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fzzr · 8 months

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Monogatari Read-Along Re-Watch — Mayoi Snail

The second Bakemonogatari arc, Mayoi Snail†, introduces us to Hachikuji Mayoi and more incidentally, Namishiro Park. Both of them will be surprisingly important to the narrative as the series moves forward. Indeed, in retrospect Mayoi Snail is the jumping off point for the wider plot of the series, not Hitagi Crab.

Novel

The emotional core of Mayoi Snail is within Koyomi, and accordingly we spend a lot of time on what's on his mind. He's quite down in the dumps, and the way the stream-of-reminiscence represents that is very real. When the particularly painful memory (his fight with Karen) comes up, he cuts it off and finds some diversion for his thoughts. Nonetheless in his conversations with the other characters he is forced to recall that moment a bit more clearly each time. Those conversations are the entire content of the arc, so lets get into it.

Despite the name on the title page, a great deal of this arc is to do with Hitagi and her relationship with Koyomi. She shows up with her mind on a single mission: get together with Koyomi, preferably with him asking her out first. Koyomi is a mix of too dumb, depressed, and willfully blind to understand just how strong she's coming on. She has complete control of their conversation, letting him out just a bit when he tries to pull away but redirecting him back to the point in short order. Ultimately Koyomi chooses not to pick up what she's putting down, using a variety of excuses that ultimately come down to his own lack of self-worth.

Just as non-relationship talk hits a dead end, Mayoi shows up to start the spooky stuff part of the story. This initially consists of even more banter, this time with physical comedy mixed in. Just as Hitagi slipped propositions into her banter, Mayoi gives away clues to her true nature in small ways. Just as Koyomi refused to be pulled in by Hitagi's advances, here he will not be diverted away. While the introduction to Mayoi is in the foreground, Hitagi becomes increasingly frigid. Koyomi attributes this to his own shenanigans (he did just knock an elementary school student flat on her back) but compared to her earlier playfulness, the difference is palpable. All of this builds intrigue while putting up yet another barrier between Hitagi and Koyomi, this time from her end.

Eventually the spooky stuff becomes too obvious to ignore, and Hitagi sets out to get help from Oshino. This leaves Koyomi and Mayoi alone for more sparring, verbal and otherwise. This time Tsubasa shows up to mix things up with some sanity and order. I appreciate there's a bit more Tsubasa in Mayoi Snail. It gives us some early hints of her relationship with her family that doubles as more misdirection around Hitagi not being able to see Mayoi. Her strong opinions on disciplining children is another tip-off if you know what to look for.

As Koyomi and Mayoi bounce off one another, they bring out each others' true reasons for being where they are. Once again the dialogue is funny, energetic, and clever all around. This time, however, Koyomi comes to suspect that there's another level to the situation he isn't understanding. At the same time, he starts to acknowledge that the only one keeping him from going home is himself.

Each of the four characters who visited the park that Mother's Day has a distinct reason not to be with their mother. Only Koyomi could go home to his mother and be welcome there, and he gets called out on it. Mayoi desperately wants to get to her mother, but can't. We heard all about Hitagi's ruined relationship with her mother in Hitagi Crab, but she nonetheless has a home where she is welcome. Tsubasa's parental issues are only referred to indirectly for now, but the fact that she sees the Lost Cow and walks away without difficulty is another critical clue to Koyomi about the true, internal source of his issues.

Hitagi's return is what settles the issue. The reveal that Koyomi was the one afflicted by the Lost Cow all along in the final catalyst needed for him to acknowledge the true root of the problem. Understanding this he nonetheless demands to go that extra step, and save Mayoi anyway. This reinforces Koyomi's character as the person will save everyone, and it's enough to push Hitagi out of her confrontational mode long enough to declare her love. This conflux of several disparate plotlines being resolved at once is one of my favorite things to see in storytelling, and this one is well implemented indeed.

So Mayoi is freed, and Hitagi intercepts Koyomi's final attempt to escape. They extract from one another promises to have a relationship based on mutual honesty and respect. Mayoi, now free, tells Koyomi to talk with her again sometime. What a small first domino that is to set great things in motion!

Anime

This is the talkiest arc of Bakemonogatari, so the storyboard really needs to be creative to keep things visually engaging. They do this by making a change to the setting, adding playground equipment the novel explicitly says are missing. When the conversation is playful, Koyomi and Hitagi are shown interacting with the equipment. When the conversation is more serious and they're sitting down, it has the sky cycle bars move across the screen slowly, suggesting parallax without actually moving the camera from being centered on them. It also brings in extra exaggerated camera angles (especially zoomed in on faces and eyes) for times when Koyomi is off balance. The male gaze shots line up pretty well with moments from the novel where he finds himself admiring Hitagi physically, saving on exposition.

They also make great use of music to control the tone. Every arc does this, but track changes often sync up with transitions to new locations, which covers up their impact to some extent. Since Mayoi Snail barely changes setting at all, the music does all the work alone. Hitagi enters the park to the chill track Sanpo. When she reminisces about how the neighborhood she grew up in has changed, it calls on the melancholy of Nichiyoubi. When Hitagi begins to toy with Koyomi and they start fooling around the playground, it uses the playful Jinchiku. After the eyecatch, the conversation gets a bit more serious again, and the pensive and slightly uncomfortable track Doutokutosetsu picks up. Hitagi pulls Koyomi out of a funk thinking about his family issues with some more trolling, backed by Sutekimeppou. Dokuzetsu kicks in when Hitagi raises the pressure on Koyomi, leading up to her essentially direct offer to be his girlfriend. Between each of these shifts there are at least a few lines of dialogue without background music, so the transitions really stand out.

The result of all that is they adapted a conversation between two people with basically no stage direction into 15 minutes of engaging, dynamic television. I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that the episode 3 banter session between Hitagi and Koyomi is what really made the statement that this show is fundamentally about talking, and it's going to be fun to watch anyway.

Koyomi's interaction with Mayoi is slapstick comedy, and gives us our first look at how the anime does at comic timing. In short, it's excellent. Since the ultimate resolution doesn't require any dramatic action, they were free to commit the bulk of the animation budget to these sequences. The background tracks continue to do work, of course. There are even some jokes in the music, like the ball dance played later on when Araragi and Mayoi are grappling at arms length.

Once Hitagi starts trying to figure out what Koyomi is doing, the anime has a curious problem. In writing, what we know is entirely what the first person narrator sees, and this makes a convincing unreliable narration much easier to achieve. Anime is of necessity presented in third person, and so we have a stronger assumption that what's on screen is what's in the scene. Mayoi Snail sticks strictly to "what's on screen is what Koyomi perceives." This is both necessary to build up the twist and a precondition for understanding future narrators who break the rules of objective depiction of reality even more.

The solution and resolution are handled exactly as they should be, and ending on Mayoi's new freedom is just as heartwarming as it was in the novel. In terms of cuts and changes, there are once again very few. One I noticed was in Koyomi talking about him falling behind on his studies, he doesn't point out that it's because he was at a school with a higher academic standard. Removing this small crutch gives Koyomi even more room to get down on himself.

Conclusion

Mayoi Snail, for all its relative brevity, is one of my favorite Monogatari arcs due to how it shows the true potential of the series as a whole. It will certainly be coming up by reference moving forward.

On a meta level, Mayoi Snail could be seen as an arc that trains the reader/viewer for how to handle the rest of the series. This is a series that can carry itself on dialogue alone. You learn that you absolutely must not tune out the banter, because the important bits are all embedded within it. It's also the first arc where the inherent unreliability of a first person point of view becomes important. It is made crystal clear that what is written and seen is not the objective reality, but only what the narrator understands at the time.

† A later arc from Monster Season is called "Mayoi Snail," and this one is properly "Mayoi Mai Mai". However this was called "Mayoi Snail" in localizations of both the novel and the anime, so I called it that in this context.

#monogatari #anime #original post #monogatari read-along re-watch #mayoi snail #bakemonogatari #hachikuji mayoi #mayoi mai mai

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july-19th-club · 3 years

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actually its a lot harder to pull of the ‘drop a lil meme in here and there and make it not pull you out of the narrative too much for the sake of an audience wink’ thing in like. a series like locked tomb than a series like star trek. star trek is set at most a couple centuries from now. presumably there’s a lot of cultural flotsam still filtering through the populace. the holodeck jokes often function, for example, on the interplay between ‘pop culture jokes that humans know about but aliens are brand new to’ and it’s extremely funny. tom paris’s silly flash gordon adventures are silly because he’s, in-universe, a nerd about really obscure stuff none of his earth coworkers think is interesting. or like. you guys remember the gag in eccleston’s run of doctor who where lady cassandra plays ‘classical music’ and it’s toxic by britney spears? that bit was ten years ago and it’s still hysterical because the joke is worked into the text in a way that allows it to be funny to both the characters AND the audience. tomb meanwhile is ostensibly TEN THOUSAND YEARS from now so i know these guys dont know none pizza . the joke’s not for the characters. i know that’s all you muir. hey reader remember none pizza? what a laugh that was and yes. it WAS. but now ive been yanked bodily from what was building up to be a seriously tense and interesting scene and you did it to remind me of none pizza? dude i was busy now im distracted

#locked tomb #yes it's funny for mr god lyctor man. but its not funny for his audience of other characters #im trying not to complain TOO much bc i really did enjoy it so much more on the second read #but like i always want to drop references while im writing too and then i remember that if im not very smooth with them #they WILL divert from the story in a way that is not funny just flat and confusing #im still not sure if im good at funny. but i know when funny does and doesnt work #like i would believe that for instance. julian would know about road work ahead and pull it out for every station maintenance scenario #and that miles would dope slap him because he also knows about road work ahead #but the characters also HAVE to be in on the joke or i think it's way less funny . if the joke is just for the audience then it's #i dont know. flatter . it doesnt have to be funny for the characters in the SAME way it's funny for the audience #but maybe im just very particular #q

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mollymauk-teafleak · 2 years

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I can't believe what I've found (chapter five)

Huge thanks as always to my amazing beta readers @minky-for-short and @nb-fearne who are just the best!

Please consider reblogging and leaving a comment over on Ao3! You can find all the previous chapters there!

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Caleb thinks his story may need a new ending.

That is, if Molly agrees.

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“You look nervous.”

Caleb looked up, giving his best friend a flat stare, “I always look nervous.”

Veth laughed, both at his comment and in a way that clearly told Caleb she knew him too well to be diverted by it, “Yeah…but you don’t normally look nervous right now.”

“At a quarter to eight?” Caleb hunched his shoulders a little as he poked listlessly at the breakfast he’d laid out for him and Veth and little Luc. He’d done pretty well, considering he’d been useless at it just a few months ago, but he found he had little appetite for slightly too runny scrambled eggs on slightly too well done toast.

“Just before Molly gets here,” Veth clearly wasn’t letting him get away with anything today, her eyes still narrowed and firmly fixed on him, “Normally you’re bouncing off the walls with excitement when you know he’s on his way.”

Caleb felt his face flame, “I do not! I…you…you don’t even see me every morning at quarter to eight!”

Luc seemed to find his uncle’s outburst incredibly funny, giggling as he attempted to snatch another piece of toast from his mama’s plate, Frumpkin watching from under their chair with wide, expectant eyes for when he inevitably threw it to the floor. Unfortunately for them both, Veth caught his pudgy toddler hand without even needing to glance down.

“Usually just when I need to drag you out of bed,” she hummed, expertly distracting her son with her car keys, “Which begs the question, why am I here, Caleb? You could just have emailed me to tell me you’d decided on a release date. And you’ve never offered to make breakfast for me before?”

Caleb was too caught off guard, too recently woken up and- yes, fine- too nervous to think of an excuse so he just told the truth, “I just…felt like seeing you today. I felt like doing something nice for you.”

Veth blinked, tilting her head, one oversized ear flapping curiously, as if making sure she’d heard right. Then a slow smile spread across her face. Caleb had seen that smile when it was full of needle pointed teeth, when it was flashing at him from across a prison cell, from across a circle of chairs in a draughty community centre hall, as she squeezed his hand the very first time he’d gone into his favourite bookstore and seen his name amongst all the others.

And every single time, from the first up to this one, Caleb couldn’t help but smile back.

“Since when has anyone ever needed an excuse to be nice to their literary agent?” he hummed, saying one thing but meaning another.

Veth looked like she might tear up for a moment but the edges of her smile turned knowing, “You’re a sweet boy, Caleb. Still don’t wanna tell me why you’re nervous?”

Caleb chuckled ruefully, letting Luc take his slice of toast, which he’d started reaching for next after growing bored of the keys in a record three seconds. Thinking he’d stolen it, the halfling boy’s tail wagged in triumph and he ducked under the table to share it with Frumpkin, unsuccessfully muffling his giggles.

“I might not have anything to say?” Caleb murmured, watching the bubbles form and break patterns in his coffee cup, “I haven’t made my mind up yet.”

“Oh, I think you have,” Veth didn’t challenge, just observed with a fond smile, “You’re not one to change your mind once you’ve decided you want something.”

Caleb gave a little laugh, “Fair. But I still don’t want to tell you.”

Veth held both her hands up, though she was doing a perhaps deliberately poor job of concealing her smile, “Sure, sure. I’ve got your release date, that’s what I came for. I’ll get this little man to preschool and call Jester about letting the press know. Leave you alone to get ready for your…well, whatever you’ve not made your mind up about yet.” She all but winked.

Luc was reluctant to go, either because he didn’t like the idea of preschool that day, because he saw Uncle Caleb still had toast to offer or because he just liked being here. Either way, he clung sadly to Caleb’s leg and rubbed his crumb covered face on the shin of his jeans before he let his mama take his hand and coax him out of the door. Caleb smiled and waved to him until he and Veth had turned the corner of the corridor.

Then the nerves came flooding back in.

He resisted the urge to go into another cleaning frenzy or to move every piece of furniture around or to just climb the walls like a caged animal. This was fine. It was all fine. It was just a normal day.

Until he changed it.

Veth was right, it was no longer a case of perhaps or maybe or if I’m brave enough. Caleb simply had to be brave so he would be. He owed it to Mollymauk. That was the conclusion he’d come to after what had happened two nights ago, after waking up on Molly’s sofa with his friend still curled under his arm, back aching and eyes itching and with Molly looking at him like he was some kind of hero from the moment his own eyes opened. Like he hadn’t deserved Caleb just letting him speak and listening and looking after him when the weight of what he’d been through came crashing down.

And Molly deserved so much more than that. He deserved everything Caleb had to give him.

Of course, he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a little bit for his own benefit too but he was trying to be alright with that. Wanting things had never come easily to him, not since he was a teenager, so he was doing his best to leave it off to one side and let it flicker away, like any attempts he made to tend it might snuff it out instead when the fear took over. Best to keep it out of the way.

So Caleb managed, by the very edges of his fingertips, not to turn his apartment inside out and just kept sipping his coffee, listening to a song on the radio as he pet Frumpkin, who’d crawled into his lap as soon as he’d sensed his master’s anxiety and his lap had become available. The little orange cat knew his job and he did it well.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait long. Because, for perhaps the first time since Caleb had known him, Molly showed up to something early.

Caleb nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the knock at the door about forty minutes earlier than he expected. Frumpkin dashed off his knees, tail bolt upright in the air, already waiting by the door by the time he got to it and flicked the lock open.

There had been a niggling anxiety that he would feel awkward around Molly or, worse, Molly would feel awkward around him. There had been a hint of it the morning after they’d slept together- in the most innocent and back ache inducing sense of the phrase- when their clothes had been rumpled and their hair had been frightful and their eyes had been full of grit. Molly had clearly tried to make up for his shut down the night before and made way more pancakes for breakfast than he and Caleb could eat between them. They’d sat and talked of small things, not of the strange new ways in which they understood each other now. They’d acted like things were just as they had been before, mutually agreeing in perfect silence to leave that alone for the moment, while they were both tired and wrung out.

Caleb had made his excuses once he felt it was the right moment, desperately itching for a shower but more willing to die than use one that wasn’t his own. Molly had smiled gratefully, nodded and asked if he could take the rest of the day and start fresh tomorrow, fully admitting he’d be spending it crashed out in bed. Caleb had said of course, feeling weird that the decision was his call, gone back to his apartment and promptly done the exact same thing.

So he was worried about, or rather, one of the many things he was worried about was that awkwardness, the sense that their new understanding of each other was something too big to handle and they’d have to avoid it.

But as soon as he opened the door, as soon as he saw Mollymauk’s face with it’s crooked grin and bright red eyes, everything that had been tense and tight and thrumming inside him just unwound. He was just happy to see him.

“Good morning,” he murmured, feeling lighter than he had since he’d woken up.

“Morning!” Caleb’s happiness must have shown on his face because Molly’s face bloomed into a wider, less restrained version of his own, “Someone’s in a good mood.”

“Just…glad to see you,” Caleb shrugged lightly, his smile turning coy.

“Well,” Molly gave him a wink, nudging him with his hip as he edged past, Frumpkin still trying to wind around his ankles, “I’m glad to see you too, Caleb. I’ve got something to show you actually.”

Caleb followed, not to the kitchen to pour coffee like he usually did or to his writing desk when he had a sentence or phrase in his head he wanted to get down before he forgot. Instead he followed Frumpkin’s winding path onto the sofa, where Molly had thrown himself down.

“Actually,” he made himself say, though his fingers had started to twitch, “Could I show you something first?”

Molly cocked his head, “Yeah? Go ahead.”

Caleb took a deep breath, feeling the shock of now having nothing between him and this moment, “I…I’m thinking about adding some new pages to the picture book.”

Molly’s eyebrows shot up and his grin quirked up, “Now? Gods, please let me be there when you tell Beau, she’s going to hit the ceiling.”

“But it doesn’t bother you?” Caleb gave a small smile, not sounding very surprised.

Molly lay back against the sofa, fingers playing idly with those beads that he was still wearing, the purple and orange ones Caleb had made for him. The sight of them there on his slim wrist gave Caleb a burst of hope.

“I think I’d really like to read them,” Molly’s smile bloomed. Caleb wasn’t good at reading expressions but he could have sworn that there was some hope on his friend’s face too, like they were sharing the same secret.

That thought might well have been the only thing that got him onto his feet and took him over to his writing desk. He’d always kept the pages for Der Katzenprinz in the same drawer, in the exact same place. Part of him was scared that, if he lost them, he wouldn’t have the courage to write them over again. So it had been the same typed out pages with the now slightly curling edges and coffee splashes that had first been handed over to Veth, then Percy and, finally, Molly. And it was these pages that Caleb took out now, with one fresh, brand new page amongst them, sticking out like a white petal amongst red, the addition glaring to Caleb who’d spent the last year of his life staring at them.

It had been hard, handing these over to Molly the first time. This time, somehow it was easier. He’d been waiting for the unwillingness, for his muscles not to bend and fingers not to unfurl when he asked them, the way they had before. Hell, he’d had to ask Veth to open up his own hands for him when they’d suddenly locked tight at the realisation that someone other than him was about to meet Der Katzenprinz.

But they passed from Caleb’s hands to Molly’s smoothly, easily, a butterfly alighting from one grip to another.

“It’s just the last one,” Caleb murmured, as Mollymauk turned to the first page.

The tiefling smiled sweetly, stroking his fingers down the spine, held together with nothing but treasury tags, “But it’s my favourite book, I want to read the whole thing.”

Caleb felt such a rush of feeling at those words he almost asked Molly to write them down so he could read them again and again whenever he felt bad about himself. But instead he sat down at the far end of the sofa and pulled his knees to his chest like he was trying to keep himself together.

Molly gave him a curious look, “You don’t want to go make a coffee or something? You’re okay with me reading this in front of you?”

Caleb nodded, gripping his shins tighter. The feeling of thin cotton under his fingers reminded him that he was wearing his threadbare sweatpants and probably should have changed into trousers that couldn’t be slept in for this. His sweater was awful too, ugly and far too big. He should have put on one of his good ugly sweaters.

“I would like to, yes. I want to know what you think.”

Molly gave him an intrigued sort of smile, the one Caleb had seen him make when he was seconds away from playing some prank on Beau that would get his shoulder punched, like he could tell something chaotic was about to happen and was thriving off it.

Right now, the book was just plain, double spaced text, single sided printer paper, a short handful of slim paragraphs on each one that would be the words under Molly’s incredible art. Without it, it looked naked and half completed to Caleb, a puzzle with such a strange and specifically shaped gap that he’d worried nothing would fit it. Until he’d met the strange, wonderful beautiful man holding it now.

He must have known the whole thing by heart, given how long he’d been devotedly illustrating it, but Molly’s mouth still silently formed the shape of the words, his fingertip moving slowly across the lines as he read them. Caleb knew it was a necessity but there was something so beautiful about it too, the way he clearly absorbed every sweep and curl and kick of every letter in every word. The way he noticed everything. The idea of that should have and would have made Caleb feel like he was going to throw up.

And he did feel like that. But he thought it might be anticipation.

Molly slowly, carefully walked through the story of Der Katzenprinz. The little cat’s idyllic life in his kingdom where summer never ended and he knew exactly how his future would look. His friends and their simple childhood adventures in the Flower Valley, his parents always waiting for him at suppertime. And then finally, the chance he’d been waiting for, the peacock with his promises of power and opportunity, of something new and meaningful. A few lines of golden hope before it all came crashing down into betrayal and guilt and loneliness. But then, of course, the happy ending. The vast library of spells where the answer to all the little cat’s problems was just a matter of finding the right book. The triumphant return, the rescue, how it all came up good again with the removal of the one rotten player.

And then the fresh pages at the end. Molly’s pace slowed, now he was dealing with unfamiliar sentences. Caleb swallowed hard, watching his lips- painted red today- forming the words, silently but Caleb knew them well enough to hear them in his own mind.

But happy endings are never quite so simple, they can have bad days in them too. And Der Katzenprinz had those days. Some days all he could think about was how selfish and foolish he’d been and how he’d let everyone down by believing the Vulture’s lies. The weight of it would press down on him so much that he wouldn’t want to leave his bed and he’d feel that he didn’t deserve his happy ending.

But bad days are just that- bad days. And the good days would be right on their heels, where summer came back and the cardinal flowers would bloom and the birds would sing. And Der Katzenprinz had friends to help him, his mother and his father, who would help him remember that the bad days wouldn’t last.

And one day, when he was older, he had someone else too. He met his own prince and he fell in love and they ruled the Flower Valley together, side by side. The little orange cat and his own little purple Katzenprinz who could make him laugh even on those bad days.

So the Katzenprinzen lived happily ever after. Because everyone- no matter how many bad days you might have- everyone deserves that.

Caleb watched as Molly’s hand flew to his cheek to catch the tear rolling down it before it could hit the page, watched as his eyes closed so no more could fall.

He’d told himself he would wait, he would give Mollymauk time to process it, he would be patient. But the words bubbled out of him before he could stop them, the sight of those tears sparking panic, “So…what do you think?”

But Mollymauk didn’t answer exactly. He wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his oversized, richly embroidered coat and said, with a soft smile, “Can I show you mine now?”

Caleb was a little lost for words, certain that he was missing some vital piece, like he was holding a cake he’d forgotten to add flour to. But he nodded and Molly dived into the battered portfolio case he dragged around everywhere, the one that had spilled craft glue caked in the bottom and countless multicoloured smudges splattered across the insides from all the paints that had rattled around in it. He reemerged with his sketchbook, the brand new one he’d devoted exclusively to his work on Der Katzenprinz. Frumpkin had to abandon his place pressed against Molly’s leg as the book suddenly took up all of his available lap space.

Caleb knew every piece in that book. He’d spent hours across these last months just gazing at everything Molly put into it’s pages, falling in love with every single one of them. The larger more complete pages and the ones that just had fragments of character concepts and backgrounds and the same detail drawn again and again until he could get it perfect, he’d mapped out each and every inch of it. Whenever Molly had come to this strange excuse for work they had and announced he’d added more to the sketchbook, it had felt like Caleb’s birthday.

And, as nervous as he was, as close as he was mentally mapping out nearby receptacles to throw up into, Caleb felt that spark of delight again as Molly flipped to a page that had been blank before but now wasn’t. Though not by much, it was just one corner now filled with colour, an illustration small enough that Caleb had to lean forward when Molly held it out to him.

It was Der Katzenprinz, curled around another, his face relaxed and perfectly content, purring adoringly. The other cat was purple and sleek, it’s tail ended in an arrowhead and it had tortoiseshell-like patches in a bright green and blue that made them look like the eyes on a peacock’s feathers. It was nuzzling the orange cat’s cheek and their tails twined together to make the shape of a heart.

Caleb would never have taken his eyes off it if there wasn’t something he wanted to look at more. When he did, eyes moving up to Molly’s face, the tiefling’s smile was shy and hopeful.

“A little cheesy, I’ll admit,” he murmured, those tears now rolling freely down the valleys of his face, “But after the other night I couldn’t get it out of my mind…you asked me what I think? I think I really, really want to kiss you.”

That was all he had been waiting for. Caleb closed the distance between them, the one that had been shrinking slowly over the last few moments without either of them realising it. Molly’s mouth was warm and soft against his own, instantly responsive, opening for him without any hesitation. No pausing or wondering if it was a good idea, no worrying about the consequences or thinking about what would come after. No more waiting.

Because it just felt so completely and undeniably right.

Caleb’s brain was so flooded with thoughts of Mollymauk and nothing else that he didn’t realise he needed to gasp for air until Molly was doing it. And then they were just gazing at each other, in the ears ringing, ground blackened, eerie quiet moments after an explosion, holding hands and just seeing each other, everything else around them gone.

And they both burst into giggles.

They laughed helplessly until the couch under them was shaking and Frumpkin jumped off in a huff, until fresh tears were rolling down both of their faces, until their foreheads were pressed together just to keep them both upright. And when the giggles finally ebbed they kissed again, lighter, feathery kisses now in between snatched breaths as if to remind themselves that yes, that actually happened, this is actually real.

“I might not actually be allowed to put those pages in,” Caleb admitted, his voice rough and wheezing with his laughter, “Jester said we had to wait until the book came out and that might be cutting it a little fine.”

“Mm. She told me the same thing,” Molly smiled coyly, “In amongst listing all the amazing things about you and giving me a shovel talk.”

Caleb grinned at that thought, his fingers playing with Molly’s bead bracelet now without thinking, “Bless her…I don’t mind if I do or I don’t. You were the only audience I cared about for that ending.”

Molly’s smile became soft and fond and Caleb felt the sudden urge to spend days thinking of ways he could make that expression appear on Molly’s face again, “Well, I loved it. Did I make that clear enough?”

“Yes…but I could stand to hear it again,” Caleb hummed playfully, tasting Molly\s delighted laughter as they kissed, this time hard enough to press Caleb flat against the couch.

He’d thought he’d forgotten how this felt, that there would be some sense of familiarity. But he quickly realised that he’d never truly known what this was- to kiss someone you loved and have them kiss you back, a simple, soaring joy the only thing between you. Uncomplicated and pure and right, something that filled those holes inside you and made you feel more at home inside your own body. Molly was every bit as good as Caleb had been fantasising, better even. Clearly the more experienced, he gladly took the reins, pressing Caleb down gently and covering him with blissful sensations, unlocking different parts of the slighter man’s body that had been sleeping for too bloody long.

He ran his sharp canines down the seam of his neck, he tangled long, jewel encrusted fingers into his hair and pulled gently at the roots, he slid his knee between Caleb’s thighs and pressed with just the right amount of teasing force. He explored Caleb with an excited confidence that made the wizard think, with a golden thrill, that he hadn’t been the only one fantasising. Before long there were sounds coming out of his now faintly red smudged lips that would have embarrassed him if they didn’t clearly excite Mollymauk so much, sounds that were quickly going to crystallise into full blown begging.

Which was why they were grateful at least Frumpkin still had his head screwed on.

They both screeched to a halt when they saw a white tipped paw slide in between their bodies and bat at one of Molly’s dangling necklaces, Frumpkin balanced on the arm of the sofa and wading in. Caleb’s instinct was to gently nudge that paw away and find out just how many tattoos Mollymauk had under those clothes but, in the pause, his better sense had flooded in.

“We are supposed to be waiting,” he murmured regretfully.

Molly gave him a crooked smile and sat back on his heels, letting Caleb sit up, “We are.”

Caleb sighed, feeling cold without the warmth of Molly’s body over him, “And…as much as it is just us here and as much as I really, really want to keep going, I think it’s a good idea to wait.”

“Yeah?” Molly smiled, gaze travelling admiringly over a rumpled, freshly kissed Caleb, ‘I might need some convincing…”

Caleb grinned and somehow found a way to blush deeper, “Me too…but seriously, Mollymauk, if we’re going to do this I really want to do it right. I want it to work and be as wonderful as, gods help me, I’m starting to think it could be.”

Molly had that lovely, sweetly fond smile on his face again, erasing any doubts Caleb might have had, “I think so too, Caleb.”

“And…Mollymauk, I want to get better. And I’m getting there, I am, mostly thanks to you. But until this book comes out I just don’t have the time to properly work on myself and make myself the man I want to be for you.”

Molly reached over and placed a gentle hand on his cheek, “Caleb…you don’t need to be anyone but who you are. If you want to wait and you want to get better, of course that’s okay, that's what I want for you too. But we can do it together. As soon as this book comes out, I’m yours and we can do whatever you need to do and I’ll help however I can. As your boyfriend.”

The thought of changing, really, properly getting better had always terrified Caleb. He’d always told himself he was at least functional and could get by just like this, even when it was so wretchedly hard sometimes, just because trying to change who he was would be worse. He was used to endurance, to just getting by. A familiar, comfortable, well worn pain sounded better than an unknown to him.

Especially when he’d had it so much worse.

But now he tried to imagine changing, getting better, doing whatever that entailed while Mollymauk’s hand was held tight in his own. While he relied on his friends, letting them in rather than keeping them at arm's length. While he wasn’t alone.

“I’d like that,” he croaked, leaning close and kissing him quickly, a smile flickering across his face, “Just while it’s only us here.”

Molly grinned back at him, stroking his thumb across Caleb’s rough cheek before letting go, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

“So…” Caleb gave a weak laugh, realising that they were going to have to continue with a normal day like they hadn’t just had both of their lives changed forever, “Shall I put some coffee on now?”

Molly snorted, grabbing his sketchbook from where it had clattered to the floor after he’d pounced on Caleb, digging watercolours out of his bag with a fresh determination.

“Please. Believe me, these are going to be the fastest pieces of art I’ve ever done.”

Being in love was like carrying a shield.

Caleb felt lighter than he had since he was eleven. He slept easily, dreaming only of Molly’s hand on his own. He ate without needing to think, never once feeling that tightness in his throat that would always make him put his fork down before he was really ready to. He laughed often, easily, audibly, making his friends look at him with delighted surprise over lunch. And tiny things didn’t send him into spirals of panic with no logic behind them.

So when, three days after he and Molly kissed, Caleb’s phone suddenly buzzed with a text from Percy asking him to come in as soon as possible, he didn’t assume he’d done something awful and his friend was angry at him and was about to tear up his contract and say he never wanted to see him again. In fact, he thought nothing of it. He simply answered back that he would come in as soon as he was done with lunch and turned back to Mollymauk, across the table and two bowls of Caduceus’ soup of the day from him, tuning back into his story of how he managed to collapse the backdrop down onto the cast during dress rehearsal.

The usual nerves, itchy hot palms, racing heartbeat didn’t strike him even as he hopped off the subway and walked the last few blocks to the de Rolo building. He didn’t do the usual listing of ways he could have done something wrong as he rode the elevator up to the offices of the top floor. He gave his name politely to Percy’s secretary and waited the few moments as she buzzed him in, never once thinking that this was anything but a perfectly normal day.

Which, Caleb would reflect later, was bitterly ironic. It would seem that he could never get anything right.

Because as soon as he stepped into Percy’s office and saw his expression, he realised that something was deeply, terribly wrong.

He froze, every scrap of fear he’d forgotten to feel in the last hour hitting him so hard he couldn’t breathe, “Percy?”

His friend had clearly been pacing, from the way he’d halted awkwardly in front of the enormous windows. He’d clearly been running his hands through his hair, it was sticking up in odd places. And his eyes were wide, ringed in white and fearful behind his spectacles. He looked, in short, like he thought he might have seen a ghost.

“Caleb,” Percy said slowly, clearly doing his best to appear calm, to not frighten his friend when his own expression already was, “I…I’ve gotten a really strange letter.”

“About me?” Caleb instinctively put his back against the wall like a cornered animal, clinging to the strap of his book bag with white knuckles.

Percy nodded, gesturing to his desk, where a torn open envelope with a looping script and a loosely folded letter rested in the epicentre of Percy’s usual chaos, “Can you help me understand it?”

The absolute last thing Caleb wanted to do was read that letter. As soon as he laid eyes on it, it triggered the same instincts inside him that a brightly coloured, clearly venomous snake would. He wanted to turn and bolt and never stop running. He wanted never to have walked in this room in the first place.

But the next thing he knew, it was in his hands. The text was printed, harshly black against the expensive, crisp white paper, an elaborate and expensive crest printed in the corner besides an address that Caleb had stamped indelibly onto his memory. He’d used to whisper it to himself as he’d fallen asleep as a child, promising himself that he’d live there one day.

Dear Mr Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III,

It has come to the attention of our board that your publishing company is about to print a certain book and we felt you should be fully aware of who that book was written by and what it represents.

‘Der Katzenprinz’ by the individual posing as Caleb Widogast is an inflammatory book of thinly veiled accusations and lies about a trusted and well respected former member of our faculty and current member of many influential positions in Rexxantrum. Mr Widogast- as he insists on calling himself- is a criminal attempting to blame another for the atrocities he has committed, in an act of attempted betrayal disguised as a harmless children’s book.

It is our recommendation that you terminate this falsely acquired contract and more closely vet your literary clients in the future. If you choose not to take our advice and persist with aiding a mentally unstable criminal in perpetuating his lies, we will sue both your company and Mr Widogast for defamation. Under his true name, naturally.

We wish you wisdom in making your decision.

Yours,

The Board of Directors of the Soltryce Academy

On behalf of the Cerberus Assembly

Caleb could feel Percy’s eyes on him, waiting. Waiting for an explanation, something that would make this all make sense.

And he would be waiting a long time.

Seeing that Caleb wasn’t going to do anything but stand there and let his grip on the letter got gradually tighter and tighter, Percy took a step forward.

“Caleb?” the fear his expression had betrayed was leaking into his voice, “Is it…him? The man who took you out of school and had you join that special program? When we…you know, when you dropped off the face of the planet and we…um…”

I didn’t want to break up with you, Caleb thought, the words still coming through, whispered and weak, even as his brain became a silent, raging storm, I was going to make myself worthy of you. I was going to be the most powerful wizard the world had ever known. I was going to save the empire. I was going to make my parents proud.

The sudden brush of fingertips nearly stopped his heart. He whirled and realised Percy stood beside him, face tight with concern, holding out his hand. Offering it, the same way he’d offered it so many times.

“Caleb…let me help,” he begged, his voice soft and pleading, “Whatever this is, we can fix it, we’ll make it go away.”

He meant it, Caleb could see it on his face. And of course he did. Because he’d believed every lie Caleb had ever told him.

“I’m sorry, Percival,” he managed to gasp out before his throat closed up fully and became unusable, “I…I’m sorry.”

Caleb turned and ran. He felt Percy lurch forward and try to catch his shoulder but he knocked him back with a burst of power. Not enough to hurt, just enough to reel him backwards and make sure he could get away. He ignored the cry of his name that followed him out of the door.

It wasn’t like it was his real one anyway.

Some part of him, the part that used to mark every movement, to read intentions in a flex of muscle, to hunt, was aware of the eyes on him. Strange, bewildered glances from Percy’s secretary, the researchers at their computers, the people in suits with meaningless job titles all gaped at him as he tore past them but there was no part of him left to care. He just needed to get out of here.

The elevator was so slow, if he stayed still long enough for it to sink down then his heart would tear out of his chest. So Caleb took the stairs, every single one of them taken at a pace that threatened to spill him over and snap his neck. He wondered if that would be a simpler escape.

But he made it to the lobby, every nerve ending burning, Caleb��s skin warmed to the point of pain by the fire inside him and a fire outside him that was only in his memory but all the fiercer for it. More people here but he dodged past them, magic flooding into his senses to heighten them, the way it hadn’t done in years but still came naturally.

Where could he go? Where would be safe? He tried desperately to think over the clamour in his mind but it was all just frightened noise, the last panicked throes before an animal in the middle of the road went under the wheels. Where was safe?

Caleb got his answer when he finally burst through the doors and saw the figure waiting across the busy street. He saw flashes between the cars speeding past, never the full picture but it was enough. The dark robes, traditional and spotless. The long grey hair. The cruel, thin lipped smile.

Nowhere. Nowhere would ever be safe again.

Caleb tried to run, groped into the well of power inside himself for any escape route at any cost. But of course he wasn’t fast enough, he was panicking and the older, better, wiser wizard had been waiting for him.

So in the heartbeat he’d been hoping to spend running or teleporting or summoning some kind of weapon, instead Caleb was falling back against the rain-slick pavement and cowering as Trent Ikithon loomed over him.

“Bren,” the voice was still the same, time and distance and trauma hadn’t dulled his memory of it, “I wish I could say it was a pleasure to see you again.”

Caleb’s forearms itched horribly, along the jagged, poorly sewn seams. He could have sworn he felt them bursting open again.

“I won’t release it,” he gasped out, hating how thin and panicked his voice sounded as he begged, “I promise, I’ll stop, I won’t publish it just please don’t take me back…”

“As if I would,” the mocking politeness in his tone was gone and the rage bled through, lightning cracking in the grey clouds of his eyes, “I threw you aside, Bren. I sent you to the gutter and I hoped you’d have the good sense to stay there. I see not.”

The people walked past them, not even glancing at their exchange. Of course Ikithon was cloaking them. He wouldn’t want anyone to see the head of the Cerberus Assembly behaving like this, this cruelty was for behind closed doors only.

Doing this to Caleb here was just to remind him how untouchable he was.

“I’ll burn it,” Caleb moaned, eyes darting frantically for whatever pain Ikithon was silently preparing for him, “Every page, I swear. I won’t write anything ever again.”

“See to it,” his old master’s lip curled in disdain, “Hiding in plain sight was a clever ploy, a Volstruker ploy, but you showed too much of your hand, Bren. You left too much exposed, as ever. You thought I’d see this and not realise the game you were trying to play?”

I just wanted rid of the poison, Caleb sobbed inside his mind, I wanted to make sure you could never hurt any other kid who only wanted to believe they were special.

“I could have been convinced to let well enough alone. Simply sue you and leave you destitute with no choice to come crawling back to the Academy,” Ikithon sneered, taking a step closer just to watch him flinch, “But you had to go and play the hero. Now you shut up, you shut up good and tight, or I’ll do exactly what I did to you all those years ago.”

“My parents are already dead,” the words lashed out of him suddenly, before he could think better of them and bite down hard, the unfairness of it all pushing them past his lips.

Ikithon’s eyes flashed again and Caleb wondered how he’d ever thought them kindly, how he’d ever trusted eyes like that.

“No. But like I said. You always left too much exposed, Bren.”

Something flitted from his hand and Caleb nearly screamed, expecting the all too familiar lances of agony driving deep into his bones. But they never came. It was just a piece of paper that lifted from Ikithon’s fingers and settled on Caleb’s chest, carried on a breeze that didn’t exist.

He didn’t want to touch it. He told himself he wouldn’t but something yanked his hand up to grab it and bring it to his eyes. It was hard to tell if Ikithon was controlling him or his own mind was betraying him. Caleb had never been good at knowing that.

The image was blurry, it would be. Not even Volstruker would be able to find a way to take a photo through the window of a tenth floor apartment with no balcony and have it be perfect. But it was close enough.

It was sickening, seeing one of the best moments of his life through someone else’s eyes, someone who had no damn right to be there, spoiling it forever in his memory. Molly was crouched over him, covering most of Caleb, obscuring him nearly entirely but, then again, Caleb wasn’t the point.

Absurdly, he nearly laughed, watching his life unravel in a still image. And they’d been worried about his fucking publicity.

“You stop,” Ikithon’s voice was steady now, back under control, “Or I make you burn him.”

The picture was snatched back out of his hand, returning to Ikithon’s like on some kind of magnetic pull. Caleb still tried to cling to it, as futile as that was, as if he could keep the real Mollymauk safe by just holding on tight.

Or perhaps because he knew it might be the last time he saw him.

“I won’t,” Caleb gasped, trying to drag air in through a throat that had tightened to the width of a straw, “I promise, I won’t, don’t hurt him, don’t you dare hurt him-”

“Do you think you’re in a position to threaten me, Bren? Take my advice or don’t,” Ikithon’s composure nearly cracked again with sheer anger, at the gall Caleb had trying to snap back, “I’d quite enjoy showing you all the ways I could still ruin you.”

You would. And you will. It may have been a long time but Caleb knew the man looming over him, as well as that man assumed he knew Caleb.

And Ikithon didn’t need an excuse to ruin him. It didn’t need to be a lesson or a punishment or an example to anyone.

He was going to do it and it would just be for fun.

“Run along now, Bren,” Ikithon said coldly, taking a step back.

There was the smell of ozone and a slight popping in the ears as whatever magic had shielded them came down. He smoothed his robes, putting the long, cool face of the archmage back in place, drawing himself up tall and higher than anyone else.

“I hope we do not meet again,” he murmured, now low enough so no one passing could hear, “For your sake.”

And he walked away, as if it were that easy.

Caleb knew he was starting to get worried glances, still sprawled out on the pavement. He knew Percy would come looking for him soon. He knew Molly was waiting for him back at his apartment. The fragments of his old life, still clinging on even in the wake of the hurricane that had just torn through it.

His phone chirped in his pocket. It had been doing that as Ikithon had been talking but it hadn’t even registered, like it had been happening on another plane of existence. But when Caleb dug into his pocket and checked it, a reflex now, there was an avalanche of panicked texts from Percy.

And one from Molly.

Percy called. I’m here for you, Caleb. Please let me help.

Caleb could only think of that picture. Their first wonderful moment together, Molly arcing over him, protecting him. Shielding him. The way Caleb knew he would, if he let him.

So he couldn’t give him the chance.

I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.

He sent the message and clutched the phone tight in his hand, sending a pulse of energy through his palm that fried the battery in half a second. He left it where it clattered to the floor, blackened and smoking. Only then, with that done, did Caleb find the strength to get up and walk away.

Nowhere would ever be safe again but that didn’t matter.

Because Mollymauk would be.

#author au #widomauk #caleb widogast #mollymauk tealeaf #modern au #it's the classic penultimate chapter angst sorry guys #please leave a comment!

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raelikestoramble · 3 years

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yesssss, I'm still trying to recover from the finale... Can you do an story w Eddie pining for Buck after his break up w Ana? Like he releaized his feelings for Buck after getting shot and almost dying but Buck is together w Tyler? Please and thank youuuu

AN: Sorry, this got away from me and I wrote more than I thought I would! Thanks for the great prompt, I really loved it but wasn’t sure where to take it, so a lot of this is Eddie’s internal thoughts. Hope you still like it!

Eddie hadn’t meant for it to go on for as long as it did. Truly, he hadn’t – time had a funny habit of slipping away from him as of late; in his recovery, what mattered most to him was getting himself back to normal – or as close as he could ever return to, given what he had been through – and keeping life as stable as possible… for Christopher. No big changes, no upsetting surprises.

That thought did little to ease the lingering sense of guilt, though.

It had been only a few days since Eddie finally sat Ana down to, as delicately as he could, say that their time together was coming to a close.

She had been so lovely about it, too, because that was her nature and it had made having to break it off worse, almost. Ana was kind, sweet, understanding – perfectly nice – and, for all those reasons, she deserved better, a lot more; someone who was completely in it for her, as invested in her as she was in them. He didn’t always realise it, but he knew for a while before he broke it off that he couldn’t be that person for Ana. In time, another would be. He was sure of it.

He had felt, much to his embarrassment, tears burning his eyes as he explained to her that he entered a relationship with her for the wrong reasons… and that he had so much to figure out about himself. She had clasped his hand in hers, gave a watery smile, and told him that she understood; she had even reassured him that it was all okay and he didn’t need to be too hard on himself over it. It was the most amicable split he could’ve imagined happening. With guilt, came the sweetness of relief, an acute light feeling that he didn’t notice was missing for the longest time.

And then, once that was over and the dust had settled… he was free. Free to… wallow, he supposed, in what he had realised weeks ago, because there was nothing that Eddie could do about it.

He remembered how it felt, being disoriented, in pain, slipping from consciousness, with those blue eyes boring into his, wide and frantic, as Buck fought hard for him, for his very life. How it felt afterwards seeing his face come into view from around the corner, smiling at him with such a genuine and unfiltered joy. Warmth, safety, and happiness – because Buck was family, that much he had decided to make official in a legal tie a year ago.

It was the overwhelming feeling of love, and relief in seeing him safe, unharmed and by his side the first chance he got, that sent Eddie’s mind reeling and down a path he couldn’t back out from. Buck was all of that to him, and more, and the feeling of longing had burrowed into Eddie’s mind, becoming a nagging and persistent sensation that made him feel… sick, flustered, and even morose.

Love – romantic and sexual love - for Eddie had always been a struggle, had wound up feeling oddly… unnatural, as though he was following the expectations of others, or his own idea of familial obligation, rather than his own heart. He was chasing something that, by all accounts, should have felt right, but with Ana… and even with Shannon, it was wrong; it all fell flat in some way. Finally becoming aware of the different light in which he saw Buck in was like a piece of himself just clicking into place; he felt whole, finally.

It was more than a little inconvenient, though, realising that he was in love with his best friend… someone that he happened to see pretty much every day, either at work or off shift. His very straight, very happily coupled up best friend. It was a lot to wrap his head around.

Of course, Eddie was being very mature about it, something he could find a small bit of pride in – because he knew he needed to get over this, to respect Buck’s happiness, his relationship with Taylor, and not ruin their friendship by foolishly expressing what he really wanted. That was the respectable, adult thing to do. So, he kept his desire quiet, and he tried his best to be the good, supportive friend Buck knew him to be, but… in a small way, he had pulled back; he knew he had. Sometimes, Eddie was allowed to act to protect himself; allowed to be a touch selfish. To get over it, he needed a bit more space than usual. It was only fair.

“Eddie,” came Hen’s voice unexpectedly; he picked up instantly on the concerned undertone.

From the corner of his eye, he could see her furrowed brows and the frown lines on her face. He wished people would stop looking at him like that – like he was to be pitied, like he was still injured and helpless. The whole team all went through their fair share of ordeals… it seemed part of the job description, but there was something about the sniper targeting them that unnerved everybody more than anything else that they had faced before. It had struck Eddie’s core, too, and brought up a lot of ugly, old wounds - he was giving therapy another try because of it… and it was going better than it had before, to his surprise.

It had been months since he was shot, significant progress had been made, but there was still an unspoken tension in the firehouse at times. It was especially bad with Buck – he had pulled closer than ever, always happy, eager even, to offer his support and help in… everything, which made Eddie’s need for maintaining some space between them all the more difficult. It also gave him a sliver of hope, and that was a dangerous thing. He had grown too dependent on Buck; he had someone else to share him with now, he thought with a pang to his chest.

“Yeah?” he returned tiredly after a delay, still staring ahead.

His gaze was fixed on where Buck was sat a small distance away with Chimney by his side, his head thrown back laughing in a moment that ought to be captured in a photograph – oh, and how that beautiful, jubilant sound leaving his mouth twisted mercilessly at Eddie’s insides.

“You’ve been moving that piece of pasta around your bowl for the last ten minutes.”

“… So I have,” he sighed, letting his fork clatter against the plate in defeat.

He’d barely touched his lunch, but his appetite had been culled. Buck’s voice was loud – it carried effortlessly across the room. So, he easily overheard Buck responding to Chimney bringing up the topic of Taylor, and it was… embarrassing, the impact it had, how easily it soured his mood.

“Is that all I get? It’s ‘going well’?” Chimney exclaimed, nudging Buck’s side, a teasing grin on his face. “C’mon, Buckley. We usually can’t get you to shut up.”

Buck laughed bashfully and lifted his head up, almost catching his eye, but Eddie averted his gaze just in time to miss it. He could’ve sworn that he caught the sight of Buck’s smile faltering. He shook his head, working to tune out that conversation as best he could.

“You know… it’s okay to need more time. If you’re not ready to be back yet, no one will think less of you,” Hen suggested hesitantly, voice soft.

“No, it’s-- not that. I’m glad to be back. This is where I need to be,” he said simply.

Eddie didn’t like where this conversation was headed – but none of it broke through to his expression, and so Hen pushed on, sympathy etched into her features.

“Then… tell me what’s bothering you? You seem down, Eddie – a lot, lately – and I can’t sit here and act like I’m not worried.”

Had it really been that obvious? It was like he, a man in his thirties, had been rendered a hapless, lovestruck teenager – with how he let his feelings for Buck affect him so obviously that Hen had not only noticed but grown worried for him. It was so tragic he could almost laugh.

“Mm, I have a therapist for that,” he said with a wry smile, but instantly regretted it as he saw how Hen leant back in her seat, lips twisting into a frown.

She was trying to help, to be a good friend, and he was dismissive of her attempt right away. His tendency to try to avoid more heavy, emotional talks was one of the issues brought up in therapy and he really was working on it, but it felt impossible, in that moment, to tell the truth, to speak the words aloud to somebody else. Even though he knew Hen would, without a doubt, understand and keep his secret for him – that it might even help for her to know, as awkward and humiliating as it might be at first.

“Sorry. I just…”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He dared to look back over to the corner where Buck was – now, he was showing Chimney pictures on his phone, which were undoubtedly of him and Taylor. Jealousy welled up inside of Eddie, burning hot, and another sigh fell from his lips as he lifted a hand to run down the side of his face. It wasn’t getting easier, only more frustrating.

When he glanced back at Hen, she was already watching him, an odd look on her face, eyes slowly widening. Realisation had already dawned before he could interject and divert the conversation.

“Wait. You-- Buck--?” she started.

Panic enveloped Eddie and, before she could go any further, he abruptly sprang to his feet, hands clasped together.

“Coffee?” he asked loudly.

Without waiting for her to give an answer, he made his escape, darting over to the countertop where the coffee pot was located. After a short pause, he noticed that Hen had made no effort to follow him, because – of course she hadn’t. What was he expecting? Her to run after him, get him into a headlock until he confessed to the revelation that he had that he was head over heels for Evan Buckley? No, this wasn’t a playground. He needed to get a grip.

His shoulders slumped as he expelled a heavy breath out into the air. He gave himself another moment, to allow his heart to stop pounding wildly in his chest, before leaning up to grab a clean mug from the cabinet.

“That was awful,” he muttered to himself, swiping his favourite from the shelf.

“What was awful?” asked Buck, suddenly, appearing at his side.

“Oh, God,” Eddie jumped, and the mug almost slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor.

Catching it and clutching at it, Eddie gave a breathless laugh.

“Nope, just me,” Buck countered, popping the ‘p’, with a toothy grin on display that caused Eddie’s stomach to start doing flips. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

Eddie’s expression softened, the hints of anxiety vanishing from his face as he lowered the mug to the surface. He reached for another, automatically, eyes still on Buck. He really was beautiful to look at, all bright, excited eyes, soft dark blonde curls, and crooked smiles – and what was most unfair about it all was that his good looks weren’t the most beautiful thing about him by a long shot.

“I’ll let you off the hook,” he grinned.

Buck leaned forward and his shoulder brushed against Eddie’s, sending a jolt through him that made him step back, the contact quickly lost. Fortunately for him, Buck didn’t seem to have noticed anything.

“So, anyway, I was wondering – you got any plans tonight?” Buck asked cheerily.

Eddie was slow to smile again, but he did, because he knew what he was about to do – give in, so easily. Space was important, but… so was spending quality time with loved ones. He could practically hear his therapist’s voice offering him encouragement.

“I think I have a spot open in my schedule,” he said slowly, giving the impression of nonchalance.

“Great! What do you say to joining me and Taylor out for drinks tonight? You could bring Ana. I think it’d be good for them to start to get to know each other better, don’t you?”

Eddie’s heart sank in his chest, eyes closing for a few seconds before he plastered a placid smile to his face. Disappointment was such a bitter taste, and… he really needed to get around to telling him about Ana. Even if he and Ana were still together and he could agree to this double date, the thought of watching Buck and Taylor together for a whole night… well, he could think of a long list of things he’d rather do instead.

“Actually, I don’t think I can – I don’t know how it slipped my mind but, after my appointment, I promised Christopher that I’d spend the night with him…”

He felt bad using his own son, someone Buck loved dearly, as a shield, but it had to be done – Buck wouldn’t question anything if it was done for Chris’ benefit.

Buck’s smile strained, and there was a look in his eyes that Eddie couldn’t quite place. He dropped his gaze to the floor, and Eddie caught his lower lip between his teeth.

“Well, what about next Friday?”

“I can’t—”

“Man, I… Eddie, have I done something?” Buck interrupted; brows knit together in worry.

“Sorry?”

He looked vaguely embarrassed – and was that a pink tinge to his face? Surely not. No, Eddie was seeing things he wanted to see. He didn’t want to play that guessing game anymore, reading into every little interaction they shared, for some kind of sign. It was exhausting.

“It’s just… I don’t know, you’re a lot busier than before, maybe, but things are definitely… different. I—miss you,” he admitted sheepishly.

Clearly, this had been bothering him for a while now, and Eddie felt stupid and cruel for ever thinking that Buck wouldn’t notice that he was limiting their time together, even if only by a relatively small amount.

“Things are different,” Eddie explained carefully, trying to figure out his wording. “It makes sense that we, er, aren’t spending as much time together, because…”

Buck waved a hand.

“I know I’ve got Taylor now and you’ve got Ana, but that doesn’t mean that—”

“Buck, I ended things with Ana,” Eddie cut across impulsively.

There was an incredibly still moment that followed, and a tense quiet descended upon them, the only sounds the muffled comings and goings and odd background chatter from their other teammates. Buck’s lips parted and he appeared to be frozen as he slowly computed this information, and Eddie was almost scared to move – to break the spell.

It was getting alarming, and Eddie was about to wave a hand in front of his face, until finally he returned to reality, snapping back with a quiet and bemused, “Wait, you did what? … Why? You two seemed so happy. I thought you… that’s why…”

Eddie shifted uncomfortably, taking in a breath as he turned to properly face Buck again, making direct eye contact. Buck wet his lip, a crease forming in his brow. Eddie wanted nothing more than to know what was going through his mind, but he was at a loss this time. Usually, he could read him so well.

Eddie shrugged – an attempt in vain to still appear casual. He knew he was way beyond that point now.

“I realised she wasn’t the one for me. And… I know everyone says it, and us first responders more than anyone, and we still sometimes forget to actually live by it… but life really is too short to spend with the wrong person. I owed it to her, and to myself, to end it.”

Buck blinked rapidly, and, really, Eddie couldn’t understand why this was all coming as such a shock to him. Had he really expected he and Ana to go the distance? For him to settle down with her?

“Eddie…”

“Yeah?”

Then, the wailing of the siren pierced through the air; whatever question had formed in Buck’s mind would have to remain there, until another time.

#buddie #buddie ficlet #buddie fic #911 spoilers #eddie diaz #henrietta wilson #evan buckley #911 fox #answered prompt

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bizlawgal · 3 years

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I got a prompt I would like to share 😊. Emma flirts with norman everyday. From the smallest ways to the most cheesy pick up lines. Then, why he doesn't understand? Most of the time he just blushes looks to other side and then changes the subject. She feels really stupid and embarrassed and now she has to explain it to norman. EXPLAIN SOMETHING TO NORMAN omg.

I’m bad at pick-up lines, so I hope I somehow had given justice to this prompt HAHA.

It’s been a week since she last visited.

But instead of the friendly blonde she’s come to know, her eyes immediately fall on someone’s silver hair from the counter.

He looks up from his desk, and she can already see in his eyes the wonder in the form of azure and carnation.

"Good morning, miss," he casually greets with that ever-endearing soft smile he serves his guests. "What can I do for you today?"

She comfortably presses her elbows on top of the counter, instantaneously taken by him.

Just calling him handsome is an understatement.

"Oh, nothing. Just glad to see a friendly face in the morning."

He looks surprised with the comment, but hedges forward with what he's trained and paid to do. "This library certainly has a lot of friendly faces."

"Oh, I wasn't talking about the others," she implies without a second thought, "I was talking about you. You must be new here."

"Y-yes," he stutters, something he's not proud of, especially when he's talking to a rather lovely guest that he's seen for the first time.

"Whenever I check out a book, it's always that pretty blonde who always assists me. Have you seen Anna?"

There's a joyous vibrato to how she says it like she's telling a story to a friend, heightening the glistening of her eyes.

He blushes at the sight of her, so he offers an explanation to her question to keep his expression neutral. "I'm sorry. Anna resigned a week ago, so I’ll be solely in charge of everyone’s accounts. Is there anything I can help you with now?"

"Oh, I see.” She nods her head in understanding. “Anyway, I'm Emma, and the only thing you can help me with now is telling me your name."

She's interesting, he thinks. "I'm Norman. Do you have any questions I can help you with?"

Satisfaction crosses her face and he instantly ponders as to why her smile feels like the sun radiating on him.

"Okay, Norman. I have one question," she says with her playful eyes that implies to be too endearing at the same time. "Do you believe in love at first sight or should I come again?"

II.

"You're early today, Emma," Norman says as soon as he catches wind of her from the corner of his eye.

She merely whistles a tune, faint sounds of footsteps making their way towards him. "I'm always right on time, you know."

"It has only been seven minutes since we opened up the library." He raises an eyebrow, skepticism covering his face. "Don't tell me you're here to lounge around? Did you always do this when Anna was around?"

"And if I did? I'm bored, Norman," she remarks in the tone of a whine. "Is there anything I could do while I wait for you to finish?"

He draws an exhaustive sigh at the dilemma in front of him. She's been visiting for straight days over the last two weeks, and all she's ever checked out was a single book. Norman can't decipher what has gotten this young lady visiting the library so often.

But he won’t deny the exhilarating feeling of knowing that his company is something that she’s keen on having.

She may just be a lost soul looking for ways to entertain herself in the vastness of this city's library.

"If you have no plans to check out a book, at least take a seat in one of the available couches. I'll attend to you shortly."

Emma seems satisfied with the idea. She merrily makes her way to the nearest couch and comfortably settles herself with its backrest.

Not even a minute longer, Norman feels the piercing stare emanating from his back. His keen senses are to thank for, and clearly, it was sharp as a dagger since he instantly comes in contact with her eyes.

"You're staring," he simply reckons.

"No, I'm not." She doesn’t even deny it.

It's taking everything in him not to blush and be conscious of her gaze that is enough to question a man of his current stature.

"Yes, you are."

"Hmm, really?” She rubs out both of her eyes and blinks excessively at the ceiling. “I think there's just something wrong with my eyes."

Norman places the book he has on hand in its proper place and goes ahead to check on her condition. He moves closer to get a good view of her face when he asks, "What's wrong with your eyes?"

And when he's close enough that she moves her lips to his ear and whispers, "I just can’t take them off of you."

III.

It's been a month since Emma started invading his professional space of employment. He has no qualms about it, yet her presence has been, in more ways, confusing than comforting.

Aside from her lack of tact and overwhelming recklessness, he has nothing to complain about.

Except for her outrageous pick-up lines.

Some are cheesy. Others are funny, and most of the time, it ridiculously just takes his breath away.

"How much does a penalty cost when I fail to return a book after its deadline?" she asks him from the counter on a Saturday.

He shakes his head in amusement. "Are we talking about that engineering book that you've failed to return even after my countless reminders?"

"Maaaaaybeeee," she chimes back.

"It'll be a dollar if we're counting for nearly a month of its overdue fine."

"I see you’re good with Math," she ponders for a moment, the side of her lips twitching for a smile.

"I’m fairly good with numbers," he informs back while encoding the newly-released textbook on his laptop.

"I’m no mathematician, but I’m pretty good with numbers, too! " she points a finger at him, "Tell you what, give me yours and watch what I can do with it."

Norman nearly chokes on his own saliva.

IV.

He likes her.

He likes her enough to the point that his head immediately sways to the door the moment it opens; to the point that her laughter brings him an immeasurable amount of joy by just hearing it; and, to the point that he wishes time would stop so that he'd get to hear more of her little pick-up lines.

So when she steps foot inside the library for today, all his attention is remotely diverted to her.

"Good morning, Norman," she greets enthusiastically from the door, a bright mop of orange hair blossoming from her back and a grin to match the glee in her eyes.

Norman instantly sprints to meet her halfway, but loses his balance and falls flat on the wooden floors.

Emma quickens her pace to assist his sorry state. "Norman! Norman! Are you okay?"

"I-It's nothing," he groans the words out, "The floor must've been slippery."

Emma gives out a peal of low laughter before placing his right arm over her shoulders and supporting him to stand up. "You know, you should be careful where you fall."

Norman senses that it's going to be another one of her pick-up lines so he listens attentively, despite the searing pain on his chin. "And where do you suppose I should fall?"

"You may fall from the sky, you may fall from a tree, but the best way to fall… is in love with me," she ardently chants as they walk side by side to a vacant seat.

He bites the insides of his cheeks because this is the best one he's heard from her yet.

It's closing time and Emma has taken it upon herself to help him return every borrowed book to its proper placement on the shelf. She’s been awfully quiet, Norman internally infers, with the way she shoves the books back with less delicacy than the previous ones. Her eyebrows are knitted into a frown and her lips are sullen into a pout.

If she doesn’t appear to be vindictive about something, he thinks it’s an adorable expression out of her.

"Norman." Her voice is stern and less cheerful than the usual, and it makes him pause for a moment. "You look smart enough to me."

"So I've been told."

"But, why are you dumb?"

This statement makes him stop altogether. "I am... what?"

"I think you're dumb," she emphasizes without averting her gaze.

He doesn't even take offense since this is the first time she used such a tone against him. "How am I dumb?"

"Because!" she crosses her hands to her chest in an offensive stance, "I've been flirting with you for over a month, and you always seem to brush me off. My brother said that saying pick-up lines are a good way to go! Is it not working or are you just dumb not to notice?"

Emma is too free and direct — unbound to any chain from halting herself from freely speaking her mind. Her intentions are too pure for his sake and it's taken him more than a month to come up with a response.

"I'm not dumb, Emma," his voice is low and raspy against the stammering of his heart.

She appears taken aback. "So, do you know I'm flirting with you?"

So blunt, yet so efficient. "Yes, I know."

"Do you... not like me?" The will to look at him is gone, only replaced by uneasiness and dejection. “I can stop if you don’t —”

His grin won't falter back, so he allows it to creep into his lips. She's been making too many obvious attempts for him not to notice for over a month and it's high time he returns the favor.

"I like you. It’s just that... I’ve never liked a girl before. I’m sorry if it looked like I wasn’t interested. But — " he takes a step closer to reach for her braid, “I really like you, Emma. You and your silly pick-up lines.”

Her eyes blow wide open with hope. Her hands are balled into a fist with evident shaking from elation. "You do?! You really do?!"

“Do you want proof of it?” he asks coolly as he possibly can.

She nods like a little child that is about to be handed a candy.

He closes a bit of the gap between them, with one hand snaking for support at her back, and the other raising her chin to meet his lips.

If she’s good with swooning him with words, then he may as well do the same. "Can I borrow a kiss? I promise I'll give it back."

#noremma #the promised neverland #tpn emma #tpn norman #ray is the brother ok #emma is so smooth #norman the librarian!!!#noremma prompt

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adventuresloane · 3 years

Text

The Wanted (Revised Hurloane Fic) -- Ch. 4

“They had nearly as many names as they had stories told about them. Ram. Raven. Red. Devil. Deputy. Outlaw. Short ‘n Long. Ghosts of the Rapids.”

Hurley’s a bounty hunter, the Raven is an outlaw, and the desert is a lonely place.

(The 50k+ Old West Hurloane AU Where Hurley Becomes A Thief Too that no one asked for. Updates every Friday. Edited and reposted from an old version of the story��more significant changes to come in later chapters. T for non-graphic violence and discussions of death/injury/trauma.)

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"Absolutely no way."

"Oh, yes."

"Nope. Nope. You can't possibly hit that thing."

"Bet you anything I can."

Sloane snickered. "I'll take that bet. That bird is at well over a hundred meters away, faster than shit, and you're going at it with a goddamn revolver instead of a proper hunting rifle. Not possible."

"Shh, don't let it hear you." Their heart pounded against the ground like a closed fist as they lay flat on their belly, fixed on the roadrunner. Without thinking about it, they did what they always did, tilting the gun up an inch for every twenty meters. Just like hitting clay. They aimed for the question mark-shaped neck. Next to them, Sloane, meanwhile, had rolled onto her back with her hand flopped lazily over her stomach. Her neck was arched all the way back to look at the bird with a droll grin. She was looking at the thing upside-down. What did she know anyway?

"It's not gonna hear shit from this distance, which is, I'll remind you, very fucking far," she said.

"It could! You don't know!"

"You manage to hit that thing, I'll eat my ha--"

They shot, and the bird dropped with nary a squawk.

Hurley popped up from the ground. First they smiled at the still dark lump on the ground very fucking far in front of them, then, without changing their expression, turned to a gaping Sloane. When she glanced their way, they raised their eyebrows and swung their revolver by the trigger guard, back and forth, on one finger. Admittedly, they made a show of milking it.

She snapped her mouth shut and narrowed her eyes. Then, without so much as a sigh, she removed her hat, walked over towards the unlit fire pit, held it for a moment over the skillet sitting nearby, and, with a certain solemnity, dropped it.

They laughed. She didn't, but she smiled in this particular way they had come to recognize, where she wrinkled her nose, as though it were a grin repurposed from a failed sneer.

"I'll go grab the bird," they said.

She watched them the whole time they were walking back. When they got close enough, they could see the studying glint in her eye, her head cocked.

"Hey," she said. A second later, she tossed an empty can into the air. They drew and picked it off, hearing the satisfying tang as the bullet connected.

They took a moment to watch it fall to earth, diverted from its original course, before looking back at her. "Whoo!" They pumped their fists in the air, despite the fact that a carcass still swung from one.

She chuckled. "Damn." Holding her hand out toward the bird, she said, "Give me that." When they handed it over, she started plucking the feathers.

"You don't have to do that."

"It's fine. You ever had roadrunner before?"

"Nope. Have you?"

"Oh, a few times. It's alright."

"So you've shot them before!" They sat beside her cross-legged to watch her work. "Why were you giving me shit about it just now?"

"No, I've only trapped them. Just a few times, when I'm away from any towns for a good long while."

"Isn't that harder?"

"Yes, which is why you should be impressed." She glanced at them, then went on, "Also, I'm a terrible shot. Things look blurry to me when they're at that distance away, so there wasn't much point in learning."

"Really?" As her words sank in, they felt their previous excitement congeal in them like a blood clot, stopping them up. They wondered if she might be lying, but they weren't good at spotting that kind of thing in anyone, least of all her. She had not tensed or looked away as she had spoken, at least that they had seen. She just kept pulling the feathers. Anyway, it would have made for an odd thing to lie about in this moment.

The number 113 flashed through Hurley's head over and over. Abernathy had been shot from 113 meters away, the distance from the door of the bank to the general store's porch. Her bad sight and the clean gun and the fact that--they could tell--she hadn't thought to shoot when she had gotten caught. Her reaction to simply hitting Hurley in the nose. Would the law know all that? Would it care? It wasn't what one would call hard evidence, certainly nothing capable of proving her innocence, but it didn't add up. What did it mean to bring her back to a Goldcliff unaware of such things?

They didn't ask all that. Instead, they pushed past the stewing in their guts to ask, "Are you often out here for a long time?"

She shrugged. "Depends. Sometimes I have a harder time getting some sheriff off my trail, and I have to hide out here a little longer before I go back to a town. I can be here for a few weeks without much of a problem." She cocked her brow at them and jabbed, "When I'm prepared."

They flicked a spot of dried mud from their boot. "That sounds lonely," they said in the most neutral way they could, which was probably not very.

She snorted. "No. The quiet's nice out here."

Hurley looked around. "I think I agree. It's funny. I didn't like that about it when I first got out here, but being in a place that's sort of...stuck out of time, that's a nice distance to have."

"You can disappear, yeah." She passed the featherless carcass to them, and they began to slice its belly.

"I wouldn't want it all the time, though. Eventually I think I'd want someone around."

"I don't like answering to anybody."

"I'm aware of that," they said with a grin.

"Well, do you? 'Cause you seem like you'd rather be the person people answer to."

"Do I?" They paused when their knife was partway through the thin, shining muscle under the skin as they held the bird over the dead charcoals. The blood rose up out of it and dribbled onto the ashes, so that it would be soaked up. "I don't think it has to be about answering to anyone. You can just be with people."

"Where'd you learn to shoot?"

"Well, when I was young, maybe seven or eight, my mother--"

"Oh, gods."

"Hey, do you want to know or not?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's just I should've known you'd make it something sentimental." She gave them a flippant wave while still looking down at the roadrunner. Hurley chose to be optimistic and assume that was her version of a joke. "Go on."

They huffed. “Well, I’ll make it quick for both our sakes, I guess. I was gonna say that my mother always told me I thought with my belly.”

“Huh. Rude.”

“No, she didn’t mean it like that. She meant I listen to my gut before anyone else, including her, or my own brain. Like how I’d go running out the door in my underwear to frighten off the foxes if I thought I heard them near the chickens. I was maybe three when I did this, I should mention.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

“Anyway, finally Mom decided that if I was going to keep running into things without thinking about them, I might as well figure out how to protect myself while I did it. I started off with a slingshot when I was maybe seven, but I wanted a gun before long. She managed to put off giving me one until I was, oh, twelve or so.”

Sloane chuckled. “Very irresponsible. I love it.”

“Hey, at least she found someone to teach me before she let me lay my hands on the thing myself. I’ve been practicing ever since.”

“I can tell.”

“Yeah.”

It was some time before either of them spoke again. Several times, Hurley took in a big breath to speak, held it and let it grow hot and tight inside their chest, and then let it all out. The sun had melted into a band of fading yellow on the horizon.

Finally, they said, “Hey, let me switch out your shackles.”

They went to chain her ankles so that they could remove the irons around her wrist, but she rolled out of the way at the last second, flopping onto her back. “Nah, don’t feel like it,” she answered, playing up the lazy tone.

Hurley snorted. “Don’t be an ass, come on.”

This time, she flipped over onto her belly, still skirting just out of reach. Her head was in her hands as she fixed them with a playful grin. “You gotta catch me first if you want to do that, Red. I thought you were good at that.”

They stared her down and made a point of being unsmiling. “Sloane, it’s got to happen eventually anyway.

The smile slid from her face fast. She cast her eyes down to the ground. When she finally let them approach, it was while she was turned away from them and looking out to the fading light. She had closed.

Over the nearly three weeks that they had been on their own together, this was what Hurley had come to dread far more than the dark of the nights and the heat of the days. It was the feeling of collapse, of having to knock down something that they had built up themself. Because they could almost pretend, before they remembered the chains again. It seemed, sometimes, that she almost forgot them as well.

They had been sleeping closer together lately. On a particularly cold night, Sloane had even conceded to being under the same blanket with them, so long as Hurley kept their hands curled up against their chest. But it wouldn’t be tonight, regardless of how much either of them shivered.

#for christmas i would like comments <3 #hurloane #taz #the adventure zone #taz fanfic #the zone cast #taz balance #hurley #sloane #the wanted

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5minutefanfiction · 4 years

Text

Pranks

Here you go, My Lovelies. I hope you enjoy it. You can find my

Masterlist

over at my author blog on wordpress. Sorry that you are being diverted, but tumblr still haven’t fixed the issue with links on my page.

Bec xx

Pranks

(Dean x Reader)

Word Count: approx. 5,000

The scream tore through the bunker, echoing off the walls. Dean shifted in the chair, picking up the iPad and flicking through to the next screen. Any other time he would have gone in, weapon drawn, game face on, ready to kill the bastard that caused it. But not today.

Sam ran into the room, panic stricken, gun raised. Her scream had forced ice through his veins as it rippled through the corridors. He looked around the room, muzzle moving with him. There was nothing here. Nothing but Y/N, standing pushed up against the wall, her body stiff, her chest heaving, her skin that white there was no colour left. He could see tears streaming down her cheeks and watched as she tried to push herself further backwards.

Long gone was the tough chick the boys hunted with, the 5ft 2inch hunter that killed with no remorse, that could take out Olympic gold in shooting, and could easily put him on his arse in the gym.

‘Y/Nny?’ he said softly, lowering his gun he moved towards her, slowly raising a hand. ‘What’s wrong?’

She tried to talk but couldn’t, he watched as she started to hyperventilate. He followed her eyes and swore silently at what he saw on her bed. He raised his gun once more and moved slowly to the bed, gently leaning forward he gripped the sheets, throwing them back and taking aim, prepared to shoot it before it moved.

‘It’s fake,’ he breathed.

He picked it up and turned to look at her watching as a sob caught in her chest. He dropped it, pushing his gun into his waistband and pulling her into a hug.

She collapsed against him, as he held her tight.

‘Breathe, Y/N/N. You need to breathe,’ he prompted gently, as he could feel her struggling to pull air into her lungs. He gently brought her to the ground as he looked her in the eyes and spoke to her. Sitting with her as she rode it out…

Dean grew restless in his chair. It had been almost an hour since the scream. It didn’t normally take this long. He glanced up at the doorway, wondering where she could be. He heard footsteps and quickly turned back to the iPad, trying to act casual. He cried out as something hit his face, looking down he saw the fake snake he’d placed in Y/N’s bed. He smirked and looked up, waiting for the bitch fest, the argument, and all that followed. This had to be his best idea yet.

‘You’re a douche,’ Sam growled.

‘Where is she?’

His brother stood silently, he looked his him over, his jaw and neck muscles were so tight he thought they would snap, his fists clenched, his shoulders tense. His shirt…Dean looked at the dark grey patches on his brothers once light grey shirt.

‘Tell me she didn’t cry?’ Dean gasped.

Sam didn’t say a thing, he just glared at his brother. He’d never wanted to hurt him more than he did right now. He turned away from the man he once looked up to and walked back through the bunker towards his room. He couldn’t believe his brother had been so stupid. And to do it now. The last hunt was bad, really bad- for all of them. And Dean’s just used the worst of it to take part in his favourite game, annoy the shit outta Y/N.

He listened as the water moved through the pipes, at least she’d made it to the shower. He looked at the clock, she’d be a while, hopefully she’d have calmed down a bit more by then.

He thought back to the hunt. The witch had managed to trap them, lock them in separate rooms and use their worst fears against them. For Sam, it was killer clowns. For Dean, he relived his time in the pit torturing people. For Y/N, it was snakes. Sam leant back against the wall and closed his eyes as her screams echoed through his mind. He and Dean could hear her from their rooms. By the time they got to her it was almost too late. The snakes were a hallucination, but her reaction wasn’t. Deep scratches and cuts covered her body as she tried to rip the snakes off her, her body was shaking that badly she couldn’t stand. They found her struggling to breathe curled up in a corner, hysterical. Much longer and he honestly thought she would have been scared to death. Literally.

Dean sat in the chair staring after his brother. He’d made her cry. That wasn’t what he planned, it wasn’t what he wanted to do. He thought she’d be pissed sure, but then she’d get over it, see the funny side. Something. But not that.

He lost track of how much time he spent watching that door. He couldn’t take it anymore, he got up and walked through the bunker to her room. Her door was wide open, bed empty. He continued through the halls looking for her, listening for any sign of life. As he walked past Sam’s room he could hear soft murmurs. He sighed and made his way back through the halls towards the kitchen. He pulled a beer from the fridge, removing the lid he threw it across the kitchen, downing almost half the bottle in one hit. He heard a noise and looked over to the kitchen door, watching as Y/N stumbled to a stop. His heart broke when he saw her. She took it way worse than he expected. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face streaked with tears and blotchy. He could see her still shaking under her sweats. He felt terrible.

He watched as she spun on her heel and walked out. He slid down the wall, burying his head in his hands. Nothing he did was right. Nothing he said came out how he meant. All he ever did was screw things up. He thought back over the past few years, since she’d came into their lives. She wasn’t a talker, not unless she had to. She was quiet, strong and independent. And it bothered him. She didn’t come to him for help, she didn’t stay up talking, or sing loudly to the radio. She didn’t share stories of her childhood. He wanted to know more about her, but every time he tried to ask her something he fumbled it up or cracked a joke that she didn’t find amusing. The worst part, approaching her. She was so far out of his league that she shouldn’t even be in the same state, let alone breathing space. He’d never met anyone before that made him feel like that. He thought back to that first time he’d helped her, they were on a hunt researching in a library and she asked him to get something off a high shelf. The smile he got when he did it, the laugh over her height. It was the most relaxed he’d seen her. A couple of weeks later she had a flat and asked if he could help change it as her jack wasn’t working properly, that smile reappeared again and they had chatted for hours. Come the next day he struggled to say good morning. He found if she came to him he was fine. So, from then on, he’d do things that meant she had to come to him, for help, with a question, a complaint, anything that brought her to him. The snake, well she was meant to come running, either yelling or scared. That backfired. He rose up off the floor and locked himself in his room.

He came out the next morning, yesterday’s clothing wrinkled and still on, hair messy. He decided he’d tell her, explained everything, apologise and beg for forgiveness. He walked down towards her room, finding it empty. Nothing changed since yesterday. He moved through the bunker and found her curled up on the sofa asleep. He grabbed a chair and sat it down on the other side of the coffee table, watching her, waiting for her to wake.

She stirred, and Dean started to second guess himself. She wouldn’t want to talk to him, she wouldn’t care what he had to say. He rubbed his hands along his legs and he tried to man up and face her. He pushed himself up and was about to leave when he saw her Y/C/E’s open. He watched as she blinked sleepily, he froze unable to say or do anything. Her face changed and she got up and walked out.

Dean sat at the table with Sam sifting through news reports, looking for a case. His brother was back to talking to him again, but only when he had to. And he refused to discuss Y/N. Y/N though, she wouldn’t even be in the same room as him. He heard a noise and looked up to see her walking into the library.

‘Sammy? You ready?’ she asked, quietly.

He watched as Sam nodded and packed up the papers and laptop.

‘What’s going on?’ Dean asked his brother as he watched Y/N carefully.

He looked her over, leggings, oversized shirt and riding boots, her hair hung around her face, she wasn’t hunting.

‘Just having a look at something,’ Sam told him.

‘Hunt?’

‘No.’

Dean looked at Y/N, watching as she stood quietly, looking at the table. Silently begging her to say something to him, start a conversation so he could respond.

‘You need help?’ Dean asked, still talking to Sam but watching her.

He watched as her face changed. For a second he was hopeful. She walked out towards the garage, slamming the door behind her.

‘She’s never going to talk to me again, is she?’ he asked quietly, fighting back tears.

‘Probably not.’

‘I didn’t mean…I just wanted her to talk to me,’ he whispered.

Sam watched him, his brow furrowing. Dean sighed and explained it, watching as sympathy crossed his brother’s face. He felt Sam’s hand clamp down on his shoulder and squeeze before following Y/N out to the garage.

‘Sammy?’ Dean called.

His brother turned and looked at him hesitating as he glanced towards Y/N.

‘You and Y/N?’

‘Friends.’

‘Think she will listen and understand if I explain?’

Sam looked at him and Dean could see the hidden tears in his brother’s eyes, ‘Before the last one, yeah.’

Dean closed his eyes and swore, listening as the garage door creaked, closing shut. An engine roared to life and he listened as Y/N’s car drove out of the garage and away from the bunker.

Dean struggled with what to do next, how to handle it. He decided to try, even if it was just for her to be ok being around him again. He wrote her a letter, explaining everything, apologising for being a douche, begging for forgiveness. He walked out and walked through the area around the bunker collecting wildflowers. Sure, they weren’t roses but he hoped that didn’t matter. He tied them into a bouquet and placed them on her bed, before moving back into the library.

He listened to the sound of tyres on gravel and knew they were home. He waited, counting the minutes waiting for them to come inside. He heard the front door open and tyres move across gravel once more.

He looked up at Sam and frowned. Y/N wasn’t anywhere near him. He watched as his brother looked at him sadly.

‘Sorry, man,’ he said quietly as he walked by.

Dean jumped up, chasing him down. Sorry? Why was he sorry? Sam sighed and explained as gently as he could. Y/N had shifted into her own place, she couldn’t take Dean and his pranks anymore and emotionally was needing time out. Dean begged him for her address, for where he could find her. But Sam shook his head. He wasn’t allowed to say. Dean pulled his phone and tried calling her but her number was disconnected. He swore and walked into her room, looking at the large bunch of flowers. He picked them up and almost threw them but decided against it. He gently replaced them onto her bed and walked out. Even if she came back for something at some point and he wasn’t here, she would know, hopefully.

Weeks passed by and Dean hated not having her around. He hated himself for causing her to leave. He had come to learn she was living in Smith Centre, he had her new number and address. He’d hacked Sam’s phone to get it. He stopped himself a dozen or more times a day from chasing her down.

Sam packed up and left for the day, Dean watched sadly as his brother left to go spend time with Dean’s dream girl. As night fell he grew concerned, Sam should have been back by now. As the sun came up his concern grew into jealously. He drank and paced unable to believe his brother would do such a thing.

As the third day passed, Dean’s jealously changed back to concern. Sam wasn’t answering his phone, neither was Y/N. He jumped into the impala and tore along the highway, pulling up out the front of Y/N’s apartment. He ran up the stairs and banged loudly waiting for her to answer.

He watched as the door opened, and Y/N stood there in front of him. The emotions that crossed her face, changed quicker than he could recognise. She went to close the door but he jammed his foot in the way, blocking it from shutting.

‘Sammy’s missing,’ he blurted. It was the first time he’d ever spoken to her directly, spoken to her first.

He watched as her face changed, she moved to one side letting him in.

‘He came to see you three days ago. I haven’t seen him since,’ Dean explained, running a hand through his hair as he paced her living room.

‘Did he mention the demon to you?’

‘What demon?’

‘I found a hunt, he said he’d take care of it. I figured he’d get you before he left?’

Dean shook his head and watched as her delicate features screwed up as she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She handed Dean the carton of Chinese that was in her hands and walked into a small room at the back before coming back in. She spread the contents of a folder out across the kitchen bench. Dean stood next to her reading over her shoulder, trying to concentrate on the hunt and not the smell of her hair.

She explained to him what she knew, where she thought it was located. It was a cross roads demon making deals with hospital patients.

‘Looks like it’s been doing it for years. I’ve been tracking the deaths of patients these past few weeks.’

‘How the hell did you find out about this?’

‘I came across a body on my run,’ she said quietly.

‘Ok, so we go in and try and find the demon, or proof that Sam showed up.’

‘Dean,’ Y/N hesitated. ‘I’m out. I haven’t hunted since I left the bunker.’

Dean frowned at her, he didn’t think she’d ever give it up. ‘You do realise this is Sammy we’re talking about. Your best friend and my brother. I don’t care what you think you did, you’re back in.’

He watched as anger flickered in her eyes.

‘I know damn well who it is, and I’m pissed with myself for giving him the details, but I’m not up for hunting,’ she snapped, walking off into another room and slamming the door, leaving Dean staring after her. That wasn’t like her at all. He couldn’t think of a time she wasn’t up for a hunt. Usually the boys would have to threaten to handcuff her to the bed if they didn’t think she was up for it. Christ, she’d once gone in to fight a pack of vamps with a dislocated shoulder.

Dean looked over the papers once more, placing them down on the table as he went in search of Y/N.

He opened the bedroom door and looked at her as she sat on the edge of her bed. Her face buried in her hands. He tried to talk but couldn’t. She eventually looked up at him and sighed.

‘What?’

‘It’s my brother, Y/N. I can’t…I can’t lose him. I’ll go alone, but he might need help and I can’t save him and kill this thing. I’m not asking you to fight. And I’m not asking you to do this for me. Hell, if it was me there, I wouldn’t expect you to be within 100 miles of me. Not after…’

She looked up at him, her face set in a stone-cold glare. She was still pissed.

‘It’s Sam,’ he whispered.

Y/N sighed and nodded, reaching under her bed and pulling out her hunting bag. Dean left her to change, preparing himself for the hunt that was coming. Praying that his little brother was safe. Praying he’d get the chance to make the bastard suffer for what it had done.

The climbed cautiously out the impala as they reached the abandoned warehouse, Dean watched as despite Y/N’s protests about coming, she switching from retired to hunter mode the moment they arrived. Her eye’s darkened, her body on alert, her hands shifting the demon knife to get a better grip. She was back in the game.

The two moved quietly around the building assessing the best entrance, best way to get him out. Dean’s heart lurched to his throat when he saw Sam crumbled on the floor in a pool of blood.

‘He could still be alive,’ Y/N said quietly.

Dean nodded, struggling to calm down. He just watched the body, hoping for some kind of proof Y/N was right. He felt her hand close around his and squeeze tight.

‘It’s Sam, he’s a fighter. He’ll be ok. But you need to pull it together before we go in.’

Dean closed his eyes and took a minute, taking a deep breath as he focused on saving his brother. On Y/N’s hand around his. He opened them again and glared into the room. On the fact that now not only was his brother in danger, but also the woman he loved. The demon was dead.

‘Let’s go,’ Y/N told him.

As they snuck into the warehouse, Y/N made her way towards Sam, as Dean worked through several low life scum demons as he attempted to reach the leader of whatever sort of douche bag squad they were facing.

He heard a noise and spun watching as Y/N dropped a demon, its eyes flaring like a fire pit as she killed the evil within.

She dropped to the ground and searched for a pulse as Dean turned his attention back to the demon he was hunting. Sam was in the best hands he could be right now. The reassurance allowed Dean to focus on what had to be done and take the bastard out.

‘He weighs as much as an elephant,’ Y/N sighed, as she collapsed into a chair next to Dean. The two had finally managed to get Sam into the bunker and into his bed. Given his size and weight it wasn’t an easy task.

‘No kidding,’ Dean groaned, rubbing his arms. ‘Next time we leave him.’

‘Or use a wheelbarrow.’

Dean snorted, that could work. Y/N took a deep shaky breath and settle back into the chair, watching Sam quietly. Dean looked at her, he wanted to apologise, to talk, to say all he needed to but he couldn’t. The words still wouldn’t come. He glanced over at his brother and then a Y/N, before making up his mind. He pushed himself out of his chair and left the room, walking through the halls until he reached her old bedroom. He picked up the dead, dried flowers from the bed and the letter, hesitating briefly before walking back into Sam’s room.

He held them out for her, watching as her brow furrowed in confusion.

‘Ah…?’

‘TheywerefreshmonthsagowhenIpickedthemforyouI’msorry,’ he blurted the words coming out so fast, it all become one word.

Y/N raised an eyebrow and took them cautiously. Dean found himself nodding, she took it. That was good. She would read it. She would understand. She would-.

His train of thought was broken as Sam let out a groan. Y/N shoved the flowers and letter to one side as she jumped up and help Sam sit up. Checking him over.

Unfortunately, Sam didn’t remember much. Just going to check the hunt out before calling Dean and getting jumped. He’d come to a couple of times but was always knocked out.

Dean and Y/N left him to sleep and Dean watched as Y/N glanced over at Sam before looking at her watch.

‘I should go. Let me know how he goes.’

‘Stay,’ Dean said quickly. ‘It’s late. Your room’s still there.’

Y/N hesitated and Dean sighed.

‘I won’t do anything,’ he mumbled.

She nodded reluctantly and walked off towards her bedroom. It wasn’t until the door closed and he heard it lock that he realised she never even read his letter. He looked over at the envelope and flowers, heartbroken. He’d never get a chance to say he’s sorry properly.

He picked the two up and walked down the passage, placing them by her door, before heading off to the viewing room.

He sat in the dark, the only light was the soft glow coming in from the next room. He’d been there a while, as he contemplated everything. As he tried not to cry. As he tried to stay in control.

‘I should explain things,’ Y/N’s voice broke through the silence, causing him to jump a mile. He was so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t even heard her approach. ‘I don’t do pranks. I don’t find it funny how people get kicks at other people’s expense.’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Dean cried, ‘I never-.’

Y/N brought her hand up to stop him as she sat down on the coffee table opposite him.

‘I know that now,’ she sighed. ‘My parents weren’t conventional. They were twisted and mentally screwed up. They never beat me, I was fed, clothed, given an education. But they thought it was funny to scare me, to watch as I was humiliated by yet another of their jokes.’

Dean frowned at her, unsure where this was going.

‘The balloon in the birthday cake when I was four, the pile of cracker cords in one Christmas cracker, the hot sauce instead of medicine. Pretending to be an intruder in the middle of the night wanting to kill me.’

She shifted, tugging at the sleeves of her shirt as she dropped her eyes to her lap.

‘Their favourite though, that was dad’s snakes.��

Dean froze suddenly, he could hear the fear in her voice as she spoke. The pain. And he felt so guilty. All he wanted right now was for God to smite him. To throw a lightning bolt and explode him into a million pieces.

‘When I was little, one of his pythons got out and wrapped itself around my neck. It did a bit of damage, I couldn’t eat solids for a while, I lost consciousness and well it wasn’t pretty. I became terrified of them. But instead of getting rid of them, they thought it was a good idea to show me they were harmless. Leave them in my bed, my toy box, my school bag.’

Dean gaped at her, unable to fathom how a parent could do something like that. It explained so much about her fear, her reaction, what happened in that room during the spell.

‘At 12, I was training in our pool for a swimming competition, when he threw it in the pool with me. I panicked and swallowed a lot of water, ended up with secondary drowning and they had to call an ambulance in later that night.’

Dean’s fists clenched against his side as he fought hard to control his breathing.

‘Anytime someone started to put two and two together, anything someone questioned what was happening, we moved. If I told someone, we moved. Then they’d use Fluffy, to show me there was nothing to be afraid of. I’d wake up to it sliding over me, to it wrapped around my leg or my arm. And it wasn’t just the one. By the time I left, he had nine. Nine snakes they locked me in a small shed with and told me I had to learn to get along with.’

Her whole body trembled as she took a deep breath.

‘When I was 15, we went camping. I was bit by a snake and almost died. I still have the scars on my ankle from it. It didn’t matter, dad just said I needed to learn which were poisonous which weren’t. It wasn’t the first snake bite I’d had, but it was the worst.’

‘Jesus,’ he whispered.

‘They left me home once I was released from the hospital. I found my dad’s gun and shot each and every one of his damn snakes. It was the closest I’d ever voluntarily got. And the one thing I’m proud of. I then took their stash of money and left.’

‘You’re parents?’

‘Died a little over a year later from a drug overdose.’

Dean watched her, not knowing what to say. He never expected to hear that. He never even dreamed of a person having a life like that.

‘So yeah. That’s why I hate pranks, why I was, still am, not ok with the last one. Why the witch was able to get to me like she did,’ Y/N explained as she fought back tears. ‘I’ve tried hypnotherapy, shrinks, conquering my fear. None of it helped. I’m royally screwed up and it’s my biggest fear and even thinking of them can set off a panic attack.’

Dean dropped to his knees in front of her and pulled her into his arms as the sob broke through her walls.

‘I am so sorry. I didn’t know. If I did I wouldn’t have.’

‘I know,’ she sobbed as she tried to calm herself down as she cried into his chest.

‘I didn’t relive the pit,’ Dean admitted as he ran his hand over her hair.

‘What?’ she blubbered.

‘My fear, it isn’t the pit. I can handle that. My fear was seeing you put in there. Watching as what they did to me, they did to you. I couldn’t stop it. I was chained to the wall. I…,’ his voice broke as his whole body shuddered. ‘I can’t handle seeing you hurt, seeing you in pain. I’d move mountains to stop it. Die if I had to. I don’t care what. But I’d stop it. One way or another. That, there, I couldn’t do a damn thing,’ he growled, still angry at the witch for making him watch. And himself for not being able to stop it.

Her tears started to soak through his shirt as they continued to fall. Her hair grew damp under his face as his own tears fell, coming to rest on her head.

Neither spoke again. Neither was able to. The night’s revelations opened wounds, revealed secrets, changed everything.

Dean reluctantly let go of her to go check on Sam, before coming back in and finding her asleep on the sofa. He sat on the floor next to her, resting against the arm of the chair as he left himself drift off.

The next morning, Y/N squeezed Dean’s shoulder as she got up, waking him.

‘Hey,’ he greeted huskily.

‘Hey.’

‘You good?’

‘Yeah. I think. I’m sorry about last night. About the tears.’

‘You don’t need to apologise, Sweetheart. You had every right. Christ, Y/N, I wouldn’t blame you if you cried yourself to sleep every night. No one deserves that.’

She gave him a sad smile and walked of out the viewing room, leaving Dean wondering if he’d said the wrong thing. If he’d screwed up again.

She came in about 20 minutes later, with two coffees in hand, handing one over.

‘Sam seems to be ok.’

‘Yeah, thank God.’

‘So I’m gonna head off after this. I need to shower and change.’

‘Will you be back?’

Y/N shrugged as she stared at the coffee cup in her hands.

‘I wish you would. It’ll all stop, I promise. I won’t do anything like that again. Just come back, please. It’s not same without you.’

‘I don’t know, Dean. I just, being on my own… I feel…I’m better alone.’

Dean sighed and nodded, ‘Can I visit? You visit? Whether you’re back hunting or not?’

She gave him a small smile and nodded. Dean brought his cup to his lips as he tried to fight back a grin and failed. That was better than he could ask for. So was the fact that he was able to talk to her a bit easier. He drove her home in silence, saying a quiet goodbye as she got out the car. He promised to keep her updated on Sam. Inviting her back for dinner on the weekend. Smiling widely as she agreed.

Over the next few months, they visited a lot. The boys stopping by when they left or returned from a hunt. Y/N going on the odd hunt with them. She was more relaxed around them than she had once been. She was more relaxed around Dean. The two had started to talk, he found himself able to initiate the conversation. He found her laughing more.

As they sat on the sofa, watching late night TV. He found himself glancing over at Y/N, often finding she was glancing at him. The small smile that formed when they first busted each other only grew as the night went on.

‘Does your offer to come back still stand?’ Y/N asked quietly as Dean turned the TV off.

‘Always,’ he gasped.

She nodded and stood, leaning down and kissing his head, ‘Night, Dean.’

He grabbed her arm, holding her centimetres from his face, ‘Tell me you’re coming home?’

‘Tell me you still want me here.’

‘Not a second goes by that I don’t,’ he whispered.

She gave him a one sided smile and went to pull back, but his grip held firm. He watched as she swallowed and shifted in closer as she placed a light kiss on his lips. She went to pull back when he pulled in closer, kissing her as he grabbed her waist pulling her into his lap.

‘No more pranks?’ she breathed against his lips.

‘No more pranks.’

‘Then I’m coming home.’

Tag List: @thegreatficmaster, @torn-and-frayed, @hamartiamacguffin, @illisea, @gabavaldman, @tornjeansandabrokenheart, @msimpala67, @raylin19, @kgbrenner, @thatfangirl42, @theskytraveler, @upon-a-girl, @wishedworld, @scamanders26newtcase, @shamelesslydean, @calaofnoldor, @stylesismyhubs, @mrspeacem1nusone

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armorbirdpress · 4 years

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Armor Bird Reviews: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - A One-And-A-Half-Year Retrospective

If you have been following my writings and ramblings and original works and DeviantArt favorites for long enough, you'll know that I am unashamedly a dinosaur fan - I never outgrew the phase because despite what people have told me both online and off, palaeontology, like other sciences, is not specifically a child's thing - obviously dinosaurs are cool, but there is a lot of technical stuff that you'd need college degrees to understand in the field, too. While I certainly am a stickler for accuracy when it comes to dinosaur portrayals, however, I am also not ashamed to admit that I have a love for fictional portrayals of them as monsters, too. Jurassic Park, which was - for its time - pretty much a reconciliation between the "prehistoric monster" imagery of dinosaurs in popular culture and the latest discoveries about the actual fossil animals during its production, is my favorite movie of all time, partly for this reason and partly because there's a lot of depth and sophistication to it as well - a sophistication that modern movies seem to be utilizing less and less. Even the Jurassic Park franchise itself was not immune to this trend, and although it still remains my top favorite franchise of fictional media, the changing conceit of what audiences want in an entertaining film has dragged it along for as much of a long and bumpy ride as just about everything else Hollywood has to offer. Still, even in spite of it all, there are a lot of things to like about the sequels we got since that groundbreaking original - I'm admittedly one of those people who actually enjoyed Jurassic Park III, though in fairness I was too young upon first watching it to really pick it apart and analyze its numerous flaws, and I also heaped a lot of praise on Jurassic World upon my first review of it... in hindsight, perhaps a little generously. Although I won't pretend that everything since The Lost World (including TLW itself) is flawless and that the complainers are wrong, even the infamously controversial JP3 had some enjoyable moments in its own right, despite being seen by many as the worst installment of the franchise by quite a margin.

Which leads us to the most recent film of the franchise, 2018's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

I had intended to review this movie for a good, long while - back when I was a more prolific writer I used to write film reviews shortly after seeing the movies in the theater, though schedule concerns have obviously made that too difficult. But there's a silver lining here, in that by not reviewing a film I've seen until much later (...well, much, much, much later as the case may be), I have the time to really sit down and think about what made the movie tick or not, and oftentimes have come down from my rush of excitement by the time I actually get off my tail and write the review itself. There are exceptions, of course, with certain films actually leaving me disappointed as soon as I left the building, but these cases are mercifully rare. I'm happy to say that despite being horrendously imperfect, Fallen Kingdom wasn't one of those cases. I was genuinely entertained by it more than 50% of the time - which is, for better or for worse, the highest compliment I can give the film because, as we shall see, in some ways it really is quite terrible.

As always with my movie reviews: SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!

I watched Fallen Kingdom twice since its release - first in the theater at my home town, and then on rental DVD - and both times, my impression was the same: this movie, in retrospect, plays out much like a big-budget, cinematic fanfiction of the Jurassic Park films or even of Jurassic World (the latter of which I actually consider darkly hilarious for reasons that are highly specific to me exclusively, which you'd only understand if you know what I've written in the past - I'll get to that shortly). This is perfectly understandable, seeing as the director, screenwriter, and production crew have changed considerably from the team that helmed the original trilogy during the ten-year gap between JP3 and JW. Even if the work is canon, it's essentially someone else taking a look at the original franchise material, picking out what they liked about it, and building an original story off of it, oftentimes borrowing characters from the original work and inserting them in (most notably Rexy, and yes, I consider her as much of a character as the humans she menaced in the original movie). Across the board, in all kinds of franchises, this approach tends to fall flat if you don't know about the original work, though I do have to say that there was one very notable exception in the case of Jurassic World, that climactic fight scene with the Indominus rex, which is my favorite part of the movie even if it isn't entirely perfect. Now, I realize that I'm being a bit of a hypocrite by saying that these films are imperfect, because almost a decade ago, a friend and I co-wrote a megacrossover fanfic where Jurassic Park was the most prominent franchise by quite a margin (and didn't even start out that way to boot - my own selfish preferences caused elements of the franchise to slowly bleed in until a recycled plot of the second and third movies took over the whole thing). What makes it truly embarrassing to me is that the fic didn't even need the series' involvement in the first place, and my choice to shove it in anyway was one of the numerous factors that led to it going completely off the rails and turning into a tremendous tangled mess of clumsy writing and mishandled characterization, not just with JP itself but with almost all of the dozen other continua that got dragged in as well. Obviously, the fact that Fallen Kingdom is restricted by its very nature as a sequel to the one franchise only thankfully precludes the sheer absurdity of what my co-writer and I had inadvertently wrought back then, but upon rewatching the film I couldn't help but notice that in a few ways, it does ironically come off as being quite similar to my own old shame, albeit coincidentally, though it still earns points for choosing to be a Jurassic Park/World film and sticking with that conceit, rather than an entirely different film with JP elements shoehorned into it. I've harped on my stupidity as an immature fanfic writer back in the day for long enough, I think, but I felt this was worth mentioning regardless, because like the fic I touched upon above, this is a work I only started having issues with long after the fact, but these days I can't unsee these issues now that I've considered them.

One of the biggest things that stood out to me regarding Fallen Kingdom was that no matter how you slice it, it was trying to be two films at once, and had less time for both than most would have desired. The first half of the movie concerns Isla Sorna being destroyed by a volcano, and everyone trying to get the dinosaurs off of it before they are rendered extinct once again, with another island being noted as their new sanctuary (though of course, one of the antagonists quickly screws that plan over, but more on that later). You could easily make an entire film out of that - exploring the island one last time, dodging potential threats from both the volcano and the dinosaurs themselves, and coming to terms with the fact that not every creature can be saved, and that the end is coming for everyone eventually. The scene with the Brachiosaurus being overtaken by the eruption, with its plaintive wails and iconic rearing silhouette, is proof that such a moral could make a solid closing for this kind of movie, and heck, you could even have the subplot with the executives hoping to exploit the dinosaurs bleed into the movie until, at the very end, you get a scene where their true intentions with the animals are revealed as a sequel hook, rather than being resolved over the course of like half an hour or so in a rushed manner that gives people too little time to consider the implications. And this brings me to my next point.

Remember what I said about that dumb fanfiction I co-wrote having the elements I personally wanted more than my co-writer did slowly fester in true plot tumor fashion until they took over the entire story like literal cancer? As it turns out, what I witnessed in Fallen Kingdom wasn't quite as ridiculous, but kinda sorta similar in its own way. Obviously, Fallen Kingdom isn't so audacious (or ignorant of copyright laws and plain old common sense for that matter) as to let an entirely different franchise stage a gradual hostile takeover of itself, but the somewhat cliched plot of capitalist exploitation being the absolute worst roommate imaginable with a whole franchise's worth of temporally misplaced creatures that can and will kill you if you look at them funny - already done in both the original movie and TLW, and to some extent in JW as well, but still relatable in our current social climate even after so much repetition - still manages to... well, stage a gradual hostile takeover of the movie, and enforces itself in full force during the remaining third or so of the runtime. The antagonists, a pair of cartoonishly evil and somewhat flat executives, sabotage the plan so that the dinosaurs are diverted to the Lockwood Mansion instead of the sanctuary island, and then things escalate when the prototype Indoraptor is bought in and, inevitably, raises hell for everyone involved. As with my previous pitch, the idea of bidding wars over the dinosaurs and the moral debate over the ownership and exploitation of living creatures - something which does happen in the real world - could have made for something interesting, again, if the script wasn't so rushed. Continuing where the hypothetical sequel hook left off, we could open with a discussion between the villains about the implications of what they are doing, followed by the heroes having to deal with the ramifications of such actions along with the involvement of Dr. Wu, the Indoraptor, and of course Blue as a potential prize-winner. Of course this runs the risk of becoming the original Jurassic Park except on the mainland, and thus not really trying anything new, but it could at least give audiences the time to digest the film and appreciate the moments where it makes a genuine impact, even before the dinosaurs end up getting released into the mainland like what happened in the movie itself, complete with the insane amount of ramifications thereof. The Stygimoloch plowing its way through the bidders on its way to freedom was almost as cathartic for me to watch as the climactic fight in JW, and I wish it could've gotten more screentime, or even plucked up the guts to fend off the Indoraptor in a situation that doesn't seem forced, e.g. the hybrid and the Stiggy getting trapped in the same complex, or even Owen luring it over as backup (which is stupider but, given how he got it to bust him and Claire out in the movie itself, isn't entirely unreasonable). As for the Indoraptor itself, I feel like they could have done a bit better with its design, as even underneath the paint job and altered proportions it's still more or less "Indominus 2: Genetic Boogaloo", as I have called it at least once. Still, it has its own appeal as a monster design and, if it weren't for the presence of similar-looking creatures in previous installments of the series, it would certainly have made an impact as a monster. It's almost wolf-like in movement and mannerisms, even werewolf-like, which is intentional given the vintage horror movie homages the production team was going for. The way it menaces Maisie - who has her own set of plot-related craziness to her, but that's a can of worms I'd rather not open - makes you worry for her life, and even fear for Blue when she engages it in battle. I know I'm one of those who actually prefers antagonistic Velociraptors (the inaccurate variety from the films, not the smaller and fully feathered real-world version which I would absolutely take home with me if I could find a way to retrieve it from Cretaceous Mongolia and have it housetrained and okay I'll stop now), but Blue as always is awesome, and after seeing her actually manage to hold her own in her fight against the Indoraptor if only for a short while, there's no denying that anymore - even if that scene with her outrunning the explosion in the boiler room is a bit over-the-top even by the standards of this movie. There is of course no way a spectacle-driven, plaid-speed-paced romp like Fallen Kingdom could surpass the bar set by The Big One and the legendary kitchen scene, but on its own merits, the Indoraptor is a wonderfully serviceable and formidable threat that I just wish could've gotten more screentime and room to develop as a character, rather than just remaining as an unhinged killing machine that exists just to terrorize everyone before exiting the film (the same is true for all the dinosaurs here besides Blue, really, which is sad because, again, I much prefer when films develop monsters as characters rather than mere plot devices). With a little more design work to make him stand out more among the other critters in the franchise and more time to explore his nature, he could easily have become almost as iconic as The Big One as movie monsters go, or at least as much as the I. rex, though the latter bar is admittedly a good deal lower in the wake of how the movie industry has, ahem, evolved.

With that thought in mind, I will now spell out the biggest problem I had with this movie: the fact that it was trying to do so much in such a short space of time. Humorously and ironically, I know almost enough about the issues with my own writing to recognize the signs of that, with significant events being spaced too close to each other, too many characters at once (though admittedly, Zia and Maisie are a treat to watch, Franklin a bit less so but far from unbearable for my taste), and at least one questionable decision on the part of everyone at some point or another, up to and including the writers. There are a lot of things I liked, but not enough time for me to let them sink in, like I was being bombarded with one spectacle after another. It feels like overkill more than anything, and alas, far too many films in recent years have tried to shove that method into people's faces as though trying to say, "Here's your action, here's your fanservice, here's your whatever the whoopity-freaking-doo you consider entertainment, are you happy now?!" (Well, not quite as vitriolic and sarcastic, but you get the idea.) If the filmmakers and the owners of the franchise rights had been willing to accept four movies in the newer series rather than just three, and let Fallen Kingdom be broken up into two separate, slightly slower-paced movies, the problems with each individual portion would likely not have been as significant, and audiences would not have noticed them so readily. Sadly, though, the rapid-fire, dozen-blockbusters-a-year rush-job environment of the modern movie industry was not kind to this film, which is a crying shame. We need more movies that are more relaxed and subdued half the time, the way the original JP film was, and while audiences may have to take the time to once again get used to movies like that, I think it would be a welcome change of pace from the current influx of chaotic, nonstop slugfests and pyrotechnic displays we've become so familiar with.

In tl;dr form, it is with a heavy heart that I have to say that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is, in fact, the worst film of the entire Jurassic Park franchise, even more so than JP3 - though don't get me wrong, as with JP3, I still very much enjoyed it as its own movie, as clumsily handled as it was at times (though even then, the movie itself isn't entirely at fault for it). There's a difference between a movie being the low point in its franchise and a low point among movies in general, a difference which a lot of reviewers need to understand before taking an undeserved dump over movies that could've been so much better if Hollywood had worked just a bit differently. You have to actually try to make a work of entertainment media I consider genuinely terrible, and it was actually a relief to me that even the lowest points of Fallen Kingdom still ranked somewhat midway between "meh" and "shakes hand eeeeehhhhhh" from my own subjective standpoint. I truly hope that the next and presumably final JP film will turn out for the better, especially given that Alan, Ellie, and Ian are all slated to have major roles in it, but I'm not going to dismiss Fallen Kingdom off the bat just because of the issues I have with its writing. If nothing else, it's a perfectly decent popcorn flick with prehistoric monsters in it - and hey, that was pretty much what everyone was there for, wasn't it?

Grading Scheme:

96 - 100: A+

93 - 96: A

90 - 92.9: A-

87 - 89.9: B+

83 - 86.9: B

80 - 82.9: B-

77 - 79.9: C+

73 - 76.9: C

70 - 72.9: C-

67 - 69.9: D+

60 - 66.9: D

Below 60: E

Grades:

Writing: 6

Characterization: 6

Pacing: 7

Creativity: 8

Consistency: 8

Cinematography: 9

World Building: 7

Music and Sound: 8

Effects: 10

Engagement: 9

Final Grade: 78 (C+)

#Armor Bird Reviews #Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

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hinshinotsuki · 4 years

Text

🖤 Switched 🖤

***

(F/N) looked at all the people around her as they, too, looked at her.

Who could blame her or them for that matter? For, after all, she stood out like sore thumb.

It all began the next day when she woke up. Her eyes, upon opening against her own will, saw the same rustic ceiling, just like yesterday. She rubbed her tired eyes, wishing that this whole ordeal was just a long nightmare. But, upon opening them once more, unfortunately, she was as wide awake as anyone can be.

She sighed and finally got out of bed, finding her clothes neatly folded on the table beside her bed. Even her signature high heels were on the foot of the bed. She dressed up, carefully folding her hospital gown and putting it on the table. She wore her shoes, thinking it was a miracle that the water did not damage the very expensive pair in the least, and the same could be said with her dress. She walked idly around, looking for a mirror, and when she did find one, she stared at it and noticed the large bags beneath her eyes. Upon failing to find a hair brush, she began combing through her tangled tresses with her fingers, carefully untying the knots.

It was then that she heard a knock on the door. And before she could even let the visitor enter the room, it already opened the door and let itself in.

"Oh, hi there." It was the woman named Hange. Apparently, she doesn't know anything about privacy or space. "Had a good rest?"

"No." (F/N) answered, and it was the truth.

But, to this, Hange just laughed. "The others are waiting. Let's go."

And so, (F/N) let herself be accompanied by the woman towards the cafeteria, where a lot of people were already having breakfast. And the moment she stepped into the noisy and crowded room, numerous eyes noticed her. Some were about to greet her, but stopped upon seeing her. They remained still as she passed them. Some even gave her strange stares.

Oh, my God. She thought as she followed Hange.

But, it seems that Hange was unaffected by all of it as she arrived on the counter to get themselves a meal.

"Good morning, Sectio - " One of the Cadets in charge of the meals was about to greet her when she saw her companion. It was a tall teen with a long face and small eyes.

"Good morning, uhh,..."

"Jean Kirschtein, Section Commander." The teen provided his name.

"Oh, yeah. Good morning, Kirschtein! Two, please." Said Hange, then flashed him a quick smirk. "One for me and another for Squad Leader (L/N)'s twin sister - "

"Twin?!" (F/N) uttered, startled at what she just heard. This made everyone, including Kirschtein, to look at her with suspicion.

However, Hange just laughed the whole situation off. "Oh, you, you're so funny,..." she said and took (F/N)'s right arm, pulling her towards the farthest table she could find, away from the recruits' prying eyes.

"What was that for?" (F/N) asked as she was forced to sit on a chair.

Hange just smiled at her, having a seat and never taking her eyes off her. "I messed up, big time,..." she whispered more to herself.

"What do you mean by that?" (F/N) asked, growing more and more impatient by the second.

At this exact moment, all eyes were drawn to their vicinity. And at that exact moment, (F/N) realized that she stood out like a sore thumb among the people inside the cafeteria, who all wore similar 17th century something peasant clothing.

She cleared her throat, getting really nervous all of a sudden, and tried to divert her attention from the curiosity of the people, who started whispering at each other.

She moved closer towards Hange and said in a whisper, "Where exactly am I? If you don't mind me asking,..."

"Oh, not at all." Hange whispered back. "Well, seeing that you really have no idea what this place is or - "

"No!" (F/N) savagely interrupted Hange in a whisper.

"Okay! Okay! You are in Trost District, south of Wall Maria."

"Okay. And since when did Trost City become the center of Paradis' Renaissance period fair?"

"What did you say?"

"Renaissance!"

"No! Before that."

"Paradis? Aww, come on! Don't tell me you forgot the name of the country."

"Paradise, what?!"

"Excuse me, ladies?" Both (F/N) and Hange slightly jumped from their seats, startled at the interruption by the same Cadet earlier. Jean was slightly surprised upon seeing this and just shrugged it off, handing them two trays of food containing their forgotten breakfast. "Here. You forgot to pick this up."

"Thank you, Jean." (F/N) said, gaining a strange look from the Cadet, who realized that he was just called by the bossiest Squad Leader in the Scouting Legion by his first name. His eyes widened for a fraction a second, then returned to normal. He smirked, nodded, and walked back towards the counter.

"Really?" Hange muttered after the teen left.

"What?" (F/N) asked, who eyed the really plain breakfast with a scrutinizing eye.

"Thank you? As in, thank you?"

"Why? What's wrong with that?"

Hange took her spoon and pointed it at her strange companion. "(F/N) never once expressed gratitude, let alone say those exact words you just said." the bespectacled woman said, then swallowed a spoonful of pale soup. "It's just like," she took the hard - looking bread then took a bite. "You're a completely different person."

(F/N) raised an eyebrow and returned her gaze at the breakfast. She took the bread first and almost gasped - it really was hard. "Maybe because I' am. And maybe you are, too. I mean, look at you," she bit the bread, not bothering to tear it into pieces, and instantly regretted her decision. "You have long hair, and your chest is big, and you look flat, I mean, down there,..."

"So, does that mean that Hans is a male?" Hange asked curiously.

"Of course, he is! Unless, he is hiding something from me, then,..."

"REMARKABLE!" Hange burst out, gaining the attention of all the people in the room. (F/N)'s heartbeat increased upon the reaction of her companion and tried to calm her down. The people, on the other hand, just went back to their meals upon realizing that it was just Hange and her sudden, crazy outbursts.

"I'm surprised you remembered Hans,..." (F/N) told her after Hange calmed down.

But, then, (F/N) immediately wished for the excited Hange to return, for the woman began smiling at her like a mad scientist. A really, really mad one, at that.

"Of course, I did!" Hange answered her. "And all the other things that happened last night. You see," she said, then gulped down another spoonful of cold soup. "Last night's events had me thinking."

"About what?"

"You! I was thinking that you really are not what you used to be. But, then, after analyzing all the words and stories that you said, the clothes that you wear, and that long, black, shiny, mirror - like thing that you have - "

"Wait a second here, YOU HAVE MY CELLPHONE?!"

"Sshh!" It was Hange's turn to calm (F/N) down. "Alright, I took it! But it was only for experimental purposes, I didn't mean to use it,..."

"I swear, Hange, or whatever you are called, if you break it, or scratch it in the least - "

"I did not! Okay?" Hange said, successfully calming (F/N) down, and returned to their topic. "So, as I was saying," she grabbed the bread and took a huge bite out of it. "Upon analysis of all the things that you have, I assume that - "

(F/N) slowly looked at her, waiting curiously at her huge reveal. "Go on."

Hange gulped down and closed her eyes. And when she opened them once more, they were filled with excitement like that of a child's, who was about to open a Christmas gift from a really wealthy person. "(F/N), I' am a hundred percent positive that you came from another world."

(F/N) absorbed what Hange just said and just chuckled. "I was beginning to think that, yes. Unless, you are pulling some elaborate prank on me,..."

"We're not! Anyway, the reason I said that is due to the way you are dressed. I've seen Wall Sina fashion, and I'm sure that yours is a whole different story. And not to mention those shoes with the pointy things,..."

"Heels. They're high heels."

"Oh, so that's what it's called, huh? High heels?" Hange said, then went closer to (F/N). Too close, in fact. "And that black, smooth thing is a cellphone? What does a cellphone do, aside from being used as a mirror?"

"First of all, it's not a mirror. Well, sometimes, people do use it like that. You can do lots of things with a cellphone nowadays, compared to old models where you can only send messages and call loved ones,..."

(F/N) stopped for a moment upon realizing that Hange was hanging on to her every word like a child who was eagerly waiting for the next scenario of a fairy tail. Not to mention the drool that was forming on the edge of her lips.

"Ahh, so, that's a cellphone,..."

"Hange, are you okay?" (F/N) asked, fully aware that she, herself, coming from another world would mean something really huge not only for Hange, but for her, as well.

"Yes. And what else does a cellphone do?"

"Hange, I wish I could show you, but I don't have it right now,..."

"Then, let's go!" Hange almost shrieked, stood up from her chair, grabbed (F/N) by her skinny arm once more, and dragged her someplace else,...

***

🖤🖤🖤

***

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #levi ackerman #switched #levi x reader x levi x reader #levi x you x levi x you #chapter 5

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nadziejastar · 5 years

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A big problem with KH3 is that it was written to cater to audience priorities without much thought given to what the characters might care for from an in-universe perspective. Lea's childhood friend might not be with the bad guys willingly, but RAX is more popular so their reunion is celebrated while Isa is a distant second at best. Roxas had a budding friendship with Namine in KH2 which was only a few months ago for them, but for the audience that was a long time ago so they never interact.

Bingo. KH3 practically killed all of my enthusiasm for the franchise by doing this. It was a total mess. Arendelle wasn’t allowed to service the story of Kingdom Hearts. Disney wouldn’t let Sora interact with any of the Frozen characters in any meaningful capacity. But they made sure “Let it Go” got in. Because it’s popular. Sure it was totally useless to KH. But it’s popular.

I found it funny that there were conveniently just enough replicas for Namine, Roxas, and Xion to return. But not Riku Replica. Sorry, buddy. Looks like you didn’t score highly enough on the popularity polls, so you don’t deserve to come back to life. He should have stayed dead. That’s basically how I feel Isa got treated. Shoved aside for more popular characters. Perhaps that’s why Riku Replica was brought back, anyways. Roxas was going to be too busy with Xion and Axel to care about his budding friendship with Namine. So they’d just divert all her attention to Riku now, so at least she has some purpose.

I think a similar thing happened with Lea. He’s still alive, but his personality has been warped into the most popular fan interpretation of him. Which is more of a comic relief type of character. I’ll use my sister as an example, though I know many more casual fans who have similar views. She’s a casual fan (she knows I hate her KH opinions, lol). Only played KH1 and KH2, but was eager to play KH3 since the series is nostalgic for her, and KH3 was a pretty hyped up release. I think she was the type of person Square and Disney were mainly targeting with KH3, since people like her probably made up the majority of the sales. Not people like us. And this was her opinion going in: “Who are Lea and Ventus? I don’t care about BBS. I don’t care about spin-offs. I don’t care about any Lea or Ventus. I want to see Axel and Roxas.“ I even explained most of the plot ahead of time to her. She still said that “Lea” was not Axel, but just some kid with a scarf she had no interest in. Axel was the only one she cared about, because he was “cool”. She had a similar shallow view on Roxas. He was “more cool” than Ven and he could dual-wield. *eyeroll*

I found it very telling he wanted to be called “Axel” again in KH3, despite not wanting to be in KH3D. If you asked my sister, Axel is an easygoing guy who makes funny comments. Of course he only wore his black robe to stand out and look cool. He had no tragic backstory that she was aware of. No people he cared about from his past. As far as she knew, Axel’s only concern in life was seeing Roxas again. She didn’t know that he awakened his Keyblade while looking for Isa. She had never heard of Isa, so she didn’t give two shits about him. And unsurprisingly, she had no complaints with the way Isa or Axel’s personality was handled in KH3. They’re exactly how all the casual fans who only played KH1 and KH2 like her remember them! Flat. Shallow. Like they were kept in stasis for people like her. Not allowed to grow or build on their previous character development. If anything, they regressed.

Lea’s main role in the final fight was supposed to be saving Isa as his friend. Roxas and Xion returned in the fight to have a final show-down with Saix as their enemy. These are two completely opposing interests. They are mutually exclusive. You can’t do both. So, I think one of the reasons they decided to go with Saix/Isa being portrayed as more of a bad guy was for Roxas and Xion to have a better fight. It’s NOT what Isa’s story was building towards. At all. But it was considered more important to cater to popularity, and it’s how most people remember Saix, anyways. A villain. A flat, shallow, boring caricature for Roxas and Xion to have an “epic” fight with.

Terra got a whole game to differentiate himself from Xemnas, to justify being a good guy. But Isa didn’t get enough screentime to properly differentiate him from Saix after BBSV2 was cancelled. And I think this was a huge factor in the way he was written in KH3. Not enough of the fandom cared, so it wasn’t deemed important enough to write his character with a modicum of respect. Instead of sticking with the story they had been building up for YEARS, they just decided to throw it all in the garbage and replace it with fanfiction-y pandering. Roxas and Xion got the red carpet treatment, simply because they were popular.

Their return made NO sense at all, but it didn’t matter. Isa got thrown by the wayside despite him being the most important person in Lea’s life and the driving force of his character arc. Again, it made NO sense from a story and character perspective, but it didn’t matter. Roxas/Xion had a whole game devoted to them as good guys. I truly wonder how Isa would have been handled if BBSV2 hadn’t been cancelled. Probably a lot different. Which just goes to show how much of an unfinished mess the Xehanort Saga truly was. You shouldn’t have to rely on fan pandering or popularity to tell your story. That’s bad storytelling at its finest.

My sister’s major complaint was that Axel and Kairi were “useless” in the final battle. That pissed her off. I would argue that they were so useless BECAUSE of Roxas and Xion coming back. Those two hijacked the whole fight and there was no ROOM left for Lea or Kairi to shine. Lea getting saved by Isa after his Keyblade broke would have been a victory for Lea’s heart. Because it represents that their bond was strong enough to break Xemnas’ control. Lea getting rescued by Xion doesn’t have that kind of narrative value. It was more like, “where the hell did she come from and why does he remember her all of a sudden?” All it did was make Lea look weak and unhelpful in his moment of glory. And Kairi effectively got replaced by her replica. Of course Lea and Kairi are gonna seem useless. Their entire fight was stolen from them! What do you expect? LOL.

#anti-kh3

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mymelonerboner · 5 years

Text

It’s Pink Season! - Chapter 2 - A JoJo OC Fanfic

(i should preface this by giving this fic some context – this fic took four OCs of four different people (one of them is me!) from a JoJo discord server that i hold especially dear to my heart. i set myself the challenge of taking these characters from wildly different imaginations and trying to piece together a cohesive story where they all interact with each other. to the owners of these OCs, i hope i’ll do them justice. this fic is estimated to last 4/5 chapters, and depending on my free time, maybe i’ll do something like this again with more OCs from other people, who knows :) anyways hope you guys enjoy what i’ve got so far!)

Rémi - belongs to Quality Queen @qualitiddy

Kyra - belongs to Kyrare @kyrare

Claudia - belongs to Sweet Kurage @sweetkurage

Francis Miller - belongs to meee! @mymelonerboner

Chapter 2 Word Count: 2,194

——————————

* * * CHAPTER 2 * * *

"LA VACHE! SHUT UP! I'M TRYING!"

Rémi swung the wheel hard to the right, but screeches and smoke gave away the fact that it wasn't going to be quite enough. Kyra had to act fast. She gritted her teeth in frustration as she braced herself for an undoubtedly painful experience.

"STEEL PANTHER!"

From her torso, the upper body of a feline figure emerged. Dark metallic silver glinted with ferocious animosity against a panther-like physique as the figure stretched its metal wings out, letting out a guttural hiss. Kyra's stand pressed one paw against the dashboard of the sedan, before phasing another paw through the floor of the car, contacting the speeding asphalt of the road below it. Kyra hissed in pain as she felt the sensation of the asphalt scraping against her stand's palm.

In a split second, the sedan burst with a light blueish glow surrounding the whole vehicle, before the pulsating light flowed straight into the point of the ground that the phantom panther was pressing its paw against. With a deafening crack, the asphalt below the sedan broke into pieces, nudging the sedan ever so slightly more to the right, and the sedan seemed to slow down tremendously, as though most of the energy of the hurtling car just vanished, like water spilled from a cup. It was enough to make the sedan brush past the mysterious figure on the motorcycle.

Right after, the sedan slammed head first into something solid behind the motorcycle, denting the bonnet of the car.

"I'M TRY- FUCK! OW!" Rémi shrieked as his head jolted into the SPW-branded Super-Deluxe-High-Comfort™ airbags of the sedan. Kyra sighed in relief. Whatever it was they hit, she managed to divert enough energy in time to make the crash relatively mild.

But what was it that they hit?

Kyra peered through the slightly cracked windshield. There was nothing in front of the car. It was as though the bonnet was dented by some invisible pole.

The trio crawled out of the damaged sedan, each eyeing the mysterious biker with caution. The gleam of the biker's helmet visor masked their face and gave them an aura of anonymous danger. The helmet, from afar, somewhat resembled the look of a brown aviator hat with goggles. Kyra shot a glance at the others. A slight swarm of mist was already forming and circling around Rémi's feet in defensive anticipation. Claudia wore a look of terrified concern.

"What quick wits ya have, Kyra Furyia." An unfamiliar, male voice rasped from the biker. With a quick gesture from the biker, the seemingly empty space in front of the damaged sedan bonnet suddenly appeared to melt and morph into a slightly dented lamppost. "If you were just a split second slower, you fellas would've been totalled by that crash."

"Why thank you, kind gentleman." Kyra shot back in pompous sarcasm. "You know my name. That means you've done your research. I think it's safe to assume you know about our stand powers too."

The biker chuckled. "Not bad, cat lady. You're right, I know all about your stand, Steel Panther, and its energy redirection powers." He lifted a gloved finger towards Rémi. "I also know about you, Rémi Martin, and your copying ability. However…" The biker slowly cocked his head towards Claudia. "This girl… don't think I've seen her before. She a stand user?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." Rémi spat. "I'll tell you this much, helmet - you're not very good at hiding your powers. I've already figured out how your stand works."

Kyra lifted a brow. Already?

"Kyra, look." Rémi pointed at a green-themed restaurant just a few meters away. "The invisibility, the unfamiliar surroundings… there must be only one explanation." Kyra peered at the restaurant and read the large, white block letters right above its entrance.

Five Guys!

"You're right, Rémi!" Kyra gasped. "I've never seen a green Five Guys in my life. Wow, this was way easier than I thought." Kyra smirked as she lifted a metal-clawed finger towards the biker. "Good sir, your stand ability… is to change the colour of objects, isn't it?"

The biker snorted. "Congratu-fucking-lations, you guys have eyes." With a grandiose wave of the hand, he gestured to the all the wrongly-coloured walls, windows and pavements surrounding the trio.

"Isn't it funny how much we people depend on colour? When you see a car drive past you, your first thought is never gonna be 'Oh, that was a flat-topped car', or 'Oh, that was a Volkswagen'. More likely, you're gonna go 'Oh, that was a blue car'. Same thing applies for many things. Animals, buildings, walls… it's the first way you recognise something. Mess with colour a little and suddenly everything looks foreign. It's evolution, y'see. Colour has been the warning system for predators and prey since the dawn of eyeballs. It tells you what's food, what's poison, what's danger, what's safety. Colour is everywhere."

In a seamless motion, a figure emerged from behind the biker. Humanoid in appearance, but coloured head to toe in a brilliant pink hue, skin as smooth as rubber with vastly contrasting, bizarre patterns strewn across its body in random spots like lazy patchwork, all made with different hues of pink, purple and magenta. It donned what looked like the apron of a painter, and where there should be forearms, instead there were what looked like two paintball guns attached directly at the elbows.

"My name is Francis Miller, and my stand, Pink Season, can control the colour of any object it shoots!"

Kyra couldn't hold back an impudent snort. "Colour. Colour. Well gee fuckin' golly, I'm *dye*ing to know how dangerous that's gonna be." She cackled at her joke. "Whatcha' gonna do, paint me to death? Mulberry sunburst my ass into- OW FUCK!"

With lightning speed reaction time, Kyra used a metal claw to slice through a paintball that was hurtling right into her abdomen at mach speed. The capsule split into two, splattering a dark blue hue against her torso, leftover shell debris scraping her green sweater and leaving minor tears.

"...Well, that was huemiliating." Kyra smirked through her panting.

"This is bad! That stand has long-range capabilities." Rémi gritted his teeth. "Claudia, stick close. Those paintballs look dangerous at that speed."

"Hey prick, you better turn this shit on my sweater back to green right now!" Kyra hissed as she picked up a discarded beer can on the ground with one hand and pressed her other hand, shielded with her armour-like paw-glove, against a nearby lamppost. The lamppost flickered on and off momentarily, emitting a yellowish glow from its steel base which flowed into the beer can. Blue sparks began to fly out of its aluminium skin. With the proficiency of a pitcher, she flung the charged beer can straight towards the biker. The biker didn't move a muscle, simply silently watching as the beer can sped closer towards him.

Only for the can to narrowly missed the biker's visor by an inch. It tumbled against the ground behind him, letting out a loud electrical discharge as it contacted a manhole cover.

Wha… That was impossible. Kyra never missed a target. Countless years of intensive training assured her of that. She took everything into account, wind velocity, wrist posture, amount of centrifugal spin…

Francis burst into an obnoxiously raspy, wheezing laugh. "What magic some simple contouring and shading can do! I coloured the walls and road in between us to look like I was just a bit further from you than I actually was. I know your modus operandi, Kyra! I knew you would try that move!"

Optical illusions!? Shit! This is bad.

Francis was still wheezing and hacking from his half-laugh-half-choking. "You had the fucking balls to underestimate me. But now I know somethin', Kyra. You may have the sharp senses of a cat, but your eyes are still human. You're weak to my power! PINK SEASON!" And with a wild gesture, both the biker and his stand slowly began to melt into thin air, splotches of nothingness spreading like an oil spill across their whole bodies. In a matter of seconds, they both completely vanished. In alarm, Kyra backed up to where Rémi and Claudia were huddled, eyes peeled on the surroundings for the invisible biker.

"Rémi! Look out!" Claudia exclaimed. Rémi's eyes widened, bracing himself for an attack. He drew a breath, preparing his spiritual energy.

"IMITATION OF LIFE!"

And with that cry, light greyish wisps of mist gushed out from Rémi's feet, swirling around in front of him and taking on a vaguely humanoid shape. At where its "head" should be, two large, beady, solid red eyes flitted open, glowing with a brilliant ruby hue. This misty form lightly planted a "palm" against the asphalt road with a feather's touch, and immediately, the coarse, hardened, blackened texture of the asphalt spread up the misty shape's "arm" and across its "chest", eventually encapsulating its entire "body". Upon completion of this transformation, the now hardened figure disassembled itself into a cloud of rocky particles, swarming around the body of Rémi, before settling against his skin and body to form an asphalt suit of armour, complete with a dark-grey-tinged translucent facemask that still displayed his face well enough.

Split seconds after this asphalt armour settled, Rémi was immediately hit across the left check with a speeding paintball, splattering a vibrant green colour against his asphalt exterior, starkly contrasting its dull blackish look. The force of the paintball was enough to make Rémi's head jerk to the side in a dizzying way.

"Woah! You alright kid?" Kyra exclaimed.

"I'm fine! I activated my stand in time." Rémi cracked his neck to soothe the pain of the concussion. "More importantly, that shot revealed his location! I know where to attack now!" With a roar, Rémi darted into the direction the paintball came from.

"Wait, no! Slow down!" Claudia called out to him.

Suddenly, Rémi dropped down through the seemingly solid ground with a surprised shriek. In instinctive panic, he managed to catch a grip on the edge of the "hole" with his asphalt fingers.

"Rémi!" Both Kyra and Claudia screamed after him.

A raspy voice from the thin air broke into an ugly chortle. "I removed that manhole's cover in advance and coloured its interior to match the road. I knew you two had close-range type stands. One of you guys were gonna try to bumrush me, so I just positioned myself in front of that hole. You think I'd be some kinda dumbass to just give away my position like that?"

With some effort, Rémi pulled himself out of the manhole and hurried back to the group, eyes darting about wildly as he tried to figure out where Francis was going to strike next. Kyra narrowed her eyes at him, then at Claudia. It was Claudia she was worried about the most. Her defensive capabilities were practically null. There was only one reason Francis still hadn’t targeted her yet, and it was because he still didn’t know what she could do.

Kyra shifted her focus to Francis, or wherever she was wildy guessing he was going to be. He was cunning. He was prepared. He even had traces of tar on his clothes to mask his scent against the road. Kyra bit her lip in frustration, admitting in a pit of her heart that Francis was right, and she had underestimated him. It wasn’t just a matter of controlling colours, it was a matter of controlling perception. To not even know whether you can trust your own eyes… Is there any way to defeat such a stand user? Any way to even land a blow on this bastard, if you can’t even tell where he’s-

“Rémi! Two meters to your left, eight o’ clock!” Claudia suddenly yelled, pointing to an empty space next to Rémi. Kyra widened her eyes. Dia, how the fuck!?

Rémi wasted no time. Without missing a heartbeat, he leaped to where Claudia had directed and with a cry, slammed an asphalt fist straight into the empty space. A loud, satisfying thud resonated as Francis flew backwards from the rocky impact straight into his visor, shards of fortified glass, plastic and multicoloured dye mixed with blood spurting into the air as his camouflage wore off. Kyra let out a yelp of triumph mixed with confusion as she watched the biker and his stand tumble backwards against the road.

But it was far from over. The biker shuddered, and slowly but surely propped himself up. Through one cracked lens of the helmet visor, he eyed the young Spanish girl with a look of murderous intent.

“Y...you saw through it. You, girl… Claudia, was it? You saw through my optical illusions…” Francis hacked out a blob of spit and blood against the road. “I was wondering how you kept warning your friends of my moves. You… you are a stand user after all.” His cold gaze trailed from Claudia to her surroundings, the buildings, the road, the sky.

And in his visible eye, there was a gleam of realisation, and then triumphant satisfaction.

* * * END OF CHAPTER 2 * * *

#jojo #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #oc #fanfic #rem #imitation of life #steel panther #gloomy sunday #pink guy #filthy frank #pink season #it's pink season!#chapter 2 #action

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prettywordsyouleft · 5 years

Text

Ranking

Rankings

Summary: you always came second place to Bae Jinyoung but when that changed you started to understand the boy you had labelled your rival.

Characters: Bae Jinyoung x reader

Genre: enemies to lovers / high school au / angst / fluff

A/N: Requested by @baej1nyoung. I actually really enjoyed this story. It went a little darker than I initially planned, but I think it came together really well. This story is based around the high achievers in school and their struggles with their rankings in life. I hope it’s enjoyable to read!

Word count: 2717

Second place, again.

It never changed, no matter how much work you put in, you could never beat him.

All the money your parents spent on extra tutoring was a waste and every tactic you tried to improve your intellect was pointless.

There was just no beating Bae Jinyoung, no matter how much you tried to.

If he had been graceful in being first place in school each time, perhaps you would appreciate his own efforts. But that smug smile he showcased as he paraded around campus made you scrunch your hands up in frustration.

You hated him.

You disliked how easy studying came to him. Math was like second nature to him, English was a breeze from studying abroad and Science went well with his methodical mannerisms. Everything was too easy for him and so difficult for you.

But it wasn’t as if you could simply give up. Whilst you didn’t initially care for your place in school, your parents did. Jinyoung’s family was in your neighbourhood and they were known as the most affluent. Your parents had worked too hard all their lives to be subordinate to others. The mere idea of Bae Jinyoung beating you in school was enough to send your mother to bed with a thumping headache. It wasn’t something you could easily dismiss.

So you tried harder. You went to extra classes after school. You had a private tutor. You spent your weekends stuck in your bedroom studying instead of out socialising.

And still with all your sacrifices you were never first.

It became more than just your parents’ desire to beat him, but your personal goal.

You had attempted to befriend your rival but he had little interest in doing so, soon dismissing any attempts you had as merely a tactic to take his position. And whilst he wasn’t exactly wrong, you had hoped together you could become a force to be reckoned with.

Instead, he was the one who actively sought you out after the grades went up on the school notice board, his eyes connecting with yours in a way that could only be described as victorious. He was winning month after month and you were losing.

You wanted to beat him so bad and rub his face in your winnings triumphantly just once.

At night you often fantasised about his face scrunching up in horror when his name wasn’t next to the first place. You would giggle uncontrollably, perhaps from the delirium caused by lack of sleep as you studied late into the night. You envisioned his face crumbling and his eyes watering a little at not being the best at everything whilst you finally were. It was the perfect fuel to keep reading through your calculus textbook and not crawl into bed.

But the reality of every day was that Bae Jinyoung ruled the school. He had the girls fawning over him, boys wanting to be him and teachers wrapped around his fingers. The only one looking horrified was you.

You weren’t ready for the change though, and you walked up to the notice boards slowly, chanting inwardly all the good luck spells you had been doing all week long as you waited for your results to be in.

There was a lot more noise surrounding the lists than usual and you attempted to block everyone out, scrolling the first page from the bottom up, your eyes widening when your name wasn’t next to the second place. Going back to the bottom and scanning it more carefully, you panicked when you didn’t find your name. Why wasn’t it there? You hadn’t seen Jinyoung’s either and it made no sense with the first place spot clearly being his, that your name was missing. Finally, you glanced up and froze, blinking once before staring at what it said.

First place: Bae Jinyoung and Y/N.

How was this possible? Was a tie even achievable in a school ranking? Had you scored exactly the same across every subject? It had to be an error; you couldn’t share the spot with him.

You felt eyes upon you and spun around, Jinyoung glaring at you from across the foyer. You had wanted to wipe the smug smile off his face for so long now and it was finally missing as he stared at you, but it didn’t elicit any sense of happiness within you.

This was much worse than coming second to him now.

He beckoned you over to him and for the moment you pondered over whether you should approach him or not, the impatient boy stepped through the crowds and grabbed onto your lower arm, dragging you out of the hoards of students and then let you go.

“What did you do?”

“Uhhh.”

“This is impossible; you cannot come first, let alone with me.”

It made you smile watching him seem so dishevelled despite your own anger from the situation.

“Come with me, we have to clear up this mistake immediately and put you back where you belong,” he demanded and you flinched with the sting of his words, your gaze darkening the longer you stared at him.

“What if you’re wrong? What if it’s not a mistake, Jinyoung?” you asked and he scoffed, walking off towards the teachers’ office. You followed along, wondering why you were so enticed to be in his company.

You normally avoided him like the plague.

It felt exciting though, watching his hands ball up into fists and then unclench over and over as you walked the short distance. His cheeks were flushed with his fury and you were soon grinning at how worked up he was. Jinyoung glanced at you thunderously and you instantly bite back your amusement, only to resume when he looked away.

“Ah, it’s the stars of the month,” the vice-principal announced as you entered the office and you bowed politely at the man now smiling at you both. “It’s a first in our school’s history to have two people in the same place.”

“It’s got to be a mistake, surely, Mr Choi?” Jinyoung practically begged and you snorted, dodging the glare the boy sent you a moment later. “Shouldn’t you calculate it again?”

“We did it five times,” the man announced, clasping his hands together and nodded. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

“It sure is!” you mentioned with a beam and the man chuckled.

“In fact, it’s more of a triumph for you Y/N, not Jinyoung this month. Congratulations on your hard efforts.”

You had never thought victory could taste as sweet as it did in that moment.

Jinyoung was soon harassing you endlessly. He swapped desks to sit next to you in class, was suddenly in your after school classes, and your tutor even mentioned he had another student to teach now too. Bae Jinyoung infiltrated every part of your day just to keep an eye on you.

If you hadn’t of been so elated by his apparent discomfort in sharing your title, you would have been frustrated by his close proximity.

Leaving the classroom to go to the library, you soon realised someone was at your side and groaned. Jinyoung didn’t look at you but coughed lightly. “Where are you going?”

“The bathroom,” you lied, smiling up at him innocently. “Want to follow me in there as well?”

“Funny.”

“I think so too, all this attention you’re giving me is very humorous.”

Jinyoung snorted. “Don’t think of it like that, I’m just watching you.”

“Trying to figure out how I’m going to steal your spot away from you again?”

He didn’t respond and you sighed dramatically, diving into the closest girls’ bathroom once you crossed paths with it. You glanced behind you to make sure he didn’t follow you in, a strange disappointment within your chest at the fact that he hadn’t. You glanced at yourself in the mirror before you washed your hands, tilting your head when you heard voices outside.

“Oh, Jinyoung-oppa, what are you doing here?”

“I’m waiting for someone.”

“Really, I didn’t know you had any friends that would need to enter a girls’ bathroom. Are you dating someone?”

He didn’t answer and you pouted at the reflection of yourself in the mirror. Deciding you better get to the library with or without Jinyoung, you went to the exit and he stood up straight from the wall he had been leaning on, silently joining your side and leaving the girl behind staring after you both.

Rumours started around school that were difficult to bear. Some said you were both dating, others claimed you had seduced him into letting him slip up enough to share the top spot. Regardless, they were offensive and even Jinyoung was evidently annoyed by them.

Not enough to stop following you though.

You wanted him to for both of your sakes so the rumours would die down but he didn’t stop joining you within everything you did. And when questioned about it, he didn’t deny the rumours fervently like you were. It made you seem like a liar and you were done with it.

When you arrived on campus the next day, you spotted Jinyoung up ahead with some of his friends and narrowed your eyes on him. You were still furious from dealing with your parents the night beforehand, that it was time that you spoke to the person making your life more difficult.

“Bae Jinyoung!” you called out once in an acceptable distance and the tall boy turned around to look at you, his eyes connecting with yours for only a moment. You huffed indignantly. “We need to talk.”

“Best go spend some more time with your girlfriend,” a friend joked and you growled at him, making him stop his lazy chuckling and dart away with the others leaving you now alone with Jinyoung.

“What is it?” he asked, his tone flat. It surprised you a little but you were too preoccupied with holding onto your anger to let it become anything to question.

“You need to clear this up immediately. We’re not dating, we never have!”

“I never insinuated we were.”

“You’ve never denied it either!” you exclaimed and Jinyoung merely diverted his gaze. “My parents heard about it from one of the Mum’s of a student in our class and now they’re acting like I didn’t earn my spot fairly! I worked too hard for this!”

“I don’t care right now, Y/N. Go cry to someone else.”

You grabbed at his lower arm and yanked on him when he tried to escape, Jinyoung letting out a yelp of pain. Your eyes widened, you hadn’t pulled hard enough to warrant such a response. You almost thought he was playing you until he stared at you again, looking fragile. You blinked, he was so invincible before.

Now he just looked like a frightened little boy.

“I didn’t–”

“Don’t worry,” he cut in, walking away from you quickly.

Two days passed and Jinyoung had stopped being around you altogether. The gossiping changed, now he had broken up with you. It wasn’t a relief though because you were worried about him. He barely focused in class and he missed the extracurricular classes after school too. You couldn’t help but recognise the stark difference in how he was in school. From afar you had thought he was well loved by everyone. Now up close, he appeared lonely. Had he always been that way? Even when people surrounded him, was it because of him or his status? You were questioning a lot of things lately.

You found Jinyoung in the library at lunchtime, huddled up in a corner on a bean bag, his headphones on and blocking the out world. Reaching down, you tapped at his shoulder, the boy shrinking away from your touch so fast and hissing in pain.

You knew something was wrong now.

The confidence surged within you and without a second’s thought, you pulled at his school shirt a little, Jinyoung’s shock allowing you the chance to see if he was injured. You saw enough red swollen skin before he yanked away, to know what had happened to him.

“I wasn’t the only one punished,” you murmured, and he gazed up at you silently, swallowing slowly.

“Don’t stress, it’s nothing new.”

You wanted to pry but you didn’t know if you had the right to so you simply sat down beside him, holding back your thoughts. He didn’t question your company, in fact, it surprised you when he leaned into you, resting his head on the side of yours.

It was a moment of comfort, relating with one another over the consequences of your school ranking and rumours.

Each day for the rest of the week you met in the library, sometimes studying, other times just listening to music and resting against each other. It was strangely natural when he reached to hold your hand and you let him hold it every day from there on out. He seemed to find some resolve to return to his studies now with you at his side, and you were overwhelmed by emotions you had never expected to hold for the boy. Friendship grew between you easily over that week, finding that you had a lot in common from music tastes to hobbies. Not to mention, the pressures from your parents was something you both shared, though you never brought up his shoulder, no matter how much you wanted to.

And by the time the new month rolled around and the rankings went up, you were amazed to not feel as anxious as usual. You approached the board to find Jinyoung scrutinising it quietly, and instead of working from the bottom up, you went straight to the top.

Your name was there.

Alone this time because underneath it in second place was Jinyoung’s.

After all this time you had finally gotten what you wanted. But unlike your fantasies, it didn’t feel victorious.

Glancing at Jinyoung, he caught your eye and smiled at you in such a way that almost knocked you off your feet. He seemed happy that you had beaten him. Even if your friendship had been growing steadily, you hadn’t expected the relief in his eyes or the genuinely pleased expression on his face.

Walking over to his side, you frowned. “Is this a reaction that’s going to follow a mental breakdown?”

“No, I’m just really happy for you,” he said too easily and then hugged you.

You were certain your heart stopped then. He didn’t let you go even when other students pointed out that you were embracing one another and talking began about dating again. Your hands slowly moved up to his waist and wrapped around him, a shy blush building upon your face as you buried into him.

“Should we stop?” he murmured and you surprised yourself by shaking your head. He chuckled. “Everyone’s staring.”

“You never denied that we weren’t dating before,” you told him pointedly and he laughed again.

“And we are now?”

“I came first today, shouldn’t I be rewarded with this?” you asked, finally lifting your head up to look at him.

Jinyoung swiftly brushed his lips over yours, a blush rising on his cheeks as soon as he moved back. “Isn’t that a better reward?”

You were finally first place. Whilst you were going to enjoy the month of being in the spot, you knew that next month Jinyoung would be back on fine form and be back where he belonged. Or maybe you would share it again. To be honest, you didn’t really care anymore.

Of course, you’d have to finally speak up to your parents. You hoped that Jinyoung would be able to face his and ask for their expectations to ease off. You knew you’d support him with it as much as you could.

It was odd to think over a month ago you considered the boy who was now pulling you outside with his hand linked in yours as the enemy. So much had happened and yet there was so much more to explore too.

Like how you suddenly had a boyfriend. And the inside of his mouth too.

But there was one thing you knew that you wouldn’t stress over anymore. Your rank in life wasn’t defined by how well you did, but how well you lived.

[Main Masterlist] | [Request Guidelines]

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chibinightowl · 6 years

Text

Self Indulgence

Today is apparently National Cake Decorating Day and I couldn’t think of a better way to mark the occasion than writing this bit of fluff set after the end of Sweet Treats (Bakery AU). Hope you enjoy!

~*~*~

Approximately ten months later...

“Why am I doing this again?”

“Because you’re an idiot who can’t say no.”

“You’re not helping.” Tim stares in despair at the spongy layers of cake that refuse to do what he wants them to. He knows they can since he’s pulled this off before, but today… “What the hell am I doing wrong?”

This is why Tim doesn’t do special events and last minute requests. It all goes to hell in a handbasket in no time flat. Although a case can be made about how everything turns out alright in the end. Case in point, his boyfriend of almost a year standing here laughing at him.

Jason leans against the metal prep table and crosses his arms, eyeing the mess of cake and buttercream with a critical eye. “No idea, but it looks edible to me.”

Closing his eyes, Tim counts to ten and takes a deep breath. Does it again, backwards. In Spanish. French. German. Even Japanese because dammit, he can count to at least ten in a lot of languages just to prove to Ives that he could.

Right. He’s got this. It’s just a last minute request from Bruce for a cake that needs to feed about twenty people that all happen to be super heroes of the highest order. Because apparently, even Batman is occasionally responsible for bringing refreshments to a Justice League meeting.

“Why couldn’t I just give him a few dozen cupcakes and call it a day?” Tim mutters. The cake isn’t firm enough for what he wants it to do. He needs to start over. Again.

“You’re the one who jumped up and down and practically wet himself over the chance to make a cake for the League.”

This may be somewhat accurate. Tim’s inner fanboy almost passed out when Bruce called earlier, interrupting his and Jason’s day off, to ask if he could have a cake ready for this evening. Jason wasn’t happy when Tim said yes and dragged them to the closed shop so he could start creating.

Before Tim has a chance to get a new batter started, Jason grabs hold of him and tugs him away from the remains of his not-so-glorious creation.

“What?” Tim asks, but Jason shushes him as he envelopes Tim in his arms.

“I know this is a big deal for you and all, but seriously, you can chill out. This is like the equivalent of a PTA or board meeting. Your cake is just going to sit on a table in the mess hall for anyone who happens to pass by and take a slice.”

Tim deflates against Jason’s broad chest, the wind gone from his sails. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” he complains.

“Because I love watching you get your mad scientist on.”

Punching Jason in the stomach hurts Tim’s hand more than it hurts him, but he does it anyway. “You’re such an asshole.”

“It’s how I show I care.” Jason presses a kiss against Tim’s temple. “Come on, I know you can fix this.”

Tim knows he can too. He also knows how to get a suitable revenge later once he’s done. But first, cake.

~*~*~

It doesn’t turn out too badly, Tim decides an hour later as he gazes down at his creation. Sure it’s not one of his best, but considering the time constraints and his driving need for utter perfection, the pumpkin-shaped cake looks pretty good.

“I still think I could have sculpted it,” Tim states as he carves the outline of a bat symbol across the face of the cake.

“I’m sure you could have, given more time,” Jason replies, finally looking up from his book. He’d wisely retreated to Tim’s nook of an office to leave him be after diverting him from his earlier meltdown.

Tim carefully sets the black fondant bat he’d made onto the cake. Against the brilliant orange frosting, it stands out just as it does in Gotham’s night sky. “I just need to glaze this really quick and stick it in the fridge to set. Bruce is supposed to be here in what? An hour?”

Jason checks his watch and nods. “About that, yeah. He hates these things, so he’ll probably be late, especially if he has to bring snacks for the kiddies.”

Over the last year, Tim has learned more about the super hero community than he could shake a stick at. Some of the stories are funny. Others are completely hilarious. Many are sad and tragic. One thing has been made glaringly clear to him though. The Bats of Gotham, these all-too-human heroes who stand shoulder to shoulder with powerful aliens and demigods and metahumans, have absolutely zero sense of awe over how fucking cool it is that they get to call Superman and Wonder Woman by their real names.

Then again, Tim’s the one who regularly gets into it with Batman over how he needs to incorporate more sugar-free options into his repertoire because he’s giving his children cavities. It’s not his fault that Dick and Damian, and even Cassandra when she’s in town, like to stop by the bakery more than is probably good for them. This is what he does for a living. Making sweet, indulgent treats for those who can afford them and feel like tossing sense and their diets out the window for the sake of a cupcake.

Tim finishes up and the cake is soon chilling in the fridge. Not for the first time, he wonders why Bruce had him make a cake rather than Alfred or just stopping by the grocery store to pick up a cheap sheetcake for all the apparent care he has for this upcoming meeting. The mind of Bruce Wayne is not one Tim cares to delve into often.

Jason joins him at the sink, sneaking glances every so often as he helps Tim wash up. Tim tries not to smirk because he knows exactly what has his attention. There is a smear of frosting on his cheek from where he may have accidently brushed it earlier when he was done decorating. Even after almost a year, Jason still has a complete and utter fascination with licking frosting and whatever else that’s possibly edible from Tim’s body.

Revenge is still in the back of his mind, but it’s not often they have a chance to fool around in the shop anymore. Not with their crazy schedules. That’s why Sunday nights and Mondays are practically sacred for them. This is their time together and Tim completely understands why Jason is peeved that Bruce interrupted it. He can be forgiven if he tries to seduce his boyfriend by way of frosting as a means of apologizing.

Almost everything is washed and put away before Jason makes a move, boxing Tim against the prep table. “I think you have something on your face,” he says, his gaze locked onto Tim’s cheek.

“Do I?” Tim bats his eyes innocently. “How clumsy of me.”

Jason grins and steals what is clearly meant to be a quick kiss, but Tim latches onto him and drags it out into something much longer. He loves the way Jason tastes and could easily spend all evening right here simply worshipping his mouth. However, there’s something else he wants more.

“Someone’s eager,” Jason teases, fingers already starting to toy with Tim’s apron strings. “Whatcha got in mind?”

Tim reaches under his apron to unbuckle his belt. “We’ve got about thirty minutes. You tell me.”

“Hard and fast now, then when we get home, I’ll make you dinner since I was kind of a dick earlier. I should have said something sooner about that cake.”

Tim kisses Jason again to seal the deal. “As long as you’re wearing nothing but the apron I bought you for your birthday, that works for me.”

It’s cute and frilly and was meant as a joke, but Jason loves the damn thing and Tim can’t get enough of seeing him and his ass in it.

Jason presses even harder against Tim, trapping his hands between them. “Done. Now turn around so I can make you feel good before Bruce interrupts us again.”

“He has a way of doing that.”

“He’s fucking Batman, of course he does.”

#chibinightowl writes #Tim Drake #Jason Todd #JayTim #Bakery!AU

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worldwidehoodrat · 6 years

Text

The Crush

A/N: What’s up everyone, so I decided to start drabbling in a few khh and kpop writings, with this being my first one, please let me know what you think I’m not that good so I just hope to grow! Thanks for reading this!! ALSO SODE NOTE Mostly all of my stories will be interracial being that I don’t read a lot of those and the fact that ya girl is melanin infused I just gotsta lol.

| First Story

| Christain Yu X Reader F

Word Count: 2,723

[1][2][3][4]

Third POV

She stood in the crowd looking over at the VIP section, her nerves began to get the best of her. She was high in confidence before leaving the house her dress fitted right, her shoes are comfortable, her hair is slayed, and edges laid, she even gave herself a pep talk before leaving she knew she was ready for tonight.

Once she got inside the club and seen her best friend hanging around skinny models all of her confidence went out the window, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to match up to that level.

She runs her hand down the side of her dress smithing out wrinkles that weren’t there as she walked up to the booth they were in, instantly being let in as they knew who she was. Dabin had looked up to see her walking towards them, and a huge smile appeared on his face as he stood to greet her.

“Y/n you look... wow, if he doesn’t make you his, will you be mine cause damn girl!”

Just that compliment alone was enough to boost her confidence levels back up, She gave him a hug as his arms were opening for her as a smile played on her lips.

“ Thanks, Binnie~.”

“ Yo, what did I tell you about that name, it isn’t cute it’s annoying.”

She had laughed as they walked further into the booth causing her to come face to face with her best friend, and the man she loved but could never tell him since they were friends.

“ Y/n!!! When did you get here!! “

He had stumbled a bit trying to get to you through the small crowd of people that took up the booth space. As he made it to her his arms wrapped around her waist and he buried his face into her neck breathing in her sweet scent before he pulled away.

“ Come on I want you to meet some people.”

He started pulling her lightly to where he was sitting at initially causing her to tug gently back.

“ Ian I’m in heels no pulling.”

“Fine”

He went behind her and guided her by the shoulders to where he was sitting at stopping in front of two guys and a girl who were drinking and laughing at something one of the guys had said. When they saw the two approach all eyes were on them

“ Guys! This is the girl I was talking about y/n, y/n this is Jay Park Gray and Hoody. We are thinking about working on one of jays songs, and he said he needed a bomb dancer,, and I immediately thought of you.”

Christian has smiled patting her shoulders lightly before going to grab them both a drink. She was way too nervous by herself to talk to the trio about anything,, so she sat down and tried to keep to herself knowing that this method just wounded up work for long.

“ So how did you meet Christian?”

Hoody had asked Y/n causing her to jump a bit as she was knocked out of her thoughts. Y/n had smiled thinking about the way they had met through their friends.

/Flashback/

Leaning against the wall y/n was over the party her friend had dragged her out to be that it was just an album release party that she was dragged to. Apparently not wanting to be where she was sitting in the VIP area just sipping on her strong drink hoping it would drown out the boredom in her life at the moment.

" So looks like your not having fun."

She had looked up at the owner of the voice as he sat down beside her with his own glass in hand before sitting it on the table in front of them, and stuck out his hand with a smile plaster on his face showing his pearly whites kind of made her heart skip a beat.

" Christian. " " Y/N." " Hope this won't sound rude, but how did you get in by the way? Didn't know Dabin knew you. " " Well, he didn't he knows Christa I'm that hoe's friend. " “ Well isn’t that kind of harsh?”

A small chuckle had come from him as y/n looked over at him seeing his shoulder shake slightly. He was attractive and wasn’t a douche bag this was a first for her.

“ No not at all actually she’s my best friend, and I love her like my sister so calling her a hoe is just a bit of tough love. “

She had added a small laugh after her sentence before looking down at her hands showing that she was just a bit nervous.

“ Dance with me.” “ Um, I don’t-“ “ I wasn’t asking.”

He had grabbed her hand pulling her out to the dance floor and began moving in such an awkward way that just caused her to laugh a little too hard.

Christian has stopped moving to see that she was finally lighting up around him. with his goofiness and her personality he knew they would be great friends in the long run.

/end flashback/

" And it was all because of this club actually ha how funny. "

Hoody could see in her face that she liked Christian more than she was putting out there for them to listen.

" So when do you plan on telling him?"

Hoody raises an eyebrow at y/n as she crosses her legs and sits her hand under her chin with a small smirk on her face seeing that y/n had tensed up some as she started running her hands down her lap swiping off more invisible lint.

" I don't know what you're talking about." " Oh come on, you can see it in your face when you told the story, you like- no love. You love Christain, so when are you going to tell him?"

Y/n had placed her clutch beside her as she sat back on the sofa relaxing a bit and looking out into the crowd seeing Christain dancing with one of the models she saw him with earlier causing her mood to drop a bit.

Hoody saw and instantly darted her eyes out to the dance floor to see what she was looking at before going back to the heartbroken girl.

" Because of that, He likes Asian models, and I'm a black girl who just so happens to know people. I can't do anything for him let alone get him far. Christian and I as a couple... it just wouldn't work. "

She shakes her head as she sits up trying to put herself back together before anyone saw her looking like a lost puppy. Hoody could see how much you liked Christian, so she took it upon herself as y/n's new friend to help her out a bit.

Hoody had turned to her right side seeing Jay still sitting there talking to a guy that just didn't look too important, so the pulled each of their hands making them stand up0 with her both parties looking at the girl as if she has lost her mind.

" Oppa, I need your help with something." " Okay, but you didn't have to pull me like that. "

Jay takes his wrist from her hand lightly bending down to get his drink.

" Alright, what?" " Help Y/n make Ian jealous. " " What?!"

Y/n had yelled, luckily no one could really hear her with the music blasting. Jay had looked over at y/n, wasn't really paying attention to her when she first came over but now he was. She was attractive, and if he were looking to date, she would have been his first choice.

" Okay, but why?" " Becuase she likes him, and she doesn't know if he likes her back nor does she want to tell him so this will just prove one thing ya know now go!"

Hoddy had pushed the two together and out of the VIP section forcing them to go out on the floor.

Anyone could see the nerves on y/n's face as Jay's hand quickly made its way to the small of her back guiding her lightly so they wouldn't get separated from each other.

Once entirely on the floor, y/n was still too nervous, so Jay went and got her a drink from the bar to loosen her up a bit.

" Here. This should help with the nerves." " Thanks."

She had tossed the drink back quickly and swallowed it without flinching, and he got a strong one too so this made him like her a bit more.

" Okay, we have a strong one on our hands! Want another?" " No that's okay, I'm driving tonight. Let's just dance."

A grin had played on his lips as he nodded complying with her moves as she had grabbed his hand moving her hips to the beat of Cheese and Wine. His hand dropped down to her waist as if he was guiding her. Y/n quickly loosened up as her little grinding turned into full-on twerking and Jay was loving every part of it, but Christian wasn't.

He was still out on the floor dancing with the model that caught his attention earlier, and now all of his focus is on Y/n and Jay. He knows that he doesn't have a say in what she does because it wasn't his place but seeing her with Jay it woke something in him.

He could tell that Y/n was having fun, but he just didn't want it to be with Jay; instead, it is with him and only him.

" What's wrong?"

The model had yelled a bit in his ear due to the music for him to hear her and giving her a short head shake before the model had nodded and gone back to dancing on him. That's when he realized how flat her ass was as she was trying hard to push it up against him. Christian had to go along with it to act like he didn't care about y/n being all up on Jay and having fun with it too.

" Hey, I'll be right back."

The girl quickly told him as she ran towards the restrooms which gave him time to escape. He had walked past Y/n and Jay, and it was as if y/n didn't care, she always ran to him when he was around but she was too busy having fun and smiling with Jay to notice him come back which kind of made him mad but he couldn't show that... not in public.

Christian had gone and sat beside Hoody who was playing a game on her phone, feeling his presence she had looked up and smiled.

" Where have you been?" " Some model chick wanted to dance, so I said why not." " You know you went for a drink and came back empty-handed. "

Christain had chuckled as he reached over and grabbed a vodka bottle sitting it on the table.

" Boom, a drink."

The two had shared a laugh before he had diverted his eyes back on Y/n and Jay, who was now grinding up and down t his song Sex Trip. Everything was getting under his skin, and he honestly didn't know why. He never thought of her in that light, she would always be his little sister, but now he doesn't know.

The two had come back from dancing with smiles on their faces as they were chatting on the walk back here before taking a seat beside each other a little too close for Christian's liking.

" WHere have yall been?" " Oh! Hey Ian, Jay had pulled me to the dance floor, and we just stayed." " But you hate dancing in clubs cause as you say ' It isn't really dancing. ' " " While that may be true and I still say it! I had fun with Jay. We're actually thinking about leaving to go get something to eat. Yall in?"

y/n had looked over at Jay quickly to see if it was alright being that they had made the plan just for two so adding friends might mess something up, but he just nodded and smiled.

" I'm up for it, come on Ian say yes! It's 2:30, and I am hungry. "

Hoody had pulled at his arm a bit shedding out some agyeo while she was at it, laying the charm down thick until Christian cracked and nodded his head with a smile.

" Whoo! Let's go!"

Hoody had hopped up and walked like the model she was towards the exit knowing that if she ran, it would look a little too childish. Everyone had laughed at her as they watched her try and be normal as they were getting themselves together. Jay had reached his hand out for Y/n to grab to help her up but he didn't let go being that at this point in the night her feet were hurting and she needed support. Christian had walked behind them glaring at the back of Jay's head as he watched his arm move to rest on her waist as they made it to the door.

Hoody was far ahead singing her songs to herself, Jay and Y/n were a little bit behind her talking about their lives in America and how much they actually had in common, while Christian was in the back trying not to make it evident that he was jealous.

" Hey Ian, win me this!! "

Hoody had turned to see a minion plushie that she wanted, also wanting to get him away from Jay and y/n seeing that he was getting annoyed she had quickly dropped her smirk as she saw him walking over to her.

Y/n was taking a liking to Jay, even though he was only meant to make Christian jealous, she felt like he actually cared about what she said.

" So how do you like it here in Korea so far. " " I mean I only been here for almost a year, and I think I'm in love, the food is everything the language is something I'm still learning, but overall I love it." " Good, good. Maybe when we're both free I could show you all of my favorite spots... well not all I have to keep some to myself ya know."

His small joke earned a laugh from y/n as she nodded her head.

" Trust me I understand, and I would like that very much. To see where the famous Jay Park hangs at... I think I can make a killing off of that alone. " " Hey, now you just using me."

Jay had tickled her side lightly causing her to yelp and run from his arms, Her laughs were loud enough for Christian to hear them as they had walked ahead away from them as he tried to get the small stuffed animal from the machine. After a few attempts, he finally got the stuffed animal which earned him a hug from the singer as she walked happily away from the game machine. Watching Hoody walk away and seeing Jay and Y/n playing around ahead of them made him think to himself.

* Do I like y/n*

+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_

A/N:: Thanks for reading!! Wow!!! my first CLIFFY!! Should I do a part two? Please let me know!!! As many notes as your hear desires will get me to post again!!

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youveneverbeenalone · 5 years

Text

Inktober for Writers/Fictober:

Day 30- Secret (Darejones)

Hello again, fam. Are you ready for the second to last installment of this project I took on a year ago and which took on a life of its own, but which has brought me such joy in the end? I think I am.

Today’s prompt, Secret, turned into one of my favorites. Maybe even my very favorite. It started as a crack idea that I barely started writing last year, but then I sat down and thought about it for a minute and realized ... I might be on to something. But then I took longer than I meant to in getting everything about it just right. I think it was worth it, though. I’m pretty proud of this one. I hope you like it.

Now, fair disclosure (and cw: sexual assault - not in the fic but in this paragraph): parts of what I write for Jessica are what I’d call ... autobiographically-adjacent. My story is different than hers in many ways (obviously) but there are still many similarities. That’s a big part of why I love her as a character so much and why I enjoy writing her. So occasionally I borrow inspiration from my own life and find a way to fit it into Jessica’s that will still make sense for her character and within her world. I try to do this with mostly little things. Details that the show never gets to or thinks to touch on. But I try not to do it with anything that would change the shape of her actual story. I never want to add something that doesn’t fit or seems out of character. Hopefully that’s not what’s happening here. Anyway, I may never have been experimented on and turned into a superhero, but I (like too many others) have been manipulated and experienced sexual violence against my will and one of the ways I chose to cope with that violation and reclaim my bodily autonomy was how Jessica chooses to in this one shot. So the idea didn’t just come from nowhere.

Anyway, this piece fits with the general timeline I was creating with the other Inktober for Writers oneshots from last year, right after they first get together. Like immediately after, in the morning.

To refresh your memory and/or to catch up, here are the preceding 29 days on AO3 (tumblr links are being fussy rn). Give me your thoughts if you’re so inclined. I’d enjoy hearing them if you’re interested in sharing. And again - thank you, with every fiber of my being for reading! You’re all the best!

Day 30 - Secret

When he happens to notice this new, secret bit of information about her is as much of a surprise as the discovery itself, because he is not typically one to miss such details, though he’ll chalk most of that up to the fact that the first time he was introduced to that patch of her skin, he was a little preoccupied. But when they’re getting up and around the next morning, he’s free of distractions as he happens upon it again.

It happens the morning after - after they spend the night together for the first time - when he offers to make her breakfast, having woken her gently with kisses, soft touches to her face, and general adoration that she pretends to despise but he can tell she actually loves. She grunts a begrudging affirmative, still groggy and very put out to be awake before 10 am, but gets up and puts on her underwear and t-shirt as he pulls on pajama pants and a t-shirt of his own. Next she finds her jeans and moves to step in them, but in her still half-asleep state, her foot catches in the fabric, and she starts to fall.

He’s behind her in seconds, pulling her up with one hand grabbing her hip and the other at her shoulder to steady her, a smirk on his face. But his expression immediately morphs into one of confusion.

“Wait, is that a tattoo?” The hand holding her hip now traces the skin slightly to the right of her left hip bone where a circular tattoo, about the size of a plum is inked into her skin.

She heaves a big sigh and fights a losing battle with a blush, rolling her head to angle away from him. “I was wondering if you were going to notice that.”

He chuckles softly. “Forgive me if my attention was diverted last night when I might have had the chance to notice it. I would hope my efforts were appreciated and that the oversight could be forgiven,” he says with a sly grin as he leans in and kisses her neck where she’s exposed it for him.

She shivers and he notices her pulse spike. The shiver seems like an indicator that she enjoyed the gesture, but he can’t quite parse if it’s the good kind of pulse spike or not as her adrenaline spikes as well. But then she turns in his hold so that they’re face-to-face, and he makes a mental note to avoid her neck from behind until they’ve had a conversation about it, just to be sure. She doesn’t seem too upset, though, and links her hands around his neck.

“I probably don’t want to know the answer to this question, but how can you tell?”

He settles his hands on her hips and shrugs. “It has to do with the … density of the skin in that area, for lack of a better word. I can feel the ink sitting in the dermis layer.”

“Yeah, that’s not creepy and simultaneously gross at all.”

He just smirks at her. “May I?”

“Fine,” she huffs.

With gentle, teasing fingers, he resumes his tracing of the outline of the shape with a quiet intensity. He pretends not to notice her sharp intake of breath or rapidly increasing pulse as he does. Instead, he narrates what he finds.

“So it’s a smiley face. But a … dead one? Like, with ex-ed out eyes?”

She huffs an exasperated sigh at him, but it sounds like she’s holding back a bit of a chuckle. “It’s the Nirvana logo, dumbass.”

Matt closes his eyes and inclines his head a few degrees, appropriately chagrined even if it’s not technically realistic for him to have known that. He wasn’t really a fan of grunge before the accident.

“Right. Sorry. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it.”

She bites her lip and rolls her eyes at him, still fighting a laugh. “I guess you’re forgiven.”

He puts a hand to his chest, voice feigning shock. “I’m touched by your magnanimity.”

At this, Jessica playfully punches him in the shoulder.

A beat passes as he begins re-tracing the outline of the shape on her soft skin, mesmerized by this new discovery. His voice is quiet when he finally works up the courage to ask the question that is suddenly burning a hole through the center of his brain.

“What made you decide to get it?”

She doesn’t seem to understand the sincerity of his interest and shrugs. “I don’t know. Why does any young idiot get a tattoo? I had just turned eighteen and was desperate to do anything that would prove my independence to any and everyone who would listen. Plus, I might have been a little drunk. And I, uhhh … nevermind.”

Matt cocks his head at the way that she begins to trail off, as though editing herself before sharing something too … well, he’s not quite sure what. But he has a suspicion.

“What?”

“Do you not know what ‘nevermind’ means?”

And the flinty edge that is now creeping into her tone does nothing to dissuade him of said suspicion. He runs a few contingencies in his head about how to proceed before making a calculated choice to respond with sarcasm.

“Oh, wait … I do know this one! It’s the name of a Nirvana album?”

“Cute,” she huffs with a halfhearted sneer of a smile. But it’s not too far off of the mark for what he was expecting in response, and it’s less of a shutdown than she could have given him, so he looks at the floor as he pushes her just a little harder.

“Thanks. But, it just seemed like you were thinking really hard about something before you changed your mind. And it just seemed like it was somewhat significant. Now, you don’t have to tell me; you never have to tell me anything you don’t want to. But you also don’t have to not tell me something just because it is significant. I don’t scare that easy, Jones. I’m Daredevil, remember?”

She shakes her head and scoffs at him. “I don’t — I mean, look, I just … ughhh. Fine. It’s just that … even though I wasn’t really consciously thinking it, looking back, it was something I wanted to do for myself. To myself. To show that even though those bastards at IGH had done whatever the fuck they’d done to me, my body was still mine and I got to decide my fate. Including choosing to get a shitty Nirvana tattoo on my hip.”

She’s deflated by the end - as though the disclosure took an inordinate amount of energy from her - posture sagging and looking down and away from him.

Matt blinks at her. “Wow, Jess. That is … surprisingly insightful. And it makes a lot of sense, actually. Thank you for telling me that. Truly.” He brings a gentle hand up to cup her face and lifts her chin, as if to make eye contact with her and emphasize his words.

“Yeah, well, congratulations. You know all my secrets now,” she says in a flat voice.

He struggles and fails to suppress a chuckle, because the idea strikes him as patently ridiculous. Someone as complex and complicated and intelligent and interesting as Jessica Jones is bound to have more secrets than a Nirvana tattoo. Surely.

“Somehow I doubt that,” he says in an arch tone.

But she doesn’t chuckle back or even huff a laugh under her breath at him. Instead she pushes hard against his chest, effectively breaking out of his hold, and smacks him in the arm with a surprising amount of force.

“What? What’s wrong?” he asks, very confused at her sudden change in mood.

“That wasn’t supposed to be funny, asshole. But believe me, I’m thrilled to know this is just a big joke to you. That I’m a joke to you.” She storms off, out of his bedroom and into the living room.

Matt hurries after her, his mind reeling and anxiety coursing through his veins. He’s never made such a terrible miscalculation in how she’d respond to his sarcasm, but he supposes it was bound to happen eventually. He just wishes it wasn’t in response to such a fragile moment that he unintentionally stomped all over.

“No! Jess. Never. You’re the furthest thing from a joke to me. I swear. I-I’m sorry. You’re right. That was … very unfair of me. Please forgive me for being so flippant. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or invalidate what you were trying to share with me. I’m sorry.”

A quick scan reveals she’s not particularly moved by his words, standing still and silent, arms crossed tight over her chest, as she stares out of his apartment window into the distance.

He runs a nervous hand through his hair and walks a few cautious steps toward the next window over, but she gives no sign that she acknowledges him. Heaving a heavy sigh, he leans back against the brick wall in between the windows and looks down, addressing his feet as much as he’s addressing her.

“I just meant that there’s so much more to you, so much more than what you present to the world. And I see that. Just as I see why you keep it locked away. You’d be crazy not to. Or at least a glutton for punishment with no survival instinct. But you’re neither of those things. You’re beautifully complex and complicated and messy and I love you for it. For all of it. But please believe me when I say I’m not scared of it. I’m not scared of you or of any possible secret you may have. I meant it when I said you never have to tell me anything, but you always can if you want to or if you need someone to talk to. About whatever.”

She answers him in the form of a heavy sigh as she shifts her weight, leaning into her opposite hip. But she still says nothing, staring blankly out at the city below.

Matt sighs in frustration before making himself take a step back to reassess. He’s pretty sure she’s listening - if not, she would have just left. She had every opportunity to. And he’s seen her leave for much less in the past. So he can’t give up yet. Matt licks his lips as he tries his last remaining strategy, edging ever so carefully closer to her as he speaks.

“Not gonna argue - I totally deserve the silent treatment, but that’s gonna make today pretty miserable for me. So is there anything I could do to make it up to you? Or to show you how sorry I am? I mean, I was already going to make breakfast, but at this point, maybe you’d like it in bed?”

She still refuses to look at him, but she turns from looking out the window to looking down at the floor as she leans her left side against the brick wall in between the windows.

Matt considers this progress and continues edging toward her and offering suggestions for how he could pay his penance.

“Or maybe some old fashioned groveling would help?”

Jessica rolls her eyes at that, and Matt smirks at the fact that he seems to be winning her over, slowly but surely.

“Or maybe … I could get a matching tattoo?”

She bites her lip at that, no doubt to keep from smirking at him. But he’s not about to let her get away with that.

“Is that it? Oh, I think that’s it. But where do you think would be best? Here?”

He holds up his arm, flexing his bicep, and though she can’t help but look at him now, she’s doing her damnedest not to smile. But Matt is nothing if not persistent.

“Or maybe here?” he asks, gesturing with his left hand to his right shoulder blade as he turns around and pulls his t-shirt over his head.

Casually, he drops the shirt to the floor, and as it falls, Jessica’s pulse begins to rise. Matt turns back around to face her and edges one last step toward her, stopping just short of arms-length apart.

He slides a finger under the waistband of his pajama pants and lowers them just far enough to expose his own left hip. “Or what about here? Then we can really match.”

Finally losing the battle against her will, Jessica scoffs at him as a tiny smirk breaks across her scowling face. “Idiot,” she says, though with decidedly less acid in her voice than a few moments ago.

“But I’m your idiot,” he says, as he moves slowly back into her space, allowing her the chance to turn away. When she doesn’t, he settles his hands around her waist and leans his forehead forward to touch hers, ever so gently.

“You’d better be,” she huffs with an exaggerated pout. But then she softens, and he watches, perplexed and absolutely elated, as she curls into him, resting her head on his right shoulder and tracing mindless patterns over the planes of his chest.

A sun-bright grin starts to break across his face, but he turns and presses a soft kiss into her hair to keep it from blinding her. This is a rare display of vulnerability from her and he doesn’t want to spook her or ruin the moment. Instead he responds in a tone with which he assumes she’ll be more comfortable.

“The infamous Jessica Jones showing some amount of affection?! What will people say if they find out?”

She pushes back far enough to give him a look, but it lacks the full threat of which she is capable. “You better not go around ruining my image, Murdock. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

She leans back against his chest, one hand wrapped around his neck while the other settles over his heart, beating steadily - if a little more rapidly at her close proximity.

Matt wouldn’t be able to stifle the magnitude of his smile this time, even if he tried. So he doesn’t.

“Your secret’s safe with me, Jones. All of them.” His hand returns to her hip and ever so lightly traces the outline of her tattoo as he speaks. “I promise.”

A beat passes as the tension between them swells, and Matt listens as Jessica’s heart once again begins to race. And then she’s surging forward, pressing her lips to his, and wrapping her arms around him with a resolution that makes Matt’s blood sing. But not just in a physical way.

Because the way she is reaching for him now feels different. More sure. More comfortable. Like he’s passed some kind of a test, or made it through some trial and proved his worth. Like he’s earned another clue to help him solve puzzle that is Jessica Jones. He understands that as of this moment, he has been let into her world in a way that few (if any) ever have. And he vows never to betray the trust or the gift she has given him in sharing these secret parts of herself with him.

He pulls her in like a lifeline and kisses her right back, sure hands settling at the small of her back and the base of her throat like anchor points, holding her to him. In doing so, he hopes that he has successfully communicated his promise to her. And if the look she gives him as she takes his hand and turns back to his bedroom after they part for breath - chests heaving in tandem - is any indication, he’s guessing she’s got some idea.

—

By the time they actually make it to the kitchen to start working on breakfast, it’s closer to noon than to a respectable breakfast hour, but Matt can’t honestly say he minds. In fact, he thinks that by being with Jessica, he may come to develop a new appreciation for the existence of brunch.

————-

P.S. If anyone is curious (and because I enjoy showing it off) - here’s my version of reclaiming my bodily autonomy by getting a tea saucer sized tattoo between my shoulder blades. So totally worth it.

#inktober for writers #fictober #my fic #a prompt a day #darejones #mess #messica #matt murdock/jessica jones #matt x jessica #mattjess #matt murdock x jessica jones #jessica x matt

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