#for the rest of the comments' NO!! BAD EDITOR!!!!! THAT'S WORSE NOW IT'S ALL OUTSIDE OF THE SYSTEM WHAT IS | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

happykawa · 4 years

Note

Hey!!! I love your Writing! Are you planning on doing a part two to Lukewarm? Keep writing, your good at it! :D

I’m glad you enjoyed it hehe 😬

You remember how tough it was to get over Kageyama.

The first week, you had to actively suppress the instinct to grab your phone and call him. You had to change the places you went to avoid 2 things: Tobio and your memories together. That meant finding a new gym, a new coffee shop, a new bookstore, a new everything. You also made it a goal to stop calling him Tobio. Took you 2 months before you broke it.

Hitoka was ever accommodating, and you really did appreciate her. But losing Kageyama not only meant losing your boyfriend, but losing your best friend as well. So you had to grieve for the loss of both on your own.

Hinata kept you updated on Kageyama, like you had requested him. It was to make sure that he didn’t do anything stupid. You were thankful for it. However small it was, it kept you at peace during times that your mind decided to venture into those dark corners.

After 6 months, you got promoted to Editor-In-Chief but in a different branch. There was a whole goodbye party. It was the last time you saw the team together in one room, and it was the last time you saw Kageyama.

Your first day at work did not go so well. The previous E.I.C was well-loved, and it showed. No one would talk to you outside of business. It was a completely different environment compared to the last place you worked in. Each decision you made was second-guessed, and they took every chance they got to undermine you.

Everyone saw you as this cruel woman from the city who overtook their beloved boss’ job. The employees were cold towards you, and for the first few days you stayed there, you felt so lonely.

You cried yourself to sleep each night.

The second week, you couldn’t take it anymore. A mistake an employee made pushed back the publishing dates by over a week. He blamed it on you and being as unpopular as you already were, your superiors believed him. You got reprimanded and a pay-cut for it.

You landed on your bed, quietly sniffling. The last hour of crying in your car really did a number on you. Your whole being may as well be numb with how you were feeling,

You had to talk to someone, you just knew it. Otherwise, you didn’t know what you were going to do. It was one thing to feel lonely but not alone, but to feel lonely and be alone was worse.

You turned your phone on, trying to control your sniffling as you pressed 2 on your speed dial.

It rang 3 times before the owner picked it up.

“Hello?”

“To–Kageyama?” You stuttered, mentally cursing yourself for almost calling him by his first name.

“Y–Y/N?”

Hearing his cool voice was like a splash of cold water under the drying heat, especially as he said your first name. Your brain was screaming at you to stop, to hang up, but you couldn’t care less. Not when you were this vulnerable. You allowed yourself this brief moment of weakness.

“Ye-yeah. H-hey.” You couldn’t stop your sniffling and hiccupping, and you couldn’t be bothered to try harder. You were simply focused on the sound of his voice.

“H-hey. How are–are you crying?” You heard the surprise in his voice shake off, to be completely replaced with worry. You felt a little relief, though you don’t admit that to yourself.

You tried to stop your sniffling, to no avail. “N-no,” Sniff. “I-I’m not–” Sniff. “–crying.” Sniff.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Did you? Just thinking about it made you want to sob again. Not to mention you were talking to your ex, when you both clearly had not yet moved on.

“No, no, I just… I wanted to hear your voice.” You hoarsely whispered. You felt tears welling in your eyes, but this time, it was for him. The past suddenly flashed back to you, and you couldn’t help but shed a tear.

“Can you just talk? Maybe tell me about your day?” You asked. A fear lingered within you, that he might not comply. It was well within his rights. You were the one who broke up with him in the first place.

You heard shuffling on the other side And then silence. “It’s completely fine if you don’t. I understand.”

You slightly panicked. Had you crossed the line? Had you overstepped your boundaries? Maybe. You had no right–

“Sorry, just got out of the court and there’s bad signal inside.” You heard him opening his car and starting his engine, followed by a loud beep. He had connected you to his car.

You opened your mouth to speak, but were gently interrupted by Tobio. “We had a game today. We were up against Bokuto-san. He alone got 7 points. We lost the first set, but we managed with the 2nd and 3rd. They were incredibly strong. It just made me realise how I’m barely past the starting point.”

Tobio continued to ramble on and on about volleyball, and at certain points you gave short replies like “really?” or “no way.”, just to assure him you were still there.

Tobio finally ran out of things to tell you, and a short silence ensued, to be broken by him. “Wanna talk about it now?”

Another silence. You weren’t sure whether you could take it, whether you should take it. It was a rabbit hole you weren’t sure you wanted to go down in.

Could you take it? This was relationship relapse. That resilience that took months spent denying yourself your phone would be threatened. Was it a risk you were willing to take?

‘Oh, to hell with it.’

You gulped down the bile in your throat and prepared yourself. Once the gates were opened, they couldn’t be forcefully closed. After a few minutes of silence, you finally spoke up.

“I hate my job. I mean, I love what I do, I truly do, but everyone hates me. No one respects me, and they all see me as this city bitch who took a job away from the previous boss. And today was just the worst.” You were on the verge of crying, but you were in the middle of the rant. It was the first time in weeks that you’d been able to let your feelings out, and it was a dam that had been opened and could not be closed.

“An employee of mine made a mistake with the scheduling and blamed it on me. I planned to take it anyway, but everyone just made it so much worse. He spread these lies about me and now not only do my employees see me as a city bitch, but everyone, including my bosses, now think I’m incompetent, bossy, and unable to do my job well. So now absolutely no one respects me and I got a pay-cut. I have no friends, absolutely no one to talk to. I may as well be a ghost haunting this town. ”

You were sobbing into the phone by the end, and it wasn’t the frustrated, constipated sob you had before. It was a full-on, all-out sob-fest.

You don’t know how long you were sobbing for. You were only aware of the pressure lifting off of your shoulders, replaced by relief that someone was finally listening to you.

Tobio kept soothing you throughout.

In an attempt to calm yourself, you focused on his voice. His cool, low voice. The voice that you’d missed so much in the past 6 months. One that you both longed and avoided to hear. Because it was hypnotizing.

“It’s all going to be okay…” was the last thing you remember hearing before darkness overtook you.

You felt yourself shuffle, and your consciousness was somewhat awake. You brought yourself up and under the sheets

You folded your hands under your head, unaware of the phone in between and the sound it was making. Everything was blurry and hazy, and you just wanted to sleep.

“–pretty sure you’re asleep now. Which is good. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you cry this much ever since, well, you know. Rest well, alright? You’re–you’re a strong woman. You can push through this…”

He continued to say more things that were incomprehensible in your current state.

As you fell into a swirl of darkness, 7 words echoed in your brain.

“I miss you. And I love you.”

You felt your lips stretch. You felt it move as it formed words.

You didn't hear your own voice in your haze, but you're quite sure of the words your lips formed.

“I love you too, Tobio.”

That was two years ago.

You questioned yourself if that even happened, and you’re pretty sure it did.

You decided to quit your job and look for a new one. Thankfully, Hitoka-chan got you one, and you’ve stayed there since. It was strange, how fast she was able to procure it, and you suspect that Tobio gave her a heads up.

Your new job involves traveling around a lot, attending parties and whatnot. Today, it has brought you to Tokyo.

You agreed to meet up with the team that night for drinks and catching up. Heaven knows you’ve missed them. But for the next six hours, you’re pretty much on your own. So here you are, strolling around big city Tokyo.

You walk around, glad to know not much has changed. There were more screens, higher buildings, but Tokyo is still Tokyo.

You’re currently in your old coffeeshop with your signature caramel macchiato with extra whip. You’re on your phone, watching the highlights of Kageyama’s match. You always keep up to date with the matches, happy to see him succeeding.

It’s small, sinful mercy you’ve granted yourself.

You smile to yourself as he delivers another service ace. The commentators sound pleased, but not surprised. After all, it is his 7th in a row.

You’re so engrossed in the game that you don’t even notice the man standing in front of you, shock evident on his face.

“L–L/N-san?”

You sigh, slightly annoyed at being interrupted. You look up, ready to tell off the stranger. It wasn’t that uncommon these, days. Your job granted you a position in the high society, somewhat, and the public has branded you as a bit of a socialite. You are well-connected with the high-society, as your publishing company has you meet with a few members to get a scoop every now and then. You might even call some friends, but that doesn’t mean you want to be part of them.

You look up and see a complete stranger. “Sorry, I’m busy right now. Is there anything you need?”

“Can I get an autograph?” He looks sheepish and excited, and you can’t help but resign.

You grab a napkin from the holder and take a pen from your bag. You quickly sign your name on it and give it to the man, before going back to your phone.

You hear a snap of a camera, but you don’t really care. They can’t really do anything with it anyway.

Engrossed in your game once more, you again fail to notice another man stand in front of you.

“L–L/N-san?” This time, the voice is familiar, but you can’t quite place it, or rather, your brain refuses to do so as if it as warning you.

Sighing, you look up from your phone. You immediately freeze.

Ushijima Wakatoshi is standing directly parallel to you.

“U-Ushijima-san! How nice to see you’ve remembered me!” You immediately feel your palms sweat, and you’re not sure why. Maybe you’re nervous? Or maybe you’re anticipating it. Your brain won’t admit it, but you know it’s the latter.

Because where there’s Ushijima, there’s Kageyama.

As if on cue, the coffeeshop door opens and your eyes are drawn towards it as the small bell above it rings, and out comes the man himself. Kageyama Tobio.

He scans for Ushijima (which isn’t very hard, considering how tall the man is) and walks towards him once he spots the giant, cradling a paper bag.

He freezes, though, once he spots the woman in front of the giant. His eyes widen just a little, and you see his Adam’s apple move. He starts to walk towards you again, this time his pace is a little unsteady.

Your heart is beating a mile per second when he stops in front of you.

“L/N-san.” His voice is cool and level, much like his face. His face wasn’t happy or sad, and you don’t know which you would have preferred. It’s simply blank.

Has he gotten better at masking his emotions, or are you just rusty?

“Kageyama-san.” You let out in a breath you didn’t know you were holding. There’s a twinge of pain in your chest when you realize you don’t have a clue of what is going on inside his head.

You three are caught in a standstill. You couldn’t pull your eyes away from his, and Kageyama can’t either.

You stare into his dark eyes, beautiful as ever. But what was once warm and familiar is now blank and void. But that didn’t bother you. No sir. Not. At. All.

There was a time when you adored looking into them. Because in the sea of chaos called life, his eyes were reassuring. They were calm. You used to rely on those eyes to get you through tough times. You no longer do.

As you gaze into them, you are painfully reminded of a time long gone.

Ushijima’s gaze bounces between the two of you. When it finally becomes clear to him that neither of you has plans to look away any time soon, he grabs the paper bag from Kageyama with a sigh.

“You both seem like you have a lot to catch up on. I’ll go ahead.” He states bluntly, and his tone leaves no room for argument. Before anyone can protest, he walks away. Your eyes easily follow him into the crowd, even as he crosses to the other side.

Once you can’t see him anymore, you return your gaze to the table. You stare at your coffee as you take an unnecessarily long sip. The eyes you couldn’t look away from earlier are now the eyes you can’t seem to bear for fear that if you look into them once more, you won’t have the strength to look away again.

You purse your lips into a line, before finally giving into to the urge of looking up.

You can’t say you regret it.

You look at him once more, this time, your force control upon yourself.

“Do you want to take a seat?” You ask meekly, unsure of your own voice.

Despite the busy bustle of the streets, the scrape of the chair seems to echo in your ears. You deliberately make your eyes stay on his face, and “deliberately” study it.

You notice that he’s changed his hair, and you nearly chuckle. You always teased him about the way it had two parts. Now it was a simple, down the middle one. The hairs on the side framed his eyes beautifully, and once yours reach his, you can't help but feel another twinge of pain.

Maybe you have gotten rusty. Maybe he has gotten better. You tell yourself only a part of you prays that it’s one of the two, but that’s a lie.

You’ve been lying a whole lot to yourself a whole lot, you notice.

“So, how have you been?” You ask the most cliché line of all time, and you mentally scold yourself. Really, that line?

“Good. You?”

“Great.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

Even though the noise around you is relatively loud, the silence between you two is suffocating. You force down the bile in your throat as you mentally grab any question that you can think of.

“How’s volleyball?” Now that was a decent question. You give a mental pat on the back for that one.

Tobio perks up at the mention of volleyball, and you can see that he’s glad to finally have something to talk about.

He rambles on and on about his recent matches, and you pretend not to know what he’s talking about. You give the occasional “really” and “mhm”. Aside from his insight, there’s nothing he tells you that you don’t already know. You don’t tell him that of course.

You don’t notice the smile slowly etching its way onto your face. You don’t notice the way Tobio’s eyes don’t leave it. You’re too satisfied with hearing his voice.

Tobio catches himself at the end of a long rant, and he rubs his neck sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was talking too much.”

“No, no it’s fine,” You laugh lightly, waving it off. “It’s nice to finally be able to talk.”

You don’t hear your words until they come out of your mouth and Kageyama blushes at the insinuation.

You quickly wave your hands in front of your face as you feel yourself redden as well. “About volleyball, I mean.” You hastily add.

You laugh again, this time with a nervous undertone. You swear you almost saw a flash of disappointment in Kageyama’s eyes, but you brush it off. You really are rusty, you think to yourself.

“But...” You start. You don’t pay attention to the nervous tick in your pulse. “It really nice catching up with you.” You hope your words sound as genuine as they are, as genuine as the smile on your face.

Kageyama blinks at you, and you feel your heart start to race. Did he not feel the same way? Was he angry? Upset?

You notice his fingers drum gently against the table, a nervous habit of his. You may have gotten rusty but that doesn’t mean you don’t know him at all anymore.

“I wouldn’t really call it catching up... All I did was rant about volleyball.” He mutters shyly, his eyes now avoiding yours.

You laugh lightly once more. “No, no, it’s fine. I really didn’t mind.”

Tobio’s fingers have now doubled in pace. You see his throat move, and you wonder what has him so nervous. What could he be thinking?

You don’t allow yourself to go down that road though. You know it’s dangerous, and you certainly don’t want to go down that path right now.

“If you want... We could catch up properly.” His face is completely blank and stoic. It’s unnerving how it doesn’t move, and you hate it. You hate how you can’t read him, if even a little.

You focus on that frustration because you surely don’t want to mind the little rejoicing dance your heart Is definitely not making. You feel more assured, that way, safer. It’s scary how you’re much more comfortable with the negative you’re feeling than the positive, but you don’t dwell on that.

You give him a bigger, brighter smile as you chuckle a little. “Of course, that’d be nice. When are you free?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow it is. Maybe around 4:30?”

“4:30′s good. Meet here?”

You nod. “That’s good for me.”

He nods back, and you two are once again submerged in silence. It’s still awkward, but not nearly as uncomfortable as before. You allow yourself to be thankful for that.

“It was nice seeing you, L/N-san.” Tobio stands up, bowing slightly. You think you see a ghost of a smile on his face as straightens his back. You don’t mind the little jump it makes when you notice it.

“You too, Tobio.” You smile at him, and the smile lingers as you watch him disappear into the crowd.

It doesn’t stay on for too long afterward though, because you realize one, the smile on your face, and two, that you called him Tobio.

ISTG THAT THE ENDING WAS SUPPOSED TO BE BETTER THAN THAT BUT TUMBLR DELETED IT AND I HAD TO REDO IT HUHUHUU anyway, this was also supposed to be longer, but I decided to end it here so it sounds better and to let you guys decide if you still want to continue this 0^0 so sorry if its rushed

69 notes · View notes

marril96 · 4 years

Text

The Distance Between Us

Chapter 35: Home

Pairing: Rowena x reader

Summary: Branson, as it turns out, does have its charms.

A/N: I barely know anything about Branson, Missouri. I just needed a good setting. The rest I made up. If you're from there, please don't be mad at the inaccuracies. Huge thanks to @fangirlxwritesx67 for helping me out!

Editor: @miss-moon-guardian

*****

The hotel wasn't anything to write home about, but you supposed it could have been worse. At least there were no cockroaches crawling about (that you knew of) and the rooms looked (and smelled) clean.

Each room had two beds, and, much to your relief, students were allowed to choose their roommates. You weren't too happy with the idea of sharing a room with some strange girl, even for one night.

You had lunch at the hotel (which was surprisingly good), after which you were taken for a tour around the city. Walking was far from your preferred activities, but going from place to place, from store to store, and looking at various trinkets and clothes was fun.

Rowena particularly enjoyed the boutiques. The clothes were out of her price range — way, way out — but a girl could dream. One day, she said, she would be able to afford those clothes. She would have an entire room to serve as a closet, and would fill it to the brim with exquisite clothing. Gowns, dress pants, blouses — anything she wanted, she would own.

You didn't doubt her for a second. She was smart. She had good grades. She could — would, definitely would — make something of herself.

She would make it big.

You were sure if it.

And, if she still wanted you, you would be right by her side.

The evening couldn't come soon enough. By the time you returned to the hotel, you were exhausted. Your feet hurt. The muscles in your legs throbbed with every step, every little movement you made.

Walking — to the surprise of absolutely nobody — was not one of your stronger suits, and, despite the initial enjoyment, had quickly become a chore.

Rowena, on the other hand, was good as new. Being a former dancer who regularly worked out in her free time had its perks.

She teased you the entire way back to the hotel, poking fun at your constant pleadings to slow down and your borderline pathetic panting akin that of a dying animal. You happily held up a middle finger in response to every remark, which only made her laugh harder.

Though, mean as she was, she did stop to wait up for you, and she gripped your hand in encouragement every time you felt like giving up.

It counted for something.

Something small, but still… something.

The last thing you wanted to do was head out — again — after such an adventure. You could easily stay in bed, sprawled about as you were, limbs limp, body aching. Finally at peace following hours of endless walking.

The teachers had other plans.

The evening, as they reminded everyone, was amusement park time.

Something you'd been looking forward to before the tour of the city sucked every last bit of amusement out of you.

Rowena, for the first time today, shared the sentiment.

Still, having no other choice, the two of you, along with everybody else, returned to your room for a quick change of clothes, fixed your hair, and returned yourselves back to the lobby.

"Bloody kill me, why don't you?" Rowena muttered as one of the teachers, who'd been to this wretched place before, started going on and on about how amazing and magical the amusement park was in the tone of a fangirl talking about her favorite boy-band.

You felt like you were already dead.

Maybe Rowena could join you in the afterlife.

To the teacher's credit, the amusement park genuinely was beautiful. Its lights were bright in the twilight that had settled over the city. Blues and greens and various others glittered like the sun in the dim surroundings. It was as if you'd stepped into another world; one full of color and loud music and happy children and adults alike screaming in delight. There were people all around. Crowds of them, walking about in thick groups, filling every space like ants. All laughing and talking, having fun, living the life.

You hated to admit it, but the scene cheered you up, if only a tad.

Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad evening after all.

The teachers made it clear you were free to roam around as you pleased, but you weren't allowed outside the park. They couldn't look after each student, nor was it their intention to; you were seniors, the majority of you legal adults. You could handle spending a few hours in the amusement park without an authority figure holding your hand.

You did, though, get a strict instruction to behave, which you fully intended on following.

You weren't here to cause trouble.

All you wanted was to have a bit of fun.

And to, hopefully, make out with your girlfriend now that you had more than ten minutes alone with her.

"I hate this," Rowena said, looking around at people strutting past, talking, laughing, shrieking. Her face scrunched up in distaste. "I feel like I'm in hell."

Honestly, you did, too, a tiny bit. But… "Come on! Don't be a Debbie Downer. We can have fun!"

"Aye. We, too, could scream our bloody lungs out!" she said in fake ecstasy. "It will be splendid!"

You rolled your eyes. It wasn't that she was wrong, just… she wasn't right, either. There were plenty of things to do. Like eating. "We can eat cotton candy."

She wasn't impressed. "How about we don't?"

Feeling spiteful, you walked over to the nearest vendor and bought a stick. Smug as a snake, you nibbled on the sugary goodness.

Rowena rolled her eyes. "You're a bloody child."

"Whatever you say, mo-mom," you said, stuffing a mouthful of pink sugar into your mouth.

Mommy.

You were going to say mommy, and then sugar must have activated your brain because, holy shit, wouldn't that have been a mistake?

She'd teased you enough for one day.

The last thing you wanted was to give her more ammunition.

And get thoughts that were far from appropriate for the occasion.

Mommy was for daydreams and long showers, not public places.

Gently, you slid your hand in Rowena's. She was warm as always, home in the shape of a person. Her fingers wrapped around yours, thin and small but strong. It had become an instinct at this point; one of you would initiate touch and the other would reciprocate, no questions asked, no comments necessary.

It was just right. The way it was supposed to be. Your hand in hers, eyes shining like the amusement park's lights, mouths curled into smiles. Hearts beating in synchronicity, brimming with love that grew with every day, that slowly took each of you over.

You were hers and she was yours.

Now, and, hopefully, forever.

Rowena tangled a finger in your cotton candy, wrapping the sugar around it with surprising precision. Eyes locked on yours, coy as those of a cat, she slid the finger into her mouth and sucked.

She might as well have slapped you for your heart jumped as if she'd shoved that finger somewhere much more fun and curled it because she was Rowena MacLeod and she was nothing if not a tease.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

She really did have immense power over you.

More than she even knew.

Or did she?

The way she was looking at you pointed to her knowing exactly what she was doing and enjoying every moment of it.

The little minx!

"Stop it," you said half-heartedly, when all you wanted to say was, Don't stop. Please, for the love of everything, never stop. But this was a public place, and, as much as you enjoyed being aroused by your girlfriend, the thought of it happening right here, around all the shrieking strangers and blinding lights, was far from pleasant.

"Am I not allowed a taste?" Rowena asked innocently. She blinked; once, twice, three times. The picture of a chaste, pure little girl.

Yeah, right.

And pigs could fly.

"You know what I meant," you said, cheeks filling with heat.

"I'm afraid I don't."

She reached for more cotton candy, and this time you were ready. Grabbing her hand, you clasped your mouth over her finger. Your teeth gently pressed into her flesh, a mock bite. The sugar melted in your mouth, its sweetness mixing with Rowena's warmth, filling you up, making your heart thrum a thousand beats a minute.

Rowena watched you, fascinated. Her mouth was curled into a smirk, a naughty glint flickering in her eyes. Do your worst, it said. I bloody dare you.

And, god, you were tempted to.

You imagined her finger slick with something else; something warmer, sweeter. Much more intimate than candy. You imagined her hands all over you, roaming you, marking you, exploring you. Imagined that finger curling up against you, sliding inside of you, doing things you, mere days ago, weren't ready for.

You were ready now.

God, you were ready.

You wanted Rowena. Wanted all of her, body and mind and soul, at the tips of your fingers. Wanted her smell imprinted on your body, permanent as a scar. Wanted her teeth in your neck and her fingers in your pussy.

She wanted you all the same. Her traitorous eyes said as much.

You released her finger with a plop, then licked your lips, never breaking eye contact.

"Naughty," Rowena commented.

"I learned from the best," you said, giving a small shrug.

"Well, I am a great teacher."

Humbleness? She didn't know her.

Letting out a laugh, you pressed your lips to hers. A laugh of her own spilled out into the kiss, prompting you to give her another one, and another, each short and sweet as the sugar you'd suckled from her finger.

You leaned your forehead to hers, your free hand reclaiming hers. Squeezing it as if your life depended on it. For a long, long moment the two of you just stood there, lost in each other's warmth, in the love you were brimming with, fresh and bright as the flowers that bloomed around you.

You closed your eyes, and for a few blissful seconds the world around you vanished as if it had never existed. There were no people; no screaming children and their tired parents. No machines squeaking as they worked. No cars buzzing and honking. Nothing but you and Rowena, alone in the silence, lost in each other.

Someone passed by you, brushing against your shoulder, and just like that, the spell was broken. The stranger offered an apology before vanishing into the crowd; you ignored it, nerves on fire, blood lava in your veins as your eyes connected with Rowena's, lamenting the moment lost.

You stood there for a while, then, exchanging another swift kiss, kept your walk. Rowena resumed her complaints about the amusement park. It was too filthy. Too loud. Too boring. There was nothing to do.

Though your feet still ached, you quite enjoyed the walk. Cotton candy in one hand, Rowena's hand in the other, you practically glided through the park. It was a calming experience. Peaceful, despite the noise. You saw your schoolmates running around, drinking beverages that, based on their behavior, definitely weren't soda out of plastic cups. One kid clutched a can of beer. A few of the couples were making out.

"There's a photo booth over there!" you said, pointing to a small, bright blue cabin.

Rowena made a face. "You can't be serious."

"Come on, it'll be fun!"

You practically dragged her over. Truth be told, you weren't the biggest fan of being photographed. Photogenic, you were not. The furthest thing, in fact! But this was a onetime thing, a fun little activity with your girlfriend. No one else had to see the pictures.

You made it a point to strike odd, mildly humorous poses. Rowena was stoic at first, pouting at having been made to do this, but she eventually loosened up. The two of you grinned. Laughed. Made faces. Held finger horns over each other's heads. Hugged. And, finally, kissed; on the cheek, on the mouth, just two girls wildly in love, living the life.

The pictures didn't turn out half bad. Even you managed to look halfway human.

You were impressed.

She wouldn't say so out loud, but Rowena was, too.

It wasn't every day that she was entertained by what were practically selfies.

"That was fun!" you exclaimed happily, looking over the pictures in awe. Rowena made the most adorable faces; you couldn't take your eyes away from her scrunch, the squint of her eyes, the cute crease of her nose.

"It was horrible," she whined.

"You know you liked it," you said. You had the pictures to prove it.

"I just pretended for your sake."

"Sure you did." You held up the pictures. "I know your smiles. This one's not fake. Neither is this one. Or this little scrunch."

She sighed, defeated. "Maybe I had a wee bit of fun. The wee-est."

"Right."

"It was still a dreadful experience."

"Whatever you say." There was no point arguing her when she was like this. The girl was more stubborn than a herd of mules. "What should we do next?"

"How about nothing?" she proposed with a tight smile. Not that was a fake one.

You ignored her. "We can do something romantic."

She stared at you as if you'd grown a second head, in pure and utter disbelief. "Like what?"

"Like…" Take more pictures? Eat? Drink overpriced soda? Thinking fast of what she might like, you said, "The Ferris wheel!"

The words weren't even out of your mouth before you realized you'd made a horrible mistake.

The Ferris wheel?

The fucking Ferris wheel?

What was wrong with you?

There was no way you were getting into that. No way you were getting into anything that tall, that high off the ground.

No way in hell.

Rowena looked up at the brightly lit attraction soaring through the skies. "Are you joking?"

"Yeah, that was a stupid idea," you said. Very, very stupid. So stupid, in fact, that you wanted to punch yourself in the face.

"Hm." She mused on the thought. "We could try it out."

"What? No!" you exclaimed, startled.

She furrowed her brow, curious. "Why not? It might be entertaining. Even more so than our little photoshoot."

"Yeah, but…"

But it was so tall.

Too tall.

It was more of a spur of the moment idea than something you genuinely wanted to do.

"But what? You suggested it."

"I did. But come on! We've been together for three months. You know I'm a dumbass!"

Rowena raised an eyebrow. "Are you scared?"

You gulped. "What? No."

You were.

You totally were.

In fact, scared was too tame a word to describe it.

She snorted.

"It's not funny!"

"You poor, wee baby."

You responded with an eye roll.

It only made her laugh harder. "So precious."

You flipped her the bird.

It earned you more laughter.

A groan erupted from your throat, bitter, annoyed. Though, you supposed you had no one to blame but yourself. You had, after all, suggested the Ferris wheel.

Feeling dejected, you pouted.

To your surprise, Rowena's expression softened. Maybe your pout had the same effect on her that hers had on you. She laid a hand on your shoulder, a touch so loving, so gentle it made your racing heart slow to its normal rhythm. "We don't have to do it," she said, and her tone matched it, equally tender, soft. Kind in that way only she knew how to be. "But, if you change your mind, I will be there."

Your heart welled up with warmth. You brought your hand to your shoulder, clasped it over hers, wrapped your fingers around her thin, bony ones. Her eyes sparkled with sincerity; she meant every word, every syllable.

She would be there, just as she always was.

She wouldn't let you down.

Swallowing a lump in your throat, you uttered in the small, small voice of a child, "You'll hold my hand?"

"Aye," Rowena said without missing a beat. An automatic response, no thinking needed.

Your eyes shifted to the Ferris wheel. It was a behemoth of a machine, reaching out to the sky to overlook the city. So tall. So high. So… terrifying.

Would you be able to handle spending a few minutes high up there all alone?

No, you corrected yourself. Not alone.

Rowena would be there.

She would hold your hand. Hold you. Mutter sweet words of comfort in your ear.

What was more romantic than that?

"Okay," you said in a shaky voice, breathing in deep for courage. "Let's do it."

You only lived once, after all.

The gondola was surprisingly spacious. A few people joined in with you and Rowena; a jolly bunch, all offering smiles and exchanging quick introductions.

Your heart pounded wildly as you soared up into the sky. You held onto Rowena as if your life depended on it. In that moment, it felt as though it had.

But, once you were up, you found it in yourself to relax.

The city was alight in the dark, bright and shiny, full of life. You observed the houses, the businesses with vivid neon signs, the cars that looked like toys so far below. A look of awe crossed your face; you couldn't turn away from the beautiful sight.

Rowena grinned at you, and you returned it, giving her hand a squeeze in emphasis.

Wrapped up in each other's embrace, the two of you watched the city, taking in its beauty, its glamour that outshined the stars in the sky.

It was mesmerizing.

Stunning.

Romantic.

Though confined to a gondola, surrounded by strangers equally mesmerizing as you, you felt right at home.

You looked up at Rowena. Tightened your hold on her, her small, lithe body a perfect fit against you.

Yes.

You were right at home.

*****

Tags: @werewolfbarbie @oswinthestrange @songofthecagedmoose @apurdyfulmind @getthesalt-sam @metallihca @salembitchtrials @jay-eris @hellsmother @elizabeth-effie @shadowgirl-vsb @rowenaswife @wonderifshelikesroses @xfireandsin @liddell-alien @hotdiggitydammit @lae-lae @darkhumorsblog @angel7376 @cherrypierowena @ruthieconnells @evil-regal-vampiress @collectorofsecretsandsouls @angel-e-v-a @a-queen-and-her-throne @carryon-doctor-lock

#rowena #rowena macleod #spn #supernatural #spn family #rowena x reader #fanfiction #my fics #high school au

44 notes · View notes

365daysofsasuhina · 4 years

Text

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Three Hundred Fourteen: The Color Yellow ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Yamanaka Ino ] [ SasuHina, bullying ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ AO3 Link ]

She hates, hates, hates days like today. And by ‘like today’, Hinata specifically means one of the most dreaded days of the school year:

Picture day.

There’s just something so...embarrassing about having her picture taken. Part of it is her appearance: twelve years old, and still with such a round baby face. Her father still refuses to let her grow her hair out, stuck with the same short cut she’s had since starting school. All the other girls, it seems, have gotten to let their hair reach such pretty, flowing lengths. She can’t help but be a little jealous. Add in that Hinata’s found herself to be a bit of an early bloomer, and she just...doesn’t like pictures of herself at all.

But the other most annoying part is that her father insists she wear the stupidest outfits. Staunch, unflattering, and just...overall horrible.

This year? A dress that looks straight out of the fifties. It’s honestly so dated she can hardly stand to look at it. And the color?

Yellow. Bright, slightly-off yellow. With white trim. Her already pale skin looks all the more washed out against the obnoxious shade...and she just knows she’s going to be poked fun at over it. She’s in the sixth grade, a new middle schooler, and Hiashi still gets to pick her picture day outfit. As she gets on the bus, Hinata begins mentally preparing herself to resist the barrage of comments from those like Sakura and Ino. Hinata struggles enough to fit in fashionably normally...but this? This is going to be painful.

Huddled in the corner of her seat, she keeps her backpack on her lap, doing her best to hide behind it. Of course, no one ever sits with her. No one ever pays her any mind. But she doesn’t want to run the risk of gaining anyone’s attention. And with it, their inevitable mockery.

But eventually...she’s going to have to get off the bus. As an extreme, she considers hiding once all the other students get off, but...well, the driver always does a sweep. And surely they’ll call her father if she doesn’t show up to class. Not only will she get in trouble with the school and her teachers, but with her father as well. And Hiashi would be livid if she ever skipped so much as a single class.

...best to not even consider it. No matter what the other girls say to her, it would never compare to an angry Hiashi Hyūga.

So when the bus pulls up along the front of the school, everyone disembarking, Hinata swallows harshly before shakily standing and making her way out.

At least outside, with such a crowd, no one really seems to notice. It won’t be until she’s inside, probably in the classroom, that anyone will give her a second look and realize how ridiculous her outfit is.

Just ignore them, Hinata...y-you hate it as much as they do. They...they just… Oh, what’s the use...there’s no fooling herself. Never will be. It’s not just the outfit they dislike. It’s her. All of her. Her looks, her personality...she’s just your typical misfit.

Stepping up to the front door, Hinata gives it a somber look before making her way in.

The hallways, of course, are a madhouse: her middle school is fairly big, made bigger by the fact it’s technically also part elementary school: two separate wings for each group of students. She’s spent all of her time as a student here. It won’t be until the final four years she’ll get to leave this building behind and possibly find a better niche than the one she’s found...that being a lonely corner, out of the way.

The shuffle and quick pace means she’s mostly ignored - how in such a bright outfit, she’s really not sure. But at least by some grace she makes it to her locker without anyone giving her any trouble. Hurriedly, she puts away her bag, gathering what she’ll need for her first hour block. Maybe if she gets sat down quick enough, she’ll -

“Oh, wow…”

Her back muscles tense, frozen and facing her locker.

She knows that voice.

There’s a bubbling of laughter. “I didn’t know today was a costume day...trying to look like the sun?” Behind Hinata, Ino can’t help but snicker. “That has to be the ugliest shade of yellow I’ve ever seen.”

“M...my dad...picked it,” Hinata offers feebly, still not turning around. Maybe she can put the blame elsewhere…

“Wait, your dad still dresses you? Well...I guess that explains a lot.”

...or it will just make things worse.

“Well there won’t be any mistaking you in the yearbook,” the blond then offers, shrugging her shoulders. “I think the editors might have to tone down the brightness or they’ll go blind!”

Clutching her books, Hinata just waits until she hears Ino’s laughter disappear down the hall. Okay, well...that was probably the worst of it. Sakura will probably have words, but hers are never quite as sharp as Ino’s: just attempts at follow ups that never pan out quite as well.

Everyone else will probably just laugh. And...she’s used to that.

Clinging her supplies to her chest, she speedily walks to her first classroom, taking her seat near the back and doing her best to sink in her chair. Most of the others are too busy talking to friends or hurrying to finish up homework to notice her...good. Hopefully it will stay that way. The biggest hurdles will be the actual pictures...and lunch. If she can just make it through those...the worst will be over.

Then she can try to pretend that today never happened.

More and more students filter in, and Hinata just sits still, eyes flickering in search of anyone looking at her. But, as per usual, she’s mostly ignored.

“Nice outfit.”

Almost jumping out of her skin, Hinata looks to the desk next to her own in the corner. Setting his books atop it is her typical neighbor, Sasuke. His brow is perked, looking her over critically. “Did you mean to wear that?”

Slowly blooming pink, Hinata tries to figure out a passable answer. Does she dare admit the same excuse as she did to Ino? “U...um…”

“Cuz I mean...that’s nothing like what you usually wear.”

...she blinks. Blinks again. He…? But…? How would he know…? Unless he’s been…?

“...m...my father p-picked it out. He’s, um...he’s v-very strict about my...about my school p-picture.”

Understanding brightens Sasuke’s face a bit. “...that makes sense. He, uh...really doesn’t have a clue about clothes, does he? You look like a banana.”

The color in her cheeks gets darker. “I...I-I know…”

“Didn’t bring anything to change into after pictures?”

“...no…” She hadn’t thought of that…

“Well...guess you’re stuck with it.”

Wilting a bit, Hinata nods in defeat.

“Eh, whatever. It’s just one day. My brother says the seniors always dress up goofy for theirs. Maybe if anyone asks, you’re just starting early.”

Another blink. “...they do?”

“Yeah. Drives my brother nuts.” A hint of a smile pulls at his lips. “He’s such a prude...I bet he won’t do it next year.”

“W...will you? I-I mean, when you’re a...a senior?”

“I might. Guess it depends on how I feel. It’s a long time between now and then, after all. But hey, you’re not the only one who’s gotta dress up.”

Blinking, Hinata watches as Sasuke tugs the zipper of his jacket. Beneath is a dress shirt, complete with a bright red tie. It...looks a bit odd with his shorts and sneakers.

“The pictures are only waist up, so the rest doesn’t matter,” he explains at her confused expression, closing the zipper. A hint of a smirk pulls at his lips. “This way, I can hide it all day.”

“...lucky,” she can’t help but comment, going red as she realizes he heard her.

“Didn’t bring a coat?”

“No...a-and even then, you can still see the s-skirt…”

“Oh...yeah, true.”

“Hey, Sasuke!”

Immediately, the boy’s face sours. Ino sashays her way over, perching atop his desk with one knee over the other. “What?”

“Just wanted to make sure you’re not going blind back here,” she quips with a smirk. “Poor thing, having to look at that ugly dress...I don’t know which is worse: that, or wearing it!”

All the while, Hinata just sits silently, taking the abuse with a tight jaw.

“Funny, I was gonna say it’s about the same shade as your hair,” Sasuke retorts.

The blonde gives him an aghast glance. “...what?!”

“She didn’t pick the clothes, Ino. Leave her alone. You really got nothing better to do than make fun of her for an outfit she doesn’t even want?”

“I...but…she looks ridiculous!”

By now, the talk has garnered some attention, other students looking back curiously.

“So? Like I said, it’s not what she wanted. So leave her alone. It’s just a dress.” Standing, Sasuke then asks, “You wanna see ridiculous?” He reopens his coat, gesturing to the non sequitur between his top and the rest of his outfit.

A few kids laugh, including Sasuke’s best friend Naruto.

“Gonna laugh at me too, Ino? Or is this not really about clothes?”

Mouth flapping like a fish out of water as she fails to find a response, Ino instead claps her lips shut and retreats back to her desk.

“Tch...there.” Not bothering to zip his coat, Sasuke retakes his seat. “...I think that settles that.”

Hinata gapes at him. “...you…?”

“What?”

“...nevermind.” Well...maybe today won’t be so bad after all.

.oOo.

It's so late omg @~@ I...didn't really like this prompt, so this is rather...random? But it's all I could really think of. Poor Hinata, I'm always writing her getting bullied...but that's typically what happens to the quiet kids. Either they're ignored, or poked fun at =/ But at least Sasuke's got her back on this one! Anyway, it's SUPER late, I gotta go! Thanks for reading~

#sasuhina #uchiha sasuke #hyūga hinata #yamanaka ino #bullying //#best years of your life [ au ]#365daysofsasuhina

55 notes · View notes

stormtrprinstilettos · 5 years

Text

Fun’s For Free - Chapter 6 (Roger x Reader) (smut)

Summary: It’s 1978 and you’re assigned to follow Queen on their North American tour to promote their new album. Only problem is the magazine you write for has not been kind to the band in the past, and someone has a hard time letting go of that fact.

Series Masterlist Here!

In this “episode”: Everything seems to be just fine…

Word Count: ~4K

Warnings: The entire series is language & smut, so 18+ please and thank you!

A/N: I want to thank everyone yet again for reading and reblogging and commenting. Feedback helps keep me motivated to keep writing! ♥️

November 19, 1978 – Uniondale, Long Island You pace around the backstage hall, looking for Mike. He was here somewhere, and you just knew he was trying to be incognito so he could catch you doing something. Or maybe you were just being paranoid. Okay, so you were being ridiculously paranoid, as evidenced by how loud you screamed when he tapped you on the shoulder. “Looking for me?” he said with a loud laugh. “You’re so jumpy.”

“Asshole,” you mumble. “Would you like to meet them or no?” You knock on the door to the dressing room and slowly open the door. “Is everyone decent?” you yell through the crack before walking in.

“No!” Freddie yells.

“So hurry up!” John yells.

You start giggling and look at Mike. “You’ll love them,” you say, taking note of his horrified face. When you walk in, they’re all sitting around, surprisingly calm. “This is Mike, my editor.” After introducing him to Freddie, John and Brian, you start to cringe when walking over to Roger and give him a pleading look, silently begging him not to cause a scene. Of course, that doesn’t happen. Roger greets him almost the same way he greeted you the first time you met, only he didn’t yell when confronting Mike about all of the shitty things that have been printed about the band in the past. You slowly walk away and take a seat next to John and try your hardest to ignore the entire scene.

“I’m a bit surprised he’s not yelling,” John observes. “Then again, he did demand we all be on our best behavior.” He turns to you and starts to giggle. “I don’t know what you told him, but we miss our angry Roger.”

You started to laugh. “I told him I’d get pulled off the job if he acted inappropriately. I didn’t tell him to be nice.” John gave you a curious smile, so you quickly think of a small fib. “If Mike sees I’m having any issues he’ll make me leave and send someone else in.” John nods understandingly and you both look back at Roger and Mike.

“Rog, give it a rest,” Freddie shouts. “No need getting worked up now.”

You walk over to Mike and pull him away and drag him out of the room. “I’m sorry. I knew he was going to start,” you apologize. “I was hoping he wouldn’t.”

Mike starts to laugh. “Why are you apologizing? It could have been worse. At least he’s passionate about his work. If he wasn’t offended I’d not respect him.” He looks at you curiously. “Why do you feel like you have to apologize for him?”

“It’s not… I just know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of it, that’s all.”

You and Mike enjoy the show from the side of the stage. When it was time for Brian’s guitar solo, which seemed to go on longer than usual tonight for some reason, he decided to leave. You walk backstage with him and give him a hug goodbye. “So I guess I’ll see you in time for Christmas,” he said. “Remember, Y/N, I’m counting on you.”

You give Mike a thumbs up and he walks away. When you turn to go back to the stage, you get pulled from behind and drawn into a hug. “I know, I stink,” Roger mumbles in your ear. “But this is the first chance I had all day to do this.” He quickly turns you around and plants a huge kiss on your lips. “Hope you don’t mind,” he says with a smile.

“Not at all,” you smile back. You look over his shoulder and see his roadie smirking. “We’ve been caught,” you whisper in his ear. “I trust you’ll handle that.”

He starts to chuckle. “He’s seen so much and hasn’t said a word yet, I don’t think he’ll start now.” He gives you another kiss. “Are you running off home after we’re done here?”

“Are you coming with me?” you smirk.

He looks over your shoulder now and sees Daisy, who wasn’t supposed to even be here. “Don’t turn around,” he whispers. “That person you work with is here. She didn’t see…” He hurries and moves back before running to the stage. You turn around and Daisy is right there in front of you.

“So, you and pretty boy sneaking off backstage huh?” she jokes. “Is this how you two argue now? In private?”

You start to laugh. “Yep, everything in private.”

November 21, 1978 – somewhere in south Virginia, around 3am Everyone on the bus is sleeping, except for the driver. You wake up from your sleep and stand to stretch your legs. When you stand, so does Roger, who was sitting in across from you. He holds a finger to his lips, telling you to be quiet, and guides you to seats in the back of the bus. “Entertain me,” he says as he closes the divider curtains. “I can’t sleep.”

“You’re the one who gets paid to entertain,” you giggle. “All I do is write about it.”

“Then write me a story.”

You shift yourself in the seat, turning so you can face him comfortably and clear your throat. “Once upon a time, there was this beautiful princess named Y/N. And one day, she met a mean man named Roger.” He starts to chuckle, but you’re keeping a straight face and a dramatic tone. “And Roger hated Y/N…”

“No he didn’t,” he whispers with a smile. “He never hated her. He tried to, but he couldn’t. That’s why he was such a cunt to her.” The smile leaves his face and he starts to get serious. “I’m sorry for all of that.”

“Oh, stop,” you giggle. “I didn’t help matters either.” You start to think about the article and fill with worry. “Roger, I…” You try to explain the situation, but he kisses you and interrupts. You gently push him away, feeling the need to say what you have to say. “Roger, wait, let me say this.” He nods his head and listens intently. “The first part of my article may not be exactly nice to you.” You cringe, but he laughs. “I’m serious.”

“Will I be redeemed by the end of it?” he asks, seemingly not taking your concern seriously.

“It’s looking that way,” you tell him.

“Then I see no reason to be upset,” he smiles. “Lets just say I’ve learned how to, what was it you said? ‘Grow up, and use criticism as motivation.’”

You let out all of your worry with a deep exhale, deciding to let it go. “So what does Roger Taylor do in his spare time?” You are here for a job, after all, and decide to take this time to get more details for your story.

He starts to laugh. “What spare time?” He adjusts himself in his seat to face you now. “What about Y/N Y/L/N?”

You roll your eyes and giggle. “I’m the one that’s supposed to be asking the questions.”

For the next hour or so, you and Roger talk more about anything and everything. You learn more about his passions outside of music, his likes and dislikes, both of you sharing a bit more about yourselves with each other - an extension of the last real conversation the two of you had after leaving Detroit.

Of course, the two of you can’t just have conversations since the two of you are drawn together like magnets. You’re getting sleepy, as is he, but you start to give each other slow, sleepy kisses, and start getting a bit touchy. He rests his hand on your thigh and you start to rub your hand on his forearm. His hand runs up your thigh and stops at the center of your heat. He starts to stroke, up and down, over the softness of you lips, covered in the thin fabric of your pants and the tiny thong you’re wearing. His strokes are subtle and he feels you twitch as he slowly works you over.

"Fuck…" you whisper. For some reason he finds that even sexier than when he makes you scream, and he’s starting to wonder who’s teasing who. He slowly unbuttons your shirt with his free hand revealing your glowing skin and the fullness of your breast, softly caressing the flesh before him, giving you goosebumps even though it’s not cold on the bus. He slides his hand under your bra, gently stroking over your nipple at the same pace his other hand works over your clit through your pants. He slides the cup of your bra down, exposing your breast, and reaches out with his tongue, flicking it across the nipple; you jump. He blows across your damp skin, before lowering his lips over the nipple, flicking at it with his tongue as he sucks the soft flesh against his mouth.

You start to moan, and he raises his hand to your face, sliding his hand over your mouth, smothering your voice. He continues his relentless teasing with his fingers against your clit and his tongue on your nipple. You start to buck your hips and he starts to feel the dampness of the material between your legs. He applies more pressure on your clit, circling round and round, and sits up so he can watch you. Your chest is heaving, and your back arches as you clamp your hands over his against your pussy, preventing him from moving while you ride out your orgasm.

“Yeah, still pretty when you cum,” he whispers with a smile before leaning in to give you a soft kiss.

“Quit smiling at me,” you groan. “It makes me weak and timid.” You run your hand up his leg and cup the bulge that is protruding from his pants. “This must be uncomfortable,” you say with a giggle, and move your hand up to the button of his pants. As you start to unbutton, you hear footsteps on the other side of the curtain and quickly pull away and start to button your shirt.

The curtain draws back and you see Brian standing there, a smirk drawn on his face. “So this is why you two are getting along now,” he jokes. Your face starts to flush with heat out of embarrassment, and you turn to look at Roger who seems to be equally embarrassed. “You two sneak off when we’re all asleep and talk? Don’t want us knowing that you really don’t despise each other?”

“Yeah,” Roger chirps up, his voice amazingly calm and collected. “She’s not so bad, I guess.” He turns and looks at you with a smile before turning back to Brian, whose expression slowly starts to change from amusement to suspicion. “Did you need something?”

“No, no,” he says softly, not looking away from you. “I was just wondering why the curtain was closed, that’s all.” He notices your shirt isn’t buttoned correctly and looks back to Roger with a small frown. “Can I talk to you, Rog?” Roger starts to protest Brian’s sudden need for conversation, but you excuse yourself and go back to your seat. They try to be quiet, but you can hear the entire conversation.

“What are you doing?” Brian fusses. “She is supposed to be completely off limits.”

“Since when have I ever followed the rules?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I happen to like her, Brian. She’s a great person.”

“A month ago you couldn’t stand looking at her…”

“No, I always liked looking at her,” Roger cackles. “You would rather us constantly arguing?” Roger pauses. “Oh, I get it. You’re jealous.”

“I am not jealous. I just think this is a huge mistake that will backfire on her.” Brian pauses. “You can’t be serious about her.”

Freddie wakes up and interrupts your eavesdropping. “What’s going on back there?” He climbs in the seat next to you and gets comfortable.

“Apparently Brian doesn’t like Roger and I getting along,” you sarcastically joke. “We were back there talking like civilized adults and Brian caught us.”

“Talking?” He starts to laugh and points at your shirt. “Must have been some intense conversation.” Oh, fuck, you think to yourself. “Don’t worry, darling. The only thing that’s surprising is that it didn’t happen sooner than it did.” You look shocked. “Oh, please. Everyone fucking knows. Well, now everyone does. Brian was oblivious as usual.”

November 21, 1978 – 11am, Nashville, Tennessee The bus pulls up to the hotel and everyone climbs off. Before heading inside, Roger rushes up behind you and grabs your arm, pulling you off to the side. The two of you kept your distance from each other the rest of the bus ride, so this is the first contact you’ve had in 8 hours. “We can share a room, you know.”

“You don’t think it would be a huge mistake that will backfire on me?” you ask with a raised brow.

He runs his hand under the collar of his shirt, clearly nervous about something. “Ah, so you heard…”

“Only up to the point where he said you can’t possibly be serious.” He seems to be relieved that you didn’t hear anything that was said after that, and your mind starts racing, wondering why. You don’t ask, deciding instead that what you don’t know can’t hurt you. “He sounded pretty upset.”

Roger glances around and turns to you. “Let’s get settled in the room and we’ll talk about it there.” You look at him with a curious smirk. “Oh come on, I don’t have to be anywhere until 4:00 when I have a stupid radio interview.”

“In case you forgot, I have a job to do.”

“And I always let you do your job, but right now all I’m asking for are a few hours of your time.”

“Hours, huh?” you giggle.

He sighs. “Will you at least join me for lunch?”

“No, you need to rest,” you say with a smile. “And I need to get a new typewriter and work.”

“Then dinner tonight?” he pleads. “Let me take you to dinner.”

You giggle and smirk. “You’re not going to let this go, huh?” He smirks back and nods his head. “Sure, dinner. I’ll have dinner with you.”

You knew he was trouble from the second you saw him, but he turned into a different kind of trouble. Now you feel safe with him, not just physically, but emotionally. You know this is just a fling, a fling that will end, no strings attached, and the sex? Well, that’s been phenomenal the few times it’s happened. And you just know it’s going to happen again. The atmosphere is completely different right now from the other times the two of you have been completely alone together. You’re not angry with each other, you’re not frustrated with each other, and you aren’t immediately jumping each other’s bones like you did when it happened back in New York at your apartment. This time, it’s calm, quiet and… sweet. He’s been sweet. And you can’t wrap your head around the fact that the two of you went from wanting to strangle each other to actually wanting to be around each other. You didn’t want to complicate things by talking about whatever this thing between the two of you is, but you had to. You had to make sure you were both on the same page.

He’s standing by the window, looking out onto the downtown lights, soaking the view in, being very quiet. He must have felt you watching him, because he turns to face you and smiles. “Enjoying the view?” he jokes before waving you over. He holds you from behind and pulls you close. You can hear his heartbeat and heavy breathing.

“Bet you can’t wait to get back home, huh?” you ask, thinking that his reply will help you gauge where his head is when it comes to this thing going on between the two of you.

He draws you closer and sighs. “I actually love touring. The others get tired of it, but I live for it.” He turns you to face him and smiles that sweet smile again. “I’m really enjoying this one.” Your eyes roll and you start to giggle before you realize that he’s being completely serious right now. “I wish this one was longer.” He holds the back of his hand to your cheek and starts to laugh. “You’ve managed to disrupt my entire psyche, Y/N.”

“You’re not exactly innocent either, you know,” you say with a laugh. “I really should go back and type up my article. I was supposed to turn it in…”

He draws you in for a kiss, interrupting you. “Stay with me,” he whispers. “You have all day tomorrow.”

“Roger, I shouldn’t…”

“Please,” he begs. “Stay.”

“I can’t. I have to call Mike…”

“Call him tomorrow.” You start to laugh a nervous laugh that he finds adorable. “Ok, then I’ll come to your room.” You tilt your head, amused by him practically begging. “I will let you work. Promise.”

You keep stealing glances, watching him lay back on your bed with his faded jeans and white t-shirt watching television. If he sees you he doesn’t let on. He’s making it hard to keep your focus just by being there, but you’re determined to finish. Only two pages left to type and then you’re done. You feel torn, sitting here preparing to type the part where you write about how childish his behavior is as he’s laying over there. You know if it prints, he’ll not only look bad, but he’ll be angry with you. If Mike and Candice hadn’t seen that part it would have been easy to omit it, but it’s too late. Maybe I can reword it, you think to yourself. Maybe not be so harsh… You look back at him, and this time he’s looking at you and smiling before your eyes even make it in his direction. Jesus, why is this so hard? you ask yourself. You smile back at him and immediately hear Mike’s voice in your head. Your journalistic integrity is at stake, just as he said, and you don’t know what to do. You sigh as you focus back on the typewriter and start to type. Freddie has a seemingly insatiable lust for life. Brian has a seemingly insatiable lust for meaning. John has a seemingly insatiable lust for laughter. And Roger, well, Roger can’t seem to let go of his insatiable lust for… You pause. You can’t do it. “Childish behavior” is what you were supposed to type. Instead, you change it. … insatiable lust for critical respect. That should be fine, you internally groan. You close your notebook, take off your glasses and take a deep sigh before putting everything you just typed in an envelope to mail to your editors.

“Finished?” he asks quite giddily.

“Yeah,” you whisper with a nod. “Finished.”

“Can I read it?” he asks, already knowing the answer. “I’m joking. Come here.” You smile and walk over to the bed and throw yourself down next to him. He points to the phone on the bedside table. “Don’t you have a phone call to make?”

You groan and roll over, dialing the phone and waiting for Mike to pick up. “Hey, I’m putting it in the mail tomorrow.” You roll on your back, the phone still up to your ear and look over to Roger. “Yeah, everything is fine.” You smile at his smile. “Nashville. Then St. Louis.” He turns over on to his side, facing you, still smiling. “Yeah, I’m behaving,” you giggle with a lump in your throat. “I’ll check in again next week.” When you say your goodbye, Roger takes the phone from you, leans over you and hangs it up.

When he makes his way back, he stops to lean down for a kiss. “Now can I have your undivided attention?” You smirk at each other and he lays back down on his side next to you. “You alright? You seemed bothered over there.”

“Yeah, I’m alright.” You don’t want to ask, but the words just blurt out of your mouth and you can’t stop them. “Why were you so relieved I didn’t hear what you told Brian when he said that you can’t be serious about… whatever this is between us?”

“Please don’t ask me that, Y/N,” he begs.

“Look, I’m not upset, and I won’t be upset, and I’m not trying to pressure you into anything…” You’re trying your hardest to let him know that you just want to make sure you’re both on the same page here, but he starts to get snippy.

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Well maybe I do, Roger.” Frustrated now, you sit up on the bed and look down at him. “I get that this is fun and meaningless, I understand that…”

“Y/N, stop,” he says quite forcefully. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m not asking for…”

“Stop!” he yells. “Why can’t you ever just stop?” He gets off of the bed in a huff and walks to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says before he walks out.

Permatags: @clogwearingspacepoodle @briansfatbottomgirl @culturefiendtrashqueen @jennyggggrrr @shutup-sorry @dontstopmemeow @letmelivetaylor @tommyleeownsme

Series tags: @toomuchlove-willkillyou @sunshine112 @ohtheseboysilove @luvborhap @painkiller80 @hannafuckingsucks @itsametaphorbriansblog @biscuit-barrel @capsparrowtara @asquiresofftime @aridrowse @geek-and-proud @a19103 @nicholeh7 @caborhapch @catch-a-deak @thebelgiancompanion @ultrablackwidower @maggieroseevans @protectrowanwhitethorn @mercurycrowley @amy-brooklyn99 @bellas2silly @rogxrtaylxr @gylfsz @amagicmess @thessxoxo @mariekuuuuuh @drowseoftaylor @bohemiansweede @loveandbeloved29 @radiob-l-a-hblah

#fun’s for free #roger taylor #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor x fem reader #roger taylor x y/n #roger taylor x you #roger taylor series #roger taylor smut #roger taylor fanfiction #roger taylor fic #roger taylor fanfic

218 notes · View notes

jungwoohoos · 5 years

Text

pugna (one)

pairing: fighter!yoongi x reader

genre: slow burn, fluff, angst

word count: 4k

warnings: mentions of blood, snarky yoongi, food that might make you hungry

he showed up at your doorstep one day, covered in cuts and testing your patience. you don’t know why, but you felt compelled to help him. you just don’t realize how deep that runs

note: i’m aiming for this to part one of two or three!! thanks a buttload to anna @jungtaeyoongles for being my editor and emotional support. hope you guys like it 😎

You never quite got used to the smell of rubbing alcohol. Nearly five years of soaked cotton pads and perfumed operating rooms and the bite still made your head spin. It was something you could never fully anticipate, the harshness of it enough to tickle a sneeze from you every time.

“Do you really do that every single time?”

“Shut up. You’re bleeding all over my pillow.”

His lip’s busted in two different places and the push of his words breaks through the scabbing skin. You dab at the beads of blood, a particularly hard press eliciting a quiet hiss from him.

He’s fisting your pineapple pillow, the one your sister got you as a housewarming present, but now it’s decorated with small drips of red. They’re not too bad, his knuckles. His right hand’s worse, the first two knuckles scraped raw enough to ensure some swelling come the morning, the last one already covered with a purple bruise. Left fared better. You pry it from the bedazzled pillow and run a light thumb over it. He doesn’t flinch, but you see a wince from the corner of your eye when you reach the scrape on his joints. You know he’s dealt with worse, but you try to be more gentle with the alcohol.

The quiet is new. There’s usually some snarky comment about how your place looks two steps from hell or how you look like you could use a week’s worth of sleep. Little digs that you can usually swallow with a glare and a firm grip on the bandage in your hands. It didn’t take you long to realize he liked riling you up, liked prodding you until you broke out of your bedside manner and bit back.

He hadn’t spoken until you had sneezed, and he hasn’t since you’ve been tending to him. You’re wrapping his right hand, something you could do in your sleep, but you nurse it carefully, following the bumps and ridges with a soft hand.

“You’re awfully quiet today,” you say, head tucked over his hand so he can’t see your curiosity. He shifts, taking his hand with him so you have no choice but to move as well. There are a couple moments where all there is is the swish of the bandage and his even breaths. You fasten the clip, a quick turn of his hand as inspection, before looking up.

You have to tilt your head up to look at him properly, your position on the floor putting you at a disadvantage. His lip is beginning to swell, ballooning out by the corners, but the rest of his face is untouched.

He ignores your comment. “You’ve never asked me what I do.” He’s looking at you, something like surprise in his eyes.

It was hard not to be curious when he’s showed up at your doorstep almost every week for the past two months, cuts gracing parts of his body. You nearly tripped over Seohyeon’s stuffed turtle on the ground when he first showed up. You were expecting him—Wonju had called you 20 minutes before, which he never did, even when he broke his ankle making a delivery—but seeing him caught you off guard. Maybe it was the steady stream of blood flowing from his nose or the angry gash on his neck, but something about seeing that shade of red outside of the hospital was something you hadn’t fully anticipated this late at night.

“You’re a doctor, right?” he had said, eyes roaming your shocked face. “You look like you’ve never seen blood before.”

You had rushed him in at that point, sitting him on the stool so you wouldn’t have to worry about getting blood out of your couch. He had been talkative—pointing out the sleep in your eyes and the plate in your sink—but you saw that whatever traces of adrenaline remained had left him. He sat still on the stool, limbs pliant for your care, and you thought that he would be the best patient you’ve ever had if you didn’t want to stuff his mouth full of latex gloves.

A finishing rub of a bandage and you had moved to the side to clean up. “Okay Yoongi, you’re all set. You can go now!” You hadn’t been able to help the annoyed lilt in your voice, too miffed from his recent barrage on your choice of candles. “Change the bandages every day and make sure to put on antibacterial cream at every changing and don’t get beat up on the way home because I’m going to sleep!”

You had been rummaging through your kit when you saw a hand reach in and grab a fistful of gauze. Your head had whipped up, mouth ready to yell, but it died at your lips when you felt a thumb swipe across your cheek. He was looking at you, one corner of his mouth curved up. “Thanks for cleaning me up, doc. Oh, and for these.” He shook the bundle of bandages in his hand. His touch left your skin a second later, and there was a blur of his jacket and a small salute before he was gone with a click of your door.

There had been a moment to process before you were huffing, rubbing at the remaining warmth on your cheek. The audacity. You had snapped the kit close and thrown it into the drawer. He doesn’t even know me. An extra scrub at your face with a grumble. You had stomped up the stairs as quietly as you could without waking Seohyeon. Once she was up, she was up, and there wasn’t anything you wanted more than to burrow under your covers and forget about Yoongi.

Except that he had started showing up like clockwork, a short coming over doc. it’s yoongi btw ;) giving you 20 minutes to grumble out of bed and calm yourself before having to open the door. It hit you some time during his fourth visit that you could ignore his text and indulge in some uninterrupted sleep. The thought of a full night’s sleep made you sigh, your hand stilling over a particularly deep gash on his knee. “Hey doc, watch out or I’ll think you’re going soft on me,” he had mumbled, eyes closed. You made sure to be generous with the alcohol wipes that night.

The idea had lingered for several days after. It seemed to be an obvious decision, almost painfully so, but you always ended up biting the inside of your cheek when you stayed in bed after getting his texts. You could really do without the constant bickering. And the day you see Yoongi without that confident smirk plastered on his face would probably be your heaven on Earth. Your feet shuffle over the floor every time though, and you scowl when he argues with you about your favorite fruit, but you never really regret having to bear the fluorescence of the kitchen light so late at night. You could chalk it up to moral obligation or sheer delirium, but maybe you were starting to enjoy his company.

You had cleaned too many of his cuts in too regular of a routine to not be curious. But you also noticed that he avoided any mention of his life, leading the conversation elsewhere the moment talk became too close. The questions sometimes settled heavy on your tongue, driving forward when a flippant comment pressed too hard, but you knew the boundaries of privacy too well, so you didn’t allow yourself to pry. It was something you resigned yourself to remaining ignorant to.

It took you by surprise to hear him bring it up, and you couldn’t help the raise of your eyebrows. “I—well you’ve never mentioned it,” you start, fiddling with the tube of ointment in your hands. “It didn’t seem like you wanted to talk about it, so I never brought it up.”

He gives a quiet snort. “You’ve been fixing me up for the past two months and you haven’t asked me why I always look like I got stuck in a blender. Not many people are that patient.”

He’s still looking at you, and you have to focus on the pineapple pillow in his lap because you feel yourself starting to warm from the attention.

“Why do you come to me?” You’re staring at a loose bead. “I’m not that close to Wonjo, and we’ve never met before he called me the first time.”

You see him lean back out of the corner of your eye. He shrugs and picks at a bandaged hand, bringing your attention back to him. You grab at his wrist and bring it down by his side. His eyes catch yours, and you’re reminded that your fingers are still looped around his.

“I don’t know,” he says, his skin warm beneath your hand. “I trust you.”

There’s a beat and you’re trying to think because you didn’t expect that. You search his face, eager to find if there’s something more, something you’re missing, but he’s moving away, taking his hand out of your grip and looking towards his right. Your gaze follows, and when you see a sleepy figure rubbing with small hands at the top of the stairs, you pull your hand back to your side and hastily stand up.

“Hi baby, what are you doing up?” you murmur, moving to the base of the stairs so Yoongi’s out of her sight. She yawns, a little squeak rounding the end of it, and leans to her side so she can see past you.

“Mama, who’s that?” You shift to the side, but she pokes her head around you, eyes round. She’s holding her turtle to her chest with tiny fists, and you’re tempted to pluck her up and take her back to bed but, it would be a futile attempt knowing her stubbornness.

Your foot is perched on the first step. “He’s mommy’s friend who’s just about to leave.” You lean onto the next step. “You should go back to bed or else you’ll be sleepy tomorrow,” you coo, steadily making your way up. She’s still trained on Yoongi, and you’re thinking you can catch her while she’s distracted. Arms out, you make grabby hands at her. “C’mon Seohyeon, time for bed.”

She’s off and ducking beneath your reach before you can blink, little feet padding down the stairs. You lean over the railing and compose yourself with a small sigh before turning to move down. She’s parked by the arm of the couch, one arm around her turtle and the other perched on her hip. Her gaze is right at Yoongi, who migrated to the edge of the couch, his back now straight. Neither of them spoke, only stared, and you were ready to swoop in to grab Seohyeon when Yoongi stands up and sticks out a bandaged hand.

“Hi, missy. I’m Yoongi. What’s your name?”

She lets out a peal of giggles at the title and takes his hand in hers, hers only wrapping around four of his fingers. “I’m Seohyeon, and that’s my mama.” A little head bobs back to where you’re standing. “She’s a duckter,” she says proudly.

A small tinkle of laughter from Yoongi stuns you for a second, but you’re sure it’s him because he’s bending down with as much of a smile as he can muster with his busted lip. “She sure is, and a good one at that,” he affirms with a nod. She agrees with two nods of her own before she begins to babble, her little body bouncing with the energy of Yoongi’s attention. And he’s rapt, his gaze never leaving hers, smile inching wider when she introduces her turtle by making him shake its foot. It’s new seeing him like this, and you’re reluctant to admit it, but he has a nice smile even with the scabs of dried blood.

“Mama said I can’t get an ostrick until I can write my name, but it’s so hard,” she pouts into her whine, chubby cheeks ballooning out. “Can you write your name, Mr. Yoongi?”

His head’s dipped in sympathy. “I can, but it took me a lot of practice. If you practice every day, I think you can do it.”

He’s met with a squeal and a bounce, the turtle waving around in a chunky fist. She turns to putter towards you, and you open to scoop her up. Small arms wrap around your neck to pull your face in for wet kisses.

“Mama, I’m gonna practice every day!! Mr. Turtle needs a friend.”

“I’m glad, baby,” you say against the soft of her hairline. “Now say goodnight so you can go to sleep and get big and strong for tomorrow.” You walk until you’re in front of Yoongi. Seohyun pushes off your chest and gives a wave of her hand.

“Bye Mr. Yoongi!! Come visit mama soon so I can write my name for you!!”

His eyes crinkle at the corners. “Sleep tight, Seohyeon. I’ll be ready to be impressed.”

She gives a thumbs up with a stubby finger and wriggles in your arms until you bend to put her down. “I’m a big girl, so I can put myself back to bed. Don’t worry, mama.” She’s running away from you and up the stairs as quickly as her legs can take her. She turns back before rounding the corner and chants, “love you, love you, love you.” A toothy smile appears on her face before she disappears, the close of her door coming soon after.

He’s looking at you when you turn back, and you don’t know if it’s the last five minutes of Seohyeon’s chatter catching up to you, but your face burns a light red.

“Sorry about that—she loves meeting people,” you say to his right ear.

He lets out a small noise. “Nah it’s okay, she’s cute. Looks a lot like you.”

Your eyes are on him again, and you’re faintly aware of how he keeps on catching you off guard tonight. The side of his mouth is curving up again, and it must be because your mouth is the tiniest bit open, but you can’t bring yourself to close it. You’re still looking at him, and he’s looking at you, and you’re not sure what it is but the air seems to have settled into something comfortable.

He breaks your gaze with a stretch of his back. “I should probably head out. You’ve patched me up pretty good for now.” His arm brushes against yours while he’s reaching for his jacket, and the warmth tickles you.

“Remember the ointment, Min. You’ve been slacking recently,” you chide, fingers roaming over the spot on your arm.

“Course, doc.” He drops a wink, and you scoff. “Wouldn’t dream of disappointing you.”

The click of the front door is softer this time, and you can’t help but think that maybe it’s because of Seohyeon.

[From: Yoongi, 10:15 pm] : you home?

[Delivered, 10:23 pm]: Huh I thought you only operated past midnight

[Delivered, 10:24 pm]: Yeah, I’m glad I stole some more cotton pads today

[From: Yoongi, 10:26 pm] : sometimes my batteries start working before then

[From: Yoongi, 10:27 pm] : spicy garlic or sweet crunch?

[Delivered, 10:33 pm] : Are you talking about the cotton pads??

[From: Yoongi, 10:34 pm] : nah which you like better

[Delivered, 10:36 pm] : Hmmm spicy garlic, more flavor

[From: Yoongi, 10:40 pm] : okay

It’s only been four days since Yoongi was last there, but your constant efforts to tamp down Seohyeon’s excitement made it feel three times that. You don’t know how you made it to two months of late night clean-ups before she stumbled down, but now you’re pulling your hair that it couldn’t have been longer. No baby, he’s not a knight and I’m not a princess. Now please eat your green beans. The vegetable hanging limp from her lips somehow slithering its way back out after you’ve pushed it in with a finger. Hyeon, I don’t know when Mr. Yoongi’s coming back, but I do know what won’t be coming back if you keep smashing your crayons onto your coloring book. Tiny fingers scrambling to collect the crayons laying on the floor to pull them to her chest. With the nagging at work and the nagging at home, you were ready to sink into the curves of your couch when your phone had lit up.

You can practically feel your heartbeat in your temples, but you will yourself to set up station. It’s a mindless enough activity, but your mind wanders to a place you’ve grown too familiar with the past couple of days. You blame Seohyeon’s daily reminders of Yoongi, and you suppose it isn’t fair to blame a three year old for thoughts you had floating around already, but she was the one who said she likes his hands because he has “dada fingers”.

You moan, resting your forehead against the cold of the counter. You had no interest in thinking about him, much less his fingers. And yet, he keeps creeping into your thoughts when you’re under the covers, looking at the soft moonlight streaming in from the window.

The knock pulls you up from the counter and toward the door. “Okay, what do you have this tim—,” your chant dies in your throat when the smell hits you. Your nose is scrunching because you can’t quite decipher why he smells like fried heaven when it’s typically sweat and detergent, but when a bag is thrust into your line of sight, you nearly swoon because it is fried heaven.

“Oh my go—come in, come in.” You usher him in, suddenly invigorated with the thought of food. Closing the door, you follow the waft in the air until you’re at the counter. He’s standing with his hands in his pockets, and you’re looking between him and the bag. “Is this why you asked if I like spicy garlic or sweet crunch? Because you—you really didn’t have to do this,” you stumble, tearing yourself away from the chicken to look at him.

He’s focused somewhere by your nose. “It’s not a big deal. I passed it on the way here and thought maybe you’ve worked up an appetite being my personal doctor, but yeah...it’s not a big deal.” His hands are still stuffed into his pants, and you have to stop yourself from tittering because he started mumbling by the end, lips barely parting. If you didn’t know him better, you would’ve said he almost looked bashful.

“Well,” you have to stop your fingers from ripping open the bag, “that was really nice of you, Yoongi.” The crinkling under your fingers is spurring you on. “We should probably eat these before they—oh! Let me clean you up first! The chicken distracted me.” You’re reaching for his hands before you’re thinking, sliding them gently from his pockets. He lets you lay them on yours.

“These are from last time,” you murmur, running over the rough scabbing on his knuckles. His body must be used to working in overtime because he’s healed nicely, bruises fading to a faint yellow. Your thumb covers the expanse of his hands, and when you reach his fingers, Seohyeon’s “dada fingers” sneaks into your thoughts. You flush and drop his hands to his sides.

“Um, what about your face?” you avert your gaze so you stop thinking about his fingers. It crosses your mind that you would’ve noticed if he had come in with blood on his face, but you search the planes anyway, hoping for a fruitful distraction. A rough scan and there’s nothing new, only the bump on the bridge of his nose from three weeks ago. You cross to the barely visible scar across his left cheekbone, and you squint because you think pink’s beginning to blossom but you’re not sure. A clear of his throat breaks you away and you burn, realizing how close you had shifted to his face. You shuffle back and clear your own throat, hands flitting.

“Is it your arms? Chest? Back?” you’re rambling now, but you’re flustered and the tiniest bit embarrassed and there’s still no sign of where you should be disinfecting.

He leans an elbow on the counter, fingers fidgeting with a loose thread. His face is aloof, but the rosiness of his cheeks is apparent against the pale of his skin.

“I don’t have to be patched up. I—I just wanted to stop by.”

His voice is steady as always, and you wish you could say the same for yours because your stunned “oh!” wavers in the air. He looks up at the sound, cheeks pink but eyes patient.

You scramble for a second, trying to process what he said. You weren’t expecting this—a blushing Yoongi with fried chicken in tow because he wanted to share it with you—but something like a warm wave rolls through you. It glows in your chest and loosens your tongue, and soon, your mouth is moving faster than your brain.

“We should eat then!”

The smile that’s been threatening to break forms when your face is hidden between your arms. You rummage through the bag and pull out the container of chicken with quick hands and a rumbling stomach. Your other hand combs around to see if there’s anything more, and you stop when you feel something soft.

“Yoongi, what’s this?” you ask, even though the skinny neck and feathered sides are telling enough. You stroke the soft of its head, and your chest aches a little.

“Well, Seohyeon was talking about how much she wanted an ostrick, and I wasn’t able to find that, so I thought an ostrich might pass.”

The tease in his voice is familiar, but there’s something more delicate behind it, like he’s not sure how deep he should be wading.

“I—it’s,” you’re faltering because this is the first time someone’s done something for Seohyeon, and from his eyes on yours, you get the impression that he did this solely for her. “She’s going to love it.”

There’s something grounding in the way you’re looking at each other, keeping you on him. The ostrich is all but forgotten in your hands except for the occasional tickle against skin, and you would laugh if you could get it past the throb in your chest. He looks like he wants to speak, but his mouth is still.

A car horn in the distance breaks your gaze, and the low rumble in your stomach follows soon after. You’re sheepish at the sound, sending a glare to your lower body, and he’s moving toward your cabinets.

“Where are your plates? I don’t know if I trust you with the way you look right now. You’d probably eat the container if you got the chance.” His tone’s light, airy in the way his eyes weren’t. He ignores your huff and picks out two plates before you can point to where you keep the dishes.

The wave of his hand wards off your attempts at helping. “I have to show off that I’m good at something too. Relax for once.”

You round the corner and slide onto the stool at his insistence. Legs swinging and hands cupped, you feel like a kid waiting for dessert, and you can’t remember the last time someone made you food while you watched. The thought paired with the sight of his fingers plucking at the chicken makes you shy away, turning towards the stool beside you. There’s a bill with a note lying on the seat, and you’re certain it’s not yours from the number of zeros on the bill.

“Hey Yoongi, I think you dropped this,” you say, reaching for the money. The writing on the note’s too small for you to see, but when you bring your hand over the counter to stretch towards him, you can’t help the glance at the messy scrawl.

Pull that shit again and you’re out. I don’t fight people who don’t follow code.

#bts imagine #bts fluff #bts scenario #bts fic #bts angst #yoongi imagine #yoongi fluff #yoongi angst #yoongi fic #bts yoongi #kpop fic #btswriterscollective #my writing #lawd yoongi's hot even when he's a butthole

87 notes · View notes

peeterparkr · 5 years

Text

Clear|t.h.

Chapter 2: Seashells

pairing: surfer!tom x reader

word count: 4.1k

warnings: cars

summary: Collecting seashells & making new friends

series masterlist

first chapter

next chapter>

special thanks to @whatmakesmehappyy for being my amazing editor, love you girl

Hi, thanks for reading this! Seriously thanks, tell me what you think, if you’d like to see something happen, if you like y/n and Tom’s relationship. idk

Drowning is a common fear among people and y/n wasn’t an exception. However, she was the kind to overcome her fears, or just blatantly ignore them. It worked.

She had woken up early to go for a swim. She was hesitant at first, she hadn’t been near the ocean since the incident, not that it actually had to do with anything, but it was a reminder of that summer. However, she knew it would help.

She also picked up her art supplies in hopes of getting some inspiration.

But she didn’t want anybody to know so when her grandpa caught her sneaking out, she was shocked. He understood, so he threw her his old Jeep keys. He was sitting on the kitchen as she was trying to get out, a cup of coffee on his right hand and the morning paper on the left hand.

“Go to your secret place,” he said. “Your sister would see you if you swim right outside, besides, the water is clearer there.”

She didn’t answer, just smiled and gave him a thumbs up. He knew her. He was the only one who seemed to understand.

He understood why she was the way she was. He understood why she had drowned in sorrow, because he had as well. He knew what it was losing someone you loved. For him, it was his wife. For y/n it was Matt... and grandma.

So he understood why she shielded herself.

Y/n was driving, playing music, and singing along to it. She did it when she was alone. Nobody needed to know.

The trees were passing, the sun was coming out and she rolled down the windows to get the freshest air. She smiled.

Y/n knew that most people thought she didn’t smile, she knew people were worried for her. But she didn’t give anything away because she didn’t want to care for anyone. The more she cared, the more it hurt when they left.

Her secret place was a somewhere she discovered when she was younger with her grandma. It was a beach nobody visited and it looked like paradise. With green trees, palms and the bluest of waters, it was calm and quiet. The sand was covered by seashells which only reminded her of the pretty memories when times were simpler. She picked some up, she’d used them later.

She was hesitant, about the water. There was a certain fear, because she knew that she was drowning, not physically, but emotionally.

However, the moment she was stepping into the blue waves, she felt relieved, as if the water was pulling back every negative feeling. It felt nice.

The foam beneath her was tempting, so she decided to step in and instantly felt relaxed. For the first time in a while the world didn’t seem like that bad of a place. This was her place. She didn’t have to worry about her sister looking ashamed or her mother who always looked at her with sorrow.

For a moment she was happy. And she didn’t care about the rest of the world. She stayed there for a while and bathed and washed away all her sorrow.

Her art supplies had come with no results, but she had decided to call it a day. Besides, she needed to go back for lunch before her mother and sister realized she had snuck out.

They made a big deal out of everything. She was tired of that. She had healed. She had changed, of course, but y/n had healed. However, she was constantly fighting against her family because they seemed to be the ones not over it.

She got dry and hopped into the blue Jeep. She drummed her fingers against the wheel and then started the car, it took her a few times but eventually, it started.

There was no issue as she was getting to the road until the car decided to simply stop working. The car slowed down and it felt like the breaks had a mind of their own. The noises it was making scared her. She had barely even left the hidden beach.

Y/n cursed but kept trying to go. She decided to left the car rest for a second and pulled off to the side of the road. She turned it off and left the engine cool. When she went to start the car again nothing happened. The car just stopped completely and smoke started to come out of the front. Y/n cursed again. She hopped out of the Jeep and opened up the bonnet and smoke blew into her face.“This is perfect.”Y/n called her grandfather as she tried to wave the smoke out of her face with her hand, coughing a bit.

“Oh, yes, that happens often,” her grandpa warned.

“Couldn’t have given me a heads up?” Y/n complained.

“I forgot, uh, well, there’s a card in the car, it’s got the mechanic’s number.”

She called them and they would send a car, and told her that her grandpa had called too. She hopped into the car to wait. It was weird. In a way, she felt at home, and in another, she felt like a stranger. She was a stranger, to herself at least. She needed to give herself another opportunity.

She didn’t want to admit it to anyone, but she was tired of herself, too. She was open to a new possibility. She knew she needed to get out of that hole she had so carefully dug. Baby steps, baby steps. She didn’t want to date right away, she just wanted to make some friends.

But not from this town, She knew how it would go. The guys there had been so keen on trying to date her and she knew they were assholes. She didn’t need any of that, and besides, it would be such a cliche. She didn’t want to fall into one.

A tow truck arrived and pulled over in front of her. She picked up her stuff and realized her outfit was slightly wet like her hair, she hoped it wouldn’t look too bad.

Her hair was dripping wet as she watched the man hop out and she realized that her bad luck was just getting worse.

The guy from the day before was making his way over to the Jeep, he had a white t-shirt, jeans and, even if y/n didn’t want to admit it, he looked incredibly handsome. Y/n squinted as she hid under her arms, laying on the wheel.

He walked over to the window with some tools and knocked. Y/n took a deep breath as she turned to him and she noticed an amused look on his face. He laughed as he stepped back and ran a hand through his hair.

She opened the door.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he snickered. “Why, hello y/n.”

“Tim.” Y/n said.

“Close, Tom,” he reminded her as he winked.

“Sorry, the shirt confused me.”

“Looks good? Well, I’m here, at your service.”

“You... you’re... oh god.”

“Yeah, I work there, fix cars, you’re James’ granddaughter?” Tom asked.

“I am.”

“Huh, never would’ve thought, he’s really happy, and then you’re...you,” Tom pointed out. He pointed to her outfit. “Went for a swim?”

“No, I just like to be wet all the time,” she answered sarcastically.

“Kinky,” Tom teased, causing her to open her mouth with indignation and to push him. Tom laughed. “Hey! You played yourself there. I’m kidding.”

“You’re a pig.”

“I’m a man,” Tom gave in. “Now, let’s see, what did you do to the car?”

“I did nothing, smoke just started to come out,” y/n defended herself.

“Hm,” Tom tsked. He walked over to the bonnet and started to check it out.

“Is it that bad?”

“Well, smoke doesn’t mean good,” Tom informed her. She frowned as she crossed her arms watching him.

“Can you fix it?” She asked him.

“Of course, darling,” Tom laughed. “Only if I get a smile,” he grinned at her. She raised her eyebrow. “Maybe not.”

Y/n rolled her eyes. He tinkered around under the bonnet but more smoke started to come out.

“This... looks bad, I need to take it to the shop,” he commented. She cursed under her breath. “Now, cmon I’ll help you out,” Tom said laughing as he hooked the Jeep.

Y/n watched him hop into the truck and she stayed there in the middle of the road.

“Well,” he called her out. “You coming?”

She hesitated, but eventually got her stuff out of the Jeep and into his car. He laughed. Seemed like he didn’t know to do anything but mock her. She carefully hugged her art supplies and the now full bag of seashells.

“So, were you planning to paint the sand?” Tom asked looking over at the supplies. She chuckled.

“It needed a little colour,” she joked.

“Did you paint anything?” He asked.

“Nope.”

“You’re not really a talker, are you?” Tom inquired. She didn’t say anything so he took that as an answer. “So, what are the seashells for? A necklace? Some kind of craft?”

“Throw them at your pretty face.”

“You’re quite the charmer, aren’t you?” Tom giggled. “I have some if you’d like them, seashells. Well, and pretty faces too.”

“I’m good.”

“You know, art... uh, art is the way our soul speaks,” Tom tried to make even more conversation. She turned to the window, brushing her hair back. “What does your soul want to say?”

“It wants you to stop trying.”

“Ah, c’mon, you can’t fool me with that act, deep down I know you’re all an act too, if I’m a cliche, you’re a bigger one.”

“Really?” She faked interest.

“I mean, judging from your wet hair, the types of shells you’ve got, you went to the blue valley, you know, the hidden beach, didn’t you?”

“And that makes me a cliche?” She stated with little interest. He did manage to draw a small smile out of her, though.

“Of course, a mysterious girl who’s dying to reveal herself. It’s like an ugly duckling trying to transform into a swan.”

“I’m ugly now, wow,” she chuckled.

“I mean, you technically are, right now, but if I squint my eyes, you’re good looking,” he joked, she flicked him. “I’ll be your Prince Charming.”

“The ugly duckling doesn’t have a Prince Charming,” she pointed out.

“In our story it does,” he winked at her. “And by the way, you shouldn’t be alone in Blue Valley, the waves are bigger there,” he warned her. “Call me up if you need some company.”

“I am perfectly capable of swimming,” she sassed. “Besides, I thought nobody knew about that place, I didn’t even know it had a name.”

“It doesn’t, I named it, and you’re right, nobody knows about it,” Tom conceited. “I mean, just a few people but nobody really likes it because it’s too quiet.”

“I like quiet.”

“Hence why you don’t like me,” Tom laughed.

“Ding, we’ve got a winner,” Y/n laughed.

“D’ya know your sister, Joanne is going out today with my mate Haz?”

Y/n wasn’t surprised her sister was dying to go out. She’d date anyone.

“Blue eyes fella?” Y/n asked.

“Yep,” Tom continued. “How about a double date?”

“I’ll pass.” Y/n looked out the window but then started to explore her collected seashells. Tom turned on some music and he was humming along.

Y/n noticed his music taste wasn’t as different as hers, but she decided not to point it out. The brown-haired boy wasn’t that bad, after all.

They arrived to the shop, and y/n watched him walk up to his coworkers, high fiving some and talking to others. He approached another woman who was older, she smiled at him. Tom explained to her what had happened to her car and then she gave him a pat on the back.

Tom was sweet to the old lady, the arrogant, annoying guy from before was gone. He talked to a man who seemed to be his boss and the old lady thanked them both, and Tom blushed as she gave him a tip. Y/n smiled at that, but she cleared her throat as soon as he approached her again.

“So, okay, from what I could see,” Tom said. “It looks like I can have it fixed by tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, uh, I don’t know how much it’ll cost, however, I can give you a discount if you give me a smile,” Tom joked, y/n crossed her arms. “No discount then, damn, are you drowning in money?”

Y/n rolled her eyes, and a tinge of red invaded her cheeks as a small smile appeared.

“Whoop, there it is, then you’ll have a discount, smart girl,” Tom chuckled. “Now, I need you to fill this form out.”

Y/n did as ordered. “Thanks, well, now I’ll… call my grandpa or-”

“Y/L/N, now I know your last name, mine is Holland, by the way. And before you say you don’t care, you might as well know because I’m the one fixing your car,” Tom suggested as he glanced down over at her name on the form she handed back to him. “I know where your grandpa lives, so I can give you a ride there, or we could go out for lunch, it’s almost my break.”

Y/n turned around, already walking to the exit. “I told you, don’t try to be friends with me.”

“Good thing I’m not trying to be your friend, I asked you out,” Tom pointed out before following her.

“Ugh, don’t you have any other girls to bother? I’m sure one of them is dying to go out with you.” Y/n kept walking. “Go and take off your shirt at the beach, they’ll pop like daisies in spring.”

“But I don’t want a date with them, I want one with you.” Tom insisted. “Look, I know no is no, but hey-”

“Why me?” Y/n stopped. “Give me a reason.”

“Because you’re mysterious, I like that.” Tom shrugged. “Let’s see what we can unveil from here.”

“Oh god, don’t try to pull the card from before, not the whole: oh let’s see how the ugly duckling turns into a swan.”

“Ah, cmon,” Tom placed his hands on his hips. “You’re not a swan.”

“I know, I’m a goose.” Y/n smirked as she continued walking. Tom snickered.

“Why don’t you wanna go out with me? I’m a duck.”

“Because I don’t want to be stuck with someone who follows the stereotype, besides, this is not a movie. If you think that by hanging out with me you’ll make me realize that you’re not that bad after all, it won’t happen, this isn’t a movie, darling.”

“And we’re already starting with the pet names,” Tom clapped his hands.”But this is not a movie, you’re right, I’m not that awful, I’m just not what you expected.”

“No, you’re worse. Please, you have your two guys following you around all the time, you constantly take off your shirt, and you probably have a girlfriend with a hot body.”

“Wrong, she’s not my girlfriend, that’s my ex.”

“Well, I’m sorry, I just… don’t think I’m the right person to date you, that’s it.” Y/N shrugged. “You’re attractive, you’re a surfer, I’m just… nothing that could possibly appeal to you, we’re like night and day, never together.”

“Opposites attract,” Tom continued. “Ah, c'mon please, let’s do it like the movie then.”

“This isn’t a movie,” Y/n was already out the place.

“But it’s our story.”

“Why do you keep trying?” Y/n laughed.

“I don’t know, I don’t wanna see you all alone, you seem like you need a good time.”

“So you’re asking me out out of pity, that’s a great start.”

“Fine then, I won’t ask you out,” Tom said still following her.

“Good.” Y/n smirked but then frowned as she realized he was with her. “Why are you still walking with me?”

“I said I wouldn’t ask you out, I’m going to stick as your friend, and I’ll give you a ride, that’s what friends do.”

Y/n frowned as she watched him get back on his truck, but she felt warm. She smiled, again. Genuinely smiled.

The ride was quiet-ish. Tom kept singing along to the songs on the radio, and y/n was listening to him eagerly. She didn’t want to admit it just yet, but she kind of liked him, in a way which she wouldn’t mind having him around. Of course, that was going to be a secret she’d keep for herself.

“So, you’re a mechanic,” y/n commented. Tom smiled.

“You’re trying to make conversation, that’s nice,” Tom pointed out.

“Might as well if I’ll have you around,” Y/n defended herself.

“Yeah, well, it’s Jared’s dad workshop, and it’s good money. It’s good for a summer job,” Tom said. “Funnily enough, I don’t like cars.”

“I’m hungry,” she said, without really thinking about the consequences.

“Is that an invitation for lunch?” Tom asked, a wide smirk on his face.

“No, it was a comment.” Y/n frowned, glancing over at him. “Don’t read much into it.”

Tom chuckled. “You know, you keep resisting, but you’ll see,” Tom continued, just as he pulled in front of the house. “But if you’re hungry, I know this place.”

“In your dreams,” y/n opened the door and glanced down at him. A loud noise was heard from the inside of the house. Someone had screamed. It was Joanne fighting with her mother. Y/n wrinkled her nose, as she heard them yelling to each other about Joanne complaining about y/n, apparently, their mother wanted Joanne to give up on the date and spend time with her sister. Their yelling wasn’t pretty, so Tom and y/n just stayed there quietly.

“Now that I think about it, lunch sounds like a great idea,” y/n said and Tom nodded quickly, just as eager as her to escape from the yelling. He drove off without either of them knowing that y/n’s grandpa had seen them leave. He gave them a huge grin.

They arrived at a burger place near the beach. It wasn’t a place somebody went if they were on a diet, but it was comfort food and that’s what y/n needed. They walked over to the counter and each ordered a burger.

As they were waiting, Tom nudged her. “Tell me about yourself.”

“I’m quiet,” y/n said and shrugged.

“I’ve noticed that,” Tom frowned.

“Well, then, what do you want to know? I’m not interesting,” she confessed. “You’re a talker, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

“Oh, well, I’m Tom, 22. I surf but you already knew that. I work at a mechanical workshop, uh, well, I don’t know,” Tom shrugged. “I’m a big mystery like you are, just in my own way.”

“Are you, now?” Y/n laughed, as their number was called and they grabbed their food.

Tom threw a chip into his mouth as he winked at her as they sat.

“So, tell me how did you find the Blue Valley?” Tom asked her.

“With my grandma, when I was younger,” y/n said. “Thought I was special for knowing about it.”

“You are,” Tom grinned. “I like it in there, I surf there sometimes.”

“Of course you do,” Y/n chuckled.

They could watch the beach from there, and every now and then both of them would turn to the water.

“What?” He frowned clumsily.

“I don’t know, seems you’re not what I thought,” Y/n shrugged.

The place was simple, it was built with wood and barely painted, the menus were very rustic, and an old ceiling fan was hanging but did nothing to stop the heat from coming in.

“Ah, no, don’t get your hopes up, I could still disappoint you,” Tom winked at her before sipping his drink.

“I’m sure you will,” Y/n commented as she smiled. She didn’t know what had gotten into her, she wasn’t used to smiling that much.

“The seashells, why were you picking them up?” Tom asked. “Not judging, I do it too.”

“They’re pretty,” Y/n chuckled. “I don’t know, I’ve been collecting them since I was little.”

“Ha, that happens to me too, when I was a kid I liked picking them up and seems like the custom never wore off.”

“It’s automatic, right?” She asked as he laughed.

“It really is,” He smiled watching her take a bite. “You like the burger?”

“It’s good,” Y/n shrugged. “Not the best one I’ve had.”

“C’mon, it’s good.”

“I know some better ones,” Y/n chuckled. “Back in London”

“You study in London? I wanted to go there,” Tom answered.

“Where do you study?” She asked.

“Here, local uni, mechanical engineering,” Tom looked down.

“I thought you didn’t like that,” Y/n asked.

“M’life’s complicated, I have four brothers, you know the rest, besides I can stay here and surf,” Tom said, unwilling to continue with the subject.

“You wouldn’t leave, then?” She asked him. He pursed his lips as he shrugged.

“There’s never really been a reason for me to do so,” He slouched. “What ‘bout you?” He said before taking a bite.

“Business.” Y/n’s answer was short, and it was an explanation she didn’t want to give. “I wanted to study art, though.”

“Why didn’t you then?”

“I’m a painter who can’t paint, I lost my inspiration,” Y/n shrugged. Tom nodded, not pushing the conversation. He glanced down as Y/n bit her lip. “Thought the seashells could help.”

“Oh, I’ll give you the ones I have then, maybe they’ll help,” Tom grinned. “Maybe when I come to drop them off we can then go to the carnival?”

“You’re very clever,” y/n laughed, he smirked.

“I mean, your poor sister wants to go out, from what I’ve heard, she won’t go to her date unless you go out too, so why not help her?”

Y/n rolled her eyes. “We’ll see, but it won’t be a date.”

“Absolutely not,” Tom raised his hands. “Promise.”

Before she could continue any kind of conversation, a girl entered the joint. She had her brunette hair pulled up in a perfectly messy bun. She had a skirt and no top on in order to show off her nice pink bikini. Y/n felt self-conscious as she sat up.

“Tommy,” the girl greeted. Tom clenched his jaw and didn’t look up to her.

“Lex.” His voice had turned dry. She leaned over to kiss his cheek.

Y/n took a deep breath as all her confidence suddenly washed away. The girl side-eyed her.

“Hi,” Lex greeted y/n, “I’m Alexa.”

“Y/n,” She answered.

“Oh, so you’re Tommy’s new-right,” Alexa chuckled. Y/n clenched her jaw.

“Lex, don’t you have anywhere else to be?” Tom rolled his eyes.

“Of course, sorry, sorry,” Lex chuckled as her hands were all over Tom’s back and chest. “Just came here to say hello,” she grinned as she placed a kiss on his neck.

Tom squirmed and shrugged her off. “Alexa.”

“Hey, are we doing anything tonight, then?” Alexa asked Tom. “I cleared up my schedule.

“Actually no, y/n and I were planning on going to the carnival,” Tom raised an eyebrow to his ex-girlfriend. “Weren’t you and Marcus going to do anything?” His voice was now venomous.

“To the carnival?” Alexa asked for confirmation.

“Well, we were just talking about it, nothing stipulated,” Y/n added, Tom glanced over.

“I’ll leave you guys alone, then,” The brunette chirped.

Y/n chuckled as she rolled her eyes. “No, don’t worry I was about to leave,” Y/n said, standing up. “I was done with my burger anyway.”

Tom shook his head. “No, please-”

“Ah, that’s great!” Lex was quick to sit down on y/n’s abandoned chair. “Bye, sweetie!”

Tom stood up. “Hey, no, I’ll give you a ride-”

“No worries, I’m not too far from here,” Y/n smiled. “And you can have fun with brunette Barbie here.”

“Wait, uh y/n,” Tom was trying to say something, but he knew there wasn’t much left to say.

Y/n turned around and left, feeling her stomach burning up inside. She knew she had her stuff in Tom’s car but her pride was bigger, she needed to leave right away. Besides, it was nothing really important, just her art supplies and those stupid seashells.

series masterlist

masterlist

first chapter

next chapter>

wanna be tagged?

tag list @exoticeggos @nextkaratekid @multifandom-fangirl4 @fortheloveofmcu @flashcal @iwillalwaysbevictorious @thekidsofneibolt @quicksoldier @totallyreadyforthis s @quacksonqueen @yoinksholland @lovelyh0lland @typicaltrashbagg @supernatural-trash-lover @assumeimapenguin @americaswritings @nano-hero @paradoxparker @its-livelovelife e @its-tchalla @butwhyduh @strangerthingsluv v @leena-xoxo @toms-darling @ivyohmy @greenarrowhead @softboyparkerr @tom-hollands-eyelash @jtorressuck @clairesrainbow @desirableprey @fairydustparker @newlove-neweverything @ymeradonnadx @underoosmarvel @patdandtop @its-the-unknownspidey @savethebabyseals @hermionedeservesbetterthanron @quitetommy y @tomhaz @wronglanemendes @itsvianny @marvelousxtsh @arya-di-angelo @jake-and-amy-are-married @starlightfound @tiredfeels @thespiderdweeb @kill-the-stereo @thequeensardine @originalpinkpowerranger @anxiousdesignerdancerbandlover @kindadefinitely-fucked @happywolves81 @kaciidubs @nedthegay @skylar-mendes @emma-worthington @tomsmelanin @elefthavraam @sentimentalquackson @savannah0111 @vibhati123

#tom holland #tom holland series #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #tom holland fluff #tom holland angst #tom holland imagine #surfer au #surfer!tom holland #surfer!tom

284 notes · View notes

artificialqueens · 5 years

Text

In Retrograde : Chapter Two (branjie) - ephemerals

Author’s Note: Thank you for all the support on the first chapter!! I’m glad you are enjoying reading because I have enjoyed writing this. You can find me at @missvanjies.

Synopsis: After spending months uninspired, Vanessa, a local reporter, becomes infatuated with writing a story surrounding the downfall of a police officer discharged after killing an innocent man.

When Brooke Lynn returns to her hometown after her life begins to fall apart, she doesn’t expect to find solace in the charismatic brunette who seems just a little too invested in uncovering all the secrets of her past.

In the days that followed the night at the bar, Vanessa’s mind had become plagued with inspiration. She had pitched her idea to Michelle, the editor. A think piece, the details will come later. All she knew was that the star of the show would be Brooke Lynn Hytes and her fall from grace. Surprising, Michelle enjoyed her ambition. Probably excited to read something with some substance. She just needs to see a draft on the table by the end of the week.

However, it becomes clear to Vanessa that she’s overlooked a lot of details and maybe she was a little too ambitious. Her grand plans are thwarted by crippling writers block, and when it hits the night before the deadline, she’s got absolutely nothing on her page. She needs to do some research, and quick. So, Vanessa reverts to the most effective method of gathering research; Facebook stalking.

Brooke Lynn Hytes. Seventy-four mutual friends. Vanessa enlarges her profile picture. She’s smiling, looking down from the camera towards her cocktail. It’s obviously taken by someone else on vacation, probably somewhere Mediterranean. Her blonde hair is back pulled in a tight bun, skin bronzed and absolutely glowing. If Vanessa didn’t know she was doing research on a criminal, she would have assumed this woman was an Instagram influencer or something along those lines.

Vanessa aimlessly clicks through several public photos, all of them seeming meticulously chosen. There was not a single bad photo among the bunch. In every single photo that loaded, Brooke looked the exact same. Tall, blonde surrounded by other beautiful women, handsome men. And that’s when she notices something. Not a single one of these photos were uploaded by Brooke, nor were they uploaded recently. Vanessa keeps scrolling through the pictures, all dated two, three years in the past.

And there’s this man. He’s in almost every single photo. Just slightly taller than her, dark hair, designer suits. Gorgeous and absolutely terrifying. Intrigued, Vanessa opens his tag. Luke Connelly. Luckily for her, his profile was completely public. Investment banker. Toronto. Got engaged to Brooke Lynn Hytes in August, 2015. Broke up with Brooke Lynn Hytes March, 2018. Well, this is just an assumption. There’s a surplus of brand new photos featuring a much younger, much smaller blonde girl. Her names Ariel and she’s a makeup artist. Vanessa also assumes Luke has known her longer than March.

After spending the better part of an hour scouring through the network of profiles, Vanessa concludes that she isn’t going to reach the deadline. That’s always when she decides that maybe she needs a drink.

…

Brooke’s been bored shitless for days. She’s really trying to stick to the promise she made with Nina. To behave herself, stay out of trouble. It’s been easier that she thought to do so. In the week she had been home, she had left the house only once and the entire time strangers gawked at her like they had seen a ghost. She spent her hours dwindling down her parents collection of mature wines and watching whatever Netflix recommended to her. It was just enough to distract her from thinking about her life, but not enough to entertain her.

As the supplies began to run dry, Brooke had begun to look for some new ways to keep her occupied without leaving the house. Late one afternoon, she found herself curiously rummaging through her father’s collection of vinyl records. Most of them she remembered fondly, her father playing them softly through the house whenever he was home. Brooke chose one at random, examining the cover for a moment before turning to the track list. Born In The USA. Gently, she removes the cover and places it on the turntable. As the needle hits the vinyl, the first notes of a familiar song begin playing.

Brooke takes a seat on her father’s armchair, resting her chin in her hand. This was the album she used to dance around the house to as a kid with her dad. He’d swing her around in circles until her mother would stop them in frustration. Her father was the first one to suggest that Brooke should take dance lessons, and with extreme perseverance, her mother finally agreed. Sometimes, Brooke wished that she followed that path instead. There was always this voice in her head that told her to be realistic, get a real job, get married, have a normal life. It was so much easier to surrender. So she moved to Toronto, trained with the police and got engaged to the first man who showed interest in her. And now this fantasy world she had built for herself was crumbling.

That was the worst part of it all. This wasn’t even what Brooke wanted. All of this was a masquerade. Brooke had lured all these people into this lie. That’s what she felt the most guilty about. Nina, Luke, her parents. People who are going to be hurt in the fallout. Tears begin welling up in her eyes. Her chest is heavy and it isn’t long before Brooke is choking back sobs. She falls back into the armchair, weeping to the soft hum of her father’s music.

…

Brooke awakens, weary-eyed and hazy, instantly drawn to the sounds of movement in the room. She rubs the sleep from her eyes, slowly opening them towards her father tidying up in the corner of the room. The album had come to a halt, needle caught spinning in the deadwax.

“Springsteen huh?” He holds up the cover to Brooke, grinning. Brooke sits herself up, limbs still tired.

“I just picked whatever.”

“You know,” her father slides the album between hundreds of others on the shelf, “We used to dance to this when you were little. Your mother hated it.”

“Yeah,” Brooke’s reply is soft, “I remember.”

Outside, the world has become dark. The sun had set and the stars were high above. Her father goes back to what he was previously doing, solemn with nostalgia. Of all the people she has hurt over the years, her father had taken it the hardest. In his eyes, Brooke would always be his little girl. And yet he knows everything Brooke has done.

“Your mother-,” there’s a beat, he turns towards his daughter, “and I, we think it’s best if you see someone again. I know you won’t like the idea-“

“I’m fine, Dad,” she hoists herself up, begins to walk towards him, “I don’t need a stranger to pry inside my mind.”

There was always this uncertainty around how Brooke would react. Every since she was young, Brooke had always lashed out in unexpected ways. It was her way of controlling things, taking everything out on herself. Entirely impossible to predict. By now, her father knew to approach things with caution or else prepare for the worst. If Brooke was heading on the path of self-destruction, nothing could stop her.

“Brooke,” he rests the palms of his hands on her shoulders, “You keep drinking the day away. I hear you awake at all hours of the night. I don’t think you have eaten a single meal since you’ve been home. What if you relapse? What if it’s worse? We’re just worried.”

“I’m not going to waste my time pouring my heart out to someone, just to tell me how much of a bad person I am. I already know that I’m a terrible person.”

“Just,” he presses a kiss on her forehead in between his words, “Think about it for me. Promise me?”

“Okay, I will.”

Looming over her, Brooke has all these promises she’s destined to break. Going to therapy, bringing her problems to light, sounded like the worst scenario. For now, Brooke carries this weight with her. There’s a million things demanding her attention that she will continue to keep repressed for as long as she possibly can. She needs something to stop the noise, even if it’s just for a minute. She just needs something.

…

When Brooke first enters the doors of the bar, it was as if she never left. In the two years since she had been home, the place had not changed in the slightest way. The jukebox booms over all the other noise in the room. Eerily empty, the sparse customers all focused on the hockey game playing silently on the TV. Brooke saunters up to the bar, leaning over towards the bartender.

“A whiskey on the rocks please,” She asks politely, the bartender raising his eyebrow at the request. Brooke slides the money towards him.

“That’s not the kind of drink a pretty girl like you should be orderin’,” An older man calls from across the bar. The gathering of people around him snicker at the comment. Brooke rolls her eyes and knocks back her drink in a single gulp. She doesn’t flinch as it burns her throat.

“I’ll take another one please,” She smirks, the men on the other side of the room stop instantly. She could out-drink each and every one of them. Brooke perches herself on a stool, downing her second drink at a much slower pace. That’s something she didn’t miss about being single, the attention she would receive from men. Having a ring on her finger was enough protection. Men respected other men. They respected the concept of her husband more than they cared about the woman before her. Now she was exposed and vulnerable. A pretty unclaimed woman. The thought of it all made Brooke feel ill.

Hey, little girl, is your daddy home?  Did he go away and leave you all alone?  I got a bad desire.

Oh, oh, oh  I’m on fire.

The melody of a familiar song begins playing in the background among the blur of chatter and clamouring of glass. Brooke empties her glass and orders a replacement. She looks back behind her briefly, caught off guard by a piercing glare in her direction. A woman sitting alone in a booth with caramel hair and dark eyes. Hauntingly beautiful. The eye contact causes Brooke to recoil, turning her head back to face the bar immediately. Brooke’s almost certain she’s still staring, burning her way through her skull. A part of her wants to turn back, take a good once over of this woman.

Tell me now, baby, is he good to you?  And can he do to you the things that I do?  Oh no, I can take you higher.

Oh, oh, oh  I’m on fire.

A cacophony of drunken men erupt in song. It’s rowdy and loud, arms being thrown around shoulders in camaraderie. An average night in a small town bar. It distracts Brooke for long enough to forget about the mysterious woman behind her. Enamoured by the chaos. They sing and slosh their drinks around, whiskey and rum flooding the floor.

Sometimes it’s like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull , And cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my skull . At night, I wake up with the sheets soakin’ wet , And a freight train runnin’ through the middle of my head.

Tapping her foot against the stool, Brooke can’t help to hum along. She envisions her father joyfully spinning her around their living room, lifting her up high towards the ceiling. They slide around on the floorboards in their socks, jump around on the sofa while her mother is away. Her eyes are closed but Brooke is beaming, immersed in the song.

 Only you can cool my desire.

Oh, oh, oh  I’m on fire.

And as the song draws to a close, Brooke is brought slowly back to reality. She’s alone and slightly tipsy in public. The outro rings through her ears. The spontaneous karaoke is replaced by conversation. The room is back how it once was. Brooke curiously glances behind her.

The booth was completely empty. The woman was no longer there.

…

After a while, she slips out the front for a cigarette. The night air caresses her exposed skin. She’s dressed quite casually, ripped jeans and a baggy shirt that slouched down her shoulder. Brooke didn’t have the commitment to dress like she used to. It cost money and her precious time to look that way. She covers her cigarette to light it, inhaling sharply, exhaling the smoke into the night.

It was a bad habit, but not her worst by any means. While the thought didn’t necessarily thrill her parents or Nina, they gathered it was much better she smoked then binged on drugs or hurt herself again. Brooke liked the routine of it all. It was a meditative experience, taking time out of her day just for herself. Nina had argued that it was making time to slowly kill yourself, but the argument was lost on Brooke. She was always going to do what she wanted, regardless of what anyone had to say. On a good day, they were enough to keep her calm. On a bad day, well, they just came in handy.

Today, Brooke wasn’t entirely sure where she was at. The hours passed painfully slow. Maybe it was just the alcohol clouding her brain, but everything had felt almost like a dream. Dampening her brain with masses of alcohol had just saturated that feeling. Brooke couldn’t stop thinking about that woman. She was utterly surreal. It could have all been part of her imagination, a hallucination. But the fierce stare had penetrated straight into Brooke’s soul. The interaction had been so abrupt, had it been literally anyone else, it would have already slipped her mind.

But it lingers, and it burns.

If Brooke was smart, she would go home and sleep it off. Wake up in the morning, perhaps a little hungover, but at least with a clear mind. Her mind is foggy, just enough for her to keep pushing. She takes the final drags of her cigarette, stubbs the remainder into the wall and she steps towards the building’s door. Except as the door swings open, Brooke’s stopped in the tracks by a sudden force. She loses her balance temporarily as the other person curses in a raspy voice.

“Hey! Watch where you’re goin’.”

“I’m so sor-“ Brooke starts, as she looks up. Caramel hair. Dark eyes. Oh fuck.

Startled, both women step back. The other woman’s mouth agape, eyes wide. Deer in the headlights. Once she regains composure, Brooke restarts her apology.

“I’m so sorry, I should watch where I’m going.”

“Uh,” the woman stammers, “Don’t worry about it. I was just leavin’.”

Hurried, she pushes past her trying to escape. Brooke reaches out, in a rare moment of intoxicated bravery, and grabs her wrist gently. Her fingertips ignite at the feathery touch.

“Wait!” Brooke’s words come out shaky in confusion, hoping, praying that somehow she can get this woman to stay. Brooke was definitely intrigued, “Let me buy you a drink to apologise.”

“I-“ The woman pulls away, stuttering through her words, “I have to go.”

Swiftly, the woman disappears into the night. Left silent and astounded, Brooke is still. Illuminated in the neon light, wind hissing in her ear.

Brooke is on fire.

#rpdr fanfiction #branjie #angst #lesbian au #slow burn #in retrograde #ephemerals #submission #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo

25 notes · View notes

wilhelmjfink · 5 years

Text

The Great Divide - Chapter 1

Summary: As bitter as she was, all Riley Herrington ever wanted to do was help. She’d always figured it stemmed from some innate desire to prevent people from feeling the same way toward the world that she did. And, as Daryl had told her a hundred times, people are not to be trusted and one day she’d run into the wrong person and learn pretty quickly that her confidence in strangers would get her into a lot of trouble. They both knew he was right. He was just trying to teach her before it was too late for her to learn.

Warnings: swearing and violence. don’t be a little bitch.

A/N: omfgg it’s here!!!!! i know that literally nobody is excited about this BUT I AM AND THATS ALL THAT MATTERS SO THANKS FOR COMING EVERYONE!! this is my very first series and features my very first OC and thank you to @crossbowking for always being my #1 fan and editor and hypegirl and inspo and i love you!!! BONUS POINTS TO WHOEVER CAN FIGURE OUT WHAT VIDEO GAME IT’S BASED OFF OF AND WHAT SONG IT’S TITLED AFTER (hint it’s literally in this first chapter)

i don’t own anything except Riley so don’t sue me. also we’ve already established how bad i am at like past and present tense and all that jazz?? i was in honors college shame on me (I dropped out)

enjoy xoxo

Next Chapter

“Never should’a went after that woman.”

Daryl used the heel of his boot to jam the shovel further into the dirt before hoisting loose a pile up and over his shoulder. Digging graves always seemed to put him in a poor mood. Understandably.

So Riley observed him quietly, standing knee deep in her own trench, pondering a response to his blunt statement.

Eventually, she muddled out the only excuse she could ever muster up: “I was just trying to help...”

This time, though, Daryl wouldn’t accept it and tossed his shovel down carelessly onto the ground at his feet before tearing off his gloves and wiping the sweat from his forehead. The heat made him cranky too, she thought. Not a great combination of things.

“That’s all yer ever tryin’ to do, Ri! Don’t ya get it? People ain’t to be trusted. People will kill you. Hell, they’ll do worse things than kill ya, and make ya wish you was dead anyway!”

She flinched visibly at his outburst, taking the brunt of it knowing it was well deserved. But, still... her intentions has been good. Wasn’t there something to be said for that?

Daryl continued. “I know yer smart girl, but god damn if ya don’t act right stupid sometimes.”

Narrowing her eyes, she jabbed her own shovel into the soft ground beside her and leaned onto it. “I’m not stupid, Daryl.”

“Didn’t say ya were stupid, just said ya act like it sometimes.”

She huffed, rolling her eyes away from him and, once again, found herself reflecting on his words. He was absolutely right — that hadn’t been the first time that she’d tried to help someone only to be burned by them in the end, and it definitely wasn’t the first time that Daryl had managed to swoop in at the right time and save her ass. He always had a way of doing that. He continually, purposefully it seemed, made a point to warn her about something before appearing out of thin air to save her from that exact scenario, if only to say “I told you so.”

But nobody had been there for her back when it all began and she was hungry and lost and tired and injured. Nobody trusted her, not that she’d found many others — and the few she did run across mot only neglected to help her, they often left her in worse condition than she’d been before they’d crossed paths. It was not until she’d found Maggie and her family, all of which were more than willing to help her, and all of which were undoubtedly the reason that she was still alive.

Not to mention, all of them the reason that she’d met Daryl in the first place.

Finally, picking her next words carefully, she sighed. “Look, I.... I know. But I just.... I really want to believe that there are still good people left in the world. That’s what kept me alive, after all this started.”

It was blunt, and it was true. And then it was Daryl’s turn to soften, knowing that if he did what came instinctively and became even angrier with her it would end in a shouting match that he couldn’t stand, especially when it all initiated because he knew he’d hurt her feelings. “I know ya do, Ri. There are good people out there still — you’re one of ‘em. But ya can’t find em because bein’ good is dangerous. It’s what gets ya killed, Riley. And I ain’t gonna let you get killed by some crazy lady you offered to help ‘cause she said asked nicely n’ said ‘please’ or somethin’.”

Riley, despite herself couldn’t help but smile. He couldn’t stay mad at her — there would never be an apology, but always some off handed comment or joke. Though, the same went for her, so she couldn’t boast. Regardless, he had a valid point... as he usually did. Daryl was smart, much smarter than she would ever be.

He was a survivor, and she needed to heed his advice, because sooner or later it would be the end of her.

“Yeah, yeah. You wanna hear me say it? Okay, here it is: you are right, Daryl Dixon.” And you always are.”

Riley Herrington had a mental list that she always double and triple checked before she left for a run: first her machete at her side, and then her backpack that held a canteen full of water along with a few stale protein bars, a standard first aid kit with bandages, bands for tourniquets, alcohol and sutures and more, some extra ammunition for her .22 that she always kept holstered at her side, but most importantly, the Polaroid of her and Daryl Dixon that she’d forced him to take back when they’d taken shelter in a derelict prison. He despised it and it was so blurry it was nearly impossible to see it was him, but she knew it was, and that’s what mattered to her.

Once she was sure it was all in line she securely strapped the black bag to her back and sighed, peering over the walls at the sun that was slowing making its way over the horizon. If you’d asked her five years ago if she thought she’d be ever be an early morning person, she would’ve laughed. But now, it was the only way to safely and efficiently get anything done — it seemed to be the most quiet and still part of day anymore. She’d been up for over an hour at this point, and stood patiently awaiting her friends to wake up and join her outside of the mess hall. Tara could sleep through a tornado, but Aaron always lingered around his home until the last possible minute, cherishing every moment with Eric that he had. And Riley didn’t blame him — she was lucky that Daryl never slept either, so they had all night to enjoy each others company until the sun began to rise and they had to get ready for whatever the day held for them.

Footsteps approaching alerted her to Tara, who was making her way toward her with her own bag shouldered and rifle slung across her back, yawning dramatically and rubbing the sleep from her eyes

“Mornin’, sunshine.” Riley laughed, earning her an eye roll from her friend. “You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she replied flatly. “Aaron?”

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”

A comfortable silence settled over the two girls as they waited, Riley dropping the tailgate of the truck and hopping up on it, sitting patiently while her legs dangled off the side.

It should be an easy run — it was just slightly farther out past the town they usually travelled to. The salvageable buildings had all been picked over; all of the others were inaccessible or too dangerous to navigate through. Nobody ever knew what new terrain brought, however, and there was always an air of anxiety when branching out further and further from the safe zone.

Riley turned her head toward the sound of voices drawing closer, spotting Daryl and Aaron as they both made their way toward the front gate.

She hopped down from the truck and slammed it back shut before making her way over to the passenger side door, meeting the two men as they approached.

“Sorry,” Aaron instantly apologized and Riley held up her hand to stop him.

“I don’t wanna hear it,” she joked. “Let’s get going. You ready?”

“Yes ma’am,” he smiled in response. For as sweet as he was, Aaron was a very good guy to have on her side out on a run: he knew the area better than most and was efficient in navigating it, smart and charismatic which more often than not helped them deter themselves from getting in trouble with strangers. Riley, in the other hand, had a difficult time biting her tongue.

As Aaron rounded the truck to the driver’s side, Riley stepped up closer to Daryl, who already had worry etched into his features in the form of wrinkles on his forehead and a furrowed brow, a permanent frown on his face as he took a long drag of the cigarette he held in between his fingers.

“It takes less effort to smile, you know,” she teased him wholeheartedly the way only she could. It was ironic, considering he always mocked her for her constant resting bitch face.

But he only snorted in derision. “It don’t take me much effort to worry about ya either, Ri.”

“Don’t worry.” She pressed her body up against his and locked her fingers into the belt loops of his jeans, resting her chin on his chest to look up at him while his bright blue eyes gazed back down into her own full of nothing but worry. No matter how many runs she went on, how many times he left to go hunting, there was no way not to lose sleep over it anymore. All you could do was wait until whomever you waited for returned and hope that they came back unscathed. “I’ll be in good hands.”

“Yeah,” He exhaled a breath of smoke to the side, avoiding blowing it into her face. “I don’t want ya in anybody’s hands but mine.”

Riley laughed and pushed up on her tiptoes, planting a reassuring kiss on his lips. “You don’t need to worry about that, Dixon.”

“Jus’ be careful, alright?”

“Of course.”

“‘N come back to me.”

“Always.” She smiled at him as the truck engine roared to life behind her, giving him one more quick kiss before turning on her heels and hoisting herself up into the bed of the truck from the wheel well and settling down against the rear windows.

Tara jumped in the side and stuck her hand out of the window, balled into a fist and waiting for Daryl to match it, and smiling when he did so. “We’ll bring her back!”

“Y’all better come back, too,” he yelled back at them as they pulled up to the front gates, slipping through it and taking off down the dirt road behind it.

The wind whipped past Riley’s face, the briskness a pleasant relief to her summer slightly-too-sun-kissed skin and tossing her pigtail braids around. She leaned her head back against the glass pane, striving to hear the faint Breaking Benjamin song as it played quietly on the radio inside the truck.

“Are we almost there?”

“About ten more minutes,” Aaron briefly checked the map that lay across his lap. “Or ten more miles. One of the two.”

Riley heard Tara laugh and she groaned, feeling the effects of the long drive with numb limbs and feet, stretching her legs out in front of her.

The giant sports arena they’d been searching for slowly grew into sight and she knew they were getting close.

Slinging her backpack on over her shoulders, she peered around the truck, observing her surroundings as the trees and dirt roads began to turn into pavement and houses and buildings.

The truck slowed to a stop in front of a parking garage that’s steel doors were dropped and locked, graffiti littering the outsides. Next door was the Hampton Inn — the first stop of their journey today.

They were all pleased to see it relatively untouched, though sealed shut behind a hefty chain. They’d been prepared, and Aaron already had the bolt cutters in his hands.

“Do we wanna split up?” Tara asked, thumbs hooked around her backpack straps as she rocked back and forth on he heel of her red converse. She looked like an inpatient student waiting for the school bus; Riley smiled to herself.

“The hotel has — “ Aaron grunted as he squeezed the handles of the tool together and with a loud clank the chain slid through the door handles and onto the ground as his feet. “...five stories. It’s not very big, so we’ll cover a lot of ground that way.”

“I’ll get topside,” Riley volunteered as she upholstered her pistol and unclipped the mag light from her belt, holding both up poised and ready to fire while she cautiously made her way through the lobby. The long wooden registration desk stretched across the hallway and she jumped up and over, shuffling through the shelves underneath in search of keys. Of course, they were all cards now — she just hoped they still worked without electricity.

She distributed them to her friends accordingly, assuming the numbers written in sharpie on the plastic was the associated room. “Alright, that’s all of them,” she said. “Be safe.”

“You too,” they spoke in unison as they split up and separated.

The hotel was eerily untouched: cups of coffee and open books littered the end tables and ‘do not disturb’ signs still hung on door handles; Riley made a mental note to be extra careful when entering those rooms.

The first room to her left was clean, left in preparation for its next guest that would never arrive. White sheets, white comforters, white pillows, white paint. If it weren’t for the abstract colored paintings on each wall, it would look like an asylum; with its haunting glow that came from shut curtains, the lone strip of sunlight that peered in full of dust that danced around. It gave her just enough light to see into the bathroom, where she snagged the small bottles of soap and shampoo and moved on.

The next room had occupants when it was abandoned: an open suitcase that she hit with the door in the middle of the walkway, clothes and belts and shoes hanging out of it. The chair at the corner desk was tipped over and it was just as dark as the last. She could smell the decay and hear the flies but she couldn’t see around the corner to the beds, so she knocked on the wall harshly and waited for a response before she proceeded forward.

When silence answered her, she tucked her nose into her elbow and gagged — she would never get used to that smell — and eyed the rotted corpse on the bed.

Its wallet was out, drivers license up, almost as if he wanted whomever found him to identify him right away. David A. Keisel, 48, resident of Linesville, Pennsylvania.

Blood splattered the oak headboard and white wall above it, and a Barretta Storm was tucked between its occupants dark, skeletal legs.

“Nice,” she said to herself, nearing the corpse cautiously. “Sorry about this, Davey...” she carefully reached for the pistol that was still in it’s grasp, wincing at the noise his decayed fingers made upon its release.

She checked the gun then, a full magazine with an empty chamber. Thanks, Dave. It had become a common occurrence for her to take items off of dead bodies and she’d always justified it knowing that they would want someone else to use it for their own safety... right? She could probably find more ammo for it if she rifled through his suitcase...

“Help! Help me!”

Riley jumped out of her skin and had the Baretta ready to fire at the disembodied yelling. But it wasn’t close to her — in fact, it seemed to be coming from outside somewhere.

She darted out the door and made for the first emergency exit her eyes could find: a new stairwell to the right of her with a big alarm overtop, undoubtedly to go off if they door ever opened incase of a crisis. She could almost hear the alarms again, blaring amidst the panicked screaming and crying...

Five flights of stairs, guiding by the red glow of the emergency light, and she hit first floor and pushed open another door and found herself outside again, squinting in the sunlight as she tried to adjust from the darkness of the hotel.

A man with dark hair stood on the property line, staring into the woods as if he was waiting for somebody or something to emerge. Riley made her way up to him, weapon aimed, and snuck up behind him slowly and stealthily.

“Don’t move.”

The man whipped around to see her, panic written all over his face, hands automatically flying up in surrender. He didn’t look like a threat — hell, he looked pretty worse for wear actually, and Riley briefly wondered what he’d endured. Dark eyes, shaggy dark hair, dirt caked onto his skin. “Any weapons?”

The man shook his head frantically. “No, no. Please.... you have to help my wife! One of those guys got her! Please! You have—“

“Hey!” Riley snapped, twitching the gun in her hands reinforce her sternness. He eyed it nervously. “Slow down. What guys?”

“One of those guys!” He pointed to some trees and Riley strained to follow his line of sight before she spotted a body crumpled on the ground about a hundred feet away from them. “I didn’t mean to kill him, I.... I didn’t mean.... he had Laura! They took her!”

Riley hesitated and remained silent, hoping that her friends would join her and help her out, but to no prevail. If they’d started in the basement, it was likely they didn’t even hear him screaming for help in the first place.

“Please, please go help her!”

When he turned back around Riley shrugged her backpack off, back tracking and tossing it by in hotel door she’d exited through. She didn’t want this guy threatening to rob her, even if he did look weak and pathetic. People were not to be trusted anymore; she had learned that very quickly. Or she at least should have.

“Are you going to -- ”

“Shut the fuck up, and move.” Riley demanded, shoving the gun into his back once for emphasis. “Try anything funny and I’ll blow yours and Laura’s fucking heads off, got it?”

He nodded shakily and pressed on into he woods, Riley following at his heels.

“You gotta name?” She asked, barrel still pointed at his back.

“Warner,” he responded nervously.

“What’s your story, Warner?”

“Don’t have much of one,” he shrugged. “We’ve been on the go, camp to camp to camp, group to group ever since this shit started — how long has it been? Three years? Four now?”

It sounded oddly inconspicuous but at the same time, it was more common than not. “Beats me,” Riley said flatly. Truthfully, she tried not to think about it anymore. “I find it’s easier not to count the days.”

The dead body lying at the base of a tree was unlike anything she’d ever seen before: in addition to his layer of tattoos all over his face, he had red paint on his face painting some weird tribal-esque marks. Well, she hoped it was just paint...

Head shaven, he wore armor that looked like it had come straight from a video game, with small spikes protruding from his shoulder pads and a big red unfamiliar symbol painted on the front of his chest guard. Everything else was black leather or Kevlar it seemed, and even his boots had spikes on the toes.

“What the fuck?” Riley couldn’t help but stop and gawk at it, crouching down beside it to get a closer look. It reminded her of a cosplayer or some sort of reinactor — but which war had soldiers that dressed like that? “Is this what you mean by ‘those guys’? What the hell is he?”

When Warner didn’t respond, she stood up and turned around in search of him. And by the time she’d spotted him, it was too late to stop him from bringing down the rock he held in his fist, smashing it against her face. There was a sickening crunch, searing pain, and then nothing.

Tag list❤️❤️

@crossbowking @jodiereedus22 @apossiblegentleman @mtngirlforever@sourwolf-sterek32 @winchester-angel @qrangr @cole-winchester @the-bottom-of-the-abyss @twdeadfanfic @crazyaboutnorman@deliciousassafrasssandwich @bunnymother93 @96ssi @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @ima-mther-fckn-starboy @thatsoragan @lonewolf471

cover image source: background daryl i am the girl on the right lmao

#the walking dead fanfiction #twd #the walking dead daryl #the walking dead fanfic #twd fanfiction #daryl dixon #twd daryl dixon #daryl dixon fanfiction #walking dead fanfiction #daryl dixion imagine #the walking dead imagine #walking dead imagine

36 notes · View notes

less-than-hash · 5 years

Text

Pardon My Interjection

This is one of my favorite things that I've ever experienced in any game. Seriously, I think about it all the time.

youtube

(Link.)

It’s probably my favorite example of a companion interjection, which is what we at Obsidian call it when a character who's accompanying you says something in a conversation with some third character. Other studios may have a different term for these.

This is going to be a bit of a deep dive, and it’ll get long. So that you might know exactly what you're getting into below the cut, these are the things I intend to touch on:

Interjections at their simplest

Why interjections exist

Variations on the above that are a bit more complex

How these can be structured behind the scenes

The limits of interjections

Things I'd like to see more of in games

Why the interjection above is my favorite from any game I've played

A WORD OF WARNING: I use examples from Beast of Winter throughout this post, so it contains some mild spoilers regarding that DLC. Plot-wise, it's nothing that you wouldn't learn by reading a review of that release, but if you want to approach every line of dialog as fresh as well-boiled water, beware.

At their simplest, interjections are lines of dialog delivered by a companion during a conversation with a different character. These can range from a comic quip to a strong critique of the player or whoever they're speaking with.

They - again, at their simplest - have no mechanical or narrative impact. They're not there to change anything, but to add flavor.

Because the characters who speak the interjection may or may not be present, the interjections must be designed in such a way that they are not integral. They can't be necessary to the quest, and - though they can advise the player - they can't be relied on to provide information that the player requires.

If Serafen or Ydwin weren't with the player in the capture above, they obviously wouldn't have said something. In this case - as in most cases - no one else would have said anything either. And the player should never have noticed anything missing.

Or, in short, this content is by its nature peripheral.

The goals of these interjections vary, but can generally be distilled down to one idea: they provide additional context to the player. They might be additional information about the world, about the quest, or about the character who interjects, but it's basically icing on the cake of the game.

Behind the scenes, in our conversation editor, this particular exchange looks like this:

You can see where the interjections occur at nodes 178 and 196. You'll notice in both cases that what those nodes flow into is exactly where the conversation would have gone without the presence of those nodes.

Since I wrote this conversation, I likely filled in Serafen's and Ydwin's interjections as I went, but had another designer written this, or had someone else been responsible for those two companions, nodes 178 and 196 might have read in our first draft something like this:

(LR here means "line request," and we use this structure to draw the attention of a writer to something they need to fill in. So, for example, if Paul Kirsch is responsible for Maia, he'll do searches of our conversation database for "LR Maia" to make sure he fills in any content she might have.)

If these are so shallow, what's the point?

Well, for one, even if these were nothing more than icing on the cake, we personally rather like icing. So there's an extent to which it's a design choice. We want our companions to speak up sometimes, so we let them.

In Deadfire, at least, there are also systemic reasons for interjections. They’re a big part of how our relationship system functions. But that’s well outside of the scope of this post.

That said, the narrative context added by these interjections is rarely only for flavor. Each word we write costs money, both in translation and in VO. (Not to mention whatever time we developers spend writing, reviewing, and editing it.) We generally want our dialog to accomplish as much as possible as efficiently as possible.

Serafen's interjection here, for example, reminds the player that Vatnir is a biased character with an incomplete understanding of his circumstances; he should not be understood to be an impartial authority. You might think "yeah, obviously - we just uncovered that he's terrified of the very death that he's been preaching as an unassailable good."

The thing is, the player's relationship with Vatnir also changed in that moment. The player may think they've broken through the lie and now hear the unvarnished truth. Serafen's interjection serves to remind them to stay skeptical. Even if Vatnir intends to tell the truth, he's not omniscient or an expert.

Note that Vatnir's more-or-less correct in this particular claim. The Vytmádh does lead to the White Void (kind of - but that metaphysics discussion is well outside of the scope of this post). Uncertainty, however, can add to the player experience of exploration and discovery, so I didn't want to banish it.

Interjections can also provide other information:

They can suggest alternative routes to approaching obstacles

They build upon the details of the world and the cultural expectations of the characters within the world

They provide a window into what player actions the companion will or will not be pleased by

I think it’s not unreasonable to claim that if we only ever express a companion's preferences through UI notifications after the fact we're not treating the player very fairly. Especially in cases where the change in relationship can be significant.

Serafen, for example, hates slavers. If the player only learned that when Serafen exploded at the player for having treated with slavers, I would consider that bad design. So Serafen speaks early and often about his loathing of the slave trade. If slavery (or even things like slavery, such as indentured servitude) crop up, Serafen expresses his feelings on the subject.

As a result, when the player encounters slavers, they should understand how he is likely to respond to the player working with them, even temporarily or as part of a ruse.

(A bit as he might to this.)

So this very simple implementation is fine... provided that the content within the interjection is straightforward, non-confrontational, and inoffensive - in short, if it doesn't demand any kind of response or follow-up.

Ydwin's wry commentary requires no response from the player or the characters in the scene.

But consider if she'd said something like, "How utterly simple of you, Watcher. Don’t listen to her, little monstroisty. I assure you that our doctrine is nothing like that." Would the conversation still flow well?

I'd say no.

The original Pillars of Eternity was criticized by some (myself included) for the companion interjections feeling divorced from the rest of the world. If Aloth, for example, speaks up during a conversation with an animancer to call him an idiot and a monster, and that character just continues on as if Aloth had never chimed in, the world feels less real and less reactive as a result. Yet that's what too often occurred in the original Pillars.

(This actually led to a fan theory that the companions were all ghosts that had attached themselves to the Watcher. I love this idea, but, alas, it is not the case.)

In Deadfire (and Tyranny) we aimed to avoid this by having some interjections be more complex. If a companion says something that demands a response from whoever the player is speaking to, for example, we always try to have that character react to the companion.

Sometimes we instead give the player an opportunity to respond to the companion:

(Nice typo, past me. Also, in the shipping version I cut "deaf" for "obstinate." I felt that Ydwin would differentiate between willful ignorance and a likely unasked-for physical condition.)

Sometimes other companions may respond, if present:

Other times, NPCs may initiate the interaction with the companion, in essence starting the “interjection:”

Cuitzitli’s third line here wouldn’t play if Serafen weren’t in the party.

Or there might be some combination of the above:

Obviously, these structures become much more complicated to implement. In the tools, the “I thought it was funny” example above looks like this.

Oh gods, it was worse than I imagined!

So why did I structure it like this?

Well, in part, obviously, because I hate myself.

But besides that!

So first off, Vatnir gets top billing for two reasons:

His comment makes the most sense as an immediate response to the player's words

He's the new hotness - by which I mean the companion added in Beast of Winter, in which this conversation takes place.

Okay, makes sense, but why the random node after?

There's a few reasons. One, it seemed important to have someone speak in response to this player choice if at all possible. Since we’ve no idea which characters will be at the player's side, I shot for what I considered a few likely candidates: Ydwin because she's also a focus of Beast of Winter; Edér and Pallegina because it's likely the player will have at least one of the two of them; and Serafen because...

...well, probably because he's the companion I know best and I was the one writing this conversation.

Now I could have still set this bank to go down the nodes and check for each companion, playing Pallegina's only if Edér weren't present, and Serafen's only if Edér wasn't in the party. Instead I chose to make it random so that different players would have different experiences in this moment.

Or, if the player had all four of those characters, for example, I didn't want them to only ever see Edér's comment.

Here's a much simpler multi-layered interjection: When the player speaks with Udyne at the Luminous Bathhouse, Serafen will interrupt her with a threat (assuming he knows she's had contact with the person he's seeking):

If Pallegina's also in the party, however:

In our conversation editor, this is incredibly simple in comparison to the example above.

(Yes, I translated the Hylspeak for the poor voiceover actor.)

It's basically an interjection within an interjection.

These can be very useful, especially for establishing differences in opinions between characters, but they're also tricky. If the chance of the player having a particular companion in the party at any given time is small, the chance of the player having a specific combination of companions is even smaller.

That said, there are ways we can make this a little cheaper.

For one, we can establish expectation - a player who has Serafen and Pallegina in their party can see the above and wonder if perhaps they should pair those two more often. (There are a few exchanges like the above scattered throughout Deadfire.)

We can also focus our work on companions we expect the player to carry into a specific piece of content. Xoti and Edér, for example, seem likely bets for content that involves Eothas. If we know the players are likely to take those two together, we can more easily justify having them converse.

Note that we don’t always do it that way. There’s quite a bit of sniping between Xoti and Vatnir in The Forgotten Sanctum, and I figure the number of people with the two of them in their party at the same time is probably pretty small.

That was a case of character trumping concerns of cost, which can be important - especially to those few players lugging both priests through the Halls Obscured.

But we could instead try a structural solution. In Forgotten Sanctum, for example, if Aloth and Edér are in the party, and Edér's feelings towards Aloth are positive, this bit of conversation will play:

Every node that evaluates as true within that bank will fire a line of dialog. If Pallegina isn't present, her node will not fire. If she is, it will.

But in order for her line to play, your party must include Aloth, Edér, and Pallegina. That seems relatively unlikely, and Pallegina’s line doesn’t provide much information, so why was it important to me to give Pallegina the potential to speak there?

The Forgotten Sanctum is the last of the DLC expansions for Deadfire. It's very nearly the end of this adventure for this group of characters. Further, this is the trio of returning Pillars of Eternity companions, the characters who have walked (/sailed) this path with the player the longest. I wanted to reflect on that relationship, to remind the player where this journey began and how far it's come.

That’s why everything in this explicitly connects back to the Dyrwood, whether Aloth's connection to Thaos and Woedica, Edér's faith, the statue beneath Caed Nua, or Copperlane, a district in Defiance Bay, where the player first met Pallegina.

It's also worth noting that there's a different exchange in the case that Edér's feelings about Aloth are more negative.

Which is to say that even when done efficiently, this kind of reactivity isn't done lightly. It's simply too expensive and too risk-prone to do without purpose.

Thing is, that exchange between Edér, Aloth, and Pallegina could very easily have been set up similarly to the one between Udyne, Serafen, and Pallegina above. It might even have been safer to do so (and clearer to any designers who came along after me to work on it) .

But that structure can also be used in much larger story moments that would be an absolute horror to try to build out as branches.

WARNING: This occurs near the end of Forgotten Sanctum, so if you want to avoid all spoilers, skip past the screen captures of our toolset.

Look at this, read the comments, and try to understand how it functions.

By default, every one of these would play, provided that the person who says it is in the party (which is clearly impossible). But we’ve set some of them only to play if certain other characters aren't in the party.

Serafen will only speak here, for example, if neither Pallegina nor Konstanten came along for the ride.

Some of the companions only speak if they're in a relationship with the player - and those are all bunched together within the bank.

That's because I'm trying to hit specific narrative beats here, to give this semi-random collection of comments narrative coherence. That's why some of the content - that for Edér and Rekke, for example, seems so similar.

These nodes exist not only to provide characterization and empathy, but to deliver the very real and concrete information of "What were the companions doing while the player was zoned out and chatting up a god?"

Between that initial beat from Pallegina, Konstanten, or Serafen and the follow-up from Edér or Rekke, the answer is a clear "watching and waiting" with a bit of "worrying about you" sprinkled in (and doubled down on if the player's lover is present).

Something worth considering: in Forgotten Sanctum alone there are five or six places where we use this structure, generally at big story moments. In every one of them, Vatnir is the last to speak. Why would this be?

With all of the above, I think our team does a pretty solid job of making the companions feel like part of the world, having that world react to them, letting them contradict or support one another, and letting the player respond to them, too.

What I think we could do a better job of is giving the companions agency and systemic weight within the narrative. The companions essentially act as (very complicated and often charming) accessories to the player. Sometimes we let the player call on them to solve a problem or answer a question, as below:

Dragon Age 2 does the same. In the video that began this post, for example, I believe that the player is able to call on Varric if they aren’t charming enough to make the claim of fire on their own.

But ultimately all of the decisions are almost always entirely up to the player.

On some occasions companions will act behind the player’s back without their knowledge. (This is essentially a staple of the Dragon Age series now.)

On others, the player will do something so egregiously against the companion’s beliefs that the companion is forced to stand up to the player. This can occur in several places in Deadfire and throughout the final act of Dragon Age 2, but one of my favorite examples of this is at the Temple of Sacred Ashes in Dragon Age: Origins.

In the former two games, the crisis moments are deeply tied to the plots of the characters. In Origins, however, Leliana’s response to a player desecrating the ashes of Andraste is character-driven rather than plot-driven. It’s not a result of the player acting against Leliana’s aspirations or a faction she’s aligned with - it’s her response to the player doing something she considers absolutely heinous.

I think that’s one of the reasons it’s so memorable.

Which brings me back to the video that began this post.

Here the player makes a successful “check,” and Merrill, merely by being in the party, undermines it and causes the player’s chosen action to fail.

By no means do I think that we should emulate this exactly all of the time. If our companions regularly ruin our player’s plots, we’re just going to make the players resent those characters.

But what we can do is respond appropriately, within the stakes established by the fiction, to the player’s choice of companions in a given situation.

If, for example, the player goes to speak with the chief magistrate of a city with a known criminal in their party, we need to respect that decision - not by having the magistrate ignore it (or quip about it before moving on), but by having meaningful consequences arise from the choice.

Perhaps the magistrate demands a bribe.

Perhaps the player is forced to talk their way out of trouble for themselves.

Perhaps the player becomes a known associate of a criminal - with other characters in the city commenting on it, or on the WANTED posters now baring the player character’s likeness.

We tend to gloss over the player’s choices of companions, to think of them as something that exists outside of the world’s consequences (much as the player tends to), but with none of the forcefulness and agency that the player’s ability to make decisions gives them.

They’re equipment the player added to their character.

I’d like to see us do better, to keep in mind the companions’ beliefs and have them act on them. If I take Anders with me into the chantry - okay, bad example...

If I bring Morrigan into a chantry, I want, at the very least, for her presence to make it more difficult for me to accomplish my goals there. If I end up having to talk our way out of a fight because of a comment she made about the Maker and where the Templars keep their truncheons, so much the better!

When I play tabletop, a tremendous part of the enjoyment I get out of that experience is not knowing how my fellow adventurers will respond to something.

Can I trust K’thir the kobold Wild Sorcerer enough to take him with me to negotiate a peace with the Bloodsalt gangs? Or is he going to throw another bottle of booze at a bugbear?

Note that this shouldn’t always result in unpleasant things for the player! If they take, say, Aveline to chat with the leadership of Kirkwall, she should be able to (proactively, without the player needing to select an option to call on her) smooth over problems, draw out additional information, or negotiate for better rewards by virtue of her relationship to the viscountship.

As devs, we shouldn’t consider this disrespectful of the player’s choices. The companions the player takes with them are more than who deals the most damage or who quips the funniest quips (or is possessed of the cutest whatever part of the anatomy or personality that appeals to you).

When the player builds their party, they’re making a statement about who they want to be with in the world. We should design the world to respond to that decision in meaningful ways.

Cheers, <#

#deadfire #pillars of eternity #narrative design #narrative #gamedev #game design #companions #dialog #dragon age #rpg

87 notes · View notes

chasholidays · 6 years

Note

Clarke and Bellamy write for different websites and accidentally end up in a competition of who can write/get away with the most ridiculous headlines.

Clarke understands why people hate clickbait headlines. She really does. They’re attention-grabbing in all the worst ways, and she hates when they make someone who’s doing good out to be an asshole, or imply that gluten murdered someone’s entire family or whatever.

But as a writer? They’re really fun to come up with. She loves figuring out the right angle to sell things, and given she ends up writing a lot of bullshit, filler articles, it’s nice to come up with a good lead.

There’s an argument to be made that she’s tricking people, but, honestly, clicking on an article in error really isn’t so bad, in a global sense. Anyone who’s seriously upset that they wasted two minutes of their lives reading something they didn’t want to probably would have clicked on an article with an accurate headline to complain about the content anyway.

Besides, ad revenue is ad revenue. She knows what her job is, and it’s not keeping people from leaving outraged comments about how she deceived them with her headlines.

In fact, that’s kind of a bonus.

She’s idly vanity-googling herself when she finds a twitter poll titled “Whose clickbait headlines are better/worse, Bellamy Blake or Clarke Griffin?” and that’s what really kicks the whole thing into high gear.

The poll is neck-in-neck, which is of course the biggest issue. If Clarke was winning handily, she could let it go, but there’s actual debate in the responses, people making cases for her versus this unknown person.

It doesn’t take much to bring out Clarke’s competitive spirit. Clarke has her competitive spirit on speed dial.

The first step is obviously figuring out who Bellamy Blake is and what headlines they’re writing, and that’s pretty easy. He writes for Arkadia Online, which is–unexpected. She’s heard of Arkadia Online, and they have a somewhat older demographic, one of those websites that talks a lot of shit about millennials, and judging from Bellamy’s twitter and articles, he is a millennial, and he doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the brand. He’s a good writer, just nothing like any of the other Arkadia Online staff.

And his headlines really are something else.

It’s not just that they’re clickbaity, it’s that they’re actually inaccurate. It started, from what she can tell, with an article he published after the 2016 election, titled World’s Best Brownies, written in the style of one of those recipe blogs that refuses to just get to the actual recipe. The vast majority of the post was a long diatribe about the political state of the country and how shitty everything was and then finally, at the end, So yeah, let’s eat some fucking brownies, and the recipe.

The response had been mixed, to say the least, and now Bellamy has a reputation as the guy who injects politics into everything, and Clarke can’t say he doesn’t deserve it. An article called Top Five Cutest Kittens includes five adorable kittens, but they’re used as palate cleaners between examples of police brutality. It does seem like a bit of a cruel trick to Clarke, but as soon as anyone clicks in, he’ll have a subtitle with the actual content of the article, for anyone who bothers to read it.

Still, when Clarke wants cute kittens, it’s because she knows she needs a break from the garbage fire that is the world, so she wouldn’t really appreciate getting baited and switched like that.

Even if he does have excellent taste in kitten pictures.

Emailing Bellamy happens without her really meaning it to, clicking on his address at the end of the post and writing the subject line: is what you do actually clickbait? before she’s actually come up with any kind of follow-up message.

She stares at the body of the message for a second, then finds the link for the Twitter poll and pastes it in, adding, Asking for the internet.

It’s one of those emails she sends without really expecting to get a response. Obviously, she wouldn’t mind getting one, but the email is out in the ether. The ball is in Bellamy Blake’s court, and he might just file it away as spam or hate mail or something. If she got a message from an unknown person with that subject line, she’d probably assume it was someone yelling at her and delete it.

Maybe she could have thought that one through a little more.

In fact, though, it’s only about half an hour before he responds, and suddenly they’re corresponding, which she should have recognized as the warning sign it was almost immediately. But she’s always been a little slow with these things.

From: Bellamy Blake ([email protected])To: Clarke Griffin ([email protected])Subject: Re: is what you do actually clickbait?

Merriam Webster defines clickbait as “something (such as a headline) designed to make readers want to click on a hyperlink especially when the link leads to content of dubious value or interest,” so after some consideration I’ve decided that what I do is actually reverse clickbait. The headline is designed to make people click, but the content isn’t of dubious value. Hope that clears everything up.

From: Clarke Griffin ([email protected])To: Bellamy Blake ([email protected])Subject: Re: is what you do actually clickbait?

Did you really start a response with “Merriam Webster defines”? Not doing that is like journalism 101.

From: Bellamy Blake ([email protected])To: Clarke Griffin ([email protected])Subject: Re: is what you do actually clickbait?

Punctuation goes inside the quotation marks, if we’re doing writing critique over email.

From: Clarke Griffin ([email protected])To: Bellamy Blake ([email protected])Subject: Re: is what you do actually clickbait?

According to Purdue University, question marks and exclamation points go outside of quotation marks when the punctuation applies to the whole sentence.

Hope that clears everything up

She’s expecting that to be the end of it, less because they were both kind of assholes and more because there isn’t really anything else to say. They had a conversation, and that conversation is now over. She follows him on Twitter, because he does seem decently cool, and she’s a little curious what else he’s going to write. Friends don’t let friends miss out on weird headlines.

He follows her back, and two days later DMs her, which she’s maybe unreasonably excited about.

bellamyblake1: So if you were writing an article about getting rid of the electoral college, which fall fashion trend would you reference in the headline?Asking for a friend

edenclarke: What are the fall fashion trends I’m picking from?

bellamyblake1: ShitI was hoping you’d know someScarves? I feel like I don’t understand when/why people wear scarves nowThat probably makes them a fashion trend

edenclarke: WowYou really thought this one through

bellamyblake1: “Five Scarves You Need This Holiday Season”That works, right?

edenclarke: You know, I’ve looked at the rest of your websiteIt’s very normalHow do you possibly get away with this?

bellamyblake1: I write very normal articlesThey love themI’m hitting a demographic they don’t know how to reachThey feel my puff pieces appeal to women and millennials

edenclarke: So no one actually reads what you write

bellamyblake1: Not for a whileMy best friend is our tech guyHe does all the coding, checks the email, etc etcEveryone else on staff is a technophobeAnd coming from me that’s saying a lot because I’m still scared of twitter

edenclarke: That’s not technophobia, that’s survival instinctEveryone should be scared of twitterSo you get away with those headlines because no one’s paying attention?That makes me feel better

bellamyblake1: What’s that supposed to mean?

edenclarke: I actually have editors reading my stuffI couldn’t get away with the stuff you get away with

bellamyblake1: Oh yeah that makes senseI figured you weren’t really committed to the whole thing

Clarke frowns at the screen. It’s a trap. She knows it’s a trap. He’s obviously fucking with her, and she deserves it, since she was kind of fucking with him. She can let this go and be a smarter, more mature person.

edenclarke: Not really committed?

bellamyblake1: You’re just in it for the clicks

edenclarke: As opposed to you, with your higher moral calling

bellamyblake1: Hey, I’m convincing people to read stuff that’s good for themI’m okay with considering that a higher moral calling

edenclarke: Sometimes people might actually want to see a bunch of cat picturesIt’s not actually fair to make them read about politics when they’re trying to take a break

bellamyblake1: TrueBut in my defense, I do show them the cat picturesI found five scarf pictures on my own, by the waySo thanks for nothing

edenclarke: No problemAny time

That’s basically how it goes, for the next couple months. The two of them will chat every few days about the next ridiculous headline they’re planning to use, each of them egging the other on to new heights, and Clarke’s always expecting someone with some kind of authority to protest to what they’re doing, but some of the weirdos on twitter have taken notice of the escalation and are talking about it a lot, so her bosses are happy, and Bellamy’s paper seems to genuinely have no idea what he does. They still think he’s writing lifestyle articles instead of attempting to incite revolution.

It’s kind of cool, but a little–unsatisfying. Clarke likes Bellamy, in a fairly limited sense, but her internet stalking hasn’t really turned up much about him. Pictures from college show an attractive, smiling boy with messy hair and white teeth, but she hasn’t found further records of him. He’s a few years older than her, apparently single, with a younger sister who likes to make fun of him on twitter.

She thinks she might like him, but it feels like she needs more information to really make up her mind about it. And she’d like to get it, so she can stop having these fluttery feelings every time she sees his name. Those can’t be right.

Still, when he DMs her, it still makes her heart skip every time. And when she sees the message, Hey you’re in Seattle, right?, it goes into overdrive.

edenclarke: StalkerYeahWhy?

bellamyblake1: I’m going to be in town next weekInterview

edenclarke: Interview?You’re leaving behind the exciting world of online journalism?

bellamyblake1: Even betterI might get hired as an actual political writerInstead of lifestyleNot that I mind lifestyle, but

edenclarke: Yeah, your heart seems to be somewhere elseSo you might be relocating?

bellamyblake1: MaybeIt’s mostly online so they don’t require movingBut they prefer it and my lease is up in a month or so and I kind of hate LA

edenclarke: Wow, yeahI can’t imagine you living there

bellamyblake1: I grew up hereBut I’m thinking it might be time for a changeAnyway, I was hoping you’d be willing to meet upShow me around town a littleSell me on the placeOr not, I guess, depending on how you feel about me moving there

edenclarke: I can probably pencil you in, yeahSend me your flight detailsAnd scheduleWe’ll see when we’re both free

The next few days feel endless. Bellamy’s coming in on Saturday afternoon and staying until Wednesday, to get the best deal on flights. When she offers to grab drinks with him after he lands, he agrees, and asks if she would have time on Sunday to do some sightseeing.

She agrees to that too, and can’t help hoping they won’t actually have to meet up on Sunday, because she will have just brought him home with her. He’s got an Air BnB, but she can’t help thinking she’s a better prospect.

Saturday afternoon she throws up an article while he’s on the plane, goes for a run in an attempt to calm her nerves, and heads over to the bar once Bellamy texts that he’s on the ground. She arrives way too early, given he still has to deplane and get out of the airport, but it’s not like obsessing at her apartment is helping. She might as well obsess at the bar.

Ten minutes after he tells her he’s on his way, he sits down next to her, offering a sheepish smile that probably would have won her over even if she hadn’t already been mostly won.

“Hey, Clarke.”

His voice is rich and smooth and he has glasses sliding down his nose and the entire effect is just way too much. “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you too.” He looks her up and down, worrying his lip a little. “Just to get it out of the way, uh–can I buy you a drink?”

“You don’t have to buy me a drink,” she says, feeling her own smile start to grow. “You can just flirt with me.”

His grin is honestly one of the best things she’s ever seen in her life. “I was already doing that. I figured I should step it up in person.”

“Feel free,” she says, and he slides his stool closer, smiling.

He cancels the Air BnB the next day.

Bellamy Blake @bellamyblake1New article up, Fifteen Outrageous Reasons to Get Married (You Won’t Believe #7)! Please R&R.

Clarke Griffin @edenclarkeReplying to @bellamyblake1Are you sure that’s where the exclamation point goes? I think we should consult Purdue University

Bellamy Blake @bellamyblake1Replying to @bellamyblake1 @edenclarkeThat’s seriously your question?

Clarke Griffin @edenclarkeReplying to @bellamyblake1 @edenclarkeDefinitely my question, yeah

Clarke Griffin @edenclarkeReplying to @bellamyblake1 @edenclarkeMy answer is yes

#pixiepan

95 notes · View notes

67chevy-imagine · 7 years

Text

Rainfall

Pairing: Sam x Reader

Words: 2,521

Summary: A glimpse of how deep Sam’s affections truly are.

A/N: I know I haven’t written in a LONG time, but hopefully you’ll like this! I enjoyed writing it because it’s not really centered around monsters, but more the brothers (and readers) day to day life. Please message/comment any feedback. I appreciate and want to hear it all! (Also, a special mention to Fem, who is pretty much my editor at this point, and inspired a lot of this story.)

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

Most days, Dean pretended as if he didn’t see the way his little brother got lost while looking at you. Other times, he would snort loudly, warranting a swift under-the-table kick from a red faced Sam. It was usually all harmless; Dean figured that it was a crush that would pass just as quickly as it came. Last night’s hunt, proved differently:

The rain was absolutely torrential, falling down in thick sheets, slapping itself against the Impala’s windows. The wind was no better. It seemed to toss the car around like a toy in a child’s hand.

“Maybe we should just find a motel and stick it out? What’s the harm in going tomorrow, instead?” You asked from the backseat, pulling your jacket tighter around your body.

Sam sighed audibly. “I think she’s right, Dean.”

The eldest Winchester’s eyes met yours through the rear-view mirror. “Alright, fine.”

You exhaled from relief and began searching for a nearby motel on your phone.

“The only one not fully booked is pretty shitty.” You stated.

Dean laughed, “Aren’t they all?”

“You’re not wrong.” You smiled and passed your phone to Sam who began giving directions based on the address.

About ten minutes later, you were apologizing profusely.

“It’s fine, it’s not that bad.” Sam said, trying to get the water running for the third time.

“Not that bad?” Dean’s voice was getting louder with each word, “I’m pretty sure a cockroach wouldn’t live here!”

“Hey!” Sam shouted at his brother, then lowered his voice, “Take it easy.”

You smiled at him, thanking him.

“I’m sorry guys, it was really the only one within a five mile radius. I assumed because of the rain, and-”

“It’s fine.” Sam’s hand gripped your shoulder, “Right?” His eyes met his brothers.

“Yeah, yeah.” Dean rolled his eyes and began busying himself with the contents of his bag. “Of course, you’d take her side.” He mumbled under his breath.

“What?” You asked.

“Nothing.” Dean peeled off his shirt and pulled on a new one.

You followed Sam towards the bathroom, “What’s gotten into him?” You asked quietly, motioning towards Dean.

“He’s just hungry and tired, so he’s acting like a jackass.” He said, and gave the shower handle a strong turn. Finally, the sound of running water filled the room.

You had been hunting with the brothers for nearly a year, and Dean was right. Looking around the tiny bathroom, this had to have been the worst motel yet.

“He’s right though, it’s pretty fucking bad in here.” You stated, looking towards a stain that had to have been piss.

Sam let out a laugh, “We’ll survive.”

“Maybe I’ll go grab some snacks from the vending machine outside.” You suggested.

“I’ll go with you.” Sam said, walking back towards the beds.

Dean was seated by the small table, trying to get the twenty-year-old television to work.

“Where are you guys going?” Dean asked, his head turning when he heard you zip up your jacket.

“There’s a vending machine outside. Do you want to join?” You asked.

“I’m starved.” He agreed, and grabbed his coat.

Sam leaned down, “Told you.” He whispered and you stifled a laugh.

The rain was no better than before. If anything, it seemed worse now that you were standing in it, rather than driving through it in a car.

“Where is it?” Dean shouted over the storm.

“Right around this side!” You exclaimed, voice garbled from the sound of rain hitting the asphalt.

Finally, your hand found the buttons on the machine and Sam passed you his wallet.

“Chips, right?” You shouted to Dean, whose figure you saw nod.

Meanwhile, Sam rubbed his arm against the glass to see more clearly what this machine had to offer. He pointed to a chocolate bar, and you began punching in those numbers.

Mid-way, your stomach did a flip. Not how you felt back in highschool when you had a crush, but rather the kind when you were on a hunt and could feel someone, or something, watching you.

Within seconds, shouting erupted.

“Give me it!” An unfamiliar voice reached toward the money in your hand.

From the shock, you couldn’t find a way to fight back.

Instead, Dean was on him in seconds. Before you even had a chance to defend yourself, Dean’s hands were grabbing his neck. Sam gripped your shoulders and pulled you further from the two of them.

Then, you saw Dean step back.

“Dean!” Sam shouted over the rainfall, assuming his brother stepped back because the man had finally given up, “Come on!”

But, his brother didn’t answer. He continued stepping back, until finally a gun came into view.

“Give me what you guys got!” The man shouted, pointing the gun at you.

None of you grabbed your weapons when leaving the room. So, the three of you stood there.

No weapons, and nothing to give this deranged man.

Sam saw it before you did. Through the thickness of the storm, he saw the man lift his chin slightly and grip his gun tighter, before pulling the trigger.

“No!” You shouted as Sam’s feet left the floor and his body dove in front of yours. You dropped down to the ground, trying to find where the bullet hit, but all of his clothing was already soaking wet.

“He’s gone.” Dean bent down and began lifting his brother up. The sound of his own gun must have scared him off, or perhaps he realized the three of you had nothing for him.

“Come on, Sammy.” Dean begged his brother, “Just a few more minutes.”

You grabbed his other arm, and slung it over yourself.

“Shoulder.” Sam muttered, his eyes drooping shut.

Your hand reached up and met his shoulder, causing him to groan in pain.

“Sorry, I’m sorry.” You whispered, but there was no way he could have heard you over the downfall. You stared at your hand, glimpses of crimson blood being washed away by the rain as you walked back towards the room.

When you finally got inside, Dean helped drop Sam onto the bed, and you quickly abandoned your wet clothing in favor of a large sweatshirt.

“He’s cold.” Was all that was able to leave your lips.

“It’s from the rain.” Dean stated, quickly getting the first aid kit Sam had packed into his duffel. “Quick, get his shirt off.” He commanded.

Your fingers shook as you reached for the buttons, quickly but carefully undoing each one until you finally pried the material off of him. You glanced over at Dean, whose hands were completely steady. His eyes were the only giveaway that he was panicking.

“Hey, come on.” You placed your hand on Sam’s jaw, “Stay awake, okay?”

“Sterilize this.” Dean shoved the tweezers into your hand. Quickly, you ran to the stove and tried to ignite a flame.

“There’s no gas!” You exclaimed, trying frantically one more time. “Wait-” Finally a hint of light showed itself, and you turned the knob completely until you were able to heat the long metal tweezers.

“Keep him awake.” Dean stated, looking at you. You nodded, and he looked back at his brother, ready to pull the bullet out.

“It’s not broken, that’s good.” He said, and you nodded.

You placed both your hands on either side of Sam’s face, and gripped his skin. “Please, look at me.”

His eyes threatened to open, then they drooped shut again. “Sammy, please!” You begged, and unbeknownst to you, tears began to spill onto your cheeks.

“Why did you do that?” You asked, “Why would you?”

Dean hadn’t said a word in a few minutes, he just let you yell at his little brother until your throat was sore.

“Done.” Dean stated, tying off the stitches, “But his clothes are still soaking wet. He can’t be cold right now. I’m going to go shower, can you take care of that?”

You nodded, and wiped your face with your palms. “Yeah, I got it.”

Once he gave one more look to his brother, Dean tossed the bloodied gauze onto the countertop and jumped into the shower.

“Oh god.” You gripped his hands, which truly were freezing. “I hope you like this.” You whispered to yourself, trying to pick out a sweater to match the flannel pajama pants he had packed.

“Here we go.” You inhaled and took off the rest of his shirt. Carefully, you helped his large body into a grey sweater, and then began undoing his jeans.

“God, you’re an idiot.” You spoke to his unconscious figure. “You could’ve died.”

Quickly, you pulled the pants onto him and pulled the blanket over his body.

“I know you’ll wake up in an hour or so, but until then, I’ve got to keep you warm.” You said, pretending he was listening. “These bedsheets are pretty damn thin.”

You crawled under the covers, pressing yourself against his good side. Gently, you rested your head on his chest, careful to stay away from the wound, and listened to his heart beating. It was reassuring. The constant thumping under this man's skin was the only thing keeping you from crying, again.

It was strange. After the emotional drain, you had expected to fall asleep immediately. But about an hour later, you still lay by his side, holding his hand just to give him as much warmth as possible.

Dean had already dropped himself onto his bed a while ago. He had thanked you for your help, and began snoring in seconds. You nearly laughed at just how quickly he could fall asleep.

You were drawn out from your thoughts when you felt Sam grip your fingers. You shot up, and looked at him, praying he would open his eyes.

“Sam.” You whispered, reaching up and running a hand through his hair. Slowly, he found the strength to look up at you. You exhaled a breath of relief.

“How do you feel?” You asked, and he tried to sit up. “Don’t.” You warned, pushing him softly back onto the pillow.

His eyes met yours through the darkness of the room.

“Are you alright?” He asked, and your lips parted.

“Me?”

“Yes.” He said and his hands reached up to check your arms and neck as if for a wound.

You grabbed his wrists and put his hands back down.

He winced in pain as he tried to shift positions.

“I’m going to ask one more time. How do you feel?” You asked, as if the sound he made wasn’t a clear answer.

“I’m fine.” He exhaled and looked down at his shoulder. He lifted up his sweater, placing his fingers on the stitching. He looked over at his brothers sleeping figure. It was interesting how Sam knew by just the work done on him, who had stitched him up. Then, he lifted the covers and looked at what he was wearing. A slight tinge of embarrassment sounded in his voice as he thanked you, rather awkwardly.

You settled back down under the sheets, now keeping a respectable distance between yourself and Sam. Moments later though, you felt his arm pull you towards him.

“Sam, you need to rest. Stop exerting pressure on yourself.” You mumbled, trying to pull away.

“I’m fine.” He repeated for what seemed like the hundredth time.

“No, you’re not!” You shouted, suddenly. “You’re not fucking fine!”

Dean stirred from his sleep, waking up.

Sam’s eyes widened as he watched you jump out from the bed.

“Y/N-”

“You jumped in front of a bullet, Sam! You could’ve died!” You exclaimed, hands reaching for your hair, tugging slightly.

“What happened?” Dean’s voice was raspy, thick with sleep.

“Your brother jumped in front of a bullet, that’s what happened!” You said loudly.

Dean sat up on the edge of the bed, his legs hitting the floor. He turned on the table lamp, watching with disappointment as it’s weak light bulb flickered.

“She’s right.” Dean turned his attention to his younger brother who was attempting to sit up.

When Sam was finally seated, he leaned his back against headboard and looked down into his lap.

“Come on, Sammy. Why did you do that? We’ve been in worse situations!” Dean began throwing questions at his brother, hardly stopping to breathe, “Why couldn’t you have-”

“Because it was aimed at her!” Sam shouted, his arm extended in your direction.

Dean stopped immediately.

“Y/N, would have been killed!” He continued.

Silence coated the room.

After what seemed like an hour later, you spoke. “You didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t care.” Sam said, his voice finally lowered. “He pointed a gun at you.”

Dean rubbed his face with his hands while you stared at Sam, absolutely speechless.

His soft hazel eyes were trained on yours, waiting for you to say something, or nothing.

Meanwhile, Dean watched as you slowly realized what he had already known for months. He watched as your lips parted and gaze softened, now seeing the depth of Sam’s affection towards you.

When your breathing finally steadied, you forced your feet to take one step at a time back towards the bed. Sam kept his gaze on you, allowing you to lift the blanket and once again lay next to him.

You heard Dean switch the lamp off, and fall back onto his pillow. Leaning over, you gripped his jaw in your hand, just as you did hours ago when all you saw was red, and pressed a kiss against his forehead.

Many months of unspoken feelings came apart within seconds. Sam reached up and placed his hand behind your neck, his fingers causing goosebumps to rise. You leaned down and your lips hit his, fitting together like puzzle pieces. He pressed his nose against yours, trying to pull as much of you to himself as he could.

“Promise me,” You pulled away from him, “that you will never scare me like that again.”

“We’re hunters.” He whispered.

“I know.” You sighed and nestled yourself into his side. He wrapped his arm around you, squeezing your body against his.

“I’m sorry.” He said against your head. He paused for a beat, “I just saw the gun, and I saw you, so I made a choice.”

You laced your fingers with his, unable to think of anything to respond with. He squeezed your hand in his, rubbing his thumb against yours.

“You’re making it really hard to stay mad.” You muttered into his chest.

A light laugh escaped his lips and you exhaled from relief, forgetting just how much you yearned to hear it one more time.

“Get some sleep.” Sam’s voice was gentle. “Goodnight.”

“Night.” You whispered, allowing your eyes to finally shut.

While you slept, Sam stayed awake. For too long he had waited to be able to hold you by his side. He watched while you dreamt, how your nose curved perfectly to your lips and down to your chin. His fingers swept a few strands of hair from your face, uncovering a tiny scar by your ear. You began to snore lightly, and he smiled to himself.

Sam didn’t regret his decision for even one second.

396 notes · View notes

thebibliomancer · 6 years

Text

Essential Avengers: Avengers #158: When Avengers Clash!

April, 1977

What is not immediately evident is that we are facing another change in the creative team.

Steve Englehart was kicked off the book after #150. After that, Gerry Conway took over with an assist by Jim Shooter in #151 and #156. With this issue, Jim Shooter takes over until #177, a little after he becomes Editor-in-Chief.

And its another rough transition.

I don’t actually remember being a huge fan of Shooter’s Avengers on my first read through so I’ll see if that holds up. But in this issue at least, we get off to a semi-rocky start.

Last time: Wonder Man came back to life, causing non-ending angsts in the Vision right when he was feeling good about himself and his capacity for emotions. Also, a metaphor in the shape of a stone statue of Black Knight beat up the team but punched itself to death against Vision.

This time: Some continuity hiccups.

We start off with the Vision staring moodily, as he is wont to do, but specifically at the broken statue of Black Knight.

The heap of broken statue is a lot more recognizable as specific body parts then it was last time but it does make for a more striking visual. Also, Statue Knight is staring into my soul and its not okay.

Wonder Man walks into the room supporting Scarlet Witch, both in costume. Which is one of those continuity hiccups because they were both already in the room in a pile of defeated heroes and also not in costume.

So I have to believe that they left while Vision was ‘fighting’ Statue Knight specifically to get changed and then came back, instead of helping.

But seeing Wonder Man supporting Wanda is just too much for Vision. He angrily announces that because of Wonder Man he has already relinquished his foolish delusions of humanity and will soon relinquish his wife BECAUSE A ROBOT HAS NO RIGHT TO ONE but hey until he does, hands off.

And then he punches Wonder Man for copping a friendly demeanor.

Also, I notice he hasn’t consulted Wanda with this. Which just goes to show that maybe he’s the most human of all because real human men similarly disregard her emotions and wants and needs.

Its a wonder she didn’t murder them all sooner.

Anyway, so now they’re fight.

Even though Wonder Man was knocked out by a mailbox last time, it will take more than a single punch and also SOLAR BEAM to take him down this time. He’s apparently getting his strength back and also he’s tired of getting knocked out by cheap shots so much.

He tries to tackle Vision but, y’know, intangible.

Except Vision apparently has the human emotion of shit talking because he decides that he’ll humble Wonder Man on his own terms instead of just remaining untouchably intangible.

Of course, even if he’s diamond hard, Wonder Man can just knock him off his feet by attacking the ground.

Its fine, Tony will pay for it.

Speaking of the cool exec with a heart of steel, he comes to underneath the computer bank that Black Knight tipped over on top of him.

Because apparently Shooter skimmed the previous issue?

Because Iron Man was one of the heap of heroes that should already be in the room where Wonder Man and Vision are fighting.

But I’ll try not to harp on it too much.

Back to the fight where Vision continues to ignore Wanda’s desires by exchanging blows with Wonder Man even as she insists that they cut it out.

I guess he gets tired of punching a fellow tough customer about the chest because he tries to go for his insta-win sure fire finishing move and fists Wonder Man through the chest.

But Wonder Man is able to resist the pain and punches Vision in the face.

He’s not the only one that the sure fire fizzled on but I think it usually just doesn’t work at all rather than ‘I say that hurts like the dickens -pawnch-’

The rest of the heroes that should already be in the room show up and Scarlet Witch begs one of them to stop this nonsense.

But Iron Man goes “Let’s just let them fight it out!” but stops just short of suggesting they bet on the outcome.

Tony. Geez. I know they have to work out their issues but a) this is probably not the most productive way? and b) they’re liable to cause a lot of damage to your home before they finish.

Okay. I know the theory is that they have to get it out of their system but guess what? IT DOES NOT WORK. They have this exact same fight again during the Busiek era and eventually have to use their words to clearly express what their thoughts and feelings are, instead of their fists. Because frequently, words work better than fists in the very specific field of robo-angst.

In one of the few times its a disadvantage to be a robot instead of an ionically enhanced human, Vision’s solar batteries are running low while Wonder Man is just getting fired up.

In desperation, Vision drains his solar batteries even faster by using SOLAR BEAM right at Wonder Man’s face.

It’s SUPER EFFECTIVE!

But even though this apparently hurt worse than anybody ever hurt him before (even worse than dying!), Wonder Man has enough juice to BWA-AM Vision.

And now that both heroes have knocked the shit out of each other and are too shaky on their feet to continue, now Iron Man tells them to cut it out.

And now that he has only now decided it was a problem, he scolds Wonder Man for breaking the mansion even though he’s a guest.

Oh and he also tells Vision to act like a man or man-shaped robot instead of a child. Or you’re grounded, mister.

And now that the fight is over, Jarvis shows up to make them all feel bad. He also took the time after waking up from a stone cold beating to put on some fresh clothes but also he fielded an emergency call and told them they were shit out of luck because the Avengers were dealing with personal biz.

Also, are they expecting him to sweep up the stone gentleman or should he call a morgue?

Jarvis’ ploy, if it were that and I’m not simply making up motives, works. Because Iron Man can’t believe that they’ve gotten to the point where they’re turning people away to wallow in their own troubles.

Which might but then again might not be fair. How long did you watch Vision and Wonder Man punch each other?

Before that they were unconscious because a statue beat them up and before that it was Christmas damnit. Can’t they have just one quiet day?? Also, is it still Christmas? They never mention it again. I think they were unconscious through the entire holiday.

But, yeah, obviously just sitting back and watching Vision and Wonder Man beat each other up instead of literally any other thing was a bad decision and you should feel bad, Iron Man.

Meanwhile, we finally get to the plot of the issue.

Because apparently! Vision and Wonder Man’s tension coming to a head? Wasn’t enough of a plot!?

I’d usually discuss this at the end but here goes:

This issue, if it was going to have Vision and Wonder Man punching each other in the head because of Vision’s poor ability to both communicate and deal effectively with his emotions, should have been just about that.

And if the fight was only going to be part of the issue before moving onto something else, that something else should have been thematically connected. As it is, this issue feels disjointed.

It feels like Shooter felt obliged to wrap up this plot thread before moving onto stuff he’d rather write about.

And dang will I have small, mostly neutral comments to say about the stuff Shooter would rather write about. Later. After we’ve seen a couple examples.

So the plot happens in Canada because Marvel Canada is a fascinatingly terrible den of evil, worse than a thousand Mos Eisleys. Specifically a research community in the Canadian Rockies called Research City because scientists are bad at naming the things, some of the times.

And the worst scientist has taken over this research hamlet (it has fewer than ten buildings, it is not a city).

Frank Hall.

And he is nettled because one of the other scientists has disobeyed orders and tried to contact the outside world and request the Avengers’ help.

That is not how we do in Research Commonwealth, JOSEPH.

Just for that, Frank Hall is taking the entire community off the map. TRY TO SNEAK OUT NOW, JOSEPH.

And then he crushes Joseph with kirby krackle.

Not to death but enough that Joseph’s wife Judy begs Frank Hall to stop hurting him.

Frank does not take it well. He gets some real squinty eye face going on for reasons that will be revealed later. But he doesn’t kill Joseph. Just has him taken away and locked up.

Because he just had a wonderful, awful idea.

Which is him beating up the Avengers.

He just now realized that he could become a supervillain instead of being a tinpot bully dictator of a small research community.

...

Frank Hall has sort of limited ambitions considering his scope of power.

Also, he forces Judy to make him a supervillain suit.

Its not specified whether she made it to his exact specifications or spitefully made it to make him look like a prat but he kinda does.

Oh also his backstory: It is every backstory ever about a scientist fucking up science so hard that he becomes a supervillain.

Except slower.

He was working on a teleport beam, doubled the power to see what would happen, and accidentally gave himself gravity powers.

Instead of immediately going megalomaniacal, he at first used his powers to throw stuff at people’s heads. Because, as mentioned, Frank Hall is a petty prick.

But then people started to shun him, because he kept throwing stuff at their heads.

So he proved their impressions of him correct by seizing control over the entire not-city and pushing people around.

And that’s why Frank Hall, Graviton, is the worst.

Also, he’s an entitled, harassing bastard.

Remember how he got angry that Judy didn’t want Joseph to be hurt? It was because he decided that he deserves her. Because she’s his fave.

She’s a bit distracted even though he’s all touching up on her face though because behind his back she noticed the Avengers standing outside the window watching this whole thing with evident disgust.

So she does the thing that everyone does in such a situation and unconvincingly goes “tell me more” but Frank Hall is an entitled idiot bastard and falls for it.

Not that it matters.

Because another woman, Raquel, who was jealous of Judy, bursts in and announces that the Avengers are RIGHT BEHIND YOU.

And the gig is up so the Avengers dramatically fly through the window.

(Attack instead of Assemble? Whats the deeeeeal??)

Things immediately go to hell.

Graviton smashes Vision into the ground with gravity and then blows the rest of the Avengers away with anti-gravity. Because sure.

Vision increases his mass to max mass to max his muscles but Graviton just makes him weightless and flings him through the roof.

Clearly, it is time to pull out the big gun.

Cap readies his mighty shield because he knows that when he flings his mighty shield all who oppose his shield must yield. But Graviton saw through that ploy and increase the mass of the shield.

Now Cap is opposing the mighty shield and must yield. By getting crushed.

Although what kind of posture were you in, Cap, where your shield getting super heavy all of a sudden made you fall backwards with it on top of you instead of just dropping it?

Meanwhile, Judy tries to run away because honestly, wouldn’t you? And Raquel beans her in the back of the head with a vase maybe. Because Raquel is not a great person. Also, this will be important later.

Iron Man and Scarlet Witch attempt to blast Graviton but he just... gravities the floor up so that it blocks the... attack...

I don’t think Graviton knows what gravity is.

He says he made the section of the floor lighter than helium so that it would rise up to protect him but. It was still connected to other floor that was not lighter than helium.

Also, remember when Scarlet Witch’s powers had evolved so she had control over natural forces.

Bet those would come in handy here instead of just shooting generic energy. Alas. The thread has been lost.

Anyway, Graviton condenses some floor fragments into a super-dense sphere and hucks it at the two heroes.

Because armor is better than not armor in this scenario, Iron Man shields Scarlet Witch from the sphere but they both get knocked out anyway.

Although at least her head is still head shaped and not salsa.

Wasp and Yellowjacket try their patented and recently useless Fly Around While Tiny And Annoy Someone battle technique but Graviton knocks them out with a pencil.

It sure is exciting watching those two consistently be useless. =\

Finally, since its just the two of them left, Beast and Wonder Man rush Graviton together but he just drops the ceiling on them. While boasting about how he wishes there were more Avengers because of how easy this is. Womp womp.

Anyway the Avengers are now all defeated. Even Vision. Who we last saw crashing through the ceiling while weightless and also at his maximum density so something like that shouldn’t be enough to knock him out?

Maybe the ceiling was made of mailbox.

And okay. This kind of stomp happens to the Avengers sometimes and with increasing frequency in the near future. But at least Graviton’s backstory had him dicking with his powers for a while before using them in a fight.

Imagine how embarrassing it would be if he were pulling off this kind of nonsense after having just woken up from a coma and never practicing his powers.

Anyway, now nothing can stop him probably and he’ll rule the world possibly.

And Raquel smugly thinks that she’ll rule it at his side because she has some issues she needs to work though.

Next time: More of this. YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE HOW GRAVITON IS DEFEATED probably.

Hey, you should follow @essential-avengers. Why? When I get twenty followers, I’ll do a bonus post where I look at some Alternate Avengers. Avengers from the future? From when mangas roamed the Earth? Or from an alternate universe? Up to you!

11 notes · View notes

thinkanamelater · 7 years

Text

Read me right (A Serirei Fanfiction)

Alternate Universe - Writer

Writer’s block is not very nice

Also on AO3!

"I can’t. I just- I can’t anymore. Maybe I’m not supposed to be a writer, after all"

"You’ve told me the same thing, every single time, before giving me-giving your readers an amazing story. Why should I believe you this time?"

Serizawa huffed at that, but it was masked with the thunk that came as his forehead went down against the table, heavy curls following suit and covering the rest of his face. Of course Reigen would say that, but Reigen didn’t understand!

Fantasy was his life. Mythical creatures, magical plots, epic fights between brave knights, and so on… He had been devouring stories like that since he knew how to read; and had been writing those stories (in his mind, they were chapters of worldbuilding for a huge novel he’d like to finish someday, but it wasn’t something he’d easily say out loud) for longer than he could remember; and started publishing them around a year or so, with Reigen as his editor.

How that society came to be, would probably make an interesting story on its own. Months had passed before Serizawa found out Reigen was just pretending to work on the magazine that now published him, when they first met. At that day, Serizawa still didn’t know the details of what had happened, but he received enough money to afford living on his own and indulge on his hobbies, and that was enough for him.

That was, until today. He was incredibly blocked. No, worse, he was stale. He had tried but he couldn’t come up with an interesting enough plot, one that would motivate him to keep writing. He had plenty of characters to choose from, plenty storylines he could deepen, but everything just… seemed so repetitive. It seemed like he was copying himself, over and over.

It was sure to be the most boring thing ever. Who would want to read something like that? He let out a low whine.

“Stop it. Your stories are good” Reigen voice came from above him, as if he listened to what he was thinking. Was he a mind reader?

Mmm. A character who could read minds? That could be interesting...

“Are you paying attention to me?”

No, no. Serizawa shook that out. He had considered it before – it was a common trope, after all, especially if you wrote about a fantastic world where people had powers-, but he only got himself confused with the specificities and ended up discarding the idea, frustrated.

“Seriii…” Reigen drawled, but it was no use. Serizawa was already lost in thought. With a sigh, Reigen walked behind him, his hands settling on broad shoulders, massaging them with slow, tentative motions.

That did have an effect on the writer, who jolted in surprise at the touch. But once he registered what was going on, he tried to relax into it, to not make Reigen think his attentions were rejected.

Tried was the keyword, since in his effort to not make any sudden moves, he ended up sitting awkwardly still, strictly controlling his breath, nearly to the point of not breathing at all; and almost cried out of disappointment when Reigen’s hands left him, after all his trouble…!

“You’re really tense” Tell me about it, he was tempted to say, but refrained to do so because that magical touch was back. “But don’t worry, you’re in good hands. Did you know I used to be a masseur?” Reigen commented as he worked the knots on his back.

God, that felt so good.

“That’s amazing” Was all Serizawa could reply, and he really meant it. It seemed Reigen had tried his skills in the most diverse fields, running after a new job as soon as the previous one got too tiring.

That truly amazed Serizawa, who was barely confident in what he did for a living, and would never think about leaving it. And, if he had to be honest, he also feared the day Reigen would get bored of his current work.

Ignoring all that went down on the writer’s head, Reigen only let out a soft chuckle. That, along with the warm touch on his back, were enough to make him finally relax, for real this time. It made his eyes half-close on their own and his head go fuzzy. Similar as when he was daydreaming with new ideas to write.

Wait.

**********

Serizawa made a pause on nervously drumming his fingers against the counter, to nervously fidget with his glasses’ temples. The thick frames were still adorning his face, since he’d been writing until minutes before Reigen arrived. Now Reigen was sitting in front of him, reading in detail and with a perfectly neutral face the scattered sentences he’d managed to write.

"So? What do you-how was-is it any good?" Serizawa stuttered out as soon as Reigen lowered the pages, anxiously trying to read his editor’s thoughts on his face.

He was so not good at it.

Luckily for him, however, Reigen’s poker face broke into a grin, and enthusiastically rose up two thumbs.

"We’re finally making romance bloom in this universe! Our readers are going to love this!" Reigen had that way of talking, sometimes, where he made it sound like they had been working side to side the whole time.

And honestly, Serizawa didn’t mind at all. Even more, the thought of them working together as a team made him feel all tingly inside. So with a relieved sigh, he rested his back on the chair and reached to take out his glasses, but a hand on his wrist stopped him from doing so.

“Um” Reigen cleared his throat, under Serizawa’s confused gaze. Reigen himself looked surprised at his action. “Um!” He didn’t miss a beat, anyway, and kept on rambling “I- You- The-the glasses! They. They look good. On you, I mean. Maybe… Keep them on? Yeah…”

They stared into each other for a moment. Original action long forgotten now, Serizawa’s hand still hovered close to his face, however, still captured by Reigen’s slightly trembling fingers.

“I should go back to writing” Serizawa muttered because he didn’t know what else he should do, breaking the enchantment they had seemed to fall into. Reigen nodded violently, pulling his hand away and wiping it down his slacks.

“That! That you should. Do. Yes” He replied robotically, stiffly standing up to walk to the door “You do that. Your job. You’re good- your writing! It’s good. Keep on…”

“I’ll let you know when I have more, Reigen” Serizawa not so subtly waved him off. He didn’t mind Reigen’s presence (no, not at all), but he could do without the nervous talk.

**********

He couldn’t even come up with nervous talk, though, when just a day later he walked directly into Reigen.

With the most comfortable, that is to say, oldest sweater he owned, loose sweatpants that doubled as pajamas, and mandatory crocs; Serizawa firmly believed he was dressed accordingly for the occasion – a quick trip to the convenience store to re-stock on coffee and snacks. But not even this strong convincement helped with the self-consciousness that crept over him as Reigen scanned him up and down, well aware of the difference between his attire and Reigen’s usual suit-and-tie look.

“Oh, it’s nice seeing you outside!” Was Reigen’s enthusiast greeting once he stopped staring, and Serizawa felt his face burn. Sure he didn’t leave his house often, but there was no need to point it out like that, was it?

“Hello, Mister Serizawa” A soft voice came from his side and he nervously looked over, and relaxed a little as he realized who else was there. It was Kageyama Shigeo, nicknamed “Mob” for some reason. The kid was Reigen’s most valued writer, and (if Serizawa had to guess) the reason he had become an editor in the first place.

He had read some of Kageyama’s works. Poetry was all he published, and even when not exactly his cup of tea, Serizawa wouldn’t deny there was something unique to it. Despite seeming plain at first, there was something behind the words that made them linger in one’s mind, like a soft presence. Same could be said about the boy’s general appearance.

“Master Reigen said you’re writing romance” Mob commented, and before Serizawa could stammer out that well, yes, it wasn’t romance per se, but yeah, he was most certainly trying to, the kid kept going with a flat tone. “I think Master Reigen likes romance a lot. Do you like romance too, Mister Serizawa?” He finished, oblivious to the two grown men’s increasing blush. Or not. There was no way Serizawa could say for sure that Mob wasn’t implying something else.

“Now, Mob!” Clearly embarrassed, Reigen jumped in; to save Serizawa, or maybe himself, from the awkward topic. “Don’t inconvenience Serizawa, he’s clearly busy, and I still have to walk you home”

The boy let out a soft “oh, alright” and already got moving again. Reigen, however, lingered for a moment, giving Serizawa another quick once-over.

“You-you’re free to join us, if you’re, uh, up for a walk…?”

Serizawa sucked in a breath. It… didn’t sound bad, but his heart was still beating uncomfortably fast for the surprise meet-up, and he didn’t want to embarrass Reigen any further.

As calmly as he could, he shook his head in refusal.

**********

"Not bad, not bad!" Reigen smiled that way, and Serizawa’s chest did that thing. God, for a writer, he just sucked at words, didn’t he? "But... I thought you told me you already finished it?" Reigen looked right into his eyes, and Serizawa frowned.

He had finished it, though? A bit of typical fantasy action, a character realized some feelings... confessed... He certainly didn’t know what else Reigen could want from it.

"It... it is finished...?" He half stated, half asked, confused at what Reigen meant.

"Oh" Reigen replied then, glancing down, putting on a weird expression. Weird on him at least, since he looked… almost shy…? “Oh, well, it must be just me…” A pause, he looked up, and his expression changed into something more appropriate – more usual – on that pretty face of his: a mischievous, fox-like grin. “It’s good, but personally…”

“Y-yeah?” Serizawa gulped, bracing himself for the inevitable critic he was going to get, and failed to notice the half step Reigen made in his direction.

“I like concrete stuff, you know… When you can’t mistake the feelings for something other than romantic…” Another half step. “Like, a kiss?” Reigen finished; and with a slow but sure raise of his hand, caressed Serizawa’s unshaven cheek.

If Serizawa had ever been sure about anything in his life, it was that they weren’t talking about writing anymore.

And then he leaned in.

**********

"What are you doing? Get back here" With a sleepy voice and sleepy hand gestures, Reigen demanded as soon as the hasty movements of his bed companion had waked him.

"Sorry, sorry, I’ve got an idea and if i don’t write it right now...!"

Reigen somehow laughed and yawned at the same time.

"Really, right now? Well, as your editor, i couldn’t ask for more than you being productive...”Another yawn “However… as your, hmm, guest?" Serizawa snorted at that. Reigen kept his way with words even when half-asleep "I’d like you to come back soon..."

"I’ll try..." He conceded on a whispered tone, caressing Reigen’s hair before leaving the room.

He didn’t get back at all, and when Reigen got up he was still on the computer, frowning.

It was alright, thought. If Serizawa was reading this the right way, they would definitely get more chances to spend the night together.

#mob psycho 100 #serizawa katsuya #reigen arataka #serirei #writer au #fanfiction tag #au #phew #TWO MONTHS #THIS TOOK TWO MONTHS #i’m glad this is finally done

9 notes · View notes

icharchivist · 7 years

Note

Which are your favorite scenes from hxh (manga)? and the ones you don't like it? Do you have a favorite line?

Oooh heyo nonny!!

And… tricky question!! I have a lot of scenes I really love, I have different scenes depending on the characters, or the meaning, or the impact they had, or the planning, or even the framing. So it’s hard to pick one.

I’ll try to answer as much as I can but I’ll go under the cut because it’ll get lengthy! (actually now i’m back to the top and yup i wrote about 5k that’s lengthy. I’m sorry I…. never know when to shut up.)

Thanks for the question though ❤ Take care!

More under the cut!

Let’s start with the easy one to answer, I mostly love all of hxh, all of it. Begining to end, I really loved most of it.

But if I had to pick a scene I don’t like, it’ll be that weird bit of Leorio’s Prison Exam. This was a trainwreck, even in the manga, although at least in the manga they didn’t have… some stupid lines.

I hate this scene. The fact Leorio uses a slur, the fact he puts himself in a situation to touch Leroute… That was extremely uncomfortable to read and watch. I usually blame it on the fact it was 1997, that Togashi didn’t know any better, or even that it was an editor thing (since it was revealed recently that Togashi does the “let the Editors get what they want until you’re popular enough they can’t tell you anything anymore” - and the fact that when I see some anime art insisting on the gropping, it’s. probably something more insidious in the industry. Or so I hope since the rest of the manga isn’t like that).

To be fair both version of 1999 and 2011 changed this scene in 1999 a lot, in 2011 slightly. I’m not even touching 1999 since i hadn’t watched it and the few bits i’ve seen makes me “ehhh” but again, 2011 makes Leorio even more moronic in this scene. The line about Gon telling him to have her bet on his age and him yelling “it’s obvious i’m just a teenager” and her being surprised isn’t in the manga. I remember thinking “Leorio that’s stupid you know you can trick people with that you had that conversation earlier” and at first i laughed but when i realized it wasn’t in the manga and how much they removed of Leorio in the anime in order to make him complain more/be more idiot, it makes me really angry. Like the idea of the bet itself wouldn’t have been this bad if it wasn’t consistant with how much the 2011 anime shitted on Leorio.

Anyway, there’s still some pervy undertone of this scene and I just try to live with the knowledge this scene exists by thinking it was consensual and that she didn’t seem bothered at all by it, but guuuh.

I think this is the only real scene I have a complete reject of? It’s even worse since I love Leorio, I love his character in general and all of his scenes (that the anime deleted) so it pains me even more that this scene exists, and that this scene exists soon enough for the audience to get a bad idea of what Leorio’s character would be like.

Especially in the Prison Exam that is extremely forshadowing, and have a lot of character development. Imo it’s because this entiere exam is surrounding Leorio, outside of the actual fights. Because it’s all about, despite mistrusting Tonpa and having all the reasons to do it, he still wants to give him a chance, and that he’s angry that people would take this chance and turns it against him. It’s also a very important Leorio’s “mini arc” since every fights start and end with Leorio making comments about it, showing concerns for everyone, being ready to give up on his chance to become a hunter when he sees Killua is going after a killer.

It was about his willingness to give people a chance (Tonpa), the fact he wanted to protect the others (Gon & Killua) to the point of giving up on his dream for now (to stop Killua from going after a killer because he’s worried for him (in the manga it’s even precised that the killer once tore apart the heart of an 11 years old with his bare hand - Killua going after him is supposed to be an irony (since he’s not 12 yet, he’s turning 12 in a few months, even if he mentions he is 12), since it’s something Leorio just told him*.), all while he has his ruthless moment exposed in that exams

(his insistance for Kurapika to kill the guy which, imo is contrast for later with the whole “if you kill him i’ll kill you” when Kurapika is losing it toward Chrollo, and that Leorio starts to seriously worry about how Kurapika is reacting to actively killing and trying to kill people - since Leorio goes from “nah I’m sure he’s fine and he killed tons of spiders now” before hearing from him again, to realizing nothing is fine and he has misjudged the impact it would have on Kurapika. I will repeat, the Prison Exam was extremely forshadowing and that’s where Leorio’s forshadow was at: at his dynamic with people, not with the part with Leroute itself.)

ALL OF THAT TO SAY I’m still extremely upset at this scene because this Exam was set up to explore Leorio’s character, and yet the moment he had actual spotlight, while he showed his medecine wit (by almost killing Mitanji), and that he got caught up by how the fight was all about putting his trust into people in doubt, which is, again, like i was saying, the reccuring theme toward Leorio’s Prison Exam as a whole. And I think that “mistrusting this person’s gender” was going in that direction, but that was poorly done imo and it doesn’t excuse the slur nor how it got pervy. So I just. Really dislike how they went about all of this.

*ALSO IM COMING BACK ON THAT but there are like two major Killua & Leorio scenes that have been downplayed in the anime, this one and the one where Killua asks Leorio to do street auctions because Leorio is really good at it. If we’re going to talk about fav bits, i love those little moments. While they are probably the two characters of the main four who seems to get along the least (hell Killua didn’t even remember his name, but to be fair you’ll notice he barely remembers people’s name during the whole course of the manga. Even Wing, he barely ever called him by his real name, only nickname. I think it’s somethign that comes from isolation habits and the murders and all that kinda forced him to end up forgetting such things as names) they have such an amazing dynamic?

Leorio tries to protect everyone that’s a fact, but I love how in the Prison exam, when he explains why he wants to protect Killua from the killer, Killua goes against the killer by doing exactly what Leorio was saying. It’s not just him doing his family’s technique, it’s hearing Leorio go “This guy ripped hearts of kids” and Killua going “lmao okay watch this.” (this exam was also so great for Killua’s development since i’m p sure this is also where he realized he didn’t have to kill people after Kurapika insisted he didn’t want to but that’s another discussion).

Then in York New, we learn that Gon has no idea where they’re supposed to go and Killua mentions he’s the one in contact with Leorio because Gon doesn’t have a phone, which means him and Leorio had been talking for a while too. And again, later, Killua asks, with admiration and a smile, for Leorio to help with the auctions because he knows and values Leorio’s strength.

all i’m saying is that Leorio & Killua’s bond is criminally underrated.

So now more into the good stuff.

For most of the reasons I said earlier, I adore the Prison Exam. It’s full of forshadowing and it explains a lot about each characters when you know where to look. From the most obvious one being “we will face the spiders” to the least obvious ones with Gon using his wits against a guy who uses explosions’s techniques on candles and later the introduction of rock/paper/scissors, passing to everything that would have pushed Killua to end up moving out of the assassin’s life*, this was great.

*Also about that the common misconception is that it’s all about Gon and I kinda disagree? It’s a lot about Gon and Gon had a huge part to play don’t get me wrong, he’s like, 90% of it, but I think the anime changing the line from “Only 3 people can leave this place and I intend to be one of them” to “Only 3 people can leave this place, and Gon, I intend you and I to be two of them” was a serious issue because by the time of the prison exam, Killua isn’t settled over what he wants yet, and while he is attached to Gon, his first friend of his age, it’s not to that kind of devotion just yet.

which I think does a disservice to the scene where Gon gets tortured by Hanzo and Killua is barely reacting because he’s hurt in his ego. Killua realizes how much he cares and wants to care when he is distressed. Also i find it interesting because if Gon became his Goal at this moment, imo, it’s because the other two exposed all the ways that it was possible that makes Killua able to face it. From Kurapika refusing a fair kill that Killua wouldn’t have questioned, to Leorio’s caring that went as far as to yell at Illumi for Killua because he was telling him not only he could achieve his goal, but he already did and should screw anyone hwo would get into it.

Fuck i love those scenes Nonny what did you unleash. I’m just at the Hunter Exam and it’s not even when my favorite scenes happen.

It’s hard to really pick fav moments but it’s still clear to me, my fav arc is the York New Arc, so it’s ESPECIALLY in the York New arc that I have my favs moments.

Of course, there’s the soft moments: Kurapika’s smile and the “I have good friends” are excellent moments especially considering Kurapika’s minset about it. The smile happens when he feels like he lost all will to live, because the spiders died and he has no idea what to do with his life, he feels dead inside, he threw all his life out of the window for it, and seeing his friends again reminds him there is possibility for him to be happy. That he has a new family, that he can work on it, that all isn’t over. And it’s the feeling also with the “I have good friends”.

But the reasons I love those soft moment is also because of how much it comes back to bite him in the ass after.

I personally think that when he told Gon (and the other two) everything about his powers, and that Gon said that now he’s putting a lot of pressure on him, I think Kurapika’s intend was to make sure they won’t endanger themselves, especially Gon. Kurapika knows Gon really well, Gon was ready to climb up the walls of the Zoldyck and face Mike all alone, damn the consequences, because he didn’t care enough about his own life to protect a friend. It’s when he realized the guardian would be in danger that Gon backed off and found another solution.

Kurapika was there when it happened and I think he was completely aware that this was the kind of shit Gon would be pulling. Hell, Gon kept provokating the Troupe, over and over again, because he knew they hurt his friend.

Kurapika telling everything to Gon was for this precise intend. “If you get caught, you’ll put me in danger” is stronger to use against Gon than just “Be careful they would kill you.” The pressure Kurapika uses on them is directly to make sure that none of them will put themselves in danger, since they have Kurapika’s life in their hands.

Which is ironical because Kurapika throw his own life away all the time, so he’s barely using it as a pretext to make sure the others ones don’t hurt themselves in the way.

Which to me leads to a scene I really love, once Gon and Killua are kidnapped. First of all, since we talked about fav lines, I adore the exchange between Gon and Chrollo.

Chapter 111

I love this. Gon is still confrontional, but, while he is indeed hostile, his face is really soft still in the first panel? Gon still tries to understand others. And Chrollo’s answer is incredible because it’s a really perticular mindset that is really hard to comprehend imo.

But that’s not just why I love this scene, this is about the line, what I love and is overlooked, is the fact that right after that, Kurapika realizes where he fucked up.

Kurapika had a plan, and his plan involved making sure the other three will keep out of trouble by putting them under pressure to stay far from the Troupe. However, Kurapika’s impulsiveness got the best out of him and he rushed out, and Gon and Killua both sacrified themselves, knowing they wouldn’t be as hurt as if Kurapika was caught.

Kurapika fucked up so bad he is the reason why the plan went wrong, and he realizes that, he realizes that it’s his fault.

Chapter 111

Honestly just this explains everything about his current isolation and that’s something I love. No matter how Kurapika is trying to plan everything, to protect everyone, he ends up being the reason why it goes wrong. Suddenly all of his choices turned against him, and at this point, there’s nothing else he can do about it.

This is the turning point in Kurapika’s character that led to him handling everything on his own, so to me it’s such a key scene that I really like. Kurapika’s feeling of guilt, that he tries to never adress, seems like such an interesting concept to me, it’s such an interesting and important scene to me.

Chapter 117

Finally one of my favorite scene from this arc is when Pakunoda comes and accept all of Kurapika’s bargining about saving Chrollo. It throws Kurapika completely off the rail to realize that those people he always hated, who had no mercy torturing, killing, and selling the 128 people who were his entiere world, the people who went as far as to torture children to make sure to turn the parents’s eyes red, would feel that much self sacrifice and compassion toward each other.

This is something that is reccuring with how Gon handles Pitou protecting Komugi later. Gon and Kurapika both were in a point where they completely demonized, for good reasons, the people who hurt them. There’s something when you only see them as monsters, it allows you to step out of it, to concentrate on wanting to kill them without remorse; The issue is when you consider that they can be as human as you, that they love people too.

In York New, probably because his trauma was long lasting, Kurapika is extremely frustrated but he manages to work around it because of his guilt for putting his friends in this situation, and how much he doesn’t want to lose anyone ever again. Kurapika lost his entiere world to those people, and he’s about to lose the only part he managed to rebuild, so he sacrifices his own revenge to help his friends.

But even there, he had to face the fact the Troupe were made of people who loved others, of people who would sacrifice everything for each other, the way Kurapika would sacrifice everything for his own. It’s so much easier when you’re facing a monster without emotions to take your pick, and I think that was the mistake with going for Uvogin first.

While we, the audience, knows that Uvogin loved his own, that he was extremely close to Shalnark and Nobunaga, Kurapika didn’t know that. All he saw of Uvogin was this man, who behaved more like a monster than he did a human. A man he saw eat off the skull of another guy to use said skull as a weapon. A guy who had no memories of who he killed, a guy who outright told him he found it funny to kill people.

Ironically, Kurapika says it was perfect he could fight Uvogin first because of technicall reasons that are true : if he can use Chain Jail against Uvogin, he can use it against any member. But I find it extremely ironic that he says clearly that it’s perfect he could go against Uvogin first while Uvo was probably the one who acted the most like Kurapika expected the Troupe to be: Bloodthirsty, having fun killing people, laughing at the idea of massacre, never surrending. (the anime was… weird, idk if it was a mistranslation or something, but in the anime Uvo repeats “kill me” when Kurapika is attacking and asking questions, like begging for mercy, while in the manga it’s clear Uvo always replies “Go Die.” Even while dying, Uvogin behave with such pride that there’s no way for Kurapika to feel Pity for him, Uvogin didn’t beg for mercy.).

But if anything, Pakunoda was the complete opposite for Kurapika and it threw him off guard. I think if Phinks or Feitan would have done what they wanted to do (go after Kurapika and kill him for touching Chrollo) Kurapika would have been comforted in his idea that the Troupe was made of horrible people. But instead Pakunoda accepted the bargining and the fact she cared so much, and was even ready to help the kids as much as possible, and even came to Kurapika fully intending to give him back the kids, making sure the kids are okay - all of that was the worst case scenario for Kurapika. It humanized the Troupe much more than he wanted.

Even by identifying Uvogin as a monster, Kurapika still felt terrible killing him. Kurapika isn’t a killer, he doesn’t want to kill, and it was a blow for him. It has to be done, someone has to kill the troupe, and he knows he has the will to do it, but even there, he felt terrible. after Pakunoda though it was like “how dare they show humanity.” How dare people who knows love and care would actively destroy families and use the love the families have against each other?

Which is why then Kurapika settles with Isolating Chrollo. Because if they are able of such selfless love and sacrifice for each other, this is what will hurt them. “Now you will know the feeling of being privated of everything you love”, Kurapika says.

Because Kurapika is frustrated, shocked even, but the safety of his own is more important at this point, because he put them in this situation to start with, and he already lost everything and doesn’t want to lose anything ever again. And I think that’s the reason why he’s isolating himself now.

I’m not done yet, like I said, it’s also one of my fav because that’s exactly the same thing that happens when Gon meets Pitou, except that Gon reacts completely differently.

Kite was the one who kickstarted Gon’s goal, and he was someone that Gon held in high respect, and he feels responsible for his death - but Kite wasn’t his entiere world. So unlike Kurapika who felt the pain of losing everything and didn’t want to lose anything ever again, Gon went in the fight without even thinking about what else he could lose. He went in with pure fury.

The issue there is that the Ants are technically monsters, not metaphorical like the troupe. And they had to exterminate them, the whole mission was about that. During the full arc, people encouraged Gon to have this anger against Pitou, the adults even said that because of said anger, he was their best hopes. Some, like Shoot, was seeing that it was not a good idea, but they still left an unstable child on the battlefield.

And Killua who was there for Gon all along thought he could handle it, and didn’t know how to get Gon out of his denial: how could he? Gon is his light. (See also, one of my fav lines: the ‘you are light” monologue (and on that topic, the “I’m glad i met you” line)) And Killua never handled things like that before. Even when it was question of getting Kurapika out of his revenge, they did it behind Kurapika’s back, they only told to Pakunoda they didn’t want Kurapika to kill again, but they never outright told Kurapika to stop.

So we had Killua, also a child, unable to help, unable to know how to, and went with everything Gon wanted. And everyone around them were comforting them that it was the right thing to do: go against Pitou, not try to get why, and just kill them.

Hell, accidentally, that’s something Killua actually re-enforced:

Chapter 230

This is a problem, Killua wanted to protect Gon and used as much as he could for it, but it pushed Gon to even more focus on Pitou to the point where stuff went all wrong.

And then meeting Pitou actually happened, with Pitou caring for Komugi and sacrificing themselves for her, for the King. (also, both Pitou and Pakunoda gets their arm broken during the events that will lead to both their confrontation to Gon and Kurapika). Just like Pakunoda, Pitou showed self sacrifice, showed humanity, showed pure caring and love for someone.

And that Gon couldn’t stand. For the same reasons as Kurapika did: it is easier to go against someone you consider a monster than someone who feel love the way you do.

The problem is that, nothing prepared Gon for that, and for months he only focused on Pitou. Unlike Kurapika who lost everything and knew he wanted to protect what remained, Gon was just a lost kid. His anger that he focused on Pitou went all over the place, and eventually this is why he snapped at Killua when Killua tried to calm him down. Although Killua used Kite, Gon’s trigger, in order to do that. So while Killua did good, he used right the word that would get all of Gon’s anger attention and Gon ended up snapping at him.

It’s funny to me (ie super sad) that Kurapika is the character who’s entiere plot is about revenge, but yet he’s the one who’s able to work around it eventually when realizing he has to find another way. On the other, it consumed Gon. they both threw they life away for it, but Kurapika is doing it strategicly while Gon went all out about it.

This is so sad but that’s some of my fav scenes.

(so for short: Kurapika facing Pakunoda, Gon facing Pitou, Killua telling Gon to focus on Pitou and what it brought)

Leading me to, especially the manga’s, I love how Gon’s breakdown is framed in the manga during the CA arc. This is such an intense scene in term of framing, and while the voice actor did an amazing job in the 2011 version, I still get chills over the manga panels:

Chapter 305

tHE FRAMING MAN.

The manga tried a lot to have an atmosphere, in fact, you do see a lot of the background during those scenes before it happens. But then, when the truth come out, everything is blank. It’s completely blank. The only things in Gon’s mind is him being helpless, Pitou, and Kite’s corpse, and those words he repeats and that takes the whole frame, that are slowly crumbling all over him. His word is crumbling, his denial is suddenly hitting him right in the face. It’s such a powerful scene.

Finally for the last huge scene I really love:

Chapter 335

I already talked about it in length on others posts, so I won’t go as much in depth, but I love how Leorio opened up to the Hunter community all of the sudden. The Hunters tends to be extremely secret about their powers, and Leorio went on and showed them all when he punched Ging, because he reacted with his guts. Everytime Leorio talks in the Chairman Election arc, he is being more than honest, he always makes a point that he’s doing a selfish, honest thing. And everytime he does, it is because he cares too much about others.

I still laugh that Leorio saying why he’ll be Chairman was legit “if you elect me i’ll use the position for my own gain and my own gain is helping people.” Somehow Leorio believed it would make him unlikable, but instead, what he exposed was how devoted he was into helping others.

Ging mentions at some point that Hunters are really selfish by nature, and that’s something everyone kinda knows. But Leorio showed every sense of how much he was ready to do just to help others. He gives his everything for that.

I find it really appropriated too that it’s what had him join the Zodiacs, especially on the Boar position - since it’s also a quality that is supposed to be found with the Boar. While we could say it’s an improvement upon Ging, I wouldn’t agree completely because while Ging does everything he wants, Ging does all of it because he wants to see the people he works with being happy and therefore he doesn’t want to settle.

There’s just a lot about it that I really love.

That’s about all for the Really Huge Scenes I love so i’ll move on to a few others scenes i like:

-Like i mentioned, Killua trusting Leorio with the auction, which is manga only, that I absolutly love because of how Leorio manipulates the guy, and also, ofc, Leorio’s arm whrestling contests. It shows a lot of how streetwise Leorio is. Of course he is, you’d tell me, he had to, but still i love how the manga shows it and it’s really, really nice scenes to see.

-Gon and Killua meeting up with Feitan and Phinks at the auction still makes me howl, I love it so damn much. I love how offended they were by it, and how they actually came at them to talk to them about why they’re not planning to go after Kurapika just yet, and how Phinks actually ended up liking them because of Pakunoda’s last memories.

-Bisky revealing her true appearance.

-Every scenes between Meruem and Komugi

-The full Kurapika’s past chapters, all of it. Especially when he rides with Pairo, when they arrive the village and Kurapika gets so happy his eyes almost turn red, and the moments with his mom.

Fav lines in general:

“One could simply dodge the question with a plausible lie, but I consider lying a sin equal to greed, and as dishonorable.” - Kurapika

“I think maybe if i were here by myself that things probably wouldn’t go as smoothly…. But with Leorio here, I feel a lot better and at ease.” - Kurapika

“You should enjoy the little detours to the fullest. Because that’s where you’ll find the things more important than what you want.” - Ging

“Gon… you are Light. Sometimes you shine so bright I have to look away. Even so, is it okay if I stay by your side for a while?” - Killua

“Some people in the shadows deserve to be chained to hell”“Are you sure? It feels like you’re the one chaining yourself.” - Kurapika & Izunavi

… And because it’s me you’re asking:

-Every scenes between Kurapika and Leorio.

But now this is starting to get really long, I’ve been writting 4k already and If i get in some of my favorite scenes for those two it’ll take hours. but so:

-Kurapika being taken aback when Leorio runs first to save the sailor man.

-I love the reccurance of Kurapika’s smiles about Leorio.

-Their conversation in the first exam -and the repercution it had on their storylines + more about their characters journey.

-Them meeting again in the DC arc. and some more DC arc stuff.

-Leorio calming Kurapika down when facing Chrollo

I’m trying not to ramble on repeating those because the post is already long enough but I have one tiny scene to talk about, and it’s to be understood I’m pretty sure i’m overreading it but I really love it, and it’s only a question of framing, ie, of up to interpretation.

(..)

Chapter 38

First this, after they all got their licence and are thinking about going after Killua, there’s those strange little moments where Leorio looks directly at Kurapika, a little taken aback. He’s silent, and honestly those panels almost seems out of place. It gets explained a few chapters later though:

Chapter 44

“it’s been a long time i wanted to ask” This seems to be the reason why Leorio was that insistant in the previous chapters, without actually saying anything about it. He knew something was of, and we was wondering about it. He was seriously worried.

BUT I’m here to nerd about the framing, excuse me two minutes: It might be because Leorio is indeed the tallest and doesn’t stand in the frame all the time,but notice how Leorio is barely in the frame?

Especially this panel

Here’s the thing though, framing wise, what it could say is that Leorio is actually going out of the limits that are imposed by the stories. On this panel especially, he’s looking right at Kurapika’s face, which is itself completely closed by the framing. The Frame is hiding Kurapika’s face and emotions, like a metaphorical wall hiding him, like he was setting them up. (which is consistant with Kurapika’s narrative.)

And Leorio gets off of this wall. Leorio is out of the frames, he’s actively looking out from it. Even on frames where he could have easily been put in, the framing of those pages always show him getting out of them, like going out of those walls set up by the narrative and trying to look past them, getting concerned, trying to understand what is out of his sight.

One of the few times he’s actually in the frame is when he asks his question, the framing focusing on his eyes: an insert that would generally mean something more personal, something he’s trying to look out for. The focus is on how he’s trying to reach out and how he’s being serious about it.

And of course, more than just the framing, there’s what is being said. Leorio had been really harsh at times during the hunter exam, but here, he’s been worried for weeks at this point, and he’s been looking for the right moment to ask what’s going on. He gets gentle, understanding, there’s a moment of silence after Kurapika reveals what was said where Leorio looks at him with concern. He takes into account evrything he knows about Kurapika, and it’s shown that it’s sort of bothering him, that he feels like things are getting suddenly more serious, that it’s not just words.

This is really hard to exactly talk about and I know it sounds like shipper nonsense, but I always loved framing and even without the shipping conotation and just with what we know of both characters, I find it quite coherent with their characterizations. Don’t take my word on it though, but this is also why this is one of the scenes that I really love (and incidentally, the scene, once i read the manga, that made me seriously ship them, because framing manipulates me more than you may think).

SO YE THAT’S ABOUT IT and I’ll stop there before I start remembering scenes I’ll damn myself for not including.

So… ye that’s about it dkhfjdkfhdjkfhdf sorry for the very long answer, one day i’ll manage to shut up I swear. One day.

Have a nice day!

#anonymous #ichareply #*stares in the void* why do i talk so much #anyway #ichafantalks hxh #ichameta hxh #(if there's part of it anyone wants on an individual posts or smth i'd gladly do it btw)#(if there's stuff you wanna share or idk)#anyway here #ichashipping leopika #lowkey in the end #yay #ca arc spoilers #ce arc spoilers #i don't really speak about the dc one so #hxh meta #pikarambling #gon protection squad #leorio appreciation

23 notes · View notes

gethealthy18-blog · 4 years

Text

101 Funny And Witty Responses To The Question “How Are You?”

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/getting-healthy/getting-healthy-women/101-funny-and-witty-responses-to-the-question-how-are-you/

101 Funny And Witty Responses To The Question “How Are You?”

101 Funny And Witty Responses To The Question “How Are You?” Harini Natarajan Hyderabd040-395603080 October 30, 2019

Every single time you meet them, people ask the same questions – “How are you?” “How have you been?” and “Are you doing well?” The answers to these are most often, “I am fine, thanks.” Boring. This is exactly why you should keep a few different replies to “How are you?” ready.

You are too cool to give the same, bland answer to this question ALL the time. People will expect you to say “good” or “fine,” so surprise them by coming up with an unexpected answer. Here are some quirky, humorous replies to the ‘how are you’ question.

Funny Responses To How Are You

Shutterstock

Somewhere between better and best.

Can’t complain…I have tried, but no one listens.

If I had a tail, I would wag it! (Wriggle your hips)

I am as happy as a tick on a big, fat doggy.

Oh, stop it, will you? (Say it like he or she is complimenting you even though he or she is not.)

I love you. (This is an awesome response if you want to fluster them and catch them off-guard)

So much better now that you are with me.

At minding my own business? So much better than most people.

Wondering how you are…

Physically? Mentally? Spiritually? Financially? Socioeconomically? I am not sure what you mean.

I am still sucking…air, that is.

I am planning on taking over the world.

Not bad. Could be better, though. Could be payday.

Things could be worse – I could be you (for siblings 😉)

Hopefully, not as good as I will ever be.

Great, because my name wasn’t in today’s obituaries.

Better than I was a minute ago because you are here now.

I am better on the inside than I look on the outside.

If I was any finer, I would be China.

I would be better if you asked me out.

If I was any better, vitamins would be taking me.

Best Responses To How Are You

Armed and ready!

My lawyer has stated that I don’t have to answer that question.

Almost like you, but better.

I could really go for a massage.

How do you want me to be? (Use a sexy tone)

I have been going through GOT in my work life. Is everything stable at your end?

I would say I am a 9.99999 out of 10.

I was fine – until you asked.

If I was doing any better, I would hire you to enjoy it with me.

I hear good things; however, you should never listen to rumors.

Like a Pitbull in a China shop.

Witty Responses To How Are You

Shutterstock

I don’t know. Is it Friday yet?

My psychiatrist says that I shouldn’t discuss it with strangers.

I am doing a bit better than before, but not nearly as awesome as I am going to be.

I am feeling blessed!

I still have a pulse, so I must be doing good.

Better than most, but maybe not as well as others.

Doing fairly well, unless you have some contagious disease and are about to infect me 😉.

Much better than I deserve.

I think I am doing alright. How do you think that I am doing?

I don’t feel that great, but look! At least my hair looks amazing.

I am doing well…or that could be my anti-depressants speaking.

I can’t really complain, but I will still try.

Alright so far, but there is plenty of time for things to get bad.

Each day is better than the next.

Don’t ask – it’s too early to tell.

Medium-well.

Incredibly good looking.

Everything is fine when you are around.

Great, but I should warn you that I am totally biased.

Still in bed? (over the phone)

Getting better with every passing second.

What an impertinent question to ask a girl! Hmmph.

Living an amazing dream. Don’t wake me up yet. You may join me, though. There is plenty of room.

The best I can be. I hope you are at your best too.

I am feeling so good that I have to sit on my hands to stop myself from clapping.

Clever Responses To How Are You

Shutterstock

To answer that question, I need to take you back about 12 years. Do you have a minute?

Slowly but surely dying.

Fair to partly cloudy.

Living a life of suppressed rage, emotional imbalance, and denial.

Groovy!

Well, I have got this strange itch on my right butt cheek…

Stellar, great, fantastic – but dead inside.

Oh, terrible, thank you so much!

What’s with all these questions? You a cop?

As compared to what?

You go first. Then, we can compare.

I am not so sure yet.

Living the dream! But half the time, it is a nightmare.

Not quite there yet.

Dangerously close to being fabulous.

You are looking at it, baby.

I am high-quality, 100% plant-fed. (perfect for vegans)

The doctor said I would live.

Creative Responses To How Are You

Shutterstock

I had promised myself I would murder the next person who asked me that question. What should I do…I like you too much.

Rolling with the punches.

[*speak gibberish*]

Your attempt at social interaction to be polite is hereby acknowledged.

How much are you willing you pay me if I tell you?

WHY!? WHAT DID THEY SAY?? (Act suspicious of everything and everyone!)

Dying. Thanks.

Hunting dinosaurs. You?

Not today, Satan!

I am really just trying hard to avoid ambiguous questions at this moment.

Wondering how YOU are…

How do you think I am?

[*just stare for a minute*]

Good question. (Walk away)

Happy, and I know it. [*clap your hands*]

I will leave that up to your imagination.

It’s a secret.

Do you want the short or the detailed version?

Surviving, I guess.

Not as good as you.

Holy s**t, you can see me?! I died last week, since then…

Under renovation.

I am sober!

On a scale of one to punching someone in the face, I am at 7.5.

Trust me, you do not want to know.

Next question, please.

If you know that you are one-of-a-kind, you can’t really do the same old routine. It is only natural that you will want a quirky response other than the old and bold “I’m fine, thank you.” If you want to show off how unique and witty you are, these responses are good to go with.

Pick your favorites, and rest assured that your buddies are going to be super impressed! So how are you? Send us your response by commenting in the box below. We would love to hear from you.

The following two tabs change content below.

Latest posts by Harini Natarajan (see all)

Harini Natarajan

Harini has over 12 years of experience in content writing and editing for online media. She specializes in the areas of business, health and wellness, and lifestyle and is proficient in Medical Sciences (Biology, Human Anatomy and Physiology, and Biochemistry). As the Chief Editor, Harini ensures that her team delivers interesting, engaging, and authentic content. Her background in Biomedical Engineering helps her decode and interpret the finer nuances of scientific research for her team. Harini is a certified bibliophile and a closet poet. She also loves dancing and traveling to offbeat destinations.

Source: https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/how-to-respond-to-how-are-you/

0 notes