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theirbbygirl · 3 years

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Second Lead Syndrome

Word Count: ~8.7k words

liked this? there’s more on my masterlist!

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Comedy, Female reader insert

Description: Y/n and Minho have been friends for more than 2 years now, but suddenly she begins to see herself as the mere second lead in Minho’s story. Will she be the rare second lead who gets her own happy ending?

Warnings: some crying, themes of unrequited love (if there’s anything that I missed don’t hesitated to let me know!)

I’d only ever encountered Second Lead Syndrome in the dramas I’d watched. Wanting the girl to end up with the second lead who was so obviously the better and healthier choice, but like every avid watcher of kdramas, it's more than likely for the main leads to end up with each other, that was just how it worked. What I never thought I’d encounter was seeing it happen before my own eyes and experience it firsthand.

Life was never supposed to be a kdrama. Life was supposed to be simple, a straight line, going from point A to B with no complications. But life never really went my way did it? It just had to throw in one variable, one man that had too much influence on my life.

I couldn’t remember the first time I met Minho. It was probably sometime in the first grade when his family first moved in next to mine. But alas, we were both too young to remember exactly what sparked our friendship. One day we were strangers and the next we had given our parents a near heart attack when we both went after a stray cat on the way back home (my mom’s words, not ours). From then my memories were filled with him, just us besties hanging out like anyone would with their best friend. First party, first mental breakdown, first drink, all with him. Soon enough we were in our final year of University, and ultimately, adults.

The Minho I knew was laid back, not too extroverted but not too introverted either. While I completely contrasted him, always anxious about something, wanting perfection to the T, and completely and utterly introverted. Our friendship, moving into University, sparked a lot of questions. You wouldn’t typically find the introverted straight-A student with the borderline badboy tsundere walking and laughing in the halls together, spending practically every waking moment together. But Minho didn’t care, and neither did I, so we moved through life pretty easily.

One of the few things we had in common was our love for cats, and when we both foudn out there was a cat cafe just a few minutes walk from our campus, you best bet we spent too much of our time and money there. Studying, hanging out, anything you could imagine. If we weren’t in one of our dorms, we were more than likely to be in the cat cafe.

Every day after class we’d go there and we’d complain about our least favorite professors and how lectures would seemingly last for longer than they should. Additionally, Minho had almost become akin to my own dormmate with how much time he spent in my dorm. He’d come in whenever he wished, stealing my frozen pizzas and sodas, using my Netflix account on my TV to watch weird National Geographic shows and make random comments like “that snake looks just like Kim Seungmin,” or “look its Hannie” whenever a squirrel came on screen. Minho was always there when I needed a drinking partner after bombing a test or assignment, pouring me shots of soju until I passed out and bringing me to my bed and tucking me in whiel he would sleep on the couch to make sure I wouldn’t do anything stupid in the middle of the night.

Although, more people knew Minho’s name than mine, but that didn’t bother any of us. We continued on being friends as usual, and it felt like nothing would change that. Life was moving in a straight line like it should’ve always been.

At least, that’s what it felt like until February, just a few months before we graduated.

I make my way to our usual spot in the courtyard after buying an iced coffee and a snickers bar from the vending machine next to my classroom, I walk up behind Minho sitting on a bench when I find him staring out in front of him instead of looking at cat videos on his phone like he usually does. Slowing my walk, I trail my eyes to the vague direction he’s facing and see that he’s looking at Kim Seungmin and a girl chatting outside the classroom. I ignore the thought, opting to think that Minho must’ve spaced out thinking about how he would irritate Seungmin next class. I plop down next to him when he still doesn’t take note of my arrival, so I get right next to his ear and blow cold air into it, snickering when he jolts in surprise.

“What was that for?” He whines, fake annoyed.

“You got lost up in your thoughts for a certain Kim Seungmin there.” I snicker some more, opening my snickers (hehe) bar.

Just as I’m about to take the first bite of the sugary goodness, the chocolate bar gets snatched out of my hands and a certain Lee Minho takes an obnoxious bite out of it, not even giving it back but eating it like it was his. I pout, watching him devour my snack, knowing that I couldn’t do anything to get it back.

“For your information, I was not thinking about Kim Seungmin.” He says pointedly, slightly muffled by the chocolate in his mouth.

I sigh, knowing I wasn’t going to get that chocolate bar back any time soon, and open my iced coffee. “So what were you thinking about then?” I ask before taking a sip.

“Don’t know, spaced out.” Is all the answer I get and I highly doubt him, but I brush it off anyways and don’t pry.

Minho and I slide into our usual conversation about assignments, plans for the week, and everything under the sun. We talk about how he’s planning to visit home the next day and stay for a weekend and how excited he is to see his cats after a long time, I unknowingly smile at his ramble about how talkative Dori is, and just sit back and listen. I never took into account how healing it was to just watch and listen to him talk, the sultry of his voice and his little exclamations of frustration or excitement that came once in a while. I had to catch myself from staring when he turned to look at me, having asked me a question I didn’t catch.

“Sorry what was that?” I ask.

“Am I that beautiful for you to have lost your hearing to my handsome face?” I couldn’t just tell him that that was basically what had happened, it would inflate his ego by too much and reveal everything I’d hidden thus far.

“The heck? No, I was thinking about how great it would be to get some peace and quiet while you’re not around this weekend.” I lie, having Minho around is the only thing that brings me entertainment that isn’t endless sappy kdramas on my laptop, but he can never know that.

Minho scoffs, says something under his breath that I don’t quite catch, then turns back to me. “You love me.” He says with a pout.

“Unfortunately I do.”

That was the first of many inconspicuous confessions.

It was nearing 3 or 4 am and I was about halfway done with another kdrama when several knocks resound through the small living space. Knowing exactly who it is, I only shout back “you know the code!” and moments later the door opens.

I don’t bother to get up and greet Minho, this exact scene has happened too many times for either of us to care at this point, and it doesn’t surprise me that the moment he enters he shouts, “Honey I’m home!” like we’re in some cheesy romcom.

“Mhmm, welcome home, leech.” I enunciate the last word purposely, but I know he won’t bat an eye at the term. I continue to chew my popcorn while he wanders through my cabinets, looking for snacks. “There’s chips in the cabinet next to the fridge and sprite in there too. If you want more food order Chinese takeout.”

“I don’t have my wallet.” I can practically hear his pout from where I sat, eyes unmoving from the TV screen.

“You know where mine is, but you have to pay me back.” A few seconds pass with no response until suddenly he’s next to me and kissing my cheek.

“I loveeee you!” He says too sweetly, retreating back to the mini-kitchen to order takeout.

“Mhmm, I love you too.” I say, not loud enough for him to hear the confidence missing from my tone.

Continuing to watch the episode of in front of me, I remain in my comfortable position, only moving to lift my legs when Minho comes back to sit on the couch under my legs and the blanket.

“Oh you’re watching this one?” He asks, reaching into the bowl of popcorn I offer him.

“Yeah, didn’t have anything else to watch so I put it on since everyone seems to like it so much.”

“Mm,” he hums while also indulging himself into the scenes playing in front of him. “You’re probably team potato guy, right?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I am!” I scoff.

“I don’t know, I still think she should end up with Jae-eon.”

“Are you crazy? He literally leads her on like every playboy and is ruining her mentality by not defining their relationship.”

“Yeah, but they’re so cute together, and you can totally tell he feels something for her.” He argues.

“Just cause they’re cute together doesn’t mean they’re good for each other, the entire guy is a walking red flag, I don’t understand why she doesn’t just walk away when she’s had experience with a shit boyfriend.” I sigh.

“You, have major second lead syndrome.” He points an accusing finger at me.

“So what? It’s for good reason, the main lead is toxic as fuck and you can’t change my mind.” I upturn my nose, turning back to the TV and continuing to watch the episode.

The mentioning of the second lead sends a flurry of thoughts into my brain for a reason I can’t comprehend. Sometimes the main leads aren’t that bad but still we want the main character to end up with the second lead, maybe out of our own natural selfishness because we prefer the second lead more. I shake the thoughts away, trying to convince myself that kdramas were only works of fiction and too cheesy to be real, yet for whatever reason I always felt a connection with the second leads, like our emotions directed to our crushes were the same, because I knew that I would always be the second lead in Minho’s story.

Minho’s name was always called out more times than mine was growing up, which I didn’t really mind until our hangout time would be seriously cut down because he had to hang out with other friends. Don’t get me wrong, I loved that he had friends, but there was a little bit of selfishness in me that wanted him to myself.

A new drama and a few episodes later, plus Chinese takeout, lead to our eventual demise. We both fall asleep on the couch in less than comfortable positions and wake up with stiff-neck, us groaning at the pain.

We continue on with our usual morning routines, taking turns freshening up in the bathroom before heading out for breakfast at Paws and Pastries since we were both too lazy to make food ourselves. Besides, hot coffee in the morning plus good sandwiches AND cats? What more could you ask for?

When we enter the cat cafe I notice a familiar face behind the cashier, it was the same girl Seungmin was talking to on Friday, and the same girl I caught Minho staring at. We walk up to the cashier, I order my food first, a simple breakfast sandwich with a coffee to go with it and wait next to Minho to finish ordering.

I made the mistake up glancing up at his face as he was telling his order to her, Ahra, her name tag read. There was something in his eyes that glinted that I had never seen before, not when he talked to Han and not when he talked to me. I couldn’t help but feel a pang of emotion in the middle of my chest before forcing myself to look back down, inserting my card and paying for everything. I sent the girl a thank you and a kind smile after she told us our food would be right over, and both me and Minho went over to our usual table in the back corner next to the cat’s jungle gym and right up next to the window. I get lost in my thoughts while we begin playing with the cats we were so accustomed to.

Like most second leads, I knew exactly what my feelings were. I was practically an adult, how could I miss the fast beating of my heart or my clammy hands whenever I was around him? But again, like most second leads, I knew I’d never get a chance with him, not when everything we did together was purely platonic. It was painfully obvious that I’d be stuck with an unrequited love for who knows how long, and I couldn’t just detach myself from him all of a sudden to get over my feelings because a) he’d notice and force me to tell him what was wrong, ultimately leading me to tell him that I had feelings for him, and b) the moment I would come back or see him for even just a second I know I would develop those feelings all over again. Neither of which were choices I was willing to take so I suck it up and see him every day, ignoring everything my heart was telling me.

I look up from the cat that I’m petting in my lap and look at Minho again, only to find him staring at Ahra who was taking people’s orders with a perfect pearly smile. It was in that moment that I knew, I had just found the female lead of Minho’s story.

3 weeks go by in a similar manner. Minho and I see Ahra around campus a few times and with some twisted fate, she’s on the clock every time we go to Paws and Pastries. Minho, being his smooth self, easily gets himself acquainted with her. They laugh and giggle so naturally and can slip into conversation so easily I’m almost envious of Minho and his non-introverted self.

Not being one to try and stop fate, I watch it all happen. Telling Minho to ask her out already and teasing him about how lovesick he gets when he sees her nearby or at the cafe. I know Minho likes her when he blushes or gets defensive whenever I mention her in our conversations even though he’s never explicitly told me himself. I put on a face in front of him whenever these conversations come up, not wanting to get in the way of his happiness.

One day some of our friends want to meet up outside of campus, we make plans to meet up at a bowling alley, ready to have fun until the late evening hours. Seungmin brought Ahra along with him, asking if it was okay to invite her since they were friends. Everyone agrees and we all meet up as planned. When everyone gets there, including Seungmin and Ahra, we introduce ourselves, Minho not having to introduce himself and easily speaking with her like they always did whenever running into each other. All the the boys have raised brows and mischievous smiles as they watch the interaction between the two, but only one looks at me in concern.

A majority of the night passes by with laughter and teasing, how Chan was terrible at bowling this night and Minho easily beating him despite never doing too well on our previous adventures to the bowling alley. I spend the night with the rest of the boys, while Minho and Ahra spend time getting to know each other even more. There’s a point in the evening where I see Minho hold out his phone to Ahra to exchange numbers, I can hear her giggle when they take a selfie together, probably for her profile picture. I have to turn my head away quickly to ignore the cracking of my own heart when Minho puts his arm on the couch behind Ahra, he does it so naturally, yet he’s never done it with me. I will my thoughts to focus on the game and not on Minho, not noticing the same pair of concerned eyes until they speak up.

“Are you alright?” Hyunjin asks.

“Hm? Of course I am, why wouldn’t I be?” My voice cracks halfway through and I try to hide my sad eyes, even though I was fully aware that Hyunjin had probably noticed that something was up.

“‘Cause you seem pretty affected by that scene over there.” He motions to Minho and Ahra with a nod of his head.

“It’s nothing, Hyun, just nice seeing Minho talking to more people.”

“Y/n, you know he talks to people all the time, and you’re not nearly as affected then as you are now.”

“Hyunjin, really, it’s fine.” I try to convince him but he says something that lets me know that he knows.

“You like Minho.”

“What? No that’s absurd I-“ He looks at me pointedly, and I sigh in defeat. “Yeah, okay, you got me.”

“Why don’t you say anything? Clearly it hurts you to see him like that.” He refers to Minho getting cozy with her.

“Hyunjin, it’s clear that everything we have is platonic, he even called me his sister several times. And who am I to get in the way of him getting into a relationship? That’s not my place to say anything, especially when his last girlfriend was 2 years ago.”

“I get that, but shouldn’t he at least deserve to know? He says that he knows everything about you, but there’s one thing that he doesn't. You know practically everything about him, isn’t it a little unfair?”

“We have choices as to what we share with each other and what we don’t, it’s his choice to tell me what he wants to and my choice to tell him what I want to tell him. Besides, he hasn’t even told me that he has a crush on Ahra yet.”

“So maybe he doesn’t then.”

“Hyunjin, just look at him, he’s a puppy in love.” I glance back over to Minho and Ahra sitting parallel to us. Minho is smiling brightly, more brightly than I had seen in a while and I can’t help but let my lips upturn at the corners just slightly in another sad smile.

Hyunjin sighs next to me, and I look back to him. “I’m sorry y/n, I really wish he would end up with you instead of her, it doesn’t seem fair to you.”

“Hey, don’t say that, Ahra seems like a nice girl, she and Minho will get along great. And nothing in life is fair Hyunjin, that’s just something you come to accept.” I say, getting up. “I’m gonna get some drinks, does anyone want anything?” I ask everyone.

“Cola!” “Me too!” “Me three!” “A lemonade please.” A few of the boys shout back.

“Anything for you guys?” I turn to Minho and Ahra. They both shake their heads. “Okay then, I’ll be back in a minute guys.” I smile at the group before going to get the drinks.

While walking away from the group I let a teardrop fall from my eye, wiping it away just before I order.

Life’s unfair, that’s just something I have to accept.

A week goes by and Minho’s talking about how he and Ahra message often, how he thinks they get along well and he’s gonna ask her out.

Another week goes by and they’ve gone on their first date, he takes her to the beach and they have a picnic.

Two weeks after that they’ve gone on several dates and are officially boyfriend and girlfriend, I don’t even find out separately at this point, I find out with the rest of the group over dinner.

A few days after that Minho calls off one of our late night binge watching sessions, texting me an apology and that Ahra needs him. I tell him it’s okay and to send my regards to her.

It’s a week and half after and Minho regularly calls off our meetups at the cafe after school or at one another’s dorms to tend to Ahra. I tell him it’s fine each time and to not feel bad. He did the same today, and I sit alone at our usual table, mindlessly petting a cat in my lap while zoning out into in my mug of coffee.

All while this happens, I watch, and I let it happen. I don’t fight for him because it didn’t feel right, sometimes second leads let their love fall for someone else, and that’s all it felt like I could do.

Fighting for Minho felt selfish, especially when I knew I had no chance and he’d already fallen for Ahra. I couldn’t suddenly come out of the blue and tell him “hey, I have feelings for you,” when he’s already dating Ahra, I’d look like a major asshole if I did. All I could do was watch and see how we begun to drift farther and farther apart.

With Minho being absent more often, I don’t get to tell him much. Like the internship offer I got to continue pursuing graphic design in Itaewon. I got the email almost a week ago, and I had two more weeks to decide if I was going to take the offer. With nobody to consult about it with I continue to push it to the back of my mind, not wanting to deal with more stress just yet.

Just as I’m taking another sip of my coffee a familiar head of long blonde hair enters the cafe. My head tilts to the side in confusion as he scans the room for someone when he meets eyes with me, he makes his way over and sits in the seat in front of me and doesn’t say anything.

“You’re rarely on this side of town, why are you here?” I ask Hyunjin first.

“I heard something from Ms. Kim in our art class and needed to know if it was true.” He says seriously.

“What…” I feel like I know what he’s going to say, but I ask anyways. “What did you hear?”

“That you were offered an internship in Itaewon.”

“Hyunjin I-“

“Is it really true? She said you had two more weeks to decide, how come you haven’t told anybody? Does Minho know? Are you gonna leave? What about-” He begins to spurt out question after question and it’s almost too much for me to handle.

“Hyunjin!” I raise my voice just slightly to get him to stop but I have to turn it down again when the volume of my voice makes a few of the other customers’ heads turn. “Calm down, yes it’s true, yes I have two more weeks to decide if I’m going or not, I didn’t know how I would tell any of you, no, Minho doesn’t know and I don’t plan on telling him.”

“Are you… Are you gonna take the offer?” He asks slowly.

I prop my elbows onto the table as the cat leaves my lap and my head drops into my hands as I sigh in exasperation. “I don’t know.” Tears are gathering in my eyes as I think about it.

“Y/n, have you thought about the offer at all?”

“Yes and no.” I don’t need to lift my head to sense Hyunjin’s confusion. “It’s hard to think about it when you’re watching your crush of 2 years date someone else while you’re also trying to finish up your senior year. But it’s also all I can think about when I’m alone, which I find myself a lot, thinking about having to find a place to live in Itaewon and transfer and mentally prepare to leave you all here, but if I don’t take it then it’ll be even harder to find an offer like this. It’s all I can think about and also something that I can’t bring myself to think about, Hyunjin.” I lift my head and my teary eyes meet his own.

“Y/n…” His voice breaks saying my name.

“I think I’m going to take it.” I pause. “Once I finish all of my final assignments the only thing I have left to really worry about is graduating and finding a job, and I don’t think I can take watching Minho and Ahra anymore Hyun, I don’t think I can stomach it. I’m happy for them, I truly am, but it’s also affecting me and I don’t think I should ignore that anymore. If I’m in Itaewon I have a job and I won’t have to worry about feelings anymore, two birds with one stone.”

I see the hesitancy in Hyunjin’s facial expressions before he speaks. “If that’s what you think you should do, then I’ll support you all the way. But shouldn’t you tell Minho about this?”

“I’m not, because if I do, Minho is gonna find some way to get me to stay and I’ll crumble and stay because he affects me the most.” Hyunjin merely nods in response. “Hyunjin, you are the only one that can know about this, okay? I can’t have everyone else know this, especially Minho, okay?”

Hesitation again, and then, “Okay.”

Hyunjin keeps his promise, he keeps the secret of me leaving from everyone. Even as graduation inches closer and our group begins to talk more about job searching, what comes next, and similar topics, the two of us keep it a secret. Whenever they asked me what I was thinking of doing next I always just told them “oh probably looking for internships nearby,” and no more questions are asked.

Minho and Ahra were still very much in love, even more than before, if the growing absence of Minho’s presence was anything to go by. I barely saw Minho anymore, maybe catching him at the end of the hall every once in awhile, but he was always walking with Ahra so all I could say was “hello” and “goodbye.”

Each goodbye begun to hold more and more weight as the days passed. Even the short ones I would tell Minho after passing him in the halls. I couldn’t even conjure how I would tell everyone, maybe send a letter to each of their places? A text message? Tell them after the graduation ceremony just before I left for the train station? I thought about how I would say goodbye as I begun to pack up my dorm. Graduation was nearing, I had already turned in all of my final assignments, and all there was left was to pack. I would leave after the ceremony ended, sometime in the afternoon. I wouldn’t even get the chance to properly celebrate being graduates with my friends because I was leaving in the afternoon. I’d get situated in my new apartment in Itaewon and get accustomed to new life outside of Gimpo.

The thought of leaving panged my heart harshly, I had never left Gimpo permanently before. Sure, I had gone on trips to the US and Singapore and Seoul before, but I had never moved from Gimpo. I was born and raised in Gimpo, met Minho and all of our friends here, so the thought of moving for the first time did something to my heart. I attended all of our group hangouts with a nostalgic mindset, remembering the first time we all met, when we all got wasted one time on a Friday night after some big exam week. I look around our table of friends and think about how much I’ll miss all of this when I leave for Itaewon.

Another thing that panged my heart, Minho and I distancing. I knew it was coming, Minho and I didn’t text or talk about hanging out anymore. He walked Ahra to her classes now, and had dates with her after class instead of meeting me at our cafe. Eventually I stopped getting apology messages, and stopped expecting him at the cafe anymore. I couldn’t blame him, Ahra was his girlfriend and I accepted that long ago. Instead I just played the supportive friend on the sidelines, and I’d continue to play that role for as long as I had to.

It came to be the night before we graduated, and all of us minus Minho and Ahra were sat around a table in one of the restaurants we frequented, it wasn’t too late in the evening, and we all just sat in silence after finishing our food with bottles and glasses of soju now sitting in front of us. A majority of our meal was full of reminiscing, talking about memories that crack everyone up and left smiles on our faces.

“So, we really graduate tomorrow, huh?” Changbin says when the table quiets down.

“Yeah, I guess we do.” Chan says quietly.

My eyes tear up and I begin to sniff without control, the weight of my department tomorrow weighing heavily on my shoulders. Hyunjin puts an arm around my shoulders and gives me a tissue, whispering “it’s okay, it’s okay” to me while I try to calm down.

Everyone looks at me in confusion before Chan speaks first. “Y/n are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I just…” I trail off, not sure what to say.

“Do you want to tell them?” Hyunjin asks softly.

“Tell us what?” Seungmin says this time.

Hyunjin looks to me first before nodding, and I begin to spill my secret. “I got an internship offer.”

The table erupts in cheers and I get congratulations thrown back at me before I can even continue.

“But…” Immediately everyone silences and looks to me in expectation. “It’s in Itaewon.”

There’s a tense air that falls around us. “What?” Felix says in disbelief.

“You’re not leaving us, right Noona?” Jeongin asks from another part of the table.

I look to Jeongin with sad eyes, smiling sadly. “I leave tomorrow, after our graduation ceremony.” There’s some gasps around the table.

“What?! Y/n, why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Changbin blows up and Chan has to place a hand on his shoulder to restrain him.

“I didn’t want every time we met leading up to graduation to feel like a goodbye, Bin, I couldn’t handle that. So I kept it from you all so there wasn’t this tension every time we met.” I explained.

“Does Minho know?” Seungmin asks this time, and I shake my head.

“Y/n…” Han says worriedly.

“Guys, I know I’m not the only one that’s noticed that me and Minho aren’t that close anymore, so I haven’t really gotten the chance to tell him. But I told Hyunjin this a long time ago, that I wouldn’t tell Minho specifically, because there’s some things that I need to figure out and if I told him he’d find some way to keep me from going, or even worse, follow me. At least with Ahra by his side he won’t follow me to Itaewon.” There’s nods all around the table, understanding where I’m coming from.

“We’re gonna miss you a lot.” Felix sniffs and I coo, getting up from my seat to wrap my arms around him from behind.

“I’m gonna miss you all too.” I sniff with him, a few tears escaping my eyes.

Chan comes to join our hug, then Han, then Jeongin, and soon enough everyone has joined the group hug with me in the middle. All of us are crying, and I had never felt more loved than that moment.

Eventually we break away from the hug and return to our seats, everyone dabbing at their eyes with tissues and sniffing.

“Let’s all stop crying, tonight is a night to celebrate, all of us graduate tomorrow, and our dear Y/n got an internship offer in a big city!” Han holds up a drink and we all do the same, cheering and clinking our glasses together and celebrating the night away.

The next morning I get ready for graduation early, putting on my makeup and doing my hair, and sending a message.

to: [cat dad who’s a leech :D]

hey, can you meet me at p&p in thirty?

My heart picks up the pace as I send the message, I didn’t expect him to answer so quickly yet his message pings my phone within 2 minutes.

from: [cat dad who’s a leech :D]

sure, i can be there

to: [cat dad who’s a leech :D]

sweet, i’ll see you there

I turn my phone off and take a deep breath, we still had a few hours before we had to be at the school for our graduation ceremony, I’d have to leave just a few minutes after the ceremony ended which wouldn’t give me enough time to tell Minho, so, I made the painful decision the night before to tell him in the morning. I’d do it in our favorite spot in the corner of our favorite cat cafe, tell him the news slowly and hope that he takes it well.

I leave my house and 15 minutes later I’m in our usual booth, my coffee order sitting in front of me and the cats all wandering around as there weren’t too many people since it was relatively early in the morning. I already bought Minho his typical Iced Americano and it sat in front of me, awaiting it’s owner.

10 minutes later Minho arrives and makes his way to the table, sitting in front of me, smiling, unknowing of what’s about to happen.

“Hey.” I smile at him.

“Hey you.” He smiles back brightly. “Sorry I couldn’t see you guys last night, I took Ahra out for dinner last night on a date.”

“It’s completely alright, how are you guys?”

“Pretty good, things are going okay right now.” He answers.

“That’s good.” Nervously I take a sip of my macchiato in front of me, my leg bouncing in anxiety.

“Y/n? Is everything alright? Your leg’s bouncing pretty fast right now.” Curse Minho and the fact that he knows so much about me, he reaches out for my wrist and checks my pulse, quickly noticing how fast it’s beating as his brows furrow in confusion.

“Minho, there’s something I need to tell you.” I say, retracting my wrist from his grip. He doesn’t answer me but instead tilts his head like a cat does when it looks at its owner questionably. “I’m leaving.”

“What?” He asks.

How could one look so endearing, head tilted and eyes full of emotion as I break the news to him? I ask myself. “I got an internship offer for a company in Itaewon, I accepted it and I’m leaving for Itaewon, today.”

“You’re leaving today?” He says in disbelief, sounding out of breath.

I nod and continue. “After the graduation today I have to catch my bus. I didn’t have any other time to tell you so I had to tell you now.”

“You’re… You’re just telling me now? Do the others know about this?”

“I only told them last night.”

“You couldn’t have thought of telling me sooner?” He starts to get angry.

“Minho I-“

“What happened to telling me everything, huh? What happened to when we used to know everything about each other?”

“Minho, those days are long behind us, you have bigger priorities now, like putting your focus on your girlfriend, Minho. I couldn’t tell you because I knew you’d do something rash, and I didn’t even tell the others until last night because I knew every time we’d see each other it would be like preparing for the day I leave. You and Ahra have something so great going on for the two of you right now and telling you that I was leaving would take you away from that, and I can’t do that to you or her. Ahra is an amazing girl, and you have her now.”

“Will you at least visit?” His eyes are full of tears, some of the first I’ve seen in years and I hate that I’m the cause of it.

“I don’t know yet, there’s some things I need to figure out myself first, before I can visit. But at some point maybe I will, when I’ve figured things out I’ll try visiting from time to time.” I offer him a sad smile.

After a few moments of silence I get up from my seat.

“We still have a graduation left, Min, I’ll still see you then.” I ruffle his hair and walk out of the cafe, no more secrets but one weighing down on my chest.

The Graduation ceremony passes by in a blur. One moment we were listening to the speeches of each of the professors and the next we were tossing our caps into the air, cheering as we became alumni of our university.

Our friend group met up in the front of the school, taking pictures with our parents and congratulating each other. Eventually, the time comes and I have to go.

Our group stands in a circle, unmoving, as we all look at each other.

“I’m gonna miss all of you so much.” I say in tears as my voice breaks.

“We’re gonna miss you too, Y/n.” Hyunjin says. At his words everyone gathers into a group hug full of tears and the weight of a goodbye on our shoulders.

“You better promise to visit us, okay?” Felix holds me by the shoulders and makes a point to look me in the eye. Not trusting my voice, I nod and he brings me into one more hug.

I hug each of them individually, saying a few words, before I reach the last person.

I hug Minho and look into his eyes for the last time for a while.

“I’ll miss you.” He whispers.

“Me too.” And that’s all I can say.

I leave the campus for the last time, hopping in my car to head to the station and start anew.

Second leads always leave in the end, they leave and let the two main leads have a happy ending. That’s what it felt like I was doing, and I couldn’t tell if I was content with my choice or not.

Two and a half months in Itaewon passes quickly.

The move into my new apartment was smooth, and it was odd to be in a bigger space than a small dorm room. It felt like I had more space than I knew what to do with.

My internship was moving along smoothly as well, everyone I had met so far were really kind and taught me a lot. I was worried about feeling out of place but I had met a few other girls not much older than me who helped me feel at home.

Being alone in a big city was unnerving, but what made it so much more comfortable was the addition of a cat that my parents had bought me as my graduation gift. She was a chartreux cat who I named Luna because I had always dreamed of naming my first cat that. My parents covered most of the costs of basic things like cat toys, a scratch post, her bed, and similar things. I thanked my parents endlessly when they came over to my apartment a week after I had moved in and gave me Luna. I wasn’t gone for too long during the day and always left food for her, she was great company when I came home and worked on projects late into the evening, curling up into my lap like the cats at the old cafe used to. She was my best friend in a city I was still getting accustomed to.

I hadn’t talked to the guys much, I’d talked with them a few times in the group chat about how their job searches were going and trips they were planning to take soon. It was nice talking with them every so often but all of us were still pretty busy moving onto the next chapter of our lives.

I hadn’t talked to Minho since I left, I’d assumed that he and Ahra were doing well, but that’s all that was, assumption. None of the boys talked about him and I couldn’t understand why, but I never asked since I was supposed to be moving on from my feelings in the first place. I thought I had been doing pretty well until something would come up that reminded me of him, like his favorite song would play in the cafe I bought my morning coffee in and spent my breaks at, or snapchat would send me “Today, 1 year ago” memories of him and me fooling around at Paws and Pastries. Whenever that would happen I’d be sent back to square one, and it felt like I’d never move on from Minho.

I was on my way out to grab a coffee and spend my off day walking around, maybe looking into a few shops when I got a call from Hyunjin.

“Y/n! My favorite girl, how are you?”

“Hyunjin? What’s with the call?”

“What? Can I not call my friends from time to time?”

“Not when you’re notorious for calling your ‘friends’ after you’ve done something wrong.” I sigh.

“That was one time! Besides, it wasn’t that bad.”

“You dragged Jeongin to a party! And got him wasted!”

“One. Time. Y/n. It was one time.”

“One time is enough for you to be in trouble for life, Hyun.”

“Okay, whatever, but I was meaning to ask you, what’re your plans for today?”

“Me? I was just planning to go out, today’s my day off so I was gonna visit this one cafe and see some shops, why?”

“No reason, what time do you think you’ll be home?”

“Maybe five?”

“Great, okay, I have to go now, Han’s calling me, bye!” Hyunjin hangs up before I can ask him what’s with the weird questions.

“Hyunjin- Oh great he hung up.” I put my phone in my pocket before looking down at Luna who’s stretching near my legs. “Your uncle Hyunjin is quite the odd one, isn’t he Luna, hm?” I ask her and she meows back in response. “Weird indeed, but that’s just how he is. Mommy’s gonna spend her day out and then she’ll come home and we can watch the TV together, okay? I’ll be home soon.” I pick up Luna and set her on her little bed before ensuring everything is safe and make my way out the door.

I spend the day eating at a large cat cafe that actually had an assortment of books with little reading areas while the cats roamed around everywhere. It was much bigger than the cafe in Gimpo, but I would always correlate that one with home.

After I spent a bit of time reading there I went out and explored the shops for a few hours, bought some new jeans and a few blouses plus some makeup things. I got Subway for lunch and explored just a little bit more before heading home. Instead of going straight home, I decided to take the long way, going through the streets not minding the extra weight the few shopping bags I was holding in my hands gave me. The sun was just barely beginning to set as I walked into my apartment complex, getting into the elevator and pressing the button for my floor.

I walk down the hallway to my door and am surprised when a familiar figure greets me there.

“Minho?” I say as I walk closer.

“Y/n!” He says happily, bringing me into a hug.

“What are you doing here? Actually- Wait- Don’t answer that, do you wanna come inside?” I ask him.

“Sure.” He responds.

I unlock the door and bring my bags in, setting them by the door. “Luna! Mommy’s home!” I call out automatically.

Luna meows and comes out of the bedroom, walking her way up to me before I pick her up.

“You got a cat?” Minho asks.

“Yeah, parents brought her to me about a week after I moved in.” I put Luna back down and she moves to sit on the arm of the couch, her favorite spot to sit when the sun goes down.

“And you named her Luna,” He smiles fondly. “You always wanted to name your cat Luna.”

“I’m surprised you remember that.” I chuckle. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll get that brewing, just give me a few minutes, you can take a seat on the couch and make yourself at home!” I tell him as I quickly retreat to the kitchen.

I have to take a few breaths when I’m far away enough from Minho, my heart beating just as fast as it would when I was around him back then. It was clear I hadn’t moved on at all.

I brew the coffee as promised and wait next to the coffee machine with two mugs ready. A voice chimes in behind me.

“Your place is much bigger than the dorms.” He chuckles.

“Tell me about it, it was so weird buying more furniture than I was used to.” I laugh with him.

The machine finishes brewing the coffee and I pour it into the two mugs, putting it on a tray with creamer and sugar before bringing it all to the coffee table in front of the couch.

Minho and I take seats on the couch, separated by a bit of space between us while we sip on our respective mugs.

“So,” I start the conversation. “How’s home?”

“Not too bad, same old same old, the guys being annoying as usual, you know?” He says.

“Sounds fun.” I chuckle. “And work, have you found anything yet?”

“Not yet, I’ve got a few applications out, but I’m still waiting on some answers.”

“I’m sure you’ll get them soon.” I respond.

An uncomfortable silence sets over the both of us, and I run my free hand through Luna’s fur who’s situated herself in my lap this time. I take a long sip of my coffee before asking another question.

“How’s… How are you and Ahra?”

“Oh…” He trails off. “We broke up a few weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that…” I had no idea that he and Ahra had broken up, in fact that was the completely opposite of what I thought had happened since they seemed to work together so well.

“Yeah, it was a mutual thing. We didn’t really feel that kind of connection anymore, you know? So we just, broke it off.”

“Are you okay?” I ask Minho.

“Me? Yeah, I’m actually not as affected as I thought I’d be, I don’t know if that makes me a cruel person or not but I was only sad for the first week or two. Nothing too bad.”

“I see.” Another silence settles between us. This one is longer, more tense, there was something Minho wanted to ask but he wasn’t sure, and I couldn’t depict what question he was going to ask.

“Actually, I came her for a reason.” He says.

“And what reason is that?” I ask hesitantly.

“For answers.” My brows furrow, answers for what? “There’s something Hyunjin told me recently and it got me thinking, and I wanted to hear it from you if it was true.”

I finish my coffee and place it down delicately on the coffee table, trying not to show how nervous I was with how badly my hands were shaking. “I’ll see if I have answers for you then.”

“When you told me you were leaving, you said you had some, things, to figure out on your own. What was it that you had to figure out?”

I take a moment to decide exactly how I was going to answer his question. Did I want to expose my feelings to him just yet? “Just, feelings.” I say vaguely.

“For?”

“Just feelings for somebody.”

“Is it Hyunjin?”

“No.”

“Chan?”

“Nope.”

“Changbin?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Me?”

I pause for just a half second, and apparently that was all Minho needed. “I guess Hyunjin’s big mouth was right after all.”

“Wait- What? What are you talking about?”

Minho takes a long sip of his coffee before finishing letting out a sigh after swallowing, he slowly sets the mug on the table before making direct eye contact with me and silently killing me with the suspense. “Minho please just say something you’re killing me here.”

He only chuckles in response. “Hyunjin told me not too long ago that you took up the offer to work here because you were going to sort out your feelings, for me.” He says sweetly as I suck in a breath at his last words.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Minho-“

“Now now, Y/n, we shouldn’t hide things from each other anymore, should we?” His sweet, sultry voice was affecting me greatly as he leaned closer to me on the couch. I gulp and silently curse when Luna, the only thing keeping me sane, leaves the comfort of my lap for her scratch-post.

“Minho…” I let out quietly.

“Tell me, Kitten, is it true?” He asks once again.

“I-“ My voice catches in my throat when Minho leans in ever nearer, still making direct eye-contact with me. “Yes, it is.” I sigh out and Minho backs away.

“He was right.” Minho whispers while my gaze drops to my hands that I fiddle with in my lap at the secret that’s let out. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m sorry.” I whisper.

“Why are you sorry darling?” He asks softly and uses his thumb and forefinger to tilt my head up by my chin.

“I couldn’t tell you because I knew you didn’t feel the same, and then when you got together with Ahra we drifted apart because it hurt me to see you with her. Then I left and told you about me leaving so last minute. I made you cry, Minho, and I hate that I did. But I couldn’t see any other way out of it. I hurt you because I was cowardly and didn’t want to be selfish by telling you and having your attention move off of Ahra, when I was really being selfish by not telling you and hurting you in the end.” More tears escape my eyes as we look at each other.

“Princess, no…” He cups my face with his hands and uses his thumbs to wipe away my tears. “I’ll admit, it did hurt when you told me that you were leaving the day of, but I understood where you were coming from. Because you were right, I would have done something crazy to keep you by my side. Do you know why?” He asks, and I shake my head, still crying. “Because I need you by my side, kitten, even when I was dating Ahra I felt off but just didn’t pay any mind to it because I had her. But now I know it’s because you and I were drifting apart, I found out when after you left and me and Ahra broke up because I felt empty. I couldn’t text you to just come over anymore because you’re farther away from me now. I lied earlier, I said that I sent out some applications for jobs but didn’t get any answers yet, right?” I nod. “I got offered a job as a software engineer, here, in Itaewon, and I said yes.”

“Why?” I whisper.

“Because I want to be near you, I need to be by your side Y/n, because I love you.” I let out a sob at his confession and he coos, bringing me to rest my head on his chest and rubbing his hands on my back and running them through my hair.

“I love you too.” I say after a few minutes.

Minho brings me out of his hold, and cups my face again. For the first time, he kisses me. His lips brush over mine before deepening the kiss, taking full charge of it yet somehow still being soft with me. His kisses were nothing short of addicting, and I knew I’d be in love with him for a long time.

In that moment, kissing the man of my dreams, I remember that it may be rare that a second lead gets their own happy ending, but it’s not unheard of. Sometimes the main lead and second lead do end up with their own happily ever after.

Notes from the author: I have FINALLY posted something y’all 😂 took a few months but she’s here, and she’s dishing out something at least. I don’t know how often I’ll be posting again, esp with school and whatnot, but I do know I need to drain out my drafts because phew, it’s getting a little full in there.

But anyways, I hope you enjoyed this fic! I’m pretty sure it’s one of the longest I’ve written if not the longest. Hopefully it wasn’t too bad, I’m probably a little rusty but we can fix that (i think)

if you want more I still have my old stuff up on my masterlist on my account! hope to see you around :))

-nyx

#skz ff #skz fluff #skz fanfic #skz fanfiction #stray kids fanfiction #minho fluff #skz minho fluff #skz angst #yOU KNOW I KNOW LEE KNOW #skz lee know #lee know #lee know x y/n #tags are annoying sigh #lee minho fanfiction #stray kids scenarios #stray kids fic #stray kids fluff #stray kids angst

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athena-is-a-chaotic-lil-shit · 3 years

Text

Of Ice and Blood

Part 2

Hello there! I present to you, part 2 of my orc x fem!human series!

I still don't know what to name this fic of mine

I should've thought about the title in the first place lmao

Anyways! I'll try updating constantly if I can. Enjoy reading!

Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Pairing: Tai'chi Kashharzol (Orc) x Pearl Blackbell (Human OC/Reader)

Warnings: Cursing, lots of cursing. Mild violence and mentions of injury.

UD 01/10/21 : CLEANED AND PROOFREAD PROPERLY (hey I did my best)

(reference to the mask she's currently wearing //her hair is still braided// )

Even with the tedious introduction the professor was on about, I couldn’t help but pick up the whispers of my human classmates, and the unmistakable nasty odor they were giving off.

“Hey. Look at that orc over there.”

“Tsk. Beast. Why is it even here—”

“I bet it’s gonna get suspended from breaking someone’s arm.”

“It looks like he’s gonna kill somebody soon.”

Snickers and clicks of disgust went around the group.

The professor shushed them, not quite knowing what they were talking about before he moved on.

I cursed, feeling my blood boil from their words. The orc wasn’t even doing anything! And they slander him like that? I would love to break their fucking ne—

No, damn it! No violence! Mama will go crazy if she finds out I broke someone’s spine. Behave and endure. Remember your training.

...but seriously though, I'm going to fucking snap their legs. Nah, perhaps use pepper spray on their eyes until they go blind, even though the mixture inside my spray bottle wasn’t made to have permanent effects on someone, but it would still cause great discomfort.

I hugged my backpack, the thought of my dusters inside somehow comforting.

I didn’t notice Tai'chi was taking glances at me out of concern while I was imagining how I’d smash those jerks’ faces.

************************************

My mind wandered around the interaction by the gates earlier, and how... contradicting... it was when I entered the building.

Everything passed like a blur as I continued daydreaming about other things, hardly paying attention to what everyone else was saying. Plus it takes a lot of concentration to survive their pungent scents.

A bell rang, bringing me back down to Earth. It was lunchtime already.

Everyone seemed relieved as they started filing out of the area and headed towards the cafeteria. [a/n: Ooh that rhymed] I failed to see the lingering glances of barely masked distaste in our direction.

I glanced at the or— Tai'chi, whom I found out was looking at me already, stunning me at how he stared for a moment before I broke eye contact and stood up, which he also did. I almost fell back down my chair when I scented him.

Wha—

How the fuck did I not smell him before?!

I must’ve focused too much on the awful odor surrounding me that it didn’t register this—

This, oh my God.

To describe it, it was simply so— manly (or is it Orcish?). Like the scent of fresh earth and the warmth of a fireplace in the midst of a cold night. Embers crackling and sending sparks up into the sky.

He doesn’t smell one trace of a beast at all! In fact, I’ve never smelled someone so clean, so pleasant, all the while exuding masculinity, and was that a tad hint of vanilla?

For the first time in a while, I couldn’t place what the feeling was exactly. He simply smells so— good. Which is a positive sign?

I looked up to his eyes once more before I blurted out, probably a little too high-pitched;

“Lunch?”

Seriously? That’s what comes out of your damn mouth?

“I mean, do you want to go grab some lunch? At the cafeteria?” I clarified to sound normal and unaffected, (even when I clearly am).

Was the last part necessary? You’ve broken noses, dealt painful blows like a skilled warrior, but you’re embarrassing yourself.

I was busy reprimanding myself that I nearly missed what he said.

"Sure.”

He straightened up, and I was then faced with the reality of how damn tall he is. Or is it because I’m short? I barely reached over 5 feet, and he is standing there, almost three heads taller than me. Was he hunching for my sake earlier?

Wowie…

I scented a hint of pride, and was that a small quirk of his lips for a second there?

Huh. My mask is a lifesaver, or else he would've seen my jaw dropping.

I followed him out and headed straight for the campus’ cafeteria, all the while trying to converse here and there.

****************************

'Trying’ was not the right word.

Definitely not.

It was surprising, how easy and nice it was to talk to him. I could scent his apprehensiveness when I talked to him at first, but he relaxed not long after I introduced myself properly.

It felt... natural.

I learned that he came from the Northside of the country and moved to the city last year to pursue his dreams and to find a better future for his clan. I also told him about my family and home, along with my reasons for being here, leaving out the… violent part.

“My family and my entire clan wanted the best for me and my brothers. Up in the North, education is… very limited. Although ever since we were young, we were taught everything from our clan’s history, how to hunt for food, what herbs and plants were poisonous, what were medicinal and edible, how to stay alive, survive and so on.”

He paused for a moment before continuing.

“But we were cut off from the modern world. Times are changing, fast. Global warming being a major problem, leaving a huge impact on our living. So, when my clan heard about a school in the city, open to all races, they turned to us, the youth, and we took this chance.”

I looked down and thought about how disconnected the others were, only given the freedom to modern society eight years ago. Eight years is a long time, but I guess it’ll take more than that for everyone to get used to the change. That doesn’t mean they should treat them poorly!

As I realized I’ve been quiet for a while, I shot up and apologized for not replying.

“No, it’s okay. You looked like you were in deep thought. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Y-yeah… I was—”

“Thinking about how the majority of the human race still see us as beasts?”

There was a bit of spite in his voice, although barely noticeable. Or was it because I caught a whiff of it? No one was paying much attention to us while we were walking. But I noticed many of them hastily stepping aside and felt their glares at my back.

“How did you know?” I asked, curious.

“I could tell from your- I could tell, from the way you frowned earlier when one of those humans said something.”

Oh. He was looking at me that time?

“Frowned? But my mask—”

“It’s easy to tell if you are frowning when your eyebrows scrunch up like that. Believe me, my father does that a lot.”

“Ah. Well. It was just very rude of them. To talk shit about you and your kind like that, as if they were any better. You weren’t even doing anything, and they judge you based on your race. Orcs are civilized and intelligent just like any other, and I don’t understand why there’s still so much prejudice after eight damn years—”

I stopped and restrained the urge to go wild and curse every single human who smelled so foul every time we pass by.

“Sorry. I was...rambling.”

Was I this talkative? Maybe it's because I never had anyone to talk to.

He didn’t reply, which I found strange, so I glanced over at him and saw his eyes wide open and brows shooting up in surprise. It was almost comical.

“Uh, Tai'chi?”

Before he could even utter a word, we arrived at a huge hall where students were chatting and enjoying their lunch. Still, I noticed some humans were giving unkind looks to a gathering of goblins eating at the far left side corner of the cafeteria.

And of course, I didn’t fail to smell that wretched odor coming from a group of girls on my right when we walked in. I also recognized the one who pushed me, (No doubt it was intentional). I had to pinch my nose over my mask just but I could only block out half of it.

Ah shit, this mask doesn’t have proper air filtration.

I groaned as I tried to cut off the noise and thickened scents. For real, I wasn’t expecting it to be this harsh! I could literally smell discrimination and hate in the air!

Fuck. I should’ve worn my other mask. I swear I’m gonna burst if I stay and inhale more of that any longer—

“Pearl, are you okay?”

I groaned again and didn’t reply, busy controlling my sense of smell to even open my mouth. We were standing there like a pair of street posts, blocking a small part of the main entrance. That is if there was a 5ft- tall post. I’m more like that foldable caution sign.

“Pearl—”

“Hey, you there! Freaks! Move out of the way.”

Great. Another awful fucking odor. And what a coincidence! It was the one I smelled this morning!

“Are you deaf? I said—”

He shouldn’t have grabbed my shoulder, shouldn’t have tried to shove me aside, for the second I felt his hand reaching for me, and before Tai'chi could pull me away, my reflexes kicked in.

What did I do exactly? Oh, I simply grabbed that damned arm of his, threw him over my shoulder, and slammed him down on the tiled floor in front of me, finishing a one-arm shoulder throw.

The people in the area halted what they were doing and a short-lived silence came over, broken by whispers.

So much for keeping a low profile.

The guy I just performed basic self-defense on was spitting curse words at me. He was still on the floor, trying not to voice the pain in his back.

“Freak! You’re a monster, aren’t you?! How dare you do this to me. Don't you know who I am?!" he yelled.

Did he mean me or? Either way, what he said was not true.

I tried to calm my anger down and gave him a forced smile, under my mask, and mustered up the voice and tone I always used when I’m annoyed.

But right now, I am pissed.

“Now, dear, fellow, human, what you said was clearly untrue. I am entirely human and this person beside me is an orc. Or were you blinded by your overgrown ego and disgusting attitude to see the obvious in front of you? Surely that must be it. The entrance to the cafeteria is wide enough for two people to not serve as a hindrance to the ones coming in, but still, you chose to try and shove me aside yourself. Well, I won’t apologize but I’ve had enough pushing for one day. And lastly, no, I do not know you and I don’t care.”

I gritted my teeth, my face hurting from smiling forcefully. The cafeteria was quite silent enough all the while and no doubt they heard every word I said.

Fuck.

I twisted around and bolted out of the building.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck! I blew it! Fucking blew my chance to have a normal college life! Now everyone will think I’m some crazy person and would, without a doubt, avoid me forever.

I was too busy cursing and walking away, planning to hide in a hole for all eternity that I didn’t feel the presence of someone following me.

Without thinking much of where I was heading, my feet led me to a secluded part of the uni. Tall trees lining up before and around me looking like an entrance to a forest, and so I tried hiding behind one. Hoping that the guards wouldn’t notice and detain me or something.

I sat down between the great roots of an oak tree and rested my head on top of my knees as I took deep breaths and listened.

Nature always had a place in my heart. How could it not? When you can hear the chirps of little birds, the soothing sound of leaves rustled by the wind. And the peace that comes with it all.

Not to mention it smells so relaxing.

“Hello there.”

************************************

Haha! What will Pearl do next I wonder, and who is this person who followed her??

Had to cut it off at that part because my dearest self just loves cliff hangers—

And because I wanted to post something as soon as possible.

Hope you enjoyed! I will be working on the third part asap.

Tags: @kokokatsworld @crackinanutshell

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juniorgman187 · 3 years

Text

Serpent of Eden (Reid Series - Part 3)

~ Reader’s one-night-stand with Spencer turns into a year long semester ~

Summary: After a month of smooth sailing, Reader and Spencer finally cross paths on campus and spoiler alert - it’s not pretty. Couple: Fem!Reader x Professor Spencer Reid Category: Angst, Fluff, (eventual) Smut, Series Word Count: 1.7 (ik i promised no small chapters but this ones slightly more spicy and its in preparation for better, longer chapters) Content Warning: Age-gap, teacher student relationship A/N: POV switches from Reader to Spencer indicated by “_ _ _”

PART 2 HERE!

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

It was easy to maintain a romantic relationship and to believe that everything was alright when we never had to see each other at school.

What’s harder was being in a professional setting and forcing ourselves to confront the reality that what we were doing was wrong.

Just plain wrong.

We must’ve lucked out in the first few weeks of our relationship because it was smooth sailing for the entire first month. We’d even gotten into a routine - found our groove, if you will.

Most often, we would meet at a place far from Hollis, where we knew we wouldn’t run into anyone who would recognize us. There we could just be (y/n) and Spencer; and there I would get lost in the good times and the bliss of the moment to the point of forgetting that we weren’t just (y/n) and Spencer - we were student and teacher, too. Other times, I’d come over to his apartment, but given my living situation, he had never come over to mine.

It was somewhere around our one-month anniversary when our luck ran out.

Holly had come into the room while I was finishing (or at least attempting to finish) reading a court case.

“Are you going to the Promotional FBI Seminar?” She slid a large pamphlet on my desk, never minding the fact that she’d just haphazardly thrown the pamphlet in the spot where my book lied, causing me to lose my place on the page. Though I didn’t outwardly display my frustration, my agitation did grow beneath the surface.

“What’s that?” I asked her, not out of sincere curiosity, but more so because I wasn’t even really listening to what she’d said before, and I’d pushed the pamphlet out of the way before I even read it.

“A couple guys from the FBI are coming to talk to us about the job, like all the requirements to be hired, how much it pays - stuff like that.”

Holly’s voice didn’t make for great background noise, especially when she started rambling while I tried to continue reading.

“Are you going?” I asked. Again, this wasn’t a sincere question, just a way to make it seem like I was listening.

“Yeah, and I really want you to come with me. I think you’d like it. You’re really into crime stuff, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah…” I said in a daze, obviously distracted by my other priorities.

“So you’ll come?”

I should note that I faintly recognized the name and premise of the seminar, but I couldn’t quite place where I remembered it from, and I was far too preoccupied to pay any further attention to the topic, so it slipped out of my mind almost as fast as it entered it.

It was this moment here where Spencer’s eidetic memory would’ve come in handy.

You see, the reason I weakly recalled the seminar was because just three days ago, Spencer had told me he was going to be a guest speaker for it. But again - I didn’t remember that, and so without any recollection of this information, I told Holly I’d go just so she’d stop bothering me about it.

Unbeknownst to me, I’d just agreed to attending my own personal hell.

I woke the next morning to Holly violently shaking me.

“(Y/n), we gotta go! We’re so fucking late!”

Still half-asleep, I mumbled, “Huh?”

“The seminar started at 9:42 and it’s 10:36 right now.”

This was enough to jolt me awake and get me out of bed.

There was just something about the pressure of being late that forced me into a mode where I could get ready in an ungodly short amount of time. I could never get ready that fast unless I was late for something, which makes no sense.

Holly and I ran from our dorm, through the courtyard, and into the classroom, somehow managing not to trip once on the way there. I was actually quite proud of that.

I couldn’t tell you if it was our breathlessness, our late departure, our struggle to find open seats, or a combination of the three, but we’d commanded the attention of the entire room - and the attention of someone I had yet to notice, too.

“There’s a free seat over there. I can sit in the one over here.” Holly told me, suggesting that if we wanted to sit anywhere, we’d have to be separated. I followed her finger to the empty seat, shuffling awkwardly and apologizing profusely to the people I disturbed by approaching. I was so caught up in the hysteria and chaos to even bother looking up at the stage, hindering my ability to meet my impending doom any sooner.

On the way to my seat, I noticed the copious amounts of notes being taken by virtually every student in the room, so rather than taking any time to look up, I was searching my bag down below me for note taking materials.

But as they say - third time's a charm.

After I’d settled into my seat, I finally looked up from the floor and it was then that I was transported back to a month ago - an eerie parallel to this exact moment.

“Holy shit,” I muttered, earning sneers from the people sitting next to me who I’d clearly disrupted with my profanity.

“Sorry,” I whispered to them, for I was truly sorry. I just couldn’t help myself. When I saw him, my stomach dropped. I had a feeling he’d already seen me, but I was too disorderly before to notice.

I did, however, notice how he eyed me from the stage, even doing a double take when we locked eyes.

“Most of us have done extensive work in areas such as …” His voice faded while my mind swirled.

We have got to stop meeting like this, Spencer.

Our eye contact was too much for me to handle, so I was the first to break away. Through the entire question-period, I kept my head down to avoid any eye contact I could.

“Well, that’s all that we have for you today. Before you go, please hand in your applications if you filled them out.” The other lecturer advised.

I was well on my way out of the room even before he dismissed us, but I was drawn back by the sound of the sentence, “Excuse me, Miss? Could you stay back for a moment?”

I briefly walked backwards before turning on my heels and meeting those eyes that I desperately didn’t want to.

“I noticed you came in late and I thought you might want to know the information you missed -” Spencer paused to look over his shoulder, noticing his colleague was attending to someone else and therefore, too engaged in that conversation to interfere with ours.

“(Y/n), what are you doing here?” He asked me in a hushed tone, a stark contrast from his sweet tone from before.

“I’m so sorry, Spencer. I completely forgot that you were a speaker for this seminar. I didn’t even know I was coming until last night when my roommate asked me to come with her. I would’ve warned you if I knew. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you in this position.”

My apology was sincere seeing as I promised Spencer we would never run into each other. In fact, it was the sole reason we agreed to stay in this relationship - the mutual guarantee that we wouldn’t be put in these situations, but here we were.

In this fucking situation.

“No, it’s fine. I was just surprised to see you, that’s all.”

Spencer could tell I was flustered and truly apologetic for my ignorance, and he was almost about to reach out and rub my upper arm comfortingly when his actions were cut short by the looming presence of his fellow guest speaker.

“Hi there. David Rossi.” He introduced himself by extending his hand into the space between us. “And you are?”

“(Y/n) (y/l/n).”

_ _ _

“(Y/n) (y/l/n).”

It was like watching my worst nightmare come alive.

If I ever imagined introducing (y/n) to my work family, this certainly wasn’t the plan. I just hoped to God that if Rossi and (y/n) ever met again in the future, he wouldn’t suddenly obtain my eidetic memory and recall her familiar face from this exact moment.

“Got any questions for us?” Rossi coyly asked her. Once more I prayed to God that his profiling skills hadn’t just improved drastically and that he could sense the tension between the two of us. It almost seemed like he asked that question just to tease her because he knew what was really happening. But then again, that was probably just my paranoia speaking.

She looked mortified when he asked this, even glancing back at me briefly as if to ask for a reprieve. “Um, no not really. I-I was just telling Dr. Reid that I’ve applied to audit his class before, but was always rejected.”

“That’s a shame. Well, maybe I can look into that. You know, put in a good word for you.” Rossi chuckled, nudging (y/n)’s shoulder to suggest he’d help her. She only shyly laughed and took a step closer to the door.

“Oh, no you don’t have to do that for me.”

“Nonsense. I’d be happy to do it.”

“Thanks, Mr. Rossi.” With a thankful smile, (y/n) pranced out the door, closing the lecture hall door sharply behind her without one look back.

“Nice girl,” Rossi acknowledged. “But it would be nicer if she could be on time.”

I laughed, despite not finding (y/n) to be at the butt of the joke to be funny at all.

“Um, are you actually gonna put in a good word for her?” I followed Rossi with my eyes, searching his face with a desperate hope that my question didn’t reveal too much.

“Yeah, why not? I figured you would’ve liked to have another student audit your class.”

“Yeah yeah…” I murmured in false agreement.

Herein lies the trouble.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

PART 4 COMING SOON!

comment to be added to the taglist!

taglist:

@andiebeaword @rexorangecouny @rip2myyouthjpg

#serpent of eden #spencer reid #spencer reid series #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic

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scarletwinterxx · 4 years

Text

Timeless pt. 1

For my other works you can check them out here, and for my other story series’ you can check them out here.

All works are copyrighted ©scarletwinterxx 2020 . Do not repost, re-write without the permission of author.

PART ONE || PART TWO || PART TWO.5 || PART THREE || PART FOUR || PART FIVE || PART SIX || FINALE

“I’m here, i’m here I’m so sorry I’m late”

The words rushed out of my mouth while Doyoung just looked at me with an unimpressed expression on his face.

He looked like he has a thousand other places he’d rather be than here. I don’t blame him. I hated this too. The occasional dinner with the parents could be draining, we’re never sure what would happen.

“You’re fine, they haven’t noticed yet” he said then helped me with my bag, taking it from me and slinging it on his shoulder while I try to make myself look more presentable.

“Traffic was bad, and my professor held me back to talk about my thesis and it’s raining outside. Everything was a mess”

A small smile appeared on Doyoung’s face, I knew it meant he understood what I was trying to say. Years of knowing him, I can already read what’s on his mind without saying a word.

“Sounds like you had a fun day” he said making me roll my eyes in exchange, I hear him laugh a bit at my action

“You ready?” He asked me, handing me back my bag after I collected myself. He held his arm out for me to take. I took one deep breath before looping my arms with his, my hand grasping on his. The shiny ring I’ve been wearing for years on display.

“Let’s do this.”

When we stepped in the restaurant where both of our parents were waiting, I knew we were in for a long night. There will be a lot of business talk, I already know that. With my graduation fast approaching they would probably want to talk about the wedding too.

The plan was to get married after both of us graduated from college. Doyoung was a year ahead of me and is now working at their company while I was still attending university.

It’s my last year, a couple of months away from my graduation. We knew this dinner was going to be about the wedding.

We never really talk about it when it’s just the two of us, we don’t talk about our engagement at all. We’ve known each other pretty much our whole lives, our father’s met in their college days and are still friends until now. Somewhere along the way, they realized one has a son and one has a daughter.

We were good friends, Doyoung and I. I say were because ever since we got engaged it feels like we’ve been tiptoeing around each other. Both us didn’t know how to handle it, maybe it hasn’t sunk in yet. In our minds we were still just friends. No heavy burden set by our parents regarding our future.

I didn’t hate our situation but do I wish it was different? Yes.

I wish we had the choice to make this decision by ourselves.

“They’d probably start to ask about the wedding” Doyoung said from beside me, I looked up at him but he was still looking ahead of us

“I know, what do we say?” I ask him, this time he stopped walking making me halt my steps too then turned and looked down at me. I barely reached past his chin so when he looks at me he has to look down and I had to look up.

It was cute, I used to think.

“Say what you feel, say what you want to do. It’s our wedding. Don’t forget you call the shots”

“As much as how fun that sounds we both know they would end up making the decisions for us” I replied back but he just shot me a quick smile, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He hated the fact that I was right but he didn’t want to be upset.

“Want to just runaway and get married somewhere they don’t know?” his question made me smile and feel a bit relaxed, at least he could crack a joke here and there. It made me feel this night won’t be as bad.

“Don’t tempt me” I mumbled, holding a little tighter on his arm. Just as he was about to say another word we hear someone calling for us

“There they are. Just remember-”

“together. We’re in this together” I finished his sentence, this time a small but genuine smile appeared on his face. It was something we always say to each other whenever we had to meet with our parents.

We are a team, him and I. Even if we’re still unsure about how we feel regarding our situation, atleast I know we’re in this together. We weren’t on opposite sides. I’m glad he never misses the chance to remind me we’re still on the same side.

“There you are, you two look great” My mother said the moment we got to their table. We greeted all of them before taking our own seats, Doyoung pulling out the chair for me before occupying the seat beside me.

“What took you so long?” My father asked

“It was raining and I got held up at university”

“You’re graduating this fall right?” Doyoung’s mom asked excitedly, we knew what was about to come next.

“Yes she is, you know we should probably start planning the wedding. We’re a bit tight on schedule, we should’ve started at the beginning of this year” My mother droned out, the two matriarchs gushing on and on about our wedding.

I looked over at Doyoung, saying ‘I told you so’ with my eyes

“Have you guys decided on a date yet?” this time all eyes were on us, the two of us exchanging looks because I wasn’t sure what to say too

“We’re not sure yet, we’ve yet to talk about it since Y/N’s been pretty busy with school. I’m sure we can plan after when her schedule’s less busy” Doyoung answered for the both of us, the words I had in mind didn’t need to be said because he already said it for me.

He knew me too well.

We know each other too well.

“We can help out” my mom said, sharing a look with Doyoung’s mother to which she agreed to

“We appreciate that, thank you. We’ll tell you more once we talk about it” Doyoung answered again with a polite smile. My hand finding its way towards his, gently giving it a squeeze.

He didn’t even bat an eyelash, he just took my hand and intertwined it with his then rested it on his lap under the table.

“How about you, dear? How have you been?” mom asked him, “He’s been doing good. I heard you’re the one who secured the merger with the Thailand branch” my dad added, he did sound genuinely impressed.

My dad have always liked Doyoung, he was everything he wished his future son-in-law would be.

“He did, it was a smart move choosing them. Would have never thought of it myself but Doyoung convinced me otherwise” His dad said then landed a pat on Doyoung’s shoulder

“If we’re thinking about expanding, I want to be more than just in places where it’s already known. I try and think of partnerships that they would least expect, given that it’s risky but isn’t that how our business started. If we play on the safer side, we’d never see the full picture” Doyoung answered confidently, he knew what he was talking about.

The thing about Doyoung is he was born for this. Some might think that it’s because he’s the smart guy, but really this is something that comes naturally to him.

I’ve been a firsthand witness to his antics, multiple times during our childhood days he would bargain his lunch with mine, always setting up for a trade and somehow he would always convince me to do so.

The rest of dinner was spent just like that, going back and forth to the topic of wedding and business. When it was time to go, we bid our goodbyes and went our own ways.

“Come on, I’ll drive you home” Doyoung said as he guide the both of us out of the restaurant. His hand on the small of my back.

“How long do you think we have?” I asked, breaking the silence inside the car as he drives me home

“Mhm?”

“Before they ask about the wedding again”

“Before your graduation probably, if they can have it their way they would schedule a fitting for your wedding gown now” he chuckled

“Uh we kinda already did” I mumbled, I never really told him because well one it never came up two isn’t there this old belief that the groom isn’t suppose to see the wedding dress before the wedding anyways

“You did? When?”

“Like last year before Christmas, my mom and your mom thought it was the perfect time to go. I couldn’t say no”

“You didn’t call me?” he asked again, at this I smiled. I knew he was going to ask that

“You’re not suppose to see me in the dress until the wedding day, silly”

“We’re going to get married no matter what, might as well see if you look cute in it” His reason made my cheeks burn but I knew he was just teasing me

“I looked cute it in, thank you very much”

After that we just went back to the comfortable silence, for a while neither of us said anything. We enjoyed the silence, it’s never an awkward atmosphere but more comforting in a way.

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re the one I’m marrying” Doyoung said out of nowhere, we were at a red light so this time he looked at me when he said this

“Well that’s good to know” I chuckled, this was the first time since we were told we were to be engaged and married that we fully acknowledge it. Most of the time we only talk about it with our parents, but right now it’s just the two of us.

“I’m sorry if this isn’t the way you imagined getting married, you didn’t even get a proper proposal” His voice sounded sorry and sad even when he said it with a chuckle.

I know he’s probably feeling the same way, but he didn’t have to say sorry over something we both had no control over.

I took his hand in mine, rubbing comforting circles on the back of his hand

“Don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault. Besides, I’m happy too”

The light turned green, instead of letting go of my hand which I thought he would do he just kept his hold on mine. One hand on the wheel and one on mine.

“I feel like I lost a friend when they told me about the engagement. Out of everyone, I thought why you. Why did they have to take that one constant person out of my life and make it more complicated”

I’ve never heard his point of view before, I never knew that was how he felt. For so long I believed he was acting a bit cold towards me because he disliked our engagement.

It did feel like I lost a friend. Turns out he was feeling the same way, but not for the reason I thought of

“What made you change your mind about it?” I asked him

“You”

“Me?”

“My first thought was why you when it should have been why not you. No one knows me like you do, atleast I don’t have to walk on eggshells or worry over not liking my future wife”

When he said future wife I got this feeling in my chest, like my heart beat twice before returning back to normal. My cheeks starting to turn crimson again because of this guy beside me.

“It wouldn’t be too bad to spend the rest of my life with my bestfriend, don’t you think so?” he spared me a quick glance before turning his attention back on the road. I just smiled at him, gave his hand a squeeze before turning my attention back outside.

Suddenly, this day just got a bit better.

#kim doyoung #doyoung #nct #nct 127 #nct u #doyoung imagine #doyoung scenario #doyoung fluff #doyoung au #nct imagine #nct scenario #nct au #nct fluff #nct wedding #nct 127 imagine #nct 127 scenario #nct 127 fluff #nct 127 au

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the209social · 3 years

Text

I Waited A Lifetime To See His Face

1:45pm 7.19.2021

Anyone who is close to me knows that i never met my real dad. I had never even seen a picture of my real father. I always wondered if i looked like him. I wondered what features were more of my dad than my mom. I always thought that a family member would eventually show me a picture of him. Many people in my family knew him and they were old friends of his, but every time that i would ask for a picture of him, for some reason the universe would put up obstacles and the picture never made it to my hands. Little did i know that a friend of mine would be the link that would unite me with a picture of my father. The Universe has a weird way of working and it has its perfect timing.

I remember when i was a small child i asked my mother for a picture of my real dad. Unbeknownst to me my mom ripped out a picture from a magazine of an old man and made me believe the man in said picture was my father. I was ecstatic to finally see my dad. One day in elementary school, as we were studying science i came across my dads picture in one of our science books. I told everyone that the man in the book was my father. My teacher at the time told me that the man in the book was Albert Einstein and in fact not my dad. I’m sure my teacher didn’t not do it with the intention of hurting me, but i was heart broken. I remember walking home from school with my head down as tears seemed to flow freely down my face. When i got home i told my mom what had happened and she apologized. She was not aware that the picture she gave to me was of a famous German physicist. Now that i look back i believe that moment was my first heart break.

As the years went by i came to the conclusion that it was just not meant to be for me to know who my real dad was. Every time someone suggested that they had a connection to a picture of my dad, i agreed when they said they would get it to me, but the picture never came and i never kept my hopes up. To be completely honest i never wanted to meet my dad. I just wanted to see what he looked like. My mother has provided me with a very comfortable life without the help of any man. My family and friends have given me all the love that my father never did. Maybe this is why i value friendships so much. I mean, i was ghosted by my own dad. Maybe this is why i’m terrified of losing friendships and i give more than i should to the ones i love, to avoid anyone from walking out of my life again, but that has not been the case. I love so hard so no one ever feels worthless like i did growing up.

A few years ago my friend Yuli introduced me to a wonderful guy that i’m so proud of calling a friend. We call him Lalo. I would have never thought that Lalo would be the link to finding the picture of my father and also providing a way for me to communicate with him if i ever wanted to reach out. Lalo would sometimes come over to my house when we had events or if i through a party. I found out that Lalo and his family are from a neighboring town from where we are from in Mexico. One day Lalo and i sat down and had a deep conversation about our lives and things we had been through. I told him i never met my dad and i had no clue what he looked like. All i knew was that my father was an english professor in the town Lalo is from and his full name. Lalo went home and told his mother but when he told her the story he gave her the wrong name.

So all this time goes by and Lalo’s birthday comes up and on Saturday he invited us over to his place to celebrate. I had a really nice time at his birthday celebration and around midnight i excused myself because i was tired. I went to say goodbye to his mom and she asked me about my dad. “Lalo told me your dad was professor so and so, is this true?” I looked at her with confusion in my face because she had mentioned a weird name i had never heard before. I told her my dads name and her eyes went wide open. She asked me if my dad was an english professor. I told her that as far as i knew, he was. She then said, “If the man you are talking about is your father then i know him. He was my english professor and his daughter, who is your sister is my very close friend, we graduated together and are friends on facebook.” I smiled but didn’t get my hopes up, because what were the probabilities that my friend who i just met a couple years ago, mother, would know my real father and his family. Thats like hitting the lottery. “Would you like to see a picture of my friend?” Lalo’s mother asked me. “Sure, but even if this lady is my sister i wouldn’t know because i have never seen a pictures of my dad or my half brothers,” i said to her. She ran to look for her phone and brought it back. She was more nervous than i as she attempted to go through her facebook friends. She was finally able to pull up her page. She handed me the phone so that i could navigate through her pictures because she was so excited she could not keep still.

I stood there looking at a picture of a woman i had never seen before. I went into her gallery and Lalo’s mother showed me a picture where this woman was posing with a much older man. “That is her father in the picture and i believe that is your real dad,” she said. Something deep down told me that there were too many connections and that i had finally found a picture of my dad. I pulled out my cell phone and took a picture to show my mother and ask before i jumped into conclusions and broke my heart again like Albert Einstein had done so many years ago to that little child who all he wanted was to see the face of the man that created him. I drove some friends home. The entire car ride all i could do was think of what i would do if it turned out to be true that i had found a link to my father. I got home around 1:30am and got ready for bed. I turned off the light, got into bed, pulled out my cell phone and took one last look at the picture to see if i could notice any similarities between that stranger and myself.

That morning i woke up and the first thing i did was go to my parents bedroom. I pulled up the picture of this stranger and handed my mom my phone and asked her if she recognized the man in the picture. She had just woken up so she looked at it with no interest in mind. After staring at it for what seemed like a lifetime her eyes went wide. It was at that moment that through my mothers expression i knew that the man in the picture was my father. “Its your father!” My mother exclaimed. “But how? How did you? Who?” My mothers was in shock and tongue twisted. “Lalo’s mom is my half sisters very close friend and after a short talk last night she came to the conclusion that she knew my dad and showed me my half sisters facebook and these pictures.” I told my mom as she stared at my dads picture. Her eyes filled with tears. I’m sure in that brief instant memories and old emotions flooded my mothers mind. It didn’t occur to me that at one point this was the man she loved more than anything and anyone. I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t seen a picture of him in many years. My mother also hadn’t seen or heard of my dad for the length of practically my entire life. “You should reach out to your half sister and your dad,” my mom said as i began to walk back to my room. “No!” i exclaimed.

It’s weird that i’ve waited so long to see a picture of my father and now that i have access to one i barely take it out to look at it. I always thought that i was going to have one of those movie moments where my heart would fill with joy and tears would flow. All i see is a stranger when i look at his image. I don’t even see any physical similarities between us, nor with my half sister. I showed a handful of friends his picture and they also say i look like my mother. None of my friends see much of a similarity between my father and i or my sister and i. Also when i see his pictures i see a happy family that i don’t want to step into and disturb. Just like my life is full of happiness and i wouldn’t want a stranger to come and disturb the peace i currently feel. To be honest all i would want to know is does my dad’s family have any medical conditions that i should be aware of as i get older. Maybe where our family comes from so that i can piece together the other half of me that has been missing for my entire life. I don’t want a relationship, friendship, or an acquaintance with someone who had all the resources to find me as a child and he never tried. I don’t hold a grudge against my dad. He had his reasons for not being in my life. I’m glad i had a father who was non existent in my life, rather than a father who probably would have been there part time or in-and-out of my life all the time. I think that would have caused me more damage.

I don’t see myself reaching out to my half sister or my father anytime soon. I’m just glad to finally be able to put a face to the name of the man that made it possible for me to walk this earth. Its been a great journey so far, i cant wait to see what lies ahead.

3:55pm

#dad #novela #drama #memoirs #story of my life #soap opera #my life #mymemoir

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painted-crow · 3 years

Note

hey paint i know primaries burn or explode but is there a word for when your secondary gets real tired? i like my rapid fire actor bird secondary, but lately it’s felt like it’s acting all the way down—like when i dig through all the toolboxes and personas i’ll just come out the other side. it worries me in a mirrorball-by-taylor-swift kinda way (which isn’t really helped by my lion primary haha).

Secondaries burn too, and I think you're on the verge of that--the feeling of exhaustion you describe is a key characteristic. It seems like your masks conflict with your primary; if you're using that tactic a lot lately for one reason or another and it's starting to freak out your Lion, you could end up fully burning your secondary.

(You also mention rapid fire Bird, but it sounds like the Actor Bird masks are more the problem. Usually tools don't feel like something you hide behind. If they do to you... maybe they aren't really your tools, like you didn't get to choose them, and someone pushed them on you? Just a thought.)

Caution: HOT

Assuming that sounds right, you want to avoid burning your secondary, if possible. I'll try to offer some advice, but this is going to be a bit of a shot in the dark, so it's hard to say what will apply to you... otherwise, *offers internet hugs*

A note before we get into this: do what you need to protect yourself. Using masks isn't wrong or bad, but given what you've said, I'm concerned for you--I know how exhausting they are to keep up long term, even if you aren't a Lion. But if it turns out that using Bird masks is what you need to do to survive, don't feel bad about that--keep yourself safe.

Identifying the problem

First, it sounds like you're using your masks more often than usual, and there's probably a reason for that. My guess is that there's something that feels unsafe or unaccepting to you, and since you're noticing this problem now, there's a good chance that it's new.

A new environment, new relationship, new circumstances... something is stressing you out. Toxic work environment at a new job? Friend who isn't really a friend? Situations you can't prepare for easily?

Our friend @magpie-of-a-birb has a brilliant suggestion for figuring this out through Lion primary:

Slow down and break down the situation. Make each aspect as small as possible and essentially hold every aspect up to your lion one at a time. See what pings, see what doesn't, and don't ignore any pings saying something is wrong, and especially not the ones saying you feel unsafe. If anything, investigate them further.

Basically, use your lion consciously. There may be pings that you're missing that would be helpful (like signs that you're uncomfortable with xyz behavior from someone else).

(Slightly edited for pronouns etc, but that's all Magpie. She's super smart you guys.)

Potential fixes

Once you've figured out what's wrong, you have a few general options for dealing with it.

Different tactics. Can you get by with a different Bird tool? Pick up a model of another secondary, maybe try out Badger mirroring instead? (Which, to me, feels more genuine than my Bird masks, and takes less energy.) What happens if you lower the mask a bit, if it's safe to do so? Is there possibly a different mask you could use that feels more like you/is less exhausting?

Change the situation. This might mean setting healthy boundaries, adjusting your schedule, backing off on some of the work you've taken on... you'll have to figure out what this means for you. It might also mean seeing a therapist who can help you through some of this.

Leave. This is a bit of a nuclear option, but sometimes you have to. You can't change a toxic work environment, for example, and you shouldn't undervalue your mental health. Consider continuing to look for work on the quiet.

There's one last option you might be thinking of: trying to get your Lion to be okay with your Bird masks. It might sound like a good idea, but masks aren't a good long-term tactic, specifically because of the amount of energy they require to maintain.

Believe me, I know.

Story time

I keep writing about this next experience in different posts and deleting it because it didn't seem relevant enough, but... I guess this is the time.

I have a "serious/smart/competent/masculine" Bird mask. I developed it in high school, and started using it constantly when I started studying programming in college. I was an anxious, depressive, barely 17-year-old loner girl (usually the only girl in the class) trying not to be rejected by a crowd that's notorious for being exclusionary.

And not without reason. There's a huge elitism problem in tech. I remember trying to lower the mask a few times, and getting pounced on. Not everyone did that, of course, but a handful of my professors did, as did many people I met at networking events. So basically, just the people whose approval I actually needed, career wise.

I had no flipping idea I was using a mask, and not until I left tech, years later, did I realize:

a) that I had the mask in the first place;

b) that I could drop it; or

c) how much energy it had taken to maintain.

Each of those realizations came separately. It took a while. I don't have a problem with any of the traits in the mask, see; each of them is mine to a degree (as with all my masks), but performing them constantly, and loudly enough to work, became too much for me.

Some masks take more energy than others. That one takes a lot, because I am not competitive, or terribly assertive, by nature. I have another mask ("soft/friendly/feminine/optionally shy") that I use in situations where I care more about being liked than respected. I can keep that one going longer, but it gets on my nerves eventually--either because it's not entirely me, or because the way some people treat that mask is really annoying.

It sounds like whatever mask you're using is on the energy-sucking side. There might be an easier one that you can gradually switch into (harder than it sounds, I know), but even then, it's not a great long term solution.

In short: masks are useful for things like making good first impressions or getting out of a bad situation, but not for getting a toxic community to accept you indefinitely. It's a really, really good thing that you're picking up on this now and not later.

(special credits to @magpie-of-a-birb, who discussed this with me and made this post better, in addition to supplying that quote--go follow her if you aren't already!)

#sortinghatchats #ravenclaw secondary #actor bird #burned ravenclaw secondary #paint speaks #asks #q

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x0401x · 4 years

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Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #2

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Daily Life of Etranger: Professor Kunz and Morgan

Saturdays were long at Jewelry Etranger. We had a client scheduled to come by at four today. It was three-thirty in the afternoon. While on stand-by together with the shop manager, I felt like we still had a long wait ahead of us.

“Hey, Boss, why do stones always end with ‘nite’?”

Mr. Richard, the Englishman, reflected silently on the meaning of my question for a moment. Deep in thought, he had an elegant facial expression.

A few seconds later, Richard nodded with an “aah”. “What you are referring to is the naming of alexandrite, tanzanite, kunzite and others?”

“Yeah, yeah, that.”

“It is because of the ‘ITE’ suffix, right? Not that the names of all gemstones have it, but it is widely used to denote minerals. From the title of honor of the Romanov royal family, ‘Alexander’s Stone’, we have ‘alexandrite’. From ‘Tanzania’s Stone’, we have ‘tanzanite’. The latter is a commercial name given by a jewelry company, though.”

I get it; seems to be something like an alias.

“Then is kunzite also the name of a place called Kunz?”

“That one is the name of a person. It is named after a famous gemologist, Professor Kunz.”

So this one also received the suffix and became “kunzite”. I see; it’s pretty simple.

“Is that like the ‘sandwich’ in ‘Earl of Sandwich’? Was this Professor Kunz the person who discovered it?”

“Exactly. Good guess.”

Putting your own name on a stone. What was this feeling that someone could randomly stir up a romance with it? I did know that when people were granted naming rights when finding new stars or animals, but I see, that’s also valid for gems.

“So if I found one, it would be a nakatanite...?”

“Are you going to aim for the discovery of a new type of mineral?”

“Might be good! I could write in my resume that I’m ‘the Nakata who discovered the nakatanite’.”

“Pathetic. To think that your reason to be happy about discovering a new stone would be filling up a blank space on your resume...”

After that, Richard discussed that a new discovery meant expanding the scopes of science. That knowing about the existence of a stone that had a different structure from the already known minerals meant broadening the ranges of the world. Of course, an expansion of the jewelry world could also be useful for the development of the latest technology. The world of stones was unfathomable.

Since it was about a time where it wouldn’t be weird if the client showed up, I went to make today’s second serving of royal milk tea, and as I returned from the kitchenette to the reception room, Richard had opened his treasure box. There were two beautiful gemstones cozily lined up inside the large velvet box. One of the pink stones was tinged with a faint shade of lavender, while the other had a trace of orange. Both were very light colors.

“Those are pretty stones. What’re they called?”

“This is a kunzite. I was just stocking up on it.”

So that was the rumored one. With square-faceted cuts, both stones were about the size of half a pinky fingernail, emanating a shiny glow as they reflected the light.

“It is not very suitable to wear as everyday jewelry since it is a delicate stone, but it allows you to enjoy your day plenty enough. Collectors of rare stones are fond of it.”

“Is that kinda orange-ish one the same stone too?”

“This one is called morganite. They have a similar color but are different stones.”

“I’ll guess so don’t say it. Don’t say it no matter what. If kunzite is named after Professor Kunz, then this one... is named after Morgan-san?”

“Correct.”

I heard Richard’s “good for you” for the first time in a while. He spoke such an unfaltering Japanese that you could only think he was an actual Japanese man if you talked to him with your eyes closed, but his nationality was British and he was a blue-eyed blond. Just from his tongue-tying name, Richard Ranashinha de Vulpian, it didn’t seem like his origins were from England alone, but I didn’t know the details. Not yet.

“Aah, so this one was Professor Morgan’s discovery?”

“You were in the faculty of economics, right? Do you know the name and the bank J.P. Morgan?”

“Eh? I do. He was an American billionaire and founder of a big bank... Eh?”

A billionaire had been the discoverer of a mineral? Really?

As my eyes widened, Richard shook his head. “He was one of the world’s leading jewelry collectors. He was also a sponsor of the organization that Professor Kunz belonged to, and there was a deep liaison between the two. Kunzite was named after Professor Kunz, so for this one, they used Mr. Morgan’s name.”

“Heeh...”

Kunzite and morganite.

On one hand, there was the name of a gemologist who worked in the USA. He was surely famous in the world of stones, but if I hadn’t seen that gem, I likely wouldn’t have known his name for the rest of my life.

On the other hand, there was a financial king who had founded a huge company. Even I knew his name. But stones were stones.

Looking at them lined up on a velvet cushion like this, it sort of felt like I was also looking at two friends with similar tastes standing beside each other. Unlike stones, human beings had many kinds of titles clinging to them stickily, but in the end, we were all the same once we were stripped of them. Like “financial king”. “University student”. “Jeweler”. “English”.

“Hey, if I find two new types of stones in the future, I’ll name one ‘nakatanite’, but I’ll give the second one your name.”

Richard made an indescribable face. He did not take me seriously at all. That was expected. It was probably like discovering a new type of vegetable or fish. But there was no way that it didn’t exist.

“But how do you look for a new type of stone? Should I go find a mine that nobody knows about and get to digging it or something?”

“Unknown mines should still exist here and there even nowadays, but the planet called Earth is just one. Even in a place that has never been dug, if you analyze the soil of the area, you can have a rough idea of what kinds of stones are likely to come out of it. Rather than this, there have been several cases where people ‘discovered’ stones by proving that something people had been handling until recently as a different type of stone was actually a new type with a differing composition. Either way, a discernment backed by the knowledge of minerals and an analysis made through the required equipment is indispensable.”

“That’d turn into a pretty chemistry-centered story, huh?”

“Exactly. And of course, it would take time and money.”

“What a fleeting dream~”

“Great to see that you woke up from that dream. If you could find something by thinking of looking for it, nothing would ever be difficult.”

As Richard told me to put away the tea set, he took the flat jewelry box and returned to the backroom. It was 3:45 PM. The client had still not arrived. I washed the glasses in the kitchenette, somewhat unsatisfied, then went back again to the reception room. While the shopkeeper stood by the windowsill and stared down at the street, I called to him with a “hey”.

“Serious talk: between ‘richardite’, ‘ranashinhite’ and ‘devulpianite’, which do you prefer?”

Richard had good looks and was smart. The languages he spoke as if they were his mother tongue were not limited to Japanese. At the very least, speaking five to six idioms was a piece of cake for him. He knew about everything very well. He acted by thinking about ten times more thoroughly than me with a perspicacity more than ten times sharper than mine, so he didn’t make any imprudent blunders. I believed he could be working leisurely in a more secure, more advantageous and easier job. But he was working as a jeweler alone in Japan.

Which was why there was no mistake that the one behind that calm and composed face was quite a romanticist.

As I laughed with a “take it like I won the lottery”, Richard made a face of losing focus. “You mean to say I am your Morgan?”

“Now that you mentioned it, yeah. You’re the one paying my salary.”

“As for you, I think seiginite is better than nakatanite.”

“Eh?”

“If you were to name a stone,” Richard said. “Names are the only ‘garments’ that gemstones wear. I know that Nakata is quite a splendid name, but Seigi is more like you. I also feel that the benefits of wearing it would be easier to distinguish.”

“‘Benefits’, you say... like wanting to help people at random? That benefit’s a bit of a bother.”

“Not bad, is it?” saying so as he turned around, Richard smiled softly.

I wondered if that guy wasn’t actually doing minute calculations on when and in what way to smile, with a clear understanding of how to make the people around him feel good. I had a simple character, so I would end up getting extremely happy when I was told things like that. As I held back from grinning smugly, the beautiful storekeeper furrowed his brows.

“Anything wrong?”

“N-No, no, nothing.”

Shortly thereafter, the shop’s intercom rang. It was the scheduled appointment. The one who came in was a female costumer carrying several store bags – a collector of rare gems. She picked the loose kunzite and morganite, as well as two more rare stones, and went home highly satisfied. Richard had probably laid those stones in stock because he could predict that she was going to purchase them.

After closing the shop at five as usual and bidding goodbye to Richard at Sotobori Street, I remembered the talk we had left unfinished. It wasn’t because his smile was destructively beautiful or anything like that. Thinking logically, finding two new types of gemstone would be hard no matter how lucky I could be – no, one was already absurd –, so in any case, I wondered if “Richard and the Stone of Justice” would do. Dream stories were good, but if an English jeweler was saved by a Japanese university student and hired him to work part time for some reason, despite the low chances of something like that happening, I thought it would be great if I could do something of that level to surprise him. I was pretty serious about it.

#housekishou richard shi no nazo kantei #the case files of jeweler richard #jeweler richard #richard ranashinha de vulpian #nakata seigi #tsujimura nanako #richard #yukihiro utako #novel #my translation #jr short story collection

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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New X-Men Xtrospective Part 1: E is For Extinction “They Will Need Us”

I am SO fucking excited for this one. As might not be obvious to ALL of my readers but should be obvious to some, I fucking love the X-Men. They are one of my favorite superhero teams period as are several of their spinoffs such as X-Factor (All versions), New Mutants, and Marauders. I love the wide cast, the hugely vast universe within the already vast and wonderful marvel universe, and the sheer amount of GREAT stories. I own all 11 movies, have several action figures, and two posters from Jonathan Hickman’s current and utterly dynamite run right above me right now as I work, as well as a marvel 80′s themed poster behind me that’s at least half x-men for good reason. I love this gang of mutants and I have not talked about them enough.

I”ve done some X-Men stuff sure: I’ve talked about hickman’s time as head writer of the books a year in earlier this year, I did a few scattered reviews back when I did single issues of comics, and then we get to the one I beefed big time: covering ALL of X-Men evolution. While it’s a noble endeavor I freely admit to overexerting myself: I recapped the episodes way too closely, gave myself no real schedule and did so while I was already covering two shows a week at the time. My point is it was a good idea, but the timing was REALLY fucking bad and if I do it again, I intend to do it right and iwth a proper place in my now properly paced schedule. I also planned to do the movies which, unlike evolution, I have solid plans to do once I clear out some of my projects. Point is I burned bright and then exploded and took a whole projecet with me phoenix style.

I had until this moment yet to do a really big x-men project, something digging into the comics, something that could help fans both of the comics and not get familiar with something really good, and help me dig into both the good and bad of something. I jsut needed the right start.

Then Christmas gave me that spark, that project that gave me the idea for a butload more x-men content on here and was the perfect starting point for some. See my friend Marco lives in Honduras, and so since i couldn’t afford to send him anything for christmas in the mail, as i’m not exactly rich, I instead offered him three reviews of anything.l He still hasn’t taken up two of them, nor one I gave him for graduating college, but the first one was a doozy, something he hadn’t read due to not liking the art, which is fine as I have some art in comics I don’t like everyone has diffrent tastes, at least for the first arc, and something VITALLY important to x-men as a whole and that’s the backbone of hickman’s current run: the first arc of new x-men, e is for extinction. And given New X-Men is one of my faviorite comics of all time I not only lept on it.. but decided fuck it I’m covering the whole thing. So every so often on here from now until I finish, i’m going to be covering Grant Morrisons ground breaking, mind shattering, status quo destroying run on the children of the atom. This.. is going to be fucking awesome. Buckle up.

New X-Men came about in 2001. Stop me if you heard this one: The X-Men, once marvel’s best selling title and one of i’ts most beloved, had been set adrift in a seal of editorial bullshit, bad writing, bad storylines and a stale continuity where not much could change or grow and things always reset to about the same place it was last week. If this sounds familiar it’s because it somehow happened AGAIN thanks to Ike Perlmutter’s bullshit, hence the current hickman run, but we’ll get into all of tha tsome other time. Point is as it was in 2018, so it was in 2001: The x-men were in bad straits and marvel reached out to a host of various creators to swing for the fences and find a new direction, something to bring sales and life back to the book. To my shock they actually took a LOT of diffrent pitches in before Morrisons won and from huge names: Geoff Johns, who had not yet returned to DC never to leave, Alex Ross, Keith Giffen.. all huge creative types. but in the end the best man won.

For those unfamiliar with him, Grant Morrison is a gloriously batshit scotsman with a long, storied and delightfully insane history in comics, mostly at DC before and after this comic. This is for good reason: DC scouted Morrison specifically because of his early work at 2000ad. See at the time Alan Moore had hit it really big with Swamp Thing, taking a d list, so so book and making it into an utter masterpiece and giving it thoroughly interesting mythology. Given it was a blockbuster hit that’s still widely loved and discussed, as it should be today, DC decided to repeat the strategy of asking British indie comics creators to come do the same to another property. This same experiment is why Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman exists, so.. yeah it was actually a great strategy and naturally Grant had their first big hit with Animal Man, a metafictional take on a b-list hero that made him a loveable family man, while also putting him through hell and playing with the medium and dc’s vast history, the last two being Morrison’s trademark from then on out.

They’d next go on to reinvent one of my other faviorite teams: THE DOOM PATROL! The patrol are a bunch of victims of strange accidents who got powers out of them that are basically curses... and Morrison solidified that concept, taking over after a weak run that ironically enough was trying to imitate the x-men’s success at the time. Instead Morrison just went all out with his weird shit for the first time and made them a team of broken but likeable people with weird powers fighting just the weirdest most incomprehensible shit, a run i’ll likely be digging into eventually along with the team as a whole. It’s also, along with Gerard Way’s recent run, the bedroock for the current and utterly masterful doom patrol series I need to catch up on. They also apparently once wrote a satrical comic starring and lik mocking hitler... a fact I somehow JUST learned but naturally doesn’t surprise me at all.

Morrison’s career at dc, after doing some creator owned stuff there when Vertigo opened up, hit it’s peak in the late 90′s as they were given the go ahead to reinvent the Justice League, with the wildly successful and awesome JLA, another book I probably need to take a look at that put the big 7 back into the team. And by now your probably getting the point of me covering his career pattern.. besides giving morrison the praise they deserve, and they’d have some really great runs after this.. and some terrible ones but no one’s perfect. My point is that at this point in their career Morrison’s greatest skill was taking something that had grown stagnant or been forgotten, blowing it up and reworking it into something glorious and new. Taking what worked, scraping away what didn’t and on the whole making something fucking glorious out of it. So here we are. The X-Men needed a new coat of paint and uncle grant had their lcd laced psycadelic paint bucket and brush shaped like a pidgeon at the ready. And for better, way better and admitely sometimes here and there worse,they changed the x-men for good. Some changes were rolled back out of spite, others finally got their chance after said rollback recently, and some were just outright thrown on the grown and smashed with a hammer. But for the most part Grant left a huge impact on the x-men and i’m here to show you why, warts and all. To me my x-men, this is new x-men. Now naturally there’s even more exposition but i’ts more in what COULD’VE been. Originally while Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Professor X were all part of the team the other two members of the slim roster for this run, Beast and Emma Frost.. weren’t. Originally Morrison was going to have Colossus and Moira Mactaggert, long time team ally, token human until very recently, and now thanks to hickman one of the most important x characters peirod and long before that a fan favorite of mine, on the team, with Moira taking over for beast.

This.. didn’t pan out since Marvel apparently either didn’t give a shit about their plans or already had things in motion as the climax of the longtime legacy virus storyline killed both off. Colossus until Joss Whedon, bastard he may be, brought him back for his terrific Astonishing X-Men, and Moira SOMEHOW stayed dead until House/Powers of X. See this speaks to one of the big roadblocks morrison faced: Jonathan HIckman currently has absolute power and all his writers working in concert, a new way of doing things comic companies shold honestly copy en masse as it’s really working wonders. Grant.. was just one of many writers and one of three main x books the others being Chris Claremont’s XTREME X-MEN, basically “let the legend do what he wants since he can’t get freedom on the main book” and another writer on uncanny... before eventually chuck austen took over and I will tackle that horrible mess some other time. Point is while Morrison was setting the tone, costume style and making the big waves, they still didn’t have full power and thus had to play nice with eveyrone else. So their next idea was Rogue, making mer more like her x-men evolution version.. except Chris wanted her, so that was out, though being a decent enough guy he willingly gave up Beast since the moira thing meant Morrison needed a science person. As for Colossus replacement, as it turned out a fan had suggested Grant do something with Emma Frost since Gen X was canceled and while Morrison had zero intention for it clearly Emma clicked with hthem and she was soon both a main part of the cast and one of their biggest contributions to X-Men as a whole.

As for what I think of the needed changes.. they ended up being for the best. I do like Moira... but Hank ended up being a much better fit for the team dynamic wise and power set wise, while Emma was the same. While Colossus, Rogue and Moira are all fantastic characters, I think what we ended up with was just a better mix overall. I DO think the team is incredibly white, but that’s a general x-men problem, even with having an assload of diverse and intresting characters, so it’s not entirely his fault. All in all it’s a fantastic roster: four of the x-men’s best, their leader in the field for the first time in forever, and a new and intresting wild card. IT’s a nice ballance of characters and we’ll get more into it as we go. Now all the expositions done, we can finally dive head first into new x-men. I hope you survivie the experince under the cut.

After an utterly gorgeous and striking cover, the one used up top, we get one solid page to introduce us to Morrison’s mission statment, how they feel and how good Frank Quitely’s art looks

I cropped it best i could for tumblr but this one image immidetly says a lot. Our heroes are just.. easily taking down this sentinel, an old model... the same one we’ve seen a dozen times. What were once the grim, possible destroyers of an entire race of beings in days of future past and devistating killing machines in the present.. had become stale easily defeated murder bots There had been noble attempts to really make the sentiinels work again like the horrifying omega sentinels, humans forcibly converted into sleeper agent killing machines, during operation: zero tolerance, but otherwise they were mostly just a prop for the x-men to knock down. And that.. really is morrison’s whole point. Lampshading and mocking the fact the x-men had grown stale, things hadn’t really progressed.. and that it was time to move on. But to Uncle Grant’s credit, they not only uses this as a mission statment but it’s plot relevant: this mission will both be explained soon and explains why Logan and Scott are out and about enough to end up where the plot will soon need them. It also helps, via the sight of the syndey opera house establish something Morrison made a staple of their run: the X-Men going global. While the x-men were never really NOT global post claremont, Morrisons run has them handling rescue missions and what not worldwide far more often than most runs before it sans Claremont, and really made it feel like they weren’t just another super team but a global force of good with a specific goal and mission. More on the global aspect next time, as that’s where it really comes in but I felt it was important to show it was there for minute one.

So yeah before we move onto the first full scene of the run, let’s talk about the costumes.

We’ll talk about Emma’s later since she’s not introduced to the story for a while but yeah. There’s a sharp, obvious and immediate change just in the outfits, which take after the movie’s more military look, having the x-men not only look more like a unit but more like a professional orginization. Someone to come and help when needed. While this would take on more siginifigance in a bit, we’ll get to it, it also fits Morrisions own views that the x-men were less of a traditional superhero team and more something different on the edges that fought things out there, sorta what like he did with doom patrol. And it’s honestly a valid interpretation as the x-men are often seen as outlaws and misfits by society for beingn well.. mutants. Not as trusted as the avengers. So having them adopt this look played into that: Having them look more professional and focused as The X-Men have a less blanket mission statement than the avenger.. but also mildly threatning. Something to alarm the humans. It’s an utterly brilliant look thrown best together by the big yellow x’s, still giving it a nice flash of color to show off and show this is still a comic and this is still damn colorful.. this just isn’t your AVERAGE supherhero comic or the x-men your used to. IT’s a real shame the only fox x-men movie to use it was fucking dark phoenix.. a film where it didn’t even fit as xavier was getting flashier and more reckless so why wouldn’t he have more garish and colorful and more traditional superhero outfits. They did look good in their variants in first class though. Props there. Point is this is a classic, utterly stunning look, and tha’ts coming from someone whose fine with goofy superhero outfits and perpetually bitter hawkeye is almost never allowed to wear his actual comic outift and is instead stuck with shades instead of you know.. a mask. Or anything resembling an actual good looking costume. This though this is how you do a less superheroy costume: practical and realistic, but still cool looking and comic book friendly.

We cut to a mysterious lady, we’ll come to know her as Cassandra Nova and while I know her origin... i’m saving it for later as the comics themselves explain it eventually, and a simpering dolt she brought with her, Donald Trask, a distant relative of the creators of the sentinels who, via holograms she’s showing cro magnons slaughtring the neanderthal. Her point is that Mutants are going to do this and she’s clearly fearmongering him and trying to talk him into genocide: to wipe them out before they wipe out humanity. And it’s here we get one of hte most important plot points of Morrisons run and one of the most intresting: according to cassandra’s research Humanity will be no more in 4 generations. Mutankind is on it’s way to overtaking them at last.. i’ts still a few decades off.. but it’s coming. It’s sometihing that the whole decimation nonsense sadly snuffed.. and John Hickman has thankfully brought back. I’ll get to his run once i’ts complete in a few years, but point is it’s an utterly marvelous plot hook: Humanity, whose already attempted genocide a few times, is now in real danger of what their petty, racist, fearful attacks have been about: being replaced. It’s one of the central themes of the work the other two being “Just what IS mutantkind and what will it be”. WHat are they as a people? We’ll dig into these as we go but the threat of exctincion is the backbone of this arc... and will lead to something truly ghastly.

It’s then we get our title page.. which nothing really to add it just looks really good and helps show off who are cast is and what they can do with striking simple art.

And since we’re already talking the art of the book, let’s take a moment to discuss an intresting detail of this run: despite it’s short length there’s quite a few diffrent artist, who we’ll talk about of course as we get to each one. The most common and notable though is Frank Quitely. Frank Quitely is one of Morrison’s closest and best creative partners, having a unique, squishy art style.. i.e. the one my friend didn’t like which is why i’m covering this. And while I like the art style quite a bit, I do get why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea: His art is squashed, weird, and admitely some faces can be good god no incaranate. But it’s also why I like it: his characters feel unique, each body and figure feels like it was custom made and thus feels.. real. Like this is a person before you. And given comics can often surrender to having everybody look the damn same, this is nice. His faces may sometimes look similar but his bodies are where the action is. But while having a realistic feel his work also has a weird alien quality that perfectly fits Morrison, and thus his run on x-men. I will say while I love All-Star Superman, his art fits less there in the more hopeful silver agey story, so he’s not an artist for EVERY STORY OF EVERY TYPE.. but when it comes to sci fi weridness, he fits it like a glove so i’ts unsuprising he and morrison are practicaley soul mates, nor that his art sets the tone perfectly for the run: this is something new, diffrent and strange.. and what says x-men at it’s best more than that?

So after our opening titles we cut to the mansion where Hank is showing off his latest and greatest invention: Cerebra. Cerbebra is a massively upgraded version of Cerebro, aka Professor Xavier’s iconic helmet that allows him to track mutants to help them out.. and covertly backup their conconousness for his long game plan, but shhhh, don’t tell anyone yet that’s not going to be retconned in for a few decades. Though i’m damn certain if Morrison has heard about the current era of x-men and how it both builds on what he built, shatters the status quo and is incredibly weird, he’d be damn proud. As for how it’s diffrent Cerebra not only has a large dome around it but said dome allows the machine to amply Charles powers to a global reach. He can now see mutants all over the world anywhere in the world, something I didn’t realize wasn’t ALWAYS a thing because it seems so simple. It’s also likely to bring it more in line with the movies. And while marvel has done TERRIBLE with bringing things in from the movies or in line with them in recent years, i.e. making star lord more like his movie self while forgetting that’s how he already used to be in canon before later writers thankfully did hte better step of merging the two, Hawkeye’s outfit, Cap’s outfit or Nick Fury Jr. But for every mistep there’s also been tons of times it’s worked out really well such as here, as well as bringing hulk into the avengers for the first time since the founding, making tony stark more like the mcu version and less like a nightmarish self righetous dicktator who rightfully gets beat up and called out a lot, making Scott Lang prominent since he became prominent in the MCU, Wakanda being a major force in the marvel universe as it always should have been and various titles that have popped up to tie into movies, often bringing back a team or property that hadn’t had a book in some time like Ant-Man, Black Panther, and Shang Chi just to name a few. It’s not always hawkeye looking all jeremy renner is what i’m saying.. though thankfully comics clint isn’t that uninteresting. Hopefully the series will change that.

So yeah along with a bigger shinier cerebro we’re also introduced to a big change in Hank whose taken on his lion form rather than his classic gorilla with a weird haircut or his return to that except bald. Here he’s more like aslan in a human body and I.. love it. It looks great, helps sell hanks delima of being brilliant while looking like a beast and makes sense: he kickstarted what was likely his own secondary evolution by drinking the potion that made him bestial, so it only makes sense his body wouldn’t be all that stable even if it took years to change again. And even that makes sense as hank was breifly turned back to his original hairless ape mutation during x-factor, easily one of the books.. worse decisions honestly and one that louise simonson thankfully later undid. That probably bought him some time hence why it’s only mutating further now. It also adds an intresting wrinkle which the run will explore further: how far does this go? Will he regress? and how much hank will be left? And how will society treat his new form?

For now he’s actually extatic. While he’s going through hormonal changes, and giving out some excellent banter with Jean

Which also includes one of the greatest lines in comic book history, one that’s been in my head for decades and made me absolutely love henry mccoy.

He’s just great is what i’m saying. As you can tell it’s stuff like this why i’m glad Moira fell through. While I love her.. Morrison’s hank is just a delight and one really questionable subplot aside, we’ll get to that, he’s one of the highlights of this run with an intresting internal struggle, and great chemistry with EVERYONE. And that is the main reason i’m glad Moira fell through as his history with everyone but Emma, who he still has a great raport with, means each interaction has weight. He’s close friends with both scott and jean and thus serves as their needed confidant, while still being able to buddy and banter iwth good old weapon x, and speak with his mentor charles as an equal. While I love moira... Beast just fits into the cast too perfectly and I 100% suspect Morrison was only using her because, while she’s awesome, Claremont wanted her and thus gladly snapped her up when he no longer had a science person. I’ll get into his Jean soon enough but she’s likewise fantastic and easily my faviorite version of the character.. not that until very recently there was much honest competition.

So Cerebra fires up showing a massive cloud of mutants, showing just how much of a huge spike theirs been with Xavier wondering what it all means.. and Hank seeing a weird flare on the mointor for just a second with his special eyes. But since Xavier isn’t stupid and isn’t the kind of idiot who just dismisses it as a fulke, and since Scott and Logan are in the field, he decides to confrence call them in to see if they can go take a look.

And naturally we get to see what their up to and get context for what the hell happened in the first page. Our heroes were on a rescue mission to save Ugly John, tha’ts what people called him, a three faced mutant who ends up passing out as they head out of the atmosphere for a second. Wolverine is regenerating and smoking out of his neck becaue he could still smoke back then before marvel decided “he’s setting a bad example”.. in a comic meant for teens and adults.

I mean I get it on some level as the x-men cartoon was a huge thing in the 90′s and Ben Grimm is basically a giant children’s toy with the mind of a surly 40 year old jewish man from yancy street, but stilll it’s just.. why. I may not like smoking but it’s not like it was SPIDER-MAN saying

It’s a grown man.. whose not a sterling roll model and who Claremont went out of his way to have Logan point out his healing factor means it really dosen’t hurt him in the long run and when Kitty, an actual teenager, tried one of his cigars she choked. I know it’s a weird thing to get hung up on but while i’m all for keeping kids from smoking, this was a really clumsy way to try and hehlp that that made no sense and will never make any sense.

One tangent later we find out that Cassandra was showing Trask a simulation on a flight to, unsuprisingly, south america, to a sentinel blacksite. Between covertly funding civil wars as they do, the US Goverment naturally founded an experimental sentinal project, and a second master mold during the production of the first line... when larry trask asks where it could possibly be well...

Subtly was not the trasks strong point.. or common sense... or.. not realizing their creations would dominate humanity too or not dying.

Anyways we then cut back to the x-men, as their having a psychic zoom meeting with Charlie giving one of his patnted big speeches.. and like a lot of this comic it’s too damn good not to use

The reason I couldn’t should be obvious: This one speech sums up the x-men, why their great and why their necessary in a nutshell: in a world full of prejucided morons.. there’s plenty of scared kids who NEED the x-men to protect and guide them, and with a surge in the mutant population, their needed now more than ever. We also get a good explanation in universe for the uniform change: Charles had them in the superhero outfits hoping humanity would accept them if they were packaged as something they know. Since that clearly hasn’t worked he’s trying new ways to reach out and thus going with a diffrent more rescue team approach to the uniforms. He assigns Wolvie and Cyke to go check out the flair as you’d expect and the meetings over. On the blackbird we get our first hint at a subplot as Logan noticed Cyclops couldn’t wait to get out of there, and is being a tad distant to his wife. He actually has reasons for being kind of cold for once instead of just bad writing as he just came back from being possed by apocalypse. Yeah that happened. So the experience has rattled our boy some what. More on that as we go. But Jean ducks the subject with hank but does breach the fact that Charles has been going kind of crazy with the spending, new uniforms and ambition lately. Hank explains it perfectly: After all the death, suffering and misery the x-men have endured lately, the aforementioned deaths I talked about that took Colossus and Moira off the roster, have lionzed Charles to make sure it was all worth something and look towards the future.

But enough hope time for horror as Cassandra makes her first direct move, trying to take over Charles brain , make his body her own and use cerebra to kill lots and lots of mutants. We then get one of the best moments of Morrisons run with Charles response to a horrifying monster trying to take his brain

While it is shocking to find out Charles has a gun..it’s a grim but kind of understandable precaution. The guy once got fully taken over by a brood, assembling the New Mutants in part because the brood wanted to create more of i’ts kind with more super powers. You’d be paranoid too if some of your beloved students were brought together partly due to your good intentions and partly because a space monster wanted to make more space montsters out of helpless teens, and even horribly gaslighted one of them. We’ll get to that some day. Point is Charles brain is one of the greatest weapons on earth and if the wrong person got a hold of it, it’d be the end of said earth. Thankfully Charles does not need plan gun, as Jean yanks Cerebra off him but the sheer HATE Charles felt from Cassandra, the sheer power has rattled him.. and also told him she’s in Ecuador and his X-Men need to be warned NOW. It’s a great way to set up just HOW powerful Cassandra is. Speaking of which as our first issue of the arc ends, we find out two things: Cass faked being int he government but really just used dead soldiers as prop.. and just what kind of sentinels are out there.. wild sentinels. Easily my faviorite variant of the old killing machines and one that’s barely used despite being really damn awesome. Their adaptive killing machines, designed to mutated just like their pray and take tech from around them, as a result they look like a jumble of guns and parts.. but not only does it give them a unique, cool look.. but it makes them ten times deadlier as instead of being big bricks of robots that while intimidating, the x-men know how to kill... their unpredictable variable killing machines. You can figure out how to kill one sure.. btu the next might be entirely diffrent. They are one of morrisons best creations and I hope someone uses the idea again.. aka hickman. Please use it jonathan I know your focused on nimrod but come on.

And we end on one of the best lines of the entiire run as we close out the issue

Yeah it goes without saying but i’ll say it anyway; Morrison is really damn good with dialouge and being damn quotable.

So we open with another great quote “When I got up today I didn’t expect to kill 20 million people”... and Cassandra being aware Wolverine and Cyclops are on their way and sending the Wild Sentinels to dispatch them. Also our heroes brought Ugly John along while while a dumb move, Wolvie does point out how dumb it was to divert to Ecuador with a civlian in tow.. after the plane crash of course. As for “wait what plane crash’, the sentinels attack and start picking it apart... and since letting them have such good tech is a terrible idea, Scotty blows up the damn plane. So to recap our heroes are stuck in ecuador, surrounded by murder machines, and oh look their there and knock off cyclops viser. Fantastic. So yeah our heroes are fucked. And naturally captured by the enemy.

The rest of the x-men are doing SLIGHTLY better. While beast makes a note for his girlfriend, more on that later on, Charles is in bed, half alive, explaning the rationale I gave for why he has the gun with Jean refusing to let him get back out of bed and you know.. put on the device that just nearly killed him. But when beast announces they lost contact with our boys.. yeah that ceased being an option.

Back in the Ecuadorian Genocide Factory, Cassandra does the obvious and kills donald trask as his real purpose..was to stick around and be stupid for a bit while she copied his dna so she could have full control of her new murder toys.She soon uses them, having a horrifying death chamber slaughter john.. or at least flash fry him. Wolverine takes it how you’d expect and since the sentinels need to “perserve trask dna”.. they can’t fire on him without killing her. Scott escapes.. and in a heart wrenching scene mercy kills john.. before getting badass.

To anyone who says Scott Summers is boring, unintersting, or a stupid asshole idiot head I present exhbit shut the fuck up. Morrison gets scott just right, deconstructing his emotional suppression, while showing him off as a dedicated, companionate man who gets the job done and who seconds after tearfully having to mercy kill an innocent mutant whose death was partially his fault, wastes no time making it painfully clear to the person responsible she WILL die if she tries that again. Logan however realizes she’s already won in some fashion as she’s grinning.. and yeah never a good sign when a genocidal madwoman is grinning like a loon.. and when we find out why.. it’s even less good> We cut to Genosha. A lot of you probably know what happned to Genosha but in case you don’t know what it is it was once a horribly racist country that genetically enslaved mutants and used them for slave labor. It was freed, but still struggled to truly move on.. till Magneto showed up, took the country for himself and made it a home for all mutants. When we last saw him he once again tried to take over the world leading to Logan seemingly killing him. Right now though Emma Frost finally enters the scene teaching some mutants.. when a young one named Negasonic Teenage Warhead.. yes that one and yes she was entirely chosen for deadpool for her name, reveals, via precognition, that their all going to die.. right as the sentinels attack.

Genosha.. is gone. In an eyeblink 16 million mutants are dead, a possible future gone, and one of their greatest leaders is no more. Yeah Magneto WAS alive.. but paralyzed so he could do nothing when his island was utterly slaughtered. Only a handful of mutants will be revealed to survive. Humanity had done a lot to mutants before .. but for once.. they’d succeeded in wiping a massive chunk out. What was an x-men location for DECADES at this point.. was now a smoldering crater. A what could of been that would hant the x-men ever after, even now into utopia it remains the darkest day in mutant history outside of hte decimation. It is a truly horrific moment.. and if the changes already hadn’t made it clear this is morrison saying “NO character is safe, nothing is safe, and nothing will be the same and I damn well mean that”. In one act of hate the world has changed. And it hasn’t finished changing yet.

Issue Three opens hammering in things, as Jean and Beast are in the ruins of genosha, with Xavier having found ONE surivor among the rubble, and our heroes sturggling to find even them, though Jean eventually picks them up and uses her TK to sift through the rubble.

They find Emma who emerges from a bunker in shock, clutching NTW... and not realizing she’s dead until later and revealing she now has diamond skin, her own secondary mutation. Secondary Mutation was a birlliant idea, new powers sprouting up within established mutants.. it’s just morrison barely used this great idea as did hardly anyone else. Only X-Men Blue ever really dug into it and those were artifical at that. IT’s a great idea..it’s just barely used and at most heavily implied to explain changes in powers like Jamie Madrox Multiple Personalities later on or Doug Ramsey’s vast increase in power. Disapointing.

While Charles takes in the tragedy and the fact his old frienmie is dead, the x-men wonder what the fuck Cassandra is and what to do with her.. why did she kill 16 million people, and what the fuck is she. I mean I know, but as I said i’ll explain that when the story does. IN the other room Beast tends to Emma who wants none of not fucking killing Cassandra.. and is utterly right. Bitchy, because i’ts Emma, but right: she killed 16 million people. Say what you want but while it may not be up to the x-men to kill her.. she shoudln’t be living much longer. She commited genocide. Emma decides fuck that and prepares to leave summoning a cab and making peace with being a glorious living fabrige egg. Emma did apparelty change in generation x.. but Morrison is responsible for returning her not only to being a bitch, but a gloriously delightful one And really I don’t think they reset her character entirely: she’s not the heartless monster she started out as: she has empathy, grace, and caring.. she just buries it under a lair of absolute bitch and after you know, surviving a fucking genocide who can blame her? And honestly.. I love their verison of her. She provides a nice contrast to the more idealistic, even logan, x-men and a nice contrarian voice in the room without being obnoxious and her style and sacrastic swagger makes her endlessly entertaning. Thanks to morrison she’s stuck around to this day and went from a pretty good character.. to a great one. And what makes her this way, or as jean puts it “such a bitch?”

With that settled, Hank explains what Cassandra is: a competing species. As he puts it sometimes evolution takes a quantum leap forward.. and Cassandra is the result. Thus she wants to wipe out the compettition and is so far above humanity, she dosen’t need them... especially since she knows what Hank now knows: humanity is at an end. As hank puts it we have an E Gene, one that basically shuts off a race.. and thus the x-men now know what we learned earlier and that cassandra wasn’t lying: in 4 generations there are no more humans and something has to repalce htem. And Cassandra wants it to be her.

Before Logan can do what he does best, and asks why she looks like charles, Cassandra escapes, and Scott briliantly urges them to fight only on instict as she’s a telepath. A damn awesome fight insues including Cassandra donning Charles Psoonic battle armor, Scott being put in his black bug room and the general good looking chaos you’d expect from a superhero fight. While this goes on Emma has an ephinany and realizes she likes to teach, the x-men have a school.. and she shoudln’t give up on helping kids just because of what happened and turns around.

Cassandra is near victory, slipping her way to Cerebra.. and planning to kill only one mind before getting to the millions she wnats, a horrifying slug manifesting around her.. only...

So the x-men accept this and cassandra rises.. seemingly saying “I am charles” Huh... and then charles uncaracteristiacally shoots her saying things must change

We’ll get to what all of that means next time as we close on Jean and Scott in bed. Scott explains why he’s been so distant as what I said earlier: fighting off apocalypse stripped away a lot of illusions about himself and he’s having a hard time walking back from that but Jean is willing to help.. but before they can resolve their issues.. charles has an annoucnment to make and grant has one last whopper of a suprise to end his opening arc on, and just like genosha...it’s a game changer of titanic proportions

No longer is Xavier’s School hidden. Their walking into the light now and so is charles. Hope they surivive the experince. Obviously this move is brilliant: while it removes the veil of saftey the x-men had it also brings on tons of new possiblities and unlike secondary mutation, this one not only stuck but would impact the x-men for good: no longer would they hide and cower.. their mutant and proud.. and their here to stay. E For Extinction is one of the best x-men stories period. Blisteringly paced, full of great character, great concepts and utterly terrifying and terrific moments that would impact the x-men all the way to present day. It’s beautifully drawn, well paced, and a masterwork. I highly recommend it and it’s a great kickoff to a great run. Shame the run couldn’t of ended on this kind of high but.. we’ll get to that. For now this is a masterclass in how to start a run and if you haven’t read it do so NEXT TIME ON NEW X-MEN: A bunch of weirdos try to harvest mutant organs, the x-men get a brain in a jar and a new teamate, and Scott maybe cheats on his wife. Until then, goodbye goodbye goodbye.

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fromashescomephoenixes · 3 years

Text

Sirius Black’s Day Off

author’s note: this is a collab of 80′s movies with the lovely @probably-peeves@thegrxywitch @flymyhp @quadrupledeckertaco @shaynawrites23 please go check out what they wrote for this!

word count: 2.6k~

summary: imagine ferris bueller’s day off.... but with sirius!

****

"Rise and shine beautiful!" Sirius sprang up, flinging my curtains open. The reddish gold morning sun greeted me. In my opinion, it seemed angry and pushy but many might call it 'gentle' and 'beautiful' I knew better.

"No," I grunted. I placed the pillow over my face to block out the sun, and Sirius's loud announcements. Who really knew what he was up to?

"That's the spirit, now I'm going to transfigure some nice yellow warts on your face and you have to cough occasionally. Okay?" Sirius continued bounding around the room before finally leaping onto my bed and planting a kiss across my cheek. I tried to shove him off, but my morning fog finally cleared enough to let me remember why I loved Sirius: it was an adventure every day with him.

"Fine,"I sat up rubbing my eyes, and gave Sirius a morning kiss. "Good morning," He leaped off of the bed, happy to have completed a succesful mission.

"Fantastic! So I'll transfigure us both to-"

"No," I said again, thinking a bit about this plan. Whatever it led to, we certainly would not be taken siriously if we both showed up to Madam Pomfrey with a bizarre illness at the same time. "We need to go in separately or she'll get suspicious."

Sirius nodded, considering.

"You're right!"

"I always am, love," I winked as I pulled on my comfiest trackies. "So are you going to take me to breakfast if you got me up this early?" With a cough, Sirius fell dramatically on to my bed.

"I can't, I'm sick!" he cried, practicing his fake illness.

"Breakfast in bed it is then!" I decided, as I summoned a house elf. Over jammy toast and Beatles tunes, Sirius explained his idea.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." He began. Of course this was going to be a dramatic monologue. When wasn't it with Sirius? I brushed the toast crumbs from my lips as he spoke, excited to here the rest of the plan. "And so, today we are going...." He paused and appeared to be doing some difficult mental math.

"Actually, it would be quicker for me to say where we aren't going!"

"How are we doing this with classes though?" I frowned. Clearly Sirius had banked on me asking this question, and he began to preform various charms which were set to give me an extremely ill appearance in the first class of the day.

"I am excused from class due to a death in the family." He said much to happily, and I recalled that one of his pure-blood supremacist great-aunts had died recently.

"Sorry for your loss?" I said trying to hold back giggles at his jubilant behaviour.

"Don't be!" He shrugged, "Anyways, you'll be sick. And we'll call Remus out with some message from a teacher once I pick you up!"

"Remus is okay with this?" I was incredibly confused now. Typically Remus steered far away from anything which would cause him to miss classes due to his... unique.. schedule.

"Once he knows I'm sure he will be!"

"Famous last words my love, famous last words."

****

Midway through charms, I noticed a couple of strange glances coming my way. I paused my readings about The Art of Life in Inanimate Objects and looked around for anything that was causing these looks.

I quickly figured it out as I realised multicolored spots were popping up all over my arms, and I realised slight puffs of steam were currently exiting my ears. Godric Sirius. Madam Pomfrey was going to have some issues with that one.

"Professor Flitwick?" I raised my hand and waited a moment for him to notice.

"Yes Ms. y/n!" He responded in concern.

"I think I need to see Madam Pomfrey,"

"Yes, right away!" He agreed in his high pitched voice. I raced into the hall with my bag and bumped into Sirius straight away. He pulled me into the nearest secret passage way.

"Oh bloody merlin, my charms actually did work!" Sirius exclaimed, sounding extremely surprised at their success.

"How do we make them un-work?" I begged, uncomfortable at the site of pulsing pustules that were spotting my arms.

"I don't know y/n I think the multicolored look kind of suits you!" He smirked, raising an eyebrow.

"Fine." I crossed my arms. "But no kisses until I'm back to normal," I challenged smugly. A horrified look crossed Sirius's face, and he quickly got out his wand. After a few muttered spells, I was good as new.

"Thank you darling," I kissed his cheek softly before stepping into the corridor. He blushed and quickly followed me. Pulling out a piece of scrap parchment, aka the Marauder's map, we expertly dodged Filch on our way to Remus's classroom.

"You go in," Sirius suggested, quickly forging a note if needed. Given it was the arithmancy teacher, I was sure it wouldn't matter. She was usually too focused on the topic to break away from it.

"Pardon me?" I knocked lightly on the door as I came in. "Professor Binns requested I borrow Remus for a while, he needs quite a lot of help with something." I carefully laid the foundation for a long absence to be suspected of Remus. He was currently eyeing me suspiciously, no doubt seeing right through my preformance. I threw him a wink and he simply rolled his eyes.

As we got into the hall he checked his suspicion.

"So, I'm guessing Professor Binns doesn't need my help?"

"Ah, you are smart!" I said in feigned surprise. Remus's lips twitched, nearly smiling.

"And where's Sirius?"

"Proving your smarts again!" I teased. "He's right round this corner, in the Hogsmeade secret passage." I whispered and tugged Remus into the hidden tunnel. That was where our adventure truly began. Huddled between the stoney walls of yet another secret passage.

"So!" Sirius clapped his hands together softly, before letting one hand fall down to hold mine. "Where do you guys want to go today?" I looked at him in amazement, as I had thought we'd be going to Hogsmeade at most.

"We're leaving Hogsmeade area?" I clarified. I glanced at Remus, and saw he shared my expression of shock. Sirius nodded with a glow of glee in his eyes.

"That we are!" He announced dramatically. I giggled while hushing him, sure that Filch would somehow here through the stone wall. Remus shrugged, unsure of where on earth he'd like to go.

"Oh!" I exclaimed, suddenly remembering one of the wizarding villages I'd heard about. "What about Pitlochry?" The small scottish town actually had a thriving wizarding community living right under it's very nose. It's actually where the famous wizard, Michael Scot, spent many years.

Remus's eyes lit up "Oh yes! Let's go there!" He agreed, eager to see what is said to be a beautiful town. Sirius was ecstatic, and jumped at the idea as well.

“Well?” Remus asked, trying to sound slightly bored with the lack of adventure he’d been forced to miss class for so far.

“Well what?” Sirius asked, glancing up from the Marauder's map he had been studying while we discussed where exactly to visit.

“Well how are we getting there dummy?” I grinned with a hint of mischief.

“Hey! You’re my girlfriend, you don’t get to call me dummy!” Sirius yelled indignantly.

“On the contrary darling, it’s one of my special privileges!” I smirked. “Like this!” I gave him a quick peck on the lips, and then raced raced down the passage with a smirk.

"We could apparate?" Remus suggested, but I shook my head slightly. Despite passing my test, I freaked out about trying it with anything farther than a couple of feet away.

"Perhaps use the Floo?" I thought out loud, hoping this would be the chosen idea.

"Or," Sirius began with a gleam in his eye, "We could use my motorbike." Sirius's cherry red motorbike had been bought last summer, and was currently stored in Hogsmeade. It was practically begging to be used. There was just one little snag:

"It's not like it flies or something," Remus shook his head with a small smile. "It would take ages to get to Pitlochry on it!" Sirius's smile grew all the wider. I could practically predict what he was about to say, but I wasn't sure I'd be able to believe it.

"Ah, but my friend, it does fly!" He exclaimed triumphantly. My eyes must have been boggling out of my head, because I simply could not believe it. For some reason it was perfectly logical that magic could give me pulsing polka dots all over my skin, but complete unbelievable that it could make a motorcycle fly.

****

"Wheeee!" I shouted gleefully as we soared through the clouds. Remus also looked like he was loving it, especially since he got the beautiful view out of the side car. He laughed along, as Sirius grinned proudly. As we began our descent, I wrapped my hands slightly tighter around Sirius's waist.

"Be careful!" I gasped as we pointed towards the ground. It was fairly terrifying to be staring straight down to the ground. I pressed my forehead against Sirius's back.

"Alright love?" He turned slightly, a note of concern in his voice.

"Yep," I squeaked while taking a few deep breaths. I was a Gryffindor. I was brave. I was completely fine with being a few thousand feet off of the ground.

****

After many impromptu loop de loops, we finally landed in Pitlochry. My feet sunk into the soft snow, and I felt more grateful than I’d ever admit to be back on the ground again.

“Where to first?” Sirius clapped his mittened hands together in anticipation.

“The museum!” Remus suggested straight away. I nodded, thinking it would be fascinating to learn more about Michael Scot.

The museum was filled with fascinating Latin texts, of which a few had been transcribed into modern English. I perused these before following Sirius into the next part of the museum.

Remus stayed outside once he caught a glimpse of the starry sky. I patted his back gently, attempting a comforting action, before I went in.

The room was a doom filled with a moving mural of the night sky. The only difference was that it had been painted here directly by Michael Scot during his time studying astrology.

“That’s you!” I pointed up to the star Sirius as I took the real Sirius’s hand. “I think I like you better as a star,” I joked, leaning on his shoulder.

“Well you get the best of both worlds here then, because I’m a star as well as me!” He responded, overestimating his rockstar career for a moment.

“You’re my star,” I smiled softly towards him, and we walked back to Remus. I caught Sirius redden slightly before grinning.

****

On our path back to the main wizarding village (hidden from the view of muggle Pitlochry), we came across a small scrimmage of community quidditch. After preforming a few warming charms, we stood and cheered for each of the teams.

"Here snitch-y snitch," Sirius started to call, as if attempting to make a dog come to him. I grinned and joined in,

"Who's a good snitch?" I shouted, and surprisingly, the snitch seemed to respond. It veered towards us and whizzed right over the head of a chaser into the hands of Sirius.

An astonished look filled his face, and both the teams swooped over to congratulate him. After a series of pats on the back and handshakes, we finally excused ourselves and continued our walk to the main village.

We spent the rest of the morning wandering through various shops filled with owls, and potions, and parchment until eventually all of our hands were a bit too similar to ice blocks.

****

“Shall we duck in here?” Remus nodded towards the busy restaurant.

“M’lady,” Sirius bowed and opened the door for me. I giggled and passed elegantly through the door frame.

I wrapped my hands around the warm mug of Butterbeer, and breathed in the sweet, ginger scent. The band was playing a recent Weird Sisters release, and I tapped my toe to the beat.

As the chill wore off, I relaxed into Sirius’s arm which he had wrapped around my shoulders.

“What’s next?” I asked eagerly.

“Going back to Hogwarts?” Remus begged in a tired voice.

“Oh come on! You’ve had a great time Moony!” Sirius slugged his arm, with friendly affection of course.

“I have,” Remus admitted with a sly grin. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not concerned about our grades!” I did see his point, it was NEWTs year. But a little break never hurt anyone!

“Please Moony, your grades are of the least concern. You probably have three O’s and an E or something,” Sirius waved his hand, brushing away Remus’s concerns. Remus looked down bashfully, telling me that Sirius had guessed nearly right.

“Plus Slughorn’s been a real dragon in potions lately,” I recalled the terribly involved animagus potion we had to create last class. Fortunately I was paired with Sirius, which made it ten times easier.

"Fine! Get outta here Abe!" Our cheerful banter was interrupted by the shouts of the lead guitarist of the band that had been playing during our lunch. It would seem that the lead singer had quit for some reason unknown to us. The two other band mates looked shattered, despite their previously amazing performance.

I nudged Sirius. Of all the people I could think of that might be able to help this situation, he was the best fit.

"You should go up there!" I encouraged him. I saw a rare flicker of doubt cross his eyes, but with a friendly smile from Remus and I, he seemed to gather his courage.

"Yeah," Remus nodded enthusiastically.

"I promise to remember you both when I'm famous," Sirius shot us both a winning grin before heading up to the stage. We watched him whisper to the abandoned band members for a moment, who eventually looked enthusiastic.

We heard the energized strumming of a few opening chords, and Remus and I began to tap our toes in time. The song seemed to ring a bill, but I wasn't entirely sure where I'd heard it.

"Well, shake it up, baby, now!" Sirius began to sing. I grinned, realising it was the exact song we had eaten our breakfast to. Pausing to listen for a line or two, I saw how the energy of the quiet pub room changed. Gradually, it came alive. Sirius's energy was contagious. He nodded up to him, and I ran up.

"You know you look so good," He winked, grabbing my hand and giving me a quick spin. As I spun around, I noticed Remus inviting another girl close to our age to dance. And I spied an elderly couple doing a small shuffle together. Something about this tune just brought people together!

After pulling out my finest dance moves alongside a singing Sirius, I collapsed back into my seat and chugged the rest of my butterbeer.

"Merlin," I grinned with a bubbly happiness towards Remus. He grinned eagerly back.

"Don't tell Sirius," He teased, "But I have actually had a fun time today." He admitted slyly.

"I'm glad," I nodded. "I have to hand it to Sirius that this was a pretty fantastic day off."

#Sirius Black #sirius black fanfiction #sirius black fluff #sirius x reader #sirius x you #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter fanfic #hp fanfic #hp one shot #collab #ferris bueller's day off

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90slevi · 3 years

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Butterflies {Draco Malfoy x Reader} - Pt.1

Sitting at the front of the potions classroom was certainly nerve-wracking. Being watched at all times by none-other than Professor Snape was terrifying in itself, but being right under his nose as you tried your hardest not to mess up your potion created so much anxiety in your body that you thought you'd shrivel up and die. Maybe you'd even hex yourself just to get out of the lesson.

It wasn't the class you hated; in fact, Potions class was something you enjoyed quite a lot. It was just... Snape. Even though you were a Slytherin.

"Y/n," a voice from beside you hissed, almost making you jump. You turned your head to see Lucy Stoneward, your best friend since you were kids, stop your hand, and you looked down to see yourself almost put too much powdered unicorn horn into the cauldron. You were making a Draught of Peace, which could put the user into a deep sleep if too much of each ingredient was used. "You need to focus."

"Sorry," you muttered, trying your best to focus on what you were doing. This was an incredibly difficult potion to make, which was ironic since it was supposed to reduce anxiety, but there was too much on your mind to focus. Not only were your OWLs coming up and a horrific teacher had been put in charge of the school, but you'd heard rumours of a certain blonde-haired boy in your house having... feelings for you.

It wasn't that you didn't like Draco; in fact, you'd been friends since the first year and only gotten really close in the third year, leading him to ask you to the Yule Ball in your fourth. Despite a lot of people's opinions, you found him fun to be around, actually being quite a nice person when he wasn't... well, being a bully, and you couldn't deny he was very attractive.

It was just surprising that he fancied YOU, and not Pansy Parkinson or any of the other girls in Slytherin.

"Y/n, has your potion turned pink yet?" Lucy asked, a pout on her face as she watched her potion stay purple and not... pink, as it was supposed to. She was still adding powdered unicorn horn, but to no avail, whereas you'd only added a bit and it'd turned pink already. "Did I do it wrong?"

"I have no idea," you chuckled, beginning to stir your potion and watching it turn a deep red, as the instructions had said it would. "How much porcupine quill did you put in?"

Lucy was silent for a second before her eyes widened and she face-palmed. "Shit, I didn't see the turquoise bit. I started stirring at green!"

"And that's where you went wrong," you chuckled, hearing a loud groan from one of the Hufflepuff boys behind, indicating he'd done something wrong too. You couldn't blame them, though; the Draught of Peace was one difficult potion to concoct. "You gonna start again?"

"I'll have to, won't I?" Lucy grumbled, tipping out her entire potion and starting again. "You have any spare moonstone?"

"Not much, but you can use it," you answered, passing her your tray. She pouted, wondering if it'd be enough and if she could ask around without being caught, but from Professor Snape's expression, it appeared he'd seen her anyway. "Right, I can help you if you want. My potion just needs to simmer for a bit- hey!"

You exclaimed loudly when an enchanted piece of paper hit you in the shoulder, shaped like a small butterfly that floated in the air. You sighed, recognising the enchantment as one Draco used often to piss off people like Harry, and you glanced over at him. However, strangely enough, he wasn't looking in your direction. Instead, he was speaking to Goyle in frustration, the dumber of the two clearly having messed up his potion. And, from where you were sitting, it was obvious Goyle had messed up. Instead of his potion being ANY of the colours it should've been, it was a murky brown.

"What's that?" Lucy asked focusing on her new potion, and you shrugged.

"It doesn't matter for now," you said, tucking it into your pocket. "Concentrate on your potion! Lucy, look! You've almost put in too much moonstone!"

"Ah, my bad!" she exclaimed, grimacing when she noticed her potion turn a darker green than it was supposed to. "Erm... do I need to start over again?"

"Nah, it'll be fine," you said, not entirely sure yourself. However, when it turned blue after stirring it, you sighed with relief. It was fine. "Mine's purple now... oh you're kidding!"

"What?" Lucy asked, stirring it again. "What's up?"

"I need some more moonstone," you muttered, having just given her all you had. Thankfully, she hadn't used it all, and she'd probably have to go get some more from either Snape or another student. You took it, much to her protests, and watched as the potion turned purple to grey, just like it was supposed to. Another loud, angry exclamation was heard from across the room, and you turned to see Goyle getting increasingly frustrated at what he was doing. Draco rolled his eyes at what the other had done, which was drop his tray of powdered unicorn horn onto the floor.

Thankfully, it would take a while for the potion to turn from grey to orange, so it gave you a chance to read the note Draco had sent you without Lucy looking over your shoulder (she was too focused on her potion to care). Usually, it was just stupid stuff like him complaining about how useless a certain class was or just teasing you, so you weren't expecting much. However, you were surprised.

Meet me outside the Slytherin Common Room at lunch. I need to talk to you. Forget about dinner, I'll bring something if you need it. - Draco

That was... certainly odd.

It was against the rules to roam the corridors when not permitted, and at dinner especially, everyone was supposed to be in the Grand Hall to make sure everyone was safe. Although Draco was a rule-breaker and not too bothered about any of that, it was still strange for him to want to spend time with you alone outside the Common room. And with dinner, too!

You started writing your own note back, keeping your eye on the potion you were making to make sure it didn't simmer too long and glanced towards Snape to make sure he didn't notice. There wasn't anything incriminating on the note, though.

Why? Can't you tell me at dinner? Y'know, in the great hall, where we're supposed to be?

With that, you sent the note over in the form of a small bird, catching the attention of two Ravenclaws who were about to tell on you before being very intimidated by your glare. Draco caught it and read it, before looking at you with an expression of disgust, as if why it was secret was blatantly obvious. For a split second, you thought you'd got the wrong person, but was glad to see you hadn't when he began writing one back.

Turning back around, your eyes widened in surprise to see your potion turning from orange (what it should've been) to yellow, and you quickly stopped it from simmering before adding powdered porcupine quills, the last step before you'd finished. You crossed your fingers behind your back, praying it'd turn white soon and that you'd done it right, and thank your lucky stars, it did. You heard a familiar laugh from behind you, and you turned your head with a frown, ready for one of Draco's snarky comments.

"Messed up again, Y/l/n?" he asked, his eyebrows raised. It appeared that only in classes, he'd refer to you by your last name. In the Common Room or in private, he'd refer to you by your first, something you liked. "I thought someone like you would get this right."

"I don't know whether that's a compliment or not, Malfoy, but I'll have you know, it went fine," you replied, looking back at your cauldron to look for any flaws. Snape wandered over, his piercing eyes sending a chill through your spine as he looked inside. However, to your surprise and relief, he nodded at it, his eyebrows raised.

"See, Longbottom, if Y/l/n is able to make a potion like this, then you should be able to too," Snape said, a disgruntled expression on his face when he looked at Neville's. For starters, it was bubbling, which it shouldn't be doing at all, and it was a strange, yellowy-green colour after he'd put in the unicorn horn, which wasn't supposed to happen. "Ten points to Slytherin."

Lucy whispered a pleased 'yes' underneath her breath, giving you a high-five underneath the table. Neville grumbled something quietly about him being biased, only to throw his whole potion away and start from the beginning. Despite there only being five minutes left of class.

"No! I only have five steps left!" Lucy exclaimed, trying to rush through it. You shook your head, knowing that rushing the Draught of Peace was the worst thing to do, but you chose to say nothing. "Crap, do you have any-"

"Nope," you chuckled, looking at your desk. Snape had bottled up your potion and left it at the front as a good example of what it was supposed to look like, and you watched as other students tried to finish in time. Hermione Granger had finished hers just a few minutes after you, and so had Harry. The only others who'd completed it were Draco, Pansy, Seamus, about three Ravenclaw students, and a Hufflepuff. You were pretty pleased if you did say so yourself.

You'd also almost forgotten about the note you'd sent Draco about fifteen minutes ago until another hit you in the shoulder. Once again, it was an enchanted butterfly, which was odd since he usually sent a bird, but you didn't question his choice of origami animal.

Are you brain-dead? There's a reason I want to talk to you by the Common Room. Why the Hell would I tell you something secret in the Great Hall? - Draco

You couldn't help but laugh at your stupidity and face-palmed, quickly tucking the note into your pocket before anyone saw it. Lucy raised her eyebrow, and you just looked away, trying not to raise suspicion. You heard Draco also chuckle quietly from behind, and you turned your head to notice him walking down the classroom to put something away, his eyes meeting yours for a split second.

He acted completely differently when it was just you two or just you guys and some friends. He was kind (well, as kind as he could get, anyway) and, although insults were thrown towards each other, was an overall cool guy to hang around with.

"So, Y/l/n, I see your potion got put as an example," Draco said, leaning against the wall and raising his eyebrows in surprise. "Since when did you get so good?"

"Since I actually started studying," you chuckled, trying to forget the first three years of Hogwarts where you just messed around in classes and did pretty much nothing outside of class. "It's funny to beat the Ravenclaws, so I thought I'd continue."

"Your priorities are so messed up," Lucy muttered with a chuckle, packing her things away before class finished. You laughed and nodded, Draco sighing with a shake of his head.

"Yeah, but at the same time, I don't fancy failing my OWLs," you sighed, stretching as you checked the clock that hung at the top of the room. "Retaking those must be a pain in the ass."

"God, from what Goyle was doing this lesson, I wouldn't be surprised if he has to retake them," Draco responded, shaking his head at the brown-haired boy struggling to finish his third potion this class in time. It still wasn't the right colour, turning a navy blue after letting it simmer. "Somehow he made it bubbly earlier."

"Yeah, quite a few people had that issue," you answered, finally tidying away as Lucy pouted at her grey potion, supposedly finished. "Why don't people know how to simmer things?!"

However, your conversation was interrupted by Snape calling an end to the lesson, humiliating both Neville and Harry in the process (which was unfair, but you couldn't be bothered to call him out) before letting you go. You wandered into the corridors, talking to Lucy and two other Slytherin girls named Anastasia-Rose Richards and, of course, Pansy Parkinson, who you'd known since your first year and shared a dorm with. To your surprise, Draco was nowhere to be seen, either teasing you or making fun of another student. You couldn't even hear his voice, and Crabbe and Goyle were just walking awkwardly behind, talking about how boring that lesson was. You ignored them.

"Where's Draco?" Pansy asked rather loudly, looking around. "He was just here a minute ago!"

It was no shock to anybody that Pansy had the biggest crush ever on the blonde-haired boy. It was clear as day ever since she'd cried over his injury in the third year, and just to confirm it was when she had a huge, heated argument with you over the fact he'd asked you to the Yule Ball and not her, as he'd supposedly promised. You hadn't fully forgiven her for embarrassing you in front of the whole Slytherin House by using the body-binding hex, but at the same time, you weren't really one to hold grudges for years.

"Dunno," you shrugged, looking around for the familiar blonde. It was like Draco to just wander off, but he never did it without telling at least someone where he was going, whether it be you, Blaise, Pansy, Crabbe or Goyle. "Bathroom, maybe?"

"But what if he's late to Defence Against the Dark Arts?" Pansy asked, her eyes wide. You sighed, shaking your head.

"It's Draco, as if he cares," you answered, stuffing your hands into your pockets and cursing at a Hufflepuff second-year who decided to barge past you. "Oi, watch where you're going!"

"But-"

"Pansy, seriously?" you scoffed, looking at her with a dead-pan expression. "Stop worrying so much. He'll be fine."

Lucy tried to hide back her snickers; despite Pansy being one of the most popular girls in Slytherin, she wasn't particularly liked much, especially because of her whiny attitude and desperation to get Draco to like her. Plus, when she had the fight with you, a lot of people's respect for her vanished, comparing her to a baby who wasn't allowed to get what it wanted.

"In all honesty, where has he gone?" Anastasia asked you quietly, and you shrugged. You were tempted to tell her and Lucy about the notes Draco had passed you in class, but then changed your mind when you remembered it was supposed to be secret. "Damn, even Y/n doesn't know."

"Pfft, he doesn't tell me everything, you know," you chuckled, shaking your head. "I wouldn't be surprised if he was skipping class. I don't want another lesson with that old hag."

"The bitch," Lucy mumbled, her nose wrinkling even at the thought of Professor Umbridge.

Although the teacher was already hated amongst school students, there was nobody who hated her more than you and Lucy. After speaking out in class multiple times about how 'shitty and useless' her lessons were, you'd both recieved such a harsh detention that you'd left with a scar on your hand. Being forced to write lines of 'I must not swear' in your own blood would leave anybody with a burning hatred of the lady in pink.

"To be honest, I might skip that damned class too," you replied, and Lucy raised her eyebrows. Despite being a Slytherin, you'd never ever skipped a lesson in your life, not wanting to get into trouble with Snape and not wanting to make your grades worse than they already were. Plus, Umbridge taught you nothing anyway and you'd rather teach yourself. "Honestly, Lucy, there is no way in hell I want to see that woman again."

"Yeah, me neither," Lucy grumbled, cracking her knuckles as if she wanted to punch the living daylights out of Umbridge. "But my parents would kill me if I skipped class."

"Same, but I'm pretty sure they value my life over skipping one lesson," you answered, believing this a good time to look for Draco. Maybe if you found him, you could start talking about what he'd been meaning to speak to you about at dinner, and you wouldn't have to chance missing a meal.

"Whatever, I'll see you at dinner then," Lucy grinned, stuffing her hands into her pockets as her and Anastasia continued down the hall to their next class. You dove into an empty corridor, hearing the sound of footsteps disappearing, and sighed into the silence.

Now, where the hell was Draco?

#harry potter #draco malfoy #draco x reader #draco imagine #draco fuckingmalfoy #fanfiction #umbridge sucks #harry potter and the goblet of fire

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loudsuitlover · 4 years

Text

Doctor Harry II

HARRY’S POV

I can almost see Mario’s nerves over his shoulders as he stands in front of Doctor Rowing in the waiting line of the cafeteria. I would laugh at him if I hadn’t been there before. I still remember how it felt like to be a first year doctor and having no idea of what you’re doing and feeling as if everyone is judging you or reviewing every little thing you do. I’m lucky I had Danny and that’s what I’m trying to be to Mario too. If we didn’t have one another we’d probably be fucked.

Mario finally makes it to the table with three cups of coffee on a tray at the same time Danny walks inside the cafeteria. I feel my heartbeat fastening when I see Sorry walking next to him. He laughs at something she says and I see her smiling carefree. I can’t help feeling a little jealous of him, but not in a posesive way, I would just like to be him in that moment or in every moment he’s close to her. He raises his eyebrows as a greeting to us and Sorry’s eyes follow his until she smiles at us. I like to think she smiled at me more than she smiled at Mario.

“I’ll email Ethan the notes this afternoon. Tops tomorrow morning. And I’ll bring you the book. And you know where my office is, any doubt just come over.” Danny’s smiling when he turns around and join us.

“You’re really committed with teaching.” Mario notices.

Danny just shakes his head and keeps smiling.

“I quite like it to be honest and they’re really great students.”

“You give them the notes?” Mario asks. “I wish my teacher had given me the notes too.” He laughs.

“That’s exactly why I give them the notes. They have time enough to actually read them before class so they can ask questions and it’s a lot more interesting. Plus it helps me prepare the lessons too.” He shrugs.

Sorry is sitting with her friends on a table on the far corner of the cafeteria. I recognize all of them even though I’ve only supervised practised of two, Jason and Marie, but I know the other girl is called Olivia because Sorry has told me about her. She’s better at pretending she doesn’t mind my presence than I am but our eyes meet when she glances at me too.

“I can take a picture of her during lectures if you want.” Danny teases me and I roll my eyes.

“I can take a picture of her too.” I shrug.

“You’re not denying you like her.”

“You didn’t say I liked her.” I take my eyes off her and look at my friend’s face for the first time since Sorry sat there. “But what if I do? I won’t do anything.”

“Why not?”

I look at him as if he has grown a third eye and I feel my eyes bulging out of my face. I know I must look like a mad man because both Mario and him laugh out loud.

“What?” He shrugs.

“She’s... What do you mean why? Have you ever had a thing with a student?”

“No, of course not.” Now it’s his eyes that bulge. “But it’s not the same. I’m their professor.”

“Well I’m her teacher when she has practice with me at the hospital.” My eyes almost involuntarily search for her again. “Or at least that’s how she sees me.”

I think of all the different times I’ve failed at keeping it professional between us. I’ve flirted with her way too many times for her not to have noticed but the worst part, or maybe the best, is that she plays along. I melt every time she flirts back because no matter how many times she does it I never expect it. I remember the first couple of days with her when she was all nervous and shy and she would blush even when she asked me stuff about Medicine but then I remember when Peter made fun of me in front of her and then she made fun of me herself after he was gone. I would have fucked her right there and then.

I don’t really know what it is about her though. I mean she’s obviously gorgeous, but I’ve seen a lot of gorgeous girls and I’ve never felt this animalistic desire of devouring them but I think the fact that in my head is somewhat wrong makes it all the more exciting. Other than beautiful, she’s also incredibly sexy. The way her voice sounds even behind the surgical mask and the way she moves and her skin and her scent. Man, I’d kill to be embroiled on that scent forever. To have her legs around my face, her inner thighs against my cheeks as I devour her and she lets me.

“I didn’t mean for you to ask her out right now.” Danny’s voice takes me out of my daydream and thank God because otherwise I would have probably get so horny it would have been embarrassing. “But they only have three weeks of practice on Anesthesia and she’s already done two, hasn’t she?”

“Why do you know that so well?” I don’t know why I got defensive but Danny finds it funny. “Do you know every student’s schedule?”

“No,” he chuckles “but I’m a human, some students I like better than others. That group is funny.” He smiles. “I’d even like to go out with them sometime.”

“Mate, since you broke up with Cristina you’re unleashed.” Mario laughs and I join him.

Danny laughs too and shrugs before he speaks.

“They’re funny, that’s all I’m saying.”

I see Peter and his friend Richard walking inside the cafeteria and he stands next to Sorry’s table as he waits at the bar. He says something to her and she chuckles. I find myself smiling. Man, I’m a sucker.

Peter walks towards our table and places a hand on Danny’s shoulder.

“How’s fourth year this year?”

“Good.” Danny nods.

“Okay so here’s the thing.” He looks at me and Mario then. “Doctor Mats asked me to prepare a seminar about the permeability of airway so I’ve thought instead of just talking and doing something theoretical and boring we could take the simulators, you know the dummies, and we could do Emergency airway, surgery airway and ambulance airway. We could divide the class in three groups and do a simultaneous practice so Harry you could explain emergency, Mario you could do surgery and I could do ambulance. What do you think?”

INDIE’S POV

I swear to God if Olivia doesn’t stop glancing at Harry I’m going to tear her head off. I thank God every day that she didn’t have practice with him because I’m sure she would have told him something or worse, flirt with him. Granted, I like to think I’m special and that he only has that playful attitude with me, but I’m not an idiot and I know that’s probably not true. He’s a Greek god and he’s funny and smart and confident. I bet every woman on this hospital would be more than happy to have a fling with him and he probably plays along. It’s clear to me he does like flirting.

“It’s crazy how he’s staring at you.” Olivia chuckles. “I’m so jealous, having a fling with a clinical tutor is one of my fantasies.”

Then again Olivia has fantasies with a lot of things. I snort a chuckle and try to get back at J’s and Marie’s conversation but after Ollie’s comment is a little harder because I can feel his eyes on me.

“Anyway Mark is really nice, I think you’d like him.”

Marie grimaces. It’s so funny to me that she’s so picky with man. Jason’s eyes bulge.

“What? Do you not like him? He’s hot. Indie, look.”

He hands me his phone with said Mark’s instagram opened and I scroll through his pictures. He has some pictures with a husky dog and some other pictures doing snowboard or surfing. He’s sportive and fit and his face looks cute too with curly dark hair and a gentle smile.

“He seems cute.” I smile at Marie.

“No, he really does. It’s just not him. It’s...” She sighs. “I mean I’ve gone out with half the football team already, I don’t wanna get a name.”

Jason rolls his eyes.

“They’re dying to go out with my friends. Since they think I’m the only gay on the team, they’re always asking me to bring hot friends.”

I laugh at the way he says “they think I’m the only gay” because that’s they think about J, he thinks straight people are just “unaware bisexuals”, his words not mine.

“And anyway Olivia’s already slept with the other half and they’ve never said a word about her.”

“They haven’t?”

I laugh at the way she seems to be offended. She probably is but then she looks at me and laughs too. Marie joins us.

“Anyway what happened with Mason? I thought you liked him.”

“I did but I didn’t invite him to come in because I didn’t want to sleep with him on the first date and he hasn’t called me since.”

I place my hand over hers.

“Why do you make such a big deal out of sex?” Olivia rolls her eyes.

She can be so raw sometimes.

“Well not all of us wear such wide undies, Ollie.” Marie raises her eyebrows at her and she smiles.

“That’s when I wear undies.” She winks.

Both of them chuckle and I shake my head at my friends. I’m so happy that we all manage to fit so perfectly together even when we’re so different. Jason stands up from his chair and looks at us three with a questioning look.

“Are we all skipping Pediatrics?” He asks. “I thought it was mandatory.”

We all laugh at his desperate attempt to skip class as per usual.

“It is mandatory.” Olivia says, wrapping her arm around his shoulders and walking out. “Indie, today’s your turn to pay.”

“I know.”

Both Olivia and Jason walk ahead of us claiming they’re gonna get us good seats but knowing them I know they mean seats at the back and Marie walks with me to the register so I can pay for their coffee and my tea.

“Why is it so hard to find a guy that takes his time?” I know she isn’t waiting for an answer. “I mean someone who’s not just interested in sex. You know going on a date to the movies or having dinner somewhere nice and then kissing goodnight at the front door and wait for the next? Getting flowers for no better reason than just wanting to make you feel special...”

“I mean you can always go find a guy at a nursing home.” I joke.

She rolls her eyes but ends up smiling and we both chuckle.

“Sorry, I’ve seen slower people” Harry says behind us “after propofol.”

I turn my head and smile at him and he chuckles.

“We have double session today.” He adds. “I’m gonna end up fed up with you.” He raises his eyebrows. “I don’t earn enough for this many hours of Sorry.”

I smile.

“What do you mean double session?”

“I’m presenting a seminar at 1 pm today and then you have practice, don’t you?”

“Well I can do practice with someone else if you’re so tired of me.”

“Don’t.” He smirks.

I chuckle as both Marie and I leave the cafeteria and walk towards the lectures hall. I see her turning her head around and roll my eyes even before she speaks.

“That’s what I’m talking about.”

I spend the entire Pediatrics lecture biting on my nails, completely unable to pay attention, so for once I’m glad Ollie and JJ are so careless and always sit at the back. I just can’t take the thought of Harry presenting a seminar off my mind. I don’t know why I imagine him wearing a suit like some CEO when I know he’s gonna wear his hospital uniform, which don’t take me wrong, fits him like a glove and makes him so fucking sexy but somehow the thought of him wearing something else is exciting to me, probably because I’ve never seen him on anything different.

Even though we’re all sitting next to one another, our group chat “The Golden Girls” is on fire since none of us seems to be paying attention to the Pediatric lesson in front of us.

Jason: What do you mean Harry is presenting the seminar?

Ollie: That’s not even important, JJ. I mean that don’t? As if don’t take practice with anyone else bc he wants you to be with him? I mean I’m wet.

Jason: When are you dry? That’s the real question.

Marie: The way she looks at you too... Be careful Indie.

Ollie: What do you mean be careful? Do not be careful. Fuck him senseless.

Jason: If you don’t I will.

Ollie: No, I will. He’s straight.

Jason: So you say.

As soon as the lecture finishes the four of us get up and make our way to the door while the people who actually pay attention ask questions. Those heroes... Peter, Mario and Harry are casually chatting outside the classroom with huge black plastic bags and three dummies. Marie smiles excitedly and pries on the tools they brought making them laugh. I see Harry smiling at me and my belly erupts as every time he does.

Peter walks inside the classroom and explains us what we’re going to do while Mario and Harry seem to set different workstations. Jason, Marie, Ollie and I join one of the three groups and start at Peter’s station with surgical airway. He teaches us how to intubate the dummy and we take turns in doing so, eventually ventilating and watching whether it’s the lungs or the belly that inflates. Jason gets it wrong four times and naturally the three of us mess with him.

“Jason’s patien is still farting.” Peter joins our joking and Jason just laughs along. “That’s the good thing, that you get it wrong now so you won’t get it wrong with the real patient.” He smiles.

Even though I’m rather concentrate because I actually like this, I can still feel Harry’s eyes on me and every time I look up our eyes meet and he doesn’t even look away. He knows the effect he has on me and he’s enjoying it.

Mario’s station is right next to Harry’s and they chat to one another as my group follows Mario’s instructions. Jason’s happy that this dummy doesn’t have a belly so we can’t keep making fun of him when he does it wrong again because he’s so sure he’s gonna fail he ends up failing every time but we have fun with Mario. He’s shy but Ollie and JJ are not and he’s young so he laughs along with all the joking.

When we get to Harry’s station, I can’t erase the grin off my face and every time he looks at me I see the corners of his lips curling up too. He introduces himself and asks for everybody’s name, except from mine, Jason’s and Marie’s and I’m happy he isn’t pretending we don’t know each other even if I don’t know why I thought he would. I can tell he’s trying not to look at me too much but his eyes linger on mine longer than they linger on the rest of the people on the group. That alone has my belly doing somersaults because all the girls in my group are really pretty, especially my friends, and the fact that he’s still paying a little extra attention to me has me feeling weak at the knees. But I know he’s on teacher mode and obviously that only makes the whole thing feel funnier between my legs. He really turns me on so much when he gets all smart.

For the first part of the station, we just watch him work as he explains and demostrates the procedure just like we have watched Peter and Mario but of course with Harry is different, he’s way more mesmerizing, almost hyptnoic and judging by the look on the rest of girls’ faces, I’m not the only one who thinks that. I feel a stupid jealousy attack that burns the pit of my belly and I hate myself for being so foolish. This is so silly, God. He would never ever see me like that.

Jason’s the first one of us four to try it and as I watch him repeting Harry’s instruction with the ambu ventilation out lout, I realize somehow Harry’s ended up standing right next to me. I feel my cheeks heating because he’s so close his arm is touching mine and I can feel his body heat- he must be some sort of human heater- and his scent secretly fills my nostrils. I can feel him glancing at me from the corner of his eyes every now and then. Maybe he’s realized we seem to have gravitated to each other too...

He keeps adding bits of information as the rest of my mates follow his instructions and I almost want to kill myself when it’s Olivia’s turn because of course she doesn’t fail to mention I’ve told her about him. I shut my eyes and snort and when my eyes open again I see Harry staring at me with an amused smile.

“That’s funny” He says “she’s told me about you too.”

I smirk at his reaction but I pray to God they do not enter on a teasing competition because knowing Ollie I don’t know who’d win. My classmates’ face is so funny. It’s clear they have no idea what’s going on and I love that they’re thinking I have something with him. I don’t, but the fact that these girls who minutes before were looking at him as if he was a stick of meat know think there might be something between us is sending me over the moon.

“I wonder what she’s told you about me...” Ollie starts, please God don’t let her say what I think she’s going to say. “Do you want to know what she’s told me about you?” She smirks devilishly.

I feel Harry’s chest vibrating next to me as he chuckles and I feel my cheeks and neck heat up.

“No.”

I feel my heart crushing a little at his apparent lack of interest, but then again what is he going to say? Yes? In front of everybody? Ollie smiles as she hands him the guedel cannula back because she knows she’s won.

“Okay, Sorry, now it’s your turn.”

I know Sorry might not be the loveliest nickname but it still makes my insides turn upside down every time he calls me that. I’m biting back a smile as I pass over him so I’m hovering over the dummy’s mouth. I do the ambu ventilations without much trouble despite the fact that feeling his eyes on me like that makes my hands trouble. I hand him the ambu and hold my hand out for him to give me the guedel cannula but he doesn’t.

“Harry?” His eyes focus on mine and I chuckle at his absent mindedness. “Can I have the guedel cannula, please?”

“Yes, of course, sorry.” He smiles.

Is he blushing? I smile myself as I carefully introduce the cannula inside the dummy’s mouth before I slowly but firmly turn my wrist until I feel the canula inserting itself on the dummy’s throat. I look up at him but he really seems to be out of it, his eyes set on my hands. I clear my throat.

“That was very good.” He congratulates me. “It’s...”

He clears his throat too and looks at the rest of my classmates. Did I just make Harry nervous? I want to laugh at the thought.

“It’s very important when you’re introducing the cannula.” He approaches me until his body is standing right behind me and then I feel his breath on my ear. “May I?”

His hand hovers over mine but before I can take my hand off the cannula so he can manoeuvre with it, he places his hand over mine and helps me move the cannula myself.

“It’s very important that you slide the cannula across the tongue so that when you introduce it inside the throat, it doesn’t touch the uvula.”

I’m sure he can feel my chest going up and down erraticly as I fight for my breath. Who would have thought emergency ventilation could sound so sexy? I feel lightheaded because having him talking about sliding things across the tongue so that it doesn’t touch the uvula when it gets in the throat it’s having me thinking all sorts of things. I can’t help but picture myself on my knees in front of him and him slowly fucking my mouth until he’s on my throat and I feel the pressure on the back of my neck and my eyes water. I’m sure I shouldn’t speak now because my mouth feels dry but I feel like if I don’t there’s no way I can get this thought out of my mind. Thank God he can’t see my face because I must look like a poppy judging by how hot it feels.

“What happens if it touches the uvula?”

“Well”

Harry’s hand secretly caresses my arm as he removes his body from behind me and I instantly feel the coldness his body is leaving. It’s still hard to breathe when I dare to look into his eyes and I only feel myself getting wetter when I look into his eyes. The green in them has darkened and he looks almost animalistic. I feel naked under his stare. He smirks smugly. He’s perfectly aware of the effect that had on me and it’s that smile that lets me know he’s doing it on purpose.

“It’s annoying for the patient.” He smirks. “It’s a very sensitive area, and it can cause a coughing fit.”

“Or gagging.” Jason adds.

Both Harry and I look at him and it’s like for the first time in minutes I realize Harry and I are not alone. I widen my eyes at my friend’s intrusion as if I already know what’s going to say.

“You’ve never had something on your mouth touching your uvula, Indie?” Jason asks faking innocence.

I feel my cheeks burning and I know I’m blushing like I just ran a marathon when Harry laughs out loud at Jason’s hint. I’m going to kill him.

“And, excuse me, Harry, can I ask a question?” Mario to the rescue. God bless her.

“Of course.” He’s still chuckling as he tries to go back to professional doctor-teacher Harry.

“We have different measures of guedel cannulas, right? Do we use them depending on the age or sex or what?”

I give Marie a thank you glance and I know she gets it despite she’s casually smiling at Harry. I know she knows the answer to that question, she’s by far the smartest of us four, but she asked that in an attempt to save me.

“Right.” Harry lifts his hips from the desk he had been leaning on and takes the cannula out of the dummy placing it next to the dummy’s jaw. “It obviously depends on the age and the sex but we still have differences between same age same sex people so what we do is we grab the one that’s originally thought for let’s say a medium age woman and then you just place it on their jaw. If it reaches from the corner of their mouth to the temporomandibular joint, then it is the right size.”

Peter warns both Harry and Mario than the hour has gone by and I stand next to Jason hoping he can feel how much I want to strangle him to death as Harry starts picking up his tools, both Marie and Ollie helping him while I just stand there and look at him as if I have never seen a man before. I can’t believe he just did that at all, much less in front of my classmates. He’s never touched me like that before.

“Let me see, Indie” Jason starts “let’s measure your throat.”

I death glare at him and take a glimpse of Harry biting back a smile from the corner of my eyes.

“Woah, this is too small for her, isn’t it Harry?”

I’m going to kill him.

Harry looks up and gives yet another step closer to me, grabbing the cannula from Jason’s hand and holding it next to me jaw. I feel his thumb resting on my cheek bone though, the tip of his index finger resting on the spot right underneath my ear.

“It is a little small for her, yeah.” He states. “I reckon I could get it on her throat though.”

My eyes widen and I can’t help but laugh. I can’t believe he just said that. All three of us start laughing and as he leaves, he stands very close to me, the closest he’s ever been before he winks so that only I can see it and then walks away laughing.

Ollie’s jaw is almost touching the floor.

“I think I’m wet. Can’t imagine how you are.”

“Ollie!”

A couple hours later I’m making my way towards the surgery rooms not sure if my knees are going to be able to support my weight if Harry is going to be as playful on the practice as he was during the seminar. We both know there’s really no need for me to have every practice with him but after I looked for him on my second day and he looked for me on my third, it’s like we silently agreed he was my new mentor and I was his only student.

He’s already on the surgery room chatting with the nurses as I make my way inside but he stops his chatting and grins at me as I approach him.

“Hey there, Sorry.” He grins. “Long time no see.”

I shake my head and roll my eyes before I tie my surgical mask at the back of my head. I really like today’s nurse, Lidia, and between that and the fact that Harry’s playful mood doesn’t seem to have changed, I smile behind my mask.

“So Lidia” I start as I watch Harry organize every bolus he might need on his trolley “do you know that Harry has given us a seminar today?”

“Really?” She giggles, she’s so cute. “And how did he do?”

“Yeah, Sorry, how did I do?”

“He did fine.” I confess.

His green eyes look into mine with an amused glimpse on them and even though I can’t see his smile, I feel it in my belly.

“I did fine, eh?” He smiles. “Did you hear that Danny? I’m a good teacher.”

My good mood only gets better when I see our surgeon today is going to be professor Gibbins. I love him. We all do and it’s quite clear he likes me and my friends specially.

“You really are.” I tell him. “Not just because of today. I’ve learnt a lot on practice with you.”

We’ve spent enough hours together with our mouths and cheeks covered with the mask for me to be able to read his eyes and I know his cheeks are probably pink now and his lips are probably curved into a shy smile. He’s not great at taking compliments. I’ve noticed that. I don’t fail to notice professor Gibbins’ amused smile before he ties his surgical mask behind his head as well.

“Yes! It’s so great you’re here, Indigo” professor Gibbins smiles “because today it’s only me operating so you’re going to be my assistant.”

“What?” Harry chips in. “No, no, you can’t take Sorry away. She’s mine.”

I don’t know if he notices the way my eyes set on him. But I already feel my pussy clenching. Dear Lord this surgical gowns are literally made of paper. I’m afraid I might squirt or make a puddle at my feet.

“Come on, Styles. You barely have to do anything today. Let her decide. What do you think Lidia?”

Lidia giggles at their playful banter.

“Yeah, she should be able to choose.”

“She wants to be a surgeon anyway.” Professor Gibbins shruggs.

“She likes Anesthesia too. She told me last week.”

He remembers.

“Well, what do you want to do? Indigo?”

By the time they actually ask me I’m already disinfecting my hands so I can put on the sterilized gloves and get near the sterilized area. Professor Gibbins laughs out loud before he throws both arms up in the air in celebration.

I spend the rest of the afternoon assisting professor Gibbins so I can’t take the grin off my face. Even though most of the time it’s just them explaining things to me or asking me questions, they also get some time to gossip when we’re doing something too mecanical. It’s funny how then men have the nerve to say gossip is something typical of women.

When we’re done I walk to the female changing room and get back on my clothes from this morning. Hight waist jeans and a woolen crop top. I always wear hight waist jeans. I love them. It took me years to learn to accept my body but finding hight waist pants and skirts helped a lot because the problem with my body is my hips are wide but I do have a keen waist so this is the outfit that flatters me the most. I do a lot of sport too so my legs and buttocks are muscly but if I don’t mark my waist when I dress, I guess I’d look fat. I mean, I’m by no means as slender as Ollie or Marie, I don’t think their trousers would fit me like they fit them but I’m happy with my body now. It took me long enough.

When I open the door, so does Harry, and I feel his eyes roaming my body up and down. I can’t even pretend I care because it actually excites me, as everything he does, and my eyes do the same with his anyway. I actually feel my breath catch in my throat as I take in the way he looks with casual clothes on. He looks incredible on a beige woolen sweater and dark blue jeans.

“First time we finish at the same time.”

The way he chuckles after saying that has me blushing so I just smile at him and start walking to get out of here before he has time to make me blush again. I glance at my phone screen and see more than 50 messages on the Golden Girls group. I hope they’ve decided where we’re going out tonight. I feel Harry walking right behind me before he speaks.

“Do you have plans tonight?”

His questions takes me off guard. There’s no way he’s asking me out but is he? I breathe before I say anything stupid to embarrass myself. I want to say no, just to see what he’d do because I swear if he asks me out I might faint. I look over at him and take the way he looks in again. There’s no way he’s asking me out.

“I do, yeah.”

“Took you so long to answer.” He chuckles. “That’s good. It’s a friday, after all.”

“Do you?”

For a second I regret asking him because the possibility that he might have a date and the thought of him having dinner or kissing a woman makes me furious or sad. Probably both.

“Yeah.”

I nod. Why did it get so awkward all of a sudden?

“Mm, Indigo”

It might be the first time he calls me by my name and I didn’t think I’d like it that much. At this point, I think I’d like any name he’d call me. It’s about the way it sounds and the fact that it’s him talking to me.

“Yeah?”

His eyes move up to my eyes. I can’t believe he was looking at my breasts? I have to bite back a smile.

“Do you want a ride?”

“What?”

His cheeks tinged pink.

“I....” He scratches the back of his neck. Is he nervous? “I have my car here and I’m going home so I can drop you off, if you want. That’s if you want, obviously.”

HARRY’S POV

I shouldn’t have offered. See? This is exactly what I didn’t want- for her to feel forced to say yes to me because I’m her mentor, even though I’m not. How can I be so nervous? He’s six years younger than me for the love of God.

“Thank you very much.” She smiles sheepishly. “That’s very nice of you, but I don’t want to be a bother.”

“It’s no bother.”

What was that? Why do I insist? She’s just politely saying no, Harry, let it be.

“Are you sure?”

I grin. That’s a yes. I know that face. It’s stupid that I get so excited that she said yes to a ride home. It’s not like she said yes to a date or like she gave me her phone number. I think I’m suffering some sort of regression back to my teenage years or something.

I don’t know what got inside me today. I think it was just fucking Danny’s words this morning or those fucking jeans she wears or the thong I know she’s wearing for those jeans are so tight otherwise I’d see the elastic of her underwear. My blood is leaving my brain again.

The lift door closes after us and I feel a lump of nerves in my throat. This is ridiculous but I mean we’re in a fucking hospital, what are the chances that the two of us end up alone on the lift? Normally I go down with at least three other people. The thought of pressing the stop button and then pressing her against the wall and kiss her is like a parasite on my brain. Think about cars, think about custard.

“Hey, Harry” She starts- thank God- please distract me. “I wanted to apologize for my friends’ behaviour today at the seminary.” She bites her bottom lip and it seems to have a straight line with my dick. “They’re...” She shuts her eyes and places a hand on her forehead. “I don’t even have words to excuse them.”

“I think they’re funny.” I give her a smile and she furrows her eyebrows like I like. “And your friend Ollie” I chuckle at the way her face contours on embarrassment “you’re right, she’s something else.”

She chuckles and shakes her head. She’s normally not so quiet so I start to worry I might have crossed a line. She did apologize for her friends’ behaviour, maybe I should apologize too?

“You did pretty good today at the seminar by the way.” I tell her instead because that is true.

“So did you.” She smiles at me. She’s even prettier under the lights of the lift. “I was very nervous.”

“You were?” I fake innoncence and she rolls her eyes and pushes my arm playfully.

She blushes the second she realized she has touched me.

“Sorry.”

“What for?” I grin at her.

I wish she’d touch me all the time. Man, I need to jerk off when I get home. I can tell she’s waiting for me to guide our way towards my car. I don’t know why it’s so exciting for me to take her home but somehow having her in my car makes me nervous and excited like a kid before his first day of school.

I shouldn’t be so smug but I feel my ego bursting when I see her face as she sees my car. I take it most of her friends have old cars like I used to have when I was studying and that makes me feel more confident too. I open the passenger door of my Range Rover and she gets in with a shy smile.

I won’t even try to stop grinning like an idiot because there’s no use. I feel like I won the lottery as I sit on the drivers’ seat and have a glance at her. She looks so fucking good on my car. I feel my dick gaining protagonism and I swear I’ve never gotten turned on just by seeing a woman sitting on my car but she really does something to me.

“Where to, miss Sorry?”

She smiles and I melt. She tells me her address and I start the engine. He lives fucking far away from the hospital, poor thing. What time does she normally wake up? And what time does she go to bed? And what does she normally wear to sleep? Fuck, I’m doing it again.

“And what are you doing tonight?”

“Tonight we celebrate the creation of our group.” She grins.

“Which group?”

“You know, Jason, Marie, Ollie and me.”

“Oh, The Golden Girls.”

“Exactly. So today we go crazy.”

She’s not telling me where they’re going so I won’t ask but the thought of bumping into her is enough to make my mind explode. I bet she looks fucking sexy when she goes out. I picture her with make up, with lipstick on... How her lips must feel against mine... And then I imagine my dick stained with her lipstick. I need a shower.

INDIE’S POV

We jump and dance to The Nights by Avicii as if we will never be able to dance again in years. The whole dance floor is turning around myself at this point and I don’t even know whether it is because of my jumping, the alcohol or if the club is actually turning around and around.

We don’t usually go out to The Chain, because it’s really hard to get in and very expensive inside but every now and then Jason actually accepts his father’s offer and he gets us in.

Since we met in uni, all we knew about our pasts is what we’ve told and even if some of us took longer than other to open up about it, I’d say at this point we pretty much know everything about eachother. Jason’s parents got a divorce when he was twelve years old. Her father had a lover, someone whom he had been cheating on his wife with for years and that completely broke Jason’s mum’s heart. He lives with her and he’s never quite forgotten his dad for that. Both his parents are lawyers and the divorce was quite nasty, especially for a twelve years old boy who at the time was struggling with finding out about his own sexuality. They were messy years in his life and I wish I had been there for him then. I know Marie and Ollie wish the same thing too.

I sing along with Marie and I love seeing her like this. She’s by far the most introverted and responsible of us four, because Ollie and Jason are something else, and I’m pretty good with people too; but my Marie, she’s more insecure and shy. It really makes no sense to me because she truly is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her new haircut suits her so great too, with her short black waves wrapping up her rounded face. She’s shinning on her golden sequin top as she lifts her hands above her head and lets go. I wish she always looked so carefree.

Ollie comes back with our third drink and screams so the four of us can hear her over the loud music. I see some men looking at her up and down and I shake my head. All these 30-years-old really think they might have something to do with my 21 years old friend.

“Guys!” She screams. “You won’t believe who’s at the bar!”

“Please tell me it’s Ryan Gosling.” Jason brings his hands close to his chest and pretends to pray.

“Better.”

Jason then turns his neck and glares at Ollie. You don’t joke about Ryan Gosling.

“I was ordering and then I recognize a male’s voice and I was like: NO WAY!”

“Okay, just say it, geez!” Marie insists.

I turn my head to the bar and there I see him. Being tall has this kind of advantages. Harry raises his glass from his spot at the bar and grants me with his sexy smile.

“Professor Gibbins, doctor Harry Styles and Mario!”

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be-the-spark-flyboy · 4 years

Text

Bad At Love

Call It What You Want (3/?)

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Med student!Poe x reader

A/N: finallyyyyy Im gonna slowburn the shit outta this (gif not mine btw and I’m terrible at summaries)

Chapter summary: you spend your free weekend the trio. Mondays are the absolute worst.

Warning: swearing, a terrible relationship, one bad pun(that I do not regret)

Word count: ~1.6k

—-

“Yeah but don’t over mix it,” You instruct Finn as he siftes flour into the mixing bowl, mixing it in with the eggs and sugar.

Rey and Poe sit at the dining table, watching the two of you bake. After melting a spatula by accident, Finn had banned Rey from the kitchen for the rest of the day. Poe wasn’t allowed in from the beginning, much to his chagrin, but Finn had insisted, saying that it was the best decision, if he still wanted to have a kitchen by the end of the day.

So it was left with you and Finn. The plan was to make cookies and popcorn and watch holiday movies the whole weekend.

Usually, you would spend your weekends alone, or with Jessika, binge watching netflix shows or working. Jessika calls you boring for that, but if you went out to parties like she did, you’d probably be hiding away from everyone else anyways. So this was a much better option for you.

Rey had insisted that you spend the day with her at Finn’s place. Somehow that had turned into a sleepover and here you are in her pajamas making cookies in the kitchen. You really enjoy spending time with the three of them and you’re really glad Rey cared about you enough to practically drag your antisocial ass into their plans.

“Are you done yet?” Rey whines loudly from her seat.

“We haven’t even put it in the oven!” Finn exclaims, exasperated.

“We could just eat the cookie dough,” Poe chips in much to Reys delight but both Finn and you simultaneously shoot down the suggestion.

“Poe, you’re a med student, you should know better!” Finn adds on as Poe slumps in his seat, pouting. The truth was, you and Finn had already eaten a tiny bit of cookie dough, just to taste test. You know the children will insist on having some too, if they found out you did. “Go pick a movie to put on, at least,”

Rey perks up again, sprinting out of her seat, “Oh we’re watching Home Alone!” Poe sprints after her, yelling, “What no! We’ve watched it a million times already!”

Literal children.

The cookies turn out pretty good in the end. Finn makes Rey and Poe set up the rest of the things, just to keep them away from the kitchen.

Before you know it, you are watching Home Alone, snuggled up in a comfortable blanket with Rey. A huge warm bowl of carmel, butter popcorn sits on your lap. Peaceful and comfortable. Until Rey swipes the whole bowl from you, “I love you, but leave some for the rest of us,”

You try to snatch It back, almost practically wailing, “I made cookies for you, you evil woman,” you hear snickering from the other couch and whip your head around, screeching, “Don’t laugh at me!”

Poe completely loses it and Finn casually pushes him off when he falls in top of him laughing, while you continue glaring at them. Rey makes use of the distraction and shoves a handful of popcorn in her mouth. “We made those cookies, give me some credit too!” Finn exclaims, offended by your statement.

“Okay fine, our cookies,” you concede.

“Hey I helped too!” Rey exclaimes.

“Oh yes, the secret ingredient. One melted spatula,” you snark her.

“Oh burn! Pun intended,” Poe chimes in.

Unsurprisingly, this is how the entire evening goes. The four of you spend it bickering playfully instead of watching the movie, but you weren’t complaining.

—-

Poe Dameron hated being alone, more than anything. Once, he was a kid, who had parents who loved him and a place he called home. Then suddenly he was moving to live with his godmother in an entirely different state, in a big house that just never felt like home. But at least he had Finn and Rey.

Then he’d gone to college and Finn and Rey had gotten together. They weren’t big on PDA or anything. They never did anything to make Poe feel uncomfortable or left out. But Poe couldn’t help but feel like an intruder sometimes. Somedays he’d catch them in the couch together, cuddling, watching a movie at night. And he’d just slink along the dark and shut himself in his room without uttering a single word to them. Intruder.

In a way, he had always been jealous of them. It had always been Finn and Rey, even before he became part of their duo. He just wanted to have a bond like theirs with someone. Someone who would be willing to put him before anybody else. He wanted to be the first person someone would run to if they have a problem or the first person someone would call when they have a piece of happy news to share. He wanted to be someone’s first choice, to belong with someone.

But somehow, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t even come close to finding something like that. He’d had his fair share of bad relationships, in his rush to find that someone. He had so much to give, no one to give to.

“Hello?” Carefully manicured fingers snap infront of his face. Poe startles slightly. Great, he zoned out again. “You’re not even listening to me,” Sarah leans back into her chair, displeasure etched on her face.

“No no, I’m listening. Just tired,” he takes a swig of his coffee.

Whatever he has with Sarah, he knew it wouldn’t last. They don’t work together and he was aware of it. But at this point, having something felt better than nothing. He knew she didn’t love him. If she did, Poe would’ve given anything to make it work.

Yes, he was aware of how desperate he sounded.

“Yeah, whatever,” she dismisses him with a wave. “You wanna go back to my place for the night?” A sultry smile spreads in her face, fingers lacing with his, on top of the table. Sarah was a good girlfriend sometimes. She’d buy him coffee, ask him how his day was, be nice to him. But that was only if she wanted something in return.

Poe sighs heavily, “I can’t tonight. Sorry babe,” babe. It sounds so fake to his own ears. There was once when the endearment felt sweet on his tongue, and he wanted to say it, every chance he got. Now, it feels like a lie. Like he’s fooling himself.

Warm fingers withdraw from his, and the smile slips right off her face. “Alright then,” her words are clipped, nothing like the tone used on a lover. Sarah collects her belongings from the table, her cup of coffee lays half-empty beside his. “Have fun, studying,” She snaps, rising from her seat abruptly, and marching out of the coffee shop. Poe doesn’t try to stop her.

He hasn’t been over to her place in weeks. He wasn’t actually busy tonight, he just didn’t want to go. He hadn’t wanted to for some time. Maybe he was finally sick of his own girlfriend treating him like, as Finn liked to call it, a booty call. Blowing up his phone when she felt like it, then leaving him high and dry for as long as she wanted after that. Finn just doesn’t understand why Poe would let himself be treated like that. To be honest, Poe doesn’t as well.

—-

Mondays suck. You particularly hate this monday, after the sleepover you had at Finn’s over the weekend. The four of you had passed out on the couch that night, crashing from sugar high after eating way too many cookies and popcorn for just four people. Although Finn still insists it was just the right. You had so much fun nonetheless.

Your professor’s droning had already put half the people in the lecture hall to sleep. You try your best to stay awake, although you know you are fighting a losing battle. The guy beside you had long since given up, it seems. His head is resting on the table and he is fast asleep.

You had managed to spend an entire semester not uttering a single word to the guy who had been sitting next to you for literally every single lecture. That was how bad you were at making friends. Maybe you had smiled at the tall, dark haired dude, once, at the beginning of the semester, but that was it.

Maybe part of the reason he chose to sit beside you was because he was just as quite as you. He mostly kept to himself. Occasionally you’d see him talk to one or two people here and there, but that was it. You weren’t complaining, really. You were perfectly content with finishing the whole semester without uttering a single word to him. But it seemed your professor had a different plan.

Your professor slams his palm on the front desk to get everyone’s attention. A few figures jump at the sudden noise and a few others groan, but everyone was awake.

“I know the topic is a little dry but come on, guys,” he says. “I’m making an announcement about the final assessment, at least pay attention to that,” Your professor was pretty cool. He was willing to go above and beyond for anyone who asked for help although the lectures literally bored everyone to hell. You fish out your notebook from your bag, ready to jot down whatever he was going to say. “The final assessment, will be done in pairs,” In pairs? Why had god abandoned you? Who were you going to ask? You didn’t know anyone in the class. You take it back, your professor was not cool.

Thankfully before you could start going partner hunting, the guy beside you turns to face you and he asks, “Hey, would you mind pairing up with me for this assignment?” You don’t hesitate before agreeing, relieved by the turn of events.

He flashes you a smile, “I’m Ben Solo,”

—-

The Dameron taglist (open): @writefightandflightclub @arkofblake @yougottakeeponkeepinon @multifandomlife22 @skymerons @smol-peter-parker @rae-rae-patcha @demigod-dragonrider-schoolidol @spider-starry @hkmultifandom @cloud-leader @elmoakepoke @staringmoony @valhallavalkyrie9 @the-cry-of-youth

#poe dameron #poe x reader #poe dameron fanfiction #poe fluff #fanfic #pretty short this one #i bearly proofread #sooo sleepy

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everydaymj · 4 years

Text

Call You Mine - Peter Parker x Reader - Part 2

“Alright, can anyone tell me why we still study these plays,” I asked, watching several hands shoot up.

Glancing around I rounded the desk and leaned against it as I went on, “And don’t say it’s because Shakespeare is the world’s most prolific writer, give me a real reason.”

I watched as the majority of the hands went down, the first day of class was always a fun one and these kids weren’t disappointing as I spotted a few nervous hands come back up. Zeroing in on Rosa, who had picked a seat right up front I nodded at her.

She took a breath nervously but met my gaze as she said, “Because they are still relevant to current issues, the themes are still ones that resonate in the modern world.”

Smiling I said, “That’s part of it, yes, the human race is eternally fascinated with itself and perhaps no other writer captured the essence of humanity as well as Shakespeare.”

Seeing a boy wearing an Omega Delta shirt in the third row roll his eyes I narrowed my eyes as I snatched up a piece of green chalk and started to write on the board.

Large sweeping letters started to come together into a list of emotions.

Cracking the chalk harshly, I said, “Hatred, something I am positive you’ve all felt at one point.” Pointing to the frat boy that was looking more bored by the moment I asked, “You, what’s an example of hatred?”

Eyes going a bit wide he stuttered out, “Ah I guess when a girl ghosts me for another guy?”

Grinning at the opportunity he had given me I said, “Ah but is that hatred or love? I think over the course of the semester you will all find they are one and the same.”

Before I could give an example of this in one of the plays we would be starting next week, Rosa’s hand shot up again so I just nodded at her.

“But can you really say love and hate are the same? I mean motivations might be similar on the basis of passion but true love doesn’t have space for hatred, there are countless examples of this in the plays. I just don’t believe they are in any way the same Professor Y/L/N,” she said, a great deal of conviction in her eyes.

Whispers started to circle and I could tell right now that this was going to be a lively class with lots of opinions and that was my favorite kind of class.

Raising a brow at her I said, “Agree to disagree, love is a game and even when you win you’ll find that you lose.”

Moving on to the next point, I called on a different student and steered the conversation back to different themes.

This would be an interesting semester to be sure.

~~~

Peter couldn’t help the grin on his face, even if half of the students looked like they were bored out of their minds and wanted to just go home already, he would call this first lecture a success if just for the fact people had actually shown up.

Should his standards be higher? Probably, but he didn’t really care.

“So ah, now that we’ve wrapped up this introductory lecture does anyone have any general questions about the material or what we’re going to focus on,” he asked, looking around the large lecture hall to be sure he didn’t miss anyone.

Listening intently his enhanced senses picked up the mutter of “How does any of this apply to real life,” from the back row.

Deciding not to let it get him down he smiled as he said, “That’s a great question, how does any of this apply to real life? Well, physics is so much more than numbers and whiteboards if you think creatively it can apply to the most base of human actions in day to day life.”

Seeing one of the students in the back duck down, he bit back a laugh and kept going, “You might not believe it at first but even things like relationships and the more abstract concepts of humanity can be broken down if the laws of physics are used.”

In the front row, one of the girls that had actually been taking notes raised her hand.

“Ah yes, Rosa wasn’t it,” he asked, hoping that he remembered correctly.

She nodded, giving him a smile.

“So Professor Parker, you’re saying that even something like emotions can be broken down into the terms of physics,” she asked, watching him intently.

Thrilled that someone was engaging he beamed at her, wondering in the back of his mind if possibly he had something on his shirt with the way several other students were staring at him.

“Exactly! Take Newton’s Third Law, even if yo-”

He was cut off by the tick of the clock signaling the end of class and the shuffle of students getting up to leave.

“Ah right, have a good weekend, I’ll see you all next week,” Peter said, slightly disappointed class was already over.

Turning to grab his papers—he would not be losing any more notes from his aunt—he felt a tap on his arm.

“Ah Professor Parker, do you think you could explain what you were about to say,” asked Rosa, a curious look in her eyes when he turned to face her.

Putting his bag down, Peter leaned against the desk and smiled as he said, “That was a great question you know, ah yeah, so it’s not a popular theory or anything but personally I like to think so much of humanity and its complexities can be explored through science. Not saying that it can explain everything but it’s a fun way to try and put things together.”

Furrowing her brows, she asked, “So even something as complex as love? Or hate? You think things like that could be taken apart with the laws of physics?”

Already thinking that he would love for her to take his theoretical physics class next semester he rubbed the back of his neck in thought.

“Well, I’m not sure anything could explain something like love but hatred is an easy one. Before class ended I was going to say that Newton’s Third Law was a great explanation for something like hate, to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In my experience,” he paused, thinking of all the villains he’d fought over the years and the burning hate thrown at him. “I’ve found that it’s almost always an initial action followed by a reaction that causes something like that. What’s got you thinking about something like that.”

She thought for a moment before saying, “So you wouldn’t say it’s the same for love. You don’t see them as the same thing.”

Confused at the notion of something so outlandish he couldn’t help a laugh.

“Not at all, I’m not sure there’s any one action that could lead to or cause love. It can be similar I suppose but I wouldn’t call them the same thing at all,” he said. “I mean everyone can have their own opinions on it, but that’s just not how I see it. What got you curious about all this?”

She shook her head, glancing at the door.

“Just something another professor said in a literature class, this just made me think of it again. It’s sort of funny you would think a literature expert would believe in that sort of thing, not a physics professor. No offense,” she hurried to add.

Seeing the time he grabbed his bag and said, “Not at all, I’m glad you find the class interesting. If we have time next week maybe we can bring the topic back up for class discussion.”

Waving as she left, Peter smiled to himself, glad that at least one of his students seemed to be really interested in the topic. Starting back to his office, he wondered what kind of literature professor would start a semester off by saying love and hate were the same things. A very bold take if you asked him.

Lost in thought, it was only his lightning-fast reflexes that kept him from running into the person that rounded the same corner he was turning. Catching them with one arm and bracing against the wall with the other, he found himself looking into the same Y/C/E’s that he hadn’t been able to forget since the last time he saw them.

Determined not to act like an idiot this time he quickly let go and said, “Ah sorry, wasn’t looking where I was going. That’s on me.”

The hint of a smirk on her face she raised a brow.

“You certainly were, on me I mean. I’m afraid I’ve really got to be going, I have an evening class in twenty minutes,” she said, brushing back a strand of hair as she started to walk away.

Calling after her, he said, “You know my name, isn’t it only fair I know yours?”

Stopping, she glanced over her shoulder with a look in her eyes that Peter knew was nothing but trouble.

“Life isn’t fair Parker, but I’m feeling generous today. Y/N, but you can call me Y/L/N,” she said, turning without another word.

“Okay Y/L/N, that’s better than nothing,” he muttered to himself as he tried his best not to keep from thinking about how attractive that smirk was as she walked away.

Watching her go, Peter knew for a fact the smart thing to do would be to stay as far away from her as possible. But he also knew for a fact he would be doing no such thing.

~~~

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whatsapp-rpg-moments · 3 years

Text

Whatsapp RPG Halloween Event

3rd/2nd Place

Blue's Submission

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

“The Sunset Jazz Club, brings back memories. Never did I think that I would have a reason to come here again. In fact I completely forgot about this place until that guy asked me whether there was a jazz club nearby. Ever since then I’ve started to come here regularly. The atmosphere is nice, and the drinks are amazing. Especially their newest drink, the Sweet Sunrise. A special blend of tea. Heard they used nectar from a flower high in the mountains for this. Or it could just be their marketing scheme. Wherever it comes from It’s a shame he isn’t here to taste this. Do you still remember Alex?”

“You’re talking to me as though I’m not drinking that very tea right now. Anyways you know the answer to that question. How could anybody forget about him. He was like a brother to me as well. Coupled with the fact that he’s the legendary detective, you’d think it would be difficult for me to forget about him,” says Jacob Romani as he takes another sip of his tea.

Glad to hear that you didn’t forget.

“So why did you invite me here today?” Romani asks.

“Now that’s a very good question Jacob. Allow me to show you”

I pull out a file from my sling bag and hand it to Jacob.

“The Manipulator...why are you showing me this?”

“It’s a case Alex worked on. I remember sitting down at this very table listening to Alex telling me about it. It was a fun story to hear so I thought it would be a good idea to share that story with you as well.”

“So...you called me here for storytime? I thought you were being serious when you said that you had something of utmost urgency to discuss with me. I’ve already read the case files regarding the Manipulator so I don’t see why you called me here then.”

Well that just makes things awkward huh, let’s see...

“Sure you might have read the files but doesn’t listening to Alex’s own recount sound much more exciting? I think it’s worth lending an ear to.”

“...Alright I’ll listen. I don’t have any plans for today anyways and I would like to continue enjoying my tea.”

Oh wow he actually agreed. The truth was that this was a matter of great urgency but I just wanted to fool around for a bit.Try and recover our friendship. Now that Ricaye is staying with me it feels as though things have finally started to return to how they used to be. The three of us just being good old friends.I started telling Jacob what Alex told me all those years ago.

“Here’s the suitcase Detective.”

I take the suitcase from the officer. The rain poured heavily and the sky was pitch black. As of now we’re standing outside the Vortex Mansion, a dilapidated old thing that has been abandoned for many years. However I wasn’t here to spend a night at a haunted house.

“Has the area been secured?”

“Yes Sir. The whole area is surrounded. There’s no way that the suspect is escaping from here alive,” the officer says, “The ransom money is in the suitcase.”

The Manipulator. The man that stays in the shadows and masterminds the game. Using blackmail as his means to commit murder without even laying a finger on a blade. That was what the Manipulator was all about. It wasn’t until I started looking into those cases that the existence of the mastermind was known. First, an Inspector murders a news reporter. Second, a member of the Aristocracy burns down an entire orphanage. Followed by a professor in a university killing herself. The final victim of the Manipulator was a detective killing a member of the Aristocracy. They were all given false motives to kill which they believed or they had been blackmailed. However, the one common point I found in all the cases was that all the perpetrators had received some kind of mail one week prior to their crimes which I did by interrogating friends and family of the culprit. Unfortunately nobody knows where the mail came from so I got the mail agency to start keeping track of the sender’s addresses as well. However the last thing I expected was.

The Manipulator sending me a letter

A ransom note. The Manipulator was holding the Chief Justice hostage and demanded a payment of one million dollars from the government. In addition, he wanted me to be the one bringing the ransom money. The drop off point was the Vortex Mansion. The dining hall to be more exact. If I had anybody accompany me the Chief Justice would be as good as gone. It seemed as though there was no room for negotiation.

“Well I’ll see you after my vacation is over officer!” I say cheerfully as I head to the front door.

I drag the suitcase full of cash and push the doorbell to the Mansion. Gotta be a gentleman you know? Only an uncultured swine would storm into someone’s home without even knocking first. Much to my expectations the doors opened by themselves inviting me to the candle-lit hallway. What if this is just an elaborate prank and I’m just entering a haunted mansion in an amusement park? Well I couldn’t rule out that possibility considering how I got played last year. No, I will not talk about that. Anyways as I stroll through the hallway I feel as though I'm being watched. Good, the Manipulator has his eyes on me. Just adds to the thrill. I take a turn to the right and I enter the empty dining hall.

In the centre of it all was an arrow sign pointing to the ground which read “suitcase here.” Nice of the Manipulator to mark out exactly where I should put it. I place the suitcase at the designated spot and suddenly I hear the sound of the door closing on me.

“How original Mr Manipulator.”

Honestly, the ‘I’m asking for a ransom but I actually just wanna kill you” trope? Get some new material.

“Glad to see you kept your end of the deal Detective Lupin” a voice booms throughout the room, “You’ve kept your end of the deal and I’ll fulfill mine”

So this is the voice of the Manipulator huh? Or maybe he manipulated his own voice. Either way the voice I heard was that of a man which was a bit on the higher register of male voices I’ve heard. It had a slight raspy touch to it as well. Then, a hatch in the roof opens and a body falls in front of my feet

“Sir!” I exclaim from shock. Partially because I didn’t expect the Chief Justice to just fall from the heavens in front of me and the fact that the Manipulator returned him in the first place. Alfred Manov was tied up and blindfolded in front of me. I quickly untie him and help him get back on his feet.

“Glad to see you’re doing as good as ever Alex Lupin” the Chief Justice says to me

“I’m just glad you’re safe sir”

I turn my attention to my surroundings and I still see that we’re locked inside

“Mr Manipulator, isn’t the deal fulfilled now? Why are we still being kept here”

“Heh. Well one deal has been fulfilled. But if you want to make it out of here you’ll need to make another deal with me”

“Well then, out with it. What do you want? A safe trip out of the country? More riches?” I ask

“I don’t desire such materialistic things boy. You’re a detective right? Investigate the room and then we’ll talk”

I hear a sort of beeping noise and the Manipulator was nowhere to be heard anymore. Investigate the room huh? Well the room was quite empty so it shouldn’t be hard to spot anything out of place. I comb the area and then I find something stuck on the underside of the dining table. Mr.Manov notices that and approaches me. The mysterious object was a news article. The Chief Justice seemed to recognise it. The headline reads “Children in Orphanage scarred after seeing the corpse of their caretaker” Interesting but why would the manipulator want us to read this. I keep on reading and find out that the caretaker of the orphanage killed himself. Just then I heard more beeps coming from somewhere in the room. I turn around and the doors of the dining hall opens.

“Proceed upstairs” the Manipulator commands. The two of us follow his orders and go upstairs. The only door opened to us was the one that lead to the game room. We enter with heavy breaths.

As expected the moment the two of us stepped in we felt the wind close the doors on us and now we were stuck again.

“I hope you’re enjoying my little game Mr Manov,” the Manipulator says eerily, “I think we should kick this into the high gear now! If you don’t find all the clues I scattered around this room in time I’ll make sure you never see the light of day again.”

The beeps to signify the end of transmission go off and now a new beeping noise starts to go off. “Probably the timer,” remarks Alfred Manov, “We ought to hurry up now.But I do wonder what this man’s goal is.Does the great detective have any ideas?” I just shrug and go back to investigating. There’s a pool table in the middle of the room and it appeared to already have been set up. In the corner of the room I also found a mini-safe. “Simple enough” I say as I type in the numbers ‘1108’ and the safe opens. Alred Manov lets out a gasp and asks me, “How did you know?” However I was too intrigued by what I found in the safe. In my hand I was holding a trophy labeled as the ‘Budding Innovator Award’. “It’s a trophy given to students who show potential in making a difference in the world. I wonder why it’s here.” says the Chief Justice. But there was more inside the safe. It’s another newspaper clipping and the headline was as follows, “Esteemed University Student claims to have witnessed an imaginary murder.” I continued reading and it’s about an eyewitness testifying about a murder he saw. Apparently he was so shocked from what he saw his entire hair turned white from the horrifying incident. However investigators concluded that no such murder ever took place and that this student had turned dellusional. “Interesting tale huh” I asked the Chief Justice. He doesn’t respond to me.

“Well done Detective, I expected nothing else. You even surpassed my expectations! I actually thought you would take longer.For that I will allow you to come meet me face to face. I’ll be waiting”

The doors of the game room open and it leads to another room. However it was dark and I couldn’t make out anything. But the only way to go was forwards so that’s what we did. We walked in and as usual the doors close behind us. It was total silence until.

Sounds of cogwheels turning, gears twisting. Suddenly a spotlight was brought to life and it shone onto an area in front of the two of us and a dimmer light shone on us

“Thank you for waiting boys”

We saw a man lying on the ground and what we saw next astounded us. His whole body movement was so jittery. It was as though he was a puppet being pulled from strings as he got up. And then the cogwheels started to turn once more. The noise of the gears weren't coming from stage equipment. It was the man himself. He was tall and fair, had a long narrow nose and was wearing a black suit with a yellow tie. However his main defining characteristics was his long white hair going down his back and bronze colored bionic left arm.

“Surprised? I get that a lot” says the man.

There was no questioning it. This man was the Manipulator. The next thing I knew the Manipulator takes out his right eyeball and wipes it with a cloth.

“Sorry about that, it was getting a little dirty. Thank you for coming gentlemen, would you like to know why I gathered you here today?”

Alfred Manov opens his mouth but before he could mutter a single word the manipulator raises his bionic arm and slams it onto a desk creating a deafening sound.

“I don't want to hear it from you Lord Chief Justice, I want the other one to talk”

I answer “It’s about the orphanage incident isn’t it, Mr Drebber Fraq.”

The name of the person who killed themselves in the orphanage was Enoch Fraq. Right now I was looking straight into the eyes of his brother. The brother who nobody believed.

“That’s right Detective. I was there to watch my brother’s life get taken away. I will never forget the look of that killer for as long as I lived. But what was I treated like?”

He slams his fist on the table again with twice the amount of strength

“I WAS TREATED AS A LIAR,” he says as his stare penetrates my soul

“It wasn’t a murder it was suicide. That was what I kept getting back. The law was supposed to help me but instead look at me now. I was called delusional. Crazy. Psycho. I was even expelled from my university because I was deemed non functional. I was so close too. Given a little more help from the research grant I could have completed my research.”

“You didn’t even deserve that research grant. How to communicate with the supernatural using Science? What are you a god damn clown?” shouts the Chief Justice. When he says that the cogwheels in Enoch’s bionic arm started to turn faster

“That was no joke. I put my heart into it. But that doesn’t matter now. Today I’m here to show you the person who killed my brother”

“What?” gasps Alfred Manov. The lights in the room slowly start to brighten and it reveals that we’re in an art studio.

“It’s time that the world comes face-to-face with the fearsome murderer of that day” shouts Drebber.

He walks over to an object that was covered by a tarp

“Over the past few months I’ve worked endlessly to exact my revenge on those who damned me to failure”

“So the news reporter that was killed by an Inspector…” I mutter

“Yes. It was the damn reporter that wrote the story of how much of a fraud I was. The Inspector was the one in charge of the investigation of my brother’s death. I just held his children hostage and the Inspector submitted so easily. I then blackmailed a member of the Aristocracy and told him to burn down the orphanage my brother worked in. Nobody was going to miss them anyways. After that it was the professor who was responsible for my expulsion. I just had to weaken her resolve. And finally I convinced a detective and another member of the Aristocracy that they both wanted to kill each other and I just watched the havoc unfold.”

“You make me sick you bastard. And thanks to you the people are starting to lose faith in our country’s police force thanks to all those murderers you made” says the Chief Justice

“Lose faith just like me. I was only doing what I thought was fair. And now, the second part of my plan. To the murderer who took the life of my brother. I spent the last few months sculpting a statue of that man for the world to see. Now, ascertain the truth with your own eyes...the truth of one year ago,”

Drebber grips the tarp and swiftly and pulls it away. Revealing a most horrific scene. On the ground lies Enoch’s lifeless ceramic body in blood with the most horrified expression and standing above him was his killer. A man in leather boots, wearing black pants and a black trenchcoat. But most importantly of all, his knight’s helmet with one horizontal gap as it’s eyeholes but it glowed red.

I asked “Who is this man?”

“I don’t even know as well. But for now I call him the Phantom. The one that appears and disappears in a blink of an eye.”

“Shouldn’t you show this to the police. We could hunt him down with this visual evidence.”

Beep...beep...beep.

The beeps of the timer!

“I don’t plan on helping you catch this man. In fact, the two of you are going to die here without sharing this knowledge with anybody.”

Drebber makes a mad dash to another room and before the two of us could chase him down he locks the door on us.

“You hear those beeps? Those are going to be the last thing you’re ever going to hear” Drebber says, “What’s my revenge plan all along you ask? I’m going to kill the two of you and let Estraya’s up and coming serial killer go free. 5...4...3...2...1…”

“....huh?”

The beeping stopped.

“WHAT’S HAPPENING?” Drebber shouted desperately

At that moment I couldn’t help but laugh.

“This is why you don’t underestimate the great detective,Alex Lupin, Mr Drebber. Did you really think I didn’t know about your whole bomb plan? I already deactivated those last week and replaced them with my own dummy bombs!”

“L...Last Week?!?!” Drebber screams

“I already figured out your trick after your professor killed herself. After that I tracked down where the detective got his letter almost immediately after his incident and found this place. I did some snooping around and saw some very dangerous items so I swapped them out and set my dummy bombs to the same timer that the real ones were on.Although I’ll give you credit for your sculptures, I didn’t see that when I was here last week. If you want to know where the real ones are they’ve all been defused.”

“DAMN YOU DETECTIVE” Drebber shouted as I heard him running away. Just then I heard something and when I look around I see that a trapdoor had opened from under Manov’s feet and he fell down. “Don’t worry about me, chase after him!” he shouted. I forced open the door with all my strength and gave chase.

I ran upstairs and at the top I saw a ladder leading to the roof. I barely managed to see Drebber’s legs climb out of the hole so I pursued him. When I got onto the roof I found Drebber standing just a few metres away from me.

“You have nowhere to run Drebber!” I shouted as I ran towards him. That was when I realised that it was still raining and the roof tiles were wet. A wrong step and I was going to slide off the mansion and fall to my death. “It’s more like YOU don’t have anywhere to go detective!” says Drebber as he turns around. That was when I saw all the color drain from his face.

Drebber stammers as he tries to ask,“Y..You…..What...are you doing here?”

I turn around and that was when I saw him.The man in leather boots, a black trenchcoat and his signature helmet.

It was the Phantom.

The Phantom runs on the wet roof tiles with astonishing ease and chases after Drebber.

“Stay away from me! PLEASE!” Drebber screams as he frantically tries to run away. But it was no use. Drebber slipped and he started to slide off the roof, desperate for his life he tried to grab onto anything to stop his fall but there was nothing. But just as Drebber was going to slide off the roof the Phantom catches Drebber’s bionic hand. But Drebber was still hanging from the roof.

“W...What are you...going to do...Give me hope and then let go….?ha….”

That was when he answered

“Probably so Drebber. You’ve sinned and now you need to pay” says the Phantom

_What am I going to do...I can’t die now...I can’t die now...wait a minute_

_Jahrlath I awaken you to forge a contract between the two of us, save me and you may have my soul_

_Please work please work_

_SAY MY NAME AGAIN AND OUR CONTRACT WILL BE FORGED_

“It worked….” says Drebber

“What worked?” asks the Phantom

Drebber cackles unlike anything that I ever head

“Jahrlath”

That was the final word that came out of Drebber’s mouth before he let go of the Phantom’s hand and fell to his death. Or so I thought

Suddenly, mid- fall his body disintegrates

I was in disbelief. Drebber just vanished! But my shock wasn’t anything compared to the Phantom’s

He began punching the ground so hard I could see blood dripping from his knuckles.

“DAMN IT DAMN IT DAMN IT”

He turns around and notices I’m there. He puts a finger up to his helmet signalling I should be quiet. After seeing what the Phantom could do I didn’t want to trigger him. He slowly backs away into the hole leading back to the third floor. Once he was out of my field of view I climbed back down and returned to the trapdoor I left Manov in. I got a rope from somewhere in the art studio and pulled him back up. I told him about the events that unfolded on the roof.

“That’s...insane….” He truly was at a loss for words. I brought him out of the Mansion and escorted him to the police. Once I arrived at the safepoint I was praised for the successful rescue mission and my status rose. But I never expected the Phantom to appear again after that case. It was only after the subsequent phantom killings did I realise how scary he truly was. How scared Drebber was once he was targeted. When I returned to the art studio I couldn’t find the sculpture anymore. The only evidence that we had of the Phantom’s identity was gone. Manov strictly told me never to tell anybody that I saw the Phantom so I never included that in the reports. Although, I wonder why he told me to do so.

After I told Jacob Alex’s recount he was at a loss for words as well.

“He saw the phantom….The Phantom….my god. I thought Drebber was shot down . Looks like there are things that are kept hidden from us”

Jacob finished his tea and put his cup down.

“There’s still something else I need to discuss Jacob”

I knew I didn’t have much time left.After discussing another important matter with Jacob I went back home to continue making my preparations. Preparations for my imminent death.

_”Hello? Can anybody hear me?” I shouted. Nobody responded. No luck today huh. It’s been so long since I’ve been stranded in this desert. I don’t even know how I got here. I don’t even know who I am. I feel so alone. What happened to me. I tried again one more time. “Hello?!” I screamed with everything I had. Just when I was about to give up for good I heard a voice. I looked around and I didn’t see anybody. But then I saw some kind of red aura flying around me. I captured that red aura thing in my hand and asked , “Who are you?”_

_I am Jarlath. I will be your spirit companion from here on_

_Jarlath? Do you know who I am?Do you know my name?_

_Your name...is Drebber_

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