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#this whole young driver test thing is so dumb
formulatrash · 1 year
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super sorry if this is a dumb question but i’ve getting stuck into f2 and f3 this year and i’ve tried to find videos about this but didn’t really find the answer i was looking for.
if f2 and f3 are spec series, other than maybe having more experienced personnel i guess, why are some teams better than others? is there a difference in set up or better tools depending on the team?
also, side question, what is the whole thing about like the cursed second ART seat like how is it cursed lol?
it comes down to resources and operational functionality. some teams will have more engineers and more data analysis capacity, better facilities at their factory, more simulation. it can come down to the tools they use and the amount of time they can spend on each car, with quite often one car in a team (the one that's paid the most for the seat) having an advantage. things like knowledge of tyre management and being able to properly prepare the tyres make a huge difference to a driver's ability to perform.
that can mean and certainly has that talented drivers get buried by their car just not being anywhere near the pace. you can be the best you can but if you've got an engine that isn't performing and a car that can't find the balance then you'll struggle. Screaming Meals is a really good intro to this; in amongst all the wine chat they do definitely get into how different the cars are between teams - the episode with Max Fewtrell talks about it quite a lot.
which isn't to say talent doesn't stand out or that you can cover for a lack of it with a good car. you have to be genuinely good to win an F2/3 race, it's just that you can also be genuinely good and not be able to show it.
I don't know if I really believe in there being a curse on the second ART seat but it sort of started in this era of the new F2 cars when George Russell and Jack Aitken were there, in 2018. Jack was George's closest rival for the GP3 title the previous year, they were absolutely on a level; they get to F2 and Jack's car makes him look like a fucking idiot who has no idea what he's doing.
the current F2 chassis had a very difficult teething period including an extended chunk of that first season where they couldn't do standing starts (so had to start behind the safety car) because clutch mapping was so hard multiple cars were stalling on the grid. they had to be given extra testing to try and sort it out and it was extremely difficult for a lot of teams to get to a place where the drivers could have any confidence whatsoever that they'd make it off the grid.
it's true that it tends to be one driver performing better than the other in ART but some of the time that has a reasonable explanation. do I, for instance, think there is a reason that Nyck de Vries won the year Nikita Mazepin was his team mate and came 20th? yes and it's a skill issue.
Martins and Pourchaire are fairly evenly matched, so far. Martins has the advantage of maturity (he's "too old" for F1 which is stupid given Pourchaire clearly did not get an advantage in showing his talent by moving up so young) but F2 is tricky.
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the-toasted-teacake · 3 years
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CYRIL! *cackles*
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Do Us Part
Warnings: nonconsent and rape; oral, fingering, marital discord, cheating, spousal arguments and mental/emotional abuse, age gap (Peter is 24/25 and reader is 35/36)
This is dark!Peter Parker x 30s/’older’ reader and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.
Summary: You find it hard to accept that not all good things last as you face the changes in your marriage, yourself, and your marriage.
Note: I wanted to write Peter again but also I’ve seen this nonsense about how 30+ writers are too old for fanfic which is dumb af. And I wanted to turn the age gap trope a little so that it wasn’t the reader being the younger one in the relationship. I label it older reader but I don’t think being in your 30s is old tbh (my bf is 36 so pfft). It was all just a conglomeration of circumstances that inspired a deceivingly sweet dark Peter and I hope you like it. Also it’s 7.4k so a bit of a longer read.
Thank you. Love you guys!
Please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3
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You walked slowly along the transparent shelves set into the pristine white walls of the cosmetics section. The department store was a haze of distant voices and the chirp of scanners as customers milled the aisles and waited their turn to check out. You whiled away your time looking at things you’d never buy as you waited for your husband to return from the men’s department.
You thought of the sparse make-up bag under your sink and the liners and shades you hadn’t used in years. They were likely expired and better tossed in the bin. You hovered along the crystal bottle of designer scents and stopped to test a particular blush-tinted fragrance.
You set the bottle back and peered over at the dark cubbies that housed the men’s scent. Even from there, you could catch a whiff of the heady scents as a younger man with reddish brown hair examined an angular vial of Dior Men. You suddenly felt out of place; a mid-thirties woman in her out-of-season clothes fantasizing about overpriced perfume.
Your husband's voice further cemented your reality as you fingered the golden cap of the Coach eau du parfum. Wesley rolled his eyes and flipped up the little plastic panel that hid the bold prices and huffed.
“I hope you don’t think I’m gonna pay for that shit,” he sneered, “what have you been doing? I was waiting for you.”
He waved a plastic bag as his lip curled and you pressed your mouth shut tightly and swallowed. The day began with another argument as he discovered the seared hole in his shirt and instead of blaming the crappy old dryer, he blamed you. Most of your clothes had been chewed up by the thing but you never complained.
“No, I was just… looking,” you teetered in your flats and glanced around. The young man at the corner display quickly turned to hide his nosy observation, “did you find some new shirts?”
“No thanks to you,” he sniffed.
“Oh,” you played with the hem of your tee and tucked your hands into your pockets nervously. You’d left him to look alone as you only seemed to irritate him and rarely took your advice on matters of clothing, “well, I thought I’d give you some space--”
“Stop acting so pathetic. Start taking responsibility for yourself. For god’s sake, you're almost thirty-six and you don’t know how to hang a shirt to dry?” He spun on his heel and snapped over his shoulder, “let’s go.”
You flinched but followed behind him as he strode away and you stumbled out behind him through the automatic doors. He tossed the bag into the back seat and slammed the door before flopping angrily into the driver’s side. You mirrored him daintily and squeezed your legs together as you tried to make yourself as small as you could.
“I told you about the dryer,” you said.
“And?” he started the engine and slapped his hand around the wheel, “call a fucking electrician or some shit.”
“Alright,” you shrugged as he stopped at the exit of the parking lot and checked his phone quickly.
“Benny wants to do a round of golf,” he peeled out and you grasped the door as your heart raced. You hated how reckless he was when he was angry. You hated how easily he got angry these days.
“Okay,” you picked at the fraying stitching of your purse.
“Don’t start moping,” he sneered, “I fucking work all week and I can’t go out and have a few rounds?”
“I never-- I didn’t say anything,” you murmured.
“You don’t need to,” he turned the wheel sharply as he cut off another car, “you sit at home all day and do what?”
“I work too,” you said.
“Uh huh, sure, if that’s what you call it.”
You ran your fingertip over the bleach stain on the knee of your jeans and said nothing. When he was in a mood, he would latch on anything until he outright exploded. You tried to think of when he changed, when he had stopped being the chill guy you met back in college. It felt like a slow trickle, small things you ignored until it was a mountain you could not see past.
You felt like crying but you’d stopped that a while ago. You existed in a purgatory of acceptance and helplessness. You wanted him to love you again, wanted to believe you could fix things. So you would keep trying. You would do better.
💍 
You picked out a large flank of steak and winced at the price. You had a special dinner in mind. It was Friday and the work week was done. You wanted a weekend without a fight and Wesley was always one for a nice big cut of beef. You hadn’t made him one in a while, your dinners were the usual repetitive drumsticks and rice or your homemade mac and cheese.
You continued onto the fish section and grabbed some salmon for yourself. You’d gained some weight and decided to cut out dairy and red meat if you could help it. The pile of produce in your cart reminded you of the extra jiggle around your stomach and thighs. You also grabbed one of those women’s magazines that advertised a regimen to help slim your figure. You only hoped you could stick to it this time.
With your weekly haul in tow, you wheeled up to the check-out and waited behind a young man who looked oddly familiar to you. Maybe that was the passing years. You always felt a vague glimmer of deja vu, more often a sense of forlorn nostalgia of what you would never have again.
As you stared thoughtlessly, he looked over and smiled. He bent in front of your cart and picked up a thin packet of seasoning. 
“You dropped this,” he said as he held it out and you thanked him before quickly snatching it and looking away. 
He paid for his large bags of chips and over salted pre-packaged meals and packed up at the end as you loaded up your own goods, the cashier sending them down the parallel belt. You swiped your card and tried to calculate the chunk of money from your last check. You thanked the clerk and sidled past the young man as he finished up.
You rounded the counter as he lifted his three bags. You looked up without thinking, the sleeve of his shirt tight around his bicep. You caught yourself staring and looked back down as you packed in the cans. 
It reminded you of Wesley; he’d also started being more mindful, he hit the gym after work and you noticed the little pudge that started just after he turned thirty was slimming out. It was that exact reason that made you notice the extra pounds on your own frame, not that you didn’t realise before.
The man left and you unfolded the little buggy you slid under the cart. You loaded your bags into it and dragged the cart behind you as you made an awkward exit with both wheeled trolleys. The compact fabric buggy was easy enough to fit on the bus if you stood.
You pushed the cart into the row of empty ones and continued across the parking lot. You rolled up to the bus shelter and checked the bus times on your phone. You dug out your strip of tickets and ripped one away. You leaned on the thin handle of your trolley and looked over your shoulder as you heard someone approach.
The man who checked out ahead of you put his bags on the metal bench inside the shelter as he sipped on a bright drink from the place just beside the grocery shop. He sent you a smile over his straw and you spun back to crane your head and search for the bus.
When the metal beast barreled up and cranked to a stop at the curb, the man waited behind you and as your wheels caught on the edge of the ramp, he reached around you and helped push it over the lip. You thanked him shyly and continued up. Usually you tried to keep the shop light on weekdays but you hadn’t really been paying attention.
You pushed your cart against the small barrier just behind the accessible seating and stood beside it, conscious not to take up too much space. The man stood just behind you two bags on one shoulder and the other dangling from the opposite elbow as he sucked on his straw. You grabbed the upright bar as the bus took off and watched the electronic banner for your stop.
A sharp stop had you veering back and you were caught by the young man as he chucked, “oop, you okay?”
“Yes, thank you,” you muttered and gave a sheepish smile over your shoulder.
“There’s a seat,” he gestured just behind you, “I’ll watch your stuff.”
“Um, no it’s… fine,” you gripped the bar tighter as the bus shuttled forward, “my stop is soon.”
You looked ahead of you and three stops passed before yours. You exited through the front with your buggy and headed down the sidewalk as the bus pulled away. You were exhausted just from your little sojourn and it wasn’t even two o’clock. God, you felt old.
💍
You had a salad chopped and tossed and the steak and fish laid out and seasoned. As you listened to your old Spotify list, the music dipped and the notification blipped over the screen. You washed your hands and grabbed the phone. You frowned as you read the lone message from Wesley, the only one you got from him all day.
‘Just finished at the gym, getting drinks with Andrew,’ you read and re-read the message as your heart fell.
You typed out a whole angry response and backspaced it all. You replaced it with ‘ok, have fun’ and blacked the screen. You shoved the meat back in the fridge and stretched saran wrap over the bowl of salad. You placed it on a lower shelf and closed the door, quickly swiping a can of the craft beer Wesley kept around.
You shut the light off in the kitchen and ignored the pang in your stomach as you cracked the can. You climbed the stairs as you sipped the hoppy foam. You put it on the night table and changed into the old butterfly pajamas you wore most nights and turned on the tv mounted against the wall. 
You turned on Netflix but hardly paid attention to the carelessly chosen movie. You sat against the headboard and down the bitter beer until the can was hollow and your eyelids were heavy. You slumped down so that your shoulders were at your ears and dozed off in the stiff position as the room moved with the colours of the television. 
The anger and alcohol shaded your shallow sleep and you hardly heard Wesley when he came in, only waking when your bladder was ready to burst and his snores rumbled in your head. You went to the bathroom and returned, wide awake, and stared at the shape of him in the dark.
You remembered when he used to kiss you when he came home, even when you were asleep, he’d wake you with the little pecks. You remembered when he was happy to come home. You remembered when you were happy. 
You swallowed the acrid aftertaste of beer and left him to snore. You went downstairs and curled up on the couch but didn’t sleep. You just stared at the shadows of the furniture until the sun rose.
💍
The next day, Wesley didn’t wake until after noon and when he did, he didn’t say a word to you. He took his coffee and sat at the patio table in the back as you stewed and cleaned the kitchen. You had nothing to say to him even if you felt stupid for being mad.
“Gotta head down to the dealership,” he said as he interrupted your scouring of the stove.
“The dealership?” you said after a moment, deciding whether or not to break your vow of silence.
“I told you on Wednesday, I’m picking up the car--”
“We talked about this. We should wait a little longer--”
“It’s my money and I got a great price,” he sighed, “just because you have to pinch your pennies--”
“We’re married,” you squeezed the foam sponge, “it’s our money. Don’t act like I don’t pay for anything around here.”
“Oh thanks, honey, so wonderful you paid for a five dollar steak,” he scoffed, “I’ll be impressed when you can make a mortgage payment on your own.”
“How dare you!” you turned your back to him and kept scrubbing, “fine, but not a penny of my money is going to that thing.”
“That’s fine, I’m selling the old one, that should cover most of it--”
“What?” you slammed your hand between the burner, “you said we would hold onto it so I had something to--”
“Then you can buy it from me,” he said venomously.
“I’m your wife,” you spun to scowl at him again, “I-- what is wrong with you?”
He tilted his head and squinted as he poked his tongue out along his lip. “Nothing wrong with me,” he shrugged, “what’s wrong with you?”
“Don’t--” you warned as you pointed a finger at him through the bright yellow gloves, “don’t do that… I’ve been trying and you just keep pushing me away.”
“Me pushing you away?” he rolled his eyes, “you were passed out last night when I got home. Maybe if you didn’t fall asleep before nine I could actually fuck you… or at least get it up if you worked on losing some of that cellulite on your ass.”
Your lip quivered and you sucked in a breath. You shook your head and turned around again. You ignored him as your hand shook and you continued your work, scratching at the dried-on food around the burner. His empty mug clinked onto the counter and you listened to his exit.
Fuck him and his new car. You were done trying with him.
💍
Wesley’s new car was shrouded in the shade of the garage as the old black Hyundai sat out on the driveway with a red and white “For Sale” sign on the windshield. Right after he got back from his extravagant purchase, he made the listing online and several perusers stopped by Saturday night but Sunday morning saw the car still there.
You sat by the border of stones around the garden as he drank beer in the garage and approached any interested buyers who appeared; although so far he’d only had two before noon.
You tucked your clippers into your apron pocket and dusted off your gloves as you stood. You were a little dizzy from sitting out in the sun and a glass of water was the perfect excuse to drown out the annoying sound of your husband’s voice.
You ignored Wesley as you trod through the garage and kicked your sneakers off on the mat right before the three steps up to the house. You went to the kitchen and put your gloves on the counter as you filled a glass from the dispenser on the front of the fridge. You’d given up everything but water and the slices of lemon were the only flavour you had.
You took the glass and your gloves and headed back. Wesley waited just at the bottom of the stairs as he glared up at you with arms crossed. You sighed and descended but he didn’t let you pass.
“What is your problem?”
“Are you really asking me that?” you hissed.
“You giving me the silent treatment isn’t gonna fix this,” he snarled.
“You know what you said so… I shouldn’t have to tell you to apologize,” you retorted and he stayed put.
“Is this about the car?”
“The car is just another thing,” you cross an arm around your stomach, “you think I couldn’t use it to get around, to get the groceries maybe? Or, I don’t know, maybe since you have such a problem with my home office, I could go out and get a ‘big girl’ job as you put it so many times--”
“Your mother has a car she never drives. You can just take her with you, two birds, one stone. I need to sell this to pay for the new one--”
“The one I begged you not to buy,” you huffed, “you could’ve waited a few more years until we were a little more comfortable--”
“Oh, wait? Until we have a kid and all my money goes to it,” he snapped, “yeah, I’m sure we’d have the money then--”
“You’d have to fuck to do that,” you stepped down the last step and pushed past him.
As you came into the sunlight and shielded your eyes, a figure stood by the garden, knelt just by your tulips as he felt the soft petals. You narrowed your eyes. You recognized him for sure. It was the stranger from the bus.
“Um, hi?” you croaked as you swallowed the lump in your throat.
“Hey, it’s… you again,” he chuckled softly as he stood, “I saw an ad for a car and… well, I’m getting tired of the bus.”
“Oh, uh, my husband,” you pointed over your shoulder, “you’ll have to talk to him.”
“Okay,” he smiled, “Peter,” he held out his hand and you stared at it. You introduced yourself and shook his firm grip.
“Like I said, it’s my husband selling the car,” you brushed by him and got to your knees by the flowerbed. “Unless you’re looking to buy some wilting pansies.”
“Hmm, I like the tulips better,” he said as he slowly inched away, “thanks.”
You sat back on your heels and he strode over to the open garage. You heard Wesley greet him and didn’t bother paying attention to the same pitch you’d heard all morning. You pulled on your gloves and wiggled your nose as it tingled. You really just wanted to keel over and bawl.
“Sold,” Wesley announced and you heard a clap, “all yours!”
“I’ll just transfer the deposit,” Peter said and a minute passed before he emerged again, the keys hanging from his finger, “Thanks, Wes.”
You hid your distaste. It used to be that Wesley hated being called ‘Wes’ but lately, he introduced himself to everyone as just ‘Wes’. He really had changed. You must have too.
“Hey,” you looked up and blinked as the sun made your eyes water as it shone around Peter.
“You bought it?” you asked as you yanked free a weed.
“Yep, but uh,” he glanced over his shoulder as the old car stereo Wesley used blared out a classic rock tune, “I… wasn’t eavesdropping but I heard some of it and… if you ever need a ride to the grocery store, I usually try for Wednesdays,” he tucked his hand in his pocket, “I don’t live too far and since we go to the same one--”
“No, no, you don’t have to do that,” you looked back to the soil, embarrassed.
“Well, if you change your mind,” he kept the keys dangling from one finger and reached into his pocket. He pulled out his wallet and slid out a card with some effort, “I’m supposed to have these handy but I never really use them.”
He offered the business card and you read his name above the title, ‘senior photographer’. You gave a half-hearted smile and put it in your apron pocket.
“Thanks,” you said, “I can manage.”
“You don’t have to though,” he said kindly, “but I’ll, uh, leave you to your gardening. Sorry if I bugged you.”
“You didn’t,” you assured without looking up, flattered that anyone cared enough to even offer help.
“Hey, Pete,” Wesley stopped Peter as he neared the car, “you can have one before you go.”
“Oh, no, I’m gonna be driving,” Peter argued.
“Pfft, it’s a celebration and one won’t put you over the limit,” Wesley insisted and handed him a dark bottle of craft brew, “come on.”
“I really should go--”
“It’s a Sunday, where do you need to be?” Wesley patted his shoulder and looked over at you, “hey, honey, you wanna see if we have any snacks for our guest?”
“I’m not hungry,” Peter said curtly, “really. Just the beer is fine.”
They disappeared back into the garage and you cringed. You hated that. Wesley only every acted like a husband when others were around.
💍
You waited a whole week before returning to the grocery store. You were short on everything and it was a reason to get out of the house. Your husband had made both your home and your workplace hostile.
It irked you that Wesley resented you working from home when a couple years ago he was so happy about it. Then, he’d been so enthusiastic about starting a family but when it didn’t happen right away, he grew disillusioned and bitter. Now, he seemed to have no interest in being a husband let alone a father.
As you packed up your spinach and bottles of Perrier, your cart rolled just a little as someone nudged it from the other end. You raised your head and hid your surprise and discomfort as Peter smiled back at you.
“I thought you said Wednesdays,” you murmured as you dropped a bag in your cart.
“I forgot eggs,” he held up the carton, “I guess I have good timing.”
“You do?” you asked as you pulled your cart forward and maneuvered around to push it out of the way of fellow shoppers. You bent to grab your trolley from beneath and he caught it as you unfolded it.
“I’ll drive you,” he said.
“I told you--”
“I’m here so why not? Save the ticket for next time,” he urged.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why does it matter? Why do I matter to you?” you asked.
“I don’t know, I… like helping people,” he shrugged, “what if I told you you were helping me? I have this horrible need to be the hero.”
“That will go away,” you muttered under your breath and he lifted a brow, “sorry, I… thank you.”
“Alright, let’s go then,” he collapsed the trolley and carried it easily under his arm as he cradled his eggs in the other, “I got the A/C fixed on the car too.”
“Mmm,” you hummed and walked with him out of the store. 
You crossed the parking lot and helped you load up the bags in the trunk. That car should have been yours; you’d made enough payments on it yourself but Wesley was such a stubborn ass.
You sat in the front seat as he slid into the other and started the car. He drove cautiously through the lot and you read the store signs as he came to the exit.
“How long have you and… the old man been together?”
“Um,” you glanced over at him and chewed your lip, “since college so… almost fifteen years now.”
“Fifteen?” he turned out onto the street, “really? I thought he was older than you.”
“Christ,” you scoffed, “don’t flatter me.”
“Really, I woulda said twenty-eight at most,” he said coolly, “wow, I feel so young now.”
“And I feel so old,” you grumbled as you crossed your legs, hoping he didn’t notice the wrinkle in the pink capris.
“Whatever, you’re not even forty,” he said, “and time has treated you well so I can only think in a few years… oh jeez, sorry, that came off weirder than I intended. Not that I meant for it to be weird at all--”
You giggled at his rambling as he rolled to a stop at the sign and peeked over at you in the rearview. You caught his eye and quickly looked away, “what?”
“Just… you have a nice smile,” he said as he turned down a side street, “and a nice laugh.”
“Thank you,” your voice was brittle at the genuine compliment, “you’re funny.”
“Am I? I wasn’t trying to be,” he took the same short cut you took when you walked home from the convenience store which was closer than the plaza.
“And nice,” you said as he came onto your street, ��you really didn’t have to drive me. You could’ve dropped me at the corner--”
“No way, I was raised better than that, and if you think I’m letting you carry that all in by yourself--”
“Raised to help little old ladies?” you mused.
“Raised to treat ladies properly,” he corrected, “especially pretty ones.”
“I’m married,” your heart pattered as you dared to flirt back, almost in disbelief that he was humouring you, “and your lies don’t work on me, young man.”
“Not that young,” he insisted as he pulled into the driveway.
You got out and went around to the trunk. He handed you the bag with the bread and other light products, and loaded up with the other bags.
“You get the doors, let me do the heavy work,” he said and nodded you towards the house.
You went ahead of him and unlocked the door. You let him inside and pointed him into the kitchen. He placed the bags on the counter and stretched his arms and hands as you set yours on the other side. The muscles of his arms moved under his skin and you could trace the lines of his torso through his grey tee.
“So,” he took out the bottle of Perrier, “this going in the fridge?”
“What-- you’ve done enough.”
“Fridge?” he ignored you and pulled out the other.
You gave a long blink and threw up your hands in surrender, “yes, please,” you came around and reached in to grab the whole grain buns, “bottom shelf.”
You finished unpacking your groceries and took the empty bags from Peter and shoved them under the counter. You stood and looked at him nervously as he watched you, his fingers tapping on the granite.
“Do you want a snack? Something to drink? Water?”
“I’ll have a water,” he said and moved to leaned his elbow on the countertop, his side snug to the edge.
“Sparkling or--”
“Regular’s fine,” he answered
“Ice? Lemon?” you pulled out a tall glass.
“Just ice is fine… then I’ll be out of your hair,” he said.
Ice clinked into the glass and you covered it with the distilled water from the fridge. You slid it onto the counter and stepped back.
“Oh, I… actually, it’s a good thing I ran into you,” he said and took a sip, “my aunt, she likes to garden too but she got some bulbs she’s not gonna use, I thought maybe… maybe you would like some to fill in the holes?”
“What kind?” you asked.
“Some daffodils and some crocuses, I think,” he said, “I could bring them over next week after work?”
“That sounds like a lot of work,” you scrunched your lips, “you could probably just give them to a neighbour.”
“It’s not out of the way,” he said, “you want them?”
You stared at him and thought. He was nice. Too nice.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing, I… I’m sure you have a girlfriend you could be spending time with--”
“I don’t. Not anymore,” he interrupted.
“Oh, sorry,” you said, “I didn’t--”
“Like I said, I always wanna be the good guy,” he finished his water and the last of the cubes settled at the bottom, “thanks.”
“No, thank you,” you said as he set his glass in the sink and backed away, “really, you made my day so much easier.”
“I hope your weekend is better,” he said, “but…”
He didn’t finished and you folded your hands together as he hesitated by the hallway.
“But what?” you prodded.
“Nothing,” he shook his head, “nothing. I should go.”
“Okay,” you rubbed the back of your neck, “see ya.”
“Monday,” he confirmed as he turned to the doorframe, “I’ll bring the bulbs. Just after seven.”
“Right,” you slanted your lips and watched him go.
The door marked his departure and you turned to exhale and lean against the counter. You could still smell his rich cologne. Then you felt guilty. It was stupid to think he was doing anything more than being nice, that the flirting was anything but a joke, but still, you missed feeling that way and it should’ve been Wesley making you feel that.
💍
You squeezed the phone as you clenched your jaw so tight it hurt. Your eyes were wet and finally the tears were ready to start falling. The smell of steak filled the kitchen, another meal you wouldn’t eat. At the last minute, Wesley texted to tell you he was hitting the gym. Again. He was already late after a long meeting but promised he’d be home to eat.
So you waited for him to answer your furious phone call but got his voicemail instead. Your eyes narrowed at the bottle of wine and your chest knotted as the tone sounded.
“Wesley, this is it. I can’t do this anymore! I’m your wife. Do you even want to be with me? I can’t go on like this and now you won’t even answer my calls,” you snarled. You knew he had his phone on him as he no doubt had his Spotify work-out list on shuffle, “when you come home, you can sleep on the couch.”
You hung up and grabbed a stemmed glass from the cupboard. You filled it to the brim with Pinot Grigio but before you could taste it, the doorbell made you jump. You set down the glass and walked up the hallway. Just on the other side of the frosted glass was a silhouette. You opened the door and touched your forehead as you faced Peter.
“I totally forgot you were coming,” you breathed, “I’m so sorry. But thank you, you really didn’t have to--”
“Are you okay?” he asked as the paper bag in his hand crinkled.
“Yeah, I’m fine, I… thank you for the flowers,” you looked at the brown paper bag and he handed it over, another bag on his wrist; white with ribbon handles, “what’s that? You headed out for a date?”
“Um, no,” he said, “actually, I was just…” he pushed his fingers through his hairs, the reddish brown locks slightly curled with sweat, “I wanted to talk to you.” He looked past you and his warm eyes returned to yours, “Wesley isn’t home yet?”
“No, he won’t be for a while,” you backed up, “so you might as well come in. I have a steak no one’s gonna eat.”
“Yeah, he wouldn’t be,” Peter said glumly, “and steak sounds good.”
He closed the door behind him and followed you into the kitchen. You put the bulbs at the back of the counter and grabbed the bottle, “wine?”
“No thank you,” he said.
You plunked down the bottle and took a gulp of your wine before you turned to plate the steak and your chicken breast alongside the fried asparagus and roasted potatoes. You set the filet before him as he sat on the stool and climbed up across from him at the long island.
“Thank you,” he watched you slide a steak knife and fork towards him and his gaze lingered on your lips as you took another thirsty mouthful, “this is for you, actually.”
He pushed the white bag over to you and you smelled the subtle floral scent rising from it. You put your glass down and pushed open the top of the bag and peeked inside. You shook your head and rescinded your hand as if you were slapped. It was the same perfume from that day weeks ago.
“You… how?”
“You don’t remember?” he asked.
You thought back on the day you wanted to forget. He was the other shopper in the perfume section, the one who sent you that sympathetic look as Wesley reproached you. You winced and grabbed your utensils. You cut into the chicken and shoved it in your mouth. You swallowed loudly.
“Take it back,” you sniffed, “I don’t want it. I don’t deserve it.”
“You do. He doesn’t deserve you,” he carefully sliced into the medium rare steak.
“Is that what this is? Some perverted joke? A challenge?” you dropped your fork and knife, “you think you can seduce the sad housewife and then laugh at it? Sow your wild oats?”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” he calmly put down the silverware, “I… what I didn’t say when I showed up is I just came from the gym.”
You frowned in confusion and wrinkled your nose. You took another drink of wine as you tried to understand.
“I saw Wesley,” he said as he leaned on his elbow and pulled out his phone with his other hand, “I didn’t wanna say anything but… you’re here beating yourself up over him and-- just look.”
He slid his phone across the counter and you looked at the screen. Your entire body felt heavy and your veins filled with ice. You dropped your head into your hands as you tried to wipe the sight from your eyes; the image of your husband groping a woman in yoga pants, an act she wasn’t deterring.
“I knew it,” you sobbed as the tears burst forth and leaked down your palms, “I knew it. And why wouldn’t he? I’m old, ugly--” you sniffed and pulled your hands away to wipe them on your pants. Peter held out a paper towel and you took it as you avoided his eyes, “thank you but I think you should go. I’m humiliated enough.”
“You shouldn’t be alone,” he said as he climbed down from the stool and rounded the island, “he’s an asshole. He’s blind.”
“Please, Peter, just leave me alone,” you slid off the stool and he caught your shoulders. You looked up at him as you dabbed away the streaks of sadness with the paper towel, “Peter--”
“I’m not leaving,” he said firmly, “he’s out there having his fun, so why don’t you have some of your own?”
“Peter, that’s-- that’s wrong. I’m too old for you. And… I’m fat and--”
“You’re perfect,” he reached up to frame your chin with his hand, “you’re gorgeous,” his other hand trailed down your arm and to your hip, “that’s the first thing I noticed about you…” he pulled you closer and tapped your ass lightly.
“No, I can’t-- I just want to be alone,” you pushed on his arms and felt the thick biceps as he flexed and kept you close.
“Well, baby, what I want,” he turned you so that you were pinned between him and the island, “is for you to put on that perfume… I want you wearing nothing but that.”
“Peter,” you pushed on his chest that time and the hard muscle wall didn’t budge, “Peter, go--”
“Baby,” he bent and scooped you up suddenly. 
His hands spread over your ass as he lifted you and crushed his lips against yours. You murmured in surprise and he placed you on the granite countertop. He parted from your lips as you sat up and he shoved your legs apart, inserting himself between your knees. He played with the bottom of the dress you’d worn in hopes of rekindling your dying marriage.
“We can go slow,” he tickled along your thighs and pulled back suddenly, “just a little at a time.” 
He leaned in as he reached around you and grabbed the small white bag. He pulled out the perfume and snaked his hand around your neck. He pulled you to bend over him and he kissed your neck just before he sprayed a puff of perfume across your throat. He stood back and took a deep breath. He put the bottle on the counter and his hands went back to your skirt.
“Peter,” you caught his hands as they crept under the fabric, “please.”
You tried to slide forward and he stopped you as he grasped your hips and held you in place. He bit his lip as his eyes glimmered up at you. He drew a hand away and took the glass of wine and held it before your mouth.
“Drink, relax,” he cooed, “forget about him.”
You stared at him and he brought your hand up with his and wrapped it around the full body of the glass. He nudged it to your lips and watched you until you drank from the crystal rim. He smirked and lifted your skirt as he bent to bury his head beneath the folds.
You gulped and choked on the wine as your skirt fluttered down over his shoulders. You felt his finger on the lace trim of your panties and winced. He squeezed your thighs with his other hand and nuzzled the crotch of your underwear. You tried to close your legs but he kept them apart easily.
He curled his fingers under the elastic of your panties and tugged. He pulled until you lifted your ass just enough for him to get them free and he guided them down your legs before quickly parting them again.
You set down the glass and almost overturned it, the last mouthful splashing up the side. You pressed your hands to the granite and peered down at the shape of his head beneath your skirt. You gasped as his cool tongue grazed your warm folds and delved deeper.
“Peter…” you wisped and closed your eyes as you tried to hide from your own shame.
He purred as his tongue flicked over your clit and you twitched. He caressed the crease of your thigh with his fingers as he lapped at your, his other hand pressed against your stomach until you fell back across the counter. You arched your back instinctively and his hand cupped your tit through your dress.
He blindly pulled until your chest slipped out and pushed the cup of your bra as he teased your clit with his tongue. He felt along your cunt with his fingers and shoved his index inside of you. You moaned as he pushed another inside and curled them as he suckled on your bud.
Your core burned to life. Your entire being was set alight after months without affection. You quivered in delight and fear. Your nerves stormed both out of guilt and hunger. It felt so good but you knew it was wrong. The scent of the perfume filled your nose as your skin grew hot.
He moved his hand in time with his mouth as he doted on you. His touch intensified as your legs bent around the side of the island and your fingernails dragged along the granite, your voice rising without thought. He pinched your nipple and you cried out as you came in a wave of sheer pleasure and grabbed his wrist as you tried to steady yourself.
He eased off slowly as you trembled in the afterglow, his lingering touch tickled along your legs as he pushed your dress up. He pulled you to sit up and lifted the fabric over your head and ripped your sleeves free from your arms. He tossed as side the garment and swiftly covered your mouth with his so you tasted your own arousal on his tongue.
He unhooked your bra blindly and slid it off your arms. You were intensely aware of your nakedness and as you brought your arms up to cover yourself, he forced them down and ran his hands over your bare torso. 
“Beautiful,” he said as he laid a trail of gentle pecks along your throat and chest, pausing to take a nipple in his mouth as he rolled the other between his fingers and sent a shiver through you.
He kneaded your sides and hips, his fingers danced along your thighs and he followed the path with his mouth, kissing and nipping your flesh. He lifted his head again as he took your hands and twined his fingers through yours. He tugged you gently until you slid off the counter and landed on your feet shakily.
“Baby, you’re so amazing,” he placed your hands on his chest and pushed them down his muscled torso and brought them back up beneath his tee shirt, “go on.”
He let you go and you continued to roll up his tee. He dipped his head and raised his arms to help you and you clung to the tee as it fell limp in your grasp. Dazed, he snatched the shirt from your hands and flung it. He once more pressed your hands to his chest and guided you in feeling the lines of his toned flesh.
He pushed your hands against the top of his jeans and leaned into you. He kissed your temple and whispered along your hairline, “turn around, baby.” He squeezed your ass and purred, “mmmm, please, I wanna see that ass.”
You blinked, dazed, and spun slowly. You caught yourself on the edge of the counter as your legs trembled and you heard the subtle zip. He kicked his foot between yours and pushed your legs apart as he led you back so that you were slightly bent against the island. He ran his nails down your back and gripped your hip with one hand as his other drew away from your skin.
You flinched as you felt his smooth tip against your ass and he rubbed it between your cheeks. You inhaled and held in your breath as his hold on your tightened and he angled his dick under your ass and grazed your cunt. He poked your entrance and pressed his chest to your back as his hand covered yours on the granite.
He slid into you and your voice fizzled in the air as he forced the air from your lungs. You pushed your head back and it met his shoulder as his other hand crawled down your front. He spread your folds with his fingers and swirled another around your clit as he tilted his hips and thrust into you slowly.
“Ah, Peter,” you slapped the counter and he shushed you as his hand left yours cold and his fingers stretched over your throat.
His motion picked up as the noise of him crashing into you echoed around the kitchen. Your eyes rolled back as he rammed into you even harder. You were on tiptoes as he was driven by the weak moans that leaked from your lips and your wet pleasure squelched around him. He pressed two fingers to your bud and rubbed until you squeaked and your thighs quaked around him.
“That’s it, baby,” he growled, “I bet you never cum like that for him.”
You whined and he sped up again. He pinned you against the counter so that the lip pressed into your stomach. He took his hand from your cunt and pushed your head down as he kept his other hand around your neck. He didn’t waver once as he fucked you.
“Touch yourself, baby,” he commanded, “I want you to cum again for me. I know you want to too.”
His thick breath warmed the air and grazed your back as he held you down and his hold on your neck tightened until silver stars rose in your vision. Your feet dangled against the tile and you reached down to play with your clit as it buzzed. It was only seconds before you were murmuring in ecstasy once more.
“Fuck, baby, can you feel that? The way your clinging to me,” he puffed as he slammed into you over and over, “he can hardly fill you, can he? Hmmm? Little man.”
You wheezed as he choked you and his other hand kept your head pinned. You heard a distant creak but could barely do more than keep your fingers moving as your heartbeat deafened you. You came again and croaked as your cunt squeezed him hungrily.
“What the fuck?” the voice broke your lusty trance and suddenly you were pulled away from the counter.
Your head lulled as Peter held it up and turned you around, his pelvis slapping against your ass as you faced your husband. Your mouth hung open as your blurred vision barely registered the scene and the deep grunts only got louder behind you.
“Look who’s here,” Peter rasped as he snaked his arm around you.
“The fuck are you doing?” Wesley sneered as your eyes closed and your ass rang with each thrust.
“What you can’t,” Peter snickered, “doesn’t she look so happy?” He grasped your chin and pushed his fingers into your mouth as he held your head up, “well, you into watching or you gonna let us finish, old man?”
779 notes · View notes
junghelioseok · 3 years
Text
clandestine. | 04
↳ forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.
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◇ jungkook x reader ◇ smut | fluff | brother’s best friend!au ◇ 6.5k [4/6]
notes: we finally have a set chapter count! did this fic really need to be 6 chapters? absolutely not, but here we are! i’m hoping to have this fella finished up in the next month or so, but we’ll see how that goes given my track record. happy new year, everyone!
warnings: a little underedited bc i’m lazy, shower sex!!! mild? exhibitionist tendencies??? reader is dumb and jungkook is slutty, but what else is new 🤷🏻‍♀️
⇢ 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 
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“I swear to god, I am going to amputate your arm with a rusty hacksaw if you elbow me one more time.”
Undeterred, your brother prods you again, pouting at you from his spot in the driver’s seat. “I just want another chip, Noona. Don’t be so mean.”
“Are you a baby bird?” you ask in disbelief, gaping at the way he opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue. “Seriously, I’m not feeding you. Get your own chips if you want them so badly.”
“But I’ve gotta keep both hands on the wheel,” he replies cheekily. “Ten and two positions, at all times.”
You frown. “Didn’t they change it to nine and three?” Nonetheless, you reluctantly reach into the bag in your lap, pulling out a potato chip and delivering it to his waiting mouth. “Next one’s going straight into your nose,” you warn as he happily crunches down on the snack.
Jimin simply offers you a beatific grin in between chews. “Love you too.”
“Nope, I changed my mind. Next one’s going up your ass.”
Your brother has long since grown used to your threats. “Kinky,” he chuckles as he merges smoothly into the next lane over. The song on the radio shifts into something more upbeat, and Jungkook is quick to start humming along under his breath from his spot in the seat behind you. Within minutes, it’s morphed into a singalong, and the offkey warbling of all seven passengers—no matter how dissonant—is a perfect soundtrack for the remainder of the drive.
The beach, when you arrive, is awash with tourists and locals alike, all clamoring to lay claim to a prime stretch of sand and a decent parking space. Jimin manages to snag a spot just as someone else is pulling out, and the rest of you are quick to disembark and scope out the beach for somewhere to set up camp. Plopping your bag down onto the sand, you rifle through it until you find your sunscreen, mentally patting yourself on the back for buying the spray instead of the cream.
“Can I borrow that when you’re done, Noona?” Taehyung asks, watching you wrench off the cap.
You nod, squinting against the sunlight. “Sure. As long as you help me get my entire back.”
“Deal.”
Flashing him a grateful smile, you shimmy out of your shorts and begin applying sunscreen to your arms and legs. Taehyung peels off his t-shirt, and you spray him down too, making sure to coat his entire back before he takes the bottle and does the same to you.
“I might have gone a little overboard,” he admits once he’s done, capping the bottle and tossing it back into your bag. Warm hands settle onto your exposed shoulder blades, deft fingertips rubbing the excess product into your skin. “There, that should do it. All better.”
“Thanks, Tae.” You turn around and reach out, wiping at a stray fleck of the white lotion on his bicep. “You’ve got a little bit here too, hang on—“
“Mind if I borrow this?”
You turn at the sound of Jungkook’s voice. The dark-haired young man is standing there with your sunscreen in hand, his gaze zeroed in on the way your fingertips linger on Taehyung’s bare skin. Awkwardly, you pull away and nod, hoping that neither of them can hear your heart pounding erratically against your ribcage.
“Yeah. Sure. It’s all yours.”
Jungkook grabs his white t-shirt by the collar, tugging it up and over his head in one smooth motion, and you swallow at the way his taut abdomen flexes as he tosses it aside. “You’ll help me get my back too, won’t you, Noona?”
You nod, moving before he can even finish his sentence. Your feet carry you across the sandy ground on autopilot, and Jungkook exhales audibly as your palms smooth along the golden expanse of his muscular back, dipping down to the waistband of his black swim trunks. Ever since his visit to your bedroom last night, you’ve been itching to touch him—to feel every last inch of him. It’s impossible with your watchful brother and group of nosy friends hovering around though, so you settle for this—rubbing sunscreen into his warm skin while he sprays down his arms and legs.
“Thanks, princess,” he murmurs once you’re done, soft enough so that only you can hear and raising gooseflesh on the back of your neck. “Maybe next time, you’ll let me repay the favor.”
Then Yugyeom is calling his name, and Jungkook sprints down to the shoreline to join his friend in the crashing surf, his face creasing with laughter. Each time he emerges from the waves, droplets cling to his skin like glistening diamonds in the sunlight. It’s impossible to look away from the sight, and your tongue darts out to moisten your lips as you watch water drip off his hair and down his nape, pooling in his collarbones before he shakes his head like a dog and sends it spraying in all directions.
All that sunscreen is going to waste, a tiny voice in your head points out, but it’s hard to worry about that when you’re too busy following the path of the water streaming down past his dusky nipples to the ridges of his abdomen. And it’s almost as if he feels your gaze on him, because he’s suddenly staring right back at you, a wicked smirk tugging at his lips.
“Come on, Noona,” he calls, raking a hand through his drenched hair. “The water’s fine. Don’t make me drag you in.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” you call back, immediately regretting it when something equal parts mischievous and dangerous flashes across his face. There’s a glint in his eye that wasn’t there before, and you back away nervously as he emerges from the waves and saunters toward you. “Jungkook—”
“Yes?” he asks, his voice dropping down into a low purr. “What is it, princess?”
You edge around the towel that you’ve laid out in the sand, as if such a flimsy barrier could stop him in any way. “Just—just don’t dunk me under,” you plead.
Jungkook looks genuinely offended by that. “I would never,” he says, laying a hand over his heart and grabbing yours with his free one. “Now come on—let’s get you wet.”
You groan at the innuendo and try to tug free from his grip, but Jungkook only tightens his grasp, cackling the whole way down to the water.
///
The sun is just beginning to set, streaking the blue sky through with wispy strands of orange and gold, when Jimin raises his hand and declares it dinner time. For the past two hours, you’ve all been engrossed in a very tight three-on-three volleyball match with Jimin serving as referee, and upon hearing your brother’s declaration, Minho looks about ready to chuck the ball into the ocean.
“Dude, are you fucking serious? We’re literally two points from winning!” He gestures wildly at an invisible scoreboard only he can see. “No way we’re stopping here. I refuse on principle.”
“Yeah, I wanna see who the real winner is, too,” Jungkook drawls from the other end of the court, where he’s flanked on either side by Taehyung and Yugyeom. “I mean, we’ve been leading for most of the tournament, so…”
Minho scowls. “And we’re about to win the whole damn thing. Just you wait, Jeon.”
Behind him, you and Taemin exchange helpless glances. It isn’t the first time you’ve seen Jungkook and Minho squabble over the years, and you’re sure it won’t be the last. Both possess a razor sharp competitive streak and a certain pigheadedness that only emerges when it comes to athletic endeavors, and luckily, your brother knows this just as well as you do. Heaving a sigh, Jimin wearily gestures for them to continue, resuming his post at the end of the net. “Fine, fine,” he mutters. “Next point wins.”
On the other side of the net, Jungkook’s eyes narrow. “I’m good with that if you are.”
“Oh, I’m good,” Minho retorts. “It’s our serve. You ready?”
Jungkook smirks. “Bring it on.”
Minho cracks his knuckles and tosses the ball over to you for the serve. “All right then, let’s fucking do this.”
You sigh. Taking a deep breath, you heft up the ball, testing its weight before hitting it smoothly over the net. Yugyeom jumps up to intercept, batting it back over to your side, and Minho attempts to spike it back and into the sand. Unfortunately, Jungkook is too quick, and dives down to bump it back over to you. The back and forth continues like this for a while—you see Jimin boredly scrolling on his phone out of the corner of your eye—and you’re strongly considering calling it quits when Jungkook smashes the ball over the net and into the ground right at Minho’s feet.
“And that’s game,” he declares proudly, raking his sweaty hair off his forehead with a triumphant grin.
“Are you finally done?” Jimin asks, rolling his eyes and pocketing his phone. “Thank god. Can we eat now?”
Jungkook claps him on the back in affirmation, ignoring Minho’s loud, adamant protests that your team still technically won. Together, you head back to where your towels and bags sit in the sand, grabbing bottles of chilled water out of the cooler and fishing for snacks. Jimin pulls a package of hot dogs out while Taehyung rips open a bag of chips, and you follow their lead and grab the hamburger patties and buns. “Huh, I swear I bought ketchup,” you mumble to yourself as you rummage through the half-melted ice in the cooler. “Is it not in here?”
“I have it.” Jungkook materializes at your side, proffering the little red bottle. He’s pulled his white t-shirt back on, the material a stark contrast to his tanned skin, and you silently rise to your feet to take it when a sudden wave of lightheadedness rushes over you and sends the world spinning.
“Whoa,” you gasp, swaying on your feet. “Oh, god.”
Jungkook frowns and drops the ketchup bottle, steadying you until most of your weight is leaned against him. “Noona? Are you okay?”
You swallow, hard, and try to shake the unexpected bout of dizziness away. “I don’t know. Got dizzy, all of a sudden. I think I might have stood up too fast?”
Gently, Jungkook presses the back of his hand against your forehead. “You feel pretty warm,” he murmurs. “Have you had enough water today?”
“I thought I drank plenty, but maybe not,” you admit, and he nods decisively and gestures for you to follow him.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s grab some water and go somewhere quiet so you can rest. Minho isn’t going to shut up about that match anytime soon, and it’s cooler down by the water.”
You laugh weakly. “We did technically win, you know. We had one more point than you guys.”
“God, not you too,” Jungkook sighs, casting you a playful look over his shoulder as he digs two bottles of water out from the cooler. He uncaps one and hands it over before taking a swig out of his, and you take a grateful sip, relishing in the cool liquid that trickles down your throat.
Nearby, your brother and the rest of the boys have commandeered one of several firepits scattered around the edges of the beach. They’re piling up pieces of driftwood and some of the long, tall sea grass that Taehyung has found, and Jungkook waves at them as he slowly guides you toward the ocean with a hand on your back. “We’re gonna go find some more wood!” he calls, and Jimin raises a hand in acknowledgment before turning back to the firepit.
Water laps gently at your toes as you and Jungkook walk along the shore, washing away all traces of your footprints. The sun dips below the horizon at last, illuminating the sky in one last burst of red and orange and gold that slowly fades into deep purples and blues as night falls. The temperature dips as the moon ascends to her lofty throne, accompanied by a smattering of starry pinpricks. Most of the beachgoers have packed up and left by this point, and here, with nothing but Jungkook’s quiet, familiar presence and the lapping waves, you feel more at peace than you have in a long time.
“You know, I’m really glad I came this weekend,” you say softly, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen between the two of you. Your gaze drops down to your toes, fixing your attention on a pearly white seashell that’s sticking out from the wet sand. “I think you were right—I really did need a break from everything.”
“Sorry, I couldn’t quite catch that,” Jungkook says, swirling his pinky in his ear. “Could you say it again? Something about me being right?”
You roll your eyes. “Oh, shut up.”
Jungkook casts a quick look over his shoulder, and when you follow the trajectory of his gaze, you notice just how far you’ve gotten from the firepit where the others are sitting. Darkness has settled over the beach, the sand painted a wan silver from the light of the moon, and you flinch when Jungkook’s hand finds its way around yours.
“Jungkook—” you begin, but trail off when he twines your fingers together and gives your hand a squeeze.
“They can’t see us, Noona,” he murmurs. “Relax.”
Easier said than done, you want to say. Nevertheless, you suck in a deep breath and take another sip from your water bottle, trying to ignore the way Jungkook swings your interlocked hands between you as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Shouldn’t—shouldn’t we be trying to find more driftwood?” you ask after several long seconds have dragged by. “We need way more if we’re gonna keep the fire going.”
Jungkook hums softly and veers inland, until the sand beneath your feet is dry and starts sticking to your wet toes. You come across a few scattered pieces of wood, dried out by the sun, and tuck them beneath your arm. Likewise, Jungkook gathers a few pieces of his own, hefting them up before reaching out to take your hand once more. His fingers slot all too comfortably into the spaces between yours, and your heart stutters a few times in your chest before plunking down into your churning stomach.
Nighttime has well and truly settled over the beach by the time you and Jungkook start picking your way back over to rejoin the group around the firepit. You pull your hand out of Jungkook’s well before you reach the ring of orange light that the flames cast across the sand, your arm now swinging free at your side and your fingers cold from the loss of his warmth. Silently, you hasten your pace and plop down onto the towel that Jimin has spread out, stretching out your legs toward the fire and wiggling your toes.
“Where have you guys been?” Jimin asks curiously. “You just kinda wandered off.”
“Getting more driftwood,” you reply, gesturing at the small pile you’ve dropped at the edge of the towel. “We told you that’s where we were going.”
Jimin frowns for a few seconds before the memory resurfaces. “Oh, right. I forgot.”
Jungkook snorts and takes a seat beside you, dropping his stack of driftwood on top of yours. “Dumbass.”
“You’re a dumbass,” Jimin retorts.
“You’re both dumbasses,” you sigh.
The fire crackles merrily, sending orange sparks up into the velvety black sky. There’s a grill situated over the flames, loaded with hamburger patties and hot dogs, and you watch as Jimin tears open a bag of hot dog buns and begins to place them around the edges.
“Hey, can you throw me the hamburger buns?” he asks you. “I wanna try toasting them.”
“You’re gonna burn them,” you tell him flatly. Nonetheless, you locate the second bag and toss it over, watching as he makes more room on the grill.
Dinner is a loud, chaotic affair, filled with laughter and conversation and plenty of booze to go around. Jimin has procured a flask of whiskey from somewhere in his clothing—an impressive feat in and of itself, considering he’s only wearing swim trunks and a thin blue t-shirt. You wave him off when he offers you a sip, and he shrugs and throws back a generous swallow himself. Then he offers it to Jungkook, who shakes his head and raises his water bottle. “Designated driver,” he says. “I’m sticking to water tonight.”
Curiously, you glance over at him. “You don’t have to do that. I wasn’t planning on drinking, so I can drive us back.”
“With the way you were looking earlier?” Jungkook fixes you with a look of pure disbelief. “Not a chance. Besides, we’re going back to the real world tomorrow, and the last thing I need is to be hungover. I have to get us back home in one piece, not to mention the entire menu I still have to memorize for work.”
You hum. Jungkook has mentioned his new job a few times—a summer stint working as a server at a new restaurant opened by a family friend named Seokjin. “Right, I remember you saying that. You start on Monday, don’t you?”
“Dinner shift,” Jungkook confirms. “I stole a whole bunch of pens from Junghyun’s room the other day in preparation. Jin said I’d probably end up losing two-thirds of them by the end of the week.”
“That sounds about right,” you tell him with a laugh. “Some guy stole my favorite pen last summer when I was working at that diner on Main. Lesson learned, forever.”
Jungkook laughs. “Yeah, I bet.”
You grin. “But, hey, seriously. If you need me to quiz you on that menu, I’ve got time to spare.”
“Honestly, I might take you up on that offer. I have flash cards, and everything.” He uncaps his water bottle and takes a long sip, his throat bobbing with each swallow, before glancing back over at you. “What about you? You ready for your internship?”
You sigh and offer him a helpless little shrug. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready, to be honest. I don’t think I’m going to stop stressing about it until I get through my first day. The entire thing still doesn’t feel real.”
“I get that,” Jungkook hums. “Well, I can imagine it, at least. I won’t pretend to know exactly what you’re going through, since I’ve never had an adult job, but—“ He shrugs a shoulder halfheartedly. “I can kind of relate, I guess.”
“All jobs suck a little bit,” you tell him, and Jungkook lets out a derisive huff of agreement.
“I’ll drink to that,” he says, and the two of you tap your water bottles together before rejoining the conversation with the rest of your friends.
///
The drive back to the lake house is shorter than you remember it being—though that might be because you spend most of it watching Jungkook drive. He steers with one hand slung carelessly over the wheel, his expression relaxed as he sings along to whatever pop hit plays on the radio. Unloading the car is a team effort, though you hear no shortage of complaints from Jimin as he heaves the cooler over the threshold of the house before collapsing atop it in a pile of limp limbs.
“Thanks for leaving me to carry this thing by myself,” he snarks, not even bothering to raise his head. “Really appreciate it.”
“Don’t be a baby,” Taehyung scoffs, tossing a game console at him. “Have a beer and pick something to play. We’re waiting on you.”
You watch as your brother immediately hops up and darts over to join the rest of the boys lounging in the living room, fighting back the sudden wave of exhaustion that washes over you. “I think I’m going to head to bed,” you tell them, hiding a yawn behind your hand. “Goodnight, guys.”
A chorus of goodnights and see you in the mornings rings out in response, and you wave before heading down the hall to your room and into the adjoining bathroom. Your hair is crusty from being submerged in the salty water of the ocean, and a shower to rejuvenate your dehydrated skin is just what you need. Turning on the tap, you wait until it’s flowing warm before stripping out of your clothes and tossing them onto your bed to deal with later. Then you step into the shower and tilt your head back, letting the water stream down your face and soak into your hair.
You’re midway through squeezing a generous dollop of shampoo into your palm when there’s a soft knock on the door. “Noona?” Jungkook’s voice filters through the sound of rushing water, low and lilting like a song. “You left kinda fast. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
You cap the shampoo bottle and replace it on the shelf, peering out from behind the shower curtain. “I’m fine,” you call, hesitating before you steel your nerves and continue. “You can come in, if you want. I don’t like yelling through the door.”
Slowly, the bathroom door eases open, revealing Jungkook standing in his and Jimin’s shared bedroom. His brown eyes are wide as he takes in the sight before him, and you have no doubt that he’s thinking about just what the palm tree patterned curtain is hiding from his view. Your lip finds its way between your teeth when you notice him shuffle his feet awkwardly for a moment before stepping a little closer to where you’re standing beneath the spray, his mouth opening to speak.
“Join me?”
The invitation slips past your lips, unbidden, but you have no intention of taking it back. Not when Jungkook’s gaze darkens to obsidian at those two simple words, his mouth snapping shut and his hands already reaching for the hem of his white t-shirt. Not when he strips it off in one smooth motion to reveal all the dips and ridges of his abdomen, his skin golden even under the harsh fluorescent bathroom lights. And certainly not when he pulls aside the shower curtain and joins you beneath the spray, his dark eyes appreciatively raking up and down your bare figure.
“Hey,” he says, his voice a low purr.
“Hi,” you respond, reaching out and trailing a fingertip down his chest.
And then you’re dropping down to your knees, your tongue darting out to tease at the tip of his already rising cock. One hand finds its way to his balls while the other traces the line of his pelvic bone, and you smirk when you feel him let out a shuddery breath.
“Fuck,” he rasps. “Someone’s eager.”
You wrap your lips around the tip of his cock, humming, and Jungkook’s fingers fly into your dampened hair. “Oh, fuck. You’re really trying to kill me, huh, princess?” he asks, and you respond by taking a little more of him into your mouth, laving at the vein running along the underside of his length before hollowing your cheeks. Jungkook throws his head back, a deep groan escaping his parted lips, and you preen under his encouragement as he urges you to take him deeper.
You’ve just begun to settle into a rhythm—figuring out exactly how much pressure he likes and what makes his hips buck—when he suddenly pushes you away. “Jung—” you begin, only to have him silence you with a searing kiss, grabbing you around the waist and hauling you to your feet.
“Wanna fuck you properly,” he rasps. His hand finds its way between your legs, experimental fingers sliding through the wetness that’s gathered there, and your cheeks heat up when he brings them to his mouth and licks them clean. “Just let me go grab a condom,” he whispers urgently. “Don’t move a muscle, okay? I’ll be righ—”
You silence him with a hard kiss. “Don’t,” you mumble. “I’m clean. Are you?”
Jungkook nods slowly, his eyes wide. “Does that mean… I mean, are you…?”
“I’m on the pill,” you murmur. “Fuck me raw, Jungkook.”
A sharp gasp escapes you when Jungkook cages you against the cool tiled wall of the shower, the slick surface dampened by the spray from the showerhead. He grabs ahold of your thigh and hoists it up to wrap around his waist, and you’ve never been more thankful for the ugly fish patterned shower mat that your mom insisted on putting down to prevent slipping. Jungkook nestles into the newly created space between your legs, his cock hot and slick against your center, and you keen when he grinds against you in a slow, deliberate motion.
“You feel that?” he rasps into your ear, his breath hot against your cheek. “Feel how hard you get me, Noona?”
“God, Jungkook,” you breathe back. “Just fuck me already, will you?”
His answering chuckle sends a shiver from your toes to your crown. “So needy,” he murmurs, his hand sliding from your thigh to your hip. His mouth seeks out yours as he positions the head of his cock at your entrance, meeting little resistance as he slowly begins pushing inside. Your walls part willingly for him and your lips do too—his questing tongue slipping inside when you moan and beginning his seemingly endless task of mapping out every corner of your mouth.
“God, I forgot how big you are,” you breathe when he bottoms out—the entirety of his hot, heavy length sheathed within your walls. Your head falls back against the tile as he rolls his hips experimentally, a moan that sounds vaguely like Jungkook’s name escaping your lips. Your arms come up to brace on his shoulders as he picks up his pace, but he intercepts one of your hands and twines your fingers together, settling them onto the wall just to the left of your head. His other hand returns to your thigh to keep you stable and spread out for his increasingly harsh thrusts, and you whimper helplessly in his ironclad grip.
“That’s it,” he whispers, groaning when you clench around him. “God, you’re so fucking tight, princess.”
“Fuck me open, then,” you moan back, squeezing his hand and meeting his next thrust with one of your own. Jungkook’s breathing stutters, and you laugh breathlessly at the way his mouth falls open at the spike of pleasure. Emboldened, you grind against him, the spray from the shower easing the movement. “Jungkook, please.”
He chuckles hoarsely. “Careful what you wish for,” he purrs against the shell of your ear, punctuating the warning with a harsh roll of his hips that sends all remaining thought flying out of your head. In this moment, there’s only Jungkook—his dark hair dampened and dripping, the spray from the showerhead slicking his chest and pooling in his clavicle before trailing down each ridge and dip of his honeyed skin. His lips find yours again, and you sigh into the kiss as he begins to fuck you in earnest.
“Hey, Jungkook! You in there?”
Your eyes fly open at the new voice, your body tensing when there are several loud bangs on the door. Jungkook freezes mid-thrust with an expression that can only be described as a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck, his throat bobbing nervously as he fights to find a response. You can practically see the gears whirring in his brain, and shove uselessly at his chest in an attempt to escape his steely embrace.
“That’s Jimin,” you hiss urgently, turning his face toward yours and prodding his cheek until his gaze refocuses. “What the fuck are we going to do?”
“Dude.” Jimin’s voice is laced with irritation. “I wanna brush my teeth! What the hell are you doing in there?”
Jungkook hesitates, glancing between you and the closed bathroom door. Then he inhales deeply, pressing a light kiss to your furrowed forehead before pulling the shower curtain closed, ensuring there are no gaps. “I got you,” he murmurs softly, his brown eyes boring into yours. “Don’t worry, okay?”
Your eyes flutter shut at the gentle pressure of his lips against your skin, but they fly open again when Jungkook breaks away and yells for Jimin to come in. Warm palms slide soothingly down your sides, but that doesn’t stop you from tensing up when the bathroom door creaks open, your brother’s soft footsteps approaching the flimsy palm tree patterned curtain.
“Have you been showering this whole time? Jeez. Leave some hot water for the rest of us, will you?”
Jungkook chuckles. Ever so slowly, he pushes forward until he’s fully seated inside you again, and you do your best to level a glare at him even as pleasure flares at the base of your spine. “There’s plenty to go around,” he says. “Relax.”
You get the distinct feeling that he’s not just addressing Jimin anymore. Jungkook pulls back until only the top of his cock remains nestled in your folds, and you open your mouth to berate him but all that comes out is a low moan when he sinks back inside you in one swift push.
On the other side of the curtain, you hear the faucet turn on. “Man, I can’t believe we leave tomorrow,” Jimin says over the sound of running water. “The weekend flew by.”
“Mmm,” Jungkook hums, brushing a thumb across your clit. The pace he’s set is slow and deep, and is made all the more sensual by the steam that’s steadily building up in the small room. You try once more to push him away—to quell the growing ache between your legs—but it’s all in vain as he chuckles softly into the crook of your neck, his bare shoulders quaking. “I got you, princess,” he murmurs, his voice a wicked little whisper that’s immediately lost in the spray of water. “Just let me take care of you, yeah?”
You don’t have a chance to answer. Jimin starts speaking again, this time accompanied by the sound of toothbrush bristles scrubbing against his teeth. “I’m starting up at the studio as soon as we get back—isn’t that crazy? I mean, I’ve never taught anyone how to dance before. Not really. Not for real.”
Jungkook snaps his hips up so sharply that you nearly mewl in surprise, forced to bite down into his meaty shoulder to muffle the noises that threaten to escape from your throat. “You’re a great tutor, man,” he says, his voice steady even as he resumes his slow, lazy thrusts, his cock dragging along your fluttering walls. “You’ve been helping people with math for, what, two years? What makes you think it’ll be any different with dancing?”
Jimin spits into the sink and sighs. “I don’t know. It’s scarier because there’ll be more people, I guess. Tutoring is one on one, y’know? And at the studio, I’ll have a full class of people watching me. Every single move I make, they’ll be looking at. That’s fucking terrifying to think about.”
Slowly, Jungkook’s hips still, his cock buried to the hilt in your cunt. Your heartbeat drums in your ears, backed by the relentless spray from the showerhead, and Jungkook leans down to plant a wet kiss on your cheek, his hair dripping.
“You’re a great dancer, Jimin,” he says once he’s pulled back and straightened back up to his full height. “Best one I know. You’re also one of the smartest people I know, but right now, you’re being really fucking dumb.”
There’s a clatter that sounds like a plastic toothbrush being dropped into the sink, and Jimin lets out an affronted squeak. “Hey!”
Jungkook just chuckles, his shoulders quaking. “It’s true,” he says easily. “Seriously, man. You don’t have a thing to worry about. You’re gonna kick ass out there, and your class is gonna be awesome. You’re already, what, almost maxed out on the number of registrants? You’re already killing it.”
Your brother lets out an unintelligible grumble on the other side of the shower curtain, but you can still hear the smile in his voice no matter how hard he tries to mask it. “All right, you fucking sap,” Jimin says at last, his soft footsteps padding toward the door. “Hurry up and get out of there, yeah? You’re really gonna use up all the hot water.”
The door clicks shut behind him, and you immediately smack Jungkook in the middle of his stupidly toned chest. “Oh my god!” you hiss. “Are you kidding me right now, Jeon? We could’ve been caught!”
“But we weren’t,” Jungkook replies easily, shaking his dampened hair out of his face and fixing you with an indolent little smirk. “So why don’t you be a good girl and cum for me now?”
///
The next morning brings with it a whirlwind of frenzied packing, and you mentally congratulate yourself for preemptively gathering all of your belongings together last night. Minho is wandering every last inch of the house with a piece of half-eaten toast dangling from his mouth, and you can hear Taehyung in the distance asking if anyone’s seen his strawberry body wash. Jungkook is seated on the floor near the front door, his brows furrowed and his lower lip jutting out in a pout as he fights to close the zipper of his suitcase.
“Got it!” he exclaims after a few seconds, triumphant. “Where’s your stuff, Noona? I’m gonna load the car.”
You begin to stand up from your spot on the couch. “It’s in my room, let me go get—”
Jungkook is on his feet and halfway down the hall before you can even finish your sentence. He returns a moment later with your luggage in tow, shooting you a grin and a wink as he passes by. “I got you, princess,” he murmurs. “Remember?”
Of course you do. You remember like it was yesterday—because, well, it was yesterday and you haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. You remember the moment you shared at the beach and the way his hand felt so right wrapped around your own. You remember the way you’d dropped to your knees for him so readily in the shower last night. And you definitely remember the way he’d fucked you afterward—slow and deep in the best possible way, even with your brother’s untimely interruption.
After what feels like an eternity, both cars are finally packed and ready to go. You bid goodbye to the boys who are riding with Jimin, promising to stay in touch, before climbing into the passenger seat of Jungkook’s beat-up sedan. Jungkook himself is already lounging behind the wheel, his sunglasses perched low on his nose as he fiddles with his phone. He looks up at your entrance and flashes you a smile, tapping his screen a few more times before holding it up so you can see.
“I changed your contact photo,” he says. “Like it?”
You peer at his phone, and something in your chest clenches when you see the photo he’s selected. You’re on the beach beside the volleyball net, illuminated by the setting sun. The sky is streaked through with pink and orange behind you, but through some editing magic, Jungkook has made it so that you are glowing even brighter in the foreground—with laughter etched across your face and the wind in your hair. It’s a beautiful photograph, and you tell him so, unable to contain the dangerously warm affection blossoming in your chest.
“I love it,” you say. “I usually don’t like having my photo taken, but wow. You have a talent for this.”
Jungkook’s smile grows. “I have a pretty muse,” he replies, and your cheeks warm.
The door to the backseat opens with a bang, and you nearly jump out of your skin at the sudden sound. “Yo,” Yugyeom says, plopping down and buckling his seatbelt. “We ready to roll?”
Jungkook scowls and puts his phone back into his pocket. “Careful with the door, man. I need this thing to last through the summer.”
Yugyeom puts his hands up in apology, and Jungkook turns back to face the front, starting the ignition with a flick of his wrist. The engine sputters to life, and Jungkook waits for Jimin to pull out first before following after him, tailing the van out of the driveway and onto the winding road that will take you back into the city.
“Music?” you ask, gesturing at the stereo.
“Go for it,” Jungkook replies. “You want my phone so you can put on the roadtrip mix?”
“Sure.”
With the help of the upbeat music and Jungkook’s tendency to drive just a touch over the speed limit, you make it to the winding roads of Yugyeom’s neighborhood in what must be record time. “You missed the turn,” Yugyeom says lazily from where he’s sprawled across the entire backseat. “Turn left here—we can circle around and approach from the other side.”
Two more turns and a descent down a steep hill later, Jungkook manages to successfully drop Yugyeom off at his house. The drive across town takes no time at all, and before long, you’re cruising into your neighborhood, coasting past Jungkook’s driveway and straight into yours.
“Looks like we beat Jimin back,” you remark, looking at the empty spot where the van usually sits.
Jungkook hums. “Makes sense. He has more people to drop off.”
“Mm. Yeah.”
The sudden awkwardness that falls doesn’t go unnoticed by you. Clearing your throat, you reach for your purse, grabbing it from where it’s fallen to the ground near your feet. “I guess I’ll see you around then,” you begin, turning to open the door.
A strong hand wraps around your wrist, forcing you back into your seat. “Is that it?” Jungkook asks, and there’s an edge of something you can’t quite place in his voice. “Are you gonna go back to pretending like there’s nothing between us?”
You shake him free. “There isn’t anything between us,” you whisper. “We’re not on vacation anymore, Jungkook. We’re back home. Back to real life. We can’t do—whatever it is that we’ve been doing.”
“But you’re attracted to me,” Jungkook growls. “You like me. So why do you keep running away?”
A sigh escapes you. “Jungkook, it doesn’t matter if I like you or no—”
He interrupts before you can even finish your sentence. “Yes it does. It’s the only thing that matters.” And then he’s pulling you into his chest, taking advantage of your skewed sense of balance, and crushing his mouth to yours.
This kiss is different from the others you’ve shared so far. It’s hungry and passionate, and yet it’s tinged with something else—something that feels strangely akin to desperation. Jungkook kisses you with urgency, and it’s so raw and unbridled that it steals the very breath from your lungs and leaves you lightheaded.
Jungkook doesn’t say a word when he pulls away. Instead, he reaches down, popping the handle that opens the trunk and stepping out to pull your suitcase from within. Silently, he presses the handle into your hand.
And then he’s turning—climbing back into his car and leaving you with nothing but the memory of his lips and a whirlwind of thoughts in your mind.
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fridayfirefly · 3 years
Text
A New Start
Read A New Start on AO3
Masterlist
Written for Maribat March Day 15 - New Start
At the age of twenty-three, Dick Grayson was used to being called names. Playboy, asshole, womanizer - people liked to make assumptions about him. The press only ever saw him as a reflection of his Bruce's public persona, another rich airhead who thought of nothing except sex and alcohol.
Dick tried to rise above it all. He graduated from Gotham University School of Business with a 4.0 GPA. He earned his job at Wayne Enterprises instead of letting it simply be given to him. He never went to parties, never went to nightclubs, never got caught doing anything unsavory by the press. Despite every reason that made him entirely unsuitable gossip material, Dick Grayson was still splashed across the front page of every Gotham Gossip Magazine. They created speculation over every little aspect of Dick's life. When he took a week off of school due to the flu, he was actually partying his way through Europe. When he ran to the campus convenience store at 2 am to buy a new phone charger, he was actually buying a pregnancy test for his one-night stand. When he went to his Bruce's Spring Gala alone, it was actually because he was having a secret affair with one of the married models. Dick knew that nothing he did would change the way the press viewed him.
Dick hated the press. He hated being seen as a rich, air-headed playboy who earned none of his success. He hated how so few people saw past the headlines to get to know the real him. It seemed like no one could see the Dick Grayson who made dumb jokes and loved his slightly dysfunctional family and fell in love with his whole heart unguarded. No one could see the Dick Grayson who just wanted to be loved back.
------
Dick was running late. Any other day, he would be perfectly prompt, but that morning, everything went wrong. The subway got delayed. The uber driver tried to take a shortcut down the wrong way of a one-way street, adding another twenty minutes to Dick’s commute. The barista at Starbucks messed up Dick’s americano not once but twice (Dick still tipped her, but he was still resentful about it). When Dick finally got to the office thirty minutes late, he found out that he had a meeting in twenty minutes all the way across town.
Overall, the whole morning seemed to be fated for disaster. Dick caught a taxi outside of Wayne Enterprises, chugging the last of his americano before he got in. On the drive to the Gabriel Fashion building, Dick got himself up to speed on the topic of his upcoming meeting. Ever since the arrest of Gabriel Agreste two years prior on charges of domestic terrorism, Gabriel Fashion had lost more and more money until it was simply impossible for the company to remain afloat. However, despite the catastrophic failure of the parent company, one branch of Gabriel Fashion was still doing incredibly well. Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s line of sustainable, environmentally friendly fashion, named Miraculous Fashion, was widely regarded as the best thing to come out of Gabriel Fashion in the last fifteen years. Wayne Enterprises wanted to use Miraculous Fashion to get into the fashion business. Bruce was willing to offer Adrien Agreste, CEO of Agreste Fashion (though not for much longer, as the company was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy), just about any amount of money Agreste could ask for in order to acquire Miraculous Fashion. However, that meant getting the approval of Ms. Dupain-Cheng first, which was the reason that Dick was meeting with Ms. Dupain-Cheng that morning.
Dick's horrible luck wasn't through with him yet, though. As his taxi pulled up in front of Gabriel Fashion, the vehicle drove through a huge puddle, splashing street water all of a young woman walking past. Dick could hear her surprised shriek even from inside the taxi.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Dick muttered as he shot out of the taxi. "I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"
The woman blinked up at him, wiping the icy water off of her face. "I'm fine. It was an accident."
"It's not fine." Dick's already foul mood even worse after seeing the state of the woman. Her coat (originally cream-colored, as Dick could tell from the dry spots) was now covered in wet, gray stains.  "I can pay any dry cleaning expenses."
The woman shook her head. "It's not a big deal."
"I'll pay for your cab ride if you'd like to go home and get changed," Dick offered. He knew better than to throw money at a problem, but he wanted the guilt he felt about ruining the woman's morning to go away.
She shook her head, wet strands of hair sticking to her face. "No, it's fine. I have a change of clothes in my office, and I can get cleaned up in the bathroom."
"Okay. Sorry again Miss..."
"Dupain-Cheng. Marinette Dupain-Cheng."
Dick winced. Of all the disastrous coincidences... "I'm Dick Grayson, your 9:30 meeting."
Marinette stared at him for a moment, before starting to laugh. "What a terrible first encounter we had. Why don't I walk you up to my office? My secretary can show you around while I get changed."
"Sounds great, Ms. Dupain-Cheng."
"Call me Marinette."
"Only if you call me Dick."
Marinette tried and failed to hold back a giggle. "Right this way then, Dick."
------
Dick had the sneaking suspicion that despite the fact that Marinette had lived in Gotham for the past six months, she had yet to encounter any of Gotham's many gossip magazines. When she looked at Dick, there was no judgment in her eyes. Dick was used to the underhanded insults, the subtle ways that people tried to undermine him because they didn't think he was qualified for his job. Marinette never acted like that. She was interested in everything he said, offering both praise and criticism to his ideas as they negotiated the terms for a potential merger.
"I want Miraculous Fashion to continue past the end of Gabriel Fashion, but to be honest I was hoping to be picked up by a company more experienced in the fashion world. Miraculous Fashion has a lot of potential, and I don't want to let that go to waste with a company that - no offense - might not know how to operate a clothing company."
"I understand your concern, but Wayne Enterprises is dedicated to expanding into the fashion world. I swear to you that Wayne Enterprises will do whatever it takes to ensure that Miraculous Fashion prospers. I can't promise that we won't make any mistakes or screw-ups, but I can promise that Miraculous Fashion won't be abandoned when times get tough."
Marinette nodded thoughtfully. "I'll think about it, but there's a pretty good chance that I'll agree to this. I've gotten a few other offers from different fashion companies, but none quite as enthusiastic as Wayne Enterprises."
"I hope to see you again soon," said Dick as he left her office.
Even though it was riddled with disaster, Dick couldn't help but feel good about his morning. His meeting with Marinette felt special. It felt like a new start.
@maribatmarch-2k21
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cowboyified · 3 years
Text
Below are some WIPs I’m releasing into the wild. They were all written at different times over the past two years so any mistakes/cliches you can blame on past June, I don’t know them. 
Go, be free.
This first one I think is the one I’m most fond of. I had such a vision for it; bottlecaps in trees, river swimming, making out against the fridge, all that good stuff you get with weecest. 
The summer Sam is seventeen they stay in one place for long enough Dean starts referring to it as ‘home’. 
It’s an old farmhouse, miles from any other structure, bar an outhouse and hay shed. There’s a porch running the length of the front and back, the wooden boards pulled up from their nails, wavy with the weather. Weatherboard paint peeling, wallpaper inside torn and missing in most places. 
They’re squatting, technically. The property owned by a family saved by hunters once, friends of friends of Bobby’s, too distraught by what they’d witnessed to raise their kids on cursed land. Dean had told Sam that Dad had been told by Bobby that had been told by Pastor Jim that it was chupacabras. A whole pack of ‘em, feeding off the lambs in the back paddock, tried to take a bite out of the baby girl and Sam had said, “As if man, those things are tiny, I’ve seen pictures, you could kick one and it would limp away like a fucking chihuaha, you scared of chihuahas, huh, Dean?” But Sam still hikes his sheet up under his chin when he hears scuffling under their window between sleep. 
There’s remnants of the house’s past inhabitants still scattered around the place. Sam had stood and slid two inches on the wheels of a tiny replica car that had been jammed under the couch the second day they arrived, piffed it at his brother’s head, who’d caught it, exclaimed that it was Camero, dude, treat her with some respect and had sat it on top of the fridge. 
The bookshelf in the corner of their shared bedroom holds mostly dust and tattered occult books stolen from libraries from all over the country, left by hunters who have found what they’ve needed and moved on. There are a few of the worst Stephen King novels shoved haphazardly on the top shelf and Sam finds something funny in that, the irony in enjoying bad horror when the real deal lurks behind the screen door. 
Dean gives him a look when Sam pulls down and cracks open a copy of The Tommyknockers, snorts, “Haven’t you read that one already?” and Sam says, tucking himself into bed, “Yeah, it fucking sucks, King was royally off his head while writing it, that’s why it’s so good.” Sam finishes three quarters of it in one sitting while listening to Dean’s quiet snores from the other side of the room. 
It’s a ten minute drive to the closest town, an off the highway, invisible to the outside world, kind of one-street community. No reason to take the exit if you don’t already know it’s there, one store, one gas station, one bar in an old brick post office building, unfitting, the carpet pulled up at the corners but home to the best fries Sam has ever had in his life. 
Sam follows Dean out to the courtyard, neither of them are legally old enough to drink but there’s nothing else to do but to get respectably drunk in a place like this, anyone that has lived long enough in the true country is some kind of functioning alcoholic, so Dean orders a beer and isn’t asked for ID. In a town small enough for everyone to know every intricate detail in the threads of dirty laundry, they are foreigners. No one knows where they’re from or where they’re going and Sam knows that Dean likes it that way.
It’s never been a secret that Sam prefers to feel like he has a part in everyday normalcy. Dean thrives under anonymity, gets a kick out of it because it makes him feel dangerous. He had stopped accompanying Sam to school two states ago, a silent agreement with their father when Dean had come home early and helped John cut splits into the tips of bullets instead. Like hell I’m signing up for compulsory extra curricular activities. What’s the point in making friends with people whose biggest concerns are the answers to whatever bullshit test and who fucked who last Friday? 
Finding comfort in a nine-to-five kind of community is a flaw Sam’s been burdened to deal with. 
It’s early afternoon, the courtyard is empty and the table they chose rocks on its legs every time Dean slides his drink over for Sam to share. It’s bitter and Sam hasn’t had enough beer in his life to know if it’s supposed to be like that or if it has just soured from the long journey it took to get from the brewery to their glass. He drinks it and doesn’t grimace because his brother is looking at him through the rays of warm country sun. 
“Tastes like piss, huh,” Dean says, leaning forward out of the light so Sam can see him clearly again. He takes back the glass. 
“S’not that bad,” Sam replies, rubbing the leftover condensation into his hand, doesn’t look at Dean, finds it hard these days, twists in his gut all wrong. Sam knows why. 
His brother hums, “There’s gotta be something else to do around here.”
Sam thinks, Dad’s left the car, we can go wherever we want, but doesn’t say it because his brother is loyal to a disastrous fault. 
That’s a recurring thought. Sam in the shotgun seat, his brother behind the wheel, driving away. Just away, to someplace else and they’d be okay because they’d have each other and all Sam ever needs is his brother, like water. But John will be back in two weeks, term starts again in a month and he needs his father to sign the enrollment forms. Two more years. 
“You see the old dredge outside of town?” Sam asks, remembers passing it when they arrived, all twisted, rusting metal, the bones of it against the setting sun.
“What did I tell you about respecting your elders?”
“You told me that they all smell like porridge and are easily susceptible to sleight of hand. No, Dean, Dredge,” Sam stresses. “Big rusty old machine that pulls minerals out of water.”
“Looking to strike big, Sammy?”
“Yeah, you see, my family is poor, brother at home too dumb to get a job. Our father went to get milk and never came back,” Sam sniffs for effect. “I can’t go home empty handed again, sir.” 
“Ah, a real sob story,” Dean nods in understanding, tips his head back and finishes the beer. “Let’s get out there then, sonny. We shan't let that simpleton, downright fool of a brother go hungry.” Dean jabs Sam in the ribs when he stands, hard enough for him to gasp, gets Sam’s head under his arm before he can recover. Sam claws embarrassingly at his brother’s torso, face pressed warm into the side of Dean’s waist. 
“I will pray for us young Samuel, for I too, dream of riches,” his brother is exclaiming, tripping them out and onto the street. “I only ask that we share whatever bounty dredged as I saw the most exquisite pony a few miles back and I simply must have it.”
And Sam thinks - with his flushed cheek hard against Dean’s skin through the thin sweaty fabric of his shirt, heart beating too fast against his ribs in a way that has nothing to do with exhaustion - you can have it all. 
---
Sam’s brother’s perpetual state of being is ten miles over the speed limit; this can be applied to almost every aspect of him. Dean goes and goes and rarely stops. They’re pushing double that out of town, north of their property, into the forever stretch of flat land and Sam loses himself in it. That idea of away, of going and going and that Dean could take him because he’s an expert in the field. 
The Impala blasts Born To Be Wild and Sam imagines the lyrics spreading out over the dry grass. He rolls the window down and throws his head out, trying his best to keep his eyes open against the road’s wind. The sun beats down, warmth soaking through and into his bones and Sam laughs as the cattle turn to catch a glimpse of them soaring. 
Dean pulls him in, tugs at the back of his shirt, says something along the lines of, what are you, a dog? Should get you a shock collar for all the times you’re a little bitch, but Sam can’t hear him over the roaring of the open window and the look of transparent glee on Dean’s face, it’s loud and assaulting and Sam has to turn away because seeing Dean like that wobbles him dangerously from the nonchalant facade he has going on in relation to how he feels about his brother. But mostly his face hurts from smiling too wide.
Used as a warm up last year. Boyking!Sam
He thinks he’s in Louisiana, maybe. That he got here in the tray of a pickup and that he couldn’t feel the wind in his hair like maybe he should. The driver had stopped for a piss-break and Sam had snapped his neck without his hands.
He rubs them together now, tries to feel guilty but there’s nothing to feel guilty about because his hands are clean; he doesn’t have to use them anymore. 
Sam thinks he’s in Louisiana because he stepped out of the truck and into a wet kind of heat. There’s a church with thick greenery growing over the roof and white wood that’s been mold-blackened by the humidity. He laughs to the darkness because it's very funny to him that he’s driven himself subconsciously to a place of grace. 
He skips up the steps, two at a time, gleefully. The smell of the bayou and rotting wood has put him in a good mood. The lock snaps when he blinks, the chain unraveling and snaking into a coil at his feet. The doors open for him and maybe he did that with his mind too, or maybe they were just expecting him. 
The church has been used recently, its interior better kept than the outside, bibles tucked neatly in the backs of pews, ribbons tied into plaits. The white of the moon falls in blankets through the windows, shadows of leaves moving over the floor like rippling water and the bust of Mother Mary prays for him at the altar. 
Sam spreads his arms and addresses her, says to the room at large, “Shall I repent for my sins, oh Lord?” and it echoes, gives him goosebumps, a current under his skin. He has an audience here because God is omnipresent, this is a place of worship and Sam has always been good at that. 
A church in Louisiana, standing before a plaster of his mother’s namesake in a church for a God he used to think could have some defying factor in a destiny that was always going to be concrete. It’s funny, blatantly. Sam puts his hands gently to Mary’s cold face, kisses her on her lips before crushing her head, spraying ceramic. 
Sam stands behind the lectern, hands red with his own blood now, sticking the pages of the Good Book. He’s read it before anyway. 
“Am I to be forgiven?” 
Last is a casefic I had planned out in 2019. I didn’t get very far into the actual writing part of it, but I still think the setting is cool, less so the plot I had in mind. 
Just outside of Bridgeport, Connecticut there’s a community built on a sandbar. A small secluded semi-island, connected to the mainland by a mile-long beachfront. A town of forty to fifty now abandoned, vandalised residences.
The police find the bodies of the boys there, bleeding out and into the sand, each other’s skin caught under their fingernails. 
Sam watches as his brother pulls the sheet back from one of the corpses, laying blue on the steel morgue tray. He’s a kid, a boy, not even eighteen. Hairless, lanky, multiple stab wounds puckered around his belly and Sam thinks he does not look peaceful for someone who is meant to be at rest. 
Dean is quieter than usual, his body language stiff. They’ve seen their fair share of dead kids but Sam thinks that this one might look a little too much like an adolescent version of himself. Shaggy brown hair, too long limbs, college on the horizon. Sam blankets the sheet back over the boy’s face and hears his brother exhale in what he thinks might be relief.
The coroner tells them that the other two are the same, besides the youngest one. He’d been blinded, thumbs pushed through his eyes until they popped like grapes. He asks if they want to see him too and Sam says no, thank you, we’ve got what we need.
Which is a whole lot of nothing, but they’ve only just arrived and there’s evidence that doesn’t involve corpses that needs to be checked.
“Pussied out in there huh, Sammy?” Dean says as they’re walking down the funeral home’s front steps, past the manicured roses and trimmed lawn. You see these perfect hedges? We’ll treat your dead mother with the same detailed care!
Sam pulls at his tie and scoffs because he knows he wasn’t the only one uncomfortable standing in the morgue; cases that involve kids always rub them both wrong.
17 notes · View notes
beeexx · 3 years
Text
TK writes love letters to all his past crushes, these are letters just for him and he has no intention of ever sending them off. Until one day the thing that can't happen does and somehow TK ends up kind of dating Carlos Reyes, star football player, cool, hot and way out of TK's league. His life takes a sudden turn and it will be a year he won't forget anytime soon.
But this is high school, and it's fun and messy and heartbreaking and all over the place all at once, so TK's up for a ride for sure, and he isn't sure it's just the good kind.
The To all the boys I've loved before Tarlos au no one asked for but I wrote anyway.
You can read it here
Here is a snippet:
When Mateo saunters into TK’s room he’s too busy daydreaming to notice it. His walls are full of posters, his desk is overflowing with notebooks and pencils, full of drawings and doodles, clothes are spilling onto the floor everywhere and his bookcase is overfull of everything from trashy romance novels to complex sci fi stories. TK’s at the moment too wrapped up in his own fantasies about hand holding with someone cute and sweet, forbidden kisses and sneaking out at night together to notice anything out of the ordinary. He’s been staring at the same page for a while, he’s read the novel a few times by now, instead he has a distant look in his eyes as he lies on his side, staring into the wall. Mateo rolls his eyes and grabs the nearest pillow and whacks it, hard, straight into TK’s face. 
“Hey!” TK almost falls off the bed, Mateo laughing as he leans against the wall, looking way too proud over his achievement. 
“Are we hanging out or what?” 
“Oh right, yeah I forgot.” He throws a mournful look at his book that has fallen to the floor, picks it up and dusts it off before he gets off the bed. 
“You need to stop living inside your head so much. It’s not good for you.”
“Shut up.” 
“What? It’s true, you need to start living your life.”
“Sure Dr. Phil, I’ll get right onto it.” Mateo laughs and shrugs, like he knows it’s a losing battle, and then they are both interrupted by the clattering of plates downstairs. Mateo lifts an eyebrow.
“Yeah, we should probably go help him.” TK agrees. 
“He doesn’t want the help though.”
“Well, we can set the table.” TK caringly puts his book on the nightstand and then they head downstairs to see if their dad is about to burn the whole house down, which would be ironic since he’s ridiculously thorough when it comes to fire safety. 
“Hi, dad, don’t burn the house down please.” TK calls and Mateo glares at him.
“What?”
“Don’t say that, it will hurt his feelings.”
“No, it won’t.”
Owen Strand, fire captain, father of two, and an altogether good person was standing in their infrequently used kitchen, oven mitts on and way on his way to almost drop the big metallic bowl he’s holding as they make their way downstairs. 
“Dad, how’s it going, do you want any help?” Mateo asks, and then gives TK a look over his shoulder that says ‘this is how it’s done’ like he thinks TK doesn’t know how to be discreet, which is a lie, TK definitely knows how to be discreet. There’s a knock on their door then and before anyone can even open it Paul and Marjan step inside, like they both live here and have done this numerous times before. 
“Hi, fire captain, it smells good.” Paul calls as he steps inside to high five Owen, who delightfully accepts, only to actually drop the bowl on Mateo’s toes. TK snickers meanly into his hands as Mateo jumps up and down, like that will somehow ease the pain. Marjan rolls her eyes but bends down to pick it up, luckily it was empty. 
“Thanks Paul.” Owen says proudly and takes the bowl off Marjan, who looks at Owen like he’s hung the moon. TK loves his friends, but Marjan and Paul are both clearly too dumb to be able to see Owen for who he really is, even if TK were to dangle the mess his father can be in front of their eyes. They love his dad, absolutely adore him and when they come around to hang out, TK and Mateo can expect to be left on the sidelines while the pair relentlessly bother Owen with questions about being a fireman and listen like there’s nothing more interesting to do in life than hear Owen’s stories. TK isn’t too bothered by it, but it bugs Mateo, so TK has taken to intervening from time to time and force his dad to leave the room so they can actually hang out like planned. 
They come over on Saturdays though, every Saturday since they’ve all been friends, and that day is reserved for only listening to Owen talking about being a firefighter, that’s the standing deal they all have. Mateo and TK have given up on trying to change that by now and most of those evenings usually ends with Mateo being the one to cook the actual dinner while TK tries to help and fails spectacularly. He’s a miniature of his dad in the kitchen for sure. 
There was a time when TK used to only refer to Owen as his dad, but since Mateo’s been around ever since TK was 6, Owen is just as much TK’s dad at this point as he is Mateo’s. And Owen is a good dad, in most areas, but not when it comes to cooking or being on time, so Mateo and TK gave up a long time ago trying to change his weird and unbreakable habits. They’ve spent enough time on their own by now to know it’s useless and they are old enough now both to care and to understand that being a fire captain is a serious and very time consuming job. They’ve spent enough time doing homework, and what they used to refer to as sleepovers at the station, which weren’t exactly sleepovers, more like their dad was working night shifts and he couldn’t get Michelle to cover all the time for him during the nights and they were too young to be left on their own, to understand that what their dad does is a very serious job. Michelle who used to babysit them pretty often when they were children are now working with Owen as a paramedic. She’s shown them around the van a few times too and both Mateo and TK are very taken by the whole station and the people working there, but more so Mateo these days than TK. 
Long cooked ribs are soon ready to be taken out of the oven, but TK has the chinese takeout place a ten minute drive down the road on speed dial for emergencies, and he knows his dad, this is going to end up being one.
“Paul, Marjan, how’s school? How are your parents?” While Owen has never been on time once in his life, apart from when he’s on call, he’s good at keeping up with all of TK and Mateo’s friends and their respective families though, and always asks and seems to genuinely care about any news. Owen is popular by default, and it’s not his fault he’s likeable by most people, but it does mean that TK and Mateo don’t get a lot of alone time with him, seeing as when he’s off work he gets pulled in all sorts of directions and he’s basically incapable of saying no. TK has definitely not inherited that quality though as his default answer to doing anything that requires him to spend time outside of this house and away from his precious books and characters is always going to be a no. More often than not Mateo is forced to push and pull him out of the house if he’s going to leave it for anything other than school, which he can’t exactly opt out of. 
“It’s good, and my parents send their hello.” Marjan says as TK tunes them out and turns to Mateo instead so he can be directed towards what he’s supposed to do. He starts to chop carrots up as his dad distractedly starts to hold a conversation with Marjan and Paul while Mateo takes the bowl off his dad completely and starts putting the mostly already cut up potatoes in there.
-------
“It’s supposed to fall off the bone.” His dad whispers sadly as he tries to shake the meat off in an attempt to try and fix the situation. Paul and Marjan look about ready to protest and eat it anyway but TK refuses to risk anyone getting food poisoning and brings out his phone to order takeout while Mateo offers to help Owen clean up.
“It’s fine dad, I’ll just order some food, okay?” Owen looks disappointed but concedes to Mateo while Marjan and Paul try to cheer him up. TK rolls his eyes and dials. 
“It will be ready in 15 minutes.” They’ve done this enough times by now for TK to know everyone’s order by heart and Nigel, the owner of the place, is starting to feel more like a permanent friend of TK’s than someone he just goes to order food from. 
“Oh TK, Judd says his grandmother’s car is fixed up by the way and you can come pick it up at his this week.” TK groans and Mateo shouts out his displeasure.
“Why did TK get a car, he's a terrible driver.”
“I’m not, I just don’t like driving.” 
“You drive like a grandma, I would feel more safe in a car with an actual grandma than with you.”
“At least I have a driver’s license.” He shoots back.
“Yeah, I don’t even know how the driver’s instructor let you through.”
“Feel free to take the bus!”
“Or I can just drive and then we can switch places real quick if we get pulled over.”
“No!” Both TK and Owen shout and Mateo defleats, it sends a pang of guilt through TK though, because while they joke around about this Mateo is genuinely upset that he failed the driving test and TK didn’t which is a bit of an ironic situation because Mateo is a better driver than TK, he’s just really bad when he’s put under pressure and things tend to go wrong then. TK basically passed because he was driving so slow the instructor got so bored he didn’t want to do this with him again. 
“Boys, what I was suggesting was that all you go pick up the food and I stay here and clean up the place.” TK peeks through into the kitchen where Marjan and Paul have started looking through the fridge, the dishes everywhere and the surfaces all full of cutlery, dirty and clean alike looking very much in need of a cleaning. 
“Is TK driving?”
“Who else is going to?” Mateo looks at Paul and Marjan, which both are definitely out of the question and then at TK and just grimaces.
“Fine.”
“You don’t have to come, I can go on my own.” He crosses his arms, a little defensively, because while he isn’t the most comfortable driver, he is the only one out of his friends that actually can do it. 
“No, we’re coming.” Paul declares and Owen ushers them all to the door and hands TK the keys to his car with a reproachful look which makes TK promise that he will drive carefully.
“Be safe kiddos, and tell Nigel hi from me.” 
“Yes dad.” Mateo shouts, already out the door calling for shotgun and rushing up the car with Marjan hot on his heels. When it looks like Mateo is going to make it, Marjan manages to trip him and he falls head first into the car, but just as quickly as he’s hit the side of the door, which doesn’t look to be too painful, he moves to stand in front of Marjan anyway.
“I called it!”
“Kids, settle down.” Paul says, always one for joking around, but definitely more calmer than what either Marjan and Mateo are.
“I called it though.”
“Doesn’t matter, I reached it first.” Marjan says and moves her hands around Mateo’s body to lift him to the side.
“Hey! That is cheating.” Both Paul and TK roll their eyes.
“Because I am the one driving I get to decide who sits beside me, I pick Paul and if anyone objects I won’t pay for your food.” Mateo and Marjan both glare but they get into the back, not before Marjan pushes Mateo again who knocks his shoulder against hers back. TK rolls his eyes again, never fully having gotten on board with their sometimes overly aggressive way of showing affection. He much preferred Paul’s steady presence and occasionally unwanted wisdom and creepy observational skills he forced upon you. But they had all been friends for a long time now, Mateo and TK first, then it had grown into Paul and lastly Marjan who joined their group when they all started high school, for them to even have too many objections about each other by now.  
Once in the car another fight over who gets to decide the music starts and TK shuts them out and puts the radio on while they figure it out, it’s a ten minute drive, fifteen tops when TK drives, and it will take them about the same amount of time to figure out whose phone to connect anyway so he lets them be. 
“Mateo we listened to yours the other day, it’s definitely my turn.”
“No one wants to hear your emo music about sadness and feelings, it’s bullshit!”
“Shut up, my music taste is great.” Marjan whacks him on the head and Paul sighs before he turns around to whack both of them.
“Shut up, I am deciding.”
“How come it’s always you and TK against me and Marjan?”
“Pftt, as if I am getting roped into your category.”
“It’s not even me and TK against you two, it’s me against the both of you knuckleheads.”
“I’m neutral, don’t even try and drag me into this.” TK protests and slows down at the speed bump in front of him. Then he turns right and then they get to the big crossing that leads into town. He slows and Mateo groans.
“This is going to take ages.”
“Shut up.”
“Man you could have totally gone now.” Paul complains and TK glares at the both of them before he turns right again, finally getting onto the main road. 
“No backseat driving.”
“Yeah yeah.” Mateo mutters. 
Ten minutes later, without any accidents, they get to the small family owned Chinese place. It was a popular place, beloved by the town, and almost always full of customers. But Nigel was a sweet man, always took the time to talk to people, and ever since Owen had saved most of the place from burning down many many years ago now, when a newbie was closing it down and forgot to turn off the stove, they were always given extra prawn crackers and spring rolls to go with their food. Or maybe it was because they were here way too often when Owen decided to try new recipes that Nigel knew them well enough to send extra food.
“I drove, I’m not going in.”
“Of course you’re going in, you have the money!” Marjan calls.
“Exactly. You two get to sit in the front seat, and TK has the money, I ain't moving.” 
“Ugh, fine.” He has no energy to argue and Paul just shrugs and gets out. Typical Paul.
“No one steal my seat while I’m gone.” He warns and Mateo and Marjan nods solmely, both aware that Paul could take on the both of them if he decided. 
“Come on, I’m hungry.” TK calls impateniely and Paul jogs to catch up. TK’s phone chimes with a text message and he opens it up, unaware of where he’s really going, doesn’t catch what Paul says and steps straight into what feels like a solid wall, his phone goes flying and so does the person’s takeout in front of him. Paul catches his arm before he also goes flying to the floor and TK looks up and is about to say that he’s sorry only to freeze up, his mouth probably hanging open in shock.
“TK.” Paul shakes his arm and TK almost stumbles again. “What’s wrong with you man?”
What is wrong is that TK is an absolute idiot and the person he just walked into and sent their take out orders and the drinks to the floor, is of bloody course Carlos Reyes. 
Carlos Reyes.
Not that he looks angry or anything, instead he looks something between amused and concerned and a bit like he’s waiting for TK to say anything.
“Erm…”
Paul faceplants and bends down to help pick up the stuff from the ground because TK seems to have broken down completely and Paul at least has some sense about him to act human. 
“It looks like most of it is fine, sorry man.” Paul says and Carlos’ eyes finally move away from TK, thank fuck, because he can breathe again and watches as Carlos smiles at Paul, sending something like jealousy and relief through him. God, what the fuck?
“Oh, yeah, thanks. That’s good.”
“What happened?” A girl says and TK’s eyes move away from Carlos’ to a girl he knows is called Iris, a jumper that has the The Alder high school’s symbol printed at the front in red bold letters, and a size that’s way too big on her to belong to her at all. TK wonders if it’s Carlos.
“Sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t see where I was going.” He finally says and her eyes snap to his, recognition sparking in them. She smiles, nicely, and grabs Carlos by the shoulder.
“I’m sorry, I’m sure it wasn’t all your fault. Carlos is a known clutz.” Carlos rolls his eyes and TK highly doubts that someone as athletic and fit as Carlos can be clumsy. He thankfully keeps his mouth shut though. Paul hands Carlos the bags and he smiles thankfully, his face stupidly handsome and TK gulps, he hopes it goes unnoticed.
“Sorry, sorry again.” He stutters out like an idiot and when Carlos looks at him and TK feels the air go out of him.
UGH.
“It’s cool, well we better get going, see you sometime.” He says, trying to sidestep TK who misreads the whole thing and steps to the right at the same time as Carlos does, making Carlos chuckle, before he tries again, only to almost step right into TK. Paul groans and then, not too gently, grabs TK’s shoulders to forcefully remove him from Carlos’ path like TK is at the moment incapable of doing it himself. Carlos chuckles again, a deep sound that vibrates through TK, before he waves and drags Iris with him, her eyes sparkling with mischief and before they cross the street TK hears Carlos shush her. TK groans and pulls at the ends of his hair and is met by Paul raising his eyebrow at him, both judginly and fondly at the same time.
“Don’t say a word.” He warns.
“I wasn’t.” Paul opens the door to the place so they can finally get inside, the place smelling wonderfully and the noise level comforting TK immediately. What can he say, he likes the sound of voices to fill empty spaces. 
“Your eyes are saying enough.”
“If they were they would be saying that that was pathetic.”
“Ugh.”
“How long has this crush been going on now? Since middle school?”
“Yeah.” TK lies, because he did meet Carlos ages ago, and he was possibly too young to have a crush then, but then yes, middle school was probably around the time he figured out he was into boys and Carlos was the best looking one he had ever laid eyes on and he was young and dramatic and couldn’t help but latch onto him. 
“He’s not so bad for a jock, you know that right?”
“It doesn’t matter.” The line moves further up ahead and it can’t go quick enough TK thinks. 
“Why?”
“Because! Because?” He ends. Pauls rolls his eyes. 
“Because? These are not reasons.”
“Okay, fine, fine! He’s popular, hot, clever, way out of my league, and, and…”
“These sound like excuses and not reasons.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” He mutters petulantly and is saved by it being their turn, Nigel knowing exactly what they have ordered, smile bright and happy and TK gets busy answering all his questions instead of Paul’s, which he prefers anyway. 
15 notes · View notes
aion-rsa · 3 years
Text
Godzilla Singular Point: The Weird History of Jet Jaguar
https://ift.tt/3jvPBwC
The latest take on Toho’s iconic, building-crushing lizard comes in the form of Godzilla Singular Point, an anime series now available in dubbed form on Netflix. Taking place in the not-too-distant future, this reimagining of the King of Monsters involves a group of human characters becoming aware – through rather bizarre ways – of a coming apocalyptic event. Now the only thing that can save them is a behemoth out to punch monsters and look out for the little guy.
No, not Godzilla. He’s actually the apocalyptic event. No, our hero is none other than Jet Jaguar.
Yes, it’s finally time for Jet Jaguar to get his due.
A concept nearly 50 years old at this point, Jet Jaguar is one of those characters who was initially doomed to fail, but lives on due to nostalgia and the golden notion of, “I realize most people hated that thing from my childhood, but I bet I could make it good!” At best, he was a rad addition to the Godzilla mythos. At worst, he was a dumb idea from a dumb movie. For the most part, he’s remembered as something goofy that gets laughed at, despite having some genuine earnestness.
Jet Jaguar was created from both a fan contest and a corporate game of telephone. Back in 1972, to jump on the bandwagon of tokusatsu giant superhero/robot shows, Toho asked fans to design their own superhero design. The winner was a half-man/half-bird robot with a lengthy neck resembling a stack of rings named Red Alone. The concept was turned into a full-on rubber costume, but they changed the color scheme, which upset the young winner. They later decided to just scrap the whole thing, keep the color scheme, and make their own new design. And so, Jet Jaguar was born.
The superhero made an entire one movie appearance in 1973’s Godzilla vs. Megalon. As the urban legend goes, this was initially intended to be a standalone Jet Jaguar movie that the studio just didn’t have faith in towards the end and they hastily threw in Godzilla and recurring Godzilla villain Gigan. While the claim is dubious and unproven, it certainly is easy to understand where the allegations come from.
Everything about the movie feels rushed. As the last-minute replacement for another Godzilla film that didn’t pan out, filming took several weeks and production was a mere six months. Even the Godzilla costume was whipped up in record time. As for the story, outside of the intro, the preexisting elements (Godzilla and Gigan) aren’t thrown in until about 2/3 into the movie. Up until that point, it feels like a Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon movie with the production team hitting the panic button.
The plot of Godzilla vs. Megalon is that a scientist Goro Ibuki is working on a robot called Jet Jaguar, along with his little brother Rokuro and his best friend Hiroshi. They get wrapped up in a plot involving a group of beings from Atlantis-But-Not-Really, who are annoyed at all the nuclear bomb tests going on in their neck of the woods. They steal Jet Jaguar and use him to guide their insect god Megalon to different cities for the sake of smashing them up and punishing humanity.
Goro and friends get their hands on Jet Jaguar’s controls and use him to lead Godzilla to where Megalon is. Then the Seatopians call some alien friends for a solid and have them send in Gigan. Jet Jaguar is able to break away from all control and becomes fully sentient, as well as revealing the ability to turn into a giant. It becomes a big tag team battle, mostly remembered for Godzilla doing the silliest dropkick you’ve ever seen, followed by a second one for good measure.
The villains escape, Jet Jaguar and Godzilla shake hands, they go their separate ways, and Jet Jaguar reunites with the humans heroes after shrinking back down. He gets his own snazzy theme song to close things out.
In Japan, the movie wasn’t all that successful. As the thirteenth title in the Godzilla series, it brought in the worst returns yet. Between public burnout and the movie’s lack of quality, it just wasn’t grabbing people. That said, it came out at just the right time in the United States. Released in 1976, it came out months before the anticipated King Kong remake. The American movie poster for the movie even bit on the King Kong poster by featuring Godzilla and Megalon duking it out while each standing on a different Twin Tower, even though the movie at no point took place in the States.
A year later, the movie would be cut down into 48 minutes so they could broadcast it on NBC in prime time, across an hour with commercials. The only reason I mention this at all is because it was hosted by John Belushi wearing a Godzilla costume, which is sadly somewhere in the abyss of golden lost media.
Getting back to Jet Jaguar – the topic of this article – I feel the need to bring up Germany’s handling of the movie’s translation. Rather than call him “Jet Jaguar,” they referred to him as “King Kong.” I mean…sure, why not. Even weirder, when the next two movies introduced fellow giant robot MechaGodzilla, Germany once again referred to the robot as “King Kong.” Guys, I know what you’re going for here, but it doesn’t work that way.
Anyway, Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla and Terror of MechaGodzilla followed Godzilla vs. Megalon and closed off the classic Showa Era of Godzilla movies. Not only did Japan need to rest Godzilla as a concept for nearly a decade, but this also meant that whenever Godzilla would come back, it was going to be some kind of reboot or new “only the first movie counts” installment. Jet Jaguar was never high on the list to be brought back, especially since MechaGodzilla completely overshadowed him.
He would at least get a little more exposure in 1991 when Godzilla vs. Megalon was featured in the second season of Mystery Science Theater 3000. While much of the episode is spent making fun of one of the Seatopians for looking like Oscar Wilde, they toss plenty of jokes at Jet Jaguar. Most memorably, they “translate” Jet Jaguar’s ending theme, which notes that his mother never loved him and he looks a lot like Jack Nicholson.
Due to rights issues, Godzilla vs. Megalon is one of the few MST3K episodes that is no longer legally available for viewing. This does make the original MST3K Collection Volume 10 box set (which included Godzilla vs. Megalon as one of the four movies) a collector’s item, as it was later discontinued and rereleased with The Giant Gila Monster taking its spot.
A stranger use of Jet Jaguar comes in the form of Certain Distant Suns’ music video for “Bitter” in 1995. While there’s not much of a narrative outside of the band playing, footage of Godzilla vs. Megalon being shown, and a few shots of guys walking around in Megalon and Jet Jaguar costumes, I really insist you give the video a look due to the ending. It certainly goes in a direction I wasn’t expecting.
In 1997, Jet Jaguar made his next official appearance in another frankly bizarre spectacle. In Japan, a series called Godzilla Island appeared on TV in three-minute increments. While it only lasted a year, there were a whopping 256 episodes, meaning almost 13 hours of footage. If you’ve never heard of Godzilla Island, you might be thinking, “Wow, almost 13 hours of Godzilla stuff? Why isn’t this more well known?”
Well, it probably has a lot to do with the fact that instead of using guys in rubber suits, the kaiju action was done with action figures. Yikes.
Not only did Jet Jaguar show up during these adventures, but they gave him the 90s superhero action figure treatment. Much like how they released as many figures of Batman as possible for different crime-fighting scenarios, Godzilla Island gave us Silver Jet Jaguar, Medical Jet Jaguar, and even Fireman Jet Jaguar. Collect them all!
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Movies
Godzilla vs. Kong Writer Talks About Spending 8 Years in the MonsterVerse
By Don Kaye
Movies
Godzilla vs. Kong Director and Writer Talk Future of The MonsterVerse
By Don Kaye
In the early 2000s, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee was released for the GameCube and Xbox under the Atari brand. It was a fighting game featuring various characters from Godzilla lore and though Atari wanted to include Jet Jaguar, Toho refused. Still, at least Megalon was included in the game. There would be two sequels in the form of Godzilla: Save the Earth and Godzilla: Unleashed. FINALLY, Jet Jaguar was playable, because if there’s anything you can count on, it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel when you’re working on multiple installments of a nostalgic who’s who project.
He’d also return in 2014’s Godzilla game for PlayStation 3 and 4. The producer of the game didn’t even plan on putting him in there, but he saw that the programmers already were working on him and just shrugged it off. There was a special trick to summoning Jet Jaguar as a boss character. By ending up in three different Godzilla vs. Jet Jaguar scenarios and winning all three times, you would then unlock a special cutscene of the two shaking hands while a confused military woman would wonder about their history.
Around the mid-2010s, IDW Publishing was all about releasing a bunch of comics with the Godzilla license. Their mainline series was Godzilla: Rulers of the Earth, which went on for 25 issues. Early on, Jet Jaguar appeared out of nowhere during a fight between Godzilla and the team of Gigan and Orga. In human size, Jet Jaguar flew into Orga’s mouth, then expanded into giant size, causing the beast to explode. Especially awesome was that it came with the cliffhanger text, “Next: PUNCH! PUNCH! PUNCH!” a reference to Jet Jaguar’s theme song from the movie.
Jet Jaguar showed up regularly in the series, coming off as Godzilla’s designated driver friend and handler. What I mean is that he seemed to be out to protect Godzilla, but that meant having to keep his violent ally on task (ie. pointing out that Gigan was nearby to stop Godzilla from attacking Jet Jaguar) and throwing punches when the situation absolutely called for it.
This continuity played up Jet Jaguar as more enigmatic than anything, as although he was mechanical, the only human character who knew his origins was killed off before it could be explained. Even one of the invading alien villains saw him on a screen and basically went, “Oh crap. It’s THIS guy!” Regardless, he still came off as a total badass, winning fights against Godzilla, Gigan (the chainsaw-hand version), and Destroyah.
Then again, at one point he needed to be saved by the 1998 American Godzilla, which at least proved as a reminder to the robot hero that there are Toho characters far more hated than him.
Toho started using Jet Jaguar again, albeit in sillier ways. In 2019, as an April Fool’s Day prank, they put up a teaser on YouTube for a Jet Jaguar movie. They also had him appear a few times on Godziban, a Godzilla web series for kids that, once again, used dolls and action figures to tell its stories.
Now Jet Jaguar is a major part of Godzilla Singular Point. To get into specifics on the plot would be like explaining advanced calculus, but to keep on-topic, Jet Jaguar is the creation of Goro Otaki as both a way to ward off monstrous threats and as a company mascot. Considering King Kong’s role in King Kong vs. Godzilla was “kidnapped to be a company mascot,” maybe the Germans were onto something with the rename.
Anyway, this version of Jet Jaguar is more mechanical in appearance instead of having to rely on making him look like a human in a costume. Jet Jaguar is there to protect the heroes from the endless supply of monsters, usually taking some extensive damage. Still, the robot gets rebuilt stronger and stronger and becomes advanced enough to become self-aware and speak in…well, the voice of a teenage girl.
I don’t know, I guess I just figured he’d sound like Astro Guy from King of the Monsters.
There’s a big hard-to-explain twist, but the main thing to know is that Jet Jaguar becomes a full-on badass by the end of the series, turns out to be a huge key to the plot, and has a completely kickass showdown with Godzilla. In a way, Jet Jaguar’s journey in Singular Point is a lot like in real life, going from a lame idea that appealed to kids and gradually being understood as a respected part of the Godzilla mythos. Something initially representative of the worst of the franchise, proven to be something genuinely cool in the right hands.
Now it’s time for America to return the favor. Once again, timing is on Jet Jaguar’s side. The Monsterverse was on its way to the graveyard after the box office intake of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but Godzilla vs. Kong came out at just the right time in the tail end of the pandemic to be a big success and keep the series going a little bit longer. There aren’t too many names in the toybox left to pull out, but at this point, Gigan and Jet Jaguar have to be high on the list.
cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });
Make it happen, Hollywood!
Godzilla Singular Point is available to stream on Netflix now.
The post Godzilla Singular Point: The Weird History of Jet Jaguar appeared first on Den of Geek.
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Agent Rogers
@peggys-orders
1966
As she exited her school, she was surprised to see a black car with Nick Fury standing infront of it. She ran over with a look of concern and horror on her face.
“What are you doing here?” She questioned. “Is myy mom okay? Did something happen?”
“Your mother is fine." Fury assured her. " I`m here about you.”
“About me? Am i in trouble?” She questioned.
He chuckled. 
“No, I wanted to give you this.” He then went into his coat pocket and took out a letter. He handed it to her.
"Don't they have postman for that?" She replied with a smirk. She took the letter and opened it. Her eyes tarting as she read it's content. She read it over again to make sure she wasn't mistaken.
 “I been accepted into the S.H.I.E.L.D training program!" She screeched with joy.
"Keep your voice down! You do know this is a secret organization." He reminded, his voice almost in a whisper.
 “oh my god this is so amazingl! This is the coolest thing to ever happen to me in my life!” She announced, her big smile not leaving her face. She looked at him as if she couldnt believe he was really here, she half expected it to be a dream and that she would wake up in math class.
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Nick Fury sighed and looked at her with an irraitated expression.
“I mean, thank you for this oppurtunity.” Amy spoke, in a more relaxed and mono toned voice. “I really appreiacte this chance to work with such great minds and skilled people. I wont let you down, i`m going to work harder than  any other agent you have ever had. I promise you when i`m done, you`ll have a new top agent.”
Fury nodded. 
     “I hope your right.” he answered. “Get in the car, i`ll take you to head quarters to get started.”
She smiled and nodded, then opened the door to the passenger seat of the car. 
“Can I hug you?” Amy asked, before getting into the car. “I feel like we should hug or something? This is a big moment.”
“I would perfer it if you didnt.” he answered getting into the drivers seat of the vehicle. 
They both entered the car and he began to drive.
“Your the youngest person to be accepted into the program.” He told her. “You excelled on every level of the entry tests: intelligence, science ,stragegy, fitness, history, combat, and even math. So you didnt get this spot based on who your parents are.”
She grinned, this whole situation was definently striking her already large ego. 
“With that said, the other agents arent going to go easy on you because your young.” Fury continued. “This is one of the hardest trainning programs in the country and its that way for a reason. The things that you will come across as a S.H.I.E.L.D agent are those that you couldnt even imagine in your wildest dreams. We deal with life and death situations everyday, we have to make choices that affect this whole nation.”
“I know, I grew up on mom and dads stories. They told me all about the missions they had and the adventures. I know the things they saw, the struggles they had and the scarfices they made.”
he chuckled and rolled his eye.
“You got a sugar coded version of those stories. neither one of them would be dumb or curel enough to tell you every detail. You think you know everything, but you`ll soon find out your sadly mistaken.”
“You dont sound like you have much confidence in me.”
“The council choose you, not me.” he asnwered. “My vote was for the ex FBI agent to get your spot. Honestly I think you are too young and too spoiled. You have no idea what your getting to! You have no background in having any type of job, let alone some kind of training in combat. Your used to everything coming easy and going your way."
Amy rolled her eyes.
"Your wrong." Amy informed him. "You don't know anything about me. You will see, your gana be proven wrong. Things dont just come easy to me, nothing does. I work hard to excel in school and sports. I never take anything I have for granted. I know that life doesn't just throw success upon you, you have to fight for it. That's what I have always done."
"Well your sure as hell your mother's daugther."
Amy smiled, proud to be told she was like her. They arrived at the headquarters. Amy and Fury walk into the lobby of the building.
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selfcareparker · 3 years
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hi bae <3 reading that last ask i’m realizing i have no grammar? lmao
glad university is funnnn, when you said linguistics i was like 🤨 but then i googled it and it does sound interesting lmao
the too much free time part though... :( its like you expected to be thrown in and like WOO BUSY and WOO purpose (purpose may be going too far lol) but i totally get what you’re saying. ESPECIALLY when you expect to be busier and you’re not it’s like :/ ok. (& girlllll it’s fine to complain, it’s how ur feeling)
and bc of covid you have eVEN LESS STUFF TO DO, which sucks. the social part may help? even just a little bit, but maybe having some socialization.. it could be somewhat uplifting? idk gsjshsj
where i live the vaccine is for 16 and up right now but for the younger kids (12-15) it hasn’t been ✨FDA approved✨ yet so my brother is still waiting for his 🤠
okay really quick, how does drivers license work there? here you learn to drive at 16 and you can like actually drive (sometimes even alone in the car) by 17... (also burneks?)
YAYYYY GIRLLL i remember you telling me about how you haven’t seen your family in England in such a long time 🥺🥺🥺 i really hope you get to see them soon!!!! and that covid eases up so you can see them frequently again 🥺🥺🤍
i’m gonna tattoo that to my forehead “not being friends with your parents is unhealthy” EXACTLY!! the people saying that stuff are usually not close to their parents so 👀
i’ve been really busy (unfortunately imo lol) with my dance recital coming up and this singing group (which i don’t like at all) and my final tests bc of school i’m EEK but it’s a good eek i think? maybe? idk lolll, i can’t wait for everything to be over though so i can CHILL. after school however i have a missions trip in north carolina? don’t quote me on that, but yeah 🥰 i’m really excited about it bc i’ll be without my family (like on my own :)) and it’s this whole thing and i’ll get to know people and i’m gonna buy a new bathing suit that makes me look gooooood cuz i’m tryna cop a boyfriend while i’m there HAHAHAH but besides that... more acting and singing camps probably? most likely a summer job.. i don’t have any plans reallyyy set in stone but ya know (ACTUAL i do have a few things planned. but those are things i don’t want to do. so i will be ignoring them <3)
that was a long ass paragraph- but PLEASE UR RESPONSE WAS FINEEE & i love you 💓💓💖💞💘💓💞💕 literally watch me buy a ticket to germany rn
- lovely anon (or catherine? i feel that lovely anon is iconic now tho so. kinda like how i call you aria in my head not your real name lol ALSO I PROMISE IM GONNA RESPOND TO THAT REALLY SOON, it’s just really busy rn) <3
what’s wrong with tumblr i just saw this a minute ago 🥲🥲🥲🥲 they don’t want to see us together ✋🏼 but fuck them 💘
Whaksk wait wdym by you have no grammar? 😭😭hejsjs
Honestly I’m so surprised that I’m enjoying linguistics but i think since i speak english and german i’ve just always been interested in language and esp english since it’s just my second language so i was forced to learn more about the language than just words and grammar, because it’s such a big part of me and also i didn’t always have a british accent so i kind of had to... develop a british accent, and it was natural but also kind of wasn’t??? Anyway why was this one sentence like 17 lines i’m sorry
YES OMG EXACTLY and obviously i’m missing out on the whole uni experience i mean I’m introverted anyway but i don’t mind going to a party every now and then? but i haven’t talked to a single person from my uni (except in class when we had to analyse a poem or something— okay technically some of my friends go to the same uni as me but they’re all studying other stuff)
But yeah I’ll definitely try to meet my friends more often 🥺 but we all have really different schedules rn so it’s really hard to find days where we both/all are free and not too tired and yeahssjsksj but i mean.... i can pay 50% of your ticket to germany? and then we can hang out? 🥰
I think everyone over 18 can get their vaccine from Monday on so I’ll try to call (okay, my mum will call sisjsh) and see if i can get an appointment. but i think everything will be super full because previously only people over... 50?or 60? or people with like illnesses could get it and now everyone over 18 can get it??? Like that’s a lot of people who can suddenly get the vaccine sksjjs but at the same time they’re getting quicker with it (i think today over 1 million people got the vaccine???? Like i know the US probably gets wayyy more people done so idk if that sounds like nothing to you but obviously Germany is much smaller so to me that sounds like a lot???) and also one of my father’s friend’s wife (djdkdj) works at a hospital or something? And she said she’ll ask if I can get it done there so yeah 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼
Isksmsjjs it took me so long to figure out what burneks was, i googled it (very weird results?) and then i realised i made a typo.... yeah no idea what i was trying to say lol
So in Germany (as far as I’m aware) you can start at 17 and you can’t have your test before you’re 17 years and 6 months old (idk why) and then you’re not allowed to drive alone until you’re 18 and then you still have two years on probation(is that what it’s called?) and you’re not allowed to drink a single sip of alcohol before you’re 21 (and drive) (cause in germany you’re allowed to drink when you’re 14 (if your parents are with you and allow it), then when you’re 16 you can buy beer and wine, and when you’re 18 you can buy everything. But you’re not allowed to drink and drive (even if it’s just 0.01 promille) until you’re 21)
(Okay I just googled and I don’t think you say pro mille/per mille in english sksjsjs but like the percent (or something...) of alcohol you have in your blood (idk biology sorry) (not that you asked about drinking and driving anyway? 😭 but there you go lmaoo)
Also idk if that’s just a UK thing or you also have it in the US? But all of my relatives from England keep asking me how often I’m driving with my parents (for practice)... and in Germany that’s.... not allowed? Like in england you can get these L (Learner) plates that you can stick on the back of your car and then you can drive anytime with your parents, but in germany you can only drive with your driving instructor during a paid for and legally organised driving lesson so. Kksskaj
Yess, the good thing now is that i can go to england anytime? Because Uni is all online anyway so it’s not like i have to wait until the holidays to see my family, i really hope i’ll see them soon🥺 it was my nana’s bday today and my grandad’s a few weeks ago so i’m painting two pictures for them tomorrow and sending them as a (late) gift next week 😌 (i’ll do like an impressionist ✨field of flowers✨ (that sounds awful sksjsjsj for reference i’ll look something like this: (it’s not mine i just found it on the internet while i was looking for some inspiration
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for my nana, and something with a waterfall for my grandad) (looking at it now i don’t even think that’s impressionism? Idfk i had art as my subject for my a levels (like one of my final exams) and i actually got an A 👀 but it was mainly architecture and i don’t even remember that so
Ahhh I hope it’s a good eek!! Sksjj hopefully you’ll be done with everything soon and i already know you’re gonna do really good in all of your tests😌 but still: good luck ❤️❤️❤️
Idk if it’s actually cool? But North Carolina sounds so cool to me (but honestly you could have said any state and i’d think it’s cool sksksskm) And girl I still think it’s so amazing that you just sing and dance and act and omg ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
(I’m imagining us in a montage (?) like they always have in films while we’re shopping to get you a hot bathing suit😌😌 and then they always come home with like 6 shopping bags in the movies—)
This is gonna sound so dumb because who tf wants to work? But I’ve always wanted a summer job 🥲 like nothing too exhausting obviously but i’ve never earned any money by myself? I haven’t had a single job in my life (not that I’m that old and like only one of my friends has worked in her life like we’re young sksjsj) and yeah i think it would be really cool to have a summer job and earn some money 😌 but during the summer holidays (they’re only 6 weeks in germany) we’d always go to england for at least two weeks and then we’d drive to bosnia to see my dad’s family for a few days and then to croatia and then to Bosnia again sksksksms so i never had time for a summer job (obviously i’m aware that it’s a fucking privilege that i’ve never had to work and that i get to go to multiple countries during the holidays but yeah)
WHY DO I TALK SO MUCH AUSSKKSSM
Like I said I’ll pay 50% of your ticket 😌 i’ll be here stuck at home anyway, just let me know when you’re coming so i can come pick you up😌 (this emoji djskksks— but i mean it fits so i’ll use it as often as i can 😌)
Lovely anon IS iconic 😌✨ but Catherine is more than okay too🥰 so just say whatever you prefer ❤️
(And omg you never have to apologise for responding to my long ass, full-of-mistakes responses late sksjs take your time (i mean i wouldn’t be mad if you just didn’t respond to some of them i talk too much anyway <3333)
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It Feels Better Biting Down — Ch. 1: First Impressions are Lasting Impressions
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Set in a modern bending AU, Roku High and Kyoshi High are rival schools in every sense. When financial troubles cause Sokka and Katara to go to separate schools, their bond and new friendships test the civil and social boundaries that lie behind school lines and familial ties. With new friends Aang, Toph, and Suki, will Sokka and Katara be able to hold their Gaang together, or will they let the fire nation clique's drama split them up for good?
“So are you sure you can get me to class on time? I mean, if I ran, I’m sure I could catch up to the bus.”
Sokka shook his head, clicking his tongue in a ‘tsk, tsk’ sound. “Katara, sister o’ mine,” he said, grabbing his keys from beside the front door. He held it open for his younger sister and locked it behind her. “Remember that one time you were sick and forgot your science project? And I-”
“-stopped for a milkshake on the way to school, spilled it on my lab report, and got it to me twenty minutes after it was due?” she retorted with a smirk, crossing her arms over her chest. 
Sokka waved his hand, dismissing his sister’s comeback. “Meaningless details, really. Anyways,” he said, walking over to the driveway. “Do you want a ride or not?”
“I do,” Katara said, following behind him, “but do you honestly think your car wants to get us there in one piece today?” 
Sokka gasped and put his arms over his car. The thing he called his baby was a navy hunk of metal that at some point resembled an ‘81 Honda, with scratched up rims, too many dents to count, and a few knicks in the windshield (Katara liked to play a game called “How fast can Sokka drive over speed bumps before his windshield shatters.” So far, she’s seen him take the thing a surprising 45 mph over a bump without damage. She swore it was only a matter of time though.). 
He turned his head towards his sister with a pout. “Don’t talk about Tun Tun like that, Katara; it’s rude.” Sokka looked back at his car with a strange sort of fondness that Katara knew only Sokka was capable of displaying. “Don’t listen to her Tun Tun,” he cooed. “You’re beautiful just the way you are.” The meticulously taped up side view mirror slipped from it’s rearranged spot, hanging on only by a fraying electrical wire. 
Katara couldn’t help the snicker that escaped her.
“See what you did?!” Sokka said, exasperated. “Now Tun Tun is upset, great.” He opened up the backseat and grabbed his spare roll of duct tape. “Absolutely fantastic,” he muttered, beginning to patch up his beloved jalopy. 
Katara walked around to the passenger side, and slid in, placing her bookbag down at her feet. “Can you fix Tun Tun any faster?” she called out.
“While I do appreciate you calling her by her name,” Sokka replied, “Car maintenance on a budget is a careful art that takes time and precision.”
Katara groaned and sunk deeper into the worn fabric seat. She could already feel the embarrassment of being late on her first day. This definitely wasn’t the impression she was looking to give her new teachers, especially coming in on a partial scholarship. “Sokka, I’m going to be late.”
He placed one last piece of tape and sighed. “Alright, alright. Quit your whining. I’m finished.” He hopped in the driver’s seat and threw his tape towards the backseat. Sticking the key in the ignition, he gave Tun Tun one, two, three good cranks before she finally sputtered to life. Katara let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.
 Katara fiddled with the hem of her uniform, a red wrap-around blouse with ornate gold trim. Her other hand unconsciously rested on her mother’s necklace. 
Sokka glanced back and forth between the road and his younger sister. It wasn’t unusual for her to lose herself in her thoughts for a moment or two, but under normal circumstances, she would probably be bickering with him over something stupid or giving him some long-winded speech about how he needs to take better care of himself and start thinking about the future or something else dumb and hope inspired and just very Katara.
But today wasn’t very normal.
He didn’t blame Katara for being a bit on edge. Hell, he was, two years ago when he was in her shoes. After Mom had died, Gran Gran and Dad had decided it would be wise for them to hone in on the Southern Water Tribe’s future, specifically Katara and Sokka. No pressure, though.
“So,” Sokka said, clearing his throat and interrupting both of their thoughts. “Are you excited to be going to Roku High?”
Katara shrugged. “I guess.”
Sokka knew better than to let Katara slip back into her own thoughts. “C’mon, Katara. This is your chance to actually get to bend with other water benders, let alone benders in general. You can’t tell me you aren’t at least a little bit excited.”
She sighed. “I mean, I know I’ve been practicing and all. I know that I know my stuff. It’s just,” she got quiet for a moment, searching for the right words. “What if I’m not as good as Dad and Gran Gran say I am?”
“Oh, shut up!” Sokka laughed. “Katara, you know damn well you’re the best water bender in the whole Southern Water Tribe.”
“I’m also the only water bender in our tribe-”
“Besides the point. Look,” Sokka said, pulling up to the sprawling private academy’s campus. “Dad and Gran Gran wouldn’t have given up so much if they didn’t believe in you. I wouldn’t have given up so much if I didn’t believe in you.”
Katara smiled softly at her brother and trapped him in a bone-crushing hug. “You know, when you aren’t being so sarcastic, you’re actually pretty ni-”
“Okay, okay, I get it. Stop being an annoying little sister and go kick some fire bender ass,” Sokka said, prying her off of him. “Go before you’re actually late, you nerd.”
Katara laughed and opened the door, swinging her bag over her shoulder. “Love you,” she called over her shoulder, closing the door behind her.
“Yeah, yeah, love you, too,” Sokka chuckled, putting his car in gear and slowly driving away. 
Katara closed her eyes, lifting her shoulders back. She raised her chin, trying to ignore the slight sting of homesickness in her chest as little beads of sweat gathered above her brow. Opening her eyes, she touched her mother’s necklace as she walked up the white stone steps to her new school. 
“Nothing will ruin this for me,” she whispered as she entered the building. “I promise, mom.”
__________
 “You fucking scream water tribe, you know that?”
A hand slams onto the locker opposite Katara, jolting her out of her thoughts. She pulled her eyes away from her schedule and scoffed. “Excuse me?”
The black-haired teen cornering Katara rolled her eyes. Her silk hair was pulled back into a perfect bun, with two choppy side bangs framing her face. Her eyes and facial features were sharp enough to cut someone. She was a cunning viper, and her lips dripped poison.
“You know, if you’re going to go to a Fire Nation school, you should at least try to blend in, or at the very least, not be so… offensive to our traditions.”
Katara grabbed her books from her locker and shut it harder than she had intended to. “Look, I don’t care who you are and how old of a Fire Nation family you come from, but water benders and earth benders go here too, so lay off.”
“You should watch who you’re talking to,” the viper hissed. 
A brunette, petite girl behind her frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but a girl next to her with two buns, bangs, and long black hair held up a hand to stop her before she could get a word in.
“And while other benders do attend Roku,” the girl with two buns said, “Azula is right, it has always been a traditional Fire Nation school. Hence the name Roku.”
“Thank you, Mai,” the viper, apparently named Azula, said. Katara couldn’t tell if she was actually thanking Mai for her input or if Azula was staking her claim to this battle. “You’re wearing Fire Nation colors for a reason, water girl. Take our advice, it’s best if you don’t stand out.” She sized Katara up and down. “Which tribe are you from anyways?”
“Southern,” Katara answered proudly with a smirk, leaning against her locker. 
The three girls sneered at Katara. 
“How the hell does a peasant from the Southern Water Tribe like you afford to come to Roku anyways?” Azula remarked. “No offense, of course.”
“Azula,” the brunette with the braid interjected, “maybe you should-“
“Shut up, Ty Lee!” Azula snapped at her.
The brunette sunk back in defeat.
A crowd started forming around the four of them, but Katara didn’t pay them any mind. She had a battle to win.
Katara glared at Azula and took a step forward. She picked up her shoulders, staring the viper straight in her eyes. “I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but this ‘peasant,’” she barked, “is the daughter of Chief Hakoda and the last water bender of the Southern Water Tribe. So I suggest you watch who you talk-“
Azula let out an outraged gasp and blue sparks danced at her fingertips as she raised her hand and mentally cursing her bravery, Katara closed her eyes and said goodbye to this cruel word and-
The impact never came.
Katara opened her eyes and looked up to see a young man with his hand around Azula’s wrist.
“Enough, Azula,” he said quietly, barely above a whisper. “You know combat is forbidden outside of class.”
“I don’t care,” she hissed back, her eyes shooting daggers at him. If looks could kill, it would have been a blood bath.
“Really?” He raises an eyebrow. “Unless you want a demerit and father to find out.”
Azula’s face went ghostly pale and she got quiet. When her palm stopped crackling with electricity, he released it. He locked his golden eyes with Katara’s ocean ones for a moment. While he was probably only a year or two older than Katara, maybe around Sokka’s age, the bags under his eye and the permanent looking scowl on his face aged him further. 
“Okay ZuZu,” she snapped. His emotional disarmament seemed to be only of temporary effect. “We’re done here. You can leave us to our girl talk now.” 
He rolled his eyes and sighed, turning on his heel. Briefly, he nodded to one of Azula’s friends.
“Mai,” he greeted.
“Zuko,” she nodded back, cracking what could have been, had you squint really hard and looked closely, could possibly be the hint of a smile.
Zuko walked down the hall and the four girls watched him go. As he exited, so did a majority of the crowd, save for a few curious eavesdroppers.
“Now that my brother is done flirting with my friends and playing hero,” Azula said with a sigh, turning her attention back to Katara. “What was I saying before I was so rudely interrupted? Oh, right. Look, water girl, or whatever your name-“
“Katara.”
“Katara.” Azula drew out her name, testing the way it felt on her tongue. “Listen. I don’t know the way it worked in igloo village, but here, things are different. You don’t want to listen, fine by me. But my dad is someone really important, too, so I wouldn’t start swimming in water that’s too deep if you catch my drift.” Azula flicked Katara’s necklace with her finger, smirking at her. “I think we’re done here, ladies.” 
Azula pushed herself off of the lockers and the others followed suit. 
“Welcome to Roku High, Katara,” Azula called over her shoulder. 
_______________
Sokka perked up when his sister opened the door, jumping over the couch to greet her.
“There’s my favorite bender!” He said with a huge smile, walking up to her with open arms. “How was your first day of-“
Katara slammed the door shut behind her and shot him a glare. 
“... school?” Sokka whispered. 
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she mumbled, pushing past him and heading straight for her room, slamming that door behind her, too. 
Sokka walked over to Gran Gran in the kitchen. “Ah, teenagers. You think she liked her school?”
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thecorteztwins · 4 years
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Werewolf Shinobi @esteicy-blog! Also tagging @acaprioglino @shattered-catalyst @sammysdewysensitiveeyes because I think you’ll enjoy it, as it has your chaotic dumbass boy! Shinobi Shaw was not a good werewolf. The first time he transformed, he didn’t rampage, or attack livestock, or eat people. He just had a really hard time adjusting to having four legs and tottered around the house falling all over his own paws, then barked at the mirror for two hours. He then had proceeded to just hide under his blanket with his nose poking out. His next few full moons had not gone any better. And worst of all, got sprayed by a skunk. His human form was just as embarrassing. He got distracted by squirrels mid-flirtation. He was starting to get really into sniffing people at parties. He attempted to run after cars, but still wasn’t in good enough shape for it so he just got worn out and started wheezing and whining and begging anyone he was with to carry him. And while making out with a guy at his apartment, the man’s cat had walked in. Immediately, Shinobi had jumped down to all fours to chase it...only for the cat to beat him up. Needless to say, his pack leaders were not pleased. He was before them now in his wolf form, which looked more like a coyote-sized black fox that anything, slim and silver-ticked with white paws. His tail was tucked, his ears were drooping, and his amber eyes were upturned in supplication towards the trio passing judgement on him from the rocks above that served as their thrones. Emma Frost. Erik Lehnsherr. And Sebastian Shaw, Shinobi’s own father. The representatives of the three most powerful werewolf clans in the territory, and the sternest, hardest-hearted, scariest people that Shinobi had ever met...with his father being the worst in all three categories. It wasn’t just that he was mean, or yelled, or told Shinobi he was a worthless idiot every time he saw him. It was the fact he hit him in human form, and bit him around the neck as a wolf, every time Shinobi disappointed or failed him. Which was often. Shinobi was trying not to cry.
Luckily, it was Emma who spoke, otherwise he might have lost that battle, and no one wanted to see a wolf weep. ”Shinobi Shaw, three times you have been granted the opportunity to prove yourself worthy as a werewolf of the Hell’s Fire Pack. Three times you have failed---and in rather spectacular fashion, I might add.” It had indeed been spectacular. The first time had involved a lake, the second a tanker truck, and the third time....a grand but accidental fireworks display that had frightened off every prey in the area during a hunt. Shinobi still wasn’t sure how any of it happened, but he suspected that the “liquid courage” he had consumed beforehand to “calm his nerves” might have had something to do with it. ”Three chances is traditionally all one gets,” Emma continues, “And it is typically MORE than one ever needs.” His ears drooped lower and he slumped. ”However...” His ears perked up. ”When the three of us assumed leadership of Hell’s Fire, part of the mandate that united us was the belief that some traditions must be torn down or at the very least modified to better suit the modern age and to best serve the pups of this generation. Lone wolves are a risk not only to themselves, but our species as a whole, and we would prefer for such a fate only to be earned by malicious action, not mere incompetence. Thus, for the time being...you are permitted to remain here, though you are still counted not counted as having any rank or truly belonging to the pack. But you are also not counted as a cub either. You are...your own category. Until we figure out what to do next with you.” His own category? He looked up. He was unique! He was special! He was so clever and amazing they had to make a new category just for him! As delusional as that was, it was either that or face the sense of crushing failure that was weighing down on his slim canine shoulders, so he embraced it...and avoided the stony GLARE of his father from on high, silent at Emma’s side, opposite of the other male, Erik. He had a feeling that his father probably had NOT been the one to vote to let him stay. But he would show him! He would show them all! He was just having a rough start, but he would be the best wolf ever! The best wolf the Hell’s Fire pack had ever seen in HISTORY! Bounding off into the woods after his dismissal, ignoring the laughs and taunts of packmates, his slender chest filled with determination, with confidence, with courage! He was going to--- He stopped in his tracks, kicking up quite a few leaves from the forest floor, as he realized, fuck, he didn’t know what to do. How could he prove himself? Let’s see...he had failed three attempts at the Rite of Passage, in which a young werewolf was given a task to prove himself worthy... Aha! That was the problem! The challenges were wrong! He would just have to make his own! And to do that, he needed inspiration! And for inspiration, he needed...BOOZE! So he trotted down to town and went into the nearest bar....and was promptly chased out with a broom by the screaming bartender. Oh, right, he was still in wolf form. He shapeshifted into his human state, and went back in...only to get chased out again, this time because he was naked. Man, some people were so uptight! After procuring some proper attire---meaning he swung by the designer boutique up the street where he had a personal account, rather than just go back to his penthouse to get clothes he already owned---he returned to the bar, told them they had made a huge mistake and he would now take his business elsewhere, and asked if anyone could lend him a $20 for an Uber. No one did. Then he remembered he had a driver he could just call. So he asked if anyone could lend him their cell phone. Wolves really needed to develop pockets in their coats. Eventually, he did manage to get to the upscale club he had in mind, though only by taking public transport like a SAVAGE. But he’d felt unsafe on the subway was a beautiful and affluent-looking human, so he’d shifted back into his wolf form for the trip... Meaning that someone was on a subway car with a wolf that was wearing fabulous sunglasses (at night) and a big fuzzy brilliantly purple haute couture coat. He was probably responsible for a WHOLE lot of people thinking they were either on drugs, or needed to quit them. He shifted back, got into the club, and... That was the last thing he remembered before waking up in the dog pound, in his wolf form again and without his new clothes. Oh, well, no big, this had happened before, he would just--- ”Hello there.” A WOMAN IN A LAB COAT was looking down at him. Something about her reminded him of Emma Frost, and not just because she was an attractive blonde. His tailed wagged and he hoped for pats. ”Don’t play puppy with me, wolf,” she said in a smirking tone, and his eyes went wide. She knew! ”Yes, I know what you are,” she continued, as though she had read his mind, ”Just stay in your current form, and everything will be fine. I’m getting you out of here.” Oh wow, he had found an ally! The pack would be so proud of him! She had on the white coat so she must be a doctor, maybe a vet! That was great! They needed people like her! After she had filled out his adoption paperwork, she walked him back to her car on a leash, something he enjoyed IMMENSELY. Once he was in the passenger seat, he turned into his human state again, to let her see just what a gorgeous specimen she had procured for herself. ”Hey there babe. I’m Shinobi Shaw, and I’m all ready to be your new pet. Or should I say---” ”Oh, shut up,” was the last thing he heard as she sprayed a can of knock out gas at him and he collapsed. When he regained consciousness, he was in a cage once again. A lab this time. Even he could recognize that, with all the beakers and test tubes around with unpleasant looking fluids in them, not to mention the other animals and people---people!---in cages there too. Many of the animals were squeaking or crying in pain, but the people...they didn’t move. And they didn’t look good either. Their naked skin had strange green patches, almost like they were growing algae from their flesh. Skin tags the size of plums drooped at random places. Liver spots were swollen and growing small horns. Teeth were sticking out of places that were NOT there mouths. And some of them were...kinda oozing. It had the antiseptic smell of a hospital...mixed, paradoxically and disturbingly with the smell of rot. Rot, and radiation. What kind of crazy medical kink play had he gotten into?! ”Oh hey babe---or should I say Mistress? Doctor, maybe?” he posed in as sexy a position as he could in the cramped cage as the blonde woman entered the lab. A hush fell over it, the animals too scared to continue their howls and squawks, the people too far gone to speak. As soon as he tells me everything I need to know, I’m wiring his jaws shut and excising his tongue, thought Dr. June Covington. Out of all the supernatural creatures she was studying, she’d expected werewolves to be the most taciturn, thinking they would be more like animals than people....although, in a way, she was right, this guy WAS an animal. And a dumb one at that. “Shut up,” she said simply, just as she had in the car. She unlocked the cage, grabbed him by the neck, and hauled him out. As she expected, he went willingly; it was why she hadn’t used anesthetic on him as she usually did with such creatures. She’d thought that his enthusiasm might wane as the experiments began, and yet, it did not. He clearly enjoyed them, writing around and making kinky innuendo throughout. She finally muzzled him, and he just clearly enjoyed that. She began considering anesthetizing him just so she wouldn’t have to put up with this shit, but she went through a LOT of sedatives, it was unwise to waste it on him if she didn’t have to. She’d hate to find herself facing down a PROPER werewolf without enough sedatives on hand when she needed it. This proved to be a fatal mistake. When she turned him over to insert the thermometer meant to check the temperature changes involved in shapeshifting, that was when things went to hell. Oh, he didn’t resist it, quite the opposite, he was clearly HAPPY about it. Too happy. Though still in human form, his tail sprouted, and he began wagging it. Hard. Very hard. So much so, he knocked over a VERY precious combination of chemicals.... “No!” was all that Dr. June Covington had time to get out before the place EXPLODED. The next thing that Shinobi remembered, he was waking up in one of the caves that the pack used in their meeting place in the wolves, surrounded by the concerned faces of packmates. “He’s coming to!” said one of the healers. “He’s awake!” “He’s going to be alright!”
And then...they started cheering. Shinobi was very confused. More than usual, that is. In a daze, his packmates walked him to the clearing that was overlooked by the rocks on which the leaders perched. He was expecting a scolding, or worse, exile. Instead, what Emma said was, “Shinobi Shaw, you have proven yourself three times over and then some. You discovered, infiltrated, and destroyed one of our deadliest enemies. Dr. June Covington has kidnapped and vivisected thousands of our kind in her foul experiments, but you put an end to it---and for that, you have the gratitude of this pack, and all lycanthropes, all magical creatures, forever.” Shinobi stood there, stunned.
And he realized the best thing about this. It was a good excuse for a PARTY!
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whumpsical · 4 years
Text
Jian rides a bus against his will
and just hopes somebody notices.
June 2019
contents: a knife and a stab, travel under duress... it’s a low-key “don’t make a scene or i’ll kill you and anyone else you call to for help”--type thing
🌻 🌻 🌻 
Help me. Help me. Help me.
The blade at his side kept Jian breathing at a painfully slow rate. It had already accidentally cut through the fabric of the borrowed hoodie, easily, just from the gentle jostling it took to get onto the bus. Or maybe the breach had been on purpose, to at once blanket the shine of the blade and keep him in check. That hard edge scraped his bristling bare skin, not even a t-shirt to shield him from the freezing metal. What damage that knife sidling snugly up through brave straining threads of the hoodie against his soft waist could do with any deviant jerk or gasp, he didn’t feel the slightest urge to test. So he forced himself to perform some exterior calmness, even though his heart beat fiercely against his sternum and sent a hot backlog of thick pumping blood up into his throat.
The woman across the aisle to his right was not paying any attention to the pair of men sitting intimately close to one another in the adjacent seats. For once in his life, Jian wished a stranger on public transport would confront him with some homphobic lecture. The woman scrolled through her phone. Jian thought he saw a rainbow icon.
Help me.
Jian didn’t believe he was telepathic. He’d never had that phase as a kid.
Help me. Help me.
On the day in elementary school when they’d read Matilda by Roald Dahl, Jian hadn’t gone home to search within himself for untapped mind control abilities like so many other kids had done. He must have known early on that brainpower in any form was not his best asset. But at this point, sitting paralyzed on an almost empty bus, his mind was all he had at his disposal. Constructing a raft was out. He was down to writing a giant SOS with rocks in the sand.
Look at me. Help me.
A young man guarding a few grocery bags sat a couple rows ahead in a seat facing the center of the bus. He had earbuds in, staring blankly out of the opposite windows.
Look at me.
The bus seemed to hurtle through the street at an unsafe speed and trudge along painstakingly slowly at the same time.  Jian’s tiny captive audience would only be accessible until the bus stopped, but he couldn’t even drum up a goddamn glance in his direction anyway. A pothole beneath the bus’s wheels sent a jolt through its unsuspecting but mostly indifferent passengers, rocking one grocery bag which was immediately stabilized with a quick shot of a hand. The blade jabbed into Jian’s side.
HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME.
He winced, screwing his eyes shut and stuffing down the sudden pressure in his chest that would’ve been a reflexive yelp if he hadn’t strangled it first, narrowly avoiding calling too much overt attention to the pair of them. The blade retreated as quickly as it had advanced, accidental but unapologetic. But Jian was already bleeding. He hoped that it dripped onto the bus seat and soaked the place in biohazardous evidence. He hoped they’d get caught up for defacing government property. He imagined the other passengers disgusted at the sight, all their eyes finally on him. He imagined the driver yelling at him for damaging her bus, imagined his chaperone flipping out and causing a dumb fight with her, getting the police called to wait for them at the nearest stop.
He wished the hoodie wasn’t such a dark blue.
Or the accidental slice hadn’t even tapped deep enough into Jian’s skin to draw out any real, pumping bleeding, pulling from the dark thrum he felt at his temples and in his throat. He could barely track the warm trickle that melted into the thick cotton like shaved butter into hot toast, disappearing into nothing, leaving behind only the prickly ache of a sweaty wound trapped beneath itchy clothing.
Help me. Look at me.
Help me.
Jian kept broadcasting his silent distress signal, quickly letting go of the delusion that anyone on this ghost town of a bus would pay it any attention. He’d settle for reaching a car in the next lane over, for telepathically convincing some other driver to crash into the side of the bus and crush everyone in it, including and especially himself.
The bus dragged to a stop. Jian’s chaperone made no move to stand. The woman across the aisle got off the bus. She never paid him a glance. Jian couldn’t blame her. If he were in her place, if he ever escaped or was somehow rescued from his delicate position, he would’ve done the same. He’d always avoided eye contact on public transport, before he found himself in need of it. And he couldn’t imagine himself changing that if he ever got away. If anything, he’d double up on his strict eyes-down policy.
A middle-aged woman boarded and sat a few rows up, facing the center aisle. Jian could stare directly ahead and see her perfectly in profile. Great, now he was banking on the peripheral vision of a woman in coke-bottle glasses.
Help me.
She wouldn’t be the best point of contact if Jian’s chaperone got physical, but no one could watch some belligerent man shove a harmless good samaritan without at least saying something. The bus might even stop.
Look at me. Please.
The police would be called. Jian’s chaperone would be carted away in handcuffs. Jian would deny knowing the man, could just keep riding the bus until the route ended, staring down at his shoes the whole time.
Help me. Please, help me.
Jian’s chaperone would slash him across the gut before anything else.
Please.
The woman pulled a phone out
NO.
of her pocket and started reading through her emails.
Come on, PLEASE.
Jian watched her type out a few paragraphs of a message, his own brain gone silent, until the next stop. His chaperone gave his empty body a nudge. They stood together, and Jian was led down the rear steps and out of the bus into chilly evening air.
People strutted down the dusky sidewalk. Eyes front, eyes down, attention on phones and friends and dogs. At the prodding of his chaperone, Jian joined the flow of steady traffic as the wireless radio that controlled his brain slowly whirred back to life. But no one knew his frequency, and he could feel those overburdened batteries running down.
Help me.
Help me.
Help me.
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axelsandwich · 4 years
Text
Sorting The Untamed characters
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In which I have a lot of feelings about sorting The Untamed characters into @sortinghatchats​ classifications because I’m a LOSER NERD WITH FEELINGS : D
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Wei Wu Xian - Gryffindor primary/Gryffindor secondary
WWX’s Gryff energy is like….what are you so LOUD for. There’s nothing he can do other than stick to his morals and principles and what his gut is telling him is the right thing to do, no matter the cost. Even if it makes him public enemy number one of the cultivation world, even if it exiles him from his family and clan, even if it goes against everything he was taught and involves helping and saving his worst enemies - see: Wen clan in Xuanwu cave, the cultivators in Burial Mound after losing their spiritual powers due to Su She. This is someone who adheres brightly and with his all to his principles simply because it is the RIGHT thing to do and he knows this with unshaken conviction and is steady once he discovers this, which has its own power. 
Honestly I was actually initially thinking between Slytherin with Claw and Claw secondary because WWX has an improvisational streak to him, managing to thrive even when thrown into the worst of circumstances with a combination of his own prodigious skill and flexibility when it comes to drastically relearning the dark arts to compensate for a lack of golden core. But here’s the passage that convinced me otherwise: “it is a Gryffindor’s stark, direct honesty makes them them feel the most secure. Lies, or even misdirects, are slippery footing. For a Gryffindor Secondary, their blunt honesty is a facet of their personality and their morality—lying about who or why you are taints the victory. A Gryffindor Secondary can and will lie if the cause is important enough— but it will leave a bad taste in their mouth the same way trusting a stranger with their honesty might terrify a Slytherin Secondary.” The blunt honest is self-evident in…well, WWX’s entire existence lmao but even when young in the Gusu Lan sect. But what convinces me is after WWX gets Chenqing and the way the great lie about why he doesn’t use Suibian anymore is framed afterwards. It kills WWX to lie about all that he is, it’s presented as one of the fundamental tragedies of his story - the ultimate betrayal of himself that he makes for a greater purpose and in pursuit of his Gryff primary ideals. The fact it’s not treated lightly or as a tool to be used to achieve his goals is what makes him a Gryff secondary. 
He models a Claw’s curiosity and intellectual fascination with questioning the world order and a Slytherin’s keen eye for motivations and people, but ultimately it comes down to that red thread of charging when backed into a corner - quite literally, he charges towards the Xuanwu, out of Chiongqi Road with the Wen prisoners, into the plaza of cultivators calling for his ashes, directly into Guanyin temple where Jingyi is in danger; he puts himself in harm’s way without a second thought when his gut is telling him he’s right to do so. He also has the classic Gryff secondary trait of amassing an accidental army in his wake of the most unlikely people, all transformed by his draw and that irresistible quality of truth to him. 
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Lan Wang Ji - Gryffindor primary/Ravenclaw secondary
LWJ is a quiet version of the Gryffindor primary, raised in a culture that forces him into like…the strongest of all Ravenclaw models. He adheres strictly and obediently to the Lan clan’s system of the world because in his mind, it was the right thing to do… until WWX forces him to re-examine his morality, about what he was taught and everything he believed was right. And when his model of the world is challenged, what he ultimately goes with is…his heart. Not necessarily because his morality is guided by how WWX is his in the same way of Slytherin/Hufflepuff’s personal morality, but because WWX embodies the new insight that nothing is truly black or white in the way his clan’s system has taught; because LWJ feels that WWX is good, even when every other rule he’s been taught is saying otherwise and, little by little, he rebels quietly by dismantling those systems that once shaped his worldview. 
LWJ wrestles visibly with this the entire flashback arc of the drama, unable to bring himself to denounce WWX despite all the ‘bad’ he had done all the way until the Nightless City battle and when push came to shove, at the very end, he still chose to clutch onto WWX’s hand until WWX made the choice for him to let go. I do think he was ‘stripped’ by the experience - his internal compass, sense of purpose, and even sense of worth broken by the loss of WWX and that’s what he spends 16yrs atoning and suffering for. After WWX’s revival, he accordingly sets himself up against the cultivation world with no hesitation because he’s had 16yrs to regret not following his Gryff primary heart that said WWX’s way of seeing the world is right and he’s not going to falter again. 
Ravenclaw secondary bc……his first instinct when his boyfriend was changed by demonic cultivation was to flip the library upside down trying to find a cure and try to invent a whole ass song to cure him nghghghshf. But yes, he’ll fall back on systems, skills and knowledge he’s carefully built from the ground up when backed in a corner, drawing on what he’s known and carefully cultivated, looking through resources to try and gain more knowledge. 
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Wen Qing - Slytherin primary/Slytherin secondary
Wen Qing’s morality and driver is very simple. It’s her brother at the start, her family, and gradually expands as people help him and - by extension - her: WWX, LWJ, Jiang Cheng. For them, she’ll betray the wider clan with very few qualms because they’re not her people and those who are hers come first. She connects with Jiang Cheng on the basis of both their Slytherin primaries, but understands immediately that he would never have gone with her to rescue Wen Ning because while she may tentatively be one of ‘his’ people in his mind, Wen Ning isn’t, and so any future with him is tragically unaccepted. When it comes down to sacrificing even the brother she holds so dear, she does it in the hope that her people - WWX and her wider family by proxy - may be saved from the cultivation world’s wrath. She’s a Slytherin secondary because she’s adaptable and able to draw on whatever skills she needs and be who she needs to be to achieve her goals, with a knack for zeroing in precisely on people’s true motivations and what will and won’t work with a cultivation society looking to find a bad guy. You can bet she’s the one who figured out how to trick Jiang Cheng into believing he could get his golden core back. It’s telling that her most emotional moments are when she lays down all her defences and sincerely speaks from the heart - whether it’s crying over Wen Ning’s body or thanking Wei Wu Xian and apologising. ; _ ; Wen Qing is a good egg. 
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Jiang Cheng - Slytherin primary/Gryff secondary
It’s clear from the start that Jiang Cheng’s morality revolves around his family who are his and come above everyone else, along with his pride (but we’re not gonna talk about thatttt...). His impassioned plea of ‘it was enough to just save ourselves, why did you have to save them’ re: bringing the Wen clan wrath upon the Jiang clan proves he could never see eye to eye with WWX’s Gryffindor primary that demands what is right be applied to all, and therein lies the source of their feud, when we get to the pointy end and doing what’s right involves a lot more sacrifice and hardship. Jiang Cheng’s very specialised loyalty is tested over and over throughout the beginning of the series by outsiders casting suspicion on WWX’s motivations, pricking at his pride and his deep set insecurities about his own position and whether he’s actually loved by the people he’s claimed as his own and also on their priority list (see: his father, WWX). 
What truly makes him give up and cut WWX out of his circle is when WWX himself says ‘I exile myself from the tribe’. In Jiang Cheng’s eyes, to betray the people who are yours is what is unforgivable and impossible to understand, and that’s what comes out as the most deeply buried point of pain in Guanyin temple and what’s driven JC’s anger the last sixteen years. That doesn’t make him any less of an extreme Gryff secondary than WWX, whether it’s charging straight into the feared Burial Mound where no one’s ever come out alive just to drag his brother out and confront him about all the problems directly, to confronting WWX directly in Lotus Cove, to marching into Guanyin temple’s front door. Which is probably why they fight. We also find out in the end that Jiang Cheng is fully capable of the same dumb self sacrifice that WWX made for him. Ironically, both of their actions boil down to ‘I must protect my brother’, except where WWX does it because it’s right, Jiang Cheng does it because that’s his brother. 
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Jin Guangyao - Slytherin primary/Slytherin secondary
WWX’s diametric opposite. I do think he seems like a petrified Slytherin - Guanyin temple arc reveals that his world once comprised at least of himself and his mother, and perhaps the idealised image of who his father would be, and he strove and strove until his father shattered all his dreams, until his world narrows until it’s ultimately and dangerously comprised of just himself. I do think Nie Mingjue, Su She, Qin Su and Lan Xichen came the closest to who he would consider ‘his’ people, but even that falls away as they ‘betray’ him and because his actions are ultimately guided by his loyalty only to himself, and warps exactly what he interprets as ‘betrayal’. This is what allows him to betray them when they ultimately fall out of line with JGY’s priorities and give them such cruel endings despite how much he professes to treasure them. It’s what creates his resentment against NMJ that festers until it leads to NMJ’s demise - in JGY’s eyes, to throw aside everything in their relationship for the sake of some lowly, subhuman captain who’s always treated JGY with contempt and to keep holding it against him is incomprehensible, unforgivable. It’s also why LXC stabbing him is met with such choking disbelief and anger - because JGY, true to his word, would have never entertained the concept of betraying a person who was proving to be his and LXC was his last hope. His secondary Slytherin allows him to transform and shift with the wind, shedding personas and layers as easily as water, the same way it pains WWX to do the same. 
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Nie Huaisang - Slytherin primary/Slytherin secondary 
Jin Guangyao’s equal and foil, ironically also putting up a very self-entered front in the world where it seems like he only cares about his own self interests but quietly loyal to a select number of people who are his - WWX, his elder brother - and will quietly work in the shadows playing the long con to systematically dismantle everything about the person he despises. Slytherin secondary allows him to make himself a fool without any qualms about it not being a reflection of his true face or authentic self, and pull the puppet strings on even those he cares about until he gets to where he wants to be. 
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Lan XiChen - Ravenclaw primary/Ravenclaw secondary
Xichen sticks much more closely to what his clan’s systems are and his carefully constructed understanding of the world and that’s what both blinds him to JGY and shakes his worldview so heavily when JGY reveals himself to be a villain. But his felt morality, guided by the system of being just and fair is also what allows him to reject JGY and entertain the possibility of his betrayal. A Slytherin primary may stubbornly cling to faith in a person that he sees as ‘his’ person, but a Ravenclaw primary will feel guilty and immoral to be sticking with them despite knowing they’re betraying the system of justice that he prides above all. It’s what allows him to be an ally to both WWX/LWJ and JGY for the latter half of the series, trying to understand and question the logical holes in WWX and LWJ’s arguments. Where WWX and LWJ don’t have evidence for JGY being evil, they can feel it in their guts and they charge towards getting that evidence based on those convictions. LXC on the other hand may sense something in his gut but he will not act against JGY without being convinced of said evidence, until he is certain of what the real truth is and will methodically keep digging and questioning the evidence being presented to him until it becomes undeniable. It’s also telling that his anger when Huaisang manipulates him into stabbing JGY is not so much about the fact he betrayed his friend (which is the key pain point that JGY angrily latches onto) but that Huaisang may have been lying, that LXC may have acted on something that was not true and he had been unable to see through that. It’s a subtle difference I think, but what separates his primary. I think his Ravenclaw secondary is pretty obvious in the thoroughness of his methods and the ways we’ve seen him dodge the Wen clan, to be willing to work with JGY during the Sunshot Campaign. It requires flexibility of thinking and drawing on a range of resources and that’s what LXC quietly excels at. 
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Jiang Yanli & Wen Ning - Hufflepuff primary/Hufflepuff secondary
Both are honestly quite similar — they’ll hold onto their belief in the basic goodness of all people, regardless of allegiance and regardless of their past history and that’s the source of what endears them to people and why they manage to build an army of people who would die and care for them when push comes to shove. 
The little we see of both Yanli and Wen Ning’s way of operating from a secondary perspective revolves around being of service to others, being a source of reliability, support and consistency, quietly building, strengthening and contributing to their little community. Wen Ning quietly and diligently attends to WWX’s protection at all times, reliably taking on the roles allocated to him with a genuine commitment to performing them to his best ability. 
When they ‘fight’, they fight by drawing on their resources, through a thorough, systematic and relentless persistance. A Li’s approach to the battle of words on Phoenix Mountain is an example of this - she draws upon her position, her knowledge of what is ‘proper’ to do within the community and the goodwill she’s built with Madame Jin to subtly dismantle Jin Zixun’s arguments while still pleasantly entrapping him in the niceties of the community she’s a part of without alienating herself the same way WWX can’t help but do with his bluntness. When JC threatens to push WWX to the limits of his endurance, Wen Ning defends WWX through words, standing up again and again despite being violently thrown back and systematically dismantling all of JC’s defence mechanisms by thoroughly and sincerely pushing back on every false claim and even urging JC to call on the community to verify the truth of his words. They’re indomitable, stubborn and effective and that’s Puff/Puff energy right there.
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Jin Ling - Gryff primary/Gryff secondary
Gryff primary…why are you so LOUD for Pt 2. Poor Jingyi, two Gryff secondary uncles and father…he had no chance lmaaaao. Impulsive, reckless, absolutely a ‘charge first and ask questions later’ kid and screaming Gryff secondary. Will bash a hole in a wall when he’s denied entry and get caught by the skeleton demons than like…find another way around, you know? Or charge into Guanyin temple without much second thought. His Gryff primary and his gut morality of what is right - aka. trusting WWX and treating him with fairness - ultimately wins against him being pushed hard into the whole ‘pride in your clan only’ angle by his Slytherin primary uncle, and that’s what allows him to become a WWX duckling (begrudgingly) despite all his puffery and objections. It’s also what lets him survive and accept the betrayal of seeing his other uncle revealed as a villain and how he’s able to reject JGY when his misdeeds become undeniable. I also think it’s super cute he’s the same type as WWX, honestly...it’s why I love their dynamic. He’s the young, unjaded version of his uncle.    
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Lan Sizhui - Puff primary/Gryff secondary with a Claw model?
There’s a kindness to Shizui that he extends to Mo Xuanyu, Jin Ling and Wen Ning against convention and despite - in Jin Ling’s case - how hard he tries to create distance in that relationship that makes me think Puff primary and his determination to see everyone as people to be respected. I feel like we don’t see enough of Sizhui in action to really be able to determine his secondary - he has something of secondary Puff/Claw vibes in the way he comes across as quietly diligent, reliable and insightful, but he’s also got a certain amount of fire when he needs to - grabbing people’s legs as a kid, making a move towards possessed Song Lan in Yi City despite WWX telling them all to get out, brawling with the other ducklings when tied up, rushing recklessly back up the Burial Mound path to find WWX and LWJ who were holding back the ghouls etc. Maybe a secret Gryff secondary that’s normally held in place by a Claw or Puff model. 
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vmheadquarters · 5 years
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VANITY FAIR: VERONICA MARS on Hulu Will Be Darker, Sexier, and Stacked with Guest Stars
Kristen Bell and Rob Thomas preview the upcoming revival, from Veronica and Logan’s evolving relationship to what happens when spring break descends on Neptune.
Marc FreemanJune 20, 2019 8:00 am
Photo by Michael Desmond/Hulu.
Anticipating a one-way trip down nostalgia lane when Veronica Mars returns to television next month, via an eight-episode revival on Hulu? Prepare to be pleasantly disappointed.
It’s not that Veronica’s forgotten her past—it’s that she’s not in high school anymore. As series creator Rob Thomas said in an interview, this new iteration offers creative fulfillment and the chance for big character development: “I’m interested in the foibles of our characters, and living in a noir world where things aren’t black and white.”
You don’t have to be a Veronica Mars superfan—or a “Marshmallow,” as members of the fan base call themselves—to enjoy this new version, either. While Easter eggs aplenty populate the Neptune city landscape as the show returns, Thomas said he’s most focused on telling a great detective story.
So, what exactly should viewers expect? While compiling my oral history of the show’s original iteration, I also asked the cast and Thomas to brief audiences on what they’ll find when the series returns July 26.
Veronica has grown up
For Veronica, being an adult and acting like one are very different concepts. “You see a lot of TV and film drama stories of when men [have] to grow up,” Thomas said. “They have to be dragged into normal adult life. And a lot of what we’re doing this season is letting Veronica have that role. Not in a dumb, I want to play video games and hang out with my bros sort of way, but in an I find the adult world dull [sort of way].” Star Kristen Bell said that Veronica’s restlessness has placed her at a crossroads: “She is a woman figuring out what she wants out of the rest of her life, which are very different decisions than the ones you make when you’re 16. She sees the world differently. She’s a little more bitter now than when she was on the series.”
The father/daughter relationship remains at the heart of the show
Enrico Colantoni’s Keith Mars often acted like Veronica’s friend on the original series—but he was parental when he needed to be. Years later, his parenting responsibilities here have changed. As Colantoni pointed out, “When she was a young girl, it was all about protecting her, and making sure she’s okay and makes choices that manifest into a good healthy life. Now that she’s an adult, there’s only so much that he can stop her from doing.”
But their private eye business, Mars Investigations, is struggling
Keith ran Mars Investigations for justice, rather than for profit; Veronica thinks the business’s survival depends on finding room for both. “Keith doesn’t care enough about making money,” says Thomas. “Veronica’s the realist going, ’Hey dad, we have to fold tent if we don’t start making money’…. In some respects, it almost comes off like Veronica’s the boss.”
The LoVe (i.e. Logan + Veronica) connection remains complex
As the revival opens, Veronica and Logan—together at last—share a cramped 600-square-foot apartment on the beach with a big dog. “I wanted there to be no space—like when you get home, you’re on top of each other,” said Thomas. “Sometimes that’s great, and sometimes it’s maddening. And for somebody as independent as Veronica…”
In many ways, in fact, Logan has grown up more than Veronica has. Bell was the first to point out that “we have a new Logan on our hands. It’s something Veronica loves, is competing with, and annoyed by.” Jason Dohring, who plays Veronica’s partner, likes the new layers his character has developed: “There’s love and professionalism and duty,” he said. Thomas added that Logan has gone “the Officer and a Gentleman route,” which has given him the discipline to set him on a better path. Five years after the events of the Veronica Mars movie, “he’s continued to try and put his demons in the past, and he’s been largely successful at it,” said Thomas. But “Veronica, I think, likes her demons—[she] thinks they drive her.”
The revival focuses on a familiar theme: haves vs. have-nots
At its core, Neptune always exemplified a world in which the wealthy lived by their own rules and paychecks. This time, however, that contrast has been amplified: “The chain stores come in and replace the mom-and-pop places, and the beach changes, and the energy changes, and it’s no longer a small town,” said Colantoni. Adding fuel to the fire is the story’s time frame. “We come back in the middle of spring break, which is a huge melting pot for Neptune—and there’s all sorts of criminals who are not there usually, and all sorts of crazy people coming of age and testing their boundaries. And kids with throwaway money,” said Francis Capra, who plays Eli “Weevil” Navarro. “It’s a hyper-realized, exaggerated version of Neptune. You see the underbelly of the city—and wherever that is, Weevil’s not too far behind.”
The tone is darker too
“When we were on CW, you have to be safe,” said Bell. “This is Hulu. It’s a whole new ball game.” Thomas sees it as a natural evolution for the series: “We do not want to just keep making the same show we made 15 years ago. It’s certainly more adult. We get to swear. The sex scenes don’t look like CW makeout scenes. It looks like adults having sex.” This fits with his vision for the series as it evolves: “I am trying to turn the show from a CW soap opera with detectives to a detective show. I think we can keep making Veronica Mars as detective shows for a long time.”
Your favorite character is probably present and accounted for
The list includes Max Greenfield’s Leo D’Amato, who’s now in the FBI and in town to work a case; Ryan Hansen’s Dick Casablancas, who is “the king of Spring Break,” according to Hanson; Percy Daggs III’s Wallace Fennel, now a physics teacher and basketball coach married to a lawyer; Julie Gonzalo’s Parker Lee; and Ken Marino’s Vinnie Van Lowe—among others.
There are new cast members as well
Izabela Vidovic joins the series as Matty Ross, a teenager who suffers a tragedy and brings out a whole new side to Veronica. “That was an incredible dynamic to add,” said Bell. “It was fun to let Veronica explore her maternal instincts, which she is barely in tune with—but Matty brings them out. It’s just a whole new dynamic for Veronica to care about a younger person, to genuinely care about another person.” Also look for recognizable faces like Academy Award winner J.K. Simmons and comedian Patton Oswalt as…a Patton Oswalt type.
“When you go in to pitch a show, you get prototypes—like ‘a pizza driver on the wrong side of 40 still delivering pizzas who witnesses this first bomb and becomes obsessed with it,’” Thomas explained. “We’re thinking like, a Patton Oswalt role. You never expect to get those people—but we did with Patton and J.K.… J.K. is a key player. He plays a guy who served time in Chino at the same time as Big Dick Casablanca. He helps him survive prison in exchange for a job on the outside.”
This may not be the last we see of Veronica Mars
Neither Bell nor Thomas wants this to be Veronica’s swan song. According to Bell, “I don’t think the show is anywhere near its end.” Thomas concurred. “I want to tell good detective stories for people, whether they watched Veronica Mars when it was on UPN/CW or not…. I felt great doing these eight episodes, and hope to continue feeling great about it for a long time.”
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kaycha1989 · 5 years
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The Right Partner
My Hero Academia Fanfic
Characters: Katsuki Bakugou, OC
Rating: Mature
Chapter 11
Kia and Bakugou found themselves at the center of the media’s attention. The two of them had apprehended three villains that were wanted throughout Japan for all kinds of crimes. Answering all the questions that they could, it took them the better part of an hour before they escaped back to their agency.
Returning to the garage, Bakugou parked his motorcycle back where it belonged. Kia removed her arms from his waist as he put the kickstand down.
“Sweet ride!” Kia said, stepping down to admire the motorcycle. The bike reflected the design of his costume with the tank patterned like his grenade gauntlets. “I wonder if I could get mine brought over here.”
“You will have to get permits for the bike and go through tests to get your driver’s license.” Bakugou informed her.
“Yeah, I know, it will probably be too much of a hassle and a lot of paperwork,” Kia groaned. Turning to her partner, she gave him a mischievous smile. “Maybe you will let me drive sometime?”
“Keep dreaming,” Bakugou smirked.
“It was worth a shot. Oh well, I don’t mind riding behind you. It will be easier to stay together if I ride with you anyway,” Kia thought out loud.
“Sure,” Bakugou replied, turning to leave the garage. Kia put her helmet back on the shelf before following her partner back to their office.
They had just reached the second floor when Best Jeanist came walking down the hallway towards them. “Good job today you two. You handled the situation well,” he said as they met.
“Thank you, sir,” Kia replied. Bakugou merely stood there waiting for Jeanist to finish.
“I’ve been contacted by the editor of a magazine called Hero Today, they want to do an article on the two of you,” Best Jeanist told them.
“Really? When?” Kia asked.
“I’ve arranged for you to go over to their offices tomorrow morning. You will need to be in costume,” Jeanist informed them. “They want to do an interview and take some photos, so you will probably be gone all morning. I will have Nina email you the address.”
“Cool, B, our first interview as a team!” Kia said turning to her partner.
“Great,” Bakugou said with a huff.
“What is your problem? Interviews are a good way to get noticed by the public. It is one part of becoming the number one hero,” Kia said.
“The problem is Bakugou doesn’t have a very good reputation with interviews,” Jeanist replied, giving said hero the stare down.
“I can see that,” Kia said. “You won’t have to worry about it now though.”
“Really? How come?” Bakugou asked skeptically.
“Because you have me,” Kia said with a smile. “Let’s get to the office and I will give you some pointers.”
“I don’t need any help,” Bakugou growled as he stomped off towards their office.
“Sure you don’t, tough guy,” Kia said, following after him.
Jeanist watched the two heroes walk away arguing. Looks like she can put up with his attitude, hopefully she can help him with the interview, he thought as he headed back to his own office.
%%%%%
Entering their office, Bakugou sat down at his desk to get started on the paperwork for the day. Kia sat down on the front of his desk.
“So what problems do you have with interviews exactly? I can’t see you as someone who doesn’t like being in the spotlight and you are too smart for reporters to take advantage of you.” Kia asked.
Bakugou sighed and turned to face her, “You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”
“Nope, This doesn’t just affect your reputation, but mine as well. If you want to be a top hero, you have to be able to have successful interviews,” Kia reasoned.
“It isn’t that I don’t like interviews. Reporters tick me off and they often twist what I say or ask too many dumb questions,” Bakugou said.
“Sounds like they have figured out how to push your buttons and make you lose your temper,” Kia said. Turning towards Bakugou, she continued, “Well one thing I’m guessing you need to work on is how you say things. Make sure you don’t use inappropriate or vulgar language.”
“You want me to smile at the camera and act all bubbly?” Bakugou said sarcastically.
Kia snorted in laughter before she replied, “Although it would be hilarious to watch, no… you need to be yourself while keeping up appearances. You are a total badass and that will be one of your selling points as a number one hero.”
Surprised at his partner’s words, Bakugou smirked, “You think I’m a badass?”
“Yeah, yeah… don’t let it get to your head,” Kia replied, rolling her eyes. “Your ego is big enough. We don’t need it to get any bigger, or your head will explode.”
Bakugou chuckled. “Can’t help it if I’m the best, Sunshine,” he said, standing up to look Kia in the eyes.
“The best at what? Scaring little children?” Kia countered.  
“Ouch, and they say I’m the harsh one,” Bakugou challenged.
“Nope, you are the loud, angry one.” Kia grinned back. Looking up at the clock, she realized her appointment with the building manager was soon. “I have to get going, but we can talk more about it when I get back. I’m going to YouTube some of your past interviews so I can see what I’m working with,” Kia said as she made her way to the door.
“What about all this damn paperwork?” Bakugou glared as he watched his partner leave.
“I will do my part when I get back, just email me what you get done or leave the forms on my desk. I will see ya later!” Kia said as she left.
Grumbling to himself, Bakugou sat back down, pulling a new incident report out of his desk. “So she thinks I’m a badass,” he said with a small smile.
%%%%%
Kia arrived at the apartment complex 10 minutes early. The building wasn’t very far from the agency and Kia would be able to run to work in the mornings. It was a large relatively new looking building that was eight stories tall and each apartment had its own balcony.
Walking into the lobby, she could see mailboxes at the back of the building with elevators on either side. Two people stood at the front desk. One was a young man in a uniform and the other an older woman in a suit. The woman turned to see Kia walking over towards them.
“Hello, you must be Kia Hales. I’m Yoko Hiroyumi the building manager,” the woman introduced herself with a bow.
“Thank you for taking time to meet with me,” Kia bowed back.
“Why don’t we get started? The apartment is on the top floor,” Hiroyumi said, gesturing towards the elevators.
Kia made her way over to the elevators as Manager Hiroyumi told her about the building’s main floor. “The mailboxes are in the back of the building and it is usually delivered by 12:30 pm every day.” Pushing the button for the elevator Hiroyumi continued. “The building’s layout is pretty simple. The bottom two floors have mostly single bedroom apartments and the next four floors have multi-bedroom apartments for families. The top two floors have two bedroom apartments that we usually rent out to local heroes.  There is a special elevator for those two floors to accommodate heroes that are on call.”
The elevator doors opened as it reached the top floor. Kia stepped out into the quiet hallway. “It is at the end of the hall on the right,” Hiroyumi said leading the way. “We don’t place name plates on these floors for the privacy of the heroes that live here,” the manager said, pulling a key from her pocket and opening the door. “We also do our best to keep the media out of the building.”
Kia stepped through the door and into the hallway which led into a living room. The apartment had an open floor plan with the living room extending into a small dining room and decent sized kitchen. Another hallway led from the kitchen to a laundry room, bathroom, and two bedrooms.
“It seems a little big for just me,” Kia said looking around the bedrooms.
“Some like to use the second room as an office or spare room in case friends or family visit. The whole apartment is also sound proofed for your convince,” Manager Hiroyumi informed her.
Kia headed out on the balcony next. The view was nice. Looking around, Kia realized that it was connected to the balcony next door, with the two being separated by a gate.
“The young man next door keeps to himself and he works late a lot, so we rarely see him,” Hiroyumi said, noticing Kia looking at the gate. “Which is too bad… he is really quite handsome,” she finished, fanning herself.
“The whole place is really amazing,” Kia smiled “I’ll take it. When can I move in?”
%%%%%
Bakugou glanced at the time. Kia had been gone for almost two hours. When the hell is she going to get back? he thought. Turning back to his computer, he opened his email to send Kia copies of the report he filled out. Searching through the agency’s address book, he found her company email and sent the report.
Leaning back in his chair, Bakugou stretched looking at the clock once more. Where did she say she was going again? he wondered when a message popped up in his inbox. Sitting up he opened the message to see a reply from Kia.
Thanks B, I will be back to the agency around 3:00 pm. I’m just finishing up a couple things.
-Sunshine
Bakugou chuckled at her use of his nickname for her. Closing the mail, he checked the time again. She said she would be back around three, so that gave him about an hour. He could head out on patrol without her or wait for her to get back, but what would he do while he waited? All the paperwork was done except for Kia’s half of the reports. He decided that maybe he should look into his partner more.
Opening a browser window, Bakugou typed Kia’s hero name into the search engine. A YouTube link popped up and he clicked on it. The video title said the clip was from a concert in America that quite a few heroes participated in to raise money for a bunch of charities.
As the clip started playing it showed Kia in a purple version of her costume except it was sleeveless with black wristbands and black heels. Her hair was let down and curled with black clips holding it out of her face. Judging from the date on the clip she must have been in her final year of high school. She had an electric guitar in her hands and a mic headset on. Four other young women stood on stage with her, each one with a different instrument except the one in the middle. They all started playing as the one in the lead began to sing. Kia and the girl playing the bass walked forward and began signing back up and dancing with the lead singer. They were pretty good and the crowd cheered. They sang the cover of a song called “Every Time We Touch” by Cascada.
Bakugou couldn’t help but notice Kia wasn’t really into the song even though she never missed a chord or step. The smile on her face didn’t reach her eyes. When the song ended, the bassist step forward to sing lead and then the keyboardist and the drummer sang lead to other songs after that. All of them where cheesy love songs that made Bakugou want to pop in his ear buds and crank his playlist up. He had expected Kia to step up and sing one of the offending songs but the curtains closed and the clip ended.
The title of the next clip, Wildside Kills It at Charity Concert, caught Bakugou’s eye so he clicked on it. This time Kia was front and center on the stage with a different set of heroes playing instruments. The drummer gave off a count to start before he started playing the song. The other heroes started playing rock music as Kia stepped up to the mic and started singing, “When Legends Rise” by Godsmack.
Bakugou found himself liking the music and Kia put on a good show that left the audience screaming for an encore. The clip continued to show the encore when there was a knock at the door. Pausing the video, Bakugou called out, “Who the hell is it?”
“Yo, Bakugou,” Kirishima greeted him as he walked through the door. He was in his hero costume so Bakugou figured he was here on official business.
“What do you want?” Bakugou asked his friend.
“I was running some stuff over for Fatgum and figured I would stop by,” Kirishima said, looking over to Kia’s desk. “You didn’t run her off already, did you?”
“No, dumb shit, she is out for a while,” Bakugou growled.
“Aww, when will she get back?” Kirishima asked.
“Around three,” Bakugou answered.
“Damn I have to be back to the agency at three,” Kirishima sighed after looking at the clock, “Oh well, I will have to catch her another time. What are you working on?” he asked, walking around Bakugou’s desk. “Doing some research on your partner, huh?” Kirishima said after seeing what was in the browser.
“Looks like I’m stuck with her, so might as well,” Bakugou replied.
Kirishima couldn’t help but notice his friend didn’t seem disappointed in the least. “Well, if you are researching her, check this out,” he said, reaching over to open another window. Kirishima typed Wildside and model into the search engine. He clicked on one of the websites and the home page of a modeling agency came on the screen. Clicking on the models tab he found exactly what he was looking for and clicked on Kia’s name. A portfolio of images came on screen. She modeled a lot of sportswear and everyday clothes.
“Hold on a second,” Kirishima said as he searched through the images until he came to one of Kia in an evening dress.
It was a red and black low cut halter-top that hugged her every curve with jewels sewn in to draw a person’s gaze to all the right places. One long leg was exposed by a slit that went clear up to her hip, showing off the matching red and black heels. Her hair was done up in ringlets while dark eyeshadow and bright red lipstick completed the look. She was beautiful.
“She is a total ten, yeah?” Kirishima asked smirking at the look on his friend’s face.
“Who is a ten?” Best Jeanist asked from the door.
Startled, Kirishima and Bakugou both jumped at Jeanist’s sudden question.
“Uh, we were just looking at some modeling pictures of Wildside,” Kirishima said sheepishly.
“She isn’t here?” Jeanist asked.
“No, she said she had something to do today and will be back around three,” Bakugou said, still in a daze.
Moving around to join the two younger men, Jeanist looked at the pictures they had on screen. “Spotlight told me he had convinced her to do some modeling. I was actually hoping she would do some for our agency as well. Now I see what he means about her lacking confidence,” Jeanist said studying the image.
“What do you mean?” Kirishima asked confused.
“She looks very beautiful, but her expression is off. It is more than just good looks and pretty clothes that make a good model,” Jeanist replied.
“I still don’t get it,” Kirishima said, more confused.
“She isn’t comfortable in that getup. Her smile is forced and she feels uneasy,” Bakugou interrupted, “She doesn’t usually show much skin. It looks like it might be photo shopped too.” Kirishima and Jeanist looked at Bakugou surprised. They were not expecting the hero to interject like that.
“Exactly,” Jeanist said. “How do you know it is photo shopped?”
“Her wrists aren’t covered,” Bakugou replied like that was supposed to explain everything.
“The scars,” Jeanist realized clicking the next image which was a view of the dress from the back, “I see what you mean. In this image she looks even tenser. It would make sense why her expression is off. Spotlight told me she didn’t do well with backless apparel.”
“Backless?” Bakugou said then he realized. “You mean she has scars on her back?”
Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8 | Ch 9 | Ch 10 | Ch 11
Ch 12 | Ch 13 | Ch 14 | Ch 15 | Ch 16 | Ch 17 | Ch 18 | Ch 19 | Ch 20 
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