#DID YOU SAY THE SAME THING TO THE STUDENT WHOSE PAPERS SHE RIPPED UP?

[starlessea]

Here Comes the Sun: XXI. When You Were Young (Daryl Dixon/Reader)

Series Masterlist: Here Comes the Sun

Summary: Daryl Dixon scares the hell out of you climbing out of that damn creek. It takes hauling his ass halfway across Georgia and taking a bullet for him to realise that you're not half bad. He slowly starts to come around, despite grumbling about how much he doesn't like your singing, or that you can't use a gun for shit - and don't get him started on that ugly yellow tent of yours. It takes him a while before he starts to see for himself that he's found a best friend for life, and that he doesn't actually mind the colour yellow that much, after all.

Words: 5907

Chapter Warnings: Language, Insecurities.

You snapped the book shut and looked up at your class, who stared back at you in complete awe. You laughed, taking in their expressions. The first time you had read this novel, your face looked something similar to how theirs did now. You couldn't help but let out a little laugh, uncrossing your legs and standing up from your seat. Immediately, they started to chatter amongst themselves about the ending, and the volume rose as their voices ricocheted off the walls of the small classroom. 

In the last couple of months that had passed since the takeover of Woodberry, the prison had been completely transformed. It was barely recognisable from how you'd first found it. The cells each had a bed, and now resembled actual rooms. The field had been tilled and converted into farmland courtesy of the Greenes, and you even kept livestock in wooden pens. Best of all, Rick and the others had set up a classroom for you to teach the children. You could remember it like it was yesterday. It had certainly been a well-kept secret, and almost everybody had known about it but you. 

Daryl and his team had scavenged some desks and school supplies, as well as an old blackboard that reminded you of the one you had first written your name on. They'd even brought back a wooden bookshelf - which they had to tie to the roof of one of the vehicles just to get it home. Over the course of the next few weeks, it began to collect books, filling up more and more each day.

Your first assignment had been for your students to create a poster on any book of their choice - and as a result, they also filled the white space of the walls. Before long, the former guards’ office resembled an actual classroom, brimming with colour and, surprisingly, children eager to learn.

"Okay, everyone!" You called out, clapping your hands to get their attention. "Now that we've finished this book, I want you all to write your own short story in response to it."

The group started to murmer amongst themselves again, and you yelled out over the chatter.

"It can be a sequel, or even something different inspired by it." You explained, your voice getting lost in the crowd. "Be as creative as you can." 

It was a real learning curve getting used to teaching younger students. Though, it was a lot more rewarding than you thought it would be. You remembered teaching Carl briefly at the Greene farm, which felt like a lifetime ago now. You never expected for your class to grow to the size that it was.

"I'm looking forward to reading them all tonight before bed." You added, once they had settled down enough to do so.

It was a tradition for you to do all of your marking in the evening. It filled up your time and kept you occupied until Daryl returned. He'd been going on a lot more runs recently, and it made you worry less when you had something to take your mind off it.

"Any questions?" You asked, and saw a flurry of hands go up in response.

"Teacher!" A young girl called, waving her arm to get your attention.

You smiled almost unknowingly. If adults had even half the enthusiasm of children, then maybe a lot more would get done around here.

"Yes?" You answered, and nodded in her direction.

The legs of her chair lifted a few inches off the ground as she swung back a little, and you fought every teacher-urge inside of you that said to pull her up on it.

"Is Mr. Dixon going to read them with you?" She giggled, and suddenly you forgot about the chair.

You couldn't contain the snort that left your mouth from the name 'Mr. Dixon.' You'd have to tell him about it later.

"I meant questions about the work." You chided gently, but the smile on your face told another story. "Though, he might. So make them interesting." 

Once again, you were unable to control the class as they got rowdy, and you just shook your head.

"You don't want him to fall asleep when I read them to him, do you?" You added, as you started to hand out the paper.

The children spent the next hour or so furiously scribbling out their stories in messy handwriting that you'd be tasked with deciphering later. Daryl had been gone for a few days on a run, but he was due back at some point today. Though, you wouldn't put it past him to conveniently arrive home late, to get out of marking duty with you.

When the time came to dismiss your class, you were given a lot of hugs and waves from everybody as they left. Perhaps it wasn't the most professional, but nothing really was these days. You were lucky to even still have a profession given the circumstances. Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed a figure looming in the entranceway, holding the door open for the children as they left the classroom. It was Carol, and she gave you a warm smile when she caught your eye. You beckoned her in after everyone else was gone, and she made her way shyly towards you with her arms behind her back.

The two of you had grown even closer over the last few months - all of you had. Though, you and Carol got along like a house on fire. She had the most brilliant sense of humor tucked away, and you were often lucky enough to get a glimpse of it when she felt mischievous. Daryl had given the pair of you the nickname 'dynamic duo' - and you thought that nothing could suit you both better.

"What are you doing here, Peletier?" You asked in a mock stern tone. "I don't remember giving you detention."

The woman smiled sheepishly at your teasing, before more confidently sitting down on your desk and stretching out her legs. From behind her back she brought out one hand, and placed a fresh, red apple over your paperwork. You laughed immediately, and so did she.

"I've always been a good student." She told you, with a grin. 

You hummed to yourself, unconvinced. You started to collect the loose sheets of paper from your students' tables, and the woman hopped off your own desk to help you. 

"I caught the end of your lesson. I hope you didn't mind me listening in." She admitted, and you shook your head in response. 

Normally, you got nervous if you were being observed. One time, Daryl dropped by to give you some supplies you'd asked for - and you'd gotten so red that the children made fun of you for the rest of the day. Yet, Carol's presence made you calm; she always was the one to have your back.

"They seem to really love you." The woman added, nonchalantly.

The compliment really did warm your heart. Even before the world ended, all you'd wanted was to gain the approval of your students. Except, that was the one thing that adults struggled to give.

"I just want to make it fun for them." You explained, picking up another hand-written story.

You could tell whose it was just by the handwriting. At this point, you'd gotten to know all of the children so well that they felt like part of your extended family; everyone in the prison did.

"I know they should be learning practical skills, too." You went on. "But I can't let them forget how to read and write."

You were mumbling to yourself, and barely noticed as Carol handed you the other half of the papers. You filed them all into a neat stack, and placed them onto your desk. Except, you now noticed a book sitting on it that hadn't been there before.

"I came to give you something." Carol said, pointing. "Well, to return something."

Your eyes widened as you read over the title. It was in pristine condition, with a shiny cover and an unbroken spine. 

"It's not the same copy." The woman explained. 

You could tell; it was much too neat to be the one you'd brought with you to Atlanta. That one had crinkled pages and a ripped cover even before you had leant it to Carol.

"I asked Daryl to keep an eye out for one on his travels." She admitted, and you perked up at the name. "Thought maybe you could read it to the kids one day."

You held the copy of The Little Prince in your hands, your eyes glancing over the delicate illustration of a young boy lost amongst the stars.

"Carol, you didn't have to do this-" you said quietly.

The woman cut you off before you could go on, nudging you gently with her shoulder.

"I did. I wanted to." She corrected, and you finally looked up to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry for what I did before." 

She said the words quietly, as though ashamed, and this time you were the one to elbow her back and shake your head. She gave a small smile.

"I liked the part with the fox." She told you. "Where he says that important things can only be seen with the heart, not the eyes."

You looked at Carol with a dumbfounded expression.

"I did read it, you know." She laughed.

So, the two of you did finally get to discuss the book together, just like you'd hoped to do all that time ago - back in the warm summer shade of the Greene farm.

When you spotted that mop of hair from across the courtyard, you knew instantly who it was. Well, the crossbow and that familiar leather jacket also gave him away. You started to run in his direction, before you spotted a group of your students and slowed down to an embarrassed jog. The man eyed you, and you could make out his taunting smirk even in the distance. 

It hadn't been that long since you'd last seen him, but your heart still ached to feel his arms around you. You never knew how lonely the nights could seem once you got used to sleeping besides someone you loved. 

You approached Daryl casually, feeling eyes on you. There were people working the fields, and others on the fences dispatching walkers. Even if they seemed busy, you weren't oblivious to their side-eye glances every now and then.

"Hey there, Stranger." You finally greeted the man. "Was starting to forget what your face looked like."

With the influx of survivors, Daryl had taken on even more responsibility than before. He was out for longer and home even less, but you knew it couldn't be any other way. You knew that - but it didn't stop you from resenting the fact.

"Too many damn mouths to feed." Daryl grumbled, pointing to the string of squirrels hanging from his belt. "These people are eatin' like kings." 

You laughed at that, thinking back to the last harsh winter where you'd all had to survive on some questionable meals, to say the least.

"Ah yes, the luxury of fresh squirrel." You teased, eyeing the dead animals strung up by their tails.

You made a face, and Daryl made one back.

"I'll give yers away if ya gonna keep bein' picky 'bout it." He warned, but it was much too light-hearted.

Still, you held your hands up in defence.

"Okay, okay." You replied, sending him a mischievous smirk. "I'm sorry."

The tension was thick between you, despite the banter. Even as dirty as he was, you wanted nothing more than to fall into the man and press a number of kisses to that face of his. Yet, you refrained. Maybe you could get him into the shower first, away from all these people as well.

"Just take a look at your hair, Dixon." You remarked, once you finally noticed it. "Are you growing it out for me? Because I said I had a thing for guys with long hair?"

It hung over his face, and he pushed the loose strands away from his eyes with the back of his hand. It suited him, but he was definitely in need of a good shampoo.

"Yer really pushin' yer luck today, aren't ya?" Daryl muttered, taking a step closer to you.

You couldn't hide the smile that had spread over your face. Even an exchange as simple as this left you beaming. There really was no one else who could make you laugh quite like Daryl Dixon.

"You've been gone for two days." You reasoned lightly, trying to hide the way it actually made you feel. "Am I not allowed to have missed you?"

He tended to tease you about it, so you tried not to make a big deal whenever he returned home. Yet, you failed every time. 

"What d'ya say?" Daryl asked, rubbing his ear.

He'd probably gotten mud stuck in there. It wouldn't surprise you - given how filthy he looked.

"I missed you." You repeated, begrudgingly.

Daryl narrowed his eyes, like he couldn't comprehend what you were saying in the slightest.

"Hmm?" He prompted, waiting for you to explain again.

You huffed and shook your head. You would be dragging him into the showers as soon as he got to the cell block.

"I miss-" you started, before the realisation kicked in.

You immediately slapped the man's chest with the back of your hand, and a smirk spread over his face.

"You're messing with me!" You yelled, and he shrugged his shoulders innocently - like he was completely oblivious.

You attempted to shove him again, but this time he caught your wrist and pulled you in close. Your chest hit his, and you felt the warmth you had been craving. You didn't care anymore about the curious stares, and it seemed that he didn't either. Daryl wrapped his arms around your waist, and you snaked your own over his neck to pull him down to you. 

Your noses touched, and you smiled against him. The two of you stayed like that for a few seconds, just taking in the sight of each other - and the feel. You could tell that you'd unintentionally gathered a bit of an audience. The new members of the community rarely got to see Daryl like this, so you often got quite a few looks whenever you were together - and a lot of follow-up questions when you were alone. You ran your fingers through the ends of his hair, that went all the way down to the base of his neck now.

"Well, if you're not going to let me cut it, the least you can do is let me braid it." You whispered, your face still close to his. 

You'd threatened it once before, but you were more adamant this time.

"Ya can fuck off." Daryl grumbled back, but somehow he managed to make it sound affectionate.

You laughed lightly, and finally gave him the shortest of kisses that only left him wanting more.

"I think the words you're looking for are 'I missed you, too'."

Daryl Dixon was a stubborn man. You'd realised it from the moment you met him. He was the type to stick to his guns, even if they weren't loaded. You'd seen him argue his way out of something even when he was wrong, and convince you of his viewpoint even when you were right. Daryl Dixon was stubborn - but he always cracked eventually when it came to you.

"Don' say nothin'." He snapped, and you bit your lip to hold back the laugh.

"I didn't say anything." You quipped, as naturally as you were able.

You plucked another daisy from out of the grass, and handed it to the child. She took it in her small fist, and threaded it through the man's hair - messily between the braids you'd given him.

"Yer face says it all." He grumbled, his own looking like thunder.

Daryl was sitting cross-legged on the ground, surrounded by a few of your younger students. They'd begged him to let them put flowers in his hair after eavesdropping on your earlier conversation, and you'd said yes before he could even reply. He was a stubborn man, but he was also a people pleaser.

"Mr. Dixon, what's your favourite flower?" Another girl asked politely, twiddling a bluebell stem between her fingers. "We'll see if we can find it."

You laughed, but quickly disguised it as a cough.

"Yes, Mr. Dixon." You chimed in. "What is it?"

If looks could kill, you'd be dead ten times over. Except, the man didn't look all that intimidating with stray daisies interwoven in his hair, and loose plaits that were in the midst of being braided by clumsy hands.

"Stop bein' a lil' shit." Daryl bit back.

Though, he immediately got punished for it.

"Teacher, he said a bad word!" One of the children exclaimed, pointing to Daryl like he was a shamed dog on the naughty step.

You took a deep breath, trying to keep your composure, and watched as the man did the same.

"Daryl Dixon, if you swear like that again we'll have to wash your mouth out with soap." You scolded, in your most teacher-like voice.

The children laughed their high-pitched laughs, and you could see a small fire burning behind the man's eyes.

"'M gonna murder ya in yer sleep." He mumbled below his breath.

You yanked on the strand of hair you were braiding, before half-heartedly apologising and claiming it to be an accident. Daryl flinched, and whipped his head around to glare at you.

"What the f-" he started, but you narrowed your eyes at him. "Frog." He finished, and you lost it.

You let out what was perhaps the most unattractive snort of your life, which was much too bold to be disguised as any sort of cough. You knew you'd pay hell for this later, but for now you just wanted to relish in the power. You had Daryl in the palm of your hand, his hair quite literally wrapped around your little finger. He turned to glance at you, but you tugged again - but more gently this time.

"Jus' watch what yer doin'." He reminded you, before muttering some more underneath his breath. "Are ya tryin' to scalp me?"

Somewhere in the midst of the exchange, Deputy Grimes has sauntered over with an expression equally as smug as the one you wore. He had Judith in his arms, resting over his hip, and looked down at Daryl with a grin as he approached. He was wordless, but when the two of you made eye contact it was hard to remain that way.

"Jus' don't." Daryl sighed, sounding completely defeated.

"I didn't say anything." The officer replied, and at this point you couldn't deny that there were tears in your eyes.

Daryl looked up at Rick and squinted from the sun. He shook his head.

"Yeah, yeah. Tha's what they all say."

Rick watched the exchange in amusement. It had been refreshing to see him so relaxed during the last few months. You thought that he really deserved a break - and it seemed that he was making the most of it by spending time with his children.

"What did you do this time?" The man asked Daryl.

He shrugged in response, before one of your students reminded him to keep still.

"Nothin'." He grunted, seeming to be at the end of his rope. "Dunno why 'm bein' tortured for feedin' the lot of ya."

The string of squirrels had been passed along to the cook before the children had all but seized Daryl and demanded that he played with them. You may have had some involvement in his kidnapping, but you were only a bystander, really.

"Quit complaining, you big baby." You reminded him, before tucking a flower behind his ear.

Daryl had a vacant stare, but it soon became a warm one when he noticed Judith making some gurgles and smiling in his direction. She had her arm outstretched towards him, and Rick lowered her down so that she could be closer to what she was reaching for. The baby smiled a gummy smile, and ever so gently patted Daryl's head - eyes wide at the array of colourful flowers there. The man stayed completely still and allowed her to do it, and you just watched. You wished you had Glenn's camera during moments like these.

Not long after, the officer said his goodbyes, and left with his daughter. She peeked over his shoulder at the two of you as they walked away, and it made your heart melt as you looked at her.

"She's so adorable." You said, to no one in particular. "I want one."

Daryl choked, and you smirked at him deviously.

"Just kidding." You admitted, as though you hadn't almost caused the man to have a heart attack.

Daryl spluttered again before standing up. Most of your students had left the two of you alone, having gotten bored during your chat with Rick. You watched as the man shook out his hair, letting the flower petals float to the ground like leaves from a tree. 

"Jesus Christ, woman." He muttered, looking in your direction. "Calm down, would ya?"

You smiled as you helped him untangle the braids.

"There's only so much a man can take in one day." He went on.

Before long, Daryl’s hair went back to looking just as messy as it had done before, and you once again prompted him that he needed a shower. So, the two of you headed back to the cell block, and you slipped your hand into his to also remind him of how much you'd missed him.

"You never did say which flower was your favourite." You said, once the thought came into your mind. 

You glanced over at the man as you walked, but he just gave a small shrug in response.

"Dunno." He said quietly. "Guess I like the yellow ones."

Despite wanting to spend the night alone with Daryl, cuddled up under blankets in your cell as you read him some imaginative hand-written stories, the two of you had been convinced otherwise. Usually, alcohol wasn't permitted inside the prison - something about productivity and sharing that you hadn't really paid much attention to. But, since a lot of people had just returned from a long run, an exception had been made so that you could celebrate. 

It was hardly anything, really. There was barely enough to go around to get you tipsy, let alone drunk, and there were only a dozen of you sitting around the campfire - taking swigs from your plastic cups. The spirits had been diluted to stretch it out a bit more, and you were reminded of being a teenager again, swapping out vodka for tap water so that your parents wouldn't notice. 

Even so, your body hadn't had alcohol in a while - not since the Jack Daniels you'd all polished off back at Hershel's farm. Already, your head felt fuzzy, and your laughs sounded giddier than you'd intended. You were all sitting on the ground, out in the field. It almost felt like that first night you'd cleared the prison - except so much had changed since then. Rather than tentatively holding Daryl's hand in the dark, when everyone else was asleep, you were now sat in between his legs as his arms held your waist. His chest was warm against your back, and you could feel it rise and fall regularly.

You could also smell the alcohol on his breath, but you didn't really mind. It was rare that Daryl did drink - even when it was available to him. You liked the fact that he could relax for once, since he always seemed to bear the burden of looking after everyone else.

"You two!" Tyreese shouted, catching your attention.

Across from you, the man sat beside his sister, Sasha. Vanessa was also next to them. Out of everyone here, you knew the three of them best. Admittedly, you hadn't got around to learning everyone else's names yet. 

You looked up, startled, and Daryl chuckled softly at the way you flinched in his arms. 

"How'd you meet?" The man asked, and offered a smile in your direction.

If there ever were such a packed question, it would have been that one. It was the type of question that required a whole book to answer - like one of the stories you'd set for your students to write. You glanced back at Daryl, only to find that he was already looking at you. He remained silent, so you raised an eyebrow at him before realising that you'd be the one answering.

"It was really romantic, actually." You spoke after a few seconds.

Everyone else's chatter had died down, and you suddenly felt very exposed as you became the centre of attention. Except, liquid courage always did work wonders where you were concerned. 

"The first time I met Daryl, he told me to fuck off and called me a mule." You announced, like you'd been waiting for the perfect moment to do so.

Your audience erupted with laughter, and you took in the looks of disbelief around the campfire - feeling satisfied with your choice of words. Except, it didn't last long. Daryl jabbed you in the ribs with his elbow, and you shot a glare back at him.

"Tha's not what happened." He argued, and everyone fell quiet once again to listen to what the man had to say.

It was rare that they got to see Daryl like this - letting loose and talking without being prompted to do so.

"Jus' fought off two walkers only to have some chick yelling at me, sayin gimme yer hand like the ghost of Christmas past or some shit." He explained, his voice more animated than you'd ever heard it. "Thought my time had come."

A few more chuckles could be heard in response, but Tyreese eventually spoke up.

"Can someone translate for them?" He asked, and it was then that you realised just how much detail you'd need to tell this story of yours.

So much had happened between you and Daryl that you'd need countless sheets of paper to recount it, unlimited words and a number of chapters. You leant back further into the man, deciding how to officially introduce it.

"Well, it all started with this yellow tent." You said, and the others listened.

You went on for a bit, taking sips of alcohol between your words. Everyone seemed enraptured by you, and it even seemed like Daryl was hearing the story for the first time, too. It felt strange to recount it in such a way, and it made you realise just how much had happened since the world had ended. 

You smiled as you finished, deciding to give one last summary to your captivated audience.

"So basically I pulled Daryl up from a cliff-face, then hauled his ass halfway across Georgia, before finally taking a bullet for him."

The alcohol had long since ran out, but everyone had stayed to hear the ending. Maybe you were oversharing, but spirits gave you loose lips - and you always did have a bad habit of running your mouth.

Tyreese started clapping slowly, before pointing at Daryl where he sat.

"You, brother, are one lucky man." He remarked with a smile.

You heard Daryl grumble something next to your ear, before addressing him back.

"She leaves out the part where she stuck 'er finger into my wound and sang outta tune next to me for three hours straight."

You bit your lip before finishing off what little was left of your drink.

"Minor details." You mumbled.

Some of the men you didn't know were murmuring amongst themselves beside you, but your head was too foggy to make out what they were saying. Perhaps Daryl could, since he had a scowl over his face. You didn't have time to question it, though, because Vanessa soon interjected with a laugh.

"So you're telling me that you now share a bed with the same guy who had walker ears around his neck when you first met him?" She teased, and you beamed back at her.

"Yeah-" you muttered, before sighing dramatically. "Sometimes I question my own judgement, too."

The walk back to your cell was more of a stumble, but no one had to know that. You and Daryl both made it there in one piece, so no further questions needed to be asked as to why you were missing a shoe, or who you'd tripped over along the way. It had seemed all fun and giggles, until you realised that it had been one-sided fun and entirely your own giggles.

Once you entered the room, you finally noticed how quiet Daryl had been. He toed his boots off wordlessly and threw his leather jacket into the corner. He knew how much that frustrated you, but he seemed too wrapped up in his own thoughts to care. 

You walked up to the man and snaked your arms around him from behind, so that your chest was pressed to his back. All day, you'd been craving for the two of you to just be alone - but now that you were, he seemed too agitated for his own good. You thought that you must have missed something, because Daryl definitely didn't seem like himself. 

You rubbed your palms along his chest slowly, but he stopped you with his own hand, and pulled away. He turned to face you, and you cocked your head to the side as you took in his expression. His eyes were narrowed, and he was chewing at his lip like he always did when he was confused. Eventually, he shook his head.

"Yer too good for me." He stated, like it was a fact. "'M a lucky man." He went on. "Why'd ya want someone who wore walker-"

"Whoa, slow down there." You cut him off. 

He was reciting all of the things that had been said over the campfire, you realised - except they'd all been playful jokes, and he knew that. The man sounded like a broken record, but you couldn't quite put your finger on what had made him break.

"Someone's had too much to drink." You reasoned, but raised an eyebrow as you did so.

You weren't convinced yourself, but you had no other explanation as to why he was blurting out the things that he was. Daryl was a big man, and the amount of alcohol he'd drank was nowhere near enough to get him drunk.

"'M fine." He confirmed, but you knew there was more going on. "Jus' the truth, s'all."

The man looked down at his feet as he spoke the words, and you sighed.

"We are not doing this again, Daryl." You warned, and took a step closer to him.

Ever since more people had been coming to the prison, Daryl had seemed to convince himself that there were plenty of better options available to you - all without consulting you about it, of course. It had gotten to the point where you'd snapped at him, almost a month back, and it had escalated into a fight. You understood where he'd been coming from - a few people had gotten a little too friendly with you on more than one occasion. But, you'd convinced him that you were right where you wanted to be, next to his side. 

You'd thought that had been the end of it, but something must have happened to bring it back to the surface.

"I see the way they all look at ya. Like they want ya." Daryl snarled, like he was seeing things that you couldn't. "They were talkin' 'bout it right in front of me."

And suddenly, it all made sense. The men you had noticed staring and mumbling had set Daryl off. You realised that he must have heard what they were saying - and that it must not have been good. Yet, part of you still felt frustrated that he had even listened to it. You'd spent the whole night recounting how you met the man, and how much he meant to you, only for your words to be completely unravelled by words of others that were insignificant.

"So?" You finally responded, more forcefully than you intended.

Daryl's head snapped up to look at you, and you met his eyes in return.

"I go through the same thing with you."

The man was silent for a few seconds, like he couldn't fully comprehend what you'd said.

"What?" He asked, and you shook your head.

"Just because you're blind to it, Dixon, doesn't mean that I am." You told him.

You placed your hands over his chest again, but this time he didn't shrug you off.

"They look up to you. You're a hero to a lot of these people." You explained, like you'd truly accepted the fact. 

You could feel the heat radiating off the man from underneath the tips of your fingers, and you took another step closer to him so that he could feel you, too.

"You don't think there's days that I hear women giggling about you? Talking about you like you're some knight in shining armour who rescued them from this world?" You said, chuckling a little as you did so.

At first, it had killed you to see. Every time you noticed someone staring at the man, or whispering about him when they thought you couldn't hear, it made your blood boil. But, after a while you became numb to it - mostly because Daryl never even spared them a second glance.

"It makes me feel pretty shitty, too." You admitted, as you let your fingers rest over the first button of his sleeveless shirt.

You looked upwards at him, and he gave you a small nod - so you started to unbutton it.

"But then I come back to our cell, and I'll see that you've left me flowers on our pillow." You went on, smiling in the direction of your mattress, where you had missed the man’s presence over the last few days. "Or I'll notice a new cassette tape in my walkman without you even saying anything."

You reached the last button, and shrugged the material over Daryl’s shoulders so that you could see his bare chest.

"And then I forget about all those other people." You confessed, and pressed your palm over his heart. "Because I'm reminded everyday that you're mine."

Daryl immediately placed his hand over the back of yours, and squeezed it gently. 

"I'm yours." He agreed, and this time leant down to give you a kiss of his own without being prompted.

It was soft, but you'd missed the feel of him - and it made you impatient. You could taste the alcohol on his lips, and so you broke away before you became too intoxicated by it.

You hooked your fingers around his belt loops and pulled his body closer to yours - so close that his bare chest was warm against you, and you could feel his heart pounding.

"Then show me." You said, and he did.

A/N: So every time I write a chapter of HCtS, I delete the notes for it from my masterplan - and I’m getting so emotional seeing it get smaller and smaller each week. We’re coming to the end and I can’t deal-

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[anika-ann]

Attached - Pt.1

The Words of Doom

Type: (mini)-series, college AU, professor AU (technically)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader  ��Word count: 1880

Summary for the series: You messed up. Your very sleep-deprived Self attached the wrong document when emailing a professor and sent him one of the stories you wrote instead of an assignment. It should be embarrassing, really, but it wasn’t. It was worse.

Why did it have to be the smutty one? Why did it have to be the one starring his best friend, Professor Rogers? You were so screwed.

Aka the ‘you sent the wrong attachment to hot professor A that just happens to be about his friend hot professor B and now professor A is not able to look at professor B without wheezing in laughter anymore and you are unable to look at either of them’ AU

Warnings: swearing, literally one mention of a possible daddy kink, double entendre

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

Your eyes felt like on fire, burning hotter than the sun above Sahara Desert; the metaphor your sleep-deprived mind came up with was only perfected by the huge dunes of the bags under your eyes.

You were running on disgustingly strong coffee and three energy drinks, but you summoned the rest of your strength and clicked on ‘send’, slumping so heavily into your chair that when your back hit the backrest, it almost toppled over—but never mind, you made it!

Penny, your gracious roommate, would inform you that had you started earlier and were writing the actual essay instead of wasting words on steamy stories that somehow filled the desired wordcount with considerably less effort, you wouldn’t have been turning into a zombie sending assignments several minutes before eight a.m., the actual deadline.

Yeah, well, sue me, I prefer romance to the World War II., no matter how important history is.

You were certain Professor Barnes would understand if you told him that anyway – he was a pretty easy-going guy for a scholar after all. Then again, you sure as hell didn’t want to test the theory out and so you tended to hand in your homework perhaps ‘minute to midnight’, but still in time.

You grinned as you checked the sent e-mail, proudly reading it had been sent at 7:56. You mentally patted your back, not having the energy to actually move to do that.

And then your Sahara-dry eyeballs fell lower on the screen and you let out a shriek of horror.

Your heart stopped in your chest before kicking in faster than it had been pumping after three Red Bulls.

The attachment.

Oh no.

OH FUCK, the attachment!

Now, it happened on occasion that people forgot to attach the files they spoke of in an e-mail, right? Sometimes shit like that happened.

But this… this was so, so much worse.

“Oh no,” you uttered under your breath, shooting up and suddenly sitting with back straight as a ruler just to look at the screen from shorter distance to-- nope, still there. “Oh fuck.”

You quickly scrambled to send another e-mail with similar text but the right file, along with a swift apology.

Sent 7:59.

You should be relieved. Perhaps Professor Barnes would notice the correct one first and automatically deleted the one that obviously must have been wrong.

So why couldn’t you find it in you to think you would have such luck?

At least if he opened the wrong document, he would understand very quickly that it was not what he had asked the students to do and would delete it before diving in fully, right?

But a worm of doubt – or intuition, whatever you wanted to call it – told you that it wouldn’t be the case.

You covered your mouth with your palms and screamed at the top of your lungs.

Penny, sleep-deprived considerably less than you because she was an actual responsible human being, walked from her room to the bathroom and blatantly ignored you, probably thinking you had missed the deadline by a minute and were now freaking out.

Oh, you wished.

“Pennyyyyyyyyy!” you cried out in a whiny tone, but she clicked the door shut as if nothing was happening. As if your whole life wasn’t in shambles because of one single e-mail. “Penelope, you get your ass back here! I need to know how to switch schools without having to repeat a year!”

Her wild black curls peeked from the bathroom, followed by an annoyed sleep-raspy voice. “Why? You accidently called Barnes a daddy in your message or somethin’?”

Your heart was still beating its way out of your chest, a low ominous hum in your ears. Gods above, you wished. Still would be easier to explain, like… you could claim it was a dare or something.

No, this was much, much worse.

Penny, apparently taken aback by the lack of your response, left the safety of the bathroom and approached your lair (probably stinking of sugary drinks and caffeine) and peeked over your shoulder, searching an explanation for your antics.

You only gulped, moved the cursor to the title of the document you had sent in your first e-mail and closed your eyes, actually feeling tears of humiliation stinging in them.

The silence that followed spoke volumes until-

“OH SHIT.”

You had just shared your smutty one-shot with your history professor, but that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was that it was starring his rumoured one and only best friend he shared an office with. One who had acted like a substitute for two weeks when Professor Barnes got a particularly bad case of cold, but wouldn’t leave you without a lecture. Needless to say, Professor Rogers had also starred several of your steamy dreams after that and became a source of inspiration for your occasional writing streaks.

And now your history professor could read all about it and, god forbid, share it with the man who was the template of the main character of the story. You weren’t dumb; you alternated the names, just in case of you didn’t even know what (and it might have made you feel better about writing filthy stuff about a prof), but you went with the same looks including hair and skin colour, hairstyle, Rogers’ glorious beard and you certainly didn’t omit his surprisingly ripped body.

So, yeah. Penny’s ‘OH SHIT’ was pretty accurate.

You were so screwed.

Yes, once again, you wished.

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

You had handed in your work on Friday morning and had been jittery all weekend, practically unable to focus on any of the studying you desperately needed to do. Normally, you might write some comforting piece to relieve your frustration, but that was not an option right now as simply opening a text editor gave you palpitations.

The all-nighter you had pulled didn’t exactly help your already non-existent ability to get your head on straight either.

You were looking forward to Monday and dreaded it at the same time – Professor Barnes was to give your assignments back with a mark and commentary. You were praying for Monday to come already, because you just needed to know the consequences of your actions. You were freaking out about Monday for very obvious reasons.

You had no idea what was happening in your first Monday class. Your lunch consisted of half bottle of coke.

And now here you were, seated in the second row of three, because that seemed like the safest place, a seat where Barnes couldn’t approach you from any angle.

When he entered the class, you decided to stubbornly watch the desk in front of you. Under any circumstances, you would not make eye-contact, wouldn’t raise your gaze. There was no fucking way anything would force you look his in the eye.

Or you thought so.

You hadn’t realized he would call out each of your names and would say the necessary commentary about doing well, missing something, excellent work, this one feeling a bit sloppy… out loud, which would made it truly impolite to keep staring ahead. With each work sent through the sea of people to hand it to those in the second row, your stomach was turning heavier, your heart beating faster.

And then Professor Barnes said your name and you winced in your seat, squeezing your eyes shut on instinct, the childish if I can’t see you, you can’t see me either kicking in.

He called out your name again as if there was a chance you missed it the first time and with a huge lump of panic in your throat, you blinked your eyes open and raised your gaze, only to meet his neutral face with just the tinniest twitch to the corners of his lips and a barely visible twinkle to his eye.

Your stomach dropped to the floor, your face burning with embarrassment and humiliation.

He held out the papers to the person in the first row in front of you, whose name you didn’t care for at the moment, and nodded his head.

“Not bad at all,” he said and that was the end of it.

Your essay landed in front of you and you finally breathed in properly, your hand trembling slightly as you noticed the circled B+ in the corner.

You were deaf to his next words, your heart jumping as you read the note by the mark.

B for the cliché used, + for the originality.

Huh. What a strange way to word an evaluation… but hey, you wouldn’t complain. For one, no one had filled a harassment complaint for your stupid ass so far and you had written this shit during an all-nighter and still got B+. This was the best outcome you could hope for; Barnes didn’t even give you shit about your... error.

A smile slowly found a way to your lips, a shy little thing, but definitely present, your mimic muscles, so stiff from trying to keep a poker face, relaxing.

You browsed over the other notes in red ink scattered over the pages, some sentences and phrases unlined and commented on, sometimes corrected, sometimes complimented to.

It wasn’t until you reached the red note that had one word from it actually crossed out and replaced.

Really hits the spot mark.

Your smile froze on your lips, your heart ceased to beat before kicking in with furious pace, loud pounding humming in your temples.

Oh god. Oh no.

Hitting a spot? He could have written it was ‘spot on’ or that it ‘hit the mark’… he made the mistake deliberately, you were certain of it – all of his other notes were so neat and thought through-

You checked the individual notes, your stomach twisting when you re-read them in a new light.

Nearly all the wording he had used was referencing to your… special assignment you had handed in.

Oh god, please, let the lightning hit me. Let the floor swallow me. Let the cardiac arrest momentarily trying to kill me actually kill me.

Interesting work for certain with a winky face?! Really? That would be innocent enough on its own, but it was feeling like a conspiratorial wink. The I know more than I let on and you know what I’m talking about wink.

The next one was a blatant double-entendre and you could bang your head against your desk for not realizing it first time reading it. Good writing, nice flow, clearly heading to the climax.

Your face was set aflame once more and despite your better judgement, you glanced at the professor momentarily showing whatever in his presentation.

He caught your gaze and had the audacity to wink.

You snapped your head away and silently whined, sliding down your chair nearly enough to lie on the floor.

OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD.

Why did it have to be the smutty one you sent? Why couldn’t it be a cute one at least? You had loads of those! Why did it have to be the one about Steven damn Rogers, his friend?

Why, just WHY?!

Professor Barnes had definitely read it. And for some reason, you had a hunch that he had showed it to his friend slash colleague he shared an office with too.

You whined some more and pretended that this day was the apocalypse and that you would never have to face either of the professors ever again.

Of course, you could not have such luck.

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

Part 2

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

There it is! Shorter chapter for starters. Just you wait ;)

I’m pretty sure something like this have been written before, but plot bunnies are little shits that refuse to leave no matter how much you kick them and beg them to go away.

I blame @pies-writes-and-more @kayteewritessteve and @queen-kass-the-writer for supporting bad behaviour, but they are not the only ones. You know who you are, don’t YOU? I am a weak human being and you are corrupting me. Thanks, sweeties ;)

Thank you for reading! 

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

Tags: @scentedsongrebel @patzammit @donutloverxo @annathesillyfriend  @orions-nebula @iheartsebastianstan @wxstedhexrt

If anyone wants on the taglist or out, lemme know via DM or an ask :)

-.-.-

ALSO. A friend of mine created a perfect artwork for this chapter/series and I wanted to share 😍🥰🤩:

Thank you, @chase-your-dreams-away 🥺

[haberdashing]

The Archivists

Elsewhere University’s Archivist meets The Magnus Archives’ Archivist.

on AO3

The Archivist was inside their office, the door cracked open, when they heard nearby footsteps and rushed outside to take a closer look.

The man prowling the Library’s stacks was not from here, that much was evident from his wide eyes and the confusion crested upon his brow. If the Archivist had to choose one word to describe the man, it would be dark. Dark hair, dark clothes, dark eyes with dark bags underneath them, dark skin covered in dark scars. So unlike the Archivist, whose form (such as it was) was translucent to the eye, light and color refusing to cling to them any more than was needed to provide a bare outline of themself.

The Archivist didn’t concern themself with the man at first, though they did watch his meandering out of idle curiosity. That sort of thing was better left to the Pages, after all. One of their number would find him in time, they were sure of it.

But before that could happen, before the man was no longer visible in the library stacks that stretched and stretched and stretched, the Archivist heard a high, cheery voice call out “Archivist!”

The Archivist, naturally, turned their head to follow the sound, in order to spy who was calling them, who wanted their attention and perhaps their assistance.

They were a little surprised to find that the strange man wandering the Library turned his head to do the same, their movements nearly synchronized as the both of them looked over at the new visitor.

The Archivist recognized the speaker before long as she approached. It wasn’t the first time Timber had come to the Archivist, likely with another trinket to trade away--and sure enough, as Timber grew closer, the Archivist could see that her hands were cupped, that she must be hiding something within them. The Archivist wasn’t sure where she got all of her little charms--some seemed handmade, but others were more likely the product of other trades with beings likely to be less benign than themself.

Not their business, though. They were there to be a resource, to trade and give to those in need and to tell stories of those who came before,  not to lecture those who either already knew or already should know the danger they were putting themselves in.

As Timber met the Archivist, she opened her cupped hands to reveal what looked to be a paper flower, well-made but otherwise unexceptional.

Of course, the Archivist knew well enough that looks can be deceiving.

“I come bearing a charm to trade you, Archivist!” Timber said.

The Archivist merely raised an eyebrow; that much seemed evident enough already, but some people do insist upon following their internal scripts just the same, and this wasn’t the first time that Timber had proven to be one of that ilk.

“It may appear to be a rose made of ordinary notebook paper, but its form is firm and unyielding as stone.” Timber demonstrated by poking and prodding the flower repeatedly in a way that would crinkle or rip ordinary paper, but left the paper flower unharmed. “And if you smell it-” Timber took a deep, theatrical breath in through her nose, then held the flower up so that the Archivist could do the same. “-it always smells of a filled cranberry bog just before harvest.”

The Archivist nodded, a thin smile appearing on their face. “A fascinating charm, though I fear whoever made it may earn the ire of the Courts for so commingling their blessings. I know just what to trade for this, one moment...”

A quick pop into and back out of their office, and the paper flower was safely stored away, with the Archivist holding out a thick red pen in exchange.

“For paper, a pen. The indigo ink of this pen flows of its own accord, and it will only ever write exactly what its current owner needs it to.” Timber eagerly extended their hands, and as the Archivist handed over the pen, they added, “Do note that need and want are often very different things indeed.”

“Of course, of course.” Timber said, though her tone wasn’t a terribly solemn one, and the Archivist was less than convinced that she had actually taken their warning to heart. “I do appreciate the trade, Archivist.”

“As do I.” The Archivist responded, adding a slight nod of the head as Timber bounced back towards the building’s entrance.

Truth be told, the Archivist had almost entirely forgotten about the strange visitor to the Library during the course of their exchange with Timber, and they were thus more than a bit startled when the man, who had apparently been standing in place watching them the entire time, asked, “What is this place?”

There was a certain urgency to his question, one that could be found not in its volume nor its tone but in something else entirely, something that made the Archivist’s speech rise up before they could think their words through.

“The Library of Elsewhere University, though further in than most students will ever wander.” And they recognized what had happened, knew the stranger’s trick for what it was at least broadly, so they added, a bit curtly, “And for what it’s worth, my tongue will flow freely enough without your assistance in the matter.”

“I’m sorry.” The man said. To his credit, he looked like he meant it, looked like he truly did regret invoking whatever magic that had been, the picture of contriteness. He also looked scared, though, scared of the Archivist of all things, like their meager semblance of a body was going to lash out at him any second, like a half-being like them could strike real physical harm.

“Apology accepted, no debt owed. And do be careful about handing out apologies so easily; some on these grounds would not dismiss a potential debt so easily.”

“...sure. Thank you.”

“I’d avoid thanking people as well if I were you. ‘Please’ is also a dicey one, for the record. But I suppose you’re not accustomed to the Rules, now, are you?”

“I don’t even know which rules you’re referring to... I’m not from around here.” The man let out a bitter laugh as he added, “Really not from around here, from what I can tell.”

“I gathered that much already; the Library does have a way of picking up strays from time to time.”

“Strays.” The man laughed again, shaking his head as he did so. “Interesting term for it.”

The Archivist shrugged noncommittally.

“So you’re an archivist, then?”

That strange, unnatural urgency from before wasn’t present this time around, and the Archivist hesitated before they answered, weighing their options carefully. They knew well enough that their title was growing perilously close to a Name as their time in the Library dragged on, but... but the man had already heard Timber refer to them as such, could put the pieces together easily enough even if they tried to skirt the question, and even if their title was nearly a Name at this point, it was unlikely that he would know how to do harm with it.

“I’m the Archivist, yes. That’s been my role here for some time now.”

“The Archivist?” The man shot the Archivist a weak smile. “Funny, people call me that too. And not-people, sometimes. It gets annoying, really, I do have a name-”

“Best keep that to yourself, then.”

“What?”

“Names are valuable property, here. Better not give them out to any who ask.”

The man nodded, starting to speak with a “tha-” before stopping himself and taking a breath before restarting. “Alright. I’ll keep that in mind.”

The Archivist looked at the man again. He’d said he, too, was called the Archivist? Well, they had received a few inquiries clearly intended for another with that title, heard a few stories not about them but about another who shares their role... and as they gazed upon this man, upon the scars that criss-crossed his skin, upon his eyes that shone with an unnatural gleam, the Archivist began to put together some of the pieces.

“Other Archivist.” The man met their gaze, then, and oh, there was fire in his eyes, a sign of something burning deep within. “I may have heard your story before. Or pieces of it, at any rate.”

“Oh?” The man raised an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

“You are the Archivist from across the multiverse and across the pond, the one who watches and is watched in turn, the one who Knows too much and yet too little. Is that right?”

The other Archivist let out a laugh as dark as the rest of him. “That does seem to sum things up pretty well. Though... do you always speak like you’re telling a riddle?”

His eyes lit up, and some of that unnatural urgency was back, but it went away with a glare and a curt “Often, yes.”

“I didn’t mean to, I’m s-”

The Archivist cut him off before he could make another unnecessary apology. “Words are valuable here, too. Loose lips sink ships, or so they say. One should be either very specific or very vague in speech, lest the wrong thing slip out, and many here, yours truly included, find the latter to be easier and safer than the former.”

“I... I think I understand. Sort of. Isn’t this-” He paused. “This place has a strange sense of logic, I suppose.”

The Archivist shot the man a tight smile. “Between your appearance in the Library and what I already knew of your story, I suspect that you might well be able to say the same about the place you call home.”

“You’re not wrong.” His laugh sounded a little less bitter this time, a little more genuine, but there was a hunger behind his eyes. “You already know the big picture of who I am, it seems. I- I would appreciate it if I could learn the same about you.”

The Archivist’s smile widened. He was learning.

“I was human, once, long ago, lifetimes ago. I was a sailor, back them, and I drowned upon the Unsea.”

The other Archivist silently mouthed the term��“Unsea” shortly after the Archivist used the term. Not a familiar one, then? Not a huge surprise; the world of the other Archivist sounded like an unfamiliar one indeed, and it was only fitting that their world would be equally unfamiliar to him.

“Fog rolled in on the Sargasso Sea, and none of us knew what it presaged. Drowning on the Unsea was like drowning on a true sea, but also like nothing you can know. It was like nothing. I washed up on the Unsea’s shores, and I was preserved, such as I am now. But much was lost along the way. Much of myself was lost. I freed myself, I sought shelter within the Library, I became the Archivist of this place.” The Archivist paused for a moment before adding, “Such is my story, or at least the grand outline of it.”

A minute or two passed where the only sound to be heard was that of the man’s breathing, neither especially shallow nor especially heavy for a human, or one claiming to be so.

“You were human, you were drawn into something much bigger than you knew, and becoming Archivist was both a gain and a loss, a role to be played in a strange new world...” The man shot the Archivist a wry smile. “I think the two of us have more in common than merely our titles.”

The Archivist tilted their head to one side and pondered this for a long moment. “Perhaps.”

“Much as I appreciate meeting you, though, I really should be getting back. There are people that need me back home.” Another bitter laugh. “Or that need an Archivist, at least.”

“Go back the way you came, then. The Library is vast indeed, but searching enough will lead back to where you started. If you need more detailed instruction than that, I can try to hunt down a Page for you.”

“No, no, that should do just fine, th- I appreciate it.”

As the man turned to head back into the depths of the Library, he waved and called out behind him, “Goodbye, Archivist.”

The Archivist nodded, a smile on their face, as they echoed, “Goodbye, Archivist.”

[lnarizakis]

if ghosts could even love

masterlist

pairing: yamaguchi tadashi x fem!reader x tsukishima kei

foreword: hi! this piece was definitely out of my comfort zone, but really fun to write! this is an angsty guardian angel au. it is another attempt at angst since the only thing i’m pretty much decent at is fluff. so here i am, continuing to practice angst! this is also one of my first attempts at “aesthetic formatting,” so please go easy on me, hahah. thank you to @doughnuts-5ever for beta-reading! i hope you enjoy!!

word count: 1.6k

look out for: themes referring to death, mentions of suicide and manga spoilers, unrequited love, angst

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Warm air hit his face, and he was instantly met with a blinding light that shines even through his eyelids that he has to squeeze his eyes more shut than they already were. He couldn’t breathe, but he felt as free as an angel flying in the sky. Perhaps he was one. It seemed like a dream—to be up in the heavens, lying on the clouds; but when he opened his eyes ever so slowly, the pink and white and purple and yellow surrounding him like a flurry made him realize that he most definitely was not on Earth, but maybe, just maybe, he was in Heaven.

“Welcome to Heaven,” a voice boomed in his head, but it didn’t ring in his ears, shaking his being like all his mortal fears did when he was still alive. He’s...dead? But his soul felt so alive, he couldn’t possibly fathom that he was actually dead.

“Your good intentions on Earth did not go unnoticed,” the voice rang again. He looked around for the source of the message, but all he could find within the vast space of clouds and sky was himself— or, at least, what he thought was himself. He attempted to look down at his feet, but there were no feet in sight. It was just his soul, the empty ghost of what was once a former pinch server, captain, student, and best friend. “You are allowed to look over one person on earth for the rest of their life. You must have choose wisely; you are to watch over this person for the rest of your life. Who shall you choose?”

Without hesitation, he spoke out loud (if ghosts could even talk), “My best friend, Tsukishima Kei.”

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

A flurry of bright colors covered his entire vision, and they turned darker and darker as they mixed with one another. The blizzard vanished before him, and he stood in front of his best friend, who sat at the edge of his bed. The lights of his bedroom were turned off, and through the closed blinds of the single window he could see that it was nighttime.

The ghost of a former friend leapt towards Tsukishima, in an attempt to hug him, but passed through his body like the spirit he was. There was certainly no way he could make contact with him at all. Tsukishima leaned forward, hands covering his face to mask his pained expression. As he groaned into his palms, the door to his bedroom slowly creaked open, revealing the shadowed figure of his older brother.

“Kei, are you okay?” He made his way towards his younger brother, only to be stopped by a stern “Leave.” Kei didn’t even turn around to look at his brother’s retreating figure.

“Tsukki, I’m right here,” the ghost called out. He was met with no reply—he was only a soul, after all. Tsukishima coudn’t possibly hear him. From behind his bedroom door, both Kei and the ghost could hear the older brother tell Kei that Tadashi’s—whoever that was—family had planned for his funeral to be the following week. A funeral? The soul made his way to reside next to Tsukishima’s hunched form, comforting him in any way he could.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

On the day of the funeral, Tsukishima showed up in a loose black suit and a tie. His head hung low, not wanting to partake in any second of this moment. The ghost thought he looked nice. As he made his way towards his best friend’s grave, Tsukishima made eye contact with a girl around his age whose tears for the deceased had already stained her cheeks for everyone to see. She turned towards Tsukishima, and the spirit who accompanied him felt a pang of familiarity in all the corners of his otherworldly body. Something about her just looked so, so familiar. Her name was on the tip of his tongue (if ghosts could even have tongues). There was no way for him to remember who she was.

“Hi, (L/N),” Tsukishima said, walking towards the girl. She wrapped her arms around his torso, but he made no movement of hugging her back. She sobbed into his chest, heaving out words she didn’t know she was saying. From behind the tear-stained girl, the mother of whom the ghost suspected was Tadashi joined the two and held out an envelope in front of Tsukishima.

“It’s for you,” she commented, as Tsukishima accepted the letter. The girl, whose name the ghost learned was (L/N), let go of her hold on Tsukishima and stood by him, watching him open the letter. He pulled out a sheet of paper that looked like it was impulsively ripped out of a math notebook on a lonely Thursday night. The handwriting looked familiar to the ghost, as if he had written out the message himself, but he had no memory of writing out a depressing suicide note like that. Tsukishima’s eyes slowly scanned the letter in front of him, but it was hard to read the ink towards the bottom of the paper that began to mix with the salty tears that dropped from his chin.

(L/N) held out her own letter, telling Tsukishima that she received one from him as well. She allowed him to read it, and the contents of it shocked him. His eyes widened, not believing a single thing Tadashi had written or her. The ghost’s best friend turned towards (L/N), who still looked ethereal as ever despite her puffy eyes and ruined makeup. She choked back a sob as she nodded, squeezing her eyes shut to keep more tears from letting out. Tsukishima looked at the ground, mumbling out, “I never knew.”

She said it was okay.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Several days later, it seemed like Tsukishima’s life returned to normal. In fact, it seemed livelier than usual, like an array of colors lit up his whole world. Maybe it was because he started dating (L/N), whom the ghost had come to know as (Y/N), brightening up his darkened canvas with the new warm colors in his life. Maybe dating her was his way of coping with his loss.

It hurt the ghost terribly, for her beauty had stirred his ghostly heart to begin beating once again. The ghost could see the way her laugh brought shades of yellow into Tsukishima’s life, and how her smile shined a pure white wherever she went. Whenever she hugged Tsukishima from behind to surprise him, or whenever she grabbed both of his hands to show him her support, shades of pink and red were splattered onto the canvas of his life. It seemed to the ghost that because of his death, a new beginning came for Tsukishima.

New feelings (if ghosts could even produce the merest of feelings) also rose within the ghost himself as he too began to fall in love with (Y/N). These feelings, though, were so familiar despite only having known her for several days; it was like he had been in love with her before. He felt so at home with these feelings—it was like falling in love with her was what he had always wanted; what he had longed for as an empty soul.

What the ghost had come to realize was that he was Tadashi and that he used to love (Y/N) while he was alive. He didn’t know what to do with this new information—or perhaps old information, and that he was to inevitably learn this—but he knew what to make of it. Tadashi had to understand that he never told (Y/N) how he felt, resulting in these feelings of his still burning alive even after his death on Earth.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

(Y/N) clung to Tsukishima’s side just like how a similar someone did to him while he was still alive. It was almost like she was a replacement for him. She was so constantly around him that it seemed like Tadashi was not only watching over Tsukishima, but also (Y/N). He observed her every quirk and learned all of her expressions. Tadashi knew just how in love with Tsukishima (Y/N) was, but the boyfriend himself couldn’t see it.

Tadashi could vividly remember one rainy Thursday afternoon, an instance in which he was so pained to be so in love yet so out of reach for (Y/N). Through the open blinds of the one window of his bedroom he could probably count each rain droplet that was stuck to the glass in the time the two were cuddled up on Tsukishima’s bed. He was fast asleep, tired out of his mind from the busy morning he had. (Y/N), though, was awake but slowly falling into a deep slumber in the warmth of his arms. Tadashi could remember her eyes—oh, her eyes—that were so in love with the boy in front of her, and he knows that if he were still alive he could give her the same kind of affection that she gave him. It hurt knowing, and it hurt that he could only imagine.

It hurt Tadashi’s soul seeing (Y/N) so in love with Tsukishima. It hurt knowing that he was in love with his best friend’s girlfriend. It hurt how he could never tell (Y/N) he loved her (if ghosts could even fall in love). Even while he was still alive. Oh, how he loved her while hew as alive. She made him feel as free as a bird up in the sky and as alive as a raging fire whose sparks crackled and flamed up in the night. It was so ironic how now, as an angel so free up in the heavens, he felt trapped inside a cage. Trapped, because he could never escape the longing he felt of livign someone who could never love him back, and the suffocation he felt knowing that he could definitely treat her better.

Tadashi laughed (if ghosts could even laugh). How selfish.

[beauty-of-sins]

I have a smut request! Tissaia x reader or Tissaia X yenn. Where one of them is sending filthy thoughts through telepathy through out the day, until finally they end having passion fuelled sex.

Tissaia de Vries x Reader

A/N: Sorry for the wait! I’m starting to notice I give a lot of backstory in my fics. I’ll work on reducing that in the future for you horny bastards. 

Growing up you were always different from the others. While you weren’t as bold as Yennefer(or as difficult) you still managed to catch her attention. Simply because you weren’t afraid of her nor were you in awe of the Rectoress. She couldn’t shake you and even at a young age, she knew that you were destined to do great things. 

After all the trails, you had ascended. Doing your part without complaining and you served your time with your king.  You felt lost however, in the bustle of the courts, and you knew this was not what you were meant to be. You quickly found yourself back in Aretuza asking the Rectoress to let you teach. You enjoyed teaching there and so did your students. While you were strict you were much more patient than the Rectoress and they blossomed under your charge.

You found yourself sharing a common bond, age and experience both leveled the playing field.  Through your teachings, you shared quite a few meals together and your feelings began to change.  She wasn’t completely serious all the time as most people thought, and her dry humor always found a way to make you laugh(even when you didn’t want to). How she carries herself, the grace she radiates. The way her laugh carries through a room.

You weren’t the only one whose feelings were changing.

It was you that noticed it first, the way she always leaned towards you, asked for your theories first, the casual touches that you had to stop a shiver each time you felt her hand on you.

You would use this to your advantage. There was no way she was going to make the first move. 

It was going to be all up to you. 

You pass by her lecture, seeing her scare the new girls into submission once again. You could tell she was secretly amused by their reactions though and it was really just another test for her. 

It’s the perfect time.

A small smirk rises on your mouth. You let out a little whisper, elder seeping out of your tongue penetrating her wards and you can see it hit her. 

A thought of her own that she had pushed back.

You bent down in front of her, knowing nothing but to submit, your passion directed at her. You were tied up in a pretty bow, a gift just for her.

She stumbled with her words before resuming. Something only you could catch from being around her so long before you slipped into the shadows. She looked undoubtedly shifty at the next meeting, and you innocently asked her what was wrong before she changed the subject. You never thought you’d live long enough to see the great Rectoress squirming in her seat. 

The next was at the Garden, taking your students out, making sure they knew how to handle certain herbs.  You could feel her staring at you through the window. You desperately wanted to laugh as her magic tried to seep in without warning. You meet her eyes, and upon contact with your wards spur a thought.  

You’re on her very desk, paper staining the very paper she’s working on. Your hands dripping with your own wetness, as you spread out for her display. You beckon her to lean down and taste.

She twitches as a blush rises to her face before she attempts to focus back on work. This time you do laugh, but you pretend its at something that one of your students say.

Dinner. 

This time you invited her over, and this time she surprised you, wearing a gorgeous red dress with a teasing neckline that almost made you faint. You were both actively aware you were teasing each other as it went on, knees touching underneath the table. You lean closer to her, and jokingly offer her a morsel, from your own plate, holding it up to her mouth. You’re surprised when she leans in and slowly eats it off the fork. Your gaze gets heavy. 

Eventually, you make your move. You lean forward, wiping something that wasn’t there off the corner of her lip. 

“I know what you were doing.” she whispers, the edges of her lips catching your thumb, you hold it there.

“As do I.” you whisper, leaning forward into her red painted lips. 

Both of your wards are down for the first time and you are taken back by her want, the need to see you beneath her. The times she stared at you whenever you weren’t looking and think of a million scenarios of what you could do together. 

You unzip the back of her dress, slowly, time doesn’t mean anything to people like you. But Tissaia clearly didn’t think the same way. 

She reaches up to your own and rips some of it off with fervor. It’s strangely hot to see her like this. 

To think its all for you.

“Don’t flatter yourself.” she hisses out, reading your thoughts, in between kisses she steps out her own, and you pull the tattered remains fo your own dress off. 

You fight for dominance, and your winning, fulfilling your own fantasy of besting your former teacher when she began whispering elder you’ve never heard before. Your still, your muscles lock up and for some reason, you are not afraid as she leans over you. 

It’s oddly calming. 

“I like when your quiet,” she says, nails tracing from underneath your chin toward your belly.  

I don’t think you do.

She frowns before cutting off her wards again and you fight the urge to snicker. 

She can sense your amusement, her small frame pressing down on you. And that’s when you feel it against your inner thigh. She had to have been wearing the strap-on the entire time. And heat floods you when you realized that she had anticipated this.

Her hands slide up, around your sides teasingly while the head of the strap grinds into your heat. You have to move. You break out of the spell easily using the slight opening in her spell. You were tired of waiting. You push her down onto the chair, straddle and don’t even wait for her to process what’s going on before she’s inside of you.

You feel full, and although it hurts slightly, mostly you feel pleasure. Your breath tickles the shell of her ear as she feels you slide down on her. She grabs the small of your back and pulls you in closer as you slowly ride her. It’s the most beautiful thing she has ever had the pleasure of witnessing. 

She leans forward, biting around the sensitive skin on your nipple and it makes you speed up, her eyes flutter in pleasure at the sensation. Her other hand grabbing onto your ass, rocking you, encouraging you even more.

The sensation begins to make you quiver in your lap, as you increase your speed. In between, you hungrily kiss her lips, enjoying the taste of her. Her hand slides down to your clit, rubbing slow circles. You cannot stop the moans from falling out as the beginning of your orgasm starts to pool in your belly,

It’s coming and you know she can feel it too.  Her hips pushing up, as you both approached climax. 

You stare into her eyes as you ride her. Only knowing one name as you cum. Hers. You tighten around her, and you can feel yourself pulse as it floods through you. She keeps going so you can ride out her orgasm

You slump into her neck, inhaling in her familiar scent, neither of you moves for a while.

“I think I like you,” you whisper. 

You feel her chuckle into your neck at your silly declaration. She smiles into your neck. 

“I couldn’t tell.”

[dakotacrisis]

Deal’s End

Marinette is working on an occult design for Juleka when a stray dodgeball hits her in the face. She bleeds all over her design and through this accidentally summons the demon whose sigil she had been sketching. The demon now cannot leave until a deal has been struck. Unfortunately for both of them Marinette isn’t ready to give up her soul that easily.

I have no self control! Got this idea after seeing a one-time-i-dreamt post about accidentally summoning a demon by drawing pentagrams. There are going to be more chapters of this. Nothing too long, right now I have it plotted out at about twelve so it should go by pretty quickly. Also there are no kwamis or powers in this Felinette AU. Happy reading!

(Read on AO3)

---

There are some deals that should never be struck. No matter how tempting they sound. It can only end up hurting you. There was a saying, if it sounds too good to be true then it is. It was this frame of mind that Marinette held. She would admit she was an optimist but she never once pretended that her dreams could come true with a single wish. Anything in this life, she would have to work for and earn.

Marinette’s dream was to one day grow up to be a famous fashion designer. At fifteen though it was still only a dream but she worked to build her skills and name as much as she could. Taking on commissions and such were just one way hone her abilities. And hopefully one day she would see the fruits of her labor.

At the moment Marinette sat off to the side of the open courtyard where her classmates were playing dodgeball. She was sitting out due to a twisted ankle she incurred running to get to class on time after sleeping in. While she did like a good game she was more than content to sit off to the side and work on a commission for her friend Juleka.

Juleka had always been a more gothic personality and Marinette had known it was only a matter of time until she came to her for something occult-ish. The design was nothing major. A couple patches that Juleka could put on her bag with satanic looking sigils and pentagrams and stuff on them. Personally Marinette steered clear of occult stuff. She liked the aesthetic but the actual practice gave her the heebie jeebies. Oh you’re going to this abandoned asylum and where a bunch of people died and playing with a ouija board? Hard pass!

Right now Marinette was trying to sketch the sigil Juleka gave her in her notebook. Different demons had different sigils and Juleka wanted one that wasn’t hugely known like Lucifer or Leviathan. It was either smart thinking or ‘I liked this demon before you’ flexing.

And done! The sigil kinda looked like an abstract butterfly now that Marinette finalized it. Now she just had to work this design onto a patch and--

“Marinette!” Someone shouted.

Marinette looked up just in time to see that bright red rubber ball flying straight at her. She can only blink before it smacks her right in the face with a resounding P’TANG! Or maybe that’s what the noise was. All Marinette could hear was the ringing in her ears as her brain tried to catch up with the hit it just took.

“Holy crap! Marinette, are you alright?” Her friend Alya ran over to check on her. “Kim! What the hell was that?”

“Sorry! I was aiming at Alix but it missed and...oh shit, your nose is bleeding.”

“It is?” Marinette touched her nose and winced. A little smear of blood rubbed off on her hand. She stared down at her notebook and groaned when she saw the splattering of blood on the page. “Perfect.” She ripped the ruined page out and used it stunt the flow of blood.

“Do you need to go to the nurse?” Alya asked, helping Marinette to her feet.

“No, I think I just need to clean up.” Marinette started limping towards the bathroom. “If I see it bruising I’ll head to the nurse.”

The bell for the next class rung and Marinette told Alya to let Ms. Bustier know she was going to be late.

With that Marinette walked into the bathroom and dropped the paper in the trash. She grabbed a couple paper towels to wipe the blood off. The bleeding had been short lived but god did her face hurt. She would probably end up down at the nurse for an ice pack if nothing else. First her ankle now her nose, what else could she hurt before fourth period?

She bent closer to the sink to wash the last of the blood away. When she came back up to dry her face she noticed someone in the mirror behind her. She gave a started yelp and turned around to see who was there.

At first her brain tried to say it was Adrien but the boy standing behind her but the sharp red suit told her different. “Uh hi?” Marinette grabbed a paper towel to wipe her face, “You’re in the girl’s restroom.”

“So it seems.” the boy nodded. The guy was the definition of well-groomed. Perfectly styled blonde hair, not a crease in his clothes, clear skin, and polished shoes. He looked around her age, maybe a little older it was hard to tell. He had one of those faces. And currently is was fixed in a bored expression as he calmly regarded the alarmed girl in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” Marinette asked.

“You summoned me.” Red suit boy replied.

“No. I didn’t ask for anyone.” Marinette started to inch towards the door. “And if I was going to ask for help I would have gotten one of my friends, not...whoever you are.”

“Let me be more clear.” Red suit boy pulled out a wad of paper that Marinette hadn’t seen him holding before. He unfurled it to show the paper Marinette had ripped out of her sketch book and now covered in her blood. “You see this mark you drew here? That’s my mark. See the blood washed all over it? That’s your blood. Ergo, you summoned me.”

The pieces started to fit together but Marinette wasn’t liking the picture. “Are you trying to tell me that you are some kind of demon that I summoned by having a nosebleed on my sketch book?”

“Yes. Exactly that.”

“Nope.” She shook her head, “I think I have a concussion. Yes. That blow to the head created you and I should be getting to the nurse.”

Marinette quickly rushed out of the restroom and started making her way to the nurse. She was down the hall towards the nurse’s station when she saw red suit demon boy in front of her again. “But--” she pointed back towards the restroom, “But you were--how did--?”

“I would really like if you would stop trying to rationalize me away and accept what you have done.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Obviously,” he gestured to himself, “you did. Or else I wouldn’t be here.”

“I am in too much pain to be dealing with this.” Marinette turned to go back to class. She needed an ice pack but she didn’t want to get closer to the literal demon at the other end of the hall. “Go away and leave me alone!”

He spawned right in front of her again causing her to quickly back up to avoid running into him. That same bored expression lingered on his face. “I’m not leaving.”

“Why not? I didn’t mean to summon you. I cannot believe that something like this is even happening. So please, go back to whatever hellhole you crawled out of and leave me alone.”

“Would if I could but I unfortunately cannot.” Demon boy started walking next to her as she ascended the stairs back to class. “You summoned me and so I am bound to you until I have fulfilled my duty.”

“And what duty is that?”

“To strike a deal.”

“Too bad I’m not in the habit of making deals with demons.”

“Not many people are. You’d be surprised how little demons are called upon nowadays. Back in the olden times there wasn’t a single weekend where I could--”

“That all sounds like a lovely history lesson but I have literature class to get back to. Bye.” Marinette strolled into the classroom and firmly closed the door behind her. She sat down at her desk and let out a sigh of relief.

“You alright? Did you go to the nurse?” Alya whispered.

“I’m fine.” Marinette pulled out her notes. “I’m having a long day is all.”

She looked up to see where they were in the lesson and nearly fell out of her chair when she saw demon boy sitting on the teacher’s desk. He was staring directly at her. Marinette gazed around the room but no one else seemed to notice he was there.

“Are you sure you don’t need to go home early? You seem really spaced.” Alya asked, worried.

“It’s going to be a long day.” Marinette muttered, glaring at the unbothered demon.

Marinette’s gaze never left the demon during the entire class. She tried to focus on Ms. Bustier but her attention kept being drawn back to him. He would walk around the room peering at the other students and messing with the lights so they flickered incessantly. She shot him a dirty look which made him stop and he instead started pestering her by talking over Ms. Bustier’s lesson. When class was finally over Marinette told her friends to head on to lunch without her. She needed to have a word with her unwanted guest.

“That was so boring.” The demon boy sighed, “How can you cope with that every day?”

“Why won’t you leave?” Marinette snapped.

“I told you before. I can’t leave until we make a deal. All of which I would have explained from the beginning if you hadn’t insisted on trying to get away from me.”

“You’re a demon! Of course I was trying to get away from you!” Marinette seethed, “Also, am I correct in assuming that no one else can see you but me?”

“Yes. Why? Didn’t like me attending class with you?”

“No. Oddly enough I didn’t.” Marinette sat back down at her desk. It was a good thing no one was here or else she would look insane talking to thin air. “Okay, you’re a demon and you’re bound to me to make a deal. What exactly does that mean?”

“Oh, you’re actually going to let me explain are you?”

“Talk now or else I’ll get a spray bottle full of holy water to spritz you with.”

“Someone’s touchy.” The demon boy shrugged. “I’ll forego all the theatrics and pretty words since I would like to get out of here myself. I am bound to strike a deal with you and I cannot leave until one has been made. Think of it as a wish. Whatever your heart desires I will provide in return for a certain price.”

“Am I right in assuming this price is my eternal soul?”

“I mean depending on what you ask for, yes. Not all deals are equivalent to your soul. Most are but those are usually just the popular ones. Fame, wealth, revenge, etcetera. So tell me, what is it you want most...Magdalene?”

“Marinette.”

“Right. What would you like?”

“I’m not going to make a deal with you.”

“Yes you are. Or else I’ll never leave. So tell me, what do you want?”

“I told you I am not going to make a deal with you! I am not giving up my soul or anything else for what you’re offering.”

“Can we please skip this bit?” He rolled his eyes, “I’ve seen enough people try to hold out from making deals to know that you’re going to end up caving anyway. Now tell me what it is your selfish little heart desires.”

“No!”

“Come on!” he groaned, “I said please. Stop trying to think you can wiggle your way out of this by being stubborn.”

“I’m not making a deal!” Marinette huffed and strode out of the room. “And you can go back to hell!”

He fell into step beside her as she limped her way up to the cafeteria. “How many times do I have to say that I’m not leaving until you get it?”

“I really don’t like you.” She grumbled.

“And here I thought we were getting along so well.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and whispered in her ear, “Come on love, there has to be something you want. An impossible dream you want to achieve? Revenge on someone who did you wrong? The love of someone far from your reach? Do you not have any goals in life?”

“I have dreams and goals and people I like that don’t like me back but I am not about to cheat to get any of them.” she pushed his arm off of her. “Whatever I get in this life I will earn honestly in my own way in my own time.”

“Satan give me strength, you’re one of those people?” The demon sighed loudly. “You know that all this hard work you’re putting in will most likely go nowhere right? Those dreams that you think are so easy to achieve if you just put in enough elbow grease and strive forward with a can do attitude will crash and burn. Then you end up in the position you are right now. Looking for an easy route to everything you want.”

He stopped her, tickling a finger under her chin. She hadn’t noticed it before but his eyes were grey. Unnaturally so. They almost looked like sparkling silver in the fluorescent light. He grinned with teeth that seemed a tad too sharp to be human. “All you have to do is ask for it and I can make it so.”

“Not today.” she spat, “Not ever.” She walked around him and continued on with her head held high.

The rest of the day her demon lurked in the corner. He wasn’t causing mischief but his eyes never left her the entire time. She could feel them on her and it sent a shiver up her spine to think about.

When the day finally ended she booked it back to her house and locked herself in her room. Her gaze swept the room but he was nowhere to be seen. Hours passed and still she had seen neither hide nor hair of the demon that had been plaguing her. Perhaps it was all just a stress induced hallucination. It seemed that the second she got home and took some medicine for her aching face he ceased to be. It felt safe to deem this whole thing a weird experience and lay it to rest.

Relieved that the ordeal was over she started getting ready for bed. After today she felt like she deserved a little pampering and ran a hot bubble bath complete with some scented candles and her favorite face mask.

She sunk down into the water with a happy sigh. Her eyes sliding closed as she relished in the warmth. Yeah, she needed this.

Then she felt it. A shiver down her spine. She opened her eyes and had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming. Her demon was sitting on her toilet staring at her with that same bored expression. “What the hell--!”

“Thought you got rid of me?” he smirked, “I wanted to see how you acted when you thought I wasn’t here. It’s a nice set up you got here, what are the candles? Honey blossom?”

“Get out!”

“Why?”

“Cause I’m in the bath!” she curled into herself thankful that the bubbles held cover her modesty.

“So?”

“What do you mean, so? I’m naked!”

“And what? You think it is anything special? Do you have any idea how old I am? You are certainly not the first naked body I’ve seen and I doubt you’ll be the last.”

“I don’t care! Get out!”

That little grin on his face grew wider and he slid off the toilet to sit at the edge of the tub. “You know, if you really want me to leave you could always make a deal with me. Then I would have to go.”

“I already told you my answer. I will not make a deal with a perverted demon like you!”

“Oh please, I’ve met Asmodeus. Trust me when I say I am nowhere near the most perverted demon out there. That being said,” He stared more closely at the bubbles around her and with a snap of his fingers they all popped, “Doesn’t mean I can’t still watch you squirm.”

Marinette quickly reached for her towel and wrapped it around herself. She didn’t care if she was sitting buck naked in tepid water with a glob of pink clay on her face. She was not going to give him the satisfaction. She’d wait until the water turned ice cold if that’s what it took.

She can only wait as the minutes tick by and the demon plays his jokes to try and annoy her into making a deal with him. Still she remains steadfast until he eventually gets bored and leaves. Quickly she rinses the mask off and crawls out of the bath and throws on her robe.

She peers around her room to make sure he isn’t lurking in the shadows before getting dressed. Even then she did as much as she could with her robe still on so he couldn’t pop in while she was putting on her panties.

The thought that the demon is still nearby waiting and possibly watching her kept her up late into the night until her eyes couldn’t stay open anymore and she drifted off to sleep. Whoever this demon was he did not have a single idea who he was dealing with. If he thought some juvenile pranks and an invasion of her privacy was enough to get her to bend then he was sorely mistaken. Marinette was nothing if not stubborn and this demon was about to learn exactly that.

---

(2)

[cryoculus]

Lunaris [1/11]

Navigation

Chapter Title: New Moon Pairing: Yokai!Akaashi Keiji/Reader  Word Count: 1,841

***

In the most abstract sense, you supposed that you wouldn't have half your problems if you'd just gotten over your fondness for Bokuto Koutarou.

But it was easier said than done, really. He wasn't the brightest student in Fukurodani, but he certainly glimmered with his own unrivalled passion for the sport he loved the most. The megawatt smile that grazed Bokuto's face when his spikes flew past the opposing team's faces was something that made your heart flutter like hummingbirds' wings beating against your rib cage.

His excitement, his exhilaration—it's as if they were your own.

You were painfully aware that you're not the only one that was ensnared in his optimistic charm. You've seen other girls shyly ushering themselves inside the gym; red-faced and flustered as they gave Bokuto packed bentos, love letters, and even homemade chocolate. The difference between you and them, however, was that you were aware that Bokuto wasn't like any other teenage boy easily swayed by his admirers. No, he was on a one-track mind headed straight to the Olympics.

"You sure you have a crush on him, (Name)?" your best friend, Itsumi, sighed. "Way to keep up with the competition."

The question was probably warranted by the sudden influx of girls crowding outside the gym. And while that wasn't too strange a sight, there were more of them than usual. The bentos and chocolates were replaced with presents enclosed in cute wrapping paper and tied with ribbons that may have spoken volume about their taste in color.

When you felt the satisfying burn of the stretch on your hamstrings, you assumed a sitting position on the grounds. "I don't really have time for that, you know, with the competition drawing closer."

"So?" Itsumi frowned, undoing the knot on your right shoe just to spite you. "I bet my entire life that he would adore your cooking! Those girls can't even make a proper bento for shit—"

"Sumi," you reprimanded.

She groaned, scratching the back of her head with annoyance. "All I'm saying is, not only does Bokuto-san actually remember your name, but you're the captain of the track team! If there's anyone who can keep up with his energy, it's you ."

The moment Itsumi said the words, your gaze was caught by a familiar head of bouffant, black and white hair. Bokuto was chattering with his vice captain, Akaashi, as they made their way towards the gym—completely oblivious of the company that's camping out to anticipate his arrival. His golden eyes glittered with enthusiasm as he spoke, his setter seeming unbothered but not apathetic of his senpai's animated story-telling.

"There is one guy," you muttered to yourself.

"Bokuto-san, happy birthday!"

"Happy birthday, ace!"

"I hope you like our presents!"

Itsumi hummed in understanding as you raised an eyebrow at the brewing crowd. "Eh? So it's his birthday! You're a shitty admirer, (Name)."

"Shut up," you told her off as you got up to your feet to dust off your training clothes. The rest of your teammates were yet to finish up with their respective warm-ups, so you placed both hands over your mouth to speak over the swooning females a few meters away.

"Run twenty laps around the oval once you're done. Anyone who can't beat their previous records gets five extra." Your command was met with disappointed groans and pleas for mercy, but none bothered to protest against your words. Though they could be a couple of slackers at times, the team took your threats at face value.

You headed over to the oval before anyone else, leaving Itsumi behind to gossip with the rest of your third year teammates as you prepared to time your run on your wristwatch. The sun was hanging low in the horizon, painting the sky with a resplendent orange glow that momentarily distracted you. Practice started quite late for all athletic teams today because of that unnecessary school-wide activity, and you didn't get why you're the only one that's feeling the urgency to catch up with the missed hours of practice.

The air still carried the traces of summer in the breeze, blowing past you in sweltering intervals. But the temperature would be the last thing to deter you in training. You've built up a stamina that could be mistaken for a professional runner's, and have been told numerous times that your endurance was inhuman. You'd even daresay that if you challenged Bokuto, himself, to see whose endurance would last longer, you'd still come out on top.

Once you'd completed a single lap, you let your eyes wander back to the gym, where the throng of the ace's admirers has considerably thinned. Bokuto's carrying an armful of poorly wrapped birthday presents as he spoke to the last of the girls with a sheepish look on his face. You scoffed, thinking about how futile their efforts were.

But then, you felt yourself make a wrong step on the oval, causing you to lose your footing and trip on your own feet. The dust of the bare grounds settled around you as you processed what just happened with wide eyes. Your right shoe did feel a little loose, and that's when you realized that your damn laces were untied—

"Hey! Are you alright?"

As you double-knotted your shoelaces, you looked up at who was checking up on you, but your eyes nearly bugged out when you were greeted by the sight of Bokuto running towards you with the abundance of gifts still secured in his arms. Only this idiot would go out of his way to do that even when he's literally got his hands full.

"It's not like you to just trip up like that," Bokuto pointed out in-between laughs as he awkwardly offered his arm for you to grab onto. Declining, you pulled yourself back to your feet with your own effort, thanking him hastily.

"Bokuto-san, please don't bother the track team when they're training," followed the monotonous sound of Akaashi's voice, who emerged behind Bokuto at a lethargic pace.

You've never really batted an eyelash towards the second year. Though Akaashi was pretty for a high school boy, he didn't strike you as anything more. With an abundant energy source like Bokuto standing next to him all the time, it was normal that your attention would be nabbed, right?

But in this proximity, the sight of the otherwise uninteresting setter caused a shift in your focus for a moment. You didn't miss the way his normally expressionless eyes lit up with recognition once he saw the small bell strung around your left wrist. Most people would mistake it for a hair tie, but it was actually a warding charm given to you at a young age. Why would Akaashi look like he was familiar with it?

"I apologize for Bokuto-san's impudence," Akaashi ducked his head into a slight bow. "He does get carried away by trivial things at times."

"Eh?! She tripped out of nowhere, Akaashi! I'm just concerned..." the ace sulked with a pout, uncharacteristic of such a ripped athlete like himself, as he adjusted his grip on his birthday presents.

Multiple footsteps could be heard headed your way, and when you glanced behind you, Itsumi and a few of your teammates rushed to the scene.

"Are you okay?" she asked, lightly slapping your cheeks. "No concussion?"

"Concu—Sumi, what are you talking about? I tripped, that's it."

Kazuto, one of the younger members of the team snickered into his palm. "Itsumi-senpai's acting like she wasn't the first to burst out laughing when you tripped, captain."

"Yeah, cap. She couldn't believe you forgot to tie your laces," said Saiko, who shot Itsumi an accusatory stare.

You narrowed your eyes at your ever-so whimsical of a best friend. Deciding that you'll lay divine punishment on her later, you turned to the boys from the volleyball team with an apologetic expression. "Really, I'm fine. Thanks for checking on me, guys. Don't you have practice, too?"

Bokuto shook his head. "The coach laid us off for the day. Konoha just told me it was rude to blow off the girls waiting for me at the gym..."

"Whoa," Kazuto gaped at him in awe. "I want to be that popular, too!"

"The first step to achieving that is to put your back into training, Kazuto," you told him with a sigh, restarting your timer in defeat. "Come on, we've only got an hour of training left, you pests."

"Yes, captain!" your teammates responded with a tone dipped in mockery. You could feel your exasperation reaching a fever pitch at this point. Oh, the things you'd do just to get the chance to whack them in the head one by one.

"(Surname), we'll be off," Bokuto informed, grinning widely. "Be careful next time, 'kay?"

His words surprised you so much, you could only manage a minute nod to send his way, not giving you any time to relish in the blush that painted your face. Once he was satisfied with your response, Bokuto turned on his heel, Akaashi following suit without much input to the conversation. However, the setter did cast one last glance your way as he and Bokuto walked further away.

The moment your eyes met with his, you were seized by an uneasy feeling that gripped your chest like a vice. You were certain it was just a trick of the light, but you could have sworn those navy blues glowed with malicious red for a split second. The gasp that escaped you was followed by his mouth twitching into a knowing smile, like he was aware of the way imaginary flames seemingly scorched your heart at that same moment.

You crumpled to your knees, clutching your chest so hard, your knuckles turned white.

You were gasping for air without taking any breaths at all. It was as if someone poked holes into your lungs so you couldn't breathe. Itsumi dropped to the ground, slinging her arm across your shoulder to cradle your convulsing frame. She's shouting. Why was she shouting? Her voice sounded too far away for you to make sense of what she was saying, like you were separated by several layers of glass.

You were vaguely aware of the rest of your teammates crowding around you, concern and fear lining each of their gazes. Someone was shaking you by the shoulders, but the only thing you could focus on was the retreating figure of a dark-haired setter.

The sight of him made you feel warm, so warm... No. Something was burning you.

With your coherent thought process dismantled, it took you a moment to piece together that the scorching heat was coming from your wrist. Itsumi was arguing with someone. But you couldn't bring yourself to pay attention as you groggily raised your wrist above your face. There, you saw the small bell tied around it emanating a white hot glow. It looked so pure, so—

That's the last thing you remembered before the darkness engulfed your vision, leaving you at its mercy.

[flipomatic]

Internship Chapter 32: Day 26 - Emira

Author Note: This is the longest chapter of the fic. It also contains nongraphic violence as part of the last fight scene of the project.

First Chapter Previous Chapter

__________________________________________________

Today was the final day of the internship. After this, if she didn’t die carrying out Ed’s plan tonight, Emira would go back to being a regular Hexside student. She would miss the internship, just a little bit, but she was also glad the experience was ending.

She had spent the day with Jen, helping provide moving images as part of a performance. It was for a small children’s party, so it wasn’t on the same scale as their usual work, but it was still satisfying to see the looks on the kid’s faces as they watched the show.

At the end of the day, they went back to the coven, the same as they usually did. They sat in Jen’s office and debriefed the job. The fact that this would be the last time hung in the air between them. Emira remembered how excited Jen had been when the coven leader offered her a spot in the coven; she wondered if Jen was still thinking about what could’ve been.

“Your spell weaving has improved.” Jen commented, referring to the way Emira had layered a sound in with the images today. “In both timing and cohesion.”

That was good to hear. “I’ve been working on that.” The timing was the hardest part sometimes; if it was even slightly off then the experience for the watcher could be really weird.

“It shows. Don’t forget to keep practicing, even once you’re back at school.” Jen scribbled something down on a notepad, then ripped the paper off to hand to Emira. “Something to keep you busy.”

Emira accepted the paper, eyes widening at what she saw on it. This was a whole new spell combination, one that would create moving and transforming lights. The layers had been listed, along with timings for them.

“I’ll come show you when I’ve mastered it.” Emira said confidently, folding the paper to stow away in her pocket. Her fingers brushed the scroll camera inside, reminding her of what she was doing after this.

Jen smiled sincerely. “Looking forward to it.”

Emira glanced at the clock; Ed was expecting her soon. “I have to get going.” She rose from her chair, and was surprised to see Jen stand as well. “Thank you for everything.”

“It was my pleasure.” Jen’s eyes glimmered now, with just the hint of tears. “It’s been wonderful having you here and, no matter where your path leads, I’m sure you will achieve great things.”

That almost brought a tear to Emira’s eyes as well, but she was able to resist. “Thank you.” The words wobbled far more than Emira wanted them to.

Jen stepped around her desk, pulling Emira into a tight hug. The teen reciprocated it, wrapping her arms around the witch. Emira indulged in the warmth of the hug, for just a moment.

A few seconds later, Jen released Emira and stepped back. Despite still smiling, she wiped her eyes. “Go on then.” Jen said, her voice even less stable than Emira’s had been.

Emira nodded. “See you around.” She said, before turning towards the door.

“See ya.” Jen replied quietly, as Emira slipped out into the hallway. Even after holding it all in, Emira still had to wipe her eyes once.

She shut the door heavily behind her, officially closing this chapter of her life.

Of course, things couldn’t truly be over yet. Ed was waiting for her, and he needed her help.

Emira exchanged a brief farewell with the secretary, one with far less emotion than the last, before leaving the coven for good. She had no idea if she would be back, but she had enjoyed the last couple weeks there.

She walked to the jail, which took about ten minutes. On the way, she checked her camera scroll. It was in pretty good shape, without scratches on the lens or screen. She deleted a few videos while she walked to make sure there was enough space.

When she reached the jail, Ed was waiting outside. He was standing out by the sidewalk, and when he spotted Emira he started gesturing for her to come over. His mask was on, but Emira could still tell it was him either way. The sun was starting to set behind him, with shadows elongating across the ground.

“Hey, are you ready?” Ed asked as she approached.

Emira stopped in front of him, holding up the camera. “All set.” She replied.

He nodded. “Good, Nick should already be waiting for us. Let’s go over the plan one more time.” Ed spoke quickly, with nervous energy. He still had the wood sword on his belt that he’d been carrying for a couple weeks, which didn’t bode well.

“Sure.” Emira replied; it wouldn’t hurt to go over it again.

“So, I’m pretty sure Nick has been sabotaging Frederick. Tonight, we’re going to get proof.” Ed held up his old drawn map of the jail. He had drawn a large circle around the training hall. “I contacted him earlier, he thinks he’s meeting Frederick at the training hall. You’ll record, and I’ll get him to confess. Then we send the video as evidence.” The plan sounded simple enough, though the odds of it going off without a hitch were very slim.

“Sounds good.” Emira said with a firm nod.

“Let’s go then.” Ed started casting illusion spells. His shoulders puffed up, making him look more muscular. The second spell was a voice modifier, to make him sound like Frederick.

Emira followed suit, casting a series of spells that would make her completely invisible. She’d cast these together so many times, it was easy to layer them together. She made sure to cloak the camera too, though the spell didn’t work perfectly on it. Once the magic was in place, Ed started walking towards the jail. Emira stayed near him, in step and close behind.

They entered the jail without incident, and then entered the Emperor’s Coven wing. There had been one coven member in the lobby, but he didn’t seem to care that they were entering this late.

Ed led the way through the wing, going straight to their destination. He opened the training hall door without hesitation, holding it open long enough for Emira to slip inside.

The training room on the other side was quite large, especially considering the size of the jail. There was only one witch inside, a man dressed in the Emperor Coven’s uniform. He had his mask on, so Emira couldn’t see his face. This had to be Nick. Emira lifted the camera scroll and hit record, aimed at the witch.

As Ed approached the witch, Emira moved slightly to the side so she could get a better shot of him.

“Frederick, why did you call me here?” Nick spoke as Ed stopped a few feet away from him.

When Ed spoke, the voice modulator spell did its part in changing the sound. “Can’t I talk with my old friend?”

“Normally I’d say yes, but to call me here after hours…” Nick trailed off, taking a step closer to Ed. “What’s going on?”

“To be completely honest, there is something.” Ed moved a little to the right, to maintain the same level of distance between them. Emira shifted as well, making sure to keep Nick in the center of the shot. “I’m thinking about taking the promotion.”

Nick inhaled sharply, loud enough that Emira could hear it. “Have they offered you the job?” He asked, tone lower than before.

Ed shook his head. “No, not yet, but I expect it soon.” He spoke confidently, or uh, he used Frederick’s voice confidently.

“I don’t think they will.” Nick scoffed, again taking another pace closer. “Not after what happened this week.”

“That would be a good reason to take the position.” Ed kept an even tone as he replied. This time he didn’t move. “I can’t say I approve of recent deployments.” Emira didn’t really know what they were talking about, but she just kept recording.

“You’ve certainly messed them up, lately.” Nick shook his head, clicking his tongue twice.

“I’m mostly concerned for the intern. Today nothing happened, but yesterday he was almost…” Ed trailed off, bringing his voice down as if the next part was too hard to say.

“Almost crushed? Whose fault was that? I tried to take him into my care, but you were too stubborn to protect him properly.”

Ed seemed to prickle at that, his voice coming up. “Yes, but he wasn’t.” He then paused for a moment, thinking about something. “Wait, how did you know that?” Oh, this must’ve been what Ed was trying to get him to say. Emira zoomed the camera in on Nick, though she still couldn’t pick up his expression behind the mask.

“The dispatcher told me.” Nick replied smoothly, without hesitation.

Ed shook his head. “No, he didn’t.” He sounded smug, Emira wanted to smack him in the back of the head and remind him to stick to the objective.

“It was part of his report for the day.” Nick was starting to sound confused; Emira was impressed with how he kept his composure.

“It couldn’t have been.” Ed didn’t let up, pushing harder on the point. “Because I didn’t tell him.”

“You submitted an incomplete report?” Nick stepped closer again, now with only a few feet between him and Ed. “That’s not like you, Frederick.” His voice came down on the last word, the name sending a chill down Emira’s spine. He suspected something; she could feel it.

Ed, ever oblivious, continued as if nothing had changed. “It seemed too strange to report. But I still want to know, how did you find out? Because the way I see it, you only could’ve known if you set the trap.”

Nick scoffed, “Impossible. That doesn’t make any sense. I have no reason to want to harm the intern, especially after I tried to remove him for his protection!” The volume of his voice rose near the end of the sentence, betraying his agitation.

“Oh, but he wasn’t the target.” Ed said with a shake of his head. “You tried to take him so he wouldn’t get hurt, or perhaps, so he wouldn’t be there to witness it.” Nick’s hands had balled into fists by his side, all sense of composure having vanished. Emira made sure to catch it all on the video. “No, the trap was for Frederick.”

The atmosphere of the room changed quickly, as all present realized what he had said. Nick reached for his belt, placing a hand on the hilt of a sword.

“Who are you then?” Nick asked firmly as he drew the steel sword. The metal glinted, a clear threat of what was to come His other hand was raised, a finger extended to cast spells.

Emira quickly hit the button to stop recording, so she could stow the camera and help Ed get out of this mess. They got the footage they needed, so it was fine to stop.

That was the second mistake.

Emira knew the spells didn’t take full effect on the camera, but she had never recorded while invisible before. She couldn’t have known that when she moved the camera too quickly, it created a very visible shimmer in the air. Unfortunately, she was right in Nick’s line of sight.

Nick cast a spell quickly, drawing a small spell circle. Within a moment, just as the camera scroll was settled in her pocket, a ball of fire was shooting in Emira’s direction. She dropped the ground to avoid it, but the fireball still caught her illusion. Strangely, it stuck to the spell, which meant that her silhouette was now visible. The embers were eating through the magic too, forcing Emira to dissipate the spells.

She rolled away once they were gone, trying to avoid the flaming remnants. Her shirt was singed when she stood, but otherwise she was unharmed.

As this happened, Ed had drawn his wood sword. He glanced at Emira over his shoulder. “Did you get the footage?” He asked, as if she hadn’t almost been burned to a crisp.

“Got it.” Emira made sure the camera scroll was still there, safe in her pocket.

Another fireball shot across the room; this time aimed at Ed. He swiped at it with his sword to deflect it, but of course a wood sword was no use against fire. He was forced to drop it on the ground, and then quickly dodge a second blast.

“The intern and his twin, why am I not surprised.” Nick finally spoke again, head turning between the two.

Emira stepped forward to be by Ed’s side, hands up and ready to cast. He was still looking at the ashes of what had been a sword.

“So, how strong is this guy?” Emira asked, a question she probably should’ve been more worried about earlier.

“Pretty strong.” Ed looked up from the ashes, bringing his hands up to mirror her pose. His voice and form had returned to normal. “But we can take him.”

“Just give me the scroll, and I’ll let you go.” Nick said, though the fireballs he already sent told a different story.

Neither twin responded. Instead, they jumped into action. Emira cast an illusion rope spell, throwing it towards Nick. He reacted to it with another fireball, which burnt it out of existence. That was strange, fire magic shouldn’t be able to do that.

Ed charged forward, dodging past a second fireball to come in close. The arm of his uniform got singed, but he pushed on as if it hadn’t happened. Once he was within a foot, Ed cast two spells in quick succession. The effect was immediate. Nick seemed to lose his footing, one of his feet sliding and making him lose balance. An illusion rope appeared in Ed’s hands, which he quickly slung around the sword.

By the time it was in place though, Nick had regained his balance and pushed Ed back with another fireball. This one brushed his leg, leaving singed clothes and an angry red burn in its place. Ed stayed on his feet, having to drop the rope and retreat back to Emira.

Nick spun his finger in a much larger circle than before, this time summoning an abomination to fight with him. It was much larger than the ones Hexside students could summon.

“Got any ideas?” Emira asked, worried now about their odds and the injuries Ed had already taken.

Ed was breathing heavily as he replied. “We have to disarm him.” He lifted a foot to take a step, but stumbled and grabbed onto Emira’s arm. He cursed under his breath as he regained his footing.

“That’s not a plan.” Emira looked between the abomination and Nick, mind churning. Wait, were his fire spells anti illusion or just anti magic? That was it. “I’ve got it.” Emira didn’t have time to explain. “Can you cast a fog spell?”

Edric, for one in his life, complied without question. He cast the spell, which spewed fog throughout the room. Nick sent a fire spell flying through it, but it only scattered the fog for a moment. Under the cover, Emira started casting. First she cast a shimmer spell over the abomination, that would make it much harder to see. Second, she cast an image illusion that looked exactly like the abomination. A third spell created the thundering footsteps that an abomination that size would make.

“Lure him towards the real one.” Emira said, and Ed nodded in understanding. He continued spewing fog as the two leapt into the next phase.

Emira ran in front of Nick, drawing him towards where she knew the abomination was. He had a fireball in his palm, dissipating the fog around him. When he saw Emira he shot it towards her, but of course she was too fast. It did burn her arm, but that didn’t stop her.

Ed moved past next, this time right in line with the real abomination. Emira made sure to have the fake illusion one come closer, thundering so Nick would hear it.

This time, when Nick fired at Ed and he dodged, the fireball went straight into the real abomination. It screeched in pain as the flames made contact, eating away at its slime. Emira almost felt bad, but she was pretty sure they didn’t have feelings.

Nick’s head swerved, from the fake abomination towards the sound of his real one screeching, and then cast the spell to dismiss it.

With that, they were down to just one threat again. Ed wasted no time in charging back in, creating an illusion sword in his hand. He swung it in and was blocked. The metal and illusion weapons clanged together with a strange echoing sound.

“Give it up.” Nick practically spat in Ed’s face. “Before you get hurt.”

“I should be saying that.” Ed, despite his injuries, once again sounded smug. He used his free hand to cast a spell, once again sending Nick off balance.

This time Emira was ready. She quickly cast an illusion rope spell, slinging it around Nick’s ankles. With a tug she had him tumbling to the ground. He dropped his sword as he fell, but still had time to throw one more fireball.

It brushed past Emira’s side, sending waves of searing pain through her body. Suddenly, it felt like she could barely stand. She could barely bring herself to look down, let alone keep holding the illusion rope, but when she did she felt ill. This burn was going to need some serious medical attention.

With Nick on the ground with his feet bound together, Ed was able to tackle him, take the handcuffs off his belt, and secure them around his wrists. They would keep him from casting spells, so Ed was able to stand up and leave him there until they figured out what to do next.

Barely a moment passed before the doors to the training room slammed open. Three Emperor’s Coven members charged in, all with weapons out.

“See, I told you there was something strange going on.” One of them, clearly not the leader, chimed in.

“Mike, is that you?” Ed asked, now limping over towards the coven members. Emira, unable to stand any longer, collapsed to sit on the ground. Her whole side burned in pain, sitting didn’t really help.

“Edric? The intern?” The coven member met him halfway, seeming to recognize him. “What happened?”

The leader of the group, clearly irritated, took charge. “Take them all into custody, we’ll conduct interviews later.”

The third coven member approached Emira, looking down at her. “This one needs a healer.” She said, kneeling to inspect Emira’s singed clothing. “Badly.”

Ed turned away from Mike to limp over to her, trying to cast a healing spell. That was funny, maybe her pain addled brain was wrong, but Emira was pretty sure Ed couldn’t do healing magic.

In fact, her hearing seemed to be fading in and out. Was that from the pain? She wasn’t sure anymore.

The whole world seemed to spin as she was lifted to her feet, walked out to a van while leaning on Ed’s shoulder, and then driven away.

She checked to see if she still had the scroll camera in her pocket.

It was there.

Next Chapter

[pandastern]

Gravity (Bakugou x OC)

Part 2: New Girl In Town (past)

Bakugou x Vigilante!OC

Warnings: angst, explicit language, violence

Word count: 2005

Genre: enemies to lovers ; angst ; romance

When a new student makes an entrance, Bakugou has a real bad feeling. There is something about this girl that just doesnt feel right. From the flaming hair to the calculating glint in her green eyes, everything about her just pisses him off.

Little does he know that his fate is intertwined with the person he despises so much, defining his future path in a way he would have never expected.

part1

“According to the papers the principal gave me, you got in here based on recommendation from... Europe?”

“Yes, sir,” Artemis answered as she followed her new home room teacher.

Shouta Aizawa was indeed a very successful pro hero, but despite his reputation as Eraser Head, he sure was one weird fellow.

If she hadn't known better, she would have taken him for some homeless person. The yellow atrocity he called a sleeping bag wasn't really working in his favour here though, she thought to herself.

Not that it really mattered, she supposed. After all, appearance wasn't always important. Unless, of course, you knew how to use it in your favour.

“Interesting. The semester has already started, though. Why do you think you can show up later in the course than anyone else? Just because you're an exchange student doesn't mean you get special treatment.” Aizawa's voice cut through her train of thought.

The slight edge to his tone didn't go unnoticed to Artemis.

“The transfer process took a little longer than it should have done. I also had an injury that needed to heal first,” she replied with a shrug. “I was told by the head office it wouldn't be a problem. I don't expect special treatment, sir. I'm more than capable of pulling my weight in class.”

Artemis understood that in this school, teachers made the rules. This kind of tyranny prepared each student differently for their eventual goal: to become a pro hero. Not that she was interested in that. Being a hero nowadays was nothing more than a job. Congrats, you could use your quirk, but at what cost? She wondered how many students were aware of all the restrictions that had been put in place for people like them.

“Do you, now? Your confidence is admirable, but let's see if your actions actually match your words,” the teacher scoffed.

Narrowing her eyes, Artemis studied the man in front of her. Hobo aesthetic or not, there was a danger that lurked beneath the surface, and she'd be a fool to underestimate him.

“All right, class, get in your seats and shut your traps. We've got a new student here with us today,” Aizawa said, kicking open the ridiculously large classroom door. “Ms Moon, introduce yourself quickly and take a seat. I've got a lesson to teach.”

The entire class of 1A perked up. A new student? That was something almost unheard of. Katsuki Bakugou let out a scoff. Another extra in this class. Great. He tore his crimson eyes from the window and looked towards the front of the class.

A girl stepped in. She was rather short for his taste (not that he had a particular taste in women – that was a fucking waste of time). Her long hair was tied up in a ponytail and was coloured... several shades of red. He had to admit he'd never seen such a strange colour combination. Red, auburn, ginger and bright orange ran through her hair, making it look as though her head were literally on fire. Was that a hairdressers' appointment gone wrong? Or had she really been born with hair like that?

Not that he cared, obviously.

Turning towards the class, the girl bowed politely and surveyed the room. Big, luminous, emerald eyes fell on Katsuki, sending a chill down his spine.

What the fuck?

“Hello,” she said. The accent in her Japanese was prominent, though not in a way that made him cringe as it did with so many foreigners, he had to admit.

“My name is Artemis Moon and I've transferred here from a school in Europe. I look forward to working with you all.”

It took just those few words to make the hair on the back of Katsuki's head stand. Something about this girl was... wrong. Again, those creepy catlike eyes met his, and the corners of her lips curved slightly upwards. Katsuki was quick to decide – he already hated her. From the way her posture was as straight as a goddamn soldier's to the calculating glint in her freaky eyes, everything about her just flat-out pissed him off.

He could hear Kaminari and Mineta high fiving each other in the back as the girl, Artemis, moved through the rows and took a seat between Uraraka and the pink girl whose name he'd already forgotten again. She smiled as she made exchanged a few words with them. This seemed normal enough, even though Katsuki could clearly see that the beaming smile this Artemis gave her classmates never truly reached her creepy eyes. How did no-one else notice that?

Morning classes were surprisingly unspectacular for Artemis' taste. Stuff like English wasn't too hard for her, but maths in Japanese was just murder. She'd already figured that as a foreigner, she'd have some sort of problem in that department.

At lunchtime, a very cute, bubbly girl named Ochako Uraraka took Artemis by the sleeve and practically dragged her to the cafeteria. Not that she particularly minded. Artemis was grateful at being introduced to her classmates in this friendly manner. It was a nice group, she found, easy to talk to and get along with.

“Say, Artemis,” a rather outgoing girl with pink skin named Mina (if she remembered correctly) asked. "How do you like UA so far? Is it better than your old school in Europe?”

“Well,” Artemis said, taking a bite from her tempura shrimp, “It's... different. UA High really does have a different standard. The students are nicer, too!”

She gave her new friends a wink.

“In my old class, everyone was constantly at each other's throats. That was because you got kicked from the course if you don't produce the right results.”

“What?!” Izuku Midoriya gasped. “That sounds horrible! What if you were having a bad day?”

“It wasn't as bad as that. But if you failed several times in a row, well, you were fucked.” Artemis shrugged.

The conversation moved along to where she was from exactly and what her family was doing. She made sure her answers were satisfactory but still vague. Neither topic was something she particularly liked to talk about. She hadn't made her way all the way to Japan to be reminded of the shithole she had come from, that was for sure.

As the conversation shifted back to the upcoming classes, Artemis suddenly felt someone's eyes burning into the back of her head. She turned and noticed the same boy from today's class sitting behind her. He'd been staring at her before, when she had introduced herself. If she didn't know better, she'd think he was plotting her death.

“Uhm...” She tapped Uraraka's shoulder. “What's his problem?”

Ochako followed her gesture to the ash blond boy sending a murder stare in her direction.

“Oh. That's Katsuki Bakugou.” She looked a little worried. “He's... something else.”

Raising a brow, Artemis turned to look at Mr Grumpy Pants again. She had the urge to go over and tell him that a picture of her might have lasted longer, but starting an unnecessary fight on her first day seemed like a stupid thing to do.

Suddenly, Bakugou shot up and stomped over to her. Did he have a mind reading quirk or something?

He stopped in front of her and glared down, lips pulling into a snarl. “I don't know who you are, but don't you dare get any fucking stupid ideas. You ain't special just cause you're from Europe or an exchange student. I'm the best person here and I'll stomp your ass into the fucking ground, so don't even try! Fucking loser!” Every word that came from his mouth dripped with arrogance and venom.

Wow, Artemis thought. What an absolute ass. Was he trying to intimidate her? She felt Midoriya shrink some sizes next to her and that told her everything she needed to know about this dick.

She put on her sweetest smile and beamed at Bakugou. “Hello, Artemis! Nice to meet you. My name is Grumpy McTwatface,” she purred in a sickly sweet tone. “Hello, Grumpy McTwatface! How can I help you?” She held out a hand and shook it with her other in a mocking handshake.

Across the table, Kaminari and Mina snorted into their soda glasses. A vein popped up in Bakugou's temple, throbbing dangerously.

“What the fuck did you just say? I'm gonna fucking kill you!” he roared.

Was he being serious? Right here in the cafeteria? Artemis couldn't help but let out a laugh. "Oh, boy. You have a pretty temper there, my man.”

The vein on his temple grew. This shouldn't be as fun as it was. She really shouldn't provoke an obviously short-tempered twat on her first day, but she'd never been good at resisting temptation. Especially if Bakugou's reaction was so damn rewarding.

Artemis turned towards her new friend and sighed deeply. “You know, I spent a summer in France once. My Brother and I still had some firecrackers left over from New Year. He dared me to stick them into those portable potties they have on construction sites, and since both of us were particularly bored, I lit them and did just that.” She gave Bakugou a side glance and continued nonchalantly, “The end product of that little joke reminds me particularly of you... Katsuki Bakugou, was it? A flaming pile of shit.”

He was fuming. Artemis could practically feel the rage radiating off him. The scent of nitroglycerin hung in the air.

Bakugou's hand shot forward, grabbing a fistful of her blouse and ripping her out of her seat onto her feet.

“I'm gonna blow you to bits,” he hissed.

She really shouldn't have risen to it. Artemis knew she should do her best to diffuse the situation. She knew that provoking this guy and making an enemy was a very stupid move. But something about him just asked for it.

“I highly doubt that,” she purred with a smirk. “Barking dogs don't bite.”

Artemis could see her own death in his eyes. Maybe it should have scared her, but the kind of life she'd lived up to this point had made her too destructive to fear for her own safety. His rage pushed her further. There was a thrill in this back and forth that she couldn't explain.

Before Bakugou could respond, the sound of a loud bell cut through the loud noise of chattering students in the cafeteria. Using this distraction, Artemis tore herself from his hands and grabbed her bag off her seat.

“Well, this was nice!” she chirped. “Shall we go?” She turned towards her new friends, who'd been watching the altercation with a mixture of astonishment and worry. Izuku, especially, looked afraid for her life.

“Don't think I'll let you off easy. I'll kick your ass in combat training!” Bakugou snarled at her before turning and stomping off.

“Good lord, that man needs a chill pill,” Mina sighed. “You should be careful, Artemis. If you provoke him too much, he'll go off on you.”

“Oh, I'm counting on it,” Artemis chuckled.

“All right, kids! Time for combat training.” Aizawa's somewhat bored voice echoed through the training grounds.

Artemis stood with her classmates in a little group as the teacher explained the rules of today's activity. His eyes remained glued to her. Something in Artemis' gut told her Aizawa was planning something she wouldn't appreciate. Maybe that was revenge for giving him lip earlier. She sighed and tugged on the jacket of her sports uniform. For a tracksuit, it was rather constricting. She preferred to have her arms bare. Oh well...

Feeling the burn of two crimson eyes on her, she shifted her attention towards Bakugou. He was staring again, shooting daggers at her. Guess she really had pissed him off big time.

“Artemis Moon!!

“Huh?” Artemis hadn't even noticed Aizawa had addressed her. “Yes?”

“I would appreciate it if you paid attention in my class.” The teacher raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. “You and Bakugou, into the ring, now.”

Well, damn.

[imaginesmai]

Peter Parker-Skip (1)

I don’t know if you’ve read the story about Skip and Peter? I read it a few weeks ago and I thought it would be cool to write something about it. Enjoy! This will be my new series; if you want to be tagged, let me now! I’ll post a new part (if this works) every Monday.

Plot: Peter’s new life couldn’t be better. College, aparment for himself, you. Still, Parker’s luck is not on his side, and the memories are coming back.

Warnings: it gets dark. Really dark, for Peter. Mentions of child abuse and rape. Angst, so much angst.

The sun was bright as Peter walked the sidewalk towards your new college, with his jacket thrown over his shoulder. He had managed to get out of class a few minutes earlier, even being the first day and all; so that he could pick you up and ask you about your day. A warm breeze combed through his hair, and birds flew around, chirping, both sure signs that summer was backing off and autumn was on its way. Peter worshipped its arrival, with its coldish weather and Halloween. You tucked on his side watching scary movies, planning awful pranks on the avengers together. He was smiling so hard that his cheeks hurt.

People around him chatted excitedly, and he saw the first students getting out of the building. A group of loud girls walked past him, and maybe in another place or time, he would have looked at them and blushed at their blanted looks. However, he had the most beautiful girl walking down the stairs in front of him, and he didn’t notice them.

You were easy to spot through the fence. The bright yellow blouse he had helped you to choose the previous night stuck out, hair pulled off your face with a high bun. Peter’s heart swelled with love when he noticed the small chain in your backpack, red and black with big white eyes. With a smile, Peter stepped up to meet you halfway, following the path that led to the front of your college.

“Hey”

Your head went up instantly after hearing his voice, and you saw a dorky looking Peter in front of you. He was wearing a white shirt with the first buttons undone, wanting to make a good impression in his own university. The backpack was hanging loosely from his side, and he was gripping one strap as if it was the first time he saw you.

“I, uh, I wanted to give you a surprise” he said, shifting his weight. “Got out early, thought you might like me picking you up. But I won’t do it again if-“

Peter was thrown a few inches forwards when your lips collided with him, arms around his neck and he chuckled softly. He felt your smile through the kiss, and the doubts about stepping over a boundary were long forgotten. The kiss lasted too little for his liking, and you were out of his arms in seconds.

You let out a excited giggle when you teared apart, jumping a little, happy to see your boyfriend’s face again. You were dying to tell him about your day, about your new classmates and hear about his.

“I want you to do this every day” you said, chin held high.

“Teachers won’t like that a lot” he laughed. “I had to get out early, but it was worthy”

Turning around, you gripped Peter’s hand and started telling him about your new classes. You were enthusiastic about the whole deal, and were almost bouncing with excitement; too busy to notice how Peter didn’t move an inch.

It felt as if the world stopped for him. The laugh got caught on his throat, it chocked him, it died, as Peter’s eyes landed on a man across the stairs. He was holding a big bag with papers, talking with another teacher he guessed while walking your way. His body went cold, and the air was filled with the smell of cheap aftershave and songs from cartoons. The group of girls that had been giving him eyes disappeared, you disappeared, and all that was left was Peter and a man with sandy hair.

Suddenly, he wasn’t in college, he was May’s apartment. He was watching cartoons and having cereals for breakfast. The disgusting smell of lemons filled his nostrils, and he could almost feel them. His hands, on his hips, on his chest, on his thighs. Peter crying, begging, so-

“Pete?” you pulled at his hands softly, wondering if he was even listening at you. You looked to where he had his wide eyes fixed, but only saw your Statistics teacher talking to the principal. “Bub, you okay?”

Peter blinked and shook his head, trying to put an smile for you. He took a deep breath and exhaled, looking away from the familiar man. Because that was it; he was just familiar, nothing else, nothing more. A look alike. It couldn’t be Skip, and his frenetic mind made a list of reasons; he moved far, far away. He wasn’t a teacher. His hair was longer. And, he couldn’t have been a whole day near you. Not there.

So, he just squeezed your hand and pulled you forward, almost dragging you out of the building.

“What was that?” you asked, frowning. You quickly forgot about your day or his. “Something wrong?”

“No, I’m fine. Fine. Just zoned out for a second” he said, words stepping over each other. “Do you want to Thai? I’ve seen a place near my university. Looks a bit shady, but-“

“Peter” you made him stop walking, and he finally looked at you.

In the middle of the busy streets, he felt much safer than in your university. Because he wouldn’t try anything in front of so many people; if he was Skip, which Peter didn’t want to believe. You looked at him worriedly, but he only grinned back. Placing both straps on his shoulders with rather shaky hands, he shrugged.

“Really, Y/N, is nothing. You know I tend to get lost in my head” he reassured you.

Of course, Peter Parker had a lot of years of practice in lying. He had lied to his aunt with the spiderman thing, and had tricked Mr Stark more than once when a patrol had gone too bad. And, well, even if he wasn’t proud of it, you didn’t find about his night activities until he decided to tell you. So it wasn’t difficult for him to make you believe that everything was alright, and start again the conversation about your classes.

Smiling again, you linked your arm with his and kissed his cheek, talking again about the first period. As you did so, Peter’s mind went back to the man. You walked to the Thai place; you ordered, waited for your food and Peter managed to tell you a little about his day without throwing up everything he had in his stomach. Because, the more he thought about him, the more similarities he found between Skip and him.

It was ridiculous.

He was far away, Peter was safe, you were safe, the world was safe without him. He had seen his car drive up the street with his little eyes, and May had assured him thousands of times when the nightmares came. Still, the thought kept ringing on his head for the whole lunch. When the dessert arrived, he decided to out and end to the anxiety.

“What are the names of your teachers?”

“Hm?” you asked, your mouth full of cream.

“You know the name of your teachers?” he repeated, swirling his spoon around the mint ice-cream that was making him sick.

“Hm, I suppose? I don’t know, I haven’t meet them all yet” you swallowed what you had in your mouth before talking again. “Why do you want to know?”

“I-I’ve heard there are common teachers between the colleges” Peter said, hoping you hadn’t noticed the stutter. “Just wanted to know if we might have one of those.”

“Oh, I didn’t know” you looked down at your cake, trying to remember some of the names. “There is-there is this woman called Mrs… Mrs Doubtfire.”

“What?” Peter squealed, and let out a loud laugh.

“Yeah, I thought the same!” you smiled, and pointed the spoon towards him. “And she kind of looks like the one in the film. Only that is really old and doesn’t know how to smile”

“At least it’s not Umbridge” he joked, feeling a little better.

“I think it’s worse” you sighed, taking another spoonful of your dessert. You offered it to Peter with a quick glance, but he shook his head. “An older girl had told us that she is always breathing down your neck, and that if she sees you going out on a Friday night, she’ll take one point from you.”

“She made that up” Peter snorted. “Please, tell me she just made that up.”

“I wish I could, bub” you rolled your eyes. “But she’s not the only one that had told us. There is the guy whose class is tomorrow that says it’s true”

“Another teacher?”

“Yeah, he’s kind of… weird, though. Doesn’t give me a good feeling” you said, not really caring about your words.

The guy had approached you in the corridor when you were walking to the third period, with a girl you had just met. Even if for her it had been normal, you had noticed something off about the blonde man. You had blamed it to Peter, whose paranoia had made a space on your heart.

But, while you didn’t care about it, it made Peter’s heart skip a beat.

“And… um, what’s his name?” he asked. Peter took a small bite of his ice-cream. It melted on his tongue, but wasn’t as good as it should be. Surprisingly, it tasted like lemon, and Peter gagged.

“I don’t really remember. Last name is Westcott, but I don’t know more” Peter almost threw the spoon to the floor, but caught himself before doing anything to startle you. “He teaches Statistic, first class on Tuesdays. I’ve heard he… gives candy when you get a question right. I’m not fond of the idea. But who am I to judge? Guy might be a total teddy bear.”

You went back to eating your cake and the knot of Peter’s stomach tightened. He held onto the table, hoping that you wouldn’t notice the way his knuckles were turning white, and hoping that if he held on tight enough, he wouldn’t be ripping away from the planet while his thoughts spun out.

Closing his eyes, he counted. Opening his eyes, he searched for the five objects. A lady’s purple purse. Black sauce scattered on the floor. Big lamp a little crocked. The blue necklace you were wearing. Waiters’ uniform. You had taken his silence as the end of the conversation, and you were happy to eat your food in peace. Tears pooled in Peter’s eyes and he wiped them out quickly, not wanting you to see them. But you did.

“Are you crying?” you frowned, spoon mid-way to your mouth.

“No, no. It’s just-brain freeze” he chuckled, and sighed in relief when the alarm in your eyes disappeared.

“I don’t know why you thought it was a good idea to order an ice-cream” you teased, winking at him. “Someone so hot can’t handle the cold”

He tried to smile for you, to force the memories away. But he only managed to give you a small smirk.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peter waited until he heard your heartbeat slow and your breath go back to normal to roll out from the warm covers of your shared bed. Renting an apartment with you had seemed as the logical decision. You were dating, studying in the same city and didn’t have enough money to afford something bigger. Peter had been shaking with happiness when he opened for the first time the wardrobe and saw your clothes beside his. But, as the anxiety consumed him, he wished for his old apartment, where May slept like a baby and he could sneak out.

He slipped on a plan black sweater without a hood and dark jeans, putting back the boxers that he had thrown a few hours before under the bed, too focused on undressing you to care. Peter ran to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror; dishevelled head, red and swollen lips and bright eyes. However, they were not from the love making, but from the need of letting all of it out.

Angry and frustrated, Peter turned around and walked back to the bedroom; stopping when he saw you sleeping soundly on your side. You were hugging a pillow, probably missing his body next to you. Even if he didn’t want to say it out loud, Peter was always the little spoon when you two slept. It made him almost regret his decision, seeing you sleeping so peacefully. He really wanted to be back in your arms; but he also wanted to safe, above everything and anything.

So he sneaked out.

It wasn’t Spider-man problem. He wasn’t trying to stop some robbery, or save some lady from nasty guys. No, it was Peter Parker’s business. Skip Westcott was Peter’s business, and keeping you safe from the thing he feared the most was also. The suit didn’t come with him that night, only the web-shooters so he could be back into your arms sooner.

Peter had found Skip’s address hacking into the school’s website, and Google Maps directed his way into the night.

There was a playground at the end of the street where he lived, and as Peter walked past, the wind blew through the chains of the swing set. He stopped and stared at the park. Even in the dark, the memories came back. Hands. Touches. Begging. Moaning. Pain. Thrusts.

He moved past it and didn’t stop again until he stood in front of the white fence surrounding the blue house. A nice park was in the driveway, and the yard had some flowers growing. No one would ever be able to tell what kind of person lived there.

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@delicately-important-trash

[wildernessuntothemselves]

Best of the Best | Part 1

Genre: Smut and Angst

Word Count: 4k

Summary: You promised yourself you’d never fall for another clingy, needy boy who demanded you gave him all your love, only to leave you after he has sucked you dry. Yet here you were, making that same mistake again. Alternatively: It wasn’t easy being perfect. Sometimes, Taeyong needed someone else to take control. Sometimes, he needed to be broken down completely in order to be put back together again, better and stronger. 

A/N: I tried to get as close as I can to ty’s actual personality in this one. This is largely inspired by his verse in Whiplash and some tidbits about his life that I learned from @nctforuandme she’s honestly single-handedly responsible for reigniting my obsession with ty so thank you a lot babe

Warnings: femdom, sub!taeyong, dom!reader, student/professor relationship, age-gap, dry humping, thigh riding, degradation, sexist remarks, breath play, semi-public sex, cheating, Miss kink (?), pwb professors with benefits, usage of the painfully cliche trope of “but you can’t fall in love with me”

“What is this?” You hear someone bark out. At first, you don’t think the wrathful inquiry is directed at you. After all, who would dare speak to you this way? But when you hear the same voice shout out again, much closer this time, you look up to find that the person, that poor fucker, was in fact talking to you. “Are you deaf? I asked you a question.” The students, who were just starting to file out of the room at the end of your lecture, freeze in their tracks and look over, varying degrees of shock and trepidation displayed on their faces. One of them, a tall bespectacled boy who you know you guess is a friend of the boy with the suicidal wish, Lee Taeyong, bravely steps forward to try and pull him back, muttering quietly to him, “Let’s go, man. It’s not worth it.” But the silver haired boy shakes him off, never taking his hateful gaze off of you. “No, this is bullshit. This paper is worth twenty-five percent of our final score and she gave me a D. A fucking D! This is gonna mess up my whole grade.” Gasps echo around the room as more students come into the room instead of getting out in order to watch the scene unfold. The boy’s friend pales and urgently whispers to him, “Dude, the man-eater is gonna have your balls for this. Apologize and let’s—“ You’ve heard enough.

“Everyone, get the hell out of my lecture room.” Your voice booms out, making students jump in fear and slip out hurriedly. When you see some still hesitate to leave, their curiosity getting the best of them, you threaten, “I’m going to count to five, and if I see anyone else in here after I’m done besides Mr. Lee, they can expect a zero on their next exam.” At that, everyone quickly rushes out. Even Lee’s friend backs away, his hands raised in the air as if to say he has nothing to do with his friends stupidity, and then he leaves too. When the room is empty sans you and Lee, you speak again. “What seems to be the problem, Mr. Lee?” “I want you to change my grade to an A.” He demands as if it was his right to get the grade he wanted, looking every bit the spoiled brat whose daddy always gave him everything he’s ever asked for. It wasn’t a look becoming of a young man studying at a prestigious university such as this, and the look you give him in response speaks volumes of how little you appreciated that.   “You don’t deserve an A. Your work wasn’t up to par.” You say dismissively. Your response seems to make him light up with pure fury. “Bullshit! I worked my ass off on this paper. I’ve been getting straight A’s eve since I set foot in this damn college. I’m not going to have my perfect score ruined by you.” “Well, you should’ve thought of that earlier. Maybe then you would’ve given me something better than the dismal excuse for a paper that you handed in. You’re lucky I even let you pass. Don’t make me rethink my decision.” You threaten him, hoping to dissuade him from his silly tantrum. Despite your reputation for being a merciless “man-eater”, you really didn’t derive any joy from making the lives of your students miserable, whether they were male or female. You cared about your students. You took pride in your work. That’s the whole reason you were so strict in the first place. You wanted to have a positive impact on their lives. You worked your ass off so that years from now, one of these students might look back on their college years and think ‘Man, I really learned something of value from Miss ___.’ That used to be the case anyway. Now, having endured years of indifferent students and spiteful colleagues, you’ve all but lost your passion for what used to be your dream job. But even so, you still cared about your students and you were still willing to let Lee’s little tantrum go if he backs down and apologizes, despite him having so brazenly disrespected you in front of the entire class.  But it seems he’s not too smart, that one. “I gave you my best work. I always give my best work! That’s why every other professor before you has given me straight A’s.” “Hmm, is that why? Funny. And here I thought all the others were just kissing your ass because your father is a major investor in this university and they’re just trying to save their own cowardly asses. Sorry, sweetheart, I’m just so dumb sometimes.” You smack your forehead with your palm, pretending to extrude the stupidity out. “Don’t you dare—“ He seethes, looking absolutely murderous, and you swear you can actually hear his teeth grinding together. “I got this far through my hard work and my hard work alone. I will not let you take that away from me.” “Let’s see that hard work in your next assignment then.” You try to end it there, feeling weary already, but still wanting to give him a second chance that he didn’t deserve to tuck his tail between his legs and run. Turning your back to him, you grab your folder off the desk, looking to gather your things and leave, but he promptly rips it from your hands and throws it to the side, your carefully collected and sorted papers flying out and scattering all over the floor. You don’t have any time to react as he backs you into the desk and looms over you with equal parts anger and desperation. “Look, just tell me what you want and you’ll have it. You want a Rolex? How about a nice Louis Vuitton bag, huh? Say what you want and it’s yours. Just… please, I need that A.” His sudden change in demeanor from lethal to excessively desperate was concerning and a little bit unsettling. Why did he need that A so bad? It’s not like it’s going to affect his overall score that much. He won’t get a perfect GPA but it wouldn’t be too far off. “Mr. Lee, look at me.” You sigh in exasperation and gesture towards your generic, economic outfit of a simple white blouse and a black skirt. “Don’t you think a watch or a bag that cost more than my entire wardrobe would look silly on me?” “I could buy you a whole new wardrobe then, to fit your new accessories. Is that what you want?” He hurries to say, a knowing glint in his eyes as if he’s onto you. “Are you even listening? What I want is for you to leave me alone.” You take a step to the side, trying to get out from under him but he slams his hands down on either side of you, trapping you against the desk. “So the rumors about you are true, huh? You really are a bitter bitch who takes pleasure in making the lives of her male students miserable in order to make up for her own sad and loveless life.” He snarls, looking down his nose at you. “You know, maybe if you weren’t such a frigid bitch, a man would actually want to touch your shriveled up pussy. Give me that A and I’ll give you that dicking I know you’re dying for, baby.” “Oh, but Mr. Lee…” You gasp, looking up at him demurely, lulling him into a false sense of security as you lightly trail a hand up his chest towards his neck. “I don’t fuck little whores.”   You circle your fingers around his neck and press down, cutting off the gasp that tried to fight its way out of his throat. As you lightly choke him, you monitor his reaction closely, ready to pull back at any sign of distress. But just like you had predicted, he stays rooted to the spot, looking at you like an animal caught in a trap, his eyes jumping around in alarm as he tries to catch his breath and make sense of what is happening. Smirking, you press down harder on his throat, slimming his breathing down to a wheeze. “What makes you think that you would even be allowed to put your dirty, little cock anywhere near my pussy? You’re just a stuck-up, spoiled little brat who needs to be reminded how to properly talk to his superiors. Do you know what you should be calling me, boy, or are you too dumb to even remember?” “Yes,” He grits out, getting dizzy from the lack of oxygen to his brain. He was glaring bloody murder at you but he never once attempts to pull back. You knew he wouldn’t. You had always been an excellent judge of character, a skill that’s came in handy quite often in your profession, and you knew just what this boy so desperately needed. “Yes, what, little slut?” “Yes, Miss.” He wheezes out and bucks his hips against you, making you snap at him and press down harder on his windpipe, blocking his airflow entirely. “Did I say you could do that? How are you going to ‘give me that dicking I’m dying for’ when just having my hand on your throat is making you hump me like a horny virgin?”     All at once, you take the pressure off his neck and he folds over, molding his body to yours as he sucks in deep, gasping breaths. Grabbing his jaw, you press your face close to his. “Look at you, so wrecked already. Are you that easy? I didn’t even need to touch your little dick. I bet you would cum if I so much as lay a finger on you, wouldn’t you?”   When he doesn’t reply, you clench your hand down on his jaw, your fingers digging into his cheeks, and ask again, “Wouldn’t you?” “Yes, Miss.”  “Would you like that?” “Yes, please, Miss.” “No.” You deadpan, “You don’t deserve it.” He slumps, looking positively crestfallen, but doesn’t protest. You’re quiet for a moment, your face a mask of cold disinterest as you stare him down, watching as he slowly unravels under the weight of your unimpressed gaze. He was trying so hard to hold onto his pride even as his eyes start to tear up and his hips move ever so slightly against you, timidly pleading you to give him something, anything. "You really want that A, huh?” Your face breaks out into a triumphant grin, “OK, I’ll give it to you.” Caught up in your game, he had forgotten what this was about in the first place, and so he starts, thrown off by the sudden reminder. “That’s what you wanted, right?” You taunt, smirking as you watch him gape and fumble. “Yes, b-but—“ “B-b-b-but,” You mock, laughing, and the boy’s face flushes crimson. He bites his lip and averts his eyes in embarrassment. You smile at him knowingly, stating state what you knew he wished to say, “But now you’re all wound up now and you want to cum too, don’t you, greedy little slut?” “I'll tell you what? I'll give you that A you’re whoring yourself out for, and I’ll not force you walk out of here with blue balls and a stiff cock. How does that sound?” The boy gives you what might possibly be the most innocent look you’ve ever seen on his face, or anyone’s face for that matter. He was wide eyed and slack jawed, fear and hope flitting over his face in alternating ripples as he tries to make out what your angle here was. You half-expect to see little restless ears sprout up from the top of his head for how much he resembled a frightened little kitty right now. He looked so unlike his normally cold and severe self. Right in front of your eyes, he seems to transform into someone else entirely; his white skin turning warm and tan, his demeanor tender and inviting, his sharp features broadening and a full, boxy smile replacing the thin-lipped pout on his face… But as soon as you blink, he’s Lee Taeyong again, and not the boy who broke your heart so many years ago. Pushing him away, he stumbles on unsteady feet as you walk around the desk and sit on the leather chair. You pat your thigh, flushing the intrusive thoughts away and ordering him tightly, “Come here.” He doesn’t protest, just walks up to you in a daze and sits down on your lap, straddling your thigh between his legs and looking at you expectantly. “What I’m offering you here is a chance to get everything you want. If you can get yourself off just by riding my thigh, I’ll give you that A you so desperately want." Taeyong looked positively terrified, his face paling as he tries to figure out if this was a trick or not. Taking pity on him, you cradle his face in your hands and gently ask, “Can you do that for me, Mr. Lee? Can you show me what a good, hard working boy you are?” He nods fervently, eager to believe you, his hands going to his pants to unbutton them, but you brush them away. "No. Keep them on. I want to see you make a mess for me." Sucking in a breath, he whispers harshly, “Yes, Miss.” When he starts moving on top of you, it’s a little uncomfortable. He is somehow both heavy and bony, but you don’t dwell on it for long, not when he almost immediately picks up his pace, grinding against you earnestly as if he just suddenly realized how badly he needed to get off.  You watch his frantic movements in amusement, remarking, “You know, if we had enough time, I would never have let you off this easily. I would’ve edged you on for so long that you’d cum on command.” He shivers at your words, his hips grinding down harder against your thighs as delicious little moans fall freely from his mouth. You support his head in your palm as it lolls to the side, “Then I’d make you cum again and again. I would make you cum so many times that by the end of the night you'll be crying and begging me to hurt you even more." “Yeah, yeah,” He moans encouragingly, clutching onto you and swiveling his hips around in circles, his cock driving into the flesh of your thigh hard. "Be quiet kitten or someone will hear your mewls." You laugh, slipping a hand under his shirt to softly caress his stomach. He was shuddering like a leaf above you, barely able to control his movements, and he doesn't calm down. He only gets louder. "Damn, you’re a loud little slut." You push the fingers of the hand that had been cradling his face into his mouth, muffling his moans, and he immediately goes to work licking and sucking on your fingers like a lollipop.  "I knew I was right about you. From the moment I first laid eyes on you, I knew that you were just begging for someone to strip you off of your abrasive and entitled attitude and whip you back into shape. But no one ever did, right? They all saw you acting cold and clawing at anyone who tries to come near, and they assumed you’re a lion trying eat them up. But you’re not a lion. You’re just a frightened little kitty looking for someone worthy enough to tame him.” You confidently, watching as the boy melts under your words, allowing you to gaze upon his true self.  You know it’s hard for him, exposing himself like this, so you try to be gentle with him. “Poor kitty, you must’ve been waiting for so long. I can’t imagine that your pretty little girlfriend ever took charge of you like you crave. I bet she just lets you do whatever you please with her. I bet she never once punished you for being so insolent or fucked you until you cried out for forgiveness. Isn’t that right, little kitty?” Taeyong’s legs clench around your thigh and he pulls his head back, your fingers slip out of his mouth and tracking strings of saliva behind them as he cries out, “I’m so close, Miss. Please, let me cum.” Since all of this must be so overwhelming for him and yet he was still well-behaved enough to ask before cumming without you needing to tell him to, you decide to take it easy on him. “Cum, little kitten, show me what a good boy you can be.” He gives a few last erratic thrusts before his body seizes up and he cries out, finally cumming. You quickly clamp a hand over his mouth to muffle his screams, feeling warmth coat the fabric of your skirt as he shudders above you. When he hunches over you, completely spent, you wraps your arms around him and rub his back soothingly, listening to him gasp for air and feeling his heart beat wildly through his frail rib-cage. "Hush little kitten. It’s OK. You’re OK. I’ve got you.” "Thank you, Miss." His reply is muffled as he buries his face in your shoulder. As his body slowly relaxes and his breathing settles down, you slowly become aware of what exactly you just did... You got yourself sexually involved with a student, a clearly troubled boy who craves affection and support and who probably now thinks you can give him that.  Why do you always go after the broken ones?  Technically, it wasn’t against school policy to hook up with a student but you could still get a lot of grief over this, and that’s just the administrative and interpersonal-relationships  aspects of it… You sigh, pushing the boy up so you can lock eyes with him. "You did well, Mr. Lee. You’ll be getting that A you were promised. You just need to keep what happened between us to yourself. After we leave this room, you have to promise to never talk about this again, not to me, not to anyone. Is that understood?" You hope he would gladly take your offer and leave. After all, he just got the grade he wanted and an orgasm to boot. But when he hesitates to answer you, you know you’re in trouble. “Mr. Lee, do we have a deal?” For another agonizing second, he remains quiet, throwing you into a vicious loop of worrying about all the improbable reasons behind his silence and how you’re going to deal with them and all the possible ways this could end badly for you.  Finally though, he breaks eye contact and answers you with a timid, “Okay.” As you watch him leave the lecture room, his gait funny because of the sticky mess in his pants, you pray to god that the feeling of dread washing over you is completely unjustified and that this wouldn’t come back to bite you in the ass later. •❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅• As always though, your gut feeling was correct. After your little encounter with Mr. Lee, it was like he became obsessed with you. He would openly stare at you during lectures then find any flimsy excuse to talk to you after, leaving his friends to scratch their heads and wonder why the boy who was just about to end you a week ago was now always following you around like a little duckling. It was all getting very suspicious and you found yourself forced to intervene quickly before anyone figured it out. Rounding him up in your office--a concerningly easy feat seeing as the boy was more than happy to be locked up in a room alone with you-- you turn on him, “Mr. Lee, what on earth are you doing?” “I—I am asking you about the assignment.” He gulps, trying not to give himself away and failing miserably. “I don’t understand the part where—“ “Cut the crap, Lee. You understand it perfectly. You’re not very smooth, you know? Now tell me, what is this about?” You demand. You weren’t slick either. You knew what he wanted but you were desperately hoping you were wrong, the sickening sense of déjà vu coursing through your brain so strong, it was nauseating. You couldn’t handle another needy, clingy boy who demands all your love then leaves you when he has run you dry. The boy scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, and stumbles through his words, "Can I... can we...do... it again? What happened last week, I mean. Not exactly the same though! I can make you feel good too I swear I—“ “Didn’t we agree to never talk about that again? You’re talking about it.” “I know but I just can’t stop thinking about it! That was the best orgasm I’ve ever had and you didn’t even touch me. Holy shit, I can’t wait to see what you can do if you actually touch me.” “Then I’m afraid you’ll be waiting for a long time. What I did was wrong and unprofessional and as your professor, I sincerely apologize to you for that. It can’t happen again." “Why?” He whines childishly.  "Because I’m your professor.” You say it like it’s matter-of-fact, because it is. “If the other professors find out I’m sexually involved with a student, they’ll ostracize me. It’s already hard enough with all the malicious rumors running around about me just because I’m a woman who dares to be assertive and not let men walk all over her. If they find out about this, it will just be more proof in their minds that I hate men and I’m taking it out on a poor student.” “They won’t find out. I’ll make sure of it. I'll keep pretending I hate you and no one will ever know. And even if they did, I can shut them up. You said it yourself; my father is the biggest investor in this college and they all want to stay on my good graces. Please, I need this.” “That’s not how it works, Mr. Lee. They’ll only shut up in front of you but they’ll still talk behind your back. Why don’t you just hire a dominatrix or something if you need this so bad?” "I don’t want a fucking dominatrix. I want you." There was that fire in his eyes again, the all-consuming passion to get what he wants at whatever cost that you’re so used to seeing from him. This Taeyong was completely different from your previous lover. He was rage and determination and cold, blue fire; nothing like the warm and soothing orange of the other, softer boy. You knew this Taeyong. You could handle this Taeyong. “I don’t want a strange woman whipping me around and telling me to lick her boots. I want you. You get me! You saw me in a way no one ever did before. I just... I’m so close to losing it. I have to put on this persona every minute of every day but it’s slipping off and I can’t keep it in place anymore. I need to let go for once and let someone else take charge or I’m going to snap. Please, help me.” The problem is that you believed him wholeheartedly; you sympathized with him wholeheartedly. Because beneath his hard exterior, there was a soft, mushy thing inside that frail rib-cage of his that mirrored your own. You couldn’t turn him away when you saw yourself in him. So you agree, under one condition. “You can’t fall in love with me. If you do then it’s over.” Taeyong laughs incredulously, taken aback by the weird condition, and his mood immediately lifts up, clearly not taking what you’re saying seriously. “Look, Miss, I’m just trying to get fucked. Nobody’s falling in love here, at least not me.” That arrogant smirk was back on his face again. He looked so damn confident. So why was your gut feeling telling you that this is all a huge mistake? “Good.” You say, squashing the feeling down and taking in the beautiful, broken boy. •❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅• A/N: AHHHHHH I’m so excited for this series y’all. This was long overdue. Anticipate a lot of angst with this one. It’s gonna be dark but not in a criminal way, more like a slowly soul-crushing way like THERAPY. ahahahha as always I live off feedback and I’m anticipating your wonderful messages 

[peggingtaron]

Sincerely Yours

 Chapter 1 - Something Lost

Story Description: One day, Gardner comes across the town’s librarian, Audrey Ezra, prompting him to begin a daily visit to the library. Rekindling his childhood love of books, Gardner became intrigued with the mysterious British bookworm he’d observe every morning.

•

Word Count: 3.2K

A/N: So excited to begin this series, I have so many plans for this story ! (p.s. please may the Dear Sidewalk fandom grow just a tad more). Kind of boring introductory stuff in this one, but more fluff ahead !

•

Gardner looked down at his watch. 8:15am on the dot.

In about seven seconds, Mrs. Avery would reach her hand from her kitchen window to pluck an orange from the tree that sat nearby. 

In about twenty-eight seconds, young Jonathan having had slept in yet again would rush out his house in a dishevelled state sprinting towards his bus stop. 

In about forty seconds, Allison, the waitress from the diner off the corner of Clifford Lane would sneakily emerge from the front door of the Bennett’s home. This one in particular was a new routine. Mrs Bennett had been out of town the past couple weeks and a certain Mr. Bennett was rather pleased with this.

It was in between the seconds of Mrs. Avery plucking an orange from her tree and Jonathan sprinting out of his home to rush to school, that Gardner reluctantly acknowledged how mundane of a routine he had fallen into. Sure, it had been long since he worked as a mail carrier. And with that, came the assumption that he wouldn’t always have the same routine — walking the same route, interacting with the same people — every single day. 

But at the very least, he was looking up at his surroundings a lot more than he used to. Mainly because of her... her voice and her words kept resurfacing in his head, “No, don’t look down”. He wondered whether he had slowly begun adopting this habit purely out of the interest of switching up his morning walks, or it was something he did just to shake her voice out of his head.

Morning walks were rituals he would never give up, whether or not it was part of a job. It was the highlight of his day — Not needing to think and letting the patterns of the sidewalk guide his walk and guide his mind to blissful numbness. It was a short debate in his mind whether he should change the routine for the day, whether it be turning a different street, deciding to take the bus somewhere instead, or even going back home to play video games with Calvin. Anything could happen with the slightest change. 

As Gardner turned the corner, his feet stopped just before a crack in the sidewalk. Had he completely broken the habit of looking down as he walked, he wouldn’t of noticed the small emerald ring stuck between the gaps of dried cement. 

Furrowing his brows, Gardner reached down to pick it up. Attached to it was a chain that dangled beside his hand. He observed it closely, admiring the way the sun shone through the tiny crystal in a green tinted beam. It was no doubt a valuable possession. 

Gardner was looking around for any sign as to where it might’ve come from. At first he looked at a few passerby’s that could’ve possibly dropped it, before his eyes fell back the sidewalk. His eyes drifted slightly to the left to spot a tiny maroon leather bound notebook buried under a few strands of overgrown lawn. 

Clutching carefully onto the ring with one hand, he used the other to pick the notebook up, careful not to get any more dirt on it. It fit perfectly his palm and upon observing it closely he realised that the leather had been hand-stitched and beautifully so. Embossed across the front of it was the name A. E. Ezra. 

Gardner let his fingers graze across the surface of the book, feeling the embossed letters as the name escaped his lips in a low whisper. “A. E. Ezra”

He bit his lip as he rummaged his mind for that name. He had seen it before, perhaps through letter correspondence. “Ezra... Ezra... Ezra...” No faces came with the name as he chanted it to himself.

Gardner narrowed his eyes in concentration as he began flicking through the notebook, looking for more hints. Though it didn’t take long for him to realise that the contents of the notebook were indeed personal. Instinctively he put his eyes out of focus as he blurred away what he assumed to be small diary entries. Instead he drew focus to the dates and locations written on the top of each entry. 

This proved to be useful, as no matter how many different dates there were for each entry, the location was always the same — Faith Library.

• 

There weren’t many passerby’s at the library, and if there were, their visits were few — The occasional diligent student researching for an assignment in the afternoons, or the frequent procrastinating student looking for somewhere to print their assignment in the mornings before school commences. Father Deacon would often drop by in the earlier hours of the day to ‘brush up on the scriptures’, though Audrey knew it was a mere guise to occasionally keep her company. It was incredibly sweet of the man, and although she appreciated the gesture, she found herself feeling quite bleak after his pep talks. Trudy was one semi-casual, particularly loquacious passerby whose visits tended to intrigue, yet also concern Audrey as she’d observe the kinds of DIY books Trudy would check out.

Some other people would come in for a quiet read, but barely interact with her. A polite nod or smile as she’d help direct them to certain sections or help check out books for them, at most. But that was the way she liked it. Any more interaction than that would ripped her away from how consumed she was by the story she was reading for the day.

In fact, on one too many occasions, someone would have to tap her on the shoulder after a while of trying to get her attention because of how much a book could take hold of her focus. It was a common misconception that her passionate love of books would’ve made her great at her job, but truth be told it was the very thing that distracted her from getting much work done at all. Though that didn’t matter. Days could go by and no one notice whether work was to be done or not.

Audrey looked up from her book with a quizzical brow as she heard the door swing open with a loud bang. After sighing with relief from the brief scare, she chuckled to herself upon seeing it was merely a strong gust of wind. Only a second had passed where she entertained the idea of someone else dropping by.

Though before she could bury her nose back in her book, her eyes darted to her right to meet a pair of hazel ones.

Taken aback by the sudden contact, she raised her chin to see who had seemingly been observing her for a while. 

Gardner had almost slipped off the pillar he was leaning on as the girl he had been watching turned to face him.

When Gardner entered the library, he had walked right towards the main desk where she was seated. His search was a success as the name tag on her collar spelt Audrey Ezra. Gardner had cleared his throat four times to get her attention with no luck. Afterwhich, it must’ve been an entire minute where he simply stared at her, watching as her eyes trailed across the words in her novel. 

He didn’t mind waiting, though he didn’t expect to be so entranced watching someone do something as simple as reading a book. The way her fingers danced across the corners of each bit of paper in antipation of turning the page. How her chin rested in her palm as her fingers delicately grazed her slightly parted lips. How a faint hum would escape her every now and then as if in response to whatever she was reading. 

Presumably, now that she was facing him, the trance would’ve ceased. Though now that he saw her eyes, her look became complete picture. Doe-brown eyes were charmingly framed with a wavy curtain of brown hair, styled accordingly to the dress she wore which was rather old fashioned with its A-line cut. Though given the 1940s design of the library, he looked more out of place than she did. While admiration was undoubtedly shining through Gardner’s eyes, his fixation was on the confusion of never having seen her before, especially given how distinctive she looked.

“Oh!” Audrey exclaimed as she scrambled her book shut, chiding herself. “Sorry, I hope you haven’t been standing there long.” Audrey shook herself into concentration, adjusting her posture as she greeted him warmly. “What can I do for you?”

And there the trance had broken, though replaced itself with a new one as he heard the soft voice that emerged from her. Gardner’s mouth opened and closed repeatedly, unable to find what to say. “You’re... British.” And having heard what he did just say, he bit his lip believing it best he never tried saying anything at all.

Audrey’s customer service persona faltered slightly as she observed him properly. She fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve as his eyes bore into hers. After a pause, and mustering the courage to make a remark upon seeing how sheepish he was, she countered, “Well spotted.” 

It was a relief to hear her respond somewhat humorously. He allowed himself a slight smile, before clearing his throat and straightening his posture. “I was looking for you, Miss Ezra.”

Audrey, taken aback by his sudden man-of-action demanour, leaned back in her seat slightly. “Why?”

Gardner frowned, rather oblivious to how his tone would’ve caused her worry. “I just...” Gingerly reaching into his pocket, his face dropped. The ring was still there, but as his fingers grasped it, he felt a roughness to the once smooth cut crystal. His fingers stretched out to feel the piece that had chipped off and he closed his eyes in dread. He didn’t know at what point he had damaged it or how, but cursed in his head, realising that his pocket wasn’t particularly a wise place to put it in the first place.

Gardner looked up at her, eyes slightly widened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise...”

Audrey greeted his words with a perplexed frown, she stood up from her seat, instinctively seeking to help the man who seemed in distress.

“Sir, are you alright?”

Gardner shook his head and sighed. He pulled the ring from his pocket, holding it out to her by the chain, dreading her reaction. Audrey’s eyes gleamed at the sight of it, watching it dangle before her. A mix between a shaky sigh and a delighted chuckle escaped her as she reached her hands towards it. “Oh my— w-where did you find...” Her words trailed off as her fingers caught it from dangling in the air any further. Almost immediately, the unfamiliar rough texture of the ring’s center caught her attention.

Gardner bit his lip awaiting the reaction to wash over her. “I-I should’ve been more careful, it was fine when I found it—”

“Where did you find it?” Audrey looked up at him. Gardner took a moment to process her expression. No glint of sadness or anger, but simply curiosity and even delight.

Gardner pressed his lips together. “It was on the sidewalk. Right by Crawford street.”

“I thought I lost it for good...” She whispered almost to herself.

The corners of Audrey’s lips twitched up as her fingers faintly traced the emerald surface. Her lips pressed together as tears began to prick her eyes. She bowed her head down, hoping for her fringe to silhouette her eyes from the man’s view. She tried to steady her voice. “You...” Her voice faltered as her fingers lingered on the ring.

Gardner hadn’t allowed relief to wash over him just yet. And he believed he was right to do so as he heard a faint drop on the desk in between them. He looked down at the desk to see that a spot of paper had been faintly wet and raising his eyebrows, he looked to see drops of tears escaping her face. He couldn’t get a good look at her, as her head faced down, but he didn’t try to. His first instinct was to stiffen up and back slightly away from her.

Gardner couldn’t recall the last time he dealt with a woman crying in front of him, let alone a woman who cried because of his doing.

“Miss Ezra, I’m so sorry, I— uh...” Gardner rummaged through his other pocket, pulling out his wallet. “I-I’m sure it’s much more valuable than...” He pulled out all the cash he on him, briskly muttering as he counted. “...35 dollars... but, uh, please...” He placed the cash on the desk in front of her.

Audrey looked at the cash sitting on the desk then up at him. Bewildered that the man who had retrieved her most prized possession was apologising for it, she opened her mouth to speak.

Though as the sight of her tear-stained cheeks and glistening eyes came into clear view, Gardner’s jaw clenched in discomfort. 

While Audrey’s tears came from relief and bliss, she realised the man had interpreted it differently. “Oh, no... sir, it’s—”

“No, I...” Gardner didn’t know where that sentence would carry him. He thought only to apologise, but wasn’t certain how to remedy what he’d done.  

“Sir, please.” Audrey took the liberty of carrying the conversation, and Gardner thinking it best for her to speak instead, closed his mouth.

Gardner couldn’t help but furrow his brows being addressed as ‘sir’. Though it was a common polite term, there was something rare and old fashioned about the way spoke and carried herself, particularly the way she held her shoulders back while wearing a warm smile.

Audrey picked up the cash and reached for his hand. She rested the money in his palm and gently curled his fingers so that he was holding onto it. Gardner’s insincts told him to let go of the money, insist she take it and even promise further payment to help with the damage, but his body stiffened, as her hands were holding his closed fist.

As Audrey met eyes with him once more, it struck her. How easily she reached towards his hand, how she has no hesitation shedding slight tears in front of a stranger. It was the wave of joy of seeing her father’s ring again that seemed to repel any nerves for her. But its effect was slowly withering now.

She decided to speak while her gratitude was still helping to dilute her usual shyness. “Thank you.” She smiled. “Really... There really isn’t much damage. None at all, taking into account that I thought I’d never see it again.” Audrey chuckled slightly.

Gardner hadn’t quite processed her words, but his worries about the damage were surely fading. His mind was fixed on the feeling of her fingers clasping lightly around his. His palms began to perspire against the cash he was holding onto. Audrey followed as his eyes slightly flickered to their joined hands. She hadn’t noticed until now.

Audrey let him go quickly under the guise of needing to pull back strands of her hair from her face.

Gardner hadn’t noticed just how much he was leaning into her touch until he felt how heavily his arm dropped beside him as she let go.

There was a pause between them, and Gardner took a moment to listen how the library muffled every sound from outside. He could hear every page turn from the few people that were in here, and each movement they made created a faint echo. No doubt people would’ve overheard every word of their conversation, but it was a place where everyone could be so consumed in their own world that he didn’t seem self-conscious about it.

“Is there anything I can do for you, sir?” His attention returned to the friendly librarian.

Gardner frowned as his eyes trailed down her cheeks. Though she shed tears only briefly her cheeks were still stained and slightly wet. He pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket, holding it out in front of her.

Audrey’s eyebrows raised as she looked at it. “You... carry a handkerchief?” There was some delight Audrey found in the prospect of men carrying around handkerchiefs these days.

“Not usually, no. My friend Trudy stitched it for me the other day.”

“Trudy...?” The corners of Audrey’s lips began to etch upwards as she looked him up and down. Hazel brown eyes, ginger hair, polo shirt, a somewhat stiff demeanour and a fixed frown expression worn for all occasion. Just as Trudy described her strange neurotic friend. “Gardner.” Audrey said slowly.

Gardner’s frown softened upon hear his name coated in her voice. “How did you...?”

Gardner trailed off. Ezra. That name. He heard it in Trudy’s voice this time. Faint recounts played back in his head. How Trudy would describe how Faith Library felt like going escaping back in time. How Ezra, ‘the beautiful basketcase’ was as much part of the library as the bookshelves drilled against the walls.

“Small town.” Audrey replied, taking the handkerchief and nodding at him as thanks.

Audrey dabbed lightly at her cheeks before handing it back to him.

Gardner shook his head. “Keep it for now.” He nodded towards the piles of books stacked on the cart beside Audrey’s desk. “You should probably be getting back to work now, shouldn’t you?”

Audrey looked over and sighed. “Seems so...” she suppose she couldn’t of dragged out her break much longer.

“Well, then I’ll leave you to it.” Gardner said bluntly before turning his heel and beginning to walk off.

Audrey bit her lip, taken aback by his brisk departure. “Uh— sir.”

Gardner turned back around. “Um, Gardner, I’d prefer. Now that you know my name.”

“Right, of course.” She chuckled sheepishly. “Um... just wanted to say thanks... again.”

“You’re welcome.” A sharp nod of his head and he turned his heel again, heading towards the door.

Audrey wanted to call after him again. She wasn’t sure what exactly she would say. But if she didn’t know any better, she’d guess that she wanted to talk to him for longer. A rare sensation she had with people at the library. Oftentimes, gestures and conversations beyond polite requests and ‘thank you’s would have her yearning for solitude again.

Audrey watched as Gardner stepped outside, his hair brightening as the sunlight swallowed him from the dimness of the library. She watched him leave, feeling a slight frown dawn upon her face. Her mind replayed the last couple minutes for her as she proceeded to push her cart, ready to continue with today’s duties.

Gardner stopped by the sidewalk, turning round to get one last look at the building. He hadn’t gone inside for years, and he thought of all the times he almost did in between the last time he did until now, chiding himself for not doing so.

Gardner didn’t share Audrey’s disappointment of having left and possibly not seeing again.

As he continued walking, his hand reached back in his pocket, letting his fingers trace around the leather bound notebook, he had oh-so-foolishly forgotten to give to her. The corners of his lips twitched upwards slightly. Might be too late to go back now, she’s busy working.

Looks like he had to return tomorrow morning to give it to her.

[chogiwakeupsheeple]

TaeKai; The F in Friendship Stands for Feelings ~ pt. 2

Genre: Angst (fluff)      Pairing: Taemin x Kai      Words: 3469      TW: Bullying

Things worsen when Beasts and Beautiful girls enter Taemin’s confusing life

Read part one here!

Disaster struck on a Monday. As if it was the end of the world, the metaphorical comet blasting directly towards Taemin's frail heart came in the form of a beautiful girl named Allison. The entire world began to fall apart and set ablaze around him as soon as his eyes fell upon the sight of Allison intertwining her fingers with Jongin's. The pair was walking down the hall, hand in hand, and the girl was giggling - presumably because of something the other had said. Taemin felt his heart break into a million pieces as he began fighting the tears that were close to spilling out; what little hope he had had was thrown outside to drown in the rain. Oh, how he wished he could trade places with that girl; how he wished he could confidently walk down the hall while feeling Jongin’s velvety skin against his own.

The ground started shaking with every step they took and the flames rose higher until they fully consumed him, enveloping his heart in the blaze. His laugh and her giggle rang in his ears like a fire siren and drowned out the voices of the other students. Normally Jongin’s laugh was enough to clear even the coldest storm, but perhaps there was a reason the skies were grey today.

He had no idea what had happened over the weekend but it must have happened fast, seeing as Jongin had never mentioned a girl entering his life. And not just a girl apparently; a girlfriend. Before Taemin completely broke down, he began coming up with the most far fetched theories his desperate mind could create. Maybe it was just a cousin that was visiting, one he was very close with, or maybe he was being forced to date against his will to please his parents. None of his theories seemed to be true, but at least they kept his tears at bay. Taemin might have been desperate, but he wasn't stupid - when he saw the expression on the girl's face as she laid eyes on Jongin, the situation became very clear. However, no matter how clear it was, he refused to believe it.

After their meeting at the ice cream shop last Friday, Taemin had sworn to never wash his forehead again. He had repeatedly relived the moment Jongin's soft lips had grazed his skin, and for the longest time he simply sat there, processing what had happened. He hadn't asked Jongin why he did it because he knew that it was probably just a friendly gesture and that asking would make it awkward. What Tae didn't know though, was that the other boy had had the same question running through his mind when he had left and in bed at night when he couldn't fall asleep.

Shoving his head inside his locker once again, Taemin tried ignoring the world around him, hoping it would stop collapsing and simply disappear along with him instead. Ever since he was little he had used the ostrich method of covering his head to get out of uncomfortable situations, but he couldn't remember a time it had actually worked. His parents had let him be invisible for a while, but always ended up stating that they could still see him. Unfortunately, getting rid of his problems turned out to be more difficult than he thought; especially when the problem walked right up to him.  

''Taemin?'' an innocent, girly voice asked behind him. Taemin looked out from his locker and was immediately met with the sight of a cheerful girl, whose bright eyes and wide smile taunted him with their happiness. She was pretty, Tae admitted, with her shoulder-length auburn hair and amber eyes. Her smile and innocence seemed so sincere that Taemin couldn't bring himself to hate her, yet the jealousy in his eyes still burned brightly. He fully removed himself from his hideout and took a good look at the disaster in front of him; never had he thought misfortune would be wearing a school uniform. Taemin wasn't exactly one of the tall boys at the school, but he was still taller than Allison. That somehow didn't stop him from stretching his spine in an attempt to tower above her, like that’d somehow show his dominance.

Jongin stepped besides the girl with a smile matching hers and hesitantly put a hand on the small of her back. She enthusiastically put her hand forward and waited for Taemin to shake it, which he reluctantly did after a few awkward seconds of staring. ''It's so nice to meet you - I'm Allison! Jongin has told me so much about you!'' she beamed. Tae forced a friendly smile onto his face and cleared his throat before answering  and sending a glare in Jongin's direction.

''I'm Taemin - supposedly Jongin's best friends, which is why I find it odd that he hasn’t told me anything about you'' he muttered bitterly. Jongin's eyes widened at the statement and he was quick to kick Taemin’s shin as a hint to stop talking. Tae found himself having to bite down on his cheek to stop more rude comments from spilling. Instead he transferred all his indecencies into his look and hoped Jongin could translate them himself. Having known each other for a long enough time, Jongin knew exactly what the other boy was telling him through his gaze. He knew that the angry glimmer was screaming ’betrayal’ and that the dark shadow whispered ’disappointment’. Both of them got ripped out of their non verbal conversation when Allison cleared her throat and let out an awkward laugh.

 ‘’Well, we did get together quite recently’’ she laughed, but her words weren’t heard by either of them. The two of them were mentally secluded from the outside world - arguing in their own little bubble. Suddenly Jongin grabbed Taemin’s wrist and started walking away with hasty steps after apologizing profoundly to Allison for both of their behaviours.

Jongin's grip around the other boys wrist was soft yet firm as he dragged him down the hall and into a storage locker, not caring about the many protests that left Taemin's mouth. The room was barely large enough to hold the many cleaning supplies that were stored there, which meant that the two were practically pressed up against each other inside the dank room. A dim light hung from the ceiling, barely lighting up the their surroundings. Jongin finally released his grip on Taemin’s wrist and let his arm fall to his side.

 ''Why did you have to say that to Allison?'' he asked with a sigh as if he had been holding his breath the entire walk. His tone was filled with worry, but whether it was directed at Allison or Taemin was hard to decipher. Taemin tried backing away from confrontation, which resulted in him crashing into a shelf, nearly knocking over a bunch of toilet paper. Yet again his wrist was grabbed and he was pulled back against Jongin's chest to prevent him from destroying the entire room and burying them in soap and paper. The room fell silent except for Tae's ragged breathing and the flickering light-bulb above them. The two were standing so close that they could practically feel each other’s heartbeat, and Taemin was hoping that Jongin hadn't noticed how fast his had suddenly become.

 ''I-'' he paused to swallow a lump in his throat ''-just find it odd that you suddenly get a girlfriend from one day to another... I thought we shared everything.''

Jongin leaned his forehead against the others with a deep sigh. The sadness and sincerity in Tae's voice cut through his heart like a knife, and he desperately wished he knew how to make his friend happy again. Seeing as words weren't his strong suit, he pulled his friend into a tight hug instead and embraced him until he dared to speak. Taemin enjoyed the warmth and familiar scent, and he wished that they could stay like this forever. A storage locker wasn’t ideal but at least they were cut off from the world, comforted by each other's presence. Still wrapping his arms tightly around the other boy, Jongin moved his face up to Tae's ear. As he spoke, his breath sent a shiver through Taemin's body.

 ''It all happened so fast and I’m sorry, I truly am, but it’s not like you aren’t to blame too.''

Taemin moved his face back to look at the other and sent him a questioning look. ‘’What’s that supposed to mean?’’ he asked, his voice full of confusion. Jongin broke the hug, much to Taemin’s dismay, and started to nervously rub his arm, almost as if he didn’t dare to say what he was about to.

‘’Well, I feel like you’ve been ignoring me the past couple of weeks, avoiding me even, so I thought maybe you were distancing yourself from me’’ he explained.

It sounded as if he was on the verge of tears, and if Taemin hadn’t quickly stopped himself, he would’ve blurted out his true reason for distancing himself, just to see his friend smile again. He would’ve spilled his feelings and anxieties as if he was writing a cheesy love letter, but instead he chose to reenter their embrace and prepared to mutter an apology. Before he had a chance to say anything, the light from the hallway revealed their position when the door to the supply closet was flung open. As if Taemin's body had been on fire, Jongin flung himself away from him, crashing into the shelves and brooms behind him. His clash resulted in various cleaning supplies and paper falling down on top of them both in a big mess. The person that had triggered the event gasped in shock, but they couldn't see who it was, as they were too busy digging themselves out of the supply-avalanche.

“Jongin! Are you okay!” a girly voice exclaimed.

Ah, the figure was Allison. Of course it was. Taemin felt the sting of rejection deep in his heart this time. Tears finally started to well up in his eyes as he thought about how Jongin had been so desperate to escape their hug in fear of   what? Getting caught? Being misunderstood? He didn't know, but he absolutely wasn't about to ask. As Allison rushed to Jongin's side to help him clean up, Taemin dusted off his uniform and rushed away from the scene, not letting his friend see the hurt he had caused.

And that's how Taemin found himself crying in a bathroom stall once again. His protector had suddenly become the thing he needed to be protected from. His knight in shining armor had become the beast he feared. He loved Jongin and not being able to be with him felt as painful as a thousand daggers buried in his back. Even worse was the fact that not only couldn't he get him, but someone else could. He had to watch from afar as Allison would eventually do all the stuff Taemin dreamed to do every single day; hugging, laughing, kissing, loving. All his hope shriveled and fell from his heart like an autumn leaf, as he imagined a future where he would eventually be pushed away and be completely alone. It would only be so long before Jallison - the sickening couple’s name he had given them - would be tired of him third-wheeling and kick him to the curb.

A few people entered and left the bathroom, but he didn't care if they heard him crying, his day couldn't get worse anyway. Suddenly his phone chimed in his pocket but as soon as he saw who the text was from he began crying all over again. His tears made the screen blurry, but he managed to read the message:

 Jongin ❤️ 8:22 Mon

 Where are you? Please Taemin, don't do this to me...  

Taemin was stuck between revealing his location and dropping his phone in the toilet, flushing it and Jongin's words into the sewer. As a middle ground he decided to put it back into his pocket without replying. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't stop his tears from spilling, and he was so focused on wiping his eyes that he barely registered a group of people entering the bathroom with heavy steps. One of the people laughed at some pervy joke the other had told, and the sound was one that Taemin immediately recognised. How could he forget the sound that matched the shit-eating grin of his worst bully. In panic, he quickly slapped his hands across his mouth to muffle his sobs - suddenly he was terrified of being heard. He pulled up his knees to his chest so his feet couldn't be seen and waited for the group to leave, hoping it would be soon. He counted the voices; one, two, three; Sam, Chase, David. They were all there, which made his heart beat twice as fast.

Now he desperately wished he had written his location to Jongin anyway, so his knight could save him as he always did. But as Taemin thought about it, a question sprung to his mind: would Jongin even choose to leave Allison's side to rush to his? The thought made his heart sink and, tragically, made a sob escape his lips. Suddenly the voices outside of his stalls briefly fell silent before one of them  spoke.

 ''Well, well, well guys, it looks like little girls forget the warnings you give them'' he said wittily. The sound of footsteps moved closer to the stall Taemin was hiding in, and before he knew it his hideout began shaking violently as his bullies tried forcing the door open. He jumped up and pushed back on the door to keep them from getting in, but like always, his thin frame didn't contain enough strength and wasn't able to win over three other boys. After a while they managed to pry open the door and violently drag Taemin out, tears still staining his face, before dropping him on the cold floor. All three boys stood around him and leered down on the shaking body before them. One of them poked him with his foot to provoke him into fighting back, making it more fun for them, but Taemin simply curled up into a ball and waited for it all to be over. Maybe it wasn't so bad trading in emotional pain for physical pain, he thought; at least wounds and gashes would heal.

''You might have cut your hair, but the weeping still gives away what you really are, sissy!'' one of them joked.

''Leave me alone..'' Taemin muttered into the floor and curled tighter around himself. ''What was that?'' the biggest asked, before dragging him up by the wrist and grabbing tightly around his jaw to force their eyes to meet, ''If you wanted us to leave you alone, maybe you shouldn't keep wandering into the men's bathroom''. Tae's legs felt like jelly and when he caught a quick glimpse of himself in the mirror he realised how big of a mess he looked with tears staining his now puffy face, messy hair and his tie gone awry. Neither his looks nor the names they called him mattered; he felt numb to the core. Their words and violence didn't hurt nearly as much as the emotional pain his love had caused him, so if breaking his mind and body was what they set out to do, he wasn't going to stop them.

Sam grabbed Taemin's tie and yanked it downwards. His neck felt like it was going to snap as he staggered forward a few steps to avoid falling, then glared up at them. ''Let go,'' he pleaded. ''Let go,'' Chase mimicked in a mocking tone. They all laughed before Sam forced Taemin up against the sink, dragging him by the tie like a dog on a leash. The water was turned on and before Tae had a chance to process what was happening, his face was under the tap and oxygen was replaced with freezing water. They continued laughing but their voices soon drowned out. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and instantly thought it must be Jongin trying to reach him again. Oh how he needed him right now. David confirmed his suspicion when he reached into his pocket to retrieve the phone, smirking at what he saw.

''I think your boyfriend misses you, Nancy Boy!'' he laughed, to which the others let out a teasing ''aww''.

Boyfriend. That word hit Taemin like a slap to the face. It was a word he spent countless hours dreaming about, and to him it was filled with love and admiration. To him it was a title he wished to bear in the future, but to them it was like cursing. The word was filthy, perverted even, because just the thought of two boys loving each other was a reason for them to bully. Tears continued running down his cheeks, but they mixed with the water and got flushed down the drain with it. Suddenly their laughing stopped and Taemin was dragged away from the sink, only to be pushed back onto the floor. Through his tears he saw the figure that had entered the bathroom unnoticed, standing tall with an angry,   no furious, aura surrounding him; his hero.  

''Hey!'' Jongin thundered, ''get away from him. Now!'' His voice echoed through the room, making it louder and all the more aggressive. He took a step closer to the bullies and puffed himself up in an attempt to look intimidating. It was all an act, he could never hurt anyone, even those who deserved it; luckily only Taemin knew that. The others fell for it - tried acting like they didn't care and wasn’t intimidated, but eventually all left the bathroom anyway. Taemin knew he must have looked like a mess from Jongin's point of view; shirt dirty from the ground, tie almost yanked off of him, tears running from reddened eyes and hair wet from the sink. He didn't want to be seen like this - he didn't want to be seen at all. He tried hiding his face in his shoulder, but his friend wouldn't let him. He got down on his knees and lifted the other boy’s face, caressing his cheeks in the process. Tae dared to look into his eyes for just a second, but that was enough to see the hurt and anger that glimmered in them.

''I’m sorry,'' he whispered, his voice cracking mid sentence as a tear escaped his eye, ''I’m sorry I wasn't there to stop them in time.''

Taemin tried to chuckle but ended up coughing instead as his lungs failed him from being shoved around so much. Jongin continued caressing his face, petting his hair, wiping his tears with the sleeve of his shirt and and anything else he could to make the other feel better; to make himself feel better. Jongin hadn't lied back then at the ice cream shop when he had said that his friend’s hurt was his as well. Ever since the two had met, Jongin had felt an almost burning need to protect his smaller, yet older friend. He wasn't violent in the slightest - the only times he allowed himself to hurt others were during his football matches, but as soon as tears started spilling from Taemin's shiny eyes, something came up in him; a fire started burning deep inside his stomach.

''How'd you find me?'' Taemin managed to ask with a broken whisper. ''You always hide in the bathroom when you're sad, and when you didn't answer my texts or calls I got worried, so I rushed over here'' Jongin answered, not once taking his eyes off his friend’s swelled face.

 ''What about Allison? Did you just leave her behind?''

Jongin’s eyes widened like he has both shocked and confused at the question. Shocked because how could Taemin think about that considering the situation, and confused as to why it would matter. He scooted closer to the frail body of his friend and dragged him up into a delicate embrace. Taemin closed his eyes for just a moment and when he opened them again his heart almost shot directly out of his chest. Noses almost touching, lips under an inch apart, eyes meeting.   How had they suddenly gotten so close and why was it already affecting Taemin so violently. A million thoughts raced through his head - the ability to breathe long forgotten.

''Don't think about her. You're what's most important right now, Taemin-''

Jongin took a deep breath before continuing, almost as if what he was about to say was too hard for him to admit.

''-You're the most important person in my life.''

Part: one | two | three

[kagehinataboke]

only time will tell - chapter 4

“You’re fucking late. Again.” As usual, Katsuki is waiting in the classroom when Todoroki arrives, fifteen minutes late and in a cold sweat. Katsuki is wearing a basketball jersey—he’s on the school team, apparently—red track pants, and sneakers. His ever-present scowl seems especially sour today.

Todoroki takes off his backpack and clips his sunglasses to the collar of his shirt. “Sorry. I had to run here from a shoot.” He turns to the remedial students scattered around the room, plastering on a smile. “Did everyone wait long?”

All the girls immediately shake their heads, and even some of the boys, albeit reluctantly. Todoroki flashes Katsuki a smug look, and he clicks his tongue in annoyance. Over the past week, Todoroki has been late to nearly every remedial session—and Katsuki isn’t happy, to say the least.

It’s not like Todoroki can help it: his agent basically ignored him when he asked her for an easier schedule. He has photoshoots or interviews nearly every day after school, so he has to run back to make it to the remedial lessons at six. He didn’t even have time to change today, so he’s still in the ripped jeans, collared blue shirt, and brown cardigan they put him in for the shoot. He even still has makeup on, although it’s probably been ruined by sweat.

“Now that you’ve deigned to join us, your majesty, let’s start.” Katsuki picks up a stack of papers on Aizawa’s vacant podium and passes them around. “These are practice tests. You morons are going to use what we went over during the last session and get over eighty percent on these, or we’ll do proofs for an hour straight. Got it?”

Silence.

Todoroki looks up after stripping off his cardigan and rolling up his shirt sleeves to find them all looking at him, including Katsuki.

Todoroki clears his throat, and everyone looks away instantly. “Sorry. Ah… You were saying, Bakugou?”

Katsuki, seeming significantly more annoyed than before, restarts his speech. Todoroki lingers in the background, only half-listening. He isn’t sure if he’s actually much help at these remedial lessons. His goal was to work closely with Katsuki, but there haven’t been any chances. On top of Todoroki always being late, Katsuki actually treats this like a job. He’s surprisingly dedicated to helping their classmates, to the point where Todoroki feels like dead weight.

“The hell’s up with you?” Katsuki demands after the remedial students leave—all having finished their tests with scores over 80, much to Katsuki’s pleasant surprise. His tone is more confrontational than conversational.

“I already apologized for being late,” Todoroki sighs. He already knows where this is headed: they’ve had the same exact talk every day this week. He doesn’t want to have it today. All of his energy is gone.

Perhaps Katsuki can tell—they did used to be close, after all—because instead of the inevitable scolding Todoroki was expecting, he receives a quiet, “Don’t be late again.”

It’s strange. More than strange, because Katsuki is being soft again. First it was back at the shed, and now this. Todoroki can’t deal with the way his look changes sometimes; the way his eyes seem to shift, becoming questioning, becoming different; with the way they eventually return to normal again, and the moment is gone.

Katsuki is just… so different. His hair, for one, and his piercings—and his attitude, most noticeably of all. Well, maybe second most noticeably. He’s also, to put it in simple terms, attractive now. Incredibly so. Todoroki obviously never saw him as anything more than a friend when they were kids, but now? Now it’s like the wool’s been pulled from his eyes. He sees all the things he couldn’t see before—like the curve of muscles under Katsuki’s jersey, and the way the veins in his arms flex as he picks up papers, or the way his black hair makes his eyes look a shade even deeper than red.

“What are you staring at?” Katsuki’s gaze settles on his face, and Todoroki thinks about not looking away. He thinks about staring back until he can find something recognizable in these eyes that he used to know so well.

But then he gives in; averts his gaze; clears his throat. “Nothing. I was just lost in thought.”

Todoroki does look up again, only briefly, to see that Katsuki has gone back to collecting papers. The ebony of his hair against the tan skin of his neck as he bends over the desks is strange and foreign.

“Your hair,” Todoroki finds himself saying. “I miss it being blond.”

“What?” Katsuki looks at him as if he’s lost his mind. Todoroki doesn’t fail to notice the way his hand flits to his scalp, then quickly back to his side. “Why the fuck are you saying that all of a sudden?” He snatches the last paper and roughly elbows Todoroki aside. “I’m going to put these away. Get lost already—and don’t be late tomorrow.”

Todoroki stares at the door for longer than he should. He isn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he thinks he saw faint red dusting the back of Katsuki’s neck. The black of his hair only made it stand out even more.

It probably was his imagination. And he should probably leave, because Katsuki will most certainly yell at him if he sticks around. ‘Damn Half n’ Half dumbass bastard, what the fuck are you still doing here? ’ or something along those lines. Half n’ Half is Katsuki’s new favorite insult. It’s because of Todoroki’s hair, which he started dying for his modeling career and never bothered to change.

Before Katsuki really does come back and scold him, Todoroki gathers his things and heads outside. It’s dark already—it’s nearing eight thirty—and the sky is a dark blue quickly encroaching on black. The night breeze is chilly enough that Todoroki stops by the front gate to put his cardigan back on. He’s got one arm in the sleeve when he spots someone vaguely familiar lingering just outside the gate.

It’s the guy Katsuki was talking to on the first day of school. What was his name, again? Shigaraki? It’s strange that he’s here so late, but if he and Katsuki are friends, maybe he can tell Todoroki a bit about him. Even if the guy is creepy, it’s worth a shot.

“Hey.” Todoroki approaches cautiously, waiting until he has Shigaraki’s attention to continue. “Are you looking for Bakugou? He probably won’t be out for awhile.”

Shigaraki’s expression is hard to read, but he’s smiling, at least. Even if it’s a strange, not-all-there smile. “Is that so?” He shrugs away from the wall, sticking his hands in the pockets of his gray sweatshirt. “He was supposed to go to a café with me. Why don’t you come instead?”

Todoroki frowns, fingers tracing along the edge of his backpack straps nervously. Why would they be meeting up? He remembers enough of their conversation to guess that Katsuki doesn’t like Shigaraki very much. But this is such a good opportunity… Ugh.

“Okay,” Todoroki agrees, pushing away every ounce of doubt. “What café?” He can’t pass up a chance to learn more about Katsuki—at least, not when he still refuses to talk about anything other than school.

“Just follow me.” Shigaraki is still smiling.

Todoroki tries very hard to convince himself that it's a reassuring smile and that he isn’t being lured into an alleyway or abandoned building to be murdered. Fuyumi would kill him twice over for being stupid enough to follow a stranger—even if that stranger knows one of his friends. Ex-friends? Whatever.

Ah, he was psyching himself out for nothing… The place Shigaraki brings him is a plain old coffee shop, with a pastel interior and comfy booths and the heavy bitter-sweet smell of espresso. They take a seat in the corner, surrounded by plush cushions and decorative paintings. Not sinister in the least. In fact, the place puts him at ease enough to get down to business.

“Sorry to do this right when we sit down, but…” Todoroki leans forward in the booth, glancing around to make sure that Katsuki isn’t somehow here to eavesdrop. He isn’t, obviously, but he still keeps his voice low anyway. “I was wondering… exactly how much do you know about Bakugou?”

* * * * * *

“Shouto, you’re home late.” Fuyumi glances up from her spot at the kitchen table with a raised brow. She’s got a laptop in front of her and several open files, as well as a half-empty cup of coffee. It looks like she’s expecting a long night.

Todoroki kicks off his shoes at the door. “Sorry. I went to visit a café with… a friend from school.” Better to lie than to have her asking questions.

“Oh, you made a friend? That’s good.” Fuyumi has already turned back to her work: crisis averted. Todoroki breathes a sigh of relief, but he isn’t in the clear yet. She snags his wrist when he tries to pass her to reach the stairs. “Hold on. Did you eat?”

“Fuyumi— “

“Don’t ‘Fuyumi’ me, you brat. I made you rice balls. They’re in the fridge, and if you don’t eat them all, I swear I’ll set your favorite sweater on fire—“

“Okay, okay.” Todoroki grimaces and switches directions to head into the kitchen. “I’m taking them. Geez.” He grabs the rice balls from the second shelf and retreats upstairs, sitting cross-legged on the floor to eat.

He’s exhausted after running from the shoot straight to the remedial lesson, then spending two hours at the café talking to Shigaraki—who isn’t actually a bad guy. He’s a bit awkward, and there’s definitely something strange about him, but he seems nice enough. He told Todoroki a lot about Katsuki. Apparently, they used to hang out in middle school.

Todoroki didn’t end up finding out what caused Katsuki to change so much, but he does know a few things about how to deal with him—courtesy of Shigaraki, whose number is now saved on his phone. The thing that stuck out the most was that he said to be ‘cute,’ whatever that means. Todoroki figures he’ll have to try out some different things.

It’s weird. For once, he’s feeling so hopeful that he can’t stop smiling. After he finishes the rice balls, he composes an email to his agent—and then deletes it and starts another one. He still isn’t quite sure how to quit. Can he just come out and say it? That somehow doesn’t seem like it’ll work. He’s never actually quit anything before, so he doesn’t know what one is supposed to say.

Ah, he’s getting a message. He'll worry about it tomorrow. Todoroki gets up from the floor and sits on his mattress before checking it.

from: Touya  at: 10:36 PM.

>> Hey, I’m coming back to town this weekend. I tried to ask Fuyumi if she wants to meet up but she’s ignoring me. I think she’s pissed.

Touya, huh? It’s been a while. Todoroki last heard from him right after their dad died. Of course he’d only come to him when Fuyumi is mad.

to: Touya  at: 10:38 PM.

>> She has a right to be mad. Did you apologize?

The answer is obvious, even before the response comes. Touya might be the most irresponsible person in the world.

from: Touya  at: 10:40 PM.

>> No. She’s the one who’s overreacting. Why should I have to apologize?

Todoroki rolls his eyes. He’s not even going to bother responding to that. His brother probably won’t listen, anyway. Why is everyone so immature? Touya refuses to apologize, Katsuki keeps giving Todoroki the cold shoulder… The world is full of imbeciles.

Todoroki gets up to grab his bag with a sigh, pausing when he knocks something off his bed. His and Katsuki’s smiling faces beam up at him from the carpet, their arms wrapped around each other like they never want to let go. Todoroki forgot he had the picture on his bed. He’s been looking at it a lot recently, getting caught up in nostalgia. (He isn’t a very productive person.)

Katsuki really did look much better with blond hair. The black makes him blend in too much. Todoroki always thought he was the kind of person born to stand out, with his crimson eyes and hair the color of winter sunlight. In fact, the whole reason Todoroki chose his current look to trademark in the modeling industry was because of Katsuki. He was going for blond on the right side, but it turned out more white—and by then it was too late to change it.

Todoroki probably shouldn’t be obsessing over his hair so much. It’s pointless, especially when he’s been over about a million fantasy scenarios in his head—scenarios where things turned out differently. But Katsuki is a different person now: Todoroki knows that. He’s crass and unfriendly and completely impossible to figure out. He doesn’t want anything to do with him, but there are times when it seems as if there’s something between them. To put it simply, Katsuki’s hair is the absolute last of Todoroki’s problems.

But still, if even one thing were to return to how it used to be, then…

Ah, never mind. He shouldn’t get his hopes up.

previous | next

[aaknopf]

The poet Quan Barry is also a fiction writer, whose mischievous We Ride Upon Sticks has just been published. In the fall of 1989, the seniors on the losing Danvers Falcons field hockey team avail themselves of some locally-sourced Salem witchery, in the hope of concocting a winning season. They make a pact, signing their names in a spiral notebook with Emilio Estevez on the cover, and rip and tie strips of Falcons-blue tube sock around all their arms, sealing their dark bond. In the scene below (which includes a special guest appearance by the poet Philip Larkin), the team mingles with members of the football team at their favorite pizza joint. We meet one of the more mysterious players, Girl Cory, so-called because there’s also a Boy Cory on the squad; Boy Cory’s story, like that of Girl Cory, their teammates Jen Fiorenza (whose awesome, high-teased bangs are known to all as “the Claw”), Abby Putnam (ancestor of an original Salem accuser), and others in the mix here, is a journey of identity, community, and the magic of high school friendships.

from We Ride Upon Sticks

“Our butts are going to States this year,” said Jen. “Where are your butts going?” Just then Girl Cory walked in. For a moment the air in Rocco’s filled with the scent of aquamarine waters and palm trees, the harmonies of steel drums, then just as quickly it was back to cheese pizza and the crackling of the deep fryer. “ ’Sup?” Log called out. Most guys at Danvers High didn’t talk to Girl Cory. From what we could glean of teen-boy-dom it seemed most teen boys only have a finite amount of confidence, and they couldn’t afford to go blowing it willy-nilly on a hopeless case like Girl Cory. It was plain to see she was out of everyone’s league. Most people accepted this. It was pure science, like the apple falling from the tree. Girls like Girl Cory didn’t date regular human boys. Historically, since the invention of written records in the girls’ third-floor bathroom concerning who was banging whom, Girl Cory had never dated anyone at Danvers High. Mostly she left in her wake a trail of names from the local private-school universe, places like the Prep, Pingree, even some faraway boy at Deerfield. Log’s “ ’Sup?” was still hanging in the air. Only he among his brethren had confidence to burn. Little did he know but “ ’Sup?” was an excellent question, one we’d been secretly wondering all our lives. Yeah, Girl Cory, what’s up? As she stood at the counter, Girl Cory nodded at Log but didn’t say a word or even take off her Ray-Bans. “And what does your soon-to-be captain have to say about you hosers going to States?” whispered Brian Robinson in a small voice, only looking at Girl Cory indirectly via a shiny plaque mounted on the wall, as if she were a Medusa with the power to transform flesh to stone. “Which is it?” he said. “You guys going to States, or 2-8 again?” “For your information, we haven’t voted for captain yet,” said Jen. Her Claw gave him the stink eye. Rocco’s adult son Vinny slammed her order down on the counter. Ceremoniously, she rose to retrieve her Diet Coke and two slices of Hawaiian. She noticed Log Winters was still staring at Girl Cory. “Take a picture, my friend,” she said, bending over and whispering in Log’s ear. “It’ll last longer.” Then she raised her voice so that all of Rocco’s could partake in the annunciation. “Besides, Cory already has a boyfriend.” “Who’s that?” said Log. “Nobody you’d know,” Jen projected. “He sent her flowers today. Isn’t that right, Cory?” Girl Cory turned and flashed Jen a look that simultaneously said both shut up and keep talking. She was an enigma like that. Honestly, none of us really knew her. Even now that we were all part of the sisterhood of the blue sweat sock, it was like she had constructed a wall to keep us out, a sunroom off the kitchen where she could sit and drink her Earl Grey in peace while the rest of us crowded around a plate of stale bagels in the breakfast nook. Girl Cory pulled a wad of napkins from the dispenser and went over to where Little Smitty was sitting with Mel. What’s up, Girl Cory? All season long, the rest of us standing around wondering, Girl Cory. What. Is. Up? And then one day we’d take a big juicy bite of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, and to our everlasting sorrow, we’d find out. “Philip” made his first appearance during the ’88 season shortly after Girl Cory passed her driver’s test. It was late October, one of those autumn days when the afternoon sky prematurely takes on a hazy shade of winter. We were just off the school bus after returning from a massacre in Gloucester, 4-0. Truthfully, the score didn’t accurately reflect the gutting we’d endured at the hands of the Gloucester Fishermen. The two senior co-captains, Gina Packer and Mary Ellen Sommers, had gotten into a fight during the coin toss over whether to pick heads or tails. At one point, Gina reached over and ran her finger through the blue face paint where Mary Ellen had spackled the letters DHS on her cheek. We winced. It was like watching someone ruin a beautifully frosted cake. When we finally arrived back at Danvers High, Julie Kaling stopped reciting that part of the Nicene Creed about God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, her crucifix glinting in the dark of the bus. To be honest, after the kind of outing it had been, some of us found her religious yammering weirdly comforting. We’d grabbed our stuff from the locker room and headed out to wait for our moms to come get us or to bum rides with the seniors who lived in our neighborhoods. Girl Cory had hit the two-fecta, having recently passed her driver’s test and been given her own wheels to boot. Her brand-new white Fiero was parked in the student lot. The Fiero had been purchased weeks before her driving test and was just sitting around in her multi-car garage collecting dust. Driving was still a novelty to her, the monogrammed fingerless gloves still fun to slip on. That day she was giving Abby Putnam a ride home. It was Abby who pointed out the mint-green envelope stuck under the windshield wipers. Girl Cory peeled the envelope off the wet glass and held it between her fingers like a dead roach. “This is a wicked bummer,” she said. “Can you get ticketed here?” Abby shook her head. She watched as her friend tore open the soggy envelope. Girl Cory’s face betrayed nothing. If anything, she looked a little more bloodless. “Lemme see,” said Abby. She took the slip of paper in her hands and stared for a long time at the blurred writing, the washed-out words as if painted in watercolor. Roses are Red— Your Fiero—it’s White— With seating for two. Don’t! Put up a fight—take me with you! The next day before practice we showed the letter around. Heather Houston performed a close reading on it worthy of a 5 on the AP English test. She commented on the juvenile use of the Dickinsonian em dash, the strange imperatives, the elisions, the contradictory tone of both fight and flight. “Whoever wrote this is not playing with a full deck,” she concluded, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “It doesn’t even make sense. Like this part. ‘Don’t!’ Don’t what? Use your words, people!” She was practically spitting she was so worked up about it. Poor Heather Houston took weak syntactical choices as a personal affront. Julie Kaling patted her comfortingly on the back. “I dunno, I think it’s sweet,” said Little Smitty softly. This was back in the days before Emilio and the blue tube sock, back when Little Smitty ate all the spinach on her plate happily with a big smile as though it were cotton candy. “What I will say,” said Heather, offering a second conclusion about the note, “is Philip Larkin he is not.” Becca Bjelica looked at AJ Johnson and silently mouthed, Philip who? We were all thinking the same thing. Nobody rolled their eyes at her. How were we supposed to know some curmudgeonly British poet, even one who’d written: They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. And thus “Philip” was born. That first year “Philip” mostly left little things lying around in plain sight, like a cat who brings its owner dead robins. A tube of Chanel lipstick without the actual lipstick in it. A box of chocolates, but instead of sweets slotted in each compartment, there were rocks. Girl Cory took it all in stride. We didn’t tell anyone in the adult world because what was there to say? Some poor slob had the hots for a girl so beautiful she should have been in a music video, and he left her crazy presents? Back then the word “stalker” wasn’t really part of anyone’s vocabulary. Fatal Attraction had come out the year before, but that was just stuff that happened to sexy creeps like Michael Douglas, who banged complete strangers and mostly had it coming. And so Girl Cory learned to live with it. And so we learned to live vicariously through her. In time, we began to look forward to “Philip’s” offerings. They made us feel like maybe somewhere down the road, somebody, anybody, might possibly want us. Even the time he dropped a note in her schoolbag that said, “I hate you, you stupid peckerhead,” and signed it “Much l♥ve.” We were a bunch of mostly inexperienced teen girls. We thought that’s what true romance was supposed to look like. A boy telling a girl she was a stupid peckerhead, but she was his stupid peckerhead. Lord, make us worthy, we prayed. God from God, Light from Light, Boyfriend from Boy Who Considers Us a Peckerhead. It seemed like the thing to ask for. None of us ever thought to pray for a better caliber of boy.

More on this book and author:

Learn more about We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry

Browse other books by Quan Barry including her four poetry collections published in the Pitt Poetry Series

Read the full text of Philip Larkin's "This Be the Verse" at the Poetry Foundation

Peruse other poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day series 

To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link.

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Post 4 - Oh God Oh Fuck Isabelle Procrastinated

Now you may think this post is late, but have you considered that time is just early? No, because that’s stupid and I was tired, but we’re here now, so let’s talk about episode 5 Yandere High School roleplay series by SamGladiator on YouTube, on Saturday instead of a Friday. Because I am a professional who definitely was not playing Red Dead Redemption 2 instead of doing this.

The episode starts with Sam waking up, and Taurtis is in the bathroom, claiming he doesn’t feel too good because he ate too many Doritos. Sam, being the good friend he is barges into the bathroom against Taurtis’ requests. Because of their supposed lack of toilet paper, Taurtis reveals that he’s been using bank notes to wipe his ass, even though there looks to be a full roll of toilet paper right next to the toilet. Before the boys leave Taurtis decides to play Gamecube for all of 5 seconds before Sam tells him that he needs to get going. Before they head to school Taurtis checks the mail, which he reads out in the pouring rain, no doubt getting it ruined. Sam is of the same mind as me and tells Taurtis to get out of the rain with the fan art. Sam runs in the rain while Taurtis scolds him, citing the Mythbusters episode where it was found that running in the rain gets you wetter. Before we can get too far into that line of discussion we see that Teacher Gareth’s house has been cordoned off as a crime scene, his ex-wife is missing, and he just looks terrible, with ripped clothing and bags under his eyes. When the boys get to the convenience store, we see that it now has ~~comic books~~ manga as well as food, only HunterXHunter though, someone more familiar with manga can say if this is acceptable or not. Taurtis and Sam grab some manga, bread, Taurtis gets some doritos despite what happened just that morning, and they get condensed comedy as well, and by that I mean a piece of meat labeled dog. East Asian country eats household pets. You may laugh now. When paying for his stuff Taurtis decides to fuckin’ showe CrabManCarl with money, Sam promptly intervenes, picking up the money and saying that they needed to save that money to give to Teacher Gareth to prove Taurtis sold the most cookies. We also see JtsTheDane again, aka the best character in this entire series, I will not be accepting criticism on this now or ever, have a good day. We also see an advertisement for the cinematic masterwork, Shrek, on the billboard outside of the convenience store, with Jts stating that he heard it was going to be “shrektastic”. We then see Jay has gotten a new car, with a massive spoiler, the kind that goes on the back of cars, not the kind that tells you Paul Blart kills Thanos in Endgame. The boys then ask Jay why he always has a new car every time they come to school, and Jay says he just likes cars and I mean… I guess, can’t fault a man for that. 

The boys finally enter school and Sam tries to see if  he’s now popular due to him being accused of breaking and entering on Twitter and immediately fucks up mentioning how SoulOwl hasn’t fully recovered from molting. Invader asks why Sam didn’t text her back last night, Sam responds by saying he was busy, and they’re not even dating, Taurtis tells him it’s Facebook official, after he got into Sam’s Facebook account when he forgot to log off of his computer and made it Facebook official. Log out of your accounts when you’re not using them kids. As we get into teacher Gareth’s room we see that he has a rope on the board… oh no. But before we can get too concerned class starts, with Gareth doing roll call and introducing us to a new student, ChanYandere, protagonist of the hit perpetually-in-development-game-since-2013, Yandere Simulator. At this point, if you’re still waiting for it, swallow your weeb pride and play Hitman. It’s good, it’ll be better than YandereSim, and it isn’t made by a garbage person. But this blog isn’t about Hitman or Yandere Simulator, it’s about SamGladiator, so moving on we learn that her hobbies include reading manga, playing video games, and playing the piano, this is converse to Yandere-Chan in YanSim, whose personality is that she has none. Then we get to the results of the cookie selling competition, and it turns out that Sam didn’t actually even need to save Taurtis from spending all that money as he just mailed in the results to teacher Gareth, and Taurtis actually won the cookie selling competition. To celebrate his victory he runs to the front of the class and punches Jay for no discernible reason and dances on his desk. Taurtis then goes up and stands on the teacher’s desk to explain his strategy of selling his cookies to the convenience store. Taurtis answers questions while blatantly ignoring Sam, until Sam jumps out of his seat to ask his question, which was if he could read HunterXHunter volume 2 when Taurtis was done with it, he got a no. Taurtis also gets his GameCube back, revealing the one that they stole was not the one that Gareth originally took from them, begging the question, who’s GameCube did they steal? We then get the class’ homework assignment, which is to write a poem, and Gareth tells everyone that they can join a club by signing up at the main office. Now that is just one step away from a club where you write poems, and if one of the inde hits of 2017 has taught me anything that can only go well. Yes I heard poems in a highschool setting and wanted to shoehorn in a Doki Doki Literature Club reference in based on the fact that I like it and being the sole proprietor of this blog no one can tell me no. The bell then rings and Gareth tells the students to have a nice life, which causes Taurtis to do something responsible, to take away the rope in Teacher Gareth’s room, and try and cheer him up by giving him Doritos. This sounds like the part where I go,”Nah I’m fuckin’ with ya they do [bad thing]”, but no, they actually do something kind of good, and I am proud of them for that. I say them, it was just Taurtis who did this, but still. This somewhat backfires however as Doritos were Gareth’s ex-wife’s favorite food. Oops. 

Before heading to lunch the boys pop into the computer club, where they see on Sookie’s fumblr page that Sam and Taurtis killed someone, which, I don’t think actually happened. We also then get a look at ~~Twitter~~ Fwot’er, what the fuck is that name? We see Jay’s tweet about Sam and Taurtis breaking into Gareth’s house, and an advertisement for Paul Blart Mall Cop. I am sure this movie advertisement is a one off gag like the others and will not come back to have Kevin James’ Paul Blart appear in the series. PowerDragon then asks if they want to join the club, but they decline, saying they’re probably gonna go to the manga club instead, and were just looking around. Before they leave to go eat their lunch Sookie asks Sam if he actually killed someone, which he responded no to, in a very unconvincing way, and Taurtis’ very half hearted assurance that Sam didn’t kill anyone doesn’t help matters, but Sookie seems convinced enough. Sam and Taurtis then go to sign up for the anime club, and they learn that Jay is the president of it, so they go talk to him about the details of it. They go sit with Jay and see that Chan is also in the anime club as well. Jay tells the boys that the club will be at his house after school, and before they can talk too much about that Jts and PrimegamerJC are showering everyone at lunch with a lot of Mountain Dew and Doritos. Taurtis joins in throwing money along with the Mountain Dew and Doritos. Chan offers to share some carrots with Sam, but sam declines saying that he’s eating Dog, and when everyone seems weirded out, he says that he was joking about eating it. After this Sam and Taurtis agree to go to Jay’s house after school to talk about Manga and work on their poems. The episode ends with the bell ringing indicating that it is time for gym class.

I don’t really have too many thoughts about this episode, it is taking a bit for the series to get going, hence why I sort of slacked off on getting this episode out. I know a lot of interesting stuff happens later, but these first few episodes are boring, especially with me not being able to blast through them to get to the interesting bits like I am usually able to with other things. But tune in next time to listen to some weebs talk about manga, as well as seeing what crazy shenanigans Rowan has planned for gym class.