You and I Walk a Fragile Line - Farleigh Start x F!Reader - Part 2
a/n: omg thank you all so much for the love on part 1!! i really appreciate it, i didn't think anyone would even see it haha! anyways this chapter is a lil longer but i had a lot of fun writing it, so i hope you enjoy!
word count: 3.5k
part 1, part 3, part 4
warnings: slight angst, language
You and Venetia sit in one of the many living rooms, watching TV as she braids your hair. It’s been a few days since your arrival, and you were enjoying the break from the cruel outside world.
You planned on getting Felix to drive you down to your parents’ house in London soon, just to visit. You didn’t want to completely leave them in the dust, and you hadn’t seen them since Christmas break. If you were being honest, you missed them, and you have a lot to tell them about your second year at Oxford.
“So, when are you going to visit your parents?” Venetia asks as she continues plaiting your hair.
“I think tomorrow, actually.” You reply, glancing down at your hands as you pick at your nails, a nervous habit.
“Nice. Is Felix going with you?” She questions. “Yeah, I’m going to try to get him to drive me so I don’t have to take a cab.” You respond. “I’m sure he will,” She says. You nod softly.
“You know, I’m really glad Felix found a friend like you. Not some girl just desperate to fuck him.” Venetia says quietly, out of the blue. It seems totally random, but you needed that. A reminder for why you’re even here when you clearly don’t belong.
“You keep him in check, you know? You’re a really good influence,” She ties off your braid with a hairtie and you turn around to face her.
“Really?” You ask, blushing at the compliment. “Yeah. I mean it, love.” She grins and throws her arms around you, embracing you in a hug. You smile into her shoulder as you hug her back.
She pulls away. “But have you, like, ever considered dating him?”
You’re taken aback by the question. Have you? You try to think back on the past four years of knowing Felix Catton.
Sure, the first time you met him, you thought he was slightly attractive. But thoughts of dating him or even getting close to him romantically never crossed your mind.
“No. Never,” You shake your head. “Okay, what about… Farleigh?”
Your stomach drops and you shake your head aggressively. “No. No, we like, hate each other.” You chuckle slightly at the absurdity of her question. “Why, though?” She asks. “I see the way he looks at you. I don’t think he hates you,”
She must be insane. She’s imagining things, or romanticizing things like she always does.
“Seriously, Vee?” You shake your head and facepalm. “What?! I don’t know, you’d make a good couple.” She giggles and shoves you playfully. “No, we wouldn’t.”
“Who?” You flinch at the deep voice coming from behind you. You look over your shoulder to see Farleigh walking in with a cigarette in his hand, as per usual.
He sits down in a chair near the couch and takes a long drag from the cigarette. “No one.” You quickly say, narrowing your eyes at him.
“This guy I was telling her about, I was saying they would look good together,” Venetia explains, and you turn to look at her with wide eyes. Why was she lying? Maybe to test her theory, to see if Farleigh got jealous.
Farleigh scoffs. “What guy?” He asks, and you wonder why he’s intrigued. “Just one of my friends,” She waves her hand like it’s not important.
“Well, if he’s awkward and inexperienced, they’ll make a great match.” Farleigh says. You turn back to him and you can already feel your anger brewing. “Who said I was awkward and inexperienced?” You ask, confusion written all over your face.
“Like, everyone.” He smiles mockingly. “I’m not.” You cross your arms and look down, your face hot with embarrassment.
“Hell, even Felix was talking about it a few weeks ago.” Your eyes snap back up to him as he blows some smoke from his mouth. The words hang in the silent air for a moment.
“What?” Your voice comes out weak. “Yeah, he was saying he only hangs out with you because he feels bad. I mean, think about it. You come from a middle class family, you’re a broke scholarship student… Felix only hangs out with people on the same level as him. You’re just an exception, I guess.” He shrugs even though everything he just said has made your stomach begin to churn and your heart begin to race.
“Use that pretty brain of yours,” He points at you with his cigarette, smirking as you stare into space, trying to process what he just told you.
“Farleigh.” Venetia warns, shaking her head. She places a hand on your shoulder. “I’m sure that’s not true. Farleigh’s just a little shit stirrer. He gets off on that,” She rolls her eyes at him.
“No, it’s true. He has this savior complex. This happens all the time, you’re just the only one that happened to stick around. Like a little lost puppy, following him around, cause you have nowhere else to go. You just want this life so bad, don’t you?” He continues, his tone seeping with hatred.
You feel tears welling up in your eyes and you really don’t want to cry in front of Farleigh. Or Venetia, for that matter. You look around, then stand up and walk out of the room and up the spiraling staircase.
You can hear Venetia scolding Farleigh as you run up the stairs. You eventually storm into your room and shut the door, flopping onto your bed as you begin to sob.
Was it really true? Your whole friendship with Felix was out of pity?
No.
~~~
4 YEARS EARLIER
You couldn’t sleep. It was certainly past midnight, you figured. You had been trying to sleep for the past two hours.
Something about this mansion made you feel small and inferior, like you were an imposter. You were, in a way. You didn’t belong. It was taking you a while to get used to the exuberant settings and all the formalities.
As you stared up at your ceiling, you figured some fresh air might help. You grabbed a sweatshirt and threw it over yourself, slipping on your sandals and walking downstairs and out one of the back doors to the courtyard.
You could swear there was someone sitting on the steps. You squinted and you could make out a head of curls and a very small light, a flame. No, a cigarette flame.
You walked closer and grinned as Farleigh turned to you, flinching a bit.
“Why are you out here?” He asked, his face only illuminated by the ghostly moonlight. “I could ask you the same thing,” You replied, standing over him.
“Can I sit?” You asked. He nodded reluctantly. You sat down and hugged your waist in an attempt to stay warm.
You glanced up at him as he sighed, letting some smoke float out into the air. “You have a smoking problem,” You remarked.
“It’s not a problem. Most people smoke, you know.” He rolled his eyes. “At sixteen?” You asked. “Well, I’m almost seventeen. But yeah,” He nodded and took another drag from it.
“Well, I’ll be waiting for the day when your lungs stop working.” You shot back, grinning at your own statement. “Oookay,” He let out another long sigh as he looked out at the courtyard.
There was a long moment of silence between the two of you. You gazed up at the stars in the clear sky above you, like glitter scattered across a page of black ink. It was peaceful and delicate.
Eventually, Farleigh broke the silence. “You know, I like you a lot more when you keep your mouth shut,”
You rolled your eyes and glanced over at him. “I don’t even talk that much.” You observed the smile he was trying to hide and you nudged him playfully.
“I see you trying not to smile,” You giggled and the smile tugging at his lips broke out into a grin. You poked him in the arm. “You act all tough. Why?”
His smile faded and he looked back out at the long stretch of grass. “Not sure.” His voice was distant and uncertain. This was the one time he was ever going to let his guard down, you thought to yourself. Maybe it was because he thought you were just a one time guest that he would never see again.
You two ended up talking for about a half hour, discussing the most random things. But for some reason, it was one of the best conversations you had in a while. You had a lot more in common than you thought.
You think you ended up dozing off on the steps with him, but you woke up the next morning in your bed. You’re not exactly sure how that happened.
Of course, the next morning at breakfast he acted like he was offput by your presence alone, but you knew what happened the night before wasn’t a dream. It was real, and you knew that when you looked deep into his warm brown eyes.
~~~
The next day, you wake up early to make yourself look somewhat presentable, despite your puffy eyelids from all the crying you did the night before. You put on some light makeup and a white sundress.
Although you didn’t want to face Felix, you needed a ride to your parents’. You head to Felix’s room after putting some shoes on, knocking on his door.
“Felix,” You call out, knowing he’s probably still sleeping. With no response, you knock harder. “Felix!” You call, slightly louder than the first time.
You hear a loud groan and his bed shifting. “What, mate? Who is it?” He asks. “It’s me,” You reply, staring at the door expectantly.
You hear him shuffling around before his footsteps get louder and the door swings open. His brown hair is messier than usual and his eyes seem to be half open as he studies your appearance.
“What’s the special occasion?” He asks, leaning up against the doorframe as he tries to rub the sleep from his eyes. “Well, I actually have a favor to ask,” You respond, trying to ignore all the thoughts about what Farleigh said last night creeping back into your mind.
“What’s that?” Felix tilts his head curiously. “I was wondering if you could drive me to my parents’ house today. I wanted to visit. Just for the day, you know.” You smile up at him.
He seems caught off guard, and then his expression looks pained. “Oh, you know what? I totally would, but there’s this thing happening in London today. A lot of our friends from Oxford are going to be there, why don’t we just go to your parents’ another day?” He suggests.
You feel disappointment hit you like a tidal wave. Is this what Farleigh was talking about?
“Our friends? You mean your friends.” You correct him, suddenly feeling the emotions from last night spilling over. “Well, they’d be happy to see you, I’m sure-” “You can’t just do this one thing for me?” You interrupt him.
He looks at you, dumbfounded. “It’s not a big deal, why can’t you just get a cab?” His words cut through you. Not a big deal.
“You know what, nevermind.” You shake your head and hold up your hands. You turn and begin walking down the hall.
“I do a lot of things for you, you know!” Felix shouts after you, and you’ve never heard that tone of anger in his voice. He’s always been so kind, so considerate. He used to jump at the chance to help you with something. Now maybe you knew why.
On your way downstairs, you run into the last person you needed to see in this moment.
Farleigh stops in his tracks when he sees you. He looks up at you from the lower steps, probably noticing your distressed state.
“What’s your problem?” He asks, smirking lightheartedly like it’s another one of his jokes. “Farleigh, I don’t need your little comments right now,” You sigh in exasperation and continue down the stairs, pushing him out of your way.
“Woah, did something happen with you and Felix?” He turns around and follows you out of curiosity. “No. I just-” You realize a possible solution to your problem, but you would rather throw yourself out of a window than spend nearly two hours in a car with Farleigh.
“You can drive, right?” You turn around to face him once you reach the bottom of the stairs. “Yes… Why?” He narrows his eyes and peers down at you. “Okay, I was trying to ask Felix if he could drive me to my parents’ house today. He obviously said he was too busy for that, so… Can you just drive me?” You look up at him, crossing your fingers behind your back.
The corners of his mouth curl up in a smirk. “Sorry, you’re asking me for a favor?” He chuckles under his breath and raises his eyebrows. “Fuck. Yes, okay?!” You facepalm and wish you had never said something. Now he’s going to tease you over it for the next week or so.
He steps closer and leans down slightly, although you still have to look up at him. “Say please,” He says tauntingly.
You roll your eyes while heat creeps up onto your face. “Please,” You say quietly. “Sorry, I didn’t really hear it,” He leans even closer and you look away. This is why you can’t ask Farleigh for help. Ever.
“Please.” You hate how pitiful and desperate you sound. He seems satisified, so he steps back and stands up straight again. “Alright. Let’s go then, shall we?” You want to strangle him as you follow him out the door.
It’s sweltering outside. You groan. “Oh my God, so hot…” You shake your head and look up at the sun almost already in the middle of the sky.
“What do you say, should we steal his truck?” Farleigh eyes Felix’s truck and nods his head towards it. You know it’s wrong, and he probably will need it later tonight to get to London, but his truck doesn’t have a roof and it would be nice to feel a breeze…
Fuck it. “Do you even have the keys?” You ask, walking over to the truck. Farleigh holds up Felix’s keys to the truck. You cover your mouth and giggle, feeling like you’re back in fifth grade, playing a stupid prank on someone.
You open the door to the passenger’s side and hop in while Farleigh does the same, turning one of the keys and starting the engine.
“So, what was his excuse?” He questions as he puts the truck in reverse and pulls out of the gravel driveway. He stretches an arm over to place his hand on the back of your headrest, shifting to see over his shoulder. You watch him closely as he does all this.
“Uhm.. This thing in London today. Apparently a bunch of Oxford students are going. Were you planning on going?” You reply, biting your lip as he moved the truck into drive.
Recognition flashes across his face. “Oh. I told him I would go with him, but.. I didn’t really want to anyway,” He shrugs nonchalantly. “Farleigh Start, passing up the opportunity to go to a social gathering?” You gasp sarcastically.
“We spent a whole year with those people. I’d rather not go all the way to London just to see them after what, like, a few weeks?” You squint to look over at him in the sun.
“But you’re driving almost the same distance to my parents,” You raise an eyebrow. He takes a moment to respond, almost like he’s trying to come up with an excuse.
“This is different. You asked me for a favor and I didn’t have anything else to do. It’s not personal.” He glances over at you. His lighter curls that are usually hidden are now illuminated in the golden sunlight.
“I mean, you did have plans with Felix.” You look back out to the road stretched ahead of you and the trees with vibrant green leaves blowing gently in the breeze.
“Okay, do you want me to keep driving?” He glares at you and your remarks. You bite back the smile threatening to form on your face. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry.” You look down and adjust the skirt of your dress.
After about two hours, you see the sign that tells you you are about to enter the small town where you formed many fond memories.
“This isn’t bad,” Farleigh admits as he slows down to round the upcoming bend. “What, did you think I lived in the slums or something?” You laugh a bit at his remark before staring out the window and admiring the familiar surroundings.
“Maybe.” You can hear the smile in his voice. This is nice, you think to yourself. Maybe you two can actually get along.
“Okay, it’s gonna be the third house to your right.” You tell him. It’s a townhouse, not very big, but quaint and cozy. The walls are old brick and the windows are thin with white frames, and some shrubs grow on either side of the staircase leading up to the front door.
He pulls over next to the sidewalk and puts the truck in park. You undo your seatbelt and open the door, pausing to look over at Farleigh.
You notice he is still just sitting there and staring straight ahead, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the wheel.
“Hey, you can come along, you know,” You say softly. He looks over at you, his expression seeming a bit shocked. He raises his eyebrows.
“Really? You want me to meet your parents?” He smirks and you register his joke. “Oh, shut up.”
“C’mon, I don’t want you to have to just sit out here. This might take a while,” You explain, gesturing for him to come with you.
“Alright, I guess.” He shrugs and you both get out of the truck. You lead, walking up the stairs and breathing in the scent of the plants and the summer air.
You knock on the door and wait patiently. The door opens and you are greeted by your mother. She exclaims your name joyfully and embraces you in a hug.
“Honey, I didn’t know you were coming!” She pulls away to get a good look at you. You observe her. She looks tired. “I thought I would stop by,” You grin brightly.
“You just get prettier every day,” She hugs you again. “Who’s this?” She asks, noticing Farleigh, who is waiting below on the steps.
“This is Farleigh. I needed a ride, and Felix wasn’t available. This is his cousin,” You step to the side, allowing Farleigh to walk up and shake your mom’s hand.
“Oh, nice to meet you!” She shakes his hand, looking up at him. “You’re tall,” She laughs a bit, taken aback by his height.
Farleigh chuckles a bit. “Nice to meet you, Miss.” He dips his head politely. He’s so fake to adults, you think to yourself. “Ah, a fellow American,” She glances at you with a smile. “Yes ma’am,” Farleigh nods.
“Please, come inside,” She opens the door wider and steps back to let you both in. Farleigh has to duck to fit through the door.
You walk into the small living room and sit on your favorite couch. You see Farleigh observing all the pictures framed on the wall of when you were little. You hear him snicker slightly.
“Where’s Dad?” You ask. Your mom has already entered the kitchen and is pouring some hot tea into some cups.
“He’s at work,” She replies. “On a Saturday?” You ask. Usually your dad got work off on Saturdays.
“Yep. He’s been working hard lately, trying to make some extra money.” Your mom explains as Farleigh walks over to sit with you on the couch.
She walks over and sets the tea cups down on the coffee table. “Thank you,” Farleigh smiles at her and takes one of them. You follow suit.
It feels intimate, in a way. Farleigh meeting your mother and being inside the home you spent many years in. You aren’t sure if you could consider it a childhood home, since you only spent your teenage years here.
Your mom sits down across from you two in her usual chair. “So, tell me all about school. How were exams?” She asks,
You spend the next few hours just talking. Farleigh is surprisingly very conversational, and he seems to be enjoying himself. All three of you are laughing and sharing stories. Your mom even prepares a nice lunch for you two.
After today, you feel like you’ve learned more about Farleigh than you ever knew before. He’s almost bearable when he’s nice like this, and maybe it really is genuine.
“Well, we should probably start heading back,” You say, standing up from the couch. “Alright, sweetheart. I’ll tell Dad you stopped by.” She smiles softly.
And then before you know it, you’re back in the truck with Farleigh, beginning your journey back.
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Flyboy (Part 6) | Jake Seresin x Reader
Top Gun: Maverick - Jake Seresin x Reader
Genre: romance; fluff; angst; best friends to lovers
Warnings: tw: food / eating (one mention of the phrase “you are eating too little”); general hangman being hangman; sexual tension; general cursing; will contain mentions of a break up / previous relationship; general use of pet names; fem!reader; pining; general naval / flying inaccuracies; geographical inaccuracies.
Length: Mini-series, chaptered - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Epilogue
Summary: Jake gets called back to TOPGUN the same time you’ve been granted a sabbatical from work. He invites you, his purely platonic best friend of years, to live with him for 6 months and you accept. Just two best friends kicking it back for 6 months in San Diego, Fightertown USA, right?
A/N: Well, Part 6 is here……. I don’t know what to say; but I teared writing this at some point, and I am insanely nervous (Idk why) about posting this, so please let me know your thoughts? We still have the Epilogue, so this baby is not done. I have blurbs / one shots / Flyboy asks that will follow - I’m not sure if the taglist wants to be tagged in the blurbs / one shots that are original (i.e. not asks), please let me know?
As usual, THANK YOU ALL <3 for loving Flyboy, I LIVE for your comments, tags, reblogs, and it has been an utmost pleasure reading them. KISSING EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU.
Flyboy | Mini-Series Masterlist
(If you haven’t already seen them - blurbs and asks (one-shots coming soon) are also listed on the Flyboy masterlist!)
Flyboy - Part 6
PART 5 <<
Approximately 6.4k words
“Sooo,” the sound of Phoenix’s voice catches you off guard, and you jump as you straighten up from the bend you had been in, in your attempt to reach towards the back of Penny’s fridge to grab four bottles of beer, spinning around to face her.
“I didn’t even hear you come in.” You say, and she smiles, almost too sweetly as she helps you shut the fridge grabbing two of the beer bottles you had wedged between the fingers of one hand from you.
“You and Hangman,” she says pointedly, staring intently at you.
“What about it?” You question, trying to be as casual as possible, while you pull open one of Penny’s drawers, searching for a bottle opener.
“Is something going on,” she leans against the counter of the kitchen, forcing you to look directly at her. Truth to be told, you and Jake had hid it pretty well. Perhaps not to Penny, Mav, or any other third party who saw you both together, but to the clueless bunch of Naval Aviators who, despite being the few to spend the most time with you both, had not made much of it.
The physical tells were something they hadn’t made much of to begin with, a sure result of having seen Jake flirt his way through too many women and situations over the years. However, the near fight at The Hard Deck where they had seen him at his most protective ever, pure, white hot rage radiating off him - only for you to dispel it so easily, coupled with the subtle, but sure shifts in Jake’s demeanour, had started to arouse suspicion.
“I’ve never seen him like this before,” she continues.
In all the years since she had known Jake, Phoenix had never seen him this way - more at ease, more open, happier. It wasn’t to say that his personality with the rest of them had changed drastically, Jake Seresin, was still very much Hangman, boisterous, confident, cocky (particularly in the air), always ready for a challenge, to show and tell that he was better than you, and to say whatever the hell he wanted, but he was also different, somehow happier, with the undercurrent of an unobvious calm and peace to him that they could just feel. It was unnerving to say the least, because it wasn’t something they had seen before, were used to, or had ever known Jake to be.
Bob had noticed it first, the Monday after the week Jake had cancelled fried chicken Friday, after days of sharp but silent observation. It had resulted in Bob telling Phoenix, who then told Rooster, who had went on to relay the message collectively to Coyote, Payback and Fanboy. A group decision was made one afternoon by way of a show of open hands or fists, resulting in Phoenix being the chosen messenger to broad the subject with you.
The difference in Jake had managed to be both outwardly noticeable, and yet not, all at the same time. On the surface, Jake was still Jake, swagger in his step when he walked around TOPGUIN, extolling his own virtues, taking little joking digs at all of them when he could, particularly when they were in the air - “C’mon Rooster, thought the chicken finally learnt to fly.” / “Trace, what does the baby on board in your backseat see?” / “Try to keep up Trace.” / “Aaand, the Relic is off the ground, that ladies and gentleman is called a Pete Mitchell” / “Payback? You mean the thing you can’t dish?” - but come dinner, when they had trooped back home and to you, Jake was somehow different.
The comments were still there - “Sorry boys and girls, I know it must be tough trying to match up to me.” / “Like how Trace and her baby on board fumbled today.” / “Thought Bradshaw was trying to hatch some eggs with the amount of time he was nesting.” / “Garcia and Fitch are always just taking it.” - but at the same time, Jake’s smile was wider, genuinely hitting his eyes and making his greens sparkle; his laugh louder, natural with nothing held back; his body language more open, any tension that he held during the day seemingly having melted away.
More importantly, as they had all come to notice, Jake never left you behind - whether it was purposefully falling behind everyone to bring up the rear just so he could fall in step with you; watching you out of the peripherals of his eyes the moment you left his side at The Hard Deck, right up to the moment you returned just to make sure that you weren’t waylaid by unwanted attention; or even the simplest act of making sure your order never got lost among the barrage of orders of the group; or that you were never cut out, lost or disengaged in the conversation when it dragged on to more Navy-orientated topics which you weren’t as familiar with.
Sure, Pheonix and Bob had caught sight of you and Jake running around the compound one Saturday afternoon, with him sprinting ahead in the last stretch in absolute glee, you yelling at him while trying to catch up, leaving you, quite literally, behind and in his dust - but even then, they had seen with his own eyes, Jake Seresin standing at the finish point, eyes fixed solely on you, waiting for you to meet him, as you yelled and protested your way to the end.
You pull the bottle opener out from the drawer, popping open the caps of the bottles in her hands, and then in yours, before dropping it back, and pushing the drawer shut with a hip. You beckon to Phoenix to exit back out into Penny’s backyard with you to rejoin the group and she follows, her question still hanging in between you both.
You step back out into Penny’s backyard, the cool evening air hitting your skin, your eyes meeting briefly with Jake’s as he looks up in the middle of his conversation with Rooster.
“You’ve only seen Hangman before,” you finally say, you both still out of earshot from the group, before you take a few steps towards the table, “now you get to see Jake.”
She opens her mouth to push her question again, determined to draw out a clear answer or confession from you, only for Jake’s voice to cut in above the chatter, making Rooster turn his neck to glance at the both of you as you return.
“Trace, you got that dog with a bone look on your face,” he starts, “do I have to take you out for harassing my girl?” Jake’s voice is loud enough that it carries across the table, pausing the chatter among the group for a second.
You feel your face heat as you hand a beer bottle off to Bob who receives it with a “thanks”, as he exchanges a look with Fanboy who is seated across the rectangle shaped table, before you settle back into the chair flanked by Jake, and Coyote who is waggling an eyebrow at Payback.
You see a smug, triumphant grin on Phoenix’s face, her question finally answered, as she hands one of the bottles to Rooster before sliding back into her seat beside him.
“Finally,” Penny breaks the moment of silence, throwing up her hands at the confirmation of what she knew, but had been waiting for, for the longest time, Amelia grinning wildly beside her.
“Hear, hear.” Mav raises his beer, to which Bob also does, and the group follows, cheers erupting from Penny’s backyard.
The attention makes you groan, and you hide your face in your hands, turning your body into Jake’s. You had talked about it after the other night at The Hard Deck, and had decided that it was time for the rest to know, directly from you both. You can hear the rumble of his own laughter in his chest, Jake clearly unfazed and not the slightest bit embarrassed at the attention, as he snakes an arm around your shoulders, securing you against him. It only makes the cheers louder, with Coyote sending a loud wolf whistle your way.
-
“Uncle Jake!” The roar of a little voice greets you both as you step through the doors and into the lobby of the hotel. You see a small blonde head sprinting at top speed towards you both, barrelling itself into Jake’s arms which had opened just in time to catch him.
“All this excitement just for me?” Jake exclaims back as he swings his nephew, Kyle, around in the air, before squeezing him tightly against his chest, only for the little boy to squirm in delight.
You see Emma, Jake’s older sister approach, her husband, Liam, and toddler Layla, approach.
“Full attire, really, Jake?” She scoffs taking in Jake’s uniform, but clearly teasing, as she takes reaches out to hug you hello, before coming to a stand in front of her brother.
“Not all of us are on vacation,” Jake shoots back as he sets Kyle down on his feet, before the siblings embrace each other, “some of us still have to work.”
“You only wear it for the looks you get,” Emma retorts with a snort, but being well aware that he had just come from work, as Jake and Liam thump each other on the back in a hug, before Liam reaches out to hug you hello as well.
“Well you gotta agree, I look good.” Jake smirks, not missing a beat, while bending to pick Layla off the ground, hoisting her in an arm and tickling her belly, the toddler shrieking with glee. “Can’t deprive the world of all this now, can we?” He coos the question at Layla who only giggles, patting her uncle’s cheek with her hand.
“I don’t know how you put up with him,” she looks at you as you ruffle Kyle’s hair in a hello, the boy beaming up at you, before slipping his hand into yours, tugging you around in a circle in his excitement.
“None of us do,” the familiar voice of grandma Doris interjects as she and Grace Seresin née Walton, walk into view.
“She’s too sweet to be putting up with your brother,” Grace chimes in, with a glance to her son, who just shrugs, a lazy, self-assured smirk plastered to his face.
Emma tugs Kyle out of your hands, for grandma Doris and Grace to greet you with hugs of their own, before they move onto Jake, who embraces them each with an arm, Layla still nestled happily in his other, her head resting between the crook of his neck, thumb now in her mouth.
“Thank you,” Emma grabs your hands in an exaggerated fashion, clutching them dramatically as she throws a look to Jake, “for putting up with my brother’s clown ass.”
The words coming out from Emma, a grown woman, with perfectly coiffed hair, and designer clothes and shoes that cut a stylish figure, makes you burst out in laughter.
“Just doing my bit of charity for the world.” You manage to say, before grandma Doris links an arm with yours, pulling you towards the door of the lobby, a signal for the rest to follow.
“I’ll cut him out of my will and put you in,” she tells you in a loud stage whisper. You don’t turn back, but if you did, you would have seen Jake grinning broadly, a fond look in his eyes, his niece still cuddled up against him, as he takes in the sight of you and his grandmother walking arm in arm.
-
“You know,” you turn to face Emma at the sound of her voice, clearly directed at you, “he cares about you.”
You both are seated at the end of a table, in the corner of the hotel lobby’, watching as the other members of your party are crowded around the massive cake display case to a side, Layla in her Grace’s arms, and Kyle in Jake’s, Liam and grandma Doris flanking them, as the children attempt to decide which sweet treat to pick.
“I know,” you say, small smile on your lips, as you focus on Jake, before looking back at her.
You and Jake had been mindful of yourselves around the Seresins, not because it would have been an issue, but because you had insisted on not wanting to overshadow their time together with Jake. He had tried to convince you that there wouldn’t have been any overshadowing involved, but you had, with a little help of your hands and mouth, had managed to capture his undivided attention, and be extremely persuasive, to which Jake relented. You weren’t sure if Emma knew, or suspected at the very least. You had always known her to be astute.
“He would probably kill me if I told you this,” she begins, as she leans back in her seat, folding her hands in her lap, “but slightly over three years ago, when you had told him about Dan, that guy you were seeing, he was noticeably…” she pauses, searching for the right words to use, “worked up.”
“I didn’t know,” you start, as you find your gaze wandering back to Jake who is now squatting beside Kyle, both blondes peering into the bottom layer of the display case. “He never said.”
“We were both home during that period,” she recalls, “and staying with grandma, and I found him in the gym abusing a punching bag. His knuckles were raw, eyes like a man crazed.”
She pauses, as you look back to her before continuing.
“I had Kyle with me, he was still just a toddler at that point, and it took him crying for Jake to stop. He told me, quite angrily I might add, that Dan wasn’t good enough for you”, she says as she unfolds her hands from her lap to reach out to squeeze your forearm, “and you deserved so much more.”
She meets your gaze, squeezing your forearm gently again, before adding after a moment of consideration, “I think he meant himself.”
Her words make your jaw slacken, your lips part slightly, as you remember Jake’s words in the car from the other day when he had only said “less so” since you had started seeing Dan.
“My brother can be a dick to a lot of people,” she starts again, a rueful shake of her head, “but not to you, never to you. He’ll never hurt you.” Emma says as she offers you a final smile, as you hear the voices of the group returning to the table.
“We got chocolate and a red velvet,” Jake says, as he slides back into the chair beside you, Kyle clamouring from his lap into yours. He finds you looking at him curiously, a strange expression on his face and he tilts his head to a side, asking silently if you are ok, before darting his gaze to Emma who immediately turns her attention to Liam.
You nod, with a slight tilt of your ahead, signalling that you are fine before you turn your attention back to Kyle who is describing to you, in vivid detail the chocolate cake that he chose.
-
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with?” Jake asks you for the tenth time since you had both left the house, “you’re already in the car.”
“I don’t,” you shake your head as you watch him glance out the side mirror, checking for cars, before he makes the turn. “You should spend some time alone with them before they go back.”
It had been a Seresin filled week, with you spending almost all of your time with grandma Doris, Grace, Emma, Liam, Kyle and Layla during the days, with Jake joining the group only in the evening once he had managed to get out of work. He had however, managed to spend an entire full day with the group yesterday, a Saturday, which largely comprise of him and Liam, chasing Kyle and Layla around the beach, while you, Emma, Doris and Grace watched on, chatting idly.
Emma and her family had left earlier in the morning, but his mother and grandmother who had booked themselves into a later flight, scheduled only for the late afternoon, had asked Jake to meet them for breakfast.
Jake opens his mouth to say something as he glances at you, and you shake your head again, pre-empting his response, your tone firm.
“No Jake, they deserve your undivided attention.” You knew you were always welcome with the Seresins, but you had wanted to give grandmother Doris, Grace and Jake the time they deserved together. You hadn’t made mention of it to Jake, but had gathered from their previous trip to see you in New York (sans Jake), that they missed Jake more than they cared to let on. It wasn’t easy having a grandson and son far from you; what more one that was a Naval Aviator who could be deployed for 6 months, to an undisclosed location at the drop of a hat. You had missed Jake yourself, worried about him during his stints of deployment over the years, even if were both already separated by state, so it was easy for you to empathise.
The seriousness to your voice makes him shut his mouth, choosing instead to reach across the center console and place a hand on your thigh, fingers squeezing lightly in understanding.
“Do you want me to wait for you?” You ask, and Jake shakes his head no.
He had sent his truck off to the workshop, only to have it grounded for a couple of days. You had tried to strong arm him into taking your car, seeing that he was due back to TOPGUN for an afternoon of flights, despite having been able to wrangle a few hours off to spend with his mother and grandmother before they left, but Jake Seresin, if anything, was a stubborn man, who had refused, not wanting to leave you inconvenienced. You had both reached a comprise, being that he would drop himself off to meet the Seresins, and grandma Doris would get her car to drop Jake back at TOPGUN before she left. It wasn’t the smartest solution, but it was the most he would budge on it.
He pulls up kerbside, in front of the hotel his grandmother and mother were staying in and shifts the car into park. You both exit, and Jake waits for you beside the door of the driver’s side, holding the door open, while you step in and up into the seat and buckle yourself in.
“See you later?” He asks, a rhetoric question, but you nod anyway and he kisses you swiftly on the corner of your lips before shutting the door on you and jogging over to the kerb. You duck your head to peer out of the window on the passenger’s side and he winks at you. You press a kiss to your fingers, blowing it at him, and it earns you a wide smile, the sides of his eyes crinkling. You let yourself take it in, Jake smiling, with his hair combed back, uniform hugging him in the right places, before you lift a hand in a wave and drive off, thinking to yourself, god was he handsome.
-
“You’re eating too little.” Grandma Doris asks, eyeing the bowl of yogurt, and granola in front of her grandson.
“Don’t want to be throwing up mid flight.” He explains before popping the spoon into his mouth. “I’ll have more for dinner.”
She hums in acknowledgement, settling back into her chair, while taking a sip from her tea cup, eyes studying her grandson.
“So,” she starts casually, almost too casually for her, and it makes Jake drop his spoon as he leans back to take her in, “were you planning on keeping your poor grandmother in the dark forever?”
Jake knows what she is referring to, but opts for raising brow, waiting for her to elaborate.
“That you both finally became more than just friends.” Grandma Doris stretches out the word finally, and Jake raises his glass to his lips, but his smile is barely covered.
“What gave it away?” He asks, after taking a gulp of water and setting his glass down.
“You did be blind not to know,” Grace scoffs, taking a sip of coffee. You both had hid it well, but a mother always knew her son.
The relationship you and Jake had, was something that had always been special - he was more himself around you, more the Jake that Grace had knew, loved and known from the first day she had held him in her arms, and you, well, you somehow managed to tolerate him, during the good and the bad, accepting him for both his good and bad; but this time, this was different.
Grace had always seen a glimpse of something more in her son’s eyes when he looked to you, only when he knew that you weren’t watching, but this time - she had seen it in his eyes, when he had looked directly at you, and had seen you meet his gaze with the exact same look, of equal intensity in your eyes. She had seen the quiet, content, smile that flickered briefly across both your features, and she just knew.
Her suspicions had been confirmed the night before when Grace’s own mother had nudged her and motioned out the window of the hotel lobby, both of them watching, just in time to catch you run a finger over the the sunburn blooming along the bridge of Jake’s nose, laughing about something they couldn’t hear, to which Jake only reached out to pull you towards him, your face colliding with his chest, body shaking with laughter as he planted his lips on the top of your hair, while saying something that caused your shoulders to shake even more.
“Weeks,” he says vaguely, not bothering to count the detailed specifics, not because Jake didn’t care, but because he didn’t need to with you - not when he was sure you were his forever. He had expressed outrightly that you were his girl - because even when you hadn’t been, you had somehow, always been his in one way or another - and Jake hadn’t asked you explicitly, the question of “will you be my girlfriend?”, but it hadn’t mattered to either of you; the question seemingly unimportant and trivial, when you both already just knew.
Grandma Doris observes grandson from her perch across the table, the light in his eyes that she had always saw when he looked at you had finally come to the front, and it was dazzling. She places down her teacup, fingers of her right hand working to slide the ring she had the fourth finger of her right hand off. It was the simplest of the rings which adorned her fingers, a plain band, holding a single jewel, with the words “timeless” scratched onto the inside of the band, the engraving now dulled from years of wear, but still visible. She places it on the table in front of Jake, who looks down at it, and up again at his grandmother in surprise. He had never seen her take it off since he could remember.
“Give it to her,” she says simply, the implication behind her words clear - marry her. To anyone else, it might have been strange, but grandma Doris understood, it was Jake and you - she had watched quietly, as you both danced around each other for years. “There isn’t any reason to wait when you’ve already known something your whole life.” She say simply.
Jake picks up the ring, flipping it in his fingers, running the pad of his thumb over the engraving on the inner band, before reaching into the shirt of his uniform, tugging out the chain with his dog tags, before undoing it and stringing the ring on.
-
“Well, this is me,” Jake bends down and kisses Grace’s cheek while engulfing her in a hug.
“Come back home soon,” Grace orders and Jake raises a hand to his head to giver her a mini salute.
“Yes M’am.”
“Everyone misses you,” his grandmother says as Jake bends in turn to hug her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
“Your grandfather and father miss you.” His mother says, and Jake meets her gaze in understanding with a small tip of his chin.
Jake stands back, with a last wave, watching as his mother and grandmother enter the car, before the driver shuts the door.
-
Tash: Your man is an idiot.
You swipe open the message from Phoenix to come face to face with a picture of Jake and Rooster’s side view, each man decked out in their flight suit, sunglasses on their face, middle fingers flipped up at each other. It makes you roll your eyes as you shoot back a text.
Is Bradley an idiot as well?
She replies almost instantly.
Tash: The biggest.
You grin, shooting back a reply.
Lies. By the way, do you know what time you’ll be done? My idiot needs a pick up.
Tash: Come now, I’ll get Mav to abuse his “power” and sign you in.
-
“I’m not betting those 200 push ups today,” Fanboy’s voice crackles over the comms as the three planes, him and Payback, Mav and Jake push through the air. It was the last scheduled flight of the day, not entirely necessary because there weren’t any trainees scheduled into the slot, but it hadn’t stopped the four men from jumping into the plans to run the same training simulation of the day. Mav’s time old favourite, dogfighting - two against one.
It earns a laugh from Mav, and Jake snorts.
“C’mon boys, wussing out?” Jake drawls over his comms as he levels his jet with Fanboy and Payback, grinning out the window towards the two. It earns him double middle fingers from the duo.
“I’m not letting you hang us out to dry, Hangman.” Payback says disgruntled. It was undeniable that Jake had proven himself to be a team player from the uranium mission, but it didn’t change the fact that Hangman, being Hangman, still enjoyed blazing his own trail, particularly during simulations such as this where a run was just a run, and nothing was at stake. He would have them eating his dust whenever he could.
“How about a beer instead boys?” Mav asks, grinning lazily out of the window of his jet.
“I could live with that,” Payback jumps and latches onto the lower stakes, before clarifying the safety of his own wallet, “just among us four.”
“Game on,” Jake hooks his mask to his face.
-
True to her word, and you are not entirely sure how, Phoenix gets you signed into TOPGUN, meeting you at the guard house, and jumping into your car, directing you onward. She ends up leading you towards the control room, which she informs you, is filled with themselves and the trainee group today due to the afternoon long simulation flights they had been running. She scans her pass against the electronic lock and holds open the door for you while gesturing you in. You slip into the control room ducking your way past a few trainees, to come to a stand beside Hondo, who is flanked on his other side by Rooster and Bob.
“What did I miss?” Pheonix asks, and Hondo points towards the screen.
“They just bet Mav a round of beers if they beat him.”
“Do we all benefit?” Phoenix asks, hopefully.
“Payback made it very clear that it’s just between them.” Hondo grins, and it earns a dismissive snort from Phoenix
You can’t see the Naval Aviators up in the air, apart from the diagrams of little jets beeping on the radar alongside a counter, and a whole host of numbers you don’t understand; but you can hear them over the speakers in the control room, the sounds of breathing, and chatter.
“Where is he?” Payback asks.
“I can’t see him,” Fanboy.
“Probably hiding beneath us,” you hear Jake, “old man never changes his tactics.” He says, a jab at Mav, and the tone of his voice, makes you shake your head slightly; even you knew, to someone who didn’t know any better or who wasn’t used to him, Jake could very well rub people he didn’t know well the wrong way with his words.
You hear a set of three yells and curses, as Mav’s diagram reappears on radar, a set of numbers alongside the screen rapidly jumping as Mav angles his jet to shoot up between the other two.
“And yet, this old man’s tactics work every time.”
It earns a fist pump from Hondo, and you lean over towards the older man.
“Does he truly do that every time?”
“Works like a charm,” Hondo says, leaning back over to you simultaneously, headset still nestled in his ear, with a nod of his head.
“And they don’t learn?” You ask in slight disbelief at the fact that some of the best Naval Aviators in the country would fall for the same trick more than once.
“Kids,” Hondo laughs with a shrug and a waggle of his brows, and it makes you laugh out loud as you think back to a scene where you had been sitting with the lot, after dinner, watching them argue over which superhero, as portrayed in the movies, would come out on top, because you couldn’t agree more.
-
Jake hears it, clear as day, as he rights his jet, holding back on the acceleration into the planned tactic he was going to go into, even though it was just a soft crackle over the background his comms. He thought he had been dreaming that he had heard your voice, until the point he heard your laugh - he would recognise that laugh anywhere - your laugh.
“Babe?” He says into his comms, and it has Payback and Fanboy looking at each other within the confines of their plane, Mav looking out of the window from above, down towards Jake’s jet, the men all holding in the air, surprised at the sudden call from Jake. All heads in the control room swivel towards you.
Hondo slips the headset off his ear and passes it to you, nodding for you to take it, and you do, slipping it onto your own ear, taking a step forward, closer to the screen even though you can’t see him.
“Jake?” You say, your eyes focused on the mini green outline of his jet on the screen, his call sign flickering beside it.
“Yeah babe?” Jake says again, louder, more sure this time, his face breaking into a wide grin beneath his mask. In that moment, Jake feels like he is at the top of the world, despite having just been spun around in the air by the force of Mav’s jet - he is seated in a jet high above the ground, doing something he had willingly devoted his life to, with your voice in his ear at real-time, knowing that you were watching him.
“Give him hell.” You say, and you hear a roaring laugh of response through the headset in your ear, loud, open, unadulterated, genuine, every note of it being entirely Jake. It is familiar to you, but the heads moving back and forth in the room, eyes coated in surprise, tells you that it isn’t for everyone.
“For you darlin? Anything.”
It earns a whoop from Coyote who is standing to the right of the control room. Jake, who is up in the air grips his center stick, wide grin still on his face. He can feel the ring, dangling from the chain beside his dog tags, a cool circle pressed against his chest. He takes a deep breath.
“Alright boys, hope you’re ready, because Hangman’s coming.”
-
“Tone!” It is a span of mere minutes, where you hear a mix of shouts, grunts and yells coming from the four men in the air, before you hear a loud prolonged beeping sound, and Jake’s voice crackle over the comms, shouting out the single word with a whoop. It earns wide eyes from around the room, and approving nod from Hondo who is behind you, a “yes” from Coyote and a clap from Bob.
“Fucking Hangman,” is what you hear Rooster murmur from behind, clearly impressed.
“Well I’ll be damned.” Tash mumbles as she walks up to you, before clapping her hand on your shoulder. She knew Jake was good, heck - everyone knew, despite having only been selected as Dagger Spare for the uranium mission, he was the only one among them (not counting Mav) who had a count of two confirmed air combat kills, but to get tone on Mav, something none of them had yet to be able to achieve - now that, was impressive.
“Can we get her in the room everytime he flies?” You hear Cyclone mumble to Warlock from his position in the centre of the room, arms still crossed over his chest, eyes fixed on the green on screen.
It makes you smile.
-
You make your way down along with the rest of the group, the only civilian amongst the group of Naval Aviators, hanging to a side with Coyote, Bob, Rooster and Phoenix as the jets grind to a slow stop and into a park. You can hear the chatter of the trainees, standing around as you watch while the top of Jake’s jet pops open, before he hoists himself out of the seat, stepping onto the wing to hop down onto the ground.
Jake yanks his helmet off his head, and you see him, grinning widely, from ear to ear, his hair sticking up, a sheen of sweat across his forehead, in his element, euphoria unmatched. It’s infectious and you feel your face break out into a matching grin, as Jake begins striding directly to you, helmet in his hand. He moves like a man with a mission, focused entirely on you, and the smattering of trainees move to a side as he approaches, it being clear that he has no intention to stop for anyone in his way.
You see him unzip the top of his flight suit, and reach beneath the black shirt he has on underneath, fingers pulling his dog tags out before he tugs them over his head.
“Jake?” He is three steps away from you, and the group behind you has involuntarily taken a step back, not sure of where this is going, allowing you both your space, and then, it happens.
Jake drops his helmet to the ground, the object rolling an inch away before it settles on his side. You are forced to look down as Jake drops a knee to the ground. He leans his elbow on his other knee, which is bended, propped up by a boot that is pressed flat to the ground, and raises his hand towards you, fingers holding out a ring, still hanging from the chain of his dog tags, with a single jewel as the centrepiece towards you. You recognised the ring at once, having seen it as a permanent fixture on grandma Doris’ finger.
“Jake what are yo-” You start to say, but he cuts you off, answering your question at the same time.
“Marry me.” He says, a statement, not quite an ask as his eyes search yours, a smile, genuine, excited, earnest on his face. “Marry me, because I don’t want to have to spend another day not being able to call you mine.”
It’s a big ask, after only weeks, you both jumping the step where he had even asked you (officially) to be his girlfriend, but this was Jake, the man you knew better than anyone else; the man who you understood, and who understood you, without having to even use words; the man who you would do anything for, and who would do anything for you; the man you had spent the past few weeks finally getting it right with; the man you would say yes to in a heartbeat.
You search his face, his eyes now fixed on you, watching as you take it in, take him in. Jake has never been so goddamn sure of anything in his life. He had been sure the moment his grandmother had slipped the ring onto the table; sure from the moment he had kissed you at Annie’s wedding; sure from the moment he had asked you to come out to San Diego for 6 months; perhaps even sure from way before; but hearing your voice over comms, just your voice, pulling together his focus, grounding him, both literally and figuratively propelling him to greater heights, made him realise that he had already taken too goddamn long to do this, and that he would be a fool to wait even a second longer.
“I’m already yours.” You breathe out, pushing out the breath of air you hadn’t even been aware you were holding. It is enough for him, and Jake reaches forward to tug your hand towards him before he slips the ring on. It fits your finger like a glove, his dog tags still dangling from the other end of the chain still attached to the ring, like a part of him to you. He stands, holding your hand in his, pulling you close so that your body is flush against his. Jake smells of jet fuel, sweat and soap. He reaches up with his other hand, to cup your jaw in his palm, a thumb running over your cheekbone.
“Jake?” You say, softly, as he leans in an inch.
“Yeah.” It makes him stop, face slightly apart from yours, but so close that you can feel the tip of his nose brushing against yours, and the warmth of his breath on your skin.
“I love you.” You say out loud for the first time, and you see the wide smile break across his face as he presses his lips to yours. You love him, you’ve loved him, just as he love and has loved you.
“I know baby.” Is what Jake says first against your lips, in true Jake Seresin fashion and you can still feel his smile, as he finally says, “I love you too.”
You hear the thunderous sound of cheers in the background, the loudest coming from the group of Naval Aviators you had come to know and love. A plane flies past, roaring overhead in the sky, and you kiss Jake back, one of your hands still gripping his, the other on the back of his head, feeling the damp roots of sweat in his hair, pulling him into you. You feel like your heart is soaring, your flyboy in your arms.
>> EPILOGUE
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Chapter One: The Ackerbond Begins
Pairing: Canon!Levi x F!Reader
Warnings: none for this chapter, canon typical violence
A/N: this is the start of something i'm extremely excited about, go thank @levmada for this entire mini series. AND PLEASE THANK @peace-for-levi FOR BETA READING FOR ME AND PUTTING UP WITH MY CONSTANT ADJUSTMENTS AND RANDOMLY ADDING SCENES. pls you deserve so much for this <3
It started with nothing but a kernel of anxiety. An instinctual glance on an expedition. Well less of an expedition and more one of Hange’s insanity-fuelled capture missions. They’d somehow managed to convince Erwin to try again, despite the losses of last time’s attempt. Granted, it had taken a few hours of begging and pleading, and maybe Hange called in a few favours, but the look on their face when they’d finally pried a yes from your commander really was priceless.
“Wait… he actually said yes?” you couldn’t tame the disbelief in your tone. How the fuck Hange had managed it, you would never know, but you were impressed with their powers of persuasion. You doubted the crazed look in their eye would have helped their case, and yet here you were. Your boots echoed down the hall in an uneven rhythm, Hange borderline skipping back to the communal lounge. “So, who’s the unfortunate squad then?” you asked, a small smirk playing on your lips.
Until Hange stopped skipping, and turned to you a little sheepishly. “I uh– about that…”
You gawked. “Hange… tell me you didn’t,” though you already knew the truth. You’d made them promise before they went to their meeting that they wouldn’t volunteer your squad. Though you were more than willing to help, you knew for a fact your captain would be less than pleased. “Hange you promised! I can’t believe you did that!”
“I didn’t have a choice! Anyway, Shorty will say yes, he always does to me!” You rolled your eyes fondly, that smile returning to your face. It was a fact that Levi often had trouble saying no to Hange, and even when he did say no, he would usually end up helping whatever they were trying to accomplish. You found it rather sweet honestly.
“And how exactly do you plan on telling him?”
Hange turned sheepish again, scratching the back of their head. “Actually, I was, rather hoping you could do that for me. You know, I’m always so busy with the lab and experiments and creating new gear and–”
“No. Do it yourself.” You folded your arms, tone flat as you watched Hange’s expression turn desperate.
“C’mon, please? You know you’re his favourite!”
“He doesn’t have favourites.”
“But if he did it would totally be you!”
“Hange, I’m not doing your dirty work, tell him yourself. And stop trying to sweet talk me!” you laughed in disbelief.
“Pleeeeaaaaase? I’ll do anything!”
You paused, raising a brow of intrigue, thinking for a moment. This kind of an offer didn’t happen everyday, and you briefly entertained the multitude of possibilities. “Anything?”
“Yes, anything!”
“Take a fucking bath.” And with that, you turned on your heel, striding down the hall. It clearly took the madman a second to process what you’d said, before their loud excited shriek echoed behind you.
“YAHOOOOO! I OWE YA!” And despite the fact you’d given in, you couldn’t help your small chuckle at their antics. You could see why Levi’s will was often bent when it came to Hange. There really was something about them you couldn’t say no to.
Rounding the corner at the end of the hall, you open the door to the communal lounge, expelling a heavy breath before looking up, and realising there were four pairs of eyes trained on you, clearly having been in the middle of a card game. A bottle of half-empty whiskey and four glasses told you they’d been waiting for your return. You gave your squad an apologetic smile, before locking eyes with Eld and gesturing for him to accompany you. Your squad eyed you both a little suspiciously, but it wasn’t uncommon for you to confide in the blonde. He was the only soldier who’d been in the Special Ops squad for as long as you had. He was always the first to make newcomers feel welcome, a stark contrast to Oluo’s ‘I’m better than you’ schtick. Level-headed and kind, Eld had always been a safe space for you. And honestly, if he wasn’t a taken man, you may have tried your luck. You’d wanted to in the past.
Slipping back out the door, you leant against the wall behind you, pinching your brow between your thumb and forefinger. The beginnings of a headache had started to throb at the base of your skull, your shoulders tensing and relaxing as if trying to get rid of the ache.
“Oh, you don’t look great…” you raised your eyes to the blonde as he shut the door behind him, mirroring your stance on the opposite side. You saw him almost grimace at your appearance. Did you really look that tired? You blew out a breath. You would examine your dark circles later.
“Sooooo, we’re going to be accompanying Hange on their suicide mission.” You stated flatly. Always better to be blunt in the Survey Corps. A habit most soldiers pick up. There’s never any time to faff about on the battlefield, so conveying information quickly and bluntly was the best way forward.
Eld baulked, eyes bugging at the mere suggestion. “Why haven’t we been told? And why are you the only one who knows? Doesn’t the Captain want us to– oh.” You watched his features slack on horrified understanding. “He doesn’t know… does he?” You shook your head, eyes now trained on the floorboards in distressed thought. Sure, you’d always been able to go to Levi for anything in the past, but you weren’t worried about yourself in this situation. You were more worried about him, and how he would most likely have to disinfect his foot after shoving it so far up Hange’s ass.
“And I'm the one who has to tell him.” You finished your bad news, picking at your lips until you felt the satisfying pull of loose skin. Eld grimaced again, before blowing out a tense breath and running his hand through his sandy hair.
“Honestly, rather you than me. But I’m sure you’ll be fine, he’s never snapped at you before and you’ve been here longer than me.” You huffed a small laugh.
“Not that much longer, but it’s not me I'm worried about. He’s already got so much on his plate, Eld, I didn’t wanna add this as well. Do you ever see the man take a break? I had to take some food leftover from lunch today because he didn’t show up. He’s working himself to death and now he has to deal with this? I fucking told Hange not to volunteer us for this specific reason and now–”
“Hey, take a breath. You’re fine. Hange does what they want, there’s not a lot you can do now.” Eld’s reassuring tone put you at ease slightly, a hand on your shoulder sapping some of the tension in your muscles. You already knew there was nothing you could do, but it was still comforting to hear it from someone else. “Do you want one of us to tell him? I could ask Petra, she’s always on good terms with him. I don’t think Oluo would be a good idea though…”
“Nah, it’s okay, I’ll do it. Besides, if I don’t, Hange won’t take a bath so-” you shrugged as if it was the most obvious reason in the world.
“Uh, what?” you laughed at your comrade’s quizzical expression, before patting his hand on your shoulder.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll catch up with you guys later, gotta march to my death. Ya know, ‘Dedicate your heart’ and all that.” You gave him a mock salute, a tired, lopsided smile. Eld laughed at your display, his brow raised in amused pity.
“Not sure this is what the Commander means when he says that but good luck soldier! And let us know what happens if you come out alive!” He called after you, before laughing heartily when you flipped him as you walked back down the hallway, back to the barracks and the superior’s quarters.
Levi actively couldn’t remember the last time he stood up today. Or walked anywhere. Or looked away from the stack of papers taller than wall Maria. Since the last expedition, he’d been caged in by the almost impressive amount of paperwork he’d been loaded with. Lists of damaged equipment and endless scrawls of the soldier’s they belonged to, as well as accounts of cargo and supplies lost, wagon replacement orders and some ridiculous request for more alcohol – why drink alcohol when tea tasted better? – He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of human life today, only a soft knock on his door which he didn’t hear, until his stomach growled so loud he swore the civilians in the neighbouring city would have heard it. Ah, that was the last time he stood up. When he left to grab himself some food only to find a tray at the foot of his door. Lukewarm rice, tea that was somehow still hot, and a small bread roll.
He still didn’t know who to thank for that.
So he almost didn’t know how to respond when there was another knock on his door, though for some reason he was stressed as fuck. It wasn’t like he had done anything other than sign his name a thousand times today, so why the fuck did he feel so goddamn–
“Enter.”
It was as if someone had just soothed a cooling balm over a throbbing welt the moment you stepped through the door. Your familiar presence drawing attention to his newfound longing for human interaction. Even Hange would have been a welcome sight, but you were a blessing. Even with those almost bruise-like circles beneath your eyes. “You look about as tired as I feel.” He commented flatly, resting his elbows on his desk. Levi waved off your obligatory salute, wanting to remind you that you never needed to be so formal with him after hours. Considering how long you’d known each other, it felt a little strange.
“Trust me Captain, you look as tired as you feel.” You quipped, prompting a short huff of amusement, before he really looked at you. Shit, he could fucking smell the anxiety off you. Picking at the loose skin around your cuticles, shifting from foot to foot. Levi raised a brow.
“Well? I assume you didn’t come in here to insult my appearance. What’s going on?” whilst he enjoyed your company, your current presence was simply worsening his own stress. Seeing you fidget so much was… uncommon to say the least.
You took a breath. “I thought you should probably know we’ll be assisting Hange in their next attempt to capture a titan.”
The room fell silent. Static.
“What?” It was less of a ‘what did you say?’ and more of a ‘you’ve got to be fucking joking.’ kind of question.
“Commander Erwin just approved it and uh, it seems your squad was somewhat volunteered… by Hange.” You braced yourself. Not once had you ever seen Levi blow up, but you know it was a possibility. Though he had a tight rein on his emotions, nobody was immune to this kind of thing. Not even him.
“So why are you in here telling me instead of Four Eyes?” Levi queried, his patience for today thinning.
“A few reasons, I’d imagine. Most likely self preservation, but we struck a deal. I would be the one to tell you.”
“And in return?”
You flashed a small smirk. “They’d take a bath.”
Levi nodded in approval, as if Hange taking a bath was the only thing that would have been an appropriate deal to make. Picking up his pen, he set back to the documents in front of him, mindlessing poring over the now amorphous ink stains. “You’re dismissed.” He left it as long as he could before dismissing you, though he didn’t really know why, or whether it was just subconscious.
You nodded, eyeing the insanely tall stacks of paperwork haphazardly positioned on his desk. They were almost comically big, and you couldn’t help stifling a laugh at the thought of them actually being taller than your captain. But empathy opened your heart, watching him have to reread a few sentences before moving on with tired understanding. With a heavy sigh and one final thought to your waiting tumbler of whiskey with your squad, you pulled up the spare chair in his office and sat on the opposite side of his desk.
Levi glanced up, raising a brow of quizzical suspicion. Though there had been a few times before you’d helped him with his paperwork, usually it was scheduled, and he’d asked for your assistance. This just felt like you were either avoiding someone, or feeling some kind of guilt. And he honestly? He couldn’t think of anything worse.
“The hell are you doing?” He couldn’t keep the sharpness from his tone, eyes narrowing as you all but stole a pen from his stash.
“Literally? Committing major fraud by forging your signature on multiple legal documents containing sensitive information about Scout operations. Actually? Lessening your workload so you might actually get more than twenty six minutes’ sleep tonight.” You took the first document from the largest stack you’d split in half without looking up, instantly scanning the paper for a vague understanding of what the hell you were about to sign for him.
“Why…?”
You paused, looking up from your first document of the night with a soft smile. “‘Because you look about as tired as I feel.’” You quoted, expression softening. Levi looked at you, his steel eyes widening a fraction as he saw no hint of deception. He’d lied to himself earlier, he could think of something worse. The slight suggestion that you actually wanted to help him, or worse still… that you wanted to spend time with him.
“...It was thirty nine, actually.”
“Sorry?”
“Thirty nine minutes of sleep. Not twenty six.” Your laughter warmed his heart, and Levi found himself enjoying the sound far too much for his own good. That quirk in your lips, that soft pinch of your brow… He had to look away. This was extremely unprofessional of him.
“I wouldn’t say you’re a champion of sleep, even with those extra thirteen minutes. So let me help.” you implored, holding his gaze until he gave in. Which didn’t take nearly as long as you thought it would.
“Tch, do what you want.” Levi shrugged, going back to his own parchment that had been all but abandoned upon your sudden arrival.
“Besides, since we’re helping Hange tomorrow, we’ll need our captain at his best.” You tried to sweeten the blow with a compliment, though it seems your efforts fell short the second he jerked his head back up.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah… didn’t I mention that?” you chuckled a little sheepishly, and suddenly you knew how Hange felt earlier.
“No, strangely enough, you failed to mention that.” Not that Levi could be mad at you. You would probably have to straight up murder somebody for him to be angry with you, and even then he would ask if you were okay first. Either murder somebody, or track mud through his freshly mopped floors. Levi sighed, accepting his fate. “Why do you enjoy hanging out with them so much anyway?” It wasn’t an insult, not that you could tell. More like genuine curiosity thinly veiled with slight disdain.
“They’re fun, I guess, despite them being borderline clinically insane. It’s a welcome change from the melancholic atmosphere after an expedition. They help chase the shadows away.” Your eyes emptied for a moment, a ghost-like expression haunting your features, and for a second Levi could see every friend, every comrade, every brother and sister you’d lost. Something in him shifted drastically, though imperceptibly.
“We need tea.” The life reentered your eyes as you huffed a laugh, quirking your brow slightly. You didn’t realise you would be helping him for so long, but now you’re here, you can’t say you were discouraged at the idea.
“That we do.”
“You’re doing it wrong.”
“No I’m not, I’m doing it exactly how you were doing it.”
“She says; not doing it the way I did it.”
“Do you want tea or not?”
“Not if you’re gonna do it so wrong.”
You huffed in irritation. When Levi suggested getting some tea, you did not expect it to become some kind of intensive training session where he taught you how to properly steep tea leaves for fuck sakes. Slamming the spoon down on the counter, you fixed him with a glare.
“Are you going to let me do this?”
Levi didn’t back down. “It’s going to taste like pig piss, you know that, right?”
“No it won’t! It’ll taste fine, I’m doing it exactly how you showed me, look!” What Levi saw was almost the exact opposite of what he showed you. It was borderline violent, thrashing the spoon around in the brew, dunking in the leaves like you were interrogating them. What he showed you took finesse, a delicate touch. Not… whatever the hell this was. He couldn’t help but flinch with each forceful tug on the silky bag. Though your determination was something to be admired. And he couldn’t help but admire you.
“Move, let me.” Levi moved to take your place at the counter, having to bite his tongue to stifle his amusement as you grumbled, clearly disgruntled with your tea making performance. Clicking his tongue, he surveyed the absolute massacre you’d made, and his heart clenched woefully at the waste of leaves. “This shit isn’t cheap, so quit wasting it. Now I gotta start again.”
You folded your arms in petulance, pouting an apology before actually feeling bad for wasting one of his few indulgences. You knew it was more of a comfort blanket for him than anything else. Sure, the flavour was good, but nobody could love tea this much, right? You’d rarely spoken about his past; he would simply say he didn’t remember much whenever the topic arose. And you could never tell if that was the truth, or simply an excuse. A defence mechanism. The only thing you knew was that it wasn’t pleasant, and it was nothing short of miraculous that he’d made it out.
Making a mental note to pop into town and buy some more, you shuffled back over to the counter, resting your elbow on the surface and perching your chin atop the heel of your palm, now watching with renewed curiosity as Levi steeped tea like a craftsman. “See the difference?”
You rolled your eyes at the slight teasing in his tone -still a little pouty from before -until he shoved the brew under your nose and you couldn’t help but be enticed by the flowery, bitter aroma. It reminded you of his office, you noticed. “Thanks.” You raised your eyes in gratitude, only for your expression to fall flat at the slightest smug pull to his lips.
“That is how it’s supposed to taste. Not like some diluted shit-water.”
“Okay okay I get it! I made the tea wrong.” You conceded, holding your hands up in cease-fire.
“You butchered it.” There wasn’t much Levi felt comfortable enough to tease you about. Your weird habit to talk to the inanimate objects around you was one thing, and now your utterly pathetic tea-making skills. So of course he was about to run this joke into the ground.
“What do you want me to do? Go back in time and un-butcher it?”
“Pretty sure it was about to confess if you’d held it under a few more times.”
“Oh ha-ha, pick up a brush and paint me a landscape, then we’ll see who’s better than who.” You both stopped, frozen in your accidental slip up. Not a single soul in the Scouts knew of your little hobby, and you’d just fucking told your captain. You felt heat flood to your cheeks as you looked away, suddenly extremely interested in your drink.
Levi stopped to process his sudden, thundering heartbeat. How didn’t he know that about you? He made it his business to know everything about his squad, including Gunther’s affiliation for collecting the most cursed trinkets he could find in the marketplace and meticulously placing them around the HeadQuarters. But not once had this ever come up. “You paint?”
The sound you made was like nothing he’d ever heard. Something akin to that of a small rodent caught in a trap as you still refused to look at him. “No…?” You sounded almost hopeful that he would believe you, but that sharp brow raise told you otherwise. “Uh, not really. Or not as much as I used to. So occasionally. When I feel like it. Which is sometimes. I, yeah, sometimes.” You cracked your fingers, not really knowing what to do or where to look or how to escape this godforsaken situation you’d stumbled ass backwards into.
The strangest warmth enveloped his chest, his heart fluttering in weird ways at how you suddenly became very humble and bashful. He’d never seen you ramble before, never seen you lose your composure like that. It’s why he trusted you with everything when he was away. Because you could keep a level head. But this was something he didn’t think anyone had seen before. He tried unsuccessfully to squash the privileged feeling, but he couldn’t help it.
“You any good?” You exhaled an uncomfortable breath, chewing on your bottom lip slightly, still refusing to meet your captain’s curious yet sharp eyes.
“What? No! No, not really. Besides, it’s not like I have the time anyway. I usually paint most in the winter, when we don’t have expeditions to worry about. It does mean most of my canvases remain white but, ya know, less to do that way.” You joked awkwardly, finally gathering the courage to raise your gaze from your teacup, only to become trapped in his. Snared in a net of iced flecked steel, you’d never seen him look so at ease. So soft. No crease in his brow, no pout in his lips. He looked peaceful for once, and you found yourself quickly becoming addicted.
“ ‘That mean if I was to pick up a brush, I would be better than you?”
You huffed an incredulous laugh at the flicker of mischief in his eye, unable to stop your own honest grin despite your faux offence. “I wouldn’t say that…'' you folded your arms, fixing him with an accusatory glare that held no venom, but rather veiled enjoyment, almost daring him to quip back.
But his eyes freely roamed your features, only now noticing the proximity. Everything about you seemed flawless. Everything apart from…
“You’ve been picking at your lips again,” he murmured, taking note of the slight raw redness to your lips, and the way your faux glare softened away to nothing. He knew for a fact that if he were to kiss you, he’d taste blood. Though he wondered what else he would taste. What did you taste like? Probably sweet, like the smell of orange blossom, or maybe something fresher, like dewy grass. Would he be able to taste the tea you just drank? Or would you–
Wait. What the fuck was he talking about?
“Uh, yeah, force of habit,” you looked away, and it took every fibre of self control Levi had not to gently grasp your chin and turn you back to look at him. Fuck, had his heart always skipped beats like this? It was racing so fast he felt as if he had two.
“You should probably get something on them, it looks sore.” Keeping his voice steady was no small feat. Not when he felt his very soul shake with your presence so near him. He was so close to running his thumb gently over your mouth, wanting to soothe the obvious discomfort.
And he would have done, had your little moment not been shattered by a throaty cough, and the arrival of a not so subtle Hange.
“Evening.” Never in your life had you been more conflicted. On the one hand, you were so glad that the conversation was over, and that your heart could stop exploding. But on the other hand…
You were rather enjoying it.
Levi, however, couldn’t have clenched his jaw any harder. For if he did, it was likely he wouldn’t have any teeth left. Shifting his eyes to the left, he had to physically restrain himself from not lunging to throttle them. Leaning up against the counter like that, who the fuck did they think they were? “You don’t smell like the stables, special occasion?”
You snorted a laugh into your tea, jerking back as the liquid splashed slightly.
“Only if you count tomorrow’s big day! You better have told him, ``I don't want to have taken a bath for nothing!” Hange’s address turned to you, and you nodded with a sharp eye roll.
“Yeah, I told him, glad to smell you held up your end of the deal.” You raised your cup in appreciation, taking a large sip of your drink. Just as you’d suspected, it tasted exactly the same as when you would make it yourself. And you only just managed to stop yourself from bringing it up again.
Hange paused, and from their eager, cheeky expression, you knew before they even said anything they were about to cause trouble. “What were you two talking about? It looked intense. Prolonged eye-contact and all that.” It was your turn to tense your jaw, though keeping your indifferent façade, you raised a brow.
“Squad formations and pair ups. Whether Oluo and Petra would make a good team or whether she would get pissed off with his pathetic flirting attempts. Since both myself and Gunther work so well with Eld, we were discussing whether it was worth starting trio attack training.” Levi’s eyes widened a fraction as you lied so effortlessly. He couldn’t help but wonder whether you’d ever lied to him, since you did it so smoothly. Maybe that one time he’d stumbled on you and Petra having a private conversation in the corner of the communal lounge. You’d told him then you were discussing gas saving tactics… Was that even true?
Hange visibly deflated, much to your shared relief. “Oh. Well I guess that is quite intense. Care to share?” Levi’s heart did that weird fluttery thing when your smile held very little genuinity. You looked satisfied, almost smug, and it did things to him. Things he couldn’t pinpoint.
“No. You sprung the mission tomorrow on us, I think we’ll keep this til the last possible moment as well.”
“Pleeeeeaaaaaase? Levi?” Hange turned to the raven next to you, only to find a similar answer.
“Don’t look at me, not my tactics. She’s the brains behind them, not me. I just approve them.” You had to fight tooth and nail to keep yourself from smiling at that, from smiling at him.
“But I’m your favourite!”
“I don’t have favourites.”
You barked a laugh. “Told ya. Anyway, Hans, shouldn’t you be preparing for tomorrow? Getting your equipment ready and maybe checking the failsafes…?” You watched Hange hop up onto the counter, much to Levi’s visible disgust. You assumed, no matter how many times they took a bath, they would never be clean in his eyes.
“Oh! Moblit’s on it. He didn’t trust me enough to make sure everything worked properly.”
“I wonder why…” Levi muttered sarcastically, prompting you to send a ‘be nice’ glance his way. Only to be returned with a glance of ‘piss off’.
“Poor guy. You should probably buy him a drink or ten as compensation. Pretty sure he should be on some kind of medication for all the heart attacks you give him.” You leaned up against the counter behind you, resting your elbows on the surface. You kind of wished you were somewhere a little comfier but, it’s rare Levi ever joined you and your squad in the lounge, usually opting instead to hide away in his office.
“He’s fiiiiiine, he just worries too much!”
“Knowing you, Hange, I think he worries an adequate amount for his situation.” Levi muttered, the lower half of his face covered by his obscure hold on the teacup. This wasn’t exactly the evening he had planned, and despite feeling as if something had been ruined earlier, he couldn’t deny he was secretly enjoying himself. When else would he get the chance to just, spend some time away from his work… with you… and Hange, of course.
“It’s his job to worry so I don’t have to! Don’t you worry for Levi so he doesn’t have to?” they asked you, eyes wide with genuine curiosity.
“I worry about him, there’s a difference, Hans. This doesn’t lead to heart failure.”
“Just headaches and lack of sleep,”
“Pretty sure Moblit suffers from that as well.”
It was almost as if he wasn’t in the room anymore. Levi barely managed to stop his head snapping in your direction. You worried about him? How long had you done that? Why the hell did you worry about him? Did you know he worried for you too? All the damn time? And especially when you looked like you hadn’t slept in the last twenty years and your lips were bitten to shit?
“Anyway! We should really get back to work. Was nice talking to ya, Hans, even if you betrayed me today.” You narrowed your eyes in playful irritation, grinning when they shrugged with indifference.
“Come on, you would have helped out anyway, neither of you can ever say no to me. I’m just that great!”
“Great pain in my ass.”
You laughed at the quiet comment from Levi, draining your cup of tea before placing it back on the counter with a soft clink. Without having to look to your left, you knew Levi had done the same. The original plan was to take tea back to work with you, but this had been a welcome change. You would never get tired at the banter between Hange and Levi, and you completely understood why there were so many rumours about them. Hell, even you were starting to suspect something deeper ran between them. You would even believe it, if not for the fact Hange was usually tied to Moblit’s hip. Now there was definitely something going on there.
“See you tomorrow! Bright and early, I want this over and done with in the morning so I can get started on the fun part!” Hange’s eyes seemed to glaze over with some kind of deranged excitement, and you were half expecting them to start drooling.
You shivered despite yourself. Sometimes they really were terrifying.
Saying your farewells, you prepared yourself for another few hours of paperwork, stretching your fingers as you walked side by side back to Levi’s office. The silence wasn’t tense, but instead static. Like he had something to say but was holding off for one reason or another. You wanted to pry it from his lips, but you also knew that would simply discourage him from saying anything.
It took almost the entire walk back to his office for Levi to finally speak up, quelling the irritating stuttering in his chest. It was becoming really fucking annoying. “You worry about me?”
You stopped just short of his door, tilting your head with a quirked brow. “Yes? Why do you sound so surprised? Of course I worry about you,” you spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. But of course, to Levi, it wasn’t, and after his prolonged silence, you started to worry you’d overstepped a boundary. “I worry about everyone.” It was a quick fix, but believable enough. You did have a tendency to stress about your comrades.
It wasn’t that Levi was disappointed. No, that couldn’t have been it. It was natural for you to worry about everyone. It was in your nature. It was just a testament to how much you cared about everyone. So why the hell did he suddenly feel weirdly hollow?
“I see.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”
“It’s fine.”
Now, this was an awkward silence. You shifted on your feet slightly, having absolutely no idea how to proceed from here. Levi’s hand rested on the door handle, but he made no move to push it open. He just stared at you, scrutinising. And shit was it uncomfortable.
Levi found himself stuck in a strange limbo, so caught up in his head he didn’t realise how fucking weird he was being. He was trying to decipher you, like some impossible enigma. Trying to see your hidden messages in the valleys and hills of your face, in the confusing, swirling smoke of your eyes. It was only when you cleared your throat did he blink back to reality to see you awkwardly looking around.
What the fuck was he doing?
“Ah, we should probably get on with–”
“Get some sleep.” He said your name harsher than he meant to. He didn’t mean for that to sound like a thinly veiled ‘fuck off’, but from the way you looked like he’d just struck you, he could safely assume the real message of ‘I can’t worry about you tomorrow so I need you rested and ready’ was lost in translation. Levi didn’t know why he was surprised.
You saluted stiffly, gritting your teeth against your confused hurt. You knew later on tonight, most likely when you were in bed and couldn’t sleep, you would be going over this conversation over and over again, agonising over the exact moment you fucked up and pushed him back into his shell after working so hard to coax him out of it.
“Yes sir.” Unable to think of anything else to say, you turned on your heel and strode back down the hall, not wanting to think about this exchange until you were at least out of eyesight.
Your smooth transition from your softer, more domestic self, to the soldier he knew he could always rely on gave him whiplash. He couldn’t help but wonder whether everything that had happened this evening was either a manifestation of his own lack of sleep, or if he was seeing some kind of link between you two that simply wasn’t there. But he couldn’t explain, or shake, the stabbing twist in his chest.
Levi was no stranger to pain, but this was another breed of hurt altogether. One he’d never experienced before.
And one he hoped he would never experience again.
Hange wasn’t kidding when they said bright and early. You guessed it was sometime near 4:30 in the morning when a sharp knock rapped on your door, jolting you awake. You heard the groan of your disgruntled roommate below you, and two groggy curses from your other two roommates opposite. Swinging your head down, you saw the slightest tuft of ginger hair from beneath clean linens.
“I guess I’ll get it, shall I? We all have to be up anyway, lazy sods.” You grumbled amicably, clambering down from your bunk. You had half a mind to tear Nifa’s bed cover off her sleeping form, spill water over Petra’s submerged head and rip Nanaba’s pillow from under her. But, you decided to be nice this morning. You loved these girls dearly. Though most of you came from separate squads, you’d formed a tight knit bond with each other, and one you knew wouldn’t so easily be broken.
Padding over to the door, you cracked it open to see Eld’s own tired visage. Hair loose dishevelled, sleep still plaguing his eyes, you just managed to stop yourself from laughing.
“Mornin’ you. Ready to go catch some titans?” You wiped the sleep from beneath your eyes, sighing a long, heavy breath of discontent.
“No, and from the sounds of it, you aren’t either. How long do we have?” You asked, casting a glance back inside your room only to find all three girls, now wide awake, grinning at you slyly.
“About half an hour. When Hange volunteered us for this gig, this was not what I was expecting.” Eld ran a hand down the side of his face, before sliding it back up his cheek and through his sandy locks. You always forgot just how long his hair was when it wasn’t up in a bun. He looked strange with it down, though oddly refreshing.
“Tell me about it. Alright, we’ll be out in fifteen max. No doubt the Captain wants to brief us quickly.” You were surprised at your own venom when you said that. Even Eld looked a little taken aback, eyeing you with suspicion. You hadn’t meant to spit his name like that, it was sort of an involuntary response to the way he treated you last night. You had, of course, mulled it over time and time again before you finally managed to get to sleep, and you still couldn’t figure out where you went wrong. So you were safe to assume you didn’t. And he’s just an asshole. Yeah, that must be it.
“Gotcha, Gunther and Oluo are already up too so we’ll see you in the courtyard in fifteen, yeah?”
“Sounds good. Cheers for the wake-up call.” You slowly shut the door, turning back to the three pairs of eyes all trained on you. Even Petra - sleepy, ‘don’t wake me up or I’ll murder you’ Petra - was wide awake, as if she had been for hours. “What?”
“Just fuck him and get it over with. We could smell the sexual tension from here.”
“Gross, Nana.” Petra quipped.
“Really, it’s just embarrassing at this point.” She continued, clambering down from her top bunk.
“Even I can see there’s something between you two. Hasn’t he made any moves yet?” Nifa asked innocently, curiously tilting her head from the comfort of her blankets.
You folded your arms a little defensively. Sure, you used to have a crush on the man, you’re not immune to charm and good looks, but that was an extremely long time ago. Before you actually knew him. That wouldn’t stop him from being one of your greatest friends, but any romantic feelings you may have once felt had been squashed. He simply wasn’t your type.
“No, strangely enough, because he’s engaged and we’re also nothing but close friends.”
“Strange how you mentioned him being engaged first.” Petra wiggled her eyebrows, retrieving a shirt from your shared chest of drawers.
“You’re acting like you having been fucking Oluo on the sly. It’s normal for her to be out late, she has more duties than the rest of us,” –you nodded in mock gratefulness to Nanaba’s reference to you as her– “but for you, Pet? Yeah, obviously you’re out fucking somebody, and the only one who’s interest you’ve entertained is Oluo. So, I deduce–”
“Well, what about you and Miche? Huh? What’s going on there?” Petra fired back, not letting Nanaba finish her sentence. Honestly, you were just glad the attention was off you for a second.
Nanaba held her hands up in honesty. “What can I say? His sense of smell isn’t the only thing superior about him.” You cackled wickedly, drowning out Petra’s disgusted groan and Nifa’s quiet retch.
“I think I’m gonna throw up.”
“Don’t you have the hots for Hange?” You asked the poor girl, who instantly turned a dark shade of red.
“N-no! I just- I admire their conviction, that’s all! Besides, Moblit’s always hovering around them like a lost puppy, so there’s not much I can do anyway. I-if I liked them, that is! Which I don’t!” You exchanged knowing glances with Nanaba and Petra, wry smiles pulling at all your lips.
“Sure Nifa, we believe you.” Nanaba grinned, only to receive a pillow to the face from the blushing girl.
“It’s not like that! You’re all awful.” She huffed, finally dragging herself from her bed to start getting ready.
You were already halfway through putting on the lower half of your harness, still needing to retrieve a hoodie from your drawer. You didn’t know how Petra wore a shirt all year round. You found yourself freezing your tits off in the winter, and sweating like a pig in the summer. Your outfits usually fluctuated between thin tee-shirts and hoodies. Sometimes you would wear both, if it was a particularly cold day. You let the loose straps of your harness dangle around you whilst you started rifling through your drawers for the specific jumper you wanted to wear today, before another knock on the door interrupted you all.
“I got it last time.” You stated bluntly, but none of your roommates were as dressed as you were. With a heavy sigh and multiple middle finger flips, you pulled on your tight breast band and crossed the room again. “Eld, I thought we agreed we’d see you in fif…teen…… minutes……” you instantly regretted speaking before you even looked up to see who it was. It wasn’t Eld. Oh shit, it wasn’t Eld.
Levi found himself unable to do anything but stare blankly at you, his face betraying none of the short-circuiting his brain seemed to be doing. Why the fuck weren’t you wearing a shirt…? Why the fuck weren’t you ready yet?
And why the fuck did he find his mouth suddenly dryer than dirt parched of rain. Keeping his head seemed impossible in this situation. He’d only come to make sure you were getting ready. He found what he was looking for, sure, but why like this?
“Captain.” You felt extremely silly saluting only half dressed, but it wasn’t like your squad hadn’t seen each other before. Admittedly, Levi had never joined your games of strip poker, not even when Hange begged and pleaded, but as a result, you didn't really think much of it.
“Could you shut the fucking door maybe?” Nanaba called from behind you, clearly trying to slip on the uniform pants without a spectator. But for all the grief she gave you this morning, you were half tempted to open it wider, just to piss her off. But a sharp call of your name made your decision for you.
“Alright alright, sorry.” You called back, stepping out into the hallway and closing the door behind you. You felt strangely exposed now. Maybe that was because your retreat had now been blocked off, but goosebumps littered your skin from an invisible wind. The situation was disgustingly similar to last night, where he did nothing but stare at you for a good few minutes. It wouldn’t have made you so uncomfortable if you knew why he kept looking at you like this.
“I thought you would be ready.” Fucking hell, it had taken every fibre of Levi’s control to rein himself back from wherever he’d lost himself to. His heart was doing that irritating stuttery thing again, the one where he couldn’t think straight and his palms started to sweat. He must be coming down with some illness. That had to be the reason.
“We were only woken up seven minutes ago, Sir. Apologies.” You kept with the formalities, too confused by his behaviour last night to slip back into your informal addresses. This was so much easier anyway. He didn’t look like he noticed, or even care anyway. Though that idea felt strangely… hurtful.
Levi stayed silent for a moment, collecting himself and running through the best ways to end this conversation. He’d found himself in a conflicting paradox. On the one hand, he wanted to talk to you. But he also wanted you to put some goddamn clothes on. He would never admit to himself that he didn’t mind the view -actively enjoyed the view, even- because that would be vulgar and despicable.
Even if it was true.
“Be in the courtyard in three minutes. Petra too. I want to brief the squad on today’s mission.” You saluted again in response, nodding once before he turned and marched off. You guessed whatever sweet domesticity you’d shared yesterday was nothing but a one time thing. Or maybe nothing happened at all, and you’d imagined the whole thing. But you had grown closer last night. Admittedly you were always close with your captain, but yesterday was different. You shared something with him, and in return, he shared something with you. It was all just… so confusing.
You watched him stride out of sight, before slipping back inside your room. And you were once again greeted by the suspicious gazes of your three roommates. “Oh for god’s sake.” You chimed in, before they started singing their questions at you.
“Both of them? Isn’t that a little greedy?”
“Damn, didn’t think you could pull one, let alone both at the same time,”
“Wait, are you uh, having sex with Captain Levi as well?”
You held up your hands for a cease-fire, looking incredulously between them. “Girls, girls, please! You can’t assume I’m fucking every man and woman I happen to be in a conversation with. I’m not even fucking one of them, let alone both!” You let out an exasperated sigh, the three women still eyeing you suspiciously, before turning to Petra specifically. “Hurry up, we have three minutes.”
“I still think you should at least try. I mean, the chemistry between you two is like something you would find fizzing away in Hange’s lab!” You were barely listening to Petra’s crazy ideas as you walked. You hadn’t realised she was this desperate for you to get laid. It would have been amusing if it wasn’t so early in the morning.
“Petra, in the nicest way possible, shut the fuck up. We’re not dating, I’m not going to try and date him. He’s not my type, engaged, and we’re. Just. FRIENDS.” You didn’t know what else you would have to say or do to make her shut up about this ridiculous idea. You managed to finish dressing in one minute, and join up with your squad in the following sixty seconds. You’d just batted away her expressive hands before crossing the courtyard, your squad looking mildly irritated.
Your eyes flicked between the three men. “What’s up with you guys? Other than getting up at this godforsaken hour to catch a titan?” It was at that your companions all turned to you.
“Except that’s just it. It’s not just a titan.” Gunther lamented, fixing the clasp of his cloak tighter around his neck. You looked for further explanation, finally given to you from the less than pleased looking Oluo.
“Crazy bitch wants us to catch two. ‘Compare and contrast’ they said. ‘Measure twice, cut once’ they said. They can measure how far my blade can sink into their–”
“Shut up Oluo, we get it,” –you turned to Eld, ignoring the indignant huff from your comrade– “Does the Captain know?” you asked, but already knowing the answer from his sheepish grimace.
“Ah- we were rather hoping actually, you would tell him?”
“...you cannot possibly be serious. Isn’t it someone else’s turn?” You tried desperately to sway each of your friends, but they all looked away pretty swiftly. “Oh for fuck’s sake, you’re all a bunch of cowards. You fight titans for a living, and you’re scared to tell your captain that–”
“Tell your captain what?” Your blood quite possibly froze over at the familiar cadence and tone from behind you, and the pale faces of your comrades. You mouthed the world’s quietest ‘shit’ before turning to face him, exercising your chipper façade.
Levi instantly raised a brow of suspicion. He’d seen that look before, at winter balls when you would be cussing out some noble prick, only for them to walk up behind you and ask for a dance. It was a cover, albeit an incredibly good one. But one he’d seen far too many times before. And he saw your smile falter the moment you realised he could see right through you. At least you were clothed this time. “Something to say?”
You huffed, folding your arms. “Only because nobody else has the fucking nerve to say it. Hange wants us to grab two titans, not just the one.” Levi visibly tensed. He thought this would have all been over by lunchtime, but it seems Hange had gone a little overboard with their demands for this. The freedom to even attempt had gone to their head.
“Damnit Four Eyes…”
“Tell me about it. Not too thrilled ourselves honestly. Will it affect the briefing?” you asked, the rest of your squad gaping at you from behind whilst you proceeded to have a seemingly perfectly normal conversation with him after delivering such devastating news.
“I doubt it. We’ll just rinse and repeat for the second one, assuming we’re all still alive. It’ll just take out more of the day.” ‘That I could have used to get my paperwork done.’ You finished his sentence for him in your head, once again that stab of empathy impaling your heart. As strange as he had been acting, you still worried about him. Your expression softened slightly.
You understood.
“Guess we’ll just have to get it done quickly then. I’m glad Miche squad is joining though, that’ll cut the time in half at least. And if we work efficiently enough, then this shouldn’t take as long as we’re thinking. I’d suggest finally pairing Oluo with Petra,”
Levi nodded thoughtfully, considering the option carefully. “That’s assuming they manage to work together without slicing each other up, but it’s a solid idea. I’m guessing that would put Eld and Gunther in their usual pairing?” It was about as subtle as he got with wanting to keep you in sight at all times. On most expeditions, he didn’t even need to make sure, because you were always paired together, but on missions like these…
“Actually Sir, I’ve been working well with Gunther in training recently. We’re coordinated enough to know each other’s movements. Plus I think it would be good for him to work with someone else other than Eld or yourself.” You suggested, and your eyes must have been playing tricks on you, because there was no way Levi would have looked deflated at that idea, right? This was the best opportunity to see if you and Gunther worked with the same efficiency as you did with Petra or Levi himself. You doubted it, but it was worth a shot.
‘Absolutely fucking not.’ Is what he wanted to say. ‘The hell are you thinking, not sticking by my side?’ is what some fucked up instinct was telling him to say. Some part of his brain that seemed focused on pissing him off by filling his head with these thoughts and making his heart stutter whenever you so much as breathed in his vicinity. “Fine. But don’t fucking die on me.”
You knew that was about as good as you were going to get. Still, your very soul sung at his words. Reading between the lines came with Levi’s personality description, and over the years you’d become quite good at it. A warm, kind smile pulled at your lips, the first he’d seen on you since yesterday evening.
“Who’s worrying about who now?” you couldn’t help but lightly tease, your smile widening at his dismissive scoff. But you’d caught it, the slightest hint of amusement etched deep within his features.
If only you knew. If only you knew that he constantly worried about you, and had done for the last however many years he’d been blessed with your presence.
Levi mentally shook himself. Where the fuck did that come from? When had he started thinking like that? Certainly before yesterday, but his thoughts had never been so damn vocal about you like this. He wished more than anything he could just turn them off.
“Besides, strategically speaking, this is the best course of action. Gunther’s still fairly new, he has the skill yeah, but lacks the experience to follow through.” It seemed you had continued talking even after his mind took a short wander, and he hadn’t realised he’d been staring rather blankly at you the whole time. Did you notice he wasn’t listening? Or were you so focused on your strategy that you barely noticed him? You weren’t even looking at him…
And had either of you noticed that your squad had slowly backed away from the entire conversation and were now in a small group of their own, whispering to each other in hushed, secretive tones.
You sure as shit didn’t, at least not until Levi cleared his throat rather obviously, and you looked up, shaken from your thoughts, to find Levi looking over your shoulder, a brow raised in irritated disinterest.
You turned to find yourself alone, save for your comrades now metres away. How had they left you without you even noticing? Were you really that wrapped up in the conversation? You were strategizing, something you would get carried away with, but even so…
Sneaky assholes.
Eld shot you an apologetic look as they shuffled back over, one you responded to with an obviously faux smile, the same smile you gave Hange yesterday. Levi felt his stomach clench slightly.
But it was Petra’s expression that had you nervous. She looked innocent. Too innocent. Like she was trying way too hard to appear inconspicuous, which of course, made her look much more conspicuous. She raised her thin eyebrows to you, daring you to ask her. You grit your teeth and held your tongue instead.
“Alright, we’re pairing up. Petra and Oluo will work together, Eld you’re with me today.” Both Eld and Gunther gave you a strange look. Everyone in the squad knew it was you who would usually put together strategies and training regimes, alongside your Captain, of course. So they knew who to turn to if something didn’t make sense.
“Gunther’s with me, yeah. Thought we’d switch it up a bit.” You added, shrugging indifferently to Eld’s confused head-tilt.
“Works for me, we’ve been training a lot together recently, so this should be fun.” Your entire squad shifted to look at Gunther in morbid awe. You definitely had a different definition of fun…
“Petra, keep Bozado in order. Try not to kill him, as tempting as it often is.” Despite the surprisingly grating words, Oluo straightened and saluted Levi. You couldn’t help checking his nose for any brown staining, considering how much of a kiss-ass he was.
“I won’t let you down sir! You can count on us!” Levi winced slightly at the explosion of dedication from the man, glancing at your ever-so-subtle quirk of amusement, hidden by a strategic scratch of your eyebrow. Why did everything you do today cause his stomach to practise gymnastics? It was really getting on his nerves. Not you, just his own reactions.
“Well, you all look ready to go.” You knew that voice without even having to turn around, though you did anyway. You threw a bright smile in Nanaba’s direction, watching her wince as if you were burning sunlight directly into her eyes. “Put that away, would you? We’re not all early risers.”
“No, because I do all the early rising for you.” You muttered, rolling your eyes at her flat stare. Anyone looking in from the outside would assume you hated each other, it was only those in your current circle who knew the truth. You would do anything for each other. All of you would.
“Wasn’t it you who woke us up?”
“Take it up with Eld, I had nothing to do with it.” You shrugged, nodding your head in Eld’s faux grateful expression.
“Don’t blame me, Gunther wakes us all up with his monstrous shi–”
“Alright that’s enough. Be ready to move out at a moment’s notice, disgusting lot.” You didn’t know if it was a product of proximity to Levi as a person, or because you were literally standing so close to him, but you could have sworn he was trying his best to hold in some show of amusement.
He absolutely was. And he could do nothing but walk away, making sure the rest of the group couldn’t see his face, before he released his amused smirk.
If this was ‘everything going according to plan’ you would hate to see what it looked like when Hange’s plans failed. It was chaos from the get-go. They didn’t even stay in the formation they’d decided upon, instantly racing ahead of the rest of the squads. Poor Moblit galloped behind them, trying in vain to catch up, but whatever fucking science Hange had done on their horse, it seemed to travel much faster than any of the rest of them. You heard Miche swear under his breath, heard Levi’s cursing as the three squads tried vehemently to catch up, inevitably splitting up in the process.
And by the time you got there, it was already utter chaos. Frantic shouting from Hange with immense detail as to what titan type they were looking for, not knowing if they wanted to go for a fifteen metre or the five metre first. Not knowing what fucking hair colour they wanted. You almost screamed in frustration as you went to slice the nape of a stout five metre, only to be called back by Hange.
Irritation flared in your gut. Especially after they then proceeded to tell you to ‘actually kill that one, its nose is wonky’. It took every fibre of self control not to comment on the crookedness of their nose. But you felled the monster anyway. There wasn’t time to argue.
You’d just managed to mount your horse again, Gunther doing the same, when Nanaba called your name, racing toward you at full gallop and waving frantically. You glanced at Gunther who nodded in silent confirmation, before you both galloped to meet her halfway.
“What’s the situation?” You asked, barely slowing to a canter.
“”Miche squad’s surrounded, it’s a bloodbath out there. We need as many soldiers as we can find.” You’d never seen her look so wild. So wracked with untamed fear. Whatever the hell was happening over the hill, it wasn’t good. You turned back to your squad, the barrage of hoof-fools alerting you of their presence.
“Miche’s surrounded.” You cut to the chase as Levi and Eld were the last to join the throng, Eld exchanging a concerned look with you. But there was nothing to be done, no way to reassure him you were alright. Not whilst there was still so much going on.
Levi thought for less than a moment, before addressing the rest of his team. “We lend a hand. Quick in and out, we don’t have time to be dropping in and saving every team that lands in shit. Do what you can and leave the rest to his squad.”
You nodded in agreement when he looked to you for confirmation. The moment you set off, your squad instantly fell back into formation. You rode alongside Eld, behind Levi and in front of Oluo and Petra, Gunther took the rear.
“You alright?” you knew the question was coming.
“Yeah, as alright as one can be during one of Hange’s suicide missions. Still can’t believe they fucking volunteered us for this shit.” You grit your teeth, crouching low over your horse’s neck.
“Stay sharp, we’ve got company.” Eld nodded to his right, and you looked past him to three grinning titans. There was something about the ones that smiled. The ones who looked genuinely pleased to be devouring humanity. Their giddy delight always made you want to throw up.
“Two this side as well.” Your head whipped to your left, Petra’s voice behind you calling you back. At least those two weren’t smiling. You looked back to Levi, who stayed staring straight ahead.
“Captain?” It wasn’t like you to prompt orders, trusting him with your life. But the closer the five came, the more your nerves buzzed. But still he kept his silence. You didn’t know what was happening. He’d been off today, and you’d never known Levi to be off. Something had happened, it must have. Or he was sick… yeah, that could be it. He was just coming down with a cold. Not that you’d ever seen him sick but that was the only logical explanation.
Minutes seem to stretch for eternity before he finally spoke up. “Eld, Gunther, take the three on the right. Petra, Oluo, take the left. You, stick with me for now. We’ll regroup after Miche squad is safe.” You met Levi’s eyes as he looked over his shoulder to you, and you tried to keep the fear from your gaze. Though you didn’t know why you were afraid. You’d worked with Levi for nearly all of your Scout life. But he was off his game, he was distracted, he was–
You noticed his expression soften ever so slightly, and all doubts ebbed away. This was Levi you were talking about. When had he ever been off his game? You returned his expression with a confident nod, determination sparking back in your eyes. He seemed satisfied with your reaction, and turned back just as the rest of your squad separated. A few seconds passed before you, too, had abandoned your horse in favour of ODM gear, being much better suited to the village terrain. A lot more to grip onto than out in the open field.
It was a wonder why you ever diverted from working with Levi in the first place. You flowed together like joining rivers, movements matched, manoeuvres coordinated. Distract and dispose was your game. Though it was dangerous, you’d worked on it for so long it came like second nature.
You zipped past the eyes of a fifteen metre, feinting as it quickly grabbed for you, before allowing yourself into a freefall. It was a common manoeuvre you used, Levi showing up right on time. You held out your arm, wincing slightly as Levi used his momentum to grab it and swing you back. Titans had grown accustomed to the achor firing and usage of gas to change direction, but this always caught them off guard. They couldn’t anticipate the swift change.
You felt your entire centre of gravity shift as you were swung back, Levi’s grasp on your arm releasing just as you fired your gear into its nape. With one swift slash, the beast fell on its front, and you landed on a nearby rooftop, panting slightly. Your arm throbbed a little where Levi had grabbed you, for some reason so much harder than he usually would.
The titan count had dropped considerably since your squad had arrived, freeing Miche’s squad from the clutches of extinction. You knew your current partner was safe by the sounds of his footsteps beside you.
“All good?” You asked, turning your head to greet him as he came to your side, nodding in answer.
“Let me see your arm.” You blanched at the order, subconsciously moving it out of sight. How the fuck could he possibly know…?
“Which arm?” Now really wasn’t the time to be stalling, but you just really, really didn’t want to see his inevitable look of guilt if there was any bruising.
“The one you just hid from me. Let me see it.” Your eyes fell in acceptance, sheathing the trigger handle of your gear and holding out the arm that currently felt like it had been wrapped in tight string.
With a gentleness you’d only seen a few times, Levi rolled up the sleeve of your jacket and jumper, bunching it uncomfortably at the crease of your elbow. You couldn’t look at him as his fingertips traced the discolouring on your arm, goosebumps raised in his fingers’ wake.
But there was nothing you could do to stop the guilt he felt. Levi’s own arm pulsed in retaliation, almost as a punishment for hurting you.
“It’s fine, Levi.” You murmured lowly, as if talking any louder would break him.
You’d never been so conflicted. On the one hand, you knew him. You knew Levi better than anyone, though that may surprise a lot of people. Neither of you made it obvious that you knew each other so well, mainly because if Hange caught wind, they’d never stop crowing about it. But just because you knew him, doesn’t mean you could always decipher how he was feeling, or predict how he was going to react. Last night made that incredibly clear. You still don’t know what you did wrong, and asking him now just felt like an unnecessary, awkward conversation that you knew he would avoid at all costs.
It was a ridiculous paradox. You knew him, but because you knew him, you didn’t know him at all.
“Get some salve on that the moment we get back. Let me know if it starts to bruise.” Something cracked in your chest at his quiet tone, remorse lacing his words, dripping in regret. It was impossible, it seems, to live with no regrets. You couldn’t deny he’d done well though, but there were some things that seemed impossible to move on from. “Join up with Gunther and get this over with. I’m sick of today.” There was no further exchange before ran and jumped, gear hissing as he sped back into the much smaller fray.
You sighed heavily. Everytime you grew closer to him, he always shields himself from you. It had been a vicious cycle for a while now, and it was starting to get on your nerves. He really was impossible.
Levi’s head pulsed, aching waves of nausea hitting him periodically, throwing him off his rhythm. He could barely concentrate. Everytime his squad split up to take down the surrounding titans, his head would throb. Definitely sick, he decided. He would have to take the next few days off to recover from whatever illness had struck him. Though it was strange. He’d never been sick. Not since he was brought above ground. He had not once caught a cold, a disease, a virus -nothing. So it was odd that, now, he would be coming down with something. Not only that, but his arm ached like shit, and he was more than positive it was a punishment for hurting you earlier. At least, he hoped it was.
Not that he had the time to even contemplate these things. He wanted to throttle Hange. Again. The sheer lack of preparation was going to cost them so many lives. He knew Hange was rarely careless with human life, but it seemed that the freedom had gone to their head. Erwin had given them the go-ahead, and it had driven them wild.
“Hange!” he called, briefly breaking off from formation to catch up with the wildly galloping scientist. They’d been flitting from squad to squad, assessing the surrounding titans, sizing them up and mentally weighing their value to her experiments. They appeared to not even hear him. “Hange!” he called again, this time a little more agitated.
Hange’s head whipped in his direction, a grin of deranged delight almost toppling him off his horse. “Didn’t see ya there! How’s your squad doing? Anything exciting to report? Oooooo, maybe an abnormal?” The way Hange’s eyes flashed eagerly made him want to kick them off their own horse.
“No, but you need to fucking choose. People are dying for this, Hange. Get your shit together and–” Levi couldn’t finish his sentence; his hand quick to cushion the side of his head. His skull was splitting apart. There was no other explanation. His skull was cracking and shattering and–
Everything beyond his own head silenced into nothing. His eyes widened, but he wasn’t looking at anything. But if he wasn’t looking at anything… then how could he see you?
You and Gunther, both looking incredibly co-ordinated. What the fuck was going on? You were nowhere near him. He’d broken formation away from you to talk to Hange, you were across the field behind him… how the fuck could he–
His heart lurched into his throat. One second you were performing flawless manoeuvres with your partner, the next you were silently screaming his name, becoming a comet as you changed trajectory and swung back to him. The impact had his jaw tensing as if he himself were bracing for pain. You’d careened directly into him, the reason unknown until the giant hand swiped down and obscured you from his vision.
When he saw you again, you were struggling. Struggling and writhing in the suffocating grasp of a twenty metre. Your arms pinned to your side, you could do nothing but twist in vain. A whip cracked inside Levi’s head.
He had to go.
He didn’t even register Hange had been calling his name until he was racing in the other direction. Hundreds had died. Hundreds upon hundreds of people he’d known by name, had died, and he’d moved on. He’d had to.
So why the hell would he race so hard for you? He asked the question as if he didn’t already know the answer.
His headache was getting worse. The splitting pain had stopped, but it was a growing ache now. A sand-timer. He was acting on instinct. He knew it was a timer to your death. Whatever the fuck he’s just seen, it hadn’t happened yet. He could still get to you. He could still save you. He could still–
“GUNTHER!” Your panicked scream shattered his spiral, but he was still too far away. Everything unfolded before his eyes, your manoeuvres a mirror to what he’d just witnessed. Your swinging trajectory changed. Your cracking impact, the clanging of metal as your partner was shoved clear of the giant hand.
Levi urged his horse faster, digging his heels into its flanks. He had to make it. He didn’t have another choice. He felt winded, like fingers were pressing into his lungs as you were caught, arms pinned by your sides. What he hadn’t heard was Gunther’s scream of your name. Not until now, and it was haunting. Whether it spooked his horse, or the beast simply recognised the desperation of its rider, he didn’t know or care. A reward was in order for its final burst of speed.
He also hadn’t heard his own desperate roar of your name in his vision. It had ended before this.
Anchors fired, gas pressed, Levi’s stomach met his throat as he whipped between the titan’s head and shoulder, twisting impossibly to re-aim his gear straight for its nape. He had to kill it and catch you after. If he freed you first, the risk of being caught again was too high. And though every instinct screamed at him to tear it to shreds, he didn’t have time on his side.
His internal organs lurched as he pressed the gas again, a feeling he was too used to now. One anchor released, adjusting his arc as steel sliced through flesh and muscle, cleaving a valley through the titan's nape.
Instantly he felt the press on his lungs release. He chalked it down to relief, though it wasn’t over. You were now released.
And falling.
Levi performed another seemingly impossible twist, and there you were.
With no obvious anchor points, this was why ODM gear was so dangerous in open field combat. With no trees to hook on to, it was incredibly difficult to land without damaging anything, or at least ending up with a sprain. But once again, no other options presented themselves to him.
You turned at the familiar hiss, wind whipping your hair, but only for a second before you were sheltered by body mass. You didn’t need to look to tell who it was. You recognised that smell.
“This is going to hurt.” He told you, a hand bracing the back of your head.
“Don’t let go.” You pleaded, gripping the sides of his tan jacket.
Levi drew back, looking at you briefly in a way you’d never seen before. You didn’t realise he would hit the ground first.
“I won’t. I promise.” There was a brief moment where you regarded each other, before he brought your head back into his chest.
And you struck the ground.
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the coven (chapter 15)
minors dni
reader x bakugou x shinsou x kaminari x kirishima
cw: sub reader, smut, penetrative sex, threesome, blowjobs, spit roasting, biting, voyeurism kinda i think
Coven- a formation of at least three or more vampires
He told you they were dangerous- why didn't you believe him?
previous parts can be found on my masterlist
on my ao3 if you'd prefer
1.6k words
Their shower was insanely nice- you didn’t know why but you weren’t expecting vampire’s houses to have running water considering the ice-cold temperature of both them and their house.
When you went back into his room, dressed back in Hitoshi’s shirt that you were wearing before, Eijiro was exactly where you left him; you could tell he literally hadn’t moved a muscle.
He looked up at you- a wide smile plastered on his face like he had something to tell you. You smiled back at him- slightly confused and curious for what he was about to tell you.
“The others are all having sex in Katsuki’s bedroom, if you wanted to go and join them?” He asked, he sounded keen to be with them but not like he was forcing you to go.
You didn’t feel too sore from the night before- “yeah- that’d be fun,” your tone sounded sort of sheepish, as if you were scared of something. To be fair, you were slightly- for god’s sake you were about to have sex with 3 vampires at a time.
“You sure sweetheart, we don’t have to, I’ve had 100 years’ worth of sex with them I don’t care about missing one time.”
“No- I’d really love to.” You nodded your head profusely- to be honest even the suggestion of it aroused you. You felt your face flush red- God you sounded like such a slut.
He quickly stood up- seeming pleased by your answer. He grabbed you by the hand- intertwining your fingers with his and lead you across the hall.
The walk to Katsuki’s room felt like a haze- like the world had ended and you and Eijiro were the last thing in the universe, you could barely feel your feet as you walked- just the pounding of your heart.
His room was barely a few steps from Eijiro’s and yet it felt like a lifetime of anticipation.
The door was already slightly ajar- Katsuki’s room was gorgeous- you could tell that he bought the house. His room was almost pitch black but at this point you had gotten used to the low light. The room was probably the size of your apartment yet most of it was taken up by a four-poster bed in the centre- it was obviously huge and probably the biggest bed you had ever and would ever see, his sheets were silk and a dark shade of red. His walls were black although you could barely see them as his walls were taken up by huge posters- most of them were of incredibly old black and white movies- they looked like he had taken them of the walls of the cinema itself- the others were of old bands you didn’t recognise. Other than the bed there was only one other piece of furniture in the room- a bookcase taking up a whole wall, it was full of records- you knew how expensive they were, you hadn’t really considered how rich they were until you saw his room.
Despite all of this- the most noticeable thing in the room was the three men in the centre of the bed making out with each other- they were all clothed apart from Katsuki who was shirtless and Jesus fuck was he jacked. Anyway, Hitoshi was on top of Denki- rubbing his knee against his groin, the two of them hardly noticed when you and Kirishima came into the room.
Katsuki looked up from kissing Denki’s neck to smirk at you- a silent invitation for the two of you to join them on the bed.
As soon as you were on the bed, Katsuki was upon you- wrapping his arms around you and pulling you close- he stopped himself for a moment to ask,
“It’s okay if I kiss you right?” You nodded quickly and in an instant his lips were slamming against yours. Wow- he was certainly out of his shell now.
Katsuki left your lips for a moment; “Before we start- just to let you know- I’m not going to go easy on you just cause you’re a goddamn human or whatever.”
You smirked at that- not a single part of you wanted him to go easy on you. You wanted him in every way both humanly and inhumanly possible.
With that thought- you fell back against the pillows, your teeth lips clashing against Katsuki’s as he clambered on top of you fervently. You gasped into the kiss, parting your lips enough for Katsuki to dart his tongue through the gap and lick into your mouth. You welcomed the intrusion with a contented hum, sending your vocal chord’s vibrations directly into Katsuki’s throat. He begins roughly grinding himself against you, his erection growing with every thrust of his hips. You clawed desperately at his back- almost immediately his hands were in your hair tugging it away from your face and pulling it harshly from the ends- making you arch your back.
“God, do you have to be such a desperate slut?” You could tell it was a question where he didn’t expect an answer.
His hands grasped at your shirt- pulling it over your head- you weren’t wearing a bra; you were completely naked under his gaze. A strangled moan from across the bed broke you out of your trance. Holy shit, you’d totally forgot that literally a few inches from you, there were three more vampires making out eagerly with each other. Your stomach churned at the realisation. This was probably the norm for these boys, they wouldn’t give it a second thought, but you were still freshly no longer a virgin. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t insanely aroused by the situation; still though, a wave of nerves coursed through you. Almost all the boys had warned you about Katsuki’s lack of tenderness when it came to sex, including the man himself.
You almost breathed a sigh of relief when you heard Eijiro leave the other two and crawl towards where you lay beneath Katsuki. At least you knew Eijiro would be gentle. A mere week ago, if you had been told you’d be more relieved at the idea of a threesome than regular sex, you would’ve laughed hysterically. You really hoped this didn’t mean you were a total whore. It probably did.
Katsuki’s weight lifted off you and you opened your eyes. He was staring at Eijiro intensely, his permanent scowl deepening every few seconds- obviously reading his mind.
He turned to you. “Ei wants you to suck him of,” Katsuki said- it wasn’t so much a question as it was a demand. And you were more than happy to oblige.
“I can speak for myself” Eijiro interrupted with faux exasperation, “Would that be okay though baby?” He asked quickly- you could tell how much he wanted this- wanted you. You quickly nodded yes, and he closed in on you, pulling down his shorts- freeing his erection. He wasn’t wearing underwear, as if he were waiting for you; waiting for this moment.
Eijiro was already semi-hard.
“Can you stroke my dick for me baby?” he asked eagerly, you paused for a minute before sitting up on your knees and beginning to work at his half-hard cock. Even though you were inexperienced, his face showed nothing but pure pleasure.
You decided to start sucking him off- getting on your hands and knees- using one hand to grip his dick gently between your fingers, tilting it towards your salivating mouth- licking his tip. You were truly hungry for his dick. The more you sex you had the more enticing it was to you- the more you yearned for it. It was the one and only thing on your mind.
You allowed his cock to enter your mouth- gagging slightly at the feeling of his tip prod at the back of your throat. You truly hadn’t realised how well-endowed he was until this moment- you couldn’t take his whole dick at once- choosing to pump the rest of his cock with your hand while slipping his penis through your lips over and over again. You looked up at his face- his eyes were rolled into the back of his throat and moan after moan slipped from his throat.
“Shit- sweetheart- slow down a bit f’ me please?” You followed his advice- slowing down only slightly.
You felt Katsuki pulling your underwear to the side- his fingers gently prodding at your cunt- you gasped at the feeling of his thumb on your clit. The vibrations from your mouth did nothing but spur Kirishima on, one of his gentle hands resting on the back of your head.
You leaned into the blonde’s touch- desperately craving more of it. Eijiro’s eyes were completely in the back of his head as moans spilled from your throat- Katsuki pressed a finger inside you, quickly finding a spot inside of you that you didn’t know existed before you had met the vampires; he stuffed more fingers into you, living up to his word about not being gentle. He curled his fingers- pumping them in and out of your pussy.
His fingers were gone from you almost far too quickly; you felt empty for a moment before you felt Katsuki’s cock pressing against you. Weird- you hadn’t even heard the noise of his trousers unbuckling. All thoughts were instantly zapped from your head as you felt his cock begin to enter you. You hadn’t even seen his dick, but you could tell it was thicker than any of the other vampires and by the way he was entering you, you could tell it was probably longer too. The stretch burned slightly yet you had begun to crave the feeling of it- the feeling of his cock inside you sent you into a trance and, for just a moment you forgot Eijiro’s dick was in your mouth- pushing it further down your throat until you were practically choking on it. Your eyes began to leak with tears, but you simply couldn’t bring yourself to care, you only wanted more- you desperately wanted more. More of both of them.
Finally, the blonde was fully inside of you- wasting no time on letting you adjust. He thrusted in and out of you at a breakneck pace. Katsuki grabbed your hair harshly- forcing even more of Eijiro’s cock down your throat- all the air in your lungs was knocked out of your lungs in a single second but yet you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You would be almost glad to never breathe again if you could feel this good for a moment. Katsuki’s thumb was unrelenting on your clit- making you pulse around him- feeling your high creeping up on you.
Out of the corner of your eye you could see Denki getting practically pounded into the bed by Hitoshi- the fact they could see you only excited you even more. You clenched around Katsuki one last time before the knot inside you snapped. You were practically forced into your orgasm- the world went black for a moment as pleasure overwhelmed your entire being. You drooled around Eijiro’s cock- feeling his dick twitch in your mouth, you could tell he was going to cum soon too. You glanced up at him- his hand was thrown over his face and his head was thrown back.
“Fuck- baby- I’m gonna cum,” Eijiro gasped, almost sounding out of breathe, “I can cum in your mouth yeah?” He asked, you nodded yes as best you could.
It wasn’t long before his cum was spilling into your mouth, there was so fucking much of it- it seeped out of your mouth, not that you cared. You slipped his now flaccid cock out of your mouth.
Katsuki practically burst out laughing behind you, “Didn’t take you too long at all to cum, Ei?” He joked rhetorically.
Your senses were quickly overwhelmed as Katsuki increased his pace, nearly knocking you off your hands and knees.
“Fuck- cum f’ me again.” Katsuki practically demanded.
“Please- Katsuki- I can’t.”
“No such thing as can’t baby.”
His thumb sped up on your nub- practically forcing you towards your end. He leaned over you- leaving small bites on your neck. Or at least he tried to, you clenched around him, and he practically fell. Sinking his fangs completely into your neck- biting fully into you. For some reason that’s what did it for you, the damn inside you broke. You practically saw stars, clenching around him. Your orgasm seemed to force him into his- his cum spilling inside your gummy walls.
He pulled out of you almost immediately, grabbing you a bit too harshly by the neck- inspecting the bites he had left around your neck. “Shit- fuck, Y/N I’m sorry.”
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Chapter 3: We All Need Therapy
Season One | Season Two | Season Three | Season Four
Raining Hellfire: Season Four
Word Count: 3455 words
Warnings: swearing, mentions of death, mentions of visions
[A/N: needed a steve moment, enjoy]
We All Need Therapy
You watch as Max walks into Ms. Kelley’s house, giving you a brief nod before the door shuts behind her.
“Okay, she’s in.” Steve announces and Dustin rolls his eyes.
“I’m missing collarbones, not eyes.” Dustin comments and you smirk, holding in your laugh.
“So…” Dustin starts after a moment of silence, and you turn to look at him as Steve’s eyes stay focused on the house.
Max had told you in her letters that he had become protective of her. You were grateful, knowing Steve looked out for her when you couldn’t. He may joke about being the babysitter, but he was a better role model to the kids than any of the males in their families had ever been.
“We gonna talk about it?”
You frown, noticing that he was looking to Steve who eventually glances back at him. “Huh? Sorry, talk about what?”
“Your temporary insanity earlier today when you basically threw yourself at Nance?”
You held your breath as Steve’s eyes widened, shifting his gaze between you and Dustin.
“Okay, look, that’s not what happened-” Steve tries, Dustin shaking his head at his answer.
“Pretty sure that’s what happened.” Dustin replies and you clear your throat.
“Do you guys want me to…” You gesture to the outside but Dustin continues.
“It was pretty public. There were a lot of witnesses.” Dustin says before leaning forward and tilting his head at you, “Even Y/n saw it, right?”
“Come on, dude, don’t drag her into this.” Steve sighs as you shift uncomfortably in your seat.
“Y/n.” Dustin ignores him, staring at you and waiting for an answer.
“Uh…” You look to Steve, something buried in the bottom of your stomach, twisting, “Well… you did kind of… maybe…”
Steve widens his eyes, “You implying I still have a thing for Nance?”
“No, we’re not implying it.” Dustin argued, “We’re stating it.”
Steve rolls his eyes and you focus on the house, trying to zone out of the conversation.
“And, as it relates to your steadfast refusal to date Robin, it’s pretty much the only logical explanation.”
“That’s not the only one.” Steve mumbles.
You let out a snort of laughter, eyes widening when Dustin looks at you confused.
Robin had told you about her sexuality not long after the mall fire, quickly becoming relieved when you shared your own. If anything, it brought you closer knowing you could relate to eachother without judgement. She even told you about how Steve reacted and it made your heart happy to know he had learnt and grown from his past mistakes. He really wasn’t the boy he used to be in high school.
“Sorry.” You mutter, leaning with your arm rested against the window ledge, hand covering your mouth.
“Unless you two are a thing?” Dustin suddenly suggests and you both go silent.
Dustin’s eyes widen. “Oh. My. God.”
“Dustin-” You try but he’s already grinning.
“It’s perfect!” He smiles, patting you both on the shoulder as he shared his delight. “You know, I always thought Y/n and Eddie were a good match, but you two are literally so similar and different at the same time, why didn’t I think of it before? Best friends turned enemies turned best friends again, turned lovers- and how you both do the same thing when you’re annoyed like when you both pinch your noses or put your hands on your hips, you were made for-”
“Dustin!” You grab his face in both of your hands, frowning.
“I’m still with Suzie.” He mumbles, cheeks squished together and you release him with a sigh.
“And I’m happy for you. But Steve and I…”
“You got it wrong, buddy.” Steve says and you both catch eachother’s eyes, something unspoken laying between you.
“Damn.” Dustin, leant back in his seat, folding his arms. “Could still work.”
“And as for Nance,” Steve changes the subject, avoiding your eyes for clarity, “I was just trying to protect a friend. A friend, Henderson. Okay?”
“Okay.” Dustin said in disbelief.
“Don’t wanna find her in the morning with her eyes sucked out of her skull by this Vecna creep.”
“You’re bright red in the face right now.” Dustin comments and sure enough, you notice a little blush creeping onto his cheeks.
“No I’m not.” He shakes his head, “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Oh-kay.” Dustin mocks and despite the situation, you giggle.
“Not you too.” Steve groans and you shrug.
“What? Do you usually just spontaneously turn into a beetroot?” You question mockingly.
Dustin laughs loudly as if it was the funniest joke he had ever heard and Steve gets frustrated.
“Stop, I’ll punch you so hard your teeth will fall back out.”
“Whoa.” You stop, shaking your head.
“Too far.” Dustin says and Steve nods sincerely.
“Not cool.” Steve agrees, eyes wide, “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
There’s an awkward silence until they bump fists, making you roll your eyes with a smile. Their bond was truly unbreakable.
“Look, man. Why don’t you just, I don’t know, walk around?” Steve suggests and you raise your eyebrow.
“Why-” Dustin glances between you both before smirking, “Oh, I see. I see you.”
“No, that’s not it.” Steve warns as Dustin opens the car door, stepping out.
“Don’t worry.” Dustin nods knowingly, “I’ll give you two some space.”
“I-” Steve breathes out when Dustin shuts the door, walking just up ahead where he could get a better view of the house, never leaving your line of sight.
Now in the car with Steve alone, you both stare at the house in silence.
“How… how was Florida?” Steve suddenly asks, still staring at the house.
“Uh…” You frown, “Good.”
“Good.” He nods quickly.
“Good.” You nod back.
Another beat of silence, causing you to take a breath.
“How’s... work?”
“It’s…” Steve tightens his lips, still nodding, “It’s good.”
“Good.”
“Yeah, good.”
More silence. The awkward tension suddenly becomes too much for you both as you turn to eachother.
“Okay this is so stupid-”
“We shouldn’t be this awkward-”
You both sigh at the same time and end up bursting into laughter.
“I’m sorry.” You finally say after the laughter had died down. “I shouldn’t have just left without saying anything.”
Steve seems to think about his words for a minute before leaning back into his seat. “Why did you?”
You take a breath, “I hate goodbyes. And goodbyes always finalise things, you know? I- I didn’t want to say it because if I did then I would realise that I was never coming back-”
“You weren’t going to come back?” He frowns and you slowly shake your head, “Then… what made you come back?”
“… I-”
“If you say you had a bad feeling one more time I will scream.” He says, nodding, “And I’m terrible at it. Like my voice will crack and it’ll sound more like someone got a hold of a really hairy bird and started strangling it.”
“That was... vivid.” You laugh, but he stares at you, waiting for an answer. “But I don’t want to-”
“Robin called you, didn’t she?” Steve says with a knowing look and you sigh. “I knew it.”
“She was worried.” You defend, shifting in your seat to properly face him, “And she told me not to come.”
“I think she underestimated how selfless you are.”
His words were shrugged off by a mocking grin but the emotion felt the same. He was right, after all. But you would never see it that way.
“I’m not going back to Florida.” You suddenly say and his eyes widen, head shaking at you.
“What? No, you can’t give up on that just because of all this. You deserve-”
“I can’t go back.” You interrupt him, tilting your head as you stare down at the small dark red stain on your jumper sleeve, “That’s it for me.”
“Did you get expelled or something?” Steve shakes his head, confused.
You bite your tongue. “Basically, yeah.”
“Basically?”
“Carol goes there.” You sigh and he frowns for a moment before realisation hits.
“Carol Perkins?” Steve’s face twists with disgust and a smirk plays on your lips.
“The one and only.”
“Shit.” He stares out of the windscreen, memories clearly playing in his mind, “You shouldn’t let her ruin it for you.”
“Too late.” You shrug and he raises an eyebrow, waiting for you to elaborate. “She, uh… let’s just say she got a hold of something that is very bad for me. Not just reputation wise, I don’t care about that stuff, but… I’m not going back there anytime soon.”
“Therapy files?” Once your breath hitches, Steve’s theory becomes fact and he sighs, “Maybe you can, I don’t know, do an exchange thing or just move-”
“I didn’t get into any other colleges.” You say quietly, “That was my one shot.”
He’s silent for a moment before he offers you a smile. “Was it at least better than just good? Even for a while?”
“My head felt clearer than it had been in years.” You recall before glancing at him. “Still hated it, though.”
“Why?”
“You weren’t there.”
The words left your mouth before your brain ever caught up. But the reaction made it so much better. You watched as Steve smiles, a little red creeping onto his cheeks as he hums, looking away from you like he could expose his true emotions at any second.
“I half expected you to burst into Family Video some days.” Steve admits with a shaky laugh, “Make some joke about my hair, probably throw a video at me when I made fun of you. I love hanging out with Robin but something- something felt…”
“Missing.” You conclude and his brown eyes find yours again, nodding.
“You know…” He took a breath, staring back out of the window like he couldn’t bear to look at you as he confessed, “I almost ended up driving to Florida.”
Your heart jumps. “What?”
“When Max told us you had been writing her letters… I got mad. Started wondering why you didn’t do the same for the rest of us.”
The look on his face set free the guilt bubbling in your chest. You wanted nothing more than to beg for forgiveness, to tell him everything you’d been dying to say for the past eight months.
“I-” You try but he stops you. You wish he hadn’t.
“No, I get it. There’s more history there and… she gave me your address so I could write you one. But I didn’t think that was enough. Like, I can’t just sum everything up in a single letter, you know? So one day, without even thinking, I packed my car with some things I’d need and was ready to start driving.”
You stay silent, every spotlight on Steve.
“Robin figured it out before I could do anything. Literally jumped in front of my car to stop me.” He explains with a sad laugh, “She told me not to go.”
You nod, eyes misting. All your phone calls to Robin really must have stuck with her, all your rambles about feeling like you could truly start again.
“Said I’d only make it harder for you.” Steve continues, tilting his head at you with apologetic eyes, “That was the last thing I ever wanted.”
“Steve.”
“You deserve a life away from here, Y/n.” He shakes his head, wanting to speak. “You owe us nothing, okay? I know you constantly blame yourself for everything happening here but none of it is your fault.”
“It is.” You whisper.
His face drops. “No, it’s not.”
“Steve-” You try, but he’s too focused on helping you now.
“You couldn’t have-”
“Steve!”
“Sorry.” He mumbles, nodding for you to continue. You sigh, slumping back into your seat. It was time to tell the truth.
“I ran away because I thought it would keep you all safe.”
Steve frowns in confusion.
“Those visions I told you about?” You ask and he nods, brows still furrowed. “I didn’t tell you the whole truth about them.”
He shakes his head. “What…”
Unable to conjure any questions, he just looks at you.
“There’s this… figure.” You begin, staring out onto the road, “It’s always there, always speaking to me. Always telling me things that I shouldn’t know yet. At first, it was just trying to scare me, get into my head. I thought I was just going crazy. But recently, last year… it told me that everyone I love, will die. And I didn’t- I didn’t want to believe it had that kind of power but- but then Barb… Billy… Jack- it, it all links.”
“It doesn’t make- why you?”
“It won’t tell me.” Your voice is so quiet you were sure Steve wouldn’t have heard it if he wasn’t now leaning close to you, “I saw it again today. Or him. Or whatever. I didn’t have any visions of it while I was in Florida but as soon as I got back here- it wants something from me. I just don’t know what that is.”
“We’ll stop it.” Steve nods, taking your hand in his. “Okay, we’ll- we’ll find out what the hell it is and get rid of it after this whole Vecna thing-”
“But Steve,” You frown, shaking your head, “I think it is-”
“Hey guys!” Dustin calls out, running to the car, and you move away from Steve, wiping your tears and pretending like everything was fine. “She’s back.”
“Here she comes.” Steve says and Dustin just stops, staring at him.
“Just said that.” He mutters, sliding into the car just as Max joins him in the back.
“What’d she say?” Dustin wonders and Max shakes her head.
“Nothing, just drive.”
You frown as Steve speeds away from the house. You knew when your sister was lying. And judging by how she was purposely avoiding your eyes, you knew it had to do with Starcourt.
“I assume you got the keys.” You ask and she holds them up with a small smile. The guys looked startled. “That’s my girl.”
She smirks at your comment, shoving the keys into her pocket.
“How did you-” Dustin looked between you two, “Actually I don’t wanna know. I’m too scared of the Mayfield sisters.”
During the drive, Steve risks glances to you, still thinking about your interrupted conversation.
“Dustin? It’s Lucas. Do you copy? Dustin?”
You frown as Lucas’ voice blares into the car, looking back at Max and Dustin as they point to the bag by your feet. Dustin’s bag.
You pick up the radio, holding it to your lips when they nod at you.
“Lucas?” You ask, looking out ahead at the road.
“Y/n? Wait- when were you- what are you-”
Dustin groans, reaching over and snatching it out of your hand before speaking. “Lucas, where the hell have you been?”
“Just listen. Are you guys looking for Eddie?”
“Yeah, we found him. No thanks to you.” Dustin complains and you pinch the bridge of your nose before recognising your action, staring at your hand before resting it on your lap. You catch Steve’s smirk out of the corner of your eye.
“You found him?” Lucas sounds worried, making you straighten in your seat.
“A boathouse on Coal Mill Road.” Dustin relays, rolling his eyes. “Don’t worry, he’s safe.”
“You guys know he killed Chrissy, right?”
You instantly reach behind you and grab the radio.
“That’s complete bullshit!” You say and Dustin nods furiously, “He tried to save her, he just didn’t get to her in time.”
Steve frowns, looking at you. How did you know that?
“Then why do all the cops say he did it?”
“Because cops will believe whatever shit makes their jobs easier.” You say with a little more spite than you meant, history flashing in front of your eyes. In your experience, they never listened. Only Hopper did and now that he’s gone, you all were the last hope Eddie had to have his name cleared.
Max suddenly reaches her hand out and you place the radio in her palm.
“Lucas, you’re so behind it’s ridiculous, okay? Just meet us at the school. We’ll explain later.”
“I… I can’t. I think some real bad shit’s about to go down.”
“What are you talking about?” Max asks, looking at you, “What bad shit? Lucas? Lucas?”
Lucas never replied and you held your breath.
“The basketball team.” You frown and Steve looks at you.
“What about them?”
“I ran into one of them.” You remember, “They knew my name, asked me where Eddie was.”
“They knew you?” Max frowned and you nod slowly.
“Yeah, freaked me out too but I think the team’s taken Chrissy’s death pretty personal.”
“Jason.” Max says, “They were dating.”
“Hunt down the freak.” Dustin realises with a sigh and you purse your lips.
Leaning against the window, you watch the trees that past by, eyebrows scrunched. With all that you’ve faced, you never quite realised how dangerous people were. Especially when they are driven by one simple yet powerful force.
Revenge.
Once you arrive at the school, you waste no time climbing out of the car and striding into the building.
“Y/n, guys, do you copy?” Robin’s voice spits out of the radio in your hand.
“Yeah, we copy.”
“So, Nancy’s a genius. Vecna’s first victims date back all the way to 1959. Her shot in the dark was a bullseye.”
“Knew it would be.” You say, turning the corner to the hallway as the others guided with flashlights. “But we can’t really talk right now, Robs.”
“What are you doing?”
“Oh you know, the usual. Breaking and entering the school to steal some things.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, I just missed high school that much.” You sigh as you find the office, “Just get here as fast as you can and we’ll explain everything.”
You hand the radio back to Dustin as Max unlocks the door, swinging it open and pointing her flashlight into the room.
“This feels wrong.” You whisper, making your way over to filing cabinets.
“Yeah, we shouldn’t be here to steal therapy files.” Steve mutters and you look at him intrigued, “We should be the ones in therapy.”
“It’s like a mini-Watergate or something.” Dustin mumbles to himself.
You raise an eyebrow, choosing to ignore him as you and Max search for Chrissy’s name.
“Hawkinsgate.” Dustin says and you smirk.
“Didn’t those guys get caught?” Steve whispers.
“Holy shit.” Max breathes just as you both stare down at the files.
“You find it?” Steve wonders, peering over your shoulder as you pull out a file, Max grabbing a different one.
“Yeah, and not just Chrissy’s file.” She says, looking at the brown paper in your hand.
“Fred was seeing Ms. Kelley too.” You announce, dropping the file onto the desk.
“So… Ms. Kelley is Vecna?” Steve asked and everyone just stares at him.
“It’s a good theory.” You try, smiling slightly, “But probably too easy.”
Max sits at the desk, shuffling around papers as she reads Chrissy’s report.
“Why does it always have to be complicated?” Steve sighs and you raise your eyebrows. “Like… can’t villains just be dumb?”
“Only the human ones.” You retort and Steve laughs.
“Can I see Fred’s file?” Max suddenly asks and you frown, plucking it from Steve’s hands and placing it in front of her.
“Why, what did you find?”
She doesn’t reply, just staring down at the pages she had ordered side by side and you peer over her head, reading key parts that appeared on both sheets.
Your breath hitches in your throat when you see their photos clipped to the pages. You really were walking through memories earlier in those woods.
“What?” Steve looks between the both of you with a worried frown, “What’s wrong?”
“Why would anything be wrong?” You ask numbly, still staring at the page.
“Cause you’re both wearing the same terrified face.” Dustin explains and you finally look up. Why was Max scared?
You look down at your sister, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Max?”
She doesn’t respond. You shake her a tiny bit. Still nothing.
You immediately look at Steve, panicked, before kneeling down beside her and turning her chair to face you. “Max?!”
As you stare up at her face, you almost scream. Her eyes are rolled back, whites staring back at you.
“Max!” You yell, cupping her face as Steve and Dustin shout for her. “Wake up! Come, on, wake up!”
She suddenly gasps, slumping forward in her seat and you lean forward, catching her. Her breathing is heavy as she clings to you.
“It’s okay. I’m here.” You soothe, a stray tear rolling down your cheek as Steve lets out a sigh of relief.
“What the hell just happened?”
Chapter 4: Symptoms ->
taglist: @gnnnne / @beepisbeep / @paintballkid711/ @eddiesbirdie/ @livasaurasrex/ @darktimelegends / @jackierose902109 / @mvrylee / @chervbs/ @eternallyvenus / @nervouscatsuit/ @f1nn-wolfhard/ @hereiamhereigo/ @ladybug0095 / @fangirling-4-ever / @astrolockley/ @mothmanatemycat
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something sweet / lee seokmin
➝ Reader x Seokmin (?) // feat. a lot of other idols
➝ coffee shop!au // slice of life // fluff // nonidol!au // someone's got a crush heh
➝ word count: 2.1k
➝ haven cloud masterlist (can be read as standalone)
➝ What’s playing in Haven Cloud
➝ A/N: aand we're finally back with another chapter of Haven Cloud <3 i genuinely thought i'd have more time to write now that i'm not working anymore but alas sdhfds as always, please enjoy this andd do tell me what you think if you do. thank you!
Ryujin is sick.
And you really don’t blame her nor are you annoyed because it is flu season. But the timing couldn’t be worse because there’s a buy drink get dessert event going on in the cafe and there’s definitely an influx of customers because of it. You’re pretty sure Haven Cloud would double the number of its regulars soon.
It was day one yesterday and you’re already beyond exhausted. Apparently, it doesn’t really matter even though you’ve recruited Soonyoung and Wendy as temporary part timers during the three days event, because it honestly still feels like you’re understaffed. So, really, having your regular part timer getting sick during this time is honestly the last thing you’d wish yourself upon. It’s Saturday, for God’s sake.
Fortunately, she already has a replacement.
Unfortunately, Seokmin is bad at memorizing beverages.
But you really can’t tell him to only do the dishes or main the cashier because you don’t have enough dishes for him to do all day and he doesn’t have any experience maining the cashier. You’re not insane enough for that.
So you settle for him to cater for desserts and serve the customers at first, and tell him he’ll be helping with the dishes later. He just needs to take the dessert, warm them if the customer asks for it, and then serve them to the tables. Piece of cake (aha!) (as long as he’s not clumsy, that is).
“You… are familiar with our desserts, right?” you ask the tall guy in front of you. He looks very sweet, to put it simply, the kinda person whose heart and intention you will not doubt at all. You think he’s kind of shy though, because he can’t hold your eyes for longer than two seconds and it’s pretty amusing to watch because this man is easily taller and his arms can probably crush you with no extra effort whatsoever.
“I am.” He scrunches his nose, and you spend the next ten minutes making sure he really is aware of them by pointing out random pastries and asking him their names and flavors. Thankfully, he only gets them mixed up two times and you’re suddenly glad that Chan didn’t go with his original plan of making unique names for all desserts instead of just calling them as they are.
“Kitchen, please! These pastries are ready!” You hear Jeonghan’s small scream, and you go inside with Seokmin to help put them on display. Chan insists on having fresh ones for the event, and he even rents an extra long table for the special desserts though the five of you were a bit unsure if it’d sell out. It did though, and if yesterday told you anything, renting the table is definitely worth it. The dessert leftovers from yesterday was only a third of the usual amount, which means it’s considerably less because you did have more stock because of the table.
Ten minutes later, Haven Cloud is open for business and it’s a blur after that. Chan’s brother is even here to help after lunch, and it’s then that you finally have time to eat lunch because the cafe is full and it means you can rest a bit and take turns for a quick break. Jeonghan pats your head when you come into the kitchen, telling you he’s just heating up your food so you can just sit somewhere and wait for a bit.
“This one’s for Seokmin. I’m gonna cover for him as he takes his break,” the older guy says,
For the most part, it has been quite an eventful day even though it’s been tiring (and you still have like four more hours to go before closing), your heart is happy though, because the event is definitely a lot more successful that all of you have expected to the point where it’s obvious that Haven Cloud is going to grow much more after this.
You look up when you hear the door open again, revealing Seokmin who sends you a forced grin. You signal him to sit beside you after he takes his plate, and he seems a little hesitant for some reason, but he does just as you gesture and sits on the stool right next to you.
“Did something happen?” you ask at last, not liking the way he seems down. He’s easily the kindest person you’ve ever met, and you say this when you’ve only known him for a total of six hours top. Yes, sometimes he comes in as a customer, but he always has his orders to go and even then you’ve always felt like his smile could light up the whole room.
Which is why the way his smile doesn’t reach his eyes doesn’t sit well with you.
Seokmin hesitates, but you insist and he eventually tells you there’s a little commotion outside earlier because he served the wrong order. The original table doesn’t really mind, even tells him it’s okay and they understand it can happen because it’s very busy; but the other customer who got the wrong order got mad beyond rude that Chan has to step up and tells them to calm down because they’re bothering the other tables.
You gape a little at the story, knowing full well that entitled customers are bound to appear when you have these many guests; but it annoys you that it’s Seokmin of all people that has to deal with them though it’s clear that Chan has it under control.
“I’m sorry you had to experience that.” Your brows furrow in annoyance, no longer feel like eating after the story. Seokmin smiles weakly, and you can see the way he’s slowly munching on his food–probably lost his appetite too but he knows he needs it anyway.
Nudging his shoulder in encouragement, you remind him that he totally didn’t deserve that even if he did make a mistake; that the customer is definitely too much and there was never any need to be that rude.
You hide a pout at Seokmin’s forced smile, not liking the situation one bit. Yes, you haven’t known him for long and you keep on saying this, but it’s pretty obvious that he’s a kind person and seeing him like this doesn’t sit well with you.
“Tell you what, we should go out for dinner tomorrow after closing,” you nod at him, deep in your thought that you don’t notice him tensing beside you. “We should celebrate. We all deserve it, I think. Like, you’ve been here for half a day and you can tell how tiring it is already, right?”
You can’t quite translate the sigh he lets out, unsure if he’s tired or if he finds your invitation bothersome. You have known the guy for a total of seven hours anyway, you can see why the invitation might be uncomfortable for him.
“Um, yeah,” he smiles awkwardly. “We all should. Ryujin should be all better too by tomorrow, right?”
“Are you not able to help out tomorrow?” You ask him, wide-eyed.
He blinks at how hopeful you sound, like you wish he’d be here again tomorrow. Or is he making things up?
“I mean, I’m not sure if Ryujin will be better or not by tomorrow, but I think we could use your help either way,” you say honestly, and then proceed to make his heartbeat skips a little when you say how much you appreciate his help and his presence. “We’ve had plenty of substitutes and our own share of part-timers so, really, I can tell when people genuinely want to help and those that want me to shut up already the moment I call them.”
He huffs a laugh at that, and you grin at your successful attempt at cheering him up albeit a little. You spend the rest of your short break talking to each other, because even though you’re not usually this chatty with someone you barely know, Seokmin makes you comfortable enough for that and you feel like he needs it so you don’t see why not.
Thankfully, his mood seems to pick up after that, as he keeps on sending you a smile every time your eyes accidentally meet from across the room. Seungkwan nudges you and wriggles his eyebrows once, and you tilt your head in confusion but don't get to ask for an explanation because another customer comes in and takes your attention.
It’s later that night that you finally get your explanation.
You, Soonyoung and Seungkwan are cleaning the tables while Seokmin and Chan go out to buy dinner. It’s almost half past eight, which means it’s only been about thirty minutes since you’ve flipped the ‘closed’ sign and about fifteen minutes since the last customer leaves. Wendy and Jeonghan are cleaning the kitchen, so it’s just the three of you and that’s when Seungkwan decides to bring the earlier instance up again.
“What was that earlier?”
“What?”
“You and Seokmin.”
You frown. What?
Seungkwan rolls his eyes, too tired to play your game. “Come on.”
But you look even more confused and that’s when Seungkwan realizes that you aren’t messing with him and you really don’t realize what’s been going on.
“He looks at you like a lost puppy asking to be picked up, Cherrie,” he spells it out for you with the most serious tone he can muster, because he knows you never believe him and while he knows it’s on him (and Jeonghan) because he often teams up with the older guy to mess with you, sometimes it’s beyond annoying when he’s actually telling the truth and you refuse to believe him.
“You’re seeing things,” you snort as you shake your head, and then continue on your way to set up the table for dinner. “He just looks like a lost puppy in general.”
“That is true, but he keeps on looking at you, alright?”
It’s your turn to roll your eyes this time, but Soonyoung cuts you before you can even say anything. “He’s right, y’know? He does keep on looking at you.”
“See? I’m not making things up.”
You frown and click your tongue in annoyance, telling them to stop messing with you. “I don’t like the two of you ganging up on me.”
Soonyoung laughs and messes your hair, the grin on his face makes you want to strangle him right there and then.
“Come on, Seokmin must’ve–”
“We’re back, guys!” Chan announces happily, pushing the glass door with his body. Seungkwan shouts for Wendy and Jeonghan while Soonyoung quickly helps them set the food on the table. “We wanted to get something more fancy but we’re going to eat out with Ryujin tomorrow so I thought pizza should be enough.”
“You made him buy this, didn’t you?” You jokingly narrow your eyes at Seokmin, recalling how he said he’s craving for some pizza during break earlier.
He grins sheepishly, and you hear Soonyoung snorts softly behind you, thankfully much too soft for anyone else to hear. You glare at your best friend, and he pretends to zip his mouth and pushes you to sit down already.
Unfortunately for you, you’re sandwiched between him and Seungkwan, and the two wouldn’t stop whispering about Seokmin to your ears though at least they’re being subtle enough about it because you wouldn’t know how to face the kind guy sitting in front of you had they been too loud about it.
“He so has a crush on you,” Soonyoung whispers against your ear, way too close that you lean away from him because his breath tickles. You glare at him and proceed to elbow him on the guts, making him choke a little out of shock. He pouts at you but you don’t relent and you just shake your head as he says he’ll get back at you for it.
It’s then that you accidentally meet Seokmin’s eyes, and it’s your turn to smile shyly like you’ve been caught talking about him (you’re going to give these 2 men hell for this), your ears getting hot for no reason at all. Still, you raise your eyebrows in question just in case, but he simply huffs a smile and returns to his meal.
You blink at the interaction, wondering why it’s flustering you. Gosh, Soonyoung and Seungkwan must be getting to your head.
Or you’re just more lonely than you thought.
Anyhow, it doesn’t stop you from biting your lip like an idiot that night, unsure how to feel about the messages on your inbox.
[New Message from: Lee Seokmin]
[22:10]: Did you get home safely?
[22:10]: I know I thanked you already, but thank you so much for comforting me today😊
[22:11]: I’ll see you tomorrow!
[22:14]: Have a good night 🍒
[New Message from: Ryuuu✿]
[22:20]: a little bird told me someone’s got a crush on youuuu👀
[22:20]: i might or might not knwo abt it already tho lol
©wonwoonlight – all rights reserved.
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The Verstappen Devil [08]
Italy 3/3
Warning: Angst, violence.
A/N: Here's the long awaited chapter and answer of your doubts. Finally! Thank you for your support! The heck?? this was longer than I expected and Italy isn't supposed to finish yet, help.
See you in the comments 😉
For a split, small moment there was silence. I feel the bracelet vibrate but before I can answer something snaps me out of it.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” An angered scream breaks the silence and I feel something hit my helmet and fall to my lap. It’s Max 's glove.
Oh no, he didn’t.
I take off my seat belt like a bolt, raise up and throw him back his glove as hard as I can, hitting him straight on the chest. “What the fuck is wrong with me?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
I take off one of my gloves and throw it to him, hitting him on his side as he stands up.
“You are the one that fucking tried to kill me smashing me to the fucking barrier!” He catches the other glove that I throw at him out of anger and points to the wreck of a car as he expresses his opinions quite vividly for someone that should be thanking me instead of yelling at me. “Are you insane?! You could’ve killed me!”
Now I wanna throw him the whole car.
Wait, I already did.
Is he an idiot or does he just like to pretend to be one?
If looks could kill, I’ll be five feet underneath the earth. But I wouldn’t be alone, no, he will be right there beside me.
You have to know something, if you have ever seen Max angry, then you have seen me angry. Whatever rage, pride, instinct to kill, curse or blessing of Ares running through his veins is also running through mine and none of us back off from a fight. Doesn’t matter how wrong we are, we are willing to die on our sinking ship.
I feel the bracelet vibrate for the fourth time, annoying me even more, so I quickly answer back to make him stop, not distracting from the issue on the table.
(In retrospect, I feel bad about that. He was probably just worried and wanting to check on me, how could he know that I was trying to take Max’s head off in the middle of the track?)
“I could of fucking kill you?! I?! I saved your fucking life you fucking asshole! You should be thanking me!” I push him hard and he stumbles back when we find each other out of the cars. I can see the marshalls running towards us but I just ignore them, too involved in the argument with the imbecile in front of me.
“This is what you call saving?!” He points at his car and looks at me as if I’m the stupidest person alive. “You just ruined my race! If this is what you call saving I don’t want it, and I didn’t need it anyways, I was just fine!”
“Oh yeah, Right! You were just fine! Stupid me for thinking that you needed help!” I exclaim gesturing with my hands with an ironic smile on my face that quickly wipes off before I scream at him again “I should’ve just let you deal with your fucking mess of a car all alone so you can go and fucking kill yourself in the next curve! In the end, it’s just one less competitor for me.” I spit, inches away from him. I see a glimpse of something in his eyes that leaves as soon as it comes and before he could answer back the marshalls arrive to separate us.
The tension is high as they guide us to different directions. Our eyes don't leave each other, we may not be arguing with words anymore but sure as heck our glares are having a war on their own. When an obstacle separates us my attention comes back to the moment and I see at least four cameras pointing at us.
What a show we must have given, the media will be delighted.
I shrug the marshall's hand that was guiding me off my shoulders.
“I’ll walk.”
Once I think I'm a safe distance away from the cameras (spoiler alert: I was not) and still with my helmet on, I let out a loud scream and kick the earth to try and let out some of the anger and frustration that was built up inside of me.
For that asshole I sacrificed my race for tomorrow? I was in a good place! I could’ve had my first podium tomorrow! What is wrong with me?
And the audacity of that man? I just saved your life you jackass! That’s how you repay me? Seriously, I should’ve let him crash and die for his own freaking stupidity. Why the heck did he keep racing if he was in serious trouble? He put all of our lives in danger!
Oh no… the realization sinks in, I got myself into so much trouble.
The team will yell at me up and down, and I will have sanctions. For sure I’ll get sanctions and probably a fine too.
Why did I do this?
Because we were in danger, not only me or Max, but my dad too.
Wait.
My dad, he gave me his place, I just let him down horribly. He put me first and I just wasted the opportunity that he gave me. He would be so mad at me, or worse, disappointed.
I let out another scream of frustration as I press my hands against the helmet.
Fuck you Max, really fuck you and fuck me for being such an idiot.
I don’t know how long it takes me to reach the pits but when I do, most of the steam has already blown off, instead a dreadful feeling sits in its place.
I don’t wanna face the media, I don’t wanna face the team, or my dad, or even Mick.
Sneaking to my room seems like the best option but to my bad luck everyone is out there in the paddock already and my plans go to trash when one of the workers reaches me and guides me where they are weighing the drivers.
I avoid everyone, thankfully I don’t see dad or Mick around and even though some drivers wanted to talk to me I stayed quiet, just nodded and shrugged and as soon as my opportunity arrived I runned of to my drivers room.
For at least 20 minutes my plan succeeded, my guess is that with the loud door slam that I did when I entered the room, everyone got that I wasn’t in the mood for talking and no one dared to come and talk to me. So I used my time wisely, I took a shower, cleaned up, changed into my uniform, gathered my stuff and got ready to leave.
In theory I don’t have any other press duties or team duties so I should be free to sneak out, go to the hotel and rest for tomorrow’s already awful race (And to think that I was excited for Italy, literally everything that could go wrong went wrong, thank you Murphy).
That is in theory because after such a horrible Qualy and worst crash, I’m quite sure that the team will want to have a meeting, probably to scold me and get me ready to make some kind of apology declaration.
Theory is confirmed when I hear a knock in the door.
I breathe in, gathering all the courage and strength that I could find to face the dragon at the door with the best excuse that you’ll ever hear ready to burst out as soon as I open it.
Now what I find behind it when I open it is not exactly the dragon that I was expecting but rather a much, much worse and awful one.
Ice cold blue eyes filled with covert anger meet my eyes and my first instinct is to slam the door closed, hide and wait for him to leave. I see my plan fall into pieces when his hand stops the door from shutting.
“Hello little one” My hand tightens around the door knob and I feel my heart start to beat erratically. “Is that the way to greet your father?” He asks when I try to close the door on him again.
“What do you want?” My voice sounds so cold that I know that if it was anyone else in his shoes, they would freeze in an instant, But not my father, no.
I don’t think there will ever be a day where I’ll intimidate him in any way or form.
“Damn, not even a greeting or an invitation to come in?” He pretends to be hurt but I know better and I stand firm in my place, blocking the entrance. “Fine, I’ll do it myself then.”
He shoves me inside as he enters the room, janks the door from my hold and closes it behind him.
Honestly I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to tell him or why is he even there. It’s been years since Jos and I stood in the same room, face to face, and rare were the times where he came to look for me and just talk.
Even when we lived under the same roof.
Therefore I was genuinely curious about the reasons behind his presence here. So instead of trying to kick him out again, I just stayed quiet while he scanned the room, waiting for him to talk.
“Little, humble.” I scoff and roll my eyes at his opinions in my room.
There’s one thing though: I’m scared. I’m terrified.
My hands are shaking inside of my pockets, my heart is hammering my chest, and my throat went dry the moment that I saw him.
I’m just playing pretend here.
Pretend to be strong, pretend to not be scared by his presence, pretend to be intimidating, pretend that I don’t care.
I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing my reactions, of seeing the power that he still holds over me, of seeing that his sole presence makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry.
No, I refuse to give him that power.
“What do you want here apart from playing interior designer?”
“A bit cocky aren’t we?” He answers, throwing me a look before continuing examining the room. “Feeling the fame go up to your head yet? That’s what happens when you get into F1. You think that you are all great and big now that you’ve arrived to the category, don’t you?” He asks, not turning to look at me. Instead, he walks over my table and starts to examine the objects in it. I can’t help but feel offended as I try to understand where all of this is coming from.
“Excuse me?”
“But… in your case in particular, you don’t have a reason to feel all powerful and mighty, do you?” He ignores me as he continues his speech. “You are not here because you deserve to. No, you don’t have what it takes. You being here it’s not the result of talent nor skills…”
He looks closer at a framed picture that I bring with me to any grand prix as my lucky charm and I hold back the urge to snap it away before he can take it. “No…no, It’s because you played the game. You played daddy’s little girl and the whore of some important driver’s son that is as useful as a lettuce right now.”
I can’t believe what he's saying, my mouth opens in shock. Michael was his friend, how can he talk about him like that? No, how can he talk about me like that?
He turns the picture for me to see, not that I need to, I have it pretty much engraved in my heart. It’s a photo that someone took when I won my first race at F3.
We were all drenched from the celebrations, confetti all around us. I’m up in the sky laughing, trophy in hand, Mick and Dad are standing with their arms open to catch me with huge smiles on their faces.
Much like in real life.
That’s why I love that photo so much, it’s a summary of how my whole life is, framed in a picture. Me, up in the sky, doing my own thing, resting on the fact that the two most important people in my life are there on my side, enjoying my wins, crying my losses and ready to catch me if I fall.
I reach forward to take the picture from his hand, regretting that I didn’t do it when I had the chance but he quickly moves it farther away from me and puts a hand up to stop my approaches. I close my fists on my side and clench my jaw in anger.
I want to say something, I want to scream at him, I want to punch him, I want to kick him out, just do anything at all. But for some reason, I can’t bring myself to do it. I never could. I have always found it incredibly hard to stand up to my father.
Not only is he disrespecting me and my career but also my dad, the one that did everything that he failed to do, Mick, arguably the most important person in my life and even Michael, who opened the doors for me when I needed him the most and holds a huge place in my heart.
“You need to leave”
“I should even congratulate you.” He continues ignoring me. “You played a great game. Look at you, all happy, making them believe that they are your family, lying to their faces and using them for their names and fame.” He says in a tone that you would use if you found something adorable, not looking away from the picture.
My stomach turns when I hear him talk like that, my nails digging in the palm of my hand.
“And look at them. Oh how gullible. Ignorance truly is a blessing, innit? That’s why you runned away, I see it now. You couldn’t get what you wanted from me, because I could see right through you. But them? They brought your crocodile tears, playing a hungry for love victim and fell right into your trap.”
He looks back at me with a fake smile on his face. My eyes are clouded by tears and I don’t know if it is because I’m feeling powerless or if it’s truly his words affecting me.
“That’s how you got your seat. Isn’t it?”
“You have no idea what you are talking about” My voice barely comes out, shaking because of barely contained anger and impotence. “and I’ve had enough of standing here and letting you deliberately disrespect me and my family that way. So give me the picture back and leave my room, you fucking assho-”
I don’t see it coming. I just feel it, something hit me so hard across my face that makes me turn my head to the side. My hand flies to my cheek, and I look at him in disbelief. The place where the picture frame impacted is burning hot, stings in an awful way as I feel a few tears escape my eyes because of the sudden hit.
The man that is looking back at me makes me tremble in fear. My father’s eyes are terrifying, suddenly the facade that he was holding up fell all at once and the true devil that laid underneath it it’s showing up.
Now I remember one of the reasons why I hate my nickname. Jos is the real Verstappen Devil and not in a cool way.
“You don’t disrespect your father like that!” The strong act that I put up fell down when his scream made me jump. His fist is clenched against the frame. Is it broken? Gosh, I hope he didn’t break it.
“You are not my father.” I dare to hiss in anger as I reach forward to the picture.
A rookie mistake on my part. You see, you don’t take anything away from a narcissist. You don’t deny him authority or power, or credit for anything (in this case the parental title), less if said narcissist also has huge anger and violence issues.
I learned that years ago, I guess I just forgot, but that doesn’t matter, he is nice enough to make me remember.
Soon my back is pressed against the wall as I fight to get his hand out of my neck to let some more air reach my lungs. His face inches away from mine, eyes bathed in anger.
“You may want to deny me or your brother, but you are my blood, you are my daughter and you are who you are because of me.”
That statement makes me mad and I dig my grave more when I try to speak again. My heart is hammering against my chest.
“You…” I start, barely getting the words out of my mouth. “ say that… now. But you… denied me…. first-”
“Shut up!” He yells, tightening his hold on my neck. I don’t think I’m touching the floor now.
A few tears come out as I struggle to breath. With the last bits of common sense left in my system, I take out an arm to feel what’s around me. In search of anything to help me out of this situation.
Lord please, help me out.
“I gave you everything you needed, food, shelter, education, but that wasn’t enough for you, you ungrateful bitch, wasn’t it? You wanted more, you wanted everything, you even wanted to be Max. You don’t think I realized, but I did. You wanted the attention that he had, his position, his talent, even now you still do. But that will never happen, you know why? Because you aren’t enough. Not even remotely close, you don’t have true talent, you don’t have the skills that are needed, you are weak, a crybaby that needs all the attention that she could get. You are useless, a waste of money and time. You should just give up and be a taxi driver, but even in that you will suck.”
I feel something and I try to grab it, but it's hard to do it when you are barely awake now. He gets closer to my face and pretty much spits the next phrase, looking me up and down with disgust.
“You are never going to be like him. They may call you the Verstappen devil, but he? He is a god.”
Gotcha.
I grab the thing and I bring my arm up, hitting him on his side as strong as I can.
It works, he lets me go, yelling in pain and I fall to the floor, grabbing my neck and panting for air. I look while I try to breathe, it was my helmet. The thing that I grabbed was my helmet.
Thank God for the helmets.
“You little shit”
My victory doesn't last long because soon I feel the air kicked out of my lungs. I gasp for air and hold my stomach in pain and he lifts me up again with his hands back on my neck.
He is going to hit me, I’m pretty sure he is going to hit me so I just close my eyes and prepare for the impact.
I hear it, I hear something impact something and a yell of pain.
But is not to me.
So when Jos’ hand lets me go and I fall on my knees, again panting for air, I look around to see my father sitting on the floor next to me, grabbing his head with pain and I see someone walk quickly to me with concern written all over his face.
His blue eyes meet mine.
To say that I’m shocked it’s an understatement.
“Are you okay?” He asks, cupping my cheek as he examines the one that Jos previously hitted. I nod still, catching my breath and eyeing my father who just stands up again.
“Max, what-” My brother turns around and gives him the deadliest of glares that he has ever given.
“Leave.” That has me looking at him with big eyes, completely surprised by the scene unfolding in front of me. I look back at the older one, who holds the same expression on his face, clearly not expecting that either. “Now.”
Jos looks at him, then at me, and then back to his son. He mumbles something that none of us understand and leaves slamming the door behind him.
“Are you okay? Where did he hurt you?”
Everywhere.
I don’t answer straight away (not that I can, still too concentrated on catching a breath), instead I point to my throat.
“Water?” I nod and he looks around, standing up and walking to the minifridge to bring me a bottle of water. He comes back with the bottle on hand and takes the cap off.
“Here, drink up.” He passes me the open drink as he kneels next to me and patiently waits for me to finish the bottle.
“Thank you.” My voice comes out small and low as I give him the bottle.
He sits next to me, back against the wall as he waits a few minutes in silence. Not really knowing what to say or to do in this position.
“Are you okay?” He pretty much says in a whisper, if I wasn’t next to him I probably wouldn’t have heard it.
I deny with my head. “Not really”
“What did he do?”
“You know, the classics: a slap on the face, kick in the stomach and tried to kill me by denying me oxygen.” I answer feeling more witty and wanting to ease up the air but I don’t anticipate that my voice gets out more bitter than it should have.
Silence sits around us again and from the corner of my eye, I can see Max closing and opening his fist. Maybe because with that one he hit Jos.
“Are you hurt?” I ask and he denies with his head.
“I just… didn’t expect to do that.”
“Believe me, no one did.”
He lets out a long sigh and then looks back at me. His eyes are sad.
“Can you stand up?” I nod, and start to get up slowly, he quickly rises and helps me out.
Something in my abdomen stings and I hiss in pain.
Gosh, that kick really was something.
He helps me sit on the sofa but he doesn’t take a seat.
There’s a mirror on my vision line but I don’t dare to look at it. My neck must be red, with marks of Jos’ hand on it, my hair and clothes a mess, my eyes surely are red as well and I don’t know what state is my cheek after that tremendous hit he gave me.
That surely is why Max cannot look at me right now.
“Not that I complain, but why are you here?” It’s weird, his presence in Aston Martin or anywhere around me. And him standing up for me like that to our father? Even weirder, it’s most likely for a pope to die than him doing what he just did. So I don’t find it out of place to ask him why he is here.
I’m suspicious even.
Is this his way to have his revenge after I ‘ruined’ his race? Did he send our father to teach me a lesson?
“Oh.. um…” He looks around the floor, looking for something. I follow his eyes and I catch a glimpse of the broken frame on the floor.
No… Not the picture.
I stretch to pick it up and shake it to make the loose broken pieces of glass fall out.
“Here” He extends a green pair of gloves to me, I look at them recognizing them immediately and look back at him surprised.
“You brought me back my gloves?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner. I knew I wasn’t welcome here, especially after the stunt that I pulled on the track so I wasn’t sure if I should’ve come or not. At the end Kelly convinced me to do it, and now I feel sorry that It took me that long to come. Maybe I could have avoided this all happening.” His eyes were filled with guilt and I can’t really comprehend what’s happening right now.
Everything seems so out of place, me helping him out, my father’s friendly visit and this gesture from Max? What the heck is going on?
There’s an uncomfortable feeling in me, everything takes me years back, I wasn’t supposed to be living this whole thing again. My whole body aches, I just want to be alone, curl up and cry.
“Thank you.” I say taking the gloves from him, but I don’t mean it just because of the piece of clothing but also for standing up for me. He nods and I think he understands what I mean.
Silence.
I look back at the picture.
“It’s broken.” I murmur with the voice of a child that just broke its favourite toy as I caress the broken glass with the tip of my finger.
Mick's smile in the picture almost makes me smile as well. Almost.
He follows my eyes and lands on the frame. A frown forming on his face and his heart tightening in his chest when he gets a good look at the picture.
Truth be told, he wishes things were different. Maybe, if he acted sooner, if he stayed by her side… maybe he could’ve been in the picture too, be one of those people who are ready to catch her in one of her most important moments of her life.
But reality is that things weren’t different, he was never really there to catch her, never when she needed her, so he was out of that picture. It is what it is and he had to face the consequences of his decisions.
He closes his eyes and lets out a sigh trying to piece himself back together.
“Thank you.” He says opening his eyes back and meeting her eyes. “for what you’ve done, back on track. I’m sorry I was a jerk about it, I didn’t mean it, I was just pissed off and really I didn’t understand that you’ve done what you’ve done to help me-”
“Dad was behind you. It wasn’t for you.” I interrupted him, not wanting him to believe that it was for him. Then I cursed myself because for once in our lives we could talk in a relatively calm but extremely weird atmosphere and it was me the one to mess it up.
On his side, Max doesn’t let her interruption get to him, instead he remembers Kelly’s words of encouragement and continues with his apology.
“Still, you helped me and instead of thanking you, I blew up on you in front of everybody. I’m so sorry for that, thank you for giving up your race tomorrow and risking your safety to ensure mine and the others.”
He sounds almost as if he practiced it. Maybe he did.
I examine his face and I see honesty and guilt in his factions. I breathed out, deciding that it was okay to let my defenses down a bit and show myself to him. I nod, accepting his apology before I question him.
“Why did you do it? You were without comms and no breaks, but you kept racing anyway. You endangered yourself and all of us out there, why didn’t you stop?” I try to not sound rude but I was genuinely curious about his reasoning behind why he continued.
He clenches his jaw and avoids my gaze, deciding instead to look towards the doors through which my father walked out a few minutes ago.
Wait.
“Did Jos have anything to do with it?” I ask truly hoping for a negative.
And when silence was my answer I suddenly understand my father’s little visit to my room:
Jos wanted him to keep racing, that’s why he continued even though he could collide and get severely injured at any moment. That’s also why he got so mad at me and came to ‘talk’ to me out of nowhere after so many years of 0 contact.
I stopped his son and he didn’t want me to do it again.
Unbelievable.
“I can’t believe it.” I blurt out.
I want to laugh but this isn’t funny.
I leave the picture next to me as I stand up to face my brother. “You continued because of Jos.”
“You don’t understand-”
“No, I do. I do understand, somewhere in that little brain of yours still believes that he wants the best for you so you just comply with everything that he says even when he is telling you to jump off a freaking bridge!” I can feel myself increasingly angrier and agitated, because of the impotence and disappointment that I’m feeling right now.
Why can’t he open his eyes? Why can’t he see the true form of his so adored father?
“You don’t know what you are talking about, I just came to say what I said and leave the gloves. I’m leaving now.” He says turning towards the door but I get a hold of his arm and stop him.
“No Max, wait. Please see the importance of this incident. He is willing to let you crash and die if you have the chance to win. The fact that he encouraged you to keep going, even in the conditions that you were in, with your life on the line, talks about how little he truly cares about you. Max he doesn’t love you, he loves the Max winner, the Super Max, the one that is succeeding in the career that he failed to have, he loves your ups but not your downs. He won’t be there if you fall, he won’t be there if you fail or lose. That’s not love Max. He is living his dreams through you, he is using you.”
I look at him with pleading eyes, wanting him to understand what kind of father is the one that he adores. But I find myself looking at a huge wall, my words cannot find a way past it.
Dad used to say: There’s no worse blind than the one that doesn’t want to see. And that’s what I’m looking at right now, even after all that Jos’ has done, even seeing the scene of a father brutally hitting his daughter, even after I tried several times to show him the truth, he still loves him, he doesn’t want to leave his side, he doesn’t want to see the reality.
It has always been like that.
“No one loves anyone on their dark side, it’s just the bright side that matters.” He speaks almost like a robot.
“No, that’s where you’re wrong. Family is supposed to love the dark and bright side of you. I learned that after I left.” I can’t help the bitter tone that drowns my voice when I talk. I pick up the broken frame from the sofa and hand it to him.
He looks at me with a questioning look, taking the picture from me. I lift my bag from the floor and hang it on my shoulder, starting to walk towards the door.
“Oh and Max?” I stop to look at him, he turns his head, eyes meeting mine. “I did. I loved you before the ‘super’ came along, when you were just Max, my big brother. Through the dark and bright sides, I loved you and I always stood there for you, no matter what happened, I was there.” I can’t read the expression on his face, too busy trying to keep myself together. Resentment is clear in my voice. “Shame you couldn’t do the same for me.”
I leave, not giving him time to answer back, I couldn’t stay any longer in there, it was suffocating me and even more when I dropped a bomb like that.
I leave behind a mess of a room, a broken frame of a picture that shows real love and true family to an also broken and lost man who is trying to understand the meaning of those two words.
I don’t like leaving it behind, it took everything for me to walk out the door without it but this is my one act of kindness towards him and I know that he may need it more than I do right now.
So I leave in search of my person, my safe place and the only one that I want to be with and need right now.
It’s alright, we are going to be alright.
A/N: With this we finish the first phase of the book and we enter the second and more calmed and sweet and short phase. The third is the hardest and last one.
Tagglist: @iamasimpingh0e @celinehdr @memeorydotcom @multifamdomfan12 @idkiwantchocolatee @isasv @marelovesf1 @teamspideyman @fictional-l0v3r @capela-miranda @juliejulesblog
@ricsaigaslec @theplobnrgone @bands-messed-me-up @starxqt @sriusun @coffeehurricanes @anthonykatebridgerton @laura-naruto-fan1998 @home-of-disaster @fleeing-pancakes @amulhermaisfelizdomundo @labastarda @altheahuf @dan3avacado
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The Girls' Trip Fairy Tale Ending--Chapter 3 of 5
Summary: This is my combined birthday gift for Joni ( @jrob64 ), Marta ( @snowbellewells ) and Krystal ( @kmomof4 ). Happy birthday ladies! Four fandom friends are nearing the end of their annual girls’ trip when they’re suddenly visited by Isaac, the author before Henry. He gives them an each a gift–an opportunity to jump into any scene in the storybook they want and fix it. Large focus on CS, although other characters and relationships will be explored. A big shoutout to @hollyethecurious and @winterbaby89 for betaing!
Word Count: 2897
Other chapters: (1) (2) (4)
Can also be found on: (ao3) (ff.net)
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Note: Happiest of birthdays to Marta, @snowbellewells! I hope you enjoy your trip into the book! (You might want to sit down when you read this; there is a decent chance you'll swoon, hehe.)
Chapter 3
The book deposited Marta somewhere in the middle of the Storybrooke cemetery as dusk settled over the town. She grinned, knowing she was exactly where she was meant to be–and because against all odds and logic, she was about to actually meet and interact with Graham. Best. Girls’. Trip. Ever.
She wasn’t going to fulfill her purpose by standing here and thinking about the surrealism of her situation, though. She needed to find Regina’s vault, and she needed to find Emma and Graham before Regina did.
She scanned the cemetery past rows and rows of completely ordinary tombstones, some with loving epitaphs and others rather nondescript. She even saw one on which was etched three bears standing side by side. The epitaph for this stone read “Jesus saves.”
Finally, in the distance she saw the large mausoleum with its twin pillars and its circular crest, emblazoned with antlers or curved vines. Marta wasn’t entirely clear what they were supposed to represent.
Even more significantly, she saw the three figures of Emma, Graham, and Regina standing before it. They spoke for a few moments, and then Regina threw a punch, which Emma quickly returned, before slamming Regina up against the vault.
Marta’s heart sank; she hoped she wasn’t too late.
As Emma began walking purposefully toward her cruiser, Graham not far behind, Marta knew she had to make her move.
“Graham was right,” Marta said quickly, catching up to Emma. “Regina is keeping his heart in the vault!”
Emma stopped and stared at her for a long moment. “Is there something in the water today? Have I dropped into some bizzaro world where I’m the only person who hasn’t lost my mind? Do you realize how you crazy you sound, Marta?”
“Yeah, I’m sure I sound insane,” Marta said, “and normally I’d give you the opportunity to figure all of this out on your own, but right now… it’s literally a matter of life and death. We can’t let Regina get to that heart!”
Emma closed her eyes for a moment, growling in frustration. “Okay, say I believed you,” she finally said, encompassing both Marta and Graham in her glance, “we searched the vault. There’s nothing there but a coffin.”
Marta didn't know how much she should or could intervene. It was probably best to be a little cryptic and circumspect.
"It seemed like you were interrupted in your searching," she said. "I'm sure there's more to be discovered there than you realize."
"She's right, Emma," Graham insisted. " I can still feel it. It’s there somewhere."
"Look, Graham," Emma said gently, taking his face in her hands and looking into his eyes. "It’s been a difficult and emotional day for you. Please just take a breath and trust me. Everything is going to be alright."
Marta saw the moment Graham conceded, and she began to panic. “You have to listen to me!” she tried again. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true!”
Emma shook her head. “Look, we already tried searching for it, and that led to an encounter with Regina that I don’t think either of us is ready to repeat anytime soon. If there’s something there, we can always come back and look for it another time, but until then, there’s a first aid kit in the sheriff’s station that’s calling my name.”
“But–” Marta tried one last time, but they were already gone.
Now what?
She considered heading back to the vault and confronting Regina herself, but she wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to go up against the Evil Queen–even in the Land Without Magic. What she needed was an ally.
And then it clicked. Henry. Who better than the truest believer, who had been working so hard on Operation Cobra, to help her stop his mom from doing something irreversible?
She needed to get to Henry now … wherever he was.
She’d no sooner had the thought than she was at the front door of the mayor’s mansion. She could really get used to traveling at the speed of thought like this! Knowing she didn’t have a moment to lose, she rang the doorbell and then waited impatiently until Henry opened the door.
“Marta?” he asked, his brow furrowing. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s an Operation Cobra emergency!” she said. “We have to get to your mom’s vault A.S.A.P.”
Without a word, Henry grabbed his coat and followed her out the door. As they rushed back to the cemetery, Marta filled Henry in on what was happening–being careful to heavily edit the situation, not entirely sure it was suitable for ten-year-old ears.
“And so,” Marta finished, just as the vault came into view, “I thought you could distract your mom, and then I’ll grab the heart and take it back to Sheriff Humbert.”
To Marta’s profound relief, the plan went off without a hitch. When they got to the mausoleum, Marta hid behind a nearby tree while Henry called out for Regina. She came rushing out, and Marta slipped in behind her just as Henry started in on a tale of how he didn’t know where Regina was and he’d been worried.
Thankfully, Regina hadn’t had time to push her father’s coffin back into place before rushing out to her son, and Marta ran down the cold, stone stairs, heart pounding, fearing to find a pile of dust instead of a heart, but to her relief, she saw it right away, bright red and glowing from inside the small box in which Regina had kept it. Marta took a moment to peer into the box to make sure she truly had her prize before closing the lid and making her way back outside.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The next thing Marta knew, she was standing in the doorway of the sheriff’s station just as Graham leaned in and kissed Emma. No sooner had his lips touched hers than he pulled back with a gasp, his eyes blown wide.
“Emma,” he said in wonder, “I remember!”
“You remember … what?” Emma asked carefully.
“Everything,” Graham answered.
Marta stepped forward. “Then I’m sure you’ll be pleased to see this again.” She extended the box toward him.
Graham gasped. “You got it? You really found it? How?”
“Let’s just say…” Marta said, “I knew where to look.”
For a moment, Emma merely looked back and forth between the two of them, her confusion and unease plain to see all over her face, and then she threw up her hands and headed for the door.
“Look,” she said, “I don’t know what the hell is going on around here tonight, but it’s just … too much. I forwarded the station phones to my cell; I’m going home. Graham just … take care of yourself, okay?”
He smiled at her gently. “See you tomorrow? Maybe we can talk.”
“Yeah, sounds good. Promise you’ll get some rest?”
“You have my word.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Marta blinked again, she found herself just inside the door of Granny’s diner. She glanced around, confused. She didn’t remember this scene from the show. Maybe it was something new created because of her changes?
Marta noted that it was dark outside, so it must be evening. Was it the same evening as her previous scenes had taken place? What was she meant to do here? Just as she considered stepping out the door, she spotted Graham sitting alone at a booth near the back of the diner. He slowly brought a porcelain cup to his lips and took a sip as he looked pensively down at the wooden box in which Regina had kept his heart.
With no idea what she was intended to do, Marta decided she might as well join Graham. He looked up as she approached the table, and a smile lit up his face at the sight of her. He gestured to the opposite seat of his bench, and she took the offered seat.
“I owe you a debt of gratitude, Marta,” Graham said. “If you hadn’t been there, hadn’t believed my wild tale, I shudder to think what might have happened.”
Marta felt a shiver go up her spine, remembering what really HAD happened in the original storyline. “It was no trouble,” she assured. “I knew you were right, and I didn’t want anything worse to happen to you.”
He reached over and squeezed her hand with another gentle smile. “Thank you, nonetheless. I know the things I’ve said and done over the past day have been–difficult to believe–but you’ve had faith in me even so, and I appreciate it more than you know.”
“Well,” Marta said, “I … know more than you think. I believe you. On all of it.”
“Do you?” he asked, surprised.
Marta nodded. “And I know that you’ve been controlled entirely too long. You need to get your heart back in your chest.”
Graham sighed, and glanced sightlessly out the window. “Then you know I need a magic wielder to make that happen. The only ones currently in this town are Regina and Mr. Gold, neither of which I trust to help me.”
Marta thought for a moment and a specific scene came to mind: Mulan returning Aurora’s heart in Rumplestiltskin’s cell.
“I’m not entirely sure that’s true,” Marta said. “I’ve, well, I’ve seen a non-magical person return a heart.”
He glanced at her quizzically. “Just who are you, Marta?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she asked with a small, secret smile.
His returning smile could light up an entire room. “Perhaps I would.”
For several moments, Marta couldn’t speak, could barely remember her own name or why she was here. That smile was lethal.
“Anyway, that’s … not important,” she answered, still more than a little flustered. “The point is, I think it can be done. I could try, if you’d be willing to let me.”
He was silent for a moment, considering it, and then he nodded. “It’s worth a try.”
Graham got to his feet, and Marta gave him a questioning look. “I’d assume you shoving a red glowing object into my chest might attract… attention. I thought it would be best to go somewhere a bit more secluded.”
Nodding at the wisdom of that, Marta got to her feet and followed Graham to the back hallway of Granny’s, where he gave her his heart. (Marta was sure for the rest of her days she would never forget the warm fuzzy feeling that gave her.) Holding it carefully, she hesitated for a moment, before quickly plunging her hand into his chest.
Graham gasped, closing his eyes and grimacing in pain for a moment.
“Are you okay?” Marta asked quickly.
After a moment, he opened his eyes, and the smile that came over his face would put the sun to shame. “I’ve never in my life been better,” he said, “and I have you to thank for it.”
Taking her hand in his, he brought it to his lips, placing a quick, grateful kiss on its back.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Marta was fairly certain she’d swooned after Graham kissed her hand, and this time when she came to, she found herself in Mary Margaret’s flat. Emma sat at the kitchen table, pushing around the cereal in her bowl rather listlessly.
Breakfast time, then–must be the next morning.
“Emma?” Marta asked, taking a seat on the other side of the table, “I just wanted to make sure you’re doing alright. Last night was kind of a lot.”
Emma snorted. “Yeah, you could say that. I have a knock-down, drag-out fight with the mayor, who also happens to be my son’s mom. My boss kisses me and then has some sort of … break with reality. All in a day’s work in Storybrooke, right? I’ve only been in this town a few weeks, but already I realize things are just … weird … here.”
“Well that is one way to put it,” Marta replied. “But … maybe try to keep a bit of an open mind about Graham. Obviously he was going through … something … yesterday.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Not you too!”
Marta’s brows furrowed. “Not me … what?””
“Mary Margaret’s already been all over me this morning about closing my heart to love and not giving Graham a chance, and being afraid, and, well, whatever other crap she mentioned.”
“So I take it you told her about your kiss,” Marta prodded.
“Yeah, and she jumped all over it,” Emma said with a frustrated huff. “Got all excited, talking like I’d just started dating my true love or something. It was just …way too much for this early in the morning”
Marta chuckled. “Knowing her, I can imagine. She means well; just wants you to be happy.”
“I know she does,” Emma sighed. “I just wish she’d back off a little sometimes. I’ve been a loner for a long time. I’m not used to… friends.”
“Well you have them now,” Marta said, “and that’s a good thing, right?”
“Yeah,” Emma said slowly, “except when they're jumping to too many conclusions about my love life.”
“Okay, I could see that,” Marta conceded. “So what are your thoughts about Graham and what happened last night.”
“I don’t know,” Emma said, looking down at her bowl of cereal and continuing to drag her spoon through it. “I do have, I don’t know, feelings of some sort toward him. I do care about him, but … well, for one thing, he’s clearly going through something right now. I don’t know if he’s sick and delirious, or something else, but all that crap he was saying back at the office–”
“Yeah, I know it strains credibility,” Marta said carefully. This was harder to navigate than she’d anticipated. If she said too much would she change the future? Was Emma even ready to hear it? “Maybe he just needs a little time. You probably do too.”
Emma barked out a laugh. “That’s for sure.”
For a few moments, the two were silent, thinking about the conversation and the events of the past day. Finally, Emma spoke up again.
“It’s not just Graham’s … issues, though, to be honest.”
“What else is bothering you?” Marta asked.
“It’s just … those feelings I feel toward Graham? I don’t think it’s love. I just don’t think I feel for him what I should feel for the man I’m in love with. I don’t want to start something and hurt him later. I know I’m the last person who should have this, I don’t know, romanticized view of love, but I just feel like there should be more to it than this.”
Marta smiled gently, thinking about a certain leather clad pirate Emma was only weeks from meeting for the first time. She thought about their epic love story that even death itself couldn’t stop. “Emma,” she said, “I have no doubt that epic, passionate, all-consuming true love is out there for you, and I have a sense that it’ll find you sooner than you think. Until then, there’s nothing wrong with keeping things with Graham at the friendship level.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Emma thanked Marta for the talk and then headed for the station. Left alone in the loft, Marta wondered what else she was meant to do.
Then she noticed the storybook–the storybook Lucy had at the start of season 7, the one that contained all of the events of canon along with the past fairy tales.
Maybe she was supposed to flip through and see what changed thanks to her ministrations?
She paged through until she found the events of the past day, and then she moved forward. Regina, angry with being thwarted and concerned with how much of the truth Graham might know, came up with a creative–and particularly cruel–way to solve her problem. After convincing the town that Graham had suffered a mental break and was no longer fit for duties as sheriff, she had him committed to the Storybrooke mental asylum in the hospital basement.
It appeared the rest of season one continued largely the same as canon. Curious what would happen following the breaking of the curse, Marta kept reading.
After the curse, Graham was freed from the mental hospital and went on to team up with Ruby to head up the task force to reunite people with their missing loved ones. Working together brought the two of them closer, and it wasn’t long before they began dating.
Through the seasons, Graham continued to help the heroes as various villains showed up and were subsequently defeated. Eventually, he and Ruby decided to pull back from the craziness and enjoy their life together, even as the world continued to crash around them.
It was all Marta could have hoped for her favorite first Storybrooke sheriff.
She’d no sooner closed the cover of the book than she felt a tug in her midsection, and the room around her began spinning. She closed her eyes against the sudden dizziness. When she opened them again, she was back in the living room of her cabin, looking at the eager faces of her friends.
“I can’t wait to tell you what just happened!” she said excitedly.
“Well, you’re gonna have to,” Isaac said irritably. “Come on; I don’t have all night. Who’s next?”“I think it’s my turn,” Krystal said, a blood-thirsty gleam in her eyes, “and I know exactly what I’m going to do.”
Notes:
--I hope you enjoyed your birthday gift, Marta! Your affinity for a certain handsome Storybrooke sheriff who deserved so much better is well known to all of us. Since we got so little of him in canon, I thought I'd give you more one on one interaction with him!
--Up next: A bit of a longer hiatus. The next chapter will be posted on October 15, Krystal (@kmomof4's) birthday. We'll be moving on to the missing year between 3a and 3b, and Krystal will get a chance to give Neal the ending he deserves. (Cue evil laughter)
NEXT CHAPTER-->
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Heyooooo finals are going on💅💅💅✨✨✨✨✨✨
Imma be making very little progress with my projects🧍♀️💥 I mean that’s not all too surprising but still I kinda wanted to take the time to mention what I’m working on mainly and give some sneak peeks so uhhh look forward to seeing the following below folks✨✨✨
1. Chapter 9 obviously-
I’m tryna make as much progress as I can. It’s like going good honestly but hella slow cuz it’s once again a huge fucking chapter- I fr don’t intend to continuously make long chapters, these last few just genuinely needed the length to tell the story I wanna tell. But anyway, spoilers✨✨✨
2. BlueMoon Promo✨✨
This is definitely one of my bigger projects and I won’t spoil much but I will say I’m super excited to be working on this and if all goes right, it might be a bit more than just some drawings hehehehehehehehe
3. Character Ref Sheets
I wanted to be able to have a section for each character on the masterlist which has all their references in and stuff but I wanted to post the Arc 1 trio together. I already finished Jaiden (they/them) and Zane’s (he/him) ref sheets so all I’m waiting for is Salena’s to be done and then I can post em
4. BloodiedHeartbreak Playlist🖤⛓️🥀
Yeahhhhhh the angst kicked in💀💀💀 I’m making a playlist with seven songs for Zane and Salena’s dynamic cuz I’m insane but that’s resulted in insane quality since I’m editing in the damn lyrics too instead of going on spotify and making one like a regular person. Really cool tho since it’s basically gonna tell their whole story in a nutshell so :3
Aaaaaaand that’s basically all the huge ones. I’m working on a shit ton more but those are more smaller projects I do on the side, these four are my main priorities. I don’t know how long they’re gonna take especially since I’m juggling a lot but I know they’ll be finished. So until then! I will see you folks once finals are fucking over✨✨✨✨✨
—
ROTTMNT: Moths Fly In Packs
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The Kyoto Arc Analysis Post (Part 1)
In other words, “OP has been consumed by wikipedia rabbit holes for the past 3 months”
Starting writing this in September, now it's November. Also this thing is nearly 7000 words.
TLDR: This is basically a crash course on ancient Kyoto, the mythology then, and stuff that details in this arc points to. Chinese philosophies and mythology are mentioned too, when relevant.
Spoilers for chapters 82 to 94.
I keep hitting image limit so this has been split into multiple posts
This part covers the urban planning of ancient Kyoto, what the four gods are, and some locations shown in ch 83.
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4
(If you want to read the whole thing in a google doc, here's the link)
Warning: I’m not a historian, just some rando on tumblr, I’ll probably get some details wrong. If you have anything to add or anything to correct, please do, also don’t get too mad at me.
Also, if this shows up in the searches for some of the other mangas I namedrop, I’m sorry!
If there’s a concept you’re interested to know more about, just google it. I’m bound to leave out stuff bc not everything is relevant (and there’s already plenty of irrelevant stuff in here sobs), people write whole books about this stuff, I’ll be here for 1000 years if I were to bring up all of it.
I Don’t Know How To Start This
I guess I’ll recommend some other manga that have to do with gods, Shinto, that stuff.
Well. Everyone knows what Noragami is. If you don’t, go read/watch it. If you do, go read/watch it again. It’s probably better than you remember it being. That’s the curse of monthly manga, it feels like there’s pacing problems when you read it once a month, but usually when you binge it you find it’s structured pretty well. Strangely I don’t find this with youkaigakkou, but maybe because I think about it 24/7.
Touge Oni, or “Primal Gods in Ancient Times”. This manga leans heavily into ancient Japan, Shinto creation myths, stuff like that. Tonally it’s kind of like Mushishi, in the way that powers beyond human comprehension just do crazy shit. Anyway, great manga, highly recommend.
Wow, The Actual Manga, Right
Just some trivia to start with. This is going to wander quite a bit, because there’s a lot about history and mythology, which means everything is connected to everything else. You know how it is.
Shinto shrines are called shrines, 神社 -jinja, meaning “place of the god(s)”
Buddhist temples are called temples, 寺 -dera or -ji.
The temple they’re staying at is called “Bonnou-ji”, or "worldly desires temple". As far as I can tell, this isn’t a real place, nor could I figure out what temple it’s based on just from the scenery we get to see. (We don’t even get a general location of what part of Kyoto it’s in.)
Heian-Kyo
You may have noticed South is oriented at the top on this page.
I have a guess, but I can’t be sure it’s right.
Why does it matter? First of all, we have to talk about the other thing Seimei mentions about Kyoto: It’s built in a grid.
(By the way, this is an insane thing to say. What does he mean?? Does he mean “ah yes city was built like this over 100 years ago so one day someone could use this specific spell involving a grid to subdue a giant booba monster”?)
Also, the word he uses for “grid” here is “碁盤目 (gobanme)”, which in the literal sense means “shaped like a Go board”, which is cute. I want to see them play Go.
Heian-kyo (the name for Kyoto back then), like Japan’s previous capital of Heijo-kyo (now Nara), was modelled after the Chinese capital of Chang’an (now Xi’an).
For the record, they probably didn’t call themselves “Heian-kyo” back in those times, and started calling themselves Kyoto around the 11th century. It’s kinda like how we call it “ancient Japan” but they didn’t call themselves that. To them it was just “now” and “the capital”. Why make a name for “the capital” when there’s just one capital that will be capital forever? Makes sense.
(Just for reference, the layout of the streets and where Heian-kyo would be compared to modern Kyoto.)
The emperor’s palace is in the northernmost part of the rectangular city, with the main street Suzaku-oji going down the center of the city to the southern gate.
The reason behind that is the idea that left (east) is more important than right (west), and that the emperor should sit with his back facing the north star (Polaris), so that the sun rises from the left (east) and sets on the right (west).
What Heian-kyo and Chang’an are both based off is the urban planning fengshui idea of “shijin-so-o”, which translates to “four gods topography”, which is the very same four gods we’re talking about this arc.
There are two very similar versions of this philosophy, the original one and the one derived from that.
The original version is based off the idea of “zofu-jusui” meaning storing wind and water. There is to be mountains in the North, hills in the East and West, and a body of water in the South, creating a sort of jug.
The expanded version is:
Seiryuu to the left, flowing water in the East
Byakko to the right, thoroughfare in the West
Suzaku to the front, lake in the South
Genbu to the back, mountains in the North
Basically, a city is to be bounded by mountains in the North, a river in the East, a road in the West, a lake to the South. Also, again, left and right in this definition is based off the emperor’s perspective, which could explain the direction labelling on that page.
In any case, both of these definitions apply to Kyoto.
Also, Chinese maps traditionally were oriented with south at the top, I can't say for certain if Japanese maps did too, but it's likely!
However, if you look at maps today, you may find that there’s no major body of water south of Kyoto.
In the past, there used to be the Ogura-ike pond south of Kyoto, which symbolised Suzaku. (Despite being called a “pond”, it was more the size of a lake, 4km by 3km). In the 1930s, it was filled in because of land reclamation, to create more farmland.
In a sense, Kyoto had “lost Suzaku”.
Intermission
It’s also BECAUSE of this very philosophy that Kyoto nowadays gets abnormally hot in summer (above 35 degrees celsius for 15 days a year on average, compared to 5 days everywhere else).
Because it’s inland and blocked by mountains on all sides, on hot days, cool air can’t flow in from elsewhere so it just keeps getting hotter. Sounds like a stupid trade-off for stupid philosophy, but the practical reason behind the philosophy was probably that surrounded by mountains, Kyoto would be harder to invade.
Suzaku-oji
The main street, Suzaku-oji, also gets its name from the four gods. The main entrance to the palace, connected to Suzaku-oji is also called Suzakumon, or Suzaku Gate.
Speaking of Suzakumon, it shows up in the manga!
It’s where Byakko brings the gang when they go to the Seimei shrine. (Albeit a surreal version) The text on the plaque over the door is hard to read on this manga page, but it’s clear in this chapter promo art.
I believe it’s also where Shutendouji appears in ch 89. The text over the door is even harder to make out, but the building itself looks just like in that promo art.
Back to Suzaku-oji. Looking at modern Kyoto, you may notice that there's no major road down the center, instead there’s that major road to the right (in yellow). Zoom in! Enhance! What’s that road called!
Karasuma-dori street. Corresponding to Karasuma-koji of Heian-kyo, and has replaced Suzaku-oji in modern times as a main street of Kyoto. You know, like Karasuma Ranmaru. (launches myself out the nearest window)
So anyway, what gets me hung up about why south is at the top in that page, is that it just does not correspond to the map under it.
Left side is a miniature model of Heian-kyo, it’s basically a perfect match. And you can see Suzaku-oji right there on the miniature model, that big wide road, stretching from the palace gate towards the south, which would mean that south should be at the bottom of the page instead of north.
So why is it like that? idk
ALSO, IF YOU LOOK AT THIS PANEL FROM CH88, WHERE IS THE MAIN STREET???? This panel drives me insane. YOU KNOW WHAT THIS LOOKS LIKE? If you took that top half, the palace, and just pasted it at the bottom. And also the sides. DID THEY THINK NOBODY WOULD NOTICE? You know what they had a point. Canada “most sane yohaji enjoyer”, OP of this blog, who spent 2 months looking for sources on ancient Japanese and Chinese urban planning in 3 different languages, is an outlier and should not be counted.
What does this have to do with Kuji-kiri?
Honestly? I don’t know! There’s not a super obvious connection.
Kuji-kiri is the grid thing Douman does, “kuji” means nine words, “kiri” means cut. It’s a version of the kuji-in (nine hand seals), where the kuji-in is nine hand signs paired with nine words or phrases, the kuji-kiri is 5 horizontal and 4 vertical lines, drawn alternating, starting with a horizontal line.
It’s said to be derived from the principle of yin-yang in Taoism, which Onmyoudou as a whole comes from. (Onmyou and yin-yang use the same kanji)
Specifically, the 5 horizontal slashes are yang and offensive, the 4 vertical slashes are yin and defensive.
Worth mentioning, Onmyoudou also incorporates the philosophy of gogyo (five elements). Will elaborate on that later.
9 is a symbolic number in Taoism, said to be the perfect number in divination for yang, or the nine planets, or the seven stars of the big dipper plus two guardian stars, believed to be the gateway to heaven. There is the most tenuous of connections here, in that 9 was an important number in Chinese philosophy, where an ancient Chinese urban planning guide states “9 li x 9 li squares” (“li” is a unit of measurement) and “9 vertical and 9 horizontal streets in the city”
To that end, I assume the connection is simply that Kyoto is grid = Kuji-kiri is grid.
Four Gods
Four gods, auspicious beasts, symbols, guardians, whatever. The idea originated from China, and didn’t change all that much when they got to Japan. They don’t have this many names in Chinese, it’s just called “si xiang”. “Si” means four. “Xiang” doesn't have a great exact translation.
Not to be confused with any other mythical figures that come in fours that China/Buddhism/whatever seem to love so much, for all that “four” is an unlucky number.
Like a lot of other Chinese mythical things, while associated with Taoism, the four gods didn’t really originate from any religion. In that sense, I think they occupy the same cultural space as Japanese youkai, in that while sorta connected to religion, they’re not the focus.
They’re not gods of any religion, so what are they?
They’re constellations.
In Chinese astronomy, much like the western zodiac, the night sky is split into parts corresponding with the Earth’s position throughout the year. (Albeit, based off the moon rather than the sun.)
The night sky is split into 4 quadrants and 1 middle section, the middle around polaris symbolizing the emperor, and each quadrant is one of the four gods.
As said before, this is relevant because it’s part of the fengshui stuff behind the layout of Chang’an, which was inherited into the layout of Heian-kyo.
What does this have to do with Abe no Seimei?
Well. Onmyoudou is just divination, which is just astrology.
The four gods are very much tied to the Gogyo (five elements), which is half of the basis of Onmyoudou (the other half is yin-yang).
We know it's specifically the Taoist Gogyo and not the Buddhist Godai (another thing with 5 elements), because Seiryuu specifically says his domain is “wood” and “wood” is not present in the Godai.
If you’ve seen other media with Abe no Seimei, you may have heard of the 12 divine guardians (or divine whatevers, you get the idea). They’re shikigami employed by him, four of which are these four gods. I’m not entirely sure if it’s these four gods themselves, or if they just share namesakes.
(Also not to be confused with whatever other figures in Buddhism/whatever that come in twelves)
These 12 divine guardians also each correspond to a direction and the Chinese year zodiac.
The idea of the four gods is oddly extremely tied to Abe no Seimei, I assume because of the astronomy and astrology connection, so much that the gate to the Seimei shrine is the “shijinmon” or “four gods gate”, and also the pillars with the four gods carvings that show up in the manga as well.
Abe no Seimei tangent! According to legends, Abe no Seimei's mom was a white fox, Kuzunoha, often considered a youkai, but also sometimes said to be the envoy of a god or is a god herself.
In other words. What I’m trying to say is. I want to see fox Haruaki. (OP's worldly desires)
Also, look at this fun story about how Seimei died.
Tbh, I don’t know how much of this is common knowledge. I’ve seen a pretty big variety of people reading youkaigakkou, from people who are hearing about youkai for the first time to people who know absolutely everything about onmyoudou and onmyouji. I guess in this essay so far, the Abe no Seimei stuff is more towards the “everyone knows this” end of the spectrum and the Heian era urban planning is “who the fuck knows this”.
Youkaigakkou Geoguessr
That was a lot, so here’s me messing around on google maps for a little bit.
This panel was changed slightly in the volume release, but these are the Toji pagoda, the Fushimi Inari Shrine torii gates, and Kyoto Tower.
At the start of ch83, they’re at Nijo Castle.
When Haru hears Byakko’s voice and runs off, this is probably where this panel is. I can’t get an exact angle from google street view, but it probably looks like the panel if you’re on the sidewalk. The parking sign, tree, and road sign line up almost exactly, and the building looks roughly right. (Seimei shrine also marked on the map for reference)
Mans casually sprinted 1.5km. You go king.
Seimei shrine is pretty cool. Sensei got to go there for photo references. It never really occurred to me how weird featuring real places in a manga would be, as cool as it always is, all the paperwork you probably have to do. (They have a link to apply for that on the website) They have a wall with Ema (wooden plaques) written by actors, authors, filmmakers and mangaka that feature the shrine in their works. I wonder if Tanamai sensei got to write one.
This page was also changed in a pretty big way in the volume release.
I mentioned this in my TL note, but this is referencing the reports of taxi drivers ferrying ghosts, especially after major natural disasters.
Yasaka shrine, roughly 3km straight line distance from Seimei shrine, 5km on the road. I’ll take the manga at its word as the closest Ebisu shrine lol. That panel in the manga specifically would be the west gate, which lines up with the road they probably took (straight south and then east).
The main deity enshrined there is Susanoo-no-Mikoto, but there’s a bunch of shrines on the grounds dedicated to different gods, one of which is to Ebisu.
Specifically, it’s the “kitamuki-ebisu-sha”, or “north facing Ebisu shrine”. Because it… uh… (checks compass) faces north… I guess…? The interesting trivia about this is that Ebisu is written like “蛭子” instead of “恵比寿” (though it’s read as “ebisu” all the same)
蛭子 is more commonly read as “Hiruko”. (Anybody watch Summer Time Rendering here?)
Ebisu is thought to originate from the first child of Shinto creation myth big names Izanagi and Izanami, Hiruko, meaning “leech child” because he was born without bones, and was cast into the sea and floated ashore somewhere. In a popular version of the story, he washed ashore in Hokkaido, to be raised by an Ainu guy called Ebisu Saburou. (Or sometimes this guy is an Ainu deity? I cannot find a reliable primary source for this. This name comes up fairly frequently but I can’t pin it down.) I’ve also seen claims that “Saburou” is a generic name meaning “third child”, and since he is definitely the first child, that the “first two” are Izanagi and Izanami.
In any case, this would make him the older brother of Susanoo-no-Mikoto, who I’m not saying has any connection to any Mii-kuns we know of, but you know.
I got to the image limit, so the post gets split here.
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4
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And Now‚ An Interlude
…Also known as: I just finished playing through the Sky Peak arc and Oh My God, the chapter is going to be such a mountain (har har) of labor to pull together that I’m tossing out some crumbs in the meantime 😅
This may or may not be something I do going forward. It really depends on 1) how long it’ll take me to play through the game and do all the prep work‚ and 2) if I have anything interesting or noteworthy happen on the days that are non-plot related and purely explorations or job requests. If I do make more of these‚ they won’t be linked in my pinned post because it’s not really important enough for that. Think of it as little tidbits of treasure left for you to find!
Another reason I decided to whip this up: I needed more storage space before climbing Sky Peak and I was kind of close to leveling up in team rank from Gold to Diamond? So I knocked out four days of missions to make that happen. (Theoretically it might have taken only three‚ but I fell 20 points short on the third day 🤡)
Now‚ with that little disclaimer out of the way…
We recruited the God of Time.
…Okay‚ not really LOL. Just one of his species. But honestly‚ for a level 12, he was not that bad at all:
His abilities were Frisk and Rough Skin‚ the latter inflicting 1/2 the damage dealt by physical attacks. Which partially explains this heartstopping dynamic during the final battle of main. (But I still have no idea why Seed Flare‚ a special move‚ made Teresa get the counter.)
Now‚ I don’t recall exactly if I picked this up in a dungeon or if it was a reward for a job‚ but one way or another I got my hands on Volt Tackle‚ and boy when I say it was tempting—
That’s eight stars of power‚ y’all. And both of our gals could learn the move.
But… well‚ the more I thought about it‚ the more I wasn’t certain it made sense. As a refresher‚ here are Andrea and Teresa’s current moves:
Andrea: Blizzard‚ Smokescreen‚ Octazooka‚ Mach Punch
Teresa: Mud Slap‚ Dizzy Punch‚ Chatter‚ Seed Flare
Let’s break that down:
Blizzard and Octazooka are both decently strong to begin with and benefit from STAB. Blizzard has a 3+ boost in power from Ginseng. And‚ as we know‚ it’s been a godsend for the absurd amount of monster houses in these dungeons.
Mach Punch (functionally the same as Quick Attack) has been too dang useful with the two tile range. You saw what happened the one time I tried to go without one. Maybe it’s a different story now that we’re a lot stronger‚ but…
Similarly‚ Smokescreen and the Whiffer status is way too OP‚ and a key part of more than a few victories in boss fights.
Dizzy Punch and Chatter also have STAB and both have the chance to confuse‚ which again can make or break survival in certain situations.
Mud Slap... Okay yeah this is a weak move‚ but the drop in accuracy with successive hits can really make a difference. This also has a 3+ Ginseng power boost‚ so it’s not like it’s infeasible. Plus I don’t want to throw those ginseng boosts away if I delete the move.
Which leaves us with… Seed Flare:
Same amount of power as Volt Tackle‚ only one star lower in accuracy‚ and no recoil. And sure‚ both Andrea and Teresa have the Rapid Healer IQ skill‚ but I’ve had too many close calls with unexpectedly hard hitting moves for me to be comfortable with recoil damage.
So‚ regretfully… into Blastoise Storage the TM went. Maybe another day.
Just casually throwing in one of the Seven Treasures as a reward for an Outlaw Job. (I already have this one so I didn’t take it.)
Also‚ who’s Magnezone?? Our cop is Spinarak‚ duh!
The names of the Zero Isles have been revealed!
Great Copse = Zero Isle North
Clean Earthworks = Zero Isle East
Brilliant Landmark = Zero Isle West
Sad Camp = Zero Isle South
I’ll be frank‚ I’m probably never going to these dungeons because they aren’t part of the story and the job requests are usually insane. But hey‚ now we know!
We also picked up this exclusive item! Between this and the North Torc (Rock type moves restore HP instead of dealing damage)‚ Andrea is becoming GOATed. Now if only I could get back that five star healing item for Teresa :(
What’s this?! It’s Wrestler Walrein with a steel chair!
And that’s all I got for now. The goal is to get the Sky Peak chapter out in the next week or so, so look forward to that! And many thanks for your patience.
~Mod May
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Oh also here’s my notes from reading TTI chapters prologue through four hehe I don’t remember what any of these mean:
Prologue:
•Oh the baby teeth detail I love that
•He would drink white chocolate mochas
•I genuinely like that the show isn’t scripted but is still treated like a show, like that’s a nice touch
•Peter! :)
•I feel you sha-mod
•They’re holding hands thats so wholesome
•McLovin and Micheal beef?
•QUIRKED UP WHITE BOY
•I already like Joner and Jules
•AUSTIN!!
•Courtney and Patrick narrative foils?
•Scary is so silly
•Frollo stepping away from the women is killing me
•Is Kitty okay. Girl are you okay get out of the water!!
•Mal and Courtney beef???
•Bonnie 👍
•Scruffy is just like me fr
•I like Ass but their name being Ass is giving me psychic damage
•Max is already going to be babygirl I can tell
•Alex jumpscare
•Trans Staci? Just spitballing here
•O and Kelly friends? Please?
•Austin got fucking blown away??
•Caesar has this fruity little swagger about him that I love
•McLovin’s all alone :(
•Peter my beloved
•Do possums lay eggs?
Overall: Really enjoyed this, I think it’s a really good introduction to the characters, I’m super excited to learn more about them and the writing is really good!!
Chapter 1:
•I do not trust Mal what is she doing
•Is McLovin okay
•Fren?? Buddy?? Are you good??
•Get his ass Patrick
•Austin don’t do that
•I love Joner so much dude
•Julia my beloved
•Bibble real??
•The Staci bit is genuinely so funny
•Max is so toxic this is great
•If anything bad happens between Michael and Joner I will lose it
•Thinking abt an Ass and Patrick alliance
•Courtney deserves better man
•Okay Max is actually kind of slaying rn
•Max and Julia are already giving me mlm and wlw hostility energy
•Did he just call him a Square
•Why wasn’t Patrick on the chopping block he’s such a bitch lol
•Nooo I liked Fren :(
Overall: Another great chapter, I think the dynamic developing between Courtney, Mal, and Ass is super interesting! I’m also excited to see where Max and Julia’s characters go
Chapter 2:
•Max is such a hater
•Mal and Ass moment
•Bonnie and Caesar solidarity
•The fucking high five that’s so good
•The red face on Sha-Mod’s cutout too god holy shit I love this
•I’m a Patrick lover first
•I want breadsticks too
•Never change Mal
•McLovin and Courtney talking is healing me
•Wait Austin and Kelly are kind of cute together
•Get his ass Joner
•Oh that’s so cute
•Them turning to Max 💀
•Patrick is a Madonna enjoyers holy shit
•I like this alliance. I really like this alliance dude /gen
•I’m punching the floor I love Joner so much
•Dude what the fuck happened between Mal and Courtney and should I be afraid
•NOT LEVITICUS 18:22
•How have they been up for 50 hours what the hell
•Nooo Joner
•HE JUST CALLED HIM GAY??
•This is so funny oh my god
•YO THATS FUCKING AWESOME
•I really like Caesar now dude thats a choice move
•He’s sleeping on Bonnie’s shoulder 🥺
•NO
•NO WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK
•JONER?? OVER FROLLO????
•I’m going insane I’m gonna spit I’m gonna throw up I’m gonna cry
•JONER??????
Overall: The relationships and dialogue in this episode were super fun, I felt like we got to know a lot of the characters better. Joner leaving made me incredibly sad but I think that just reflects how well built-up and likable his character was in a short amount of time
Chapter 3:
•Caesar :)
•Patrick is so real
•Tfw your teammate gives you candy because you lost a lawsuit??
•Kitty is such a Cryptid I love them
•Whoever hit Frollo ily
•GET IT PATRICK
•Mal is so cool??
•How is Staci so good at this what the fuckkk
•Bonnie lore!
•Fujoshis are serving cunt in this challenge
•Peter’s autistic eyes
•Is Mal trying to sabotage them?
•”Prove my worth” Oh Peter :(
•KELLY YOU’RE GOING TO KILL THEM
•Is throwing from the ceiling legal
•YOOO SCARY IS SLAYING THATS SO NEAT
•Poor Peter :(
•Yo that is a big ass alliance also Kelly and Austin are so cute
•Staci and Scary friendship!
Overall: Another banger episode, Mal especially was super interesting, I have no idea what her intention was but regardless sabotage is always interesting. Also the Kelaustin(?) is fire and all the characters are just really cool and fun
Chapter 4:
•Scruffy is like Millie and I mean that in a very good way
•Don’t be a hater Court
•”Intelligence is always impressive” yea ok Max just kiss them already
•”Under 30 minutes” dude
•Patrick and Kitty is making my brain Work
•GET IT MCLOVIN
•GET IT SCRUFFY dude that’s insane
•Nooo Patrick!! I liked him :(
Overall: Dude I love this chapter so much, Courtney and McLovin’s friendship and the mounting issues with Mal are both so good. Also Scruffy’s spelling skills, mwah, god tier detail and win. I’m sad Patrick’s gone, he was my babygirl, but him finding Kitty of all people to be impressive and then losing because of it was like surprisingly cute and tragic? Autistic alpha male tsundere x full-on cryptid is a god tier dynamic that I’ve never considered before. I want good things for them
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Toxicity
Tagging: @dragonoffantasyandreality @thundergeek59 @janetm74 @katblu42 @liseylou (Please ask if you would like to be alerted when I update or write new stories)
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9
“I don’t know why you Tracy’s insist on making it so hard on yourselves…” The criminal mastermind growled as he stood above him, boots dangerously close to his already broken ribs. “If you’d just tell me what I wanted to know, I’d let you off easy. You know that, right?”
Scott pushed himself onto his hands and knees, stubbornly ignoring the pain that spread all throughout his body, and somehow managing to throw a hateful glare in the Hood’s direction. “Well, I do know you’re lying…” He coughed between sentences, struggling to get enough air into his lungs. “Even if you do manage to get something out of me…” He shrugged, smirking defiantly. “Which you won’t…” The Hood snarled. “We both know you wouldn’t hesitate to throw me to the dogs…” Scott smiled as widely as he could, raising an eyebrow. “Am I right?”
The Hood looked coldly at his captive, before a malevolent smile spread across his face. “You know me so well…” The criminal knelt down, grabbing Scott by the chin and forcing him to look into his hypnotic eyes. Scott inwardly cursed. Not again. “Which means you must also know that I can’t let your continued defiance go unpunished…” He was unconscious long before the Hood let his head drop to the floor.
------
He’d gotten it done. He’d finally gotten through to the police and filed that report, with a firm request that they wouldn’t let this news leak. The world didn’t need to know what was going on. Not yet. The poor receptionist had just stared, wide-eyed, as the billionaire rushed into the building and told the higher ups that his son was missing and to help find him, please and thank you.
Chief Adams had sent him off with a smile and a promise that they’d do everything in their power to find Scott, after asking Jeff about the details of course. The father had to leave out several key details from his story, namely the truth about what their family really did for a living. But the basics of Alan’s life being threatened and Scott vanishing from the Island without a trace remained intact.
He headed in the direction of the office building, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he walked, and selected Virgil’s name from the contact list. Checking the time and converting it to the Island’s time-zone, he inwardly groaned when he realised it was insanely early. Deciding he wanted to spare his eardrums from the fury of a Virgil pulled out of his beauty sleep far too early, he switched the contact over to Gordon’s. The family’s resident fish had managed to keep up his military regimen fairly well, and was used to waking up at ungodly hours of the morning, usually for a morning swim or occasionally joining Scott on a run. Or… at least he did…
The phone rang four and a half times before his second youngest picked up. “Hey Dad, what’s up?” Gordon was whispering, making Jeff raise an eyebrow. His question was immediately answered however. “Sorry, I’m with Alan right now. He’s still asleep.”
Jeff breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good. He needs it. You all do…”
“I’m just gonna grab my morning coffee so we can talk without worrying about disturbing anyone.” He was still talking in hushed tones. “I’ll be right back.” A few moments and some soft rustling later, and Gordon was back on the line, this time talking at regular volume. “So, any updates?”
Jeff hummed the affirmative. “Just let the police know. You might get a few calls about it today…”
Gordon’s smile was audible. “That’s good. What’s the official story, so our accounts can match up?”
Jeff looked around him for anyone that would hear. Good. The park he’d chosen to walk through was fairly empty. He could only see a few people in the distance, far enough that he wasn’t in earshot. “Alan’s life was threatened by some psycho, and Scott gave himself up so Alan would survive.”
“So, basically exactly what happened without mentioning you-know-what…”
“Yep.” Jeff confirmed, aiming to keep any mention of the case to a minimum now he’d come out of the park. “They might even go over there to have a look.”
Gordon immediately knew his father’s true meaning. The police coming to their home for evidence? That was doable… They could do that. After all, they’d hidden from far greater fighting forces than the police before during the whole ‘Imposters’ incident… “Alrighty.” There was a pause as the aquanaut sipped his coffee. “Anything else you wanna talk about?”
“No, don’t worry. I know it’s early over there.” A sharp, ball-like object hit him in the ankle at what he could only assume was terminal velocity. Almost immediately, he felt kind of faint. “Actually, Gords…”
His son immediately picked up on the fatigue in his voice that had just come out of nowhere, concern in his own tone. “What’s happening?”
“What were Alan’s symptoms again?”
Gordon started listing off what Alan had described after waking up from his poisoning. “Fatigue, dizziness, nausea…” The younger man sounded more and more worried by the second. “He mentioned losing feeling in his extremities as well.”
Jeff frowned as he swayed from side to side, grasping a nearby pole to steady himself. Those were all things that were happening to him right now. A few bystanders had stopped what they had been doing to help, which the man promptly shook off. He wasn’t down just yet.
“Dad?!” The voice was fuzzy, like it was far away even though he was still holding up the phone. “Please answer!” Jeff tried and failed to even his mouth just a little, all his energy was going into staying upright. He wanted to say something. He wanted to reassure his son. But he just couldn’t. All he could say was a hushed whisper…
“I’m sorry…”
He fell to the floor, the whole world going black.
------
Despite what his family thought his current sleep schedule was, Virgil was still very much awake, if a little grumpy from the late night and early morning. He was pretty sure he’d only gotten a grand total of one hour. That was plenty, right?
Inwardly, the medic groaned. Yeah, right…
He was suddenly rushed on two sides, Gordon and John talking over each other to a degree Virgil was pretty sure hadn’t happened since they were kids. The looks on their faces told very different stories. He gave them a stern look that was very Scott-like, causing the problem with all the noise to stop pretty quickly.
Virgil gave John the all-clear. “I just got a call from one of our agents in Japan.” John’s grin widened. “The Hood has been spotted near the base of Mount Fuji heading into an abandoned building. The agent did a bit of snooping and managed to stumble onto a whole network of tunnels and rooms.” Both his brothers’ eyes widened. Could it be? “They’re pretty sure it’s a base.”
“Obviously…” Gordon grinned. It looked like they could end this soon… The smile quickly dropped off his face when he remembered his own news. “Virgil…”
Virgil frowned. “What happened?”
“I was just on the phone to Dad, and…”
“Did he file that report?” John tilted his head.
Gordon hesitated. “Well, yes. But that’s not the point…” Virgil’s frown deepened. The aquanaut took a deep breath. “He started acting weird. Asked what Alan’s symptoms were and then didn’t say anything! The last thing I heard was a muttered apology, and then a thud.” He pushed the tears down. “I’m pretty sure he collapsed, Virg…”
A stunned silence spread among the brothers as the news hit them. Virgil had to process everything. And he had to do it quickly. “Gordon, go wake the others up. We need a family meeting…” The brother in question nodded, saluting before rushing off.
John frowned at his brother. “What are we gonna do?”
“I…” Virgil froze. “I don’t know, John… I don’t know…”
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omg i just finished a series of assessments for the new term. it’s barely the start yet i’m already eager to graduate. anyways, why am i talking about me — aaa! i was washing the dishes earlier and i suddenly wondered if you’ll open a q&a portion as a “commercial break” for catch the winds, because i’m so curious like when did you think of the plot? how long did it take? how did you come up with theodora? i have so many questions! your book has stuck to me a lot that i still can’t get over it, and it’s been what? almost a week since i finished it? i’m a mess!
by the way, how are you doing? i hope you’re fine and practicing self-care! <3
Talk about you! I don't mind at all! I know what you mean, though - I graduated uni like four years ago but I still remember just being so ready for it to be over by the time I got to my final year. I feel like the first year is a novelty, the second year you're used to it all and have a good rhythm, and by third year you're just ready to move on. Or that was my case, anyway! It'll go slow, and then the second the final thing is handed in it feels like it all flew by, it's strange.
ANYWAY - aaaa! Thank you! I'm thrilled to hear it stayed with you for so long. Honestly, I never considered doing a Q&A thing because I just never thought anybody would be interested in something like that! I don't want to bore people who just want the next chapter haha. That being said, I'm more than happy to answer any questions you have on here! Any time, just shoot me an ask or a message, whichever works for you. I do apologise for the insanely long essay I ended up writing you here, I got carried away.
I kind of had the plot in mind for a while but in two different ways. I wanted to write a Norrington fic, and I wanted to write a "modern girl in X" fic for a long time. With the modern girl trope, my first thought was to do a Dragon Age fic, but it's been done so many times in that fandom (I know I'm not the first to do it in POTC either, but it seems to be really prolific in Dragon Age fandoms, whereas I haven't read many POTC fics because I avoid reading in fandoms I write in), so I tried to think where else it could work and Norrington was the answer.
It took a looong time between getting the idea and actually writing it, like at least a year, because I nearly didn't write it at all - and when I did, I wasn't even going to post it. I figured the idea was too far-fetched for me to be able to pull it off, and even if I did that not many people would be interested in reading it because OC fics tend to get a bad rap and "modern girl in X" fics double down on that bad rap. I was also terrified of writing in this fandom because it's so complex with so many difficult characters and so easy to get wrong, so that kept me away for a long time, but my original novel has pirates and a similar fantasy vibe so I figured it would be good practise.
I gave in and finally wrote the first chapter in the middle of the night when we were going through a heat wave that made it impossible to sleep (boo for no AC in Britain) just to get it out of my system, and then I liked the prologue enough to post it, same for the following chapter, and so on, until before I knew it we were at the start of the first movie. It was only ever for my own enjoyment at that point and I was amazed when more than ten people ended up reading it haha, I'm still stunned by how lovely people are about it. It hasn't left me alone since, although I did have a looot of doubt in the early chapters as to whether I could pull it off, because James was a tricky character to get the hang of.
Aaaand where Theodora is concerned, looks wise she's inspired by a mix of Anne Bonny from Black Sails and Sansa Stark (in the later seasons ofc) from GOT, but those aren't exactly who I picture, just a bit of a resemblance. A lot of creating her was trying to think of what sort of woman James would fall in love with, and we already have that with Elizabeth, but I didn't want to just write a second Elizabeth and put her in the story. Although where Elizabeth is concerned, I knew it was important that she and Theodora had to get along and be friends because I really didn't want to go the route of writing a female OC who immediately fought and didn't get along with the one other main prominent woman in the movies, it just felt icky, and it'd take a lot of the nuance out of the difficult situation as far as the three of them are concerned.
The good thing is, a lot of what I imagine James loves about Elizabeth are a lot of the more modern aspects of her (we stan a progressive king), so I felt like he'd be a good fit for a modern OC as long as she tried to understand where he was coming from and the parts of him that still would be rooted in the time he's from. Even the most feminist views by 18th century standards would probably still be a bit backwards by modern standards, so I knew they'd have to love each other enough to put their mutual stubbornness on hold to understand one another rather than just fighting over every little thing, because that would be exhausting.
Most of all with Theo, I wanted her to be able to hold her own in her environment without being a Mary Sue who just magically had these abilities and was good at everything. My thoughts then went to her being a soldier, but I'm sure I've read some LOTR modern girl stories (I considered writing one of those, too, because Boromir is the love of my life but I don't have the balls to touch Tolkien) where that was the case and I didn't want to run the risk of subconsciously copying them. I also don't know enough about the military to be able to portray a modern day soldier convincingly or accurately and I was worried about being disrespectful in that regard, so having her be a soldier's daughter felt like a great middle ground.
It also gives her and James common ground because she understands the mind-set, thanks to her father's influence, and the lifestyle to some extent, even in the different time period. Her father himself is majorly inspired by Ant Middleton (he did a lot of Channel 4 shows over here, I don't know if they're available to stream overseas but they're very good), and a lot of the mental toughness things he teaches her translates well to her being able to hold her own and not having breakdowns over minor problems every other chapter, but doesn't quite put her at a level where she's infallible and doesn't struggle, because that's just not human. She could climb a mountain, she couldn't go to war, y'know? At least at the start of the story. She doesn't have a choice by this arc.
It was also important to me that she felt a bit lost in the modern world and is more suited to a place where day to day life is more difficult because she thrives on that, so it's not a case of she's giving up a place where she was totally happy for the sake of James. I don't doubt that she still would, but it would feel a bit iffy. Having her be Irish also left the opportunity for a good excuse for her weird modern behaviours, a source of conflict early on in Port Royal with the other residents, and I knew I'd be able to write it decently because I'm Scottish and our history with the English/how we were (and still are, in a lot of cases) viewed by them is quite similar, even if it's not completely the same.
As far as how she and James click, I wish I could explain that but they take on a life of their own when I write them and I just let it happen. There's logic to it, I swear, but I couldn't describe what that logic is lolol. Plus this answer is embarrassingly long already so B) I think mostly it's a willingness to abandon their stubbornness to an extent where the other in concerned, and the fact that they're both fiercely loyal. I think her silliness at times also gives him the freedom to loosen up, which he'd appreciate, whereas how good and reliable he is would provide a major source of comfort and a sense of safeness for her.
All of that being SAID - I went into this story with only a few solid ideas. The Tortuga scene from the prologue, the bit where she watches Elizabeth accept the proposal, the end of the first movie, and a few parts that are going to happen between now and the end, so I'm very excited to get to those parts because it feels like it's what all of this writing has been for ahah.
And I'm doing okay, thank you for asking! Just a bit run down, but it's fine, it'll pass, and I had a lot of fun answering these questions, so thank you for that :)
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Project Post-Mortem: Weed Grandpa Cookbook
This is probably my most ambitious/complex project to date, and yet in many ways, the easiest and most intuitive creative project I’ve worked on!
I originally didn’t set out to present all the works in this way, but the works really dictated the visual direction. One of the written works (by ASpecialUnicorn, shown as p29 above) was a set of bong editorials, ‘written’ by Howard and Sally Po. I already planned on presenting Howard’s Gift (by Boxofhatebrains, p44 above) in bits and pieces throughout the zine along with recipes (p45) to tie the whole thing together, interspersing other fics in between chapters would require a lot of editor/author’s notes or big titles to help readers understand they were reading a new story that I chose to stick between another story for some reason. However, I loathed the idea of pulling readers out of the story to switch gears, so a different solution was needed.
Presenting the editorials like they were printed in a magazine solved everything and unlocked a whole new dimension of potential. Now, the written works did not have to have a homogeneous format, and their presentations could even enhance the stories. As soon as I read Noirangetrois’ fic excerpt (p50-51), presenting it as a letter was a no-brainer, and that it would pair perfectly with ASpecialUnicorn’s illustration-as-a-Polaroid. I am insanely up my own ass that these four pages managed to present the work of 3 independent creators as one cohesive bundle.
I could go on and on about this, but I’m most excited that my fellow creators supported my dabbles in quasi-experiential zine design and expressed interest in seeing their works transformed in this way. (Or perhaps - relief that the project was moving along at all 😅). Hopefully in the future I’ll find another way to explore this type of presentation for (fan) works! In the meanwhile, this is now the coolest thing I have had a hand in making 😎
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Sabbatical
TL;DR I’m downsizing my volunteering commitments in my community by half, because I haven’t made adjustments for the fact that my family’s chronic health issues have meant an increase in medical appointments from about four to a dozen a month in the last two years, and I need some physical rest for my own health. However, I’m sure some days will include guilt as I essentially “nest” in the winter, and I’d appreciate any words of encouragement you might be able to leave me <3
August is always a deep month of reflection for me, there are no less than five anniversaries of lives and deaths that have left lasting impacts in our family. It’s not so much a hard month of grief, because time eases all things, and nothing lasts forever - but in a way that’s the one thing I’ve learned from grief: to treasure the relationships while I have them. To love hard, while I can and where I can, because it’s not always death - sometimes people outgrow something, or move on, or it’s no longer servicing a need - but regardless, August is a month of deep reflections about how I show up in my relationships, and what I can work on and where I can do better.
But this year feels different. This year, after some prayer and contemplation, the word sabbatical entered my heart and I realize it is exactly what I need: an acknowledgement that I have worked hard for my community, and also acknowledgement that I deserve to rest to restore.
The truth is, my family’s health issues - including new diagnosis’ - has meant that in the last two years we went from about four appointments a month to a dozen, and sometimes even closer to fifteen, including ones involving overnights to the Mayo that we now do every six months. It has gone from a part time situation to a full time situation, and there’s simply no way for me to honor my community commitments, with worsening health, and my familial obligations to drive around as much as I am doing. It has unfortunately already impacted both my creative time, and most importantly my spiritual time when emergencies happen (and boy the last ten months of back to back to back - some of y’all have seen my color coded planner, it’s been insane lol). I have spent many more weekends in bed than I care to admit, because I’m exhausted from the week.
So how am I going to go about my sabbatical?
I’m going to downsize my volunteer commitments by half. I’m going to be stepping down as president of a local non profit chapter, and not teach Faith Formation this year, as well as not take on any volunteer commitments with the school district. Instead I’ll be able to pour those hours into both my creative and spiritual time to better nourish myself during the long winter months when my lungs are at their worst. When it is imperative that I’m inside as much as possible - where I can still find ways to help my community (I’ll still be doing various work that involves calls/emails), but not the physical commitments.
My hope is that I’ll also be able to spend the remainder of this month, and next month, focusing on downsizing the house and working on repairs before the colder air in October pushes me indoors. Being able to spend several months running around slightly less (those med apps aren’t going away lol), means I’ll be able to spend quality time with my husband and kiddos. But it also means that I’ll be able to invest time in my spiritual life (have I mentioned I’m making my life promises this month as a Lay Dominican??) and hobbies (both creatively, but also making some niche corners of the internet lol). And I’m excited to have more of a balance between them all.
Because the truth is, if I tried to wipe it all away, my ADHD brain would be LIT lol. I need community, I need things I can do from home, I need connection. But both my body, and my family’s health, means there’s certain limitations and that doesn’t mean I can’t do the things - but I need to acknowledge that I have to do them a little differently. I don’t want to give up even more things that fill me up, so I can do more things that drain me. Nah, we’re going to do it the other way around now :)
Besides, let’s be real, it’s not like I can’t call up my parish, or the school district at any time and ask if they got small projects that’ll will take a day or two for me to work on if I’m feeling up to it. There will always be something to do <3
But my hope is to communicate this all with enough advance notice - and potentially even help with a transition period as needed - because at the end of the day: others deserve me bringing my best to the community and to my family and to my health. And I deserve to listen to my body and rest and restore.
However the reason I’m sharing this all is because I’d love to hear any words of affirmation you might like to pass along my way, I’d be happy to keep them on my phone on hard days where guilt sets it. Thanks in advance!
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