#the worst headache you can possibly imagine?? like I literally don’t know how to deal with it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

makeste · 3 years

Note

So, which of these desperately sobbing children gets to compete for Worst Day? I... think Shouto's our, uh, lucky winner, but I think Deku, Momo, and Tokoyami all put up strong fights

so seeing as we are finally approaching New Chapter Times again after a very long three weeks, this feels like a good time to do a recap of just how much everything currently sucks for our intrepid heroes. it may seem a bit insensitive of me to go through the cast list one by one and arbitrarily assign each character a number score based on how shitty their day was, but... well actually I don’t really have a good defense for that, lol. whatever, let’s just get to ranking these children’s misery (and while we’re at it, some of the adults’ as well).

Midoriya Izuku

current status: unconscious. currently has a pair of those floppy inflatable flailing tube men dealios for arms. had to watch his teacher and his best friends get hurt and nearly die while being helpless to do anything to stop it. has a new quirk which “warns” him of approaching danger by giving him ice pick headaches, as if he didn’t have enough pain in his life as it is. is being targeted by the most dangerous person in the world. and last but not least, is probably on the verge of his super-secret quirk becoming not-so-secret, and having to deal with the fallout of that.

rank: 9/10. hard to imagine how things could get much worse for this little guy atm. NO HORIKOSHI THAT IS NOT A CHALLENGE. YOU LEAVE HIS MENTOR ALONE.

Bakugou Katsuki

current status: unconscious. got impaled by the Big Bad which initially did not look good, but apparently it wasn’t enough to stop him from flying around in drunken loop-de-loops whilst ignoring Iida’s protests, so who knows. proudly announced his new hero name to the world only to be met with scorn and ridicule and hysterical laughter from that fucking Caillou-looking motherfucker whose opinion he never mcfucking asked for, thank you very much. and also his best friend’s self-sacrificing tendencies are giving him anxiety, and his other best friend’s brother just pulled a reverse Darth Vader on Endeavor and upended hero society as we know it. so there’s a good chance he might be called upon to provide emotional support to one or even BOTH of them in the near future. has... has he actually become the stable friend in the trio. fuck.

rank: 7/10 just because he briefly appeared to be in a situationally-inappropriate good mood for those few brief minutes right after Jeanist appeared. you were having too much fun to get a top score, Katsuki.

Todoroki Shouto

current status: not unconscious but probably wishing he was. older brother came back from the dead and revealed that he was a mass murderer and broadcast all of Shouto’s personal traumas to the entire world before earnestly trying to set him and his friends on fire. so is currently dealing with all of the fun fallout from that, on top of watching his teacher and friends all come within inches of death. will probably be dragged into a national controversy against his will now that Endeavor’s past has been revealed. all of it is honestly so shitty that it’s all but impossible for me to put an irreverent spin on this. I honestly can’t think of a single joke to make. goddammit Shouto.

rank: 10/10. a perfect storm of shittiness.

Yaoyorozu Momo

current status: somehow Momo went from having no mentors that we knew of, to having two mentors, and then back to having no mentors, all in the span of a single day. has to be some sort of record.

rank: 8/10. and the worst part of all is that she was a fucking BAMF during this arc, but she can’t even enjoy that now because of all the trauma. I’m still proud of you, Momo.

Uraraka Ochako

current status: mentally and physically exhausted after spending a day out on the front lines dealing with the aftermath of an unnatural disaster. saw things that were canonically enough to make a grown man have a nervous breakdown right then and there. had a really weird and unsettling encounter with Toga who keeps trying to relate to her by telling her things like “hey Ochako, this one time I turned into you and used your quirk to murder someone horribly isn’t that wild.” it’s just been a very long day for her.

rank: 6/10. stressful af but she’s still in one piece and no one was actively murdered in front of her. sometimes you gotta take whatever wins you can get.

Tokoyami Fumikage

current status: his mentor was nearly burned to death in front of him and he was almost burned to death too, and the guy who kept attempting to burn him was all “YOUR MENTOR’S A MURDERER BTW AND SO YOU SHOULD JUST LET ME KILL HIM”, and so he was kind of put on the spot there and he didn’t really know what to do, and somehow he managed to escape with Hawks anyway but Hawks’s wings were all burnt off, and then a fucking video of Hawks stabbing Twice in the back got broadcast to the entire nation and so it’s like, ???? he didn’t sign up for this??? he is just a little birb??? can he live????

rank: 7/10 because he missed out on all of the other traumatizing stuff, but it’s honestly impressive how bad his day managed to be even in spite of that.

All for One

current status: All for One’s day is actually going pretty good.

rank: 0/10. hey but fuck you, AFO.

Shigaraki Tomura

current status: woke up early from his nap which always sucks. only got to enjoy his cool new Transcendent Being powers for a few minutes before the heroes all ganged up on him and incinerated him a bunch of times and fucked up his shiny new cape. has his old mentor currently taking up residence in his head uninvited and trying to boss him around. found out his grandma was part of One for All?? then slept through all of the fun stuff with the Dabi reveal. also a bunch of his friends are either dead or captured. all in all was not really the best day for him.

rank: 8/10 because he was having himself a grand old time for a while there, but once some of this stuff finally sinks in the Suck Factor is going to go way, way up. also, seriously, AFO is currently possessing his body, jesus christ. just leave him alone already.

Hawks

current status: had to make an impossible choice between sitting back and letting an untold number of people die, and turning on a good but misguided man who was only trying to help his friends. has to live with the trauma of literally stabbing his friend in the back for the rest of his life. may have been rendered effectively quirkless. was publicly dragged through the mud alongside Endeavor, and unlike Endeavor he didn’t actually do anything to earn it (though that probably won’t stop him from feeling like he has). oh and speaking of Endeavor, just found out that the hero he looked up to since childhood abused his family and shit, and so now he has to grapple with that on top of everything else. how fucked is it that the minute he finally got to drop his whole double agent balancing act, his life somehow got even more fucked up and complicated.

rank: 9/10. let Hawks rest.

Aizawa Shouta

current status: unconscious. seems to have lost an eye which may possibly affect his quirk. had to saw off his own fucking leg. met the man who experimented on his childhood friend. doesn’t know yet that said man was originally targeting him and not Shirakumo. oh and also his other other childhood friend just died and he doesn’t know it yet. and someone else sacrificed himself in order to save him. and most of his other hero pals are either dead or wounded too, and all of his kids are deeply traumatized. and the guy they went through all of this shit to try and capture in the first place got away, and hero society is now in shambles.

rank: 11/10. Horikoshi. wtf did Aizawa ever do to you.

anyways it’s getting late and I was gonna throw in a few honorable mentions, but I think I’ll just call it a day instead. feel free to weigh in on any of the ones I missed. Dabi for one is having himself a FINE, fine day. but Endeavor not so much. sob.

#bnha 296 #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks

721 notes · View notes

oneirataxiahiraeth · 3 years

Text

First Time Jitters

Pairings : SpencerReid x Fem!Reader

Warnings : unprotected sex, oral (fem receiving), fingering, language

Summary : At a dinner party hosted by Rossi, the girls tells stories on the first times they’ve had to fake an orgasm. They all get intrigued by the readers silence and begin digging into her new relationship with Collague Spencer Reid and find out they haven’t even had sex together... yet.

Word Count : a little over 4K

“Are you kidding me? I’ve never felt anger like that in my life.” Emily laughed out, the rest of us entranced in her tales about the horrors of her sex life. “That’s was probably the first, but definitely not the last time I ever had to fake it.” She shrugged, and I felt my cheeks turn pink. We all sat around the fire pit at Rossi’s house after dinner, soaking in the warmth from the fire. Rossi and Hotch were inside, probably have a heart to heart about man troubles or something, and Reid was entertaining Henry and Jack showing them Magic’s tricks and ignoring any signs of the rest of the adults here.

“Well, sorry to you ladies but I can gladly say that none of my boo thangs ever had to worry about not finishing.” Morgan spoke proudly with a smile on his face. I could see on Garcia’s face how bad she wanted to make some inappropriate joke but she let it pass.

“Okay, I mean... Will is amazing. A totally sweetheart, but sometimes...” JJ groaned, leaving the rest up to our imaginations. If I remembered correctly she was actually the one who brought up the conversation. She mentioned something about her ‘mommy and daddy’ time last being a complete disaster that Will didn’t even know about.

I sat quietly listening to everyone tell their worst stories, laughing when they did and making some commentary from time to time. It was growing late and the only thing in the sky was a crescent moon that seemed to shine really bright. I was seconds away from passing out on Morgan’s shoulder as my attention suddenly was drawn to the fire. I should’ve know that eating so much pasta tonight would’ve led to a food induced coma.

“Awfully quiet tonight.” Morgan spoke, his shoulder moving my head up to get my attention. My eyes looked back up to the group whose eyes were all focused on me. I was fairly quiet tonight, but with the topic on hand I hadn’t needed to speak too much. I’ve had my fair shares of faking my orgasms with ex boyfriends, but it’s been a while since I last did anything sexual with anyone. Reid and I only began dating about 5 months ago, and while I was okay waiting for him, he just never seemed to be interested in doing anything like that. Besides the flirty comments, we never seemed to take it past the heated make out sessions whenever we could sneak them in.

“You’ve been staring off into space for like half the conversation.” Emily spoke, a bit of worry in her tone. “What’s up? No fun stories of boyfriends who couldn’t get you there?” She raised a brow and I gave a slow shrug. Of course I have stories, but none of them really worth mentioning.

“Oh no, I have tons.” I spoke, picking my head up off of Morgan’s shoulder. “No fun ones, though. None of my ex boyfriends have ever been able to get me close.” I spoke honestly. None of any of the guys I slept with in the past has ever been able to make me cum.

“Any stories of boy wonder over there?” Morgan teased and I shook my head.

“Not one.” I answered, hoping my answer would satisfy their need for gossip.

“Really?” Morgan looked surprised, looking back to the brown haired Doctor who was explained to the child how he did his last magic trick. “You’ve never had to fake it with him?” He scoffed. “He’s only had like one girlfriend before!” He wasn’t wrong. Spencer had expressed to me a few times about his lack of experience. Maybe that simple fact that he’s only ever had sex like maybe twice played a part in his abstinence. Maybe he just didn’t see me as someone he wanted to have sex with.

“Honestly,” I took in a deep breath as I realized that they were all staring back at me like I was the object of their affection. “We haven’t had-”

“Oh. My. God.” Garcia gasped, already knowing the end of my sentence. I rolled my eyes, as Morgan’s whole body shifted just to give me a look the read ‘are you really serious right now?’

“It’s not that big of a deal.” I shrug it off, minimizing the impact of the news. “Like you said, he’s had one girlfriend before. Maybe he’s just not ready yet.” I mention, relaxing my already tense body.

“It’s been 5 months.” Garcia adds.

"It's not that long of a time to be dating."

“You guys are around each other for almost like 24 hours a days every day of the week!” Emily scoffed. “You’re telling that you’ve never had sex with him before?” She asked and I shook my head .

“We don’t even talk about it really...”

Each of my team members remained silent, coming up with possible solutions to my ‘problem’. I could see it in there faces that they were just in shock. They all looked to each other, equally as confused and a bit uncomfortable as the next. Doubt flashed across their eyes as they all looked because me and the brown haired Doctor across the lawn.

“So...” Emily began “if you and Spencer haven’t had sex yet, when was the last time you did?” She asked, interrupting he silence.

“I don’t know like...” I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I had sex with anyone. “A few years maybe?”

“A FEW YEARS?!” Garcia gasped loudly, gaining the attention of the doctor from across the field who only paid attention for a second before returning to the two boys.

“Oh my god, could you be any louder?” I laughed at her obvious dismay over my absent sex life.

“If you said anything over ‘a few years’ then yeah, I probably could be.” She nodded, still very troubled over the news.

“Look, We’re both pretty busy people outside of work and obviously weee not going to do it on the job-”

“Literally that’s a terrible excuse.” Garcia shook her head, as disappointment began to form on her face. Maybe they were right. We’ve been dating for 5 months but we’ve known each other way longer. It’s not like we were complete stranger still digging to get to know the other person.

“What’s a terrible excuse?” Spencer’s voice spoke from over my shoulder, causing me to jolt slightly. Everyone’s eyes immediately focused on him as he stood there confused and left out. I didn’t even have to give them a dirty look to tell them to keep our conversation under wraps, considering it was him we were talking about.

“Y/n was just telling us how she never read any of the Harry Potter books before.” Garcia spoke quickly, everyone nodding to agree with what she said. I cursed him out in my head as he moved around the couch and sat down next to me. I then shifted my weight from Morgan to Spencer, leaning my head on his shoulder. I tried to ignore the eyes but I couldn’t, each other them staring completely unbothered on how awkward it totally was.

“Y/n doesn’t read anything that doesn’t have hot vampires who sparkle in the sun.” Spencer commented, making my mouth drop. That’s was so untrue, I read other things too... I can’t name them off the top of my head but I know I do!

“Thats so-”

"very accurate?" he finished my sentence causinf my eyes to narrow even though i wasnt looking at him.

“Actually Spence, y/n was just telling us about a headache she had!” JJ spoke up, putting on a concern face that confused the hell out of me. When did I mention I had a headache? “She’s said her head was pulsing and it felt like her brain was throbbing?” My eyes widened and I realized what she was doing.

“Yeah,” Emily spoke, nodding her head as she picked up on the silent plan they just agreed upon. “I think she needs to get home, she might have hit her head or something earlier.” Emily frowned, as if she was really concerned for my health. They each had a look of evil on their faces which, to the blind eye, could easily be mistaken for care.

“Really? That’s does sound kind of bad, maybe we should get you to the ER? It might be a concussion...” Reid spoke, and my eyes widened even more.

“Oh no, she was check by the medics earlier! She might just have a migraine.” Morgan came quickly to my rescue. God knows what I’d have to do to talk Spencer out of taking me to the ER if he thought I was hurt or injured.

“You guys a such-” I stopped myself, watching the amusement grow on their faces as the waited for me to finish my sentence. “... such angels...” I grumbled, “always looking out for me.” I hummed, narrowing my eyes at the women on the couch across from me.

“Come on, let’s get you home.” Spencer spoke, helping me stand from the couch even though I was perfectly fine.

Our fingers were intertwined as we bid farewell to our evil scheming friends. I let him lead the way back to the hous, solely so I could flick them off behind his back. Once we got close to the house, we were attacked with hugs and pleads not to leave by the touch gorgeous little boys who would just missed their uncle Spencer. After we said our goodbyes to Rossi and Hotch we headed back to his apartment. Only because I loved the smell of strong coffee and old books, and he was closer.

“You should go lay down, y/n/n. I can wake you up when it’s time to go?” He spoke sweetly, his hands on my hips as we entered his bed room. I smiled at his kindness, remembering how I promised I’d go to some late night movie with him this morning. It was showing in Russian and he was just itching to sit through 3 hours of it to translate it to me.

“I love you.” I hummed, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips, as my arm snaked around his neck in order to pull him into a hug. His movements stuttered just a bit before he returned the hug back to me.

“I love you.” He counter, squeezing me into him. “Now tell me, how many glasses have you had?” He teased.

“One.” I answered, laughing at the face he gave me when he pulled away. “Only one, I swear!” I defend myself with a smile. It wasn’t thag hard to get him to realize I was telling the truth, I wasn’t big on drinking and I’d be damned if I let myself get wine drunk.

“Y/N Y/L/N, showing affection to little old me?” He raised his eyebrows. “What did I ever do to deserve it?” He joked.

"Why wouldn’t I be affection towards my loving, sexy, intelligent, boyfriend?” I teased with a playfully frown.

"Have you met you?" He smiled from my response, his arms wrapping around me a bit tighter.

“You know... I like kissing you.” I spoke slowly, my eyes falling to his lips no matter how hard I tried to get them to stare into his sparkly green eyes which always seemed to stare right into my soul.

“I like kissing you too...” his cheeks turned pink from the compliment.

“Hugging you is pretty nice too...” I further my compliments, my voice turned sultry and smooth as I tried my best to be seductive. I never really pushed the idea of sex on him, I was too scared that he’d reject me and I’d ruin everything. Now I’m starting to think that maybe everyone was right? It’s been a long time since I had sex, and it’s probably been longer for him. And we’ve been dating for a while now... maybe now is the time? “Hugging you and kissing you is really nice.” I murmured as his lips pressed into mine once more.

“I enjoy hugging and kissing you too.” He smiled back, a bit confused but he didn’t seem to mind. His large hands moving up and down my back. Right now, in his mind I was probably just basking in him right now. In mine, I really wanted him to catch the hint that I needed him to fuck me.

Our lips pressed together again, this time sending tingles down my spine. We slowly moved back until I had Spencer on the bed, with me straddling him as our lips moved in sync. He smiled against my lips as his hands moved down to my thighs, gripping them a bit harder than usual. This was it. This was them position we ended up in every single time we made out, only this time I was hoping for somethingother than just a heated make out session. His tongue swiped at my bottom lips gaining instant access before his was in complete control.

Spencer William Red had me wrapped around his finger and didn’t even know it. It’s been 5 months, yet even before I had the privilege of being his girlfriend I would’ve done whatever he asked of me. I was and still am completely ready to be used at his disposal.

“Are you sure you’re not tired?” He mumbled against my lips, slowing the pace before things could get too heavy.

“Not at all.” I hummed, leaving one last peck on his lips. I debated on what to do for a few seconds as my eyes wondered over his beautiful face. “I- I uhm, I have a question.” My voice came out soft, and gentle which wasn’t usual. Whenever I spoke, usually it was with confidence, and had no problem talking about uncomfortable topics but this... this was a whole new world.

“What’s wrong?” I watched the content look on his face dropped into more of a frown.

“I-” my eyes got caught in his, sparkling from the dim light in his dark green painted room. “I don’t know...” I used my fingers to brush a piece of his hair before his ear. He was truly magnificent to look at, from his cheekbones to his perfect nose, everything about him was just... pretty.

“Talk to me.” He frowned further, his hands careful not to move further than where they already were.

“Do you not want to... like...” my eyes narrowed a bit watching his confusion take place. He was one of the brightest people I knew yet he was still so clueless. “...touch me?” I sounded like an insecure teenage right now, and I honestly didn’t care. This conversation could go a number of ways and I’d rather take everything right now that go another day or week or month thinking that sleeping with me was a repulsive idea to my own boyfriend.

“You- I- what?” His eyes widened, and I dropped my arms from around his neck. I would’ve gotten off of his lap, but his hands were gripping tightly on to my hips in a way that made me want to throw myself at him. “You mean like...?” Goddammit Spencer, how fucking clueless are you?

“Do you not want to have sex with me?” My face was just as soft as my tone. I could see the shock taking effect as his brain worked as quickly as it could to fully understand what was happening at the moment.

“I- uhm, I-“ he stumbled, and for a second I swore my heart broke into a thousand many pieces.

“You know... just forget it, it was a stupid question anyways-”

“No!” His voice came out strong and willful. “No I just- I wasn’t expecting that, I guess.” He explained and I nodded. “I-I- do want to... uhm... have a- sex with you, y/n.” His face was showing a variety of emotions and I’m sure mine was too. “ I just...”

“Don’t want to catch a disease?” I joked, which he apparently didn’t find very funny. I couldn’t help it though, it’s too awkward in here for my liking.

“I don’t want you-“ he stopped to think for a moment, “I don’t want you to be underwhelmed.” He explained, my mouth dropping at his confession. He was scared he wouldn’t be able to pleasure me? That’s was... horribly sweet of him. Not that I expected anything less from Spencer himself... that was just very unpredicted.

I wanted to tell him about all the past guys who never even got close to getting me off, but I don’t think that would make the situation any better. Honestly, right now, just the thought of him touching me could’ve got me off. Even if he couldn’t get me there, I’d fake it. I’d fake it really fucking good just for him because so am completely wrapped around his finger. Well, I wanted to be at least...

“I just want to be with you, Spence.” I spoke, watching the light smile form back to his lips. He was conflicted for a second before nodding his head. His light green sparkly eyes then turned dark, his pupils dilating as our faces grew closer until I could feel our breaths mixing together.

“I love you so fucking much.” He hummed, just before connecting our lips again. I felt the butterflies in my stomach going crazy as his hands moved to my face, pulling our lips together again.

He tasted like the white wine he enjoyed at dinner earlier. It was an odd choice but one I could definitely get behind, only if it was on his tongue. His signature scent of vanilla coffe and some expensive cologne swirled around in my nostrils driving me absolutely mad. My hips moved against the fabric of his pants, grinding against him releasing only a bit of tension from my own body. His hands working quickly to unbutton my jeans and blouse, exposing my black laced bra hiding underneath. I let out a tiny giggle as his back collided with the soft duvet, leaving me right on top of him, making it much easier to grind down on him.

His hands moved to my hips, guiding me right where he needed me. My hands traveled from his jaw all the way down his chest, unbuttoning what I could until I got to his belt. I gasped as my back suddenly hit the duvet, giggling again as I felt Spencer smile against my lips. Spencer struggles to carry a gun properly so, flipping us over was a very impressive move coming from him.

“Literally, just beautiful.” He mumbled on my lips before pulling away to look at me.

My cheeks burned a bright red, as I watched him study my own body. His body rested in between my legs, and his hands slowly traced over my skin. He sent me a sweet smile, and I thought of 100 jokes I could make right now but I figured it wasn’t the moment. I lift my hips as he tugged off my jeans and shirt tossing it somewhere across the room, ditching his own shirt. Now I was laying naked, waiting for him to touch me, well, everywhere. My eyes caught onto the faint six pack that’s always hidden under his own shirts, and I swear if I could I’d stare at it forever.

“Like what you see?” I teased, watching a smile spread to his lips as he rolled his eyes.

“Kinda, yeah.” He nodded, bringing his forehead down to rest on mine. His hands moved to my side, taking his heavy grip on them. My leg propped up on his side, giving him a bit more room to work.

“Kinda?” I raised an eyebrow at the reply and he shrugged. My breathing halted at the feeling of his hand playing at the band of me black panties.

“I’m sure I’d like it much better, if you had nothing on at all.” I felt my stomach go into full on cartwheel as his hand slipped under the band of my panties. His lips pressed a light kiss to my forehead, before he went down to my neck. The heat from his hand hovering above me sent the most explicit images to my head. Every time my hips bucked into his hands, his lips found a spot to suck and nip at earning light moans.

“Please Spence.” I whimper, feeling his lips curl into a smile against my neck. He pressed some more antagonizingly slow soft kisses as he made his way back to my lips. He hovered for a second before our lips were moving again, his lips muting the sounds of my moans from his finger circling around my clit.

“Shit.” He muttered against my lips, as he ran his finger up my soaked slit, teasing my entrance just enough to collect just juices on his fingers. My hips grind up into his hand, begging for more of him.

His fingers sped up as he massaged my clit, sending a deep tingle throughout my body. He pulled apart from our kiss, and I released a loud moan. His fingers already finding their way into me, curling to touched that right spot inside of me. My hands grip at the sheets and pillows as he begins to pump in and out of me. I felt the tension in my stomach tightening as he brought my closer to where I was so desperately needing to be. He left a trail of sweet kisses down my body until he reached the band of my panties.

“Oh fuck-” I moaned out, catching a glimpse of what he was doing to me in the body mirror across the room. I could see my panties pushed to the side as his fingers fucked into me faster by the minute. I could’ve came at the sight right there, but picked up on where I was looking. His head turned to the mirror watching as I squirm under he touched when he pushed into me a bit harder than before. He sent me a devious smirk before turning back to his current project. “Oh my fuck- right there Spence- god!” I moaned loudly as I felt his tongue lapping up my slick, playing with my clit as he sped the pace of his fingers. My back arched off the bed as the euphoric high of the orgasm I was about to reach shot through me.

“Cum for me, Angel.” He murmured against me, sending a vibration right to my clit. Without warning I spilled everything on his fingers. I let out another string of curses as he removed his fingers only to replace his digits with his tongue, sucking everything out of me.

“You taste even better than you look right now.” He hummed, as he sucked my juice from his fingers. I put on a lazy smile, as my arms wrapped right back around his neck. He brought his lips down to me, giving me a good taste of myself.

“So pretty damn good?” I joke, earning a tickle at my sides. “My turn?” I prepared myself to be flip over again but instead I was hold down in place by the brown haired man.

“Normally I wouldn’t object but I really want to be inside of you right now.” He commented, my eyes widened a big at his bluntness before nodding my head. He slipped off his boxers, pumping himself above me a few times. His tip grazed my clit twice earning a moan from the sensitive sensations. I could tell he was enjoying having me completely at his mercy. I was enjoying it too. “Are you Ready?” He asked and I nodded, eager to feel him inside of me.

Without another word he slid into me slowly until he bottomed out. I gasped at the stretch and sting I felt as he entered. I felt myself convulse around him, causing him to tense over me. He stayed buried in me, allowing me to adjust to his size. I had half the mind to make a joke about him being such a gentleman but I kept it to myself.

“You can move.” I he gave a nod, as he pulled out earning a light moan from my throat. For a split second a saw a flash of evil cross his eyes. There was no pretty Sparkles in his eyes, they were now fake and filled with lust as his eyes raked over me.

He slammed into me, hitting the exact spot where I needed him. He kept a fast pace, hiking my leg up to his side again hitting into me at a deeper angle. His lips attached to mine in a hungry manner, as if I was just there for his own comfort. My back was arched off the bed as I get the knot forming in my stomach threatening to come undone once more as I cried out multiple profanities in his kiss.

“Oh fuck, y/n.” He moaned out bringing me right to the edge, my walls clenching around him as he picked up the pace. I let out the loudest pornographic moan of his name as I came undone. He fucked me through the euphoria as his own thrust began to stutter.

Our breathing was heavy as he pulled out and released his load on my lower stomach. I gave him another lazy smile, seeing as I didn’t have the energy for much else. Once he as finish he collapsed on the bed next to me, pulling my body into his. I could hear his heart beat racing through his chest... or was that mine? I was sure to be 8 different types of soar in the morning, and right now I was on the verge of actually passing out.

“You’re incredible.” I breathed looking to my equally as fucked out boyfriend. His long strands of hair sticking to his sweaty forehead, driving me slightly crazy.

“I don’t think we’re going to make that movie.” He laughed, making my smile grow.

I looked to the alarm set by the bed. “It’s only 11:30, we totally make it in time.” I spoke, remembering his excitement about this film earlier in the day.

“Yeah, but I have much better things to do actually.” He mentioned with a light shrug, brushing a few strand of hair from my own sweaty forehead.

“Like?”

“You.”

I smiled at the group of agents all hovering in the bullpen, probably talking about their weekends off. It was rare we ever got a whole weekend to ourselves, so whenever we did we made sure to take full advantage of it. I mean... I certainly did.

“Morning guys.” I smiled as is at down at my desk which Morgan for some reason thought was a chair.

“Morning sunshine!” The muscular clad man greeted me with a smile. “How waa your weekend?”

“It was really good actually.” I shrugged, noticing the expecting looks I recieved from the group. I noticed Penelope coming out from her office in the corner of my eye. She caught a quick glimpse of all of us, and her senses caught on quickly before she changes her route and made her way down with a giddy smile.

“You seem happy.” She walked up with a grin on her red painted lips. “You’re not a morning person... you never smile this early.” She stated. “Did you have sex?!” She spoke right to the point, taking me by surprise.

“I- uhm... what?”

“Yes? No? Did you at least talk to him about it?” She pushed, my cheeks turning red at the questions.

“Yeah, we did talk about the whole sex thing.” I gave in, knowing eventually they were going to find out everything on their own, either from me or Reid.

“How’d it go?” JJ asked, her and Emily catching onto the conver as the two of them moved to the front of my desk.

“Am I invited to the party this time?” Rossi spoke, as he walked down from his office, joining our group cluster.

“They talked about it!” Garcia cheered to him, and his face lit up as if her was actually proud of me.

“You did not tell Rossi!” I gasped

“Yeah we did, Hotch knows too.” Emily spoke, “now, what happened after you talked about it?!” She dismissed it, in hopes to get more information.

I sat in disbelief for a good few seconds before shaking my head. I knew they lived for the office gossip, I was the same way. Things like office gossip made us feel regular, considering the crazy and gore that came with the job. In all honestly, I hadn’t minded it all that much.

“It went well...” I shrugged

“And...?” Rossi spoke, waiting for more of the story.

“How well?” JJ asked, a smirk taking over her lips. They all stared intently as they waited for me to reply.

“I mean... we had sex.” I mumbled, just loud enough for them to hear. “...a lot”

“Seriously?!?” Garcia squealed.

“I- was it- was it good? How’d did it happen?” Emily asked, and I felt the heat rushing to my cheeks.

“Uhm...” I tried to think of less descriptive words than the ones popping into my head. “It was really good... like amazing actually.” I scoffed, laughing at the noises each of them made.

“So did you actually-”

“Yup.”

“And he’s the first person to ever make you-” I raise a brow at Morgan, putting slip finger to stop him mid sentence. He honestly looked in disbelief that Reid, of all people, could satisfy me after all these years.

“I said non of my ex boyfriends.” I clarified. I watched as Emily’s smile grew impressed, and Morgan and JJs jaws dropped at the confession. Garcia simply just squealed again, and I can’t even describe the look on Rossi’s face.

“Morning guys!” Reid walked in, a bright smile on his face chasing the rest of us to giggle at his brightness. He was usually in a good mood on mondays, but this was just a whole different type of mood. I had my ideas on why, but I didn’t have to say them out loud.

“Morning loverboy.” Morgan smiled at the new nickname. I haven’t seen him since early early this morning. We decided to part ways, mainly because anytime we looked at each other ended up in us having sex on whatever piece of furniture or appliance was nearest. Surprisingly he didn’t even mentioned a single thing about the about of germs and bacteria we could’ve spread either. Reid gave us all a wide smile before he walked up to my desk. He leaned down to height, placing a stern yet soft kiss to my lips. He usually went for the forehead or the nose, which all of us were aware of.

“How was your weekends?” He asked, looking to his friends happily.

“How was yours?” Garcia smirked, as she rest her elbow on dereks should. I felt my cheek glow hot again.

“It was... really good.”

“Oh we know.” Rossi mumbled, earning a dirty glare from me as my jaw dropped a little bit. The old man sent me a innocent smile a shrug, before Reid caught on.

“You know...” he spoke, giving me the same right lip smile he does when he really doesn’t know what to say.

“They know we had sex.” I spoke quickly, and his eyes widen a bit as he finally realized.

“Oh.” He spoke, fixing the satchel on his shoulder. Spencer was never very public with past romances, so I don’t know how he’d react to this. “I mean... I had sex with my girlfriend, what’s the big deal.” He shrugged, not seeming to mind too much. My eyes widened a bit, as I felt his arm snake around my waist pulling me into his side.

“You know what?” Rossi spoke, standing from his seat. “He’s right. He’s an adult, as are we. So stop acting like a bunch of children!” He scolded the group of adults hanging around us like a bunch of lost puppies. I smiled and nodded agreeing with the man. Reid gave him a thankful smile, before pressing another kiss to my cheek and going to his own desk.

Rossi stood in front of me as he watched the other back off, with eye rolls and huffs.

“Did you at least use protection?” Rossi teased, but for some reason thag caught my attention. Our attention. Sudden flashes from all the events that took place over these last few days flooded our minds at the exact same time. My body stiffened for a second before I grabbed the files stacked up on my desk to work from home. We hadn’t used a single condom all weekend. Everyone’s eyes were wide and I moved quickly, scrapping everything into my arms before I looked to Reid with an equally as fesrful look on his face.

“Text if you need anything.” I mumbled before practically running out of the office with Spencer close on my heels.

We were totally screwed

#spencer reid smut #spencer reid #criminal minds #derek morgan #agent hotchner #reader x spencer reid #aesthetic #teaser #wattpad

617 notes · View notes

lu-undy · 3 years

Text

Un-alone, Chapter 11

Here it is!

“D’you think he’ll be back for dinner?” Philip looked through the kitchen window.

“I don’t know, Phil. I hope he will…”

“Carrie…” Philip went to his sister who was making some dinner. “Don’t worry, he’s a big boy.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that… Ugh, guess I was wrong.”

“About what?” He asked the worried mother.

“I thought that he went away with his van only because of work but if he does it here as well, then surely it’s for other reasons.”

“He might be out havin’ fun in a bar or somethin, eh?”

“Nah, Micky’s not like that.” She answered.

“You don’t know. Maybe he is.”

Phil’s answer made Caroline stop stirring the pan and frown.

“You boys were up late yesterday?” She asked.

“We just watched a bit of TV with a beer. You seem awfully worried but you know him better than I do, why would you fret that much?”

“Because… Because I guess you’re right in the grand scheme of things.” She admitted in a sigh.

“About what?”

“I don’t know him that well, I guess.”

“Listen, he’s a man and his job is to deal with danger, he’ll be fine. Would you worry for me if I went out all day?”

“Nah, I wouldn’t but-”

“So then don’t worry about him!” Phil cut her and Caroline pushed her glasses up her nose.

“I know but I can’t help it. Force of habit, I guess. I’m used to always waiting like that. Sometimes he does come back home, sometimes he doesn’t and I stay up late, hoping that if I wait half an hour more, he’ll appear at the door.”

Phil sighed.

“Look, I asked a few favours at work.”

“Oh?” She answered. “About what?”

“About Micky. You said he’d gotten himself somethin’ to do with the police that he couldn’t talk about. So I thought, as a policeman myself, I could surely get the info.”

“Right, I see, so what did you find out?” She asked excitedly.

“Nothin’.”

“What?” Caroline’s eyebrows jumped.

“I mean, he did stuff for the police and it was so important that it’s sort of uh… a bit… classified?”

“What?!” Caroline repeated.

“Look, I know you’re worryin’ about him but if he’s called in for jobs like that, then he’s much, much better at his job than what you and Mike imagine.”

“What do you mean?” Caroline turned the stove off and turned to her brother who had taken a seat around the dinner table.

“I mean that he wasn’t just called by the local police for pest control or somethin’. He was paid heftily to buy not only his services but his silence too. Gosh, I’m proud of that boy…!”

Caroline however, was terrified.

“Hold on, hold on…” She went to sit in front of her brother. “Phil, you’ve got to be clear and tell me. Is he only huntin’ or…?”

“Hell if I know!” Phil answered. “But one thing’s for sure, you should be proud of him instead of scared. That boy, whatever he’s doin’ exactly, he’s doin’ it outstandingly.”

“Oh God…” Caroline sighed and shook her head as she lowered it. She grasped the tea towel in her hand harder.

“What?”

“We’re not so scared as to how his huntin’ goes, with Mike. He was the one to teach him and Micky’s always been careful, nah…”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Exactly what you described, Phil. In a way, we’d have hoped he wouldn’t be too good with a rifle. You never know what you can make a man do if you pay him handsomely. But now that you tell me he’s been off doin’ some classified stuff… Gosh…” Caroline hid her face in her hands. “That’s the worst…”

“Why d’you think he was refusin’ to tell you what he was doin’ then?”

“Cause he doesn’t like to talk about his job to us!”

“Yeah but he doesn’t like it cause he never gets a good word out of either of you for it!” Phil answered. “Look, the way I see it, you guys are doin’ all you can to make him not open up to you.”

“What?”

“Y’know what, let’s have dinner and I’ll explain.”

“Alright, then lay the table out, yeah?”

“Sure.”

They both rose from their chairs and got busy. Philip laid the table for three, in case Mundy would come back from whatever he was doing and Caroline finished her cooking. When they resumed their seats, their plates were full and smoking hot.

“Oh, let me just grab some water, I forgot…” Phil came back with a jug of fresh water. “There.” He sat down and put it on the table between his sister and himself. “Now, that smells delicious…!”

“It’s only spaghetti with a tomato sauce and the leftover ground beef from lunch, eh?”

“Still, smells awfully good, thanks Carrie…” Philip took a taste and closed his eyes with a wide smile. “Gosh that’s almost like Mum’s. You took me centuries back, heh!”

They exchanged a chuckle.

“So, Phil, what did you mean?”

“With what?”

“With what you said about Micky? That we somehow pushed him not to open up to us?”

“Yeah…” Philip wiped his mouth before going on. “Here’s my take on things. I talked to him and I’ve talked to you, so I got to see both sides of the coin, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So I think he doesn’t talk to you about anythin’ cause he’s just tired of the whole ‘it’s dangerous, do somethin’ else with your life’ speech. Meanwhile, you worry not only cause he does hunt at the end of the day, but also because he’s damn good at it, to put it mildly.”

“Yeah, I guess…”

“Hearing the same speech over and over again, it’s gotta be tiring for you and Mike you, don’t it?”

“It is…” Caroline nodded slowly, defeated. “But what else can we do? He’s about forty and a grown up man. Can’t scold him for it anymore.”

“What if you genuinely tried to understand his job a bit better? Have you ever tried just askin’ him not with the intention of tellin’ him off for it?”

Caroline took a deep breath. “I guess not.”

“Well then, start from there. I’m sure he’d love to tell you both about what he likes and all. But you gotta allow him to. Otherwise, he’s just gonna close up like a clam!”

“Yeah, that’s true…” She looked left and right, half ashamed, half distraught at the idea that it was her fault if her son wasn’t very open with her. “Did you…?”

“Did I what?” Phil asked.

“Well you’ve been havin’ your evenings between boys and all, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you ask him about… Y’know… Sheilas?”

“Oh girls? Yeah, I have.”

“And?” She asked, expecting some news like some would expect a miracle.

“Nothin’.”

“What d’you mean again with ‘nothin’?”

“Well, literally just that! He’s told me he doesn’t have a girlfriend or anythin’ like that and I think he’s bein’ honest about it…!”

“But?” Caroline knew her brother and she could hear the ‘but’ coming.

“But there’s something.”

"What? You think he was lying? You think he does have a girlfriend?”

“No, nah. I think there’s somethin’. I don’t exactly know what but I see it in his eyes. He’s not just shy. There’s somethin’ in that heart of his that he’s hidin’.”

“Like what?” Caroline asked.

Philip took the jug of water and poured some for both of them.

“Hell if I know…”

-- Miles away --

Mundy raised his eyes to the sky. He took a deep breath. The air smelt the same as back home. The desert here was very different, yet he felt home there, in the middle of nowhere, a nowhere that he did not know and that didn’t know him either.

The sky’s colours were changing as the sun set gently and Mundy stared in the distance. He was on his van’s rooftop, as far as possible from any and all cities, where his thoughts could be let out free. He could speak them out, or even scream them, shout everything he could not when he was around his family.

But Mundy did not have that hot blood that would prompt him to do so. Instead, he just thought about it, without the rampant pressure of his uncle or his mother trying to pop his bubble of intimacy. He thought the words that he wished he could say to a friend, a confidant.

God, I wish.

He thought.

God I wish I could find someone nice.

He looked up at the sky and wished on every star he saw.

Why?

Because he so damn wished. He closed his eyes and remembered. He remembered the last time he had a pleasant and meaningful conversation with anyone. That had happened years ago and had cost him his last friend. The one and only person who had understood why his eyes would linger on masculine silhouettes more than feminine ones. They had understood it, and left him, right after giving him that sideways disgusted look.

Mundy sighed.

He then remembered how it had felt, his first time with a man, and then the other times. The first time was as awkward as it should have been. The ones that followed worked better and better as far as the choreography of moves go. However, there was something that Mundy found tiring. Whoever this partner was -- and it often was a drunk partner found in a pub after a long day of work -- they were always both way past tipsy and not really enjoying more than the physical satisfaction of the act. Sometimes, Mundy would wake up hungover and with a headache that would make him want nothing but to get rid of his catch of the night, so to speak.

There were no feelings, no attachment, no longing.

And it got the Aussie thinking. He came to a point where he thought he would rather remove the physical relief to only keep the meaningful discussions, should a choice arise. Better a good friend, than a mute one night stand.

Unsurprisingly, following such a line of thought, he had grown to prefer his own company and stopped making any effort to find the man his heart and mind dreamt of. He contented himself with his internal monologues and, when his body asked of him, of a solitary kind of intimacy.

Mundy was in that complete contradiction of craving the company of someone else and hating it at the same time. Having to put up with someone else, changing to please them, to voluntarily close his eyes to whatever they did that he did not like…? Pff, he didn’t have any patience for that anymore.

So all he had left was to dream. To fabricate a reality of his own where he did have that man. He didn’t need to be good-looking, he didn’t need to be rich. He just needed to understand Mundy, to put up with his long silences, with his sacred intimacy, not in the sexual meaning, no. That man just needed to understand that Mundy was such a mess inside that he preferred to keep to himself. If that dream man could do all that, oh, Mundy was satisfied. If that dream man could understand that Mundy liked his own company not because he hated people, but because they did not understand him. What choice did he have? He couldn’t do anything else?

It wasn’t like he could cure it or help it. He had tried, to no avail. He just was this way, a way that not even his family could know, because if they did, they would push him away too. But he only had them, nothing else! His mother and father were all that Mundy had, and if he had to make that choice, well it was all thought through! He would of course keep his family.

That choice, he both didn’t have it and made it anyway everyday.

No man had caught the Aussie’s interest for more than just a look. He had tried more of course but was most often stopped by the fact that they were normal. They liked women, unlike him. Well, he liked them, but preferred men, greatly so. Thus Mundy would move on yet again, only to end up in his comfortable solitude.

It was comfortable only because it was familiar. Yet now, he had learnt to live with it, live with the loneliness, like a tattoo that spanned all over his skin, that only he could see. His parents could see it too, but did not see it the right way. God only knew what they thought of him, apart from the usual disappointment at his job, and his single status.

Speaking of his parents…

Mundy blinked repeatedly as he landed back from his day-dreaming.

His mother and uncle might be waiting for him for dinner. The Aussie moved and went down the ladder at the back of his van before he went to the driver’s seat. What time was it? Bugger, late enough…

“Oh is that you Micky?” Caroline asked.

“Yeah, I’m back, sorry I didn’t see time fly…” He removed his hat and went to sit around the table.

"We just finished eatin', son." Phil answered.

"Ah, sorry again, I didn't mean to skip dinner with you."

"It's alright, Micky."

He started digging in while his mother started the washing up. His uncle stayed at the dinner table with him.

“Really good Mum.”

“Thanks, sweetie.”

“So, uh, you been alright, Micky?” Phil asked.

“Yeah, I just uh…”

“As long as you're safe, it’s all that matters.” Caroline interrupted her washing up and Mundy gasped when he felt her hands on his shoulders and her lips on his cheeks. He blushed. "Phil, can you give us a minute?"

"Sure. I'll go and give some food to Marty." The old man took his cane and left the kitchen, making sure he closed the door after himself.

"I know, Mum… Look, I really didn't see how late it was gettin' and-"

"Micky." She interrupted him and turned to sit in front of him. "I don't mind it. I want to talk to you about somethin' else."

"Oh?"

"Look, I think… I think that in all these years, we might have been doin' the wrong thing, your father and I."

"What d'you mean?" Mundy put his fork down and frowned.

"I mean that… Uh… Now that I'm far from him and I talked to Phil a bit… I'm sorry."

"About what?"

"About the way your father's always… y'know, he's always been on your back and-and I guess I was too. We've always been tellin' you off about your job and always been worried and all but… But Phil told me a bit more and I think that we completely missed what we should have done."

She raised her eyes to her son and slid her old hand to grab his, several shades darker than her own.

"Micky… I want to apologise. I never wanted you to shut yourself up like a snail in his shell and I know that you did that because your dad and I've been always pressurin' you."

Mundy opened wide, round eyes.

"I…"

"Let me finish, baby." She clenched her fingers on his hand. "Look at me, sweetheart." Mundy raised his eyes to his mother again. "Please, tell me about you."

Her eyes and her overall face looked both so distraught and so compassionate that Mundy lost his tongue.

"I… What d'you want to know?"

"Everythin'." She answered. "I feel like the only thing I know about you is what you like to eat, it's… It's terrible. So please, Micky, tell me."

Mundy's blush could hardly be deeper. He didn't like being put on the spot that way. But on the other hand, what his mother had just said was… a miracle!

"I don't know what to say really…"

"Anythin', and I won't tell a thing to your dad. If anythin', I'll try and make him understand what Phil opened my eyes to. We've grown apart not because of your job or anythin', but because of us."

"I… Mum...Thank you."

"Aw…" Caroline stood up and went to hug her son's head. He laced an arm around her waist and clenched his grip on her hand. She gently brushed his hair and bent down to kiss it. "Now, tell me more about your job, yeah? And please, be honest and all, I promise I won't be mad at you, I love you, Micky…"

Mundy was shocked and astounded. So that was what it had taken? A visit to Phil without his dad?

"Mum, I… I'm so glad that you tell me this... Oof, sorry…"

"Aw, gettin' emotional, eh?"

Mundy silently nodded against his mother. He pushed his chair back and stood up to hug her better, and closed his eyes.

"Tell you what, I'll make some tea and I'll send Phil away, then you can tell me more, yeah?"

"Uh, yeah." Mundy nodded as he felt his mother gently tap his back. "Alright, I'll uh.. I'll give you a hand with the dishes, yeah?"

"Good boy."

They exchanged a smile and both got to work. Mundy finished washing the dishes and Caroline readied the kettle. She disappeared off the kitchen only to reappear a few minutes later.

“Right, Phil wanted to go to bed so he’s there. It’s just you and me tonight, Micky.”

“Oh, alright, I’m done with the dishes.”

“Can you grab the cups for the tea, baby?”

“Sure.”

A few minutes later, both were in the living-room enjoying a cup of tea on the sofa. The television was low, just enough to fill the silence but not too loud.

“So, Micky, go ahead.”

Mundy took a deep breath. He stared into his tea and sighed.

“Mum, I-I don’t really hunt for animals.”

“What d’you mean?” She asked and raised a curious eyebrow.

“I… I try to save them.”

“Save them?”

“I go after poachers.” Mundy explained with his head low.

“What do you mean? D’you… Hurt them?”

“I… I try not to. I put them to sleep most of the time. But some of them do come back and don’t learn.”

“What d’you do in that case?”

Mundy’s eyes zigzagged left and right. Caroline scooted over closer to him and took his hand in hers.

“Hey, it’s alright, whatever it is, I’d rather know.”

Mundy took a deep breath.

“I… I don’t kill them or anythin’ but… I scare them.”

“Micky, please, just tell me.” She clenched her hand on his.

“I shoot them but I make sure it doesn’t kill them. I know where to aim to hurt, not to kill.”

“Oh…”

"They're never alone so there's always someone to get them out of there and get fixed."

"What do they say when they extract a bullet out of him? Surely they call the police and start enquirin'?" Caroline asked, frightened for her son.

"When I do that, I don't shoot bullets. I shoot canines that you can get from dead animals. There are many from the wild reserves. Sometimes, their oldest beasts die and that's the only thing I ask of them."

"You're in touch with the reserves? I didn't know that." Caroline frowned.

"Yeah. Sometimes, they call me to have a look cause some poachers would have stolen their beasts. It's then my job to track them down, find them and we can organise them bein' brought back home. Of course, sometimes I come too late and the beast's dead. But most of the time, I manage to find them and have them go back to the reserve they come from safely."

Caroline took a deep breath and sighed. She was still frowning.

"Uhm…" Mundy looked left and right. "Y-you alright, Mum? Did I go too far?"

"And those reserves are your clients?" She asked, ignoring Mundy's question.

"Yeah, most of the time it's reserves; rarely, it's zoos."

"Or the police, eh?" She added.

"Uh, y-yeah…" He lowered his head.

"So you try to save those beasts from poachers, is your job, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"And you don't kill either one or the other."

"Nah, never. When I get the poachers hurt, I guess they go to hospital and try to explain that they did hear a gunshot but the doctors must tell them that it's the shock of bein' bit so deep. In the end, they remove the tooth and patch them up. Those things never go too deep in the tissues."

"How d'you shoot teeth?"

"Custom bullets… It's uh… it's technical and I'm sure you'd be bored to hear all about it."

"Hm. So you just hurt the blokes?"

"Yeah, that's the worst case scenario."

"And you don't kill or hurt the beasts?"

"Nah, I don't."

"How do you transport them back to where they belong?"

"I don't, I usually shoot them with a good dose of tranq' shots and then call the reserve to arrange for collection. I stay nearby, just to make sure the beast doesn't get preyed on or anythin'."

"Right…"

Silence fell during which Caroline fell deep in thought.

"Mum… Uh… J-just to make sure you maybe understand better, I'm… I'm the only one who does that. You can hire hunters left and right but, I'm the only one who never kills the beast in the end. They don't deserve it. People sometimes…" Mundy shook his head. "They behave like animals, not actual animals. Actual animals just look to eat, sleep and mate. People go and meddle with them for their skins, their furs, their whatever that's expensive. I'd understand it if we were ten thousand years back and you need the leather and all. But in this day and age? Nah, leave them alone. Just look at them, take care of them if you're knowledgeable. Other than that? Just… Just leave them in peace. They don't need us."

"Gosh."

Caroline reflected on those words. The last time that Mundy had talked to her for that long was… When even was that? She couldn't remember. And she knew he liked animals and felt more empathy to them than he would to people sometimes, but she had never heard him word it all out.

"Micky?"

He didn't dare say or move anything and just remained petrified.

"Micky, I'm proud of you."

His head swooshed back up to look at his mother.

"I still need to wrap my head around all this but… You're not harmin' or hurtin' anyone and you're saving those poor souls, bringing them back home." Caroline hugged her son. "I'm so relieved…!"

He hugged her back.

"What did you think I was doin'?"

"Huntin' beasts and all, but exactly to sell them to people who want to hurt them, take their skin or whatever!"

"I'd never do that, Mum, even if they'd pay me billions."

Caroline had her head buried against her son's chest.

"I'm so, so happy you're not doin' anything dodgy…"

"Nah, I don't. I… Truth is I could, but I know you and Dad would be worried, so I don't. And I'm not doin' any of this for the money, even though it pays well. I'm doin' it cause I'm the only one who can."

"Micky?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you, baby."

Both smiled, still clinging to each other on the sofa.

"Will you tell Dad?"

"I'll try. But not over the phone, I'd rather have him face to face for this."

"Yeah, thanks."

"And uh… Micky?"

"Yeah?"

Caroline pulled herself out of the embrace.

"Can I ask you somethin' else?"

"Sure." He smiled.

"What about… this?" Caroline put her hand on her son's chest and lightly tapped his heart. Mundy's smile vanished.

"I… I'm quite tired, Mum. Is that ok if I go to sleep?"

"Sure, baby."

#tf2 sniper #tf2 spy #sniperspy #unalone

10 notes · View notes

summonerscenarios · 4 years

Note

this isn't at all relevant to sin so feel free to postpone this but in your opinion. out of the summorners who would be the most to least helpful if mc starts crying? I can literally already see toji standing there like :[

ASDFGHJKL OKAY SO THE SECOND I IMAGINED TOJI IN THIS SCENARIO I JUST IMAGINED HIM IN THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM COMFORTING MC LIKE THIS

Buuuuuut in all seriousness here’s my personal opinions of worst to best (though the middle is a mixed mess lmao)

-------

Toji

Toji’s arguably the most awkward out of all of the Summoners and handles it the least well when he sees you crying. He isn’t sure what the best way to comfort you is - with words or with actions Toji’s expertise really doesn’t lie in either of them. He’s kept to himself for a long time and as a result handling others emotions and figuring out what people want to hear when they’re vulnerable isn’t something that he’s used to. Toji keeps his distance unless you explicitly state that you want him to come closer, though he does try his best to comfort you with his words. He’s aware that he’s not the best to handle these sorts of things - he’s confident that Ryota or Hanuman would be better suited to cheer you up, but if he’s the only one there he isn’t just going to walk out and let you cry unless you tell him to get out - even he knows that sometimes you don’t want to be alone when you feel like the world is on your shoulders.

Gullinbursti

Listen I would put Gullinbursti higher on this list if it wasn’t for one major factor. He means well in thought, but the execution can go very, very wrong depending on what’s got you upset. Of course, seeing his master upset, let alone reduced to tears is a sight that physically pains him, and he’s desperate to fix anything that has caused you such distress no matter the lengths it may take to do so. All you have to do is to say the word on what he can do to aid you and he is ON IT. You might want to be careful how you word it however, as we know Gull tends to take things literally, and at the insinuation that someone is responsible for your state he will charge headfirst to confront them before you even have the chance to - if you don’t want that confrontation you’re going to have to practically drag him back and explain that - no, you just wanna leave it. He may be insistent, but he values your word above all else, so if you don’t want to pursue it that’s that.

Kengo

Kengo walks in on your crying and the first words he blurts out is an awkward “Oh...you okay?” which if you weren’t openly sobbing you would’ve laughed at. Once he realizes that you’re seriously upset though he gets serious. His first thought is that someone’s responsible for upsetting you and he’s immediately on the defensive, demanding to know who made you cry and to just point him in their direction so he can kick their ass. Of course if it is someone responsible for making you cry it’s up to you if you want to give him names, just be sure before you do because he will 100% throw down with them with zero hesitation even if it gets him in trouble. If it’s something else though he’s a lot less sure on how to handle it, but seeing you upset of course he’s going to still wanna do something about it! The first thing he’s gonna do is get you to sit down, asking you what you want to do about whatever’s making you upset - talking things out isn’t always his style but hearing what you want to happen directly from you is the best way for him to understand how to help you. You wanna go out there and tackle it directly? He’ll be right behind you. Wanna just forget about it? Sure thing! The two of you can just talk about something else till you’re ready to move on. Wanna just get out of there? Kengo’s going to get you out of there asap and find somewhere you wanna go - whether that’s a bustling shopping district or somewhere quiet for some peace. You’re his partner and he’s got your back, regardless of how good he is at the whole comforting thing.

Agyo

Agyo of course freaks out seeing you start to cry - he’s not prepared to handle this and you can practically see him frantically trying to go through all of the ways to cheer someone up in his head as quickly as possible from across the room. For what it’s worth though he doesn’t just wait for you to cry it out like Toji probably would, and instead approaches you. The type to rub your back and pat your head while you get whatever crying to need to get off of your chest, telling you to just let it out and that you’ll feel better. With the way he tries to comfort you, you wouldn’t be surprised if he’s picked this up from someone else (most likely from Ungyo when Agyo was upset.) but it’s more comforting than you’d think to just have those lil head pats. Admittedly if you’re the hugging type of comforter he’ll whine a bit when you pull him in for a hug, holding off on scolding you about using him like a teddy bear since you’re upset and all, but for what it’s worth he’s super fluffy and squishy so he’s peak cuddling material. Just be sure to give him plenty of head rubs and he’ll relent on the fuss until you’re feeling better.

Moritaka

When Moritaka catches sight of the tears welling up in your eyes his first thought is to take your cheeks in his hands and wipe away those tears as they fall. If you make a noise of discomfort then he’ll quickly back off with an apology for acting before asking, however he can’t ignore that you’re upset and implores you to tell him what has caused you to cry. Mori’s an excellent listener, always willing an ear to your troubles and he takes it very seriously, even if you try to downplay it he insists that if it’s upsetting you it’s important. If you’re okay with physical contact you can be sure that you’ll be getting a comfort hug from him too, just holding you while you cry it out and bury your face into his fur as you let out all of your emotions. Letting your feelings get pent up is an easy way to get overwhelmed and he knows that lesson well, so he encourages you to get whatever you need to off of your shoulders and that you don’t need to carry these burdens alone.

Hanuman

Hanuman’s the master of cheering up through distractions. He sees you starting to cry and he’s immediately at your side asking if you wanna see something cool, catching you off guard as he tugs you over to whatever he thinks will help you forget alllll about what made you upset. There’s plenty of games that you guys can play together - he recommends multiplayer since he’s got some awesome fighting games the two of you can compete with! Or ones where you guys can work together! Or there’s single player options if you prefer - he’ll make it a game night and invite Tsath, Ryota and friends over if you want to be surrounded by people who care about you. And if you wanna see some of his ninja tricks he loves showing them off! Anything that is able to make you smile instead of cry he wants to do! To Hanuman so long as he can at least get a laugh out of someone when they’re upset it means he’s doing a good job of cheering you up; so of course he’s going to want to make you smile and laugh as much as he can until you’re crying from joy rather than sorrow. When it comes to actually confronting your problems however Hanuman’s inexperienced; comforting sure, but unless it’s an issue that can be sorted out with some mischief or swiping something up from right under someone’s nose he’s stumped on how to help. Aside from that though if you’re just looking to get your mind off of what’s made you upset, if only for today Hanuman’s the boy for the job.

Shiro

When the tears start to fall Shiro takes the initiative, getting you into a position of comfort or safety while you cry, be it leading you to take a seat or getting you something to drink once the tears run dry (gotta keep hydrated after a cry if you wanna avoid the headache after folks). And of course if you need something to cuddle there’s already three lil D-evils on hand, swarming around you with concerned screeches upon noticing their Summoner’s fretting over you. Just seeing them worrying about you and clambering to wipe the tears off of your cheeks with chubby little fingers is enough to make you cry all over again at how much they care (which just makes everyone panic all over again thinking they’ve done something wrong until Shiro swoops back in to calm everyone down). Unlike most of the other Summoners, once you’ve calmed down he’d like to sit down with you and talk through the options that you have available to get through what upset you. If it’s a particular event he’d like you to walk him through it if you’re comfortable with it, and throughout he’ll ask you where you would like to go from here; and, if it’s a person who’s responsible, how you would like to confront them to deal with it. If you’d rather just forget about what happened altogether Shiro’s supportive but also thinks you should reconsider - if this situation was bad enough to reduce you to tears he just doesn’t feel right about it going unresolved, if you push though he will relent, afterall the choice is up to you in the end.

Ryota

Ryota’s arguably the best in regards to comfort. He’s an empathetic soul at heart and seeing anyone in pain makes him want to do everything that he can just to see them smile again. And this is especially true when it comes to you - you’re one of his closest friends and at the first sign of tears in your eyes his heart breaks at the sight and almost immediately he’s closing the distance to hug you. Ryota focuses on cheering you up above all else - anything he can do to make you forget all about what’s upset you if only for a little while he’ll do it in a heartbeat. It’s up to you whether you want to talk about what happened or not but making sure that you feel better is Ryota’s main focus. All kinds of snacks, a good movie collection and a whoooole lot of blankets is in the cards for cheering up any of his friends! If you’re not comfortable with hugs that’s totally fine! But if you are, you can bet that Ryota’s going to cuddle right up next to you, his hugs proving to be super comforting when it comes to making people feel better. The whole time he’ll be comforting you with his words too - telling you that it’s gonna be okay and that whatever’s upset you will be sorted out and that you won’t go through it alone! You’ve got so many friends who want to be there for you, and he’s sure to tell you that he’s going to be right there with you the whole time, wiping the tears from your eyes until they stop.

61 notes · View notes

aspiratixxn · 4 years

Text

Wiggles and wriggles and wounds, oh my!

Summary: Tony really wants to say fuck but he can’t in front of one insistently wiggly red spider boy.

Warnings: Blood and injuries.

Word Count: 1877

Notes: For @jalapenobarnes‘s writing challenge! I know I just signed up but I sort of just churned this out because it was fun to write and because I’m avoiding my two other fics heh. My prompt was “I’m trying to stop the bleeding!”, which just screamed Tony attempting to parent injured Peter.

🚫 Starkers don’t interact 🚫

“Will you PLEASE STOP THE WIGGLINGS.” Tony can’t curse because Peter is a child and he’s really trying to cut the habit for the press, but he so wants to say fuck right now. Like really, really wants to say fuck.

The cause of said desire is of course one grievously injured Peter Parker, who’s normally fluffy hair is slick with red and he wheezes with every breath. The wheezing is less concerning when it’s because Peter’s laughing at his own stupid jokes, coming out in a pour of words.

“B-but Mr. S-Stark,” he giggles, “I’m a SPIDER! We wiggle!” And to prove his point, he wiggles a little bit even though it makes him wince from all the gashes on his body.

Tony has been blessed with multiple kids in his life. But between Harvey, Morgan and Peter, he can finally feel his age catching up with him.

To combat the raging headache beginning to bud in the back of his head, Tony does a categorical assessment of the situation. Peter’s spider suit is torn to pieces pretty much. It’s not really salvageable so he’ll strip it for parts for the next suit. Friday and Karen do a scan and reveal some pretty heavy bruising and fractured bones but no internal bleeding or compound fractures (thank fuck). Peter’s weirdo heal factor is already plugging itself in so those will be gone in a day or two. Peter himself on the other hand refuses to stop talking or moving for even a minute and he’s babbling something about how spiders spin their webs and how they walk and how their legs bend. Who knows who spider’s legs bend?? Peter Parker that’s who.

“I am. Trying. To stop. The bleeding! So, if you’ll just be a good little spider and lie still for your flies or whatever you drain the goo out of, that’d be amazing. Fantastic. Absolutely wonderful.” Tony has never felt more grateful that he has an entire med kit packed into his suit as he’s spraying Neosporin on basically every inch of Peter’s body. If he could, he might be tempted to slam dunk the kid into a whole pool of the stuff. There is to be no infections on his watch. Not after the shit he experienced in Hong Kong a few months ago. That was absolutely horrible for a regular person, who’s to say what it’ll do to Peter who can’t take painkillers or antibiotics?

“Ewwww, goo? Goo’s gross. I mean I know spiders dissolve the guts of flies and other various small insects, and sometimes male spiders but like, what do you think it’s like to just slurp goo every day for food?” Peter makes a face, interrupted briefly by the sting that the spray brings. “But I guess it’s the buggy way since flies do it too. Hey Mr. Stark, did you know that flies secrete enzymes through their feet and they drink through their feet? Or that butterflies eat flesh? Did you know that?”

Deep breaths Stark.

“I did not but you know what, of everything I sure am glad you weren’t bitten by a butterfly. Or a fly. Or any other enzyme foot secreting insect.” It’s onto the wrapping even though the worst of the lacerations are already starting to look a little better. Tony whips out a sleeve of gauze and several rolls of bandages to begin wrapping around the more severe oozing cuts, mostly located on his arms and legs though there’s quite the nasty one on his chest. Peter snorts as he begins, fingers fumbling just a bit. He’s really not good at this. His forte is more like slapping on an Avengers band-aid on Morgan’s everyday scrapes, bumps and bruises. Pepper’s the real patcher-upper. She’s off in Thailand right now though, enjoying some mangoes and a very stubborn board of directors, insisting on cutting all funds to the avengers/S.H.I.E.L.D initiative.

“It’s not enzyme foot secretions! It’s an enzyme secreting foot!” Peter huffs. “And I mean yeah this spider stuff is pretty cool y’know especially for sneaking out and stuff like walking on walls is the bomb diggity but wouldn’t it be cool if I could fly?! Imagine that!!” That’s one arm down.

“First of all, spider boy, as long as you’re not secreting enzymes on the carpet it’s fine. You know how Pepper gets about her rugs.” Peter nods solemnly, apparently remembering the Jell-O goo incident on her nice Persian rug. “Secondly, have you been sneaking out? You know how I feel about you breaking curfew young man.” And it’s a pretty generous one in his mind, at the exact stroke of midnight. Hey if Cinderella gets that much then it’s good enough for his little pumpkins to roll home and go to sleep. Peter shrugs and suddenly has the urge to look at everything else, the smoldering buildings and piles of debris, instead of meeting Tony’s eyes. He’s even mumbling YMCA to keep from saying stupid things. Oh how they grow without his notice. He sighs, thinking he’ll have to update the protocol again. Or possibly reinstall it, given Peter’s previous compulsions to just uninstall the fucking programs. Having finished the other arm, he moves onto the quickly wrap up the bits and bangs on Peter’s legs. “Third, who says bomb diggity anymore? You’re way too young to even know that term.”

“What! No way Mr. Stark, some of my favorite stuff to say is like, bomb diggity and radical! It’s a renaissance of 90’s slang.” And there’s that big, toothy smile he gives when he’s trying to butter up and get himself out of trouble. Ha! Tony’s installed a Notepad of things Peter does that are bad protocol to make sure he and Pete have some talks about things like this. Sure his old man brain might get flooded with other stuff but ever faithful Friday will remind him of it later.

The last bit requires Peter to strip off the remnants of his suit, which is going to be a bit of a problem considering Peter has a case of the jelly limbs right now. As in he’s so exhausted and beat up that his body has effectively said nope! to any form of movement that isn’t wiggling in place and being pushed around gently. So it’s the old scissors trick (not a trick) and Tony just uses some super duper ultra sharp scissors to gently cut through the wires and fabric of Peter’s suit. Peter moans a small complaint (I liked this suit Mr. Stark) but Tony’s more worried about the still dribbling tear that crosses his chest.

Peter heals like there’s no tomorrow, something that Tony only wishes he could have sometimes. But still this one looks like it might scar, especially given the kid’s habit of picking at scars. But for now all he can really do is wrap it up and-

Boss. Friday’s soothing voice chimes up and as soothing as he’s made it out to be, after radio silence all this time Tony nearly shits himself. It appears that Mr. Parker will need stitches for this one.

Aw, fuck.

Well Tony is garbage with a needle and thread so there’s no way he’s going to be doing those stitches. In fact Peter is normally the one sewing so this poses a slight problem. He doesn’t want to move the kid, who’s mumbling now about 1950’s fashion (again, who knows about these things?? Peter). And forget ambulances since they take forever to do anything and that’s not really Tony’s style in the first place.

There’s a nearby clinic, about a quarter mile away boss. Ah Friday, ever so helpful lovely Friday.

A quarter mile isn’t that bad, he reasons to himself. Even he, with his emaciated lungs, can get that far without the suit so it should be a cinch to do it in the suit right? Even with a hundred sixty four (that’s 164) pound child in his arms.

Now the real question is how to get Peter there. He’s started to sing drinking songs (he’s not even old enough to drink yet why does he know these??) and is kind of waving his arms around. Well, it’s probably not because of blood loss because Karen, and by extension Friday, would’ve let him know. The easiest thing to do would just be to scoop up the lil spider and princess carry/fly him there and pass it off to a real professional. But a part of Tony really hesitates because what if that hurts him? He’s not really known to fly slow so what if the jet propulsion opens up new words or the turbulence in-flight causes him to shift shards of bone from his fractured humerus or what if! Peter decides to start dancing to his singing!

There’s a twinge behind his eyes and he groans, pressing the heel of his palm into them. Okay. So logically none of those things will happen. Peter’s a sturdy kid. But also, Tony’s not really well versed on all this stuff. He almost tells Friday to flip a coin, carry or fly him there, but his rational brain finally takes over. It kicks his parent panic to the corner and makes him scoop up Peter, delicately of course, and take a low flying (above tree tops because they’re not getting whacked on the way to the doctor) course to the clinic, where the nurse’s eyes nearly pop out of her head. She stammers her way through the paperwork process. Peter is seen immediately by an older physician, who simply collects him and brings him back without much fuss.

Which leaves Tony to deal with the flustered nurse who literally looks like she’s about to melt into a puddle on the floor. To be fair it is 3:47 AM so this is probably a little extreme for night-time injuries. Tony mindlessly scrawls information on the papers passed to him, wrinkling his nose at the insurance one.

Strictly speaking Peter isn’t part of his insurance. But Tony quickly dismisses that, telling Friday to make a note to add him to the policy. Easily done, considering this is Tony Stark they’re working with.

The physician comes back out and ushers Tony into a room where Peter has finally knocked out, snoring on the cot like he wasn’t just painting a random street corner iron red. Tony has the good sense to sit down and try to untense his shoulder as the physician goes through lists of care items and thing, prescribing antibiotics which Tony knows won’t work. He just listens anyways, thanking her for her care and services. She says that he can take him home but in a car, not flying across the city in a suit. Probably a good idea.

He gets Friday to call Happy who is obviously very not happy about being woken up at this god forsaken hour of the night. He still grumbles that he’ll be there in ten, twenty minutes and hangs up and Tony groans once more, that headache bursting into a full-blown migraine. And he doesn’t have any ibuprofen because he forgot to restock it.

Under his breath, in the weird yellow limelight of the fluorescent bulbs above, he finally mutters a vehement, “Fuck.”

#Tony Stark #Peter Parker #irondad #marvel #mcu fanfic #blood tw #injury tw #saranschallenge #jalapenobarnes

33 notes · View notes

bread-tab · 5 years

Text

so i think when this little exchange in rotj happened:

luke: your overconfidence is your weakness

palps: your faith in your friends is yours

like? that revealed a LOT. about luke, the sith, and especially palpatine.

first of all, palps didn’t say “lol, wrong.” he didn’t even say, “no, you,” which is near the front of the villain playbook and pretty reasonable in this situation. he basically said, “yeah, but YOU—” which, uh, did that hit a nerve palpy?

and then there’s the content of what he said: luke’s friends aren’t trustworthy. he also spends the whole conversation saying “fRiEnDs” in this dripping-with-disdain tone. like, it’s condescending, standard Invincible Evil Sorcerer material right? but it also shows a little bit of palpapickle’s background...how did he *get* that idea, that friends are untrustworthy and gross? that the concept of friends is laughably, annoyingly naive?

because iirc at this point in the conversation palpers was getting high-key irritated at luke. which as we later learn means he was halfway to frying him, which is very yikes but also only something he does when stressed? i think luke was making him nervous.

logically, the rebels aren’t going to win this. they’re super outnumbered and the imperial forces are theoretically better trained, better equipped, have better tactics, basically all the advantages. why would palpalingadingdong be nervous about the outcome? well, look at it like this: he’s stuck in a room with two skywalkers.

palpistachio doesn’t like jedi. he thinks they’re icky. he’s better at the force than them, in his opinion. they’re just dumbasses. but every time the skywalkers come along, the most random crap happens and screws up his plans. a ten-year-old blowing up a space station. like, alright, i can deal with that, i’ll creepily groom him to become my apprentice and that mary sue force power’s mine. oh, now he’s like nineteen and being a regular jedi dumbass except uh...he has a wife? fine, whatever, that’s gross but useful for manipulation. just chuck him in the front of the war, he’s sensitive about that stuff—yep, got him! oh now he’s depressed and only has 0.5 limbs, that’s so boring.

what do you mean he has a secret kid and that kid blew up my freaking superweapon that took like 30 years to make? okay. okay, second try at apprentice, this time with more limbs and less depression. vader go get the kid. vader why can’t you catch your own goldarned kid, what kind of a father are you? oh, you carbon-froze his fRiEnD? that’s great, i don’t care, sell it to the hutts or something. alright vader, lure him onto my new death star, leave the mind stuff to me because you suck at it. oh wow, you actually caught him, how the f—oh, he’s trying to turn you to the light, sure, all according to my design. you better not get any funny ideas. what is this, a mon calamari bubble opera?

so palpateenybopper is just d o n e with skywalkers at this point and a hair away from frying them both to a crisp because they’re agents of chaos and entropy who gunk up the works of his nice new galactic order. why is he so threatened by them? well, palpating is a nerd. anakin and luke are jocks. palpinterest’s main talent isn’t silly laser-sword-waving. it’s thinking ahead, with a little help from the force. when there’s a lightsaber duel, sure, he can turn into an angery fidget spinner of death or try to squash a gnome with a floaty government space couch booth thing, but he doesn’t like to. someone like windu comes along who’s actually talented at that stuff, and he finds himself smashing his nice picture window and lightninging his own face (like, try to tell me that was on purpose). probably there’s a reason he never got into a direct fight with anakin and it’s not ‘oh i didn’t want to have to find another apprentice what a bother’ because the dude went through apprentices like they were pringles. something to do with how an anakin with the right motivation could, hypothetically, hoist him like a sack of electrified potatoes and yeet him down a convenient reactor shaft.

so these two jedi that don’t follow the jedi rules are annoying. you’d think they’d be good sith material, like dooku was, but nooo, they’re all about love and peace and all that hippy-dippy crap. self-loathing worked pretty well on vader but the dude’s always pulling crazy stunts and getting into the most dramatic confrontations possible and pulling secret relatives out of every dump in the galaxy. and the kid is just as bad. palpantaloons can sense it and he’s getting the worst headache of his life just imagining another three decades of this.

on top of that, the kid has the nerve to call him “overconfident.” in your dreams, you little dork, i’m the ruler of the galaxy and we’re literally sitting in the biggest superweapon that ever existed, and it’s *my* finger on the big red button. but then the force is very quietly like, ‘he’s right, you know.’ and palparanoia has a very bad feeling about this all of a sudden. maybe the stupid jedi kid knows something palpepperoni doesn’t. why else would he be so darned sure of himself?

oh wait, but would require the kid’s fRiEnDs to be actually competent. psh. this kid isn’t a threat to palporpoise; he doesn’t even have minions, he’s relying on people who don’t even fear him: obviously the other rebels are just using the kid for his abilities because they have a whole braincell somewhere among them. and then they sent him right into palparasite’s waiting arms, the fools. who’s overconfident now?

maybe i’m reading too much into this line, but i think it gives ol’ palpatriarchy some extra depth.

#star wars #palpatine #i think he’s on the line between 2D cookie-cutter villain and actual character depth #but it’s good writing #he’s got more to him than uhhhh lot of villains #including other star wars villains #anyway #i had to post this just to get my brain to stop thinking about it #so there #villains #fandom #star wars meta #long post #abuse cw

29 notes · View notes

sign-from-god-complex · 5 years

Text

I’m really glad you like it!!!! Sorry that this took so long! I’ve actually been doing more than just SpIn stuff recently which is a change, haha.

(this one is more in-depth but hopefully it’s not boring?? I hope that’s okay. it’s also way longer, so, uhhhh, whoops.)

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

In the early days, Virgil would just call in Roman to lay on top of him as a pressure stim. Roman was strangely the best choice because Patton always made it too cuddly and Virgil felt overwhelmed, and Logan found it very uncomfortable. Virgil was worried that Roman would be too squirmy, but he was actually very good at being still.

Eventually Roman bought Virgil a weighted blanket, which definitely made Virgil cry a little bit cause he’d been talking about getting one for ages. Virgil still sometimes calls Roman in to lay on top of him when he wants to spend time with someone without actually spending time with anyone.

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

Logan makes notes of everything. He finds it difficult to remember all the many things he is expected to do by social conventions that just don’t seem intuitive to him so he writes them all down and files them. Things he’s filed include step-by-step instructions on how to deal with a panic attack, as well as contemporary slang terms and body language cues and their meanings.

He has a System for his filing and the one time Roman came into his room and grabbed a book off the shelf without asking, Logan screamed at him. Roman has since learned not to touch Logan’s things, as Logan has learned not to yell at Roman for singing in the hallways. They’re getting better at communicating.

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

While most people with ASD tend to have low levels of empathy (specifically cognitive empathy, the ability to read other’s emotions) Virgil and Patton both have hyper-empathy. They’re always aware of the vibe of a room and it can heavily influence how they’re feeling. Highly emotional rooms can be just as overwhelming for them as very loud or bright ones, and they always look out for each other when they’re in them, ready to take the other out of the situation if they need it.

Roman and Logan both have low empathy, which bothers Roman in particular cause he always wants to help people (by slaying whatever’s burdening their life, you know the gist), but he can never actually tell when anyone’s upset. It also results in them both accidentally upsetting people quite often.

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

Logan has alexithymia, or an inability to recognise what emotions he, himself, is feeling (which commonly overlaps with ASD). This also extends to having bad interoception - the ability to read internal signals such as hunger or thirst.

He follows his schedule super closely not just cause it upsets him to deviate from it, but also because he may forget to do important things like eating if he didn’t. He has alarms set on his phone for some things, as well as some of those apps that remind you to drink water and such.

When he was creating these alarms he initially forgot that drinking water was another thing he needed to have alarms for. He was wandering around all day with a headache, wondering whether it was lack of sleep or stress or something, until he mentioned it to Virgil and Virgil asked if he’d drunk any water today. He immediately informed Virgil he was an idiot and downloaded an app to remind him to drink water.

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

Roman is the worst at taking care of himself when he’s upset or overwhelmed (see the previous ask where I mentioned he was the most likely to try and work through sensory overload) cause he’s very much of the faulty mindset that he’s strong enough to just push through and ignore whatever is bothering him.

One of the ways this presented was Roman eating whatever food was made for him even when he couldn’t stand the texture. He did this for ages, to the point where Patton made something with a very bad texture in it (say, avocado, cause avocados are just the worst texture ever) and Roman literally started crying at the dinner table.

They managed to get to a point where Roman was a little more okay and he explained. Virgil then pointed out that some days he doesn’t eat anything aside from frozen waffles and that bananas have been permanently banned from all meals because Logan can’t stand them. Roman feels slightly more okay about it.

Patton always runs dinner by Roman first now, or if Roman is busy, he’ll ask Logan, who has a running list of all the things Roman can’t eat.

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

One of Logan’s special interests is space and astronomy (obviously). Once every so often when they feel like Logan is particularly down or stressed (always telling Logan and Virgil in advance so they know which day to expect it) they all go to the imagination and stargaze. They always pick a slightly different sky to look at so there’s some variation - some days it’s the day Thomas watched a meteor shower, or the day that there was a lunar eclipse, or even just an exceptionally clear Sunday evening.

It’s one of the only times Logan is so obviously happy. He talks nonstop about the science of starlight in relation to time or about the different influences on the naming of planets, the classification of Pluto etc. etc. He actually flaps when he gets super excited about something, which is uncommon for him. The other three love seeing him so carefree.

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

Patton has echolalia, especially when he’s interacting with animals. Did that dog bark at him? You better believe he’s going to bark back. If a cat meows in his general vicinity he will also meow. It’s also the way he communicates to the others that there’s an animal if he sees one.

If he gets super excited about something like a line in a tv show or something he’ll just repeat it really enthusiastically to the others and they’ll repeat it back to him to show they know and are also excited. And he’ll repeat the beeping of the microwave or knocking on the door if he’s wanting to draw attention to it since he isn’t the one getting it. Patton is almost always the one who starts mindscape-wide vine quoting, but the others are always very quick to join in.

It took them all a while to understand what Patton meant when he would use little phrases instead of clearly stating what he was trying to say (and then getting frustrated - “gosh, words can be tough”), but they’ve all adapted to it over time. Logan has several pages of notes dedicated to Patton’s speech quirks (e.g. duck out, “quack”; “beep beep”: move away and give me space; “second star to the right and straight on til morning”: Logan, you’re overworking yourself and you need to go to sleep, etc.).

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

Listening to music is a whole thing with Virgil. Like, he’ll listen to it any chance he’ll get, but also if he’s Listening, you have to leave him alone. It’s so heavily tied to his emotions, it calms him down remarkably easily and it blocks out negative sensory input. The first and only time Roman unplugged Virgil’s headphones in an attempt to get him to play his music out loud, Virgil had a meltdown.

Listening to music is also a whole thing with Roman but in an entirely different way. To Roman, music is a Big Thing. Music needs to be stimmed to, music needs to be sung and danced to. Music deserves to be heard. Roman will play his music out loud in common areas and it pisses Virgil off for reasons he can’t fully articulate.

To Virgil, music is personal, to Roman, music is a shared experience. They both come to accept that they don’t understand how the other feels, but they respect it anyway.

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

I hope this was okay!!! I spent over 3 hours writing all of this cause I got really excited about all the possibilities and then maybe I wrote too much??? I like it though.

#i tried really hard to make it even but like #logan is so easy for me to project onto so i feel like i did twice as much for him #patton is very hard for me to relate to so he was slightly more of a challenge #sanders sides #sanders sides headcanon #autistic sides #logan sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders

138 notes · View notes

cutesuki--bakugou · 5 years

Text

Sea Legs

Ch. 6 - Legs

Boku No Hero Academia / My Hero Academia Quirkless, Mermaid, Modern AU

Rating: Explicit | Excessive Fluff, Blood, Wounds, Nudity, Sex, Cursing and Vulgar Language

Genre: Romance / Humor / Angst

Main Pairing: Katsuki Bakugou x Koge Naegi (oc)

A trip to her grandmothers beachfront home was something that Koge had done every year of her life. This time, an unlikely discovery would change her life forever. Who knew explaining how to be a human could be so hard.

Four days had passed, and much to Koge’s surprise, Bakugou’s wound had already begun to close up with no signs of infection or damage. Although he could swim with limited pain, there was something that continued to worry Koge. It seemed as if he were only getting more lethargic, with occasional complaints of a tight chest and headaches. Though, when Koge tried to express her worry, he shot her down, saying that he was still just recovering from all the physical effort and trauma he had been through that day. It made sense, so for now, she allowed him to make the choices concerning his recovery.

“You don’t think you can make it home yet?” Koge asked as she worked on peeling an orange, placing the skin in her lap as she pulled it free. Laying beside her on his back, Bakugou shook his head, fiddling with one of the ornaments that hung off his necklace. It was a large tooth, one he had claimed had been from a Great White, a trophy from one of his first hard kills. “I don’t think so. I get tired just rolling over. I think I need at least another day or two. What weird thing are you eating, now?” Bakugou let the necklace fall into place, turning his attention to the orange in her hands.

“It’s an orange. Want to try some?” Koge pulled off a section, handing it towards him. Face scrunching up in mild disgust, Bakugou shook his head, rolling over to make his way back to the pool. “No, I’m feeling kinda sick to my stomach.”

Watching closely as he dove into the pool, Koge couldn’t help but frown, finding all these symptoms odd. It was hard for her to pinpoint what was causing them, but she was positive it couldn’t be from what he had gone through. With a sigh, she ate the orange piece instead, scooting closer to the edge of the pool to talk to him easier. “So, you told me you’d tell me more about you. There’s something I haven’t asked yet that I’m really curious about.”

Bakugou only grunted in response, not positive or negative, currently floating about on his back.

“How old are you?”

“I turn twenty one in about a month. According to how you people celebrate birth, at least. You?” “I’ll be twenty two in November--”

“What?!” Bakugou suddenly snapped, shocking Koge so badly that she dropped some of the orange peel into the water. “You’re older than me?!”

“Uh, yes?” Koge couldn’t resist giggling at his reaction, leaning over a bit to see where the peel had gone so she could fetch it out. “Does that offend your sensitive ego?” Grumbling, Bakugou moved closer, snatching the peel and shoving it back onto her lap for her. “I don’t have a sensitive ego. I just can’t fucking believe that you’re older than me, on top of all the other shit you can do that I can’t.”

“Like what? Thank you for getting that, by the way.”

“Like walking,” He didn’t bother responding to her thanks, too into his ranting. “I can read, but I can’t write like you can. You can sing! That’s a big fucking deal back home, everyone can sing but me. Almost. Singing is like… if you can’t do it, then you’re broken or some shit.”

“You’re not broken, Katsuki.” Koge ate another piece of the orange, waving it around in the air a bit as she tried to think. “It’s just… I mean, there has to be things you can do that other people can’t. You can kill an Orca, right? I bet that’s hard. They’re really big.” Her praise calmed him a bit, one of his hands reaching up to touch the teeth around his neck. Still, she could see that he was struggling with whatever insecurities had made him so upset, and she had found it best to not push those buttons. He had a tendency to shut down when he got truly angry, going to the bottom of the pool to not return for hours. It was more like a childish tantrum that annoyed her, but she couldn’t know the root of the problem after just knowing him for a few days.

“Damn right I can.” Bakugou boasted, resting his arms up onto the edge of the pool by her legs. Crossing them, he rested his head down with a yawn. “I’m bored.”

“I know. Sorry, there’s nothing I can really do about it. There’s no internet out here, so I can’t show you anything else on my phone that I don’t have saved. Maybe you should sleep, you look really tired.” In that moment of looking down at him, something caught her eye. With a clear view of his shoulders and upper back, she could see what looked to be hives or blisters covering his skin in patches, varying in size. “Katsuki, does your skin itch?”

“Eh? Yeah, a little, but whatever.”

“No whatever, you literally have hives or something on your back.”

“The fuck is that?” Turning his head a bit, he was able to see some on his shoulder, reaching back to touch them lightly. “Shit, I’ve never had those before. They sting.”

“Don’t touch them. Come up out of the water for a while.” She put the remainder of the orange and the peel off to the side, standing to adjust his blanket into a better position. With a sigh, Bakugou followed instruction, though Koge noticed that he struggled to pull himself from the water.

“I’m worried about what’s going on with you, I don’t think this should be happening. Is there something wrong with the water?” Koge knelt down beside him once he was lying still to observe his back closer, finding that the rash had covered most of his back. Bakugou shook his head, which once again was resting on his arms. “No, it’s fine from what I can tell. If the water was bad I would have had a reaction to it way sooner. And I’ve been in dirty water before, this hasn’t happened.” There was little to no concern in his voice, masked by exhaustion.

“I’m going to go to he house to see if there is something I can find to treat this. Just… stay out of the water. Please.” Koge didn’t wait for a response before she was out of the cave and jogging down the beach, worry swimming around in her mind. What could that possibly be from? Headaches, hives, trouble breathing, and lethargy? Damn it, what did I do wrong?

Nearly sick to her stomach by the time she reached the house, she began to dig through her grandmothers wide collection of medication and first aid supplies. Glad that the elderly woman was asleep, Koge was able to search with no interruptions, soon finding an antihistamine for allergic reactions. As she read the back of the box, realization began to creep over her, like spiders prickling along her skin. “Allergic reaction… He’s allergic to… Ah damn it, the stupid painkillers!”

Koge slammed the box of weak medication back into the bin, bringing her hands up to bury her fingers in her hair out of frustration. “Shit, shit, shit! I’m so stupid. What could I give him from here that might help?”

As she stared into the bin, the frustration began to crush her confidence, ruining any chances of her making a rational decision. No, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t just pick something and hope it works. What if he’s allergic to that, too?! I could have totally destroyed his inside or something by giving him those pills! He has to see a real doctor.

But how would that be possible? Bakugou isn’t fully human, there’s no way in hell that she can get him up to the house or get a doctor to go see him in the cave.

There’s no option… If he can’t go home, he’s going to have to have legs so I can help him. I’ll never talk him into that!

Starting to feel defeated, Koge put the bin of medications away before making her way back down to the beach. Jogging, she could only imagine the worst, from internal bleeding to rupturing organs, suffocating from a coughing fit or seizures. Now, she had no idea if any of that was even going to happen, but she couldn’t stop her stressed out mind from imagining it all.

Then, there was a sound. Something that couldn’t have been a part of her imagination. Or was it? A pained screaming, lost within the sounds of the waves, a voice so recognizable that it instantly sent Koge’s blood running cold. She went from jogging to running at full speed in an instant, ignoring the painful tightness of her chest brought on by panic. As she got closer to the cave, the agonized screaming had faded to loud cursing and sharp, short cries of frustration. What could be going on in there was something she refused to even take a second to comprehend, leaping over rocks and shrubbery until she breached the mouth of the cave.

“Katsuki, are you okay--”

Koge was cut short by the shock of what she was looking at, entire body frozen and cold as ice, even as a hot sweat dripped down her neck. Bakugou was still where she had left him, sitting in a pile of shimmering orange and red goop, clutching his…

Legs.

Why did he have legs.

“K-Katsuki--” This time, his pained hiss cut her off, completely ignoring her as he vigorously rubbed up and down his left shin and calf. “Fuck, fuck, fuck that hurts! Damn it!” Getting over the initial shock, Koge slowly made her way closer, swallowing the lump that had grown in her throat. “Katsuki, what happened?”

Finally acknowledging her presence, Bakugou shot a glare up towards her before focusing back down on his legs, gripping and massaging his calf. “I guess my body decided it needed to be human. Fucking defensive survival shit I can’t control.” His rubbing was interrupted by the need to cough, bringing a closed fist up to his mouth to cough into the side of it. Koge could hear the wheezing and the tightness each time he attempted to breath in, as if his airways were constricted. This immediately brought her back to the problem at hand, kneeling down beside him. “I know what’s going on with you. It’s those painkillers, you’re allergic to them. You have to see a human doctor right away.”

“What?!” Bakugou barked at her, moving his hands to rub his other leg. “I’m not doing that shit, no fucking way. I’m fine!”

“Well if your body decided to change then you’re obviously not! Don’t be stubborn about this! You already can’t hardly breathe and you have hives all over you. I bet you have a headache too.”

“One so bad I can barely see.”

“Exactly! Please let me take you up to the house. My grandma has a doctor on call for anything, I know that he’ll come up here to see you if she asks.” Koges eyes were drawn to his hands, which continued to rub and squeeze his legs. “Why are you doing that?”

“They’re fucking tingling and it hurts!”

“Your blood is working your way through them, I’m sure they need circulation. Here, lay them down flat. Now lean back for a seco-” The shriek that interrupted her was completely involuntary, her body reacting to what she saw just as instantly as her voice did. Like lightning, she spun around and covered her face, which was so on fire she was sure her nose must have begun bleeding. “Oh my god, Katsuki, put something over yourself!”

“Eh? What’s the deal?” He sounded genuinely confused, if not seriously annoyed, and Koge couldn’t believe she was about to have to explain common decency to him. “You… You can’t sit around with your penis hanging out. Just, put something over yourself, please.”

“Oh. That’s right, you humans are all sensitive to being naked. It’s just my dick.”

“Cover it up!!”

18 notes · View notes

thethespacecoyote · 5 years

Text

I wrote something quick about modern AU Kylo taking care of a sick and pregnant Hux. Nothing more than that, just some light fluff.

Crackers, ginger ale, acetaminophen, tissues, Kylo repeats in his head, though he has it written down in his phone as well. He’s trying to map out the grocery store in his mind, to preemptively determine where everything is so he can get in at out as quickly as possible. He pulls his car into park and yanks up his hood to shield himself from the rain, getting out the driver’s side door once he stuffs a brightly-colored reusable bag into his jacket. It’s made of some kind of flimsy compostable material, and while Kylo is pretty sure it’s not going to melt in something as common as rain, he’d rather not have Hux complaining that he ruined one of his favorite grocery bags.

He jogs across the parking lot, managing to dodge most of the puddles but soaking his tennis shoe on the last one, just as he ducks under the store’s awning. He frowns at the squelch as he takes each step, realizing he’ll have to throw the unfortunate shoe into the dryer later, lest Hux complain about him tracking rainwater through the house.

He grabs a green plastic basket from besides the entrance, shuffling through the rest of the late-night, last-minute shoppers. They don’t have the exact brand of diet ginger ale Hux likes best in the large, one-liter bottles, so Kylo settles for a six pack of little cans rather than opting for the full sugar variant. He knows too much sweetness leaves Hux feeling a little queasy, and that’s the opposite of what he wants for his mate, especially given the circumstances.

Thankfully, the supermarket carries the type of crackers Hux had written down for him, the little, flake-like variety people liked to float in clam chowder. He’s been meaning to make soup lately, thanks to the weather, so Kylo grabs a couple cartons of chicken stock, noodles, and a bushel of celery as well. Hux may bitch at him later for digging into their grocery budget, but Kylo can’t imagine he’ll say no to a fresh bowl of home-made soup considering his condition.

Oddly, Hux has become a little more pliable in areas thanks to the pregnancy. He’ll complain more about Kylo not using a cologne he likes or preparing breakfast in a way Hux has currently deemed untenable, than whether he spends over their monthly allotment, priorities shifted to immediate needs rather than long-term planning. Perhaps not the best change, considering how much preparation is needed for a child, much less two, but thankfully Hux hasn’t gone over and completely lost his meticulous edge, if his recent spate of baby-proofing is any indication. What’s more, they’re blessed with family on Kylo’s side that could be convinced to lend a hand should the couple ever find themselves in a trying spot.

The tissues and painkillers are easy finds in the first aid and home care aisle, and soon Kylo’s jogging back to the front registers, eager to get home. The cashier, a tired-looking but otherwise pleasant beta, shoots him a small knowing smile, no doubt detecting the scent of needy, pregnant omega clinging to his jacket, as she arranges his purchases into the reusable bag. Kylo’s grateful she doesn’t introduce any unnecessary small talk apart from a quick “thank you, have a nice night” as he snags his groceries and makes his way back to his car.

All he can think about right now is getting home to Hux.

Rainwater slats off his windshield, not looking like it’ll let up anytime soon. Thankfully, he’s not far from home, and before long he’s pulling into their garage and entering inside, relaxing in the change in warmth. He sheds his jacket, hanging it on the little peg on the door, leaving him in only his shirt.

Millicent mews softly, hopping off her customary roost on Hux’s empty armchair and coming to greet Kylo at the door. Though he’s eager to tend to his mate, he takes the time to peel open a fresh can of food and drop it into her bowl, knowing Hux would become upset if he left her to go hungry. He pets her for a moment as she eats, rubbing where the fur fluffs up around her little red collar, before unpacking the groceries and putting the perishables away in the fridge.

Now, with everything else taken care of, Kylo grabs the painkillers and pours the ginger ale in a tall glass of ice and walks to their bedroom, carefully nudging open the slightly-ajar door.

The lights inside are dimmed to the same setting he’d left them in, giving the sick omega less aggravation for his pounding headache. Kylo slips inside, the carpeting cushioning his footsteps as he makes his way over to the bed. He softly calls out his mate’s name as he crouches at his side, moving a nearly empty glass of water from the coaster on the nightstand to replace it with the ginger ale.

Hux lies on his side, fluffy blankets from all over the house piled high on top of him. His head pokes out of the nest, ginger hair mussed over his pillow as he nuzzles against it. His left hand clutches the blue baby blanket Kylo’s mother had bought for them, that Hux has decided to cover in his own scent rather than leave sitting in the dresser until one of the pups can use it. It’s a sweet little habit that Kylo doesn’t dare draw attention to, for fear that Hux will stop out of embarrassment.

He pets the blanket’s delicate fabric and watches Kylo through sleepy eyes, curious expression falling into disapproval as the alpha raises the bottle of painkillers, shaking it softly. Hux furrows his brow.

“It’s safe. I promise. And you’re only going to take one.” Kylo unscrews the top, jiggling out one little white pill into his hand. He settles on the edge of the bed and forces Hux to sit up, which he manages after no small amount of fussing and wincing. The folds of the bedcovers slid down to reveal the top part of his belly, where his navy sweater stretches out, just barely able to cover the swell.

Hux is in the beginnings of his third trimester and certainly feeling the wear of pregnancy, though neither he nor Kylo expected him to fall ill while carrying their twins. Yesterday, when Hux had first nearly lost his balance while pushing up from the dining table, Kylo had barely been able to stifle his panic long enough to call their doctor. When Hux’s fever and dizziness had only grown worst, he’d been right on the verge of calling an ambulance, and no doubt would have if not for the doctor’s willingness to make a house call. Kylo had paced the entire time, sensing Hux’s worrisome temperature and discomfort through the strength of his bond, and even after the doctor had assured him both mother and pups would be fine with a little rest and proper hydration, he’d still found himself so sick to death that he’d gone home from work early the following day to care for Hux.

Kylo finds sometimes his worry is cyclical, endlessly dragging him back down whenever he thinks he might be able to break free to the surface, and usually it won’t leave him be until he deals with whatever the issue is with his own two hands.

Ultimately, Kylo feels far less tightly wound when he’s close enough to his mate to ensure his wellbeing. Even the trip to the grocery store had left him a little bit frazzled, though now it starts to ebb as he can see Hux is fine, if a little annoyed at having to sit up.

Hux finally takes the pill with a sour frown, accepting the glass of ginger ale when Kylo provides it, though he takes only a small sip to wash the medication down. He sighs, shoulders slumping as he rests back against the pillows behind him. Kylo lifts his arm, brushing his knuckles against Hux’s forehead. The omega’s eyebrows twitch in annoyance, but he doesn’t have the strength nor interest to push Kylo away.

“I feel awful…” Hux whimpers, hand slowly, anxiously stroking his belly. Kylo knows his worry for their pups probably isn’t making him feel much better, so he tries to be encouraging and defuse some of Hux’s less rational worries.

“You’ll feel better after the medication takes effect. And I don’t think your fever’s gotten worse,” Kylo murmurs, pulling away his hand. “Though I can use the thermometer if an exact number might make you feel better.”

Hux shakes his head, knocking more messy strands free over his forehead. The omega would hate him for thinking it, but to Kylo he looks absolutely adorable, even while sick. The urge to wrap him up in a hug is so strong, Kylo can’t help but bow to it, and he leans in and carefully embraces Hux.

He huffs in protest, but otherwise relaxes into Kylo’s arms, resting his chin atop his mate’s shoulder. Kylo gives him a gentle squeeze, mindful of his belly and any lingering nausea, before he pulls away. But instead of rising from the bed he shifts closer to Hux, not eager to keep distance between himself and his sick mate. Even if the omega is contagious, Kylo’s always had a hardier immune system, and even if that weren’t the case, no virus could possibly stop him from comforting his mate.

“You’re a lot more noble than I’ve pegged you for,” Hux says and his voice, though soft, still carries that edge of acuity Kylo’s familiar with. “Venturing out into the pouring rain, buying and serving whatever your omega requires…a prince, you are.”

“I wouldn’t call it noble,” Kylo mumbles, brushing his fingers through Hux’s bangs, “more like common sense. What kind of alpha leaves their pregnant mate suffering on their own?”

“You’d be surprised. Plenty of lowlives out there…” Despite his malaise, Hux’s lips twitch up, leaning into Kylo’s touch. “Lucky me. I’ve managed to catch me a decent one.”

“Yeah. Hook, line, and sinker there.” Kylo deposits the bottle of painkillers on the nightstand, freeing up one hand so that he can stroke Hux’s belly. Even through the thick, comfortable fabric of his sweater, Kylo can feel the warmth of the omega’s skin, of the pups growing within. He inhales, smelling Hux through the pall of sickness and the daily grime that would’ve usually been washed away by now, if Hux were well. Kylo wonders if he should try to give his mate a shower in the morning—or perhaps a bath, so Hux could lie down and relax.

“There’s one more thing I need, though.” Hux traces his fingers over Kylo’s knuckles, inviting. “I feel you can guess what it is.”

Kylo tilts his head—he wants to get started on the soup, so Hux can have something in his belly other than a scant sip of ginger ale before he falls asleep. Yet the scent of pregnant omega is so alluring, and he figures he deserves to indulge in a little reward, if he really is as noble as Hux says he is.

“I can.” Kylo moves carefully, not wanting to disturb Hux’s nest as he settles in next to him. He lets Hux tuck into his side, wrapping an arm about the omega’s shoulders as he rests his head against his chest. His curved belly rubs against Kylo, skin shifting slightly thanks to the movements of the pups beneath.

Hux, exhausted by his illness and the general toll of pregnancy, quickly falls back asleep, but Kylo remains awake, hand braced against the warmth of his mate’s belly as he listens to the soft patter of rain against the roof.

#spacetext #long post #kylux #omegaverse #mpreg #fanfic #sw

31 notes · View notes

virmillion · 5 years

Text

Ibytm - T minus 38 seconds

Masterpost - Previous Chapter - Next Chapter - ao3

Words: 1,497

Logan presses the heel of his palm to his left brow bone, willing back the growing headache as the persistent throb shifts from his eye socket to his temple. Never before has he had such a feeling of homelessness, never mind that he’s already at home. He lifts his fourth cup of coffee to his lips and winces at the bitterness—he’s worked his way down from one cream and two sugars to straight black medium roast. The burning against the sides of his tongue hardly holds his focus anymore.

“You could help, you know.” Logan flicks the top of a packet labelled ‘guest list,’ turning to scowl at Virgil. Oh, how helpful and doting a fiance he has chosen, lying on the couch and throwing a baseball directly above his face. The picture of a bored kid in the summertime somewhere during the mid-nineties. Where did he even get a baseball? The thwack of the ball against Virgil’s palm is an infuriating rhythm that beats the ache further into Logan’s skull. Logan wants to scream.

“I assure you, I’ll only get in the way of whatever you’re trying to do.”

“Whatever I’m trying to do?” Logan repeats incredulously. As if he isn’t literally planning—well, trying to plan their wedding, also known as one of the biggest nights of their lives. The literal official first night of their lives together. “Be better to have you getting in the way at all than to try to deal with all of this by myself, but you go ahead and do whatever makes you happy. Just like you always do.”

Logan didn’t bother to lower his voice with his snide remark, so there’s absolutely no doubt that Virgil heard him, but the baseball just keeps on thwack, thwack, thwacking. The sound is impossibly grating on Logan’s ears, and he briefly fantasizes about hitting the ball with a thrown pen at the exact right moment and velocity to send the whole caboodle flying out the window. His fantasy is hindered by the fact that Virgil is on his right and the window on his left, but fantasy Logan’s fantasy pen could probably pull off a solid fantasy one-eighty like that.

“Okay, so we’re going to pretend this isn’t upsetting me as much as we both know it is. Got it. Great. Moving on.” Logan shuffles around more papers, rolling up a few and rapping them against the side of his head. A resounding, not-quite-satisfying bonk sound is his only reward. “So what about party size? How many people do we want, and from which side? Do you want to stand or walk? Big party, big reception? Different invitees? All the family? Friends? Can we be picky about who comes, where they sit, whose existences they’ll invalidate? Or we could just go to the courthouse today, sign the papers, and skip the rest. Are you even listening to me?”

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know.”

“Great, thank you, that is very helpful.” Logan adds another question mark to the running checklist on his notepad. There are a lot of question marks. Truth be told, they look more like claw marks, tearing literal holes in the paper to stain the next page.

Logan is not very happy about how this is going.

“How about the venue? We could do indoor, outdoor, transitional? How far should the reception be from the ceremony? How soon, even, do you want to have it? Obviously the season we have it during will impact all of this, too, which brings us back to a plain old courthouse union today.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, gold star fetch kid, that’s not exactly a good enough answer, is it?” Logan spits, whipping his head around.

“Ow!” Virgil lurches up from the couch, pressing a hand to his forehead. Logan glances down to see the baseball bumping up against the side of his shoe. “What was that for?”

“You dropped the ball, not me.” Figuratively and literally, as it would seem.

“Not what I meant and you know it.”

“Sorry. Sorry, it’s just—there’s a lot to deal with here, you know?”

“Alright, okay, nothing worth fighting over, let me just take a look.” Virgil does an overdramatic job of getting to the table, leaving one hand on Logan’s chair as he uses the other to rub at the rapidly purpling bruise on his face. “So what do we have going on here, then?”

“Everything. Literally every single thing, except for who the groom and groom will be. Absolutely everything else besides that is what we have going on here.”

“Oh, cool, so it’s gonna be that kind of attitude tonight, is it? Let me go get some popcorn.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Is that a fact? Do continue, dearest darling, I am ever so intrigued as to what you could have possibly meant by that.”

“Fine, so maybe you don’t know what I meant, since you clearly don’t know anything else on this list, either. Is that correct? Is that enough of a fact for you, dearest darling?”

“Oh, boy, and that kind of conversation, too? Tell me how I got to be so lucky!”

“I know it’s not the best conversation, but we do have to talk about it eventually, Virgil.”

“I know that, Logan. I’m not an idiot, Logan. ” Virgil snatches a piece of paper at random and reads it over in silence as Logan fidgets with the papers farthest from Virgil. “Why are these ones crossed out?”

Logan glances over as Virgil shows him the page of venues. “Because we can’t afford them.”

“Then why did you print it off?”

“Because they looked nice, and I was ignoring prices when I printed everything. I just moved them to the back of the packet when I collated it all.”

“But if you knew we wouldn’t be able to afford it, why wouldn’t you—”

“Because maybe I was thinking that you would’ve locked down a job steadier than an inconsistent museum tour guide who knows how to order coffee in bulk by now!”

A harsh silence descends over what suddenly feels like an incredibly small kitchenette, even by cheap apartment standards. The worst that silence has ever felt, worse than Logan has ever dared to imagine. He tastes acid.

“You did not just say that to me.”

“Cad—”

“Don’t you dare use that name with me, not right now. You did not just tell me that I’m the reason you can’t have the dream wedding at the dream venue with the dream yes-man that you’ve always wanted.”

“Okay, now that’s not fair—”

“I don’t give two flying—” Virgil stops, lacing his fingers together and burying his nose in the crook of his thumbs. He closes his eyes with a deep breath, and when he opens them, Logan sees an iciness unparalleled by any frozen ocean Saturn’s sixth moon could hope to boast. “I don’t want to hear what you deem to be fair or not fair. You do not get to tell me that my choice to have a career outside of what you deem normal is a mistake, much less can you say that it’s why you can’t have your ideal venues.”

“I never said that!”

“Then what did you say, Logan? What did you mean to say? Did you mean to say you support the way I’ve chosen to live my life?” Logan remains silent, staring very intently at the papers as he shuffles them together, setting them perfectly even with the edge of the table. There’s a painful, stabbing heat behind his eyes. “Say it. Say you support me, or we can end this conversation right now, and I can take my mediocre tours and coffee bulk ordering skills, and I can go.”

“Virgil, you know how much I—”

“No. That is not what I asked.” Virgil’s voice drips with venom, hateful enough to make Logan’s skin crawl. The heat behind his eyes surges forward, and his entire skull aches and pounds. “I want you to tell me that you support the life I’ve chosen to lead, or else I’m leaving. Right now.”

“Virgil, please—”

“Three.”

“You know that I’ve never—”

“Two.”

“I just want what’s best for—”

“One.”

“You cannot expect me to continue working myself to the bone so you can keep playing summer vacation for the rest of your life!”

Virgil reels back, crossing his arms and presumably looking at the table, or else glaring at Logan. Logan will not— cannot —look up. “Okay.”

“Wait, Virgil, that’s not how I—”

“No, it’s fine. It is. It is how you, and I get it.” Virgil grabs a jacket off of his usual chair and walks out the door.

The door clicking shut quietly is infinitely worse than if Virgil had slammed it. At the very least, he could’ve left with a goodbye strung together with curses and shouts. Logan looks at the papers and wonders when those wet spots got there.

#labhwrites #mine #i'll bring you the moon #ibytm

5 notes · View notes

toumakibangs · 5 years

Text

°*TouMaki - Advent Calendar 2018*° DAY 18 - “BAKING” (”Character A can’t go home for Christmas, so they invite over their grumpy loner neighbour Character B”) by @evvazi

Mod’s Note: There’s a fine line between “Sharing the cheer” and “Shoving Christmas down people’s throat”. Toudou and Makishima hold different opinions on where that line falls. At least at first. Nothing a batch of cookies can’t fix… Thanks for making the sweetness literal, @evvazi!

Author’s Notes: “I love baking christmas cookies so toumaki get to do that too! Our family recipe, no less! And I used the side prompt ‘character A can’t go home for christmas so they invite over their grumpy loner neighbour character B’ because it sounded like a toumaki kind of prompt. I hope everyone has a very toumaki advent!”

While most people enjoyed a break during the holidays toward the end of the year, it was an incredibly busy time for a fashion designer like Makishima. Christmas brought with it an array of possible sales from sexy Santa costumes to ugly Christmas sweaters. His brother insisted he had a talent for making the latter, which Makishima didn’t agree with, but he was fine with them if it meant he didn’t have to design the former.

Needless to say, he’d barely slept the past weeks, but now, on the 24th of December, everything had to be done, and whatever wasn’t wouldn’t get done anymore. But he still didn’t have much time to rest. New Years was coming up, and he still needed to finalize some designs for that, especially something “fancy and inspired by traditional wear” that he could show off at the New Years gala he was invited to attend. His brother had accepted the invitation for him, saying it was a great chance to make their Japanese branch more widely known, while totally ignoring that ‘traditional’ was exactly everything Makishima’s designs were not.

He wasn’t making any progress on that though, so he’d taken on the equally unpleasant task of answering to e-mails that were asking about statements for some of his previous designs or just his whole work of the past year, all aiming to include them in some kind of article that reviewed the year as it came to an end. Words weren’t his forte, so Makishima had procrastinated answering, meaning they were now piling up in his inbox.

Just as he’d copy-pasted his usual polite greeting and intro text that he only slightly modified by adding names and other relevant info into the spaces left for them, his doorbell rang. Makishima’s first instinct was to ignore it. He wasn’t expecting any online deliveries, and he hadn’t ordered takeout yet either. Maybe he should soon, it was already pitch-black outside now that he paid attention. But then, it was only 5:30pm, so no need to rush.

The doorbell rang again. Damn, seemed like he actually had to answer the door if he wanted to continue working in peace.

He realized the mistake in his logic as soon as he opened the door. How could he work in peace if the man standing at his door was the definition of annoying? While Makishima didn’t know his name, he still recognized his next-door-neighbour. He was the kind of guy who looked annoyingly cheery when going for his morning jog at 6am, which Makishima only ever witnessed when he’d pulled an all-nighter and was making himself coffee or a snack in the kitchen. He also had the annoying habit of vacuum cleaning his apartment every Sunday between 8am and 9am, a time at which Makishima would really love to be asleep. Knowing they were just too different to ever get along, Makishima had blown off every one of the other’s attempts at conversation and generally tried to avoid running into him.

“Merry Christmas!” His neighbour beamed at him, but Makishima only stared back with a grumpy expression.

“It’s only the 24th.”

“And it’s evening, isn’t it? So it’s Christmas Eve!”

Makishima sighed. He didn’t want to have such a pointless argument. “Fine. Christmas. Can I help you with something?” Maybe he just wanted to borrow something and Makishima could get this over with really quick if he handed it over or didn’t have it either.

“Yes! Or well, actually, it’s more like I’ll be helping you!” Makishima stared blankly at his neighbour. He… really didn’t need any help…? But the guy smiled at him with utmost confidence. “You see, I work from home a lot, so I couldn’t help but notice that you don’t leave your house a lot, and nobody ever comes to visit you either. And, worst of all, you order takeout almost every day! That’s terrible for your health! So, since nobody should be alone on Christmas, and you could definitely use some fresh, healthy food, I’ve decided to invite you over! What do you say?”

“Actually, I’m still working, and there’s a lot that I still have to do…” That wasn’t a lie, and it seemed like a great way to turn his neighbour down without being too rude. He had half a mind to call him out on knowing way too much about Makishima’s habits, like some kind of stalker, but it was a fact that their kitchen windows both faced in the direction of the walkway to their apartment complex. If he spent time in his kitchen regularly, he was bound to see the deliveries Makishima got. And notice the lack of people coming over. Even Makishima couldn’t help but notice that Toudou had lots of people coming to visit him. Mostly pretty girls. He’d seen some of them multiple times as well, and silently wondered if one of them was his neighbour’s girlfriend. Especially since they sometimes stayed the night. Not that he cared, of course, but it was fun to imagine there was some kind of drama going on there, like a love triangle or his neighbour secretly having multiple girlfriends at once.

“Nonsense!” His neighbour’s shrill voice startled him out of his thoughts. “It’s Christmas! Nobody should be working unless it’s absolutely necessary. And you need to take regular breaks anyway. I can sweeten the deal for you too, how about we bake Christmas cookies together, and when we’re done, you can take some home with you.”

“You’re not letting me get out of this, are you?”

“Nope!”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“Toudou Jinpachi. And you could’ve known, I introduced myself to you before, right after you moved in!”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t care enough to remember it.”

That made Toudou pout, but it didn’t make him leave or retract his offer. With his last resort plan of being rude having failed as well, Makishima resigned himself to his fate. He wasn’t one to turn down an excuse to procrastinate or an offer of free food anyway, and this was both in one. So even if Toudou gave him a headache in the process, it might still be worth it in the end.

“Fine. Just let me save my stuff, I’ll be over in five minutes.”

Toudou left with a beaming smile on his face. Sighing, Makishima went to turn off his pc, and then to brush his hair and put on some decent clothes. This was probably going to be awkward regardless of what he did, but he didn’t need to add to that by looking like he just fell out of bed. Toudou always looked flawless, the difference would just be too great.

Only when he rang Toudou’s doorbell a little bit over five minutes later did it dawn on him that he could’ve just not gone over. Well, too late now.

Toudou opened the door within seconds, eagerly inviting him inside and directing him towards the kitchen, as if his apartment didn’t have the exact same layout as Makishima’s own. All the appliances you might need for baking were already spread out on the kitchen table, so Toudou had probably planned to do it from the start. Everything else was meticulously cleaned and stowed away properly. Somehow, Makishima didn’t doubt Toudou’s kitchen always looked like this, completely opposite to his own.

“Maybe now is a good time to mention that I’ve never baked anything before.” Makishima could cook some easy meals, but all he’d ever used his oven for was baking finished stuff like pizza or lasagne. He wasn’t a big enough fan of sweets to make them for himself, and for most of his life, he could just get all the baked goods he ever wanted from Tadokoro’s bakery. Nothing he could ever make himself would live up to that, anyway.

“No problem! Anyone can bake with a recipe, and the cookies we’re making aren’t all that difficult. Besides, I’m a fantastic baker, so you can just ask me if there’s anything you don’t understand or need help with. Back home, we made these with the neighbourhood children, and they always turned out great, so I know it’s foolproof.”

Great, so if he fucked up, he was officially worse than a bunch of children.

“Alright, so what do we do first?”

“Gotta measure and mix all the ingredients for the dough. You can start with the flour.” Toudou handed him a jar filled with flour – who the hell kept their flour in a jar instead of just using the bag it came with? – and weirdly shaped transparent cup with all kinds of writing on it. On closer inspection, those turned out to be measurements. It had litre, which was to be expected, but also various common baking ingredients like sugar and flour, measured in gram. Makishima had no idea something like this existed. Fascinated, he began shovelling flour into the cup. Because of course there was a designated spoon to do just that in the jar.

Once he had 250g, like Toudou had told him, he looked around. “Do you have a bowl for this?”

“No, just pour it on the table. That’s what all the space is for. Just make a nice little mountain and then make a small crater on the top, like a volcano.”

“That doesn’t sound right.” He snatched the recipe book from Toudou’s hands and looked at the instructions himself. To his surprise, the recipe did essentially say what Toudou had said, even if it didn’t use the word volcano. The recipe had also been altered with a pen and there were annotations all over. Maybe Toudou really knew what he was doing? Makishima had sort of assumed he was just bragging when he said he was a fantastic baker. Then again, the recipe book looked like it might be older than Toudou himself, so maybe this had been passed down to him like this.

Ignoring Toudou’s smug grin, Makishima made the flour volcano. Then they proceeded to add all the other ingredients. Sugar, vanilla sugar, rum, cinnamon, clove and whip cream that hadn’t been whipped yet. The dry ingredients were put on the sides of the volcano, while the fluid ones were poured into the crater. Makishima had to admit that it was a smart way to keep them in one place without a bowl.

Lastly, Makishima was delegated to cutting butter into slices and putting them onto the sides, while Toudou carefully cracked an egg and dripped the white part into the volcano crater. The yellow part went into another cup and was put aside. Glancing at the recipe, he could see that they’d use it later. He also noticed Toudou had left the eggs on the counter the entire time, unlike all the other ingredients, and hadn’t asked him whether he wanted to do the butter or the egg. So he probably wasn’t trusted to cleanly separate the egg. Toudou really was treating this like baking with the neighbourhood kids. Sure, he’d said he couldn’t bake, but it was kind of annoying that Toudou seemed to think of this as some kind of community service. Just because his friends lived either in Chiba or in England and therefore didn’t often come to visit him didn’t mean that he didn’t have any. He wasn’t lonely. Definitely not lonely enough to need his neighbour to take pity on him and spend time with him just because of some holiday.

Makishima pushed those thoughts down. He was starting to actually have fun, more thanks to the baking than to Toudou, so it was better to just focus on that. If he cut up the butter with more fervour than strictly necessary after Toudou had mixed the liquid ingredients with flour, that was just him having fun and being thorough.

At least, Toudou was pleased that he was so motivated. Kneading the dough was next. Makishima wasn’t sure he was doing it right, the flour was all over the place and pieces of butter kept sticking to his fingers and the whole thing just didn’t look like dough, but Toudou told him to keep going while he started on dinner prep, and to tell him if his arms got tired or he thought he was done.

Silence fell over the room. Just as Makishima was starting to feel weird about it and wondered whether he should initiate conversation somehow, Toudou started talking on his own. About how he’d made these cookies with his mother as a kid, and then later with the neighbourhood kids, who were much more excited than Makishima but much less helpful, and about his high school friends who’d been over yesterday and had eaten all the cookies, even the ones he’d stashed away to bring home to his family – “leave it to Shinkai to find any and all food in the house and devour it without asking and then still complain there’s not enough.”

Makishima just let it wash over him, grateful that he didn’t have to do any talking himself. Half his concentration was focused on the dough, which still didn’t look like dough. Had he even made progress at all? It kept falling apart, and too much of it still just looked like pure flour that just wouldn’t stick to the rest of it. Maybe he was doing something wrong? His arms were starting to hurt, too.

When Toudou asked him how it was going, all he could do was shrug. “I don’t think I did anything, to be honest…”

Toudou poked the dough. “No, you definitely made some progress! But it’s taking longer than I thought…” Then, out of the blue, Toudou grabbed his hand. It felt slightly weird with the flour and butter of the dough still sticking to Makishima’s hand, but Toudou’s hand was warm and soft, and Makishima could feel a blush creeping onto his cheeks.

Before he could do anything except panic internally, Toudou frowned. “Your hands are way too cold, no wonder this is going so slow. Let me take over for a bit, and if you wanna do the finishing touches, wash your hands with warm water right before so they’re nice and warm.”

Makishima nodded, and yanked his hand back from Toudou with just a little too much force. After washing his hands to get rid of everything that stuck to it, he settled against the kitchen counter. Toudou picked up the conversation again, elaborating on his earlier story about his friends. But this time, Makishima didn’t have anything to do, so he just watched Toudou work.

He was kneading the dough expertly, like Makishima had seen in passing in Tadokoro’s bakery. The dough was still crumbling beneath his fingers though.

Makishima let his gaze wander higher, up Toudou’s surprisingly toned arms to where the tips of his silky black hair brushed against his shoulders. Makishima might have admitted that the headband on top was a practical choice for baking, but he knew Toudou always wore one, so he probably just liked the silly things and just got lucky it served a purpose for once. But then, Makishima wasn’t in any position to say something against outlandish fashion choices, so finally, he settled his gaze on Toudou’s face. His lips were constantly moving, forming themselves around an endless array of words that Makishima was paying less and less attention to. Toudou’s purple eyes were alive with emotion, excitement and affection and annoyance, and Makishima couldn’t help but wonder how they’d look fixated on him, even more intense emotions swirling in them, emotions you wouldn’t show towards your friends…

“Alright!”

Makishima was startled out of his thoughts and immediately chastised himself for ogling Toudou so openly. This was still the annoying guy who woke up early and probably had multiple girlfriends! Makishima had already known he was also annoyingly handsome, no need to act so desperate.

“Now it’s almost done, so you can do the rest, Maki-chan!”

He turned away, using the excuse to wash his hands with warm water like Toudou had suggested before to hide his embarrassment. Then he realized what Toudou had said. “Maki-chan, really? What’s that supposed to be?”

“Your nickname, obviously! You’re already in my kitchen and baking with me, so no need to be formal, right? You can give me one too!”

“…Headband, then.”

“Hey!” Toudou pouted, making Makishima laugh.

“What? You’re wearing one every time I see you.”

“Well, yeah! It’s one of my distinguishing features, to bring out my natural beauty! But you still can’t call me that because… because Arakita already does! Yeah! It’s his nickname for me! Too bad, but it’s already taken!”

That didn’t sound convincing, but Makishima just shrugged. “Your name will have to do then, Toudou.”

Makishima focused back on the dough, ignoring Toudou’s sputtering. It was finally looking like dough, only a few pieces of butter where still not properly mixed with the rest. Maybe he should have paid attention to see how that change was possible instead of staring at Toudou’s face.

Five minutes later, they deemed the dough to be finished, and Toudou wrapped it in plastic foil and placed it in the fridge. “Now we have to wait about half an hour, but there’s still plenty to do! You can start by taking the trays out of the oven and setting it to 175° so it starts heating up. And then you can smear some butter on the trays. I’ll clean up what we don’t need anymore and finish dinner prep so we just have to heat everything up once we’re done.”

Makishima followed the instructions, but unsurprisingly, he was done way before Toudou. So he stood around awkwardly, knowing he couldn’t really be a help with what Toudou was doing. He didn’t know where anything in Toudou’s kitchen was supposed to be, and a quick glance over to the counter with dinner confirmed he had no idea what was going on there either. He couldn’t even name half the vegetables that were spread out, much less guess what to do with them.

Thankfully, Toudou started talking again. “So, while I’m working, why don’t you tell me something about yourself? I’ve only been talking about myself the entire time!”

He honestly sounded like he had just now noticed that. And here Makishima had thought he was trying to be helpful after he’d realized Makishima didn’t really know what to say. Instead, he was just dense. Or he liked talking about himself too much. Possibly both.

“Uhhhhhhh… like what?”

“Anything! Like what you do for a living. Or something about your family. Where are you from? Do you have siblings?”

“Um, yeah. I work as a fashion designer for the Japanese branch of my older brother’s brand.”

Toudou turned to look at him, giving him a once-over. “A fashion-designer?”

Ah. There it was. The disbelieving, disapproving tone of voice he always got. It wasn’t like he’d expected anything else from standard-beauty Toudou. Barely anyone understood his work. “What? Got a problem with that?” he shot back, more annoyed than he’d thought he’d be.

“No!” Toudou brought his arms up defensively. “I just wasn’t expecting it, even though it totally makes sense with how you dress! Like, I’ve never seen anyone wear anything like your wardrobe! It’s creative, and it makes you stand out!”

Uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Makishima couldn’t help but notice that Toudou hadn’t said anything necessarily positive about his style, and he knew Toudou probably still thought it was ugly, but at least he’d been sort of polite and honest about it. That was more than what Makishima usually got. He’d take it.

“So, what about you?”

Toudou looked at him, confused.

“What do you do for a living? Are you a chef or something? Can’t say I know anything about cooking but that-“ he gestured vaguely towards all the ingredients and tools spread on the counter “-looks kind of professional.”

“You think so?” Toudou beamed. “I’m a nutritionist, though. But my family owns a ryokan – Toudou-an, the best ryokan in all of Hakone, with perfect service and relaxing hot springs, you should come visit some time, I’ll give you a discount! What was I about to say? Oh yeah, I learned how to cook from my mom and the professional chefs there from a young age, so my skills are top-notch!”

Makishima decided to ignore the obvious bragging and exaggerated advertisement. “So you’re a nutritionist, but you’re still making sweets? Aren’t they unhealthy? I distinctly remember that we added twice the amount of sugar than what the recipe originally said, too.”

“Yes? There’s nothing wrong with eating sweets. And if you’re gonna put in so much effort anyway, they might as well actually be sweet and not just bland like in the original recipe. Two tablespoons of sugar is no problem, especially not spread across multiple people on multiple days. People always act like sugar is totally evil, but in truth, it’s healthy as long as you eat it in the right doses, mixed with plenty of other stuff.”

It dawned on Makishima that he’d made a mistake. It had only been ten minutes since the dough was put in the fridge. Twenty more to go. They were filled completely with Toudou ranting about all the misconceptions people had about proper nutrition. Makishima didn’t care at all, he honestly knew that his diet was unhealthy but he just didn’t want to make any effort to better it. But Toudou talked over any attempt of him to change the subject, to Makishima resigned himself to his fate.

Finally, twenty minutes later, the dough saved him. Toudou cut it in half and rolled it out on the table, telling Makishima to pay attention so he could do it with the other half of the dough once they were done with the first part.

Then, Toudou emptied a bag of cookie cutters on the table. “I don’t want to have to wash all of these, so I thought we’d just use the Christmas-y ones, but if you like one or two of the others, we can use those too.”

Toudou started sorting out which ones were Christmas themed – a star, a Christmas tree, a shooting star, an angel, a reindeer – while Makishima looked over the others. In the end, he chose a hippo, because why not, and a bat, because it’d be great to have a Christmas cookie in the shape of Halloween’s symbol. Toudou added a flower as his own personal not-Christmas choice, then put all the other ones away.

Cutting out the cookies turned out to be quite fun, especially once he copied Toudou’s technique to press down the cutter with his flat palm and then wiggle it around a bit to properly separate the cookie from the rest of the dough without damaging it. Besides, Toudou had stopped talking and made an adorably concentrated face as he tried to figure out how to best get all the different shapes to fit together so the least amount of dough would be left over.

Makishima got to mash those leftovers back together and mix them with the second half of the dough while Toudou put their cookies on the oven tray. They had to be decorated before they could be baked though, so that half had to wait. Instead, Makishima finally got to use the yellow part of the egg that had been left over earlier. He painted the cookies with it, using a brush specifically meant for baking, something else he’d never even heard of and definitely didn’t possess. Toudou spread sugar crystals on the cookies, which took much longer than painting the cookies, especially since he had to pick any crystal that fell off a cookie back up so it wouldn’t get baked to the tray. Makishima helped him once he was done, carefully grabbing the crystals out of the bowl Toudou had placed between them.

It was honestly kind of tedious, and Makishima had a hard time not being hyper-aware of the fact that his fingers brushed against Toudou’s every so often.

Once they were done, the cookies were placed in the oven for about 10-15 minutes. Toudou pulled up the second tray, and it was rinse and repeat with the second half of the dough. The only difference was the leftover part, which Toudou rolled into a sausage shape and then cut into circles.

They didn’t quite finish the second tray before the first one was done baking, but Makishima just kept going with the sugar while Toudou pulled the hot cookies out of the oven.

Once the second tray was in, Toudou quickly pulled up pots and pans to start cooking their dinner. Again, Makishima could do nothing but watch. Toudou eventually noticed he was just standing around awkwardly and showed him where to find bowls and chopsticks so he could fill them with rice once the rice cooker was done and carry them over to the coffee table in the living room. Toudou didn’t seem too happy to be eating there instead of in the kitchen – less space, less comfortable and a floor that was harder to clean – but the kitchen table was still dirty and full of baking utensils.

Makishima filled the bowls once the rice cooker beeped to announce it was done, then carried them over to the living room. He took the time to look around a bit instead of going straight back. As expected, Toudou’s apartment was clean even outside the kitchen, but there were plenty of personal items strewn around the room. The walls were decorated with copies of famous Japanese paintings, along with some calligraphy. There was also a giant photo of a traditional house, which the sign over the door identified as Toudou-an. He had to admit, it did look nice.

Below it, plenty of photos of Toudou were put on display on a dresser. Makishima saw him in two different school uniforms, and with what had to be his family at a shrine, and even with the girls Makishima sometimes saw when they came to visit. His theory of the secret multiple girlfriends fell through with this, as they all seemed to know each other. Still, Makishima couldn’t help but notice that Toudou was always surrounded by people, and always vary obviously actively trying to be in the middle of the photo and striking a pose. He really couldn’t fathom why a guy like that had developed enough of an interest in him of all people to invite him over. And on what he declared to be Christmas, too.

He was still mulling it over when Toudou arrived with the rest of their food, but forgot about it for a moment, busy appreciating the luxurious dinner spread before him. Alongside the rice, there was miso soup, two different vegetable dishes – one hot, one cold, and he really should try and learn what these were – and fried fish. When was the last time he’d had rice with more than two side dishes? It must’ve been when he was still living at home, and even then, he often had western food.

It all tasted great, too. When Toudou excitedly asked how it was, all he answered with was “Fine.” He didn’t want to inflate his obviously already large ego any more, but Toudou ignored his effort, taking it as a compliment and proceeding to detail just how great he was for making it.

In turn, Makishima ignored him, instead focusing on the food. Only when most of it was gone did he remember what he’d been thinking about before. He just didn’t understand what Toudou was trying to do.

“Why did you invite me over?” Maybe he could figure it out even if Toudou didn’t answer with the entire truth.

“I already told you, didn’t I? You shouldn’t be alone on Christmas. I just wanted to be nice, and I think it worked out great.”

Well, it had gone much better than Makishima expected, but he still didn’t see why Toudou wouldn’t rather spend time with his friends or family.

“Ah. You just didn’t want to be alone on Christmas yourself. For some reason, you’re not home in Hakone, and your friends were already here yesterday, probably because they’re going home for Christmas. The only one left is the neighbour who never leaves his apartment or has anyone over. I see how it is now.”

“T-that’s not how it is at all!” But Toudou didn’t provide any other explanation, so it probably was exactly like that. Somehow, Makishima liked it way better than Toudou pitying him.

“So, why aren’t you home?”

“Because I’m scheduled to work on the 26th already, and it’s not worth it to go back home for two days in the middle of holiday season while everyone is incredibly busy and I get more time off during New Years anyway, so I’ll be home then. But I’m still not lonely!”

“Sure.”

“Sheesh, is it really that hard to believe I thought you looked like an interesting guy and it’d be a waste if you stayed holed up all by yourself, when you could also be at least my friend?”

Makishima could feel a blush creeping back onto his cheeks. Interesting? At least his friend? “That’s. That’s not what you said so far.”

At least Toudou looked just as embarrassed about it as Makishima felt. But he didn’t respond, and that wasn’t good for Makishima’s thoughts who wanted to spread out in every direction this could possibly lead to. It was just weirdly phrased. He needed to say something. Change the topic. Crush any hope in his dumb gay heart before it got away again.

“Uh, you know, I wanted to ask this for a while now, but which one of these girls that always come to visit you is your girlfriend?” There. That should do it. A smooth change of topic that could simultaneously clear everything up. Makishima was a little proud of himself for finding the right thing to say for once.

“What? None of them. They’re my friends from college. Almost exclusively girls only because nutrition is the kind of subject way more girls than guys major in. We’re still pretty close even after graduating, but it’s purely platonic. I’m pretty good at making friends only with girls who don’t want to date me even when most girls do. So I never have to turn down anyone I actually care about and make things awkward because I’m just not interested.”

Just not interested? Just not interested? In what? A relationship? Romance in general? Sex? Girls?

He’d been wrong. This was not helping. This was making things worse. He should stop saying things forever. Just go home. They were done eating and baking anyway maybe he could excuse himself to get back to work.

Before he could decide, Toudou got up without a word and started taking their dishes back to the kitchen. Just when Makishima wondered if he should get up and help or not and which one Toudou would consider rude, Toudou came back with a plate of the cookies they’d made.

He placed them in front of Makishima with a grin. “Some sweets for the sweet guy?”

“Was. Was that a pickup line?” Makishima burst out laughing. Toudou had said something so stupid with such confidence, there was no way he could not laugh.

“Hey, stop laughing, Maki-chan! It was perfectly smooth and relevant to the situation!”

“It was terrible. No wonder you’re single.” Makishima still had trouble breathing, wheezing between sentences and breaking out into giggles again when he was done talking. Until his brain caught up to what was happening. “Wait, so it was a pickup line? An actual, genuine one?”

“What else would it be?” There was a definite blush on Toudou’s cheeks as well now. He sounded like a petulant child, but maybe that was just how he got when he was embarrassed.

Makishima shrugged. “How would I know? Maybe you’re just a weird guy who says weird things.” He took one of the cookies, biting off the angel’s head. It really was sweet, and the soft cookie with the crunchy sugar on top was a good combination.

“These are good though, I should definitely take some home with me. Absolutely worth it talking to some weird guy for these. Maybe I’ll even talk to him again if he makes me dinner again. Or actually, maybe just letting me sit in this room will be enough, because I do need to work on something traditional and this is a much more fitting environment than my own home.”

Toudou just gawked at him, and even Makishima couldn’t really believe what he just said. Since when was he confident enough to invite himself over into the apartment of a handsome guy who was making advances on him?

“Uh… yeah, sure. You can come here tomorrow and work on your stuff. Or anytime when I’m not working. I can make dinner too?”

Yeah, Makishima definitely liked flustered Toudou. This was shaping up to be really fun. Sadly, with how the conversation was going, he’d probably have to leave soon, but he’d be back tomorrow.

When he had a nice box of cookies packed and Toudou brought him to the door to see him off, Makishima suddenly leaned forward and said “See you tomorrow then, Jinpachi” right into Toudou’s ear. The poor guy couldn’t even answer before Makishima left.

Toudou may have initiated whatever game it was they were playing, but round one definitely went to Makishima.

#toumaki advent calendar 2018 #submission #toumaki #evvazi #evietan

10 notes · View notes

athenril-of-kirkwall · 5 years

Note

For DWC: Fill, Wanted, Trouble for Hawke x Athenril

Woohoo, more of Hawke and his bae/boss/it’s complicated/(?)

m!Hawke/Athenril, “Wanted in Ostwick” (AO3)

“You said you wanted to see me, Aveline?”, Hawke asked innocently.

“I did indeed,” the Guard-Captain said, folding her hands together on her work desk. “Oh, come off it. You’re not in trouble. Not this time, anyway.”

“Right,” Varric said, “because people only ever get hauled up to the Guard-Captain’s office for social calls.”

Glaring at the dwarf standing behind Hawke, Aveline said, “I don’t recall inviting you.”

Hawke explained, “Oh, that was on my initiative. I figured that if I was being dragged here I’d need him to talk me out of whatever circumstances I’d find myself in.”

Aveline felt a headache coming on. “You…oh, never mind. What I wanted to talk to you about was this.”

She reached into a drawer, carefully lifting a well-worn piece of parchment covered in writing and decorated with two portraits. A stamped decree on the corner denoted Ostwick as its place of origin. Hawke and Varric leaned in to study the poster as Aveline explained why and how it’d come into her possession.

“You see,” she said, “I was clearing out some old files when I moved in, and I just so happened to spot this old poster. What’s this all about?”

Hawke shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t the foggiest, Aveline. This is clearly a wanted poster for ‘James Faulkner’ and ‘Jessie Varvel’.”

“Oh for the love of the Maker…!” she yelled, jabbing her index finger at each picture in turn, saying “That’s clearly you, right down to that stupid smear of blood you’re never able to wash off after a fight,”

“I beg your pardon!” Hawke ejaculated, defensively wiping at his nose, which was perfectly clean this time round.

“, and that’s obviously your old employer Athenril!” she continued, pointing at the redheaded elf whose picture was right next to his.

“I, ah, hasten to remind you that she happens to also be your old employer, my dear Guard-Captain, so I wouldn’t be screaming this from the roof of the Viscount’s keep,” he retorted.

“Oh, please. That’s not even close to the worst skeleton in anyone’s closet here,” Aveline said, rolling her eyes.

All three of them waited for Merrill to interject with some confused comment about skeleton infestations in the keep, until they realised that she was still in the Alienage.

“Anyway,” Hawke huffed, “I claim the right of habeus corpus. My lips are sealed.”

Varric stared at him. “I think you mean protection from self-incrimination, Hawke.”

Squinting as her headache got worse, Aveline said, “Actually, you’re both thinking of the statute of limitations, which I assure you is well past.”

Hawke turned to Varric, asking him, “Isn’t a statuette of limitations that thing Bartrand had us fish out of that creepy thaig?”

“I suppose you could call it that,” the dwarf quipped.

It definitely was worse now. “A ‘statute of limitations’, you numbskulls, means you can’t be prosecuted for a charge after a certain amount of time, but this doesn’t happen to include murder, robbery, or grand theft, so don’t get ideas. And no, I’m not telling you how long right now either.”

Eyes dimming after lighting up at the idea of gaining clemency for the odd felony by getting away with things for long enough, Hawke turned back to Aveline. “Oh all right, I suppose you’ve got a right to hear this story. This was a special assignment Athenril had for me, hence why you were left out of the loop when we went over to Ostwick.”

Aveline leaned forward, steepling her fingers. “Special assignment, huh?”

“It was, ah, a two-man job.”

Raising an eyebrow, she asked, “Is that what they call it now?”

“Look, if you’re going to take perverse pleasure from questioning me about this, I think I have a right to make Varric tell you the story so we’re even.”

They both started to protest, but Hawke clapped the merchant on his shoulder, telling him, “Too late! You’re up, says me and your unpaid tab at the Hanged Man, which will disappear tonight, if everything goes well right now.”

“Oh, all right,” Varric said, “but only because Hawke’s still kind of hung up about…”

Hawke was staring daggers at him.

“Look, you drag me into this, I’m going to take you down with me.”

Aveline gently pounded on the tabletop. “Do you mind getting on with it, Varric?”

“Very well, so this was, as you can guess, sometime during Hawke’s first year here…”

Somewhere, sometime in the future, a short-haired Nevarran Seeker of Truth let loose a disgusted noise once she realised that she’d let Varric recursively nestle his narratives within each other yet again. The dwarf’s smile threatening to reach both his ears, he began.

Sometime during Hawke’s first year in Kirkwall, and when he was still working for Athenril the Hightown smuggler, he went on a special assignment to Ostwick with her, namely smuggling lyrium mined around Kirkwall and selling it to their branch of the Mages’ Collective at a killer rate in return for certain services, specifically getting them, along with some Tal-Vashoth mercenaries she’d pay for this one-off, to come over to Kirkwall and deal the Coterie such a bloody nose that they’d get off her back forever, ladder or otherwise.

Hey, you’re the one that mentioned the statuette of limitations, Red. Once you tell us how long that is for lyrium smuggling, I’ll just say it happened that long ago plus a month.

So anyway, they were supposed to go there with just a small sample of the stuff, with Hawke as “James Faulkner”, an eccentric Fereldan nouveau riche who was wasting his parents’ money on a tour of the rest of the world, starting out at Val Chevin, then Cumberland, followed by Kirkwall, then the coastline of the Free Marches, which left Ostwick as his next port of call. Athenril was posing as Varvel, his elfin mistress, because you know, that’s the kind of world we live in.

That said, I don’t think she wasted a single opportunity in their shared quarters reminding Hawke just who was boss.

…I did say I was going to drag you down with me, Hawke. You don’t like how I’m telling this story, you can take over any time. I can pay for my own drinks, you know. Fine, Aveline, I’ll get to it. Where was I? Oh yeah. After riding the rough seas day and night, they finally got within sight of Ostwick, and the loving couple…of business associates…disembarked, with a heavy suitcase of the stuff in tow.

This, as you might expect, is where everything started going wrong. You see, the Coterie firstly didn’t really fail to notice their chief rival, even with her hair and ears wrapped in a headscarf, leaving the city, and secondly, the Coterie happened to have friends of their own in Ostwick, specifically amongst the Templars, whose lyrium addictions they were already feeding, so this really was a ship doomed to sink before it launched. Figuratively, although it could well have been literally too if they had so wished.

Still, they probably wanted their marks to get a little bit further into the city before getting at them, so that they had the opportunity to really make examples of them. Such was it that “James Faulkner” and “Jessica Varvel” rather overconfidently got through the customs, what with their specially lead-lined valise nominally containing the various curios that this Fereldan fop had been picking up on his Grand Tour but instead secreting the good stuff within its secret panels.

Finding lodgings in a chateau so ridiculously beyond their usual accommodations that it’d have broken their budget had they actually intended so stay more than the night, or, well, not just steal it back once they were done in Ostwick, Hawke and Athenril went on to indulge their fantasies of wealth and privilege, strolling through Ostwick’s rich markets and supping on fine food and wine – a fleeting dream, that they only wished they could hold onto for more than just one day…oh, all right, Hawke, I’ll move on. I hate seeing you grumpy.

In truth, they were also reconnoitring the streets, seeing where and how they’d approach the drop-off point, having picked up their contact’s signal at the bottom of a tankard in one of their better establishments, also surveying the rooftops for possible exits and escapes. This in particular would come in handy afterwards, when it all went to shit. Their supposed contact was in fact a mole, a double-agent for the Templars if you will. Safe be it to say that if they had actually turned up at their agreed-upon alleyway in Ostwick they’d have never made it out alive.

But you see, Templars in Ostwick are a bit more of an organised and efficient bunch than the hobnailed thugs…excuse me, Aveline, beleaguered civil servants…we have over here, and from the moment they’d landfall there they were already making preparations to nab the two of them, and as they slept in their down-lined bed, posters were already going up and their informants were already spreading the word that this Fereldan dandy and his elvhen maid were both Public Enemy Numéro Un.

Still, to give Hawke and his lady-boss some credit, they did sense the air shifting outside their room well in time to get dressed into their armour, shoving their finery into their lyrium case, dumping the mass of worthless Lowtown gewgaws onto the carpet, before the Knight-Lieutenant assigned to the case started kicking down the door after his usual “you-are-under-arrest” speech, bolting out of the window to the waiting rooftop outside.

Well, you can imagine the sort of wonderful escapade that resulted. Real exciting stuff, these rooftop chases, what with being weighed down by that precious valise which was the source of all their troubles. Hawke can tell you just how difficult it is to balance on a slanting roof with five pounds dragging you down on one side. Clutching it to his chest like it was a child, Hawke zigzagged his way to the harbour, with Athenril leading him the way there.

It was all going well until he twisted his ankle and slid all the way down a tiled roof to land amongst a pile of grain sacks, only to find himself surrounded by a group of opportunistic bandits who were on the lookout for “James Faulkner.” Wincing in pain as he drew his daggers, Hawke prepared for the inevitable. There were a lot of them and just one of him, and his foot was aching something fierce.

Then, like an avenging spirit, Athenril dove off the next roof, her arrows landing in one thug each, making a perfect descent to the cobblestone quay, fighting her way to Hawke.

“Come on, don’t make me do all the work,” she said, smirking at him.

Returning her grin, he told her, “I was distracting them while you lined your shots up.”

Oh what? You don’t like it when I do the voices? Fine, Hawke, you do yourself since you know yourself so well, Red, you do Athenril since I can’t hit the high notes. Well, if you’re both going to be like that, no more dialogue. Wet blankets.

Anyhow, you can pretty much guess how that fight went, and eight or nine corpses later, Hawke, still gripping to that case like his life depended upon it – and let’s face it, it probably did – hobbled his way along the waterfront. It was clear that unless they found a boat they’d never make it out of Ostwick. Neither of them being sailors, they settled on a dinghy they cut loose from a docked caravel, slipping between the ships until they made it to the coast.

Well, Ostwick and Kirkwall, different as day and night as they are, do share a common problem, namely big horny men along the shore. Turns out they’re even thicker with Tal-Vashoth than here, because their kinsmen decided to start spreading the Qun at Ostwick, and over time more of them got disillusioned of their ethos, and so they’ve got a worse infestation of wandering, directionless, ox-heads on their stretch of the Wounded Coast.

Wandering and directionless as Hawke and Athenril were at this point, it was pretty much inevitable, really, that they would run into them, and so they did. A camp full of dozens of them wasn’t all that far down the coast, and wounded as Hawke was, there was no way they could fight their way out of that one, so they did the only thing they could think of.

Namely, surrender.

After convincing her of that very point, he crouched down to the valise whilst maintaining eye contact with their leader the whole time and popped open the secret compartments, pulling out the enriched lyrium as it shone in the night. Turning to the saarebas to see their reaction, the leader nodded in approval, gesturing to one of their tents.

And, well, what happened that night, after she tended to his wounds, I leave as Hawke’s prerogative.

They left the next morning on a fishing boat headed for Kirkwall, having impressed upon its captain that they were more trouble than any bounty was worth, with no lyrium, no mages, and no gold, but a fine story to tell and memories of living it up in Ostwick that would last a lifetime. And that, Red, is the story behind that poster on your desk.

“Hawke?”

Varric and Aveline turned to their mute companion. He hadn’t moved an inch since Varric had finished spinning his tale, just sitting quietly in his chair in front of the table and gently tapping at the poster lain upon it. Blinking in silence, he eventually looked back up at them.

“Hm? Oh, right,” he said, “Well told, Varric. Very discreet, very tasteful. Just had to mention my impromptu roof dive though, didn’t you?”

“Well, it does explain why you handed it over to the Tal-Vashoth without a fight.”

“I suppose it does,” Hawke murmured.

Aveline looked over to him concernedly. “Are you feeling all right, Hawke?”

“I’m always all right, Aveline,” he said, standing up. “See you at the Hanged Man tonight? Drinks are on me, and not just Varric’s. Thanks for reminding me of, well, simpler times.”

“I’ll let you know, Hawke,” she said. “We do have a bit of a lull at the moment, hence the social calls. And, well, thank you both. I suppose that is one story I’d been waiting to hear.”

With that, Hawke and Varric, the former still oddly silent, left the Guard-Captain’s office.

“Funny thing,” Varric told the Seeker some unspecified time in the future, “when Aveline came back the very next day that poster was missing from her desk. Some of us say it was next seen pinned to a wall in the Hawke Estate, some say it flittered its way to the Red Lantern district after that, but there’s no way to know one way or another now.”

Cassandra groaned and asked, “Was any of that the truth, dwarf?”, pinching at her slightly throbbing forehead as she did so.

“Well,” Varric said, “it does explain why Hawke remains persona non-grata over in Ostwick, statuette of limitations or otherwise.”

“I suppose it does, at that,” she said. “But is the Champion of Kirkwall really such a…sentimental creature?”

“Lady Seeker,” he asked as he innocently raised his palms, “aren’t we all?”

Letting forth another disgusted noise, Cassandra said, “Absolutely not.”

Still, she too was quiet for a long time before resuming her questioning, idly tracing circles on her copy of The Tale of the Champion with her fingertips as Varric discreetly swiped a drink of grog from her mug. Stories were hard work.

@dadrunkwriting

#hawke/athenril #m!hawke/athenril #hawke #m!hawke #hudson hawke #athenril #varric #cassandra pentaghast #aveline #dragon age #dragon age ii #ao3 #fanfic #prompt fic #bearlytolerablethethird #athenril-of-kirkwall #da drunk writing circle #dadrunkwriting

6 notes · View notes

sethnakht · 6 years

Text

thoughts on aphra #25

spoilers beneath the cut.

[writing this with a bad headache and in prescription sunglasses (broke my glasses during the work-rush of the past few days). so this won’t be comprehensive or possibly even coherent.]

Thoughts in no particular order:

Tolvan literally sacrificing her mental integrity so Vader would think Aphra dead fit the dynamic of their relationship to a T - Tolvan had been doing precisely this all along. As Tolvan hates when things are “sloppy”, I could almost imagine the thought of wiping Aphra from her memory being a relief. Alas, she was dealing with Aphra. Aphra using the Bor to manipulate her memories such that her love for Aphra remained intact but the details of their parting turned bloody was so very Aphra - saving herself meant more than showing Tolvan some kindness, than giving her new memories she could live with. On the plus side, although Tolvan now thinks she murdered Aphra for breaking her heart, she was rescued by Sana. So she’s escaped interrogation and murder, escaped Vader - and renewed heartbreak in the form of Aphra. Better yet, Sana’s presence suggests she might recover her memories and be able to get a fresh start, since Sana also saw the Bor and knows how Aphra thinks, and since we know from Rogue One that memories can be returned through proper jostling. In that sense, things might finally be looking up for her.

Sana saved so many lives in this one issue alone - not just Tolvan, the Rebels on the planet as well. And of course she salvaged the Volt Cobra on the way. She’s amazing.

Lopset returning to put his proximity bomb in Triple-Zero and create the conditions for #26 had been set up several issues ago - those lines about being an “electrician” and “multidisciplinary”, his strangely specific knowledge of murderous bio-fauna, the way he kept carrying Dek-Nil/the hub-droid around as though planning blackmail, the fact that he had worked for Cornelius Evazan and yet emerged without any sort of visible bodily transformation - and it was sort of a relief to learn that he’d simply been Evazan all along. Not only does this contextualize the cover of #28, it means an end to the name-dropping - it’s been hinted since the beginning of Remastered that we would eventually run into the man himself, now we finally have - and an end to Tam Posla (thanks, Trip). [EDIT: the solicits for #28 suggest that Posla survives, bleh!] As for his disguise, it was fittingly disgusting - reminiscent of the Bor. Presumably it also explains why "Lopset”’s eyes always changed color - a detail that had been bothering me, since other shape-shifters don’t do that. The reveal also helped reframe some of the details on Posla’s ship. If you go back and look at Posla on his ship in #22, you’ll see a severed arm in a jar on prominent display, an arm that could only have been sliced from Evazan’s partner-in-crime during their encounter with Obi-Wan on Tatooine. While the arm-in-a-jar certainly works an Easter Egg, evoking the depths of Posla’s obsession, the way it’s drawn also suggested greater importance. Now we know why it was featured - so that Evazan can take the arm with him when he jumps ship with his arm-less partner-in-crime. (That entire page in 22 is also full of clues about the Evazan twist.)

EDIT: looking back at #20 is also pretty illuminating:

Evazan had some nice thoughts on monstrosity, art, and science. More on that when feeling less like bricks have been thrown at the brain.

Vader’s role in this comic had been telegraphed from miles away: it was clear from the covers that he was going to destroy Beetee, from Tolvan’s summons that he would question her, and from the nature of the spores themselves that he would interact with them. The interaction with the spores was possibly for that reason a tad disappointing - in the end, they were little more than a way to keep him distracted so Sana could rescue Tolvan. After having seen the spores project images of beloved dead people from the minds of its potential victims, one might have expected a Padmé-shaped variation on that trick - but nope, the spores unwisely tried to kill him, only to be repelled by his suit as one might expect, then destroyed with the Dark Side and a bunch of his characteristic burns, as one might also expect. His final line, “You bore it [it = the darkness]”, is kind of savage if he meant “you bore me” in the sense of “you are boring and not worth my time”, but I was left wondering whether he instead meant “you bore the darkness” in the sense of “to suffer, endure” or “to create, bring forth”. I do think it’s interesting that he spoke of the “darkness” as of himself, that he spoke so impersonally.

Vader’s interaction with the spores was also interesting in another sense - it gave him room to claim that the spores represented mere biological “urge” whereas he by implication represented control, control of the Force (life) with his “will” - that’s free will discourse right there. And it contrasts notably with the very first panel of the comic, where Aphra tells Tolvan that Vader “won’t stop. You have to understand that. He won’t tire. He won’t forgive. He won’t forget. He doesn’t know how.” That “he doesn’t know” suggests compulsion, determinism, at very least a lack. One could unpack that in cool ways.

EDIT: Vader’s decision not to murder Tolvan but have her sent to the Executor for further interrogation has been beautifully analyzed by @glompcat - I very much like the reading that it represents the very opposite of mercy, the best form of torture at his disposal - possibly also a form of paranoia, a desire to make certain that only Tolvan was ever told, that Aphra has no other lovers out there he should be tracking

Another notable Vader moment: while he considers it “likely” that Tolvan is telling the truth, that Aphra is dead, he isn’t convinced (because he knows her too well? because he senses her?), and thus sends the jail back onto its collision course with the planet. “Let it fall”, he says, which is very meta for him. Aphra being knocked out / unconscious when the collision takes place, he seems convinced that she dies in that moment, telling his RA-7 droid (I think?) to mark her as deceased - I don’t know if that’s what they’re called, but it’s the same sort of droid sent to Lyra Erso in the DV Annual, warning her that the Death Star would create a terrible world for her daughter.

Final minor detail: Vader wanted Tolvan sent to his “chambers” for interrogation, probably because she knows too much - still, I loved it as a character moment, because doesn’t it tell you everything about Vader that he would consider his personal rooms an appropriate location for an interrogation?

Triple-Zero and Aphra referred to as “lovebirds” may just reflect Evazan’s sick sense of humor - “you deserve each other” - but it also calls back to #19 in a striking way, where Trip tells Aphra that “love is murder”. The coming arc certainly seems to be shaping up into Evazan’s (lbr, Evazan is the stand-in for Spurrier) experiment to measure degrees of evil by twisting Lona’s mantra - “evil’s just a measure of how much your choices take away other people’s” - from something figurative, regulative, aimed towards guiding future actions to something literal, reductive, aimed at classifying the past. If Triple-Zero represents “programmed evil”, Aphra has yet to reveal whether her worst behavior is “intrinsic” (biological) or something she “picks up” (cultural). But Triple-Zero’s line about love confuses such neat categories, and I hope that what lies ahead is messy indeed.

#wednesday spoilers #star wars spoilers #chelli lona aphra #marvel doctor aphra #doctor aphra #si spurrier #tam posla #cornelius evazan #sana starros #magna tolvan #triple zero #darth vader #star wars comics #sw: comics #star wars comics spoilers

7 notes · View notes

elizabethrobertajones · 6 years

Note

Do you really think current Cas couldn't end up being The Empty? I don't necessarily believe that because I think Cas is not acting like himself but the "All Magic Comes with a prize"-stories, of there being a downside to major "mircles" like resurrections are pretty common, plus having a newly introduced major foe that looks like Cas (+ can access his memories) thats not explored yet, plus being told that Cas would be back "slowly" or "at least his most important parts"

*shrugs* I mean if they’re doing it they’ve basically wasted an entire episode of supposed Cas stuff plus 2 previous ones that only made sense with Cas’ reactions and actions if it was him, so the only way it would happen is if we do already have our Cas on screen, but there’s a catch or some consequences yet to hit about the resurrection and Cas BEGINS to belatedly suffer side effects which retroactively cast into doubt how much he was here or just suggest something was wrong with him all along and waiting for some reason to activate, as he’s not currently being depicted in any distress whatsoever. I agree the clothes are suspicious and I was saying all along since the beginning of the season or before, mostly as crack posts since I don’t like speculating, that if Cas gets handed an outfit out of thin air instead of picking it for himself, that concept fits what I figure would be symbolism warning that Cas has ongoing problems, but as someone who deals with speculation in about that much vagueness I really don’t have any sort of solid ideas beyond that.

For me, talking about TV shows isn’t really fun to guess what will happen and I would just want to end up writing it myself or go down convoluted threads that the writers wouldn’t keep up on, and trying to stay in the lines of what might actually happen is an enormous headache and no one is particularly great at it unless they’re extremely vague or only analyse the very obvious threads and offer generic scenarios they could play out in, e.g. how we could predict a reverse crypt scene, because it was basically a looming issue not a wild speculative idea, but being threatened for most of the season subtly or not.

I mostly live entirely in the moment for TV shows if I can help it, and I prefer watching things I’ve had at least mild spoilers for when it comes to things I would want to get emotionally invested in, even if it’s really just scoping out the personality of the thing. Watching Supernatural as it airs is pretty messy for my anxiety about not knowing what comes next, and after a little while in fandom I realised how pointless speculation is for ever making you feel better about anything. If you’re right you’ve bored yourself out of the story, if you’re wrong you’ve made yourself annoyed or built up your expectations.

And if you’re super invested in a fictional character and scour the internet for spoilers about them because you’re worried about their well being, and analyse every inch of the show for clues about what might happen to them while creating potential worrying scenarios, that play out or not, you mostly get into a huge panic about them, start treating your imagination as if the horrible stuff has already happened, and lose a lot of objectivity as you start to perceive the writers going out of the way to do bad things to your fave because you’re super focussed on what bad stuff will happen to them, and blah blah character stanning cycle of being protective and angry etc. I’ve seen it consume too many people since I got to fandom :S

So… Something is probably about to happen to Cas or because of Cas, and the trip through the Empty seems like it maaaay have been too understated or an under-utilised resource (but I also have immediately made my peace that that’s all we’ll see of it, even if it isn’t, because I just can’t LIVE like that with expectations and serious plot demands and trying to construct versions of the season that only make sense if X Y and Z are in it and then getting upset when they aren’t) and we missed a few important steps between bargaining and resurrection considering the new clothes and Cas’s moment where he took in that he was dressed in them. There’s also left over weirdness about him and Jack which also has a lot of unexplained things he and Dean need to talk about and may or may not cause a serious problem now Jack has legged it.

I don’t think he’s acting strange, because there have been no blatantly obvious cues for the people at the back about him acting strange, e.g. lingering shots where he was pulling weird faces, lines in the Empty to indicate it wanted anything other than to go back to sleep, or hints that anything is particularly coming for Cas based on the MotW obvious mirrors (which have been pretty low key because the MotW have been very secondary to the emotional drama so far). Billie never hinted about Cas more than that he was dead because he killed her, and now we have spoilers that it seems most likely the Winchester knocking over the house of cards will be Jack seemingly motivated on his own steam to do something good, so that literally covers every doomy portentous line this season that wasn’t completely incidental, although I have been joking about some, I don’t really get into conspiracies about them…

We’ve had lingering shots with Cas squinting in a very familiar Cas-like way with understandable exasperation at whatever’s going on, and he’s had emotional moments with all his family and generally been presented as mostly fine and not visibly perturbed or confused by not being able to heal the guard for example, just resigned that it was too late for him to do anything, and he hasn’t been dangerously put in any crosshairs in the symbolism. I can’t think of anything really at all that’s threatened Cas in the symbolism or foreshadowing and nothing he’s done on screen has been suspicious about his personality or characteristics or actions. Dean’s not suspicious. Sam is a little concerned about *how* he got back but not *if* he is Cas.

Like, of course they might blindside us with something, but considering they spent time on emotional moments with Cas dealing with ongoing characters arcs between him and the rest of them, it makes no sense a fake out Cas would be getting Cas’s emotional development. Unless it was laden with dramatic irony. Remember in 11x11 when Casifer was talking to Dean? Even if you didn’t know that he was Lucifer and pretend they never revealed that detail and this is the first time we see him since, there’s a billion things wrong with his interactions with Dean in that scene. There was stuff visibly wrong with him before we knew for sure he’d been possessed in 11x10 just in how he hung back from the team and watched them all very, very carefully, and took too long to reply while weighing his options.

Cas already did come back slowly because it took him until episode 6 to actually be back in the game, even if he was restored in episode 4, so at this point I figure that spoiler was being careful about revealing how Cas’s appearances in the start of the season were spread out, and not commenting on Cas’s internal stuff.

I don’t know, bad stuff happens to them all the time on the show so of course I just assume something is coming, but I’m not worried about it like it might happen to a friend or something because it’s just a part of the story so I don’t get being worried about stuff happening to your faves as if it’s the end of the world… Cas is currently occupying the very centre of the story along with Jack, possibly MORE important than him since he’s important to Jack in turn. I feel like Cas is the actual beating heart of the story in season 13 so far based on his entire blanket presence in the empty spaces caused by Jack and Dean’s need/want for him. It’s a bit ridiculous to now hope because he’s back he’s going to just settle into the family with them and have no troubles, though of course that’s a point I’m always happy to be proved wrong on, it’s better just to use bored eyes and just… ¬_¬ something’s gonna happen to Cas… ¬_¬ your way through the story. And it will be something that’s probably super important to the main arc because Cas has been so far, in a deep, intrinsic way, so whatever happens I’m down for it, unless it’s some randomly abject level of awful that no one could have called, and his treatment in the story, against all odds, is somehow really horrible.

Aside from horrible character-trashing worst case scenarios, though, the manner in which is happens is, to me, completely arbitrary as a non-speculating blog that just analyses what ends up on my plate and occasionally wonders what the OBVIOUS cues mean without committing to theories beyond musings and wondering out loud with obvious disclaimers that I’m just thinking and don’t care if it does or doesn’t happen.

Like, I’m analysing all the themes as they show up and I assume whatever happens will fit the themes and character arcs and whatever. At the moment I see Cas as being Cas because I just got handed an incredible Cas episode on a plate where Cas was being very Cas-like all over the place, and his biggest problem was Jack, who was not directly threatening him at any point, and if anything it seems like Cas futilely chasing after Jack trying to stop him getting intro trouble (nearly shot by Dean, actually shot by Dave the Cowghoul) would be the one theme I’d wonder has any actual suggestion that Cas is going to have Problems, but that’s not directly happening to him, that’s just his issue with not being able to help Jack and stop him getting in trouble. And, I guess now, chasing after him before he does that. And based on episode descriptions for upcoming stuff, not very successfully, so we already know that symbolism pays off, however Cas ends up going about this :P

So that’s my one and only reason to be worried about Cas right now… Granted, I’ve only watched the episode twice while extreeeeemely woozy with a migraine but I’ve been reading my dash all day and seeing discussion of most parts of the episode and all the Cas bits and I’ve been rewatching bits here and there and nothing is leaping out at me that anything is currently trying to warn us to brace for Cas, except the general sense of ¬_¬ about something inevitably coming his way because of course he’s not in every episode - but he could just leave entirely of his own agency to go look for Jack off screen and even without the worries about what Jack may or may not have done to him in season 12, given what they set up, it would be entirely understandable for him to do it just because he’s Cas.

#Asks #cas analysis #13x06 #season 13 spoilers #13x09 #this blog remains completely chill about pretty much all things that have not yet actually happened on screen :P

57 notes · View notes