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sweetkingdomstarlight-blog · 3 years

Text

truth hurts

Pairings - Ransom Drysdale x Reader

Words - 1704

Warnings - oral sex (m receiving), shitty families

A/N - My first ever Ransom fic, massive thanks to @thicccsimp and @mollygetssherlockcoffee for reading this over, helping me fix a few things and hyping me up enough to post! This is for @eurynome827 2K Challenge, well done on your milestone my love, it won’t be long until you’re at 3K I'm sure. Thanks as always to @buckyownsmylife for helping me with the idea too! As always this is not for minors so if you’re under 18 then please shoo.

I was given the lyrics to a Six The Musical song - You can build me up, you can tear me down You can try but I'm unbreakable You can do your best, but I'll stand the test You'll find that I'm unshakeable

Tagging because I think they might like this - @bestofbucky @mashep23

You handed your father the brown paper lunch bag, the one he had left sitting forgotten on the counter this morning. Quickly planting a kiss on his cheek, you turn and make your way into the grand house, leaving him to continue tending to the rose bushes.

You heard them before you saw them, arguing about whatever one of them undoubtedly saw on Fox News that morning. Grabbing a glass of red wine before you sit in the corner of the room and watch them tear into one another, you smirk at the petty insults they often hurled at each other when they didn’t have an actual counter argument.

Sipping on the wine you check your phone for the third time in five minutes, he was meant to be here before you and you need him to be the buffer between you and his family. They weren't your biggest fans and you quite enjoyed riling them up, waiting to see who'd snap at you first. You and Ransom often wagered about who would be the first to burst out into a screaming fit.

They all had such short fuses, so all you had to do was mention something ‘snowflakes’ were concerned with and they all absolutely lose it, at this point you considered it your own private theatre. Normally you like to keep a distance since they weren’t shy in reminding Ransom why you weren’t the right match for him, today however you were needed.

The family lawyer has requested that both you and your father be present for Harlan’s will reading. Both you and Ransom thought he would be getting something substantial from his grandfather and the family wouldn’t be happy, so he would need you and your father there for support.

You sit for twenty more minutes, laughing at the nonsensical crap Joni was pushing as usual, something about jade eggs and where Gwyneth Paltrow decided they should be inserted this week. You hear the front door close and jump up as he finally arrives, running and jumping into his arms, wrapping your legs around his waist, another fun way to annoy his family, kissing him deeply and moaning as he gripped you. Whispering into his ear “where the fuck have you been? I’ve had to annoy them all on my own today” he smirks and kisses the tip of your nose before putting you back down and walking hand in hand in the room greeting his family.

It was fair to say he was the black sheep of the family, he hadn’t accepted handouts as easily as the rest of them since the two of you got together, deciding instead to try and make it on his own. He moved into your apartment and gave up the house his grandad was paying for, living off his savings ever since. He had been writing his own novel for the last six months and he was getting so close to finishing, he didn’t want to tell the family and have them shit all over his idea, especially Walt who thought he was the literary one now that Harlan had passed.

You grab two glasses of whiskey and sit in Ransom's lap, kissing his cheek and handing him one of the tumblers. Asking him what kept him so long he tells you he thinks he’s finished and wanted to re-read some of it before he told you. Pride flashes over your face at how thrilled he is and you both do a mini squeal at his news. “I can think of the perfect way to celebrate” you whisper in his ear before licking the shell and telling him to come and find you in a few minutes.

You hear him looking for you a few minutes later and pull him into the cloakroom, kissing him urgently and grabbing his ass “you want to have some fun?” you say kissing down his neck and biting his shoulder. He breathes out a ‘yes’ as you get on your knees, pulling his hardening cock out and licking the tip while he leans against the wall behind you.

“We don’t have time for teasing kitten” he says gripping your hair and pushing deep into your mouth, you lightly gag on his length and hollow your cheeks, sucking and licking at what you can. It doesn’t take long for him to spill down your throat, you smile up at him licking your lips and place a gentle kiss on the tip before tucking him away. He gently pushes you against the wall, gripping your hips and whispering what he plans to do to you later when you get home.

You’re interrupted by a sharp knock on the door and someone clearing their throat, straightening yourselves out you open the door and see his father, Richard, staring down at you both. “Can I help you, Dickie” you ask, smirking at the frustrated expression on his face. He tells you there’s 20 minutes until the reading and the family wanted to discuss what they were expecting, you tell Ransom you’re going to see your father out back and blow him a kiss, sneaking away before anyone can moan at you.

You help out in the greenhouse with some of the planters he’s prepping, talking to him about work and the trip you’re planning with Ransom to New York, when you both hear it, screaming and shouting, your father goes to the house with you, always ready to protect you from those vile people.

You walk in together and Linda snarls at you but tries to hide it as a grin, instinctively you stand next to Ransom ready to jump in and defend him, your father next to you throws an arm around you and places his hand on Ransom’s shoulder in support. Ransom smiles at you both and leans down whispering in your ear “down girl” when he sees how tense you are “they aren’t worth it, I promise you” he winks at your father and turns back to them all.

They were arguing about you, apparently you weren’t worthy of a Drysdale, an argument you’ve overheard on more than one occasion, usually he shuts them down but they don’t listen and just wait until you aren’t around before picking at him again. Linda realising that her son isn’t listening decides to take a more tactful approach “look we just want what's best for you darling, we’re obviously about to come into a lot of money today and you don’t want to be tied to her, she only wants what we have”.

Your father clears his throat in warning, he hasn’t ever raised his voice to these people out of respect for Harlan but now that he’s gone and he will most likely be sacked once they inherit the home he sees no reason to stop. Ransom looks to him and pleads with him not to do this right now and your father nods his head in understanding, before pulling you into a hug and whispering in your ear that they are the problem and not Ransom, he's a good man and he always looks after you. You nod your head and turn to face Linda, about ready to give her a little reality check when the family lawyer requests you all join him in the library, your father is about to walk away when he is asked to stay and join the family also.

You take a seat next to your father, Ransom standing behind you both waiting. Both you and Ransom suspected Harlan would look after him, maybe give him some sort of payout on publication of his first novel, he was always so supportive of the idea that he could write a book too. He’d already helped you pay for college, something the rest of the family could never find out about. Harlan was always so kind to his loyal employees and your father had worked for him for more than twenty years. He was offered help with setting up his own business or even help paying his bills but your father refused, instead requesting that your college be paid for. You weren’t allowed to refuse, you were just asked that you find something that you were passionate about.

The lawyer started talking and everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath collectively, he took care of the smaller items first, most of it going to staff and friends. Then came the bigger stuff, half of his fortune was to be divided between his children equally. The family didn’t even let the lawyer finish what he was saying before they were jumping up and demanding to see the paperwork, appalled that they would only be getting half. He sat calmly and asked them to listen until he was finished, next on the list the other half of his fortune would go to you and his home would go to your father.

You stared at each other completely dumbfounded, the shouts and accusations of the family around you buzz like static in your ears. Ransom stood at full height, acting as a blockade between his family and yours as you both absorbed the news. The lawyer handed out copies of the will for their records and asked that you make appointments to see him and have the necessary arrangements tied up properly. He left swiftly after, obviously recognising that this was about to get ugly.

Ransom swept you up in an embrace telling you to ignore the family and focus on him, your father in the meantime sat reading over what he had been given, speechless for the first time in his life about what had just happened. The family were practically feral, screaming abuse and name calling at the two of you. Ransom stood at full height and told them all to “eat shit” one by one calling them out and advising them to speak to a lawyer, if they could afford one, he laughs at his own joke before pulling you both into a big hug and suggesting you all go out for drinks. “You’re paying” he winks at you and grabs your hand leading you past the angry mob waiting at the door for you.

#eury2kchallenge #ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale x you

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hotchscvm · 3 years

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love me, hate me - part two

Warnings: explicit sexual content, swearing

Word count: 3.3k

Summary: Christmas comes around and Ransom wants you more than ever.

part one

"You're telling me you actually want to date this guy? The one who can't even make you cum?" you asked, licking the remaining frosting from your finger. You placed the messy bowl in the sink, watching your best friend trying—and failing—to get the egg shells out of the mixture.

Meg gave up, dumping the brownie batter down the sink with the water running, fed up with the shells. "Yeah, but sex isn't everything, you know. I don't know—it's just this guy isn't like my exes. He genuinely cares about my feelings, and doesn't control me. Besides, he made me cum a few times. He's nice."

With Mariah Carey's Christmas music playing in the background, the miniature Christmas tree on the table, and the snow falling, the Thrombey household felt festive. Although, the people bundled up and arguing in the next room—not so much. Yet, neither of you cared while you continued to work, helping Martha out, on the desserts. It wasn't going as well as planned, but you took it as a positive considering you hadn't started a fire. Yet.

"Ah, yes, nice. Can't relate. I'm currently attracted to assholes who have anger issues." you commented, passing Meg the flour once again. Your creation was in the oven, and all you hoped was that no one got food poisoning because of it. Even you couldn't live with the guilt of Ransom, or his touchy father, throwing up Christmas morning.

"Currently?" Meg asked, raising an eyebrow, getting eggs out of the fridge for the hundredth time. She glanced at the direction of the door, the sound of it opening drawing both of your attention. "I'm pretty sure your daddy issues didn't just happen recently. Speaking of which, you may be the main reason Ransom decided to come back for Christmas instead chasing a model around."

You rolled your eyes, sitting back in your chair while contemplating whether or not it's too late to ditch. While Ransom was hot, his spoiled attitude wasn't worth tolerating for a quick fuck. With sarcasm dripping, you sighed. "Oh, how wonderful. 'Cause, that's exactly what I need right now."

Meg chuckled, focusing on the task at hand, trying not get shells in the mixture again. She had held off on mixing the dry stuff, much to your dismay, but to her it made sense to get the hard part out of the way so it wouldn't fuck everything up. Your best friend had just finished cracking her last egg when Harlan walked into the kitchen, Ransom trailing a few feet behind him. The playboy's eyes immediately landed on you, yet you didn't meet his, too preoccupied with the phone in your hands.

Harlan's slight frown lifted into a smile, surveying how messy the kitchen had gotten. "My, my, I wasn't aware a cake had exploded in my kitchen."

Looking up, you grinned at the old man, the smile reaching your eyes until you saw who was behind him. Ignoring Ransom, you giggled at Harlan's remark. "You call it a mess, we call it baking."

"As long as you ladies are having fun." Harlan replied, patting your shoulder before heading off towards his office, too tired to deal with his dysfunctional family at the moment.

Ransom lingered, walking up to you, a smirk impended on his face. Yet, you refocused you're attention back on your phone while Meg left the room, her apron still attached to her. You didn't question her sudden disappearance, knowing she was just as annoyed at Ransom's presence. The man in question peeked over you shoulder to see your screen showing off another man's dick, the words right below it explicit.

His jaw clenched in jealousy. Much to his chagrin, the man's dick was just as big as his own. But, he kept the icy exterior up. "Would it be offensive to ask whether or not your baking will make me sick this evening?"

You scoffed without looking up, tapping out of the dick pic your previous hook up had sent. "Since when do you care if you're offensive or not? Who are you, and what have you done to Ransom Drysdale?"

Ransom shrugged, leaning against the kitchen island while facing your annoyed expression. His smug behavior got under your skin, and the bastard was well aware. "Maybe all this Christmas spirit got into me. Or maybe I'm trying to be nice."

You raised an eyebrow, getting off your chair, rushing to the window, pretending to be looking for something. After a few seconds, Ransom's curiosity got the best of him and he joined you, looking for anything unusual outside. The snow-covered land showed nothing out of the ordinary, furthering Ransom's confusion.

"What are you looking at? I can't see anything." he said, squinting at the general direction you had look at.

Shrugging, you moved back to your seat, propping your elbows on the back of the chair, allowing a smug smirk lift your lips. "I thought pigs were flying. Ransom Drysdale isn't capable of being nice, yet alone say the word. I'm shocked hell hadn't freeze over. Yet."

The playboy rolled his eyes, crossing his arms as he took your body in, wrapped in his favorite color, the dress hugging your curves. "What's a guy have to do to be taken seriously with you? You and I both know I can give you everything you want, and more."

"Are you trying to buy me right now?" you asked, half teasing, half annoyed. Ransom could not take a hint, and you hated the fact that he didn't back off despite the sarcasm and insults you threw his way.

"I'm trying to be nice but you're making it really hard." Ransom answered, his cockiness wearing off. He was growing frustrated the more you looked at him like he was a piece of trash. All you wanted him to be was nice, now that he was trying to be, you wouldn't believe his intentions, despite wanting to prove it to you.

Pursing your lips, you tapped your finger against the table, the acrylic nail making a clicking noise. "You wanna prove it? Fine. You've got til midnight tonight. If you're unable to change my mind, you have to buy me my spring break vacation, all the fees and expenses."

"And if I do change your mind..." Ransom smirked, brushing a stray hair behind your ear, earning a half-hearted glare. "... you have to go on a date with me."

Ransom nearly burst out laughing from your shocked expression, the genuine look of surprised slapped on your face with the words. You shut your hanging jaw, still not processing what he was saying. "Excuse me?"

"You have to go on a date with me if I convince you that I'm willing to change my, and I quote, 'bratty and douchebag ways.' An actual date where we sit down, eat dinner, talk about our feelings, and get drunk. Whatever happens, happens." Ransom purred, placing a finger on your bottom lip. You slapped his hand away, and his smirked grew. "Are you going to back out of this already, princess?"

It was your stubborn side that made agree, pressing your lips into a thin line, you grabbed Ransom's hand, shaking it. He raised an eyebrow while you sighed. "You're on. Hope you have enough money to pay for a lengthy trip. I plan on drinking every bottle of wine in Italy."

Despite your baking debacle, you left the kitchen, leaving Meg's monstrous creation on the counter along with Ransom. You went into the living room, trying to find the girl in question when you happened to stumble upon Richard. He barely got to say a word before you turned around, and left the pervert behind. It was always a puzzle how Ransom turned out so hot with Richard and Linda as parents.

Climbing the stairs, you heard the family arguing growing quieter with each step. The second floor was almost a safe haven considering Harlan didn't let anyone raise their voice in the upper level, making it the only quiet place in the house, safe from any Thrombey fights. It was a wonder how the family hadn't murdered each other yet; it was only a matter of time.

Unable to find Meg in your shared room, you sighed, patting your body to find your phone only to realize you left it in the kitchen. With Ransom.

"Looking for this?" Ransom held out your phone, coming up behind you. His usual smirk was gone, a small, genuine smile in its place. It made him look less arrogant.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

You took your phone back, half expecting him to take it back just as you wrapped your fingers around it. But he didn't. You realized he was pulling out all the stops, all the little things that you found annoying was gone. He was acting. Eyes narrowing, you unlocked your phone, studying him. "Thanks. I think."

"Meg is helping the Brazilian maid." Ransom answered your silent question. Your thumb hovered her contact, going back to the home screen. Your eyebrows had risen by his mis-categorization of Martha's race and employment. "Pretty sure they went to the grocery store or something."

"Oh, okay." you replied lamely, putting your phone in your back pocket, the tight jeans making it nearly impossible. Opening the door to your room, you stepped in, not giving Ransom another look. But he followed inside, making you turn around. "Do you need something?"

Ransom stuffed his hands in his pockets, the cream-colored sweater shifting with the gesture. "You didn't exactly give me much time to prove myself. And looking around, we're all alone. I can't think of a better time."

As much as you hated to admit it, he had a point. The bet was a bit unfair considering how stubborn you were, and the amount of time he had to convince you. But it was a bit unsettling seeing Ransom try so hard, let alone being nice. You nodded, agreeing. "Fine, but can I change first? I'd rather not be covered in flour while you try to seduce me."

"You and I both know I wouldn't seduce you before dinner. There's no way in hell I'd treat you like the others." he mumbled to himself, but you heard it. Clearing his throat, he stepped out of the room. "Yeah, I'll be outside. Waiting. Take your time."

As soon as the door closed, you looked around the room to check if you were being pranked, expecting Ashton Kutcher to burst out of the closet along with a bunch of cameramen. After a few seconds, you came to the conclusion that Supernatural was in this universe, deciding "Ransom" was a shapeshifter or a demon possessed him. It was the only reasonable explanation.

Reaching for the hem of your top, pulling it off in one swift move, dropping it on the bed. Your jeans piling on top, allowing your legs to breathe. Despite Joni's hippie side, she had let Meg sneak in a few joints, the smell becoming stronger as you neared both your suitcases. You didn't think Harlan would be too please to have weed in his house, no matter how lenient he is.

You took your time, a little baffled by what to wear. Ransom hadn't exactly given you an agenda on his plans, leaving you to grab a clean pair of black jeans, and a classy, yet simple, red top. You looked decent enough to fit in a nice restaurant, but casual in case Ransom decided he wanted McDonald's, and most importantly: warm. If he wanted to take you to the North Pole, then he'd have to give you his cozy-looking sweater.

You opened the door, the sight of Ransom rocking on his heels greeting you. His back was to you, his hands inside his pockets as he looked out the window, frost crawling along the edges. It genuinely concerned you how much this man was acting; if you didn't know better, you'd think it was real.

Clearing your throat, you watched him jump in surprise, quickly turning to you. Raising an eyebrow, you tucked your phone in your pocket, meeting his warm, blue eyes. "I'm ready."

"Okay." said Ransom, motioning for you to follow him. You walked down the stairs without a word, the air becoming thick as you walked behind him. The sweater did little to no good disguising his broad shoulders, the muscles somehow still visible under the clothing.

As soon as you reached the bottom, you glanced around, the Thrombey fighting becoming louder with each second. It wouldn't be long before one of them stormed out of the room, muttering a curse under their breath. You'd seen all of them do it at least once. You crossed your arms, wary of whatever Ransom was planning. "Be honest, you're not just going to drive me off to the middle of the woods and murder me, are you?"

Ransom chuckled, giving you a wink as he held his hand out. Without hesitation, you took it. "If I was planning to murder you, I wouldn't do it in the woods. If you're going to die, it's going to be epic."

"Oh, well, that makes me feel better." you sneered sarcastically, instantly rolling your eyes. In the back of your mind, you pondered how long it would take for your eyes to get stuck in your brain with the amount of times you rolled them at Ransom.

He led you towards the door, smirking. "You ready?"

"No. Let's go."

—

"Fuck, baby."

He spent a few moments just staring at your spread pussy, amazed and aching for you more than he ever ached for anything.

"Don't you know why I want you to see it, Ransom?"

Ransom just shook his head without taking his eyes off the your pneumatic body.

"Because it's yours," you sighed. "All yours, baby. You're the one I've been keeping it nice and fresh for."

"Fuck," he muttered.

He kept staring at you, waiting for you to rub you pussy again, but you didn't. You just kept holding it spread.

"Don't you wanna taste me, Ransom?" you purred, barely above a whisper. "C'mon, baby, please. I want you to lick it so bad. I love you so much and I want to give you everything that belongs to you."

The playboy was all but paralyzed by your words. He finally dragged his eyes off your open pussy and looked at your face. You were staring back at him with a glazed look in your eyes. His solid cock was pulsing hard in the tight grip of his fist. No girl had ever looked at him the way you were at that very moment, yet at the same time, he knew you were playing with the hottest kind of fire there was.

"Sweetheart, you know this wasn't the deal." he whispered, distracted.

You smirked. "But you still won."

He finished the thought by leaning down and sliding his tongue up and over your generously offered pussy. You pulled in a sharp gasp when Ransom's tongue lit up your heavily tingling pussy. Your hips rolled instantly in response, your gasps turning to moans while Ransom eagerly slathered his tongue all around your creamily delicious slit. He soon focused his attention on your clit and slipped a finger up inside your hole at the same time.

The man's finger curled and twisted inside you, searching for you g spot while he suckled and lapped at your fully swollen clit. You could barely form words as you gasped and moaned, your luscious body now writhing with desire.

Your pussy oozed heavily the more he licked and fingered you. Your cream was sweet, tangy and intensely intoxicating. Ransom probed at your hole with his finger and the tip of his tongue at the same time, but he soon drew his soaking wet finger out of your hole and wedged it between your ass cheeks, searching for your puckered rimhole.

You gasped deeply and lifted your legs up higher, giving Ransom better access to your asshole. He massaged your tight bud with his honey-coated finger and made deep, hungry love to your pussy with his mouth.

"God god god god, Ransom!" you cried, your hips rolling harder and harder against the man's mouth and finger.

Your body went tense for a few moments and then relaxed. Ransom backed off and watched you languish after your orgasm, pausing briefly to catch your breath. Then you shifted your body and took the hem of your outfit into your hands and peeled it off over your head. Ransom pulled off his T shirt and slid over on top of your luscious body, grinding his rock-hard cock against your pussy as he lowered himself to kiss you.

You whimpered while Ransom's chest mashed down against your heavy, naked tits. They felt amazing against his body, and he was beyond reason when the your mouth opened and set your tongue into motion against his.

Ransom had never kissed any girl so hard or hungrily in his life. Nor had any kissed him back the way you had. At the same time, you were grinding your slick, wet pussy against his cock as hard as he was grinding against you. Then he squeezed his hands in between them and grasped at your tits, kneading them eagerly with his strong hands.

He released your mouth and said," Baby girl, reach down there and put my cock inside you for me. I need that pussy bad, but I can't bring myself to let go of these fantastic tits now that I finally have my hands on them."

You giggled happily and kissed him again while you worked your hands down between your naked bodies. Finally, you got one hand on your pussy and spreading yourself open while you wrapped the other around Ransom's thick cock.

"Oh geezus, fuck, Ransom, you're so fucking hard," you cooed. "Oh god fuck me deep."

You tucked Ransom's cock head into your wet maw and he began grinding his shaft deeper into your sheath. Your pussy felt so tight and creamy, and you both groaned as his rock-hard flesh gradually filled your body. You looked at each other in disbelief, even though nothing had ever felt more right or natural.

Ransom growled as he began to pump his cock in and out of your spectacular body with long strokes. His grip on your tits went tighter and he lowered his head to suck and lick on your swollen nipples.

You whimpered with pleasure, wrapping your legs around his hips and grinding your pussy hard against his thrusting cock. It wasn't long before he was straining to hold on and keep fucking you deep and hard. You didn't make it any easier because of the way you were moaning and your cunt squeezed his pounding cock every time you came.

Finally, Ransom raised himself up on his hands while he pumped your succulent pussy hole as hard and fast as he could, watching your pretty face twist with pleasure while your tits heaved with the force of his lunging body.

"Gimme your cum, baby. I want it in me...fuck!"

With a final, frenzied volley of full body thrusts, Ransom's pulsing cock exploded in your pussy, filling you with a hot flow of jetting spunk.

After, they spent a long time kissing while Ransom caressed the your beautiful tits. He kept his cock buried inside you until his flesh finally started to relax.

You fell asleep in each other's arms, and Ransom knew he had the girl he always needed right there with him. He had been right, all the sarcastic comments and stupid fights had been worth it.

In the morning, Ransom awoke from a haze of dreams to look down and find you lying between his legs with your lips sliding up and down his swollen cock. When you realized he was awake and watching you, you released his big cock from your mouth, giving his shaft a long lick before greeting him.

"Merry Christmas, Ransom."

#chris evans #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans x reader #chris evans smut #reader insert #ransom drysdale smut #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale #knives out #chris evans imagines #ransom drysdale imagine

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love-and-monsters · 3 years

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Sauriosapien

M sairosapien X F human, 6,429 words.

This story does not have a reader-insert because I wanted to focus a little bit more on some characters that I came up with. This involves an established relationship, some fluff, and four tiny velociraptors. Enjoy!

The sun was blazing hot in the sky, so much so that it was uncomfortably warm even in the shade. A heavy mugginess hung in the air, so much so that Grace felt like she was inhaling through a damp rag. Sweat soaked through her loose ranger clothes. Even with her sleeves and pant legs rolled up, she was still overly warm. Fortunately, the trees were closely clustered enough that the sun only peeped through in tiny patches, dappling a few small areas of the ground.

Despite being so hot that she barely wanted to move, her tiny pack of velociraptors was running around like their tails were on fire. Rococo was perched in one of the trees, chattering furiously at Boho, who had her head stuck under the roots of one of the larger trees. Minimalism was hunched behind Grace’s legs while Maximalism oscillated between chattering at her and trying to snatch one of the tiny amphibians crawling through the damp undergrowth.

“C’mon babies!” Grace called, her voice higher pitched. “We got hunting to do!” She lifted her clicker and pressed the button a few times.

Rococo hopped out of the tree and skidded to a stop in front of Grace. Boho was right behind her. Maximalism fell into line next, chittering eagerly until Minimalism crept up next to him. Grace cooed to them. “Good, good! Okay, here. Sniff this.”

She crouched until she was on their level and held out a chunk of eggshells. Rococo’s nose was there in a second, snuffling intently. The other three were less enthusiastic, but Grace made sure they all got a good sniff before she stood back up. “Okay, babies! Go hunting!”

She clicked the pointer three times in rapid succession. Rococo placed her nose to the ground. A moment later, she gave a triumphant croak and took off into the trees. Boho and Maximalism fanned out on either side of her, with Minimalism bringing up the rear.

Grace ran after them. Despite only being the size of cats, the raptors were fast. Only the rustling in the undergrowth ahead of her let her know where her pack was. They called back and forth, little piping noises that blended with the usual cacophony of the forest.

Running was easy for Grace. Her body settled into an easy rhythm, burning with exertion, but not agonizingly so. She kept up a steady pace, keeping her raptors just in her sight. They worked best when she wasn’t crowding them.

After about fifteen minutes, Boho sent up a hooting signal. The rest of the raptors peeled off, following her lead. Grace followed them, slowing her pace as she approached so she didn’t trample over anything important.

Her raptors were chittering excitedly when she came upon them. Between the four of them, barely concealed in the branches, there was a nest of off-white eggs. Grace crouched next to it, voice hushed. “Okay, come back, babies. Yes, yes, good job.” Treats were passed out to the whole team, with a special helping going to Boho. She chittered and preened, giving the rest of the raptors superior looks. Grace laughed. Their little competitions inspired them to work harder, and Boho and Rococo had a particular rivalry.

Treats dished out, Grace reached into one of her back pockets and pulled out a notebook. She jotted down her rough coordinates, the size of the nest, and the number of eggs. Donning gloves, she prodded and poked at the eggs, rotating them and checking for unusual shell weakness, cracks, or any other signs of disease. Satisfied, she returned the eggs to the nest and carefully covered them once more. She walked over to one of the nearby trees and scored the bark before applying a sandy substance made from a mixture of crushed insects. The bitter, acrid smell was sharp enough to make Grace shy away, but it wouldn’t bother the mother of the nest and it would let her raptor pack know they had already visited that area.

The nearby undergrowth rustled. Grace drew up stiff, her raptors circling around her. Rococo sniffed at the air, head twitching back and forth. Then she dropped out of her alert posture and chirped reassuringly to the others. The rest of the raptors relaxed and Grace followed their lead. They would only be this relaxed around someone they knew. So, the person coming through the trees must be-

A flash of green and pink darted out from between the trees and skidded to a stop. He stood just as upright as a human, but he balanced on large, bird-like talons. His tail swung behind him, acting as a counterbalance. A massive hot pink crest of feathers covered the last quarter of his tail and crowned his head. Fangs glinted as his mouth stretched into a smile.

“Gracie.” There was a slight rasp in his voice, a noise that traced deliciously through Grace’s head and sent tingles along the back of her neck. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Howdy,” Grace said, tilting her hat back. “You could have just waited for me to head back to town. I’m kind of working right now.” No sooner had the words left her mouth than Rococo charged their visitor. The rest of the pack followed her, working their small, feathered wings to propel their jumps so they could attach themselves to his chest. He staggered under the unexpected weight and sank to the ground, lifting his tail awkwardly to prevent his crest from getting dirtied.

“Seems like these guys want a break,” he said. Minimalism chittered wildly from her position on his lap while Boho buried her face into his head crest. Rococo, perched on his shoulder, made an attempt to corral her subordinates that was cut off when Maximalism started snapping at her tail feathers.

“Seems more like someone’s being a distraction,” Grace said. She gave a sharp whistle. Rococo, Maximalism, and Minimalism snapped to attention and formed their line in front of her. Boho kept her face pressed into his crest until Rococo rounded back and drove her into position.

He carefully got back to his feet, brushing dirt off his clothes. “I’m surprised you’re working,” he said. There was something deliberately airy and casual in his voice. Too casual. Grace paused, taking her attention off her raptors.

“Why are you surprised?” she asked carefully. She tried to rack her brain. Was she forgetting something?

“Oh,” he sighed, scanning the trees around him. “It’s nothing major. Only that you told me last week you were going to take a day off so we could actually spend some time together.”

Ah. Shit. Grace felt her face go hot with shame. Oops. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to- I totally forgot what day it was!” She considered blaming it on her unfamiliarity with the Sauriosapien calendar, but that wouldn’t have been true- even with the standard human calendar, she was always mixing up dates and forgetting things.

He frowned. His crest was pulled tight against his head, feathers tucked in to display his irritation. That was far worse than the aggressive puff he showed off when he was really and truly pissed; this was more akin to someone saying ‘I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.’

“Look, I really am sorry. Uh, hold on. Let me take these guys back home and get a little washed up, and maybe change into some nicer clothes and I’ll be right there.”

He shook his head. “Don’t bother. You’re already out here and in the middle of work, and these guys are already all wound up.” He gestured to Boho, who was practically twitching with the effort of staying still and in line. “I was just coming to make sure nothing happened to you.”

Grace felt her shoulders droop. “Oh. Thanks for that.” Her eyes were stinging slightly with humiliation and anger at herself. “I’m sorry you came out all this way. Maybe we can go out tomorrow?”

He shook his head. “I took off work today.” Irritation was thick in his voice again. Grace slumped her shoulders. He worked in a particularly popular boutique and getting specific days off was always difficult for him.

“Are you sure you don’t just want me to go home? I can always do this tomorrow. I’ll just let everyone out in the yard and they’ll run themselves out,” she said.

He gave a snort, his lips twitching into a half-smile. “You remember what happened the last time they were in the yard for more than an hour without supervision.”

Grace grimaced. As many times as she reinforced the fence and made it taller, the raptors found a new way to get out. The last time, Rococo and Boho had managed to dig underneath until the chicken wire had come loose and had squirmed free. Everyone but a very lonely Minimalism had been gone by the time Grace made it back, and she’d spent much of the night tramping through the forest looking for them. “Then they can go in the coop. They’ll destroy it, but I can clean it up later.”

“That’s not fair to them,” he said, and despite the situation, Grace felt her heart surge with affection. Even pissed off, even if it would benefit him not to, he cared for her raptors. “You’ve already wound them up for work. Just let them continue.”

“Are you really sure?” Grace asked. He waved a hand at her dismissively.

“I’m sure.” He gave her a smile, though it was clearly tense and tinged with sadness. “I know you have a lot of difficulty with remembering dates and things that aren’t on your schedule, but… well, I really would like to spend time with you more often than a couple evening every week. And it’s frustrating when you don’t remember these kinds of things.”

“I know. I’m really sorry. It’s not that it’s not important to me. It is! It’s just… if things aren’t part of my schedule and I don’t have reminders, then I tend to forget them.” She pulled her hat off and ran her fingers through her hair. “You know I missed my own birthday a couple years ago?”

He looked at her a little blankly. “Er… that’s important?”

Right, egg-laying people didn’t think about birthdays the same way. “Uh. It’s like forgetting your hatching day, I guess, but birthdays have more cultural significance to us.” He nodded slowly, though he didn’t seem to understand. “Days just kind of all blur together for me. Time is a flat circle and a total scam and I don’t know dates very well and I’m sorry. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

He stared, but his lips were quirking like he was trying to hold back a smile. “We’ll have to work on this in the future. I just came out to make sure that you were all right.” He turned, waving a four-fingered hand over his shoulder. “I’ll see you when you’re home from work.”

“Velly, wait!” He paused, looking over his shoulder. Grace swept her had back up onto her head and offered him an apologetic smile. “I, uh. I feel bad that you came all the way out here for nothing. Why don’t you stay a little bit?”

Vel paused. “You’re working.”

“I know. But I mean, the pack knows you pretty well. You probably won’t be much of a distraction for them.”

He tried to give her a serious look, but his lips were twitching again. “I’m pretty sure that you’re not supposed to be on a date during the work day either.”

“No one will find out. We’re in the middle of the park. You just need to head back before I go to the ranger’s center. And it’s not like you didn’t already sneak in.”

He laughed. “Well. Yes. That’s true.” His crest fluffed up, his tail swinging back and forth. “Are you going to have to take me in?”

“Hey, if you give me any trouble, I might have to cuff you,” Grace said with a grin. She didn’t miss the little shiver that moved through Vel’s crest. “Maybe I’ll just restrain you and leave you in the woods for anyone to find…”

Rococo, apparently irritated at being ignored, took that moment to nip at Grace’s boot.

“Okay, okay! Come on, let go.” She shook her boot and the raptor detached. Rococo trotted back to the others, but Grace could tell her patience wasn’t going to hold for much longer. “Like I was saying,” she continued, turning back to Vel, “I can’t trust you to leave on your own, so I guess you’re going to just have to come with me. No trying to escape or anything.”

Vel grinned. “No, ma’am.”

Grace turned back to her raptors and clicked her clicker. They all skittered back into formation, looking up at her expectantly. “All right. We found one. Go get another one!” She clicked the clicker rapidly and the raptors took a moment to snuffle at the ground before plunging into the trees. Grace took off after them, Vel following her.

The raptors pulled ahead again, stunningly fast for such little animals. Grace followed at a small distance, careful not to go at much more than a jog. She was fast, for a human, but she couldn’t maintain the speed for very long. As long as she could trace their path through the trees and hear their calls back and forth, she could track them.

The bigger concern was Vel. He was already starting to lag, even after only a minute or so of running. He was not as well-trained as Grace, nor as fit, and no sauriosapien was as good of an endurance runner as a human. He might be able to outrun her in a sprint, but the further they went, the less likely that was.

Vel looked to be on the verge of collapse by the time the raptors called out again and came to a halt at another next. Grace, slightly winded, leaned on the nearby tree. Vel hunched over, making wheezing noises like his lungs were going to come out of his mouth.

“You good?” Grace said. He gave her a thumbs-up, then sagged all the way to the ground.

“I can see why they like humans to do this job,” he said. He rested one of his hands on his chest as he panted. “I think my heart’s going to explode out of my chest.”

“Hey, humans may be better at endurance running in general, but a sauriosapien could do this job,” Grace said as she bent down to uncover the nest. “Don’t throw your whole species under the bus because you’re really out of shape.”

Maximalism had found the nest, and he was crowing over the others, holding his second treat in his mouth like a prize. Minimalism crawled up next to him, chittering anxiously until he allowed her to take a tiny nibble of the treat, then he gulped it down. Grace waved them off, checking the size and integrity of the nest.

Vel, having recovered slightly, rolled onto his side to watch her. “What exactly are you doing with that nest?”

“I told you about this the other night,” Grace said, not looking up from the nest. Vel pushed himself up into a sitting position, shifting his robes around him.

“Yeah, but I had a hard time figuring it out. I’m better when I can actually see what you’re doing.” He crept closer, though he paused a short distance away, like he was concerned that his presence would disturb the nest.

“There’s a few species of microraptors whose nests have been damaged recently. There’s some kind of disease that’s been going around and causing all sorts of problems with the shells.” She covered the nest back up and scent-marked it. “I’ve been trying to tag the number of nests there are and making sure the eggs are in good shape. If we find any nests where the eggs look weak, we’ll tag them and collect the eggs. Hopefully we’ll be able to raise them until they can hatch and be returned to the wild.”

“Oh,” Vel said. He crept a little closer. “How’s this nest doing?”

“All good. I haven’t actually seen too many bad eggs in the past couple of days I’ve been doing this. Hopefully that means that the disease hasn’t been spreading too much.” She gestured to the raptors and clicked at them. They circled up around her. “And we’re keeping our eyes peeled for any rat dens we find. If we locate those, we-”

Minimalism let out a loud peep and darted out of the circle. She plunged her narrow muzzle into a nearby bush, snapping wildly. There was a squeak, some thrashing, and Minimalism withdrew her head. A rat dangled from her jaws.

“Oh, good girl!” Grace got down on one knee. Minimalism ran over, giving up the rat in favor of another treat. “Yes, you’re a good girl! You’ve done very well!” She carefully placed the rat into a plastic bag and eased that into her pack.

“What do you do with the rats?” Vel asked. He looked mostly recovered from his mad dash, his crest perking up once more.

“Send them to a lab. They usually run some tests on them, try to do a blood panel and figure out if they’ve got any diseases they’re spreading. There’s been some concerns that the rats are actually spreading the disease that’s causing the nest weaknesses.” Grace got back to her feet, her knees cracking loudly. “Ugh, I’m like an old woman.”

“And yet, you’re still more fit than me,” Vel said. He clambered to his feet and shook his robes free of leaf litter and debris from lying on the ground. “Do we have to run again?”

Grace laughed. “I’ll see if I can slow these guys down, so we can give you a break.” She clicked at the raptors a few times. “All right, slow, babies.” Rococo chirped in confirmation, then turned and chittered at the other raptors. Satisfied her message had been conveyed, she took off, the others fanning out behind her. Grace straightened back up. “Come on.”

This time, they went at a light jog. It barely winded Grace, but Vel still struggled to keep up. At least this time, he wasn’t wheezing so alarmingly when he breathed, so Grace didn’t have to be constantly worried he was going to collapse.

Vel was at least able to keep up as they tracked down and assessed the nests. The frequent breaks they took while Grace examined the eggs seemed to be helping him keep up, but by the middle of the day, he was definitely flagging. Even Grace, with her much better stamina and training, was starting to feel the beginnings of exhaustion.

“We’ll take a break,” she said, signaling the raptors. They were starting to look fatigued as well, mouths hanging open as they panted and their feathers drawn tight against their body in an effort to calm them down. “I need to eat lunch anyway.”

Vel collapsed next to her as she spread out a mat and set down her packed lunch. “Here. I brought some dried meat with me.” She offered him a package wrapped in paper. He opened it and pulled out a jerky strip.

“Thanks.” She knew it wasn’t his favorite, but he ate it without complaint.

“I don’t have much for you,” she said, digging through the pack. “I know running around all afternoon must be making you hungry. Er, I might have a few hard-boiled eggs.”

“I don’t want to take your lunch,” Vel said as he snapped down another strip of meat. “You need to eat more than I do.”

Humans, thanks to their endothermy, needed to eat much more frequently than sauriosapiens- at least three meals a day, nearly two thousand calories, compared to the typical two-meal, thousand calorie diets of the sauriosapiens. The sauriosapiens were only selectively endothermic, with their bodies heating up with exercise and cooling down when they were inactive or sleeping. That meant their bodies could manage with far fewer calories, though after running around for a while, there was quite a large loss of energy.

“Missing one meal won’t kill me. I’ll be fine.” Grace pulled out a couple of hard-boiled eggs. They were large enough to fill her palm, much larger than the chicken eggs she’d been used to at home. She passed one to Vel, who hesitated for a moment before cracking the shell with his claws.

“Thank you.” He took a bite out of the white, eyes drifting half-shut as he tasted the rich fattiness of the yolk. A lot of food in sauriosapien culture was fixated on fattiness and oils. It was an easy way to get calorie-rich food, considering that they couldn’t taste sugar and were fairly carnivorous. Grace hadn’t eaten much in the way of refined sugar since she’d arrived, only managing to scrounge a few pieces of fruit that she grew herself. She took a piece of dried fruit from her bad and chewed idly on it.

The raptors gathered together, chittering and playing with each other. Grace watched as they tumbled around, hopping over each other, nipping at tails, and generally enjoying themselves. She could see Vel giggling at them out of the corner of her eye.

“Thank you for coming with me,” she said. Vel licked some egg yolk off his finger as he turned toward her.

“Well, we were supposed to have a date today,” he said. There was a slightly sarcastic edge to his voice. Grace ducked her head, a flush of shame touching her cheeks.

“I really am sorry about that. I’ll make it up to you,” she promised.

“I knew what I was getting into then I started dating you,” Vel said. “Remember when there was a holiday in the middle of the week and you tried to go into work anyway?”

Grace pulled her hat down over her head to hide her face. “Ugh. Please don’t remind me.”

Vel laughed into his hand. “You were messed up for the rest of the week. Kept thinking you had days off when you didn’t… and the raptors were confused too! Poor Rococo, she started yelling at you, trying to get you to go out and then you started to think maybe she was right and not you…”

Grace swatted his shoulder. “Keep teasing me and I’ll make good on my threat to tie you up.”

“Will you?” Vel asked, his voice dropping into a lower register. Grace pressed a finger to his forehead and pushed him back, causing him to break into another fit of soft giggles.

A shaft of sunlight broke through the trees and fell across Vel’s face. His green scales gleamed under the sun, glossy as ocean-smoothed glass. Grace took a moment to just take in his face. His teeth gleamed, sharp as knives, but somehow also attractive. His eyes were glistening, beautiful gold. Grace swore that when the sunlight struck them, they illuminated like a chunk of pyrite. His feathered crest twitched and flared. The motion of the feathers was always fascinating, the way they ruffled in response to his emotions. Touching them was always a wonderful experience. Feeling their slight motions against her fingers was grounding, the reassuring contact of another living being that trusted her completely.

Vel was attractive, by both human and sauriosapien standards. The human standards would be satisfied by his reasonably tall stature with smooth, lithe muscles, his flowing grace, and his fine-boned face. The sauriosapien standards were satisfied by the bright green of his scales and the brilliant pink of his head and tail crests. Not only were they an incredibly vibrant pink, but they were thick and full and expressive. Grace had seen the interested looks of other sauriosapiens when they walked through town together. Whether or not they approved of his relationship with her, she wasn’t sure. She could observe their attraction to Vel with a sort of clinical detachment, but when it came to how people viewed her, she had no idea.

“Are you still hungry?” Vel asked. She looked down. His head had migrated onto her lap somehow, and the side of his face was pressed against her middle. “I can hear your stomach growling.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I know a place-” She trailed off. Huh. Maybe she could really make up for screwing up their date.

“You know a place?” Vel prompted, lifting his head. She turned her attention back to him and scratched along his crest in that just-right spot. He made a trilling noise and went nearly limp.

“Never mind. We need to get moving.” She carefully tucked any wrappers and containers back into her bag and swung it up onto her shoulders. Vel got to his feet, shaking some leaf litter from his clothes. They were in typical sauriosapien style, which meant they looked a little like a fancy hospital gown to Grace’s eyes. They were essentially robes that clipped together in the back, which gave ample space for their tail. She’d seen a few sauriosapiens try to put on human clothes before, which was always amusing. The head holes were never big enough to accommodates their stiff crests, and the pants were just a complete disaster, what with their digitigrade legs and tails.

On the other hand, humans who wore sauriosapien clothes, along with the inherent indignity of the outfits nearly always being too big, tended to have their asses hanging out through the tail hole, so it went both ways.

They started through the forest once more, this time with Grace reigning her raptors in close. A series of whistles and click signals kept them close by, though she couldn’t prevent them from running ahead at least a little bit. They jumped in and out of the undergrowth, scaling the trees on occasion and snapping at insects that settled nearby.

“Are we still looking for nests?” Vel asked. Despite the slowed pace, he was still panting a little. Going to slow was nearly maddening for Grace, but she slowed down a hair more.

“We’re going to put a pause on that for now,” she said. “There’s somewhere I want to check out first.”

“Oh,” Vel said. He fell silent, devoting most of his energy to walking. Grace focused her attention on watching the raptors jump around. Rococo snapped a bright flower from a nearby bush and bolted back to her, chittering furiously.

“Thank you,” Grace said. Rococo relinquished the flower when Grace offered her a treat in return and immediately bolted back to the others, chirping with excitement. Within moments, the other raptors were gathering up flowers and offering them to Grace. Her arms filled with the sweet-smelling blooms, the raptors chittering and hopping up and down around her.

“All right, all right, that’s enough,” Grace said. She waved her hand at them, dismissing them. They plunged back into the undergrowth to find some other game to play.

“Did you train them to do that?” Vel asked, looking at the flowers with amusement.

“No, they kind of trained themselves,” Grace said. “They know that performing certain behaviors will get them treats. If one of them sees another getting a treat for something, they’ll all repeat it until I stop giving treats. They know that when I make the cut of signal, though, no more treats are coming and they need to stop. I don’t want them completely stripping the forest of flowers to get treats.” She gathered the flowers in her arms into a bouquet. “Here.”

Vel blinked as she thrust the flowers into his arms. They were a cacophony of bright colors that complimented his brilliant pink crest. “Oh,” he said. He wasn’t able to blush, thanks to his scales, but his tail whipped back and forth so fast it knocked down a sapling. His crest flared, feathers spreading into a brightly colored crown. “Thank you.” He adjusted them to sit in the crook of his elbow. “I’ve never gotten flowers before.”

“Really? I find that hard to believe. You’ve got a lot of admirers, you know.” Not only was he handsome, but his shy, slightly submissive personality was considered the height of masculinity to sauriosapiens. Sure, males were typically expected to make the first move in relationships, performing display behaviors with their feathers and showing off for any females they were interested in, but Vel would have had enough admirers that one of them would have taken it upon themselves to ask him out.

“I don’t know about a lot,” Vel said, his crest twitching with embarrassment. “And we don’t really give flowers as gifts. Carved bones or teeth are more likely. But I know flowers are more important to humans.” He removed one of the flowers with the longest stems and turned to tuck it into Grace’s hair. His claws were sharp enough that any touch against Grace’s thin human skin was dangerous, but she’d never felt any sort of threat from him. He didn’t even cut a hair as he slid the flower into place behind her ear.

“Really important is an exaggeration. But it’s a common gift.” She carefully adjusted the flower so it wouldn’t fall out. “Here, let me.” She plucked another flower from the bouquet, picking a pale yellow one that would offset the hot pink nicely, and tucked it into his crest. He made a soft rumbling noise in his chest as her fingers trailed along the edge of his crest.

There was an irritated chirping at her feet. Grace looked down to see Rococo and Maximalism peering up at her. Boho and Minimalism were only slightly further back, also staring. Their impatient gazes made Grace realize that she and Vel had simply been staring into each other’s eyes, not moving at all.

“We should keep going,” she said. She waved her hand to the raptors. They took off into the trees. “Come on.” Without thinking, she linked her fingers through his and pulled him along after her.

Vel struggled to keep up with her still, so she was very much dragging him through the undergrowth. He clutched her hand with both of his as he panted. “Uh. Hah… Could… Gracie, could we please slow down a little?”

She slowed her steps just a bit and he stumbled into her, letting his body weight fall onto her. She bore it with only a little effort. He was almost exactly her height, but all sauriosapiens were light-boned and limber, so he weighed less than he appeared to. “Do you want me to carry you?” she teased, thought she knew he would say no. It was probably for the best. She could have lifted him for a while, but it was awkward carrying something the same size as her and she couldn’t carry something even only three-quarters of her body weight for a long time.

“No. You just gotta stop moving so fast. I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack.” Vel lay a hand over his chest as he straightened up. Once he’d managed to regain his breath, he glanced around the forest in curiosity. “Where are we?”

The trees were thicker around them, their canopies clustered close together so their leaves blocked most of the sun. The humidity of the forest was thicker, but the lack of sunlight added a little coolness to the air. Without as much sun reaching the forest floor, the undergrowth had mostly cleared. The raptors hopped around the enormous tree roots, even darting under a few particularly enormous ones that bulged up from the ground.

“We’re closer to the middle of the forest. Come this way.” Grace picked her way over a few of the larger roots. Vel followed, his hand still gripping at hers. The ground grew damp under their feet the further they went. Vel managed it a lot better than Grace did- his feet were broader, allowing him to balance well on the spongey ground. A couple of times, his grip on Grace’s arm saved her from falling face-first into the muck.

Grace picked her way over the crest of a small hill and stopped. “Okay. We’re here.”

Vel peeked over her shoulder and his breath caught. The raptors, chittering with delight, hopped down along the sloping ground in front of them until they hit the waterfront.

In the middle of a circle of trees, covered with tangled green vines, there was a crystalline spring of water. Lily-like flowers dotted the surface, adding splashes of bright color in the green.

“Oh!” Vel said. His crest flared and his tail whipped back and forth. Grace couldn’t help but smile at the look on his face. “Oh, it’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen this place before. I didn’t even know it was here.”

“Technically, we’re not supposed to be here. It’s in the restricted section of the park, because of these.” Grace crouched down and pointed toward a particularly thick patch of lilies. Under the plants there was a tiny, darting crowd of fish.

“Because of fish?” Vel said, crouching next to her. The fish were small, barely longer than the first two joints of his finger, and mostly tail. They had mostly dull coloration, except for a brilliant red splash on their backs. He reached his finger toward the water, like he was about to stroke them, then pulled back with a cautious look at Grace.

“I wouldn’t touch them,” she said. “They’re sensitive little things. And they’re not actually fish. They’re the tadpole stage of a kind of amphibian.”

“Like a frog?” Vel said.

“Sort of. A little more like salamanders, actually. They’re about this big, only as long as your hand, and they’re pretty similar in coloration to these little guys. Mostly greenish-brown, with a big splash of red on their backs. They’re pretty uncommon in the area, though. Most of the time, they lay their eggs in the rainy season, when a lot of temporary puddles form. When they fully metamorphosize, they find a damp spot and bury underground until the next rainy season, when they can find a mate and lay their eggs.” Grace indicated the circumference of the pond. “This spot’s the only place where you can consistently find them. It’s fed from an underground spring, so it’s here year-round. Every year, you can find a few tadpoles here. We use it to keep an eye on the population.”

“How come no one’s allowed to know about it?” Vel asked.

“Uh, the tadpoles get hunted a lot. See the red spot on their backs? That secretes a kind of hallucinogenic substance. It’s deadly to sauriosapiens, and to most other species here, but to mammals, it acts more like a slightly milder form of acid.” Vel gave her a bewildered look. “Uh, it’s like a euphoria-inducing drug that can give you really nice hallucinations. Humans like it a lot. There’s a big underground market for it, so smugglers try to catch the tadpoles every year. But because the nests move every year, they need to look for them. We’ve done a pretty good job so far at keeping this spot safe- as long as they can’t find a regular spot to pull the tadpoles from, their hunting shouldn’t put too much of a strain on the population.”

Vel nodded. “It’s a shame. It’s beautiful here.”

Grace nodded. “It’s one of the prettier locations. If you stay here for a while, you can usually see some animals come through to drink.” She let her hands hang at her side, pinky finger just barely brushing against Vel’s. “Thank you, by the way.”

He glanced at her. “For what?” “For forgiving me. For coming along with me on my work day. For being understanding. For letting me speak about the tadpoles. I don’t often get to discuss these things with other people.”

“Oh. You don’t need to thank me for that. I like listening to you speak. You have a very soothing voice.” Vel was quiet for a second. “Oh, and you’re welcome.”

Grace hummed and threaded her free hand through his crest. His eyes drifted shut. He leaned back against her. A soft rumble sounded through his chest, almost like a purr. Grace felt her eyes closing as well. It was beautifully warm, and if she shifted a little and dangled her feet in the water, it added a cool, soothing element. Vel shifted a little to wrap his arms around her.

And then about twelve pounds of velociraptor cannonballed itself into Grace’s stomach.

She jerked, limbs flailing involuntarily. Vel’s head, previously resting on her shoulder, shot up. The soft dirt at the edge of the pond crumbled under their sudden movements and gave way. Vel barely had time to shriek before he slid sideways into the water.

Grace, sitting on a better-structured patch of dirt, didn’t slip, but was soaked anyway by Vel’s panicked flailing. It calmed within a moment when he realized the pond was only about five feet deep and he could stand pretty easily. He shook his head, spraying water from his crest.

“Ow,” Grace said. Boho, the raptor who had launched into her stomach, blinked innocently. The three other raptors watched with the wide eyed interest of children whose sibling had just broken a prized possession.

Vel spat out a mouthful of water. “Are you all right?”

“Nothing I haven’t been through before,” Grace said, fixing Boho with her sternest stare. Boho’s crest drooped and she crept off of Grace’s lap like a scolded puppy. “Are you all right?”

“Wet,” Vel said. He braced his arms on the bank and heaved himself up. “But not harmed.” He shook himself off like a wet dog. The water cleared fairly easily from his scaly skin, but his crest and tail were saturated, as was his outfit. Grace’s clothes were similarly soaked.

“I was going to suggest that we headed back,” Grace said, “but I suppose it makes more sense to wait here until we dry off.”

Vel smiled, sharp teeth glinting. “Maybe we should get out of these wet clothes, first? It might help them dry quicker.”

Grace lifted an eyebrow, but she couldn’t help a tiny laugh. “I suppose.” She smiled at him as he stood and started to undo the straps of his clothes. “I love you.”

Vel paused in his undressing to kiss her forehead. “I love you, too.” His grin widened and became wicked. “Now strip.”

#exophilia #exophilia writing #lizard folk #sauriosapien #monster boyfriend #monster lover #dinosaur #OCxOC #fluff #established relationship

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journalxxx · 3 years

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By Hook or by Crook (7)

“So! How does it look?” Toshinori asked, with a booming voice and his best hands-on-hips pose to kickstart the endeavor with a healthy dose of enthusiasm.

He wasn’t particularly successful.

“Daunting. Impossible. Like I’m gonna die of old age before I’m anywhere close to making a change.”

“A little optimism goes a long way, you know?”

“...I may not die before I’ve lugged away some of this.” Midoriya amended tentatively, scanning the extensive length of garbage-filled beach stretching before them. “And… what doesn’t kill me will make me stronger?”

“That’s the spirit!” Toshinori gave him a pat on the back, strong enough to make the boy stammer forwards. He walked around the back of the truck and started unloading the few supplies he’d brought.

“Wear these.” Toshinori threw him a pair of work gloves. He hoped he’d eyeballed the size right. “I trust you’re up to date with all your vaccines.”

“Uhm.”

“Hopefully no one’s dumping organic waste in here, but I’ll bring some traps if you see any rats. They won’t solve the problem, but it’s better than letting them scurry around freely.”

Midoriya’s eyes darted between the gloves and the beach with muted horror. “R-Rats?”

“Scared of rats?” Toshinori couldn’t help but tease. “Did I mention that I had to wade through the sewers for half an hour before finding you and the sludge villain the other day?”

Midoriya instantly looked mortified. “I-I’m sorry-”

“Not your fault! Don’t apologize!” Toshinori tossed his hands in the air. This kid desperately needed to learn the basic mechanics of humor. “I’m just saying that heroes can’t be squeamish! Rats come with the job, as well as a variety of nasty stuff and filth.”

“Right.” Midoriya followed him as Toshinori, cooler in one hand and bag of papers in the other, sat down on the last steps of the stairs. He picked an egg sandwich for himself and fished a folder out of the bag, opening it on his thighs and starting to read it.

It took him a few seconds to realize that Midoriya was still staring at him, as if awaiting further instructions.

“Well? Have at it!” Toshinori gestured widely at his new playground.

“Oh, uhm, okay.” The kid donned the gloves and took a single step towards the piles before pausing to look at Toshinori again. “I thought you wanted to ask me… stuff.”

“Yes, but I’m not sure you can handle working and talking at the same time without building up some stamina first.” Toshinori answered, eyeing the boy’s scrawny frame critically. “We’ll talk while you’ll be taking a break to catch a breather, which is probably going to happen sooner rather than later.”

“Oh… All right.” Midoriya turned away, his arms hanging limply from hunched shoulders as he muttered to himself. “...Where do I even start...?”

“From the small things. Working your way up to the heavier objects.” Toshinori explained patiently, then gave him a pointed look. “I get the feeling you’re procrastinating.”

The boy approached the closest stack… and did nothing. Was he ever going to stop waffling and get cracking? “Meanwhile, you’ll just, uh… do your own thing?”

“Surely you don’t need me to guide you through the elaborate process of moving objects from point A to point B, do you?” Maybe the kid detected the hint of annoyance in Toshinori’s voice, because he finally, finally set to grab the closest piece of junk- “...Oh. Okay, that’s not a great start.”

“What?” Midoriya stopped halfway through picking up what was probably the first electric fan ever invented, all the way back in the Iron Age. “I haven’t even done anything yet!”

“Bend your knees, not your back. Otherwise you’re going to- do you really not know this? Isn’t the correct way to lift weights Household Chores 101?”

“Oh, right, I know.” Midoriya rearranged his stance in a way that was less likely to earn him a slipped disk within the next two hours. “Do people really lift things like this though? It’s… a lot harder than the normal way.”

“For your legs, yes. For your back, no. You’ll thank me when you’ll be old enough to realize you aren’t made out of rubber.”

Toshinori munched slowly while he watched the kid carry his first loads to the truck. That act alone seemed to distract Midoriya to an amusing degree, his gaze often flicking to meet Toshinori’s eyes for just a moment before shooting back in front of him with blatant self-consciousness. Toshinori allowed the boy a few minutes of warm-up, just the time for him to finish his sandwich and sip a small cup of apple juice, before deciding to kick things into proper gear.

“Running from the truck to the heaps and vice versa would help you gain some endurance too, rather than leisurely strolling back and forth.” Toshinori commented as Midoriya walked past him.

The kid stopped in his tracks and regarded him with a mix of horror and aversion that vaguely reminded him of death-row inmates when faced with their executioners.

“What?” Toshinori went on, unperturbed. “Are you expecting to get fit without getting tired?”

“No, of course not-”

“Besides, you’ll need to keep a swift pace if you want to clear the whole beach before the admission exam.”

“Wha- All of it?! Before the…” Midoriya sputtered, arms wrapping more tightly around the broken chair he was holding as if that was supporting him instead of the other way around. “Y-You never said…”

“But of course! They don’t do things by half measures in U.A., so why should you?” Toshinori grinned. “Plus Ultra, am I right?”

Midoriya let out an incredulous chuckle. “You’re kidding, right? There’s no way I can do something like that...”

“Depends on how much elbow grease you’re willing to put into it.”

Midoriya’s expression shifted minutely as he caught onto Toshinori’s seriousness. “But… but that’s impossible! No matter how hard I work, I can’t- I can’t move stuff like that!” He griped, pointing at the wrecked husk of a van half-buried under a mound of assorted refuse. “Even if I do my best-”

“And pray tell, what’s your best?” Toshinori stood up and walked to the kid, ditching the whimsical demeanor. If playful cajoling wasn’t enough to stir him, maybe it was time to bust out the big guns. “What’s the heaviest you can lift? The fastest you can run? The hardest you can push yourself? When’s the last time you actually tried your very best, and how did it fall short?”

Toshinori was already well and truly spent for the day, but he let the provocation and drive in his words stoke the fire within him, and it flared. The Symbol of Peace broke out of his diminutive shell among dramatic wisps of steam, ready to bestow his wisdom more effectively than his rickety counterpart ever could.

“Do you know what’s the only way to gauge your limits? Reaching them. And the only way to get stronger?“ Toshinori held out his arm between them, and clenched his fist resolutely. He relished the sensation of unyielding muscles tensing and bulging under his skin, tangible proof of the truth of his assertions. “Gritting your teeth and smashing past them! Little by little, but constantly!”

Midoriya had only witnessed that transformation once, poorly and by accident, and it showed. The chair had slipped from his hands without him even noticing, and now lay forgotten at his feet on the bare sand. The kid was gawking at him with wide eyes and mouth agape, the very picture of spellbound rapture. It was far from an unfamiliar reaction from whoever was graced by the Symbol of Peace’s presence, and yet it was still flattering, every time.

“You’ll never improve if you keep dwelling on what you think you can do now. Focus on what you want to do next. Visualize it as a clear goal. Build an image out of it, and then carve it in reality. If you really want that van to move, then it will move. If you really want this beach to be clear, then it will be. But you have to put your back, sweat and heart into making it happen!”

All Might captivated his one-man audience with the usual effortlessness, boisterous showmanship and honest positivity deeply intertwined in a way that boggled his detractors’ minds, but that felt so natural and appropriate to Toshinori. He’d made an art out of it, down to the rumble of his voice and the firmness of his gestures and the levity of his attitude, the art of highlighting and displaying the very best parts of himself so that they could resonate louder, better, brighter.

“So what will it be, young Midoriya? Will you clean up this place within the next ten months or not?”

“Y-Yes. I will.” That had done the trick. It was obvious from the way Midoriya’s back straightened and his expression toughened. It was obvious from the spark kindled in his eyes, a reflection of Toshinori’s own passion, still lacking in heat but full of potential.

“Then you’d better get down to it!” The hero sealed the deal with a radiant smile and a thumbs up. “Time’s a-wastin’!”

“Yes, sir!” Midoriya picked up the chair and dashed towards the truck to unload it there, then he immediately bounced back down the stairs and towards the nearest heap of waste. Toshinori observed the boy’s next rounds with his unwavering smile and few approving nods that kept the kid a bit lighter on his feet.

How much easier it was for All Might to touch people’s hearts. How much easier to inspire, to reassure, to nurture. How much easier everything was for All Might, really. If only that shining beacon of hope wasn’t shackled by the whims of a withering body, how much richer society at large would be for it.

Toshinori let out a deep exhale that took more than just air out of him, and the flame settled down to a low glow. He couldn’t hold back a few wet coughs, and he promptly turned his shrunken back on Midoriya’s concerned glance to sit back on the cool steps.

Unfortunately, there was a lot more than motivation to strength training. Right off the bat, Toshinori could tell that Midoriya wasn’t going to last twenty full minutes of workout. He honestly didn’t know that an ostensibly healthy individual could reach the ripe age of fourteen with such poor body awareness. The boy had coordination and balance on par with a toddler’s: he stumbled on his feet, he tripped on sand, he nearly fell off the stairs twice before realizing that trying to climb them while his view was obstructed by the very items he was carrying might be a less than optimal solution. He seemed to be unaware of the existence of entire muscle groups, and Toshinori had to physically get up and mime movements for him to understand how to exert force more efficiently. Not to mention that he needed incessant needling lest his sprints quickly devolved into lax jogs.

This whole training thing was going to be… an interesting experience, Toshinori could already tell.

Exactly sixteen and a half minutes later, the boy all but collapsed on the stairs beside Toshinori, gasping for air and wiping his forehead on his sleeve.

“B-Break?” He pleaded, quite redundantly.

Toshinori took pity on his plight and pushed the cooler in his direction. “Have a drink.”

“Oh, thank you…” The lack of polite refusal made Toshinori suspect that Midoriya had forgotten to bring his own water.

“There’s sports drinks and fruit juice in there too. Save the snacks for after you’re finished, food and heavy workouts don’t always agree with each other.” Toshinori had packed food primarily for himself, expecting their after-school meeting to last long enough for him to slot in one or two meals in the meantime, but he had taken care of adding a few extras for the kid. A good idea, because the possibility of Midoriya face planting on the ground halfway through out of sheer exhaustion seemed more and more likely by the minute.

“Thank you, you didn’t have to…”

“I promised bribes, didn’t I?”

Midoriya flashed him the tiniest smile, and eagerly drank some water while Toshinori retrieved a small journal and a pen from the other bag. He skimmed through the list of preliminary topics he’d scribbled on the first page under Tsukauchi’s advice, wondering which one he should tackle first.

“All right.” Deciding to follow his instinct in spite of basic common sense, Toshinori decided to begin from the end. “These phone calls of yours. Give me an idea of what they’re like. The last one you had with your father was on April 1st, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me about it. Everything you talked about, as precisely as you can remember it.”

The good thing was that Midoriya’s memory was very accurate, and he was able to recall the whole conversation basically step by step. The less good thing was that said conversation was largely commonplace and unremarkable, consisting of very ordinary small talk and inquiries about school, grades, news, local events-

“Quirks?”

“Mh-hm.” The boy nodded. “We always end up talking about quirks, in one way or another. Quirks and heroes. It’s always been… a common interest.”

“Always, uh?”

“Yeah, we’ve been doing it since… forever, really. I’ve always found quirks fascinating, and he has lots of great insight to offer.”

“I can imagine...” Toshinori mumbled. Asking who had initiated that habit was probably pointless, it sounded like it had started too early in the boy’s life for him to remember - or even to understand if he had been deliberately led to develop that interest. Some intriguing nature-versus-nurture speculations could be made on the matter, but they weren’t likely to aid Tsukauchi’s case. “And in what way do you talk about them?”

“We… analyze them, discuss them. What is known for sure about a certain quirk, what can be deduced from footage and descriptions of its use, what its unmentioned limitations might be, how it could be further developed… You saw my notebook, right? Basically the kind of stuff that’s in there.”

“Wait.” Toshinori blinked. Could he have already stumbled into a treasure trove of All For One-certified information? “You mean that all that’s written in that notebook was dictated by your father?”

The kid almost choked on his next gulp of water, and shot Toshinori an almost offended look. “No! No, no, it’s all stuff I found out on my own! Well, almost all of it, there are some additions of his here and there, but… Uh, I’d say at least 90% of it is mine, and 10% of it is his… Actually, more like 95% and 5%-”

Well, that sounded less promising, but it was still a lead. “So he’s been basically teaching you how to conduct your own quirk analyses?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say teaching. I wish our school teachers were that engaging...” Midoriya let out a small sigh. “But I guess we do go about it a little like with school essays. Research, deadline, discussion and all that…”

“Pardon?”

“Well, every month we decide which heroes or quirks we’re going to talk about the next time - back in March we chose Hawks, Kido and Snatch for last month’s call, for example. During the rest of the month we gather information and draw our conclusions, and then we compare them during the next chat.”

“You’ve got quite the well-oiled routine going on there, haven’t you?”

“Actually, I think it’s just to give me a chance to make my own deductions with a clear head instead of on the fly.” Midoriya scratched said tousled head in embarrassment. “I bet he doesn’t even need to do any research, he’s always on the top of his game. I’ve never been able to, uh… one-up him, you know? He always knows what I’m driving at, and somehow he always brings my hypotheses two or three steps further than where I stop.”

Toshinori answered with a non-committal hum. No surprise there, the man was a living quirk storeroom complete with its own self-congratulatory, sentient database. “You don’t seem too bothered by it though.”

“Oh, I’m not. It’s not like he’s ever… disappointed or angry or anything, even if I don’t get stuff. He just enjoys chatting, I guess.” That he surely did, Toshinori grimly thought. Way too much. “And I do too. It’s kind of like a game. Or a challenge.”

“A challenge?”

“Yeah, uh… How can I explain…?” The boy drummed his fingers on the bottle as he collected his thoughts. “Okay, for example: one of the first things dad asked me about Hawks was what shape his wings are, and what I could deduce from that about his flight capabilities. Which was a trick question! I knew it as soon as I heard it, because I’d already figured out the real answer during my research.”

“Ah.” Toshinori blinked. “And… how is that a trick question, exactly?”

“Because Hawks doesn’t actually fly! Not like a bird, at least, so his wing shape doesn’t matter!” Midoriya beamed, and suddenly Toshinori realized that that was the first real, genuine, enthusiastic smile the boy had given him since they’d met. And, without exaggeration, not crying, panicking or grimacing made him look almost like an entirely different person. “He simply can’t! Humans can’t fly even if you stick a pair of wings to them, they’re just too heavy! Other heroes who can fly properly are mostly transformers, like Ryukyu - their whole bodies change when they shift, bone structure and all - but Hawks’ body is entirely human if you exclude his wings.”

Midoriya reached for his backpack and drew out the same charred notebook Toshinori had signed days earlier. An item so vital to the kid’s daily life that he always had it with him, apparently, even more essential than beverages during a workout session. A peculiar, if questionable, trait.

“What Hawks actually does isn’t flying, it’s levitating!” The kid held the notebook open before Toshinori’s eyes on a spread page dedicated to the hero in question. “He uses the second facet of his quirk, the telekinesis that allows him to control his feathers singularly! That also explains his incredible speed, which is completely unjustifiable if you only take into account normal bird flight aerodynamics. His propulsion is powered by his feathers - and each of them is quite speedy and powerful on its own, so it stands to reason that he would be lightning-fast when his wings contain so many of them pushing him in unison!”

Toshinori politely elected to wait for the onslaught of words to subside on its own, although he already suspected that it was a little like standing right under a waterfall and waiting for someone higher up to turn off the faucet.

“That said, that doesn’t explain everything about his quirk… For example, a single feather of his is capable of lifting and transporting an adult person, that has been extensively documented. Yet, he loses the ability to levitate relatively soon after dispatching too many of them - he becomes unable to float even when he still has at least several dozens of them attached to his body. We couldn’t figure out why that happens with the information we have. Maybe it’s harder for him to apply his power to himself, that is often the case for emitters. Maybe it messes with his proprioception, and he can’t control the feathers he hasn’t detached as finely as all the others…”

If there was one thing Toshinori was absolutely certain of at this point, it was that the kid wasn’t short on breath any more. “And this is the part you inferred on your own.”

“Yep! And dad agreed with all of it!” Midoriya’s smile grew even wider. It was astonishing how much it didn’t look like dad’s deranged, shark-like, nightmare-inducing sneer, and Toshinori could only send a quiet thanks to the heavens for that. “This is all guesswork though. Do you… by any chance, do you know if we were on the right track? I’d be really curious to know…”

“Ah, I can’t help you there, kid.” Toshinori felt suddenly on the spot. “I’m not acquainted with Hawks, nor do I know more about his quirk than the average person.”

“Oh, I thought… Since you’re both- I mean, I thought All Might may have met him during the billboard chart events, what with them both being in the top ten.”

“We passed by each other, yes, but we were never properly introduced. He wasn’t particularly interested in rubbing elbows with the old guard, I suppose.”

“Oh. Well, that’s his loss, for sure.” Midoriya, funnily enough, pouted. “Pity, I was wondering… Even if he doesn’t fly, he does flap his wings in a way that resembles a bird’s. I wonder if that’s intentional, to mislead opponents and prevent them from figuring out how he actually moves. Or maybe he does it subconsciously…”

“I’m afraid I really don’t know…” Toshinori had never met Hawks on the field either, it wasn’t common for accidents to require more than a single big-name hero to intervene these days. Especially if one of them was the number one, who often showed up first and invariably solved any incident in mere minutes-

Toshinori suddenly came back to himself and almost facepalmed in frustration. Why was he letting himself be interrogated about completely irrelevant hero trivia? He was the one asking questions! God, he was bad at this. “And your father had nothing to contribute about all this?”

“Not about this specifically, but he did raise a point I hadn’t considered.” Midoriya looked up at the sky, once again lost in his very wordy, very deep lucubrations. “Hawks has an astonishing control on his quirk. He can use his telekinesis to move hundreds of feathers at once, to sense his surroundings, he can even harden them and turn them into weapons. He made Fierce Wings into an incredibly versatile ability, and he’s so young too… And yet, there’s no record of him attending any hero school or training facility in Japan, nor abroad. He claims to be self-taught, but… admittedly, it is hard to believe. One would think he must have had some excellent education and tutoring to make it into the top ten when he was only eighteen…”

Toshinori didn’t reply. Midoriya looked back at him when the silence stretched, and whatever he spied on Toshinori’s face made him immediately backpedal. “I-I mean, it’s odd, but, uh… not suspicious per se, nor a sign of anything… weird or bad about him. There are many heroes who, ehr, prefer to keep their personal history private, especially geniuses, and that’s fine! They have all the right to! Same goes for their quirks, it makes total sense-”

Toshinori massaged his left temple slowly. Right, better just nip this topic in the bud before it got irredeemably out of hand.

He peered again at the notebook in Midoriya’s hands. So All For One had been imparting occasional, amicable quirk analysis lessons to the kid for a good decade, which sounded suspiciously like the kind of knowledge a potential underling or successor might use. On the other hand, Toshinori could think of a million other ways for the Symbol of Fear to instil skills in his son - all of them remarkably more efficient, safe, manageable and ruthless. The whole thing was contradictory in a way that didn’t sit right with Toshinori.

“Mind if I take another look at that?” Toshinori had been in a bit of a rush the first time round, and he’d only taken a cursory glance at the contents of Midoriya’s notes. But if there was a chance of those pages containing words uttered by All For One himself, a more thorough examination was in order.

“Not at all! But, uh…” Midoriya was fast to hand out the item, but his eagerness to assist was even faster to dampen. “Are you going to retain this as evidence too?”

“Mh, I don’t think that will be necessary...” Right, the poor kid’s house had probably been ransacked even further after Toshinori and Tsukauchi’s first pass. No wonder he was worried about losing this prized possession too. “But if it will be, I can make a copy of it for you to keep, so you won’t lose all your, uh, data.”

“Oh, thanks! That would be great!” The kid perked up instantly. He was so easy to please. “Although… I guess I should make a copy of it myself anyway. It’s already kind of… unrecoverable. I could detach the pages with All Might’s sign and preserve those separately, and just photocopy everything else…”

Toshinori’s imagination mercilessly supplied him with the picture of a new addition to Midoriya’s bedroom decor, his five-second poorly-made signature hung to a wall in an elegant frame. He repressed a groan, deliberately neglected to point out that he could simply provide as many new authentic signs as needed, and directed his attention back to the scorched edges of the notebook. “Right… What happened to this thing, anyway? Did someone put it in a toaster?”

Midoriya let out a totally not nervous chuckle as he wrung his hands in a totally not nervous fashion. “Oh, uhm... You know…” Toshinori didn’t, actually, but the kid didn’t elaborate either.

Well, he was allowed to have a modicum of privacy, still. Toshinori let the issue drop, and nudged the boy with his foot. “You seem well rested. Back to the trash you go.”

Midoriya shuffled to his feet less than enthusiastically, and resumed toiling away at his task. While still checking on him often, ready to poke and prod at the first hint of sluggishness, Toshinori browsed through the kid’s notebook. While the contents were indeed worthy of attention, they were scarce in quantity. It must be rather new, since less than a quarter of the pages had been filled. However, the promise of more material to be discovered made Toshinori withhold his judgement on the matter for the time being.

Once that was done, he continued his perusal of the few files Tsukauchi had already put together about the Midoriya case. Toshinori had practically begged his friend to let him have an active role, any active role in the case: he simply couldn’t bear to twiddle his thumbs until someone else kindly pointed him to All For One’s hideout for another overdue thrashing. He simply needed to be involved, or he’d probably start crawling up walls within a week.

Questioning the kid was pretty much the only suitable occupation for him, currently… Well, it was either that or questioning Mrs. Midoriya, and Toshinori was fairly sure that his brain would leak out of his ears if he heard any more details about All For One’s romantic escapades. He wasn’t exactly an expert when it came to investigative work, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he was going to spare no effort to earn some results. If that meant poring over reams of police reports in the hopes of spotting some helpful clue, so be it. At least it would keep him busy, and busy was good, especially in trying times.

He’d applied the same logic to Midoriya, in a sense. The boy seemed the kind of person who’d very easily overthink himself into a negative spiral, even in less dire circumstances than the messy family drama he’d found himself into. It would do him good to focus on a better future, rather than on his depressing present. Giving him a goal to set his sights on would keep him going more smoothly.

At first Toshinori had thought to motivate him towards his dream career, but it turned out that the boy’s strategy about the admission test was… nebulous at best. Not that he could truly blame him for it: fourteen-year-old Toshinori didn’t exactly have a multi-step plan towards becoming the Symbol of Peace either, one couldn’t help being somewhat scatterbrained at that age.

The illegal dumping site had been a serendipitous discovery, and cleaning it up was the perfect type of goal to incite the boy towards. It was very obvious and straightforward, and required no intricate planning: he simply needed to roll up his sleeves and buckle down. And the muscle he’d build while doing it would serve him well for heroic purposes too, so it was a win-win on all fronts. Not to mention that some good old physical exertion would help him sleep at night, which he was still struggling with, if the persistent bags under his eyes were of any indication. Toshinori dearly missed the times when that trick still worked on him too, when driving himself to the brink of exhaustion was a guaranteed one-way ticket to restful and regenerative dreamland. Nowadays, if he accumulated even a sliver of excessive fatigue, all he got was… well, fatigue. And a metric ton of unrelenting body pains and lasting debilitation.

The rest of the afternoon went by smoothly and unremarkably. Midoriya drudged through many rounds of garbage disposal with decreasing energy and verve, but that was to be expected. Toshinori collected more barely relevant and generally useless information, but that was to be expected too. They were both in for the long haul, there was no point in getting upset about it. Eventually the sun started to set, and Toshinori beckoned the boy back to him with a handwave.

“You have more of these?” Toshinori said, tapping his index on the big 13 on the cover of the notebook still on his lap.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Could you bring them with you next time?”

“All of them?” Midoriya seemed frazzled.

“If you still have them, yes. Would that be a problem?”

The boy scratched his head as his cheek reddened slightly. “N-No, not a problem, but some of them are really… I finished the first one when I was seven. They aren't just outdated, they’re… ehr, childish. Just doodles and misspelled ramblings.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not like I’ll be grading them.” Not yet, at least. Toshinori smirked at his own private joke. Maybe he should grade them, as a small practice run. “I just want to give a quick read to a few things here and there.”

“O-Okay…”

“Good. Well, I think we can call it a day.” Toshinori rummaged in his cooler to fetch a chocolate energy bar, and tossed it to the exhausted boy. “Catch.”

Despite the warning, Midoriya did not catch, and the snack bumped against his chest and fell to the ground with a sad clack. Reflexes were MIA too, apparently. What a rare specimen of a prospective hero Toshinori had crossed paths with.

“T-Thank you!” Midoriya immediately picked it up, unwrapped it and shoved it into his mouth as he hopped into the passenger seat of the truck. Whether it was real hunger or fear of passing as rude, Toshinori couldn’t tell.

The drive to Midoriya’s house was brief. The boy was too tired to chat - as if they hadn’t already had their fill for the day. When they arrived and Midoriya climbed out of the vehicle to be on his way, Toshinori finally addressed one last pressing issue.

“Tomorrow your father is going to call you.”

“Yeah.” The kid’s eyes dropped to the ground. Maybe Toshinori should have brought it up sooner. Way to end the meeting on a sour note.

“How are you going to handle that?”

“I’m not.” The boy shrugged. “Mom will tell him I just got my tonsils removed. It's… safer for now. I think.”

Toshinori nodded. “Let’s take a day off then. Even if you can’t speak, he might want to say something to you, and it would be strange for you not to be at home while recovering.”

“Okay.”

He looked so very small, and so very young like that, bathed in the warm hues of sunset, but with no real warmth to his eyes and demeanor. He was too small and too young to be dealing with this shit. No one was old or big enough to deal with any of All For One’s shit, really. Toshinori would have to make sure no one would have to ever again.

“Thank you for your help today. It’s very appreciated, believe me.” Toshinori offered, with his most sincere smile. “Feel free to text me or Tsukauchi if anything comes up, you should be able to reach at least one of us at any hour of day or night.”

“Okay. Thank you. Have a good evening.”

“You too, kid.” Toshinori watched him until the door of his house closed behind his back, then he drove off.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #deku #izuku midoriya #All Might #Toshinori Yagi

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venushasvixens · 3 years

Text

Ch. 6 Confliction - Life is but a Dream (Spike Spiegel x Reader)

[A/N] I really want to give a huge, huge thank you to @tebdundy on tumblr for editing and dealing with my constant check ups and stuff, you are so amazing for helping me. It means a whole lot. You can find more of me on instragram, wattpad, and AO3 (under the same username). Okay, onto the chapter!

WARNING: a lot of angst, rejection

Your ship was on fire. Every belonging, every single thing you had worked so hard for was gone. Your guns, clothes, even appliances you had never given a second thought, gone. And it hit you like a shot. The moment you took in that your ship was on fire, you shut down. Your mind began to wander. What did I do to deserve this? Why is this happening to me?

The next thing you could remember was Spike shaking your shoulders to snap you back to reality. You struggled to form a response. You tried to open your mouth, give some indication that you could feel and see him. In reality, the only thing you could really feel was a dull ache in your spine, each vertebrae mounting with an odd, uncomfortable pain.

The shock was setting in.

You blinked, eyes glassy as you watched firefighters put your ship out of her misery. There was no noise. You couldn't feel your fingertips, your face. You couldn't feel anything. Just that dull ache creeping up your spine.

Thoughts spiraled through your aching head, moving so quickly you could hardly keep up. It felt like you were at war with yourself, trying to keep yourself conscious and cognizant of the situation, while you sank deeper and deeper into your head.

This is just a small hiccup.

Just an obstacle that needed to be conquered, a hurdle you needed to jump over.

This is all your fault, you’ll never bounce back.

Everything happens for a reason, right?

Maybe if you hadn’t been so stupid.

You always ruin everything for yourself.

You might as well give up now.

There’s no coming back from this one.

You’re a disappointment.

You’ve failed.

It ate you up like a starving monster devouring a poor soul who crossed its path. Dark tendrils of shame, anger, and sadness weaved into your head, wrapping around your mind and tightening with every passing second. You were going to drown.

Push it down. Push it down. Grieve later. Think now. Grieve later. Think now.

You needed to figure out what you were going to do next. You needed to get out of your head. You desperately tried to claw your way out of this state. Taking a deep breath, you tried to make sense of the chaos around you.

You were sitting on the ground, a blanket draped over your shoulders. You felt the cold stone of the dock under your legs, felt the itchiness of the thick wool wrapped around you. You watched as Jet ran over to Spike, shouting over the sounds of panic that had flooded your head just moments before. Spike was staring at you, his face riddled with concern. You heard him call your name. You didn’t respond.

It was usually so hard to read him, to figure out what he was feeling. But now, it was so incredibly clear. You saw the emotions flashing in his eyes as he called for you again. Loss, guilt, despair, mania, heartbreak.

You felt Jet’s strong hand on your shoulder, shaking it gently.

"Hey kid, you okay?" He said, his brows furrowed.

You swallowed. Do not cry. Do not cry. Wait until you're alone. Push it down.

"I think...I think— a glass of water."

"How much do you have?"

"About 200,000 woolong."

"Well, that ain't much."

"Well, I wasn’t expecting to lose everything I own."

You sipped your coffee slowly as you, Spike and Jet discussed a solution to your giant, unavoidable problem. No matter how much you told them that you were okay and could take care of yourself, they insisted on helping you. Deep down, you appreciated it, because you definitely weren’t okay and wouldn’t be able to take care of yourself, no matter how much you tried to convince yourself.

You picked at the eggs on your plate, imagining sleeping in your own bed right now. Wearing your favorite shirt. Eating breakfast in your small kitchen. Watching the morning news in your room. Maybe have someone with you, showing him everything you owned like an excited child because you were so proud of how far you came from your first bounty to now. Things you’ll never be able to do again.

You felt silly and materialistic, mourning the loss of your belongings. But when you worked so hard for something you wanted for so long, building it up over the years, and losing it all in seconds? It's very hard to not mourn.

You had tried to pack light, to not become attached to material possessions. That was one of the first things that you were told by other bounty hunters. When you had first considered entering this god-forsaken profession, you sought out the help of any bounty hunter you came across, trying to glean any useful knowledge from those more experienced than you. You got too comfortable and started to ignore that piece of advice, and now you’re crying over some clothes and dishes.

But your keepsakes, your souvenirs. Ties to your troubled past. Memories of old friends, places, and happy times. Gone, burnt to a crisp.

"How much is a night stay here in town?" You spoke up, interrupting Spike and Jet’s bickering.

"You don't even want to know. The further you go into the city, the worse the rates are. I looked at a couple of places, and it does not look good." Jet replied, taking a sip from his mug.

"And staying on the streets isn't too good either," Spike muttered.

"Wasn't planning on it, but thanks for the advice." You snapped back.

The tension was thick in the air between you and Spike. Maybe it was because of your interrupted intimacy from the previous night, or the fact that neither of you had slept for the past 24 hours. But you couldn't understand why he was taking his frustration out on you. You hadn’t planned for your ship to burn to ash. You didn’t want to be a burden.

"I have a suggestion. Well, more of a proposal." Jet said.

You perked up. "And what's that?" Even before Jet could say anything, you already felt guilty about it.

"You can stay with us on the Bebop until you find your feet again."

You breathed a sigh of relief.

"Do what now?!" Spike hissed softly.

"But, "Jet held up his hand to Spike, who sighed loudly, annoyed. "I have a few conditions."

It kind of pissed you off how Spike was reacting to all of this. Actually, kind of was an understatement. It really pissed you off, almost offended you on how he was acting. Just a few hours ago, he was desperate to get into your pants, and now he was throwing a hissy fit at the thought of you living on the Bebop. Isn't this a good thing, you being able to spend more time together?

"Just contribute to the Bebop. Whenever you cash in a bounty, set some aside for fuel, food, all that good jazz. Maybe cook dinner sometimes, or clean the bathroom. Other than that, don’t worry about it." Jet said.

A cloud of suspicion settled across your thoughts.

"That's it?" You asked, “Are you sure?”

Jet chuckled. “There’re other rules, but you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. I have a feeling you know how to respect other people’s spaces and belongings. Just don’t do anything stupid.”

You glanced at Spike, who was leaning back, staring out the window. He met your gaze, eyes unreadable once again. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He felt like an entirely new person, one who just wanted you to piss off and leave him to his business. You tried to shrug off his sudden coldness, but it bothered you. It stung.

The walk back to the Bebop wasn't too bad, but trying to initiate a conversation with Spike was difficult. All he did was grunt in response, a few "oh yeah”s and “huh”s thrown in for good measure. You hoped it was because he was tired, and not that he was pissed off that you were going to be invading his space.

The guilt was heavy on your shoulders. You certainly weren’t a freeloader, but you couldn't help but feel like you had already overstayed your welcome. And you haven’t even stepped foot on the ship yet. You didn't want Spike to be distant from you. Even though you had just met him, you wanted him to be closer to you than anyone else. You wanted to reach out to him, hold onto him and never let him go. Instead, he was pushing you away.

You weren’t good with rejection. Rejection defined who you were today and had been a driving factor to almost everything in your life. You had managed to take ahold of those haunting feelings and build them into a hard shell to protect yourself, vowing to never show your vulnerability or true feelings. You had pushed the old version of you so deep down that it would never escape. You had been doing so well, but the last few days had shown you that the hard work you put into being a completely emotionless bitch was all for nothing.

Jet was going into an extensive explanation of the ship, where you could take a shower, where your room was. He explained that the Bebop was once a fishing ship from Ganymede, and how he had fixed it up to be a high-tech, fully functional ship of today (his words, not yours).

"She operates well when treated right. However, some of our crew members would say otherwise." Jet grumbled. "Speaking of, did Faye tell you-"

"I haven't seen Faye since two days ago. Her ship was still gone, the last I saw." Spike muttered, throwing his jacket over his shoulder. "Besides, why do you care?"

Jet held up his hands. "It was just a question. Jeez." Spike muttered something in response.

You suddenly remembered the bounty on Faye’s head, but it didn’t really matter right now. That was all on the back burner for now, seeing as every plan you could think of required a ship that wasn’t the one Faye was living on. And you really didn't want to make enemies of your new crew this early on. All you cared about right now was taking a shower to wash all of last night's events off you and getting some shut-eye.

You wondered whether Jet was aware of your previous intentions of collecting the big bounty on Faye. You had asked him if Faye was joining the group for dinner last night, with no context. There was no answer, but that also could mean he took in what you said and was processing what you really intended to do if Faye did show up at the dinner. Remembering your first meeting with Spike, he told you clearly he doesn't care if she got captured or not. So you have two people who are on opposite ends of the discussion. One is in charge of the Bebop and which bounties to pursue, and the other one likes to smoke and philosophize.

The obvious correct choice was clear, but you decide to choose the latter.

"When you come in, don't be too surprised by some of our unique characters." Jet remarked. "You've already met us two, but there are a few more along the way."

"I like to think I'm also a unique character, so we should get along." You replied happily, a tint of exhaustion underlying in your words. Spike scoffed, walking over to open the small hatch.

"What's that supposed to mean?" You snapped, a full night's worth of frustration threatening to overflow in the form of obscenities and insults.

"Are you talking to me?" Spike said over his shoulder, punching in the security numbers on the small pad. The hatch to the side of the Bebop creaked open, landing on the stone pier with a hard thunk. "I’m tired. And when I’m tired, I don’t put my energy into pulling punches and being nice.Got it, (Y/N)?"

You bit down on your tongue. "Never mind. What were you saying, Jet?"

You could hear a quiet, "Yeah that's what I thought." echoing up into the Bebop. Rolling it off your shoulders, you turned your focus to Jet as you both walked into the ship.

Opening a round metal door, you looked up to see a dimming bulb illuminating the cylinder passage. The walls were yellowing, patched with dark, aging metal, and littered with hazard signs. Jet walked over to a ladder bolted on the wall and began to climb.

"I'll tell you, you’ll get a real workout just getting around this ship." Jet laughed, his voice bouncing off the walls.

"Are there a lot of these around the ship?" You said, following.

"Oh yeah, plenty. But if you stay in the living area, you don’t really need to worry about them. I'll show you around anyway, just in case we need you to get something. We wouldn’t want you to get lost." Jet smiled.

He hopped into the center gravity passage, holding out his hand to you. You grabbed it gratefully, not realizing how much of a drop it was to the floor of the tube until you looked back down.

"Oh damn." You exclaimed, looking down. "That's pretty far."

"It’s just 15 feet. Your eyes must be playing tricks on you." Jet chuckled, closing the metal door. "Alright, so this is the lower gravity passage. It leads to the living area, that includes bedrooms, kitchen and living room, and to the storage area."

Spike was nowhere to be seen in the passage. You assumed he was already in the living room, smoking before heading off to bed. Jet opened a sliding metal door marked “Storage”. You peered into the dark room.

"This is where we keep extra ammunition, supplies, and medical boxes.”

Jet pressed a button next to the storage door, one that opened to the living area. The walls were a gradient blue color, illuminated with warm lighting. The staircase was a dark, metallic gold leading to a dark blue platform. On the floor was a yellow couch, and across from it was a single matching seat. In between them sat a knee-level coffee table with a holoTV, a computer, and someone's breakfast. Jet walked in first, stepping down. "This is the living room.” He pointed to the set on top of the table. “You’re welcome to use the holoTV and the computer, everybody shares them.” He chuckled. “I’m not sure whose breakfast that is, but don’t touch it. People are pretty possessive of food on this ship.”

Right as you took a step in, you heard the light pattering of paws bouncing into the living room. From a staircase leading down, two small light brown ears popped up. Then two big brown eyes peered over, searching for the source of commotion in the room.

"You guys have a dog?!" You asked, practically jumping down the stairs. The small Welsh corgi was seemingly just as excited as you were, running and tripping up the stairs to meet you. You extended your hand, letting him sniff you.

Jet chuckled. "Cute little thing, isn't he? His name is Ein."

"Oh, he's adorable. Who’s a good boy?" You cooed, bending down to rub Ein's ears. He stretched his head out, his little stumpy tail going a hundred miles a minute.

"And usually tagging along with Ein is-" Jet was interrupted by the pounding footsteps coming from downstairs.

"They're back, they're back, they're back!" a scrawny red-headed kid rejoiced, waving their arms about. "Ed was worried, but now Jet’s back, and Ed is okay again!"

The kid's smile stretched from ear to ear, clearly more than ecstatic to see Jet back home. They grabbed the plate from on top of the table and plopped down next to a box with a computer on top. They gobbled up what was left of their food, before bending their head back to get a look at you. "Who are you?"

"This is (Y/N), they're going to be staying on the Bebop for a little bit." Jet replied, walking over to the table. He turned back to you. "Ed is a computer genius and a damn good hacker. You ever need someone to work out some malicious malware, Ed’s your girl."

“Hi, it's nice to meet you." You said, giving Ed a small smile and a wave. She scampered over to you on all fours with her behind high in the air, chattering to herself.

“Stranger, changer, danger! Hihi...”

You laughed nervously, glancing back at Jet, who was standing with his arms crossed, looking amused. The girl stopped at your feet. “Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky the Fourth,” she said matter of factly. Ed grabbed your hand and sniffed. You had met some oddballs in your time, but this one took the cake. She made a face and jumped back, her hands covering her nose and mouth. "Ed thinks you stink!"

You sucked in air between your teeth. Did you really smell that bad, or was it another talent of this child prodigy? That’s so embarrassing. "Is it that noticeable?"

Jet half-smiled. "Doesn't bother me none. Thought I wouldn’t mention it till you could do somethin about it."

He was just going to let you find out later? No wonder Spike didn't want to be anywhere near you. It wasn’t even your first day of being on the Bebop, and you were not making a great first impression.

"Let me show you the kitchen." Jet motioned for you to follow up a small set of stairs through a large circular door frame leading down a small hallway. You turned into the kitchen, completed with a fridge, stove, oven, and a small countertop. The kitchen was dark, the only light in the room was the dimming orange ashes of Spike's cigarette falling on the floor. He was leaning against the countertop, staring down at his cig.

"There you are, Spike." Jet flipped the lights on, revealing a slightly disorderly kitchen. Spike winced, covering his eyes.

"Jesus, Jet give me a warning next time," Spike mumbled, his voice deep and raspy. Your annoyance and anger at him suddenly disappeared. That voice. You wanted to hear that voice again. You wanted to put your hand on his chest and feel the vibrations of that voice. Every time you tried to find some way to be mad at him again, he just had to stand there, looking cool and intoxicatingly seductive. You craved him like an alcoholic craved whiskey.

"Are you finished with the grand tour?" Spike asked, his heavy-lidded eyes looking away from you and Jet.

"Not yet, but I was hoping you could finish it."

"I’m not in the mood for hospitality right now. I'm going to bed." Spike said, making his way to the door.

"Just show her on the way there. And be nice, she's our guest." Jet warned, sorting the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.

"Yeah, show me some respect." You teased. But Spike clearly was not in the mood. Instead, he turned away from you, rolling his eyes, and walked out of the kitchen

Jet patted you on the back. "Give him a minute, he'll come around."

"Thank you for everything, Jet. It means a lot." You smiled.

"Don't sweat it, kid. Go ahead and get some rest. If anything comes up, I'll send the cavalry after you." He said, gesturing to the living room.

You took a deep breath before heading out of the kitchen. Ed was sitting motionless in a trance-like state, her eyes engulfed with giant goggles. Ein lay peacefully on the couch, watching as you followed Spike down the steps into the living room.

This was the first time you and Spike had been alone since last night. Just hours ago, you were definitely not afraid to touch him. Now, you didn't even want to take a step near him.

"Are you coming or what?" Spike called out impatiently, already halfway downstairs to the lower part of the living area. "I don't have all day."

"I'm here." You raced over, gliding your hand down the rail. Spike continued his way down, turning around a corner. The walk down the hallway was quiet, the silence uncomfortable. Neither of you wanted to do small talk. Spike probably didn’t want to talk at all, but you had to know. You had to ask him.

"Spike?” you asked quietly. You wrung your fingers around each other anxiously. Spike stayed silent, his quick pace faltering before coming to a stop in front of a door.

“Do you remember what happened last night?” You finally asked. Spike seemed to tense up, his jaw clenching. Deciding to press on further, you continued.

“I umm,” you mumbled, “I may have been drunk and you probably were too, but why are you so cold to me now when we were literally about f-“

“This is the bathroom. It has a tub and a shower.” Spike interrupted. Your heart dropped to your stomach. So much for answers. “There should be some clean towels. You can wash your clothes upstairs, Jet can show you where the washer is. Your room’s gonna be the first door you see when you reach the top of the stairs. It’ll be all yours till you leave.”

Spike puffed out a cloud of smoke before making his way slowly down the hallway. You looked at him in disbelief. He definitely remembers. And he’s rejecting it. You and him. Cutting it off before it starts, pushing you away.

You stepped into the bathroom, letting the door shut behind you before tears of anger and resentment started to fall down your face. How can you feel so much emotion for someone who shows none? You lost your home and belongings. You didn’t want to lose anything else.

After a long hot shower, you stood in front of the mirror, combing your fingers through your hair. You were going to have to get essentials eventually, a comb and a toothbrush would be nice. But that would have to wait. You rubbed circles on your temple, your impending exhaustion headache approaching fast.

After drying yourself off, you slipped your old clothes back on. It felt awful putting dirty clothes on your clean body, but you were not about to walk around the ship in a towel. You had already dug yourself a deep enough hole with Spike, you didn’t want to traumatize Jet, the kid, or the dog.

As you wrapped your hair in a towel, you heard shouting from outside. You combed through who it could be. Spike and Jet. Or Jet and Ed. Or Spike and Ein, or Ein and Ed. There were quite a few combinations.

“First fight on the Bebop.” You muttered to yourself. “So excited.”

This was so ridiculous, you couldn’t help but giggle to yourself. All you had to do was walk past and not get involved. Unless it was about you, then you would at least try to defend yourself. You opened the door, listening intently.

“What the fuck-“ more shouting. “And you bastards decide to tell me now?!” A shrill female voice was yelling. A table got knocked over. You could hear stomping and more shouting. “Well, where the hell are they?!”

Whoop, time to hide.

You shut the door and the latch clicked with a loud cathunk. You hoped they hadn’t heard it. You were down a big hallway, there was no way that they could’ve heard it. You had a pretty good idea of who the screaming was coming from, and you were not ready to meet her right now.

The sounds of stomping grew louder, getting closer to the bathroom door. Your fight-or-flight mode started to set in. With how pissed she sounded, stomping and roaring, this may as well be a life-or-death situation.

You rolled your neck, stretching your arms out. If you needed to defend yourself, you were going to have to do it bare-knuckled. No guns, knives, bars of soap, nothing. You flexed your hands, cracking your knuckles. You planted yourself in front of the door. The footsteps outside stopped. This was it! You were ready for anything.

Bam!

The door slid open. Faye Valentine stood on the other side, hands on her hips. She was panting from her ranting and raving in the other room. She smiled, her eyes a little too wide. You couldn’t tell if she was happy, crazy, or surprised.

“Hi there, you must be our newest crew member! My name is Faye, it’s so nice to meet you, girly!” She beamed, her eyes manic.

Not the response you were expecting. “It’s nice to meet you too, I’m (Y/N).” You held out your hand. She took it, her soft palms gripping your hand a little bit too tight. She shook your hand. She kept shaking. And shaking. You pulled back, trying your best to put on a friendly face.

“Sorry if I’m hogging the bathroom, there was an accident last night and I was so dirty, I just had to have a shower.” You smiled, stepping to the side.

“Oh no! You’re totally fine. I was just looking for the toilet, I guess I got lost.” She replied, waving her hand.

“The toilet’s just across the hall from your room, how long have you been here-“ Jet was cut off by Faye’s elbow jabbing him in the ribs. Jet grabbed his side in pain, giving you a half-smile.

“Well, I’d love to chat, but I’m really tired. I’m going to go get some sleep.” You smiled apologetically and gestured to the stairs.

Jet and Faye’s voices mingled with each other, overlapping into a confusing symphony of hospitality and kindness.

“Yeah, no worries!”

“Call us if you need anything!”

“We’ll be right here!”

Smiling, you gave a small wave, turned around, and basically sprinted down the hallway to the living room. You heard Faye hiss, “You didn’t tell me she was a girl, dumbass.”

“I was going to before you blew up at me. If you had let me finish, I would’ve. Why are you so pissed off about another crew member, anyway?”

“I’m tired of all the men on this ship, I didn’t want another one. And I thought they were going to take my room...”

Their bickering trailed off as you climbed up the two sets of stairs to your new room. Ed was still on the floor with her goggles on, humming to herself, seemingly oblivious to the fight that had just happened. Ein cautiously sniffed the overturned table, before settling onto the floor next to Ed, resting his head on her lap. You would’ve said goodnight, but they seemed to be in their own little world and you were happy to let them stay like that.

When you reached the top of the stairs, you saw two doors directly across from each other, one on each side of the landing. Spike had said it was “the first door you’d see”, but that wasn’t particularly helpful in this situation. Hoping you were correct, you quietly walked over to the door to your left, pressing the button to open it.

Your breath hitched as the door opened to see Spike fast asleep in his bed. He snored lightly, sleeping so deeply he didn’t hear the hiss and clink of the door opening. His arms were behind his head and the steady rise and fall of his bare chest was hypnotic. Even asleep he was really, really attractive. You fumbled over yourself trying to shut the door. It finally latched, and you let out a breath.

Sighing, you turned towards the door behind you. This one had to be it. You opened it to see a small, sparse room. Closing the door behind you, you flipped on the light. Pushed up against the far wall was a simple bed, and to your right was a small desk built into the wall with an old armchair next to it. There was a closet in the far corner, but the door was locked and some large boxes were stacked in front of it. They must not get many guests, it seemed like this room was mainly used for storage.

Feeling the ache of exhaustion overtaking your body, you flopped onto the bed. It was surprisingly soft, with a pillow and tan comforter neatly folded on top. You didn’t know how to thank Jet for being so kind and accommodating. Next time you cashed in a big bounty, you were going to set aside some woolongs to buy him a thank you gift.

On top of the pillow, you noticed a pair of black shorts and a yellow button-up. Pinned to the shirt was a note, clearly written in a hurry.

Some clean clothes. You smell like shit.

-S

You laughed. He’s straight-talking, that’s for sure. You slipped on the shorts and buttoned the shirt halfway up. Spreading out the comforter, you crawled underneath. You were already half-asleep, and thinking about how breathtakingly attractive Spike looked asleep relaxed you even more. Your mental snapshot of your accidental encounter was glued to your eyelids. It was never going to happen again, but you got to have one taste of beauty while here.

You gently wrapped your arms around your pillow, thoughts of Spike disappearing into clouds of empty dreams. It was so much better to fall asleep to thinking of someone, rather than no one at all.

And even though it was going to hurt, you would do it again and again.

[A/N] all I got to say is fasten your seatbelts for the next chapter, slut puppies.

#faye valentine #cowboy bebop #90s anime #jet black #radical edward #adult swim #toonami #ein #fanfiction #spike spiegel x reader #spike spiegel #see ya space cowboy

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itsthestutterforme · 3 years

Text

Oh Shit (Vincenzo)

Summary: This is a sequel to Don't Pretend You Care. Joon woo took care of you when you needed him, but then Cha young told you who he really was.

Pairings: Vincenzo x reader (platonic), Cha young x reader (platonic), Joon woo x reader (romantic)

Since I told Joon woo what happened to my best friend, he spent the rest of the night holding me. As much I hated to admit it, I really liked being in his arms. He's really good at comforting people and oddly enough he was respectful. Nothing like usual flings act.

Maybe that's his way of telling me that he isn't just a fling. I slowly shift from my side to my back and furrow my brows when I realize that Joon woo wasn't in the bed. My interest is peeked when I smell noodles and chicken.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed through the living room to the kitchen. Joon woo was sound asleep on the couch but there was freshly cooked food on the kitchen counter. How did he fall asleep so fast? His hair appears to be wet, so he must have taken a shower while I was sleep.

I sit on the arm rest of the couch and find myself reaching out to touch his hair when I heard a blaring alarm. A yelp escaped my mouth as I collapse to the floor and he jolts awake.

His gaze falls me on the ground and he asks, "How did you get down there?" Not knowing what to say, I shrug my shoulders and effortlessly pulls me to my feet. He holds me in place to make sure I don't fall backwards and I notice how close our faces were. I press a soft kiss on his lips and said, "Thank you."

He brushes a few hairs away from my face and kissed my temple. "I have to go to work. I'll call you later, okay." He says and I nod understandingly. He leaves with his duffel bag and suitcase.

I approach the counter with the food and say a small note folded next to it. I open it and it reads, "The day you stop smiling is the day the entire world goes dark."

Never thought he was the poetic type but he seems to be full of surprises lately. I get ready to meet Cha young in her office and the entire time it felt like my body had a mind of its own. A weight was present on my chest as I walk through the door.

I dry my feet on the rug and go straight for the coffee. "Y/N, I heard about your friend. Mi dispiace." Vicenzo says with a small bow. "Thank you," I say softly. Cha young pulls me in for a strong hug and says, "We're here if you need us." I nod softly and she pulls away. I take a long sip of the coffee and sit down at the table.

"Let's get to work," The entire day, Cha young, Vincenzo and Joo sung were walking on egg shells in front of me. They think that I am hanging on by a thread and the slightest discomfort will snap the thread. A faint knock on the door grabs everyone's attention. Cha young stands up to answer the door and Joonwoo is standing in the doorway.

"Joon woo, what are you doing here? I told you that I can't hang out tod-" "All due respect, Cha young. I'm not here for you." Joon woo steps into the office and approaches me. I stand from the table and Joon woo sets a gift bag on the table. He gently rubs the sides of my arms and I sigh softly at his touch.

"Are you okay?" He asks softly. I nod and he holds the sides of my face. He ducks his head until we're at eye level where he keeps eye contact for a little while. "Open the bag," he finally says. A small smile tugs on my lips as I pull out an oversized turtle sweatshirt with matching socks.

"I love it, thank you." I say, wrapping my arms around him and embracing his warm body. I look over his shoulder to see Cha young's jaw nearly hitting the floor. She makes a cut throat motion with her index finger and I pull away from him.

"You mind if I stop by for dinner?" He asks. "Yeah, that sounds great." "Great, see you then." He presses a kiss on my temple before pulling away.

He nods to Vincenzo, Cha young and Mr. Nam before leaving. "You have a lot of explaining to do!" Cha young yells at me.

Joon woo and I continued to see each other but lately he's been distant. I'm not one to push or anything, but I'm still a little concerned. Now that I think about it, everyone has been distant. Cha young, Vincenzo, Mr. Nam. Weird. The sudden blare of my phone makes me jump.

I checked the screen and it was Cha young calling. "Hello," I answer. "Y/N, leave your house now." She states. "What's wrong, Cha young. You're scaring me." "Joon woo is Babel's CEO and he's very dangerous. You have to leave." "This can't be happening," I say, feeling sick to my stomach.

I've been sleeping with the enemy, literally. He's responsible for countless deaths and doesn't care that he's flipped people's lives upside down. I walk backwards to what I thought was a wall but instead it was a warm chest. I yell leaves my lips and my phone drops to the floor. "What do you want with me, Joon woo?"

"What kind of question is that? I'm here because I love you. Don't you love me?" He lifts my chin up to meet his gaze. I am in love him, and the terrifying part is that he knows it. "Baby," he adds softly. "You know that I do,"

#kdrama fanfic #kdramas #vincenzo

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yeonjunsbxtch · 3 years

Text

Turquoise Sky - Choi Yeonjun

*Sometimes the worst place you can be is in your own head*

Pairing: Choi Yeonjun x reader

Genre: Extreme Angst

Warnings: extreme anxiety, overthinking, depression, heartbreak, swearing, crying, yelling, retroactive jealousy, irrational thinking and behavior.

Word count: 2k

Song suggestions: The Truth Untold - BTS, STUCKINMYBRAIN - Chase Atlantic, Not Meant To Be - Theory of a Deadman, Black Rose - Trapt

Arthur’s note: hello! 🥰 quick notes about this angst I wanted to add! This is actually a prologue for a story I am writing but I did change a few things so it would make more sense so consider this also a sneak peek! Also, this angst holds a special spot in my heart. I hope you enjoy! ❤️

It was a gloomy September day. You gazed out the window of your bedroom, watching the wind blow through the leaves on the trees. The weather seemed to match your mood perfectly today. Your stomach turned as you felt your anxiety growing worse. Your anxiety has always been an issue in your life, but lately, it feels as if it is becoming something more.

As you continued to gaze out the window, your phone suddenly started ringing. You looked down at it and saw it was your boyfriend, Yeonjun. The slightest smile appeared on your face as you answered.

“Hi Yeonjun.”

“Hey babe, do you maybe want to go shopping today?”

Your smile grew hearing that he wanted to see you. You and Yeonjun have been arguing a lot lately about the dumbest shit. And of course it was always your fault. You could have sworn your relationship was ruined with the amount of times you almost split. So this was refreshing to hear.

"Sure! That would be fun!"

"Also, could I spend the night tonight?"

You grasped your bottom lip between your teeth as butterflies flew around in your stomach. It's been awhile since he has asked to spend the night. So, how could you deny him?

"Yeah! Sounds like a plan."

"Okay! I'll be there in 10."

And with that, you hung up. You quickly changed your clothes into something cuter.

Recently, you've been overthinking everything more than usual. You weren't sure why. Every word and every thought chewed through your mind and your anxiety always seemed the take over. It was almost like you had another person in your head. Every time you two fought, you were afraid he was going to leave you. Your arguments always ended with him wanting to end things. You felt as if you were walking on egg shells around him, trying not to overreact to anything. You were so afraid of him leaving you. You took a couple deep breaths to calm yourself. You were already feeling down today and the last thing you wanted was to argue with him, again.

"You like this one?" Yeonjun opened up a red candle for you to smell. You took a quick whiff and scrunched up your nose at the strong aroma.

"Not really, kind of smells like ass." He giggled at your comment and put the candle back on the shelf.

You walked over to the other side of the store to explore more options. You were surprisingly in a better mood than you were before. You and Yeonjun's mini shopping trip has been perfect so far and for a moment, it felt like there was hope for you two.

Just when you thought things were getting better, you stopped in your tracks as you heard a specific song start to play.

'I met you in the dark, you lit me up..'

Say You Won't Let Go by James Arthur

Your heart felt like it dropped and your stomach started to turn.

Your mind suddenly flashed back to the beginning of your relationship, when Yeonjun and you briefly talked about your past relationships. He told you that this song reminded him of his ex. You didn't know much about their relationship or how she broke his heart. All you knew was that this song was now associated with her.

You knew feeling like this was irrational. There was no reason to feel this way about a song. And you knew you were overreacting. But you couldn't help but wonder what their relationship was like. That made you nauseous. Retroactive Jealously at it's finest. Dark feelings and thoughts started to spiral out of control in your head..

'Does he still think about her?' 'Does he miss her?' 'Maybe that's why things have been tense.' 'Does he even still love me?'

You hated yourself for thinking those things and you knew it was irrational, but you couldn't control them. He's never given you a reason to worry about her. You remembered there used to be a time when you never doubted him. But how could you not when he has tried to leave you so many times before? Why was he always so quick to leave?

As you were staring blankly at a blue candle in front of you, you felt a light tap on your shoulder. You jumped a bit, not expecting the sudden touch. You turned around to see Yeonjun, smiling. That smile held so much innocence, so why were you always so quick to take everything out on him?

"Did you pick a candle? Do you want this one?" He pointed at the blue candle that you were staring aimlessly at. 'Turquoise Sky.'

Without thinking, you nodded your head and grabbed the candle. You attempted to smile as you made eye contact with him for a second, before looking to the side.

"You okay?" He asked.

You swallowed hard feeling a lump form in your throat. You knew you couldn't tell him what was wrong. He wouldn't understand. He would just get annoyed that you got upset about something so stupid, again.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Let's go." You said with a not-so-nice tone of voice. You didn't mean for it to come across that way. But for some reason, you felt like you had to mask yourself being upset. Hide your vulnerability. So you portrayed it as anger.

He gazed down at you before scoffing and grabbing the candle out of your hands.

"Okay. Let's go check out."

You watched him as he headed to the register. You mentally slapped yourself. 'Why am I like this?'

It was an awkward car ride back. The tension in the car was sickening and you felt frustrated at yourself for causing it. You continued to look out the window as the car came to a stop at a red light. You could feel Yeonjun's eyes on you. You took a quick glance at him and then turned back around. A shaky sigh was then heard from him. Your body flinched at the sound of him slapping his hands onto the steering wheel. You knew you had made him upset, for no reason. You felt the car start going again.

"What did I do?" He asked as his low voice cracked ever so slightly. You couldn't help but stay silent. "Seriously? Why do you always do this?"

"Do what?" You acted stupid. You knew what he was talking about.

"This! We are perfectly fine one minute and then the next minute you act like I am the worst person in the world. Then I ask you what's wrong and you don't say anything! You do this all the fucking time!"

You sat still as his loud voice pierced through your ears. You started to feel your face heat up. You hated when he would yell at you. You couldn't handle it. You knew you fucked up.

"Don't yell at me." You wanted to punch yourself for saying that. What was the reason for acting like this? You knew it would only make things worse.

You heard him chuckle. You know that chuckle people do when they are so frustrated that they can't help but laugh? Yeah, that.

"Why don't you tell me what's wrong or if I did anything wrong? Because I really have no idea."

You wanted to tell him. You wanted to cry to him and express to him that it wasn't his fault. That he didn't do anything. But you were scared. You couldn't admit your insecurities out loud. You were afraid he wouldn't take you seriously.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"What the fuck is your problem?!"

You turned your head towards him, lips parted in awe, not believing what he had just said.

"My problem?! Seriously?!" You raised your voice and let out a soft chuckle. "Maybe this is why I never tell you anything! I'm always afraid you're gonna get mad or you're gonna leave me because I am upset about something!"

You cringed at yourself as you heard what was coming out of your mouth.

Yeonjun paused, taking in a breath to calm himself.

"Y/N... are you happy with me?"

His voice was so soft and low, sounding terrified of the answer.

You looked at him as his eyes held their gaze on the road. He has asked you this many times before, but only when he was rethinking the relationship. You tried taking a deep breath. You knew that you just needed to reassure him. Then everything would be okay, right?

"What does that have to do with anything? You didn't do anything wrong, okay?"

Yep, that was the best you could do.

Yeonjun opened his mouth to say something but shook his head instead. There was something about the tension in the air that felt... different. Something that was inconsistent with all of the other times you two fought.

Yeonjun stayed silent the rest of the way back. The silence added with the tension made you feel even more sick.

After what felt like forever, you finally arrived at your house. You unbuckled your seatbelt and noticed he wasn't unbuckling his. You looked over at him and his eyes met yours. His eyes looked empty as he just peered at you with no expression.

"Are you coming in?" You asked him, voice becoming more faint.

"No. I'm sorry." His deep voice was monotone. You had never heard his voice sound so emotionless.

"Why? You-You said you were going to spend the night.."

"I can't. I'm sorry."

You wanted to rip your hair out in anger and frustration. You wanted to go back in time and change what had happened. You didn't know what to do at this point. You felt as if there was nothing else you could do or say.

"Yeonjun.. please."

You gazed at him as he sat back in his seat.

"I can't do this anymore."

Your heart dropped and you started to feel your palms become soaked with sweat.

"Can't do what anymore?"

Even though you knew what he was talking about, you still asked. You needed to hear it.

"Us. We need to break up."

"Yeonjun, I-"

You tried to reach for his hand but he pulled away.

"Don't try to change my mind. It won't work."

You sat up in your seat and faced him. You took a couple deep breaths, building up the courage to let yourself be vulnerable.

"Look, I'm sorry. I was just having a bad day and I took it out on you and I didn't mean to." Trying to apologize the best you could, he let out a sigh.

"You don't understand.." He whispered.

"Please, explain Yeonjun."

He ran his fingers through his yellow colored hair.

"I'm always scared I am going to do something to upset you. Like I said earlier, we are great one minute but then fighting the next. I love you Y/N and I just want you to be happy."

Your world felt like it had shattered as you watched a couple tears fall from his eyes. All this time you were worrying about your feelings, you forgot about his.

"Please, Yeonjun... I'm sorry! Please baby, you didn't do anything wrong! I just overthink someti-"

"Please, don't- don't call me that Y/N. Don't make this harder than it has to be. Please go.."

You looked at him as he avoided eye contact with you. You tried to reach for his hand one more time. This time he didn't pull away. You held his hand in yours, feeling it for what you hoped wouldn't be the last time. He gazed down at your hands and then let go.

"Yeonjun-"

"Stop! Y/N, You need to go. now."

Your heart felt like it had been broken into two. You wanted to fight for him, like you always have. But for some reason, you couldn't. This felt so... final.

He leaned back and reached his hand in the backseat, grabbing the bag with the candle in it. He held it out to you. Your eyes shifted from the bag to him. You couldn't accept this. Not after everything you did.

"Keep the candle."

And with that you exited his car. Without looking back, you unlocked the door and entered your house. You kicked the door closed behind you and immediately fell to your knees.

Once the first tear dropped, there was no stopping the rest from flooding out.

You desperately tried to catch your breath in between sobs. You didn't want to believe what had just happened.

Feeling empty inside as you wept on the floor, you felt as if Yeonjun had just ripped a piece of your heart out. A piece that you would never be able to get back..

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c4pricornc4ts · 3 years

Text

The Best Prank - SBI One-Shot

This idea is by @bellfort3 ! Thank you for letting me take it.

Summary: He’d ask his mom if he could just quickly tweet something funny about him being grounded but really, isn’t a break from Tommy what everyone wants? Even his own fans used to find him annoying. Maybe everyone’s happy he’s gone.

So he doesn’t ask.

Tommy is tilting his head back in one of the uncomfortable leather seats outside the principal's office yet again this semester. He’s holding an already very bloody tissue up to his nose and swinging his legs while waiting for his mom to be interrupted in the middle of work yet again to come and take him home.

He really tried not to get in another fight after how mad his mom was last time, but there were these asshole upperclassmen who just really deserved it for how much of an asshole they are to everyone, but especially him.

He knew his mom would be livid, and he was completely right. He eyes her warily as she steps in the office and starts switching between apologizing profusely to the principal and lecturing him. The principal just hands her a paper to sign and tells them both very seriously that if he gets in one more fight he’s expelled.

Tommy’s up getting another tissue when she all but drags him out the office door by his coat.

“It’s really not that big of a deal!” He whines as she checks him over, before letting him get in the car.

She leans her forehead against the steering wheel and sighs, gripping it tightly. “Not a big deal? Tom you can’t just get in fights with people! You heard your principal, one more and you’re out.”

“What am I supposed to do? Just let them be assholes?” He snapped at her, though he sounded less angry and more nasally from the tissue blocking his nose.

“Go tell a goddamn teacher! I’m starting to think you like getting your nose broken.”

“They don’t do shit!”

His mom turns to him, he looks away. “Your grades are dropping, you’ve been in a total of three fights just this semester and now you’re snapping at me? What’s gotten into you?”

“I’m sorry mom.” He mumbles. He does feel kind of bad about it all. But mostly he just wants the conversation to end.

“You’ve really left me no choice here you know.” She takes his phone out of his backpack. “No phone for a week, and no streaming either. I’m unplugging the wifi. You need to do some self reflection.”

“Oh come on now, a whole week? It’s just a bloody nose it’s not like anybody died!” This was completely unfair. Streaming was his job, and how on earth will his friends know where he went?

“You’ll thank me when you’re not repeating sophomore year.” She starts the car, focusing on the road now. Tommy makes no move to speak to her again not wanting to make anything worse.

After he’s caught up on his school work it’s almost 8pm. He goes to sit in front of his computer, excited to just hang out with whoever was online and deflates in his seat when all he can do is play that stupid no internet dinosaur game.

Even though it’s a stupid game he still plays it for at least an hour before giving up and just getting ready for bed. At least he had school tomorrow to keep him distracted.

School goes by quickly, he complains to his friends about being grounded and over exaggerates the fight he was in and all his teachers give him looks when they see his bruised face but smile when he turns in his late work.

He opens his front door and starts to head upstairs, preparing to stream before just leaning against the wall and sighing when he remembers his punishment. He has no homework though so really what was he supposed to do?

Blue eyes look at the cookie mix left on the counter and Tommy makes a plan. He changes out of his school uniform and makes sure to give his mom a pointed look before running back to the kitchen.

He reads the back of the box, leaning against the counter; 2 eggs, ½ cup of water, and ⅓ cup of olive oil. It sounds easy enough. The only trouble he has is trying to crack the eggs without getting any shells in the bowl. He thinks about when he met up with his friends and how Wilbur and Phil made it a competition to see which of the two could crack an egg with one hand the cleanest.

Tommy stares at the unmixed bowl, his hands covered in baking ingredients, wondering if any of his online friends missed him. They always seem relieved he’s not around when they stream and Tommy tries to remember they’re talking about his character, but it hurts. There’s only so many times he can hear his pseudo family call him annoying and a problem before it starts to feel more personal.

It hurt, he always played it off so well on stream but after streams where they were particularly rude to him he always just felt drained.

He’d ask his mom if he could just quickly tweet something funny about him being grounded but really, isn’t a break from Tommy what everyone wants? Even his own fans used to find him annoying. Maybe everyone’s happy he’s gone.

So he doesn’t ask.

Suddenly, he doesn’t want to finish his baking project. He really just wants to lie down and sleep for the week. But he does, though it feels a lot less exciting than it did at first.

He takes the cookies out of the oven with his bare hands yelling about how that’s his least favorite part before turning around and coming face to face with his very confused mom holding an oven mitt.

He runs his hands under some cold water and takes a few cookies up to his room, leaving the rest out. He closes the door and plays some minecraft in single player for a while, walking into the house he and Tubbo had built together when his friend had visited.

Tubbo doesn’t hate him, he liked Tubbo.

It’s only his fourth day of no internet and Tommy is incredibly bored. He had done just about everything he could think of to do. He feels bad for kids who grew up like this because honestly, how did they do it?

He supposes it’s different when you don’t rely on the internet for your job, or if you just never knew it was a thing. If he was born before the internet maybe he would write that book he always wanted to write.

Tommy is staring at a book on knitting and fumbling around the two needles, trying to make his weekend at least somewhat productive. The tv in the living room is turned down and Tommy curls up on the end of the couch with a roll of green yarn.

He begins to get the hang of the whole knitting thing after three very messy rows when his mom messes up his hair, causing him to look up with a glare.

“We’re going out, don’t you try to get on anything or it’ll be two weeks!”

“I have ascended past the need for electronics, as you can see.” He laughs and keeps trying to tie off the fourth row.

The door clicks shut and Tommy tosses the yarn aside and sits up. Sighing hard enough to blow his hair out of his face before flopping back down on the couch dramatically.

He throws an arm over his eyes and resolves to just lie down for a bit, not bothering to even fix the knitting book which had landed open on the floor next to him.

He just let’s the colors flickering from the tv wash over him for a while when the doorbell rings. He ignores it, as his parents didn’t tell him anyone would be coming by. Hoping it was just the mail.

The person at the door starts knocking after a few moments, so Tommy begrudgingly gets up to answer.

He really wasn’t expecting Wilbur to be standing in his front yard, checking his phone. He looked troubled, as if he was worrying it was the wrong house or something. Tommy takes a deep breath and goes to find out what Wilbur wanted.

“Tommy! Where’ve you been? Everyone’s been so worried I decided to make a trip here.” Wilbur just let’s himself in, walking right past Tommy and into the kitchen.

“Oh, just busy with school y’know?” He knows it’s a weak excuse, but it’s worth a shot.

“Too busy to just send a message to someone?” Of course that didn’t work on Wilbur. Philza or Tubbo would’ve accepted that excuse in a heartbeat. But not Wilbur.

“I thought no one would care. It’s only a week.” He opens the fridge, trying to act nonchalant about the situation.

“Only a week? Tommy, you usually text us everyday! Of course we’re gonna notice.”

“Notice? Yes. Care? No.” He mumbles bitterly. Freezing up right after, hand still on the fridge handle.

“Of course we care! Wha- Why would you think we didn’t-” Tommy feels a bit bad, Wilbur sounds genuinely hurt by it. But Tommy wasn’t done.

“You all always talk about how annoying I am, for-fucking-give me for giving you and everyone else a break.” He turns towards the older, and tries to stop his eyes from watering. Trying to tell himself he’s mad, not upset.

“It’s all jokes Tommy, you know we don’t actually feel that way about you.” Wilbur pushes off the counter and takes a tentative step towards Tommy. Who makes sure Wilbur notices him step back.

“What’s so funny about it? I go from school where everyone seems to hate me just to talk to more people who act like they hate me. And I’m really, really tired of it.” He falters by the end of the statement, realizing that maybe he is more than just mad.

He knows he’s crying, his shoulders shake and his face feels hot as he looks anywhere but at Wilbur’s face. Was it so bad of him to just want people in his corner for once? Is he really such an annoyance that someone had to drive all the way to his house because he didn’t just find a way to contact any of them?

“Oh, Tommy.” Wilbur murmurs, his voice sounds soft. And Tommy leans into his shoulder for support. He should probably just sit down, but he really just wants some comfort right now. Even if the one who made him so upset is the one he gets it from.

Wilbur pulls him in, enveloping him in an actual hug. And Tommy can’t deny it does make him feel a bit better.

“I’m being ridiculous, I'm sorry. I-I know you guys don’t mean it. It just- It hurts.” He’s crying again, and he really hopes Wilbur doesn’t make him stop hiding his face.

“You’re not being ridiculous, we should’ve looked out for you better. I just assumed you were okay with it, but I never even asked you. I’m the one who’s sorry. So you take your sorry back.”

“Sorry for being sorry.” He whispers back softly, laughing over his own joke.

Wilbur holds him for a bit longer, and he tries to wipe his face before stepping back.

“I’ll talk to Techno and Philza if that’s okay. I never want you to feel like I wouldn’t care if you left, I’m sure they wouldn’t want you too either.”

“That’s- thanks, Wilbur.”

Wilbur claps his hands together excitedly. “Now, tell me what TommyInnit does when there’s no internet to waste his time on.”

“Wilbur you won’t believe it but I got to the point of boredom where you learn to knit. To knit, Wilbur!” He’s dragging Wilbur by the arm into the living room to show him the barely finished hat he’d started. And laughing when Wilbur fusses at him for leaving the book sprawled on the floor like it was. The moment earlier was completely forgotten.

And if Wilbur made a tweet that night, well he’d delete it before Tommy got his phone back so really, no one gets hurt here.

Wilbur Soot (@WilburSoot)

Tommy’s grounded LMAOO and won’t have his phone for the next few days, quick comment nice paragraphs under his latest tweet to confuse him haha, the best prank I think.

#SBI #tommyinnit #wilbur soot #fanfic #c4pricornc4ts

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 3 years

Text

From Chin To Yon Rah (Part 19)

“Lucky girl.” Go-Hara rasps one day. “Lucky, lucky girl.” She tsks.

“How can you say that?” Azula asks. The very question is an absolute affront. One that sets her fire blazing to a degree she hasn’t felt in a very long time.

“Because you had a chance.” She pauses and corrects herself. “You have a chance and you’re throwing it away.”

Azula furrows her brows and shakes her head, “You had it right the first time, I had a chance. My chance is gone.” Twice over. It would seem that each time she has her fingers (very firmly) around something that will make her happy, someone comes to pry her fingers off of it. Or maybe she squeezes too tightly and shatters it herself.

The old woman tsks again. “You have a chance! You have a chance! You. Have. A. Chance!” Azula should be used to her turbulent moods by now, but this time the woman is acting rather infantile. She wonders if the disease has progressed, wonders if leprosy can even do such a thing to the mind.

“We should talk about something else.”

“You should stop playing in alleyways and make a life for yourself…”

“I already tried that.” Twice over.

Quick and deadly as a lightning strike, the woman’s mood shifts. She is very visibly enraged and Azula can’t understand why. She thinks that Go-Hara detects her confusion. “I don’t have a chance. I’d give anything to have one. But…” she holds up her knobby hands, “Every day in this decrepit town, I watch perfectly healthy folks waste what they have. Nobody wants to fight for anything anymore. They fail once or twice and they decide that there’s nothing to fight for.”

Azula opens her mouth. But Go-Hara rages on, her fury seems to build with every word and by the end of her raving her voice is raw and soft, “that’s because they don’t know what it’s like to truly be in a position where fighting isn’t an option.” She backpedals, “where it’s an option but it truly doesn’t matter how much fight you have in you, you’re punching at a breeze. And I just have to watch them give up, wishing that I had the chance to just throw my life away. I don’t even have a life to throw away.”

Her breathing is rugged.

There are a lot of things that Azula can say. Things that are better. Things that could calm the woman down or appease her. She picks the one thing that will do anything but. “Perhaps you’re the lucky one; you don’t have to fight to die like the rest of us.”

Go-Hara turns on her heel and storms away. She is startlingly fast, Azula chalks it up to pure hatred fueled adrenaline.

She doesn’t see the woman again for a very long time. It is so terribly lonely and the more she thinks about it, the more pleasant it seems to prove to Go-Hara, to herself, to everyone that she is ready to see herself out. Maybe that will drive home how little of a chance she knows she has. Or maybe there is no one to prove anything to. Likely Go-Hara has died like everyone else she gets close to. This time the note is a bitter one to end on.

She ventures into the forest that day and she comes back with a few sprigs of hemlock in her gloved hands. She finds that her usual spot is occupied. She counts the flowers in her hands, there is plenty of spare hemlock to offer the intruder.

“Where were you?”

“Picking flowers.” They fall to the alley floor.

Go-Hara eyes the hemlock at her feet, “bah! Some bouquet that is.”

“I thought that you died.”

She thinks that the woman is snarling. But it is often hard to tell with Go-Hara, especially these days. The woman’s worsening condition is beginning to limit her facial movement. “I am going to lose this fight.” She declares. “But I’m still fighting.” The resentment is back, possibly fuller than before. “You can win but you’ve stopped fighting.”

Azula swallows and waits for the woman to demand that she pick herself back up and resume the battle. Instead she gestures to the flowers. “Go on then. They’re right there, eat ‘em off’a the dirty ground.”

Azula folds her arms over her chest, torn between hatred and misery. Torn between wanting to do just that, if only to see how the woman would react, and wanting to kick the flowers away out of spite.

Instead she finds herself standing there. Now that it is happening, she wonders how it hasn’t happened sooner; she finds herself wondering about Hajime and Atsu in the Spirit World. She imagines herself standing there in a bubbling hot spring with bamboo that reaches gold-orange clouds. There is steam all around,enchanting as it crawls over black sand, and curls around formations of long hardened magma. That is how she has always imagined the Spirit World. And Hajime and Atsu stand in the pool, Seukhyun and Caihong too. But they aren’t delighted to see her. And when Hajime embraces her it is mournful. He blames himself. He says that she shouldn’t be here. Ojihara is furious. Absolutely livid. Just like Go-Hara…

When she comes back to herself she finds that the real Go-Hara isn’t angry at all. Not anymore.

“I just want you to have a chance.” The woman mumbles. “I met a lot of people and a lot of them don’t deserve to live.”

She has always appreciated the woman’s bluntness.

“Why do you think that I do?”

The woman shrugs. “Sometimes you just get a feeling about a person.”

Azula doesn’t take the hemlock that night or the next. She doesn’t take it at all. Go-Hara doesn’t bring up matters of motivation again.

.oOo.

“Are you happy?” Azula asks one morning. A morning where things aren’t particularly good nor particularly bad. These are the honest days. The days when she truly knows how she feels within.

“Happy?” The woman grins as wide as her affliction will allow. “I’m downright joyful! I’ve gotten to see more sunsets than most people. I got to ride hippo-cows and lasso ostrich horses.” Azula thinks that it is supposed to be the other way around, not that she knows much about ranches. “And I got to meet a princess before I died! They call me a dead woman walking, but I’ve lived more than the lot’a them!” Suddenly her laugh isn’t such a hideous sound. This is the Go-Hara whose company she enjoys.

“Sounds, fulfilling.” Azula nods.

“Aye, girl!” She nods. “You’re no lepper. You have a full life to live. I ain’t got much longer. Can you do a dying old woman a favor?”

“Depends on the favor.”

Go-Hara chuckles. “Can you live that full life for me? I can’t do it, can you?”

That morning she leaves a blanket in the alleyway, at the old woman’s feet. On an old scrap of paper she scawls a thank you. And with the rising sun as a backdrop, she heads for the vast grassland again.

That day she learns that sometimes the sick are less ill than the healthy.

.oOo.

She thinks about it more than she thought she would. It was just a little touch. A soft little brush. But she has learned that those smaller, simpler touches are often more profound than the bolder declarations. She absently touches her cheek where his hand had been. She can still feel phantom tingles.

It was only a playful gesture… Only a playful gesture and yet…

She hears a knock on her door and her heart quickens if only somewhat. Upon opening it, TyLee flounces into the room and flops onto the bed. Azula had forgotten that the woman liked to do that.

“I know that you don’t like baking, but Mai’s birthday is tomorrow…”

Azula had forgotten that too. Granted she has never really had time for birthdays.

“I was hoping that we could bake her something special. She doesn’t like the icing on the other cakes, it’s ‘too bright’. I think that it’s just fine though.”

“Sure, TyLee, I’ll help you bake.” Though she can’t promise that it will be any good. Hajime had tried time and time again to teach her to cook the things she harvested but the culinary arts are lost on her.

“Great!” TyLee bounces up once more. She takes Azula by the hand and drags her into the kitchen.

“Okay so I’ve already…”

“Made a huge mess.” Azula observes. At least she won’t have to feel guilty for wrecking the kitchen.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

“I can’t cook, TyLee.”

She stares at Azula. Azula stares back. The princess is beginning to gather that she had been summoned under the impression that she could make something of this mess.

“You didn’t learn to cook in the Earth Kingdom?”

She shakes her head. “I know how to roast meat.” Even then she usually burns it quite badly. “Have you tried asking Zuzu?”

TyLee nods. “It wasn’t this bad before he got here. The head chef personally escorted him out.”

.oOo.

The first step had been to clean the kitchen. Azula is good at this. She probably should have gotten one of the servants to do it for her but she needs to know with certainty that her baking area is absolutely spotless. And with her hand having done the work, she knows that it is.

TyLee drops two eggs into the flour mix.

Azula shakes her head.

“It says, two eggs’.”

“Yes.” Azula agrees as she cracks it against the rim of the bowl. She cringes as the yolk bursts in her palm. “two cracked eggs.”

TyLee nods. She too rams the an egg against the bowl, dropping the smashed bits into the mix.

“Without the shells.”

“Whoops.” She purses her lips as she begins picking shell shards out. “Well how do we get the yolk out without getting shell bits?”

“You open it correctly.”

“How?”

Azula wipes her hands clean and shrugs. She plucks another egg and tries again. Just when she thinks that the yolk will slide easily free, it explodes again, spattering her face with yolk. She crinkles her nose and wipes the mess from her forehead.

“You have to be gentle.” TyLee suggests. She picks up another egg and taps it on the rim of the bowl. This time she only has to pick a few pieces of shell from the mix.

“TyLee, can I ask you something?” She asks upon finally putting the cake in the oven. She will let the servants determine when to take it out.

“Sure, Azula!”

She swallows, before back peddling in her mind, “firstly, did you read my journal with Zuko?”

She cringes, “was I not supposed to?”

“I was hoping that you did.”

TyLee relaxes, “why?”

“Do you think that…” She pauses. “Do you think that Hajime would be angry if I found someone else.” It is a silly question, Hajime can’t get mad at her, he is dead.

“Oh, Azula!” TyLee takes her by the wrists, she thinks of a beach party so long ago, hadn’t TyLee been trying to give her love advice then too? “I think that he would be happy that you aren’t hurt or alone anymore.” Still holding Azula’s hand she presses it over the princess’ heart.

“Okay.”

“Who is it?” TyLee beams.

She isn’t sure how TyLee doesn’t know already. She hasn’t exactly been around that many people. And then she does seem to connect the dots. She gives a happy little gasp and covers her mouth, “it’s Sokka, isn’t it?”

She nods. Still she finds herself hesitant.

.oOo.

She takes the time to wash her floury, yolky hair and changes into fresh silks. She is offered lotions and perfumes and she helps herself to at least a little of it. She thinks that she is finally starting to settle more fully and comfortably back into her old lifestyle. At least a touch anyhow.

“The cake tastes good, what’s it for?”

Azula’s face flashes red, “Sokka, you didn’t!”

He throws his hands up, “I didn’t, I didn’t! Promise.” He drops his hands. “But it smells good.”

Azula exhales. Truly she should knock the man on his ass. “It’s for Mai, can’t you tell.”

He taps his chin. “Gloomy colors. ‘Birthday’ spelled with little mochi chunks and no ‘happy’. Yeah I can tell it’s for Mai.”

“I thought that we should just give her the mochi.”

“I didn’t realize that you can cook.”

Azula gives a dismissive gesture. “Wait until you taste it to make assumptions.”

He laughs. “I guess that you can’t be good at everything.” He takes a seat next to her on the bed, his hand brushes over hers briefly before he finds an unoccupied spot to put it. But she finds it again and without a word she takes it. He stares for a moment, at her hand in his.

“What’s this?” He holds up their hands.

She clears her throat, “it is my hand, Sokka. And yours. I would imagine that you have known what a hand is for a while now.”

He rolls his eyes. “I know what hands are! I just want to know why you’re holding mine.”

“Because it is here.” And she wonders if that is all there is to it. He is simply there and available. But she doesn’t think that this is the case. She is holding his hand because it is his hand. The hand that hovered over hers when she’d first woken up dazed and distraught, it is the hand that took hers at the theater, the hand that guided her as she learned to sew, the hand that held hers when she was falling apart.

He chuckles again. “I don’t exactly know what that means, Azula.”

But she does, she knows exactly what it means and she finds that she is just as hesitant to say it as she had been with Hajime. Perhaps more so. She hasn’t been around Sokka nearly as long as she had been around Hajime--not affectionately anyhow. She doesn’t know how to say it, not in a poetic and elegant way. And maybe that is just it, maybe it isn’t something that is meant to be spoken at all.

Anyways, she had promised Go-Hara that she would live. That she wouldn’t waste her youth and her pretty face. She had promised to truly live. She doesn’t give herself time to overthink it. She cups Sokka’s face in her hands and pulls his face closer for a kiss. Her first one in a very, very long time.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #Azula #Sokka #Sokkla

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enkelimagnus · 3 years

Text

A Castle in the Forest

Percy x Vex’ahlia, Chapter 8, 4107 words,

A Modern AU, in which Vex is a park ranger taking over the Alabaster Sierras post, and finds much more than she bargained for

Read on AO3

Daddy issues, emotional breakdowns and rash decisions

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

Snow falls almost continuously for the next day or so, covering the forest and the mountains in blinding white. Every time Vex goes onto the look-out post over the cabin, may it be to clear the path for eventual work or to actually check on her surroundings, she finds herself unable to tell white stone from snow.

Her eyes meet an endless ocean of white, she’s forced to wear sunglasses when the rays bounce off of the snow and ice and blind anyone trying to watch the surrounding nature. It’s breathtaking.

She spends as long as she can on the lookout post, sometimes alone or sometimes with Vax. The endless white makes her feel incredibly small. When she’s alone, the only thing across the valley from her is the castle, in its white glory. It doesn’t loom the way it does when it rains. It stands, proud and tall.

Whitestone exhales in winter. It chases away the heaviness. The sky is bluer right now than she’s ever seen it here. Syngorn doesn’t get this beautiful in winter, it gets drab and wet and disagreeable. Whitestone thrives in the snow. Vex finds herself exhaling with it, breathing hard and free in the cold.

It’s exhilarating, the way the air almost hurts when you breathe it. She wants to stay here forever.

She’s spent a few early morning hours watching the sunrise on the lookout post, black sky turning to gorgeous colors and the winter sun making the white come to life suddenly. It goes from darkness to light so fast it’s almost dizzying. But she can’t stand forever watching. She’s getting a little too frozen for comfort, and she has other things to do.

She climbs down the almost frozen ladder, careful of where she steps and how she grabs. She makes it back down with no issue. The warmth of the cabin envelops her as she steps into it. It stings her fingers and feet a little as warmth and blood comes rushing back in. She busies herself making coffee in the morning, puts the aluminum pot on the stove.

Vax is still asleep, curled up on himself a little. His hair has gotten free of the tie at some point during the night and it’s going to be a bitch to entangle. She can already hear his whines as she brushes out the tangles. He’s always been sensitive when it comes to his scalp. It would be easier if he cut his hair, really, but he will probably kill her before he does that.

Like this, with his hair covering his ears, he looks almost full-blooded. Vex swallows.

She hates those thoughts. They’re not hers. They’re the ones of the Syngornian elves. They’re the echoes of their comments, of their looks, of their whispers. They’re the memories of their father’s very words when they first arrived. He’d watched them so critically, observed their ears and their hair and their faces, searching for where the human ended and where the elf began. He hadn’t found what he’d wanted, of course.

The disappointment and contempt in his eyes at the moment he’d realized that they would never be mistaken for anything other than what they were is carved into her mind forever.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons Vax never wanted to cut his hair.

No, that couldn’t be it. Vax isn’t her. He was somehow much stronger than she was when it came to their father and Syngorn. He hated them, was clear about it and had given up on their approval years ago. Now he just lives his life and flips them off both literally and figuratively every single day.

Vex isn’t the same. She never could shake the desire to make Syldor Vessar proud. She never could shake the desire to be part of Syngorn, of its society, of the culture. Still now, it comes to her sometimes, the question of whether he cares about what she’s doing. Whether he’s proud of her.

She knows he isn’t. She’s not a full-blooded daughter, she’s not part of Syngornian society, she didn’t take to the education he tried to give her. She was supposed to become part of the courts, to look and act noble-born. She wasn’t supposed to sneak out of the house at night to go run in the woods for hours, sometimes even days. She still could dance well, she could cast a couple of spells, could carve woods and care for leather and saw if needed, she knew how to put her hair up the most appropriate way, knew how to apply makeup in fashion, but she wasn’t noble in any way. She wasn’t a good daughter.

She admits it has gotten easier since Velora, his new daughter, their half-sister, came along. She’s now the full-blooded perfect daughter. There’s no expectation on Vex and Vax anymore, just sighs and demands of good behavior, of not tainting the Vessar name further, as if they were responsible for their own existence, as if he wasn’t the one who conceived them. But Vex doesn’t feel any better.

She feels worse actually. Being discarded can be worse than being a disappointment. When they set fire to the Shademurk Bog and she couldn’t leave her own room for days, terrified and in pain, wounded in more ways than one, all he did was barge into the room and yell at her for endangering an important alliance with the Fey. In that moment, she realized she didn’t matter to anyone anymore but Vax.

And it still hurts, a slowly pulsing, forever seeping, ugly wound, that remains even when the ones Saundor had gifted her with are healing. She knows she’s stupid to care so much about a man that never loved her. But what else is she supposed to do?

The coffee pot starts gurgling and she turns back to it. Vax stirs in the bed, warm and almost soft this early in the morning, when thoughts and memories have yet to come to his mind. Vex busies herself with eggs and bread as he sits up groggily.

“Early riser,” he mumbles. “How long have you…”

“A couple of hours,” Vex shrugs and grabs two of the metal plates and puts them on the table, next to two mugs for coffee. “Did some work and made you breakfast.” She reaches to flip the toast over on the pan. It takes a lot of attention to toast bread that way. She enjoys it though.

Vax huffs and gets out of bed, stretching a little and walking over to the table and the food she’s now putting there.

“What’s the program for today?” He asks, as he reaches for his bag.

Vex follows his arm and raises an eyebrow. “Hmm… We should probably hunt while the weather is pleasant. It could start snowing and just not stop for a while and finding meat then will be a struggle.” She points out.

Vax ruffles through his bag before he takes out a couple of little pouches and a glass vial. The spices and vinegar Vex requested.

“Well that sounds fun. Do you want me to come?” He puts the spices on the table with a smile towards her.

“I’m probably going to need some extra hands to get it back,” she points out. “Unless you want to wait for my text and then come get me, you should probably come along. Besides, some time in nature will do you good.”

Vax puts on a falsely offended hair, hand going from the coffee-filled mug to clutching his chest. “That feels like an insult, stubby.”

Vex reaches over and taps his cheek slightly. “You’re pale. You spend too much time in city shadows.” She shrugs. “They won’t recognize you when you go back home. All tan and full of winter air.”

Vax nods quietly, looking down at the mug. He’s usually not that quiet when she mentions his lifestyle, especially disapprovingly. Something’s up, she can tell. He leans back a little, still staring at his cup. The coffee is steaming hot, and he seems to be fixated on the patterns the steam is making in the air between them.

She leaves him in the silence for a moment. Vax doesn’t like when people push for information, even her. And she had toast to watch. She finishes watching the toast right when the eggs on the other pan are done.

She piles the toast on a plate and turns around with the pan to put the eggs in their plates. Vax has shifted slightly, a hand up to his face, fingers against his brow bones. He looks preoccupied by whatever it is that’s not making him snap back at her.

When she finally sits down, he exhales and looks up at her.

“I can’t go home,” he says quietly. “Not to Syngorn.”

Vex frowns a little, leaning away from her chair a little bit. “Did something happen?”

Vax looks away from her, swallowing. She doesn’t like this at all. Bitter dread starts pooling in her stomach.

“Father doesn’t want either of us around Velora,” he says after a moment. “He’s made sure we weren’t welcome home anymore. We won’t be able to make it through the door of the house. And…” He stops, sighing. “I think he made sure the people I usually hang with would push me away too.”

Vex sits shell-shocked in her chair. The eggs and toast and coffee are all growing cold, but so is her heart, right now.

She should have expected it. She should have known. When she left for Whitestone, she’d made sure to let Velora know that she didn’t have to be what he wanted her to be. That she could run and fall and come back home with bloody knees. That she could punch anyone who bothered her, no matter how highborn. That she didn’t need to be a perfect elven daughter. Syldor had been furious. He’d basically slammed the door behind her.

Vax takes a piece of paper out of his pocket and slides it over the table. It’s cut roughly and the words on it are messy. Elvish. Don’t come back. It’s not their father’s handwriting, nor is it Devana’s, his wife. She guesses from Vax’s pained eyes that it’s from one of his so-called friends.

“What are you going to do?” She asks after a moment. “Do you still have things there?”

Vax shakes his head. “Nothing important. All I have is here, right now.” He points his chin towards the bag next to the bed. It’s small. “There’s some of your things too,” he points out. “I thought you’d want them here… I didn’t know then we wouldn’t be back.”

Vex’s head is spinning. A second piece of paper is put on the table. This time, the paper is beautiful, the handwriting perfect, and it’s signed by Syldor himself. Her eyes skim over it. The gist of it is the same as the other paper. The house next to the tower, the deep green velvet of the bed canopy.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” she asks. She wishes she didn’t sound as remorseful as she does.

“You seemed happy,” Vax shrugs. “I didn’t want to ruin that.”

Fuck, they’re alone now. Truly alone. Their mother is dead, their father wishes they were dead, they have no one and they have nothing and they don’t have a home. Tears burn as they rise in her eyes, as she tries to shove them down.

“I’m gonna stay here a little,” Vax continues. “And then I’m going to go to Westruun and stay with Gilmore until…”

Until what? Until he changes his mind? Until she stops wanting to stay in Whitestone? Until they grab a map, close their eyes, drop a coin and see where it lands, where they decide home will be?

“We’ll be fine,” she whispers, but she doesn’t believe it.

Why did he have to overhear her telling Velora to be rebellious? Why couldn’t she shut her fucking mouth and not try and bring Velora into the terrible path she’s on? Why couldn’t she be the daughter Syldor wanted? She hadn’t tried hard enough, and now, now it was too late.

She’s never good enough for anyone.

There’s a nudge against her leg. She looks down and sees Trinket. He’s making little noises, obviously aware of her distress, but she hasn’t heard them. She hasn’t heard a thing. The egg looks cold and congealed now.

She swallows. “I need to go and get meat for Trinket and us,” she says after a moment. “I need… to go and think.” She points out. “Maybe you shouldn’t come.”

Suddenly, they’re back to being teenagers, grieving and angry. All that Vex wants to do is go and run through the woods until she forgets where she’s from, until she forgets the weight of who she has to be. And Vax nods, the way he did fifteen years ago.

“I think I’ll go to the city again,” he says quietly. “Walk around.”

The same thing he’d do when they were teenagers. He’d stay in Syngorn, sneak around on the rooftops while Vex ran. At the end of the day, they haven’t changed. They’re 28, and yet they’re still the same broken-hearted thirteen year olds that ran out of Syldor’s house that first time.

Vex nods quietly. She stands and reaches for her quiver, strapping it to her thigh. She gets everything else ready, bundling herself up for the oncoming hunt in the cold. As her fingers close around her usual bow, her mind drifts to Fenthras, still hidden under her bed. She shoves the thought away. She’s not worthy of that weapon.

The door of the cabin slams in the silence. She’s greeted by blinding snow. Her instincts yell at her to run and she does.

She takes off running the second she passes the first ring of trees around the clearing. Her lungs burn with exhaustion as well as the icy air. The snow crutches underneath her feet. She runs for a while, until she feels like she’s miles away from the cabin. Her foot catches on a hidden branch and she tumbles down, knees and hands hitting the packed snow.

Her pants are wet and cold and her wrists and knees hurt from the impact but she stays there. She wants to scream and she wants to cry and suddenly, she’s 13 again. She’s 13 and howling at the moon because her mother is dead, her father hates her, and the only person that loves her is as broken as she is.

The moon is not out, it’s the middle of the morning and the sun is shining, but still she howls. Her ears ring with the strength of her own screams. If anyone hears her, they’ll think she’s a wounded animal. It’s fitting.

She’s a wounded animal, hands and knees in the snow, knees numb, face burning with a thousand needles and she screams. Her body is wracked with sobs and screams, she wants to break, she wants to sleep. She’s so tired. She’s so mad. She punches at wet cold snow. It’s packed dense and it hurts her fist as she rages.

She’s ridiculous, isn’t she? She’s an adult woman, and she’s sobbing now because her father won’t love her. Fuck. She wishes her hands were claws in the snow. It’s all so white. She wishes she could stop thinking.

It’s too cold to be out there on the ground, crying. This is ridiculous. Her hands are getting numb, and so are her feet. She lets herself fall into the snow, curls up on herself. She’s still shaking and crying, but she’s not screaming anymore. She’s too tired.

Her sobs eventually quiet, her body stops shaking. She’s just breathing now, harder than before, out of breath from her crisis. She’s cold. The snow has wetted her clothing and the parts of her body not covered by several layers are damp. Her hair is wet too, after she’s just spent gods know how many minutes curled up in the snow.

She doesn’t have any other option than to get up, hunt, and go back to the cabin. And then… She doesn’t know. As long as she can keep her post here in Whitestone, she has somewhere to be. She has a house, she has an income, she has a purpose. As long as she doesn’t find herself in a situation here, she’ll be fine.

Nothing like Saundor can happen again. She doesn’t have Syngorn to go back to anymore, in case something happens. There’s no more emergency exit. This is all she has. She exhales. Fuck. She doesn’t have anywhere to run to.

Gilmore’s nice, but she doesn’t belong there. That’s Vax’s emergency exit. She’ll only take space.

She just needs to be very good at her job. She needs to be indispensable to Whitestone and to the Alabaster Sierras park. She needs to stop making waves and asking questions. She’ll settle there, do her work, and let everyone forget that she’s anything but useful and discreet.

Vex exhales, closing her eyes and trying to calm herself down. Her heart is still pounding in her chest. She needs to shove down the hurt and anger at her father, the panic when she thinks of having to leave Whitestone. She needs to focus on her job.

She forces herself to center, to melt into her primeval sensing abilities. She needs to do her job right.

It’s far from as smooth as the last time. She doesn’t let herself breathe her awareness through her pores, instead, she throws it out of herself in rage, still a little shaky from her crisis. She pushes it out of her skull, out of her body, like she doesn’t want anything to do with it. Her mind tangles with the forest and digs into it, searching, hungry, a predator.

A howling monster of a mind shoves itself through the forest, in search of prey. There’s no fey. Relief floods into her, despite herself. She didn’t think he was a big player in her current state, but isn’t he always? Hasn’t he been a player of her crisis for the past five years?

She tastes ash again. Fiend. No.

She failed. She fucking failed. There were more than one and she missed one. It’s there, it’s violent and it makes her want to scream again.

She snaps back into her body and hits the ground again. Fuck. She failed in the one job she had to do. She’s useless here, isn’t she? She’s useless everywhere, after all. To everyone.

No. Fuck that. Fuck the fiend. Fuck Syldor Vessar and fuck Saundor. Fuck everyone.

She grabs her bow and starts running again, in the general direction of where she sensed the fiend.

She’s out there for what feels like hours, running, hunting. She’s hungry now, exhausted. She’s a little in pain too, and she doesn’t have time for that. She emerges out of the woods and onto a path that she immediately recognizes. She looks up.

Above her stands the blindingly white architecture of Castle Whistestone. She’s on Keyleth’s trail, where she originally found the fiend.

She focuses again. It’s much closer now, and it seems to be straight ahead of her. Except ahead of her is the stone of the rock formation on which the castle was built. There’s nothing there. How can the fiend be in there?

Vex’s eyes scan over the rock, searching for something, anything that will make sense. She’s desperate. She wants to succeed in something, one thing. She wants to find the fiend and kill it. She needs to.

The rock seems to be looser than the rest, smaller rocks shoved one on top of the other in a way that is unlike the rest of the stone around her. There’s a couple bushes in front of it, probably trying to mask the inconsistency. Except in between the two is a space for one thin half-elf druid to go through.

The issue with visiting the same spot every month and being the only one known to use that path is that it’s obvious to see where you disturbed the natural arrangement of wilderness. Vex knows Keyleth went through there. She knows her fiend is close. There’s no other explanation. Keyleth wasn’t smart enough to fool her.

She manages to move some rocks out of the way, though it takes her a while. She’s determined, and time is nothing important to her right now. She’s solely focused on finding what the fuck Keyleth has been hiding from her.

A tunnel opens in front of her. She takes a step forward. There’s not going back now, isn’t it? She waits for a second as her eyes adjust to the darkness.

The ground seems dry, preserved from the weather. A few feet further in, Vex can spot the remains of a small fire. Someone has camped here. She swallows. It doesn’t seem very used. There are some footsteps in the dust and dirt. Vex swallows. Maybe… maybe she should go get Vax. She isn’t far inside and she might need back-up.

But she doesn’t want him to rescue her again. She needs to be useful, by herself. He’s not always going to be by her side in battle, and she needs to do it by herself. She doesn’t want him there. She’s not a damsel, fuck. She’s strong.

She starts walking down the tunnel. It isn’t very long. A few hundred feet at most. The minimal light from outside quickly disappears however, and Vex finds herself walking in the dark. With a quick motion and whisper, she casts Pass Without a Trace. She’s going to surprise that monster.

She eventually reaches a partially crumbled wall, about a foot thick. A large statue has been moved away from the crumbled part. It had probably been used to hide the hole. This is not just a tunnel, this is a secret tunnel, on many levels. Vex looks back behind herself. She can’t see the entrance anymore.

She walks through the hole and into a storage room. Once again, it’s full of dust, with a single path going from the hole in the wall to the door. Whoever is going through this passage - and she guesses it’s Keyleth - doesn’t stop to check the dust-covered crates stacked into the room.

The door itself is closed, but it doesn’t hold to Vex’s skills. She’s learned to pick locks from Vax, and she’s become pretty good at it over the years. The lock clicks as it turns, and she takes a deep breath before opening it.

The room is plunged into darkness. It’s much larger than the storage room, divided into two paths, one going on the right and the other on the left of a central section. She sneaks in closer and she sees metal bars and the glint of chains. It’s a dungeon.

Vex’s breath itches. She shouldn’t be here alone. Fuck, what is she doing? She takes a step back. She’s being stupid. Her fucking pride and her fucking issues are getting in the way. This is not what being useful looks like. She turns around and starts walking back to the door when a light hissing sound reaches her ears.

She was supposed to be stealthy. Fuck, this is where she dies, isn’t it?

She turns around, quietly. Better to be seeing whatever is behind her. She’s supposed to be the one taking monsters by surprise, not the other way around.

A light turns on, deeper in, and flickers. Shadows pool over the floor, waves upon waves of dark smoke. It almost seems to stick to the stone of the walls. It overwhelms the space of the corridor, coming towards Vex. She should be running. Why is she frozen in place?

Footsteps hit the stone floor. They’re light, but Vex has sharp senses. Even with the light hissing of the dark smoke, she can hear those steps getting closer. Two feet, unless some are more silent.

They come out of the smoke like a nightmare. They’re tall and pale, surrounded in black, the smoke seeping out of their nostrils and mouth and eyes, of their hands. It pours out of them, sick and brutal and hissing at her.

A humanoid, with pale hair and glasses and one eye blue and one eye black. Something ugly twists inside of them as they twitch, head tilting to stare at her. The blue eye blinks but not the other one. It’s a deranged sort of wink.

“Well, hello, there. Who are you?”

#perc'ahlia #vex'ahlia #vax'ildan #vaxilmore #critical role #vox machina #fic

16 notes · View notes

kaalamarii · 3 years

Text

Victor/MC part 1

Sup demons it’s ya boy.

Look who decided to post something. First a few notes...

This was getting really long (like the longest I’ve ever written actually!) and I worked/am working very hard on it. I just wanted to get the first part out and will hopefully get the second part out this weekend.

MC is not at all how she is in the game in this fic.

There’s no smut in this, but will be in the next one 😉 so no warnings here except language.

anddddd I guess that’s it. Hope you enjoy. 💕

MC chewed her lip, eyes scanning her kitchen where piles of dirty dishes and a mess of ingredients taunted her, an embarrassing reminder of her failed attempts at baking. She cursed herself, wishing she was listening as Kiki asked if she’d be willing to make a cake for a company bake sale. “Sure, uh huh,” was her exact response as she focused more on beating her high score on Doodle Jump than the meeting. (Willow later made fun of her for that… “who even plays Doodle Jump anymore?”)

Standing amongst the disaster that was her kitchen, she sighed, picking up her phone and hovering her thumb over Victor’s number in her contacts, for once not giggling at the nickname “Bitch” she had oh so affectionately given him. God, she did not want to call him. Admitting defeat was difficult enough already without the LFG CEO’s insults.

MC shook her head, turning the screen off and shoving the phone into her bra. Sure enough there’d be a shop or two open still and she could get a mix and call it a night. That would be preferable to asking Victor for help and getting berated for “not being able to follow directions” or whatever he might say. MC grabbed her wallet, adding it to her very handy boob/phone holder bra.

Luckily for her, there was a shitty little corner store within walking distance and it wasn’t cold out. It was a bit dark, but she had walked there on several different occasions, at later times than this-and oftentimes intoxicated in some sort of way-so she wasn’t too nervous to make the small trip.

After a ten minute walk she made it to the store. A bell rang as she entered, the lone cashier welcoming her in a monotone voice, eyes not budging from his magazine. She let out a very informal “‘Sup”, though the cashier didn’t seem to notice or care.

“Do you have cake mixes here?” she asked, earning a sigh and an eye roll from the worker. Still not looking at her, he pointed her to one of the aisles. She thanked him before heading over. Squatting down to get a better look, she took a box off the shelf and looked it over. Vanilla should work, she thought, and read the instructions on the back to make sure she had everything else she needed for it.

MC heard the door ring again but didn’t think much of it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a figure. “Think I can trick people into thinking I made this from scratch?” She asked, holding out the box to the stranger beside her. He didn’t answer, and she looked over at him, jumping at the sight.

“Jesus Christ!”

“Victor’s fine, thanks,” he replied, taking the mix from her and narrowing his eyes at it. “Really, box cake mix?”

“What are you doing here?” MC asked, crossing her arms. “Also, did you just try to make a joke?”

“Somebody pocket dialed me,” The CEO held his phone up to show her that he was currently on a call with...her.

MC’s face heated up instantly, and she pulled her phone out of her boobs (much to Victor’s surprise and confusion) to see that, indeed, her phone was on and had been on a call with him since she had left for the shop. She sighed as she hung up the phone and shoved it back into her bra, bracing herself for his insults.

Victor’s eyes followed the phone into her cleavage unintentionally. The lightest of blushes brushed over his cheeks, so light that MC didn’t even notice. “Haven’t you heard of pockets?”

“Why do I need pockets when I have a perfectly good set of tits to store my stuff in?” she retorted, placing her hands over her aforementioned breasts, giving them a squeeze.

“Goodness gracious,” the CEO griped. “You really are a hot mess.”

“At least I’m hot, right?”

Victor scoffed, ignoring her quip. “You need to pay more attention. I don’t appreciate random calls this late at night.”

“Late?” MC teased, looking down at her phone and pressing the side button to turn on the screen. It illuminated her cleavage as she read the time. “It’s only nine, grandpa.”

“It’s dark out,” he replied, once again ignoring what she said to him. “You never know what creeps are out this time of night.”

“Oh, like the one I just ran into?”

Victor’s eyes darkened as he looked down at her. “Cut the attitude.”

MC didn’t have a chance to talk back as Victor set the box of cake mix back on the shelf. “Were you actually going to buy this nonsense?”

“I agreed to make a cake for the company bake sale and it turns out I’m not a baker.”

“Don’t you make pudding?”

She shrugged.

“Whatever. I’m not going to let you buy that and I’m most definitely not going to let you give it to anyone else. Come on. We’re going to Souvenir and we’ll whip something up.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“I won’t take no for an answer.”

Victor wrapped his hand around her wrist, guiding her to his car. MC was surprised by how gentle his hand was on her, how he led her but not forcefully, but almost protectively. She looked up at him, taking a moment to admire his profile. She couldn’t help but smile. He was an asshole for sure, but she still always enjoyed spending time with him, and she couldn’t help but feel excited at this late night trip to Souvenir.

At Souvenir, MC waited patiently as Victor rummaged through the kitchen, grabbing flour, sugar, and other ingredients as well as measuring cups, mixing bowls, and the rest of the various items they needed. She hopped up onto the counter, watching him. He was a handsome man, that was for sure, but whenever he cooked, she found him drop dead sexy. He wasn’t even cooking yet, but already had that focused look on his face, eyebrows furrowed and lips in a tight line. She wasn’t sure of his feelings for her. Hell, she wasn’t even sure of her feelings for him, but seeing him like that, she couldn’t help the absolutely raunchy images running through her mind.

“Were you raised by wolves? Get off my damn counter.”

His annoyance at her made her chuckle and she slid off, feet hitting the ground with a soft thud.

“How many times have I told you not to do that? Not only is it unsanitary, you could fall and get hurt.”

“I’m not a child.”

“Then quit acting like one.”

MC sighed. “You know, you don’t have to do this. I can just go home and buy a premade cake from the grocery store tomorrow morning.”

“Pointless of you to say considering we’re already here,” he argued, “Plus I am not letting you give up that easily. You promised you’d make a cake and you’re going to make one. A real cake, not some crap from a store.”

MC couldn’t help but giggle from his choice of words. “Oooh, you said crap.”

Victor rolled his eyes. “You really are a child.”

“Box cake mixes aren’t that bad, you know,” she said as he handed her an apron. She pulled it over her head and tied it around her back. “Sometimes junk food can be satisfying.”

“What do you mean? I eat desserts.”

“Yeah, but you eat, like, fancy dessert. Not junk food. Like, don’t you ever want to go get a shitty fast food burger or milkshake?”

“I would rather die.”

“You are so dramatic!” MC said with a chuckle.

“Why would I want to eat something that can be described as ‘shitty’?”

Victor rolled his eyes as she once again found humor in his language. She had heard him cuss before and he didn’t really understand why it was so funny to her. He’d never let himself admit that he found pleasure in her laugh.

“Because it tastes good! Even though it’s bad for you. It’s like a guilty pleasure.”

“Are you quite done?” he questioned, the usual irritation in his voice. Not letting her respond, he continued, “ I preheated the oven and greased the pans already, so now you need to sift the flour and baking soda.”

He spoke as he rolled his sleeves up and also donned an apron. MC couldn’t help but look him over, admiring the muscled arms and chest pressing against his button down shirt as he moved. He handed her a sifter. “Use this.”

MC looked at it, confused.

“Don’t be intimidated. It’s simple,” he told her. He came up behind her, wrapping his arms around to hold her hands. With one hand, he guided her to the bag of flour and together they dumped some into the top of the sifter. With his other hand, he placed hers on the crank on the side and began moving it. MC looked up at him and he smiled ever so slightly. “See? Idiot proof.”

Realizing the close proximity between them, Victor cleared his throat and moved away from her quickly. “Measure out the sugar next,” he told her. “I’ll do the butter. We have to add them together in the mixer.”

Victor handed her a measuring cup, and their fingers brushed together as she took it from him. MC paused for a moment, looking up at him, searching his serious face to see any hint of emotion. None.

He watched as she carefully measured out the sugar, adding it to his butter in the mixer. MC didn’t see the small smile on his lips as he watched her.

He turned on the mixer. “Now we have to put in the eggs.”

MC nodded, grabbing an egg and cracking it into the mixture. Part of the shell fell in and she let out a “shit!” before reaching in and swiping the piece out with her finger.

“What are you doing!” Victor’s voice boomed, making her jump.

“What?”

“You don’t touch the mixture, you idiot!”

“My hands are clean!”

“It’s still disgusting. Furthermore, don’t just crack the egg into it like that. Crack them in a separate dish.”

“Why does it matter?”

He scoffed, taking the eggs from her. “So you don’t get a shell or a bad egg in there, obviously.”

MC scoffed right back at him before putting her finger into her mouth and licking the ingredients off.

“For fuck’s sake,” he murmured, though she heard it.

“What? You’ve never licked cake mix off your fingers?”

“No, I’m not an animal.”

“Try it.”

“Absolutely not.”

MC poked another finger into the mix much to Victor’s chagrin. She held her hand out to him. “Just do it.”

“If I do it, will you stop touching the mix?”

“I’ll consider it.”

Victor sighed, face twisted in disgust as he leaned forward to tongue the mixture off of her finger. His gaze met hers and for a moment they stared at each other, each one waiting for the other to move. Though Victor was the one to pull away, standing up straight, shoulders stiffening.

“Well, that was awful. Wash your hands and we’ll continue.”

MC frowned, disappointment and embarrassment settling in. She often felt this way around Victor. Though he annoyed her, there were certain little moments when something he’d say or do would make her heart flutter, and for a split second she’d wonder if there was something between them. She couldn’t help but feel happy at the thought of it, though she tried to bury it. There’s no way that Victor was into her that way. He barely tolerated her.

And, she scolded herself, what would really come out of it even if he was interested? He was her boss. He was an asshole. And she was a moron, as he often reminded her.

MC took a breath as made her way to the sink to wash away the traces of their tongues on her hand. Victor instantly noticed the change in her demeanor. He didn’t say anything but watched her out of the corner of her eye. He, of course, knew all too well about those shared moments, and had to stop himself often from admiring her. It was inappropriate, and could mean danger for her, and he only wanted what was best for MC.

❤Part Two coming soon ❤

Masterlist

#mlqc fanfiction #mlqc victor #victor li #love x producer #love x evol #mlqc imagines #mlqc headcanons

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pappydaddy · 4 years

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Ghost of You (f.w.)

A/N: So, I was just listening to music while writing my Steve series “I Wanna Be Yours” and Ghost of You by 5 Seconds of Summer came on and I instantly started crying so I got a sudden urge to write a sad imagine so, sorry in advance..

Ironically enough, it’s usually me going to write something with the intent for Steve, but end up writing for Billy, but this time it’s a whole different fandom. It actually went from Billy to Steve, then it went to Fred.

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader

Based off the song Ghost of You by 5 Seconds of Summer

Part One - You’re here! | Part Two

Trigger Warning: Mention of death, really sad, angst, heartbreak, depression, PTSD, mention of witnessing death, mention of drinking, slight mention of suicide.

PSA: I DO NOT agree with JK Rowling’s recent comments about the trans community, but I WILL NOT let her and her bigoted and transphobic ways ruin Harry Potter for me. Harry Potter has given me so much, I have connected to characters unlike ever before. REMEMBER, TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS. Also, my DMs are always open

Another PSA: I do know the recent drama around 5 Seconds of Summer with the claims that had been made about them, but I also know that they have been proven to be false, one of them having been committed by someone else other than a member of their band or team. I would never EVER support someone who has been accused and found guilty of claims such as the ones that 5sos had been accused off because they are horrible acts committed by sick people. And, I would never outright say someone was falsely accusing, but again, the claims made against 5sos were found to be false or to be committed by other people. If you are not aware of that, I recommend checking reputable stan twitter accounts because (a) they know more than me, (b) they explain it better, and (c) they have proof. If you are a victim, I am so so sorry that that happened to you and I want you to know that you’re insanely strong and just keep your head up! Don’t hesitate to get help if you’re suffering, there are so many resources to help cope, report and all kinds of thing! Also, my DMs are always open

Another PSA: I struggle from depression, anxiety and have lasting effects of a traumatic event so if you are struggling with anything, please seek help. These are horrible things to battle with alone and therapy, psychologist, or a psychiatrist can help you gain the tools to cope healthily and any other tools you may need. Also, my DMs are always open.

This is my first Harry Potter imagine, idk what possessed me to write for a different fandom since my focus has been Stranger Things, but I guess I was going to have to write for the other fandoms eventually, right?

Sorry this is so long, there’s a lot of disclaimers I had to put on this to make myself feel like I am making my blog a safe space for everyone. I didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.

masterlist | taglist | wips | navigation - my gif -

The war had taken so much from everyone. Taken innocence, taken parents, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives; it seemed that nobody was safe from the path of destruction. Even a year after the war, many were still plagued with mourning people ripped away from them by the clutches of war. Fred Weasley was one of them. They had just started their lives together, finally going through with everything they had talked and planned about during those nights wrapped in each other’s arms as they hid from the Professors and Prefects. Those hopes and dreams for the future were now just empty memories and proof of their love. The book that held every little detail of their planned future laid on your desk in your bedroom - untouched since the last time you had touched it before the war. Everything of yours remained in the place you had set them the last time you had touched them. They were frozen in a happier time filled with love and light, not filled with loneliness and darkness.

Fred stirred awake, the familiar feeling of his body being weighted down rushing over him as he blinked his eyes open. His void gaze instantly met the empty side of the bed. It was neatly made, the pillow just faintly smelling of you now. Even a year later, he couldn’t bring himself to lay on that side of the bed - your side of the bed. He had a hard enough time sleeping in the bed at all, not being able to forget the feeling of you wrapped in his arms. Tears burned his eyes as he gazed upon the spot, your laughter echoing in his mind as he remembered all of those mornings he woke up to you just waking up yourself. He’d lean in, nabbing his first kiss of the day and you’d pull away with red cheeks claiming that you hadn’t brushed your teeth yet and he’d claim not to care (which he didn’t) and lean in to pepper kisses all over your face - your laughter bouncing off the walls. He threw the covers off him, trying to fight against the weight trying to keep him down in the bed. Pushing against the invisible force he shuffled into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

With ever step he took, every room he entered, came the memory of you. The tune you hummed as you danced from the bedroom to the bathroom, the smell of your shampoo, the smell of your sweet perfume. They lingered through the house like a ghost - a hazy mist trailing behind him everywhere he went. The ball in his throat stung as he tried to swallow it down, blinking away from the tears that welled in his eyes. No matter how many times he experienced them a day since you died, he would never get used to the sting. He’d never get used to the shaking of his hands, the tightness growing in his chest, the racing of his heart, the constricting of his lungs or the vivid image of holding you in his arms, watching the life slip from your body as you took your last breath whenever he heard something that brought him back to that day.

He could smell the fresh coffee that his brother had brewed as he drifted into the hall, a shell of the old Fred. George was used to seeing his brother dancing down the hallway with you, large smiled on both your faces and laughter surrounding the entire apartment. Now, since you were gone, Fred didn’t dance, his feet were heavy against the floors, weighing him down. He didn’t joke around with his brother anymore, his brother missed the sound of his laughter and the humorous tone to his voice instead of the broken and heavy one he had now. The second Fred entered the small kitchen, his eyes instantly landed on the yellow mug with the faint lipstick stain still on the rim, the faded red still a slight contrast from the yellow of the mug. You had never been able to get the stain gone, it had driven you crazy that your lip stick had tainted the beautiful mug Fred had gotten you after you guys ran away from Hogwarts as a homage to your house, Hufflepuff. The plants that you had been growing thanks to your love for Herbology were barely alive, George having been trying his best to take care of them since he knew you’d want them to thrive.

“Morning, Freddie,” George’s voice was soft as he brought his own mug to his lips, sipping the warm coffee. “Made you some eggs,” He told his brother as he pushed a plate of scrambled eggs towards his moping brother before setting a full cup of coffee in front of him. “How’d you sleep?” He asked him. Fred, not lifting his head from his plate of eggs as he pushed them around with the fork George had laid on the plate.

“Fine.” It was a simple word, but it was most of what Fred spoke these days. George hummed, taking another large gulp of his coffee as he let Fred soak in his silence, knowing that if he pushed too hard, he’d revert back and lose all the progress they had made.

“Are you feeling ready for your appointment today? Do you want me to come with you? Or mum, maybe Ginny? I can get Lee to cover the shop if you want me to come.” George asked him, setting his coffee cup on the counter, his hands wrapped around the warm mug.

“I’m fine going on my own.” He muttered, thinking back to his night. He knew that his therapist would ask him about it. It was just like any other night. Sleepless since whenever he closed his eyes, you were all he saw. He knew that if he’d sleep long enough, he could dream of you and it’d be like you never left, but he’d also know that you’d tell him that he’ll be fine without you and he definitely knew he’d never be. You were his.

“Please don’t skip out on this one to sit at the bar and drink, Fred,” George pleaded with his brother. Last two appointments, Fred and went on his own and ended up not even showing up. When his therapist George (them having to have gotten a muggle landline for communication) to inform him that Fred had not shown up, he had search everywhere for him. George remembered the blinding fear he had coursing through his blood that day, not knowing where his brother was or if he was okay. His mind had jumped to every possible conclusion, the nagging thought of the worst hanging in the back of his mind. “You need these appointments, they are good for you,” George pleaded. Fred only nodded, not saying anything while he ate. George watched him take a few more bites before his fork clanged against the plate about still half full of eggs. Fred pushed it away, taking one final sip of his coffee. “Right, so your appointment’s at twelve, so why don’t you get an outfit picked out while I head down to the shop - Mum will be here in a few minutes, I reckon.” George suggested.

Fred hummed, walking back into his room. Molly had been coming over to monitor when Fred left for his appointments and got back, also to watch the phone incase he skipped over his appointment. She also came daily when George was manning the shop to watch over Fred and take care of him. Sometimes, Fred went down to the shop and sorted products, but that was rare. George popped his head into Fred’s room to see him sitting on the bed. In his hands, he held your favourite shirt of his. He stared down at it while a mismatched outfit laid on the bed beside him. “I’m heading down to the shop, love you.” George announced.

“Love you, George.” The sound broke George’s heart. The fear in his brother’s voice every time George left the apartment destroyed him. Fred was terrified of losing someone else and not getting to be there for them, that he can never let them leave his presence without him saying that he loves them. His biggest fear was that you had died not knowing that he still loved you. Everyone says that you knew because you could feel his love for you and he doesn’t want anyone to question if he loved them if he wasn’t there.

The second he heard the door close behind George, he let himself crash down on the bed, laying on his side in a fetal position as he held the shirt to his nose. His jaw was sore as he let the tears fall from his eyes, the lump in his throat twisting itself into a bigger lump. His body shook with silent sobs. He couldn’t help but envision you moving through the apartment with this shirt tucked into your pants or tied up. He hadn’t felt himself slip into sleep as he let himself imagine your arms wrapping around him, encasing him in a loving warmth. He was unaware of his mother walking into the apartment as he finally slept with his imagination configuring you there with him. Molly instantly went to his room to check on him when he wasn’t on the couch, she stopped in her tracks as she laid eyes on her sleeping son, curled up. She only saw Fred sleeping in a fetal position clutching a t-shirt, but Fred felt the ghost of you wrapped around him.

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thekitchenismykingdom · 3 years

Text

Kitchen Shenanigans - Lovestruck Fanfiction

Relationship - Lucien Rivercrest/Roman Tarrenglade Rating - G Summary - Lucien and Roman, navigating the waters of a new relationship, spend some time together in the kitchen. Unfortunately for them, they can't quite keep it professional. A/N - I was inspired to write this solely because I was flipping through a food magazine at 2am when I couldn't sleep. The chili potato tart recipe is real, and the crust is delicious.

Another lazy Sunday came to Sweet Enchantments, and the two denizens of the kitchen were spending the day inside, crafting and perfecting recipes. Lucien was busy with a fresh batch of golden éclairs, a charitable donation requested by a supportive and well-respected customer. Liora was only happy to oblige, and volunteered Lucien to prepare something for the event. Lucien couldn’t remember exactly what it was for, but he recalled the organization helped incarcerated magicians find gainful employment after serving their sentence or as a condition of early release.

Living and working at the café had expanded his thought process about magical society and how it treats people, judging them based on their background and ability. While he would have preferred spending his day off in other ways, Lucien knew this was the right thing to do. He had been given an opportunity here at the café, so why not give back and help others?

He glanced at Roman on the other side of the kitchen, who had been preparing some kind of pastry for dinner. A dozen thoughts swarmed his head all at once, but Lucien shook his head and focused on the task before him.

While he carefully filled the éclairs with a marbled lemon and raspberry cream, Roman took his chili tart crust out of the oven. The baking paper crackled as he shook it slightly, the baking weights rolling over each other.

“This smells incredible already,” Roman said with a pleased smile. Lucien paused in his work and sniffed the air.

“It’ll be even better with the filling.”

Roman turned toward Lucien after placing the partially-baked tart shell on the counter.

“Oh? Mr. Cool as a Cucumber broke his concentration for my little tart?”

Lucien smirked and picked up another éclair.

“Mere mortals of the kitchen deserve to be graced with a compliment from time to time,” Lucien replied, not taking his eyes off the dessert in hand before placing it down and picking up another.

Roman shook his head fondly, returning to his tart. He peeled the roasted tomatoes, garlic, and chili and set to work mashing them together, seasoning along the way. He poured the mashed tomato mixture into the bottom of the tart and spread it evenly before reaching for his thinly-sliced potatoes. Arranging them carefully into concentric circles, Roman reached for the pile of grated cheese to his left.

“Perfectly placed potato slices? On your food?” Lucien teased from behind Roman’s shoulder, and Roman jumped slightly.

“Lucien! I’m concentrating!”

Lucien hummed and grabbed a few strings of cheese to taste.

“Mmm. Buttery, and slightly nutty. Good melt factor.”

“It’s a type of Swiss cheese,” Roman explained, sprinkling it on top of the potatoes. “Emeril introduced it to me a while ago, and I thought I’d incorporate it into a new dish I’m crafting.”

“You’re using the first tomatoes of the season?”

Roman hummed and placed the tart into the oven, setting a timer. He stretched out and set to work cleaning his station, opting for a traditional approach as opposed to using magic. Lucien had a habit of needling him about his messy cleaning magic.

“Well, would you like to assist me in finishing the éclairs?” Lucien asked as he observed Roman clean up.

Roman paused for a moment in wiping the counter down, eventually replying, “I might sit out in the garden. Tend to some of the vegetables.”

Lucien blinked.

“Weren’t you out there just this morning?”

“Yes, but it’s a nice day and I have to wait for the tart to finish baking anyway.”

“Hm.”

Lucien slowly walked back to his station, staring at the éclairs. He picked up one of the few left and inserted the tip of the piping bag, gently squeezing until the felt the éclair expand slightly. He worked on two more before asking Roman, “Are you sure you’d rather go outside?”

This time Roman turned to him, curious.

“Did you need help with something?”

Lucien visibly swallowed, but his voice was its normal cool tone.

“I don’t really need help.”

Roman stared at Lucien as he finished filling the éclairs, placing the nearly empty piping bag to the side, squished and crinkled. He walked over and placed his chin on Lucien’s shoulder.

“Do you want me to stay so we can finish these together?”

Lucien was quiet for a moment, glancing at Roman from the corner of his eye.

”...Yes.”

Roman smiled and brushed a kiss against Lucien’s cheek.

“That’s all you had to say,” he said, taking his place beside Lucien at the workstation.

“I’m still new to this,” Lucien mumbled, letting out a huff as he turned to grab a bowl of melted dark chocolate and place it on the station.

Roman understood Lucien’s feelings well; a situation as complicated as theirs required a mutual understanding. Lucien had never acted on his feelings for another man before, and they were both involving themselves with a co-worker. Roman didn’t wan to believe that their good working relationship would be soured if their romantic entanglement ended, but it was always a possibility.

Shaking away these thoughts, Roman gave Lucien a bright smile and reassured, “We both are. We’ll navigate any challenges that present themselves, and we’ll do it together.”

Lucien returned Roman’s smile with his own, albeit, smaller one, before shifting his focus back to the filled but bare éclairs.

“I need these dipped in the chocolate, Roman,” Lucien explained. He grabbed an éclair and dipped it in the bowl, slowly pulling it out and allowing the excess chocolate to drip. He delicately twisted his wrist so the éclair faced up and showed the glossy chocolate finish to Roman.

“Think you can do that?”

Roman was tempted to take a bite right out of Lucien’s hand, but he had no desire to ruin the nice time they were having preparing the éclairs together.

“Of course! Leave it to me, O Master of Pastries.” Roman then set to work dipping the éclairs into the chocolate, flourishing his wrist just as Lucien showed him to ensure the chocolate covered the tops of the pastry evenly.

Lucien, meanwhile, whipped ice-cold cream with a balloon whisk until it stood up in a stiff peak on the whisk.

“Shall we turn it over your head to make sure it’s whipped enough?” Roman suggested, a small smile playing on his lips.

“These aren’t egg whites, Roman.”

“Oh, yes. Well, maybe you should use your big strong arms to hand-whip some egg whites next? Then we can use that bowl trick.”

“Something tells me you want to see me covered in-”

Lucien stopped himself, and Roman raised an eyebrow at him, his smile morphing into a smirk.

“Yes? Go on, Lucien. What were you saying?”

Lucien ignored him and dropped the whipped cream into a clean piping bag, twisting it closed. Quickly he piped a perfect star of whipped cream on one end of each éclair, quickly catching up to Roman.

“You’re lagging,” Lucien pointed out, and Roman sniffed at him, but hurried in his task until each éclair was dipped and covered in a thin sheen of dark chocolate. Lucien hummed his approval as he finished piping the last bit of cream on the final few éclairs.

“What’s next?” Roman asked, and Lucien gestured to a bowl that he had floated over a minute before.

“We decorate the éclairs with a few strands of these candied lemon peels,” Lucien explained, and showed Roman just how many slices to put and how he wanted them arranged. They worked together quietly after that, both men concentrating on the task at hand. Lucien looked over at Roman to evaluate his éclairs, and noticed how his long fingers carefully placed each strand of lemon peel in an artful arrangement on top of the whipped cream.

“The sugary peel is a nice pop of colour against the black and white on top of the pastry, don’t you think, Lucien?”

“I- Yes, that’s one reason I chose this garnish.”

Roman heard the slight hesitation and turned his head to look at Lucien. Lucien swallowed, acutely aware of Roman’s eyes scanning his face, deep red rippling pools that finally settled on his mouth.

“Would you mind if I stole a kiss?” Roman whispered, dessert completely forgotten.

Lucien’s professionalism and respect for the kitchen came to the forefront of his mind, but something else told him that he could make a small exception. Just this once. Roman’s sweet expression rivalled the pastry in front of them, and Lucien found in this moment, he could not resist the temptation.

“Not this time,” Lucien whispered back, leaning in and-

“How are those éclairs coming Luci- Oh!”

Lucien and Roman sprang apart as if pulled by magic, Liora’s voice ringing out in the silent kitchen.

“Ah, Liora, I wasn’t- We didn’t expect-” Roman scrambled, immediately trying to cover for his indiscretion. The surprise wearing off, Liora schooled her features into a neutral mask, the usual calm she exuded settling Roman down.

“I can’t say I’m not surprised to see you both in such a... position,” Liora began, a hand on her hip, “But I hope that the kitchen won’t be a place to tiptoe around in the future.” She gave them both firm, even looks. Lucien fidgeted for a moment, certain that Liora’s gaze lingered on him for a moment longer than it had on Roman, as if to say she was more disappointed in him for this uncharacteristic lapse in judgement.

“Absolutely not,” Lucien managed to say, standing a little straighter. “This...won’t happen again.” He looked to Roman, who nodded in agreement.

Liora gave them another once over, light eyes practically glowing with intensity, before her posture relaxed and the hand fell from her hip back to her side.

“How are the desserts coming?” she asked, taking a few steps towards the counter and observing their work.

“Nearly everything is ready. All the éclairs are filled and dipped, and only a few remaining pastries need their garnish,” Lucien explained. He picked up an éclair and placed it on a small dish before handing it to Liora for inspection. She accepted the plate and brought it closer to her face, scanning the pastry while slowly rotating the plate. With a satisfied hum, she put the plate down on the table and gave Lucien a pleased smile.

“These look delectable as always, Lucien. Great work. I appreciate you taking the time to help this initiative,” Liora said, and Lucien only nodded. Liora’s support was a welcome thing, unused to it though he was, and he sometimes felt ill equipped to respond to it.

Liora then turned to Roman, one light eyebrow delicately arched.

“I trust that the next time you assist Lucien, things will stay clean and professional?”

Roman actually blushed, cheeks as red as his hair, and Lucien had to hold back a grin. With a cough, Roman stood up straighter, some natural colour returning to his face.

“Of course, Liora. Today was... Today won’t happen again. Promise.” Roman gave her a winning smile then, and Liora nodded her approval.

Looking around the kitchen, Lucien half-expected her to comment on something else amiss, but she merely smiled and told them to keep up the good work that they do. With a graceful turn, Liora walked towards the dining area, but paused and turned to Roman.

“Whatever you have in the oven smells delicious, Roman. I’d love to try a slice at dinner if it’s not burned yet.”

Then she left the kitchen, heels clacking on the floor as she disappeared.

Lucien and Roman were both silent for a moment before Roman sprang into action with a yelp, grabbing a thick dishtowel and opening the oven door, reaching for the tart he had put in to bake earlier. He quickly but carefully set it down on the counter, scrutinizing the top of it. The cheese was well browned and bubbling, slightly crisp in some spots, and the tart crust was just shy of overcooked. Roman visibly deflated as he let out the breath he had been holding, and Lucien sidled up beside him, just barely brushing shoulders.

“It looks fine,” Lucien said, and Roman sighed again.

After a few moments, Roman leaned into Lucien slightly and asked, “Want to go out into the garden with me? I have to wait a while for this to cool, and...” He trailed off, looking thoughtful.

“I think I’ve had enough kitchen today,” he finished, and Lucien thought back to their intimate moment before Liora walked in. Shame burned under his collar, knowing he was better than that, but he realized he never answered Roman’s question and shook the thoughts away.

“I understand what you mean. I’ll garnish the last few éclairs and I’ll join you once I’ve finished.”

Roman gave him an appreciative smile, squeezing his arm and exiting the kitchen. Lucien watched him leave, smiling to himself despite the day they’d had. Everything between them felt new and just a little bit confusing, but Lucien was ready to face these challenges as long as Roman would be there with him.

Wandering back to the éclairs, Lucien picked up the plate with the lone dessert and gave it a once-over. He decided that Roman needed something sweet, so he would bring the éclair with him for Roman to try.

“Maybe if I’m lucky enough, he’ll share,” Lucien said to himself. With that, he left the kitchen to join Roman outside, two forks hanging loosely in his fingers.

#lovestruck #lovestruck voltage #sweet enchantments #lucien rivercrest #roman tarrenglade #my writing

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