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#bump works w children on the regular
kayhi808 · 1 year
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Billy Mine - Act 2.1
Leaving Ray of Hope Children's Home felt so…final. It's what I wanted, but I had a hard time adjusting to family life all the same. I mised Billy Mine. He was like a drug in my veins and I was going through withdrawals.
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My new parents, Patrick & Christina Ellis were wonderful. They were so patient and kind and loving. They are so much more than I deserved. Before I started high school, my father decided to throw his hat into the political ring. He went from local New York politics to becoming a US Senator. It made life more hectic. We were more in the spotlight. Of course being in the spotlight brings out a lot of lunatics as well. My father gets regular death threats that the Secret Service are aware of. Others are just threats from unhinged individuals.
A few days ago, I was attacked on my way home from work. Police think it was a potential kidnapping to use against my father. Luckily I was able to fend them off, but not without injury. I have stiches on my forehead, a black eye, a busted lip, bruised ribs & they dislocated my shoulder. Years of Muay Thai actually paid off. I don't think they were expecting me to fight back. I wasn't so helpless that they could have just plucked me off the street. I was causing too much of a scene and I'm sure some of them are in worst condition than I am. Bystanders came to my aide, and they took off. Mom & Dad were in NY not DC at the time, so when they found out, I got brought straight back to their place. Not that I complained too much, I felt like crap.
*****
"Baby, do you mind coming outside? There's someone I need you to meet. It'll only take a minute." Dad wraps an arm around me to help me out of my chair.
I couldn't hold back a groan. "I'm really not in the mood to see people," as he leads me out onto the terrace.
"I know, Jules. I swear, it'll just be a minute. I hired security for you and I want you to meet him."
"Daaaddd," I hiss and stop in my tracks but he keeps ushering me forward.
A man stands with his back to me looking out over the Manhattan skyline. Tall, broad shoulders, dark hair, bespoke suit…my skin breaks out in goose bumps.
Hearing our arrival, he turns around & greets my father, "Senator Ellis."
"Thank you so much for meeting here instead of the office." They shake hands. "My daughter, Jules."
He turns his attention to me & I'm lost in his obsidian gaze. There's only one other person who has eyes like that. I can hardly catch my breath. I feel faint and clutch my dad's arm tighter. "Billy Mine" I whisper. Billy's eyes widen with recognition before the darkness takes me.
******
"Sweetheart? Jules."
"Dad?" I open my eyes to find I'm still on the terrace, but on the chaise lounge not on the floor. Shit. Billy.
"You need me to take you back to the hospital? How do you feel?" Dad asked crouched down beside the chair.
"No. No. Don't do that. I'm ok." I look around. I couldn't have been hallucinating. Billy steps nearer. "Billy Russo."
Billy hands me a glass of water, "Here. Drink this."
"You two know each other?" I hear a protective tone in my dad's voice. Billy's eyes dart to mine.
"A..a long time ago. Ray of Hope. W...we were there."
Billy looked to be more in shock than I was. "Juliet."
"Bill owns the security company I've hired to watch over you, until the police or secret service find those men," reassuringly pats my leg. "Nothing like that will ever happen again."
Bill clears his throat, "We'd like to sit down and discuss your daily routine and schedule but we can arrange that for a better time," nodding at me & handing me his business card. I take it, careful not to touch him. "Please call my assistant to schedule something when you feel up to it."
He scans my face & injuries. His eyes are hard like the day he saw my bruises from Carla. Scary mad. "Of course. Thank you."
"Excellent. Thank you again for coming out here. I greatly appreciate it. Jules will set an appointment soon. She's still recovering."
"You're welcome, Senator. Completely understandable."
"Let me see you out."
"No, I can see myself out. Stay with your daughter." Turning to me, "It was good to see you again, Juliet, despite these circumstances."
I can only nod, my throat tightens with the sobs and cries I try to hold back. I haven't thought about him in over a decade but to watch him leave, I wanted to run after him. Have him take me with him.
"Jules?? What's wrong?" Dad brushes away tears that I didnt even know had fallen. "Are you in pain? I can get a doctor out here."
"No. I'm sorry." I start crying and my dad hugs me, "It suddenly feels overwhelming. But I'm ok. I promise." I lie to him. "Maybe if I just lay down for a minute." I kiss his cheek and squeeze his hand as he helps me return to my room.
I take some pain meds yet still sleep restlessly, tormented by dreams of Billy Mine.
@idaofinfinity @imagine-a-fictional-boyfriend @snowkestrel @ellooo0ooo @bustlingcrowdsxorxsilentsleepers @terry2227 @e-dubbc11
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canismaxim-games · 2 years
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Would Spouse be open to (eventually) having more kids with MC? Not to replace the child they lost or anything like that, but my MC had already wanted to have another kid before the tragic camping incident and still does. Tho if Spouse didn't to have any more children that's more than fine and my MC would never push the subject!
And what about the other ROs? Would any of them want to have kids w/ MC or are they more 'nah, no thanks'?
oh this is so soft, Spouse would *absolutely* be up for having more kids once everything has calmed down. They know nothing will ever replace your kiddo, but they love being a parent and seeing MC just soft and full of happiness when they think no one's watching as they hold their little one. Spouse loves that as a parent they get to watch a little being truly grow and learn and enjoy the world with fresh eyes, that they get to help that little one on this amazing journey. Yes there will be rough patches and bumps along the rode, there will be hardships and heartache, but there is so much good to focus on as well. Plus, it'll be explained more in game but Spouse not only recieved physical therapy to get used to their prosthetics, but regular therapy as well so they're probably a lot further along in the greiving process than mc (unless mc goes to therapy as well which IS an option) and has many coping skills. If anything Spouse may just be a tad overprotective of any future kiddos i.e wolf growling as a reflex if a stranger with off vibes even looks at the kid.
AND spouse is totally okay and understanding if MC doesn't want kids ever again. They understand and can't imagine the trauma MC must have endured at the hands of the pack.
As for the rest of the RO's it's sort of been answered here, and generally the answer stays the same. Burglar is really the only RO who is just "nah" when it comes to kids. Detective and Hunter are open to the idea but they'd need time to think about it as they've got some parent trauma they gotta work through. Ghost and Loner are all for kids and having a little family, Loner has always been a family person, and Ghost well when they look at MC their stomach gets all warm and fuzzy and they can't help but imagine being a small family finally living in peace, helping each other, growing, raising a kid... their cheeks flush a deep blue everytime.
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eccentric-nucleus · 1 year
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anyway so i posted another chapter of the TMNT fanfic i've been working on. fun fact by the time i get this full thing posted it will be by far the longest thing i've ever posted on ao3.
it's over here!
further thoughts under the cut.
this story is obviously kind of a deviation from my regular writing (by which i mean, extremely explicit monster pornography) but i've been wanting to write some stuff with actual plots and themes and the like recently, so i guess when nanowrimo rolled around i just dug in. i was thinking of what kind of junk i love to see in fics and just threw all of it together in one big self-indulgent heap and so now it's a wild genre mashup. gotta kill yr internal censor & no better way to do it than to write self-serious teenage mutant ninja turtles romance/drama fanfiction.
there's that kind of chestnut about romance stories where people complain about how 90% of the plot could be removed if the characters actually just talked to each other, right? whoops it's all miscommunications and people keeping secrets for no reason, and that's the dynamo that drives the plot b/c you need some kind of tension, but you don't want the characters to come off as seriously flawed. relatedly, there was that one tweet thread by abbadon recently where he kind of touches on that. gotta have the characters be, you know. nice, good people. or sometimes so evil and over the top that it becomes cartoonish. but actually i think something i really enjoy in romance fanfic is when one or both characters are just genuinely obnoxious people. i mean i don't think i'm hitting that super heavily as a story theme so far, but. more jerks, imo
porn on ao3 vs. plotted fics on ao3 tend to have wildly different hits/comments/kudos ratios, & this is actually my first time being on the other side of it. like porn tends to get lotttts of hits, from people searching by tags or w/e, but not a lot of in-depth comments. meanwhile you will see fics that are like, 200,000 words, 70 chapters, 300 comments, 1200 hits. and it's like oh okay, this has a niche audience. this is somebody actually engaging with the local fandom. i tend to avoid fandoms that are actually, you know, 'active', so i don't really get a lot of that for anything i post. i guess my naruto fanfic kind of got that? people still care about naruto, i guess.
apparently there's kind of an active TMNT fandom on tumblr and like i guess i could link my tumblr in the story notes but i basically never do that kind of fandom enagement. i don't really, you know. like interacting with people. but who else can i tell about all my au ideas????
but with this TMNT fanfic it's very funny to have posted 8 chapters across three months and still have under 2k views. like whatttt all the plotless porn fills get thousands and thousands of hits. the teen wolf story with maggot infestation tagged got more hits than this one, and this has been bumped seven times! but yeah that's what writing a story with a plot gets you vs. writing porn, so, it's not actually surprising it's just funny to see in action.
i mean all that being said, kind of the joke of the initial two chapters of the story is that it's presented exactly like it's just a oneshot porn fic so really maybe the lack of hits is something else entirely; who can say. the mistake of everything being quantified with hits and kudos and subscriptions is that it invites you to systematize data, when actually it's probably mostly just noise & externalities. maybe people just don't like weird turtle dick.
(also if you'll excuse some yelling at clouds, just as an aside, but there are so many chatfics in the fandom (b/c this is media for children and kids these days only talk via chats) and with like two exceptions they're all completely unformatted, just bold names and double-spaced paragraphs between every line, from copying the story in from a google doc or something. please learn how to make a work skin + the css to format yr story like it's an actual chat client. at least get rid of the double-spacing. my story contains like 20 lines of grindr text messages and i still put together a whole custom stylesheet for it. it's not hard!! it looks so much better! you can give characters custom colored text bubbles, which works well since all the characters are already color-coded!! anyway.)
(also lol i do actually have a leatherhead/mikey/raph/slash 4some wip i'm considering finishing, which is much more my standard style. i can't believe i've gotten into teenage mutant ninja turtles. i think i've read like 80% of the extant fanfic on ao3 in the past few months. i really do think the major issue stopping me from getting into it was just that i always found it a little obnoxious that the turtles were always copy-paste palette-swap designs. if it's in black and white and they don't have their weapons in shot good luck figuring out which turtle is there b/c their designs are identical. thank you rise for giving them wild designs even if your toy line was garbage so the show got canceled immediately.)
ANYWAY so the story is actually kind of under-tagged, and in the original post draft of the fic i had way more warnings, but after some consideration i cut a lot of them out. like, if you're reading this fic you are hopefully an adult and you can form your own opinions about the characters and what happens without me having to signpost. and also i read somebody's post that was like, actually i hate content warnings when they're just like "tw: sexual assault. sexual assault happens" and it's like wow that's so vague and open-ended it could mean almost anything, and that looming ambiguity is more stressful than just encountering w/e happens in the full context of the story. obviously this is subjective but there's not really an objective way to present any information.
i mean okay originally ch 1 was gonna have a note like "do your own risk assessment before hosting & having unprotected cloacal sex with a total stranger off grindr. actually don't do anything mikey does in this fic." which would get funnier and funnier as more of what mikey actually gets up to gets revealed
but also the main tension of the whole story is literally just character motivation? you get to see mikey & raph do a lot of things but justifications for why they do them is notably lacking. u gotta figure that out. so it feels kind of didactic to even tag it as like, 'organized crime', not even in 'that's a spoiler' territory although i guess it would be, but in the sense of like, this is a structured narrative that you are supposed to form concepts about. ...so i guess that's exactly spoiler territory, actually. listen i am new to this whole "writing stories with plots" thing.
also i mean it is very funny that i've gotten kind of worried about under-tagging this or it having too extreme content when the fandom is full up on like, serial killer yandere aus or w/e else. 'x is a creepy rapist and he kills his other brothers so he can keep y as a sex toy'. actually this story is extremely tame in comparison.
anyway some people get murdered in this latest chapter of the fic, is what i'm saying.
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sunaswife · 3 years
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Summary: It’s been five years since you’ve seen your ex, Rin. He’s still not over you and you’re not over him. When he finds out you have children he thought he didn’t have a chance. Then he finds out they’re his? All of a sudden you’re teaching Suna how to be a single dad.
A/N: I think this is shitty but not shitty at the same time but my anxiety is shit so I decided to just post it and get it over with lmao did that rhyme?
Warnings: Fluff, angst I guess, drama, and cuteness twin overload
Previously Up Next Masterlist
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The setter saw Y/N walk away holding hands with her son while she lifted her girl in her other arm. The clicking of heels echoed off the wall and Atsumu almost snorted, he remember that you claimed you couldn’t walk in them but I guess you can now. Jamie was walking next to her as well. What are the odds?
“Hey Tobio, you’re cousins with her right? She told me she was a manager for a volleyball team in highschool but I never saw her during any summer camps we had together.” Kuroo spoke up. “Ohh she lived in Hyogo at the time! She was manager for Atsumu’s team.” Hinata spoke up. “Ah Inarizaki? No wonder I didn’t see her. I would have made a move if I did.” He muttered. “She would have said no.” Atsumu and Hinata said at the same time. They looked at eachother and Kuroo raised a brow. “Why would she say no?” He asked curiously.
“She was pregnant!”
“She broke up with our middle blocker.”
“Boke Hinata! Don’t just tell your Senpai’s business like that!” Tobio smacked him in the back of his head but Atsumu stood there stunned. Okay he saw the kids but he didn’t know how old they were exactly. But he didn’t think she was pregnant during nationals.
“But in all honesty Kuroo-San, she didn’t know she was pregnant but supposedly she broke up with her ex boyfriend a little bit before nationals.” Hinata tried explaining more to fix the situation and Tobio was pretty pissed. He’s so used to Y/N getting shunned or tsked by family members and random people because she got pregnant before her last year of highschool. He’s not sure if Kuroo would do the same thing.
“Wait—so that means Suna is the dad?” Atsumu gasped, finally putting the pieces together and Tobio gave him a glare. “So what if he is? Piece of shit didn’t even answer the phone when she called a week before she was due. She had to do everything alone. She moved alone, worked long hours to provide for those kids and clawed her way through the seasons in order to get where she’s at. And I’m damn proud of her. Now if you excuse me. I believe we need to warm up.” Tobio said and bumped shoulders with the opposing setter before walking away with Ushijima and Hoshiumi following behind.
“Wait so Suna is that one guy that was number ten and had the funny looking bangs right?” Hinata asked and Atsumu nodded and Hinata’s eyes widened. “Kuroo-San, a lot of people judged and treated Y/N-senpai bad because she made a mistake. Do you think of her any different?” Hinata told him and Kuroo shrugged, “I’m interested in her because I think she’s pretty cool and hot, so what if she has kids? They seem cool too.” Kuroo said and walked passed the black jackals to the gym. He definitely wanted that milf action.
Atsumu immediately flipped out his phone and started typing in the old groupchat that hasn’t been opened in years.
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He put his phone away and joined his teammates for warmups. There you were sitting with your co-commentator. And he was explaining something while you nodded and pointed to one side of the court to the other. He noticed your stares as they warmed up and made your way down to see your kids one last time before the game. They were talking to another small boy who had the number 5 jersey of Tobio’s team.
“H-hello!” You told Tobio’s teammate in English, he was Nicollas Romero and so freaking gorgeous. Would he mind having another two kids? Haha jk...unless...? You never really found older men attractive but damn. He’s hot. He was squatting down, eye level with your son as they talked. He looked up and he gave a bright smile “Oh hello, you must be their lovely mother? And you must be Tobio’s cousin. ” He said in English with his thick accent. “Y-yes, sorry if they’re causing you trouble. My son has a habit of doing that.” You said and he stood up. You almost fainted, he’s so freaking big and he was towering over you.
“Oh no, I just wanted to meet my son’s new friends. They’re sweet kids. You raised them right.” He smiled softly and you smiled back. You both looked down at seeing the three kids tossing a volleyball to eachother and you sighed. “Excuse me ma’am, can we take a picture of you, Romero and your children. It’ll look so cute!” A photographer said excitedly. “W-We’re not together.” You stuttered and tried to fan your flushed face. “What is he saying?”Romero asked. Oh yeah the photographer probably only knows Japanese.
“He wants a photo of me and you with the kids. I think he thinks we’re a couple. But I told him we’re not.” You told him in English. “We’re not a couple but surely we can take a picture together? My son would be happy to look back at this when he’s older. And I’m sure your children as well.” He said and you nodded. “Rini, Akira. Come here. We’re gonna take a photo.” You told your kids as Romero called his son over. The photographer told you to pose so the three kids stood in front with Rubens in the center, Rini on his left and Akira on his right. You stood behind Akira with Romero’s arm around your waist. (He asked for permission after the photographer kept insisting) and you leaned your head against his shoulder and you all smiled. The next pose the photographer asked for was you and Romero squatting next to your kids as you all hugged and they rocked their Alders jersey. Is this a regular photo or a family photo?
Earlier Rini cried that he wanted to wear his #12 MSBY jersey and Akira wanted to wear her #13 one. Akira is usually the calm and collected twin but her eyes watered as she cried that Miya would never notice her and now they will never get married and you put a stop to that quick. You told her he was too old and by the time she was old enough to marry him he’d be all ugly and wrinkled and she shivered in disgust.
You were obviously exaggerating but you don’t want your daughter falling for boys like him.
When you pulled away to give your babies another kiss, Rubens asked for a kiss too so you chuckled and kissed his cheek as well he had a red lipstick stain and he was blushing like crazy. They all ran back to their seats to eagerly wait for the game to start. You had a feeling someone was watching you but you brushed it off. It’s not the first time you get looks of disgust when people find out your a mom at so young. You carefully hugged Romero out of respect and you tried to not get makeup on his jersey but he played it off cool and gave you a head pat before returning to his locker room. Jamie was right there in her seat smirking and making a thrusting motion to “get some.” You rolled your eyes and gave a thumbs up to Hinata and one to Tobio. You made your way to the commentators stand where they started to wire you up.
Now on Jamie’s list for you, you had bachelor number one, Kuroo, and bachelor number two, Romero. But little did she know ex boyfriend and bachelor number three saw the whole thing and his heart was broken to pieces.
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notchesandbullets · 3 years
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Saving Her (Ojiro Mashirao x Wolf!Reader)
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Part 6: Shopping for clothes, food court and boba experience served with Ashido’s endless shipping and topped off with an incredibly protective Dadzawa.
Word Count: 5.8k
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After another hour of shopping around the huge mall, Aizawa decided now would probably be a good time to try and round his students up. Since if there were any problems tracking down those problematic and ridiculously talented children, he could deal with it before it got too late and past their curfew.
Besides, you still needed clothes and he was not equipped to handle that. As Kayama said, he had the fashion sense of an emo teenager going through his rebellious phase. The thing was, she had been saying that since she met him, so it lost its effect a long time ago.
"Heeyy, Ojiro-kun!! Y/N-chan!!!"
The both of you turned around to see Uraraka waving enthusiastically at you. Yaoyorozu and Ashido were with her, along with Shoji, Asui and Hagakure coming from the opposite direction.
Ojiro had spared his teacher from having to call all of them and simply sent a message in the group chat.
You didn't even want to know how often they used it based off of the glance you got when he pulled out his phone and let you see. In the span of the six-inch screen, you had caught a glimpse of topics ranging from food to homework to bodily functions and your head was spinning.
Aizawa sighed boredly and you threw him a sly side glance as Jirou, Kaminari and Ojiro ran out to meet the rest of the group once the boy by your side ensured you would stay with the only one responsible here.
"You're not really tired, are you, Aizawa-sensei?" You asked cheekily, skipping over to him.
He huffed out a laugh as he leaned against the wall. "You're cute, kid. Cut it out."
"I can't help it~" You whined, pouting childishly.
You protested as he ruffled your hair. Unlike when Ojiro did it, he was rougher and always messed it up. Nearly patting it down so it laid flat, you glared and the nerve he had to laugh outright at you had your mock frown wavering into a bright smile.
The sound made your eyes sparkle happily and he caught on quick.
"You did that on purpose, kid." He stated with a sigh, already feeling himself succumbing to your adorable nature.
No one should be that cute. It wasn't good for his heart.
He raised an eyebrow at you as you scuffed your feet on the ground, a cheeky smile still plastered on your face.
Aizawa ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head slightly. You were cute, even with how reluctant he was to admit to sometimes. Damn, he was getting a soft spot for you.
But the instant Ashido cooed, he returned to his stiff, normal, rugged teacher self.
"Alright, get going." He said dryly, gently redirecting you towards Ojiro who was holding out his hand to you before following. "We don't have all day."
"Technically, we do." Kaminari whispered in your ear and you giggled, covering it up with Aizawa fixated a glare on the two of you.
You held up your hand in surrender. "We are innocent."
"Yeah, yeah, likely story." Aizawa didn't believe you for a second. "Just go."
You skipped on ahead, Ojiro glued to your side. The girls flocked around you, Yaoyorozu leading the group to a different clothing store that she and her companions had been at earlier. This seemed much more suited to you, not to mention, a lot more affordable.
You were picking out a couple of things that seemed nice but you were really taking a gamble. You never had been clothes shopping before and weren't really sure what to expect. People mostly dressed you in whatever they wanted you to be presented in.
Luckily, Yaoyorozu swooped in to help.
Ojiro was surprisingly pretty knowledgeable about fashion too and when asked, he had blushed before proudly gushing about his little sister who he usually took on all her shopping trips when their parents were busy working. She had quite an acute fashion sense.
A huge pile of clothes later, you were shoved into a fitting room, with Shoji, Kaminari, Ojiro and Aizawa all waiting outside like some kind of odd band.
Either that, or a very disgruntled dad who was forced to tag along with all his unusual children.
The girls were gushing over each item that you put on, rushing out to get different sizes if the ones they picked didn't fit, making you show the boys and guardian everything that you liked.
You tended to gravitate more towards comfy clothes but there were a few Yaoyorozu and Hagakure found that were both beautiful and versatile. Those were an immediate yes from Aizawa and Ojiro, wanting you to have as much variety as possible.
Everything the girls had picked out that you show them complimented your figure beautifully but was still modest.
While you weren't looking, Shoji had selected some shoes for you, noticing that the ones you had one were practically falling apart on your feet. They were sturdy but had a geometric pattern that you found you rather liked a lot.
Thanking him, you beamed and he hid a smile.
Aizawa paid for all of it without batting an eye and you felt guilty for making him spend his money.
"You're not making me do anything, kid." He called out, as if he could read your thoughts. "I'm doing this because I want to provide for you, not because I feel forced to, got it?"
Besides, he had more than enough thanks to his hero work and teaching at the school. He rarely splurged on anything, the last thing being his old yellow sleeping bag which he had gotten years ago.
This wasn't even going to make a dent in the funds he had saved up.
You sniffled, nodding once. His bluntness took you by surprise but you concealed it well. You had no idea he could be so caring. You were overwhelmed by his generosity and the kindness of the people that surrounded you.
How did I get so lucky? What did I do to deserve this?
Aizawa's hands grasped empty air where the bags had been a minute ago, glancing at his students who were now in possession of your newly purchased things but shrugged, leaving them to it. Less work for him.
He watched them stumble one after another, all of them eagerly making their way to the food court. He checked the time on his phone, suppressing a yawn. It was about time to eat anyway.
Finally. He could sit down and take a nap.
You yelped as Ashido suddenly grasped your arm, pulling you along and you stumbled a few feet before righting yourself. Your hand slipped out of Ojiro's and you shouted in surprise as she took off like a racecar.
"Wha... Where are we going?!" You exclaimed as she sped ahead, dragging you along with her and leaving everyone else in the dust.
She excitedly pointed up ahead and you followed her finger.
"What's 'bubble tea'?" You asked innocently, never hearing of it before.
Your friend gasped in shock that you had never had the pleasure of experiencing the best thing in the world but then the wicked smile that crossed her face as she got behind the line was borderline evil.
"Oh, you're going to love this!!" Ashido said, her eyes gleaming.
When it was your turn, Ojiro finally caught up to the two of you. He was out of breath but all the tension in his body dissipated as he spotted you, safe and sound next to the pink girl. Unknown to you, he had zipped after you the second your hand slipped out of his but he had gotten swarmed by the crowd and lost sight of you.
Thankfully, Ashido hadn't taken you too far.
You squeaked, drawing your hands into your chest as you were crushed to his chest. "O-Ojiro-kun?"
"Geez, Y/N." He breathed, exasperated. "Don't scare me like that."
His scolding was light since he obviously knew it wasn't your fault but he was still concerned. You mumbled an apology and he hastily corrected his mistake, reassuring you that you didn't do anything wrong and you sank into his embrace, relieved.
Seeing as how it was your turn to order, he reluctantly let you go. You wandered up to the counter to shyly ask the barista what was good for someone who hadn't tried boba before and the girl launched into an advertisement of all her favorites.
Ojiro was busy sending a quick message to Aizawa to let him know that he had found you when Ashido slinked into his field of vision.
She bumped his hip with hers, pumping a fist into the air. "Oh, lighten up Ojiro, she's safe with me!! I won't let anybody take her!!"
She knew of the people after you but she had no idea about the incident that had occurred inside one of the stores just hours ago. As Ojiro clued her in, her eyes went wide and filled with guilt.
"Holy... I'm so sorry, I had no idea." She said, shoulders dropping as her usual energy dulled down. "Is she okay?"
Ojiro nodded, not once taking his eyes off of you. "Yeah, she was a bit shaky at first, but who wouldn't be? I think she's okay so long as we don't leave her."
Ashido nodded understandingly.
Seeing as how you were having trouble deciding what to get after a multitude of options from the enthusiastic barista, you turned back to Ojiro helplessly.
He slid up behind you, hands on your waist as he rested his chin on your shoulder.
"Can we please have one regular milk tea with tapioca, a chai milk tea, and a taro milk tea with no ice, half sugar and tapioca, please?" He requested of the nice girl behind the counter, squeezing your side to let you know that everything was alright and you relaxed in his embrace.
Talking to strangers freaked you out even though she seemed nice enough. You just didn't like looking like an idiot who didn't know what they were doing, lacking the social skills everyone else seemed to have no problems with.
Ashido beamed, hopping over from looking at the menu to where the two of you were standing.
"No way, you remembered my order?!" She shrieked in disbelief and awe as she heard the complicated order. "Ojiro, you're amazing!!"
You had to agree with that statement. She proceeded to tell you of the time when she ordered it back when they were at Yaoyorozu's house to study for the upcoming exam, saying that there's no other way he could've heard it if it wasn't from back then.
You latched onto her story as if it was the most incredible thing in the world.
As Ojiro paid for the drinks, you helped carry them back to the table where Aizawa was sitting, Ashiso slurping on her drink already with a dazed look of joy on her face.
The underground hero looked out of place with children, families and teenagers milling around him.
He was sitting at a table by himself with several huge bags from various stores, most of which were very girly in design, signifying everyone's purchases. Seemed like everyone had left their stuff with him. You felt kind of bad but he looked like he didn't care so you suppressed it.
You set down the cups, glancing around the packed food court.
"Where's everybody else?" You asked.
Aizawa gestured to the ramen stands on the opposite side of the food court. "It's close to dinnertime, so they went to go get some food."
On cue, Ashido's stomach rumbled loudly.
"Oops." She grinned, tossing the now empty cup in a nearby trash can. "That's my cue!!"
Your eyes were as wide as saucers. "You finished it already?! It's been two minutes!!"
Flashing you a megawatt smile, she flounced off in another direction, presumably to get some food.
Uncertainly, you sank down in a chair across from Aizawa. Now that you thought about it, you were kind of hungry, but this was normal. All you had to do was not think about it and then the urges would go away.
Eventually.
You really didn't want to ask them to buy you anything, they didn't owe you anything and they've already done so much for you. One day without food wouldn't kill you.
Aizawa could read you better than that.
"Ojiro."
The boy looked up as his teacher called his name.
"She's hungry. Go get some gyūdon for her." Aizawa instructed without batting an eye at your flabbergasted expression.
It would be easy enough on your stomach, since he was sure you lacked the proper nutrients you needed for a girl your age. This would suffice for now until he could come up with a meal plan for you to get adjusted to your new normal. He was not going to have you starve from now on.
Nodding once, Ojiro sped towards where they were selling it but not before his teacher halted him to hand him ¥10,000. His eyes widened as he took in the hefty amount.
He looked mildly uncomfortable. "Aizawa-sensei—"
"Get something for yourself too, I don't care what you choose." Aizawa interrupted swiftly, his hard stare leaving no room for argument. "Make sure it's an appropriate enough meal for dinner though."
As Ojiro left to go hunt down some gyūdon, you swung your legs happily, beaming at the gruff man sitting across from you. His rough exterior and indifferent demeanor hid it well, but you still saw it. That softness in his gaze when he thought no one else was looking. He loved his students.
"Stop that." He said flatly as he caught you staring but you just giggled.
"I can't help it." You countered, resting your chin in the palm of your hand, your ears swiveling easily. "It's cute."
Aizawa snorted at that. "Enough, Y/N."
You conceded but the laughter in your eyes didn't fade and he shook his head, already done with your antics.
You knew exactly how much you were annoying him, which is why you were surprised when he suddenly asked you,
"How are you doing with all of this?"
He scrutinized you closely and your mouth opened and closed, at a loss for words. The possibility of you having done something wrong crossed your mind and your anxiety spiked.
Glancing down, you squeaked. "What do you mean?"
His eyes narrowed at you and you gulped.
Aizawa sighed, running a hand through his hair. He should've phrased it better. He knew by now you were insecure of your place, still figuring things out for yourself. His class had been a culture shock to you.
"How are you adjusting?" He corrected himself quietly, studying your facial expressions.
You contemplated his question before giving your answer.
"I think I'm doing okay," You said slowly, scratching your fluffy ears in thought. "It's been kind of weird having a place to call home and people who actually don't see me as a pet but it's nice."
Aizawa's jaw ticked and he clenched his hand into a fist at your honesty, overcome with the sudden urge to hunt down the Quirk Traffickers right then and there. He was taken aback by such a strong feeling.
The last time he felt something like this was when the League of Villains threatened his students at USJ.
Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself down. He was a pro, he knew how to handle himself better than this.
However, all logic and reasoning fled the instant he saw it.
Aizawa moved faster than you could blink, catching the wrist inching towards your ears in an iron grip and stopped them from making contact.
"Don't touch her." He seethed, warning coming through clear as his eyes flashed red, the pressure on the boy's wrist making it clear that he would snap it if he so much as looked at you again.
As a pro-hero, he wasn't allowed to threaten them with bodily harm, but he couldn't help the anger that bubbled up when the gang of boys tried to lay their filthy hands on you.
"Are you okay?" He asked again but for a different reason than before as security intervened and took over.
You nodded, slightly dazed at how fast it happened.
You hadn't even sensed them behind you, caught up in your conversation with him that you had lost awareness of your surroundings. You felt a bit ashamed of your own helplessness but grateful that he had protected you. Your ears were sensitive and touching them was an intimate gesture reserved only privileged for certain people.
"Do you want to leave?" He asked caringly, eyes concerned, not taking any measures to hide his worry.
You shook your head. You weren't that shaken up. He took care of it before anything even happened. You almost were completely unaffected.
"I'm okay..." You mumbled, fiddling with your hands in your lap as your fingers shook. "Thank you, Aizawa-sensei."
He nodded to you before sinking back down in his chair. You picked up where he left off, asking about his well being. He seemed surprised to hear you ask about him but he answered that he was fine.
You seemed disappointed in his reply but before he could follow it up with a very brief elaboration, you cut him off.
"Do you think anyone will want me?" You asked, tears pricking the corner of your eyes as the more recent development started to catch up to you.
You were sure that if you didn't have these ears and tail that people wouldn't just try to touch you out of nowhere. You were sure that if you had a different quirk, maybe your parents wouldn't have given you up.
"What did I do wrong?" You whispered brokenly.
Aizawa's heart shattered as he heard that. "You didn't do anything wrong, kid."
You sniffled, ears drooping sadly. "But... But if I—"
"It's not your fault that they left, they were shitty parents for leaving you." He interrupted brazenly with a fire that took you aback as he swore in front of you. "You deserve someone better than people who leave at the drop of a hat."
He seemed like he was speaking from experience but you didn't pry further, certain he was already uncomfortable with all your anxiety and insecurities.
"You didn't have to do all of this, you know." The defeat in your small voice made him bristle.
Who the fuck treated you so bad that you didn't expect decent respect and kindness?
"You signed the paper but you don't actually have to do any of the stuff it says." You continued quietly, not noticing how the man across from you was shaking with anger. "I can find another place to stay, you won't have to pay for anything, I can manage on my own. I don't want to be a burden to someone as nice as you."
If he was angry before, he was livid now.
You jumped as he suddenly stood up, chair falling over from the force, drawing the attention of a couple of bystanders.
He strode over to you, crouching down in front of you. The bags piled high on the table obstructed the view for most of the people around you and they begrudgingly went about their business when he glared at them.
You, however, couldn't look away.
"You better listen, kid, because I'm only going to say this once." Aizawa ground out, jaw ticking. "I didn't sign that agreement out of pity. I signed it because I want you to be able to live a life not hindered by fear. I don't want you to have to live looking over your shoulder everyday because you're scared you're being followed, that's why I signed it."
You were at a loss of words by how passionate he was. The emotion cracked his steady tone and betrayed his true state. He was frazzled by your half-conscious words you spewed out, taking them to heart and relating to you on another level entirely.
"Were... were you..." You trailed off.
You couldn't bear to say it.
But he shook his head. "Not Quirk Traffickers. But I was raised by people who weren't exactly kind or the forgiving type."
He didn't divulge anything else and you didn't point it out, knowing he said that to you more for your own benefit rather than your own. Similar to you, he didn't seem like he wanted pity. He said it so that you saw that he understood.
"You're not living out on the streets. I'm not doing any of this because I feel like I have to, I told you, I want to do it." He ran a hand through his hair, sighing. "Look, kid, you might not see it yet, but I actually don't mind taking care of you, okay? If you find someone else you want to live with, that's fine."
You were about to object that you couldn't envision someone caring for you like he had but you couldn't get a word in edgewise.
"I will talk to them first, though, before you go with them." Aizawa continued authoritatively, slipping into da— teacher mode. "If they're unsuited to care for you or if they're criminals then you can't go with them until they prove to me that they can take proper care of you and keep you safe. If you— Why are you laughing?"
You had doubled over in a fit of giggles, tears leaking out of the corner of your eyes as you laughed uncontrollably.
He lifted an eyebrow, unamused. "Kid, what are you doing?"
You bit your lip but your eyes creased, giving your smile away. "I-I can't breathe!!"
It took a couple seconds and several deep breaths but you finally got ahold of yourself and cleared up his confusion.
"It's just... you sound a lot like a dad, or at least, I think that's what a dad sounds like." You tapped a finger to your chin thoughtfully, mulling it over.
You completely missed the way he froze when he heard you say 'dad'.
Swinging your legs, you ducked your head. "I... I know I didn't say this before, and you could definitely say no if you want to!! But, I-I d-don't really want to have anyone else be my guardian."
Aizawa was able to breathe a little bit better after hearing you say that and his eyes softened.
You squeaked as his hand plopped on your head, ruffling your hair and being careful not to knock into your ears.
With great difficulty, he held back a smile. "Alright, kid, we can do that."
Your ears perked up and he gave you a lopsided smile, but the fondness in his gaze was unmistakable. Goodness, he would put away all the villains in the world just to see you this happy.
"Really?!" You practically shouted and he chuckled, not even caring about the dirty looks the two of you were getting as a result of your loud volume.
He shrugged to hide the skip his heart did when you looked up at him so lovingly. "Sure, I'll talk to Principal Nezu later and see if we can work out a more permanent arrangement."
"Adoption?" You asked curiously.
The innocent question sent his heart rate spiking and he nearly choked on air. You had no idea just how bad he wanted to adopt you.
"Don't you want me to foster you first, kid?" He joked but it came out strained.
That was a pretty big decision to make and usually the adult was the one to decide to take on a kid. For you to bring it up so casually caught him off-guard.
You frowned, pouting slightly. Maybe you moved too fast. Obviously, he wanted to see if he could even handle a mutt like you before he even though about adopting you and—
"Stop that."
His sharp command whistled through the noise in your head and you blinked, focusing on his face and wincing at the intensity of his narrowed eyes.
"Whatever you're thinking, I didn't suggest fostering because I don't want to adopt you. I just want you to be sure you want to have me as your... parent." Aizawa finished, unsure if he had earned the right to call himself your dad yet.
He shuffled over to the other end of the table and righted his displaced chair. "You'll turn 18 soon enough and by then you could live on your own if you want."
Ah, there it was.
Your expression cleared. He was worried you wanted him to adopt him only to find out you guys couldn't get along for whatever reason and then up and leave. Whether it was you or him doing the leaving, it would impact you both and he didn't want you to make a mistake you would regret.
Adoption was a serious decision and it wasn't like either one of you could get out of it if it didn't work out.
You weren't completely oblivious. You knew there was a chance of this failing, but you were willing to take this chance and he was willing to accept you into his life more permanently.
To know that he was thinking of you first only sealed the deal.
You swallowed hard. You only had courage to say this once.
"I don't remember my parents or what they were like. I only know what it's like to have friends because Ojiro-kun showed me how. I don't know what to expect when it comes to having a dad to depend on or anything like that." You took a deep breath, growing quieter. "But... I do want someone like that one day."
Even if it didn't come right away. You could wait. You waited an eternity, what was a little longer?
Aizawa nodded, understanding where you were coming from. "Well then, I'll talk it over to Nezu and make sure my adopting you won't affect you getting into UA."
Your jaw dropped to the floor. "What?!"
"Uh huh," He clicked his tongue absentmindedly as he scrolled through his texts on his phone, completely disregarding your shock. "He said you could enroll in the general studies but off the record, you'll be taking hero courses."
They didn't want to attract the traffickers' attention. They would keep you under the radar as much as possible while you attended.
Pocketing the handheld device, leaned back in his seat. "You're a good kid, Y/N."
You beamed at him and he cracked a smile. No matter what you went through, you always seemed to bounce right back. No matter how bleak the darkness was, your light burned even brighter.
One day, you were going to be a force to be reckoned with. He could already see it.
"You'll still have to take the entrance exam." He stated and you nodded eagerly.
"I'll do my best!!" You cheered.
He chuckled, folding his arms over his chest. He had no doubt about it.
By the time Ojiro got back to your table, he was surprised to find you and his teacher conversing as if it was the easiest thing in the universe. He was certain Aizawa didn't have it in him to openly express emotions other than exhaustion.
Well, that and boredom.
Ojiro tilted his head at the two of you in confusion, holding a tray that contained three bowls of steaming hot food. "Did I miss something?"
You bit your lip to suppress a smile and Aizawa raised an eyebrow but neither one of you answered him.
Setting down the tray, he served the food. His gaze fell on your tail, which was happily swishing behind you and he decided that it didn't matter if you didn't want to tell him, he was just glad to see you enjoying yourself.
Your mouth watered when the food was set down in front of you but Aizawa was surprised to find three helpings of gyūdon rather than just two.
Reaching into his pocket, Ojiro pulled out the remaining yen he had stuffed there earlier to his teacher and your eyes went wide.
Similarly, Aizawa's eyes narrowed in suspicion at the amount left. There was no way there should be this much left after buying this much food.
"Ojiro..." He warned with a sharp look, daring him to confirm his suspicions.
The boy had an apologetic look on his face but stood fast. "I used your money to pay for Y/N's but I used mine to buy ours."
Before his teacher could say a word, Ojiro rushed out. "You haven't eaten anything yet so you must be hungry too!! I'm sorry Aizawa-sensei, I just thought—"
Aizawa held up a hand to stop his rambling. He was nearly as bad as Midoriya.
"It's fine. Thank you." The man said curtly, reaching over the table to split a pair of chopsticks for you. "But you're not allowed to do it again."
"But sensei—!!" Ojiro protested.
Aizawa gave him a look that shut him up quickly.
You had been trying to ignore their disagreement. Tension never did sit too well with you and even though you knew that Aizawa wasn't really mad at Ojiro, you couldn't help but flinch at their raised voices.
So when they finally took notice of your unease and quieted down, you could focus all of your attention on satisfying your rumbling tummy.
You stared at the big bowl before you. Rice and beef soaked in aromatic broth had you salivating. Garnished with steamed edamame and a sprig of parsley, the beef bowl almost looked too good to eat.
But it smelled so good.
You were about to take a huge bite when Aizawa firmly instructed you to blow on it first. Pouting, you did as you were told and by the time you did eat it, you didn't burn yourself.
You laughed at him sheepishly as he sent you a knowing glare afterwards, knowing full well that you would have burned your tongue in your eagerness if he didn't stop you.
Kicking your feet happily, you took a sip of bubble tea for the very first time, beaming brightly at the two of them as the sugary drink flooded your taste buds.
You almost poked a hole in the straw with your canines by accident when you bit down in your haste to chew the tapioca pearls.
Ojiro looked on excitedly as you experienced boba for the first time, matching your energy and Aizawa's gaze was soft, fatherly. But he was not going to admit that to either of you.
You wiggled in your seat, vibrating with energy after that meal and the drink that you counted as an unofficial dessert.
Aizawa even ate, begrudgingly, but it still counted since you refused to give up on him.
You were slightly concerned when he still didn't touch his food even after you and Ojiro were almost done with yours. The way he picked at his food disinterestedly was a bit alarming. It was as if he hadn't been doing a good job of taking care of himself.
You frowned as you watched him longer, only for nothing to change.
Aizawa had been startled when you grasped onto his arm, pleading with your eyes for him to eat what Ojiro had so thoughtfully bought for him, saying that you were worried about him. He had tried to shove you off, change the subject or even get Ojiro to pry you off of him, but you persisted.
Finally, Aiawa sighed, giving into your puppy eyes and ate his portion.
You cheered, high-fiving Ojiro, the victory in your eyes not dimming even as he fixated a glare on the two of you.
It lost its potency as you flat out ignored him, giving all of your attention to the blushing tail boy beside you.
Everyone else that came with you to the mall had finished eating faster than the three of you did since they had gotten theirs earlier, so they went looking for you. Imagine their surprise when they saw their teacher laughing for the first time after you cracked a joke.
The girls had gathered around you and you had to admit, while you never had gyūdon before, it was now your favorite food.
You had waited to try the bubble tea until Ojiro got back, unsure which one was yours at the time since they were vastly different in color and you didn't want to accidentally drink the wrong one.
Aizawa was no help since he didn't drink that stuff so you were forced to wait until your friend returned.
Of course, this led to you trying to guess which one Ojiro had intended for you while he was still gone, your guardian looking on in amusement as you went back and forth between the two options. You weren't even trying to make him smile and yet, he couldn't help it.
Aizawa shook his head at you when you had practically pounced on the cup as his student pointed out which one he had ordered for you, his amusement only increasing when you drank it so fast that it almost came out of your nose when something he said made you laugh.
You cried at the uncomfortable sensation, willing it to go away as everyone chuckled at the expression you were making.
Ashido gave you a hug to make it go by faster. But once you could breathe again, a sly smirk crept up her face as Ojiro offered you a sip of his.
You were curious so naturally, you accepted. Only after you took a sip did Ashido crack.
"That counts!!!" She shrieked excitedly, Uraraka and Hagakure squealing alongside her and you were left in the dark.
"Huh?" You squeaked, blinking down at the drink in your hand, wondering if you had done something wrong.
You glanced at Ojiro but he looked just as puzzled as you.
He shrugged at you helplessly, turning to the pink girl practically vibrating in the chair she had stolen. "Mind clueing us in?"
The smile on Ashido's face could only be classified as devious. "YOU KISSED!!!"
It was indirect but it still counted!!! And she was going to milk it for all it was worth.
Ojiro nearly choked on his saliva and you violently coughed, the boba going down the wrong way as she declared it so loud every single one of the surrounding tables heard her.
Aizawa almost fell out of his seat.
Needless to say, for the rest of the time you were there, Ashido wouldn't let it go and relentlessly teased the two of you until you were both cherry red from embarrassment, refusing to look at each other.
But as you filed out of the Kiyashi shopping mall back to the car, his tail crept around your waist to guide you in the dark and you couldn't see it, but his bashful smile matched yours all the way there.
Taglist: @katsukis-sad-angel​
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starcrossedyanderes · 3 years
Text
Beauty and The Birds Part 9
Warning: This chapter contains former abuse from parents, religion (mostly cult-ish stuff), mentions of  ‘The Catholic Church’, and supposed witchcraft. A long with general harm of a person because of them being different. If any of this effects you I recommend possibly not reading this. If you are facing any of the above (except for maybe supposed witch craft) you can access this website for help https://www.thehotline.org/ this is the domestic violence hotline and are generally good for a lot of situations.
Disclaimer: I, as always, do not condone this behavior in any sense. A made up sort of cult-like religion is brought up that tries to hide itself as The Catholic Church. I have absolutely nothing against the catholic church as I am personally a protestant (but of course you know how us protestants feel) and I have nothing against what people believe in as long as no one gets hurt. This is based off of the sad incidents of exorcisms and how the are most commonly performed on regular children and how they quickly turn violent. Please, this is never acceptable. You should never be harmed by your religion or because of your religion.
~Previously on Beauty and The Birds~
“Isn’t that cannibalism?”
“Doggo!”
“Sheepies!”
“No. Other birds. I don’t think there’s another like me.”
~Back to Beauty and The Birds~
“It’s a uh.. long story that I haven’t shared with anyone. As you can tell I’m not exactly the best at communicating-“
He physically backed into himself with a blush on his cheeks and a hand rubbing his neck. You physically drooped as you started to walk away.
“Okay, I guess you don’t want to tell me-“
“NO!”
At seemingly the speed of light and a large ‘whoosh’ the bird man appeared right in front of you with his hands spread.
He had this deranged look on his face that seemed to become more and more common as the days passed.
He stepped closer to you with a shaky crazed smile on his face.
“No, no! I’ll tell you! I would tell you anything.”
He placed his hands on your shoulders to pull you in closer as his smile only widened.
“I would do anything for you. You just have to ask and I would tell you whatever you could possibly want to know. As long as you stay so couldn’t care less. It’s all worth it.”
Hm, he seems to show a lot of territorial behavior and desperation. Could this be part of a courtship sort of thing. He seems to be quite attached for only knowing you for what? 2 days? You’ll have to look into that later.
His smile and piercing gaze finally softened as he seemed to return to his normal self.
“I will admit this is a rough topic for me so I would rather if we could instead talk in the nest.”
You eagerly nodded your head as you gripped your discreet recording device as you were flown up to the top floor’s glass observatory.
It seems the nest acts as a comfort sort of place for him. Somewhat how some animals do during heats and pregnancy’s. From what you can tell he isn’t in a heat (although it could explain some things) and he certainly isn’t pregnant so it is quite odd behavior for a bird to exhibit.
~|~
You were currently perched inside the nest as you awaited on Avery’s return. He, to your annoyance, insisted on getting a few snacks
You irritably clutched on a corviknight plushie you found in the nest before it was quickly abandoned on Avery’s return. 
In his hands he carried various junk foods but there was an odd one that stood out from the rest.
Tater tots.
After putting down the foods on a little side table he quickly joined you in the Blanket Void TM and quickly into you. His wings wrapped around and whilst spreading sent a turtle duck plushie off of the bed. He quickly let out some gentle cooing as he nuzzled deeply into your neck.
“I’m ready to answer your questions now.”
“Alright, how about an easier question to start off. What’s with the tater tots?”
Of course this question was just a ruse to make sure your device was recording and genuine curiosity.
Avery’s head pulled away from your neck and a frown pulled at his lips. He then proceeded in what you like to call his ‘bby voice’
“Is there something wrong with them? They’re my favorite.”
That-that was not the answer you were expecting. Huh, that’s odd.
“Oh, nothing. Just genuine curiosity.”
Avery immediately relaxed back into your arms after popping a tater tot into his mouth. 
“Now, you say you don’t think there’s anyone else like you. Is it because you believe to be the last of your species?”
He stiffened up once again before digging himself more into you.
“Well no, I think. I don’t believe I am part of a species. This may take a while to explain and please bare with me. This is a rough topic that I haven’t really been able to share with anyone.”
You eagerly nodded your head and made sure to give him some headpats which only induced some coos to leave his throat.
“Well my family were rather wealthy and owned an airplane company and I think we did general logistics stuff. We were also rather catholic although now I think we don’t quite fit that term. At least hope not for the sake of people who are actually catholic.
My mother was the heiress and received a lot of suitors. She was supposedly cursed by one of her suitor’s mother after turning him down. We think this may have led to me.. being me.”
You felt rather disheartened but also even more intrigued by this information. So he doesn’t seem to be part of a species, but an odd mutation? (You highly doubted this is from some curse.)
“So where exactly is your family now”
After speaking you popped a tator tot into your mouth.
“I think about 5 years ago my parents, ironically enough, died in a plane crash. I was pretty much only allowed on the estate, the woods, and the church after my wings developed so I wasn’t allowed with them. That was probably a mistake on their parts.”
You waved your arms a bit.
“Hold up, you siad you weren’t allowed anywhere after your wings developed. Does that mean you weren’t born with them.”
Avery let out a reflexive chuckle.
“Ha ha, well I technically was born with them. I was a healthy baby but I had these bumps on my back. Of course everyone was concerned about these being tumors so I was tested frequently. Turns out they were merely bone and somewhat.. hollow. As I grew the bumps started grow into my wings today. The bone thing is also why I take a good bit of calcium since they’re so fragile.”
“But why weren’t you let anywhere after they developed?”
Avery let out a sigh as he mentally prepared himself.
“After the doctors kinda figured out I was somehow growing wings paired with my purple eyes my parents were very excited for me to be an angel like thing. Yeah, I don’t know their understanding either. Maybe consider me as a miracle of the lord of something? Either way they were rather hopeful of this and treated me like a regular son with giving me an education to run the business. But then I got my feathers. Their dreams of an angel were crushed upon seeing that were not pure white but instead a dark black. They became horrified and I was forced to spend a lot of time at the church and was forced to have exorcism after exorcism performed on me. It.. wasn’t pleasant to say the least. My parents quickly hated me and locked me away. But they still needed an heir and they feared to have another child so I was still given an education as I sometimes needed to appear to confirm that they were nice enough to keep me alive.”
You felt some water cascade down your neck as you could place your arms around him in a hug.
“A-Avery that’s awful. I-I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
Avery gained a small smile as he pulled away from you hug with tears still gliding down his face.
“Y-You’re the first person to every say sorry to me.”
“Oh, Avery. No one should be deprived of that.”
You forced a small grin on your face to try and cheer him up.
“Ok, no more hardcore questions. Stuff that shouldn’t make you cry now. Sorry to open those wounds like that.”
“No, no. It’s fine. I said I would tell you anything. And I’m honestly over joyed to share anything with you.”
How can someone say something so creepy yet sat at the same time? “Alright then, if you’re sure you want to continue. You’re able to communicate with birds from what I can tell. Do they see you as they’re leader or something?”
“Since I was only really allowed in the woods birds quickly became my only friends and company. Also I’ve done a lot of rehabilitation work that a lot seem to feel indebted to me. A lot of birds tend to follow the bigger bird naturally and they see me as a really big bird so they just kinda.. naturally do what I tell them. It also helps that I feed them too.”
“Makes sense, I guess. Like when I saw this heron in a pond one time and a bunch of ducks just followed him around. Last question for the day, alright?”
Avery nodded his head as he pulled you closer.
“I brought like 3 scarves here but I can’t find any of them. I have a slight feeling you may know where they are.”
Of course you couldn’t see it but a dark blush covered Avery’s face.
“W-well two of them are in the nest. I’m afraid that some of the birds got their hands on the other one somehow and are currently using it to snuggle. I’m working on getting them another scarf so you can get yours back.”
Huh, so he puts many different things in his nest. Also now you had to deal with the conflict of you taking a scarf from some cozy, snuggling birds.
“The birds can keep my scarf. I couldn’t just take it from them like that.”
Avery smiled against your neck and cooed.
“I’m sure they’ll be estatic for their cuddling not to be ruined. Now enough questions, more cuddles and movies.”
9 notes · View notes
mydisasteracademia · 3 years
Text
SFW Alphabet: Toshinori Yagi
You all know the drill. Full post under the cut. I’m using his skinny form for this, of course.
A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)
He can be fairly affectionate. If you can get past how flustered he can be around you, he won’t shy away from having an arm around your waist or a good hug.
B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)
He’s very attentive as a best friend. He loves meeting with you and just sitting and talking together. The two of you met when you accidentally bumped into him at the supermarket and offered to take him out for lunch as an apology. You hit it off immediately.
C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)
When you’re both alone, he loves it when you cuddle against him. You can’t exactly sit in his lap too often, but if you want to see him blush, just sit him in yours. He gets embarrassed, but he enjoys the feeling of your arms around his skinny frame.
D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)
He can cook and clean fairly well, having lived on his own for most of his life. He’s not around enough to keep this squeaky, but it looks decent enough. In his younger years he might’ve thought about settling down once or twice, but he’s practically married to the job already, so he doesn’t give it much thought.
E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)
It would totally run him through the wringer, but he would sit you down and quietly admit that he wants to split. It hurts him so much, but he feels like it’s the best decision.
F = Fiancé(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)
Not too quick to settle down, given his middle age. Deep down, he’s lonely and would like to get married, but not very many people can look past his gangly, skeletal form. It would take him a long time to think out marriage to you and it would have to be very late in your relationship for him to even consider popping the question.
G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)
He’s incredibly, impossibly gentle with you. Most of all he loves to see you smile and he never raises his voice at you. He loves just running his hands across your skin and seeing the way you look at him. Nobody has ever looked at him that way and he won’t lie, it feels amazing.
H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)
He loves hugs. Especially your hugs. He can feel the stress melt away whenever he feels your arms around him. Of course, he loves reciprocating. He enjoys pulling you close and feeling your softness against him. His hugs are a little bony/pokey, but you can hear his heartbeat against your ear and it’s calming.
I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)
It takes him a while to get out of denial about his feelings. Likely something has to push him into saying it first -- if you were in danger and he rescued you (or vice versa), or maybe you got sick and he said it while he thought you were delirious.
J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)
He’s a very patient person and as such doesn’t get jealous easily. He may be a bit uncomfortable with certain people around you, but he tries his best to shove those feelings down unless he seriously doubts your safety around them.
K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)
His kisses are tentative and light, as if he’s afraid of hurting you. He mainly gives you forehead kisses due to your smaller stature, but he likes picking you up and kissing you properly on the lips. If you want to fluster him, kiss his scar - he blushes and covers his face, but he likes your soft lips on his skin. He likes it most when you kiss his cheek.
L = Little ones (How are they around children?)
He’s very good around children, having spent most of his life around civilians and doing meet-and-greets with all ages. If and when he can, he might pull out the muscled form for a young child to dazzle them. Unfortunately, not every child is fond of his skinny appearance.
M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)
He’s regimented, having had the same kind of schedule for most of his life. He gets up early to jog, and if you’re up he likes it when you join him. Otherwise once he’s done he’ll take a shower and wake you up for breakfast.
N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)
In the evenings, he likes to sit with you and talk about your day. He likes hearing your voice and can get lost in thought around you (luckily you think it’s cute most of the time). After dinner, you both might settle down and watch some TV or read, maybe shower together, and when it’s time for bed he likes holding you close to his chest.
O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)
Of course, there are some things he just can’t tell you, but as you become friends, he gets more and more open about certain details of his life with you. He has so many stories to tell, especially recently about working with Yuuei. If you already know his identity as All Might, he has hilarious stories about Nighteye and David Shield too. Sometimes when he’s sad, he may get into fond memories of his mentor, Nana.
P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)
He has patience to spare. He’s literally so patient. It takes a lot to set Toshinori off, but messing with his loved ones is a surefire way to get that smile to drop.
Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)
He likes to remember all he can learn about you, just to surprise you in little ways here or there. Your favorite breakfast on weekend mornings, maybe your favorite type of flower on a date night, a new blouse he noticed in your favorite color that he figured would look good on you... He doesn’t remember everything you tell him, but he knows a good bit about you.
R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)
His favorite moment is when he first realized he loved you. He’d gotten horribly sick with a flu passing around the Yuuei dorms, and you were nursing him one night. He recalls rousing from unconsciousness to you humming as you patted his forehead with a cool cloth, and the first thing he thought in his drowsy state was “I love you.”
S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)
He’s very protective. Not to the extreme, of course; he knows you can moderately handle yourself, but he will step in if he sees you need help. He appreciates it when you show him that you’ve got his back too. More than once someone has cornered him, and he feels relieved when you step in to help.
T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)
He really does put effort into your relationship. He remembers birthdays, dates, anniversaries... he tries to make date night a regular thing, but sometimes shit happens and he can’t make it. He does offer to make it up to you, though. Ever since you insisted he move in with you, he does more than his share of chores whenever he has to miss quality alone time with you.
U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)
This man is so horribly self-sacrificing of everything. He lives like he has to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders, and if he’s upset, he’s going to keep it inside for as long as he can. He wouldn’t dare hurt you, but he can take that too far and even actively avoid you in the name of keeping you safe.
V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)
He doesn’t feel too obligated to look dapper every day, but he does try to look presentable. He knows his appearance can be off-putting for the average person, and it does make him a little self-conscious.
W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)
It would be heart-breakingly hard, but eventually, he could learn to live apart from you. It would be incredibly difficult not to feel that emptiness in his heart without you there, though.
X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)
Has the habit of calling students ‘my boy’ or ‘young lady’. Some people have teased him that he’s a father now, just to see him blush and try to deny it. (Especially when it comes to Midoriya.)
Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)
Nothing villainous or mean-spirited. He’s faced far too many villains in his day to tolerate any of that behavior. The minute you give him reason to believe you’re actually more morally-dark than he first thought, he’s confronting you about it.
Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)
Depending on his schedule, he actually gets some good sleep. Of course, now that he’s not out chasing villains every day of his life he can rest easier.
16 notes · View notes
chaeryybomb · 4 years
Text
stray kids as anime boys: bang chan [part 1] [part 2]
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✎ᝰ┆bang chan as the sports captain
(feat. stray kids && some of the 97liners)
listen
this is the only role I am 100% convince chan will be in an anime
u can't change my mind ᕦ(ò_ó)ᕤ
S O let's get into it
what sports captain is he??
the question should be what sports captain is he not 
d-does that make sense?? HDHS U GET WHAT I MEAN
look chan is build™ with muscles (and brains) he's gonna use those muscles
for s p o r t s
"chan u can't join all the sports club"
“watch me felix”
ya boi tried out for every sports club available in school and he got into to every one of them
THANKFULLY felix made him reject some(most) of them bc chan already doesn't sleep enough
everyone say thank u felix
so chan is in the volleyball and basketball club
and he's the volleyball captain!!!
chan is the secret weapon lemme tell u that
his spikes?? they can BREAK A WALL
so if u see chan practicing spikes pls be careful
avoid him
avoid the gym in general
unless ur asking for a concussion SKSKS
no joke there's a dent in one of the gym's wall bc he spiked too hard
his excuse was "bambam ur supposed to block it!"
"I WAS TRYING NOT TO DIE CHRISTOPHER!!!"
so how does that apply to u dear reader
well, ur not a huge sports fan
u rather stay at home and watch netflix than go under that cursed fireball u call a sun
but yk who is a huge sports fan???
ur best friends chaeyeon and lisa!
well technically bc chaeyeon is dating jaehyun who's also on the volleyball team
and lisa swears she doesn't but obviously she's there to look at jungkook
"y/n! there's a game after school today, and you're coming with us to watch it"
"just admit u wanna look at jungkook and go"
"WITH WHAT PROOF????"
"WITH THOSE HEART EYES LALISA"
"HHHHHHH CHAEYEON, Y/N IS BULLYING ME AGAIN"
Σ(°ロ°) "WHAT DO U MEAN AGAIN??? WHO WAS THE ONE WHO PUT CHILLI PEPPERS IN MY SANDWICH HUHH LISA WHOOOO—"
mama chaeyeon saves the day, "alright children no more fighting" 
"SHE STARTED IT FIRST!"
"FIGHT ME LISA" (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ
in the spongebob narrative voice 2 hours later
u find urself in sandwiched between chaeyeon and lisa, sitting on one of the gym's bleachers
chan and the boys are down there warming up
and u can't help but drift ur gaze to a certain (crispy)blond hair boy, who's stretching at the moment
maybe u were starting too long, but lisa nudges ur elbow with a sly smirk
"ohohoho y/n, what do u see??"
u shove her elbow away and glare at her, "ur about to see my fists in a minute"
the entire game ur gaze was set on chan and u don't even know why
jokes on u reader, it was the anime magic kicking in
up until the second half of the game, u had the sudden need to go to the bathroom and who are u to deny ur bladder dhhshd
"I'm gonna go to the bathroom," you tell lisa and stood up to squeeze ur way out of the bleachers
ur earbuds almost burst due to all the screaming dhshhd
but hey! u successfully made it to the end
\(@ ̄∇ ̄@)/
u make ur way towards the exit when u hear lisa and chaeyeon scream your name
and suddenly the world went black
y/n?? y/n??? oh my god she fuckin dead
maybe u regain conscious for a few seconds bc the last thing u remembered was a pair of feet running and the scent of someone's sweat mixed with cologne
yk the typical anime shit dhsjdjs
when u wake up, ur laying down a bed and ur in a room where u don't recognise
"holy shit y/n, you're awake! lisa go get the nurse!" chaeyeon exclaims from beside you and you hear the door close
you squint your eyes, trying to adjust from the bright light
chaeyeon's face comes into view and she has a worried expression on
"w-what happened?? where am I??" you ask she helps you sit up on the bed
"you're in the nurse's office!"
"why,,, am I in the nurse's office?" you furrow your eyebrows at chaeyeon
"well you see—"
the door slams open to reveal lisa and the nurse
"oh good, y/n you're awake," the nurse smiles at you
she walks toward you and gently grabs your chin with her gloved hand to examine your face
"fortunately nothing is broken but that's gonna leave a bruise on your forehead for a while, you took quite a hit."
"a hit???" u furrow ur eyebrows even deeper if you could sjdjsk
"yeah! you got hit by a volleyball!! you should've seen what happened, the ball went flying like WOOOSH at you and BAM u were knocked out!!" lisa explains with many hand gestures
"it was a good thing that chan boy carried you here, you were out cold," the nurse adds.
wait
Σ(゜゜) c-chan???
CHAN CARRIED YOU HERE???
u don't even notice your face starts to heat up until the nurse looks at you with concern again
she places her hand against ur forehead and says, "oh my, you're heating up, I think you got a fever coming—"
"no! no, I'm completely fine!" you reassure the nurse
you bring your hands up to your cheeks and rub it harshly and slap it a few times in hopes the redness will go away
HAH SIKE UR BLOOD SAYS NO
the nurse let's you stay in the office for awhile, thank god school was already over
lisa and chaeyeon, like the best friends they were, stayed with u and walked u back home
the next morning when u wake up—
━Σ(゚Д゚|||)━
HOLY SHIT THE NURSE WAS NOT KIDDING WHEN SHE SAID IT WAS GONNA LEAVE A BRUISE
THERE'S A HUGE ASS BUMP ON THE MIDDLE OF YOUR FOREHEAD
WHAT THE FUCK
HOW THE FUCK ARE U GONNA COVER THAT UP
U ARE THIS )( CLOSE IN CUTTING UR BANGS AT 7 IN THE MORNING JUST TO COVER UR FOREHEAD* U WOULD'VE IF UR BRAT OF A BROTHER DIDN'T KNOCK ON THE DOOR
"y/n hurry up you're gonna make us late!!"
"SHUT UP HYUNJIN I'M HAVING A MID LIFE CRISIS AT THE MOMENT"
"YOU CAN HAVE IT IN THE CAR"
in all honesty u should be thanking hyunjin for saving u from the future regrets
otw out of the bathroom u curse at hyunjin, who sticks his tongue out in return, and grab one of ur beanies from ur dresser and slip it on
"why the fuck are you wearing a beanie in the middle of summer??"
"it's called fashion hyunjin, look it up"
(hyunjin, snorting) "please, we all know I'm the fashionable one in this family"
so yes, u walk into school with a beanie on ur head, in the middle of summer
it definitely caught weird looks from people because again, why the fuck are you wearing a beanie in this heat???
it's equivalent to having a "I'm stupid" sign taped on ur forehead
u walk into class, already tired from everything and everyone and first period hasn't even started yet!
what a mood
chaeyeon looks at you weirdly and opens her mouth to ask but you stop her
"don't. a lot of people already asked," you groaned, pointing at the black beanie on your head, specifically the spot where u got hit at
chaeyeon looks at you with sympathy and pats your head
when lunch rolls on, lisa basically slams into ur classroom
"why are u wearing a beanie??"
"because I can and it's a free country!!!" u snap at her
"geez fine," lisa puts her hands up
(lisa, mumbling under her breath) "someone woke up from the wrong side of bed today"
"HEY I HEARD THA—"
"OKAAAAY let's go I wanna get pizza bread before it's gone," chaeyeon interrupts aka stopping another fight from happening by hooking her arms through yours and lisa’s* (¬、¬) hnnggg u win today jung chaeyeon
u turn to walk out of the door when u stop in your footsteps
to see the PERSON WHO CAUSE UR FOREHEAD BUMP BRENDA
YES U NAMED IT BRENDA IN THE CAR
IF SHE'S GONNA STAY ON UR FOREHEAD FOR A WHILE
AT LEAST SHE SHOULD HAVE A NAME
AND SHE'S NOT EVEN PAYING RENT
y/n's forehead:
brenda the bump: it's a free real estate
anyways
the three of u stop and stare at chan
like hullo, why u here???
chan coughs awkwardly and rubs the back of his neck. "um, can I speak with y/n?"
chaeyeon and lisa exchange a look and shrugs, "yeah sure," they say and pushes u out of the door
and u stumbled into his arms
again, the anime shit™ working its magic
u immediately push urself off chan and clasp ur hands behind ur back while chan takes a few steps back
"so,,," you start
"oh right! uh, I'm sorry for yesterday, hitting u with the ball and everything"
"oh! it's fine, it really is!" you assure him
"no, it's not! lemme treat you to lunch, it's the least I can do," chan says
"nononono you really don't have to!" you shake ur head at him
"please!" he begs, "I hurt you and I should do something for you"
"n—"
"JUST SAY YES" lisa yells from across the hall
you whip ur head towards her direction and flip her the bird
chaeyeon mouths an apology and drags lisa away, but her laughter rings through the empty hallway
you turn back to chan who's looking at you with pleading eyes
"pleaseee" (´・ᴗ・`)
GOD HE'S ADORABLE
"fine!"
"YAY"
"but!" u wag ur finger at him, "ur only allowed to buy me chocolate milk"
"yes!!" he cheers and drags u off to the school's convenience store to buy you a bottle of chocolate milk
u thought he was gonna get u the cheap one but nO
HE GETS U THE EXPENSIVE ONE
THE ONE THAT COSTS LIKE 3 DOLLARS
FIRST OF ALL, CHOCOLATE MILK SHOULD NOT BE THAT EXPENSIVE
FUCK CAPITALISM
secondly, if u thought this was a one time thing
hAH READER YOU ARE SO SO SO WRONG
it soon becomes a regular thing and every morning, there is a chocolate milk on ur desk with a cute stick it note saying "good morning ♡´・ᴗ・`♡"
GAH UR HEART
and everyday after school, chan walks up to u and ask "hey y/n! did u get the chocolate milk?"
and he will pout if u show him the untouched bottle of milk
so u make sure that u drink it during lunch where he can see u drinking it
and it makes his insides all mushy and squishy
and that escalates to him waiting by ur locker every morning!!
he waits for u by ur locker and when u walk in
he fucking beams at you
the sun who??? u only know a bang chan
he hands u the chocolate milk and greets u
"good morning, y/n!"
and ur hearts does it usual schedule bang-chan-caused-flips
AND THAT ESCALATES TO U GOING TO HIS GAMES
"I thought u hated these things??"
"well I do but chan asked me to come so—"
(lisa, wiggling her eyebrows) "oh chan huh"
"hdshhdshutup"
so here u are again, sandwiched in between lisa and chaeyeon
o wow ur feeling a sense of deja vu
chan spots u in the crowd and runs over to u
"try not to get hit by any balls this time," he grins as he ruffles ur hair
"friendly reminder, I got hit by a ball from you," u retort and smack his hand away
"YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN'T BRING THAT UP ANYMORE"
"I CROSSED MY FINGERS BITCH"
the coach whistles for chan to get into place and u grab onto his arm, shocking both of u
o wow u got bold moves there reader
"uh, good luck out there," u smile at him
chan's heart doubles over in LOVE and smiles back at you "thanks!"
he runs back to the team, who are all looking at him with a sly look
"so when are u gonna ask y/n out?"
"i'll purposely aim the ball at ur head mingyu"
tbh u don't even know much about volleyball and all u see are balls being hit back and forth
im writing the match based on what I've seen my school's team done and it may be inaccurate pls correct me
sometimes u involuntary wince when u see chan spikes and the ball bounces off the floor bc the other team failed to block it
u pity the floor
it's the last match and both teams are tied
chaeyeon is gripping onto ur arm for dear life bc out of the three of you, she's the only who understands the most about volleyball
both teams are fairly powerful
they have a really strong setter aka lee hyunjae
boy may not look like it but he's strong!!!
the coach whistles and jaehyun serves the ball
jacob from the other team returns the ball and it goes flying across the net
in a blink of an eye, chan yells "mine!" and he spikes the ball with force* hyunjae rushes to block it but misses by a milimetre and the ball bounces off the floor
the entire gymnasium erupts into cheers
and u are pulled up from ur seat by a screaming chaeyeon
they won???
OH MY GOD THEY WON DJSJDJ
chaeyeon runs down to congratulate her boyfriend and u follow in suit
but u run straight into chan's arms to hug him
"congrats!" u squeal as he lifts u off the ground and spins u around
when he sets u down, the both of u finally realizes the position ur in and back away from each other awkwardly
"ahaha,,, congratulations!!" u tell him
chan grins at u "what can I say, ur my lucky charm"
ur cheeks start to heat up again and chan laughs
the rest of the team comes over to drag chan to the changing room, leaving u alone with lisa and chaeyeon
once the boys disappear behind the doors, the two girls turn around to look at u
"what was that???" lisa asks, referring to the hug between u and chan, as she whacks ur arm
she tryna whack the answer out of u HDHS
"STOP HITTING ME WOMAN THAT HURTS!!!"
"NOT UNTIL U TELL ME WHAT WAS THAT BETWEEN U AND BANG CHAN, Y/N"
"it was a hug! nothing more!" u say, more like ur trying to convince it was nothing more
"that was not just a hug," lisa mimics ur voice "that was one of those couples hug chaeyeon and jaehyun does!"
(chaeyeon, pipping up from the side) "she's right!"
"he totally likes you!" lisa smirks at u
 "no he does not!"
"uh yes, he does! jaehyun says so!" chaeyeon says in a matter-of-fact tone
"and you—" lisa points her index finger at u "—like him too!"
"WITH WHAT PROOF???"
"WITH THOSE HEART EYES HWANG Y/N"
before u can continue bicker and PROVE THAT U DO NOT LIKE BANG CHAN
jaehyun comes into view and says "hey y/n, chan is waiting for u outside, he has something to tell u"
[ part 2 ]
101 notes · View notes
Note
I hope this is right now, my word is "Muffin" 🙋‍♀️
word: muffinwords: 1,123time: 20:35 - 21:05
warnings: ABO dynamics - not sexual or anything, just featuring a very pregnant Eddie and a very soft daddy-to-be Richie.
* * * * *
Richie twirled his keys around his finger as he made his way from the elevator and towards the apartment he shared with his fiance. As someone who grew up thinking he would never find the perfect person for him, it sometimes came as a shock to Richie that he really had the perfect life.
Ever since he was a child, he grew up believing that he would present as a beta, just like his parents and grandparents. They were a neutral family, no pressures from the government or random letters asking if they could donate ‘Alpha’ sperm. Yes, that was something that happened. Often. So when Richie presented as an Alpha on his seventeenth birthday, it came as a bit of a shock.
He never let it bother him though, and Richie continued his life just the way he would have if he had presented as a Beta. He graduated from High School and moved out to California to study Radio and Drama studies. When he graduated, he was offered a job at a high end radio station, as well as took up a few gigs for stand up comedy at some local clubs.
It was there, a few weeks before his twenty-fourth birthday, that Richie met Eddie Kaspbrak.
Eddie Kaspbrak was an Omega, but not one that was meek, small and vulnerable. Oh no, Eddie was a spitfire right from the get go, working behind the bar at one of the clubs Richie was performing at. The moment Richie laid eyes on Eddie, he knew that he needed to talk to him, needed to have him in his life no matter what.
It took a lot of courage for Richie to approach the bar and start up a conversation with Eddie. The boy had turned to him, intending on taking Richie’s order, but was shocked when Richie jumped into small talk about how long he had been in California and where he was from. That night, Richie’s show had been such a success, the owner of the club asked him to be a regular, to which Richie had agreed.
Over the course of Richie’s stint at the club, he got closer and closer with Eddie, taking his time until he finally gained the courage to ask him out on a date. Thankfully, he had said yes. Three years later and they were happily engaged, in their own apartment…and expecting a baby.
The pregnancy…had been a bit of a shock to both of them. They hadn’t been trying for a baby during Eddie’s heat and Eddie was meant to be on birth control, but it turned out the pills had run out a few days before pre-heat and Eddie’s mind was so scattered, he had forgotten to replace them. A few weeks later, they were sitting in the doctor’s office with paperwork stating that Eddie was pregnant.
Of course, they were absolutely terrified. He was twenty-eight and Eddie was twenty-six. They were still so young, how were they going to raise babies? They weren’t even married yet! Once the doctor had gone over all the technical topics and passed them the relevant paperwork, the two of them headed home to have a long discussion about what they should do.
In the end, Eddie had already become attached to the babies growing inside of him, which was a common side effect of babies being conceived during a heat. In Eddie’s Omega brain, he had achieved what he was there to do, give Richie babies. Richie, at the same time, had felt the pull towards Eddie’s stomach, still flat, to the babies inside and his heart swelled.
They were going to be parents.
He opened the door to their apartment, slipping his shoes off and hanging the keys up on the small hook by the door. “Eds? I’m home!” He called, walking down the hall and into the living room. Richie stopped as he entered, looking around at the empty room. Eddie was nowhere to be seen, and as someone who was now seven and a half months pregnant, alarm bells rang in Richie’s mind. “Eddie? Baby?”
“In the bathroom, Rich!” A small voice called from further down the hall and Richie did a u-turn out of the living room and down to the bathroom. He cracked open the door and his eyebrows raised as his eyes settled on his fiance, focused on the mirror, running his hands over his face.
“Baby…what are you doing?” Richie asked carefully, stepping into the bathroom and closing the door behind him. Eddie’s eyes met his through the mirror, tired and dark rimmed from lack of sleep. The twins, yes they were having twins, had taken to being awake during the night, keeping Eddie awake with their kicking. “Baby?”
Eddie swallowed and Richie could see the tears forming in his eyes, yet he didn’t move…not yet. Eddie sniffed, “I- I have s-spots! All over my face!” He whipped around and looked at Richie, tears now making their way down his face and Richie had to get up to pull Eddie into his arms. “I- I feel so fat…so fat and ugly,” he sobbed into Richie’s chest.
At the sound of how broken Eddie sounded, Richie felt his heart break and he held onto him as tight as he could without squishing him or the babies. “Hey, hey no you’re not. You are so beautiful Eds, so beautiful and you’re carrying our children. Do you know how amazing that is? You have two little babies growing in your tummy and they’ll be with us in just over a month, can you believe that? How crazy and amazing that is?”
“I- I guess?” Eddie breathed, looking up at Richie, melting him even more at the way his large brown doe eyes stared into his soul. “I love you,” he whispered softly. “I love you, and I love them and I can’t wait for them to be here and for us to be a family.”
Richie grinned and pressed a kiss to Eddie’s hair, “Me neither bug,” he whispered and pulled Eddie closer as he sat down on the toilet seat, head resting on Eddie’s stomach. “Hey Muffin, Hey Peanut, it’s your papa here. Daddy and I can’t wait to meet you and we love you both so much already. You two are going to be the most spoiled babies in the whole world.” Richie pressed a kiss to Eddie’s stomach and looked up. “I love you too, so much.”
Eddie leaned down, and pressed a kiss to Richie’s hair then, breathing him in as they laced their fingers together, over the top of Eddie’s bump. Richie smiled to himself. Yeah, his life was pretty damn perfect.
* * * * *
@3tothe1 @anellope @annxmatron @appojoos @are-you-reddie-for-it @beepbeeprichiellc @bi-bi-richie @billdenbrough @bitchbrak @callmechee @dadbodrichie @derrylosers @disneyfan567 @eds-trashmouth @eduardoandale @feldmancorey @girasol-eddie @gloire-celeste @halfway-happy353 @hawkinsbabe @inthebreadbinwrites @itfandomprompts @its-stranger-than-you-think @jem-carstairs-is-perfection @xcottoncandykatx @lifesucksheres20bucks @loserslibrary @losers-gotta-stick-together @madidraw @mars-14 @marsisaplanetyall @moonlightrichie @nancynwheeler @no-she-wasnt-reddie @oldguybones @photoboothreddie @pink-psychic @purplepoisonedgem @queen-sock @ransonelovebot @rebecca-the-queen @reddie-for-anything @reddie-to-cryy @reddieforlove @reddiesetandgo @richietoaster  @roobarrtrashmouth @rreddies @s-onora @s-s-georgie @sashadrowned @sedanleystanley @sloppybitchreddie @sparklingrainbowdragon @spirited-marvel @stellarbisexual @studpuffin @takeourpure @that-weird-girls-blog @thegoshdiddlydangdoor @thejadeazalea @thorn-harvester-ven @tinyarmedtrex @tozier-boy @tozierking @toziesque @trashmouthtozierr @twoidiotsinl0ve @violetreddie @virgo-luthie @wilding-throught-thehallways @xandertheundead  
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Phillip and Parad, P?
P is for puzzling Parad’s Rubik’s cube is borrowed from @si-siw.
Philip is nearly breathless with excitement when Parad pixelates into the front room of the agency, barely managing to get through introductions--”You’ve met Shoutaro, this is our boss Akiko, those are her children Yuji and Haruna.”-- before going to, “It’s wonderful to see you again, I’m delighted that you were willing to come, thank you. Do you have bones?”
Shoutaro nearly chokes, torn between trying to get Akiko to put down her slipper and saying, “Philip, you can’t just lead with that kind of--” but Parad is entirely unfazed. “Yeah, Snipe x-rayed me once, he says I’ve got the normal number of bones. He was kind of mad about it, actually, I think he was hoping I’d be full of electricity or slime or something.”
“Philip!” Akiko gets her outraged squawk under control only halfway through his name. “Who is this?”
Philip blinks at her. “This is Parad. He works with Ex-Aid. Didn’t I mention that he was going to be visiting today?”
“I had assumed he would be coming by motorcycle, if he’s a Rider. I wasn’t expecting him to just...just...materialize!”
"I don't know how to drive," Parad says, helpfully.
"He doesn't know how to drive."
"Well, you could have warned me!"
"I thought I did. I told you he was going to be visiting so that I could ask him some questions about the specifics of Bugster physiology."
"That doesn't, that doesn't tell me anything, Philip."
Yuji, his sister hiding slightly behind him, looks up at Parad and says, solemnly, "Bugster means you're a video game. Dad said. Do you know how to play Minecraft?"
Parad blinks. "Yes."
"Can you go in a Minecraft game? Do you wanna go in my Minecraft game? What video game are you from? Why do your pants have Tetris on them? Are you from Tetris? Do you know Freddy Fazbear?"
"You ask a lot of questions."
"Dad says I do it to aggravate him."
“Why, doesn’t your dad like to answer questions?”
Shoutaro glances at Akiko and her bubbling, vibrating offense and puts an arm around her shoulders. “Hey, boss, come on, I’ll make you some coffee and you can yell at me about how bad it is, Philip and Parad are probably going to be talking for a couple of hours.” At Philip’s grateful look, “Please make sure to use your inhaler if you’re going to be doing any look-ups, partner? I’ll bring you guys some lunch in a bit--Parad, is there anything you’d like for lunch?”
“I don’t need to eat, you don’t need to get me anything,” Parad says cheerfully, “but if you’ve got a ribbon jelly that’d be very nice, please.”
“Ah...all right, I can grab a ribbon jelly, and some takoyaki for Philip.”
“Here, right this way.” Philip heads for the garage door. “So you don’t need to eat, but you can eat?”
Parad nods, following behind him. “Yeah, if I feel like it. Mostly I like stuff that’s bright colors. And really spicy things, it drives M nuts when we get takeout.”
The last thing the others hear as the door closes behind them is, “So where does the food you eat go, then?”
--
Two and a half hours and one very easy lost cat case later, Shoutaro comes down to the garage with a ribbon jelly for Parad and takoyaki and coffee for Philip and finds that Philip has covered all of his whiteboards and several sections of wall with notes. “I’m going to start buying you those scented markers for kids, partner,” he says as he comes down the steps, “the ink smell in here is awful--is that Haruna’s Rubik’s cube?”
“You never used to mind the ink smell, are you getting sensitive in your old age? But scented markers would probably be an improvement.” Philip flashes him a smile before returning his gaze to the other cube that Parad is holding. “Yes, Haruna was kind enough to lend it to me. Parad is teaching me how to make patterns on it.”
Parad’s hands move very quickly; it’s clear to Shoutaro that he’s making an effort to slow himself down for the benefit of human eyes. It’s mesmerizing, actually, watching patterns ripple across the cube’s surface as he turns the sides. “I’ve got a couple of larger ones at home,” he says, his own gaze fixed on what he’s doing. “But the regular one is easier to start with.”
Philip accepts the little tray of takoyaki from Shoutaro with a smile, and then an affectionate head-bump to his hand. “I’ve learned a number of compelling details about how Bugsters function today. Unfortunately their original creator is no longer available for questions, but Parad tells me that this is for the best. His files have been retained by the Ministry of Health, Parad’s going to see if he can get me copies for further study. I may have to sign waivers.” Then he falls silent as he pops an entire takoyaki into his mouth.
“What...kind of waivers? Here, ribbon jelly for you.”
Parad grins crookedly at him and starts to shake the bottle, his other hand continuing to turn the faces of the Rubik’s cube. “Thank you, W. He’ll probably have to sign something promising he won’t use Genm’s notes to destroy the world or start going around saying he’s God. You know. Rider stuff.”
“I’m sorry, did you say God?”
“Yeah. He wasn’t, really, but he said he was.”
Philip swallows his takoyaki. “According to my research, a Kamen Rider becomes a god or god-like being approximately once per decade. Frankly I’m pleased that it wasn’t us, I don’t think I’m suited for it.”
Shoutaro sits down heavily on the nearest chair. “That’s...ok, kind of a relief, but also I’m a little worried. It’s not just Kouta?”
“Oh, yeah, M met the last guy a while ago.” Parad takes a sip of his ribbon jelly. “Apparently he’s pretty nice.”
“If the pattern continues, we’re due for another one in approximately three and a half years.” Philip eats another takoyaki whole and then abruptly starts turning the faces of his borrowed Rubik’s cube, a pattern blooming underneath his fingers.
Parad claps delightedly. “You pick up on this stuff quickly.”
Philip nods emphatically. “I enjoy intellectual challenges with a physical component. Do you have an email address?”
“Yeah, kinda, they just sort of come to my head but I can read them.”
“Really? You’ll need to tell me more about that, do you have some way to visualize them?”
Shoutaro pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m guessing you might need me to bring you dinner, too.”
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poge-life · 4 years
Note
fluffy alphabet jordan??
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A= Affection( how affectionate are they? how do they show affection?)
going off of how Jordan posts about Jinjara, I wanna say, he shows his appreciation and love for you anyway he can. Whether it be with flowers, or making you breakfast, he’s very affectionate.
B= Best Friend(what would they be like as a best friend? how would the friendship start?)
You guys would probably meet on the Riverdale set. Going from Jughead’s sister, you weren’t a regular character on the how, only popping up here and there during the first season. But season two came along, and you got bumped up to a series regular, now that they started showing the Southside a little bit more. 
You guys would probably meet at the table read first, but not officially meeting until you guys start running scenes together. Over time, you both grew close. Both of you messing around with Drew and Vanessa in the trailers and both of you hanging out together in either of your trailers. He would instantly notice when something was off with you, being able to tell your mannerisms over the time you both spent together. 
He always knew when to cheer you and knew exactly what to say when you were feeling down.
C= cuddles(do they like to cuddle? how would they cuddle?)
Yes. Jordan absolutely loves to cuddle. Despite him being a fucking skyscraper, he would be the little spoon sometimes. He would lay his head on your chest and ask you to run your fingers thru his hair as he would tell you about his day.
D= domestic( do they want to settle down? how are they at cooking and cleaning)
Absolutely. Jordan knew he was gonna marry you from the day he met you. After being together for three years, he took you out on a trip and popped the question after you both got back to the hotel. 
He’s amazing at cooking. He would constantly wake you up with breakfast in bed and would surprise you with dinner after you would get home from work. Now cleaning on the other hand. He would leave his clothes everywhere; on the floor in your bedroom, in the bathroom, right next to the hamper.
E=ending (if they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)
I feel like with Jordan, he would sit you both down, and just get straight to the point. He knew for a while, you guys weren’t going as strong as when you both first started dating. With you being a regular on Riverdale and traveling a lot for the show and him not being on it so much and doing his doctor show and Looking for Alaska, you guys were barely with each other.
You both were crying at the end of the break up. You guys would say you would try later on in life, when you both had time, but for now, it just wasn’t your time to be together. 
F=Fiance(e) (how do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)
Jordan had no problem with commitment. He was fine waiting to marry you. With both of you being busy with other up coming productions, he knew you both would wanna wait until you and your friends and family all had time off to have the wedding.
G= Gentle (how gentle are they, both physically and emotionally)
For me, I feel like Jordan is always gentle. No matter what situation. It would probably take a lot to make him mad. I just don’t see Jordan really being the aggressive type of person. Unless the situation calls for it. If you know what I mean ;)
H=hugs (do they like hugs? how often do they do it? what are their hugs like?)
Ugh. Hugs with Jordan would be the best thing. He would wrap both of his arms around your shoulders as you would wrap both of yours around his waist and bury your head into his chest. He absolutely loves picking you up when he hugs you.
I= I love you (how fast do they say the ‘L’ word)
I wanna say a few months into the relationship. He would just blurt it out when you both were just sitting together. You would both be in his apartment, laying on the couch, binge watching a netflix show. He would be running his fingers thru your hair as your head was on his chest and he would be thinking about how much you mean to him and how he would do anything for you.
J= Jealousy (how jealous do they get? what do they do when they get jealous?)
They only time Jordan would get jealous if you ran into an old ex in public. Despite you constantly telling him, he was your one and only, he couldn’t help it. He would come up behind you and wrap his arms around your waist and place a kiss to your head and just stare at the guy.
K= kisses (what are their kisses like?)
His kisses are very passionate. He lets you know that he loves you with every kiss. With him being the jolly green giant, he likes to place kisses on your forehead. You usually place yours on his jaw or his neck since you can’t reach his lips without bending down
L= little ones (how are they around children)
Seeing how he is with his dog, I wanna say, he’s really good with little kids. Your nieces/nephews/cousins/siblings love Jordan. And he absolutely loves them. They run right past you and straight to Jordan when you guys go home for the holidays.
M= Morning (how mornings are spent with them)
You are not a morning person whatsoever. Early morning shoots on set are your kryptonite. Everyone knows to not talk to you until you’ve had at least two cups of coffee
Jordan was always up before you. He would always shut your alarm off before it woke you up and would instantly start making you coffee. He would wake you up by placing kisses on your shoulders and would let a smile make its way across his face as you looked around at the room in confusion
n= nights (how nights are spent with them) 
Depending on how your schedules were, you guys would sit and eat together. Then you both would shower and go lay in either your room on the couch and binge watch whatever netflix show you guys were currently watching.
o= open (when would they start revealing things about themselves)
I wanna say it would be when you guys were sitting in one of your trailers after a late night shoot. You both would be sitting there after getting takeout.
He would tell you all about growing up in Canada and how he would talk to his mom and sister for hours whenever he was missing them. He would tell you how nervous he was about playing a role like Sweet Pea and how he was really happy you both were working together.
p= patience (how easily angered are they)
Going off of gentle, I would say it takes a lot to make Jordan mad. I wanna say, he would only get mad when he felt like he did horrible at whatever scene they were filming that day. He would snap at everything and you. But he would come by your trailer later and apologize after he had cooled down.
Q= quizzes (how much would they remember about you)
He remembers everything about you. Hell, he remembered what you were wearing during the table read for season 2.
He remembered how you color coordinate your clothes in your closet and how you alphabetized your movies. He remembered you didn’t like being woken up before 11 every day, how you like a butt load of creamer with your coffee. He could always tell when you would start to panic or get overwhelmed because you would start with either play with your necklace or play with your earrings. 
He thought it was adorable how passionate you got when you guys would run lines together and get really excited when you guys would do really good in a scene together.
r= remember (what is their favorite moment in their relationship)
Probably when you both kissed for the first time. You were both running lines in your trailer and it was a scene where your character, Stevie aka Jughead’s sister, was yelling at Sweet Pea for how he treated Jughead. Jordan threw his script to the side and grabbed your face in both of his hands and just laid it on you.
s= security (how protective are they? How would they protect you?)
Jordan did everything in his power to make sure you were always safe. He even went as far as buying you pepper spray. Much like his character, people found Jordan intimidating due to his height. That was until he smiled.  He would make you text him whenever you would get to wherever you were going. He even made sure you texted him when you would get to your trailer.
t= try (how much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts. Everyday tasks)
Jordan went above and beyond for dates. He was the perfect gentleman. He would bring you flowers every few weeks, along with buying you a charm bracelet for valentines day. He would go above and beyond for anniversaries. He would buy you a new dress, take you out to a fancy dinner place, and then would just take you out for a drive. He would end the night by giving you a charm for your charm bracelet.
u= ugly (bad habit of theirs)
He would leave his clothes everywhere. Even after you would constantly remind him that his hamper was literally right there.
v= vanity (how concerned are they with their looks)
Not really. Jordan knows he’s good looking. But he doesn’t really care about his looks that much. Except when you guys would go on dates. He would be freaking out over if he looks good enough or not. Even tho Drew would constantly reassure him that he looked good. Other than that, I don’t think he would care very much.
w= (would they feel incomplete without you)
Probably after you two would either break up or be apart from each other for a while. After being with each other for so long, it would feel weird being apart for so long
x=xtra (a random headcanon for them)
One thing jordan loved doing was always scaring you. Whether it would be on set or just by yourselves.
You were standing with Vanessa and Cole, getting ready to film the scene at Southside high where Sweet Pea and Jughead first get into it. You had your back to the door with the two standing infront of you. With you having your back to the door, you didn’t see or hear Jordan and Drew coming up behind you. Jordan signaled for the two to be quite as Drew was filming him walking up behind you. 
He grabbed your waist and called out your name as you screamed Bloody murder and turned to face him, “Jesus fucking christ Jordan! I told you not to do that anymore!”
All he did was laugh and pull you into him.
y= yuck 
No idea what to write
Z=Zzz (what is a sleeping habit of theirs)
Jordan would always sleep with the fan on. Even when it was freezing outside. The first night he stayed over at your apartment and turned the fan on, you stopped what you were doing and turned to look at him like he had three heads. All he did was shrug and climbed into bed and opened his arms as he waited for you to come to bed.
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dance-with-sum1 · 4 years
Text
Mayhem Go Round | Nessa & Nadia
TIMING & LOCATION: The Carnival
PARTIES: @humanmoodring & @dance-with-sum1
SUMMARY: The Not-So-Merry Go Round throws some people around.
TW: None
Nessa just found the Carnival so darn intoxicating! She was usually drawn to places of excitement and reverie, but this was something else! The mimes, though a bit unsettling at first, were a blast. The ferris wheel, you could ride it forever! Not to mention the food and the games! She wondered how many of White Crest’s citizens knew who they were really playing games with, but honestly, she didn’t really care. What the squishers didn’t know would only benefit the fae running the booths. Twirling a bit and inhaling the sweet scent of fatty fried foods, Nessa pondered where to go next.
“You’re up, little lady!” A booming voice rang out behind her and a pair or rough hands pushed her up the small, metal stairs. “W-what? Oh! No, I’m not in line-” Nessa’s eyes went wide when she realized she’d inadvertently entered the line for the Merry Go Round, probably the only ride in the entire place she’d steered clear of. Hooves. Way too many hooves. But they were just plastic! It was fine, she told herself as she shuffled over next to a dark haired woman. “You er- you’d think there would be an age limit for these guys, right?” She chuckled nervously, an out of place look of apprehension written plainly across her face.
The carnival, Nadia had decided, would be a damn good place to do a bit of pickpocketing. Crowds of people were always bumping into each other, getting jostled, and, damn it all, sometimes people just lost their wallets in the process. Really, if she thought about it long enough, Nadia was doing them a favor. These people were just going to waste their money on some cheap carnival ride. They were gonna lose it anyway; she was just making sure the money went towards something worthwhile, like new motorcycle parts or bullets or fine liquor. She’d picked two hundred dollars in cash, three credit cards, and five relatively nice wallets in the few hours she’d been at the carnival. The last time she’d been in a place like this had been in Texas about three years ago, so she bought some cotton candy for old times’ sake. Somehow, as she was walking around, she ended up in line for the Merry Go Round. Not her first choice; she liked thrill rides, things that got her blood pumping. But she was in line, so she figured she might as well stick around. The woman maneuvering beside her, her apprehension both visible on her face and coming off her in waves, didn’t startle Nadia too much, and she smiled at the question. “You’d think,” she said, taking a bite of the cotton candy. “This is kind of kids stuff, but maybe it’s a slow day for the carousel. Looks like we’re the only two people they managed to rope in for a while.” One of the workers motioned them forward.
Nessa took a cautious step forward towards one of the less menacing looking mounts, a small purple donkey. Donkeys were at least a tiny but smaller than horses, but just as strong and just as terrifying. She wondered how humans let their children ride these things without fear, but that was only one of the many mysteries of the squishers. “Yeah! Hah! I guess we get the thing to ourselves!” Yayyyy, she thought. At least only one person would be witness to her sour mood. “I bet it’s a short ride anyway. Kids don’t like sitting in one place for long, right?” Speaking more to herself than the other woman, Nessa clenched her teeth and swung a leg over, settling herself into the saddle. “Sorry you got roped into this with me, but it’s nice to have a riding partner!” Nessa hoped her small joke didn’t fall too flat. Oi, was she out of her element.
Oh. Fuck. Nadia didn’t realize she was supposed to actually get on one of the fake animals. Where were the little seats for parents that these things were supposed to have? That was where she wanted to sit and eat her cotton candy and wait for the ride to end so that she could get back to work. She picked a red horse not too far from her new acquaintance’s donkey. Damn, these fuckers were lifelike. The horse was the size of a real one. It was almost like it was breathing at times. Nadia blinked that thought away, she needed to get some glasses. “Nah, kids don’t like sitting still much. Can’t say I blame them.” She did enjoy the small reprieve, though. Even after six years of getting used to it, emotions were overwhelming, and carnivals were full of just as many negative emotions as they were positive ones. The woman next to her, for instance, though muted (probably not human), was feeling more than a little uncomfortable in their predicament. “No need to apologize, babe,” Nadia said with a smile and a wink. “You seem like pretty good company.”
Nessa squirmed in the saddle, trying to force out one of her signature smiles. “Under normal circumstances I might agree with ya,” she chuckled. Nessa had never ridden any sort of animal before. It simply wasn’t something glaistigs did. Not only was it mildly offensive to ride something that had such similarity to her own anatomy, but the beasts were just terrifying. They were huge, they had weird teeth, they had no regard for clothing or manners. Not to mention they could kill you with one kick if they wanted! But these were fine...they were plaster and fake and just a ride. “Sorry, I’m just not a huge fan of horses...or goats. Or donkeys, as it were,” she nodded down to the obscene creature she was straddling. “Hold on to yer horses, lassies!” The worker yelled in an over-exaggerated southern accent as he slammed the ride into motion. Only it didn’t seem to be working right. The main part of the carousel wasn’t moving, however something was lurching forward.
Damn. This girl really was uncomfortable, wasn’t she? Nadia almost felt bad for her. “Hey, don’t sweat it. At least they’re not real, right?” Merry go rounds were kind of child’s play; nothing really intimidating about a couple of shittily painted animals going around in a circle to carnival music playing in the background. But fears weren’t exactly logical. And this merry go round was pretty fucking weird. Nadia’s horse almost felt like it was breathing. That was… odd, to say the least. And when the worker started the ride. “What the fuck?” Nadia yelped as the horse sprung into action, not the ride. She attempted to grab onto something, but… it wasn’t a real horse. She’d ridden a horse for the first time several years ago, after splurging a bit of money to get the Wild West experience. This machinery underneath her seemed to breathe and move like a real animal, but there was nothing for her to hold onto. She jerked forward and gripped the creature’s neck as tightly as she could. “What the fuck!”
A loud bleat escaped Nessa as she doubled forward, attempting to grasp anything to keep her from falling off and being pummeled by the creature’s plaster hooves. “WHY ARE THEY MOVING IS THIS NORMAL??” She screamed and clenched her eyes shut as if that would erase the horror from happening. Judging by the other woman’s reaction no, this was not how merry go rounds usually worked. “Make it stop!” She squealed at the carnival worker who simply laughed in return. At least the things weren’t running off through the rest of the fair, but it was bad enough just galloping along in circles. “How- do you- stay on?!” Nessa looked desperately at her riding companion who seemed so cool and collected only a few moments before.
Gritting her teeth, Nadia attempted to hold on to the make believe horse for dear life. “They’re, uh, not supposed to move like this, girlie,” she forced out as she scanned the beast quickly. Without a mane or bridle to grasp onto, she simply wrapped her arms around the creature’s plastic neck, feeling its muscles twitch under her hands. She felt dizzy, in a way that wasn’t just from the motions of the merry go round. She felt too light. For a moment, terror gripped her as she thought she was being forced from her body, but the pounding of her heart grounded her. She slumped forward a bit before she tried to fight through whatever fatigue was overcoming her. “Just hold on,” she told her companion, focusing on the other woman’s fear and desperation. She turned her head in time to lock eyes with the carnival worker, memorizing his face, his laugh, his smugness. Something in her eye caused his smile to dim.
Nessa clutched her mount for dear life, her claws protruding slightly as she struggled to stay attached. “That’s the plan!!” The beast below her jumped and jostled and Nessa wondered why on earth anyone in their right mind ever rode these things EVER, and especially why anyone would make a children’s ride out of the terrifying creatures. Though she supposed if this ride was a normal one and not bewitched by some sort of magical nonsense it might be a bit safer and more fun. “Turn this off RIGHT NOW SIR!” She screamed, her high pitched voice not exactly embodying a tone of authority. “This can’t go on forever, can it??” Though the ferris wheel sure had lasted quite a long time...Nessa’s stomach began to turn at the thought of being stuck on this thing for hours. “Oh I think I’m gonna hurl…”
This wasn’t anywhere close to riding a real horse, but Nadia managed to hold on. She felt impossibly weak, like she didn’t have a body again, and she kept feeling herself slip a bit as she tried to stay on the ride. “Why are we moving so fucking fast?” she snarled out. “This is a fucking kids’ ride.” A kids’ ride that was moving far too fast and with machinery that obviously wasn’t normal. This had to be some kind of fae fuckery. Or maybe it was just regular, run of the mill supernatural fuckery. But it was a load of fuckery, this much Nadia was sure of. “Can’t last too long,” she said loudly to her companion. Ugh, her head was spinning faster than the ride. At least her pounding heart was a stabilizer. As long as she could feel it, she knew she was alive. She managed to laugh a bit, higher in pitch than normal and a little hysterical. “If you’re gonna hurl, make sure not to do it in my direction, babe. I don’t wanna join you.”
Nessa groaned and threw the woman a look of desperation. “If I can aim, you got it, love!” The glaistig slammed her head against the plastic neck of the donkey and she let out a small, pained bleat. It was like the damned thing was trying to make this whole ordeal as painful as possible. “This- isn’t- supposed to be- a thrill ride!” Nessa LOVED thrill rides. But she usually knew she was going on one before it happened. After what felt like EONS, the beast below her began to lose steam – or so she thought. Loosening her grip for a millisecond, Nessa unclenched her eyes and looked up at the other woman. “I- I think it’s stopping!” As if on cue, the plastic creature gave a final lurch before screeching to a halt, suddenly devoid of all sense of life and motion. The unexpected standstill threw Nessa forward, over the head of the donkey and flat on her ass in the middle of the ride. Huffing a piece of hair out of her eyes, she could have sworn she heard the beast chuckle at her. “Why I oughta-” she warned at the inanimate object.
One thing was certain: someone was gonna have hell to pay when Nadia got off that ride. “Well, it’s certainly,” she said, her breathing harsh, “thrilling.” It felt like she was clinging to the plastic horse for hours, dizziness frequently causing gaps in her memory. She almost fell off two more times, her grip too weak to hold on. When the horse jerked to a stop, Nadia slammed forward. Still holding on, she managed to slide off the plastic horse. She groaned and placed her head between her knees, trying to stop the spinning and ward off the nausea. “Fuck. I need a minute.” Just a minute, and she was going to get up and kick that fucker who was controlling the damn ride in the ass. And maybe the teeth. Guy was gonna be in some major pain before she was done, though. She looked over to her new friend, who was threatening the purple donkey she’d been held captive by. Nadia laughed a bit. “I think you scared him stiff.” None of the animals were moving, anymore. It was as if they’d never moved in the first place.
Stretching and testing her limbs to make sure no damage was done, Nessa tried to glare at the woman’s joke, but she just couldn’t. A smile slowly spread across her lips and she shook her head, pushing herself up to her feet. “Good. Serves him right!!” She chastised the plaster donkey once more, giving it a final slap for good measure before flinching, just in case it decided to retaliate. “I’m Nessa, by the way. Here,” she offered a steadying hand, leading them quickly over to the exit. This had been by far her least favorite experience with the carnival and she didn’t want to remember the night on such a down note. “I can say with extreme certainty that I will not ever be doing that ride again.” Nessa glared at the carnival worker, keeping his face burned in her memory for a later date. Perhaps a week’s worth of fae pranks would change his tune a bit.
Nadia allowed the other woman to lead her off the ride, her head still spinning and her body feeling a bit too heavy. “I’m Nadia,” she said. Laughing, she added, “Nice to meet you. Wish it was under less stressful circumstances.” She took the time to look at the carnival worker, not unlike Nessa. However, where Nessa had glared, Nadia smiled. Soft, gentle, charming with a little something else. She knew how to read emotions and present emotions adequately through facial expressions and body language while still being unreadable. In animals, the baring of teeth meant danger. The worker’s thoughts were filled with snarling dogs as he looked at her, and his smugness was tinted with a bit of fear. Good. He should be afraid. Nadia looked back at Nessa. “I can safely say that I’ve never been on a carousel like that one, but I don’t think I’m gonna risk anything like that again.” Nessa seemed like a nice person. Cute, bubbly. It wouldn’t hurt Nadia to keep her around. She allowed concern to color her voice as she asked, “You doing alright after all that?”
Nessa took a deep breath and raised her arms in a yoga-like pose, centering herself. The plaster donkey couldn’t hurt her anymore. Or anyone else, if she could get back to it when no one was around. She’d be sure of that. She smiled, the expression flooding every inch of her tiny body. “Yes, I think I’m alright. Now that my feet are firmly on the ground,” she specified. The fae wasn’t adverse to being in the air, but she much preferred to have her hooves connected to the earth. Not only was it safer, it helped her feel truly connected to herself. Oblivious to the viciously sweet smile Nadia gave the worker, Nessa threw her arms around the other woman and trapped her in a quick bear hug. “Thank you so much for not making fun of my stupid little fear. I just- I don’t even like riding real horses.” Her eyes flitted back to the purple monstrosity. “Or half horses, at that.”
Hugs weren’t really Nadia’s thing, but she allowed the other woman to give her one, even offering Nessa a pat or two on the back before she stepped away. “Hey, yeah, don’t sweat it. Lots of people don’t like riding big animals.” She, too, glanced at the ride. “And, after that load of bullshit, I don’t fucking blame them. That’s actually right on up there in my top worst experiences in this town.” She gave Nessa a soft smirk. “The company’s the only thing that made it alright.” That, and the amount of money she’d picked up before getting on the damned contraption. See, Nadia wasn’t aching for money. The opposite, really. But she liked having a surplus, and then a surplus on top of that surplus. And she kind of liked picking pockets. It was an enjoyable pastime, and the risk of getting caught added to it. So, despite the fact that she was going to come back and bust the worker’s head open, she was still in a pretty good mood, if a little lightheaded. “Wanna grab a bite to eat? The ride’s around here seem a little touch and go, but carnival food always kicks some major ass.”
Nessa’s face lit up and she bounced up and down, almost as if she hadn’t just been holding onto the neck of a sentient purple donkey for dear life just a few minutes before. “I’d love to! Have you tried anything in the carnival yet?? I’m a pretty big fan of the funnel cakes, especially if you have them add some of those syrupy strawberries on top! And extra sugar! Oh- and the corndogs! I swear, they’re magical. ” Nessa reached out and snaked her arm through Nadia’s. “It may have been hellish, but it’ll be one hell of a story,” she winked, leading them off towards one of her favorite food booths in the fair.
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Oh, I’m happy we finally meet Again
Anime: Kuroko no Basuke Pairing: Kasamatsu Yukio x Reader Rating: K+ A/N: I wanted to write this yesterday, but i fell asleep after work LOL. oops.. So I found time to write it before i fell asleep again . Hope you guys like this one too C:
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You had zero intention of attending the practice match against Kaijou.
Kise was begging you to attend, wanting his sister to be his biggest fan... Yet you kept denying him, coming up with excuses for why you couldn't attend.
It was too far. You had a test to study for. Mom was busy so she couldn't drive you... 
And yet, despite all the trouble you went through to tell him 'NO'... You found yourself at Kaijou's front entrance, staring with widened hues.. No wonder Ryouta wanted to attend this school.. It was definitely bigger than Seirin… The grounds themselves had their own aura, and you found yourself to be slightly intimidated as you stepped foot on their grounds. Truthfully, you only had Kagami's map to go by, and boy did it suck.
But you somehow managed to understand his scribbles, along with the loud screams of your brother's name... You let out a loud sigh... Right... your brother was famous.. Some days you forgot how popular he was, mostly because people seem to forget you exist. During Teiko, you weren't followed or hounded by any of his fangirls, despite being around the Generation of Miracles.. They'd speak with Momoi, but yet... it was as if you were invisible...
'Like Tetsu-kun..' You muse, a gentle smile on your lips. 
Your feet carried you towards the sounds, the pheromones from the men filled the air. There were girls screaming and cluttering around the gym doors... Oh man.. How in the world could you sneak in now? You frown, getting down on your hands and knees, and crawl under their legs, growling when a few of the girls' legs trapped you. You should've just stayed home...
You managed to get through the sea of women, sneaking between a couple of guys who were on Kaijou's team... Oh... so their practice match was during their regular practice? You hum quietly, golden hues scanning the crowd... Your brother is there, taking on Kagami once more... but you hear a stern voice... and it sends shivers down your spine.. In that moment, your golden eyes widen, lips part in shock as they land on the very same boy you met in the guitar shop a few weeks ago...
The same raven hair... Those same piercing steel-blue hues... His handsome scowl... You blink then, a soft frown on your lips... 
"Handsome? Since when do I consider Kasamatsu-senpai handsome?"
Sure, since that day you thought about him a lot... How he would be Kise's senpai... You had an inkling suspicion he played basketball, from seeing his muscles that day.. But your suspicions were confirmed the day Ryouta complained about his new captain... You smile at that memory, watching the match with a renewed interest.
________________________________
"I hate my new captain _____-cchi!"
You roll your eyes, laying down on your bed as you attempt to study. It's the first week in, and already you were loaded with homework, a frown on your lips. Your brother came home for the weekend, barging into your room as always and laid beside you, crocodile tears in his eyes.
"What did he do this time? Tell you, you were too pretty to play basketball?"
He pouts, resting his face on your arm, ignoring your squirming.
"He was talking down to me!! Saying I should respect them because they've been playing basketball longer than me... That it doesn't matter if I'm a Generation of Miracle..."
You pause your writing, turning your gaze to meet his, watching the emotions flicker in his eyes.. He seems to be in a daze, as if contemplating the last sentence.. He looks at you then, and the room is silent for a few moments, before you sigh softly, resting your pen on the blanket before gently rubbing your brother's hair.
"So he treats you like a regular person instead of a famous one? Isn't that a good thing ?"
His mouth opens a little, as if wanting to retort. But he immediately shuts it, rolling onto his side fully and curling up with you.. As if you were children going down for a nap, you smile.
"Truthfully, I don't know..." he admits, sighing softly. "I was really angry when it first happened... But as the days go by..." he stops, as if playing the words in his mind. He then meets your gaze, an unknown emotion swirling in those golden hues. "I find that 'Kise of Kaijou' has a nice ring to it."
Your eyes widen at his words, before they close and a soft smile curls on your lips.
"Well then... I'm looking forward to seeing how you grow... Ryo-chan."
You don't see the way his eyes widen, or how they sparkle with happiness at your words.. Instead, you're left to fend off your brother, who smothers you in loving hugs and kisses on the cheek, until the two of you land on the floor, and he has a bump on his head from being smacked.
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Now... seeing how he plays with his team, even if there's still tension amongst them, makes your interest in basketball come to life.. If only a little. It helps that not only Kasamatsu plays.. But he's the captain of the team.
Meaning, he's the one who spoke those words to your brother...
You'd been in a daze for so long, you failed to hear the whistle blow, signalling the end of the match.. causing your eyes to widen in shock...
"Oh shoot! I have to find Tetsu-kun!"
With that, you sneak back into the crowd, mumbling apologies as you flee the gym.. Not realizing a certain captain caught your movements, watching your back as you run.
"W...What's she doing here?"
__________________________________
In your haste to escape the madness, you find yourself lost. You're not sure what part of the school grounds you're on, but it's somewhere behind the gym.. You bite your lip, rubbing the back of your head as you contemplate your options.... You could always text Kise, and see if he can find you... But you didn't want him knowing you showed up after all.. 
"He'd be embarrassed if he learned I saw him lose..."
"....I...It really is you..."
Your eyes widen at the voice, slightly out of breath. It's then you turn your head, stunned to find an out of breath Kasamatsu standing a few meters from you.. He was no longer in his jersey, but rather a blue tank top, accompanied with black shorts.. The high-length socks still covered his legs, but your eyes stayed on his face, the shock from seeing him being replaced with a smile...
"It's really you as well... Kasamatsu-senpai.."
He finds himself able to catch his breath, though he is a bit stunned at your appearance.. He finds a small frown curling on his lips when he notices the uniform you're wearing... Ah...
"So... you chose Seirin?"
You stand tall then, scratching the back of your head nervously. A sheepish smile curls on your lips, trying not to keep your hopes up upon hearing the slight disappointment in his voice.
"Y...Yeah.." you whisper, looking at your shoes for a brief moment, "S...Sorry to disappoint you, senpai."
He blinks, a frown curling on his lips at your words..
"Tch… W..Why would I be disappointed, idiot...?"
His words cause you to meet his gaze, though he avoids looking at you, cheeks reddening at his small outburst... He hadn't meant to call you an 'idiot'... but your words made him bristle.. And it slipped out because in that moment, he forgot you were a girl.
"I...I mean...." he starts, watching your eyes meet his, before growling in annoyance.. He rubs the front of his face, resting his hand over his mouth before shifting his eyes to look at the ground...
"I..I told you.. D..Do what's best for you..." he mumbles, feeling at a complete loss..
Seeing him in a vulnerable position is new.. Something you found yourself cherishing... He's not the same person you met back in the guitar shop... And yet, you find yourself enchanted... Wanting to see every side to this person standing in front of you... 
Your lips curl in a smile then, before a small giggle leaves your lips..
"You're an interesting person, Kasamatsu-senpai..."
He finds himself glaring at you a little, though it's diminished by the redness of his cheeks...
"S....Shut up... brat..."
His ears are ringing from your laughter.
The sound of your phone buzzing startles you from your company, and you look at the message, eyes widening.. 
"Ah... That's my mom! She's here to pick me up!"
He blinks then, standing up to full height, "That reminds me... What were you doing here ____?"
Your eyes meet his, and you fidget slightly, "I... I was here to give Kuroko something... Kagami gave me a map last minute, so I was able to watch the game... But I think my team has already left..." you laugh, trying to hide your nervousness. "So I had to text my mom to get her to pick me up...."
He nods, looking around casually. "I...If you need help, I can walk you to the front entrance... " he speaks, a slight stutter hidden within his cool voice. You find your eyes widen slightly, before they soften.
"...O...Only if senpai wants to..."
He rolls his eyes, walking towards you and gently bumps your head, before nodding his head, "It's not a problem, _____. I wouldn't have offered if I didn't want to... Now let's go.. Don't want to keep your mom waiting..."
You nod eagerly, falling into step with him. A small part of you wanted to spend a little bit longer with him.. Even if it was just walking together... Your gaze goes towards the captain, tracing the angles of his face, finding your gaze land on his eyes the longest.. Ah.. From the first encounter, you always found yourself engrossed with the colour of his eyes.. There was something about them.. 
It was during that moment, where you were caught up in your thoughts, Kasamatsu turns his gaze towards you, finding himself surprised at your stare.. He tries not to tremble, because he's never been good around girls.. But the doe-like expression you held reminded him of someone else... Yet at the same time, you resembled a curious puppy.. He finds it hard not to look away, because every part of his body is screaming to do so.. And yet, he's unable to look away... 
At least until the sound of a horn blares through the silence.
He takes that moment to look away, coughing into his hand as he attempts to regain composure.. He notices movement, and turns his head, eyes wide when you are typing something into his phone... W..Wait...
When the hell did you get that?!
He feels it being placed back in his hand, and he watches you beneath blue eyes... 
"I...IF you want to h..hang out... or just talk... Y...You can text me!"
When he blinks, you're already running away, waving your hand frantically. Despite knowing you've already driven away in your mom's car, Kasamatsu is left standing there like an idiot. He doesn't understand what just happened, but one thing is certain...
His heart won't stop racing...
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txladyj-blog · 4 years
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This Time Around - Chapter 24
A Daryl Dixon x OFC collaboration written by @xmistressmistrustx​ by request of @txladyj-blog​
Rating: Explicit
Relationship: Daryl Dixon/Original Female Character
Tags: Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Awkwardness, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Crush, Fluff and Humor, Angst and Humor, Mild Smut, Strong Language, Eventual Sex, Eventual Romance, Slow Burn, Canon Divergence, Some Canon Scenes and Dialogue
Chapters 27/?
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The next morning was fraught with tension and sorrow. Most of the guards were killed and as a result, people began to step up, offering their help where they could as the cleanup effort began. A truck was being filled with the bodies of the enemy group, while the fallen Alexandrian’s were all gathered near the graveyard to be given funerals. Deanna was the first to spot Jess when she was let through the gate and she immediately ceased her conversation with Rick and ran to her with her arms wide open.
“Oh, Jess! You’re alright” She gasped as she drew her into a warm hug. Not one for hugging everyone anymore, especially after such a harrowing attack, Jess swallowed hard and made an exception, lifting her arms and allowing Deanna to hold her in an embrace. “The others, they said they saw you run out last night.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t stay and help, I just needed to get out of here. I was attacked-” She tried to reason.
“-We know.” Rick interrupted as he walked over with his hands on his hips. “Daryl told us.”
“W-what did Daryl tell you exactly?” She asked hesitantly, all the while hoping that Daryl had left out some significant details that would only add to her humiliation.
“He said he walked into Aaron and Eric’s place because the door was wide open and saw two of them trying to kill you. Said you took a beating but you were putting up a pretty good fight.” He explained.
Jess relaxed somewhat, her shoulders loosening and her defenses lowering. He hadn’t told them everything and had the consideration to omit the things which he knew she would find horrifying if everyone else knew. She owed him for that, the thought of the entire town knowing what she'd been subjected to was not something she could entertain without feeling physically sick.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Jess questioned. It was as good an idea as any to steer the focus away from what happened in the house the night before. Behind Rick. in the distance, she could see Daryl leaving the Grime’s home with Carl in tow.
“It’s all hands-on deck, whatever you can do. But first, I want you to go and get checked out by Denise.” Deanna instructed
“I will. But it can wait a couple hours” Jess mused “There was a woman, a blonde woman. By the wall over there”, She motioned to the dark corner where she’d left the bloodied woman that she’d tried to save “Where is she now?”
Deanna took hold of Jess's hand and looked right at her. From her peripheral vision, Jess detected Carl and Daryl now within earshot.
“I saw what you did. I was at the window, checking there were no other children running around that I could bring inside. That was brave, Jess. Your courage and humanity shown towards Mrs. Brennan was admirable.”
“It was nothing” Jess muttered as she very deliberately broke away from Deanna and headed to Carl.
“She’s with the others, in the church grounds.” Deanna called out to her.
*
Carl’s face lit up when Jess wound her way around Rick and Deanna and broke into a jog, slamming into him and hugging him fiercely. Carl was only a kid and therefore a lot less triggering to her than physical contact from adults. She was delighted to see him, aware of the devastation that would follow losing Carl not only for Rick and the community, but for her also. Daryl continued to walk, meeting Rick and Deanna and joining them in observing Jess with Carl.
“Oh god, I’m glad you’re in one piece, kid.” Jess sighed into the side of the teenager’s head. He was now almost as tall her and she figured she must have missed the beginning of such a growth spurt. He was going to be as tall as his father and likely as brave too.
“You too.” He muffled against her jacket before stepping back and embarking on a run down of events as they transpired from his point of view.
*
 Meanwhile, Daryl and Rick swapped a glance, one of concern for Jess but also for each other. They were beat after having worked all night to sweep the town and eliminate the chances of any of the dead rising again.
“She is playing it down” Deanna muttered through clenched teeth.
“Huh? What d’ya mean?” Daryl asked.
“What she did last night. I saw her from the window. Jennifer Brennan was running across the street away from one of those awful men. She was badly hurt and Jess appeared from nowhere and took him down. Then, she dragged Jennifer to the corner over there and stayed with her, held her hand and talked to her as she died.” She relayed with bloodshot eyes as she took in the impact on her town and the suffering that was forced on her people. “It was chaos, all of it. But she showed compassion and humanity towards that woman despite it all. Then, I watched her save Aaron's life, too. She always said she wasn’t good at fighting people, just walkers. I’m very proud of her.”
Daryl glanced between Deanna and Rick, who was still watching Jess laugh with Carl and playfully jabbing him in the arm.
“Yeah” Daryl mumbled.
Me too.
He cleared his throat and tugged her knife and machete from his belt, slowly encroaching on her conversation with Carl. She stopped talking when she saw him and peered at him expectantly. He held out her weapons, noticing that the end of her bow, which was positioned across her torso as normal, was bent out of shape.
“Cleaned ‘em up for ya.” He told her. She took them from his hands, her eyes never leaving his as she did so and she knew Carl was watching, but struggled to care. “I want ya to go see the Doc, let her make sure ya aint concussed.” He requested
“Thanks. I will. I just imagine she’s kinda busy right now.” She shrugged. Connecting her machete to her belt with its leather loop and sliding her knife back into its holster, she clicked the button closed and pushed her lips into a thin line. He was still staring at her and she knew he wasn’t going to give in.
“So, we’ll wait. I’ll go with ya. C’mon.” He grunted.
Carl raised an eyebrow at Daryl’s unwavering stubborn streak and considered that this may very well be the kind of thing that Jess was referring to when she suggested that he use Daryl as an example of how to treat someone as if they truly mean something.
“Daryl, I can go by myself” Jess tried.
“Ya ain’t doin’ nothin alone until I know ya ain’t got a brain injury. Complain all ya like, I ain’t goin’ nowhere.” He insisted, taking her wrist and marching her off along the street.
“I’ll catch you later, kid” She called out to Carl, who was holding a hand up in a small wave with a knowing smile spread across his lips.
*
It turned out that after an hour long wait with Daryl hovering over her like a concerned husband, Jess did not have a concussion. What she did have, was severely bruised thighs, a gash across her temple and a bump to the back of her head that had gone down overnight and left a dull ache that was more than manageable. Denise was informed of the true happenings of the night against Jess’s wishes by Daryl, who stepped in when she tried to lie upon being asked if there was anything else that she wasn’t telling her. She’d scowled at him and cursed him in her head but underneath it all, she knew he was doing it because he cared and after everything she’d been through over the last few hours, she considered herself lucky to have such a blessing. When she was finally released from the infirmary, what little energy she did have was put to good use to aid the community in its repair and removal of the bodies. After all, she had all the time in the world, it wasn’t like she could catch a minute of decent sleep anymore.
Daryl made a point of keeping Aaron and Eric away from their home until he’d cleared the bodies inside. Reluctant to let anyone see the result of his fury splattered all over the pristine, white kitchen. He left the house carrying a box full of body parts which he threw onto the back of the truck that contained the rest of the bodies and gave Aaron a nod in passing, letting him know the coast was clear.
“Sorry ‘bout the mess, man.” He mumbled.
Jennifer Brennan’s funeral was tough for Jess, who stood at the back of the crowd and pulled her hood and mask up to create a barrier between her emotions and everyone else. But she simply had to attend, not being present wasn’t an option when she’d ensured that Jennifer’s last moments were spent with her. She hoped she’d been able to do something to calm the woman’s heart, to put her mind at ease and to let her slip away as peacefully as possible among the pandemonium. She turned her body away from the funeral in an effort to hide her tears when it was declared that Jennifer’s husband had also been killed, leaving her two young boys as orphans. Daryl picked up on her sadness and resisted the need to go to her. The last thing she needed was yet more attention.
*
In the longer-term aftermath of the attack upon Alexandria, an urgent meeting was called, ideas were swapped and opinions raised with regards to the security of the town and how well equipped it was to deal with such situations. Having never experienced much in the way of danger from outside the walls before, most of the residents were still shaken and angry, believing that huge changes needed to be made to make everyone feel more secure.
Rick’s group stepped up the guard duties, changed the gate rules and went on regular patrols in the woods and surrounding areas, also placing two people in the tower at any one time so as not stone was left unturned. It fast became common knowledge that out of the fifteen strong group that attacked, all but two of them were killed. Rick surmised that there would be a cooling off period for them to regroup and bring in reinforcements, if they possessed such a thing and that everyone should be prepared, at any time, for similar attacks.
Jess was tasked with taking training sessions on the promise from Deanna that she would run the lessons on how to kill walkers and attend the lessons by Abraham on how to kill live humans as a trainee. The more she applied herself, the more she was able to mask her mood and after a week, she was able to cover her anxiety enough to convince everyone that she was just fine during the hour-long sessions. When really, she was plagued with flashbacks and nightmares and rarely slept a wink. She was tired, mentally and physically but training was giving her a focus and a useful one at that. But still, the dread seeped through and after her training sessions, she retreated back to the fairground and hid away from the world.
Nothing was said about the kiss that Jess planted on Daryl. Every time he tried, something else came up, someone interrupted or he thought she could sense it and either removed herself or changed the subject. He didn’t quite know exactly what he wanted to say, but the longer it was ignored, the larger the elephant in the room became. Jess wanted to forget it, sweep it under the rug and continue with their friendship as if she hadn’t tried to ruin it all. She hoped he would quickly realize her displeasure at the prospect of discussing it, purely because she hadn’t brought it up herself.
Daryl, who was usually reasonably self restrained, particularly where affairs of the heart were concerned, found it too tempting to resist stopping and watching during one of Jess’s training sessions. She was a delight for him to watch when she was in teacher mode. Confident, sure of herself and displaying a bossy side that tickled his interest in her all the more. In her hand, Jess held onto the knife that he’d given her all those months ago like it was precious and worth more than all the knives in Alexandria combined.
A couple of the participants in her class that day waved to Daryl, who stood off to one side and smiled thinly at Jess as she worked. He didn’t bother trying to hide his amusement, even dipping his head, running his chin and laughing quietly when she described them all as Stormtroopers locked in a war against the Walkers. That was the old Jess, the one he was seeing more and more of and that apparently was done with being suppressed.
“Copycat.” He called out smugly at the sight of the fake Walkers made from potato sacks and stuffed with grass and straw which were tied to heavy posts. Just as he’d tied a real walker to a tree and demanded she learn how to kill them at the quarry.
Jess looked over her shoulder and shot him an irritated look. Her eyes lingered on him for longer than was needed, but she’d noticed his sleeveless, black shirt and the way he was casually leaning against the back of a house with his big arms crossed over his chest. It was staring her right in the face no matter how much she tried to ignore it, he was so attractive and she sometimes hated him for it, especially when she was trying to concentrate. She marched over to him, stopping and resting her hands on her hips. Her six students wait and glanced at one another in curiosity.
“Can I help you, Stinky?” She asked with a pout.
“Mind if I step in?” He requested.
Jess let out a giggle of disbelief and shook her head at his boldness.
“Yes, I do.”
He stood up straight and went to turn away from her in the direction of the road, his lips curled at one corner.
“Fine. Do it wrong.” He challenged.
The people behind her, comprising of three men and three women all began to grin at one another, finding the playful tension between Jess and Daryl highly amusing. Jess watched Daryl as he ambled towards the road, turning and walking backwards with his hands open, tempting her to reevaluate if she was sure her answer was the right one. She exhaled through her nose, frustrated at how she couldn’t say no to him because she wanted to look at him a little longer.
“Alright, smart ass” She proclaimed “What do you want?”
He cleared his throat and walked back to her, stepping behind her and leaning down. With his hand he hooked his fingers around her calf and eased her outside leg further back.
“This leg needs to be further back. It’s a defense thing. Less likely to fall on your ass” he explained, taking her arm and moving it up and back, closing his hand around hers on the knife. “This arm. Lift it up a little more.” He rasped in her ear as he slid a hand down her arm, gently closing it over her elbow and shifting it to the correct position.
Her skin was set alight when she felt his breath on her neck and the warmth of his chest brush against the thin fabric of her shirt. She swallowed hard and noticed everyone staring at them, most of them with recognizable smiles that were directed at Jess’s pink cheeks and Daryl’s unnecessarily close proximity to her.
“What are y’all looking at?!” She snapped at them all “You’ve had a demonstration, get practicing! Remember, keep your body behind your knife.” They all scattered like mice and picked up their weapons, chatting amongst themselves and helping each other.
Daryl had little desire to move and the longer he stood, connected to her side, the more he thought about the kiss and how he didn’t even know if he was right or wrong for not kissing her back. Given time, a few more seconds maybe, he was positive that he would have reciprocated. But the timing and the situation were all wrong. The whole thing was confusing, out of place and bizarre and he wished it wasn’t. He wished it had been in better circumstances, so he could have pulled her back to him and asked her if it was really what she wanted.
Standing firm, Daryl trailed his fingers back along her arm and dropped his hand to his side. She failed to increase the distance between them and took a deep breath as she shyly licked her lips and straightened up her jacket. Her cheeks were still pink and the day was not cold enough to have made them so. Her skin was reddened because she was flustered and he was loving every single second of it.
“Did you have to undermine me like that?” She uttered.
“Probably not.” He smirked
“Then what are you even doing?” She tested
Daryl sucked both lips into his mouth and thought for a moment. He had an idea, but wasn’t sure if he was pushing his luck a little too far. He saw the glint in her eye while she waited for an answer and decided to take the chance, figuring he’d just make a joke out of it if it backfired.
“Need a sparring partner?” He questioned confidently, looking down his nose at her.
If anyone could fight, it was Daryl. He didn’t think himself good at much, a modest number of things; fishing, hunting and having grown up scrapping with the best of them, he was fearless and could more than hold his own. What he lacked in professional training he made up for in determination and resolution.
“Uh, no?’ Jess replied.
“Yeah ya do.” He argued. “Need to show ‘em how it’s s’posed to look. Get some practice in of your own too”
She considered his offer, unable to actually find a reason to decline. He was right. It would be helpful to show them what everything was supposed to look like and as much as she tried not to entertain the thought; she liked the idea of a little healthy competition with the man she thought to be the most attractive she’d ever seen.
“Fine. Tomorrow. But we’ll have to meet up and discuss what I'm going to teach them and how” She instructed in her best official and professional voice.
“Fine by me. Meet ya at your place tonight.” He was already on his way to the road, throwing his response over his shoulder with a hidden smile that only she was allowed to see.
*
Jess was resourceful enough to work out her own way of training using her weapons and keeping her stamina up. Since the attack, she felt the need to hone her skills more than usual and aside from her time as both a teacher and a student inside the walls, outside, she reserved time each week for cardio training. Just as in the city, she always remembered that she may never know when she would have to run, and keep running and so, keeping up her fitness level was of great importance. She also didn’t want to become complacent with her weapons. Being attached to a safe zone was one thing, but she still lived outside the walls and should her own land be attacked, she needed to know how to defend it, and herself.
Inside the fences of the fairground were various home-made training sections. Scarecrow-like effigies were tied to the horses of the carousel for knife training and targets were hanging, dotted around the compound for firing at with her bow. When Daryl stepped out of the bushes and gained a view through the fence, he spotted Jess aiming and firing at a target with her bow. Her practice over the months of her being alone had paid off, and she rarely missed a shot through lack of skill, it was just her unsteady nerves and tendency to panic that sometimes put her off.
She lowered her bow when she clocked him working his way along the fence and met him at the gate. Opening it up and clanking it shut behind him. In the clearing between the carousel and the Ferris wheel, she walked to the middle and turned to face him, tossing her bow and quiver to one side.
“You think I can’t handle myself, Dixon?” She challenged.
In truth, she felt far from the capable superhero she presented herself to be. She was tired and on edge, the constant memories of her attack dropping into her mind to remind her of her near-death experience. She hated it and it made her angry and sad and vulnerable. Most of all, she hated the nightmares.
“Seen ya fight. You’re good with Walkers. But it was me that taught ya.” Daryl cleverly pointed out.
“You taught me to fight with a knife” She pointed out, unsheathing her blade and tossing it onto the grass. He raised his eyebrows “we’re not using weapons. Before anything else, those people…and me…we need to learn how to survive in a situation where we aren’t blessed with a blade or a gun. Who better to teach me than a brawler like you?”
“You think I’m a brawler?” He asked with a hint of surprise, although he couldn’t blame her for thinking it with a reputation and a temper like his.
“Tell me, how many fights were you involved in before the turn, Daryl?” She shot back at him.
“Alright. Yeah, a lot.” He accepted, tilting his head to one side with a subtle shrug.
He didn’t know what he’d been anticipating when he offered himself up as a sparring partner, but combat with no weapons was certainly not it. All things considered, he wasn’t entirely displeased with the prospect of being so close to Jess, but he was apprehensive about hurting her. When she raised a hand and beckoned him with one finger, his stomach hummed with a complex mix of nerves, excitement and worry.
“Fight me” She challenged.
“You’re sure about this?” He checked.
“Ahh…you’re scared” She mocked, knowing very well that he was far from afraid of her but delighting in being able to poke fun at him.
“I ain’t scared of nothin’.” He warned.
“So, fight me.” She smiled.
He lunged at her and she dodged his first swing, ducking and jabbing him in the side. She refrained from hitting him as hard as she actually could, unsure of her own strength and not wanting to leave any bruises. He swung a leg under her feet, knocking her off balance and grabbing her arm, spinning her and twisting it behind her back. She took a deep breath while he held her there, trying to ignore the churning in her stomach, the gnawing discomfort of being touched after her near miss at the hands of the two barbaric strangers in Aaron and Eric’s house. Fixating her energy onto the task at hand, she stamped on his foot at the same time as shooting an elbow backwards, into his ribs. A grunt rang through her head and she detected his grip loosen a little, just enough for her to slip down to the floor and out of his grasp. Straightening up again wasn’t all that difficult but she soon grasped that her cockiness was too premature when Daryl simply slapped his hands on her shoulders and knocked her backwards. She stumbled and hit the deck like a toddler, devoid of a single ounce of grace. Flat out on the grass, she gawped up at him when he knelt down with a leg either side of her and held her arms to the ground.
A brief spell of panic flashed through her with the vivid memory of being trapped on the table in Aaron’s house, forced to breathe in the stench of rotten breath from the man holding her down and the pressure on her thighs from the one who intended to violate her. In a split second, she was back in the present, in the fairground and under Daryl with his blue eyes peering down at her.
“You’re holdin’ back.” He rasped at her with a slight smile that made her stomach flutter.
“So are you” she panted back.
“Thought you couldn’t fight the livin’.” He reminded her.
“I can’t” She admitted.
Daryl’s restrained breathlessness hadn’t come from their brief fight, but more from his inability to ignore the magnetism he felt whenever he was near her. Jess’s was a mixture of both their strenuous activity and her deep feelings for him, now strengthened by his need to shield her from any harm that may come her way.
“Guess I am scared of somethin’ after all.” He deliberated
“What’s that?”
“Hurtin’ you.” He admitted.
It was the same for her. She was adamant that she wouldn’t go too far, hit too hard or do anything to leave any pain that lingered. Hurting Daryl was the last thing she wanted and she found herself relating to his statement, but choosing not to acknowledge it with anything more than a feeble nod. Upon moving away from her and allowing her to crawl to a sitting position with her legs stretched out in a V shape, Daryl offered her some constructive criticism which was gratefully received by Jess, who had a genuine burning desire to be able to hold her own should she be faced with two more men who chose to be monsters.
“So much for discussing lesson plans.” She sighed even though she’d gained more pointers from this one, short attempt at fighting than she had at an hour-long lesson inside the walls.
“This was more fun.” Daryl commented. He liked how the stray strands of her hair blew like ribbons in the breeze when they fell from her braid, tickling around her face and tempting him to touch them, to softly graze her skin at every opportunity. She brushed them from her eyes and looked thoughtfully across the fairground.
“Yeah, it was” she uttered.
Jess picked at the grass, collecting long strands of green and winding them around her index finger before ripping them from the earth. But her attention wasn’t on the empty patches of dirt she left in her wake, it was on Daryl and the fact that he’d saved her life. Again. Her eyes lifted to find him already staring at her through his hair, his features set in a serious look.
“Thank you for saving me the other day. I should have said that before.” She offered.
“No need. I’d do it over n’ over. You know that.” he responded. She took his short but sincere reply as the end of it and resumed her grass trimming ritual.
The big issue hanging over them both was the kiss. The sudden, thoughtless and shocking kiss that had rooted Daryl to the spot and sent Jess fleeing in a daze of horror and humiliation. He’d tried to bring it up, accepting that talking it over was something that had to happen for both of their sakes. But Jess was less convinced of its importance while she wished she could turn back time and make a different decision in that moment. As he sat opposite her on the grass and observed her peacefully picking at the blades with her fingers, he guessed that it was as good a time as any. They were alone and without interruption or distraction.
“Jess?” He started.”We ever gonna talk ‘bout what happened afterwards?”
She stilled instantly with her fingertips pinched around a daisy. He could see her chest expand when she drew in a deep troubled breath, her eyes flickered around the area between her knees. Daryl felt like he was holding his breath for the duration of time that it took for her to reply to him and he could do nothing but endure the wait of time ticking by, thirty seconds, then forty.
“There’s nothing to talk about.” She finally said.
Now, he had to be braver, pushier but not demanding. He was treading on thin ice and at the wrong comment, Jess could well have fled into her home and refused to acknowledge that day ever again. It wasn’t an option for Daryl, he needed answers.
“Pretty sure you kissed me.” He braved.
“Please” She scoffed. “That wasn’t a kiss.”
He was baffled. He was as sure as the sun rose every morning that she had stormed up to him in Aaron and Eric’s house and kissed him. After all, he should know, it had been a long time since he’d felt the lips of a female on his and he was highly unlikely to be able to forget the fact that this time around, it was Jess.
“Sure felt like it.” He tried to argue in the most non-confrontational way he could.
Jess got to her feet and flicked the grass from her pants. She made eye contact with him, but only for a brief spell before it became too uncomfortable to withstand. Her defensive side was creeping out.
“Yeah? Well you don’t get to say what it was; you didn’t participate.” She remarked as she stomped across the ground to collect her knife and bow. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to head inside.”
I guess that’s the end of that. He thought.
“Alright.” He admitted defeat and didn’t bother to question her further. He wasn’t in the mood for an argument, especially one about such a touchy subject that he thought he might now be willing to let go after seeing her dislike for the subject being raised. It would still resonate every time he looked at her, that much was evident. But to save her closing up and getting mad at him, he shelved the issue for the time being.
The next couple of days saw Abraham, Glenn and Daryl making several trips to a nearby quarry to gather yet more building supplies. The tower was being expanded and basements secured and concealed as hiding places. The area around the walls was being improved with a walkway and platforms with spaces to mount rifles and sadly, the graveyard was being expanded.
Rick was barely seen for 48 hours while he embarked on a low key, one-man mission to find any more tracks of enemy groups that may be laying in wait to attack the town. So far, nothing had been found and he and Deanna could only conclude that for the time being, they were safe enough.
Jess was sitting with the town’s leader on the front porch when a truck rolled through the gates and Abraham, Glenn and Daryl climbed out and began unloading wood and metal beams from the back. Jess had been talked into accepting a lemonade from Deanna, which was much to her irritation but to save face and not come across as though she was a harbinger of misery, she gracefully agreed and promised herself than ten minutes of chit chat would do the trick. Really, she just wanted to go back to the Fairground and hide, as she had done since the attack. The only things bringing her out of her sanctuary being the unavoidable or the necessary.
The truck appeared just in time for Jess to make her excuses and leave as Deanna began to mention moving inside the walls once more. With a subtle eye roll and a sigh, Jess placed her empty glass on the table, thanked Deanna for her hospitality and hopped down the steps towards the truck, where Abraham was buckled over and complaining to anyone within earshot that he’d pulled something in his back.
Without thinking too much of it and under Daryl’s speculative gaze as he helped Glenn move the materials, Jess set to work on loosening the knots in Abraham’s back using her thumbs to dig deep into the muscles in the hope of increasing the blood flow and lessening the pain. Abraham’s reddened face started to calm and gradually he managed to straighten back up again. Jess kept her distance, uneasy about being so close to anyone. She’d managed it with Daryl during their sparring but it wasn’t without its tribulations and she still didn’t trust her own mental health to hold up while so close to another person. She felt her own face flush with heat when Abraham began moaning loudly and attracting the attention of everyone around.
“Yeeeeah! That’s right girl, don’t stop!” He cried while she worked on his lower back, making sure that she wasn’t just moving the problem to another area. In his waistband, was a 9mm that she brushed the handle off as she went. “Careful of my gun, honey. You’re gonna make it go off all over the joint at this rate” He chuckled “It’s loaded.”
“Oh, shut up, Abe.” Jess scoffed, still uncomfortable but wanting to help her friend and failing to hide a grin. Catching Daryl’s eye as he stalked past, she noticed him taking a drag on a cigarette and scowling at them both.
“You wanna go a little further down, there? You can play with the beanbag. I’ll let ‘cha.” He added.
“Ew!” Jess squealed back.
No matter how she dressed it up and no matter how together Abraham was with Rosita, Daryl still struggled not to feel the unwanted familiarity of jealousy when she giggled along like she was a small child, totally enthralled. He couldn't say anything about it, to do so would have put their friendship at risk, and that was something he wouldn’t do without definitive proof that she felt the same. Friends like her don't come along too often. Maybe if he had a little more height and a little more presence along with a vulgar sense of humor, she might forget about the large military man that garnered so much of her attention, but the truth as he saw it, was that on a generous assessment, his own looks and personality were less than ordinary but far from appealing.
A slap rang out across the street when Jess’s hand collided with Abraham's shoulder and she shoved him away from her, chuckling loudly at his boisterous sense of humor. Abe placed a big hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze, thanking her for her assistance and turning slightly more serious when she twisted away from him and let her smile fade at the discomfort of the physical contact. Daryl pretended to sort the smaller chunks of wood and brackets on the back seat, gaining himself a front row seat to their conversation.
“You alright? You look kinda tired” Abraham noticed. Jess wrinkled her forehead and squinted in the sunshine.
“I’m fine. Just not sleeping much.” She admitted.
“Well, you watch your 6 out there while you’re huntin’ and tired. Or, I’ma have to rat you out to ya boyfriend.” He warned.
“Daryl isn’t the boss of me, Abraham.” She corrected boldly with a hint of sass.
Abraham’s face lit up and he chortled to himself while peering down his nose at her. Totally unaware of what she’d just said, she raised her hands in a clueless gesture.
“What?” She asked.
“Oh nothin’…It’s just…who said I meant Daryl?” He replied with a wide grin under his mustache.
The trucks door slammed and Jess flinched at the sound, whirling around in time to see Daryl sling a heavy canvas bag over his shoulder and glimpse at her as if he was running away from something. She waited for him to join Glenn on the other side of the street before slowly turning back to Abraham with her jaw taut and her hand tapping her thigh nervously.
I really hope he didn’t hear that.
Abraham stepped closer to her and guided her around the truck and out of Daryl’s sight by her elbow “Y’know, he might have the cure to your grouchiness, young lady.” He suggested with a knowing grin.
“Don’t you dare” She warned with a thin smile and a wag of her finger.
“C’mooooon, don’t tell me you don’t wanna pet that Python.” He beamed, shooting her a quick wink.
“What?! Abe! No!” She exclaimed. Horrified at his crude and yet not entirely unfunny remark.
“Well why the hell not?!” He asked.
She briefly stared off into space, at nothing in particular and tried to figure out a way of explaining the situation to him without drawing more dirty comments out of him. Clinging to the only thing she thought he could maybe relate to, she tried her luck.
“You a Star Wars fan?” She started
“I seen the movies, yeah.” He shrugged.
“OK, so I’m like a Padawan in this apocalypse. He’s my Jedi master, teaching me the ways of the force. They don’t have relationships.”
His bushy eyebrows changed position as he thought it over but her explanation was soon met with an incredulous expression and a huff of disbelief.
“Shit, girl” He commented “It ain’t no lightsaber. It’s not gonna take ya hand off”
Before the conversation could get any worse and before her anxiety reared its ugly head, Jess decided to beat a hasty retreat.
“I gotta get back to the fairground. Goodbye, Abraham.” She said sternly, seeing him chuckle back at her and raise a hand in a departing wave.
*
Spinning around and heading for the gate, she very nearly charged straight into Daryl, who was returning to the truck to collect the last of the materials. His eyes connected with hers before darting away again, concentrating on hauling the door open with a notable amount of strength and much more than was actually needed. She backed away from him, almost able to see the anger seething from him like smoke from a fire.
“What’s with the long face?” She questioned hesitantly.
“Nothin’.” He grumbled under his breath, reaching into the truck cab and retrieving his crossbow. He slung it over his shoulder and slammed the door shut so loudly that Deanna rose from her seat on the porch and craned her neck to check there was nothing dramatic going on. Jess moved back and decided that she was too exhausted for one of Daryl’s complicated moods and went to turn to the gate when she heard him mutter something from behind her.
“Why’s he gotta do that?”
She slowly looked back at him, his face was stony, as it had been for the duration of Abraham’s massage and he was seemingly doing absolutely nothing to hide it.
“Who? Abe?” She checked. Soon opting not to wait for a reply. “He’s just joking.”
“Yeah, well it pisses me off” He blurted out against his better judgement. He had set out to mask his jealousy, to keep it inside and not mention it again, but his anger could make him impulsive and reckless and, as was apparent at that moment, snappy.
“Are you jealous again?” Jess asked. If he wasn’t going to acknowledge it, she was going to do it for him. Far be it from her to be subjected to and expected to suffer the moody nature of Daryl’s complex thinking. She’d done nothing wrong and wasn’t about to tiptoe around him and pander to a reaction that was his problem, not hers.
“No” he grunted.
“I think you are. But whatever you say” she sighed as she walked away. That was the end of it as far as she was concerned and having known Daryl for as long as she did, she began to wait until he swallowed his pride and sought her out to offer a shy apology.
*
Her suspicions were confirmed when he showed up at the fairgrounds gate when she was softy rocking back and forth in one of the Ferris wheel carts. He paced about impatiently while she climbed down and ambled towards the gate, unlocking it and allowing him inside. With his fingers shoved into his pockets, he nervously watched her through the greasy front strands of his hair and nibbled on his bottom lip.
“Sorry… ‘bout back there.” He mumbled. “Don’t know what got into me”
His urgent need to apologize was fueled by his inability to keep his mouth shut and the horror he felt when he thought back over how he’d behaved and the things he’d blurted out uncontrollably.
“Jealousy got into you. But it’s okay, forget it.” She snapped.
All at once, fatigue hit her out of the blue and a simple yawn turned into a stumble backwards against a disused trash can. She grabbed backwards with her hands, steadying herself and feeling Daryl grip one of her elbows. He dragged his vision up and down her body, paying careful attention to her eyes, which were boasting dark circles underneath. Regaining her stance, she managed to stand back up again. 
“You gonna tell me what’s goin on?” he pressed.
“Nothing-” She tried.
“-Jess you look like shit.”
She blinked dramatically at him, more to clear her vision than anything else but his direct and reasonably hurtful comment was not lost on her.
“Wow. Thanks. Just leave if you don’t want to look at me.” She remarked.
“I-I don’t mean that how it sounded. You look exhausted. It ain’t good. Ya never look like this. I ain’t seen ya eat nothin’ in days. Ya don’t wanna be near nobody.” His observations were not unfounded and very little got past him when it came to Jess. She was his reason to smile, only she hadn’t been doing a lot of that herself since the attack.
“Well, I could use losing the extra pounds and that’s ridiculous, I’m around people all the time.” She argued.
“Oh really? Cause ya don’t spend time with nobody no more. When was the last time ya had a real conversation with Aaron? Huh?” It was a rhetorical question and one he knew she couldn’t protest at. “Ya lock yaself up in this place and you’re in and out of Alexandria quicker than a fuckin’ mail man.”
“That’s complete crap” She scoffed.
“Alright” He spat “Fine” His tone was aggravated but determined and she could tell he was up to something straight away.
He moved closer to her, looming over her and standing so close that when he inhaled, his chest almost touched hers. Her senses exploded and she became intoxicated by him. Her eyes fluttered and her heart rate quickened.
“Then you won’t mind if I stand right here.” He growled “See? You’re scared.” He watched her breathing change and her lips part. “You’re breathin’ hard. Can see ya hands shakin’ too.”
Scared? I’m not scared of you. I’m in love with you and you’re standing so close to me I could kiss you again.
“That’s not because I’m scared of you, you idiot.” She whispered. “It’s because I’m not. Y-you don’t scare me. You make me nervous.”
Jess couldn’t recall another soul that she’d met in her life that made her as nervous as Daryl did. Everything about him set her on edge but in the best way possible. If only he wanted her the way she wanted him, the chemistry would be electric.
“That ain’t good.” He told her.
“It is.” She corrected “It means I care what you think of me.”
“Right now, I think ya need to tell me what’s goin’ on with you.” He took one small step back to allow her some breathing room but at the same time cementing the fact that until she was honest with him, he wasn’t going anywhere. But Jess was reluctant, feeling childish and ashamed that her nightmares were having such an impact on her life. They were just dreams, bad dreams that she knew were not real. But their vivid and realistic nature was enough to mean they stayed with her all day long. She understood that a problem shared was usually a problem halved, but could Daryl really help her with something as complicated and personal as night terrors? He’d made it clear that he was the one that she was to tell if she needed to talk about anything and for that gesture of reaching out to her, she felt she owed him the truth.
“Nightmares. Okay? I have nightmares about that night.” She admitted.
Daryl sighed and closed his eyes briefly. He was smarter than to expect her to come out of such an ordeal with no lasting psychological effects, even if it was the apocalypse. Dreams were something he had some experience with himself and when he thought of how bad his own could get and so many years on from his trauma, his heart lurched and he wanted to hold onto her.
“Jess…” he paused “…do you, do you feel safe…with me?” he asked.
“Yes” She answered straight away “You’re the only person I feel safe with.”
He nodded and backed away from her but she could tell he was still deep in thought. She took a couple of steps around him in an attempt to see his face but he lowered his head and stroked his beard. She wondered if she should end the conversation there and then and vanish inside. But something about his body language was telling her to stay put.
“I’ll stay.” He eventually said, turning to see her eyebrows raise.
“What?” She croaked.
“I’ll stay here with ya tonight and any other nights you need. I’ll watch ya back while you sleep. Keep ya safe.” He offered.
Jess was touched and bowled over by his willingness to stay right by her side until he knew she was okay. She’d never have anyone exercise such a fierce protective side over her before and for a moment, she considered that if he never wanted her the way she wished he did, he would make an attentive and devoted partner for someone else.
“I can’t expect you to do that.” She told him.
“Would it help?” he asked.
“Maybe. Probably.”
“We’re friends, right?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’m here until ya don’t need me to be.”
She almost dived on him and wrapped her arms around him. It was this secret, sensitive and thoughtful side of him that she’d fallen for. The Daryl that hardly anyone got to see, anyone except her and because he chose to show her through his trust in her. The idea of some real sleep was a tempting one and after a lingering glance with Daryl, Jess agreed to let him stay.
*
The inside of the Diner was proof that Jess wasn’t coping with her exhaustion and the aftermath of the attack. Her living space, usually tidy and organized, was messy. Clothes were strewn everywhere along with empty cans and thin strips of wood for arrows that had never been touched. Books were discarded on the coffee table and the bed was unmade. It was totally different to how he’d seen it before and it only served to increase his worry for her.
She used the Diners kitchen to change into an over-sized T-shirt and shorts for the night and as she did so, Daryl averted his gaze from the view through the transparent display fridge, affording her some privacy and dignity no matter how much he wanted to witness the beauty of her that she seemed to know nothing about. He removed his boots and vest and settled in an armchair opposite her bed, draping his vest over his arms in defense of the slight, biting cold in the room. When she returned, she wordlessly slid under the covers. Daryl shuffled around in the chair and prepared to keep a close vigil over her, when he glanced up and saw her staring at him.
“What is it? You okay?” He questioned.
“We’re friends and we have shared beds before.” She pointed out “You’re not sleeping on that chair. Come here.”
He had no interest in arguing but made sure not to leave the chair too quickly for fear of coming across as too keen. She moved to the far side and spread the pillows out as Daryl sat beside her and lay back. He fluffed the pillows behind his back, wanting to ensure he was slightly more elevated than her so he could see her should she wake. Jess snuggled down beside him and closed her eyes.
After a while, he realized that he hadn’t stopped looking at her, examining every part of her and resisting the urge to trace his fingertips over her bare upper arm and through her hair. A deep sigh escaped her lips and he didn’t know why or what had changed but he wasn’t strong enough to resist anymore. He felt down her arm with his fingertips and it set her skin alight with a blissful tingling. Torn between not reacting and finding a way to let him know she wasn’t going to push him away, she looked up at him and was floored when he lifted his arm and nudged his head up at her. Her mind was crowded with questions. Why was he doing this? Did he really want her to be closer to him? Was he going to change his mind? She would find no answers through inaction and so, she pulled herself closer to him. He remained there, waiting with his arm up and it dawned on her; he was trying to tell her that she should sleep on him. Knowing a good opportunity when she saw it and believing it to be a one off that she would never forget, she didn’t ask if he was sure. Instead, she nervously rested her head and hand on his chest, feeling the powerful beat of his heart under her palm. He closed his arm around her, over her shoulders and it was like a switch was flicked when she fell into a deep sleep. No flinching, no skin crawling, no trembling. Just peace. 
Daryl spent the next few hours drifting in and out of a light snooze, waking every time he remembered where he was, why he was there and that Jess was out for the count on his chest. It was a momentous occasion for him, having never even slept in the same bed as another woman, let alone one he cared so much about. Disregarding his own inhibitions and allowing such a thing was not something he’d ever thought would happen. But it had and he knew when she began to whimper and jolt in her sleep that he would do just about anything to keep her in one piece and by his side. He gently drew her closer, gradually enveloping her in both arms so as not to wake her and startle her. Her hair was as soft as silk under his fingers as he hushed her and lulled her back to a peaceful sleep;
“Shh. I got you. S’alright. Shh”
*
Morning broke and with it came the slither of bright light through the gap in the concealed windows. In the seconds that preceded her waking, she struggled to remember where she was or why she was there. Somehow wondering why she was not in her bed in her apartment surrounded by her dragon collection and listening to the street below as the world woke up. Then, reality hit and the comfy, warm pillow under her turned out to be Daryl. It all came flooding back. She didn’t know if he was awake or not and lay as still as possible to avoid him detecting that she was no longer asleep. She was going to hold onto this treat for as long as she possibly could. She nuzzled closer to him and to her delight, felt him hold her tighter. Her heart began to flutter and her stomach hummed with butterflies when it occurred to her that he’d pushed his face into her hair and was rubbing his thumb over the skin of her upper arm.
This is bliss. Pure bliss. I think I died in the night and this is heaven.
Daryl could not believe his luck. He wondered why it didn’t feel strange to him or make him tense and nervous because of so much physical affection that he just wasn’t used to. Having only ever been touched by hands with violent intent, he was surprised to find that snuggling Jess just felt right to him. In the darkness her skin felt like a little touch of heaven, warm, together, cozy. He wished he could extend the night just so he could stay close to her for longer, with her safe in his embrace. His arms wrapped right around her brought a peace he’d never known before, a calming of the storms in his heart and he hoped it was the same for her too, although he may never know. But it was her that gave him hope for the future, made him start to believe that there was nothing out there to fear. But then he would have to leave, maybe before the sun is fully risen in the sky and he must stand alone again, be his own person instead of Jess’s person.
Why am I not freakin’ out here? Shit. I don’t ever want to move.
She fought with all her might but Jess could not manage to hold in a small cough and had no choice but to let him know she was awake. He instantly felt as though she would want to move away but when he tried to release her from his arms, she held onto him, sliding the hand on his chest over his torso and clinging to him.
“No. Just…A little while longer.” She whispered. “Please”
Maybe I shouldn’t be assuming so much. This girl is full of surprises.
More than happy to stay put, Daryl accepted that it was what he wanted. He wanted to be able to do this with her every night. He wanted to be the person she trusted and felt safe with and ran to. He wanted to be able to hold her and kiss her and soothe her.
After her restful sleep, disturbed by only the beginning of a nightmare before it filtered out to nothing, Jess slowly rolled over, trapping his arm beneath her neck, stretching her muscles and cracking her back. He tried to look away, to give her the same privacy as he did before, but she was mesmerizing. He noted the fading bruises on her thighs, fading to a green. Apparently not picking up on his admiration of her, Jess sat up with messy hair and sleepy eyes and took his hand, turning it over and leaving a delicate kiss on his skin which felt like tiny sparks of electricity flitting through his entire arm.
“Thank you.” She whispered before shuffling off the bed and leaving him there, stunned and unable to stop smiling to himself.
*
At the vegetable patch, Jess caught Aaron as he took a break from digging in the heat and shared her bottle of water with him. She’d arrived back from her Walker clearing duties and re-filled it in the pantry, along with filling her backpack with her weekly rations of canned and dried goods. Her head was stuffed, filled with too many thoughts and weighted with tiredness. She’d woken twice during every night since, nightmares plaguing her and bringing with them terror, cold sweats and a reluctance to sleep at all. Every night except the night she'd slept on Daryl's chest. 
Aaron, having been worried about Jess since the attack but unable to speak to her properly, was finally grateful to get a moment alone with her, which was something she’d avoided very openly. When he confronted her and asked why she’d pretended as if he didn’t exist, she admitted that she was having difficulty processing what had happened. That the events of that night were still all too fresh in her mind and that she didn’t quite feel like herself yet. He accepted it with more understanding than she'd thought and also thanked her from the bottom of his heart for saving his life that day. 
After giving him just enough information to placate his questioning, she informed him that she didn’t need to keep talking about it. In fact, she would rather not and expressed that she just needed time and patience to be able to move past it. However, there was one thing she wanted to run by him and there was no one else that she ever would have imagined telling other than Aaron. She swore him to secrecy, once again threatening to destroy his collection of license plates from across the states.
Aaron quickly swiped the back of his glove across his sweaty brow and got comfortable on the wall where they perched, passing the bottle back and forth between them. Jess tapped on the outside of the plastic with one fingernail while she tried to find the right words to convey exactly what had happened between her and Daryl that night.
“When he saved me, in the house. I think I had some kind of breakdown. I was terrified. I was crying, and then…then I was laughing.” She said with a confused snort of entertainment. Hearing it said out loud made it even harder to decipher. She handed him the bottle and he took a large gulp. “I couldn’t control it and it was because…I was alive. I was alive because of Daryl. I-I didn’t think, Aaron. I just…I kissed him.”
A choking sound spluttered from beside her and she turned her head to see Aaron coughing and staring at her in shock. He wiped his lips and blinked at her for a moment before clearing his throat and shuffling closer on the
“Uh, you did what?” he asked.
Jess glanced around at the other workers. She could see Eric through the green bean trellis, his eyebrows knitted together at the thought of Jess and Aaron sharing gossip without him. At the other end of the patch, Carol and Carl were picking fruits with Judith, who Jess could hear singing to herself without a care in the world. As she picked raspberries, she ate them intermittently; one for the pot, one for Judith and so on. Unbeknownst to Jess and Aaron, Daryl was smoking against the partition wall in front of the gate, at the back of the brick built one they were sitting on. It was the waiting area for those gearing up to leave for supply runs. Having heard his name mentioned, he edged closer to find he could hear every single word of their conversation. He smirked to himself, took a drag on his smoke and leaned back, enjoying the show.
“I kissed him. I made a huge mistake.” Jess reiterated in a low voice
“Why do you think it was a mistake?” Aaron questioned.
She closed her eyes and felt dread course through her body when she remembered how her lips connected with Daryl’s and how he’d stood there like a statue, shocked and baffled by her behavior.
“Because he doesn’t want that from me. He didn’t kiss me back. In fact, he froze up and I just… I just ran.” She relayed.
Aaron remembered watching her flee from the house as though the devil was chasing her and Eric wanting to go after her. Maybe if he’d let him, he’d have been told about Jess’s rogue kiss sooner. But the look on her face and the desperation with which she left the town, like she was nothing but a fleeting shadow, told him that she wouldn’t be sitting next to him and confessing with her sanity somewhat intact if she’d been made to admit everything at the time.
“I see.” He sighed, “So, what’s going on with you two now?”
She’d never been more confused in her life about the dynamics of her relationship with another person. This was a first and Jess couldn’t honesty put her finger on what exactly was happening between them, if there was anything.
“I mean, I still think he’s amazing and super-hot and we hug now, we-we do that. And hand holding. We do that now too. We also…snuggled” She confessed shyly.
“You snuggled?!” Aaron gasped, a little louder than Jess was comfortable with. She held her hand out flat in front of him, lowering it to signal that he should take more care over the volume of his voice.
“Yes. I have these bad dreams. He was taking care of me. It was the most blissful thing I’ve ever experienced and I can probably die happy now. I don’t know what it meant though. Do you? What does it mean?” She questioned in a panic.
Aaron could only shake his head as if there was too much going on, he was staring at her in disbelief at how she couldn’t possibly see what was so obvious to him.
“Kiss him again.” He instructed, ignoring her previous questions and getting straight to the point.
“What?! And prolong this torture?! No!” She growled at him quietly.
“You caught him off guard,” he explained “ Kiss him again and he’ll kiss you back. I know he will. I just know it.”
Jess wasn’t convinced, in fact, the whole idea was absurd to her and it also carried far too much risk. She considered herself lucky that Daryl was even still speaking to her, the last thing she wanted to do was send him running for the hills after giving him another unwanted kiss.
“You don’t know that. Stop getting all excited, I’m not kissing him again.” She dismissed. “There’s no point. No matter how much I like him, he doesn’t like me in the same way.”
“Oh, you’re so wrong” Aaron laughed as he handed her the bottle back with a thud against her arm. She snatched it away from him and narrowed her gaze.
“You’re supposed to be helping me through this minefield, not making it worse!” She told him. Her vision lifted to see Daryl appear at the corner having come from the gate and she momentarily stilled with sheer terror at the thought of him having heard their conversation. But he looked like he’d just arrived and seemed relaxed enough and so, she clung onto that tiny shred of hope.
“Aaaanndd that’s how I think Vision or Dr strange could probably fix all this” she lied with her eyebrows high at Aaron, who slowly started to nod when he noted Daryl’s presence.
“Yes. Yes! Absolutely. I think you’re right.” He commented, adding to Jess’s thin and pointless untruth.
*
That day Jess was restless and after having heard the one thing he’d been longing to hear for so long, so was Daryl. Finally, he had confirmation that she did, in fact, like him as more than a friend and it had become a struggle for him to go about his day without a smile on his face, which he knew everyone and their uncle would soon notice due to it being so far removed from how he usually conducted himself.
Jess found herself in the armory after offering to take over for a couple of hours, it was an unusual task for her but one that kept her busy and away from Daryl, who she couldn’t stop staring at as he cleaned his bike on the drive of the Grimes home. Her job was simple, to count all the guns and ammo and report any discrepancies. Rick was already out and there were no other runs scheduled that day so she figured she would be done before midday and could spend the rest of the morning at the fairground until it was time for training. Which had been pushed back to the late afternoon to avoid anyone getting sunstroke from the heat.
Cleaning his bike was not a pointless task, he was preparing for a recruiting run which, to his delight meant he had to visit the armory to check out a gun. He wasn’t sure that he liked the giddy, happy feeling that was dwelling in his chest and stomach, was this how teenagers felt when they developed a crush for the first time? Still, he couldn’t help it and it was so strong he found that he couldn't concentrate on little else as he polished the same spot on the tank of his bike over and over again. His next course of action was a mystery to him, finding out such information was not common in Daryl’s world. In fact, it was unheard of and he was now in new territory and faced with two options; forget he’d heard what Jess had said and do nothing in the knowledge that she had no designs on kissing him again. Or, make a move. The latter was terrifying to him, but it was also the one thing he wanted more than anything, the chance to be with Jess in the way they both seemed to want. But, there was something stopping him; his belief that despite how much he cared for her, Jess deserved better than he could ever offer.
The armory was quiet as Jess worked her way through the neatly written checklists of guns and ammo. Shelf by shelf she ticked them off, checking their condition and cleaning the shelves and racking. It was a job normally performed by Olivia, who also oversaw the rationing of food from the pantry. She had been more than happy to hand over the reins when Jess turned up looking for a job that would take her away from other human beings for a while. She hummed a gentle tune to herself as she worked, coming to the end of a row and planting herself in Olivia's dilapidated swivel chair. She signed the paperwork off and held her breath when Daryl wandered into the room, nudged his head up at her and began picking through the guns.
“Take what you want but just tell me what you’re taking so I can cross it off.” She told him without looking up from the list. She flipped the page and began to scan through the names of the ammunition that was kept in a closet at the end of the room. It was silent in the armory, so much so, that she felt the need to raise her gaze and check on Daryl. She peered at him over the top of the clipboard. He was smirking at her.
“What?” She asked uneasily.
“Nothin’.” He replied, picking up a gun and sucking both lips into his mouth to disguise the strong smile that was forming.
Jess wasn’t convinced, something was amiss and she could feel it in her gut. Something had changed and there was a clear difference in how Daryl was acting.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she demanded as she stood up and lowered the clipboard to her side.
“I ain’t lookin’ atcha like nothin’.” He said, his lips now curling at the sides and his eyes lighting up.
“You keep smiling at me.” She pointed out.
Shit. Can’t fuckin’ help it, girl.
“Maybe I’m just havin’ a good day.” He reasoned.
Jess dropped the clipboard onto the chair and slowly moved closer to him, growing more and more suspicious with each step. It briefly crossed her mind that he may have heard her conversation with Aaron earlier on, but it was unlikely, they’d both been careful to keep their voices down and when Daryl had stepped into view, he’d given away no signs that he’d heard a thing and such subject matter was bound to provoke some kind of reaction. No, this was strange, it had to be something else and she wasn’t done questioning him.
“This is weird. You’re weird. You’re never having a good day and you sure as hell never smile this much. What is wrong with you?” She pressed, narrowing her gaze at him and finding it difficult not to copy his amused expression.
“I told ya, nothin’. Smilin’ ain’t no crime, Jess.” He answered with a small laugh, holding up the gun he’d chosen. She picked up the clipboard again and crossed it off, watching him carefully as he sauntered to the ammo room and plucked a box from the shelf.
She stopped talking but still glared intermittently at him. He continued to smirk at her and nibble his lower lip as he loaded the gun and made his way to the door. Leaning on the frame before he left, he lingered and toyed with the idea of taking her out with him. At least he would get to be close to her, knowing what he knew, no matter how inexplicable it was that she liked him.
“Goin lookin’ for people. You could come with” He suggested.
“No. I’m going home once I’m done here. Be careful out there” she murmured as she scanned the names on the page, ticking off the items Daryl had selected and marking them as ‘checked out’ with Daryl’s initials at the side.
“You feel better?” he questioned
Then, she met his eye and the very real memory of her curled up in his arms flashed through her head. She did feel better, as if he’d been some kind of medicine to her and fought off the nightmares with his presence alone.
“Yeah. Much better. Thank you.” She said.
“You know I can be there with ya anytime, right? Just gotta say” He reminded her in the hope that she would take him up on it once more. She presented him with a small smile and nod before she sat down again and bit down on the end of her pencil.
“Jess” he rasped.
“Mm?” She hummed, still fixated on the page in her lap. He’d lost her attention and admitted defeat.
You kissed me and it’s driving me crazy
“Nothin’. See ya around.”
*
Recruiting was useless when there was so much hanging over him, yet he persevered, trudging through humid fields and tracking what turned out to be nothing but Walkers. The grass was dry and crackled under his boots when he crossed through open land to check wooded areas for signs of camps or discarded food containers. But he found nothing, only the restless cycling of his mind and the nervousness in his hands as he tried to roll a smoke. Loath to continue on as he was, he decided that he had to say something. He was sure that he had little to nothing to offer her past the friendship he’d already provided, but if it meant things were clearer and he was surer about where he stood, it was worth the discomfort of asking about the kiss yet again.
Arriving back at Alexandria as the sun was going down, he dismounted his bike and took in the pleasant orange glow that illuminated the town. Dusk always seemed to be picturesque since the end of the world, or maybe he just never appreciated it before. He was always following Merle, treading in his footsteps, being the run around, ducking from the cops and wasting his time in bars or laying on the couch as high as a kite. Now, he could enjoy the things he missed from before, like the sunset, the sunrise, the gentle sway of the leaves in the woods when he was in the tower and the blue-eyed, dark-haired nerd that grabbed his sanity and ran away with it at a quarry one day.
Jess was sitting by the pond, fiddling with the straps on her finger-less gloves and adjusting her bracers. She’d removed them to take part in close combat training, a lesson which she was finding to be beneficial not only in skills, but as a distraction from the traumatized state of mind she drifted around in. Daryl sat beside her and for what ended up being a number of minutes, neither of them spoke. He leaned back on the bench, stretching his legs and resting one ankle over the other. Wishing there was some kind of rule book he could follow that would talk him through how to approach such tedious subjects, he sighed loudly, drawing Jess’s attention.
“Find any signs of life today?” She questioned while pondering where his smug and smiley attitude from just hours before had disappeared to.
“Nah. Waste of time.” He grumbled.
“Training went well this afternoon.” She told him “Thanks for the fight the other day. I think I needed the perspective. Y’know, measure what I was capable of before so I had a starting point.”
“No problem. Didn’t do nothin’ Abraham wouldn’t have done.” He snipped. Jess chose to ignore the dig at her friend, putting it down to his ever-growing jealousy and the denial with which he tried to hide it. Confronting him about it would only end badly.
“Yeah, right. Abraham is a great teacher, but extra-curricular lessons with him would be a little too much.” She mused with a small huff “He’d probably have me in tears or smoking cigars-”
“-why’d you kiss me?” Daryl asked, forcing the question out and turning slightly to face her. She was statue still with wide eyes and her mouth hanging open from being interrupted. Daryl’s heart began to hammer in his chest and he considered that maybe he should have just ignored what he’d heard, that way, nothing had to change.
“W-what?” She stammered.
“Don’t say ya didn’t, cause ya did.” He warned carelessly. Words were tumbling from his lips without him thinking about them at all as impulse took over “I know I asked before but ya shot me down without a real answer n’ I’m sorry…but I need to know, Jess.”
Very slowly, her mouth closed and she licked her bottom lip, turning her body to face the pond and scanning the dimly lit floor beneath her boots. She could tell him the truth; that she was in love with him and that’s why she kissed him. Or, she could protect their friendship and go with the more painful half-truth, that she was overwhelmed and couldn’t control her actions. What she really wanted to do to escape the pressure, was say very little. Just enough to satisfy his questioning.
“I…I don’t know.” She croaked.
He nodded once and leaned forwards, rubbing his face with both of his hands. Why did this have to be so complicated? So far, he’d not progressed any further than he had when he first sat down. Why didn’t she know? Dissatisfied with her answer, he released a quiet, frustrated growl that told her in no uncertain terms that he was not happy.
She’s never going to tell me, is she? She told Aaron, but she won’t tell me…?
“I’m sorry.” She whispered. “I didn’t mean to confuse everything. I don’t know what I was thinking”
“Mm. Wish I did.” He admitted with no regard for how irritated he sounded.
Sensing that she’d touched a nerve and bothered him with her inexplicable actions and dislike for deliberating the subject, she was well aware that any further attempts to make things right could end in a fight or, worse still, the end of their friendship. Unbearable guilt festered in the pit of her stomach and while she’d dreamed of kissing him a thousand times over, she would take it back in a heartbeat if she could.
“I should get back. It’s late. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She sighed, rising from the bench and pacing away from the pond. Before Daryl could think of something to stop her, she was already through the gate. Anger began to spike in his veins. All he wanted was a straight answer, so he could tell her that he liked her too, but she was better off with someone who had more to offer. But now, their friendship was left in choppy waters and sinking fast. He sprang up from the bench and stormed after her.
*
Jess clicked on the battery-operated light that hung above the lock for the gate to the Fairground and released the mechanism. She’d practically sprinted all the way back, literally trying to run away from her problems without stopping once on the journey. Now, she took a moment to pause and rested her forehead against the cold metal of the fence post. She let out a long sigh, hoping it would regulate the nerves and sadness in her heart. She hated that she’d angered him, hated that she’d confused him and put him in a position where he was forced to question her bizarre actions twice.
Aaron was wrong, she was sure of that. There wasn’t a chance in hell that he’d want her to kiss him again and so, she resigned herself to trying to repair the damage done by acting as if nothing had changed. It would be hard and it would hurt like hell. But it had to be done because having Daryl as a friend was better than not having Daryl at all.
A rustle from behind her had her gripping the gate post, ready to haul it open when she saw the blurred reflection of a figure behind her in the metal. Just about able to make out something on the figures right shoulder, the penny dropped and she relaxed.
“Step to the left and you’ll lose your leg to a bear trap, clubfoot.” She quipped.
It was Daryl and the shape at his shoulder was his crossbow. Obviously forgetting his stealth skills, he’d charged through the woods in pursuit of her and given hardly any thought to what he would say when he caught up. Overthinking things hadn’t done him any favors before so, he went with his instincts.
“So fuckin smug, ain’t ya?” He scoffed with a side step to the right, away from the trap she’d mentioned.
Assuming his presence was down to his concern about her sleepless nights and bad dreams again, she moved to face him and leaned back against the gate.
“You don’t have to stay. I’ll be fine.” She said softly.
“That ain’t why I’m here.” He stated.
Dread reached every limb in her body and she was sure she could even feel it in her toes. Had he really turned up there for a full-blown argument?!
“Then why are you here?” She questioned with a shaky voice and a hand tapping at her thigh. His eyes clocked her nervous ritual, one she’d had since the quarry and he worried that he was unsettling her a little too much. It wasn’t his aim but he needed to get to the bottom of exactly what was going on between them.
“It gonna happen again?” he asked. Halfway through his sentence, his voice cracked and Jess swallowed hard. All of a sudden, it became clear why he was there and what he was referring to. He wasn’t done discussing that kiss.
“Please, Daryl” Her eyes began to moisten and she huffed out a jagged breath “We have been over this. Can we just forget about that?”
I can’t forget about it. You kissed me and you like me and I have no idea why. But you are everything to me and it’s making me crazy. I can’t concentrate on shit; it’s messed my day up in the best way. I ain’t no good for you but you are all I think about and I think you need to know that.
“Can’t.” was the only word that croaked from his mouth.
“Well… try.” She pleaded with a slight stomp of one foot like a child having a tantrum.
“I have” he mumbled
“Oh, for god sakes.” She complained. Then, the floodgate opened and every thought she had on the subject seemed to pour out uncontrollably and once she started, she couldn’t find the strength to stop. “I was just overwhelmed, OK? I made a stupid split-second decision and it was wrong. I didn’t even know what I was doing until I was doing it and I’m sorry, you didn’t want it and I’d rather we just forgot about it instead of you making me re-live the humiliation like this. It’s like ‘Journal-reading 2.0’. It’s not fair, I would have thought it was obvious-“
“Jess?” he tried to cut in.
“-That I don’t want to talk about it because it could screw up our friendship and even though I think you’re a…damn fine looking man and you’re just amazing I don’t want you looking at me like I’m some kind of hussy or like I’m going to throw myself at you because really, it was just a one off and I was so happy to be alive. You saved me and I just got carried away with that, it’s not going to-“
“Jess?”
“-Happen again. I’ll make sure of that. I mean, I can admire from afar and you could just be a gentleman about it and not bring it up anymore. I hope I’ve answered your question and you’re going to stop being mad at m-”
He kissed her and the world fell away. It was slow and soft, comforting in ways that words would never be. His hand rested below her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek as their breaths mingled and his tongue brushed the crease of her lips. She ran her fingers down the lapels of his leather vest, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them and she could feel the beating of his heart against her chest. Although startled, her head filled with air like she was floating when she kissed him back. His kiss was deliberate and with just enough pressure to tell her that he really did want to do it but didn’t want to scare her.
It was the first time Daryl had kissed anyone in years and as he sensed her relax in his grasp, it occurred to him that he had never kissed anyone because he actually wanted to, until that fateful, memorable moment and it felt incredible, especially when he heard her whimper against him. Her knees were so weak she thought she might crumple but he was pushing her against the fence and her mind fell into a blissful, blank state where nothing mattered anymore. There were no Walkers, no death, no apocalypse. There was only her and Daryl and the fact that he had kissed her. Making it more than just a simple locking of lips, it was deep and filled with so much that neither of them could figure out how to say to each other.
When they broke apart for air, he rested his forehead against hers and gathered some much-needed oxygen. His blink and you’d miss it smirk told her everything she wished for, for so long and she could only stare at him, sinking into his hold.
“Just shut up.” He uttered.
Then, the smallest of laughs was exchanged between them and they finally made eye contact which proved to him that she was just as nervous as he was. She still stared up at him with a sparkle in her eyes that he had put there and her lips were slightly pink from the kiss. Daryl stepped back, breaking contact with her and dropping his hand. He could see her trying to speak, her mouth opening and closing again but all words would fail her and there simply was no point. She was rendered totally speechless and her knees were still weak and wobbly.
“Hey” He whispered, managing to gain her full attention for a second. “This ain’t over”.
With that, he backed up, taking care not to step on the bear trap and Jess could only watch as his shadowy figure vanished into the trees, leaving her astounded and undeniably happier than she’d been in a long, long time.
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Masterlist for This Time Around
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csykora · 4 years
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[A tabby cat curled up in the middle of a bubble hockey board. Or you, being comfortable in an athletic community that’s good enough for you]
Hiiiiii! I’ve been looking at ice hockey and it seems a cool sport and something that I might want to do as a hobby. Only Im disabled. Do you think I could still do the thing? Do you have ideas on how to start doing the thing? Ive often found it hard to do sports because coaches or trainers don’t know shit about disability and so have no clue how to teach you things or what you may or may not be capable of and telling them is useless because they make assumptions about your body and gah. Cheers
Hey—
Yes. Do the thing. Please go do it! I am not your coach, not your trainer, only friendly local bone witch—which I am very annoyed to have to say because you are a great athlete to work with.
Can I point out a couple things you just said?
You’re offering to do a trainer’s homework for them.
The early game didn’t have coaches. People milled on and off in whatever situations they felt like. Coaches and trainers came onto the scene so that someone was keeping track of who was actually good at what, when they needed support, and how to use them to best effect. That’s their whole gig.
Talking to folks on this blog, I’ve learned lots of people have this impression that capital-A Athletes have some factory-settings-standard body, any deviation a disaster (and they themselves can’t be athletes because they don’t.)
I think it’s very useful to smash this idea. Every athlete is a grab bag of weaknesses and weirdnesses, from old injuries down to handedness. Every coach longs to have three right-shot defensemen, and has made peace with the fact they’re not going to get them. Their job is to play with all the mismatched pieces they do have until they fit into a team.
If you present a coach or trainer with information about your abilities, and they don’t want to use that information, the problem you got right there is a shit coach.
Despite what the National League believes, there are more than 32 coaches in the world. 
Throw a stick up here and you’ll hit another amateur coach. When we’re little, if we get a shit coach or PE teacher, we get stuck. That does real and lasting harm, which I am happy to go on at length about, but to flip it around:
Now, you are a big Zee, who wants to learn to play as a hobby, with the goal of having fun. That’s a powerful place to be.
I won’t say there aren’t stakes: you could get hurt, physically or emotionally. Sharing information about your body with other people to try to keep yourself from getting hurt all the time can be hard. Playing can make you feel physically accomplished and capable in your body, which is a deep need I think we all have, so having to back away if a team does turn out to be shit is hard. So I don’t say “you can always quit a team” lightly, but…there is no threat if you quit a shit team, no one (who matters) will get mad or make you go back.That means you can advocate for yourself, and if a reasonable shot at advocacy reveals that a coach isn’t just unfamiliar with how to do their job for someone with your disability but uninterested in doing their damn job for a disabled person, you can wave them farewell and find another.
Now, our goal is for you to find a good trainer, who just needs to be given information about what you (not someone with the ‘same’ condition, but you specifically) have got going on.
I’m going to tell you to look up an adult learn-to-skate program. Most rinks will have regular learn-to-skate and learn-to-hockey programs spaced throughout the year (often paired so you spend “first semester” on skating before the people who want to move up to hockey). Look up different rinks, talk to people about the rink culture and the coaches there. If you have the time, maybe spend a while hanging out there watching the open skates, local team practices or public classes, getting a sense what it’s like and telling yourself you have as much right to be in that barn as anyone else. Then sign up for a class. But first I want you to be devastatingly, Hepburn-ishly confident in talking about what your disability means for you.
From the information you’ve just given me, I don’t know almost anything I would need to work with you. You may or may not know that information about yourself already, but you can figure it out.
“Mild hemiplegia” is not a super-medical phrase. Hemiplegia is complete paralysis on one side of the body, where you are unable to move those muscles on purpose. A mild to moderate loss of muscle strength on one side is hemiparesis.
These terms are, to be honest, mostly used to organize medical literature. They describe very specific signs that might happen for a variety of reasons. Other symptoms like loss of sensation, loss of range of motion, involuntary muscle spasms, or loss/delay of involuntary motion (reflexes), which may or may not occur with plegia/paresis, have to be specified and described. If I were treating you I definitely wouldn’t describe your case as “hemiplegia”, I would call it “hemiparesis” with a lot more descriptive words around that (and I probably wouldn’t use either when talking to you).
It’s not that you used a word wrong. I’m concerned that 1. people have made you think you have to use A Medical Name for your disability for it to be taken seriously, but also 2. because the stroke happened so early, you’ve actually been denied care and opportunities to learn about it.
1. First, for the record, you don’t have to justify your disabled identity to me. And while I really (really) understand the self-protective urge a lot of us have to try to say, “my condition is really real and serious, it has a Real Medical Name, please believe me”, I think that (outside of a legal context where you’re seeking protected accommodations) that strategy often isn’t as useful as we hope it will be to communicate with other people in our daily lives. The people who demand to see your Really Medically Serious card before making accommodations will always find something else to demand, while people who aren’t trying to be assholes will be better able to help you if they know exactly, practically how.
It’s not that one way of talking about your disability is wrong, but I want you to talk about it in ways that are useful to you, that help you connect with other people and get you what you want.
2. I’ve worked with a lot of elders who have paralysis or hemiparesis from strokes later in life, after being able-bodied for most of their lives, and doctors and therapists jump right up in there teaching and training them to “recover” that “lost function”. They/their families can’t not know all the medical words just from hearing them over and over. But what often happens when a person is disabled since childhood is that…they aren’t seen as having “lost capacity” that can be “saved”, but as having a baseline “low level of function” that’ll never change, so much less attention is payed.
I’m using the air quotes because many people’s disabilities are present throughout their whole lives, and someone’s disability or disabled identity is not just a “problem” to be solved or gotten rid of. But people with disabilities grow and change, especially when we’re, you know, children. What often happens is that parents/authorities encourage able-bodied children to play, practicing motions and building up their bodies’ ability to move, while children with disabilities get benched from practice, benched from not just one activity but from being active at all, which means being benched from developing their bodies in the ways that might actually work for them, and from developing relationships with their bodies.
Proprioception, for example, is a combination of some fundamental ability/capacity/threshold/potential/whathaveyou and skill developed through experience that changes in context. Ever seen a baby? None of them know where the hell they are. A baby that can crawl is let loose to explore the world and bump into things that trigger their nerves until their body learns to fit all that sensation information together and use it. A baby that doesn’t crawl for some other reason often doesn’t get a chance to explore, to experience those sensations or train up that skill. And a kid that has a different threshold for stimulation, who naturally seeks out more or less or a different sort, is often stopped from stimming in ways which would provide their body information they could process.
As an adult, you get the chance to look at what you want to do and how your body can do it again.
So…
I want you to go throw a ball at a wall. Try to catch it. If you do any exercises already, sit-ups or pushups, do some of those. Run around the block, jump around on your bed. Stretch or just swing your arms and legs around. Find some small objects to use as weights and lift them, with either arm and then either leg (or set them on the floor and see if you can push them).
Work your way up your body one limb at a time, first thinking just about that limb on its own and then comparing the two sides after you’ve done them both. Don’t put a value judgement on anything yet, just pay attention: if your feet feel okay after running around, if you had more strength in one spot than you expected, if you had fun jumping, if there was a time you thought you might wobble but were able to correct, count that too! Think about each activity you did, the sensations around it, and whether that stim was satisfying, overstimulating, or not stimulating enough.
I want you to be able to go to a learn-to-play program, ask to talk with the coach at an appropriate time during the application or orientation, and say things like, “I have this condition. This is what it means: I have less strength with one arm, but I can move it as fast as the other, and with the same range of motion. I don’t grip items as well with one hand, or I tend to grip very hard. I don’t feel this type of sensation in this area, but I do feel that”.
Your coach is then going to recommend exercises to build strength in particular areas, or modifications to exercises so that you can do them without needing to use a particular area; they might have you try different equipment (find a tape job or adapted hand position that helps you keep hold of your stick, etc), and they may also encourage your towards and start training you for a particular position where you could do the most. When it comes to sensation, they’ll know to watch you closer for injuries in that spot that you might not notice.
This came in while I was applying to go back to university, and I bribed myself through the short essay section by pausing every hour to eat chocolate and sketch out what I would have you do for hypothetical positions and exercise plans. That’s still a long way off, but I’m very invested, so a couple things I want you to think about as you work towards the goal:
Keep sled hockey in mind. It’s not always a fit for people whose disability involves their arms, but it’s a cool community and most rinks will offer clinics where you can try out a sled and get a sense of the game.
How do you feel about getting hit with a puck? From your description, stickhandling and shooting may not be super fun for you. They may be, but if you give them a fair try and start to fee discouraged, try picturing yourself as a defender focussing on positioning or shot-blocking, or a goalie. Some people never ever want to do it, which is fair, but if you’re at all interested I’d love to see you try some time in goal! Everyone’s different but some folks the weight of the pads and the focused role can be really good stimulation. If your handling or footwork doesn’t feel great, goaltending would let you focus on moving your body more naturalistically as a whole to position in front of shots. And everyone else will love you for volunteering!
Write back and tell us how it goes!
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eltanin-malfoy · 5 years
Text
The Proposal (His Royal Highness I)
pairing : draco/fem-y/n
word count :  1.4k
warning(s) : none, surprisingly.
requested : nope!
a/n : following along w this prompt from @givethispromptatry. this is just a lil thing i wrote up in under an hour. sorry if it’s a lil scruffy but i mostly did this for practice. lmk if you like it! requests are still open!! full length one-shot of the same to come out in june.
Her heart had been tying itself in knots over this ball. She’d almost had a breakdown at least five times as they rushed to finish the preparations that their King had demanded.
Y/N had only just been promoted from an assistant planner to the royal family’s official event planner.. and boy... did she have her hands full.
The king was nowhere near forgiving or flexible, and neither was the queen. Every detail had to be plotted out for the two of them, from the colour of the hems of their servers’ uniforms to the timed pauses between each color change of the lighting set up on the gazebo.  
It was no surprise to her, of course, she’d been anticipating the stressful position her whole life, following her father in the same line of work. She’d been brought up and prepped for it too, having studied alongside the ministers’ children in the castle, and of course.. the prince.
Yes, the prince himself. The pale-haired wonder who’d thought himself to be above all his peers, and made sure they all knew so. 
They’d been friends. Sort of. At least a little bit. He didn’t really attempt to befriend the others, but.. knowing someone your whole life makes you feel the slightest bit attached to them. He’d make his snide, unnecessary comments, and Y/N wouldn’t hesitate to retort. However, ever since he’d returned from his brief stint at university, they’d been far from close.
Obviously, they’d bump into each other now and then at the castle, but.. neither of the two gave the other much more than a brief look of acknowledgement. And now.. she was busy planning the ball for his twenty fifth birthday.. one that would have him be coronated as King. 
This was another day she’d been expecting her whole life. King Lucius’ reign was to come to an end the evening Draco was to turn twenty five years old. He was their only heir to the throne and it was always certain what his path was. And this ball.. it was open to all those who the royals chose to invite, and was meant to be a sort of gala after the newest King’s coronation. 
The royal ball was also known to be a place for the young, unmarried women to show off their looks (and.. talents) in a bid to hook the new King’s attention and actually manage their own way into the castle.
King Lucius had looked almost exactly like his own father, slightly broad, strong jawed face, pale blonde hair he’d grown out to his shoulders and of course, a tall figure that made him unmistakable for anyone else. Of course, there were many, many, many ladies-in-waiting and princesses from distant kingdoms who fancied him so very much, but.. he’d brought Narcissa Black along as his date, an heiress only a couple years younger than he was, with straw coloured hair and the daintiest figure you’d ever seen. They were soon wed, and Draco was born only a year and a few months after that night.
The prince was mostly like his father in tone and spirit, arrogant to the brim. He’d inherited that same mop of nearly white hair (his most stand out feature, in Y/N’s opinion) and his height.. but in other matters, he’d taken on much from his mother. A pointed face, lean physique, cold grey eyes... carnation pink, rosebud shaped lips and how his hair seemed to be spun of gold with even a light ray of sunshine.. he looked just the slightest bit more angelic than his father.. sigh. To be very honest, Y/N had not restrained herself from staring at him in their ‘classroom’ whenever she’d gotten bored as their tutor spoke. He was, perhaps, just the slightest bit attractive if he kept his mouth shut. 
Either way, Y/N hadn’t been the only one to notice this. Enough of their classmates and the King’s subjects had actively fancied him, but he hadn’t exactly reciprocated their sentiments. Sure, there’d been a few, short flings here and there, but nothing had lasted very long.
Pansy had fallen prey to him too, although it was a mostly drunken encounter, which Y/N supposed she could understand. (”I’d had way too much tequila for my own liking, Y/N! I couldn’t believe it myself when I woke up in his giant bedroom with a pounding headache!”) To be very honest, Y/N couldn’t understand how he could actually manage to bed anyone with how annoying his stupid voice was.
Y/N was seated in her office, in the administrative wing on the side of the castle. She was seated at her desk, staring out at the window beside her desk and ignoring the many guest lists she was supposed to sort through. 
She was about to turn back to her work when there was a soft knock at the door. She looked up and muttered out a ‘Come in’. She wasn’t expecting any guests anytime soon. Who could it possibly be?
The door handle turned and she looked at in surprise as she saw a pale, well-manicured bunch of fingers holding the other end tightly. If she’d been expecting anyone to come join her, it certainly wasn’t.. him. 
“Good afternoon.” He drawled out, eyes fixing on hers almost instantly. She felt like spasming out of control with how caught off guard she felt in that moment, but she pressed her hands onto the material of her pencil skirt and forced herself to smile up at him. 
“Afternoon.. your highness.” His eyes narrowed slightly at this.
“Y/L/N, please. Quite a fitting name for me though, wouldn’t you say?” If only she had the permission to smack him across the face. She simply grit her teeth and batted her eyelashes slightly.
“Sure, Draco.”
“Now..” His eyes flitted over her frame and then at the papers laid out on the table next to her. “You seem busy, so I’ll just keep this short, alright?”
“Sure. How can I help you?”
“Be my date, will you? To the ball, I mean.” 
She parted her lips to speak but was dumbfounded, her eyes wide. What the hell was wrong with him? He couldn’t just.. ask her something like that out of nowhere.
“Oh, come on, I’m not that atrocious. Besides.. don’t you want to be-” 
“You can’t just.. spring this on me! This is a really important matter! I can’t possibly understand why you’d ask me this so casually! It’s just.. so..” She shook her head in frustration, blood rushing through her ears. 
“Y/L/N, to be frank with you, I’m just asking you because I am not interested in any of the droves of girls who are going to force themselves on me that night. If I’m with a girl, at least they’ll-”
“Oh my god, Draco. You just.. you can’t just...! Everyone will think you want me to be your.. you know what!” He rolled his eyes.
“You can just pretend it ended badly afterwards, if you wish. Wouldn’t surprise most people, I think.”
“You want me to sacrifice my dignity for you?”
“Oh, please. Think about all the respect it’d grant you. How many more people’d be interested once they realised you knew me well enough to-”
“No! No! No!” She stood up and furrowed her brows harshly, placing her hands on her hips as she pursed her lips.
“Come on, Y/L/N..” He sighed. “I’ll give you some money for it or.. build you a mansion, how about that?”
“No.. why couldn’t you ask one of your friends or something?”
“If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t exactly got any close female friends I’m not related to. And I wouldn’t fancy the rage my father would go into if I showed up with.. Blaise as my date.. or Tonks.. or anyone along those lines. You’re from a family of noblemen anyways, he wouldn’t mind the two of us getting together at all.”
She pressed her lips together, effectively smudging the pink lipstick she’d applied so carefully that morning. Why couldn’t he just leave her out of this? She hadn’t even been planning on attending the actual ball.. far from going as the prince’s date.
“Y/L/N. Please. I’m desperate. I’ll get you whatever you want.” He pouted slightly and Y/N looked over at his face. Those soft lips.. and those pretty, grey eyes. His puppy faced expression was too adorable to resist.
“Okay, I guess. But you owe me.”
“It’s only for a few hours anyways.” His lips curved into some sort of triumphant smirk. “You don’t have to think about it too much.”
“I can still retract my offer at any time, Draco.”
“But you won’t.” He winked at her and reached over to place a hand on her shoulder, which made her skin tingle even though she was wearing her regular navy blue blazer. “Thanks, Y/L/N. We’ll talk again soon.”
He turned on his heel and headed back out the doorway, leaving Y/N to think over the very irresponsible decision she’d just made.
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