#{ this one's gonna be separated into parts because holy shit it's already gotten long --- and this is only the BEGINNING of this arc. }

[nolita-fairytale]

make my heart surrender | carmen berzatto x fem!reader | chapter seven: tuesday, again

pairing: carmen berzatto x fem!reader

warnings: lots of swearing, tooth-rotting fluff, use of she/her pronouns, friends to lovers, references to sex, no use of y/n, second person pov, happy ending

word count: 3.8k

summary: you left your heart in chicago, so the only logical conclusion you've come to, is that you have to go back.

a/n: ok this author's note may be a long one. WOW. can i just say 'wow' holy shit?! i wrote this story in a week because inspiration struck and i couldn't get these characters, or this story, out of my freaking head. i am beyond grateful to any and all that read, liked, reblogged, or commented. thank you for being cheerleaders for me, carmy, and this story. i am truly so in love with these characters it hurts, so thank you for encouraging me to continue this love affair.

that being said, i am not done with these two at all. i have a few companion pieces i'm working on right now: a playlist, a headcanon, and maybe even a oneshot (or a few but who's counting)? thank you again for reading. please enjoy.

read: part six | masterlist

Tuesday, again. 

It’s Tuesday again and your time in Chicago has come to an end. Carmy had stayed the night with you at your airbnb. But morning came, and he left early to start his morning at the restaurant. Truthfully, he just hadn’t wanted to watch you pack – couldn’t get out of there fast enough when you’d opened your suitcase. You noticed how much it bothered him, letting him know that you’d stop by the restaurant before heading to the airport. 

And that was that. You’d gone your separate ways before, and you’d go your separate ways again – just for a little bit. And it wouldn't be like last the last time. It’s bittersweet – leaving today – but you keep reminding yourself of the conversation you’d had yesterday about the future of your relationship. You wanted to be with him, and Carmy wanted to be with you. The rest, you’d figure out as you go.

Your boyfriend.

It felt strange – even if he’d basically already been your unofficial platonic boyfriend back in New York. Adding a title to it was a whole other ball game. 

New. 

Never did you think, as you were preparing for this trip, that you’d return back home with Carmy as yours. You thought maybe you’d talk about what happened -- smooth things over -- but that would be that, and you’d go back to being friends. After this week, you were starting to believe you were never supposed to be just friends. 

You had a feeling none of your friends would be surprised when you shared the news – not in the least. 

You finish packing up your things, double checking that you haven’t left anything behind before heading to the restaurant. It’s about thirty minutes to lunch service, and since they’re not open just yet, you enter through the back door one last time for what feels like could be a while. 

And there it is again: that bittersweet feeling. 

“Chef!” Tina says, her eyes lighting up as she sees you. “You headin’ out today?”

“Hey, T,” you reply. “Yeah, I’m heading to the airport after this. Just wanted to stop by before I go.”

“Well you better come back soon,” she says almost as if it’s a threat, and you laugh in response. 

“Of course.”

“There she is!” Marcus hollers across the kitchen, as soon as he spots you. “Damn. What am I gonna do with you?”

“Uh… keep doin’ what you’re doing and kill it?” you reply, eliciting a proud smile from him. 

“Seriously. This last week… I’ve learned so much from you. Thank you,” he says, his gratitude evident in his voice. 

“No, thank you, Marcus,” you answer, genuinely. “I haven’t felt this inspired in… well a while. I want to be kept up on all your new flavor pairings. Just remember. I’m only a text away.”

“Yes, chef,” he replies, moving in to give you a hug. 

He wraps his arms around you and you hug him back. Boy, is it bittersweet. How, in one week, have you gotten so attached?

“Hey! I want in!” another voice chimes in, as you and Marcus’ hug comes to an end. 

“Syd!”

You smile, greeting Sydney with a hug – a hello goodbye kind of hug.

“You better come visit me in New York,” you insist. You’re not sure how long you’ll be there, but you say it anyways, just in case it’s a while. 

You watch as Sydney and Marcus exchange glaces. 

“What?”

“Nothin’, chef,” Marcus answers, almost too quickly. 

Sydney shrugs, “I don’t know. Just uh, wondering how long you’ll be there for.” She’s prodding and she knows it. You decide not to ask what she means by it.

“Well, if it ends up being longer… than I expect, you better come up,” you clarify. 

“Okay, yes. I definitely will,” Sydney agrees with a nod, before pulling you in for one more hug. 

“Hey, cousin said you’re headin’ out so Ebra’s made you a sandwich for the trip, babe. We’ll see ya around soon,” Richie greets, interrupting your moment with Sydney and Marcus. 

Richie, whose affection seems to catch you off guard, slings an arm around you, handing you the sandwich that Ebraheim has so kindly wrapped up for you. 

“Cousin!” Richie shouts, in search of Carmy. 

“Jesus Christ, it’s ten in the morning. Are we already starting the yelling this early or-?” Carmy calls back to him. He bursts through the doors from where he’s been fixing something up in the front of house dining area. He stops as soon as he sees you. 

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” you reply, taking in the image of his unruly curls, white t-shirt, and blue apron you've gotten so used to over the last few days.

It’s almost as if everyone else but Richie tries to make themselves as busy as possible – to give you two a chance to say goodbye. You can hear Marcus and Sydney making themselves scarce as Angel and Manny turn the sink water back on. 

“I just uh-, wanted to stop by before heading to the airport,” you say, unsure of just how much everyone else knows about you and Carmy’s current relationship. “Say goodbye to everyone.”

It’s clear that they know something’s up, but you still have your reservations about kissing him in front of everyone. 

“What do you mean?" Richie asks, glaring at Carmy. "This asshat’s not takin’ you to the airport?”

Richies practically shouting for the entire kitchen to hear, causing you and Carmy both to take a breath. You exchange a ‘here we go again’ look as Richie continues on.

“What kind of-, I swear to god, cousin-.”

“Richie!” you hear Tina snap, looking up from her prep station. “Shut the fuck up and give them a minute, you old bitch.”

Richie throws his hands up, before bowing out of the conversation, leaving just you and Carmy in the middle of the walkway. You can hear Richie and Tina bickering in hushed tones over by the stove, earning a quiet laugh from you. 

Your heart aches in the best way as you commit this moment to memory.

God, you're going to miss this. 

“You wanna..?” Carmy asks, nodding his head in the direction of the back door. 

You nod in agreement, letting him lead you back out to the alley. 

And now it’s really just the two of you, and while it’s not the most romantic of backgrounds, you’re going to work with what you’ve got. Carmy seems nervous as he fidgets with the ties of his apron. 

“You uh, you sure you don’t want me to take you to the airport?” Carmy asks hesitantly, thinking back to Richie’s earlier comment. 

“Yeah, I’m sure,” you answer with confidence. “Besides, I’d never want to take you away from these guys. You open in a few anyway.”

He smiles, accepting your answer. It’s something he loves about you: that you get it. You understand that sometimes the food’s gotta come first. 

You didn’t know why it felt so weird – so challenging, awkward, strange – to say goodbye to him. Because it wasn’t really a goodbye. And it also was and you’re not sure if you have a name for this feeling yet. 

“Carm?”

“Yeah?”

Instead of answering with words, you just reach over, grabbing that beautiful head of hair of his, and you kiss him. He tastes of the cigarette he smoked on his walk to The Bear and the Altoid mint he had later in his office in anticipation of your arrival. You want to memorize each and every part of this: the way he smells, the way he tastes, the way his hands feel on you. He pulls you in, wrapping his arms around you as you continue your passionate make out – your passionate goodbye kiss – in the alleyway behind the restaurant. 

Your kisses begin to slow down, and before you know it, you’re pulling away from him. 

“Text me when you land, okay?” he asks, a hopeful look in his eyes. 

You nod, “Yes. Yeah. I will.”

And you want to turn to go, but you can’t yet, so you add, “Thanks for inviting me out here.”

He laughs dryly, leaving one more kiss on your lips for the road.

“Thanks for coming to see me. I’ll see you soon.”

A few Tuesdays later

It takes exactly five minutes of being back in New York to realize that Chicago is where you need to be. You don’t regret asking for time to think, but you almost felt silly to worry that you wouldn’t come to this conclusion. You have to go back: to the restaurant, to purpose, to Carmy.

You let yourself think through every little detail, and in each scenario, you know that Chicago is where you’re supposed to be. It had, afterall, been everything you’d felt you were missing. 

Your heart was there, and for once, you were going to let yourself follow it. 

You’d just needed some time to let your head and your heart catch up – get on the same page – and wrapping things up in New York gave you that time to get clear that this was your next step. 

Not that you mind letting the man you adored and some very hot sex cloud your judgment. 

It takes a few weeks, but you and Carmy text every day, even on the busy days. Some days you text a lot, and some it’s just a few exchanges: a ‘good morning’ text, a ‘thinking of you,’ and a ‘goodnight’ text when he’s wrapped up at the restaurant. But it doesn’t bother you. You know what it’s like. Other days, you’re able to sneak in a phone call… maybe even a FaceTime… and if you’re really lucky, you get to talk for hours before either of you realize it’s two in the morning and you should’ve been asleep a long time ago.

People are always coming and going in New York City. It’s why it’s not hard to find a sublet for your apartment, and once you’ve set the ball in motion, it feels impossible to backtrack. After you find the subletter, you tell the restaurant that you’re not coming back and they’re not happy with your decision. You tell them you’re moving to Chicago and only a few people left on staff understand why. Your friends who know you and Carmy aren’t surprised – just as you expected – and by the end of your happy hour catch up, they’re halfway to booking you a ticket to Chicago for that night.

Your parents on the other hand are less than ecstatic. They have more questions, more hesitations, and they want to make sure you’re thinking things through. You tell them that you have, that you’ve combed through every possible scenario, and each time you come to the conclusion that this is what you have to do. 

But they’re happy you’re happy. They say they’ve never seen you like this and you agree. You’ve never felt this way before either. 

You’ve got to stay just a little longer – make sure you can get all your shit sold or moved. Because you’re a responsible adult even when you hate being a responsible adult. It takes a few more days to get an available U-Haul, and you’re all packed up. You’d called Carmy earlier to tell him, but he’s not answering his phone. Sydney hadn’t been in touch either, so you figured they were slammed at the restaurant.

Holy shit. This is really happening, you think to yourself. 

With one foot over the ledge already, you’re off. 

Wednesday, again.

You’ve set him up so well that if he blows it, you’re gonna be pissed. All he has to do is be his normal, annoying, crass self. 

C’mon, Richie, you think to yourself, pleading with the gods that this goes the way you hope it will. 

As you’d told him your plan, he seemed more than happy to oblige. Just rile him up a little just to make the surprise that much better. Richie wouldn’t miss out on an opportunity like that, would he? You can hear shouting coming from the kitchen, and can tell your plan has been set in motion.

“Richie, what the fuck are you talking about? They said what? Who?” Carmy asks, frustratedly.

Yesterday’s dinner service was a shitshow. It’d been slower for lunch this afternoon, and he berates himself for being naive enough to think that he could catch his breath today. The last thing he needed after yesterday was some food critic coming into his restaurant to pick apart all of their hard work. 

“I don’t know, cousin,” Richie shouts back defensively, as if he has no other volume level than that one. “I don’t know if she’s a fuckin’ food critic or not but she sounded like one. Somethin’ about an overseasoned juice or whatever the fuck!” “Jus,” Carmy corrects. “It’s pronounced, ‘zjhoo,’ fucko. Not ‘juice.’ How many times do I have to tell you?”

“Yeah, yeah, fuck if I care,” Richie mutters. “All I’m saying is you should go out there and give the pompous jack hole a piece of your mind.”

“Alright, if it’s going to get you off my back, I’ll do it!” Carmy snaps, having had enough of Richie’s shouting. “Just tell me where she’s sitting so I know who to talk to.”

“At the bar. Christ,” Richie sighs, removing himself from the conversation entirely as he steps away from Carmy. 

Carmy sighs in frustration. He removes his apron before hanging it on one of the wall hooks, then makes his way through the swinging doors that lead to the dining area. It’s still slow, even after the small lunch peak they’d just experienced, and there’s only one woman sitting at the bar. 

You.

It’s then the Carmy realizes he’s been set up. This was all just an act to get him out here – out to the front of house. His breath catches in his throat as he sees you sitting at the bar of his restaurant. You lock eyes with him, and he’s suddenly feeling much more nervous than he previously was. 

“Surprise,” is all you manage to get out, half apologetically.

He makes his way to the open side of the bar, stepping around it so that he can stand on the same side as you. 

“Hey,” he says, even though he’s practically speechless. 

“So uh…” he stammers nervously. Out of all the things he could say to you all he can think of is, “What’s this I hear about an overseasoned jus?” 

You shrug, a devious smile on your face and a sense of mischief in your eyes, “Well I had to come up with something that’d get your attention.”

“It worked. Consider it gotten,” he nods, a blush running all the way down his neck. “Wh-, What’re you doing here?”

He doesn't mean for it to sound so abrupt, but what he really wants to ask is: what does this mean?

You wait, taking half of a beat. 

“I… heard you might be hiring another pastry chef to… you know… help out around here,” you reply, nodding towards the kitchen. Carmy has no idea how you’re playing it so cool, and you’re not sure how you are either. 

“I-, I’d have to talk to Marcus first,” he stammers, matter of factly. His head is spinning, and he can’t breathe, in a good way this time. He can’t believe you’re here and half expects to wake up and realize he’s only dreaming. 

“Of course,” you nod in agreement. 

You pause again, wondering if he’s surprised in a bad way.

“I uh… I called,” you offer up, almost as an apology. 

“We’ve been slammed,” Carmy replies, taking a step closer to you. “And I passed the fuck out last night after service. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay! I-, I figured…” you chuckle, beginning to explain yourself. “I just wanted you to know that-, I mean the rental company had a last minute opening and it was gonna take a few more weeks to get another a U-Haul if I didn’t-. I didn’t intend on making this like… you know this big surprise or anything…”

“... but then I saw Richie first and uh, well, I couldn’t help fucking with you a little bit.”

He laughs, shaking his head at you, “So this was a set up?”

“Oh yeah.”

You stand up, out of the bar chair, taking a step towards him. You look around, noticing that the restaurant is mostly empty, save for a couple in a booth over by the window. 

“You never answered my question. About you. Being here,” Carmy starts, redirecting the conversation back to you. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up – needs you to say you’re here for good before he lets himself feel all of this excitement that’s bubbling up in his body.

“Right. I just came here to tell you that uh, I found someone to take over my lease in New York,” you start, seeing Carmy’s eyes light up. 

God, you’ve missed the way he looks at you. 

“And the urban garden I've been volunteering with… they got me connected with a spot here. Keep my head out of my ass,” you continue, eliciting another laugh from Carmy at your crude comment. 

“Natalie’s-, she and Pete are gonna help find a place too.”

You take another step towards him. 

“You talked to Natalie?” he asks, surprised. 

And he, towards you. 

You shrug, playfully teasing him, “She picks up her phone.”

“Right,” Carmy says shyly. 

If he had picked up his phone you would’ve told him that you were coming and he’s not sure what he would have liked more: knowing ahead of time, or this surprise. Fuck it. He doesn’t care how it happened. He’s just glad he gets to have you.

“I… had a lot of time to think on the drive and-,” you tell him.

“Uh oh,” he interjects, playfully. “That’s never good.”

You shake your head with a laugh, “Will you just shut up and let me get through this?”

He concedes to you, a soft smile on his face as he waits for what you’re going to say next, as you continue your whole boombox over head, throwing stones at the window love confession thing.

“I was thinking that maybe I’d stick around for a while… get a cat or something to keep me company on the days we just can’t stand each other,” you say. 

It’s not what he’s expecting to hear but he understands what you’re really saying. You want to be here. With him. You want to plant roots. 

With him. 

“A cat?” he questions.

“Well, yeah neither of us have time for a dog. We’re both gonna be too busy with the restaurant,” you answer, continuing this scenario you’ve got in your head.

“We?” 

“We.”

Another step. 

He waits for you to say more, but you both understand that anything else would be overcomplicating it. And suddenly you’re standing so close to each other that you’re grateful that there’s only two other people in this restaurant. 

“Does this mean-?” he begins to ask, trailing off toward the end. He looks down at the floor, wondering why he feels so shy. 

“That I packed all my shit up to move here? Yeah,” you reply, confirming his assumptions about where this was going. “When I got back, it took me about five minutes to realize that what I’ve been looking for-, I had it. For a week. Here.”

He looks back up from the floor, to you, his blue eyes staring into your soul. 

You take a pause once more, mustering up all the courage in your body to say what you need to say next. 

“I want to be here, Car. With you. If the offer still stands.” 

He looks at you, you speechless, because he can’t believe this is real. 

But this is real. You’re not dreaming, he reminds himself.

He opens his mouth to say something and all that comes out is, “You hungry?” And you’re shaking your head and laughing, hopelessly in love with the man standing mere inches away from you who can barely get out the words he needs to tell you how he feels. 

“Because I’m sure you’ve had a long trip and I can-,” he continues to ramble, his face inches away from yours.

“God, I fuckin’ love you,” you blurt out, impulsively closing the gap between the two of you. You press your lips to his, giving him the most passionate kiss you’ve perhaps given anyone, and he kisses you back.

Because he loves you too. 

And he never wants to let you go ever again. 

Your kiss is suddenly interrupted by the sounds of voices, cheers, and a few claps, splitting the two of you apart. You both turn to find the entire staff of The Bear, crowded around the door that leads to the kitchen, and peeking out. Tina’s got a proud smile on her face, while Richie is most certainly the one clapping. Marcus is saying an ‘oh shit’ to Sydney while she’s practically squealing at the two of you. 

You and Carmy exchange a look. He looks away, his face turning redder by the second, as you laugh. 

“I called it! What did I say? Did I say three weeks? I think I fuckin' said three weeks." Richie cries out in celebration, his fist pumping into the air in triumph, earning a groan of disappointment from Gary.

"Pay up, fuckos!"

“Wait, what?” Carmy asks, his brows knitted together in confusion. 

Sydney rolls her eyes, beginning to pull a few ten dollar bills out of her apron as Tina mutters an insult in Spanish

“You guys were-,” you start, searching the faces of your future colleagues.

“Betting on how long it would take for you to come back? Yes, chef. Yes we were,” Marcus answers, cheekily. “I said two weeks. Syd put her money on a month, but Richie said three.”

“I just meant that it’s not that easy to move! Not that you wouldn’t come back,” Sydney adds, justifying her guesstimate.

“I said she’d be back in a week,” Tina chimes in.  

“It was clear to us you’d be back. We just didn’t know when,” Gary informs, leaning up against the bar. 

“Well, that’s news to me,” you laugh, shooting Carmy a look that says ‘did you know about this?’

He shakes his head ‘no.’

“You two are also idiots. That was also clear to all of us,” Tina points out, earning a laugh from you and Sydney. 

“Never even cleared your work station, chef,” Marcus adds, nodding back towards the kitchen. “You can uh-, come join us when you’re ready.”

You watch as Marcus disappears, back into the kitchen, hearing the sound or Richie’s more than jovial chants that he was right. Tina’s yelling at him in Spanish and Sydney’s telling Richie to shut the fuck up. 

You’ve missed this. 

“I uh… gotta get back to work,” Carmy says, pulling you out of your head. The blush permeating his face has spread all the way down to his neck and he's not sure how he's supposed to continue the day like this. “Gotta wrap up lunch and prep for dinner.” But he gets to do it with you, so he's gonna figure it the fuck out.

He turns to you, holding out his hand. 

“You comin’ or what?”

You’re beaming as you take his hand, your heart pounding out of your chest. It feels like a beginning of something you don't have the words for, and you're very much okay with that. You're ready to throw caution to the wind and fearlessly dive in -- to take a leap -- as long as you get to do it with him too.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

the end.

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[huntershowl-moving]

drabble 003: devil-tamer (i.)

it was an unusually warm day when persephone set out for her new mission. 

she’d been assigned a simple, long-term seduce and destroy (or sway, but that was unlikely). a chance to prove herself to sanya, prove her place in the unseen as more than just a sharpshooter. she’d climb the ranks and make things better for her and leto, hopefully distracting herself from the sharp and gnawing pain of aya’s absence. 

the target was adeodatus damiana. set in stone to be the next lord governor, he was charitable and kind, known for spending time in the low-crime family-oriented district of charhollow. his scruffy look and southern drawl only added to his rustic charm; he walked, talked, and socialized like one of the people in the poor districts he so often frequented because he had come from the poorest of them. it was unprecedented that a man from the slums would rise to a level of wealth and power that he did; starting out as an independent criminal, he’d soon make his name murdering the leaders of gangs higher and higher up the ladder. 

kingkiller. in those days, he had been the subject of every week’s times front page. he was a respectable killer, if there was such a thing, managing to dismantle large-scale gangs simply by  offing their leaders and moving onto the next. now, he was a rich man with political views that pleased his many loyal fans. duskwall was absolutely enamored. of course, a man like that is bound to make enemies. someone with such tight and lofty ideals especially. how about sanya triskel, leader of the unseen? there’s an enemy to make. 

persephone knew it was because he was unlikely to be swayed to their side that sanya was sending her in particular. the plan a was to bring adeodatus into the side of the unseen, to turn him into one of sanya’s many puppets. if he remained a wild card, however, well… the seat of lord governor was far too valuable to hold a wild card. it would be easy enough to kill him if he refused. slit his throat in his sleep or snap his neck when he didn’t expect it – she’d be close enough to blindside him by then, anyway. and no matter how charitable, she didn’t particularly give a damn who she killed. not after aya. very few things felt like they mattered anymore. a gun, a knife, poison – whatever method was necessary. persephone would see it done. 

except for her beloved sniper rifle, of course. abra cadaver would remain in leto’s workshop for the duration of this mission, where persephone knew it was safe. he did not know what she was setting out to do. telling him about a job that involved seduction felt … odd, to say the least, and it wasn’t something she was comfortable talking about; besides, there wasn’t much time to do any preparation other than learning everything she could about damiana before it was time to get in position.

the warm breeze fluttered against her skin as persephone sat on a tattered mess of blankets in charhollow, her normal eelskin and carbon-based hull arms replaced with primitive, clunky metal ones. they shot pains through her shoulders. they didn’t feel right, but then – she was playing the part of a poor but brilliant armless girl, a beggar. it was a necessary commitment. persephone had been at this for weeks, and damiana hadn’t yet visited charhollow; she survived on what she could beg for and what she could steal. it was a familiar way of life. she and leto had been expert beggars before they’d joined the unseen. another reason for sanya to send her out rather than anyone else, she supposed.

just as the girl slumped her back against the building behind her little blanket nest, there was a loud clatter as coins dropped into her metal collection cup. a tall, bearded man in a sharply-cut suit stood back up, gazing down at persephone with – not pity, but something else unrecognizable in his eyes. it was unmistakably him. adeodatus damiana. formerly the kingkiller. he was much taller than she had expected. persephone was only twenty-one, but she already towered over most everyone other than her twin, leto. now, she could see even from her position that damiana was even taller than they were. strong, too, his well-cut suit showing off arms that could likely crush a skull if he tried.

his eyes were dark, guarded … but kind, nonetheless. he extended a hand, gaze trailing from her ice-chip eyes to the ends of her cropped black hair, emitting smoke that curled around her pale face.

“what’s your name, darlin’?”

she’d practiced her cover a thousand times. “lethe.” her voice was quiet, just as cagey as his expression. thus begins the dance.

“adeodatus.”

“i know who you are.”

“do you?” 

shit. was she not supposed to know? no, she should – charhollow was his turf. lethe straightened her shoulders, the prosthetics groaning and grating against themselves. another hour, another jolt of pain down her back. she masked it well. lethe had experienced worse, after all… much, much worse. nothing could compare to what it felt like for sanya to tear her arms from their sockets, slowly, their eyes burning – 

“miss lethe?” damiana was knelt beside her now, his hand resting on one metal wrist. he seemed concerned; had she lapsed into a flashback? “i lost you for a moment, everythin’ alright?” 

“ah –” her reply was stilted, a little awkward. “i’m fine. sorry.”

he paused, giving her a sorrowful look, seeming to weigh his options before standing back up. “i’ll be back in just a moment.” he strode off down the road, and lethe raked her hand through her hair so that her fingertips grazed the scalp hard. get it together. you’re on a job. this man is your target, you’re two minutes in and you’re already shutting down? what would sanya say? lethe clapped her palms to her cheeks a couple of times and straightened her posture, tucking her legs under her body so that she didn’t have to worry about her skirt riding up. you’re a beggar, not a harlot. wearing a skirt in the first place was out of persephone’s comfort zone. skirts were a nightmare. she’d never understood how aya could wear them, but then again, aya had looked beautiful –– 

no. enough. you are not persephone anymore. you are lethe, you are lethe, you are lethe. a savory smell followed damiana back to her spot, swirling around him like an aura of welcome. it was remarkable how easily he seemed to get along with everyone he passed. they asked after him, smiled at him, and he returned their kindness twofold. his beard was trimmed, but still out of place for brightstone nobility… then again, he came from nothing. adeodatus had grown up an urchin. he’d made his name in crime instead of inheritance.

lethe had to admit, it was a masterful strategy. he had only targeted criminal enterprises, so as to endear himself to their competition and the brightstone elites who wanted to clean up the streets. he’d come from nothing, so the poverty-stricken in crow’s foot would love him. he was kind and charitable, which meant charhollow was his. the only enemies he would have made were dead or scattered because he’d killed their leaders. he was smarter than duskwall gave him credit for. she wasn’t about to underestimate someone like him, disarming personality be damned. 

damiana sat next to her, handing her a pie from the delicious-smelling bag he’d brought over. the people of charhollow were notoriously kind to beggars. lethe had already been given what people could spare – pieces of bread, cans of jellied eels, even a goat skewer, once. it was the most warmth she’d ever been shown, and it was all a goddamn act. she was fooling these people. lying to them, stealing from them. with a moment’s hesitation, she took the pie from him. don’t worry, charhollow. if i do this right, you won’t have to see me ever again. 

“so, miss lethe,” damiana murmured. “what’s a smart girl like you doin’ in a place like this?”

she furrowed her brows, tipping her head a bit in response.

“it’s only,” he continued, “i don’t quite understand how someone so lovely can be a beggar without bein’ swept up by now.”

ah. you’re hitting on me. easy enough. a quiet flush spread across her cheeks, bringing color into her otherwise pallid face. “oh, i don’t –”

“now, i’ll have no self deprecation from you. you’re lovely. anyone ‘round here would say so. and those arms… who designed ‘em?”

someone in the unseen had, but lethe knew them inside and out. “i did.”

damiana leaned back with an approving nod, that hunger in his eyes that meant he wanted to know more. how did an armless beggar design a piece of machinery? he stood up, leaving the bag of food next to her. that was that, then. “until we meet again, miss lethe,” he called as he left, raising a hand in a gentlemanly wave.

adeodatus visited lethe nearly every day after they met. he would bring her food, give her money, ask about her carefully crafted persona’s life: she had been a factory worker’s daughter who took over young for her father when he died, learned everything she knew about engineering from him, lost her arms in an accident and used run-of-the-mill prosthetics to design fully-functioning new ones. these were the third iteration, but they still didn’t quite work right. oh, the factory she and her father had been at? it was the one in coalridge that had been blown up by the lampblacks a couple years back. sorry, she wasn’t sure if anyone who had worked there was still around. every question had an answer. every step in the dance she could match.

finally, after what felt like forever, adeodatus let his guard down. it was starting to get cold, summer sweeping into fall with alarming swiftness. lethe had bought a wool shawl with what money adeodatus had given her, and took to sleeping more often than waking. one chilly suran morning, he came by in a goat-drawn carriage and invited her to his home in brightstone. it was nothing close to sanya’s manor. three stories, larger than most could ever afford, but juxtaposed against their castle it looked like a modest flat. even so. being surrounded by so much wealth still made lethe painfully aware of what she looked and smelled like.

as if he could tell what she was thinking, adeodatus led lethe down a hallway to a large set of doors as a single attendant brought her things to another part of the house. “you can draw yourself a bath here, and freshen up if you like. i’ll be just down that hallway, workin’ on some shippin’ arrangements.” with that, lethe was left alone in a bathroom with hot, running water and a whole set of bottles, sponges, materials for her face and body. after she brushed her teeth, lethe soaked deep into the bathtub, her hair spreading smoke across the surface of the water. it hadn’t grown in months. not since she’d killed aya, after which it had grown nonstop for weeks and weeks as persephone collapsed into grief. now, she was numb. numb enough to feel nothing about the eventuality of killing the most morally sound candidate for lord governorship duskwall had ever seen. she scrubbed her arms with a soft sponge, watching the dirt slough off and cloud the water – feeling the stain of aya’s blood still. that was a stain that would never wash clean. she’d killed her. murdered her. slit her throat and watched the life drain from her eyes, aya, her little bird.

persephone didn’t even realize she was crying until a knock came at the door and her face was wet with saltwater. she dunked underneath, letting its warmth calm the swelling before dragging her hands down her face so that she could open her eyes. the water was so clouded that her body was not visible, and the black smoke from her hair had spread across its surface as it always did across water. “yes?”

“it’s me.” adeodatus’s smooth drawl behind the door. 

“ah – come in.” lethe sank to her neck so that the scars marring her collar and shoulder blades were not visible.

hair mussed and tie loosened, adeodatus opened the door, a soft towel over his arm. he eyed the smoke curling out of the surface of the bathtub with mild fascination before setting the towel on a stool next to her. “everythin’ to your likin’, miss lethe?”

“yes, thank you.” you’ll be ours or dead soon.

“good, good. glad to hear it. listen…” he leaned against the counter, regarding lethe with a soft expression. “you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like. it’s gettin’ cold, i – i can’t imagine you’d have a fine time out there. my apologies if that seems a touch forward.”

“here...?” lethe couldn’t hide the surprise in her voice, and sank a little lower into the bathtub. “i don’t …” 

“i knew it. i’m bein’ unsavory.”

“no, it’s – it’s alright. if it wouldn’t be a bother, that … would be nice,” she murmured in reply, finally looking him in the eye.

surprise lifted his eyebrows, then something warmer colored his face. it was hard to see behind his beard, but it appeared adeodatus was blushing. “not a bother at all, miss lethe.”

“just… lethe. is fine.”

“alright. lethe.” he smiled, genuinely, the expression filling her with warmth. “you can just call me adeo.”

it took almost a month for adeo to completely warm up to her. his emotional walls were up high: he must have lost someone, like the girl buried underneath lethe had. he didn’t want to let her close. they talked, amicably, adeo having his single attendant set up a guest room for her with a bed that didn’t make her back feel like shit in the morning. the servant did not speak the same language as lethe and adeo did. a refugee, he’d explained, who he’d taken under his wing and given work. neither lethe nor the attendant were allowed into the study; its door was closed and locked at all times. until early, wintery volnivet, that is, when lethe came from a bath to find the door wide open.

initially, she was nervous that someone had beaten her to her job and assassinated him in the midst of working. but when she stepped silently through the doorframe, there he was, working intently at his desk. his dark hair was mussed and unstyled from sleep, beard scruffy, shirt open. if they were closer, or if she wasn’t entirely numb inside, lethe might have been genuinely flustered by the sight. the thought prompted her to act the part, though, arms drawing in to cross over her chest. the clinking sound must have set him off – his pen stopped scratching, and he turned to give her an indecipherable look. examining, scrutinizing.

“sorry,” lethe said, “i didn’t mean to intrude.”

“no, that’s alright.” he scraped back his chair, standing, striding over to her. his height still felt … odd. she’d never met anyone who made her feel this small before. “i left it open for you.” his voice was lower now, smooth like honey and husky from sleep, and before lethe could take another breath he was kissing her.

it was not … bad. it was fine. it felt nothing like the fireworks she’d felt when aya had first kissed her, but entirely unremarkable. unremarkable was good. she could work with it, clearheaded, able to act to her fullest extent. lethe forced a hitch in her breath, tipped her head up to kiss him harder. you’ll be ours or dead soon.

[some-messed-up-writing-for-you]

Hi! I'm the anon that asked for any requests you are comfortable or not with, first of all, thanks for answer my question! And second, would you be so kind to write about a male villain confessing his feelings to a female hero with some sexual tension in the middle and then if you want that the thing ends up in something nsfw, please?^^

Request #24

Warning: nsfw.

Man, this one came out long, but I'm hella happy with it! Also, having the characters have different genders really made the writing easier, so I'm probably gonna be doing that more often, lmao.

Enjoy, dear anon!

~~~~

"Ugh! Why are you like this?!" - Hero exclaimed, frustrated as she threw another punch in the villain's direction. He dodged it with ease and caught her wrist, swiftly bringing her closer and landing a hit on her face.

Disoriented, the hero couldn't do anything as Villain pinned her against the wall, her arms held above her head. They were both panting, gasping for air from the exhausting fight that had led them to this point. She tugged at her wrists, trying to break free, but his grip was unyielding.

"Why am I like what?" - the villain asked, making Hero's blood boil even more.

"Don't play dumb!" - she growled out, snarling angrily. "You've been doing this shit for weeks now!"

Before Villain could question her more, the hero lunged her head forward and bit him on the face, catching him off guard. His grip loosened, and his nemesis was quick to take advantage of it. She freed her arms, grasped onto him, and threw them both to the ground.

They thrashed around, rolling all over the dusty floor of the abandoned warehouse they were in until eventually, Hero found herself on top of her enemy, straddling his hips, pinning down his wrists on either side of his head.

Now, even more tired, they glared at each other. The woman decided to voice her frustrations further. "Every. Fucking. Day." - she started.

"Every fucking day, you've been doing whatever you can to waste my time and force me out into the field."

The villain grit his teeth. "I'm not doing this to waste your time."

"Oh, yeah? Then why-" - the hero was never able to finish talking as Villain jutted his hips and threw her off balance. He rolled them both over, swapping their places so that he was on top.

"BECAUSE I WANTED TO SEE YOU!" - the villain exclaimed without thinking, too frustrated to think twice before speaking.

She gaped at him, trying to understand his words. "You-? W-What?"

He faltered, regret starting to eat away at him. He should not have said that. He should not have said-

They switched places again. Hero was on top of Villain, and- ah, shit- he hadn't realized just how close she was- how- how intimate this felt...

A blush threatened to take over his face, but he fought against it, successfully keeping it at bay. Or at least, he was successful until the hero decided to hover her face right in front of his own.

Suspicious, she questioned, "What do you mean you 'wanted to see me?'"

"I- I uh..." - what the hell was happening?! Since when did he stutter?! He couldn't come up with a reasonable answer, and he refused to tell the truth. So, he just shut his mouth.

She waited a few more seconds, hoping he would answer. But silence and shifty eyes were all that she got.

"Villain, c'mon! What is up with you recently?" - Hero tried again, but the villain still refused to talk. He wasn't even looking at her anymore.

Annoyed, she held down his wrists with one hand while the other grabbed his chin, tilting his head and catching his attention. Their eyes locked, and she swore his pupils were more dilated than usual.

"You've just been acting so weird lately! And, I- I just-" - she stopped, furrowing her eyebrows as she got lost in thought. Was... Was Villain blushing? This was all so- so unlike him!

His pupils are wide, he doesn't want to look at her, and he said he was doing all of this because he 'wanted to see her?' What did any of this mean?! And what the hell is poking her in the-

Oh

A blush assaulted her face as the dots suddenly connected, her lips forming into a thin line as she looked down at their touching crotches.

She looked back at him. His face was even brighter, a look in his eyes.

Oh

Hero's brain scrambled to break the silence, but her words did not want to cooperate. "I- Do- Do you- Are you-"

"I like you!" - Villain blurted out. He could feel the sweat going down the side of his face as the hero above him became stunned.

"I- I really uh- really like you." - he said again.

Breaking out of her daze, she responded, "Uh... Yeah, I- I can tell."

...

Holy shit, this was awkward.

...

The hold on his chin had loosened at some point, and he looked away again. She broke the silence once more. "How long?"

He almost choked on his spit, looking back to her. "H-Huh?"

"How long have you uh... had feelings for me?"

Oooh, right.

"I- I don't know..." - he admitted. "It just... kind of... happened somewhere along the line...?"

She took a deep breath as if steeling herself for something. Oh, God, what will she say? This is the part where she calls him a weirdo and runs away, isn't it?

"It's... nice to know I'm not the only idiot around here then."

...

"What?"

Clearing her throat, Hero shily muttered, "I- I like you too."

Villain was pretty sure his brain had just short-circuited. Did- Did he hear that right?

"I- You- You like me back?"

She nodded in reply. He was still shocked that this was happening. What were they supposed to do now? Fight? He didn't really want to fight. He had some... other activities on the mind.

Sighing internally, Villain did his best to collect his thoughts. Someone had to move this conversation forward, and it seemed like the hero wouldn't be the one to do it.

"Do you... still want to fight?" - he asked. She looked at him a bit puzzled before her equally fried mind caught up. "I mean- I just... don't really feel like it anymore."

"Uh... Y-Yeah, alright." - she responded, releasing her grip and carefully moving off him so that their crotches wouldn't brush against one another. The villain sat up, and they both remained there on the ground, playing with the dust to keep themselves distracted.

...

It was quiet again. Villain almost groaned, angry with himself. He wanted to say something, but- How was he supposed to say this? It's not like he could just-

"Do you wanna fuck?" - Hero suddenly blurted out, and he sputtered, unable to respond like a functioning human being.

She panicked a bit. "S-Sorry! Uh- Too- Too forward?"

"Y-Yes! I- I mean no! I- I mean-" - he buried his face in his hands. Why was this so difficult?! He was an adult! Both of them were!

Wait- An adult, yes! Just- Think, Villain. How would a sensible adult proceed in this situation?

He uncovered his eyes, taking a look around. They were both on the ground, covered in sweat, dirt, and decades-old dust. They had gotten some good hits on each other, so they had some bruises and cuts.

So, if they were to... have sex - he still couldn't believe this was happening - the most responsible thing to do would probably be... going elsewhere...? But where? To one of their houses, perhaps?

Villain sighed audibly, catching the hero's attention. "Do you... want to come over to my place?"

Her eyes widened, and her face burned brighter at his question. He added frantically, "O-Or we could go to your place! Or- Or no place at all! We could just forget this ever happe-!"

He froze as fingers pressed against his lips, silencing him. He looked at her again. She smiled nervously before saying, "W-We can't forget about this. We could try, but..."

Her eyes traveled up and down his body quickly, studying him, and he couldn't help but shiver under her gaze. "...I'm pretty sure we would both fail miserably."

She pulled her hand back, and he already missed her touch.

"So..." - she started. "...Your place...?"

"S-Sure." - Villain managed to answer. He lifted himself off the ground and offered her his hand, which she took. Upon pulling her up, their bodies lightly collided, Hero's hands landing on his chest to steady herself and one of the villain's hands catching her by the waist. They silently stood there for a moment, blushing as if they had never touched another person, before swiftly separating.

With some awkward coughs and clearing of throats, they were on the move again, working together so they wouldn't get seen.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"This is your house?" - the hero asked, looking around. The tension between them had eased a bit since they left the warehouse. "I won't lie, I always imagined it to be... a lot less normal than this."

Villain snorted at that. "What, were you expecting red string and cork boards?"

She didn't answer, only biting the inside of her cheek and crossing her arms, making him chuckle a bit before getting back on track. He led her through the house, arriving at a bathroom. "I think it'd be best if we got cleaned up a bit since we've been rolling around in dirt and whatnot all day."

"Why, Villain. Are you being responsible?" - Hero asked playfully. He gave her an "Oh- shush." before showing her where everything was. A smile crept onto his face regardless; he had missed their casual banter.

"Now, I have another bathroom upstairs connected to my bedroom, so once you're done, you can uh... you can join me... I guess..."

"Smooth." - she replied teasingly, getting a blush from him. "I got one more question, though."

"Yes?"

She grinned, looking forward to his reaction. "What am I supposed to wear?"

Villain seemed to freeze for a moment before it registered in his brain that Hero did not, in fact, have any spare clothing to put on. His blush worsened tenfold, and she laughed.

Through her giggles, she asked, "Do you want me to just come upstairs nake-?"

"Bathrobe! Yup! There's uh- There's one right there!" - he blurted out, not letting her finish. She looked to where he was pointing, and there was indeed a bathrobe hanging there, next to some towels.

She gave another small chuckle. "Alright."

Turning back to him, she lightly bit her lip and gave him a look, tracing a finger along his jawline. "But you better wear one too~."

Hero didn't realize a person could blush this badly. For the poor villain's sake, she kept her giggles in this time, letting him respond. "Y-You got it!"

With that, Villain left. He walked out calmly, but a few seconds later, she still heard him sprint down the hall and couldn't keep her laughter to herself.

As he moved up the stairs - way too quickly for it to be normal - he silently cursed himself. Why was he acting like such an idiot?! He had sex before! This was nothing new!

No, no, it's not that this was new or something. It wasn't his fault! It was Hero's!

Hero with her stupid smile that made his knees weak, and her dumb laughter that made his heart flutter, and- and...

...

Has Villain ever felt like this before? Has he ever... fallen for someone like this?

Perhaps before he had become the villain, but... that was a long time ago. He no longer remembered anything from that part of his life. He only remembered the now. He only remembered his fights with Hero.

As he arrived at his bedroom's bathroom, he smiled. The woman really had taken over his mind, hadn't she? She was incredible, no other like her. And amazingly enough, she returned his feelings too.

The villain stripped free of his ruined clothing and hopped into the shower. Rubbing soap onto his dirtied skin, he pondered on that thought. Did she truly feel the same way? What if this was... just some elaborate trick...?

He faltered for a moment, having not considered such an option. What if the hero wanted to catch him off guard...? While he was vulnerable...?

He shook his head. No, that couldn't be the case. He knew her. He knew how her real laughter sounded. He knew how she looked when she was acting, pretending to be happy. And this... this was no act.

Hero loved him back.

Villain knew that. His mind just enjoyed tormenting him sometimes.

As he scrubbed at his scalp and hair, he returned to the present. Hero was here, in his house, and they were basically about to have sex together. His face flushed red again as another thought crossed his mind. Who...

Who would be on top...?

...

Honestly, the villain was fine with being either but... he'd be lying if he said Hero didn't look hot as hell on top of him.

Dear Lord, he was getting turned on just thinking about how she had pinned him down earlier.

...

He really needed to get out of the shower already. Getting back on track, he fully rinsed himself and turned the water off. Hurriedly, he grabbed a towel and dried himself off. Once done with that, he wrapped himself in a bathrobe identical to the one downstairs. It was soft and warm. It helped calm him.

Taking a deep breath, he gripped the door's handle and opened it. Upon doing so, Villain was met with the sight of Hero casually lying on his bed, loosely wrapped in her bathrobe. He could see her cleavage and- shit, he was staring-

Looking away and clearing his throat, he closed the bathroom door.

"Took your sweet time in there, huh?" - she asked with that playful expression back on her face once more. The villain went to respond, but she smirked and continued. "Didn't start the fun without me, did you~?"

"N-No." - he said, and she chuckled at his nervousness. Why was he like this? This was his house and his bed that Hero was lying on! She was just being so confident and... and taking charge and...

She grinned wider, amused as she looked at his crotch. He also looked.

...

Shit.

Well, if that didn't make it obvious he was enjoying this...

...

He looked back up at Hero, and she wiggled her finger at him, beckoning him to come and join her. He silently obliged, crawling onto the bed and sitting in front of her. She was leaning against the headboard, soft pillows arranged so that they would support her back.

The hero scooted forward a bit. Feeling daring, Villain copied her and gasped as he suddenly found himself under her. She had grabbed him and switched their places before he could react, pressing him against the headboard and straddling him.

He stammered, trying to come up with something to say, but grew silent as Hero cradled his cheek. Her thumb rested on his lips as she leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "I hope you weren't planning on being the top~?"

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he answered, breathless, "No... I wouldn't have this any other way..."

She grinned at him, eyes half-lidded as she tangled her hands in his hair. He sighed, relaxing under her touch as she brought their lips together in a soft kiss. Villain's arms wrapped around her waist, bringing her closer.

A moan hummed in his throat as Hero's hands trailed down his chest and landed on his bathrobe's belt. Slowly, teasingly, she untied it, the fabric loosening around him, letting her slip it off him, exposing his body to her.

Shivers coursed through the villain as her hands glided along his bare skin. He wanted to feel her too. His hands traced her curves, sneaking towards her belt. As his fingers brushed against it, she caught his wrists, scolding him lightly. "Ah, ah. Not allowed~."

He opened his mouth to protest, but only a gasp left him as one of her hands went to his cock. The hero's fingers brushed against it, her touch feather-light, experienced. Villain grasped at the bedsheet below them, breath coming out uneven as she slowly stroked him.

Even as she drew pleasured mewls from him, she took a moment to admire his shaft. It was a decent length, not the biggest one out there, but certainly above the average. It was just right for her, and she complimented so, whispering in his ear again, "You're the perfect size~. And it looks so nice too~."

He shuddered at her words, and she moved her face in front of him once more. Their mouths locked again, her free hand grabbing the back of his head, pulling him in. She seized his bottom lip in her teeth, nibbling on it gently. Her tongue asked for entrance, and he let her in, deepening the kiss. She explored the inside of his mouth, memorizing every nook and cranny.

Villain sucked in a sharp breath as Hero's hand stopped, and her thumb began running small circles on the tip of his dick, smearing pre-cum across it. As their lips parted again, they gasped for air. Another smile graced her features as he begged. "F-Fuck! Hero, please, can I touch you? Please."

The woman hummed, considering his plea. She adored the needy look on his face, the way his fingers twitched around the clutched bed sheets, desperate for contact. The hero gave a small chuckle. "Well, since you asked so nicely~."

With the permission given, the villain's hands immediately moved to strip her free of her robe. She laughed some more at his haste before kissing him again. Low moans left them both as they touched and teased each other. His hands trailed down her spine, making her arch into him and raising more pleasured sounds from her.

Showing her approval, Hero stroked Villain a few times, her movements swift and firm, drawing another shudder from him. They separated for air again, her hands moving up to cradle his face as she suggested, "How about we get to the fun part now~?"

His hands trailed to her hips, his mouth opened to reply, but he suddenly pulled back, looking as if he just remembered something. "Oh, hold on."

The hero watched curiously as he leaned to the side of the bed towards a nightstand. The villain opened one of the drawers and pulled something out of it. She gave an amused snort once the two objects entered her vision.

"What?" - he asked as she giggled again, looking between her, the bottle of lube and condom in his hands.

"I don't get to see you being a responsible adult very often. It's cute." - she admitted, making him blush once more without fail.

He grumbled under his breath, but the smile on his face told her there was no bite behind it. She took the small bottle from him and moved back a bit. Villain paid her no mind, focused on getting the condom out of its package and slipping it on. Once he successfully finished his task, he looked up again.

His dick twitched at the sight that greeted him. Hero was sitting on the other end of the bed, her legs spread wide as she poured some lube onto her throbbing sex. She gasped lightly as the cold substance made contact and then used her hand to tease at her folds.

The villain watched as she slipped a finger inside herself, slowly moving in and out. His own hand went to his cock, stroking himself as he grew entranced by the show. He matched her pace, and she groaned quietly as she slipped a second finger in, stretching herself in preparation.

Their eyes locked, and they stayed that way for a little bit, pleasuring themselves and listening to one another's soft gasps and moans. Eventually, Hero's impatience got the best of her. She pulled her fingers out and crawled over to Villain.

Grabbing onto his shoulders, she positioned herself at his dick, and he held her by the waist, giving her some additional support. They inhaled shakily in unison as she took in the tip of his cock. She moved down slowly, letting herself adjust to his size, and he made no complaints, haphazardly leaving small pecks on her face, which got another giggle out of her.

Once he was fully sheathed inside of her, he ran his hands down her thighs, making her shiver and pull him into another kiss. Her touch trailed over his sides to his hips and then back up to cradle his head. His own hands moved up her body, one grasping her breast, squeezing and kneading while the other moved to get tangled in her hair.

Experimentally, the hero moved her hips forward, making them both moan against one another, the sound muffled by their connected lips. Leisurely, she began moving up and down, setting a calm pace, the slight pain of being stretched around him fading into pleasure. Their mouths parted again, and quickly, they got lost in their lust and each other's eyes.

She sped up, their skin beginning to slap together, sounding across the room but still drowning in their moans and mewls. As their pleasure began to build up inside their guts, their hands traveled without a set destination, wanting to feel as much as they could.

A gasp left Hero's lips as Villain's shaft hit the right spot, and she angled herself, focusing on it and moving even faster, her breasts bouncing in rhythm with her rapid pace. Thrust after thrust, their breathing swiftly turned shaky, chaotic. Their minds grew frantic as their orgasms approached them.

The hero's head tilted back, and she tightly held onto the villain's shoulders as release washed over her. His name left her lips in a low moan that echoed in his head, and it didn't take long for him to come as well, Hero's name leaving him in an identical manner.

Coming down from their highs, they slowed down, enjoying the pleasure for a bit longer with some calm thrusts and movements. They locked in a soft, short kiss before eventually parting and coming to a stop. Together they gasped for air and took a moment to rest as sweat dripped down their bodies.

Once she had regained some energy, Hero slid off Villain, making them both shudder at the feeling. She collapsed on the bed beside him, and soon, he copied her, lying down next to her. The two remained like that for a few minutes, calming their racing hearts and basking in the afterglow.

A small chuckle caught the villain's attention, and he turned his head towards the hero. She gave him a lazy smile before explaining her giddiness. "Looks like we'll need another shower."

He gave her a chuckle of his own before an idea crossed his mind. "Well, I do have a jacuzzi tub..."

With a grin that Hero considered too charming for Villain's own good, he offered, "Wanna take a bath together~?"

She giggled fondly. "Sure."

And then, together, off they went to get cleaned up again.

[yemilnisu]

INCORRECT HAIKYUU QUOTES FROM BUZZFEED UNSOLVED

nisu entries:

i got this idea from @memekingofwwiii and some of it are theirs 🙇🏻‍♀️ thank you for letting me add it here 😊 it’s a mixture from buzzfeed unsolved supernatural and true crime 👀 i really had fun doing this!

warning: swearing, mentions of death/murder/killing/blood/weed

「part 2」

Tendou: i did have a neighbor who had an overhang of a lime tree, and it was great because i could go pick a little lime.

Ushijima: did you ever think about killing your neighbor?

Tendou: when he didn't give me limes, yeah.

Ushijima: oh, okay; all right.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Matsukawa: this is my bridge now, if you want it back you’re gonna have to kill me.

Oikawa: he did throw someone off the bridge once.

Matsukawa: fuck you, goatman!

Oikawa: Jesus Christ.

Kunimi: *behind the camera snickering as mattsun taunts the goatman much to oikawa’s dismay*

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Matsukawa: hey demons, it’s me, ya boi.

Matsukawa: if you want to eat my heart, turn that light on. If you want to eat oikawa’s heart, turn that light on...

Oikawa: don’t drag me into your shit, mattsun.

*torch turns on*

Oikawa: *screams*

Matsukawa: *laughs hysterically as he continues to lie on the pentagram*

Kunimi: *actual wheezing*

Matsukawa: i think this demon’s a wimp.

Oikawa: he’s out of his fucking mind.

Kunimi: *having the time of his life*

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Oikawa: every human's capable of murder if you push them enough. i just don't know if this is enough of a push.

Iwaizumi: okay.

Oikawa: it's true!

Iwaizumi: is that so?

Oikawa: yeah.

Oikawa: i bet you you would murder me if I pushed you enough.

Iwaizumi: yeah, probably.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Tsukishima: …

Tsukishima: so, you're telling me, at nine years old, you don’t go to church. the first time you cross the threshold into holy ground,

Nishinoya: *makes noise and imitates blood coming out of his nose*

Tsukishima: blood expels from your nostrils?

Nishinoya: yeah, yeah. they ran outta tissues! mopping that up.

Tsukishima: …

Nishinoya: it was wild!

Tsukishima: it sounds wild.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Kuroo: i think it was the neighbor. look, i’m a simple man. i see a trail of blood going to someone's house. even if they didn't do it, come on; you're going to jail.

Kenma: i think it might've been a random person.

Kuroo: all right.

Kenma: it just seems too obvious.

Kuroo: okay.

Kenma: there's a paper trail of their feud. why the hell would he be that dumb?

Kuroo: rage, you know? lust, rage. rage just- just building up, bursting out.

Kenma: well, i've never really gotten that angry. i don't really have that capacity.

Kuroo: it's building. it's building inside you. everyone sees it; we all see it.

Kenma: that's great. oh man, i can't wait for krakatoa then.

Kuroo: *shuddering* oh- oh- i shudder.

Kenma: hope no one's in the way 😺

Kuroo: …

Kuroo: scary.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Daichi: he allegedly chased his mother with an axe when he was 19.

Asahi: not great.

Daichi: (wheeze) no? not off- off to a bad start?

Asahi: no good. i’ve never done that. you didn’t do that did you?

Daichi: no! i didn't- what- is there anything to suggest that I would chase my mom with an axe?

Asahi: (inhales) not outright i feel like if you peel the layers back.

Daichi: you think if you peel the layers back from this onion, you'll see something you don’t want to see?

Asahi: yeah. i think you wear a mask sometimes 😅

Daichi: mm-hmm i think you should keep digging and maybe see what happens 🙂

Asahi: uh no i'm good 🧍🏻‍♂️

Daichi: *staring at asahi*

Asahi: 👁👄👁💧

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Osamu: my takeaway is people from chicago are weird.

Atsumu: the- this does not represent chicago. this is people and go "ey! chicago tylenol murders"

Osamu: (laugh) home with the beam, the cubs and the chicago tylenol murders and of course our nation's greatest tragedy, miya atsumu.

Atsumu: that- that's not me.

Osamu: i read it somewhere 🤷🏻

Atsumu: no, you didn’t, you probably wrote it.

Osamu: yeah.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Suna: i’d love to be an heiress.

Kita: (snickers)

Suna: i know she’s probably gonna disappear or something.

Kita: so you wanna be a trust fund baby?

Suna: i’d like someone to give me a lot of money for doing nothing. but i want-

Kita: and then you wanna disappear?

Suna: yes. i want to get a lot of money and then vanish from the face of the earth.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Ennoshita: her family believed that when she left at 11:30 am, she had as much as $30 in her purse, which in today’s dollars would be more than $750.

Nishinoya: holy moly!

Tanaka: that’s a lot of quiche—

Nishinoya: yeah.

Tanaka: that’s a lot of quiche.

Nishinoya: thirty bucks going that far in 1910.

Tanaka: i don’t even have $750 in my bank account.

Nishinoya: i’ve never had $750 in my pocket! i rarely have had $30 in my pocket.

Ennoshita: well i don’t really carry cash anymore-

Nishinoya & Tanaka: who does!?

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Yaku: stop number one, mothman statue.

Lev: it looks very ornate.

Yaku: *shocked that lev knows that word*

Yaku: you’ll be able to stare at it eye to eye.

Lev: what’s that supposed to mean?

Yaku: it means you’re eight feet tall, it’s a tall joke. get it?

Lev: 🧍🏼

Yaku: 🤦🏼‍♂️

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Akaashi: any... any thought in that so far?

Bokuto: (fart sound) nope. what year is it, ‘66?

Akaashi: ‘66.

Bokuto: few teens out there probably smoking a few funny cigarettes.

Akaashi: you could say weed. it’s 2018.

Bokuto: ...some grass.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Kageyama: so my guess is the couples were somewhere around here, maybe on that road over there.

Hinata: yeah.

Kageyama: and i'm not sure of the exact location but this is where they saw him stumbling around.

Hinata: they just… saw him kinda shambling?

Kageyama: yeah.

Hinata: big shambling man. kinda *shuffling his body*

Kageyama: i- i don’t know, maybe he was just taking a walk, i mean, what's it to you?

Hinata: why would you take a walk if you had wings?

Kageyama: he's a fucking creature, he can do what he wants.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Kuroo: but all im saying is that what you need to gather from this is that he has an effect on people's psyche.

Lev: this mothman's a complicated character.

Kuroo: what does he sound like? what does he sound like?

Lev: he sound like the blood bird.

Kuroo: …

Lev: flappy spookster.

Kuroo: …

Kuroo: that's- come on.

Kuroo: *glances over to lev's notes*

Lev: the winged wretch. did i already say that?

Kuroo: this just says fright terror.

Kuroo: *throws away the notes*

Lev: you know, just call him batman, why is that hard? 😩

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

(howling)

Goshiki: what the fuck.

Shirabu: well those are coyotes… or dogs. Or a large pack of something.

Goshiki: holy shit.

Shirabu: just some coyotes.

Goshiki: are you not fucking alarmed right now?

Shirabu: are you scared? (laugh)

Goshiki: dude wait- this goes beyond belief, that was a pack of, whatever the fuck that was.

Shirabu: it was coyotes!

Goshiki: is that our cue to leave? i think maybe. we've been out here for quite a bit.

Shirabu: yeah, i don’t know if were gonna find anything tonight.

Goshiki: i don’t wanna be in the mouth of some coyote later, that's not how i want the picture wrap on old tsutomu to be.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Atsumu: air force one? they filmed air force one here?

Atsumu: air force one actually, now that i think of it, remember the reason they hijacked the plane is to release for the-

Sakusa: i’m gonna go ahead and cut you off right there 'cause i don’t give a shit.

Sakusa: we’re gonna move over here.

Atsumu: …okay.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Kai: four people in a cell, that's a lot

Kuroo: i mean, you put any normal people in a room that's too small. like if you’re in a dorm in college, if you hate your roommate…

Kai: it's tough business

Kuroo: listening to music too loud when i'm trying to study

Kai: hwfrrrrr…

Kuroo: cookin' uhh… top ramen in the microwave when i'm trying to sleep

Kai: you got some axes to grind?

Kuroo: no.

Kai: oh

Kuroo: fuck you, daishou.

Kai: daishou?

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

(distant thud)

Yamamoto: what the fuck?

Kenma: :3

Yamamoto: is all i have to say to that.

Kenma: they didn’t like the thumb talk.

Yamamoto: you didn't like the thumb talk? was it too much thumb talk? i thought we went about two minutes long on the-

(distant thud)

Kenma: they don’t like the thumb talk.

Yamamoto: *looking around in shock*

Kenma: *stopping himself from laughing*

Yamamoto: uhhhh… holy fuck. holy fuck, holy fuck. if you’re one of the people that had that thumb thing to happen to you, that sucks. what was it like?

Kenma: what do you think you're gonna get right now? 😑

Yamamoto: i feel like we should go see what that is, to be honest.

Kenma: *shakes his head*

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Tsukishima: we’re walking over to the source of the disturbance.

Hinata: hello? (sigh) i’m gonna lose my mind. so, it did that twice within the span of 10 seconds but nothing else?

Tsukishima: but, we can confirm that it did sound like this right? *slams the cabinet door*

Hinata: yeah.

Tsukishima: that was the sound.

Hinata: do you think the wind’s gonna do that twice?

Tsukishima: *blows on the cabinet door*

Tsukishima: not moving 🙄

Hinata: well, shit.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Sugawara: oh there it is. it’s that. *pointing to where the sound was coming from*

Asahi: what?

Sugawara: there’s a logical explanation for you.

Asahi: ah! okay, there it is. well, there you go, there you go.

Sugawara: but, if we hadn’t seen that...

Asahi: if we hadn’t seen that we would be fooled 😅

Sugawara: no, we wouldn’t have been fooled. you would have been telling me for months.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

*inside the prisoners of ohio state penitentiary*

Kageyama: this is fucking terrible.

Tsukishima: it’s the opportunity of a lifetime to be here.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Tendou: i’m separating from the group.

Semi: it’s the ideal time to kill him.

Tendou: yeah i mean, if i were gonna die in camera it would be a pretty noble thing.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Osamu: I don’t understand what’s wrong with atsumu sometimes.

Atsumu: what was that?

Osamu: i didn’t say anything.

Atsumu: you sure you didn’t say anything, ‘samu?

Osamu: now go back and set ‘em off to make sure they work.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Sakusa: *inhales*

Atsumu: *inhales*

Sakusa: you need to back up from me. i can feel your air intake. it’s like a gross nasal jet, i don’t know.

Atsumu: *takes a step towards sakusa*

Sakusa: uh no *takes a step backwards*

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Futakuchi: latch yourself onto my soul, come back to hollywood with me, and destroy the lives of all my friends and coworkers.

Koganegawa: a little hard to follow, but i like where you’re going.

Futakuchi: kogane’s family has a little-

Koganegawa: ey! ey! do-! do-! don’t!

Futakuchi: -dog named mickey.

Koganegawa:*trying to stop futakuchi*

Futakuchi: real good. you wanted me to give it my all. i’m throwing stuff on the table.

Koganegawa: insults, not personal information. you’re giving him a dossier on my life!

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[1engele]

daybreak | sal fisher x fem!reader - 7. roof

Previous | Next

[warnings: violence mention, smoking, suicide mention]

"i love this feeling. this feeling of calm." — When you and Sal left the unoccupied classroom, the halls were already bustling again. It was easy to remain unseen, as the both of you gently shut the door behind you and slipped into the crowd.

You'd both missed the entirety of your first class.

The school's faculty was unreliable, though—maybe you'd get away with it.

You knew you looked like a hot mess, so you kept your head down as you walked alongside Sal through the halls. He was silent for the time being—but you knew he was there because he walked closely to you.

"Your lipgloss," you hear him say. You look away from the floor to meet his eyes, gazing up at him curiously. "It's messed up."

You nervously laugh. "I'm sure it is—that's what I get for wearing a colored one. I'm sure you're wearing some too, now."

He chuckles, silent for a moment. You bet he's licking his lips. "Yeah. Tastes nice."

Your face feels tingly all over. You raise your fingers to touch your lips, skim over the skin just around them—and sure enough, the sticky residue is all over. You'd kissed most of it off, but a good amount of it had just smeared.

"I'm gonna go freshen up," you say, gesturing toward the girls' bathroom. "I was just laying on a floor a few moments ago."

Sal follows your line of sight. "Okay. I'm gonna head toward my next class. Text me if anything happens."

You smile and wiggle your fingers in farewell as he turns and walks into the dense crowd of students. You breathe out a shaky sigh as a feeling of complete and utter disbelief washes over your body.

When you entered the bathroom, you avoided locking eyes with anyone else inside of it—instead, you made a beeline for a roll of paper towels, ripping off a sheet and crumbling it up in your palm. You moved toward the sink, turned it on, and passed it beneath the steady stream of cold water running from the faucet. You then raised it to your lips and wiped the stickiness off.

Once you'd done that, dried your lips, and thrown the paper towels away, you allowed yourself a moment to stare into the mirror.

It was kind of hard to look at yourself. Every time you made eye contact with your reflection, all you saw was the sight of a head with blue hair between your legs—and pale hands clad with silver rings holding your thighs open.

Your body began to feel fuzzy, so you whisked the thought away, fixed your hair, and continued to your next class.

When it was time to gather in the cafeteria, you ran into Ashley on your way toward it.

"Hey!" She called, approaching you from one side of the hallway. She tucked a wispy strand of hair behind her ear, blinking down at you with lash-fringed green eyes. "Let's walk together."

You had no problem with that. "Sure."

You absentmindedly watched her pull her sleeves down to make sweater paws as the two of you walked side by side.

Your lips felt dry. You wished you knew where your lipgloss had gone. It had been in your jacket pocket earlier—but had fallen out or gotten lost inside of it. You had no clue, but chalked it up as a mysterious disappearance and accepted the loss.

The both of you found Todd first, then Larry and Sal who were together.

A nervous feeling swirled in your gut. You knew Sal wouldn't, you trust him—but something inside of you feared that he'd told Larry what had happened. Which made no sense, on your part. Sal definitely wasn't the type to get up and tell someone directly after having a sexual encounter.

Your anxiety worsened for a different reason when you'd realized that Sal and Larry weren't interacting like you were used to. Larry's body language was stiff—and his features were drawn into a frustrated expression.

The whites of his eyes weren't red anymore, though, so you guessed his high wore off.

Sal didn't seem to be in the same bitter mood the other boy was, but you'd grown accustomed to reading his body language in a lot of different situations—and he didn't seem as chilled out as he normally would be.

Sal was a laidback person. Seeing him so tense was strange.

On the way into the cafeteria, you and Sal were momentarily separated from the rest of the gang after a group of students cut the two of you from the other three. Even though you had this moment of alone time, you didn't ask Sal about his and Larry's behavior. It wasn't your business.

You felt ringed fingers wrap around yours. Your heart jumps, and you seriously think Sal is going to walk you into this cafeteria by the hand—but instead, he raises your arm and places something in your palm.

You look down. It's that pink tube of cherry-flavored lipgloss.

You laugh and meet his eyes. "Where did you find it?"

"I- uh, went back into that classroom," he replies. "I left a ring in there."

The crowd is thinning out, and you watch your friends settle at a table. You redirect your attention back to Sal, inclining your head toward him. "Why did you take them off, anyway?"

He speaks to you closely, leaning toward the side of your face so he can speak lower. His hand ghosts your waist.

You've quickly begun to understand that a huge part of your.. involvement.. with Sal involved a good amount of touching. You weren't uncomfortable with touching him, and that gave him the confidence to not be scared of doing the same to you.

"I thought I'd be using my fingers," he answers, the tone in which he speaks a bit nervous, as you place the lipgloss tube in your jacket pocket. "But I got carried away, I guess."

Your heart pounds against your ribs, anxiousness rushing through your blood more so than your blood did. You want to reply, continue this conversation—but you know this interaction has been going on for too long and you can practically feel someone's eyes burning holes through your back.

You hadn't realized how close you were to him until you'd stepped back. "Come on, we should sit before-"

Before you can even finish, someone's rested their hand on your shoulder. You jerk, instinctively whirling towards the person and bumping back into Sal. You steady yourself quickly and look up to lock eyes with Travis.

"Holy shit," you breathe, genuinely startled. "What the hell?"

Sal hasn't said anything, yet. But you know he isn't very shy. He isn't really afraid of Travis.

"You're in my way," Travis sneers, not looking at you, but at Sal. "Move."

You look around you before meeting his dark eyes and giving him a deadpan expression. You weren't blocking anyone's way, as countless students were continuing to file around the both of you and head towards their tables. "There's more than enough room for you to walk around us." You reply even when he isn't speaking to you.

Travis's gaze locks with yours, pupils dilated. He looks back to Sal. "Your friend here really loves to involve herself in our business, doesn't she, Fisher?"

Your jaw clenches.

"You involved her whenever you touched her," Sal says lowly. His voice grows deeper as he speaks slower. "If you have something to say to me, talk to me."

Travis's face slowly grows red with rage. He jerks, his cross necklace glistens in the corner of your eye, and suddenly his fingers are gripping your arm. You barely have time to process before you're pulled just a bit and your blood goes cold.

It's not like he's yanked you hard enough to hit the ground—but you stumble, just a bit, and now you're closer to him. His initial grip didn't affect you, but the moment he'd tightened his fingers to pull, it hurt.

You hear the sound of someone abruptly standing off of their seat. You know it's Larry, you saw the mood he was in—and you pray something happens before he can make his way over here and beat Travis to a bloody pulp.

All because of you, everyone would be in trouble.

What happens is not what you expect.

Sal reaches forward, wraps his long fingers around Travis's skinny wrist, and hastily rips the other boy's hand off and away from you. Your mind goes blank and the feeling of your raging heartbeat dissipates when he laces his cool fingers through yours and tightens his grip around you.

He flicks his eyes over Travis' paling face, meets his wide eyes, and leads you off.

It doesn't take very long to reach the table. Just before you've parted through another small crowd of teens, Sal lets go of your hand. You have nothing to complain about—you knew it wouldn't last long.

You assume the number of people bustling through the cafeteria would have obstructed your friends' view a bit, so you doubt they saw the handholding. You knew that they'd seen the altercation, though—because you'd heard Larry jump from his chair.

As soon as you've finished easing into your seat, someone's speaking.

"So?" Larry starts, impatiently flexing his fingers atop the table. He looks you straight in the eyes and continues, "What'd Travis say? Why did he grab you? Do I need to-"

"He was just being Travis, Larry,"  Sal cut in, tone short. You witnessed each and every person at the table's eyes widen. Your heart jumps a bit, too—you've never heard him sound like that. "He'll probably try to find me after school later and beat the shit out of me. I'd let him, at this point."

"He's never done that before, though," Ashley points out warily. "This time won't be any different than any other time, right?"

"Not unless something else happened," Todd speaks up about the matter for the first time, swallowing a bite of his sandwich.

"But it was different," Sal breaks in again. "I touched him."

Larry's dark eyebrows jump. "Did you hit him?"

"No." You assert for Sal, nervously glancing his way. "Nothing like that."

Everyone at the table seemed like they wanted more information—shifting in their seats anxiously (save for Todd) and casting inquisitively wary glances toward Sal—but you guessed no one wanted to make Sal any more uncomfortable than he already seemed to be.

Eventually, Larry dissolved the intensity with a joke and eventually a conversation started back up. You put your input in occasionally, wanting to make an effort and be present.

That was a bit hard, though—considering Sal's current timidity. He hadn't spoken for the rest of lunch and barely acknowledged anyone on the way out of the cafeteria.

When your classes had finished for the day, it was time to attend detention.

That was uneventful as well. Sal was placed on the opposite side of the classroom, so even with the teacher who was nodding off and pounding rain concealing any noise you would have produced, you couldn't have genuinely spoken with him.

On the way home from school, the sound of squeaking wet grass and squelching mud beneath your feet grew very unbearable and you quickly broke the silence.

"I'm sorry, Sal, but-"

"You should just stay away from me."

Your heart jumps. It seems to leap from a cliff because it seems to settle in the pit of your stomach. "What?" Your eyes fly towards his prosthetic face, wishing you could search it for anything—but you can't. "Sal, what do you mean?"

"This'll just keep happening. I shouldn't have involved myself with someone like you in the first place."

"Someone like me?" You echo, feeling a bit faint. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Someone who deserves better than the likes of me," he says lowly. "You don't deserve to be grabbed and made fun of just for associating with someone, Y/N. I don't want that for you."

"I don't give a shit, Sal," you bite, tugging at your backpack straps roughly. "I think I can choose who I hang out with."

Sal's quiet after that. It's torture, listening to the breeze rustle the tree leaves and whistle past your ears for 5 whole minutes. Something that calmed you so greatly now made you feel like punching something. You just wish he'd speak.

He does after that thought. "I just want something good for you. I don't want someone else to be dragged into the mess that's my life. Within a few days, Larry's already gotten you fucking high as a kite, you've had to deal with Travis more than once.."

You wrinkle your nose. "I'm not an angel, Sal. I hadn't gotten high before I met you because I didn't have friends—I wasn't tainted because of you or Larry. And as for Travis, he's just a dick. We've all had to deal with someone like that in our lives."

You're both now stood on the pale concrete of the sidewalk. You watch Sal's blue hair blow a bit, the sky blue shade of the strands blending prettily against the multicolored sunset behind him.

"You don't know me," he tries.

"You don't know me," you reply.

The mask shifts and he looks down at his shoes. You follow his gaze, tracing the color of his cornflower blue sneakers.

"I think we shouldn't do this anymore," Sal mumbles quickly, and you wouldn't have picked it up if you hadn't been straining to hear him so much.

You swallow thickly. "Do what?"

He does the same, Adam's apple moving against his throat. "Whatever.. this is."

Your eyebrows pull down. "For 'my sake' or because you don't want to bother with me anymore?"

Sal doesn't reply, flexing his fingers and standing there helplessly. He avoids your eyes and chooses not to reply.

"You're not supposed to choose what's right for me," you chide. "You can't-"

His head jerks up, and he seems to snap. "I don't want this anymore. There, is that good enough?"

Your heartbeat stutters, and you feel the blood draining from your face. Initial confusion and shock are quickly replaced by vexation and frustration. You turn around and hastily walk away, away from Sal and leaving him behind you.

You walk, and walk, and walk. You continue even when the sun disappears behind the line of Nockfell's horizon and when the stars show themselves in the sky. The night is even colder than the day and continues to grow even more frigid as your legs carry you away.

Eventually, your feet are too numb to continue, and you settle on the sidewalk. You shiver, the night's breeze gusting into your face. You pull the denim jacket you wore closer to your chest.

You try not to think about it too hard, but the thoughts are intrusive. You've never felt stupider than you did at this moment.

He didn't want to deal with you anymore. You should have never involved yourself in Travis and Sal's business. You'd just made it all worse for him. He didn't want to have to protect you—who would?

It was over. Whatever it was—it was gone.

Eventually, you find yourself laying on your side. The concrete is cool against your cheek, and the wind is even cooler.

The cars stop coming. You don't know what time it is, and you don't want to check.

You stare out at the sideways road for a while, and eventually the numbing cold lulls you into a dreamless sleep.

You're not even fully awake when a blinding light is shining into your closed eyelids. You groan, pressing the palm heels of your hands into your eyes before blinking them open. In front of you, a vehicle has pulled to the side of the road, just up against the curb. The headlights are way too bright to tell the make or model, or even the color.

"Holy shit, that's Y/N!"

You pull your body into an upright position, wincing as your stiff joints protest your movements. You're barely on your feet before someone's firm hands are on your shoulders. You blink, your eyes trailing from a male's chest to his face.

It's Larry. And stood not far behind him are both Todd and Ashley.

Well, that's certainly a sight to see. Despite your disorientation and overall confusion, you still find it within yourself to feel embarrassed.

"Are you alright?" Todd asks, adjusting his glasses and stepping to Larry's right. "We were driving by and saw someone sleeping on the sidewalk, and turns out it was you."

Suddenly. Ashley is on Larry's left, her pretty features twisted into an expression of terror. "What are you doing out here? It's one in the morning."

You blink fast, absentmindedly raising your hands and placing them atop Larry's which are on your shoulders. He was the only thing steadying you right now. Your body felt weak and sore and your feet were stinging.

"I'm- I'm fine," you breathe. "I sat down and I fell asleep."

Everyone in front of you exchanges concerned glances before returning their attention to you.

"Y/N," Larry speaks first. "I'm sorry for letting you smoke so much. Maybe you're still high-"

"I'm not high," you scratch the back of your head. "That wore off a while ago. I just.. was walking.. for a while."

That was when you finally realized the proximity Larry's hands were to the bruises on your neck. Nonchalantly you slid his fingers off of your shoulders and pushed your hair to shadow the bruised flesh.

It was too dark to see much out here. You doubted they saw anything.

After answering the same question a few more times over ("You're sure you're okay?") you all climbed back into Ashley's vehicle, Todd in shotgun and Larry in the seat beside you, and began the drive to Addison Apartments.

Soon after the vehicle began to move the volume of the radio had been turned higher. The tranquil sound of an acoustic guitar soothed your aching skull as you watched the streetlights pass by. You leaned your head against the window, the cold glass pressing against your forehead spreading a chill down your face.

You breathed slowly. Every puff of hot air that escaped your lips blurs the glass before the frigidity of the window itself evaporated the fog. This sequence continues until you've arrived at Addison Apartments.

You hadn't even realized Todd had been dropped off already until you looked at him to say goodbye and he wasn't there.

Ashley bid both you and Larry goodbye and drove away. Silence hung between the both of you until you entered the bittersweet interior of Addison Apartments. But, for once—the atmosphere of the ground floor calmed you. The lights were dimmed, and a shaded lamp was the main light source of the lobby. The walls were cast over with a calming golden hue.

It reminded you of home—a home you'd never known.

"Weren't you with Sal?" That's the first thing Larry says to break the newfound silence. "You had detention together."

You hesitate. "Yeah. We went to detention—didn't see him afterward."

Larry searches your face with deep, cryptic eyes. "I'm seriously sorry about the weed," he states, the tone on his tongue sincere. "That was my bad—and I see that now. Sal told me how high you got, dude."

Your heart tumbles in fear. "What else did he say?"

"Nothing—just how you'd ran into each other and you were high."

"Was that the reason things were so tense between you before lunch?" This genuinely made you curious.

"Yeah," he murmured. "I think that's why he was kinda snappy. He's never really like that when it comes to Travis. Sal's a patient guy—he usually just avoids talking about anything at all after a confrontation with Travis."

You didn't want to talk about him or any of it anymore. You wanted to climb in bed and stare up at your ceiling and listen to the dead air and the static in your ears. "I just-" you swallow. "I... never mind. I'm gonna head up and get to bed."

Larry blinks down at you, his inquisitive eyes searching for something. "Alright. Get some shuteye, dude. Okay?"

"Okay," you murmur, nodding tiredly and retreating toward the elevator. Larry walks back outside—you assume to light a cigarette—and you step into the elevator. As soon as those doors close, the light inside shuts off.

You're too tired to jump in surprise or feel fear. Instead, you wait it out and walk to your apartment once you're free.

Once you've unlocked the door and stepped lightly to your room, you fish your flip phone from the depths of the pocket in your denim jacket and open it up.

Sal :) Missed Call (3)

Sal :) just let me know you got home safe

Sal :) i'm on the roof if something's wrong

That message was sent 11 minutes ago.

Maybe he'd still be there.

But why would you want to go after what he'd said to you? Why would you want to see him so soon?

How would he have even got to the roof, anyway?

Despite yourself, and all of your better judgment, you go towards your window and slide it open from the bottom. Sure enough, the stairs of the fire escape sit just below the sill. You swing a leg over it, then the other, and pull yourself onto the metal steps. They rattle a bit, but they're steady.

You pull the majority window closed (leaving just a bit of space so you can get it back open) and head up the steps of the fire escape.

It doesn't take long to reach the top. Whenever you step on the roof, despite the fact your feet are planted on something firm, you sway dizzily.

Maybe you had a fear of heights.

There he is. He's sat on the edge, legs hanging over. His back is to you, but you can make out the fact that he's holding a cigarette by the way smoke trails from in front of him into the sky.

You walk forward, making slow movements. You then step beside him and lower yourself to where you're sitting on the edge with him.

And as you stared out into the night, felt the breeze grow warm, almost like it had done so for you—all that you felt was inner peace. Your feet swung back and forth, nothing below to catch them but a free fall and the concrete.

You looked out at the sleeping town and the golden streetlights that lit it.

"Do you ever think about it?" Sal murmurs, his voice is a bit clearer than it was normally because of the way his prosthetic was halfway unbuckled. You heard the crackle of a cigarette and then smelt smoke.

"Think about what?"

"Jumping," he replies. "What if we jumped together?"

Your chest tightens painfully. "Sal-"

"Think about it," he says. "No one would know what went through our minds when we jumped—they'd never stop talking about it. Nothing ever happens here. Something like that.. you'd feel important."

"You wouldn't feel anything," your voice shook despite your best efforts. "You'd be gone for everyone. All of the people who love you now would only lose you."

Sal stays silent, taking a drag from the cigarette and inhaling.

"I know how it feels to want to be missed. To want to feel appreciated." Your hand grows closer to his. "I know that's how you feel. The difference between us, though—you're loved, you're probably even missed when you skip a day of school," you smiled softly. "I'm not. I know what being unloved looks like, Sal. You're not that."

You turn your head to meet his gaze. Moonlight shines against the white of his prosthetic face. He blinks those blue eyes slowly, tiredly. Instead of saying anything, he closes the distance between your hands and locks your smallest finger with his.

"I didn't mean what I said," he whispers, smoke falling out of the mask. "It's sick but I told you that because I care."

Your shallow breaths are barely audible to yourself beneath your racing heart.

"I want to take it at a pace with you, Y/N," he continues. "I don't want to fuck it all up. I wish I could just get up and leave you here so you wouldn't have to deal with me but I can't do it."

You hesitated. "Why not?"

"I don't know."

"I don't want this to be over," you breathe. "I know you don't want me to involve myself with you because you're scared of what will happen. But this involves me, too. This is about both of us. Let me decide for myself."

Maybe he was right. Maybe you shouldn't be doing this—involving yourself with the mess that is Sal Fisher. There's too much you don't know about who he is.

But you wanted to try.

"We can take it slow," you assured. "I understand you're scared but there's nothing to be afraid of."

Your hand inches over his, interlacing your fingers, your palm on the back of his hand. You squeeze them in comfort, not searching for any reciprocation, but it's given anyways.

Nothing is said after that. You sit with him until you're drifting into sleep while sitting upright. You know you can't leave him here—so you wait until he's ready to go home.

You can wait.

[drabbles-mc]

Hear You Now

Angel Reyes x Reader

Warnings: angst, language, Angel being a very sad boy

Word Count: 2.6k

A/N: Why do I always make Angel sad?? Why do I always give him commitment issues?? I don’t know. I owe him a happy fic or two. 😂 If you’re curious, this is 110% inspired by the song Hear You Now by Old Dominion.

Angel Taglist: @mayans-sauce @helli4nthus @angelreyesgirl @starrynite7114 @queenbeered @sincerelyasomebody @sadeyesgf @thesandbeneathmytoes @appropriate-writers-name @tomhardydallasstarsgirl @multiyfandomgirl40 @sillygoose6969 @beardburnsupersoldiers​ @louisianalady​ @gemini0410​ @paintballkid711​

You were walking through Merchant Square, hand-in-hand with your fiancé. You laughed as you leaned your head against his shoulder for a moment as the two of you walked through town. It had been a long time since you had been back to Santo Padre, and you wanted him to see your hometown. He had asked on more than one occasion because he wanted to see where you grew up, but you hadn’t been ready to face the ghosts that you knew still haunted those streets. But now you were engaged, and you knew that there was not going to be any more running away from anything.

It was refreshing to walk through town, and your heart wasn’t as heavy as you thought it was going to be. Not too much had changed and you liked how there were so many aspects of the town that would always be frozen in time. You tugged him into a bookstore, and he followed you with a knowing smile—it was nearly impossible to ever get you to pass up the opportunity to find something new to dive into. Almost every wall in your house had a bookshelf built into it or pushed against it. Eventually you told him you were going to buy a whole separate house and make it your library.

You were perusing the aisles, dragging your fingertips along the spines of an endless sea of titles. Your fiancé was a couple rows away looking for a few books of his own. There was a comfort in the mild hustle and bustle of the little book store. The aisles were close together and it all felt so cozy.

You stumbled upon the hardcover edition of a book that you had loved for years, and your eyes lit up. You snatched it off the shelf and went to find your fiancé. You quickly walked up to him and nudged his shoulder, “Look what I found?”

He looked at the novel in your hands and a knowing smile crossed his face, “You definitely have that one already. I know I’ve seen it.”

“Yes, but look,” you shook the book in front of him, “Hard cover! I’ve never seen a hard cover edition anywhere! I need it,” you pleaded.

He laughed, “How am I ever supposed to say no to you?”

You kissed him quickly on the lips, “You’re not, that’s the whole point!” you laughed.

Angel’s ears burned from the opposite side of the store. He would know that laugh anywhere, even from a million miles away. He never thought that he’d hear it again. He turned and tried to look around the store for you, and his heart instantly sped up when he saw you standing in the checkout line with a book clutched tight to your chest.

He started to walk over to you, but as quickly as his heart sped up, it nearly stopped when he saw another man walk up behind you and wrap his arms around you and place a kiss to your temple. He saw the way you melted back into him with a smile, and his stomach turned into a knot. His grip on the book in his hand tightened and he couldn’t force his feet to move in one direction or another. He didn’t know if it was worse to have to take in the scene in front of him, or to have lived with never seeing you again.

After paying for your book, you turned to leave the store, and that was when you saw him standing there. Your heart sank inside your chest—it had been years but that was definitely the Angel Reyes that you had known and had loved. You wanted to walk out of the store and not open up that box of memories, but something impulsive inside of you burst through.

“Angel?” you said, causing your fiancé to look up from the book that he had bought and was skimming through.

It got Angel to finally force his feet to move, “Hey, Y/N,” he cleared his throat as he walked up to you, “It’s been a minute.”

“Yea,” you laughed nervously, “Oh, shit, where are my manners? Angel, this is Jordan, my fiancé. Jordan, this is Angel. We grew up together,” it was the understatement of the century but you weren’t going to air out that laundry in the middle of a book store.

You could see Angel’s heart break at the word fiancé, but Jordan didn’t seem to take any notice of it as he held out his hand, “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” he shook Jordan’s hand and nodded, forcing a small smile, “You’re a lucky guy.”

Jordan laughed as he pulled you against his side, blissfully unaware of the tension that was beginning to build, “You’re telling me. Can’t believe that this one said yes.”

You chuckled and leaned your head against his side, trying to let the familiarity of his touch and scent comfort you in this situation. It half-worked, but your mind was still racing, trying to figure out what Angel was thinking as he stood there and watched you talk about a forever life that didn’t involve him.

“I had no idea you were back in town,” Angel looked at you, eyes soft as he tried to memorize every detail of the woman he hadn’t seen in so long.

“Yea,” you shrugged, “kind of flew in under the radar. I was gonna see if I could find you and your brother while I was here,” it was a lie, but it sounded nice.

Jordan gave you a light squeeze, “Do you want to catch up? Don’t let me stop you—I’m sure I can find something to do for a couple hours or so.”

Your heart dropped into your stomach as you shook your head, “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not just going to ditch you on our trip together,” you smiled up at him.

He pressed a light kiss on your lips, “It’s fine! You guys go grab coffee or something and catch up and I’ll find somewhere we can go to dinner.”

“You sure?” you wanted him to stay with you, but one of the things that you loved about being with him had always been that you were your own separate people just as much as you were a cohesive unit as a couple. It was just this particular situation that made you wish that that wasn’t the case, that made you wish that he was a little more possessive.

“Positive. I love you,” he kissed your forehead, “Give me a call when you’re done,” he reached and shook Angel’s hand again, “It was nice meeting you. Hopefully I’ll see you again before we leave town.”

Angel nodded, “Yea, for sure.”

Jordan walked out the door of the bookstore and there was a long stretch of silence between you and Angel as the two of you stood there. You wanted to step in and hug him, but you knew that you couldn’t. You eyed the novel in his hand, “You buying that?”

He had completely forgotten where he was and why he was there. He shook his head as he set it down on one of the small display tables, “Nah,” he cleared his throat, “So, I guess we’re getting coffee?”

You chuckled, not able to hide the awkwardness that you felt, “I guess we are.”

The two of you walked down the street in silence. You gripped your book, pressing it tight against your chest. There was a small café right down the street from the bookstore, another place that seemed to go untouched by time. Angel held the door open for you and told you to grab a table and he’d grab drinks for the both of you. You set your book down on the table, nervously tapping your fingertips on the cover as you waited for him to come back over.

He sat down across from you, handing you your drink. There were a few beats of silence and you desperately wished for the power to read minds so you could know what Angel was thinking that was making his eyes look so sad.

All Angel could think about was the fact that every day, for years, he thought about you and wondered where you had gone off to. He wondered if you were safe, if you were happy, if you had found someone else. He wondered if he was ever going to have a chance to see you again, to make things up to you, to win you back. He wasn’t expecting to get the answers to all of those questions within the first fifteen seconds of seeing you again. Reality had hit him like a freight train and he was still trying to recover.

“I see you’ve upgraded from Prospect,” you nodded towards the secretario patch on his kutte.

It snapped him out of his spiral for a moment and he managed a smile, “Little bit, yea. EZ’s sporting the Prospect patch these days.”

Your eyes widened, “Seriously?”

He nodded, “Yep. Patch-in vote is coming up in a couple months.”

“Holy shit,” you shook your head with a laugh, “How things change.”

“Yea,” he tried to push the words down but he couldn’t, “I’ve missed you.”

Your heart hurt at the sound of him saying that. The heartbroken girl that you used to be wanted to say something snarky, to rub a little salt in the wound that he had been carrying around with him. But you worked so hard not to be that girl anymore, and the better-healed part of you wanted to comfort him. You couldn’t meet his eyes, “It has been a while,” you traced your fingers around the edge of your cup, “hasn’t it?”

“I’m so sorry, Y/N,” he’d been sitting on those words for years and he couldn’t keep them in anymore, “I’m so fucking sorry.”

You shook your head, “There’s nothing to be sorry about, Angel. We were kids—we were young and dumb.”

“I was young and dumb,” he corrected you, “I should’ve listened to you. Things could’ve been so different.”

You nodded, not having it in you to lie and say that he was wrong. Your mind was taken over by a tirade of memories, of arguments that ended with screaming and slamming doors, with you crying alone at the kitchen table trying to figure out how to force the puzzle pieces to fit. You had begged him for just a little more, just a little bit of commitment, and he could never give it to you. Eventually you had gotten fed up waiting for something that was never going to happen, and you left. It hurt, and you spent a lot of days crying as you packed up and bought a plane ticket, but you never looked back. You changed your number and completely detached yourself from the person that you had been.

“You always said I was gonna fuck around and hurt someone,” he pressed his lips into a thin line for a moment as he shook his head, “Just didn’t think it was gonna be me.”

“Thought it was just gonna be me?” it came out more bitter than you had intended, but there was no taking it back.

It caught him off-guard, “I…yea…I guess,” he stared at the engagement ring on your finger, “He is a lucky guy. Seems nice.”

You nod and a smile passes over your face for a moment, “He’s a good man. I never thought that I’d find someone as ready as I was for the whole settling down thing. I thought men weren’t ready for that until they were in their forties or whatever,” you chuckled, “I guess I just got really lucky.”

“So did he.”

“You seeing anyone these days?” you asked, genuinely curious to the answer.

He shook his head, “Nah, not really,” he laughed despite the aching in his chest, “But I’m guessing that’s not surprising to you.”

You smiled and sipped your coffee, “I dunno, people can change,” you waited for him to look you in the eyes, “You’ll find someone, Angel.”

“I already did,” it came out before he could think better of it. He reached across the table and set his hand on top of yours, “I should’ve been better, Y/N. I should’ve listened.”

“Maybe,” you nodded as you pulled your hand away and let it rest in your lap, “Maybe you should’ve. But it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? Guess you’ll just have to listen a little better to the next girl.”

“If you hadn’t laughed in the middle of that bookstore, I might’ve never known you were here,” his eyes were getting glassy with tears, “But I’ve heard that laugh inside my head so many times for so many years. I thought I was going insane. But then it was really you.”

“Angel, please, don’t do—”

“Please, just let me get this out,” he waited for you and once you nodded for him to continue, he did, “I spent so much time thinking that you wanted me to be a different person, and I was so angry about it. It felt like you didn’t want me to be who I was. It wasn’t…it wasn’t until you left that I realized that all you wanted was more of me. It was never about me changing, not really. It was just about me getting my head outta my ass. I spent so much time fuckin’ around and wanting to be free that I completely missed the fact that that freedom had nothing to do with you leaving. I hate that I never really heard what you were trying to say until after you left.”

You were fighting back tears, “Maybe there was just a little too much noise with me around.”

“You told me that one day I’d be sorry,” he couldn’t peel his eyes away from your ring, “And fuck are you never wrong.”

You laughed humorlessly as you blinked back tears, “I never wanted to be right, Angel. I just wanted to be happy, to be yours. But it just…wasn’t right I guess.”

“What you have now,” he stared down into his coffee cup, “that’s right?”

You slid your fingers along the band of your ring, and nodded, “Yea, it is.”

Those three words felt like a punch to the gut. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever recover from it.

“I don’t think you should keep beating yourself up over what happened, Angel,” you looked at him, “I think we’re different people now.”

“Are we?”

You chuckled, “Maybe not. Maybe that’s all the more reason not to worry about what happened. There’s no way to make it turn out any differently.”

There were a few beats of silence before Angel took a deep breath and managed a smile, “Damn. This is not what your fiancé thought he was signing you on for, huh?”

You laughed, and for a moment you caught a glimpse of the Angel that used to drive you around on the back of his motorcycle in the middle of the night. The same Angel who could get you to laugh when you showed up at his place in tears. You missed that, but you knew that going back wasn’t going to do anyone any good.

“Poor son of a bitch,” you laughed, “One day he’ll learn,” you paused for a moment, “I know it’s hard, Angel, but I am glad I got to see you.”

“Me too,” it sounded a little insincere, but you knew it was the heartbreak making it sound that way.

“Keep taking care of yourself, alright?”

Angel’s heart sank, knowing that this was the start of another goodbye that would last a very long time, “You too.”

You reached and put your hand over his, your finger tracing lightly over his knuckles, “I’ll see you around, Reyes.”

“Yea?”

You smiled, “Well, maybe.”

[carriagelamp]

Weirdly enough, I often find myself reading less in the summer, since I have more time than I do during the rest of the year to do other things. Also artfight has been eating up more than a bit of my free time! But here’s a collection a graphic novels I sat around on the hammock reading, and some novels I finished up...

(Everyone go read All Systems Red, holy crow guys)

A Whale of the Wild

The “sequel” to A Wolf Called Wander, though it doesn’t actually connect to the previous novel except in the stylistic/thematic sense. A Whale of the Wild is very much a standalone novel. And a pretty decent one! Personally, I think I liked Wolf more, but this one was a pleasant, informative read, with just the right amount of crushing dread sprinkled in. It’s about a young orca called Vega who is learning to become a new wayfinder for her pod but who still has a lot to learn, especially in an ocean that is becoming increasingly hostile to orcas and the other sealife that live alongside humans. When a devastating earthquake hits, Vega and her little brother find themselves separated from their family, lost in a now horrifyingly unfamiliar environment, and fighting starvation as the salmon that sustain them become more and more unreliable. It’s a desperate fight for survival as they search for food and their missing family. This book is written for a middle grade level, and does a really good job of putting the current environmental crisis into an animal’s perspective while giving the readers something to hope for.

The Adventure Zone: The Crystal Kingdom

Every July I eagerly anticipate the next Adventure Zone graphic novel. This one is for their fourth arc, The Crystal Kingdom, in which Magnus, Taako, and Merle respond to a SOS from a floating laboratory that is gradually being consumed by crystals and which threatens the entire world should it fall into the ocean. Carey Pietsch’s art continues to be absolutely fantastic, so beautifully and hilariously expressive, and this one delivers some great Merle moments, lots of Carey Fangbattle, and, of course, Kravtiz. Kravitz, my beloved…

Anyway, I obviously always recommend these. If you’ve never gotten into The Adventure Zone, I totally recommend either trying these graphic novels — or even better, just go listen to the podcast because it really is both hilarious and creates a shockingly good and heart-wrenching story by the end.

All Systems Red

I’ve seen The Murderbot Diaries on my dash occasionally, and it always looked interesting, but a friend’s recommendation finally compelled me to read the first novella of the series. And holy shit y’all. Absolutely the best book I’ve read this month, it’s amazing. Mind-blowingly good. Also, if you’re like me and want a good audiobook, it’s a nice three-hour listen, very chill!

Anyway, All Systems Red is about a Security Unit, an artificially created being that’s part-organic part-mechanical and all-company-owned-and-controlled. However, self-named “Murderbot” has managed to hack into the system that suppresses its own will, and is now coasting along, doing the least amount of work its job requires not to be noticed, while preferring to spend all its time watching the hours and hours of soap operas it has downloaded into its brain. And it’s a tolerable if somewhat dull life, until the science team that it's currently rented to is attacked and the whole mission goes pear-shaped. Suddenly Murderbot has to scramble to keep its humans alive… while its humans scramble with the realization that their “SecUnit” isn’t actually a mindless robot like they had all believed...

This story is both gripping and hilariously funny. Murderbot has such a unique voice and perspective and it’s an absolute pleasure to follow its story. I reallly need to read the next book...

Asterix and the Banquet

A classic. I was startled when I realized I hadn’t actually read this Asterix story… but hell I’m not gonna complain, it lets me read one of the originals for the first time again! In this Asterix volume, the Indomitable Gauls and the Romans end up arranging a bet — the Romans intend to keep them under siege, trapped in their village, while Asterix is confident that he can easily evade them… and will prove it by going on a tour around all of Gaul, collecting iconic foods from each region in order to return and put on a fine banquet. So we get a fantastic adventure in which Asterix and Obelix run all over the country, pursued the whole way, while making cheerful stops at the various eateries along the way. Also the first book Dogmatix shows up in! All around, a wonderful read, fun like all the best Asterix comics are.

Beauty Pop v4

A less impressive graphic novel. The first Beauty Pop is one of my guilty pleasure manga because… it really is pretty stupid but in the best possible ways. I mean, the whole thing is framed around hairstyling battles, like a shojo sports manga without the sports. It’s bonkers. Unfortunately, the series does not really manage to hold up, and it really begins to feel repetitive and dragging as it continues… as a lot of series like this do. *shrug* Unsurprising but still kinda disappointing I suppose. The building three-way romantic tension is mildly interesting if for no other reason than the main character Does Not Notice and Does Not Care about any of it, which is amusing and refreshing.

FRNCK v5

Now this series only gets better and better as it goes. This is the first book of the second arc, and somehow the danger just seems to be ramping up and up and up. The cavefamily have lost their home… as well as Léonard and Gargouille. Heartbroken, shocked, and angry, Franck is the one who ends up shouldering the blame for their presumed deaths as the others mourn. Things only get worse when Franck finds himself separated from the family, and in the territory of another tribe, this one hostile and cannibalistic...

Haikyuu v5

I continue to read this series because it continues to be charming… though it is beginning to feel, maybe, just a little repetitive. Kind of an inevitability with sports manga. But so far it continues to be good enough to overcome that. I’m not sure what I can say about this series that I haven’t already, so I’ll simply say it continues to be one of the most impressive sports manga I’ve read, and the author does a fantastic job of creating engaging characters, fleshed out teams, and really compelling relationships. I do genuinely adore all the main members of Crows, along with a number of characters from the rival teams as well. And of course it has some kickass volleyball scenes that are just drawn so dramatically they can’t help but take your breath away a little.

M*A*S*H Goes To Maine

Meh. The original book of the series was actually quite good in my opinion. This one… considerably less so. The first part I enjoyed more, since it was about Hawkeye, Trapper, Duke, and Oliver Jones trying to set up the FinestKind Clinic and Fishmarket in Crabapple Cove (which… is just the best premise I could have ever asked for). However, the book spends most of its time describing the quirky lives and times of other people living in the area and I… just… don’t care. It was funny at times but… I just don’t care. I wanted to hear more about the main cast. Also I found this book felt more racist and misogynistic than the first which also put me off :/ Wouldn’t bother if I were you. Go read the first book instead, or better yet just watch the TV show which is an obvious banger.

My Heart’s in the Highlands

I have had this on my “currently reading” list for so long but I’m officially giving up. It’s a really good book in theory but my god I can’t get over the pacing.

It’s about Lady Jane, a woman studying medicine in Edinburgh in 1888, and who suddenly finds herself back in the Highlands in the 13th century. Lost and confused, Jane is now at the mercy Clan Donald’s hospitality while she tries to adjust to this new world and hunts for her broken time machine. Fortunately, this hospitality include a burgeoning friendship with a red-haired warrior woman, Ainslie nic Dòmhnaill, who opens Jane’s eyes to the way the world could be.

Listen. It drives me nuts. This book should be completely up my alley, it has everything I like — IT HAS ALL OF ITS HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES CITED AT THE BACK, LITTLE EXTRA DETAILS ABOUT EVERY CHAPTER. THAT’S MY SHIT RIGHT THERE. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LIKE BEING ABLE TO GO OVER HISTORICAL DETAILS?? AND WELL RESEARCHED FOOTNOTES?? And yet it doesn’t. Fucking. Work for me. It has a kickass Scottish warrior lady as a love interest! It has a badass lady doctor! It has fish-out-of-water culture shock! But it also has a completely meandering plot, no sense of building tension, and a romance that just happens out of nowhere and feels completely unearned and uninteresting.

I would genuinely just rather read Outlander again, which I know has its own host of problems, but at least Outlander felt exciting and interesting and tense and funny. The romance built in fits and starts, it was complicated, and kept me interested. That book had me hooked (and has me hooked every time I reread it) whereas this book I’ve been sadly picking at for months like its a plate of overcooked spinach. This felt like an attempt at a queer, historically accurate knockoff which I would normally be super into but which just could not stick the landing.

Moomin on the Riviera

My first time actually reading anything from the Moomin canon. I have zero idea how to feel about it! It certainly is as feral as I’ve heard described! Overall, I think I enjoyed it but it sure made me feel strange emotions I didn’t know existed. I’m not even going to try to describe it. Read it if you want a batshit insane anti-capitalist comic.

Surviving the City

This was good in some areas, less good in others. It had a very interesting indigenous perspective on life in the modern city, the foster system, and The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women issue, which I’ve never seen handled in a book before. Something about the pacing did not completely click with me and I found myself getting easily distracted, but it’s definitely worth the read just to experience it and look at the issues it deals with through the characters’ (and author’s) eyes. It did give me a lot to think about and wrestle with, which is sometimes the best thing a book can give you.

Torchwood: Pack Animals

A really fun read, more so than I had ever expected! If you like Torchwood and want more stories about the team before everything goes to shit, this is perfect for that. It includes the entire cast, an interest mystery to be unravelled, lots of slavering monsters, Rhys being really wonderful and sweet (which I didn’t know I wanted until I read this book), and all the humour I expect from Torchwood. I had to send a lot of quotes to my long-suffering girlfriend who a) does not watch this show but b) needs to tolerate it because I find it too funny to keep to myself. It was good enough to make me go out another book of the series since this was the only one my library carried.

[oiikawabii]

best of friends

oikawa x fem reader x matsukawa, implied iwaizumi x reader

short thing based on this episode of grand army on netflix that was written while i was on a caffeine high after work, so good luck my reading my guy. i really just wanted to get this out before halloween since it’s been a while since i posted and i wanted to get my writing motivation up

Friends fuck each other all the time. The circumstances only suck when one of them is pining and jealous, and the other two don’t actually care about your well being.

tw and cw: ns//fw, noncon, rape, cannabis, public sex 

“So you’re just gonna ignore me all night?” You ask, coming up to Iwaizumi’s side.

He glances at you, but quickly averts his gaze. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about-”

“I thought we had a thing going and now you’re all over my friends all of a sudden?” He interrupts. All night he had to watch you be all cuddly with Oikawa, sitting on his lap and giving him puppy dog eyes, but you made it seem like he was the problem. “I mean, like the least you can do is turn me down.”

A scoff mixed with laughter leaves your mouth. “First of all, you mean our friends. I mean, I’ve been part of this group long enough to be considered their friends right? Second, I just want things to stay normal between us; if they change we all fall out with each other.”

“That’s dumb.”

Your arms swing over his neck and you giggle, “You’re dumb.”

He kisses you. Just a peck, a quick one at that, but he was tempted to do more. Though he wasn’t the one who had to initiate when you start sucking faces with him. Iwaizumi wants to go on, he really does, but he’s so done with your shit. 

“I’m not doing this with you tonight.” He says, backing away.

“Iwa,” You whine, reaching out for him but he dodges your hand.

“I’m actually serious this time.”

“Fine, whatever.” You back off and then announce to the others, “I’m gonna go to the restroom. You douches better not leave me here.”

Watching you walk off, Oikawa comes up and pats Iwaizumi on the back. “Trouble in paradise?”

“Fuck off,”

“You gotta chill-”

“Don’t even fucking touch me! It’s not even like that.” He leans away from the touch on his back.

Oikawa snorts. “Yeah, but you were hoping it was gonna be something. You’re so obvious, it’s barely even funny.”

He rolls his eyes. “You love it when she gives you attention. You know, her and I, we’ve actually been-”

“What? Sucking faces?” Oikawa teases. “I mean, I can’t believe you’re hung up on her and still haven’t gotten it in yet. You know how easy she is?”

Iwaizumi knew it was true, though he didn’t like the way it was implied. “Don’t say that about her.”

“She gives it up so easily,” Oikawa laughs. “I got with her! Hell, even Mattsun was able to get with her. If you haven’t been with her yet then maybe, just maybe, it’s because you’re a pussy.”

Iwaizumi's eyes glare at Oikawa and his comment. “No, I’m just not an asshole like you guys.”

“Acting so high and mighty all of a sudden that you’re hung up on one bitch,” Matsukawa comes over and jokes. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

You come back out, walking towards them with a pep in your step. “Alright idiots, let’s get going!” You beam, throwing an arm over Oikawa. “Got your hash pen?”

Oikawa pulls it out of his pocket and hands it to you. “Don’t steal it.” He scolds, watching you take a hit.

“Too late, this is mine for the night.” You take another hit, blowing it into his face and suppressing a giggle, skipping away from him.

“Fucking idiot.” He laughs, chasing you down the sidewalk. When he catches up to you his arms wrap around your body, lifting you up as your feet kick helplessly.

You squeal, holding on tight to him. “Don’t drop me! Don't drop me!” He hoists you up and down, pretending to lose his grip and almost giving you a death scare.

“Hurry up before we miss the taxi!” Matsukawa calls, running towards the nearest stop with a car about to leave in just a few minutes. 

The group runs toward it, pushing past the busy people on the sidewalk without even a 'sorry' or an 'excuse me'.

“One of you guys should sit in the front.” You comment.

“No, let’s all squish in here.” Oikawa whines, already taking a seat next to Iwaizumi, who was the first inside. He pulls you in after him, tickling your sides and saying some stupid joke about you being all his. He looks over to Iwaizumi, hand resting on your outer thigh, only earning an annoyed sigh in response. The space between everyone grows smaller as Matsukawa gets in last and slams the door shut.

Matsukawa gives the driver instructions before closing the little window that separates the front and the back.

You lean your body over Oikawa to get a clear look at Iwaizumi. “Hey, can we talk or something?” Your response is him shaking his head. “Come on, don’t be that way.” You try to get comfortable and sit next to him, but Matsukawa pulls you back.

“Get over here, princess. If he doesn’t want you then you got us!”

“You fuckers!” You laugh. “I can’t do shit around you guys.”

Another hit. You cheer, throwing your head back as the smoke leaves your mouth.

“Oh my god, are you about to give Matsukawa a show?” Oikawa jokes.

Just to egg you on further, Matsukawa’s hands rest on your hips to help you from swaying with the car. “No,” You drag. “I would never.”

“Come on, show us some moves.”

“How about you show me yours first?” You jab back, poking at his sides. His body jolts, loudly laughing. “Iwa, where are your moves?” You giggle, tracing a finger down his arm. 

“Makki’s already starting to let everyone in for the party, said they were just chilling outside.” Iwaizumi comments.

Matsukawa shrugs. “We’re gonna be late. Fucking traffic!”

You poke at his face, grabbing onto his arm to steady yourself. “Think we should bail? Most of the good stuff might be gone by the time we get there.” He says.

“Dude, no, I’m not bailing on this party tonight.” Oikawa retorts. “Tell him he better save some for us.”

“So you’re just not gonna talk to me now?” You pout.

He stops your hand from swinging in his face. “I’m not not talking to you.”

At this point, you’re slurring. Sometimes you forget how easy it is to get high off of hash, especially as a lightweight. “But you’re not having fun with me anymore, and-”

“Okay, sorry! What, you wanna get on top of me too? Give me a lap dance or something, yeah?” He snaps. “You need any more attention? It’s no problem, let’s go.”

It takes a second for you to register what he said. And when you do, your brows furrow, slapping his chest. “Don’t fucking say shit like that.”

“Chill.” Mattsun snorts, grabbing your hands before you could do more damage. 

Oikawa leans over and whispers into his ear. “I promise you, keep acting this way and she definitely won’t be fucking you anytime soon.”

Matsukawa tries to calm you down, running his hand against your cheek, though you can’t easily ignore what Iwaizumi said to you. “You’re so hypocritical, you know? You know how many girls I’ve seen you fuck around with? I mean, let’s just take it back to the girl you fingered in the dirty ramen shop bathroom! And I didn’t say shit, did I? I don’t need you fucking judging me, okay?”

“I’m not judging you babygirl!” Oikawa snickers.

“I get to do whatever I want with you and whoever the fuck I want to do it with! Fuck you, Iwa-chan!” You slur. You take another hit. “I’m just saying, you guys get to do whatever you want; well, so can I.”

His head shakes. “I’m not saying you can’t.”

“But… you are.”

“I’m just saying I don’t need a fucking blunt.” 

You lean back surprised by his comment. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he meant by that. “Scoot over a little.” You tell Oikawa, swinging your legs over Mattsun’s lap and pressing his face between both your hands. You laugh a little, hips grinding into his before pressing your lips onto his.

There’s a loud chuckle from Oikawa as he drums on your back. “Oh shit! Holy fuck!” He takes out his phone and instantly starts recording. The flash shines on and off of you as he tries to capture the moment. 

Iwaizumi sits off on his side, staring down at his phone to ignore the three of you.

“I get to do that! I need to be able to do that!” You proclaim to him. “And you can’t make me feel fucking guilty about it!”

Matsukawa’s hand gently grabs your cheek to pull you back into him and a disgustingly wet kiss. His hands roam up and down your body, squeezing your thighs and making sure to guide your body to what he liked.

“Yo, you’re like hogging her.” Oikawa nags, putting his phone away and pulling at your wrist. “Come on, can’t just leave me out of this babe.”

“Back off ‘Kawa.” Matsukawa mumbles.

You pull away from him, hands resting on his chest. “Hey, don’t be mean. It’s not that hard to share is it?” You slide between the two of them, lips immediately latching onto Oikawa.

He pulls at your coat, pulling it down your arms to expose more of your body. “Jesus, I forgot to tell you how much I love this dress on you.” He breaths.

At this point, there are two pairs of hands on you; Oikawa’s and Mastukawa’s. Mattsun’s are on your hips, teasing you with soft caresses, keeping your body planted against his chest, feeling every exposed area he could get to as he sucks up and down your neck. Oikawa’s hands are squishing your cheeks, making sure to keep you in the kiss for as long as he wants. His fingers tangle in your hair, hardly giving you any escape. You’re on his terms and you don’t get to stop until he does. It’s not long until you feel the need for an actual breath, though he’s still at it--jesus how was his breath control so good?

You hum against his lips to give him a hint. It seems he doesn’t notice, instead thinking you’re just enjoying the pleasure. It’s not until you pinch his waist that he jerks up, panting with red lips. You wipe yours, looking at Iwaizumi to see what he’s up to. 

Back to looking at that damn phone. 

You lean over Oikawa, a hand resting on Iwaizumi’s leg to see if he would pay attention to you. “Iwa-chan… I think you’re missing out.’ You pout. He rolls his eyes, brushing your hand off.

“Screw him, just means more for me.” Oikawa chimes, pulling you back onto him.

“Look who’s hogging now,” Matsukawa’s hand grips your inner thigh, pulling it towards him. You hiss at the feeling, at how rough he was being all of a sudden. Oikawa’s hand grips your other thigh just as harsh, successfully spreading your legs wide open for the two of them.

Your head swings back onto the seat. “Fuck, that hurt.” Your body wriggles against theirs, trying to close your legs. “G-guys… just wait, just wait,” You huff, soft hands pushing at them.

Your pleas go ignored as both of them are on either side of your neck, trailing down feverish kisses. Matsukawa’s hand is the first to trail up your leg, resting between your thighs. His fingers slide up your slit and press down onto your clit, making a choked groan seep through your mouth.

“I know just how you like it.” He whispers in your ear.

“Mattsun- you guys-”

They giggle and chuckle like schoolboys as you try to fight them off, only using more force and putting more pressure down onto your body. Oikawa’s hand is the next to skitter up your thigh. 

There’s no prep, no warning, no comfort as two--maybe even three, you were too hazy to tell--of his finger thrust into your cunt all the way down to the knuckle. Even the kicks of your legs couldn’t keep them off.

“Iwa- Iwaizumi!” You stagger. You could barely get a good look at him through your blurred eyes, but you know he isn’t paying any mind to the three of you at all, off in his own little world.

“You’re so wet.” Oikawa coos, pumping his fingers in and out of you. He’s fast, skilled with his fingers and in any normal situation it would’ve felt good, but it hurt, and it hurt badly. Every time his fingers curl, your body jolts up and he laughs thinking that you’re getting off when really you’re trying to hold back the pain.

Matsukawa isn’t doing anything better for you. His fingers are tracing sloppy circles over your clit, missing and slipping every so often. It doesn’t even feel like he knows what he’s doing when he’s using more than a light pressure in an attempt to get you off. 

Your eyes try to open again to look for help, to look for Iwaizumi. Through hooded eyes, you make contact with him. Your mouth is agape and, god, you’re probably drooling as you look at him. You can’t even get out normal words, just a garbled mess of moans. His eyes fall from your face to your legs that are twisting in pleasure, no, pain? He gives you a disappointed look, turning away from the sight.

“Do you hear the noises her pussy is making, Mattsun?” Oikawa squeals. “She’s so tight, so fucking tight.”

Their fingers trade places and you don’t know if it’s better or worse. Oikawa is more gentle when rubbing your clit, more considerate. Mattsun pumps into you at a steady pace, testing to see what could make you squirm under him. When you do react, hips jutting forward into nothing, he chuckles and says, “Fuck, I wish I could put my cock in you right now.” At this point, it doesn’t matter what happens to you. Everything is starting to hurt, but it also feels good. You’re conflicted and you just know that you want it over with.

“Gonna- gon-” You choke.

“Aw, she’s gonna cum.” Oikawa mocks. Matsukawa snickers after him.

That’s all you heard all night; Oikawa, Matsukawa, and their stupid laughing fit. You just needed them to shut up, to keep quiet.

Your chest rises and falls rapidly, biting down on your lip hard enough to bleed just to hold onto some dignity and not sound like a prostitute in the back of a moving taxi. One last thrust of Mattsun’s fingers help you come undone for the two of them.

And what lucky timing it was. The taxi comes to a stop as it pulls up to the house with loud music blaring through the walls.

“I’m sick of your guy’s shit.” Iwaizumi mumbles as he opens the door. 

The other two follow suit in getting out of the car, greeting other peers, and mingling around. Though you’re still processing everything. Your head falls between your knees, wiping the streaks of tears away and putting on a happy face before hopping out to join everyone.

[juniorgman187]

Serpent of Eden (Reid Series - Part 3)

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

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

PART 2 HERE!

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 

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

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

Just plain wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So you’ll come?”

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

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

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

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

I woke the next morning to Holly violently shaking me. 

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

Still half-asleep, I mumbled, “Huh?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have got to stop meeting like this, Spencer. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this fucking situation. 

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

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

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

“(Y/n) (y/l/n).” 

_ _ _

“(Y/n) (y/l/n).” 

It was like watching my worst nightmare come alive. 

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

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

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

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

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

“Nonsense. I’d be happy to do it.” 

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah yeah…” I murmured in false agreement. 

Herein lies the trouble.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 

PART 4 COMING SOON!

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[bluejaytaco]

(We returned to the session with all party members floating in the waters of Fransland. The bar has “Welcome to my realm” written on it in blood. Outside of it there are strange, humanoid creatures walking around. We're in the water, Theodora had a young elf boy knocked out on her back and Art has Reita clinging to him because she doesn't know how to swim.

The water is, however, strangely buoyant.)

Theodora:(immediately swims over and hugs Koejin) I'm never letting you go again.

Koejin: (hugs back) yeah... uh, no more jumping through strange portals for a while.

Alabaster:(casts waterwalking and walks over to Art) Hello, my friend!

Art: (jumps at the sight) Holy Jesus! Hi, hello!

(We all end up swimming to shore and catching up a little bit. The creatures were something Team A was dealing with while we were in the separate universe. From the distance, some of us can see that the creatures are all attached to one cloaked figure sitting off to the side.)

Koejin: (shoots an arrow at the figure and hits it right in the head. The head pops off and rolls closer. It's Skelly)

Skelly: What the Hell?! What just happened?! Who shot me?!(all his minions just kinda stand around his head) Don't just stand there! Reattach me!

Theodora: Skelly?

Skelly: (After his head's back on, he notices us) Oh, hey guys!

Hennessy: What're you doing here?

Skelly: I don't know. Just one minute I'm minding my own business, the next I'm here with these guys (gestures to the shambling forms) Just making friends and hanging out.

Theodora: Are they.... friends by choice? (stares pointedly at the tethers)

Skelly: They're friends by MY choice!

Theodora: How long have you been here?

Skelly: A day... A week... two years and five minutes? Ehhhh....

Art: (moves to explore the tavern)

(As he moves closer, a giant red claw comes up and climbs onto the roof. Mrs. Red glares at the party. Koejin also notices humanoid Mrs. Red is on her back. Dragon Mrs. Red rears back and uses her fire breath on everyone, successfully melting Skelly into a pile of ash.

We also have a new party member, Jaquine. She is not as high of a level as us, so the blast would kill her.

But then a large tiefling woman jumps in and takes the brunt of the burn for Jaquine. She looks.... very familiar. Despite the fact that we've only really met like two tieflings.)

Tiefling woman: Everyone, inside! Now! (Jumps up on Dragon Red's face and they fly away.)

Koejin: Uh, yeah! Let's go!

Alabaster: (moving over to bring Skelly back to life)

(Skelly is now a strange pile of moving ash. He hasn't regained his original form.)

Vincent: Yesss.... burn.... (This is like... the third time he's gotten excited about some violence.)

Hennessy: Alright! You and me! We gotta talk!

(We go inside the bar to see a scawny looking white dragonborn behind the bar, cleaning a glass. Aside from him, there's only one other patron; a woman passed out in a puddle of her own drool with long, rainbow hair.)

Art: (eyes the bartender) Hey there... I'm Art... and you are? (he already knew the answer)

Dragonborn: (smiles creepily) Oh, hi! I'm Eltbalm.

Art: Right, right. (looks over at the passed out woman and frowns as he realizes it's Thia. He walks over to her)

Reita: (runs to Wreybar and points at a hole in the wall. She then dives for it and pulls out a rat. She tears the rat in half and hands part of it to Wreybar.)

Wreybar: Is it a gift or food?

Reita: (nods and bites into her half)

Wreybar, grinning: Thank you!

(Me: I'm a good big brother for letting this happen.)

(For a moment, we cut to Hennessy and Vincent talking to each other about the way he's been acting. Vincent, after being kidnapped and just all around having a shitty time, has adopted the whole idea of killing in order to make the world better. But, after a bit of talk, he's feeling a little better. Hennessy talks about how Theodora, Koejin, and Alabaster would be able to help him with whatever he needs to feel safe again. That seems to help.)

(Meanwhile, Art is gently shaking Thia awake. He gets her to snap her head up but that's about it. He gestures to Eltbalm to get them some water for her.

We all try to get her to wake up and talk with us, but to no avail. However, all of us agree that this might be the best time for a long rest. But before that)

Hennessy: Art, can I speak to you?

Art: Uh... yeah. What's up?

Hennessy: Your sister. She's still got that pink stone embedded in her back, right?

Art: Yeah... we haven't been able to remove it... why do you ask?

Hennessy: Well, while we were all superpowered by the gods, I came across a spell that might be helpful. We could create a clone copy of Reita and remove the stone from her original body. Then, if anything were to go haywire, then we can put her essence into the clone.

Art:.... I want you to think about this for a second.. Put yourself in my shoes and Vincent in Reita's.... would you still trust it?

Hennessy: If it means saving his very life and the lives of millions, then of course!

Art: Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying no. It's just... a lot. And, I mean, it's not like we can do it right now anyway, right?

Hennessy, seeing that Art doesn't fully trust the idea: Yes, but... to ease your worries... it might help to keep in mind we have a genuine necromancer on our side. (Gestures to Alabaster)

Alabaster, seeing that gesture and looks over to find out whats going on: Hello, yes!

Art: You're a necromancer now?!

Alabaster: Why yes. It's an interesting tale but yes. And I would be able to help your sister, given the situation!

Art: (looks at the Skelly blob then up at Alabaster tensely. He then turns back to Hennessy.) It's not something we can do now anyway so....

(Everyone took a look at the stone. Hennessy discovered it was an ancient magic while Art recognized it as tiefling magic. Theodora offered to cut the magic and see what might come of it, but Art was afraid it might hurt Reita. He might be a little over protective.

This is around where we took our rest. As we're rested and trying to figure out our next move, the tiefling woman steps in through the door. She has in her hands the fifteen foot battle axe and is covered in blood. She walks up, demands a beer from Eltbalm, and walks back over to the table where Thia is still passed out. As she takes a sip, she gestures to all of us to gather around.)

Tiefling Woman: Must be pretty confusing for all of you.

Art: That's putting it lightly.

Tiefling Woman: So, let's start with an introduction; I'm Elsie. Elsie Red. I'm the only form of Mrs. Red here that's a tiefling.

Art: ...yeah, why are you a tiefling?

Elsie, shrugging: Don't know. Don't have any memories of anything outside of here. But, hey! I gotta gift for you (looks over at Eltbalm) Hey, you! Go get her. And you better not have touched her!

Eltbalm: Aww, but- (interrupted by the battle axe embedding itself in the wall next to him) coming up!

(Eltbalm disappears for a moment and returns with a bound Mrs. Red. It's our Red; missing tongue and all. He sits her down next to Elsie.)

Hennessy: Elsie, is your story anything like our Red's? It's quite the tragic tale.

Elsie: I don't know. I dont remember. That smiling bastard sent me and all these reds here. It's like we're some kind of experiment or something.

Theodora, nodding: Sounds like Ticket Master, alright. He is quite an asshole.

Hennessy, turning to Red: Do you still have the diary I returned to you?

Red: (nodding in her condescending, mean girl way)

(Art tries to reach into her satchel in order to show Elsie only to get bitten for the trouble.)

Art: Ow, hey! You bitch!

Red: (glaring at him)

(Art gives Elsie a rundown of what they know about Red's backstory. It sums up to Red ending the war and starting her reign of terror after the death of Eltbalm. At that, he points to the scrawny dragonborn at the bar.)

Elsie: Uhhh, no. I remember being married to a tiefling woman. He's not really my type....

Art: Our Eltbalms haven't looked like that. They're more....uh... Koejin, describe Eltbalm.

Koejin: Oh... He's just so hunky and buff. He's covered in shiny white scales. Like, a beautiful man just... (chef's kiss)

Elsie: Yeah, still no.

(We eventually decide that our Red's inability to speak was making this hard. So, we ask Vincent if there's anything he can do.

Turns out, DM rolls high enough to where Vincent pulls out a mechanical tongue.)

Vincent: Now, you gonna go and bite me the moment I go to put this in your mouth?

Red: (nods with a 'Well, duh' look on her face)

Vncent, putting the tongue on the table: Then you can do it yourself.

(Elsie undoes Red's hands and Red immediately dives to put the tongue in her mouth. She doesn't take long to secure it.)

Red, pointing to all of us: Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuuuck you. And a special 'fuck you' to you! (points at Elsie)

Alabaster: Charming.

Red: You took away everything from me and expect me to do anything for you?!

Art: Oh, you mean like what you've been doing to us?

Red: Oh, you fucking little shit. Why the fuck would I care?! You interrupted everything and stopped my ascent to finally killing that smiling asshole you call Ticket Master.

Art: Please, you went toe to toe with him and couldn't take him down.

(We ended up arguing with Red for a while and trying to get her to help us and figure out the parts missing that kept her from doing it. Then...)

Thia: (grabs the empty beer bottle and smashes it against the table. Holds it out to Red) put that to your neck.

Red: (loses control of herself and immediately follows the order) Wha-?

Thia: How do we get out of here?

Red: I- (is comanded to press in deeper. Starts to cry.) I... I don't know. I don't know. I can't remember!

Thia: Then remember.

Red, freezes for a second: I... remember everything...I... (turns to Art) I'm your mother.

Art: I... Wh-wait.... what?

Red: It happened so long ago now. I... Eltbalm and I... were tieflings. We were very much in love. We were happy... Eventually, we were blessed with a beautiful baby. A little girl... but, the land told us, no. Our girl would become a charming handsome boy. Not too long after, we were granted our beautiful, sweet Reita... but... but the war came to our land. They killed Eltbalm, my love. Right in front of me... So I prayed to the land for a way. To stop the war. To protect my children. I was turned into a dragon and given the power to end it all, so I did. And I prayed for a way to bring my husband back. And the land granted me the stones. All parts of Eltbalm.

I didn't know I would be worshipped by our people. I just wanted you to be safe... so, I prayed for a way to the land. And then.... he appeared.

I was so full of rage, but Ticket Master offered me a way. I sold him my soul and I asked that you and your sister were raised by tieflings. To be sure you were kept safe. And he did...

I tried to make it so Reita could be strong like me. Even in my rage and my forgotten memories, I wanted to keep her safe. She was so... helpless. Art, I am so sorry it turned out this way. I lo-

Thia, interrupting the last part: slit your throat.

(Red follows the order and immediately starts bleeding out. Her body collapses on the ground.)

Art: (immediately moves to save her)

Thia: Stop.

Art: (Fails a Con save and is forced to stop)

Theodora: (moves in to heal Red)

Thia: Sit down.

Theodora: (Fails a Con save and follows the order)

Hennessy: Now, wait ju-

Thia: Cover your mouth.

Hennessy: (Fails a Con save and follows the order) Mmmph Rmph!

Koejin: Thia, why're you doing this?

Thia: It's what you guys taught me. you have to kill in order to get to the top. In order to get anyone to listen. To get any type of power.

Koejin:...I thought you just wanted to do drugs and run your bar.

Thia: I did. But then this shit started happening. And you guys started killing generals. And you guided me here. That's when I realized that yes, this is the only way.

Theodora: (trying to do Lay On Hands to Red as Thia's distracted.)

Thia, noticing: Go lay down in that corner, far away from her and don't move.

Theodora:(fails the Con save and does that.)

Art: The leader shouldn't be influenced by their followers.

Thia: I wasn't your leader. Cloak was. And look how much you cared about her death. (glares at Art) not that you're one to talk about not killing. You signed a contract for the God of Death and Deceit.

Art, glaring back: To save my sister.

Thia: still.

Hennessy: (still screaming behind his muffled hands)

Art, casting Sending to get what he was trying to say: Hennessy says "we have been nothing but merciful as instructed." He also said other things, but it got caught off.

Thia: Fine. Remove your hands and speak.

Hennessy: We have been more merciful to everyone of these generals. Green, your own father, was spared and look now! He's one of our strongest allies! Purple returned to their gem under our influence!

Thia: And what about Orange? And Blue? And Yellow?!

Hennessy: Orange was.... an unfortunate circumstance. And Blue gave us no choice. But Yellow; if I recall he willingly died.

Art, tenses: Uhhh, Hennessy...? Yellow was Thia's mother. And she didn't.

Thia, clearly even more angered: I'm starting to think this world needs to be wiped clean so we can begin again.

Art:.... Please don't think that.

(As if hearing her, the roof of the tavern is torn off and there stands Shmoogie. He's staring down at us.)

Shmoogie: Pelor knew you would see the light. (puts his hand down to her) Come now. There's much work to be done.

Thia: (climbs onto the hand)

(Everyone scrambles to look for a way to stop her from leaving with him. In his panic to keep her there, Art uses Black Tentacles to try and pull her out of his hands before she goes out of reach. Thia sees it and tries to order him to stop, but gets smacked in the face by one of them and is now sporting a huge mark near her eye. She disappears through a white portal in the sky with Shmoogie.

But the spell is then released and they can move.)

Art, rushes over to Red, torn in what he's about to do: Okay, I kinda shouldn't care but after all that now I don't want you to die. There's waaaay too many questions to be answered, but you're still an insane bitch. Okay, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna save the life of my...mother...mortal enemy... fuck.... How the fuck did Alabaster do this? Here we go. (casts spare the dying on Red)

Red: (Alive and no longer bleeding out, but out cold)

Reita: (watching her brother in confusion)

Art, noticing this: Uhhh... hey, uhhh... There's a lot to explain but.... once I understand what's going on, I'll explain it all. Okay?

Reita: (lifts some of her half-eaten rat to her mouth)

Art: (pushes it back down slowly)

(As Art is healing Mrs. Red and talking to Rieta, everyone is discussing the best way to get out of here. Theodora and Koejin have some private talks with the DM and come back, but seem reluctant to do the things they were talking about.)

Theodora, to Elsie: You think you can turn into a dragon and help us out?

Elsie: You're asking this from the only Mrs. Red that can't.

Koejin:... I think I have an idea. (digs through her bag for a gem she had.)

(She summons a carriage labelled Koejin's Brews and it's pulled by a horse with sunglasses.)

Horse: Heeey there, Koejin! Ready to ascend to your position?

Art:... Koejin's a god... I mean, why not? Why the fuck not? (heads to the carriage to immediately drink his face off.)

(We all pile on the carriage to find a fully stocked tavern with plenty of room. Like a bar version of a Tardis. "A Bardis" as Theodora's player starts calling it. And, as we ascend, the bar shakes a little as if experiencing turbulence, but then we end up in a world of light.

It's bright and white. Everything is white. Including the people.

Me: Sooo, Racism?

DM: It's Pelor's realm.

Theodora's Player: So, yeah, racism.)

(As we step off the carriage, we pass by people and see a letter hanging from the gate. On it is written "To Alabaster.")

Alabaster: (takes the letter)

Letter: Alabaster, you used to be so devout and loyal, but seem to have been corrupted by the influences around you. I will cleanse this world of all that is dark. Come see me and will do the same for you. It isn't too late. Not for you and not for your daughter. Come see me, my boy.

Pelor

(Attached to the letter is a picture of Eris, Alabaster's daughter. Pelor is holding her by the head.)

((DM wasn't kidding when he said this would be pretty intense.))

((Koejin's Player: So... I've been hitting on Art's dad...))

[thinking-in-symbols]

Quinquennial Life Assessment

So, it’s been a few years.  When I was 19 I posted a sort of “roadmap” for the evolution of my life on this blog.  Today I thought I’d revisit that.  I want to take a look back and see what progress I’ve made, and then in a separate post I want to turn to the future, think about how my vision for it has changed, and consider how I can reincorporate these goals into that vision.

This is the list of things I wanted to get done in varying time frames.  I’ve crossed off the things I’ve done to get a sense of my progress:

1 year:

At 19, my hopes were to accomplish the following things by age 20:

- Joined, and consistently participated in, at least 2 campus organizations that suit my interests, at least 1 of which should be competitive in nature - well, I joined the ISO and KVRX, my college radio station!  Neither of those were competitive, but in retrospect I don’t really care about that :-)

- Made concrete plans to study abroad - Nope, unfortunately I never did this.  I’m not quite sure I regret that, all things considered - I traded that experience for other things.  I did make plans to spend a few months abroad of my own accord, and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling global pandemic.  But as it stands I haven’t done this.

- Learned C++ and python to proficiency - Hm.  “Proficient” is a relative term.  But I think I have a tendency to downplay my skills, so in the interest of counteracting that I’m going to count myself as “proficient” in these languages.  I think that’s fair.

- Gone on at least a several day road trip with at least 1 friend - I’ve gone on several trips with @meeshbug​, my very lovely girlfriend and best friend in the world :-)

- Decided on a concentration beyond the extremely vague umbrella of “computer science” - Unfortunately as far as my education is concerned I never really did this.  If anything my interests have *broadened* rather than becoming more focused.  More on this later...

- Made meaningful, ongoing contributions to an open-source project - You know what?  I’ve published the source of everything I’ve ever made, and I’ve gotten to the point where I can make stuff that’s not trivial.  So I’m giving myself credit for this one.

- Learned to cook enough meals to eat in most days and not get sick of my own food - I wish.  I’ve learned to cook a fair amount of stuff but I still get way too depressed and lethargic to apply that consistently.  Whether I consider myself to have achieved this honestly depends on the month.

- Learned to keep my living area clean - I’m much better at this than I was at 19, but at 19 I could barely clear a path to walk across my room.  So there’s more work to do.  More on these last two later.

- Gotten a pet - Meesh and I have a dog named Courage (after the dog of cowardly fame) and a cat named Jax!

2 years:

- Independently written a piece of software to completion and deployed it publicly - I’ve always pretty bad at actually seeing projects through to completion, but I do have a few full, independent projects under my belt at this point.  I’ve built a simple game engine, a pathtracer, plugins for games I like, and some other stuff.

- purchased and begun regularly using some basic amateur radio equipment - Ah man.  I got my license but I still haven’t gotten any equipment.  I guess I have to get on that...

- purchased and begun experimenting with some basic music recording equipment - This one I’ve done, but I haven’t done as much experimenting as I’d like.

- hosted a party - I did this for my 21st birthday and it’s one of my favorite memories!  Honestly this was probably the last time I had all my really close friends in one place.  I’m actually getting kind of emotional about that.

- done some kind of hallucinogen - I have now done this.  I definitely did get something out of it, albeit not what I expected.  This is something I actually only did pretty recently and it’s still having a pretty profound effect.  Maybe I’ll write a separate post about this.

- Gone camping with friends - Despite my best efforts, this hasn’t happened yet.  Pretty fucked up.

3 years:

- learned to play another instrument besides the piano (guitar?) - I don’t feel comfortable crossing this one off quite yet, but I went ahead and bought myself some guitar equipment and have been messing around with it lately :-) I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and pay for lessons if I’m serious about this, which I am.

- Written and recorded a song - Damn, I can’t believe it’s been 5 years and I haven’t even done this.

- Met a group of people I can play music with - nope

- Owned a leather jacket.  I can’t believe I’ve still never even owned a leather jacket - I’ve done this and wore it frankly too much.  Kinda cringe.

- Worked as a professional software developer - Yep!  Worked as a software developer for a retail company for a couple years.  I’m actually not working as a software developer right now, though; I’m working in a sort of adjacent position.  More on this later.

- Participated in research related to my field - That’s pretty ambitious.  Not sure I’ll ever do this, unfortunately.  But we’ll see.

- Been to a film festival - Oh shit, I totally forgot about having written this.  That’s a cool idea.  I should do this, it’s not like it’s hard (well, at least in principle.  I guess covid kind of changes the situation).

- Gotten a dog - Courage is one of those, I think, although he might also be part rat.

- collected 50 records - Lol, my dumb ass really thought I was going to buy $1,000 worth of records on college money.  No, I haven’t done this, but I’m on my way there.

- Purchased a desktop computer - Well, my dad gave me his old desktop.  That’s not really a purchase but I think it counts.

5 years:

- Begun accepting freelance development gigs - haven’t gotten here yet and I’m not totally sure this is a direction I want to go in my career.  Freelancing has its own stressors as I’ve come to learn from others.  No career path is sunshine and roses and I’m trying to internalize this fact.

- Participated in a student film - Nope.  I don’t even know why I wrote this down to be honest.

- Gotten laid by solving a 5x5 Rubik’s Cube in front of a girl because surely that’s gonna have to work on someone eventually, otherwise I wasted a lot of time - These are getting weird.  Surely I didn’t really expect this to happen, right?  Well, either way I now have a long-term girlfriend, so I don’t - wait, Meesh has seen me solve a Rubik’s cube and she saw it before we started dating.  So actually I’m going to give myself credit for it.  I’m the one who makes the rules here.

- Fleshed out my political opinions - Yes, I now know everything about politics and can answer 100% of questions on political issues.  Just kidding.  But I know where I stand.

- Participated in a protest or some other kind of political event - Done!  Went to a few protests as part of the ISO, participated in lots of their events, and attended some protests with friends as well.

- Studied abroad - Nope :-/

- Learned a language other than Spanish - I took a semester of French!  But I don’t quite want to give myself credit for this one because I really would like to learn a different language to something resembling fluency.

- Run a marathon - Lmao.  I am in much worse shape now than I was when I wrote this post, and even at that time I could probably do like 7 miles if I really pushed myself.  How sad.

- Gone hiking outside of texas - This is weird because I’d literally already done this when I wrote this post.  But I’ve done it more since then, so hey!

- Been out of the country with a friend - This I had also already done.  I guess the point is to have done it without “adult supervision” or whatever.  I haven’t done this since writing this list so I guess I have to leave it uncrossed.

10 years:

- Lived with a girl for an extended period of time - Meesh 🥰

- Spent at least 6 months living on the road in an RV, preferably with a dog and a girl - God, I am so close to being able to do this.  I don’t want it to be an RV anymore - those things are expensive.  But a van?  Still pricey, but doable, especially if I’m willing to sacrifice some comfort.  This has actually been front-of-mind for a while.  I’ll let you know when I get the balls to pull the trigger.

- Started making Real Money - Well, yep, I have gotten to that point.  I do have other thoughts on this, though.  Money is weird, man.

- Lived in a long-term living space outside of Texas (i.e. not including RV time) - How long is long-term?  Three months?  If so, I’ve done this by living in Boston with Meesh for a few months after she went there for law school.  However, I anticipate staying there much longer in the near future, so I’ll wait on this crossing this one off.

- Written a book about something, idk - Not yet.  I’m halfway to the deadline on this one and I have some ideas, but ideas aren’t worth all that much, especially to me, who rarely sees them through.  We’ll see where this goes.  It’s not exactly a priority and historically I struggle to get even my priorities done.  It might make more sense to replace this with recording a concept or narrative album, for which I also have ideas that I happen to take more seriously.

- Learned to solve a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Gotten laid by solving a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Lived in an apartment where I pay all the rent - Yes!  :-))) We love independence

- Earned an advanced degree (this one’s iffy) - This hasn’t happened, and whether it will ever happen is something I’ve been thinking a lot about.  I sort of decided half-way through college that I would be totally burned out on school by the time I graduated.  But in retrospect it takes way less time to burn out on work than it does to burn out on school, and grad degrees are a different kind of thing.  So it’s worth revisiting.’

- Given a best man speech (Sam, this means you have to get married within the next 10 years.  Good luck out there.) - Holy shit, Sam, you maniac, you actually did it!  Sam got married back in 2019 and I gave his best man speech! It’s another one of my favorite memories :-) 

- Gone on a cruise with someone I’m dating - Hmm, not yet.  I’ve gone on cool trips, but none on a boat.  Maybe that’s something to aim for after the pandemic passes :-)

Retrospective:

1yr: Completed: 5/9

More than half isn’t bad!  I’m not gonna worry too much about whether I got these things done within their assigned “time-frame”.  I’m a procrastinator in my heart and I don’t see any reason to put that kind of pressure on myself.  The point is, they got done.  That’s enough for me.

The things I did best in in this category were academic things, and things to do with relationships.  I’m proud of the academic achievements, I really feel like doing them has increased my belief in myself and my sense that I’m good at the thing I’ve spent the last four years studying.  And of course, I am so happy to be in a loving, fulfilling relationship that brings so many good things into my life.  I almost feel like the things I accomplished sort of fell into my lap - of course I’m gonna do programming stuff as a programming student, and getting pets / going on road trips are things I did as a result of my relationship with Meesh.  I don’t say that to downplay the accomplishments, but I do think it’s worth noting.

The things I haven’t done are more to do with personal development, which is disappointing.  I would like to be able to say, 5 years down the road, that I’ve done the personal development I expected to do in just a single year, but maybe that’s a lot to expect.  These are problems I’ve dealt with my whole life.  I think what this means is that I can’t expect everything to fall into my lap.  Those things are going to take real concerted effort to change.  I’m not quite sure how to go about that, though.

2yrs: Completed: 4/6

Two-thirds!  Even better!

Lots of these are one-time accomplishments, not so much long-term commitments to personal development.  The good news is, I did them, and I think those resulted in some development in their own right :-)

Again, though, the things I didn’t do so well are the things that require long-term, concerted effort.  For instance, while I crossed off the one about experimenting with music, it’s really only the initial investment that I’ve really done at this point.  It remains to be seen whether I’ll be able to follow through on the commitment to actually experiment and learn.

3yrs: Completed: 4/10

This category also follows the same pattern I’ve noticed with the last two.  The other thing I’m noticing is that so, so much of my effort over the past few years has been going towards developing a very particular skill: programming / computer science.  Music and art are so important to me, but I’ve done very little real development in those areas.  I mean, I’ve done some.  But not as much as I would have hoped for half a decade.

5yrs: Completed: 4/10

This is getting a little more fun because less of my goals have to do explicitly with my degree.  I’m starting to think beyond college, which is good, because the stage of life I’m in right now requires me to start thinking about the kind of life I want to build now that I’m done with school.  Also, I’m at the deadline for this one right now!  So this is a particularly interesting category because it really shows where I thought I’d be by this time.

The goals I accomplished in this timeframe are, again, mostly things I’ve done through my relationship, but politics also feature pretty prominently on this part of the list.  I spent a lot of time reading and researching political issues during college and really did look for ways to participate.  I honestly made politics a pretty big part of my identity over the last 5 years, and I think it will stay that way forever, but I’ve gotten to the point where I think I need to devote less of my mental energy to knowing more.  I know what I need to know.  It’s time to think about other things.

10yrs: Completed: 4/11 (and counting!)

There’s some career stuff in this section that I’ve been able to do, which is good news.  I’ve always been scared about entering the working world.  All things told, it’s gone more smoothly than it could have.  But I also have lots of lingering doubts about what I want to do in the long term.  So one of the most pressing goals I should aim for is to resolve those doubts.

Ultimately, I have a lot of time left, and I’m not even done with this time frame, so I’m not gonna spend much time dissecting the things I haven’t done.  What I’ll do instead is say that while I didn’t do everything on this list, I feel proud of the things I have accomplished.  I said when I first wrote this list that it’s sometimes hard for me to feel that my life is moving in any particular direction, and I’m still feeling like that five years later, to be honest.  But looking back on these things has helped me see that I actually am making progress in my life.  Not in all the ways I want to, but that’s OK.  There’s still time.

In the next couple days I want to come back to this and reorganize this list into an updated set of goals, for the same time frames.  Maybe that will help me think through exactly what it is I want out of the next five-ten years, with the benefit of having analyzed the things that I did and didn’t do well over the previous five.

[whockeywhore]

Skip Over It 6

“Late night?” I stifled another yawn before answering Justin with a shake of my head. He reached out and tugged at my turtleneck and raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that? Because the only time I’ve seen a woman wear one of these was when she’s trying to hide something.” 

“I was up all night unpacking. And I’m not hiding anything, I’m freezing.” 

“Whatever you say, Doc.” He waited for the rest of the guys to clear before leaning in a bit. “Laura told me about your uh, what happened in Chicago-” 

“You can say divorce, Justin. It’s not a bad word.” 

“I was… she told me about your divorce.” He’d dropped his voice to a whisper just for that before returning to normal. “And I think it’s great that you’re getting back in the saddle.” 

“I appreciate the support but there’s no saddle. I’m sleepy and I’m cold,” I tried to put on a jovial tone but it fell flat as I stood, “and I’ve got work to do.” 

He called out to me as I started towards my office. “I’m sorry, I-” 

“Don’t worry about it bud.” 

The apology I’d interrupted was one I’d heard a hundred times since Jack and I had separated, each one delivered under the guise of concern. I knew there was no ill will behind his comment but irritation nagged at me as I stalked the halls for Laura. She was in the conference room and looked up as I closed her laptop. 

“Does the phrase ‘keep this between us’ mean anything to you?” Confusion crossed her face before recognition, her eyes widening as I continued. “Because I distinctly remember asking you not to say anything.” 

“I’m sorry, Chloe. I only told one person and he promised he wouldn’t say anything.” 

“Why would you tell him in the first place?” My cheeks burned with embarrassment and I dropped into an empty chair. 

“He asked me if you were single, said a couple of the younger players were talking about it.” 

“And you couldn’t just say yes?” 

“I didn’t want anyone to come after you before you were ready. I told him you’d just gotten divorced and to tell the guys to back off.” She pushed aside a stack of paperwork and rolled her chair closer to me. “I’m sorry Chloe, I really am.” 

“It’s fine.” 

“Did he say something to you?” 

“Kind of. Something about me getting back into the saddle-” 

“Did you?” Her eyes dropped to my shirt and she reached out, hooking a finger under the collar and tugging it down. I smacked her hand away but she’d already seen the bruise on my neck. “You bitch!” 

“Keep your voice down!” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I haven’t seen you.” She pulled my collar down again and grinned. “And I’m not sure we should be talking about this here.” 

“How was it? Who was it?” I raised an eyebrow and she slapped me on the shoulder. “Holy shit! I need details. I need every single detail.” 

“I-” 

“Not here. Tonight? You want to come over for drinks after work?” 

“Sure.” 

“Oh, I’m so happy for you Chloe. You two are so cute together.” She bounced in her seat and clapped her hands together. “When are you seeing him again?” 

“I’m not sure I will. It was great and all but I don’t think it’s a good match.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah, there’s just something about him that rubs me the wrong way.” 

“What do you think it is?” 

“I dunno.” I shrugged and stood up, pushing my chair back in it’s spot before I started towards the door.  “It was fun though. A great welcome back to single life.” 

“You, single? Can’t imagine why.” Dougie blocked the doorway and crossed his arms over his chest, offering a shit-eating grin as he looked down at me. “Nice turtleneck.” 

“Thanks. Your mom lent it to me last time I slept over.” I stepped closer and expected him to move but he held fast. “Can you move?” 

“How about you make me?” I bumped him with my shoulder as I pushed past him and he grabbed his arm in fake pain, catching up with me on the way to my office. “You know, you can catch more flies with honey.” 

“And you can bite me.” 

“Looks like someone already did.” He followed me into the room and shut the door behind us, pinning me up against it before I knew what was happening. His thigh slipped between my legs and I sank onto it a bit, unable to help myself. I melted as he untucked my shirt and moved to pull it over my head. “Let me see my handy work.” 

“Dougie-” 

“I think I can do better.” He leaned down and buried his face in the crook of my neck, biting down until I dug my nails into his biceps. 

The room spun around me and I rolled my hips against him, chest tightening as the friction grew. A long minute passed before he gave up, lifting one of my legs to hook around his waist. Flush against me now, I could feel his hard-on flush against me and was aching for more. He groaned when I reached for his waistband and I stilled, pressing both of my hands against his chest until he took a step back. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“I um- we can’t.” I grabbed my shirt from where he’d dropped it and pulled it back on, frantic as I tucked it back in. “This is a bad idea.” 

“You mind telling me why?” He took a seat across from my desk and I took the one next to him, barely settled before I got up and crossed to the opposite side. I didn’t trust myself so close to him and my heart was racing from how he’d touched me. 

“I think that, for the sake of our professional relationship, that last night should be a one time thing.” 

“You didn’t enjoy yourself last night? Or this morning?” 

“I did.” I stopped as the memory of waking up with his head between my thighs surfaced and fought to refocus myself. “But we work together. We’re gonna see each other all the time, if this goes south it’s going to be hell to deal with. God forbid someone finds out that it happened at all-” 

“I wasn’t planning on telling anyone.” 

“Neither was I but that’s beside the point. This could just get really messy.”  He leaned forward on his elbows and watched me, waiting for my next move. I swallowed hard and prayed he couldn’t see the sweat on my brow as I chose my words carefully. “I think that we should take last night for what it was-” 

“A good time?” 

“A good time.” 

“Mind-blowing sex?” I parrotted him and fought a grin. “The best you ever had?” 

“Dougie-” 

He held his hands up in surrender and sat back, picking at a loose thread on his pants as he spoke. “I understand. One and done.” 

“Exactly.” 

“Won’t happen again.” 

“Nope.” 

“Alright well, I’ll leave you alone. Let you get to work.” 

“I appreciate that.”  He stood and turned towards the door, stopping with his hand on the knob and sighing loudly. I started up my computer and tried to ignore him but he did it two more times, each one louder than the last. “Do you need something?” 

“No, it’s just… I want a do-over.” 

“Pardon?” 

“A do-over. I phoned it in last night.” The ache in my hips begged to differ but I nodded for him to go on. “I figured I’d have another chance and I wanted to set the bar low.” 

“So you weren’t trying last night?” 

“Not my best, no.” He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, stone faced as he continued. “I’d say I gave about fifty percent but I went in with the mindset that I’d be running a marathon. Clearly this is a sprint.”

“So, just to clarify, you want a second chance because you half-assed last night?” 

He nodded and I leaned back in my chair, tapping the tip of my pen against my lips. The mere idea that he was capable of anything better than his performance last night was titillating and I was weak at the thought. Everything in me wanted to clear my desk off and give him whatever he wanted this instant but I fought the urge and instead nodded. 

“Fine. One more chance.” I stood and crossed the room until I was up against him, barely room for a breath between us. “But you better bring everything you’ve got Hamilton.” 

“Yes ma’am.” I started to remind him not to call me that but he cut me off with a kiss, long and deep and filthy. 

One hand on the back of my neck while the other squeezed my ass, both working to hold me as close as possible. He was still hard and the promise of another night at the mercy of the force between his legs made me dizzy. I slipped my hand under the waistband of his joggers and wrapped my fingers around him, consumed by the memory of the weight of his cock on my tongue and the way he’d moaned my name. 

He broke the kiss and dropped his forehead on mine with a whimper, his hips surging forward. It was the first time I’d seen a crack in his cockiness and I was mesmerized watching him. Eyes squeezed shut, lips parted, brow furrowed as he pleaded for me to do something. I shook my head and pulled his bottom lip between my teeth, biting down for a second before letting him go. 

“Can I tell you something?” He nodded and I leaned in, tracing the cuff of his ear with my tongue before whispering. “I only gave 25 percent.” 

I pulled my hand free and reached around to slap his ass, yanking open the door and stopping before I stepped into the hall. He had his back to me and I took a second to admire his broad shoulders, how they tapered down into slim, strong hips. Hips that nearly gave me a heart attack last night.

“Looks like I need a do-over too.” 

[yulmoldauer]

some things are better left unsaid (Tyson Jost/Male OC): Chapter 2

part 1

Chapter 2

Summary: Mason has to deal with the events of the previous night.

Warnings: uh as you can guess if you read the first part, there’s gonna be homophobia/transphobia talked about. Otherwise, there shouldn’t be anything that needs a warning? If I’m wrong just let me know :)

Words: 2,319

Notes: I don’t think I have much! This is like a lot of flashbacks and I’m sorry but that's character building baybee!!! I promise after this it’ll be more present-based stuff. I just love the character and wish I could spew out my brain and make it understandable lol

Fuck.

That was the only thought Mason had upon waking up. The implications of the previous night hit him like a ton of bricks. His hangover was just an added bonus.

The party had been fun, obviously, but Tyson was still here. Tyson had seen his top surgery scars.

“When did you have surgery?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. A medical degree and some knowledge on what other surgery would leave these scars would be helpful. Mason really did not want to lie, but he wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to do.

Being drunk wasn’t helping, either. In his mind, the world was ending and his career was over after the last fuck up that got him traded…

Rationally, he just burst into tears. Not a dramatic scene or anything, he just felt his eyes watering very quickly and suddenly the tears were rolling down his face.

“Oh, shit. Okay,” Tyson set the water down and hurried to his friend. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know this was- here, will you feel better if you get a shirt on?”

Mason only nodded, allowing Tyson to help him get the shirt on and pull him for a hug.

This just made Tyson think that the scars were from some shitty, traumatic event or something with extremely bad memories. Note to self: don’t fucking ask about them again was written in large letters in his brain.

He did factor in the extremely likely possibility that Mason was drunk and--as anyone with a brain knows--Mason was a hundred times more dramatic when drunk. Still, though, if he was crying, it couldn’t be a good thing.

At least Tyson had been nice enough to leave him some meds and water after forcing him to go to bed.

“You hungry?” Tyson asked softly from the doorway. “I heard you rumbling around in here, I wasn’t watching you sleep,” he clarified quickly.

“Didn’t think you were,” Mason chuckled. “No, I’m not hungry. Thank you, though. You can help yourself to whatever. You know that.”

“Yeah, I made some toast earlier. Fun birthday last night?” Tyson smiled and sat on the edge of the bed as Mason laid back against the headboard and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“You could say that. Thanks, though. Seriously, I had a ton of fun.”

“Yeah, of course. I didn’t stop you from posting anything on social media, though. I dunno why you like taking videos so much.”

“Then I can save them and rewatch them later,” Mason scoffed like Tyson was an idiot. After a few more seconds Tyson moved to get up mere milliseconds before Mason started talking.

“About last night…”

He hesitated, waiting for some kind of confirmation that Tyson was willing to talk about this. There was no sense putting it off, right?

Tyson just raised his eyebrows. “The scars?”

That earned a nod and Tyson sat back down.

“They’re… shit. Okay, sorry. I never meant to lie or anything--fuck that, I never lied. I just... “

“Dude, if it’s something you don’t want to talk about, that’s fine.”

Mason groaned quietly and shook his head. “No, it’s just… I don’t know how to explain it.”

“If you wanna talk, just say it. I’m not gonna freak out or anything. If you don’t wanna, that’s okay too,” Tyson reassured gently.

Truthfully, the curiosity was killing him. It was rare that an injury happened and they didn’t share it with each other. Mason took a few more breaths before nodding. Psyching himself up.

“They’re from my top surgery.”

Silence.

More silence.

Mason officially wanted to die. He was going to have to request another team change, go through the legal battle of making sure he didn’t get outed--

“Like…?” Tyson asked quietly with raised eyebrows.

“Like I had tits and got them removed the summer before I went to college.”

That may have been a relatively vulgar way to put it, but it was true. It was the simplest and least-awkward way he could think to put it.

“Oh,” Tyson nodded a few times. “Thats--I never knew--I mean, I couldn’t, like, tell or anything…”

“Yeah, that was the point,” he sighed and took a sip of the water on the nightstand. “Noone was supposed to know or be able to tell or whatever.”

“So literally no one knows?”

“Not literally, no. My family knows, obviously.”

“But the league?”

At the defeated sigh that escaped his friend, Tyson quickly backtracked. “You don’t have to get into it, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be prying--”

“No, it’s fine. It’s just… a long story that I don’t know if you actually want to hear or if you’re just being nice.”

“Of course I wanna hear, stupid. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”

Mason narrowed his eyes at the name, but it was quickly followed with a small smile.

It did take a bit to explain everything, though. How he was drafted into his previous team, everything was fine, and then someone had taken an ungodly amount of time to hit the showers at the same time Mason had been in there.

“Oh, fuck! You scared me,” Mason huffed when he heard the water turn on just across from him.

“What’cha being jumpy for?” the taller guy laughed.

“I’m not jumpy,” Mason grumbled, turning the water off quickly. He wasn’t even sure all the soap was out of his hair, but that didn’t matter. He just needed to get the hell out of there.

“Are you okay, man? You’re being weird-” the other man asked genuinely and glanced over his shoulder. This had been at the same exact time Mason had been trying to just leave as quickly as possible.

There was a few moments of silence that felt like years as the younger grabbed for a towel to cover himself up.

“Are you--?”

“Please, just forget--” Mason tried, but the guy was already turning his water off and grabbing his own towel.

“No, I’m not fucking--are you kidding me, Wright?” he nearly shouted as he stormed out of the room with Mason in tow. “Are you actually kidding me? How the hell have you gotten away with this--”

“I haven’t ‘gotten away with’ anything, you dickhead. It’s none of your business in the first place.”

“It doesn’t matter, you don’t belong here. You know they’ve got the women’s league now, right? It’s not like-”

Mason just shook his head, staring at the floor of the changing room while they were both yanking clothes on as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to hear what was coming next, all the awful shit he’d say.

It wasn’t even what he was saying that was the issue. Mason had heard just about everything at this point and had always had a pretty thick skin. It was the fact that someone he trusted--someone he’d considered family at this point--was saying it.

Didn’t he realize that it wouldn’t be like this if Mason could help it?

“Hey, what the hell is going on?” the head coach cried over them, walking into the room. He hadn’t been concerned about the loudness until it was unbearably obvious that the shouting was getting increasingly angrier and angrier. He wasn’t about to bring up the fact that Mason looked genuinely scared, as if worried about his safety.

The other guy was pissed, going off about how he’d been lied to, he’d been sharing a locker room, dressing room, and showers with a lot of unkind names, and that he wouldn’t keep playing for the team while acting like this never happened.

They ended up in the coach’s office, Mason attempting to towel dry his hair while the other blew off steam. He just didn’t want anyone to see him upset.

Once they were separated, lawyers were brought in with papers and agreements, and the head coach asked Mason if he’d like to request a trade or anything. It wasn’t like he had the option to say no, but he wasn’t exactly upset to go somewhere where he wasn’t worried about going to the bathroom without getting yelled at or beat up by a guy way bigger than himself.

He remembered to thank management before he left for working overtime, it seemed like, to figure out who would take him on such short notice and mid-season.

He was a good defenseman, sure, it just wasn’t easy on such short notice. But what the star player wants, the star player gets.

Colorado was the quickest to take the young defenseman about a year ago, and the rest was history.

“Holy shit,” Tyson murmured after a few quiet moments.

“I thought I was done. I honestly didn’t think anyone was going to pick me up, I thought my career was over. Can you fucking imagine that? Retiring at, like, 22?”

“Yeah, no, that’s… fuck, dude. I’m so sorry that happened.”

“It’s fine, I don’t even really care. I’m happier here, anyway. Especially since it’s not like you’re saying I’m a creep or a fucking… whatever.”

“Does anyone else know? In the league, I mean.”

Mason nodded. “Took a different approach when I got here. Bednar, bare minimum management, and PR knows. PR because if someone ends up outing me, I thought it would be a good idea to have some sort of plan on what to do. And medical staff always has, obviously. I think they know more about me than I do.”

Tyson nodded along, looking at his friend again after a few moments.

“You want this to stay between us, then? Or…?”

The fact that Tyson was even asking made Mason want to cry again. After being fucked over god-knows how many times when it came to being trans, Tyson was the one confirming he’d keep the secret. He wouldn’t give anyone any kind of hint unless Mason wanted him to.

“Yeah.  Between us, please? I dunno, I might come out to the guys eventually, just so they know. I just… I don’t know what I’d do if they react badly--”

“They wouldn’t,” Tyson said quickly. “I promise you they wouldn’t. And even if someone did have an issue with it, they’d just fucking stay quiet. They’d be in the tiny minority.”

“I just don’t know if I can take being traded and going through everything again, Tys.”

At the wavering in Mason’s voice, Tyson reached out and squeezed his friend’s hand.

“You’re not going to get traded over stupid shit like that. Not here, at least.”

“You don’t know--”

“I mean, yeah, I don’t know a lot. But you already said that the most important people who need to know do, they’re okay with it, and it sounds like they’ve got your back. I’ve got your back, too. And if you end up telling the rest of the guys, they’ll have your back too. Even if you end up not telling them, I’m still here for you, man.”

Mason felt about eight tons of weight fall off his shoulders at that. How did he end up with such an amazing friend?

“I just can’t really come out publicly for… I dunno. A while. Ever, maybe? I don’t know.”

“That’s gotta suck. I mean, everyone’s got their shit they want to keep private but… I dunno what I’d do if I literally couldn’t talk about something.”

Especially with how amazing it would be if Mason was able to be that representation for kids like he was who want to play hockey, Tyson thought. The amount of LGBT kids and teenagers who get driven out of hockey is immense, that’s never been a secret. To see an LGBT guy do so well would be amazing, it just sucked it wasn’t possible for Mason to talk about.

And he did want to talk about it. It would suck to come out and deal with that, but if it helped other people he would do it without hesitation. That’s the kind of guy Mason had always been.

“You’re sure you’re not mad that I, like, kinda lied to you about this up until now?” Mason asked, breaking Tyson out of his train of thought.

“Lie?” Tyson furrowed his eyebrows. “Not telling someone something isn’t lying, first off. Second, its none of my fucking business unless you wanted me to know. Even then, this would be a stupid thing to get in the way of being friends with you. I know you call me an idiot all the time, but I like to think I’m not that stupid.”

“You’re definitely not,” Mason chuckled, flipping his blanket off of him and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He shot Tyson a genuine, appreciative smile before downing the painkillers with some water. “Let me get dressed and I can drive you home, if you want. I feel bad making you wait so long,” he murmured. It was well into the afternoon, and even though Tyson constantly reassured that it was fine, he didn’t care, Mason still felt guilty.

It was very clear Mason was hungover when he and Tyson left the building and got into his car, but that was fine. It had just confused Tyson when Mason unbuckled in front of his apartment building.

That is, until he was pulled into a tight hug.

“Thank you so much,” Mason whispered. “Seriously. I… I dunno how to actually tell you how much I appreciate you being so chill.”

Tyson hugged him for a few moments before shaking his head. “It’s really not much to just… I dunno what to call it. Not be an asshole?”

Mason laughed as he let go, allowing Tyson to open the door. “You can text me if you have any questions about… anything. I don’t tell a lot of people, but the people who do know I’m pretty open with.”

“Yeah, of course. See you later, man. Go get rehydrated, okay? You look like shit.”

“Fuck you!”

[ofmythsandmadness]

i need a favour - three.

PART THREE - it was an extreme circumstance! what was i supposed to do, let you decapitate your brother with a butter knife?! or, dinners at the hargreeves house is always fun - but the added element of yours and diegos fake relationship? a party like never before.

WORD COUNT: 5500 or so. (oops. sorry) PREVIOUS PART(s): part one, part two.

A/N - I forgot about this, for a hot moment. Whoops. If you want to be added to the taglist, just ask and let me know. As well, if I missed you, just shoot a heads up. 

NONE OF THIS WAS NECESSARILY ‘NEW’.

She had gone to the Hargreeves before, loads of times. Whether it was to babysit Klaus, or pick one of them up, or even attend one of their infamous family dinners, because for some reason they all seemed to like her. She probably knew the place inside and out, aside from the basement area - but no one really talked about that part. She was comfortable with all of them, even Luther, no matter how many stupid fights they had all gotten into. Often leading to her playing Diego’s hype man and saying the shit he could not say (and then feeling horribly guilty later, often finding some way to make up for it, because she was far from the hardened badass she played out to be). And, honestly?

She loved them all. They felt like a second family and despite everything they had been through, she continued to feel that way.

So, the fact that she actually felt nervous to the point of nauseous, attending the monthly get-together, was really saying something.

Y/N smoothed down the front of her dress and adjusted her stance in the mirror. She folded her hands in front of her and tried to look poised, put-together, like she had her shit together even if she was just about to shit her pants thinking about it. If she was going to pull this off and help Diego out, she could not appear nervous. At all. It had to be a normal thing. A comfortable thing. A sort of thing where she would smile and not immediately vomit from her raging anxiety whenever he did so much as refer to her as his ‘girlfriend’. Even if at that moment, for some reason that totally freaked her out.

“Come on, Y/N,” she muttered to herself, twisting her fingers to the point where the joints ached. “Get yourself together. You can do this.”

But, could she do this?

She loved the Hargreeves and had known them long enough to know them; their quirks, personalities, all the little things they did to get out of a situation, and their lying faces. She could read even Allison like an open book - which meant they could all do the same to her. There was probably no way to get anything past them, unless she truly devoted herself to the task. She had to let go of her insecurities and the worry of them finding out (and that strange little knot in her stomach that only pushed when she thought about Diego, now) and just focus on her role.

It was just dinner - Diego never liked to stay long anywhere, anyways. 

She jumped at the screech of the window, followed closely by his voice calling her name. She sighed, forcing back the edge of panic and let her calmer facade come on.

“Y/N?”

“In here.”

Y/N slumped to her bed, leaning back to wait for him to stumble in. When he did, she forced a smirk. “Look at you, looking like a respectable member of society.”

He rolled his eyes, as always expected, body slumped against the frame of her door. His eyes lingered on her face, a softer look melting away the normal stress wrinkles he wore so openly. “Could say the same for you.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Diego nodded and held an arm out in offering, one she took eagerly as help for her heels. “You look good, Y/L/N.”

It was a simple compliment. And also, one she had gotten before. A thrown aside, often mutual, that did not mean much. But for some reason, her cheeks flushed pink and she had to fidget with her shoes a moment longer, eager to lose the blush before standing up again. She could barely bite out a ‘thanks’ in a normal tone - and it was that, that solidified her nerves even more.

Unfortunately, he read right through her mask. “What’s wrong? You nervous?”

“Nervous? What-no-I-” she stopped spluttering and sighed, giving up entirely. Her smile fell and was replaced with a watery grimace. “Is it that obvious?”

“Just a bit,” he grinned back. His hand remained on her arm, steadying her, even if she was good and standing already. “But s’fine. I’m not excited for this, either.”

She gasped dramatically. “Whoa, the great Diego Hargreeves, nervous? My word, my, my isn’t this something! Why, if I never!”

“I didn’t say I was nervous, and I didn’t tease you for being so scared, either.”

“I’m not scared, jackass.”

“S’that why your face is redder than a tomato?”

Immediately, Y/N ducked her head and shoved him away. “Shut up,” she grumbled. “Let’s just go before I lose my will and just send your siblings a picture of our divorce papers.”

He chuckled. “Divorce papers? Didn’t realise I even popped the question.”

“Oh, you did, and I regret it every day of my life.” She dropped the sarcastic veil for a moment to mumble a ‘thank you’ for him holding the door, only to snap back right after. “It’ll be hard to split up the children, but...we’ll make it work.”

“Kids? Shit, Y/N.”

“Oh, yeah, babe.” Y/N whirled around to grin through her queasiness, rubbing her belly exaggeratedly. “Twins.”

“I knew you were hiding somethin’ from me!”

Their laughter floated down the apartment hallway and out the lobby doors, light-hearted and teasing of the other - even while the both of them struggled with their own inwardly doubts. Insecurities and nervous thoughts neither dared to admit, though they threatened to surface with every passing moment. 

Both knew the dinner was going to be more than a walk in the park. Even if they dared not breathe that worry out loud to the other.

||

“RULE NUMBER ONE.”

“Elbows off the table?”

“Y/N-”

“Chew with my mouth closed?”

“Y/N!”

“Riiight, stick to the story no matter what,” she groaned, though she wore a smile and not a grimace. Her hand twisted in his, squeezing for just a second before falling limp. “C’mon, Diego. We’ve been over this, and over this...and over this.”

Not even a hint of a smile. She sighed. “I know what I’m doing, you know what you’re doing, and we’re gonna knock this dead. Maybe even be out before eleven.”

His face still did not change, however, despite her teasing and smiles. It was composed in a stony blank stare, the sort that was a cover for any feelings underneath. She knew it well, as it was often the coverup during any sibling fights the seven got into - which happened quite a lot. She had to coax a smile out of him, sometimes a task harder than easier. But it was weird, knowing that this time, they were both walking into that delicate situation and she could not just giggle her way into a grin from him.

“It’ll be okay. I know the steps and I know your siblings. I know all the ways to get under their skins - like, if Allison gets too curious, I’ll just call up that shitty sketch show she did when she was getting started? I think I’ve memorized just about - what are you looking at?”

Diego had paused, causing Y/N to draw to a stop too, just before the door. He was staring forward, jaw slack, strangely just past her - or even at her, she really could not tell. He seemed almost frozen, until she waved her hand and repeated the question.

“Nothin,” he said, voice gruffer than before. He coughed and drew forward, hand tighter in hers. “Just - you’re always a fucking surprise.”

And before she could ask just what that meant, they were standing in front of the door, and said door was swinging open, leaving her to awkwardly smile and accept the cheery Allison Hargreeve’s invitation to come inside.

“Hey, Y/N,” she greeted first, wrapping the girl up in a tight hug before moving onto her brother. “Don’t you two look nice, wow!”

She fought an eye-roll at the comment and bit back any snide remarks, no matter how good they were. “Thanks, but I mean, c’mon - you look great. California’s really suiting you.”

Allison had been filming her latest flick, a star-studded thriller and had been away for just about seven months. And it was true, what she said; her skin glowed and the smile on her face did not look so fixed, rather genuine, actually. Things sometimes could get tense and often the woman’s face reflected the sticky state of her relationship with certain siblings, but it was clear that was not the case yet, tonight.

“Thanks, but let’s not focus on me,” she cooed back. Her hands wrapped around Y/N’s, then Diego’s, tugging with a wide grin. “You two! Holy crap -- I mean, it was something we all hoped would happen, but -- it happened!”

“Ha - yeah, that’s...it happened.”

“You two are so perfect for each other, seriously. I’m just happy my brother finally got a grip and asked you out!”

Y/N shot Diego a sharp look, pointedly raising her brows at the woman, as if to ask what to do with that sentence. Of course, he made his own point to ignore her completely. Asshole, she glared.

“Let’s head in, yeah?” She said, eager to cut Allison off before the evening could start. There was no way she was going to lose this battle before even making it to the living room. “Where’s Grace and everyone?”

“Oh, everyone but Luther’s here now, and Grace’s in the kitchen - she’s excited to see you both, though, too.” 

 Okay, so there were two things that would somewhat balance out, at least. Luther and Diego would fight, without fail, just as they always did, but Grace was always a healing voice in his life, she’d hopefully keep him a bit calm. If he could be calm; it really felt like she was holding the arm of a ticking time bomb rather than a fake boyfriend. Just to be honest.

“Remember,” he gritted to her, lips brushing near her ear, “don’t mention anything.”

“Anything? At all?”

“You know what I mean.”

She drew past him and away from his arms, puckering her lips into a fake kiss as she followed his sister in. Diego followed close behind, but they both separated - him being tugged away by a seemingly desperate looking Klaus, her eyes immediately meeting with Vanya.

“Hey, Vanya,” she greeted, moving into a gentle embrace. It only lasted a moment, however, Y/N pulling away so she could study her friend’s face a bit closer.

It was obvious the trauma of past months still stuck with her, as it would anyone; worry lines and dark circles left gentle stains on the girl’s face, aging that seemed to happen so quickly. She still looked so tired, like sleep had escaped her for aeons and she had no clue how to earn it all back. But, Y/N mused, she did look better than before. Her smile was not so forced and she seemed to carry herself a bit more confidently - no more as scared to be in the Hargreeves hellhole of a mansion.

“How are you doing?”

“Good.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded, a bit stronger that time. “Yeah, I’m good. Busy, with work n’all that, but busy’s...good,” Vanya finished, weakly shrugging. “Sorry. Does that make sense?”

“Perfect sense. I get it - keeps you going, keeps your mind occupied.” She sank into the sofa, comfortably close enough to Vanya while maintaining some distance. She did try her best remember the woman was still working through things and liked to keep some boundaries. “How’s all that then, with the orchestra? I can’t wait to see it, soon.”

She grinned at that, properly. “Don’t know, but hopefully...hopefully, things work out. But I - we don’t have to just talk about me.”

“Oh, no, I like to hear about this! It’s been too long, I feel like I’m missing out on your life.”

“I know but I mean, c’mon.” Her hand reached out to pat her knee, a gentle touch so rare for her. “I think - I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say here. Maybe congratulations?”

Y/N smiled gently. Her eyes flitted over to Diego, watching him talk for a brief second before turning her attention back to Vanya. “Uh, thanks...yeah, it’s definitely - it’s big. I don’t think even we were expecting it. But here we are.” Inwardly, she winced at her fumbling words. And the award for best actress goes to...

“How did you two...happen?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat, shrugging back her nerves and fought for frozen composure. Her hands shook ever so slightly in her lap. “Oh, you know. It’s honestly not that great of a story, sort of blase.”

“Was he the one to ask you out?” There was an uncharacteristic sparkle in the woman’s eyes as she leant a bit closer, “I would never think he’d have the guts to actually do it.”

Y/N forced a laugh. “Well, I mean - somewhat, yeah. It was more of a mutual thing?”

Vanya frowned, raising a brow in question.

“He was just...over, it was late, and while I was cleaning up his wounds for the umpteenth time. We just got to talking about it somehow.” She looked back down to her lap. “We, uh, both decided to just throw logic out the window and give it a try, considering that everyone already thought we were together anyways. And, uh, here we are. Ha. Right?”

She probably had to work on that delivery, but Vanya at least took it all without a single question. Her smile grew and in a rare moment of affection, her arms clasped around Y/N tight. “I’m so happy for you,” she mumbled, drawing back almost as quickly as she moved in. “You two seem right together. Sorta always have.”

“Yeah...yeah, he’s great. Once you get past his grumpy exterior, he’s really quite the sweetheart.” Their eyes caught across the room, and without meaning to, Y/N smiled. Her head ducked away before she could lose her train of thought, leaving her to completely miss his shy grin back. “It just feels natural, y’know?”

Vanya nodded sagely. “I know what you mean. We all thought you two would have gotten together - everyone’s been saying it for years, but I don’t know if any of us thought it would actually happen.”

“Honestly? I didn’t think it’d happen either. But I’m...glad it did.”

“Good. M’glad you two have each other. You’ve always made him so happy, Y/N.”

She wanted to call Vanya out on that statement, ask just what that meant - but could she, really? Or was she supposed to take all the mysterious statements like that in hand and smile like she knew exactly what they meant? It was not like she could easily bring it up to Diego himself, without both of them feeling incredibly awkward. She guessed it was just supposed to chalk up to the same feelings the siblings had for Diego and her in general, the desire to get them together from the very start.

She just smiled the remark off. “It’s all still new, we’re just seein’ where this goes.”

“Right, of course.”

“Hey, darling,” a voice said from behind her. Y/N fought back the urge to snap at the pet name - which okay, was slightly better than the others, but she was not going to tell him that - and simply turned to look his way. He was smiling and holding a hand out to her, clearly waiting for her to take it. “Can you come help me in the kitchen?”

She smiled softly at Diego and rose. Her gaze shot back to Vanya, twisting to look more apologetic then happy. “I’m sorry to leave mid-con-”

“-it’s okay, no worries,” she said, waving a hand as though to pass the issue straight up. She took note that the woman never looked directly at Diego, just slightly past him - though she did smile his direction. “Congrats, you two.”

Diego merely nodded, making a sort of grunt noise in acknowledgement before gently taking Y/N’s hand and gesturing the way out. His hand moved to the small of her back, leading her forward into the kitchen where the ever-familiar blonde figure worked. Before she could ask why they had left the siblings (or why he had to slip a pet name in there again), Grace was turning around and her smile had to snap right back on.

“Mom, hi.”

Y/N remained back as Diego greeted his mother, watching as the two embrace. She could not help but soften her smile at the sight; despite her own anxiety, there was a sort of peace, existing between the two that made everything around her a little easier to deal with. He adored his mother, and had done everything he could for her. His love it was obvious even in the littlest of details. How he hugged her, smiled, even looked her way. She had seen him with such an expression before, she knew that, but could not place the place or person - just that it was rare to see him so at ease.

“It’s so nice to see you, Diego,” Grace cooed, resting a gentle hand on her ‘son’s’ cheek. She turned away from the man to smile at Y/N. “And Y/N! You look so beautiful tonight.”

“Thanks, Grace. As do you.”

The being mechanically nodded, just enough hesitation between each movement to show the still robotic features of the human-appearing woman. “Thank you, dear.”

“Uh, mom - I wanted to bring Y/N to you, for a reason.” Diego pulled away from his mother’s side to stand close to her once more, hand at her spine and nervous smile tugging at his lips. “I w-wanted to introduce her to you properly, now that we’re together.”

The next moments flash by so fast, she could not even say if they happened or if it was all just in her head. She could only remember his bashful smile and her red-lipped grin pressing into her temple, a warm voice wishing some sort of happiness and - well, truthfully, she had tuned out the second he had touched her lower back again. The moment he spoke, something had changed, and it no longer felt like a dangerous game played in jest.

She knew it was nothing, had to be so, but the way he said those two words. The smile that graced his lips - it did not feel the same as any other time they had mentioned their relationship. It felt real. Like she was a normal human being who was actually meeting a boyfriend’s mother for the first time, as though she was supposed to really feel nervous and shy but giddy to reach that milestone in their journey. Like it fucking meant something.

And that? That, was absolutely terrifying.

||

THE REST OF THE NIGHT WENT BY IN A BLUR. She could hardly focus on a thing, chewing mechanically through food she did not taste and smiling when it was necessary in conversations she did not hear. Dinner at least was pretty simple and she could get away with this easily, though. Everyone had something to say and every topic drummed up at least twenty minutes of arguing - so much so that their relationship was barely mentioned. Sure, they got a couple sly looks and a few comments from Klaus - but the rest was a breeze.

Aside from her own troubling thoughts.

She turned her gaze upwards, meeting those of Vanya’s across the table. The woman was frowning, and mouthed ‘are you okay?’, with raised brows. All she could do was smile and nod ever so slightly in an attempt to cover her distraught. She did not seem to believe her, but there was nothing she could do about that.

Her eyes turned back to the rest of the siblings, sensing a lull in the conversation, and finally spoke up. “How’s Five, these days? Hasn’t he missed what, like four of these dinners?”

“Three,” Klaus shot out, absent-mindedly swirling the mocktail in his glass with a dismal look. “And really, I couldn’t say. He says we’re too dense to understand his work.”

“He’s trying to hone his abilities, figure out how far he can stretch them. I think right now, he’s working on something in the 60s, but that’s just a guess.”

Diego huffed. “He always had to be the overachiever.”

Across the table, Luther scoffed and set down his fork. “He’s using his powers for the greater good, at least that’s something.”

“What’s that?”

She could practically hear the eyes rolling. Everyone knew what was to come, because as far as she knew, it happened almost every time. Some stupid remark that either Luther or Diego made, that made the either overreact - two big egos clashing with one another constantly. They had done their best to make up, but it never was perfect.

“What are you doin’, huh big guy?” He had stood up at that point, clutching his butter knife like it could be a real weapon - though anything was, with Diego. “What good have you been cookin’ up?”

“We all do our part.”

“Don’t bullshit me here with vague...bullshit!”

The comeback was admittedly weak, but it was still enough to get the brother riled. Luther stood up, flames for eyes, and smashed his fist against the table. No one even flinched. “At least I’m doing something - you’re a criminal, Diego.”

“Ex,” he gritted back. She could practically see the anger building inside him, and yet he managed to keep a thin level of calm, fueling his snarky tone with the rage. “That’s in the past, unlike everything you build your life on now. How long has it been since ‘dad sent you to the moon’. Huh?”

Y/N rested a hand on his, but it was brushed off quickly. So was her hiss to ‘stop’, unfortunately. She sank back perturbed.

“I’m doing important work, unlike you!”

“Unlike me - I save lives, Luther. Every single goddamn night. Putting what Dad did to us to good use. You-you sit on your ape ass and pine after Allison-”

“-dude, that argument is so old,” butted in Allison herself. “Please pick a new one.” She pounded against Y/N’s extended fist with a grim smile, accenting the point. “Also, you’re both embarrassing yourselves.”

She nodded, once more pulling at his arm - that time more successfully. “Please just sit down...baby.” It felt weird to add that on, but also odd not to. Like she needed that accent for a truly strong statement.

What mattered, though, was that it worked. His gaze turned to her with wide eyes as though surprised at her words - probably because ‘baby’ had never left her lips earnestly before. He sank back down and loosened his grip on the knife as requested, though the grimace did not budge.

Y/N smiled softly and moved to talk, but was cut off quickly by Luther, who was still teeming. “So just because of her, you want to be civilized?”

“Luther-”

“-be grateful, Spaceboy.” A wry grin tickled his lips, though he was anything but jovial. “I could still run this knife straight through your thick skull if you say one more thing.”

“I’m not scared of you.”

“You should be.”

“And why’s that?” Luther pushed, almost as though he was eager to press all of Diego’s buttons. Like he wanted a show. “Why should I be scared of you, number two?”

“Don’t act like you’re above us all now,” he gritted back, glaring so hard she feared Luther might turn straight to stone. “I could still gut you like a fish, if I wanted.”

“And would your girlfriend want that?”

Y/N watched as his grip tightened on the knife, so tight his fingers were paling by the second. 

“Don’t fucking talk about her.”

She could almost read his mind; sense his next move. And whatever it was, it was not going to end in a good time. Fights with them only escalated until one of them were forced to step down - and it was never through just words. The two were too careless and competitive to just let the other claim victory. Luther got too riled to quickly, and Diego never knew when to stop. Maybe just the worst combinations of personalities put into one room, again and again.

But at that time, she refused to have the night ruined, or to go home upset. That time, was going to be different, and the Hargreeves family dinner could maybe have at least one smile leaving the table. She was not there for nothing.

“Diego, just step down.”

“I-”

-before he could finish his thought, or before anyone could comprehend what was going on, Y/N was moving forward. She tugged his face to her and without a grain of thought, pressed her lips to his. It was rough and she almost winced when their faces collided, but still she continued, doing her best to sell the illusion against a frozen Diego. Her hand slid to cup his cheek, subtly covering their mouths just enough to pull back. With eyes shut tight and lips barely apart from his, she spoke, “shut the fuck up, or I’m walking right now”, before closing the distance once more.

It was weird. In a lot of ways. She had not really thought hard about their first actual kiss, but had not imagined it in front of all his siblings at the dinner table as they all shouted and hollered at the sight. She also had not imagined - well, truly, Y/N could not have expected any part of the outcome. The immediate thought to just kiss him, then him frozen in complete shock, before melting in to her touch, presumably to sell the act. She had to admit, he was far from a bad kisser, lips moving surprisingly-

“-are we ready for dessert?”

When had Grace even left? Y/N had not seen her move from her chair, though she supposed in the chaos, that was not too shocking. The second her voice floated through the air, however, she pulled away from Diego and sank back into her seat with new energy. Cheeks hot and lips just the slightest bit swollen, she ducked her head, not eager to see the faces of those around her.

Especially not his.

“I don’t know about you guys,” Klaus said, eager to fuel her shame further, “but I definitely could eat. How about you, Diego, are you still hungry, or are you-” he cut himself off with a loud yelp.

She did not look up, but no one could mistake the whizzing of the butter knife and Klaus’ shout of surprise, narrowly avoiding the serrated edge going straight into his jugular. In normal circumstances, she would laugh her ass off at the sight, probably berate Diego even through her giggles - but all she could do was bite back the urge to run very far away, away from the disaster situation just created around her. BY her.

Y/N sighed and clutched her fingers a little bit tighter. So much for quick and easy.

||

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?”

“What the hell was what?”

“Why did you kiss me?”

Y/N stormed right past him, eager to find her way out of that house’s vicinity. However, just as she thought she was free, he caught her arm and pulled her back.

“Let me leave,” she mumbled, freeing herself and resuming her walk. Her frown only grew as she heard him follow. “Okay? We did dinner, great, bye now.”

“You kissed me.”

“I panicked!”

He chuckled grimly behind her. “You panicked - Y/N, that was a full on makeout in front of my entire family!”

“Well...Five wasn’t there. And Ben’s not fully here, does he count?”

“Not the point!”

She rolled her eyes and walked faster - though it was pointless, he always kept up. Screw him and his super human self. “I did what I had to do before one of you went too far. I’m sorry, I just - I panicked, and you weren’t listening to me!”

“I was.”

“You were not! An’ you were about to cut Luther’s head in two right then and there. I thought that in case of emergency - I had to do something, before dinner turned into a bloodbath.”

She had finally stopped then, clutching her thin jacket around her body as she shivered. He stood in front of her, fists in his pockets with a strange look in his eyes - unreadable, just as before.

“Sure,” he finally said, slowly. “I just didn’t think that was when we were going to...you know.”

Y/N shrugged. “It was bound to happen eventually. We both knew that.” 

“At our first couples outing?”

“Again, might I mention the decapitation act nearly committed?”

He half grinned at that, though his eyes remained stormy. There was something up, not necessarily with the kiss - more than that, though she could not figure out what. “Not a great excuse.”

“Saving you from prison time isn’t a great excuse?”

“No, I think...you were just that eager to kiss me.”

“Sure, if you mean so we could both walk out of there alive, yeah. I was down to kiss you - for the sake of that, only.”

“You were eager to have the chance, don’t kid yourself.”

She rolled her eyes and took a step back, distancing herself even more. Suddenly, even in the late autumn chill she felt hot, flashes of heat running up and down her body like her embarrassment decided to throw a rave without permission. 

“I’m sorry,” she finally said, toing the ground with her boot. “I didn’t want to make out with you in front of your family.”

Diego shrugged, a slyer smile building on his lips. “M’sure they enjoyed the show.”

“Gross.”

“I mean, you really went for it-”

“-stop, stop,” she begged, head in her hands. She could hear his laughter, feel it floating around her, but at least she could eliminate the sight of his smirk from the torture. “I get it. Okay? Can we forget about and just get outta here?”

“I don’t think anybody’s gonna be forgetting that anytime soon.” He mumbled something after that, but it was too low for her to catch. Diego stepped close to her, grabbing her arms so as to tug them away from her face, and pulled her forward. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

||

SHE COULD NOT SLEEP. Try as she did, Y/N’s eyes would just not shut; sleep had escaped her, this time all because of herself. Her brain would not turn off and the thoughts that she had ignored the day before were haunting her awake during the night.

She could not forget the kiss. It was stupid and meaningless and yet like a broken record player, it just kept going and going, over and over in her mind until she could knew it too well. Just as it would leave her mind, she would shut her eyes and it would be back - his lips on hers, his stubble pressed into her hand, jaw clenched, his own fingers pressed ever so lightly against her waist -

-Y/N sprung up and stormed out of her bedroom. Aimlessly she walked, pacing her apartment in nary but sleep shorts and one of his own black sweaters, left behind on one of his wounded nights. It was driving her mad. Really, truly, crazy. Just one kiss and she was plain-out insane. Amazing.

She could blame it on the moment, the rush of it all - or even the nerves that had been building from the very start of the evening. She was stressed and it all happened so fast and all she had wanted was for him to shut up before he got hurt...and maybe that was why she was so invested in the embrace. A great deal had been poured into the kiss, and her brain confused that with actual romantic feelings for the guy.

Y/N scoffed and pulled the shirt tighter around her shivering body. She was playing herself, and there was not even a way out. She could not turn her brain off, and definitely there was no way she would tell Diego anything. To admit she was still fixated on a heat-of-the-moment solution - not even a kiss, merely a solution - would be a huge mistake and one she refused to fall for. Besides, she grumbled, what was he to do? He had probably forgotten all about it at that point.

This was all so very, very stupid. And even worse? Very, very, very confusing, emotionally.

She should never have agreed to this fake relationship in the first place.

TAGLIST: @asexualmarauder​ @thatshellfiredean​ @the-bird-suit​  @rangotangomango​ @fandomsandmore394​ @thatkidofwarandpeace​ @antoouu​

[thejollyroger-writer]

To Serve and Protect - Chapter 5

SUMMARY: Detective Killian Jones has been investigating a stalker-turned-murderer for months by the time he goes home from the bar with Emma Swan. But when he thinks he sees the very man in question outside her apartment, can he separate his feelings for her and his need to keep her safe?

TRIGGERS: well, this is a fic about a serial killer. mentions of violence and death, with some physical violence/whump. as always, if you need me to discuss this further for you to be comfortable, message me. – rated teen

Prologue // Ch. 1 // Ch. 2 // Ch. 3 // Ch. 4 // Ch. 5 on AO3

a/n: another Monday, another chapter, another cliffhanger?, still no baby. 

-- -- -- -- 

Graham shows up first, quickly clearing the two flights of stairs that lead to Killian’s walkup apartment. The first thing he notices is the open door. 

The second is the emptiness in the space at the top of the steps. Emma’s not there, only a few bags of groceries and a bottle of wine. 

Jesus, what’s he going to tell David — but he pushes the thought down with a gulp, not even allowing his brain to go there. 

“Jones!” he calls out, turning his attention towards the half-open door. “I’m coming in!” And for a moment, the whole world stills, only silence greeting him on the other side. And then: 

“Oh, Graham, thank god.” Emma’s voice comes from across the room, half-shrouded by the couch. He catches his breath closing his eyes for half a second. “Did you — are you —” He doesn’t even know what questions he’s trying to ask, but they’re not coming out either way, so he snaps his mouth shut before crossing the room to where Emma is kneeling on the floor.

There’s blood. There’s a lot of blood, actually, something which has long since stopped bothering Graham. But seeing Killian Jones passed out on the floor, a blood-soaked light blue towel pressed against his shoulder, makes his stomach churn. Sure, Killian can be a pompous asshole, he sometimes doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, and he’s been known to defy an order or two, but Graham would still place him on the short list of his friends. 

“The stalker’s dead in the kitchen,” Emma says, her eyes never once leaving where she’s putting as much pressure on Killian’s gunshot wound as she can. “At least, I’m assuming it’s the stalker. And I’m assuming he’s dead, given that there’s been no movement or sound from over there since I came in.” 

Graham nods, changing his course to check on that, first. Sure enough, behind the counter that separates the kitchen from the living room, there’s a dead body, a bullet in his chest and one just below his neck. Of course Killian would manage two almost-perfect shots while he’s getting shot himself. 

“Yeah,” Graham confirms, pressing his fingers against the man’s neck even though there’s no way he could still be alive after those two shots. “He’s dead alright. How’s Jones?” 

Emma sighs, but before she can answer, Henry calls to them from the hallway: “Jones! Miss Swan! I’m coming in!” 

“We’re clear, Mills,” Graham says, meeting the young man at the door, and they share a nod before both holstering their weapons. “One DB in the kitchen, and Jones is unconscious with a shoulder injury but still alive.” 

“And the ambulance?” 

“On its way,” Emma says. “A few minutes passed between when I called you and them, so they should be here any minute.” 

As if on cue, the two paramedics push their way into the apartment. 

“Sheriff,” one of them says gruffly, sharing a nod with Graham. 

“Booth. Officer Jones is behind the couch. And there’s a DB in the kitchen.” 

“DB’s are your jurisdiction,” he half-jokes, but rushes to where Killian is lying on the floor. “Emma,” he says, kneeling next to her on the floor, and Graham notices the way a soft blush rises to her cheeks. 

“Hey, August.” 

“You did a great job with the towel. Probably saved his life.” 

“Thanks,” she mumbles, letting August take her place at his shoulder, and she reaches out to sweep Killian’s hair off  his forehead. 

“I’ll take it from here,” he says, but Emma is already pushing herself off the floor and wiping her hands on her already-bloodstained dress. 

“I’m… gonna change,” she says, her voice still soft, and she doesn’t meet anyone’s eye before she turns back towards the bedroom. 

“You can take all the time you need, Miss Swan,” Graham says, and she stops but doesn’t turn towards them. “I’ll wait for you and you can ride to the hospital with me.” 

But she’s already shaking her head. “No, I’m going with him.” 

It’s not a question, but Graham still turns to August who confirms. After finishing his current task, the paramedic meets his eyes, nods with a shrug, and goes back to what he’s doing. 

 She told herself she didn’t need to know. She even told Killian that, if given the choice, she didn’t want to know. But now that the choice is here, literally, dead in Killian’s kitchen, she can’t stop thinking about him. 

Because what if he is someone from her past, as improbable as it is? What if all of this was because of her? 

She takes a deep breath in and holds it, pausing from trying to wash Killian’s blood off her hands to look at herself in the mirror for a moment before releasing it. From what she can tell, though her dress is ruined, none of it soaked through to her bra, which she only thinks about since she doesn’t know if she has another here to change into. 

Anything to keep her mind off of what happened in the last ten minutes. 

It doesn’t all come off, the blood staining her hands and her arms, but she does her best. It’s a warm day, but she has no idea what the temperature in the hospital is going to be like, so she opts for leggings and a plain white v-neck, but before she leaves the bedroom she pulls a blue and white flannel shirt from Killian’s closet overtop. 

She is silent as she crosses the apartment, her arms crossed over her chest to make her as small as she can, but she’s made up her mind. 

“Emma, are you—” Graham starts, turning away from where they’re moving Killian to a stretcher, but when she doesn’t stop, her path clear, he crosses the living room and tries to stop her. “I don’t think you want to do that.” 

“No, Graham,” she says, shaking her head as she pushes past him and into the kitchen. “I’ve made up my mind, I need —” She swallows, stepping around the counter, but her attention is still on Graham. “I need to see him, I need to know.” 

When she does turn her eyes down towards the body on the floor, though, everything stops: her words, her mind, her heart. Her breath catches in her throat. She might throw up — hell, she might faint. She needs— 

Air. 

Deep breaths. Slow movements. The balcony. Fresh air. 

Holy shit. 

“We’re ready to go here, Miss Swan, if you still want to come with us.” 

But she knows she can’t. She can barely breathe, nonetheless make it down a flight of steps, so she shakes her head. “No, I — I’ll go with Graham. We need to talk to David.” 

Though Graham offered to pick him up at the tavern, David insists on meeting her at the hospital. Between the slow night and the fear in Emma’s voice, he leaves almost immediately, much closer to the hospital than Killian’s apartment, but Graham and Emma still beat him there in the sheriff’s cruiser. 

She’s a mess. An absolute mess, pacing in the waiting room, unable to stop moving — her feet, her hands, her mind, everything moving a mile a minute. Graham tried to get her to talk on the way there, but she couldn’t do it, wasn’t able to explain anything with David there. (Odd, he thought, but she’s certainly in a state of shock, so he doesn’t question it.)

It only takes David a few minutes longer than them to get there, but she spends them trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together, trying to figure everything out. 

It doesn’t help, though. If anything, it just makes her head spin faster, dizzying her to the point where she needs to sit down for a moment — a moment that finds a quick end when David finally walks through the doors. It’s obvious by both his crazed expression and the amount of his hair sticking up in different directions that he’s been worrying about her since she hung up the phone, which doesn’t surprise her, but there wasn’t much she could do about it, since she couldn’t fill him in over the phone. 

He greets Graham first, sharing a handshake with him before wrapping his arms around Emma. She’s always thought that was part of the reason she got along with him much better than James, even though she’s much similar to his gruff, silent personality. But David always seemed to understand her, was there for her emotionally the way no one else ever tried to be, and he truly has been pretty much her only best friend until Ruby came home to Storybrooke a few years’ past. 

“Emma, please, tell me what’s going on,” he says after a moment, the silence of it all finally getting to him.  

So she does. She fills him in, letting Graham give a little background on the stalker case after she talks about going home with Killian that first night. She doesn’t share anything that doesn’t need to — he is still her brother, and she would be okay if both he and Graham just assumed that she and Killian’s relationship had never gotten physical. She sums up the past few weeks quickly, seeing him throughout the day, spending nights between their apartments, everything he needs to know, until she gets to earlier that night, to standing in the hallway helpless as she hears the gunshots, to hoping that it’s safe for her to go in even though all that greets her on the other side of the door is silence — and how she found Killian on the floor behind the couch with a bullet in the shoulder and the stalker in the kitchen, how she called 9-1-1 and they talked her through finding a towel and putting pressure on the wound until the paramedics got there. 

At the end of it all, David sighs from the seat he decided to take next to Graham, even with Emma still pacing between them and Henry, now seated on the other side of the small aisle. “So everything’s okay, the stalker is taken care of and now we just have to wait for Killian to get out of surgery.” 

Emma shakes her head as she whips to face him, movement enough to make her vision go blurry for a moment. “Everything is not okay, David,” she says, which grabs the attention of both men. “It all comes back to Neal.” 

“What?” 

“The stalker. It was Felix.”

Graham stands up, running his fingers through his hair. This is beginning to be too much for him. “Wait, you— you know the stalker?” 

At this, Emma nods, sitting in the seat he just stood from. “After I graduated from high school, I needed to get out of Storybrooke, but you already know that. So I went to Boston, and that’s where I met Neal. I got into the wrong crowd almost immediately, and he was — well, he was in charge of it. I knew he was older than me, but I never cared about how much older. I was seventeen and stupid and I though he was the answer to the thrilling life that I thought I needed. And I thought I loved him, which blinded me to what he was really doing, which was serious crime on top of all the gaslighting and manipulation towards me in particular. He would be out all night, come home all bloodied up but happy, and told me I was insane when I tried to ask him about it. Plus he had all this money, which he said came from his dad, who was apparently the ambassador of something, some kind of Boston big shot, so I shrugged off the fact that he had so much money.

“His best friend was this guy named Felix, who was even more terrifying than he was, covered in scars and tattoos and he had a violent past, though Neal convinced me it was all in the past even though he was apparently wanted for murder or something near the end, which was when I found out what they were doing, what they had been doing the whole time we were together. But I was young and stupid and I thought I was in love, so I shrugged it off, especially when he talked about running away from it all, leaving behind his life in Boston that required so much from him to somewhere quiet, where we could live in peace after one more big grab. That’s what he called it. And I believed him. 

“We were supposed to leave that night, so I met him at his father’s mansion, everything packed in my car. I just needed him to come home. But it was a set up, and they called the cops and claimed to have me under citizen’s arrest, though I wouldn’t have even had anywhere to run had I tried. I was seventeen, an orphan, technically family-less since Ruth had never finalized her adoption, so I went to prison until my eighteenth birthday and then came home. I’ve been trying to forget about Neal and his cronies for ten years, and since Ruth passed a few years ago, David is the only person that knows what happened in the year and a half I was gone, except that little bit I’ve told Killian over the past few weeks but seeing Felix’s face tonight, even seeing him dead in Killian’s kitchen, brought it all back.” 

David, who wrapped his arm around her shoulder near the beginning of her story, pulls her in closer, an awkward hug at an awkward angle, especially with the arms of their chairs between them, but it calms Emma nonetheless. 

“I don’t think it’s over, though,” she says after a moment, voicing the fear that has chilled her since she recognized the body in Killian’s kitchen. 

Graham is still trying to wrap his head around it all, and this certainly doesn’t help. Both he and Henry look back up at her. “Why? What?” 

“Everything Felix did, he either did because Neal told him to, or because he was trying to impress him. So if Felix really is behind all this, as you seem to believe he is—” 

“He matches the sketches that some of his victims have given us, he’s definitely the stalker,” Graham cuts in, needing to have some semblance of control over the situation. 

Emma nods, but continues. “He either did it because Neal told him to, or he did it for him. Either way, I can’t help but think that wherever Felix is, Neal can’t be too far behind.” 

“Fuck.” The word slips through David’s teeth, sounding foreign to Emma in his voice, but it’s fitting. 

“So you think this Neal guy might be here in Storybrooke?” Henry asks. 

Hearing the words spoken out loud makes Emma want to scream, or cry, or curl up in a ball on the floor. Or all three. But that doesn't change the fact that: “Yes. Or he will be soon. He may even be listed as Felix’s next of kin.” 

She doesn’t like making plans without Killian, since he has been so integral to her and her safety for weeks now, but hearing Graham and Henry trying to piece a plan together, one that involves police escorts and uniforms stationed outside David’s house — the only safe place for her to stay, obviously — begins to calm her still-pounding heart. 

They sit in silence for a while, each of them still trying to fit all the pieces together in a puzzle that seems totally impossible, but it’s not long before Dr. Whale comes out through the doors, a smile on his face that clashes with the tension in the waiting room. 

If he senses something is off, he ignores it, spreading his arms wide in what can only be described as a welcoming gesture. Understandably,all four of them in the waiting room ignore it. 

“I have good news, and I have good news!” 

He’s much too happy for them. Graham rolls his eyes, as he does multiple times every time he has to deal with the doctor. 

When only Emma and Henry physically turn their attention towards him, he tones the theatrics down a bit, which might be all that he’s capable of. “Since it was a low-caliber bullet, it didn’t pass all the way through, stopped by his shoulder blade and the muscles around it. Normally we’d worry about irreversible nerve damage to his hand and arm, but since he already has a prosthetic, that's no concern to us and he should heal just fine, with some minor physical therapy to fully regain use of his shoulder.”

“Can we see him?” Emma asks, her voice noticeably quieter than normal, making her seem smaller. Weaker. 

Dr. Whale purses his lips, his eyes turned to the floor — avoiding meeting any of their gazes. “He’s not awake yet from the anesthesia, and probably won’t be until morning.” 

“Besides,” Graham starts, practically cutting him off. “You should get some rest tonight. Tomorrow I’m going to need to take formal statements from both of you, a lot of paperwork and a lot of formalities. It’ll probably take most of the day.” 

Emma sighs. “We’re supposed to meet with Mayor Mills tomorrow to go over a few cases.” 

Everyone in the waiting room, including the doctor, watches in awe as Graham blushes, a soft smile gracing his face. “I’ll take care of Mayor Mills for you, don’t worry.” 

A shocked silence takes over the waiting room. David laughs. 

Dr. Whale clicks his tongue. “Well. Mr. Jones will be ready for visitors in the morning,” he says, then turns away from them and pushes back through the double doors he came through. 

David barks out another laugh, breaking the silence that has built around them, slipping his arm around Emma’s shoulder. “It appears our boy here has developed himself a little crush.” 

Graham rolls his eyes, but his blush deepens nonetheless. “For your information, Nolan — not that it’s any of your business anyway — it appears that she returns my ‘crush,’” he says, putting his own air-quotes around the word. “And she and I have been on a few dates as our busy schedules have allowed.”  

Henry covers his face with his hands. David, apparently, can’t stop laughing. Emma’s not even sure how to feel, but can’t keep the smile off her face. 

Graham shakes his head. “Let’s get out of here, alright? The smell of antiseptic is upsetting my stomach.” 

She was worried about not being able to sleep. It was much easier to convince herself that she was safe when she could feel Killian beside her, when she knew that if anything did go wrong, he would be right there to protect her, either from the ghosts in her mind or the ones that had recently manifested in the real world. But she can’t get rid of them, the memories of Neal from ten years ago and the nightmares that have plagued her since, not to mention the memory of Felix dead in Killian’s apartment. Sure, Graham told her not to, and he was probably right, but she had to, had to know. Did it make anything better? Questionable. In some ways, it definitely made it worse, the shadow of Neal hanging over her more than ever before. 

She can’t do this, though. Every time she closes her eyes, she’s met with Felix, or Neal, or one of his other cronies, or something from those long few months she spent in jail. Sighing, she pushes herself out of the bed, making her way to the guest bathroom as quietly as she can. 

She turns on the faucet, needing some sort of sound to stop the ringing in her ears, the screaming in her head, and it almost works. Splashing the water on her face helps a little, too, helps calm the pounding of her heart. She runs her fingers through her hair, fisting some of the strands. For a moment, she thinks about showering again, even though she stood under the spray for far too long when they got home from the hospital, but she fears that nothing will make the nightmarish pictures on the other side of her eyelids disappear. 

But she has to try. So she shuts off the water, turning away from the mirror before she can meet her own eyes, and leaves the bathroom, deciding instead to try sleeping.

And it almost works. She drifts off quickly, somehow, but it doesn’t last for too long before the piercing ring of her cell phone cuts through the silence of the house. 

Graham Humbert, the screen reads. 

Well, fuck. Her mind begins to race immediately, but it’s racing in circles around one main point: Neal Gold. 

“What? What happened?” 

“Emma, relax, please,” he breathes, though his own inability to do so is prevalent in his voice, even over the phone. “Killian is fine, he wasn’t hurt, but there’s been — there was an attempted attack at the hospital, and we got him. But Killian wants you here, just in case there’s someone else here. Henry’s waiting for you outside David’s.” 

“Okay.” 

“See you soon.”

But then it hits her: “Wait!” she says, hoping it’s not too late, and Graham hums. “You said you got him, but who was it?” 

“Oh,” he says cooly, as if his next words aren’t going to rip her world apart. “It was Neal. Neal Gold.” 

-- -- -- -- 

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[sorakingdomhearts]

I just finished watching all of the Kingdom Hearts game cutscenes in 16 days! Under the cut, my super-long analysis post.

This was such a bad idea and also the best I’ve ever had. I can no longer tell the events of separate games apart, other than the stuff I added to this post’s draft while watching, but it’s given me so much to do in the quaran-times.

I would say my favorite games at this point are KH3, BBS, and 358/2 Days. I actually played through KH3 to like 90 something percent so I’m most attached to it, but storywise Aqua, Ventus, Roxas, and Axel/Lea have the best plots. If I had to pick a top favorite, other than Sora(because. Well. Sora’s my chosen middle name for a reason) I would say it’s Axel/Lea, and Aqua is the world’s closest second.

My favorite Disney worlds are probably Traverse Town for the music, Nightmare Before Christmas for the costumes(both the wintery ones and the spooky ones), Disney Town for the character appearances and aesthetic/colors, and BH6 for the plot/dialogue. Honorable mention to Hunchback of Notre Dame for being the only one I hadn’t heard about before starting this journey AND being a friend’s current hyperfixation so I got to share hyperfix joy with them for a bit.

I think Aqua has the best voice in the series. Especially with BBS 0.2/KH2.8 there’s quite a few scenes where the only dialogue is her talking to herself and she’s got such an emotional, pretty voice to pair with her heartbreaking journey home.

Axel/Lea’s relationship with his name is the same as a trans person with their deadname and I love that for him. For example, in the end of Dream Drop Distance, he gets frustrated with Riku not knowing it’s changed to Lea again but gives up on correcting him because the rest of what’s going on is more important. I’ve definitely done that with people deadnaming me.

On the other side of that coin, in ReMIND Demyx struggles to remember it’s Ienzo, not Zexion, but he corrects himself over and over. He doesn’t seem to want to deadname Ienzo, he just hasn’t gotten used to it yet. I think that more than anything else is what proved to me personally that Demyx really was trying to do something good.

Also, with Axel/Lea, can he not make bad jokes IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS OWN DEATH? Hello?! I said this on Twitter but hey, buddy, I love you dearly but now isn’t the time.

Xion’s name is pronounced she-on, not zee-on like I thought when I read it. Idk why I thought it was that way when I read it printed but it’s not.

Donald is always cute, all the time, and he’s cutest when he and Sora are squabbling like little kids. I love him. Or maybe that’s the Ducktales fan bias creeping in...

Speaking of HEY, WAS ANYONE GONNA TELL ME HDL AND SCROOGE ARE IN MORE THAN JUST THE KH TRILOGY?!?! What a pleasant surprise to see Scrooge in BBS and to visit Disney Town.

Nobodies make the wobble sound of laminated paper being shaken. I keep thinking about that for no reason.

Does anyone else think Riku saying he can “smell the darkness” on people in ReCOM is weird? Am I just really late to the party, or are we just going to ignore that? Yeah? Okay.

Aqua’s end of Birth by Sleep has some of the sweetest, most poetic dialogue in the series imo. When Aqua and Mickey are talking about Ven, and Sora and Riku talking about hurt within the heart? Yeah. I’ll cry.

Also, another sad scene: Isa and Lea as kids when Lea explains his whole “get it memorized” thing is so he can be remembered and live on, if need be. I cried real tears at that one.

Conversely, some of my favorite sweet scenes are: in the beginning of BBS when Aqua tells Ven and Terra they’d “make the weirdest brothers,” Sora meeting Santa in KH2(I think?) which reminds you hey, these are children, the scene right after they find out Goofy’s not dead and Donald flips out, Lea summoning his Keyblade for the first time(powermove,) and of course the series of reunions in KH3. There’s at least a solid scene or two in each game that really warms my cold sad heart.

Speaking of the KH3 reunions, the best one I think was Xion, Roxas, and Lea’s. At least with Aqua/Terra/Ven they started out with hope, and Aqua and Ven at least had the ability to hold onto that hope to get them through. The ex-Nobody crowd really didn’t have anything. Just the promise that they’d meet again, and maybe not even in this life. I will cry.

Some of the voice casting is surprisingly great. Like, Nala’s voiced by Vanessa Marshall, who did Gamora in the GOTG tv series. Love her. And Hynden Walch who does Starfire is the Alice voice at one point which was such a pleasant surprise.

Also hey, Zachary Levi went so fucking HARD on his voice work. Even Rapunzel has some lines that fall a little flat compared to the tone of the original, like the KH version of the “first time outdoors” sequence. But Flynn Rider has this consistent energy to him that I really love.

In ReCoded I really liked the second-person Mickey narration. Idk why. It just made me super happy.

Hercules is a movie that frequently becomes a level in these games and like every time they continue that trend of Phil’s “I got two words for you” joke like guys, wasn’t the thing in the original that it translated to two words in Greek? Not that he couldn’t count? Anyway that’s the best reoccurring joke. I hate it and love it in equal measure.

One of the frequent things in KH that I love is there’s this sense of ridiculousness to it. Like, it’s a lovely story with excellent worldbuilding and character designs, with a brilliantly complex plot, but like. You get into scenarios like the end of ReMIND, and Sora’s time-travelled to save his dying and sorta already dead friend(Kairi). He’s cradling his other dying friend in his arms and talking about how he found his way to them by tracing the connections between their hearts. Beautiful, poetic, showstopping, right? Except it’s Mickey motherfucking Mouse. You can’t find this anywhere else.

Speaking of ReMIND, the part where Sora connects all the keyhole things? It looks like a starry sky full of constellations? Yeah. Holy fucking SHIT is that pretty. I literally had to pause it twice to absorb the visuals in that scene.

To end off, here’s some of my pride headcanons: Terra and Xion are trans, Ventus and Riku are nonbinary, Saïx/Isa is agender, and Sora is genderfluid. Axel/Lea is pan, Kairi, Riku, and Sora are poly, and Aqua is bi. ((I definitely have more of these but these ones I think are most important.))