area. Their banter had ensued as it always did, casual teasing comments. Until she went too far. Obviously.
He turned his back, and Aelin tensed, moving across the kitchen to get to him. Just before she touched him, he turned back around, eyes widening almost comically when his elbow nearly hit her temple. Without her boots, her footsteps had been near-silent on his hardwood floors.
“I’m sorry,” he chuckled, fingers brushing her temple where his sweater had grazed her face. “Hi.”
“Hi.” With their dinner sizzling in the background, she was sure that he could hardly hear the soft whisper of her voice. That didn’t seem to matter because Rowan leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, short and sweet and leaving her wanting more. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Rowan’s brows knit together, green eyes tracing over every feature of her face before settling to meet her gaze.
“Being… me? Teasing? I don’t know. This is a date, and you’re so nice to be making dinner, and I shouldn’t be--”
“Aelin,” he laughed. “You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t busting my balls for something. I don’t think we would be us.” At the mention of them as an item, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth to ward off the embarrassingly large grin that was threatening to take over her face.
“That doesn’t mean I can be rude,” she grumbled, earning another smile from the man in front of her.
“You aren’t.” Rowan turned away from her for a brief moment. When he faced her again he held half of a cookie in his hand. “You just get hangry.”
She stared at the small offering in his hand before accepting it with a smile. Not only was he making her dinner, but it seemed he had also baked her double chocolate chip cookies. It made her heart squeeze in an almost painful way, but she took the cookie and nibbled on the corner. Whatever recipe he had used was perfect. It only made the rumbling in her belly worse, but she was determined to finish it without chocolate smeared all over her mouth.
“I’m almost done with dinner. Go snoop. I know you’re dying to.” Aelin wrinkled her nose, and Rowan was quick to kiss the tip of it, despite her failed attempt to swerve. Not that she wanted him to miss, really. Aelin wanted to beg him to kiss her until she was physically sick and couldn’t stand to feel his mouth on her body ever again.
The apartment was simple. It had one bedroom and an open living and kitchen area. Rowan had a small table that could seat four between the two rooms. It was sparsely decorated but had a few personal touches here and there that provided a glimpse into Rowan’s life. She walked around the living room, noting the pile of books stacked neatly next to the TV contained some of her favorites. She hadn’t pegged Rowan as an avid reader, but she realized that despite working with the man for the past two years, there was still so much she didn’t know about him.
And she realized, more than anything, that she wanted to know everything.
Furthermore, she’d been right about the books stacked on the coffee table. They were travel books, some of them with tabs and post-it notes sticking out of the sides. With a sly glance to the kitchen, she perched on the edge of the couch and pulled the biggest of them with the most annotations toward her, flipping through the pages to see what all he had bookmarked.
One of the first pages was a map marking all the parks and their major attractions. It seemed Rowan had a key for himself, little stars, triangles and squares marking various locations.
“The stars are my favorite places I’ve been,” Rowan said, pulling her gaze from pages of mountains and canyons and over to his green eyes.
“Is this what you do when you aren’t working?” Aelin closed the books and restacked them neatly on the table. Rowan was carrying two plates of stir-fry over to the table. In a few steps she joined him, sliding into the seat beside his.
“When I can, yes.” She was so hungry that she merely nodded, taking a too-large bite of food and meaning at the taste. Rowan’s eyebrow quirked while he took a bite of his own, and to avoid speaking with a mouthful she gave him a thumbs up.
“So good,” she reiterated after she swallowed, clearing her throat.
“I’m glad you like it. I was worried you wouldn’t.”
“It’s food. I like food. And you baked cookies,” Aelin reminded him, popping another bite in her mouth. The tickle she seemed to be developing in her throat worsened, forcing her to clear her throat again after she swallowed. Actually, the tickle was becoming an insatiable itch that she tried to chase away with water. She had no luck. “Is your um— is your throat itchy?”
“No…?” Aelin tugged on the collar of her shirt, nodding her head instead of responding. Rowan leaned over to brush his fingers along her cheek, worry settling in the wrinkle between his eyebrows. “Are you allergic to anything?”
“Gods, my mouth is itchy,” she mumbled, mostly to herself, while she downed the rest of her water so quickly a drop slipped down the side of her chin.
“Aelin. What are you allergic to?”
“I’m not allergic to anything,” she insisted, despite the way her tongue felt undeniably too big for her mouth. Rowan had already left the table, though, disappearing through a door off the living room and coming back with a small white bottle. His phone was also now in his hand and the numbers his thumb was pressing looked a lot like 9-1-1 from her vantage point.
“Take these,” he said softly, holding two pills to her lips that she opened her mouth for and downed with Rowan’s full glass of water.
“That’s dramatic.” She nodded at his phone. “I can breathe fine. My mouth is just itchy. And my tongue is a little too big.” To prove a point, she stuck her tongue out. Rowan’s eyes were saucers and he was ready to hit the call button.
“Your tongue is twice the size it usually is!”
“Did you do this on purpose? Is this getting me back for the syrup?” Aelin was kidding. Half-kidding, maybe, but kidding all the same. When she spoke, drool dribbled down her chin that she wiped at with the collar of her shirt. The whimper that sounded in the back of her throat wasn’t voluntary. It was their first date and she managed to drool on herself in front of him. Aelin Galathynius was the epitome of cool.
“This is not getting you back for the syrup.” Rowan’s voice was sharp, if still soft around the edges while he watched her carefully. His thumb was still dancing over the call button, but Aelin refused to be carted out of his apartment on a stretcher. She took his phone, locked it, and held it hostage in her lap while he fussed and mumbled about how big her tongue was. “What are you allergic to?”
“I didn’t know I was allergic to anything,” she swore again, grabbing his water for another long drink.
It went on like this for several minutes: Rowan listing the ingredients for the stir-fry that she may not have had before, or maybe she’d not had it in such a long time she forgot she had a mild allergy to it. MSG, soy, celery, sesame, carrots, on and on. He ran through everything twice before Aelin asked him to please stop, she had no idea and listing them over and over wasn’t going to spark a memory or knowledge she didn’t have.
The signature frown he wore most of the time was all the more prominent the droopier her eyes got; the effects of Benadryl were hitting her harder than she cared to admit, but her throat wasn’t as itchy and her tongue was feeling closer to normal. Rowan held both of her hands and guided her to his bedroom. Aelin wanted to make a joke about how this wasn’t what she’d had in mind, but she was too sleepy to find the words.
Rowan undressed her, pulling her jeans off before guiding her to sit on the edge of the bed. The duvet was softer, fluffier than she’d anticipated him to sleep on, and she wanted to burrow down into it as he replaced her shirt with one of his own. When he pulled back the blanket, she crawled under and didn’t settle until he laid down with her. His sweater was soft beneath her cheek and she felt like she was cuddling with him on a cloud. Gods, his bed was so comfortable she wanted to sleep in it forever.
“I’m sorry for ruining our date,” she mumbled, tilting her head back to look at him beneath heavy lashes and heavier lids.
“I’m sorry for accidentally almost killing you.” Despite the way his lips were turned down, there was amusement hidden in his words. Aelin smiled and tilted her head back enough for him to take the hint: she wanted to be kissed. A half smile spread across his lips and he kissed her gently, fingers brushing loose strands of her hair behind her ear.
“This isn’t how I imagined our date ending,” she grumbled, ducking her face down into his sweater. Rowan chuckled and Aelin knew that it wasn’t what he had in mind, either. “I thought I would end up in your bed but not to sleep. I mean, maybe after you fucked me senseless, but I didn’t think we would be skipping that part altogether.”
“I didn’t think I would make something that had flare up an obscure allergy you didn’t know you had, either. So I guess we’re both surprised.” Aelin snorted, sitting up enough to tug on the side of his sweater. Rowan took the hint, sitting up to pull the sweater and his shirt over his head. While in the process of undressing, he stood and pulled his jeans off, too, tossing them over the back of a desk chair in the corner of the room. Aelin swallowed, eyes dipping over the expanse of golden skin he’d exposed.
Her eyes caught on a scar on his lower abdomen, zeroed-in on the trail of hair that disappeared into his briefs. It dawned on her then that she hadn’t seen him completely naked. At work, they saw each other in various stages of undress while changing costumes, but the only time they’d had sex had been a quickie in Lorcan’s bathroom. They’d both been mostly clothed for that. She was making it a goal to see him entirely naked in the next twenty-four hours, because he looked so good like this it was unfair.
“Maybe I’ll feel better when I wake up,” she said, breathlessly. Rowan grinned, a dimple appearing in his cheek that she didn’t see often enough.
“I’m counting on it.”
170 notes · View notes
spine-buster · 3 years
Text
peaceful easy feeling ft. b.boeser | three
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A/N: Thanks again for your positive feedback on this mini-series!  Please keep those canon questions coming as you guys know I loooove answering them to help build the canon!  This one is a short one but it will be made up for by the last two chapters.
CONTENT WARNING: parents with disease/sickness (Parkinson’s); swearing; sex; alcohol use; lots of emotions.
                                                                 *     *     *     *     *
Brock and Grace were having fun.  Actual, genuine, real fun.  Whenever they were together, they were smiling and laughing and kissing and having a good time.  They’d go out to eat at Vancouver’s best restaurants.  They’d take walks in parks or along the seawall.  They’d get coffee at cute little cafés and munch on bespoke cookies or donuts that would make Brock complain about extra hours in the gym.  They’d invite Elias and Svea with them and it would be great, because they were great, and they’d all just be constantly laughing.  Grace and Svea got closer – much closer.  Elias and Brock were tearing it up for the Canucks.  Grace and Svea would go to bars for a glass of wine before going to games together.  They’d cheer and clap and sing along with all the songs being blasted throughout the arena.
Fun.  Life was fun.  
***
“How do I bite it?!” Brock was incredulous at the size of the cupcake Grace got him.  It was bigger than his jaw could open.  Elias and Svea were already ready with their damn phones to film him.  “I can’t…” he tried to bring it up to his mouth.
“Just put the whole thing in your mouth!” Grace exclaimed.
“That’s what she said,” Elias mumbled, only to garner a disapproving mother look from Brock and a slap on the arm from Svea.  “What!  Isn’t that the joke?!”
“Don’t be crass,” Svea chastised before focusing her attention back on Brock.  “Just bite the thing, Brock.  Just…just stuff it in there,” he pretended to do the motion herself.
“Again, that’s what she said.”
Grace hit Elias too this time.  
***
“You can get us reservations to Hawksworth?” Svea asked in shock.  
Grace nodded casually, like it was the easiest thing in the world to get a reservation at Vancouver’s best and most exclusive restaurant.  “The Gillespie’s own the Rosewood Hotel Georgia.”
“You do?”
Grace nodded again before sucking back on an oyster.  “When do you want to eat there?”
“Oh, I – I don’t know.  Can I get back to you?”
“Of course!  Just let me know.”
“Wow Grace,” Svea said.  “You really do have the world at your fingertips.  Vancouver especially.”
Grace shrugged her shoulders.  “It’s a blessing and a curse.  I can’t go anywhere without running into someone that knows my dad or knows who I am and thinks they know me.  It’s even worse when they knew my dad a long time ago and only ask about how he’s doing with his Parkinson’s now.  Most of the time they don’t even truly care.  And I’d trade it all in, every single penny, if it meant my dad never got Parkinson’s.”
Svea couldn’t imagine living that kind of life.  She didn’t know how Grace did it – or Brock, for that matter.  She would be a sobbing mess on the floor every single day.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to be insensitive when I—”
“Oh God no.  No no no – you don’t need to apologize.  I just…” Grace paused, trying to collect her thoughts.  “I know how fortunate I am, believe me.  I just don’t think people know that – that I know I’m fortunate.  But Parkinson’s – any chronic illness – it really humbles you.  Most people don’t know what that’s like.  And like, thank God they don’t.  But they think they know.”
All Svea could do was nod her head and listen.
***
Whenever Brock sent a text that said ‘come over and watch a movie’ Grace knew what that really meant.  But instead of finding it lewd, she’d slather on some raspberry chapstick and be on her merry way to Brock’s apartment.
When they were done, and lying in bed together, with her head on his chest and her hair sprawled everywhere, that’s when the talking would begin.  “How’s your dad doing?”  “Are the new round of meds working?”  “Is he having more trouble getting up now?”  “What are the doctors saying?”  “How’s his memory?”  “How’s the swallowing?”  “Are the doctors recommending speech therapy?”  
“When I quit dance, my dad was so disappointed,” Grace revealed one night as Brock was running his hands through her hair.  “It was the only thing I was ever really, really good at.  I wasn’t the best in school.  I just didn’t get things the way other kids did.  And when I told him the reason, he made me promise I’d keep doing dance in some capacity.  I maybe wouldn’t do it super-competitively anymore with him driving me all around BC and flying me all over Canada and the US to attend competitions, but I’d still do it.  That’s why I teach at the Goh Ballet.  Like…I know I’m not the smartest girl in the world, but I like to think I have a big heart.  And I just hope that people see that.”
“I wear number six because it was my dad’s number,” Brock revealed too, one night when they were alone.  “I wanted…I wanted to make sure that if he wasn’t around, my career would still honour him in some way.  I want that to be my legacy…like, everything I do, I do for my dad.”
Grace nodded.  She completely understood.  “I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who knows and understands exactly what I’m going through,” she said.  “Do you think it was fate that brought us together at that meeting?”
Brock found himself nodding his head automatically.  “Of course,” he said softly.
***
“I’m sorry we couldn’t have you at the house for dinner, Brock, but our chef is on vacation,” Eliza Carmichael, Grace’s mom, smiled from across the table as she sipped on her glass of wine.  From beside her, her husband, Grace’s step-dad James kept perusing the menu, as did Grace’s two step-brothers, Jasper and Theo, who were seated at opposite heads of the table.  
“Oh that’s no problem at all,” he smiled politely, grabbing Grace’s hand underneath the table and squeezing it gently before putting it in his lap.  “I actually come here with the boys sometimes.  The food here is amazing.”
“It is, isn’t it?  James knows the head chef,” she said.  “Grace tells me you’re a hockey player.”
It was at that point that James put down his menu.  “Honey, he plays for the Vancouver Canucks.  We’ve been over this.”
Eliza rolled her eyes playfully before picking up her menu.  It was only at that point that Brock noticed the giant rock on her finger.  It was the size of his eyeball.  “Grace tells me you live in Shaughnessy,” he said, trying to make polite conversation.  “I hear that’s a beautiful neighbourhood.”
“Oh, it is.  Perfect place for the quiet life hockey player’s lead,” James joked.  Brock forced out a chuckle.
***
“I love this song!!!” Grace exclaimed as the DJ began to play some old school Rihanna.  She downed the rest of her drink and slapped the glass against the bar before grabbing Brock’s arm with one hand and Svea’s hand with the other, knowing that Svea would, on instinct, grab Elias’s arm and drag him to the dance floor too.
The club was completely unstuffy.  There were no girls dressed to the nines, no four-inch stiletto heels digging into Grace’s feet, no people showing up just to be seen in booths with bottle service.  It was completely unpretentious and that’s how Grace liked it.  Considering her lifestyle and her wealth, it was actually how she liked everything.  So when the DJ began playing pop songs, she couldn’t help but start dancing uncontrollably.  To his credit, Brock did too.  It was like he lost all his inhibitions and began moving his body in tune with the music.  Even Elias and Svea did, and Grace knew how…well, quiet they were.  This wasn’t their scene at all but they were having the time of their life dancing with each other, spinning each other around and moving to the beat of the music.  
For at least a night, Grace could forget.  She could forget how her parents used her to get back at one another during an awful divorce.  She could forget her mom re-married an equally as nice guy as her dad but became more pretentious as the years went on and the wealth accumulated.  She could forget that she made the decision to quit dancing professionally.  She could forget her dad had Parkinson’s.  For one night, everything was perfect.  Everything was fun.  Everything was how it should be.
***
“Fuuuuck, baby,” Brock groaned as he watched Grace climb on top of him, leaning forward so she could press his breasts up against his face.  He immediately took the opportunity to place wet, open mouth kisses all over her breasts, kissing down to her nipples before taking them in his mouth.  He could feel her grab his cock and lower herself onto it, sighing at the feeling of him filling her up.  “Feel good?”
“You always feel amazing,” she smiled, her hair falling around her face.  “That’s why I can’t stop fucking you.”
Brock chuckled, a cocky smile on his face as he reached up and brought Grace’s face down so he could kiss her and stick his tongue down her throat.  “Ride me, baby,” he mumbled against her lips.
Grace began rocking her hips back and forth, her body moving so expertly and so in tune with Brock’s.  Almost immediately, she began to moan, and Brock grabbed her hands and intertwined their fingers so she’d have something to brace against.  Brock was in a trance – as he usually was when Grace was riding.  He was completely and utterly transfixed by her in every sense of the word, and in every way; from the hair on her head to the red nail polish on her toes.  
“God, I fucking love you, Grace.”
The words had barely escape Brock’s mouth before he realized the magnitude of what he said, how he said it, and when he’d fucking said it.  God, he was such a fucking idiot!!!!!  During sex?!  Really?!  Way to live the cliché Brock Boeser!  Way to be a fucking idiot and—
“I fucking love you too, Brock,” he heard Grace say, a smile adorned on her face.  The both of them giggled, and couldn’t stop giggling for a while even though she was still riding him.  It was miraculous.  “Way to say it for the first time while I’m riding you,” she joked.
“I couldn’t help myself,” he said.  
“You’re lucky I love you, because that’s such an amateur move, Brock.”
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kannra21 · 3 years
Text
Sniperhaul fanfic
ˡᵐᵃᵒ ᶦ ᶜᵃⁿ'ᵗ ᵇᵉˡᶦᵉᵛᵉ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ᶦ'ᵐ ᵈᵒᶦⁿᵍ ᵗʰᶦˢ
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Overhoe finally broke out of Tartarus after a very long time. However, he couldn't have done it without the help of a certain villain mistress. 😏 Who's she and why did she choose to help this terrible (x2) man? Find out bellow.
characters: overhaul (chisaki kai) x sniper lady
word count: 3k
warnings: angst, past memories, handless overhaul, hurt, comfort, gangs, yakuza, just girl taking care of her mans
notes: I'd like to thank the person responsible for proofreading this work bc I'm supposed to keep their identity a secret. 😎 Thank you once again! And of course, the manga and characters belong to Kohei Horikoshi. @meefal you were excited to see the final product so here you go, hope you like it. 🖤
✂-------------------------------------------------------
Overhaul couldn't remember how long he'd been there, he'd lost count weeks ago. The only thing he knew was that he was in "Tartarus", a prison located 5km off the coast of the Mainland. It may function like a conventional prison, but in reality, those who're deemed a severe threat toward the safety of the nation were locked up and monitored closely, regardless of whether their sentence has been decided on yet. The facility was divided into 6 levels, where the potential threat level of criminals was deemed "higher" the further underground you go. It's a prison where, once you enter, there's no chance of leaving.
He sat there in his cell, B10 being the lowest level in solitary confinement. It was too cold for his head to function and too dark for his eyes to see, with the small window above the prison doors being his only source of light. There was also an opening where prisoners received their meals, but considering that he lost his hands, the guards could easily enter without worrying too much for their well-being. They'd leave whatever they offered that day and give him a disgusted look before locking the doors after themselves. He couldn't see his reflection nor touch his face, he probably looked like crap by now. His skin was itching and he felt disoriented from all the germs occupying this space, it's been a while since he's gone out for some fresh air. 
He was practically Quirkless and yet they locked him out in the worst, most dreadful place the isolation block had to offer. He couldn't even feed himself properly, he couldn't do anything by himself whatsoever. But there was only one thing left to him; he spent days and days thinking about pops, Chrono, yakuza and everything he could have if it weren't for those stupid heroes-- no, if it weren't for his plan that so grandiosely failed. It made him feel miserable, desperate even, and with grief soon followed acceptance. It was all his fault, and he needed to live with this burden for the rest of his life. Because of him, pops is still handicapped to the bed somewhere, wherever the heroes might have taken him. 
He stood up and started beating the cell with his leg, curing his frustrations. He didn't know why he was doing it, it was irrational and he's hurting himself unnecessarily, but for some reason it made him feel lighter. At least he could transfer some of his inner pain to the outside world. Other criminals laughed at his patheticness, especially since they knew why the guards were allowed to enter his cell. They shouted that it was impossible to escape, but he wasn't trying to. He knew that it was useless a long time ago. 
Midnight came and all the prisoners mostly fell asleep. Overhaul, however, couldn't sleep a wink. Because of the dark room he spent most of his days in, he lost his sense of time so he was pacing around, deep in thought. He couldn't dream of anything nice anyways. 
"Can't fall asleep either?" a feminine voice could be heard from the other side. Wait. They allowed women here? What could she have possibly done to deserve such punishment? 
He leaned his back on the doors and slid down to the floor, trying to find the right words.
"Yes." he sighed, enthusiasm lacking in his voice "But it's not like I need you to talk about my problems." 
"Hm, whatever. Go beat your head against the bars. Fall unconscious, loser."
The man snorted, which might as well be his first time he ever did that. 
"Well, this certainly sounds effective. It's not like I have anything to lose anyways." 
"Hey." the tone of her voice was earnest, and it aroused further questions in his jumbled up head. 
"What?"
"We're going to get out of here." 
Is she being serious now? "Really? Because as far as I know, we're locked out here for good. We don't even know the severity of our sentences. They can do whatever they want with us."
"Not quite. You know that they're being supervised by 'The Hearts and Mind' party offshoots. They can’t do a thing to us as long as they have their heads to the pikes." 
This might be true, but he didn't believe in anything the government's been telling them lately. It's only a matter of time before they switch their plans and play by their own rules, because stabbing people in the back was the only thing they've ever been good at. 
"How did you end up here?" 
Oh the long-awaited question. She wondered when he'd ask. 
"It's not like I need you to talk about my problems."
He smiled, he liked this vicious side of hers. But he also realized that she could be nice as well because if that wasn't the case, she wouldn't spread promises of the escape. At least that's what he thought. 
"Sorry about that." 
"It's okay. We've all been here for a very long time, now weren't we? We lose our cool and act like total assholes."
"Direct and straight to the point I see." his deadpan voice could be heard from the other side of the bars. 
"'Been raised this way, for the better or worse." it didn't sound like she was bragging, yet it felt like she was just talking about herself, honest and confident, to cover up what she felt was wrong. The incoming topic which she'd rather avoid. 
The villainess didn't want to open up about her past, so she just answered his question. 
"I killed people beyond counting, following AFO's orders. He always wished to become the world's greatest demon lord and thus promised us enormous change in the hero society. So in order to achieve that, he needed his underlings. And that's how I ended up here."
"You were loyal till the end."
"You know what they say; there can be no progress nor achievement without certain sacrifice."
Wise beyond her years and just as sad. He wondered how her face looked like, how the world's been treating her. 
"I had my own sacrifices as well."
"Do you regret them?"
...
"I do." 
Now it was her turn to snort "Really? And I thought that people situated this low couldn't have regrets. You remember what they said about us. 'Beasts in human clothing', 'Simply dreadful beings'." 
He felt insulted, maybe the things she said were true but it's not like he was anything similar to these pigs he shared the same air with, unfortunately.
"I regret hurting the person important to me. The old man who once took me in when I was very young. He was the infamous boss of Shie Hassaikai." 
Something clicked in her, it's such a small world they're living in, "Yakuza? I know you guys. We used to trade with you back in the days."
"Todou Gang?" 
"You said it."
"But... you were a force to be reckoned with. One day you just collapsed and not a single trace could be found. According to certain sources, there was no way anyone could determine the exact cause of your downfall. So what happened?" 
"I killed them all." 
... 
"AFO told me to kill them to prove my loyalty to him and, of course, to make sure that there was no one I could turn to other than himself." 
For some questionable reasons, and he didn't dare to admit that it was empathy he felt towards a random stranger and a former gang member he shared some history with, Overhaul wanted to fill the silence that lingered between them. Perhaps, because he felt guilty for making her reveal more than what she initially intended. 
"I used pops' niece, a 6-year-old girl who had an extraordinary Quirk; it allowed her to rewind a person's body back to a certain state. That means she could put a body back to before it was injured or before the person even developed a Quirk. With that, I wanted to create a Quirk-erasing drug to get rid of the Quirk society altogether and to make sure that yakuza could rise once again. I cut her skin every day to take blood samples and to test her regenerative abilities. However, pops didn't approve of it, so I handicapped him to the bed and planned on waking him up the moment I realized my plan, to make him proud of the achievement. Unfortunately, it didn't play out as I wanted and I never reached him."
The silence followed and the woman wore a disheartening smile on her face. It's not the answer she expected, she didn't ask for another sad story from another messed up person she's met in her life. But the intentions were pure and for her, it was good enough. 
"We both fought for something only to lose it all, huh?" she laughed, but it was prominent in her tone that it was bittersweet. 
"At least you're brought here in one piece." 
"At least you can still revive your parent."
Were they comforting each other? Were they jealous of each other? Were they wallowing in self-pity? They couldn't tell. The only thing they certainly could was the embarrassment they felt from the moment they realized that some of the prisoners were eavesdropping and making fun of their vulnerabilities. See? That's what they hated the most about opening up about themselves; they were worried about their feelings being perceived as a joke. The only way to protect themselves was to rise up the walls and never let anyone get closer, except they didn't regret exchanging a word or two, as long as it was the two of them. 
The next day, 8:34PM Mainland-side entrance, the guardians of 'The Bronze Gate' announced a code red security lockdown. Panic and shouting could be heard from across the hall and the security alarm announced the potential danger. 
"Close any and all passageways on each floor. All workers are to enforce strict measures to maintain order."
"The surveillance system is down! It seems like we've been hit by some sort of EMP attack!"
Static waves were spreading around the metal frames and the prison doors of the isolation block unlocked. Overhaul could hear the commotion outside and the villains leaving their cells in a hurry, but as much as he tried, he couldn't push the heavy doors open.
"3 seconds until we're back online- wait... What the... With the system down we can't monitor the inside!"
"Nice, 3 seconds be damned." he beat the door with his legs, pushed the surface with his shoulders, leaned all of his weight on the godforsaken thing just so it could finally open. Nothing. It seems like he lost a couple of pounds during his stay here. He couldn't believe his eyes, this couldn't be happening to him. After all this time of patient waiting and hoping to meet pops once again, it turns out he'd be the only one still trapped and all because he didn't have any hands. He panicked, he really couldn't decide on what to do next. But then he remembered-
"Go beat your head against the bars, loser."
That's it! This might be his only chance to escape! He didn't have much time left though, he could hear the shooting nearby so he definitely needed to hurry.
"The system won't come back on!! The ones in solitary confinement are breaking out!! Inside!"
"Control unit's on site!! Execute lockdown in the isolation block!"
"Follow procedure! If even one of them steps a foot outside their cell-"
"Fire!! Open fire!!"
Muscular threw whatever he could find in this messed up place back at them, excitement prominent in his big smile "You ain't gonna kill me with those puny toys! So how about you show me the exit already?!" 
Other villains were joining him, still overwhelmed by the sudden freedom they've been given "Dammit... After all that time..."
"Meat..." Moonfish mumbled as he cut his opponents with his blade-like teeth. 
The villain lady joined them in the run, still carefully examining her surroundings in case they were tricked into something, "The system isn't responding to my Quirk. 'Guess Tartarus really is falling." 
As she was running down the corridor, she could hear beating noises coming from one of the doors. It sounded dull so the person must have been using their head. 
"Eh, don't tell me the idiot actually listened to my advice. He must be desperate." 
She came to the doors and turned the circular lock in a hurry. She really didn't want to stay in this place any longer, but she couldn't leave him behind either. It's not like she could use him for anything since he was basically handless and Quirkless so why was she doing it? She didn't have an answer. Maybe it was their talk from the other day, maybe because they were both gang members with a history, maybe because of her regrets and her wish to do something right for once. Or maybe because she was just this kind. Nah, this couldn't be it, she never did anything in her life that didn't require a certain purpose. She cast her heart aside a long time ago and did what was necessary for the accomplishment of the mission. It would be weird if she suddenly started using her heart again, now wouldn't it? She was AFO's personal assassin, there was simply no way. 
He came out of the room with eyes wide in puzzlement. He was finally free and ready to find pops so he could possibly revive him and try to fix things as much as he could.
They looked at each other for the first time. They never said it aloud, godforbid, but they liked the other's eyes. And perhaps the eyes were a window to a person's soul, their broken souls, tormented by the life's temptations. They were still so young, probably in their twenties, and yet they looked older at the same time. Maybe because of the seriousness in their faces, their stronger stance, the way they defied their fate. They were destined to fall apart, no one would argue with it, but circumstances drove them to take action and rise from the bottomless chasm. And now they had each other. 
"We need to get out of here," she stated and pulled him by the sleeve that hung loosely from his shoulder. They escaped Tartarus and raided a small shop near the coast to change clothes and to mingle into the public unnoticed. She quickly picked out a dress and threw herself at work while Overhaul was still standing by the shop display, looking out for the potential intruders.
He couldn't erase the thought of this being some sort of a really weird first date; the girl coming out of the stall and the guy examining her looks. He shook his head, he never had this kind of thoughts in his entire life. He needed to pull himself together. 
The bob-hair came out and adjusted the ammo on her utility belt. He looked at her from the corner and she was stunning; intimidating with a tad bit of femininity in design. He stood there and watched how good it fit her curvy form. The thoughts wandering in his head sounded so wrong, terribly wrong. He needed to bring himself to stop. 
"Oh right, I almost forgot." she took a shirt off the shelf and came to him, showing him the garment in her hands "You need a little help, right?" 
"Sure.'' his voice was small and he stood still while she undid his buttons. Maybe from the outside he looked completely calm, but from the inside he was a complete mess. He looked at her face and wondered if she knew, the kind of effect she's having on him. She raised her head and he looked to the side, there's no way he could look her in the eyes at this point. He hoped she didn't notice. 
"You like this one, don't you?" she asked, filling the awkward silence. 
"Looks don't matter, the most important thing is to change and avoid getting caught." She looked annoyed. Great. He wanted to shove his head though the wall. Wait… Why was he thinking that? 
"I choose the clothes I like. It makes me feel better in my skin."
"You look good in it."
She looked at him surprised and he quickly corrected himself "the dress looks good."
"Sure." she trailed off and put the new shirt over his shoulders. She could feel his muscles tensing. This was probably because of the cool air, she assured herself. 
"Why did you break me out of Tartarus? It's not like I could be of any use to you." 
She buttoned up his shirt and fixed the wrinkled parts on the garment, hand accidentally brushing over the left side of his chest, feeling his heartbeat.
Well... that was a surprise.
"I thought that maybe you could be of some use to the demon lord. Not Quirk-wise, but you may offer a valuable set of information. Something that the demon lord would appreciate greatly." she could feel it slowing down and her heart dropped just as much.
"But also because I... liked you."
He looked at her incredulously and she smiled. She pinched him to bring him out of the trance and he complained. "Don't be awkward, say something."
"I like you too... I, this is my first time I ever said this to anyone. It's weird."
She slapped him gently on the shoulder and he reached to take it but, yea, no hands.
"What the hell?"
"You're the one who's weird. But I guess that I like you this way." she stood on her toes and kissed his cheek "Ew, you should definitely shave though. No doubt about it."
The former yakuza boss swore; he'll never understand women. But for some reason he couldn't deny that he was particularly drawn to this one. He wondered if pops would approve of her.
126 notes · View notes
graceslavenderhaze · 3 years
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fight night  (jatp crew x reader)
readers home life hasn’t been the best and they’ve been lying to their friends about it. one night it all builds up and the reader shows up to julies, distraught. ( for this the boys are alive bc it just worked out best but other than that no changes.)
this has been sitting in my drafts so i thought i’d post it
trigger warning: family fights, anxiety, depression, past talk of eating disorders.
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For a long time you use to just keep everything buried down. That was your fatal flaw. It wasn’t a trust issue, you just always had this feeling that if no one knew then everything would be fine. But your family had lately been falling apart, your parents always seemed disappointed in you, you were fighting with your siblings more and it felt it a ballon that kept on expanding. you didn’t know when everything was going to explode it just kept getting worse.
Today was the exploding point. It seemed like no matter what you did, it just wasn’t good enough. You were the black sheep in your family, they made you out to be it. They complained about how you dressed, what your room looked like, the music you played, the people you hung out with, and for what? You didn’t do anything that was textbook problem child material. 
You tried your hardest in school, you never asked for much, you cleaned almost everyone’s mess at home, and after a while that became your routine. Never be seen, never be heard and never get any credit for everything you do. Meanwhile your siblings, little miss perfect and the star academic got everything you wanted. Your parents attention, their approval, and their constant reassurance. 
By the time you were in high school, you were emotionally independent. A stranger to your own family pretty much. You went to an art school along with your siblings. Even as the oldest, you quickly fell into their shadows. Your sister a musical protégé on the violin, your parents paid for the best lessons, and without a doubt she’ll probably attend some ivy league. Your brother was in the advanced academics program, with yale and harvard already offering him scholarships in his sophomore year. Then there was you. You were in the art program, and while your teacher swears that all the top art schools have you on their radar. You still felt insignificant.
You worked a weekend job at the local coffee shop, latte love , it wasn’t everything but it helped pay for art supplies for you to build your portfolio. Their you met Julie Molina and Flynn Davis. Two girls who were your age, they attended the music program at your art school. You recognized them, Julie had been like the sun at the school. In the hallways always smiling and then her mom died, the sun went away hidden behind clouds. While Flynn was unapologetically herself and didn’t backdown from telling people how things were, she was fearless. They were also probably the first two people who knew your siblings and were able to separate you from them. 
Then later on in the year the three of you met Luke, Alex and Reggie. Latte Love was hosting its monthly open mic night. It was almost a year after Julie’s mom died, so in an attempt to coax her back into music, Flynn brought her around. You offered free hot chocolate on the house as a bribe if she wanted to come. After an hour of mainly middle schoolers trying to face stage fright, soccer parents who desperately tried to hold onto their high school garage band phase and any other mediocre act who gave it their all in effort. Sunset Curve preformed. 
That night honestly sent all six of your lives’ into a full spiral but in the best way. A month after you had met sunset curve, they formed a band with Julie and became, Julie and the Phantoms. Flynn becoming the band manager and you being the artist for ticket designs, posters and anything else. It helped distract you from everything going on in your life and with your friends you didn’t feel left out or the black sheep. You were you and they loved you for all of it. 
But you could only be happy for so long. Your family always managed to make you feel horrible about yourself, this week had felt like the worst its ever been. Your sister being recruited for a summer symphony in Australia, your brother would be off at a stem camp and your summer plans were just to work, make art and hang with your friends. Your family wasted no time in telling you that you were wasting your time, or that it was just some silly childish thing. They didn’t understand how big Julie and the Phantoms were becoming. The latest gig being opening for panic at the disco at the Orpheum. 
You couldn’t take it anymore, which is how you ended up walking to Julie’s house right in the beginning of a thunderstorm. When you finally made it to Julie’s front stoop you were drenched head to toe. Julie being the one to pull you in the front door. In her oversized smiley face sweatshirt and baggy sweats. The movie night dress code.
“Did you walk here?” She exclaims looking at the outdoor storm and turning back to her best friend. Your eyes red from crying and cheeks raw from wiping your tears rapidly. She’d been expecting you for weekly movie night, especially since her dad and brother had been away for a baseball game for the weekend. Just not in this state.
“More like swam.” You replied with a dry laugh. Trying to desperately hold yourself together. Knowing your friends were all in the living room, you didn’t want to burden them with your breakdown. 
“Hey was that the chinese food! Y/n? Whats wrong bean?” Flynn stated her mood changing halfway through the sentence noticing the state of their best friend. Who looked like she’d just had the world’s worst day. You smiled fondly at the nice name she’d given you, which was a coffee pun. 
“Family shit. Like always.” You said looking down at the floor and the puddle that you were slowly dripping onto the Molina residence’s welcome mat. Both girls smiled sympathetically, they had their fair share of stories of how bad things could get at the L/n household. 
“Come on! It’s movie night, you’re getting into cozy clothes and having junk food with your friends.” Julie said taking your hand and leading you upstairs to her room. Julie handed you spare clothes due to you being completely soaked. Then a towel to dry yourself off.
“Here, once you’re ready to come downstairs, we can put your stuff into the dryer.” Julie said smiling at her friend before leaving to give her privacy. Taking the towel she gave you and trying to dry your hair. Then changing into the cozy clothes she gave you. Your phone blowing up from texts from your family. Your parents wanting to know where you were. Not caring how hurt you were. Your siblings saying half assed apologies they didn’t mean. They’d done this before and they’d do it again. 
Ignoring the messages, you walked back downstairs. The comforting smell of chinese food wafting at you. Julie, Alex and Flynn stood at the table. Meanwhile Luke and Reggie were were at the local 7/11 getting slushies. 
“Did anyone order a hot mess?” You said jokingly getting their attention. Alex standing up and instantly hugging you as if he’d never see you again. Hugging him back. Alex’s hugs always felt as if it was a cloud. 
The Molina residence house phone then rang, the caller id labeling your house. “We can just let it go to message.” Julie said turning back from the phone to you. You shook your head, “I’m so over this bullshit.” Walking over to the phone you picked it up. 
“Hello ever so loving parental unit.” You said with sarcasm dripping off every word. “Pop off!” Flynn said as she bit into a dumpling. You bit back a smile. “Where are you? You can’t run out because you’re upset.” You heard your mom say. You rolled your eye. 
“Where i am every friday night. I told you in advance i had plans so when you take your attention span off miss perfect and genius boy remember you have a third fucking child. Goodnight!” You said promptly and then hung up placing the phone back on back on its home base. “Beyoncé would approve.” Flynn said clapping for dramatic effect.
“How much trouble are you going to be in for that?” Alex said passing your usual that Julie knew to order for you, you shrugged. “Bold of you to assume they’ll remember to ground me.” 
“Wow what a rag tag group of mommy and daddy issues we are.” Reggie announced as he placed the tray of slushies down on the counter. “Excuse you!” Julie exclaimed as she took a slip of her blueberry slushie. “She’s dead, that’s an issue.” Flynn said as she grabbed her green apple one. You choked on your food for a second, “Out of pocket!” 
“She’s right babe.” Luke said hugging her from behind. “You have mommy issues too.” Julie said turning around slightly. “Only the hottest people have both mommy and daddy issues!” Alex exclaimed holding a hand of for you and Reggie to high five. 
“My back hurts from having a healthy parental relationship and carrying that standard.” Flynn said cracking open her fortune cookie. You laughed looking around at your dysfunctional friend group. 
“We are all going to hell for these jokes alone.” You said taking a sip of your slushie. Reggie scoffed, “We’re just warming up.” 
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surveillance-0011 · 3 years
Text
TBOI Headcanons: Horsemen
Death
He/him
He’s...nice. Not a good person by any means but he’s the most polite of the bunch. Kind of strange though. Creepily calm, a bit sarcastic, and he has a pretty morbid view on the world.
Reserved and usually grumpy. He can be rather chipper off-duty, though. Putting up with the others takes a lot of energy from him.
Tired....
A bit neurotic but good at coming off as a down-to-earth guy.
He’s the most book-smart of the bunch and he’s fairly wise. A bit emotionally stunted, but he tries his best to be mature and make the right choices.
Death is more than a bit nihilistic and pessimistic. He has a hard time just... caring, mostly about himself.
Not to say he’s completely apathetic, he can be pretty empathetic but he tries not to act on that too much because if he did his job would have broken him by now.
He likes to think he’s got it all under control, but he does not. He’s more prone to pettiness and stupid decisions than he’d like to admit.
That being said he’s been pretty good with like. Growing and maturing though. He’s changed more than he realizes in just in the past.... decade or so ago. A bit of a late start for an immortal but hey at least he’s slightly less of a scumbag.
It’s usually not easy to anger him unless he’s really tired or something’s already set him off. When something does piss him off badly he’s a bit prone to freaking out. He’s not very good at handling his emotions. 
Sees his own job as a necessary evil, because hey, someone’s gotta do it.
Interested in botany/gardening, as well as literature.
Genuinely nice- or at least polite- to the kids when he’s not supposed to be murdering them. He sees no reason to go out of his way to do so, especially since unwarranted cruelty towards others has only bit him in the ass.
Famine’s older brother. The two have always had each other’s backs.
Diligent, and always considers the logistics to things instead of acting on emotion alone.
Protective of the other horsemen.
Pretty short tbh
His horse’s name is Chili.
Famine
She/he (bigender). You can use both interchangeably or only use one set, she doesn’t care. Fine with they/them too but it’s never really clicked w/ him enough to be preferred.
Usually prefers more masculine terms (brother, sir, mr...) but fine with anything.
.Flips between bouncing off the walls and having no energy whatsoever.
Impulsive, she’s got terrible judgement and has the most idiotic of ideas sometimes.
Fairly easygoing, tries to forgive and forget and doesn’t let little transgressions get to her
Actually pretty damn sad. Needs some self care but never looks after herself.
I mean she’s optimistic and usually happy but like. There’s always just a bit of sadness, you know? He’s dealt with a lot and it’s definitely taken its toll on him.
Disaster Lesbian
Tries to be a graceful loser but she can get a bit more competitive than she’d like to admit.
Has a hard time relating to others and considering how they feel, at least when it comes to anything more complex than “bad thing happened now I’m sad/mad” He’s a drifter by nature, always onto the next big thing for a quick thrill.
Eats a lot. It’s never enough.
Plants and a good deal of food will decay if she touches them, or even gets too close to them.
Like his brother he has some interest in nature. Famine is more on the adventurous side, though. She’s tried to live off the land a few times with varying success.
Named her horse Frisk
Pestilence
He/him
Calm, quiet, but also a pessimistic jackass.
Always in a bad mood. I mean, he’s permanently sick with just about everything contagious and deadly. You’d be grumpy, too!
Surprisingly high pain tolerance. A good deal of his nerves have probably just.. shut down or something. Or maybe he’s just numb to everything after a lifetime of pain.
Sleeps a lot
Dislikes his situation a lot, but doesn’t mind the company of the others.
Lazarus is terrified of this dude. The other kids are mostly grossed out or annoyed by him.
Likes to be alone.
Fairly smart, but comes off as absent minded bc he’s pretty much too sick to function. He slips up a lot and he’s pretty damn clumsy
Probably the most rational of the bunch, when he’s not in airplane mode. 
He’s also got a fairly strong moral compass. He doesn’t really like fighting the kids unlike War and Famine. Or just having to go up against people in general. Hell he hates the fact people get sick because of him. At the very least Pest has higher standards and is fairly transparent
But that isn’t to say he’s a good person. Yeah he doesn’t go out of his way to hurt others for shits and giggles and He’s Not Conquest but he doesn’t ever object to any of the shit the kids are put through and well. Yknow he still does kill them. He will also encourage some of War’s antics when it’s against someone he dislikes.
Tries to be as supportive as he can for the others. He knows he can’t do too much without overexerting so he tries to be encouraging and comforting as he can.
This compassion usually isn’t extended to humans, though.
Not very emotive, the only emotions he ever really expresses would be disdain and mild concern.
Not very fond of Conquest but they don’t hate each other. They actually work together well, too.
Friends with Mahalath. They’re pretty close!
His horse’s name is Moses.
War
He/it
He’s not very friendly, he’s pretty defensive and always on edge.
Out of all the horsemen, he’s probably the one closest with the Beast.
Lots of scars n injuries, it’s practically stitched together
One gold tooth
Impulsive, prefers solving issues through violence than through reason.
He can be fairly clever, though.
Intentionally angers/upsets others, likes causing problems and ruining things for people.
Desires wealth and power
Gets burnt out pretty quickly.
Emotional, insecure, and sensitive, and he hates this part of him. Definitely overcompensates for it.
Explosive temper, quite literally. Catches fire when upset and explodes if it’s more intense. Damage done to him also makes it happen. It’s not entirely voluntary but can be held off, and his “sobbing” sprite is him doing exactly that (but he’s probably also trying not to cry lmao). In the Ultra War fight, however...
Its daily routine leaves a lot to be desired. It wakes up, goes to work, then it goes home and just. Sits and rots.
Also, his diet is god awful. Please just eat a fruit or vegetable for once maybe you’d feel better goddamn.
He cannot remember if his horse is actually a horse or not but uhh he named her Bellum.
Conquest
He/they.
High and mighty sort of attitude. Can be very selfish. Stubborn, set in his ways. Gets defensive if you call him out or tell him he’s wrong.
Gay + nonbinary but in the closet (and denial) about both of those things. They’re trying to unlearn years’ worth of internalized bigotry.
Used to be worse, now trying to unlearn his toxic behaviors. But he’s still awful.
Doesn’t remember anything before their death. However they’ve held very strong Christian (specifically Catholic) beliefs all their life and they have a pretty black and white way of thinking.
Very cold and clinical. He has a bit of a temper but there’s a sort of calmness to everything he does even when he’s pissed.
Just as argumentative and aggressive as War but like more of a threat.
The others call him Connie sometimes, especially Death, who practically almost always calls him by this nickname.
Doesn’t harbor ill will towards Pestilence. They might have been overshadowed, but it’s not Pestilence’s own fault. If anything, being out of the spotlight has been good for Conquest, even if they do miss the attention sometimes. The only reason the two dislike each other is because their personalities clash.
Now if there’s anyone he hates that would be the Headless Horseman. Fuck that guy amiright
Very protective of Death. The two are close, Death is probably the only person who is consistently nice to him.
Utterly terrified of needles (hypodermic, not sewing needles, though he’s not good with sharp objects tbh) and medical stuff makes him anxious
Seems very... off. Just weird vibes but no one can pin point what about him is wrong.
Oh uh and his horse’s name is Josephine.
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elriel-oblivion · 3 years
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Okay here's the thing.. I respect everyone's opinions and they can ship whoever they want but like... For Elucien and Gwynriel... I literally cannot even see how. I would gladly ship them if someone gave me a valid reason. Elain avoids talking or even being in the same room as Lucien, and Azriel had one polite conversation with Gwyn. Az is just nice to her. As nice as he would be to any female. Elriel has foreshadowing & chemistry- The roses painted on her drawer and the rose necklace...👀
Strongly agree with all of this!! My main problem with anything that's not elriel is that a lot of anti-elriel shippers completely ignore or erase Elain. With these ships, it's always what benefits Elain does or doesn't bring. It's so misogynistic, people just ignore everything she's mentioned about her own heart and how she doesn't want a mate or the bond, she doesn't care for it, but oh Lucien's had such a hard life, he deserves his mate!!!!!
😒😒😒
Surely he deserves someone who wants him as much as he wants them, no?
Non-elriel-endgame with the canon we currently have would mean Elain's choices are stripped once again since she'd have to give up/lose the love she actually wants in favour of one she doesn't want that's attached to some cultural concept that means zilch to her and her human heart. I mean, sure sjm could spin it so Elain catches feelings for Lucien and they end up happily mated. But then what is the point of having Elain constantly avoid him for three books? That's not even setting up for a good relationship bc every time they interact/meet, the communication just gets worse.
While I can honestly see the potential of gwynriel bc platonic interactions can later become romantic, I still don't ship it bc it doesn't feel right the way elriel does to me. I can def see gwynriel becoming a strong healthy friendship, but if it's endgame then Elain ends up with Lucien, whom she visibly shrinks from and has been avoiding since acowar. She doesn't feel seen by him at all - as much as I love Lucien and truly do want him to have his own HEA, we can't deny that he's really just pursuing (I use pursuing in the loosest way since he's very respectful about it 😅) Elain bc of the bond. If we take that away, there's nothing between them imo and he probably wouldn't give Elain more than a passing glance for her beauty and that's it bc she's not the type of girl he's into.
But people don't wanna think about how that makes Elain feel. This girl who previously felt seen by only one person - who then rejected her bc of that bond itself - and craves someone to see who she truly is, is being courted by someone who doesn't actually like her for her, but just the idea of what a relationship with her would entail. He's only trying bc of some divine belief she doesn't share. That must suck like hell. It's almost objectfying, the bond. And again, I don't blame Lucien at all, not even for trying bc it is something that's important to him and his culture, but it's not a mutual thing. If it were important to Elain too and she just wasn't cooperating bc of some stupid shallow reason, then I'd be angry at her. But that's not the case at all.
But with Azriel, the first person to see her since Graysen, there's so much potential for growth - for both of them. They make each other feel seen. And for all that antis say neither has grown in the time they've known each other, how did Az pluck up the courage to almost kiss Elain after having not done anything with Mor for five centuries? How did Elain initiate that kiss - ie have the courage to follow her heart again after having it torn and shredded by Graysen? And anyway, weve never seen into Elain's head so we don't know what she feels has changed within her; we can only detect subtle changes from other povs, but there might be some huge changes in her learnt from Azriel, maybe about her outlook on life/strength, that she's just keeping hidden for the time (or that no one has bothered to see bc Elain is invisible 😭). Same with Azriel. One little chapter isn't gonna tell us everything he's been thinking the past two years.
But either way, we know now that they both have feelings for each other. Why is a mutual healthy relationship shut down so quickly, one where both partners' choices are taken heed of? If Elain had said no in that moment, Azriel would've stepped back instantly, no questions asked. He probably would've have some huge internal conflict about his own self worth but he wouldn't have gone further without Elain's consent. He's already shown he respects her, he said they've been sharing looks and touches, and these are things fandom eat up, so I don't understand why it's suddenly wrong or unwanted just bc Elain makes up half the ship.
And there's so much foreshadowing/symbolism that antis seem oblivious to, which, fair enough, interpret the text how you want. But even if somebody doesn't see the spark or blooming feelings between the pair throughout the books (how do they explain away all the stiffness whenever one of them is mentioned or is in the same room or something though? Genuinely curious here), there's a lot of plot foreshadowing. The Blood Duel has now been mentioned twice, as has the idea of breaking the bond, maybe more. There's the issue with Koschei and Elain not being able to see things related to him past mist and shadow. There's all this potential conflict that could arise between the Courts if elriel pursue their love, and conflict is the driving force of any novel.
If gwynriel were an IRL couple, I wouldn't care if there were never any conflict, but if I'm reading their story, I want more than just them falling in love and having internal conflict about whether they should kiss the other or not. Especially if the backdrop is a fantasy world on the brink of war with many players. I saw a gwynriel post mentioning Merrill once and while I do think she has the potential to be a running antagonist, I don't see her as anything but a subplot/crony for/associate with another stronger villain. I don't think she could carry a whole novel at the moment. So Gwyn is tied to nothing in the overarching plot. Same with Az. Not to mention all the theories about the Koschei/Swan Lake/firebird folklore that is potentially inspiring this new series in the acotar world. Of course, this could all change as we get more info about the next book/s and all, but compared to elriel certainly, I don't think there's as much conflict with gwynriel.
Ultimately, I don't claim knowledge of the next books' content, so I don't really care what people ship, but the main thing I take issue with is how they treat Elain in the midst. A lot of gwynriel arguments I've seen portray certain acts in a romantic/positive light for Gwyn but either completely ignore or erase any semblance of romance for Elain or tear her down. Like, we shouldn't push the narrative that Gwyn as an SA survivor can't have healthy meaningful sex in the future (yeah, of course I agree), yet some of the same people who say that are also people who judge and make fun of Elain and call her too vanilla for Az without having a clue what her bedroom habits/preferences are 🤯 This is just one of many. There are so many double standards I've seen for gwynriel against elriel and I'm just tired of it. And even if they're not doing any of that, they simply hate Elain and don't want her to be with Az and so ship gwynriel as the next best alternative. Like, can they not push down Elain in favour of Gwyn, please? That's so misogynistic 🤮
For all that this fandom flaunts the series being feminist with strong female characters, they sure do a good job in tearing down females who don't fit their definition of strong, despite even Feyre stating and acknowledging multiple times that Elain has a different kind of strength 😒
Gahhhhhhh. *exhales deeeeeeeeply* Sorry this is so damn LONG!! 😅😅😅😅😅 I did not expect to write a whole bloody essay lol but I hope it was fun/comforting to read at least 😅😆 I know I fall back on elriel posts when the ship war gets too intense bc I actually enjoy shipping elriel. They've become my otp, and I absolutely adore both characters of the ship; I think most of us elriels do. I haven't really seen any elriel stans who dislike/don't care for Elain and her welfare so it's nice being in this corner of the fandom where we can appreciate both Az and Elain equally. And of course, the other characters with their due respect. I truly do want Lucien to finally get his good life, but I don't think that's with Elain 😕
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phoebehalliwell · 3 years
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i think one of the other times that charmed (in my opinion) dropped the ball was with christie. making christie half of the big bad they were meant to defeat was a choice and not a good one. the implications of taking a character was abducted as A CHILD and brainwashed into believing the sisters were evil and then instead of oh i don't know redeeming her in the end have her own sister kill her was just fucked up in every way
fr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! fr billie INCINERATED her OWN SISTER!!! they made her do that!!!!!!!!!????????? what the fuck????? they like. like. they like. What were they trying to do there. it's like the same thing with richard like i get it's conflict but like genuinely what is the fucking point. like. like if you want to do shady double agent shure i get that it can be fun n sexy bestie behavior one minute and then evil conniving the next. but like. not with a child soldier??? like christy is constantly manipulated and it's like oh she didn't accept us as her home and safety in one week after being psychologically tortured for two decades. lucy liu screencap tear the bitch apart!!!!!!!!!!! like??? i mean they didn't even bother to make her truly evil she was doing all this to protect billie to protect her little sister AND THEN SHE WAS BURNED ALIVEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK. unbelievable. imo tho. i do think the writers were biting off way more than they could chew with girl who was raised by demons after being kidnapped at age nine and now she's like. twenty three. that is way too complex to like. like if you're really gonna dig into the meat of the matter and flesh out exactly what life was for her than you could literally make her kind of her own little ya protagonist like. i'm spitballing but like. she's kidnapped from a very young age and like i remember being that young i was still kinda a spitfire so she's like no no no i gotta get home idk bc this is the triad's doing but they're trying to stay very severed from the operation so they're having some lame ass demon tribe take care of it but like they're not really. it's very much we have kidnapped you now it's time to learn to use your powers for violence like this kid would Not be game and she'd probably try to escape a whole bunch so the triad are like okay shift gears so they get a figure like cole's mom (or it could straight up be cole's mom if we feel so inclined) with a son born from a human so he looks human so she’s already raising one magical powerful kid (who could also end up later being a love interest for christy) and she like. goes to the demon clan and sees how christy's being treated and is like what the fuck is wrong w u and vanquishes all them and is like hi little christy are you okay like were those guys being evil and mean come w me which would be a move strategically done by the triad to tie up all the loose ends of that fail demon clan and also position our demon mom demom as an ally. so christy goes to live with her in her like little demon manor ideally still in the underworld and demom's like so how did you get here are you alright and christy's like i was kidnapped!! they took me away from my family!! and demom's like okay well let's get u back to ur family and they go but oh what's this?? the jenkins family is actually So Much Better Off!! oh no! they look happier without you :( is it because they were afraid of your powers, afraid of you, afraid of something they couldn't understand? no matter, let's go ring the doorbell. oh what's that? u don't want 2 :( aww that's so sad. well, i guess... no, it's just a silly offer really...... but.... if u want.... u can stay w me in my hella nice rich person house and learn how to hone your powers at your own pace not like the killing machine those demons tried to force you to be but instead lived under my protection someone who is not scared of u and who only has your best intentions at heart..... bonus round if billie has a burn scar from christy accidentally lighting her on fire, some extra trauma. so christy is raised basically as demon royalty idk give her some background relationships oh so bonus points if the charmed ones vanquish demom that gives her motive against but just friends and allies in the underworld and when she finds billie again billie's like. let's say in the demon mansion like rooting around because these people took my sister when christy confronts her like hey bitch better gtfoutta my house and billie's like fight!!! and they go toe to toe for a good scene til something happens and billie's burn scar is revealed and christy realizes it's her baby sister and immediately like. complete shift. vulnerability immediately and billie's like what the fuck until christy says her full name (wilhelmina? do u think? willow? elizabeth? middle name something like. outta left field a maiden name like buchanan or rochester) and it's just like. sisters<3. but then there's conflict because hey you were happier without me and billie's like no?? no we were fucking not omg why would you think that?? and christy's like no i saw you and billie's like no that must have been a lie demons lie that woman who raised you she was evil she was the worst of the worst and christy's like hey like you know wait because she was my family she was all i had and she loved me (& for what it's worth, i think she did) so there's this conflict of the world christy knows which is filled with deception but real emotion versus the world outside which is true but is so empty to her. but this is s8 we're phoning it in we're not doing all that. which, then, of course, leaves you w the other alternative of she escaped from the demons very young and has been living like the early seasons of supernatural constantly on the run outside the law fighting forces she doesn't understand with two fist fire and a kickass attitude and then she reunites with billie and there's like of a more interpersonal conflict because billie's grown into a much more independent individual and she's already hella powerful and honestly seems to know more about the craft than christy but christy's being doing this a lot longer and she's survived a hell of a lot worse so there's no way she's gonna let her little kid sister but herself in harms way and billie's like no stop trying to baby me like i can handle myself and christy's like no not a goddamn chance in hell. the reason they're the "key" to the ultimate power is bc it can only be held by one. the other dies to grant the person that ability. that is why they never bothered to take both sisters. instead they put a marker of death on billie, something they now have to both fight to remove
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dakotafinely · 3 years
Note
Thank you for writing my request!! I enjoyed the twist you put on it!
But like....now I’m curious about when April’s parents finally DO meet splinter and the bois- would she recognize Raph? I assume she’d recognize splinter bc I mean cmon rat man but Raph has gotten so much bigger than when she first saw him
Would you be willing to write that too? 🥺
YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I WAS HOPING YOU'D ASK THAT AKSNSOSNDIFLENEHFODND!!
ALSO THANK YOU I HAD SO MUCH FUN WRITING THE REQUEST!!
Also, before we get into it. April has two mom’s and I don't take criticism on that. The one that met Raph & Splinter will be referred to as Mama/Ma while the other will be referred to as Mom/Mother.
--
Most of the time, it was just April and her mama. Her mom with a job that caused her to travel often. Sometimes unexpectedly.
“But, the guys really want to meet you!” April begged, despite knowing her mother couldn’t get out of it if she wanted to. Her mother lightly kissed her forehead, before returning to pack her suitcase.
“I know honey, and I’d love to meet them too,” She stops to focus and folding a shirt and putting in the suitcase “but I have to go, they need me down in Texas for the week. I promise if I can make it back before Sunday I’ll try to with all my might.” She turns to her daughter. Placing both hands on her face with a gentle smile on her own.
“You know I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to,” she says and April sighs. Knowing she was right.
“Just... try and make it back as soon as possible,” It was April’s last plea. To which her mother turned back to the suitcase to zip it up. Putting it with the other one and looking to April. Her eyes shining with honesty.
“You know I always do,” she responded. Leaving about ten minutes later.
Saturday came, and April knew her mother wasn’t coming in time. Still, the guys at least meeting one of her mom’s oughta satisfy their curiosity just a bit.
Sunday came and April’s mama was running around like a chicken with her head cut off. Trying to prepare the house as much as possible before they came. April tried to calm her down. The speed reminiscent of a freight train.
“Mama please, trust me when I say they’re not going to care if it’s not perfect,” April said with a slight whine. Still, in a flurry she went. Tidying up things the boy’s wouldn’t have even seen to begin with. Like closets and bedrooms.
“Well I’ll care,” her mama retorted. Slowly running out of steam as it become one hour before they would arrive. Hair tied up and fizzled, clothes stained with deep cleaning messes. She huffed as she looked at herself.
“I’m taking a shower,” she told April “put the chicken in the oven when the-”
“When the timer goes off, I know.”
--
“I still don’t know why we have to wear clothes,” Raph spoke up as Donnie and Leo admired themselves in a shared mirror. Lightly pushing each other to get a better view. Raph huffed and smoothed out the red cardigan he put on for the 50th time “we never wear clothes any other time!” he said.
“Yeah, but,” Mikey slid up next to him, adjusting the snappers tie “it’s to make a good impression! We’re mutants, we gotta do something to make her feel at ease.”
“Her?” Raph asked.
“Oh yeah, I forgot you weren’t in the room,” Donnie spoke up, finally leaving the mirror before the pushing got to violent between the twins. Leo falling over with a yelp at the unexpected movement of the soft-shell “April’s other mom couldn’t make it back home in time. We’re only meeting one of her parents,” Donnie explained, looking relaxed in the suit, as if he could wear it all the time.
“But still!” Leo spoke up, popping up next to his twin as though he hadn’t just fallen “It’ll be nice to meet at least one of her parents,” he said “for a hot second there I thought we’d never meet either of ‘em!” Leo crossed his arms and sat with a happy smile. Also looking comfortable in his clothes.
“I’m just glad we finally have a reason to use these cardigans!” Mikey said, gesturing to his orange one. Raph looked back to the mirror, looking down at the red cardigan. Mikey had taken time to tailor it to Raph’s measurements, it would’ve been a true shame to let it go unused.
“Alright my sons!” Splinter emerged from his room. The boys stared at him, his suit looking dapper, a sight unusual for the boys. He held a brightly wrapped gift in his hands. Clearly spending most of his time on it as the bow on top was complex and beautiful. He grinned “Let’s go!”
--
As the hours had become mere minutes. A dread filled April’s stomach. She’d yet to tell her mom’s the truth about her friends. But she knew if she didn’t do it now she’d be asking for disaster later.
“Mama,” April said, mouth dry as she didn’t really look at her. April’s mama looked from the table she was decorating. Concern following her features as she saw the way her daughter was standing.
“What’s wrong baby?” She moved, stopping her task and put a hand on April’s shoulder. Using the other to move April’s face gently to make April face her. April looked nervous, with a mixture of fear. The type of fear you feel when you believe you’re about to be rejected.
“There’s... something I gotta tell you about my friends.” April said “Before they get here, so you can be ready.” She continued, studying her mama’s facial expression. It was mainly confused.
“What is it? What-” A lightbulb went over her head “Oh! Are they gang members? Is that why you’ve been out all hours of the night because April-”
“No!” April spoke a laugh of disbelief, relaxing a bit. Mama relaxed a bit as well, that was her worst fear. The last thing she would ever wish on her daughter is to be swept in something as dangerous as a gang. Especially with some of the very...  bizarre ones in New York.
“Well, then whatever it is will be alright with me,” Mama said letting go of her daughter. Despite the concern on April’s face, as if there could be something worse in her mind then gang members. Mama smiled reassuringly “You can tell me, I promise it won’t make me think any less of your friends,” she added, wanting to let her daughter have open space to talk about anything.
April opened her mouth, when the doorbell rang.
“Oh! Well speak of the devil’s then,” Mama spoke with a small chuckle, already moving to open the door.
“Wa- wait! Maybe I should get it!” April began to protest. To which Mama simply shook her head as she placed her hand on the doorknob.
“Nonsense April,” Mama said, already opening the door, “I’d love to-” She stopped as her eyes landed on the five mutants in front of her. Recognizing one almost immediately. Eyes wide and mouth agape as she stared at him again for the first time in years.
Splinter couldn’t help but have the same expression. Feeling as though he’d been thrown into the past. Recognizing the woman, her long thick curls draped down her shoulders had light grey hair’s decorated inside them. She didn’t seem as slim as she was all those years ago. But the gentleness was still evident in creases around her eyes.
Her eyes flicked up. Four, there were four turtles. And despite the fact she hadn’t used the information for years. She still was able to identify each one of them with a glance.
A red-eared slider, a box turtle, a soft-shell, and-
“You!” Splinter and Mama said almost at the same time. Mama taking a step back as she pointed to the Snapper.
April finally snapped out of her horror as she had awaited her mama’s response. Becoming confused by the reaction.
“Wait, you know Raph?” She asked walking behind her mama. April’s mama put a hand over her mouth.
“Pop’s... you know her?” Raph asked leaning down, not-so-subtly whispering behind his hand. Having been to young to truly remember the trauma he’d gone through.
“Well, uh, can we at least come inside?” Leo finally said after a beat of silence. Earning an elbow from Donnie “What? She knows Raph! Or pop’s at least...” Leo trailed before realizing something.
“Wait, is she the one you meet when getting Raph back!?” Is what Leo would’ve said, if Mikey hadn’t said it first. April’s eyes went wide with the realization as well. And Donnie and Raph seemed a bit flabbergasted.
“I- uh, come in!” Mama finally snapped, swinging the door right open. There was a lot of explaining to do...
Eventually, everyone had settled. Sitting at the table as the last of the food cooked.
April looked to her mama, awaiting an explanation.
“It was... before you were born. I’d joined this sort of hunting group as a way to make quick cash. They’d needed a turtle and tortoise expert. And I was it.” April’s mama began. Hands on her lap as everyone leaned into the story.
“I didn’t go on many trips. Just a couple, I didn’t know what they did with the animals they caught. I always thought it was a capture and release type of thing. Since I only was really there to examine the capture and take notes before just, being on my way. But..” She took a deep breath “during one mission, they’d actually decided to let me stay from start to finish and...” Mama looked up to Raph with a small smile “that’s where I met you,” she said.
--
“Look what I caught!” A hunter said holding up a small turtle by it’s tail. The group gathered round to get a better look at the creature. But she was the only one who truly took notice of weird things about it. How it held it’s claw like a hand, whimpering in pain as it looked around. With eyes that shone of a bright mind, curious about the world. And unusual, toddler like form.
“Well O’Neil?” A hunter asked, lightly knocking her shoulder. Snapping her out of her study. They lightly gestured with their head to the turtle “what kind is it?”
“Uh,” O’Neil shook her head and took a closer look. Holding the turtle with care, making the other hunters snicker at her compassion. She ignored it as she flipped the turtle on it’s stomach, feeling the sharp edges of it’s shell. She turned it back and opened it’s mouth. Tiny hands pawing at the unwanted intrusion, but she saw the sharp curve of it’s beak. Clearly made for tougher meats. Of course, this one was easy, she probably could’ve guessed if she really wanted to “Ah, Alligator Snapper Turtle... which is unusual for this area.” She said.
It took everything in her not to take it back as a hunter ripped it from her arms like a lifeless doll. Laughing a bit as they put him close to their face, slightly sneering at it.
“Really now? Why don’t we cage this lil’ fella and sell ‘em?” They said lightly tossing him from arm to arm. The snapper letting out whines and distressed whimpers. O’Neil was in to much shock at the action to move to action as the others around her laughed.
Until the hunter let out a pained scream. Dropping the snapper with a slur of curses. Backing away as bit. The snapper had begun to get up and try and run. O’Neil noted, that it was on two feet and not all four, before someone else crushed him under their foot.
“That- that fucker bit off my finger!” The hunter screamed in horror as another went to grab the med kit from one of the tents. O’Neil’s eyes widened as she saw the little turtle spit it from his mouth, clearly in distaste.
It was after that O’Neil still had to watch them throw him in cage. But, he drew blood, heck he almost at a whole finger. They couldn’t release him back into the wild. Not with the taste of human blood now his system.
It took two more days for O’Neil to properly realize that it was simply self-defense. With no more incidents occurring, and the snapper unable to eat anything raw without immediately spitting it back out. The poor sucker was starving.
“Maybe he’ll eat the jerky,” O’Neil made the mistake of commenting it aloud as she watched poor turtle suffer in his cage. Whimpering out in hunger, sitting in the corner every time another human would walk by.
“Aww, what’s the matter little guy? Ya hungry?” The hunter he’d bit a few days ago spit out. Clearly begin sarcastic as he threw a piece of jerky out of the cages reach. Still, the naive snapper had went after it. Trying to paw at it from inside the cage.
The laughter surrounding her was sickening. It made her want to cover her ears and shout at them to stop. But she couldn’t. Instead she used her foot to nudge the jerky within reach.
Waiting a few minutes before dumping her bag inside the cage. She didn’t like the jerky that much anyways. She couldn’t help but watch with a smile as the snapper filled his stomach. A satisfied churr coming from him as he smiled back up at her.
That was it, she had to get him out of here.
Under the cover of the evening. She’d volunteered to do night patrols, in case something or someone tried to invade the camp. A shudder crawled through her spine at the idea. What could they’ve been doing to make other people come after them?
Still, once she was sure everyone was asleep. She went to the cage, crouching down in front of it. Relieved to see the Snapper crawl towards her instead of away. This would make it much easier. And despite the darkness, she could see his eyes. Shining with child-like joy and wonder.
“You’re not like the others are you little guy?” She cooed, trying to be as gentle as possible to not startle him. The snapper churred in response, curious but cautious. He understood her. She couldn’t help but smile wider.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. I’ve seen snappers before and you don’t really look it,” She continued, before letting out an awkward chuckle. He did sort of look like a snapper, that’s why she was able to identify him in the first place “I mean,” she corrected herself “you do kinda, but not really if you get what I mean.”
A confused churr, but he leaned against the door of the cage. Silently asking to be let out.
“Yeah... sorry,” she said, opening the cage door. The snapper immediately went into her arms. Snuggling into the warmth and safety of them. The moon finally coming out from behind the clouds for her to see him properly.
Perfect, now was the time to-
As she’d turned to run off, she saw a rat. A large rat, wearing a worn down robe and looking as though he hadn’t slept in days. She couldn’t do much of anything beside stare. And the creature stared back.
The Snapper began to chrip happily, seeming to recognize the thing in front of her. She kept him balanced, still afraid of handing him off to someone. Within four days, it seemed she’d adopted the snapper.
But when the rat gently lifted his arms. Staring at the snapper with adoration and worry and hope. Hands shaking just a bit as though he could will him into his arms. O’Neil knew she was defeated.
She relented the child. With slow movements as to not scare either of them. The rat took him quickly and carefully. Hugging him like his own son, quietly sobbing with shoulder shaking violently. Oh dear, how long had he been looking for the kid?
“Go,” her voice was much hoarser then she would’ve liked, but there was no time for her to care. The rat looked to her, as if he completely forgot he was there to begin with. She couldn’t help but glance at the tents, afraid of waking up the others was lighting in her skin “if you want to get out of here with him now. You need to go,” she whispered. The rat nodded and with no words. Rushed off, leaves in the up kick at his unexpected speed.
She relaxed, until she heard a branch snap.
“O’Neil?” A hunter spoke up, clearly groggy from begin so easily awakened “Is that you making a racket?”
“Yeah, yeah,” she tried to sound as confident as possible. Not wanting to raise suspicion and make them aware of their escapee sooner then necessary “just go back to sleep, thought I heard something but I was wrong.”
She stood frozen in place. Waiting for a response. Before relaxing after a beat or so.
--
“Wait! What happened after!?” Mikey asked excitedly, immersed in the story. She couldn’t help but let out a chuckle at his enthusiasm.
“Oh, I quit. A month later we got you,” She booped her daughters noise. Making April giggle a bit and shy away. Mama sighed and leaned back against her chair. More at ease with the story out there.
“I always thought you guys ran far away from here,” she commented looking to Splinter “I’m surprised to see you’ve stayed, and gained three more turtles in the process.”
With that, the timer beeped. And everyone helped move the food for them to dig into.
--
I hope this one’s good! I feel kinda iffy about the ending but it seems like a good place to end it. I had fun playing more with this concept! I’d like to think the guys and April’s history went deeper then even they realized. (I kinda like doing that with ALL my characters, it’s so much fun to interweave them!)
This was a lot of fun! Thank you for sending me the ask!!
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wazzupmrstark · 4 years
Text
breaking curfew [part eleven] || th x reader
A/N: finally!!! here’s the full chapter
Summary: When you got the job to be a counselor at the summer camp you’d grown up attending all your life, you expected to see some familiar faces. But you certainly hadn’t counted on having to work alongside the boy who had made it his life’s mission to make your life a living hell every summer. In fact, you thought you’d never have to see Tom Holland again. But he’s is in the cabin right across from yours with campers of his own- smirk, jawline, and all. If you didn’t know any better you might’ve thought that he applied for the position just to spite you, but who were you kidding? What kind of asshole would do something like that?
Warnings: swearing, smut, choking (bc what’s hate sex w/out a lil choking)
What I listened to while writing: the breaking curfew playlist by @cinnamon-roll-peter​​
Word Count: 3.8k
Series Masterlist
Sneaking around with Tom was more fun than you would have liked to admit. He pulled you aside every chance he got- in the middle of bonfires, free time, even sometimes during dinner. It was like he couldn’t get enough of you and you certainly weren’t complaining. Seeing him still made those ugly feelings of bitterness and resentment bubble up in your chest, but it also produced… other feelings. Feelings you’d rather not think too much about.
So you didn’t. When you were with Tom you didn’t think. Obviously. If you had used even one brain cell you wouldn’t have put yourself in this situation to begin with.
When you weren’t with Tom you tried not to think about it too much either. What you had now was good. Really good. Getting in your head about it would just fuck everything up. And as much as you hated the boy you couldn’t deny how good the dick was. God forbid he ever heard you say that, but fuck whenever you hooked up with him you lost track of time completely and let yourself get distracted by the way he looked at you when you were naked, the way he kissed you when you were least expecting it, the way his hands…
“Night off?” Harrison had asked when you ran into the cafeteria a little (more than a little) late that first morning after for breakfast duty.
You scrunched up your face in confusion, fighting the urge to bend over to catch your breath. “How’d you know?”
“You’ve got that morning-after glow,” he said knowingly and smirked.
“What are you talking about?” you asked even though you knew exactly what he was talking about. You could only hope you didn’t look as flustered as you felt, but you were pretty sure that was a longshot.
“I think you know the answer to that,” he quipped, calling your bluff. “Literally every counselor has had a wank in that cabin it’s like a rite of passage- and uh you missed a few buttons.” He nodded at the collar of your polo.
You looked down and realized you had missed way more than a few. Your cleavage had been on full display all day and there was no telling how many people you’d seen or passed on the way here. Fantastic. You looked like you belonged in a porno about camp counselors, not like you actually were one. Could the morning get any worse?
“Don’t worry, y/n, we’ve all been there. I didn’t even last a full minute my night off-”
Why did you have to ask?
“Harrison, our kids are literally right over there,” you whisper-yelled, squeezing your eyes shut to try and erase the image of Haz jerking off from your mind. 
“They’re not listening,” he brushed it off casually and crossed his arms. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to tell you that I think one of my boys has a crush on one of yours.”
You looked back over at him and grinned. “Really, who?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure-”
“Dude, just tell me!”
“You see blondie over there?” he asked, pointing discreetly at the boy filling pitchers of water. You nodded. “That’s Will. I think he might fancy the girl with the pigtails?”
“Grace?” you asked, hiding a smile as you thought back to what she’d said about Will back towards the beginning of the summer. 
“That sounds right. Apparently they have rock climbing together for activities. He talks about her a lot, but he won’t admit he likes her!”
“Typical boy.”
“I don’t know what his deal is,” he mused.
“Yeah, I don’t know why he doesn’t want to admit he likes her…” you trailed off, staring intently at Haz waiting for him to get the hint.
“Okay fuck off!”
“What? I was agreeing with you!”
“I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to make this about me and Nicole by comparing us to third graders and it’s completely uncalled for.”
“Technically I was only comparing you to a third grader, but I’m glad you get the gist,” you quipped, secretly enjoying the way Haz scowled in response.
“I’ll have you know that Nicole and I are… talking.”
“Talking?”
“We’re talking.”
“Talking… about?”
“Things.”
“Oh wow, that sounds really serious,” you said sarcastically. “When’s the wedding?”
“You know what, just for that comment you’re not invited.”
“Come on, you know it’s not a party without me,” you chided, elbowing him in the side. “I’d bring your ex-girlfriend as my date and everything.”
“Dear god, please not Cara, she’s fucking crazy.
You shrugged. “Yeah, but she’s also really hot.”
“You’ve got me there,” he agreed. “Is that who you were thinking about last night? My ex?” 
“What do you mean?”
“You know, last night when you were…” he made some obscene gesture with his hand that immediately made you scoff.
“I’m not having this conversation with you, Harrison.”
“Oh shit it was someone here wasn’t it? I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours!”
“I already know who yours is, that’s not how this works.”
“What if I re-invite you to the wedding?”
“Nice try.”
-
“Fuck, y/n, I’ve wanted you all day,” Tom moaned into your neck as he fumbled with the button on your shorts.
You held back a whine and arched up to give him more access as he kissed the insides of your thighs and threw your legs over his shoulders.
Your shirt was already off and the concrete was cool, almost cold on your back, reminiscent of bitter hookups in dive bar bathrooms and motel showers that you’d rather forget. To be fair you hadn’t really expected the floor of the canoe shed to be comfortable anyway, but still. You could’ve done without the memories.
Maybe the familiarity of it all was a sign that this was a bad idea, which you already knew to be true, but at least this time there weren’t any feelings involved.
“Tom, please,” you gasped out as he teased you, inching his fingers closer and closer to your panties.
“Please what, darling?” he taunted, smirking. “Use your words, y/n.”
“You’re killing me,” you sighed and tilted your head back in exasperation.
“Good,” he hummed, extending his arm out to wrap his hand around your throat. 
“Fuck.”
“This okay?” he asked, looking up at you for assurance.
“Yes- God, yes.”
It was after curfew and you were supposed to be setting up all the little caches around the camp for geocaching tomorrow, but clearly you’d gotten... sidetracked. You’d enlisted Tom to help you but he was only proving to be a distraction- in more ways than one. He’d pulled you aside as soon as you met him outside your cabin and now you were here, on the floor in the canoe shed getting leaves and sticks in your hair as he went down on you.
Once your shorts were off Tom settled back in between your legs and flicked his tongue teasingly over your panties, chuckling lowly when he heard you moan. He used the hand that wasn’t on your neck to hold your hips down, making your attempts to get more pressure on your clit useless. 
He was stronger than you expected, but that was an understatement. He held you in place so effortlessly that it was kind of a turn on. You’d seen him lifting heavy boxes and equipment around camp and you vaguely remembered him carrying you out of the lake, but you had never put two and two together until now. 
Meanwhile his other hand rested gently on your throat, squeezing lightly whenever you pouted. The contrast between the two was making your head spin. 
You whined pitifully in an effort to make him give in, but he wasn’t having any of it. Instead he sat back, removing himself from you completely, save the hand on your hips.
“I hate you,” you spat. 
“You say that every time,” he pointed out as he edged your boyshorts down your thighs. “And yet here you are.”
“My horniness outweighs my hatred,” you scoffed impatiently.
“Oh, you don’t have to tell me that,” he said and licked his lips cockily.
“Once this cast comes off I won’t need you anymore,” you reminded him, wiggling your fingers.
“Yeah, but will your hand make you feel as good as I can?” 
A rhetorical question, obviously, and he proved his point further by sucking your clit into his mouth without warning, making you arch up into him. 
“Mph.”
“What was that, love?” Tom asked, lifting his head. “Couldn’t hear you.”
You refused to answer. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. So the two of you sat there in silence, waiting to see who would be the first to give in. You could see his bulge through his pants and you knew his patience was already worn thin from when you had teased him at dinner, but you also knew how stubborn he was. No amount of moaning or pouting was going to change that.
You were stubborn too, but when he clenched his jaw in frustration and wiped your arousal from his mouth with the back of his hand you broke.
“Fuck, fine! No!”
“No what?”
“No, you’re better than my hand.”
“A little louder for the class?”
“You’re pushing it, Holland,” you growled. “Want me to go find Ying to take care of this?”
You weren’t actually sure if Fy liked you like that but for some reason bringing up his name during sex always made Tom a little more firey. 
“Sure, but I doubt he can make you scream like I can” he whispered and moved so that he was lying on his back on the floor across from you.
You scrunched up your face in confusion, wondering if he was actually calling your bluff. “What are you doing-”
“Sit on my face.”
You weren’t sure if you’d heard him right. “What?”
“You heard me. Sit on my face, love.”
Fuck. How could you say no to an invitation like that?
-
“Round two?” Tom asked breathlessly as he played with your hair.
You were laying on top of him, mostly naked, a little sweaty, completely blissed out. But as tempting as that sounded there were other things you had to do. 
“Tom, I really do need to get this done,” you insisted and raised yourself to hover over him with your good arm. “I can’t leave my campers for so long and we haven’t even started setting up for tomorrow.”
“Maybe the caches are just really hard to find tomorrow?” Tom said and shrugged.
“Are you suggesting I don’t hide them at all?”
He sat up next to you and passed your shirt over to you. “I just think it’d be kinda funny to watch them look, you know? Because you know there aren’t any to find.”
“Oh my god, you’re such an asshole.”
“You say that, but you’re laughing too.”
“I am not!” you insisted, trying to hide your smile behind your hands.
“All I’m saying is we’ve got options. We could go hide the caches or we could just say we did and have sex again.”
You shook your head. “Unbelievable.”
Campus was quiet as the two of you made your way over to the edge of the woods designated for geocaching. Only the sounds of crickets and various birds in the distance could be heard aside from you and Tom’s obnoxious laughter as you took turns running down the hill into the valley. He even ran back up to then roll down the hill like an idiot ending up with a mouthful of grass at the bottom. You laughed so hard you almost peed yourself. 
The forest itself was much darker since there weren’t any path lights down there and it was only navigable by the headlamps you and Tom were wearing. Even though you couldn’t stand him you were glad he was here. Traversing your way through the woods by yourself late at night with a broken arm sounded like a pretty bad idea.
“It looks kind of sexy on you,” he commented.
Okay maybe you would rather risk it alone. 
“What does?” you asked, deciding to entertain him.
“The headlamp. You look like a hot... cave explorer or something.”
You pinched the bridge of your nose and squeezed your eyes shut. 
“I’m serious!” he insisted. “It’s really working for me.”
“Can you stop thinking with your dick for like two seconds and focus please?” 
He cleared his throat and nodded, still biting back that shit-eating smile of his. “Sorry.”
“No you’re not.”
“Eh, maybe a little.” He looked down at the list of hiding places on his phone and grimaced. “Why are there so fucking many of these?”
“There are a lot of campers! We hide enough for everyone to find something.”
“So there’s no competition? Where’s the fun in that?”
“Only you would say that,” you sighed. “Some caches are better than others depending on their hiding places and whoever finds the most ‘gold-tier’ caches by the end of the summer gets some big prize, so don’t worry there’s still a competition involved.”
“You really like this activity?” he asked after a beat, making you stop short.
You knew what he was really asking. Do you like it better than mine? And even in the dark you could see he so badly wanted the answer to be no. Whether it was a matter of pride... or something else, you couldn’t be certain, but either way you weren’t sure which you’d rather it be or how you should answer. You decided to be indifferent.
“It’s easy.” You stared straight ahead as you walked now, not wanting to look back at him. “The kids are great, they get really into it and they have a lot of fun. I like writing the riddles and clues too. And, uh, Haz is nice I guess. It could be a lot worse.”
“That's good.” It wasn’t the response you were expecting. “Should we split up and hide these?” he asked as he referred back to the list and changed the subject. “It’d take half the time if we did.”
“Are you kidding- that’s how every horror movie starts, Tom! Are you trying to die?”
He shrugged. “I’m not afraid of a little darkness.”
“Yeah, you’d definitely be the first one dead.”
“I mean if there really is a psycho killer out in the woods with us right now I don’t think either of us stands a chance together or apart so does it really matter?” You opened your mouth to speak when he cut you off again. “I mean especially you since you have that whole broken arm disadvantage.”
“Disadvantage- are you saying you’d leave me for dead if a murderer just happened to show up?”
“I’m not not saying that...”
“After everything we’ve been through together?”
“Everything we’ve been through together? Like you wouldn’t do the same thing!”
“Well I’m considering it now!”
“Good luck with that, love,” he quipped, cradling his arm in a mocking manner as he pretended to limp along the path.
“A broken arm doesn’t stop me from running, dumbass.”
“But do you really think you could outrun me, y/l/n? I’m pretty fast.”
“Oh yeah you’re faster than me at a lot of things.” 
“Watch it.”
-
You didn’t make it back to your cabin until much later that night since Tom wouldn’t stop dicking around. You had lost track of the list more than once and stopped to make out against random trees more times than you’d like to admit. Next time you were going to ask Zendaya to help you prep. 
Given that you’d gotten in so late, your alarm the next morning was quite the wake up call. You probably would have slept through it if you hadn’t fallen asleep with your phone lying on your chest, leaving it to blare in your ear when it went off. 
You felt almost hungover and you probably looked it too. You were tempted to just go back to sleep for an extra half hour and skip your shower, but you knew you probably shouldn’t. There were likely still leaves in your hair and grass stains on your knees from a few hours ago. 
Your head spun when you sat up and you had to take a few quick breaths before standing up. You should’ve taken a few more because you were not prepared for how sore you were. Your back felt stiff and your arms felt like jelly- even the one that wasn’t broken. 
Somehow you managed to drag yourself to the bathrooms and rinse off. Like usual the showers were pretty empty so you could take your time. You washed your hair vigorously, trying to get all the dirt and grime out.
There were some small scrapes and bruises you hadn’t noticed last night and you took extra care cleaning around them so you wouldn’t make them worse. Thankfully there weren’t any... suspicious looking marks aside from the older ones on your chest that were already fading.
The quiet of the morning made getting up so early worth it. The hot water too. The plumbing was already iffy up here and the water heater was unreliable on most days, but when all the showers were full and people were trying to get ready for bed late at night you could forget about hot water. At least there was a guarantee of relatively warm water in the mornings. 
After you turned the water off you wrapped your towel around your body and grabbed your makeup bag to finish getting ready for the day. Upon opening it you realized you’d forgotten to grab a lot of necessities from the cabin before you left meaning you’d have to make do for now. 
You brushed through your as best you could with your fingers and brushed your teeth with your finger and some toothpaste from one of those mini tubes you get at the dentist that you found at the bottom of your bag. You didn’t have any hair ties with you to braid your hair back like you usually did when you washed it so it’d have to dry down like it was. 
You cursed under your breath and reluctantly looked up into the mirror to assess your appearance. It was pretty much what you expected. The dark circles under your eyes looked more defined, especially in the fluorescent lights, you hair was still all tangled despite your efforts to tame it, and, well, your arm was in a fucking plastic bag. The only way you could shower without help was if you wrapped a trash bag or a big ziploc over your cast and just hoped for the best. All things considered it wasn’t the worst thing about how you looked right now. You weren’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. 
Just as you were about to head back to your cabin you saw Fy out of the corner of your eye and waved. 
“Yo, y/l/n, what are the odds?” He said and grinned.
“Apparently pretty high since we seem to meet like this every morning.”
“I’m not complaining,” he said cheekily.
You felt butterflies start to flutter in your stomach as you watched him slick his hair back and look you up and down. “Me either.”
He took a step closer so that you were almost chest to chest.. “How’s the arm?”
“Oh, uh, good! The medicine helps a lot, thanks again for picking it up by the way.”
“Of course, any time.”
“Yeah, I’ll call you up if I ever break my arm again.”
“Dear God, please don’t break your arm again.”
You shrugged. “I mean with me you never know. I’m pretty accident prone.”
“Well maybe next time I’ll be there to catch you when you fall.”
Your breath caught in your throat as he leaned in towards you. “M-maybe.”
Then he gently brushed a strand of hair out of your face and pressed his lips to yours. Unlike your first kiss with Tom, Fy was sure of himself and sure of what he wanted. He cradled your head with his hand as he deepened the kiss and let you lean into him. You had to stand on your tiptoes to be able to reach but you didn’t mind.
He tasted like mint, which wasn’t surprising since he had probably just brushed his teeth- you flashed back to a few minutes previous when you had brushed your teeth with your finger and prayed you didn’t taste awful in turn. If you did, though, Fy wasn’t complaining. He continued to kiss you like his life depended on it and you wondered why you hadn’t done this earlier... earlier.
You pulled away suddenly, feeling very overwhelmed and out of breath.
“Shit, I’m so sorry if I overstepped,” Fy apologized immediately.
You shook your head and swallowed hard. “No, no it’s not that I was really into it actually... I just-”
“Just what?”
“There’s something that’s been bugging me for a while now and I just need to ask you about it before we go any further.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, going along with your rambling even though he was completely lost. “What is it?”
“I don’t even know if you’ll remember, it’s dumb... but um why did you stop talking to me all of the sudden? Back when we were campers?”
“In third grade?” 
You nodded. “I know it was so long ago, but I thought we were really good friends and then you just stopped talking to me out of nowhere-”
“You don’t remember?” he asked, looking equally as confused as you felt. 
“No, I don’t. Did you just not want to be friends anymore? Or did you pick Tom and his friends over me? It’s okay if  you did- I’ve just been wondering about it all these years.”
“No, no that’s not it at all,” he assured you. “Fuck, I’m sorry you’ve just been in the dark about it I thought you knew.”
“It was third grade, it's not a big deal.”
“But it was back then! And even if you had liked him it was still a dick move.”
“Wait, if I had liked who? What do you mean?”
“Um, okay, so I liked you in third grade, right? Like really liked you. I considered you my first crush and everything and when we started to get closer I thought that maybe you felt the same way... but then I found out you had a crush on someone else and-”
“Wait, Fy,” you interjected, “I-I didn’t have a crush on anyone else. I liked you back then.”
“You did?”
“But you stopped talking to me because you thought I had a crush on someone else?” you asked, finally putting the pieces together. Fy nodded. “Who?”
“Tom had told me that you had a crush on him.”
thank you guys for being so patient- i’m sorry this took so long!! but lmk what you think i always appreciate feedback!!
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