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#literally lost all of my drawing files so I might be a while before I can make more but yknow
quagsire · 1 year
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Made some Danganronpa keychains! Want to make more characters eventually :P
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petterwass · 4 months
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Ho'olheyak really is quite the tragic figure once you read her file, isn't she?
For all her being very funny and her inexhaustible Bug Bunny energy, she really has been through so much, forced into a generations-long project that she never asked for, as a mere infant.
Is a small baby she was subjected to some sort of horrible brain surgery that forced the entirety of her species history into her brain and drastically cut down her lifespan, which is implied to be both very traumatic (only a infant could possibly survive it because once a child is old enough to have a sence of "self" it would have been completely obliterated along with their mind) and with incredibly high mortality (As Warfarin puts it: "I don't want to ask her how, many siblings she *had*).
All to force her to continue her family's generations-long project to restore the bloodline powers of the ancient ku'kul'kan.
While she maintains that the brain surgery does not in any force her to do this, she could if she wanted to, drop the entire thing. But I wonder how true that is.
After all, the sunk cost fallacy is real, and once you've already paid with half of your life, what choice is there really but to continue the work? To to otherwise would be to say that the price you paid was not worth it. That the price your mother paid, and her mother before her, going back hundreds if not thousands of years, was not worth it. That the goal they worked towards is not worth trying to achieve. That the sacrifice that was forced upon you has no meaning.
Which child, implanted with scenes of your people's lost grandeur and raised from birth for this single mission, could really say that they are doing it of their own free will? That they had a choice, when they were selected to pay the price for it even before they were born?
One wonders also, how this has created the Ho'olheyak we know. How different would she be if she did not have her people's history rattling around in her brain since before she could talk?
It also explains in a way, her wanting up always work alone. After all, who else could understand the importance of her mission, how everything and everyone can be sacrificed on its altar if need be, than the one who has already paid the highest price for it, and who can literally feel the wingsbeats of ancient ku'kul'kan in her mind? Who else could ever understand.
And that's not getting into her equipment, how each part of the gear she carries is intended to mimic a trait of the mythical Ku'kul'kan, how this burden she carries is literally too heavy to bear without using her arts to lighten it (her exoskeleton alone weighs over 90 kilograms. Without using her arts to lighten it, she would not be able to move). How perhaps the burden of reviving a extinct bloodline would be too much to bear for any human, except perhaps, one created for that express purpose with Arts and brain surgery, to be the perfect, or indeed, the only possible banner-bearer that could endure the weight of generations of sacrifice towards a single cause? Maybe I'm reading up much into it but the parallels are there.
And in the end, soon enough, as her drastically shortened lifespan runs out. She will breed, likely several times to endure she has backup infants (and isn't that a cold-blooded thought? "the first one might not survive, better make more") . And she will subject her infants to the same horribly invasive and lethal brain surgery as was done to her. Until one of them survives. And that one will carry on the project. That one surviving baby will bear the torch. Will burn their life from both ends.
Of her own free will.
You can probably draw a lot of interesting parallels here. Both to the greatness of multi-generational work: "I plant a tree so my grandchildren can sit in the shade", but also to continuing cycles of abuse: "This, was done to me. I will do it to my children in turn. And they to their children. And the one that survived will carry on the torch."
I don't know. I just think she's incredibly fascinating and interesting once you get beyond the first, obvious outer layer of Sexy Fucked Up Evil Snake Woman.
There's really a lot there. And I love her. She is so very much more fucked up than you initially think she is.
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sharpiepaws · 1 year
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art questions
this was supposed to be like oooooh send in a number and i'll answer it but i don't feel like waiting i wanted to answer these all NOW whether you want answers or NOT 1. Art programs you have but don’t use i've installed firealpaca, medibang, drawpile, i think i have a crack of paint tool sai still, know i have a crack of csp lying around. truth be told the last time i used a digital art program that wasn't gimp was 2 years ago where i drew like 3 things in drawpile. 2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even) full front and 3/4 either direction are equally easy. it's profiles that are difficult. 3. What ideas come from when you were little a lot of my ocs come from when i was 13-ish. from when i was a little kid tho not much carries over except a theme of things being genetically engineered in some way. 4. Fav character/subject that’s a bitch to draw folliage/nature. i need to take a lot of references to make plants and foresty sorta landscapes look passable. 5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself i think i post nearly everything that's complete, and i complete nearly everything. anything that isn't posted is part of a larger whole and eventually will get posted. so probably like over 95% of what i do is posted online. 6. Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (i.e. this horse wasn’t supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it) 60s anime and akira toriyama's earlier work (dr slump/dragon ball). idk. smthn about the eyes. 7. A medium of art you don’t work in but appreciate vector artwork. tried it when i was 14 and hated it. just doesn't mesh well i'm a bitmap boy. 8. What’s an old project idea that you’ve lost interest in esther's redemption angel story. it's not really interesting to me and the afterlife "oh i'm a good angel and i help demons!" just feels really played out? i blame vivzie. 9. What are your file name conventions 001 002 003, a combination of keywords, or ajhgkjahkj 10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw puffy sweaters. any winter clothes really. 11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what yea i listen to pretty much anything. i kinda just pick an album or a dj set at random. i mostly listen to electronic music or alt rock. 12. Easiest part of body to draw arms. legs are a close second. 13. A creator who you admire but whose work isn’t your thing ... i don't think i have something like that if i don't like their work i don't really get interested in them lol. idk hidetaka miyazaki? for being a huge out masochist in interviews? that shit's funny. only played dark souls 1 tho. 14. Any favorite motifs characters grappling with their own mortality in some way shape or form 15. *Where* do you draw (don’t drop your ip address this just means do you doodle at a park or smth) in my room. at my desk. 16. Something you are good at but don’t really have fun doing scriptthttt writttingg.g.. i forgot how much you have to Write to create Thing they can't just be nebulous ideas or cool scenes one after the other. 17. Do you eat/drink when drawing? if so, what i dink my oiter. and sometime my monsert if i want to feel like shit and have a really fast heart rate for a really long time. 18. An estimate of how much art supplies you’ve broken my collection of dried up poscas and copics and highlighters and literally any other marker is huge i'm sure. also i have popped the nib off of prismacolor's 005 fineliner at least twice. (prisma fineliners suck get staedtler or faber-castell instead) 19. Favorite inanimate objects to draw (food, nature, etc.) plants no contest. rooms are also really cool. 20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy hands. i've always liked them. 21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways i dig baroque era paintings quite a bit. 22. What physical exercises do you do before drawing, if any none i rawdog that sketchbook 23. Do you use different layer modes the closest thing i have to layers is my lightbox. 24. Do your references include stock images yes of course absolutely 25. Something your art has been compared to that you were NOT inspired by BEASTARS. i guess because furry? lol 26. What’s a piece that got a wildly different interpretation from what you intended i haven't finished any of my Works yet so i don't have an answer for this yet but i have a sneaking suspicion that one of them will be wildly misinterpreted but we shall see 27. Do you warm up before getting to the good stuff? If so, what is it you draw to warm up with no not really. i didn't even realize warming up was a concept until like, this year or smthn 28. Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines) i did work for CUTE CERVID on their first comp. other than that no i am too reclusive and hate interacting with the Art Community at large to participate in most zines. 29. Media you love, but doesn’t inspire you artistically jet set radio funnily enough. the game literally about art hahahah i don't think i've ever drawn jet set radio fanart and i've been into that game for like 4 years now 30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated
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this one. it's literally one of the best things i've ever drawn and everytime i post it it gets like 5 like/fav/engagements MAX
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the-blivyverse · 4 months
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Have I talked about her before? Idk.... Buuuuuuuuuut, I FINALLY have a name for the character I codenamed Artist for a while! Her name is Tess. Mostly got the idea from how younger me was obsessed with that name and wanted to go by it (I don't want to anymore but I still think it's a very pretty name). Her last name has been lost to time and she never really cared about it enough to remember. ... I'm mostly using that as an exuse not to come up with one 👍
So as her code name already explains, Tess is an artist. She's also been dead for a good millenia now if not longer. The place she occupies doesn't really keep track of time sooooo......
One of the solid foundations of my idea for her is that she was a very normal and average person when she was alive but she was happy. Like she lived out on the countryside some place peaceful and nothing big or crazy every really happened to her. She just painted and sketched and maybe made jam and soup. A real cottagecore life right there. She also never did anything with her art. Not to say that's a bad thing. She just drew for herself and made art because it made her happy. She also was very good friends with her neighbors and all that jazz. Bottom line, her life was completely peaceful and overall, not that exciting but she doesn't regret anything and in her eyes, she had a good life.
Now the real juicy interesting stuff happens after she dies. Idk how she dies like idk if I want her to die of old age or have her die youngish due to some tragic accident that was no one's fault. I'll work on that later....
So when Tess dies, something in the afterlife and dimensional continium fucks up real bad and her soul accidently ends up in a place outside reality and the land of the deceased. I don't have a name for it so I kind of just call it the Library but I might end up making that its actual name idk.
The Library is basically like this BIIIIIIIIIIIIIG infinite archive of books that hold the history of all dimensions (when I say all dimensions I mostly mean just information on all my other stories but depending on the context and what I write about concerning the Library it can include information on dimensions and worlds of media I'm hyperfixated on too). And the caretaker and owner of the Library is the Librarian who also still needs a name but Librarian is her code name right now. Literally all I have for how she looks is that she kind of looks like an owl and she has those librarian glasses with the chains on them. I doubt I've talked about her before and I'm too lazy to go and check but she's a god and her godly profession is maintaining the library and recording the events of different worlds and filing said information away. She's also got this observation room where she can spectate on the ongoings of different worlds and it has some mystical big pool or crystal ball or something in it idk she's still a big WIP and I'm still ironing out all the details and you knowwwww.... Long story short, she's one of those beings that has a big archive containing the history of everything and everyone like the Chronicler from The Legend of Spyro. Oh also, important, her library can't tell the future and only the present and the past. She also rolls her eyes at the notion of future sight.
Sooooooo Tess shows up here and she's understandably confused and the Librarian is like "You're not supposed to be here who the hell are you????" so she puts Tess in some room like a kid who was just found wandering lost around a building and has been put in a breakroom while somone goes and tries to find their parents. I don't have this next bit fine lined yet, but she ends up leaving the room and poking around in the books on some world and gets some inspiration for a drawing and draws out a scene from this supposed innocent little book which she doesn't know are actual real events in some world. And the Librarian sees it and is like "... Huh. That's a pretty good drawing actually." and one thing leads to another and Tess is allowed to stay in the Library and she and the Librarian become friends. So now Tess spends eternity keeping the Librarian company and watching/reading events happen in worlds and makes paintings and drawings of them whenever inspiration or motivation strikes. She even has a section of the library for her art gallery.
She also makes friends with the sentinels in the library(basically a bunch of magical securty guards that serve as a defense against intruders) and chats and plays board games with them on occasion when they aren't busy. Board games can range from chess to a whole slew of other games she's learned about from different dimensions. She becomes very skilled at pretty much all board and card games in existence after a while. Not to mention her art skills continue to improve over the thousands of years she's been in the library.
I'm unsure when exactly she starts doing this, but she eventually gets the privelage of visiting worlds with certain restrictions in place. She can't interfere in the plots of those worlds or tell inhabitants of said worlds things they aren't supposed to know about or anything like that. She also has to be careful when visiting worlds because the only places she's able to go are places within liminal space. She's still dead and if she were to wander outside a liminal space while in a world, she'd be at the mercy of the laws of death of that world and the Librarian would be unable to help her as it would be outside her juristiction as a god after that.
It used to just be an idea but I think I most likely will end up making her become a god of creativity, wonder, art, and the joy and happiness that comes with creating at some point. She'll no longer have to worry about getting stuck in some other world's afterlife after that. She'll also be like, the new dawn of creator gods when that happens. I'm too lazy to go into detail on that right now...
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biromantica · 9 months
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Venting...TW eating disorder, misogyny, SA, stalking, fatphobia, cyberbullying. It's extremely triggering please don't read it.
I'm so fucking sick of being fat and undesirable I truly feel like men are not interested in me romantically purely because they want to smash the fat girl in secret but socially find her repulsive as a dating partner. Manipulated and raped by these scumbag men i dont even like and then blocked immediately after so they hold no accountability. I've been blocked hundreds of times now after all these fuck boy ass men online AND IRL rizz me up and lie and tell me how special I am and push my boundaries to finally conquer my closed ass heart and block me before calling me disgusting names and telling me to unalive myself. I used to be so confident over my body and physical attraction but it's been so bogged down by social media and random men encounters... especially because I've been putting myself out there for streaming and it pulls dozens of psychopathic trolls that comment the most inhumane fatphobic shit in my DMs and Comments. And often, these horrible comments get upvoted and left at the top of my content to remind me that I'm an unattractive piece of shit loser and I should just kill myself. Like I just want to be cute on the internet and wear my silly little goth clothes and draw my silly little league of legends fanart while making friends with equally girly nerds but men ruin everything for me. Everywhere I go, there's a man around the corner to put me down. I can't even exist without being DMed death/rape threats, and then I go outside to the IRL and men stalk me, harass me, cat call me, and sexually abuse me. I try and take a break from promoting and walk my dog and literally every single day this past couple weeks, there has been at least one man harassing me. The more weight I lose from the stress and eating disorder the more I'm sexually harassed and now i'm at a point where I'm ready to just stop eating entirely so I can die unbothered and in peace. I mean that's never gonna happen because I fucking love BBQ chicken and almonds so anyone who snuck in to read this know that I'm just venting.
Tldr; cishet men won't stop sexualizing/degrading me and it's making me wanna file a restraining order against the entirety of Man. Their opinion on my body is a fucking L but hearing it so many times enforces my ED and the idea I'm unlovable. Like I've already lost 30lbs in 4 months which is crazy, but it'll never be enough. And now I started selling my body because i fucking hate myself and if men won't stop raping me then I might as well profit from it. And no, I'm not getting therapy.
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Originally I was just going to add this as a reblog to my previous post about the parking lot scene in KK2 but it’s almost 2k words so now it’s getting it’s own post. Be forewarned- this is fucking long.
TW for discussion of PTSD, child abuse, neglect, injury, and death, in relation to topics surrounding the show, under the cut-
Obviously, Cobra Kai is a show based around the premise of “what happened to that Lawrence kid after he got kicked in the face?”, which is honestly a pretty cool idea for a show. Johnny’s story is never explained past sitting on the sidewalk with his head in his hands at the tournament, and there are no real context clue’s to figure out what may or may not have happened.
In the show we get to learn early on that Johnny’s life spiraled after the tournament, going from bad to worse to “holy shit how are you still alive”-dropping out/never going to college, working jobs he seems to hate, becoming an alcoholic, presumably many dead end relationships, and not being there for his kid. And yeah, obviously, this would be a hard pill to swallow for anyone watching the show if Johnny had just lost the tournament. If we never got the scene in KK2, he would have just been some kid who lost a tournament- we see at the end of the first movie that(through tears holy shit Billy) that Johnny is the one who gives the trophy to Daniel with his famous line, “You’re alright, LaRusso.” There’s a level of grudging respect in that moment that isn’t lost on anyone who sees that movie- that Johnny, who throughout the movie only sees Daniel as some whimpy kid, gets proven wrong and respects that. If we didn’t have that scene, there’s reason to believe Johnny would have apologized, tried to make amends, Something, even if it was just being less of a dick at school.
But then, we get the parking lot. We get a far off shot, intended to distance you from the scene, framed over Daniel’s shoulder. This makes sense, Daniel is the main character, the protagonist, the underdog hero- why wouldn’t it be framed in his perspective? But the scene is about Johnny. We get the shouting match, the back and forth- “No, you’re the loser man.”- and again it’s fairly obvious how Johnny sees this situation. This is a man who we assume(and is later confirmed) to be a surrogate father figure, who set his friend up for failure, and then basically forced him to do the same by targeting an injured opponent, and forcing him to fight without honor. This same man presumably follows a teenager out to the parking lot, to harass him, to tell him he’s off the team, to tell him he’s a loser, that he’s nothing.
But at that point, Johnny knows the truth, even if subconsciously. At the end of the day Johnny knows that Daniel LaRusso was a worthy opponent, and that regardless of the cheating and manipulation, Daniel could have won anyway, and did win, despite of it.
And then Kreese grabs him, too fast to react to, Johnny too surprised even knowing that Kreese is the bad guy here, not believing that he would ever willingly hurt him- and Johnny isn��t strong enough to fight him off, none of the boys are, so Johnny is forced to suffocate for almost a full 30 seconds(which I double checked for the record- also as a reference, 30 seconds is about the average time it takes for a person voluntarily holding their breath to pass out- this does not account for the oxygen lost during a struggle, and the lack of preparation from both surprise and panic. The only silver lining here is the fact that Kreese was most likely compressing his windpipe, not his jugular, which would have made him pass out in about 5-10 seconds, and would have caused permanent brain damage or death in about 15).
Now, PTSD is a complex thing. I’m not a psychiatrist, and what small amount of information we have is all we have to work off of, but I feel fairly comfortable in saying Johnny mostly likely developed it after the incident. This not an uncommon take in the fandom as far as I’m aware either. But, if we assume this, we also have to assume that after the fact nothing would have been done about this. Not just in the sense that we still don’t really know everything that happened right after the tournament, but that in the early 80s, PTSD wasn’t really a thing yet.
Sure it was absolutely a condition that existed, but Post Traumatic Stress Disorder wasn’t even added to the DSM-III until 1980- and for a long time afterward, was only seen as a condition that affected primarily war vets. Even after an event as traumatic as having a man you considered a father trying to kill you, in public, without remorse, would not have been seen as something to warrant the diagnoses, let alone treatment.
Johnny Lawrence was 17 when Kreese tried to kill him, and this boy would have been offered no resources beyond filing charges with the police. And as we see in KK3, either this didn’t happen either, or someone(presumably Silver) got the charges dropped. So on top of almost being murdered, Johnny had to live with the fact that the man who did that to him was still out there, and to top it off, still ran a dojo at least for a few months after the event. The only relief he could have gotten is after Kreese faked his death.
And sure, Mr Miyagi may have gotten Kreese to let go eventually, but as several people have pointed out in comments and tags, left him and the other boys alone with Kreese still standing there in the parking lot and just... drove off. Kreese has already been established to be a psycho with no problem hurting children, a little bit of glass might not have prevented him from trying again.
So why did I talk about all of that? Because it all contributes to why Daniel LaRusso works as a credible antagonist in season 1 of Cobra Kai.
Think about this- Johnny blames losing everything on Daniel in season 1, but we specifically get a shot in KK1 and later KK2(”You’re alright, LaRusso” and “I did my best” come to mind) where he seems to be at least mostly accepting of the fact that he lost(with what was actually an illegal kick but that’s a rant for another time). So why does he blame him for everything 30 years later?
Because 30 years later, Johnny is forced to go outside, go to work, and pretend like he doesn’t see what feels like every street corner(including right outside his apartment mind you), a literal billboard sized reminder of what happened to him.
The rest of this is mostly speculation but it makes sense in my head so bear with me.
When we get introduced to Robby, it’s made pretty clear that Johnny has not been in his life for a bit. In season 2 we get Johnny’s heart to heart with Miguel, where he divulges that he missed the birth, because he spiraled after his mom’s death. This however doesn’t suggest that he stayed gone, especially knowing that it wasn’t long enough for Robby to not consider seeking out his dad. Because tacked up to the fridge, is a picture of Robby in his soccer uniform as a kid. It’s an early detail you can see in previous episodes, and says a lot about how Robby grew up. To be fair, this could have been given to him by Shannon, and not taken himself, but it’s the sport Robby’s playing that makes me question this. KK1 dedicates an entire scene to Johnny being on the soccer team in high school. Soccer, while maybe not as important to him as karate, is still part of his character. Robby does not know karate in season 1, Johnny obviously didn’t share it with him, but that doesn’t mean Johnny didn’t share anything with him.
So Johnny’s back in his kids life, maybe doing better for himself, maybe cutting back on the drinking. LaRusso Auto is already established to exist at this point but it’s in Encino, a place Johnny has no reason to go to, and probably doesn’t want to. He’s trying again and things are okay. But Robby knows enough about Daniel to know that going to him will piss off his dad. So Johnny had to have talked about him at some point. The billboards here are what’s important- they’re in the first episode, the first scene montage, Johnny draws a dick on one of them as some petty revenge.
The first billboard goes up in the late 2000s to mid 2010s. Johnny sees it, maybe he has Robby with him at the time, maybe he goes home and says something there, but he says something in a way that sticks with even a child as being important. More billboards go up. Dealerships starting popping up more and more. Daniel’s face, and by extension, the memories, the flashbacks, become inescapable. Johnny, for a third time, spirals again. Before he even knows what’s happening, he’s lost his relationship with his son. And it’s all Daniel’s fault. Of course Daniel doesn’t do it deliberately, but the constant reminders are enough to send him back into a tailspin and Johnny blames him for it.
Because it’s Daniel who is a constant reminder of his failures- it’s Daniel who caused him to lose the tournament and almost get killed, Daniel who put up the billboards that trigger his flashbacks, it’s always Daniel Daniel Daniel.
And then Johnny gets it in his head that he wants to be better. He opens a dojo, teaches Miguel and the other kids, wants to try again- and he almost succeeds.
Johnny up to this point has not deliberately antagonized Daniel in any way. Sure he named the dojo Cobra Kai, but Cobra Kai is all he knows. Besides Johnny doesn’t blame karate for his failures, his best memories are Cobra Kai and he’s trying to be better than Kreese. So what’s the harm in this really? His building is in Reseda, there’s no reason for Daniel to ever be there, he doesn’t do it out of spite, it’s because he lives there and rent is cheap. He doesn’t know about KK3, doesn’t know about Daniel’s own trauma. This isn’t an attack. Johnny sincerely just doesn’t know.
Enter Daniel, stage left. Daniel makes no attempt to talk to him- he simply makes demands and accusations, before he starts making active attempts to put him out of business.
Sure, we as the audience know Daniel has good reasons to not want Cobra Kai back. But Johnny doesn’t. All Johnny knows is that the kid he picked on in high school- who won, who got everything Johnny wanted, who grew up to be successful, has a wonderful wife, two kids who love him, a thriving business- is doing everything he can to make his life hell 30 years after the fact.
And this could only have happened because in 1986 John G. Avildsen decided to add in a scene meant for the original movie into the sequel, for absolutely no fucking reason.
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sup-hoes-its-me · 3 years
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Emotion (Kakashi x Reader)
A/N: Kakashi again...can't get enough of this mans tbh. U r an empath due to your kekkei genkai and Kakashi has always been difficult to read. Friend to lovers. Sharing one bed folks, we got some steamyyy shit here. Angst warning as well.
Word count: 6000
He was always alone. Ever since his childhood, he walked the world completely alone with only a few people there to support him. No mother, no father, no mentor, no teammates. He was at the mercy of fate his entire life, things being stolen from him time and time again. 
He just prayed that he could keep her. Y/N L/N, the only woman to have wormed her way into his heart and made a home there.
When they first met, Kakashi and Y/N, she cursed him for being such a weirdo. Apparently his mind was empty and his heart was seemingly full of sand. He was conditioned that way, and that is how he lived for the longest time. It wasn't a surprise for him to hear that.
But she thought it was stranger than anything she'd ever seen, and so she followed him. She would figure him out, bring him back down to Earth from his supposed high horse. That woman was determined, and frankly he didn't mind her being around. She was quiet enough that it didn't matter. Not to mention on the missions they had together, she was quite the partner.
Over time, she'd learned to read him like a book. It was part of her clan's kekkei genkai. The ultimate empath, I suppose. The ability to read a persons every single emotion and then turn that, if they so choose, into power. 
She was never the greatest fighter, but her negotiation skills were the best they could possibly be. She would dive into the emotions of another and manipulate them backwards and forwards to get what she wanted. 
It was overwhelming, walking into a room of people and immediately being bombarded with so many feelings coming at her all at once. Occasionally, if the situation was bad enough she'd have to take a seat and clear her mind, organizing each person in her mind like a filing cabinet of empathy.
But damn, did she try to weasel out every bit of feeling she could. It was just something that came so naturally, she couldn’t help but instigate whatever was brewing up inside him.
"Kakashi, if you're happy, you know you're allowed to express it. You don't have to hide it away," she told him, staring at the masked man sitting across from her at the table. He was watching as she sharpened her kunai, and she could feel the content running off his body in small bursts. He was feeling better. Better than he had in a little while. Of course she picked up on it.
He sighed, rolling his eyes. She was always reading him, he knew that. He just preferred when she refrained from mentioning it. It did, most times, feel like a bit of an invasion of privacy, how she could deep dive into the corners of his mind. There were things no one else could ever possibly know that she did. It was strange, but he was used to it.
"What? Want me to smile or something?"
"No, but you should let yourself go. Just drop the facade."
"Stop doing that. Getting into my head."
Quietly, she set down her blade and picked up the next one, taking a cloth and softly wiping away any dirt. Her eyes slide up to his for a moment, her all knowing gaze filling his vision. "It's basically impossible. Especially if you're the only one around. There's nothing else to focus on except you." He knew that. It wasn't like she had an on or off switch. That was the downside of this dojutsu. Unlike sharingan and byakugan users, hers was always pulling the strings of her brain.
"You've got that mission next week. With Naruto and a few of the other kids, right?"
"Yes."
"It's A rank, isn't it?"
She hummed in agreement. He had a habit of knowing about all her missions, more importantly being the dangerous ones. He wasn't necessarily scared for her, probably not. He was more cautious than anything. There was this nagging feeling in his head that he shouldn't let her go on these missions alone. That it was too dangerous for her to handle. 
But he was wrong. She was stronger than he thought, and could hold her own in battle. He was just a worrier. He'd just lost too many, seen too many bodies in front of his eyes to trust. God, he wanted to trust her, but he couldn't. She was too vulnerable. His friend, one of the only ones who hadn't died yet. For all he knew, her days numbered, that's how paranoid he was about everything.
"You'll be careful?"
"That's a silly question." He gave her a look that said he was more serious than anything, and she sighed. "Of course I'll be careful. I have people that would miss me if I wasn't." He was one of them. She could sense his fear whenever she said goodbye and his relief when she returned. He really tried to remain objective, but his heart said otherwise. 
And she would be a liar to say that she did not experience the same relief seeing him come home from missions, even if he was beaten and bruised to the bone, she was just happy he made it back. So many never got to come home. It was a sick world, they lived in, but she could relish in the little comforts.
"Don't worry about me. I'll always turn out fine. It's you and your dumb students we have to worry about."
"I hear you. Those kids are enough to drive a person mad." He rested his chin in his palm, the mere thought of those kids causing his blood pressure to rise.
"Thankfully my students never gave me any trouble. Sweet little things."
"Well, aren't you just lucky, Y/N?"
"What can I say? Kurenai and I got the luck of the draw with our students. You men had it rough, I have to admit," she laughed. It was funny that he was so unfortunate to have gotten assigned the Uchiha and the Uzumaki, two completely opposite but persistent forces. "Despite your perverted tendencies and your perpetual lateness, you still did a great job teaching them."
"Thanks. But do you really have to call me a pervert? I'm really not."
"Yeah? That explains why you read porn in public. Admit you're a pervert, you dumb old man."
"We're the same age-" he began to argue, but she just cut him off with her harsh words.
"Creep," she muttered, running the sharpening stone along her blade. He narrowed his eyes. She was being awfully annoying, and he knew she could sense his irritation building up. Yet she continued just to be a pain in the ass.
 He warned, "Hey. Watch it, L/N."
"Okay, okay, I'll stop...Pervert." She ducked her head when his hand reached out to wring her around the neck for being so frustrating, and she continued to laugh. It was nice, having a friend she could joke with and be around without having to worry about what she said. He might pretend to be mad, but she could feel the happiness still rolling off his body thickly under all that fake neutrality. 
He was happier than he'd been in a long while, and she found herself swelling with pride knowing that she might have helped make that happen. Her lips curled into the gentlest of smiles as she peered back up at him, and he found himself smiling back even if it was just through the mask. 
He swore in that moment, he'd make sure Y/N didn't end up like all the others. She would live. He'd break this wretched curse just for her. He was sure of it.
______
"How could you be so reckless?! Do you want to die?" Kakashi shouted at his friend who could only stand there angrily, arms crossed over her chest and one foot in the other direction. She didn't need to be lectured by someone who took just as many risks every single mission as she did.
"Kakashi, I really don't want to hear it. You have no idea how it went."
"Yeah but Naruto does, and we were just talking."
She placed her free hand over her chest and exclaimed even angrier than before, "You're going to trust a kid over me? Naruto even?" It was just low to trust Naruto when she was right there to explain herself. Just let her speak for once, she wanted to say but he of course, had something else to say.
He waved his arm toward the ramen shop, eyes glaring. "Don’t be rude. He's right there. What is wrong with you?"
Indeed, Naruto was sitting inside Ichiraku with Jiraiya at his side, munching on pork ramen while the pair fought outside. Kakashi was eating with them, taking a break from his work to just relax with his master and student when out of the corner of his eye he noticed Y/N stumbling down the street on her crutch. 
He heard when she got back home that she was in the infirmary for a couple days. He had no idea for what reason until Naruto explained to him what happened. She was being needlessly reckless on the battlefield, relying too much on her kekkei genkai and not enough on her brain. She threw herself right in the way of an enemy, for what reason, he didn't know. All he knew was that she could have died and she didn't seem to care one bit.
Rightfully so, he was mad. Normally he preferred not to make a scene in the open like this, but there wasn't anyone else around and he was red-hot.
She huffed. "He knows I don't mean anything bad by that. How could he not? I'm also his sensei, you know."
"Doesn't matter," Kakashi brushed off her words. "What you did was dangerous and you don't seem to care. Next time what are you gonna do? Run right into the arms of the enemy?"
"No, I would never. Kakashi, you're just being a jerk right now. I'm literally injured from the hip down and you have to yell at me? Jeez, just be grateful I'm alive, okay? Things happen," she tried to reason with him, but he didn't acknowledge it. He wasn't exactly feeling all that rational.
"Things don't just happen like that."
She groaned, "Well apparently they do, because it happened to me."
His eye narrowed and she noticed the way he clenched and unclenched his fists a couple times by his sides. Clearly he was just trying to channel his anger, but he really had no reason to be so upset. She hadn't done anything to him. He really needed to relax. "This is so like you L/N's. Always so emotional. Always thinking you're stronger than you actually are."
"Excuse you-"
"Get a grip, you aren't going to live forever."
"First off, don't interrupt me. Second, don't talk about my clan ever again, you hear me, Hatake? We don't live to please your dumbass," she cursed, how dare he say shit about her clan. That asshole. He was just being so...so unlike himself. She had no idea what had gotten into him, but she hated it and just wanted to continue on her way before he said something else stupid. 
Normally, she didn't expect to be bombarded in the street nearly the second she leaves the hospital, but Kakashi never fails to surprise her.
"I've got to go. Don't bother following me." With that, she took off past him, rushing as fast as she could on her crutch, which was pathetically slow. Silently, she cringed at how ridiculous she must look waddling around like this in a fit of rage. Nevermind that. She had better things to do.
He huffed out the breath he had been holding to walk back into the ramen shop, taking his seat beside Naruto and slouching down into the stool. Immediately, Master Jiraiya met his eyes, wisdom about to drip from his tongue once again. "You need to go apologize."
"Why? She clearly doesn't want that right now."
"Well, to start, you insulted her clan which is a big no-no. Imagine saying that to an Uchiha. You're lucky she let you off so easily."
"Yeah, Kakashi. You kinda just attacked her out there in the street," Naruto added.
Jiraiya continued, "Mainly though, the longer you let her stay angry, the worse it'll be for you in the end. Trust me."
"She said don't follow her."
"And you're actually going to listen?" The older man laughed. "You and her fighting reminded me a lot of young Tsunade and I. And let me tell you, you don't just let a woman like that go. I sure did. It’s not a fun time."
"Yeah, Kakashi sensei, go find Y/N."
The jounin stood from his stool and slapped a ramen voucher onto the counter top to pay for his meal. This really didn't seem like a good idea, he had to admit. But he would trust the process. This was the author of his favorite romance series, after all. How could he get something like this wrong? To put blind faith into Jiraiya on realistic romantic matters was probably the not the wisest thing to do, but it was the only thing he had to go on. "I'll go, but this doesn't sound like good advice."
"If you let this go, she's might run into the arms of another man for comfort. Do you want that?"
Tch, there was no way she was gonna do that. She barely had any friends. If anything she would go see Kurenai. Still, he pulled back the cloth at the entrance and muttered, "I gotta catch up to her."
"'Atta boy," Jiraiya cheered, waving off the copy nin. "Another bowl, Naruto?"
"Yes, please!"
Kakashi walked down the streets, looking for the woman he was sent on a mission to find and apologize to. He searched through the shops and the stands for her, walked by her apartment no sign of her. It wasn't until he stumbled by the bookstore that he found her eyeing down the display out front, leaning comfortably on her crutch.
"Y/N," he called to her, and he watched as she tensed up without a second. He caught up to her, walking to stand beside her in front of the store windows. "I need to talk to you."
"What do you want?" She questioned, peering over at him with a quirked brow. He seemed calmed down by now. Thankfully. "Also, didn't I tell you not to follow me?"
"You did, but Jiraiya told me to apologize."
"So this isn't even on your own accord, you're doing it because Jiraiya told you so." He groaned. Of course she would twist his words and find some way to make things bad on his end. She was angry with him, what did he expect to happen? Her to accept him with open arms?
"Listen, I'm sorry for yelling at you. I was just overwhelmed."
"With what? I wasn't paying attention to anything but the anger." She picked at her finger nails in an attempt to remain casual, but really she was just itching to hear what he had to say. She was willing to give him a second chance, only because he was normally so sweet. This was just out of character for him.
He replied, "I was scared for you. Naruto told me about how you nearly died, and I was upset that you did that. I was upset because I could only think about what if you had been overpowered and the enemy killed you." His explanation was weak, but he hoped she would accept it as truth. He really wasn't lying. When he heard she was in the hospital indefinitely, he nearly had a heart attack himself. He worried for her every time she left on a mission without him. It just meant that if she failed, he wasn't there to protect her himself. He couldn't handle that thought.
"So you were worried?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's sweet of you, isn't it?"
"I'd miss you, you know. If you died."
She froze. That wasn't what she expected him to say. When she looked over at him, he was just staring into the storefront window, but she could feel the sadness in waves running off his body. She wobbled around on her crutch to face him, a hand getting coming up to rest on his shoulder. "It's okay."
"I don't want you going on missions without me because every time it scares the shit out of me thinking they'll bring you back dead. Every time. I don't know why."
"It's normal to worry for your teammates."
"It's not the same, and you know it."
"Ah." And she felt it. Even if it was just a little hint of something, she felt his infatuation roll off his body and she took it in like a drink of cold water. So refreshing. Was he attracted to her? She had no idea before this that he cared so much but from the sound of it, he had some strong feelings attached. She wanted to reach out and hug him, tell him it was going to be okay, but that felt too personal. Instead, she leant back and muttered, "You know, Kakashi, I worry about you too."
"It's good we both have someone who cares, right?"
"Right."
"Well, I should be on my way, but, uh, if you need some help getting up to your apartment-"
"I should be fine."
"Okay, good."
"Yeah, so uh, see you," she turned on her heel and started heading in the other direction toward her home when suddenly, his hand reached out to stop her. 
"Wait, Y/N. I think..."
"What is it?"
"It's just that I need you. Please be careful from now on."
She stopped, turning around just enough to get a good look at his face. He only watched her, a glimmer of something she didn't recognize in his eye. 
"As long as you take care of yourself too, Mister."
"Y/N, I…"
All she could feel was a rough fabric rubbing against her face for a second before the full picture came into view. 
Mask to lips. I repeat, mask to lips.
She stared at him, as he kissed her right there in front of their favorite bookstore. When he pulled away after a second, he seemed just as shocked as she was. She pressed a hand to her forehead and struggled to find the right words to say. 
Kakashi Hatake just kissed her. 
And she definitely liked it. More than any other kiss she’d ever had before. She loved it. Mask or not, that was one of the best surprises of her entire life, and she honestly had no idea how to react. She settled for the easiest possible thing, running in the opposite direction, give herself time to think over what that meant for the two of them if anything at all. Kakashi wasn’t the type to have a girlfriend, he was always single. There just wasn’t room in his life for her.
There was plenty room in her life to fit him in comfortably. And there was more than enough room in her bed as well. 
Flustered, with heat coming to sit in her cheeks and run up her neck, she turned and motioned in the direction of her home. She just had too many thoughts to sit here and pretend she wasn’t dying inside from the tension.
"I've got to run home now," she managed to say. "Well, not run, with these crutches and all, but you know what I mean."
"Yeah, I should be going too. I'll see you around,” he mumbled, running his hand through his hair and down the back of his neck. 
"See you."
And into separate directions they went, just as confused as ever.
______
"Kakashi, I swear to God, if you don't stay on your side of the bed, I'm gonna-
"You'll what? Hit me? Go ahead. You're the one that keeps snoring."
"Shut up!" she exclaimed, rolling over in the bed and planting her fist directly in the middle of his chest. He didn't even flinch, she hadn't meant to hurt him anyway. She was just so annoyed. You would think that the stoic Hatake would be easy to sleep beside but no, he was a pain in the ass. He was rude. He was way too hot under the sheets. He still smelled like dog even after taking a bath. Just overall a bad experience, definitely 0 out of 10.
"What? It's the truth."
She groaned, throwing one of her arms over her eyes, burying her nose in the crook of her elbow. "Whatever. Don't ever mention my snoring again. It’s embarrassing me." She was self-conscious. She was usually so good at maintaining a cool and calm presence and now Kakashi was seeing that all crumble. Great. 
"Fine."
"Can't you just stay on your side so we can both sleep comfortably?"
"Can't you just stop snoring so I can sleep comfortably?" 
What a bastard. She could practically feel him snickering beneath his mask, and she felt frustration bubbling up in her chest. He was annoying. The audacity of this man, laughing and causing trouble in the night when they clearly had a mission to continue tomorrow. She could actually feel the delight radiating off his form.
She jumped up from her spot and threw herself onto the man beside her, attempting to make a vicious grab for the throat so she could maybe shut him up for just a few seconds. He dodged easily, taking her wrists in his calloused hand and lowering them to rest on his chest. Still, he continued to laugh at her. She felt like an utter joke sitting there on his stomach, looking at him through loose strands of her hair. 
She grumbled under her breath, her cheeks puffing out full of embarrassment, "Stupid."
"Me? Stupid? Look at you."
She replied swiftly, "What about me? You're the one with that ugly grin on your face." Quickly, she snatched her hands out from under his to cross her arms over her chest. She rocked back a bit on her knees to get a better look at his indeed ugly face. 
Except he definitely wasn't ugly, and that grin was more devilishly handsome than anything else. And honestly, she felt herself starting to get flustered in the position she'd put herself in. Of course she didn't hate Kakashi. He was one of her friends and coworkers. It was just that sometimes he could be casually attractive and she found herself falling under his spell. 
He just looked so fucking good lying there, staring up at her with a glimmer in his dark eyes. She could see the smile outlined under his mask. His hands had felt warm and firm around her own fingers. She missed his touch, there she said it, any touch on her body from Kakashi Hatake felt like heaven. He was far too cute, and the soft contact between them drove her crazy.
She wanted to punch herself for thinking such silly things. This was Kakashi, one of her frenemies. Not boyfriend material. Stupid. Silly. 
If only he didn't look so good, Jesus christ. Get your brain out of the gutter, Y/N.
Little did she know, his mind was already waist deep in those damn gutters and he was loving it.
"You really think that?"
"What? That you're ugly?" She asked, tilting her head to the side just a bit as if to think about it. Only a second later, another mischievous smile crossed her lips. "Of course."
He lifted his fingers to slid along her waist and down to her hips, fingers curling ever so slightly around her curves. She shuddered as his hands slid down to hold the sides of her bare thighs in his hands, his warm, strong hands with the softest fingertips. She wanted to die.
Had they kissed before? Yes. We're they somewhat romantically involved? Maybe. Did that give him any good reason to rest his rough hands on her thighs like that? Probably, and her thoughts were running a mile a minute at this point. 
"Kakashi...stop that," she said softly, her voice lowering from how it was before. She suddenly felt a lot smaller, scared even. Hooking up with Kakashi wasn't something she planned on doing anytime in the near future, if at all. He was her friend, and she felt strange sitting in his lap with his hands all over her. It felt so right but wrong at the same time, like she was breaking the law. Well, laws of friendship that is.
She cared about Kakashi, more than she wanted to admit. He wasn't just a friend, he was something weirdly in between and she couldn't exactly put her finger on how she felt about him. All she knew was that if she was going to have sex with this man, it would be the right way. They would have to date first. She wasn't just gonna sleep around this time. He was different. 
She wanted to impress him, to make him smile and laugh, to take him out to dinner and hold hands on their way home, to kiss at her doorstep. She wanted all of that before any of this.
His hands dropped from her sides and she crawled away from him, grabbing her blanket and cradling herself in it. "Listen, Y/N, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."
"I know, it's not your fault. Don't worry about it."
It was quiet. Just the sounds of both their breaths filling the air and the crickets chirping in the darkness outside. She shifted in her blanket to rest her head on the wall, leaning against it with her shoulder. He remained on his back, staring up at the empty ceiling tiles. 
It was now so terribly awkward. Thanks, Y/N.
Finally, he broke the silence. "You, uh, don't snore all that much. I was just teasing you."
"Thanks," she exhaled. "You're not as ugly as I said."
"I know."
Wow, Kakashi. So modest.
Her words fell right into place as she spoke, emotions slipping out with each breath. She looked at his profile in the dark, the way his bedhead stood on end, his nose pointed upward and his lips sat calmly, the curve of his chin under the edge of his mask, the way his eyes just sat there unmoving and gentle, brows soft above the eye. She took in all of him as she confessed, "I just don't want it to be like this. I don't want to fall for you this way."
"I get it."
"I just think that you and I could be something different. You're not like the other guys to me, at least, I don't think of you that way," she took a deep breath. He still stared deep in the ceiling, and somehow it made her comfortable enough to confess everything she'd been feeling. It was as if he could just lay there and listen without words forever. "I don't want you to just fuck me before we really...well I don't know, we've never even been on a date. I...I think I'm ready to fall in love with you."
"Then let's do it."
She peered over at him, lips agape with surprise. She hadn't expected much at all, but certainly not that. "What?"
"When we get back to the village, I'll take you on a date, more if things go well. We can take it as slow as you want," he told her, turning to lay on his side, facing her. He watched as she cuddled further into the comforter, only a peek of her face in his view. She was actually kinda cute through all those worn and torn layers. "I don't think I can let you go this time."
"Really?"
"Anything for you."
She ducked her head down to stare at the hardwood beneath her feet. She was overwhelmed by how nice he was being. Normally, it didn't go like this. Things normally got sexual so quick there wasn't even a chance for these sorts of conversations. It was just different with Kakashi. She could say no to him and expect better, because she knew he could deliver. "No one has ever treated me like this before."
He smiled. "Well, it's about time someone did."
"Can you hold me?"
"Come on." He lifted his arm up with the covers attached so she could crawl over and burrow herself next him, tucked right against his side. He rested his arm around her shoulders and held her close to his chest. Things were looking good for the both of them. Better than they had in a long time.
He wished this kind of thing could last forever. The beating of her heart, the laughter in her voice, the shine in her eyes. He just wished he could have bottled it all up and held it close to him for the rest of his life. 
But he waited too long, and the opportunity slipped from his grasp.
______
The pair fought hard. Kakashi was better than her, everyone knew that. The enemy targeted her for that reason. It was clear as day that she was important to Kakashi, and the enemy quickly caught onto that. He was quick to bring the knife to her neck, pressing the woman’s back tightly to his chest. The blade stung her skin, already piercing the flesh from the bit of pressure he applied.
She cried out, feeling a trail of blood begin running down her neck. Her nails clawed at his arm, desperate to get him to release her from his clutches, but he persisted. One hand held onto her chin tightly, keeping her face from thrashing, and the other continued to apply more and more pressure into the blade. 
For the first time in a long time, she found herself feeling unrestricted fear. She was scared. Scared for her life. She’d never been in this situation before, feeling so completely and utterly helpless like a deer caught in the headlights. Kakashi was right there, she should have known everything was going to be okay. After all, she had the village’s strongest veteran on her side.
It wasn’t the pain that caused the tears to bubble up in the corners of her eyes, no, it was Kakashi. The way his eyes darted over to the them, and she could feel his heart beginning to race, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, and the fear creeping up into his heart. He never wore his heart on his sleeve. He was so closed off, sometimes she could only get a wisp of emotion from him, especially the ones that showed such vulnerability. 
Now it all seemed to come tumbling out like a landslide. She was drowning in fear, his and her own. 
“Let her go,” he called out, practically pleading with the man across from him, but it was in vain. 
“Like I’d listen to some filthy leaf shinobi,” the spy replied angrily. He felt so hot, burning up with so much anger she wanted to throw up. What had they done to upset him this badly? Her jaw was starting to ache from being held so tightly, and she swore she could taste blood running down her throat. This was bad. This was so terribly, miserably bad. 
Kakashi stood there, his hands hovering at his sides, unknowing of what to do. She was already bleeding out all over the collar of her shirt. If he made a single move, the man could easily finish the job with one fatal swipe. The copy nin felt cornered. Hopeless. What was there left to do? He’d let the love of his life fall in the hands of some petty criminal. 
Come on, think of something. Anything. Just think of something.
“What? You upset I’ve got your little girlfriend here?”
God, he was so desperate. The man taunting him didn’t help at all. He just felt himself spiralling deeper into hopelessness. He bargained, “Please, just let her go. I’ll give you whatever you want.” 
It wouldn’t work though. This man was set in his ways, and there was no changing that. He came into this fight knowing exactly what he wanted to do. And he was going to finish the job. 
“This is for what you shinobi have done to my people,” he sneered before she felt the knife dip further into her neck, sliding painfully across her throat. He dropped her head from his grasp, and as soon as he had, her body crumbled down to the ground. She collapsed in a bleeding heap on the dirt. 
The criminal quickly ran into the forest behind them, getting lost among the trees and the bushes within seconds. None of that mattered though. Kakashi could only run over to her limp body lying there on the ground, sputtering and coughing on thick blood filling her throat and lungs. Her cheeks and lips painted red now from spitting so much up. He fell to his knees beside her body, and for the first time in a long time, he felt a tear drip down his face.
She cried, hot tears running down her cheeks into the dirt on either side of her head. She cried for her pathetic self, having been attacked and injured in this way. She cried for Kakashi, feeling the pain and sadness, the panic, radiating off his form. She took in every emotion he was feeling, wanting to savor being with him for as long as she had, to fully take him in one last time. 
“Y/N, it’s gonna be okay,” he whispered, his hands running over her hair and cheek, smearing blood on her skin and his fingers. “We’ll bring you back to the village. The Hokage can fix you.” His words were so soft into the air, like if he spoke any louder he would hurt her.
They both knew that none of what he was saying was true. She was as good as dead.
She lifted her hand weakly to sit on his other hand. “I…” The woman took a labored breath.. “Love you, Kashi.”
“No, no, no. Don’t say that,” he hushed her, feeling his heart grow heavier in his chest with every second that passed, every look at her bloody neck and face, her laboring chest as she took hopeless breaths. He was falling apart in this moment, desperate for fate to change, for her to magically be better. He choked, “You can’t die, Y/N.”
“It’s okay.” Her words were slurred and hard to hear, liquid bubbling up in her throat to the point she was almost incomprehensible. “I love you,” she confessed once again. She wanted those to be her last ever words to him, the words he would remember for the rest of his life. To know someone out there loved him more than anything else.
He had to know that he was her everything. He was the best thing that ever happened to her, and she was going to miss him so terribly wherever her soul went after this. She just wished there was more time to tell him everything she felt. Yet, time was passing faster than she thought, and all those words felt impossible.
“I love you, too. You have to live for me. Just keep breathing, it's going to be okay.”
“It...hurts.”
More misery erupted his chest, and he found himself wanting to scream. Tears dripped steadily down both his cheeks now as he watched this woman die in front of him, one of the only people he truly needed in his life. “I know, baby, I know. I’m sorry I let this happen to you.”
She nodded faintly, her eyes beginning to close. He was starting to panic. Was this his last moment to say goodbye? Their time together was so short, how was this fair? He’d already lost everyone he ever cared about, and now this? He felt like the gods were laughing down at him and his misfortune. 
“You were the best thing that ever happened to me. I don’t know how I’ll do this without you.”
She didn’t respond, but she was still breathing. 
“Y/N, please.”
And he watched as her chest fell still and her labored breaths were silent on his ears. He found himself gathering her form up against his chest, her head cradled in the crook of his neck, just sobbing into her hair, weeping for a long lasting love gone in an instant. 
 He carried her body home that day himself. Something he never anticipated happening, but should have prepared for. He always thought he was going to watch as someone else carried her home to him, death long gone before he had the chance to see. He never thought it would be right in front of him. He thought he could protect her, save her from the clutches of fate. He was so wrong.
Kakashi was alone once again.
227 notes · View notes
five-rivers · 3 years
Text
Glowsticks
Sneaking in before midnight on Halloween~
This is another continuation of Exhumed.
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McGee had talked to several people about the strangely popular gravestone.  What he had learned made him feel sick.  Literally. He wanted to throw up.  First, the person buried there was the kid that had been found in the park.  Second, the locals had made him into a cult figure practically overnight.  
Or, at least, a tourist trap figure.  These people had no shame.  
On the other hand… Didn’t they say that Daily person was in charge of cults?  Did Amity Park have a cult problem on top of everything else that was going on?  Was the cult the problem, the root problem?  If there even was an actual cult…
Cults were dangerous and took vicious advantage of legal loopholes.  Maybe he should call the FBI.  They were the ones that were supposed to deal with cults.  
He took a deep breath, pulling himself together. No.  This was his case.  His job. He didn’t know that there was a cult involved, not yet.  Besides, it didn’t matter if they were religious so long as they were breaking the law.  Yeah.  
“Are you okay?”
McGee almost jumped out of his skin, his hand twitching towards his firearm before he realized that the person who snuck up on him was a kid.  The kid from earlier, to be precise.
The boy’s eyes narrowed.  “Were you about to pull a gun on me?” he asked.  
“No,” said McGee.  
The boy blinked, suspicion still evident on his face. “You’ve got to be more careful with guns,” he said.  “There’s no reason to go for one just because someone surprised you.”
McGee didn’t grace that with a response.  “What are you doing here, anyway?  Weren’t you across town, earlier?”
“Yeah.  So were you,” said the boy.  Danny. His name was Danny Fenton.  “Why are you here?”
“I asked first.”
“You shouldn’t ask questions you aren’t willing to answer yourself.”
What the hell was up with this kid?  “I’m just trying to get a better feel for the town.”
“Hm,” said Danny.  “I help out here at the cemetery, sometimes.  Got to lay all those ghosts to rest, you know?”
“Don’t you think that’s a little much?” snapped McGee. “Death isn’t supposed to be a roadside attraction.”
“Oh, don’t worry.  We take death very seriously around here,” assured Danny.  “But seriously.  I do help out.  The caretaker lets me take that stuff away when it gets to be too much.”  He nodded at the blank headstone and all the offerings around it.  “Mom likes the flowers.  Jazz is making a collage of some of the cards.  You know.  Stuff like that.”  He shrugged, angling himself away from McGee.  “Someone left a tiny copy of the Tempest once.  In one of those teeny tiny books.  Post.  It had that one passage from Ariel’s Song decorated.  It was nice.  I liked it.”
“What?”
“Ariel’s Song.  Full fathom five thy father lies;/Of his bones are coral made;/Those are pearls that were his eyes;/Nothing of him that doth fade,/But doth suffer a sea-change/Into something rich and strange. Shakespeare.  I think it’s supposed to be a commentary on ghosts, but the guy in the play isn’t actually dead, people just think he is.  So, I’m not really sure how to take it.  You’re a detective, right?  What do you think?”
McGee stared at the teenager. The kid who was buried there was his age.  “This isn’t a joke,” said McGee.  “A person is dead.”
Danny tilted his head. “I’m not joking?”
“How are you even connected to all of this?”  McGee waved his hand, frustrated.  
“I just told you how I’m connected to the cemetery.  If you mean the town…  Well, I do live here.”
“Why do Patterson and Collins know you?”
“I know everyone,” said Danny.  He started backing away.  “You should go get something to eat soon, if you don’t want to be late.”  He turned and disappeared in the crowd.  
What the hell.
.
McGee did not go to get food. He went back to the station.  He had some questions to ask Cameron Daily, and he got the impression that the man was the kind of person to practically live at work.  
When he opened the door, though, he had to stop.
“What is this?” he asked, loudly.  
“Glowsticks,” said one of the secretaries.  “You have seen them before, right?”
“Yes, but why?”
As much as the police department had been infested with Christmas decorations before, it was now covered with glowsticks of all varieties.  
The secretary shrugged. “You’ll find out.  And, no, this isn’t hazing.”  She broke a new glowstick with a snap.
“Right,” said McGee.  “Where’s Daily?”
“Cameron Daily is in the computer bay,” said the secretary, pointing.
“Thanks,” grunted McGee, once again wondering why there was a separate computer bay when everyone had their own desks, computers, and, in some cases, additional laptops.  
Screw it, he might as well ask.  
“Hey, Daily.”
“Mm?”
“Why’s there a separate computer bay?”
“Oh, it’s shielded,” said Daily.  
“Shielded.”
“Yep.  No signals, and the Fentons did some pretty neat stuff to the walls.  Bunch of, ehm, nasty hackers.  We learned our lesson, eventually.”
“The Fentons.”
“Yeah.  And Foley did the firewalls.”
“They’re the ones who did the computer filing system.”
“Uhuh.  Kids are geniuses.  The parents aren’t too shoddy, either.��
“The—” No.  There was no way.  “Are they the same Fentons that hunt ghosts?”
“Yeah.  You wouldn’t think it to look at them, but apparently they live off of their patents.  Made a bunch of fiddly little things that every other mass production factory in the country uses.  Also, they own a toilet paper company.  Not my favorite brand, but it isn’t the worst, honestly.  Kind of wish we’d buy it here, but, no, we get that gross single ply. I swear, that stuff should be classified as a crime against humanity.”
“You let the ghost hunters deal with your computer security.”
“Oh, I know that tone. You met them, huh?”
“Just the kid.”
Daily looked up at McGee over the computer.  “What?”
“I only met the kid. Danny.”
Slowly, Daily uncurled from his hunch in front of the computer.  The man was taller than McGee thought.
“Then what’s your issue? Danny’s a good kid.”
A good kid whose parents were allowed to run roughshod over the town, who was allowed to steal from graveyards, and knew all of the police officers.  For some reason.  
“I heard you’re in charge of monitoring the cult?”
Daily snorted.  “You make it sound like there’s just one.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, after all the ghosts, most religions had to modernize, you know?”
Oh, god, this was part of the tourist trap.  Or the tourist trap was part of this.  Did they recruit from people who actually believed this nonsense?
“There’s more than one cult?”
“Yep.”
“Sounds like quite a job.”
“Eh.  I’m mostly just keeping track of their online activity.”
“So, how are the Fentons involved?”
“They aren’t.  They’re pretty areligious, overall.  Danny’s been almost kidnapped a few times, though.”
“What?”
“What?”
“Kidnapped.  By a cult.”
“Cults.  Gotta remember the plural, man.  Cults.”  Daily was hunching again.  “But, hey, if you’re interested in the subject, I can give you a thorough run-through of this new group that started up last week.  Their philosophy is wild.  I can’t even tell you—”
“Hey.  You’re early,” said Patterson, leaning through the door, her braid swinging.  “Great. Have you eaten?”
“Yes,” lied McGee.  
“Get better at lying,” said Patterson.  “Come on, let’s go.”
.
Patterson and Collins weren’t the only ones there.  In fact, there were more people in the station than there had been that morning. All with glowsticks.  Said glowsticks were being loaded into unmarked cars while office staff and police officers whispered back and forth.
“Did you get the green stuff?”
“Yeah, don’t worry. Gave me more than enough.” Glowing green milk jugs were loaded into a car.  The car McGee would be riding in with Collins and Patterson.
‘Green stuff.’  Was this some kind of bizarre drug smuggling ring? McGee had fallen behind in drug slang, if so.  ‘Green stuff.’  Were they lacing it with glowstick fluid?
Never before had he felt so lost on a case.  Amity Park was messed up.  
“You’ve got the howlers hooked up?” asked Collins.
“I asked Daily to do it this morning.”
“But did he do it?”
“I mean, it looks like it. Are the howlers really that important?”
McGee had no idea what was going on.  
The cars all started off in a group.  Their car was the last to leave and soon peeled off to trundle slowly down back roads.  
“You probably have questions,” said Collins.
“You could say that,” said McGee.  
“You’ve been a good sport about them,” observed Collins.  
“So,” said McGee, drawing out the word.  “What is this about?”
Patterson swallowed a laugh. “Ever hear of the Men in Black?”
“Look, I’m humoring the ghosts.  Conspiracy theories are where I draw the line.”
“Keep telling yourself that. Maybe it’ll stick.  Anyway, here in Amity Park, we deal with their less intelligent cousins.  The Guys in White!”
“That’s not their actual name,” said Collins, glancing back over his shoulder.  “But, well, their appearance fits.”
“Alright, let’s say I believe you.  What does this have to do with the jugs of glowstick fluid in the trunk?”
“Oh, that’s not glowstick fluid,” said Patterson.  “It’s waste from the reactor that powers the town.”
“Don’t worry,” said Collins, hastily, the car swerving somewhat.  “It’s completely harmless!  Not radioactive at all!”
“That’s not what—” started Patterson.  
“You absolutely will not get cancer from it!”
McGee raised a hand.  “You have nuclear reactor fluid in the trunk?”
“It isn’t nuclear reaction fluid,” protested Patterson.  “It’s—"
“Back on track,” interrupted Collins.  
“Yeah.  Anyway.  It’ll trip the Guys in White’s sensors—”
“Eventually,” Collins grumbled.  
“—so we can lead them on a chase.”
“And…  why do we want to do this?”
“Because it’s a quiet month,” said Patterson.  “Don’t want the Guys to get antsy.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means what it means. You’ll see in January.”
McGee looked between his two ‘partners.’  “Are you trying to get me to quit?”
“Because you’re a spy for the county?” asked Patterson.  “Oh, no, never.”
Before McGee could process that statement, the car’s radio crackled to life.  
“We’ve got a class-3 northbound on Orion at 35 miles per hour.  Ectosignature suggests an amorphiform ghost—”
“Hah!” shouted Patterson. “That’s us!  Punch it!”  She twisted the dial on the radio as Collins slammed his foot into the accelerator.  “Bogey to Redrum!  We’ve got followers!”
“Copy, Bogey, this is Redrum. We need a few more minutes to set up. Can you stay out of sight?”
“The hell?”
The radio crackled.  “Forgot you had the new guy!  Don’t shake him up too much, okay?  Over.”
“Copy.  Collins you catch that?”
“Yeah, don’t worry, I’m taking Pan and Laurel.  The holiday tour.”
“Ooh, good choice.” Patterson held up the radio again. “Yeah, we can manage.  Over.”
Collins went faster. For the next several minutes McGee occupied himself with not throwing up.  He succeeded.  Barely.
“Bogey, this Cam,” said the voice of Daily, “followers are gaining.  They’re on Brassica, just passing High Street.  Triggered the speed cameras.  Over.”
“How many and what type? Over.”
“Three gliders.  Don’t think they’ve spotted you yet, though. Over.”
Gliders?  Who did these people think they were kidding?
“Copy, over,” said Patterson. “Not like those guys care about speeders, though,” she muttered.  McGee could barely hear her over the beating of his own heart.
“Sharp right, brace yourselves,” said Collins, split seconds before matching action to words.
“Redrum to bogey, we’re moving out now, over.”
“Copy.  We’re on our way.  Over.  Head to the park, Collins.”
“Gotcha.”
It didn’t seem possible, but Collins somehow pushed the car to go even faster.  Then, just as quickly as the whole ridiculous thing had begun, the car skidded to a halt in a parking lot.  Seeing his chance, McGee clawed at the door handle and dragged himself out onto the pavement.  
Collins and Patterson, meanwhile, were pulling the almost-certainly-toxic waste out of the trunk and launching it into the glowstick-filled woods with—
“Is that a bazooka?” demanded McGee, so far past his wit’s end that he couldn’t even see it anymore.
“Nah, just a modified T-shirt canon,” said Patterson, stowing the object away again.  “Fentonworks special.”
“I don’t believe you,” said McGee.  
Three – Three things – McGee did not want to call them gliders – raced overhead, jets roaring and wind whistling.  They came to a stop approximately where the ‘reactor waste’ had fallen.  
“What the hell?” whispered McGee, passionately.  
“Come on,” said Collins.  “Time for us to go.”
“Yeah, better to spectate from afar,” agreed Patterson.
“I agree,” said a third voice.
“Oh, Danny,” said Patterson.  “Didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”
The boy walked into McGee’s field of view and glanced down at him before shrugging.  “Couldn’t sleep.”  He looked up, at the park.  “Thanks for this.”
“Had to get them to blow this month’s budget somehow,” said Collins.  “But, really, we should all go before the fireworks start.”
Danny sighed.  “Hope they don’t blow up the fountain again.  It just got fixed.”
“Same,” said Patterson.
“Well, see you later.”
“Yep, we’ve got that wellness check tomorrow,” said Collins. “You don’t have any excuse to forget, this time.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said the teen, waving over his shoulder as he walked straight into the dark.
“What,” said McGee.  
“That’s just Danny for you,” said Collins.  “Great kid.  Super creepy.”
“Yeah.”
“How’d he even know we’re here?” asked McGee, trying to keep his voice even.  
“He did give us that eeeeehhhhhhh—reactor waste,” said Patterson.  “Come on, get up, we’ve got to—”
A small explosion sounded from the park.  
“Seriously.  I don’t want to have to pick you up.”
“I’d wind up doing most of the lifting,” grumbled Collins, who was sliding into the driver’s seat.
Patterson put her hands on her hips.  “Excuse you?”
There was another, larger explosion.  McGee climbed back into the car.
As they drove, he realized that no one had made fun of his name. Not even once.  
Amity Park was weird.  
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skyeofloxlay · 3 years
Text
Duskwood - thoughts, observations and summaries - Part 1.
It is likely that there are already people who did this, but I would like to point out some things that I ended up putting aside as the episodes went on, but that I realized when I was reading the prints I took or even when I was playing for hundredth time. Unfortunately I'm not going to put the prints here as they are not in English, so it doesn't help much. And maybe, most of the things I write are obvious, or that everyone already knows, but I would like to write something to have some of my thoughts on some. (or just to have a summary for when chapter 8 comes and I get lost)
(again sorry if it have English errors or something is confusing, English is not my first language @_@)
WARNING: This post will talk about Duskwood events, so you better play before you read! Also, this post is really big, so you might end up getting bored. YOU'VE BEEN ADVISED
1 - Thomas received our number on the second day of Hannah's disappearance, where he himself said he received the night. He immediately spoke to all his friends about the number and then they were arguing for a long time, until finally after thinking hard, the next day, Thomas decides to contact the MC (And of course, there is the fact that the message is gone.)
2 - Thomas tells us that he tried to call Hannah when he received the MC number, someone answered the call, but nobody said anything.
3 - Thomas has a brother, and that is something I always forget. I suppose he is a younger brother? Maybe someone who's not old enough to drive or idk.
4 - Richy tries to fit in with the MC, which is apparently an unusual behavior, since Cleo was incredulous at what he was doing.
5 - Jake acted very cold the first time we talked to him. But I don't remember exactly when it changed ... I think I should see it on the prints and mention it later.
6 - Jake probably follows the philosophy "The ends justify the means", since he does anything, no matter the consequence, as long as he gets to where he wants to go. (In fact, he literally says that the ends justify the means xD)
7 - We have to hack Hannah's cloud because Jake can't do everything, and he says he's busy following other clues, but what are those? I don't remember him commenting on what clues he's following, well maybe I'll find out by looking at the prints of future chapters.
8 - Jake says that we should decrypt the cloud, and clearly decrypting is not a candy crush game with cubes, but I would say that in "real life" (as much as I have researched about decryption, I didn’t find anything that could help me a lot to understand how it works) you use some program that Jake sent you, you take encrypted files that have several strange letters and put them in this program, which happens to be a little slow, so to pass the time you decide to play Candy Crush. Which is why it takes so long before you can send an unencrypted file to Jake.
9 - Cleo adds us before going to work.
10 - Thomas comes back some time later, I would say it could be half an hour after he sent the message saying he had to get his brother.
11 - On the day of Hannah's disappearance, Jake put all of her friends in a group and talked about the situation. By the time Jake did that, Thomas was on his cell phone, so he saw it right away. 
12 - We know that Jake somehow witnessed the kidnapping, but how? How did he see if he didn't even meet Hannah in person?
13 - Richy's house is 5 minutes from Hannah's.
14 - Cleo and Richy have a conversation that we can read. And Cleo asked Richy where all the sympathy had come from (probably about him wanting to put the MC in the group) Apparently before he didn't want Thomas to contact the number.
15 - Richy assumes that Hannah has had enough time to write a single message. If we put him as one of the suspects, as he is being at the moment, then was it he who gave Hannah the chance to send a message? Or was it Richy who sent it from Hannah's cell phone? But…. I don't know ... none of those things really make sense.
Unless Hannah managed to get her cell phone while Richy was away, and then sent the message, Richy soon afterwards arrives and sees what Hannah has done, takes her cell phone and deletes the message. (And answer the phone, but say nothing) 
(Or we can also assume that it was Jake who sent our number on Hannah's cell phone ... but that doesn't fit much for some things in the future, I'll explain later)
16 - Richy thinks that inevitably, if the MC is guilty it will end up escaping something.
17 - We were able to decrypt the first photo, that if I'm right, we are decrypting newer photos to older ones? But that is not a very important detail, I think. We sent the photo to Jake and he asks if we had found this photo in Hannah's cloud. But why? Isn't it obvious that it was from Hannah's cloud? Wasn't that just our only job? Decrypt and send whatever you can to Jake ??? If we say we don't know what exactly to look for, Jake says he doesn't know either. So we're kind of literally in the dark! We have no idea what we have to find and neither does he know. But he says that it is still for us to continue to send what we find, because something can be more relevant if we look in more detail.
(Okay, the next one isn't so much what I thought, but the conversation between Jake and MC, because I love the interactions that it is possible to do with Jake and I couldn't leave it out. * ^ _ ^ *)
18 - Jake wishes us good luck, but now (I think only for premium) you can say you want to talk to him. Jake then looks confused and asks what we wanted to talk about, and we can say we want to talk about him. He seems to be even more confused about why we want to talk about him. I don't remember the other options or if he says the same thing it doesn't matter what we answer, but if we say that we find him interesting he says that "You know I'm not going to tell you anything about me, right?" (Sure, of course Jake, for sure everyone believes that) if we keep insisting, he ends up giving in and says that we can ask only one question. We can ask: I think between his hair color, if he lives in the city or country, or what programs does he use to hack?
His hair color is black, if I'm not mistaken he says he lives in the city and the last question I don't know the answer to.
He asks why we wanted to know (in the case of hair, I don't know about the others, but he probably asks the same thing). I think that regardless of what we answer, he says he doesn't believe in what he just did, because he shouldn't say anything about himself. (That is, this is where we can start to make Jake's walls start to fall and we can get closer to him :) ) He also says that hiding his identity is essential and asks if we are happy now. If we say yes and talk to ask a question, he gets more confused and says "You didn't want to talk to me, did you?" Regardless of what we talk about, he asks us how the weather is. We can say between: What a boring question / It's raining / Very well, I would say. (I think those were the questions). 
He then admits that it was not the most interesting topic, but we can say that it remains interesting nonetheless. He so says he hasn't had a conversation in a long time... (oh, I feel you Jake, I don't know how to talk to people either, but look, you're talking to me :) even though you don't really exist ;_;) He then asks if we were stuck on an island, what would we most like to have. I said that I would like to have books, and he says "hmm" (but if I'm not mistaken he says that for everything we answer) we can ask him what he would like to have, and he says he would choose his computer, but then he tells us to forget what he said and says he has more to do, and asks if everything was clear now.
19 - We can ask him if he doesn't ask himself who we are. And this point I find interesting. He says "You play a key role in all this mess. Why do you suddenly appear in such mysterious circumstances? What do you really have to do with all of this? Obviously, I wonder who you are. I already told you something about me again ... I'm going to have to go now. Otherwise, I will end up saying my name or worse. " This means that he would not have been the one who sent our number by Hannah's cell phone because he doesn't know who the MC is. There is less that he is lying very well, but I think not.
20 - Thomas asks if we have time to talk to him, and then says that in a way MC is one of them now. So he says he will put pictures of Hannah on his profile so that we can try to remember her in some way. 
21 - Did we find a picture of a bridge? That's probably in the forest?
22 - Jessy then contacts us saying that she wants to get to know us better? Is it just me who found this strange and uncomfortable?
23 - Even though she never spoke to us and left the group, she says that MC is part of the group now. And she decides to talk to us in the middle of her work.
24 - We found out that Jessy works with Richy.
25 - She keeps trying to get to know MC more, which made me very uncomfortable because I really didn't want to talk to her and even then she kept talking to MC.
26 - So we got to see one more conversation, but this time it's between Thomas and Cleo, where Thomas says that he put some pictures for the MC to see, and said that it seemed strange, and said that there was nothing strange about the MC's behavior. So Cleo tells Thomas that then he cannot draw a conclusion about what role we (MC) play. Thomas then said goodbye and they went offline.
27 - Jessy talks to the MC again, nothing interesting that is worth mentioning.
28 - We found a photo of a cat in Hannah's cloud 
29 - Thomas sends a message again, now asking if we recognize Hannah, replying that we really don't know her, he says "oh, yeah, it's okay" and goes offline. 
30 - Jake answers us and we start talking about our findings. He says he will try to extract information from the photos.
31 - He asks for time to be able to analyze it and says he has an advantage for us, and sends a cell phone number. He says the police are very focused on Thomas and that we should be focusing on someone else. If we ask why we should do this, he replies, "As I said before, you piqued my interest. That's all you need to know at the moment." Then he tells us to add the number. And as soon as we added it, we found out the number was from Dan.
32 - Dan gets worried and says several no, and asks who sent us after him. You can choose from a few people to say who sent you there, but I think regardless of who you choose, he will say the same: "What? Fuck it. I don't care. Damn them. And you leave me alone." And then it goes offline.
33 - If you choose Jessy, he will ask her why she gave his number to the MC, and she says that she didn't, so he says that the MC is lying and that someone gave his number. Jessy also says that if he wants people to stop seeing him as a suspect, he just has to stop acting like one.
34 - We got a call. Someone threatening us.
35 - We contacted Jake and talked about what happened. Jake asks what the kidnapper said, and we can say "That I should stay out of other people's business." Jake asks what he looked like, and we can say he looked like a maniac.
36 - If we say that we had better follow the kidnapper's advice, Jake says that we shouldn't do that, and that there was nothing to worry about. And that we could consider that connection as something positive, because that meant the kidnapper was coming out of hiding, and that would make him vulnerable. And that he is probably concerned about the MC being in the investigation. Jake also says that we are a drag on the kidnapper, and that the MC can't trust anyone in the group. He also said that he was right about the MC and that we are going to save Hannah. 
37 - Jessy calls us and other people in the group saying they found a body. She creates a group and adds us, Dan, Cleo and Richy.
38 - Jessy and Cleo argue.
39 - Cleo says she will tell Lilly about the body.
40 - And then in a way we kind of obliged to tell Thomas about the body.
41 - When we talk about the body found, Thomas immediately goes offline.
42 - We tell the group this.
43 - If we tell the group that we should have waited to tell Thomas, Richy says that MC would not say that if knew how much gossip is spreading around the city.
44 - Dan asks us what we think about Thomas's suspicious actions.
45 - Richy asks what we do now and Cleo replies that the only way was to wait. 
46 - Everyone goes offline and after a while Jake sends a message saying that he has something new, that a corpse had been found. But he was talking about the same corpse that we discovered by the group, that is, we had important information even before him.
47 - He is impressed with how we got the information before him and how MC already seems to be part of the group.
48 - Then he asks if we got the picture of the cat in Hannah's cloud. (again, isn't that obvious??? This is our mission! Decrypt Hannah's cloud photos and files !!! Why do you keep asking that Jake ??) 
49 - If we ask if there is something wrong to Jake, he just replies "Never mind. It's okay." And then it goes offline.
50 - We decrypt what appears to be a medical prescription, but which is in a terrible resolution. Jake says he will try to fix the image better and goes offline.
51 - Jessy says that Cleo invaded the junkyard
52 - Jessy says that the MC should make Cleo tell Richy what she did.
53 - Cleo says he needs to talk to us. She says she can tell us a little bit about Hannah.
54 - If we ask if Hannah has siblings, Cleo replies that Lilly is her younger sister, and asks if we didn't know that until now. If we say, "I meant besides Lilly". Cleo replies that Lilly is Hannah's only sibling.
55 - If we ask Cleo if it was possible that Hannah simply ran away, Cleo replies that there was no reason for her to do that since Hannah's life was starting to go well. She had a great family, an amazing boyfriend and was happy with her career.
56 - If we say that maybe things were happening that she didn't know, Cleo replies that she knows that everyone has secrets, but having such a terrible secret and having to escape Duskwood without a trace, she would know that. She also comments on the fact that the Hacker saw the hijacking.
57 - If we ask Cleo if she thinks the kidnapper could be someone in the group, she says she doesn't believe it is anyone of them.
58 - When asked if Hannah had any enemies, Cleo replies that she was not sure, and that everyone loved Hannah.
59 - At that moment we can question Cleo or not for the invasion of the junkyard. If we don't say anything, she just says that she has to do some things and that she can't sit and wait.
60 - If we ask her plan, she says she'll ask for downtown and maybe know if someone found Hannah before she disappeared. She spoke the names of three of the biggest gossips in the city: Mrs. Walter, owner of the hotel. Mrs. Sully, the queen of gossip and Phil Hawkins, owner of Aurora bar.
61 - She says the bar hasn't opened yet, but we can suggest to Cleo who she should talk to first. And then she says she'll talk to us later.
62 - We found a picture of Hannah apparently in the forest.
63 - We see a conversation between Richy and Jessy. 
64 - Richy is talking about something Jessy said to us. He says that Jessy should be more careful with the MC and then says that Jessy should know something about the MC, but then he needs to stop by the office and not talk about what it was.
65 - Jake, who was reading the messages between Richy and Jessy, is annoyed that Richy didn't say what he wanted to say.
66 - We asked him if he was reading the messages, and he says yes, because you never know where you can find the next piece of the puzzle. If we ask him if he always reads other people's messages, he replies that only the most interesting ones and asks us if the MC was judging him.
67 - If we say that we are judging him a little, he says that the MC was also reading their messages. We can answer that we are doing this because he told us to do this. So he says we're only doing this so that we can find Hannah.
68 - Jake asks ask us what we think Richy and Jessy are talking about us. If we say we have no idea, Jake responds with "Really? Not even a hunch?" so we can say that we’ve never talked to Richy before, and Jake thinks that’s strange. Jake assumes that Richy would tell Jessy why he doesn't trust MC. We can then answer "Don't trust anyone. It's your words, not mine." and "Do you trust me?", Jake answers the question with "Would I have given you access to Hannah's cloud if I didn't?" We can then tell Jake that he doesn't even know us that well, and he says "Maybe Jessy wasn't the only person who felt an immediate connection with you"
If we ask "Is that a compliment?" Jake says yes, and he would talk to us later.
69 - Cleo sends a message saying that she arrived at the hotel, but that Mrs. Walter was not at the reception. Cleo then says that Lilly used to work at the Hotel reception before, but apparently she doesn't work there anymore. Cleo then comments that Alfie, Mrs. Walter's son, is playing in a mud puddle in front of the hotel. We told Cleo that she should talk to Alfie, and after a while she comes back saying that he had called her "Friend of the dead girl" and then Cleo replies that Hannah was not yet dead and asked him who was saying these terrible things. Alfie then says that he saw Hannah being taken by the Man without a face.
If we say that he probably saw a man in a mask, Cleo replies that there is a legend in Duskwood about a "Man without a face" and that we should ask Jessy about it because she likes legends, and then in the meantime Cleo would talk to Mrs. Sully. 
70 - We asked Jessy about the legend of the mwaf, and also commented that Alfie had seen Hannah being taken by him to the forest.
71 - We found out that Jessy was once Alfie's Nanny. And she says that he may well have invented it, since he has mental problems.
72 - Jessy creates a group about the Duskwood legends and puts Richy together, since he was born in Duskwood and could talk more about the legend than she did. But since Richy was working, they had to leave that for later.
73 - Cleo sends us a message saying she talked to Mrs. Sully, who says she saw Hannah coming out of the pharmacy and that she looked very worried, and then she sat on the patio of the Rainbow Café.
74 - We asked Cleo what Hannah had bought at the pharmacy, but she doesn't know. So she says that she will try to do something and that in the meantime we should try to find out more about the "mwaf".
75 - We talked to Richy and Jessy about Alfie and the mwaf. 
76 - Jessy tells the legend of the mwaf. She says the legend is older than Duskwood, they say he lives inside the forest and at night he walks through the dark streets of the city. He marks the door of the greatest sins with a sign from the crow, and then on the night of the first new moon each year, he returns the marked houses and takes all the people from that house, whether guilty or not. No one knows exactly what he does with these people, but supposedly he takes them into the forest and these people never come back.
77 - We can then assume that the kidnapper is trying to copy the legend. 
78 - Cleo sends us a message again, telling us a story that Lilly told her about Alfie.
79 - Cleo said it happened last year, in the fall. One of the guests complained to Lilly about a bad smell in his room, Lilly went to the room, but felt nothing, so she gave the guest another room. When she returned to the room she noticed the smell, but could not find where it came from, she then spoke to Mrs. Walter who spoke with the janitor Old Gray. After he cleaned it, Lilly, as she was curious to know what had given off that stench, goes to the trash and saw that Alfie's canary (Mr. Featherly) was dead and with a crushed beak and broken wings.
80 - Apparently Alfie killed the canary.
81 - We then see a conversation between Dan and Lilly. He was commenting that he was sure that the body found was not Hannah's. Lilly then asks Dan if he could come here (probably to her house), and Dan agrees.
Well, I think I better stop here, because I already wrote a lot and there is still a lot to write. To tell you the truth, I don't even know where I am in the story, I don't know if it's still chapter 1, or it's already 2 or maybe 3. But anyway, that's it. I will continue to write my observations / thoughts / summaries of the story when I have time and motivation. At the moment I want to see if I can draw something with Jake x MC and maybe write some theories that are in my head.
I hope that what I have written can help you in some way, or just remember what was going on at the beginning of the game. (Or maybe all of this is useless and it was really boring, so I'm sorry ;_;) See you later :)
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shimmershae · 3 years
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Just watched the episode and I’m going to have a lot of thoughts for you, most of them probably bordering on incoherence (LOL) so this is your last chance to nope on out of this post because I’m going to go ahead and put everything else behind a cut to save the eyes that do not want to see any  spoilers at all.  Unlike mine, that very much wanted to see but in a lot of cases?  Could not see shit, but I digress.
Shae’s stream of consciousness coming at you in 3-2-1.  
First of all, can I saw how good it is to have my show back again?  Like, no.  I don’t quite have Season 5 levels of excitement about the new/last season, but it is definitely nice to have all these characters back.  
So all these thoughts of mine.  Okay.  Bear with me because there be a whole lot of them, lol.  
My immediate impression as the episode opened was WHOA.  Such a cool shot of Daryl with one light wing, one dark wing (representing the two sides to Daryl maybe--the man of honor versus the man he was raised to be, hmm?) looking out over some dark vista of something.  Seriously.  It’s dark.  My room is also dark at the moment and still I was squinting to see.  To make out what I’m “looking” at.  I really, really hope the rest of this season isn’t this hard to make out.  
Is that a tank?  Kinda sorta a callback to Rick’s first episode?  If so, cool.  If not, well.  Us fans have always put way more thought into things.  For real.  Change my mind.  
Holy intense eye contact, Batman!  Daryl Dixon has literally never looked at anyone--not BethusConLeah--in quite the same smoldering way as he looks at Carol.  It’s next level.  I don’t know why people be fooling themselves into thinking different.  
Let’s see.  I can make out--besides Daryl, Maggie, and that face mask dude I already forgot the name of--Kelly, Magna, Jerry (who’s that with him?), and Carol.  Sorry.  My world, like Daryl’s, inevitably narrows to Carol.  She’s loking fierce and fine AF per usual.  
Was that Rosita I noticed rewinding to relive Daryl eye-fucking Carol?  
I’m guessing this is the army base they talked about in 10C.  
That Walker perking up like “I smell food--pancakes and bacon and oohhhh” has me giggling inappropriately right off the bat.  WTF.  
Look at all my fabulous ladies tiptoeing through that Walker minefield.  And Carol spotting that gun that might be useful right away.  Listen, if you don’t think her mind ain’t always ten steps ahead of everybody else’s, you’d be wrong.  
So.  Are these Walkers just so old and feeble not even the call of fresh meat attracts them?  Because just tiptoeing through their midst without the knockoff Lady Gaga meatsuits or skin masks has never really worked before that I can remember.  
I just want to see most of this season.  Is that really too much to ask?  Don’t X-Files and Game of Thrones us, Angela.  Please and thank you very fucking much.  
Okay.  Is the one drop of blood thing making anybody else have 28 Days Later vibes?  Kinda?  Sorta?  No?  Just me?  Okay then.  Carry on.  
Wait a minute, though.  How they be explaining how Daryl keeeps acquiring all these new tats all the time?  Hmm?  It’s like they just quit giving a shit about continuity in these latter seasons.  
I mean.  Do Walkers sleep now?  LMAO.  What is this?  I guess they’re constantly evolving?  
There’s my baby Lydia.  Love my smol bean.  
Alright though.  I love to see the ladies of TWD kick some ass.  It’s very gratifying.  Gimps would never.  Thank you, Angela.  
Clever, resourceful, calm and collected, quick thinking Carol to the rescue!  Seriously.  Her haters must be withering away inside with absolute envy.  
Hey, ya’ll.  Remember when Carol was still mastering her sharpshooting skills at the Prison yard and shot at Rick’s feet?  Her little “sorry, sorry”?  LOL.  If Rick could only see her now.  Wait.  He already knew what so many of his stans refuse to acknowledge--Carol=ultimate survivor and true savior to the group many times over.  
Maggie’s got herself a gun, too.  Go my badass girls.  
Of course, Carol’s got everybody’s back.  Of fucking course, Daryl’s got hers even when everybody else seem frozen in some kind of awe or stupification or something.  Microcosm of the whole damn show right there.  
Carol’s like “here’s your knives, love of my life.”   
Eh.  Maybe that’s just me.  
Nah.  She’s totally thinking it, too.  
YAS!  YAS!  Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride with the top billing.  How very far my babies have come.  
Listen.  I miss all the characters we’ve lost.  Absolutely.  But I love the ones that are still with us, that have been with us for so very long so hard.  Whether I love their stories or decisions or not.  
Is that THE Alexandria sign?  That sign’s been through some shit.  
DOG!  Daryl kneeling to embrace our Grimes babies has me all up in my feels.  And how cute is Dog getting all excited and making sure he’s the first one there to welcome back, Daddy?  
Hershel is literally just as puppy dog cute as Glenn ever was.  Really some Grade A casting.  
What did Maggie call Mr. T?  Ducky?  Dougie?  Sometimes with Maggie?  I really cannot tell.  Anyway.  He’s Mr. T. for me until I find out differently, probably through rewatching with close captioning, lol.  
Maggie’s got more people.  So.  Some new redshirts to sacrifice for plot purposes.  I don’t know if I should bother learning their names or not. 
I seem to remember Meridian being mentioned in one of the episode synopses.  
Sophia’s hair tie around Carol’s neck will never fail to be an emotional throat punch.  My heart.  
“They come at night and by the time you see them, you’re already dead.”  Welp.  Guess that means we ain’t seeing shit for at least this first third of the season, lol.  Very horror-eque though.  
“You’re leaving to fight ghosts.”  Aaron, to Maggie.  So I see Aaron’s the type to get the hell outta Dodge when the Boogeyman comes calling, hahaha.  Least he was.  In the old world.  
Rosita’s pissed off expression at Gabe’s decision to volunteer for the so-called suicide mission gives me life.  
My baby Carol is tired AF of suicide missions.  You can tell.  Also?  Methinks she has something to prove to Daryl here.  Or at least feels like she does.  
Dog with his little tactical vest.  I love it.  
I guess I get why they had Carol and Rosita stay behind.  They had to more evenly split up the badassery to make things more fair and balanced, lol.  
Okay.  So Negan’s definitely earned everybody’s disdain.  But they’re being woefully short-sighted by not at least hearing the dude out.  Isn’t he at least native to the area?  
“That is God telling us to turn around.”  I’m actually on Negan’s side with this one, but Gabe answering him with “I’m pretty sure he would have run that past me first” has me howling with laughter.  Father Gabe has gone straight up savage in these last couple of seasons.  Rosita’s influence, perhaps?  
I see what Angela is doing.  Trying to make Negan the voice of reason.  In this particular case?  It’s kind of working.  I’m still ultimately on Maggie’s side with this though BECAUSE GLENN.  
Imagine showing up to work and unironically dressing like a storm trooper every day.  Excuse me while I LOL.  
Even in the ZA, there’s bullshit paperwork.  
“Pumpkin colored spacesuit.”  Good one, Ezekiel.  
LOL forever.  I love Princess.  
“Michonne.  Our Michonne shut people out of Alexandria for years.”  Timely reminder that choices aren’t always perfect.  Neither are people.  
WTF is reprocessing?  Sounds ominous.  LMAO at Eugene’s “Okay.  We gotta go.”  
What in the actual hell with all those bagged, squirming undead?  Creepy AF in that subway tunnel.  
Should I just go ahead and call that the Easter bunny?  We’ve had some version of it pop up since Season 1.  
Is it stubborn pride with Maggie or what?  Why go through with something when all signs point toward the wisdom of stopping?  You can argue that she’s acting similarly to Carol last season, but there’s a huge difference here folks.  Carol did her damndest to Lone Wolf that shit and minimize the danger to those she loved.  Maggie’s straight up enlisting those she “cares about” to carry out her mission of revenge or vengeance, what have you. Let’s see if she gets near the amount of hate for it.  Personally, I don’t blame her for her feelings one bit.  They are valid.  But her knowingly drawing the others into the game?  That’s my sticking point.  That’s how she and Carol differ, even if some people refuse to see or accept it.  Anyway.  Hopping right on off my soapbox.  
“Why don’t you get up on your little tippy toes and try?”  Omigosh, I’d dying.  When I tell you I about passed out with laughter, I do not exaggerate.  I should hate Negan forever and I do.  Really.  But I adore JDM and he frequently makes me LOL.  He’s made Negan entertaining if not completely redeemable since Angela took over and more layered so I say kudos.  
He has a point about Maggie playing dictator.  Damn you, show, for slanting the writing just that smidgen that makes Negan make sense over his victim.  I guess, though, it’s better this way.  Gives both characters more shades of gray.  
“He’s a dick but he makes sense.”  I feel like this is Angela calling us all out when we dare to harbor any lasting resentment toward Negan for what he did to Glenn.  
Speaking of--Negan.  You deserved Daryl’s punch to the mouth.  You just went a bridge too damn far.  
“Keep pushing me, Negan.  Please.”  Warning shots fired, Asshole.  You better watch yourself around the Widow Rhee.  
Have I mentioned how much I love Princess?  Her shipping the Commonwealth guards is killing me, lol.  I can’t wait ‘til she meets Carol and Daryl.  She’s going to have their number in two seconds flat.  
I like Ezekiel and Princess as a duo.  I’m not saying romantically necessarily.  I just like them in scenes together because they’re fun.  There’s sort of a protective indulgence Ezekiel seems to telegraph whenever they’re in scenes together.  Like he’s like don’t hurt this one.  I don’t know.  For all these words I’ve written, I can’t quite find the ones to adequately describe what I mean.  
The wall of the lost gives me such Battlestar Galactica feels.  What sad thoughts it inspires.  
Eugene in that Commonwealth gear.  Omigosh, lol.  So did they just sneak up and take Princess’s little Commonwealth ship’s gear when they were sneaking off on their own to have a quickie?  
Princess finding that note for Yumiko on the wall actually gave me chills.  Yeah.  I’m easy.  Just the suggestion of someone getting reunited with lost family gets me all up in my feels.  Yumiko saying “I have to stay”?  I felt that.  
Oh no.  Dog ran off!  Somebody protect my favorite fictional puppy.  Of course, Daryl goes after him.  He’s always been the sweet one.  Merle said it.  
Eh.  Negan taking Maggie’s hand at the end there would have smacked too much of Negan Sue and Maggie’s biggest plot of the season would have been prematurely dealt with so I get why they did what they did.  But c’mon.  It’s not really that big of a cliffhanger, is it?  
Okay, so Angela calls those sleeping beauty Walkers “Lurkers” and I get it.  Apparently they’re a bigger deal in the comics, but I really don’t remember seeing them all that much on the actual show.  Somebody jog my memory.  
Of fucking course, you can actually see what’s happening in the inside the episode clips.  I wish we could choose to view the episode with that lighting because some of us be blind.  And this time I mean in the more literal sense.  Not the figurative one.  
Anyway.  I’m going to stop trying to write a novel for ya’ll and move on to better things.  Like maybe a nap.  Maybe some early dinner.  I don’t know.  I’m tired AF and need a little recharge.    
Before I go, though?  Overall impression of the episode?  I liked it.  There were parts that I loved (all the ladies being badass, every second of Carol, Daryl reuniting with the Grimes babies and Dog, all things Princess, some of Negan’s one-liners about had me busting a gut, Rosita serving looks, Kelly and Lydia getting to be badass too) and parts I didn’t love (not being able to see a damn thing, Angela trying to tip the scales in Negan’s favor, not enough Carol or Aaron or Rosita, no reunion between Aunt Carol and the Grimes babies even though that picture floating around suggests it was at least shot, not being able to see a damn thing, all the Alexandria people playing follow the leader for Maggie when she’s been gone 6 years and Daryl’s right there--hell, even Father G deserves the honor over her because it’s obvious they’re not exactly on the same wavelength anymore).  
I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m just glad to have our show back.    
Later, lovelies.  
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fiddlepickdouglas · 3 years
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Viva Las Vegas, Pt. 7 - Memories
Summary: Sunset Curve Alive AU, Willex, was it a memory?, 2.6k
@trevor-wilson-covington is the bestie who makes these lovely edits, we stan supportive friends
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
“Don’t look down ‘cuz we’re still rising up right now...and even if we hit the ground...we’ll still fly, keep dreaming like we’ll live forever but live it like it’s now or never…”
Willie bobbed along as the song played from the tinny radio speaker outside the bodega. Sheldon was curled on his lap, purring contentedly as Willie pet him absentmindedly.
“You gonna take any chamoy candy, amigo?” Escobar asked, peeking his head out the door.
Willie shook his head.
“Not tonight.”
As Escobar disappeared again, Willie kept nodding to the beat of the song. It wasn’t exactly like being at a concert, but he had been happily surprised to hear the local station playing their songs - they’d been repeating them, in fact. By now he’d been able to assign faces to the voices singing different parts, and hearing Alex’s come through in the harmonies and the occasional solo was comforting.
“We ain’t searching for tomorrow…’cuz we got all we need today…”
The lines were strangely fitting. If Willie could’ve chosen how to spend his last day on Earth, he knew he would’ve spent it just like he had yesterday without question. If only that could make the Alex-sized hole hurt a little less than it had today.
“Can we turn it back to my station now?” Escobar called out. “We’ve heard the same songs, like, four times.”
“It’s Alex’s band, though,” Willie contested. The radio was already playing rancheras. As he stood up, Sheldon leapt off of his lap and went to eat more food.
“Que tiene este muchacho, anyway?” Escobar asked. “You knew him for, like, five seconds and he didn’t leave you a number.”
There was no way to properly express in words the feeling he got about Alex. Their interactions weren’t based on words, even when they had spoken.
“You don’t have to get it, Escobar,” he said, grabbing his board and helmet from leaning against the counter. He hadn't let himself hope it would magically last forever, but the memory was worth it. “I’ll see you later.”
“Adios,” the man said, sweeping up the store and singing along to his music. “Una piedra en el camino...me enseño que mi destino...era rodar y rodar…”
Shaking his head and smiling, Willie kicked off into the late night. He’d spent all morning cleaning hotel rooms, and he tried to remember which number had been the one for Alex and his band, but he never figured it out. The rest of the day, he’d run errands for Caleb and let the one memory he had regained play on loop in his mind. There was nothing that specifically indicated that the man in the truck was his dad, but he simply knew it was. They had the same squint when they smiled.
He hadn’t bothered telling Caleb about it. It would’ve been irrelevant, since he’d apparently been in the foster care system for quite some time. Those were some of the important details he’d gotten from him, but Caleb was rather stingy about the rest - he’d said it was so Willie could live unbiased and make himself into whoever he wanted. It didn’t feel that way, though. Eventually Willie had stopped trying to weasel things out of him and accepted that he might never regain his memories. Of course, it was different now that he knew they could return.
The wind in his hair was nice, but lacked something he couldn’t put a finger on. As he came upon a large home, he skated onto the driveway around the back. He was headed past the pool in the backyard toward his shed and was surprised by a sudden voice from the water.
“William, I’ve asked you so many times not to skate around the pool,” Caleb said, wading over from where he had been doing some laps. Slowing to a stop and picking his board up, Willie gave him an apologetic nod, continuing toward the shed.
“Wait,” he heard from behind. Turning, he saw Caleb climb out of the pool and move toward him.
“You’ve been running around all day, so I’m sure you want some rest. I’ve just been worried about where you go when it’s so late. That’s two nights in a row. Is there anything you need to tell me?”
Put on the spot, everything went blank in his mind. What was there to worry about? Did he know about Sheldon? Even if he did, it wasn’t like he was doing anything wrong keeping the cat at the bodega.
“Not anything to tell,” he replied, trying to mask the strange guilt that had arisen. “Just been skating around.”
Caleb looked down at him, and Willie could never tell what was making those gears turn in his head. He knew he was just looking out for him, but sometimes he just wanted not to give some kind of report at the end of the day like he was doing business.
“I just think about what would happen if you were out there and something were to hurt you,” Caleb told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Or someone. Wouldn’t want another accident.”
Willie nodded solemnly. Caleb’s tone was serious, but for the first time he just felt that it was...insincere. His stomach flipped at the thought and he drove it down into the depths of his mind. That was an awful thing to think about the person who literally provided everything for him, especially when he wasn’t blood-related.
“I’m being careful, I promise,” he said, not meeting the man’s eyes.
“I’ll take your word,” Caleb said. He let go of Willie’s shoulder and strolled back toward the pool.
Walking to the shed, Willie shut the door behind him and confusion swept over his whole being. His dad’s face rose to the front of his mind again. If only he knew more about him to compare the two men, then he could understand why he felt so strangely about Caleb. Looking around the shed, he wondered if an answer could be found.
It was big enough for his bed, some shelves and a desk, with a small closet and bathroom. Apparently he had been living in there instead of the house even before his accident. In his first memory of seeing it, it was the bare necessities and nothing else. While Willie still wasn’t much to keep lots of clutter, he had dozens of sketches that he’d put up on the walls to make it feel more at home. It was quiet and thankfully Caleb didn’t bother him too often in there.
Sitting at the desk, he picked up a pencil and opened to a blank page in his sketchbook. Slowly shaping out a face, he tried his best to remember the details as clearly as he could. Willie wanted it to be as close to reality as possible, even though it wasn’t his usual drawing style. That way if his memory slipped, he could have something to keep him steady. So far the best thing about it was the eyes, but it wasn’t hard because all he had to do was check his own face in the mirror every once in a while. The smile was a little more crooked and wrinkly, and it took several attempts, but he was determined to get it right. He knew it was probably a good idea to get some sleep, since he had a full day of work in the morning, but this was more important.
Hours into the drawing, making sure everything was as close as he could get, Willie looked down at the portrait of his dad, steering wheel in hand, happy as could be. It was a really nice image, and if this were the only way he would ever remember him, Willie was glad it was happy. Checking the time, it was a little past three in the morning. He’d probably hate himself later for staying up so late, but it didn’t make him any less proud of his work. Aside from preserving his memory, it had been a great artistic challenge.
Finally climbing into bed, Willie tried to focus on something else. He brought Alex’s eyes to the forefront of his mind and let himself get lost in the soft crashing of the waves again. It had been rhythmic, which was so fitting for Alex. Allowing the rhythm to repeat continuously, he eventually nodded off to sleep.
Sirens blared and red and blue lights surrounded his vision. Willie was lying on the pavement, not moving and fading in and out of lucidity. The pain in his head was overwhelming. For a few moments, he stayed that way, watching the lights flash indefinitely. Slowly, he watched as all the lights and sirens pulled away, and above his face, the front bumper of a car came in view. A man that he couldn’t see clearly appeared, moving backwards, going from the side of the car to kneeling over Willie’s motionless body in a panic.
After a few moments, the man went back to the car in the same backwards fashion, and Willie’s body lifted in the air. His vision tumbled and he made contact with the car a few times, and when his head hit the pain vanished. Strangely, he landed perfectly on his board and it was like watching the city in reverse. Aware this was a dream, he felt so puzzled by the whole thing. This was a part of the city he could’ve sworn he’d never been through before. Willie had his corners that he’d memorized, but Vegas was big enough to confuse him still.
The backwards skating seemed to be endless, until finally he was running back into Caleb’s home. Caleb was yelling, and Willie couldn’t make out what he was saying at all. Then suddenly they were at a social worker’s office, and Willie looked down at a file with his picture on it. He couldn’t make out anything it said, but he simply sat there as Caleb and the social worker blabbed in backwards gibberish.
The scene changed again, and Willie found himself sitting in the shed, crying. He was repeating a name but it made no sense. A deep loneliness filled his entire body and a strange force seemed to try to compress him into as small a space as possible. The tears and the shaking only intensified, ringing loudly in his ears. Everything was miserable, overwhelming, and he just kept crying out into the dark.
Willie opened his eyes and sat up in his bed. Looking around his room, there was too little light to make out any shapes, and after blinking his eyes he found they were wet. Huddling his knees into his chest, he just sat there in his confusion and fear, breathing in and out. Had those been memories? It was so hard to tell, especially since watching everything in reverse had been so trippy. If they had been, he wondered if they were warped in any fashion. Who would have their memories return through a dream in reverse, anway? The frustrating thing about amnesia was that it had very few absolutes and every case was different.
A pit of anger grew in his chest. Willie felt like some higher power was having fun at his expense. The tears that fell were more from quiet fury than pain. Glancing over at his desk, he saw the drawing of his dad smiling back at him again. Unfolding himself and laying down on his side, Willie stared at the picture and let the tears run until either his eyes dried up or he fell asleep again, whichever came first.
Loud banging on his door was what woke him up. Rising groggily from his bed, he opened the door to find Quetzal, one of the girls from the diner.
“You just woke up?” she was saying. “Come on, Willie, Caleb doesn’t know I rushed over here to get you, you better hurry up.”
Sighing wordlessly, Willie pulled on some clothes, followed Quetzal to her car and clambered inside.
“You’ve been off the past couple of days, you okay?”
Willie took in a deep breath and tried to blink himself more awake as they drove to the diner.
“Just in a funk, that’s all,” he breathed. “Thanks for coming to get me, though.”
“Let’s just pray we don’t get caught.”
“We won’t get caught, he’s doing some kind of new deal today. I heard him on the phone a while ago about some record label he was thinking of buying.”
“A record label? How many businesses does the guy own now, like five?”
“I stopped keeping track. Anyway, Dolores is probably managing today.”
“Oh, thank God,” she sighed. “You had me so worried when you didn’t show up on time. I was ready to get fired for leaving during my shift. At least we don’t have to worry about it now.”
Willie didn’t respond. He knew Quetzal was one of those people who would go out on a limb for anyone, but it still surprised him when she did it for him. He never felt deserving. As they parked at the diner and hurried out of the car, he shook his head. It wasn’t always successful but he always hoped it worked like an Etch-A-Sketch, to get rid of the many things cluttering up his brain.
That was it. Enter the kitchen, punch in, grab an apron, and he was in his corner by the dishwasher again. He ignored the eyes of everyone else who clearly wanted to express their upset by his tardiness.  He was there now, right? Heaven forbid. Willie’s mind, of course, only remained cleared from the shaking for a few minutes. As he got into the groove of spraying and moving things into the industrial trays, he tried to remember more details of the dream, but most had been forgotten. All that was left were sirens and lights.
He’d walked back home at the end of his long shift, since he hadn’t taken his board like usual in the morning. That also meant he couldn’t go to the bodega for lunch, and he desperately needed to check on Sheldon. Willie had peeked into the house and called to see if Caleb was home at all. His own voice echoed back followed by silence. Taking that as a confirmation the man was still busy, he gathered his board and helmet and made his way out to the street.
The wind wasn’t its usual soothing sensation against his face. Willie knew he was tired, but was disappointed to feel that the one thing that felt most freeing to him wasn’t doing its job. It should’ve been enough to lose his thoughts to the sound of the low roll from the wheels, only interrupted by the gentle clacks here and there. There was too much noise inside of him. Suddenly, he understood why Alex had chosen to play drums.
Sheldon was already pattering toward him as he came through the doorway. Scooping the cat into his arms, he held him close and stroked his fur in an attempt to find some comfort. When he started purring, Willie made a little sigh of relief.
“Busy day?” Escobar asked as he organized a shelf.
Willie only nodded. Sheldon was rubbing his head against his face, and it did more to soothe him than the wind.
“Sorry I didn’t come for lunch,” he apologized. “I haven’t been doing my part for Sheldon and I owe you.”
“I would like it if you could be around more,’ Escobar said. “But he’s a pretty good cat, so it isn’t too much, amigo.”
Nodding again, Willie finally heard the music playing in the background. Was it…?
“I thought you were tired of their songs,” he commented.
Escobar shrugged.
“Eh, I had an idea you wanted to listen to them. And they’re not all too bad.”
A surprised giggle came from Willie’s throat, and he smiled for probably the first time that day. He went to give Sheldon some food and let his mind replace the red and blue lights with soft green eyes.
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kpophours · 4 years
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The Shape of You
➵ The Boyz: Sunwoo x fem. reader / one shot, soulmate AU, college AU / fluff
➵ warnings: slight cursing
➵ word count: 2.8k
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You curse under your breath, dragging the pencil over the paper in front of you, adding two more lines to your drawing. Your fingers begin to cramp, but you try to push through the slight pain, desperate to finish this today. Suddenly, your door bursts open, making you jump and squeal, pencil falling from your hand. You quickly scan your drawing and sigh in relief when you see you didn’t mess it up. You swivel in your chair to glare at your roommate and best friend, the person responsible for giving you a miniature heart attack, but her bright smile makes you soften immediately. “I made dinner!”, she says, wiping her hands on the pink apron she’s wearing, the bold red lettering reading ‘don’t judge, I’m not a professional cook’ - you gave it to her last Christmas, and it makes you smile every time you see it, the quote an inside joke between you two, “I already called you a few times but I guess you’ve been too absorbed in your work.” You return her smile and nod. “Yeah, sorry. I really want to finish this tonight.”, you explain, and she crosses the room to peer over your shoulder, her eyes taking in the soft lines and dark shadows of your drawing, “What- no, who is that? Is that… Is that him?”, Hannah asks, and tilts her head to one side. You shrug, cheeks heating up. “Yeah, that’s the face I’ve been seeing in my dreams. It has been less blurry these last few nights, and I can finally remember more details.”, you murmur, fingers gently tracing the outlines of the face you’ve been trying to draw.
A sharp jawline, dark hair falling into incredibly big, deep eyes. You’ve been seeing small glimpses of this face in your dreams for years now - not every night, but more often than not. During most of those nights nights, his face has been turned away from you, sometimes you had been able to see glimpses of his profile, or just his smile - but most mornings, the details had quickly faded from your memory again. The boy of your dreams - and you don’t mean this in a sappy, corny way, but quite literally - has been haunting you in blurred lines and vague shapes for half your life now. But this morning, it’s finally been different, this morning you were able to recall his beautiful big eyes, deep with warmth and mischief. The rest of the face is still blurry, but you have the feeling you’ll soon be able to recall more and more details.
“I’m still glad my soulmate tell was so much easier than yours.”, your best friend says, her hand coming to rest on your shoulder. You smile up at her, tracing the tattoo on the inside of her wrist. You know the same one is gracing the wrist of her soulmate and boyfriend Chanyeol. They were lucky enough to find each other during their first week of college, after they quite literally ran into each other - Hannah spilling her coffee all over Chanyeol’s favorite shirt. You still remember how your best friend had come home that night, eyes shining, cheeks bright, her smile never leaving her face. Till this day, you still don’t fully comprehend how utterly perfect her and Chanyeol are for each other - even though you shouldn’t be surprised, soulmates usually make perfect couples. Of course not everyone always finds their soulmate - some also have “normal” relationships. Some meet their soulmates only very late in life, some very early on. It’s different for everyone - just like the soulmate tells are different for each person. But Hannah’s right, matching tattoos are way easier to figure out than seeing each other in dreams, especially when the dreams fade way too quickly in the morning, or the person you’re supposed to see is just a vague, blurry shape. 
“I hope I’ll be able to remember more of his face from now on. Maybe this means he’s… he’s closer to me now?”, you say, trying not to sound too hopeful. Hannah squeezes your shoulder. “I’m sure it does. Come on, let’s eat now - I made your favorite tonight.”, she answers gently, and you immediately jump up. “Why didn’t you say so?”, you tease her, and she laughs, following you out of your room and into the kitchen. 
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As soon as you open your eyes, you reach towards your nightstand to grab the notebook and pencil you placed there last evening. This morning, you’re finally able to remember the exact curve of his smile, so you scribble frantically, trying to fit the bright smile into the drawing you began yesterday evening. The face is still incomplete, half in shadow and too blurry to make out every detail. You don’t know if you’ve managed to capture the exact shape of his chin yet, and his eyebrows - are they maybe a bit fuller? You groan, and fall back into your pillows, blowing some of your hair out of your face. “Why are you always disappearing again?”, you muse silently, and close your eyes, desperately trying to remember the exact shape of his face. What shade of tan is his skin, exactly? And his hair - you’re not sure if it’s black or brown. Maybe it’s even a bit reddish? 
The more you try to remember, the more his face seems to disappear again, the details slipping away from your grasp.
You only remember his deep eyes, and his bright smile.
But one thing you know for sure - he’s ridiculously handsome. 
The rest, it seems, has to wait for another morning. 
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Over the next few weeks, you begin to recall more and more details of your soulmate’s face. The exact brown of his eyes, for example. His hair is a faded red, probably dyed. His nose looks extremely boopable, you think. His smile makes your heart race, and one morning, you wake up with his laugh still ringing in your ear. 
Your drawing gets more detailed with every passing day, until one evening, you have finally managed to draw a complete face. 
You were right - he’s handsome, incredibly so. In your drawing, he’s smiling, but by now you’re also able to recall how his face looks when he’s not smiling. You grin, noting that both of you seem to have a serious case of the so-called “resting bitch face”. “Truly meant to be, huh.”, you murmur, adding a few more shadows around his jawline, until you’re pleased with the final result. You take a sip of the tea Hannah has brought you over an hour ago, it’s cold by now, but you still drink it. Just then, there’s a knock on your door, and you make a “Mh?” under your breath, letting the person outside know it’s okay to come in. Chanyeol sticks his head through the doorframe, dark hair falling messily into his brown puppy eyes. He gives you a happy smile which you immediately return. “Hey there! Hannah and I are about to make pancakes, you want some, too?”, he asks, and you chuckle. “Hannah and you, huh? I think you mean only Hannah is going to make pancakes. You’re almost as much of a mess in the kitchen as I am, Yeol.”, you retort, and he ducks his head. “Uh, maybe. I might help with the batter though - just no cracking eggs for me, you know how that turned out last time.”, he admits, and you make a disgusted face when you recall the taste of eggshell in your otherwise yummy pancakes, “Anyway, you want some or not?”, he inquires again, and you nod. “I’ll never say no to Hannah’s pancakes. I’ll be there in a second.”, you answer, and he gives you the thumbs up before closing the door again. You sigh and gaze at your drawing again. “Who and where are you, dream boy?”, you murmur, before stuffing the drawing back into your sketchbook, finally joining Hannah and Chanyeol in the kitchen.
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The next few days pass without anything exciting happening, and before you know it, school is starting again. You usually dislike the first day of class, everything is unfamiliar again, and you always get lost on your way to find the right buildings and rooms, but weirdly enough, today is different - everything goes smoothly, and you even have time to get yourself a tea on your way to your first class. You find a good seat not too far in the back, but also not too close to the teacher, and begin to unpack your notebook and pencils. You rarely take notes on your laptop, preferring to do so in a real notebook as you find the scratching of your pen on paper weirdly calming. You also love to doodle when you don’t take notes, and that’s much more fun to do on paper as well.
Over the next few minutes, more and more students begin to file into the classroom, and for some reason, you suddenly feel kind of giddy, nervously bouncing your leg while gnawing on your lower lip. Soon, the teacher gives his introduction, and begins to talk about this semester’s syllabus. About halfway through the class, there’s a small commotion when the door opens again, and a very late student slips inside the classroom. When you turn around to see who’s making all the fuss, you only see the back of his head - his hair is a faded reddish color, definitely dyed. For a second, the shape of the person seems oddly familiar… But then, you just shake your head, a small smile playing on your lips when you think about all the crazy hair colors you’ve had over the past few years, until Hannah basically forced you to give your scalp a rest. “You’ll go bald if you don’t!” Seeing the faded red color now, you kinda miss your own colorful looks. Mhm, maybe you could at least get some bangs soon.
The rest of the class passes rather quickly, and a glance at the watch says you have almost an entire hour until your next lecture begins. You text Hannah, asking how her first class went and if she’s free right now. She answers quickly, saying she’s already on the way to her next lecture but that you guys can grab lunch together. Occupied with answering her, you don’t notice that the person in front of you has come to a sudden halt. You squeal when you run into a broad back, dropping your phone to the floor, the sound of the screen landing on the hard concrete almost deafening in your ears. “Oh fuck.”, you mutter under your breath, praying to whatever God or Goddess is listening that your screen isn’t cracked - you definitely don’t have the money to get it fixed. Thankfully, the case seems to have protected your phone from the worst. You exhale, relieved, before straightening and getting ready to tell off the person responsible for this accident. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you don’t text and walk at the same time.”, a male voice says, sarcasm lacing his words, and you look up to glare at him. 
The second you lay eyes on him though, your heart just stops for a few seconds, before beginning to race again, hammering against your rib cage.
You silently gape at the boy in front of you, taking in the red dyed hair hanging messily into deep dark eyes. His lips are pulled into a cocky grin, his head tilted to one side, showing off his sharp jawline, arms crossed over his chest, a backpack slung over one shoulder. 
Oh how often have you drawn that face by now. 
You know the exact curve of his lips, plump and rosy and almost a bit too kissable for your liking, and by now, you know way too well how your fingers always itch to brush his too long hair out of eyes that seem to hold all the stars and galaxies in them. 
“You.”, you breathe out, and it seems that he finally recognizes you too, as his eyes get even bigger and the cocky grin slips from his face, replaced by an awe-filled smile. “Oh my God - it’s you! You’ve… you’ve been in all my dreams.”, he says in a rush, just when you open your mouth to say the same. A giddy smile splits open your face, and you nod excitedly. “Just as you’ve been in mine.”, you answer, breathlessly, and like two magnets being pulled towards each other, you both take a step closer. “I’m Sunwoo.”, he introduces himself, sounding a bit breathless himself, before he holds out his hand for you to take. You accept his handshake, feeling electricity shoot through your whole body when your skin makes contact with his for the first time. “I’m Y/N, it’s nice to finally see you - really see you, that is.” When he smiles at you in earnest this time, you swear your heart stops again, before beginning to race twice as fast as before. “Well, I think I already have a favorite class this semester.”, Sunwoo murmurs, unconsciously tugging you closer to him, your hand still securely held in his. “I think so, too.”, you answer, and return his smile while looking at him, drowning in his deep, sparkling eyes. He cups one side of your face with his other hand, brushing some of your hair back behind your ear. “I’ve waited so long for you.”, he whispers, and you feel your throat close up at his words. “Me too.”, you answer, and slide both arms around his waist. He sighs, returning your hug and placing his chin on top of your head. You listen to his quick heartbeat, mirroring your own racing one, noticing how normal and right it already feels to touch him.
You just fit - like two puzzle pieces, finally put together again. 
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The fateful day you met your soulmate for the first time would forever be engraved into your mind.
Since then, Sunwoo’s hair had gone through some changes - he had redyed it red for the first few months, until it had faded to a soft brown again, and then he decided to just go back to black. You had asked him once to dye it a bright pink, but he had just given you a funny look, shaking his head before continuing to watch your favorite movie - The Cat in the Hat, your choice for this week’s movie night. A few days later, you yourself had dyed your hair a bright pink, almost giving Hannah a heart attack when you opened the door to her room. 
Over the next few years, there were many amazing first experiences you shared with Sunwoo - your first dinner together (Hannah had been so nice to cook for you guys because apparently, you didn’t only share the resting bitch face, but also the inability to cook anything edible), your first kiss (yes, Sunwoo’s lips felt just as amazing as they looked), the first night spent with each other (you had talked about literally everything and anything until the first rays of sunshine had crept into your bedroom), your first holiday as a couple (a road trip gone horribly wrong, with you guys having to spend the night in the car because one of you (you were pretty sure it was Sunwoo’s fault) had typed in the wrong address into the navigation system), your first big fight (now you don’t even remember what it was about, but you had both sulked for two days until making up, the longest you had ever gone without speaking to each other), your first encounter with each other’s families (teasing Sunwoo about his younger sister being taller than him had quickly become one of your favorite hobbies) and finally, your first apartment together (it was a teeny tiny flat, but you filled it with many beautiful memories).
You knew that many more first experiences were still waiting for you - like adopting some pets together (you were already looking at cute kittens), and maybe a wedding one day (you had to admit, after attending Hannah and Chanyeol’s wedding and crying buckets when they said their vows, you weren’t as opposed to the concept of marriage anymore), and probably also having a family of your own together - one day, in the still far away future. 
You couldn’t wait to share the rest of your life with your other half, your soulmate, the person you called your home - and you knew that Sunwoo felt the exact same way.
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for my light, my love, my Summer @sunmoonieverse​ 💞
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tiffdawg · 4 years
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Curriculum Vitae: Chapter Three
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Gif: @javier-pena
curriculum vitae noun cur·ric·u·la vi·tae Latin. the course of one's life.
Pairing: Javier Peña x Reader (fem; no y/n)
Word Count: 3.1k
Rated: M  | Warnings: Intense gazing. Mild language.
Chapter Summary: In this chapter, you start to see a different side to Javier Peña as he struggles to adjust to academia.
A/N: Thank you for your comments and support on the last chapter! I'm so excited that someone is actually enjoying this story and I hope you know that literally every comment takes me out for twenty minutes because they make me so stupidly happy. I love you all!
Read on AO3
CV Masterlist | My Masterlist
… . …
Chapter Three
When you entered your lecture hall on Wednesday morning, once again affording Peña plenty of time to clear out, the scene from Monday repeated itself almost verbatim. He was at the podium, shoulders slightly hunched and hands grasping either side of the cherry wood, surrounded by an excited crowd of students. You’d hoped you would miss him entirely – especially after what had happened in the library – but it seemed luck was not on your side. So, you sipped idly at the lukewarm remnants in your cardboard coffee cup, figuring you might as well watch the show. Speaking sure as hell never seemed to work well for the two of you.
The only difference was that this time, he noticed you right away. You suddenly felt self-conscious in your simple black trousers and modest blouse under his intense scrutiny, and you wondered what he was looking for as he stared at you for just a moment too long. You half-expected him to make some caustic remark. While neither of you had been particularly kind to the other the night before, you probably would’ve deserved it. His words had stung, but it was nothing you hadn’t heard a hundred times before. While you didn’t exactly regret anything you had said, you did wonder if you might’ve struck too deep a nerve. Instead, he turned to his students and told them to talk to him during his office hours.
“When are your office hours, sir?” a young man asked, the same overeager student from Monday.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I know,” he said dismissively, scratching his brow. With that, the students started to wander off and you parted the sea of stragglers to get to the chalkboard. You intended to use it for your lecture and there was a scrawling mess of some Cyrillic language, no doubt not from Peña’s class. However, he beat you to the eraser.
“I’ve got this, doctora.”
You actually felt your head tilt to the side and it strangely reminded you of the way Sunny cocked her head when you spoke to her. Like she recognized your voice, heard your words, but didn’t understand the language. His kindness surprised you and you weren’t sure if he was taunting you with his new diminutive of choice or attempting to apologize in his own strange way. At least doctora was accurate, and it was a hell of a lot better than sweetheart. “Thanks,” you offered hesitantly, “I think.”
When he finished erasing the first panel and moved to the second, you picked up a scrap of chalk and started writing a list of key terms and important names you didn’t want to have to bother with during your lecture. All the while, you hated the way your eyes kept casting to the side, stealing unintentional glances at Peña. Your hand idled as you lost your focus in favor examining the way he moved even as he did something as simple and mundane as clear a chalkboard. But, as ridiculous as it was, you found that you were unable to stop yourself from watching the pull of his light gray suit jacket around his body or the clap of his hands as he attempted to remove the chalk dust.
And in your folly, he caught you.
He smirked at you as he adjusted his boldly pattern tie that should’ve been left in the previous decade and you turned back to your vocabulary list with warm cheeks and added the last few letters to the word you’d abandoned. Then, just as you thought he was about to leave, he took a seat in the last row.
To say you were confused would’ve been an understatement. Bewildered or baffled might’ve been more apt descriptors, but even those words seemed lacking. Deciding not to let Javier Peña distract you from your job any more than he already had that morning, you pulled out your lecture notes and focused on what really mattered: your class and your students. Not the man intently watching your every move.
… . …
Apparently, even visiting lecturers had to attend the weekly Thursday morning faculty meeting.
As Javier sat at the furthest end of the conference room table, only half listening to the department chair drone on about the new graduation requirements for undergraduate sociology majors and minors, he seriously debated the necessity of his presence. Dr. Campbell, as he’d quickly learned the first time that he spoke with the man over the phone a few weeks ago, had a preference for five-dollar words and loved the sound of his own voice. It was amazing he was as long-winded as he was considering the tightness of the obnoxious canary yellow bow tie around his neck. Javier pulled at his own tie, already loose and askew, suddenly feeling constricted by it. Aside from the fact that Campbell’s rundown on the new procedures seemed unnecessary –the regular faculty looked like they’d heard this news a thousand times already – Javier knew he had very little function beyond drawing attention to the school of social sciences. Sure, he technically had to teach a handful of classes this year, which was itself a task proving even more difficult than he’d originally anticipated. But, at the end of the day, he was only there because of his reputation and to lend his name to the university. He only hoped that no one expected much more than that from him.
They’d only be disappointed.
He glanced down the table to where you sat taking occasional notes in between drawing something in the corner of your notebook. He wasn’t sure how, but you’d taken one look at him and figured him out. 
You don’t deserve to be here.
Your words from the other night echoed in his mind. While everyone else seemed intent on showering him with empty flattery and undue praise, you saw him for what he really was. And you were right. He definitely didn’t feel like he deserved to teach classes at a prestigious university, to hold any sort of position of prominence or power at an institution like this. He’d retired from the DEA, given up the only job he knew how to do, without any inclination of what he would do next. Accepting this job was nothing short of an unhappy accident that was the result of some sort of second-career-meets-midlife-crisis impasse. Come to think of it, he might’ve been drinking when he called Dr. Campbell and accepted his offer.
“I’ve but one final announcement before I release you all for the day. As is tradition, the planning this year’s student conference will fall to two of our youngest and brightest professors, so it should be no surprise which of you will assume the responsibility.” Campbell finally caught Javier’s attention when he gestured down the length of the table to you. You smiled brightly at the department chair and the rest of your coworkers. “You, my dear, have done a brilliant job in the past and I expect nothing less this year. And I’m sure our newest appointed professor, Dr. Sheffield, will be more than happy to assist and learn from you.”
“Fucking ecstatic,” the man next to him grumbled under his breath. He followed the man’s gaze back to you and watched your smile vanish. Looking back at Sheffield, he noted that he was younger than Javier, although not by much, and sturdily built but soft around the middle. His belt seemed to be cinched one notch too many. Definitely a beer drinker. There was something inherently boorish about the man and although he hadn’t noticed him until that exact moment, Javier decided that he didn’t like him.
“I’ll have Debra set up a meeting for the three of us sometime next week to discuss the issue further,” Campbell added, “And with that said I think we can consider this meeting adjourned. I do believe the Anthropology department has reserved the room for the upcoming hour, so we best leave them to it.” 
The other faculty and staff started filing out of the conference room, but evidently Sheffield felt Javier’s stare. He turned to him and offered a hand.
“Javier Peña, I presume.” The way he mispronounced his name was almost embarrassing. “Been looking forward to meeting you all week.”
“What an honor,” Javier drawled, shaking the sweaty proffered hand. 
“I’m Andrew Sheffield.” 
“I gathered that.”
Seemingly oblivious to his curt responses, Sheffield continued. “Let me know if you ever need anything, man. And, if you’re into it, a couple of buddies of mine from the other departments golf on Sundays. You’re always welcome.”
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Javier responded, knowing he’d wouldn’t go golfing if his life depended on it, let alone with this guy.
“Cool, and like I said, happy to help.”
“You didn’t seem so happy to help your other colleague a minute ago.” He couldn’t stop himself. He’d been talking to Sheffield for all of a minute and he was already on his last nerve.
“Well, I, uh– I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sheffield stumbled, clearly flustered, “Besides, that’s different. She’s, well, you’ll see.”
“I’m sure,” Javier said, gathering his things and pushing back his chair. He slapped Sheffield’s shoulder, maybe a little harder than strictly necessary. “See you around, bud.”
… . …
By Friday, your hectic first week of the quarter had caught up to you. You were more than a little tired and couldn’t wait for the weekend. Still, you put on a smile as you prepared to start your lecture. You’d made a vow to yourself years ago that you would never become that jaded, joyless professor that made student’s lives miserable. It was for your own benefit as much as theirs.
You knew Peña didn’t have a class on Fridays – the lecture hall had been empty when you arrived that morning – so you were more than a little surprised when he showed up for your class. Just when you thought you weren’t going to have to deal with him that day, he quietly slipped into the back row.
You couldn’t escape the man.
At the same time, as much as you hated to admit it, you’d been looking for him everywhere you went on campus ever since your Wednesday lecture. His actions confounded you – you were sure he hated you after that night in the library, but yet, here he was attending your class again. For what reason? You had no clue.
Deciding it would be best to simply overlook Javier’s presence in your classroom, you started your lecture. However, you quickly discovered he was impossible to ignore. Especially considering the way his dark eyes trailed you, followed your every movement. It didn’t matter that he was sitting in the back of the room. You could feel him watching you.
It should’ve been annoying. Aggravating, even. 
But it was something else entirely. Something that ignited a slow, steady heat inside of you. Something you steadfastly refused to name.
Once again, he didn’t wait for you after your lecture, and you weren’t sure why that disappointed you.
… . …
“How was your anniversary?”
“It was actually really fun. We got a sitter and Henry took me to this fancy restaurant downtown he’d been to on business lunches. He’d mentioned wanting to take me before, but I was still surprised that he’d actually made a reservation on his own,” Beverly explained, forgetting all about her chicken salad, “I’m sure you can understand why – you’ve met my husband.”
The two of you were sitting at your usual bench near an especially green spot on campus. The shade of a beautifully overgrown Moreton bay fig tree shielded you from the bright sun and your feet rested against a sprawling root creeping under the bench. “That’s so romantic of him,” you gushed. You sighed dreamily, playing it up for her benefit.
“I know! I don’t think we’ve had a night out like that since our youngest was born. So, what? Two years ago!” She made an exaggerated exasperated expression and you snickered at her. “I didn’t know the man had it in him. But it was very swanky, and they had these little chocolate cakes that, like, oozed more chocolate when you cut into them. Apparently, that’s the new thing but I never get out so I’m behind on the times.” 
“Don’t feel bad,” you said as you stabbed at your container of sliced fruit, “I haven’t been on a date in months so I’m right there with you on that one.”
“We gotta fix that.” Bev nudged you playfully.
You made a discouraging face and shook your head. “No, thank you. I’ve got plenty to worry about right now without having to deal with a relationship.”
“Doesn’t have to be a relationship,” she countered in a singsong voice. 
“You really can’t be stopped, can you?” you asked with an amused laugh. She shook her head and took another bite of her lunch. “Relationship or not, dating is just too complicated. It’s too distracting.” 
“Maybe,” Bev conceded, “But there’s more to life than work, sweetie. As much as I complain about Henry, I really do love the man. And he loves me. That’s something special. I can’t help but want something like that for you too.” You loved Beverly, but sometimes you hated how perceptive she was. Without ever having to voice your own thoughts or desires – sometimes without even admitting them to yourself – she always saw the truth to your words. Work always came first for you. Often at the disadvantage of the rest of your life. When you were quiet for longer than she would’ve liked, she lightened the conversation. “Of course, whoever your person is, would have to be someone as equally spectacular as you, so it might take a while to find them. But we’ll work on it.”
You returned her soft smile with one of your own. “We’ll see. But I’m not sure that person is out there, so don’t hold your breath.” You held out your plastic container. “Cantaloupe?”
“You know that’s my favorite,” she laughed as she skewered a few slices for herself.
… . …
After your lecture and lunch with Bev, you walked home to pick up Sunny before returning to your office. Friday afternoons were usually quiet on campus as students and professors alike preferred not to schedule classes that day of the week, for obvious reasons. You still had quite a bit of work to do before you were free to enjoy the weekend and your dog made for good company. Sunny was small and quiet enough that no one ever noticed her when you snuck her into the office. She was a mild-mannered dog, and that day she alternated between sleeping on your lap and watching birds and students alike from the window while you made a decent dent in the pile of work you had to get through. 
She was as well behaved as always, but, unsurprisingly, a couple hours later she started to get restless and you took that as your cue to call it a night.
“Alright, let’s go home, girl,” you said to her as you gathered your things. You piled a few books into your tote, wavering for a moment on one particularly heavy tome you weren’t sure you wanted to haul back to your apartment before you tossed that one in too. You slide your flats back on, having had kicked them off while you worked, and reached for the door. As soon as it was open wide enough for Sunny to fit through, she sprinted out ahead of you.
“Shit!” you hissed taking off after her. She’d never done that before. “Get back here!”
Your eyes practically popped out of your head as she darted into an open office.
You burst into your colleague’s office, intent on dragging her out of there while apologizing profusely. Instead you froze at the sight before you. Sunny was perched on Javier Peña’s lap. To make matters worse, the devious little traitor was excitedly licking his face as he petted her, soothing her fur with a gentle hand. What was even more surprising than her wagging tail, was the goofy grin on his face. It was the kind of unrestrained smile that crinkled his eyes and made him look younger than his years. It was, for lack of a better word, charming.
“I take it this is your dog?” he asked, breaking you from your trance.
“Yeah,” you answered, shaking your head at the scene, “She– She really seems to like you,” you observed, not bothering to hide your confoundment.
“I can tell.” Sunny calmed down, panting happily as Peña scratched behind her perky ears. “At least one of you does,” he said, finally training his brown eyes on you.
“Eh, she likes everyone. Don’t read too much into it,” you said, shrugging off his insinuation. And it was true for the most part. Sunny was a friendly dog, but she did have a strong intuition when it came to people’s sense of character and she always knew who she didn’t like. Even you had to admit she was quite taken with Peña.
“What kind of dog is she?” he asked, turning his attention back to the dog on his lap.
“My best guess is some kind of border collie mix. All I know is Sunny is not a purebred and a bit of a runt, which is probably how she ended up on the street in the first place.”
“Sunny?” he said, cocking his head at you.
You huffed out a small laugh. “I found her on Sunset Boulevard. So, in a moment of sheer genius I called her Sunny as a temporary name before I found her owners or a new family to take her in,” you explained, “Turned out I was her new family and the next thing I knew she was responding to the name. It stuck.”
“She’s sweet. I’ve always liked dogs,” he said, quirking his brow as he looked up at you again, “You can trust their judgement.”
Pursing your lips, you made a noncommittal noise, not wanting to agree despite feeling the same way. With a final wet kiss to his cheek, Sunny hopped down from his lap and trotted over to your side, acting the part of the loyal pet. You glared at her as you quickly attached her lead to her collar, ensuring she wouldn’t cause any more trouble. She’d already provoked the first civil conversation between you and Peña – who knew what else she was capable of. You decided it was best if you took your leave before she caused another miracle. “Have a nice weekend, Peña.”
“You too, doctora,” he said with a smirk and a wink.
 ... . ...
Thank you for reading!
... . ...
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All You’ve Got Is Gold Part 1
FandomAU!: Billy Delaney/Cormac McNamara x Female OC
Warnings: Slight NSFW, mostly steamy fluff.  Guys this ended up being long as fuck.  And it’s really only chapter one. Or Part 1.
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Jeanie leaned over the bar at Ewan's to pour herself another whiskey, ignoring the bartender as he chastised her. "C'mon lass, don't the wee ones file in to the grounds tomorrow?"
"Wee?" she gulped around her swallow. "Ewan, they're pubescent. You know me though, I like to have a bit of a glow every new semester. That way the parents think I'm truly invested in the well-being of the brats." Jean waved her glass around in the air. "Ok, not brats. Most of them are well-behaved and genuinely interested in learning. Not like the little bastards in America. I'd have 40 to a classroom back there. Saint Fergus barely has 40 students in the entire school."
Ewan took it as a sign and gave her a generous pour one more time, "Heard you cannae keep any professors for the pay. But your husband-"
"EX. As of last spring," Jean corrected.
"EX-husband found some new blood in a few of his University students."
"Aye," Jeanie imitated the Scottish brogue with perfection. "They're all in the corner over there with Dr Purves now."
She had half a decade to assimilate to the culture of the small, boring town just outside of Aberdeen where she followed Gordon and married him without any family or a job. He became head of the Physics and STEM department at the University of Aberdeen, working on projects and female students alike. Jeanie, having abandoned her Master's in Education, was really only qualified to student-teach at a local boarding school. Before long, lack of interest and the economy drove the numbers down to four or five dozen and a position of Headmistress open. At least it was a place to live and an existence that kept her mind off everything else.
"I would say don't look now, because here comes one of his students, but my darling who can keep their eyes off him." Ewan pointed behind his friend with damn near literal hearts in his eyes.
Jeanie glanced over her shoulder as a young man, early 20s? She couldn't tell. But he approached her at the bar. Her first glance became a double, and nearly a stare. Embarrassed, she whipped her head around quickly and blushed in Ewan's general direction. "Sweet Virgin Mary," she exhaled under her breath.
"I normally go by Delaney, but I suppose in certain company Mary will do," a soft Irish lilt.
Jean slow blinked as the bartender broke into a cheshire grin. She took a deep breath and turned towards the man now beside her and held out her hand. Blood pulsing in her ears because.. he was stunning. "Brave of a Celt to set foot in the land of Picts. Even braver for him to be in the presence of the biggest asshole in all of Scotland."
"Well from what I've heard she's more of an Ice Queen than an asshole," he squinted before smiling brightly. Green eyes sparkling in the low light of the bar. "Your.. partner put me up to it anyways. You know, say the bit about the ice. Sorry," he blushed but still held on to her hand firmly. "I've heard you're rather pleasant from the others. Just aloof as it were"
"EX!" Ewan and Jean exclaimed together, and the young man blinked responsively. "No sorries. Cold-hearted bitch is what some of the 6th years call me when I confiscate their illegals. Headmistress Jean Turner, but the two friends I have call me Jeanie. Drink?"
"Just one? I'll take 5. I have to catch up with the others." He hooked a thumb at the group of obnoxious men groping the female students who hung off of them as if they were celebrities. Taking what he was offered, chugging it quickly and shuddering. "Billy. Delaney it is. Well occasionally."
Jeanie and Ewan watched as he basically pounded every shot placed in front of them. Squinting off and on, as if he was trying to adjust to the ambiance. "Is it hot? It's hot in here. God I hate people. Those people. I will never fit in with the misogynists and knobs who prefer rugby and football to actually learning about the world." He pulled at the collar of his sweater before taking it off and draping it over Jeanie's chair. He wore a striped tee shirt underneath "Sorry. Sorry. I've got my nose in tech and books and maths algorithms most days. I forget how to socialize, so I really just want to blend in with the norms."
"You.. are.. fit." Ewan sputtered.
Billy snapped back to attention, his mind having drifted off to the same group Jeanie's eyes kept staring at. "What?"
"He's saying you are fucking fit, mate" Jeanie gaped.
"My body? I'm not really certain about that. I'm rather spindly wouldn't you say?” he shrugged while his cheeks flushed profusely. "My arms? Is it my arms? I swim. Clears my head from all the clutter." He was rambling now.
Jeanie and Ewan started laughing. "Relax! we're taking the piss, love. Your every move is being scrutinized. Now why abouts did Dr Purves send you over here? Surely he has fucking with me on his mind. Not unusual, humiliation has always been the name of the game."
Billy made a gesture that resembled adjusting non-existent glasses. He immediately dropped his hand and pulled a tenner out of his pocket. "To melt the ice, Gordon said. He gave me ten quid to hit on you."
"One of his students. What a lovely parting gift. I guess you're worth the loss of the house and the car," Jeanie stood back slightly to properly size him up.
Billy bit the entirety of his bottom lip, furrowing his brows, "I reckon you're worth more than a tenner to sleep with."
Jeanie blinked a few times, head tilted to the side to make sure she heard correctly. "SEX?!" she laughed, unable to help herself. "I don't exactly know what all of this," she waved her hand down his body, "would be doing even in the vicinity of sleeping with this," pointing to her own.
Confusion came over his face, "Am I supposed to be.. Is there something wrong with you that I don't notice? I, I can be kind of oblivious to loads. I think, really, Gordon goaded me into coming over here for my benefit as much as his amusement. I don't have too much experience, but you seem quite lovely you know. Your hair is," brows furrowed again but in thought, "Nicely red in this lighting. Reminds me of my friend from Ireland. Hannah."
Jeanie pinched the bridge of her nose as Ewan audibly guffawed from beside her. "Saints preserve us," the Scotsman said between gasps for air. "Donnae if you are taking the piss now, bloke, or are you really this bad at pulling birds."
Billy grimaced, the entirety of his face beet red. "Honestly, I never make it this far. I guess they usually pull me and I let them?" He started to fan his face, "seriously,,how fucking hot do you keep this pub?" His forehead bent forward to rest on the metal and wood counter of the bar.
Ewan covered his mouth and ruffled the curly head in front of him. "What a wee babby, Dr Purves sent into the lion's den. You just drank half a bottle of my best whiskey and mortified yourself in front of my favorite woman in this whole country. Maybe you ought to drink some water and have a sit for a few. We'll give you something to take to the bell-end in the back."
Jeanie and Ewan's eyes met, and she bit back a smile before leaning over to wrap an arm around her husband's latest protege. "Oh Ewan, I don't think it should be only a story. Why not give the evil genius a bit of a show. Right now he can see Mr Delaney is headed towards a spectacular crash. Im embarrassed. Mr Delaney's embarrassed. You're without very expensive whiskey. Gordon will never let anyone live this down for the semester."
She put her mouth near Billy's ear, "Ten quid is worth SOMETHING. Don't you think? Just look at me." He obliged quicker than she expected. Emerald eyes gazed upwards at her while the heart banged wildly in her chest. "What comes next?"
"I reckon I ought to put my arm on your waist. Right?" his voice now low in her ear and a hand slipped around her hips to draw her as close as possible.
No further guidance was needed as the liquid courage kicked in. Billy stood up and took Jeanie's face in his large hands before he drew her into a rather passionate kiss. Hers instinctively buried in his hair, their tongues dancing as the thought he hustled her entered the back of her mind. How was it that just a few minutes ago he looked ready to vomit at the thought of trying to come on to anyone, not just her. Now he was kissing her like they were Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. Jeanie’s back slightly arched as Billy dominated her personal space with his height, a hand dangerously on the curve of her backside.
Ewan held his own face, eyebrows lost in his bangs as he watched the two of them go at it for well, he lost time. Glancing up he noticed just about everyone else in the pub was watching too. Gordon positively green with envy and turning purple with anger. Ewan saw him lean to a colleague and mouth, "That wasn't the fucking deal."
"Job done you two," he cleared his throat and practically shouted to break them up.
Jeanie's mouth was cold as it kissed the air. Billy had stumbled backwards a bit, mouth turned down ever slightly in a whoops motion. He walked, swayed really and floated by every single patron, including the group of men he came in with earlier. Fingers pulled at his bottom lip before he passed a devilish grin over his shoulder in Gordon's direction.
Jeanie and Ewan gobsmacked, but pleasantly amused, looked at one another. Mischief in their eyes as Jeanie noticed Billy's sweater draped over the bar. "Mr Balderston, I think I have a grad student to visit this week. It seems Mr Delaney might need his sweater because the Scottish nights get awfully cold."
Orientation came and went, and the students seemed to settle in quicker than normal.  Quite possibly because this was the lowest attendance in the school’s 150 year history.  They had been in danger of shut down, but Jeanie was informed that first Monday by the Board of Directors that an anonymous group of donors had decided, against their wishes, to purchase the school.  Even if no students came back the following school year, or they were down to only 15 or 10 or 5, Saint Fergus would remain open for unknown reasons.  
To say she was relieved was an understatement for Jeanie.  Much needed repairs were being made, and someone had come to put together a state of the art security system.  Which really confused the faculty and dwindling staff.  Who would steal anything from this junk heap?  Even their books were falling apart.  Except they weren’t.  
By the end of the first week, the girls in their dormitories and in the hallways were abuzz with brand new Literature and Maths books.  They were suddenly interested in Oscar Wilde and Pythagoras.  Jeanie watched as three 4th years sat in the windowsill and audibly cracked open their copies of “The Happy Prince,” stars in their eyes.  
“Have you ever seen anyone as good looking as Dr McNamara?  Honestly, I don’t know how I’ll pay attention to anything else but that voice,” she held her book against her chest.
“Oh c’mon Siobhan.  It’s all about the eyes.  I don’t think I’ve seen anything like them.  Proper green.  If he sticks around, I’ll tell Daddy to talk to all of his barrister friends. Get them to enroll their kids here next year.” 
The third girl was clearly in a daydream out the window, “All I heard today was blah blah blah ‘important in oratory history of Ireland’ blah blah.  Lemme tell you, he can give me an oral exam any day.”
Jeanie cleared her throat and the students jumped nearly a mile high.  “It would do you girls a kindness not to sexually harass our newest teacher at Saint Fergus.”  The smallest hint of a smile on her lips.  “Honestly, how is it that I'm headmistress here and have no bloody clue who this mysterious Dr McNamara is?”
“Well rumor has it, Miss, that he bought the school.  Dr Purves hired him for a project at the uni, and he asked to be right in the thick of the school.”  Siobhan shrugged.
“What do you mean?” 
“Oh he’s installing the security system and having a new science laboratory built,” the daydreaming girl chimed in.
“I thought it was a grad student that was teaching here this semester?  Have any of you heard the name Billy Delaney?  I’ve been looking for him the last week or so, but I can't find him in Aberdeen housing.  I’d like to return his sweater.”  Jeanie’s face flushed pink, and the girls all cast a knowing grin in her direction.
“Has Miss got a crush herself?” Siobhan teased.  “There’s no student teachers this year, but did you say Billy Delaney?”  
“Yes.  Does that name sound familiar to you too?”  
The girls stood and handed Jeanie paperback books one by one.  A stack of them, young adult novels that had grown incredibly popular the last few years.  A stone wall with a glowing green and gold light graced the cover.  “A Green Pool of Light: Emerald City to Oz  Book 1” blazed across the top in that standard stereotyped font that represented all things Irish.  The daydreaming girl, Aila Jeanie would come to find out, opened her copy and ran a finger down the page.  “Yeah, he’s like a gender bent Hermione in these books.” 
Jeanie frowned and flipped through the pages.  The girls all started to laugh, not mean-hearted but in the way kids do at adults when they become lost in the world of anyone under 20.  “That’s Dr McNamara, Miss Turner, and he’s living in the Boys Dorms.”
Jeanie blinked a few times, too many times in disbelief.  The girls dissolved into hysterics and headed off to their next set of classes.  Things maybe just got a bit easier but harder at the same time.
--------------------------------------
Jeanie stared incredulously at herself in the mirror.  When exactly was the last time she showed up to any man’s room wearing only a coat and her underwear?  Or well, a sweater in this case.  She waited until the school was dark and quiet, she couldn’t risk one of the students seeing her dressed this way.  On her way to do a dance of seduction.  No, that’s humiliating.  This was all humiliating.  
What in the hell am I  even doing? She thought.  But it was too late, her legs carried her into the halls and across the floors and up into the West Wing where the boys slept. Tip-toeing quick and stealthy to the only source of light on this side of the school.  
Jeanie took a deep breath and knocked on the open door.  His back was to her, sitting with one foot up on the chair, a knee drawn up to his chest in the most awkward of positions.  His dark head was bent over an abundance of little digital boxes spread across a desk that he tinkered with under a magnifying glass.  Several computers and laptops spread around the room running codes attached to various projects simultaneously.  Lost in his work, he ignored her.
Sighing heavily, Jeanie knocked louder this time.  She raised one hand up the door frame, leaning in the most tempting pose she could muster at 11pm on a Thursday.  His head popped up, and he only glanced over his shoulder in her direction before going back to his work.  
“Well took ye long enough to find me, Miss Turner.  Wanna see what I’ve put together for the school?”  he queried without paying any attention to her attire.  
Jeanie felt the bile rise in her throat.  How in the hell was she ever going to feel better about herself when this man wouldn’t even acknowledge her?  Was it too late to just slip back down in the shadows and melt away like she never existed?  Still she took a breath and made her way to the desk and stopped directly behind him.  She bent forward over his shoulder, her hair brushed against his face and neck.  There was a nearly inaudible hitch in his breathing as she picked up one of the boxes.  Did she make him nervous?  Good, she thought and chewed her lip to prevent a smirk sneaking through.
“Well Mr Delaney.  Or is it McNamara?” She studied the box carefully and poked at it with her nail.
“Doctor” he interjected huskily.  He was nervous.  “I’ve got a PhD,” he corrected.
“Are you even old enough for a doctorate?!” she retorted.
“I’m 24, thank you very much.  I suppose that’s quite young to have several PhDs, but I don’t really keep track.  If it makes you feel better, I'm also a chef. Cooking is just science after all,” he said almost dismissively.    “Oh, That is L.I.S.A. you’re holding.  Large-scale Interface Security Application.”
Jeanie snorted; she couldn't help it.   “Do you mean an alarm system?”
“No it’s a specified security application that only I know how to program and,” he caught himself.  “Yes.  It’s an alarm system.”  He rolled his eyes and gently took the machine back from her and placed it amongst the others.
“If you're working with Gordon on some kind of secret project, why are you teaching Literature?” Jeanie launched into everything without really meaning to. “You know Dr Delaney or whoever the hell you are, several of the girls brought to my attention that there’s a character in those young adult novels written by Hannah O'Flaherty. “A Pool of Green Light?” They are quite popular with our 1st-4th years.  You're Billy Delaney aren't you?  That’s why you gave that name in the pub the other night instead of your real name.  That being Cormac McNamara, am I correct?”  She placed her hands on hips hidden in the mass of wool and cable knit.  
"Delaney is part of my last name. Hyphenated.” once again correcting the headmistress.
 "Don't see much of that in men" 
"Well it and my brain are about all my parents left me,” he moved to face his chair towards Jeanie and abandon his project. 
 "Well I bet they're proud of you, Cormac. Or Billy.  Whatever.” she waved her hand dismissively.  “You lot discovered.. what's it called?" 
"Dimensional Dark Matter Transport with the possibility of Inter and Temporal" 
"I mean, Portals. Or to put it in tv nerd terms: Beam me up Scotty" 
"Precisely!” Cormac exclaimed and stood up excitedly.  “And your ex-boyfriend-" 
"Husband" 
“Yes, husband.  Well couldn't have been good at it if he's your ex.” He bit a finger absently, staring off towards the ceiling.  Then snapped back to attention quickly,  “Well he wants to find a way to make it.. Portable. Not just in plotted locations around the globe. And my business partners, em Hannah and Brett if you will, would like it privatized. Dr Purves, he wants the highest bidder." 
"Military?” Jeanie blanched at the thought.  Then her voice drifted off, “So the books ARE real.. You three are real.  Hannah hid the stories in plain sight for the entire world to discover"  And for the first time, she noticed a framed photo on the vast desk.  A trio of happy young people: red-headed girl, pretty with large blue eyes.  A floppy haired, tan surfer type.  And a tall, lanky boy with oval glasses and severely parted hair starting to curl.  Jeanie took the frame and traced her fingertip along the glass. “Sarah, Zack and Billy.  This is like finding out Harry, Ron and Hermione are living, breathing people.  And here you are, in my school.”
"I could show you if you want but.. Miss Turner, why are you only in a sweater?" Cormac stepped back and lifted his glasses and put them back down. He took them off hurriedly as if he was embarrassed to be wearing them.  Turning once more to face her "Is.. Is that MY sweater? You're only in. Jeanie, Where are your pants?" 
"Well I planned on seducing you Mr.." 
"Doctor" -
Jeanie sighed as if she had been defeated, "DOCTOR Delaney-McNamara" 
"Well Ive mucked that up I suppose,” a deep crimson set across his ears.
" I mean you can have your sweater back,” Jeanie arched an eyebrow seductively. Pulling the sweater over her head to reveal only a pair of her nicest black panties and bra underneath.  Nothing else.
"Thank you it's quite my favorite-" Cormac’s eyes widened when he noticed the headmistress in front of him wearing nothing but lingerie.  He squinted briefly while scratching his head.  “Oh.. Jeanie. That’s..” his voice drifted off lost in shock.
Ignoring the embarrassment growing in her chest, Jeanie crossed her arms over her chest.  “Why in the hell did you take your glasses off?”
“Oh, em.. Hannah always tells me I’m far more attractive without them.” he shrugged.
“Just like how Clark Kent is only slightly, by a molecule,” Jeanie pinched her fingers together, “less sexy than Superman with his glasses" 
"But his glasses are fake,” Cormac ignored the obvious joke.  “Right now I can just see shapes. Lovely, curved shapes! but only shapes." waving a hand in her general direction again.
Jeanie sat down on his bed without the sweater, to protect her now she just decided to go with her original plan. She crossed her long legs and leaned back with one hand back on the mattress. "Ok give us a look with the glasses on, Delaney.. Mcnamara?" This was frustrating.
"No, I reckon I'll have the kids call me Cormac" his hands on thin hips as he glanced upwards in thought
"Yes, erase that line of authority between yourself and 11-15 year olds. Don't underestimate them, Billy.  Or Cormac.  Or whatever.  You are probably the smartest professor Saint Fergus has ever had, but you’re handsome.  My girls will eat you alive" 
"I wouldn't go that far!" he was exasperated for some reason. 
"You have five PhDs and can’t even legally rent a car in America yet," Jeanie pointed out. 
Cormac waved her off dismissively.  “No!  Not the smart or genius part.  That is true,” he agreed without pretension. “It’s the handsome part,” he rolled his eyes in frustration.  
“Look McNamara, I can’t tell if you’re being humble or an asshole.  Your constant squinting and inflamed cheeks are ruining my perception.”
"Inflamed.." he touched his face  "It's rather distracting. You in your.  I may realize now that's your intent. I'm not really NEW to this, uh women coming on to me. It's just not always quite so forward?"
 "Had I known you were a doctor of  Quantum Mechanics, my approach would be a little less intense. 10 quid or not, you were the one kissing me last night." Jeanie got up off the bed "Ill go, but can I take your sweater with me? The students don't need to see this" 
"Oh, em do ya have to? You're already here, and I'm sure quite lovely to look at." 
"Cormac put your glasses on" 
"Really?" he was adorably confused "I would have to take them off if we-" 
"Have sex?" 
"I didn't mean to imply- I've never really-" he nervously put his glasses back on. Then started fiddling with his hands and chewing on one. 
"No fucking way!” Jeanie sat up quickly “But you're-" 
"Oh please don't say hot." 
"Well-travelled?"
"I am not completely virginal, I'll have ye know! I've done tings. SEXY tings. I've put my mouth and fingers in places on a woman. I'm just picky about where I’d put my penis."  
Jeanie’s amused now, she can’t help it. An eyebrow raised and a laugh ready to escape because he's pacing around and gesticulating wildly now. "Are.. are you getting more Irish?" 
"MAYBE I AM!" he shouted louder than he meant to, then unexpectedly pulled his shirt over his head.
Jeanie laughed at the absurdity now. "Cormac. Or Billy, whatever you are more comfortable with." She kneeled on the bed coming to the edge of it. "We don't have to do this. I'm not asking you to justify your virginity; that your business. It’s a patriarchal construct anyways to make us feel like we have to engage in sexual activity.  Then when we do, we’re trash.  It’s a no-win situation for anyone. I LIKE you. We have all school year to get to know one another better."
“I think Dr Delaney-McNamara, but Cormac works just fine for you” his tone all at once softer and deeper.  
There was a weird electricity in the air, which very well could have been the obscene amount of tech equipment in the small dorm room.  It could have also been that the atmosphere switched so fast from mortification to that moment your body knows something is going to happen.  Jeanie’s head began to swim when she realized the young man in front of her was unbuttoning his jeans to step out of them.  
“Bloody hell...” was all she could utter before he wrapped her up in his arms.  
Jeanie’s hand on Cormac’s hip and the other tangled in his hair as they found themselves in another kiss.  Mouths dancing together.  She sat back and pulled him down so that he was laying completely on top of her now.  His skin was hot almost like a sunburn.  Somewhere, in the back of her mind, Jeanie thought maybe a literal electricity had settled in him from using the portals so often all these years. Their tongues pushed back and forth, she realized his body began to feel similar to one of those static glass balls.  The kind you press your hand against and every single hair on your body raises?  It was strange and exhilarating and comical all at once. 
The thought was fleeting though because Cormac’s lips made its way down Jeanie’s neck.  The breath caught in her throat as he bit softly before trailing to her chest.  His large hand gripped the flesh of her hip, snaking it around to grab at her backside before settling it between her thighs.  The other struggled to unhook her bra while in their current position, his annoyance eliciting a giggle.  
Managing to roll them so that she was on top now, Jeanie deftly reached behind herself to finish the job.  Her breasts free, Cormac took one in his mouth.  His tongue was warm against her skin as he began to suck and lick at a nipple and the flesh around it.  Alternating between each hungrily, hand still lost in between her thighs.  A  finger began to trace the fabric of her panties.  
Audible gasp now, as Jeanie fumbled to reciprocate any way she could.  Kissing his forehead?  or rocking her hips against his hand, she began to float outside of her body. What was she doing?  Trying to feel wanted after all of this time?  Maybe give the other adults something to gossip about over the weekend.  Attractive new professor, the benefactor of Saint Fergus, fucking the boss his first week in.  Jeanie was his boss, but also his subordinate?  Because Cormac, with Brett and Hannah, owned her livelihood now.  
“What a fine mess we’re in, Delaney,” she managed amongst the new spate of kisses.  
Ignoring Jeanie’s frank statement, Cormac took to nibbling her throat again. Exchanging now for harder bites, just enough to let her know he had the upper hand. Fingers deftly pumping rhythmically with the pulsating of her body. He found that part of her with ease. The button Gordon never could without neon arrows. 
“I walked through an alien portal at sixteen and made one of the greatest scientific discoveries none of us can talk about,” That Irish lilt heavy in her ear. “A fine mess has been the last decade of my life, Ms. Turner.”   
There was almost a reckless abandon as Jeanie unexpectedly came. She cried out; it echoed off the dorm walls briefly before Cormac clamped a hand over her mouth. Their eyes both wide before they lost themselves in a fit of giggles. 
Lying beside each other now on the bed, Jeanie felt self-conscious while Cormac absently twirled a finger in her mass of red hair. She felt his green eyes staring as she traced the infinity symbol with the tip of a nail on his chest. Their breathing patterns quickly marched in time together.
“Not sure why I have a gut feeling your timidity was a fucking game,” Jeanie spoke without a hint of anger. More like curiosity. 
“Only just a little. I am far more capable of handling people in small doses.  There's a  certain anxiety hanging around the average university student. I finished undergrad in a year and graduate school in another. Never really fit in with most people my age. I thrived in a boarding college like this one. Never more than 15 children a class. Miss Murphy let me do as I please because I kept mostly to myself, even when she and the others were strangely codependent on my brain.”  
Cormac’s eyes still trained on Jeanie while he spoke. “I didn't mind. I DON'T mind. My tinkering and projects work bloody fantastic now!” he exclaimed with pride. Those long fingers combed through Jeanie's hair. His gaze became nostalgic, “I transferred my AI tech into the lab at Aberdeen.  There's my  personal version.  She's asleep right now,” he chuckled, gesturing towards the wall of monitors. 
Jeanie grimaced, “She?!” 
“Oh yes! SILVIA! I suppose she'll become LISA’s big sister.” 
“You invented a primitive android.” her response was incredulous.
“No no. SILVIA was a lie detector I installed artificial intelligence in to play ch-..” Cormac caught himself. For the hundredth time that evening, “I suppose. Yes,” he tapped a finger against the soft dimple in his cheek. 
“You suppose!” Jeanie reeled with laughter once more.  
Cormac’s face flushed pink, “You know what I did to you was just basic anatomy that’s easily taught by reading a damn book. I reckon you'd be interested in what else reading has taught me about a woman's body.”
And so it began. 
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taeswurld · 3 years
Text
Ace VII [8 fucking 30]
pairing: bakugo x fem!reader
genre: humor, romance
TW: violence, cursing, angst, fluff
Summary:
Shifting into My Hero was a total mistake, all those tiktoks you watched on a daily about shifting somehow convinced your brain to take part. Now the question is how to wake up, and most importantly, DON’T GET ATTACHED TO STUPID DRAWINGS!
A/N:
Yuhhhhh i made a new chapter. Reblog and like for clear skin hotties! 
{ACE MASTERLIST}
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Once you finished resting up, and once everyone cleaned up their appearance, you all decided to pay a visit to a certain superhero to see if they could help you figure out your little problem.
Well, not little problem. Big problem. Very big problem. 
“Hey Y/N,” Midoriya began as he walked besides you and Hiro. “Do you by any chance remember All Might? Or Mr. Aizawa?” 
You shook your head and looked down. “Sorry Midoriya, I don't really remember anything. I mean, the names sound familiar, but I can't exactly put faces to them. All my memories are blobby.” 
“What the fuck does blobby mean?” Bakugou asked as he stomped behind you. 
“You don’t know what blobby means, Bakugou?” You asked as a smirk covered your face. “Come on dude, catch up with the lingo.” 
“Shut up! No one know what you and your stupid vocabulary means half the time anyways. You always sprouting some stupid shit.” He scowled. 
“Yeah Bakugou,” Todoroki grinned. “Catch up with the lingo.” 
“Shut the fuck up, Teapot.” He growled. 
“Hey! Before you two get into another fight,” Midoriya intervened. “I suggest we get this problem fixed first.” He gave them a hard glare. 
“Whatever. The only reason why I’m here is because I don’t need Y/N’s dumbass making us look weak.” 
“Yeah, yeah,” You said rolling your eyes. 
Dear God, this guy was infuriating. 
“We get it dude. I’m weak and stupid and you’re the greatest Hero ever. Woopie.” You said pouring as much sarcasm as you could into your voice. 
“Hey, cut it out, you two.” Midoriya said. “We’re here. I overheard they were going to have a teacher meeting, so let’s just wait outside until they're done.” 
You turned away from Bakugou and turned to look at a huge door. You could hear slight muffles, but nothing too clear. As much as you wanted to eavesdrop, you couldn’t bring yourself to disrespect the people who are probably going to determine your future. 
The four of you decided to sit against the wall, with Midoriya to your right and Todoroki to your left. Hiro was being stiffly pet by Todoroki, while Bakugou sat in front of you. 
“So what was your life before you were morphed here?” Todoroki asked. 
“Nothing special,” you shrugged. “In my dimension, or whatever, there was this huge pandemic that pretty much took over the world. It's like, highly contagious, so we can't leave our house. I did school online and pretty much have stayed home. You can’t exactly come into contact with too many people.” 
“Sheesh, a pandemic?” Midoriya asked. 
“Yeah, it was pretty bad, a lot of people died. And it sucks. But I’ve stayed home a lot. Other than that nothing interesting’s been going on in my life. Literally go on tik tok everyday for like 3 hours everyday though.” You said with a small smile. 
“Tik what?” Bakugou asked with a furrow in his brows. 
“Nothing. Just a stupid app. But what happened here? Like I wanna get an idea of what part of the timeline I’m in.” You asked, looking around. 
“Villains attacked us at U.A.” 
“We fought villains at the train camp where Bakugou and you were targets.” 
“I beat Deku’s ass.” 
“Okay! Okay! Maybe I should’ve been more clear.” You said putting your hands up to get them to pause on the talking. 
“Wait, Midoriya, he beat your ass?” You said giving him a disappointing look. 
“Hey! I didn’t actually expect an actual fight! And just for your information, I for sure won that fight” He said giving Bakugou a slight glare, but still grinning from ear to ear. 
“Oh yeah? You wanna go again shitty nerd?” Bakugou smirked. 
“I’ll be sure to record when Midoriya beats your ass into the ground.” Todoroki chimed in.
“Shut up, Half-and-Half. I’ll beat your ass too.” Bakugou turned to look at him. 
“As much as I would love to see that, I don't need you idiots destroying anymore school property.” 
The four of you looked up to see a pale man with long hair. He had eyebags that could go on for miles. And he had a white scarf around his neck. Honestly, the man looked like he hasn’t showered or slept properly in years. 
“Mr. Aizawa!” The boys exclaimed. The three of them quickly stood up to give him a bow. 
“Hey.” You waved, clearly not getting the hint to stand up. Hiro, however, gave the man a friendly bark and also stood up. 
“I see you still have your rude American customs Y/N. How many times I gotta tell you to bow to your sensei.” He said giving you a playful glare. 
“You can take the girl out of America but can’t take the American out of the girl.” you said, giving him a smirk. 
He sighed, looking used to your snarky comments. “Well, get on with it. Why are you all here?” He asked looking towards Midoriya. 
“Well, we have a slight problem. You know how she had that accident last night?” Midoriya began. 
“She stupidly lost all her skill and any memories of how to work that idiot quirk of hers.” Bakugou chimed in. 
“What? Y/N, explain.” Aizawa said sternly. 
“Okay, well, I’m not actually from this dimension.” you stood up looking at the man nervously, hoping he doesn't kick you out for what you’re about to say. 
“I was transported here last night. Or was it this morning? Well anyways, I’m not actually from here and in my dimension we don’t have powers, or quirks, or whatever, and I don't even know what I’m doing here because I’m totally supposed to be in first period right now, or is it third? I don't know but I don’t know if this is a dream, because to be quite honest, I’m like totally freaking the shit out, and I have this super duper power, and I don't know how to control it, and my dog apparently has powers too but I don’t know what it is cause we haven’t had the chance to test it out, but I make people’s ears bleed, and-” 
“Alright, enough!” His eyes glared a bright read and his hair stood up. 
Immediately, you shut your mouth, hoping not to get him mad. 
“So you don’t remember how to control your quirk?” You shook your head no. 
He sighed looking much more stressed than when he first saw you. “Okay here’s what we’re going to do.” He began. 
“Everyday, for the next 2 months, you will be training with these three troublemakers in hope of getting your control back. I’ll talk to principal Nezu about this and see if there's a reason why another version you ended up here in this dimension. I will also be asking All Might to supervise you four just in case anything happens. We’ll monitor your progress weekly.
“I’m not sure if your memory affects your knowledge on what we’ve been learning so far, like Math. I’ll be sure to ask your teachers to test you on what you’ve been learning.” He concluded. 
“Oh come on! Tests? That blows.” You complained. 
“As for your dog,” He said giving you a glare to shut you up again, “We can go ahead and use Midoriya’s notebooks and the file we have to check him out. As far as I can remember, you two are a team, he helps you gain control, and at the same time provides backup.” 
“We can take a look at my notes later, okay?” Midoriya turns to give you a reassuring smile. 
“Okay, well for now, I suggest the three of you go back to the dorms, take a shower, and wait for the rest of your classmates to get back. I’m not sure if this is a one-day thing, but I want you to get to bed early, got it Y/N? And I’m talking Bakugou-bedtime early, got it?” He said. 
“Yeah, don't worry. What time do you sleep, blondie? 10? 10:30?” You turn to ask. 
“Try 8:30.” Todoroki said, rolling his eyes. 
“8 fucking 30 dude? Are you insane?” You yelled, widening your eyes at the new information. 
“If you don't like it princess, it’s not my problem. Teacher’s orders.” He said smirking. 
“Am I understood Y/N? Also no more use of your quirk until there’s a certified adult around.” He said. 
“Yeah, yeah. I got it.” you said dejected at the fact that you would be sleeping at the time you ate dinner. 
You turned to glare at Bakugou, silently promising to yourself that if you ever managed to get your control back, you were going to participate in that fight the boys were talking about earlier to beat the shit out of Bakugou’s ass. 
taglsit: lanaxians-2 soft-levi-girl-blog
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papirlife · 3 years
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So I used one of those prompt generators for my courier and Lettow and the results are something special
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I feel like this is DEFINITELY something Lettow might do, deep into a relationship, because that’s his main form of communication. It could also be a good way for him to mess with the courier.
Just think he gives them this thick file of documents and at the end of it is this long-winded letter in Polish or French marked confidential, and for their eyes only so the courier has to spend a whole night deciphering it and once they’re done and read it over they realize that it’s just sappy poetry.
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Having a weird, outdated hobby also seems like a viable headcanon, I mean we already know the prince is big on nostalgia so I can definitely see him doing something like that.
The victorians had a lot of strange hobbies, collecting curiosities being one of the most popular. They’d have ‘curiosity cabinets’ that had everything from gemstones, to shells and odd plants and rocks, to shrunken heads or bones. And we’ve already seen that Lettow is a huge collector so it might not be too much of a stretch to think he’s got a curiosity cabinet of his own stashed away in his office.
Diatom arranging might also be another option, Lettow really strikes me as a nature lover so I can see him doing this, as well as scrapbooking with plants and flowers, just something easy and relaxing, being a prince can be exhausting after all.
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Okay I’ll admit, this one strikes me as more of something Julian would do (he ABSOLUTELY owns a pair of cat ear headphones, you can’t lie to me) but at the same time, just picturing Lettow doing this for the courier’s amusement is hilarious to me, because you’ve got this giant ass elder vampire who can shapeshift and rip people in half, wearing a pair of fluffy white cat ears just to amuse and entertain his partner.
Like can you imagine the courier getting him to wear them for a whole night, so he’s just walking around with these things on his head while everyone at the Elysium is wondering if he’s finally lost it or if they’ve just gone mad. The best part would be if he didn’t even acknowledge the confusion and just went on like everything was normal.
If someone draws me Lettow wearing cat ears, I will love you forever.
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Okay this is also really fitting because Hale used to be a former uni student majoring in computer science before Caul snatched them up, but they’re still pretty tech savvy whereas Lettow...is not lol what with the whole ‘his mind doesn’t stretch pass the radar age’ thing.
So I can absolutely see him bugging the courier and just straight up using them as a pillow when they’re working on the computer but he wants attention.
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Okay another funny one which I can personally relate to because yes hello social anxiety my old friend. I prefer texting too and hate talking on the phone unless it’s with a friend or something, and even then It’s rare.
But Lettow being the old sap he is would absolutely just wanna talk over the phone all the time and he’d call Hale for something as mundane as asking if they started reading the book he lent them and they’d be like “you literally could have just texted me, why’d you call??”
Lettow is old and refuses to touch any semblance of modern technology is why.
I can also see him having Riga act like a courier pigeon, delivering Lettow’s personal letters to the courier when they’re away on a job, and they’re these heavily embossed and beautifully written things that make you think they belong in a museum because Lettow is just THAT extra, and they’re sometimes written in French or Polish so that it’s kinda like a puzzle for Hale to figure out when/or if they’re bored.
I’d also like to think that Lettow would teach a romanced courier French and Polish if they asked him too. We love wholesome and educational bonding activities in this house thank you very much.
I’d also like to think that he never really expects them to write him back, but then Riga comes to him with a letter and it’s from Hale, and they’ve put in all the effort he usually goes through (even if it’s pretty normal for him at this point) going as far as to actually handwrite the letter in neat cursive and even seal it with wax and this pretty stamp. He’s absolutely over the moon about it and can’t help but smile for the rest of the night.
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Okay this is funny in a Lettow/Courier relationship but utterly hilarious in a Lettow/Aila situation because you can’t tell me that it hasn’t happened at some point with either of them what with Lettow constantly going on about how old he is, or about how his bones are creaking or whatever. With Aila, you’d just have her staring him dead in the eye and thinking I am 800 years old and this fucker has the audacity to start having a crisis over a single grey hair???The fuck?
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