#⟡ lore ╱ looks like the cat is out of the bag.

[blkcnt]

portrayal notes because the ideas are already rolling in. will be expanding in future meta posts.

i know people don't vibe with the halle berry's catwoman, but i do, so my selina is going to be a mischievous, flirtatious, annoying little shit with too many cats in her apartment as well, aha.

i enjoyed her connection with the egyptian goddess of felines, bast, and i see enough reason to incorporate. can definitely imagine selina with a little jade figurine of this goddess in her bedroom. maybe even on her nightstand so she can look at it, hold it, feel it, every morning.

also enjoyed the symbolism of death and rebirth into a new being, the idea of actually having nine lives. since her mom died, i imagine selina putting on this suit as a way to escape death, to snatch that control she lost as a child and keep it close to her chest.

her apartment on the east end is her safe haven, ironic because it's doubly crime-infested. selina is for sure an insomniac and likely deals with a stress-disorder from her unhealed mother and father wounds.

diving into her childhood—the idea of living with a raging alcoholic could have a huge impact on selina. she hates sudden noises, yelling at her is the fastest way to trigger her fight instincts, and i can see why she would seek the attention of emotionally unavailable or even dangerous, life-threatening men because her brain would find it familiar. maybe even comforting.

her best friend is holly robinson, and holly knows selina is catwoman. if, for some reason, selina doesn't want to go home, she'll just go to holly's house, especially after a rough battle or a failed heist. something about selina dissociating in the bath with a bunch of cuts and bruises while holly bathes her? yesss.

jumping to another topic before i forget—at this point in time, selina has no idea that bruce wayne is batman. i'd go as far to say that she'd be pissed to discover that truth. she would rather think batman is like her, someone who grew up poor and is fighting a losing battle to keep gotham somewhat livable.

she also does not know about her relationship to carmine falcone. i think her brain would be in active denial, because to be falcone's daughter is the loss of her own individual identity.

whew. there's a lot to unpack here.

[sol-flo]

iwtv ep 11. hey man. where's claudia. where's my claudia centric episode for the love of god. claudiaaaaaaa!!!!!

cannot believe we get a molloy focused ep next week. fuck off. i don't really watch the previews btw just like. ten seconds while i realize the episode is over (since the series doesn't hvae end credits for some reason?). so maybe i'm complaining about what'll amount to ten minutes total runtime. we'll see if i'm lucky (i doubt i'll be)

also i'm very negative about the series all the time bc that's my nature but i really have to commend this santiago. he's slaying absolute penis and i could watch him forever. so at least there's always that.

[mrpenguinpants]

You are all I long for, all I worship, and adore.

— It's strange seeing your future selves being so close when you thought you both hated each other guts.

— Jing Yuan, Dan Feng (& Dan Heng) + Sunday

[Masterlist]

Suspend your disbelief for the timeline of lore, please.

Update: When I originally wrote this, I wanted to do an entire "Fly Me to the Moon," series of fics based on time travel. Hence the title. Shout-out to that one person who was waiting for me to write Sunday. I didn't, but I see you. It will happen soon.

Jing Yuan

This is the worst. The absolute worst thing ever. In the entirety of your living long life, this is the absolute worst moment so far. Were all the good times leading up to this moment? Did the Aeon's have some sick agenda, or were you randomly selected to be messed with today? If you had the option of eating literal trash bags for the rest of your life or continuing to live in this moment, you'd rather chew your own arms off. Maybe if you start now, you can save your future self the pain and humiliation of succumbing to...whatever this is.

"Aw, you were so cute when you were younger,” you - at least you think it’s you. This stranger wears the same face as you although a bit older. Perhaps alien would be a more fitting name? - this stranger coos as they cup Jing Yuan's face in their hands. Pinching cheeks with barely any fat on them with the sweetest smile you never knew you could even make. Jing Yuan, one of the seven Arbiter-Generals of the Xianzhou Alliance's Cloud Knights who stared down an actual Lord Ravager, looks two seconds away from bolting like a scared cat. He hasn’t moved an inch since this started and honestly, as mortifying as this is, it’s way worse for him than it is for you. So naturally, you’re turning a blind eye and holding Yangqing hostage from saving his precious general of sweet words and praises.

”I see we didn’t get along at this point in time,” a deep voice muses above you from a man you’re very blatantly pretending to ignore. An older Jing Yuan stands beside you, amused at his younger self having a barely contained stroke. If it wasn't bad enough that a future version of yourself suddenly appeared, Jing Yuan just had to follow. Always a nuisance no matter his age. Maybe if you hold your breath, you’ll pass out and everything will blow over. It sounds less painful than trying to eat yourself from the outside in any way. Before you can start, a hand, heavy yet somehow gentle, is placed on your shoulder. “I don’t recommend trying to self-induce a suffocation. Nor attempt any cannibalism on the self either.”

Okay. That’s creepy. Do senior citizens suddenly gain mind-reading powers? You’ve heard the story that if a man stays a virgin until he’s 30, he'll become a wizard. You let out a huff of amusement at that thought, maybe that’s what’s happening. That amusement gets cut short when you realize that somehow, you fell for this 30-year-old virgin. You refuse to accept that out of spite. That story was meant for short-life species anyway.

“For all intensive purposes, I’m choosing to believe this is a nightmare and the first step to waking up from one is to induce pain,” you answer blandly, your grip on Yanqing finally waning as the boy sprints in for the rescue. Only to get swept up in the storm as your other self switches her attention to the kid. Sticky fingers and starry eyes have Yanqing disarmed before he can even lift a finger to summon his ice sword, falling prey to the musing of a Xianzhou auntie. Nevertheless, Yanqing does his job correctly because it allows Jing Yuan to finally escape as he stumbles over to you and his other self.

"How far the mighty have fallen," you snicker behind your hand at how ruffled Jing Yuan looks. His hair is a bit fluffy from how many times your future self ran their hands through it, and his cheeks are a bit pink. Probably from all the pinching. There's even a deep chuckle next to you to accompany your words as Jing Yuan coughs into his fist before straightening up properly. You can see Yanqing being given sweets behind his back and that alone buys the kids complacency.

"My apologies for that," Jing Yuan says as the older Jing Yuan simply laughs in response. Unserious and unfretted in everything.

Huh, now that you look closer. He has laugh lines.

"It is I that should apologize. We have disturbed your schedule with our, ahem, compliments," Other Jing Yuan chuckles once again, as if the fact that he has time traveled into the past was a small "disturbance". Aeons, you hate this guy in every form.

They go back and forth, talking in that faux politeness that never truly goes anywhere before you finally had enough of this. You're not sticking around for this tea-time pleasantries any longer than you need to. It's the exact reason why you left your position as the "Divine Foresight Counselor" and passed it off to Qingzu as soon as you could. Unfortunately, you're going up against two Jing Yuan's, so the moment you shift your shoe to take a step back to remove yourself from the conversation, two pairs of golden eyes snap to you. One is smiling, the other is frowning.

"Heading off?"

"Where are you going?"

You look between the two, older and younger, and you can feel your head beginning to hurt. You let out a sigh, rubbing your forehead, before ultimately picking the lesser of two evils. If you have to look into those love-stricken soft eyes one more time, you might actually pass away.

"Out. You don't need me here anymore do you, General? Or do I require your dismissal now?" you ask bluntly, turning to the Jing Yuan you're used to. The one who's supposed to be in this timeline. "If you need anything, I'm sure Diviner Fu would love to be of assistance."

You don't bother to wait for Jing Yuan to say anything, pivoting on your heel and marching out of the Exalting Sanctum. You glance at your other self, a bitter feeling rising in your chest when they look at you disapprovingly. You can tell they want to say something but one brief look to the side, where the two Jing Yuans stand, and they close their mouth and turn around. Regardless, there's no reason for you to stick around longer. As long as the time travelers stay within the exalting sanctum, no one will know they ever appeared in the first place.

As you near the exiting doors, nodding to the guards on each side, you spare one last glance back. Your sudden departure hasn't halted anything and Jing Yuan is speaking to both his other self and you. Yanqing huddles close, one of his hands in your other self's hand, as he tries his best to participate in the discussion. Realistically, you should set aside your petty pride and march back to help. Do something other than running away and letting everyone else pick up the pieces for you. But the doors are already open and you need a sweet drink desperately.

There's been a growing sour taste on your tongue every time your Jing Yuan stares longingly at the other you.

Dan Feng

There isn't a single word to describe the situation you're in right now. Strange? Uncanny? Just super weird? You've seen and done a lot of weird things in your long life, but this is the absolute weirdest thing that has ever happened to you - and you've seen a star collapse before.

“If you keep making that expression, it’ll stick on your face,” Jing Yuan muffles his laugh under his hand, keeping up with your brisk pace as you not-so-subtly run away from the situation thrust into your hands. A tactical retreat you call it. You give Jing Yuan a pained grimace for a brief second before focusing straight ahead again.

“Jing Yuan, I will make sure your promotion to General is riddled with paperwork,” you say straight-faced. He knows you’re lying, you adore your pseudo-nephew too much to do that to him, but it does make him jolt and respectfully keep his mouth shut. However, in exchange, it makes the third pair of footsteps all the more louder. The source of your current predicament and Jing Yuan's amusement. You peer over your shoulder at the young man just to make absolutely sure that you're not hallucinating. A tall, slender young man with blue eyes, fair skin, and black hair stares right back at you before quickly averting his gaze back to the ground. Even with his unique coat and clothing, he has the splitting image of that old lizard. Even though this stranger is younger...and without a stick up his ass either.

He said his name was Dan Heng. A "traveling guard" for the renowned Astral Express. He had sworn on his life that he was telling the truth but that didn't change the fact of who he looked like. If Jing Yuan hadn't been there to vouch for him, then you would have attempted to throw him off the Luofu yourself. According to Jing Yuan, he found the young man "asleep" under one of the ginkgo trees, but otherwise wasn't doing any harm to anyone. He had just appeared with no way to return to where he came from.

At least you have one thing in common: you both don’t want to be here.

"So, are you a distant relative? Is this your first time visiting the Luofu? Oh! Are you here to visit him for vidyadhara business?" Jing Yuan spitballs one question after the other, his barely contained excitement shining through. He had slowed his pace to walk side-by-side with Dan Heng, illustrating the differences between them. Jing Yuan barely reaches Dan Heng's waist, the standard cloud knight uniform looking plain compared to the other's elaborate coat. Teal clashing with blue. Although, they match in their one red accessory flapping in the wind.

Dan Heng awkwardly coughs into his hand, before giving Jing Yuan a rather embarrassed look, "I don't think it'd be wise for me to say anything. If you have any questions, you should ask my teacher..."

Dan Heng shoots you a look as he says the word 'teacher', to which you raise an eyebrow right back. You've never seen this specific man in your life, let alone taken on any students. You don't even like kids that much unless their name is Jing Yuan and even, he isn't fully nestled in your heart. But that's another weird thing about this whole situation. This mysterious "teacher" apparently came along for the ride, yet the man won't spare a single detail about them. Vague descriptions that could be for anyone but wouldn't be a definite confirmation. All in all, it's been a headache and not something you wished to do on a bright and sunny morning. It's frankly out of your pay grade to be babysitting wandering travelers, even if they look like the High Elder.

“We’re here,” you call out, abruptly stopping your near sprint as you feel two bodies collide into your back. One has the decency to step back with an apology while the other clings to your arm as he peers around your waist.

"The forge?" Jing Yuan questions, tilting his head almost fully sideways as the three of you look up at the unassuming blacksmith shop.

"Yep, we're visiting the only adult of the group. Come on, Yingxing should still be inside," you say eyes forward but your arm reaches behind you to hold onto the retreating body of Dan Heng, who has been quietly trying to step away as soon as you confirmed just where you were. Jokes on him, you're the master of running away from your problems- retreating. You're the master at tactical retreating.

Although it’s muffled, you can hear some commotion going on inside. Maybe an unruly customer who didn’t read the fine print and is now venting their frustration? You share a look of confusion with Jing Yuan as you strong-arm Dan Heng into coming inside.

Entering the store, it looks relatively normal? There's nothing out of place or anything to show there was a scuffle, but the argument is getting louder sounding from the back of the store, into the forge. Which is strange for two reasons. Firstly, Yingxing may not be a dragon but he guards the forge with his life. Secondly, the only other people allowed in aren't even in the area. A mutual understanding passes through the three of you, Dan Heng finally giving up on trying to escape with the death grip you have on his arm, and you all tip-toe to the back door. Jing Yuan being the smallest reaches the door first, his head peeking out, your head above his as you squint into the room, and Dan Heng above yours with a look of defeat.

“You selfish old lizard! I’d outta cut your tail off right now for all the trouble you caused you senile son of a-“

"Please calm down, this is still the High Elder you're speaking to!"

What you see is something you'd never expect to see, and you need to reiterate that you've seen a literal star collapse. An older version of you is being held back by Yingxing as they throw threats and cusses at Dan Feng, who looks relatively unbothered by the promises to maim him.

“Teacher!”

Dan Heng, who has kept the most monotone voice imaginable since meeting him, suddenly pushes himself forward. A small "ah!" comes from Jing Yuan as he flops onto the floor from the sudden movement. A spear you've definitely seen before materializes in his hand as he goes to swing at Yingxing, only to be parried away by an identical spear. If you thought the tension between your first meeting with Dan Heng was rough, this feels like the Aeons themselves are fighting against each other. Yingxing and the other you have gone slack in surprise as two vidyadhara's who share the same face are kept at a standstill. Two cloud piercers pointed at each other, poised and ready to strike again, the air growing more humid with sticky beads of water vapor suspended in the air. Well, if you had any doubts about Dan Heng looking way too similar to Dan Feng, this pretty much confirms it. They're the same person.

Your eyes slide to the other you.

A falling star has nothing on this.

Sunday

There's something off about this entire situation, and there are enough oddities to begin with, but there's just something that doesn't sit right with you. Was there such a thing as a second puberty? Is that what a "mid-life" crisis was? Aren't you supposed to dye your hair and buy a sports car when that happens? Because the person walking next to you is certainly not you. They're too...peppy.

When you first saw the "future you", you had assumed they were a figment of someone's imagination. A dream perhaps? In Penacony, it would definitely be possible, but who would want to dream of you? The other you didn't seem that weird either, just a bit older and more well-mannered, but otherwise exactly the same. They had greeted you cheerfully, even coming up to shake your hand because "it was the polite thing to do when greeting friends.". You didn't know how to react to that wording so you brushed it aside. Maybe in the future, you're some big shot? That's kind of exciting to imagine.

"So...any idea how you got here?" you ask, turning to the other you. It's kind of funny that you're escorting yourself but you doubt the future you remember's the winding pathways the Bloodhounds take to the main base. Although your boss is quite nonchalant, Gallagher has always had a steady head on his shoulders. If you can't figure out a way to fix this time travel business, he can at least play damage control.

"I'm not entirely sure. I was about to set out to welcome some new friends on behalf of my husband, and then I was suddenly here. Oh, I hope he isn't upset with me for disappearing," your other self hums, a hand on their cheek, before quickly jolting up, "Ah, I guess I should say our husband now."

You let out an awkward laugh to match their giggle. Although your future self doesn't look that much older than you, it seems you managed to get hitched with someone great. They always seem to slip the word "husband" into every sentence, heck- you're making new friends because of him. Your mother would weep tears of joy learning that fact. Although it does make you curious just who your supposed husband is. The only man you see more than once in your life is Gallagher, and respectfully, he's not your type. But then who else? Perhaps one of the patrons? You've heard the news that the IPC sent a handsome gambler with beautiful eyes. Perhaps that's who you've fallen in love with? You don't want to ask because you don't want to mess up the timeline and frankly, you don't want to ruin the surprise. To be honest, even though you never thought about marriage, it kinda makes you giddy knowing that in the future, you seem to love your husband so much. A bit too much but it's probably the honeymoon phase train never stopping.

You still can't help but shake the feeling that something is horribly wrong.

There's just the slightest sinister curl in their smile. As if they're secretly laughing at the expense of everyone while keeping on an angelic facade. It's unsettling and makes chills down go your spine when it's your face that does it. The only time you've felt this sense of unease was when you accidentally stumbled into Gallagher's private meeting with the Head of the Oak Family. The Halovian had simply smiled, inquiring who you were and holding his hand out for you to shake. Your fingers had just brushed against his white glove when Gallagher stepped in, gripping your wrist hard enough for bruises, and forcibly pushed you out the door.

"Someone not important."

That's what your boss had said. You thought he spoke so harshly because he was pissed at you for possibly giving the Oak Family a bad first impression. He pretended it never happened and you never brought it up, afraid he might fire you from your job.

"I don't mean to pry, but are you alright?"

You blink, shaken out of your thoughts by your future self's question. They smile at you kindly, a slight tilt to their head as they wait for you to answer patiently.

"Oh! Sorry, I kinda spaced out there for a bit..." You let out an awkward laugh. Your voice sounds weak even to you, but the other you just nods in understanding. Perhaps it's because it's technically you that you're talking to, or that feeling of foreboding, that you feel like you need to explain yourself, "I guess I haven't been sleeping well. Gallagher has me running errands on the other side of Penacony in preparation for the Charmony Festival. Between you and me, I think he's dumping his errands on me so he can slack off."

Your lighthearted chuckle tapers off when the other you doesn't respond in kind to your joke. In fact, bringing up Gallagher's name has completely cleared their face from that prim and proper mask. Leaving behind a blank expression with disinterested eyes before a blink, and there's that same smile smeared on.

"You speak rather fondly of him. It seems I'm farther into the past than I originally thought," they mumble to themselves. Although you pick up on the words easily, you double-take just to make absolutely sure those words came from them. Sure, Gallagher isn't the most traditional-looking boss but he's not a bad person. Especially not to you. When you were looking for a job, he was the one to approach you out of the blue to work under him as a Bloodhound. If he never showed up, you would have most likely wasted away as a paper pusher for one of the families. He's always forgiven your mistakes and always offered to escort you home even though you can take care of yourself. So why is your future self so unfriendly to someone you currently hold in high regard?

"Oh uh...did something happen between us and Gallagher? I mean, I always suspected I'd get fired but I don't know, I always thought we got along. I mean, he has been acting a bit weird since that Oak Family Head came around but he's probably just stressed, right? Oh wait- I don't think we should be talking about this. I don't want to start a butterfly effect, especially so close to the festival-" you muse only to get interrupted.

"If I were you, I wouldn't trust that dog so easily," your other self spits with so much venom that you take a step away. Is it possible that you misjudged how close you were with Gallagher? Your other self talks about him as if he had betrayed them on a personal level. This shouldn't be possible because you and Gallagher have a strictly professional relationship. Unless you potentially knew him before you arrived in Penacony? To be fair, your memory gets a bit hazy looking back but you're sure you would remember someone like Gallagher.

"Wha- Hey, I don't know what happened but you shouldn't call him a dog-"

"We're here."

You stop in your tracks. What? We're here? You look up and realize that you've completely walked off the beaten path and happened upon a door. In fact, if you remember correctly, this was the door you stumbled into when you first met that Halovian. When did it become your other self escorting you rather than the other way around? You thought they wouldn't know these back alley pathways anymore.

"Why are we here?" you ask tentatively. Realistically, you know nothing bad will happen to you, at least not physically. You're their past. Whatever happens to you will affect them. A small scrape here will become a scar for them later.

"You haven't been sleeping well correct? I remember when I used to have headaches all the time. But you'll be okay now, he'll make things all better. While it's a bit early, I'm sure you'll understand. You are me after all," they smile sweetly, taking your hand in theirs as they pull you in front of the door.

"Come now, let's go meet our husband. He's been eagerly waiting for you for a long time."

---

Small author's note: I fell into a pit and wrote way too much. If I didn't cut it off, this fic would take another year to finish. That's why there's no real ending, lol.

[winedarkthoughts]

house of addams (6)

— 🌖 pairing: ot7 x fem.reader

— 🕷️ genre: mystery, angst + fluff + smut

— 🗝️ word count: 5.5k

— 🍄 summary: desperate times call for morally grey measures.

— ☕ content warnings: stalking (but it's mutual??), taking photos without consent (also mutual), slight lore dump, mentions of death/decomposition/missing persons

— 🕸️ a/n: thank you so much to everyone who continues to share their thoughts i love y'all so much!!

previous chapter ← series m.list → next chapter

chpt. 6: don't stalk, investigate

october 19, 2004

The trees surrounding the university are starting to brown at the edges. Fall has begun its descent.

The click of the camera shutter has become white noise to you. Through the viewfinder, you follow the motion of the mop of black hair.

You've found that that's how he starts almost all of his mornings: messily, sleepily. More often than not, his hair is just-rolled-out-of-bed fluffy, the lower half of his face covered with a black mask so you can only see his cat-like eyes.

He looks good today, wearing a loose white button-up and silver jewelry. He approaches the university with his messenger bag slung over his shoulder, still clearly half-asleep.

Yoongi is not a morning person, you've learned. You know because you've been watching him.

Listen, you never claimed to be a saint. And yes, maybe half the reason that you're a damn good private investigator is because you're willing (and perfectly capable) of doing the things that others would rather not.

So be it. You've witnessed others commit far worse evils than the one you're currently undertaking.

Long story short, your mental blockade with the case (and whatever the fuck happened at the lake) may or may not have caused you to look into some of the strange characters frequenting Farrow's End. Starting with the shy, antisocial botanist.

The fact that he supposedly lived in the Addams house (according to the commentary from the college students) wasn't the thing that made you suspicious, it was the fact that he lied about living in the Addams house. Pretended to know absolutely nothing about it, to boot.

As a human being, you can respect someone keeping their secrets. As a private investigator, your job is to dig up any secrets that prove relevant to your investigation.

Half of you wants to believe that he's nothing but a good guy. You can admit that you like him, that you relate to his aura as the token "weirdo." But the cynical part of you, it whispers in your ear that he shouldn't be trusted.

No one should. Your job has taught you that much.

Therefore, you have to exhaust each point of view until you find out who's guilty, and who's less guilty. Because pure innocence is impractical.

And after what you saw (or think you saw) at the lake, you're going to have to gear your research towards less "scientific" topics. And try to avoid the woods at all costs. For the time being, at least.

On most days, Yoongi begins his days early, and mostly on-campus. It didn't take long to witness him being transported by the same black Mercedes that you saw outside the cafe, the one supposedly belonging to one of the mysterious Jungs.

Though Yoongi never enters the car in heavily populated areas. He usually walks a short distance to a more private spot, and then the car pulls up like clockwork.

You can never get a good look at the driver, thanks to the tinted windows.

So far, the only suspicious thing about the botanist is the fact that he lied about living in the Addams house. He goes to class, goes to his labs, gets coffee, goes home, with very little in-between.

Well, that plus spending a large amount of his time on campus with one specific chemist. And it doesn't take much longer to realize that he lives at the Addams house too.

Jimin, unlike Yoongi, is often late. He gets dropped off by the same sleek car, a short distance away from his destination, then he power walks to wherever he's going, fluffing and preening himself along the way.

Whether it's a hand brushing through his hair, or a knuckle pushing up the bridge of his glasses (which he never leaves the house without), or him adjusting the collar of his shirt, he's almost always fixing himself.

Sometimes, you get the impression that he isn't comfortable in his own skin.

He has a few other signatures: those heeled boots, pants that are almost always too tight for your liking, glasses (either tinted or completely dark), and always a mask covering his mouth. That, or sometimes an oversized scarf pulled up to just under his nose when it's particularly chilly outside, the wind rustling his hair and it's oddly shifting color.

You've taken to wearing one of your smaller cameras around your neck at all times, just in case you run into anything suspicious and need to snap a picture.

The morning mist has deepened into a constant drizzle most mornings, and that leather jacket you bought at Magic Shop has come in particularly handy. The garment is warm and cozy, and it always gives you a feeling of comfort whenever you wear it.

Fine, so maybe following Yoongi and Jimin didn't yield the results you wanted, though you'll admit it was fun. Still, something is telling you that there's something suspicious about that house and those who reside in it.

So you move on to another lead: Kim Taehyung.

He rarely leaves the house, you've found. So you have to conclude that he lives there as well as works there. When he does leave, it's on official business. Either to go to the police station to pick up documents or out of town to examine a body.

He doesn't ride in the Mercedes, though. Rather, he drives a classic black hearse. Again, peak dedication to the aesthetic, which you can appreciate.

And fine, maybe you snapped a few pictures of him on the rare times you caught him out of the house, but it's all for the sake of the investigation.

At first, you were quite hesitant to get too close to the house on the hill, with its looming trees and black birds hovering all about the roof.

But one day, when you creep up the path, the front gate opens on its own to welcome you. You were planning on scraping along the outside of the gate, peering into the yard through the iron bars. You weren't expecting it to actually open for you.

A gust of wind surges through the air, pulling you towards the house. The rustle of the trees practically whispers come closer.

It takes you a little bit aback, but you don't show it. Just in case someone is watching. In fact, you barely react to it, simply sidestepping the gate entrance and continuing along the path as if you were on a morning walk.

You walk along the entire perimeter of the gated yard, which is much, much larger than you anticipated. There are a number of gardens, a small hedge maze, a swamp even, and at the very edge of the property, a graveyard.

The tombstones are dotted throughout the wooded grove, a thick layer of ivy covering the ground like a burial shroud, and an air of calm hangs about the place.

But it isn't until you circle back to the other side of the house that you see something you truly weren't expecting: Jin, your favorite barista, strolling through the garden with a cup and saucer in his hands.

Wearing a turtleneck under a black coat, his hair blowing picturesquely in the chill wind, he meanders past the crumbling stone statues and trickling fountains.

You quickly duck behind a tree, reaching into your jacket to grab the small binoculars that you typically carry when you're in the..."observation" phase of the investigation. No, this isn’t the first time you’ve done this sort of thing.

Jin leisurely walks over the cobblestone pathway, sipping from his cup with a satisfied expression. He'll run a hand through his hair or lean against one of the stone garden walls, looking over his shoulder every once in a while.

And maybe it's just a hunch, but you get the sense that he knows that he's being watched. The weird thing is that he doesn't seem bothered by the fact at all. In fact, it almost looks like he's...posing.

An itch at the back of your neck. A glance back at Jin tells you that he's not looking at you, nor has he realized that you're there. But still, now you feel eyes on you.

You look around but find nothing but white-barked trees. And maybe if you looked a little closer you would've noticed that the knots in said trees look a little too much like eyes, open and alert.

Even if you had noticed such a thing, your conscience would tell you that obviously that's not the case. Trees can't watch people.

You'd be wrong, of course, but how could you have known that then?

october 23, 2004

He only ever works nights. The graveyard shift, to be specific. His shift always starts after the sun has set, and it ends just before it rises again.

Normally, you'd split your time between the cafe and the bookshop, but recently you've dedicated almost the entirety of your days to watching the barista and learning his habits. And in that time, you've hardly seen him eat.

In all the time you've spent watching him combined, the only things you've seen him eat include: a handful of olives, a few slices of bread and cheese, and the occasional spoonful of honey. Coffee and the offhand glass of red wine (which he pours into a teacup with a charming wink when he catches you watching him) is all you ever see him drink.

The only time he leaves the Addams house, besides to go to work, is on Saturday mornings when the Farmer's Market takes up the town square.

Sporting a checkered coat with the collar turned up to shield the lower half of his face, sunglasses (even though it's utterly cloudy), and an umbrella held over his head (even though it's not even drizzling), Jin scours the aisles, scrutinizing each booth's wares to find only the freshest and best quality produce, meats, and bread. He also procures some fancy cheese and preserves, his tastes expensive and well-refined.

The only other time you see him deviate from his routine is to visit the nearest hospital one afternoon. You're expecting him to enter into the waiting room, but he circles around the back, waiting by a STAFF ONLY door.

That same tickle from somewhere in your brain, the one that makes your eyes a little blurry. You take a moment to refocus them, and then you see the door crack open.

The person behind the door hands Jin an object that he quickly conceals in his coat, and the interaction is too quick for you to see what exactly it is.

But not quick enough for you to miss taking a picture. Because you've learned that it's always best to prioritize the camera before your eyes.

You take it to the dark room that same day. And the film reveals that the object appears to be a plain white box. Your guess is that it's a thermal container, the ones used to transport samples or the like.

It's a bit embarrassing to admit that it takes another day to put two and two together.

You're sitting in the cafe, skimming through the files of the five missing persons, when Jin approaches your booth and silently places a pastry on the table.

It's another one of his habits, you've noticed. Whenever you're in the cafe and have gone a long time without ordering any food, he'll subtly bring you something without a word, and you're usually too focused on your research to notice until some time has passed and it's too late to reject the offer.

You've told him several times that though the gesture is appreciated, he doesn't need to provide you with any freebies just because you're in here all the time. But he just brushes you off and claims that he needs a taste tester for his new recipes.

You let it slide after telling yourself that he probably does the same to a number of other customers given his charming nature (though in all the time you've observed him he's never done it for any other patron, but that you conveniently ignore).

This time it's a little cake, topped with a strawberry and absolutely smothered in fresh cream. When you cut into it, red jam spills from the inside of the cake like blood from a wound.

Then it finally clicks.

...Blood.

Like a slideshow in fast motion, all of the little details spring back into the forefront of your mind. The time when you noticed his shirtsleeve riding up, revealing a faded scar distinctly resembling a bite mark on the inside of his wrist. The time you noticed him drinking from a to-go coffee cup, but with a ring of red surrounding the opening in the lid.

And at the hospital, a thermal container used to transport samples such as blood bags, or even human organs.

Fuck.

You push the dessert away at the realization, scrambling to gather your things and leave the cafe as quickly as possible.

Of course, that means you miss the concerned and slightly disappointed look on Jin's face as he watches you go.

october 24, 2004

You don't know what makes you more of an idiot, the fact that you're actually close to believing that Jin is some sort of blood-sucking creature of the night, or the fact that it took you this long to consider the fact based on all the warning signs.

Unfortunately, nothing is impossible. And though none of your investigations so far have pointed to something so overtly "supernatural," you have to entertain the possibility.

Because it's possible that something about it could trace back to one or more of the victims, since clearly this case has proven to be far from normal.

Though the internet is a great resource, currently all you can find is blog posts, and you'd prefer not to cite those when it comes to professional matters. So you turn to local folklore, urban legends, and the security of the written word.

When you enter the bookshop the next day, you realize just how broad of a topic it is. There are hundreds, even thousands of mythical creatures across different cultures. It's going to take a long time to factor out one with the right features and track it's roots.

Then you remember the man behind the counter. Namjoon is currently staring at the mass of papers on his desk, looking confused and frustrated.

"What's all that?" you ask as you approach the counter.

"My accounts. Balancing my checkbook," he replies without looking up from the mess.

"Ah," you say in understanding, in pity.

A pause.

"Want a distraction?" you finally ask, and his head whips up almost instantly.

"Dear God, yes."

You chuckle, moving to lean against the desk.

"You're a writer, right?"

"Yes," he answers with a nod.

"What kind of things do you write?"

"Mostly research papers, some articles here and there, a few field guides."

Hmm, so he's more of a scholar, then. Interesting.

"In what area of study?"

Namjoon's mouth twitches like he's trying to find the right words.

"Folklore," he finally answers, but obviously there's a little more to it.

Perfect. You bite back the urge to rock on your toes with excitement.

"Can I ask you a few questions?"

He smiles at that, dimples and all, like nothing would delight him more.

"Of course, anything you want," he answers, voice curling around the edges.

And you don't know it, but he means it sincerely. He would tell you anything and everything about him and his little family if you would only ask.

Any of them would, really. Technically, none of them have ever lied to you, they just haven't share all the information.

And if Namjoon is being honest, all of them are quite eager for you to get a little more invasive and figure them out for yourself.

"What do you know about mythological creatures that feed on life energy?"

You didn't mean for it to come out so specific, so incriminating. But you're getting a little tired of questions without a ghost of an answer.

His eyebrows raise a bit.

"To be honest with you, my knowledge is limited mainly to the folklore of this region," he admits, sounding apologetic.

Even more perfect. You try not to give away too much of your excitement, despite the fact that every time you encounter him he only seems to get better and better.

"Pray tell," you urge, leaning forward slightly with open ears.

A little bashful expression crosses his face as he settles deeper in his chair, all thoughts of taxes abruptly thrust aside.

"Well, vampiric creatures are quite common across folklore in many cultures. They're usually associated with outbreaks of disease, and vampire hunts are mostly accompanied with epidemics..."

You let him talk for as long as he wants, listening eagerly and only looking away to scribble a few notes from time to time. It's clear that he's passionate about what he studies, speaking about it like a lover would.

He tells you that even the word "vampire" is shrouded in mystery, as linguists do not know the precise etymological origin. Apparently, the folklore of this region is steeped in Slavic roots, so that's what he focuses on to narrow it down for you.

From the Old East Slavic language, the term "vampire" hails from the word "upir," which is speculated to translate as "someone who bites" or "the thing at the feast/sacrifice," though the word has no definite origin.

Namjoon tells you that scholars agree that the term was used as a stand-in, since they were too afraid to say the creature's true name.

"An upir needs to feed on life essence to survive. In literature, this is usually represented by drinking blood, since it represents life," Namjoon explains.

"Usually?"

He shrugs.

"The "opir" in Ukraine consumes large amounts of fish as their source of sustenance, preferences vary across cultures."

"You speak of it like they're real," you say with a chuckle, watching closely for his reaction.

Another shrug, this one more uncomfortable.

"To the Slavs, they were. The universal belief in supernatural beings was common. Unseen entities were part of the way they understood the world," he says.

"Hmm," you mumble, scanning him up and down. You try not to delight in the way he squirms slightly under your scrutiny.

"Most of the traits attributed to vampires these days are based on myths, or downright misunderstandings," Namjoon blurts out. "Like how the outbreak of rabies in Europe led to the belief that the upir are afraid of light, which is ridiculous. Many of the symptoms of rabies, which is spread through biting, coincide with the supposed traits of vampires, like the fear of light and altered sleep patterns."

He says it all like he's slightly annoyed.

"Or how they assumed that the upir are undead because during decomposition, built up pressure can push the blood into a corpse's mouth," he continues.

"So the upir aren't undead at all?" you probe.

"No, it's just a misconception," Namjoon replies like he's in the throes of a heated debate.

He seems to notice, since the next moment he's clearing his throat awkwardly and slumping in his seat.

There's a moment of silence as you jot down some more notes.

"They're not evil," he blurts out like he can't help it, and the look on his face implores you to believe him.

You look up at him.

"Across the centuries, they've always been used as the scapegoat for things humans can't understand," he adds softly.

Hmm, yes that seems to be a recurrent theme in human history.

You close your notebook and straighten up from leaning on the desk.

"Very interesting. Thank you, Namjoon," you say and mean it.

He smiles and nods as if to say of course, but after your back is turned, his face falls a bit, wondering if he let a little too much slip.

"Too much? In my opinion, you didn't tell her enough," Jimin quips.

Namjoon rolls his eyes, but he's mainly focused on Jin. The older man only smiles at him, pressing a comforting hand to Namjoon's cheek.

"Don't worry, love. I don't mind at all," he says. Because yes, he too is eager for you to realize just what they all are.

"I just don't want her to think we're the ones behind all this," Namjoon admits.

"If she's as smart as she appears, then she'll figure that out for herself soon enough," Hoseok replies, slowly circling the room with his arms crossed.

He approaches the elegant leather couch that Namjoon and Jin are occupying.

"Joonie," he says, running a hand down the younger man's neck.

"I don't think it would hurt to drop her a few more hints, hm?" And everyone notices the smirk on Hoseok's face.

"I'm tired of waitiiiiing," Jimin whines.

"She's still a skeptic, Minie," Yoongi supplies from where he's watering the plants against the window. "She needs to be eased in."

Jimin just rolls his eyes.

"We could just kidnap her," he suggests.

"No." The reply comes instantly from Namjoon, Jungkook, and Yoongi simultaneously.

Jimin laughs high and bright.

"Come now, Jimin," Hoseok says with a sharp smile of his own. "Everyone knows it's more fun when they consent to it first."

october 25, 2004

The next time you enter the bookshop, Namjoon immediately mentions that he put together a little collection of texts for you to look over, saying they might be interesting to you. Maybe even aid in the investigation.

You thank him earnestly. And no, your face doesn't heat up at the fact that someone has gone out of their way to make your life easier.

When you slip into your usual nook, you notice that one of the drawers in the desk is adorned with a little pink ribbon around the handle, almost like it's gift-wrapped. And when you open it, you see several books, articles, and newspaper clippings, all of which seem very promising.

Something stirs in your stomach at the sight, but it's quickly set aside as you lock in and dive headfirst into the new research endeavor.

There's the notice for each of the missing persons, all the mentions of them so far in the newspapers, including one article from a publisher you've never heard of.

With the headline simple reading DISAPPEARED, the short snippet describes each missing person and the details of their last eyewitness account. The strange thing is that the article includes far more details than the big-name publishers, making you wonder why you haven't heard of it before.

The Periscope Press. You don't recall seeing it in any of the corner stores around town, but you do recall some of the people you interviewed mentioning details from "the newspaper" that you hadn't heard previously. Maybe this is the publisher they were referring to.

When you ask Namjoon about it though, he is surprisingly unhelpful. He claims that he can't remember where he came across the article, saying that he often picks up stray newspapers for wrapping and packing purposes for the shop.

Well, you suppose you'll have to save it for later then.

Also among the pile of papers in the drawer, there's a short blurb announcing the opening of the Kim Morgue and Crematorium. Taking a closer look at the date tells you that Taehyung's practice has actually been passed down through nearly three generations.

Technically, Taehyung is actually Taehyung III, taking the same name as his father and grandfather and great-grandfather before him.

But it's the photo you stumble upon that really stalls your breath.

A portrait, faded and yellowing, dated almost seventy-five years ago. The subject is a man dressed in a brown suit and tie, his hair dark and curly, except it looks exactly like him. From the Roman slant of his nose, down to the way he positions his shoulders, it looks almost indistinguishable from the Taehyung of today. The family resemblance is apparently very strong.

And again, it's a little embarrassing how long it takes you to reach the conclusion that to others, especially to the supernaturally-inclined, might seem obvious.

But you've already mentioned that you're a bit of a skeptic.

october 28, 2004

You fear that you may be going a bit crazy.

The dreams are getting worse. They've escalated from simple images and sounds to corporeal sensations. You feel the water so sharply, the cold, the current, even the vibrations. You can see hands reaching towards you, and sometimes you are compelled to reach back. Sometimes you swear you wake up smelling of seawater.

And the itchy feeling of being watched has only gotten stronger. You feel as though you're always looking over your shoulder, always listening for following footsteps.

In the past few days, you've used your research as an effective distraction.

You've found that the Kim family has run the morgue out of the Addams house for almost as long as the Jung family has owned it, Taehyung hailing from a long line of coroners and forensic pathologists rooted in Farrow's End.

With a little digging, you discovered that the Jungs have been business tycoons for decades, buying and selling and trading their vast number of industries to generate a near endless stream of income that they then hand down to their children and children's children.

Unfortunately, most of the knowledge on the Jung family is circulated through the townsfolk, so you have to ask around a bit to get a more solid basis.

The current owner of the Addams house is one Jung Hoseok. Young, beautiful, and filthy rich, according to those you spoke with on the streets. But, apparently he spent most of his youth in a mental hospital. Not only a mental hospital, a high-security facility for the criminally insane.

Now, you're not sure how much of that you believe, but you still have to entertain the possibility.

And one day, you even catch sight of him. A small crowd tends to gather whenever the black Mercedes pulls into town, curious eyes prying into the tinted windows.

You're lingering outside the bookshop one afternoon, making sure you didn't leave anything behind after a four-hour-long research session, when the car rolls through the streets like a slinky black cat.

Whispers immediately fill the air, causing you to look up from your bag, which is bursting at the seams these days from all the papers you have to carry around.

The car stops at the curb in front of the cafe, the driver soon killing the engine. Then, the driver's side door opens, and a black-booted foot steps onto the sidewalk.

The man is handsome, you have to admit, with long black hair that curls at the nape of his neck. His face is sharp and angular, with a softly heart-shaped mouth and surprisingly bright eyes.

He's dressed in pressed pants and jacket, thin and elegant. The man walks into the cafe and picks up a to-go order, gets back into his car, and drives away without so much as a glance at all the people who have stopped to stare at him.

You being one of them, but you're fairly certain that you're the only one who takes a few pictures.

But it wasn't until yesterday that you started to really feel like you were losing your marbles.

As you're asking around town, you breach the subject of the town's forensic pathologist. Everyone you speak to has nothing but good things to say about the young coroner, except for the fact that he isn't as young as you thought he was.

You ask a woman you struck up a conversation with outside the grocery store about the Kim family, and she says that Taehyung did a fantastic job taking care of her nephew for his funeral.

You agree, mentioning your admiration for how educated he is for someone so young.

That's when the woman's face turns puzzled. "Young?" she says, raising an eyebrow. She goes on to say that the most recent Kim Taehyung has been running the morgue for the last twenty years.

"Taehyung III?" you ask. "Thin, dark eyes, looks a bit like a Roman statue?"

"Yes, that's the one. Took over the family business after his father died. But no children, I hear he's training a young apprentice that will likely take over when he retires."

You mention that surely Taehyung has time to have children, but that same confused expression crosses her face.

"Isn't he nearly seventy though?"

A squirmy feeling in the pit of your stomach. You awkwardly brush off the woman, apologizing for the confusion.

You ask almost every other passerby you see on the street that evening about the town coroner, and they all say the same thing. A kind man, very good at his job, and most definitely in his late sixties.

They all insist that there hasn't been a young Kim in the business since Taehyung was a trainee nearly thirty years prior.

So you do a little more digging, and turns out it's true. If you'd have looked a little closer at the dates on all of Taehyung's degrees and certificates, you'd find that he acquired them all between fifteen and twenty-five years ago.

You're tailing him the next morning. You got lucky, today being one of the rare days when he leaves the Addams house to go into town.

He steps out of the hearse in leather shoes and a sweater vest under his trenchcoat. You suppose he dresses like he's older, from the way he tucks in his shirt and cuffs his pants, but he also sports a crossbody bag over his shoulder that others would most likely consider feminine, but he pulls it off effortlessly.

The clouds are letting down a light rain, leaving dewdrops on your jacket and making Taehyung's hair appear just a bit fluffier.

There's that same streak of gray from his hairline. The only indicator that he possibly isn't an attractive man in his late twenties/early thirties.

But that's exactly what you're looking at. Not an older man with aged skin and silver hair, rather more like a bronze god with a mop of black curls. And the only sign of age from knowledge or experience is deep in his eyes.

You begin to follow him down the street, sneaking pictures occasionally, curious what would happen if you were to show said pictures to others. Would they still see an old man? Or would they see the young one you've been seeing from the beginning?

You get the odd sensation that you're being watched, but from a source you can't name, since you're fairly certain Taehyung hasn't noticed you.

It's as you're nearing the end of the sidewalk, slipping in-between a cluster of people, that he suddenly stops dead in his tracks.

You stop too, a cold chill latching onto your spine. He stands there for a moment, perfectly still.

Then, he turns over his shoulder and looks right at you.

There haven't been many times in your career where you're genuinely shocked speechless. And even fewer when your target is not only fully aware of the fact that you're trailing them, but apparently isn't bothered in the slightest by it.

Because then a smirk is creeping onto his face. Those tiger eyes turn a shade darker, and he nods his head slightly as if to greet you.

He knew you were watching him, they all did.

The ice under your skin only intensifies when you hear the click of a camera shutter from behind you.

Whipping around, you see Jung Hoseok standing just a few feet away, a camera held up to his face and the brim of his hat tilted down, but you know it's him.

And the lens is pointed at you.

What's strange is that no one else seems to notice him. Every other time you've seen him in town, everyone stops to stare, but now they slide around him like he isn't even there, their eyes looking right through him.

Something weird is definitely going on.

You dissolve back into the crowd like a ghost.

october 29, 2004

A letter appears on your doorstep. The stationary is soft and expensive-looking, with your name scrawled on the front in curling script. With no return address.

It's enclosed with a red wax seal, stamped with the image of a crow.

You debate on whether or not to open it for approximately three minutes.

Dearest _______,

We cordially invite you to the Addams House for dinner, dancing, and drinks on October 30 at 6:00 p.m. sharp. Please bring your case notes for discussion.

Dress code: semi-formal.

Fondly,

Jung Hoseok

The back of the paper reads:

How do you accept this invitation?

➳ With enthusiasm

➳ With excitement

You think about it for about thirty seconds. Circling "with enthusiasm," you slip the paper back into the envelope and set it back outside where you found it.

It's gone the next morning.

a/n: thanks so much for reading!! i would absolutely love to hear any of your thoughts! 👉👈

[bucketspammer4life]

what i think your favorite PO boxer says about you

based on my biases and a year of experience (if you get mad over how i talked about your fave im going to turn you into a can of spam)

first time ive ever maxed out the tags

if i missed your fav tell me ‼️

doc louis - you have good taste and are starving for content about him, you really are a survivor

little mac - you either project onto him or just like calling him your son

glass joe - you have a thing for pathetic men (understandable tbh) and like calling him a wet cat since he fits that desc well

von kaiser - same thing as joe but add a hint of "oh no hes hot"

disco kid - you literally have no enemies i love you so much its not even funny (platonic)

king hippo - my god you are good at making up lore, how the fuck do you make a solid personality for a character that only roars and grunts

piston hondo - im 100% youre a saint, no hondo fan i met has ever been unpleasant to talk with

bear hugger - you either see him as a father figure or just think hes hot or (secret third option) you like making jokes about him being a disney princess, either way youre cool

great tiger - oh you have been here for a long time, literally every great tiger fan i know has been in the fandom since 7.000 BC or something, also youre prob really good at art

don flamenco - you use the word "cunty" on a daily basis or just like making fun of his stupid bald head, also yes he has eyeliner on 100%

aran ryan - you'd overthrow a goverment for this greasy rat, youre extremely extremely gay and/or neurodivergent and thats very good for you, you also like making him say lad and have had to go ankle deep in irish slang when making him speak in fanfics

soda popinski - ive never seen someone have soda as their fav, hes always 2nd place somehow so im just gonna go take a shot in the dark and say you like the color pink (mental gymnastics who??)

bald bull - you are a mixed bag, i gen cant put a finger on what kind of personality bull stans have but i can say you either find him hot or like making fun of him, maybe both

super macho man - least serious people ever with some traumatizing lore for the boxers & their own ocs, you prob make him say bogus 88268292 times in a sentence and i can respect that

mr sandman - ive only seen 2 (two ) ppl who have him as their fav and its kinda sad, youre starving for content of him and i wish you the best

birdie mac - hes your son (im not elaborating)

gabby jay - same thing as joe but you went over the top with liking dilfs

narcis prince - gay. gay gay homosexual gay. you went for the self obsessed blonde twink and you thought it wasnt obvious?? you fucking homosexual

heike kagero - youre 1000% queer, sorry to be a broken record about the gay thing but ur fav is literally a man with long hair & makeup that has to be some flavor of queer

hoy quarlow - you are/were another ancient punch out fan, you def shitpost a lot

bruiser bros - where are you??? ive gen never met a bruiser bros fan and its concerning like dude where did u go

texas mac - im sorry but you dont exist, ive never ever seen a texas mac fan, not even someone who mentions him

mad clown - you foul clownfucker. you have weird taste in characters you find hot and tbh im all here for it

masked muscle - same thing as texas mac but theres a slight chance you exist, if you do please show yourself

dragon chan - another punch out ancient fan, you probably were most active in 2013-2019 and kinda miss old shitposts and have either moved on or dont participate much anymore

spo aran - (this is mostly for Charlie but i have hope that theres some other spo aran fans out there) youre probably looking for other spo aran fans, goodpeed soldier, goodpeed

mask x - you arent getting away with this fuck you

[sinfulsalutations]

the bad batch irl headcanons: brainrot edition.

hunter

watches the boys, breaking bad, and basically anything with jk simmons in it

his top artist on his spotify wrapped was lana del rey and has been lana for 3 years straight

listens to self help audiobooks and true crime podcasts

stopped posting on tiktok because 30 year old moms kept commenting weird freaky shit

makes capcut template edits of himself

snap score is in the millions; his parents were confused on the questionnaire and instead ordered a thot son

tech

listens to playboi carti, earl sweatshirt, and ken carson. below them is classical music

never beats the “erm, actually” allegations. his friends turned him into a nerd sticker to use in conversations

reddit WARRIOR. his karma score is in the millions. he posts, no matter what, every two hours (schedules the posts if needed to). most active in the subreddits r/techtips and r/javascript

obeys the traffic laws in gta but if a pedestrian says some shit like “hey watch where you’re going asshole” he is CLOCKING that mfer

plays swipe games on tiktok religiously and will change his answers to fit better with the “lore”

watches jujutsu kaisen, has a tiktok collection dedicated entirely to gojo edits. despite that, maki is his favorite character

wrecker

his entire tiktok for you page consists of workout videos and cute animals

did the trend of tying a bow on the bicep and breaking it while he flexes

doesn’t know how to take photos of himself; watches tutorials on every social media he can find but still can’t figure it out

listens to bad bitch music. beyoncé, megan thee stallion, tinashe, doja cat, glorilla, nicki minaj, all that stuff.

comments “looked at my girl and smiled because she’s perfect” on a hot girls post

says “what the dog doin” all the time. all. the. time.

crosshair

serves cunt; serves all of the cunt

a back arching straight man; ur gay tote-bag carrying boyfriend

almost all his friends are lesbians. they take him to the queer/sapphic clubs and the chappel roan concerts

comments “why no one hating” on the most INNOCENT and PURE videos just to start arguments

is a biker boy but hates the whole “biker tok” stereotype and so he doesn’t go out on the bike anymore out of fear of being recorded without his consent

instagram notes is his main form of communication; he is an olympic ghoster

echo

his vocabulary contains “skibidi” “what the sigma” and “gyatt”

his most used “social medias,” in order, are pinterest, whatsapp, and tiktok

worked at a waffle house before he got fired for starting a fight

kpop fan. stans newjeans, tomorrow x together, and le sserrafim

the definition of “female rage”; also, indeed, serves cunt. not as much as crosshair, but serves cunt nonetheless.

has 13 daily hours of screen time. what is he doing for those hours? fuck if i know. fuck if he knows. fuck if his PHONE knows. (in reality, he leaves youtube videos playing all night and doesn’t even realize it)

[cranberrymoons]

lovers that bless the dark

prompt: fall (@steddieholidaydrabbles) rating: t word count: 734 tags: meet-cute, love at first sight, fluff, and one very cute dog 🍂🥰 title from "autumn in new york" by billie holiday because i am cliché

It happens on a Saturday afternoon in the park, when the air is crisp and the sun is golden and the leaves are swirling on the path underfoot. There’s a saxophone playing in the background and there are kids running through the field to their left, and in front of the fountain, Steve Harrington is meeting the love of his life.

It happens all at once, without anything to tell him it’s happening. Just – a dog breaking free from a leash and a frazzled owner chasing after it and paws crashing into his chest and nearly knocking him back into the cold water from where he sits perched on the stone ledge.

He catches himself with a hand braced on the dog’s back, fingers pushing into shaggy black fur, and he looks up when he hears a shout.

“Sorry!” the man is yelling as he hurries over. He looks exactly like his dog: long dark hair, big brown eyes, slightly flustered and very uncoordinated. “Shit, sorry, he doesn’t normally do that.”

“What, tackle people?” Steve asks, because – honestly.

“Yeah,” the guy says. He laughs, a little awkward, a little apologetic. He reclips the dog’s leash and tugs him out of Steve’s lap. “Or – you know, run away in general.”

Steve looks up from where he’s brushing loose hair and pieces of dried leaves off his jeans. 

“This is Ban,” the man says belatedly, nodding at the dog. “He’s also very sorry.”

Steve frowns a little as he reaches down to scratch the top of the dog’s head, and the dog lurches forward eagerly, nose pressing into his knee.

“Hi, Van. You’re forgiven.”

“With a B,” the man says. “Ban. It’s short for Bananarama.”

“You –” Steve laughs, squinting up at the man through the flare of afternoon sunlight. “You named your dog Bananarama? Do you have a cat named George Michael?”

“John Mellencamp, actually,” he says. “I call him Mel.”

And Steve can’t actually tell if the guy’s joking or not, but he’s smiling, big and wide and endearing, and Steve feels something take flight in his chest, warm and soft and comforting as a mug of hot cider. 

(This is the falling in love at first sight part, and looking back on it, he’ll know; in the moment, he knows nothing other than wanting to be closer and closer and closer to that feeling.)

“I’m Steve,” he says, and then he dips his head down to pretend he was directing it at the dog. “It’s nice to meet you, Bananarama.”

The man makes a small noise of mock outrage and tugs on Ban’s leash. “I can’t believe you just full-named my dog.”

“Well, he is technically in trouble,” Steve says. He scratches Ban under the chin. “For the jumping and the running away and the almost knocking me into dirty fountain water.”

He watches the guy’s face twitch, eyebrows skating up toward his hairline as he lets out a little laugh, which Steve returns. He realizes belatedly that he’s been smiling through this entire interaction, enough that his face hurts with it a little, and he rakes his teeth over his bottom lip. 

“The fountain is clean, actually,” the man says. “We just did a community clean-up day last weekend, so.”

“Oh, well in that case,” Steve says. He tucks the book he’d been reading back into his bag. “I guess I have nothing to complain about. Who wouldn’t want to be knocked into a clean fountain when it’s fifty degrees out.”

“Exactly,” the man says. Then, as if he’s only just remembered – “I’m Eddie. By the way.”

(And this moment, the one where he reaches down to help Steve up, and Steve’s hand slides into his for the first time: this will enter their relationship lore, along with the dog and the book and the fountain and the park itself. It will become one of those things they tell their kids fifteen years from now – he grabbed my hand, and I just knew, just like that . And he does know, sort of: he knows that Eddie’s fingers are calloused, and that makes him curious; he knows that his skin is warm, and that makes him linger; he knows that they fit together, and that makes him want to hold on.)

“Hi, Eddie.” He smiles, pulling his bag onto his shoulder. “Want to buy me a coffee?”

[also on ao3]

[strangesmallbard]

bg3 characters if they worked at publix/safeway/your grocery store of choice:

karlach: in charge of anything that involves moving heavy objects between locations, but also works produce. LOVES helping old ladies take their groceries to the car; will accidentally abandon the vegetables at least once per shift. (she does apologize to the vegetables.) also is a pallet stacking master in the most haphazard configurations that, somehow, miraculously never fall over. frequently posts her monstrosities on r/publix, alongside a selfie of her giving a cheeky thumbs up.

wyll: store manager, in his second year of a master’s degree in public policy. optimistic like a sword is optimistic. WILL make sure you take your mandated break and will hand out store giftcards for a job well done. does not suffer customers who behave badly. is roommates and longtime best friends with karlach; the energy they exude while together either makes your shift bearable or unbearable, depending.

shadowheart: works the in-store coffee counter. probably should not because she always looks vaguely disgusted, annoyed, or bored. the dark circles under her eyes are always there no matter how many espresso shots she sips. has anonymously complained to corporate about the store’s music choices. every new employee thinks they have a shot with her until she hits them with the 👁️😐 did you need something? 👁️😐 and they slink away, feeling chastised for reasons unknown.

minthara: works the meat and/or fish counter. smokes seventeen packs per mandated break. always smells a little bit like red meat. has the most insane combat stories but it’s completely unclear whether she’s a veteran or just someone who gets into situations on purpose. every 20-something employee is at least mildly obsessed with her whole thing, but she’ll only humor karlach. no one knows where she lives.

lae’zel: 22-year-old grocery team lead. typically works the 5pm-11pm shift, but still obviously runs that shit like a navy seal base. has encyclopedic knowledge of grocery store codes and also lore. during mandated breaks she can be found doing one-armed pushups, argueflirting with shadowheart, or scribbling poetry in a notebook. she’s also the pitcher on her college’s varsity baseball team; everyone shows up to her big games and she fails at not looking overwhelmed by joy every time.

jaheira: beloved customer service manager, knows literally everything and everyone. taught wyll everything he knows about not suffering customers who behave badly. often goes mountain climbing with her scary 39-year-old girlfriend astele who owns the smoke shop next door. sells the best weed you’ll ever smoke in your life.

gale: day shift manager counterpart to lae’zel, postdoc who needs the job to make rent obviously. constantly gives aisle directions for the store location he worked during undergrad and shelves the soup cans all wrong. WILL show you photos of his cat. constantly recognized by his booktube fans (he also streams sims 4 builds of classic sci fi/fantasy book locations). he does wear his own merch underneath the uniform.

halsin: that customer who’s very polite but frequently and inexplicably barefoot. he also teaches woodworking and pottery at the youth center down the road. sometimes brings his regular kids to the store for a field trip and those little bags of cheetos. grows the weed that jaheira sells.

astarion: does not work at the grocery store. he worked at the grocery store for two weeks, during which he showed up late every day, insulted customers, and generally behaved like a cat ripped away from his ball of yarn. he only lasted those two weeks because gale (roommate/situationship) begged wyll to give him another chance in a different department. he still lives with gale while finishing up a law degree and can be found loitering in the grocery store, bitching about The Circumstances with shadowheart.

[subtly-a-selkie]

OMG IM SO NERVOUS KDJSB

but like imagine hiro with an s/o who loves to collect random stuff or like picks up rocks and gives them to hiro and is like “here this rock reminded me of you” ODMSJSHHA

i absolutely adore this ask! it might just be because i do the same thing but i’m really excited to write it. I’m so so so sorry for the delay, i had surgery in july and have been recovering since then, plus the Anniversary was last month. (yes that's a long time but please cut me some slack I have been doing my best) anyways i hope you like it! because its been so long since i started it, i wrote it a little differently than usual. it's like a little collection of moments.

also! not only do I now have an ao3, but i also have a taglist! both are linked in my navigation.

Word count: A little over 1k :)

Warnings: Big Hero Six: The Series lore thrown in (Bessie is a meteorite bear, yes it is as weird as it sounds). We are going to pretend I payed for my own matcha ice cream and know how much it was. San Fransokyo cable cars are officially Not That Expensive because I said so. i apparently really like the word intertwine

"I'm back!" You exclaim, sitting down on Hiro's bed to look at him. He was still in the same position as when you had left, staring blankly at his computer screen, he had been trying to fix something on Baymax's suit and you could tell by his slumped posture he hadn't succeeded yet. He brightens up at your voice, and rolls his chair around to face you.

"How was your adventure into the woods?" He asks, pressing the save button on his document.

"Your phrasing makes it sound like there was a seventy percent chance that I would have dropped dead as soon as I heard a bird that isn't a pigeon."

"There's moose, mosquitos, and Bessie in those woods Y/N. I'd say eighty."

"Bessie likes me Hiro. Because I appreciate nature while you would rather wither away staring at a screen."

"Bessie doesn't like anyone. She's a bear."

"A bear that likes me." You retort, laughing at his expression. "Oh! I got you something!" You rummage in your bag and pull out a rock. "Its shaped like Mochi!" 

"So a round rock." Hiro says and you gasp, cupping your hands around Mochi's ears, who had taken up residence on your lap almost as soon as you had sat down on the bed.

"Don't listen to him Mochi you are perfectly cat shaped." You coo at the cat who meows smugly in response.

Hiro takes the rock from where it lay on the bed, you had abandoned it in favor of the real Mochi, turning it over in his hands. You're right, he admits to himself, it does look uncannily like Mochi, even having discoloration where he has his patches. He moves his gaze to you and smiles, setting rock Mochi down on his desk. 

"You know that ice cream place you've been wanting to go to? The one with matcha ice cream?" 

You lift your head from your fussing over Mochi at his voice and smile back at him. "Yeah?"

He responds by standing up and pulling a ten dollar bill out of his pant pocket, then intertwining your fingers and pulling you up off the bed. 

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

"Hi." You say intertwining your arms around Hiro's shoulders. He's sitting in his chair playing video games with Fred, and you're leaning against the back of the chair.

"Hi." He replies, as you rest your head where his neck meets his shoulder. You stay like that for a bit until his character dies and he disconnects the call, much to Freds chagrin if the whining from Hiro's speakers is anything to go by. He then spins his chair around so you are face to face.

"Hi." He repeats watching as your face brightens in remembrance.

"Oh! I have something for you." You pull a dark feather out of your pocket, smoothing it out before handing it to him. "It reminded me of you." 

"A feather reminded you of me?" He says  as he turns over in his hands.

"Yeah! It's the exact color of your hair."

"I don't think my hair is this pretty in the light though." He's twisting the feather through a sun beam, watching as the hidden iridescent colors are showcased. He turns suddenly, and places it with the Mochi rock, a patterned paper crane, and a few other items.

He turns back to you and opens his arms, you accept the offer for a hug almost immediately, resting your head back on where his neck meets his shoulder.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

Your hands rake through the smooth quartz, and you turn a couple over in your hand before moving on to a different plastic box of crystals. You stop when you've chosen one and risk a glance over at Hiro. He is looking at the things you had handed him, the things that you picked out for yourself, this particular crystal is for him though, and you have to somehow pay for it without him noticing. Curling your hand into a fist to hide it, you tug on Hiro's jacket.

"I've found everything I need." You say smiling at him, he nods and leads the way to the cashier, placing your things on the counter, and reaching for his wallet. 

"You paid for the food, I can pay for my things." He pauses.

"You sure?" 

"Yeah." You wait until he's looking at what they have set up next to the counter to add the crystal to your other things, making eye contact with the cashier and then flicking your eyes over to your boyfriend. She seems to have caught your message, and wraps the crystal in tissue paper, along with a couple of the more delicate items.

"Would you like a bag?" She asks

"Yes please." You take the bag from her and intertwine your fingers with Hiro's, leading the both of you out of the shop and onto the streets of San Fransokyo.

"Where should we go next?" He asks you, bringing you closer to him by tugging on your hand, then lifting your joined hands and pressing a kiss to the back of yours. 

"Hm." Your eyes scan the street you and Hiro are on, and your eyes light up at a banner that showcases the aquariums deep sea exhibit. You gasp, and turn to look at Hiro.

"You want to go the the aquarium?" He asks before you can say anything, and you nod enthusiastically. Luckily there's a cable car stop just up ahead, and you both sit on the bench as you wait. Hiro takes a drink of his water and you dig around in your bag to find his gift.

"I have something for you." You say. Hiro finishes zipping up his backpack and turns to look at  you. You hand him the wrapped crystal and he unwraps it, turning the smooth rock over in his palm, and reading the little card that came with it.

"Did you get this at the shop we were just at?" He asks, a slight laugh to his tone.

"Yes." You grin at him and more of a laugh makes its way into his voice.

"I love it." He slips it into one of his backpack pockets and intertwines your fingers once more, resting his head on yours.

People tagged <3

@oyasumimosura your hiro fic is on my list but here's something in the meantime

[dashielldeveron]

soulmate trope | aizawa, part two.

Aizawa's route of soulmate trope.

Part two bc tumblr formatting weird (also it's formatted the texting sextions oddly. pls be patient). Part one here.

Warnings: BTS mention. Reader is explicitly a kissless virgin to make Aizawa feel Worse. Part one: reader gets a mild hand injury. Threat of dub-con. Claustrophobia. Sexual content, with virgin-y themes. Part two: alcohol consumption (not by reader). Sexual content, with virgin-y themes. Fem reader.

Remember that U.A., for the purposes of this fic, is a university. Lore dropped carries over to previous and subsequent chapters.

~38k overall. ~18k for part two.

The semester trudged on.

It ripped you apart, interacting with Aizawa in class as if you were the same as every other student, when you knew what he ordered at his favourite hole-in-the-wall ramen place, what he looked like shaving in the morning, what type of cat treat Konpeito preferred—the trivialities were stacking, and you savoured each one.

YOU

i had a dream about you

SHOUTA

Should you be texting during class?

YOU

Yamada-sensei has abandoned his lesson

YOU

in favour of recording noises for put your hands up radio

SHOUTA

Noises

YOU

bleep bloop

YOU

hey ya howdy doodle doo

YOU

etc.

Present Mic knew about the soulmate bond, as you’d suspected. While you’d been grading for one of Midnight’s underclassmen classes, Aizawa conveniently had been in the faculty lounge at the same time. You still had to be careful, hanging out, because it’s a tenuous boundary to walk, and you never know who’s watching.

For example, Present Mic.

He’d walked by at the same time Aizawa had mumbled a sorry about that in regards to how ill-stocked the faculty lounge was to preparing coffee, and Present Mic had only heard what he wanted to hear.

“OOOH,” he’d shouted, and he’d dropped everything in his arms and contorted his back over the arch of Aizawa’s leather office chair to hang upside down. “ARE YOU STILL GROVELLING FOR BEING A LITTLE BITCH, LOVER BOY?!”

You’d also felt like screaming.

“Don’t call me that.” Aizawa had whacked Mic’s face away, but he’d kept hanging around and slapped his hands to his cheeks.

“OH, HO? SHOULD I SAY LARGE BITCH, THEN?! YOU SHOULD TELL HER HOW HARD MIDNIGHT BLEW INTO YOU FOR BEING A HUGE DICK.” Present Mic had slithered farther into Aizawa’s seat and nearly into his lap.

Aizawa’d reached for his sleeping bag. “Midnight…was pissed at me for treating you the way I did,” he’d said, tucking his feet in and yanking the yellow fabric up around his hips, and he swatted at Mic again, who slinked his way into the sleeping bag, too. “What she’d heard from you—”

“SHE MADE HIM RIDE HER THIGH,” Present Mic had said, somewhat muffled in his headfirst descent into the sleeping bag, “TO GET RID OF THAT SEX QUIRK. SHE SAID IT’D BE ESPECIALLY HUMILIATING AND PATHETIC IF HE CAME WITHOUT HER HELP.”

Aizawa had upturned his sleeping bag to dump Present Mic out of it, and, muttering under his breath, he’d zipped himself in and rolled over to the faculty couch, curling up underneath the coffee table.

Present Mic had spun Aizawa’s chair twice before sitting in it, and he’d propped his chin on both fists. “So! How are you doing? Does he know about your contraband cat yet?”

YOU

he’s trying to bribe dark shadow into bellowing the opening jingle

YOU

i think i’m gonna throw up

SHOUTA

I’ll intervene if the lights pop out again

YOU

rolling around in a sleeping bag is not the fastest method of travel

SHOUTA

Ground yourself. Head between your knees, if you have to

YOU

(◕‿◕✿)

YOU

thanks i’m cured

YOU

but yes back to dream about you

SHOUTA

It isn’t explicit, is it?

It was still all frustratingly platonic and professional from his end. You understood, but that didn’t mean you didn’t hate it. Sometimes you trained with him and Shinsou, but that was all that you could officially schedule. Everything else had to fall as a tired coincidence.

It meant being in the same area of the library doing work, at tables far from each other. Casually bringing him tea when you’re making your rounds through the faculty offices for Midnight. Joining the regular rotation of Eri’s babysitters—but only if Togata or Monoma couldn’t make it that day, and oh, Midoriya’s out, I guess I need someone else who’s not doing anything right now?

(Babysitting meant that Aizawa would be out, but Eri liked you, especially since you brought Dango over to play with Konpeito. If Aizawa had noticed the different type of cat hair on his shitty couch by now, he hasn’t said anything.)

SHOUTA

Don’t put that sort of thing in writing

YOU

of course it’s explicit. how could i tell you any details if it’d been vague and nebulous

SHOUTA

Pedant.

YOU

you love it

SHOUTA Debateable

YOU

(❁ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)

YOU

anyway so in dream we’re at some sort of outdoor awards ceremony

YOU

and the ground is covered in dead wet leaves

Just like Ito said, there’s been an increase in romantic clichés in your life—but, as you discovered (and reported back to both Midnight and Ito), you have to lean into the cliches for them to happen. A backburner signal goes off in your brain when the opportunity for a romantic cliché arrives, and you apparently have the option to ignore it. Which is nice, because the signal only bleeps (more of a gut feeling, really) at what could be a first step, without elaborating what situation might unfold.

You found you have the most energy for the first step signals surrounding coffee shops, and those have been very stare-at-each-other-from-across-the-room-in-unvarnished-lust (although, one time, you were handed an application to work there. You declined). What turned out to be a forced-to-be-roommates cliché brought about the destruction of your dorm room, and only your dorm room, by a training accident and your first step of opening your window overnight, but the whole cliché was subverted, because not only did Aizawa refuse to let you choose his flat over one of your friend’s dorms, but Cementoss and his team repaired your dorm by bedtime.

YOU

we are alone at the shittiest, kind of broken table at the back of the venue

YOU

and there’s still pressure to keep our relationship secret bc people are weird about professor/former student stuff

SHOUTA

Nice to hear you plan on graduating

YOU

sensei (derogatory)

YOU

and you let me scoot my chair as close to you as possible and h*ld your h*nd. intertwining our fingers. letting me k*ss them. you positioned yourself so that no one else would see

YOU

(notice how i censored the sexual parts. yer welcome)

YOU

you had your hair half-up half-down, some of it pulled back in a bun. v v v sexy btw, you should do this irl more often

SHOUTA

I’ll see what I can do

YOU

and you let me play with your hair a bit, with you leaning into my touch. we shared a very sugary pear that i had to fight Yamada-sensei at the buffet for. v v v v v warm and intimate

YOU

the sharing of the pear. not the fight. obviously

YOU

i swear, not knowing what kissing/physical romantic stuff feels like makes my brain come up with the most intimate shit on the planet

YOU

so yeah i dreamt some damn this bitch lonely hours about you

YOU

/ᐠ - ˕ -マ

YOU

…shouta??

YOU

you’re not in class rn, right??

SHOUTA

You tell me that you subconsciously devised an act so fondly intimatewith me adn hagve the nerve to say yo’ure fuckngi lonely

SHOUTA You’re going to rip me apart

Aizawa still hasn’t touched you in any way that matters. The soulmark flitted from behind your ear to your fingertips, your forearm, the back of your hand, and carefully back into its hidden place behind your ear. If anyone’s noticed, they haven’t said a word. You’ve been careful.

(The terribly, awfully, evilly romantic touch that made your head spin when it happened [and now when you think back on it] hadn’t even been skin to skin. It had been, in a small group of people, his hand flattening and lingering on the small of your back for just a bit too long, in congratulations for getting selected to student-teach a stealth section of a class for hero-course first-years.

Because you know it was an intentional decision to touch you like that. He could’ve just clapped you on the shoulder, like he would’ve done for any other student.

But he chose to spread the warmth.)

YOU

funny. that isn’t on the itinerary until after graduation

SHOUTA

You’re on thin fucking ice

YOU

and if i fall in??? whatcha gonna do, rescue me???

One of these days, when you shift in your sleep to his bed, you’re going to wake up with his arm around you. You can feel it.

***

The academic situation the week before graduation was a joke.

Less than a third of the seniors bothered to show up to class, and those who did sat through classes on their phones and with their friends instead of in the dumbass seating arrangement. Sero, honest to God, brought his switch to class and played Mario Kart with Todoroki and Kouda, and that was the most intellectually stimulating conversation unfolding.

You attended, because Aizawa had to. You figured you could lighten the mood, and the odds of you shifting to be next to him were significantly lower if you were in the same room.

The lax attitude permeated Sakura Grove, too. Ito was incredibly receptive to all rehabilitation efforts, accepting everything thrown at her with enthusiasm, so long as she got to have access to some way of watching hot people. She was easily coerced into tough recovery shit purely through the promise of BTS interviews and josei manga.

She was even allowed to have her home collection of josei and shoujo manga shipped to her, usually in a care package from her aunt. It wasn’t worth the effort it took you to go through them to approve their contents, but you still scrutinised and logged everything according to Grove standards.

Hell, the candy you were sneaking out of your backpack right now was from Ito. You were eating a goddamn villain’s sweets from home, and it wasn’t even the first time. Ito’s aunt apparently confused her flavour preferences with her sister’s, so you got the flavours Ito didn’t like. And everyone, including Midnight, was strangely okay with this.

(Midnight tried some, too, the first time Ito offered, after the bag had been put through the fucking rungs. Days of processing to ensure its safety, and the moment Midnight put one on her tongue, she spat it back out onto her desk, where it rolled off into the carpet and picked up fuzz. She ended up asking the on-site translator what the fuck the Dutch label said, because when you expect caramel and get salted liquorice, it’s a shock.)

Ito hadn’t wanted these little lemon-lime-flavoured bitches, even though Jungkook was beaming into a bouquet of daffodils under the logo, so here you were, a semi-hard green ball surreptitiously stowed in your cheek as you struggled to bite down (they had a bizarre inside texture. Interesting enough to keep eating them despite your caution, because something deep in your gut told you to keep eating them. Signs of addiction, anybody?). Your book splayed open on your desk (actually yours in the seating chart, since it was the closest to the door and therefore sweet, sweet freedom), but you were half-reading it, half-scrolling through your phone in your lap.

The sleeping bag slowly rose and fell from its place lying across the teacher desk, the only indication that Aizawa was awake at all being the sluggish deflation of the applesauce packet he was sucking on. The end of the sleeping bag dangled off the edge of the desk, with his boots mutedly knocking against the metal side when he exerted enough effort to take a deeper breath and thus upset his oh-so-delicate position lying on his back. Cosy little bastard. The instant you graduate, you’re climbing into that thing and sucking the soul out of his cock.

Nothing was happening online, and you were pissed at the protagonist in your book, since she was getting to go on a date with her hotboy emo assassin boyfriend, and you weren’t. And Todoroki’s sudden screech at losing again really kept you from concentrating, but, y’know, it’s not like anything’s going on… You checked the wall clock. An hour left, and then there’s only two more school days until you’re out of here.

You cracked the candy in half, caught a strange, flaky texture against the roof of your mouth, and swallowed it down before sneakily reaching for the next one. Out of here. Out of U.A. Now, that’s actually debatable for you, and it left a weird feeling in your stomach. With the work you’ve been doing for Midnight all these years and what Present Mic and Aizawa have shown you about the academic process, you were doubting yourself: you’ve always planned on being a pro-hero, but (cringe) teaching was actually really fucking appealing. Yes, parents were insane, and emails were the devil, but teaching itself was a goddamn delight. The way those first years’ faces had lit the fuck up as they connected things you’d taught them in the stealth section was the best thing you’d seen in a long, long time. And they were as excited about it as you were.

You low-key hated how much you liked it. Because if you stayed on at U.A. to teach (and Nezu has hinted that he’d be interested in hiring you), you’d never escape the professor/student status with Aizawa, even though you’d be his peer on staff. Because everyone around you would remember, and everyone who didn’t know would connect the dots.

If you taught somewhere else, you wouldn’t get to see him much at all, and you might not even get to teach hero-course-relevant material.

Your tentative plan, agonised over in detail with Midnight, was to keep sidekicking under her at Sakura Grove as a steadier job with more routine, especially since Ito would probably be approved for parole soon, and to work as a pro-hero somewhere else as well. You’d groaned and she’d laughed when you came to the conclusion that, with your skill set, you’d be most useful working as an underground hero like Aizawa.

It was both shitty and gratifying that everything in your life seemed to point towards him.

God, this class was dragging on. You willed the hands to spin around the clock faster as you sucked on a fresh piece of candy, determined to suck down to the centre to see what the odd inner texture was about instead of chomping down again like Ito into a picture of Suwabe Jun'ichi.

Maybe you should play a round of Mario Kart. Might take your mind off things. I bet I can run Todoroki into the lava first try, you thought as you swirled the increasingly porous ball around with your tongue.

Yeah, that sounded brain-numbing enough. Shutting your book, you slid it to the corner of your desk and started to get up, giving up and swallowing the damn candy.

But you’d evidently gotten past the hard-candy coating to something large and dense blooming rapidly right as it hit the back of your throat, and you were choking, loudly, drawing the attention of even a Shy-Guy focused Sero, and after coughing up an embarrassing amount of yellow-green spittle, you unceremoniously hacked up a surprisingly realistic daffodil blossom, unfolding to its true size as it lay in your thickened saliva.

“Eurgh,” you said, testing, and you cleared your throat again, prickly and grating. You had only closed your eyes for a second, but Aizawa was standing in front of you, eyes widened in horror at the flower you’d coughed up. How had he gotten out of his sleeping bag so—?

Before you could get a word out, Aizawa grabbed you by your (bare) forearm and rushed you out of the classroom, arm sliding around your waist before he even shut the door behind him. The pink ink smeared down your arm as he led you to the closest empty hallway, where he skidded to a halt and clamped his hands on your shoulders, looking directly at you with the most serious expression he’s ever shown you.

“I haven’t been kind; I haven’t been honest,” he began, all apologies and concern and a desperate sort of tenderness, “I’ve been putting it off because I’ve been selfish and have wanted so hard to do this right, because I don’t deserve anything as good for me as you, and you don’t deserve anything thoroughly fucked up like I am.” Aizawa’s obscenely large hand cupped your face, taking up your entire cheek with his fingertips grazing your earlobe and neck (oh, man, choke me about it), the pad of his thumb hovering over your lower eyelashes; he jerked you towards him, his gentle grip trapping your arm between your bodies.

What the fuck?

I mean, you’ll take this. You’ll take it.

What the fuck’s he on? Those applesauce packets have addled his brain.

He must have read your complete bewilderment as encouragement, because he kept going like he had to vomit up these words or else get shish-kebabed for Mic’s end-of-the-year barbecue. “But now that you’re fucking dying—God, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. I had—plans. For you. But now—Christ—you should know that I haven’t thought of you as a stu—”

“Oh, my fucking God,” you said, your jaw dropping in the smuggest fucking grin and shaking your head, “Oh, my God. Shouta.”

He was flushed and panting, but he stopped to listen. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

(Oh. You’ve never said his name aloud before.

You made a note to tease him about that later. You have something worse to make fun of.)

“You are the dumbest fuck alive,” you said with a shit-eating grin, reaching up to finger-comb his hair out of his face, “I was eating in class. I swallowed a piece of flowering candy at the wrong time. Hanahaki disease isn’t real.”

Aizawa untangled himself from you and took a step back, and then another. “Neither are soulmates,” he said carefully.

“Okay, okay, I can see the logical jump,” you conceded, holding your hands up, “You may continue with your sordid confession now.”

Aizawa blinked, weary again now that the adrenaline was draining away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, fluffing up his capture weapon to cover most of his face.

“Oh, you—you prick! You’re going to hell.” You grinned, poking your tongue into your cheek. “It’s two more days until graduation, and the minute I’m off that stage, I’m yours. C’mon. You can bend your rules with two days left.”

For some reason, he sank more into his scarf. “Let’s go back to the classroom before Todoroki lights something on fire.”

***

You’re vibrating out of your metal chair at the commencement ceremony. Glassy-eyed, you went through the motions of the walk, the pictures, the handshakes, sad goodbyes that aren’t even real, because people were going to the same places and agencies that they’ve been working at for the past few years. Just as pros.

Aizawa’s right there, and his hair’s slicked back, and he’s wearing a suit, and he’s avoiding your ravenous gaze like a good professor should, instead bowing to parents and entertaining the small but constant group that swarmed him.

Hiss, hiss. Back off. He’s yours. You've waited.

When Jirou asked about the twitch in your left eye, you decided it was time to leave. You’re driving yourself insane, watching him like this.

You sat on the front steps of U.A. with Shinsou as the sun sank past the horizon, jovially engaging with your friends who stopped to talk before going out to celebrate. He didn’t ask after whom you’re waiting for, though it was clear you were killing time.

When the night chill swept through the courtyard, Shinsou stood, his hands in his pockets. “I’m beat.” When you didn’t join him, he continued. “D’you wanna go get ice cream, or something, before turning in?”

Aizawa’s still inside. “I’m okay,” you said, stretching, bones cracking, “I think I’ll stay here a bit longer. You go ahead.”

Shinsou stared at you oddly for a second, but he nodded. “Right, then. I’ll go.” He jogged up a couple of stairs before calling back, “You shouldn’t wait out here too long.”

You waved him off.

Eventually, a night wind came that had you pulling down on your sleeves, hunched over on the stairs and rubbing your upper arms. You dug out your phone—no messages—and called him.

He answered after a few rings, his voice groggy and hoarse. “Hello?”

“Where are you?”

“Where am—I’m in my bed. I’m sleeping,” said Aizawa, yawning distantly (he must be tilting his speaker away). He sounded a bit more awake when he asked, “Where are you?”

Fury overtook you. “Where am I? You dense mother—”

You’re straddling his hips in his bed, layers and layers of blankets between you and him.

“—fucker.” You glared down at him, hair mussed up and splayed on his pillow. You hung up your phone and tossed it off the bed; you grabbed his and flung it into the wall. “I waited for you to come out of that building,” you said, planting your hands on either side of his chest to loom over him in what was hopefully a threatening way.

Rubbing an eye with the heel of his palm, Aizawa said, “I hoped you wouldn’t. Shouldn’t you be out with your friends? You’ve graduated. You’ve completed a tough stage of your life.”

“Correct. But aren’t you omitting,” you said, bunching up the fabric of his black henley in a burst of courage (though you didn’t know whether to put your weight on him or not, so you just kind of hovered), “that I’m not your student anymore? I’ve graduated, Shouta. I’ve waited. It’s time. We can start our lives together for real. Aren’t you—aren’t you going to kiss me about it?”

Aizawa’s chest rose and fell underneath your fist, and when he didn’t respond, you released his shirt and sat back with all of your weight on his legs. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.” You crossed your arms, uncrossed them in a nervous fidget, and crossed them again so that you wouldn’t touch him in any way that grossed him out. Though every cell in your body shouted not to, you climbed off of him, kneeling at his side instead. “What’s,” you started, hesitating, “Is anything wrong that you haven’t told me? Is there anything I can do to help?”

Barely perceptible in the crack of moonlight through his partially drawn curtains, Aizawa gave you a sad smile. “There’s something fucked up about waiting until graduation to kiss you, isn’t there?”

“Goddammit,” you said, crumpling and burying your face in your hands, “I get it. I get it.” You ran your tongue over your lower lip. “I hate you.”

Aizawa reached out to brush hair out of your face, not that you really needed it. “No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t,” you said back, shaking at his cool touch sliding behind your ear to fix the soulmark.

***

The next ten months of your life were a blur.

In an attempt to not feel so terribly lonely, you buried yourself in work, Sakura Grove during the day and moonlighting as an underground hero after dark. You had to be a pro to be a professor at U.A., so you pushed yourself not just to be good but good enough. Hopefully, you’d be firmly established as a pro before you went back.

Nezu had discussed that with you in an unofficial job talk that last week of school. You’d also taken the opportunity to confide in your soulmate situation, and God bless Nezu for being so discreet and understanding. He promised to keep your student ID active so that you could still scan into doors on campus and that you could leave without hassle when you shifted to Aizawa (it did tons for your self-esteem when Nezu suggested going ahead and upgrading your student pass to a faculty one; you’d walked out of that meeting positively glowing).

You haven’t been shifting to Aizawa as often. You figured it was because you were suppressing your desire to be next to him as much as you could—still fucking difficult, since it crossed your mind every day. You kept it as low-stress as you could—you most often shifted to him in your sleep, so you could sneak out before the bastard woke up.

(You didn’t want to think about how he’s keeping to one side of the bed, using bedding and blankets instead of his sleeping bag now. You continued to leave nothing but your indent on the pillow.)

(You could count the number of times he shifted to you [that you were aware of] on one hand, but once, as you blinked away sleep, he was scratching Dango’s neck in what appeared to be a familiar way.)

The ache made its home in your chest again.

***

Then came a mission.

To quell the PLF action outside of Mustafu, a team was going undercover to PLF bases throughout Japan to extinguish them. And hey, who do we know who has amazing track records, already work well together, and aren’t too well known by the public and thus are able to go undercover?

Class A reunited in the back of a rented-out, hole-in-the-wall ramen place (Class B was the other team and met in a different location). The cook waved at you, having recognised you from the times you and Aizawa have picked up takeaway, and you shuffled into the back room, dimly lit, private, and pungently smelling of broth.

Aizawa’s surrounded by the half of the class already present—Mina’s showing him a video of a dance she taught primary school kids; Kirishima, hair ungelled and loose around his shoulders, was asking for advice about perpetually split fingernails; Asui’s handing him a juice box with the straw already popped in.

When Aizawa wrapped his lips around the straw, he locked eyes with you, dance routine video playing on without an audience. He’s looking painfully handsome in a black turtleneck and long coat with his hair pulled back, and he only got prettier when he gave you some semblance of a smile: more around the eyes than the mouth.

The moment was broken when Kaminari slammed into Aizawa in a hug, knocking him off balance, so you were grinning when you neared him.

Recovering, Aizawa grasped Kaminari’s shoulders. “Put someone in your own agency as your emergency contact.”

“But Daaaaad,” said Kaminari, his whine eliciting a few giggles from Yaoyorozu and Jirou, “You’re gonna take care of it better than anyone else.”

“I am no longer your professor and am therefore exempt from responsibility. The last two times I was called during class,” said Aizawa, setting his juice box on a booth’s table, “It’s nearly impossible to find a substitute at the last second.”

“But you did.” Kaminari shoots him a double thumbs-up. “You’re the best, but sure, I’ll add someone else to the list.”

“Ooh, during class—there is a new Class A that you’re latched to,” Mina said, turning off her phone and stowing it, “They’re not as cool as we are, right?”

“They’re certainly less trouble, at the very least,” said Aizawa, and he glanced over the former students who had arrived. “Why don’t you work on pushing the tables together?”

They scattered. You stayed.

The ache lessened now that you were near him.

You bit your lip. “Is it okay to hug—”

“C’mere,” he said, and you did, wrapping your arms around his neck and inhaling deeply the scents of pine and sandalwood. You had to step out of his embrace hastily, since anyone could notice something off, but the soulmate warmth had flooded your system like a sugar rush, especially with the observation that he’d pulled you close by your waist, as opposed to when he’d gawkily hugged Kaminari around his shoulders.

You stepped out of his personal space, clasping your hands behind your back. “I know I’ve said it a lot, but you smell incredible.”

“Thank you,” said Aizawa, picking up his juice box, “The shampoo you’re using is particularly nice, too.”

“Thanks,” you said while he slurped, “Is Eri doing okay?”

“She’s doing well. She misses you,” he said, and after a beat, he smirked. “She wants you to bring Dango the next time you shift.”

You sucked in through your teeth. “Ah, ha, you know who Dango is?”

Aizawa was really and truly smiling now, eyes half-lidded and soft. “Eri told me about how you would bring Dango over to play with her and Konpeito. I’ve known from the start.”

“I can’t believe I now have beef with a primary schooler,” you said, “She promised not to tell.”

“She also didn’t seem to understand why you couldn’t bring Dango during a shift,” said Aizawa, leaning back on the table and tilting his head, “You’ve been leaving before she even gets up. Does your work at Sakura Grove start earlier than regular businesses? It’s a long commute, sure, but you leave earlier than it takes to be on time. I’d told you to stick around, if you wanted. You seem to have forgotten that since you graduated.”

“Oh.” You stared blankly, and you blinked. To fill time, you joined him in leaning against the booth table, the hands between the two of you almost touching. “I, uh. Huh.”

Aizawa leant closer to your ear, a strand of his loose hair tickling your skin. He spoke quietly, in that infuriatingly rumbly voice of his. “If you’re distracting yourself by overworking, I advise you to ease up.” The tips of his fingers grazed yours, exploding in pink. “You haven’t been answering my calls; you’ve been sneaking out in the morning. Midnight called me to ask if you were all right, and it was shameful that I couldn’t answer her.” Your jaw quivered at the brush of his hot breath against your skin, but if he noticed (and he probably did, that perceptive bastard), he didn’t say anything. “If you work yourself to the bone, you won’t be any good at your job, and you won’t grow. You don’t have to push yourself. You don’t have to prove yourself. Stop rushing. Take your time.” He leant back, sitting upright. “Linger when you shift to me.”

You tapped your pink fingers on the table; it was a relief seeing the mark, instead of just knowing it’s behind your ear. He’d been rather close rather quickly, saying all of these caring, helpful things with an undertone of innuendo, and it was a lot for you after the long dry spell, so there wasn’t anything left in your brain besides looking up at him full of yearning and saying, point-blank, “I’m in love with you.”

Aizawa kept soft eyes on you while covering your hand with his, clumsily lacing fingers together. “I know.”

Your friends erupted in a wild cheer when the last stragglers, Bakugou and Midoriya, finally pushed their way through the double curtains, with Midoriya waving brightly as he joined them and Bakugou ducking his head and averting his gaze.

You jumped out of your skin at the noise and placed a hand over your heart when you realised what it was—and Aizawa was fucking laughing at you. His fingers curled more tightly into yours while he covered his mouth with his other hand, unable to conceal a terrible sort of wheezing laugh and a wide grin.

He’s beautiful.

Tempted to ask if he were having an asthma attack, you instead pouted, pursing your lips. “Hey, you know that when you’re doing hero work at night, you have to be alert for any sort of unusual sound—”

“Correct,” said Aizawa, trying to reel himself in, “but you may want to work on having a work mode and relaxation mode, with clear boundaries. If you’re on guard all of the time, it drains your energy. I’d like you to have the space to live.”

Jirou called the two of you over now that everyone was present. Aizawa stopped you from joining your friends at the end of the table, subtly pointing at the chair beside him.

Knowing that everyone would want to catch up, Aizawa announced he’d be waiting until after their food arrived for the debriefing. While you talked with Shinsou, seated at your other side, Aizawa examined the menu but ordered the same thing he always did.

Aizawa ate his ramen faster than normal and pulled a manilla file from his long coat, quieting most of the table with the gesture—it reminded you how careful you have to be in your actions, your inflections, because all of these people instinctively paid attention to him.

“You all have been split into sub-teams based on the size and structure of each Paranormal Liberation Front base and your individual abilities to infiltrate them. The majority of you are going to Tokyo, but to those going to less urban locations, your job is just as important in quashing extremists.” He passed the file to Midoriya, on his right. “Take the envelope with your name and a moment to read it before getting in your group. No, Iida,” Aizawa said before Iida could gesture more, “Midoriya is only involved in the planning stage. As he and Bakugou are the most well-known by the public, they will be staying here to maintain a sense of normalcy.”

Shinsou handed the file to you, and you took the last envelope while Midoriya took over explaining to the table. With Aizawa watching you in his periphery, you ripped open your envelope.

Hero commission stationery. Cute. Secrecy of mission, dedication of self…You’re going to Tokyo. Great, you’ll have to burn your city-grimed clothes at the end of each day.

“Who assigned these teams?” you whispered to Aizawa.

He finished his bite of noodle, swallowed thickly, and tucked loose hair behind his ear. “I did.”

You narrowed your eyes. “My team is you.”

“It’s only logical,” he said with a sly smile as he reached for his drink. “Keep reading.”

You scanned the rest, the soulmate trope signal growing in your gut. “Since when does the PLF have connection with the yakuza?”

“Since the families in opposition to Chisaki bolstered their defences against heroes. Keep going.”

Your heart dropped into your stomach. “Their headquarters is in a club?”

“Beneath it,” said Aizawa, and under the table, his knee nudged yours. “So, tell me: what would be the purpose in sending two underground heroes there?”

You took a deep breath, bouncing your leg. “Heroes specialising in stealth would be trained already in how to infiltrate a place unnoticed. They would be accustomed to reading people, to recognising the details that betray intention. And they’d be less likely to be recognised by their faces. Well, goddamn,” you said, reading over your letter again, “Logical. But again: why am I going to a club? I’ve never been to one and have never wanted to.”

“Because you need to grow.” Aizawa tucked that loose strand into his ponytail. “You’re not at your best in large, social situations. Your crowd work needs to improve.”

“So, you’re sending me to a fucking club—”

“Not sending you,” he said, “I’m coming with you.”

“Pedant,” you grumbled, secretly pleased that you’re rubbing off on him. “Seriously, I don’t know if I can do this.”

Aizawa shook his head. “I do.”

***

You were teeming with envy for your classmates sent to rural PLF bases when five o’clock brought vast hordes of businessmen and freshly released workers onto the train to uptown Tokyo.

You have a firm stance on personal space; you’re not used to touching people or being touched, so you grew more and more visibly flustered as more people packed on. A faint call of the soulmate signal echoed in your gut, and you panicked—is it a romantic cliché to get fucking groped?

But before it can escalate to a true panic attack, Aizawa set his duffel on the floor and reached for your waist—you jumped at his touch but relaxed when you saw it was him. He guided you in front of him, unbuttoned his long coat, and wrapped it around both of you, pulling you back against him with his arms hugging your waist, large hands covering more of your body than you’d imagined. Back against his broad, warm chest. Feeling tucked in under the coat.

Tilting your head back to look at his tired eyes, you mouthed Thank you.

Aizawa nodded, and when you settled into his arms, he rested his chin on the top of your head.

***

The A/C in your hotel room conked out an hour before infiltrating Club Magenta.

“There’s a pin that the yakuza has issued to PLF members for club access,” called Aizawa from the bathroom, the door cracked to let out steam, “It’s a visible marker for who’s safe to confide in, since PLF members haven’t been sworn into the yakuza.”

You pulled the fan chain through its cycle of settings again, and no, that was the highest it could go. “Wait, a pin? Would either of mine look like it from a distance?”

“Unless you’re coincidentally wearing the eye of Horus—” The bathroom door slammed open, steam and light outpouring. “Why are you wearing pins on a mission?”

“It’s to contribute to my I-am-open-and-not-hiding-anything vibes by providing more information about myself than necessary,” you said, kneeling on the bed, crawling off of it, and being slapped with 80 psychic damage at the sight of Aizawa’s clubbing disguise.

How annoying. He’s got on this unbearably irritating all-black ensemble (though that form-fitting button-up peeking out from underneath that stupid leather jacket was more of an ashy-grey-black than straight black), but a flash of his socks revealed neon kittens—if you could get past those funky, leather boots with flowers painted on. He’d shaved away all but a shadow of stubble, and his hair was up in that half-up, half-down bun style that was horribly, horribly attractive.

You had to sit down on the edge of the bed.

Aizawa strode over to you, squinting down at the pins near your left shoulder (the tips of his boots parted your legs where he stood). The expected wave of disappointment washed over his face as he read Good Pussy Gang and experiencing sensory overload—both in pastel, the latter with cartoon frogs.

“What the hell is wrong with you,” said Aizawa, unconsciously edging further between your legs.

“Well, the other options for pins up for borrowing from the girls could imply some things that could turn out badly for me in this situation. There was my sun sign is cocaine, but then what if I were offered cocaine? I don’t wanna do that,” you said, grinning, “And the one that said don’t bully me; I’ll come was a little too close to home, and you’ve taught us to never be that vulnerable about our true selves when undercover. Fuck Nasty wears its joke out quickly. It was tough choosing, though. Runner-up was crab rangoon.”

Narrowing his eyes, Aizawa plucked at the charm on your necklace. “And this, I presume, is the entire clitoral gland?”

“It’s a wishbone,” you said.

He set the charm back against the hollow of your throat. “Figures. Just—just what the hell are you wearing?”

“You’ve seen me in a dress before.” It’s really not that bad: also all-black, long enough to feel safe—but since you’ve been informed you have nice boobs, it’s also got a square-cut neckline to show them the fuck off.

“No, I meant—” Aizawa hooked a finger underneath the leather strap on your shoulder and yanked, pulling you upright and rather close; you laid your hands on his chest to balance yourself (oh, hohohohoho, his chest! You’re successfully touching it).

“That,” you said, biting your lip as his hooked finger ran down the strap from your shoulder to the side of your boob, “is called a harness, Shouta. You seem like the type to know a lot about—”

“Not the point,” he said under his breath, his hands resting at your waist (!!!), just below the leather going across there, thumbs rubbing at your sides. He ran his tongue over his lower lip and then cleared his throat. “Enlighten me. Why do you have a harness?”

(“Because it pushes your boobs up and together, and men are weak,” Mina had said.)

“It’s from Momo’s failed Attack on Titan cosplay,” you said, truthfully, “She got the placement of the horizontal strap wrong. See, it’s supposed to go here.” You drew a line across the tops of your boobs, watching his pupils follow. “But she made it here, under the boobs, like an underbust corset. She was going to throw it out, but I thought it looked good on me.”

He rubbed his thumb over the leather one last time before dropping his hands. “It does,” he said in a sort of croak.

You soared on the high of that croak the entire uber ride to Magenta.

Tinged pale pinks and greens under spotlights, the line outside stretched around the block and into the night. Bit embarrassing how Aizawa’d had to explain ratio to you, and a couple of eavesdropping woo girls thought it was simply adorable that it was your first time in a club and agreed to latch onto you two to be let in. The bouncer talked to Aizawa, not you, but let you pass, stating that first-timers at Magenta need to stay on the first floor unless otherwise invited.

“Can everyone just look and me and tell I’m a virgin?!” you hissed into Aizawa’s ear as you were led down a pitch-black corridor. “How come no one’s talking to any of the other women like that?!”

Harsh drops in the music coming from somewhere shook the walls more and more as you walked farther into the dark, and a heavy, steel door (with a glow-stick around the handle) opened onto a pulsating sardine can of a dance floor coated in way too many people, all writhing and twisting to the beat. The floor sectioned into a panelled grid, with each panel somehow lit from underneath, flashing pinks, greens, and black. The ceiling was similarly gridded but only with white light, from the view below, and you could see the silhouetted footsteps of dancers on the floor above.

Aizawa guided you to an edge booth before going to the bar; you, keeping an eye out for the Magenta pins, camped out and shazam-ed the incomprehensible electro-pop song currently vibrating the chairs away from a nearby table (the table was bolted down, but the chairs weren’t).

When Aizawa slid into the booth with drinks, you dragged him close to you, pressing your face into his shoulder and inhaling deeply. “Thank God,” you said, refreshed by the pine and what was apparently new leather, “Too many people are vaping for me to breathe. And it’s so fucking humid in here.” You popped up, accepting the glass of fancy-as-fuck pink lemonade as he skidded the glass across the table to you (you’d decided ahead of time that you weren’t drinking on the mission tonight). “I’m glad Mina told me not to rely on makeup too much due to the sweat, but fuck, this is kind of awful.”

“Yet the humidity’s from crowds of young people dying to experience this flavour of awfulness,” said Aizawa, the glass of some sort of whisky-based drink eclipsed by his hand (big hand…big hand could hold you…), “Seen anyone interesting so far?”

You cupped your hands around your glass, savouring the cool condensation. “Perhaps. Mostly I’ve been acclimatising myself to my surroundings—”

“Spoken like a true hero and a huge nerd.”

“—and I haven’t seen an eye of Horus pin, or any pin, for that matter, but I’ve seen a couple of people, I think, not dressed for a club leaving through a different door. Just there,” you said, raising your glass in that direction and to your lips. “And I happen to like being a nerd, thank you.”

Aizawa’s knee touched yours under the table when he turned in to speak more quietly. “The bartender was wearing an oversized jacket with pin-holes in the lapel.”

“So, not her jacket. Bartender doesn’t qualify?”

“Suppose she doesn’t have to. Only has to deal with the alcohol and kitchen, not crime. Though the price of their scotch comes close,” said Aizawa, taking a sip—and the chokehold his Adam’s apple has on you when it bobs, yikes. Oof. He leant in closer, his breath grazing your neck, to say, “And trust me, if anyone knows you like being a nerd, it’s your sensei.”

Your life flashed before your eyes (lots of reading, lots of yearning, not enough telling people to shut up). Your face felt tight from suppressing a reaction. “Incidentally, didn’t you say you could handle alcohol well?”

“Correct,” he said, smugly taking another swallow, and the soulmate signal erupted in your gut.

Not…the greatest sign.

“If you’re going to try to harass me about how well I can hold my liquor, which is perfectly well, then allow me to make another extrapolation about you.”

You nervously took another swig of your lemonade. “Go ahead.”

No mercy in his expression. “You have a book in your purse, don’t you?”

“Well, fuck,” you said, shifting in your seat, “Is my not-like-other-girls complex showing?”

“I don’t know what that means, but since it flusters you, yes.”

You tried to down the rest of your lemonade, but the glass was really big. Whatever. You pushed on the table to stand. “I’m gonna go dance. I have no idea how, but it’ll be a learning experience, right, fuck-o?”

Holding his glass in from of his smile, Aizawa rolled his eyes.

“I’ll see if there’s anyone out there wearing the pin who doesn’t fit a stereotype and get to talking. See if there’s any more exits,” you said, successfully finishing your lemonade this time and slithering out of the booth, “You stay here, being effortlessly, excruciatingly handsome, and watch the flow of traffic, yeah? See if anyone approaches. Is the soulmark in place?” You spun around (with a bit of traction from the beer-soaked floor) and gestured to your ear.

When he didn’t touch you, you faced him again. Eyebrows raised, Aizawa was frozen, his glass an inch from his lips.

“You think I’m handsome?”

“Is that what you’re focusing on? C’mon, Sho, you’re the most beautiful creature alive, and you know it. I wanted to drop dead when you walked out in your slutty little outfit earlier. You’re playing to my exact weaknesses, you cunning little fuckslut. I already want to quit the mission and make out with you, but I know you won’t allow that, so let’s get the ball rolling so we can finish, yeah?”

He set his glass down with a loud clink. “Right.” He ran his tongue over his lower lip. “Let me fix your soulmark.”

After that, you fucked off onto the dance floor, a bit discombobulated from the nearly-strobe-but-not-quite lights from the floor panels, but you guess the advantage would be if anyone saw you embarrassing yourself, they wouldn’t be able to get a good look at you.

Dancing was out of your comfort zone, but making people laugh? All too easy. All you had to do was compliment a woman on her heart-shaped nipple stickers, and she invited you over to her friends’ dance group. You elected to lean into the everyone-can-tell-this-is-my-first-time-in-a-club bit, and by being honest and awkward within the boundaries of your mission persona, the more experienced club-goers delighted in teaching you some basic club dance moves.

Yes, the music throbbed through your skull as you pulled questionable moves in a dense, sweaty pack of bodies—but hey, your mission persona’s new bestie said that everyone besides professional dancers fake knowing how to dance, so you do you, girl. Besides, Haru was fishing out her phone to show you pictures of her cat, and Kisa was shouting over the music the premise of her PhD dissertation that she was defending next month (she invited you to the defence, and though you won’t have any good questions about the usage of prosthetic limbs as moral denotation in English Victorian literature, you genuinely planned on attending).

(No pins, no outsiders, no one not young and exceedingly drunk—)

“I think you’ve got it!” Haru yelled, her features illuminated in pink, “I think that’s all the basic solo moves! Do you know how to grind? Should we move on to grinding?”

Outward shouts of agreement from the group. Internal screaming on your part. How do you say my ass belongs to my stupid soulmate undercover?

All too quickly, Haru introduced you to Kazu, who waved politely and offered an honestly endearing smile, but you were pressed up against him way too quickly, with too many people touching you, with multiple pairs of hands on your hips trying to guide their movement, and hey, is that an eye—

When Aizawa yanked you out of the cluster, you could breathe again.

“Oof, ouch, I’m sorry; we’re sorry, sir. We didn’t know we were swarming her,” Kisa was saying while you were reorienting yourself, “She should be just fine, though! Nothing bad has happened to her since she’s been with us, and until now, it’s just been us girls—”

More of that language. Assuring Aizawa, like you weren’t even there. And, like, these were women! Some of whom were in academia and medicine, and shit, fighting the good feminist fight! Why were they talking about you like you were—

“They think I’m your dom,” Aizawa said as he steered you towards a roomier part of the floor, “They want to ensure you’re not in trouble with me.”

You turned to face him. “Shut up. No, they don’t.”

Aizawa didn’t have to say anything—just let his gaze sink to your harness.

“Oof,” you said, clasping your hands behind your back. Biting the inside of your cheek, you bounced on the balls of your feet, and you met his eyes. “Am I in trouble with you?”

“No,” he said evenly, “but you’re not going to learn to grind on anyone but me.” He closed in on you, body heat mingling, and looked down at you, eyes half-lidded. “Do you seriously not know? Do those books you read teach you nothing?”

Aizawa took mercy on your headshake no, spun you around, and grasped your hips, his thumbs digging into the swell of your ass.

(He’s touching you, and it’s lower on your body; it’s intimate. You need to go lie down to think about this. You can already feel you’ll be processing this touch for a long time—)

Aizawa jerked your ass back against his pelvis, and your brain emptied.

“Now,” he said, his voice low in your ear (though you’re already sweating, a different heat started to build in you), “The first step is to relax. The movement will be smoother if you’re not wracked with tension.”

“How can I relax when you’re—” Realisation seized you like a sailor grasping for a fish flopping around on deck. “You’re drunk, Shouta,” you said, sighing, chest heavy with compassion and disappointment that he wasn’t flirting with you entirely deliberately, and you reached up to cup his face in your hands. “Let’s go back to the booth and wait it out. I’m going to take care of you.”

He snatched your hands away before your fingertips could even turn pink. “No, little girl,” Aizawa hissed, forcing you around and pinning your hips against his, his splayed hand pressing down hard on your lower stomach, “I’m going to take care of you.”

You would like pink lilies at your funeral.

“A step-by-step lesson, since you’ve managed to make it this far being so woefully ignorant. Some people say grinding can be for fun and nothing else, but for you, since you’re with me, grinding is always sensual.” Aizawa took your twitching hands in both of his, and he dragged your hands up your thighs, plucking at the hem of your dress before trailing them up to your waist. “Usually, your goal would be to get me hard. Luckily for you—”

Grunting, Aizawa ground his erection (?!) against you, rolling his hips from top to bottom to make you feel everything from the tip to his balls, putting so much pressure on your hip and stomach that you grew aware of your goddamn hipbones (this man is bringing up your skeleton, among other private, inner things you don’t want to think about, and it’s just a dance).

“—I’m already there. So, you don’t have to worry about any responsibility. You just sit pretty and let your sensei teach you, hm? I know you’re a quick learner. You’ll catch on.”

Aizawa tapped the back of your knees, making you bend them when you flinched, but he motioned for them to stay bent, doing the same himself. “Move your hips to the beat, matching my speed. Some songs call for moving your hips in a figure-eight, but most work better if you’re moving them in a circular motion—”

“Circular how?” you asked, swaying along to the beat just barely, not even realising you were doing it, “Like, are we talking circle on the y-axis or the x-axis?”

Aizawa scoffed into your hair. “Fucking—it’s not that simple; it’s not two-dimensional. It’s,” he said, raising a hand in front of you to make a flattening gesture, “There’s another plane intersecting. Not just the y- and x-axes. God, what is it called when there’s a third—forget it.” He huffed and nuzzled against your neck. “Think of the movement as Saturn’s rings.”

You looked back at him, grinning. “Are you Saturn?”

“Cheeky,” he said, and he directed you to face the front again by sliding his thumb along your jaw, “or should I say brat. Jesus, am I Saturn—no, sweetheart, but I’m losing my patience for you. Pay attention.”

Sweetheart.

Sweetheart.

You have the mental image of popping champagne while Midnight and Ito throw confetti.

You’re almost too overwhelmed by the new and very good and oh? to keep absorbing more information and observing more sensations, but the only way out was through.

So, Aizawa taught you the right way to roll your hips, to adjust to different songs, what to do with your hands, with every point of contact along the way feeling like a lit sparkler, and you’re a light that won’t go out.

Both present and far away, you couldn’t keep it together (maybe you were experiencing sensory overload). Being so close to Aizawa, with him wanting to be near and nearer to you, unfurled a heady thrill up your spine as he slid his hands over your hips and ass and waist, tugging back on the harness when your back strayed too far from his chest. The way your bodies moved together, slowly, sultrily—his hips twitched involuntarily against you.

“Let me look at you.”

Grabbing your chin again, he turned you towards him, and your hands trembled under his as he encouraged you to run them down his chest (half of his features highlighted in a flash of pearl green, he smirked at you when you lost your nerve and broke eye contact, gathering the fabric of his shirt in a frustrated fist before noticing you were grazing his abs and let go). But he kept you close.

Head swimming, you hooked a finger into his belt loop and yanked to close the scant space between you. You found yourself saying nonsense, like your sentences were rice-paper butterflies that couldn’t float off your tongue and into the dark fast enough. “I want to take a nap inside your ribcage. I want and love every part of you, even the ones I don’t know yet, even if you want no part of me. I’m always yours, in every iteration of me, in every timeline, forever. I don’t care if everyone else forgets me or hates me so long as you know me. I’m going to make you pancakes in the morning. I’m going to give you the best blowjob of your life. I’m going to eat you alive. I’m also possibly experiencing sensory overload and may pass out, so we may need to rain-cheque the mission and leave soon.”

Nodding, Aizawa leant in to kiss you.

The music and lights and people faded away, and you were weightless, in freefall, with a spark of yet more heat kindling low in your stomach.

(From there, the details escape you—and that kills you when you look back at this moment, because it’s your first kiss. But you don’t remember if his lips were chapped or how it tasted or sounds, or anything [possibly because of how bombarded your senses had already been], but you remember how he made you feel: like you’ve been exploring an endless garden, searching, and then seeing him when you turn a corner, his back to you as he waters greenery, and how blinding his smile is when he turns to you.)

***

The mission. Right, the mission. Really hard to care about it once you’d kissed Aizawa.

It went fine. You returned to the booth and read aloud from your book to him until he decided he was sober enough to continue, and you’d scouted some pin-wearers and sneaked downstairs. The PLF stragglers split you and Aizawa up during the fight, so it thrilled you to bits when the soulmate bond made Aizawa shift to you when he couldn’t get loose from multiple yakuza holding him down. Good shit.

Nothing happened when you made it back to the hotel, because Aizawa passed the fuck out within a minute of unlocking the door, which was fair.

You’d been summoned to aid Hagakure and Kirishima at a base just outside of Tokyo, so you’d taken care of that and were now driving back home.

(He’d told you he’d rented the car because he didn’t want to risk your feeling overwhelmed on the train again. Magnanimous fucker.)

Unfortunately, most of the car ride had to be spent reporting to a hero commission employee and then listening to the next step of the plan on speakerphone. You found yourself nodding off, despite the hard copy of the mission report in front of you waiting to be filled out.

The hero commission had to hang up abruptly (something something Best Jeanist?), and the second Aizawa hung up the phone, it rang again. Groaning, he answered it, turning on speaker again and replacing it in his cupholder.

“Eraserhead speaking.”

Crying out, you hunched over in the passenger seat, the soulmate signal cutting so suddenly and severely that it was as if your stomach had been sliced open with a blunt knife.

A hand flying to your shoulder, Aizawa slammed on the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road.

“…been trying to reach you all morning,” the voice on the phone was saying (another hero commission employee, from the legal side, it sounded like), “but I haven’t been able to get through.”

Shaking your head, you held up a hand to Aizawa to let him know you were okay, that it would pass. Still, his jaw tensed, and he slid his hand from your shoulder up to cup your cheek, rubbing his thumb over your cheekbone.

“—because it looks you left some of your financial agreement blank; did you mean to indicate that yes, your wife should be paying child support for Eri?”

Aizawa dropped his hand from your cheek and stared blankly at the phone in the cupholder. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Child support for—”

“No, hold on,” said Aizawa, gesturing and shaking his head even though the other person couldn’t see, “Actually, before we—listen, I don’t have exclusive custody of Eri; she’s under the care of U.A. as an institution. She happens to be near me the most because she bonded with me first. You must have inaccurate—inaccurate information.” He shot a questioning look to you, and you shrugged, excitement bubbling in your gut.

“Allow me a moment?” Mouse clicking was heard. “Okay, well, I’ve got you and your wife’s bank account information pulled up here—”

“When was a quirk incident form for me last processed by your system?”

Aizawa shot you a warning glare while you proceeded to silently lose your shit, clamping a hand over your mouth to stifle your laughter. You unbuckled and reached over the console to pepper pink kisses all over a sulking Aizawa’s face while the speaker rattled off an apology for the delay in processing hard copies of paperwork when they’re used to digital, ultimately confirming that due to a mistake in filing and your little jokes on paper, you two have been married for eight months now.

Running your fingers through his hair (sandalwood sandalwood sandalwood), you pressed your forehead to his, and while the speaker was still apologising for the error, you whispered, “I am going to give you the most egregious road head.”

Aizawa laughed through his nose, making a horrible sort of snrking noise, and he slipped his hand over his own mouth to cover the wheeze in his laugh. You kissed the tip of his nose and leant back to your seat after giving his hair a final, gentle tug.

Steeling himself, Aizawa the pink-nosed reindeer cut the hero commission employee off. “I understand, but I’m still in the field right now. Please forgive me, but I’ll have to call you back later.”

The moment you hung up for him, Aizawa let out a loud groan, tilting his head back and sinking down in his seat, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Jesus Christ,” he said over your burst of open laughter, “You got what you wanted, I suppose.”

“Ohhhhh, no,” you said once you got a breath in, “I’m married to the person I love more than anyone, boo hoo. Do you—” A harrowing thought sobered you. “Do you not want this?”

Aizawa peeked from under his hands, and he dropped them to his lap with a sigh. “Well,” he said, sitting upright again and turning the key in the transmission, “It’s certainly not how I wanted to propose.”

Your throat ran dry, and you smiled through it. “Can’t be helped, I guess. Would it make you feel better if we went to pick out rings?” you asked, not quite joking but not quite serious.

You got to see the way his cheeks and ears tinged bright red as he checked behind you to merge into incoming traffic, and he tucked his chin into his scarf, as if he didn’t want to be seen. “The ring’s already at home.”

***

You were to take over teaching Midnight’s classes. Your duties at Sakura Grove would taper off as other employees learnt how to replace the both of you.

You were also to give her eulogy.

As her former student, close friend, and only sidekick, you were the natural choice. You didn’t want to do it, but you knew if someone else did it, they’d fuck it up.

You deliberately didn’t look at anyone in the crowd (students, heroes, and civilians whose lives she’d affected) and instead focused on the clock on the far wall. If you looked Yagi or Yamada in the eyes right now, you’d crumple.

So, you started talking. You have control over the jokes, this way, over the stories, by doing it yourself. You were doing fine, speaking in a disconnected way, until you noticed, for the first time, that Nezu was sitting on a couple of bibles to see over the pew.

For some reason, that made your grief-stricken brain lose the last threads of composure at which you were grappling, and the first fat tear trickled past your waterline.

And you shifted right into Aizawa’s lap, in front of everyone.

His wheelchair was parked on the outside of the second pew (he wasn’t even supposed to be out of the hospital yet and didn’t yet have a prosthetic), so those attending could see the shift without even having to turn their heads much. Gasping, you were straddling/kneeling in Aizawa’s lap with your arms around his neck, his chin almost in your boobs, and he looked just as taken aback as you did.

You ignored it, instead standing, wiping the tear, and continuing where you’d been cut off mid-sentence as you returned to the podium.

You shifted four more times during the course of the eulogy.

So, Midnight celebrated romance even in her death: amidst condolences came the curious congratulations on finding your soulmate.

***

You woke up in his bed.

When the bed creaked and a warm, muscular arm draped over you, there was no scrambling off of each other. No panic. He grumbled something against the back of your neck and tightened his grip around your waist, curling into you.

You woke up in his bed.

“What—why are you leaving?” came Aizawa’s rasping morning voice, his hand emerging from under the covers to grasp your wrist. “S’not daylight yet.”

“I know,” you said, putting a knee back on the bed to lean over him, and you brushed hair out of his face, trails of pink following. “But I can’t go straight to Sakura Grove like this; I need stuff from my flat. One of my replacements starts training today.”

“Mm.” Aizawa blinked blearily up at you, a sleep smile growing as he held your palm to his cheek. “Take some shoes for the commute, at least.”

“I was planning on it. Is my pair of All Might socks still here?”

“Yeah. I washed them,” said Aizawa, and with a grunt, he moved to sit up.

Hands on his chest, you pushed him back down. “No, baby, stay in bed. I’ll get them. You need all the rest you can get.”

You woke up in his bed.

It’s empty, so you followed the scent of coffee into the kitchen, where a shirtless, pink-sweatpants-ed Aizawa stared into a mug with amorphous cats that Eri painted.

“You’re adorable,” you said, opening the cabinet next to him and scanning the mug selection.

The slurp he made was monstrous. “Eri misses you.”

“I miss you, too, Shouta.” You selected a #1 Dad mug from Kirishima, and Aizawa poured the steaming coffee into it for you. “We’ll see each other more when school starts again. The next time the teaching certification test is being offered is late next month, and then I can start orientation here.”

Aizawa nodded, resting his elbow next to you on the counter, grazing your fingers cupped around your mug. “I know you’re still working the fifth district at nights, but is there a chance you could take a leave of absence for this weekend?”

“Hot date?”

He hummed into his coffee. “If only. I’ve got a short mission out of town, and there’s no one I’d trust more to watch Eri.”

You smiled at him, with Konpeito rubbing against your legs. “Of course.”

You woke up in his bed.

“Thank God,” said Aizawa, rolling on top of you and burying his face in your neck.

“It’s only a few more weeks,” you said, wriggling in his hold when his breath tickled you.

“No, I mean—the ring’s finished being resized,” he said, sitting up, “and I’ve been desperate to see it on you.”

Aizawa retrieved the box from his bedside table and slid it on your finger: white gold with an emerald embedded, all strategically designed not to catch on anything—made with your hero work in mind.

You wiggled the fingers on your left hand, the emerald catching the morning light. “I’m going to throw up. It’s gorgeous.”

“Hold your nausea for when you hear Hizashi’s latest ideas for our ceremony.”

“Oh, fuck,” you said, plopping back down onto the pillow, “Does he not understand simplicity? Or not being a fucking tool?” When Aizawa shook his head, grinning down at you, you lifted your hand to run your thumb over his lower lip, and his tongue darted out to meet it. “All right, my love. Lay it on me.”

You woke up in his bed.

Dango had jumped on you and meowed loudly, because she didn’t understand that the feeding schedule was a little different now that she lived in Aizawa’s apartment.

(Dango had pre-emptively moved in before you, because the sooner Dango and Konpeito bond, the better. Eri got so upset when they play-fought.)

You woke up in his bed.

“Shouta,” you said, rolling over towards the lit lamp, “What are you doing up already?”

He crossed out something in red ink. “I’m reworking some of the written tests for my new curriculum. I meant to do it last night but went to bed early instead, and I’d rather do it now than this evening.” Aizawa slid his glasses down his nose, his good eye glinting at you playfully. “Nothing’s come up? You can still come over tonight?”

“Yeah,” you said, scooting over to feel his body heat, “I haven’t seen Shinsou in so long, either, so I’m glad he’s coming over to dinner, too. You aren’t going to keep him busy long, right?”

“We’re setting up the room at the end of the hall for a new tenant, so we should be done by the time you get here.” Aizawa rolled his shoulders back before setting his papers to the side, and he folded his glasses to set them atop them. “What, are you planning something with him to get back at me?”

“Nah,” you said, rustling the sheets as you sat up, “I just need his phone at some point. It’s really fucking weird that my best friend is my soulmate’s, like, ward-mentee, because Shinsou’s got my contact name as Mommy. With a little heart.”

Wincing, Aizawa guided you into his lap, his hands light on your waist.

“I’ve got to change it back to my name,” you said, wrapping your arms around his neck to sink into a hug. You pressed your lips against his neck—not really a kiss, but more of just resting them there. “Who’s moving into the room at the end of the hall?”

Kissing the side of your head, Aizawa stroked your back through your sleepshirt, his fingertips trailing heat down your spine. “Well,” he said, his voice morning-gravelly, “Let’s say it’s another ward-mentee. U.A. wants me in charge. You’ll see.” You felt him smile against your ear, and he kissed it before biting the cartilage gently. “When are you moving in?”

“School starts next Wednesday,” you said, “so how does this weekend sound?”

You woke up in the bed you shared with Aizawa, slammed the alarm clock off, and flipped back over, spooning Aizawa with your nose smushed between his shoulder blades. He laced his fingers back through yours and kept them over his heart.

***

On a weeknight two weeks into the school year, you’re dangling your legs off the top of a water tower, forehead pressed against the railing, watching cars pass under streetlights below.

Being a teacher was tough. Being a teacher and an underground pro-hero at night was tougher. You now understood Aizawa’s need to carry a sleeping bag around. You hadn’t caved and done the same, but you kept a pillow at your cubicle in the faculty lounge because it was just too damn hard to stay awake during your off period.

(At least things with Sakura Grove were wrapping up. You’d stay in their contacts as a consultant, especially for Ito, but you didn’t have to go there anymore. Sad that that part of your life was ending, but it scooted over on the couch for new beginnings.)

You’re dancing around the point: because of your endless exhaustion and the difference in your and Aizawa’s schedules, you’re still a goddamn virgin. It’s stupid as fuck. The longer you put it off (which you’re not even doing intentionally!), the more of a stressful event it’s going to be.

“Sleeping on the job?”

You jolted awake, cold indent of the railing cutting into your forehead, and your head whipped around in search of him. “Dozing,” you said, tilting your head back far enough to watch Aizawa slide down from his crouch atop the water tower, “Too shallow to be real sleep. You don’t even get to R.E.M.”

“All of that to say that you want to go home,” said Aizawa, and he nestled up behind you, placing his legs on either side of yours and wrapping his arms around your waist to pull your back to his chest. He pressed his cold nose to your neck (you yelped) while the ends of his capture weapon trailed onto your lap.

“I guess, but I only have about half an hour more of my patrol,” you said, covering one of his hands with yours (pink didn’t blossom there, probably because he kept brushing his lips where your neck met your shoulder), “I can wait it out.”

“Mm, if you say so. Right now, I’d rather have you in bed. I miss you too much.” He inhaled deeply before placing one final kiss behind your ear and said, “I have something for you.” He took a moment to riffle through the pouches on his utility belt, and your heart dropped into your stomach when he reached around you to retrieve the knife hidden in your boot (oh, my God, the intimacy of knowing where on your body you kept your weapons). Aizawa brought his arms around your waist again, this time with a brown-sugar-coated pear in a brown paper sleeve cupped in one hand, the other cutting into the soft flesh of the pear.

He held the blade to your lips, which you closed around the slice of pear, the brown sugar grains melting on your tongue. He fed you another slice before cutting one for himself.

The pains and care he took for you compounded and curled on your chest like an overweight cat, and you cracked in half: you started fucking crying.

As soon as the first tear track shone under the streetlights, Aizawa, brow furrowed, turned your chin towards him (you automatically took the pear and knife to hold them in your lap).

“What’s—”

Taking in your weak, shaky smile, he took on one himself. “I see.” Aizawa finger-combed some of your hair out of your face and rested his curled fingers at the roots of your hair at the back of your neck. “Still,” he said, swiping away a fresh tear with his thumb, “I can’t have that—not my pretty girl crying.”

No matter how thoroughly he dried your face, it didn’t matter: it started raining on the way home. Both of you were soaked, grinning as you scanned into U.A. under the torrential rain funnelled from the awning where faculty entered, dripping onto the floor when you checked in on Eri for the night (All Might had put her to sleep earlier), and just fucking dropping your wet hero support items to the tile in the kitchen, your shit tangled up in his capture weapon and knocking against his goggles.

A low rumble of thunder shook the windowpanes as Aizawa kissed you, opening his mouth before you even kissed back, the edge of the kitchen counter smarting against the small of your back while you breathed in your soulmate in the dark.

Parting to breathe, you managed a grin as a flash of lightning illuminated his ruddy cheeks and soulmate-pink lips. “I feel like if I go to bed tonight, I’m going to die in my sleep,” you said, panting.

“Good thing sleep’s not on the agenda,” said Aizawa, and his lips seared into yours (fucking peach chapstick, you were of sound mind enough to note) as he fumbled for the zipper on the back of your wet costume.

It plopped with a squelch to the floor, and the chill of the A/C sweeping over your bare skin made you huddle into Aizawa’s chest—but you swore and flinched away, since his body temperature didn’t really help with how wet his clothes were.

Scowling, you kneed him away and rubbed your hands up and down your arms. “Take this off,” you said, plucking at his jumpsuit, “It’s fucking frigid in here.”

Lightning lit his smirk this time, and Aizawa started undressing, the sodden splat of his socks hitting the tile first.

“You gonna let me wear your clothes this time, pretty boy?” Watching him strip, you shivered for more than one reason. “Last time, you only gave me towels.”

Aizawa scoffed. “That’s because if I’d had to see you wear my clothes, you wouldn’t’ve made it farther than the bedroom.” His jumpsuit made a weird noise, and he fished his utility belt out of the belt loops to set it on the counter.

When you gestured towards his boxer-briefs, he shook his head. “Not yet. Yes, they’re cold, but I want to focus on you right now. Leave your underwear on, but go ahead and leave your wet hero costume in here. They can drain in the sink,” he said, tossing his socks in.

“Okay,” you said, doing the same, “but please at least change into dry boxers, or something—”

“I will,” he said, undoing the rest of the buttons on your pants once you’d done the first, and he fucking lifted you onto the counter, kissing you, to drag them down your legs before putting them in the sink. “You with me?”

You nodded and pulled him in for a hug—skin still slick-moist but warmer now that body heat mingled together, and his breath heated your neck while he sucked a wet mark onto it. “I’m with you, Shouta. I love you.”

Grunting against your throat, Aizawa hugged you tighter. “Oh, I love you, too, sweet girl. So much.”

He eased you down off the counter, and you flinched again at the cold. “Oof, ah, I have to get out of this wet fucking bra; it’s too fucking cold in—”

“Want me to go adjust the thermostat?”

“No, it’s fine; it’s fun. I just,” you said, kissing his shoulder on impulse, “need you.”

His eyes fell to half-lidded, and a roll of thunder nearly masked his low chuckle. “All right, then. If you’re sure.”

Aizawa led you to the bedroom, hardly space between the two of you while running his hands over your arms and waist to generate heat, his voice rasping in your ear the whole way (so much louder than the constant sound of raindrops assaulting the windows as the wind picked up). “That time you shifted into my shower—the image of you is burned into my brain,” he was saying, nudging the bedroom door shut with his foot so his hands wouldn’t have to leave you, “You were so confused but keen to do what I said. I was trying so hard to be good, noble, like you said, but the part that stings above all is that I liked the handprint on your back. I liked having my mark on you, on display, in such a large way that anybody could see. Killed me to have to cover you up. Lights on?”

“Let me open the curtains instead,” you said.

“Good. I’ll change into dry underwear so that you don’t worry your pretty little head about it. Don’t look,” he said, releasing you from his hold.

You drew back the first set of curtains and fiddled with the pullstrings to raise the blinds. “Are you telling me you beat yourself up-slash-off about the way you thought about me?” you asked, smiling at your own dumb joke, “I get it. I do, but c’mon, baby. You’ve made a home in my heart and in my own damn blood. What’s the shifting into your bed while I’m dreaming been besides my body calling out to you?” Oh, fuck yes, the blinds went all the way up this time. You crossed to the second window. “What’s my—hey, nice ass. Very cute.”

The elastic waistband snapped in that final rush to pull them up. “I told you not to look,” said Aizawa, frowning as he joined you in tying away the opposite curtain, “Are you really gonna be a brat this early in the—” He cut himself off, slapping a palm over his eyes as he stepped back from you (successfully raising these blinds on the first try!). “No. No, I shouldn’t. Not for your first time.”

Closing the distance, you took the hand over his eyes and held it against your cheek. “You could a little.”

His thumb loosed itself from your fingers, falling to your mouth, and you kissed it, parting your lips to lick the pad just barely.

He swallowed visibly. “Get on the bed.”

You did, and you wormed your arms around your back to unhook your wet bra (fucking frigid half-dried in the A/C, plus you were betting the feeling of your nipples grazing his chest was fucking stellar), whipping it off the bed before he could even join you.

“Notice I didn’t say you could do that,” Aizawa said, laughing through his nose, one knee on the bed. “But that’s all right for now. I like how vulnerable you look, how needy, how—” Aizawa crawled over you, eclipsing you. “—how out of touch with anything but me.”

His lips were warm, soft (peachy), and more consuming than when you’d met them earlier that night, and when his tongue brushed the roof of your mouth, he secured an arm around your back to arch you closer to him, boobs pushing into his chest and held like you’re something precious.

“I’m sure you know this,” Aizawa said, thumbing into your mouth and dragging the spit down your neck (cooling in the night air), “but you have absolutely perfect breasts. Whenever I’ve felt them against me before, I’ve gone fucking crazy—and now I get to—” He kissed you again, giving a firm, final bite to your lower lip (smiling when you tried to suck his tongue back into your mouth but shaking you off anyway), before pulling back to look at you, his wet thumb trailing down between your boobs and then circling up around one of them, pausing when you tensed up before he touched your nipple.

His eyes were dark when he glanced up at you again. “Do you trust me?”

“With everything I’ve got,” you said, feeling your heartbeat pulse in your lips now that the pressure of his was gone.

With a wry grin, Aizawa tilted his head. “Yet you’re not relaxed. I’d say you’re a bundle of nerves, but…” His eyes flicked down towards your crotch, and you rolled your eyes at the dumb clitoris joke (hell, yeah! You’re rubbing off on him).

“I’m trying; I thought was I doing good so far—”

“You are. But let me give you a little task so that you’re not concentrating on feeling nervous, yes? One you can handle.” He kissed your cheek and waited for your minute nod before continuing. “I want you to keep your hands by your head,” he said, moving them on the pillow where he wanted them, “You’re not allowed to move them. I get the feeling you’d like them to be tied there, but we’ll save that for another time, yes?”

You arched up to meet his lips, and he let you, moving his against yours, letting your tongue cross into his mouth before breaking away again.

“Good. You’re so good for me, and sweet. And another thing,” said Aizawa, squeezing your wrists to draw your attention back to them, “I want these hands open. Palms up. You’re not allowed to make a fist, sweetheart.” At your baffled expression, he kissed the corner of your mouth. “Just an extra challenge, but I know you can do it.”

You huffed, pouting (and he laughed over it, that horribly endearing, wheezing laugh). “Sure. Yeah. You want me to relax, so you give me what suspiciously sounds like a test. And wow, we know that I have some sort of stupid complex about being the best and getting the approval—”

“And you can get it so easily, should you do this well enough for me.” He shuffled down your body a bit, fingers sketching around your nipples before squeezing your boobs (crazy insane maniacal ridiculous how his hands cupped them perfectly…).

“Oh, you’re evil,” you said, shaking your head.

“You have no idea,” said Aizawa before he wrapped his lips around your nipple, tongue flicking and swirling around it, languidly, heavy with saliva—careful, dark eyes scanning every reaction from you.

Jumping at the contact—but no, don’t bend your fingers even a little. Flat. Flat against the pillow, where he put them. Okay. Okay, we’ve got a handle on it. The initial shock was just—

“Fuck!”

(No, no—keep them against the pillow; sink them into the down if you have to—)

Aizawa’s teeth had ever so lightly grazed you, and his smug little laugh through his nose burned you up inside, so you refused to look at him. Though anger wasn’t the only reason for heat: it was starting to coil in your lower stomach, too, spreading as your thighs clenched—oh, yeah, you have legs, so you rubbed your thighs together in what was hopefully way he wouldn’t notice (but fuck all if he noticed, though, because at the rate your breath was hitching and how frequently you were twisting away from his mouth, any shred of your remaining pride would be crumpling into nothing before he even made you—)

You were writhing, arching your back, eyes scrunched shut, at the moment Aizawa both closed his lips around your other nipple and pinched the first one, and he kept at it, circling it with his tongue as you came back down, stilling.

“Holy shit,” he said, eyebrow raised, pulling his mouth away with a wet puck, “Are you getting off already?”

Aizawa was reaching for your face, but (there’s a split second where you wanted to bury your face in your hands, but the man liked his technicalities) you screwed your eyes closed again and hid yourself to the side in the pillow. “I’m sorry I’m such a stupid virgin who gets worked up easily. I didn’t mean to upset—”

“No, no, no—open your eyes, darling,” he said, hands cupping your face, wiping away the tiny bit of sweat that’d broken out at your hairline, “You’re fine. You’re perfect. There’s nothing to apologise for. Open your eyes. There. That’s my good girl. Thank you.”

You, biting the inside of your cheek and scowling, dug your head out of the pillow to face him, but you kept your eyes averted, still not looking at him.

(Unfortunately, you were not immune to good girl.)

“I’m not upset. How could I, when I know my pretty little wife is feeling so good?” Aizawa pecked your forehead. “You’re just more sensitive than I anticipated. And that’s good. That’s fine. That’s fun for me.”

“Oh, my God,” you said, wincing, trying to sink farther into the pillow to get away from this beautiful man, “You’ve got to shut the fuck up. You keep hitting me with these lines that knock it out of the park. It’s too much.”

Thunder shook the windows, the bedframe rattling with it.

He grinned, and you wanted to punch him. “Is that so?”

“Shut up, holy fucking shit. Just fuck me already.”

And Aizawa was frowning. “Are you—I don’t think you’re ready enough—”

“Oh, come off of it,” you said, gritting your teeth and averting your gaze again, “I’ve already come once, and you’re so overwhelming that I’m going to pass the fuck out just from you talking. I don’t care if I come again; I just wanna get this o—just penetrate me, I guess.”

Scowling. Scowling now. Grimacing, even. “You don’t really want me to do that.”

“Yes, I fucking—”

“You’re not wet enough,” he said with a growl. “Yes, you’ve orgasmed, but you’re not ready for me.”

“You can’t be that—”

“I am,” said Aizawa, a hand sliding down his stomach (holy shit, he’s got muscles) to hook into his waistband, snapping it, “above average, sweetheart.” When he said the word, his voice teemed with scathing condescension, and your stomach dropped. “When I say you’re not ready, I know you aren’t.”

Your cheeks began to feel blotchy, but you weren’t going to cry. “Would you—please—try? I think I might be overwhelmed already, and I want you to feel good.”

Aizawa sighed, and he crawled back over you, reaching towards your hands flat on the pillows to lace his fingers between yours. “It’s not about me right now. We’re focusing on you, baby.”

You lifted your cheek, leaning into the kisses he was pressing onto it. “I know,” you said quietly, “but I think I would feel good knowing you feel good, so, ish, in a fucked-up way—would you try? Please?”

His lips met yours again, just briefly, and he said, “Okay. If you hurt, we’re stopping.”

“Well, hey, that’s pretty much guaranteeing that we’re—”

He cut you off with an exasperated look while he tossed his underwear off to the side, not bothering to unhitch his prosthetic leg.

Aizawa was pushing into you, beginning to stretch you open on his cock, and he’s only gone just barely what could be considered shallow, not much more than a squeeze around the swollen tip of his cock, and you’re clenching down around him, clamping down tight, and you didn’t even notice your eyes stinging with tears for the strain in your cunt.

But Aizawa did. He pulled out before they overflowed down your face, and he’s kissing them away in apology. “We can stop here. I won’t mind. You’ve already done so, so well for me. Thank you for trusting me.”

After a bit, you managed to get a hold of yourself, and you moved to—well. That first, you supposed. “Shouta,” you said, wiggling your fingers interlocked with his on the pillow, “may I move my hands? I’d like to touch you. Just a bit.”

“Go ahead.” He released them.

You placed your palms on his tits/pecs and instantly felt better (not cured, or anything. But definitely better). “Okay,” you said, scratching him gently, “I’ve had a moment. I’m not as overwhelmed anymore. Fuck you for being right about—about wetness.”

“Thank you,” he said, similarly scratching your head while sliding a calloused hand to your waist.

“Listen, Sho. I was scared that if I didn’t make you try to get in me then, you’d try to make me come again beforehand, and I’m scared that I’m gonna pass the fuck out if I have three orgasms as good as the first one you gave me.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to come if I eat you out, even though I’d like you to,” said Aizawa, smiling at the way your eyes fluttered when he scratched a certain spot, “I can simply go down on you to stretch you out. Everything’s fine. All that’s happened is that you’ve come earlier than expected—which, I assure you, was fucking hot—and now you need different preparation to take me. You’re fine. We can stop here, or—”

“Would you be cool with going down on me?” You bit the inside of your cheek and averted your gaze again. “Or, or, actually, you don’t have to do that. You can just—”

“You’ve got to stop overthinking, baby,” said Aizawa, grabbing your chin to kiss you again, which he did deeply and so hard that he was gasping when he broke away, “because I have been breaking myself over the thought of tasting you. I’ve been—please don’t think that I don’t want any part of you, because I want even the things you don’t like about yourself. Whatever you want, I also want, enthusiastically and desperately. This soulmate shit has reduced me to freshly popped edamame whenever I—”

Aizawa cut himself off at your laughter, sitting back on your hips and crossing his arms.

“Oh, babe, Shouta, that’s,” you said, grasping at his hands to drag him over you again, “I appreciate the effort. I do, really. But that’s a bad metaphor. Doesn’t fit the tone of the situation. Plus, I would argue that edamame bursts instead of pops. It’s a bean, not a pea.”

His ears were tinged red. “Whatever it takes for you to laugh again, you fucking pedant,” he grumbled against your neck, and his fingers trailed between your boobs and down your stomach, took a moment to curl into your pubic hair (tugging), and sliding between your folds, spreading what wetness was already there.

You eased your laughter to a smile, and you plopped your hands, palms up, on either side of your head again. “So, are you gonna make me wet or not, Shouta?”

“And you say I’m evil,” said Aizawa, grinning and shaking his head, and after another kiss, he slithered down your body, kissing and licking as he went, eyes dark and fixed on yours (his good one, anyway), even as he spread you and pressed his lips to your clit for the first time.

He’s right. He’s right. He’s always right: the task of keeping your hands flat and in one place distracted you from getting worried about how you looked or tasted or whatever, and you were laughing at yourself for how hard you were finding it to keep from forming a fist—but that’s the impulse, apparently, when the goddamn love of your life is sticking his tongue as far as he can go into your cunt and moaning like a whore about it in that stupid fucking rumbling way.

“Sweet girl,” he was saying as he licked the inside of your thigh, his scruff scrabbling pleasantly against your skin, “Are you with me? You look a little unfocused.”

You shook yourself and glanced down at him. “I’m good—”

“You are.”

“I mean, I’m with you,” you said, heat flooding your cheeks the fastest it ever has. “You’re very good. As well.”

“Is it all right for me to add a finger into this? All right, sweetness, relax,” said Aizawa, and he dragged his middle finger over your clit, circling it before drawing it back up, this time knuckle-side down, and it’s that finger that first slid into you with a soft wet noise—barely there, but still audible—and dragged and pressed inside you, aimlessly feeling you out, totally unrushed.

Your own fingers strained to lie flat.

After more licking and prodding, he added his index, and the suction on your clit lent a distraction from the stretch when he parted his fingers inside you, though there’s a soft wince from you, regardless. Under your assurances, Aizawa continued, working more space between his fingers though you clenched around him, and the third made your stomach burn, your hips chasing his fingers as your insides wound tight. He’s kissing and sucking your clit, keeping watch over your expression and the growing squelching and spasming of your cunt, and you, a bit dizzy, whimpered without meaning to when he started to pump his fingers in and out of you. You felt his smug grin against you as it reformed into a pucker to give your clit a particularly harsh suck, and you’re falling apart just a little, but it’s cool, it’s fine, and you found yourself coming, again, but this time it’s gentle, a smaller crest, under the careful watch and tongue of your husband—and when he slowly withdrew his fingers, your cunt complained the whole way, leaking and squelching around them.

The smug-as-shit bastard waved his fingers towards you, strands of arousal connecting them and seeping down into his palm. “If you want a taste, this is all you’re getting,” he said, touching your lips for barely a second, “because the rest is mine.”

Your head emptied at the way his tongue slathered the rest of it up, sliding between his fingers.

“I believe you’re wet enough for me to fit,” said Aizawa, still licking at his fingers.

“Hold up! I didn’t get to see you earlier,” you said, sitting up, “Do whatever. I need to see your cock.”

And you immediately saw red, because this motherfucker? Stupid. Stupid as hell. Stupid and hell and handsome and above average, my ass. You were insane for not wanting to prep much earlier. You’d gotten some of what he looked like when Serendipity’s quirk was affecting him, but you’re going to die. You’re going to die and then be able to talk to Midnight about her friend’s cock (too soon? You shook it off), because he’s infuriatingly pretty, and it just isn’t fair.  

Jolting, your hand flew to his wrist when he thumbed over your clit again, circling it.

“You told me to do whatever,” said Aizawa, nudging your thighs a little wider apart.

You shot him a look before returning to trying to fucking grasp (figuratively) his cock. You’re shaking your head at it, sucking in through your teeth. It’s fucking stupid—tilting a bit to the right, a little veiny (artery-y?), flushed a dark pink at the tip, and absolutely fucking weeping for you, cum dripping for the first time onto your thigh and the mattress.

Your hand darted out, hesitating, to touch the trail of dark hair on his abs leading to his cock, and once your ring finger grazed half of that maddening v, you retreated, scooting back an inch or two on the bed as you jerked at his brushing against your clit.

Aizawa raised an eyebrow when you looked up at him, wet fingers stilling.

“I’m going to kill you,” you said on impulse, wide-eyed.

Aizawa opened his mouth and closed it again. He blinked and after a beat, said, “All right. Not the most encouraging thing to hear in reaction to my dick.”

“Yikes. I mean,” you said, cringing and biting your lip, “Maybe you’d ought to prep me more?”

At the very least, you’d expected a burst of laughter from him, but to make matters worse, he took you seriously.

“Noted,” he was saying, kneeling again to put his mouth on your clit, “When I was feeling around inside you, I was thinking that I’d have to work to open you up to take me. You have such a tiny little cunt—”

“Oh, my God, never mind,” you said, burying your face in your hands, “You’re a menace. I’m leaving. I’m leaving forever.”

Laughing to himself, Aizawa peppered kisses over the backs of your hands. “I’m only joking, love. I said it to fluster you.” His hand cupped you, fingers rubbing in slick while you kept spasming every few seconds. “I know you’re ready to take me,” he said, and (your life began and ended in a second), he started slid his cock up and down your folds (swollen from coming twice already), covering it with your slick and dripping pre-cum onto you.

When a choked noise escaped your throat the first time his cockhead caught on your clit, you clapped a hand over your mouth, horrified, but a gently smiling Aizawa released his grip on one of your shaking thighs to uncover your mouth, with his smile twisting into something darker when he put your hands flat on the pillow again.

“Oh, you are the worst.”

“It’s just for a minute more. Then you can touch me. I promise,” he said, watching the way your cunt was trembling erratically when he wasn’t even inside, “You’re probably gonna come the moment I get seated inside you, yeah? Look at you twitch.”

Adjusting your legs around his waist, Aizawa took your hands in his as he pushed in, breaking you open with slow, gentle thrusts. “Easy,” he said, when you grappled with his hands, almost thrashing, to squeeze them harder, “Easy, sweet girl. I’ve got you.”

Lightheaded.

And very, very warm.

You might be holding back tears. You’re not sure.

But you’re certain you’re taking deep breaths, as instructed, and you shook your hands out of his to wrap your arms around his chest, to feel him close and warm and over all of you, grabbing at him blindly to hold more (a small voice in the back of your head hoped you were scratching him up).

Aizawa struggled to breathe as well, but he gritted his teeth, his face and heaving chest fucking flushed. His hands shook as they travelled down to your waist, unable to still your shuddering hips underneath him. “And here I thought you were soft all over,” he grunted out, “Turns out that you’re softest inside. Fuck.” He screwed his eyes shut. “My lovely little wife. My soulmate.” Aizawa carefully exhaled before opening his eyes again. “Is it okay if I move a bit more?”

At your nod, he rolled his hips shallowly, keeping a careful watch on your face for any minor reactions that he couldn’t hear, and each time he thrust into you, the further away from any reality but Aizawa you got. You blanked, feeling nothing but how you strained around him, spasming and pulsing, and how your muscles were seizing, how—how it wasn’t feeling like you were full, or that you and he were overlapping, but that hey, this is how it’s supposed to be, soulmates—you and him, together. And separating yourselves just didn’t make sense, in the way that you can’t separate the hydrogen from oxygen and still have water; to have you or Aizawa, you needed the both of you. Package deal. Bonded pair.

And wow, the tears you’d been holding back now flooded down your face, pausing at the resistance from each time his hips met yours before continuing down your cheeks and neck, and you’re out of it, out of anything besides Shouta when you cup his reddening face in your hands (pink handprints blinking before the next thrust) and manage to whine, “Sensei—”

Aizawa broke, expression flashing pure vulnerability, and he kissed you before you could say anything more, and he smushed his hips against yours, hitting you more deeply as he finally circled your clit again. The orgasm was torn out of both of you, but it’s torn in the way that the wind tears a kite away from its flyer.

When you opened your eyes, the bedroom was filled with floating, pink dust, glittering when lightning struck. You had to encourage Aizawa from his spot, buried in your neck, to see it, and the two of you watched it shimmer and dissipate as the storm picked up again, rain audibly hitting the glass.

“Do you think that happens every time?” you asked as Aizawa helped you out of the bed.

Aizawa turned the knob to the bathroom and flicked on the light. “I’m sure we’ll find out.”

He had to help you walk, since your legs were shaking so badly. Luckily, you had a good laugh about it. Aizawa set you up (or rather, down) in the shower, telling you to warm up while he changed the sheets and that he’d join you soon.

By the time the two of you were out of the shower, the soulmate dust had vanished. Aizawa got into bed first (and he had to take a moment to calm down when he saw you wearing his pyjamas), and you climbed in after him. After some brief experimentation, you found that, if you shaped your hands just right and pulled them away all at once, you could leave a soulmark in the shape of a heart. So, you did, just over his real heart, and you leant back, pleased with yourself.

Aizawa glanced down at his chest and grinned. “Adorable. But I’m afraid it won’t stay for long, my love.” He held his hand mere inches from your head, wiggling his fingers in a taunt. “I doubt I can go for long without touching you.”

You caved without hesitation, leaning into his touch as a chuckling Aizawa ran his hand through your hair. “That’s fine. That just means I can constantly make it anew.”

“You’re ridiculous,” said Aizawa, and he wrapped his arms around you to pull you close, snuggling into you. “Go to sleep. You can mark me again in the morning.”

soulmate trope taglist: @bakugouspsycho, @pansexualproblemchild, @doonaandpjs, @sunsetevergreen, @the-coffee-is-on-fire, @liberace2, @ladymidnight77, @nonomesupposedto, @gooooomz, @kissmebakugou, @pachiibatt, @celestair

[heartfullofleeches]

ICE CREAM MACHINE GHOST LORE-

i am so down for learnin more about R 👀👀

Especially the idea of them and fast food reader catchin up on stuff R didnt get a chance to do???

Chefs kiss for R or maybe just even regular smooches for R

R was born June 1st, 1981 and went missing on the 2nd of June, 2002. This is important to mention not just to give a timeline to his short period alive, but also because he was a huge Scooby-Doo fan and really looking forward the live action film coming out around that time [June 14th]

Fast Food Reader unwinds from a stressful day, and rewards R for good behavior (aka going one day without slapping their ass with a dish rag) by wheeling in the tv used for training tapes and popping in a copy of Scooby-Doo - chilling with R as they watch it. Grabs the blankets they keep in their locker and sets up a little fort in the break room with popcorn and everything. Being the saint they are, Reader may offer to let him use their body so he can enjoy the snacks himself, but R wants to experience everything with them and snatches some poor suckers body to use. Reader doesn't understand why any of their coworkers like them, but then they do shit like this that reminds R a little of what he used to be and fall deeper in love with them with the humanity they've restored in him.

If Reader ever shows him what's new Scooby-Doo they would try to kill him again because he wouldn't stop singing the theme song.

-

R watches from behind the counter as you push the tarp covered trolley into the break room. After cleaning up for the day, you've been in and out of the room without saying much to him or answering his questions. The slam of a locker door and your shoes clicking across the hard floor draw you back to his spot as you fling your bag over your shoulder. You present the item retrieved from within, picking off the plastic film wrapped around the box.

"Hey, I'm done with work and still have a couple hours on the clock. Wanna watch this movie with me? Brought it for you."

"For me?" The confusion in his tone is genuine - still laced with that snarky tone he's known for. "What's the occasion? If you wanted to take me out on a date you could've been a little more romantic with your approach."

"Don't play dumb. You've been muttering lyrics to hex girls songs since I started working here when you think nobody is around. Took a while to figure out where they were from, but it's from a Scooby-Doo film so I thought you'd be interested in watching one with me."

R inspects the box art closer. There is something vaguely familiar about the girl with the orange sweater. Had a crush on someone just because they had the same square glasses and brown hair. That lovable, scared-cat mutt and his equally as jumpy human companion. He and his little brother used to have week long fights to see who got to be who for Halloween... They've taken on a different look, but they're still them. And he's still him. The same young adult who lept over the moon when he first saw that poster hung on the wall of his local theater.

"Got some popcorn and junk in the back. You can use my body for a minute if you want some. Try to make me strip in front of the bathroom mirrors and I will call an exorcist."

"While I appreciate the offer, there's no need." Leaping over the counter, R zips pass you and straight for locked front doors - phasing through the glass and into the body of the understandably terrified customer you chose to ignore as you closed up early. Their eyes briefly widen with fear before glossing over. R stretches, popping the stiff joints in his new body as he rounds the building - leaping through the still open drive through window. He strolls over to you, flashing that wide smile that looked bizarre on a living human face.

"I'm sure I'm better looking as I am, but this body doing anything for you?~"

"Whatever - let's just go."

His stolen heart leaps as you take his hand and pull him along with you to the back. It continues to pound in his ears as you enter the bathroom and take your seat on the floor, sitting shoulder to shoulder with him in the little fort you made using chair and old tablecloths. You take a blanket left on the floor and throw some of it in his lap as you pick up the remote.

"Comfortable?"

Reese looks down at his legs. He looks over at your hand still in his and squeezes it tighter. He fainty remembers the warmth of a high school crushes touch, but there's something different about it this time. The angry swarm of butterflies he felt in his stomach then are calm in the same way his mind is whenever he hears your voice.

"Yeah... I am...."

[baiabay]

No Role Modelz (ATSV Black Cat Variant! Reader Insert)

Chapter 1: Scaredy-Cat

Prologue

Chapter 1: Current Chapter

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

^^links 2 chapters!! this story is also on ao3, wattpad, and quotev under the same name ! <33

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

A/N: Spot is here!!

 Hey all! Okay so first things first thank you so much for all the support of the last chapter! It honestly means alot given that ive never written before lol. Alsoooo sorry for the radio-silence after the last release, i just graduated highschool! So yay for me :) also means that ill have much more time to write since its summer break for me now. Lastly,sorry if this chapter seemed kinda slow, I wanted to try to incorporate what this universes’ Felicia Hardys “canon events”(or what would be of her canon events) would look like in this chapter to set up a bit of backstory, as someone who doesn’t read the comics nor play the games, pls forgive any inaccuracies in Felicias lore as I am only going based off of wikipedia (plus in this story reader is a minor so I wanted to exclude the nsfw trauma that Felicia goes through in og story) I also wanted to find out a way how to integrate reader into the main plot which is why i decided to feature Spot in this chapter :D thanks again for the support and don’t forget that this chapter along with any future ones will be posted to ao3/tumblr under the same title!

P.S. Much more Spider-Miles/Black Cat interactions next chapter!!

Word Count: 1844

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You remembered it like it was yesterday.

Seven months ago, Brooklyn, New York.

Your father - The Black Cat’s face on every screen in the country, but most importantly yours.

BREAKING NEWS: WORLD-RENOWNED CAT BURGLAR CAUGHT IN THE ACT : IDENTITY SHOCKS THE NATION

…huh?

LIVE ON THE SCENE: ‘BLACK CAT’ REVEALED TO BE MULTI MILLIONAIRE WALTER HARDY AFTER RUN-IN WITH SPIDER-MAN

…no, this-

THIS JUST IN: CAT BURGLAR WALTER HARDY PRESUMED DEAD AT HEIST SCENE - POSSESSIONS TO BE TURNED IN TO OFFICIALS

This can’t be happening.

It was all too much at once. 

He never kept it secret from you. You knew about your father’s job.

You knew all about what he did. The planning, the heists, the reselling, he had done it for years. And you knew all about it.  But he had been doing this for years. Long enough to allow your family to live very comfortably. Long enough that you believed he would never be caught.

But yet there you were, all that you knew burned to the ground in a matter of minutes.

You remembered it like it was yesterday. Frantically packing everything you could into any bag you could find; clothes, money, pictures, weapons, anything - before they could take it away from you. 

And when they did, it was brutal. 

Live-streamed news coverage of men raiding your home, rummaging through your stuff- your father’s stuff- as if he never existed. 

Soon enough there were auctions. Bids, worth millions, on your father’s items, broadcasted across the nation, with drinks and music and finger foods - they made a fucking sport out of it. 

You remembered it like it was yesterday, the cheers in the street after the big-bad-black-cat was pronounced dead. The endless praise Spider-man received, that of which he took with a smile on his face. You had wished you could kill him.

You remembered it like it was yesterday, the day Peter Parker died.

You laughed.

.    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .  

Seven months later, Brooklyn, New York.

Ugh.

Muscles aching, you stretched up in your bed, and groaned. Ruffling the bedhead out of your hair, you reluctantly trudged out of your mattress to open a window. Coincidentally, one of your many cats was perched perfectly on its sill, wide-eyed and tail flicking in your direction.

“...This whole heist stuff is really catching up to me, huh?”

The cat stared. You sighed. You really had to get yourself some friends.

Ever since your fathers passing, you’ve basically been on your own. Shortly after all his (and your) possessions were seized, you hopped around until you managed to find shelter in a shitty apartment on the west side of town. You, fueled purely by spite (with a tasteful teeny tiny dash of vengeance on the side), inherited the criminal persona of your father, along with his criminal tendencies, and took upon yourself the name of The Black Cat. 

All this time you’ve managed to keep your identity completely secret, not even your resellers knew who you were. That came with one major drawback though… you were extremely lonely.

Even with your frequent charity rounds around the community, noone really knew who you were. Even though Black Cat was nonviolent, the name was widely feared seemingly everywhere you went. Even with your days at school, the school you’ve been going to for months now, you made your way around the halls unnoticed. 

Speaking of school, you were late. 

Shit. 

Spending ample time dazing out your window, you’ve completely lost track of time. You disregarded your hair and rushed to pull on your uniform. Stumbling around your complex you hastily dumped too large of a portion of cat food into the automatic feeder, something you’re sure the cats will be grateful for. Shoving a few snacks into your bag, you simultaneously shuffled into your school shoes, proceeding to dash out the door. 

Sprinting down the stairs, nearly tripping once, twice, you whipped out your phone to check when the next bus route would arrive. 35 minutes.

Shitshitshit.

You paused, still in the stairwell, before turning to sprint in the opposite direction, towards the rooftop terrace. Creaking open the door, you checked to make sure noone else was up there before making your way towards the edge of the terrace. To anyone else but you, it would look like a young student was about to make an unfortunate decision and jump. And jump you did. 

You fell for a few seconds, relishing in the way your stomach dropped. You’d never get tired of that feeling. Seeing the ground get closer, you released your grappling hook and latched onto the nearest building. Pulling and releasing, you quickly fell into a swinging pattern, towards Brooklyn Visions. 

Hidden from the eyes of civilians, you swung yourself through the shadows. Everyone looked so small from up there, and for a brief second, you found power in your lonesome. In the corner of your eye you noticed what seemed to be a lanky white figure clumsily flying through the air. (You paid it no mind).

Dropping down into a dark alleyway much closer to campus, you continued your mad dash towards the main entrance. Winded, you finally made your way inside the building, a thin layer of sweat shined on your forehead. The hallways were empty, class must be in session. You took a few steps forward, making your way towards your classroom until being knocked over by a student, very evidently in a hurry. 

“Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean to-I’m just in a rush, I didn’t mean…”

The boy reached out his hand to help you up.

“Hey, it's no problem, I get it.”

You smiled, and took your hand in his. He hesitated for a moment, staring, brows furrowed at your now interlocked hands, before nodding and continuing his sprint down the hallways. 

You took in his disheveled appearance, his wonky tie, his half-tucked shirt, untied laces, dark eyes, curly hair, brown skin, sweaty palms…

Your thoughts were quickly interrupted with the shrill ringing of the school bell. Suddenly, the hallways flooded with students rushing towards their next classes, you decided to follow suit. 

On the other side of the hallway, Miles Morales lingered on how his spidey-sense flashed alarms in his head when his hand touched yours. Every nerve in his system telling him to run, fight, dodge, anything to get away from you-he couldn't put his finger on why. (He paid it no mind). Blaming it on nerves, Miles shoved his way through the packed hallways, dreading the meeting waiting for him in the guidance counselor's office. 

.    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    

School was a bust, as always. Nothing new, you made your way through the rest of the day unnoticed. As always. But you didn’t have time to think about that right now.

At the moment, you were in the middle of going through numerous number-codes on a padlock blocking the vault door to an extremely expensive gemstone. You’ve been salivating over this stone for weeks now, planning out how and when exactly you would strike to get this thing in your hands. You could see it now, the headlines, the chaos, after some rando millionaire’s little rock was taken from him…

“Woah, hey, you’re new!”

You flinched, hard. Whipping around towards the source of this unusually chipper voice. You were met with… a cow? … Man?

You stared, hard. 

“Okay, hey. The ogling isn’t necessary… I just-”

The cowman’s sentence was cut short with a quick lash of your whip, that of which he caught…? Your whip seemed to phase right through a large black hole on his torso, the opposite end appearing in a similar black hole right behind you, the whips end striking your back. You cried out, hit with the full force of your lash.

Sinister giggles emerged from the spotted figure, pointed towards your pained form. You trembled, in shock. 

“It’s rude to interrupt.” 

Spot stepped slowly towards you, his…well, spots, whirring aggressively, pointedly. You were frozen on the ground. Staring up at him, your lips trembled open.

“What,” You coughed. Once, twice. “-what are you?”

The black and white figure straightened, only to then fold over into a dramatic, hilariously unthreatening pose. 

“You, can call me… The Sp-”

“Some sort of cow?” You snickered. It was now his turn to flinch, hard. 

“I am NOT a-” The cow cleared his throat. “I am not a cow…whydoeseveryonesaythat…I, am the most dangerous villain you’ve ever seen, The Spo-”

“I mean, what’s with that getup?” The grin on your face grew. “Is that… is that supposed to be a costume? Orrrr…” 

The Spot sighed, defeated. “...it’s skin.”

“It’s skin?” 

“Yes, yes, now I-”

You stood up, energy back and eyes crinkled. 

“Wow, that’s…hm, interesting…skin, that’s skin? Sorry, sorry-listen man, I uh, I really gotta get back to this, so if you don’t mind?”

Stepping backwards in offence, the spotted figure shook in anger before swinging out his arm, releasing numerous dark voids around the room. Hitting practically every surface, but one most importantly, landing on the vault door, separating you, from your stone.

“Ah-wait-”

Swiftly, The Spot weaved his way through his holes, limbs popping up and out around the room in a way you couldn’t even begin to reach for your whip. 

No way was he about to take it from you.

But take it, he did.

In what felt like seconds, the whole room was engulfed in black. Stumbling backwards, you fell through one of the voids, flailing ungracefully, swimming through nothing. 

It was hard to breathe. 

A shrill crackling terrorized your ears, and before you, appeared a very disheveled Spot, now fully black with white spots, facial dot whirring and trained on you.

Gem in hand. 

Panic.

You were panicking. The sound of blood thrummed in your ears as you squirmed around in nothingness. Fuck the rock, you just had to get out of here. 

A cold hand grabs your wrist, dragging you upwards, towards the crackling form. 

For the second time today, you were frozen.

“I am not a cow,”

The form spoke lowly.

“I am not some villain of the week”,

Frozen still, you did nothing but stare straight into his glare.

“I. Am. The Spot”.

Suddenly, you were dropped. For the second time today, your stomach dropped with you. Next thing you know you’re falling through another void, leading not into darkness, but through the city skyline. Seeing the ground get closer, you released your grappling hook and latched onto the nearest building. 

As soon as your feet reached a solid surface, your legs buckled. Heaving, you failed to process what just took place, heart pounding in your ears. 

“...the fuck was that?”

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   

Miles received word of commotion taking place downtown, something to do with spots. He had hoped it wasn’t what he thought it was, and it was. It was, and was so much worse. 

Dark spots littered a large manor, maniacal cackling emerging from its center. In the corner of his eye a familiar masked figure hunched over, breathing rapidly, staring straight ahead at the mess of spots.

(He paid it some mind.)

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

Ppl that asked me to tag them!(thxx 4 the support!)

@nightshxdex

@itszzmoon

@blackcat-kittyblogs

@vxxxb

<3

[chirp-a-chirp]

Ikepri: Chibi Pet Shop

Emma: One Leon please! *Holds Leon lion chibi tenderly in her arms*

Sales Clerk: Ah, a classic choice. Can I interest you in other chibi selections?

Emma: Oh no, I love my Leon, he’s—wait, what’s that? *Ears perk at nearby loud barking*

Sales Clerk: Hmm, the dogs are fighting again. *The Rio beagle and Silvio Dalmatian chibis circle each other, growling*

Emma: Shouldn’t you stop them?

Sales Clerk: Oh, they LOVE each other! *Silvio has Rio in a headlock, Rio whimpering and yelling “OW ARF OW!”*

Sales Clerk: You know, Silvio comes with a bejeweled collar. Included with purchase.

Emma: No thanks. One Leon please. *Lion Leon nuzzles Emma’s hand affectionately*

Sales Clerk: You like affectionate pets? Jin the Eagle would be wonderful!

*A green cloth materializes out of nowhere from Leon. He covers Emma’s chest protectively while shaking his head*

Emma: Aw, thanks Leon! I was getting kinda cold here!

Sales Clerk: Man, where does that lion keeping finding those green flags?

Emma: Anyways…Eagles are very majestic and awesome but they’re not my thing. Plus, you know, talons aren’t exactly cuddly.

Sales Clerk: You like cuddly? How about cats?

Emma: You mean like the LION here in my arms?

Sales Clerk: *Ignores Emma’s comment* Now where’s that sweet little Yves kitty I can show you….Here kitty, kitty, kitty…

*Sales Clerk walks around the store and nearly falls into a gapping hole in the ground. A cat hisses from the bottom of the pit, tail bristling. Licht the wolf is also in the pit, silently watching Yves*

Sales Clerk: CLAVIS! *A pair of golden eyes glow from atop a cabinet. The purple leopard smiles and flees, laughing*

Sales Clerk: Umm, do you like troublemakers? That leopard comes with a set of nets and shovels too, free of charge.

*Leon Lion jumps out of Emma’s arms and ties a number of green flags end to end into a makeshift rope. Yves kitty and Licht wolf climb up and walk away. Emma crouches down to pick the Lion back up, ruffling his mane*

Emma: I’m sure that leopard’s GREAT and all but—

Sales Clerk: TIGERS. We got premier tigers. Cream of the crop. VERY popular. Look at this white tiger! *Points to a majestic Chevalier tiger chibi, elegantly sitting in a chair reading*

Sales Clerk: And this tiger has EXTENSIVE documentation on his background and where he came from. Very detailed and thorough.

Emma: Yeah, I meant to ask about documentation. See, Leon only has a single page with the word “ROAR” on it. Do you have ANYTHING else regarding his background? Lore?

Sales Clerk: He’s a Lion.

Emma: How about what he likes?

Sales Clerk: Of course! *Hands Emma a single paper with “MEAT” on it*

Emma: Seriously?

*A black Tiger chibi with an eye patch slinks next to Emma. He puts something in Emma’s hand, grinning*

Sales Clerk: Oh, Gil LIKES you!

Emma: Ummm, this tiger just handed me a piece of paper with my address, last three jobs, and a list of all my allergies and food preferences. Has he been following me?!

Sales Clerk: He REALLY likes you!

Emma: Good for him! But I want—

Sales Clerk: Foxes? Snakes? How about a nice stag?

Emma: I don’t get it. Leon’s your poster boy. He’s LITERATELY on a poster on your front door. Why are you trying to get me to prefer other chibis?

Sales Clerk: *Blinks*

Sales Clerk: So, can I interest you in Gil—

Emma: NO! No eyepatches, no puppy butlers, no lone wolves, no tricks or traps! No blushy tsunderes, no salty dogs, no cold beasts!

Emma: ONE. LEON. PLEASE.

Sales Clerk: OK FINE.

Emma: THANK YOU.

*Sales clerk rings up purchase*

Sales Clerk: Oh, here’s your complementary bag of green flags. Leon goes through a lot of them.

[hayleythesugarbowl]

So I was gonna ask for another Angela Giarratana x reader but your request are closed 🥲🥲🥲 but I think we can talk this out *slides you the 1.04$ left in my bank account* but fr if you feel up to it or wanna save this for later feel free to and you don’t have to do it but I was thinking maybe Angela gets jealous when someone from the cast flirts with reader but it’s part of a bit Angela doesn’t know about and maybe they were playing legacy, betrayal or something idk that’s up to you and I know you don’t write smut so maybe like Angela gets jealous and leave hickeys and bite marks on readers neck when there having a water break or something 💁‍♀️ idk just a lil something or write what you want bae it’s up to you not me ❤️❤️ remember 1.04$ has your name on it 😉

Jealousy, Jealousy || Angela Giarratana x reader

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ masterlist • smosh masterlist ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

summary: oneshot where angela finds herself jealous when another member of the cast flirts with you and she decides to let you know that you’re hers

word count: 1.3k

warnings: hickeys

a/n: ahh sorry this took so long babes but i’m so happy to get this request out for you. this is a little bit out of my comfort zone so keep that in mind but i hope you enjoy this!! also im ashamed to admit my smosh games lore is a little rusty so i didn’t include legacy betrayal hope that’s ok!! also i wouldn’t dream of making anyone pay for a fic so forget about it 💋🎀 enjoy!!

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“Ok, I’m working on a character,” Amanda said to you as you waited on set for filming to start. 

     “You? A character? Never!” You teased her, feigning shock. You’d been at Smosh since long before Amanda and ever since you’d known her she was always working on one character or another. 

     “Her name’s Annabelle Charlemagne,” she said, already adopting an accent, “and you are absolutely stunning darling, can I buy you a beverage?”

     She was fully in character now, so you played along.

     “I’d be honored,” you batted your eyelashes at her.”

     “I just have never seen such exceptional beauty. I am charmed.” She grabbed your hand and kissed it. 

     You glanced over and saw Angela watching you from afar. Catching you staring  at her she quickly looked away. But not before giving you a wink and a smile. 

     Angela. You two had been dating for a few weeks now, and you couldn’t be happier. But you hadn’t exactly told the rest of the cast yet. You were planning on waiting for the right time, but you hadn’t found it yet. 

     You knew it was killing Angela. You had no problem keeping your relationship a secret. It was easy and safe and you didn’t want to deal with your friends’ thousands of questions just yet. 

      But Angela was not as great at keeping her mouth shut about everything. You knew she wanted to let the cat out of the bag. Or rather, couldn’t help herself from accidentally giving everyone a sneak peek at a paw or whiskers. More than once you’d had to cover for her calling you ‘babe’ or her absentmindedly reaching over to touch you.

     Not that you two didn’t have your hidden moments. Sneaking off in between shows or volunteering to go work on something together. You couldn’t stop a blush from forming on your cheeks at the thought of all the things the walls had seen here that all of your friends hadn’t. 

     Now, Amanda’s voice brought you out of your thoughts.

     “Anyways darling, I’d love to get your number but—oh, I’ve forgot my cellular, one moment, let me fetch my husband’s.”

     She stared at you, losing the accent. “Get it, cause I’m flirting with you… but I’m married? And British!”

     You laughed, “Right. Well I’m still waiting on that beverage.”

     She fluffed her hair, “In due time.”

     “Alright everyone, quiet on set.”

     You shifted away from Amanda, preparing to start filming. You looked around at the rest of the cast—you loved your job here. Glancing over at Angela, you tried to catch her eye, but she wasn’t looking at you. She was looking down, a troubled expression on her face. You’d talk to her after this shoot, you told yourself. Maybe you two could even get lunch together later. It seemed like forever ago since you’d done that last. And you hadn’t even been dating a month yet! The director’s booming voice brought your attention back to the present. 

     “Rolling…and action!”

₊˚ ✧ ‿︵‿୨୧‿︵‿ ✧ ₊˚

     “Alright everyone, take 10,” the director called. Everyone in the cast began filing out of the studio, taking a break before they had to finish filming this show. You joined them, heading to the next room for water.

     You had just stepped towards your bag and began to rifle through it when you felt someone behind you.

     “Guess who?”

     You didn’t turn around right away. You knew who. 

     “Spencer?”

     “Try again,” she said, quieter this time with a hint of amusement in her voice.

     “Chris Kattan?”

     “Ok, if one more person tells me that—” she started incredulously.

     You turned around, smiling at her “Kidding.”

     She reached out and brushed a strand of hair back from your face. “Hey beautiful, I haven’t had time alone with you all day.” 

     It was true. It felt like you spent less and less time together—what between filming and trying to not seem like you were dating.  You leaned into her touch, and she stepped towards you. 

      You remembered yourself and spun back around, “Angela, not here.”

      You felt her breath on your hair as she leaned towards you and said, “I don’t see anyone here.”

     “Angela, what are you—”

     Without warning, you felt her mouth on your neck. She began trailing kisses down your shoulder and you suppressed a shudder, leaning into her. 

     “Ange, what if someone sees us?” You whispered, glancing around nervously.

     She kept her lips on you, biting down softly as she sucked at the skin on your neck.

     You closed your eyes, savoring this stolen moment despite yourself. 

     “Angela—”

     “(Y/n)? You want me to stop?” she looked up at you.

     “No, definitely no.”

     She continued, bringing her lips to your ear. She was silent for a while, and then—

     “Still thinking about Amanda?” She breathed, her voice hoarse.

     “What?” You managed. That was the last thing you’d expected her to say. 

     “I saw you…earlier,” for the first time, you detected a hint of uncertainly in her voice.

      You tried to recall what she was talking about. 

     “You know, with the ‘oh you’re gorgeous darling’ and ‘why thank you take me home with you’,” You could tell she was trying to keep her tone light. You tried not to smile at her dedication to the character, even in a situation like this. 

     “That? Angela, she was showing me a bit,” you couldn’t help but smile now. “I—Wait, is that what this is about?”

     “What a girl can’t kiss her girlfriend without having ulterior motives!” You raised an eyebrow at her and she looked down sheepishly. “Ok, fine maybe I was a little jealous.”

     You marveled at the fact that Angela Giarratana was jealous. Because of you. You’d made her jealous. “Well, you don’t have to worry about anything. I love you, remember.”

     “Yeah you do,” Angela waggled her eyebrows and leaned her head against your shoulder. You rolled your eyes at her—she was impossible—but you realized you were grinning.

     “I love you more.”

      You looked at her against you, this beautiful woman who cared so much about you, and kissed her. She kissed you back wrapping her hands around your neck. 

     “Thought you were afraid people will see us?” Angela mumbled against your lips. 

     “I don’t care,” and as you said it, you realized it was true. You didn’t need to wait for a “right time” to tell your friends about your relationship. “I don’t care if they find out.”

     “Glad you felt that way, because if we didn’t tell them that hickey sure will.”

     You looked down at your neck where a mark was already starting to form, evidence of Angela’s jealousy. 

     “Good, let them know I’m yours.”

     “I like the sound of that,” Angela said, “Shall we?” She gestured to the doorway.

     You nodded, taking her hand and walking into the next room and over to the center  where all of the cast was mingling, taking advantage of the break.

     When you towards them, all eyes eventually turned to you and Angela, settling on your interlocked fingers. Your friends traded looks. 

     Amanda spoke up first, “(Y/n)? Angela? You, and you?” 

     “And is that a hickey?”

     “You wanna take this or should I?” Angela asked you, her eyes twinkling. Everyone stared at you and Angela, awaiting an explanation.

      “Nothing much to tell, other than you all should know Angela’s a possessive, jealous—”

     “Well if you’re not going to tell it right—” she interrupted loudly. 

     You looked at her, letting her know you were only teasing. 

     “Well, they always say actions speak louder than words,” you said before kissing her again. This time in front of everyone else. “Besides,” you whispered, only to her, your lips trailing down her jawline “it’s only fair if I return the favor and make you mine.”

     “Oh, (Y/n), I’ve been yours for a while now.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~°~❦~°~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ˋ°•*⁀➷ hope you enjoyed this!! i have another angela x reader in the works so keep your eye out for that and as always feedback is always appreciated even negative i swear <3

[nico-di-genova]

Okay, heading to bed soon, but here’s some more ultra specific FGCU frat boy Lance lore that may or may not make it into the fic:

Fgcu has this event called Winter Wonderland they hold during the holidays. There’s a booth where you can stuff your own stuffed animal. Lance chooses a reindeer wearing a sweater and leaves it at Fernando’s place because he goes there after the event. Fernando keeps it, and it kind of just is this little thing he has that makes him think of Lance.

Lance can fuck up a pizookie at BJ’s (yes, an actual restaurant name), he likes the classic one the most. Just look at this thing, delectable.

Frequent visitor of the keys (bar). He sits outside at a patio table. Sometimes his weird ass brings his laptop and just does homework out there while he’s sipping a beer.

Late night target runs in his sweats, slides, and a hoodie where he makes impulse purchases because he’s a little bored. Many a blind bag keychain and collectible has been bought out of boredom and insomnia.

Volunteers at the cat cafe close to campus to get his hours done, sometimes goes to the animal shelter like 30 minutes away if he’s feeling like hanging out with the dogs. He’s usually the go-to for getting cats to come out from hiding, something about him is safe to them, idk.

Wiped out on his bike once going on a chick-fil-a run and his fraternity brothers (Pato especially) have never let him live it down.

Lance sends Fernando a photo every time he comes across a gator (very frequently, the school is literally built on swampland) because he’s still kind of shook there’s just little dinosaurs chilling around the campus.

LOVES going to the beach to watch the sunset, especially this little place just off the main bridge where you can have a perfect view but usually avoid people/tourists. He keeps a blanket in his car for when he drives out to Fort Myers beach to watch it.

Suuuuper active. To the point his friends don’t know whether to be impressed or intimidated. He’s got a private tennis instructor he works with at the North Lake (student housing) courts Wednesday and Saturday mornings. He goes for runs around campus, starting at his off-campus housing. Since his apartment is close to the new student gym he walks there in the mornings and works out until his classes start (intentionally chose later in the day classes). He golfs too, you know, since it’s his major and all. He’s got access to two different courses regularly. His dad is a member of a country club nearby and Fernando’s mansion is built in a community that has an onsite course.

[thatfeelinwhenyou]

HANDS ON YOU — 048

IN WHICH; ILAND 2 happened and you debuted first place as the leader of LUMIÉRE. Having been told that your group is involved in a lore crossover with ENHYPEN, you navigate work, friendship, and love while trying to make it in an industry filled with animosity and condemnation. When life throws you lemons, you gotta make lemonades chuck it right back!

❥･• chapter 48 — your honour, i’m innocent

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authors note: looks like the cat is out of the bag 🤭

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