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xgryffinwhore · 3 years

Note

Hey! Can I request a jaeden martell x reader where basically their charters are dating on a tv show and they are really really good best friends in real life and they they both go on the Jimmy fallon show and he keeps on asking if they’re dating because everyone thinks they are and when they say no he obvi doesn’t let it go lol and it ends up slipping up that jaeden did/ does have a crush on reader and they maybe end up sharing a kiss in front is Jimmy & audience & stuff😶just an idea i had 😂:)

i love this idea wow, thinking i’m going to put my own little twist on it but i think you’ll still be pleased ;)

just friends

warnings!: suggestive topics, fluff

word count: 2.1k

five

your face was being touched up with powder, the cotton pad dabbing at your nose as the white powder absorbed into any oil your face may have had.

four

you look over at jimmy, this wasn’t your first talk show, but it had been the biggest one with the most following. it was intimidating, you bounced your foot up and down and played with your hands.

three

behavior jaeden had grown to recognize. he knew you better then you knew yourself, your anxiety was worse then you put it out to be. “you ok?” he questioned, “fine, i’m fine” you painted a small smile on your face. but he wasn’t easily fooled.

two

he grabbed one of your hands and rubbed circles into your palm, this sent vibrations of relaxation down your spine.

one

his eyes locked with yours, you swore they were a different color each time you saw them. sometimes more blue, sometimes more green, sometimes dark with mystery, sometimes light and playful.

‘aaand where on air’

you wiped the hand that was interlocked with his off on your dress, it was clammy. the curtain came up fast, and your vision was soon flooded with bright lights and silhouettes of bodies.

making out the faces in the sea of people was impossible, but you knew your friends were out there. they had flown out to see you, a) they could go see new york and b) you were on national television, and they wouldn’t miss it for the world.

jimmy was talking, you knew that much, but your nerves took over and honestly you weren’t registering a damn thing he was saying. the crowd cheered, you snapped out of your daze.

“and here tonight, we have jaeden martell and y/n l/n from the new HBO tv series: turning tables”

he turned to both of us, and gave everyone time to clap. he tired to speak over the loud hands, moving on with his show, but the crowd made that difficult. eventually the clapping died out and he could continue.

“now, i’ve watched all of the episodes but, for the people who haven’t seen: can you explain what the show is about?” he looked a jaeden, you let go of a breathe you had held in.

“s-sure” jaeden turned to face the audience more, he was soft spoken and shy, so it was important he projected as much as he could.

“turning tables is a teen drama. it’s about families of poverty in the seattle washington area and how they struggle to go to school and work. my character, jennings cooper, is the main protagonist. the show is mainly from his point of view, and how he struggle to support his family.”

jimmy nods and smiles, he looks pleased with his explanation. i’m truth the show wasn’t that simple, he knew that. but, it would take so long to explain.

“and y/n, who do you play?” he knew the answer to this obviously, but you were becoming a crowd favorite. everyone loved your personality, and you were an up-and-coming a list celebrity.

“i play parker marlow, jennings girlfriend” you blushed at this statement, the crowd giggled and ‘ouuu’ed. jimmy rubbed his hands together, getting excited at the upcoming topic of discussion.

“so, your romance on season one was steamy” you thought back to the scenes you did together. all of the kissing, which felt normal at this point. he wasn’t a bad kisser, in fact- you didn’t mind it at all. your romance through the season built up to a sex scene, your mind flashed through the memories of filming it.

filming those scenes isnt half as steamy as you think it is. it’s awkward, you laugh a lot. you had never felt that exposed in your life! however watching it was different, it looked so real, so perfect.

you blurred out your thoughts, mr. fallon still speaking on the subject. “can we expect more -“ jimmy searched for your ship name, it was on the tip of his tongue. the combination of your first names on the show didn’t make an attractive combo. it was either jarker or pennings. your last names matched a little better.

“-carlow” jaeden finished for him. jimmy nodded and smiled “yes- carlow- can we expect more carlow next season?” you both looked at each other and smiled. the writers for the show already had the next four seasons laid out. you knew that carlow was a continuing relationship on the show.

“yes, you should expect more of that sort of content from us” you stated. the people in the crowd had a positive responce to this, the applause lapping until it died out once again.

“right, your characters have so much chemistry in the show. two struggling teens just trying to break even.” jaeden agreed “yes, our characters balance each other out, and being from the same background helps them associate. jennings is kind of a bad boy-as the ladies say- he’s a felon, he steels cars and sells them to counterfeit manufacturers and dealers for money. parker, y/n’s character, has a job at a diner. she shows him the light at the end of the tunnel if he chooses to go down a good path.”

“yes, parker gets jennings a job at the diner with her, and he falls for her sweet disposition even after everything she’s been through” you add.

jimmy licks his lips and pops another question: “so id imagine the chemistry in the show heightens the real life thing?” he cocked an eye brow, the group gasping at the intrusiveness.

“jaeden and i are just friends” you blurt out, your nerves working up again. it was hard, you liked jaeden ever since you had your first kiss with him.

“y-yeah” he stutters, he obviously wasn’t expecting this either “friends” jimmy shakes his head and puts his finger on his lip “recently, you both have been showing a lot of pictures of you two together on social media.”

the audience ‘awwwed’ at the photos that displayed behind you. on the screen, there were pictures of you and him that were on both of your instagrams. you two at gardens, getting food, even watching movies at each other’s houses.

“for just friends, these photos looks intimate , wouldn’t you say” a bunch of ‘yes’’s and ‘mhm’’s came from the crowd as both of your faces became red.

“we’re just best friends, honestly” jaeden laughed nervously, he fixed his hair with his hand has he always does.

“right right- can you tell me when this photo is from?” jimmy asked, the last picture flashing on the screen. it was of you both, you had just filmed your first scene together.

the first scene you filmed together was episode two, he saved you after you fell into ice cold water. it was how the characters met, and it was filmed at a cove on a windy august day.

the picture was a little blurry, but it added character. he had his arm around you, both of your hair soaked, and you share a huge towel. you remember how cold you were, your teeth chattered so rapidly. his hair was stuck to his forehead and more small pieces went up. and your lips were almost purple, half from the makeup, half because you swore that was the coldest water you had ever went in.

“that’s from when we first started filming, it was the first time we met in the show” you recited, re living the memory in your head. you remember jaeden pulling your head into his chest when the wind began blowing. you remember his thumb trying to create friction on your back to make you just a little warm.

“yes yes- you two look so adorable!” jimmy squealed, he was the most teenage-girl-grown-man you had ever met. his hand opened one of the drawers in the faux desk he sat behind, pulling out a small blue camcorder.

the camcorder.

you know how on tv shows, there is special footage? sometimes it’s just behind the scene specials but sometimes- sometimes - it’s footage the actors document when they were just having fun? yeah it was one of those camcorders.

the camcorder was brought in by the two other co hosts wyatt oleff and finn wolfhard (i know this cast is sooo original not really) they played jaedens two best friends on the show. while they weren’t filming, they’d dick around and talk about stupid stuff. you’d never seen what they filmed, but you had been featured quite a few times; their by them pranking you, or invading your personal space.

you looked over at jaeden, you watched his adam’s apple bob and a thin layer of sweat flush over his face. he bounced his leg slightly, a habit he had picked up from you.

“let’s just review our material here” jimmy teased, his tongue darting out between his teeth. the video began to play, the sound was loud; assumingely for jaeden quiet voice in the tape.

the video started with wyatts unsteady hand, him and finn were running around set, they stopped at jaeden, he was playing on his phone in his trailer.

“jaeden wesley we have come for you” finn yelled. you could see jaeden shoot up from his chair. “hey guys” he waved. they talked for around a minute, jokes and all. then finn started to giggle, wyatt zoomed in on jaedens face.

“so jaeden, how’s y/n?” he chuckled, jaeden blushed “she’s ok i guess dunno.” wyatt stopped zooming in when the only thing in frame was jaedens head. “the kiss was good hm?” wyatt asked. jaeden continued to play on his phone, he nodded. “yeah, she’s pretty cute too.”

the video cut to another segment, this was filmed after the sex scene. you knew because jaeden laid on the bed you, in the same underwear that he wore during the scene. the boys were jumping on the bed, and jaeden took the camera and talked to it.

“this is for memory and memory ONLY! h-hey y/nnn” he was talking to the camera like it was you “you’re amazing and cool” you could hear finn explode into laughter as he stole the camera back and started running “yeah! and he wants your babies and loves you so much-“ “SHUT UP FINN!!!” and jaeden chased him around.

the video was taken off the screen. your face had become close to ghostly white. it was weird, it was almost like he was dumb enough to think finn wouldn’t give jimmy this blackmail goldmine. you looked at jaeden, he hit his bottom lip until it was red, he itches his neck and laughed it off.

“yeah ok-ok jimmy, maybe i liked her back in the day” jaeden tried so hard to be casual, but jimmy hit him with a heart stopper: “but mr martell, the last clip was filmed less then a month ago!”

your mind flickered with memories and ideas of him.

your first time meeting, how good his hand felt in yours. when you wiped icecream off his chin, and him dotting icecream on to the top of your nose. the way his hair always fell perfectly above his eye brow. and SHIT how he always smelt so fucking good. how he let you fall asleep in his arms and how he never complained when you put on some stupid romcom and-

“y/n?” jimmy questioned. “huh?” you spaced, come on y/n you gotta stop doing that. “i asked how you felt about all of this.” “well, there isn’t a right word i can use.”

jaeden took this has a bad reaction, he did a small wave to the crowd and stood up to get off the stage.

you stood up, grabbed his hand, and laid one right on him. kissing him felt normal, but now that there was emotion behind it, it just felt so right.

you both stopped for air, the crowd went wild. jimmy was clapping too, you could barley hear them, your heart was pumping throughout your whole body. you swore jaeden could hear it.

after the show, you sat in your dressing room for a bit, contemplating the events of tonight, and how they were all broadcasted for your embarrassment. but it was only the beginning. only the beginning of what was to come for mr. and mrs. jaeden martell.

#jaeden martell #jaeden martell fic #jaeden martell x reader #jaeden martell fluff #jaeden wesley #jaeden lieberher #jaeden #jaeden fic #bill denbrough #bill denbrough x you #bill denbrough fanfic #it move #imagine #it fanfiction #aged up

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sleeping-on-cracking-ice · 3 years

Note

ok ok, so i'm new at requesting lol. i absolutely adore your work ( and for some reason this is the only blog posting karube content? whats up with that, the barista needs more love ) but that brings me to why i'm here. something soft with karube, maybe he finally gets that farm in australia he wanted. slow dancing by moonlight. just an idea i had, totally cool if you don't do it lol.

Yes Karube doesn’t get the love that he deserves 👏😔 Such a cute idea, I hope you like it 💕

Moonlight Dance | Daikichi Karube

{Alice In Borderland Masterlist}

Character(s): Karube

Summary: You stay at your boyfriend Karube’s farm in Australia for a holiday together, and he asks you an important question.

Warnings: a suggestive theme (but it’s only one sentence)

Word Count: 2.1k

*reader is gender-neutral

Karube gif credit

You sat on the deck chair that was placed near the end of the porch. The dusk light of the sun covered you like a warm blanket, making you feel safe and at home. The distant sound of lorikeets cheeping in the trees together filled your ears, making you smile.

Karube had managed to buy himself a decent farm along the east coast of Australia. He had invited you to come over as soon as it was his because he was so excited to share it with you. And you couldn’t blame him, it was beautiful.

It was a far way from any sort of urban environment, so it was constantly quiet and soothing, leaving only the sound of nature to fill the air.

You were so proud that Karube was finally able to achieve his dream. Even if it was just as simple as this, you couldn’t be more happy.

You closed your eyes and relaxed in the evening sun. You wanted to enjoy the warm light just before it fell asleep behind the horizon, because night time did get quite chilly sometimes.

After a short few minutes, you felt a gentle hand on your arm, making you open your eyes. Your boyfriend Karube was sitting on the ground on a cushion next to you with a lit cigarette poking out of his mouth, giving you a loving smile. He was wearing his usual blue, faded jeans with a plain black t-shirt. “You tired love?” he asked, rubbing your arm soothingly.

You nodded. “A little bit. I might get an early night.” You sat up and reached your hands behind your back to stretch them. You sighed satisfyingly after hearing some bones pop in your back. You had only been at Karube’s farm for a few days, and you already feel more relaxed than anything.

You leant sideways and leant yourself against his broad shoulders, making him snuggle into you. The silence between you was so comfortable, making you feel at ease and at home. Karube always managed to make you feel that way no matter where you both were.

“Hey! Before you get anymore tired, can I show you something?” he suddenly asked, becoming all excited. He turned, making you sit up off him.

You nodded and chuckled at his excitement. He acted like a giant kid at times, which never failed to make you laugh.

He scrambled to his feet and ran inside through the back doors to the house. “Just wait there! I have to grab something,” he said.

You watched and laughed as he almost tripped on the carpet before regaining his balance and running again. You waited patiently while watching as the sun began disappearing over the horizon, making the sky fade to a soft orange.

You hoped things could stay this tranquil and calm forever. With Karube by your side, you didn’t need anything else.

You turned as you heard soft footsteps behind you. Karube returned having discarded his cigarette and was now holding out his hand to you. “Let’s go! We don’t want it to get too late before we get there cause we’ll get cold,” he encouraged.

You took his hand happily. “Where exactly are we going?” you asked curiously as Karube and you stepped off the porch onto the grass.

“It won’t be a surprise if I tell you,” he beamed, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you closer to him. “You’ll have to be patient and see for yourself.”

You huffed out an annoyed sigh. He always had such a thrill from surprising you with things, whether it be something huge like a holiday away or a small gift he bought you. He was full of surprises, so you became accustomed to his playful ways.

You both walked along the grass fields for a while, chasing each other and enjoying the time together. Karube picked up every flower he could find and kept adding it to the stash in your arms, insisting that you kept a hold of them so you could put them in a water vase when you got back to the house. You took your jacket off and used it as a makeshift bag, lugging all of the colourful flowers along as he brought them to you.

He kept relating some part of you to each one, like “This one would go well with your hair.” or “This one matches your favourite shirt.” It was so endearing watching him be so invested in such little things about life. It made you feel so lucky to have someone who enjoyed such minor yet beautiful things.

As the sun disappeared from the sky and the moon shone bright over the farm fields, Karube walked along behind you with his arms wrapped around your shoulders. He was kissing your cheek every few minutes and whispering sweet nothings into your ears.

“Are you getting cold baby?” he asked, concerned. You shook your head. “No. You’re like a human blanket,” you laughed, pulling him closer by his arms so his chest was against your back.

Karube grinned and tucked his face into your neck and left a few light kisses on your skin. “You’re so cute,” he breathed out against you and tickled your waist slightly, making you squirm in his arms.

You both trudged along the long grass for a while, going to wherever Karube was planning. He had pulled out a torch from his back pocket when it got too dark to see where you were stepping.

When you both shortly arrived at a large field that was surrounded by a metal fence, Karube brought you over to the gate and unlatched it from the fence, motioning for you to step inside. The field was completely empty, containing nothing but long blades of grass and the moonlight shimmering off it.

You stared up at the moon, mesmerized by its light and fullness. You had never seen it that bright before.

Karube walked up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist and tucked his chin on your shoulder. “You want to have some fun?” he whispered into your ear.

You leant back to look at him in shock. “Here? We’re in the middle of a field,” you said, taken back by his bold words.

He laughed and placed his hand on your head, messing your hair up. “That’s not what I meant, naughty,” he chuckled. “Watch this.”

You watched in wonder as Karube started running along the grass with a sudden trail of fireflies rising up out of the ground as he jogged. An excited grin painted across your face as you laughed at your boyfriend, loving seeing him happy.

“Come on!” he yelled after a while of you watching him. You lifted your legs and followed, looking behind you as fireflies sprouted from the long grass, chirping and singing while flashing their lights.

It was such a gorgeous scene. You and Karube chasing each other and tackling to the ground as little stars scattered around you, making the moment almost seem magical. It was a once in a lifetime experience.

Once you both had grown tired, you leant against a small tree that was planted in the corner of the field. You were tucked into his chest, breathing in his scent to relax you.

“Thanks so much for inviting me here babe,” you mumbled against him, earning his soft hand stroking your hair gently. “Why wouldn’t I? I love you so much, I want to share my life with you.”

His words made your heartstrings dance in your chest and your face heat up. Even after being with him for several years, he still knew how to make your heart race with simple words.

You pushed your head even closer to his chest so your cheek was squished up against the cotton material of his shirt. You could feel his heartbeat, rapidly pulsing at a mile a minute. It was almost banging against his ribcage. You frowned and leant back to look into his eyes with concern.

“Are you okay baby?” you asked worryingly. You rubbed your hand against his chest, over his heart. “You’re hearts beating very fast.”

You saw Karube look to the ground to avoid your gaze while he answered you. “It’s probably just from running around before, I’m still a bit out of breath.”

You glanced at him for a little longer before shrugging it off.

Both of you observed the grassy field in front of you in a comfortable silence. Your eyes widened as you saw the ground blossom in bright moonlight, seeing as the clouds had separated to let the moon’s shine through. You smiled and turned to Karube excited.

“Come here!” you pressed, grabbing his hand and pulling him out to the small patch of shorter grass where the moon was shining. “I want to dance.”

“Dance?” Karube repeated. “Baby, you know I can’t dance,” he laughed nervously. You shook your head at his claim and grabbed his hands to place on your waist while you wrapped yours around his neck. “I don’t care, I’m not the best dancer either.”

You slowly began swaying your bodies, spinning in slow circles while keeping your foreheads pressed together and looking into each other’s eyes lovingly. You swore every time you looked at Karube, you felt yourself fall for him more and more.

You saw in your peripheral vision some fireflies beginning to make their way out of the grass again and buzz around the two of you as you slow-danced in the moonlight. You chuckled to yourself, it must have looked like the cliché romantic Disney movie scene, but you wouldn’t have asked for anything more or less.

After a few minutes of silent swaying and feeling the cold breeze on your skin, Karube stopped his movements and pulled back from you. You looked at him confused as to why he stopped.

“Well, I guess there isn’t a better time than now,” he started, making you frown.

Karube gazed into your eyes with a big, goofy smile on his face. His breathing was a bit unleveled. He seemed very nervous.

“Uh, Y/N. I just want to say that, over the past few years I’ve known you, you’ve made me the happiest man I could have ever hoped to have been. You’ve made me a better person in myself, and also have taught me really valuable lessons through our relationship,” he stated, fiddling with the material of your clothes. You smiled at him, a smile spreading across your features as he continued. “I want to thank you for always being there for me, through both the good times and the bad times. I honestly don’t know where I would be without you. And that is why I am doing this.”

You watched in wonder as Karube separated himself from you and slowly knelt down onto one knee. Your heart stopped, there’s no way he was doing what you were thinking he was doing.

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small violet box before holding it out to you in both hands. “Y/N L/N, will you please make me the happiest person on earth for the rest of my life and marry me?” He opened the box to reveal a gorgeous ring.

His hopeful eyes glistened in the moonlight up at you. You were covering your mouth in shock, tears filling up your eyes. You couldn’t believe it.

You nodded your head yes, and knelt down to Karube to give him the biggest hug you could ever give, head tucked into his neck and arms wrapped around his shoulders tightly. You heard him let out a big sigh of happiness and wrap his arms around you, squeezing you just as tight.

You leant back and crashed your lips onto his in a heated kiss. You held each other close underneath the moonlight, being the happiest souls that the moon would see for the time it would be awake.

You squealed as Karube suddenly broke the kiss and lifted you up into his arms with your legs clinging around his waist. He had tears of happiness rolling down his cheeks, making you reach out and wipe them away with your thumb gently before giving him another loving kiss on his lips.

“Thank you so much Y/N,” he whispered against your lips happily. “I couldn’t have asked for anything more in my life than you for the rest of it.” You couldn’t speak, so happy and emotional from the event. Your expression said it all to him.

As you slowly made your way back to the house to spend a happy and romantic night together, you and Karube were glued to each other’s side, laughing and cuddling in the cold night air.

He now had everything he ever dreamed of, and he couldn’t have been more happy about it.

#alice in borderland #alice in borderland imagines #alice in borderland imagine #alice in borderland scenarios #alice in borderland one shots #alice in borderland x reader #aib #aib imagines #aib imagine #aib scenarios #aib one shots #aib x reader #karube #daikichi karube #karube imagines #karube imagine #karube scenarios #karube one shots #karube x reader

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sweetestlamb · 3 years

Text

Come Undone

Author’s note: Well, I know I said it was coming this weekend but I decided to break it apart and post this part first. It’s another roller coaster but I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. Thank you to everyone who messages me and supports me and loves this story. I am so thankful for you. Enjoy my babies :) Thanks for the photo @prodmina, (I’ll use the other thing later in the story too) you are a doll and as always thank you @ewolfwitchwisegirl for this beautiful header!

p.s Crazy fun fact I had no idea what Seojun’s mom’s name was so I put random initials thinking I’ll check later and fix it. Only to guess completely right! I am so proud of myself LOL

She stands dumbfounded in his arms, unable to process the words that have left his lips. She couldn’t have heard him right, why on Earth would someone like him who had girls fighting to be his girlfriend want anything to do with her? Did he pity her that much? Was this the premise of a high school drama and he’d taken some sort of bet to befriend her? Somehow all of those options seem more feasible than him having genuine feelings for her.

But it’s her first real confession, she’s always seen others receive this and never experienced it herself. There had been some grandiose ones at school but she secretly tells herself she prefers this, just them two without an audience. it feels more intimate and authentic, as if he couldn’t wait another minute and his feelings for her overwhelmed him. Her heart is beating rapidly despite her deep calming breaths, he’s effectively turned her world upside down with just those small three words.

I like you.

She can’t control the way her heart flutters, but surely it would react that way to anyone? It wasn’t connected to the confession-er, she was merely affected because someone liked her that was human nature. It didn’t matter that it was Han Seojun, they were nothing to each other. Pity was surely clouding his emotions and she wanted no part in being there when he realized that and abandoned her, it was best not to get attached at all she argues with her traitorous heart.

Her phone brings her back to reality, suddenly she remembers where she’s meant to be right now and her father’s enraged face appears in her mind. He’d told her not to embarrass him, which meant she had to go on this date and paint on a happy face and pretend that she wasn’t dying inside. All for a man who treated her no better than scum under his shoes.

Pulling out the phone, Obligation flashes on her phone screen that’s all he was after all she’d already forgotten his name, it was of no importance to her. She doesn’t know if she should answer, still confused about her next step and while she’s ruminating a hand suddenly fills her vision and snatches the object from her hand. Twisting out of his hug she stares in shock before trying to grab the phone back, “Are you insane? Give it back!” But he steps back, putting more space between them as he holds the stolen object just out of her reach tauntingly using his looming height.

“Is this your date? Obligation.” He reads the name from the phone, venom in his voice and she’s taken back by his tone he’s hardly ever serious or cold with her. She’s seeing many different facets to his personality today.

“Han Seojun, give it back!” She demands, stomping her feet before lunging for the item, putting a hand on his shoulder for more leverage. But she miscalculates and her face smashes into his jaw making him cry out in pain and sending her flying forward her body crashing into his painfully, he steadies her with an arm around her waist bringing her dangerously close to him. Their eyes connect as if they are magnetized, just like that day in front of her house.

“Is this your answer, princess? You sure know how to hurt a guy.” She peers at him in bewilderment before searching his face, there’s not even a fraction of a smile on his lip and he refuses to meet her eyes. Gazing off into the distance although he’s speaking to her. He seems…hurt and he’s not doing a good job of hiding it at all, it’s written all over his face and she wonders vaguely what kind of world he must live in to be able to so freely reveal his feelings? She yearns to grab his lips and literally turn his frown upside down, smiles look much better on him.

“You mean it.” She whispers in awe, the ice around her heart defrosting as his palpable pain washes over her. He’d thought she was rejecting him for her “date”. He clearly wasn’t a great listener, she had no feelings for that guy it was just another part of her world that she had no control over. For some reason she wants to explain that to him, make him understand that in another universe maybe things would be different, maybe she would be allowed to want and she would explore this but this isn’t her reality, things are not that simple. Love isn’t an option for her.

“I told you. About my world, I can’t–”

“That’s just an excuse. You have a choice Sujin.” He states his word are cold as ice, he looks livid as he puffs out an exasperated breath of air and frantically runs his fingers through his hair.

Shoving him hard she sneers up at him before shouting in his face, “What choice do I have? I have control over nothing in my life, my first date is being stolen from me. I’ll probably have to kiss him too so that will also be stolen! I can’t control anything I didn’t even choose this outfit. None of this is my choice.” It’s not his fault, and he’s the one person that’s been there for her and that makes her even angrier, why isn’t she allowed to have this? Go on a date with a boy who might care for her, why is life cruel enough that this is being presented but she can’t grab onto it with both hands?

For the first time ever, he doesn’t deflate or back off like he usually does when they get to these moments, he’s usually her safety pin pulling her back from the edge of detonation so she’s not ready for him to scream back at her, “Then choose me! Fuck all of that, fuck your father.” He lifts up her phone which has started to ring again, “Fuck this guy! Just choose me, let me be your first.” They both stand still, staring at each other the jingle of her iPhone not enough to cut the thick coiling tension and then she watches in gaped surprise as he angrily slides her phone open. “Stop fucking calling, she’s not coming. She’s with her boyfriend.” Then he slides the phone close, finally handing it back to her looking at her with those hard glistening eyes. She looks at the phone and then back at him, eyes wide as the moon.

Stupefied and flustered she stutters out, “You’re n-n-ot my boyfriend. What are you doing?”

“Let me take you on a date. Pick me Sujin.”

They stand at an impasse, neither talking following the outburst but their eyes are locked having a conversation all their own. He looks impossibly young standing there asking to be chosen, he was always so shameless with his emotions uncaring about letting them ooze out of his pores. Although he was no longer saying anything, his face was screaming at her, his eyes were kneeling before her on bended knees.

When the phone vibrates again, she's so entranced that she doesn't make any move to check it so when the cab driver calls out her name from his window, she jumps in surprise at the sudden interruption.

"Ms. Kang Sujin?" He eyes them both, glancing back and forth as if he too can feel the tension laying heavy in the air between them.

After a moments pause she finally relays the message to her mouth to speak, answering quietly, "Yes. That's me."

Seojun watches her unwaveringly, never breaking eye contact to look at the driver. He's standing unnaturally straight, all of his usual swagger drained from his body as he watches to see what she'll do.

Turning to the cab, she reaches out a hand to grab the handle, the cool metal smooth in her grasp.

Pulling it open she turns to look at him one last time before making her decision, with an expressionless face she ultimately slides into the passenger seat. The leather squeaking over her naked thighs, primly she places the little white bag in her lap. When she finally focuses back on Seojun, the hurt on his face is almost too much to witness instead of hiding it like she would he lays it all at her feet, lips twisted in a broken snarl and his fingers clenched tightly by his side.

She waits for some kind of retaliation, for the switch to flick and for him to erupt on her for refusing to listen to his plea. Almost salivates at the idea of him showing her that this was all an act, he didn't truly like her once she rejected him he would lash out and whatever this was would be obliterated. No one was that good, she didn't deserve goodness.

"Text me later then. Let me know when you get home."

His voice is devoid of any anger, calm and smooth but tinged with resignation, gracefully accepting defeat and still concerned about her well-being. Surely he was created in a test tube, there's no reasonable explanation for the way he never reacts the way she expects- the way anyone would in his situation. A sad little smile spreads across his lips and it's the most despairing thing she's ever seen, she never wants to see it again not on his face. As he moves to slam the door shut, somehow still a gentleman even in this predicament, spontaneously she grabs his hand.

"Get in."

She can't believe the words that have left her mouth but she's also buzzing, why isn't she allowed to be selfish and take something that she wants? She can't promise him forever still, her life hasn't changed that drastically but she can give him today, give herself a real first date with someone who doesn't make her skin crawl.

He looks rightfully confused, she knows that she's not making any sense. Playing hot and cold. But her heart is telling her that she's allowed this, she has a choice and today she's joining herself. She's never done that before it's terrifying but maybe it'll be easier with him, maybe he can teach her how.

"Fuck that guy. Take me on a date." She whispers astonished repeating his own words , staring up at him for his response and the answering smile that spreads across his handsome face is enough to power a whole city. She almost beams back his happiness is that contagious.

He squeezes her gloved hand, sliding into the cab beside her their legs pressed closely together. She looks away, moving over discretely but he simply follows her boyish grin on his face, no one has ever smiled like that because of her; it's honestly mesmerizing.

Sounding thoroughly amused, the driver confirms her destination and she realizes she hadn't thought that far and she has no idea where they should go. Placing a burning hot hand on her knee, Seojun easily gets her attention.

"Do you trust me princess?"

She stares back at him, blooding pumping from his soulful tone and his skin on her skin. She's making a horrible mistake, she's sure of but she'll have regrets tomorrow. Boldly returning his look she nods mutely, forced to look away when he laughs so beautifully it makes her stomach drop. Today she does.

"No we have a new destination."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

She looks quizzically at said destination.

"A mall?" She scrunches her nose climbing out of the cab, brushing past him as he holds the door open for her. She tries to ignore the flapping in her stomach, his constant chivalry is a welcome surprise.

"Already doubting me princess? This isn't our date, I wouldn't bring you to a mall on our first date." He sounds affronted but in a teasing way and she wasn't prepared to hear him call this a date even though she'd said those same words herself minutes ago.

"Then why are we here?"

He opens the entrance door letting her go first, she's not sure she'll ever get used to this. He hasn't let her open one door since he chased her out of the coffee, using those long limbs every time to beat her to the door.

"You don't need to keep doing this?"

Now it's his turn to look quizzical, "Do what?"

They're walking side by side now, she notices that he's adjusted his steps to match hers. She hardly wears heels and walking in them is not her expertise, she'd only worn them because her father insisted claiming women should wear them on a date. It made them more appealing to men. She ha cringed in disgust at the comment.

"Open every door we encounter. I can open them too."

Suddenly he grabs her hand stopping her in the middle of the mall, she tries to tug her hand away no longer covered by her gloves but he tightens his hold preventing her from pulling away.

"You told me to take you on date. This is me on a date, I want to open all your doors. You picked me so just enjoy it, this is all for you." She stares at his small content smile embarrassed by his undivided focus on her. Her cheeks burning up without her permission she races away before he can see.

"Let's go."

But he's too quick, running ahead of her and walking backwards eyes scanning her face.

"Are you blushing? Was I too charming princess, did you heart flutter?" He teases her reaching out a hand to squeeze her cheeks, she smacks his hand away glaring at him.

"Shut up before I leave."

He winks in response nonplussed by her empty threat walking purposely before stopping in front of a retail store. Looking through the window she can see trendy clothes, definitely Seojun's style.

She gazes over at him unimpressed, "Did you bring me here to watch you shop?" He looks at her equally unimpressed before raising an eyebrow, "Come on princess. You have a lot to learn about me."

Still with this damn nickname and now because she hadn't reprimanded him enough it seemed it was here to stay.

Seojun walks over to a rack immediately, pulling out shirts and putting over her figure. Nodding his head before putting the article back and moving onto another rack.

I didn't even choose the outfit. Her own voice rings in her mind remembering their heated discussion on the sidewalk and suddenly it all makes sense they're here to get an outfit for her, something chosen by her.

"Do you like this?" He holds up another shirt, light blue with a cute picture of a puppy on the front. She sneers at him pushing the offending object away.

"I'm not five, why would I wear that?"

He shrugs at her putting the shirt in front of himself now, "What? I think it's cute. Wouldn't I look cute in it?"

He does, the idiot. His lips pushed out into a perfect pout matching the puppy on the shirt but before she can lie through her teeth and tell him no, another high pitched voice interrupts them.

"Oh! You are so handsome, I'm sure anything would look just delicious on you."

When she turns around she's greeted by a chipper store clerk, she doesn't look much older than them and she only has eyes for Seojun, not once looking in her direction despite being right next to her.

"Is it your first time here? Do you need help? What are you looking for?" The girl rapid fires out questions and she doesn't like the way her chest tightens watching the girl blatantly flirt with him. Clutching her fists she stalks off to a random rack not wanting to look bothered by the invasion, he's allowed to talk to whoever he wants. He's not hers nor she his.

She idly lifts a white T-shirt, it's plain besides a small upside triangle design on the pocket. She knows the brand, they're part of a nonprofit company that gives all their proceeds to children homes. She searches for her size resisting the urge to see what Seojun's doing. He startles her when he peeks over her shoulder his chin almost landing on her collar.

"You like that?" He croons into her ears appearing out of nowhere.

She twists around hoping to put some space between them only to lose her breath at the sight of him, he's removed his bomber jacket standing in a black T-shirt but that's not what catches her attention, it's the dark winding dragon weaving intricately down his bicep. The swirls of black and dark blues of the creature's body are captivating as gray smoke curls out of the dragon's mouth. "It's new." He flexes the arm, bringing it closer to her until it's close enough for her to touch. So she does. Trailing a finger from the dragon's head almost on his wrist and meandering up his arm, stopping at the edge of his shirt sleeve where the tattoo disappears. Realizing what exactly she's doing she snatches her hand away, putting the wayward appendage behind her back.

His eyes are dark when she glances up but neither of them fill the silence, she shuffles going back to the rack and absently pulling out a pair of black jeans.

"I've always liked dragons. They're larger than life and nobody messes with them."

It sounds like he's describing himself, or the persona she's seen at school. The school heart-throb with girls fawning over him and boys wanting to be him, his motorcycle, piercings and now tattoos only adding to his allure. On paper he was the quintessential bad boy but she knew now that wasn't entirely accurate. She'd seen how protective he was of his sister and how doting he was of family, he loved his family and it was clear that the feeling was mutual. And then there was the way he treated her, he was something more than what everyone saw.

Lamely she only replies, "I didn't know you had tattoos."

Thrusting his other hand into her face he shows his wrist, small letters are branded there. Initials.

GW. MH

"GW....Go-woon."

He nods agreeing, "Yeah these were my first tattoos, my mom and sister’s initials. After my father passed away I had to step up, I wanted a reminder that I had people worth living for."

She freezes at his admission, unprepared for the personal and revealing turn this conversation has taken. His face is blank but those eyes, they never lie they are brimming with emotions. She has to fight the urge to hug him, instead patting him on the shoulder.

"Your family loves you. They're lucky to have you."

They aren't the only ones but that's too much for today. She has already reached her mistake quota.

He leans into her touch, resting his head on her shoulder for only a moment before straightening up and smiling.

"Didn't know you were capable of giving compliments princess, I feel special."

She lets him break the tension knowing that he probably didn't intend to open up that much, his cheeks are dusted in red confirming her inkling.

"Don't get used to it. You hardly do anything worth complimenting."

They slip back into their usual banter, as she searches for a dressing room thankfully there's no line and she goes in. After changing she looks at herself in the full sized mirror, she tucks the edge of the shirt into her pants. It's simple but it's more her, the real her. Her father insists that they wear the most expensive clothes and she owns many different brands but most days she'd rather just dress like this and not feel like she's on an imaginary runway. Pulling the door open, she almost collides with Seojun not prepared from him to be waiting right outside her door.

He changed too, and she blinks at him.

"We're not wearing matching outfits. Go change." She states blankly.

He chuckles softly, straightening the already perfect shirt on his body. He added a silver chain and black boots to his outfit and she groans internally because she'd also planned on pairing her outfit with black boots.

"It just happened. I guess our style is compatible." He winks at her going to model in front of the mirror.

"Why are you even here? Shouldn't you be in the men's dressing room?" She hisses at him as he preens in the glass.

She gets her answer in the form of a familiar high pitched tone.

"Oh it looks great on you! You have to get it, it really shows off your arms." Then she watches in dismay as the other girl actually reaches out to touch his arm, Seojun smoothly moves out of her reach but the girl is adamant and places a hand on his back instead standing next to him by the mirror.

Her eyes squint in annoyance, he might not be hers but the outfits should have made it obvious that they were something to each other but the girl was choosing to turn a blind eye. She stops holding back. This is all leaving a bad taste in her mouth. Interjecting easily, she moves the proprietary hand on Seojun's back with a flick of her wrist.

"Do you accost all your customers like this?" She deadpans at the other girl, watching her eyes widen before her face morphs into a tense smile that doesn't reach her eyes.

"I didn't notice you there. Is she your sister?" The store clerk defers back to Seojun as if dismissing her completely and in the corner of her eyes she sees the hard glint of his jawline, he doesn't look pleased. That gives her the courage for her next action.

"Do you usually buy matching outfits with your siblings? We're on a date. We don't need your help as you can see, we already have what we need." She motions between them and their matching outfits, watching the other girl who looks ready to scream before turning to Seojun with beguiling eyes, as if begging him to deny her words.

He wraps an arm around her shoulder, pressing their sides tightly together. The other girl looks at them in disbelief before he answers in his deep voice, "You heard my girl. I'm off limits."

She tells her heart to calm down, this is all a show after all. It was about the principle of the matter, she didn't appreciate this complete stranger ruining her first date. It wasn't about Seojun in particular. He wasn't hers, she knew that. They both watch as she stomps off, angry blush on her face and retort under her breath. Sujin's tempted to follow her and hear what she's saying under her breath, but she collects herself. Turning to Seojun she complains, "This is how you act on a date? Flirting with other girls?"

He gasps at the accusation pressing a hand against his heart, "I never flirted. I told her I wasn't interested when you left the first time. I didn't think you'd be the jealous type though. "

She opens her mouth to deny that claim despite all the evidence proving otherwise but he beats her to it.

"I like it." He ruffles her hair before walking off. She stands there in gaped mouth surprise, how dare he? After picking her jaw up off the ground, they finally join the line, clothes folded in their arms. Deciding to change back into them after ringing up the order.

They get ringed up by another store clerk, when she tries to pull out her credit card Seojun looks at her like she's personally offended him.

"I'm paying. Don't bother arguing, this is me on a date."

"You two are so cute! I love your matching outfits." The cashier coos at them missing the cold glare from her co-worker in the distance.

As they leave the store she waves snidely at the other girl, even allowing Seojun to rest his arm on her shoulder to put on a even more convincing show.

She knows she's being petty but the other girl started it, she's just finishing it. Maybe next time she wouldn't flirt with boys who were with other girls, she was teaching her a life long lesson.

"You're something else princess."

As soon as they get outside, the store clerk no longer in sight she pushes his hand away. They need to redraw the line in the sand he's getting too comfortable touching her and calling her that nickname. And she might be getting too comfortable hearing it.

"That's enough. Stop calling me that." She expects him to be annoyed or hurt by her switch in attitude but instead he's nodding his head fondly with his hands held high, "I make no promises about that P. But I think it's time to get this date started."

She groans staring at this back, she'd completely forgotten to make him change and now everyone was staring at them in their matching outfits. That stupid flirtatious clerk had derailed her thinking.

"Hey! Seojun, let's go to another store. You need to change!" she yells chasing after him. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

He groans as the sensor sounds out, loud noise blaring in his ears signaling that she's hit him again, he only catches a glimpse of her before she's barrel rolling behind a pillar and out of sight.

She'd totally played him, adamant that she'd never done laser tag before. He should have known when she came after changing looking far too comfortable with the gigantic imitation gun in her hand, her hair scooped into a high ponytail. It was admittedly distracting, bringing attention to the long regal line of her neck. He noticed how the instructor paused mid sentence upon seeing her, his eyes lingering a little too long for his liking. Easily he moved between them, dwarfing her with his larger frame staring the guy down until he snapped back looking away while rubbing his neck.

She hadn't noticed the interaction too busy aiming her weapon and asking questions, he had second guessed bringing her here wondering if this was too childish. It was there first date after all and he wanted there to be others, was this thoughtful enough? But watching her roll and dive for cover he knew that he'd made the right choice, even if she was currently destroying his ego.

He had immediately fell for her tricks, running to her aid when she tripped and fell whimpering in pain on the ground. His heart had stopped as he raced over to her, her name on his tongue but before he could utter the word she rolled over, smirk on her face as she aimed perfectly in the middle of his chest, gaining the most point value. She stuck her tongue out before hopping up and disappearing into the darkness. He had stood there shocked clutching at his chest.

"Do you really have time to day dream? I don't know if you've noticed but you're losing. Badly."

She calls from somewhere and he shakes his head at her mocking comment, the trash talking has been steadily increasing with each shot she landed. He should have expected this, for her to be competitive. He's seen it at school sometimes that grimace on her face when she saw that she was second again, glaring at Suho before shoving the ranking away.

He wishes he could say that he's been taking it easy on her but he hasn't, he's been trying his damn hardest to no avail, every time he spots her she dodges him easily, before reappearing behind her and making his sensors go off. He's not the most competitive person but losing this badly is simply embarrassing, a small part of him wants to impress her.

Okay, a large part. Shoot him.

He groans when just that happens, she shoots him and that's it. Game over.

Winner flashes across the front of her camo vest. But when a radiant smile spreads across her flushed face he wonders who is truly the winner.

Cocking an eyebrow he whistles, "You sure you've never done this before?"

She tries to hide a smile but fails epically before admitting the truth. "I might have done this before, once or twice."

"You're a game shark. Taking advantage of poor innocent souls. Is this anyway to treat your date?" He feigns hurt pouting dramatically, bottom lip wobbling. She rolls her eyes at him, ponytail swishing as she skips away before calling over a shoulder, "Even if I told you, you would have still lost. I'm just better than you. Did you even hit me once?" She taunts, looking far too attractive with that snotty look on her face. He must be going crazy.

"You're such a brat. " He concedes enjoying this version of Sujin too much to take any real offense to her insults.

"Rematch?" She purses her lips before aiming right at his head, with one eye closed.

"You're on." She accepts his challenge before running over the counter to purchase more time, he trails after her knowing that he's lost much more than this laser tag game. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

She kicks his ass a second time, he does manage to land one shot on her but it only makes her even more competitive and it's a flurry after that, his censor ringing off every few seconds. It's a short rematch, her notices how other guys seem mesmerized by the beautiful girl with the near precise aim. She starts attracting quite the audience and he decides they've been here long enough. This isn't the end of their date after all, he doesn't want to waste this time.

"Alright, you win ninja remind me never to do this with you ever again."

She stands triumphantly before wondering off to change.

The ponytail is down when she comes back out, thick dark curtain over her shoulder. His fingers itch with desire but he controls the urge, he's seen what she's capable of. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ She shakes her head as he pulls out her chair but he sends her a charming smile, he wasn't joking when he told her this was how he acted on dates. Maybe it's because he only has his mother and sister but he has always respected woman immensely, doing these little acts makes him feel like he's cherishing them. His mother has never opened a door in his presence so this feels natural to him.

They're in a quaint diner with dim lighting and cushy oversized chairs, she looks around curiously taking in the minimalist artwork and splashes of color on the wall.

"Do you bring all your dates here?" She asks all nonchalance as she thumbs through the menu, surprising him when she immediately goes to the dessert section eying the different cakes. He sits in disbelief that she has a sweet tooth, she's just full of surprises today.

"Sujin." He puts iron into his voice grabbing her attention, when their eyes are connected he speaks again, "I think you know me better than that. Don't make this cheap."

It's obvious what she's been trying to do since they left the laser tag center, put as much distance between them as possible. Every once in a while her phone vibrates and he can see her tense up before declining the call. The reality of what she's done has set in and now she's putting back up her fortress. Brushing off his compliments and implying that everything he's been doing is all part of some first date playbook, he's trying not to be offended but it's hard to wrangle in his emotions.

It always is with her.

They stare at each other until a server comes to take their order. She orders a chocolate mousse cake that sounds like something his sister would love- cloyingly sweet and diabetes inducing- and he orders another slice to bring home to her, maybe he can use that to bribe her and hear more about how Sujin saved her. For himself he gets an egg sandwich with avocado and bacon, starving now after his long day. He'd gone to work straight from school and fatigue is catching up with him.

"I'll be right back." He announced abruptly, the chair screeching as he excuses himself from the table.

He splashes cold water on his face, waking himself up and clearing his mind. What will they do after this? It's clear that she's dreading what comes next. Nothing has changed, she still has to go home and he knows they'll be repercussions to today. He can't let her face that alone but getting her to agree to him being there is going to be near impossible. The trust between them is still thin, like the first layer of ice that covers a frozen lake and he's terrified to rupture it.

What is he supposed to do?

Trepidation grips his mind as he makes his way back to their table and as he draws closer, he notices that she's completely distracted, arms balanced on the armrests as she stares out the glass, lost in thought and a million miles away. She looks beautiful, if he was a poet he would write sonnets about it. He has no idea how this day is going to end, feels dread swirling in his stomach as well and he pulls out his phone angling it as he stands in front of her. Wanting to capture this moment, tattoo this image in his mind.

Click!

The loud notification of his camera breaks her reprieve and anxiously he starts to staff the traitorous device in his pocket but not before she spots him.

"Did you just take a picture of me?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." He answers innocently, sitting down and taking a huge bite of the sandwich that was delivered while he was away. Her chocolate cake is still perfect, thick and sweet the aroma wafting across the table. She was waiting for him.

Grabbing her fork, he stabs a huge piece of the decadent treat lifting it to her mouth.

"What are you doing?" She retreats attempting to steal her fork back but he weaves out of reach, laughing at her grumpy face.

"Open up princess." He tries to feed her again but she turns her head away, he has to catch himself before he smashes it on her cheek. He gets the feeling that wouldn't have ended well if he didn't have fast reflexes.

"Seojun."

"Princess."

"Don't call me that."

"Open up."

"No!"

She's fully glaring at him now, arms folded across her chest and he stares back impishly before formulating a plan.

"Fine. Suit yourself."

She looks surprised at his quick acceptance of defeat before he starts to bring the cake to his own mouth, exaggeratedly opening his mouth wide to consume the delicacy and instantly she lunges across the table looking ferocious, her mouth open wide in anger and finding an opening he twists the fork and pops the cake into her mouth.

Her face is thunderous, anger filling every line before the flavor explodes on her tongue and she freezes mid lunge looking like a chipmunk with her full cheeks and wide eyes. She slowly chews savoring the bite before finally swallowing. He waits for her reaction with bated breath.

"How was it?" He laughs at her dark stare, passing the fork back over the table. Almost too eagerly she grabs the utensil, shoveling more of the sweet treat into her mouth. Silently answering his inquiry, in minutes her plate is empty only a smear of icing remaining.

He chews his own sandwich deliberately.

When his phone starts to vibrate he doesn't detect it at first, too lost in the puzzle that is Kang Sujin; laser tag extraordinaire with a sweet tooth the size of Seoul. A gentle smile washes over his face when he sees the caller ID and he makes a rash decision that may or may not get him in more trouble. Declining the call, he goes into the contact and chooses FaceTime instead waiting patiently until a face pops up.

"Seojun, where are you? Your sister said she saw you at work earlier and you were on your way home. Did something happen?" His mother’s concerned voice rings out from the speakers.

Glancing subtly over at Sujin he sees her freeze before realization lights up her eyes and he knows she's going to bolt. Not giving her a chance to flee, he reaches around the table grabbing her chair and tugging her over until they're side by side. Both of their faces sit in the small square on his phone and his mother gasps at the sudden addition to your conversation.

"Oh! Who's this? Are you out with friends?"

"Mom, this is Kang Sujin. The girl I like." He states proudly, smiling brightly at the screen.

His mom's eyes become comically wide, glancing back and forth between the two of them before she waves back excitedly.

"It's a pleasure to meet you my dear. I hope my son is treating you well." His mother has that look on her face that she always gets before she scolds him, clearly seeing the other girl’s discomfort. Sujin is unmoving next to him, a pregnant moment passes before she blinks twice and realizes that she's being spoken to.

"He is. It's nice to meet you too." Her voice is tinier than he's ever heard it.

Worlds different from the person who looked ready to stab him over chocolate cake.

His mother's eye immediately soften at her quiet voice.

"Well I won't keep you. Make sure she gets home safely and don't come back too late. It's supposed to rain later." She warns them both waving softly before ending the call and the screen goes dark.

"What are you doing?"

She's furious. He can hear in the cadence of her voice, she's vibrating with it.

"Why would you do that?”

"Why are you so angry?" He rises to her bait, knowing this was the inevitable end to their near perfect date.

"You had no right to do that. I don't need to be anymore involved with your life."

A slap across his face. That stings and he can't control his reaction, recoiling like he's been hit.

"What was supposed to happen after today? Why did you agree to this? Was this supposed to get you out of my system?" He barks at her. He’s so annoyed this is happening in the middle of a diner, like those couples you always see and judge praying that they'll take this somewhere else.

"It was supposed to get you out of my system!" She screams back.

There's the truth, the ugly truth. It's not different from anything she's ever said to him but hearing that now after confessing to her feels like salt being poured into his wounds. Or acid behind injected into his veins.

"What about my feelings? I like you."

Harshly she stands snatching her purse and throwing down a few bills on the table, with a tone filled with venom she looks him dead in the eyes, unwavering. "Don't." ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ It wasn't supposed to end like this, his heartbroken face is frozen in her mind.

Don't.

She was selfish, a horrible selfish bitch and she used his feelings for her. That's what he would think and that was best, he needed to face the reality that one stolen moment didn't make her life brand new, she was still the broken mess he'd stumbled upon in the rain. No matter how vehemently he tried there was no mending her she was beyond repair.

But it had felt nice. Being with him, feeling like a normal teenager on a date. For a minute she'd forgotten her reality, when he called his mother it was the wake up call she needed. She wasn't the girl you brought home to your mother, at least not for him. The woman looked so much like him and she could feel their affection for each other through the phones, her own mother has never looked at her with such devotion. Jealousy crawls at her insides, she'd forgotten she was a monster until she saw them. She couldn't drag another person into her storm.

He doesn't call. She thought he would, expected him to chase after her and demand more. She stares through the window of the bus watching the raindrops slide down the glass, his mother had been right. Taking out her phone she types a message.

I'm sorry.

Staring at it, there's so much she's sorry for but mostly crashing into his life. If only he'd ignored her like everyone else this could have all been avoided, he would have been spared. She leans back in her seat with a deep sigh, message unsent.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

She's drenched standing outside her house, pacing back and forth pulling at the skin between her fingers. Her father has to know by now, but he hasn't contacted her once. It feels like the calm before the storm despite the torrential pour of rain around her.

The click of the front door opening makes a shiver race down her spine. Her father stands ominously in the doorway, face set in stone.

"Where have you been!" He screams, booming voice cutting through the fall of rain.

She instinctively takes a step back but he grabs her by her soaking shirt collar and slams her into the brick wall, she cries out as pain surges through her body. "You little bitch, I told you not to embarrass me." He hisses into her face, spit landing on her chin.

"Honey, stop! You're outside somebody will see!" She hears her mother crying from the doorway and she almost laughs at the reasoning, it's okay to beat her to pulp as long as it's inside where no one will see. It was all about upholding appearances.

"You shut your mouth! This wouldn't have happened if you raised her better!" He turns to sneer at her mother and she capitalizes on his momentary distraction, twisting out of his hold and running down the sidewalk. For a moment she thinks she's free but then a sharp pain shoots through her head and she's painfully yanked backwards by her hair. She shouts at the burst of intense pain, hot tears streaming down her face.

He drags her by her hair before shoving her into the wall, her skull bounces off the hard surface and white starburst explode behind her eyelids.

Squinting through her tears and the water soaking her face she sees her father with his fist drawn back. She waits for the blow, clenching her eyes shut. If she's lucky this will be it, it'll all be over.

But the moment drags on and the punch never lands and then she suddenly hears a voice she never expected.

"Get your fucking hands off her!"

She's barely able to lift her hand and watch as her father is shoved powerfully, falling to his knees from the impact. Rubbing at her tender scalp she peers up at her savior only to see the furious face of Seojun, his hair is matted to his scalp and he looks murderous.

"You came." That's all she can get out before her world goes pitch dark, he was here. He was truly here even after everything she said. Why? Why was he always there?

Her last cognitive image is him running frantically towards her with his arms outreached, his lips are moving and she wishes she knew what he was saying but there's no sound and then there's nothing.

Darkness.

#true beauty #true beauty kdrama #junjin #han seojun #kang sujin #the couple that should have been #early posting #I come bearing gifts

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radiantroope · 4 years

Text

Lonely Heart || Rafe Cameron

Chapter Four - Tainted Love

chapter summary: Janelle comes over to talk and starts to show her true colors. You and John B. go surfing where he gets you to open up to him about your mom. An unlikely friend saves you from falling into what seems like a trap.

warnings: angst, swearing, mentions of familial death, a beer is mentioned

word count: 4.3k+

author’s note: yeah uhhh don’t hate me for this lol. i wanna fight her too. as always, please leave me some feedback and let me know if you’re enjoying this series <3

read chapter three here!

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You didn’t leave the house much. You didn’t want to risk running into Rafe or Janelle anywhere. Topper had dropped by a couple of times just to check on you and see how your mother was doing. Sarah was over the most, refusing to let you waste away in your room by yourself. She was going back to school at Chapel Hill, splitting her time between the mainland and the island. You’d tried to insist she didn’t have to come over every other day, but she wasn’t taking no for an answer. ‘You’re my best friend. You can try and shut everyone else out, but not me.’ she’d said.

Your mother had an appointment that day to have a brain MRI. They wanted to check the tumor and make sure the chemotherapy was helping slow the growth or at least keep the tumor at bay for the time being. Her form of cancer was aggressive and there was a chance the chemo would only work for so long. Eventually the tumor would stop reacting to it and continue growing rapidly. Your parents told you the visit was boring and you’d be in the waiting room the whole time so they made you stay home.

You stared at the fresh cup of tea in front of you, robotically dipping the tea bag in and out of the scalding water. Your mind was consumed with thoughts of Rafe, as much as you tried not to think about him. You couldn’t comprehend why he’d ghosted you and started dating your best friend. Was he ashamed of loving her and feared you’d think you were replaced? Truthfully, it is how you felt. He pushed you out and made more room for Janelle in his life, letting her fill a place you thought would always be yours.

Your whole perspective on your life was forced to change. The dreams and goals you’d had when you were younger, picturing Rafe by your side, you’d instead achieved and chased by yourself. You went to college parties and drowned yourself in booze to ignore how wrong it felt being there. You had mindlessly hooked up with fraternity douchebags, hoping it would fill the void in your chest. It never did. You had tried to go on dates with guys who were so sweet and nothing short of gentlemen, but none of them managed to wow you. They weren’t rough around the edges with just enough attitude to keep you in check. They were soft, men you could walk all over and they’d let you. They weren’t Rafe. You hated yourself for comparing them all to him, but he was all you’d ever known. He was all you ever wanted.

Guilt started eating away at you for focusing so much on the boy who unknowingly broke your heart. Your mother was dying for God’s sake. You should be putting all of your attention on her and making sure she was happy in what was going to be the last year of her life. You were upset with yourself for being so angry with her for not telling you about the engagement. It wasn’t their fault your closest friends were a couple of backstabbers.

The shrill ring of the doorbell ripped you from your thoughts. You abandoned the now cold cup of tea at the coffee table, sock clad feet sliding across the hardwood as you moved through the house. You glanced down at the oversized shirt you were wearing, biker shorts poking out underneath. You had a feeling your unruly hair was sticking out in all directions from the bun it was in but couldn’t find it in yourself to care.

The moment you ripped the front door open, you tried to slam it right back closed. Bile rose in your throat as you pushed against their body, growling, “Get the fuck off my porch.”

“I’m here to talk, Y/N, please!” Janelle protested, trying to look at you through the crack in the white painted door without having it crushed. “Just give me ten minutes.”

You hesitated, pausing against the door. Words couldn’t describe how hurt you were that she’d kept this from you for years. She had been one of your best friends. She knew things about you that your own parents didn’t know — that Rafe himself didn’t know. Could it hurt to at least try and hear her out?

You finally pulled the door open, avoiding her striking green eyes and waving your arm out to let her in. You shut the door loudly behind her and moved to the couch. “Ten minutes,” you stated, sitting at one end while she took a spot on the other.

“How’s your mom?” she started, giving you a sad smile.

You shrugged once, responding monotonously with, “Fine.”

“Y/N, I’m sorry,” Janelle said softly, seemingly sincere as she stared at her lap. You kept quiet and didn’t show any change in emotion on your face, so she continued, “I should have told you. The second things changed with Rafe and I, I should have come to you about it.”

You closed your eyes for a moment and breathed in deeply as to collect your thoughts. There were a million things you could say to her right now, most more unpleasant than others. You sighed, “You knew how much I loved him, Janelle. You were the only person I told. Do you understand how much of a slap to the face this is?”

“I know. I broke, like, the first rule in girl code. I suck,” she replied, shaking her head a bit. She had been avoiding your eyes but looked back over, “We didn’t expect it, you know. It just kind of… happened. Things were really rough for both of us for a while and I guess it made us closer. We were able to connect on a deeper level.”

You stared at her, unable to read the expression on her face. You couldn’t pinpoint one sort of emotion swimming in her eyes. A weight settled on your shoulders, something within you feeling unnerved.

“Do you love him?”

There it was, a smile. The first real emotion the dark haired girl had shown you since she stepped foot in the house. Did she even care about you at all? Did she care that this was ripping you apart inside? “Of course I do. I wouldn’t have said yes to marrying him if I didn’t,” her response lit a fire within your chest, spreading through every nerve ending in your body.

“Then why did you never seem interested in him before?” you questioned, watching the creases form between her eyebrows. “You chased after Kelce for two years without giving up. You never once gave any indication that you were remotely interested in Rafe until I left, apparently.”

You were simmering in pent up anger and betrayal, jealousy sitting just below the surface. Though, you kept yourself calm, refusing to let those emotions through. You knew Janelle like the back of your hand and you knew there was more to this. You wanted to push her until she said exactly what she was thinking. The slow contort of her face into an angry scowl proved to you that it was working.

“You don’t just wake up one day and decide, hm, I’m in love with this person now, Janelle. How do you even know if what you have is real?”

“Well maybe if you weren’t so conceited and wrapped up in yourself you would have noticed,” Janelle spit, the olive toned tan to her face turning a light shade of pink. “Everyday I had to listen to you bitch and moan about how he’d never love you back. All you did was cry because you were too scared to tell him how you felt. I always loved him but you always made everything about you.”

You blood boiled under your skin. Your face became hot and you clenched your hands in your lap to keep them from shaking. Your bottom lip was sure to start bleeding soon with how tightly you bit it between your teeth.

“You weren’t there for the fights with Ward, when he called him names and made him feel less than. You weren’t there for the nights he got black out drunk because he wanted to forget. You weren’t there for the fucking cocain addiction that almost ruined his whole life,” Janelle seethed, leaning closer to you with every word she spoke.

Your jaw clenched painfully as you grit out, “How was I supposed to be there when he’s the one who cut me out of his life?”

“He cut you out of his life to send you a message, Y/N!” Janelle shouted through a laugh, a condescending smile settling on her lips. “He was so happy when you moved to California because he was finally free! He wasn’t being suffocated by you anymore!”

“That’s not true,” you whispered, shaking your head quickly. Your mind flashed back to your going away party. The soft voices and gentle touches. The way he looked at you like you were the only person he had eyes for — at least that’s what you thought.

“It is, and the sooner you accept that, the better. Rafe doesn’t love you,” the raven haired girl stated. Your glossy eyes flickered to hers. The bright green in them was gone and replaced with a cold, mossy color. “He never loved you. He never will love you the way you’re so desperate for him to. You moving was the best thing that ever happened to him — to us.”

You stayed seated on the couch as she got up and slung her entirely too large of a purse over her shoulder. Your eyes were full to brim with tears that you refused to let fall in front of her. You wouldn’t let her see how much this was ruining you. This wasn’t the girl you’d met back when you were ten years old, it was a completely different person. Or maybe she had been this person the whole time, and you had just been a pawn in some sick game. Only did you look at her when she opened the front door.

“And Y/N,” the sweet tone replaced the venomous one she used only moments ago. “Stay away from him. I don’t need you messing with his head before the wedding.”

The door slammed and you sat there, allowing the tears to flow down your flushed cheeks. You didn’t sob, you didn’t scream and throw things around like most would have thought. It was just a silent flow of saltiness that felt never ending. A numbing feeling came over you as you let Janelle’s words absorb into your head. Had you really been so blind by your own love for Rafe you never saw hers? Had you been so stupid to think the Kook Prince would fall for someone as ordinary as you?

You don’t know if it was only minutes or maybe hours that you sat on the couch, blankly staring at the wall. Eventually, you finally pulled yourself up and located your phone. There was one thing you knew would help you escape the depression spiral you were heading down. And there was one person you could call who would be willing to do it with you — despite hardly knowing you at all.

“Hello?” John B. sounded utterly confused as to why you were calling him.

“H-Hey, I uh, I know this is weird,” your voice was dry and you cleared your throat, “Do you, i dunno, maybe wanna go surfing with me?”

—

You sat on top of your board out where the water was calmer, watching John B. pull off an intricate trick with his own surfboard. You hummed in thought, wishing you could pull off some of the moves he did. You tended to just catch the biggest wave you could and ride it out for as long as possible. You’d picked up some things over the years, but just riding out a long wave was your favorite feeling. You loved the rush, like you were flying.

“You’re really good,” you complimented the brunette as he made his way back out to you.

“Thanks,” John B. chuckled, moving to straddle his board just as you were, “You’re pretty good at riding out the big ones. I bet I could get JJ to teach you some things. He’s better than I am.”

You laughed softly and shook your head, brushing your wet hair behind your back, “JJ would rather scrub Heyward’s boat to the bone than hang out with me.”

“He’s not that bad,” the Routledge boy tried to defend his friend. “Well, not anymore. He’s more… tolerant.”

You hummed in response, staring out into the open water where the edges curved at the horizon. The sun was beginning to go down, casting an orange glow over everything around you. John B. watched you, seeing the gears turning in your head. He’d barely seen you smile all day and from what Sarah had told him, surfing always made you happiest.

“You wanna talk about it?”

You turned to look at him, his soft hazel eyes saying It’s okay, you can trust me. You sighed heavily and averted your gaze to the purple and white board below you. You could feel that you wanted to cry again but your eyes remained dry, like you had nothing left in you. The hollow feeling in your chest felt like it was going to swallow you whole.

“You sure you want my demons weighing on your conscience?” you asked playfully, the corners of your mouth upturning slightly.

John B. smiled softly, shrugging a bit, “We all have our demons, Y/N. Some worse than others.”

You nodded and eyed him for a moment longer before asking, “What was it like.. to lose your dad?”

The curly haired boy sucked in a breath. It had been four years but it never got easier. His dad was all he had and then he was alone, still a child having to grow up entirely too fast. He let out a soft breath, “It was hard. I didn’t know what happened to him for nine months, and then to find out he was dead? It was like a part of me died with him.”

You nodded, silently listening along as he opened up to you.

“It was painful and ugly. I lashed out at my friends… It’s still painful sometimes. I try to think about the good things though. The fishing trips on his boat, going to work with him.. His horrendous endeavour to find The Royal Merchant,” he paused to laugh at the memory, and you did too. You’d heard enough stories about him and his friends searching for the lost gold as well. “I know he’s still with me. He watches over me. Your mom will too.”

You nodded again, bottom lip quivering slightly. Your voice was strained as you spoke, “It fucking sucks seeing her like this. Everyday I feel like I can tell she’s getting worse.”

“I regret not being around more the last couple of years. If I had known this was going to happen I would have done so many things differently.”

John B. waded his board closer to you, resting his hand on yours that was gripping your knee. His eyes were remorseful, lips turned down in a frown. His father’s death was sudden and unexpected. He understood your pain but he also had no idea how to handle knowing the inevitable was coming. He couldn’t imagine watching someone you love slowly slip away.

“Don’t think about that. Don’t beat yourself up for what you didn’t do or wish you did. Spend this time reminding your mom how much you love her and helping make these last moments she has some of the best. Make more memories with her that you’ll look back on and smile at,” he told you, squeezing your fingers softly.

You met John B.’s eyes again and nodded, giving him a soft smile. It was nice to talk to someone who didn’t exactly know you on that personal level but could also relate to you. He had experienced a loss like you were about to and it was refreshing to hear how he coped with it and get some advice. You wondered exactly how much Sarah had told him but it was nice that he was judging you. Maybe years ago, he would have thrown it back in your face, called you a snob and any other insult he could think of. Maybe it was dating Kook that changed his outlook, or he’d grown up and matured and realized the stupid rivalry wasn’t worth being a complete dick all the time.

John B. drifted away from you again when he saw you seemed more relaxed, he looked out where the sun was starting to dip below the horizon. He offered, “Why don’t you come back to the Chateau with me? Sarah’s coming over and I know she’s dying to get you to hang with us.”

You contemplated for a moment, unsure how inviting the other Pogues would be to another Kook in their company. But for once, getting out and being around other people sounded a lot better than going home and burying yourself in Ben and Jerry’s while binge watching a show you’d already seen. So you nodded and smiled, “Yeah, that sounds nice.”

—

Rafe didn’t listen to Topper’s advice of leaving you alone. He couldn’t pretend like seeing after all of these years wasn’t a sucker punch to the gut. He kept replaying everything over the course of five years in his head. He couldn’t stop thinking about what he could’ve done differently. The different outcomes of his actions replayed in his head like a broken record. What could have happened if he hadn’t cut you out of his life? Would you have ended up together in the end, despite the distance? Should he have told you how he felt that day, when it felt like your gentle touch was the only thing holding him together?

He traveled out onto the South side and watched from his truck as you and John B. left the beach. He thought about getting out and speaking to you there but instead he watched from the shadows as you strapped your surfboard to the top of your mother’s car and drove away behind the Volkswagen.

Against his better judgement, Rafe followed you. He stayed far enough behind that you wouldn’t recognize his truck. He knew his way to the Routledge boy’s house anyway. Many a night’s he had gone there when he was younger and looking for trouble, or when he got older, to pick up his sister when she didn’t have a ride. He knew that’s where you were heading. He would pretend it didn’t bother him slightly that you were hanging out with the Pogues. He’d grown more accustomed to seeing them around but the roots of the rivalry were still deeply embedded within him. He still thought they were at the bottom of the food chain.

You didn’t think much of the headlights that pulled up behind your car, thinking Sarah had just arrived. You dug around in the backseat, trying to gather the things that had spilled from your bag. The headlights shut off and it was quiet for a moment. You heard John B. curse softly and your heart nearly stopped when you heard the voice.

“Sup, John B.?” Rafe’s gruff voice filled the air, nodding his head at his sister’s boyfriend.

“Rafe,” the Routledge boy greeted back, an edge to his tone.

You slowly removed yourself from the car, turning to face the last person you wanted to see, next to Janelle. You hated the way your heart skipped a beat when his azure irises met yours. He swallowed thickly, waiting for you to make the first move, which you did.

“What are you doing here?”

“I- I uh,” Rafe’s hand came up to rub the back of his neck, eyes leaving yours to stare at the ground. “I don’t know. I wanted to see you.”

You scoffed and shook your head, reaching back into the car to get your bag. He hesitantly moved closer and continued, “I’m worried about you, Y/N. I know things are weird right now and I’m sorry about your mom but I-”

“Don’t,” you snapped, standing upright and slamming the car door, “Don’t pretend like you fucking care.”

“I do care. I just want to talk.”

“You had five years to talk, Rafe!” you shouted, voice shaking as you did so. You bit the inside of your lip and begged your body not to betray you. You didn’t need him seeing you cry. “I waited and waited for you to talk to me. I asked myself ‘why’ for years! You’ve moved on with your life, that’s fine, I can accept that. But don’t expect me to be a part of it anymore. Just go back to pretending I don’t exist.”

Even from a distance Rafe could see the glaze to your eyes. He could see your body shaking as you tried to keep yourself composed. It looked like you were about to fall apart in front of him and it made his chest ache. You always were the one to pretend to be strong for as long as you could until it crushed you. He shook his head and tried again, “Y/N, please, you don’t understa-”

“Yo, Rafe! Didn’t know you were stopping by!” you turned to see JJ Maybank bouncing down the porch steps, an arrogant smirk painted on his chapped lips. His unruly hair stuck out from the edges of his backwards baseball cap. He was shirtless, flaunting his physique in only a pair of grey cargo shorts. He’d heard you yelling and figured he may as well come investigate.

“Maybank,” Rafe greeted the Pogue stiffly, a lot more tense than he’d been around John B.

The younger blonde boy threw his arm around your shoulders as he came to your side, catching you by surprise. You glanced up at him, but his eyes never left Rafe, his smirk widening. You didn’t see the look of anger that flashed across your former best friend’s face, a fire igniting in his eyes — JJ caught it though, and he was going to run with it.

“I heard about the engagement, man, congrats!” JJ spoke enthusiastically and you had to resist rolling your eyes. You suddenly had the urge to throw up like on the Druthers, but you swallowed the feeling down. Your eyes met Rafe’s again as JJ kept going, “Don’t you have, like, a cake tasting to get to or something?”

Rafe’s hands curled into fists, knuckles cracking as he squeezed. If anyone knew how to get under his skin in just the right way, it was the Maybank boy. He breathed out slowly through his nose, choosing to ignore the comments from the Pogue. He pleaded with you, “Can we just talk, real quick? Please?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, bro. Y/N’s really busy right now,” JJ answered for you, tilting his head to look down at you, “Aren’t you, bubs?”

You stared up into the tan blonde’s indigo eyes that were screaming at you not to go to him. You knew he was trying to help you, but you weren’t friends. You didn’t understand why he came to your defense so quick. He could have just let you stand out there and allow Rafe to rope you back in like you knew he could.

“She can speak for herself,” Rafe snapped at JJ who looked back at him with a raised eyebrow. You hadn’t moved out from under his arm so clearly you had no interest in going to the Kook.

“Go home, Rafe,” you said, turning with JJ to walk up to the Chateau. “Wouldn’t want to suffocate you anymore,” you took a dig, repeating what Janelle had said to you earlier in the day.

Rafe stood there, watching as you walked to the porch, wrapped in someone else’s arms — someone he despised. His heart pounded harder in his chest the further you got away from him, like you were taking it with you. He silently got back in his truck and backed out, tires squealing as he peeled off down the road. He gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, breathing raggedly. Wouldn’t want to suffocate you anymore. Those words bothered him, knowing he’d heard something like that before but he couldn’t recall when, where or more importantly, who.

“Well that couldn’t have been anymore awkward,” John B. stated as he led you into the house.

You’d expected JJ to drop his arm the second Rafe was gone, but he didn’t, guiding you into the kitchen for you to put down your bag. You sighed heavily and rubbed your face with the hand not pinned to your side, “I’m sorry about that. And thank you, JJ, you didn’t have to do all that.”

The boy hummed and waved his hand, finally stepping away from you and moving to the fridge, “The guy’s an asshole and needs to learn he can’t always get what he wants. Especially after what happened on daddy dearest’s boat.”

You felt your face flush, looking over at John B. who held his hands up as if he was surrendering, “I didn’t say anything, swear.”

“Word travels fast ‘round these parts,” JJ clarified, walking back over and handing you a beer. He sat down in one of the chairs at the kitchen table, patting the one beside him for you. “C’mon, tell your good pal JJ what the Prince fucked up this time.”

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trvelyans-archive · 3 years

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i am on my hands and knees begging for u to tell me about lila and margot 🙏

jasmine.............. thank you for this gift

under the cut because i expect it’ll get very long <3 :) update after i finished writing: it is, in fact, very long and also took me over an hour. so. take that as whatever sort of warning you might want.

let’s start with margot !

she was born to a couple of really young parents who..... did not want to be parents. at all. they were still in the party-and-get-drunk phase of their life and didn’t want to have a kid to worry about, so a large part of her childhood was spent couch surfing between relatives, mostly her grandfather.

they were really close! he would help her with her homework, they would cook together, he would let her drink underage so that she was well-versed in beer by the time she was like. idk. 16 lol. but she felt closer to him than her own parents, who were good when they were around but. they mostly weren’t around <3

when she was 19, her grandpa starting showing pretty serious signs of memory loss and whatnot and eventually had to be moved into a home. she was living with him by that point, so she had to continue to spend a year or so of her adult life couchsurfing. it didn’t help that she was in school full-time to get an engineering degree of. some kind. i think mechanical engineering. idk. and didn’t have a job, so to pay back her roommates she took up a majority of the housework as well as picked up odd jobs on the weekend. her grandpa’s health continued to decline through this time so she didn’t actually mind being busy because then she. didn’t have to think about it at all <3

and then.............. when she was 20......... her boyfriend of a year suggested that she not only move in with him but that they get married and margot, who has never had stability ever in her life, jumped at the opportunity !

after she graduated, she found it incredibly hard to find a career (even though they were in the same program and He had no trouble finding one), so she was back to not working but her husband didn’t mind and he supported her whole-heartedly. during this time she started running and then eventually started going to a gym with a couple of her female friends from their neighbourhood! she would also spend a lot of time at her grandpa’s but his health was still rapidly declining. eventually her now-husband said that she should probably stop visiting him and margot was like “.... ok i guess”

And then. :)

she kept spending time outside of the house and started taking self-defense classes with a few of her friends and her husband was started to get very antsy. he wanted her to be at home, told her that he didn’t like her going out at night or, eventually, at all, and would find ways to keep her home every night so she didn’t go out. during this time he also started getting. um. very manipulative. he was easily triggered into starting arguments. so she increased the frequency of her self-defense classes and, eventually, they became Very Useful in an argument with her husband. so. we hate him :)

after that she filed for a divorce, moved away and changed her name to her late grandmother’s last name. she started working at a gym in her new town and eventually decided to open her own ! she had gotten the building about 2-3 weeks before the outbreak hit and didn’t have any furniture or equipment of any kind, so she met up with 2 middle-aged women from her old gym and they travelled together until one of them was bitten in a fight with walkers and dragged into a big crowd of them to be eaten and the other one was bitten and margot had to shoot her when she got zombified and tried to attack. :(

that’s where i have left off for now but i am going to develop her More the more i watch the show !!!

okay. backstory over. now for the fun bits:

her faceclaim is mackenzie davis specifically in terminator (without the. lines on her arms and whatever idk what those are) and this picture is the most margot-vibe imaginable.

the haircut was an incredibly recent choice but it came in handy during the outbreak because she didn’t have to worry about keeping hair out of her face. girlboss !

she is 6′2 :) her and her husband were funnily enough the 2 tallest people in her graduating class

she spoke occasionally to her parents after graduating and moving away but they fell out of touch a year or so before the outbreak began and she......................... unsurprisingly doesn’t miss them at all

she has 1 keepsake and it’s an old keychain of her grandpa’s and if anything happens to it. she will kill everyone in any room and Then herself !!!

she likes to where tank tops to show off her big arms. is this very ergonomical in the apocalypse where zombie bites can kill you instantly ? nope! will she do it anyway to intimidate people ? yup!

she Cannot cook. at all. she lived off of take-out and microwavable meals for the first 20 years of her life and then she always had someone else making food for her until she moved away on her own when it was back to takeout.

on the topic of food :) her fave foods are mac and cheese with breadcrumbs and meatlover’s pizza !

she will do literally anything for a good beer. anything. she keeps an eye out for them every time she goes scavenging in buildings and will try to get at least 1 bottle per trip. girlboss !

she cannot sing. in fact she’s not just average, she’s Terrible. she can, however, play mad guitar because her grandpa taught her.

now onto miss lila :)

she was born in a town a couple over from rick’s and was the younger sister of 2 ! she had a really great family and a very very happy childhood :) her dad was a wildlife rehabilitator and her mom was a landscaper who took a lot of pride in their nice big backyard and garden and Land where they. you know. rehabiliated the wildlife and what not

she worked a lot with her dad and mom at their wildlife centre and also helped her mom garden a lot (their house was on the same property as the centre so it was a nice big plot of land). she took a lot of interest in rehabilitating animals and it sparked a very early childhood interest in Caring for things (namely little wild critters) which extended to her helping out little kids on the playground when they got scraped knees and things. she always had a package of bandaids in her backpack from second grade on. an angel <3

in her final year of high school she had a very quick fling with a boy from her high school that ended… poorly. and then she got pregnant! which she. Did not expect. nor want. nor need in her life because she was planning on moving to atlanta to go to medical school and kickstart her career. her sister, who had recently dropped out of school and lost her job, decided to Take One for the team and claim the baby as hers so lila could go to medical school and stuff. their parents promised to take good care of her and they all made a plan to hide lila’s pregnancy from their town (although i’m sure literally everyone knows anyway) and then she moved away in the summer after giving birth to go to school

she quickly finished up her nursing program but was out of job for a few years until she got a job offer to be the nurse at king county elementary school aka the school were one Carl Grimes goes to school. she moved there in may and one night, when her car Squealed to a stop in front of a dog who had run away from his home and was being chased by. Um. a certain sheriff’s deputy who was intending on bringing the puppy back home <3 they got to talking and. Well. the rest is history…..

she was a very beloved member of the staff and kids would often fake sick just to come to her office and get a sucker and she grew esp close to the grimes family :D after a couple of years living in king county she got a job to start working at some fancy prep school in atlanta and decided that actually she might want to. You know. start being a mom now that she was finished with school and had a career. so she moved away from king county at the end of the next school year and was unfortunately in atlanta when it was bombed by the government at the start of the outbreak so she and her daughter and sister all died :) and that’s that !

some fun facts because that was a very depressing end to her story:

she always has suckers in her office at school and her favourites are the watermelon ones.

she can often be found gardening in her backyard or watching the birds in the trees like a little nature baby !!!

she is very meticulous about planning. she Does have a daily agenda. she Will kill you if you touch it. shane likes to leave her little notes in it for her to find when she’s at school. sometimes they are not Just cute. she usually erases those.

she likes collecting ugly thrift store paintings of animals and hangs them up in her dining room and she Does think they are incredibly funny.

she is a vegetarian !!! very unwavering about it. shane finds it annoying because he’s good at cooking steak but she just has a salad and then they’re both perfectly happy <3

sends basically everyone she knows a Christmas/holiday card every year. even the teachers at the elementary school who don’t like her and or barely talk to her !!!

she is a terrible maker of tea and usually forgets about cups before she’s even halfway through them (thank god for her). makes everyone tea when they come over except shane (stupid ass) because he doesn’t like it and usually people just politely swallow it even though it’s too steeped or. sorry idk how tea works. she just Makes It Bad ok

she perpetually forgets to do laundry. Most of her non-scrubs have dirt stains or dressing stains or whatnot (except for her Really nice clothes) which is why she tries to buy a lot of patterns. makes things easier to hide <3

and that’s it for now !!! i have so much other lore for them but i will stop here for now :) thank you very much if you read this also i’m very sorry i have twd brainworms i cannot help it. anyway ok that’s it thanks love you bye

#me writing nearly 2k of oc facts that is literally nothing more than comprehensible gibberish ? yes #also ig i'm just a villainfucker now sorry not sorry babes can't be helped when your villains are mr. jon bernthal :/#BUT ALSO we only stan pre-outbreak. after that he is dead to me so.#ANYWAY YEAH JESUS CHRIST these are probably shitty backstories and also just um lame ocs but <3 that's that #oc: margot #oc: lila #ask #thank u jasmine.... i love u

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house-of-crows · 3 years

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I’m really, really tired of purity politicking.

Words cannot EXPRESS the exhaustion I feel when yet another person who has yet to take a single Queer Studies class, crack a damn book, or so much as skim a blog post from an Elder on what really happened during the AIDS Riots/ACT up era.

Do not come for me about “Accessibility in Academia” until you’ve at least TRIED to use the astounding powers of the Information Superhighway to do more than scroll tumblr and instagram.

Things need to change.

They absolutely do. The US is a mess, civil rights are being lost and won and lost again at astounding rates. The racism problem in this country is astounding, and we’re not the only countries in turmoil. (Looking at YOU, Canada, Australia, China-)

Classism, Racism, Healthcare, Equality, social justice- there are a thousand and one reasons to be PISSED right now. And I am angry. I have been for YEARS, honestly it’s been literal decades at this point. I was painting signs and doing coffee runs back in fucking 2009/2010 ffs! I was part of the LB1103 protest!

And y’know what children?

I AM EXHAUSTED. I AM ALLOWED TO BE. FUCKING. EXHAUSTED.

I have lived through multiple foreign terror attacks, I watched 9/11 AS IT HAPPENED, I saw the loss of freedom due to the Patriot Act, I watched the Clinton Trials, Hurricane Katrina, Oil Spills, Multiple foreign wars that should NEVER HAVE HAPPENED, multiple fucking recessions, the housing market crash, the Virginia Tech shootings, Columbine, and who even knows how many trans/bipoc/hate crimes that ended in death....

And THEN we managed to elect Barack Obama, and it got a little better but it wasn’t THAT MUCH better....

Swine Flu, the largest oil spill in US history, the Haitian earthquakes, Sandy Hook, Edward Snowden revealed mass surveillance by the NSA, Ebola, The Paris Terror Attacks, Ferguson, we FINALLY got Gay Marriage passed followed IMMEDIATELY by the election of DRUMPF, aaaand...

The Pulse shooting, Manchester bombing, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, The Charlotteville Riots, the Las Vegas shooting, the Parkland shooting, COVID19 which has killed some 1.8 MILLION PEOPLE worldwide, and infected 83 MILLION SO FAR, the George Floyd protests and riots (Hi I live in MN~ That shit was fucking dangerous for all of us, activist or not) Trump REFUSED to concede leading to the JANUARY 6TH FUCKING ATTEMPTED COUP AND INSURRECTION..... and that isn’t even a complete fucking list that’s just what I remember off the top of my fucking head from the past ten godsforsaken years.

I. AM. EXHAUSTED.

I. AM. ALLOWED. TO. BE. EXHAUSTED.

We’re finally turning around in minute ways, and we have a long way to fucking go Gods know, but if we do not celebrate the accomplishments we WILL burn out and we WILL fail to hold the people responsible to account for their actions. I have been watching this fucking shitshow from a front row seat ever since my introduction to just how FUCKED healthcare is in this fucking country when I got my diagnosis back in 2017.

I am STILL feeling the ramifications of that diagnosis today because NOW I get to deal with all the fun comorbidities that are STILL popping up some four years later~ So I am on the front fucking row of the gods damned pandemic because if I get this shit I will most likely just fucking die.

To remind you, this is at bare minimum THE FIFTH FUCKING TIME I HAVE CONFRONTED MY OWN RAPIDLY APPROACHING DEMISE SINCE 2010.

You can get the fuck off my page with your damned “lol white gays be like.”

#I didn't campaign for four fucking years against Trump for this shit #I sure as hell didn't call Reps and email Senators and Congresspeople for your fucking mouth #And you're just as white as me so take several gods damned seats child #We have been fighting wars and putting out fires since before you were conceived #we are allowed to be tired and gods damned burnt the FUCK OUT #please sit down and shut up I swear to fucking god #unless you have something constructive to add #I do not want to fucking hear it here #I am constantly doing what I can to improve #and I know I have shortcomings #but holy fuck you do not get to call me out for my exhaustion #I am literally chronically ill #it is LITERALLY one of the symptoms #and I am STILL fucking doing the political works #that you fucking internet slacktivists wont #so shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh damn you #politics #local politics #long post #neg

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musical-shit-show · 4 years

Text

Two Sides: Chapter 2

Previous Chapter: (1)

Characters: Musical!Beetlejuice, Female!OC, Lydia Deetz, Barbara Maitland, Adam Maitland

Warnings: swearing, anxiety/mild panic attack, supernatural stuff, strange dreams (?)

Word Count: 1432

Author’s Note: Okay I’m not sure if anyone is reading this, but sorry about the wait on Chapter 2! I have been swamped with work this past week and don’t have a lot of time to edit chapters without my roommate getting sus. Plus ya girl stares at a laptop from 9 to 5 every day (yay pandemic) so it takes a toll on my eyes.

Anyways, this is basically another set up chapter, but it does get a little wild as the two girls show up to the Deetz/Maitland house. If you like this story so far, please like and/or reblog! Also if you have any words of wisdom for writing or just wanna chat, my ask box is open! I mentioned that I would be doing asks and putting up a prompt list, and I’ll hopefully get around to doing that this weekend, I’m just a procrastinator.

Okay I’ll stop rambling. Here’s Chapter 2!

Chapter 2

Cassandra was awoken from her hazy slumber with a jolt of a car brake. “We’re here!” Lydia exclaimed gleefully, dropping her usual mellow persona.

Cassandra blinked purposefully, strange images from a dream flashing in her vision. Stripes, vibrant green, a snakelike creature…the pictures in her mind made her feel uneasy, but she brushed them aside as she unloaded her small duffle bag from the backseat of Lydia’s car.

The house looked normal enough. Large, white and Victorian-era, it sat atop a comically round hill, looking picturesque against the rural landscape. Lydia bolted in front of her roommate, the small black suitcase she had brought rattling against the gravel driveway. Cassandra giggled to herself. She hadn’t seen Lydia this excited in a long while. As the girls made their way up the steep hill, movement on the second floor caught Cassandra’s eye. No figure was visible, but the brown-haired girl did notice the flutter of the white drapes that framed the window as they inched closer to the house. Cassandra stared up for a few more seconds before shaking her head following Lydia up the rest of the driveway.

“I can’t wait for you to meet them!” she called, Cassandra several steps behind her. Lydia’s father, Charles, and stepmother, Delia, would not be keeping the girls’ company on this particular visit. Charles was a real-estate mogul, and Delia was a life coach giving motivational speeches across the country. The only people in the house this weekend were Lydia’s aunt and uncle, both of whom Cassandra knew nothing about.

Despite her unusual dream, Cassandra tried to match Lydia’s enthusiasm. “Yeah, from what you’ve told me about them, they sound awesome!” The girls reached the door, and for a brief moment, Lydia hesitated, her hand stiff on the doorknob. Cassandra furrowed her brow slightly.

Though Lydia had been excited about finally introducing Cassandra to her ‘aunt and uncle’, she had grown more uneasy the closer they got to the house. What if she had a total meltdown? Sure, Cassandra had a passive interest in the supernatural, but not to the level Lydia had when she was younger; her roommate was far more normal, which could lead to a bit of scene when she found out the truth.

“Cassie, there’s something I need to tell you before you meet Adam and Babs,” Lydia started, “They’re well…they’re different. But you need to promise that you won’t be mad at me or freak out.” Cassandra grew worried at Lydia’s words, her heartbeat increasing rapidly as a small panic set in. How could they possibly be weird by Lydia’s standards? Were they nudists? Swingers? Republicans?

“Lyds, don’t worry,” Cassandra replied, doing her best to ease herself and her best friend, “I’m sure whatever it is, I’ll be fine. They’re your family and I want to get to know them.” With a knowing shrug, Lydia opened the creaky front door. She had a feeling this wasn’t going to end well, but it was time to let the chips fall where they may.

Lydia wanted to tell Cassandra before this point, she really did. But how do you casually mention to your roommate that you used to live with two ghosts? Lydia wasn’t very trusting with people, especially when it came to Adam and Barbara. She had grown to love Cassandra like a sister, but the longer she waited, the more awkward it would’ve become to explain. By Lydia’s twisted logic, it was best to just show her best friend the craziness she was getting herself into.

“Babs! Adam!” Lydia called, straightening her suitcase to face upright, “I’m home!” Cassandra felt a chill wrack through her entire body, though there wasn’t a single gust of wind coming from outside of the house. Suddenly, two figures appeared out of thin air. Cassandra’s blood turned ice cold. ‘Did they just fucking materialize out of nowhere?’ she thought, feeling a bead of sweat forming on her brow, ‘Am I losing my goddamn mind?’

The couple that stood before them looked ordinary enough, apart from the fact that they clearly possessed some kind of supernatural powers. Barbara was blonde, doe-eyed and was grinning ear-to-ear. Her husband, Adam, only stood a few inches higher than her, and had square-framed glasses perched atop his light brown hair. They greeted Lydia with excited squeals, enveloping her in a warm, three-person hug. They looked like they’d fit perfectly on the cover of Country Living magazine or in line at a Trader Joe’s checkout.

Cassandra was gripping the strap of her duffle bag tightly, a wave of nausea and confusion crashing over her. Her brain was firing rapidly as she attempted to sus out how these two seemingly normal people just magically appeared.

“Oh Lydia, we’re so glad to see you!” Adam said, the timbre of his voice warm and slightly nasally. He wrapped the smaller girl in a bear hug, lifting her a few inches off of the ground. Though Lydia was preoccupied trying to gauge Cassandra’s reaction, she embraced Adam, smiling slightly.

“It’s been way too long,” Barbara added as Adam deposited Lydia back onto the floor. Barbara turned to finally notice Cassandra, who was seconds away from a panic attack. The older woman, completely oblivious, beamed at the other girl, “Oh, and this must be your roommate!” She went in for a hug, but stopped in her tracks when she saw Cassandra’s strained expression.

“Lydia, what’s going on?” she said quietly, “Does your family typically….uh, teleport from one place to another?” Barbara and Adam looked at each other, confused expressions painted across their faces.

“I knew this would happen,” Lydia said under her breath, cursing herself for not telling her roommate sooner. She collected herself, running a hand through her short black bob, “Okay, Cassie…Barbara and Adam aren’t my aunt and uncle. They lived in this house before my dad and I moved in when I was in high school. They, well, they died here. They’re ghosts, technically speaking.” Adam and Barbara shifted uncomfortably.

The supernatural was not a subject that was completely foreign to Cassandra. She had always had a slight interest in the macabre, she just had no idea that her best friend and roommate’s life was intertwined with ghosts. Actual ghosts.

“You didn’t tell her?!” Adam said, bewildered. He folded his arms across his chest, clearly disappointed in Lydia. Barbara touched his shoulder, trying to ease her husband’s frustration.

“She wouldn’t have believed me!” Lydia defended, “I had to show her for myself.” Lydia and Adam bickered back and forth before all three turned to Cassandra, who hadn’t spoken a word in a few minutes. Finally, she collected herself, the others waiting with baited breath at her response to all of the madness.

“I’m not angry,” she stated plainly, doing her best to steady her breathing, “This is actually, uh, really fucking cool.” Lydia’s eyes brightened at her roommate’s words. She knew if anyone would understand her and her family, it was Cassie. “But,” she continued, “I need time to process the whole ‘ghosts are real and are also best friends with my roommate’ thing. So, is it alright if I go upstairs and we can talk more about this later?”

“Of course,” Adam replied apologetically, “We’re sorry. Had Lydia told us—” he shot a glare at her, “—that you didn’t know we were, uh, dead, we would’ve tried to appear more…normal.”

“It’s, it’s fine,” Cassandra said, wiping the sweat from her hands nervously on her jeans, “Lydia’s right, I was gonna find out eventually. Why not rip the Band-Aid off, huh?” Barbara smiled. She and Adam were quickly taking a liking to Cassie. She was funny and understanding, especially considering the circumstances. Cassie climbed the steps, her suitcase bumping into the back of her legs.

Lydia smiled at the Maitlands as Cassandra disappeared to the second floor. “I’m sorry, I tried to think of a plan and I should’ve called and—” Barbara shushed the young woman, placing a hand lovingly on her shoulder.

“We understand,” Barbara said knowingly, “But, Lydia, did you tell her about…you know…? Lydia furrowed her brow and let out a frustrated sigh. She knew this conversation would be coming her way. She knew he would come up eventually.

“No, and I don’t intend to,” Lydia stated firmly, “He should be far away from this house, at least for this weekend. We just need to make it three days, and then I’ll tell Cass. I promise.”

‘Oh, Lyds’ Beetlejuice thought, grinning as he hid in a dark corner of the house, ‘I love it when you’re wrong.’

------

Ooooh it’s finally bug man time!!! Hope you enjoyed this chapter (if anyone is reading lol). Like and reblog if you can! Thanks :)

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aceofwhump · 4 years

Note

Umbrella Academy fic recs? Please? Your recs are always so good!

Ahh I’m really happy to hear that! I wonder sometimes if my recs are good lol. I’m glad you like them!

And oh boy do I! fyi these are pretty much all Klaus whump. Hope that’s okay.

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Brothers by hanzoshimadas Summary:The next time he saw Klaus, he was different. Even more different than usual. His brother was always the eccentric one of the group, on or off drugs. He had his own style, his own Klaus-isms, none of which filled the expectations of typical gender norms, but he didn’t give a shit.Whether he was dressing up with Allison, walking around with painted nails and braids in his hair, or wearing dresses for real, all that made Klaus who he was, and he was proud of his little brother for being so unapologetically himself.This Klaus though, the one sat in the passenger seat, was a very different person, and he didn’t like that at all.

Hugs for Benjamin by Katydid_99 Summary: Klaus ODs. Again.Diego visits him in the hospital and learns more than he ever wanted to know.

Bloody Fingernails by Poshii Summary: “Klaus.” Diego says. But Klaus can barely hear him over the sound of his own heartbeat. Nausea creeps into his throat as he reaches up to rub at his face uselessly.He hits the door again this time with his fist, “LET US OUT!”((AKA: Diego and Klaus get trapped in a room together. It took EVERY ounce of my willpower not to title this ‘klaustraphobic’.))

Help! I Need Somebody! (Preferably My Family) by TonyStarkisababe1967Summary: Multiple Au’s where the Hargreeves siblings actually care about Klaus’ safety and well-being.

It’s Not Funny Anymore by Edens_Spilled_Ink Summary: Klaus is the lovable junkie-scamp of the Umbrella Academy, the one everybody cracks jokes about - until the Hargreeves siblings learn something about his life that he’s purposely hidden from them. Something impossible to laugh at.- In which Klaus is caught whoring himself for drug money, and his issues become impossible to make light of.

the visitation of the ghost by allthempickles Summary: Klaus is going through withdrawal. The apocalypse (and Luther) aren’t making it easy.

Sleepless Folk by shoelaces Summary: Klaus overdoses for the first time on a grubby couch in the tiny living room he’s just about managing to pay for, with Ben crying next to him on the counter.In which Klaus makes a mistake, Ben tries to help, and Klaus and Diego have a chat.Set several years before episode 1.

Emergency Contact by BlueFluffyDragon Summary: A somewhat short fanfiction because I need moreKlaus joins Diego on one of his vigilantes “missions” to gather some information in which Diego learns something that he really should have known before.Or:Diego becomes Klaus’s emergency contact

Encounters by Jay_Bird23 Summary: Klaus wakes up in a stranger’s house after ODing on the street (again) and can’t stop running into them. As it would seem, they have a lot of the same issues but different ways of handling them.Set after the season one finale with no age regression and a still looming end of the world scenario.This story includes and original character cause I love them

Everyone wants to feel safe in the dark by StarsAlignedinMisery (ADayDreamingDream) Summary: His gut dropped when he saw his brother laying in the tub, eyes wide with fright, pale skin littered with marks of torture and abuse. Duct tape wrapped around his wrists, ankles and across his mouth. He was naked and there were ruminants of blood in the bottom“Klaus.” Diego breathed, pushing Ryan back so that he could get to his brother. Surprisingly Klaus seemed sober, tracking his movements with watery doe eyes

Trying to be done trying. And failing by wolfypuppypiles Summary: “You cannot convince me that Diego’s heart doesn’t stop every time they announce on the police radio that they’ve found a dead junkie” - ealeczander on tumblrDiego listens to the police radio and prays the dead junkie in the gutter isn’t Klaus.

Mi Casa es su Casa by hanzoshimadas Summary: Klaus’ eyes widened as he tried to make sense of what was happening through the dizzy haze he was experiencing from the drug.“YOU PIECE OF SHIT! YOU DO NOT DO THAT TO MY BROTHER! YOU. PICKED. THE WRONG. GUY."He knew that voice.Did he know that voice?Klaus rested his head against the leather seat as he struggled to remain conscious, soon finding himself falling and falling and falling and…

a couple of band-aids won’t cover the pounds of flesh taken by cancerthecrabbo Summary: When everything is just a little bit different, Diego gets to the motel just a bit earlier, and Klaus is found before getting on the bus, things get a little bit better once the Hargreeve siblings come to realize that Klaus is in need of more help than they first thought.

Wild Eyed Boy by intheflowers Summary: Klaus dropped into Dave’s life with a flash of blue light.It was the first time Klaus suprised him, but it was far from the last, and while at first he’d wondered if Klaus was maybe a little mad, it wasn’t long before he was certain that he really, definitely was.Not that it mattered much. Klaus had stolen his heart long before then.

silent as the grave by orphan_account Summary: Diego gets involved in trying to break up a drug ring in the city, only to find that Klaus is a little more involved than he initially expected.

life’s but a walking shadow by SydneyCarton Summary: Here he is—a junkie with nothing to his name except used needles and few bags of pills and powder at the bottom of his coat pockets—mired in a bog of addiction into which he walked willfully. How easy it would be, to sink until a roof of water concealed him from everything he’s been running away from.***Klaus wanders to the edge and Diego pulls him back again.

Don’t you know it’s no good for you? by imabagofcats Summary: Klaus is not Okay, that should be obvious to everyone… Except why can only Ben (and Diego) see that?Set after their fathers death but before the day of the apocalypse.

Not Completely Forgotten Yet by Littlemissmimi Summary: What if Patch didn’t find Klaus when she searched the motel?Her call had at least reminded the others that Klaus was missing, but, well, Five was adamant about focusing on the apocalypse instead of “The Junkie” (He had a name, you know) and Luther seemed inclined to follow.Diego may not have approved of his brother’s choices, but god dammit he was still their brother and he still deserved to be saved.

All the tears you never know about by WickedCinnamonRoll Summary: Diego wishes he didn’t live a life always worried the next dead junkie he hears about has his brother’s name and face

Scar Tissue by MzMarbles Summary: How the hell did Diego get that epic scar? A few years before Sir Reggie kicks the bucket. Set after they’ve all left the house and Luther has left the planet. One shot.

it’s not as good as it used to be by plingo_kat Summary: “The recovery position.” Klaus laughs to himself until nausea forces him to swallow rapidly and pant, sweating. Maybe he should turn onto his side, just in case. Drowning in his own vomit would be such an inglorious death.

I think we’re alone now by nishiki Summary: As Diego finds his brother Klaus on the brink of death in that crappy motel room, he decides that taking care of his brother is more important than saving the world.

Oh Brother, How I Missed You So by StupidGeniusSummary: “Don’t do this.” Luther begs. “Don’t do this.”He can’t let another brother die on his watch. He’s supposed to be number One. He’s supposed to be a good leader, a protector. He’ll admit he’s not the best at it, sometimes, but it’s not his fault Klaus left. Right? There’s nothing he could have done, back then.Is there?—The scene at the rave goes a bit differently.

Why do you only call me when you’re high? by Nerdygeekflower Summary: I found a tumblr promt by legendarywhump when looking through an Umbrella Academy tag and it ate my brain but the promt gives away a lot of the plot so…Klaus is kidnaped (again) and tortured (again). His Captor seems to know a lot. And have a lot of plans, not just for Klaus but also for his siblings.a heavy Klaus torture and recovery fic that I wanted so I wrote. + Some long ass author’s notes because that’s how I roll.NOW HAS SEQUEL

#whump #the umbrella academy #klaus hargreeves #diego hargreeves #ben hargreeves #mostly just them tbh #fanfics #fic recs #mods fic recs #mod post #mod replies #ask #anon

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fullmetaldevil-blog · 5 years

Text

Stitched AU: Halloween Birthday Bash pt. 2

Lol boy these pages are rapidly racking up along with the demon count.

October 30th has arrived with the awaited guest arriving along with some more surprises. Allison is pulling out all the stops to accommodate her guests while Tom has a little project in store. It is a time of learning as they all learn a little more about each other and the gaps once filled with hesitation and fear are slowly being fulled with understanding.

I hope you all like the story as I got 1 more chapter to go then this tale is at an end. It’s gonna have to run past Halloween as life is slowing things down a touch.

SINdy belongs to @trashboatprince

Ben and Shadow belong to @zanzaflux

Bendy belongs to @soniccrazygal

There are guest mentions of Gingie who is SINdy’s adopted grandfather figure who is owned by @pipesflowforeverandever

On with the show~!

October 30 (SINdy’s side)

SINdy was up bright and early since he was excited that the day had finally arrived for him to meet Benny's parents. His mother said that she would welcome him in her home regardless and that he shouldn't worry. He had to admit he was still nervous and wanted to make a good impression, but he really didn't have much in the terms of a gift. He couldn't exactly wander about the studio and the only thing the music department had to offer was various instruments and sheet music. He glanced down at the folder he put together with his dad's help before looking back at the ink puddle that lead him to Benny's world. He hoped everything would work out ok, he really liked the idea of being able to come over and to not have to hide. Taking a deep breath and resecuring his present he pushed a glove into the ink and stepped through.

SINdy's gloves were the first to come through the portal as they firmly held onto his gift and sign. However the rest of him wasn't so fortunate and his body tumbled ungracefully out the portal firmly panting his face onto the pillows that Benny kept on the floor for him.

'Thank heavens for the pillows' SINdy's sign read as he sat himself up before standing and lightly brushing himself off. He quickly double checked his package to make sure it wasn’t damaged before walking to the door. His hand hesitated on the door knob, he had to admit he was a bit nervous, but wanted to look on the bright side of things and summoned up his courage and opened the door.

SINdy’s eyes grew wide as the backyard was dyed with pale yellows and blues of the early morning sky. Small dew droplets kissed the grass and some of the flowers that had yet to open their petals to welcome the dawn of the new day. He stood there admiring the yard before spying a cluster of large orange objects with black markings in them. Taking caution to avoid the damp grass the cardboard demon approached one of the objects realizing it was a bag and that faces has been painted on them. There was even one of him! He giggled silently to himself as he eagerly looked over the bag before remembering his reason for being there and carefully stepped towards the back door. He stood before the barrier that separated the portion of Benny's world he traversed and the rest of his friends world that was off limits. He gingerly lifted a hand up and knocked on the door.

---- Benny's side ----

Allison danced about her kitchen twirling pots and pans of as many breakfast items as she could think of. She knew her own demon had a sizeable appetite and wasn’t certain as to her soon to be guest for the weekend, let alone the guests that would come a bit later. It was a good thing Tom had agreed to be her errand boy to make trips to the market for her so she can supervise the events. A grin graced the womans face as she set down a bowl filled to the brim of sliced fruits as she took a step back to look over her table.

The table was covered in cut fruits, sausages, french toast, waffles and the batter for the pancakes that just needed to be whipped up and thrown on the stove along with the eggs and this little feast was done. Allison hummed as she grabbed her whisk and began to stir the batter when a small knock at the back door caught her attention. SINdy had arrived. Setting the bowl and whisk down she wiped her hands on her apron and strode to the back door opening it.

Before her stood a small demon the same height as her son and ironically yellowish just like him, but almost like the yellowing of paper rather then sepia tones. However this little demon before her had very off model round yellow eyes and pupils which would have come as a small shock if she hadn’t seen Benny’s drawing of his friend in advance. What surprised her was what looked like ink lightly dripping from his eyes and part of his widows peak, something that she took as a sign of stress which she was guessing was normal for this little demon. A pink heart resided in the toons chest which was the heart she assumed was the heart that Benny had mentioned that if pulled out, Confessional will come out. A bright smile graced his features as he set a folder down and held up a hand. Wait. There was no arm attached. It was just a floating glove while his other hand held up a piece of cardboard.

'Good Morning Mrs. Connor. Nice to meet you, my name is SINdy!'

Allison looked down at the little cardboard demon before she bent down and gently scooped SINdy into a warm hug. "Nice to meet you too SINdy." she chuckled. She had to admit she couldn’t find it within herself to be afraid of a little demon that reminded her so much of her own. SINdy was being so polite and formal she found it too adorable to not pass up.

SINdy was shocked by her hug, he wasn’t expecting such a kind and warm welcome from the start. He wasn’t even getting many whispers from her as he would with some of the other people he’s met.The few whispers he did hear were small regrets that he remembered Benny telling him about and that they were things beyond his mother's control. She was a kind soul who deeply cared about her family and friends. He happily wiggled in her arms wearing a huge grin, she liked him and was accepting of him! His excitement paused when he felt her drawing him towards the house.

His hands shot up waving at her before pointing towards his sign.

'Wait. I brought Benny a present!' He pointed down at the folder with a little ribbon tied around it.

Allison cradled SINdy in one arm and grasped onto the folder with the other. "How about I hide this for now until it's time to open presents. Ok?" SINdy quickly shook his head in agreement before he found Allison gently poking him in his nonexistent nose. "For now how about joining us for breakfast?"

'Yay!' SINdy swayed in Allison's grasp before he was brought into the home and she closed the door.

SINdy stared wide eyed into the kitchen at all the different items that he's seen in other universes. He even recognized some items he's seen at grandpa Gingie's. He didn't know Bennys family had similar things. Allison chuckled at the small demon who frantically looked around the room trying to take in the sights. She gently set him down watching him wander around while she pulled out some plates from the cupboard.

"Want to help me set the table? They'll be out once they start smelling the food." Her voice drawing SINdy’s attention to her as she held out a small stack of plates.

'Sure!' SINdy happily accepted some of the plates from Allison and she showed him how to set up the table before she resumed mixing the pancake batter before pouring small amounts into the pan while sprinkling in a few white chocolate chips.

Allison watched SINdy out the corner of her eye as the little demon paced back and forth around the table helping to set up. It was like watching a version of Benny wandering around, it warmed her heart that Benny's friend really was a sweet little boy like him. She felt some of the tension leave her shoulders as she turned back to continue cooking. She realized she had nothing to worry about with this little demon. Humming drifted through the air to accompany the sizzling sounds of the pancakes that no where near rivaled their sweet smell. It was making her mouth water. She quickly laid out the last of the pancakes before starting to cook the eggs. After a time she felt a small tug on her pant leg and looked down to see SINdy holding his sign.

'I finished setting the table. Now what do you want me to do?' He tilted his head slightly.

"Well if you want, you can start eating first since they are taking their sweet time getting up." Allison gestured to the table with all the food before pouring the scrambled eggs into a bowl.

At her comment SINdy's eyes went wide at all the food she had prepared. Sure he saw it when he was setting the table, but he thought it was only for the family. He looked back at her confused while the words changed on his sign.

'You mean, I can eat breakfast with you? I didn't set a plate for myself. I thought it was just you guys so I put the spare away.'

Allison looked at the table only seeing 3 plates, she chuckled before looking at SINdy. "Silly of course you're eating with us. Why else did you think I asked for you to come early. I don’t invite anyone over early and not feed them like I would my own."

Allison soon found SINdy leaning against her leg with his gloves grasping onto her before one glove floating up with 'thank you' written over and over along with a heart. 'Huh, this must be how he hugs' she thought to herself while watching the little grateful demon.

"Now go sit at the table while I get you a plate."

SINdy nodded and immediately booked it to the table trying to get onto the chair while Allison had gone to the cupboard to pull out a plate and cup before grabbing a fork. When she turned around she saw the little cardboard demon struggling with getting onto the chair. She chuckled and set the plate down before gently lifting him up onto the chair properly. Once he was properly situated he flashed her a big excited grin before looking over her shoulder and somehow his smile got even wider before his sign floated up.

'BENNY!'

Allison looked over her shoulder to see Benny standing in the doorway with his father completely gobsmacked. The plushtoon was too shocked for words as he looked at SINdy then at Allison in a mix of shock and confusion.

"W-what's going on?" The toon finally locating his voice.

Benny couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Sure it was normal for SINdy to come over, but they always stayed in the hut. What was he doing in the house, let alone at the breakfast table? What’s going on? The plushtoons mind raced a mile a minute trying to process what was going on while Alison looked at his confused face chuckling.

Allison checked on SINdy making sure he was situated at the table before leaving to attend to her own demon. She bent down and gently rested a hand on Benny's shoulder. "See 30 years ago Thomas finished the prototype ink machine at this time. Not long afterwards you were born so while your Birthday was technically the 27th, we decided to celebrate it alongside Halloween since they were so close. After learning about your friends I decided to invite them over to spend the day with us on Halloween. Since SINdy was your best friend and the only one who is still in a version of the studio, I invited him to come early to spend 2 days with us."

As soon as Allison's words sunk in Benny firmly attached himself to her in a tight hug happily squeaking away before words finally formed. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Benny couldn't believe it. Not only was his folks trusting his friends, but they even invited them to come over to spend time with them all for his birthday! He would have never have thought that his friends would ever be able to come over and spend time with him openly rather than hiding in the hut all day. His dreams of wanting to play openly with them was becoming a reality.

"Now they can come over on the promise that they behave themselves." a rough voice sounded from behind. Benny turned to see Tom scratching the back of his head while yawning. "As long as they behave they can come freely in the house."

The older mechanic soon found a demonic anklet as Benny released Allison and glued himself to him happily squeaking his thanks to him as well. While Benny was being affectionate, Tom looked up at the small demon at the table whom Allison had described him as Benny's best friend. Tom carefully strode to the table with Benny still on his leg before holding out his hand to the cardboard demon.

"Nice to meet you. As I'm sure you heard from Benny, my name is Thomas Connor." Tom tried to smile, but it was cracking as he was trying to pry Benny off with his spare hand which was proving to be difficult as the devildoll was firmly glued to his leg.

SINdy could hear the whispers of Tom's past, the regret, the pain and all the negative emotions he had with his dealings with the ink machine. But they were whispers as the man was trying to fix his mistakes as he was trying to be a father to the results of the ink machine. Even though at the moment Benny still hadn't let go of his leg despite his father's efforts.

A smile grew on SINdy's face as he reciprocated the gesture slightly shaking Tom's hand while he held up his sign. 'Nice to meet you as well. My name is SINdy. Thank you for allowing me to come over.'

Tom nodded before bending down using both hands to finally pry Benny off his leg. He chuckled before setting Benny down next to his friend at the table before grabbing a coffee mug from the cupboard. Allison sat down and started dividing out proportions of food to the chattering demons. SINdy's eyes were sparkling as Allison loaded up his plate with white chocolate pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage and a few pieces of fruit. Benny had a good sized stack of waffles and fruit he was pounding down eagerly with Tom telling him to slow down that the food wasn't going anywhere. SINdy was initially shy about eating because of his second mouth, but after some encouragement from Benny he finally started digging in. Allison and Tom were both surprised by the second mouth that split SINdy's head in half but considering their own demon has a mouth that spans the length of his stomach they weren't too surprised. SINdy's smile grew a little more when he realized that they didn't seem to be bothered about his eating method and simply asked him if he wanted more pancakes. Though Allison was quick to notice that Sindy had yet to touch his orange juice and realized that with how his mouth works that he would spill it all over himself since it didn’t open the conventional way. She briefly left the table and got him a straw for which he happily thanked her and proceeded to enjoy the citrus beverage alongside Benny who was already on his 2nd glass of milk.

Tom quietly watched SINdy eat, studying how his 2nd mouth worked and mused to himself of seeing Benny and his friend SINdy both having their second mouths out in full chasing after something. It wasn’t surprising that Benny had a friend that was just as much a bag of tricks as his was. Though he wondered if SINdy was like Benny and had a monsterous form as well since the two were similar. Curiosity was getting the better of him, but he decided to let sleeping dogs lie and not ask.

"So SINdy" Allison's voice sounding above the pleased hums at the table. "Tell us about yourself. Do you have any family?"

SINdy's sign floated above while the words formed. 'As Benny told you, I live in the studio still and am trying to find a way out with my father. It's been hard because it's just the two of us as the Ink Demon in our world is trapped with us. He stalks the halls and is really scary.' A small frown formed on his face.

"I see" Allison gave a sympathetic look, understanding a little more about the demons situation. "So how's your father, is he doing ok with you being here?"

A bright smile swiftly returned to SINdy's face 'Yep! He's doing fine and he's resting in his department right now. He's the one that gave me permission to come on the promise that I'd be careful.'

"Department? What area does he work" Allison smiled while listening to SINdy's story giving him her undivided attention, Tom on the other hand opted to leisurely listen while sipping his coffee.

SINdy made a silent laugh 'Oh, he's in the music department. After all he is the director of the department, Sammy Lawrence.'

Tom sprayed his coffee choking at the cardboard demon's comment while Allison looked at him wide eyed at the reaction. The older mechanic taking a few breaths before composing himself. "Wait. Sammy Lawrence, as in the Sammy Lawrence head of the music department. Mr drama queen Sammy?"

SINdy tilted his head slightly at the comment confused. 'Yes, but he isn't a drama queen'.

Benny saw the look on SINdy's face and opted to clarify. "See in our world we have a Mr. Sammy Lawrence as well, like your dad he is also the director of the music department. Well former director as we aren't in the studio anymore. Our Mr. Sammy is really fun to play with. He comes off all stuffy, but after awhile he relaxes and livens up a bit. He must get along really well with Henry and Tom cause his face turns red every time they go over the photo albums and he shouts a lot about the photos demanding a copy. He must really love them."

It was Allison’s turn to nearly spray her beverage, but she barely managed to try and contain herself as best she could. It was cute to think that Benny thought that Sammy's face turning red and his shouting was because they got along. The reality was both Henry and Tom were like vultures circling a carcass with Sammy as he was a very easy person to get riled up. It was even easier as the family album was full of tender or hilarious moments involving much of the former staff and the toons. It just so happens that Sammy gets very worked up about his photos as he likes to think he holds himself to higher standards even though under that hard nosed exterior is a man who cares about the demon’s well being. If anything Sammy is embarrassed he got caught showing his feeling and Tom and Henry pounce on him every time.

SINdy gave off a peal of silent laughter before he held up his sign. 'My dad is really nice. Though cause of the ink he has his occasional moments but he recovers quickly enough. My dad loves reading to me. Sometimes we go in the recording booth to play some music together since it's mostly soundproof.'

"Sounds like your father is a really nice man" Allison chimed in as she set more pancakes on SINdys plate.

'Yep! I love him this much!' the little demon smiled brightly while spreading his hands out to emphasize his point.

Meanwhile Tom wore a mischievous grin on his face while drinking his coffee. He couldn't wait to tell Sammy about his 'son' from another dimension. The former music director would have fits, shame he wouldn't get to see it though, but hearing the conniption would be just as satisfying. Little did SINdy know, he just gave the aged mechanic plenty of ammunition to go harass their former coworker. If Tom were a toon himself he would be sporting his own set of devil horns and a pitchfork as he was looking forward to a little later in the day when he knew Sammy would be awake.

The remainder of breakfast went by with SINdy and Benny both polishing off the reminder of the meal and both volunteering to help Allison with the dishes. She laughed as Benny dried the dishes and SINdy raced around putting them away. The chores went by like clockwork and they had the kitchen cleaned up in no time.

"Allright boys come with me into the living room." Allison gestured while grabbing a small stack of holiday magazines. She was met with two grinning faces as Benny and SINdy followed her into the living room.

Allison had the boys sit on the couch while she laid out the magazines on the coffee table. The pamphlets were covered in Halloween costumes and decoration ideas. The two demon's eyes sparkled at all the different concepts ranging from child friendly to horror show. They never knew there was so many different things for Halloween. Each toon lightly fingered through the stack giggling at all the ideas, though at a few points Allison had to wonder if it was excited giggles or of them getting a mischievous idea.

"What do you boys want to be for Halloween?" Allison's voice breaking the toons out of their giggle fest.

"Hmmm…" Benny lifted up a magazine that held different costumes designs and started to flip through the pages.

SINdy grinned before holding up his sign 'Grandpa Gingie gave me a shark costume!'

SINdy reached behind himself and pulled out a blue and white costume. He hopped off the couch and pulled the costume over his head and let it slide down letting the shark hoodie rest on his head. A huge grin rivaled the fabric teeth that lined the hoodie as SINdy happily showed off his costume. He loved the costume because it didn’t require arms!

"Awww that's so cute" Allison cooed while Benny cheered for his friend. "So Benny did you pick one?" She turned her attention back to her own toon.

"I liked this one" Benny held up a simple bee costume design. "I'm already yellow so might as well go with it." He handed his mother the pamphlet so she could look at it. “Plus I have a good amount of black and yellow fabric”

Allison hummed as she looked over the design. It was simple enough as all they needed was to make a little fluffy brown vest with little white wings and to have striped shorts. The design was cute and was perfect as Benny could easily wear a small black long sleeve just in case the night air was a little too cold and his sepia yellow coloring fit perfectly with the costume. She noticed at the corner of her eyes that SINdy was looking over the costume with a small frown.

“What’s wrong SINdy?” Allison lowered the booklet to look at the toon alongside Benny who noticed his friends change in demeanor.

‘It’s just I wanna be a bee too, but I also wanna wear the costume grandpa got for me.’

Benny tilted his head while listening to his friend. “Why not be both? I don’t think there were any rules saying you only had to wear one costume for the holiday.” he looked to his mother for confirmation.

“He’s right SINdy. You can wear both if you want to cause no one is stopping you.” Allison chuckled before having SINdy lean against her with a wide grin. “For grins I might even dress up as a bee as well so we all can go together.”

Both demons cheered and eagerly set about trying to make their costumes. SINdy entrusted Benny to make them since as a stitched demon he excelled in any and all work dealing with fabrics. The pair rushed to the toons room taking the designs with them along with a pair of black long sleeves and pants that Allison lent them for her costume. Tom barely dodged the pair as they eagerly dashed down the hall, leaving the man baffled as to what they were so eager about.

“So what are the conspiring duo up too?” Tom sighed as he rested on the couch relaxing looking rather pleased with himself. He had to admit the resounding tantrum Sammy threw on the phone made everything right with the world. All is well.

“Well for Halloween the boys and I are gonna dress as bees to go trick or treating. It was simple enough and Benny was more then willing to make the costumes.” Allison scooped up the remainder of the Halloween magazines and stacked them neatly on the coffee table before one of them caught her eye. She set the stack down while lifting the small booklet out and a grin grew across her face before she looked at Tom.

Tom flinched at the look, it screamed ‘honey do’ as he tried to edge away from the couch before a melodious voice sang his name.

“Toooom~” Allison held up the picture for her husband to see despite his ‘no honey no’ face. She lightly swayed the photo of a stroller with a small beehive frame built around it with the baby dressed as a little honey bee.

Tom gave Allison his best pleading eyes as she was suddenly pouring on the charm. She even batted her eyes and him giving him a sweet innocent look. God he hated it when she did that. He already felt his resolve breaking the more she played cute while she continuously held the photo in front of him. The final straw that broke the camel's back was Benny and SINdy eagerly running into the living room to show off their bee costumes. Damn these kids! He had to admit they looked cute as they eagerly ran up to Allison to show off as they happily twirled in place before handing over what he assumed was her own costume. Wait, is Benny’s friend dressed with a bee costume over a shark costume? A beeshark? Tom didn’t have long to ponder before the next thing he knew, all eyes were on him with the only thought running through his mind; confound it all.

“Fiiiiine” Tom loudly groaned before snatching the photo out of Allison’s hands. “What exactly do you want me to make?” he looked over the photo.

“I was wondering if you can take that old red wagon Norman brought the other day and can make it a little carrying cart to house the toons on the off chance they get tired from Trick or treating.” Allison happily chirped.

“Well I can use the wheels and base of the frame as the wagon itself needs some work. I’ll have to make a frame from scratch due to circumstances. I think I might have enough materials to make it.” He gave a slight smile for which he instantly found himself with a demonic anklet and a second leaning against his leg with his glove clinging to him.

“Allright boys, while Tom is doing that why don’t you two go play outside for awhile?” Allison chuckled as Tom awkwardly waddled to the door trying to head to his garage and workshop. Her answer was a two sets of ‘oks’ as they released her husband and dashed towards the door. “Take your costumes off.” she shouted after them.

A smile tugged at Tom’s face as he watched Allison chase both toons back into the house to have them take off their costumes so they won’t get them dirty. In a way he was thankful that Allison seemed to have things under control for the most part as he himself can work on the little project he was asked to make. He already had an idea in mind as he knew that what he needed to make needed to be large enough to house more than just one toon.

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

The evening hours dyed the sky amber and scarlet with small hints of magenta and violet. Benny and SINdy were both resting in the weeping willow trees watching the sunset creep in the horizon. Both toons were enjoying the small touches of the warmth from the light along with the subtle coolness of the night air as it was slowly settling in around them.

“Benny! SINdy! Dinner!” A voice called out from the house gaining the demons attention.

“Guess it’s time to head inside.” Benny grinned as he watched the last rays of the sun fade plunging the sky into violet and blue hues.

SINdy nodded his head before he carefully followed Benny down the tree and headed back towards the house. He couldn’t wait to find out what dinner was as he could already smell hints of whatever was on the menu, and that alone was making his mouth water.

The pair entered the home and washed their hands before coming to the dinner table to find that Allison was setting out baked chicken along with a full pot of mixed vegetables and some rice. Benny looked around the room noticing his father wasn’t inside.

“Where’s Tom? Is his still in the garage?” Benny chirped while lightly tugging on Allison’s pant leg.

His mother looked up towards the clock before looking around the room. “I guess so. He’s not in the house. Do you want to go get him for me?”

As soon as the words left her mouth she barely caught a glimpse of the fine amount of dust that has settled on them before it dissipated. She blinked a few times before a laugh bubbled up at the sudden use of toon logic. That was the fastest she’d ever seen Benny move, she didn’t even know he could use that gag. It must be from being around another toon like himself as even SINdy was gone.

---- Out In The Garage/Workshop ---

Tom was steadily working away in his workshop putting together the base framework he had drawn up on his table. He set down the piece of wood to double check it’s measurements alongside his quickly drawn up blueprint before he felt something tug at his pant leg. He looked down to see both Benny and SINdy.

“Dinner’s ready” Benny pointed towards the door.

A quick glance up at the clock made Tom realize how late it had grown and that Allison most likely sent the toons to give him a break. He stretched wincing from the symphony of cracks and pops from his back while shooting a look at Benny daring him to say something. The toon just grinned at him before motioning towards the door.

‘How is your project coming along?’ SINdy held up his sign while looking at the odd frame resting atop the base of the wagon.

SINdy’s question earned a small smile from the mechanic as he pointed at the cart “The base framework is more or less set up since it’s pretty basic. It is quite sturdy as even I should be able to sit on it with no problem. I just need to finalize a few things, install some panels and get a few cushions so it will be a comfortable ride rather than just sitting on wood.”

Benny and SINdy circled the soon to be cart while Tom explained each portion. Benny felt it was oddly large as it would be just him and SINdy riding it if needed, but he liked the idea of being able to get a lift if he got tired. He immediately ran up to his father flashing a huge grin. “After dinner can we help you finish making it?”

“I dunno” Tom scratched the back of his head. His answer immediately attracted both toons to his legs giving equal pleading looks, both were laying it on thick. “Fine, but.” Tom pointed a finger at each one. “You have to clean your plates and help clean up the kitchen before coming out to help.”

The mechanics answer was instantaneous as both Benny and SINdy cheered promising to help while they both grabbed Tom by his hands dragging him to the door to head back inside the house. He stumbled a few times trying to keep up with the energetic toons silently begging for them to take it easy on him as he wasn’t as young as he used to be.

Allison had the table completely set up for the trio when they came back inside. Benny and SINdy were helped to the table while Tom washed his hands and got ready to dig in. Benny and SINdy immediately pounded down their vegetables first making Tom wonder if they were racing to see who finished their plates first. Once both demons finished their veggies they both happily accepted the baked chicken alongside the little stuffed Cornish hen that Tom muttered about them being ‘turkey buzzards’. Allison didn’t even attempt to acknowledge her husbands comment and rather waited to see the toons reaction to the stuffing. She rested her chin on the palm of her hand while she watched Both Benny and SINdy take the first bite of their chickens.

Benny’s pie cut eyes grew wide before he looked at his mother quickly swallowing “This is so good! It’s sweet!”

Benny’s statement got a nod from SINdy as he held up his sign with his free hand ‘I love the stuffing Mrs. Connor. It’s so fluffy and good!’

“I’m glad you boys like it, someone.” Allison shot a look at her husband. “Doesn’t like the small hens as they feel that they aren’t fulfilling as they are meant to be a single serving.”

“I just don’t like how you have all those tiny little bones” Tom quickly defended himself while gesturing to his bird.

“Well if you don’t like it, they can have it” Allison pointed at both Benny and SINdy who looked at Tom pleadingly.

The man grumbled and he pulled his plate closer to himself making sure that the demons were well aware of his claim to the food. He didn’t want to admit that the only real reason why he didn’t like the hens was because there was never enough of it. The way Allison seasoned and stuffed them was the perfect combination of sweet from the honey and a hint of spice from the mustard that he simply couldn’t get enough. If anything he was silently loathing that the demons liked it as he was hoping that they wouldn’t want theirs so he can swipe it later. Then again, he learned that SINdy had a fair sized appetite that rivaled Benny’s so the chances of him getting any leftovers were slim to none.

Allison chuckled as Benny and SINdy both make quick work of their meals and helped clean the table of all the dishes alongside Tom. He set about washing the dishes while Benny and SINdy dried them and put them away while Allison slipped out of the groups sight to retreat to the pantry to retrieve a small pink box. By the time Allison got her prize and came back into the kitchen she was shocked to find that the group was gone.

“Tom? Benny? SINdy?” she called out only for her voice to be met with silence.

Lifting a brow Allison set the box on the table before heading out to the garage. A smile tugged at her as she stood in the doorway watching Tom sitting on the floor while Benny and SINdy both watched him while he worked and occasionally helping him hold up a piece of the frame for it to be hammered in place. Deciding to let the group work, Allison lightly strode back to the house setting out 4 plates and forks for when the group was done.

--- Inside the garage ---

“And that nail goes here.” Tom pointed at a spot for which SINdy nodded and helped him hold the frame in place while Benny hammered in the nail. “That’s it for this part.”

Benny and SINdy hopped off the frame allowing Tom to look it over properly and even he himself hopped up on the framework to make sure it could hold the weight. He doubted the toons weighed much, but he’d rather be safe than sorry. He gave it his seal of approval before hefting the frame onto the cart and started to screw it down to the wheel base. A light tug on his pant leg redirected his attention to SINdy who sheepishly held up his sign.

‘Mr. Connor, what made you become an engineer? How come you built something like the ink machine when you are capable of building so many things? I’ve seen other worlds where there were other Thomas Connors and none of them were able to answer my question.’

Tom was a bit taken aback by the rather blunt question as even Benny was looking at him for an answer. It was something he didn’t want to admit to Benny as he felt embarrassed by it, but now it looks like even his friend wondered what was his motive behind the machine.

A sigh escaped the man as he gently rested his hand on the framework as he studied the grain of the wood. “My old man was a salty mechanic who always rode my butt on anything and everything I ever did. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the man because if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be where I am. He pushed me to strive to learn more and to get better at engineering to where I rose the ladder at GENT corporation very quickly. He taught me about innovation and how to improvise with limited materials and on a tight budget. My skills caught the likes of Joey’s eyes to where he came to my superiors with a dream, golden words and a silver tongue. Honestly I didn’t believe him one bit and told him I will wait with my answer.” Tom turned to look at both demons who were listening intently. “That was until I was heading home and saw some of the poorer children playing with patchwork ragdolls that vaguely resembled the the characters of Joey’s studio. Their parents couldn’t afford the toys and did their best to try and make their children smile. The thought of the smallest possibility that I might be able to make those children's favorite characters come to life in a literal sense and to be able to watch them laugh and play with their favorite characters was very tempting. Even I had to admit as to my own small childish desires to see the toons brought to life. I didn’t want to admit it out loud, but I was familiar with the Bendy cartoons as I often saw them in the theaters and they always left a strong impression on me despite them being silly little cartoons. They made me smile when sometimes I truly didn’t feel like it. When I got home I thought about it for a long time before I finally caved in and agreed to work on the project. I felt it was absurd, but if the smallest possibility was there then I was willing to take it for the children's sake.” Tom let out a deep sigh. “The rest is history as to the development of the machine and both Benny and Bendy’s birth, as well as the fall of the studio along with our imprisonment and escape.”

Benny and SINdy shared equal glances of sympathy. Both toons had to admit that they felt bad for the man as a good chunk of his life was ruined by his job and former boss. He built a monstrous machine with the purest intentions, but it simply didn’t work out. Benny fidgeted with his gloves as he approached his father with the one question that burned in his mind.

“If you had a chance to go back and fix it, would you?” The toon looked up at his father.

Benny’s question was met with a small smile and Tom bent down at the knee to look at the plushtoon straight in the eyes. “No, ‘cause if I did then I wouldn’t have you. You can’t change the past, but all you can do is learn from it.” The man gently scooped Benny into a hug.

Benny let out a small happy sigh in his father's arms as he returned the hug. Even though he realized it was his birthday, he was well aware of the pain that went along with his birth as he couldn’t help but wonder if his father ever cursed his birth in the slightest. It was comforting to know that despite what happened that Tom never once regretted making him. He may regret the misuse of the machine, but he didn’t regret the toons born from it.

SINdy watched with a smile on his face as he listened to the whispers that emanated from Benny’s father. He could hear all his sins but at the end of the day, Tom had made the machine with the best intentions, but unfortunately it had the worst outcome. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was the only Thomas he would ever meet that felt this way about the machine as this was the only Thomas he’s seen that was the father to a Bendy toon. This man was one of the few that he would consider a true parent.

“All right well it’s getting late and I don’t need Allison thinking I fell off the face of the earth.” Tom chuckled breaking the hug to stand up and brush himself off.

“What about the cart?” Benny pointed at the unpainted beehive shaped wagon.

“We can paint that in the morning when it’s warmer since the night air won’t let it dry for a very long time.” Tom patted Benny on the back to usher him towards the house with SINdy in tow. “Thank you boys for your help”

SINdy grinned and held up his sign ‘You’re welcome. I had fun seeing the cart get built and even more so when I got to help. Now I can say I lent you a hand’ He waved a gloved hand to emphasize his point

Benny happily agreed with his friend laughing alongside Tom at this friends joke. He had to admit that he had a lot of fun and the games were just beginning.

The group lightly chatted as they retreated towards the home before Ink began to drip from the walls gaining the groups attention. Benny immediately got on the defensive with the mark across his stomach growing teeth as he lightly bared his own. SINdy grinned eagerly at the wall as he was wondering who was getting in a bit too early. He noticed Benny on the defense and quickly place a hand on his friend's shoulder drawing Bennys attention away from the wall only to be met by a grin. SINdy nodded reassuringly as he gestured back towards the wall with a lanky Ink demon stepping through.

“Bendy?!” Benny yelped in surprise at the demon but then noticed the silence and the intimidating vibes he was getting from him. This wasn’t Bendy, it was the other one that accompanied Shadow. Ben.

The lanky demon said nothing has he held the portal open and a familiar figure emerged from it. The creature resembled a large almost skeletal cat made of ink sporting short stubby horns that resembled ears and a large toothy grin. The inky feline’s grin stretched wider at seeing Benny but it did not move from the demons side. It lowered its head as it sat on its haunches.

“B-Benny who is that?” Tom immediately stepped back away from the two new figures in his yard. He was used to seeing Bendy in his ink demon form as he ran from the devil for 30 years, but this one came off more threatening then their now turned playful demon.

Before Benny had a chance to answer the lanky demon looked down at the inky cat who murmured softly “Behhaaave yoursssself.”

The cat nodded lightly folding it's horn like ears down and pressed his head into the palm of the lanky demons hand before the Ink demon stepped through the portal with it closing behind him. The cat watched its creator leave and continued to watch until the ink that made up the portal faded away. Once he was gone Shadow turned its attention back to the group that was looking at it.

“Shadow!” Benny chirped as he dashed up to the inky cat.

The cats grin stretched wider as Benny wrapped his arms around the cats neck hugging it tightly. Shadow lightly head bumped Benny before wiggling its head down to rest it against Benny's chest purring. The toon giggled at the vibrations he was feeling from the inky cat as he scratched the feline behind its horns.

"W-who is that?" A gruff voice finally spoke.

Benny looked up from his friend to see Tom standing at a good distance away from them while SINdy was cautiously approaching to get a better look. A small frown formed on Bennys face as he could tell that the other Bendy's sudden appearance scared his father. Even he had to admit that the other Bendy can come off intimidating, though he suspected that he was just quiet and didn't mean any harm.

"This is Shadow" Benny turned to face his father and SINdy who was now standing in front of the cat looking it over. "It comes from another world like the other Bendy who I know as Ben. Shadow is really nice and likes to play with me when it can. The first time we met there was a little bit of a misunderstanding, but it meant no harm as it was just watching over cloudy."

SINdy tilted his head 'Cloudy?'

Benny flashed a grin "Yep he's an adorable grey kitten with bright yellow eyes. I found him in the backyard a while back and Shadow appeared looking for him. They both come from the same place as Ben as he is Cloudys owner."

Tom lifted a brow. "That Bendy is the owner of a kitten?" The man was baffled at the statement. He couldn't imagine an intimidating demon such as him with a little kitten. An odd yet amusing image flashed in his head of the scary ink demon with a little kitten playing with his floppy bow tie. He just had a hard time believing it.

SINdy grinned at the large feline and slowly reached his hand to the side of Shadows horn lightly scratching it. 'Nice to meet you Shadow! My name is SINdy!'

Shadow leaned into SINdy's hand enjoying the scratching behind its horns before it lightly head bumped SINdy in his chest extracting a peal of silent laughter from the toon. The vibrations from it purring was tickling the little cardboard demon. SINdy in turn leaned into the cat doing his best to hug it while he continued to laugh silently.

Benny chuckled at SINdy enjoying the inky feline before his smile gave way to a frown at the sight of his father. He could tell his dad refused to budge from his spot giving the inky feline a wide berth. He suspected his dad was having trust issues and while he himself knew Shadow meant no harm, Tom was very skeptical. Mustering up his courage Benny slowly walked to his dad.

"Tom?" Gaining the mans attention. "Shadow is really friendly, it won't hurt anyone."

Tom looked down at Benny and then back at Shadow. He wasn't a fool. He could tell that there was more to this creature than what meets the eye. A feline is especially testy as even if it may have soft paws, underneath them are claws, even if it is a cat made of ink. They can come off as cute and cuddly, but at the end of the day they are still predators. Plus since this cat vaguely resembles Bendy it would be even more dangerous and anything resembling Bendy isn’t to be taken lightly. A slight scowl graced Tom's face before he felt a hand gently grab his own. He looked to see Benny gently holding onto him and was giving him a pleading look while gently tugging. He could tell he wanted him to give Shadow a chance.

A deep defeated sigh escaped Tom as he allowed himself to be slowly lead to the inky cat as Shadow sat and waited for his approach. The closer he got made him tense up more as he was beginning to regret the idea. Benny pulled him to a foot away from the cat and slowly lifted Toms hand out and held it there.

Shadow looked at the man whom was presumably his friends father. The cat wasn't a fool, it could tell that the man was very suspicious and felt a creature such as it was dangerous. While it is true it can easily handle its own, it wasn't here to hurt anyone. It just wanted to spend time with its friend as it was surprised and thankful its creator let it attend. Shadow knew it needed to let this man know it is here as a friend and not a foe.

Tom flinched when he felt something cool and damp press into his hand. He looked to see Shadow had leaned its forehead into his palm and he felt a weird vibration traveling up his arm. His eyes were wide in disbelief that the vibrations he was feeling was the creatures purring. The purring sound it made was barely audible.

The large cat gently nuzzled Toms hand purring louder to where it was causing small vibrations in the ground. He then slowly moved closer to the man nuzzling him as he gently leaned his side against him and circled around him slowly. Tom all the while was tense at the sudden movement but soon recognized the behavior as a sign of affection. He himself never owned cats but was familiar with their signs of affection as this oversized cat made of ink was going through the same motions. He relaxed slightly as he cautiously scratched the inky cat behind his stubby horn getting an even louder purr.

The back door opened with Allison looking around "Are you boys done with the car-" she paused at seeing Benny, SINdy and Tom with a familiar large inky cat curled around her husband. "Shadow!"

The inky cats grin stretched at the familiar sight of the woman as it knew this was the mother figure to its friend as well as the one who invited it. Shadow edged away from Tom before striding to the door and sat on it haunches looking at Allison while his tail flicked from side to side.

Allison tensed slightly, she remembered the large inky cat just appearing in her yard as well as the confrontation it had with Benny who was trying to protect her. Little did they realize the inky feline was trying to get its friend in their care back. She let out a small sigh and a smile releasing the little tension in her shoulders. Benny said this cat was his friend and they enjoy quiet time together.

A small step of courage and a hand out in good faith, Allison gently petted Shadow and scratched it lightly on the base of its horn. To her surprise the inky cat made a barely audible purring sound as it leaned into her touch.

Shadow was excited and was growing more and more optimistic. So far its friends parents didn't seem to mind it and they were even reciprocating the affection that was given. He could tell he was gonna be watched by the father which isn't all that unusual a feeling for him as he could sense how tense the man was and the look in his eyes. Allison, on the other hand, is a little more open to it and seemed to have relaxed some.

Benny watched as his mom laughed at Shadow purring and gently nuzzling her side. It warmed his heart seeing her become more at ease with a guest who once spooked her. He hoped that she will be more open towards his other friends, but it looks like he won't have to worry for much longer. Benny had to admit he was more concerned for his father who was still watching the large cat with an air of skepticism. He knew Tom was left with a bad taste in his mouth about the machine and is protective over his mother as they had to rely on only themselves for so many years. The toon hoped that someday Tom will realize that not all results from the ink machines are bad. For every dark shadow cast has a small light at its base.

SINdy silently giggled at Allison whom was now being tickled by Shadows purring as the cat was nudging its head into her stomach. It was extracting a good laughing fit from her as it was showing its gratitude for being allowed to come over. He wished Bendy could join them. He knew Allison sent him an invitation and if Shadow could come early then Bendy can to! A mischievous grin graced SINdy's face as he reached into his hammerspace and pulled out his own copy of the book Bendy gave him.

Carefully touching the ink that dripped from his eyes, SINdy wrote to their friend.

'Bendy why don't you come on over. Shadow is here too! Allison is letting us spend the night! :D'

Tom saw a small golden light emanating from behind him as he looked over his shoulder to see a book completely open with golden light coming from its pages as it floated in SINdy's hand. What looked like a golden liquid flowed from the pages before it turned black spiraling around the book before converging to form a round mass that began to take shape next to SINdy.

A familiar round body formed with noodle like limbs sporting shiny boots, a white bowtie and gloves. The head was round with a large white face with the eyes closed as it finished forming. To his surprise one horn was longer than the other and he was more so when the eyes opened. The black piecute eyes were slightly larger than normal and a golden orb shone within.

The little demon looked at SINdy who summoned him before looking at the crowd whose attention was now drawn to him. He put on a small smile and politely bowed as if on a stage. "Hi everyone, my name is Bendy. Nice to meet you!"

SINdy held up his sign 'Hi Bendy!'

Benny looked shocked at the arrival of yet another one of his friends, but it was quickly replaced with glee. "Hi Bendy!"

Allison watched as the three toon converged and eagerly chatted between themselves. She had to admit she was not anticipating the sudden appearance of the early guests and was going through her mental checklist as to who all had shown up and as to how she was going to accommodate the sudden arrivals. Her train of thought halted when she felt a small nudge on her side and looked to see Shadow looking at her then at the group before he looked at her once more. It wanted her to say hello. She chuckled before stepping forward to meet their guest who also came early.

Bendy broke from the conversation to see who he presumed to be his friend's mother approaching them. He straightened his bow tie and gingerly strode up to her holding out his hand. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Connor!"

Allison had to admit she was surprised how straightforward and confident this Bendy was as he seemed to approach her with no hesitation. Even Shadow and SINdy took their time approaching her.

She met Bendy's hand with her own lightly shaking it. "Nice to meet you too. I'd like to thank both you and SINdy for helping Benny with his reading. My husband and I may not always have the time to help him and you both filled in for us. Thank you."

Both SINdy and Bendy blushed at her statement. Allison chuckled how both demons blushed grey even though SINdy was a yellowish color like Benny. She half expected him to blush a soft pink, it was a cute little observation.

"Shucks Mrs. Connor it isn't anything special." Bendy tried to hide the grey on his cheeks. "We were just helping out a friend"

'We all help each other out as we all like to read and share stories.' SINdy flashed a huge grin.

"Well thank you boys. Though why don't we all come inside before you all catch a chill from the night air." Allison gestured inside the home.

The group of toons cheered and eagerly dashed inside leaving Tom, Allison and Shadow behind. The large cat made a gurgling sound akin to a chuckle before slowly trotting behind them.

Tom looked heavenward as he stood next to his wife. "Well I can kiss my quiet night sleep goodbye."

"Oh be nice" Allison tugged on him kissing his cheek. "Keep in mind that you yourself were once an energetic little boy that kept your parents up at night. How it comes back around."

"Oh and like you were a perfect little angel" Tom jokingly retorted.

Allison put on her best puppy eyes and lightly traced a halo over her head. "I was a perfect little angel." She lightly cooed.

"Uh-huh. And I'm a devil in disguise" Tim rolled his eyes.

"Well part of you made a little devil so it must be true." Allison laughed before quickly jogging into the home leaving Tom behind red faced.

Tom knew he had been had, it tugged a smile out him to see that Allison never lost her edge. Though for as much as he'd love to get her back for the comment, he was more interested to see what karma is dished out from the toons since she promised to keep an eye on them. He straightened himself up and walked into the house closing the door.

Inside the home Tom was met with a table full of toons who were happily munching on the lemon cake that Allison had bought. She had just set a plate down for shadow for which the ink cat murmured happily before its grin split open to reveal sharp teeth as the cat began to delicately eat the cake.

Once the cake was consumed and the hour had grown late it was time to clean up before heading to bed. Allison spied the yawn that Benny was trying to hide along with SINdy or Bendy occasionally rubbing their eyes. The toons were getting tired.

A clap rang through the air startling the toons as they turned to look at Allison "Alright boys it's time to clean up and to get ready for bed." Her answer was an immediate chorus of 'awwwws' for which she wagged a finger. "No buts. It's gotten pretty late and if you boys help out then that means you have more time to play.

As soon as she finished her statement the toons immediately split up to start rounding up the dishes and to help Tom put them in the sink. Meanwhile Allison looked at the 3 bendylike toons before focusing on SINdy. She had multiple nightshirts for Benny, but most were long sleeve. SINdy doesn't have arms and it would look strange to have him running around with the sleeves dangling. With a hand on her chin she strode out of the kitchen leaving Tom to deal with the demons while Shadow followed her out.

Allison paced into the living room and opened up a dresser and began rifling through it's contents before she felt like she was being watched. She glanced up briefly and saw Shadow sitting on its haunches watching her. "Oh hi Shadow. If you're wondering what I'm doing, I'm trying to find a nightshirt that will work for SINdy. I have a few short sleeved shirts I might be able to mend quickly enough. Plus I gotta start getting the couch unfolded and the beds set up."

The ink cat looked back at the couch before looking back at her noticing that she was preoccupied. It strode over to couch and looked at the two straps that hung on the corners where it assumed they would be pulled out. Just before it was about to try and tug on the strap Bendy walked into the room.

"Mrs. Connor" the toons voice gaining Allisons attention as she held up a soft blue short sleeve nightshirt. "Is there anything else that needs to be done?"

"If you want, can you hang onto this for me?" Allison held out a small pile of nightshirts for which he graciously accepted.

Allison got up from the dresser tucking the blue nightshirt under her arm before she walked over to the couch. She motioned for Shadow to step back before pulling on the straps opening up the couch. The extension clicked into place before Allison reached into the L side of the couch and opened it to reveal a storage compartment. She pulled out a collection of blankets and pillows while the rest of the toons finally entered the living room.

"What are you doing Allison?" Benny tilted his head while watching his mom lay out a bunch of blankets and pillows on the couch before patting the couch encouraging Shadow to hop up. The ink cat was hesitant, but Allison insisted and it carefully hopped up and curled up on the blankets with it’s grin stretching wider.

"Well your friends are sleeping over and your room is too small so they can take the couch." Allison motioned for Bendy to hand over the nightshirts.

As soon as her words left her lips Benny was an instant barnacle on her leg. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Well before you get too excited, I need your help. I have a night shirt for SINdy that needs to be mended so it fits properly." Allison chucked while trying to peel Benny off her.

SINdys eyes were sparkling as he joined his friend in hugging Allison. His hand floated up with his sign. 'Thank you!'

Allison handed Bendy a soft green nightshirt, Benny his pastel orange before she slid the blue night shirt on SINdy. She gently pinched the spare material while Benny pulled out a pair of scissors, a needle and thread. She held the material still while Benny quickly cut the excess off before running a sewing needle through being careful not to poke his friend. Thanks to toon logic, Benny had it sewn together in a manner of a few strokes while SINdy flashed a huge grin. Once the nightshirt was mended to fit perfectly, SINdy eagerly spun in place showing it off before leaning against Allison again

‘Thank you!’

“You’re welcome sweetie. Now I know you boys are all energetic and all, but for now you all can take the couch since there is plenty of room to go around.” Allison lightly patted SINdy on his head before gesturing to the couch with Shadow already claiming his spot.

“What she means is it’s bedtime.” a rough voice sounded behind her with Tom entering the room already in his pajamas “Make sure you boys keep it down. I don’t want to have to come out later and tell you guys to keep it down.”

The toons gave a chorus of ok’s before they hopped up on the couch with all of them giggling and laughing as they rolled up in the blankets looking like a collection of burritos. Bendy flashed a mischievous grin before pulling out his pillow and smacked Benny with it instigating a pillow fight. Allison laughed watching the pillow war with the three toons before noticing Shadow trying to stay out of the way, let alone trying to actually rest. She had a feeling that eventually the boys would step out of line and get on the ink cats nerves. Backing away from the couch turning to head to her room Allison wished the boys a good night. Just as she was about to turn the corner she heard a chorus of ‘nooooo’ prompting her to turn around.

Shadow had used its tail to trip the toons making them land on the couch for which it promptly threw a blanket on them and laid across them being careful not to crush them, but also not allowing them to get up either. It was tucking the blankets around them to make sure they were covered up for bed while the toons protested beneath the inky cat. Allison doubled over laughing and immediately grabbed her camera taking a photo of the inky cat looking like a hen sitting on her chicks. Shadow had the last laugh.

The cat’s grin stretched wider as it watched her taking photos with Allison silently mouthing ‘thank you’. She knew that if Shadow hadn’t stepped in her husband would have heard the playing demons and would have eventually come out. She put the camera away and whispered a good night to the large cat and the three toons under it that were rapidly succumbing to sleep with Benny already down for the count.

Shadow watched as Allison turned off the light plunging the room into darkness except for the small pale blue night lights that circled the living room. The cat looked at the three toons under it who had already fallen asleep much to it’s relief as it carefully got up. It nudged it’s head gently tucking them in properly as well as pulling in the blankets and pillows around it and them making sure they were comfortable before it laid back down. Shadow’s grin stretched at the sleeping toons beneath it before it laid it’s head down and allowed sleep to claim it.

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petitepistol · 4 years

Text

headcanon;but it is very messy

oh god strap in because this is going to be 3k words worth of rambling under the cut which you don't actually have to read since i posted it at 5am so it probably does not make much sense!! also I have only just recently accepted that my elena does not follow compilation timeline to the letter because I fucking hate the fact that before crisis placed her age at being a high school student almost immediately preceding the start of the original game and I always saw elena as being at least aerith's age by the time she became a turk so please bear with me as my elena uses a floating timeline to prevent her from being...like a literal teenager for original game fuck that noise they had cissnei be the uwu fifteen-year-old turk and elena gets to be her own character when im writing her so compilation can fuck right off

so first off her dad is a military man, and that entire side of his family? kind of just defaulted into the military for generations. well before shinra at least, the old shit. I'm constantly flabbergasted by the idea that shinra is the dominant military force on the planet when as little as forty years before game them were a fledgling company, and I'm fascinated by what kind of insane shit must have gone down to facilitate shinra going from defense contractor/power company to defacto global superpower, and what they superseded when that happened. so yeah her dad is military, and even after he was put out to pasture he still wound up teaching at a prestigious shinra sponsored academy in junon and both of his daughters attended.

her mom was upper middle class and driven as hell, had a ballet career which got cut short due to injury in her late teens. then she wound up going into nursing by her early twenties and spent some time working in deepground when it was still a run of the mill army hospital where she met elena's father who was...voluntarily a candidate for some biotech stuff that shinra was doing back when shinra was still a defense contractor, go figure he was one of many early examples of mako conditioning. they didn't get along at first but did wind up marrying but never actually settling down because of the nature of his career. she retired from nursing but did medical coding part-time.

elena's sister was born in deepground (canonically from the 'midgar slums' but deepground is pretty fucking close and it makes sense to the era and background worldbuilding), and things went as smoothly as possible at this point in time. elena herself was born in icicle because lol military stationed there (elena being an icicle native was also a very popular piece of fanon in the pre-compilation era and I feel like it may have had some supporting evidence in something like kaitai shinsho but I never really managed to cross-reference that so probably not true and just a gut feeling), and by then things were getting...fishy. details being covered up about the full extent of the side-effects of mako conditioning and rumors that shinra had an egregious amount of influence over the military at large. these things all turned out to be true, but elena's father kept his head down and did his duty because he was a good soldier. he was also in wutai on and off during this, before the situation over there fully hit the fan, so he had more pressing matters to worry about.

anyway, elena was born in icicle but she and her mother and sister weren't there for more than a year or so before it was back at it again in midgar because dad was being put on some kind of assignment that had him closely working with shinra. the general implication of this is he was doing legwork for the implementation of SOLDIER in a few years, but what that means can vary by interaction from being paperwork to mk ultra style endurance testing to teaching an adolescent jenova project specimen how to integrate into military procedure before they drop him in wutai which is slated to become an all-out conflagration very shortly. it all depends but the point is it is sticky and worsened significantly when his wife is killed in a car accident. if this seems familiar it is because I firmly believe elena is the aya brea of ffvii and parasite eve featured similar background story. I'm borrowing deal with it.

by this point, elena is around eight and in school but elena is just barely four and in the vehicle when it happens. mom is killed instantly, elena survives but barely fares better. she's in intensive care for a while and there is a period where they don't even know if she is going to be brain dead or just have permanent brain damage in the first few days. her sister is basically staying at a school friend's house for like...way more than a fortnight while this got sorted out because their dad still actually has orders to carry out, even if he isn't on a battlefield. at one point on of his higher-ups implies that it could be arranged to transfer elena from the civilian hospital to the recently renovated deepground and he turns it down and feels like shit for it because yeah, deepground probably would mean a better chance at his youngest daughters survival because of that cutting edge shinra biotech, but at what cost? he knows well enough now something is wrong and justifies his willingness to let fate take its course with elena by focusing on the fact that her sister is still alive and well and he needs to keep his head down for his older daughter because she needed him too, even though they barely saw each other during the crux of this.

so lo and behold elena does recover and goes through the icky sticky of physical therapy and does just fine. great, right? well yes but the family dynamic is stupidly fucked up. dad has done either really good or really bad on his assignment, and gets put out to pasture in junon to teach at a military academy that is now nearly entirely funded by shinra (yeah so in before crisis it is all but implicit that academy is in midgar but fuck that junon is the seat of military power it would be near there if anything). this is great because it keeps him in work and both of his daughters will benefit. which they do. elena's sister is an ideal student, and the roughness of losing her mother happened at a sensitive period but a period where she was old enough to understand what was going on. she was capable of being a little trooper through all of it, but the cost of it was not being able to emotionally process the loss of her mother and the fact that her little sister was still alive when mom was not. the seeds of discord are sown there and that will be an ongoing thing throughout their childhood and into adulthood. they don't hate each other, but the relationship is fraught with tension and it is far from a healthy dynamic, especially since their father has pulled back almost entirely from fatherhood. he has no idea what he is doing without his late wife, and can't organically interact with his daughters so he defaults to being an instructor. both of them flourish despite this, but it is not a good family dynamic.

paint over this family drama with the fact that wutai is now well and truly happening. the military is effectively controlled by shinra and very very soon the propaganda blitz surrounding SOLDIER is going to push that over the edge and shinra will be accepted on a public and official level as being the army. the slogans are changing and going from an old fashioned sense of unity to focusing on becoming top class and singularly extraordinary. there is an emphasis on joining to be great rather than joining for the greater good. the recruitment plays into the deeply seated neurosis of adolescence for a reason because the younger some kid joins up the more malleable they are to both the shinra rhetoric and the by now very refined mako enhancement process that costs so much but nets such spectacular gains. in fact, it costs far too much to ever justify wasting that kind of money on doing it to women. so yeah it is blog canon that women in the shinra army is not a thing that is encouraged and like hell would they ever be in SOLDIER. the company culture is an old boys club steeped in misogyny and the only reason scarlet succeeded is because she took that and marinated in it and played the game very well. dirge era deepground operatives are little more than a consequence of years of unethical human experimentation left to rot in a basement. we don't really see women in actual military positions in the original game. sexism is alive and well and it serves my characterization of elena and her development.

so yeah it is a time of paradigms shifting and reforming very rapidly. elena's sister takes to this with aplomb, she is a perfect cadet and in elena's eyes a perfect daughter. someone easier to idolize than the SOLDIERs on the glossy recruitment posters and more available than their emotionally distant father. she is pristine and by extension beloved, things elena wants to be as well. elena is too young to realize her sister doesn't have any better of a relationship with their father than she does, but who knows if that would change anything. she emulates her ideal sister but remains a half step behind, which makes perfect sense because elena is four years younger. from a critical perspective that half step is a very close gap because even if elena doesn't realize it, she is just as prodigious as her sister is. the difference is while her sister can follow orders to the letter, elena has the makings of a maverick. not a positive thing in the strict environment of a military academy, no matter how high her scores are. idealization goes hand and hand with a quiet resentment, the latter of which her sister has also harbored towards her ever since their later mother died and elena did not.

that simmering toxicity stays at a low boil until her sister graduates. at the top of the class, even she could not become anything. or at least, to elena it looks that way, as she watches her sister back her things for midgar where she will start as a trainee for an administrative/auditing position for the shinra electric power company. elena does not know what a turk is at this point, even if her father does. he seems as impassive as ever, even if that is not the case and in actuality he is struggling to accept the reality that his oldest daughter is far too smart for his own good and is entering a profession no one would ever want for their child. despite his distance and his lack of connection and all of his failings as a father he does love his children and that will eat away at him until he dies no doubt. but all elena sees is her shining example of an older sister being doomed to desk work. when gun leaves (because she becomes gun the moment she is added to the payroll) the real constant of elena's childhood also leaves. and during adolescence, that is hard for anyone. more so when you realize no matter how sharp your skills are your future is off the chopping block and there is no path for you to take with them.

elena goes from being a prodigy prone to pesky critical thinking to a prodigy with a chip on her shoulder. her technical marks don't plummet, in fact, quite the opposite. she picks up a secondary battle specialty, close-quarters combat, which will set her apart from her sister. she flourishes with equal parts precision and aggression, despite her small size. the academic commendations feel entirely hollow to her though, and in the way teenagers tend to do she convinces herself she is not much more than nothing. the memory of her sister becomes tarnished with the bitterness of her negative self-image. her instructors must hate her for her failures, she tells herself with false objectivity. her instructors include her actual father, who is nearly clueless aside from a vague feeling in the pit of his stomach and he doesn't know if that is due to his oldest daughter going into wetworks or the fact his younger daughter is shattering academic record after record with the sheer force of what he assumes to be ennui driven spite.

at least he is clueless until in the spring just after she turns fifteen she files for early certification to leave academy, just like every other boy in her year as well as every other boy on the continent and beyond. they do it to catch the recruitment push and join the army soon enough to have a shot at making SOLDIER before they age out. but elena can't do that and he knows it and braces himself to have that conversation with her, calling her into his office where she keeps her stance formal until he tells her to be as ease and even in the chair across from his desk her posture is tense. spine straight, eyes ahead. he begins what he thinks is going to be the "you know you can't join SOLDIER" conversation but she cuts him off in what he thinks is a somewhat uncharacteristic display, but to her is just another example of how disgraceful her conduct is and how she needs to get out of academy before brings the value of the whole institution down. she tells him this, she tells him she is aware of her shortcomings and the fact she has no future in a military career and her intention is to go to midgar and learn how to be a civilian on her own terms. he signs off on it because none of her bullet points are actually wrong.

midgar is a city of industry and a city of vice and she hasn't been there since she was a child. it is good to her and it is bad to her, as she unlearns years of quasi-military discipline and figures out how to be her own person. she still sometimes wears the academy uniform because old habits die hard and it is a durable thing. she has a one-room apartment in the slums and a job tending bar in wall market. the hours are early evening to after the last train ends and her circadian rhythm adjusts from 4am wakeups and beds made with hospital corners to the distorted clock that comes from living under a plate with no natural sunlight. there are just as many fights and skirmishes to be had in midgar but none of them are like the training exercises at academy. each one is a beautiful short-lived shrine, sometimes they are fun and on her terms, and other times they are fraught and meant for survival. elena relishes them all as a skillset she once thought was a dead-end turns out to be valuable once more. the major negative point is her sister.

gun is in midgar and wears a sleek black suit along with many other people in sleek black suits. elena hears the term 'turk' for the first time. whether they are urban legends or hired killers or pencil pushers who do double duty waterboarding enemies of a power company turned judge and jury doesn't matter. what matters is the deadness she can see in gun's green eyes when she drops by the bar before closing, oftentimes with equally dead-eyed coworkers. those confrontations are never pleasant, they are a powderkeg. elena would like to reach out to her sister, chase away the exhausted look in her face the way she can with other patrons, but the sentiment gets stuck in her throat and they just snipe at each other. gun is a terrible adult and so are all of her colleagues and they are trying their best to neutralize a growing terrorist threat and they are failing. when they come around in the low light of the bar illuminates the stark futility of everything after midnight.

elena does not know exactly what is going on at the highest level of intrigue but she has a good guess. shinra is shitting the bed, and that includes the turks and SOLDIER, which seems to her to be in the middle of a massive coverup as their public-facing 1sts disappear one after another. she wants no part of it and her agenda switches from mastering the nuances of being a civilian to finding sustainability and meaning outside of shinra as the cracks in the facade split ever wider. when the sector six plate is effectively destroyed, it takes the bar she worked at with it and elena decides it is time to get the hell out of midgar.

her years in wall market set her up with some interesting connections and the owner of a small weapons shop (who she might have married for tax purposes but that isn't fleshed out) sets her up with a distinguished older gentleman who is a complete asshole and happens to run guns all across the continent. despite his immaculate coiffure he is not a people person and requires someone who is both qualified to demonstrate his product and more pleasant to deal with than him, because the market is hot right now. shinra has never had much interest in dealing with flyover country. sure they build reactors in some of the backwaters, but not all of them. and no reactor meant no need for shinra to spend the money on protecting hick villages from increased monster presence. the planet is dying and the monsters are restless in the same way wildlife gets in the real world. the people in those tiny towns do their best to defend their homes and livelihood and that means purchasing weaponry, mostly old stock from competitors that shinra has long since crushed or acquired. shinra lets this happen because it is not a threat to them.

so, for a few years, elena is a pretty face with a bang and it is almost scarlettian. she never comes close to the sex appeal of the actual weapons development director of shinra, but it is enough to help move merchandise. most of the buyers are just people trying to survive in the middle of nowhere, but not always. sometimes they are rougher than that, but the money is good enough that she doesn't care about that, or the fact the man who employed her hates her guts and doesn't care much whether she lives or dies. it is a thrilling rush and it is outside of shinra and more than ever does she want to put as much distance as possible between shinra and herself. because her sister is dead according to a notification that tseng of the turks had been cordial enough to send to her father, news that he passed on in a voicemail to elena with a hollow tone. maybe he was trying to reconnect with her because she was now all he had left in the way of family. maybe he just had the same sense of duty as always. she never calls back to ask.

midgar calls her back though. one day her employer informs her with a vindictive grin that he has sold the business part and parcel and that includes her as an employee. acquired by shinra. the reason, ironically, is scarlet, whom she has been doing a two-bit impersonation of. scarlet is a forward thinker but that doesn't mean she can't be swayed by a stockpile of vintage firearms, and with the viciousness required of her position she can throw weight around and get her hands on anything. the weapons are what she wanted and elena knows this and rejects the notion that she will become apart of the shinra payroll because of this little merger. this is proven wrong in short order as her assets are frozen systematically because the turks are hard up for people. they know her. they knew her sister and they know her, even if they haven't kept tabs on her. as soon as the papers cross his desk tseng seizes the opportunity.

the interview with hr to place elena is a mere formality. there is no other place for her there but in the turks. elena, for all her audacity, accepts this and plasters on a professional veneer. the game begins and the world ends.

#ooc #headcanon #somebody sent me a very broad development ask and i wrote several thousand words in the middle of the night #holy shit im sorry for the wall of text someday i will clean this up i swear #some of this has been touched on in existing headcanon posts but not as a whole #as a whole it is...a lot to take in and whoever reads this has my condolences

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blueoswin · 5 years

Text

Let’s make him jealous!

Summary : Eliott went back to Lucille. However Lucas can't forget him. For now he just has to try to get over him, even if the boys want to push them back together. They all come up with an awesome plan ( their words) in order to do so. Well Emma does : making Eliott jealous. How ? By hiting on Lucas obnoxiously. Too much for his taste. And for Eliott's as well.

Or : Eliott is sad raccoon pining from afar. Lucas is grumpy, Emma is a snake and the boys are elu stans #1.

______________

Chapter 5

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Lucas's mind has been running in circles lately, the thin thread of his thoughts only getting more tangled the longer he overthinks, creating intricate knots. Being alone, finding a bit of peace and quiet is the best option to sort all of this out. Since Emma came up with this plan, he hasn't got much time for himself, not enough at least. He loves his friends with his whole heart, would go to the end of the world for them, hell, even the end of the whole universe but lately he hasn't even had one second to simply be, making it hard to think about what he would say to Eliott if they were to bump into each other. Or how to forget him if they never cross paths again.

That's why when his friends called it a day and decided it's time they got out of the common room, Lucas hasn't followed them. He's watched people leaving one by one as the sun set. Once he's the only person remaining, he sends a text to Daphne telling her he'll be the one closing the common room tonight when he'll be ready to leave. The both of them have quickly developped a coded language over the past few months.

There were days when Daphne was feeling down, not wanting to talk, sometimes simply wanting to cry and have someone to comfort her. On days like these they both would meet in the common room and lay down on the uncomfortable matress, eating sweets in silence until one of them fall asleep, simply appreciating the other's company. The days where Lucas wants to be left alone,like tonight, he tells her he'll close the common room. Strange how the common room has become his safe place by now. The room holds so many memories, notably with his friends whom he considers his family at this point. This place is more a home in his eyes than the house he's always lived in. The one he's supposed to live in actually.

Not wanting to be bothered by curious residents, he closes the door. He then procedes to turn a dim light on in the farthest corner of the room so as not to betray his presence. Lucas isn't a big fan of darkness, but he dislikes even more being interrupted in quiet moments like this one. He untangles his earbuds, putting his playlist on random. He only stops pacing once he's in front of the big windows, looking outside. The sun is setting slowly, casting a golden hue around him, specks of purple, pink and blue thrown in the mix of colors. Everything is so peaceful, contrasting greatly with the storm raging inside him. He closes his eyes, getting lost in the music.

Love is hard I know

When your lights are red

But I'm green to go

Lucas restrains himself from laughing sadly. The irony. The song fits his mood so well it's uncanny. Alone in the darkness, he closes his eyes once again, letting himself do something he hasn't allowed himself to do in weeks for fear of breaking down in tears. He thinks about Eliott. The first picture to come to his mind when he thinks about the boy is one of him laughing, head thrown back in abandon, sunshine smile stretching his pretty lips so beautifully Lucas longs to kiss him senseless, his eyes reduced to half-moon slits, the corners crinkling with mirth, an undecipherable spark in his eyes. He remembers their first kiss under the rain, how soaked they had been at the end but none of them cared enough to move, too happy to finally be together. He remembers that fateful day when Eliott had walked away from him, not even kissing him goodbye. Lucas had known back then he said something that made Eliott pull away, made him run back to Lucille. He would like at the very least yo have the beginning of an explanation, to know what he did wrong so he could try to fix this mess.

I want you to color me blue

Anything it takes to make you stay

Only seeing myself when I'm looking up at you

He misses Eliott, more than anything. But his heart is still cut open,the wound too raw. He couldn't forget that easily how the other boy played him. Because even if he knows deep down he did something for their relationship to go downhill so soon, he also knows that Eliott chose willingly to go back to Lucille. He could have said something to Lucas along the lines of “ hey I changed my mind, I can't be with you”, well in retrospective he kind of did, right before that damn party, but it was no excuse to go running back to his ex. He broke the dating 101 first rule. Against all odds however, the longing takes over his anger in his solitude.

I can't say no

Though the lights are on

There's nobody home

Lucas shifts his legs a bit, adjusting his position, he doesn't know why but he half opens his eyes on instinct, catching a glimpse of a tall silhouette in the window. A silhouette he knows too well. A silhouette he's only hoped to see again, maybe not so soon, maybe after giving himself a pep talk. His heart races unvoluntarily.

Swore I'd never lose control

Then I fell in love with a heart that beats so slow

Eliott.

In all his beautiful glory, although he looks more tired than Lucas remembered, more fidgety too. Lucas tenses up, waiting. He closes his eyes, not willing to give any clue to Eliott that he's seen him. He isn't ready, far from it actually. He has to compose himself, quickly.

I want you

Discreetly, he lowers the volume of the music to better hear what's Eliott doing in his back. He wants to see what his next move will be, what could come out of this impromptu meeting.

I'll color me blue

Anything it takes to make you stay

He senses Eliott slowing coming over, closer and closer. They were only centimeters apart now but Lucas swears he would have felt the exact same thing if his back was glued to the other boy's chest. All of his senses are on high alert, anticipation making the hair on his arm rise up.The knot in his stomach grows impossibly bigger, weighing him down. Imperceptibly, he inhales, clenches then unclenches his hand to keep his anxiety at bay, putting up a calm facade. “I like raccoon, they wear masks” Well, time for him to borrow Eliott's spirit animal. The hedgehog won't do the trick this time.

Only seeing myself

When I'm looking up at you

Slowly, he opens his eyes, blinking rapidly to let his eyes adjust to the luminosity.

I know you're seeing black and white

He doesn't turn over though, he's paralyzed, literally glued to the ground.

So I'll paint you a clear blue sky

Not being able to move, he looks at their reflections in the window. A shiver runs down his spine, they look good together.

Without you I'm color blind

The first thing he sees is a brown jacket he knows too well, one he has even worn sometimes. One so big it practically engulfs him. Snippets of conversation rush back to him

“Eliott I'm not wearing your jacket to school it's so big I feel like a toddler trying on his parent's clothes” “ I swear you look cute in it. Pretty please, wear it for me?” “ Fiiiiine, You know I can't resist you when you do the puppy eyes, it's truly unfair.”

It's raining every time I open my eyes

His eyes go up, up and up again, tracing the outlines of the person behind him only stopping when he comes in contact with his eyes.

I want you to color me blue

They stare at each other in silence for a few more minutes, Lucas turns his music off, putting his earbuds in his pocket deliberatly slow, hands shaking slightly. His legs feel like jelly. He scowls, wanting to hide how nervous he truly is. The silence goes on, none of them wanting to be the first to speak up, not knowing where to start either. Lucas is the first one to look away, his limbs coming back to life, he pulls himself together, taking a deep breath as he turns around to confront Eliott.

Note: Okay so I wanted to say sorry for the late upload and thank you to all of you who read this fic you don’t know how much it means to me. Also I’d gladly take constructive criticism/ feedback because I wrote and rewrote this chapter but I still feel meh about it. Anyway I don’t know if you’ll read this note lol but if you’re still here, thanks again. I love you <3

#elu fic #elu fanfic #skam france #lucas x eliott #lucas x eliott fanfic #Lucas Lallemant #eliott demaury #i'm really nervous about this one #i feel like i say this everytime lmao #i experimented a bit with this one #and i don't know how it turns out from a reader's perspective #i hope you enjoy it

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sevenseasofrog · 5 years

Text

Lads ‘n Lasses Chapter 4

single sex schools are never boring

high school!ben x fem!reader

2.7k words

a/n: lol hi, Me for the first time in about 10 billion years. I kind of hate this Chapter?? But I’ll put the next part up tomorrow which should be better :-)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

As the autumn colours became deeper and the summer temperatures began to fade, you began to feel as though you were dragging yourself through each day, the thought of your plush duvet at the end of it keeping you motivated. Luckily enough though, it wasn’t just you who the changing seasons effected, and your friends were also beginning to look a little more disheveled with each morning that passed by, and it soon became clear that everyone was desperately in need of a break from the school routine. By the final week of term, motivation to even get out of bed each morning was severely lacking, and it seemed to be the same for Ben. Some mornings the pair of you didn’t even have the energy to speak, still content in each others company though, leaning on each other when you finally flopped down on the tram’s plastic seats.

You hadn’t forgotten that you were supposed to be coordinating your friend’s costumes for the mysterious Halloween party you knew very little about, but it definitely wasn’t your top priority- especially since your workload in and out of school had increased rapidly only a few weeks after the start of the new term. Since the gathering was set to take place on Friday, it was Tuesday that you figured you had to at least start thinking about how terrible you wanted your four closest friends to look. After a few hours of careful consideration and research you found yourself rather impressed with what you had come up with. If they wanted a group costume, a group costume they were going to get. It was perfect, inducing childhood nostalgia and characters which seemed to parallel your friends personalities, the five of you were going as none other than the Scooby-Doo gang. You couldn’t help but feel at least a bit proud of your master plan, but decided to keep it under wraps, just to add to the suspense. You spent the rest of that night drawing out meticulous plans, giving yourself Thursday and Friday to finish them. Out of instinct however you left the next day free, knowing that it was highly likely you would be spending the evening out somewhere to celebrate the beginning of the short break from school.

As he had done for the past five weeks or so, Ben had waited patiently outside your house for you to stumble out the front door, usually looking a little disheveled. Believe it or not, this was one of the things he had begun to admire most about you, little to your knowledge. The fact that your hair sometimes fell across your face, still messy from the previous nights sleep, and more often than not you would have acrylic paint splodged over you like some form of radioactive dalmatian. Both of these were the little things Ben had started to pay more and more attention to, and he couldn’t help but find himself smile whenever he thought of you.

“Last day of your first half term then Benny boy” you spoke with a grin. “Ready to go back down South yet or can you handle a little more of this?”

He couldn’t help but let out a laugh, “I think I’ll cope y’know, maybe a little longer, might even make it to Christmas!”

“You bloody better Jones! otherwise I’ll have no reason to even leave the house in the morning, then I’ll drop out of school, adopt a load of cats and drink cheap wine every day because I never got any a levels.”

“What a pity that would be” He retorted, with blatant sarcasm. You rolled your eyes and gave a gentle shove before the pair of you continued the walk to the tram stop in a content silence.

Eventually, you made your way onto a tram and flopped down on each other. You closed your eyes, enjoying the warmth of the autumn sun and found yourself dozing a little, this didn’t last long however.

Ben flicked your cheek before he spoke, “y/n, wake up you big loser, what are we doing after school?”

“I was wondering how long it would be before you asked, I don’t really care though. Won’t it just be easier to wait till the others get on and ask them?”

“We’re seeing them on Friday though, and Saturday I guess, and probably most of next week too”

“You have a most interesting way of thinking Jonsey. But you’re not wrong. What are you suggesting?” You spoke, followed by a smirk, “Won’t you be seeing me today, tomorrow, the day after that and next week however?”

“Shutup and come to mine tonight okay? We can have a takeaway from wherever you want and we can make up shitty excuses as to why we can’t do anything with the others because right now I can’t really be bothered with anyone else.”

You felt a little taken aback, but unsure as to why. Ben had spoken with a twinge of emotion in his voice, and suddenly seemed a little wound up- most out of character.

“Alright. You got me, but only if we’re having a chinese?

“Suits me”, he spoke with a smile, seeming somewhat relieved, before you both sank into each other in the seats. Even making the cold plastic seem a little more comfortable.

School has been productive. Well, as productive as you could have made it given that you only had some art coursework to finish and given that Ben’s sudden decision that he didn’t want to see anyone else that evening was playing on your mind. You had scrubbed the last of the dried acrylic paint off the battered brushes you had kept for god knows how long and were about to put them back into your bag before being interrupted by the lunch bell. Figuring you should reconvene with Maria and Niamh, you began to head towards the common room so that you could grab some lunch before heading to the library for the rest of the afternoon.

“y/n! hello? care to join us here on planet earth?” Niamh waved a hand in front of you, you had forgotten about your mediocre salad and had started daydreaming mid-conversation.

“shit yeah, sorry, just tired, i was sorting out the outfits for friday until like 2 this morning or something like that”

Maria chimed in too at mention of Friday, “oh yeah! the costumes, I’d forgotten about those, they’d better be-“

You felt your phone buzz in your pocket, undoubtedly your mum checking if you were staying in school or leaving after lunch. “One sec, let me just check this”

Benny:

Call me when you can. i’m going home.

You couldn’t help but wonder whad gotten into the boy, shocked by the sudden character change, you figured this was your call to leave and find out what the hell was going on with Ben. Now all you needed was an excuse to leave.

“Shit, sorry, erm… it’s my mum…she’s locked herself out and needs me to let her back into the house…” You scrambled to pack your bag and put your blazer back on “duty calls… I’ll see you on Friday night yeah?” You signed out at student services and began to walk towards the met stop.

benny: incoming call

“Ben what the hell are you playing at? where the fuck are you?” You heard the frustration in your own voice and couldn’t help but regret it.

“Why do you sound like your running a marathon?” Because I’m speed walking like a lunatic to come and find you thank you. “I’m nearly at the tram stop.”

“Right, ok… wait for me… I’m nearly there”

“see you then.” He hung up.

You continued the walk, thoughts racing, surely someone had just said something to wind him up? Nothing worth overthinking really? You eventually found Ben after what seemed like an eternity of walking and he stank of smoke, he had a cigarette between his lips and it was certainly not the first one of the day. “You going to tell me why I had to up and leave or are we going to pretend it never happened?” You demanded.

“We’re not talking about it until we get home” He said, slightly muffled. As if on queue, one of the yellow trams pulled into the station and Ben put out his smoke before dragging himself onto the empty tram, you followed, still feeling slightly bedraggled. The boy threw himself onto one of the chairs, visibly frustrated, you sat on the row behind and began digging through your bag, simply looking for something to do.

The tram ride was long, painfully so. The silence between the two of you was deafening, something you never expected to happen, but it was clear that Ben needed space from the moment you met back with him. You reached your stop and the two of you stood up, briefly making eye contact with each other.

“I need to erm, get some fresh clothes from mine if that’s okay...on the way to yours..These aren’t exactly.. y’know.. comfortable” You spoke, gesturing at the suit you had worn the past two days.

He gave a curt nod, and you continued the walk away from the platform. You quickly unlocked your front door and shoved a few essentials in a bag, along with an oversized shirt and some joggers, well aware that this would be a long night. Ben has waited downstairs, waiting to head back out again a little further down the road to his house.

It was definitely bigger than yours, and much more modern. It wasn’t that you disliked newer houses, you just felt a somewhat alienated stepping into something that felt more like a spaceship than a house. Each to their own though- that’s what you had always figured.

“Gonna tell me what’s got you in a tizz or do I get the joy of guessing?” Desperate for some hint of the Ben you knew to return.

“We’ll go upstairs first yeah, then we can get changed or whatever” He began to trudge up the stairs and you followed. By the time you caught up with him in his room, Ben already had half of his clothes off, and although now definitely wasn’t the best time, you had to admit to yourself that topless Ben certainly wasn’t a sorry sight as you slipped into the marble en-suite.

“You’re killing me Ben. What’s happened for the love of God?”

“People happened.”

You checked yourself over before unlatching the bathroom door again. For the record, the old grey pants paired with the extra large shirt you had brought at some past gig certainly wasn’t your best look, but it was going to have to do for now.

“C’mon grumpy you can tell me all about it like i’m your very own agony aunt” You grabbed his wrist and flopped onto the bed,causing Ben to follow with a thud.

“So what have people done to you to cause such a commotion Benny? You’ve never been like this and you’ve got me proper fussing about you” He rolled onto his back and began to speak.

“They’ll do anything to drag you through the dirt. I haven’t put a foot out of line and half of the idiots at school have decided they don’t like me for it. It’s so fucking stupid I don’t know why it’s bothering me...It just is and I could honestly-“

“Ben it’s probably pissing you off because that’s a normal human emotion I’m afraid…”

“But it’s not just that and it’s another stupid thing honestly I don’t know what my problem is because it’s got nothing to do with me and-“

“One thing at a time okay? Start at the beginning and then if you want, you can tell me what else is getting to you.”

You felt bad for Ben, you really did, he hadn’t done anything wrong and it was clear he didn’t have much experience in handling his emotions. You threw a packet if tissues at him after he began to snivel and kept brushing his face. It was clear he trust you, this was something which brought a strange relief over you that you couldn’t quite explain. The main thing you could do do help Ben was to listen to him, and boy was he glad that the pair of you had all night.

You had migrated downstairs at around 8pm to order food, normally you would have both sprawled out separately over two of the three sofas in the front room, but when you came back from a trip to the kitchen for glasses of water, Ben had parked himself at the end of where you were sat.

“I was cold.” He looked up at you, as if trying to read your thoughts.

“I never said anything Jones! If it was anyone else I’d have told them to move but I think you can be an acception” You had honestly been expecting some sort of reply, and it came as a bit of a shock to you when you looked up to find Ben staring at the t.v. absentmindedly.

“Ben? what’s up?”

“Sorry it’s just, it’s not worth it don’t worry..” he trailed off

You have a stern look, “Anything you think or say is worth my time Ben, I really mean it.”

“It’s just. Jones. that’s what they call me, at school and, I don’t really know why it bothers me but… I’m not Jones, I’m Ben and, it bothers me-“ His eyes had gone slightly glassy again, “It bothers me because they don’t care about me, they care that I score tries and bring the team up the leaderboard. That’s Jones. I don’t even think Ben likes rugby, but what else can you do when it’s expected of you.”

“One thing at a time yeah?”

“I told you it’s stupid”

“yeah you did, and I completely disagree, it’s Benny from now on”

“No one's ever really called me that to be honest..”

“Does it bother you?”

“I think I like it.. but only you can get away with it from now on”

You leaned back onto him as the pair of you waited for the takeaway to arrive, you had sincerely hoped that Ben felt a little better at least, it was glaringly clear that he was more worried that unloading his problems would simply pass them onto you, and you had taken the opportunity to reassure him that you weren’t there to judge him at several opportunities.

You had been talking about this and that until a wave of fatigue hit you at what must have been around half one in the morning, Ben had insisted that you should go upstairs and sleep in his bed and he would take the sofa.

“Ben you’re my best friend I’m pretty sure I can cope with sharing a bed with you, we’ll both be out like lights when we get up there anyway”

You both made your way up the stairs, leaving the remainder of the takeaway to deal with in the morning, and fell onto the the mountain of crisp white pillows. You burrowed your way under the duvet, waiting for Ben to follow. “Y’know.. this is really comfy. Makes my bed feel like a fabulous pile of rocks.”

“Does the job I suppose”

“à le matin mon aimie”

“à demain”

You felt yourself drifting into a deep slumber, unsure as to weather or not Ben was still talking. “I know it’s late but are you awake?” You gave a grunt, which the boy opposite you took as a response.

“At school right.. well where else would it be.. and I don’t know if it’s true but I thought I’d tell you just in case but erm.. People were saying Lewis has a thing for you and I know you’re supposed to be my best mate but it bothers me because-“ he gave a sigh. “It bothers me because I think I like you, and I know it’s only been two months, but you’re more than I could ask for in a friend and-“ He realised that he had been greeted with silence. “y/n” Ben had to admit to himself that he was a little disappointed when he realised you hadn’t heard a word he said, already fast asleep. He wasn’t sure if he’d tell you again in the morning, or if it would ruin what he felt was one of the best things he had in a long time.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

@fatbottomedbitch , @crazyweirdocalledfriday , @borhapandshawn , @benhardyjones , @simplyvictoria-93 , @virtualsheepeat

Sorry that my tag list is a bit dodgey, pretty sure that usernames have changed so let me know if you want adding :) xoxo

#bohemian rhapsody #ben hardy #brian may #queen #roger taylor #bo rhap #queen band #freddie mercury #joe mazzello #john deacon #ben!roger imagine #ben!roger x reader #ben hardy!roger x reader #ben!roger taylor #ben hardy! roger taylor #ben hardy x reader #ben hardy imagine #lads ‘n lasses

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katiekoff · 5 years

Text

When The Plague Comes

Hey guys! Actually I’m an author and write fanfics usually (not drawing, lol). I haven’t write for ages but The Arcana made impossible thing - that game made me want to write again. I write on Russian and I have never ever translated my fanfics. But! The Arcana made impossible thing [2] - it made me translate this. Alas, I’m only imroving my English and I’m not sure if I translated it correctly. So if you will read this and find (and I know you’ll find) any mistakes, please let me know. I tried my best and my only hope is that the translating is understandable.

Thank you for your time!

When The Plague Comes

PG || Drubble || Angst || Asra, fem!MC, Julian, Valdemar is there... somewhere... || Pre-canon

Summary: When the plague comes, everyone has their own reason to stay in the dying city.

Sometimes it seems to her that bright azure sky glows red. That the grass, the trees and even the ground became scarlet with rich ruby shade. People on the street avoid each other fearfully, glare at the faces of strangers, looking for slightest signs of illness. Some houses bare their toothless windows and it’s seems the darkness there takes shape – a human or a demon – and it’s seems the darkness ready to take you, to strangle you, to paint your whites of the eyes with scarlet color of fresh blood.

There are not children’s cheerful laugh on the streets anymore, there are not any strolling musicians with their music; fortune tellers don’t drag the passersby to their booths, don’t spread the bones, rocks or colorful cards. Everyone knows the fortune, both their and the whole city. This fortune flowing through flooded districts with the red water; running along the road with the red beetles; standing at the exit of the city with gloomy wardens – there is no escape from the city, there is no entrance to – even if there will be a madman who would like to get up close to the dying Vesuvia.

She feels the breath of the Death everywhere, even in the shop: tart aroma of the dried herbs mixed with the sweetish smell of rot; this smell rises lump in the throat, lingers in the nostrils. She thinks that this smell has a taste – a taste of rotten fish that covers the coast and the docks. Neither the potpourri, nor water or spiced food can’t kill this taste, - to tell the truth, it seems to her more and more that the food has the same mawkish, nauseous and rotten taste.

She hates the palace and its dungeons, where the brightest minds of the city trying to find the cure. She hates the dark dungeons and their stale air filled with hopelessness and despair. She hates Valdemar’s unwinking gaze – they seem to be the only happy person in the city. Or, maybe, in whole world – she no longer believes there is countries and people anywhere who don’t know what the plague is.

Julian doesn’t sleep for ages and she sees his haggard cheeks, sharpened cheekbones and bruises under his eyes – even his usual grin faded and thin lips fold in narrow line with the suffering fracture. She brings him the new reports every day: the plague is progressing, no survivors, from the first signs to death passes less and less time, there’re only houseless and the doctors in beaked masks on the streets. Julian shuddering at first, looking to her with the hope, but in recent days there’re only despair and muted question in his eyes.

- Ten, - says she today.

- Thirty, - she will say tomorrow.

- A few hundreds, - that will be to the end of the week.

And then they will stop counting.

There is only hatred in her eyes when she watches over the wagons riding to the docks. Everyone knows: this is one-way trip. Next there will be the Lazaret, crematorium and seashore, where they will bury all that remains of you. The doctors look away from the heavily laden wagons: their wheels leave the heavy furrows on the mud, and the horses are exhausted. Sometimes there’re screaming and crying for help heard from the wagons – not everyone loaded in the hastily built carts are dead. These screams haunt her by night and she wakes up, surrounded by ghosts, and almost sees their ruby red eyes.

As Valdemar becomes happier, Julian more pale, and the other doctors – nameless – replacing rapidly, and you don't need to ask where they disappear. The days merge into the infinite change of exhausted faces, groaning, the smells of rot; they coloring in the shades of red – the water, the sky, the ground, the eyes, the ulcers, cloaks and masks of the plague doctors; they fly by like a moment and last for ages and it seems to her that no one could break free from this vicious circle. She almost stops returning to the shop – there is not much time for this, and she spends all her time in the dungeon, and she stays overnight there, in the dark, gloomy dungeon where the blood doesn’t wash away from the floor already. And one day Julian returns from the palace with an unreadable expression on his face and says that the count gets down with plague.

- The eyes only, - says Julian and looks away. – Nothing more.

But she knows: when your eyes turn red, time is running out and all you have is a several days at most.

The Count turns out to be resistant – two, three, ten days pass, and Julian says that he got worse, but he lives.

- Why him? – asks Julian. Everyone think about it – in the palace, in the streets, in the dungeons; the doctors and all the dying patients whispering about it – the rumors spread across the city faster than the plague. The doctors die, the scientists and people around the streets die, but the Count, who is hatred by almost all the city, lives.

It seems that Julian stop sleeping and eating at all, he is locking himself at his office and she knows the Count demands cure from him. But there is no other person who wants to find a cure more than Julian himself and she knows that as well.

Soon the streets become more empty, more houses become abandoned and even ruffians don’t break the windows. One of these days she returns to the shop for changing her clothes and doesn't even try to let fire: she learned to orient in the darkness long ago. Changed quickly, she hears the door’s slam and freezes, turned to the window. They haven’t seen each other… how long? A week? A month? She has already lost the count of these days.

- Selene? – Asra’s voice sounds like he didn’t sleep for ages – just like Julian. – It’s good you’re home.

- I’m leaving, - says she unemotionally, calmly and coldly.

- No, - says Asra and comes closely. – We must leave the city, we can’t do anything here. There is no cure and the city is dying, Selene.

She straightens her back, squares the shoulders and closes her eyes.

- There is always a way out, Asra. Julian will find the cure, definitely. And I will remain with him.

- You can’t really believe it. Come on, grab your stuff and let’s leave. I know how to get past the guardians, - says Asra impatiently. She hears him walks around the room putting his stuff and books in the traveling bag.

- I’m staying, - she repeats.

- No you don’t! – Asra is almost screaming when he puts his hand onto her shoulder. She shakes his soft palm off the shoulder and repeats it again with the same cold in her voice: she’s not leaving.

- But why? – even while she is face away from him, she almost sees the despair in his eyes and feels him runs his fingers through his fluffy hair. – Why do you want to risk your life? I can’t allow you to do that!

- I don’t need your approval, - she says. – I won’t leave the city like a coward. I'll remain with someone who do something. Anything.

- Do you consider me a coward? – Asra asks. Pain, mistrust and emptiness – that’s what she hears in his voice.

- Yes, - she says. – You aren’t worth Julian’s little finger.

- Julian, huh. Is that so? - he says.

- Is it.

It seems her words destroying Asra completely. All she hears are ragged breath, heavy steps while he goes down the stairs and slow, unbearably loud creak of the door.

She exhales and leans her forehead to the cold dusty window. Nothing are reflected in the dark window but it seems to her that she sees reflection of her own eyes – green and unusually bright against the ruby red whites of the eyes.

She works in the dungeon another few days and feels eyes on her: interested and hungry – from Valdemar, sympathetic – from patients. She considers herself lucky – she hasn’t any ulcers, her body doesn’t cramp, all she has is overwhelming weakness. Good fortune smiles at her one more time: when she loses consciousness, Valdemar are busy with something very important and don’t see how one of those nameless doctors lifts her.

Through the fever and insufferable headache, she sees in flashes: a wagon's wooden boards with dried blood drops; a piece of the scarlet sky; smooth surface of water; high walls of the Lazaret.

When she, like the others, brought down to the cold floor, she can smell the rot and burning – suffocating, sweetish smell which soaked the crematorium walls. She wants to live madly, she wants to go to the journey with Asra, make tea for him, pulling his soft hair; in the same time, she wants it will be over – all that pain and fever, compared to which the flame won’t be felt.

It seems the thoughts about Asra completely crush her head – with the shame, guilt and a timid hope that the resentment was so strong that he won't get back, won't looking for her; that he will be in safety in his Nopal sanctuary or somewhere else. That he will be happy – sooner or later. That he will live.

When she sees scarlet flame strikes in front of her, when she smells the burning skin – her skin – all that she can is to hope that someday, in another world, she could tell him the most important thing.

- I’m so sorry.

#the arcana game #the arcana #the arcana apprentice #the arcana mc #the arcana fanfic #asra x apprentice #julian devorak #valdemar #fanfic #the arcana fanfiction #pre canon #my writing #my translation

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sweethazzababy · 6 years

Text

Prompt #36: “I ran out of gas and I have no fucking idea where I am. Can you come help me?”

Harry x reader

Word count: 2.8k (lol its kinda long)

Warnings: none, some fluff (it’s extremely cute)

Request a prompt!

A/N- thank you for requesting!! i had so much fun writing this one, and i’m so so happy with the way it turned out...it’s a lot longer than i expected it to be but i hope you guys like it!! :) requests are open, always!

Gonna take her for a ride on a big jet plane Gonna take her for a ride on a big jet plane Hey hey Hey hey

You hum along to the tune, quietly singing the words that you religiously memorized from countless listens. The car is the best place to listen to music, the bass blaring throughout the interior, letting the music consume your entire being. You’re on your way home from a friend’s house, taking the back roads since the highway traffic was too congested for you to willingly sit through.

It’s about half past 7, the sun close to setting for the night leaving the skies to be painted blues and pinks. The summer air is gradually getting cooler at night since autumn is rapidly approaching. You continue singing along to the words, until your car starts slowing down even though your foot isn’t close to touching the brake pedal.

“What the…” You mumble to yourself, flickering your eyes from the speedometer to the road in front of you. Your eyebrows pull together in confusion as your heart starts to beat a little faster, the nerves building up. Then, your eyes land on the fuel gauge. Empty. Before you can even comprehend what’s happening you steer your wheel to the right, coasting off to the shoulder until your car comes to a complete stop.

Sitting in silence, you feel like you can’t breathe as you start to hyperventilate at the situation, looking around frantically even though you have no idea what you’re searching for.

“No, no, no…” You whimper, reaching your shaky hands to grasp your phone. Searching through your contacts, you find your friend’s number and quickly press the call button. After a few seconds of silence and no ringing, you look at your wifi. No service. You let out a scream of frustration, banging your hands against the steering wheel but soon wincing afterwards from the pain. Stupid.

Great, you think to yourself. This isn’t exactly the way you pictured your death. After a few minutes of sitting contemplating on what to do next, you remember the convenience store you passed a mile back. You feel a sense of hope start to linger again, as you get out of your car with your keys, wallet, and phone. After locking the car you start to embark on your journey to the convenience store for help.

It's been about ten minutes, and you can see the store just 20 yards away. The sunlight is practically gone as dusk takes over, and you feel a chill. Rubbing against your arm for comfort, you look around and behind you, a little frightened. A young woman like yourself walking alone in the dark along an empty road? Not a good idea.

Once you set foot on the property of the convenience store, you let out a huge sigh of relief and your feet ache from the long walk. Walking inside, you frantically search for someone decent looking to help you, so you can get home and climb into the comfort of your bed. Walking around towards the snack aisle, your eyes land on a young man who looks like they are having trouble deciding between two different kinds of chips.

He’s wearing a plain white t shirt, but sheer enough to show off two swallow tattoos near his collarbones. He’s wearing loose light washed jeans, finishing off with a pair of black and white van sneakers. Ray bands are pushing back his locks on top of his head, and he is picking at his pink lips, studying the bags of chips before him. You snap out of your trance when he clears his throat, peering at you. At that moment you realize you were standing there staring at him like an idiot.

“Can I help you?” He asks, his voice a lot deeper than you expected.

“Uh-um…no…well, yes..I-uh, sorry,” You stutter, making a fool out of yourself but he chuckles to himself, clearly amused. You look at him again, and get a clearer look. Wait. You recognize his face. Where have you seen this face?

“You okay?” He speaks up again, this time a British accent is more noticeable and then it all clicks. Harry? Harry Styles?

“Wait—are you? Are you Harry Styles?” You lift an eyebrow, mouth slightly open in shock.

“I am, but if I’m honest I thought yeh knew that judging from the way yeh were starin’ at me like tha’.” Harry smirks, a playful gleam in his bright green eyes. You feel your cheeks heat up tremendously, and you immediately look down at your feet, rotating your ankle as you lean on your other foot.

“Sorry, I’ve made such a fool out of myself…” You chuckle with embarrassment, biting the inside of your cheek.

“No worries love, but are yeh okay? Yeh seem a little off kiltered.” Harry gazes at you, concern in his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m good,” You reassure him, but then you remember the reason for even stepping foot into this place. “Well—I actually have a bit of an issue, so, no I’m not good at all actually…I-I don’t know why I said that I was good when really…I’m not—”

“Woah, woah slow down there.” Harry cuts you off mid ramble, walking closer to you, worry on his face. “Do you need help with something?”

“I mean kinda yes, but I don’t want to be a bother, you probably have way more important things to attend to—”

“Wha’, like choosing what bag of crisps to get?” He sarcastically remarks with a laugh. You roll your eyes, a chuckle slipping from your lips at how frazzled you are in this moment. “Now get to the point love, what is it yeh need?”

“I ran out of gas and I have no fucking idea where I am. Can you come help me?” You blurt out. You’re cursing at yourself in your thoughts as the previous conversation is running through your head and you’re realizing how much of an idiot you sound like. You’ve never been good in awkward situations which is why you tend to ramble and stutter like that. And the fact that you were talking to an extremely attractive celebrity, made it even worse.

“Now was that so hard?” Harry mocks, a grin spreading on his lips as you stand there desperate to go home.

“Funny. Thanks for the help!” You huff, glaring at him before you turn away on your heels, annoyed at the stuck up arrogance of an asshole.

“Wait, wait—” Harry grips your arm before you get away. “M’sorry that was rude, and you’re clearly in a desperate situation here. Let me help.” He apologetically pleads, his hand still gripping your arm.

“Thanks.” You sigh with a tight lipped smile.

“First things first, what’s yeh name darlin’?” Harry walks closer to you with a generous smile. Your heart flutters at the sight of his dimples, his green eyes sparkling towards you and his British accent oh so thick.

“Y/N.” You respond breathily, eyes locked on his. The tension building between you two is noticeable and Harry smirks when he sees the gleam in your eyes, taking an even closer step towards you.

“Y/N. Pretty name fo’ a pretty gal like yourself.” Harry flirts, making you blush even more. This situation is definitely something out of a movie scene, especially one that you least expected to happen to you of all people. You never had great luck with anything, life is always throwing all sorts of shit at you which is why you weren’t exactly surprised that your car decided to run out of gas. It was only a matter of time before it happened to you. But in this moment, you’re pretty thankful it did.

“You certainly know your way around words, don’t you?” You coaxed, the corner of your mouth lifting into a lopsided smile. You dig your hands into your sweatshirt front pocket, rocking on your heels.

“I like to think m’poetic. As a songwriter like m’self, I kind of need to be.” Harry grinned, his eyes sparkling even more at the flirty banter happening between the two of you. “Now, enough about me, shouldn’t we get some fuel for your car?” You nod, laughing at how distracted you got. He lifts his sunglasses up and runs his ringed fingers through his hair before resting his sunglasses down again. Mesmerized, your heart skips a beat at such a simple action. His hand rests on the small of your back as Harry leads the way, walking towards the door. After opening it and letting you out first like a gentleman, he shoves his hands in his jean pockets, searching for his keys. Clicking the unlock button, you see his headlights flicker. A fucking Range Rover. How did you not see it walking in? Harry notices your expression and chuckles to himself, shaking his head.

“Please don’t make a big deal of it, okay?” Harry remarked. “M’ just a regular guy helping a young woman with car trouble.” He settles, opening the passenger door for you. You sit down, and look around the interior of the car. Super clean, and smells like vanilla and peppermint. Harry gets in on the other side, starting the engine.

“S’awfully dark out, you managed to walk here by yourself?” Harry curiously asks as he pulls out of his parking spot.

“Wait, where are we getting gas?” You ignore his question, genuinely curious to know what his plan is.

“I always keep an extra tin of gas in my trunk. I advise you do the same.” Harry jests, and you scoff rolling your eyes. Belting out a short laugh, amused at your reaction.

“Hmm, maybe although it isn’t every day I run out of gas in the middle of a vacant road.” You sarcastically reply, a smirk forming across your lips.

“Where is your car, love?” Harry asks, snickering at your defensive reaction.

“Make a left out of the lot, and it’s about a mile down the road.” You point in the direction, and he nods steering the wheel to the left and pulling out of the parking lot. Harry turns his aux on, his phone connected. All of the sudden, guitars and drums start blaring through the speakers startling you.

She worked her way through a cheap pack of cigarettes Hard liquor mixed with a bit of intellect

You widen your eyes at the outburst of instrumentation, the rock and husky tone of the artist intriguing you. You look over at Harry, and see he’s trying to hide what looks like a devious smirk, his dimples showing near the corners of his mouth.

“Hold on…this is you isn’t?” You marvel, entertained by his choice of music and wondering if he actually listens to his own album on the daily. Harry starts snickering, picking at his lip again with his thumb and index finger.

“D’ yeh like it?” Harry asks, genuinely curious for your opinion. You listen for another thirty seconds before making your decision and you can’t help but feel a bit turned on by the song. You wonder how he is live when performing it.

“I love it, actually. It’s quite narcissistic of you to play your own song though, is it not?” You chuckle with a lopsided smile. His green irises are shining with pride, and his smile is wide and beaming. Your heart jumps, captured by his charm and good looks and you wonder how someone’s smile can be so contagious and adorable. Now you see why the fans go crazy over him.

“Wha’ I can’t take pride in my own work?” Harry counters, raising his eyebrows. You agree, letting the song run through your veins, closing your eyes and admiring his voice. Until he startles you, singing along.

“I THINK SHE SAID I’M HAVING YOUR BABYYYYY” Harry screams, singing along with his own voice. “IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESSSSS” You lean your head against the palm of your hand, your elbow leaning on the ledge of the door. Giggling, you look over at him who looks like he is having the time of his life bopping his head with a smile.

“Wow, Harry Styles’s biggest fan is himself who would’ve thought.” You joke, entertained at how happy he is while listening to the upbeat song. “You scared me too, screaming like that.” Your voice growing bubbly, trying to contain your grin.

“Your eyes were closed, darlin’. During a song like this, and to be honest yeh doin’ it wrong.” Harry remarked, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiles widely again.

“I like to mentally take in the music before I thoroughly enjoy it.” You counter back, lifting an eyebrow. He lowly chuckles.

“Hmmm, smart girl.” He agrees, and you feel your cheeks blaze red even more at his words. “A bit of a music intellect aren’t yeh?” You blush once more, nodding in agreement at his assumption.

“Yeah, I guess. I hate when people can’t truly appreciate lyrics or instrumentation...the way a song is structured. Some songs make me feel so...tingly inside as weird as it sounds.” You ramble, the topic of music never gets old with you. You could go on and on about your favorite songs, and why they are so special. Harry attentively listens to you, humming in response, infactuated with your thoughts. You see your car in the distance, finally.

“Oh, there’s my car!” You blurt over the music, pointing at the vehicle. Harry pulls over behind it and turns the car off abruptly ending the loud music and now, it feels too quiet. Before you can open the door yourself, Harry runs to the other side opening it for you making your heart skip a beat and your cheeks heat up from the kind gesture. He offers his hand to help you out of the car, and you take it feeling flustered. His hand is enormous compared to yours, but it feels comforting and warm. Feeling tingles all over your body, you step out and you feel like your knees could give out any second. You really hope this isn’t a one time thing with him.

Harry opens his trunk and picks up the red container of gas and strolls over to your fuel filler opening it to start putting the gas into it. You stand next to him as he fills it, awkwardly watching.

“Thank you, by the way. If it wasn’t for you, I probably would still be stranded out here.” You sincerely acknowledge, looking him in the eyes softly. He stares back at you, his twinkling eyes pouring into yours.

“I really like you Y/N.” He blurts out, eyes still locked on yours. Your heart starts to beat faster as he continues, “I know I’ve only known you for a very small amount of time, but I like bein’ around you. Yeh treat me like any other guy, rather than Harry Styles.” He expresses, putting air quotes around his own name. You smile genuinely, then look down at your feet from blushing too much.

“I really like you too.” You quietly say back, biting your bottom lip.

“I wanna get to know you more.” Harry admits, blush forming on his own cheeks as he gazes ar you with admiration. He’s looking at you like you’re someone so special to him, and you swear no guy has ever looked at you the way he does, despite only knowing him for about an hour.

“I want to get to know you too.” You agree, and he laughs, beaming a smile and he seems relieved that you feel the same way. When he’s done filling your tank, he puts the container down on the ground.

“May I see your phone?” He politely asks, and you unlock it before handing it to him. He types is information in, creating a contact for himself. You feel like your heart could burst any second, trying to contain the squeals threatening to leave your lips. When he’s done, he gives your phone back, again staring deeply into your eyes. Before you can say anything, he steps closer to you and leans in to kiss your cheek softly and you swear you stopped breathing for a second. His lips linger on your cheek, your heart thumping tremendously. Then his lips move to your lips, lingering over them as if he’s asking for permission to kiss you. You lean forward connecting your lips with his to finalize it, and he immediately responds one hand cupping your cheek while the other gently rests on your waist. Your hand reaches to the back of his neck, twirling his hair at the back of his neck with your fingers. The tingling sensation comes back again, only it’s much stronger this time as he moves his lips against yours, softly poking his tongue to meet yours deepening the kiss. His hand grips your waist tighter, leaning into you and you sigh against his mouth.

Parting from your lips, he opens his eyes to meet yours, his nose close to touching the tip of yours. The corners of his mouth lift slowly into a closed mouth smile, and he chuckles looking down, then back at you. The palm of his hand is still gently resting against your cheek, his other still resting on your waist.

“M’ sorry, I couldn’t contain myself.” He laughs, stroking his thumb soothingly against your cheek. You laugh too, feeling even more flustered but you want more of him.

You lean up to peck his lips once more. “Me neither.” You say with a flirty smirk.

“I wanna take yeh out sometime.” He offers, stepping back a bit as his hands leave your body and you hate the absence of his touch.

“I would love that.” You grin, biting your bottom lip again, a nervous habit and his touch is still lingering on your lips and you’re craving more. “Thank you again, I really appreciate it Harry.”

“No problem. I’m happy you found me.” Harry gushes, his smile never faltering. “Drive safe, okay love? Call me when you get home.” He winks, making you cackle at his cheesiness. You nod and say goodbye, getting into your car. Once your door is closed and he drives away with a wave, you squeal with a giggle in the comfort of your car.

Never have you felt more thankful for running out of gas.

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