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raccoonhearteyes · 1 year

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Epilogue

March 11th, 2019

“So you’re the girl Clarke has been hiding all these months. It’s great to finally meet you!” Octavia sweeps Lexa into a hug, welcoming her into their home.

It’s not the first time they’ve met. They’ve actually met several times since Clarke came knocking on her door back in January. But each time, Octavia forgets. Each time, she’s greeted anew.

Clarke squeezes her thigh under the table, a soft apology for the repetition. They haven’t quite navigated how they’ll deal with this as more and more time passes. Not meeting the new girlfriend when it’s only been a handful of months is reasonable. What happens when it’s years? A decade?

June 12th, 2020

Clarke has a second exhibit of Lexa portraits.

Lexa grabs a glass from a nearby tray, and sits back to watch her girlfriend work. She loves watching Clarke talk about a piece, the way her eyes light up, the way she moves her hands to show what she was talking about.

She watches the one person who remembers her listen to and answer questions from some buyer on the other side of the gallery. She looks good, all business focused. This is the same girl who sprinkles cinnamon in her tea, koalas around a warm body in bed, paints Lexa and only Lexa. She’s suddenly struck by just how much she loves this girl. How much happier she has been since watching her stuff appetizers into her purse at some event two years ago.

By the time Lexa makes it to Clarke, the evening is winding down.

“How did you like it?”

“Looking at a room full of my own nudes? It’s a real ego boost,” Lexa jokes, “But seriously. I love it. Even better than the last one. I’m so proud of you, Clarke.”

“Is it weird for you? Coming in on my arm and having no one remember meeting you before?”

“It is, but I like seeing you work. I like being able to come support you. It’s worth it.” She brushes a lock of hair behind Clarke’s ear and kisses her cheek.

They’re walking home in the dark, fingers tangled, still buzzing from the excitement of the evening, when a shadow appears from an alleyway. They both think they’re about to be mugged, before they realize they recognize the shadowy figure.

Lexa steps protectively in front of Clarke.

“You shouldn’t be able to do this,” he sneers, “Your art was mine in our deal.”

“I asked for her in every capacity. That included my art, apparently,” Clarke flaunts, “Careful with your wording next time, dearie,” she parrots the words he used against Lexa so many times back to him.

His eyes glow red again, fuming with anger. He steps closer to Lexa, staring her down, then snaps his fingers, and disappears.

They both check themselves over again to make sure they’re not hurt. He’s just as bound to his contracts as they are, but he did something, they’re just not sure what.

Later that evening, Lexa finds her first gray hair, and smiles. He restarted her aging. He’s going to be so angry when he realizes that makes things easier for her.

October 8th, 2020

Clarke has a ring box in her sock drawer. She’s had it for months, but she cannot fathom leaving it there any longer or she’s going to explode. Sometimes she looks at Lexa and her heart feels like it is about to pound out of her chest. She thought you were supposed to grow out of that after dating for so long. Apparently not.

Being in love used to mystify her. She used to worry about the other shoe dropping. Too afraid to give someone else so much of her heart and trust them not to break it. But she looks at Lexa and all of those worries disappear. She looks at Lexa and sees the woman she’ll grow old with. The fact that that doesn’t terrify her terrifies her.

She probably should have hidden it somewhere less cliche. She doesn’t even think about it when she tells Lexa to grab a pair of her fuzzy socks from her drawer when she complains of chilly feet.

When Lexa emerges from the bedroom clutching that not-so-well-hidden box moments later, Clarke’s brain kicks into overdrive.

“Clarke, what’s this?” Lexa asks.

“Shit, you weren’t supposed to find it like this,” Clarke decides now is as good a time as any. She really should have rehearsed this, written something down maybe. She scrambles to take the box from Lexa’s hands, “Lexa, I have loved you since before I could remember. Literally. We met dozens of times, and each time was new, and each time I fell for you. Even though I couldn’t remember you, I had this gut feeling, this wrenching feeling that I was missing something because I was. I was missing you. You complete me. You make me a better artist. A better person, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”

If comes out as a jumble of words, all tripping out of Clarke’s mouth at once, but she bends down on one knee, looks up earnestly at Lexa, and opens the box.

Lexa’s eyes look watery, and then she says the last thing Clarke expected, “Clarke, I can’t,” and Clarke feels like all of the air was sucked out of her lungs. Oh god. Has she misread this the whole time? Clarke stumbles and she snaps the box closed and moves to stand, when Lexa’s words seem to catch up to her own brain.

“Wait, that didn’t come out right. I would love to, but I can’t.”

Clarke’s lip wobbles, “That really doesn’t sound any different.”

“Clarke, my name can’t be on a marriage license. You literally can’t marry me. Your friends and family don’t remember meeting me. How would that even work?”

“It’s not for them. Or the state. It’s for me. And you. It’s for us. Of course I know your name can’t go on a license. I know I reintroduce people to you regularly. The point is that I love you, and I want to be able to call you my wife, even if we do a ceremony of just us in our pajamas at home.”

“Oh,” Lexa softens, she blushes a beet red and shuffles a bit in her borrowed fuzzy socks, “Is it too late to change my answer then?”

Clarke slips the ring out of the box and places it on Lexa’s finger. Her eyes are misty and her smile is so bright she can’t help but taste it, but not before whispering, “so stupid” in the space between them first.

They wear dresses and buy rings and a cake the next month. Saying vows in front of Clarke’s childhood stuffed animal that sits on the shelf in the living room.

September 5th, 2034

By Clarke’s fourth show, she’s earned herself quite the reputation. She’s famous for her portraits, all of the same woman. Only of this same woman. Art critics call her Clarke’s “Secret Muse.” They write essays about how no one has ever met her. There’s speculation of if she’s real or just a figment of Clarke’s creativity.

“Listen to this one,” Lexa calls from the couch, "As I stand under the largest piece of Ms. Griffin's latest tantalizing exhibition, aptly named, Stranger in Plain Sight, it is hard not to feel as though I should know this woman beyond the void of mere charcoal and bristle. Beyond the beauty and whimsy of such an elusive muse; an ethereal kind of elegance painted in what can only be described as liminal glimpses into her soul. Each canvas serves as a piece of the greater puzzle, an obscure abstraction dangling on Ms. Griffin's ever elusive string, one that makes this particular viewer yearn for the surely sublime knowledge of even knowing this subject's name," Lexa reads with a snort while sitting in a ripped pair of boxers and a T-shirt with a coffee stain. "But, dear reader, I can say with confidence such a void remains between artist and ardent viewer. Where Ms. Griffin has seemingly left no stone unturned with her muse, alas, we woeful patrons are condemned to collect her only in brushstrokes, and the most verdant hues of green."

Clarke giggles from the kitchen table, “It’ll never get old that you have met half of these people and they’re still completely unaware. You shook her hand last year at the Met for god’s sake!”

“They haven’t made deals with the devil, don’t judge them!” Lexa sassing back.

There are rumors about why Clarke wears a wedding ring. If the mystery spouse has been the muse all along. Interviewers frequently ask why they aren’t present, and Clarke just answers with a knowing smirk, usually with Lexa on her arm, or at the very least making eye-contact with her across the room.

The mystery adds to the value.

May 5th 2088

By the time they’re old and gray, there are hundreds of portraits of Lexa. Her life is captured in glimpses and pieces on canvas. It is the only mark she is able to leave in the world. Lexa feels like every bit of her soul has truly been seen by the world, whether they know it or not. Clarke leaves a big enough mark on the world for both of them.

In her old age, Clarke begins to forget things. She’ll forget where she is, if she’s taken her pills, the directions to the drugstore. But she never forgets Lexa. Sometimes she’s confused in time, lost back somewhere in her twenties when she sees a painting of Lexa done in their youth.

“That’s my wife, you know,” Clarke says.

Lexa answers with a fond smile, “Yes, love, I know.” She kisses a wrinkled hand.

When Clarke passes at 88 years old, Lexa knows for certain that Clarke was the best part of her life, and with her mark in the world irrevocably there, she lets the darkness take her soul.

#lexa #clexa #the invisible life of addie larue #clarke griffin #clexa au #if you want the angst ending let me know #because i had one #but decided to spare us all because i hurt my own feelings #shoutout to butmakeitgay for helping through this whole thing #and writing the pretentious art critique

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turnyourgays · 11 months

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The Usher Foundation 3: Whips and Chains

Content warning for (very unrealistic, but still) child abuse mentions and general scary shit.

[Smartphone recorder chimes]

[Sound is muffled]

YVONNE: -e can't keep pretending like there's nothing wrong, Don.

ARCHIVIST: I'm just saying, it's not our business. He's probably just tired or something.

YVONNE: He's fucking drunk. You can smell it on him.

ARCHIVIST: He's getting his work done.

YVONNE: That's all that matters to you?

ARCHIVIST: [sigh]...what I mean is that he's functioning.

YVONNE: Logan needs help.

ARCHIVIST: Then go help.

[extended silence followed by footsteps and the creaking of a closing door]

[sound un-muffled as ARCHIVIST retrieves his smartphone from his pocket]

ARCHIVIST: Oh. It's already going. Guess I'll cut that part out later. [audible exhale]...Statement of Anna Vanberg, regarding her own monstrosity. Originally given December 28th, 2020 through e-mail to the Foundation. Audio recorded July 9th, 2022, by Donovan Ellis, Chief Experience Organizer at the Usher Foundation, Washington D.C. Statement begins.

First, let me tell you how I became a dominatrix.

Growing up, I had an enormous bed, and I literally lived in it. 24/7, I was hooked up to an IV that fed me a stimulant at 6 in the morning, and a sedative at 9 in the evening. Catheter. Bedpan. The only window was a skylight, and the room was soundproofed against the outside. The whole 9 yards of never, ever leaving the room. I was homeschooled, obviously, fed a steady stream of flashcards and books. I was taught math and science, but never literature, history, or art. I took tests that, looking back, were way above what anybody my age must've been doing. I remember trying to be a happy child, over and over again, but there was nothing to smile about. Success and failure were met with equal nothingness.

When I turned 13, they geared my education towards the medical. By 18, I had more than enough knowledge to go to medical school. How they got me into medical school is, to this day, a complete mystery. Regardless, I was enrolled in Harvard Medical.

And no, they didn't prepare me for going outside for the first time. They didn't prepare me for social interaction, or caring for myself, anything.

I struggled enormously. My eyes weren't even adjusted to seeing so many colors. I had almost zero musculature, and I was constantly shitting my dorm bed. My only redeeming quality was that my grades were good.

That's where the sad shit ends. I went to counseling at the recommendation of a professor, who noticed my complete abnormality. I gained weight, even made some friends. I got invited to a party, and that's where things got sexy. Never in my entire life had I even masturbated. Men, women, I needed them all, and I got them all. Sex was somewhere where conventional social skills were thrown away, and I was able to control people with it. They wanted me, and I made them work for it. Money, test scores, companionship, whatever I desired, I got in exchange for riding them and choking them.

Meanwhile, my parents never checked in on me. They paid my tuition from afar, but I didn't even have their number, so the pressure was off. I never became a doctor, I became a full-time dominatrix, operating out of my apartment in Boston.

I went on like that for years. Bliss. Absolute bliss. I tied my subs up like a spider traps flies in its web. I threatened them with knives and made them dance, strings around their necks and whatever parts they had between their legs. I'll be honest: I pushed a lot of boundaries. Made them do a lot of shit they would've been uncomfortable with had they been with any other domme. Not just in a fetishistic sense. I made them stretch their bodies, or put them in a trance with mere suggestion.

My life growing up became a blur, and I didn't give a shit about it anyway.

And then, like a thousand other stories told recently, COVID hit. I was truly alone for the first time since college. A lot of my subs wished me farewell - at least until the emergency ended - but a few others requested we do...socially distanced play.

It got freaky fast, and I'm not talking kinky. I'm telling you, they weren't just playing, I was controlling them. I'd move my finger and they'd raise their arm, I'd snap and they'd orgasm instantly. They couldn't even speak when I did this, not unless I made them. It stopped being sexy, and I just started doing it for kicks, and they kept coming back, begging me to do it again, no matter how terrified they looked afterwards.

They were addicted to me, and the feeling was mutual. I couldn't go a day without watching one of them squirm under my grasp, choke when I didn't let them breathe, sob and beg me to make it stop. I'd only respond by making them feel more pain. I'd fire their nerves, even sever them. Next day, they'd blow up my phone saying thank you.

One day, though, I didn't have any appointments. I was starving for it instantly. My skin was itchy. I was hungry no matter how much I ate. I was cold and shivering. I stared out my window, and saw him. A normal man, walking down the street, on the other side of the road. The way I felt...it was the same way I felt when I saw all those people at my first college party.

He snapped to attention, watching me through my window from across the street. I beckoned him to come forward, nearly drooling with hunger as he came closer and closer.

As he stepped into the street, a car struck him hard and fast, and I felt amazing. It was like an orgasm that lasted hours. It was a better fix than anything I'd experienced so far.

That was back in August. I can't even begin to tell you what I've done since then. I'm e-mailing you now because, well, first of all, I didn't know you guys were a thing until a few weeks ago. But I've felt this urge to tell you...I need to tell you.

You're reading this on July 9th, 2022.

Statement ends. I feel like I need to throw up.

[Smartphone recorder chimes]

...

[It chimes again]

I'm not bothering asking Yvonne and Logan to investigate this. Anna Vanberg is obviously a threat, and Logan particularly doesn't need that on his mind.

I'll ask the question Ms. Vanberg no doubt wants me to ask. How did she know? How could she possibly have known the exact date I'd be reading her statement? [sigh]...Recording ends.

#the magnus archives #tma #tma fic #tma fanfic

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flyingcookierambles · 2 years

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rant ig

in recent news last week on wednesday my idiot sister and her borderline anti-vax boyfriend got covid and now my mom is getting sick and we’re worried that it’s covid instead of a normal seasonal cold or mild allergy and im just hgioehgaoieh i hate it here no matter what i do to keep myself safe the issue is coming from within the house in my case my sister and her boyfriend stayed had dinner and stayed overnight 2 fridays ago ughghghgh i hate this i hate her literal deadly trash taste in men ghroeahgorehgreog i have asthema my mom has diabetes the idiot trash taste sister also has asthema and a lot of people in my family are 50-60+ year old boomers with various health issues from hard manual labor all their lives as blue collar workers plus my 84 year old grandma ghrueagihreuoghreaoghreio gheriogheovhdfovhav hgorehgaoeh agho plus we’ve started inviting my maternal grandma and her sister to our family parties and they’re like 70-ish or so and my grandma’s sister is only here now bc her husband literally died of covid bc some idiot step-uncle that i’ve never met apparently went to thanksgiving last year without being vaccinated and gave the entire family covid and killed his uncle im just hr igohreaoihraeioghaeoighraioheog ifoahgoheg i hate it here we’ve kicked my sister out to be with her boyfriend bc of the sickness but they were still here in my house i hate it i hate it so much plus the idiot borderline anti-vaxxer boyfriend is a carpenter and he insists on going to work going into people’s homes and businesses while getting angry at the mere suggestion of wearing a mask or doing an at home test and then whenever my sister talks on the phone with my mom she said that her boyfriend said that “she really ought to go back to work even though she’s sick” (puzzlingly her employers also agree despite it being a private nanny job for rich people on the rich side of town watching literally babies (2 kids under 4 years old, idk if they’re even old enough for a ovid shot) plus the employer’s mom died of covid just a few months ago wtf???) and that “my boyfriend’s coworkers all agree that we’re just overreacting about covid “and im just like yeah duh they’re all also constuction workers/carpenters probably who believe in some weird libteratiarn toxic masculinity where other peoples’ lives dont matter to them and grejaigerioaehoe hrgoaho ghreoag seriously im so sick and tired of thes i wish all stupid anti-vaccers a very get polio measles tuberculosis and die if you want to so so so badly bc youre a fragile little snowflake who either thinks that your “special macho dna will out-manliness literal bacteria” or “bill gates is putting microchips in our bodies for the (insert some most likely anti-semitic conspiracy theory about robot lizard alien overlords living in the sewers of atlantis)” and leave the rest of us reasonable folk who listen to science and doctors alone

in other news if i somehow get covid at least my steam deck came in + im literally working my temp office job + my retail job, so i can have an excuse for a break from my 7 days a week, 45-50 hours work that allowed me to afford a steam deck in the first place + we have an excuse to not go to the cousin that we don’t like’s wedding next weekend in ohio so gihiroeahgeorihgoe eh :/

im so tired

when the idiots stayed over it was in my sisters’ childhood room that shares a cold air vent with my mom’s room next door

ughghghghghghghg if we don’t get it at this point its a miracle

like 3/4 of all covid scares that happened to my family so far have been from my sister’s dumb libertarian anti-vaxxer/anti-covid boyfriends im just like kick her out of the house go away i cant take it anymore

if i have to call off work i want my sister to pay for my doctor’s appointment to get my inhaler prescription, my inhaler, and all the days i have to call off work, i would never get this normally, ive literally worn a mask all this time since like 2020 march when going to work even now i am the only one both my work places that consistently wears one and with this scare im eating outside in the cold windy autumn at the picnic tables for the smokers bc i dont want to be *that guy* who infects the entire office

ughghghghghgh i hate it here

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nyctophilin · 4 years

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Fake affection | I

sweet anon: Can I request a dom! Han Jisung smut? Where he and the reader are fake dating because Jisung want's to make someone jealous but ends up fucking the reader instead? I love your writings so much!!

Chapter I, Chapter II, Chapter III, Chapter IV, Epilogue

Description: Han Jisung has been rejected by the girl he likes one to many times. He decides that he has had enough and is set on making her want him back. What could possibly make her want him more than seeing him with her rival after she boldly assumed he can’t find anyone better. That way Jisung and Y/N are stuck in a fake relationship until Jisung’s crush falls for him. Or he falls for someone else.

Pairing: Han x fem!Reader, Hyunjin x fem!Reader

Word count: 4.5k

Genre: College!AU, Fake dating!AU, Angst, Fluff, eventual Smut

Warnings: swearing, mention of masturbation

A/N: Wow, so it looks like I am unable of making short fics, haha. I planed for this to be a one-shot but it’s already this long and I don’t want to bore you guys with long fics so I will make a second part and a third if needed but I doubt. I really hope you guys like this one. Feedback is very much appreciated.

Y/N was tapping her finger on the desk, her head resting in her palm. She was watching the professor walk around in front of the class explaining something but she wasn’t paying attention. Her mind was filled with thoughts about whether or not she was going to get the role.

Some people from her university that were majoring in Film Production had to write a script for a short movie and the best five got chosen to be produced. Initially, she believed that only Theater and Film Majors could participate at the auditions but the administration of the school made an announcement one morning informing them that everyone could take part in the audition process. That meant she had to deal with more competitors for the role she wanted.

Initially, Y/N was the only one who wanted to audition for the main role of one of the movies since people didn’t really catch its concept that well. When the audition day finally came, one Modern Dance major showed up out of nowhere and auditioned as well. The apparition of that particular character made her blood boil with anger.

Her competitor for the role was none other than Mina, her so-called enemy. They weren’t enemies in the real sense of the word. They just simply didn’t click with one another and silently agreed a long time ago to ignore each other. They weren’t pulling childish stunts on each other, they didn’t speak each other's names unless necessary, they didn’t try to win each other in grades or parties or body counts. They were just mutually ignoring one another. And everything was fine until she showed up there.

Y/N wasn’t going to lie and say that Mina wasn’t good. Her performance wasn’t exceptional but for someone that has never done that before, she was fairly good. That had her worried about her chances of getting chosen.

When the bell finally rang ending her suffering she got up in the split of a second and left the room. She could not bear to hear any more of the professor’s babbling. Her boots let out quiet thuds every time they touched the concrete floors. She found herself in front of the announcement board but the paper that was supposed to tell her if she got chosen or not, was missing. Thinking to herself that they probably will put it up later she turned on her heels and made her way towards the cafeteria.

She met her friend Hayoon there and they sat down at a table situated in the centre of the cafeteria. They talked about how they had been up until then and Hayoon complained about one of her classes and how she’s going to fail it.

The chatter in the cafeteria died down when the door was slammed open and Mina stomped in, a bitter expression on her face. “I can not believe that they made me a stunt double! What does that even mean?” Her voice was louder than it should have been as she addressed her friends. Her intention was most probably to attract attention.

A smirk crept on Y/N’s face as she realised that she did, in fact, get the main role. She gave her friend a suggestive eyebrow raise as she slowly took the chopstick to her mouth. Her face dropped when she heard the stomping approaching her. “Hey, loser, what’s a stunt double?” Mina’s voice was scratching her ears. How she managed to sound like one of those toys for dogs sometimes, she’ll never understand.

“I can’t believe you’ve auditioned for a role without knowing what a stunt double is.” Y/N rolled her eyes at the other girl and a few people from around them chuckled. Mina’s face caught a crimson colour as the embarrassment settled in.

“Haha, you are so funny!” It was clear by now that the girl was trying to mask her flustered form by trying to embarrass Y/N back.

The truth was that she didn’t mean to make fun of her. She just let her first thoughts leave her mouth. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.” A sigh left her lips. “A stunt double is a person that executes all the dangerous or action scenes for the main actor so they don’t get injured. Stunt doubles are usually gymnasts, people that know martial arts and all that jazz. They probably chose you because of your dance background.”

“I can’t believe it. Not only they didn’t give me the role, but they are also going to use me to protect you?” Mina had an annoyed expression.

“Oh please! Did you really think they were going to choose you? You entered that room without even knowing the concept and somehow managed to get the feel right a couple of times. Meanwhile, some of us actually prepared for that audition.” Y/N was fed up with Mina’s princess behaviour. Always thinking that everything is rightfully hers and expecting everyone to kiss her ass. All that just because her father was donating a big sum of money to the university every term. They are donations at the end of the day and she should not be expecting special treatment just for that.

Mina’s face became a crimson red for the second time in ten minutes and she stomped away from Y/N’s table. The few people that were watching them averted their eyes when Y/N took a look around.

From the corner of the cafeteria, someone was watching them with a smirk on their face. Oh, how he got just the perfect idea.

Y/N sat in the second closest row to the professor. She was in “Canto class” as she liked to call it. It was one of the optional classes she chose to take that year. It wasn’t a compulsory class for Theater and Film majors since you don’t necessarily have to know how to sing to be an actress but she took it anyway because she thought it would be fun. And so far it was.

A loud bang invaded her left ear and she turned to find Han Jisung having his back to her and chatting with his friends that were seated a few rows behind them. She raised her eyebrow but didn’t question it. It wasn’t like the seat was occupied and she definitely had nothing against him sitting next to her. He probably just wanted to pay more attention since he and his friends are always distracted during class.

Y/N turned back to her stuff and opened her notebook to take another look at the notes from last class. Soon after the professor entered the classroom and the chatter died down.

She was vigorously writing in her notebook everything the professor was explaining to them. Suddenly she felt a touch on her left elbow and stopped for a second. She immediately resumed her writing, convinced that he probably did that by mistake. Not even a minute later she felt another touch on her elbow this time more evident. She ignored it again not paying much mind to it. Jisung’s elbow collided with hers causing her to push her notebook and scribble on it.

She snapped her head towards him and felt anger overcome her when she noticed the smirk on his face. “What?” She whispers yelled in his direction.

“Hi!” He did a short wave of his hand in her direction and she clenched her jaw. She closed her eyes and exhaled deeply before going back to her note-taking. She had only five minutes of peace before he poked her side again. She smacked his hand away from her and continued to mind her own business.

Throughout the class, Jisung kept bothering her and trying to talk to her despite her obvious wish to let her take notes. When the bell rang she got up quickly, her blood boiling and left the room in a hurry hoping she could lose Jisung on the busy halls. As she was hurriedly making her way between the sea of people she felt an arm going over her shoulders and she crashed with the owner of the arm.

“Why are you in such a hurry babe?” Jisung’s voice rang in her ear as they were practically glued to each other. She grabbed his hand and swung his arm away from her shoulders.

“For the love of God, what do you want from me Han Jisung?” Exasperation was present in her voice as she threw him an ugly look.

She couldn’t guess what he needed from her to annoy her to that extent. They were acquaintances and nothing more. They knew each other from that one class they shared and the longest interaction they had was when the professor prepared an interactive class once and they had to work in groups of five.

He was the university’s “heartthrob” as people liked to call him. Y/N personally thought that that title should be given to Hwang Hyunjin who was majoring in Modern Dance. He was more mature than the rest of his friends, he was friendly with everyone and wasn’t pulling pranks on innocent people to entertain some brainless creatures. But who was she to oppose the masses?

On top of doing all those things, Jisung was also in a relationship with Mina. Every time they are together they will target someone and will start making fun of them. More Mina than Jisung but he was still entertaining her actions and that made him as guilty as she was.

“I need to ask you something. Or better, make you a proposal.” He winked at her and she felt an uncomfortable shiver run through her. How disgusting.

“Ok, and what is it?” She threw him an expectant look and he started looking around.

“Let’s talk outside where there are fewer people. You got a free period, right?” Confusion made its way on her face.

“How do you know that? Are you weirdo following me?” She has never talked with him as friends and they share only one class. How on earth would he know her schedule?

“What? No! I see you hanging out around the university all the time after our class.” She rolled her eyes at his answer and gestured her hand towards the closest exit out of the building signalling him to lead the way.

Very soon they were seated on a bench under a tree somewhere behind the university. It was her first time coming there. Y/N usually liked to remain at the front of the building since couples usually liked to come there and make out sometimes even fuck.

“I think we should start dating.” He blurted out and she froze for a second before jumping to her feet startling the man.

“I knew you were fucking weird. I’m leaving!” What in the actual fuck did she think when she came here. For a second she expected a real conversation but Jisung’s main skills were flirting and making bad jokes. She set her expectations way too high for that conversation.

She picked her bag from the bench and started leaving only to have Jisung grab her wrist and stop her. “Wait, let me explain. I swear you’ll understand better after.” Y/n wanted to turn and leave but the puppy dog eyes he gave her made her stay and listen to him. Now, don’t get her wrong, his expression didn’t soften her but if he was desperate enough to try the puppy eyes on her then it must be important to him.

She plopped down on the bench and waited for him to start talking. “Look, I’m pretty sure you know Mina. And I know you two aren’t on great terms. I say we date so you can get back at her for all the things she has done to you.” He raised his eyebrows at her and pursed his lips.

Y/N was the one that raised her eyebrow next as she leaned her head to the side. “Aren’t you and Mina dating?”

“Obviously not.” Jisung used a tone that pissed Y/N off. A tone that said ‘It was so obvious, how can you not know?’ and she didn’t like it one bit.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I must have read the signs the wrong way. I mean, it's not like you are always together and you carry her backpack around and you hang out outside of school six days out of seven and kiss before classes and make out behind the university probably right on this bench.”

A smirk appeared on Jisung’s face. “Who’s following who now?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. Mina’s voice is so annoying I could hear her every time she talked. When I would turn to see what was up now you two were most times engaged in some sort of PDA.” She spoke fast trying to prove that she wasn’t following him. She didn’t know why she felt the need to do that but the thought of Jisung thinking that she has some sort of interest in him was terrifying. He completely humiliated the last “unpopular” girl that confessed her feelings to him and at that moment the last thing she needed was for him to go around saying she is a stalker.

“Well, we are getting there. I asked her out and she said that she’ll love to but it’s too fun to tease me. When I asked her ‘What if I get a girlfriend?’ she told me I can not find anyone better for me than her. When I saw you fighting in the cafeteria earlier I knew I found my perfect girl. Not only are you hot, but she also hates you.” Y/N raised an eyebrow at his words.

“Hot?” Her tone was untrusting as this was the first time someone from uni had said that to her.

“Yeah. You didn’t think that guys came to last year’s theatre spectacles because they were actually interested in theatre, right?” A laugh left his mouth at her dumbfounded face as she registered his words. A blank expression adorned her face immediately after trying not to seem so surprised.

“Well, not anymore.” She let her tongue trace her bottom lip before biting the flesh. “Ok, so tell me what you actually want us to do.” Uneasiness settled inside Jisung as he watched her bored face.

“Well, I mean what I said. We should date. Or fake dating if you will. That way I can make Mina jealous and push her to run into my arms. I bet she can’t stand seeing me with you for too long.” He looked into her eyes hopefully thinking that maybe he convinced her but his hope was quickly shattered when she opened her mouth.

“What are you? Five? I don’t want to get back at her and I have absolutely no reason to help you in your sick plan. I’m out of here!” Once again she picked up her bag to leave only for Jisung to grab her wrist and stop her, again.

“Please Y/N! I’m desperate. I’ve been trying to date her for a year and a half already.” That was pathetic. She had absolutely no reason to help him. None at all. But something pushed her to stay and accept his offer. Maybe she could take advantage of the situation.

Turning her head towards her she tried to keep a straight face as best as she could. “What do I get out of it?”

Jisung’s face brightened instantly at her question and he held her hand with both of his. “Anything you want. If it’s possible I’ll do it.” His eyes were pouring into hers and a stupid sparkle was present in them.

“I guess you were going to do that anyway but I want you to present me to your friends.” The same bored expression that she had on for almost the entirety of their conversation was adorning her face. Jisung was amazed at the lack of emotions she managed to show but she was an actress. Maybe she’s just good at her job.

“Why? Do you have a crush on any of them?” A smirk was enveloping his facial features and he had a teasing tone. Y/N rolled her eyes at his comment.

“No. Some of them seem like really interesting people but their only defect was hanging out with you. Now that I have to hang out with you too I might as well start talking to them.” She shook his hands off hers before putting it in her front pocket. “Now I have to go to class cause my free period is almost over. See you later, babe!” She winked at him before turning around and making her way to her next class.

The next day she met with Jisung in front of the cafeteria so they could walk in together and “announce” their relationship. Somehow he got hold of her number and they texted the night prior about the terms of their little deal. She felt like laughing when she saw how serious he was about it. If he really did end up dating Mina she’ll be convinced that both of them are idiots.

His arm was over her shoulders as they walked through the tables. Multiple people were staring at them but she decided to ignore them. Upon reaching the table she placed her tray down and took a seat. The people at the table were looking confused at one another and some were throwing Jisung questioning looks.

“Everyone, meet my girlfriend.” He spoke gesturing with a hand towards her. She smiled at them and waved her hand, muttering a soft ‘Hi!’.

One of them, who she recognised to be Lee Minho, a Modern Dance major cleared his throat. “Hey. It’s nice to meet you.” He had an awkward smile on. “What are you majoring in?”

“Yeah, I don’t recall seeing you around campus.” Seo Changbin, a Music Production major added.

“Oh, I…” She started talking but a puff coming from her left stopped her.

“Seriously dude? You share a class. She’s L/N Y/N from your Theory and Improvisation class.” The voice belonged to Hwang Hyunjin and she felt a funny feeling in her stomach at the realisation that he knows her. Everyone around the table was throwing him weird looks.

“You are right but how do you know that? I’m pretty sure you don’t take that class.” There was a trace of embarrassment in her voice.

“I don’t but sometimes when I wait for those guys outside of the classroom I see you walking out.” He said that with nonchalance taking a bite from his food.

“And how do you know her? She’s not a Music Production major otherwise we would have known. And she’s not a Dance major either otherwise Minho and Felix would have known about her as well.”Changbin’s tone was almost provoking as if Hyunjin had done something bad and he was about to reveal it.

“She’s a Theatre and Film major. Last year when we went to all those theatre spectacles to support Jeongin I was actually paying attention to the plays. She had either the main role or the lead. I remember her being really good.” She felt her cheeks heat at his comment.

“Thank you!” She threw him a smile. However, she got ignored as Lee Felix started talking.

“Do you know her Jeongin?” She somehow felt offended by his question. Maybe that wasn’t his intention but he should have used a different tone.

“Of course I do. We share almost all of our classes and last year we worked on multiple plays together.” Annoyance was present in his voice caused by his friends' ignorance.

She knew Jeongin from the first day. He was the first to speak to her although they didn’t exactly become friends. They kept on working on plays together throughout the entirety of the first year of college but they kept everything mostly professional since they both had their own group of friends and she kind of disliked most of his friends.

“Then how come you never talk about her?” Now, wasn’t Changbin an annoying one? She rolled her eyes discreetly at his question.

“Because we are not the best of friends. Why don’t you talk about Kim Gina from your degree?” The youngest question was a good one. They were acquaintances and barely knew something about each other. What was he supposed to talk about?

“Gina is not hot. What am I supposed to talk about?” The older male said calmly with a shrug of his shoulders.

The water she was just drinking got stuck in her throat and she started coughing violently. Jisung started hitting her back repeatedly trying to help her swallow. When she finally calmed down she looked at him annoyed.

“Who she is, is not important. What’s important is that she is my girlfriend” he gave Changbin a side look ”and you have to accept that. Stop talking about her like she is not sitting right in front of you.” A few of them raised their hands in defeat while some of them averted their eyes. Minho and Changbin rolled their eyes.

She felt her blood pressure spike up at their action. She remembered why she never wanted to talk to any of them. Arrogant pricks.

“Ok, Mister protective boyfriend. Just tell us when you break up.” Minho took a bite of his food done with the younger man’s antics. Everyone knew that he was in love with Mina. The moment she shows some interest in him he would probably leave this one in a heartbeat.

Y/N sucked in a breath discreetly. He really got her worked up and she hated it. She put an arm around Jisungs shoulders and yanked him towards her, his face close to her chest. With her other hand, she grabbed the sides of his face making him look up at her and forcefully pursing his lips.

“Break up? Do you wanna break up with me, babe?” Y/N’s voice was mocking as if she was talking with a child. Jisung swallowed hard before shaking his head. She smiled at his response and used the hand from around his shoulders to ruffle his hair. “That’s what I thought.” She placed a short kiss on his lips before releasing him and turning back to her food.

Everyone at the table was looking at both of them shocked, especially Minho and Changbin. She wanted to let a proud smile escape her but she controlled herself.

For the rest of the lunch, she decided not to engage in any more discussions with Jisung’s friends. She continued eating her food and listened to them talking about things that didn’t involve her, occasionally responding to Hayoon’s texts.

She was the first one to get up, impatient to go to her next class and not have to see them. “Bye guys. It was lovely meeting you!” She smiled at them, a smile half true because she did like some of them. “Bye babe. See you later!” She grabbed the sides of his face again placing another kiss on his lips before taking her empty tray and leaving them alone.

The men all watched her as she made her way out of the cafeteria. When she closed the door behind her they all burst into laughter. Jisung was biting the inside of his cheek irked by their action. When the laughter stopped, Seungmin that was sitting next to him put his hand on his shoulder.

“I absolutely adore your girlfriend. She knows how to keep her ‘babe’ in check I see.” Seungmin tried cupping his face as Y/N did but Jisung slapped his hand away.

“Are you her good boy, Jisungie? Does she give you rewards if you listen to her?” Minho cooed at him and Jisung held back an insult.

“Shut the fuck up. It’s not like that. She surprised me as well. Who the fuck knew she was going to do that?” When he proposed the whole fake dating thing to her he thought it would be easier. Looking at it now he can’t understand why he thought that. He saw the way her fights with Mina unfold and he knew she was an actress which meant that she was probably either crazy confident or really good at faking it. For some reason, he thought she would be easier to tease and control but it would be a lie if he said it didn’t intrigue him. He liked a challenge and if the prize was Mina he would try his best.

“And you man” Chan spoke for the first time “what the fuck was that? Do you know her entire biography?” He was looking at Hyunjin who rolled his eyes.

“I told you I paid attention to last year’s plays. On top of that, she’s hot. I remember that after one spectacle I and the guys from my dance group at the time talked about her for like a month. She was so..” The man let out a groan and threw his head back trying to explain what he meant.

“Sure, tell me more. Did you masturbate to the thought of my girlfriend? Perhaps got any wet dreams about her?” Jisung commented, raising an eyebrow.

Hyunjin winked at him as a smirk made its way on his face. Some of the guys simultaneously let out disgusted sounds at his gesture.

“But how did this whole thing happen? I can’t remember a moment when you talked about her or when you were together.” Felix’s deep voice rang making everyone pay attention to him.

Changbin suddenly let a gasp out and dramatically covered his mouth. “Yesterday our little Jisungie sat next to her in Theory and Improvisation and when the class ended he ran after her. I think he might have had a secret crush!” The older man teased.

“Yeah, but she looked really annoyed with him. Hence why she sprinted out of the class. Why would she accept to date him if she looked like she’d rather listen to Mr Jung talk about the first piano ever invented.” Chan intervened making Jisung shrug his shoulders.

“She was annoyed with me but what can I say? I’m so charming she couldn’t refuse me.” He leaned back in his chair putting his arms over the back of the chair.

“I think she did it out of pity. When she realized you’ve been trying to get Mina for a year and a half now she probably felt so bad for you she decided to sacrifice herself so you look less like a loser.” Hyunjin said his tone way to serious to be a joke.

Jisung threw the man a deadly stare. “At least I didn’t masturbate to the thought of her like a fucking virgin.” He spat in the other man’s face.

“Touche.”

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poptod · 3 years

Note

hello! i'd like to make an ahkmenrah x reader request! maybe present-day reader gets teleported back in time to when ahkmenrah was alive and they eventually get to the palace and stuff happens? maybe they tell him about modern life? and maybe reader is unnaturally beautiful to the ancient egyptians because humans evolve to be more attractive as time goes on so a person from our time would be hot shit 4,000 years ago? this is long lmao. thanks!

Notes: god ive always wanted to do this kind of storyline but i was worried about like,, logic and stuff getting in the way of the storyline. anyway! i was so fucking elated to receive this request. i got a bit carried away so apologies! WC: 3.2k

Okay. It isn't that bad.

Would you ever see your family again? Probably not, but you weren't ruling the possibility out.

Would you ever get to have sour patch kids again? Probably not. But even during the time you lived in 2020, you had eaten more concentrated sour patch kids flavor than all of the people around you combined.

This little village on the outskirts of ancient Thebes is hardly L.A.––though that's probably a good thing––and is small enough for you to know every inhabitant. Your shop there is small to suit the town, and well known ever since your arrival in this time.

They found you beside the river, thought you to be a gift from the Gods. You were hazy, though––whatever had so forcefully pushed you back in time had made your head spin, making you sick and unbalanced. So, when they asked if you did in fact come from the Gods, you had no way of defending yourself either way. Generally you've been denying it––they think you are a god, and the only way you've convinced them you're not a god is by saying you're a gift from them. It explains the way you look, unnaturally beautiful and alien amongst the more pure genetics of earlier humans.

Your shop is pretty simple. You make portraits from paint, more realistic than anything else that exists, and it only affirms their belief in your god-like status. Fortunately word seems to not have gotten out––the village has remained small, and no one from Thebes has run into you. Every now and then you get unreasonably anxious that a noble will find you and turn you into a slave. It's a worry most people around you have, so you find comfort in the fact that you're not the only one. Still, you're not quite accustomed to such an atmosphere––the thought of nobles and Kings noticing you still sends terrified aches into your stomach.

It's about two weeks in that it gets bad. People start to pass by the village, more than you would've thought, and they're all looking to trade goods, food, and information. The people of the village talk about you––you're something interesting, you can't deny that, but they don't know just how worried you are. Whenever you see someone you don't recognize outside your home, you refuse to come out.

Five days later and there's soldiers in your home, looking over your paintings on their way back to Memphis from conquering the realm of Kush. You hold a deep contempt for them––you don't know all that much about history, but you know how Egyptian soldiers and Pharaohs reigned power over the people of Kush.

The soldiers aren't all that worrying. What really gets your heart pounding is the final man to enter your hut; a man bearing a crown and a long sword, with golden braces around his wrists and a chest plated in green scales. Your fingers dig into the wood of your counter when he notices you. The crown on his head––it's the crown of both upper and lower Egypt.

This is a Royal.

"Where did you learn this skill?" He asks you, eyes trained on one of your bigger drawings. It's just on papyrus––not for sale––and hung on the wall as a display of your talent.

"I spent a little while travelling the world," you answer. Technically, growing up in the modern world was a bit like travelling the world; you got to see the cultures and practices of many, many people. "The rest of it's practice."

"The peasants here, they... they claim you came from the Nile. Is that true?"

"Well... that is where I was found," you say carefully, but you can already tell you've fucked up. The look on his face is indescribable beyond the fact that he's pleased.

"How would you feel coming back to the capital with me?" He offers to you, setting his hands on the counter and leaning forward. "I think my father would much like to meet you."

"I – I don't think I'm really cut out for -"

"Nonsense," he dismisses with a smile, taking your hand from its' spot on the wood. "We shall teach you proper writing skills, give you a beautiful home, and the salary isn't horrid either."

You can't just say no. If you do, he's going to ask questions––he's going to get confused, and he's going to get suspicious. No one would turn down an opportunity like this; free schooling, free housing, and much more money for something you already do.

"Well... alright," you say quietly, looking to the home around you that you built with the help of the other villagers.

"Wonderful. My name is Kamun."

He's not a very nice person, you come to find. Or perhaps he's just not your tastes––the soldiers seem to like him well enough, at least the ones who aren't completely subordinate to him, but his attitude towards women and poor people is scathing to say the least. Otherwise he's very amusing, with a good sense of humor and quite generous with his food and wine as long as he gets his fill of it first.

The boat back to Memphis, where the royal family currently stays, is a long ride filled with various entertainments. It's clear these are not soldiers accustomed to rough conditions––the dancing women and flowing beer is enough to tell you that. Instead, you surmise these are faux war-heroes; people adored in their hometown for doing nothing but intimidating others in a foreign country. They try to get cushy with you, soften you up to their words and touches. It doesn't work.

He keeps you close to him. You let him do it, sort of––it's better than telling him no. Better than starting a ruckus. Then again, avoiding a ruckus is what got you here in the first place, standing before the doors of the courtroom where a false God on earth rules the Nile.

"Father, I bring you a gift from Thebes," says Kamun, pushing you forward by the small of your back. You can't bring yourself to meet the Pharoah's eye, so you fall to your knees and bow.

Everyone is staring at you. You don't look normal, and they all know it, and you know it. You could cry from the heat of their eyes on your back.

One of Kamun's soldiers steps forwards, handing the Pharaoh and his wife several of the drawings they'd taken from you. Silence passes as the two scan your work.

"How did you achieve such a mirror of the human face?" The Pharaoh asks in a slow, deep voice that sounds as he looks––old, weathered, wise.

"They came from the Nile," Kamun answers for you, and murmurs take the crowd by storm. You, on the other hand, feel your heartbeat increase in massive increments, speeding your already uneven breath. "A gift from the Gods, the locals said."

"I can't – I am not magic," you rush out, hoping your clarification clears you of any responsibility to the Pharaoh. You know he rules everything––if he says you are to stay here, you have no choice, and you don't like it here. Too many people. "I cannot give you anything, my King."

"I think you're lying," says a voice, its' tone soft and a velvet low. It catches you off guard, brings you to raise your head and meet the eyes of someone you don't know; a young man dressed in gold beside the Pharaoh's throne.

You almost lose your breakfast as your eyes bulge, your mind instantly recognizing him and connecting the dots. You were, by far, not a historian, but you knew a fair amount of Egyptian history––namely a family in the Old Kingdom who was headed by the Pharaoh Merenkahre. The remaining statues and busts of the King and his son are astonishingly accurate, and there can be no doubt in your head.

That being said, there also can't be any reaction on your face. You try your best to reign your expression in.

"I..."

Actually, you do have something to offer now. You know the names––memorized the history, committed each event to memory, and now you can pull their lifestory off from the top of your head. Wouldn't that be valuable to a King; a seer of the future, to predict the rise and fall of the economy and the coming armies. Besides, you can't just say he's wrong. That'd be treasonous to them. So you have to agree you're hiding something, come up with an excuse as to why you hid it, and it proves harder than you thought. You're quickwitted, though––it got you away from the villager's wrath, and it will promote you to noble living now.

You hide a smirk beneath a calm expression as you address the younger prince.

"They gifted me foresight," you say quietly, pretending as though it hurts you to tell the truth, "but told me to never inform others."

"You are in the presence of Ra once more," the Pharaoh reminds you.

"And others," you point out. "I would... it would be better to discuss such matters.. in private."

Detailed information about already-past events is enough to sway him to believe you. The Pharaoh is surprisingly easy to convince, and with a few, meaningless predictions of the future, he gives you housing in his own palace. Kamun looks proud of himself––puffs his chest out in front of his father and earns no compliment. Ire laces his glare as it falls upon his brother, Ahkmen, praised for his ability to see through your obvious lie.

The Pharaoh asks his younger son to guide you to your room. Apparently it's closer to his room than it is to Kamun's, and evening is approaching fast. The walk there, while short, is marked by a conversation composed mainly of Ahkmen's questions and your answers. When the two of you reach your room, he doesn't leave––actually, he follows you in and locks the door.

There's nothing more terrifying than a man with unchecked power, and there is no one watching you.

No fail safe.

You gulp.

"I know you're still not telling the truth," he says, and though it dismisses several of your worries it still begs the question; how did he notice? "Just thought I'd spare you the embarrassment in front of my father, but my generosity ends there. Now I won't hurt you, and I won't tell anyone––I'm just curious."

Oh thank fuck. He's not going to rape you.

"I'm not Egyptian," you blurt out.

"Obviously," he interrupts, but you glare him into raising his hands defensively.

"I'm from the future."

He stares at you. For a minute. You know this because you count it––he just pauses right in his stance, doesn't move, and stares at you for a whole minute like you just told him you're made of gold.

"I'm sorry, what?" He says, laughter suddenly wracking his body.

"It's how I know what's going to happen to your family," you say, hoping he'll believe you. Otherwise this handsome, seemingly-nice man is going to think you're insane for the rest of time. "I studied your family for years as a side-hobby, I don't know how to predict the future for anything but you and your father."

His laughing pauses, or lightens at least; enough for him to say, "actually?"

"Yes," you say, completely serious. This seems to gain his interest once more. "You have to help me. I know at some point people are going to ask me questions about other things and I'm not going to have an answer."

"Just do what all our priests do," he says with a chuckle.

"What do they do?"

"Lie," he says. You can't stop the grin that spreads across your face from the stupid joke, and when he sees that a shit-eating grin spreads across his own face, delighted he could make you laugh.

"Yes, well... I guess I could do that," you mumble in a laugh.

"There's no need for you to worry. Now that I know the truth, I can help you," he says, offering you something that takes nearly all the anxiety out of your brain. After two days travel with a prince, it feels like it took 50 pounds off your shoulders.

"Thank you, so much," you chuckle in relief.

"Of course. I do have questions though, and I want you to answer them."

"Anything."

These questions of his, they come at all times––almost at a constant rate when he takes you on long walks, which he does often. He passes it off to his father as an interest in your beauty, and it apparently works. This little lie also helps you enormously in avoiding the romantic advances of many of the people you come into contact with. You're still not quite sure how it works, since Egyptians supposedly had a strong sense of patriotism, but you look rare and they idolize it. Every eye that falls upon you sees something beautiful, and you can't understand it.

At least Ahkmen is normal. He doesn't talk about you being beautiful. Ever.

And it kind of makes you sad.

"Would you say people on the whole are happier in the future or in the past?" He asks you, his words surrounded by the warmth of a summer day in Egypt.

Birds chatter loudly in the trees around you, singing in the humid air that marks the mating season for many of them. The flowers that surround you are already familiar––you thought it would take longer for you to commit the shapes and colors to memory, but here you are. Dressed in gold-laced silk and turquoise necklaces.

"I think the happiness of a population is dependent entirely on the circumstances surrounding it," you say. Sometimes your answers relate more to the human condition than the progress of time on the human race; he likes these answers, too, so you tell him exactly what you think. "Six thousand years from now, there are times of great misery. One is even called the Great Depression, but five years before that were some of the most prosperous times my country had ever seen. The same cycle is evident here."

"So.. great misery and great happiness come in waves?" He asks, pace slowing as he tries to understand what you're saying. You pause along the pathway, allowing him space to think.

"It's a pattern, actually. When the economy goes up, it will always come down. Recessions happen right after economical booms. And yes," you say before he can ask, "a time of unease will follow the prosperity of the current years. But it won't be for a time yet."

"Will it happen in my lifetime?"

He's murdered about three years from now. You think you might be able to stop it, but if you do, it'll alter history quite a lot. Either way, he wouldn't live long enough to see the recession the building of the great pyramids caused.

"No," you say. "But I'd prepare for it anyway, if only to keep your citizens safe."

"Of course. You... you are a great scholar," he tells you, resuming the slow walk down the shore of the Nile.

"Oh. Uh, thank you," you mumble as a blush fills your cheeks.

"What did you do in your time?"

"I was an artist, but I spent a lot of time giving lectures on the role of autistic people in ancient Egypt. Autistic people are often timekeepers," you say, and you know he'll figure out what you mean. Autistic isn't a term here, but many timekeepers of these ancient times were autistic, and considered highly by their societies.

"You might be able to give lectures again, if you'd like," he suggests. "People would come from far and wide to hear you speak. And you've got things to say that I know many scholars will find interesting."

"Mmm," you wince, "I kind of want to stay away from altering history too much."

"Oh, yes. My apologies," he says in a softer voice.

"It's alright," you say. "I'm glad you think I would be a good choice for that kind of thing, though."

He chuckles bashfully as he turns to the ground, scuffing his sandals as he walks.

Ahkmen is sweet––much sweeter than any of his family members, and you find yourself appreciating that every time you pass by his room. You pass his door often, always stopping a second to contemplate the tall, wooden doors. He's on the pathway between your room and the library.

Most of the time he's not in his room. Actually, you can usually find him in the library––there or outside in the markets or near the stalls. Today is different; he's been missing all day, and only when you walk the path back to your room do you hear his voice, talking to himself in his bedroom.

"They're bombarded with just such compliments, though. I can't – I can't stand out!"

"Or maybe you should, because you still haven't said a single thing yet and they probably think you're completely uninterested and that's why they aren't noticing you?"

"You and your... logic," Ahkmen spits.

"Come complaining when you kiss them under my advice."

As you attempt to peek through the crack in the door you stumble, knocking your hand against the wood. You barely hesitate before knocking again––cool and collected, smooth to slip into another lie.

"Oh! Hello, um – hi," he says awkwardly, slipping out of the room when he sees you. He quickly closes the door behind him, careful to keep you from seeing the other person in his room, but you can't bring yourself to care about the stranger.

Think of an excuse, why am I here?

"Oh, that's... I like your flower," he comments softly, eyes flickering between your eyes and the flower tucked into your hair. You'd forgotten about it, but raised your hand to touch the petals as you smiled. The perfect excuse

"Thank you. I thought you might like it, so I," you take it out of your hair and grab his hand, holding his palm upwards, "wanted to show you.. um, here."

Setting the flower in his hand, you curl his fingers around its' stem and push his hands back into his chest. He stares at you for a moment, confused by your strange behavior, but accepting of your gift anyway. You know him well enough now––he'd never decline a gift from you.

"A white iris," he tells you in a lofty tone. "A symbol of the dead. Funny it looks so lively on you."

You need to get out of here before your chest combusts.

"I need to go now, but I'll see you this evening, yes?" You ask, stepping instinctively closer. He doesn't back away.

"Of course. And, um," he takes your hands, keeps you where you stand as he slips the flower back behind your ear, "keep it. I want to see it on you at dinner."

He's close to you––close enough that it gets hard to distinguish his breath from your own, when you started holding his hand. When his other came up to your face. When he leans in and kisses your forehead. It's barely there, just barely, but there's no mistaking the soft plush, the affection clear behind gentle, precise movements.

You rush away the second he lets your hands go.

#ahkmenrah x reader #rami malek

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sixtyeightdays · 3 years

Text

macarons

Marinette's specialty macarons.

Different personalized flavors for each of her friends.

She makes them whenever someone is sad, angry, or needs cheering up.

It never fails to bring a smile to the recipient's face.

This is the story of Marinette's macarons; and the day she stopped making them.

Marinette's specialty macarons.

Different personalized flavors for each of her friends, even Chloe.

Like Max had dark chocolate, Alya had orange, Adrien had passionfruit.

She makes them whenever someone is sad, angry, or needs cheering up.

It always makes them feel better.

They taste different from Tom and Sabine's macarons.

"A secret ingredient!" Marinette always replies with a mischievous grin and a wink.

"What is it?" Everyone asks.

Marinette wiggles her fingers. "Magic!" She says with a laugh.

It takes a while for them to realise when she stops making them.

Normally, Marinette would bring a big box with two of each personalised macaron before a big test, to cheer people up.

Today, she doesn't.

No one notices when she stops making them after Lila comes.

No one realises that they'd never asked Marinette what her own flavor was.

"Jealous."

"Liar."

"Adrien would never like someone like you."

"Bitch."

Marinette learns not to cry at school.

She learns how to run away from akumas within two weeks after Lila's arrival.

She learns how to barricade her room so she can break down properly within three weeks after Lila's arrival.

She learns how to wipe away tears and leave no trace of their existence within ten seconds a month after Lila's arrival.

She learns not to trust people as soon as Lila opens her mouth.

Unfortunately, she learns these the hard way.

When the class realises how much time passed since they've had one of her magic macarons, they protest.

Lila inquires what they are.

The class tell her.

The class scream at Marinette because Lila doesn't have her flavour.

No one except Marinette recalls that she hasn't made macarons since Lila's arrival.

It takes a while, but Marinette grows to trust Chloe.

She gifts the blonde girl with a new flavour, a change from her regular banana one.

Honey lemon.

A week after Chloe and Marinette's friendship, they meet Luka and Kagami.

It took a month for Marinette to trust them.

Now, the four were a group.

Unbreakable.

Marinette gifts them with blueberry and matcha flavors.

The two love them.

Even more so when Chloe tells them of the significance her macarons have.

When Hawkmoth was arrested, Chat demanded a personal macaron from Marinette, hovering outside her window like a gnat that wouldn't go away.

Marinette doesn't want to.

She learns to lock her windows and bar them from the inside.

Eventually, Marinette just stops leaving her window open.

Marinette, the new guardian, renounces Chat Noir, who turns out to be Adrien Agreste.

She wonders if she should feel surprised. Chat Noir had become increasingly useless as time went by. Just like Adrien.

The only reason she won the fight against Hawkmoth was because Chat had seen Emilie Agreste encased in her glass coffin, and assumed Hawkmoth was holding her captive.

They took down Hawkmoth within fifteen minutes.

When Lila gets outed for working with Hawkmoth, the class discover that she had been lying about everything else.

They wait for a bluenette baker to walk through the door, her happy and cheery self, sitting down next to Alya as per normal.

She enters.

She promptly sits at the back with Chloe.

She ignores everyone else the whole day.

Marinette never really forgives them.

Personally, Marinette doesn't understand the term redemption.

Sure, they can turn over a new leaf.

But what was stopping them from turning right back when another liar comes along?

After mutliple failed fundraisers and not raising enough money for a field trip, the class realise.

They realise how useless they are without Marinette.

They realise how much they depend on Marinette.

They realise how much they miss Marinette.

But she still never forgives them.

They are reminded of the macarons' existence when Marinette carries a box into class one day.

Admittedly smaller, but a box no less.

They eagerly wait for their macarons.

They never get any.

The next day, Ladybug makes a public announcement.

She's hanging up her title for good.

"Mari-hime?" Kagami asks one day.

Marinette hums from where she lies in Luka's lap.

"What's your flavor?"

Marinette props herself up and smiles at the Japanese girl.

"Chocolate chip red velvet." She replies.

Her Ladybug colors.

But they don't need to know that.

The secret ingredient? Many people will ask.

Only four people alive know what it is.

Luka, Kagami, Chloe and Tikki.

It isn't love, if that's what you're thinking.

It's, --. Well.

What do you think it is?

---

aha a less than 1k word fic after disappearing for 8 months? more likely than you'd think. anyway heres a draft i wrote in september last year (2020) ;; i havent written any maribat fics since october and i might not ever again bc ive sort of fallencout of the fandom but i do have alot of uncleared and unfinished drafts so ill post those maybe?? anyway thanks for everything

er this was unedited too not my best work definitely but have it anyway bc i think this is one of the few completed fics i have in my drafts.

#miraculous ladybug #mlb #ml #yo im so sorry for disappearing #heres a fic i wrote a few months ago as a sorry

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heli0s-writes · 4 years

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IV. Symbiosis

Summary: “Since you’ve been caught—” Fury squints, “Canoodling With The Allegedly Injured James Barnes, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone’s already halfway finished with digging you up. Forgeries. Petty theft. Grand larceny. The damn rest of the kitchen sink. So, Ranger…” The way he says it is both lazy and threatening, completely on brand and irritatingly calm.

“Here’s my suggestion: get ahead of this thing before it knocks you on your ass.”

A/N: 4.8k words. I’m a liar who lies because after 4 months of overthinking and coming up with diddly squat, here is part 4 of Trinity Epoch sans smut. I’m sorry! I’ll double your pleasure next time. xx Thank you for sticking with me, I’m so sorry it’s taken so long.

Warnings: Language. References to canon-typical violence.

Trinity Epoch Masterpost

Bucky stays like that a while longer, just breathing.

Your fingers trace his hair—running through the strands, over the shell of his ear, then resting briefly on his cheek. All the ways you used to with Natasha when she’d break her own heart, or maybe ways you would have liked her to have done for you when you felt like you were dying a little bit.

You feel it now: a small death in the wake of last night’s simple touches. Your body and Steve’s body curled around each other sprung something immeasurable, as if the drift flowered then and ripened beneath your skins. You bit into it. You savored its taste. You could have lived on it alone.

Everything smears together like a child’s careless hand in a mess of paints until all the brights muddle dark. A shaky breath as you work yourself into calming, trying to find coherent words while your head remains a pot of sideways soup, at best.

Bucky shifts until he’s looking up at you, nose millimeters away. His irises are just a touch more gray, a sprinkle less green. You can see Steve in him, just as he can see Steve in you and then your eyes begin to prickle, Nat’s face undulating behind the burn.

You don’t really know what you want to say. Maybe apologize, run, beg for forgiveness, grab Bucky by the shoulders and shake him until he understands that you didn’t mean it— you didn’t mean to hurt him. That you love him. That he lives inside you, too.

His ghost from the drift— the aftermath phenomena of the neural bridge when pilots take on a bit of each other’s consciousness out of the cockpit and into the world with them. Take two people with a predisposition for the drift into the cockpit into each other’s brains and they exit heightened—sharper, better—imbued with each other’s strengths and knowledge. Mind-meld long enough, deep enough, and your core endures, but you become a different beast.

When Steve’s consciousness bled into yours, so did Bucky’s. If you walked away with half of Rogers, you also got a quarter of Barnes and it only compounded worse during Polidori’s drop. Resurrecting trauma, agitating itself, making a mess of your weary soul.

You relived his amputation last night, just as fresh as you relived Nat’s death. More visceral than the first trial run, you witnessed him—felt him—torn and hoarse, clutching his shoulder as he rocked helplessly inside Orion’s chest, frayed wires sparking across his cheek and landing in his own blood. His teeth gnashing together as he tried to hold on for Steve’s sake, steering his co-pilot’s panic back on course. Terrified and agonized, but he was hellbent on making it out.

Bucky who made you laugh. Bucky who took you to dinner. Who walked with you, gave you his jacket, listened to your rambling and crying, and kissed you because you reminded him of his co-pilot, or maybe of himself.

How could you not love him, after all this?

Armageddon slows for nothing though, and before the first letter of his name can fall out recklessly from your mouth, three precise thumps jostles it back in.

Steve’s voice is muffled through heavy steel. “You in there?”

The door slides open with a tremulous croak but neither of you bother to separate. Nothing seems to matter now.

“Buck...” Steve looks from one raw face to the other, stepping forward and reaching out. He grasps Bucky’s hand. “We should talk—” he closes his mouth into a thin line, shoulders slumping heavily before letting go. “I’m sorry. Later. Shit’s hit the fan.”

The office is stagnant air full of questions but other than the squeak of the marshal leaning back in his chair, nobody makes a sound.

Fury untucks a finger from the crook of his elbow before pointing it between your eyes.

“Culpability.”

Across the room, you flinch in his crosshairs. Standing apart from them, you’re partially slack against one of many steel filing cabinets, using it to prop yourself up in case your knees might give out as vertigo descends.

It’s been a lot to take in. Everything— the night, the morning, emotionally, mentally, physically. The hull is a steel cage, and pilots are well armored, but you’re still hooked up to the robot enduring damage, taking hits at barely .0001 percent, but taking it all the same. You’re bruised up good beneath your clothes— Polidori’s claws leaving four tender imprints of a scratch to Orion’s right shoulder. Your shoulder. Steve’s shoulder.

To your right, he shifts. A tiny hint of pain streaks over his expression before it falls serene again, fixed on Fury.

“Since you’ve been caught—” the marshal squints, “Canoodling With The Allegedly Injured James Barnes, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone’s already halfway finished with digging you up. Forgeries, petty theft, grand larceny, the damn rest of the kitchen sink. So, Ranger…” The way he says it is both lazy and threatening, completely on brand and irritatingly calm.

“Here’s my suggestion: get ahead of this thing before it knocks you on your ass.”

This thing, being any story a 13-year old kid with two thumbs and a twitter account can spin between now and when you let Pepper Potts spin it for you first. There’s not a lot imagination can’t conjure to fill in the blank pixelated space between Bucky standing on the curb and you right behind him wearing his cap and jacket. Not to mention that once speculation goes live, it starts sprouting all sorts of appendages with minds of their own, and no matter how diligently you might cut one off, two would only sprout in its place.

The marshal stands up and takes heavy steps before turning the corner of his desk, absently tapping a pile of folders together like they’re not already in a perfect column. He slips a manila folder out from the stack and it becomes obvious that his suggestion is just buildup to some other type of impetus.

When you open the file up under his sharp gaze, you feel the blood drain from your face and possibly from your entire body.

The bullet he aimed between your eyes hits home. Cue your brains blowing out slow. Impetus met.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky appears over your shoulder, staring at the same grainy photocopied document. “You can’t be serious.”

“Do I look like I make a lot of jokes?” Fury leans forward, pointer curving over the top edge, tapping emphatically one, two, three times, even waving it back and forth in front of your unseeing eyes. “I’ve got a good contact inside the PPDC who risked a lot to get this out. They’re just plans for now, dogeared behind other pages, but don’t doubt the Corps’ cowardice for a second. The second this program looks like it might not hold up, they’ll turn their efforts there.”

You’re gone. Trapped between the lines, vehemently scanning the page, reading the same words over and over until they no longer make sense. But it’s not like they made any sense in the first place.

ANTI-KAIJU WALL: CONSTRUCTION AGENDA. SPRING 2020.

The conception of a perimeter stretching around the Pan Pacific—North and Central America, East and South Asia to isolate emerging Kaiju. It’s a fetal skeleton at most, the roughest of outlines for a plan, and truthfully, it’s no plan at all.

It’s shameful. It’s shit.

The so-called Wall of Life implies the portending death of the Program—of all Shatterdomes and Jaegers. It implies no support, no funding, and no repairs. No Kodiak. No juniors. No future.

Back and forth, you’re still desperately inspecting as if the words might shift into a new message, maybe one that didn’t spell out certain extinction, but despair is rippling across your face. Bi Fang and Polidori had wings, and they were only Category II. Bi Fang massacred one of the best pilots you’ve ever known—and it was only a Category II. Any higher and they’d blow through that wall like a ribbon of wet toilet paper.

Hysteria creeps up at the mere thought of it, fear stubbornly lodging itself in your throat. Nuclear-powered automata—the only proven defense against the terror of massive alien attacks are being dismantled in favor of steel rods and cinderblocks. They might as well build it out of Legos.

Anti-Kaiju Wall. A string of ants meeting a boot.

You’re panting softly, tongue swollen in your mouth, shaking with equal parts terror and rage, on the verge of breaking into inappropriate laughter and yelling.

“What—what do they expect?” You croak, “The breach opens, the fucking thing comes out, sees a fence, and what—they think it’s—going to crawl back in…?”

“Hey, calm down,” Bucky curls his fingers around your elbow. His hand and its black plates are peering at you, purring, dull gold bands threading at the knuckles. For a second, the prosthetic disappears. For a second, he’s blood red again.

“Hey!” Bucky grips tightly when you sway. “I’m fine! Don’t—don’t.” Steve’s jaw is set firmly on your other side, arms crossed so severely his biceps bulge with the strain.

“Nick,” He’s abruptly brusque as he eases the file from your grip. “Give us a minute.”

“You’re in my office.” But the marshal’s words hold no bite. He’s already won; he knows. Cornered again, he’s got you same as before in Red Cloud.

You get the gist: play out your redemption arc and come clean with your record. Win over the public, hoard all the additional support and funding you can because you’ll need every goddamn cent of it when the PPDC rips it away. The gossip. The photos. The headlines. It’s the perfect opportunity for a few hundred million when the media is putting a magnifying glass on your presence in Hong Kong.

Duty. Duty. Duty.

You’re just one small part of this colossal puzzle—a negligible smear of guts across the battlefield trying to keep the rest of the pieces together while the PPDC sits in their panic rooms throttling the entire fucking thing.

Fury steps to the cabinet and slides the file back in its place, keeping the illusion of it being just another unremarkable envelope in a row of hundreds of others. The metal drawer shuts with a clang, housing the most damning piece of information you’ve ever seen. His tact aside, you know he would never show you his hand like this if it wasn’t completely necessary—or pertinent.

Steve was right, you understand now.

The world owes you. And it owns you.

The next six—seven?—hours scatter like pulled teeth with your head spinning like a top the entire way. Pepper had been outside the door for the conversation, waiting on standby to whisk you off for princess lessons. Having already (and correctly) predicted your compliance, Fury scheduled an interview for precisely at nine. Then you were off, towed along by Miss Potts and her hasty strut.

You try to find perspective, reminding yourself that you’ve successfully gone toe-to-toe with the Empire State Building with fifteen rows of teeth seven fucking times and come out on the other side alive and if not in one whole piece, then at least 2-3 relatively serviceable pieces. You’re functional. A little damaged, but fine enough. But there’s also the fact that you’d just hopped out of Orion not even 24 hours ago coupled with how you’re suddenly in the middle of something that feels less like a confused love triangle and more like divine providence at the end of the world.

Fuck. No time to think about it now. The human brain is not programmed to multitask, and you’re hanging on by a mere thread. You prioritize making it through the night just as alive as you can make it out of a drop. Just a couple of hours and you can rest. Just a couple more.

After what felt like an eternity and a half of simulating Q&A, practicing your posture, smiling into a mirror, and one horrible limo ride where you stared dead-eyed out the window—Steve and Bucky’s steely gazes after you—the building finally comes into view.

Hair. Makeup. Wardrobe. You wear pants. You smile for the camera. You don’t stand in the middle of the group photo.

8:55 and time halts to a near stop. You can hear your heart in your throat, or in your skull. Your eyes feel switched from their sockets, or stomach rotated 30 degrees. Someone fixes your mic wire, your blouse collar, asking you to turn just a little over there. Three cameras are pointed to capture every angle, punitive red dots angry and glaring.

A live broadcast was agreed upon to ensure the least amount of potential edits and skews, as well as the charmingly quaint idea that it’s unscripted. The rub, therein, lies upon the burden of poise and a flawless performance. You rehearsed lines until your jaw felt like it was coming unhinged. Then you did it again.

Everything requires precision, and you keep that in mind with your hand on the glass of Dom Perignon being constantly refilled. An amicable gesture by the hosts, but their intentions are cunning: loose lips sink ships, and they’re betting on yours to sink the S.S. Orion Bravo.

Out of view, the translator sits with her legs crossed, listening to the questions before turning the words over in English.

You take a sip of champagne and it fires off like a gunshot—Cantonese and English in rapid-fire verses.

<2017 was a fateful year for both the Jaeger Program and the world. Beloved pilot Natasha Romanoff sacrificed her life to protect Alaska’s coast in a final battle against Category 2 Bi Fang. Memorials dedicated to Romanoff’s efforts appeared across every nation to lament her death and celebrate her heroism. Yet, somehow, no one seemed to be asking the million-dollar question: Where is her co-pilot?>

The host’s open hand urges your reply.

The lights seem to turn up even brighter. Your back starts sweating. The room is about to collapse. In short, naturally—infuriatingly—you choke.

Seven hours of droning like a broken wind up toy, already knowing how to answer this question by heart, prepping yourself for the interrogation, the relentless demand to publicize your grief, to placate the people about your relationship with their heroes—and, you choke.

Bucky’s chin tilts microscopically in the corner of your line of vision. You’re fine, he’s saying, you got it. He’s strangely calm, even pleased, as you stutter involuntarily. Like he’s the first to remember an inside joke you’d long forgotten, his grin widens the longer you look at him. Steve turns next. Focus. Don’t fight the drift. The drift is silence.

And suddenly, your shoulders ease. The static in your exhausted brain slides out of your ears.

You sit up tall. You smile. It doesn’t quite feel like your smile, but, it’s a good one. You know this smile; it’s Steve’s smile. Like a seamless assembly, you fall into rhythm.

The white of his teeth slip out from between Steve’s lips. He notices too.

You calmly recite the introductory speech you’d been practicing for the last two hours, feeling out your new voice, borrowing from his bearing—deeper, smoother, certain. The major points get run through: your record and own personality traits keeping you from the spotlight, admitting genuinely that you’re pretty damn uncomfortable now, so they’ll have to forgive you for any slip ups. It goes over well, as Pepper predicted; “candid” blunders made Rangers human—made them likable.

When the subject of Anchorage rolls back around, you can practically feel Steve’s jaw bulging preemptively. You graze his foot with yours as a warning to back off.

<It’s remarkable that you were able to bring the Jaeger back to shore, there has been only one pilot who was capable of that—>

“I’m thankful to have had Stacker Pentecost as my mentor. I owe so much of my resilience to him. It was difficult, but simply put, I had no other choice. I feel so lucky to have survived it.”

“She was one of a kind.”

“Yes.”

The host clears his throat, visibly awkward that you’re being so terse, but taking the hint until Bucky turns into the spotlight, that divorced happiness he’s so skilled at beaming into the lenses.

Steve easily picks it up, steering the conversation where he wants it to go. He’s disarmingly sincere as he relays the process of Bucky’s injury, replacement, apprehension, and finally success

His bright blue eyes flicker secret messages and you decipher them all.

“The connection was like—"

There’s a bell chiming in your ears. Bright, crisp chirps of it, cutting through laughter and bickering. You taste summer air in your throat, Bucky’s hair flying in the wind. “Riding a bike…”

“Exactly. New bike, same motions, and it worked. It was great. We learned things about each other. Some good, some bad—”

Crosshatched pencil lines of their shared apartment. Smudges of charcoal in a sketchbook. “He’s an unbelievable artist, but—”

“No— don’t say it!”

Bucky smothering a small kitchen fire. Steve throwing a damp rag on him in a frantic attempt to assist. Your voice is bubbling out gleefully. “—an awful cook!”

“It’s true,” Bucky smugly chimes in. “The boy can’t boil water. Breakfast eggs come with shells every time.” You can taste the grit between your molars—crushed grains inside an overdone omelet, Bucky spitting out spinach and feta cheese.

“Oh my god,” you sputter into a sip of champagne. “It’s so bad.”

“Do you see what I have to deal with? Two people knowing my secrets. Two.”

<Fantastic! Already we can see a great friendship here—>

It seems congratulatory, but there’s determination to drive into scandalous territory, poking at any rumor to lance and leak. A sly smile crosses his face as his assistant shows photos of you and Bucky in the city, but the lurid suggestion only gets shrugged off. “We’d gone out for dinner. It was the first time I’d left the Shatterdome after Seigehook and I needed moral support.”

“I’d give you my jacket if you looked cold.”

<Steve, Ophelia isn’t concerned that your new co-pilot is a woman?>

“No, absolutely not. ‘Lia’s the first person to support Orion—and the loudest. I don’t know what I’d do without her. You don’t have her behind the curtain, too, do you?”

<Well, what about personal memories? Won’t you know everything about each other…? Private things?>

“Sure, but what pair of pilots don’t? You got twins and siblings, not just married couples. Look, here’s the thing: the neural bridge doesn’t take you to a filing cabinet. It’s not open like that. It’s more like—somebody help me—” Bucky snaps his fingers your way, “—what’d you call it the other day?”

You didn’t, but you say, “A dream?”

“Right, a dream. If you think about it, you can pull on it, but if it’s not in the forefront of your mind. It’s a non-issue.”

“We’re all adults here,” Steve confirms.

Steve’s palm faces outward as if keeping the host at bay— or, you think, keeping himself at bay. “Hold on. This isn’t about replacement. Nobody is framing it like a nail in the coffin—we’re in the interim of a period of time, readjusting. Short of death, nothing is going to take him away.”

Sunlight. Recruitment. Ice baths. Training until they had to carry each other to bed. Your eyes flutter, head pilfering through the memories like instinct.

“James is still Orion’s co-pilot.” You agree. Apprehension. Dread. Terror. Confidence in each other even when they didn’t believe in themselves. They were together. Nothing else mattered. “Steve’s co-pilot.”

The tight look on his face is temporarily wiped as he beams proudly, “He’s my Bucky. Always has been, always will be.” He claps Bucky on the back twice and each thump’s echo bounces its way into your chest.

Bucky bristles and sputters, but a healthy pink dusts its way across his cheeks, “Don’t embarrass me, Rogers.”

“Are you blushing?” You tease, elated.

“Don’t you start, either.”

<Well… this is very wonderful. Is there a possibility we’ll be seeing a triple-piloted machine? The Tang triplets have been in talks for a new model.>

Steve shakes his head. “We haven’t discussed it yet. Nothing’s off the table, by any means. Just not priority at the moment.”

“Normalcy, as much as we can get in the middle of all this.” Bucky holds out his hand, closing it into a fist, letting the camera zoom in. “We’re… still working through all the kinks, balancing the personal and global.”

He flexes his fingers, letting the microphones pick up the drone of machinery, but his meaning is another secret. Clicking Morse codes of well-oiled obsidian plates purring two names. You’ve stopped listening to everything but the echo incandescent in your heart.

You down your glass.

Champagne tipsy, you try not to stagger through the lobby. The doorman nods toward the limousine parked faithfully by the curb.

The barrage of questions slowed after it became apparent that there would be no sensationalist headline. There was attention to Bucky’s arm, his handsome face, of course, before the banter quickly devolved into entertaining frivolous sidebar queries. Five flutes bubbled down your throat and by the end of it, you no longer wanted to grab camera one and shake the shit out of it, anger whittled down to a dull hum of annoyance.

Thirty million stupid dollars for inane reels of:

What’s in your purse? What do you eat? How do you stay feminine in a Shatterdome full of testosterone—have you tried any K-beauty skincare routines? Do you have anyone special in your life?

Bucky went in, then, leaning forward until he was nearly rocking off and leveled his glare. You know she’s on the other side of the same robot, buckled up into a ninety-pound rig steering two-hundred tons of—

It took a miracle (see: Steve’s firm hand discreetly on the back of Bucky’s neck and Pepper drawing a sharp line across her throat) to effectively halt the derailing train.

“I can’t believe,” Bucky grouses now, opening the door and waving the driver back to the front. “Those goddamn questions.”

“Does wiping my sweaty face with my even sweatier shirt count as skincare? What’s the K stand for?”

Bucky smacks the back of your head with one hand, other clumsily yanking the door open with the other. “For Korean—have you been living under a rock? Just—get in the fuckin’ car.”

You slap him back. “Quit it, you invalid.”

“Invalid? I’ll show you a fuckin’—Steve, did you hear—”

“Both of you, get in the car.”

And you shriek, scrambling in and yanking Bucky along by the scruff of his jacket. Mischief courses beneath your skin, encouraged by clever alcohol, now fully buzzed its way to every extremity.

Still giggling and leaning into the thrill of it, you slump over the smooth plastic molding of the door and press your face against the tinted window. It’s a cool reprieve on your warmed cheek, frosting when your temperature meet the glass. Bucky’s easy Cantonese, albeit slurred, is requesting a ride back to base. His hand has found its way into yours, fingers laced large and warm, clasping tight before he lets go.

“Haven’t had a drink—oh--” you murmur, catching yourself as the wheels shift.

“Since Red Cloud.”

“Outta my head, Rogers.”

“Says the person who kept finishing my sentences during that interview.”

“It’s the champagne! It makes me—“

“Stupid?”

“You’re an ass, Barnes.” But you’re laughing at him, at the way he’s smirking— cheeks gone ruddy. Both of them, open beside each other, heads inclined intuitively together. It makes you ache to see—to experience again after disruption—Rogers and Barnes. Barnes and Rogers. Perfectly fitted.

The partition slides up. The sunroof tugs open with a whistling draft.

Hong Kong’s lights are vivid—too much to properly see the extent of space’s beauty, but there are a few twinkles you’re able to make out in the moonless night as light poles and skyscraper tips whiz overhead. They’re brighter than most, simple to spot patterns in the dark.

“Orion’s out tonight,” you mutter, moving to catch the line of its belt, “Look. Beneath his feet is Lepus, the hare, pursued for all time.” From across, Steve follows, also looking to find their hero as your hair rustles wildly, making a hurricane against your ear.

“Don’t be so fucking dramatic,” Bucky scolds. He’s annoyed and comfortable on leather, ankle crossed over opposite knee. “You’re not being chased by anything. Besides, if you were a constellation, you’d probably be the soup ladle.”

You laugh. He’s always playing the part of a stoic so well. “Hey, I’ll have you know the Little Dipper’s got the north star in it. That soup ladle’s gonna be the thing that gets you home when you’re lost.”

The tone shifts—time dragging its pace as you look at them in wonder. The city’s overripe heaviness of the blows through, making goosebumps on heated skin.

“Buck,” Steve says, and Bucky slips his jacket from his shoulders to slide over yours. He tugs the lapels down like he’s trying to keep you on earth and your hands clasp on his wrists for a second before you let go. They’re both sitting up now, watching your bleary gaze unfocus.

Steve and Bucky oscillate in front of your eyes, their lines blurring until it doesn’t really matter who you’re looking at—until they become one. So easy, like this, just them like two sides of the same coin, belonging so seamlessly to each other.

“Sorry,” you blurt in shame, “I feel like I fucked it up. Ruined a thing that wasn’t mine to ruin.”

“Think you put it together,” Steve responds quietly, and the simplicity of his statement throws you off. “We found our way.”

“Soup ladle,” Bucky jokes.

“But, aren’t we just trading one war for another? World peace only made it because of monsters.” Unspoken questions hidden inside large-scale metaphors— symbiosis could only be achieved under the lies of other relationships. Whatever this would be, it wouldn’t be accepted. Steve still retains his supermodel girlfriend and you and Bucky dutifully fall in line for your own packaged little PR lies.

He shrugs. “I’m fine with losing a few battles in this war, but Orion’s got a good track record, doesn’t it, Buck?”

“Twelve— thirteen kills, sweetheart.” Bucky’s grin is lopsided. “Don’t forget you made that happen.”

“Thirteen’s an unlucky number.”

“Feels lucky to me.” Steve’s hand wraps around your wrist, thumb resting on your pulse. He taps your skin, looking genuinely apologetic. “Listen, all I can do is ask— and I’m not good at asking for things. I just want to make them happen.” A quick glance at the watch under his cuffs and he tugs at your arm like a lost child, “So, before we get back… will you come here?”

As he said, he’s not really asking. More like reaching his will out to you, finding you when you’re caught in the undertow and pulling you back to safety. To them. Okay. Okay.

Your footing slips, but they take your hands and turn you carefully, letting you settle in between. Bucky hums a low sound, fingers curling around your waist. Steve does the same to the opposite side and you feel both torn apart and held together by them.

Steve nuzzles your neck, hot on your skin.

“She was wrong,” he whispers, barely audible over the sound of your rising breath, “You know that? She was wrong, and I was wrong. I thought it couldn’t happen—thought I had other priorities, other things to manage and settle and save and... I lost sight of what matters most. But I’m gonna really fix it this time—I’m gonna do it right by you.”

He looks to Bucky, pained and relieved, “Both of you, I promise.” He takes Bucky’s hand in his own and holds it to his mouth, kissing his knuckles, his palm, saying softly, “I love you, Buck. I’m sorry you waited so long.”

“Hey stupid,” Bucky says shakily when your chin starts to quiver at the sight of them. He’s sniffling and swallowing his syllables, unable to stop himself from staring at Steve’s face in his hand, how Steve kisses the blue pulse in his wrist. “Ain’t you—too pretty to cry?”

The rocking of the car flattens out as Steve gently presses his lips to yours, letting the trail of salt bursting down your cheek into his mouth. He moves to the line of your jaw, promising,

It’s okay. I got you. Nothing’s gonna hurt you anymore.

They kiss you and the world turns itself right.

They kiss you and then they kiss each other. Again and again and again.

#marvel #stucky #stucky x reader #pacific rim au #steve rogers x reader x bucky barnes #fanfiction #reader insert #steve rogers x reader #bucky barnes x reader

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farfromsugafanfic · 3 years

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Sutures - Chapter Two: Conjugate

Genre: Soulmates AU, Idiots to Lovers, slight Enemies to Lovers

Pairing: Yoongi/Named Reader

Warnings (chapter specific): invasions of privacy

Synopsis: “A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.” –Jean de la Fontaine

There was only one thing you and Min Yoongi had in common that night. You were both brokenhearted. You only intended to be together for one night, but when you both end up in the hospital the next day you discover that you are soulmates. It could kill you to be apart. As you and Yoongi attempt to sever the bond between you, will another be formed?

Notes: This was originally written and completed on Wattpad between 2018 and the beginning of 2020. I’ll be slowly posting the chapters here. I may make a tag list depending on if enough people want to follow along with updates. Leave me some feedback if you would like added to a tag list.

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You sighed as the nurse pulled the IV out of your arm. The muscles in your body relaxing for the first time in hours.

"There we are," the nurse said. "Looks like you'll be out of here in a few hours. Just make sure not to get too far from that man of yours."

You smiled up at her, not wanting to explain that he wasn't your man and that you'd only just learned his name from a news broadcast a few hours ago. When Eunji had texted you that he was an idol, you'd thought she was joking. She was drunk after all and probably would've called any guy flirting with you an idol.

"This is crazy," Eunji said. "What're you going to do?"

"I don't know," you said. "I guess I'll have to contact him somehow."

"Did you get his number?"

"No, we never intended to see each other again."

"Well, he's looking for you."

---

"Jang Sumi?" a man asked, knocking politely as he entered.

"Yes?"

He bowed politely as he entered.

"I'm Bang Sihyuk, CEO of BigHit Entertainment," he said.

Your eyes grew wide and you immediately bowed, feeling slightly embarrassed you hadn't recognized him and done so before.

"We would like to discuss a proposal with you. If you'd please sit down," he said, pointing to the newly made hospital bed.

You sat down and the man sat down in the chair Eunji sat when you first awoke. "We have reason to believe you are Min Yoongi's soulmate. I'm sure the doctors have already explained that this means the two of you must remain near each other."

You nodded.

"In order to protect his career, we would like you to move into the BTS dorm. We will pay you and compensate you for any trouble."

"What about my career?" you asked.

The man nodded, his shoulders relaxing as if he'd expected you to question him.

"We've done our research and you're an English tutor? You can continue online sessions and do occasional in-person sessions away from the dorm. We don't want to take away your livelihood by any means. We want to protect both of you."

Your mind overflowed with thoughts. You'd be living with seven guys. Seven idols. Would girls get jealous? Would their fans even know? You had too many questions for the man to possibly answer.

You could certainly use the extra money and without having to pay rent, it would allow you to begin saving money. Something you'd wanted since you'd moved out.

You'd have to work less though, but you were sure the compensation that BigHit offered would be more than enough to make up for the fewer hours.

"All right," you said. "As long as I can keep my job, I agree."

---

"Boys, this is Jang Sumi," Bang PD said.

You bowed to the seven boys in front of you, secretly wishing the much more charming Eunji hadn't gone home. Even though it was obvious they had rushed to the hospital based on the various array of sweatpants and messy hair, they all still looked gorgeous.

The boys bowed back and their gazes wandered down to your neck, their eyes wide. You hadn't noticed the bruises there from the night before. You shyly broke eye contact and looked over to Yoongi who sat with his feet dangling off the hospital bed.

You met his dark eyes. Instead of the mysterious and hungry look they'd held the night before, they now looked exhausted and slightly annoyed. His gaze left yours momentarily as his eyes looked down at the bruises on your neck. His face remained expressionless except for a small flick of his tongue between his lips.

"The doctors need to run a few more tests and talk with Yoongi and Sumi," Bang PD said. "We should leave them alone"

The six other boys filed out of the room and you took a seat on the bed next to Yoongi, leaving a large space between you, so that it would be nearly impossible to accidentally brush against one another.

"Hi," you said. "So, it's been an interesting day, huh?"

The boy didn't respond and before you could make more futile attempts to fill the silence two doctors walked into the room.

"Min Yoongi and Jang Sumi?"

You both nodded and bowed.

"All right, I know this is all a bit overwhelming right now, but once we all discuss and decide on the various options, I'm sure you'll feel better." The doctor flipped a few pages on his clipboard before looking back up at you. "So, as you both know, this is still a fairly rare condition. Finding one's soulmate and having it cause heart attack like symptoms is not well understood. Due to this, we request at least monthly check-ups for at least the first year for both of you to ensure your heart is okay and to check your overall health. The rest depends on how the two of you choose to proceed. Are you two currently in a relationship?"

"No," you both answered.

The doctor nodded.

"The easiest and best way to proceed is to attempt a relationship. While it might be awkward at first, for your overall general health, it will be the best way to adjust and will allow the withdrawals to be less frequent and violent in the future. If--"

"No," Yoongi said. "We can't do a relationship."

"What do you mean?" you asked, your head whipping around to face him. The last thing you wanted was to be in a relationship with a man you barely knew, especially the day after you'd officially ended it with your ex. But if the doctors said it was the best way to deal with the situation, you were inclined to listen.

"It's for both of our own good," he said. "You have no idea what a relationship with an idol would be like."

"Well, there are other options," the doctor said, glancing between the two of you. "If you truly don't want to be together, we can work on trying to weaken or even sever the connection between you. It is rare and difficult to do, but it has been achieved. You will have to stay in the same building as the other person most of the time. There do seem to be some exceptions such as work or situations where the other absolutely can't be present. However, at first, these withdrawals will be powerful and you may not be able to leave the building without the other person at all. For the first week, we suggest not doing so.

"In order to attempt to sever the connection, we will have to monitor your mental health and work to keep the relationship on track. While you don't have to remain distant from each other, it is important to not have feelings for each other, or else it will not work. You will have monthly or bi-weekly appointments with a psychiatrist who is trained to work with cases like this.

"You will also experience something we like to call urges. These are instances of extreme attraction to one another. It will be extremely difficult to be apart from each other during these times. It is important that you be together in these times, but if you are choosing not to pursue a relationship, you must do your best to resist the attraction."

After the doctor was done explaining everything and had recorded your decision to attempt and sever the connection, they drew blood from both of you and allowed you to leave.

---

You'd spent the rest of the day packing. Your things were going to be confined mostly to one room, meaning you had to downsize and choose what was most important to you.

You heard a knock on the door and before you could answer it, it was already open and Eunji and the entirety of BTS came through your door.

"Sorry if I scared you," Eunji said. "I let them in."

"Sumi," the tallest one said. He was the leader, Kim Namjoon, according to Google. You figured you should at least try to learn your new roommates. He introduced himself and the rest of the boys, other than Yoongi. "We decided to help you pack up before the movers get here. I'm sure it's quite overwhelming to have to move all of a sudden."

"Yes," you said. "This is very sweet. I guess, um, you could help clean up a bit? I haven't had a chance to clean the kitchen since I got home. And, maybe someone else wouldn't mind getting dinner?"

"No problem," Namjoon said, motioning to the members.

"I'll be in my bedroom if you have any questions or need me for anything."

Eunji was already bonding with the younger members of the band and showed them where all of the cleaning supplies were kept. You smiled at her ability to make friends quickly and headed back to your bedroom.

Your suitcase laid open on your bed as you sorted through your clothes, trying to decide what to keep. You'd already packed the essentials, the rest of your closet spread out around the suitcase.

You felt something soft beneath your foot. You bent down and picked up the fabric, recognizing it as the dress you'd worn out the night before. You hated to leave it behind it, but you weren't sure you would need such a nice dress again. And if you did, you could just borrow one of Eunji's. You folded the dress and were attempting to make a decision when a knock sounded on your door.

"Come in."

The door opened and Yoongi walked in. He wore a beanie, a sweatshirt, and a pair of jeans. You almost liked the more casual look on him more than the slightly more dressed up look he'd worn when you first met. You weren't sure if you truly liked it better or if it was just the connection between you talking.

"Sorry to intrude," he said. "I was just wondering if you needed any more help? The rest of the boys pretty much have it handled out there."

You tried to put aside the resentment you felt for the boy from earlier in the day when he so bluntly decided not to follow the best option and try the relationship.

"You can pack up my knitting stuff," you said pointing over to your desk in the corner where you kept yarn, knitting needles, and the various guides. "Just be careful not to tangle the different yarns together."

He nodded and grabbed an empty box and carefully placing each skein in the box. You turned back to the dress in your hands. You fingered the soft fabric and sighed as you went to set aside. Before you could set the dress with the rest of your discarded clothes, you felt a hand take it from you. You looked up at Yoongi, who held the dress and placed it into the suitcase.

"It looks good on you."

---

"You like to knit?" Yoongi asked, a few minutes later.

"Yeah," you said. "It calms me down when I'm stressed."

He nodded as he placed the rest of the items from the desk into the box.

"Sumi!" someone called from the hallway.

"What do you want us to do with this?" one of the boys asked, you believed his name was Jimin, followed by a blond-haired boy, Taehyung. Jimin dangled your stuffed cat in the air, a smirk across his face.

"Hey!" you said. "Don't hold Kitty that way!"

The boy laughed as you snatched the stuffed animal from him. One of Kitty's button eyes was loose and dangled slightly, causing her eyes to look uneven.

"You named it Kitty?" Jimin asked laughing.

Eunji came into the room. She seemed slightly annoyed with the two boys who had run off from their duties.

"I was four!" you said, looking down at the stuffed cat. "Besides, it's an English name!"

"All right, all right," Jimin said, relenting his taunts. "Do you want to take Kitty or not?"

You made eye contact with Eunji who's eyes were wide. She knew what Kitty meant to you, but Kitty was also falling apart. Her eye was the least of her trouble, you'd sewed the majority of her seams back together multiple times. You didn't want to risk Kitty getting lost or falling apart altogether. You knew it was time to let her go.

"She is pretty old and I'm getting too old for toys anyway. Um, I guess put her in with the donation pile." You handed the stuffed animal back to Jimin who took it and hesitantly walked from the room.

You felt tears pricking at your eyes, but you held them back and went back to sorting through your clothes. The task felt harder all of a sudden, but eventually, you finished, zipping up the suitcase.

---

It was late by the time you arrived at the dorm. It was huge, the biggest apartment you'd ever seen. It was surprisingly clean for being inhabited by seven boys, but you figured they were just too busy to cause much of a mess.

The extra bedroom they'd been using as storage was already clear for you. You made your bed and then opened your suitcase and began emptying it into the dresser.

"Need some help?" Namjoon asked, standing in the doorway.

You smiled at the boy as he began sorting your clothes, making it easier for you to put away.

"Thank you," you said. "I'm exhausted and I'm honestly dreading the rest of the boxes getting here tomorrow."

He nodded.

"We've moved a lot," he said. "Sometimes I feel more tired after moving than dance practice."

You both laughed lightly.

"They told me you're an English tutor?"

"Yeah," you said.

"It'll be nice having someone else who can speak English."

"None of the other boys can?"

He shook his head.

"No, they all understand a little. But none of them are fluent."

"We'll have to change that then," you said, laughing.

"How'd you learn it?"

"My mom grew up in the US. Her parents were from here but moved to the US when my mom was a baby. She met my dad when she was here visiting family and she ended up moving when they got married. So, I grew up speaking both Korean and English. My parents recently moved to the US actually, to be closer to my grandparents."

"Wow," he said. "That's a better story than mine. I just watched Friends."

You laughed.

"That's more impressive though. You taught yourself. I kind of just learned it the same time I learned Korean."

You felt some of the nerves you'd felt coming into the dorm beginning to leave you. While you were sure it would talk longer for you to adjust, the boys had all tried to be as helpful and welcoming as possible. Even Yoongi. Despite the fact he'd barely talked to you, he still helped pack up your apartment.

"Sumi," you heard another voice say. You turned around and saw Yoongi standing in the doorway, his eyes focused on his phone. "We have a problem."

"What?" you asked, your eyebrows knitting together.

"Someone found your shoes."

"My shoes? You mean, the ones I left at the bar last night?"

Yoongi nodded.

"Someone is selling them online. They're using the connection to me to get attention. The bidding ends tomorrow."

You grabbed onto the dresser and tried to steady yourself. You'd expected something like this to happen eventually, but just twenty four hours after you'd even met Min Yoongi?

You heard Namjoon say something to Yoongi, but you didn't catch what it was. You felt a hand on your shoulder and saw the leader looking straight at you.

"We're going to get this figured out."

All you could do was nod.

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bbarican · 3 years

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life updates: november 09, 2021

work:

my seniors recently complimented me again saying na im a really efficient junior designer and that my main senior is so lucky to have me work with her in all of her projects

yung makati project namin nakakatawa nalang kasi ang daming extra na gustong pagawa nung client namin so syempre madedelay yung turnover pero sila din tong atat mag move it; pls make it make sense po

yung alabang project naman namin, hindi mafinalize ng boss namin yung mga details kasi magboboracay daw muna siya; basta ako ill finalize everything on my end para wala siyang masabi

also! im super duper excited for this one: my ninang asked for my help in designing her condo unit so thats basically going to be my first ever freelance project! wish me luck! im about to prep for our meeting tomorrow too before i go to bed

praying to god na wala kaming ganap masyado sa work para keri kong pumunta ng ust after lunch

last for work: i have officially decided to take the board exam next year meaning i have to email my bosses already regarding my plans on filing for leave from march to july; fingers crossed they allow it!

family:

im so glad my dad is feeling much better; yes, i always am annoyed at him but i really do love him and care about him so much

i am: confused cause my younger brother didnt enjoy bungalow's homer donut as much as i did; IT WAS THE BEST DONUT EVER

my lola is staying over for the night and having her here at home always makes me feel safer than usual

i miss my mom and brother; i cant wait for my mom to come home

syempre di na ko magkukunwari, excited na din ako sa mga pasalubong ng nanay ko yahu

friends:

im so fucking excited to see my bestfriends; we're going back to the beach for tiger's birthday and im just so excited to spend a weekend with them especially since its been so long since we all last hung out

i miss my tumblr bestfriends a lot; sometimes i wish it was 2020 again when all we were doing was staying up late on zoom and literally just playing games and watching movies and talking about everything under the sun and planning random meet ups and actually ending up meeting up with almost everybody

im really excited to review with my bestfriends too and go cafe hopping once review season starts! also syempre matik na din yan, lagi sila matutulog dito sa bahay

personal life:

my puson is hurting a bit and im kind of getting worried na its either 1.) pcos related since i do have pcos or 2.) its something to do with the fact na ang lakas ko nanaman sa juice, soda, and coffee

i have to drink water ONLY i swear to god i do not want to get sick at all, especially in this pandemic

got my first ever 13th month pay today! i really really really need to save kasi i dont want to go into review season with an empty bank account

which means, no coffee or pastry runs whenever im out of the house; i seriously need to discipline myself para din i dont keep gaining more and more weight

i am itching to fix and reorganize and clean my room; cannot wait for the weekend kasi ito talaga gagawin ko

eamon and bec, you have stolen my heart; plus your accents are the cutest thing ever

watching their videos just made me really really want to visit morocco soon cause ive been wanting to go their for so long already

love:

syempre wala

if youve made it this far into my post, thank you so much. i just felt extra chatty this evening and i feel like i had to type everything down cause if i dont, i wont remember them with how busy i am. i hope you guys are doing okay and please know that if you ever feel like just typing everything as well, go for it. just go for it! who cares what other people say? either way, again, i hope you guys have a really lovely tuesday evening and i hope the rest of the week treats us well!

#bbarican #prsnl #thoughts #writings #life #love #work #family #updates #recently

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theblogtini · 3 years

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You know what annoys me the MOST about The Sussexes? The tonedeafness of it all. That was the very first thing that started turning my opinion of them - the October 2019 pity party interview.

Here’s how the last year+ of my life has gone:

September 2019 - found out I was pregnant w/ my 2nd child

October 2019 - my grandfather died

December - had COVID before it was even a known thing & have never been sicker in my life (my doctors strongly suspect it was COVID, but we can’t be 100% positive but when we had to take my 2 year old to the ER bc he was so sick they said it was “a weird new virus we’ve never seen before”)

January 2020 - it was determined I would need to have semi-emergency surgery on my abdomen at 23 weeks pregnant bc was ill — 23 weeks is before “viability” so my baby wouldn’t be monitored during the surgery & they would not intervene to help him if needed — they would not let me push the surgery out 3 days bc I was too ill

February 2020 - surgery takes place. BABY WAS FINE thank god. Couldn’t be left alone with my 2 year old or drive anywhere for 4 weeks - considered severely immune compromised due to pregnancy + surgery

March - lockdown happens. My son cuts his eyelid open and has to go get stitches and since we were on lockdown and I was pregnant the hospital wouldn’t let me be there with him (a mother’s nightmare)

April - admitted to the hospital at 35 weeks pregnant. Baby and I are both ill. Baby diagnosed with IUGR - he had stopped growing inside me 4 weeks earlier

May 6, 2020 - baby born preterm via emergency csection at 2:30am bc I started going downhill. I was unable to hold him for 10 hours as I was too ill and they were afraid I would crash and drop him. I was hooked to an IV for 2 days & basically sedated. My baby was being monitored by the NICU team (in my room bc of the pandemic) due to breathing, blood sugar, liver, and body temp issues. He was well enough to be discharged 3 days after birth but I was not. Mind you still a pandemic and now I’ve had two surgeries in 4 months so I’m still considered severely immunocompromised. And my baby weighs 4lbs and has zero immune system and breathing problems - during a pandemic that attacks the respiratory system.

May 10 - discharged home with my baby during a pandemic. No one in my family met him for weeks and weeks. My sister and dad just held him for the first time last week (10 months!!) due to his health issues and the pandemic.

Summer - trapped in house w/ 2 kids & husband. It’s a pandemic so there’s no where to go and no one can come to us. I can’t drive anyway (due to csection)

My maternity leave ended in early summer - husband & I have been WFH with 2 kids (a toddler & newborn) and zero help bc again - pandemic.

Fall/Winter 2020 - still WFH with no help. Still trapped inside w/ 2 kids & husband. I can drive now but there’s no where to go & nothing to look forward to. Pandemic related job woes start kicking in for us, which isn’t good bc we have 2 kids & 1 is medical compromised AND ITS A PANDEMIC.

Holidays 2020 (Thanksgiving & Christmas) - no family to celebrate with. Still trapped in house.

January 2021 - older sons 3 birthday, no party bc pandemic

February 2021 - still a pandemic. Job woes getting more serious. Find out that baby is only in 16% for height - not growing on the “outside” as he should due to my illness when he was on the inside. I managed to get vaccinated bc of health issues - can finally leave the house except... no where to go.

March 2021 - still in the house. Still a pandemic. Still WFH with 2 crazy kids & no outside help. Job woes really getting serious - money becoming tight. Health insurance ends this month - in a pandemic. No alone time with husband or heck even for myself really.

But go ahead Meghan... bitch on national TV about how your son isn’t A LITERAL PRINCE ... yet. Because he WILL be just not today. At least he’s healthy. At least you are not actually trapped in your home. At least you have help while you and your very wealthy husband pretend to work while the rest of us struggle.

Am I having a pity party? You betcha! 99% of my posts lately have been with a kid on my lap or holding a baby late at night because we don’t have nannies and night nurses like some royals. I’m mom-ing, working, cleaning, cooking, and STRUGGLING while Meghan is whining.

And I STILL KNOW IM LUCKY! So why doesn’t she?

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ofclaires · 3 years

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IV. CLAIRE WALSH

PAST SELF PARAS: april 2020 / september 2020 / march 2021.

hi, before the read more i just wanted to say THANK YOU. getting to play claire has been absolutely a treat, a challenge, and genuinely, a huge part of my life for the past year and a half or so. it occurred to me when writing this and looking back at other things i’ve written for claire that i didn’t just feel like i was writing this for myself or for claire ; but i was writing it for you guys, too ! that has been one of the most special things about gallagher for me is the writing community that i feel like we built, taking such a huge investment in our characters and everyone else’s writing. i feel like i’m writing with and for some of my best friends. i also feel like i’ve grown so much ( ok, i actually don’t just feel like it, i can look back at those three paras and SEE how my writing has improved. ) i am so blessed to have gotten to write claire with all of you and to share her story, i feel like she has been so fucking beloved & it’s given her so much life. i am so proud of her and it’s really bittersweet that i’m finally saying goodbye to her as well. so, thank you all so, so much, gallagher has been a writing experience like no other for me & i love you all !

trigger warnings : domestic violence & abuse, death

PART ONE: CHILDHOOD.

The trailer that Claire spent the back half of her childhood in never felt like home. Maybe because trailers are made to be temporary, or the fact that if she accepted that this was where she belonged, she’d have to give up hope.

It’s normal Maggie Walsh to be out late, Claire’s usually cleaned up the kitchen and tucked herself into bed by the time her mother comes in the door – but she’s not sleeping. She’s always had trouble with that, brain bouncing around from one thought to the next until eventually she hears the creak of the door.

Her mom’s home.

She hears the usual stumbling, the clatter of dishes falling from where she’d neatly placed them on the drying rack. Maggie’s drunk, Claire’s sure of that. Ten years old and she knows what it means to be so drunk that you can hardly see straight, that the words you say under the influence are a different reflection from the person that you really are. She inhales deeply and crawls out from under the covers to check on her. Ten years old and she knows the steps: Help her take her makeup off, make sure she sleeps on her side, glass of water on the bedside table, trash can on the floor. Maggie is only twenty-six years old herself now, not done with her childhood by the time that Claire was born, not ready to be a mother. Claire’s had to figure it out most of it herself.

“Mom?” Claire knocks on the door lightly, plastic cup full of water already in hand.

“Don’t – don’t come in!” Maggie sputters, and Claire’s confused. She defies her request and opens the bedroom door the rest of the way. When she sees her mom, she drops the cup on the floor, small hands curling into fists.

“What happened? Who did that to you?”

“I told you not to come in here, Claire,” Maggie repeats, but Claire has always been on to disregard commands. She learns at a young age that authority only means older than you or some assigned title, not that they know best.

“Who did that? Why?” She repeats her questions. Despite being mature for her age, it’s hard for Claire to wrap her head around the black eye obscuring Maggie’s face, and the swelling on her cheek.

“It doesn’t matter,” Maggie sighs, dejected as she flops down on the bed. Even in her state, she knows that there’s not much use telling Claire to back off or go away once she’s decided that she’s not going to. Her little girl is a spitfire, strangely enough reminds Maggie a lot of her own mom, like living with a miniature version of her. Maybe that’s why Claire wins most arguments. “Come here.”

Claire walks closer to the bed, kicking the cup aside on her way for no reason other than to kick something. She crawls into bed next to her mom and looks up at her, waiting for more of an explanation or literally anything but silence.

“I don’t know why I keep looking for a happy ending. I leave you home alone, I come home like this...not helping either of us,” Maggie presses a kiss to the top of Claire’s head, runs her fingers through her daughter’s hair. It’s so soft and Claire is so little, she can’t help but look at the spilled cup on the floor with a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry,” she adds, voice choked up and words a little slurred. Tears squeeze out of the corners of her eyes when she closes them, hugging her daughter closer, “I’ve blamed you for my fucked up life for so long...that’s not fair.”

Now, Claire is only ten, but those are the kind of words that you remember forever. Still, she smiles. “It doesn’t have to stay fucked up. It can get better,” a childish spark of optimism in her heart that hasn’t yet been put out. It makes Maggie smile back though, kissing her daughter on the top of her head yet again.

“I like that,” she says, and they fall asleep curled up beside each other. Claire sleeps soundly, thinking that it’s possible. Things really could get better, and for a while, it seems like there really is a sort of shift. Maggie starts cooking, cleaning again, and she doesn’t even stay out so late. That’s when she meets Martin.

He seems better than the rest. Until he isn’t.

But Claire does her job as her mother’s protector, just as she’s been doing all of her life, and it’s that event that jumpstarts the rest of everything that happens next.

PART TWO: GRADUATION.

Claire’s come to the formal conclusion that graduation ceremonies are a waste of time. There’s all this build up, everyone’s so excited, and then you have to sit around and wait for your name to be called so you can spend two seconds walking across a stage while everyone claps. She would have skipped it entirely if her mother hadn’t already come up, and if she knew that people were going to insist. The small talk afterward is even more agonizing than the ceremony itself. It is sort of painful saying goodbye to everyone, and it occurs to Claire that there’s more people that she’s going to miss than she ever expected.

“Callum and his mother are here,” Maggie points out.

“And?” Claire rolls her eyes. Seeing Callum again to begin with had brought up a lot of old feelings, and generally, even though they’d resolved things, she tries to avoid him whenever possible.

“Well, it’s probably weird if we don’t say hello, at least, right? I’m going to say hello,” Maggie interjects, “he’s such a sweet boy.”

Claire’s eyebrows rise on her forehead as she crosses her arms over her chest. “Go ahead then,” she sighs, “I’ll wait right here.”

“Claire,” Maggie draws out her name with a withering stare, but Maggie has never been able to establish that sort of authority with Claire that would prompt any inclination of obedience, so Claire just shrugs her shoulders, unimpressed. She’s not going to budge. “Fine, I’ll be right back.”

Claire’s done her best to put the chapter of their life that includes Martin out of her mind when rekindling things with her mother, and she certainly doesn’t want to stand around making small talk with his other ex-wife, trying not to look at Callum with his matching jawline, trying not to remember everything she hates. It all comes back in a flash. The horrible cracking sound that her mother’s head had made when it connected with the wall, the blood on the marble floor. They say you don’t remember trauma properly, that your memory doesn’t work quite right, but she will never forget the way her fist connected with Martin’s face : like a puzzle piece, like it BELONGED there, and she’d done it over and over again until she heard sirens.

And yet, Claire can’t deny that it’s a part of her life that got her here, where she is today. She thinks life is shitty and random, and that not everything has to happen ‘for a reason.’ Still, she’ll catch Kass’s eye across the room and see her smiling so brightly that it seems impossible not to believe in something. Claire can’t help herself anyway – she smiles back. No one has ever been able to produce Claire’s smile in its truest form the way Kass has, unashamed of being so happy to look at someone. She once thought the idea of looking at a person and seeing your whole future was ridiculous, that you’d have to be stupid to put that much of yourself into someone, but it isn’t like that at all. All of it was unintentional, like by the time she realized it, Kass was already everything. And she feels so safe with that thought that she doesn’t mind at all.

“Am I interrupting something?” A figure steps in front of her, cutting off her line of sight. She’s not really fond of being snuck up on, so she opens her mouth to say something snarky when she’s met with the gaze of Lisanna Harlin, one of last year’s mentors. Her daughter, Elisa, is there, but she’s not graduating, so Claire’s confused by Lisanna’s presence.

“No, Ms. Harlin,” Claire says, though there’s a spark of indignation in her words that practically goes hand in hand whenever an adult commands authority.

“Lisanna is fine,” she says with a light laugh, like she’s amused Claire’s greeted her this way.

“Can I...help you with something?” Claire asks, mostly curious about how long this interaction has gone on. While she’s friendly with Elisa, she was Kass’s roommate last year, they’re not exceedingly close, so she’s not sure what else Lisanna would have to say to her other than maybe a polite hello.

It’s more than a polite hello. Lisanna Harlin works for Lexon Corp in Durham, North Carolina, a private military company that provides armed guards, bodyguards, and guns for hire. They’re the sort of place that would be looking for the best of the best in combat, and they have a bit of a reputation for hiring Gallagher girls. Claire had given up on the job search months ago since the video went out, in fact, she’s had a job lined up for graduation already : at a boxing gym in D.C., where the scene isn’t too bad. It was suited to her, but not exactly the sort of thing that her Gallagher education had prepared her for. Lexon Corp? Everything her rigorous love of January boot camps were tailored to. And they want to interview her.

A month later, Claire’s sitting on the cusp of a completely fresh start. It wasn’t easy to backtrack on the plans that she and Kass had made together, knowing how much was changing for the both of them, it had been nice to have the stable idea of an apartment together on the horizon. Now, she’s a four hour drive away, and she goes home to her one-bedroom studio in Durham after rigorous training throughout the day. But she’s grateful for the chance to work her way back into the field, and she can remember what Lisanna said to her when they gave her the offer.

“We’re aware that with your history that we’re taking a chance on you, Claire,” Lisanna said. “But we think the reasons that made other agencies look past you are exactly what makes you an asset. You care about your jobs, the people that you’re involved in, and you’d have a partner’s back until the bitter end. You listen to your intuition, trust your gut...and above all else, you have follow-through. I’m excited to be able to offer this position. Don’t prove me wrong.”

Claire swears that she won’t.

PART THREE: KIPTYN.

Kiptyn isn’t supposed to be in the left hall closet.

In fact, he’s not supposed to be awake at all. But who can sleep the night before their birthday anyway? Sure, he’ll be thirteen, and that’s probably old enough to have gotten over the magic of it all, but...he’d still been lying awake with excitement, the anticipation keeping his eyes open for hours on end. Well, that and the video game he’d been playing under the covers, but he’d obviously only been playing it because he couldn’t sleep in the first place.

Then he started thinking about the left hall closet and the conversation that they had at dinner the other night. In Kiptyn’s defense, Dahvia – his younger sister – had totally started it and he was an innocent bystander. After all, Kiptyn’s old enough to know that they don’t bring up Claire to mom, because it just puts her in a mood and then you can forget about doing anything else for the rest of the evening. But Dahvia’s ten, practically a baby, and she doesn’t know any better.

“Hey, mom? What sort of accident did Claire die in? Nina asked me at recess and I didn’t know,” Dahvia pipes up, before she’s even properly sat down. Kip visibly cringes. He’s older, wiser, knows this won’t go well. Still, he dares to look at his mom’s face and he notes the faraway look in her eye, like she seems to experience a bunch of things at once. Kip notices how even though her eyes are glassy, she doesn’t cry. Though sometimes, their mom will just cry randomly, like two weeks ago when he asked for help with his Spanish homework and she couldn’t even help him finish the first worksheet.

“It was a car accident,” she says stiffly, “eat your dinner.”

Kiptyn kicks his sister under the table and flashes her a look that says : Great. Look what you did, ruined dinner. Dahvia sticks her tongue out at him.

So, he knows that he’s not supposed to be in the left hall closet because he could ruin many more dinners, but he’s here anyway. He’s been thinking about it ever since they sat in silence for the rest of that half hour, and he’s come to the conclusion – his mother was lying. Because all sorts of things make their mother cry, like a bowl of mac and cheese or Spanish class, or motorcycles, and she won’t let Kiptyn take boxing lessons though his friend Robert is and he thought it sounded really cool, but she doesn’t have any problem with cars or driving, and also, she’s never told them a single thing about Claire except that. They aren’t allowed to know anything about her, especially not anything true, so Kiptyn is pretty sure that’s a lie. There’s just something just weird about it.

So, in the middle of the night before his thirteenth birthday, he looks up a video on how you pick locks and then he figures it out on the door of the left hall closet. He’s there for at least forty-five minutes, practically ready to give it all up when he hears the clicking sound, and then it opens. His first thought is : Woah. This is a load of junk.

And he’s right. There’s boxes upon boxes of paperwork, old clothes. Some things start to click, like when he finds a pair of worn boxing gloves with Claire’s initials embroidered on them. His favorite thing that he finds is the fattest scrapbook he’s ever seen – his mom always makes them, there’s one for every year of his life. Dahvia’s too, they love looking at them. The cover of this one, though, says Italy 2021. It’s all pictures of his mom and Claire, probably in their early twenties. Kiptyn mostly notices his mother’s smile, how he’s only seen her look like that a couple times in his life and yet it looks so EASY here, like she wears it all the time. It’s so strange to him. He sets the scrapbook down and crawls toward the back of the closet. His eyes land on two leather folders with gold embroidery, and he opens up the first one. In big letters at the top : GALLAGHER ACADEMY.

It’s a diploma.

This certifies that Kassandra Sutton has satisfactorily completed the…

“What are you doing?”

Kiptyn yells out like a child, not having heard anyone creeping up on him. He claps his hand over his mouth as if to shush himself. “The door was open! I don’t know how, but I just...noticed it was open and wanted to make sure that...no one was stealing your stuff!” he grins sheepishly, hoping that he can ride on the high of his birthday week to get him out of this one.

“It was just...open?” his mother looks down at him with raised eyebrows before brandishing a twisted paper clip between two fingers. The one that had formerly been stuck in the door. His guilty expression widens, he can’t help it.

“Okay, I might know how it opened,” Kiptyn admits. He hesitates for a moment, before he realizes that he’s ALREADY in trouble, he might as well just come out with it and pray to the birthday gods. He holds up the diploma with her name on it : “What’s Gallagher Academy?”

Kass’s sigh is heavy and deep, accompanied by the amount of exhaustion that comes with raising two curious kids by herself. After Claire died, she moved her family to London to be closer to their aunt and away from everything that reminded her of Claire. She never told her children why. From hiding that world from them, the world that took so many people from her : her father, her ex-girlfriend, and the love of her life. She swore that she would never lose her children to it, too. But Kiptyn looks up at her with wide eyes, desperate to know about his mother and his past, and Kass also knows what it’s like to have part of yourself missing due to family secrets that are being kept from you. He is practically a teenager now. So, she relents.

Kass doesn’t go into all of the details, of course. Just that Gallagher Academy was a school for spies, and that’s where it all started. Kiptyn already knew that his moms met in college, so it’s the spy part that’s most interesting to him. She talks about Claire with a light in her eyes he’s unfamiliar with, how she was one of the best fighters in their year, that she grew up with such a talent in the ring that she probably could’ve gone pro if her life had gone in a different direction. She talks about how they had to part ways after graduation, because Claire got a job in North Carolina and she got a job in Washington, DC, but they made it work, and both got very accustomed to the four hour drive – though it was sometimes closer to three for Claire, because she always drove too fast, even on this big, black motorcycle which Kass swears that she hated. She tells Kiptyn about how they got married, the way she’d almost moved to England for a dream job and that long distance threatened to drive them apart again – until Claire chased her down in the airport with a ring and proposal.

She also talks about how Claire really died : the abridged version. It was an overseas mission where they’d been cornered, and Claire risked her life to save the rest of their team. There were no other casualties, and the information they were able to bring back helped stop the terrorist organization they’d been chasing to end them for good. Kass tells the abridged version for her son, gives Claire a hero’s death. In some ways, it was. She doesn’t mention the ways that Claire was consumed by the case, it was an organization hellbent on killing spies and it likely reminded her of the brotherhood. Kass had been worried about the case the whole time, because it felt like Claire was taking it too personally. In the end, she may have been right : because Claire had let it take her life in order to close it. She also doesn’t mention that such a sacrificial death means that her wife died fighting alone, swinging her fists until her very last breath. But still, she was all alone.

She had no choice but to take her kids as far away from that life as possible.

Kiptyn tries, but he doesn’t really remember Claire. He’d only been three years old when she passed away, and before then, she’d been so consumed by her last case that she was barely present. Still, he thinks she sounds badass.

He falls asleep on his mother’s shoulder that night, looking through the scrapbook of pictures from their trip to Italy in 2021. He’s animated for the first part, pointing out buildings and asking questions, wonders if Claire was sweating in all that leather, but he slowly starts to drift off. He wakes up on the couch the next morning, no trace of the book or any of the other papers he’d hauled out of the closet the night before. He looks at the closet and there’s an extra padlock. Figures.

It comes up in little ways, like a private joke that he has with his mother, like she’ll say something and flash him a secretive smile. He likes that, and he understands that this is a big secret that he has to keep. It doesn’t come up again until his fourteenth birthday the next year, the summer before high school. It’s a strange letter in a manila envelope, sealed with some expensive red wax, his name written in fancy calligraphy. The most attention-grabbing part, however, is not Kiptyn Sutton-Walsh in big cursive letters. It’s the return address :

GALLAGHER ACADEMY.

learn her skills, honor her sword. keep her secrets.

#*#self para

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dw-writes · 4 years

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Trektober 2020 - Day 7: Soulmate AU + Interspecies Relationship - Leonard McCoy x Alien!Reader

Ooof thats a long title. This is a little longer than the other fics ive written for trektober, and it’s actually for Day 7 because I missed it yesterday. Based on a uuuuuuh fic that I may or may not eventually write for McCoy later, because I love Asterlites and I’ve done them before for Marvel and never really got to explore what I wanted to do with them on that fic so /shrug

ENJOY

Trektober Day 3 - In Uniform (Bones x Reader) || Trektober Day 4 - Aliens Made Them Do It (Bones x Reader) || Trekober Day 5 - Pining (Bones x Reader) || Trektober Day 6 - Captain’s Chair (Jim Kirk x Reader) || Trektober Day 7 - Soulmate AU + Interspecies Relationship (Bones x Reader) || Trektober Day 9 - Sex Pollen (Jim Kirk x Reader) || Trektober Day 10 - Historical AU (James Kirk and Leonard McCoy) || Trektober Day 11 - Stars (Leonard McCoy x Reader) || Trektober Day 15 - Shuttle Crash (Leonard McCoy x Reader) || Trektober Day 18 - Waiting by Bio Bed (Leonard McCoy x Reader) || Trektober Day 31 - Holiday Celebration (Leonard McCoy x Reader)

You’d always wondered about your starmate mark, always questioned what it meant. Everyone else’s marks were beautiful, lovely things on your planet – intricate swirls of gaseous nebulae and streaks of bright colors reminiscent of the stars that sat in the chests of every Asterlite you knew. They adorned cheeks and crested eyebrows and sprawled over wrists and chests and ribs and the mates of every Asterlite would recognize them in a heartbeat.

Yours, though, yours was different. Your starmate mark outlined the delicate bones of your dominate hand, as though someone had x-rayed it. You often stared at it as you worked, the thin black lines that traced your bones sometimes distracting enough to catch your attention for minutes at a time. No one else recognized it – not during your years in Asterla’s prestigious academies, or during your time interning at the nearby Federation Starbase. By the time you left your home planet to join Starfleet, you had taken to wearing gloves: it hid your odd starmate mark from prying and pitying eyes, at least.

You flew through Starfleet Academy – your knowledge of star systems and interspecies relations helped launch you through courses in both Command and Science tracks. During your second year, the third-year cadets were assigned to starships in an emergency dispatch to Vulcan. The following week, you watched an energy drill pierce the bay outside of Starfleet Academy, and finally learned about the starship Enterprise and it’s new, daring captain.

You vowed that by your fourth year, you would be on that ship.

During your third year, Starfleet archives in London were attacked, and the Enterprise was roped into another adventure that had your heart racing with every detail you heard. The Enterprise was all put destroyed during the interaction with Khan, leaving the crew grounded for months – months during which the funeral for Admiral Pike took place.

You were there, of course, along with every cadet and every member of Starfleet that was in San Francisco at the time. A girl you knew, an officer you had made friends with while the Enterprise was grounded – Uhura – helped you with your dress cap. You fussed at her as she produced a series of Bobbin pins.

“You are not sticking those in my hair!” you hissed at her, scrunching your nose as she forced the cap into place with her hand.

“Hold it there,” she commanded. You pursed your lips but did so. She eyed the gloves you wore – grey, to match the dress uniforms – as she delicately pulled the long points of your ears out from under the cap. “Those aren’t standard issue,” she pointed out. She glanced over her shoulder as someone called her name, another officer from the Enterprise that you recognized – Commander Spock. Your heart raced a little in excitement: he was the First Officer, after all, and if you could get in his good graces, you could get a recommendation onto the ship.

“No,” you finally answered, focusing your eyes on her. Once the hat was secured to your head, and your ears bent unnaturally away from your head, you pulled the cuff of one glove down to show the delicate outline of your wrist. Uhura started to walk as she took your hand, pulling the glove up more and revealing more of your starmate mark. “It’s something everyone on our planet has,” you explained, pulling your hand away. “A mark that my mate would know.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

You fixed your glove as you approached Commander Spock, inclining your head towards him out of respect. He returned the nod. Uhura introduced you as the three of you continued your brisk pace towards the crowd.

“I remember you,” he said at the sound of your name, “You’re an excellent student. I imagine there will be captains vying for you to join their crews at the end of your term.”

“I actually want to join the Enterprise,” you blurted. Heat crawled up your face when Spock arched an eyebrow. “It’s been a dream of mine since the Enterprise faced the Romulans during her maiden voyage. A stellar crew deserves a stellar crew mate.” You flapped your hands and gently swatted Uhura’s arm. “I can’t stop talking, Nyota, please—”

She caught your hand and smiled, slowing down as a group of finely dressed men started to approach. “Top of the class in both Command tracks and Science tracks. An excellent negotiator for interspecies relations and a top-notch stellar cartographer,” she said, rattling off your credentials like she had already memorized them. Her smile crew at the approach of a man you instantly recognized. “I’ve already told Jim that if he doesn’t accept the application when it appears in his inbox that someone will jettison him into space in the middle of the night,” she added.

“I hate you,” you whispered.

“You’re welcome,” replied Uhura.

Captain James T. Kirk smiled when he approached, flanked by a man that you had seen a few times in recent weeks. “The academy is willing to wave your fourth year, since you seem to already be taking those classes,” he said when he approached. He held out a hand. “Jim Kirk. Once Uhura told me about you and we got handed the five-year mission, it only made sense to make sure you were on the crew.”

You took his hand with a dry mouth and a nervous smile. “I’ll be sure not to disappoint, sir,” you said.

The man next to him cleared his throat and with a voice that made the warmth in your chest double, said, “It’s starting.”

You were separated from the crew after the ceremony – you needing to finish the required tests for your remaining courses and them being asked to attend the burial of Admiral Pike.

You didn’t seem them again for weeks.

When you did, you were standing in the middle of the bridge leading towards the entrance of the Enterprise, holding your bag over your shoulder, wearing Science blues. Two unbroken gold rings encircled your wrists. Your gloves were black.

Uhura met you as soon as you boarded with a wide smile. “Commander,” she teased, holding out the emblem you’d wear on your chest for the foreseeable future. You took it, fumbling it around as you followed her, trying to pin it into place. “You’ll have to go to the Med Bay for a physical before we leave,” she said as she took your bag. “You’re the last one to arrive, you know.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” you said as you jogged to keep up with her excited pace. “I got lost and then when I found it I was just,” you took a deep breath, “Floored. This ship, it’s gorgeous, and I’ve been trying for years to get here, and—”

She stopped you with a hand on your shoulder. “I know,” she said. She squeezed it. “You’re here.” Her smile grew soft and small and she repeated the words so gently that you thought you would cry. “Hurry with your physical. You’ll wanna be on the bridge when we take off.” She lifted your bag. “Then, I’ll show you to your room.”

You nodded and swallowed the lump in your throat. She turned to your right, while you headed left, following the signs down to the Med Bay at the end of the hall. It was bustling with staff that were preparing to leave and other officers and crew members who, like yourself, had been running late.

The man you had seen before, at the funeral, turned when you entered, eyebrow arched as he called your name. You straightened. “You’re late,” he pointed out. He waved to a bio bed, silently ordering you to take a seat.

You complied. “The ship is still docked,” you said with a small, teasing smile, “So, I’m not that late.” You glanced up in time to see him roll his eyes. “It’s Dr. McCoy, right?” you asked.

“That it is,” he said. He frowned at the readings on the bio bed, then said in a softer voice, “Your heart rate is awfully high, darlin’. Nerves?” He stepped in front of you and held out his hands. You set your gloved ones in his palms. “Mind if I take these off? Wanna check your fingers.” He glanced up at your face, “They speak to circulation.”

“Oh.” You tugged on the fingers of your gloves and said, “I have a mark.”

“A mark?” he asked. You tugged your last glove off and held out your hands. He took your dominant hand with an interested, “Huh.”

“They’re—”

“Bones!” called Jim from the entrance of the Med Bay. Dr. McCoy rolled his eyes and turned, his fingers still clasped around your hand. You stared at him, heart thundering in your chest, eyes roaming over the gentle curls of bright colors that peeked over the zipper of his uniform. “We’re ready to go,” said Jim as he approached. He grinned when he spotted you, and added, “You should come up, too. See your first warp.”

“I’m in the middle of something,” pointed out McCoy – Bones.

Bones.

The name echoed in your head and you stared at the bones on your skin.

“You can do finish it when we’re on the way,” Jim said, slapping his hand against McCoy’s shoulder before turning and leaving. “I’ll hold the Lift for you!”

Bones turned to you with an annoyed sound, glancing down at your hand still held in his. “We’ll need to continue this later, darlin’.” He smoothed his thumb over the detailed lines of your knuckles.

“That’s fine,” you whispered, “I don’t mind.” As he looked up and met your gaze, you got the feeling that he didn’t mind too much, either.

#trektober 2020 #star trek #leonard mccoy #leonard mccoy x reader #leonard bones mccoy #leonard bones mccoy x reader #star trek aos

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helenarlett-rex · 3 years

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Goosebumps Review #14

So back in January of 2020 I said I would do a review of Werewolf Skin and then I never did it. 2020 sucked. I had other things on my mind. But I guess it’s time I finally go ahead and do that now.

(Spoilers)

Werewolf Skin

Goosebumps (original series) #60

Werewolf Skin was the third to the last book in the original Goosebumps series and the last book in the original series to get a TV episode made of it. The final two books, I Live in Your Basement! and Monster Blood IV would never get TV episodes made of them, or even reprints of the books themselves and would end up languishing in obscurity. In that case of I Live in Your Basement! that’s a real shame because as I said back in my review of that book, it is one of my favorites and one of the best Goosebumps I’ve ever read. And the same can be said about this book as well.

R.L. Stine is kind of a hit or miss author. Sometimes his stuff is great, sometimes he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing... and sometimes I have to tell him to go fuck himself because he’s body shaming again... But when he is writing about werewolves at least, he never seems to do wrong. And yeah, I still haven’t read The Werewolf of Twisted Tree Lodge, The Werewolf in the Living Room, or Full Moon Fever yet, but the three out of six I have read have all been great. So great that I have to wonder why R.L. Stine hasn’t written about werewolves since the Goosebumps 2000 series... We haven’t had a werewolf book from him since 1999...

Werewolf Skin is actually pretty unique in that it takes a slightly different approach to the whole werewolf myth, but not in a way that ruins it like certain other authors who will remain nameless have done when deviating from established tradition. The story is about Alex Hunter, a sixth grader who is really into photography. His parents get called out of the country on business, so they send him to stay with his Aunt Marta and Uncle Colin in the small town of Wolf Creek for a few weeks. His first week there happens to fall on the week of Halloween so the photography magazine Alex reads is holding a contest with a cash prize for whoever can take the scariest photo and Alex is pretty interested in winning that.

Now we get a bit of weirdness right away in this book, and I don’t mean intentional weirdness... I mean R.L. Stine has forgotten how reality works again kind of weirdness. Because even though Alex is only going to be staying with his aunt and uncle for a couple of weeks, they have arraigned for him to attend school there at the local middle school in Wolf Creek for the duration of his visit. And I’m instantly like... What? I’m pretty sure you can’t just trade schools for a couple of weeks like that... What kind of school lets a student enroll for three weeks? I know R.L. Stine doesn’t usually do much (or any) research when he’s writing these books, but come on... The guy used to be a middle school teacher. This is something I would expect him to know...

But okay... that aside... Once Alex gets there his aunt and uncle tell him there is a cute girl his age who lives across the street named Hannah and that he should make friends with her. And then we get another case of R.L. Stine not understanding how reality works because Alex is all like, “A cute girl...? Aren’t there any boys around?” Uhh... It was clearly established that this kid is in the sixth grade. I remember the sixth grade very well. Unless Alex is gay, no sixth grade boy is just going to turn his nose up at the idea of hanging out with a cute girl. Quit being such an old man Stine... I started dating in the sixth grade... And okay... If Alex is gay that’s perfectly fine, but nothing in the book ever indicates that’s the case.

This hesitation from Alex doesn’t seem to last very long though. The moment he meets Hannah his balls finally decide to drop. I’m not kidding. One moment he’s all upset he only has a girl to hang out with, and then the next moment he’s all infatuated with her and can’t stop describing her “husky, breathy voice” and how much he loves it. I’m not entirely such what a husky, breathy voice sounds like, especially on a sixth grade girl... but from how much Alex’s inner monologue focuses on it, it’s pretty clear that it’s doing it for him.

I should also point out that Alex’s uncle gives him two rules that he has to follow while he’s staying there. Rule number one, stay away from the run-down home next door. That’s where the Marlings live and they are a weird, mean old couple who don’t like anyone coming near their house. And rule number two, stay out of the forest surrounding the town at night. You know... Standard horror clichés that the characters will then refuse to elaborate on, thus driving the protagonist to only be even more interested in doing those things...

Although there’s some conflict between his aunt and uncle about the whole refusing to elaborate on things. When they are first driving him to their house his aunt asks him what he wants to be for Halloween and Alex answers that he wants to be a werewolf. This causes his uncle to freak out and almost lose control of the car. His aunt then asks his uncle if he was thinking about them? “When he said you wanted to be a werewolf you thought about them, didn’t you?” Which of course only makes Alex’s uncle get mad and tell her to stop talking about it. But this situation comes up a few times in the book. Alex’s aunt seems to think Alex should be told about them... we are assuming she means the Marlings... but his uncle is pretty against it and keeps telling her to stop talking about that in front of Alex.

Although his uncle isn’t the only one having that kind of reaction about the topic of werewolves. When some kids from school ask him what he wants to be for Halloween he tells them werewolf as well and they also have similar reactions... Until one kid finally tells him “We already have enough werewolves in Wolf Creek.” And I realize this review is getting pretty long winded but unlike most Goosebumps, this one actually has a lot of detail that builds up the story as apposed to the first half of the book just being filler like I normally see in these books.

But in an attempt to make a long story short, too late, I know... Alex is so dense about everything that Hannah finally just breaks down and tells him that the Marlings are werewolves. It seems to be something everyone in the town knows about but doesn’t seem to do anything about. And of course Alex’s reaction to this is the reasonable one of, Uhh... This is the twentieth century... There’s no such thing as werewolves... Which is why he was so dense about figuring it all out in the first place. He’s not going to jump to the conclusion of, Oh! The Marlings must be werewolves! when he doesn’t believe in werewolves.

This changes when he starts hearing animal sounds coming from next door at night and he watches out his window as two werewolves come crawling out of the Marlings house. I have to give the book credit for actually getting to the werewolf stuff pretty early in the book. While I also loved The Werewolf of Fever Swamp, that one didn’t actually show us any real werewolves until the very end of the book. It was still a great book, but there wasn’t actually a lot of werewolf action in it. This book only give us one night of build up, with Alex forgetting his camera out in the woods and having to go out after it before it gets ruined in the rain, stumbling across some animals that have been ripped apart, and trying to find his way back home in the dark while hearing the sounds of something else out there... But then by night two we have werewolves right out in the open. That’s kind of refreshing.

And I’d like to take a moment to talk about how this book actually puts a different spin on the werewolf myth. Because remember how I said that the whole town more or less believes the Marlings are werewolves? Well this town believes in werewolves so much that they actually teach about them in school. During one of the classroom scenes in this book we get to learn the rules of how werewolves work in this setting. It turns out when you get bit by a werewolf you turn into one when the moonlight touches you. Not just the full moon... Any moonlight. But then when the sun comes up a werewolf actually sheds it’s skin. It then keeps its skin, or pelt I guess... like a fursuit. Then every night after that, when the moon comes out, the werewolf is compelled to put its fursuit back on which turns it back into an actual wolf monster. So werewolves are just furries who can’t stop fursuiting at night. Who knew...? And of course the only way to kill a werewolf is to find its skin while he isn’t wearing it and destroy it. If you destroy the skin you kill the werewolf.

Anyways, Alex gets tricked by some kids at school who tell him they know a place in the woods where the werewolves go to drink out of a pond every night and they want him to meet them there at midnight so he can see it. Now that he actually believes in werewolves, having seen them himself, Alex agrees, thinking that if he can get pictures of the werewolves he can win that photography contest, but when he tries to sneak out that night, he finds that his aunt and uncle have locked him in his room. There is no scene of the werewolves trying to break into his room at night like there was in the TV episode, but we do find out that when he goes back to school the next day the kids are making fun of him because it was all a lie and they didn’t go out into the woods that night, thinking they tricked him into tramping through the woods alone all night. Alex doesn’t tell them that he didn’t go either because he didn’t want to tell them that his aunt and uncle locked him in his room, so instead he tells them he did go and he took pictures of the werewolves. But of course that leaves him with the problem of now they want to see the pictures and he doesn’t have any...

So of course that means there’s only one thing to do. The next night he rigs the door lock with chewing gum and sneaks out to follow the werewolves through the woods to he can take pictures of them. He tries to get Hannah to come with him, but when he knocks on her bedroom window in the middle of the night she refuses to come out. So he tramps off into the woods on his own, follows there werewolves, gets a lot of pictures of them, and actually makes it back unharmed. Not to say it wasn’t a tense couple of chapters... But when daylight finally comes and he follows the werewolves back to the Marlings’ house and watches them take their fursuits off, we get the big reveal.

Oh look at that... Aunt Marta and Uncle Colin are actually the werewolves and the Marlings don’t even exist. It’s just an abandoned house they use to store there werewolf skins in... Although I will say the twist was handled pretty well. I didn’t actually see it coming. But that’s not the end of the book. Like I said, this book had a lot to it. Because now that Alex knows his aunt and uncle are werewolves, he has to decide what to do about it.

The next day is finally Halloween and after he tells Hannah what happened she has an idea to deal with it. They don’t want to kill his aunt and uncle, so they decide that once they leave to go trick-or-treating that night, they will sneak over to the house, steal the werewolf skins, and then wear them themselves. The idea is to go trick-or-treating in the aunt and uncle’s werewolf skins and when the aunt and uncle can’t find them, they will be forced to go the whole night without turning into werewolves. In other words, they are planning to cure the aunt and uncle by making them go cold turkey.

The aunt and uncle figure this out sooner than expected and Alex and Hannah don’t get very far away in the werewolf skins before they show up and start chasing them, demanding they give them back their skins. Alex and Hannah manage to stay away from them long enough that when the full moon reaches the highest point in the night sky the curse is broken and the aunt and uncle are no longer compelled to put the skins on anymore. And naturally at this point I’m wondering why the skins haven’t turned Alex and Hannah into actual werewolves instead. Does it just not work if it’s not their own skins? That seems like a bit of a shame. That would have been a perfect twist ending. They managed to cure the aunt and uncle but became werewolves themselves in the process. Then Alex could have a werewolf girlfriend! But no... It doesn’t seem to work that way...

With the curse broken, they all decide to go back to the aunt and uncle’s house to celebrate and Alex tells Hannah “Let’s go put these skins back in the old house where no one will find them.” Hannah starts getting nervous about that but before she can stop him he’s already gone inside, and once he is in there he finds another werewolf skin still in the house. When Hannah comes in he is confused, wanting to know how there is already a skin there when they are both wearing his aunt and uncle’s skins... to which Hannah tells him that she isn’t wearing his aunt’s skin. She’s wearing her own skin. And when Alex still doesn’t seem to get it, she tells him he’ll understand soon enough, before pouncing on him and biting him.

Werewolf girlfriend!

Honestly this is probably one of the longest Goosebumps reviews I’ve written and there was still a lot of stuff I didn’t even mention. The book just had a lot to it and for once, it didn’t feel like it was filler to pad out the page length. It wasn’t even full of fake-out scares like most Goosebumps are. There were a few I guess, but with actual werewolf stuff happening from very early on in the book, there just wasn’t any need for constant fake-outs. It was pretty nice. And I probably spent more time than I really should have just rambling on about what happened without actually critiquing things... but there just wasn’t a whole lot to critique. Other than a few weird things in the beginning, like enrolling in a different school for only three weeks... the book was more or less fine and I didn’t have anything to complain about.

Definitely one of my top ten Goosebumps books. I’m very happy to see Alex and Hannah get to become a cute werewolf couple. And I’m sure Goosebumps has long been responsible for so many kids discovering new fetishes, so I just have to wonder how many kids developed a suit transformation fetish because of this book?

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nyctophilin · 4 years

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Fake Affection | II

Chapter I, Chapter II, Chapter III, Chapter IV, Epilogue

Pairing: Han x fem!Reader, Hyunjin x fem!Reader

Word count: 4.5k

Genre: College!AU, Fake dating!AU, Angst, Fluff, eventual Smut

Warnings: swearing

A/N: Remember when I said this will only have two part? Well, I’m a big fat liar. The drama kind of started this chapter and I’m excited for it. Also, thank you so much for for the huge support I got for the last part. I’m really grateful for that. I hope you like it, hehe. Feedback is very much appreciated.

Y/N was sitting in Script Interpretation class trying to go over the script they were going to discuss that day once more. Her concentration was interrupted by a pile of books being slammed into the table way too close to where her hand was resting. Lifting her head to look for the culprit she locked eyes with Hayoon. A shiver went through her body.

“Hey, girl. How are you doing?” Her voice was abnormally high and she hated how she couldn’t hide her feelings in front of her best friend. She really fucked up this time.

“Oh, don’t you ‘girl’ me! Can you explain to me what the fuck is everyone talking about?” She wasn’t screaming, her tone calm. Way too calm. It was making Y/N way more scared than she should have been.

Y/N lifted the script she was previously holding. “ Angels in Ame…” Hayoon hit the table with her palm and lowered herself to watch Y/N in the eyes.

“Don’t you bullshit me Y/N. Why is everyone talking about you and Han Jisung being in a relationship?” Hayoon’s face was dangerously close to hers and she could feel the daggers that her eyes were sending in her direction.

She gulped visibly before putting her hands on Hayoon’s shoulders and slowly pushing her away from her. “Well, we are in a relationship.” She didn’t dare look her friend in the eyes.

Annoyance was embracing Hayoon’s facial features. She clicked her tongue before exhaling loudly. “And why didn’t I know? And most importantly, when the fuck did it happen?” The girl’s voice started to rise in volume.

“Ok, please calm down! I’ll tell you everything at the end of the class. The professor is supposed to arrive any minute.” Y/N had a pleading face on, grateful for the fact that they didn’t have a free period. She hoped that maybe during the class Hayoon would calm down even a little. She really couldn’t deal with her friend when she was angry.

Like it was on cue, the professor entered the classroom and greeted everyone. Hayoon threw Y/N a look that meant they were not done there and focused on the professor.

Throughout the class, Y/n couldn’t focus on what they were talking about. She was thinking of what to tell her friend so she believes her and Jisung are deeply in love or at least very horny for each other. She was told by more professors that she is one of the best actresses they have at the moment but in front of Hayoon, she felt just like a kid who’s done something bad for the first time.

The time flew ridiculously fast that class and when the bell rang Y/N felt like she could have used some more hours to prepare for the talk she was about to have with Hayoon. Her friend got up and when they both finished packing their things she grabbed Y/N’s bicep as a method to prevent her from running away.

Hayoon led her outside of the campus and they sat down on a bench at the front of the university. That was the moment when she let go of her friend's arm. She made herself comfortable on the bench while Y/N was fidgeting nervously.

“You can start talking” She tilted her head to the side waiting for an explanation.

Y/N let out a shaky breath. “What happened is that he sat next to me in Canto class and then when the class was over he asked me to talk. He asked me out and now we are dating.” She said all that in a breath hoping that maybe Hayoon didn’t hear her.

“Just like that?” The other girl’s voice filled her ears. Y/N looked at her confused. The girl rolled her eyes. “You started dating him just like that? Just because he asked you? What happened with ‘He’s a loser’, ‘He never takes shit seriously’, ‘He has a stupid face that I hate’? Weren’t he and Mina dating?” The flood of questions took her by surprise.

“No, they are not dating. And he’s actually kind of nice. He has his bad parts but don’t we all?” She tried explaining without stumbling over her words which she succeeded in doing. Thankfully.

“But what if it is some kind of bet or trick? You know who he is friends with. You should have thought better before saying yes.” She shifted her position closer to Y/N and put a hand on her forearm protectively.

She was right. The whole thing was just a trick but she wasn’t the victim. She kind of felt bad now but the whole thing was actually harmless. They were just trying to make Mina jealous and if it didn’t work in a month or so, she would break up with Jisung. She turned her head towards her friend, tears stinging her eyes.

“Yes, I know his friends but it’s not like that. I really do like him. Why can’t you be happy for me? Is it that hard to believe that a popular guy would like me?” A single tear fell down her cheek and Hayoon hugged her hurriedly, stuffing her face into her chest.

“No, I’m sorry! Of course, he can. I’m sure a lot of popular guys like you! I was just worried!” Y/N sobbed a little and Hayoon hugged her tighter, rubbing her back soothingly.

“It’s ok. I know you mean well.” Y/N hated having to use the fake crying on her friend but if they wanted that to work no one should know they were faking their relationship.

The bell rang signalling the end of her last class. She gathered her things and waited a bit for Hayoon before leaving the room. Just as she stepped outside the classroom a hand snaked around her waist and she was pressed to a body.

“Hey, babe.” Jisung said next to her ear before giving her neck a kiss. The girl jumped at the contact before relaxing upon realising that it was Jisung.

“Hey.” She made eye contact with Hayoon who was sitting awkwardly to the side. She got out of his lock only to hold her friend’s hands and bring her closer. When she turned she noticed Hyunjin and Chan standing close to Jisung as well. “She’s my friend, Hayoon.” The men all greeted her.

Hayoon gave them in return a smile that was visibly fake before turning to Y/N. “I have to go. See you tomorrow, ok?”

“Yeah, see you.” She watched her get lost in the crowd before turning back to the boys.

“She’s nice.” Jisung said ironically, rolling his eyes.

“Give her time. She just doesn’t really like you.” Hyunjin and Chan held in their laughter as Jisung’s face turned into a hurt one.

“But you like me, right babe?” His voice was as if he was talking to a child as he placed his hands on her hips bringing her closer.

“You might have to give me some time as well.” The men finally let out their laughter as Jisung’s expression turned into an annoyed one. “What are you doing here, anyway?” She asked her head tilted to the side to show confusion and to distance herself a little bit from Jisung, who didn’t seem to have a problem with showing her affection.

“I came here to wait for Jeongin and they came to wait for you.” Hyunjin smiled as he spoke. She smiled back at him feeling happiness invade her body.

She turned her head towards her pretend boyfriend raising an eyebrow. “Did you want to tell me something?”

“I actually came to take you home. I and Chan have to meet Changbin somewhere and your house is on the way there.” She felt a warm feeling in her stomach at his words. That was actually really nice of him considering the fact that they were not actually dating.

“Jisung sweetie, you don’t know where I live yet.” Hyunjin snorted loudly, biting his lip to prevent himself from laughing. Jisung glared at him before looking down at Y/N.

“Ok, I don’t know if your house is on the way there but we were going to drop you off.”

“That’s really sweet of you but I actually have the first meeting with the crew for the short movie I’ll play in. I can’t leave yet.” She finally got out of his arms as she wanted to turn around and leave. A pair of strong hands placed themselves on her biceps and stopped her from moving.

“Easy there. You almost hit me. We still have 15 minutes until the meeting starts.” Jeongin explained as he went past her to greet each of the men individually.

“I’m sorry!” A pinkish colour dusted her cheeks, embarrassed by her negligence to where she was walking. “We? Your crew is meeting now as well?” The innocence in her voice made Jeongin chuckle.

“Y/N, we play in the same movie.” Her eyebrows furrowed and her mouth fell agape at his words. Hyunjin and Jeongin giggled at her reaction.

“Seriously?” Her question had Hyunjin rolling his eyes.

“You say that like you haven’t been together in every single play since last year.” He was right but she didn’t remember seeing Jeongin at the auditions. “Now, let’s go or we’ll be late.”

“You play in it as well?” Her expression became even more shocked if it was possible.

“No, I don’t. I’ll just come watch.”

“I don’t think you are allowed to.”

“Oh, please! Mrs. Bae loves me. I’m sure she won’t have anything against it.” Right after he finished talking he hooked an arm around Jeongin’s neck forcing him to follow his lead. When he got next to Y/N he did the same taking the girl by surprise.

She regained her composure fast telling herself that Hyunjin is just a social butterfly. She lifted her hand and waved it ‘Goodbye!’ at the boys who she couldn’t see because of Hyunjin’s grip on her neck.

Jisung watched as the three of them were heading for the auditorium. Taking another look at Hynjin’s arm around her neck, he scoffed. He had been particularly annoying since lunch and something told Jisung it wouldn’t be the last time.

As long as he didn’t interfere with their plan to make Mina jealous, he didn’t really care what kind of relationship Hyunjin was trying to push with Y/N.

“I can not wait to get the script. Cursed be the printer for breaking down today of all days!” Y/N chanted for the nth time in the last 20 minutes.

The meeting went fairly well. They mostly talked about the concept of the movie more in-depth, met the other actors that they didn’t know thanks to them being from different majors and discussed about each character individually so they know how to prepare for the roles. The only thing that upset Y/N was the missing scripts that they were supposed to receive. She was so excited about the movie and she could not endure another day without knowing the entire story.

She was currently walking home with Hyunjin and Jeongin. Despite being well past 7 PM the sun was still in the sky probably preparing to set soon. The spring breeze had her clutching her jean jacket to her body trying to get rid of the goosebumps covering her skin.

“You’ve only told us that a thousand times in the last couple of minutes.” Hyunjin said being unable to suppress the smile that was tugging at his mouth upon seeing how excited she was.

“Can you blame me? The concept of Hell and Heaven, the forbidden love, the action, the drama. Everything is so, ugh!” Y/N was making wide gestures with her hands as she spoke, having the men trying to avoid them in order not to get hit. Jeongin grabbed one of her hands stopping her ministration.

“I have never seen someone so excited about a school project. Calm down! We’ll get the script tomorrow.” Her mouth formed into a pout at his words. The two men let out chuckles at her action.

Taking a look around her she noticed a familiar coffee shop on the other side of the road. She cleared her throat as she stopped at the crossroad.

“My apartment is actually that way.” She used her index finger to point the direction of the coffee shop. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow!”

“Actually, I’m going that way as well.” Hyunjin said, pressing the button of the traffic lights.

They said goodbye to Jeongin before crossing the street. There was a comfortable silence between the two of them for a few minutes.

“I still can’t believe that they let you stay.” Y/N said, remembering how he sat behind her and Jengin the whole time. He would make short comments about the plot and characters from time to time, making her giggle.

“I told you Mrs. Bae loves me. She’ll do anything for her favourite student.” He said matter of factly.

“I just don’t understand how she can be such a bitch to everyone but you. She acted like you were her son, I swear to God.” She trembled as she recalled how the professor would talk to him in a baby voice and how she offered to give him her chair so he could sit comfortably.

“Not everyone is as handsome and amazing as I am.” Y/N laughed shortly and shoved him slowly.

Another minute passed before Hyunjin decided to speak.

“You know what I don’t understand?” He asked, looking at her side profile.

“What?” She made eye contact with him.

“Now, I don’t want you to get offended, cause that is definitely your choice. However, why date Jisung? You could have had any boy on campus. Someone that’s actually mature and nice.” Hyunjin let his teeth sink into the flesh of his bottom lip.

He knew what he was trying to do was not ethical. Jisung was one of his best friends but he had to know. If he couldn’t get Mina, which everyone could, how did he convince someone of Y/N’s calibre to date him?

“Perhaps you think too highly of me. I assure you, I couldn’t have had any boy on campus.” She let a breathy laugh leave her lips. Boys barely talked to her and every time they did they were very awkward and distant.

“I’m afraid I have to disagree with you. A lot of guys like you. You are smart, talented, friendly and, please excuse my language, hot. You just seem unapproachable because…” He stopped in the middle of his sentence contemplating whether he should say it or not.

“Because…” She encouraged him to speak.

“You might have a resting bitch face sometimes.” He noticed she wanted to say something but cut her off. “AND. And there is this guy that claims to have confessed to you last year and he said you completely humiliated him.” He bit the inside of his lip.

An irritated breath left her nose. “I swear to God. I knew that guy would do something like that. All I did was tell him I want to focus on school for a while and he literally started crying. When I told him he could ask me again in a few months he called me a bitch and stormed out of there.” She paused for a bit to regain her composure. “If he’s the reason no guy approached me all this time I’ll find him and give his ass a beating.” She declared clenching her fist in front of her face.

Hyunjin chuckled at her action. “Ok, but let’s go back to Jisung.” That was a phrase he never thought he would say to a girl.

“Ah, yeah. I don’t know. He was the first one to ask me out. He is kinda handsome and nice, I guess. I mean, he does that thing where he likes to make fun of people for no reason that absolutely drives me mad.” She exclaimed the last word clenching her jaw. “But he has been nice to me since we started dating. It has been only a day and a half but he knows that if he does something wrong I’ll dump him faster than he can rap.”

“Hmm, interesting. So this is all it takes for you to break up with him. In that case, I want to let you know that he has been rude to me today before we came to meet you.” Y/N laughed and hit his chest softly. Hyunjin laughed as well, but his laugh wasn’t genuine.

Y/N stopped walking and put her hand on his forearm. “This is where I live. Thank you for walking with me. It was fun spending time with you today.” A bright smile enveloped her features.

Hyunjin took a look at the apartment complex behind her trying to figure out at what floor her apartment might be. Quickly, he shifted his eyes on her and without realising he patted her head smiling.

“I had fun as well. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go rub into Jisung’s face the fact that I found out where you live before him.” He said and turned on his heels to leave.

Y/N noticed Hyunjin going in the same direction they came from and confusion settled inside her.

“Hey! Where are you going?” She shouted after him.

Hyunjin turned towards her and a smile tugged on his lips. “Actually, I live two streets behind.”

Her eyes widened at his words. “Oh my God! Why didn’t you say so? I made you walk all the way here.”

“I couldn’t let such a pretty lady walk alone at this hour.” His response came to her panicked rambling.

“But it’s still really bright outside!”

“Ok, you got me. I just wanted to spend more time with you.” A smirk appeared on his lips. “Hey! Don’t tell Jisung!” He winked at her before turning around and sprinting down the street.

She casually walked into the complex and made her way to the third floor where her apartment was located. She fished her key from her bag and unlocked the door entering the residence.

When she found herself in the safety of her apartment she let her body slid down the white door. A rosy pink was covering her cheeks and she bit her bottom lip. What was that stupid feeling inside her chest? She needed to calm down.

Y/N got up from the floor and went into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and snatched a water bottle from the fridge door. She downed half of it in one go and used one hand to prop herself against the wall.

“Mina, you bitch. Hurry up and fall in love with Jisung.” She mumbled pressing the cold bottle to her exposed collarbones.

“How much more should we sit in silence?” Changbin whispered looking around at the people occupying the table.

“Shhh. Be quiet! They’ll both rip your head off if you disturb them.” Hayoon spit in a barely audible voice.

Changbin threw her an annoyed look. Why did Y/N’s friend have to sit with them as well? He glanced at Y/N and Jeongin who were seated across one another. Their eyes were scanning over the pages of the thick scripts they had in hand for the past 20 minutes, forcing everyone else around them to be quiet.

“Whoa, what an ending! I knew I could trust our senior.” Y/N finally exclaimed, startling some of the people at the table.

“Tell me about it. I can not believe you have to do that.” Jeongin said, placing the script next to his tray.

“Don’t be sad, lover boy. I promise I’ll take good care of you in hell.” She winked at him before stuffing the script in her bag.

“Do I sense some steamy stuff coming up?” Felix wiggled his eyebrows at Jeongin.

“Nah, just a kiss. But like, fucking finally!” Jeongin exclaimed, taking a bite from his food for the first time since he sat down.

“How did we manage to be in so many plays together and not kiss once? That never happens. It started to worry me. Finally, the universe is in order again.” She joked pretending to wipe away sweat from her forehead.

Jisung rested his elbow on the back of Y/N’s chair and leaned close to her. “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve wanted to kiss Jeongin for a long time now?” His tone was meant to be teasing and intimidating but Y/N felt like laughing at his efforts to seem like a possessive boyfriend. She rolled her eyes visibly.

“Don’t worry, babe. It’s just acting. No real feelings involved.” Her words carried a lot of meaning, one which only the two of them could understand.

“Really?” His voice lowered an octave and using one finger he turned her head towards him capturing her lips in a slow kiss.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed Mina looking at them. She was seated a few tables away with her friends and a few guys from her major. He felt like smirking when she clenched her jaw and scoffed in their direction.

He broke the kiss and proceeded to lick his lips tasting Y/N’s strawberry lip balm on them. He curled one hand over her shoulders and brought her closer. Upon placing a kiss on her temple, the sound of metal hitting metal ringed in the cafeteria. Mina abruptly got up from her table and left the cafeteria leaving her friends to clean up her tray.

Minho let out a prolonged whistle rolling his eyes in the process. “Looks like someone is in a bad mood. I wonder why.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm, the reason for Mina’s sudden outburst being well known at the table.

“You snooze, you lose.” A smirk was plastered on Jisung’s face. “I think a year and a half was a good amount of time for her to figure out her feelings. I wasn’t gonna wait around for her my entire life.” He declared nonchalantly playing with a strand of Y/N’s hair.

Y/N bit back a laugh at his bold statement. What he said wasn’t entirely wrong. He didn’t wait around for her but he sure as hell wasn’t over her like his tone wanted to make it seem like. She lightly patted his thigh under the table as a form of saying ‘Good one!’.

“That kind of makes it seems like you are using Y/N to get over her. I’d be more careful with my word choice next time.” Hyunjin said in a stern voice, throwing Jisung a cold glare.

“No one needs your fucking opinion. Why do you even care?” Jisung felt annoyance overwhelm him. Hyunjin has voiced a lot of his opinions regarding his relationship with Y/N ever since they’ve announced it. Most of them in private when she wasn’t present.

“Cause I don’t want you hurting my friend. She’s been nice enough to date you. I feel like you should be grateful.” Hyunjin was clearly irritated by Jisung’s attitude.

Y/N watched as the two men were throwing daggers at each other. The same fuzzy feeling from the day before started spreading in her body. She kept repeating to herself that Hyunjin was just being nice. All he did and said the day prior was just him being nice. Some of his words started playing in her head when she remembered the previous day. ‘I just wanted to spend more time with you. Don’t tell Jisung!’ He was probably just joking. Just some playful rivalry between the two.

“It’s ok, Hyunjin. I didn’t see it like that. I’m fine.” She mumbled and started playing with her fingers under the table. She tried controlling her laboured breath.

Jisung threw Hyunjin a victorious smile. Noticing a change in her demeanour he took a look at her. Cheeks dusted with the faintest of pinks and fingers playing nervously under the table. A smirk acaparated his face as he remembered the conversation he had with her the other day on the bench. She definitely had a crush on someone.

The sound of a key turning in a lock was heard in the empty apartment. Y/N entered the residence and abandoned her bag on the hanger near the door. Taking off her boots, she made her way to the window in the living room to close it, the air in the apartment being way too chilly for her comfort. She picked up a plate from the coffee table that she abandoned there in the morning before leaving and took it to the sink in the kitchen before going to her bedroom.

The space was fairly clean excepting her desk that had all sorts of assignments and books sprawled all over it. She took off her clothes and discarded them in the laundry bin before going to her closet to pick something comfortable to wear. She settled for a pair of burgundy sweats and a black hoodie, perfect for that spring weather.

Just as she finished putting on the hoodie she heard her phone go off signalling that she got a message. Throwing herself on the bed she grabbed her phone that was on the nightstand next to her bed.

[Jisung,15:36]Tomorrow is Saturday. Let’s go on a date! :D

Y/N pursed her lips after reading his message. She has planned to do research about her character for the movie the next day. Her fingers moved fast in typing a reply.

[Y/N,15:39]Is Mina gonna be there?

She had no reason to go on that date if Mina wasn’t going to be there. It will be just a waste of her time. Her phone emitted the same ringing sound like earlier and she unlocked it to check his response.

[Jisung,15:40]Of course. Why else would I ask you on a date?

His message had her rolling her eyes. She would bet all her money that he had a smug expression at that moment. Probably thinking that he did something. She was getting annoyed just thinking of it.

[Y/N,15:42]Time and place?

[Jisung,15:45] 6 PM. Text me your address, I’ll come pick you up.

She sent him her address after a few minutes of contemplating insisting to meet there. She locked her phone and turned the silent mode on putting it back on the nightstand. Jumping out of bed she made her way to her desk prepared to start working on some of the assignments scattered on it.

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sxvxrxssnape · 4 years

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Small Mercies In Poisoned Teacups

Snapetober 2020: Day 3 - Torture a much softer take at the prompt

"Explain yourself."

"I, I don't know what you're talking about, sir."

Severus closed his eyes. He dug two fingers into his temple, trying to ward off the headache that was sure to come if he had to continue this conversation for any longer. He took a quiet deep breath and reminded himself that he couldn't accuse Potter of stealing from him without any real proof.

"You were the last one out of the classroom." Severus finally spoke, opening his eyes and staring at the green-eyed Gryffindor in front of him.

"Is that a crime?"

Severus scowled. "Specifically, you were coming out of my potion stores when I reentered my classroom, Potter."

Potter didn't say anything, merely looked defiant. Fifth year potions had just ended and Severus had been distracted at the door by a question from one of his Slytherins and when he'd turned around to ensure the room was empty so he could lock up, he spotted the fifteen year old slipping out of the supply cabinet. He didn't bother to take stock, he knew whatever the brat had taken would be small enough to miss; he wouldn't make the same mistakes he had during second year, when he had stolen a noticeable amount of supplies to brew polyjuice in secret.

Instead, he had cornered the boy before he could leave the dungeons corridor altogether.

"I didn't take anything, if that's what you're accusing me off." Potter muttered, gripping his bag a little too tightly.

"No?" Severus asked gently, completely derailing Potter's defensiveness with his sudden softness. He wanted answers and he knew just how to get them. "Come with me, Potter."

He led the boy back towards the classroom, back into the potions store. He gestured around the shelves lined with unlabeled phials and jars, at the collection of ingredients.

"I suppose I should be impressed if you had managed to steal from me." Severus mused, watching him carefully. "I would be surprised if you paid enough attention to know what half of these potions even are, let alone what they do. I don't label, you see, to dissuade halfwitted children from stealing from me. The half that do understand are usually intelligent enough to just ask. It's a pity you aren't."

"I didn't think you'd have much sympathy for me, sir." Potter muttered darkly, his voice so quiet Severus wasn't sure it was meant to be audible. Harry was staring intently at a small collection of glass bottles with mismatched labels half-scrubbed away.

"What makes you say that?" Severus asked, keeping his voice flat and neutral. He probably wouldn't have much sympathy truthfully, didn't have much to spare with everything he had to take care of this year. Still, as he stared at the bottles filled with Essence of Dittany, a strange sort of cold feeling washed over him. It was probably nothing - children get hurt all the time. It was the preference to steal than go to the hospital wing that forced his uneasiness.

Harry shrugged.

"What, pray tell, do you need the Essence of Dittany for?" Severus finally asked, masking the uneasiness with annoyance. He noticed the boy flinch in response. "Were you so arrogant to think I wouldn't figure it out? Mr. Potter, your tells are so obvious, you wouldn't fool a lemming."

He muttered under his breath.

"Speak up, Potter."

"I cut my hand, is all." Harry repeated and the angry defiance in his tone had returned.

Severus held back a sigh and led them out of the storage room. He pointed to a chair and waited until the boy had sat down until he spoke. "Then why not just go to the infirmary? Surely a boy of your status would prefer to bask in the attention of Madame Pomfrey than myself?"

"It's really not worth going to the infirmary over."

"Then why steal in the first place?"

Harry scowled. "Madame Pomfrey would make too big of a deal out of it and it would only make things worse. I can handle it on my own, thanks."

"Handle what?" Severus was only growing more puzzled, but he wouldn't let that derail him. He could tell something was absolutely wrong with the situation in front of him and he was determined to figure it out before he punished the boy for having the audacity to steal from him yet again.

He remained silent.

"Don't make me threaten you with veritaserum."

"How original." Harry scowled and then paused. He looked up at the potions master with curiosity. "Actually sir, I do have a question: how difficult is it to get your hands on veritaserum?"

"Quite." Severus answered, studying him carefully. "It's regulated by the Ministry. Unless you know how to make it, of course, but it's also difficult to brew."

Harry nodded. "So if a professor were to use it on their students, they would have to get it from the Ministry….or you?"

"What are you getting at, Potter."

"Nothing really."

"The Ministry would never sanction the distribution of veritaserum to a professor. Any potion they are in possession of and wish to use, can only be used within a courtroom." Severus decided to answer, inferencing the reason for the question. "If a wizard - professor or not - wanted it for petty use, they would have to contact a willing potioneer for it."

"I suppose any teacher here could just ask you for it, then.”

"They could. They would also have to trust that the veritaserum they were given wasn't just a phial of distilled water, wouldn't they?" Severus asked indifferently.

Harry's eyes widened the tiniest bit, but he didn't say anything.. Good. There was plausible deniability that way; he had never outright said he'd given Dolores fake veritaserum when she had banged his office door open last week, but who's to say what really happened?

He eyed Harry carefully and figured they had built enough of a rapport to continue. "Essence of Dittany." he reminded the boy.

"I told you, I just cut my hand."

"Let me see, then." Severus directed as snippets of memory from past years rose up. His job of keeping the boy alive was made unnecessarily difficult by his insistence of constantly getting into trouble. At this point, he wouldn't be surprised if "just a cut" meant "I lost a limb" for the boy.

Again, Harry scowled, but this time he pulled back the sleeve of his robe and presented the back of his hand to Severus.

He blinked.

The back of Potter's hand was red and slightly swollen, streaked with wet crimson from where the fabric of his sleeve had been dragged over the still bleeding corners of the words carved into the skin. The cuts were deep and angry-looking and sure to scar over.

I must not tell lies.

He reached a tentative hand, acutely aware of the flinch he received, and studied the wound closer. It was days old, but it was also fresh at the same time.

"Essence of Dittany was a good choice." he finally spoke up.

"It was Hermione's idea."

Severus nodded, trying to keep his composure but he could feel the anger coiling in his stomach. He could also feel the hum of Dark magic radiating from the wound. Simple healing spells would be useless here, but he doubted Miss Granger hadn't already tried that before suggesting the Dittany. "How did this happen?" he asked needlessly.

He knew the work of a blood quill when he saw it.

Harry took his hand back, pulled the sleeve down until the ugly words were hidden from sight again. "Umbridge had me do lines for my detention," he shrugged casually, as if admitting to a professor torturing him was no big deal, "and she insisted I use a special quill of hers."

Severus' lips thinned. "And you told no one."

"I just told you.”

This time, he couldn't hold back the sigh of exasperation. "How long has this been going on?"

"Three days now." Harry answered. "I have her again tonight. I can handle it."

The anger was only increasing. “You shouldn’t have to handle it.” he gritted out. “You understand this is beyond unacceptable? This isn’t punishment, Potter, it’s torture.” He forced a breath. “Go, go to, to wherever you’re supposed to be right now.” He paused. “You have detention with me tonight now, conveniently at the same time you’re supposed to be meeting with Umbridge.”

“Oh, uh, yes sir.”

“Leave.”

He managed to keep himself composed just long enough for the Gryffindor to flee out of the room. He left the classroom as well and entered his private lab, seething. He would have to tell Minerva of this development, Dumbledore as well, but that could wait for a few hours. First, he needed to calm down before they accused him of caring for the brat.

He was only taking his duty at ensuring the safety and wellbeing of his students seriously. It just happened to include Potter directly, this time, but isn’t that what he’s been doing since day one? So maybe he had gotten the brat out of Dolores’ inhumane detention for the night and maybe now he was distraction brewing while he thought all of the deadly potions he wished he could slip into her morning cup of tea.

That didn’t mean anything.

It also didn’t mean anything that he summoned a house elf when he finished the nonlethal amber brew and handed over the indistinct vial. It didn’t mean anything at all if it happened to slip into Dolores’ teapot the next morning.

Besides, it wouldn’t kill her.

Unlike her, he had some sense of ethics. If it kept her too sick to leave the hospital wing for the week that followed, well, what were small mercies for students he didn’t care for.

---

A/N: the original piece for day 3 felt better suited for a different prompt day so i wrote this instead (late yes) and took a lot of creative liberty with the prompt bc i didnt want to write it, i wanted to write snape & harry interacting :(

also trying to fit entire stories in a singular scene is weird and HARD. i need to write the whole thing and thats why every take ive had an these prompts get scrapped bc i realize i cant write it without devoting like a week to it

#snapetober 2020 #severus snape #harry potter #snapedom #severitus #except not really but i take content in any shape or form that involves sev looking out for harry as acceptable

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