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beels-burger-babe · 3 years

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Familial Attachments

***Awwwww, I'm so happy that you're enjoying my blog! This request warms my heart and I am WEAK for soft big brother Lucifer. I hope you enjoy @lorkai! - B*** Summary: MC keeps favouring Lucifer. It baffles the other brothers. Lucifer is intrigued by the behaviour and slowly begins to open up to them.

No one really noticed it when you first arrived. You were new to the Devildom, and so much was foreign and scary around you. So you following orders without question and lingering near Lucifer, the strongest of the demons living with you, could've been passed off as a survival technique. But after a few months of you staying in the House of Lamentation, Lucifer thought the initial fear would wear off, and yet you still continued to follow him around like a little duckling. Still, Lucifer hadn't really clued in that there was perhaps sentiment behind your behaviour until he had walked in on a discussion between you, Mammon, Beelzebub and Leviathan. He had approached your bedroom door and raised his fist to knock when he heard Mammon's annoyingly loud voice. "I'm just sayin'! There ain't no reason for you go followin' mean old Lucifer around like that! He's old. He complains a lot. He never has any fun. You should be spendin' time with me! I'm supposed to be your protector ya know!" Lucifer huffed in annoyance and was about to barge in when he heard your giggle. "I'm hanging out with you now, aren't I?" "I don't know MC. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Mammon has a point." Levi pipped in. At this point, Lucifer cracked open the door and peeked inside. You were sitting in Beel's lap as he munched away on a bowl of popcorn. Mammon was standing, punching harshly onto the buttons of the remote he was holding, while Levi sat playing with the ease and skill of the pro-gamer that he was. He didn't even look away from the screen as he spoke to you. Lucifer made a mental note to talk to him about conversation manners. Leviathan continued. "You're always hanging around Lucifer. You only spend time with us if we specifically ask you to, or if we arrange it ahead of time," Levi shifted uncomfortably as he pressed a button on his remote; Mammon cursed as a result. "I-I-Is he your favourite or something?" Lucifer couldn't help but perk at the question. He wasn't aware that you were spending particularly more time with him than the others. Sure, he noticed that you would listen to him much better than any of his brothers ever did (and that alone made him warm up to you), and you always seemed to smile when he was around. But he thought that was just the kind of person you were; happy and compliant. Much to his, and everyone in the room's, surprise, you nodded. "I guess he is." Chaos erupted inside the room.

Beel dropped his popcorn. Levi sputtered and actually looked away from the game to gape at you. Mammon threw his remote and whipped around to face you. "WHAT?!?! You mean you prefer that old bat to the GREAT MAMMON?!?!" to Mammon's defence, he looked genuinely hurt by the confession. "But I'm your first! I thought we were pals, MC?!" Levi tensed and sniffed before turning back at the game. "I'm not that surprised really. Makes sense that you wouldn't l-like a slimy gross otaku like me." Beel remained frozen and quiet. A frown etched on his face as his hands tightened around you. Your eyes widened at everyone's reactions. "Woah, woah, woah! Who said anything about not liking you guys? I love hanging out with you three, and I do see you as my friends," you looked directly at Levi. "Otaku or not. I treasure my time with you." Levi pouted and refused to look at you. "Then what does Lucifer have that we don't? Why does he get the title of your favourite?" Lucifer was shocked to see your expression soften as you smiled gently at just the thought. "He reminds me of my big brother in the human realm," everyone went quiet and looked at you. "I-It was hard being ripped away from everything I knew and be forced to live in a world that I didn't even know existed. When I saw Lucifer and got to know him a bit, I noticed how much he acted like my brother. It was comforting to have just that little bit of familiarity amongst all the chaos of the Devildom, you know?" The eldest brother's heart warmed at the statement. It stroked his pride in the best way possible. He loved his brothers, but none of them were very affectionate with one another with the exception of the twins. To hear that someone cared about him and saw him as an older brother was...touching. His younger brothers seemed to agree as, with a little irritation, they settled back down into their game. Forgetting what he came for, Lucifer smiled and went back to his office. Since that day, he was notably kinder and more vulnerable with you. If you saw him as an older brother then he was determined to be the best older brother you could ask for. He gave you a pat on the shoulder or ruffled your hair every time he saw you. He always made sure to congratulate or acknowledge your accomplishments, no matter how small they were. He asked you how your day was and allowed you to come to him with any troubles (which he would promptly take care of the moment you left the room). Every night he would invite you into his office for some tea and a round of chess before bed. It felt like in no time, he had begun to see you as a little sibling just as much as you saw him as an older brother. Lucifer did his best not to let his brothers catch on to how soft he was around you. He tried to compensate by teasing you a little more whenever they were around. Or pretend that he was taking you into his office to scold you when he really was going to look you over and make sure you weren't hurt in the most recent incident. The result was an endless amount of taunts and ridicule from his brothers on how he was a better sibling to you than he was them (which was mostly true), that you had thawed his ancient icy heart (which he would never admit), and that he couldn't say no to you (which he tried to prove wrong but inevitably failed, much to his embarrassment). Still, the bond between you two was one that was strong and pure. When it was finally time for you to go back to the human realm, you were in tears and refused to let go of Lucifer. Lucifer held onto you tightly. It was obvious to everyone there that he was just as reluctant to let you leave. "You have to go know MC. Your real big brother is up there worried about you, I'm sure," his voice was steady and firm. He refused to cry; no matter how badly his heart ached at that moment. You sniffled and buried your face deeper into his chest. "I know. But you've become just as much a brother to me as him, a-a-and I don't want to leave you. What if I never get to see you again?" Lucifer inhaled sharply at the thought.

He looked over at Diavolo. Something in his eyes must have given away the hurt and inner turmoil he was feeling, for Diavolo's eyes widened in shock before he smiled softly at his friend. "You may take your D.D.D. with you, MC, to stay in contact with the brothers. Perhaps, on occasion, we can also organize visits. This will not be goodbye forever." Lucifer chuckled as you held him tighter and ran a hand through your hair. "See? You'll see me and everyone else again. But for now, it's time for you to return home." You shakily nodded and reluctantly pulled away from his arms; Lucifer felt his chest tighten as coldness filled the warmth where you once stood. Still, he refused to cry or show vulnerability. He would not become a blubbering mess like Mammon. He was better than that. He clenched his fists as you went around giving everyone final hugs goodbye. He held his breath as you picked up the bag the two of you had put together full of keepsakes from the Devildom. You took a step towards the portal. "MC, wait!" Lucifer rushed towards you, damning his own pride and reputation to hell, as he pulled you into one final tight hug and pressed a kiss to the top of your head. He held you there; closing his eyes and allowing himself to pretend for just a moment that he didn't have to let you go. He felt a tear roll down his cheek. "I love you, MC. I will miss having you here." Suddenly you were sobbing again. The two of you held each other for several minutes, as Diavolo had Barbartos escort the others out to give the two of you some privacy. Finally, he let you go, and within a second you were gone and back to your true family. Lucifer went home, and sat in his office, wondering what you were doing with your real big brother and if you were as happy up there as you were with him. ***HOW THE FUCK DID I MAKE THIS ANGST AND END UP CRYING WELL WRITING I AM SO SORRY I SERIOUSLY MEANT FOR THIS BE FLUFF GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!! *Wipes tears* Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this no matter how accidentally painful it was. Thank you for the lovely request @lorkai! I was touched by how personal it was!***

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goingmorry · 3 years

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Hello! Can you write monster trio reaction to someone flirting with their crush? Please ☀💛

[One Piece Headcanons] Monster Trio -> when someone flirts with their crush

Characters: Luffy, Zoro, Sanji Tags: female reader, jealous boys Author's Note: Thank you for the request! I love me some jealous boys. There's something about it that just hits right with me. 💖

MONKEY D. LUFFY

One clueless boi.

Figures out that he has a crush on you when he explains how he feels about you to Usopp.

Doesn't quite know how to express his feelings for you in a way that you'll understand.

Interrupts the other person from flirting with you.

"Hey, I found you!"

Barging in from god knows where, Luffy interrupts the man's playful antics by sandwiching himself in the tight space between you and the stranger.

Caught off-guard, the flirtatious man begins to shove the pirate captain away from his face, resulting in Luffy's muscular torso squeezing against your much softer one. The feel of his solid body against yours is enough to cause you to blush, prompting you to create some distance by pushing him away to the side.

"Listen, pal—" the man begins, about to give the straw hat pirate a piece of his mind for violating your personal space, but not before getting rudely interrupted again.

"Who's this guy?"

"An acquaintance," you pipe up instantly in response to your captain's inquiry, omitting the piece of information where this stranger spent the last twenty minutes hitting on you.

Apologizing for your captain's childish behavior, you give him a brief rundown of who precisely the straw hat-wearing pirate is.

"I'll call him porcupine from now on," Luffy says, pleased with the nickname given to the man sitting across from you, "Since he has spiky brown hair that reminds me of a porcupine!"

"I appreciate you taking the time to ask me out," you address the stranger, grabbing hold of Luffy's stretchy arm in the process, "But I don't think this is gonna work."

Pleased with the way events were unfolding, Luffy flashes you a toothy grin to which you cock an eyebrow in response.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

"I-I don't know what you mean," he says, puckering his lips to the side. A telltale sign of an obvious lie.

You can't help but feel ridiculous for having a crush on the most insufferable pirate captain in all of existence, hoping that he, too, feels the same way as you do.

RORONOA ZORO

Only recently comes to terms with his feelings for you.

Hasn't figured out how he'll confess.

After all, romantic love is uncharted territory for him.

Won't really do anything unless he feels that you're in danger.

Pretends to be preoccupied with something else; ends up eavesdropping on your conversation with the flirtatious individual.

Inwardly though, he's more bothered than he lets on.

"Hey, I was wondering if you'd like to grab a coffee with me? I'd love to show you around town," the man says to you earnestly.

The sound of steel clashing against metal echoes loudly enough to startle people, their heads swiveling toward the origin of the noise.

In the corner of the room, the one-eyed swordsman sits upright, body tense in concentration while meticulously polishing Wado Ichimonji, one of his three signature blades.

Zoro ignores the curious looks thrown his way, focused instead on your interaction with the man in front of you.

The stranger's proposal was genuine enough. Objectively, he was undoubtedly an attractive man. Friendly and polite too from your conversations with him throughout the night.

He just... wasn't your type.

You were more interested in rougher-looking men. Someone who was strong but would never abuse their strength to harm the weak. Someone who was stoic but also had a heart of gold. Someone like—

Zoro glances in your direction, seeing the hesitation on your face in accepting the man's offer.

"Sorry, I don't think I can make it. I promised to do something with a friend," you explain, settling with a half-assed excuse for fear of confrontation.

It wasn't exactly a lie, not really. You did have plans to retrieve some supplies with a certain green-haired swordsman, though they weren't until much later in the day. But this man didn't need to know that.

Zoro wouldn't mind if you used him as an excuse.

The Pirate Hunter's shoulders relax considerably at your statement, switching his attention from you back to his current task.

Face expressing his disappointment at your rejection, the man's posture visibly deflates. "Maybe the next day then?" he adds as an afterthought.

Biting your lip guiltily, you shake your head, stray hair falling across your forehead. "Sorry, I can't. Our crew is leaving tomorrow night."

"Damn," the man says, scratching the back of his head in awkwardness before adopting a fake smile — one you choose to let slide. "I'm gonna miss you. After all, it's not every day that I get to meet such a fine young lady with the guts to traverse the terrors of the Grand Line. You take care of yourself, all right?"

"You flatter me," you giggle, cheeks tinged pink at the man's sincere compliment, "And likewise."

At the sound of your unrestrained laughter, Zoro pauses, deeply craving for the moment that he, too, becomes the recipient of your happiness.

SANJI

The person who flirts with you, his precious lady, better prepare for some ass-whooping.

Technically, Sanji can't call you his — not yet — though he has been thinking of the perfect way to confess to you.

Still, even though you're not officially together, he'll never not be feral when you're involved.

Deliberating for a few seconds before gesturing toward you, the stranger places his order with the barkeep and says, "And anything the pretty lady desires."

Pointer finger circling the rim of your shot glass in consideration, you smile at the stranger in gratitude. "In that case, I'll take another round then."

Exchanging a round of pleasantries and small talk, you and the stranger become reasonably familiar with one another.

Familiar enough to know that this man would rather whisk you away to a more private setting than converse with you under the public's watchful eye.

"I know of a better way we can spend the night together," he murmurs suggestively, low enough for you to hear despite the idle chatter in the background.

"Do you now?"

You weren't returning his flirtatious words, but you weren't exactly declining them either until you spot a tuft of blond hair in the corner of your vision, striding toward you with purpose.

When Sanji arrives, he's gushing praise and amorous advances, all for you. Ignored and uncomfortable with watching another man proclaim his underlying love and devotion to you, your newfound drinking buddy clears his throat to get your attention, earning a scornful glare from the cook.

"Who's this shitty and rude bastard?"

Unsurprising to you, Sanji doesn't even try to act civil. Your drinking buddy, however, is astonished by the cook's open hostility, holding up his hands in mock surrender.

Sanji doesn't buy the man's innocent charade, one eye squinting in distrust as he presses on, "I asked you a question."

Leaving out his invitation to you for more lewd nightly activities, your drinking buddy settles for a half-truth, "Just a guy she met at the bar."

Amused with the blond's jealous streak, you decide to cut in before things escalate beyond your control, "Any particular reason you're here, Sanji?"

At the sweet lull of your voice calling his name, the cook resumes his lovestruck behavior with a hint of seriousness when he whispers the sobering news to you, "Marines were recently spotted in town. We're leaving, my dear."

Seizing the opportunity, Sanji offers his hand, palm up, for you to take, and the significance of his action is not lost to you.

You recall his strict policy for only using his hands for cooking — how, as a child, Sanji found solace from abuse by preparing meals for his sickly mother, sparking his lifelong interest in the culinary arts.

Touched, you place your hand in his, a picture-perfect rendition of a prince charming whisking away his lovely bride-to-be. You tell him exactly that, and he graces you with an amused chuckle and a soft smile.

If only people knew the real reason you and him were fleeing the scene.

"Let me be your Mr. Prince then."

Your delicate hand dwarfs in comparison to his larger one, but that doesn't stop you from interlocking your fingers together like two intimate lovers.

Neither one of you says anything else, coming to the same silent conclusion that your growing feelings for each other would have to be addressed sometime soon.

#one piece #monkey d. luffy x reader #roronoa zoro x reader #sanji x reader #monster trio #one piece x reader #one piece headcanons #one piece imagines #one piece writing #mywriting

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lubdubsworld · 3 years

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Oh, Alpha mine.

Kim Taehyung x OC

ABO Dynamics !

~~~~~~~~~

Summary : Childhood enemies Kim Taehyung and Park Somi can’t stand the sight of each other .It’s been that way in the two decades they’ve known each other. And Although Somi’s brother Jimin and Taehyung are best friends , the feisty omega really , really hates the handsome alpha who refuses to take her seriously.

Now, as adults, Somi is the inquisitive reporter, covering the notorious serial killer, Vulcan who has a penchant for gutting and beheading omegas. And Kim Taehyung is the Homicide Detective leading the case.

Alpha Kim Taehyung x Omega OC !

Rated : 21 + Violence, Gore, Angst, Romance Explicit Sexual Content.

Everyone presents between the ages of eighteen to twenty.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Prologue :

For as long as I could remember, Kim Taehyung and I had been at loggerheads.

He was a year older than me, my brother’s best friend and easily the biggest pain in my ass. We grew up together , back in Daegu, when my father worked in his family farm and when his family offered to pay for both my brother’s and my education, I had been forced to follow the pair of them to Seoul. Taehyung and my brother enrolled in the Korean National Police University.

Meanwhile, I got into SNU and majored in Journalism. Presented as an omega soon after.

A year later he presented as alpha and that’s when our (mostly ) playful skirmishes turned into something serious. Taehyung thought he could control me and it pissed me off no end.

Don’t go here, don’t wear this, don’t talk to him , Don’t eat with him.... It made me want to strangle him. My own brother was an alpha and didn’t give a shit about what I did. So what right did this no good, alpha have, trying to control me like I was his mate.

Stupid fucker.

And right now, standing in the rain, drenched and cold and shivering, I hated him more than ever.

“Its a statement, Taehyung. You’re the lead officer you need to just give me one lousy fucking statement... is it that guy? Is it Vulcan?” I screamed into the night, struggling to be heard over the sound of the deluge raining down on us.

Kim Taehyung glared at me.

He wasn’t even wearing a coat, the filthy bastard. Dressed in just a white shirt that was almost completely transparent thanks to the wetness, showing off his toned , alpha body and it only made me madder. He was such a beautiful mother fucker, could he not keep his attractiveness down to normal levels so the rest of the world could just fucking function???

“Somi, go home.” He yelled and I groaned, pushing forward till I was pressed right up against him.

“Please, alpha.” I batted my wet lashes at him and he scoffed.

“That didn’t work when you were three and running around naked. Sure as hell won’t work now.”

I mumbled under my breath. But i knew a lost cause when I saw one. Taehyung wasn’t in the mood to indulge me and I was so freaking cold. it was also a little past two in the morning. I wanted to get out of my wet clothes and crawl into bed.

Taehyung was talking to the other Inspector on the case, voice muffled and I peered over his broad frame, catching the forensic people zip up the body bag, my throat going dry . Even from the distance I could see the darkness of the blood stains on the girl’s pale mauve dress.

This was the third murder this month and the rain had likely washed away most of the evidence. If there even was any. So far the monster prowling the streets of Seoul, hunting young omegas, had proven to be meticulously careful.

I shuddered.

Biting my lips, i motioned to Beomgyu, my camera guy to pack up. I could probably accost Taehyung in the police station tomorrow morning. I turned around myself, ready to head back to the van.

“What’s that?” Taehyung asked sharply. His voice made me stop in my tracks.

“What, sir?” His subordinate asked and when I turned, Taehyung was running to the scene, boots sloshing dirty water everywhere.

I stepped as close to the police tape as possible, squinting into the rain and watched as he bent over the scene, reaching into a small pothole in the alley, filled with rainwater. It took me a second to realize that there was something lying into the pothole.

Taehyung straightened , holding up what looked like a length of rope.

I blinked as he grabbed something at the end of it.

Something clicked in my head as I watched him.

“A lanyard. That’s a lanyard. For an identification card..” I said softly.

And then as I watched, all the blood seemed to drain out of Taehyung’s face.

I watched as he turned to me, holding it up for me to see.

I felt my heart drop to my knees.

It was a familiar charm. A little locket with the Police Insignia on it... Jimin had bought it for me and I’d always worn it around my college Identification card.

My throat went dry as I watched him walk over to me.

He opened his palm, showing me the familiar worn out laminate card with my smiling face and personal details. It was a decade old and looked it.

Except for the red X drawn on my face.

That was recent.

“Tell me that this bastard did not just leave my photo at a crime scene.” I whispered faintly.

“You’re coming home with me.” Taehyung’s voice was rough and angry. “ And when I get my hands on this bastard, I’m going to gut him like a fish.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author’s Note : Please comment if you’d like to be on the taglist !!! I’ll start this soon.!!

#taehyung smut #bts smut #bts fanfics #bts taehyung #taehyung fanfics

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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Regarding Konaka’s influence on Tamers (or how much he actually didn’t have)

(Rest assured that if you’ve had a conversation with me recently about this issue, I’m not vaguing you; this conversation has come up a lot in the last few weeks, especially in my private chats, so this is just me deciding that I should write something about this for once since it’s been weighing on my head lately.)

I think, right now, with what happened regarding the DigiFes debacle, a lot of people are having complicated feelings about how to feel about Tamers, and this is completely understandable. I think there are also some things that may be inevitably unavoidable, such as starting to second-guess certain nuances in the series and what they might lead to. All of that is perfectly reasonable, and in the end, it’s going to be up to everyone to decide how they feel.

In light of this, a lot of people have been bringing up the fact that, while Konaka was the head writer, he was by no means the only person working on it. This is very much true, but I’d like to add something else to the equation: this is an issue that goes much deeper than the usual claiming death of the author for the sake of sanity. The full picture is that Konaka has always had much less influence on the series than the fanbase tends to attribute to him. Official statements have been very clear as to not attribute the entire series to him, and, among all the other controversial statements he’s made, Konaka himself has at least been very active about crediting the other staff members as far as their influence on the series! The idea that he was the only person who ever did anything substantial for Tamers is something I’ve been warning against since long before any of this happened (if you want proof, I have a post from April with this sentiment in it), and right now we just happen to be seeing what’s basically the worst possible outcome of the fanbase constantly worshipping him like the only real creative heart behind the series to borderline cult-like levels...when that’s never been true, and has resulted in unfairly taking credit away from people who deserved it.

I’ll go into detail below, and I hope this can help people understand the situation better and sort out how they feel about it.

Note that I make references to his infamous blog in this post, which I’m deliberately refraining from directly linking for obvious reasons, but all of the information is still there, so it should be verifiable if you decide to look for it yourself.

Personally, I’ve always found it really bizarre how there’s been this obsession with portraying Konaka as some kind of auteur whom the entirety of Tamers depended on. I’m not saying this out of spite towards him, because, again, even he himself was very insistent on disclaiming credit for things he wasn’t actually responsible for (he was quite humble in this respect, actually). Not to mention that I think it’s a mistake in general to constantly pin a single person in a multi-person production as the sole heart behind it, and the Digimon fanbase has historically had this strange double standard behind it when it comes to uplifting him as the only heart behind Tamers when nobody says that about any of the head writers for...anything else. (How many times has Nishizono’s name ever popped up when talking about Adventure? People are usually more obsessed with talking about Kakudou or Seki.) Konaka’s work is certainly distinctive, but Tamers had a lot more going on besides just that.

In fact, based on his own statements on the matter and all of the other official information we’ve gotten about Tamers production, while you can’t really quantify such things, it’s generally been estimated that Konaka was responsible for something like only a fourth of the series. Which is an incredibly low amount compared to what the fanbase would have told you before all of this happened, because of this fixation that he must be the genius mastermind behind the whole series. Not only that, this “brilliant auteur” image of him was so inflated that people were attributing way more of 02 to him than he deserved; 02 episode 13 was the only thing he contributed to the series and he was specifically brought on as a “guest writer”, and the overall plot of the episode was determined by the rest of the production staff and not him -- but ask the fanbase and they’ll tell you stories about how he invented some grand planned arc for 02 that got cancelled, or even that Tamers exists because of a “writer revolt” from him and other writers not being allowed to do what they wanted. (You know, as much as I understand 02′s a controversial series, it would be really nice if people didn’t make up completely baseless stories like this just to scapegoat it...)

I honestly cannot emphasize enough how much of the problem we’re in right now has been horribly enabled by the weird pedestal the fanbase has been putting him on. This is to the point where there’s even been a double standard where some of the more unpopular/criticized elements of Tamers must not have been the fault of a brilliant writer like him, and in fact was forced on him by the executives (this excuse had always been brought up anytime someone doesn’t like something about Tamers, just to make sure the image of him as a perfect writer was maintained). Turns out, as per his own admission on the infamous blog, while he wasn’t the one who initially had the idea of putting Ryou in, the part that rubbed the fanbase the wrong way -- that he came in as an accomplished senior who was better than everyone and played up by everyone in the cast -- was unabashedly his idea (he apparently was enamored with the idea of having someone like Tuttle from the movie Brazil). Again, this is a weird scenario where even Konaka himself has been more humble about this issue than the fanbase’s perception of him; he fully admitted whenever he had trouble writing certain parts. For instance, he doesn’t actually like writing about alternate worlds, felt they were out of his comfort zone, and only wrote in the Digital World because the franchise needs one; he’d stated that if he’d had his way, the Digital World arc wouldn’t have come in as early as it did, which might be a pretty shocking statement for a Digimon fan to hear.

If you want even more specifics, here are some extremely major parts of the series that Konaka was not actually the one behind:

The character backgrounds. Konaka stated on his blog that he wasn’t interested in going too much into character backstories because he felt it was too plot-limiting to say that a character is the way they are thanks to something in their past or background (basically, he cares more about plot than character for the most part), and that he’s also not into worldbuilding. Certain things like Ruki going to a girls’ school were supplied by Seki, who infamously loves worldbuilding, family backgrounds, and character settings.

Certain nuances of Ruki’s character, especially the part where she’s pigeonholed into uncomfortable places due to being a girl, were informed by Yoshimura Genki, writer from Adventure and one of the head writers of 02 (who eventually would go on to create an entire career out of feminist cinema).

According to the posts on his blog, Impmon’s character arc didn’t have much input from Konaka himself and was largely written in by Maekawa Atsushi (also a writer from Adventure and one of the head writers of 02).

The whole concept of Yamaki being redeemable in the first place was something Konaka didn’t originally plan for; he’d initially intended to make him a straightforward antagonist, but, of all things, his Christmas song, combined with the input of the other writers (especially Maekawa) humanizing him, led to the development where Yamaki eventually changed sides and became sympathetic. (This makes Konaka’s recent stunt revolving around Yamaki a bit painfully ironic.)

The director, Kaizawa Yukio, was deliberately picked because he didn’t have experience on the prior series, for the sake of changing things up, and he spent Tamers as a period of studying what Digimon should be like. Based on what he’s hinted, it seems Konaka's writing style and choices were able to have as much influence as they did because Kaizawa approved of them -- that is to say, Konaka’s detailed imagery and descriptions were extensive enough that Kaizawa could go “sure, let’s go with that.” But in the end, nothing Konaka did would have gone through unless Kaizawa and Seki (among many others) didn’t also approve of it or provide input. Moreover, Kakudou Hiroyuki (director of Adventure and 02) has also been stated many times to have been a valuable consultant on invoking Digimon so that the new staff could understand what to aim for and how to get the right feel (and also assisted with providing stuff for the mythos, such as the Devas). Nevertheless, Kaizawa also seems to have had his own strong opinions and input on the story; he especially seems to get passionate when it comes to the topic of making the story something the kids watching it could relate to and imagine. (He would eventually go on to direct Frontier and Hunters, along with several episodes of the Adventure: reboot.)

So in other words, looking at this, a lot of these things that people emotionally connected to and loved about Tamers are things that literally were not his personal creation, and were largely contributed by the other writers! Of course, Konaka’s “creator thumbprint” is very obvious -- he was the head writer, after all -- and all of this had to go through his own vetting to make sure he personally liked it as well -- but nevertheless, you can see that this very much was a collaborative effort from head to toe, with him being very open about this fact himself. Insisting on making sure that this fact is well-known isn’t just a coping mechanism to try and remove his presence in the series, but rather a desire to get people to seriously stop giving him credit that really should be going to others (especially since, again, even he himself was very diligent about assigning that credit).

In the end, I’ll leave you with another thing to keep in mind: Konaka doesn’t get paid anymore for Tamers work (unless they make something new like the DigiFes thing), so continuing to buy Tamers merch and supporting the series through fanart and such will probably end up going more towards the Digimon IP as a whole. Basically, if we’re just talking about Tamers specifically, what degree this is going to matter is only really relevant to the content in the original series, which is now twenty years old and remains unchanged. By Konaka’s own admission, he wasn’t into all of these conspiracy theories until 2010 at the earliest, so while it’s understandable to be a bit wary about the themes in Tamers having traces of the base sentiment, the original series itself does not seem to be an outlet for alt-right propaganda, and it’s probably forcing it a bit much to read into it that way. Konaka’s also repeatedly insisted that all of his attempts at a Tamers sequel have been rejected and that he’s been doing increasingly strange swerves to get around members of the original cast not entirely being available, and the Japanese audience has turned out to not be very fond of the contents of the 2018 drama CD and the stage reading for reasons entirely separate from the politics, so it’s also unlikely we’ll be getting a Tamers sequel from him or something in the near future.

So -- at least for the time being -- what’s done with him is done, and the remaining question is how all of us feel about Tamers. I think everyone will have differing feelings on it, and that’s perfectly understandable. Personally, given everything I just said above, I’m going to continue treating it as a series very important to me, and one that many people (including, as it seems, a very different Konaka from twenty years ago) worked on with a lot of effort and love, although you may see me getting a bit more willing to be critical about the series and its themes thanks to my concerns about some of the sentiments in it and what they imply. I also completely understand that there are probably people whose associations are going to be much more hurt and who will have a much harder time seeing the series the same way ever again, and I think that’s reasonable as well. But at the very least, going forward, I hope all of us can understand the depth of this situation, give credit where it’s due, and not force credit where it’s not due.

#digimon #digimon tamers

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yukidragon · 3 years

Text

Our Life Snippet - Spoiling Dinner

So... been a while since I shared a slice of my fan novelization of Our Life: Beginnings and Always, hasn’t it? A whole month in fact. Yikes! Don’t worry, I’m still working on it, just, ya know, chronic illness. I’ve been getting less spoons to work with these past few weeks. Don’t be surprised if the next clip takes another month to appear.

Anyhoo, onto the clip itself. I figure why not show off some more drama from Step 2? It was referenced in the Adrift snippet that Jamie chose their thirteenth summer to be the time to reveal the big deal Cliff offered her to Cove, so I figured why not give a peek at that? So here’s another slice of Step 2′s moment, Dinner.

As always, thank you to everyone who enjoys reading my work and giving me such lovely feedback, especially the game’s lovely creators @gb-patch. I can’t thank you all enough for encouraging me to keep working on this self-indulgent little fan project.

...

Despite the fact that Cove and Elizabeth had never been friends, and it was rare they even really got along, it was always interesting to see and hear about how Jamie interacted with her big sister. The relationship Jamie and Elizabeth had was always something he could never quite get a grasp on.

“I can’t even imagine what it’d be like to have a sibling,” he admitted after a moment.

Jamie took some time to give serious thought to that statement. It was a tricky thing to explain to someone without a point of reference. A sibling relationship wasn’t anything like a parental one, and it wasn’t really like making friends with a kid who just happened to live in the same house either.

It was also hard for Jamie to want to touch on a topic that would bring the mood down. Still, Cove did remind her recently that he wanted to listen to her problems…

“It’s complicated,” Jamie eventually concluded. She took her time to choose her words with care as she focused her gaze on the tank again, though she didn’t really watch the fish this time. “I love Elizabeth, and when we were really little, we were best friends. Then she started making friends at school like Shiloh and, well… It’s just over time, I guess we just grew apart. She’s still a lot of fun to be around, but only when she wants to be there.” Her voice quieted a little. “But now, she barely feels like hanging out with me.”

Cove couldn’t think of how to respond right away as he grew aware of the melancholy that had settled over his best friend. He knew Jamie and Elizabeth didn’t spend all that much time together, but he hadn’t realized it was something that bothered Jamie. He took his time to consider what to say, pursing his lips as he tried to figure out the best way to help Jamie with something he never had to deal with before.

“Maybe you should talk to her about how you feel about it sometime,” Cove suggested, though with an uncertain note to his voice. He couldn’t even imagine how that talk might go. “If it’s really bothering you, I’m pretty sure Elizabeth would wanna know.”

Jamie considered that before shaking her head a little. “It’s fine. It’s not really that big a deal. Besides, I don’t think that’d really work.” She favored Cove with a bent smile. “I mean, this is Elizabeth we’re talking about here.”

Cove had to admit Jamie had a point there. Although not intentionally malicious, Elizabeth did have a tendency to overlook other peoples’ feelings when it came to doing what she wanted. “I guess you’re right about that.”

Jamie turned to face Cove properly as she strengthened her smile, feeling compelled to soften the awkward atmosphere she had created. “Don’t worry about it. Having a sibling is still pretty great anyway.” She playfully nudged him with her elbow. “And besides, I already have the most amazing best friend in the entire world by my side.”

Cove felt warmth fill his cheeks at that, and he nudged Jamie back softly in return with a shy smile of his own. “I feel the same way.”

Jamie relaxed a bit now that the mood had returned to something more jovial. “And in case you were wondering what it’s like to have two moms, it’s absolutely the best.”

Cove nodded. Even if Elizabeth could be a challenge to get along with at times, he had always known Noelani and Pamela to be friendly and encouraging, if a bit strict with their rules. The Leimomi family were overall probably the best neighbors he ever had, especially Jamie. “That’s… interesting. I think your family is cool.”

Jamie flashed Cove a grin, glad he agreed. It was impossible not to feel like she hit the jackpot when it came to the family that she ended up with. She couldn’t consider having better parents, or even a better sibling.

Of course, talking about parents brought Jamie’s mind back to the dinner she was going to have with Cove and his. Things were weird between the three of them in ways she didn’t know how to touch on.

The little surprise Cliff pulled at the beginning of summer had just made things even more strained. Things felt tense in a way that reminded Jamie of when Cove first moved to Sunset Bird.

That line of thought brought Jamie back to the first time she met Cliff and the deal he had offered her.

Jamie glanced at Cove out of the corner of her eye, noticing that he had gone back to looking at his fish. He probably never learned that ever happened. She doubted that Cliff ever mentioned it, and as for her…

It bothered her. The incident hung over her head for the past five years, popping up in her mind at awkward moments that left her feeling guilty despite the fact that she never took the twenty dollars Cliff had offered her.

When Jamie was little, she held the secret back from Cove for fear that he might decide not to be her friend anymore. He resented being pressured into becoming friends with Lizzie and Shiloh, so he never did. Granted, that was more because he just didn’t click with either of them than due to parental meddling, but still… In her eight-year-old mind, she was convinced that if Cove ever learned that Cliff wanted to pay her to be his friend, he would be so upset that he would never want to see her again.

That fear had disappeared over time as their relationship grew stronger, but that didn’t make the subject trouble her any less.

Jamie was keeping a secret from Cove - a big one. Usually, they told each other everything from silly jokes to their darkest thoughts. The only other thing she kept from him was just how deep her feelings were for him, and she already had a plan in motion for how she was going to tell him about that.

Much like with her crush, Jamie had sought out Lee’s advice about the incident with the twenty dollars. Her cousin had encouraged her to just tell Cove about it, if only because it bothered her for so long and wouldn’t stop haunting her.

Besides, Cove deserved to know that his dad did something like that behind his back. This incident with Kyra proved that Cliff was still pulling stunts like this, and not just on him.

Jamie knew that if the positions were reversed, she would want to know the truth about something as big as this, and as soon as possible.

It had been five years. They weren’t eight anymore. Telling Cove wouldn’t destroy their friendship.

She had to tell him.

Jamie placed her hands on the mattress to steady herself, drawing one back into her lap when she accidentally brushed it against Cove’s thigh. The unintended touch drew his gaze back to her - she could feel it even through her closed eyes. She took in a deep, steadying breath as she prepared herself.

The quiet that had settled between them was comfortable, Cove thought, finding it a sharp contrast to the uneasy atmosphere that had overtaken his home since the beginning of summer. Jamie’s presence made things easier on him - it always did.

That was why Cove didn’t expect to see Jamie looking so tense all of a sudden. He could tell that she was building herself up for something, but he couldn’t imagine what. When she opened her eyes and looked at him, her expression was solemn and tainted with nervousness.

“Cove,” Jamie said before pausing to wet her lips. “There’s something… I-I have something important to tell you. Something… something you’re not gonna like.”

The undercurrent of unease to the way Jamie spoke troubled Cove almost as much as what she said. He turned to give her his full attention, his knees bumping against hers in the process. “What is it?”

For a moment, Jamie could only stare into her best friend’s ocean blue eyes. Cove waited patiently for her to find her voice again, but the longer it took her, the greater the tension grew. She could see it in the way his brow furrowed and his lips curled down into a frown.

Please don’t get mad about this, Jamie thought desperately, feeling as though her stomach was tying itself in knots. She was already regretting her decision, but she had already said too much; she couldn’t just drop the topic as if it never happened. She had to take another deep breath to steady her nerves as they started to fray on her.

“It’s… um… it’s about way back when you moved here,” Jamie finally said, practically forcing the words out. “Before we met, I actually met your dad first and…” She started to falter as what she wanted to say started to fall apart in her mind, and she scrambled to right herself. “It was… your dad he… um, well…”

Jamie had to pause to gulp down another lungful of air, feeling as though there suddenly wasn’t enough around her.

Cove started bracing himself for whatever Jamie was struggling to tell him. The more she spoke, the more nervous she grew, and it was making him anxious as well, impressing upon him the seriousness of what she wanted to tell him.

Whatever this was, it was big, and he needed to be ready to deal with it.

“Your dad offered me twenty dollars to be friends with you.”

The words came out of Jamie in a rush then hung so heavily in the air between them that the already thick atmosphere turned suffocating.

Cove locked up. For a moment he couldn’t move, couldn’t even think. What Jamie told him made everything else disappear.

His dad… bribed Jamie to be his friend?

Jamie held her breath as she waited for Cove to respond. He sat still, so utterly still. He was no longer looking at her, but through her, as if she ceased to exist. His face, always so easy for her to read, was uncharacteristically devoid of expression.

Then Cove was moving. He said nothing as he rose from the bed before bolting from the room.

For a moment, Jamie froze up as well. Shock kept her rooted to the bed even after Cove disappeared around the corner.

This was… oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no!

Jamie tore after Cove once she could move again, panic giving her feet wings. “Cove!”

Cove didn’t hear Jamie. He didn’t even hear his parents as they bantered while setting the table, oblivious to what was happening. All he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears as he reached the living room.

For a moment, Cove could only stand there and glare at his father. His entire body was a tense coil, ready to spring. His hands faintly shook from how tightly he clenched them into fists at his sides.

Although Jamie caught up to Cove, she froze again just short of him. She didn’t need to see his face to know exactly what he was feeling - he was furious.

“Hey, what’s up?” Kyra asked as she finished setting down the last glass on the table. “When did you start running in the house?”

Cliff flashed Cove a wink as he wagged the spoons he carried at his son. “Are you that famished?”

The friendly banter didn’t register with Cove at all. There was room for nothing else inside his mind but the betrayal he felt towards his father that sent his entire body quaking with rage.

It had only just begun to hit Cliff and Kyra that something was wrong when Cove took a step forward.

“You paid Jamie to be friends with me?!” Cove shouted as he glared daggers straight into his father’s widening eyes.

Cliff froze, the spoons dropping from his hands onto the table with a clatter. He looked like a helpless deer caught in the headlights of a speeding semi.

Kyra recovered from the shock first, and rounded on her ex-husband. “Clifford!” she shouted as outrage overtook her as well. “Are you serious?!”

Out of reflex, Cliff turned his wide eyes to Kyra, blinking at her rapidly. “It was only one time!”

The blurted admission left Kyra reeling back, aghast.

Cliff raised his hands up in a defensive gesture, his eyes darting between his ex-wife and his son as they both stared him down. “I-it seemed like a good idea when it happened.”

As the shock waned, Kyra brought a hand over her eyes. Her jaw was set, her patience frayed, as anger slowly gave way to disappointment.

Cliff bowed his head as he rubbed the back of his neck, almost shrinking in on himself before their eyes. The fact that Kyra accepted that he would do something like this so easily was the most crushing part.

For all his anger, Cove had nothing else he could say to his father after his initial outburst. He could only stand there, fuming silently during his parents’ short exchange. The tension in his body was so strong it was painful, his eyebrows furrowed hard and his eyes trembling as he continued to glare at his father.

That was all Cliff had to say for himself? That he ‘only’ did it once? That it ‘seemed like a good idea’? What part of this could be considered ‘good’ at all?!

Jamie could only watch helplessly from the sidelines at the disaster she had created. She had been afraid that Cove might be angry or hurt to hear about the deal his dad offered to her, but he took it far worse than she ever imagined. That wasn’t even going into how badly Kyra or Cliff were feeling about it all.

Jamie felt so bad for Cove. She wished for the power to rewind time to five minutes ago so that she could choose to just keep her big mouth shut. Having a stupid secret about something she didn’t even agree to hanging over her head was nothing compared to the pain that she had inflicted on her best friend and his family.

Everything was horrible, and it was all her fault.

#Our Life Beginnings & Always #Our Life #ourlifeba #Cove Holden #Jamie Last #Jamie Leimomi #Cliff Holden #Kyra Preece #My Writing

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invisibleanonymousmonsters · 3 years

Text

Make A Scene

AMHL – Masterlist

Dick immediately noticed when Y/N started getting quieter and quieter as they got closer and closer to the venue.

Bruce had hired a driver to pick them up from their apartment in Gotham. And the car had gone quiet now.

Dick reached over to gently hold her hand.

“Nervous?” He asked.

Y/N shrugged, not really seeing the point in trying to lie to her boyfriend.

“This isn’t your first rodeo, ya know.”

She gave him a look. “You know that wasn’t the same.” Her eyes flickered to the driver. “I wasn’t exactly…myself. And I wasn’t your girlfriend.”

Also, tonight they didn’t have the security and comfort of being at Wayne Manor.

No, instead this particular event was being held at the ballroom of Gotham’s most extravagant five-star hotel. It was a party for Wayne Enterprises, not a personal charity or party of the Wayne family.

Bruce had kindly asked Dick and Y/N to attend when board members and business partners started asking if the whole family would be attending. Jason hadn’t answered anyone’s calls or texts about it. None of them expected him to show up. Tim had to attend since he worked for Wayne Enterprises. And Damian…Well, Damian was his father’s son and not yet an adult. He basically had to do whatever Bruce asked of him while he lived under his roof.

“I’m not gonna leave your side,” Dick promised.

He squeezed her hand to further emphasize it.

Their car pulled up to the carpet at the bottom of the stairs.

There had to be a hundred journalists and photographers, along with random civilians who had nothing better to do than to see Gotham’s elite get out of cars and walk into a hotel.

Dick took in a deep breath.

Thankfully the car’s windows were tinted and protected them from any onlookers.

“Ready?” He asked her.

She nodded.

Dick opened the door and ignored the screams and flashes as he carefully helped Y/N out of the car with his offered hand. He also shielded her from the photographers to give her a moment to get out and adjust herself before they could capture any photos of her.

“Mr. Grayson! Mr. Grayson! Who is your mystery girlfriend?” Someone yelled.

Sometimes Y/N forgot that Dick was somewhat of a celebrity in Gotham City through association.

It wasn’t like people were asking for selfies everywhere he went. Or that the paparazzi were following his every move.

But in Gotham, people took note of where Dick Grayson went and who he was with.

And everyone noticed he’d had the same woman on his arm for quite some time now.

Even though Y/N and Dick had been dating for over a year, the media still couldn’t figure out Y/N’s identity.

What they didn’t realize was that she controlled every single piece of information about herself that lived on the internet.

They didn’t stand a chance.

Dick smiled and waved at people who called his name. But his hand other hand never left Y/N’s as he helped her up the stairs.

“Who are you wearing?” A female journalist yelled at Y/N.

She ignored them and focused on getting up the stairs without tripping and face planting. Not that Dick would ever let that happen.

However, she knew her outfit was going to draw gazes.

Y/N had made a promise to herself that if she was going to be forced to attend events like this with Dick, then she was going make a statement. People were already going to be staring at her, so she figured she might as well give them something good to stare at.

Instead of wearing a typical cocktail and formal dress, Y/N wore a full men’s suit that was tailored to perfection, but with the bowtie undone. It was what the fashion magazines would describe as “androgynous” in the press tomorrow morning.

Y/N wanted to control her own narrative. And she’d rather be judged for her bold decisions than just her trying to blend in.

Bruce insisted on paying for all the boys’ date’s dresses – in this case, suit – if they happened to bring one. He always thought it was more of an incentive for them to attend these terrible events if he encouraged them to bring significant others. And the press always had a field day with it, which only helped throw people of their trail when it came to their secret lives as vigilantes.

Everyone kept screaming Dick’s name as they walked in, and Y/N wondered how he got so good at smiling through the chaos and ignoring them.

Once they were inside, Dick felt the tension leave Y/N’s body a bit.

“Alcohol?” He offered with a smirk.

“Yes, please.”

He nodded, knowing it was exactly what she needed.

Quickly, he grabbed two champagne flutes off a passing waiter.

They clinked glasses.

Then he leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Thank you for being my date.”

Y/N smiled at his sincerity.

Dick sighed before he threw back the champagne, “The quicker we find Bruce and prove we were here, the sooner we can leave.”

“Try not to sound so excited,” she laughed darkly.

Suddenly felt a small human wrap around her thighs.

Y/N gasped in excitement, “Dami!”

Dick smiled as he looked down at his 10-year-old brother hugging his girlfriend.

“Dick gave me the drawing you made for us. It’s so beautiful. I’m trying to find the perfect frame for it,” she told the boy.

Damian beamed with pride at that.

Suddenly the boy started asking a million questions about Stoker, one of his kittens that he’d given to them to take care of when Bruce gave a limit to how many cats Damian was allowed to have in the manor.

Then, to Dick’s shock, he saw Jason slowly walk over to them with his hands in his pant pockets.

He was not at all dressed nice enough for the event. No suit jacket. No tie. His white button-up shirt wrinkled, messily tucked into his pants, and with two many buttons undone. The sloppiness of it all clearly wasn’t an issue with the women, seeing as all of them were ogling Jason.

“Todd,” Damian greeted coldly, pausing his conversation with Y/N, who whipped around at the name.

“Hey, you,” Y/N smiled as she went to greet him.

Jason gave her a friendly kiss on the cheek and a quick hug.

“I really didn’t think you were coming,” Dick told his brother.

“Well, I wasn’t. But I got a business engagement.”

Y/N and Dick shared a confused look.

“What do you mean?” Dick asked.

“I found my neighbor crying on her fire escape a few nights ago. Apparently… one of the finance bros of Wayne fucking Enterprises was everything but a gentleman to her.”

Y/N’s eyes widened in realization. “J, I already took care of that.”

“I know,” Jason nodded as his eyes scanned the room. He was clearly on a personal mission tonight. “You deleted the evidence. I am teaching him a lesson.”

Dick slowly put together what they were implying.

“Oh, please don’t make a scene, Jason.” Dick begged him.

Because he knew Bruce wouldn’t be dealing with the aftermath; it would be him.

“Don’t worry!” Jason laughed. "I’m gonna take him outside before I beat the shit out of him. No one here will even notice. It’ll be fine,” Jason assured him as he gave Dick a far too heavy slap on the back.

“Just tell Bruce and he’ll get him fired,” Dick tried to convince him to take the less violent route.

“Oh, we already did,” Y/N muttered.

Dick’s gaze shot to his girlfriend.

“He’s getting fired on Monday,” she clarified sheepishly.

“Since when do the two of you work together behind my back?” Dick accused them.

But he wasn’t actually mad about anything – maybe just a little bit bitter.

Jason opened his mouth.

“I swear to God, Jason, if you say ‘club business,’ I will lose it…” Dick warned.

Y/N tried to hide her smile.

“Got him,” Jason growled as he glared at someone on the other side of the room.

As soon as he left them, Dick gave Y/N his full attention.

“Seriously?” He accused.

“I’m sorry! He asked me for a favor and I was happy to do it once I realized what it was,” Y/N defended.

Dick pouted a little. Mostly because he hated being left out.

“Don’t worry, ya big baby. I’m still your ‘guy in the chair’ and no one else’s,” she teased before giving him a kiss, immediately wiping the lipstick off his lips.

“How come Jason gets to beat up people at events like this, but I’m expected to behave like a well-trained dog?” Damian mumbled.

Dick sighed and shook his head.

“Jason likes to think he’s a lone wolf who doesn’t have to play by the rules,” Y/N tried to comfort the boy.

To distract Damian from getting further into how unfair it was, Y/N asked him to show her more of his drawings.

This seemed to please Damian and he pulled his phone out, flipping through photos and showing Y/N his recent sketches.

With Y/N being entertained by his youngest brother, Dick decided to go to the bar and get the two of them a stronger drink and maybe get a kiddie cocktail for Damian. He’d pretend to be patronized and annoyed by it, but Dick knew better.

He patiently waited for the bartender’s attention.

“So Gotham’s Golden Boy really has returned…” a husky voice uttered beside him at the bar.

Dick glanced over to see a beautiful woman close to his age eyeing him.

It was clear what she wanted. Dick used tactics like this on countless missions.

“So I have,” he answered.

He was polite, but distant.

Women hitting on him at events like this was nothing new. To Gotham, Dick Grayson was a Bruce Wayne 2.0 – younger, just as charming and handsome as his mentor and stand-in father figure.

Dick knew how to play the game. But he never had any interest in casual relationships like Bruce did.

“Back for good?” The woman persisted.

“My girlfriend and I are just in town for a few weeks,” he answered before ordering his drinks with the bartender finally.

“Oh, brought up the girlfriend rather quickly,” she laughed.

Dick quirked an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”

“No, it’s just…my friends and I had a bet going.”

Then she pointed to a group of three young women, who were giggling and smiling, not even trying to pretend like they weren’t watching them closely.

“Oh, yeah?” Dick asked, already tired of this conversation.

Jason had already rejoined Y/N and Damian.

Y/N looked down to see his knuckles red with irritation and bruised.

“Please tell me there’s not a corpse in the alley behind this hotel now…” Y/N sighed.

“No,” Jason answered coldly. “Though there fucking should be.”

“What did he do?” Damian asked curiously, clearly he hadn’t been listening to their earlier conversation that closely.

Y/N shifted her weight in discomfort, not sure how to handle the subject with the boy. Yes, Damian was far more mature than many grown men, but he was still just a kid. There were some things Y/N felt like they should at least try to protect him from still.

“He got my neighbor too drunk to consent, filmed them having sex without her knowing it, and then showed it to a bunch of people at their work,” Jason answered bluntly.

Damian’s brow furrowed, clearly thinking long and hard about what his brother just told him.

After a moment, the boy perked up, “I know where we could hide the body so even father won’t find out.”

“Damian!” Y/N scolded.

But Jason was beaming.

Y/N looked around for Dick, hoping to find another sane person to stop the two boys from actually murdering anyone tonight.

But when she finally spotted him, she saw a woman standing far too close to Dick and pointing to a group of girls who flirtatiously waved and winked at both of them.

“Real cute,” Y/N muttered to herself.

“Vultures,” Damian growled as he followed her gaze.

“Jason, if I leave you alone with Damian, are you going to kill someone?” She asked without taking her eyes off her boyfriend.

“I don’t need to be watched,” Damian groaned.

“No, I need you to watch Jason to make sure he doesn’t change his mind about keeping that asshole alive.”

“Fine,” Damian whined.

Without any further confirmation, Y/N left them.

She walked across the party on a mission, never taking her stare off of her boyfriend.

Dick did a double take when he noticed her heading towards him.

“Hey,” he greeted innocently.

Because he was innocent. All he’d done was be polite to a bunch of women who were after him for his name…and maybe his good looks.

“I was wondering where my drink was,” Y/N said with a surprising calmness and smile.

Then she turned to the woman.

“Hi, I’m Y/N. You must be a friend of Dick’s.”

She held her hand out.

No cattiness. No rudeness.

Y/N said it with the same kindness that drunk women having with other drunk women in bar bathrooms.

“Oh…I’m Irina,” the woman stuttered as she took Y/N’s offered hand, clearly confused by Y/N’s niceness.

Dick held out her drink.

Y/N took it, quickly clinked her glass with both Dick and Irina.

“Cheers,” she sang before tossing it back and chugging the drink that was meant to be slowly sipped.

Dick didn’t know what game his girlfriend was playing, but he was intrigued.

Once Y/N lightly placed her empty glass back on the bar, she turned to Dick and tilted her head to the side. “Could you show me to the bathrooms? I have no idea where they are.”

“Of course,” Dick answered without knowing where this was going.

“It was nice meeting you, Irina,” Y/N told the woman as she linked her fingers with Dick’s and guided him away.

—

Meanwhile, Jason watched the interaction as if he were watching an award-winning movie. Him and Damian were way too far to hear, but everyone in the bat family could read lips more than fluently.

Then Jason smirked as he watched Y/N drag Dick away.

“Boys,” Bruce greeted as he snuck up on the two of them. “What are we staring at?”

“Oh, you know,” Jason hummed with hilarity, “just watching Y/N assert her dominance.”

“Good for her,” Bruce grinned as he realized what was happening.

He moved his attention to his youngest boy. “Alfred is waiting outside with the car. You’re officially released from your duties.”

“Finally,” Damian groaned.

“Don’t you wanna say bye to Y/N?” Jason asked.

“They’re coming to the manor tomorrow afternoon,” Bruce answered for his son. Then he raised a brow at Jason. “You’re welcome to join us.”

Jason’s only response was a shrug.

Bruce tried to hide his disappointment and nodded before he guided Damian away and walked him outside, where Alfred was waiting.

10 minutes later, Jason saw Dick trailing behind Y/N as she walked back to the main area of the event.

Jason burst out laughing at the spectacle.

Dick’s hair was an absolute mess. Half of his shirt was untucked. His jacket was draped over his forearm. His lips were swollen and pink. Y/N had left lipstick all over his neck and even a bit on the collar of his shirt.

Yet somehow not a single hair was out of place on Y/N and her makeup was still immaculate. Her outfit was just as sleek and clean as when she’d arrived. The only thing different was the proud smirk on her lips.

Clearly Y/N had just had her way with Dick.

But she wanted to make sure the whole party knew about it.

—

Y/N hadn’t said a word to Dick since she dragged him from that woman.

Her body did all the talking.

One second they were at the bathroom doors, the next Y/N had thrown him against the tiled wall after locking the bathroom door.

She gave no verbal explanation, just started kissing him and undoing his pants.

“Not that I’m complaining. Like, at all,” Dick laughed as they rejoined the party. “But wanna to tell me what that was all about?”

Y/N finally stopped walking and turned to face him with narrowed eyes. “I think you know, Richard.”

Y/N only ever used his full first name to provoke and tease him. And he hated that it worked every single time.

Dick glanced around to see that everyone in their vicinity was eyeing them. Well, they were mostly eyeing him and how it was clear he’d just been fucked in the bathroom.

He stepped close to her and lowered his voice, “Ohhh, I see how it is.” His eyes flickered down to her lips for a split second. “If a guy does that, he’s jealous and possessive. But if a woman does it, it’s sexy…”

Y/N proudly smiled like the cheshire cat. “Exactly.”

Something over his shoulder caught her attention. “Oh, I see Tim. I’m going to go say hi.”

Without hesitation, she brushed past him.

Dick let his head fall, put his hands on his hips, and laughed.

He’d pay her back later tonight. And by ‘pay her back,’ he would just tell her how incredibly hot her behavior had been and basically invite her to do it whenever she damn well pleased.

Dick felt a presence beside him, and he didn’t have to raise his head to know it was Bruce.

“Hey,” Dick greeted him nonchalantly.

“You have lipstick all over your neck,” Bruce told him as he took a sip of his drink and looked around the party. “And your zippers down.”

“Sure is,” Dick sighed.

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

OK. This was way too fun to write.

Let me know what you think!!!

ALL BONUS CONTENT CAN BE FOUND: HERE

#all men have limits #AMHL bonus content #make a scene extension #dick grayson x reader #dick grayson reader insert #nightwing x reader #nightwing reader insert #jason todd and platonic!reader #jason todd x platonic!reader #batfam #batboys #bruce wayne x platonic!reader #bruce wayne and reader

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seita · 4 years

Text

— the lottery: redlove | eijirou kirishima (m.)

pairing: kirishima/reader

genre: fluff, smut, angst if u squint

wordcount: 𝟹,𝟶𝟺𝟸

cw: cam couple!au, pro hero!bakugou

tags: soft forehead kisses, lonely!bakugou, protective kiri, dom/sub dynamics, male masturbation, hair pulling, dirty talk, praise kink, pet names, cunnilingus, pain kink, light degradation/name calling, creampie, cum eating, soft aftercare kisses & praise

note: part 2 to the loved redlove fic. i really hope u guys enjoy this!

— redlove, bakugou's favorite camcouple, hold a lottery to decide who gets a private show with them.

blog navigation.

⇦ prev. live now: redlove

Bakugou was obsessed; something he found shameful. Here he was, one of the top heroes in Japan — the Ground Zero, infatuated with a couple he only knows because he jerks off to them every night.

He couldn’t imagine what people would think of him if they found out that he spent his nights with his first around his hard cock, imagining himself fucking the pretty cam couple.

But when he got a notification one afternoon, his phone buzzing obnoxiously on the wood of his desk, he knew he was fucked.

He had been lucky enough to discover the couple had a Twitter account and promptly followed from his private, personal account. Looking back, he was glad he had enough common sense to make sure he didn’t follow from his professional, hero account.

That would have been hard to explain to the media.

He unlocked his phone and opened the tweet, biting his lip as he pressed the like button.

“We are excited to announce that we’ll be holding a special lottery on our next stream. The winner gets a private show! Details will be explained.

— redlove <3.”

He was about to go see what they were talking about when there was a knock at the door. Bakugou jumped and locked his phone, slipping it into his pocket as he gruffly called for the person to enter.

He talked to his sidekick as if he wasn’t half hard in his hero costume the entire time.

The second he was back in his home, sitting comfortable in a soft t-shirt and some sweatpants, he took his phone out and finally took a look at who had been on his mind all day; the redlove lottery.

He checked the time, seeing he still had a few hours to go before you would start your stream. So to kill time, he made himself dinner and decided to watch TV.

Thankfully, it worked and before long he lost track of time. The only thing that reminded him was his phone buzzing.

He yawned, picking it up only to choke when he saw “redlove is now live!” plastered across the banner.

He fumbled with the device, not giving a shit about how desperate he was — it wasn’t like anyone was there to judge him. He unlocked it and clicked the notification, waiting with bated breath as the app opened.

The screen was black for a moment, the spinning circle in the middle showing that it was buffering. But after a minute, the screen was finally filled with your pretty face.

You were perched at the edge of the bed, wearing an oversized t-shirt that slipped off of your shoulder with some faded writing he couldn’t quite make out. He couldn’t see any bra strap so he could assume your breasts were bare beneath. You were sitting on your knees, making it hard for him to figure out if you wore short, panties, or nothing. He hoped it was the latter.

“Where’s Ei?” you asked, reading the comments.

“He’s grabbing some things from the living room I think,” you shrug with a smile, “We’ll talk to you guys about the lottery before we get started though, don’t worry!”

“Ah did you start?” Eijirou’s voice was a bit muffled due to his distance from the microphone.

You looked offscreen and smiled, “Yeah, didn’t wanna start too late. I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

Your boyfriend hummed and climbed onto the bed, pressing a kiss against your temple, making you beam. Bakugou’s heart ached at the sight — it was almost sickening how cute and in love the two of you obviously were. The domesticity between the two of you was heart wrenching.

“So about the lottery!” you clapped your hands together and shifted to the side so Eijirou was on the screen fully.

Bakugou’s mouth went dry at the sight. The redhead wasn’t wearing his usual spiked up hair, instead it was down, hanging in his eyes. He wore a pair of sweatpants and he was shirtless, as usual. The hero wondered if it was common for him to be shirtless even when you weren’t streaming. The redhead sat back on his palms legs crossed on the bed as he eyed the screen, reading comments as you spoke.

“So, as you may know the website recently implemented a private show function,” you explained, clearing your throat before continuing, “So Ei and I talked about it and came up with the idea to hold a lottery for it! Basically,” you paused to giggle, squirming in your seat. Bakugou smiled along with you, the sound of your laugh contagious as he watched the way Eijirou’s hand was obviously up the back of your shirt.

“Go on then,” your boyfriend teased, lips quirked up ever so slightly.

You rolled your eyes and elbowed him, still smiling, “Anyway, we’re doing it on a donation basis. The more you donate, the higher chance you’ll get at being chosen!”

The playful look on your boyfriend's face vanished immediately. He leaned forward, closer to the screen, shaking his head. Bakugou’s eyes drifted to the comments on the stream to see a bunch of complaints; saying that wasn’t fair, how you were just using the viewers for money, even a handful of name calling.

“Hey,” Eijirou barked, brows furrowed. The sight made Bakugou shiver and a quick glance at you, watching the way you thickly swallowed, watching your boyfriend, he could tell you had a similar reaction, “Don’t forget this is our job. Of course we’re going to do the most we can to make money.”

Bakugou watched as the redhead began to click around on the computer. Glancing down at the comment section, he saw that a few accounts were now banned “account name has been banned” placed where their comments once stood.

“Don’t insult _____,” Eijirou grumbled, sitting back in his seat, “Remember, getting to see her pretty little body is a privilege that can be revoked at any time. I’m the only one who can call her names,” his voice lost a bit of its seriousness at that last statement, giving way to his usual playfulness. But Bakugou could tell he was still a bit ticked, his body was tense. The blonde let out a soft, almost dreamy sigh; Eijirou was a man in protection mode.

You chuckled, nudging your boyfriend before turning your smile back to the camera, “As I was saying...it doesn’t mean if you have to donate 100,000 to get a chance. You never know how your luck may play out! Either way, we look forward to this. We’ll be taking donations for this stream as your lottery entry!”

Bakugou’s heart leapt out in his chest. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d donated to the two of you. He could still remember the first time he’d heard you say his name. He’d made a donation at the start of the stream and you’d beamed, muttering out a cute “thank you, katsuki!”

The way he felt himself swoon was almost embarrassing. No, it was embarrassing.

How was he whipped over a girl he’d only ever watched fuck her boyfriend through a screen?

He sighed, pressing the donate button, going through the automatic payment process with a few clicks on the screen to verify his identity.

In the background, he could see the two of you have met in a deep kiss. His hand cradling the back of your head, slowly fisting your hair until he wrenches your head back to begin mouthing at your throat.

The whimper you release encourages Bakugou to speed up before closing the window, his donation of $120 successful.

He relaxes back against the couch, pushing his hand up his shirt to thumb his nipples. He could feel his cock beginning to grow hard in his sweats, making him grind mindlessly in his seat against nothing.

You were on your back, shirt pushed up over your breasts as your boyfriend cupped your breasts. Bakugou sighed at the sight of your pretty tits, taking note of the cute, white panties you wore that were adorned with cute pink strawberries. The material was a bit sheer from what he could see from how wet you were getting. The mixture of the lewdness of your pussy no doubt clenching and dripping against the fabric that oozed innocence and softness made his cock throb.

Fuck, you were so sweet and cute.

For a long moment, Bakugou felt envy burning in his veins as he watched your boyfriend worship your body. He tongue your nipples, sucking until they popped out of his mouth before descending down your body, leaving kisses along your ribs, stomach and hip bones. He finally settled on his stomach between your thighs, running his fingers along your folds through the thin material.

“Aw, you’re this wet from some kissing?” Eijirou teases, leaning down to kiss your clothed pussy, “You’re my sweet little girl, aren’t you?”

“Ei…” you whispered, shifting beneath him in anticipation, biting your lip as you reached down to thread your fingers through his hair, “Love you…”

The redhead grinned, kissing your inner thigh so softly it made Bakugou’s heart flutter before whispering, “I know you do, pretty girl.”

He slipped your panties to the side, moaning at the sight of your flushed, wet cunt. Pushing your thighs apart, he used his thumbs to spread you open.

Bakugou slipped his hand beneath the band of his sweats, palming his bare cock that was throbbing under his own touch. He watched intently, not even blinking as he watched the way your boyfriend ate your cunt like he was his last meal.

He worshiped you, kissing your folds, tonguing your clenching hole, before wrapping his lips around your hard clit. Your thighs trembled and jumped, threatening to close as your boyfriend pulled back the hood of your clit, exposing the extra sensitive nerves to his tongue’s abuse. You squirmed, yanking at his hair, wanting to simultaneously push him away and pull him closer.

He made the decision for you by pulling away. Your hand lost its grip on his hair and flopped back down to the bed. His touch wasn’t gone for long before he was pulling your panties down your legs.

“Shit,” Bakugou whimpered as he caught sight of the strings of your slick clinging to your panties before sticking to your thighs.

Your boyfriend seemed to have noticed the same thing, running his fingers along your soaked cunt, gathering your juices on his fingers before showing the camera, pulling his fingers apart to show the audience how wet you were.

Bakugou gripped the base of his cock, feeling hot and almost painful in his hand.

“Gotta fill that little pussy, princess,” Eijirou breathed, finally stripping himself of his sweatpants.

The Pro-Hero squeezed his cock at the sight. You were a lucky girl that he was damn sure of.

Ei’s cock was as long as it was thick, veins running along the shaft with a pretty, pink tip that always seemed to be drooling precum. The sight of his hand wrapped around his own length made Bakugou lick his lips — long, lithe fingers with veins running on the tops of his hands before reappearing over his forearms.

There was no doubt in the blonde’s mind that the two of you were a beautiful, perfect couple.

You were so pretty with a brilliant smile and contagious laugh. But when you had your legs spread for your boyfriend, you were a cute, submissive little kitten who was never too proud to beg for praise.

Eijirou was a pillar, strong-willed and protective — really, a perfect Dom. The second he had you on your back, however, he turned almost mean. He took advantage of your submissiveness to use you like a cocksleeve, praising you for being a good girl while telling you it was pathetic how easily you came just from putting his cock inside you.

But afterwards, he would let you cling to him, press kisses to your lips and temple and caress your skin until the screen went black and Bakugou was reminded that he was alone. While the two of you were no doubt thriving in each other's embrace.

It was those moments that reminded the hero how alone he was.

He was ripped from his thoughts when you let out a squeal of pleasure. Focusing his gaze back on his phone screen properly once more, he gave his cock a few strokes to the sight.

You were laid on your side, one leg lifted and pinned towards your chest while you clung to a nearby pillow as your boyfriends fat cock stretched you open.

“A-Ah!” you cried, biting on the pillow.

Eijirou soothed his hand along the thigh he was holding, pressing a kiss to your knee, “Does it hurt, sweetheart?”

“Mhm…” you whined, making Bakugou realize you hadn’t been stretched before taking his length.

“Ah but…” the redhead grunted, sinking more of his cock into your dripping cunt, “You like it when it hurts, isn’t that right?”

“Yes!” you immediately gasped, eyes fluttering closed as he finally bottomed out.

“I know you do, my pretty pain slut,” Ei whispered, pulling out before quickly sinking back inside of you with an swift roll of his hips.

How easily he set a rhythm reminded Bakugou how much he knew your body. He got to fuck you on and off camera. Envy reared its ugly head once more, burning hot in his veins as he slowly stroked his cock to the sight of you getting stuffed full by your perfect boyfriend’s cock.

He felt pathetic. He felt envious. He felt...lonely.

His heart began to feel heavy but his cock remained hot and throbbing in his fist. Mindlessly, he surged his hips forward to fuck into his own fist, as if he wasn’t giving himself enough pleasure. His other hand dipped beneath the band of his sweats to cup his heavy balls.

On the screen, you were rolled back over, your knees locked around his hips as he fucked you. He panted, leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead, meeting your gaze with a serene smile.

The sight was so soft, so sweet. You leaned up and pressed your lips against his, nipping at his lip before pulling away to moan as he hit your g-spot.

“Atta girl,” Ei whispered, letting you angle your hips up so he would continue to hit it, “Such a good girl, make me hit that spot. You wanna cum? Want me to make you cum?”

You nodded, mouth agape as you whined, “Yes, please!”

“So polite,” Ei grinned, but made no move to help you get off, “Tell me why you deserve to cum.”

“Ei…” you sob, clearly not pleased with his teasing.

“C’mon,” your boyfriend taunted, “I won’t know why I should let you cum unless you tell me. You know I’ll leave you high and fuckin’ dry, don’t test me, babygirl.”

At the sound of his once soft, sweet voice turning dark and demanding, you whimpered and began to babble out anything that came to mind, “I-I’ve been good! ‘M your good girl, Ei. Please, I’ll do anything...please let me cum. Make me cum, only you can make me cum good!”

“Such pretty words…” Ei groaned, licking the pad of his thumb before quickly pressing it against your clit. You keen immediately, the arch of your back pushing your breasts out provocatively as you clung to the pillow beneath your head, “Go ahead. You wanted to cum so fuckin’ bad. Cum on my cock, make a mess for me. Wanna see you cream on my cock like the good girl you are.”

His filthy words sent you over the edge and you came with a cry. Through your high, you babbled praises to your boyfriend; ‘you feel so good’, ‘you make me cum so hard’, ‘please don’t stop’, ‘please cum inside’.

Your boyfriend fell victim to your pleas, giving a few more valiant thrusts into your cunt, forcing you to ride it out completely as he poured his hot cum inside.

Bakugou’s eyes rolled back, he quickly pulled his cock out of his sweats. He cupped his balls, rolling and squeezing them as he felt the tighten up with his impending orgasm. His cock throbbed violently, spitting cum across his chest, landing up to his cheeks. He opened his mouth without a second thought, making sure to stick his tongue out, only catching two jets of his cum on his tongue before it tapers off, drooling pathetically down his length.he swallowed the salty taste of his own load down with a whimper before slowing the strokes on his cock as he softened.

On screen, Ei slowed down, avoiding overstimulating the both of you before he fell over top of you with his hands on both sides of your head. He leaned down, meeting your lips in a happy kiss mixed with smiles.

“Did so good for me, pretty girl,” he whispered, pecking your nose before kissing your forehead, “Love you so much, you know that?”

You nodded, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. He sat up, his arm around your waist as he shifted to look back at the camera. He cradled you in his lap, cupping the back of your head as he pressed a kiss to your temple.

“We’ll be doing the drawing for the lottery next week when all the donations you made will officially have gone through,” Ei explained, smiling as you buried your face in his neck, still floating through the pleasurable headspace, “Thanks for watching everyone!”

He leaned forward, jostling you slightly, making you whine. The last thing Bakugou heard was a soft, “sorry, babygirl” before the camera turned off and the stream ended.

The hero sat by himself, hand covered in drying cum that was on his stomach and shirt as well. As usually, the impending loneliness he felt compounded with the shame of having cum so hard from watching redlove made his heart ache.

Swallowing thickly, a thought occurred to him.

He had no idea how he would survive if he won that lottery.

Oh well, the odds of that happening were low.

Right?

#bnha x reader #mha x reader #kirishima x reader #bakugou x reader #kirishima smut #bakugou smut #katsuki bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #eijirou kirishima x reader #kirishima eijirou x reader #afton.writes

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munsnz · 3 years

Text

TRICKS OF LIFE— STEVE HARRINGTON

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐯. — 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐔𝐬

overview: School is finally done, yet feeling off in the situation itself. The familiar boys including, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas get in contact with her to persuasion to investigate further information on the disappearance while Y/N works as an intern at the police department.

Taglist! — @itsnottilly

Navigation — Mixtape

Who knew that the day had gone like a blur, drifting off to classes and sessions, now Y/N was outside in the busy Hawkins High parking lot. From people driving away to their destinations to the freshmen walking off into the distance. Everything had been subtly normal, except for Y/N who had been aware of the odd disappearance of Will Byers. As she stood beyond the perimeter of the entrance, a few farewells were exchanged from Nancy, walking back to the Wheeler’s residence, three familiar boys biking nearby her. It had appeared that the specific, Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair, and Dustin Henderson were approaching her in the buzzing lot. Quick waves and greetings, they all said hello along with the purpose of the trip.

”Little Hop!” The shouts from upfront were called for, the boys circling their way around her, Mike pushing the brakes next to the dumbfounded girl, standing awkwardly, “There’s something that went on-“

“I know, Will’s missing,” Y/N lifted her arms from her side, sighing loudly, the boys still catching their breath from the troubling trip to the high school, “There’s nothing we can do about it!”

Mike stood up abruptly, steadying his bike along with Lucas and Dustin, clearing his throat, “Yes we can! You’re an intern at the police department.”

The three middle schoolers stood quietly, in hopes of her agreeing with their statement of finding their lost friend. Y/N had always been on their side, ever since she met them, they were the troublemaking group of kids, buzzing around the town creating rumbles. Surprisingly, she frowned, looking off into the open, “Sorry, but from what my dad said, I’m afraid I can’t help this time. I was told not to investigate at a certain point.”

“Why not? You’ve always helped us,” Dustin began, walking next to her, strolling his bike as well, “You want the best for us right?”

“I do, but...... I need to listen to them.”

Lucas turned to Y/N who silently watched them, “There’s gotta be a reason though! Will is our friend, he’s missing. What if something happened to him?”

“That’s the police’s deal, not mine!” Y/N snapped at them who flinched at the odd action taken by her. Irritated, she looked to the distance, watching a group of boys around her age make these obnoxiously loud noises from afar.

Hearing the cryptic response, all of their jaws dropped, Y/N’s never acted so.......stern, bland, stubborn, like ever. Their expressions dim, surprised at hearing the prolonged answer they’ve never thought would turn up out of Y/N’s mouth. Frantically grabbing the bikes from the side, getting ready to pedal back home, Mike subtly shifted his glance towards the blank Y/N, waiting for them to leave, saying, “Seriously, what’s wrong with you? You’re supposed to be on our side.”

”I’m just listening to what they’re saying,” Y/N crosses her arms due to the frigid weather outside, prepared to be able to walk home. Watching their saddened faces gloom in the outside, Y/N felt this other urge of guilt; why was she acting up so much already? Will was her main priority, so why wasn’t she helping them? What if Will was in grave danger? Why was she being so ignorant?

As thoughts flood her head, bringing this awful feeling, not being able of what to do, she quickly places a comforting yet rapid hand onto Mike’s shoulder, catching him off guard, “Okay, it may seem as if I’m the bad guy, but at least I’ll try my best. I’ll let you know what goes on in the office, but under one condition, you guys cannot go investigate at all. Do you understand?”

Smiles brightening up, they rapidly nodded, a sense of relief that they’re going to be able to find Will sooner or later thanks to the girl’s help of her working as an intern to the most reliable place in search of safety of their friend. Happily, the boys rushed close up to Y/N, express their’s gratitude for her for the decision she made after the fulfilling thoughts convincing her instinct. After exchanging the thanks you’s and farewells, they biked away, in hopes of a successful retrieve of Will Byers. Y/N waved confidently as the rest biked away into the occupied sidewalks of students, a feeling of courage and determination swelling to her, walking away from the school premises to the Hawkins Police Department.

Maybe it was one of the longest walks Y/N had ever taken, and believe it or not, it was the shortcut to the center of the town where most residents would be, to walking and driving around the oddly empty area. After nearing herself to the familiar building, broadly directing the suitable location she was currently in, the police department. It was eerie since as predicted, almost all officers were in search of the Byers boy, maybe a few people coming out of the building, the sound of the car engines from behind, bringing her back to the present beyond thinking of different ways to gather resourceful information about the disappearance to satisfy her curious middle school friends.

It had been almost a year since Y/N got the job as an intern thanks to her extraordinary talent of persuasion for her dad, knowing that the department could use an extra hand for the little tasks. To top it off, she had also been passionate about following Jim’s footsteps in law enforcement, wanting to be an aspiring detective shortly.

Gallantly walking inside to find the ringing of phone calls and faint clicks coming from the rickety typewriter in the unoccupied office, the girl awkwardly walked inside the warm room, the smell of brunt cigarettes filling the essence, to find Florence, or as known, Flo organizing a few papers in the oddly organized desk.

“Hey Flo,” Y/N shuffled her feet, meeting her eyes with the woman, signaling her to come closer by the wooden table. In the quiet aura, more sound of the papers, making her eyes shift from side to side, trying to recognize files, names, dates containing in them.

Following the quiet mumbles of distress, the girl gets up, in prospers of ruling a kind act towards Flo who had seemed wildly stressed in whatever deal she was in, to trot by the counter, finding the area of the usual coffee stand. Y/N gently pours in the hot pot of water in the porcelain cup, later adding a spoonful of the instant coffee mix, stirring it to when it blended evenly, as her mind filled with phrases or questions for any information about Will had been released.

At last, Y/N cleared her throat watching behind her to see the frazzled woman as she allowed the light gush of vanilla creamer into the dull substance inside the mug. She places her hand on her chin, leaning against the counter to watch the heavy fluid smoothly blend with the dark-shaded one, a satisfying view to one.

“Have you seen Victor anywhere?!” A familiar perky voice chirped tensely behind Y/N, disassociating her from the soothing visual upon her.

As the girl shook her head in response, she gripped onto the filled mug, placing it on the top of the surface, bringing a piece of sweet bread along with a napkin for herself. Given a seat on the thick cushion, she pushed the mug towards Flo, “I saw him in Chemistry, but I don’t think he came into the office. But here’s coffee to relieve the stress.”

Continuing, placing the papers around the desk, Flo solemnly smiled, accepting the hot drink, “Thank you, dear, that silly boy is probably wandering around with others. Kids these days and their irresponsibilities.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Y/N takes a bite from the bread, hearing the lady with glasses mumble nonsense about the theory of how pop culture influenced the younger generation of teenagers, turning them into rebels.

Seemingly, Y/N tried in the most awkward moment to speak up about Will, after the tense conversation Flo was having with herself, multitasking in filing papers, clearing her throat, “What happened to Will?”

“Will?” In a millisecond, the big-eyed woman shifted her glance upwards to get a glimpse of the girl who had a worrisome look on her face, raising her eyebrows a little, “Will Byers right? The missing boy?”

Y/N confidentially nodded, biting her bottom lip for an answer, her hands coming together, “Yeah, my dad came in a few hours ago at school to ask me where he was last seen.”

”Oh, yeah,” Flo’s eyebrows furrow, trying to recall any updates on the search for the boy, she clicks her tongue, adjusting her seat, “Well, from what Jim told me, they recently found the boy’s bike in the woods near the dead-end near Mirkwood.”

”The woods?” The girl’s E/C colored eyes widened, feeling that same sick sensation in her stomach, something bad could’ve happened to Will. But shaking the thoughts away, she mentally took notes from the location, for her fellow friends, “Anything else? I’m just really worried about him.”

Scrunching her face, Flo leaned closer to the girl’s face who pawned over any conclusions made, with a hushed tone, “Just between us, I think it was Lonnie, the boy’s dad who probably took him.”

“I don’t think so I mean something else could’ve happened,” Y/N shrugs, speechless of the comment made, but also being in complete denial of that accusation made so quickly.

Suddenly she was cut off with a voice from the ham radio, making it impossible to hear the communication clearly on the side counter. As Y/N rolled her eyes in annoyance, she stood up from the chair, tuning the frequency higher enough to hear better to listen to the chief’s deep voice, “Flo are you there? Hello?”

”Oh yes it’s me, Florence!” The female teenager mimicked sarcastically through the radio, overhearing her father groan deeply, the sound of the background being able to be caught on the machine.

Hopper chuckles a little, earning a small grin on his daughter’s face while she slides back down on the comfortable chair, “Yeah very funny kid, you should be on Carson one day.”

”I know right? So what’s up Big Hop!”

Toning down his voice to be grouchier like before, he ordered sternly, “Well, tell Flo to organize a search party right by Mirkwood around 7 o’clock.”

”Wait a search party?” Y/N’s happy tone faded away, unsettling her, as she anxiously twirling her finger onto the radio chord connecting to the main machine, “Is this seriously? Can I come? What if-“

Another interruption. Sheesh, whoever let this girl talk in peace? Oh right the brunette with oval glasses who rushed inside to throw his jacket to a rack, quietly mumbling words to himself until he spoke up, “Sorry I’m late, I was caught up with Mr. Benson.”

”About time boy!” Flo glares at the slender, lanky teenager, clapping her hands up in the air to make a racket, “You airhead, we called you an hour ago, it’s irresponsibility! You’re going to get nowhere with that commitment of yours Victor.”

Victor’s mouth hung open at the tactless observation from the audacious lady, raising his eyebrows, he barked back, “Yeah but you didn’t hear the part where I was clearly at school!”

”No you were probably being some hobo on the streets-“

”Can you two just shut up!” Y/N shouted, waving her arms in the air to signal them to keep it down, later focusing her attention back to the stereo, “Jesus I cannot keep up with them.”

Scoffs being heard on the other line, Hopper responds with a jokingly tone, “My exact thoughts when you ramble about everything. Now, let the Hawkins paper know about the search party being held later a during the evening.”

”Wow, that’s just mean dad,” She rolls over to grab a blue ink ballpoint pen, along with a sheet of lined paper to mark down any important data for the event, chicken scratch letters splayed across the page, “So what else do you need pop?”

”That's about it, but I want the information out as soon as possible for the townsfolk to know, you got that?” Hopper ordered, saluting a goodbye after catching the background noise of Victor and Flo arguing about responsibility in the law world for future reference.

Y/N quickly scribbled on the last of the dictation from her father, leaving the radio back to its default position near the main machine, sliding the paper in front of Flo who was near threatening to hit Spencer with a telephone, “You guys seriously need to act mature enough.”

”Excuse me? I’m a fifty-year-old woman teaching a scrawny boy how to behave and not to talk back to adults!” She huffs, throwing herself back onto the chair belonging to the desk, squinting her eyes to look at the writing for directions, “Your handwriting needs work dear. But Victor needs to call the Hawkins Post or announce it somewhere and do something for good.”

Rolling his dark eyes, Victor snatches the flattened paper off the lady’s hands, walking towards the office phone calling in regards to the additional details to the post. Meanwhile, Y/N slouches on the chair, her jacket crinkle, reading a few files based on last week’s headlines, “Can I help to search for Will?”

”Can I come too?” Victor calls out from the corner, waving a hand in the air, suddenly getting caught off guard by the other person on the phone line and getting back into the conversation after dozing off, mumbling, “I’m sorry it was just a colleague of mine talking to me about the investigation.”

Time was dozing off until Flo agreed to let the two teenagers come along for the search party, organizing and setting out a clean stack of papers in front of Y/N, “Now stop your unproductive babbling and sort these out to keep them in storage.”

”Yes ma'am,” Y/N uttered calmly, still feeling proud and occupied due to her letting Dustin and the rest know this semi-confidential for the search of their friend. Now were they all going to be lucky and find success in finding Will in safety on this night, or are there many more occurrences to come?

#Steve Harrington #steve Harrington x reader #steve Harrington fanfic #steve harrington series #Steve Harrington fanfiction #Steve Harrington x Hopper reader #Stranger things #stranger things x reader #Stranger things Fanfiction #Steve Harrington angst #Steve Harrington fluff #Steve Harrington smut #Steve Harrington fanfic navigation #Steve Harrington x you #Jopper #dnd

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mintymiknow · 3 years

Text

Trust Fall ch. 8 | Lee Minho

summary | character profiles | masterlist

Pairing: Lee Minho/Lee Know x Reader

Summary: Little discussions here and there seem to open some eyes and hearts, but is it enough to fully break down the walls that were built?

Genre: Secret agent/spy au, romance, angst, action

Word count: Approx. 5.8k

Warnings for this chapter: Genre-typical violence & blood due to fight scenes (rest assured, it isn’t gore; just basic or typical violence for fight scenes). Let me know if I missed anything or should add more warning tags though!

A/N: I know you all had to wait for a bit, but I used my break to spend time with family (and play Genshin so...hehe I needed some “me-time”). Anyway! I’m back and here to give you all the next chapter for the series. I hope you enjoy reading it as the end scenes have been my favorite to write so far ‘cause you’ll be getting some tension and fluff at the same time. Leave an ask for any questions and comments!

“I’ve fallen into a daily routine now. I’m used to everything and go about my day normally now.”

That’s what you’d like to say anyway.

While it’s somehow true that you’ve fallen into a systematic rhythm in SKZ, it’s still something that weighs down on you, and you just want to get things over and done with. You still have to drag your body away from the bed, drag your feet here and there, and work in the lab department.

This systematic rhythm consists of working in the lab with Seungmin and Jisung - and eating your meals with them mostly. It also involves Minho and the other boys going on smaller-sized missions, each return giving you more things to work with and whatnot.

In the very back of your head and heart, the brief moments Minho spends with you - namely late nights in the lab discussing the recent findings and theories - are somewhat a breather as it reminded you of the times you and Dr. Kang would stay in the doctors’ lounge, talking about how your rounds with the patients went for the day.

Well, at the end of it all, at least you’re basically good friends with Seungmin and Jisung now. Being with the two gave you a sense of freedom as if you were back in your more relaxed college days or something of that sort.

After getting showered and dressed for another day, you head to the lab department. On the way, you bump into Felix in the courtyard-like area of the HQ. The young male greets you with a smile, “Morning, y/n! Lab duty again?”

You offer a small smile and nod in response, “Hi, Felix. Yes, as usual.”

“I see.” Felix chuckles lightly, “Don’t forget to stand up and stretch from time to time. Sitting for long hours isn’t good for your posture! Though you’re the doctor so I’m sure you knew that…”

“We can forget.” you chuckle, “Thank you for the reminder. You should keep that in mind too.”

“Yeah, sitting in front of computer screens and whatnot is bad for my eyes, but probably my back too.” Felix laughs, his eyes filled with so much brightness.

You release a soft sigh and smile, “I commend you and your efforts in the tech division.”

“Thanks…” Felix says sheepishly, “I’m not one for being in the limelight, but it’s nice to hear that us tech agents are doing good too. We are working in the background most of the time.”

“Well, I’m sure that without you and the other tech guys, Minho and the rest of the agents would be doing missions blindly and without any advantages.” you say seriously yet warmly.

“That’s true.” the younger laughs, “Gee, you’re really nice, you know that?”

“Not really...just...um, saying facts.” you stutter, suddenly taken by surprise by his compliment, “It’s from a completely objective perspective after all…”

Felix grins wider, shaking his head, “I can tell you’re a nice person, y/n! Minho says you’re a bit closed off, but it’s understandable. Jisung and Seungmin know you best, and they like you a lot, so that’s more than enough to like you too. Besides, you wouldn’t be here if you really didn’t care, right?”

After that statement, another agent calls for Felix, so the freckled male has to excuse himself. As he trots off to the main HQ building, you stand there, dumbfounded.

“Besides, you wouldn’t be here if you really didn’t care, right?”

You’ve been blaming Minho and Jung and SKZ for dragging and forcing you back into the game. Blaming them for giving you no choice no matter what, but deep down, you knew that you did have a choice. You could run away any time, turn to the government or something to fight for your rights. You could give in to the dark whispers of joining Cle to end whatever struggle once and for all.

But you had a choice, and you chose to work with SKZ.

Because yes, you cared. Yes, you wanted to make sure no one lost their lives over a stupid serum.

You chose this.

Who knew that Felix, happy-go-lucky and carefree as he was, would just nonchalantly utter words that would open your eyes and heart. Well, maybe it was that innocence and cheerfulness that made it more believable and genuine to you.

Shaking your head to release yourself from a trance, you clear your throat and make hurried steps towards the lab department. You take the elevator and go down to the underground level where most of the work is done. You then venture further inside, heading for the hallway where various rooms are lined. You’re about to scan your ID to open the door to the lab room you frequently use when the door slides open by itself; you’re met with a tall figure in front of you.

You look up, only to see Jung standing in front of you, tilting his head to the side. “Oh, Dr. Song, good morning.” he chuckles.

You nod politely, “Yes, good morning, Jung. What...what brings you here?”

Jung rarely stepped foot into the lab unless you guys summoned him and the agents for briefing on test findings and results. As far as you were concerned, the results for the tests Jisung ran yesterday are due later in the afternoon, not this morning.

Unless...something happened and Jung needed to speak directly to you, perhaps?

“Did...something happen?” you ask again, clearing your throat.

Jung shakes his head and offers a smile, “Well, technically I was looking for Seungmin, and since you both work closely, I thought he’d be here...where’d that boy go?”

“Seungmin’s doing his rounds in the medical wing, I think.” you explain, “Did you need something from him? Maybe I’d know…”

“Oh, no. It’s just about an agent that needs treatment, and I think Seungmin would be the best doctor to work on it.” Jung sighs and offers a small smile, “No matter, I’ll look for him myself.”

“I see, alright then.” you nod.

“Have a good day, Dr. Song. Don’t forget to take breaks. Minho says you’ve been working non-stop.” Jung calls over his shoulder as he walks away, muttering something about ‘where is Kim Seungmin’ afterwards.

You go inside the lab room and press the button for the door to slide shut. Call it “trust issues”, but as soon as the door closes, you scan the room and check everything there, making sure how you left it last night was how it was until now.

Not a single thing was out of place, so you mentally slap your mind for being so suspicious.

You then proceed to study whatever chemicals and substances the team has brought back the past few days, and you study them along with...well, vials of chemicals that you’ve hesitantly withheld from the rest - from Minho. These withheld items were things you’d only test and analyze when you were working by yourself, keeping the observations and notes in a small notebook that you kept in utter secrecy and safety.

If Jisung and Seungmin wanted to enter the lab room, they’d have to knock or scan their IDs, and if it were the latter, the beeping sound before the door opens gave you enough time to conceal whatever substances you were hiding under the table or in the desk drawers.

After a few hours or so, you finally decide to take a break and keep the vials and flasks in a locked cabinet before clearing up the desk and returning whatever equipment you used. However, you still remain seated on the stool, going through the notes you’ve written in your notebook and rattling your mind to come up with mental calculations and formulas to make sense of your findings. So far, you don’t have anything, and your eyebrows knit together in desperation.

“Y/n.”

You freeze in your spot upon hearing that sharp and clear voice; you don’t even bother to make any moves in hiding your notebook - that’s too suspicious. Instead, you simply close the notebook and try your best to look as calm as possible as you look up, “Agent Lee.”

Minho crosses his arms, something you’ve learned to look away from - unless you want to internally drool over how attractive the simple gesture looks. “I thought you were supposed to be with Jisung for today? That’s what he told me last night anyway.” he says plainly.

You sigh. Did they all keep tabs on you or what? “I was just about to meet with him.” you answer, breaking eye contact with him once again, “I just...wanted to check some things here.”

“Anything of use?” Minho raises an eyebrow, and you know he’s trying to get you to explain yourself.

You lift up your notebook and weakly wave it in the air before explaining, “Just...going over some notes from previous findings and trying to connect the dots. I...am yet to see anything of significance.”

Once again, not a complete lie; yes, you were trying to connect that dots and whatnot, but nothing of significance? That was a lie. You’ve already noted some pretty significant findings aside from the ones you discovered with the other scientists, but you didn’t need to tell Minho that. Not yet...maybe.

Minho walks over, stopping a bit too close for you, and you involuntarily flinch at the suddenness...and proximity. The agent notices the subtle reaction, eyes slightly lidding in either annoyance or guilt...you aren’t sure which one. He plants a hand on the desk, leaning against it as he raises an eyebrow again, “Care to share anything else?”

You shake your head, moving to put your notebook in your small purse and slinging it onto your shoulder. You stand up from the stool, but instantly regret it as Minho takes one very miniscule step towards you. That tiny step is enough to cause you to take your own step back, unfortunately bumping into the stool behind you. The male catches you with ease, a hand lightly supporting your lower back as he tugs you close with one swift and effortless motion.

Your hands fly out to settle against his chest in an effort to put as much distance between you two. Minho leans close, his head perfectly and dangerously near the side of your neck; his dark hair tickles your ear, and you can almost feel the tip of his perfect nose against the skin of your neck. You can’t help but gulp, and you’re sure the agent notices it. Despite his body warm against yours, you’re frozen like ice, unmoving as Minho remains in that position for a few more seconds.

After, he pulls back and stares at you with an unreadable expression, dark eyes still somehow sparkly despite the tension in the room. “Did you...perhaps drink at the bar before coming here? While on duty?” he asks sternly, as if reprimanding you.

You blink your eyes, staring at the male with confusion. “Excuse me?” you blurt out.

“You smell like alcohol.” Minho says in a deadpan manner.

You angle your head to sniff your shoulder to see if he was telling the truth. Surprisingly, you caught a whiff of alcohol from your jacket and internally groan, closing your eyes in embarrassment. If this were a cartoon, your cheeks would be tomato-red. You open your eyes to see Minho smiling at you, the curl of his lips nothing short of teasing and playful. Your cheeks are probably redder now.

“I didn’t drink today.” you clear your throat, tearing your eyes away from Minho’s to look down. Instead, your eyes land on his tie, already loosened at the top with the first few buttons of his shirt unbuttoned. Your mind goes hazy.

Minho laughs lightly, “You do know it’s against the rules to go to the lounge bar when on duty, right?”

You snap out of whatever reverie you were in, dragging your eyes back to Minho’s. You nod, narrowing your eyes to mask your flustered state, “I drank yesterday, but with Seungmin and Jisung. I didn’t do anything today. This is the jacket I wore yesterday, that’s why.”

“I see.” Minho tilts his head innocently, pulling away and retracting his hand from your back; you suddenly miss the warmth.

You clear your throat once more before bowing politely, “Now if you’ll excuse me, Jisung might be waiting.”

You don’t wait for Minho to reply, skirting around him to leave the room in a hurry. Minho watches your retreating figure with warm eyes, but as soon as you’re gone, he narrows said eyes and scans the room. Though nothing in particular seems wrong, he does notice a small sheet of paper on the floor, perhaps slipping from your notebook when you hurriedly put it back in your purse. He bends down to pick it up, flipping it over to reveal a small polaroid photograph.

Minho’s eyes glaze at the photo, taking into account the three individuals posing happily. He sees a woman on the right, one eye closed as she makes a winking face with a smile wide and bright as she flashes a peace-sign with her hand.

In the middle is a male who Minho recalls is the man you met up with before - Dr. Kang Hyunbin, the one you claimed to be your good friend. He smiles calmly, eyes twinkling even through a photograph as he has one arm around the other woman’s shoulder, and another arm around your shoulder.

There, at the left side you stand, smiling wider than Minho has ever seen, eyes full of life and not dull like how it is in here. The three of you were in casual clothes, though still wearing your usual lab coats in what seems to be the outdoor garden of Gongjak Hospital.

“Never thought I’d see someone smile like this after her.” Minho thinks to himself, “How cruel is fate, huh?”

He catches himself looking at you a second too long than he intended, so he releases a sigh and pockets the photo, making a mental note to return it to you soon. Turning on his heel, the agent then heads for the training facility in the main building.

“If I may be so bold, I’d say you’re in love.” Jeongin laughs after finishing a routine on the treadmill, plopping down onto a bench, “Not kidding.”

Minho leans against one of the gym equipment, raising a displeased eyebrow as he utters, “Yeah, you’re being too bold as usual, Innie. That’s not even - I don’t even know what to say in response to that.”

Chan wipes the sweat off his forehead with a towel after he finishes his turn with the punching bag. “I am intrigued how you came with that conclusion though.” the eldest says.

Jeongin laughs, his eyes narrowing into a playful yet sincere disposition, “Well, you don’t show it, but we know you well enough to see that you really do care about her. And it’s not just because you’re her partner or it’s your job to do so. I know how you are when you genuinely care about someone, and your eyes tell me that you do care about y/n more than you lead on.”

“Ok, but what if I’m only like that because I don’t want her to die? Because we’re agents? We’re supposed to be protectors of this country and its people?” Minho reasons, heading towards the punching bag.

“You’re pretty touchy and teasing with her, am I right? Kinda flirty and charming.”

“It’s called a cover, Innie. You’re familiar with that.”

“I just have a feeling. You don’t care about people to that extent. You tend to act out of duty and obligation, not attachment and emotion. With us being an exception to that, the other person I can see this side of you with is when you’re with y/n, or if it involves y/n.” Jeongin leans back against the wall, his smile not faltering one bit, “Not saying you’re attached to her, but I’m just saying that there’s already an emotional connection, and I have a feeling it won’t be long until it becomes something more serious.”

Chan looks at the youngest in awe, smiling like a proud father as he slowly claps his hands. He puts a hand on Jeongin’s shoulder and gently shakes him before turning to Minho, “You know, I do have to agree with Innie on this. You don’t even have to act on feelings or whatever. Just...try not to close yourself or your doors, alright? Maybe you’ll earn another new friend along the way.”

“I don’t need her if I have you guys.” Minho lightly punches the bag a few times, “She’s a waste of time. I just need her to finish her part so we can finally conclude this long mission.”

“You’re probably going to shoot me for saying this,” Jeongin starts as he hides behind Chan, “but are you just saying that because she reminds you of Jiyeon?”

At that, Minho shoots a glare at the two males, eyebrows furrowed. Jeongin sheepishly chuckles, but he boldly presses on. “Changbin told us...how much y/n reminds you of Jiyeon, and well, yeah, we do see it too. Is that why you don’t want to get attached? Not even romantically...platonically, even.”

Minho’s eyes soften as he looks down at the floor, “I’ve made myself clear when I said that emotions are a waste of time and are a useless distraction - things I can’t afford in this job. I’m here to protect people, not make friends and fall in love.”

Chan hums, offering a slow and easy smile as he looks at the male with warmth. “Y/n isn’t going to kill you. Or us. Or anyone for that matter.” the eldest agent states confidently, “It goes against her principles...against the doctor in her. That’s more than enough to convince me she’s on our side.”

“Wasn’t that what we thought of Jiyeon?” Minho scoffs, “Noble woman serving the organization to protect the people because of her pure heart?”

“No.” Chan says in an instant, his voice filled with certainty, “Y/n cares about lives, otherwise she wouldn’t be here. She’ll do everything in her power to fix this just so she can prevent harm...and maybe find peace from whatever past is haunting her.”

Then Minho and Chan stare at each other, a brotherly connection swarming in their eyes as whatever determination Chan has to share makes its way to Minho. The eldest agent then continues with a softer, more apologetic voice, “Jiyeon...is the opposite of y/n, now that I think about it. Y/n reminds you of the mask Jiyeon had, but not Jiyeon herself. That woman...worked in the complete opposite way of what we stand for - what y/n stands for.”

Minho releases a sigh, slumping down onto the bench beside Jeongin. With a groan, he leans his head back and rests it against the wall. Chan chuckles, giving his friend a light pat on the shoulder.

“Jiyeon’s gone, so let go of her now.”

A day later, Jung sends Minho and a small team to a factory site for investigation. He requests your presence as well, as the factory was used for chemical experiments, and you might have additional input as the investigation is carried out.

You sit in the backseat of the car, staring out the window as Minho sits next to you, and despite being on the other end of the backseat, you can feel his warmth radiating from him. Usually, he’d be driving or seated in the passenger seat if Chan was driving. But right now, two other agents were in front, and while Minho was supposed to sit in front, he swapped places with the other agent and sat with you.

Though, if you were being completely honest, you couldn’t decipher why, because right now, the man has barely spoken or looked at you. It’s a quiet ride, and you aren’t sure if it’s because he’s with agents who aren’t his usual circle of friends; you decide to keep quiet as well.

The agent driving parks the car by some trees along with another car before your groups begin to trek up a small hill that leads to a secluded factory building. The other agents go their own way with Minho reminding them to keep things subtle and quiet. The male agent then addresses you, but he does not look your way, “Follow me.”

Not that you really cared, but his indifferent - or more indifferent than usual - demeanor slightly puts you in a confused state, but you follow him nonetheless. Once inside the factory building, you look around and whisper, “Is this an abandoned site?”

Minho shakes his head, sharp eyes looking around, “Technically not. Cle occupied and used this site, but as per intel, they’ve only recently relocated the operations for this place somewhere else. This is now just a backup hideout, in simpler terms.”

You nod your head, and Minho continues, “We’re here to investigate, nothing more, nothing less.”

“Ok.”

With that, another blanket of silence befalls you two, and you find yourselves searching and investigating the room you were in. You both work in silence, and while it has its pros and cons, you can’t help but feel uneasy. On the bright side, you could focus on your task at your own pace and not get distracted, keeping things to yourself if needed. However, you’re slightly used to him asking questions and checking on you every now and then, so you can’t help but think if he’s upset or angry.

Or he knows something about what you’ve been hiding.

Impossible; that couldn’t be the case right?

He’d confront you if that were the case, not avoid you...right?

Unfortunately, there’s nothing of interest and significance in this room, so you tell Minho. It would seem he has the same thoughts because he furrows his eyebrows and gestures towards the rooms down the hallway nearby. “They must have swept this place clean.” he sighs tiredly, “Let’s move on.”

You nod and follow him in silence, the agent carefully and quietly navigating through the confusing halls and rooms of the factory building. Unfortunately, it was as he said; it would seem Cle did a good job in making sure no traces were left for SKZ to pick up on, leaving you empty-handed. The agents communicate with Minho through their communication devices and inform the male that they’ve moved on to the North building which was on the opposite side of the factory compound.

You and Minho head to the last location to scout, and it turned out to be a run-down lab room. The interior and leftover equipment and tables were clean, but you could see specks of rust forming on the surface. You gingerly brush your hand on one of the table surfaces, sighing, “This kind of environment could affect whatever chemicals and substances they were working with.”

“Unless this is a set-up to make it look like they haven’t been doing anything here.” Minho points out, squatting down in front of one the shelves lined with bottles of murky liquid and chunks of...whatever specimens, “Any idea if these will be useful?”

You walk over to him and look at the stuff on the shelf. You sniff the bottles of murky liquid before contorting your face in disgust, “This is just stagnant water. It’s murky because of dust and dirt.”

“But these…” you trail off, tilting your head to examine the containers with whatever solid specimens, “...these are…”

You gulp, unable to finish your sentence as your mind finally registers what those specimens were; pieces of body parts that had long decayed, probably to be used for observational purposes but rotted over time.

Minho notices the way you stiffen, gulping hard as if urging yourself to keep the bile to yourself. He breaks whatever “silent treatment” he had going on, putting a hand to your shoulder to get you away from the shelf. He steps in front of you to block your view, bending slightly just to get to your eye level. “Y/n, just rela - ”

He doesn’t get to finish his words because in a split-second, his eyes leave yours as they fill with urgency. Before you know it, he grabs your shoulder more firmly and pushes forward. You yelp as you land on the ground with him on top of you at the exact same time you see a small dagger lodging itself into the shelf. Your eyes widen and fall to Minho who already has his icy eyes on the newcomer to the room.

He mutters a hurried “get out of here” before getting up and facing off with the stranger. However, you can’t bring yourself to move, frozen on the floor as you watch the stranger lunge for Minho. The two men engage in a frenzied hand-to-hand battle, but it would seem like the man is at par with Minho, keeping up with the skilled agent’s moves.

Minho refuses to draw out his gun to make sure he doesn’t make any noise to prevent attracting attention should there be more enemies around the area. He manages to gain a short upper-hand, sending the enemy a few feet back with a strong spinning kick. He then rushes over to you and grabs your hand so that he can pull you to your feet.

“Let’s go.” he says in a low voice, not wasting any time in running from the room.

You’re both running as fast as you can, hand tightly gripping each other’s as if your life depended on it. You arrive in one of the open-space rooms, and as you continue to run, the wooden floor below creaks softly. The enemy is a quick runner as well, somehow managed to catch up with you two. He reaches out, grabbing your other wrist and pulling you from Minho’s grasp and pulls his fist back to land a punch. The agent refuses to let him do so and turns around, using whatever momentum to pull you behind him just as the enemy’s fist lands on his jaw. The impact causes Minho to let go of you as he falls to the side, and you find yourself yelling his name.

The opponent chooses to go for Minho instead of you, picking the agent up by the collar of his shirt. He bashes his head against Minho’s, and while the agent winces in pain, he grits his teeth and fights back, back to being on equal ground with the enemy. They engage in another physical combat, landing blows on each other here and there. As if nothing could be worse, another stranger runs into the room, grabbing you from behind in a choke-hold.

You do your best to stop him from suffocating you, kicking and trying to elbow the man behind. Minho sees it from the corner of his eyes, clicking his tongue in exasperation. His opponent lunges an arm forward, holding a knife, so Minho grabs said arm and pivots with complex skill, doing some sort of flip and twisting the enemy’s arm so he could end up behind the agent. With the opponent in a similar choke-hold, Minho grabs the knife and skillfully throws it towards the stranger holding you.

Unfortunately, because you were both moving a lot, the blade seems to approach you instead. Your eyes widen with fear, but thankfully, it only shallowly cuts your cheek before lodging itself into the stranger’s neck. He lets go and collapses on the ground with a thud, blood now pooling around him.

However, because of that moment, Minho’s opponent gains the advantage once more, headbutting Minho’s chin, prompting the agent to let go. The enemy is quick to turn to Minho, another knife in his hand to jab at the male who is recovering his bearings. You don’t know how you managed to bring yourself to do it - maybe the adrenaline rush or fear of having Minho killed in front of you - but you pull out the knife that killed the other stranger and run towards Minho’s opponent, stabbing the blade into his shoulder as he was wearing a muscle tee.

You try to ignore the blood painting the enemy’s skin, using the time he takes to get the blade out to rush to Minho’s side. You both then take steps to run away; however, the enemy isn’t too pleased with what you’ve done, shifting his attention to you instead of Minho. As he takes a step forward, however, the wooden floor beneath creaks loudly, and Minho’s eyes catch the subtle splintering around the three of you.

“Minho, let’s go.” you say in panic when the agent seems to be standing still.

Minho’s eyes are stuck to the wooden floor, making some sort of mental calculation in his mind.

One more step.

As the enemy makes one more step, the floor makes a breaking sound and gives out. Minho, however, is able to push you back just in time, allowing you to remain on the unbroken part as he and the enemy fall to the floor below with a sickening crack.

“Minho!”

You see the agent pushing himself to get up with a few coughs, but so is the opponent. The agent then looks up to you, eyes still calm yet with a sense of urgency, “Go now! Run to the rendezvous point! I’ll follow!”

“But - ”

“I promise, just go!”

You bite your lip, nodding in understanding as you turn on your heel and make a run for it. Minho then wipes the blood dripping down his chin and turns to his opponent, a cold and almost cruel smirk playing at his lips, “Now that I don’t need to hold back, I hope you’re ready.”

Meanwhile, you pump your legs as hard and fast as you can, running towards the rendezvous point. Unfortunately, that meant where the cars were parked, but you still had a bit of distance to cover since you and Minho ventured deep inside the building. Just as you’re about to reach the end of the hallway near one of the back doors, you hear gunshots, bullets barely missing you. You try to conceal your screams, ducking down and running into a rather large room, quickly finding a hiding spot behind a cement pillar.

The shooter repeatedly shoots the structure as you cover your ears. Fragments of the pillar crack of and fly here and there, dusting your hair and shoulder with chalky-white bits. After a moment, the shooter stops to reload his gun, and you take the chance to sprint to another hiding spot.

He begins to shoot just as you drop down and make your way behind an old couch, a bullet barely missing your leg. He shoots without stopping, the couch fillings flying everywhere. Another round to reload his gun, and you grab a nearby ceramic vase and throw it to him as hard as you can.

The shooter shoots it, but the split-second allows you to find cover behind a desk in the other end of the room. You curl yourself up, hugging your knees to yourself as you take deep and shaky breaths. In the dead silence of the room, you can hear your shooter’s footsteps approaching slowly, the grasp of fear locking onto you as you cover your mouth. You hear the clicking of the shooter’s gun, and you close your eyes, anticipating the worst.

However, when you hear a bang followed by a thud, you don’t feel anything and instead see a body collapse to the side, thankfully facing away from you. A few seconds later, Minho appears, kicking the body away from you and kneeling beside you. “Y/n.” he whispers.

You let out a deep breath, only noticing now that tears have streamed down your face. Minho’s expression softens, eyebrows knitting in concern as he reaches out to brush off the cement particles that dusted onto your hair and shoulders during the shootout. He then moves to wipe your tears with his thumb.

Never have you seen so much warmth in his eyes as he stares at you, eyes never leaving yours as you let out quiet sobs that rattle your shaky figure.

Despite the cuts on his bleeding lip, bruises painting his cheekbone, blood trailing down from his head to the side, and disheveled hair, he still looked familiar, warm and comforting - like a home you’d return to after a hard day’s work in the hospital.

You didn’t know it was possible for him to look like that.

You close your eyes when his thumb stops brushing your tears away, his hand now moving to cup your cheek with a tenderness opposite of how he fought off his opponents. “Hey.” he whispers so softly, only you can hear it like a secret message, “Are you hurt?”

You shake your head, still trembling. Minho nods in understanding and helps you up before telling you to wait for a second. He walks over to a nearby window and communicates with the rest of the team, giving them an update on the situation. Meanwhile, you kneel down next to the shooter’s dead body upon noticing a small plastic vial filled with red liquid. Quickly, you swipe it and shove it into your brassiere for extra measure. You stand back up, walking over to Minho.

He finishes communicating with the team before gently taking your hand in his, “Come on.”

Without a word, he leads you out, walking calmly towards the rendezvous point. Once there, it would seem like the team was still on the way from the other building, so Minho sits on the hood of one of the cars, eyes still on the sharp look-out for any enemies. You sit next to him, exhaustion clouding your eyes as you stare straight ahead.

“I’m sorry.”

You hum emptily, “Hm?”

Minho sighs, turning to face you. You don’t pull away when his hand finds your face, thumb gently dancing around the cut you got from the knife from earlier. The blood had dried up, but it made its mark. The agent’s thumb is soft as he strokes the skin under the cut, “Sorry about this. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s fine.” you clear your throat, looking at him for a fleeting moment before turning your eyes to his chest, “You still saved me, so thank you.”

“And you saved me.” Minho responds, offering a small smile.

You can only nod, the impact of the events finally catching up to you. Tears swell in your eyes again, and you feel a light shiver travel down your spine. Minho isn’t new to comforting people; he may say he doesn’t care, but he knows what to do and how.

So he reaches forward, gently tugging on your arm to pull you close to his chest. Once your head comes into contact with his chest and you feel his arms wrap around you, providing warmth and security, you weakly sob against him. He brings a hand up to your head, softly stroking your hair as he whispers against your temple, “This mission wasn’t supposed to go this way. My bad for not being able to foresee these circumstances. Sorry you had to go through it.”

Perhaps today, you put your guard down enough for him to console you. You let yourself believe and trust him. Just for today. Tomorrow, who knows?

You shake your head and clear your throat, “Not your fault. It’s part of the job, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Minho sighs, hoping you don’t notice the way he holds you closer and tighter, “It is.”

Maybe Jeongin and Chan were right.

Loved you? Maybe not that.

Cared about you? Genuinely? Perhaps he sees it now.

But can he afford such a luxurious feeling? Such an emotion?

Last time he allowed himself such indulgence, he paid a cost too high.

148 notes · View notes

rhaenyratargeryn · 3 years

Text

Title: Continuously, Without Interruption Rating: 🍋 Pairing: Takemura x female!V Summary: AU pwp fic where Takemura and V stick together after the events of the main story mission “Search and Destroy”.

The motel was barely more than four walls and a dirty mattress, paint peeling off in stained chips and carpet reeking of cigarettes and booze and the faintest hint of mildew. It wasn’t preem, but when had anything in her life been?

Luxury it was not, but safe? She would take safe, especially with her arms half full with a teetering, bleeding former Arasaka bodyguard. She went for the light switch, forgetting herself, but his hand caught hers and through labored breaths he said, “No lights.”

Takemura’s voice was always low, a rumble of thunder… but in pain, it was harsher, like gravel and sandpaper. V nodded in the dim light and helped him to lean against a far wall as she fumbled around in the darkroom. She found three half melted candles and a nearly empty lighter, but it would serve well enough to give them some kind of light in the motel bathroom. What first aid supplies she’d managed to scrounge from the hotel staff were in a box that looked older than her, but last she knew, bandages didn’t expire, and even if they did, they needed them. And most importantly, V had bought a half empty bottle of vodka from a drifter hanging outside room 102.. A true medical necessity.

Takemura had been grazed by at least a bullet, that much V was certain. The older man tilted his head back against the wall he leaned against while V hurried throughout the room, bracing himself as he took in shallow, but even breaths.

“C’mon, gotta see what we’re dealing with…”

“You ripperdoc now?” Takemura asked, repressing a dry chuckle that surely caused him pain by the way his shoulders flinched.

“Yep, step right into my office.” V said, letting him lean on her as they stumbled into the small bathroom. She shut the door, running a finger along the seam to make sure it would stay light tight. V picked up one candle and after a few flicks, managed to get a light from the lighter. The room was soon lit in a soft glow, completely unfitting for the task at hand.

Takemura’s eyes moved around the room as he sat on the edge of the tub.

“Your medical facilities are not to code.”

It was a joke, but he said it with such damn seriousness that V felt the laugh punch out of her, sharp and breathy.

“Well, ya know how it is. Cut backs.”

“Ah, I see.”

Carefully, Takemura unfurled his arm from where he clutched at his side. The bleeding had slowed, oozing sluggishly now only when he moved too much. Takemura’s fingers curled around the bottom of his shirt, tugging it free from where it tucked into his trousers. The white material was stained with dark spots, nearly black in the candlelight.

“Let me help.” V said, automatic, thoughtless. She came to stand between his knees, fingers undoing the buttons of his shirt. Her hands still trembled slightly, the rush from the firefight and the pain of a couple dozen bruises doing their work. She had seen the chrome work at his throat and was unsurprised to see it continue on, flaring out over his shoulders like veins. The rest of him though was ganic, smooth skin over hard, toned muscle.

Takemura only winced once when she peeled the fabric, tacky with blood, away from where it stuck to his left side. She knelt down, noting the blood had seeped out from the back of his shirt too.

“Fuck.”

“Indeed.”

“Well… you are gonna have one hell of a scar. How the hell were you even walkin’?”

“Had one injector. Used it after that shot.”

“Good thinkin’.”

V set the kit on Takemura’s thigh, using him as a makeshift table as she picked through the contents. There was no MaxDoc or Bounce Back, but it helped Takemura already had one dose. It would boost his own body's healing process for a good enough while… the graze looked nasty, but the bleeding had stopped. The only thing threatening to kill the old koger now was a staph infection— and given their surroundings, it was probably best to wrap him up.

With a gruff sound, he tugged his shoulder free of his sleeve, removing the soot and blood streaked shirt and discarding it on the floor. No doubt this room had seen worse.

V unscrewed the top of the vodka bottle off with one finger and then casually flicked it off, the metal clanging across the tile. She offered it to Takemura, “Anesthetic?”

He wrinkled his nose. V shrugged, took a drink herself and then, without warning, spilled a generous amount over his wound.

Takemura swore, loudly.

“Shoulda taken the anesthesia.”

“...わるガキ.”

V’s cyberware helpfully provided a translation: Brat.

There was almost a hint of fondness in the word even, V thought for a moment. Just a little. And judging by the way he hid a smirk that was threatening to overcome the tightness of his expression, maybe she was right.

Maybe it was the blood loss, or the near death experience, or failing to convince his last chance at finding revenge for his employer— but Takemura took the bottle from her then and drank deeply.

“Wow. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

“You going to be doctor or comedian?” he said, taking another shorter drink as V fished through the first aid kit and pulled out a few large gauze pads. She tore the wrappers free, packing two against the wound just in case.

“Hold please, nurse.”

Takemura growled, but did as directed, setting down the bottle to help hold the bandage in place as V used the gauze roll to wrap it tightly against him. Half way done, V realized… she had never been this close to Takemura before. His body was like a furnace, overstimulated and heightened from pain and the lingering effects of adrenaline. Beneath the smell of smoke and copper V almost thought she caught the scent of cedar… of faint pepper and incense.

V finished tacking the wrappings on, using her palm to smooth over the gauze to make sure it wouldn’t come off easy. Her fingertips ghosted against his skin and she felt the muscles of his abdomen clench, a tiny, nearly undetectable shudder going out across his skin.

Her eyes lifted to his, a smirk already spreading across her lips. Takemura was doing his best not to notice, picking up the vodka bottle and swishing the contents around.

“Takemura Goro. Elite Arasaka soldier, top of the class… and ticklish.”

“Should have separated. It is not safe for us to be together.” Takemura grumbled, pointedly ignoring the statement.

“Didn’t leave you then, not gonna start now.” V said, voice a murmur as she moved to flip the first aid kit closed, sliding back away from his space. A firm hand stopped her.

“You are bleeding.”

V looked up as Takemura let go, gesturing to his own temple. V touched the same spot on her forehead and pulled her hand back to see the smudge of sticky thickened blood. The swipe of her touch had been enough to break the clot back open, a droplet of fresh warm blood pooling up and dropping down her face.

“Didn’t even notice…” V said with a hiss, the sharp pain now registering. Takemura nodded and offered her the bottle.

“Anesthesia.”

V huffed a laugh, taking him up on the offer as she knew well enough what Takemura was going to do next. She took one quick shot and held the burning liquid in her mouth, swallowing the moment Takemura splashed the alcohol unto her temple.

“Hold please, nurse.” he said, handing her the bottle and trying to ignore the positively shit eating grin of approval she wore at her own barb returned. V handed off a large adhesive bandage to him, the kind a kid might put on a scraped knee. She was surprised how gentle his hands were, brushing aside her hair as he meticulously checked where to best place the bandage before he ripped off the thin paper on the back and settled it in place.

V’s fingers twitched, itching to hold a smoke between them. The impulse born, like most weird shit in her life recently, from Johnny. She settled on rubbing her thumb across the inside of her forefinger and middle finger, staring at nothing as silence settled over the pair of them.

It wasn’t a tense silence. It wasn’t even grave, though given their current situation such a silence would be warranted. It was… comfortable. Or just plain tired.

When he was finished, Takemura rested his right arm on his thigh, taking care not to bend too far on his injured side. He let his head bow forward, his shoulders going lax.

“... I had thought tonight... I was to face my death.” his words were slow, cautious— no. Careful.

“You had no reason to come back for me.”

“Bullshit.” V said, the word falling like an exhale.

He tilted his head up, eyes half lidded as he met hers, looking up at him now from where she knelt. Something in V’s chest ached. A pang, sharp and sweet and good. It arched it’s way from her heart to her stomach just from the way he looked at her.

She sat up a little taller, movements going still again when his hand came up to rest against the side of her neck, holding her steady. His thumb traced a circle against the space behind her ear and V felt as if the very blood in her body had paused, her breath shorting out on an inhale. The smell of him, the heat of him… it all came crashing back into V’s perception until she all but heard Johnny groaning with exasperation in her head.

Takemura didn’t do anything, didn’t say anything and that silence gave V the boldness she needed to close the hairbreadth of distance between them and touch her lips to his. It was soft, chaste in it’s hesitance and briefness. Takemura did not kiss her back.

V pulled back, eyes fixed over his shoulder on the far wall, anything not to see his face right then. The silence stretched on until V felt she would be crushed beneath it, words forming in the back of her throat, but dying before they could reach the tip of her tongue.

Then Takemura’s other hand came up and he held her face in both his hands, firmly directing her to face him. She looked at his lips, at his jaw, anything but his eyes.

“Look at me.”

His words translated in her mind from Japanese, the change in language startling her enough into obeying him. V didn’t have to look long, because within a moment his mouth was on hers, urgent and demanding. It took a moment for V to take control of the spinning in her head, but when she did she carefully settled her hands on top of his thighs, fingers curling slightly as she slid her palms up over the fabric of his trousers until she could wrap her arms high around his middle, above the bandages. She was content to let him cradle her jaw in his hands, holding her fast as if he feared she would spring away, vanishing into smoke.

V made a small sound, soft and needy, her mouth opening at the same time as Takemura. A shudder coursed its way up and down her arms when he made a sound, rumbled and deep in his throat and then caught her bottom lip, letting his teeth press against it.

She let her nails run a slow path across his shoulder blades, tension dropping from her arms as she sunk against him. They were both ravenous for touch unmarred by violence. By pain. When was the last time she had embraced someone other than to silently subdue them? When had he? In the grand scheme of things, Takemura had been starving for longer.

Her legs were unsteady, even with him helping to set her up on her feet. They stood together, breaking their contact only when absolutely required. If his mouth was not on hers, it was on her throat, her shoulder— bared now as he pulled and tugged her shirt collar aside, desperate to feel the soft warmth of her against his skin.

V shucked off her jacket, walking backwards as Takemura pressed forward, stalking her as surely as he did his prey with eyes darkened with artificial pupils blown wide. It was his hands that pulled off her tank top, throwing it away carelessly. V gave a nervous chuckle when those same hands gripped against her lower back and forced her up hard against his chest.

The soft swell of her breast pressed firmly against his skin, the shared heat positively searing as they stumbled out of the bathroom and unto the creaking worn motel mattress.

This was stupid. Irrational. Dangerous. They needed to be on guard, to be vigilant. Arasaka was still hunting them and yet V was certain Yorniubu himself could bust through that door and Takemura would not untangle himself to kill him until he had had his fill of her.

V fumbled with his belt, Takemura’s hand coming between them to catch her wrist, stopping the movement.

“You are sure?” he managed, his voice breathless and ragged. Falling into his mother tongue was something he did when he was overwhelmed, it would seem.

V’s answer was to settle her weight back onto her shoulders and press her hips up against him in a slow, enticing roll.

“はい.”

Takemura needed no further convincing.

He kissed her again, thoroughly and practiced, taking her other wrist in his hand and holding them down above her head. V’s last coherent thought was to wonder where he had found time to learn, but those thoughts scattered apart like a bullet through glass when he drew his mouth down her jaw and she felt the rough scrape of his beard between her breasts.

He pace was so slow. So agonizingly slow. Placing open mouth kisses against her breastbone as if he were a man with all the time in the world.

“Oh— so suddenly that graze doesn’t bother you? Made me drag you halfway—“

V’s voice broke off with a surprised yelp as Takemura bit her nipple, a gruff sound of disapproval in his throat at her monologuing. The slight painful tug was all but forgotten when he rolled the same tightened peak with his tongue.

V was quiet then, except for a soft panting as he went back to his own easy pace.

“Goro…” his name came out unbidden when he switched to her other breast, a soft laugh sending hot breath over her skin.

“Better.”

Smug bastard. V wiggled beneath him, one hand coming free of Takemura’s grip because he let her. That fact only made her tangle her fingers even more roughly at the nape of his neck, drawing strands loose as she tugged him demanding upwards.

She could feel the smirk against his lips when she kissed him, fiercely and sharply as she bit him back.

“Why hurry?” Takemura said, in English this time, his voice a low murmur.

“Cause when Arasaka busts that door in, I’d rather die having been well fucked.”

“You will.”

God, if a voice alone could make her cum those two words would have done it. That sharp pang hit right to her core again, making her want to press her thighs together and spread them open at the same time.

“‘Fast is slow, but continuously, without interruption.’”

For once his quoting made some goddamn sense to her. It also helped he was using his now unoccupied hand to unfasten her jeans, sitting up to pull them off her legs.

He seemed to consider for a moment, the pause making V groan in impatience and then protest when Takemura pulled back and slipped off the foot of the bed. He took off his belt and the rest of his clothes before he kneeled onto the floor.

V was rising up on her forearms to get a better look at just what the hell he was doing— that was, until his hands slipped beneath her calves and pulled her to the edge of the mattress. He guided her legs over his shoulders and without warning, licked that same trail he had over her breast up the length of her slit.

V’s hips bucked, but Takemura was ready for that too, folding his arms across her middle and keeping her held in place as he bowed his head between her thighs and utterly devoured her.

There was a joke to be made here, V was certain, given Takemura’s picky “tastes'”— but every time his tongue traced a new pattern over her labia the joke short circuited.

Even Johnny, tucked away inside her head, was silent now.

Takemura alternated at a whim, but his pace stayed slow… deliberate. Savoring. His beard tickled against the inside of V’s thighs. She fisted the motel sheets so tightly in her hand the damn thing pulled off the corners.

He only stopped once, forgetting himself and trying to force her thigh up higher and wider and managing to pull at his wound as he raised his arm. V reached down to touch him, to brush her hand through his hair and draw her thumb over his cheek.

“You okay?”

Takemura sat up, the dazed look that had settled in his eyes since they began clearing. He pressed a kiss against her knee as he let her legs slide off his shoulders, climbing back into the bed and moved to hover over her.

“Goro? Are you okay?” She asked again, worriedly touching the gauze tape and making sure he wasn’t bleeding through.

“... I am fine.” he said at last, the words soft and almost.. awed? As if he had never said them before. V searched his expression, holding his face between her hands and feeling something in her heart strain when he shut his eyes and leaned into the touch.

“Come here.” He said, though it was him who snaked his arms beneath her lower back and brought her core up flushing against his hips.

She could feel him. Feel the length of him rested against her mound, feel the slight movement of his hips as he rubbed faintly against her.

She laid back, her hips elevated and secure in his arms. Takemura was back in his head again, eyes heavy and meditative for a lingering moment before he shifted his hips back enough to slip his head up against her and then slowly began to press into the silky wetness between her legs.

A deep deliberate breath exhaled from his lungs as V barely managed to keep herself from rolling and bucking beneath him.

No matter how many times she did it, that initial slow stretch brought with it the most intense feelings of fullness. Takemura was so poised, so controlled… V envied him in that moment and hated him for it in the best possible way. She wanted it fast and rough— pleasure easy and quick. Takemura though, clearly was more inclined to relish each and every motion.

The act felt… intimate. Too intimate. Takemura’s focus was pinpointed, every touch, every dragged out pull of his shaft inside her and then the gentle push back within her heat was done with such steady intent.

V felt almost god damn shy. The attention. The intensity. It was good, it was amazing, but at the same time some part of her felt like it was on the verge of shattering… and the last thing she was going to fuckin’ do was cry during sex.

But fuck— when was the last time she felt safe? When was the last time she felt held? Takemura gently stroked his hand up across her stomach, over the valley of her breasts and back again, his eyes fixed on not just her but himself touching her.

V made sure not to wrap her leg around his injured waist, but squeezed at him hard with her other, trying to pull him in. To edge him on.

“Faster…?” She breathed, adding a raised lift at the end of her words. Questioning. Asking.

Takemura only nodded, returning his grip around her lower back. The position made it nearly impossible to give anything but deep, shallow thrusts, but V was not complaining. The quickened pace was giving her the friction she needed, the press of his pelvis against her clit, the edge of his head sometimes finding that spot deeper in that sent sparks through her body.

It gave her more than her own pleasure too. It was giving her his. He had been so quiet, purposeful and diligent.. and now his brow furrowed and his breath came sharper. His skin flushed hot and red where he was organic and untouched by chrome or cyberware. V bore down around him, clutching at his shaft when he pulled back and grinned when his hips suddenly snapped back forward. A rough groan slipped from his lips, a curse following when she rolled her hips forward and began to rather enthusiastically fuck him back.

He wasn’t shocked, but pleasantly surprised would have been an accurate term. As a man who lived to serve, it only made sense he wouldn't expect to receive.

“Pull me up.”

V demanded, rising up on her forearms and then her hands until Takemura had no choice but to slip his hold up higher along her back and pull her up, sitting into his lap.

V grinned wickedly and saw the exact moment Takemura realized his mistake.

She rose her hips and thrust down, hands running from his chest up his neck and then back down to grip hard to his shoulders as she rode him.

“Oh... fuck—“

And that was the only word V managed to make sense of before Takemura slurred into half incomprehensible Japanese. She didn’t need her cyberware to translate that.

One solid push was all it took to have him flat on his back, her hands running up and down his chest as she took control.

He hissed once, grabbing hard at her thigh to move it away from his wound, but after that? The only word she understood from him beneath the rest was yes.

When she came, it tightened in her core, holding steady and constant and lingering right at the edge for long enough that when her body finally burst into spasms, she cried out half in shock of it.

The sound keened to a low whine as V rode out the waves, rocking her hips gently as the initial exhilaration faded to pleasant fading throbs. Takemura’s hands had slid down to her hips, squeezing and rubbing for the sheer pleasure of touching. He was far away again, but somehow, V knew that it was less to do with her and more to do with the fact he remained hard inside her.

“... you didn’t—?” V started to say, hips slowing, but Takemura’s grip tightened and he urged her on.

“Keep doing that.”

So she did. Slowly moving and becoming intensely aware of how he felt wrapped up and pressing inside her walls. His eyes shut, his lips parting and V couldn’t resist the urge to lean down and kiss him, the movement as languid and lazy as her hips.

Takemura did not tense like she did, but instead every muscle went soft and lax beneath her. A quiet moan, half gasped out was her only warning before she carefully slipped off of him and he came, slow spurts spilling across his skin.

It was less like he had lost control rather than he’d allowed it to slip, but V had dismissed the thoughts, trying not to overthink it. Right now, she was busy making work of cleaning him up, licking a trail along his pelvis and enjoying the way the muscles played beneath her touch.

Ticklish, her thoughts reminded. Takemura rubbed a hand over his eyes, as if waking, alertness coming back into his expression, but… something still softened its edges. Made him more of himself but also less— or maybe it was just the side of him V had not yet seen.

She stretched, rolling off to lay alongside him like a cat, one leg still thrown over his as she propped up her chin on the heel of her hand.

“So… I don’t know if maybe there was some kinda life debt you mighta been thinkin’ bout giving me for saving your ass but uh— consider it paid.”

Takemura, to his credit, laughed.

“You realize, that is like saying my life is worth—“

“Oh, I know what I’m saying.”

“I do not know whether to be insulted or flattered.”

“Just be both and cover all the bases.” V said, leaning down to press several kisses along his jaw, indulgent and very appreciative.

She expected him to disparage the attention now that their purpose was completed, but while he did turn and shy away from the kisses, he also drew his arm up to wrap around her and hold her in a loose grip.

“Someone needs to keep watch.” Takemura said, his voice begrudging the very words.

“I’ll do it. Arasaka didn’t fuck me up near as bad as ya.”

He scoffed.

“You fell three floors, V.”

“First of all, it was two.”

“And second?”

She kissed him, thoroughly obliterating any desire he might have had to protest as he turned to bare her down into the mattress.

“Very persuasive.” He said against her lips, sounding thoroughly unconvinced. Despite that he let her go, grimacing when he noticed they would need to redo his bandages after the mess he made.

V got up from bed, finding her discarded jeans and tank top and tugging them on, delighting in the way her body ached just slightly still.

Spontaneous we-might-not-live-through-the-night sex clearly was the pick-me up she needed. Takemura was the opposite though, seeming sluggish and sated, laying still upon his back, his chest rising and falling with lingering speed.

Something like concern warmed through her and V returned to sit on the edge of the bed, carefully stroking the back of her knuckles over his cheek and feeling the scrape of his beard against her skin. He silently looked up at her.

“You really doin’ okay?”

“Three times in one day…” Takemura said with a short mirthless laugh.

“Three?”

“You’ve asked me three times if I am okay. I ...can not recall the last time anyone has asked me such a thing.”

Takemura gingerly rose only to pull his trousers back on, getting back into bed without bothering with the fastens or his belt.

V didn’t even know what to say to that revelation, feeling her heart clench as she sat, waiting as Takemura settled back against a stack of pillows and closed his eyes.

“If someone arrives to kill us, wake me.”

“You got it, Goro.” V said, forcing humor into her voice as she stood only to retrieve her shotgun and then sat again at the edge of bed, muzzle poised towards the door.

Yeah she’d wake him alright, by killing whatever fucker dared come through the door for him.

Christ, V.

Johnny. His voice tinged with disapproval in her mind, the emotion almost acidic on her tongue.

Worry about us first. Though if you do manage to somehow live through this night, that’s gonna be a conversation I’d rather you take a blocker and sign me the fuck out for.

V responded with confusion, a mental indication of Whaddya mean?

The shit that Corpo just laid on you? That wasn’t just some casual fuck. As the minstrels say, he was makin’ love to you.

V audibly choked.

“V?” Takemura asked, a unspoken question lingering over her name. She shook her head without turning around.

“S’fine. Cough.”

And you were to him. Hormones all over the fuckin’ place. Nauseating.

I was not.

Don’t bullshit me, V. I can feel your emotions get all mushy every time you look at him. Now it’s just gonna get worse.

V tried to ignore him, making a pointed effort of blocking out his words with a stream of thoughts. Song lyrics, scenes from an old Bushido flick, the way Takemura looked at her with such open desire and sheer wanting when he had settled inside of her, warped up in the heat of her and her in him—

Fuck.

Yep. Told ya.

Headlights cut through the dark, shining between the blinds of the motel room as a car slowly edged across the parking lot. V’s grip tightened on her weapon.

There were more pressing dangers to worry about now, but somehow they felt smaller… when her thoughts would scatter into panic, rapid and heated, inevitably every single one landed back on the one thing that gave her comfort— Takemura was here with her. He was alive and here with her.

But that was some shit to sort out another day.

#goro takemura x v #takemura x v #cp2077 v #cp2077 takemura #cp2077 fanfic #cp2077 #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 fanfic #🍋#i cant not believe i am reduced to using a fucking lemon emoji as a tag in 2020 #anyway #this took forever and i hope it doesnt suck #head empty sept for on dilf

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treenissanderssidesstuff · 3 years

Text

Snippet: “Sore”-bet

Ship: Roceit

Takes place at the same time as: Soft Serve

“Hey Ro, you mind if I go check on Logan?” Virgil asked, bumping shoulders gently with Roman. “He still seems like he’s been a little bit down recently and I wanna make sure he’s okay.”

“Uh, yeah… of course violet storm. It’s probably better that I’m not there.” Roman said, swallowing down his protest. It wasn’t fair to hog the anxious side all day, even if Virgil was the only person that Roman was on speaking terms with. “I hope you can help him… he deserves it.”

“We’ll get breakfast together still in the morning, yeah?”

“Is morning relative to you? Because it will be lunch by the time you wake up.”

“Hey, breakfast is when I say it is,” Virgil said with a sideways grin, winking at Roman and giving him one last pat on the shoulder before passing by to head towards the blue door towards the end of the hall.

Roman gave out a sigh, pressing his back to the wall next to his own door and letting himself slump against it. Things were… hard recently. He was still hurt. He didn’t want to be, he wanted things to go back to normal, he wanted to give Janus and Remus an earnest chance, he wanted it all to turn out as well as Virgil’s acceptance had, but… it wasn’t that simple. Virgil made an earnest effort to try and work with them, even when he was acting antagonistic. Janus and Remus…? It was complicated. It was both a yes and a no, which was the problem.

How’s he supposed to know when they’re trying to help if they continued to pretend, they didn’t care at every interval? How was he supposed to know what was genuine and what wasn’t? He wasn’t a mind reader, and it wasn’t fair to expect him to be!

Roman let out a groan and pressed his palms into his eyes, taking a minute to just let himself wallow. He was a hypocrite. Here he was trying to pretend everything was fine when it wasn’t hoping someone else would read his mind and see just how run-down he was. He was supposed to be strong for them, for Thomas. Unshakeable.

He was the prince and they deserved nothing less from him.

That didn’t mean he didn’t want. He wanted softness. He wanted someone else to make the first move and remind him it was okay not to be okay for a little while. But that wasn’t true, not really, not for him. He had to be okay to keep everything going. He was the driving force of Thomas’ career and most aspects of his life. He aided in nearly every other side’s work, even recently Virgil’s while finding creative solutions to help Virgil deal better with Thomas’—and Virgil’s—anxious thoughts.

And he was tired.

He missed early morning breakfasts, helping Logan and Patton make enough food for a small banquet to start their day. Often, Virgil would eventually wander in toward the end of the cooking part and join them in the meal, then make up for his lateness by helping with dishes. He missed working with Logan. The logical side barricaded himself in his room more and more recently, rather than working collaboratively at the kitchen table like they used to, with notes, books, flashcards, and beverages of some sort covering every surface available. Sometimes Patton even chastised the pair as their work found its way to the countertops as well.

Lord, he missed Patton. He missed the way the emotional side would knock on his door, just to check on him. He missed the impromptu cuddles and hugs every morning and evening. Patton hadn’t even offered a hug tonight. Instead, he just stared at Roman with that strained look he’s had since after the trail. Like Roman wasn’t good enough.

Maybe he wasn’t.

That was the problem, wasn’t it?

He couldn’t be the prince and the performer, not really. Either he was the example of what everything Thomas wanted to be, or he helped him achieve everything he wanted to do. Those things no longer collided. Honestly? Roman wasn’t sure if they ever did.

The wedding? The callback? Did it really matter in the end? This was one event, one problem that proved that Roman had to make a choice and no matter what it was he would be disappointing someone in the future.

He couldn’t be good enough for everyone.

“That’s not true, you know,” a familiar, suave voice said as gloved hands wrapped around his own, pulling them away from his face.

Another pair of hands found their way to his cheeks, wiping away tears he hadn’t even realized had been building. Janus was surprisingly gentle considering the slightly rough material of the gloves, but Roman still felt himself freezing under the touch. He was supposed to be in bed.

“I… I couldn’t hear you gasping and sniffling from inside my room,” he said, pulling all four of his hands back, tucking the extras away and crossing his arms. Janus looked away from Roman and to the floor, it almost looked as if he were trying to hug himself. “I don’t understand if you’d rather me get someone else though, maybe Virg-”

“Wait.”

Janus froze, but so did Roman. He didn’t know why he said that. He didn’t know why the thought of the snake side leaving in that moment hurt so much.

“You need to unlearn that selfish is a dirty word and for your sake, you need to start practicing a little more selfishness.”

He meant Thomas at the time though… not Roman.

Janus’ eyes suddenly shot up from the floor and he stared hard into Roman’s own, and the prince felt pinned by that stare.

“You’re allowed to be selfish too, you know,” Janus said, taking a step forward towards him. “In fact, you should be. Putting yourself first sometimes doesn’t make you any less admirable Roman.”

“Princes are supposed to be daring and brave and selfless,” Roman recited, swallowing after. The words almost burned as he said them.

“You and I apparently aren’t reading about the same kinds of princes then,” Janus said with a hand on his hip. “When exactly was the last time that you’ve read a fairytale from the source material?”

“I don’t need a reminder of the grimdark. I said ‘supposed to be’ for a reason. That’s the kind of prince I want to be though.”

“And so, you will.”

“I…” Roman’s eyes widened, and his jaw hung open at the statement. As if it were all so simple. “How can you just say that after—”

Roman straightened, pushing off the wall and squaring his shoulders.

“After?” It seemed the snake didn’t know when to take a hint.

“I understand, just another lie right? Thank you for the visit, but the last thing I need from you right now is mockery.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do here Roman,” Janus said and Roman would have almost thought he looked sad if he could trust anything about the man.

“Go back to bed, pretend you never saw me at all, and we’ll forget this ever happened.”

“Roman—”

“Pretending is what you’re good at right? It should be easy.”

“Roman please—”

“I’m certain I will see you the next time Thomas calls on your aid,” Roman nearly spat as he faced his door. “Until then, goodnight.”

“Roman... I’m sorry.”

“Don’t—” Roman started and flipped back around, ready to skin the snake and make a new pair of boots. He wanted nothing of fake apologies.

He was surprised to see not one, but two yellow gloves at his feet and two hands held up placatingly. One covered in scales and one not.

“I’m sorry. I failed you by trying to get my way while trying to get yours. It was supposed to be about you. Selfishness has its place, but that was the wrong time for it on my part. After the trail, I was hurt. I was trying to help you, that’s what it was all for. I made you the judge because you were the one at odds with yourself. Before, you never would have let Patton shake you so much. I just… I don’t understand what changed.”

“Everything did! The rules for what’s right and what’s wrong. I hardly know what’s allowed and isn’t anymore. I knew you weren’t even back when I thought you should be because you were nice. But you weren’t, not really.”

Roman gave a dry, broken laugh and Janus chanced another step forward.

Roman let him this time.

“Then again, maybe nothing’s changed at all. Maybe I’m just a fool.”

“You’re not a fool Roman. I thought you understood, the teasing, the jokes…me, but you didn’t. I thought you understood how a person can mean something and not at the same time,” Janus said.

Roman watched as a single tear slipped from his snake eye, making the scales cascaded over glimmer even more in the dim. It was a real tear, that was something Roman could always tell the difference of.

“As a performer, I thought you of all people would get it without explanation… but I was wrong.”

A selfless prince couldn’t leave someone in distress, could he?

“You owe me an explanation, a full one. No gloves, no lies, no layers. I want honesty,” Roman said puffing out his chest to give the air of seriousness. It was taking everything in him not to reach out already as he saw another tear escape, this time on the human side.

“Understood,” Janus murmured, looking back to the ground. “I should… let you get back to your rest. Goodnight, Roman.”

Roman surged forward before the man in front of him could escape and wrapped his arms around the smaller frame.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“Be selfish and just accept it Cobra Kai.”

Janus apparently didn’t need to be told twice as not two, not four, but six arms almost immediately found their way around Roman’s back. Roman placed one hand against his lower back and the other cradling his head.

“I haven’t forgiven you yet,” Roman murmured and he felt the smaller man slump in his grasp, beginning to let go already.

That wouldn’t do.

“However,” Roman said, and the hopeful look Janus turned toward him almost broke his heart. That couldn’t be faked. “I will try to hear you out. It will take some time, but… but I’m willing to work on it if you are.”

Janus didn’t answer, but leaned against Roman’s shoulder before murmuring, “You’ll get another chance Roman. You’re talented. It’s a shame you didn’t go for this one, but you’ll get another.”

Roman just nodded and if he cradled Janus a bit closer at those words, well, that was his business.

“You were right about one thing Lockjaw.”

“Hm?”

“Virgil’s new makeup does make him look like a racoon.”

Janus pulled back from Roman’s grip, not all the way, just enough to look him in the eyes and even under the puffiness and the tearstains, Roman could see a glimmer of mischief as a smirk came over his face.

“I never said that.”

#roceit #fanfiction #sanders sides #snippet #not edited #just written #janus sanders #roman sanders #platonic or romantic #you decide #ts fanfiction

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mythicamagic · 3 years

Note

“We’re not just friends and you fucking know it.”

Susie you sent so many! Bahaha, I might do some others of yours but otherwise this might be the ask I do out of the ones you sent lolol

Put under a ‘read more’ for length

---

There wasn't much that could rattle Kagome Higurashi.

She remained adaptable, resolute, and forthright throughout most stressful situations, having stepped up to the plate to assist Mama with housework and babysitting after her father had died. She could experience surprise, sure. Mock tests could throw her until she dug her heels in. A guy could ask her out and she'd recover soon enough- slap away a non-consensual kiss or thigh grab easily.

But bone-shaking, heart-stopping, crippling shock? To be blind-sighted by complacency? Only one demon proved capable of doing that.

"Why does it not surprise this one to find you still emerged knee-deep in the fossils of the past, Kagome?" the syllables of her name slip-free in a quiet, resonant baritone.

Kagome jolted, stiffening. Gradually turning within the museum hallway- caught between alarm and confusion- her breath halted.

Gone were his golden eyes and the silver stream of long hair. Instead, he wore contacts, hair short, black and slightly tousled from the wind. Despite all this, if Kagome relaxed her eyes- she could see the suggestion of glamour hazing his appearance, a murky white outline around his hair hinting at its true colour.

Sesshoumaru's cold, handsome face was practically unchanged. Perhaps there were the faintest shifts- his body appearing slightly more built, features just a tad older in the firm line of his jaw.

He presented her with a small potted plant, since he knew she hated cut flowers. The seriousness with which he offered the tiny white flowering bulb almost made her smile, almost. "Congratulations on graduating."

"Thanks," she said automatically, unable to stop staring. She cautiously accepted the gift, skin managing to avoid his touch as though it were a live-wire. "How'd you hear about that?"

"Your mother told me."

"O-oh," she blinked, realising he must've gone to her house first before tracking her down at work. Kagome swallowed, conflicting feelings arising. Shaking them off, she drew her shoulders back and turned flippantly to stride down the hall. "So how’s things? Nice weather we’re having, huh?"

“It has been a long time, miko,” his voice turned solemn, filled with something inexplicable as he followed, keeping pace easily. Kagome pretended not to hear the silky reverence in his tone. “Is there not anything more...substantial, we could be discussing?”

She hummed, “less than five-hundred years isn’t so long.”

“The centuries dragged. I felt every day as though it were a month.”

“I’m sure your mate kept you occupied.”

“This one would not know, I never mated.”

Kagome stiffened, grinding her teeth. “Oh,” she muttered. The life she’d pictured for him fell away, crumbling into ash. Somehow she wasn’t comforted by it.

"You have a boyfriend,” he rumbled, a statement not a question.

"Mama told you that too?" Kagome asked, walking to an exhibit and setting the plant down in favour of gathering her notes, expecting another round of kids fresh off the bus to arrive at any minute.

"No, the hickey on your neck that you've tried to hide with make-up served as enough evidence," he pointed out, vaguely amused.

She reddened a touch, tugging her collar up self-consciously. "Observant as always.”

"It is only a recently acquired skill. Looking back, this one was quite blind during our time together," he hummed. "Lack of experience. I understand plenty now. Would you care for coffee? Strictly platonic, of course."

"... I don't think that's such a good idea, do you?" Kagome gripped her papers tight. "I wouldn’t appreciate my boyfriend meeting up for coffee with an ex."

Sesshoumaru’s eyes glinted, smiling slightly. "And you would not lie by telling him we were friends," his gaze warmed as though savouring something, sweeping ageless attention over her with a lingering, intimate air that made her remember warm lazy mornings spent in his arms.

Kagome’s hands tightened further, crumpling the organised papers, fingers shaking. “We’re not just friends and you fucking know it.”

He exhaled, voice soft. "You have not changed."

Her heel drew back, tucking the notes under her arm. Sweaty palms smoothed over her neat blue pencil skirt and blouse. Six years wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough time to get over him.

“Guess not,” she dismissed, refusing to give a snippet of passion. But the acid was there, simmering beneath her tongue. She couldn’t help but glance at him. “...Feels like a waste; you not even mating a pureblood. I thought it meant a lot to you.”

“Pureblooded heirs meant a lot to me,” Sesshoumaru clarified. He stepped closer, and Kagome shuddered, moving back to maintain distance.

Noticing this, the demon stopped. Regret hazed his carefully arranged expression, before he inclined his head, dark bangs hanging forward. “This one did not intend to open old wounds, miko.”

“Then what did you want?” her voice shook.

“To show that I have...changed. It was foolish of me to let you go.”

“You were just upholding your beliefs. It’s not like you ever said you wanted Hanyou kids, I just assumed you’d be fine with it since we were fucking,” Kagome bit out. “Of course, getting your kicks and actually raising half-breeds are two totally different things. I shouldn’t have figured you were over your bigotry- that I’d solved anything by being a really good lay.”

“This Sesshoumaru was wrong-”

“Well lucky you, I didn’t get pregnant during our magical time together, so we dodged a bullet there. It was just miscommunication. A young relationship. I’m over it.”

She didn’t feel over it.

"Look, you've seen me. Can that just be enough? Let’s end it here.”

Sesshoumaru moved closer, gazing at her fervently. He opened his mouth to say more, before it clicked shut, jaw clenching. "If that is what you wish."

"Yep, I'm super busy," Kagome pretended to check her watch, not registering in the time.

"I have an office downtown," he shifted. "If you need a 'non-friend' I am easy enough to find," pausing as he turned- Sesshoumaru slowly reached out. He tucked the tag down at the back of her blouse that had stuck up slightly at the back of her collar. "Some habits are hard to kick, hm?" he uttered softly. He'd used to do the same thing all the time whenever she’d worn modern clothes in the feudal era.

Back when she'd been his.

Kagome’s breath shuddered. "I'm not going to come to your office.”

"Perhaps that is a good idea," a tempting mouth hovered close to her ear. "Otherwise there would be no witnesses to save you, and I'd have to demonstrate the full extent of how much I've missed you, Kagome," his voice barely contained the purr of longing that rolled out between them as he pulled away. Sesshoumaru then turned. He took his leave silently and regally, like nothing had happened.

As though he hadn’t just sauntered in and shattered her all over again.

#Sesskag #Sesshoumaru x Kagome

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itariilles · 4 years

Text

My Statement on Tolkien 2019

[ French translation and German translation availible. ]

It has been incredibly difficult for me to speak on my experiences regarding my experiences of hostility and othering in spaces that I loved and still hold dear to my heart, and for that reason I have been silent. That is until now.

I have decided that now is the right time for me to come forward with my experience and statement regarding my negative experience as a person of colour engaging in Tolkien spaces.

I want people involved in the wider Tolkien community to reflect on their roles in the specific spaces they inhabit, and how you can foster a better environment for marginalised groups to interact and engage with those spaces in a safe and inclusive manner.

Take your time to listen and put effort into listening to fans of colour when they are speaking about their lived experiences and their grievances especially when they are speaking about a topic as personal as racism. Being critical of a work you love and the media surrounding it is not easy thing, but we need to recognise that these criticisms are valid and deserve to be taken seriously when it affects a collective of people across different backgrounds.

I want to preface this by stating that I am speaking only for myself and my own lived experience as a vocal young non-black POC in a predominantly white space. I acknowledge that my experience is by no means universal or indicative of all POC in Tolkien fandom spaces.

I also understand that real life interactions differ widely from interactions on online fandom spaces, but there are disturbing similarities across both online and real life spaces with specific regard to the environment and treatment of vocal POC in both.

The tragedy is many people do not realise their impact not only on the individuals involved, but on the wider attitude towards POC voices in fandom when the topic of racism is discussed. We need to build safe environments where critical discussions of diversity and race from the people most affected by them are taken to heart, not invalidated or spoken over as targets of microaggressions.

To give a bit of context, Tolkien 2019 was an in person conference organised by the Tolkien Society (which I was a member of at the time). The official website for Tolkien 2019 has been taken down but the Tolkien Society has a nice summary written in August 2018 breaking down the event here.

I was approached by the Education Secretary at the time about my possible involvement in a panel discussing the history and future of the Tolkien Society which I elaborate on further in my statement. It was the first time I had felt that I had a platform where I could freely express my voice as a diverse reader and consumer of Tolkien media who held diversity in Tolkien as a core value in the wider Tolkien brand.

I felt that as the only non-white member on the panel I had an obligation to speak out on the topic of diversity when it was raised. I tried to speak briefly about some of the points and discourses I had heard on portrayals of diversity in Tolkien media with as much nuance as I could manage at the time. In response to some points I had made I was met with vocal disapproval by some audience members and visible signs of disapproval and hostile body language from others.

This was made even more jarring when later during the course of the event when two white creators hinted at vague notions of diversity were met with a far greater degree of approval. The former instance was during the context of a panel regarding the upcoming LOTR on Prime series, and the latter was during a talk presented by the chair of the Tolkien Society.

I felt intimidated and reluctant to involve myself any further in the Tolkien fandom, especially in real life spaces as my experience at Tolkien 2019 had only solidified and reaffirmed my fears and unease I had engaging in a predominantly white fandom with few visible POC members and creators who tackle topics of diversity and racism in both the community and source texts.

Following this event I was approached by an affiliate of one of the attendees who very kindly took the time to listen to me and suggested that I should write a statement in response to my experience. To my knowledge, my statement has not been shared or published on any platform yet and this will be the first time I have ever spoken about it publicly.

Since then some of my thoughts and opinions on certain aspects of Tolkien fandom and meta have shifted or evolved which I will hopefully expand on in the future, but I wanted to share my initial unchanged statement I wrote reflecting my immediate reaction to my experience.

I want to be seen as a Tolkien creative and critical thinker above anything else, but I cannot move forward with my work without speaking about my lived experience in a space which has been consistently hostile to me and so many others across different Tolkien spaces for so many years starting with my account of this one experience.

I hope my statement finds itself in good hands and I will always be willing to engage with others about my experiences so long as you engage with me in good faith.

The statement I wrote on 25/09/2019 is as follows:

From the 9th to 11th of August of this year I attended a conference held by the Tolkien society aptly named “Tolkien 2019” that advertised itself as the “largest celebration of Tolkien ever held by the Society” in which I both spoke as a panelist and independant speaker. The event itself was a mixture of both formal and informal panels, papers presented by selected members of the society, and evening social events.

My invitation to speak on the “History of the Tolkien Society” panel was presented as deliberate choice made by the panel organiser as a gateway for discussion about diversity and representation in Tolkien. On the official programme, the panel was described as a discussion concerning “what the Tolkien Society and Tolkien fandom in general may become as it encounters digital spaces, issues of representation and diversity, academic interest and a myriad other factors that make up our lived experience today”.

Although there was much excitement and anticipation on my half in the weeks and days leading up to the event, it soon turned to dread when the tone and climate of the discussion dawned on me when I took my seat alongside five other panelists ranging from seasoned Tolkien scholars, long-time members of the Society, and a member with a leadership position within the Society. On that four person panel, I was the only one racialised as non-white. In fact, I was one of only three people in a room of approximately fifty to sixty people racialised as non-white.

It wasn’t long before the true motive of placing me — a young, new member of the Society, who felt already out of place and out of my depth even being offered the opportunity to participate in the first place — on a panel of what I perceived to be more seasoned members of the society.

When the topic of diversity and representation in the Tolkien fandom was raised by the moderator, I saw it as an opportunity for me to share my own experiences as a young fan who predominantly consumed Tolkien content online, as well as some observations I had made regarding the current pop-cultural perception of Tolkien as being heavily influenced, if not wholly entered around the Peter Jackson trilogies and being deeply ingrained with the issues that seep from those interpretations into our overall perception of the Tolkien brand.

One of the talking points that seemed to have caused the biggest uproar and dissent was one in which I referred Tolkien’s description of Sam’s hands as brown in two instances — the first in the Two Towers, and the second instance in Return of the King and how this has been translated into film as both literal and symbolic interpretations. The former in the Ralph Bakshi’s the “Lord of the Rings” released in 1978 in which I noted that the decision to portray Sam as more ethnically ambiguous compared to the other Hobbits was a deliberate choice, whereas the latter was depicted in the recent Peter Jackson trilogy released in the early 2000’s took the description symbolically and cast the white American actor Sean Astin for the role.

The backlash I received for this was, I believe, absolutely disproportionate to the views I expressed. I saw members frown and grunt in disapproval, as well as some visibly shake their heads at me. In spite of me parroting how I saw both interpretations as equally valid as a defence mechanism in the face of such an aggressive response to what to me seemed like an innocuous observation made by a young person of colour who did not see many portrayals of people of colour in Tolkien.

Comments such as “I don’t care who they cast as Sam whether he’s black, brown, yellow, blue or green!” and “Tolkien’s message is universal I don’t see how race factors into this!” were shouted in between points I was making, and countless others were made as an effort to dismiss the effort I put in to hopefully start an open dialogue about the lack of diversity in adaptations of Tolkien and how it has coloured our perception of the overall brand, and perhaps fantasy as a whole.

Some other talking points I decided to mention included Peter Jackson’s Easterlings (coded as being North African or Middle Eastern in the film) as being appallingly Orientalist and damaging in a post-911 world, as well as referring to Tolkien’s vague descriptions of certain characters and people groups that can be interpreted as ethnic coding or perhaps hint at a more diverse cast than the popular brand of Tolkien that may have us believe. I iterated that it is the responsibility of consumers of Tolkien and Tolkien related media to push for different interpretations of the text in order to break the perception that Tolkien’s works are entirely Anglo and Eurocentric with no place for people of colour in the vast world he had created in my opinion as a love letter to his own.

A month later it is still difficult for me to fully wrap my head around what I had experienced during the conference, much less articulating it in a statement, but if there is a note I would like to conclude on it would be this: it was never about changing Tolkien’s works, but reinterpreting his 20th century text littered with colonial artefacts and reimagining the foundations of his work through a 21st century lens in an attempt to decolonise the interpretation of his works in popular culture.

To change the way we read, write and depict the Tolkien brand is to fundamentally change the landscape of the entire genre of fantasy which has and still derives so heavily from Tolkien’s works and the global Tolkien brand.

End.

#tolkien fandom #tolkien society #racism in tolkien #tolkien fandom racism #ok to reblog

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herestrish · 2 years

Text

Kalinka︱A Durarara!! F.F.

Link to Chapter 2.

Recommended playlist.

Word count: 2730

Warnings: Language.

Chapter 3

It was unlike a regular engine, since that which he had just encountered was always to stand out from the congested traffic of Tōkyō. He did not although know whether it was its deep shade of black or the abnormal smoke coming from it. Or simply the fact that, if listened carefully, some could swear it was a neigh of a horse they had heard behind the so familiar industrial noise. This specific motorcycle was surely nothing like any other piece of metal. Nothing but a living urban legend that made these surroundings a subject of idle talk.

She pressed on the accelerator, deepening the throbbing. Becoming one with the wind. So that her surroundings became a mixture of colours, a smudged painting of the streets she reigned over. Speed was so comforting to her, so liberating. Under her engine’s roaring, she had no time for thinking. No time for analysing and over-analysing. Her thoughts moved at the same pace with her motorcycle, a pace so fast she succeeded to escape the heaviness of her own mind.

The more inhuman the reckoning, the deeper the feelings. A fairly ironic truth, for Celty Sturluson developed the most human demeanour, despite being totally opposed to her nature. To her ‘real’ self, her Dullahan self. The worry that her recent development could mean denying her absolute truth added to her human impulses. She was aware of that. She had a hard time accepting that. To her bewilderedness, she had been told that she was perfect nonetheless. Every time her motorcycle stopped and her steps went up the stairs to her apartment, to his, her overstated perfection was brought into the discussion. Over and over again. She evidently thought it was rather too much of a statement.

As every time, she found him sitting on their sofa. His legs crossed. A cup of black tea in his hands, which he thereafter placed on the coffee table. He turned his head in her direction, so as to greet her. A smile so warm she had not seen on anybody’s lips, besides his.

“Welcome home, Celty. How was your day?”

She threw herself on the leathered sofa. Took out her helmet, smoke coming out of her headless body as a heavy, troubled sigh. She stood like that for two minutes straight. Facing the sofa, without responding to the previous question. The man next to her well understood these moments of long, bizarre silence. Sometimes it took several more minutes, even hours for her to continue the discussion. But he never criticised her for that. He hardly made any comment on her difficulty in opening up to him. Even if he was, admittedly, the one whom she had known the best. The one she trusted the most.

Celty chose, however, to raise her hand and take a cellphone out of her sleeve. Opened the notes app and typed, her fingers moving swiftly on the screen’s surface.

“Why every time you make me run an errand for that weirdo, I end up being so drained?”

The man raised a brow. Curiosity did not alter, however, his upbeat mood as he delivered his next question in an unbelievably relaxed manner.

“For whom? Izaya-kun? Did he, somehow, bother you with something?”

He pronounced his name as his existence, his messed-up reputation, their entire history, meant nothing to him.

“When doesn’t he?”

“And you couldn’t be more right. But seriously, what did happen out there?” He looked at her with immense intensity. A slight mark of assertion reflecting in his eyes, howbeit it did not last long after he heaved a deep sigh of worry and continued enunciating. “I know, I know. It’s none of my concern. Although I need you to know you can always release your frustration by talking it out. You know what I think about keeping it all in. It works until you break down and explode. So, tell me, was it the job itself? Or something he did specifically?”

She hesitated for a brief instant. Finally decided to follow his advice and confessed her concerns.

“The banality of the job.”

“Huh? Too little the price, therefore? Did you have a certain goal for today or something?”

“That’s what has taken me aback. The price was, in fact, too big for such an idiocrasy. I earned sixty thousand yens for a stupid visit at a random publishing house. Shinra, do you understand what I’m saying to you? Sixty. Thousand.”

“Sixty thousand is a big deal, indeed.”

He remained silent, moving his newly blank gaze at the coffee table. His tea probably got cold, hence vapours stopped rising from within the big, white mug he abandoned. Considering she had finished writing her response, returned his glance to the phone’s screen.

“It had me thinking. He must be up to something again. Otherwise, he wouldn’t insist on that specific errand. He could also have done something like that on his own. Only if we’re talking about risky business would he call for me. But that’s not what actually disturbed me, since he’s always up to something and so on. What had me really thinking was: why a book? What kind of maliciousness could one bunch of paper cause?”

“You’re playing detective, then?”

His smile seemed slightly amused. A delicate combination of affection and playfulness that only he was capable of emanating. She certainly did not need it at the time.

“Why don’t you ever take me seriously?”

“I just think it’s pointless trying to figure him out, that’s all. What matters now is that you’re safe and sound. That your job went well and everything. Don’t burden your thoughts with stuff like this, especially now that you seem mentally exhausted already.” As he continued talking, Shinra got up from the couch, moving behind her. Reaching her shoulders, gently massaging them. “I’ve known Izaya for a while now and one thing I learned from it is that getting into his thoughts could be quite a pain in the ass. Even if you did, however, find the key to his intentions, you’d always end up wishing you haven’t known anything. You’d get trapped into his mind the way matter gets sucked by a black hole. Trust my words on that.”

She noticed his talk getting more and more distant. Even though his words were there, materialised by the tenderness of his voice, she knew that Shinra’s mind was nevertheless miles away from her. Stuck in his deep thinking, in his memories. She thus did not try to interrupt him, nor to fill up the bits of silence. She presumed the words persisted still, despite their ability to be heard or not.

“But if I’d try stepping into his shoes, I’d say that it’s not just a mere bunch of paper, but a bunch of words. Regardless of what book we’re talking about. Words are quite powerful and he, of all people, should know it best.”

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“A Nietzschean ideology deems disease to be a consequence of decline, not its cause. For the murderer is not “ill” by nature, but pushed to become so by their circumstances. This well explains Raskolnikov’s feverish state, his frenzy even, as being predictable outcomes of the murder he committed. It also explains Ivan’s madness at the end of the volume – I honestly see the court scene, probably among many other philologists, as the very peak of his “possession”. He felt responsible for everything that happened because he knew his ideas, despite them being put into action by someone else, brought destruction to his family. Reasoning the murder of his father, even for the greater good, was significant to the Karamazovs’ real downfall. Therefore, it was his guilt that ultimately fostered the development of his own illness.”

She interrupted the speech, the pause permitting her to reach for her thermos. Coffee flowed down her throat as she briefly closed her eyes.

A whole week had passed since the café incident. A whole week for her to put her thoughts in order, to begin supposing that she had fantastically escaped a rather gruesome end. To her confusion, an end she would have inflicted upon herself since she had always been aware of the danger she put herself into. If things had led towards her destruction, the fault would have been hers and only hers. No the other way around. Therefore, it felt somehow jubilant for her to find herself sitting cross-legged on the desk’s surface, drinking her usual black coffee, talking about her usual subjects of interest, in her usual lecture theatre. Living an ordinary day felt jubilant with a pinch of thrill.

Thrilling with a pinch of horror, for it was right before intending to continue her analyse when she caught glimpse of a mysterious attendant sitting in the back of her class. His presence was spectral, quiet and observant, hence sending shivers down her spine. She soon realised that the game would never be over. She would never live a proper, normal life ever again. And she, herself, was the only one to blame. His wicked smile grew wider upon his visage at the same time with the nervousness rushing up to Noriko’s throat, turning her stomach. He knew he would be observed, he wanted her to. This exact thought had her disturbed to the core.

She heaved a deep breath, with the hope she would free herself from her anxiety. Took a shot of the remaining beverage.

She had a lecture to sustain, after all. Whether her being watched over or not.

“Camus stated that his outcome could very well be a substantial critique of rationalism, perhaps of immorality as well. He nonetheless found beauty in Ivan’s internal conflict, proving for him to be the most fascinating of all the Dostoyevskian characters.”

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Music reverberated from her headphones, one hand holding tightly to the support bar. Although her body seldom lost its balance to the subway’s fast-paced movement, she felt dazed, her mind crushed by the enormous numbness his image was able to produce. Since she had first met him, she knew this person was up to no good. Judging by his irritating smiles, his insistent glares, the assertion in his actions, she also figured he had everything planned to the fullest extent. The type who would never let things happen at random. He had probably looked into her true identity way before the woman ever got to know him. It thus had Noriko wonder about her own role in this twisted game she willingly joined. But until then, one thing she knew for certain.

“The next stop, Ikebukuro Station.”

He was in the same subway as her.

He had followed her all the way here.

The subway doors opened with a click and a puff. While her heels were on the verge of reaching the ground, she found herself being grasped by the arm. His gaze had a bizarre intensity, crimson looks absorbing the warmth of her entire body. His voice almost a whisper, a cold November breeze blowing right into her soul.

“I’m walking you home.”

It surely did not sound as an offer. It was a statement.

“Thank you for your sweet care, but I don’t need it.”

He seemed to pay no attention to her words, as he carelessly continued to walk alongside her.

“You were beautiful out there. You had that, how shall I put it, that gleam in your eyes while dissecting those concepts. Your passion makes you beautiful. So unusual.”

Her eyes widen in slight surprise. But she did not flinch, nor did she attempt to respond to his affirmation. She forced herself to look at him out of the corner of her eye. Avoided meeting his full gaze. He perhaps sensed her cautious stares, presuming his line caught her attention properly, and chuckled in a rather jolly manner.

“You hate your job, don’t you, Nori-chan?”

“Don’t you ever call me that again.”

“People likely told you that you’re kinda good at it, the salary also seemed convenient and all, but your goal was never teaching. So far as I can tell, you hate teaching. You actually thought you were meant for something bigger, that your thinking could change the world. You wanted real impact, and rambling about the same bland topics to the same pricks who wouldn’t take them as seriously as you did, as you do, wasn’t quite according to your plan. Unfortunately, the world wasn’t so kind to you.”

“Are you here to psychoanalyse me?”

“I think it’s too big of a word you’ve chosen right there. I just want to get to know my lovely human better.”

His lovely human. The words felt downright disgusting, especially coming from his mouth, especially said as naturally as he did. It was crystal clear now that, in his eyes, her role was nothing other than a mere subject. Nothing more, nothing less. Despite him referring to her as his “lovely human”, he surely did not act as talking to a human being. He was only completing his study, and she felt rather hopeless in stopping him.

“Despite the fact that I really don’t want you to know me. And by no means do I want to get to know you better.”

The man snickered, laughing mockingly at her remark as his steps skipped down their path. His furred hood bounced up and down along with his sudden movements. His hands in his pockets. Stares never leaving her way.

“It’s quite too late for you to state this. I bet I’m the most interesting thing that happened to you in the last month or two. You hate it, of course, and you love it at the same time.” He paused for a brief instant, as to create a moment of suspense. His pale expression darkened in contemplation. “‘Recently I see less and less beauty in the small things in life. I guess I’m losing my passion for almost everything. All because of my plain character.’ Your words exactly. Or have you changed your mind about your customs? Hypocrisy is pathetic, Nori-chan, I’ve truly expected more of you. You know, the first step in getting to know yourself is honesty. You can’t possibly have a pertinent impression of your own feelings if you don’t start being honest with yourself.”

His voice went through like a knife in her chest. Nonetheless, Noriko used her silence as an attempt to prevent her tense state from showing up. The less transparent she was towards this man, the better. Letting him provoke her would definitely not be an option. She well knew that a possible comment would lighten the fire in his eyes even more, thus chose to remain almost wordless at his statements. Hiding her sweaty palms in the warm pockets of her coat. Fairly waiting to get home.

When they eventually caught glimpse of the apartment building she lived in, the man put an arm around her shoulder. His smiles widened. His tone, whether hushed, was deemed relatively caring.

Relatively.

“There, safe and sound. You really should stop wandering around these streets alone, particularly at night, for there are creeps all over the place.”

You say it as if you’re not one of them.

“Now go in there and get back to your usual habits. Have a glass of wine or something. You had a long day, you well deserve it.”

“Thanks. Perhaps I will.”

The words slipped out her tongue. She cursed herself a million times, for the response managed to provoke a smirk upon his face.

“Oke, guess I’ll let you be from now on. Take care, Nori-chan! ‘Till next time~”

He suddenly pushed her towards the building’s entrance. Waved her goodbye and went on his way. Maintaining his skipping, carefree walk. Without bothering to look back.

‘Till next time.

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Reaching the front of her apartment’s door, she started to search for her key. But as she scrabbled about her pockets, the woman instantaneously started to feel a peculiar object within one of them. A rectangular, flat shape. Smooth to the touch, just as a credit card. She vigilantly took it out of her coat, curious eyes analysing the piece of black cardboard. Reading the words printed on it. And among what seemed to be an address and a phone number written in white, fancy letters, she paid deep attention to the following words:

Orihara Izaya

「折原臨也」

-Informant-

「情報屋」

Roll credits

Click here for Chapter 4.

#Durarara!!#durarara fic #durarara x oc #various ocs #various x ocs #Izaya Orihara #Shizuo Heiwajima #Shinra Kishitani #Celty Sturluson #chikage rokujou #Anri Sonohara #Masaomi Kida #mikado ryuugamine #chapter 3 #mistery #action #angst #literary references #fan fiction

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