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oftenderweapons · 4 years

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Love Talk - Namjoon

Pairing: Namjoon x reader (nicknamed Vixen)

Wordcount: 6.1k words

Genre: romance, minor fluff, mild smut

Rating: suggested 18+

Hello cuties! Welcome to the Love Talk scenarios.

In these small series we’ll see how the guys handle the turn-ons turn-offs conversation, talking about their previous relationships, kinks and limits.

In this first piece we’ll see how our perfect leader plays his cards with his not-yet girlfriend, fondly nicknamed Vixen. It’s their fifth date and Vixen meets him at hers for a lovely homecooked meal. Expect the situation to escalate.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Consumption of alcohol (wine), swearing, toxic past relationships. Discussion of sexual topics, [DDLG/daddy kink, oral, voyeurism, sex toys and impact play, restraints (handcuffs and manacles, spreader bars), lingerie fetish, discipline and rules, mind games, pornography, slight roleplay, sensation play, edging, orgasm deprivation and control, bruising and marking kink, blindfolds. Mentions of angst about Vixen’s past relationship. Mentions of a series of hard limits (hardcore bdsm, heavy pain kink, knife play, electric play, suspension play, water sports, degradation and humiliation, chastity devices, infantilization, dubious consent, asphyxiation, triple penetration, touch deprivation). Just in case you didn’t know already, Vixen is a brat and Joon is the smoothest brat tamer to exist (Can you imagine him sweet talking and tricking his brat into obedience? I. Am. Shaking.)

Wordcount: 6.1k (listen, these two flirt a lot, they like talking to each other and Joon could dirty talk for days. Anything less than 5k would be an insult to them and I GOT CARRIED AWAY) Also, here is my Masterlist

Do you want to read what happened next? You can find it here!

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He didn’t expect it. Yeah, last time you’d made out in the backseat, the driver hopefully uninterested in your anthem, but that doesn’t mean he expected you to ask him out. Usually he was the one texting first and asking out.

International, Korean or fusion? The text read.

Are you thinking of bringing me lunch?

I’m thinking of asking you out this Saturday. If you’re free, of course.

Picnic at Han river? He asked, hopeful.

They say it’s gonna be stormy. Dinner at mine. I’ll cook.

You can cook? His computer went on screensaver mode. He was too caught up texting. He was already done with the demo anyway.

You’ll see. You teased.

He smirked. Then it’s a deal. Want me to bring wine and dessert?

Just wine, you wrote before adding a flirty smirk.

He was blushing. You’re so naughty. He replied. A pause. Cook your signature dish.

Don’t get ideas. You texted back cheekily.

That was nice. However, a few seconds later you found yourself questioning how long it would take you to lose your cool and throw yourself at him. The night was going to be disastrous.

That’s how you found a drenched Namjoon on your doorstep the following Saturday. “Sorry, my umbrella broke on the way. I’m a mess.” He spoke, checking how bad he looked, the words spilling out of his mouth lightning fast. With an apologetic smile he looked up at you, his jaw going slack, a little shocked. “Wow.”

He noticed you had dolled yourself up. You blushed and thanked him for the compliment quickly, your main interest focused on taking care of his situation. You quickly dragged him in, already fussing over him before he got cold, your apprehensive side taking control.

You smiled at him and asked him to wait for a towel. When you came back you noticed he was wearing a thin cotton t-shirt, now perfectly sticking to his skin. You were ready for self-ignition. Fortunately, you managed to find a spot for his dripping jacket and tell him to get comfy. He was already barefoot, his sandals on your entry mat. You offered him your oversized sleeping t-shirt and left as he dried himself and got dressed.

“Let me see if I have a pair of sweats for you.” You came back a few minutes later with some basketball shorts you didn't even know you had. “Sorry, I don’t have boxers. You could use one of my thongs, if you fancy those.” You smirked, giving him an awkward thumbs-up. He snickered at that, shaking his head.

God, he felt fond of you already.

After a few minutes he was sitting at the kitchen table, looking like boyfriend material in his exceedingly domestic outfit, and fidgeting with his hands. Previously you had led him to the bathroom, giving him space to change and asking him to give you his stuff so you could put it in the dryer. In the meantime he had noticed the small details in your bathroom. Your pink toothbrush. Your sleeping robe hanging from the heater. And a small collection of delicate lace — too delicate for machine washing and drying — hanging from a small rack.

Fuck.

“It’s almost ready. I hope you like lasagna. It’s a classic.” You called from the stove.

“That’s nice.” He admitted. “It feels amazing in here. Smells good. And it’s nice, toasty. Great autumn vibes.”

He was probably talking out of nerves. He should stop. He was painfully close to slapping himself.

“Thank you. I know you like hardwood. And that’s exactly the vibe I go for.” You said referring to your furniture.

“Your house is truly lovely, ____.” He spotted more details, trying to ignore the rumbling of his stomach, both from nerves and the mouth-watering scent coming from the oven.

“I’ll give you a tour later. Don’t expect a lot, though. It’s just the living room, the studio and the bedroom. Other than the bathroom and kitchen, that is.”

Bedroom. Hell. Keep calm, Namjoon, she said don’t get ideas. “I’d love to.”

Dinner was easy, you talked about his job and your job, and how you’d moved to Seoul and found that incredible, small apartment in such an exclusive neighbourhood.

Together with conversation flowed the wine. You both were red cheeked by the end of the meal and your head felt a bit light when you stood up. He noticed and smirked kindly. “Need help?” A hand sweetly supporting your waist.

You were standing in front of him now and you couldn’t help but notice how his head reached your navel while he was sitting. “Have I already told you you look breathtaking tonight?”

You blushed. “Maybe.” You stroked his hair back, the gesture incredibly intimate. He closed his eyes and pushed his head against your hands, inviting you to do that again. You obliged. “And you look ravishing in my pink and frilly sleeping shirt.” You joked.

“Yeah I feel incredibly cute. But don’t jump my bones, please. Right now this place feels like the dragon’s den.” He confessed. “And you keep luring me in.”

“I might eat you. Be careful.” You teased. “This dragon can be very hungry.”

He looked up at you and smiled, his eyes crincling. “That sounds amazing.”

You took your chance and poked his dimple, then you grabbed his hands and removed them from your waist, getting ready for dessert. You started collecting the dishes and bringing them to the dishwasher, leaving only the wine and glasses on the table. As you turned and bent he let his eyes run down your tight-fitting dress, biting his lip as he noticed the lack of panty lines on your behind. “Do I get the dessert now?” He growled quietly. You turned your head, pretty sure that he was enjoying the view, which you had no intention ruining.

“Have you been a good boy?” You questioned playfully.

“I’m always good.” He replied “Maybe not a good boy, but good for sure.”

“You can go in the living room, we’ll eat dessert there.” You directed him.

He let his hand caress your lower back, catching your attention. “Need me to take the wine and glasses there?” He asked.

“Yes, thanks, sweetie.” You whispered, somehow entranced by the small touch.

You were starting to get intimate and it felt right. Comfortable. You took a few minutes to yourself, cleaning up the kitchen and loading the dishwasher, then trying to get dessert ready, your movements slower both because of the wine and because you felt like you needed more time to get psychologically ready for him and your bantering.

Meanwhile he reached the other room and fumbled around a little, searching for the light switch. Suddenly the place felt comfy. And dangerous. The lights were low, the sofa looked soft and inviting with a big woolen comforter thrown over it.

You were well-read. He knew that already, but noticing the big library and the books laying a little bit everywhere really made him wonder how many things you knew. He put down the glasses and bottle and explored, careful of where he put his feet.

You had Korean books and English ones. A few in one or multiple languages he didn’t know. On your wall there were a few movie posters. Studio Ghibli. The Grand Budapest Hotel. Lost in Translation. Lolita.

He knew that one. He would ask about that later.

Moving back to the library he noticed other books he knew. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Again, Lolita. The Memoirs of a Geisha. The Delta of Venus. A thorough guide to the language of sex… A thorough what?

“You found my forbidden stash.” You asked him, propped against the door jamb, dessert in one hand, spoons in the other.

“If it’s forbidden, then why are you displaying it so openly.” He asked, moving away and innocently sitting on one edge of the sofa, legs closed, trying to occupy as little space as possible.

“No one visits here, usually. And why should I hide being interested in erotism?” You laid the heavy bowl on the table. “It’s tiramisu. It’s coffee-based. I thought you would like it. If you’re bold enough I might tell you the story of it.”

“Come on, try me.” He teased.

“It was invented in Italy. It’s said that prostitutes would make it to reinvigorate their clients.” You took a spoon and dipped it in before bringing it to your mouth.

He laughed. “Really.”

“It’s a quite popular legend.” You smiled.

“Did you learn that in The thorough guide to the language of sex?” He asked flirtily, his ears blushing.

“I learnt that during my cuisine lessons.” You replied matter-of-factly.

“And what did you learn from that interesting book?” He wondered, keeping eye contact as he fed himself some cake.

“A lot of things, actually.” You lowered your eyes, playing hard to get.

“And have you ever used them?” He asked, his curiosity now poked and fully awakened.

“Are you asking me if I’ve had sex before?” You questioned.

He shook his head. “I assumed you have.” He stopped, embarrassed. “I mean, you’re in your mid-twenties and you mentioned having a couple past relationships.”

“Correct. Even though those factors are actually insignificant. But yeah, I’ve done it before.” You shrugged. “So have you, right?”

“Yes. I’ve had three committed relationships. A few casual flings. That’s it.” He admitted, completely unbothered by the fact.

You looked at him, swallowing your mouthful before asking: “Now we’re gonna talk bodycounts and turn-ons, right?”

“Only if you want to, darling.” His voice became soft, caring. He was your boy now.

“Then yeah. Well, let’s go through some history.” You poured some wine in both glasses and took a sip of yours. “Lost my virginity at 19. First serious boyfriend. He was a lot older than me. A lot. Like a loooot.”

“How old?” He asked, cocking his head to the side.

“Like… twelve years...” You said, as if it were a question.

“He was… thirty-one?” He asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah...” You exhaled.

“And why did it end?” he asked.

“We were together for two years. Then he wanted family. I wanted career. Seems fair.” You told briefly.

“He must have been important, then.” He assumed out loud.

“We’re actually still friends. He has a family. But he really made me what I am. Actually, he helped me grow up and past some traumas.” You admitted with a smile.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked, again warm and comforting.

“The usual. Daddy issues.” You giggled.

He bit his lip anxiously. Now what?

“I was overly responsible from a young age. I wanted rules, restrictions. Attention from my parents. I was always wound up tight and with no one taking care of me.” You shrugged. “He helped me find an outlet and discover how my mind works. I realised sometimes I just need someone to take care of me when I'm too tired to do it myself.”

“I noticed the Lolita theme. I was going to ask you about that, honestly. Is that what you’re into?” He asked, tiptoeing around the huge black hole that was calling to him. Asking you to get into his lap and then praise and cuddle you until the little girl eventually came out to play.

“Are you asking me if I have a daddy kink or if I like owning multiple versions of the same book in different languages?” You asked, putting some humour in the heavy conversation you would be diving into shortly.

“Obviously the different versions.” He shrugged with a teasing smile.

“Yes.” You took another small sip. “To both of those.”

He felt like he needed to stretch his neck. “I’m glad this came up.”

“I’m pretty sure you have one yourself, don’t you?” You licked your lips before taking some more dessert.

He took a sip of his wine. “Yes. I think.”

“From one to ten, how far up?” You asked, eyes sparkling bright.

“I would say eight. Maybe nine.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself. You’re safe with me. I was hoping that by now you knew I wouldn’t ever judge you.” You murmured, a pout on your lip.

“A solid nine. But I won’t go higher up. There’s some kinky stuff out there that I’m seriously not into.”

“What’s that?”

“Stuff like pacifiers and drawings and plushies and playing tea party. That’s not me.”

“No, I’m not into infantilization either.” You agreed. “Honestly I’m more of a brat than a baby girl.” Now that the ball was rolling it was easier getting to the core of things, using terms and explaining kinks. The initial dive is always traumatic, but now you only had to swim. Metaphorically speaking.

“I could tell.” he smirked. “Too teasing and independent to keep your head low and say “yes, sir”, aren’t you?”

“You got me.” You lifted your eyes to him, batting your lashes a couple times. “And where’s the fun in that? The fun is in the chase. All the sweet talking and the manhandling that lead to surrender and conquest. I need to be won, earned, deserved. Of course I will bend, but I want you to show me how much you want me, how far you’re willing to go to get me. If it suits my taste, I will give in.”

He swallowed and took another spoonful of tiramisu. You were getting to his head faster than the wine. “So you’re a brat.” He stated, then licking his lip.

You nodded.

“What else are you into?” He asked, his stare dark and serious.

You subtly clenched your legs. “I like the fight. I like the sensationof my partner overpowering me. But I also like feeling loved and taken care of.”

“That’s right and natural, darling.” He supported you.

You felt your body caving in slowly, the desire in his eyes felt intoxicating and the sweet understanding and tenderness oozing from his mouth made you want to please him immensely. You were already yielding without him even touching you. “I like rules.”

“Oh, you do, sweetie?” He lured you in, inviting you to share more details.

“They make me feel like the other person is giving me boundaries to protect me.” You confessed.

“I like those too.” He diminished the power imbalance between the two of you, showing you his more delicate side. “I like giving them. And I like receiving them. I also feel like the other person is teaching me how to respect them. How to love them right. And is also indirectly protecting me from harm.”

“That’s right.” You agreed. “That’s exactly how I feel.” You smiled shyly.

“Do you like punishment, in any forms?” He asked, his voice so delicate it felt like a butterfly landing on the tip of your nose.

You blushed and exhaled. “I like spankings.” You bit your lips, hiding your face in your hands.

He caressed your hands tenderly. “I’d love to spank your perfect ass, Vixen.”

You giggled at the nickname. He’d used it at the end of your fourth date, when your hand had started playing with his belt.

Mood lightened, you lifted your head, smiling brightly. “I like it barehanded. It’s my favourite. But I also like the paddle and the hairbrush.”

“Not afraid of bruises?” A shiver ran down his spine, even though his blood was boiling.

“Not really.” You took more dessert. He stared at the spoon as it disappeared in your mouth, your lips latching and sucking at the silverware. His eyes then moved to your fingers as they held the spoon elegantly but energetically. “Actually the more the better. But tell me about you.”

He took in a deep breath before exhaling quickly. “I like bruising. Of different sorts. As I said, I’d love to cover your behind in those, if you’ll ever allow me to, that is.” He put down the spoon after he realised he was gesticulating with it. Dangerous. He was getting dumber. “This might sound very horny teenager but I like hickeys. Loads of them. Like marking. I really like marking.”

Your attention sparked up. He could claim you like that whenever he wanted to.

“And other stuff like biting. Licking. A lot of mouth activity in general.” He admitted, toying with his hands and shifting in his seat.

You couldn’t contain a small squeal and a giggle. “Oral fixation. Sounds nice. I have that too. Official member of the oral squad.” You grinned as you saw the gleam in his eyes. You took a small pause analysing your next move. “However, I can assume from your size that you’re a lot.” You gestured to his shoulders and height.

He only opened his mouth, raising his eyebrows and averting his gaze.

“And my gag reflex sucks. So I can only guarantee you I’ll try. Enthusiastically. Over and over.”

He felt like evaporating. “The only thing that counts is that you’re okay with receiving.” He waited for your answer expectantly, eyebrows raised, heartbeat galloping.

“Yes. Anytime.” You deadpanned. Eyes already closing at the thought of his mouth between your legs. “But don’t expect me to be shy about it. I will ask for it. Repeatedly. Until I’m a blabbering mess.”

He could make you a blabbering mess right in that second. He took a deep breath. Don’t start thinking of that.

“Come on, say it.” You flirted.

He laughed his big old grandpa laugh. “Say what?” He looked at you, happy and excited.

“Come on, you’ve admitted it to national tv but won’t talk to me about it.”

“Oh, you mean porn.” He blushed to the tip of his ears. “Fuck. I’m so fucking dumb.”

“Just clumsy. It’s lovely.” You complimented. “It’s a nice contrast to the hot daddy look you have eighty percent of the time. But don’t get distracted. Talk to me about your voyeurism kink.” You spurred him on. You needed to unlock that part of him. Craved it.

“Okay, fine. but we’re getting back to the hot daddy part later.”

“I’ll make sure of that.” You quipped. God, the chemistry was getting insane.

"Honestly, back then I used to watch it a lot more. Now I'm sort of… Lazier. It's so difficult finding what I like, and actually liking it the way it is carried out."

"Like, you're not sure you like how they're doing it." You suggested.

He clicked his tongue in agreement. "Yes. And it just lacks that… Spark. The intimacy, you know."

"Yeah, I know. That's why I one night stands aren’t it for me. I need to build that trust.” You admitted.

"I feel the same. And I get it, sex is amazing and everything, but only when you do it right. Like — with the right person. Someone that understands you and someone you're free enough to do it with. Someone you know, mentally and emotionally."

"Sex that comes from knowing and understanding is so much more intense." You said with a dreamy tone.

He looked at your face, longing blatant on your lineaments. He wished he could give you that. He wished he could take it from you. "That's the right word. Intense. You know, like the way lovers look at each other, like ‘yeah, I know your tits look great but you know what looks even greater? The way your chest flushes when you're close and your eyelids flutter and you subconsciously wet your lip with that little, oh-so-familiar flick of tongue’."

You felt your body soften at the words, secretly answering to his description. "You just explained intimacy." You agreed, nodding along and picking up a spoonful of dessert.

"That's why I watch a lot more amateur stuff these days. I would never have the audacity to film anything — too risky for my taste — but I like watching, at least."

"And how do you feel about watching… Live?" You asked, curious but also guarded.

"You mean watching my partner as she touches herself?" He asked, eyes blown wide.

"Yes." You said, shrugging.

He licked his lips and gulped, though his mouth was awfully dry. Wine. That's what he needed.

As he downed a large sip, you waited for his answer expectantly, almost ready to change topic when he started talking.

"Yeah." His voice was deeper now and an obscure part of you stood to attention, your hearing enhanced to capture any order he was ready to give you. None came. "I would love to. I love looking at a confident woman showing off her lingerie — and don’t think I forgot about your little collection.” He licked his lips and parted his legs, trying to ease his discomfort. “Sadly, I think that the vision would be an exercise in restraint, since I have zero patience and I can't stand being provoked. But I would watch, were she to touch herself with bare hands or with… Toys."

Lord, save me. You thought, your legs squeezing tighter.

This time it seemed Namjoon had noticed, although he did not show any reaction except for a cocky smirk, which he hid readily.

"If it's such an exercise in patience maybe some restraints could help you rein yourself in." You suggested.

"Being tied up by you as I watch you take off your lovely, expensive lingerie set and then watch you touch yourself? Is that what you're asking me?"

"A girl can dream." You teased with a cheshire grin.

"Good thing dreams do sometimes come true." He suggested, an eyebrow raised, mouth quirked to the side, panty-dropping dimple in tow.

You smiled and moved half an inch closer to him.

"You said once you did it a lot more. How much then and how much now?

"Well, back then I did it at least once a day or every two days. Now it's three times a week, roughly." He looked just slightly ashamed, but not really. You couldn't quite decypher his mind in that second. "May I ask about your… Needs."

Your brow creased, fingers entangling. "If I watch stuff? Or how often?"

He looked stuck somewhere in his brain and you tried helping him out. "Yeah."

Both, then. "Not films. Usually it's just pictures or short clips. When I'm especially needy I might listen to audios—”

"Of people having sex?"

You nodded. "Yeah, or just having some alone fun-time. "

God, he wanted one of those. Of you. "That sounds interesting."

"Sounds interesting in more ways than one, indeed." You offered back with an innuendo.

Your silver tongue and quick brains would be the end of him. "Talking with you is like a dangerous tango. Like that scene from Mr and Mrs Jones."

You laughed. "I'll have to catch up on that one."

"We could watch it together, next time." He suggested.

"I'd love to." You were sure that watching the film would probably be the last thing you’ll do. If you did it at all… "About frequency…" You took a pause, trying to verbalise decently what you felt wasn't decent at all. "I must say I'm quite high maintenance."

He poked your side, leaning across the sofa, but staying respectfully two feet away from you. He wanted to see if you would come closer. "Don't be shy. You made me grade my daddiness, now grade how needy you are from one to ten."

"Nine?" You were getting panicked. "Ten?"

"How often, baby?" His voice was so deep and husky it made your stomach shake with the reverberations of it.

"Like normally at least once a day?" You confessed in a shrill, insecure voice.

He nodded with a dark smirk. "Very needy indeed." He turned towards you slightly, his body language showing openness and inviting you to cuddle up next to him.

He wanted to touch you. Platonically. He wanted to comfort you throughout this conversation as you opened up and showed your vulnerabilities to him, but he also wanted to respect the distance you were keeping. Little did he know it was just a facade. All you wanted was to feel his hands combing your hair, his solid chest pillowing your head, his lips whispering sweet nothings at your ear.

"So you said you like rules, spankings, power struggles and discipline, anything oral, toys and mature content. Anything else you need me to know, little vixen?" He asked, and the addition of "little" to your nickname made you understand that you were completely out of your mind for this man. You were ready for anything he commanded you.

"I like restraints." You admitted. "I tend to fight back a little unless my daddy sweet talks me into things. Sometimes I like feeling a bit helpless, like my daddy can manhandle me and maneuver me into positions. That's why I like harnesses and cuffs, especially thigh cuffs. Also spreader bars. And manacles. I don't like handcuffs, they hurt and leave marks which are a bit difficult to hide, and embarrassing to explain."

Namjoon's mouth watered at the thought of thigh cuffs. Of the way your flesh would swell there, of how much skin there would be to bite. However, he also realised he had a lot to learn about you. And he needed to learn new things to play with you.

"I am absolutely okay with that. I must admit I have never explored this deeply into restraints, so I need to tell you I'm inexperienced with stuff like spreader bars and bondage. I know basic knots for wrists, but that's it. I don't usually have much patience for shibari and the likes. The furthest I've gone is handcuffs and using ribbons or belts, on wrists only." He explained.

"That's okay. Bondage is something too tricky for me too. Lengthy." You admitted. "Do you have any special need I should know of?"

"Not really. Except privacy and absolute monogamy." He states coldly. "I like experimenting, and you mentioned a spreader bar earlier. I'd love to try that. Both on you and on myself. Same thing about manacles. They seem less aggressive than handcuffs."

You nodded and explained further. "The pressure is distributed on a wider surface, which minimises the risk of injuries and markings. Especially on rebellious… individuals." You chose your word carefully.

Namjoon bit his lip and hummed in understanding. By now the discourse was getting highly technical, the need to verify and negotiate interests and limits coming to the surface. "We're both voyeurs, but I'll ask anyway, what about blindfolds?"

"Soft limit. Really depends on how you handle it. I need constant reassurance and guidance, it really destabilizes me."

"Understood. I might be into those when paired with sensation play, but we'll get into that when the time is right." He conceded tenderly. "Just one last thing, baby. I need to know your hard limits. Stuff you really don't want to do."

"Degradation and humiliation are a big no no. My second — and most recent — relationship was with a degrading bastard. He hurt me in ways I'm not comfortable remembering."

"Okay, love." He looked you in the eyes and waited a second for your approval before caressing your face in comfort.

"Stuff like hardcore BDSM, water sports, triple penetration and most anal play. And asphyxiation or choking."

Namjoon nodded quickly. "Anything else?"

"Okay, orgasm denial and chastity devices are an absolute no. That should be it, about hard limits. There are a few things that make me safeword but that I can stand to a certain point, like edging, blindfolds, and touch deprivation."

Namjoon nodded once more, waiting for you to finish."Okay. I think that the only stuff I might meddle with is blindfolds and edging. I have no interest in controlling your orgasms — our aim is to please." He winked and smirked at you, your knees growing weaker and weaker. "Also, believe me when I say I tend to assume a very nourishing and protective role, therefore it would go against my nature to humiliate you or degrade you. I don't intend to attack your emotional stability, so if you're interested, we can tackle the problem with blindfolds a bit at a time. Same with edging, we'll take baby steps if you decide you trust me and want to give me the honour of trying." His brow creased as he tried to remember the other thing he wanted to say. "Oh, about touch deprivation, I always need my little one close to me, so you should never feel touch starved." He took a meditative pause." And I intend to touch you a lot, baby."

You shivered and leaned closer to him, attracted to the comfortable nook he was creating while leaning on his side against the back cushions of your sofa. It looked so warm. And safe.

He noticed your wandering glance and quickened the pace. He had ideas. And he needed you closer.

"My hard limits are including other people in our intimate life. I don't share like that." He warned perentoriously. "Also, you know my clumsiness. If there's any chance that it could damage you, then there's no going that way. I'm thinking of stuff like knife play and kinks that involve obviously dangerous material. Like violet wands. Anything involving hardcore BDSM, suspension play, infantilization and dubious consent is a non-negotiable hard limit. Are you still with me, baby?"

You nodded, making eye contact.

"Good. I might be interested in some anal play. No penetration and no strap-ons. Maybe rimming. Both giving and receiving. But we'll see. Same for sensation play." He scratched his neck, trying to think of things he doesn't like doing. "I don't like being edged and I have poor control of myself, so orgasm control and denial are kind of softish limits." And then you noticed the shift, like his spine getting straighter, his shoulders rolling back in the process, looking broader, still his voice came out sweet and caring. "Listen carefully now, little vixen. I have little tolerance for disobedience and insubordination. If you have a temper or challenge my dominance, you will have to face consequences. Also, I like claiming my partner entirely. What is mine is mine. I don’t like sharing. Infidelity is a deal breaker. Understood, ____?"

"Yes, sir." You replied, automatically, without even intending too. You did’t feel ready for that title. And sir felt neutral enough.

"Such nice manners." He praised with a proud smile. "Now, would you like to come closer, baby?"

You batted your eyes a couple times. You were sliding into subspace quickly and you found yourself questioning whether it was a good idea to get closer. Still, your body was faster than your brain, making you nod and crawl next to him, settling inside his embrace. "Can I sit on your lap, Joonie?"

He blushed, smiling kindly at you. He was beginning to melt at your complicated charms. "Of course, babe." He sat elegantly with his back leaning against the sofa, legs slightly parted so you could place yourself between them, your thighs across his and your side pressed to his front as his arms slowly wrapped around you, ready to retreat at your first show of discomfort. "Does it feel nice, darling?"

"Yes." You whispered. You were so close to him, his body warm while the late summer night felt chilly on your skin.

He cupped your cheek with his hand and pulled your head to his breastbone, building a calm cocoon for you. "You mentioned I look like a hot daddy before. Care to elaborate, little one?"

You purred at his term of endearment, cuddling into him some more. "You look so hot with your glasses on. Sometimes I close my eyes and still see you in your outfit for Gayo Daechukje in 2019. Grey three piece suit, necktie and glasses. Everyone was fantasising about you as their hot kinky professor in classroom roleplay."

He had some troubles reminiscing the details, but he saved in his mind some keywords. Glasses, suit, necktie, kinky professor roleplay. With your face burrowed in his chest, he propped his chin on top of you hair, his spare hand soothing your skin from your waist to your knee, raising goosebumps in its wake.

"Did that outfit cause discomfort, baby thing?" He questioned, hands caressing your hair gently.

"It did fuel some steamy dreams, yes." You conceded.

"And did you wake up all hot and bothered for me?' He kept teasing.

"Mh mh." You confirmed, head nodding slowly and timidly.

His chest shook in a breathy laugh. "Poor little girl, so desperate for the hot professor."

He sounded so cruel, basking in your needy struggles. "I'm so lucky I'm a smart girl who can take care of herself." You counterattacked.

"Smart indeed. But now that I know maybe I can take care of it for you." He pressed a kiss to your head. It was the first time he did a gesture so tender and so intimate.

"What else gets my little girl all ticklish and lightheaded?" He asked, curling tighter against you and around you.

"When you call me little." You admitted.

"Do you like it, ____?“

“Yes, Joonie. I like it a lot." You replied meeting his gaze.

He leaned down and pressed the tip of his nose to your earlobe, a spot he had discovered during your first make out session. "What if I whispered it here, little vixen?"

Your eyes closed, lost in sensations, your insides clenching so violently that your body followed the movement, knees pressing against each other, thighs squeezing for relief.

"I guess you really like this spot, am I right, little girl?" He pushed you closer and you started recognising the shape of him against your hip. The basketball shorts he was wearing did no good job at hiding him.

"Please Joonie."

"Please what, darling?" He pressed his lips there, kissing you with a featherlight touch, impossible to perceive, were not for the sound of his disclosing lips. The tip of his tongue met the skin there, your back arching into him. "When I first saw you you looked like a wet dream, _____, in your smart formal attire, looking like the most confident, adult, unbreakable woman in the world. Legs for days and an ass I wanna bite like a ripe, juicy peach. You looked polished like a model, negotiating over the price of a painting in a private gallery. You looked so damn hot." He bit into your neck, moving your hair aside. "You looked like the most refined and expensive thing I have ever seen. Polished, edgy. So sexy." He bit into you again.

This time you whimpered.

"I thought I stood no chance, with my clumsy character and boyish ways." He giggled, and his voice vibrated against your throat. "Now you're in my arms, all cosy and needy, begging me to please you with your big doll eyes and pretty, plush lips, behaving like the cutest, sweetest little girl I could ever dream of." He sucked at the column of your throat gently, hard enough to cause a blush but soft enough to avoid a bruise. He leaned closer to your ear. "You're my fucking wet dream, Vixen."

You whined loudly, turning your head towards him, hoping he would put you out of misery and kiss you.

Instead he grabbed your cheeks passionately and murmured on your mouth, staring intently in your eyes. "All mine. To enjoy, to ruin. But most importantly to protect and nourish and care for." He kissed you like you were made of porcelain, lips stiff against yours, afraid of letting go. "What do you want, little girl?"

You stared with equal intensity in his eyes. "Kiss me. Please, daddy, I'll be so good to you." You had no problem using his title this time, your brain completely surrendering to him.

"Good girl." And as you felt your lungs bloom at the praise, wetness pooling between your legs, you slowly gave in to him, opening your mouth, letting his tongue dance with yours, mixing with the fruity taste of the wine and the creamy texture of the dessert. His hand stayed at your waist while the other, once gripping your face, slithered into your hair and cupped your nape, dragging you closer. You didn't know what to do with your hands.

He kept kissing you as your lungs began burning, his technique impeccable. He kissed you thoroughly, licking your tongue and angling your head to give you access to his mouth. He fuelled your desire with short jabs of his chin, giving you the feeling of him caving in but then retreating and making you chase him. It was… Heady.

"We need to stop, little one. We need to take our time." He exhaled heavily, his cheek against your forehead as he calmed down. "Why don't we cuddle as we watch something?" He suggested.

"No more making out?" You cried out in tiny disappointment.

"You told me not to get ideas. First I'll learn about you. Properly. Then, when my brain gives me the green light, I guarantee you my body won't hold back. Just, give me time, ____.” He explained, controlled and at the same time empathetic.

You nodded in understanding, caressing his face and pressing a kiss to his chest. "I wanna kiss you again though."

"Don't worry, baby, we'll have the chance later. Let me calm myself down first." He replied, adjusting you in his lap, trying to separate you enough for decency.

You were glad that at least the dampness between your thighs was matched by the severity of his hard on.

"What do you say, I go to the bathroom, recompose myself real quick while you choose something to watch?"

You agreed.

Date five finished with a sweet kiss at the doorstep as he left after the film you watched together.

However the following morning you found a lengthy paragraph in your chat with Namjoon containing a detailed description of his intentions towards you. Let's just say you were glad for the girthy, buzzing friend you keep in your bedside table and for its assistence as you read his text and crumbled, calling his name.

#bangtan sonyeondan #bts smut #kim namjoon #kim namjoon smut #namjoon x reader #namjoon one shot #Namjoon fanfiction #namjoon smut #namjoon fic

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spine-buster · 4 years

Text

The President Wears Prada (William Nylander) | Chapter 12

A/N: Thank you all so much for the positive feedback on the last chapter despite very minimal Willy/Aberdeen interaction. This chapter and the ones coming will definitely make up for it.

December 15th, 2019

Aberdeen Bloom was trying to get into the biggest gated house she’d ever seen in her life.

She’d taken an Uber up to the Bridle Path, the exclusive street in Toronto filled with massive mansions the size of her high school with their own private gates and tennis courts and and pools and indoor pools and indoor basketball courts and bowling alleys and wine cellars and all the other frivolous things rich people could build in their houses. She bet each one even had a heated driveway so that nobody in the house had to wake up at the crack of dawn to shovel. The Uber driver had already driven away, not even bothering to wait to see if she got in safely, so she hoped to be let in soon.

“Name, please?” a loud voice asked through the intercom-or-whatever-it-was system these rich people had for their house. She bet they probably had cameras too and saw her impatiently waiting outside.

“Aberdeen Bloom.”

“Abba-what?”

She rolled her eyes. “Aberdeen Bloom,” she enunciated more clearly. “Brendan Shanahan’s personal assistant.” She was starting to get annoyed that she had to attach that caveat for anybody in the hockey world or the rich people world to take her seriously.

The gate buzzed open, and Aberdeen walked quickly towards the front entrance, about the ring the doorbell before it opened magically for her. A butler. A butler opened the door for her and greeted her, offering to take her coat and letting her know she could keep her shoes on. There were waiters and waitresses carrying around plates of expensive looking hors d’oeuvres and others carrying around flutes of champagne. There was a giant, giant Christmas tree in the – the foyer? The reception hall? What did rich people call these things? – decorated with expensive looking ornaments, ribbons, and what Aberdeen thought had to be Swarovski crystals. It had to be at least 15 or 20 feet high. It was a far cry from her family’s Christmas tree, which was decorated with all the homemade ornaments she, Siena, and Camden had made throughout their years in school. She almost felt like she was in the Eaton Centre. There were even boxes upon boxes of presents underneath it, all wrapped with the same wrapping paper and with giant nametags. Jolly Christmas carols were being played through some sort of speaker.

She couldn’t believe rich people lived like this. She couldn’t believe she was in a house on the Bridle Path with these rich people. What had her life become?

“Aberdeen!” she heard her name being called. She looked to her side to see Brendan approaching her, leaving his wife speaking to whoever they were speaking to for a quick second. “So nice to see you! You look lovely as always.”

“Oh, thanks Brendan.”

“Come with me,” he said, guiding her towards the people he was speaking to. “Aberdeen, I want you to meet Dani Reiss, whose house we’re in. Dani’s the CEO of Canada Goose. Dani, this is my executive assistant, Aberdeen Bloom.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Aberdeen,” he said as they shook hands. Aberdeen was hyperaware of his handshake and the fact that she was shaking hands with yet another billionaire. She truly, truly couldn’t understand what her life had become. She wished Siena or Kasha were here to do all the talking. They were much better at it than she was, she thought. “How are you enjoying working for the Toronto Maple Leafs?”

Aberdeen chuckled nervously. She wondered if he really cared, but then remembered that they were having their Christmas party at his house, and he’d gone through all this trouble to keep them entertained, so he probably did. “Oh, it’s amazing! A bit hectic at times, but overall it’s been a great experience so far. Everyone’s just been so great and welcoming – you wouldn’t even know that I didn’t watch hockey before I got the job.”

That led to a chuckle amongst Brendan, Catherine, and Dani. “I bet a million people would kill for your job,” Dani commented through his laugh.

There it was again. That thing everybody said to her when they learned what her job was. She’d heard it for months now, since her first day on the job, and it was becoming abundantly clear with each passing day that it was something many people coveted. “I know, sir. I’m very lucky to have it and to work with such an incredible team.”

Out of the corner of her eye she could see Brendan smile. Dani was already smiling at her. “Well Aberdeen, mi casa es su casa! Feel free to take a wander, grab some drinks, and enjoy the food!”

She thanked them as they left her there, walking towards another group with Leanne Hederson. Aberdeen walked further into the foyer where the giant Christmas tree was, admiring it for a moment before looking around to see if she could see anybody she recognized. She knew that, at this point, she could walk up to any member of the team or the administration and join in on their conversation, but the setting was slightly different than what she was used to (at the offices, of course) and it made her a bit nervous.

“Brendan girl?”

Aberdeen visibly cringed. She looked to her side to see her absolute favourite person in the whole entire world, Ethan Baker, walking over to her with a drink in his hands. “Why are you here?”

She rolled her eyes at him. He did this at every event they attended, as if she wasn’t allowed to be there. “You constantly forget we work for the same team,” she said.

“Yeah, except one of our jobs is more important than the other,” he quipped. She felt like punching him right then and there until she remembered this was a Christmas party at a billionaire’s mansion and it was socially frowned upon to start fights at parties. “I didn’t know assistants were allowed to these things.”

“Peter’s here.”

“Doesn’t that mean you two should be helping the waiters?”

Aberdeen’s jaw dropped. “What is your problem?” she demanded.

“Aw, come on, I’m just ribbing you.”

“You know, just because I got the job over you—”

“—Cause you look really hot in those pants, Brendan girl.”

She stopped. She was shocked at what he’d just said. It had to be because he was already drunk. She couldn’t think of another plausible expectation. She couldn’t believe how hot and cold he was at these sorts of events, remembering what he was like at the Major Donor Gala. “Besides,” she said through gritted teeth, “being a waiter isn’t something to be frowned upon. A lot of my friends waited their way through university.”

“And you didn’t be a waitress or hostess? With the way you look, you would have gotten really good tips.”

She felt like spiders were crawling underneath her skin. She thought back to that day where she let him get in her head – when he’d called her a piggy for warming up a burrito. “Are you trying to flirt with me? Because you’re failing miserably.”

“I’m trying to—”

“Aberdeen!”

She looked to her side to see an excited looking Bee McTavish making a beeline towards her. Bee somewhat-stared, somewhat-glared at Ethan as she hooked her arm with Aberdeen’s. “You don’t mind if I steal her, do you? A bunch of her friends are just over there,” she nodded her head towards a group that included Jason and Jennifer Spezza, Morgan, and John and Aryne Tavares.

“I’m her friend,” Ethan quipped, smiling.

“I’m sure,” Bee nodded her head, grimacing every so slightly. “Have a good night,” she dismissed him before tugging on Aberdeen’s arm and leading her in the opposite direction. “God, that guy is such a skeeze,” she whispered to Aberdeen.

“Yeah.”

“Does he work here?”

“Tech and video playback,” Aberdeen informed her.

“Well, you’re with us now,” Bee smiled as she brought Aberdeen into the fold of the group.

Aberdeen greeted and hugged everyone before noticing Will at the tail end. She gave him a quick hug and a – God he smelled impeccable – and a cordial ‘Nice to see you!’ before he settled into his usual William behaviour. “What do you think?” he asked.

She knew he was waiting for one of her famous retorts. She took another look at his look: blonde hair, navy blue up top and an actual pair of burnt orange pants. She wondered if his fashionable status edged on the side of completely insane. Everything was tailored to perfection, and nothing was wrinkled or anything like that, but she couldn’t get over the orange pants. “You look like Sailor Venus.”

Everybody burst out into laughter. Even William smiled from ear to ear. “Alright alright, very funny Aberdeen.”

“You know I’m right.”

The group talked about their Christmas plans. This was Aryne and John’s first Christmas with baby Jace, so it was going to be extremely special for them. Morgan’s parents and brother were flying in from Vancouver to spend time with him and Bee. It was also Jason and Jennifer’s first Christmas in Toronto with their four girls – even though Jason was from here – so that was another special event that they’d be hosting at their house. William would probably be Skyping with his family in Sweden, having his own version of a family Christmas. It was unfortunate that whatever plans the boys had with their families would have to be cut short slightly because they had a game in New Jersey on the 27th, and it was even more unfortunate that because of a game in Minnesota, they’d all be away from their families on New Year’s – Aberdeen included. It was the first time she would be out of Toronto for New Year’s, and not spending the night with her family or out with her friends.

Jason and Jennifer ended up giving Aberdeen a tour of the parts of the house they’d already explored, with William following behind them somewhat lazily. She saw Ethan at one point and could feel him staring at her. There were a couple of different food stations, and she picked up some sushi and other appetizers on the way around. The house was expansive, and again, she couldn’t believe rich people lived like this. She could only imagine what the bedrooms looked like, or the basement, where she was sure there were ridiculous things like a bowling alley, or a 10,000 bottle wine cellar, or a home theatre.

Dani Reiss ended up calling Jason and Jennifer over, so Aberdeen found herself alone with William. William seemed to enjoy the situation, as he always did – the smirk on his face revealing all – but when Aberdeen looked past him, she saw Ethan staring at her again, pretending to talk to his colleague who worked in tech and video playback. She bit her lip nervously. She knew she couldn’t let him get to her, but he already had once before and it almost cost her the job she had – the one he so desperately wanted. She couldn’t let him keep doing this to her. She needed to be strong. She needed to be—

“Aberdeen.”

William’s stern voice broke her out of her trance. “What?”

“Did you hear anything I just said about how nice you look?”

“N—N—Yeah…yeah yeah, thanks,” she said absent-mindedly.

That wasn’t a normal reaction from her at all whenever he complimented her looks. Usually it was an eye-roll and a ‘stop it!’. William discreetly looked over his shoulder to where she was looking. He saw Ethan look away once he caught him. He whipped his head back towards her. “Is he messing with you?” William asked, his voice low.

“What? No no,” Aberdeen shook her head quickly. “Don’t worry about it—”

“Aberdeen, if he’s messing with you, I’ll fucking kill him—”

“Will, no,” she stressed. “Just leave it alone.”

“Is he bothering you?”

“No.”

“What was he saying to you earlier?”

“Nothing,” she said. There was no way she was going to tell him. “Just…just stupid stuff. Work stuff. It was honestly nothing.”

“You’d tell me, right?” William said. He’d asked that question before. She couldn’t discern his tone of voice but by the way he was looking at her she knew he was dead serious and knew there was at least a hint of worry. “You’d tell me if he said something, right? If he made you feel uncomfortable? Because I’ve already tried to talk to Babs about it, and I know he’s gone now but I have no problem speaking to someone on your behalf if you’re too scared to.”

She felt like telling him. She really did. But she couldn’t – not now, at the Christmas party, and not ever, because it was something she needed to deal with on her own. Somehow, at least. She didn’t know how she was going to deal with it, only that she had to. So instead, Aberdeen shook her head. “It’s fine, Will. Don’t worry. And yes. I’d tell you.”

So it was a little white lie. Who hadn’t told a little white lie in their life?

William visibly relaxed at her words. He finished his drink and placed it on the tray of a passing server. “You ready to go outside?”

“Outside?” Aberdeen looked at Will strangely. “It’s the middle of December. We’re staying inside, thank you very much.”

“Nooooo no no no no,” he chuckled and shook his head. He went to grab her hand but then remembered where he was, pulling it back towards his body. “Come on. Come with me. You’re in for the surprise of your life.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Hey Aberdeen! Willy! You coming or what?” Jennifer Spezza called out as she waved them down from the sliding doors leading to the backyard. “Come on! It’s time to skate!”

Aberdeen threw William a confused look. “Skate?”

They made their way towards the door, and when Aberdeen stepped through the threshold, she couldn’t believe what she saw: an entire skating rink – boards and everything – where she presumed Dani’s tennis court was, where some people were already skating. There were lights, people were laughing, and there was even a whole skate rental helping out. There were even fucking portable heaters. Again, she couldn’t believe rich people lived like this. She couldn’t believe that Dani would offer up his house, hire all the waiting staff, hire the catering staff, buy all those gifts, flood an entire portion of his backyard, and put up a skating rink so he could give the Maple Leafs a Christmas party. Those closer she walked to the rink with William, Jason, and Jennifer, the more she couldn’t believe it.

“What size are you, miss?”

“Uh, I’m a seven in regular shoes…” she said, not knowing if that made a difference. The person turned around to look for skates, and Aberdeen turned towards William. “I’m…I’m not good at skating at all.”

“You don’t have to be,” he smiled. “You’ve got a team full of hockey players to help you along, minskatt.”

“No no. I’m not just, like, saying that to be cute or whatever,” she said. She needed to make that abundantly clear because she was sure she was going to make a complete ass of herself. “I’m not good at skating. I don’t even know how to tie them up properly.”

“Again, you have a whole hockey team at your disposal,” William said with a giggle in his voice. When the skates were handed over, Jason took them before Aberdeen could. “You gonna lace her up?” William asked him.

“I’ve got it,” Jason nodded his head. “Aberdeen, go sit on the bench. And give me your right foot.”

Aberdeen felt powerless as she did as she was told. Jason shoved the skate onto her foot and kept it between his legs to tighten them and lace them up. Jennifer put on her own skates right beside her, and William was on her other side doing the same. “I feel like one of your children,” Aberdeen joked to them.

Jason smiled. “You’re practically the same age as Sophia.”

“Am not!” Aberdeen protested. “Sophia was born in 2010!”

“Yeah, and you’re born in 98. I’m born in 83. There’s fifteen years between you and I, but only twelve between you and Sophia,” Jason said.

“It’s practically the same thing!”

“No. You’re a baby,” Jason chuckled. “The both of you,” he nodded his head towards William, “are babies.”

Once her skates and helmet were fully on, and tight enough so her ankles weren’t moving so they wouldn’t snap in half, Aberdeen wobbled her way over towards the ice rink. She looked out onto the ice and saw Bee skating, screaming as she slipped and fell right into Frederik Andersen’s arms. The both of them laughed heartily as he held on to her like a knight in shining armour would catch his princess. Morgan called out to them in a joking manner, feigning disgust and annoyance.

“Aberdeen?” she heard William’s soft voice. Jason and Jennifer were already on the ice. She hadn’t even seen them get on. She had taken a while to psych herself up, apparently. “You okay?”

“I’m just being an idiot,” she shook her head, embarrassed.

“You’re not being an idiot, minskatt.”

“Says the guy who was in skates before he was in shoes with soles,” she tried to joke. “I work for a hockey team and I don’t even know how to skate well.”

Aberdeen watched as William extended his head. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll teach you.”

“Will—”

“Think of it this way,” he began. “If you fall and crack your head open, you’ll probably suffer memory loss and forget who I am.”

Aberdeen snorted and laughed out loud. She needed to hand it to William – he knew how to calm her down and diffuse any stress. “You’re the worst, Will,” she chuckled out.

“I know I am. Now come on.”

Aberdeen took his hand and stepped onto the ice gingerly. William pulled her away from the edge of the rink slowly. “Okay, bend your knees,” he began. “You can’t skate with tight legs.”

For an almost embarrassingly long time, William taught Aberdeen the basic ins and outs of skating. He was patient with her as he skated back and forth with her, pushing and pulling her along. He’d grab her if she tripped, wrapped his arms around her if she almost slipped and fell, and tried to make her laugh as much as possible. Jason would join in sometimes, holding her other hand as he and William pulled her along. Jennifer and Bee acted like her own personal cheerleaders. Eventually, she got the hang of it, able to skate around without having her hands out to balance her and with the ability to turn along the edges. Morgan skated by and joked she was going to replace William on the line with John. The smile on her face and giggle in her voice could light up the night sky.

For William, it was the best part of the night by far.

***

Brendan was so happy that everybody was having fun; so happy to see the smiles on people’s faces as they skated around the rink, running into each other like bumper cars and taking group pictures. He loved seeing the comradery of his team outside the rink – the comradery of his entire organization outside of the offices. The Christmas party was a huge success, and he couldn’t be happier.

As he leaned his forearms down against the boards outside the rink, he watched everybody having a good time. A few of the players skated by to have a quick chat. Auston came first, then Jason and Freddie Gauthier together.

“What a great party!” William smiled as he skated up to him, looking out at everyone having fun on the ice.

Brendan nodded his head. “We’re lucky Dani invited us and did all this for us. Much better than some stuffy dinner, I think.”

“Definitely,” William agreed, nodding his head.

Brendan nodded his head too, following William’s line of sight. Aberdeen was posing with Bee McTavish, Aryne Tavares, and Courtney Muzzin. Brendan smiled. “Be careful, William.”

William’s brows furrowed at his words as he turned to look at him. “Sir?”

“She can’t do anything with you until she leaves,” Brendan said, standing upright. “And you can’t do anything with her.”

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polaristranslations · 3 years

Text

Shinobu Mustard Episode 5

036

In the end, Shinobu seemed to have given up on showing off, and thus Araragi Koyomi appeared to have lost the opportunity to show off his skills as an actor.

Once they actually met, such a contrived scheme would have been ridiculous—thinking about it, Suicidemaster was essentially sealed in the form of a little girl, too, so in terms of being a disgrace of a vampire, she was on the same level.

Incidentally, I was using vague wording like "seemed to" and "appeared to" because, along the way, the two little girls had put the humans (including the god that was formerly human) off to the side by beginning to speak in a foreign language—but what language was it, exactly?

Perhaps a language that had been used in one of the many countries that had been destroyed by "Princess Beauty"—regardless, we'd been completely left behind.

However, watching the two little girls act so cheerfully was such a pleasant sight that I couldn't get mad. It felt like the first time I was seeing Shinobu make such expressions, and from what I could tell, Suicidemaster seemed to be warmly greeting her old friend after such a long time. It was possible that some effect of the mummification remained, because she didn't seem to be able to pick herself up off of the rush mat, but her expressiveness made it clear that shew as truly glad to have reunited with Shinobu.

In a way, it was like our hard work had been rewarded—although, I suppose most of it was just me needlessly worrying.

Not to mention, you could say things had gone just as planned.

The interrogation. About the serial vampirism incident.

Assuming Shinobu hadn't forgotten about our original objective...

"They seem pretty happy, and the conversation seems to be going smoothly, so let's leave Hachikuji-chan to be the witness while we humans step away for a moment. Koyomin, come here."

"Huh? Um, no, but, Shinobu is tied to my shadow, so..."

"I set things up so that within the barrier, the two of you can act separately even while maintaining your pairing, so it's fine. Hachikuji-chan, I'll leave it to you."

"Yes, leave it to me!"

Hm? Putting aside the fact that Hachikuji had become a loyal subordinate to a person of power despite being a god, what did she mean?

We could act separately?

I wondered if I could do such a thing—wasn't it like the pairing between Shinobu and me was severed, even if it was in a limited area? And did that mean Gaen-san had anticipated from the beginning that their reunion would go well? To put up such a complex barrier—no, before that.

Regardless of whether it went well, had Gaen-san made plans for Shinobu and I to act separately from the beginning?

I didn't really understand her intentions—but, with Shinobu not introducing me to Suicidemaster as her slave, I couldn't exactly interrupt their conversation (the foreign language courses I chose were English and Spanish. Hola!), I guess I had no choice but to follow Gaen-san. Whatever Gaen-san was planning after recovering from the darkness, or mud, in the hearts of those high school girls, I had better hear about those plans—

"I would've liked it if she could have reunited with Shishirui Seishirou in the same way."

That was what Gaen-san murmured, with her words feeling more meaningful than just light conversation, as she led me through the house. And our destination ended up being Kanbaru's room—she sure knew her way around someone else's home. As expected of the onee-san who knew everything.

She was well aware of the location of her niece's room.

"If you know anything about architecture, you can pretty much tell the layout of the rooms from outside—but this is pretty awful. So, like my sister, Suruga's a messy girl, too."

However, it seemed she'd been surprised by the mess, giving her impressions in a shocked manner as she entered the room.

"I'm sorry. Normally I was supposed to have come and cleaned her room yesterday, but Higasa-chan was there, and if I went and started cleaning in front of her friend, Kanbaru would lose face."

"If that's true, then it's exceedingly mysterious why you would go out of your way to care for Suruga like that, Koyomin. Rather than just Suruga's senior, it's almost like you're her mom."

You're even more motherly than her actual mother, said Gaen-san.

I'd been described in many different ways before, but being described as motherly might be a first for me. But, being compared to the famous Gaen Tooe-san didn't exactly make me happy.

"So, what's the matter, Gaen-san? I know Hachikuji is watching over them, but Shinobu and Miss Suicidemaster—or should I say, Little Miss Suicidemaster? Well, it doesn't really matter, but I do feel a bit uneasy just leaving them on their own."

From the atmosphere around them, it didn't seem like it would suddenly turn into a scene of carnage with them saying "I came to eat you, Shinobu" and "I'll let you eat me" or anything, but I wasn't too optimistic—to get to the point, oddities were oddities because you couldn't predict what they might do in the next instant.

I wanted to return as soon as possible.

"I have two pieces of bad news," said Gaen-san.

With my life as it was, it wasn't too surprising to hear that there was no good news, but for there to be two pieces of bad news.

That was twice the sense of foreboding.

"I'll keep it short. The first is that the last missing member of the girls' basketball team, Kiseki Souwa-chan—her belongings were discovered."

"Her belongings... Just her belongings?"

"Yes. Not just her cell phone and school bag, but her school uniform, gym clothes, and basshoes. Ah, 'basshoes' means..."

"Basketball shoes. I've read 'Slam Dunk', too, so I know what it means. But... Finding only her belongings but not the girl herself...?"

I wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing that her mummy hadn't been discovered yet, but the fact that only her belongings were found was certainly bad news—or, perhaps not bad, but ominous.

In the same way you can't start a particularly pleasant story with a school bag being abandoned by the road—I could only assume that something had happened to Kiseki-chan.

"Where were they discovered? In her room, or...?"

Remembering that the second mummy, Honnou Aburi-chan, had been discovered in her room, I brought up the location that would be least discomforting for her belongings to be discovered.

"That's a good line of thought," said Gaen-san. "Where they were discovered was in the gymnasium of Naoetsu High, in a locker in the girls' locker room."

"The girls' locker room...?"

"Don't react to the thought of the girls' locker room. No need to worry, I had a female investigator perform the search."

"It wasn't like I was wondering why you hadn't sent me to perform that task."

Regardless of whether they were male or female, Gaen-san had already crossed a line at the moment she sent an outsider into the school—she was always this sort of person, I suppose.

Alternatively, perhaps there was a student currently attending Naoetsu High that held a connection to Gaen-san, like me last year—it was certainly a possibility.

"More precisely, it's the girls' locker room exclusively used by the girls' basketball team. Each member is provided with their own locker."

The girls' basketball team sure was treated favorably.

If there was stuff like that, I guess it could be pretty hard to quit.

It was all thanks to Kanbaru's achievements, and I couldn't deny that the rest of the athletic department was a bit sloppy—but, in that case, though it wasn't as good as her own room, her locker wasn't all that discomforting to find her belongings in, right?

"In the first place, even if your subordinate managed to invade the girls' locker room, how did they manage to unlock her personal locker?"

"Koyomin, the fact that you think of invading the girls' locker room as completely natural is something I love about you. The personal lockers have combination locks, you see. From the register of names that you borrowed from the previous captain—a treasure trove of personal information—I was able to deduce the combination."

Even if she didn't use her date of birth, it wasn't as important as a bank account password or anything, so I figured she'd use a number associated with her personal information—said Gaen-san, as if it was something obvious to her.

Leaking personal information was pretty scary.

"Using that same approach, I tried to crack the passwords of the cell phones owned by the first three mummies, but unfortunately, that didn't go as well."

"Well, it would certainly be more secure than a locker. Not to mention, if you get it wrong too many times, it could erase all the data inside—but, putting that aside, how should we evaluate this discovery? Isn't it normal to find one's uniform or gym clothes in their locker?"

"If it's 'uniform or gym clothes', then yes."

That was what Gaen-san said.

"But if it's 'uniform and gym clothes', then that's very strange indeed. Was Kiseki-chan going home naked when she went missing? It would be a big deal, even if she wasn't mummified."

A big deal...

Even if she revered Kanbaru, she probably wouldn't do anything like go streaking (not even Kanbaru had done that. She was all talk, no action).

"It seems unlikely she had a spare uniform or gym clothes, either. It wasn't as messy as this room, but the belongings had been stuffed in the locker pretty sloppily—as if they were getting in the way and thus disposed of."

It was possible that Kiseki-chan was just bad at keeping things in order, but there was another interpretation—the person responsible for attacking her had roughly crammed Kiseki-chan's belongings into her locker in order to hide the evidence.

Not the person responsible.

But perhaps—the demon responsible.

"Thanks to your reconnaissance, Koyomin, it ended up occurring in the opposite order, but if Kiseki Souwa-chan's mummy had been found first, stripped of all her belongings, it would have been quite an ordeal to try and identify her... In other words, it would have been quite an ordeal to try and resolve this case."

"Is it like how, in mystery novels, the culprit destroys the victim's face and fingerprints?"

When the victims were mummified, you couldn't tell the difference.

As long as there was no blood relation like with Shinobu and Suicidemaster... As long as there was no bond, unbreakable even over six hundred years.

"But it's a little strange. Why is it that they did such a shoddy cover-up job for only Kiseki-chan?"

"It wasn't shoddy, it was malicious. Her cell phone had, of course, been turned off—for items that were shoved in so roughly, the culprit was very attentive to detail. And the fact that a vampire was able to enter the school makes it extremely dangerous for the girls' basketball team."

"......"

That was true—it was an alarming situation.

Although I wasn't sure if that was something that the specialist that had entered the school in the same way should say.

"However, to do such a cover-up job, they wouldn't just need to enter the school—they'd need to be able to open Kiseki-chan's personal locker, right? It may be possible for another member of the girls' basketball team that shares the locker room with her, but I don't think an outsider vampire would have been able to open the locker, wouldn't you say?"

The suspicion on the remaining members of the girls' basketball team had already been cleared—how had that "attentive" vampire unlocked that locker?

A combination lock. A password.

How could you open and close that without breaking it?

Gaen-san's response was clear.

"They spoke with the locker's owner. They had to have heard it from her."

They had to have heard it from her.

There was no other way.

"And then, if I were to presume the reason that the cover-up job was only done for Kiseki-chan, I would arrive at a rather unpleasant conclusion, Koyomin. Basically, it would mean that the fact that we were using the mummies' belongings to identify them has been leaked."

"Ah."

"There's a high chance that our information is being exposed to the vampire."

Rather than bad news.

It was the worst possible news.

037

Despite my apprehensions about leaking the girls' personal information, there ended up being a high probability that information regarding our investigation had been leaked, which came as a shock—but the worst news was yet to come.

Earlier, I had likened the culprit's actions to destroying the victim's face or fingerprints in a mystery novel—but could you even take the fingerprints of a mummy? That was what came to mind, so I asked Gaen-san.

The response was a simple "no".

"It's just like how we can't distinguish between their faces. They're just skin and bones, after all. If we could accurately get their fingerprints, then we could've used them for cell phones with fingerprint locks, though."

That's right, in this day and age, fingerprints were also a mass of personal information in that sense, as well—however, coincidentally or otherwise, my question happened to connect to the second piece of bad news that Gaen-san wanted to convey to me by temporarily severing the pairing between Shinobu and me.

"Speaking of a mass of personal information, there's DNA analysis."

That was what Gaen-san said.

"However, we certainly wouldn't be able to do that—if we tried to analyze genes that had undergone vampirification in a hospital, that in itself would be considered a strange disease. It would turn into a panic."

"Yes, of course. That's why I've avoided going to hospitals and getting physical examinations."

"On the other hand, it doesn't mean that the analysis of vampire genes in itself is impossible. We've managed to analyze the DNA of the four mummies discovered so far, rough as it was."

"Hm? Um... What does that mean, exactly?"

"Originally, it was done for the sake of identifying whether all four of them were done in by the same culprit. Considering all the possibilities, it's not necessarily the case that the same vampire attacked all four high school girls, right? You could even come up with the theory that there were four, or perhaps even five, vampires that had visited this town."

What an insane theory.

Especially in this town, which had become overrun with monsters during the absence of a god.

"So, um, what were the results? Don't tell me..."

"Ah, to start with the conclusion, all four mummies had their blood sucked by the same vampire—they're all, so to speak, thralls of the same vampire."

It must be like a DNA test done to determine parentage.

Perhaps, as a result of corporate efforts, the world of oddities has also advanced.

Like Hitagi, who kept going to the hospital because of her symptoms from the omoshi-gani, perhaps one day oddity phenomena will end up being simply a rare disease capable of being treated.

"Then, there's no reason to change our plan of action, right?"

"Rather than not changing, at this rate we're going back to the starting point."

Gaen-san said as she folded her arms.

"The problem is that those vampire genes were a pretty close match to Suicidemaster's genes, which I collected last night."

A DNA test to determine parentage.

Gathering evidence based on corporate efforts.

"......"

That—was bad. No, it wasn't that bad, but the reason Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster had been listed as the prime suspect was primarily because of circumstantial evidence and process of elimination—the cryptic message that had been left at the scene of the crime, and the fact that she had come to this town with such perfect timing.

However, DNA analysis was a completely different beast in terms of evidence. In the modern judicial system, it was like the king of evidence, brought out as a trump card.

"That's a dangerous way of thinking about it. There are plenty of examples of DNA analysis having failed, and it's a field with plenty of room for development. Not to mention, human error is something that's unavoidable—treating it as the king of evidence could mean it ends up a hotbed for false accusations."

That was true. It was too early to decide.

Even Gaen-san had been careful enough to word it "a pretty close match"—and, even if Miss Suicidemaster and the four mummies' genes were a match, logically, the vampire genes of Shinobu or me would also be "a pretty close match".

A parent-child relationship—from Suicidemaster's perspective, I was essentially her "grandchild"... Although, right now, Shinobu and I didn't exactly have any bloodsucking abilities...

"Right, so, it's a fact that the suspicion on Suicidemaster has gotten stronger, so the implication of tonight's interrogation has changed—no matter what that little girl says, we're going to have to secure her. That's why I set up this special barrier, although I'd also like to avoid it turning into a battle if possible. Putting aside me being a pacifist, even if it may be easy to exterminate the starved, weakened Suicidemaster, I don't know how the now-cooperative Shinobu might react to that chain of events—and not knowing how Shinobu might react means not knowing how you might react, Koyomin."

"Um, I probably wouldn't—"

But I didn't exactly know myself well enough to speak at that moment. And last night, I had lost quite a lot of trust, so that would make what I said even less convincing.

"...Even if Suicidemaster, that anorexic vampire, let hunger get the better of her and started laying hands on every high school girl in the area... If we manage to return all the mummified girls back to normal, would she end up not being judged for this incident?"

In the first place, oddities couldn't be judged based on human laws. Even if I couldn't expect her to be certified harmless, couldn't we be flexible enough to let her go in secret...? Although that still left a problem that couldn't be ignored...

"Once a bear has gotten a taste of humans, you have no choice but to kill it—it depends on how much you subscribe to that opinion. In a way, Suicidemaster has been on a diet for six hundred years. Ever since you became a vampire, Koyomin, you've probably never needed to diet, but once you break a fast, you end up on an incredible rebound—you end up eating mountains and drinking oceans."

"But—"

"There's no need to rush, Koyomin. I may have started with the conclusion, but I don't want you to jump to conclusions. There's still evidence to negate the theory that Suicidemaster was responsible for the crime—even if we put aside how much of Shinobu-chan's testimony to believe, there's still the strange idea that an ancient vampire that had lived for a thousand years snuck into the girls' locker room and messed with the lockers. How probable would you say that is?"

It was as she said—and, in the same vein, the attempt to delay the discovery of the fourth mummy, Kanguu-chan, by submerging her in the reservoir was also a weird trick unbecoming of a traditional oddity.

And, under that theory (strange idea?), there was still no explanation for why Suicidemaster herself had turned into a mummy.

There was no logic to her cryptobiosis.

Nothing fit together.

While the suspicion grew stronger, the credibility faded.

In the end, the air of tension had abruptly increased, and there was still no change in the fact that we had to hear from the vampire herself—and it was as I thought that...

"My master."

From behind the sliding door that I'd closed earlier, Shinobu's voice spoke.

"Suicidemaster wants to speak with you. Will you talk with her?"

038

"I'm the death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster. You may approach."

It seemed she'd managed to get up, for she was now sitting down on a stone in the rock garden of the Japanese mansion. She greeted me with quite the ghastly smile, not caring about the white clothing that had fallen open when she'd broken the seals earlier. I'd thought this earlier when they were exchanging their roar of laughter, but it seemed the characteristic smile of Shinobu, or Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, was apparently something that was inherited from her progenitor who birthed and named her.

Or perhaps, since they were both golden-haired and golden-eyed, their impressions were similar... However, though they were both little girls, though they had the same expressions, it probably wasn't just my imagination that led me to feel that she didn't resemble Shinobu all that much.

Rather than not resembling Shinobu.

I suppose you could say she resembled Shinobu from the past.

That was how easygoing and worldly this vampire had become over the past year—and Suicidemaster must have felt it as well.

"N-nice to meet you. I am Araragi Koyomi. Erm..."

How was I supposed to introduce myself?

Even though I didn't have to pretend to be a slave, it didn't mean I should be honest and explain the situation as-is—it surely wasn't just putting on airs when Shinobu had feared that I might be blown to death if she learned of the situation in which Shinobu had been sealed in my shadow and turned into a slave.

How much of it had Shinobu explained in that foreign language of hers...? In the first place, did she understand it if I introduced myself in Japanese? Judging from her own introduction, she seemed pretty proficient at it...

"I didn't live such a long life for nothing. I've learned most languages by now."

Ooh.

That was something I wanted to tell Meniko about.

"Conversing with your food is one of the fundamentals of a good meal."

...I definitely couldn't tell her about that.

And please don't say something that made you even more suspicious—even though there was some distance, Gaen-san, the administrator of the specialists, was still over there, sitting on the porch of the mansion with Hachikuji.

The value system of food, huh?

Well, even though humans can live just fine on a vegetarian diet, they still go through the trouble of raising and eating meat not "to live" but "because it tastes good", so I couldn't exactly say anything haughtily.

Taking the wrong logic would probably lead us to the conclusion that plants, living on photosynthesis with sunlight and water, lead the most ethically noble lifestyle.

But, you know, something about her character seemed chic compared to her juvenile appearance. It was pretty dashing the way she wore her white clothing like a gown or a robe, and, well, at the age of six, she wasn't that different from a boy of the same age.

The genuine vampire, the ancient vampire.

What a dandy.

With that in mind, her open white clothing seemed more like a cape than a gown or robe—the little girl held a charisma that made me want to kneel, in a way different from how I felt with "Princess Acerola".

"No need to humble yourself. I won't bite you."

What a fancy figure of speech.

On top of that, the way she said "you [kisama]" was a nice touch. I wasn't offended at all—this little girl was like a cluster of dandyism. I'd thought of myself as an expert on little girls, but it seemed there was a type like this, too.

"I called you here to give you my thanks—well, not just that, but first, my thanks."

"Th-thanks...?"

"For several things. First off, for reviving me after I'd died—and, even before that, for reviving my former thrall, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade."

I give you my thanks.

Said the little girl, bowing her head—even the way she lowered her head was cool. If she was like this in the form of a little girl, how much charisma could she have had in her heyday?

Or rather, if she so straightforwardly thanked me like this, then it felt like I was beaten to the punch—she'd splendidly gotten the drop on me.

Even though I'd approached this face-to-face meeting with suspicions in mind—and when I looked to Shinobu for help...

"Well, I've more or less told her everything."

That was her curt response.

No, rather than curt, Shinobu herself seemed to be a bit bewildered.

"However, it was a bit meaningless. I myself haven't exactly grasped the full extent of the situation. At this point, I figured it would be better to have you participate, my master, rather than just talking between us two."

At any rate, she's denied the suspicion of being the culprit behind the serial vampirism incidents, said Shinobu, as if tacking that on at the end—but was that something you should just tack on?

That's like the crux of the crux of things.

Despite my disorientation, Suicidemaster continued.

"Though she was a thrall, Princess Acerola—Kissshot—soon became manager of her own branch. She became independent from me. It's kind of uncool to come crashing in like this as if I were her guardian, but I couldn't stay in hiding when I heard a rumor that she had been exterminated in this country. I just wanted to make sure that she was okay—although she doesn't exactly look okay, but I'm glad she's still alive. In any case, I'm glad I could see her again."

"Uh-huh—"

After six hundred years of no communication, it seemed like a fitting reason for her to come see her at this timing—but with her answering my question before I could ask it, she'd beaten me to the punch again.

Two moves in a row.

That wasn't exactly fair, was it?

In any case, Suicidemaster said that she was worried about Shinobu's safety and came all the way to this country, beating her old bones, to see how she was doing.

It wasn't that she came to dine on Shinobu as gourmet food at all—

"Hmph. I'd thought you'd died, too."

Shinobu spoke bitterly, but she didn't seem all that mad about it.

If it was true that she became manager of her own branch (a phrase that surely sounded strange because she was forcing herself to use Japanese, although it probably wasn't a mistranslation), then it seemed likely that what existed between them wasn't a master-servant relationship, but a friendship.

Friends that could talk to each other and laugh together on equal terms.

Thanks to my relationship with Meniko, I can more or less understand how important that is—there's no room for doubt that I have friendships with Hanekawa, Hachikuji, and Kanbaru, but I couldn't help but feel that our friendships were tied down by love and hate, or by advantages and disadvantages, or out of the obligations of this transient world.

The best example of this would be my childhood friend, Oikura, but even if our friendship were to end, there would still be the sense that we were inextricably linked.

But the strange thing about human relations is that it's not really desirable to break off relations, like what happened with Sengoku.

"Well, that wasn't the only reason. Even though I'd learned Japanese, I had never actually been to Japan, see. So I wanted to get a look at Mount Fuji."

"What a blatant lie!"

Shinobu sounded as if she was amazed, but look—you told the same lie last year.

A parent-child relationship—a parent-child determination.

"......"

"So, I had a favor to ask of you, former thrall of the former Heartunderblade. I've already confirmed Kissshot's safety, and I'd like to go back to my hideout right about now, but I heard there's something fishy going on. So I was wondering, you think you can help me get out of this country?"

I wondered if she was thinking of the current situation as if she messed up the departure procedures for her destination. Well, that would be a pretty serious situation, too.

"'Specially since there seems to be this scary lady glaring at me," said Suicidemaster, glancing in Gaen-san's direction—but she wasn't a scary lady, but an onee-san that knew everything.

It made for quite the visualization of this interrogation.

"Oh yeah, speaking of scary ladies in this country—nah, that's not important right now. So, how about it? Former thrall of the former Heartunderblade?"

I wasn't sure about how she called me that.

I never thought that she would come ask me for help in fleeing the country... But if Gaen-san wasn't making any move to interrupt, did that mean we should continue with this clumsy conversation?

"I gotta say, I'm pretty happy. Since that 'Princess Beauty' ended up finding her ideal prince and getting her happy ending. But now that I'm here, I figured I'd take this chance to see what that prince can do—how about it? Won't you help me out for a bit?"

Won't you help me out?

Araragi-kun was weak to those words.

The tragedy of my high school years could be said to have all started with those words, and in the end, even Ougi-chan took advantage of them.

However, since then, I'd grown just a little bit (specifically, about a year)—I knew that there were things I could do and things I couldn't.

Even if my girlfriend called me a prince, I knew for sure that I wasn't one.

"Don't say something so embarrassing!"

Shinobu was acting bashful with an unusual level of excitement. What's with that casual language?

Where'd your usual character go off to?

"...A friend of Shinobu's is a friend of mine, so I'm willing to help—but before that, there's something I'd like to make clear. There's something that I absolutely need to make clear—"

She'd called it fishy, but she surely wasn't so uninvolved as to describe it like that—how should I ask this?

If she'd already denied the charges to Shinobu, then it would be pointless to ask her the same thing—should I change my approach, then?

She may have already talked to Shinobu about this, too...

"Suicidemaster. How did you end up turning into a mummy and getting buried in the dirt? An existence as great as yourself."

I didn't really know Suicidemaster well enough to describe her as a great existence (I'd only just heard of her yesterday), but as the progenitor who birthed and named the King of Oddities, it was enough to make me revere her.

Fundamentally...

"Ka ka. I can't say I know how I ended up in the dirt. I figure someone went and buried me on their own."

"Someone..."

"Turning into a mummy? That's a bit easier to explain. I haven't told Kissshot about that yet, either."

Was that so? I looked to Shinobu to confirm, and she responded, "Ah, yes, that's right." Maybe you'd gotten a bit too excited, but if you take such a lazy approach to this interrogation, which was the original goal, then that would be bothersome.

But, well, I guess it was to be expected.

As vampires, where death was a regular occurrence and life was of little importance, the question of "why were you dead" could possibly be too fundamental to be discussed.

Like her catchphrase, "Somehow or other, it seems I've died again"—or perhaps like the nickname, death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire—for Suicidemaster, dying was not at all anything major.

That was how I understood it, but.

"Despite having lived for a thousand years, that may have been the first time I died like that, as far as I can remember."

I couldn't help but react to that comment—that was pretty major.

"Wh-what do you mean? What—what was the cause of death?"

Asking the victim directly about their cause of death was what you'd only see in spirit medium-like mysteries, but as I acted that out in real life, Suicidemaster responded pompously.

"Food poisoning."

"F—food poisoning?"

"Yeah. I ate something weird. Let's see, in Japanese..."

Said Suicidemaster.

"I guess you would call that type of food, a high school girl?"

039

"I guess it was like a week ago?

"The unit of time differs from region to region, and, as an ancient vampire, it's the same to me whether it's a week ago or a thousand years ago.

"So I dunno if it was a week ago or a thousand years ago—but anyway, a week ago.

"That was when I arrived at this town. The rumored Far East island country, Japan—huh, is 'Far East island country' not a compliment?

"Either way, I think it's a big deal when things are taken too far.

"I came to check on the safety of the legend I gave rise to, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, so it was pretty hilarious that I couldn't ensure my own safety as soon as I arrived.

"Since I failed to land and shattered.

"Somehow or other, it seemed I'd died again.

"But for me, there was something that shocked me more than the fact that I died—according to the god that came out to welcome me, there'd been some kind of barrier that'd been put up.

"A barrier to protect the town.

"They say, 'Devils out! Fortune in!' as part of the traditions of this country, right? Ka ka, 'Devils out', huh—that's a pretty tough greeting for a vampire.

"But that barrier wasn't the reason I'd broken into pieces, y'know? My certain death, my thousandth, millionth, billionth, or trillionth death was self-destruction from a failed landing.

"Happens pretty often.

"I dunno if that barrier set up by that god was something that she took over from someone or whatever, but it's not anything with any offensive power—just an interfering barrier that makes you lost.

"In a sense, it's a pretty nasty barrier compared to the aggressive type of barrier which is easier to understand, but the problem is that that nastiness didn't work on me at all.

"The security.

"The metal detector at the entry gate, if you will.

"Didn't respond at all to this Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster—in other words, it didn't even take me as a threat.

"Yeah.

"It wasn't like I came into this country by breaking through a strong barrier with my tremendous power—it was because I didn't have that tremendous power that I managed to slip into this country.

"Never thought I would end up being this weak.

"Growing old sucks, huh?

"I didn't even notice it right away. Kind of a bother that I couldn't really feel the symptoms—like some old man who doesn't realize he's old. Especially when that causes problems for others.

"As I was undergoing an immigration check by that god over there, I belatedly realized what I looked like.

"I've heard rumors that Japanese people have baby faces even as they age, but the gods of this country were really this young, was what I thought, excited beyond my years to experience the exotic cultural differences. But there was something wrong.

"Compared to the young god.

"I was even younger—the tough and cool me was shorter, with a thinner torso, smaller hands, thinner arms, shorter eggs, and a lighter body.

"If there was anything that was long, it would be my hair.

"So that's what it was.

"You don't notice changes in yourself until you talk to someone else, until you use them as a mirror—and I've been living in hiding for a long time.

"Not that vampires show up in mirrors. So that wasn't good, either.

"While I was dying uncontrollably and running from vicious vampire hunters, it seemed that I was driven to the point where I couldn't maintain my perfect body, even in appearance.

"Somehow or other, it seemed I'd regressed into a younger form.

"Before worrying about Kissshot, I needed to worry about myself, first—wasn't it like I was the one on the verge of death, here?

"According to the god's meaningful navigation instructions, the legendary vampire whom I named Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade was indeed in this town, but if I were to see her in this state, I would only end up worrying her instead of renewing our old friendship."

"I had a trauma.

"A trauma of letting my once beloved thrall die after making them worry—not to mention I was also in a young form at the time.

"Ka ka.

"It's ironic that an old vampire, who has stubbornly refused to kill herself, should take on a younger form after living for so long—no matter how many thousand years I live to see history repeat itself, I don't think I want to repeat my mistakes.

"That's just me being cool, though.

"To describe it using the words of this language, it would be 'putting on airs'.

"I held pride in having lived for a thousand years—I held pride in being a progenitor that birthed and named my thrall. Saying I didn't want to worry her was just a figure of speech.

"Basically.

"I wanted to put on airs.

"I didn't want to disappoint my bud that I'd reunited with after six hundred years—I didn't want her to think, 'she's changed', but I didn't want her to think, 'she's the same as ever'.

"I just wanted her to think this.

"'That's my friend for you.'

"That was what I wanted.

"Now that we've met like this and the punch line was that we'd both taken on young forms, it's obvious how unnecessary trial and error such a thing was, but I was very serious at the time.

"Tough, cool, and serious.

"Of course, I'm making it sound like it was a crazy long time ago, but it was just a week ago—a week ago indistinguishable from a thousand years ago.

"At the very least I thought I'd come in full dress for the occasion, at least on the surface level—even if I couldn't show up in a complete form, I thought I would at least try to dress up.

"That's why.

"I made a move on the local food here.

"I bared my fangs—at a high school girl."

040

Wasn't this different from what she said earlier? Hadn't Suicidemaster denied that she was the culprit in the serial vampirism incident?

Plus, didn't she suffer from anorexia, unable to take in any other "food" after being entranced by the taste of the food known as "Princess Beauty" six hundred years ago?

Wasn't it that she turned from a mature woman into a little girl because of malnutrition, not because she got older? —Those were the question marks running through my mind.

However, I couldn't say anything.

I couldn't interject into Suicidemaster's narration—and Shinobu stayed silent as well.

What was she thinking. What was she deciding?

To stick with humans, or to stick with oddities.

Was she thinking about that?

Or perhaps, was she still believing in her friend's innocence, even after such a grand confession?

So innocently?

Though it was natural that Hachikuji, a neutral and mediating god, did not interfere here, it was a bit surprising that Gaen-san remained seated on the porch, not moving—with this confession, you would think that it would confirm Suicidemaster's guilt and allow for concrete measures to be taken immediately.

In the end, although we considered various things like if she knew about prime numbers or if she would be able to cover up a crime, but the bottom line was that it was Occam's razor and that ancient vampire was the culprit—was that just the uninteresting truth?

No matter how many question marks danced through my mind, were there any major points of doubt left before the current confession that deserved special mention? Was it right to take the results of the DNA test and the "B777Q" message as they were?

She bared her fangs at a high school girl.

For the sake of putting on airs.

Suicidemaster's nonchalant attitude as she told me that was something that was familiar to me—needless to the say, it was the same attitude that Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade had during that hellish spring break that I spent.

The fact that they were both trying to make themselves look good for the other party made it sound like a fairy tale with a moral lesson, and I could see how that might be an example of like attracts like, but when it came to the similarity in their lack of guilt, it wasn't as funny.

During that spring break, that King of Oddities had no qualms about feeding on humans—she even thought that humans were born to be eaten by vampires.

The top of the food chain.

The apex, far above us.

Insensitive to the point that she didn't even consider unabashedly speaking like that insensitive—but as far as Suicidemaster was concerned, it would be not only insensitive but also suicidal to make a speech in front of us here, in the name of confession.

A suicidal act.

A vampire with suicidal tendencies.

That was also familiar to me.

It was memory fresh in my mind—it would never fade.

Even if a year or a thousand years passed, it would never fade.

Without guilt, without shame, but rather with pride—Suicidemaster continued.

041

"I went down the mountain where that god lived, and I set my sights on a high school girl walking alone at night—to be honest, anyone would do.

"They were emergency rations.

"Yeah, yeah, of course I know. That way of thinking was opportunistic—really, growing old sucks. I understand why you're silent here, Kissshot—were you disappointed at my way of thinking?

"If you ask me if I really wanted to bend my policy as a gourmet just to make myself look good, I can only say that I really did at the time.

"That's why I incurred a punishment.

"If I was going to throw away my policy anyway, I should have thrown it away completely, but I stubbornly clung to my pride as a gourmet.

"Because I still thought in my head that they were just rations for the sake of emergency, I failed to carefully inspect my food.

"I figured I'd eat noncommittally, halfheartedly, without being choosy—if I chose, it would make it seem like that food was 'special' to me, y'know?

"I didn't want that.

"But even though I didn't want that, I also didn't want to eat something reluctantly—the ideal scenario would be the food jumping in when I opened my mouth, so that I had an excuse to eat food not in accordance with my will, not measuring up to my level, and not consistent with my beliefs.

"Yes, former thrall of the former Heartunderblade. Just as you treated me to the soup from the Blood Pond Hell—I heard that's how you 'reverted' me, isn't that right? You have a complex expression on your face.

"Well, once you've tasted nectar like from six hundred years ago, you can't hope for anything better—no matter what you eat, it's bound to be tasteless.

"Once you know the best of the best, there's nothing you can do but settle for less—I knew that, but I couldn't help but still obsess over it.

"So, even it was for the sake of dressing up, if I went about choosing my food, I would inevitably compare it to 'Princess Beauty'.

"I guess it was also putting on airs to try and minimize the angle at which I bent my policy? I wonder if it's like getting old and trying to straighten out your bent back?

"Well, whatever it was, in hindsight, I didn't exactly have much respect for my food.

"In this country, you have table manners where you say 'Thanks for the meal' and 'It was delicious', right? I just don't really get those, y'see.

"There isn't a phrase that makes me less thankful than 'Thanks for the meal'... And saying 'It was delicious' is practically the opposite of delicious.

"That was what I thought.

"Just didn't understand feeling gratitude towards my food—or the idea that it's great to eat with gratitude, that it's impolite to leave leftovers, or that we shouldn't kill living things for reasons other than eating them.

"Originally, at its best, eating is supposed to be an act of toying with life—it's entertainment.

"So that's why, for me.

"Eating wasn't living.

"Eating was loving.

"At that time, I should have said 'Thanks for the meal'. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. That was what I should have done.

"Nevertheless, in an unprincipled way.

"I sank my teeth into a high school girl as if I was sampling food, like a dieter saying, 'This doesn't really count as eating, okay?'—and so I incurred a punishment.

"The result was food poisoning.

"Thanks to the poison of that high school girl.

"Somehow or other, it seemed I'd died again."

042

...Huh? What the heck?

Her story had ended so quickly that my comprehension couldn't keep up—to that heavily thematic and therefore weary downer of a story, what had the punch line been again?

Food poisoning?

Was she saying that the blood of Japanese high school girls wasn't suited to her constitution? Just like how travel guidebooks always have it written down somewhere whether or not you can drink water at your destination—whether it's soft water or hard water, unboiled water or drinking water...

Of course, there was also the simple fact that if you suddenly eat something right after starving yourself, you can get sick from it. There have been cases where people have suddenly eaten meat right after dieting, causing an upset stomach—or, in the worst-case scenario, stomach rupture—

Or perhaps.

The high school girls' poison. Mud. Murky.

Even Gaen-san, hardened by years of experience, had been brought down a notch by the murky depths of the girls' basketball team of Naoetsu High, but could that murkiness have come through in their blood, yet another mass of personal information? That's exactly what the Japanese would call, "affected by toxicity"—that murkiness.

Was it in their blood, too?

All of this was just conjecture, and it was probably a complication caused by a multitude of reasons—the explanation that should not be forgotten is that, no matter what country, what shape, what type of non-toxic food, blood or flesh, Suicidemaster's body simply could not accept any other human besides "Princess Beauty".

Rejection. Anorexia.

That in itself was fine.

That in itself, along with ethics, could be put aside for now—in that case, it would end up that Suicidemaster desiccated immediately after biting into a high school girl.

Falling into cryptobiosis.

It would end up that she turned into a mummy.

Though there was some embellishment in her talking about herself, it didn't seem like she was lying... But wasn't there something weird about that?

There were four, perhaps even five victims.

But if she turned into a mummy the very first time, then the serial nature gets cut off—the serial nature?

Serial nature?

Shinobu had said that Suicidemaster had denied being the culprit of the 'serial vampirism incidents', if I remembered correctly—but that would mean?

"...Oops. Even this onee-san that knows everything has lost her edge."

Gaen-san's voice came like a downer from where she sat.

"In this state, I won't be able to look good to my juniors. I swear I'll never call myself 'Gaen THE Know-It-All Izuko' again."

Er, it's not like you've ever called yourself by that bizarre name before.

What's with that 'THE'?

"If I was going to use as a basis the idea of turning into a mummy after failing to become a vampire, I should have kept in mind the possibility of turning into a mummy after performing the act of vampirism—I'd known about it, but examples of such are pretty valuable."

Basis [kichou] and valuable [kichou].

To that usage of homophones, our visitor from abroad raised her golden eyebrows curiously, but I felt similarly—what did she mean?

It didn't really help if you figured it out first.

Even if the cause of her mummification was food poisoning, didn't that just add to the number of mysteries?... What was going on?

At least, I understood the circumstances that led to her mummification.

There are two reasons why you want to eat something. Because you like it, and because you hate it—and there are two reasons why you don't want to eat something—because you like it, and because you hate it.

Both were wise sayings from Hachikuji Mayoi, but for that reason, that's why Suicidemaster went for whatever she could lay her hands on, without being particular or fussy about what she chose.

She went for whatever she could lay her hands on, in a manner quite unbefitting of a gourmet—not to mention, not counting her consumption as a "meal", like the wisdom of a dieter.

Well, you could say the moral to this story was that such cunning wisdom comes at a price, just like in dieting—however, the mystery of who buried Suicidemaster in the mountain after she fell victim to food poisoning and became mummified via cryptobiosis was never fully resolved.

Though I'm sure Suicidemaster herself felt like she wanted to climb into a hole, who was it that literally put that vampire that failed to suck blood underground?

Who was it that buried her alive?

"The high school girls that became mummified after failing to become vampires—the vampire that became mummified after failing in her vampirism—if I were to add one more pattern to this."

It would be a high school girl that succeeded in becoming a vampire.

That was what the administrator of the specialists said as she stood up.

"I finally understood the reason the series of crimes didn't seem to fit together—it wasn't just one vampire master. Along the way, the vampire was replaced by another."

"R—replaced?"

In mysteries—and this wasn't just limited to Ellery Queen—there were tricks that were considered fair... But I thought having multiple crimes was considered unfair?

And it wasn't like vampires were coming to this town in droves, not to mention there was the results of the DNA test that I'd just heard about—ah.

Late as it was, I finally arrived at understanding.

Upon realizing what the conclusion was, I realized it could only be that—a replacement, a substitution.

Until just the day before yesterday, I hadn't really thought about what would have happened if I had failed to become a vampire, and for some reason at some point, I had assumed that all vampirism had failed in this specific, unusual case—but of course, there was a case where that wasn't for certain.

The case where they succeeded.

The case where, even if the vampire master became a mummy as a result—the thrall was still alive and well.

In other words, if you consider that the high school girl, who was arbitrarily bitten by Suicidemaster the moment that they met, continued on to bite the other high school girls afterwards, then that resolves the strangeness of the crimes not fitting together.

It's no wonder that the DNA test resulted in a "pretty close match"—if it's a parent-child relationship or a descendant relationship, then of course the vampire genes would match.

Whether it was heaven or paradise, as a person who tasted Princess Acerola's saliva in that place, I had to say that it was extremely unnatural how lacking in etiquette it seemed for a gourmet vampire who had experienced the same taste to go on to target only the youth of Japan. But if it was a high school girl targeting other high school girls, it made perfect sense—no.

It wasn't just a high school girl targeting other high school girls.

If it was a member of the girls' basketball team targeting other members of the girls' basketball team—it made even more sense.

I could think of any number of motives—their murkiness.

Spartan training. Peer pressure. Frustration. Envy. Rivalry. Punishment. Disharmony. Collective responsibility. Discord. Suspicion. Paranoia. Injuries. Stress. Unease. Academic decline—

"Eh? But, wait just a moment, Araragi-san. Hasn't the suspicion on the girlsbas been cleared up already? Have you already forgotten my distinguished contribution as intermediary for your phone call?"

"Hachiku-jin, it would be troublesome if you went that far to take responsibility for acting as intermediary for my phone call."

True. That was true.

Using the list as a reference, Gaen-san had already confirmed the safety and innocence of every member of the girls' basketball team—on top of safeguarding each of the hundred members, they were also supervising them.

However.

There must really be something wrong with me, to not have realized until now that there was one member of the girls' basketball team that was not being supervised—Kiseki Souwa.

I'd more or less assumed that the "missing person", as Kanbaru had described it, had also fallen victim to the vampire, but even if that had been the truth.

That didn't necessarily mean that she'd been mummified.

Perhaps, she had succeeded in becoming a vampire—and perhaps, in the darkness of the night, she may be seeking revenge on her former human friends.

043

The ups and downs of realizing that the girl I'd been worried about was actually the vicious assailant of her teammates made for a bumpy ride for my weak mind, but if I were to give up everything now, I wouldn't be able to say I'd grown since my spring break at seventeen or Golden Week at eighteen.

For now, let's pretend that I'm a tough guy that can handle a full revolution on a roller coaster, and sort this out.

Kiseki Souwa.

If I remembered correctly, she was a second-year—of course, even though her name was on the list, she had already gone missing, so unlike the other members of the club, there was no confirmation of her safety. If anything, they were still out there looking for her mummy.

But they wouldn't be able to find it.

If that mummy didn't exist.

How do you account for the uniform, gym clothes, cell phone, and school bag stuffed into the personal locker in the girls' locker room of the Naoetsu High gymnasium?

If she was the one who stuffed everything into the locker herself, then breaking into the school and into the girls' locker room would be a piece of cake—she would use her own route and unlock her own door with her own hands.

If the information on our side of the investigation had been leaked, and if she knew that Gaen-san's team was out looking for Kiseki-chan's mummy, then she could have tried to disrupt the investigation by shoving those personal items into her own locker—even though there was no way to find the mummy itself because it wasn't there, by shoving the uniform and gym clothes in at the same time, the search target pretended as if the damage had already been done.

By fabricating the assumption that she had already become a mummy, she would be able to move as she pleased—and in that case, that would apply to the two living messages, or signatures, that I had asked Meniko to decipher.

"D/V/S". "F/C".

Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster, and Fan Club—those interpretations of the code were probably right on the mark, but in the end, they were just fakes set up by Kiseki-chan.

When Kiseki-chan had her blood sucked by Suicidemaster, not like a moth to a flame but a high school girl to a vampire's mouth, Suicidemaster would naturally have given her name—as she did to me, she would have given her name as "Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster".

In other words, Kiseki-chan remembered the name of the vampire that attacked her—and, assuming she was the one to bury and hide Suicidemaster's mummy in the mountains.

Her scheme was to blame her own vampiric activities on Suicidemaster.

Like a human.

As Shinobu was now, it seemed that being vampirified by Suicidemaster would lead you to "inherit" golden hair and golden eyes, so I could imagine that her appearance and atmosphere would have changed greatly from her human days.

When I was vampirified by Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, I didn't gain golden hair and golden eyes, but my body had still become rather muscular even without any training.

We'd wondered whether or not the high school girl had left the school naked with both her uniform and gym clothes being stuffed into the locker, but if Kiseki-chan did in fact bury Suicidemaster's mummy in the mountain, then that could be explained without a hitch.

The naked little girl's mummy.

Hachikuji had said that the little girl's mummy hadn't been naked from the beginning.

When she was Suicidemaster, before becoming a mummy, she naturally had to have been wearing clothes—so where did those clothes go?

If they weren't buried with her, then someone might be wearing them right now, after an adjustment to the size—someone who had buried Suicidemaster.

Taking the name of the death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire, pretending to be her, dressing up as her, and attacking her teammates—it was possible that Kuchimoto Kyoumi, who left that dying message on her flash cards, may have fallen for the fake and left the message "B777Q", not realizing that the vampire who attacked her had been her teammate.

Or perhaps the message itself was a fake left by Kiseki-chan for the criminal investigation squad—at the very least, "F/C" was certainly that.

I couldn't imagine how it happened, but when Kiseki-chan found out that suspicion was directed at the members of the girls' basketball team, she tried to make the investigators look in a different direction.

In other words, Kanbaru Suruga's fan club.

If she was a member of the girls' basketball team, which was strongly influenced by Kanbaru, then there was no way she didn't know about this organization—although it didn't seem like she knew that the group had been disbanded without a trace.

At any rate, she tried to hide herself, hide her crime, try to pin the blame on others, make up evidence, et cetera—

All of these things were things that vampires were not likely to do, and such unnaturalness, more novel than innovative, made sense if you considered that she had just become a vampire.

Destruction of evidence, creation of an alibi, fabrication, disturbance—it was a rather human-like crime, by a vampire filled with humanity.

With this, disregarding the mummification of Suicidemaster herself, the mummification of the high school girls may not even be a failure.

In fact, I couldn't help but think that it was Kiseki-chan's revenge to put them in a half-dead state, neither alive nor dead—she could have taken the texture of Suicidemaster's mummy as reference when she was burying it.

And if I wanted to, I could take it as a good sign that she didn't want to fully kill off her friends from when she was human...

"After unraveling all the confusing parts, the problem was just a matter of order. Just like how the second and third mummies were discovered were actually attacked by the vampire third and second, Kiseki Souwa, whom we'd assumed had become the fifth mummy, was actually the first victim—no, the zeroth victim."

In other words, like this.

The order in which the mummies were discovered was:

The first mummy——Harimaze Kie

The second mummy——Honnou Aburi

The third mummy——Kuchimoto Kyoumi

(The little girl's mummy——DVS)

The fourth mummy——Kanguu Misago

The fifth mummy (assumed)——Kiseki Souwa

However, the actual order of the victims was:

The zeroth victim——Kiseki Souwa (Culprit: DVS)

(The 0.5th victim——DVS (Food poisoning))

The first victim——Harimaze Kie (Culprit: Kiseki)

The second victim——Kuchimoto Kyoumi (Culprit: Kiseki)

The third victim——Honnou Aburi (Culprit: Kiseki)

The fourth victim——Kanguu Misago (Culprit: Kiseki)

That's how it was.

Since all of the mummies were vampire mummies, there wasn't anything like an estimated time of death, so it would be hard to ascertain the time of the mummification for Kanguu-chan, who'd been submerged in the reservoir... But this was the truth behind the serial vampirism incidents that had taken place from the night before last, to last night.

"Oho, is that so. You think of some pretty clever things, both you guys and that high school girl."

Suicidemaster spoke as if she was truly impressed—although it sounded, or at least seemed to sound, like she was making fun of me.

Well, to an ancient vampire who'd seen the fall of a country firsthand, was born in a castle called the "Castle of Corpses", and bore witness to numerous wars, a discussion about five members of a high school club may seem like manual labor on a tiny, millimeter scale to her...

Moreover, while Suicidemaster was not the culprit behind the serial vampirism, she did confess to having started it all—she was the one responsible for the first bloodsucking.

Once again, a progenitor of vampires.

Like a plea bargain, she'd asked for help with the process of exiting the country, but unfortunately, this was not enough for her to get off scot-free.

It wasn't enough—but what sort of verdict would be laid down in a case like this? I didn't have the slightest idea.

Kiseki-chan had been the victim in the beginning, but if she became the main culprit afterwards—a composition in which the victim becomes the perpetrator.

"It kind of resembles Sengoku-san's case, doesn't it?" said Hachikuji.

An unnecessary comment.

"The kanji for Sengoku [千石] and Kiseki [木石] are pretty similar, too."

That one was really unnecessary.

However, Sengoku's case was different.

It wasn't nearly as close as their kanji were.

A high school girl who unexpectedly acquires vampire superpowers makes full use of her power to relieve the anger of her "past life"—if anything, it was a more serious problem than the physiological phenomenon of vampire sucking blood, which was more similar to hunger.

If I had to say it, she was exerting the fury of a vampire while maintaining her human values... If she was careless, she could meet the conditions for the "Darkness".

"It ended up not being really clear whose fault it is, right?"

Hachikuji murmured as if troubled, but it was pretty vague to begin with—it wasn't something I could do anything about by taking on all the stigma myself, like I used to do in high school.

She was too much of a stranger for me to do that.

I wasn't a politician. I couldn't work that hard for someone I didn't know.

It's not easy to help a girl you've never met, never even brushed past—a girl you have no connection with.

"We can think about the rest later, but if there's anything you need to do now..."

And, as if the composition's polarity had been reversed, the one who brought up a plan of action to this deadlocked state was none other than Shinobu.

"Don't you need to stop that vampirified high school girl, a distant little sister in my eyes? Even if the composition has been turned over on its head, what you need to do hasn't changed much, I should say."

That was true—however, the way you searched for a dried-out mummy was quite different from the way you searched for a glorious vampire with golden hair and golden eyes.

"If the King of Oddities takes charge, I'll be put out of business. So, let's say that the personnel currently assigned to search for the mummy will be assigned to search for Kiseki-chan—who do you think she'll go after next, Koyomin?"

"Eh... Um, that's, well, one of the girls' basketball team members she had strife with... right? So, if we're trying to anticipate it—"

That wasn't it.

We'd already more or less anticipated everything—all of the members that were on the list were currently under protection.

There was no way that Kiseki-chan, who somehow got information about our investigation, didn't know about that—she wouldn't make the mistake of jumping into the web herself.

"What if she just gave up on the whole revenge thing and just went home to sleep? That's what I would do."

Suicidemaster made quite the crude statement with such a serious face—at this point, I had to wonder how I even suspected that this pompous little girl was actually a highly calculating criminal.

She was not highly calculating, just loud.

"Well, it's true that Kiseki-chan is trying to avoid us. The diversionary tactics and cover-ups are evidence of that—in that case, she probably wouldn't think of attacking a girls' basketball team member even through the surveillance. To begin with, it's pretty doubtful that there's enough resentment pent up in her that she'd want to make everyone a mummy—I'm sure she had some good friends like normal," said Gaen-san.

The four people that had been discovered as mummies were either the four people that she held the deepest resentment towards, or just the four people that were the easiest targets because they happened to be returning from school alone or had a lot of openings—was it possible she'd relieved all her frustration by attacking those four people?

But I couldn't be optimistic. Rather, as a member of the investigation team, I should assume that the crime would escalate—just as an unreasonable diet leads to rebound, a teenager forced to be stoic in her club suddenly obtained superpowers like in manga, so it should escalate like an escalator—

"! This is hella dangerous, Gaen-san!"

I used a tone of voice I'd never used before—but no matter. I continued.

"Tonight, Kanbaru is having a pajama party at Higasa-chan's house with her friends!"

I was making it sound as if Kanbaru's pajama party was unhealthy, immoral, and outright reprehensible, but that wasn't the point.

It was bad, however, that the retired third-year members of Naoetsu High's girls' basketball team, the OGs of the golden generation, were all in one place, as if they'd all been rounded up.

The golden generation that could even be called.

The mastermind behind the current state of club activities.

The most fitting prey—the main dish.

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nicodigiovanni · 4 years

Text

DOMENICO DI GIOVANNI ( CODY CHRISTIAN ) is a 17 year old JUNIOR student at Broadripple Academy. HE is originally from LOS ANGELES but moved to Broadripple A YEAR ago. HE is DRIVEN and RESOURCEFUL but can also be ENVIOUS and DECEITFUL.

BASICS

Name: Domenico Di Giovanni

Age: 17

Grade: Junior

House: Malleray

Cabin Room: 2, Junior Cabin

How long have they been at Broadripple: a bit more than a year

Where are they from originally: Los Angeles

Extra curricular: Soccer Team Captain, Swim Team member, Buddy Program

CHARACTER AESTHETICS

Untucked shirts and loose ties, worn sneakers, board shorts and athletic shirts, hair that are ‘fashionably’ messy, a fake rolex, sunglasses to hide bloodshot eyes, sundown on the ocean, an eagle as a coat of arm, a whisper in your ears, an old camera, handwriting that looks a lot more like hieroglyphs than actual English, the sweet exhaustion after intense training, an adrenaline rush, the roar of a Ducati, the tension of sneaking out at night, a golden cross necklace, a swiss-army knife as a keychain, a bonfire on the beach, a room that looks like a tornado has just been there, a tangle of athletic medals, a stack of movie posters, a zippo lighter because, come on everyone knows they are cool.

TRAITS

Positive Personality Traits: ambitious, driven, resourceful, playful, friendly, brave, loyal to his friends, passionate, open minded,

Neutral Personality Traits: competitive, nostalgic, emotional, stubborn, guarded, prideful, materialistic

Negative Personality Traits: envious, jealous, deceitful, selfish, vulnerable to peer pressure, reckless, boastful

FACTS

Domenico is the firstborn scion of an impoverished Italo-american family, he actually has some noble blood in his veins and is proud of his ancestry. His family migrated to the states after WW2 and had actually enjoyed a luxurious existence for a few generations, when Nico himself was a little kid they still had money, but a string of misfortune and bad business deals had left them with little

His parents are obsessed with the idea of social status and have drilled its importance into him, to the point that Domenico dedicates his life in its pursuit. No matter the cost, personal or otherwise.

Failure is not an option.

He grew up with the expectation of royalty and the wealth of a lower middle class kid

He has always lived on the periphery of wealth though, frequently doing odd jobs from rich family friends and looking for afar at the glamorous life of movie stars and socialites in his native Los Angeles. Craving for the ability to join him himself. Unable to see that hanging around with the friends he actually had made him way happier. In fact he has a lot of fond memories of the time spent back home, but pretends to himself that he had moved on and doesn’t care anymore.

He had pushed himself hard during high school to get an athletic scholarship and finally earned his ticket to Broadripple. The young man is legacy, but his family could definitely no longer afford to send him there.

While Domenico is extremely loyal to his friends, he has a very ‘the end justifies the means’ mentality, he plays dirty when he believes that his strength alone is not enough to ‘win’ and lies to get what he wants or just to make himself look more ‘important’ in the eyes of others.

He loves the spotlight and does what he can to get noticed. After his first year at Broadripple he had started to take up more responsibility at the school, mostly to increase his own standing

He is always on the lookout for college recruiters and will definitely use whatever trick he can in the books to up his chances of being selected

He constantly puts up a show of confidence.

He is passionate, he falls in love very quickly, but he is also pretty jealous and his pride tends to get in the way of things

He craves for true companionship, but so far he had been too blinded by his desire to ‘climb’ up.

Truth is, the pressure of his lifestyle is starting to get to him, but Nico is pretty good at lying to himself and is pretending that ‘everything is fine’ even as he keeps daydreaming about just dropping everything and go follow his passions

HEADCANONS

He has two younger siblings, Alessandra, a spirited 11 years old, that is very much loved by her big brother and Gabriele, who is only eight years old. Despite considering the latter annoying, he actually misses both of them. He dreads when his little sis will start dating

He is a huge horror movie buff and dreams to direct one eventually, but of course, his life has a more ‘serious’ path ahead so…

He loves the ocean and is very nostalgic about his home in California.

He is a bit of an adrenaline junkie, but he tries to stay focused

He actually enjoys playing sports and if he wasn’t as focused on his endgame he would much likely derive much more pleasure from them

He had sneaked out at the pool during the night for a swim more than once

He is pretty handy, had done a lot of odd jobs in his life and knows among other things how to pick a lock.

He is very boastful and is prone to hugely exaggerate his skills and wealth.

His best subject is history, math is meh…

He worships his Ducati and constantly tinkers with it, the motorbike is a birthday present from a family friend that greatly helped Nico while he was in LA. The two had spent the year before Nico went to Broadripple fixing it and it has an huge sentimental value to him. Nico doesn’t drive after drinking mostly out of fear of ruining it (rather than himself) in case of an accident. He had brought it straight from California driving halfway through the states and he would do it again

He has a family signet ring, but pretty much never wears it in public

He own a lot of expensive looking stuff that are actually knock off

He wears his shirts religiously ‘half-tucked’

He enjoys playing board games (but deem them too nerdy) and is a very competitive player

He is proud of his legacy status

He isn’t proud of being a scholarship student and keeps that detail for himself

He deals MJ among the students to boost his income, but himself he doesn’t smoke frequently

Domenico is fully bilingual English\Italian and he swears (and thinks) in his family native language despite never having been in Italy himself

He has a small youtube channel where he comments the Italian soccer championship and other soccer trivia, he is not however a regular poster of content and keeps it mostly as an hobby (and an extra space to advertise himself to potential recruiters)

He isn’t bad in the kitchen and can make a few Italian dishes

Espresso for life (and made in the ‘right way’) the rest isn’t real coffee.

Sport = religion. To skip training is sin.

He jogs very early every morning

A previous roommate of his has left the school last year, Nico kinda believe that he had scared him off

He loves the Rolling Stones (coincidentally his dad is more of a Beatles type)

He dreams about taking a sabbatical and making a road trip after graduation

Has ran from home a couple of times as a kid.

While he keeps it very well buried, Domenico has a bit of a playful, goofy side that emerges when he feels like he is free to be himself

He is also a bit of a prankster

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE RETREAT

What do they think about The Retreat?

“This is supposed to be an exclusive and expensive academy right?” Turns to check if no one else is listening and then lowers his voice. “On the other side… thanks God right? At least they haven’t sent us back home…”

Domenico doesn’t care about the retreat per-se, but he is worried that all the strange events might tarnish the school reputation, putting his own college future in jeopardy, or worse, ending up shutting down the Academy as he doesn’t exactly have many alternatives. He does miss a bit of privacy though and the lack of wi-fi frustrates him. While outwardly he pretends that he cares about the lack of amenities, it’s more of a show.

Do they have any previous experience with camping or other outdoors?

“Of course I do.”

Domenico is outdoorsy, but has never gone camping in his life, plus he is accustomed to a much warmer climate than Massachusetts and while he does his best to soldier through it, the experience definitely sucks. While he has no idea about how to build a tent or anything on the like at least he knows how to light a fire and can make a decent grilled meat if the need arises.

What does their cabin bunk look like? How will they decorate their space?

“It’s not my room and let’s leave it at that.”

Domenico’s dorm room was adorned with movie posters (mostly horror B-movies), some of them hiding pictures underneath that a catholic school might not exactly approve (but that strike the fancy of a seventeen years old boy), piled up trophies, a small basketball hoop, random sport gear and clothes scattered here and there. He couldn’t bring much to his bunk and had packed most of his things in cardboard boxes to pick up for later. He keeps a picture of his siblings cheering at his birthday before he left for Broadripple and one with his former high-school team celebrating after a match.

Do they believe in the supernatural? To what degree?

“Nah... That’s all crap. It makes for a good movie though.”

Nico is fascinated by the supernatural, but he is not a believer, they are cool stories though and he likes the dash of adrenaline of a well told tale of horror. Besides, Broadripple might be a good subject for a movie right? In theory Domenico is Catholic and was kinda of observant as a kid, by now though, religion isn’t in his mind.

Are they easily spooked?

“Nop. Ehi what is that noise?”

Domenico likes to think of himself as brave and tends to worry about more mundane problems rather than supernatural or existential one. That said, sometimes the aerie atmosphere of the Academy actually gets to him and strikes the darkest corners of his imagination. Showing fear though, is embarrassing and Domenico keeps the feeling for himself, doing his best to crack a joke or put up a mask of courage.

AND FINALLY,

A very dumb but (hopefully) fun quiz made by your admins, please share what result you got

you're the real danger

everyone talks about what they hear and see out in the woods but what about what's in the room with them? if everyone already thinks they're hearing things, it wouldn't be that hard to cover everything up

I must admit that I cheated a bit to get there, but Nico would definitely have done that himself, so I’m not ashamed to admit it. Besides, it’s kinda fitting of him :p

#retreat:task1 #retreat.intro #WhoIsNicoDiGiovanni?

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1989dreamer · 4 years

Text

Full Offense (no offense)

Cross-posted at my AO3

Summary: Stiles lives in an apartment below the worst neighbor in the world. Derek always submits false complaints about Stiles and his roommates to the front office. Well, tables are turning. Derek is hosting a party this Saturday, and Stiles fully intends to crash it and confront Derek over his asshole-ish-ness.

Main Relationship: Sterek

Rating: T

Tags: Angry Stiles, Human AU, drunk characters, Derek cooks, dub/non-con drugging, attempted assault mentioned, over-protective Laura, enemies to lovers, asshole Jackson

~ * ~

“I’m offended,” Stiles announces to the room in general. No one looks up, too used to his outbursts by now to pay much attention. The fools.

He marches up to Scott sitting at the breakfast nook, a large bowl of Fruity Pebbles in front of him. He stares him down while Scott keeps shoveling cereal into his mouth.

Finally, after about five minutes, once his bowl is empty, he looks up as if just noticing Stiles for the first time. “Sorry,” he says laconically. “You’re offended?”

“Yeah, and you wanna know why?”

“Not really.”

Stiles ignores Scott and forges ahead. “That bastard in 3A wrote another complaint about us.”

“Really?” Now Scott looks interested. “What’d he say we did this time?”

“Something about an over-loud party last weekend.”

“But we weren’t even here last weekend,” Scott protests. He shoots a look at their roommates, Boyd and Jackson, sitting on the couch and playing a first person shooter game. They both shrug. Boyd had been at his girlfriend’s. Jackson had been who knows the hell where. Stiles doesn’t keep track of him. As long as he pays his rent, they are cool.

“So I’m thinking he’s targeting us,” Stiles says. “Why, I don’t know. That is something I intend to find out.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Scott asks.

“A little bird told me that 3A is planning to host his own bash this weekend. So guess who wrangled an invite?”

“You’re going to crash 3A’s fancy shindig?” Jackson snorts. “In what outfit?”

“In this one?” Stiles points down at his button down, left open over a graphic t-shirt and baggy khaki pants. The only thing he might change is his shoes. He’s got a fresh pair of sneakers just waiting for a spin out in the world. Might as well break them in at 3A’s party.

Jackson snorts again, but he’ll be waiting a long time if he thinks Stiles either wants or needs his fashion advice.

“And how exactly did you get an invitation?”

“The front desk clerk gave it to me.” Stiles pulls out the blue paper and waves it in Jackson’s general direction. “Look, ‘Derek Hale formally invites you to Apartment 3A to partake in games and alcohol from the hours of 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm. Cabs will be called for all attendees who do not wish to stay overnight.’”

“Wow,” Scott says, “this Derek fellow sounds awfully polite on paper.”

“Yeah,” Stiles admits. “It’s probably to disguise how much of a shithead he really is.”

“Well, have fun,” Scott says. “I will be at Allison’s this weekend.”

“I’m heading back to Erica’s,” Boyd adds.

Jackson rolls his shoulders. “Any chance that invite has a plus-one on it?”

“Fuck off,” Stiles says, but he checks anyway. “Nope, sorry. Nothing about that. Seemed pretty exclusive from what the front desk clerk said.”

“Well I guess I’ll just have to get my own then,” Jackson says with too much nonchalance. He’s a bad liar. Stiles knows his tells. When he’s this relaxed, he’s worried.

“What? You think I’m going to his party to hobnob?” Stiles forces out a laugh. “Buddy, I’m going to confront the bastard and see what his fucking problem with us is.”

“Oh of course,” Jackson snipes back. “Couldn’t be that you’re finally fucking picking up culture.”

Stiles snorts. “If you consider going to Derek Hale’s wine-and-game-night culture.”

“Well,” Scott says, “it is more cultured than beer and C.O.D.”

“Hey, don’t shit on C.O.D. nights. That’s culture too.”

Boyd gives Stiles an air-five.

“Anyway. It’s just a party. If I can get Derek Hale off our backs, isn’t that a good thing?”

The others agree, and Boyd and Jackson go back to their game and Scott gets up to wash his bowl and spoon.

Stiles goes to his room to plot his speech for this Saturday. Derek Hale won’t know what hits him when Stiles walks into his apartment. It just might be the last thing Stiles ever does, but by God, he’s taking that asshole with him.

~ * ~

The rest of the week passes so uneventfully that Stiles is scared that things are going too well.

The day of Derek’s party dawns bright and beautiful and quiet.

Boyd left last night to Erica’s, and Scott didn’t even come home before he headed out to Allison’s.

Jackson is still around, but Stiles is ignoring him. As far as he knows, Jackson never managed to get an invite to the party, so he’s hoping to sneak out before Jackson can attach himself like a barnacle and slip into the party as a plus-one even though it really isn’t that kind of party.

Stiles spends most of the day in his room, on his computer practicing his speech until he can recite it without notes. If he was being graded on it, he’d accept nothing less than an A+. It’s that good.

Stiles has his outfit picked out already. Despite what he told his roommates earlier, he’s actually going to be wearing a fitted gray blazer over a buttoned down blue shirt and pressed khakis. He also managed to find his dress shoes from graduation. So, he’ll be decently dressed and can pass for one of Derek’s swanky friends.

At least, Stiles assumes they’re swanky. Derek dresses nicely all the time—at least whenever Stiles runs into him in the hallways.

About an hour before the party, he dresses in complete silence and then uses the fire escape outside his window to get down street side, and then he just chills at a small park about five blocks away.

Once 5:45 pm arrives, Stiles heads back and jogs up to Derek Hale’s door. The front desk clerk who’d given him the invite is nowhere to be seen. Instead, it’s an older, lecherous man that Stiles calls Uncle Bad Touch in his head. UBT waves at him as he hurries past.

Thankfully, UBT only works once in a long while. Usually it’s one of two clerks who look remarkably the same aside from different hairstyles. Stiles likes Cora best. She is abrasive in a good way, and she gives things to Stiles, like extra soap when he forgets to buy some or the invite to Derek’s party.

Despite all his careful planning, Jackson is waiting in front of Derek’s door, dressed even more smartly than Stiles. Hell, that might even be Jackson’s high school prom tux, and it really isn’t fair that he still fits in it, even if the shoulders look a little tight.

“Ready?” Jackson cocks an eyebrow at Stiles. He knocks before Stiles can answer.

The door immediately swings open, and Derek stands before them. Stiles can’t help fist-pumping a little when he notices that Derek is dressed in slacks and a button up shirt instead of a suit or tux like Jackson. He does bite back the “Culture,” that wants to come out, though.

“Welcome,” Derek says, looking from one to the other, a frown of confusion pulling his brows low over his eyes.

Stiles clears his throat and shoves the invite from Cora at Derek. He takes it, tucks it into his back pocket and then steps back to allow them in.

“Drinks are in the kitchen. Thanks for coming.”

He leaves them standing just inside the door as he makes his way to what must be the kitchen. The layout is similar to their apartment just downstairs, and Stiles heads for a couch in much nicer condition than theirs. Jackson follows him, perching on a loveseat across from him, a sturdy metal coffee table between the two sitting areas, and clutching at his knees. He seems far more nervous than Stiles feels.

There aren’t any other people here, and for a moment Stiles thinks he might have arrived too early, and then Derek reappears with a tray of finger foods just as the door slams open.

“What’s up, asshole!” the not-Cora front desk clerk yells, bouncing into the room, closely followed by a guy dressed identical to Jackson.

Jackson doesn’t look any relieved to see that.

“Hey, Laura, hey, Jordan.” Derek gives them an awkward sort of wave. “This is Cora and her fiancé.”

“Really now?” Laura peers at Stiles and Jackson with pretend interest. “Coulda swore those are your downstairs neighbors.”

“All right, you got me. Cora and Lydia were busy tonight so they gave their invite to Stiles and Jackson.”

Jackson shoots a sort of smug look at Stiles, completely ruined by the fact that he also looks like he wants to throw up. Stiles refuses to react, but he is a little bummed that it actually was a plus-one invite.

“Cool.” Laura looks marginally more interested. “Are they any good at Risk?”

Derek rolls his eyes so hard that Stiles waits for them to pop out and bounce along the floor. “We’re not playing Risk. I donated the game after last time.”

Laura turns a funny shade of red while Derek all but runs to where the door is being timidly knocked upon.

All told, five more people show up; a vivacious blonde couple, Rachel and Sean, who seem more interested in flanking Jackson and making him blush hotly before Derek makes them move; Kira with cat-headphones and a shy smile when she catches Stiles admiring the many fandom pins on her bag; permanent-frat-boy Sammy, with a backwards cap and saggy basketball shorts; and thin, elegant brunette, Abigail, who has an aloofness to rival a freezer. Derek keeps running back and forth from the kitchen until his tasteful coffee table is loaded down with cups and food. He encourages everyone to eat, and it’s delicious. Stiles eats way too much and drinks only enough to wash it down. He manages to put away two loaded potatoes, too many breaded mozzarella sticks, fried mushrooms, jalapeño poppers to count, and half of a small cheesecake. Only Abigail eats more than him. Derek is a fucking fantastic cook (even if most of the foods are pop and bake) and bartender. He’s also the quintessential host, and Stiles really feels bad about what he’s going to do.

He decides to wait until everyone else is too drunk to stop him before he confronts Derek about his well-hidden asshole-side.

~ * ~

About three hours later, the food is gone, drinks are back in the kitchen, and Laura is drunkenly trying to set up Jackson with Jordan. Despite wearing matching clothes and red faces, neither seems to actually mind her meddling.

And Derek keeps staring at Stiles with a heated gaze that is definitely not helping the stomachache from too much food.

Stiles wins every game they even try playing because everyone else, including Jackson, is smashed. Then, once they’ve settled into just conversation, he begins putting away the games. Derek tries to help, and Stiles has to bite back a fond smile as Derek rests his head on his shoulder while he tries and fails to sort the Monopoly money.

“So, how’d you get an invite?” Derek slurs against his ear when Stiles takes the money from him.

“You said it earlier: Cora gave it to me,” Stiles says honestly. “She also told me that you filed another complaint against us.”

“What?” Derek hiccups on the word, pulling back and staring wide-eyed and innocent at Stiles. He isn’t buying it.

Not at all.

Derek hiccups again, and then lets out a low burp. He blushes, covering his mouth. “Sorry. But I didn’t file any complaints against you. You’re great neighbors. You haven’t done anything at all. Even your get-togethers are quiet and respectful. Why would I complain about you?”

“If it isn’t you, then who…?” Stiles looks away from Derek. For some reason, he finds his gaze locked onto Jackson. Who is staring back at him with a kind of terrified look on his face.

“Jackson?” Stiles asks.

“Yeah?” His roommate swallows hard.

“Why has Derek been filing complaints about us at the front office?”

“He hasn’t,” Jackson whispers. “I have.”

“Why?” Derek asks. “You guys are perfect! My parents love you.”

“It’s stupid,” Jackson mutters. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop. I’ll move out too. I’m sorry, Stiles.”

“What did you hope to accomplish by filing complaints against us? You realize you would be kicked out too, right?”

“Yeah, but…” he pauses to blow out a breath that he doesn’t seem like he can spare. “I just. It’s just so stupid. I’m so sorry, Stiles. I just wanted to get you evicted. I knew the rest of us could play off as quiet and nice tenants while you’d probably have a loud reaction and get kicked out. I’m sorry.”

Hurt, Stiles leans back like that can even begin to give him the distance he needs right now. Jackson does look reproached but sorry doesn’t make up for the fact that his roommate, someone he thought was his friend, filed three noise complaints against him. One more and the landlords would have no choice but to investigate and possibly kick him out.

Derek pats at Stiles’ arm. “I’m sorry you have such a shitty friend,” he says.

Stiles nods. “Me too.” He stands up. “I’m sorry, Derek. I came here to yell at you for unfairly complaining about us, and you’ve been nothing but awesome. I hope I get to see you again someday. Right now, I just need to go. I need to find a place to stay for tonight.” He looks back at Jackson and then away just as quickly. “I can’t stay at our apartment right now.”

“Everyone was just leaving, right?”

“Fuck no,” Laura says. “We’re stealing your bed, Derek. You can sleep on the couch.”

Derek frowns at her. “Okay, so we’re all a little too drunk for this. Stiles, why don’t you stay here tonight and Jackson will go back to the apartment. We’ll sort it all out tomorrow when we’re not drunk anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Jackson says again. “Really, Stiles. I am.”

“I get it,” Stiles tells him, “but right now, I don’t care.”

“Jordan, walk Jackson back to his apartment,” Laura orders. “My buzz is fading and that’s not what Saturday night’s all about.”

It’s definitely an awkward end to what had been a fun and kind of sweet night.

Stiles sits back down on the sofa as the door closes behind Jackson and Jordan. Derek watches him, eyes soft with concern. Stiles isn’t sure that he wants whatever sympathy Derek has for him, but he’s glad at least someone seems to realize how hurt he is by Jackson’s betrayal.

Laura grouses a bit and then stumbles to the bedroom, half the rest of the party following her while the other half goes to the other bedroom.

Derek sighs, leaning against Stiles. “Are you okay?”

“Not really, but I guess I will be. Anyway, I better call our other roommates and let them know that I’ll be moving out.”

“You can stay on my couch tonight, and if you need a place to crash, I’ve got a spare bed.” He glances at the second door. “I’ll clean the bed and put out fresh sheets tomorrow,” he promises.

“Why would you do that for me?” Stiles asks. “I’m practically a stranger to you.”

“Well, my sisters like you. Cora especially. So,” Derek shrugs, “I like you too.”

“That is, ostensibly, the worst reason I have ever heard to like someone,” Stiles says.

Derek rolls his shoulders in a lazy shrug. “It’s worked out so far,” he replies. “Anyway. I should let you get settled.” He pauses, studying Stiles with a serious, contemplative expression, lip between his teeth. Honestly, it’s a little adorable.

Stiles sighs and shakes his head. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Derek, you’re being a real friend, unlike Jackson.”

It’s Derek’s turn to sigh. “I’ve had my share of bad friends,” he admits. “I do my best to not make anyone feel like they’re unwelcome even if I don’t know them. I guess it makes people think I’m soft or something, so I try to keep my true emotions hidden when I’m out in public…” he trails off, blinking. “I don’t remember where I was going with that, but yeah, I really just want you to know that you’re welcome here as long as you need it.”

“Thanks,” Stiles says sincerely. “That really means a lot to me. Thank you, Derek.”

“No problems.” Derek does a two finger wave as he stumbles to a trunk set between the bedroom doors. He returns with a couple of blankets and pillows, thumping one set into Stiles’ chest. “You take the couch. I’ll sleep in the kitchen. Wake me up if I’m not already up when you get up.”

“Okay.” Stiles refuses to believe it’s a promise, but the hopeful look Derek gives him before he disappears into the kitchen makes him think that whether he meant it or not, Derek definitely took it as a promise.

Could be worse, he decides, dropping the pillow onto the couch and following it down.

His brain, usually wired too fast to get much sleep must be as exhausted as he is because almost as soon as he buries his face in his borrowed pillow, he’s out.

~ * ~

Stiles wakes up when one of the guests trips on their way to the bathroom, and because it’s daylight outside, he decides it’s not worth chasing that last minute of sleep, so he gets up and goes to find Derek in the kitchen.

Derek is rolled into his blanket, face smushed into his pillow. He’s adorable, and Stiles is struck by the sudden realization that someone needs to be kissing and loving up on him, and that maybe it should be him.

The floor creaks a little as Stiles moves closer, and Derek snuffles a bit and then sits bolt upright, bleary-eyed and yawning.

“Wha’ time’s it?” he mumbles, a hand flopping out of his blanket wrap to scratch at his beard.

Stiles pulls out his phone. “It’s almost 6:30,” he says. “Are you okay from sleeping on the floor?”

“’m fine,” Derek says around another yawn. He scrambles up and stretches until his back pops. “So, do you want something to eat? If I know Laura and her hangover, she’ll want the greasiest thing I can make. I’ve got three types of bacon—regular, thick, and turkey. I have eggs, cheese, hash browns, biscuits, and gravy.”

Stiles laughs in disbelief at the size of the menu. “Just how many guests do you have?” he asks. “Jordan’s still with Jackson. That means there’s eight of us left, including you. Do you really thing we can eat all that?”

Derek grins at him. “You don’t know hungover Laura. She’ll put it all away if we don’t stop her.”

Stiles rolls his shoulders. He’s not inclined to stop Derek if he’s planning on cooking again. Besides, it’s not like he has anywhere he has to be. Not until Jackson is out of the apartment because even though he’s the one moving out, he doesn’t want to be in the same room as his former friend.

Instead, he sits at the little table tucked under the window and watches Derek dig out everything he talked about and more. He tosses an orange at Stiles and then hums under his breath as he heats up a skillet and begins cracking eggs into a bowl. He pops what look like homemade biscuits on a baking sheet and starts a pot of country gravy.

“You know,” Stiles says, contemplative, “you’re handsome, can cook, and are so sweet. Why don’t you have a significant other?”

Derek’s shoulders tense for a brief moment before he continues, using a fork to beat the eggs. “I’m un-datable,” he says easily. Certainly far more easily than Stiles could have in his position.

“And why is that?” Stiles digs a thumb into a groove of the table while he waits for Derek’s response.

“Because he’s a fucking martyr,” Laura says from the doorway. She saunters in and sits down in the chair across from Stiles, wincing as her chair scrapes the floor. “Way back in high school, he wasn’t always so reserved and cool. He was dorky as shit. There were a few girls—popular bitches. You know the type, rich, never had to work for the things they had. Anyway, some of them targeted him because while Derek was never ugly, he wasn’t the cutest boy in school.” Laura pauses to rub her temples. “We have money. Obviously. Our parents own this apartment complex. So they just wanted to fuck with him. The last one was the worst.”

Derek’s shoulders are shaking, and Stiles stops Laura. She looks over at her brother and swears colorfully.

“Hey, I’m sorry. I’ll stop talking. We won’t say anything more. I promise.”

“It’s okay,” Derek says, calmly sliding several slices of the turkey bacon into the pan. “It’s been years. It’s not like she’s out yet.”

Stiles startles, a soft, “What?” slipping out.

Derek sighs heavily, reaching for a spatula. “My last girlfriend drugged me. She was trying to record something incriminating and ended up getting busted by a chaperone.”

“It was junior prom,” Laura fills in.

Derek nods. “She got five years. It was extended after she fought her cellmate and almost killed her. So, she’s got another five years. She’ll be released in two years.”

Stiles quickly counts up on his fingers. “So that makes you, what, twenty-five?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Twenty-three.”

“I’m thirty,” Laura interjects, shrugging when both her brother and Stiles look at her. “Yeah. I had an outside perspective.” She goes quiet. “I was the chaperone.”

“That’s some heavy stuff,” Stiles says. “No wonder you don’t date anymore.”

“Anyway. Breakfast is about halfway done. You should call the others.”

Derek moves onto the potatoes next. Laura leaves, probably to rouse the other guests. Stiles sits back at the table, rolling the orange one way and then the other.

After a few minutes of nothing but the sizzling of potatoes, Stiles clears his throat. “So,” he says softly. “Are you ready to date again or still…?”

“Probably ready,” Derek answers, so low that Stiles has to strain to hear him. “Been ready for a while, but Laura feels so guilty that she kind of sabotages my relationships.”

“If it were me, I wouldn’t let her push me away.”

“Are you insinuating that you’d date me?” Derek turns just to raise an eyebrow at him.

Stiles waits until he turns back to stove before saying, “Maybe more than insinuating.”

Derek doesn’t respond, so Stiles assumes he hasn’t heard him. That’s okay. Stiles can just sit here and enjoy the view. Maybe after breakfast he’ll bring up the insinuation again. He doesn’t want it to be awkward if he’s going to crash with Derek before finding his own place.

But if it goes well, aside from Laura, then maybe they can move in right away. Derek has two bedrooms. It’s not like they’ll jump right into bed. Stiles is still virginal and a bit self-conscious about it. And besides, Derek might be ready for dating but dating is miles from having sex. At least, Stiles thinks it is. It’s not like he has experience there.

He finally peels the orange to give his hands something to do and then Derek clears his throat. Stiles looks up.

“So, uh, about what you said, about it not being an insinuation. Did you mean that?” Derek sets a plate of the fresh biscuits onto the table and then grabs the pot of gravy too.

“Yes?” Stiles coughs, feeling the flush rising in his cheeks. “I mean, yeah, yes. Definitely. I definitely would like to date you. I mean, technically, we’re already on our second date.”

“True. So, formally, Stiles-I-don’t-know-your-last-name, would you like to go on a date with me?”

“Stilinski,” Stiles says, “and yes, Derek Hale, I’d love to go on a date with you. Formally.”

Derek makes a face. “Your name is Stiles Stilinski? Who named you?”

“Excuse you, I did.” Stiles makes a face back at him. “It’s a nickname, duh.”

“So what’s your real name?”

“Ah,” Stiles waggles a finger at him, “that’s a third date kind of question, don’t you think?”

“Are we going on a date tonight?”

“Probably,” Stiles says, and then realizes what Derek is getting at. “Cheeky,” he says. “Maybe I’ll never tell you until the day we get married, and then you’ll be like, ‘What happened to Stiles?’ and ‘How the fuck do you even say that?’”

“Wrong.”

“How so?”

“I’d never be so crude as to swear on our wedding day. That’s for the honeymoon.”

“Oh yeah, and what’ll you be saying then?”

Derek blushes and doesn’t answer, but Stiles can guess and it makes him blush too.

“Oh isn’t this cozy?” Abigail says as she drops into the chair next to Stiles. The rest of the guests file in, grab food and file out, all shuffling in some kind of zombie-walk. Only Laura joins them at the table. Abigail adds, slyly eying Laura, who has piled a plate high with a lot off food, immediately stabbing a fork into the mess and shoveling it into her face, “Are you finally going to admit your big, fat crush on little old Stiles here, eh, Derek?”

“Yeah, actually, we’re way past that,” Derek says. “We’re on our second date.”

Laura chokes on her eggs. “What?” she demands, glaring at Stiles. “When did this happen?”

“Um, well, the party last night was the first date,” Stiles says. He holds her gaze, giving as good as he gets. “Breakfast this morning is date number two.”

“And we’re going on a third date tonight,” Derek announces. He stares down Laura, almost daring her to challenge him. Instead, and Stiles gets the distinct feeling that this is rare, Laura sinks back in her chair and digs back into her eggs.

Briefly, Stiles thinks he made a mistake agreeing to date Derek so easily, but the first moment Derek looks up from his plate and grins at Stiles as he reaches for more food, he knows he was gone the moment he sat on Derek’s couch and listened to him make his friends leave Jackson alone, the way he let them in at all. The way he’s been nothing but gracious despite his semi-drunken confession to purposefully putting on a grumpy air in the hallways. Derek Hale is a sweetheart and Stiles realizes that he wants to date Derek in all the ways. He wants to learn his favorite color, which movies he loves, what he reads, why he gives up his bed to his friends and his couch to a stranger. He wants to know Derek, and Derek’s gentle smile lets him know that Derek wants to know him too.

So maybe Jackson deserves a little credit for this, but Stiles is still mad at him. Even if it’s the best thing that’s happened to Stiles in a long while.

“Mieczysław,” he says suddenly, aware that he’s interrupting some weird bantering between Abigail and Laura.

“What?” Laura asks.

Derek just grins wider. “Mieczysław,” he repeats and he doesn’t completely butcher it, but it could use some work.

“Yeah,” Stiles says.

And that’s how he knows they’ll work out, eating breakfast foods at a table with Derek’s older sister and special friend, on their second date, Derek’s blanket and pillow still shoved into a corner of the room, the sound of the rest of Derek’s friends chattering in the living room.

Derek and Mieczysław sitting at the table, making eyes at each other over eggs and bacon, gonna get married and say bad words on their honeymoon.

Yeah, it kinda sounds perfect.

~ The End ~

#Teen Wolf Fanfiction #Stiles Stilinski #Derek Hale #Enemies to Friends to Lovers #Fullmoon Ficlet Prompt 373 #My Story/My Writing

9 notes · View notes

gobnaits · 6 years

Note

#24 for Jared and Richard?

I’m sorry this is late! I didn’t see it for like a week because i almost exclusively use the tumblr app and it’s trash and then life got in the way for a bit! So here are 1000 sappy, badly written words!

There’s this thing Richard has learned about Jared.

Well, there are a lot of things.

But this specific thing. It’s not something Richard had to be told, not the horrifying details from his childhood Jared that could make up, like, a dozen of the Lifetime movies Richard’s mom watched on Friday nights when he was a kid.

No, this is something Richard learned on his own from just paying attention to Jared. Watching the way that his face works. Now Richard knows the look when Jared is mentally flagellating himself for wanting something.

Because Jared denies himself things that he wants. Not everything. There are plenty of things that Jared enjoys. 8-part documentaries, knitting, bird watching, mahjong, hot yoga.

But, like, Richard has noticed how Jared’s eyes light up when he sees something he wants, how then just as quickly his smile tightens and falls, how his brow furrows and his lips purse.

There was the time Priyanka’s girlfriend surprised her with hipster SF pastries for her birthday and Jared’s face did the thing before he politely declined. That was the first time Richard noticed it (his own face and fingers sticky with sugar from his “cruffin”).

At first, he thought it was because of Jared’s long list dietary restrictions.

But then he noticed it again and again. When Jared saw that Joan Osborne was coming to San Francisco and didn’t buy tickets. When Monica invited Jared to get a manicure with her and he declined. When he found a first edition copy of a Judy Blume book at a second-hand store and walked away from it. Eventually, it clicked for Richard. Jared denies himself the stuff he thinks is too good for him, the stuff he thinks he doesn’t deserve.

This makes a disturbing amount of sense considering all the other stuff about himself that Jared willingly offers up.

Every time Richard notices it, his stomach clenches. He wants to fucking hurt someone in those moments. Many Someones, who are long gone but left their marks on Jared. He wants to get rid of the marks. He wants to… to fucking do something.

He gets his chance when they go to the Stanford Shopping Center. Ostensibly, they’re there to buy clothes for Richard, who has to go to a yacht party and hasn’t owned a pair of shorts that weren’t meant for basketball (hilariously) since he was twelve. But he sees Jared’s face as they pass the black brick storefront of Lush. Richard sees the beginnings of the mental self-denial gymnastics.

Richard used to think he wasn’t good at noticing things about people. But maybe, he thinks, a bit guiltily, that he didn’t really care enough about anyone else to notice. Because Richard really cares about Jared in a weird terrible way that he’s never cared about anyone else; it’s a way that Richard doesn’t want to think more about at this moment. More so, right now, he just wants Jared to have something he wants.

So he says, “Let’s, ah, go in,”

“Of course,” Jared, who is holding more than his fair share of bags, continues walking toward the Bloomingdale’s they were heading toward, to begin with. Richard stops and so does Jared a few paces ahead of him.

“No, ah, I, um, meant the Lush.” He points. Jared furrows his eyebrows.

“You want to go in Lush?”

“Yeah, I can get some, um, soap.” Jared’s face brightens.

“Oh, of course. Your self-care is of the utmost importance, Richard!”

Emily, the Lush employee who helps them has a black apron, a septum piercing, and purple hair. She stays very friendly even as Richard stutters and sputters his way through trying different products. They try different moisturizers and shaving creams and face scrubs and soaps. Richard fucking hopes something will catch Jared’s eye but he seems excited to suggest things for Richard to try.

“Anything else you’re interested in?” Emily asks with a smile. Richard sees his chance.

“Do you want something, Jared? What about a bath bomb? You like baths.”

“Oh, no Richard, It’s a bit indulgent for me… Why don’t you try one though”

“Come on, try this one,” Richard grabs a yellow one off the display and hands it to Jared, who holds it carefully with both hands.

Emily, without missing a beat, starts explaining the product. “That’s the Cheer Up Buttercup. It’s a mood booster with a citrusy mix of neroli, lime and一”

Jared raises the yellow ball to his nose and inhales deeply. His eyes close. “Lemon myrtle! It’s lovely!” Jared is smiling wide, rubbing at the bomb with his thumb.

Richard is being greedily selfless right now, drinking in the happy look on Jared’s face, a look he put there. The idea of Jared, all long limbs and pale skin lounging in the bathtub with the same look on his face invades Richard’s head.

“We’ll take it!”

“Richard, I can’t.” Fuck. Jared is frowning at him.

“No, no, you have to. You love it. You have to get one.” Richard urges. “I will if you will!”

With that Jared furrows his brow, giving Richard a strange look that in a way seems like a concession. Richard grabs the nearest bath bomb and shoves it into Emily’s hands. “I’ll take this one,”

Emily smiles holding Richard’s bright pink and purple ball and takes Jared’s from him. She leads Richard to the register and Richard pays. Emily starts putting them into the same bag.

“Two bags, thanks,” Richard says.

Emily looks surprised but hands two bags over with a smile. “That’s one Cheer Up Buttercup and one Sex Bomb!”

Richard tries not to blush and nods.

Jared didn’t follow Richard to the register. He’s standing outside the entrance of the store, laden with the other bags. Maybe he’s angry at Richard for not listening to him, but Richard is an idiot. He regularly forgets to listen to Jared, usually over things a lot more important than a bath bomb, right?

“Jared?” Richard says outside the store.

Jared looks at him and he’s fucking crying. No, no, no. Fuck. “Jared, did I一I’m sorry,”

“No!” Jared starts wiping at his eyes. “I’m okay. Thank you, Richard, that was kind of you,”

“It was nothing. Let’s, uh, go sit down for awhile,” Richard says. They don’t make it Bloomingdale’s. They sit on a bench and talk for a bit. Jared cries and smiles and laughs. Richard notices the way his eyes look very blue when watery; the lines around his mouth when he smiles wide; the way certain smiles make his nose look larger, in an endearing way. He wants to learn all of the ways Jared smiles. He wants to be the one to put them there.

That night Richard takes a bath that smells like jasmine and buys a first edition copy of Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret on eBay.

#mine #ask #this is so bad #wow #ask meme #jarrich #fic #i guess #i did a lot of bath bomb research and zach woods emoting research #important work #sv

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thedoctorishereguys · 7 years

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Rules: I was supposed to tag 25 people. I’m not doing that. I hate tagging people. Do it if you want to. It passes time.

I grabbed the open tag from someone or another. IDK. It’s on my dash quite a bit today. Hello, whoever I grabbed it from!

LAST: LAST THING I BOUGHT: Coffee. LAST STORE I VISITED: CVS, but I work there. Uh. Fuck, I haven’t gone to any store in like months other than my work. Uh. Gas station, I guess, for my smokes? LAST TEXT MESSAGE: “I can come in for work now if you can pick me up. TY.” LAST SONG YOU LISTENED TO: Everyone says don’t, sung by Raul Esparza. LAST THING I ATE: Shit, when did I even eat last? Fuck. Um. Yeah, this would be easier to answer if I ate more than like once a day. I think steak? Maybe? Idk, really. HAVE YOU EVER: DATED SOMEONE TWICE: Nope BEEN CHEATED ON: I don’t think so? But I wouldn’t put it past the bastard I was with, really. KISSED SOMEONE AND REGRETTED IT: … Honestly, y’know, that’s complicated. I regret the relationship I was in, but I don’t regret having been sexual in general with that person? So… yes and no? Idk. LOST SOMEONE SPECIAL: Yes. My great-grandmas have been gone 12-13 years now and I still have trouble talking about their deaths. BEEN DEPRESSED: I have bipolar disorder, depressed is one of my main emotions. BEEN DRUNK AND THROWN UP: Way too many times to count. IN THE PAST YEAR HAVE YOU: MADE A NEW FRIEND: Yes FALLEN OUT OF LOVE: No. But I haven’t fallen in love either. LAUGHED UNTIL YOU CRIED: Yes MET SOMEONE WHO CHANGED YOU: Yes. FOUND OUT WHO YOUR TRUE FRIENDS WERE: Yes. In all the good ways, found that people I didn’t realize were close really were. I ended up in a psych ward due to a complete mental breakdown, and I realized I had an entire support network that I never thought to ask for help from before. Just everyone in my life really rallied around me. One of my friends, who generally hates driving distances, drove almost an hour to the hospital to see me, sometimes more than once a week (I was there for almost a month). That same friend also hugged me when he left, even though he is the least touchy-feely guy in existence. One of my work friends got really worried about me when I stopped coming to work, but he still didn’t pressure me to talk about it, just asked me what he can do to help, but told me that he doesn’t need to know what happened, only what I’m willing to share. I did tell him everything, because he is a good friend, but he was so good to me. People I hadn’t talked to in ages, because I was isolating severely beforehand, came and visited, or called, and it was just so touching. Even now, a couple months later, people will ask me how I’m doing, and my best friend (the one who drove couple times a week to visit) makes sure to call me several times a week just to check in, just so I don’t end up in that situation again. After the first psych ward visit (I had two this summer), I attempted suicide, and I called that best friend in a panic that I needed to get to the hospital, but I didn’t want my parents to know what I had done, so I didn’t want to call 911, and he came and got me right away, and he stayed at the hospital for almost 2 hours, until they took me back into the psych ward. FOUND OUT SOMEONE WAS TALKING ABOUT YOU: Yes, a coworker, but she does that to everyone, although I think I’m her special project. I don’t much care. GENERAL: HOW MANY PEOPLE ON TUMBLR DO YOU KNOW IN REAL LIFE?: Uh… no one, I guess, but I still defend I know enough about one to count it, so there. DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS?: No and thank god. I’m not an animal person. I used to have lizards, but they died on me. I like lizards. I wanted snakes, but my mom (with whom I still live) said absolutely fucking not. DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR NAME?: Nah, I like mine. Wish people would pronounce it right, but that’s a different matter. WHAT TIME DID YOU WAKE UP THIS MORNING?: 6 fucking a.m. Which was only because I was due in at work at 7, otherwise, I am not conscious before 1pm, and often sleep until 3. WHAT WERE YOU DOING LAST NIGHT?: Hm. Work until 8pm, which was hell, and then fucking around on the computer until like 1a.m. Which may explain why I feel like death today. NAME SOMETHING YOU CAN’T WAIT FOR: Getting to drive again? Coffee with a girl next week? Seeing my best friend again? HAVE YOU EVER MET SOMEONE NAMED TOM?: … Honestly, I’m sure I have, but none come to mind. Must not have made a huge impression on me. WHAT’S GETTING ON YOUR NERVES RN?: Not much. I’m too tired to give any fucks about anything. Uh. The existence of 7 a.m. I’m pretty sure the devil invented mornings as a punishment for our sins. BLOOD TYPE: A positive. I used to be a blood donor, so I’ve known my blood type for years (I am no longer a blood donor, because the last time I donated, I got so sick my doctor was tempted to transfuse my blood back in.) NICKNAME: I don’t have one. And that’s fine with me. There are no ways to shorten my name, it’s only two syllables, and I don’t particularly care for pet names. Dear and sweetheart and honey are just… ugh. The only one I like is ‘babe’, and obviously, that’s not one I’ll let many people call me (I do have a coworker who calls me that, but she’s awesome, so she can) RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single. ZODIAC SIGN: Which one’s the zodiac? Is that the one with the animals, like the rat and the horse and ram, or is that the one with the astrology crap, like Cancer and Aries and Taurus? Either way, I’m a horse and a Sagittarius. And it makes no fucking difference. The year you were born in has zero effect on your personality, and the gravitational pull of the planets even less so. Actually, people have done the math, and the gynecologist present exerts as much gravitational pull on you (because all objects exert gravitational pull, not just planets and stars) as some of the planets on the horoscope, so if you really want to blame someone for your failings, why not the doctor who birthed you? The whole thing is an utter load of nonsense, really, bullshit fucking pseudo-science idiots keep falling for because they need something to believe in, because the stark reality that there is nothing guiding their lives and everything is random is too bleak. (This bleeds into my problems with religion, too, by the way, but I have a measure more respect for that, because at least it instills some level of ethics, which astrology utterly fails to do. But only a measure more.) PRONOUNS: She/Her FAVORITE TV SHOW: Doctor Who, Doctor Who, Doctor Who. All the goddamn way, do not take away my Doctor Who. Every other show can go off the air before you take away my precious Doctor Who. COLLEGE: I went to a state school. HAIR COLOR: Black with purple. LONG OR SHORT: My hair? Or other random body parts? I don’t have a penis, otherwise I’d totally make a dick joke here. My hair is as short as I can get it. DO YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON SOMEBODY: Totally! And she said yes to a date, so score! And then there are fictional characters and celebs, and I really need to be better at tagging my posts so @hawkland doesn’t slap me one of these days. FIRSTS: FIRST SURGERY: Breast reduction, 2009. FIRST PIERCING: Ears, 2014. FIRST BEST FRIEND: … First? You honestly expect me to remember that far back? Fucking hell. FIRST SPORT YOU JOINED: Basketball? Soccer? Idk, it was one of those two. FIRST VACATION: That I can remember or that I went on? Because the first that I know of was Slovakia. The first I can remember was… Huh. Hungary, I guess? FIRST PAIR OF SNEAKERS: Who the fuck remembers their sneakers? I couldn’t tell you what sneakers I own right fucking now. EATING: What are you asking me? First time I ate? First thing I ate? I’m guessing so, since this is under firsts… Well, is breastmilk a food or a liquid? Let’s go with food. So first food was around 10 minutes old and it was breastmilk. WTF is wrong with you? Who else would say anything substantially different? Sure, maybe they had formula instead, but no one is going to say, “Oh, I first ate at 25, and it was a fine steak dinner.” If they do, they’re an alien. DRINKING: Listen, seriously, what the hell? I’M ABOUT TO: Idk. Take a nap, maybe? LISTENING TO: Nothing, I feel no compulsion to surround myself with noise at all hours of the day and night. WANT KIDS: Fuck no. Not ever. GET MARRIED: Sure, if I find someone I like and who can, at least, tolerate me. CAREER: Ideally. WHICH IS BETTER: LIPS OR EYES: For what? Lips are good for kissing and sucking and integral in speaking, which help with things like “I love you,” eyes are good for looking and part of communication. Really. How do you pick? HUGS OR KISSES: Hm. Toughie. Idk. SHORTER OR TALLER: I like my men taller and my women my height. As I’m mainly interested in women… OLDER OR YOUNGER: My age. ROMANTIC OR SPONTANEOUS?: Uh. I’m not a fan of spontaneous, really, I don’t like shit sprung on me. But I’m too awkward to pull romantic off, I usually stick my foot in my mouth about a minute in. Planned out, at least. SENSITIVE OR LOUD: Yeah, these two really aren’t mutually exclusive. Sensitive doesn’t mean you’re not a screamer 😉

HOOK UP OR RELATIONSHIP: Depends what you’re looking for? I mean, I know sometimes I just want sex, and that’s fine, that’s totally OK. And sometimes I want a relationship. It depends what you want. TROUBLEMAKER OR HESITANT: Yeah, hesitant isn’t usually in my wheelhouse. Depends on the situation really. But I’m not a troublemaker, per se. HAVE YOU EVER: KISSED A STRANGER: No. Not really? DRANK HARD LIQUOR: Yeah. A lot of it. I’m a recovering alcoholic, and vodka was my drink of choice. LOST GLASSES/CONTACTS: Nope. If they’re not on my face, they’re on my nightstand. SEX ON THE FIRST DATE: I’m open to it. I don’t see anything wrong with being sexual, as long as both parties are clear on what they want. BROKEN SOMEONE’S HEART: I’m honestly not sure. BEEN ARRESTED: No TURNED SOMEONE DOWN: Yes FALLEN FOR A FRIEND: Yes DO YOU BELIEVE: IN YOURSELF: Some of the time. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT: Yeah, no. You can feel lust, attraction, whatever, at first sight. But love? The most you can love at first sight is the idea you have built up in your head of that person. You don’t know that person at all when you first meet them, how can you love them? HEAVEN: Yeah, see my rant above about religion. I’m an atheist. No heaven. SANTA CLAUS: … I did not just get asked this. Yes. Of course I believe in Santa Claus. And the Easter Bunny. And the fucking Tooth Fairy, which was always the most imbecilic of the lot, and really just there to see how much we can stretch childhood innocence. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny at least have some kind of sense for a child, but now we’re trying to convince them there’s a goddamn fairy who’d rather have a tooth than money? Who the fuck came up with this? Are we just outright saying children are fucking dumb little shits who’ll believe any fool thing we tell them? Because, yeah, of course most of them do, their parents, who they trust unconditionally, are telling them these things, and telling them about the Tooth Fairy – and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, by the way – is an exploitation of that trust, and of childhood innocence. We do it because it’s cute that little kids fervently believe in a magical man who brings presents, instead of the truth, which is that their parents love them, and that because they love them, this one day, they are given gifts, out of that love, and on a holiday that had become about familial love. How is that not a better story? Why does some magical shit need to get involved? And the contortions people put themselves through to keep Santa alive for their children, it’s absurd! (Also, don’t tell me Christmas is not about familial love, because it absolutely is – yes, it’s a religious holiday too, but I think Jesus would approve of it being about love, given his beliefs).

Ugh. Santa Claus. Fucking hell.

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temeraaires-blog · 7 years

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 2 Song Starters

SUPER long post and some a lot of these are nsfw. Feel free to change pronouns/names/do whatever.

Theme Song

I’m just a girl in love.

I can’t be held responsible for my actions.

I have no underlying issues to address.

They say love makes you crazy.

Love Kernels

I can live for days off a single “you really listen to me.”

I’m like a sexy fashion cactus.

But how do I know he loves me?

I guess the only way to prove it is through abstract symbolism.

He gives me love kernels.

If you read between the lines he’s saying “I love you.”

I’m the most important person in his life, next to his friend.

God, I’m thirsty after all that popcorn.

Whatever you got, baby, I’ll take it, baby.

Your house smells like lemon.

I’ll take it.

It’s a stretch but I’ll take that too.

______ is now played by a broom on a stand.

We’ll do our best with what we have.

We Should Definitely Not Have Sex Right Now

We should definitely not have sex right now.

I need time to reflect.

I’m in a really weird place.

There’s no reason to have sex again. But I’ll be ready to go again in ten.

Maybe This Dream

When I was a little girl, I felt like a princess.

I thought my dreams would come true, but then as I grew, the world was all like, "Nope.”

Maybe this dream won’t end in disgrace.

Maybe this dream is in reach.

Maybe this dream won’t be like my vibrator, breaking when I need it most.

Maybe this dream will finally me feel like I deserve a dream.

Greg’s Drinking Song

There’s joy and there’s glory more than you can think.

Yes, this is what happens to me when I drink.

I pee my pants!

Wow, I did not know it was that bad.

Chase down the regret with some gin for good luck.

I puke on my cat.

Poor little ____ did not expect that.

What happens when, I try to have one it just turns into ten.

That wasn’t a woman?

No, it was a bush.

So that’s where that scar comes from!

But he’s breaking his cycle and making a push!

He’s quitting his drinking.

I Could If I Wanted To (Reprise)

Whoop de frickin’ do.

My best friend is sleeping with my ex behind my back.

Who cares? I don’t.

But I could if I wanted---

Ping Pong Girl

Sports!

I could tell she’s the most perfect girl who’s ever existed.

Oh man, look at her pong that ping.

She does it for herself and that puts my fears to rest.

BRO!

She’s so aloof it borders on cold. And that’s what makes me want her.

Nothing’s hotter than a chick who’s good at sports.

She scored a thousand points!

I think I love her.

Ping pong shows she has control of her body, but it doesn’t threaten my masculinity like basketball or hockey.

She’s like Serena or Venus

She’s so indifferent. It makes me want a tangible commitment.

The Math of Love Triangles

What’s a girl to do when she’s stuck between men?

I wasn’t really listening

The center of the triangle is little ol’ me!

So I need to decide which man’s more acute.

Those are good puns, but please pay attention.

We’re starting to suspect you don’t sincerely want to know about triangles.

Is this a triangle?

No that’s a shoe.

No that’s you.

So I’m a triangle?

What? No!

Ooh, are you erect?

That’s really erect!

We’re tired of all your tangents.

You all deserve a kiss.

Lady, we’re all gay. We get nothing out of this.

It Was a Shit Show

I love you, yes.

The thought of staying is so enticing.

Then stay.

When you speak, my knees get weak.

I can’t believe what I’m sacrificing.

But let’s get real. We know the deal.

Darling, let’s not tiptoe.

This thing we had was not just bad. It was a shitshow.

We can’t undo, can’t make amends.

Disfunction is our lingua franca.

We can’t unscrew each other’s friends.

There’s hard to get, then there’s neglect.

To say it’s fate, you’d have to be a bit slow.

Not to be crass, but this sucked ass.

This was a shitshow.

We have chemistry, of course. But that’s a formula for divorce.

Oh what the hell, let’s get a hotel.

Life is short, and we’re not getting any younger.

But after sex what happens next...I mean, in the long run. Not just fatigue and hunger...

And when you say that I should stay, that’s exactly when I should split, though.

Though I won’t forget, I won’t regret.

Though I won’t forget, I won’t regret this beautiful, heart-stopping, breathtaking, life-changing…..

We Tapped That Ass

We tapped that ass all over this house.

Sometimes him. Sometimes me. Though never simultaneously.

But one of us was hitting it, usually.

That bed is really uncomfortable!

Right? It’s like a prison cot!

What? Too cheeky?

A little to the left/right

Wait! No, you’re doing it wrong. I’ll do it myself!

Barkeep! What’s on tap?

How much more tapping could one ass endure?

Thought Bubbles

Well, I don’t mind being alone.

I’m not afraid of what enters my mind when I’m so low.

I’m perfectly capable of taking of advantage of this time.

No, I don’t mind being alone with my thoughts.

That’s a bad thought!

I don’t like that thought!

What happens if I go to hell?

Chill out.

If I can’t hit the gym how will I ever be a good father?

Friendtopia

When my friends and I stick together there’s nothing we can’t do.

I specifically mean we’re going to stage a coup.

Squad goals!

A dystopia around our friendship

There’s a really exclusive sushi place that never lets us in.

Let’s just go home and drink rose.

I put drugs in the water supply.

Aww, I love Hocus Pocus.

Zig-a-zow!

Stuck in the Bathroom

Get me out of here!

Tonight was already super weird and now [you’re/she’s/he’s] stuck in the bathroom.

I have a deceptive amount of muscular strength thanks to my amazing core.

Her little bird arms aren’t going to do anything!

Whoever renovated this house did a terrible job!

I can’t believe it took us that long to come up with the most obvious solution.

Research Me Obsessively

Hey, what are you doing for the next, like, thirteen hours?

Don't do anything healthy. Don't be productive. Give in to your desire.

Find out everything you can about me

You Go First

We used to be there for each other, every second

I really wanna tell you that I'm sorry!

I really wanna tell you that I am the worst!

I just want to say I miss you every day!

This is almost entirely all my fault here. But you gotta admit it's just a tiny bit your fault too.

Sometimes you can be really passive aggressive!

Sometimes you can be really self-involved.

Go ahead and say you're kind of sorry! So I can say "Oh, no, no, no, please!” Just like I rehearsed!

If you open the door, I'll apologize so much more.

[But] You go first!

So Maternal

Parenting ain’t harrowing, demanding or traumatic!

Step aside ladies, give your babies to a Carol Brady level matriarch.

Low expectations - Raise ‘em up!

You know, I guess I just instinctively get how to be a mom and that's what sets me apart from other "mothers."

Damn, I’m so maternal!

Duh!

Duh! What was I thinking?

Can’t believe I couldn’t see it all along.

Don’t know what was going through my mind!

I’m just like -- ugh! God, I’m so stupid.

Looking back on old times. Like that one time. And that other time.

It’s so obvious!

Duh!

Who’s the New Guy?

Who's the new guy? I don't trust him

Do we really need a new guy this far into the season? And by "far into the season" I mean it's almost fall.

He's suspiciously good looking. In ways that normal people are not

Is this someone new we're gonna have to grow to care about?

Why should we root for someone male, straight and white?

We’ll Never Have Problems Again

We’ll never have problems again!

It's only smooth, smooth sailing from now on…

We used to have problems but now they're gone.

Do you remember, back when we had problems?

Man, that was annoying.

But now our love has magically solved [our problems].

And there won't be any more [problems] in our future at all!

Fine. I guess I’ll just Soul Train out of here.

The first test failed but that’s ‘cause it wasn’t true love.

They say obsession biologically lasts four years at most but science doesn't apply to us.

Remember That We Suffered

But before you feel too great...remember that we suffered!

But we sing in a minor key to remember that we suffered!

Being happy is selfish!

You have no idea what pain is!

When I say 'we' you say 'suffered'!

Santa Ana Winds

Hello there, it's me.

I make things weird

That's science for "a pain in your asses"

They just got Santa Ana winded!

I'm a prankster. Tee-hee-hee-hee.

I just wanna see what will happen

You're looking really guilty

That kiss was all your fault!

I just reveal your deepest wishes and fears

So it's you, ________. It's not me who is super weird.

You ruined everything.

Let’s Have Intercourse

Unfortunately, I want to have sex with you

I don't know what happened

For some reason, you're now on the top of my to-do list

Let's get this over with so I can focus on other tasks

Just pretend I'm seducing you

Let's quickly have intercourse so I can move on with my life

Once we do it, it'll be like “Well, that's what that was like.”

I mean, obviously you want to, too

Just super quickly have intercourse

Sometimes my body wants things that my mind does not

My body wants things that make my mind go, "Uh, body, what?"

We're animals It's unfortunate.

So come on, let's contortion it!

I won't be back to normal till I see what your nipples look like.

Until we stop wasting time talking 'bout it and we super quickly, it'll only take a second, have intercourse.

Good thing I happen to have an old condom In my wallet

You’re My Best Friend (And I Know I’m Not Yours)

You’re my best friend, and I know I’m not yours.

And that’s okay.

I’m not your best friend.

I’m okay.

Friendship doesn’t have to be a two-way street.

I don’t need a shoulder to cry!

Your best friend is somebody else. But I get it.

I love you like a sister and you love me like a second cousin.

I said it’s okay! Really!

Man Nap

It’s a man nap!

Time to nap like a man!

Life is so tiring when you’re a man.

It’s exhausting being so damn strong.

‘Cause when a man gets older, his testosterone starts getting low.

Tell Me I’m Okay, Patrick

You represent the outside world because you don’t know me.

No pressure, but I seriously need to know.

‘Cause I think I’m fine ______, but I’m only, like, forty-three percent sure.

I’m sorry that I yelled.

Tell me I’m okay.

Period Sex

It’s period sex.

Put down a towel, party till it’s dry.

Are those sheets expensive?

I’ll Venmo you back for your sheets.

I hope you can get those sheets again.

What a Rush to be a Bride

Can you believe you snagged him?

Forever you will have him standing right there by your side.

I’ve been picturing this day since I’ve been a little girl.

Why veer from the classics?

Rebecca’s Reprise

You’ve gotten everything you’ve ever wanted.

It turns out magic exists.

Everything in the past will just fade away.

I’ll never have problems again.

#⚜ memes ⚜#memes #askbox games #starters #ceg starter #rp starter #rp starters

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hardcore-evil-regal · 7 years

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Blades of Steel - Chapter 1

Blades of Steel

They Call Me the Cavalry (BadassNinja)

Summary: Melinda is a figure skater looking to earn herself a place on the Olympic team whilst completing her final year of college and managing her job as a barista. Phil is an insurance broker and a guy with a lack of luck in the relationship department. One failed date and one chance meeting is all it takes for their lives to change.

Notes: This story has been bouncing around in my brain for about a year now and I finally succumbed and wrote it. I have serious commitment issues because I really shouldn't be starting a new multi-chapter but what the hell! The more Philinda the merrier. Please enjoy :)

You can keep reading this here or on AO3 or FF.net

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

Looking down at the text message on his screen he sighs heavily before glancing at the two tickets in his other hand. Bailed out on or stood up, it feels the same. It's the third time that his same date has been unable to actually show up for their date and he's getting sick of being left alone and awkward. He's not an idiot, he can take a hint. Clearly the woman is not interested in meeting him. Which is fine. Really, it is… He just wishes she'd be upfront about it and say it to him outright. Stop wasting both of their time. Checking his watch he's got about five minutes until the competition is about to start so he needs to decide what he's going to do. Is he going to go home and be the sad loner and hermit that he could be, or is he going to hand in his ticket and be a confident single heterosexual male with no self esteem issues whatsoever? What would Captain America do he asks himself seriously?

Stuffing one of the tickets into his pocket he walks up to the gate and passes his ticket to the guy there who scans the barcode before allowing him to enter. The tickets are for front row seats so he'll be damned if he's going to let them go to waste. Plus it's time that he started doing things for himself. Hurrying through to find his seat he can feel the chill of the air as well as the bubbling excitement of the crowd. Claiming his seat he sits forward eagerly as the lights dim and the competition begins. He's never been to an ice skating competition before but he finds himself enjoying it as he watches the skaters pull off moves that most people would only dream of being able to do. The crowd is mostly quiet as the music plays and the skaters perform their routines and it truly is an experience. Who would have thought that his non-date would turn out to be so exciting. The audience claps and cheers as the competitors make their entrances to perform after being announced but he notices how the crowd particularly erupts with applause and cries of excitement as one particular skater makes her entrance onto the ice. Melinda May. She's a beautiful young Chinese woman and he find himself in awe just as much as the rest of the audience. The way she moves on the ice is spectacular, flawless and with such grace and elegance he feels like the other girls don't stand a chance. There's more to it though he thinks as she quite literally flies past him, a small smirk playing at her lips as she moves in time to the music, a confidence and aura about her that just seems to draw people in. She's captivating and absolutely gorgeous and probably half the crowd is drooling over her. When she finishes her routine the crowd erupts once again in applause and he can feel the general atmosphere of disappointment as she skates off the rink and leaves them all with a dazzling smile. After she disappears the flowers and gifts from the crowd begin to hit the ice. Her gifts from the crowd are then collected up as they prepare the rink for the next competitor, but every performance after hers just doesn't compare in his eyes. Not even close. It's no surprise to anyone really when at the end of the day she is presented with the championship trophy, accepting it all with a gracious smile and short but sincere speech. The crowd is crazy for her and he doesn't blame them one bit. He can feel the sting in his cold hands as he claps loudly along with everyone else and he's grinning widely. Usually he's not really one to watch live sports other than the occasional basketball or baseball game, but this, he could get used to this.

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The wind gusts heavily as she slams the door shut behind her before shrugging off her coat and removing her hat, gloves and scarf.

“Hey Mel!” Her friend and workmate Bobbi calls from where she's serving a customer at the till.

Bobbi is tall and blonde and stands out amongst the sea of people lined up at the counter. It's great when they ever go out to clubs because it's practically impossible to lose her friend in a crowd.

“Hey Bobbi,” she replies as she slips in behind the counter to go around to the back to stash her things and put on her apron.

Making sure her apron is tied snugly ready for her shift she walks back out to the front behind the counter over to the coffee machine and drinks station. On her way she says hello to Trip who's in the kitchen whistling away happily. She smiles as she reaches the drinks station where Hunter is wiping down the counter.

“I got this covered, you can clock off,” she tells him as she looks at the orders required and starts making the drinks.

“Thanks Mel,” he says wearily and she gives him a sympathetic smile.

“Go,” she says to him firmly as he lingers around a little, eyeing up the large crowd of people waiting for their orders making her roll her eyes.

“I can handle rush hour, now go!”

He throws her another thankful look before heading around to the back to drop of his apron and get his things before he leaves.

Moving through the familiar process of making up the drinks she thrives off the thrumming energy of the little coffee shop enjoying the frantic bustle a little and the fast paced environment. When rush hour is over though she does breathe a breath of relief as she can finally slow down and take a breather. Bobbi slides over to her as she serves the last waiting customer at the till and hands Melinda the order.

“So?” She asks with keen interest. “How did the competition go?”

A smirk tugs at Melinda’s lips as she pours the milk in with the coffee before answering Bobbi. Placing it at the front of the counter she passes it off to Natasha who works as a waitress there and is also their friend.

“It went well,” Melinda finally replies with a deliberately vague answer just to irritate her friend a little.

“Ugh! Mel!” Her friend groans punching her in the arm.

Unable to help herself Melinda lets out a short laugh at her friend's expense.

“What's going on?” Natasha asks as she brushes her short red hair back from her forehead leaning against the other side of the counter.

“Melinda’s being deliberately ambiguous,” Bobbi whines as Natasha and Melinda high five over her. “You guys suck!” She grumbles as Melinda bumps her hip against hers.

“Cheer up buttercup,” she says teasingly “don't worry. I won.”

The blonde's head shoots up at her word and she laughs at her stunned expression.

“You won!” She cries happily as she hugs Melinda almost picking her up of the ground since she is so tiny in comparison.

“I knew you could do it,” Natasha says with a proud smile on her face.

It's nothing new really, she's won lots of skating competitions over the years but winning this competition means that she now has the chance to earn a spot for the upcoming Winter Olympics.

“We need to celebrate,” Bobbi says squeezing her tightly before finally releasing her and placing her firmly back on her own two feet.

“Agreed,” Natasha confirms with a nod of her head. “Nine o'clock tonight at The Playground. My treat,” she winks at them before she is pulled away to clean up a freshly vacated table.

The Playground is an exclusive and high profile club that people line up for hours to get into. Knowing Natasha she probably knows someone who will let them in upon sight. Her theory is proven correct as they meet up and Natasha drags them over to the front of the line.

“God bless America,” she tells the man at the door who barely bats an eyelid at them before stamping their hands and allowing them in.

Melinda glances down at the little Captain America shield on the back of her hand as she follows her friends. The place is blaring with music and the dancefloor is packed. Heading over to the bar they order drinks before going over to claim themselves a table.

“Tony,” Natasha greets a suave looking man in a suit as he comes up to them.

“Ah, Natasha! Fancy seeing you here,” he smiles as the redhead.

“This is Tony Stark,” Natasha turns to her friends, “he owns this club.”

Both women look a little surprised as they turn towards the man who can’t possibly be more than thirty.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your lovely friends?” He asks winking at Melinda and Bobbi.

“Tony, this is Melinda and Bobbi,” she gestures to each of her friends in turn, “be nice.”

The glare she levels at him is half playful and half threatening though Tony seems completely unphased by it.

“A pleasure ladies,” he says smoothly as he kisses the back of each of their hands.

Melinda raises her eyebrows questioningly at her friend and Natasha just mouths ‘later’ at her over Tony’s head.

“What is the occasion for tonight?” He asks looking at them intently.

“We're celebrating,” Bobbi answers slinging an arm around Melinda’s shoulders.

“Melinda won Regionals for figure skating,” Natasha elaborates as Tony gives Melinda an appraising look.

“Well,” he claps his hands together, “since you are celebrating. All drinks for you ladies are on the house. Just tell my man Clint over at the bar that what happens in Budapest stays in Budapest.”

He grins as if not so secretly pleased with himself.

“You got a thing about code phrases huh?” Melinda asks him with an amused twist of her lips.

“Can't help myself,” he shrugs looking over his shoulder as someone calls out to me. “Well please enjoy yourselves tonight ladies, maybe I'll see you around,” he smiles before leaving them to go deal with the person calling out to him.

Both Bobbi and Melinda give Natasha curious looks as the walk over to the bar after finishing their first drink.

“I knew him back in school,” the redhead explains, “kept in touch so to speak, and so he considers me a friend.”

Her friends continue to look at her astounded.

“And being the friend of an incredibly rich Tony Stark means that I get some perks,” she adds with a cheeky smile.

They both raise an eyebrow at her as she plays it off cool.

“I’ll say,” Melinda mutters as they settle at the bar.

“Three shots please,” Natasha says to the barman ordering for the three of them.

He smiles at her with a look that clearly signs him as trouble as he whips a tea towel over his shoulder.

“Oh and… what happens in Budapest stays in Budapest,” she adds making it sound as if it were an afterthought.

A curious look from him is thrown at the three of them before he grabs a few shot glasses and a bottle of tequila.

“Comin’ right up,” he winks at Natasha.

“Oooh!” Both Bobbi and Melinda tease their friend.

“Flirting with the barman hey?” Bobbi grins at Natasha nudging her with her shoulder.

“You do know that we already have guaranteed free drinks for the night right?” Melinda asks her mock seriously.

“You guys are the worst wing women ever,” the red head deadpans dryly with a sour look at her friends either side of her.

“Trust me, you don’t need us as your wing women,” Bobbi says with a pointed look at her friend whilst the attractive blonde barman places their shots in front of them.”Melinda is the one that needs us as her wing women.”

The comment earns the blonde a grin from the grizzly red head and an indignant ‘hey’ from Melinda on the other side of Natasha.

“I don’t have a problem with guys,” Melinda states giving them both a false wounded expression.

“Pft, when was the last time you got laid?” Natasha looked at her with a tilt of her head looking far too smug for Melinda’s liking.

“I-”

“You’re always too busy,” Bobbi cuts in like she already knows what Melinda’s answer was going to be.

“Yeah, between training and work and doing your last year of college,” she pauses as if waiting for Melinda to deny that she’s right, “we know how hard you work and how hectic your life is. Which is why we should all let off a little steam tonight.”

Natasha places a hand on Melinda’s shoulder squeezing it gently in reassurance.

“We’re young, we’re supposed to have fun,” she smirks pushing a shot towards each of her friends on either side.

Rolling her eyes Melinda takes the shot with them, but inside she is touched that her friends actually care so much about her well being.

They do several more rounds of shots to loosen their inhibitions a bit before Natasha drags them all out onto the dancefloor. Clint watches them leave with an amused smile as he wipes down the bar and places a glass of scotch in front of his slightly downtrodden friend.

“Cheer up Phil,” he tells him, “I’m sure next time will be for real.”

His friend stares up at him in disbelief.

“Next time?” he raises an eyebrow, “Clint, she’s bailed out on me three times already. There isn’t going to be a next time.”

Clapping a hand on his friend’s shoulder Clint tries to be understanding. He’s never had such terrible lady troubles like his poor mate Phil, fella just can’t quite seem to catch a break.

“Hey, I’m sure there are plenty of great girls out there who would love to date you.” he says trying to make him feel better.

He’s not even lying though because Phil is a great guy, he just happens to have terrible luck when it comes to relationships.

“That’s easy for you to say,” his friend glances towards the dancefloor where the three young women from earlier had disappeared. “You don’t have any trouble with women.”

Clint can feel a slight flush creep up his neck at that, so his friend had seen him eying up the lovely redhead earlier.

“Just take a chance Phil,” Clint shrugs not really knowing what other sort of advice he could give to his friend. “You gotta risk it for the biscuit.”

He earns himself a strange look from his friend with that line, but it’s true. Phil is definitely not going to be winning any hearts if he keeps his sorry ass on that bar stool looking like a sad sack.

“Get out there,” Clint lifts his chin towards the dancefloor, “go find a nice girl or something.”

Phil raises his eyebrows at him.

“Something?” he questions.

“What?” his friend responds like he is being unreasonable, “you need to get laid mate.”

Phil sighs rubbing a hand over his eyes, he’s not really a one night stand sort of a guy but… it has been a while since he last… Yeah. So maybe Clint’s advice may not be as terrible, though he certainly should not be paying attention.

“Go!” Clint hits him with a tea towel tilting his head towards the dancefloor, “go!” he hits him again.

“Ah! I’m going” he waves an arm at his friend to stop his assault as he gets up from his seat.

Throwing one last dirty look at his all too smug friend, Phil disappears into the crowd of people on the dance floor.

The ground seems to shake with the vibrations of the music as everyone crowds the dance floor. It’s awkward as he tries to find his own rhythm and space away from rubbing up against a total stranger. Dancing on his own though doesn’t really make him feel any better, if anything it makes him feel worse seeing couples dancing together whilst he’s on his lonesome trying not to look like a weirdo. After a song or two he gives up and tries to make his escape from the dance floor, politely squishing through people grinding on one another. Trying not to touch anyone, he stumbles as a lady steps back into him as he passes and he trips towards the edge of the floor. His feet propel him forward as he struggles to keep his balance and he collides with another person much to his embarrassment. An endless stream of apologies flows from his lips as he rights himself and checks over the young woman to make sure that he didn’t cause her any serious harm.

“Are you alright?” he asks worriedly as his eyes quickly take stock of her body checking for any damage before drifting up to her face.

Suddenly his mouth is dry and he feels at a loss for words as he looks at her. She’s absolutely beautiful, breathtakingly so and he can’t help himself from staring.

“I’m fine,” she smiles at him and it lights up her face and his mind blanks for a moment.

“Uhh…” he can feel his cheeks reddening as he struggles to form intelligible words.

There is an amused sparkle in her warm brown eyes and her red painted lips are quirked up in a smirk. Still staring at her he feels like he’s seen her before.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he suddenly blurts out and can hear his heart pounding in his chest.

She smiles at him again as she nods her head in agreement, long dark hair with soft waves spilling over her shoulders.

“I’d like that,” she replies and he can feel relief surging through him.

They walk together over to the bar and he can’t help but feel like it’s all some sort of wonderful dream that he’s about to wake up from any minute now, Her steps are even and graceful beside him despite the fact that she is wearing heels and a tight little black dress. It’s a nice dress though, classy and stylish without being cheap. It’s simple, backless with a halter neck and tight skirt, nothing over the top or showy. He orders a scotch for himself and is surprised when she asks for the same thing. Not many girls he’s ever met have been into the same drinks he is. Clint serves them up their drinks with a not so subtle wink and Phil’s not quite sure what to do now. They both take a sip of their drinks and she smiles at him again when she catches him staring.

“Melinda,” she says tilting her head at him and it takes a minute for his brain to process what she’s saying.

Melinda… her name! Gosh yes.

“Phil,” replies trying to be smooth.

He doesn’t pull it off though and he can tell by the raise of her eyebrow,

“Uhh… sorry for crashing into you back there,” he rubs the back of his neck a little embarrassedly.

He’s making such a hash of this, he should just shut up and let her get on with her night. She lets out a soft laugh though and he feels his heart skip a beat at the sound.

“It’s fine,” she reassures him, “no harm no foul.”

“Oh thank God,” he says and realises he’s said it aloud when he hears the sound of her laughter again.

His eyes lift up to hers and for a moment he has the intense feeling of deja vu.

“I feel like I know you,” he tells her quite honestly and she raises her eyebrows at him in surprise.

She definitely has no recollection of ever meeting him. Watching as she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear it suddenly clicks into place and he knows exactly where he knows her from.

“Melinda May?” he asks and she looks at him surprised with a hint of wariness in her eyes as he says her full name without her telling him.

“How do you know?” she asks him a little suspicious.

He flushes when he realises how weird and creepy he must sound.

“I’m sorry,” he apologises for his strange behaviour, “I was at the figure skating regional championship on Saturday.”

“Oh…” she responds, quite honestly surprised that someone would recognise her from her figure skating.

“I saw you, you were amazing, by far the best,” he gushes and she can feel a slight blush creeping up her cheeks.

“Thank you,” she tells him, touched by his enthusiasm.

It's not often that somebody recognises her as a figure skater.

“You're a big figure skating fan?” She asks because clearly why else would he remember her.

He shakes his head no and that surprises her further. She doesn't really know what to say or how to respond other than with a soft ‘oh’ and an almost awkward silence falls over them as they both sip at their drinks. As he focused intently on his drink she takes the time to study him. His eyes are a soft blue and he has a firm muscled back which she can see by the way his shirt pulls taut over his broad shoulders. He is definitely attractive and maybe, just maybe… Her cheeks flush red as he turns towards her and catches her checking him out. She's worried he might've picked up on the path her thoughts were taking and she bites her bottom lip a little nervously. There is an adorable little half smile on his lips as he looks at her and he can't help his eyes from drifting to her lips as she nibbles at her bottom lip in the sexiest way. He can hear Clint in his head telling him to make the move, risk it for the biscuit or in this case the heart of the most beautiful woman he's ever met. Twenty seconds he says to himself, twenty seconds of insane courage is all he needs.

“Melinda would you like to go out to dinner with me sometime?” He finally asks, tension now coiling in his stomach as he awaits her answer.

Her tongue peeks out to wet her lips as she smiles at him eyes sparkling.

“I would like that very much,” she replies in a low voice.

Notes:

So that was a pretty long first chapter for me but I'm really excited about writing this AU. Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought or if you have any ideas or theories. I love hearing from you guys so please type me a little something. Comments are like sqee-worthy Philinda scenes without an LMD in the shot- long awaited and hard to come by.

#philinda #philinda fanfiction #phil coulson #melinda may #agents of shield #philinda network #philinda au #natasha romanoff #bobbi morse #clint barton #figure skating

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