#i think the only thing i actively dislike so far is team yell | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

leahseclipse · 3 years

Text

Thnks fr th Mmrs - (Event Fic)

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Warnings: Not that I am aware of. (Please let me know if something should be added later on.)

Summary: Just two idiots in love, but none of them have the guts to say it. Eventually one of them will do it, a bit late tho- but, better now than never.

A/N: HELLO!! Here I am, roughly one month after my last fic, this work got all of us busy, which lead to a bit of panic on the last days, but (I think) we made it all in one piece.

This work is part of the Fic Swap organized by @imagining-in-the-margins, with the help of @sunlight-moonrise! I’ve had the opportunity to write for @spencer-reid-in-a-pool- which is AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, I love her so so so so much. This was awesome to do. (And yeah, for those who got the ref, the title is from one of fob's songs. I had NO other idea and found this one cool.)

Word Count: 8.7k

As much as I wished for it not to haunt me another day— I still had this one problem, written into my brain with bright red ink, unwashable, as it seemed.

I hated to recall that it still remained there, as if it was an unsolved case that someone would have put into archives and brought back up when they were clearing out the shelves.

Unfortunately, it didn’t get lost, I just forgot it was there, and my brain had the wonderful idea of presenting it back to me.

I appreciate it. That was— quite nice.

It wasn’t that I hated it, I just didn’t like the thought of having to deal with it at barely eight in the morning, just before actually dealing with the problem itself— in person.

That problem—couldn’t be someone else but the only one Spencer Reid, the resident genius of the team, or the baby sibling for some of my co-workers.

Once again, I do not dislike him, on the contrary, he’s one the closest person I have in my life to this day, I wouldn’t imagine my life without him.

The problem is mainly directed towards the love, sentimental kind of problem.

Especially when the concerned person isn’t aware of it.

It gets complicated when you can’t even hide your feelings when they’re near.

I get all nervous and weird when he’s in sight, the proofs are right there.

I remember them all, from the time I broke a mug when I tried to reach it as he was talking or when I almost fell down the stairs when he came in to work one day, looking like a literal god— and wasn’t even aware of it, the list keeps going on for miles.

And I’m still there, sitting with my feelings, waiting for something to happen.

I’m not even sure that he feels the same way.

I’m here, admiring him, thinking about what could happen if I could resolve myself to talk about it, if he felt the same way, but strangely and for an unknown reason; I can’t.

This issue has been happening all week, the last one, and probably the whole month.

It took me time to figure it out myself.

I only saw us as two good friends at first; we’d hang out together, had the same hobbies, have long conversations without caring about the time, to the point that people would think that we were together.

But I guess that I never realized that he could be more than just a good friend.

And as it couldn’t be more complicated, in these cases, if none out of the two dares to make a move, or talk, it won’t go much further.

Which is exactly what’s been happening at this moment..

I’ve been liking him for a while now, and my brain doesn’t know to do anything else but attack me with as many questions they can come up with at the same time whenever I dare to think about it.

What if he does like me, but only as a friend?

Is it going to be awkward between us?

Am I going to lose my friendship with him because of that?

What if he says no?

What am I left with? My stupid feelings that will keep wandering around, reminding me of my love failure?

If all of these are the things waiting for me till I decide to stop bottling it up, I better have to solve that, soon.

But at the same time, if I take a glance at the negative side, I’m just thinking that it’d be better to keep our friendship as it is, and just pretend as if he’s only a good friend I’m quite close with, not a possible lover.

Since when did I allow myself to see him as that? I wasn’t doing that before.

What caused my feelings to suddenly appear?

He’s always been nice to me, as with everyone else he’s close with, and as far as I’m aware of it, no one’s been in my situation.

If it ever happened, I’m sure that it was purely platonic and didn’t go as far as I’m at.

It’s as bad as a math problem.

Kind of ironic, considering I both suck at figuring out how to say I love someone, deal with feelings, all that love stuff; and at maths.

But, as I think about it further, he didn’t do anything to keep me from crushing on him either, even if he probably didn’t do it because he liked me.

There’s a 50% possibility.

He’d take me in his arms to reassure me, help me with paperwork when I was tired, offer to drive me home, re-filled my mug for me, act close, and by close- not as close as he is with the others.

A different kind of close.

So...who wouldn’t think that way, that he could like me?

He could possibly like me, but about that, I don’t have a single clue to know if he really does.

I do want to try to ask him, in one way or another, but the thing is that , if he doesn’t like me, what is going to happen next?

Awkward silence?

Is he going to try to reject me as nicely as possible to not hurt my feelings?

It could be really nice if anything would help me to make all of this mess any clearer.

I don’t want to end up drawing away from him because I can’t help but be in love with him whenever I look at him, but at the same time, I can’t say that I am, in case he’s not in love with me.

Spencer’s one of the most important people in my life; I wouldn’t imagine a day where I wouldn’t talk to him, and even if we’re busy, I try to say hi to him, at least.

I can’t quite imagine not having him ramble about his favorite subject, happy as hell because I’m interested, listening to him, and even participating in it.

I don’t want all of this to stop because of a mistake I could cause.

So, this week will be the one.

I’ll somehow resolve myself to bring up the subject.

I’m sure he’ll understand, he knows me better than anyone else in the whole team, has always been there when I needed someone, he’s always listened when I needed to talk, he helped me out with a lot of issues.

He’s always been understanding, whether the issue would concern him or not, so this shouldn’t be a big problem.

It’ll be fine.

I just have to relax sometimes.

I’m stressing out too much, and I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t stress that much about that, or any subject he might think about.

I even wonder if Spencer already noticed the changes in my behavior and is just waiting for me to talk about it because he doesn’t dare to talk about it as well.

He could feel the same way.

He could.

There’s a chance, a good one, I guess.

It can end well, and I have to keep thinking about the good outcome.

There’s no way he’d react badly, I know him,— Spencer is not the kind of guy to do that, in general.

I trust him on that.

So, today...or later, will be the right one.

It’ll go well.

It’ll be win or lose, basically.

I sighed as I looked at myself for the hundredth time for the past ten minutes, finally resolving myself to leave the apartment before I’d end up being late.

Which isn’t something I’d like to happen.

My ‘love problem’ counts as at least ten problems more than getting yelled at by a superior (if I’m not overreacting, at least) so I don’t really need that to happen, on top of that.

I have never been delighted to walk into the office, only to find paperwork from last week waiting for me.

We usually had the whole ‘Garcia runs into the office and throws papers at us before we gather in the conference room and immediately go on a jet at whatever unpleasant hour’ or just purely lazy days where none of us have the strength for any kind of celebration.

But today happened to be a calm one, we just had to do whatever task we had left to do before we can allow ourselves to go back home to either sleep all day to fix our long broken sleep schedule, or do whatever event we might come with, such as dates or trying to find a guy in a party, for some of us.

It’s nice that we don’t have to worry about when we’ll be able to come back to work, we just go in, do our task and go home at whatever hour, a decent one.

I’d say that this happened to be more than convenient -in a way- for Spencer and I.

More time for talking, hanging out together, mostly what we do when not on an active case.

If I’m not mistaken, I think that I may have heard one of them saying that we were dating because of how frequently we’d be found together.

I did want to say we were dating as a joke, but I was afraid that it’d end up being awkward after that if- as said earlier when I woke up-, he didn’t feel the same.

But at the same time, whether he feels the same way or not, I don’t really have a reason to think about that as Spencer wouldn’t react badly.

Knowing him, he’d probably play along.

At my arrival at the bureau; everyone was scattered a bit around; which wasn’t to be seen on a case day, usually.

We just had to hope we wouldn't have a surprise case to ruin it all.

As I greeted everyone before settling at my desk, I noticed one person missing.

Spencer wasn't usually late, so...I didn't really know what might make him late.

Knowing him, he may have woken up late because he had watched tv till 2AM, and ran to the coffee shop to not look dead at his arrival.

Yep, that’s him.

Let’s hope he won’t break a bone when he’s going to attempt to run to not be late, it’s...yeah.

So, don’t rush Spencer, it’s calm as hell here, you don’t need a trip to the ER so soon in the morning.

“Oh, hey!”

I turned around to be faced with Spencer, papers in hand. “When did you get there? I didn’t see you when I arrived like...five minutes ago. I thought you weren’t here yet.”

“Oh, I was doing copies. I’m sorry if I worried you, I should have sent a text.”

“No- It’s okay, don’t worry. You’re here...now.”

“Yeah, I’m here. Do you have a lot of paperwork? Figured out we could talk in between.” He asked.

“No, I don’t have a lot, and...sure, I could use a talk- I mean uh...talk, yeah.”

That was a shitty save.

“I’m glad, I didn't want to bother you if you were busy.”

“Even if my whole desk was covered in papers, you know I’d always find a minute to talk. I get easily distracted.”

Please don’t take it the ‘love’ way, or just...don’t think I get distracted by you in a ‘not-a-friend’ way— gosh, I’m not gonna be able to save it with whatever sentence.

“You know that’s the same for me. I always have a hundred subjects popping up just when I try to focus.”

“Yeah, same. It’s a bit...annoying.”

“Depends. It’s not really when you’re in them.” Spencer admitted.

Is this an attempt at killing me right on the spot? You’re really going to kill me by being so damn nice.

“Oh...really? I didn’t know.”

That was shit.

“Well uh...now you do that it’s not always annoying up there and that’s your part of the non-bothering stuff.” He pointed out.

“That’s the- same for you, yeah.” I answered, slightly nervous.

“Didn’t know we had that too in common, that’s funny.”

Not so sure about the other detail you don’t know about-

“We learn new stuff everyday at least. I guess it’s...useful to know? I don’t know.” I chuckled.

“Yeah, there’s not much to do with that information, it’s more of a...fact thing-y. You know I like that stuff.”

I raised my eyebrow. “Who doesn’t?”

“Yeah, everyone does at this point, but that’s a quarter of what they know, I think that you’re the only one that knows the most about me, not everyone.”

You have to stop before I drop dead on the floor right now.

“I have to remind you that it’s kind of the same for you.”

“People are definitely thinking we’re together at this point, we’re pretty close so they have every right to believe that.”

“Does it...bother you?”

“Oh, no, not really. You’re a pretty girl so that’s kind of...nice that they think that a nerd like me could be in a relationship with you.”

Okay, I just stopped functioning right now.

What am I supposed to even say? You’re a literal god, you’re handsome as HELL-

“Oh- you’re uh- good looking so, that’s...normal I guess.”

“You think so?” He asked, unsure.

Oh, please. Tell me you’re kidding, it’s impossible that no one hasn’t told you of your AMAZING handsomeness, the fact that you’re amazingly-

Yeah, we got it y/n.

“Yeah, really.” I confirmed.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“No problem, Spence.” I said, as we both went to our respective tasks.

At least I avoided a heart attack, that’s what matters, he just has to stop being so cute and pretty, all the time because I’m gonna have trouble acting like I’m not in fucking love with him if he keeps going.

Just- breathe, and focus on your work.

We’re gonna talk together, and it’s gonna be okay.

There’s no reason that a problem would occur, I just had a talk with him, and it went...almost perfectly smooth.

The ‘almost’ part is when I almost had a heart attack, which isn’t the first I’ve had with him, and won’t be the last.

If he would just stop being so handsome all of the time.

I sighed, reading the paper all over again as I lost focus...again.

As I was reading, my pen in hand and the tip of it slightly touching the sheet— I didn’t even realize that I had been scribbling on the paper, as if I was in middle school and bored in class all over again.

It was kind of….fun.

I didn’t get to do that everyday, so I’d say that it was diversifying compared to any other stressful day where these...doodles wouldn't even happen or to be thought about because of the amount and importance of the work.

I still think about him, even when I’m busy as hell though.

He’s always in my thoughts, I don't know how he does it because I’m pretty sure I don’t do that with anyone else in the bureau.

Is that kind of over thinking considered as an obsession or not at this point? I’m not quite sure of it anymore, but...it's not "psychopath, stalker-like", he's just an important person that matters to me.

I just really like him, that’s all.

He also told me that I tend to be in his mind often, so...I guess we're even.

I guess so.

“Hey, is everything...okay? You’ve been staring blankly for a...while. Is that my-” He started to point out.

I panicked, quickly hiding the papers with other ones. “What? Oh, uh...I was-” I blurted out. “...thinking.”

“You’ll probably have to...print out new ones. I don't think Hotch will accept papers with scribbles, you know. I can print out some copies for you, if you want?”

“No- It’s fine, I can go, thanks for asking! It’s nice of you but uh- I’m going.” I answered, as I abruptly clicked back on the software to print out copies, and walked to the breakroom after...awkwardly waving.

Why the hell was I scribbling down his name like I was...a middle schooler having a crush on her classmate?

I have no idea why, but this was...kind of embarrassing at the moment.

I seriously have to stop worrying about each thing that happens.

He probably didn’t care as much as I did.

I shook my head as I arrived in the breakroom, now empty as Luke and Matt had previously left from what I saw a bit ago when I looked in that direction.

I didn’t mind, at least I’d avoid embarrassment because of how weird my expression probably looks.

So, everyone, please don’t come now, wait until I pick up my papers, that’d be more than appreciated.

Should I call Spencer?

I don’t want to be a bother, I know he enjoys spending time alone off work.

Would he be happy to hear me?

I don’t know.

I’ll call him later, if I’m settled on it.

I’ve been pacing in that small apartment of mine for at least the last couple of minutes, or maybe an hour, I don’t have the habit of noting the duration of my nonsense usually.

I don’t even know why I’m pacing again and again just to decide about a call.

I’m sure he doesn’t even do that.

Does that mean it makes me...crazy?

Not necessarily.

It could.

Maybe.

I’ll just- whatever.

Do something useful like cleaning your apartment and answering emails, and you’ll see if you have a minute to spare to call Spencer.

That works that way.

See, you can stop stressing.

Just do another task to distract yourself and have less things to worry about, so it’ll be easier to decide about the ‘call matter’ thingy.

I did not call him, if that’s what anyone wondered.

The only call I made was with Penelope, after she called me numerous times to ask me about the books we’ve been yelling about for a few weeks.

I had supposed she had also wanted to talk about Spencer, as the whole office had been conspiring about our possible relationship.

But, she held it off, and cut the call after saying ‘I better hang up or I’ll be talking about the book for another decade’.

Kind of looks like me and my thoughts with Spencer.

I hope I’ll get to let all of those out, if we ever have the chance to have a talk about the feelings matter.

I never had that many ‘things matters’, I’m even inventing some new words along the way.

Crazy what love can do, if that’s what started it.

I can’t recall that either, I’ve been more focusing on the matter itself than the name of it.

Love will do, I guess.

“What are you up to?” I asked, peering over Spencer’s desk.”

“Well, technically...nothing new. I’ve been reading that for the past week, I tend to do that with books I really like.” He closed it, looking at me. “Is that weird?”

“Not at all. I’m doing the same with shows and movies, and even- who cares if it’s weird? If we like doing that, we don’t have to worry about what others might think about it.”

“You’re right, I shouldn’t worry that much.”

“I worry about small things too, you’re not alone on the ride.” I pointed out, sitting back at my desk.

“Glad to know I have someone I’m sure won’t judge on that.”

“I would never judge you on anything, well- aside from the ‘sugar’ matter we’ve been having for a while, nothing else.”

“You’ll be debating about it for a while then. I’m not about to stop having my ‘sugar with my coffee’, as Morgan says.”

“The amount you put in it is disgusting.”

“Not to me.”

“Well it is to me, and probably everyone else. How do you not get sick?”

“No idea. I’ve been doing that for years and never had problems of any kind. Maybe you’re all the ones that are weird.”

“Hey! You’re weird too. If you wouldn’t be, I wouldn’t be talking with you.”

“I’m less weird than you, at least.”

“Pff. Just get back to work, weirdo.”

I love you, weird genius.

No, I didn’t get to talk to him about the…’love matter thingy’.

We did spend a lot of time together but I didn’t get the nerve to find a way to ask, instead of going straight to the thing.

I have no idea if I was imagining things or if it was real but...he did look a lot like me, and...his look wasn’t the kind of look you’d give a friend.

He also seemed...nervous, I guess?

Would it be wrong for me to think that he could possibly like me, as well?

That’s better than always thinking he doesn’t, a little hope doesn’t hurt, it’s always nice to think on the bright side for once.

Maybe I could be right.

I kind of hope I am.

I didn’t think till now that it would be such a relief to see my whole desk cleared from most of the papers.

I’ve turned in most of my reports- and that kind of sounds like I’m talking as if I’m in school and turning in assignments at the end of the day to be honest.

All of the papers that laid around were gone, and it kind of seemed like the work day had reached its end.

It kind of was a nice day, it’s nice to have days like that from time to time to take a break from all of the stress and shit from cases.

As I had gathered back all of my stuff, and all that was in mind was to walk out of here and rush to my apartment.

Just as I turned around, Spencer was standing in front of me; I didn’t even see him come by.

“You- gosh, you really scared me. Speak up next time.” I said, nervously laughing.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to- Did you uh...get hurt?”

“No, I didn’t have- get anything. I’m okay, thanks- Are you going home too?”

“Yeah, yeah, I am and...I also-”

“You also…?”

“I wanted to talk to you...again, about something.”

I feel like that ‘something’ might be the ‘something’ I’ve been wanting to talk to you about for weeks.

“Uh, go ahead, I guess. I can’t really start the conversation as I have no idea what it’s about…”

“Okay, uh...I’ve been uh, wanting to ask, for a while, if you wanted to hang out, sometimes. I know we do, pretty often, but I’d be like...hanging out together, maybe dinner...” He looked elsewhere, searching for his words.

“...you mean a date? Is that...what you want to say?”

“Yeah, that! I just- I thought I’d be weird to ask you, just like that. I mean...it’s kind of random and I thought that- you understood the thing.”

Please, that’s what I’ve been thinking about for a decade, how could I not understand that-

“It’s not weird, I’m just...surprised?”

“Oh, I’m- glad? I just...didn’t think you’d accept and...I was kind of afraid that I’d make a fool of myself by asking you that.”

“Wait a minute though- You’re really asking me out, right now? I’m not making fun of you, it’s just still...wow.”

I just thought you would never do it, or that I’d be the one asking and receiving a negative answer.

“I swear that I’m not. I’d never joke about that, especially to you, and since I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I guess I was afraid of the answer.”

“Please don’t laugh, or anything but...kind of the same thing was happening to me, about you.”

“So...we’ve been thinking about it, and none of us knew? Wow, that’s...I didn’t think that was happening all this time.”

“Seems so.”

“Have you been uh...thinking about it for a while, like me?”

“Kind of...yeah. I’ve...liked you for a while but, didn’t think you’d be interested. I’ve had a lot of male friends that were acting like you, but weren’t interested in me, so I thought...that was the case.” I admitted.

“You have no idea how much I appreciate you, and not only in a friendly way. I’ve liked you for a bit, and as I said, I was afraid of what you’d say, so...I told myself that waiting for the right moment would be better.”

“....yeah, same. I don’t think we’d ever get to have a conversation about it but- did you uh...resolved yourself to do it because of…”

“..the paper thing? Yeah, and no. It’s been on my mind for a bit. I just thought this would...kind of- be the right moment. I know that it's not the ideal place, but I just thought, it’s now or never.”

“At least...it’s cleared out?” I asked.

“Yeah, it is. I’m glad we know about...the feelings stuff and all.”

“You have no idea how I am. This is- wow, sorry, this was kind of sudden, and I...didn’t think that’d happen. Just this morning I thought about talking about it somewhere this week and now- did you read my expression or something and guessed or…? Because just as I thought about it, you talked to me.” I explained.

“I guess so. I’ve been thinking about it for a bit, and...I didn’t want to wait more as I wouldn’t have ever talked, as for you.”

“Would you have waited another week for me to tell it or would you have stepped in before?”

“I think it would have depended on where we would be. Because, if we were outside, I think that I would have preferred something nicer than a bureau, you know. Even if I like it, to be honest. But, I wouldn’t say it’s the best setup to ask someone on a date?”

I shrugged. “Not the best, but, it’s better than- I don’t know...a grocery store or something?”

“Yeah- it’s better.”

“At least you’ll get a better shot at asking me out on another date after that one.”

“I’ll definitely do better.”

“I trust you on that one. But- I want to home right now though, I kind of miss my couch...and my fridge, maybe.”

“I’m with you on both ones- after you.” Spencer offered, as the elevator opened, stepping in after me.

“Be careful with the whole gentlemen thing, you’re gonna have to bring me coffee everyday soon.”

“I’m already doing that with mine, bringing yours won’t hurt. You’ll probably have a bill at the end of each month.”

“In your dreams, Reid.”

The care that had been put by Spencer on our first date was truly amazing.

It looked like he planned it months ago, it could almost be seen as a kind of proposal if someone else would see it.

He insisted on picking me up himself, did not tell me a single thing about where we were going till we were there, which was weird...but made it exciting and fun.

I have to say that I was...quite nervous too.

I never even thought that I’d be here, on a literal date with Spencer Reid himself; I’ve had dreams about it, thought about it, but never thought it’d actually happen.

None of this was a joke, he was more than serious about it.

I don’t think that even one thought I had looked like this moment, he insisted for it to be an awesome first date we’d both remember for a while, and I wish it could have lasted longer.

Time went by, way too fast that when we both saw the time, it was already 10PM.

As we could have work, and that sleeping early would be convenient if we happen to be called in early, we decided to end the night there, even if none of us really wanted to.

“We should stay in next time. That way we won’t be tired, you know. It’s kind of late.” Spencer pointed out, as we walked to my place.

“You sure? It’s gonna be Grey’s Anatomy or whatever cheesy tv show I watch for the night.”

“I don’t mind. I’ll probably try to point out the mistakes, it’ll be like...a game night you know.”

“Oh, yeah. It could. But, I think I’m gonna be the one to lose as the only ‘medical knowledge’ I have from that show is from that show. And, as Google isn’t to be trusted, I’m gonna lose.”

“It could also include a...spot cheesy moments thing.”

“Season one is full of it. We’re gonna have a lot to talk about. I would have proposed Star Trek but apparently, there’s not much scientific errors, it’s pretty accurate from what I heard. We could settle on Doctor Who if we can’t decide.”

“Would you like it though? You told me you don’t watch it usually.”

“You could tell me about it, it could be good. We could also try Supernatural, it’s kind of mystery stuff with paranormal stuff?”

“Ghosts, spirit and the whole heaven/hell thing?”

“Yeah, there’s a lot going on. And...it's kind of in the title. I’d have to warn you though, I’m kind of obsessed with the main leads, so don't get jealous or something.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t judge you. It’s a judgement free-zone.”

You raised your eyebrows, staying silent for a split second.“...you judged me when I didn’t add any sugar in my coffee.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Spencer, please- you looked at me weirdly, as if I committed a crime.”

“Not in a mean way- I just put a ton, so, seeing someone putting none was weird.” He admitted.

“I’m judging you on that then. You’re putting way too much in that. It’s sugar with liquid at this point, it's melted candy.”

“I hate the strong taste.”

“Then drink tea.” I proposed.

“It’s too light.”

“Just end up drinking water.” I said, running out of ideas.

“No, I prefer to stay with my sugar with liquid.”

As you wish.” I agreed, as we came to a stop.

“So...we’re there.”

“Yep, we are. I’ll see you tomorrow?” I asked.

“Yeah, tomorrow.” Spencer repeated, coming forward to plant a kiss on my cheek. “Have a good night.”

“Spencer, you missed. You kissed my cheek.”

“Oh I- are you fine with it…?”

“Just kiss me, Reid.” I replied back, while one of his came on my left cheek, the other laying on my waist as he stepped forward once again, kissing me on the lips.

All of it was perfect.

It was only the two of us, the world around us had froze.

My arms ended up winding up around his neck as he brought me close, his warmth, smell invading my emotions, my whole thoughts.

I had totally forgotten about everything else, he was the center of my attention, I couldn’t allow myself to go on another track when he happened to be near me, this close.

Never have I thought that months ago, as I was crushing on a man I thought wouldn’t like me, would actually like me, and kiss me.

We were literally starting to date.

This better be real, I better not be in a coma after whatever accident I might have had.

Because this— this is way better than a dream, than I imagined.

I would be so mad if that wouldn’t end up to be real— but it is.

All of the things I’d feel, whether it was him, his hand on my cheek radiating his warmth on me, his breath, his lips slotting against mine, his arm enlacing my waist, the grip on my waist gentle, the feeling of the fabric of his jacket against my fingers, or even my own feelings, all of the memories, thoughts floating around, there was just way too many things to describe, but I could still list them all of a sudden if I were to be asked about the aftermath of it.

I couldn’t wish for a better moment like this.

I think that the fact that this moment was probably totally unexpected made it even more special for the two of us.

Neither of us will forget, ever.

This moment totally replaced the message written in bright red ink that reminded me that I still had these feelings laying around that I kept pushing away by fear of rejection.

The rejection seemed long gone, for me, he happened to be having similar feelings, probably fearing a negative event as well.

Turns out nothing bad happened for the both of us.

Only our truest desires, what we wished for but didn’t dare to as the bad ones were stronger.

The bad pushed the joy we could have really lived if the feelings were mutual.

And now, it is.

We both know that the other likes us, that the bad is long gone behind us.

I could tell that, from my side, because of this moment.

I didn’t want it to stop, ever.

I wished to live this kind of event that could give the chance for all of these amazing feelings to fill my whole mind.

No more fear, pain, sadness, just calm, reassuring, soothing feelings.

The ones that make you feel that nothing can hurt you anymore, that make you feel safe, happy, this is all I’ve ever wanted.

I didn’t even count how many minutes that lasted, I was too focused on...the wonderful person in front of me and all the feelings that came with it.

It was quite the overwhelming one, and for once, it wasn’t an unpleasant overwhelming, it made me feel happy.

Mostly because I’d never thought feelings could be so deep, numerous, amazing to think about, and then, even more happy feelings would pop up again, and again.

I’d almost forgotten we were still in front of my building, and that it was...really late.

I almost think that I didn’t remember the world had kept moving, that people walked by to see two people making out in the street.

I guess I sort of apologize, but don’t really care.

I was in my moment and did not care if anyone saw us.

When we both slowed down in our movements, ceasing after a few seconds; I slightly stepped back, letting his hand rest on my cheek for a little bit more when I put mine on his.

I simply didn’t want the feeling of his warmth to ever stop.

I did not want any of what this moment made me feel to ever stop after I had to experience it with no one but a person that deeply matters to me.

The only person I’ve ever wanted to feel this kind of amazing feelings with.

I didn’t want it to stop.

Not yet.

Not ever.

It was amazing.

He was amazing.

As we both started to take our breaths back, when his hand dropped from my cheek to my waist, joining the other, the feeling of looking in his eyes once again was astounding.

It was just a glance.

But, when you happen to be in total love, it isn’t just a simple glance, it’s always a special one.

What you feel about it won’t ever change.

I’m sure of it, in my case.

I wish I could be looking at him forever.

But...not that I want to ruin the moment but, it was really late, and windy.

Not the best time to look at each other for hours.

After a certain amount of time, Spencer had been the one to briefly break contact, before maintaining it once again, but with a different emotion plastered on his face this time.

“I’m sorry for...before, I panicked and I-”

Okay, here goes nothing.

“I don’t want you to go yet.” I admitted. “That's kind of the reason...I said and did that too. I wanted to kiss you but, it was also to feel you close a bit more, a four hour date wasn’t enough and I don’t think it’ll ever be.”

He seemed surprised at my confession.

Just say something, I hate it when there’s a blank.

Especially when I just said this to you.

“...if you want me to stay, just tell me.” He said. “I’ll be here as long as you’ll have me, as long as you want. Even for a whole week, a month, hell- forever, let’s be crazy.”

“You’d do that?”

“Of course! Why wouldn’t I?”

“I just feel like I would be bothering you.”

“You’re not. I’m actually happy to get to stay more. It’s not bothersome at all, on the contrary. I’m happy to stay.”

I’m happy too.

“Thanks for that. I really...appreciate it.” I admitted.

“The pleasure’s mine.”

“Wow, you’re playing it ‘gentleman-like’ now?”

“I guess so. I would also say it can be because I’ve seen a bit too much of Miraculous Ladybug when I was babysitting kids. Cat Noir’s nice.”

“You know lines of Cat Noir?”

“Yeah, I picked up a few one.”

“Really? You’re gonna say them all the time now?”

“Of course, my lady.”

“I’m never gonna get used to that. It’s weird hearing you say that.”

“But it’s romantic, there’s a lot in the TV shows you watch. The characters do that too.”

“But you’re not one of the characters, you’re Spencer Reid. You’re yourself. You don’t need to throw Cat Noir lines to charm me or something. Just you...is enough.”

“You sound like ladybug...and also Marinette.”

“We’re kind of them- well- kind of, as what we deal with isn’t...close to a kid’s show, but, we save people.”

“Oh, we should-”

“No, I’m not dressing up as ladybug for halloween.”

“...can’t say I didn’t try.”

“There’s no way I’m dressing up in a suit-” I argued.

“We would have been equal, I’d be in one too.”

“I’m not doing it-”

“...guess I’ll have to come up with something else then.”

“Yeah. We have at least six months to think about it so...that’s enough for me, I guess.”

“It’s short. We’re gonna end up one week before.” He complained.

“Stop worrying about that- just get inside with me, it’s getting cold.”

“I could give you my sweater and jacket, I don’t mind.”

“Just- get inside Reid.”

“I was joking!”

“Sure you do. Do you think I’d stay outside for another hour?”

“I just thought it was because you were cold-”

“I’m gonna check if you don’t have a fever when we get up- you’re out of your mind.”

“I’m perfectly fine.”

“Nah, you’re a bit tired, from what you said.”

“I didn’t actually mean it.”

“Sure, let’s get you to bed, grandpa.”

"I'm 32-"

"So?"

"I don't see why you call me grandpa."

"You don't have the reference? The meme, you know?"

"No, I don't."

"You're disappointing, Reid."

“Is it going to get worse in later seasons? It’s too calm.” Spencer pointed out.

“Uh...possibly. Season one is pretty calm, not- entirely, but...okay compared to later ones. There’s a lot going on in Supernatural, and it gets pretty hard when you get attached to the characters. The writers like to hurt us.”

“They’re taking all of the pain of the fans on twitter as inspiration.”

I snorted. “I’m really starting to wonder if it’s not the case at this point.”

“I noticed they tend to do that at the end of seasons too. They throw in a cliffhanger where you think that the character is going to die, and then, they make you wait months...just to show they had a scratch on the arm.” He explained.

“It’s true...they did that a lot of times. I’m afraid of what’s going to happen after season one though. I bet it’s only going to get worse.”

“Probably. I bet they won’t be extra nice with letting them live peacefully.”

“You…” I stopped in my sentence, yawning. “...said it. Sorry- I’m a bit tired.” I said, rubbing my eyes.

"Oh you should probably- go to bed, yeah. I'll leave the bed to you, you know."

"Why would you sleep on the couch?"

"Uh...well, uh...I don't know."

"We're sleeping in the same bed, it's not the end of the world."

"...are you uh- sure?"

"I guess. I don't want you to be uncomfortable."

“I just figured that...it’d be sort of embarrassing, or even awkward for you.”

“I don’t get why it would be, it’s okay. Plus, you deserve to sleep comfortably if you’re tired as well.”

“Okay, then.”

I paused for a bit, thinking about a detail. “...It’s probably stupid to ask, but...which side do you usually prefer? Just so that, there aren't any problems if you sleep on a specific one, you know.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to be taking you side or anything, as you said, if you prefer a specific...one.”

“Why did you think I asked? And, in case we prefer the same, we’ll just settle on one, that's all I can think of.”

“...it wasn’t stupid to ask though.” Spencer reassured.

“Really? I...it’s not everyday that I ask that kind of stuff, especially as this situation doesn’t happen everyday. But, at least, I can say that I’ve already done it. It’s...something.”

“Yeah, same. It’s just...I don’t know, what would you call it?”

“Half stupid, half nice? I have no idea as well.” I admitted.

“...we can just leave it there, we’ll never find it.”

“True- Are you coming, or doing a whole routine like drinking water, going to the bathroom, tidying up everything, checking mails and all of the possible stuff that you could do?”

“Do you really think I could be doing that?”

“Kind of. Wouldn’t be surprising if you were doing that. But I’d say it’s a waste of time, if it’s 10PM, you end up going at 11:30 something. The least I’d do would be...water and bathroom. But again- I won’t criticize, it’s fine with me. Just don’t make hella noise.” I detailed.

“I just...check mails...a lot, yeah. Also uh...I make sure everything is ready in case we get called in so I don’t rush; so, I do a lot of stuff. But as if it’s a calm week, I guess I can skip getting the bag ready, and probably mails as I answer them later.”

“That’s...good to know at least. Less stress before going to bed.”

“Kind of. I tend to do all of the stuff I forget all day at night, which causes me to do a lot of stuff, being afraid that they won’t be done on time, so...it’s nice to have less stress.”

“Really nice after what you said.” I pointed out. “Are you sure you’re okay though? We’re only sharing a bed, it isn’t the end of the world, if that’s the thing that bothers you.”

“No, you’re not….it isn’t- It’s not the problem. I just, never really...did it, and...I have no idea why I’m stressing over that. It’s kind of stupid as we’re just gonna sleep.”

“You’ll be out like a light in two minutes Spence, it won’t be a problem if that’s what stresses you out. Also, it kind of is...the feeling you can’t describe, and me neither. It’s like...stress, awkwardness, a mix, you know.”

“Exactly, it’s kind of that.” He agreed.

“Didn't know we were thinking the same about that. Well, I guess we’ll see. We should go before it’s too late.”

“Yeah, we...probably should.”

“Relax up a bit. Just chill.”

“I’m perfectly relaxed.” He argued.

“No you’re not. Stop lying, I don’t even need to profile you to know. You’re like a balloon ready to explode.”

“I really don’t see what you’re talking about, y/n.” He muttered.

“Did anyone tell you that you’re very convincing? Turns out they were lying, genius.”

“I think I’m the one freaking out now.” I admitted, out of the blue.

“I’m not really freaking out anymore. I guess I gave all of my stress away to you.”

“It’s quite thoughtful, thanks.”

“Maybe you’re just hot, who knows. I’m fine on my side.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m not hot, it was freezing cold outside, so it is inside. I know when it’s hot and when it’s not.”

“Uh then...try to take deep breaths? I don’t know what you could do.”

Why don’t you try to be less handsome, huh?

“I think it’s the awkwardness and stress mix kicking in, as I said earlier.”

“Do you want to talk for a bit? Maybe it’ll calm you down.”

“Sure, why not.” I agreed, turning to the other side to face him.

That guy has to realize that his face is what’s distracting me.

“What did you think about today?” He asked.

“It was...really fun. Quite more than I expected I think. I guess I’d be down for other ones.”

“I can’t guarantee I’m not going to slide one or two essays in it though.”

“I’m fine with it. You know listening to you...never bothered me. I don’t think it’ll ever bore me. Who doesn’t like a few facts?”

“Even when it’s all about science or pagan rituals? The cop looked at me weirdly and even asked what kind of doctor I was. Someone else had to talk to revive the conversation.”

You bet, not everyone’s used to it.

“I do remember that one. You looked pretty...proud about it when you finished the sentence. I swear that I would have revived it first or would have kept going. I know a bit about it. What did you say to creep him out?”

“I think that...there was candle wax on the tree, and I said the usual stuff, as a matter of fact, it was used to protect the birth day celebrants from demons, and that the celebration got rejected by Christianity as a pagan ritual’. That’s when he asked.”

That totally explains.

“It wasn’t embarrassing, don’t worry. He just...wasn’t used to that. That almost happens with every new person you meet. I’m out of the ‘almost’ I guess. I was surprised, but got kind of interested.”

“Again, that was surprising. Not everyone would have reacted like you did. I know the others try not to hurt me and listen to it until it’s enough.”

“It’s distracting sometimes, you can always keep going. But not too late, 2AM essays aren’t my thing. Sleeping at 2AM is.”

Getting to sleep at 2AM doesn’t even matter anymore, I’m just glad to be able to sleep.

“I’ll try then.”

“You better.” I warned, pulling my jacket closer to my body as I felt a few chills.

His gaze hadn’t left my figure, hence, he noticed. “...you’re still cold?”

“A bit, I guess.”

“Do you uh...want to...get closer?”

“If you don’t mind, I don’t know. I don’t want it to be embarrassing.”

“It’s not, I swear. I just don’t want you to freeze, I guess.” He admitted, raising one of his arms.

“Okay, thanks.” I slowly got closer, not wanting to invade too much.

“I said you could get closer, that is barely closer than before. Come here.” He pointed out, which I responded to with a sigh as my head ended up resting against his chest. “I told you it wasn’t weird.”

“I thought it’d be for you.” I answered.

“It’s not...anymore. It’s actually fine...now that you’re here.”

“...really? You were kind of stressed about it just a bit ago.”

“Don’t remind me, it’s embarrassing again now. Do as your brain is a computer and delete the file.”

You’re the computer, I’m not.

“It’s fun when you react like that, why would I stop?”

“That’s offending.”

“You, offended? I don’t think so. You don’t sound like it, you’re acting.”

“That hurted my feelings even more, I think my heart might die because of such cruelty. You should be careful with your words, my lady.”

“You’re starting to look like Cat Noir. It’s cheesy. I didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings.”

“Maybe I am Cat Noir, who knows.”

“Guess you’re gonna have to give back your power, you’re not supposed to say it.”

That shows how many nights I’ve spent babysitting kids, especially Matt’s, they watch it way too much.

“Never said I was.”

I kind of wish you were, it’d be fun to see you in that costume.

“Spencer, you sound like him now. You’re definitely him, can’t change my mind about that.”

“I just sound like him, doesn’t mean I am.”

“I have the last word, stop.”

“Okay, I’m stopping. But you have to sleep first, I’m not sleeping until you’re asleep.”

“...bossy.” I spat.

“I’m taking care of you, I’m not bossy.”

“...what’ver.”

“Whatever, right.” Spencer repeated, hesitating for a bit before putting his lips on my forehead, softly kissing it a few times. “I totally agree with you.”

“Mhm.” I lazily said, growing a bit more tired.

“Good night, y/n.”

Nothing much had been planned for today; so when I had woken up, I really didn’t need to feel stressed about rushing into work as most of it would only be paperwork.

Spencer was still asleep. He had stirred up a bit when I stood up, but it didn’t wake him much. He was sleeping as a baby, even when I accidentally banged my foot against a shelf, nothing woke him up.

I exited the room with a chuckle, heading to the kitchen aisle to fill up a glass of water; sitting on the counter when I had the glass in hand.

It wasn’t really late, just about 8AM, I could still head to work around 9 or 10 as our work hours were to be chosen by us when nothing urgent was to be done; but, the limit was still about 10AM, the hour to be chosen more freely was around the end of the day.

Too bad we can’t head in somewhere in the afternoon.

I hate that work just for that.

I slightly jumped from the counter, peering over the bedroom to see Spencer still sound asleep, only his position had changed.

As I looked in the room, his sweater had been messily put on one of the chairs in the corner, almost at the edge of it.

Time to make jokes and steal a sweater.

I slightly laughed, walking to the chair as I grabbed the sweater, heading back outside when I had the item in hand.

In a few seconds, I had put my head in the top hole, then my arms in the sleeves, arranging the sweater afterwards.

Good luck to get it back, Reid.

“Hey, did you-” Spencer asks, before putting his eyes on me. “Is that my sweater, or am I having hallucinations?”

“That is your sweater, indeed. You’re not hallucinating.”

“Is it being rude to ask why you’re wearing it?”

“I don’t know, I like it.”

“And...is it possible to get it back later?”

“Not sure….no.”

“At least you were clear.” Spencer chuckled, sitting on the couch as I joined him after a minute.

“Last night was really nice. I appreciated the forehead kisses.”

“I just...felt like it would be reassuring, glad to know that. I could do it often if you’d like to. I don’t mind.”

“Every night, no matter the situation. If we leave and don’t see each other for a few hours, forehead kisses, even if we don’t sleep at the other’s place, forehead kisses- basically every time we have to separate for a bit. But- you can also do it when we’re together, so...correction, all the time.”

“Gotcha, all the time.”

“I may give you back your sweater at some point if you keep your promise.”

“I don’t actually mind, you can keep it. Just tell me when you take my clothes so I don’t think that some alien stole my clothes in the night.”

“I’ll send you a text every time I’ll be taking one. You might receive a lot though…”

“Just try to leave two or three shirts and some pants so I don’t have to go out in the street naked.”

“I will- don’t worry.” I said, laughing.

“Too bad I can’t take yours in exchange. I’m not a fan of...tops.”

“You know what? That’s not a bad idea. I’m gonna take everything in your closet and only leave pants and that top. Thanks for the idea!” I thanked, getting up from the couch as he tried to catch me when I started to run.

At least now, I can’t say that I had a bad week.

It was better than expected;

For...probably the both of us.

If you liked this fic, let me know here!

#cm #cm fic #cm cbs #Criminal Minds #criminal minds fanfic #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #Criminal Minds Spencer Reid #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you

49 notes · View notes

bridgyrose · 3 years

Note

Infiltration Au. Salem wandering the town with a bunch of hormonal teenagers... Does it feel like a babysitting trip or?

Salem dreaded walking around town with a bunch of… hormonal teenagers. However, at least for now, it seemed to be the only way for her to get closer to Ruby. Which caused problem number one…

Aro stared at Ruby’s cloak, feeling a mixture of fear and anger from the sight of the red. Not only that, but the accented red on Ruby’s outfit was starting to… cause issues. “You… need to get rid of that cloak.”

Ruby looked at Aro curiously. “I… dont think I understand.”

“Get rid of your cloak!” Aro slammed her hand on the table, cracking part of it.

Yang frowned and got between Ruby and Aro. “Her cloak isnt doing anything wrong. What’s your problem with her anyway?”

“My problem is that she shouldnt be here!”

“And for once, I think I found someone I agree with,” Weiss piped up. “...even if she is a faunus.”

“And what’s wrong with faunus, exactly?” Aro’s gaze went straight to Weiss, ready to fight things out.

Xanthic sighed and pulled Aro back. “Aro and I are going to go take a walk. We’ll meet back up with you all in a bit.”

Ruby sighed as she watched Aro and Xanthic walk off, starting to feel like this was all a bad idea. “W-well, at least the rest of us can have a bit of fun, right?”

Sitri nodded, pulling out her scroll and looking at the list of all the sights she wanted to see. “This will be great! Oh, when is team JNPR coming around? I have got to get Pyrrha’s autograph.”

“They’re bailing on us.” Blake got up and started walking. “Seems like its just our teams that wanted to do this today. And even at that… more like just six of us.”

“Aro will be fine… I think. Xanthic seems to have her under control. But lets start by heading to the docks.”

Salem watched for a moment as RWBY and Sitri started walking off, heading towards the docks. She took a moment to make a mental note about Aurora and her dislike towards Ruby’s cloak. Maybe something about the color… she wasnt quite sure. Either way, it seemed like something to keep an eye on. And Xanthic… the way she seemed to always be close to Aro… maybe there was something going on between them. And if that was the case, they’d both be easy to use as pawns. Once a few others have lost their usefulness…

“Sapphire! You coming?”

Salem sighed and looked to see Sitri calling out to her. She slowly got up, not looking forward to this. “Yeah, I’ll be right there. Just… wanted to take in a few of the sights.” That’s what these kids were into now, right? Sight seeing and all that. It didnt matter to her, just as long as she could continue passing as a teenager under Ozpin’s nose. She started walking over to her team leader, keeping an eye on Ruby, waiting for any chance to pull her aside. All she needed was one moment…

Ruby stopped as the group passed a dust shop with a couple cops in front of it. “Seems like another dust robbery. I guess Torchwick is still at it…”

“Or it could just be the White Fang.” Weiss kept walking past the shop, not really caring much about it. “They’re always acting up and causing trouble.”

“The White Fang would never do this. Why would they need so much dust? Ruby’s right, it’s probably Torchwick.”

Salem looked at the dust shop, smirking a bit as she saw the signs of Cinder having been around. Seems like everything was going according to plan so far and better yet, no one was able to pin the robbery on just one person. Seems like her piece was effective after all. “Not much we can do about it, unfortunately. Best to have the cops handle it.”

“Or… we could have a stake out.” Ruby smirked a bit as she looked around the area. “We can find another dust shop to watch and we can prove if it is or isnt the White Fang and then stop them-”

“That’s a terrible idea.” Weiss frowned and grabbed Ruby’s cloak to start pulling her. “We’re just students. This is a job for the police.”

“Not like the police are going to do anything about it. And it’s not the Fang.” Blake stepped up to Weiss, glaring at her. “Ruby’s right, we need to watch one of the shops-”

“And then what? The White Fang are terrorists!”

“They’re not terrorists, they’re just misguided.”

Weiss raised a brow at Blake in disbelief.

“Okay, very misguided. But they’d never stoop to stealing dust!”

Sitri hesitated for a moment as she watched Weiss and Blake, still not quite sure what was going on. “Are… are they always like this?”

“Only recently,” Yang said, starting to sound a bit annoyed. “First it was Weiss yelling at Ruby, now she’s yelling at Blake… I swear she hates everyone here.”

Salem kept an eye on Weiss, starting to get a bit more intrigued by her. First the glyphs, and now she was tearing a rift in her own team… she was starting to sound a bit more like pawn material. All she needed was a little nudge. “You know, I think Weiss is right. The White Fang is to blame here. Along with the rest of the problems this kingdom is facing.”

Blake hesitated for a moment before turning to face Salem. “What exactly are you getting at?”

“All I’m suggesting is that Weiss is right. Think about it, ever since the White Fang became more active with their… violent acts… we’ve seen more grimm attacks. More shops are starting to see break-ins or property damage, especially dust shops. And not to mention all those riots the faunus are causing. If it was me, I’d start looking for a way to take them down.”

Weiss smirked a bit as she looked at Salem, glad someone was on her side. “See? Sapphire is making sense.”

“That’s not at all what’s going on!” Blake turned to Weiss, glaring at her. “All we want is to be treated like people, not monsters! And if a little property damage has to be done to send a message, then so be it!”

Everyone stopped and stared at Blake, not quite sure they were believing what they heard. Salem, on one hand, couldnt believe that all of this was working out in her favor .A rift like this would be hard to mend, splitting the team to allow her a bit more access to Ruby.

Weiss hesitated as she processed everything Blake had said. “We?”

Sitri immediately got between Weiss and Blake, shaking a bit. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation and we just need to hear her out. Right Blake?”

Blake didnt answer, immediately rushing off and using her semblance to make for a quick escape. Everything had gone wrong quickly, all from just a few words.

Salem smirked, keeping an eye on the rest of the team, looking for other ways to divide them. At this rate, getting to Ruby was going to be easier than she thought.

Weiss huffed as she watched Blake run off, putting her rapier away and walking the other direction. “Well… good riddance I say. Once White Fang trash, always trash.”

“That’s no way to talk to our teammate.” Yang started following Weiss, keeping close behind. “We should be going after her and finding out the full story.”

Xanthic and Aro finally arrived after Yang stormed after Weiss, confused about all the yelling. “Did… we miss something?”

Sitri looked towards Ruby, who was already feeling a bit dejected after being left by her team. “I’m… still trying to figure out what went on.”

Salem smiled and started walking back to the dorm, her mission for the day finished. “We just had a chat about the White Fang. Apparently one of Team RWBY was a member. A pity.”

Aro sighed and looked towards Ruby for a moment, starting to feel a bit conflicted. She still wasnt fond of the fact that she lost to the girl, but having a team split like this…

Xanthic walked up to Ruby and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You dont think it was the White Fang, do you?”

Ruby shook her head. “No, I dont.”

“Want to prove it?”

“I do.”

Xanthic nodded and started walking back to Beacon. “Then come with me. I’m sure we can get down to the bottom of this.”

#rwby #ruby rose #rwby ruby rose #weiss schnee #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #salem #rwby salem #aurora glade #sitri evergreen #ashley xanthic #infiltrating witch au #infiltrating witch #drabbles #angsty drabbles

18 notes · View notes

lizacstuff · 3 years

Text

SCK/EDSER anon asks ep 41

Apologies for getting to these so late in the week, but lots of good asks for this episode.

Find them under the cut:

Anonymous asked: Your thoughts on the epi? The kisses were a huge surprise! I'm glad she didn't slap him. And I'm kind of liking the two assistants' story. Its subtle but nice. And Aydan is so weird around Kemal! Is it just me or does her voice change frequency when she's talking to him. I like that they explained why Eda named her daughter Kiraz. I wasn't a huge fan of the name initially but it's growing on me.

So once again I thought it was a really good episode of television, the time moved quickly, it was well constructed and the acting was terrific.

The only thing that marred my enjoyment of it was grappling with Eda’s lies. Sometimes that just got too much for me. I think at one point I actually yelled “LIAR” out loud at the screen. I understand why Ayse and the writers wanted to delay Serkan finding out, it gave us two really great things, one Serkan deciding to pursue Eda again without knowing of their forever tie, and Serkan bonding with his daughter while thinking she has no connection to him.

Dramatically, both of those things are great and entertaining and I’m happy they went that direction. However, that once again requires me to set aside reality and find a way to stomach the fact that Eda not only didn’t tell him about his child, but now is forcing her child to actively lie to the person she wants most to meet.

That was really hard to take on first viewing. She’s also dragging poor besotted Burak into the lie, allowing Melo to continue the lie to her former eniste, expecting Piril to lie to her husband and to her business partner/“friend”, not to mention all the direct lying she’s doing, both to the man she once loved more than anything and to her beloved daughter. They’ve done a good job of making us understand the pain Eda went through and why she might want to protect her daughter, but nothing, and I mean NOTHING justifies what she did. And let’s be real, she going to say she did it to protect Kiraz, but if Serkan had rejected being a father, everything else could have been the same. Kiraz didn’t need to know. Eda could have left, raised her on her own, and told the fairy tale of an astronaut. She decided not to tell Serkan in order to protect herself, it was entirely selfish. And it’s really hard to watch Eda hold Kiraz in her arms when Kiraz tells her of dreaming of her father and Eda still come out of that determined to keep Serkan in the dark. I know she’ll come around. But I really don’t want it be brushed under the rug and for the narrative to consider what she did as totally okay. Perhaps that could come in the form of Kiraz making her pay a bit when she understands she’s been lied to and Eda has hidden her father from her. We’ll see.

Alright, enough of that, I saw several tweets on twitter complaining about Edser alone screen time, that it was too little, but during the episode I didn’t feel it. Probably because I consider funny scenes like them using their assistants as go-betweens to flirt and fight as an “edser” scene. Of course I always want more, but I think we’ll get much more in the coming episodes.

As for Kiraz’s name, I’m super glad it has meaning related to Serkan. That’s very heartwarming. Though still a bit at odds with the fact that she hid her from him. She’s going to deprive him of knowing he has a child, but give her a name connected to Serkan? These are the things you handwave when a show swings big for dramatic purposes, I guess.

On the positive side for Eda, I do appreciate that except for that one gargantuan thing, she is being very open with him in their conversations. It’s new for them for one to be honest about how much they were hurt by the other. Eda would always pretend that she wasn’t impacted when they parted, I’m glad she’s past that.

I’m also happy that Serkan isn’t wasting time pretending he’s not still in love with her or that he doesn’t want her. It took him, what, like a day, to decide he wanted her back? LOL. And even though he was being high-handed in manipulating hotel-owner lady to force Eda to work with him, it was all very in character for the old Serkan so I enjoyed watching it. Even if he had zero rights to do it!

Loved watching her guard come down when they were working together, they were always a very good team, and I’m sure neither of them has had quite that same dynamic since they parted, so it was fun to see them syncing right back into old rhythms. Oh and watching her thaw completely when he complimented her work. Serkan as her mentor was one of my favorite things about their relationship so it was nice to see that aspect back and that she still respects him professionally as much as she ever did. Then the flowers! Gah! I love that the show is picking up these old threads and using them to illustrate how Eda was still a priority for Serkan during the 5 years of estrangement.

So far we’ve only seen flashbacks from Eda’s perspective, it will be very interesting to start seeing them from Serkan’s perspective so we know why he did what he did. I think there’s no doubt that he pushed her away out of some sort of misguided attempt to get her to pursue a better life without him.

Wasn’t it refreshing for there to be a misunderstanding about the phone call, for us to get to see jealous Serkan, but for Eda to actually clear it up for him? Don’t get me wrong, Serkan had no right to get angry and it was frankly none of his business, but it was also a honest emotional reaction from him, and I’m glad to see Eda recognize that and put his mind at ease. Also it was worth it for us to see their argument in the car and them both deciding to walk back. I wish we would have gotten like a 4 minute scene of them just walking and bickering on their way back, though.

Their conversation once they were back was great, so open (except for that pesky secret) so emotional. Serkan really putting in some emotional work for one of the first times ever.

And I love how it continued the next day. Eda searching for the pick that means so much to her, Serkan coming right out and telling her that her wants her and still loves her. And he just upped and kissed her. And she kissed him back! if nothing else, I’m just so happy that the cliffhanger was “happy.” I’ll take a kiss cliffhanger over the horrifyingly heartbreaking ones we got used to there for awhile!

As for the other characters: Fuck off, Ayfer. Shut up, Aydan. Bad judgement, Melo. You’re a traitor, Piril. Hugs to you, Engin. Kemal, you’re a saint. Seyfi, grow a pair. Baby assistants, you’re cute. Burak, wake up. Deniz, you’re embarrassing.

Seriously, Ayfer is insufferable, I can’t stand when she’s on screen. At least Aydan is funny and has her own storyline, even if it’s stupid. Why, oh why, is she lying to Serkan about Kemal? Good grief!

Who does Melo think she is taking a letter out of Serkan’s car? I get the comedy of that letter moving around the supporting players and causing misunderstandings, but it was none of her business and I think out of character for her to meddle to that degree.

However, I’m glad that it looks like from the fragman that while both Aydan and Engin figure it out, they want proof before they do anything about the info. That makes sense, and will allow time for Serkan to figure it out on his own without being any more betrayed by those closest to him.

The baby assistants, are adorable, and now I’m rooting for them, but Kerem needs to tone down his middle class outrage. As for Burak... oh honey. With or without Serkan, does this dude really think he has a shot with Eda? It’s like a 4 deciding he is entitled to date a 10. Just no, dude, she’s so far out of your league you’re not playing the same sport. And once he sees Serkan... seriously? That handsome hunk of man is her ex and you still think you might be her type? I say again, oh honey. Melo seemed to be crushing on him, but I hope that’s not the direction they’re going unless they flesh it out. Melo deserves to be someone’s first choice.

Anonymous asked: Hi! Love reading your sck-related answers! Been wondering about this: how do you think Serkan will react once he finds out about who Kiraz really is? I’m hoping, of course, that he will turn into the soft serky bolly we knew but am also a bit afraid that his dislike of children would not go away instantly and he will act a bit cold towards Kiraz at first..coupled with the anger towards Eda for lying

Thanks for the kind words! Honestly, I don’t foresee him acting cold towards Kiraz, I don’t think that is the story they’re telling. Especially since they’re going to have spent 3 full episodes having Serkan/Kiraz grow close without even knowing. Him reverting to robot bolat once he knows, doesn’t make sense to me. Plus, as you alluded to, once Serkan allows himself to open his heart, he becomes the biggest softy in the world and I expect that exact same dynamic with Kiraz as soon as he processes the information. I can so see him spoiling her rotten trying to make up for lost time. He might not know what to do or always how to act with her, but I think he’s going to try really hard.

His anger at Eda may linger, and that will probably be a wedge between Edser, a wedge I expect Kiraz will work hard to remove by forcing her parents to spend time together.

What I hope to see is a Kiraz who doesn’t want to let her father out of her sight, including out of her house, and a Serkan who wants to get to know his daughter and a Serkan and Eda who are both so riddled with guilt that they will pretty much do whatever she asks of them, including living together and spending tons of time together. We’ll see, but that could be marvelous to watch.

Anonymous asked: I loved that they brought the guitar pick back. Same feeling regarding the ring turned necklace. Those are symbolic and since they got rid of most of them (globe, mug, flower case), I'm happy we have something. I also love the Kiraz/Serkan relationship. He may be a bit annoyed by her but the things he does for her! My heart!!! I can't wait for the moment he realizes she's his!

YES! So happy to have some of these symbols back! Love that she carries that pick around with her, and so did Serkan, lol. That was the thing that gave him hope that she hadn’t forgotten him.

I love that Serkan and Kiraz are so drawn to each other before knowing, it’s like something deep down it telling them the truth, even though they have no conscious realization of their real relationship. Kiraz is surrounded by people who cater to her every whim, (and let her get away with murder) so I think Serkan was a surprise to her. Like her mama, Kiraz is intrigued by someone who challenges her. And Serkan challenges her.

The clues are piling up, and you’d think Serkan would be able to have put them together by now. I mean we have the kid slipping up and poking holes in the ‘Melo and Burak are my parents’ lie, you have her aptitude for building, her strawberry allergy, not needing sleep and getting up early, being frustrated when folks don’t finish their sentences. Come on, Serkan! Though, I think he’s so distracted by having Eda back in his life, that he can’t focus on anything else.

The arrow scene was adorable, and I just love how she goaded him into playing with her. They are obviously very alike and I will never get enough of him being unable to say no to her. There are, apparently, exactly two people Serkan is unable to say no to in everyday situations, and they are mother and daughter.

I wish we had seen a little more from Eda’s point of view when she found Serkan and Kiraz sitting there together having ice cream for breakfast. Because a more un-Serkan like thing is hard to imagine. I want to know what she thought and felt at that. Why wasn’t she curious how they’d gotten to that position and both were compelled to want to be there? I suppose the writers didn't give that to us, because if they had, and had portrayed the character of Eda honestly, then that probably would have been enough for Eda to decide she should tell Serkan.

Anonymous asked: People are playing the team Serkan/team Eda game but in my opinion both are right and wrong in their own way. We still need more flashbacks to explain how things went down but I think everyone should be team Edser. At the end of the day it's about them learning from their mistakes and moving forward to build a family and life for their daughter and themselves.

Yes, I really don’t want to vilify either one. Even if Serkan pushed her away to protect her and give her a better life, once again he was being controlling and making decisions for her, just like he did back in episode 14. And Eda’s mistake is obvious... and too much pride has always been one of her fatal flaws, so having too much pride to tell him and wanting to avoid that rejection in some ways makes sense for her.

I can’t wait to watch how they find their way back to one another, they’re already having better, more open conversations than they ever did.

Anonymous asked: ANOTHER scene of them talking maturely, laying out their feelings, who are they and what have they done to edser?!? sure we still get their usual bickering beforehand when they both walk back to the hotel (LOL). but him voicing his feelings at that night scene about how he KNOWS how much he hurt her, and that he broke them apart, but he "just can't leave" and how he repeats that over and over again... ugh just chef kiss!

Oh, that conversation at night on the boardwalk, that was something. They were both so raw, and Serkan is actually showing a lot of growth by owning his mistakes, admitting he hurt her, apologizing and being honestly about wanting to start something. That is BRAND NEW, it was what we needed after amnesia and never got. It’s very satisfying to watch them having these heart-to-hearts and it looks like there are more in our future.

Anonymous asked: as much as the flashbacks actually HURT my heart to watch, i've really appreciated them bc without them i don't think just telling what happened in the past would be enough for this plot and we need to have it actually shown. we've had eda's pov so far on the events that happened, but im really looking forward to serkan's thought process behind his actions in the past, even though i do already understand where he was coming from, i think it's needed for eda to understand.

The flashbacks are really good, but oh so painful.

As for getting them from Serkan’s perspective, yes please! There’s a lot that both we and Eda don’t know. We know that Serkan couldn’t leave his house for months after Eda left, but Eda doesn’t know that. Eda really thinks he fell out of love with her and once again choose work over her, but I’m sure that’s not what happened. Hopefully, in 3 and 4, we’ll see what spurred Serkan on to act so coldly to her. Sure, part of it probably was depression and changes in him brought by the cancer, but I’m sure it was more than that. We shall see.

Anonymous asked: Do you get the impression that Piril has known the entire time that Eda was pregnant and had a baby? I thought she only found out when she went to Sile for the hotel project but a lot of people seem to think she was in on it all along? did I miss a key line somewhere? Like I can see why she hasn't told Engin if it was recent but keeping it from him for 5 years? Idk about that. And it makes Piril a little more bearable if she hasn't stood next to Serkan all these years with this secret

My guess is she’s only known since this project. There is absolutely no reason for Eda to have confided in her prior to that, unless Piril somehow stumbled onto them during the years. But I think that scene in the second fragman, where Eda is telling her that it’s better for Kiraz to have no father, than a father that doesn’t want her, is a flashback to when Piril and Eda first meet for the project and that’s Eda convincing her to keep the secret. That’s my best guess at least.

It’s bad enough if Piril has known for weeks and has actively worked against Serkan figuring it out, but it’s a whole other thing if she’s lied to her husband for years. Either way, I sure hope this causes problems between Piril and Engin, it should.

Anonymous asked: One thing I love about Serkan now is that the man has learned to apologize. That was one thing that was very difficult for him but in the past two episodes he's apologized a few times. Yes in the first season he was sorry over his actions but never said the words "I'm sorry". What a great improvement. And I love that he's communicating. His "I want you" and his other efforts are great to watch.

I LOVE THIS! I think the first time he ever said the words “I’m sorry” was in 15 and that was after she forced his hand by driving like a maniac and really losing it so when they’re on that cliff he finally breaks down and says it. But that was one of the only times. Even in 28 when they have the big miscommunication about getting married, he only says something like “me too” after Eda apologizes.

It would be interesting to know how he came to this point, but I assume he’s had a LOT of time to think over the last 5 years and to think about what he would say if they ever met again. That has to be it, because he’s been able to articulate a lot of very sincere, heartfelt things in the course of these conversations

Growth! We love to see it.

#Sen Çal Kapımı #sen cal kapimi #edser #serkan bolat #eda yıldız #sckask #sck 2x41 #sck 2x02 #edser discussion #sck episode discussion #asklizac #anonymous

14 notes · View notes

shihozaki · 3 years

Note

Heyo I would like to request a haikyuu match up❤️

General facts:

I'm luri a 21 old, female, hetero, ESTP/ESFP, aries, Gryffindor. I have an undercut hairstyle. (length kinda like ushijima so my profile picture isn't that accurate anymore)

Basically I'm a open and humorous person who likes to laugh :) I don't have a particular fashion style, I wear mostly everything from sweat pants and Hoodie with sneakers to mini skirt or rockabilly dress with high heals. I have no favorite color but I don't like pink...

Personality/character :

When you first meet me I am nice, polite but rather quiet. Knowing each other better I am very direct and straight out with my emotions of any kind. Whether I'm mad, sad or in a good mood. Even then I'm quite humorous. I am like an open book for most to read as you can tell by my nonverbal body language what I am like right now. I can get very aggressive and angry if someone is stupid towards me or starts a fight with me or my friends. On the other hand I speak before I think without any filter ... And I only notice that afterwards... But if someone points my inappropriate behavior out to me I would apologize immediately :)

- I'm a very helpful and nice person. I would do everything for my friends and family if they ask

- I'm a good listener. And because of my own family history I know If someone’s having a bad day and needs emotional support.

- I'm really good in organizing things

- I'm faithful and loyal. If you mess with me or my friends I will fight everyone.

- I'm to stubborn and straight forward. When I have a goal in mind, I don’t give up so easily. It can also backfire.

- I speak before I think. So I may say inappropriate in front of others...

- When I'm interested in something, sometimes I just focus on it and only want to talk about it, which can really get on others' nerves

Hobbies:

My hobbies are

producing my own little video clips or drawing,

I like to bake, and

practice my Krav Maga skills (Israeli Military Self-Defense Technique) :)

I can play violin but I don't get any lessons anymore :)

I am interested in technology especially IT and love to make, build and program things and websites myself.

I love helping with repairs on the house, but also building furniture, as well as electronics and electrics.

What I dislike about people:

-I don’t like being underestimated by my intelligence and physical strength and behaving towards me as if I were a fool.

Fun facts:

-I have an extreme visual defect (nearsightedness) + I can't see in three dimensions, so I'm kinda blind in some way xD

(if I don't wear glasses it's as if I see my surroundings as a picture...)

- so basically I'm looking for a guy who shares my humor and is able to handle/accept my flaws :) and he shouldn't underestimate me.

- I think I would go to Karasuno.

- in my opinion I'm a Iwaizumi kinnie :)

- I love movie soundtracks! the whole soundtrack, original music from the composer + epic soundtracks from two steps from hell, audiomachine, John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Rachel Portman etc. So they are my favorites(recently my favorite soundtrack is the whole haikyuu soundtrack!).

But i also have pop and rock on my playlist along with some electronic songs and classic music. So basically a bit from everything :)

- I can't handle horror. I am a upfront person and straight forward but I'm such a softie BUT can't handle anything with horror (like movies or dungeons) xD

- in the HQ universe: I think I would be a senpai for the third years. I like the thought of visiting them for their weekend practice and film their activities :) and I'm kinda into being the older one in a relationship :) but I don't have to. But I also like the thought of being a third year and watch them play and record them. (I don't want to choose a high school, but my favorites are Karasuno, Shiratorizawa and Fukurodani. But I think I'm a Iwaizumi kinnie.)

Love language & what I look for:

- When I'm in a relationship with my boyfriend I would spoil him physically(massages) , with gifts and emotional equally (showing up ar his work place, preparing dinner, organize quality time in front of the TV with cuddling and watching favorite movies, etc.)

- I look for a guy who match with my humor or at least doesn't hate it

- I like it when guys handle my flaws and are ok with them

- I would take everything as a date. City trip, shopping if it is shopping for technology or Mangas, movie date (without horror), just stay at home :)

Soooo I hope that's not too much information, and I hope I included everything you need :)

Thank you in advance ❤️

I pair you up with Ushijima Wakatoshi!

- So you used to go to Karasuno High, becoming very good friends with the volleyball team. Even after graduation, you occasionally visited the team.

- One day, when you had visited the baseball team’s practice, Hinata and Kageyama had gone on a run and hadn’t come back for while. You offered to look for them and went on your search. You found them talking to the famous number one ace in Japan. He asked you for his number after you tried to drag the boys away.

- You started texting him after that, and surprisingly, you guys quickly became friends! He found your “wear your heart on my sleeve” personality very amusing, while you found his “I swear I’m laughing on the inside” personality amusing. You guys went into a relationship pretty quickly too

- He was surprised that you were older then him- he thought you were younger at first. In fact- that’s what his teammates thought too

- Adores your talking. Since Ushijima is a man of few words, he loves listening to you talk about your recent obsessions. He find you admirable for being extroverted and finding what you love.

- He doesn’t think you have any flaws? Like he doesn’t seem to find any but even if you do have some, why would that matter? He believes that humans were meant to have flaws. And he thinks “flaws” are just “special personalities”.

- He’s surprisingly very soft and warm towards you. He says it’s because he’s comfortable around you. He tries his best to be a good boyfriend too, by always trying to spend time with you. He gives you his full attention.

- He does have humour- but he just says them in a straight face. Which makes you crack up even more.

- Loves you taking care of him. Your little massages and your little gifts make him feel fluttery inside, and poor boy doesn’t know how to react. He gets so cute when he’s silently flustered.

Overall you guys are both very straightforward and dominating couple, where each of your teams make fun of you guys for being whipped at each other :)

Scenario: First meeting!

‘Where did they go?’ You thought as you wandered around the streets. You should have know that Hinata and Kageyama would get lost- they weren’t exactly the brightest. It was still odd, they couldn’t have gotten that far. ‘Don’t tell me…’ You thought before running to the Shitatorizawa school. You made your way to the field, and there they were. Hinata, Kageyama, and… Ushijima? They were standing beside the door to the Shiratorizawa’s gym. As you got close to them, you could hear Ushijima talking about someone named Oikawa..? It didn’t matter. “Hinata! Kageyama!” You yelled. “The team is waiting for you, what are you doing here?” Hinata and Kageyama immediately turned to you, there faces filled with determination. “We were talking to the ace!” Replied Hinata. You quickly bowed. “Sorry about them, I should have supervised them correctly.” You motioned for Hinata and Kageyama to follow you back to Karasuno. As you were about to leave, your hand was pulled. You turned around, your face meeting with Ushijima’s. “If it isn’t too much to ask… May I have your phone number?” Said Ushijima in a monotone voice. He looked away to the side after, as if he was embarrassed. It was surprisingly cute. You blushed, then took his phone and punched in your number. He quickly thanked you and went into the gym. You turned back, your heart beating faster and faster. “What- he- you can’t- why did you-“ Hinata stuttered while blushing and pointing at you. “Are you dating Ushijima now?” Asked Kageyama. You became even more red from the blunt comment. “No…” You replied, walking towards Karasuno high with the boys trailing behind. ‘Not yet.’ You thought with a smile.

Song: Miss Independant by Ne-yo!

Thank you for requesting, I enjoyed writing this. The episode this scenario is based on is episode 1 from Season 2 (Timestamp 13:30). Please let me know what you think about it, and I hope to see you again soon :)

#anime fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #haikyuu matchups #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu!!#ushijima x reader

10 notes · View notes

inyournightmares97 · 4 years

Text

Love Languages

Sometimes, it’s hard to understand the person you love.

Warnings: Fluff, some language.

Word Count: 4.1k+

Note: This is my unfortunate attempt at a birthday present for the lovely @softseunies. Thank you so much for being such a wonderful friend and listener. I really don’t know what I would do without you. Have a great birthday!!!

As you stood with the soft wind brushing your cheeks and his warm hand entwined in yours, you wondered why it took an entire lifetime for you and Jackson to recognize that you loved each other. His lips gently brushed your forehead and he looked down at you with his familiar, handsome smile.

You see, some couples blame the delay on bad timing or insecurities. Others blame it on distance and external circumstances. But in your case it was none of those things.

Jackson had always loved you.

You had always loved Jackson.

The two of you simply loved each other in different languages.

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

1. Missing Each Other

Jackson missed you most when he was alone.

He was an extrovert- he surrounded himself with people, with work and distractions of both the good and the bad variety. His days were usually busy and he liked it that way.

Because when he was alone, he did nothing but think of you.

Jackson lay back in bed that night and closed his eyes, but sleep evaded him. With all the noise and chit-chat on the surface gone, he was forced to delve deeper into his mind. The hidden part that always missed you, the part that always wondered what you were doing, the part that wished you were beside him.

His thumb hovered over your contact number.

You liked to be left alone on your nights in. Jackson knew that better than anyone. You didn’t like unexpected calls and unexpected visitors. You often responded with an annoyed huff when he called you on Friday nights, mostly because he had interrupted your late-night binge-watching or because you were trying to study.

You didn’t think about Jackson when you were alone. Not the way Jackson thought about you. He knew that.

Still, he couldn’t resist. His fingers hovered over the chat for a few moments before he typed in the message.

Are you asleep?

The little tick mark appeared almost instantly, indicating that you had read his message. Jackson held his breath for a few moments as you typed, wondering if he was going to get scolded for interrupting the latest Song Joong-ki drama.

I wish, your reply said. My roommate dragged me to this party. I don’t know anyone here and she won’t let me leave because I’m her ride home. I was about to text you.

Jackson smiled.

Maybe talk to some new people? he suggested.

Your response was instant. I’d rather die.

I’ll drop by. Send me the address.

You smiled to yourself and closed the chat app. Jackson was always up for a good party. He loved talking to new people. He loved mingling and drinking and being the center of attention. He thrived in environments like these and everyone loved him.

Not you. You walked into a party and instantly wished Jackson was there beside you.

Parties reminded you of how unbearable other people could be and how much you disliked everybody that wasn’t Jackson Wang. Being alone came naturally to you. But making friends, going out and mingling with people took effort.

It was just so much easier when Jackson was by your side.

You weaved your way through the packed apartment, navigating sweaty drunken college students who were unstable enough to stomp on your feet and make you want to shove them away.

You had never felt as lonely as you did at these wild college parties. They made you wonder if something was wrong with you, if there was a reason why the activities that everyone looked forward to so much made you miserable.

Then you saw Jackson.

His smile was bright as he made a bee-line towards you. Someone called out his name in a cheerful manner, and he waved at them before finally coming to a stop in front of you.

“Hey,” Jackson greeted you with a chuckle. “You look like you’ve been imprisoned in a dungeon for months. Why the long face?”

A warmth enveloped you the moment he arrived- not only the physical warmth that came from his arm sliding around your shoulder but the warmth of his presence, the way your body instantly relaxed simply from his being there.

You pouted. “I sat on the couch and a couple nearly fell on me.”

“Should I go teach them a lesson?” he joked.

“They need a room, not a lesson,” you replied with a sigh. “I need a room too. My room. At home, with my blanket and my pillows and my tv.”

“You can’t always have those.”

“Then I’ll take the next best thing,” you replied.

“And what’s that?”

Jackson looked down at you, his eyes twinkling even in the dim lights and the deafening music.

You, you thought silently as a drunken dancer bumped into Jackson, pushing you both apart. Jackson laughed and waved off the man's apologies. The unanswered question hung lightly in the air for a few moments before it was naturally brushed aside, by Jackson suggesting that you move the conversation out of the way of the dancing partygoers.

His grip on your arm was the most comforting feeling in the world.

You missed Jackson most in a crowded room.

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

2. Solving Each Other’s Problems

Jackson knew that you didn’t like taking help. You could complain about your problems all day long, and insist that the world had wronged you, but you hated asking someone else to solve the issue.

Which was why sometimes Jackson had to do it in secret.

“I just know he’s going to fail me,” you whined. One of the TAs in your mandatory classes had been flirting with you all semester. It started out with harmless compliments which you had brushed off, but eventually it escalated into him persistently asking you out and insisting that you let him take you out to dinner.

A few days ago, you had finally told the TA to go to hell.

He hadn’t taken it well.

“He can’t fail you for no reason,” Jackson tried to reassure you. Your face was flushed and you were stabbing at your lunch as though it was your enemy. “There’s a Professor, he’ll put a stop to it. Just focus on the paper and you’ll be fine.”

You stabbed harder. “The Professor is a lazy piece of shit. Everyone knows he lets the TAs grade the papers and doesn’t even review them. That TA could give me any grade he wants and I wouldn’t be able to stop him.”

Jackson bit his lip. “What if you went and talked it out with him?”

“I won’t.”

“But what if you did?”

You stared at Jackson in disbelief. “Why should I? He’s the one that couldn't handle the rejection. Why am I responsible for making peace? He should apologize. It’s inappropriate for him to hit on a student and even more inappropriate for him to get all offended after she’s said no. I will not talk to the man. Let him fail me. I’ll file a formal complain with the Dean. Let him graduate with sexual harassment on his record.”

Jackson nodded and smiled.

It wouldn’t come to that. Unbeknownst to you, Jackson had already talked to your TA. The senior student had been defensive at first, but once Jackson calmed him down and talked to him in his usual friendly way, he confessed that he’d been going through a lot at home. Apparently his family had been pressuring him to get a girlfriend and he'd taken out the frustration on you. Jackson invited the TA to a few parties where he could meet some more willing single women, and even offered to set up a group date so he could mingle with some new people.

Jackson Wang left that room, as he did most rooms, having made a new friend.

But he would never tell you the truth.

You’d be furious.

“I can’t eat anymore,” you decided miserably. You glanced at Jackson’s empty plate. “You done? Let’s take a walk before you have to go back to class.”

“Sure.”

You both took a leisurely stroll in the campus gardens. It was spring and there were a lot of people outside. You glanced towards the basketball court and frowned when you noticed a group of young men standing near the court.

You tugged at Jackson’s sleeve.

“Which one of those guys did you say bought his way onto the team with his dad’s money?” you asked.

Jackson was captain of the college basketball team, and you had often listened to his stories of frustration with his teammate. What the guy lacked in talent he apparently made up for with money, ego and parental influence.

“The tall one with the tattoo. His father knows the Dean. He never wants to actually practice- I think he just likes being on the team so he can flirt with the cheerleaders,” Jackson sighed and rubbed his temples in frustration. “I can’t even bench him because the coach won't let me. He’s going to cost us the season. There goes my shot at winning the title.”

“You’re just too soft.”

“I am not soft.”

“Yes, you are. You want to solve all your problems with peace and talking and understanding. Well you know what Jackson Wang? Some people just need a good, hard punch in the face.”

Jackson laughed. “And who’s going to give him that?”

“I will. Right now.”

“What?” The expression on your face worried him and his smile fell. “Don’t do something stupid-”’

You grinned. “Relax. He has no idea who I am and this is an enormous campus. Hide behind that bush so they don’t see you, and let me demonstrate how I handle problems, Wang.”

Jackson watched with wide eyes as you walked over to the group of men. He couldn’t hear what you were saying- you were too far away, but Jackson’s eyes couldn't miss the sight of you pulling back your fist and socking the guy right in the middle of his face. He doubled over in pain, horrified, while you turned to yell something to the cheerleaders standing nearby and then stormed away.

Jackson stared in horror as you walked back towards him coolly. You had a smug smile on your face as you ducked down to join him behind the bushes, your face flushed with pleasure and slightly out of breath.

“Did you just-”

“He just got punched in the face by a girl. The rest of the team will never respect him again,” you giggled.

“What-what did you say to the cheerleaders?”

“I told them he gave me herpes,” you replied as Jackson gaped at you in disbelief. You smiled back at him.

Jackson was a good person, and he saw the best in people. He believed that everyone deserved a second chance. You wondered how such an intelligent man could be so naive about the world.

Some people just needed a good punch in the face. And if Jackson wasn’t capable of doing it, then you would do it for him.

Your phone buzzed and you pulled it out to check your messages.

“Huh,” you muttered.

“What?” Jackson asked.

“The TA just texted me to apologize,” you replied, not noticing the grin that spread across Jackson’s face. “I wonder what made him realize he made a mistake?”

“Strange,” Jackson mused.

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

3. Supporting Each Other

For the first time in your life, you had no idea what to do.

You had never handled grief before, neither in yourself nor anyone around you. You couldn't imagine how it felt. The pain caused by the loss of a loved one was something that had no parallel in this world.

And Jackson was going through it right now.

"Thank God you came," Jinyoung greeted you in the hallway. He had called to tell you the news and you had driven for 8 hours through the night to make it here. "He was asking about you."

"Is he… is he okay?"

Jinyoung merely shrugged, not seeming to know what to say. "Go in."

"I… I don't know what to do," you admitted pathetically. "I've never, I mean, I've never…"

Jinyoung gave you a small smile. "You're his best friend. You'll know."

Would you? You were nervous as you entered the apartment. It was dark- nothing seemed out of the ordinary and yet you could see the silhouette of Jackson sitting on the floor with his legs pulled up to his chest and his head buried in his knees. His shoulders had dropped and his entire body seemed to have given up.

Your breath hitched.

"Hi," you greeted softly. "It's just me."

Jackson looked up at you. His eyes were red and he merely nodded, watching you as you quietly took a seat in the sofa across from him. You felt almost afraid to touch him, afraid to do something wrong or hurt him more than he was already hurt.

"You didn't have to come," he said quietly.

What would you want someone to do if you were grieving the loss of family? You tried to picture your parents dying and the grief that word come with it.

In all honesty, you'd want everyone to leave you alone.

"I won't bother you," you promised him gently. The peace between the two of you felt enormous, but you wanted to give him that space, believed that he needed it in order to grieve. "I'm just going to sit here."

Jackson blinked. "Okay."

"Okay."

You couldn't remember how long you sat there. It could have been hours. The early morning sunlight began to stream in through the windows while the two of you sat in that singular, heavy silence.

"Are you just going to sit there?" Jackson asked you finally.

You jerked upright. "Are you hungry? I can make breakfast. Should I make breakfast? Or I can run you a bath or something, maybe the warm water would be relaxing."

Jackson cut you off. "No, not that, I-"

Your heart sank. "Is me being here bothering you? I can leave."

Jackson blinked at you before slowly unravelling his arms from around his knees and holding them out towards you. You stared at his outstretched arms for a long moment, not understanding what he meant.

Then it clicked.

Oh.

You scooted closer, letting Jackson wrap his arms around you tightly and hugging him back in return. He snuggled his head into your neck and you could feel the warmth of Jackson's tears, and every small shudder that racked his body. You felt like an idiot as you gently stroked his back.

You wanted to support him by giving him space, but Jackson had only wanted you to hold him close.

Your arms tightened around him.

You would never let him go.

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

4. Dealing with Intoxication

As you grew older, and your lives diverged, it became more and more difficult for you and Jackson to see each other. Work, families, obligations…

They were all hurdles, but nothing could fully succeed in tearing you apart.

"Let's stay in and watch a movie," Jackson suggested. He had driven four hours to come visit you over the long weekend, and you both finally had some time off work to relax and unwind.

You made a face. "I do that every night."

"Exactly."

"Let's go out drinking," you suggested hopefully.

Jackson raised an eyebrow. You weren't the kind of person who enjoyed clubs or any place where copious amounts of alcohol was served. As far as Jackson knew, places like that made you uncomfortable. But recently, you seemed to want to get drinks whenever the two of you met.

"You're drinking a lot recently," Jackson pointed out, concerned. "Is work stressing you out?"

You frowned and flushed. "I only drink with you."

Jackson laughed. "I'm so unbearable that you have to be drunk to deal with my visits?"

You sank into the sofa, not sure how to explain it to him. Jackson wouldn't understand. Drinking wasn't a wild, reckless, party activity like it was for him.

For you, it was more intimate than that.

You never drank with your co-workers, or even with your friends. Intoxication made you feel vulnerable and it made you honest. Those were two things that you didn't want to be with most people. Your walls were always up, and you didn't like that alcohol forced you to bring them down.

Except with Jackson.

You didn't mind the walls coming down around Jackson.

He was the only person you felt safe enough to drink with, to get tipsy and giggle and say silly things because you knew that he would never judge you. He would never manipulate your vulnerability and would always, always make sure you were comfortable.

But Jackson regularly drank with people he barely knew, so he clearly didn't feel the same way.

"Let's stay in and get a movie," Jackson insisted while blinking at you with the full force of his puppy-dog eyes. He had driven four hours to be here and he wanted to see you. To spend quality time with you before he had to leave again.

Jackson Wang could proclaim his love to anybody while drunk. Man, woman, animal, it didn't matter. The alcohol would go ahead and do it for him.

But you were the only person Jackson would continue to love once he was sober.

But he couldn't tell you that. He couldn't tell you that he didn't want to waste the little time that he had with you being drunk, because your adorable face had fallen.

"Let's compromise," you suggested. "I'll pick out a movie, and you go get us a bottle of wine to share right here."

Jackson sighed. "Fine," he relented reluctantly. You did have a tendency to cuddle when you were tipsy, so perhaps he would compromise and just enjoy the feeling of you snuggled up next to him in his arms.

It was a shame Jackson never understood that you wanted to show him parts of yourself that you never showed anyone else.

It was a shame you never understood that Jackson valued time he spent with you in a way that he didn't value time spent with anyone else.

But that was all okay.

When you're learning a new language, you're bound to misunderstand a few things.

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

5. Sharing your love with others

Jackson kept a picture of you on his desk at work.

"That's the girl I'm in love with," he would announce to anyone who bothered to glance at it for more than two seconds. "She doesn't know yet, but I'll tell her someday. Isn't she gorgeous?" he asked fondly, picking up the picture to admire your bright smile.

"Uh, yeah," Mark replied awkwardly. "Actually, I was wondering if I could borrow your stapler?"

Jackson nodded. "Sure."

Mark chuckled as he took it. "Thanks. You should tell her soon, or somebody might snatch her up."

Jackson smiled. "I will "

He wasn't ashamed of it- Jackson was proud of you and given the chance he would show you off to the world. Everyone at his workplace knew that he was pining after you- the receptionists had long given up flirting with him. It wasn't worth the horror of having to listen to him while he talked about how much he loved you.

Leaning back in his chair, Jackson sent off one last email for the day before taking out his phone. He sent you a text with a smile.

Hey! Done working yet?

You took a minute to respond. Hardly. I'm going to be working late today. There's a Board meeting next week so we're swamped.

Yikes. Call me when you get home.

I will, you promised. Are we still going to Skype and finish the last episode of Stranger?

Jackson responded reluctantly. Do we have to? I stopped following around episode 10….

Jackson…

Okay, fine. We'll finish the damn thing. Text me when you get home, okay?

You smiled and tucked your phone away with a smile. Jackson's protests were just him being dramatic- you knew he was as invested in the series as you were, he was just pretending to hate it because it was your suggestion.

"Well, well, look who's giggling at her phone during work," a coworker teased you.

You blushed. "It's just a friend."

"Just a friend? Sounds like something more," she pressed. "Come on. Everyone knows you have a man in your life, you're constantly checking your messages and blushing. Why won't you tell us?"

"There's nothing to tell!" you insisted.

"Liar," another girl piped in. "At least show us his picture! You must have grabbed a hottie- you have that girl-next-door appeal that hot guys would die for!"

You brushed them off and stood up, going into the break room to get a cup of coffee. You would never show them Jackson's picture or tell them about Jackson. You knew how vicious the girls at work were. They acted like they wanted to see your boyfriend's picture and then make snarky comments behind your back about how you must be dating him for the money.

You didn't want to expose Jackson to that.

No, what you felt for Jackson was precious, and you refused to let these co-workers get their grubby hands on Jackson or your love for him.

You guarded your love for him jealously, and with everything you had.

Perhaps one day you would tell him.

But you wanted him to be the first person you told.

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

6. Lastly, Expressing your Love for Each Other

The day came sooner than you imagined, but much, much later than it should have.

You planned everything. The place, the time, the atmosphere and even your escape route in case things should things go downhill. You had an entire speech prepared and Jackson would be forced to listen to it whether he likes it or not.

Afterwards, he would make the decision that determined whether your years of pining after him would be a sweet story to tell your grandkids, or be that one horrifying event in your life that left you a bitter, heartbroken old cat lady.

Either way, you were prepared.

"Wow, this place is beautiful," Jackson commented. The beach was empty at night and a cool breeze brushed your faces as you walked with the sand between your toes. "It's pretty great weather to be out here. Doesn't weather like this put you in a great mood?"

You looked up at him nervously."I have to tell you something."

He chuckled. "Is that a warning?"

"No, I- I'm just letting you know that I have something to say. And I've been thinking about this for a while so hear me out before you react, okay?"

Jackson raised an eyebrow. "Okay."

"You've been in my life for a long time."

Jackson tilted his head. "True."

"And during that time, I… I guess I've grown to trust you and care for you. You're a great friend, that's true, but you're also more than that. I love your company. I love being around you, being with you, and spending time with you. I used to think it was a stupid crush that would pass someday but we're past the age for stupid crushes and these feelings aren't showing any signs of fading so…"

Jackson's eyes were soft as he looked down at you. "So?"

You swallowed. "I'm in love with you. I just wanted you to know. But I know you might not feel the same way, so you… you can just tell me the truth straight and I'll be prepared for it whatever it is."

"Are you sure you're prepared for my response?"

You squeezed your eyes shut and nodded. You had imagined Jackson letting you down a hundred times. You had imagined him telling you that he loved you a hundred times more. Whatever he did, you would be prepared.

Jackson leaned down and kissed you.

You weren't prepared.

While his soft lips descended on yours, and his arms wrapped around you gently, your head reeled in shock. You had never envisaged this happening. Perhaps because you had spent so much time preparing what to say that you assumed….

Well, that he would say something in response.

But it's okay, you realized as you relaxed against him and wrapped your arms around his neck. You kissed Jackson back hard and let him hold you and love you in the way he had always wanted to. It's okay if we love each other in different languages.

Because once you know what love is, you can learn how to say it in any language you want.

#got7 #got7 scenarios #got7 jackson #got7 fluff #got7 angst #got7 jackson fluff #jackson fanfic #jackson fluff #jackson wang #got7 imagines #got7 scenario #got7 romance

353 notes · View notes

vasoula · 4 years

Text

The Peepshow (chapter two)

Summary: Two months after his redemption journey, Sasuke is back to Konoha and Sakura couldn’t be more happy about them spending a lot of time together. However, things take a hard turn when Sakura is assigned a special mission and she has to hide it from the rest of Team 7. Everything comes spiraling down when Sasuke finds out exactly what she has to do.

Tags: hard rated m, blank period, kinda AU-ish

Chapter one here, ffnet, Ao3.

Next chapter

Author's notes: An alternate title to this chapter could be "take a drink everytime sasuke activates his sharingan because of sakura" ;) I tried to keep my boy as much as in character as possible! My girl Saku is easier to approach thought wise. This the point of the three chaptered fic that things really take off :P Man, writing pole dancing is HARD ;) Enjoy some slowburn denial seduction sasusaku with a dose of humor, my loves! Also, big thank to everyone who read this, especially to those who left lovely comments! Thank you so much for your support! :D See ya next week! Just in case, english is not my first language and this chapter is only edited by me :D

“Act two: Seducing one jealous Uchiha”

Sasuke Uchiha, for the first time in years, sees red.

He feels his eye power activate before he can control it as his chakra flares at the images flashing before him.

Sakura, his lovely Sakura, up the stage right in front the pole, looking straight at him in the most alluring way possible. Her body on full display and her face looking so different from her usual choice of make up he almost would tell you this is not her. But, those unmistakably beautiful eyes belong only to one person.

The glass of whiskey in his hand is close to breaking when Kakashi's voice cuts through his rage filled haze.

"Sasuke, stop." His mentor warns in a serious voice, just in time before they are detected by other people. It has the desired effect because Sasuke deactivates his sharingan instantly.

Naruto places his arm on his friend's stump, feeling the chakra pulsating there. The blond man says nothing although a crease in his brow has formed. He looks at Sasuke worriedly awaiting his reaction, averting his eyes from the stage where Sakura is dancing as if she does not have a care in the world.

Sasuke is clenching his jaw so hard, his teeth are aching from the pressure he is putting them on. He cannot believe what his eyes are seeing right now. Sakura who is supposed to be back in Konoha is up there on stage dancing for a target she is supposed to seduce and she has not told him a single fucking thing about this.

In fact, no, she lied to him and told him she would be staying at Tsunade for some medical bullshit she supposedly had to do with her mentor. He remembers the fifth Hokage calling him an arrogant brat for disliking this kind of mission.

Taking a deep breath, he tries to calm his nerves, before he does something risky.

He feels his heart beating ridiculously fast in his chest for some reason as he looks up at the stage. Trying to see her face, he wants her to look him in the eye and tell him how does she feel now that she is making him hurt.

Does she not trust him enough with this information that she knew could potentially affect what they have? Why did she have to lie about it? Sasuke knows that there is some shinobi mission confidentiality, but they both know between them the barrier is drawn and she could tell him anything. Especially something that could potentially strain their feelings. Maybe knowing his nature she knew he would not like what she would have to do, but the outcome is the same anyways. Is he supposed to feel like this? What is the word again? Jealous, he thought.

Sasuke clicks his tongue and ticks his head to the right side. "I see," he says in venomous voice, uncharacteristic of him nowadays.

Acting unbothered, his eyes stay focused on the stage where the most important woman in his life is dressed in a skimpy lingerie trying to bait the target with her high class skills.

Naruto shakes his head knowingly and rests his forehead on his open palm, leaning on the armchair he is sitting on. "Man, this is bad," he says mournfully.

Kakashi finally breaks the ice by speaking again, trying to mend things in the worst way possible, "Damn didn't know she had it in her."

The gray haired man feels the Uchiha's rage before the sizzling stare reaches him.

"Shut it," Sasuke mutters angrily.

All their heads turn instantly when they hear a man shout in excitement exclaiming how hot Sakura is by throwing a bunch of money her way.

Sasuke feels the beginnings of a headache starting to form.

The heavy beat of the song is pounding strongly in his ears and he cannot help it when his eyes focus on Sakura once again. If he is being completely honest with himself, he did not know she had it in her either.

If you had told Sakura Haruno in the past that she would be pole dancing in front of Sasuke Uchiha, she would laughed straight at your face and call you an idiot.

But now, as she grinds her hips on the pole, she feels like she is the idiot. And the butt of her own jokes apparently.

She is really feeling herself actually. The lingerie she is wearing is top notch and it fits her body perfectly like it was made for her. It is dark red in color with stripes both on her chest and belly creating Xs. Her heels are not killing her like she imagined they would and she really likes the sparkle in them. And even though she is starting to sweat, she knows her make up will stay in place because she put all her time and effort on it to make it look bomb. It does look amazing on her as it accentuates her eyes in the best way possible. A red lip and black smokey look will do that to your face. Sakura also thinks her long curly hair really added a whole new vibe to her look.

Sakura grabs the steel in front of her and arches back. She rolls her head, moving her body and spinning around the pole. Her chest glistens teasingly thanks to the light and she pushes her hips forward to gain some momentum. She abandons the pole for now and dances a little around the stage to gain the attention of the crowd.

Stepping left and right, Sakura juts her pelvic side to side to create some form of belly dancing while her hands feel her body sensually, at last leading them to course through hair in an attempt to look sexier.

With all that effort she really feels like she is actually Misty Jade, the persona she is supposed to be impersonating. The pink haired ninja puts her hands on her hips and poses seductively. She looks around and spots her target right away.

Time to put on a show, she thinks bitterly and lifts her hands in air to grab the pole behind her. She pushes her butt against the pole and leans back in an effort to look like she is trapped and the pole is like a man who is holding her captive in a stimulating pose.

A happy yell confirms her move had the desired effect both on the crowd and the target as well.

But as she feels that familiar hot stare on her, she also knows how she fucked up big time. It seems her move had another effect as well. The making Uchiha very angry, hot, and bothered effect.

When she looks in his direction, Sakura regrets it immediately. Even though he is at the back of the club, she would recognize him right away no matter how far he is or what clothes he wears. She does not like the expression on his face one bit.

The moment she had turned around after being introduced she had felt his chakra spike up. It intrigued her how she had that effect on him when she knows for a fact the man is super calm and collected. Sakura will not lie to herself and pretend like she did not take great enjoyment from the fact that he reacted like that to her.

But, but, but.

He is very angry with her right now and it is apparent.

Sakura closes her eyes and pretends everything is fine. She knows the other members of Team 7, who look a lot more at peace than he is, will handle him if he gets too upset.

She decides it is time for some impressive tricks that will need her to use some core strength. She makes a quick spin with her hips sticking out and she starts to circle the pole and like it is a prey and she is ready to pounce. Her left hand reaches up and grabs the top of the metallic bar while she puts all her strength in her right hand which grabs the lower part near the base. Then, her left leg comes forward and almost warps around the pole.

Sakura closes her eyes as her right leg pushes her forward and the rest of her body gets send upwards. The beautiful woman feels her hair falling down to her face obscuring it from view for a few agonizing seconds as she stays upside down. With both legs secured on the poll she begins her ascend upwards trying to match her movements with the beat of the song to gain some momentum.

After climbing on top of the pole, Sakura starts spinning around using her hands as leverage. Putting her body in a fetal position, she locks her thighs together and descends towards the ground with her hands upwards pretending like she is falling down from the pole.

In flash, she squeezes her thighs together in an attempt to stop her body from falling down. Right before she reaches the base of the stage, her impeding fall halts.

With her body now close to the ground, she loosens and throws herself in compromising position on the floor. Her palms are flat on the stage, her chest squished together between concrete and her body. Her ass is high up in the air and she slowly goes forward like she is cat crawling her way towards the front row.

In the meantime the crowd has completely lost it. It takes athletic skills to do that and everyone is impressed.

Halfway through the song now with the performance reaching its peak, Sakura decides to pull out the big guns. In order to gain the attention of the target specifically, she will need to find a way to get him to focus on her. Even though he found her skills highly admirable, to him, she was just another girl pole dancing. That is why she has to act interested in him first.

Right now, Misao Takashi is smoking a cigarette like there is no care in the world and he is looking down at some papers.

Way to be inconspicuous, Sakura thought, dropping into a split right at the edge of the stage.

On the other side of the club, right at the back, Naruto is about to cry. He is so confused at the moment, it is not even funny. On one hand, he is really shocked by Sakura and the unknown skills she is displaying, however, he finds himself inwardly cringing because while she is very good at it, he sees her as a very dear friend to him. While he wants to hype her up because she is very impressive, he also wants to go up there and drag her far away from the leeching crowd and hide her from the world with a really big blanket.

On the other hand, he is very scared, because Sasuke Uchiha is about to have the biggest bitch fit of the year right next to him.

The blond man looks at his teacher for comfort only to find him staring him back with a desperate expression on his face which means he is also having a similar thought process. This leads to them having a battle of wills, holding intense eye contact, until one of them crumbles and has to be the one to take care of the green eyed monster that is Sasuke Uchiha.

"Both." Naruto silently mouths, pleading, not wanting to deal with this alone.

Kakashi clears his throat, taking the first step.

"Well, Sasuke, it looks like we won't be needed here," He says in a casual tone, although his voice cracks during the dialogue due to the fact the situation is awkward.

He feels uncomfortable, but he continues on speaking, "The Anbu specialist," he raises his tone slightly at this as if to reprimand him, "is doing a pretty good job on her own."

He folds his hands on top of his crossed knees after finishing his statement.

"I said help, not kill us," Naruto sweat drops and half whispers more to himself than anybody else.

They both hear Sasuke silently growl at this.

Naruto gulps down his saliva loudly and begins, "Look Sasuke, I know this looks bad," he pauses checking for a reaction. Seeing his friend only slightly pissed, he continues, "But, you have to look at the positive side!"

The black haired man looks at his best friend for a split second, his eyes glinting in the dark and says, "And that is?", he questions angrily.

"It is th-the fact that Sakura-chan is strong and she can handle herself!", he tries to explain lamely, "right Kakashi-sensei?"

"Of course, yes." Kakashi agrees quickly.

Sasuke sticks his tongue inside his cheek, pushing it outwards, trying to remain calm.

He wants to curse them, throw water at them or maybe punch them both in the throat, but he will not do it because Sakura would not want that.

His attention diverts back to her dancing on the stage.

"Tsk," he lets out a familiar annoyed sound.

Right at that moment, she decides it is the perfect time to do a split on the floor.

Sasuke feels a vein popping on his forehead while the other two screech like school girls next to him.

He watches as Sakura takes another route to her seduction game and she starts to rely on more sexual tactics. The last Uchiha observes as she starts to sensually rub her back against the pole, her knees slightly bend forward, in an almost squat.

Her right hand goes to her mouth, and she darts her tongue out as if to lick her long manicured fingers while she stares hotly at her target with hooded eyes. In the meantime, her free hand dangles teasingly in front of her torso and begins its descend down towards her pelvic area. Her green nails a stark contrast to her daring burgundy lingerie.

Sasuke almost wants to activate his sharingan just so he could commit that image to his memory forever. He has never felt more jealous and needy than in that moment.

Despite all this unfolding before his eyes, he know this is just a mission, but he cannot help the emotions he is feeling.

The song is about to end, but he knows the torture will not end here. It will continue when she shows up again to lure her target away.

He cannot help but stare as she strikes a pose around the pole; her legs crossed around it and her body circled around the rod like snake hanging from a tree. Her arms are stretched out evenly and her voluminous hair hangs from one side.

Sakura looks amazing, her abs straining against her skin and her muscles showing in all the right places. His imagination of her naked body did not do the real thing justice; so much beauty on that tiny body of hers.

Sasuke heaves a sigh of relief just as the songs ends and the crowd cheers like never before.

"Finally," Kakashi whispers, coursing his hand through his hair.

Naruto plops down on the armchair loudly after hanging on the edge of it for so long.

It feels like a relief for all of them, but they know it is far from over. The lights of the stage close and Sakura disappears in the darkness. Their trained ears hear her heels clanking away despite the buzz she left behind. Everyone is complimenting her and the target looks very interested in her, as his eyes keep searching for her ever since the lights have opened again.

"Op, there it is, it worked, he is into her," Kakashi comments. The red haired male just signaled at a bartender - possibly asking for her company.

"Of course he liked her," Naruto shouts and stretches his hands out in exasperation, "oh my god she looked amazing, I can't believe I just witnessed that," the blond continues to mumble incoherently about their female teammate.

"Did you see that?", The tailed beast owner exclaims loudly, hands coming at top of his head in silent plea for salvation. From the corner of his blue eye, he anticipates his friend's reaction.

"I did," Sasuke responds, "fuck, I know, I did, okay," he says, his voice raising an octave.

He knows the other did it on purpose to gauge a reaction out of him, but he cannot keep hiding from them anymore. It is obvious they both know how he feels about her; except for Sakura of course.

"Op, there it is again," Kakashi jokes this time, his mask hiding his grin. He takes great pleasure in watching his greatest student fall apart in front of him.

"You are both enjoying this, aren't you?", Sasuke asks a question he knows the answer to. He is grimacing, trying to wallow in self pity alone.

"Of course we are," Naruto answers proudly,"have you seen your face?", he wriggles his eyebrows and points an accusing finger at Sasuke's face.

"I hate you both," He says detestably, "Leave me alone."

Before any more banter could continue however, they notice Sakura walking out of the changing rooms in a nice long dress with a slit on the side. It is light pink in color, almost transparent, and it has fuchsia fur on its collar. She is strutting towards the red haired man in very determined steps, getting his attention right away. The pink haired girl sits next to the target and strikes conversation. They watch the scene play out like movie, their eyes and ears alert and attune to everything those two do. Whenever he or she moves, their attention is solely on them - like a hawk which is watching its prey.

Sasuke focuses on Sakura, his eyes calculating every move she makes. He watches as the civilian says something probably funny to her and she laughs heartily, one hand covering her mouth. The woman cocks her head to her right cutely and she blinks her pretty eyes at him while her other hand which is not covering her mouth works in other dirtier ways.

Touch is very important in order to seduce any man. She pats his knee in an attempt to hold her laughter in. To any other person it looks like she is enjoying his company and she is comfortable with him.

But, Sasuke knows, this is her way of making him fall right into her beautifully crafted trap. Her subtle flirting looks like it is working because they both decide to get up at that moment. He does not have a clue what she could have possibly said to him, but the foolish guy grabs her extended hand and follows her to the back rooms.

"She is going in for the kill," Kakashi speaks suddenly, "we better stay alert now in case something bad happens."

It seems he is not the only one interested in how things play out.

The black haired man feels the temperature of the room skyrocket to new heights and he decides it is high time he took off his jacket. In one swift movement the annoying garment is off him and he undoes one more button of his blouse which is straining against his chest.

"Ugh I don't like this at all," Naruto whines and chooses to look anywhere else to divert his attention from Sakura.

Sasuke sits up straighter on his chair, finishes his drink in one shot and puts the empty glass on the nearby table. He feels his throat burning from the sudden consumption of the strong alcoholic beverage. The Uchiha welcomes the pain and cracks his neck to the side.

Kakashi raises an eyebrow at this and he inches his body closer to the outer part of his armchair as if he is ready to get up at any given moment. Naruto quickly catches on and puts his hand on top of Sasuke's bicep.

He grabs the flimsy material of his white shirt, but rearranges his hand in flash in order to grip Sasuke better.

"No," Naruto warns.

The blond's palm discreetly emits some chakra, trying to cool down the raging Uchiha.

Sasuke turns to look at them, his mismatched eyes cold and detached. They see his rinnegan flash in the dark despite being hidden by his fringe.

The brooding male shakes his head slightly and looks down. "I am only going to make things faster," he tries to reason with them.

"Sasuke, no," Kakashi tries to explain calmly. They must not alert anyone in here with their status or their cover will be blown. "We are the back-up, remember?"

"My abilities are more useful than Sakura's right now." Sasuke continues as if he did not hear them, "One look from me and it's over. Tsunade should have thought this through better."

"Sakura-chan can do this, bastard," Naruto speaks in a serious tone and continues, "Don't ruin this for her."

Sasuke stays still for a few seconds, his immobile form having both men on edge.

Before any of them could react fast enough though, they feel Sasuke's chakra flare and they see him disappear in a flash right in front of their eyes. In his place there is a broken bottle of vodka on the armchair.

"Fuck," Naruto curses and Kakashi lets out an indignant sound.

They avert their eyes from the bottle and look towards the changing rooms near the bar. Sasuke smirks, the purple stardust of his eye power blending in with the lights. He bends his head down and steps inside the dark entrance into the hallway behind him.

From their periphery they have no idea what it is going on in there anymore.

Naruto lifts his hands up in the air and says, "I give up."

"I have to admit these events unfolding before me have a more interesting plot than the Icha-Icha Paradise books," Kakashi shrugs his shoulders.

Both of them let out long sighs and fall back into their armchairs.

Meanwhile inside the changing rooms, Sakura has led her target in the quiet corner of her room. She has him pinned against the wall, kunai against his throat, her chakra infused fist holding him captive by his shirt.

"Tell me everything I need to know if you want to live to see another day," she spits out, her glare a complete one eighty compared to the sweet eyes she was batting at him earlier.

"I-I- Who are you lady?" The man trembles in her grip, her threat working.

Sakura pushes him harder against the wall to make him hurt.

"Quit stalling," She keeps the kunai on his throat as her other hand searches his pockets for the key and the papers. "What information do have?" The kunoichi in disguise asks and feels the cold metal of the keys at the tips of her fingers.

Just when she was about to get the juicy info out of him, Sakura feels Sasuke's strong chakra presence behind her.

"You heard her," his velvety baritone voice comes through as he flash steps behind them, both of his eye prowess glinting dangerously in the dark.

The man in question is sweating profusely now as he is faced with two scary looking ninja who look to be very powerful. He knows if he spills out the information the feud lords will come for his ass, but right now as he feels the tip of the kunai on his throat and looks at the threatening eyes of the man next to his beholder, he knows he is dead either way.

"I will tell you everything," He pleads, "don't kill me!"

The red haired man's knees buckle beneath him and he falls down to the ground with a thud. Sakura lets him fall, huffs and stands back.

As she crosses her arms in front of her chest, Sasuke bends down to be at eye level with the target and activates his sharingan, tomoes spinning lazily.

"I could do this on my own, you know," Sakura says annoyed. She is pursing her lips, her eyes going to slits.

"I know," Sasuke admits and stands up. The man on the floor is under a genjutsu, spilling all the information they need.

Sasuke's sharingan still activated records everything the man says that is useful to them. Sakura dangles the keys and puts them inside her pouch. With the man passed out on the floor, Sasuke and Sakura hold eye contact for a few minutes, both silent.

"How did you get in here without me noticing?" She breaks the silence first, taking a few steps closer to the black haired shinobi.

"I concealed my chakra well," Sasuke says laconically, glad for his nimble fingers because he locked the door silently as well.

Sakura hates the way he is so aloof about this as if he did not interrupt her own mission. She is so pissed off right now, the woman can barely hold her wits together. The kunoichi feels herself popping off the moment Sasuke decides to turn his back on her.

"I am not a weak little girl anymore," She spits out fiercely, trying to keep her tone down, "I don't need you going all macho on me!"

Her dress flutters around when she moves suddenly and starts pacing around the room. Sasuke looks at her from the corner of his eye, his visual power no longer activated.

He pretends to ignore her anger and stays mute instead. Unfortunately for her, Sasuke could not help himself and stay put. His jealousy pushed him to go in here with her because the thought of another man even possibly touching her sent him reeling.

Sasuke is glad nothing more had to happen, but god, he is such a coward still and he will not admit to her right now why he did it. He knows she is strong, but her being alone with somebody else, anybody else who is not him...It is eating him away from the inside.

Sakura is furious right now, but she also knows she cannot make a scene in here because someone could come in without warning and start asking questions. They have a man passed out on the floor who is going to arise some suspicions.

Analyzing the situation, she needs to think fast and act later.

Putting her hands on her hips and giving him the angriest bitch face she could master, Sakura barks out her order.

"Go inform the guys the mission is accomplished and we leave tomorrow at dawn," she looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to try and defy her.

When she gets nothing but silence in response, she continues.

"Meet me outside across the street in twenty minutes," Sakura finishes her statement with a dismissive tone.

The pink haired medic raises her eyebrow at him, waiting for him to react.

Sasuke makes his usual humming noise in agreement, his lips slightly pursed. With a curt nod he leaves the room quickly, not once looking behind.

With the door now closed, Sakura lets out a silent growl. In her frustration she takes off one of her high heels and throws it across the room, her target where Sasuke was standing a few seconds ago. Disappointed that she did not hit his imaginary head, she tosses the other one too for a good measure.

Feeling accomplished, she gathers her stuff including the important papers and the keys and she changes to the civilian clothes she had brought with her. Seeing Misao Takashi slightly stirring, she takes that as her cue to leave. With one last look at him, confident that he will not have the guts to speak to anyone about this, she exits the room.

When the red haired male wakes up a few minutes later, he stands up groggily and looks around the room only to find it empty. Checking his pockets and realizing everything is missing, he recalls the events from before. That is when he takes a look at the mirror across him and he notices the gorgeous girl from before has left him a message.

A smiley face drawn with red lipstick is staring back at him.

He snorts and lets out a sad smile.

Twenty minutes later as promised everybody is out of the club with only Sakura still missing. Ever since Sasuke came back with the news no one has exchanged words besides Kakashi and Naruto who keep talking to each other.

The last Uchiha has been oddly quiet even for his standards. He keeps his face mostly hidden in the shadows of the night, his back against a nearby wall. Kakashi and Naruto are a few meters next to him throwing worried glances at him, fearing one word from them would set him off the wrong way.

The moment Sakura appears, it seems the gears in Sasuke's head have finished turning and he stands up straight ready to take off. The awkwardness in Team seven is palpable.

No one dares to look their female teammate in the eye, even Kakashi who is older than them. They do not speak to each other either. Instead, the male members of the group start following Sakura who is probably leading them to the hotel she has been staying. Sakura looks calm, but everybody seems to know that they should not try to cross her or strike a conversation with her.

Naruto who is usually lively and talkative feels like he is living his worst nightmare. He exchanges a few glances with Kakashi who keeps putting his finger in his mouth as if to signal the blond to keep quiet. Things are so awkward between the medic and the sharingan user that Naruto feels like a literal child confined between his two stubborn and angry grown up parents. Fuck being a third wheel to a conceited flirting Uchiha and a shy Haruno, this is so much worse.

Only when they finally reach the hotel and they forced to say their good nights, the Team manages to acknowledge and speak to each other. Of course it is typical conversation before you go to bed, so nothing weird here. Albeit, it was so disturbing to see Sakura faking a smile nowadays that Naruto wanted to bash Sasuke's head to the nearest wall for making this mission more awkward than it had to be. Thinking better than to try and talk to Sasuke about the situation right now, Naruto heads solemnly to his room.

Kakashi on other hand feels like those two are grown up adults and he should not have to interfere with their feelings. They have to work on their miscommunications on their own, especially Sasuke and his incapability to express his feelings.

With each person having their own thoughts in their heads, the members of Team 7 all go into their rooms respectively.

The moment Sakura steps inside the room, she starts to feel her tear ducts watering. Taking a deep breath in order to calm down, she starts pacing around the room while fanning her eyes.

In these kind of situations it always helps to think of something else to prevent her from crying, so she thinks about Ino and her holy grail set of girl rules.

"Never cry when you have expensive make up on," Sakura tries to pep talk herself.

Although she knows she will have to take it off eventually, she tries to hang on the smallest reason to stop herself from tearing up. If she slips up and allows herself to get sad, the woman knows it will be impossible to stop.

Sakura does have a tendency to get emotional despite being strong. Being apathetic is not one of her strongest assets, regrettably. In comparison to the man she is in love with, the pink haired beauty is quite the opposite of him when it comes to matters like these.

Thinking a good bath will clean her head (and her body), she steps inside the bathroom. Half an hour later, she comes out of it clean and fresh wearing her skimpy black pajama shorts and a white t-shirt. Knowing no one will come and bother her anymore tonight she skips putting on her bra.

Feeling rejuvenated and ready to go to sleep, Sakura starts making a beeline for her bed. She will figure out tomorrow what to do about her strained relationship with Sasuke.

Right just about that thought crossed her mind, she hears knocking on her door.

"No," the woman whispers, her eyes widening in horror.

There is no way Sasuke is behind that door, knocking it and expecting her to open up.

With two powerful stomps and a determined expression on her face, Sakura reaches for the doorknob and pulls.

#sasusaku #sakura haruno #sasuke uchiha #sasusaku fanfiction #ssfic #ssfanfic #ssfanfiction #vasoula writes #sasusaku fanfic #please enjoy everybodyyy #things get sexaaay

45 notes · View notes

mimimimikkyu · 3 years

Text

fuck it Rowan rambling

What is/are your OC’s nickname(s) and how did it come about? Ro. It’s a shortened version of their name so it came about kinda obviously. Leon and Hop are the only ones that really use it though. Their dad has called them little litten since they were a child. They were an active kid and acted a bit like a cat sometimes.

What is the color of your OC’s eyes/hair/skin? Brown eyes. Short side shaved hair with the top dyed purple and the side shave naturally black. Warm tan skin.

How tall is your OC? 5’5”, they’re not short but a lot of people they know are taller than them. Even if only by a couple inches. They find this really funny.

What is a noticeable physical attribute of your OC? Their hair and their pointy canines.

What does your OC normally wear? What would your OC wear on a special night? Normally they wear a black sleeveless turtleneck and high waisted pants or shorts along with black boots. Their battling/champion wear is about the same as Leon’s with a different cape. As for formal wear they would go with something like this or this

What is one word you would use to describe your OC’s appearances? Mess

Does your OC have any markings, such as a birthmark or a scar? They have a few knicks and scars from general farm work.. Nothing really stands out about those to the regular person though.

How does your OC talk/what does your OC’s voice sound like?I’d have to come back to this one. I haven’t heard anyone who gives me their vibes yet.

What does your OC’s bedroom look like? Their living area? somethin like this but with more color probably

What does your OC keep in a special drawer? Ask Rose :)

What is your OC’s relationship with their mother? Nonexistent/strained since she left. If they’re honest they’d prefer not to think about her all that much. They do have a step mother but they were older by the time their father met her and thus they’re closer as friends. However if they need motherly advice they’re not afraid to ask.

What is your OC’s relationship with their father? Good. He’s very open and supportive of them and would give up a fair bit to help them out even if they won’t say a thing. They look to him for advice and call him often now that they’ve left the farm/home.

How many siblings does your OC have and what is their relationship with them? They have none biologically. They do consider Hop like a little brother however and they get along just fine.

Who is the mother and/or father figure in your OC’s life? Leon’s mother was like another mother while they were growing up. Even when he wasn’t home they were over often. Either as friendly visits or to help watch Hop for a day.

What was your OC’s childhood like? They moved to Galar when they were 7 with family (their Father, his parents, and their mother) and onto a farm in which they lived and worked. From there on it was mostly normal but behind the scenes there was a fair bit of emotional abuse being thrown their way by their mother. It led to a lot of nights spent running over to friends' houses to get away or crying in the barn.

What is your OC’s strongest childhood memory? Why and how has that impacted him/her? There’s a few things. Firstly Leon’s introduction and want to include them in whatever he did. It sparked a lifelong friendship between the two. Even when he became champion they still tried to stay as close as possible. The other is when their mother started their abuse. Constant yelling at them, telling them they weren’t good enough, they weren’t smart, they never cared about anyone, no one cared about them, they weren’t enough of a “girl” for their her tastes. Things like that. None of that has left them since their mother left/ their father caught on and kicked her out. But all those things are still in the back of their head nagging them to this day.

What is your OC’s imagination like? Half the books they owned while growing up were action fantasy and the other half were picture books of places they thought were pretty. So a lot of their imagination is still things like that. Imagining what it would be like to be in those pretty places, imagining dragon and fairy types roaming around in adventures in those places. Going out and doing those adventures themselves. Sometimes a little bit of romance gets involved in there. They fancy themselves the rogue that charms a noble in those cases.

How many times did your OC move as a child? Which area was their favorite? Just the once, it was a big move that stuck with them but that’s all. Since they’ve known Galar and the farm longer than they ever did their first home it’s their favorite.

What does your OC think of children- either in general or about having them? They like them and they’re good at handling them too. As mentioned earlier on they’d babysat Hop and when they’d go back home to visit extended family they’d always be around the kids there too. Having them is a different story. It’s something they’re really conflicted on. They’re not entirely sure they’d be a good parent and they need to know that whoever they’re with they could trust them to actually parent as well.

What kind of parent would your OC be? Same as their dad; open, supportive, and would drop everything to help their child out. Also puts their entire being into storytelling and play time.

Who are your OC’s closest relatives? Their father and while they were alive their grandparents, grandmother especially. Their father and grandfather showed them everything they know about farm work and their father always encouraged them to try new things but know their limits. Their grandmother showed them everything she knew about cooking and passed on some sewing knowledge to them as well.

Who is/are your OC’s closest friend(s)? Both Leon and Sonia have been their best friends since they moved to Potswick. They confide in them both for different reasons but rely on them both equally.

Who are the people your OC surrounds themselves with? Close friends, family, their pokemon team, a lover. They like other people but it’s a bit harder now for them to hang around random people.

Who are the people your OC dislikes/hates? People who lose their temper easily, people who scream to talk, the press.

If your OC has a soulmate, who is it? Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy?

Why does your OC and their soulmate work so well together?Most of the people in his life tend to kiss up to him a lot or mince their words around him, not Rowan. Rowan, whether they actually thought their words through or just blurted them out, tends to be a bit more blunt and they are not afraid to be so what-so-ever. Grounds him a bit when he needs it. He grounds them as well. He’s quick to pick up on when they’re feeling down and while he isn’t quite privy to everything that happened to them yet he’ll swoop right in and quell any notion they have that’s negative about themselves. Also he's pretty gotten pretty good at telling when they're about to blurt something out and can stop and get them to think.

What are some things your OC admires about their soulmate? His smile, his deep laugh and the way the lines around his eyes crinkle during both those things. His smell is another bonus, they may have stolen a jacket from him just to wear it on nights when he’s not around because of it.

How did your OC and his/her soulmate meet? During the season, as a somewhat belated birthday gift Leon brought them out to Wydon to watch an exhibition match and hang out for a weekend. During which They happened to meet up with the uhhhh, the man. Didn’t go great according to them but it is a part of their story nonetheless. They didn’t get together or really see much of each other for about two years after that when Rowan finally started the gym challenge themself however.

What is your OC’s level of education? High school. They opted to work the farm instead of pursuing much else afterwards. That’s how they grew up, it’s what they knew and honestly they enjoyed it.

Did your OC participate in extracurricular activities, and if so, what were they? Not officially, however despite not taking up being a trainer they’d always ask Leon about it and he was more than happy to share the knowledge.

What is your OC’s opinion of school? What kind of student were they? Average. They just learned what was needed and did a boat load of reading.

What subjects did your OC excel at? foreign language but they cheated technically because they already spoke the language they took at home with their grandparents. Shh, no one has to know.

What subjects interested your OC? Literature specifically, they liked learning about classics. While they never took anything related to it, they admired theater from afar.

What is your OC’s dream job and/or current profession? Currently they’re Galar’s newest champion. In the past they worked on the family farm and would go back to it should they ever step down. In their dreams if they had to settle down they’d like to be a writer of some sort in a house in the middle of nowhere.

How is your OC working towards his/her dream job and/or achieved his/her current profession? For the farm work it’s not really a matter of working towards it. They’ll always have that place back home. For the writing They’d have to actually write.

What are your OC’s thoughts/opinions of his/her current profession? They’re conflicted and entirely unsure they belong in the position they’re in. Even during the gym challenge they weren’t sure they’d ever get as far as the final tournament. A lot of that inner turmoil has to do with their past but they’re good at putting on a show and hiding it. At home they slink into Rose’s arms and tell him the worries of the day and he does his best to give advice or just affirmation.

What is your OC’s biggest dream? Being on the beach, resting in the water, floating away, not a care in the world. That’s about half of what they did when they went back home to see the extended family so it invokes a good fuzzy warm feeling in them.

How does your OC react to and handle stress? Depends on the stressor honestly. If it’s something a bit beyond control they tend to get real quiet and frustrated.

How does your OC handle anger? Not well, they’re afraid of being angry. They’re afraid of being like their mom. And they’re definitely afraid of any anger towards them.

How does your OC handle grief? It’s a multi-step process. They withdraw for a while, cry a lot. They know it’s important to let other people in to help but at least for a few days they just feel the need to be alone.

What is your OC’s greatest fear? Being completely and utterly alone.

What makes your OC happy? Reading, playing or battling with their pokemon, hanging around their friends in a group or one on one, being around Rose.

What kind of sense of humor does your OC have? A bad one.

What are some things that greatly upset your OC? You want like a list? Like memories of their mother for one. The loss of their grandparents. Memories of the darkest day and how they felt during that.

What are some things that annoy your OC? Being asked too many questions, especially when they’re not really given time to think. They know speaking without thought isn’t exactly their strong point so they’re not too keen on being made to do it.

If your OC has them, what are some regrets they have? Being too afraid to tell their father or even their grandparents about what happened with their mother.

How easily does your OC forgive? It takes a bit. They have to be 100% sure the person they’re forgiving means what they say even if it takes a while to get to that point.

What are some of your OC’s vices? Sweets and homemade bread. Absolutely cannot resist.

If your OC experienced trauma, what was it? Emotional abuse. I would consider the Darkest Day and the part they ended up playing in it traumatic for them as well. The entire ordeal was a part of their nightmares for a while.

What secrets does your OC have? Even though they had unofficially broken things off with Rose when the incident occurred they never quite stopped thinking of him. While he wasn't their first, he was one of the first people they could genuinely say they’d fallen for and they’d always played with the idea of seeing him again before they actually bit the bullet and did. Whiiiich was also a secret along with their initial relationship at first as well for about half a year after they got together again. Although eventually their father and Leon came to learn about it before anyone else in that time.

What are some of your OC’s morals? Oh god I wish I knew.

What are some of your OC’s motivations? Family, helping others, bettering themselves

What is the health of your OC? Good, they’re fairly active and can do quite a bit of heavy lifting.

Does your OC think with their head or heart? Oh Rowan doesn’t think, are you kidding me? Haha oh god. Heart though.

What are your OC’s thoughts on death? They choose not to think about it for the most part. Yeah it’s gonna happen but they’re young they have plenty of time to not care.

What are some of your OC’s strengths? Will still do things despite being apprehensive about them. If they’re good they’re good if they’re bad, it weighs on them a bit but they’re learning to not hold it against themselves.

What are some of your OC’s weaknesses? They still haven’t learned to not hold things against themselves and they’re always afraid of someone close turning on them or leaving without a word to the point where they’ll show visible discomfort in certain situations.

How does your OC take criticism? Depends. If it’s constructive they mull it over for a while and try to incorporate whatever it is in any way they can. If it’s not, they’re a bit miffed and flat out walk away from it.

What does your OC think of themselves? Fluctuate between I’m a bad bitch you can’t kill me and oh sad little baby full of feelings.

If your OC could change one thing about themselves, what would it be? The fact that they just kind of Say shit.

What is the general impression your OC gives other people? People can see them as a bit crass. Sometimes a little lost.

How emotionally/mentally vulnerable is your OC with other people? Depends on the people. Totally with their father and often Rose now as well. Leon and Sonia are also people they can be vulnerable with as well but not to the same extent as the other two.

How does your OC display love? Physically. For someone they’re dating it’s little kisses on the cheek or forehead, hand holding, light touches, and cuddling up to them. For friends and family it’s hugs, leaning on them, and light hearted jokes. They also like to cook for the people they love as well.

What are some habits your OC has picked up? Leg bouncing when they’re impatient Twirling and playing with little strands of hair Overly exaggerated gestures when they’re excited Needing to have something, even if it’s just snacks, prepared for any sort of company. They'll pick up little inflections from people they're close to as well

What is your OC’s favorite drink? Juice… Like fruit juice, honestly. The sweeter the fruit the better.

What is your OC’s favorite food? Very very simple but homemade bread with a cut of some kind of salty cheese.

What is your OC’s favorite sweet? Chocolate, cake especially. Double especially if the icing is chocolate as well.

What is your OC’s favorite season? Winter. The crisp air and the clothes they get to bundle up in make them one happy baby. Also cocoa is a huge, huge bonus.

What is your OC’s favorite kind of weather? Bright, clear sky, sun shining down and a gentle breeze rolling through the fields during the day with a slow rolling storm moving in in the evening when they’re all settled in for the night.

What is your OC’s favorite book? Anything fantasy/adventure.

What is your OC’s favorite movie and/or TV show? I don’t know the deep lore on the full entertainment industry in the pokemon universe but I do know I sure do like to draw them as the Phantom a lot. So they get to be into The Phantom of the Opera as well.

What is your OC’s favorite kind music (and song if there is one)? Theatre music and jazz.

What is your OC’s favorite form of entertainment? It was game consoles with friends when they were younger, and admittedly they still play on those from time to time. But now it’s mostly reading and or cuddling up and watching a movie or an exhibition match that they’re not in.

What is your OC’s favorite color? Purple

What is your OC’s favorite scent? That aftershave Rose be wearin. The smell of a clean pasture. The salt on the air on the shore of a beach. Comfort foods as they're cooking.

What is your OC’s favorite animal? They can’t pick a pokemon that would be playing favorites and they don’t wanna do that. Variks

What is your OC’s favorite sound? Laughter, Variks’ little chitters, Thatch’s grumbles when he rolls in his sleep, wooloo and dubwools bleating, wind moving through an open field, waves as they crash on a surface, familiar laughter, and Rose's voice.

What is your OC’s favorite time of day? Morning. They love the still before the day truly starts and the colors in the sky as the sun rises.

What is your OC’s favorite kind of ice cream? Chocolate with any kind of sweet chunks in it.

What is your OC’s favorite dinosaur? Tyrantrum

Ask your own question. why

#oc talk #it's long so weh #but really there's no point to this except for myself really

3 notes · View notes

theconfusedartist · 3 years

Text

this goes a few places but i’ll try to stay on track

honestly, I’ve been thinking about this but like...

i kinda wanna write the arc in which the phantom thieves become better friends to the MC?

maybe this is a bit far fetched but like, the way the phantom thieves treat the main character isn’t the way you’d treat someone you care about. and like. this isn’t even coming from a place of me hating them either, bc i really really like all of them and i’m glad that they all get to move on and forward with their lives

like, the entire game the MC goes through making deals, shady connections, and dubious places to make sure everyone has what they need, whether its for weapons, items, or a shoulder to cry on, the MC is always there for them. and. i know that this is, in a game and narrative point of view, for the sake of getting the game rolling so the player can get supplies and doesn’t have to worry about waiting on other characters for things needed to assist in palace infiltrations. like, i get what it serves in a story sense, and why it needs to happen in a game sense

however

whenever i think of persona 5 as a writer, trying to write from the POV of the the MC, the phantom thieves, or any of the other confidants, it just kinda...hits me? the MC is a 16-17 year old that has managed to convince all these people that he has whatever they need to continue on with their work/life/well-being.

and for some, this makes sense, like Mishima and Shinya make sense bc in Shinya’s case its an older kid helping a younger kid with a bad parental situation using means that would keep him from getting arrested (which is when most people stop trying to help, for fear of retaliation from the parent) and with Mishima it makes sense bc he worships the phantom thieves to an unhealthy degree, while also keeping their image in his hands, and is also their only means of communicating with the outside world as the phantom thieves bc to do so otherwise would compromise their identities (not that yelling out their plans in the middle of a train station wouldn’t compromise them as well, but y’know) and that is dealt with by Mishima gaining confidence and learning how to be the hero he idolizes not only for others in distress but also for himself and continues to pursue his own creative pursuits

like, for all the phantom thieves, i have no real problems with their confidants

the only real issue is that, at rank 10, all of them declare that they’ll be on the MC’s side and help him through thick and thin. except.....they never do. and it’s not like it has to be big either, I’m not asking for any big dramatic scene either, just basic shit. like, you know what makes the MC a good friend? he reaches out, makes sure to listen, actively does what he can to help, and works with them to help them get through their problems. none of the other thieves do this, not once. and if you wanna make the argument that they all heard him out about his record, yes, that IS a great thing and i’m glad that they recognize that it was wrong.

but when i think of the rest of the game, i just think of them never talking to the MC. not even in the sense that the player has to see the conversation play out or anything, after all when you go on hang out spots with confidants but not for a link, the game says that the MC got closer to the character and you have the chance to give and exchange gifts. i really really REALLY liked that feature bc it makes it feel like the others are trying to get to know the MC and give him something he’d like.

however.

if they want to be good friends, they should also be able to do things that aren’t related to the phantom thieves. Haru, i give a(only a bit though) pass bc she joins the group so late that theres no way she’d know about all the ins and outs that the MC has to take care of as the leader, and by the time she would even get the chance, she’s dealing with her father, then the plot, then the final and Final bosses. she would’ve had no time to really learn the dynamics of the phantom thieves or the metaverse (and this is blatantly shown right before they first enter Okumura’s palace and right before they steal the treasure) and is rarely ever afforded that chance to bond with the group in game save for banter in mementos. not to mention, she actively gives some of the best boosting items in the game and also does her best to connect with the MC through their own shared similarities (Leblanc and her grandfather’s shop, always having to act a certain way for fear of reprisal, not knowing what she’s supposed to do but needed to act more mature as people don’t see her as a child but rather as a thing/tool for their benefit) that i didn’t really see in any of the other social links with the phantom thieves.

again, this isn’t saying that the thieves are being bad friends on purpose or that they’re going out of their way to be The Worst(tm) but if they’re going to claim that they want to help through thick and thin then why don’t any of the others ask about the MC? the only time i ever recall them asking the MC about things they like/dislike is during the summer Leblanc hangouts and it’s only about a specific topic. (examples being: Yusuke asking if they should make plans to go to France or buy a TV, Ryuji asking about the MCs favorite sports and preference in manga character tropes, Futaba asking if the MC ever built a laptop or dealt) i know this is a rpg, so i’m not expecting anything specific to come from the MC as the player is able to hc whatever they want about him, but even the game going ‘x asked me about y issue’ would’ve been enough. it doesn’t have to be detailed, i just want examples of the thieves that claim to be his friends asking about his hometown, his family, how the MC is doing bc rarely is that ever asked, or if the MC needs help.

like, yes, the praise about how cool and strong and awesome you are is great but if the MC has been running around Tokyo for a solid week talking to all these people, working multiple part time shifts for money, and doing xyz just to make sure the phantom thieves are operational then i (as a player) would also like that same sort of thing if this is supposed to be a team. honestly, though, it was fine for the most part bc the game was still really fun and hanging out with them (over all the other confidants like (Kawakami, Ohya, or Chihaya) is a gdamn BLESSING GOD dealing with them is stressful tbh) is honestly the highlight of the game for me bc they’re so colorful and full of life that i didn’t even really give too much thought about this save for once or twice, and that was only AFTER the interrogation room

why? bc up until this point, i had no reason to think that the phantom thieves were doing anything than what they said they would: sticking through thick and thin and lending their support. i simply attributed those moments that weren’t in the game to back up this claim as being shown during the non-confidant level up hang out times, that the things i talked about before were just not being shown to the player explicitly but it was still happening behind the scenes. but the interrogation scene with Sae kinda made that....fall flat on it’s face.

i mean, hear me out. even if, and that’s a BIG IF, there was absolutely no other way to get the police off their back, no other way to handle the assassin that was coming for them, and no way to do anything outside the metaverse.....................why was there no one there to make sure that the plan worked? like, there’s a camera inside the cell, so Futaba at the VERY LEAST should be able to tell whats going on inside, right? and even if you wanna tell me that somehow the cops were able to put that on a server that Futaba couldn’t access that still brings me back to the same point at before.

the phantom thieves, when explaining to Sae how they got their plan together, also have this nice little image of them going to the (was it the real or the fake one?) interrogation room and making sure that they COULD actually carry out their plan.

so. if they went to the physical place to make sure their plan could work, knew exactly where the MC was going to be and when, and knew there would be cameras, why did none of them have some sort of a back up plan set up? not even just in case?

like, i know that the ‘bad ending’ is the MC telling Sae the others’ identities and then dying but, the dude is drugged out of his mind! he’s been getting beaten for hours, if not an entire day, then interrogated by Sae! even if the MC had sold them out, it would’ve been a case of giving a drugged confession, bc the MC wouldn’t have been in his right mind.

yes, as a player, you can say no. as a player, you can easily say, ‘why would i give up my friends?’. it makes no sense as a player to let the characters who you’ve spent at least 40+ hours up to the wolves. but the MC? who is drugged out of his mind? who has been beaten bloody and knows that nothing he says is going to get them to stop? who then has to deal with Sae interrogating him and constantly reminding him over and over that if he doesn’t give her what she needs, he WILL die? yeah, of course the MC is going to say no, but if he did I wouldn’t hold that against him bc he’s not in the right state of mind at all. not only that, but then someone who was supposed to be a friend and ally is coming in to kill him, and the only thing to keep that from happening is starting up the metaverse and making him think he shot the real deal.

but even with that, what? did the thieves test out what would happen if someone shot what they think is that person in the other world while that same person is sitting in the same spot, at the same time, in the same conditions? bc if they didn’t, then why were they so sure this plan would work? and if they DID then why was there no one there to make sure the plan worked?

seriously, have someone hide out in the metaverse, right? then when the assassin comes in, that person can then verify that the MC isn’t fucking dead

what part of leaving a friend to act as a decoy, leaving him to deal with a police force that they have already been informed is corrupt and willing to do whatever they have to in order to get a confession (the same person that has already been brutalized by the police mind you!) by himself, to then ALSO deal with being interrogated, and then pray that the plan they came up with (that they also have no intention of making sure it worked) to deal with the assassin goes as planned, then ALSO HAVE TO PRAY that HOPEFULLY Sae decides to help him flee incarceration.

do you see my problem here? what part of any of this plan is solid? what part of any of this plan isn’t cruel? like, even with all the exceptions i was trying to give them, this is not acting as a good friend. hell, this isn’t even how you should be acting as a good ALLY, forget a friend.

and afterwards, the whole ‘yeah we’re so great we tricked akechi!’ doesn’t even feel like a good thing bc the MC can say he doesn’t remember anything and Sae can follow up saying that he shouldn’t have to remember what happened to him and

none of the thieves say a word. it’s just. glossed over.

like nothing ever happened

the bruises are gone somehow. the concern never appears. the thieves never ask.

welp! back to palace infiltration!

like?

what about that is being a good friend? and here’s what gets me: in the aftermath were the MC isn’t supposed to go outside bc ppl might see him--he’s still the one getting all the supplies.

what the hell? isn’t this the ‘thin’ they were talking about? hell, at this point i’m not even asking for them to talk about how the MC is feeling, i’m just saying they should be carrying at least some of the load if he is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE OUTSIDE

like what?

honestly, i wanna remake this post bc i ended up just making a bunch of word vomit but like. it is what it is

i love the phantom thieves but goddamn they are not very good friends. i don’t think they’re trying to be bad friends on purpose but they definitely are

#honestly #i think i need to rewrite this post #with like proper grammar and capitalization #listen #i can like characters #and also point out that #the power of *friendship* only works if you've been good friends #and persona is all about friendship #but the more i thought about that friendship #the more shallow i realized it was #and that's sad #bc the phantom thieves are some of my fave characters #but like it is what it s #persona talk

3 notes · View notes

rogueariadne · 3 years

Text

To Have A Villain’s Quirk

ELEVEN: SAFETY

Song: Young Folks - The Wind and The Wave

Reporters clamored around the entrance to UA, pushing almost every student that came in to answer questions. While a lot of the reporters were caught up with the other students, Kaida used that to her advantage, slipping through the crowd with her head down. She practically ran past everyone to get inside. She hated the press with a fiery passion. They did nothing but put words in people's mouths, and twist the truth. And she could see by the look on their teachers face, that Mr. Aizawa felt the same. He practically shooed the reporters away as he walked inside, Kaida in front of him as they walked. She was trying to make sure they didn't catch too many of her classmates. Finally up in the classroom, Kaida hummed to herself as she watched the students find their seats, with Aizawa soon entering the room. He was probably out talking to the principle.

"Decent work on yesterday's combat training, you guys. I saw the video feeds and went over each of your team's results. Bakugo. You're talented. So don't sulk like a child about your loss, okay?" She could hear the boy in question simply huff in response. "And Midoriya. I see the only way you won the match was by messing up your arm again. Work harder. And don't give me the excuse that you don't have control over your quirk. That line's already getting old. You can't keep breaking your body while training here. But your Quirk will be really useful if you can get a handle on it." Kaida was sure that that was the first time that he had actually really complimented the boy. "So, show a little urgency, huh?"

"And Hiyama." Kaida flinched as she hesitantly rose her eyes to those of her teachers, instantly regretting it. "Not only did you attack a student, you skipped out on combat training. Something that would really be useful for you. While I get that you were trying to protect Midoriya, it wasn't your place and was completely unnecessary. That being said, I want at least a four page essay explaining why you did what you did on my desk tomorrow, and a proper apology to Bakugo and All Might for disrupting class." She bowed her head, nodding quickly.

"Y-yes, sir!"

"Let's get down to business. Our first task will decide your future." Kaida held her breath. She was lucky she didn't get detention, but another task to determine if they're still worthy to be here? "You all need to pick a class representative." Oh, good. Just normal school stuff! Kirishima immediately started trying to get people to pick him, followed by Kaminari and the purple haired girl, Jiro. Aoyama also joined, Mina right after, even little grape boy. She was surprised that Bakugo wanted it as bad as he did.

"Silence, everyone, please!" Iida bellowed, shutting everyone down. "The class representative's duty is to lead others. That's not something just anyone can do. You must first have the trust of every student in the classroom. Therefore, the most logical way to fill this position is democratically. We will hold an election to choose our leader!"

"It's pretty obvious you want us to vote for you." Kaida simply rolled her eyes. Isn't it obvious who should be the representative though? Iida really knows what he's doing, she didn't understand why it should be up for debate. Of course, everyone's arguments were true in statement, saying that most people would vote for themselves.

"Most people will. But that means whoever does receive multiple votes must truly be the most suitable person for the job. It's the best way, right, sir?" He looked over to Aizawa, who was zipping himself up into his sleeping bag.

"Do what you want, just decide before my nap's over." Some teacher.

Soon the election results were in. And Midoriya and Yaoyorozu were at the top. Midoriya with three votes, and Yaoyorozu with two. There was a lot of surprise coming from the green haired boy and the angry blond. Sure, Kaida thought that Iida would be a good fit, but that didn't mean she couldn't just vote for herself. She knew she wouldn't get it anyways. Although, it looked like Iida was pretty upset over the results. They pulled the two top students to the class, Aizawa waking from his nap just to give the results they already knew. Poor Midoriya was shaking away.

"Alright, the class rep is Midoriya, and our deputy is Yaoyorozu."

"R-really? Uh. It's not a mistake?" She was sure Izuku was going to explode from nervousness, and everyone was looking at him in confusion. Yaoyorozu just seemed a little annoyed. Everyone started to get behind the idea though. Except the boy who suggested the voting system. Kaida rested her cheek against her hand, watching the exchange. Soon, it was lunch time, and Kirishima and Kaminari stopped by Kaida's desk with their usual grins.

"Hey, Kai, wanna join us for lunch?" Denki asked, both boys stuffing their hands in their pockets as they waited for the girl to respond. Mina peeked her head around their figures with a smile.

"Hey, guys! Mind if I join?" The pinkette joined the trio, standing beside them with her hands on her hips. Kai's eyes widened a bit as she looked between them before a smile started to form on her face. Friends. Standing up, the smile only grew as she nodded her head.

"Sure, let's all go together!" Mina grabbed Kaida's arm, squeezing her close to her as she pulled her out of the room, the boys quickly following with shouts of protest. Hiyama's face exploded into a dark red at Mina's forwardness, looking to the blond for help. Both of the boys just watched with small chuckles coming out, Denki just shook his head, basically telling her she was on her own. She let the girl drag her along, Kaminari and Kirishima walking on either side of them, listening to the conversation they were having. She tried to keep up, giving small inputs, but mostly laughing at their behaviors. She loved how friendly and accepting they were of her, going as far as asking her to join them for lunch.

Lunch was spent getting to know each other mostly, but finding out that Kirishima and Mina already knew each other from Middle School. Kaida was hesitant to open up but mostly mentioned a little of her family, and how she went to school with Bakugo and Izuku. It started getting more into their hobbies and the things they liked and disliked. It was weird for her. The only other person she told this stuff to was Izuku, but it looked like they were gaining different friend groups, but still being friends since they were in the same class. It was honestly kinda nice having different friends, in her opinion. It showed just how dependent they had become on one another. While Kaida and Denki were watching Mina and Eijiro talk excitedly about something, the two throwing in their two cents every now and again, an alarm bell started ringing. It sent everyone on edge, jumping in surprise.

"Wh-what's going on?!" Ashido shouted, Hiyama quickly jumping up, along with Kirishima. A robotic announcement came over the intercom, causing the four to exchange worried looks.

"Warning. Level Three security breach. All students please evacuate the building in an orderly fashion." They gasped, looking around as all of the students started to take off into the halls. Everyone was yelling and screaming in fear, trying to escape the building, while Kaida quickly activated her quirk, wrapping her tails around the other three's waists.

"Kaida, what are you doing?" Kaminari asked, raising his hands a bit as they stared at her back. The tails had caused her undershirt to come untucked, letting them loose as she moved away from everyone, raising her friends out of the way. They would get trampled at this rate. She quickly led them around the people, using an extra tail to hold onto the rafters away from everyone. It was the only way they wouldn't get trampled. So, when the crowd was mostly gone, she lowered them back down to the ground, dropping herself next to them. "Whoa, thanks Kai!"

"That could've been a disaster."

"Look outside, there has to be something everyone's not seeing." She said, the four of them running to the windows.

"It's just the press!" Mina called out, hands pressed against the glass.

"Really, that's it?"

After the fuss was all over, and they all returned to class, Yaoyorozu stood up, Midoriya following her to the front of the class. Midoriya was back to being a mess over being class rep, but she gave him a quick smile and a nod. He glanced at her after he was done stuttering, taking a small breath. "First, there's something that I wanna say. I've thought a lot about this. And I think Tenya Iida should be our class rep! He was able to capture everyone's attention and get us in line. So, I believe that he should be the one leading our class from now on!" Kaida looked down as she smiled. Iida was going to get the position anyways, they should've known.

"Yeah, you know what? If Midoriya vouches for him, I'm good. Plus he was a big help. He totally manned up and took charge, right?" Kirishima chimed in, Kaminari nodding his head in agreement.

"Yup! Oh! Did you notice he looked like the dude on the emergency exit signs when he was on the wall earlier?" That comment caused the four friends to giggle before Aizawa called it a waste of time. It shut them right up.

"I don't care who the rep is, just hurry up."

"If Midoriya is nominating me for this job... then I humbly accept. I pledge to carry out the duties of class rep to the best of my abilities!" Iida stood up, proudly proclaiming. Kirishima gave him a thumbs up.

"Sounds good, Emergency Exit!" Cue the giggles, with Kaminari joining in. "Emergency Exit Iida! Don't let us down, man!"

It was an ordinary night when she got home, spending a lot of missed time with her family now that they were all back together. Kaida did spend most of the night writing out her essay for Aizawa and writing proper apology letters to All Might and Bakugo. She was nervous to give her letter to Katsuki. Why? Because she was sure he was just going to rip it up in front of her and tell her to get lost. She was prepared for it. Nearly midnight, she as finally finished with the papers, putting them neatly in her folders in her bag. Hardly getting any rest that night, she felt like a zombie in the morning, fueling up on flesh and coffee before she was off to school. She held her folder in her hands, ready to hand the papers in. She had entered the school grounds when she saw him, slouched over and grumpy as usual. She took a deep breath before she sped up her walking. "Katsu! Wait up!" He merely grunted as he slowed down, turning a little. He saw the folder and rolled his eyes.

"If you have that stupid apology letter, don't bother. S'not like you meant it. Just throw it out." He said, starting to walk again. She huffed and ran to stand in front of him, making him growl. "Get out of my way, Red."

"Please, you don't have to read it. Just accept it so I can tell Aizawa I gave it to you. That's all I'm asking." She bowed a little as she held out the paper to him. He scoffed, snatching the paper from her, gripping it tightly in his balled fist.

"Tch, fine, whatever." She let herself finally breathe as he walked away from her, her smiling a little. One target down, two more to go.

Entering the classroom, she quickly laid her essay on Aizawa's podium, taking her seat as the day commenced. She could see him nod in satisfaction as he skimmed over it. He set it aside as classes began. When training rolled around, everyone seemed pretty pumped up about it. "Today's training will be a little different. You'll have three instructors. Me, All Might, and another faculty member will be keeping tabs on you."

"Sir! What kinda training is this?" Sero called out, everyone looking to Aizawa for answers. He held out a card.

"Rescue. You'll be dealing with natural disasters, shipwrecks, stuff like that." He explained.

"Disasters, huh? Sounds like we're in for a big workout." Kaminari said, Ashido joining in happily. Kirishima seemed pretty excited about it, and some other students joined in.

"Guys, I'm not finished yet." That shut everyone up for the time being. "What you wear in the exercise is up to you. I know you're excited about costumes... but keep in mind that you haven't gotten used to them yet, and they might limit your abilities. This special training's at an off-campus facility, so we'll be taking a bus to get there. That's all. Start getting ready." Immediately, everyone was up, Kaida was first to grab her case, waiting for Mina so they could walk together to the changing room. They talked, well, Mina talked, Kaida mostly listened, while they got dressed, some of the other girls joining in with how they were going to be doing the rescue training. Soon, they were all gathering outside while they waited for the bus. It wasn't long before Iida was calling them to gather around.

"Using your student numbers, form two neat lines so we can load the bus efficiently." He shouted, blowing a whistle as he went. Kaida couldn't help but giggle a little bit, Mina laughing along with her. No way anyone was going to do that. They wanted to sit together. Besides, when they boarded, it had a more open layout than they were expecting. Mina promptly called Iida out on needed to chill as they rode along. Kaida ended up seated in between Mina and Kaminari. The mustard blond took that chance to get to know her more. She didn't try to give him too much to work with, and it ended with him calling her a mystery and shooting her a wink. It made her roll her eyes, but her face was slightly pink as she looked away from him, Mina taking her attention now. Of course, the back and forth between the rest of the class and Bakugo caught her attention, causing her to laugh at Kaminari's comment.

"Y'know, we basically just met you. So, it's kinda telling that we all know your personality is flaming crap mixed with garbage." He shrugged, and it sent Kaida into a small fit of giggles as Bakugo yelled.

"You're gonna regret the day you applied to this school, you loser...! And stop fucking laughing, Red! I'll kill both of you!" She only stuck out her tongue to anger him more, giggling with Ashido as she joined in, the two teasing him.

"Hey, hey, we're here. Stop messing around." Aizawa said, standing from his seat. There was a chorus of 'yes sir's as things quieted down a little, everyone looking out the windows to look at the dome like building. As they left the bus, the rescue hero, Thirteen was waiting for them. Thirteen was an amazing hero, and just seeing them in person made her almost as giddy as Midoriya. They were one of her favorite heroes! Entering the dome, she was in awe. It was amazing! There were so many areas to simulate rescue operations, to train in environments you're not used to. Her eyes seemed to sparkle as she looked around, a big grin forming on her face.

"A shipwreck. A landslide. A fire. A windstorm. Et cetera-- I created this training facility to prepare you to deal with different types of disasters. I call it the Unforeseen Simulation Joint. But, you can call it, USJ!"

"Hey, shouldn't All Might be here already? Lemme guess, he booked an interview instead." A smartass comment came from Aizawa, questioning All Might's whereabouts. Thirteen closed in and said something but she couldn't hear them. She was too busy in awe. Aizawa turned back around to face the group. "The clock's ticking. We should get started."

"Excellent! Before we begin, let me just say one thing. Well, maybe two things. Possibly three, four, or five..- Listen carefully. I'm sure you're aware that I have a powerful Quirk. It's called Black Hole. I can use it to suck up anything and turn it into dust." They explained. Midoriya quickly chimed in as Uraraka bounced beside him.

"Yeah, you've used Black Hole to save people from all kinds of disasters before, haven't you?"

"That's true, but my Quirk could also be very easily used to kill." Kaida flinched as it reminded herself of her own quirk. "Some of you also have powers that can be dangerous." She felt as though Thirteen was looking right at her. Of course, all of the faculty members knew about the drawbacks of Hiyama's quirk. "In our superhuman society, all Quirks are certified and stringently regulated, so we often overlook how unsafe they can actually be. Please don't forget that if you lose focus or make the wrong move, your powers can be deadly. Even if you're trying to do something virtuous like rescue someone." The girl put her head down. "Thanks to Aizawa;s fitness tests, you have a solid idea of your Quirk's potential. And because of All Might's combat training, you likely experienced how dangerous your powers can be when used against other people. Carry those lessons over to this class. Today, you're going to learn how to use your Quirks to save people's lives. You won't be using your powers to attack enemies or each other, only to help. After all, that's what being a hero is all about. Ensuring the safety of others. That's all I have to say. Thank you so much for listening." As they finished talking, they bowed, the class erupting into a cheer for them. Kaida even clapped a little bit.

"Right. Now that that's over..." Aizawa started, before electricity started to crackle through the buildings lights, the fountain in the middle of the dome sputtering before it looked like it started a type of swirling motion. A purple vortex was taking over in front of it, Kaida stepping forward as Aizawa began to turn around, realizing that something just wasn't right. The purple vortex erupted across the ground, and they could see a hand starting to reach out of it.

never miss an update! send an ask or a dm to be added to the taglist.

don’t want to see THAVQ content? blacklist “#THAVQ”

Updates: Mondays 12 pm CST

#THAVQ #To Have A Villain's Quirk #mha #bnha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha fanstory #fanstory #Kaida Hiyama #Hiyama Kaida #rogueariadne

4 notes · View notes

thelegendofclarke · 4 years

Text

still got scars on my back (from your knife)

A Bellarke Knives Out Au in which Kane is probably Benoit Blanc, Clarke might be Ransom Drysdale, Bellamy is definitely Marta Cabrara, Dante was Harlan Thrombey, and like Detective Elliot, Miller is just along for the ride.

Written for @bellarkejanuaryjoy Day 29 and dedicated to @marauders-groupie and @woodswit who were the best sounding boards and cheerleaders and are the reasons this fic exists in any way, shape, or form.

When Bellamy walks into the Mt. Weather police station again, where he has been far too many times in far too few days, he is tired. The kind of tired that starts in your bones and slowly leeches into your soul. He has a migraine that feels like it originated in his prefrontal cortex, and he genuinely can’t remember the last time he felt like he could breathe normally or wasn’t on the verge of puking. He’s led into an interview room in the back and when he enters he stops short. Marcus Kane, the self-proclaimed “last of the gentleman sleuths,” is perched on the corner of the table, posing dramatically as always. And sitting in a chair next to him is Clarke. Despite being arrested over 48 hours ago, she isn’t wearing handcuffs or an orange jumpsuit. Damn it must be nice to be a rich white girl. She’s just wearing a regular button-down shirt and jeans, and that small smirk that always made him want to kiss her. There’s something softer about it now though, and he hates how much that just makes him want to kiss it off her even more. Detective Miller motions for Bellamy to sit down in the chair across from Clarke. He does so without looking at Clarke or saying anything, just glaring down at the table so he doesn’t do something stupid like cry.

“You’re probably wondering why we’ve called you back here…” Miller starts.

“Oh, I’m wondering about a lot of things.” Bellamy shoots back at him.

Miller just snorts and looks over at Kane, “I’ll let you take it from here.”

Kane pulls out the pipe he carries around with him and starts to pack it. Bellamy can feel his scowl deepening, who the fuck even carries a pipe anymore?

Continue reading below or on Ao3...

“First of all, Mr. Blake,” he starts without looking up, “we must begin by giving you our most profuse and sincere apologies.” Kane lights the pipe and brings it to his mouth, then he looks at Bellamy and grins. That dramatic asshole actually smiles, far wider than Clarkes’ smirk, but equally as infuriating. “But you are just far too honest and decent a man to have been let in on all our plans.” He turns to Clarke and nods.

Clarke takes a deep breath and starts talking, but Bellamy can’t bring himself to look at her. He knows if he does all he’ll see is her grabbing his hands when he started having a panic attack, all he’ll feel is her fingers running through his hair, all he’ll hear is her soft but strong voice telling him to look at her, to focus on his breathing, reassuring him “It’ll be okay I promise… We’ll figure this out… Together.”

“You know, I used to be one of the only people that could ever beat my Grandpa Dante at Go. I used to pride myself on that,” she chuckles. “And then you came along and he told me you beat him twice as often as I did.” Bellamy looks up at that and finds Clarke looking right at him, her eyes focused on his. “He said you beat him almost every time. That you had never even played before you met him, but that somehow you would always win. And god that used to drive me fucking crazy,” she laughs again. “I couldn’t figure out how the hell you were beating him. I knew he wasn’t letting you win, he wasn’t that nice. And I knew he wouldn’t lie about it, he was far too arrogant. It was one of the mysteries he could never solve” she shakes her head ruefully at the memory. “How you beat him at that goddamn game night after night.”

“He never figured out that answer to that mystery,” she continues. “But I did. I finally solved it… You win because you don’t just play from the head, you play from the heart.”

“And you won again Bellamy… You won this game not by playing my way or my grandpa’s way, but by playing your way. You won because you are a genuine and honorable and fundamentally good person. You played it honest, you didn’t lie or mislead anyone or try to throw them off your trail. That’s why all the pieces fell perfectly into place: because you made all the right moves. You won by figuring out your strategy and making your decisions the same way you always have: from the heart.”

Bellamy just stares at her for another minute and then looks at Kane. “Look I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s been a really long couple of days and I’m pretty worn out so I’m just going to be really straight with you here and ask: what the actual fuck is going on?”

Miller snorts again, “I asked the same damn question.” He turns to Kane and Clarke and pulls out his little yellow notepad. “Actually, would you mind starting from the top again? Because I’m still not sure I really understand what in the damn hell happened.”

Kane and Clarke look at each other again doing that annoying nonverbal communication thing they seem to be so good at. Bellamy thinks he probably can’t complain about that too much though, since he and Clarke had gotten pretty damn good at it themselves after years of knowing each other, pretending to hate each other, and refusing to admit that they secretly adored each other.… Or so he thought… How the hell did he get her so wrong?

Before this week, Bellamy would have told anyone who asked, with a higher degree of confidence than he possesses about most things, that he could tell you almost everything there is to know about Clarke Griffin…

Namesake: Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, who her father had been a massive fanboy of and managed to convince her mother to let him name their newborn daughter after while Abby was still high as a kite on epidural anesthesia. Evidently, he had persuaded her by arguing that it was probably better than Arthurette or Arthurina; when Abby tells the story she always magnanimously says that at the time it seemed to be “the least of the evils.”

Middle Name: Matilda, after Empress Matilda, a member of the British monarchy who was some distant relative of the Wallaces, but that she pretended was after Matilda Wormwood because that Matilda was “infinitely cooler in all ways.”

Notable Likes: Inclusive, intersectional feminism. All forms of alcohol; with the notable exception of tequila which she will not look at, smell, touch, or tolerate in her presence in any way, shape, or form (he’d tried to ask her why once but she’d promptly turned green and puked into the nearest potted plant so he decided not to push the issue). Shark Week. Jane Austen novels. True crime documentaries. The Jonas Brothers (“They’re making a comeback Bell, whether you like it or not! Just save yourself the trouble later and lean into it now!”) Any and all things Harry Potter related (he’s pretty sure she’s on multiple bar trivia teams, including his own, just to answer the Harry Potter questions… And get the free booze.) Netflix. Adult coloring books. Anytime someone climbs a building to tear down a Confederate flag. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Antique tea sets. Movies that have women wearing armor and/or holding swords. Wearing high heels because they make her feel tall (her diminutive frame is something she endlessly despairs over, but Bellamy maintains she makes up for through presence, spitefulness, and sheer force of will.) Her cousin Roan.

Notable Dislikes: Donald Trump. Tinder, which she has an active profile on (a fact that definitely did not bother him. Much.) Twitter, which she hates even more, and has an even more active profile on. Blavy (“I don’t care what Tom Ford or Marc Jacobs said Bell, it’s a disgrace!”) Humidity. The NRA. The Twilight series (because it was “pushing the suspension of disbelief” that anyone would pick Edward over Jacob, and “downright offensively unrealistic” that Bella wouldn’t just dump them both and run off with “the hot Cullen sister… Either one of them.”) Most forms of organized sports. All forms of organized religion. Camping. When people talk during movies. Having to wear “real pants” for more than a couple of hours on a given day. The American Healthcare System. Toxic masculinity, men yelling, manbuns, manspreading, mansplaining and men having to put the word "man" before everything because their egos were so fragile. Wearing high heels because they are “torture devices of the patriarchy” (Clarke speak for “they make her feet hurt and she’s a wimp.”) Her cousin Ontari.

Favorite Foods: Sushi. Guacamole Doritos (which she had cried genuine tears over being discontinued). Her grandfather’s disgustingly greasy fried egg sandwiches that taste like heartburn. Her mother’s blueberry cheesecake. Avocados (Bellamy never understood what the deal was with white people and avocado; like yeah avocados are great and all, but damn do white people really love avocado.) Movie theater popcorn. Bellamy’s adobo. Octavia’s empanadas. All kinds of Indian food, the spicier the better. Watermelon, especially when it’s filled with vodka. Almost anything that has chocolate in or on it. Potatoes in all their forms, especially the ones that have cheese on them. Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Cheese Blintzes. Cheese fondue. Cheese in general, honestly. “That one thing we got at that one place that one time, Bell!” which he always knew exactly what she was referring to (Dante had always said that Bellamy, like him, was “fluent in Clarke: a skill coveted by the many, but possessed by the few.”)

Hobbies: Smashing the patriarchy. Art; painting, drawing, sculpting, anything that struck her fancy really (she even went through a sand art phase at one point, which ended up being short lived because while she loves art, she hates sand.) Making fun of Bellamy. Conspiring with Octavia to make fun of Bellamy. Making fun of her grandpa Dante. Conspiring with Bellamy to make fun of her grandpa Dante. Equestrian activities, the only kind of formal, organized “sport” she was actually good at (“All I have to do is sit there and tell the horse what to do, Bell. I’m so good at sitting around and telling people what to do!”). Fighting Twitter trolls. Reading, especially her grandfather’s mystery novels. Krav Maga, which Bellamy will admit surprised him a little (and then surprised him more than a little when he’d asked where she’d learned it and she shrugged and said “Israel” like it was as obvious as the inevitability of death and taxes.) Online shopping. Pretending to hate it when Bellamy calls her Princess. Buying and playing video games she doesn’t really understand with her little sister, Madi (“ I can’t trick her into thinking I’m cool anymore so it’s the only way I can get her to hangout with me. I’m just embracing bribery as a form of bonding!”) Over, and incorrectly, using the word “literally.” Telling Bellamy he is literally a pedantic killjoy.

He knew that she was deathly afraid of heights and irrationally paranoid about catching scurvy and getting cat-fished. He knew that she liked real bananas and blueberries but hated banana and blueberry artificial flavoring. He knew that her first kiss was with her best friend Wells in a closet during a game of 7 minutes in heaven at a classmate’s birthday party in 6th grade, and that her first kiss with a girl was in the exact same closet playing the exact same game at the exact same classmate’s birthday party two years later with a girl named Glass. He knew she lasted exactly one and a half years in med school before telling her mother that she needed to choose between Clarke being a doctor and Clarke being alive, because it was it was killing her slowly and driving her insane. He knew that she always ordered some kind of strange, obscure plant or flower to place on her father’s grave every year on the anniversary of his death because “he was weirdo who liked weird shit” (this past year it was a Venus Fly Trap, the year before that it was a Ghost Orchid because she was “feeling ironic.”)

He knew that she once met the Clinton’s at a charity fundraiser when she was little where she told then President Bill Clinton that he looked better with brown hair and threw up on Hillary Clinton’s shoes. He knew that she’d actually thrown up on several member of the rich and powerful elite; notable examples including Condoleezza Rice’s Hermès Birkin bag, Paul Ryan’s Armani sports coat, and Eric Trmups whole entire arm (which she admitted was definitely not an accident.) He knew that she loved school and learning and once got her English Lit teacher fired for failing her on a paper where she argued that Humbert Humbert was an obsessive, delusional, predatory pedophile who deserved to be medically castrated and the teacher had tried to tell her that Lolita was a “tragic love story” and that she was “simply too narrow minded to appreciate Nabokov’s true message.” He knew that she had unsuccessfully tried to pierce her own belly button in high school and managed to successfully pierce her own nose in college. He knew that she has four tattoos: a small crown on the back of her neck (which only made Bellamy double down on the Princess nickname after he found out about it), a lion on her left foot for her father, a lotus flower on her on her right wrist for her ex-girlfriend Lexa, and the Latin translation of “do no harm, take no shit” running down the left side of her rib cage.

He knew that she pretended to hate Valentine's Day when really, every single year, she handmade super elaborate and incredibly awesome cards for all her friends and family members (well, the ones she liked anyway). He knew that she was planning on naming her first daughter Gertrude after her grandmother, Dante’s deceased wife, even though the kid would probably hate her for it because her grandma was a badass and “metal as fuck.” He knew that otters were her favorite animal and that he favorite type of otters were those terrifying Amazonian river otters that could fight crocodiles (which was typical Clarke, honestly.) He knew that she loved her adopted little sister Madi more than anything or anyone in this world and was as fiercely protective of her as he was of his own little sister. He knew that she loved horror movies and hated Claymation because it freaked her out that that she has seen every single episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. at least three times and could sing all the lines of every single song Lana del Ray has ever recorded from memory.

He knew that she started drawing when she was really young and would sit on the floor in her dad’s office and draw on his grid paper while he worked on his designs; he knew that art had helped her through some really hard times like when she started questioning her sexuality and when her father had died and when he girlfriend had been killed and that she hoping to go back to school to become an art therapist. He knew she was stubborn and loyal and empathetic and unafraid to speak her mind. He knew she could be cunning and calculating and ambitious and ruthless and even downright vicious when it came to things going her way or getting what she wanted. Bellamy had just never thought there would come a day where he would be on the receiving end of all that Clarke Griffin Intensity. At least, not like this.

In all the years he’d known her, Clarke had never treated him like one her family’s employees or made him feel like “the help.” She got along (scarily, in Bellamy’s personal opinion) well with his little sister, and took (or sometimes dragged) him out places with her. She asked his opinion on things, and incorporated him into her friend group (while gleefully teasing him about how hot they all thought he was). She went to him for advice, and liked all his friends. She actually read the books and watched the movies and listened to the music he would recommend to her, and made him feel included at Wallace family events and dinners. She always laughed at his dumb jokes (sometimes so hard she would snort, which was his favorite), and would go to his apartment to feed the cat and water the plants when he was out of town. She would text him while she was on a bad date or at a boring event, and listened to all his rants about mythology and colonialism and the Star Wars universe and representation in media and all the historical inaccuracies in every single period drama they ever watched together. She would show him the art pieces she was working on, and remembered shit like his birthday and that he was allergic to tomatoes and the anniversary of his mom’s death and that Nerds were his favorite candy. She treated him like he was someone important to her, someone she cared about even. She made him feel valued and respected. She’d never treated him or made him feel like anything but her equal.

But now, finally looking up at the girl across from him, knowing just how much time and planning and work and effort she’d put into trying to fuck him over and ruin his life, it feels like being in the room with a complete stranger. And it might be one of the worst feelings in the world. Bellamy thought he knew her. Thought he could trust her, that he understood her, that they understood and trusted each other. He had considered her a good friend and, after so many years of knowing her, possibly even a best friend.

He had introduced her to his friends and his sister, and texted her links to stuff she would find funny and when someone said something absurdly ignorant or hilariously dumb on TV. He started keeping those alcoholic ciders she liked better than beer in his fridge, and thought way too hard about what to buy her every year for her birthday. He told her stories about his mom, and his childhood, and his first kiss, and his first girlfriend, and the first time he got punched and the first time he punched someone which were, to Clarke’s endless amusement, two completely different situations.

He told her about how terrified he’d been that he would never see his sister again when they were separated after their mom died, and how for years the only time he felt truly happy was during their weekly visit with their social worker when he got to see her, and how it took the longest time after he was officially able to get custody of her for him to finally relax and not worry that she wasn’t coming back every time she left the apartment, and how fucking proud he was of her for getting into a good college, and all kinds of personal shit he would never just tell to just anyone.

She’d become a fixture in his daily life, a staple in his routine, the first person after O that he wanted to share good news with, and the last person he wanted to say goodbye to before he left the Wallace estate to head home for the day. He let her in.

After years of his mom’s revolving door of terrible boyfriends, and moving around different towns to where ever Aurora could find a job, and constantly having to switch schools, and never really having time to hang out with kids his age because he had a little sister to take care of, and being passed around from foster home to foster home once he was put in the system, Bellamy didn’t just let people in and make friends with them. He has a screening process, a thorough one, what he had thought was an effective one; but somehow, Clarke Griffin had managed to make it through with flying colors in record time.

Bellamy is well aware that, in all likelihood, he should be more concerned about the fact that finding out he didn’t really know Clarke as well as he thought he did feels like his whole world has turned on its head and he doesn’t know which way is up. But between Dante dying and being framed for his murder and having paparazzi actually camped out on his front lawn and being put in charge of an entire estate he has no idea what to do with and bequeathed an amount of money so high he wouldn’t have believed it existed, there’s a lot to be concerned about. He can prioritize. Or at least multitask. Probably.

“Well why don’t we start with who it was that hired me,” Kane begins as he puffs on his pipe.

“We know who hired you,” Bellamy interrupts. “Clarke did. As part of her plan to frame me for Dante’s murder… I really don’t need to hear about it again.” If he has to listen to the whole story in terribly thorough detail again he is definitely going to do something stupid like cry. His voice breaks a little on the last words and out of the corner of his eye her sees Clarke bite her lip and look down at the table. Good, he thinks, she should feel like shit.

“Yes, Clarke did secure my employ,” Kane confirms.

Bellamy almost rolls his eyes. ‘Secure my employ?’ who the actual fuck even talks like that anymore?? While smoking a pipe??? Jesus tap dancing Christ.

“But she did so by proxy,” Kane continues, “under the instruction of her grandfather.”

That stops Bellamy and his internal running commentary on Kane’s outfit (Who the hell wears actual suspenders? And a goddamn deerstalker hat?? Where the hell do you even buy a deerstalker hat anymore?!?) right in their tracks. “Wait… What?”

“Dante Wallace hired me not only to solve his own murder, but to help his granddaughter frame herself while she also pretended to frame you at the same time.”

Bellamy blinks at him.

“You see Dante Wallace knew he was going to be murdered before he committed suicide,” Kane begins what Bellamy suspects is going to be one of the most confusing and ridiculous stories he has ever heard in his life. “And yes, Dante Wallace most definitely did commit suicide.”

This time Bellamy turns to blink at Miller. “Yeah,” he says dryly, “this is about where I started screaming internally too.”

Instead of continuing, Kane uses the pause to pull out that stupid coin he’s always tossing around and flips it in the air, catching it again without even looking but with uncanny precision. Bellamy is sorely tempted to tell him exactly how far he should shove the damn thing up his ass, but he physically restrains himself and waits for Kane to go on.

“Mr. Wallace knew not only that he was dying, but that he was being murdered. Slowly and painfully at that. He knew he was going to die and how, but he didn’t know when it was going to happen or who was doing it. He had a murder and a murder weapon, but no body and no actual death.”

Kane pauses and runs his fingers over his beard. Bellamy is like 99.9% sure this dude grew a beard just so he could stroke it dramatically. “He did have one other thing though,” Kane goes on, “and that was an obvious suspect.” He nods in Bellamy’s direction, “you.”

All three of the room’s other occupants are looking at him in silence. Bellamy’s breath catches and he starts to panic, “But you already cleared me. You said you know it wasn’t me. It wasn’t… I didn’t… I couldn’t… That’s…”

Clarke reaches out and grabs one of his hands. Bellamy can’t help but think that her tiny hand on his huge one shouldn’t be as reassuring as it is. “We know you didn’t do it Bell,” she tells him softly but firmly. She squeezes his hand, “we know you could never.”

He wants to smack her hand away and tell her not to call him that. He wants to tell all three of them to fuck off, he wants to get the hell out of here, he wants to get some weed from Monty the groundskeepers’ stash in the garage, or go down to Polis Pub and have O mix him up of those “kitchen sink” drink thingies she makes that he is pretty sure have what must be an illegal, non FDA approved amount of alcohol in them. He wants to go home and sleep forever, he wants to wake up tomorrow and have this all just be a terrible dream, he wants to travel back in time and never take this fucking job in the first place. He wants to do a lot of things, but he doesn’t. He just stays quiet and waits.

Clarke withdraws her hand and he sees her clench it into a fist on the table in front of her. “Grandpa Dante was being poisoned,” she says matter-of-factly. To anyone else it would seem like she was emotionless; but Bellamy sees the tension in her shoulders, the clench in her jaw, the rapid blinking of her eyes. He has been around the Wallace family long enough to know that they know how to put on masks. The can tamp down their anger, and swallow their sadness, and choke back their tears, and fake out their fear, and affect apathy along with the best of them. But Clarke has her tells, and he knows them. Dante always told him he was observant for his own good; that he was a good judge of character, that he pays attention to detail, that he notices the little things others wouldn��t even know to be looking for. And that one of these days it was going to get him into trouble.

He saw Abby disguise her sorrow and depression and grief after the tragic death of her husband Jake. And a few short years later, saw Clarke as the ice-cold, emotionless mirror image of her mother after her girlfriend Lexa was shot in a drive by. He saw Maya mask her terror the day she got her diagnoses, when she’d found out that she had developed a rare, life threatening blood disorder before she was even able to drive a car, that she would have to go through painful blood transfusions for the foreseeable future just to stay alive, and sees her to the same every time she leaves to go get her treatment. He saw Roan force back his fury every time he sees his mother treat people like dirt and watches his little sister show up to yet another family event high out of her mind. And he constantly saw Dante hide his sense of regret, his feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, when he reflected on what his family had become.

None of them managed to mask their feelings the day Dante’s will was read though, their emotions were written all over their faces: Nia’s fury at being passed over for “the help.” Abby’s shock and confusion at her father’s decision and clear feeling of betrayal and heartbreak that her father trusted Bellamy with his legacy more than he trusted her. Emerson’s horror over not being able to continue to maintain his lifestyle or pay for the treatment his sick stepdaughter needs to survive. Ontari’s hysterics at the easy funding for her pill and powder fixes being cut off. Roan’s indignation when he finally snapped ad yelled at his family members to “chill the fuck out and back the hell off! Bellamy clearly doesn’t know what the fuck is happening even more than we do!” And finally, Cage’s rage over Bellamy daring to take what Cage saw as rightfully his.

Not Clarke though. Clarke remained seated in the arm chair she had unceremoniously plopped down on when she arrived, throwing her legs over one of the arms and pulling up Candy Crush on her phone. Her attention wasn’t focused on her phone anymore though. Unlike the rest of her family, she stayed silent. Also, unlike the rest of her family, her ice blue, all seeing eyes were focused not on him, but on the people gathered around him, yelling and screaming, all hellfire and fury, threats and accusations flying. At first glance she appeared stone faced and detached. But while she studied her family Bellamy looked closer at her and for a brief moment, no more than a second, he saw it: the slight smirk curving at the side of her mouth.

Bellamy couldn’t tell exactly what was running through her mind that day, but he knows what she’s feeling now: grief over Dante’s death, sorrow over losing a family member (one of the only family members) she was close to, anger over her grandpa being murdered, and primarily: pissed as fuck that someone would do this to him. Bellamy still isn’t sure what’s happening or been able to process all the information he’s been given, but he’s starting to strongly suspect that hell hath no fury like Clarke Griffin scorned.

Kane rests a reassuring hand on her shoulder, wordlessly encouraging her to continue. Clarke takes another deep breath seemingly trying to calm herself, like it’s been ages since she felt like she was able to catch it. He knows the feeling. “I figured out he was being poisoned a while back,” she says. “He was just… He was getting sick way too fast.”

“I might not have been in med school for long but I was there long enough to know that his condition shouldn’t have been deteriorating so quickly,” her voice is getting steadier now. “He shouldn’t have been in so much pain, he shouldn’t have been so tired all the time. And nothing was working; some of the treatment should have been working, something should have been working.”

“You must have noticed it,” she half states, half asks. “I mean… He was just so… And nothing was… You had to have noticed it too?”

Yeah, she’s right; he had noticed it. Dante shouldn’t have been so sick so quickly. No matter how much he slept, he always felt tired. He started to lose drastic amounts of weight and his skin started to yellow at a disturbingly rapid pace. His heart rate and blood pressure were all over the place. His bones appeared to have become brittle overnight and he seemed to be in almost perpetual pain, his body shrugging in on itself while he sat, or contorting itself while he slept, just trying to get comfortable. He started getting spells where he was confused, he would have no idea where he was or not remember why he walked into a room or forget something Bellamy had told time only minutes prior. The spells wouldn’t have normally been too alarming in an elderly patient except that this wasn’t any other elderly patient, this was Dante Wallace. He had never been anything but sharp as a tact, quick on his feet, alert and awake and of perfectly sound mind.

She was also right about the treatment. Lung cancer is obviously nothing to scoff about, but the kind Dante was diagnosed with should have at least been manageable, if not treatable or even curable, with the right medication. Medication Bellamy knew he was on because he was the one that administered the drug to Dante every day, which subsequently brought him to the shit storm he was currently caught in without rain boots or an umbrella. Not only did the medication not seem to be doing anything to improve Dante’s condition in any way, they seemed to be making him worse. It was almost like they were causing new symptoms in addition to exacerbating the ones that were already there.

So yeah, he had noticed. Bellamy was no medical professional or trained expert; he was just a caregiver, a companion, he was just “the help,” but even he could tell that something was wrong. Whenever he had tried to express his concerns to members of Dante’s family as well. But whenever he tried to speak with Dante’s children about his health, he was either told off-handedly that it would be checked into, or told in no uncertain terms to mind his own goddamn business or his ass was fired.

“I mean, I’m well aware that me making the illogically, dramatically huge jump straight from ‘my grandpa is super sick’ to ‘MY GRANDPA IS BEING POISONED!’ is a little odd,” Clarke shrugs. “But it turns out that when you’re majoring in pre-med and spend your summers researching insane, off the wall ways to kill someone for your grandfather who writes murder mystery novels, you pick up some things,” she says grimly.

God, he thinks, her whole entire life must just be so weird.

“I remember taking a random medicinal chem class in undergrad,” Clarke starts rambling. “That’s how I think I first figured out what was happening. It took me a while to figure out the specifics, but once the details starting becoming clear it was obvious: Grandpa had anthracycline induced cardiac and pulmonary toxicity that was incorrectly diagnosed as potentially malignant, early stage lung cancer.” She’s talking even more animatedly now and gesturing wildly with her hands like she’s really getting into what she’s saying. Bellamy hates how cute he finds it.

“He was then treated with unnecessary, prolonged, and continuous exposure to radon which not only served to exacerbate his current vascular symptoms, but also caused additional idiopathic neurological, respiratory, skeletal, cardiovascular, and immunological afflictions that caused his condition to deteriorate to the point of inviability,” Clarke explains. Kane is nodding along like this all makes perfect sense to him and that she was explaining something as simple as how two and two makes four.

Bellamy and Miller just stare at her with blank expression of incomprehension on their faces. Miller previously had his pen poised over his notepad like he would have written down every word she said if he knew how to spell half of them. Now he just sighs and tucks his pen behind his ear and shoves the notepad back into his back pocket.

“Uh huh, right, exactly,” he says dryly. “How about you repeat that one more time in Normal Person.”

“He was poisoned with something that made it look like he had lung cancer,” she states matter-of-factly.

Miller shots Bellamy a look that he knows is asking “the fuck couldn’t she have just said that the first time?!” There’s a similar expression on his own face right now, he’s sure.

“Then he started getting chemo and radiation for the Not Lung Cancer which probably ended up giving him the Actual Lung Cancer and definitely gave him a whole bunch of other bad shit. He was slowly but surely dying,” she swallows and looks down at her hands, picking at one of her fingernails. “And the stuff that was supposed to be helping him was really just causing radon poisoning and killing him more quickly and painfully,” the crack in her voice makes him want to fold her up in his arms and tell her everything is going to be okay, the way she had for him so many times over the past week. Until he reminds himself that we don’t comfort people who try to frame us for murder. People who try to frame us for murder are assholes, no matter how pretty they are.

“My first guess was obviously Cage,” she goes on, “mostly because he sucks and I hate him. But still, it's not like I was wrong. It took a while for me to convince grandpa though, he was actually really pissed at me for even suggesting it in the first place.”

Bellamy remembers those few weeks severalmonths back when Clarke had stopped coming around and Dante had gone from his usual “exasperating old man shouts at cloud” to “insufferably cranky asshole.” When Bellamy suggested that maybe they invite Clarke over to cheer him up since she hadn’t been around in a while, Dante had just glared even harder and huffed that he and Clarke had “parted ways” due to “irrevocable creative differences” before flouncing from the room like an egregiously offended prima donna and locking himself in his study for the remainder of the day.

“I finally managed to convince him by figuring out where Cage would have been getting whatever he was poisoning grandpa with: his wife.”

Bellamy didn’t really know Cage’s wife, Dr. Lorelai Tsing Wallace, very well. Nor had he made any effort too. Primarily because she gave him the fucking creeps. She wasn’t the same brand of downright terrifying like Nia, or intimidatingly poised like Abby. She was scary in her very own, unique “don’t stand so close to me,” “makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up,” Stranger Danger kind of way. He would catch her eyeing him with interest sometimes, and he could never quite tell if it was in an “I want to jump you” kind of way or an “I want to kidnap you and harvest your organs” kind of way.

“It seems that the pharmaceutical development company Dr. Tsing works for had been doing a great deal of experimentation with alternative forms of radiation and chemotherapy treatment.” Kane says from where he’s returned to his perch on the table. “Namely, orally administrated, pill forms of radon.”

“We haven’t been able to establish any conclusive evidence that Lorelai Tsing-Wallace was knowingly or willfully involved in her husband’s plot to kill his father,” Miller interrupts, all procedure and formality. All three of them look at him with thoroughly unimpressed faces. “But yeah,” he concedes. “I honestly have no idea how the hell Cage would have gotten his hands on so much radon for so long without her help.”

“So yeah,” Clarke continues. “Once I was able to sit grandpa down and calmly and rationally explain to him what was happening to him and how, he was persuaded to see reason.

It’s another part of the story that Bellamy can’t help but snort at, because looking back, he’s pretty sure he remembers the exact incident she’s talking about. After going weeks without seeing her, Clarke had stormed into the house like a category 5 hurricane (as opposed to her typical level 2 tornado) and stomped up the stairs to Dante’s study. She’d pounded incessantly on the door, demanding he let her in and talk to her. And when he’d continuously and steadfastly refused she’d threatened to “kick in his antique, handcrafted, mahogany door with her heavy-duty riding boots that he knew would fuck that door right up because he bought them for her and knew exactly how expensive they were and exactly how much she was not screwing around.”

Eventually Dante had relented and after that there was a lot of muffled yelling and what definitely sounded like things being thrown and furniture being knocked over, all of which was typical for a Wallace family argument. “You can never say we lack passion,” Dante had always told him. But it was the eerie silence that came after that was concerning. After they were quiet for so long that Bellamy genuinely began to worry that they had somehow managed to kill each other, he relented and made his way up the stairs.

His soft knock was met with an even softer “come in.”

Bellamy had popped his head in and teased “just wanted to make sure everyone was still alive up here.”

God in hindsight that was such a terrible joke, pun absolutely not intended he swears.

“Yes, yes, everything is just fine Bellamy, fine.” Dante had said quietly. Both he and Clarke had been sitting at his desk, red eyed, red faced, and looking horribly sad and defeated.

“Uh ok,” Bellamy had cleared his throat. “Well can I get either of you anything?”

Dante didn’t answer, still staring at his desk, so Clarke said “No I think we’re fine… Everything is… Fine.”

Dante had looked up at that point. “Yes,” he’d said, still sounding odd. “Just fine… You may go for the day.”

Bellamy should have known at that moment that something was up; it was only 11 am and Dante rarely ever even dismissed him an hour early, much less before noon. But he’d just shrugged it off as “family stuff” he didn’t want or need to get involved in, and made his way home, honestly happy to have a day off.

“All that evidence combined with the fact that, starting several months earlier, Cage had apparently started coming around more often wanting to do “guys night” with grandpa and bringing over whatever absurdly exotic, stupidly expensive liquor he could find that week for them to try, was what finally did it.” Clarke continues her story.

Bellamy remembers that, too. Cage had started coming around in the evenings to visit with Dante and they would drink and smoke cigars out on the screened in porch or in the den. Bellamy had been wary of why Cage started coming over so often when he had basically never made an effort to spend any time “getting to know” his father since Bellamy could remember. Dante had, of course, decided to humor him saying “perhaps there’s still time.” Bellamy had never really figured out what there was possibly still “time” for, given that there was no amount of time in the world that could reform Cage into a halfway decent excuse for a human being. But he guessed that was really none of his business.

When he’d asked about it off-handedly, Cage had thrown him some kind of excuse about “who even knew how much longer the old quack was going to survive, so he needed to get in quality time while he could.” Bellamy had just glared and scoffed quietly when Cage turned his back, chalking it up to Cage being an insensitive asshole and generally awful person who was just trying to make sure he would get his cut after his father died. Bellamy just hadn’t realized exactly how far Cage was willing to go to make that happen. At that moment, Bellamy also remembers that after the Hurricane Clarke situation was apparently resolved, that Dante stopped seeing Cage as often. He would make up well and truly absurd excuses like “he volunteered to referee a charity tennis game… at 7 at night… in the middle of January” for Bellamy to give Cage about why he couldn’t come over in the evenings or why Dante wouldn’t be making it to Cage’s house for their usual Thursday night dinners. Eventually Cage got the message and just gave up; not that Bellamy had minded getting to blow Cage off. It had become one of the highlights of his day.

“It was also me who figured out that the person he was probably trying to pin the poisoning on was you,” Clarke says.

“Okay this is one of the parts I’m still a little fuzzy on,” Miller interjects.

“Same,” Bellamy agrees, with feeling.

“I mean it was basically just simple process of elimination,” Clarke says, like figuring this out had been nothing more than a leisurely stroll in the park. And for her it might have been honestly. She’s terrifying.

“Cage was going to have to pin it on someone, he might be a slimy little shit weasel but he’s not completely stupid. And the fact that you gave grandpa his meds, including his radon shots, every day and night, made you the most obvious and ideal candidate.” She’s right of course. “They were going to need some way to explain the inexplicably high levels of radon in Dante’s system. So the most straight forward strategy would be to make it look like you were either knowingly, willfully, and purposefully trying to kill him, or at least make a solid case for elder abuse and negligent homicide.”

“That’s also why we felt we couldn’t go to the police at that point,” she says sadly. “We had no real idea how long Cage had been at this, except that it had been awhile. And we also had no idea just how much evidence he could have fabricated against you, how well he had covered his tracks. He wasn’t just a step ahead of us, he could have hiked the whole Appalachian trail for all we knew.”

“That’s probably also how he came up with the insulin and morphine ol’ switcheroo scheme,” Kane says.

Switcheroo? Bellamy can’t with this guy, he really just can’t.

“And this is where you lose me,” Miller interjects. “How do we jump from Long-term Radiation Poisoning to Lethal Morphine Overdoes to Slit Throat. Not that I don’t think it’s not possible,” he reassures them, "mostly because you are all insane,” he tacks on to the end. “It’s just that I’m gonna have to explain all this to a jury, and with those three potential causes of death, I can barely draw a Venn diagram… And juries love diagrams, so I’m gonna have to come up with something to show them.”

“Have you considered a histogram?” Kane asks, completely unhelpfully. “I know they have developed a somewhat questionable reputation in the chart and graph community, but there is really something to be said for…”

Miller just levels him with a glare that Bellamy is pretty sure could cut through bullet proof glass and Kane raises his hands in apparent surrender. “Just something to consider.”

“Anyway,” Clarke says, bringing them all back to the task at hand. “Like most heartless psychopaths, Cage is nothing if not a determined little creep. It’s why he has several restraining orders again him. I don’t even know how many it is at this point to be honest.” She glances over at Miller, “Could you look that up for me actually? I’ve always wondered and whenever I try to ask him about it he gets all testy.” Miller just looks at her disapprovingly, but when she turns away Bellamy sees Miller write a quick note on his pad and yeah, he’s totally looking that up. They’re all curious about how many it could possibly even be now.

“Since his quality poisoning time with grandpa had been severely limited once we figured out what he was doing, we knew he was going to come up with another plan. He once called 73 ‘Kate Johnstons’ trying to find a girl who had already changed her phone number once because he wouldn’t stop harassing her. His brand of Relentless Creeper Bravado knows no bounds,” she says with a disgusted, despairing look on her face.

“We could never tell exactly when it was going to happen or how it was going to go down,” Clarke said. “But we knew it would be coming eventually. Grandpa knew he would have to help you when the time came, and he also knew that I would need to be there to have your back and cover anything that might look like your tracks in the aftermath. I mean, I had to make it look like I was throwing you under the bus and then hanging you out to dry. But I really was trying to cover your ass. It’s a great ass, I would have hated for anything to happen to it,” Clarke grins a little like the cat that ate the canary and Bellamy can’t catch himself before he starts to grin back. It’s been a long day alright, there’s no way he’s going to be able to keep track of everything that’s happening and control his facial expressions at the same time, sue him.

God he would be a terrible murderer. There is just way too much going on, he would never have been able to keep all this straight.

“We knew we needed to make the plan, including the final cause of death, airtight so that no average cop would ever even consider you as a suspect. No offense,” she says, glancing over at Miller who just shrugs like he wouldn’t have even considered taking offense in the first place.

“So that’s when it was decided that Clarke would be the Moriarty to our Holmes and Watson,” Kane says with a flourish of his pipe.

“I want you to be the Watson to my Holmes on this Mr. Blake,” Kane had said a few days into the investigation. “As one of the last people to see Dante Wallace alive, you have a unique insight into his state of mind and what happened that frightful night… Whaddya say?”

“Sounds like a dream come true, sir.” Bellamy had deadpanned, biting his cheeks to keep from smiling when he heard Clarke inelegantly, and completely ineffectively, attempt to cover her snort of laughter from somewhere in the background.

Kane had just grinned at him. “The game is afoot, eh Watson?” he’d joked in his comically slow, exaggerated southern drawl. That time he was pretty sure Clarke didn’t even try to choke back her snickering.

“Wait…” Clarke says glancing up at Kane. “Would I technically be Moriarty or Irene?”

“Well,” Kane ponders, stroking that goddamn beard again. “You were technically good even thought you were pretending to be bad, so wouldn’t that make you Irene?”

“Yeah… But I was still pretending to be something I wasn’t, so wouldn’t that just make me Moriarty either way?”

“Guys,” Miller interrupts their exchange.

“Right. Sorry,” Clarke says, like she’s just remembering where she is and what’s happening. Kane, on the other hand, looks like he’s still deeply considering the question and will continue to do so for the time being.

“It was actually the slit throat that tipped me off in the first place,” Clarke says with a little shake of her head and a half smile, half grimace. “If grandpa was really going to commit suicide he would never do it by slitting his throat,” she explains.

“He refused to use it as the cause of death in any of his novels because he considered them ‘offensively unimaginative’ and ‘inelegantly pedestrian’,” Clarke says, doing her best Dante impression which, Bellamy must admit, is pretty good. “But it was an effective way to blatantly show that his death was definitely self-induced. So that’s how I knew that something had gone wrong,” Clarke explains. “And when you told me about the accidental morphine overdose I knew it had to be the King of Try Hard’s plan put in motion and that it was Go Time…. No pun intended,” she adds quickly.

Bellamy runs his hand over his face thinking about the Go board, which is probably locked up in evidence right now, covered in Dante’s blood.

“Apparently,” she continues with a look in her eyes that could only be described as ‘murder mode’, “grandpa Dante was taking too long to die for Cage, so he decided to expedite the process. He knew that grandpa would never be able to say no to his birthday cake at the party.”

It was his favorite, German chocolate. Cage special ordered a huge one from Dante’s favorite bakery just for his birthday Bellamy remembers sourly. “I can’t believe you lived through World War II just to keel over and die from a German induced sugar high,” Bellamy had teased him while Dante dug into his second piece.

“Maybe so,” Dante had grinned at him. “But what a way to go eh?” Bellamy had just chuckled and walked away. He remembers reminding himself to make sure Dante got his insulin that night, and to make sure he got the higher dosage.

He can’t smile or laugh about that memory now though. All he can do is remember the horror and heartbreak that came just a few short hours later. He can feel himself starting to panic as he remembered looking down at the tiny glass bottles that held Dante’s insulin and morphine prescriptions. The terror that almost made his heart stop when he realized he’d given Dante more than 200 milligrams of morphine instead of insulin — more than enough to be a fatal dose.

“Hey, hey, Bellamy you gotta breathe,” he hadn’t even registered her moving, but somehow Clarke was kneeling right in front of him. Bellamy sucks in a deep breath through his mouth, but somehow the oxygen still doesn’t reach his lungs and he starts gasping for air.

He remembers the horror that washed over him as he realized: he’d switched the medication vials; the way it grew and started squeezing his lungs and clawing at his throat as he discovered that the emergency Naloxone was missing from his med kit. He remembers the feeling of urgency washing over him while he quickly told Dante what he did and picked up the phone to dial 911. The confusion when Dante pulled the phone cord out of the wall telling Bellamy they needed to “not be too hasty” and “to think this through” all the while Bellamy desperately trying to tell him that he only had ten minutes.

“Ten minutes until what?” he’d asked blandly.

“Ten minutes until you’re dead Dante! Like, stone cold dead. No do overs, no take backs.” Bellamy remembers trying to yell, but what came out was high pitched, hysterical panic. “We need to get you an ambulance NOW!” He’d lunged for the phone again, but Dante stopped him.

“Bellamy, son, listen to me right now,” Dante had said in his most serious I Am Dante Wallace and I Am Not Fucking Around voice. “If it’s only ten minutes, I’m already as good as gone. There is no way an ambulance could ever get here in ten minutes. We are too far from a main road, too far back on the property.”

“Dante, listen… There is no time, you have to listen! We have to get you help!” Bellamy had begged him, not even trying to maintain any of his composure at that point.

“Stop it! Stop this, Bellamy!” Dante had said, his voice even more serious and harsh. “Don’t you understand? If what you said is true, there is no saving me. If you call for help, the authorities will find you and a dead body and you will be in serious trouble for this. Trouble that you may never recover from.”

“I don’t care!” Bellamy had yelled. “I’ll deserve it!” I killed you, he’d wanted to scream. You’ll be dead and it will be all my fault.

“Think Bellamy, think about this. What about your sister? If you are tied up in, or even bankrupted by, lawsuits and legal proceedings and very possibly end up having to serve jail time, who will take care of Octavia? Who will be there for her? Who will protect her?”

Bellamy had glared over at Dante, he knew O is Bellamy’s kryptonite. He’s right though, Bellamy can’t just leave his baby sister alone in the world, not when he’s the only family she has left. Not when she’s relying on him, when he’s putting a roof over her head and making sure she eats and sleeps and does all those things young adults seem to constantly forget to do. Not when he’s paying for her health insurance and car insurance and putting her through college and planning on helping her with grad school. All with the money he made from this job. Fuck. He can’t just abandon her, can’t bring her whole life crashing down around her. He can’t do to her what was done to him when their mother died.

Dante must have noticed the change in Bellamy’s demeanor because he’d placed his hands on Bellamy’s shoulders and said, “We have to get you out of this. If you go down for this, your family will be broken again, but we aren’t going to let that happen are we? You need to listen to me very carefully and do exactly as I tell you… Will you do this Bellamy? This last thing. For me. For your family.”

He remembers trying to calm himself down and snap himself out of the overwhelming, panic-stricken haze that had overtaken his brain as he tried to pay attention to all of Dante’s instructions. He remembers the frenzied anxiety that he felt trying to remember what Dante had told him to do. Was it the drain pipe on the left or the right side of the house? Was he supposed to turn off the road before or after the tiered fountain?? What was the back-gate lock combination again??? Bellamy had known every single lock combination on the estate for years, but in that moment it had taken him at least six guesses. He remembers the frantic need to get as far away from the estate as quickly as he possibly could as he was driving home.

He remembers walking into his apartment and all the adrenaline that must have been keeping him upright completely disappearing. He remembers dragging himself into his room and lying in his bed all night, not sleeping a wink, just staring at his god awful beige colored bedroom ceiling, sobbing silent tears, a nifty little life hack he had picked up during childhood so as not to wake O who was usually sleeping in the room right next to his, if not in the actual bed right next to him. He remembers the freight train of emotions steamrolling over him as he realized that one of his best friends was dead. That he had killed one of the only true friends he’d ever had in this world.

The thing that he remembers most vividly of all though, was turning around to open the door to Dante’s study right after he’d stepped out to say “Fuck it. I’m calling you a goddamn ambulance, I don’t give a shit,” just in time to see Dante slitting his own throat.

“No, no, in through your nose and out through your mouth Bell,” Clarke says a little more urgently, jerking him back into the present moment. She grabs his hands and pushes her thumbs hard into the middle of his palms, trying to ground him. “Close your mouth and breathe through your nose and think about something else, like Kane’s stupid pipe. I know how much you hate that thing.”

Kane’s expression momentarily turns from concerned to offended. When he opens his mouth Bellamy just knows he’s about to launch into a diatribe about how pipes are traditional and sophisticated and all that shit. The thought makes Bellamy snort out a laugh which interrupts his breathing efforts and he starts gasping again.

Then Kane comes to kneel next to Clarke and looks at Bellamy with the first serious, sincere expression he thinks he’s seen from the man since he met him. “Bellamy, son,” he starts in that ridiculous drawl that Bellamy is sure must be greatly exaggerated, if not totally fake, but doesn’t really know enough about Southern dialect to call him out on it.

“Bellamy listen to me,” Kane goes on, making Bellamy meet his eyes and squeezing his shoulder. “You didn’t kill him, son. You did not kill Dante or do anything that led to or resulted in his death. You are an innocent man, Bellamy Blake.”

Bellamy tries to listen to what they are saying to him, but it sounds like they are talking under water and he feels like he’s drowning.

Miller rushes back into the room with a styrofoam cup that he gives to Clarke who then thrusts it into one of his hands while keeping hold of the other. “Here,” she says decisively, like somehow this cup is going to single handedly subdue the sheer panic tsunami that’s still building up inside him. Maybe they just think he needs something to throw up in. When Bellamy looks down at the cup though, he sees that it's full of ice cubes. “Now start crunching and breathe through your goddamn nose.” He does what he’s told and can’t believe she remembers such a small, insignificant detail like that this is his mental breakdown self-medication of choice.

They had been at the Dropship Diner for about an hour or two, and it was during one of the lulls in their anxiety inducing and more than a little depressing conversation about What the Actual Fuck Happened to Dante that he'd noticed her staring at him.

“What?” he’d asked. “Do I have something on my face?”

Clarke had blinked like someone just woken her up from a coma and then shaken her head a little ruefully. “No,” then she’d smiled slyly at him. “Well… At least not anything you can fix.”

He’d snorted. “So just thinking about who you’re going to hire to slowly and painfully kill me to avenge your grandfather’s death then?” He’d only been about half teasing, give or take. Clarke was very much her grandfather’s granddaughter in that she could be downright terrifyingly intimidating when she wanted to be.

She’d cackled at that. “Definitely not,” she’d laughed. “I mean, why outsource a job I could easily do myself?” Bellamy wouldn’t put it past her to be honest, but her grin while she said it had made the would be threat completely ineffective, and he could feel some of his nerves finally begin to settle a bit.

“I’m honestly just wondering how in the world you still have any teeth,” she'd said, shaking her head. “Did you make some kind of dental deal with the devil? Can he do something about my molars? I mean, I know I clench my jaw all the time, but them chipping so often feels a little dramatic.”

He’d barked out a laugh. “What?”

“Well I’ve watched you chew your way through cup after cup of ice water with the hyper focus of some kind of robot beaver on meth, but I don’t think you’ve actually drank a single drop of actual water.”

Bellamy looks around him and sees that yep, there are about eleven half empty water glasses in front of him that he had sucked the ice out of with the tenacity of a Roomba.

He runs a shaky hand through his hair. “Just a weird coping mechanism,” he’d told her. “I started doing it as a kid. We were too poor to get me on any actual anxiety medication or pay for me to do something constructive with all my nervous energy, like ice dance kickboxing or therapeutic underwater basket weaving or whatever it is you rich kids do.” She’d snorted at that but still nodded her head as if to say fair enough. “But between all my mom’s shitty, drug addict boyfriends and being my little sister’s primary caregiver while still trying to get good enough grades to not get kicked out of the charter school I was in, I had a lot of nervous energy. So yeah, ice chomping it was.”

“Wow,” she’d said. “That took a real hard left from cute childhood anecdote to tragic backstory really quickly. Never even saw the plot twist coming.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a few of those,” he'd told her, trying for a joking tone but completely missing it, if the way her expression had softened was any indication.

"I know you do.” She'd said quietly.

“You know you’d make a perfect broody detective with a tragic childhood in one of my grandpa’s books,” she’d said lightly, obviously trying to bring the levity back to the conversation. “You know, the dramatic ho, asshole with a heart of gold type who says shit like ‘they work outside of the law, but on the side of justice’ .”

He’d just shaken his head and smiled ruefully at her before putting his head in his heads, thinking about how much he was going to fucking miss Dante and willing himself not to start crying again. He’d cried more in those past few days than he had in a long time.

“SO!” she’d said loudly all perk and pep, clapping her hands like an annoyingly upbeat cheerleader and jolting him out of his reverie. “What are we gonna do about the whole ‘you potentially being caught propelling down a drain pipe with the stealth of a cat thrown into a swimming pool a few minutes after grandpa’s overdose’ thing? Because even I gotta say… That one is gonna be a toughie.”

Of course she remembers, he muses, she’s Clarke. And even though he’d never admit it, he’s pretty sure he remembers every single small, insignificant detail he’d ever learned about her too. She’s Clarke after all, his Clarke. The thought comes with such startling clarity and certainty that it’s what finally manages to snap him all the way out of the deep, dark panic hole he had been digging.

He opens his eyes and sees that Kane has moved away giving him some space. But Clarke is still there, holding his hand tightly in hers and stroking her thumb gently over his knuckles. She’s looking up at him from her place on the floor; all soft, concerned blue eyes and earnest, encouraging heartbreaker smile and yeah, he thinks, definitely His Clarke.

“Did you hear what Kane said, Bell?” she asks gently. “You’re innocent, you didn’t do it.”

Bellamy opens his mouth to contradict her, but Miller interrupts him before he can say anything, “It’s true Mr. Blake. Dante Wallace’s official cause of death is in fact blood loss from a self-inflicted stab wound.”

Bellamy opens his mouth again to point out that Dante never would have cut his own throat if Bellamy hadn’t fucked up and given him a huge overdose of morphine, but Miller also interrupts him again. “The toxicology screens and blood tests conducted as part of Mr. Wallace's autopsy also showed that there was no morphine in his system at all, just his normal dosage of insulin. In fact, the only abnormality found on Mr. Wallace's tox screens was an irregularly high level of radon in his system. Inexplicably high, even for someone who had been undergoing regular treatments of radiation or chemotherapy for some time. You didn’t give Dante Wallace an overdose of morphine or any other drug.”

Bellamy just sits there, totally speechless and completely dumbfounded.

“Now that Wallace’s deathly has been unequivocally ruled a suicide, neither you, nor anybody else, is under investigation for his murder,” Miller says firmly.

“But,” he goes on and Bellamy feels his gut clench again. There’s always a but. “In anticipation of the potential event that Dante Wallace’s death was not a suicide, we started considering potential motives. With a man like Dante and his considerable fortune and assets, as I’m sure you could imagine, money was obviously the first thing we came up with.”

“Dante’s oldest child, Abigail Caroline Griffin had no financial motive to want him dead that we could find.” Miller said nodding at Clarke. “Nor could we find any financial motive for his other daughter Antonia Elizabeth Kingcade. Like, none. Absolutely. Whatsoever.” And damn, Bellamy knew that was the god’s honest truth.

Not only was Nia still getting alimony and child support for Ontari from her ex-husband, who somehow managed to make more money than she did, he knew that Nia regularly made a killing in her own career. Figuratively that is; although it’s totally possible Nia actually kills people as part of her job, he wouldn’t be that surprised. Bellamy never knew what exactly it was that Nia did honestly; every time he’d try to ask someone, including her own son, they would open their mouths and start to answer him only to say something like “huh” and scratch their heads trying to figure out if they just couldn’t remember or ever even knew in the first place. Eventually they would start to look like they were thinking so hard they might hurt themselves, so Bellamy would just say “never mind” and eventually gave up trying to find out. All he really knew about what Nia did for a living was that she did a lot of it and that she did it very well. Well enough to land herself a spot on the high ends of all those “Fortune 500,” “50 Most Influential Under 50,” “Lifestyles of the Super Rich and Powerful,” "Have Never Paid Their Federal Income Taxes," "We Could Probably End First World Poverty But Just Choose Not To," lists that magazines like Forbes and Time made year after year.

“His oldest son Cage Bradford Wallace however,” Miller says with a pained look on his face like the name is so douchey it offends him to have to say it. Bellamy will hand it to him that it is an offensively douchey name. It's almost like his parents knew he was going to be an offensive douche bag and named him accordingly, “had more motivation than a Richard Simmons workout video. Turns out that Wallace Jr. has been running his ‘investment firm’ less as a business and more as a personal piggy bank. We think he figured out a long time ago that it was going to catch up with him and that he was going to have to somehow magically replace all the money he’d stolen from his investors. But apparently the scheme he came up with the get that money was less magical and more... attempted homicidal.”

“We have a forensics team sweeping his home, his car, and his office right now as well as digging through all his trash,” Miller says. “And I’m not a betting man… At least not during the week anyway… But I am more than willing to bet we are going to find radon residue all over Cage’s entire life from the past year or so.”

The door swings open, interrupting Miller’s monologue, which he looks vaguely put out by. “Not probably, definitely.” It’s Detective Reyes, Miller’s partner and head of the forensics team on the case, and who is the same brand of disconcertingly intelligent and unnervingly observant that Clarke is.

The first time he’d met her, she’d been taking his fingerprints and DNA sample and collecting fingernail scrapings and whatever else it is forensic people collect. He was having a hard time focusing at that point, the panic fog still hanging thick over his brain.

“Okay, you’re all set!” She’d declared when she was finished with whatever it was she was doing. “I’ll let you get back to your cat.”

“My…?” he’d started, staring dumbly at her.

“Your… cat…,” she’d said slowly, like she was trying to explain the rules of Candy Land to a four year-old. “Orange Calico, I’m pretty sure… Might be a Tabby though.”

“How did you…?”

She’d reached over to pluck off a tiny orange hair Sphinx must have left on his jacket that his heavy-duty lint roller didn’t catch. Then she’d just grinned like a wolf and left him with a cheery “have a nice day!” and blown out of the room in a whirlwind as quickly as she came in.

“We also strongly suspect that Carl Emerson Wallace is a co-conspirator in his father’s death,” Kane adds flipping his little coin thingy again. Bellamy decides that he really doesn’t need to work both the pipe and the coin at the same time. One would be enough for him to maintain whatever vibe he’s going for. Bellamy still isn’t completely sure what that vibe is exactly, but at this point he’s a little too afraid, and mostly too tired, to ask.

“Not only did he also have a financial motive,” Reyes says letting a stack of file folders drop loudly onto the table and making everyone in the room jump, “being that he too was broke. But a search of his car turned up a small vial of Naloxone, which he has no business or reasonable explanation for having in the first place. And it will likely prove to be the emergency Naloxone missing from your kit.”

The emergency Naloxone Bellamy needed that night. The Naloxone that would have saved Emerson’s own father’s life. Bellamy can’t help but clench his jaw and tighten his hold on Clarke’s hand. Fucking Emerson, this would be the one time he manages to do something vaguely useful or slightly right.

“Okay. Ow. Bell,” Clarke interrupts his mental tirade by poking his leg. “I know I’m not your favorite person right now, but maybe we can negotiate about which of my appendages you get to rip off? Because I like my fingers, and I just got this manicure.”

Bellamy looks down to see that Clarkes fingers are literally turning white in his grip. “Sorry,” he says sheepishly letting go of her hand. He can’t help but chuckle, both at himself and over the fact that Clarke doesn’t know she’s basically his favorite person in any given room at any given time. Even, evidently, when she’s fake framing him for murder.

She just smiles ruefully at him and gives his hand one more warm, reassuring squeeze before making her way back to where she had been sitting on the other side of the table. He wants to drag her back over to him; to take her hand back in his and fold her under his arm and know she’s on his side again. But he doesn’t, he can maintain some level of chill. He can.

“We knew Cage would fuck up at some point,” Clarke says once she’s settled. “He might be a clever little douche canoe, but he’s not that smart. And his first major fuck up was thinking you would fuck up.”

"He switched are the vials in your med kit," Miller says when Bellamy looks at him questioningly, "or had someone switch them around for him, as the case may be."

Fucking Emerson.

"It was as simple as using the syringes in your kit to switch the liquids in the insulin and morphine medication vials, and then taking the emergency Naloxone as a precaution," Reyes explains. "So simple even an idiot like Emerson could apparently do it."

Bellamy might just end up in jail for murder after all before this is over, because he is going to fucking kill Emerson.

“Apparently, the one thing Cage didn’t count on was that, unlike him, you are actually competent at your job,” Kane says pulling several small vials out of his bag on the floor next to him and setting them on the table in front of Bellamy. "Not just competent; dedicated, skilled, exceptional, unerringly so it turns out. And for that reason, you did not give Dante an overdose, you did not use the incorrect medication. You switcherooed the switcheroo."

Bellamy can't even be annoyed at Kane's word choice, because he is genuinely to stunned to think straight.

“That’s impossible,” he manages to choke out. “I was there… I know what I… I know I gave him an overdose.”

“No, you didn’t,” Kane counters. “Here, I’ll show you… Hand me that vial of morphine.”

Without thinking Bellamy grabs the bottle of morphine from the table and hands it to Kane, who takes it from him grinning. “If you look Mr. Blake, you’ll see that I have taped over the labels of all these medication vials, and the vials themselves are identical… So how did you know this was the morphine?”

“I just knew,” Bellamy says shocked as hell and honestly surprised he can talk.

“Yes, you just knew. You knew because there are the slightest, almost imperceptible difference of tincture and viscosity between all these liquids. You knew because you had administered these exact same medications to Dante Wallace steadfastly and without fail every night for years. You knew because you'd done it hundreds, if not thousands, of times. You gave him the correct medication because you are a good care giver.”

“Then Dante was…?”

“I’m sorry Mr. Blake, but yes,” Kane says sadly. “Mr. Wallace was perfectly fine. His blood was normal. The cause of death was truly, solely suicide, and you are guilty of nothing but some slight property damage in the form of a broken drainpipe and a few amateur, albeit impressive, theatrics. In fact, if he had listened to you and called the ambulance, he would be alive today.”

Bellamy swears his heart actually breaks in that moment. He can feel the sharp, relentless pain starting in his chest and radiating through his entire body as he puts a hand over his mouth and chokes out a strangled sob.

“Yeah,” Clarke says sounding and looking absolutely miserable. “You would think he would have learned at some point to just listen to you,” she tries to tease, but it doesn’t quite land.

“Anyway,” she says curtly, quickly wiping a tear off her cheek like it’s personally offending her. “Once we found out that grandpa had left you literally everything, Cage was even more likely to start getting sloppy and desperate. But what we couldn’t have happen was for us to wait for Cage to dig his own grave and have you go down in the meantime. And I just so happened to be the perfect scapegoat,” a little bit of her grin coming back. “The greedy, self-obsessed granddaughter whose more than willing to hang ‘the help’ out to dry so she can get her perfectly moisturized hands on her share of granddaddy dead and dearest’s dough.”

It’s in that moment that Bellamy actually understands just how immeasurably huge of a gamble Clarke took in risking her ass for this. Sure, it was a calculated risk, with several elaborate fail safes and back up plans, but still. As he begins to truly appreciate what Clarke had done, what she had been willing to do, all for him, to keep him out of trouble. The guilt settles over him like a dark, heavy cloud. He’s spent days hating her. He has said some truly heinous things about her in anger. He had no second thoughts about believing the absolute worst of her. She’s supposed to be his friend. He should have known she would never truly do something like try to frame him for murder she committed. Hell, he should have known that she wasn’t even capable of committing any type of murder at all, much less the one of a person she loved. Clarke could never in any time, dimension, or universe do anything like that. Not his Clarke.

She must notice the heaviness settle over him because when he opens his mouth to start apologizing to her, he’s not above begging really, she puts her hand up and says “I know what you’re gonna say, and don’t… I also know exactly what you’re thinking, and stop.” Honestly he’s sure she really does know, she always knows somehow.

“Yeah sure it was risky,” she says with a shrug, like possibly going down for first degree murder is about as potentially risky as buying a lottery ticket. “But, given the fact that I didn’t actually kill grandpa Dante, they never would have been able to come up with much more than a pretty weak, completely circumstantial case against me… Again, no offense,” she says to Miller who just nods as if to say ‘well, it’s not untrue.’

“And besides, it’s not like I couldn’t afford adequate legal representation who could have totally gotten me out of it. I mean, we might have had to sell one of the summer homes, but it’s like they always say: victory stands on the back of sacrifice,” she says with a completely straight face.

That does startle a bark of a laugh out of him, but the guilt is still there. It’s pinched between his eyebrows and clenched in his fists and sitting heavy in his gut. He knows he won’t be free of it until he really gets to talk to her. Just the two of them. Together. But this clearly isn’t the time or the place to do it. There’s already way too much going on.

“Here’s what I don’t get,” Miller interrupts, startling Bellamy. He had genuinely forgotten Miller was there, or that they were in a police station, and pretty much everything else that was happening. Clarke tends to have that effect on people. Well, mostly him, that he knows of; but he’s sure there are others somewhere. “Why not just tell Bellamy all of this?”

“Kane wasn’t just being figurative or facetious when he said Bellamy was ‘too honest’ to be in on it,” Clarke says. “He is literally incapable of being a convincing enough liar for us to have told him anything about it. He has an unfortunately obvious tell when he tries to lie.”

Ah, so Dante told her about the stutter. Bellamy knows he shouldn’t be surprised really, especially now that he knows Clarke was Dante’s ghost writer. And Clarke was observant as hell, it was totally possible that she just picked up on it herself. He tried not to make it a habit to lie to his employers, but when you are working for the impossibly rich and impossible to please, sometimes it’s necessary. He could usually make it through a quick fib without his voice shaking too much, but he knew it was still noticeable if you were paying attention or looking for it.

“Yeah,” he says with a grimace. “It’s a little nervous habit I picked up during childhood.” He knows that’s putting it very, very lightly. He’s not sure exactly how much Dante would have told Clarke about how Bellamy developed the “stammers when he tries to lie” thing. Probably not much, considering the fact that it’s not a particularly fun or entertaining story to tell.

It had started with one of his mom’s shitty boyfriends, who happened to be O’s dad, which came with the unfortunate side effects of him not just being around for a while, but actually living with them for an extended period of time. While all of Aurora Blake’s boyfriends had been shitty humans in general, this one’s particular brand of shiftiness was a drug induced one. The guy, whose name Bellamy refuses to remember on principle, was a crazy, paranoid tweaker who had decided that 10 year-old Bellamy was somehow the root cause of all his problems and the bane of his entire existence.

When Aurora was at work he would yell and scream and threaten Bellamy for hours on end, sometimes keeping him up until the early hours of the morning when his mom had to work the night shift. He would sit Bellamy down at the kitchen table and pace around the kitchen, using the “bad cop” style of interrogation that Bellamy recognized from those crime shows he definitely didn’t secretly watch while his mom was at work or he was at a friend’s house. He would accuse Bellamy of lying to him, of stealing from him, of spying on him, having him followed, trying to take over his mind, trying to body snatch him. Of being everything from a Ded to a demon haunting the apartment to a rare alien species trying to take over the world and make humans their slaves.

Eventually he started throwing in threats about hurting his Mom and O, who was still just an infant at the time, and Bellamy got so terrified of the dude’s escalating behavior that he just started making things up and telling him what he wanted to hear. Typically, this would appease him and he would calm down for a while until he shot up again and the process started all over. Bellamy would admit to anything, confess anything, say literally anything just to make it stop.

He got so used making things up that he almost couldn’t tell what was the truth and what was lies anymore, except for one thing that kept them apart for him. Bellamy would try to come up with stories so quickly and talk faster than he could think and get so terrified and nervous that whenever he came up with a lie, he would stutter, desperately making things up as he went, just trying to get it out before the yelling and screaming started all over again. It started happening with other people and in normal, everyday conversations too. And before he knew it, he couldn’t even tell a simple fib without breaking out into cold sweats and stammering uncontrollably.

That had gone on for what was probably way too long, until it eventually escalated into the shitty boyfriend demanding Aurora kick Bellamy out because he was actually some kind of government drone sent to spy on them. For what reason the government would give enough of a fuck about this deadbeat, drug head to send a drone to spy on him, Bellamy could never figure out. And it was honestly kind of a moot point anyway because Aurora had ultimately refused, obviously. While she had horrible taste in men and difficulties holding down a job, she made for damn sure that no one fucked with her kids.

It was after that incident that Aurora sat Bellamy down and explained to him that while she counted on him to look after his sister, he also needed to look out for himself. That she wanted to look out for the both of them, so she needed to know when someone treated either of them badly, or he thought someone was treating her badly. That if anyone ever hurt or scared him or his sister, or gave him a bad feeling, he could tell her and they would be gone, no questions asked. And to Bellamy’s surprise she actually kept that promise for the remainder of her life. But unfortunately, “the rest of her life” would only be a few more short years. He lost a lot of things when his mom passed: he lost her, he lost his sister for a while, he lost his home, and he lost any small sense of stability and security he’d had in his life. But the stammer stubbornly refused to take a hike. Now it’s just a part of his everyday life, a quirky personality trait. At best, it’s a fun, if not kind of bizarre, party trick. And at worst, it’s some stubbornly residual PTSD resulting from a depressingly tragic back story that Bellamy probably should have gotten years of therapy for. And hey, now that he’s loaded, he can actually afford it.

Dante had found it absolutely fascinating. He even used an adaptation of it in one of his books. One of the main characters in the novel was a young woman who had a “regurgitative reaction to mistruthing” or, in other words, she blew chunks every time she even thought about telling a lie. Bellamy hadn’t particularly cared for that rather unflattering iteration of his condition. But apparently Dante’s publisher’s thought it was inspired and his readers went absolutely nuts for it, so he just got over himself.

“But grandpa Dante didn’t need to know any of that to be sure that you were the right person to trust to leave in charge of his estate,” Clarke says. “I still can’t believe how genuinely shocked some of them were that he would leave you something… Leave you everything even… I saw it coming honestly.”

“See my grandpa knew you Bellamy Blake. Even when he found out he couldn’t trust his own family, his own children, even we he thought he could no longer trust his own judgment, he knew he could trust you. He knew you wouldn’t sell his stories or his company off to whoever was the highest bidder like Nia wanted to, that you would make sure it went into the hands of someone who would respect his vision. He knew you would never do something as cruel as leave Maya in the lurch with her blood transfusions, but would be able to keep Emerson from seeing ‘one red dime’.”

Bellamy can’t help but smile at Clarke’s use of one of her grandfather’s favorite dramatic epitaphs; but at the same time, he feels his gut clench at the memory of the phone call he got from Maya the other day while he and Clarke were sitting in the Dropship Diner, staring at what had to have been at least their fourth pot of coffee.

“Hey Bellamy,” she had sounded nervous, her voice strained.

“Maya? Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“No… I was just wondering if you had decided what you were going to do yet? With grandpa’s estate? Are going to keep it or…?” she trailed off at the end.

“I don’t know yet Maya,” he’d told her. “I’m still in shock my head is spinning, I can’t even…”

“I think you need to give it back,” she interrupted him in a harsh tone she’d never used with him before. “I mean, it’s the right thing to do Bellamy. This family… We were always good to you. We’ve always been really good to you and your sister… It wouldn’t be right just taking everything from us like that… It was shitty of grandpa to put you in this position and I think you really just need to…”

She’s rambling, her voice is getting even more high pitched, it sounds like she’s panicking. Somethings not right, he can tell. “Maya, slow down okay. Just… Tell me what’s going on.”

He hears her choke back something like a hysterical sob.

“Shitgoddamnitfuck,” she sounds even worse. “I can’t do this. God, I’m sorry Bell! I’m so fucking sorry I’m…”

“It’s fine,” he tries to keep his voice level, nonchalant, reassuring. “Just tell me what’s up.”

“My dad can’t afford my treatment on his own.” Bellamy swears he can feel his balls drop and a cold dread settles over him. “My dad is… He’s broke Bell… He can’t pay for them, grandpa was paying for everything and now he’s not and I don’t know what will happen if I stop being able to get my treatment Bellamy, I don’t even know if I’ll…”

Bellamy knows: she’ll die. Maybe not right away, but eventually, her condition will turn from manageablely life threatening to undoubtedly fatal. Without the ridiculously expensive medication she has to take and her bi-weekly dialysis and transfusions, her blood will start clotting, her immune system will stop being able to fight off infection, her bone marrow will break down, and her body will collapse in on itself. He’s not a doctor or nurse, but he’s been around enough sick people to know what all the big words and scary jargon add up to.

He was there a few years back when the Wallaces called one of their rare Official Family Meetings and were told that Maya’s aplastic anemia had progressed to full blown paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria. He was there when Dante called in doctor after doctor and flew in experts and specialists from around the world to get 2nd and 3rd and eventually 12th and 13th opinions. He was there when Maya would stay over at the estate for days at a time, not wanting to be home alone while her step-dad went off on one of his “business trips,” (aka his week-long benders in Vegas or Miami or where ever there wasn't currently a warrant out for his arrest for some kind of misdemeanor). He was there when Maya would break down and crack under the depression and the fear of dying. And he was there when Dante would cry on his shoulder over the helplessness he felt that, even with all his fame and fortune and infinite resources, he couldn’t fix this for her.

God, it was just like Emerson to blow through all their money without giving a second thought to his 16 year-old step daughter and her life threatening condition for which she needed continuous care for the foreseeable future. Bellamy never got the chance to know Ada Vie, Maya’s mom, very well; but at least he knew she loved and took care of her daughter. He could never figure out why the fuck Emerson got married in the first place, especially to a woman who already had a kid. He had no interest in being a husband and even less interest in being a dad. Bellamy had always slightly suspected he married Ada for her own family money, and now that he knows Emerson has blown through it all, it’s not even a suspicion anymore. Ada had died suddenly a few years after they got married, and after the dust settled Emerson was left with a step-daughter and dependent whose share of her mother’s estate he controlled and had apparently plowed over like a goddamn 18-wheeler on the interstate.

“Hey listen to me Maya,” she’d been crying in earnest at that point, still apologizing for trying to guilt and manipulate him. “No matter what I decide, nothing bad is going to happen to you. I won’t let it, I would never do that,” he’d promised her. And he’d meant it. Dante was always more of a father figure to Maya than Emerson ever was, and Bellamy knew beyond all shadow of any possible doubt that Dante would have wanted Maya to be taken care of.

He hadn’t been able to figure out why Dante hadn’t left anything to Maya or any instructions about her care in his Will, but now it was clear. Maya was underage and would be for the next two years. Until she turned 18 her legal guardian would have control over the funds left to her as well as if and how they were used. And that legal guardian would have been Emerson. After finding out that Emerson had not only been scamming him, but also using Maya’s inheritance from her mother as his own personal piggy bank, there was no way Dante would have ever trusted his son with this.

“The only one of his kids Dante really worried about cutting out of the will was my mom. But in the end, he knew she would respect his decision like she always did, even when she didn’t understand it. Besides,” Clarke grins, “it’s not like she was left high and dry or anything. My dad left her with a pretty cushy set up when he died.”

Jacob Griffin, also known as Mr. Go-Green; the environmental engineer responsible for most of the prototypes used for the U.S.’s eco-friendly technology. The man who helped spearhead sustainable energy as the world knew it. Yeah, Bellamy could imagine his wife wouldn’t have much to worry about after he died, and his daughter too.

As if Clarke could tell what he’s thinking she adds, “I mean obviously he set me and Madi up nicely too. But honestly, I do pretty well for myself… Who knew that working as a research assistant and ghost writer for one of the most famous crime novelists in history would be so lucrative?!” There’s that smirk of hers again. This time he doesn’t even try to stop himself from smiling back as he feels the last bit of the knot that’s been in his stomach since Dante died finally begin to fade.

“We figured Roan wouldn’t be too much of a problem either since he hates this family’s money on principle and probably wouldn’t have even taken his part of Nia’s inheritance in the first place. Plus,” she goes on, “he would be on the opposite side of his mother and sister purely out of spite. Apparently he’s not hurting for cash either,” she adds. “Did you know that he owns the largest and most lucrative chain of non-medicinal marijuana dispensaries in the North Eastern U.S? Roan, an entrepreneur… Who knew right?!?”

Bellamy actually did know that; Roan told him once while they were commiserating over some of Dante’s good whiskey. What he didn’t know was that Roan was keeping it under wraps or not telling his family though, apparently the combination of top shelf liquor and good weed makes Roan chatty. Or maybe it was just Bellamy that made Roan chatty. Bellamy has that effect on people, as it turns out. Yet another one of his sparkling personality traits that seems to get him in predicaments like the one he is in now.

“I’m kinda jealous of how much he’s winning at life honestly,” Clarke groans. “God… How did the cousin who thought he could practice Santaria and unironically wore dreads and spent multiple summers following Black Sabbath around on their world tours end up being the one with a successful career and functional relationship?”

“According to E!News he’s dating that insanely hot, Icelandic supermodel with no last name. God what is her name?” Clarke starts tapping her head like she’s trying to poke her brain into submission. “Gecko…? Ghetto…? Techno…?”

“Echo.” Miller says in a patronizing tone implying that not only Clarke, but everyone on this planet, in this world should be aware of the information.

“Yes!” Clarke cries out, snapping her fingers at him and making Bellamy jump, “ECHO! Oh my god thank you, that was going to drive me nuts!”

Miller nods at her like he’s willing to let it go this time, but he won’t tolerate such an infraction again.

“Pft you would know that,” Reyes chimes in with a scoff. “I swear, for a dude who is strictly dickly, you are more knowledgeable about supermodels than anyone I’ve ever met. You’re like a walking Hot Chick Encyclopedia.”

“Don’t you have something to be analyzing with some super overpriced high techy-tech thing that we paid way too many hard working, taxpayer dollars for somewhere?” Miller asks her wryly.

“Roger that, chief.” She says with a mock salute.

“So nice to meet you by the way!” she says to Kane on her way out the door. “I’m a huge fan… You’re so much taller in person than I thought you’d be.”

Kane beams radiantly at her and places his hand over his heart like that was the most touchingly gratifying compliment he had ever received. And with that, Reyes breezes out of the room, flicking her perfect pony tail behind her.

“Anyway,” Clarke says, presumably finished with her lamenting and ready to get back to business. “Grandpa knew that those of us he actually wanted to leave money to didn’t actually need it or honestly didn’t give enough of a fuck to try to get our hands on it. My mom and I are set. We both have plenty of savings, we both work, and we’ll have no problem making sure Madi goes to good schools and can take up all the ridiculously expensive and completely useless hobbies she wants.” Bellamy snorts at that and Clarke grins again.

“Roan and his inhumanly hot girlfriend are off conquering the weed market, one pot lollipop at a time, and Maya’s medical care would be taken care of. You were the perfect choice.

“But unfortunately,” Kane says gravely, “that also made you even more of a target for Cage.”

“Idiot kept his cool for about a day and a half after you were released before he tried to hire a hitman,” Miller scoffs.

Bellamy startles at that, “He what?”

“Oh don’t worry,” Miller says waving him off, a scooch too nonchalant about Bellamy's life hanging in the balance for his liking. “We had his phone tapped and got a warrant for his arrest as soon as he made the call.”

“He also just so happened to call an undercover federal agency posing as some kind of hitman concierge service. It’s like he Googled ‘hitmen in my area’ and then just called the first number that showed up. Pleeb,” Miller scoffs again, like the murder for hire business should be easier to figure out than a single serve Kuerig.

“He was brought in about an hour after you were,” Miller says, looking down as gets a message on his phone. “And apparently Emerson is being brought in right now, so I need to go deal with that and you two,” he says pointing at Bellamy and Clarke, “are free to go.”

As Miller is walking out of the room he says over his shoulder, “if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to call Detective Reyes... Or Lieutenant Pike… Or Sargeant Byrne… Or even Petty Officer Jordan if you’re feeling desperate... Basically anyone but me to be honest. After this amount of white people nonsense, I’m going on sabbatical.” And with that he’s gone, letting the door slam behind him.

Kane says something about needing to greet his “adoring public” and fixes his bowtie as he starts to strut, all pomp, circumstance, and perfectly coiffed hair, towards the doors at the front of the station, while Bellamy follows Clarke as she heads to more discreet back exit.

Standing in the back parking-lot, she puts on her big floppy hat and hilariously huge sunglasses and Bellamy can’t help but remember the first time he ever encountered Clarke Griffin. It was right after he’d started working for Dante; Clarke had pulled up to the house in her latest model Mercedes Benz looking like she’d traipsed straight out of a Lily Pulitzer catalog, all impeccably dressed, and flawlessly made up, and perfectly curled blonde beautifulness. She’d skipped up the front steps announcing that her spring break trip to Cabo was canceled so she was here to visit her grandfather.

“You’re new,” she’d said, looking at him over the lenses of her ridiculously, unnecessarily large sunglasses that she was still wearing inside.

“I usually go by Bellamy,” he’d responded flatly.

Clarke had grinned at him like she approved, even though he didn’t give a single shit about getting her approval. He swears, he did not.

Then she’d stuck out her hand and said “I’m Clarke Griffin, the prodigal, heathen granddaughter.”

“Heathen?” he’d asked her raising an inquisitive eyebrow and shaking her hand.

“Feminist, agnostic, bisexual, liberal Democrat takes way longer to say,” she’d said, still smiling widely. “Nice to meet you.”

He’d had to put an embarrassing amount of effort into keeping a straight face and not give into her grin. “Uh huh,” he’d said “your grandpa is in his study.”

After that he’d though she was just another dumb, ditzy, blonde, rich princess who had no idea how privileged she was and did things like blow wild amounts of money on fancy cars and trips to Cabo and whatever else it was that princesses spent their money on because she could.

While he’d figured out very quickly that he couldn’t have been more wrong about the dumb, ditzy, and ignorant parts (and about the spoiled princess thing too, admittedly. But he refused to give up the nickname on principle because it got such a rise out of her and riling her up was one of his favorite pastimes. He might have never gotten past the whole “pony tail pulling” stage of flirtation, but he’s working on it. Mostly), he was right about Clarke doing things just because she could.

She definitely did things like blow money on exorbitantly expensive shoes and even more expensive booze; and take last minute trips on jets and yachts to the Hamptons or the Virgin Islands or wherever it is rich people go when they need to “unwind” from their completely stress free lives; and eat caviar on crackers as an “afternoon snack;” and get the same kind diamond infused nail polish manicures that Beyoncé does; and always have the latest models of cars and computers and even a moped that one time. All because she could.

But she also did things like give thousands of dollars and hours of her time to countless charities; and maintain multiple scholarships for low income students interested in STEM and sustainable energy in her dad’s name; and spend her winter vacations working at places like a Sri Lankan elephant orphanage or a battered women’s shelter in El Salvador; and buy staggeringly over the top generous birthday and Christmas gifts for Bellamy and Octavia like all new stainless steel kitchen appliances for their apartment because the ones they had were “tragic,” and those stupidly expensive running shoes O had had her eye on along with a new iPod because “She can’t run without an iPod, Bell. She’s not an animal”, and the annotated first editions of The Iliad and The Odyssey that her book dealer managed to find (because of course she had a book dealer), all of which she apparently got “great deals on” and refused to return because they were all conveniently “final sale;” and pay for everyone’s meals and bar tabs and cover charges and Uber rides and movie tickets and concert seats and amusement park passes and, a few notable times, their hospital bills without even thinking twice or accepting a word of thanks or asking for a penny in return. Just because she could.

He’d asked her once, about the gifts. “Not that I don’t appreciate it,” he’d said quickly. “Obviously I do. A lot. Like, so much. I’m just kind of wondering… ya know… why?“

“Because you deserve them,” she’d answered immediately without looking up from whatever she was viciously typing on her phone in her latest Twitter fight with whichever woefully misguided, conservative, alt right, incel, neck-beard, dude bro had dared to take her on that week.

Then she’d tilted her head up at him with her little smirk he was a completely normal amount of obsessed with. “And because I can.”

Once he’d gotten to know the real Clarke, he still couldn’t help but laugh and heckle her about her over dramatic eye and head wear that made her look like a widow visiting her convict pen pal turned clandestine lover in prison where he was serving time for tax fraud. She is absolutely one of those ridiculously over the top rich people and she absolutely knows it. But her ridiculousness is far surpassed by her kind-hearted, earnest generosity. That was just Clarke.

His Clarke.

“Oh! Before I forget!” Clarke exclaims, reaching into her absurdly large purse, which he must say goes perfectly with her attire. She pulls out a thick manila envelope and hands it to him. “Grandpa Dante wanted me to make sure this got to you. I mean, it’s technically yours anyway since he quite literally left you everything,” she smirks at him again. “But he especially wanted to make sure this made it directly into your hands.”

Their fingers brush as she hands him the envelope and instead of pulling away she twists his fingers into his. “Look Bell,” she starts awkwardly. “I know this was all really fucked up, like beyond fucked up, Kardashian levels of fucked up even… But I just want you to know I am so sorry.”

“More sorry than words can say. For every thing... And I totally get it if you can’t trust me anymore or don’t want to be friends with me,” she starts rambling. “I mean I probably wouldn’t want to be friends with me either after this. Honestly if I could ghost myself right now…”

Bellamy just chuckles and tugs on her hand until she’s close enough for him to press his lips to hers. It’s a totally chaste, 8th grade style kiss. But still, she lets out this little sigh against his lips; and if they weren’t literally standing in the parking lot of a police station right at this moment, the situation definitely would have escalated from tolerable PDA to public indecency.

Instead he just pulls his lips away but keeps his forehead pressing against hers. He opens his eyes and finally feels relaxed for the first time in what feels like an eternity. He’d been wondering where his ability to breath normally had run off to. Figures it had been with her the whole time.

“I’m trying to come up with something really smooth to say right now,” he says, “but I’ve been dealing with a little stress lately so I’m kind of off my game.”

“It’s ok,” Clarke says, eyes still closed, more than a little breathless he thinks proudly. “You’ve never been smooth, I don’t know why you would start now.”

He starts to object that he is the smoothest, but she just pulls his mouth back down to hers and he figures there are much better things his lips can be doing at this current juncture. And when she throws both her arms around his neck to get him closer he finds himself yet again wishing the nearest building weren’t literally full of cops so that he could press her up against the side of it.

When they pull away for air he can’t help but think about how damn smug as shit Dante would be about being instrumental in pushing Bellamy and Clarke together. This probably wasn’t quite how he imagined it going down, but still.

Dante had never outright pressured them, or come out and said they should go on a date, or anything of the sort. No, Dante knew his granddaughter needed to go at her own pace, knew she need time and space to grieve and move on after girlfriends’ death, and, most importantly, knew she would vehemently resist being ordered or pushed into anything. Instead he would find small, yet absurdly unsubtle ways, to nudge them towards each other, to suggested how they would be good together.

Sometimes it was Dante all of the sudden “feeling a tired spell” or “losing his appetite” when he had arranged for his personal chef to make a nice lunch for the three of them, leaving Bellamy and Clarke alone out on the patio, rolling their eyes and chuckling awkwardly into their salmon club sandwiches and sweet iced teas. Other times he would request Bellamy go pick up Clarke when she would work for him during the summer do he wouldn’t have to “wait around for Lincoln or bother him with such a short trip when Bellamy could easily do it,” all while Lincoln, Dante’s own personal chauffeur, sat approximately 20 feet away on the patio where he had been all morning, snorting behind his newspaper. And then there were the times when Dante would have an oddly specific, and usually vaguely ridiculous and completely unnecessary, errand he needed Clarke to run at the exact same time Bellamy would be running his own errands for Dante, and “oh well wasn’t that convenient that they could just go together?!”

Typically, Dante’s antics were met with raised eyebrows, unimpressed expressions, and the occasional snort or sigh from both of them. They had only ever acknowledged it between them once while they were on their way to Saks one summer a few years ago. Dante had decided he needed Clarke to pick out some new swim trunks for him for the pool he literally never used because “she had the best taste in seasonal attire” and needed Bellamy to go with her to make sure the material of whatever she picked out “wasn’t too scratchy.”

“I can’t decide,” she’d said flatly, “if I’m more offended by him thinking he’s actually fooling us with this, or by his clear belief in my total and complete lack of game.”

Bellamy had snorted while desperately trying to come up with something to say about how he thought she had great game, the best game ever, like Shaq level game, without sounding like a total moron when Clarke’s phone had pinged with another text notification.

“He said he also needs flip flops,” she’d said raising an eyebrow. “But the ones without ‘the thingies that go between your toes’.”

“God, what does it say about me that I actually know exactly what he’s talking about?” Bellamy had groaned in response.

She’d looked over at him and they had both burst out laughing. The moment may have been ruined, but he had always been of the opinion that laughing with Clarke Griffin was a moment in and of itself. She didn’t really, truly, genuinely laugh all that often. She would usually cackle or snort, and there was the occasional chuckle, but the only person who seemed to have the innate talent for well and truly cracking Clarke up was her grandfather. Bellamy would hear them both losing it over something or other behind the closed doors of Dante’s study when she would come visit him or do whatever work it was she did for him over the summer. It seemed like someone had taught Clarke at some point in her life that she was only allowed a finite amount of happy and carefree moments, so he always felt a weird sense of accomplishment when he got to witness one; and being the cause of one was even better.

He opens his eyes and sees that right now she’s wearing the biggest, brightest, most beautiful, bonafide Clarke Griffin smile he’s ever witnessed, and he’s more than a little smug that he put it there. They stand there for a minute, just breathing each other in, until she pulls away slightly and beams up at him.

“Well,” she says giving him one last peck on the lips. “You’re about to have to answer an entire metric shit ton of questions from the media who will probably be here in about 3 minutes and 47 seconds, give or take. And while I usually love a good press conference, I haven’t showered in about 3 days and there is no amount of dry shampoo in the world that could tame the epic tragedy that is currently my hair.”

She steps out of his arms and starts digging around in her Mary Poppins bag for her keys. “Wait...” he says incredulously, “you’re leaving me? To face them all alone?! Clarke, how am I supposed to give a press conference?!? You know I can barely even talk on the phone!”

“Oh Bell,” she says patting his shoulder affectionately. “You’re rich now… Rich people can do anything!”

“You’re a dick!” Bellamy calls as she starts walking towards her car.

“You know you love me!” she yells back and yeah, he definitely does. He’s not gonna tell her right this second or anything, but he does.

She blows him an exaggeratedly loud kiss as she hops into the driver’s seat and revs her engine obnoxiously as she speeds away and God he’s totally gonna marry her, he thinks grinning like an idiot, he has no doubt. He’s going to be the shameless, boy toy, arm candy, trophy husband of one of the coolest chicks in the entire world and it’s going to be awesome.

It’s not until hours later when Bellamy gets home that night (gets to his new home holy fucking shit), after Cage and Emerson’s very public arrests, after the press conference clearing Bellamy and Clarke of all wrong doing, after posing with Kane for an endless number of photographs. and after answering what had to be a floppily trillion questions for the media, that Bellamy remembers the envelope. He pulls it out of his bag and slowly opens the seal. Inside is a thick stack of papers with a letter on top in Dante’s messy scrawl.

Dear Bellamy,

Thank you for being a kindred spirit, a loyal friend, a kind heart, and an excellent listener these past few years. And thank you, most recently, for being most inspiring muse yet.  It felt only fair and just for you to be the first to read the completed debut novel of my newest series. I think it has some real potential, but it’s up to you whether or not it will continue.  I trust that you will find someone with the perfect head for it and leave it in the right hands.   

Best,  Dante H. Wallace

Bellamy sets down the letter and looks at what he now realizes is the title page of a manuscript... The Casefiles of Odysseus Private Investigations & Detective Augustus B. Blake  Book 1: The Gold That Killed King Midas.

 On the next page he finds a dedication: for C and B, the head and the heart. Bellamy settles back into his new arm chair in front of his new fireplace in his new study and gets comfortable.  

Prologue: Augustus had a sister, her name was Octavia…

#bellarke #bellarke fanfiction #bellarke january joy #the 100 #the 100 fanfiction #i genuinely cannot believe i finished this on time #it's probably FULL of mistakes but i'll fix them later bc my head is about to explode #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #nathan miller #marcus kane #modern au #the 100 au #knives out au #character death tw #panic attack tw #suicide mention tw #cancer mention tw

63 notes · View notes