#I am cooked and no one notes me so I wanna draw some scenes from here. come ON DANCE SCENES. THE CRYSTALS

[somerandomcockroach]

I am SO SOLD TO JAZZ/PROWL DYNAMIC with this fanfic (Domino Milkshake)

(EXUSE ME, it gave me more basics than I was able to find in briefs of info when I was searching, and it gave so much more interesting layers to them as characters, including early years in training in their department) AND HGPROHPOFP OH GOD okay my face pretty sure was stupid when I was reading every chapter

[pianostarinwonderland]

maybe skully isnt dead 🤯 [half copium half srs]

listen. ik ive been on copium for a while. ik we all are, ive seen twitter, tumblr, and everyone’s tags on my posts when they reblog

BUT PLS HEAR ME OUT. IM SO SERIOUS RN WHEN I SAY: if u wanna be technical about it, if u wanna stretch it out somehow, you can argue that the game never outright states that skully is dead, only that the skully we met was from hundreds of years ago.

“but mamsir pianostarinwonderland, how in the fuck can that be???? we HEARD that invisible kiss” LET ME COOKKKKKK 🔥🔥🔥 I SWEAR EVERYONE, I AM COOKING U JUST HAVE TO HEAR ME OUUUUUUUUUUUUUT— knocked out

Ok serious time, let me mansplain to you all the possibility of Skully being alive

Establishing first of all, Twst has kept Skully's nature vague

Simply put: we don't know if Skully is human. In his live 2D, Skully's ears are completely covered. Even in his illustration, we can barely see his ears. It's an interesting design choice. However, in his chibi (which wasn't revealed until Episode 5), we can see his ears aren't shaped like a fae, but are round like that of a human.

However, it's pretty hard to think he's human either, when we consider his "moshi, ne moshi" greeting in Episode 1 and its connection to the supernatural. Voiced, to be noted. Exactly what kind of creature he could be is currently unknown, but because this part was voiced, it's something we need to pay attention to at the very least.

In regards to his mortality, the only clue we're really given is Skully himself saying that he may never meet us except through Halloween, which implies a lifespan similar to a human or something similar. But Skully doesn't know how far into the future that the cast is from. Heck, does he even know of his nature?

Now, addressing that invisible kiss...

I feel like this is the main thing that told all of us that Skully is long gone. Heck, if you catch me in my right mind, I might just tell you that yeah, that should be enough proof that Skully is dead! Little signs from the dead such can manifest in similar ways to what Jamil and Leona sensed: hearing a kiss and feeling a kiss on your hand.

(unfortunately i'm not in my right mind so you're getting my dumb reasons why i'm arguing for otherwise)

However, if Skully is gone, I find it interesting that this is the way they decide to show it. We already know from the very first Halloween event that ghosts can manifest all year round in Night Raven College due to the high concentration of magical power in the area. Outside of that, they cannot be seen. If they really wanted to confirm with the audience that Skully is a ghost, they could have had him appear as such at the end, when they all returned to Night Raven College.

But they chose a scenario where people can draw a lot of conclusions from it: Is their senses getting fucked over as they wake up? Are they still reeling from the magic of the book? (though rationally, we know that Leona is not one to be easily stunned, so the first question is at the very least easy to dismiss)

I've also seen some people theorize that he's using invisibility magic during the invisible kiss scene. And well, while I find that funny, it makes me wonder if he could be some other kind of spirit that's not dead. Like an undead of some sort, which the residents of Halloween Town are. Heck, Azul's card line about Skully talks about how he seems to fit right at home with the Halloween Town residents. Again, we don't know Skully's true nature, but the possibility of him being a species that can turn invisible is interesting.

Moving on, we have what Dire Crowley stated about Skully

At the end of the event, Crowley tells us that he found Skully’s portrait while rummaging through the storage and shows it to us and the 11 boys who went inside the book

What he tells us is that Skully J. Graves is a NRC graduate from hundreds of years ago, before Crowley was Headmage. Note that he only was appointed for the position 100 years ago; the Skully we met is at least from around 200 years ago. During his NRC years, Skully got to share Halloween to NRC. It was a hit, and when he graduated, he spread Halloween all over the world in his travels.

I'd like to take a little detour first to discuss something that's been weighing on my mind: Some people have thought that Crowley is lying to us when he speaks about Skully and his achievements, but... I don't see why he would lie. For one, there is a decent chance that Crowley might not have gotten to see Skully. Even if he did, it's even more unsure if he was involved in Skully's affairs.

However, there's one main reason why I do think that Skully got to live a fulfilling life instead of facing an overblot that killed him or some other tragedy. I'd like to dedicate a longer post to this matter, but to make it concise, I think through Skully, Twst is starting to establish something new regarding their history. I think that historical teachings, folktales and stories, and rumors that are well-known tend to be lies or twisted truths. Whereas those that are obscure and not known are actually what occurred. Skully is called the King of Halloween who's done so much to spread the holiday to the world, yet not even NRC students, who should be the first to know considering that Skully is an alumna, know of him. Although there may be other reasons why that's the case, I like to think that at the very least, Skully's obscurity indicates that he did live the life he wanted and succeeded in working for a future that generations after him can enjoy.

Anyway, that actually isn't the main point of this section of the post, but I kind of want to air that out first. The main point is that Crowley only really said that Skully is a former NRC student from hundreds of years ago who traveled around the world to spread Halloween. But he never told us where he was buried or whether he saw his ghost roaming NRC. He never said anything about Skully being dead.

He probably said the hundreds of years ago bit, carrying the assumption that of course, Skully may have passed away. But we have to remember that we have long-living species in Twisted Wonderland. Fae that were students 200 years ago are very likely to be alive now. Crowley himself is a long-living creature, having been Headmage for 100 years. I think with that in mind, it's important for him to emphasize that Skully's gone if he really is. But he never mentioned it. Therefore, there is a good chance that Skully might just be somewhere else. That or Crowley just doesn't give a fuck where his alumni go, and I might be thinking too deeply about the absence of certain words. Honestly, that's a pretty good chance too.

Lastly, we have the scene where Jack Skellington gets shot down but survives it

Here's where it gets a bit more into speculation, but you're going to have to hear me out.

In the movie, Jack Skellington gets shot down by the military for impersonating Santa Claus. When the Halloween Townspeople watched it, they all despaired, and the mayor started declaring to all that Jack has been blown to smithereens and proclaimed him dead.

But that's not what happened: we find Jack landing on an angel's statue, alive and definitely not blown to smithereens.

And considering that Skully is still very much twisted from Jack Skellington... do you think the writers are pulling a similar move? Making us think that he's dead, just as the townspeople thought he was dead, only for us to learn eventually that he's alive.

This of course depends on what happens eventually in the sequel. From the way things are proceeding, what happened in the Lost in the Book with TNBC is events prior to the movie, and we could very well have the sequel be set during the movie events. (If you ask me, I kind of doubt that actually. I feel like Skellington got inspired by Skully's love for Halloween, enough to stay true to his identity as the Pumpkin King, which would mean the movie wouldn't happen the way we know it. So if anything, I feel like TNBC 2 would focus less on the actual movie and more on the side games where Oogie takes over Halloween Town and even kidnaps Santa and other people, but I admit, that's a stretch, especially considering that we will get Santa giving Halloween Town a taste of Christmas)

Of course, this post is really just to let some of my copium out. Rn, it's still safe to assume that yea, Skully's dead. And though I am coping hard for Skully to be alive, with the way Twst treats the dead, it's not exactly a bad thing. Ghosts continue to stay in NRC like they're living people. They honor the dead, and let the dead live among them. And even if he is in the afterlife and not stuck in the mortal plane, I have faith that Skully did live a fulfilling life that may have been forgotten but clearly changed the world. :'D

[izu]

hey just wanna say that i LOVE your art!!! i’ve seen you on twitter and ugh just can’t get enough of it! also do you happen to have some johnshi headcannons?? cuz if you do i would like to see them all!! :3

thank you so much!!! i hope to draw more.... also get ready bc i have way too many headcanons and this'll probably be super long winded unfortunately . this isn't all of it but its most of it

- kenshi is a heavy sleeper. after moving in with johnny post-tournament he begins to unwind from his former unhealthy schedule that was supported by his yakuza lifestyle. johnny wakes up at 5 am to work out until lunch, and kenshi sleeps in til like noon or 1. johnny thinks its cute

- they either own a fuck ton of cats or ferrets. johnny seems like a ferret guy to me

- they like watching director's cuts of movies instead of actual movies because kenshi can actually understand a little more of whats happening while the directors explain certain scenes and go into depth about the composition and art direction. its a win win situation for both of them

- johnny actually reads a ton of books, but is embarrassed about it. leftovers from being a ""nerd"" in high school. kenshi thinks its adorable and he likes hearing johnny retell the book plot and express his exasperation with it unfolding as he reads

- johnny has a sweet tooth and kenshi has a more refined palette, he will try anything johnny sets in front of him though, even if he isnt much of a sweets guy

- on that same note, johnny is very good at cooking! every other night he plans a meal for them, and it's almost always a winner. lots of japanese style dishes (took some trial and error on johnny's part) because he wants to impress kenshi

- they go to red carpet events together after a couple of years of dating, but for a while they pretended (to the press, too) that kenshi was his newest bodyguard. rumors spread fast though and it ended up being a perfect time to let johnny come out publicly as bi

- kenshi's parents are actually very very supportive. i think he'd be nervous at first but his mom thinks johnny is very handsome and his father agrees its a good change for their family. kenshi has two sisters who absolutely raise hell over kenshi nabbing a sexy gaijin star and he is very embarrassed about it. much to johnny's delight

- they spend every weekend on the balcony of johnny's new loft in his jacuzzi just talking and being sappy. kenshi genuinely gets a lil upset when things come up and they miss their date nights

- everytime kenshi returns to the states after visiting home johnny makes a big scene at the airport. lunging at him, crying sobbing

- kenshi proposes first, but johnny had been nervously trying to wait for a good time to do it himself. one upped. he is still very upset about this well into their marriage as old yaois

- kenshi is the top 👍 i think we all knew this but still

- even if he doesn't need it, its sort of a ritual between them so they never stopped; johnny is still kenshi's sight dog when they go out and he doesn't feel like relying on sento.

- sento's ancestors like johnny a lot and kept being annoying about kenshi needing to get hitched already hskw7kejej

- kenshi is achillean, gay. always has been. his arrangement with suchin was. arranged. and she was his lesbian beard for a while. the two are very very close and she visits their home often. johnny is trans and bisexual, but he's only out about being bi.

- johnny tends to have a really shitty sleep cycle, light sleeper, easily thrown into insomnia, the busy street life can really fuck up his routine when hes already had a terrible day. which ends up with the both of them on the couch, talking, watching a show, kenshi with his head on johnny's shoulder. they fall asleep like that 7 times outta 10

- the older they get the sappier and grosser they get . everyone who knows them hates their gay asses . jax and sonya included

- also they both get dad bods when they get older bc of all the good eating. neither are insecure about it. its hot

- kenshi is undeniably the spoiled one. gifts, fancy dinner dates, unrelenting affection and praise. he starts believing he deserves good things, that he is loved, solely by johnny's persistence with showing him instead of telling him

- cris ends up being their friend again after a while. i just dont like the cris villainization when its contrasted with johnshi support. she had her reasons to be upset at her alcoholic, spending-addicted husband, y'all

- johnny like action/sci fi movies. kenshi likes romcoms.

- they host parties. they're awesome parties.

[helloalycia]

just a kid [one] // wanda maximoff

summary: you're a field medic at the Avengers Tower and get into an accident where you hurt your head. It was only supposed to be a mild concussion, yet things don't seem to be going right when you try to remember the accident.

warning/s: mentions of violent/dark scenes.

author's note: here’s the first of a little two-parter I worked on not long ago, hope you all like it!

part two | masterlist | wattpad

I woke up with heavy eyes and an aching head, momentarily dazed.

"Hey there, Doctor Y/L/N... can you hear me okay?"

Breathing deeply, I found the energy to clear my throat and scan the view above me. I was laying down on a bed, in a hospital room, I think. The lights were ever so bright and I now knew how annoying it felt to wake up like this as my patients had.

"What happened?" I asked, eyes roaming around until they settled on my doctor. "Doctor Maya? What am I–? Why am I here?"

I recognised Doctor Maya as a colleague of mine, though unlike me, she was a doctor who worked at the Avengers Tower whereas I worked as a field medic so was more on the move. The only reason I'd be here is if I was in an accident. Was I? I wasn't sure.

"Something happened when you were on your last mission," she explained gently. "I– hold on. I'm going to get Miss Maximoff, okay?"

"Wanda?" I asked, furrowing my brows and pinching them to relieve the stress in my head. "Where is she? Is she here?"

"She just nipped out," Doctor Maya said, before backing up. "One second, Y/N."

She left the room momentarily, leaving me to try and remember what had happened. I was on the quinjet and was getting briefed with my team. There were casualties that we had to get to and an agent– an agent I was helping, yes!

I groaned, clutching my head when I tried to remember. Deciding I shouldn't push myself so soon, I waited until the doctor returned with Wanda. Maybe they could tell me how I ended up here. I wasn't exactly injured, at least not physically and that I knew of. My head hurt and that was about it.

The door to my room opened suddenly and I looked that way, seeing Wanda rushing in wearing her civilian clothing. The doctor followed soon after, gently closing the door behind her.

"You're awake," Wanda said with relief, stopping by my bedside. Her hand rested on mine, squeezing it comfortingly. "How are you feeling?"

I smiled upon seeing her, even if she was staring at me like I was a fragile piece of glass. We'd been dating for a while now and she always had the power to make me feel better with her presence.

"I'm alright," I promised. "Just a bit confused to what happened. The last thing I remember is going into the field. Then I woke up here."

She chewed on her lower lip, exchanging unreadable glances with the doctor.

"There was a mine that detonated near you when you were helping an injured agent," Wanda explained softly, and I opened my mouth to speak, but she quickly added, "The agent is okay before you ask. But you hit your head from the impact. Mild concussion."

"That's why your head hurts and you're having trouble remembering," the doctor said, earning my attention. "You should be feeling better soon. And I've got some medication for the pain."

Now that Wanda mentioned it, I did vaguely recall being thrown back by a blast. But remembering it was like watching a film with poor satellite, the screen fuzzing around the edges and remaining unclear even though you focused hard. I was sure it would return to me soon.

"Thanks," I said, before attempting to sit up straight. Wanda helped me as I looked to her with gratitude before paying my attention back to Doctor Maya. "Am I alright to leave?"

"Of course, yeah," she said, nodding quickly. "Feel free to come back if you have any trouble. You should be okay though."

I nodded and smiled gratefully before watching her leave. Sighing, I pushed my hair from my face and looked to Wanda who was hanging by me patiently, eyes twinkling with concern.

"I'm fine," I promised her with a knowing look.

She gave me a small smile – her way of saying I'm still worried, but I'll dial it down – then moved to the chair beside the bed and grabbed some clothes.

"You can change into this," she said about the clothes in her hand, and I was sure they were some of hers; mine must have been ruined from the mine. "And if you want, you can stay with me whilst you recover."

I raised my eyebrows as I accepted the clothes. "You sure? It's nothing serious. I can take care of myself."

She shrugged, eyes avoiding mine with embarrassment as her hands played with mine. "I wanna help. I like looking after you... plus, you've stayed at mine before. This isn't any different. And you can be closer to Doctor Maya in case anything is wrong."

I weighed the decision briefly before giving in, unable to resist how cute she was when she was worried. "Okay, yeah, sure, why not?" She smiled widely, and I added, "Any excuse to cuddle with you, right?"

She chuckled. "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist."

I rolled my eyes playfully. "Just let me get ready and we can head to your room. I'm actually a little tired."

She nodded and helped me up so I could get ready. I didn't think much of the whole thing, until later that night when I fell asleep beside Wanda.

My dreams never usually meant much. I wasn't one for reading into them, nor was I one to get seriously affected by 'nightmares', knowing they were usually a concoction of bad horror films and stupid ghost stories from my childhood.

But tonight was different.

It wasn't a dream and it wasn't a nightmare, but rather a memory that couldn't exist.

There was debris everywhere, a mixture of yellow rays blinding my sight with dark shadows looming over me. Destroyed buildings and scattered bodies – none were alive – surrounded me. The heat was too much, but I had a job. I knew I had a job, but I couldn't focus because of how fast my heart was racing, beating an incessant drum in my ears, and how rigid my body felt.

"Help!" a voice was shouting. A young girl, I think – she sounded like a kid. Who was it?

Before I could make sense of anything, I heard a loud noise, like an explosion, that sounded so close yet also extremely distant. Nonetheless, my eardrums weren't spared. The mine, maybe? Was this a memory? Was this how I got hurt?

I was thrown back, head hitting a wall, but I didn't pass out. There was a figure looming over me, short, like a child's shadow, but with no visible face or features. Nothing, actually, just a dark outline staring at me though I couldn't stare back because there was nothing to stare at.

The shouts for help returned, but it was distant like the explosion. I couldn't make sense of anything, and when I closed my eyes to blink, I opened them to find debris washing over me all over again, flying in the air along with my body. It had to be the explosion, my memory returning.

This time, when I hit the wall, I woke with a start. My eyes snapped open, taking in the dark room and nightly blue hue casting over the ceiling and walls. I swallowed hard, finding my breath, and raised my hand to gently massage my forehead. An aching pain was shooting all over, forcing me to sit up as slowly as I could as to not wake up Wanda, who appeared to be fast asleep beside me.

I checked the clock beside her bed and saw it was closing on half three in the morning. I went to bed around nine, which was also when I last had my medication. Doctor Maya said I could have it every five to seven hours and when I got a severe headache.

"I guess this counts...," I mumbled to myself, before grabbing the medication and bottle of water beside the clock.

I downed the two tablets within seconds before sitting upright for a few more minutes, needing a moment to myself before attempting to get back to sleep.

"Y/N...? Are you up?"

I winced at the sound of Wanda's groggy voice, immediately feeling bad for waking her. I turned around and saw her rubbing her eyes with one hand whilst blinking away her fatigue.

"Just have a headache, don't worry," I reassured quietly, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. "You can go back to sleep."

"Do you need me to get you anything?" she asked, finally able to keep her eyes open long enough to meet my gaze with her cloudy green ones.

I smiled through my exhaustion. "I'm okay, love. I've had some medicine."

"Well, I can get you something to–" she began, trying to make a move to sit up, but I pushed her back down gently.

"I'm okay," I repeated sternly, before slipping back into bed beside her. Wrapping an arm around her torso, I said, "Get back to sleep."

She nodded tiredly, getting comfortable and pulling me closer to her. I felt her arm wrap around me as I snuggled closer, relaxing in her embrace.

"Wake me if something is wrong," she mumbled, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. "Goodnight. I love you."

"I love you, too," I returned, kissing the closest thing to me which was her chest. "Goodnight."

Admittedly, it was still difficult for me to fall back asleep. It must have been no longer than ten minutes when I heard Wanda's breathing and felt the gentle rise and fall of her chest beneath me – she'd fallen back asleep. I sighed, slightly jealous, but stayed close to her and tried not to think about my accident or my weird dream/nightmare. Eventually, slumber found me.

The next morning, I didn't exactly feel well-rested, but I didn't want to concern Wanda nor draw attention to it as I knew it was probably just a rough first night. Instead, I let myself get distracted with Wanda wanting to cook me breakfast.

I soon found myself in the kitchen, sitting at the island and watching Wanda cook some pancakes for us both with an endearing smile on my lips. She was still in her pyjamas like me, her red hair pulled into a messy ponytail as an afterthought, and she radiated beauty. Right there, I could only wish my future looked exactly like this.

My moment of admiration was interrupted when someone came into the kitchen, earning our attention. It was Sam, one of the Avengers and a colleague of Wanda's.

"Good morning, ladies," he greeted with a smile. Already dressed for the day ahead, he asked, "Do I smell pancakes?"

"They're for Y/N, so back off," Wanda said playfully, pointing her spatula at him threateningly.

He raised his hands with defeat as I chuckled.

"Relax, I've got a shake," he said, grabbing said protein shake from the fridge. "Enjoy your pancakes." He glanced to me, expression softening as he added, "And I hope you feel better, Y/N. I heard about your accident."

"Thank you, Sam," I said gratefully, noticing the way Wanda flinched at his words. "I'm already feeling better, so..."

"That's great," he said genuinely, before looking between us. "I'll catch you guys later."

We both waved our goodbyes to him as he left. I wanted to question what was up with Wanda just then, but as Sam left the kitchen, the door slammed shut and startled me more than I thought it would. The noise sounded so familiar, so loud, kind of like what I heard last night in my dream. It must have been the mine when it exploded, a ghost of a memory that was returning. But that didn't seem right. Why didn't that seem right?

"Hey, Y/N, you okay?" Wanda asked, and I looked up, only to notice she was now standing by my side and looking down at me with concern.

I licked my lips, nodding. "Yeah, sorry, I just... yeah. I'm fine."

Her eyes were swimming with doubt, but she chose to say nothing. Instead, to my relief, she pulled me close, giving me a quick hug which I appreciated. As my head rested against her chest, I tried to ignore the familiar striking pain travelling around my forehead.

—

It was two nights later when another strange dream plagued my sleep. Similar to last time, there was a strange combination of scenes that I was sure I remembered and scenes that made no sense. This time though, all that I could feel was a tenseness in my whole body, like I was in a frozen state and my mind and body couldn't communicate. I couldn't move, paralysed by... fear? Shock? Disbelief? I didn't know what it was, but I woke up in the same way.

I'd heard of sleep paralysis, even experienced it a few times without realising. I think this was one of those times, with my body frozen in bed beside Wanda, but I didn't know it at the time. It just felt like a horribly-real dream. The room was dark, the familiar, yet unsettling, nightly blue hue casting shadows on the wall. But on the ceiling, bright and terrifying scenes played out before me. An explosion. Debris. Screaming.

None of it made sense and all I could feel was shock, horrified at how I couldn't move a muscle even if I tried. I tilted my head, seeing the alarm clock glowing red in the dark, letting me know it was past midnight. To the left, I saw a sleeping Wanda, lost in her dreams and unable to help me. I wanted to get up, run my hands over my face, have some water, open a window, do something. But I couldn't move. All I could do was watch the nightmare dance across the ceiling as my heart struggled to beat regularly and my lungs struggled to get enough oxygen.

I didn't know how long I was stuck like that, tears brimming my eyes and body paralysed with fear. But it finally ended and I opened my eyes, only to find the ceiling blank and myself able to move. Reluctantly, I lifted my hand, wiping the tears from my cheeks. It was just a dream (or form of sleep paralysis in hindsight). It wasn't real. But God, it felt horribly terrifying.

Admittedly, I was scared to go back to sleep for fear it would occur again. So, my eyes stayed wide awake, burning with exhaustion, and I continued to stare at the shadows on the wall, feeling my heart pounding in my ears.

I must have fallen asleep again at some point, as I woke up the next morning to Wanda getting out of bed. Sitting up in bed, I looked around and found the fear of last night wearing off now that the room was bathed in the morning light. Still, I was more shaken than I thought.

Not wanting to draw attention to it though, I let the day go on as usual, deciding to appreciate the free time I had from work to spend with Wanda. We decided to go to the park for a walk – Wanda thought it would help get me out of the Tower and I was hoping the fresh air would give me some clarity and help me to recover.

Only, it did the opposite.

We were walking hand in hand, myself listening to Wanda as she chatted about something that happened in training. If I'm being honest, I wasn't really listening; my thoughts were preoccupied with the jumbled mess that was my mind. Glimpses of memories were dancing across my head, teasing me with elements of the truth I couldn't quite make out.

My eyes drifted around mindlessly, settling on a little girl playing by the swings with her parents. I didn't think much of it, but then the familiar shouts for help from my nightmare plagued my mind, making me flinch. The dark, looming shadow returned and I suddenly felt a headache coming on, the pressure against my brain making me nauseous.

I stopped abruptly, letting go of Wanda's hand. She stopped speaking, turning around and furrowing her brows with concern.

"Hey, Y/N, what's wrong?" she asked, and I winced, clutching my head to relieve the pain.

The wave of nausea left after a moment, but the headache remained. I heard Wanda repeat my name quietly, sensing my discomfort.

"I think I need to see Doctor Maya again," I finally found my words.

"What is it? What's wrong?" she asked, resting a hand on my cheek and tilting my head up to meet her eyes. "You can tell me."

Her eyes were reassuring, calming me in an instant. I wanted to tell her everything, but I didn't want to burden her with my anxieties, so I offered her a small smile.

"I just don't think my recovery is as straightforward as I thought," I settled. "She may be able to help."

Wanda chewed her lower lip, nodding slowly. Thankfully, she didn't question me anymore. Instead, she took me back to the Tower to see Doctor Maya. I was grateful as she waited with me for her to be free, until I had to convince her I'd be okay going in myself.

"Are you sure? I don't mind," she said, exchanging looks with Doctor Maya, who looked away quickly.

I glanced between them, mildly confused, but nodded to Wanda. "I'd rather go alone, Wanda. I'll be okay."

She nodded, squeezed my hands comfortingly, then let me go. When I headed into Doctor Maya's office, she took a seat behind her desk and motioned for me to sit before her.

"You said this was urgent," she spoke first, after I took a seat opposite. "Is everything okay?"

I licked my lips, looking down at my hand as it scratched the arm of the chair nervously. "No... not really."

After a moment of hesitation and partial embarrassment, since I knew this was only supposed to be a mild concussion that felt like so much more, I explained everything that happened to Doctor Maya. The odd dreams/nightmares, the headaches, the overlapping memories and sleep paralysis. As hard as it was to relive, I told her everything in hopes she had an answer that maybe I hadn't realised.

When I finished speaking, she looked distracted with her own thoughts. I waited patiently, watching as she nodded to herself before looking to me calmly.

"It doesn't seem like anything to worry about, truthfully," she said, which I didn't expect. "You suffered a mild concussion, yes, but it must have rattled you more than we thought. The dreams and trouble sleeping are a result of your headaches and returning memories. You do remember what happened, right?"

I nodded, though something felt incorrect. "I think so, yes. I was helping an agent when a mine went off. I was thrown back, covered in debris. Hit my head."

She hummed. "Yes... and you're taking your medication?"

Another nod. "Of course. I just want to get better. The sooner I do, the sooner I can return to work."

"Then it seems that your only opponent is stress and impatience," she said simply. "You need to relax. Keep taking your meds. Try not to worry about returning to work just yet. Focus on getting better. I can prescribe you some sleeping pills if you think that will help."

Sighing disappointedly, I nodded. I was expecting more to be honest, possibly an explanation. Her words made sense logically, but it still didn't feel right. Nonetheless, I didn't want to hold her up any longer, so I let her prescribe me some more medication before leaving. Maybe I'd give relaxing a shot.

—

"It's a meatball."

I stifled a laugh as I studied the oddly shaped ball of meat in Wanda's hand. "Is it?"

She narrowed her eyes playfully. "It is otherwise you're making your own meal."

I laughed, pressing a haste kiss to her cheek. "Okay, okay, it's a meatball. Add it to the tray."

We were cooking spaghetti and meatballs for dinner about six days after my incident out in the field. I was still staying with Wanda at the Tower, and I was taking Doctor Maya's advice with my recovery. I didn't worry myself with returning to work which, admittedly, helped out, and the sleeping pills knocked me out long enough to get a good sleep. Though, sometimes the nightmares would still return. I didn't think about them too much though, not wanting them to hinder my recovery. Instead, I focused on getting better with my very supportive girlfriend by my side.

Wanda added the meatball to the baking tray, alongside the others, but as she reached to form another one from the bowl full of minced meat, she accidentally knocked it to the floor. The meat splattered across the tiles, making her gasp.

"Shit," she cursed, eyes widening slightly.

"Very clever," I teased with a smile.

"Let me just–"

"I got it," I cut her off, already bending to clear it up. "Just put the tray in the oven, yeah? Try not to drop it."

"Ha-ha, very funny."

I looked up in time to see her rolling her eyes playfully, but she grabbed the tray as I said.

I kneeled down, scooping the meat up and throwing it in the bowl, knowing it would have to go in the bin now. As I did, I realised how familiar the meat looked. Pink and flesh-like, covering my hands and sticking to me. Suddenly, my hands were shaking, the fleshy bits surrounded by blood, and I tried to blink away the sight, expecting to just see minced meat, but I couldn't. They were covered in what I somehow knew was the flesh of body parts.

Startled, I fell back onto my butt, my back hitting the drawer behind me and pulling me from my daydream. Wanda looked down at me with confusion, before sensing something was wrong and leaning down beside me. She rested a hand on my head, thumb stroking my forehead.

"What's wrong?" she asked, confused eyes staring between me and my hands which were still shaking. She grabbed the tea towel from the counter above us before wiping my hands for me and holding them. "Y/N. This has happened a few times. Please tell me what happened."

I was still shaken, unsure why there was a discomfort in the pit of my stomach. I risked glancing at my hands, which were clean and no longer covered in human fle– I mean, meat.

"I don't know what's going on," I finally admitted to her, shaking my head. "It's like my thoughts aren't my own. I can't control them. I just keep seeing stuff that isn't real."

She frowned, eyes peering through mine patiently.

"I still can't remember what happened with the mine," I said, swallowing the lump forming in my throat. "It's like, I know what happened and I know it's real, but when I try to remember, it just doesn't happen quite right. The picture doesn't appear. And I don't know why."

She pressed her lips together, jaw clenching slightly. I wasn't sure what she was thinking, but her eyes wouldn't meet mine.

"What did the doctor say?" she asked lowly.

I sighed, the discomfort still lining my stomach. "She thinks I just need time."

Wanda nodded, finally lifting her gaze. "Maybe she's right."

I knitted my brows together with frustration, nudging her away and standing up. "I don't need time! I'm a doctor, too. I know it shouldn't take this long. It was a mild concussion. I've treated hundreds of those."

"Y/N–"

"Just forget it," I said with exasperation, pulling away from her as she tried to reach out again. I knew it was uncalled for, taking it out on her for no reason, but I was too frustrated with the situation to care. "I think I'm gonna go for a walk."

She sighed from behind me, running a hand through her hair. I left her in the kitchen, suddenly not in the mood to eat. Clearly all of Doctor Maya's advice wasn't working – what I was experiencing wasn't normal. I needed to see her again.

So, after cleaning my hands properly and having a walk around the Tower to clear my head (as expected, it didn't work), I headed to Doctor Maya's office, hoping she was still in work today. To my surprise, when I reached her office, I saw her door was slightly ajar and she was already speaking to someone. My intention wasn't to eavesdrop, but when I heard my name said in a hushed whisper from a familiar voice, I knew I had to stay.

"...can't say anything," Wanda finished. "She'll get better."

Doctor Maya sounded frustrated. "It's not right, Miss Maximoff. This is against everything I stand for. Against everything Y/N stands for, too, I'm sure."

"This is for her benefit," Wanda snapped, before taking a deep breath. "Look, she can't handle the truth. It'll break her... I haven't worked out the kinks, but it'll be okay. She'll get better."

What the hell were they talking about? What truth could I not handle? Wanda and the doctor were in on something together, something they didn't want me to know... and it was something to do with why I was feeling like how I was. I knew I wasn't going insane – something was wrong!

I left them to it with plans of seeing the doctor afterwards, not wanting to get caught, and tried to wrap my head around the fact that Wanda had been keeping something from me this whole time. How could she? I didn't want to jump to conclusions, but I thought that we could trust each other.

What was she hiding?

[vickyvicarious]

Parker: "Teach me to like stuff."

.

Okay, so. I have some thoughts about The French Connection Job's Parker+Eliot subplot. And I think I wanna approach it separately, scene by scene from each of their perspectives, because we have a couple different things going on here. It's still a little more of a Parker meta than an Eliot meta, but I have enough to talk about on both sides, and they're connected enough not to be in separate metas, that I am going to do it this way.

Also going to put this under a cut because it gets long.

Parker

This whole subplot comes on the heels of the last episode, in which there was a lot of banter throughout about Hardison and Parker's dates, and him wanting to branch out into other things than just bungee jumping or whatever. We have seen hints of this throughout S5 so far, even though we're only a few episodes in at this point. They went on a world tour that was pretty much just jumping off of stuff, Hardison said something about them figuring things out. We saw a cute domestic scene of the aftermath of them watching a movie together, except Parker 'fell asleep again' and missed most of it, and Hardison eventually went off to work on his laptop. Parker tried to comfort him last episode about dust mites and ended up freaking him out instead. She talked about how she liked fire and Hardison complained she was missing the point of his offer for a candlelit picnic. They did end on a very romantic note with her still making the effort to make it happen but getting rained out, and him recognizing her effort and listening to him, and projecting the stars around the dark room then having the picnic inside. They are clearly very happy together and both making the effort to meet in the middle, but there are still some disconnects. Which makes sense this early on anyway, but it's not out of place for Parker to start getting worried about her limited interests here given the context of them contrasting Hardison's more widespread interests.

Starting right off the bat - there's a picture limit so I can't show these early moments, but throughout the first part of the episode we see Parker looking visibly upset/pensive. Hardison notices and asks her what's wrong, but is immediately distracted by his package arriving, and then the team gets into the briefing and he doesn't get to talk to her again. (Sidenote that this is pretty OOC for Hardison, and I have to assume he would at the very least come back to her later, but they were clearly trying to get Parker talking with someone else this episode and apparently couldn't come up with a better way to do it. His writing outside of the kitchen stuff was kinda off this whole episode anyway, what with the whole tip thing.) She was about to open up to him, however, which is important. There's also a scene shortly afterwards where she confides in Nate, again after he notices her being upset and asks what's bothering her. She claims everyone but her has 'a thing', and names a few of them. He asks her what she thinks when she sees Michelangelo's David, and when her answer is an immediate assessment of how it's guarded and what she'd have to do to steal it, he kind of hesitates and then goes right back to running the con. He basically gives up on helping her with this once it becomes clear that a quick sentence or two isn't gonna cut it.

So after those brief, unhelpful conversations, that's when she makes a move. She was responding to others before, but this time she comes up to Eliot, clearly nervous. And she asks him to help her feel something.

(I find it very interesting that she doesn't ask Sophie. Sophie is the person who she would usually go to for something like this, after all. But, aside from this being an Eliot-centric episode and just like them sidelining Hardison's possible assistance earlier the writers want Parker to talk with Eliot not Sophie, I think there are maybe a couple reasons why she might go to him here. First, just distance. Eliot is right downstairs, meanwhile at the moment Sophie is however far across town at her theater. Certainly not saying she wouldn't go to Sophie eventually, but maybe that's why not first. Second, she and Eliot have an understanding, one that's been explicitly acknowledged since the start of S4. They are similar in a way entirely unlike the rest of the crew. So while Sophie may understand emotions best, Eliot is the one most likely to know what Parker is talking about when she says she just isn't feeling anything. Which by the way I'm gonna get more into later on. Thirdly they're in love but that's not actually relevant here since all of the team love one another.)

Eliot

On Eliot's side, she approaches him when he's busy in the kitchen. This whole job is stirring up a lot of old feelings in him right from the start. Toby was someone who 'kept him from falling all the way down', and Eliot is deeply concerned for him. At the same time, the way they are running this con is allowing Eliot to take on the role of teacher. Even though his students aren't anything like the eager students Toby has just had taken away from him, Eliot wants so badly to take advantage of this opportunity to teach them - maybe even all the more because they're resistant. He's being given a very rare opportunity to indulge his belief that food is life and to share it on a larger scale. To use the knife to create, not just destroy. Leverage often walks a line between doing both (taking down the bad guys and helping people) but Eliot doesn't often just straight up get to just do the 'creating' part. (I mean, he loves the destruction too, he genuinely loves beating people up and taking down bad guys, but this is a rarer pleasure.) So he's pretty preoccupied with that at first, and initially dismisses Parker just like the other two guys did.

But when she just looks quietly disappointed at his response, he goes still and watches her. We cut away from them here so we don't see his actual response, but it's immediately clear that he's realizing this is actually something deeply important to Parker, and well worth his time.

On to the next part of this scene below.

.

[Eliot sets a dish down in front of Parker]

Parker: "...It's just food."

Eliot: "It's not just food! Alright, some people could look at it and just see food, but not me. I see art. When I'm in the kitchen I'm, I'm creating something outta nothing, you know what I mean? And sometimes I crush it, sometimes it's crap, but either way - it makes me feel something."

Parker: "Feel what?"

Eliot: "Just... feel."

Parker: [murmuring] "Feel... okay." [looks down at the food and hesitates]

Eliot: "You know, I didn't feel anything for a long time. Then Toby taught me how to cook, and after he did, I started to feel stuff again. That's why I share it through my food - this is my art. This is my art, Parker." [Parker nods, looking worried] "It's like lettin' a stranger in your head, just for a second. And you allow them to feel what you're feeling." [pause] "Look again." [he pushes the plate a little closer to her. Parker takes a deep breath and slowly sets her elbows down on the counter as she stares down at the plate. Eliot watches her closely.]

Parker

At this point I want to talk a little about what Parker means when she says "feel something" and talks about "having a thing." Because we've seen her have interests outside of straightforward thievery before. Sure, most of her hobbies revolves around stealing - casing local banks for fun, for example. But she clearly has a deep love for Christmas and for chocolate. So why doesn't she count those kinds of things as 'feeling something'?

I think it comes down to what Eliot's talking about here. It's a sense of art. Not even necessarily making it yourself, although that certainly applies. Parker likes sweet things like chocolate and donuts, but although she really really likes them they don't make her feel any truly deep emotion. It's more tactile than anything else, just a pleasant flavor. Her love of Christmas isn't the same either in her eyes because it's not uniquely hers. It's something she loves to celebrate but she can't do so all year round, and plenty of other people like Christmas too. This one comes a lot closer, because it definitely seems to be tied up more in community and family for her than something like enjoying chocolate and piñatas, but it still doesn't belong to her in the same way that cooking does to Eliot or theater does to Sophie. And while theoretically her love of base jumping and so on could maybe count, it is still so tied up in her thieving that it doesn't feel separate. She's really good at drawing but only thinks of it as a useful skill, not a creative outlet - this is similar to that.

She has been branching out into a lot of new experiences and emotions lately, and while she's struck out deep into uncharted waters with her relationship with Hardison, once there she's only seeing more and more things that she just... doesn't get. She loves spending time with him, and enjoys what they do together, but she doesn't understand all of those things. Not on a deeper level. She wants to feel that sense of connection to something, wants to feel deeply emotionally moved by something.

And honestly? I think she's way up in her head about it. I'm not trying to dismiss her struggle here at all, but I do think she is stressing herself out about having something uniquely her own. About having a huge interest that speaks so strongly to her personally. And those are amazing to have, but it's really not necessary. She doesn't need a strong secondary passion so much as she needs to let go of trying so hard to force herself into something.

And what's happening in this scene in particular is that Parker is trying so so hard to force herself to feel something. It's evident in her face throughout the whole scene, in her body language. And she is so terrified that it's not going to work that honestly, I'm not surprised at all that it doesn't.

Eliot

On Eliot's side of this scene, he feels like he recognizes where Parker is. This entire job has him remembering how it was to feel nothing. Her phrasing got to him deeply. He wants to reach out and teach her to see something more, just like Toby taught him.

He knew a bit about how to cook before Toby. But it was only seeing Toby's passion that struck something in him, that awoke a part of himself he might've never known before. For Eliot specifically, cooking being an art isn't just something he likes. It's something that brings him hope.

Eliot doesn't believe in redemption. But he believes in actions. And what Toby did, by teaching him to cook, was to teach him that his actions can be good. That he can create, not just destroy. That all is not lost - not 'for' him necessarily, so much as 'in' him. There is a deep empty place inside himself that he can enter so so easily. The difficulty is crawling back out again. Cooking was his rope out of there. He still finds it difficult to express his emotions very often, particularly verbally, but when he makes someone a meal he puts a part of himself into it. And yet doing so doesn't take anything from him, it just adds more.

This is all very vague and figurative and may make no sense, but the takeaway I want to have is that Eliot is opening up to Parker on a very deep level here. He feels like he recognizes what she's talking about, and it was a very bad place for him. (Again, I don't think she is quite that badly off at this point in canon, but I digress.) And while making food allows him to feel that he is demonstrating his love for someone, that he is sharing a part of himself with them, he recognizes that she isn't receiving that. What she's getting, is just a plate of food. Tasty food maybe, but nothing more than that. And so Eliot verbalizes everything to her in a way he rarely does.

And then he keeps trying. This scene obviously doesn't end up making her feel something, and we don't get to see the immediate aftermath of that, but we can glean a little about how they feel based on their reactions. And Eliot is deeply determined to help Parker feel something from his food. He insists that she play the food critic; even speaks directly to her and reminds her to consider what they talked about.

.

In the restaurant, we start out with Parker dutifully playing her role but feeling nothing much beyond just the role. Eliot checks in with Parker, she acknowledges that the food is good but doesn't make her feel anything, and he makes improvements based on her feedback. Then something abruptly changes.

Parker: "I can taste garlic, and mushrooms... and something else that makes me feel different."

Hardison: "Wait, was that for me, cause I-I don't get it."

Parker: "No, it's the food. I get it." [smiles] "I feel something."

+

Parker: "Mmm! These black noodles are amazing!

Eliot: "Parker, it's tagliolini nero con gamberi."

Parker: "Mmm." [eats a huge forkful] "Mmm. Mmmm. These are really good."

Parker

What just happened here? Last we saw from Parker, she'd failed to feel something from the meal Eliot made especially for her in the brewpub, and she was clearly disheartened. She felt it as a failure, very much in the sense of a disappointment. She didn't want to try again, didn't think it would work, and tried to protest when Eliot said she would be the food critic. Even once she got to the restaurant, nothing was happening for her.

The difference wasn't in the flavor of the food. The moment Parker started to feel something was right after she said she felt nothing and Eliot, instead of being disappointed or giving up, took it as a challenge. He changed his recipe, he improved it specifically to better reach out to her. He kept trying.

And yeah, maybe the bone broth helped it taste better. But that wasn't the point, not really. The point is that Parker had gotten herself stuck in a hole, trapped herself in this cycle of not understanding how things make you feel and then believing that she just couldn't. She wanted something of her own and she didn't have it and she didn't immediately get anyone else's thing either, and that was it. She just wasn't capable. She was other. This is an old old fear of Parkers, dating back to Archie or even before. Something in her just isn't capable of being like other people. She wasn't worthy of being in Archie's real family, and she's not able to feel passion for anything outside of stealing. (Setting aside the fact that she loves her team, that all she needed was the right family. That you don't have to be a creator to feel passion, and you don't need to be passionate about any particular thing in order to feel deeply and find beauty in the world.) Parker has empathized deeply with people, has felt so intensely before and is constantly trying to learn more and new ways to be. But because she is noticing her teams' passions now, she has this ideal that she wants to reach, and none of that is good enough for her. She doesn't even know exactly what her ideal involves, but she can't get to it.

But when Eliot doesn't give up, that gets to her. If he views his food as sharing himself with others, Parker finally gets what he's been trying to give all along. It's all about him trying again and again, changing his approach to match her better. That's what she feels, that's what she enjoys.

And once she starts, the floodgates open. She loves the black noodles. She is so happy, she is relieved. There was this huge resistance that she couldn't get past before, but Eliot persisting helped her to break past that and now that she is out of her head about it she can enjoy the food in a way she never has before. Because she feels his love for her in it.

Eliot

Eliot is trying so hard to connect to Parker. It's not really different from what I said in the last Eliot section, and basically the same as what I just said in that Parker section, but I want to emphasize a little more just how much this is about love on his end.

Eliot loves Parker. He loves her, and he wants so much to help her. It doesn't honestly matter that he does this with food, except for the fact that food is what matters so deeply to Eliot himself. He can't reach out to her in the same way through any other medium. And we don't get to see his reaction to Parker's moment of realization. But I think it would be such a deep sense of joy. This is as fulfilling for Eliot as it is for Parker. It's exactly what Eliot has been hoping for this whole episode, to teach someone else to see food in the same way he does. It doesn't matter if it only lasts for a moment or a single meal. That's enough. He has been the support Parker needed through this time of self-doubt. And it is all the more meaningful to him because this isn't just a random student, this is Parker.

He told her he loves her through his food, again and again, and she eventually felt it. She understood. That must mean so much to him.

.

I wanna end with one more brief note on Parker. Does she get her own "thing" this episode? No. No she does not, and this scene shows us that. Parker is not suddenly interested in food or cooking. The importance of that meal was purely derived from Eliot on the other end of it, focused on her and trying his best to reach out to her.

And I don't think this is something only Eliot could have done for her either, not really. The difference between him and the others this episode is mostly in persistence. However, it's also about her mentality. Hardison has built/done things for Parker before and she felt them just as deeply - but the context was different. She wasn't looking for a sense of beauty or art in the world at large then, and so even though she felt the love in the gift just as much, it didn't make her feel like she could find that kind of emotion in other things. She just wasn't looking for it. Also, it was made easier for Eliot to reach out because there's that connection Parker has with him, that understanding that they are on the same level somehow. She doesn't feel that with Hardison - and she loves him all the more for him being different from her, but he also I think can intimidate her with how good and open he is, with how much he can feel in so many different directions. It's part of why she got so worried about herself not being able to do so this episode.

Like, the team has scolded Nate for not having a life or interests of his own outside the job not too terribly long ago! And Parker has had her own joys before! But she isn't seeing that this episode, too caught up in this fear about not having her own 'thing', not feeling anything that way. So while anyone could have helped her through this, it was easiest for her to let Eliot do so + for him to understand what she needed from him. (Hardison in particular was rudely robbed the opportunity, but they all love and support her and could have reached her. Not to detract from Eliot doing so, but also I don't wanna sound like no other method of reaching out would've worked.)

But as soon as she feels something once with Eliot's help, that relaxes those fears. And then Parker is free to look in other places. She remembers Nate's comment about art, and maybe even tells him what she plans based on him knowing where she is at the end of the episode. And then she goes to visit this statue. In her own way which means breaking in, but without any goal of taking it. She just goes to look at the art. And she feels something again.

Parker doesn't gain some big passion at the end of this episode. She doesn't need to. She never did. She just learns how to let herself relax from that restrictive frame of mind. To simply be in the moment and enjoy things for the sake of what they are. To feel - not really in any way she was incapable of before, but intentionally now. It's a quiet victory, in the end. It doesn't mean she's going to get a new hobby or change her lifestyle at all really. But she's let go of a fear and is now intentionally seeking out new connections with the world beyond her once-limited parameters.

[suituuup]

pieces - chapter three

Five years ago, Chloe dropped off the face of the Earth. Beca sees her again in the most unexpected place.

rated: E for drug use and sex scenes

AO3 LINK

*

“Bec?” 

Beca hummed absentmindedly, blinking out of her daze and twisting her head in the direction of the voice. 

Sarah smiled gently as she leaned against the doorframe of the kitchen. She cocked an eyebrow, giving a pointed look towards the sink. “I think the pan is clean.” 

Beca glanced down, stilling her movements. She had been scrubbing that pan for probably ten minutes now, her thoughts completely consumed by Chloe and what she was supposed to do next. 

Chloe clearly didn’t want to see her, and Beca wasn’t going to wait by the phone when it was clear that Chloe was far from okay. She was thinner than Beca remembered, and the look in her eye, the lack of light in those once bright blues, chilled Beca to the bone. 

She looked… broken. As though her spirit had repeatedly been battered until all that was left were mere pieces of her old self. 

If there were any left at all.

Beca couldn’t stand the thought of not doing anything, and she needed to come up with a plan to help Chloe without driving her into a corner and risk losing her forever. 

“What’s going on?” Sarah questioned, pushing off the doorframe and padding over. She rested her hand between Beca’s shoulder blades, her eyebrows knitted together in concern. “You’ve seemed off today.” 

Beca released a sigh, setting the pan down into the sink and reaching for the dishtowel laying next to her on the counter to dry her hands. “I’m sorry, I’m just… worried about a friend.” 

Sarah nodded slowly. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Sarah was unexpected, to say the least. Beca was a workaholic, and her career was too time-consuming for her to get into the whole dating thing. But Sarah, who happened to work as a barista in Beca’s favorite independent coffee shop, had somehow managed to convince Beca to go out with her. One dinner surprisingly turned into a second date, then a third, and it just like that, it had been almost a year since they officially got together. 

Sarah was gentle, patient, understanding, overflowing with positivity, but most of all, incredibly kind. She reminded Beca of Chloe, sometimes. And maybe it was those similar personality traits that drew Beca to her in the first place. 

They didn’t live together. Beca could feel that it was the next expected step on her girlfriend’s end, but she didn’t feel ready to commit, yet. She liked her own space, her solitude. So Sarah spent a few nights a week at Beca’s place, like tonight, and Beca was fine with that. 

“Not really,” she replied, casting Sarah an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, it’s just-- complicated right now.” 

“You need to stop apologizing,” Sarah murmured, her expression soft and loving. Beca let her shoulders sag, ready to apologize again. “I understand. But if you do change your mind and need to let something off your chest, I’m here.” 

Beca nodded. “Thanks.” 

“Are you coming to bed?” 

“Not yet, I wanna get some work done, first.” She leaned in to peck Sarah’s lips. “You go ahead, I’ll join you soon.” 

Walking across the living room and past the huge floor to ceiling windows looking over Central Park, Beca made her way to her home office, her happy place. She had bought the Manhattan condo two years ago, making it a requirement during her house-hunt to have a large room with plenty of light and enough space to store all her records and her music equipment. It was also where she kept her Grammys and other prizes, away from the attention as nobody really stepped into her office.

She usually popped a blues album on the record player, enjoying the soothing instrumentals while she replied to various emails, but not tonight. Tonight, she grabbed a yellow legal notepad and her headphones from her desk and curled up on the leather couch tucked in the far corner, then scrolled to her Spotify playlists until she found the one she was looking for. 

she is magic

Beca couldn’t remember the last time she had listened to her Chloe playlist, one she had made back in Barden when she was hopelessly in love with her best friend. They were songs that reminded her of Chloe, or songs that Chloe liked. Or used to like, at least. 

As lyrics she knew so well poured into her headphones, blocking out the rest of the world, different ones flowed out of Beca’s heart, materializing on the paper in front of her in black ink as she scribbled across the page. Lyrics about friendship, unrequited love, and regrets for listening to her brain and not her heart all these years ago. 

It was pushing on two am by the time Beca called it a night. Her eyes burned, her mind felt mushy, but her soul felt a tiny bit lighter. Music had always been her therapy, and writing songs had always proved more efficient than paying a licensed professional, even though it had been years since Beca had last finished one, for lack of inspiration. 

Or rather, because of the absence of her muse. 

*

She woke up five hours later to a stiff neck and sore back, the bright sunlight pouring in from the windows lining one of her office walls drawing her from her sleep. She had meant to go to bed, before deciding to close her eyes for five minutes right on the couch. 

Straightening with a groan, she grabbed her phone and turned it over, hoping to see a text from an unknown number on her screen. 

Aubrey Posen [6:23am]

Any news? 

Aubrey Posen [6:37am]

Should I come to New York? 

Aubrey practiced family law up in Boston. She and Beca saw each other a few times a year, whenever Aubrey was in the city. Bella reunions were a bit more scarce now, with the girls being scattered all around the country. Their last one dated back to a year and a half ago, on the Fourth of July. 

Beca ran a hand over her face and heaved out a sigh, swiping her thumb across the screen to unlock it. 

Beca [7:16am]

No news yet. I think I’m gonna wait a few days before I head back to the club, if she doesn’t call in the meantime that is. The manager gave me serious sleazy vibes and I’m sure he could blacklist me if I’m too insistent. I don’t think there’s any need for you to come down for now. I’ll keep you posted. 

Hitting send, Beca pushed to her feet and shuffled out of her office, hanging a left down the hall towards the kitchen. A note next to her coffee thermos sat on the island. 

Missed you last night, but I hope you got whatever you needed done. I had to leave for my shift, you’re welcome to swing by for your second coffee of the day and your morning kiss ;) have a good day!

Sarah xx

Guilt swooped in over picking old feelings about an ex-almost over her girlfriend, and Beca let her head hang forward, releasing a grown. She was far from an expert at this relationship thing, but she cared about Sarah a lot and didn’t want to mess that up. 

Beca shook off the sleepiness lingering in her bones and the stiffness in her muscles with a long, hot shower, then got ready for her day. She usually got to the office at 8 sharp, but it was already 7:54 by the time she was out the door, and her commute lasted about twenty minutes, so she wouldn’t get the chance to stop by Sarah’s workplace. 

To: Sarah 

I’m sorry, I got caught up in work last night and ended up falling asleep on the couch around 2. Come over tonight? I’ll cook dinner. Have a good shift.

Her morning was spent in the studio canning vocals for girl in red’s new album, a project Beca was stocked about as she was BMLJ’s most promising artist for this year’s Grammy Awards. 

“That was awesome, Marie,” Beca spoke into the microphone, giving her a thumbs-up through the glass. “Let’s take a lunch break and resume in an hour?” 

“Sounds good,” the younger woman agreed with a smile as she took off her headphones. 

Beca headed back to her office down the hall and checked her phone for any new messages (finding none important), before shrugging on her thick winter coat and screwing her beanie over her head. 

“I’ll be back in an hour, Gina!” She told her assistant on route to the elevator. 

As Sarah’s workplace was just five blocks south from the label, Beca figured she would eat lunch there as she wasn’t able to stop by that morning. She stopped in the convenience store across the street from the coffee shop to buy Sarah her favorite magazine as she knew her break was coming up soon and she’d have something to read. 

Beca was scanning the press stand for that specific magazine, not paying attention to the person walking into the store until they spoke. 

“A pack of Marlboro, please.” 

Beca would recognize that voice anywhere. Her head snapped up so fast she felt something in her neck pull, and she was rounding the stand before she even registered giving her feet the order to move. “Chloe?” 

Chloe glanced over to her right and froze for a second, before fishing for a twenty in her jacket pocket and handing it to the cashier. “Are you following me or something?” 

Given their last encounter, Beca wasn’t surprised by Chloe’s snark, so she gave as good as she got. “You came in after I did, so maybe I should ask you that question.” 

Chloe stuffed the cigarette pack and the change into her pocket. “What do you want, Beca?” 

“To talk,” she replied, softly. “One coffee, that’s it. And if you decide you really don’t want me in your life, then I won’t bother you again. I promise.” 

Chloe seemed to ponder on that for a few beats. “One coffee.” 

“There’s a shop right across the street.” 

Taking her to the place her girlfriend worked at? Probably not the brightest idea, but she was afraid Chloe might go back on her decision if they spent too long finding someplace else. 

When Chloe nodded, Beca took the lead and stepped outside, forgetting all about that magazine as she racked her brain about what she should say. Tactfulness wasn’t her greatest suit; Aubrey would be so much better at this. 

They stepped inside Devocion and Beca picked a table in the corner, shrugging off her coat and draping it over the back of her chair. Chloe kept her jacket and beanie on, a bit hunched on herself as she sat down in the chair opposite Beca’s. 

“Beca?” 

Beca glanced towards Sarah as she approached, wearing a waist apron with the café logo on it. Her dark blonde hair was woven back in a French braid, a few strands escaping, and curiosity swirled in her green eyes as they flickered to Chloe. 

Okay, in hindsight, bringing Chloe here was a terrible idea. 

“Hey, um, Sarah, this is Chloe, a friend from college.” She cleared her throat. “Chloe, this is my girlfriend, Sarah.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Sarah replied brightly, her smile fading a little when all Chloe offered was a distant nod. Sarah met Beca’s gaze briefly, clearing her throat. “What can I get you guys?” 

“My usual. You want anything to eat, Chlo?” 

The nickname rolled off her tongue so naturally, Beca didn’t even catch it. 

Chloe shook her head. “Just a black coffee.” 

“Coming right up.” 

“Thanks,” Beca said as Sarah spun around on her heels, her focus shifting to Chloe. “So um, I wanted to apologize for the other day and putting you on the spot at the club. I just… wasn’t sure how else to talk to you.” 

“I can give you some of the money back if you need it.” 

Beca furrowed her brow, not having expected that. “No, no. I… it’s fine. I don’t care about money.” 

Something flashed in Chloe’s eyes at that, something Beca couldn’t quite pinpoint. 

Sarah came back with two coffees before she could analyze it further, setting the mugs down on the table. “Your club sandwich will be here in a few, babe.” 

Beca nodded, casting her a small, appreciative smile. 

Chloe straightened a bit in her seat, cradling the mug with both hands. “I’m not sure what you expect me to say or do, Beca.” 

Beca licked her lips. “I was hoping we could… hang out from time to time. I’ve missed you, Chlo. So has Aubrey.” 

The mention of Aubrey made Chloe lookup. “Does she live in New York, too?” 

“Um no, in Boston. She’s a lawyer. But she’d come down to have coffee, or lunch, or whatever you feel like doing. In a heartbeat.” 

Chloe shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” 

What little hope flared in the pit of Beca’s belly upon Chloe showing interest in Aubrey’s life vanished. “Why not?” 

“I told you. I’m not the same person anymore. I’m-- I’m not…” 

Beca tilted her head to the side. “You’re not what?” She pressed gently. 

Chloe’s gaze fleeted out the window as her rather calm demeanor now radiated agitation. Her knee started bouncing and her fingers tightened around the mug, and it was as though Chloe was battling against her own thoughts. 

She was itching to reach across the table to rest her hand over her wrist in a sort of grounding gesture, but something told her that would have the opposite effect. 

“Chloe?” Beca attempted once more, her voice as soft as she could muster, as it seemed like Chloe was on the brink of bolting. 

The tear slipping out of Chloe’s eye tore her heart into two. “I-I have to go.” 

Her chair screeched as she pushed it back roughly, and she was nearly out the door by the time Beca scrambled to her feet. 

It was lunch-hour rush in one of the busiest avenues in Manhattan, and Chloe had already disappeared in the crowd when she reached the exit, leaving Beca to helplessly wonder how someone like Chloe, once the epitome of sunshine, got herself trapped in so much darkness.

[ifliamsmile]

Hush, Little Baby - Dick Grayson Imagine

summary/request: Reader and Dick taking care of dawn and hank’s baby and realizing they want children.

pairing: Dick Grayson x Reader

notes: hope you like it, anon, thank you so much for requesting and being so sweet xxxx thank u to my especial editors @nightwingandhistitans​ and @incorrect-titans-quotes​

You were in the kitchen when you heard a phone buzzing in the living room and you were not sure if it was Dick’s phone or yours.

“Dick, babe, can you take a look at the phone please?” you yelled to your boyfriend who was laying in your shared room, because you were too busy cooking pasta for you and him to leave it.

“Of course” you heard him answer. 

“It’s for you, babe.” He handed you the phone and you thanked him, washing your hands to pick it up. You looked at the screen to see Dawn’s name and you quickly answered.

“Hey, Dawn. What's up?” you said 

“Hey, y/n, I miss you guys!” she said with excitement. You missed your friend just like you missed Hank and their little girl Sophia. Hearing her voice was comforting.

 You guys had worked together as titans for many years, so when Dawn told everyone she was pregnant and she and Hank would marry, it was one of the happiest days of your life. After the wonderful news, the team noticed it was time to follow your life as humans too, so you and Dick got your own house in a safe neighbourhood, and got married a little bit after.

“I can’t believe it's been a month without seeing each other. We missed working with you guys” you told her.

“Hopefully we’ll be back soon, hero life can’t get away from us, apparently” she laughed and kept talking. "I was actually calling because I need a huge favour from you guys" she said.

“Yes, of course, tell me.” 

“Can you and Dick watch Sophia today while me and Hank go out tonight? We couldn’t trust anyone better than we do with you guys.” she said  and you understood that she needed some time with her husband so you gladly accepted.

--

“D?” you called him when you got to your room

“Hey babe” he answered coming out from your bathroom, he was putting some clothes on and his perfume hitted your nostrils immediately when you got close to him 

“You always smell so good,” you said, embracing his neck with your arms and getting even closer to his face. He smiled at you caressing your hair 

“Mhm” you hummed starting to take his newly placed shirt off, he kissed you and you answered gladly, you loved when Dick was shameless about how much he wanted you. You got lost in the moment. Kissing dick was addictive and you couldn't seem to get enough of him. You broke the kiss off enough to look at the lust swimming in his eyes, but before anything else could happen you spoke.

“Wait, I came to tell you something” you told him 

“Yeah?” he stole a kiss “and what was it?” 

“Dawn called and asked if we could take Sophia today” you said 

“Of course, I'd love to see that little monster"  he smiled softly. Dick had a big heart and that’s what made you fall in love with him first. You smiled back at him and you both followed to the living room.

---

“Y/n, oh my god, you look so beautiful” you heard your friend’s voice before she hugged you strongly  when you opened the door to welcome the family.

“Dawn, I missed you so much,” you said. Hank and Dick exchanged a quick hug and a small talk and you immediately noticed the beautiful little person in Hank's arms.

“And how's the prettiest girl in the world doing?" You said which earns a big smile from the baby.  You could notice Dick was also kinda in love with the little girl you had in your arms.

“Go enjoy your night, we’ll keep your little one safe until you come back” Dick said without taking his eyes from the baby in front of him. He was captivated by the little human in your arms. 

.”You and Y/n are truly angels, thank you for this, we owe you one” Hank said and you said goodbye to each other, taking Soph’s things and heading inside the house.

“So it’s the three of us now, you, me and little sophie,” Dick said, placing her baby bag on the couch and starting to assemble her mobile crib.

“She’s a sweetheart, isn’t she?” you looked at her, who was looking straight back at you with big eyes.

“She will be as calm as Dawn and thoughtful as Hank, I bet” he said “Done.” he said motioning to the already assembled crib.

“You’re a genius, babe. I’ll place her there now, can you keep an eye on her while i cook  something for dinner?” you asked your husband, who was completely inexperienced with kids, not much different from you.

“Sure” he answered trying to keep his confident pose.

“Thanks, D” you pecked his lips and went to the kitchen.

--

You were almost done with the cooking, so you went to the living room to tell Dick, when you got there you saw a scene that almost made your heart melt.

It  was the kind of scene that would clearly become one of your best memories. Your husband had Sophie in his arms, he had wrapped her in her pink blanket, rocking her and you heard his low voice singing her a lullaby: "Hush, little baby, don't say a word, Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird. 

And if that mockingbird won't sing, Papa's gonna buy you a diamond ring."

You didn’t say anything or move, you kept paralyzed watching the scene that looked so much like a dream. 

You didn’t realize but a half smile took your lips. The baby girl seemed to be pretty much  asleep when Dick placed her in her crib and turned to see you watching the scene.

“Hey, how long have you been there?” he walked to you smiling sweetly, this  wasn’t the only moment you realized Dick was the man who you dreamed about but it was surely the moment you could see most of his sweet side and how in love you were with this man.

“Enough to see how much of a good dad you’d be.”  you wrapped your arms around his waist and rested your head on his chest while he took you in his arms, Dick was taller than you and it was so comfortable.

“Hey, if I am being that good at this is certainly because you taught me a lot about love.” he lifted your head by your chin with the tip of his fingers. You smiled at him enjoying the peaceful moment

“I realized something by passing this little time with her” he said 

“Yeah, and what was it?” you asked him pretty curious

“That we should start planning to have our own. I wanna have it all with you.”  he said and you immediately looked at him, you bit your bottom lip unable to hide your smile when you thought about all the wonderfulness that a family life could be to you and him.

“I think that this was surely the best idea you had in a long time” you answered him still smiling and he kissed you passionately.

“Is it too soon to start trying?” Dick smirked and it was the kind of smirk that told you all the intentions that surrounded his head. You kissed him again making him understand that you were so excited about this as he was.

--

11 months later

Never in your whole life you could imagine feeling this happy and feeling the amount of love in your heart like you felt right now.

You were giving birth to your and dick’s baby. You watched your husband holding your newly born son in his arms, happily receiving the little human that you and him expected so much and you could see that Dick was crying. 

Crying because the emotion of holding your son in his arms took the best of him, John Grayson was finally here and your world was completely changed right at this moment.

All the caring he had with you during pregnancy, all the nights he would caress your belly and talk to your baby were now so worth it and you couldn’t wait for living all of it by their side, the three of you. 

--

You looked at Dick, who took his son’s little hand, you smiled, and opened the door in front of you, making your eyes shine when you saw a white and blue room there, with some drawings on the wall. 

The crib was huge and had sheets with the same tons of the room adorning it. A huge shelf was on the side of the room, and it was already full of teddy bears. In the corner of the room, a huge stuffed panda (even bigger than you) Was on the floor, and next to it, a few puffs. It was the most beautiful children's room you had ever seen, of that, you had no doubt

“Dick …”  You couldn't think. 

“Dawn indicated a very good decorator! He was quick, and

 I liked his job!” He smiled “Although he hit on me …” 

He grimaced. You started laughing, and looked at your son’s room.

Everything was way better than she could ever imagine. 

“Dick, did you ... Did you plan this yourself?” You asked, stunned by all that. It was too perfect, too beautiful ... 

“Uhum! I just gave the orders.” He smiled, sitting on the little bed next to John’s crib, and looking at his son in his arms. You smiled and sat next to your husband, looking at your beautiful and asleep little boy. Carefully, Dick passed him on to you, who picked the baby up delicately. 

 While you holded John, Dick stroked his fragile little head, being enchanted by any movement he made. He felt like he could burst with happiness at any moment. 

And that was the best feeling in the world. You took another look around the room and took a deep breath.

 It was all a new beginning, a beginning of a new life.

[shih-coulda-had-it]

in sickness or in health

Notes: Post-Mr. Shimura & Kotarou, pre-relationship Nanahiko; beginnings of a sickfic (spoiler alert, it’s pneumonia). I just wanted to write about a kotatsu table.  Word count: 1,590

//

It’s not that Torino Sorahiko has a delicate constitution, but Nana is very close to begging Chiyo to write a doctor’s note so Sorahiko is obliged to stay at home when the weather turns cold.

First he starts to sneeze, and then his voice begins to rasp, and suddenly Gran Torino is showing up to work while coughing his lungs out. Nana usually has to wait him out; the instant he falters mid-air, Nana smoothly swoops in and excuses him for the rest of patrol. For the rest of the week, if possible.

Sorahiko can pretend all he wants. But one disruption to his airflow is all it takes to send him flailing.

The fateful, annual misstep thankfully occurs before they resume patrol. They are taking a noontime break on their rooftop, surveying the street below, having fallen into the comfortable silence that fills the gap between conversations. Sorahiko clears his throat to indicate they need to move on. He does not stop clearing his throat; he’s doubled over, locked in a coughing spasm that nearly topples him over the edge of the roof.

Nana catches him by the waist, steadying him.

“I’m fine,” he chokes out.

“If I kicked you off this roof, you’d go splat on the asphalt,” Nana tells him sincerely. Sorahiko can’t even meet her eyes, and his face is red with exertion and embarrassment and what has to be the beginning of a fever. His frame shudders with another great cough.

“We can’t just stop patrol.”

“Sick days exist for a reason, and so do vacations! Time to use ‘em!”

“Ugh,” Sorahiko says, but he complies with her insistence that they return to the agency. Nana drops him onto the cot in the backroom, and cheerfully points at the civilian clothes sitting at the end of the mattress. Patrol can wait until Toshinori is done with school; even though Toshinori cannot fly, he’s remarkably agile about scaling rooftops.

“So you go home,” Nana says, internally planning out the rest of her day, “and get some rest until we know for sure that you don’t infect our civilian employees.”

It’s already a given that One for All will keep her and Toshinori spry and healthy; Nana’s immune system hasn’t encountered a virus or infection that it couldn’t burn out since she swallowed Rokudo’s hairs. Bonus, One for All keeps her toasty warm during the winters—she gleefully cut out winter gear from her expenses years ago.

Sorahiko looks up at her. He’s already peeled off the domino mask, and even with the dim ceiling light, Nana discerns the glaze in his pale brown eyes.

“Can’t go home,” he confesses.

“Huh?”

“My complex, it’s getting… fumigated,” Sorahiko informs her. He sounds smug. Like he’s won the argument Nana hadn’t realized they were having. “I told you about the termite problem.”

“No,” Nana says slowly, “you said your place had a cockroach problem. Termites, when did—no. When did the fumigation start?”

“Three days ago.”

“Where have you been sleeping?” Nana demands in a higher-pitched voice. Sorahiko eyes her shiftily, and he scrunches up his civilian wear in his hands. Looking at it closely, Nana realizes that the clothes are pajamas: flannel pants and a thick cable-knit sweater the color of a pale sun. “If I look under this cot, am I going to find a suitcase, Sorahiko?”

“Not under the cot,” he hedges. So, probably squirreled away in his desk’s drawers.

“Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Are you at least keeping the heating on overnight?”

Sorahiko looks at a point over her shoulder and blatantly lies, “Would I suffer the cold?”

She glares at him because Sorahiko would be the type to deny himself the right to a warm office and minimize their heating bill. They don’t even keep a pillow and blanket for the cot! It’s literally a mattress on a tiny metal bedframe, bought for the office with the express purpose of napping, not actual sleep.

He shrinks where he sits. A sad sniffle punctuates the scene.

“Sick day for everyone,” Nana says promptly, and leaves Sorahiko alone in the backroom to tell their civilian staffers the good news. They are unhappy to find out that Gran Torino has been slowly but steadily contaminating the office with his seasonal germs. Thankfully, their concern for his housing situation outweighs their outrage over Sorahiko continuing to work while sick.

These are their most senior staffers; they know the pattern of a sick Sorahiko too.

She waves goodbye and doubles back to her and Sorahiko’s enclosed office to collect his cache of spare clothes (toothbrush and travel-sized hygiene products included). Once all that is in a tote bag, Nana returns to find Sorahiko still sitting unchanged on the cot, staring blankly at his pajamas. Nana squashes the burgeoning panic. The tote bag is dropped at one end of the cot, and she touches his shoulder.

Sorahiko startles, snaps to attention. Inelegantly, he says, “Wha’s happ’nin’?”

“You’re coming home with me,” she tells him. His eyebrows draw together.

“Says who?”

“Says your best friend.” Nana takes the pajamas and stashes them away into the tote; she picks up his domino mask and smooths it over his face, careful around the eyes, firm about the stray air pockets that tend to gather over his cheekbones. “C’mon, Sorahiko. I’ve got a kotatsu with your name on it.”

“You still own one?”

“Not everyone decided to prioritize a Western bed,” she says dryly, and helps Sorahiko stand upright. He breaks into a series of coughs again. She holds him through it and hopes that this year is just particularly bad for Sorahiko. When Nana had sent him home before, had he curled under his blankets and hacked his lungs out, every breath coming out as a rasp? Surely not.

“You still have one of those,” he remembers. Of course that’s what he remembers.

They stagger outside, Nana propping Sorahiko up with his arm around her shoulders. She locks the front doors and squints at the direction back to her apartment.

“Don’t wanna walk,” he mumbles into Nana’s hair.

“We’ll fly,” she assures him. And they do. Sorahiko’s pride matters less than his comfort, when his stubborn streak peters out. Nana scoops Sorahiko up in a bridal carry, hangs the tote bag on her elbow, taps off the ground and soars to the rooftops. The flight back to her apartment is swift, even with Sorahiko shuddering with stifled coughs.

Entering through the lobby, and then ascending the stairs with judicious use of Float, they finally make it home. Already, the heated building prickles at Nana’s skin. It wakes Sorahiko up too, if the faint stirring of his head is any indication.

“Home?”

“Home,” Nana agrees, keying them inside. She sets her partner onto his feet and sits him on a stool in her genkan. By the power of muscle memory, Sorahiko automatically starts tugging off his boots and various accessories. Nana’s quicker; she helps with the gloves, then ushers him to the bathroom. “Don’t fall asleep yet.”

“Hngh,” he manages. When the door shuts behind him and her shower starts, Nana reheats her kotatsu table, fiddling with the electric heater settings until there is a veritable warmth seeping through the carpeted padding.

Sorahiko needs rest, nutrition, and medication. Possibly Chiyo. Nana weighs the potential humiliation of telling Chiyo she was oblivious to Sorahiko sleeping in the office, chilled to the bone with not even an emergency foil blanket available—versus the danger of not telling Recovery Girl at all.

She stalls for time by making tea and checking her supplies. Painkillers, present. Canned soup? Worryingly absent, along with cough syrup. Nana may have to use her instant ramen powder packets for a broth.

“Nana,” she hears Sorahiko croak. “Just buy take-out.”

“And pass on my cooking?” Nana reflexively says before she jerks her head from her pantry. Sorahiko looks bedraggled. Dressed cozily, yes, but his towel-ruffled hair sticks up in jagged tufts, and the haggard shadows lining his face signals exhaustion more than stress.

“No need for two incapacitated pro-heroes.”

Nana rolls her eyes and gestures to the living room. “Kotatsu, go.”

He shuffles at first, then makes a delighted sound as his naked feet hit warmed territory. Sorahiko lowers himself to his knees, and then visibly decides, fuck it, and slides his entire body, neck down, under the heavy patterned futon.

“Oh,” Sorahiko sighs. His eyes flutter shut; Nana quietly picks her way over and sits by his head.

“I think I’m going to call Chiyo-chan,” she informs him.

“Unnecessary.”

“I’m calling Toshinori too.”

One eye cracks open. “Very unnecessary.”

“He’ll want to know why the agency is out for the day,” Nana explains, giving into the impulse to stroke her fingers through his fluffy silver hair. She cards the tufts into a smoother angle—less bedhead, more rakish. Sorahiko’s contented rumble stutters with a cough. “And he has easier access to Chiyo-chan.”

“I’m not sick.”

“Uh-huh.” His pout is ridiculous and endearing, and Nana’s heart hurts. She tries to smile anyway. Sorahiko ignores her valiant attempt to lighten the mood; the downturned corners of his mouth deepen into a real frown. How is he always tuned into her actual feelings? Ridiculous.

“... I’m a little sick,” he concedes grouchily. “Don’t let the kid be noisy if he invites himself over.”

“Okay,” Nana says, soft. She lets herself cradle his jaw for one long moment, feels the shifted weight of Sorahiko leaning into the touch, before withdrawing. She has a phone-call to make.

[fiercedeitylink-x-linkeduniverse]

Chapter 3: Injuries and Nightmares Pt. 1

I have some absolutely amazing friends from my LU Discord! I asked for help for planning out the major fight scene and the heavy angst. Shout to those who helped me plan this out yesterday! WARING HEAVY ANGST AND GORE WARNING!

"Pfffft, that's so cute!" "Shhh! You'll wake them up!"

"Too late," I groaned opening my eyes. Hyrule and Warriors gave me sheepish grins and I just mock glared back at them. Wind was surprisingly still asleep after all the noise they made.

"How am I supposed to get up?" "The aroma of food will wake him up," Wild chuckled when I whined in frustration.

It wasn't long the aroma of bacon and eggs woke up my little friend. Wind sat up rubbing his eyes sleepily, and I was able to get up and stretch. My back popped loudly in protest and shrugged it off yawning.

"Dude. And I thought Wild's back was loud when it pops," Warriors snickered.

"Thanks," I told Wild after I grabbed my food.

"Leave my friend alone, Wars. He just woke up." Wind shot back.

"It's alright Wind," I ruffled his hair causing him to protest.

"Hey! Stop doing that Fierce it's annoying." I laughed and ate my breakfast.

~~~~~~~~~ 3rd Pov

The chain was quick to eat breakfast, even Sky woke up in time to eat. After all, who would miss out on Wild's cooking? The monkeys chattered at the 10 heroes as they began to pack up camp in the early morning sun. Wild's ears twitched forward as he heard something from the jungle brush.

He narrowed his eyes but nothing was there.

"Something wrong, cub?"

"I think it might be a good idea to leave the Faron region," Wild replied staring into the jungle's thick brush.

"Something's stalking us,"

After 10 minutes of friendly banter as they packed up, Wild tapped on Fierce's shoulder.

Fierce's POV

"Since this is your first time in my Hyrule, I'll tell you about Faron. This can be a very dangerous place. I would recommend wearing armor if you got it. But if it starts raining take your armor off. If you don't you might get struck by lightning."

"That's... Annoying."

"Tell me about it. I got struck by lightning when I was wearing armor and almost died. Don't tell Twilight he'll kill me," Wild lowered his voice his ears moving backward toward Twilight.

"What was that cub?"

"Nothing!" I snickered at the panic in his voice.

"You're lying, get back here cub!" Wild bolted towards a tree so Twilight wouldn't catch him and scampered up like a little squirrel.

"Hey, Fierce! Wanna go exploring?" Wind bounced over to me, his eyes shining.

"As long as Time says okay," I grunted as I pulled out my chest plate from my ragged bag.

"Woah! Cool armor!" Hyrule watched as I pulled it over my head.

"Cool but very heavy," I replied adjusting the straps.

"Where did you get the armor?" Warriors rapped his knuckles on the breastplate.

"It was given to me by my father before he passed away," I muttered as I pulled my gauntlets on.

"Sorry, I didn't-"

"Wild! I have you now!" Twilight had Wild by his ankle.

"I would be careful you might-" Wild lost his grip causing them to fall onto the grass with thuds and groans.

"Fall..." Hyrule finished. The whole camp burst into howls of laughter.

3rd POV

The chain began traveling through the brush until they found the road that was on Wild's map. Wind was practically bouncing with all of his pent-up energy. Fierce stuck close to Wind, making sure he didn't wander off. Time had permitted them to explore as long as Wild said it was safe to do so. He agreed to let them explore but not until they got to the stable.

Wild's ears were constantly swiveling, trying to decipher the different sounds as they walked. He wasn't taking any chances. If something happened in his Hyrule he would never forgive himself.

Twilight had updated Time on their situation and was thinking out battle plans just in case. Legend was on edge, watching everyone to make sure that they were okay, not that he'd admit.

Hyrule found himself double-counting his medical supplies and kept biting his bottom lip nervously. Warriors was prepared for the worst, constantly checking for signs of monsters. Wind was worried but didn't show his concern. Four kept close to Sky. Sky was mentally preparing for a possible fight but was silently praying to goddesses that they would make it safely to the stables.

When they got to the stables, Wild showed them a good place to explore. It was a cliff and it was accessible by a sharp slope. The two went to explore but paused midway. Fierce had an uneasy feeling and decided to get his claymore out. The double helix blade. After attaching it to his back the two continued on their exploration.

Fierce's POV

I grunted as I worked my way up the hill regretting the choice to bring my helix blade and armor. Note to self, heavy weapons and armor are never a good idea when exploring. Lesson learned.

"Come on, Fierce! I wanna see the view!" Wind bounced up and down from the top of the steep incline.

"Where did you get this much energy?" I grunted when I finally reached the top

"Candy," He chirped and zipped over to the cliff edge.

"Wild, you are so dead when I get back," I muttered darkly as I walked over to Wind. I sucked in a deep breath as I gazed over the Faron region.

"Woah, Wild's Hyrule is amazing." I breathed taking in the tall jungle trees and the birds flitting to and fro from branch to branch. I could hear the bugs buzzing and the monkeys chattering, and the bird's musical cries. Until it went silent. Dead silent.

I could feel dark magic swelling and dispelling. I spun on my heel drawing the helix blade in one fluid motion.

"What the flip? What're darknuts doing here?!" Wind yelped before drawing his sword and shield. The darknuts towered over me and I'm quite tall. The moblins growled one wielding a dragonbone club and the other wielded a bow...

"Wait a minute... Wind run!" I roared grabbing him and tossed him to the side as the Moblin shot its arrow where he was just two seconds ago. The world went upside down. I was slammed onto the ground and Wind rushed over to me. I shook my head, trying to clear my head from the ringing in my ears. Wind stood in front of me, holding his sword and shield so tight his knuckles turned white. I managed to get on my hands and knees when Wind charged forward. He parried and blocked the Moblin's attacks. Why aren't the darknuts fighting?

Wind was fast but the club was faster. I watched in horror as it slammed into the back of his skull. Time slowed down as he fell onto the ground.

START OF FLASHBACK "Dad please don't die! Please!" I choked on my blood and the sobs that racked my body. He was covered in blood along with his wounds. Blood soaked his hair and tunic as he heaved, struggling to breathe. I could feel his blood on me and my own blood spilling from my own wounds onto him. So much blood. I gagged.

"Link... My son... I'm passing from this world... Stay strong my son... I ... Love... You..." He heaved one last time before passing on from this world.

"Tell mum I'm sorry," I whispered. I pressed my forehead to him before laying his body on the ground. His blood was on my hands. The soldiers' blood was on my hands. Termina's blood was on my hands. I failed. I swiped at my tears causing blood to be smeared all over my face.

"Majora! YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR THIS!" I screamed to the heavens.

END OF FLASHBACK

I snapped out of my flashback and I sprung to my feet as adrenaline surged through my bones. I grabbed Wind and ran. I laid him down under a tree and spied my blade. It was inches from the edge. I ran and dodged the Moblin's angry swipes. I snatched up my blade and swung hard. The Moblin's head was separated from its shoulders and black blood splattered onto me. I slowly turned towards the rest of the

I growled savagely as I approached the monsters in a defensive position. The Moblin fired a bomb arrow and I was knocked back. I staggered forward before I used magic to create a sword beam and kill the Moblin. Now the real fight begins.

3rd POV

Fierce clenched his sword tightly as he carefully approached the darknuts, watching every move they made. The fight was a blur of blades. The rest of the chain was running as fast as they could to where the explosion came from. Wild was frantic as he raced ahead.

Legend and Four raced forward with their pegasus boots, charging ahead desperate to save their friends. A Moblin aimed its bow, a bomb arrow knocked and fired at the cliffside, the blast causing it to collapse. Four and Legend dodged the debris as best they could but Four couldn't stop in time, a rock smashing into the side of his head, knocking him out cold. Legend cursed under his breath, taking out his shield to protect them both.

Wild scrambled up the incline dodging arrows and falling debris. He was desperate, he wasn't going to let down another friend. He wasn't! He climbed to the top and froze. Fierce had rips and tears in his tunic and his blood was splattered across the ground. But he was still fighting. He was close to the edge but kept fighting back.

A shadow fell over him and he froze.

"Don't you dare!" Wild snarled furiously. The Moblin sneered and brought down its club on his hand.

"Ow! You little- Yeooooowww!" Wild screeched as he fell before opening up his paraglider and barely missed Legend and Four as he landed.

Fierce began charging up massive amounts of magic, preparing a massive sword beam. Legend and Hyrule's hackles raised as they felt the intensity and power of his magic. The others froze when Legend raised his hand.

"Don't, you might get caught up in his magic!" Legend roared over the distressed cries of the others.

Fierce let out a fierce battle cry as he swung the blade. The darknuts split in half and so did most of the trees as a result of the force of the magic. Fierce stabbed in his sword in the ground exhausted and leaned on it until the other arrived. Hyrule was the first one up this time. His face turned pale when he saw the destruction and wounds of his friends.

"Wind, take care Wind." Fierce rasped out his energy fading fast.

Wild raced up covered in dirt and with his right hand quite swollen. He went bug-eyed at the darknuts and moblins, their black blood staining the ground where they laid. Wild shook his head and raced over to Fierce concerned at the rate his face was turning pale.

"Fierce!" Wild barely caught him before he collapsed and yelped under his weight. Warriors scrambled over and helped Wild before he was crushed.

"I got ya!" Warriors grunted. Everyone else arrived at the top and stared at the wreckage that had occurred.

"Are they alright?" Time asked when he finally found his voice.

"Wind has a concussion, not sure how bad," Hyrule stated while thoroughly examining him. A loud retching cough from Fierce startled everyone. He started puking up blood and Hyrule sprinted over leaving Wind in Sky's hands.

"MOVE!" Hyrule thundered scaring the crap out of everyone. He immediately started using his healing magic trying to save Fierce's life. Time one eye drifted towards the sword that was in the ground. He felt his blood drain from his face. He knew that blade.

The Fierce Deity's Sword.

[elles-writing]

When The Worlds Collide - V

Pairing: Kili x reader

gif not mine

A/N: A new chapter!! I hope you’ll enjoy this one. I’m having a stressfull and changing times right now, I’m trying to fight with my overthinking and also trying to figure out many things and books have became my new reality, so…yeah. I’m going to be writting, but posting less, around two times or one time per week, because I want to give you good quality content around at least one thousand words.

I also could not draw, I didn’t got time for it. I’ll add the fanart later, I’m sorry about that, but I think you are going to love it. A lot.

You can send me asks all the time, I love answering them!!

I hope you guys are safe, remember, you are going to be okay at the end!!

Question of the day: Do you like C. S. Lewis‘ books as well? I personally love Narnia a lot!

Masterlist       part one        part two   part three   part four

Tags: @moony-artnstuff​  @whenputtingpentopaper​

Kili’s personality by MBTI (I was wondering about it, so I used Google) from @funkymbtifiction​ . ESFP

….

You were waiting for their reaction, when they decided to try tea with milk.

Pfff!

Both Kili and Fili grimaced.

„That’s a weird combination.“

„Wait…“ They carefully sipped again and Kili firmly shook his head. He clearly didn’t liked it, but Fili carefully sipped a bit again.

„Well,“ he said after a few moments.

„It’s not that bad.“ You looked over at Kili.

„Yeah, it’s good…“ You smirked and folded your hands on your chest.

„I can clearly see in your face that it’s everything but good.“ Kili looked down at the cup with suspicous glare.

„It’s okay, some people here dislike it, or even despise it. It’s up to everybody’s preference.“ You shrugged your shoulders.

Living with them was not the worst thing ever, though. You had to make sure everyone had a place to sleep, have enough food and introduce them to all the things in your world they didn’t had in Middle-Earth. And there was a lot of them.

The first thing, your house. The way it looked like. Then how the electricity works (which took you some googling, which was becoming a sport now, when you thought about it). How does the shower works. And a lot of other topics.

It was almost a week since they came into your life, and even if you sometimes felt flustrated, sometimes a lot, but when there was Gandalf, Balin, Bard and Bilbo, whom knew how to make sure that the dwarves (and even elves) won’t do more bad than good.

There was one dwarf in particular who was making you blush on every single opportunity he got to flirt with you, shamelessly, being cheeky and totally charming.

It was Kili, obviously.

You acted you didn’t really paid too much attention to it, but every action he did (well, aside from his cooking, that was making you feel anxious and letting him in kitchen only with somebody whom knew how to cook, which was often Bilbo or Bard) was making your stomach flip and create a bunch of butterflies flying inside your belly.

You wanted to introduce them your favourite music, but you didn’t wanted to be way too fast. They needed time to adjust and you were still trying to figure out how to send them back home.

You‘ve often dreamed about going to Middle-Earth before, obviously, but now it was a serious thing. If you’d found a way, you could maybe go with them. You didn’t wanted to leave your friends and family behind, but a simple life in a cottage with bunch of books, comfortable bed and armchairs and garden with vegetables and apple and pear trees was all you’ve been dreaming of. So peaceful and calm life, away from all the stress that took a note on your mental health from time to time…

„KILI, YOU BROKE SEVENTH CUP THIS WEEK-“ You’ve heard Fili from the kitchen and sighed. Living with them all was great, but if you wouldn’t figure out the way to get them back, you were sure you would run out of dishes you had.

You’ve decided to take a look at calendar and see what you had planned out, so you’d say you were still sick or something, because it would be a challenge to leave for like an hour to get some shopping done.

You couldn’t imagine leaving them here for eight and more hours.

You took your calendar and started flipping through it, but a thought came to you.

You looked at the date they appeared at your doorstep and in your house, and checked the moon phrase.

You froze.

It was a new moon.

You frowned and sat down to your laptop, ignoring stares you got from mostly of the dwarves and elves.

„It cannot be…“  you mumbled. Gandalf looked at you.

„What’s wrong, miss Y/N?“ You looked up at him.

„You’ve appeared here at night when was a full moon, which means new beginnings. That would make a sense.“ He sat down to you (you’ve explained them how most of things in modern world are working) and looked at the screen.

„i was probably at the same phase of moon, even if most of…“ you carefully looked over at Fili and Kili, trying out eating rice by one grain, and almost rolled your eyes.

„…most of you won’t still admit where you were and what you were doing.“ Gandalf looked at you with his “granfather“ look.

„Yeah, dwarves and elves are stubborn.“ You sadly smiled and nodded.

„That’s what they are, but I still wonder…“ you’ve heard loud ACHOOOO-! and sighed.

„Bard, get out from the kitchen!“

„That was Legolas!“

„Legolas, stop looking through the spices! You know you sneeze after the pepper!!“

„I just touched a mug!“ You deeply sighed.

„Kili, Fili, you should stop waisting the pepper, or I’m going to shave off your beards.“ You’ve heard how they choked on their rice.

„Yeah, I am being serious. I may also put some pepper to your beds sometime.“

„You wouldn’t!“ You’ve heard Kili’s voice. You smirked to yourself.

„Maybe.“

„Oh noo, Y/N, you would not!“ He dramatically announced and you shook your head.

„Wanna find out?“

„You’re evil.“ He mumbled.

„Aye, I know.“ You laughed.

You and Kili were teasing each other like this all the time. You knew he was all flirty (you never played the other two movies – they told you that the first one has turned off after five minutes, which you assumed was because electricity was turned off, and you needed to figure out how to watch the scenes where Kili was flirting with Tauriel without feeling way too jealous.), so you didn’t wanted to get your heart crushed.

But it was fun. Really fun.

[cautious-creation]

Adjusting to the 2000's-Steve Rogers

Fandom & Character: Marvel (MCU); Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). Mentioned: Col. Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson), Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan)

Pairing(s): Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) x 2nd person female y/n

Word/page count: 2500+ words

CW/TW: cringe...so much cringe, unrealistic interactions, ignoring canon timelines, tickle fights, coming on too strong, ...I’m sorry

Summary: “You are a S.H.E.I.L.D agent assigned to help Captain Steve Rogers to adjust to modern day society and technologies. Steve had only just woken up in S.H.E.I.L.D's fake hospital and been chased into the center of New York by the organization, you being previously selected to be his P.A. and housekeeper.”

Author’s note: I hate this, I hate this so much. I wrote this when I was about 15 and it’s...just so bad. (It’s even got emojis as scene dividers) But here it is anyway, unedited aside from auto corrected spelling errors.  Enjoy the cringe. 😅 👍

You held out your hand in greeting. "Y/n y/l/n, Captain Rogers. I'll be helping you adjust to the 21st century." He looked at you, a small smile of appreciation gracing his gorgeous face. He shook your hand. "A pleasure agent y/l/n. I'm glad there's someone to help me with all...." He looked around at the S.H.I.E.L.D vehicles surrounding him and the Big Apple's high rising buildings. "....this." He looked back at you sheepishly, embarrassed of his inability to find a better term. "Yes. I ought to get you to where you'll be staying for the meantime." You put your hand on his shoulder, guiding him away from the centre of the road and prompting him to tear his gaze away from the city surrounding him. "I'll be staying with you in one of S.H.I.E.L.D's residencies until you've been deemed fit to live alone." You continued as he followed you to one of the vehicles blocking the rush hour traffic in order to help the newly thawed Captain. You'd been driving for a while before he finally started talking. "So, I've been sleeping for seventy years, we won the war and this... Nick, character has assigned you to help me figure out the rest. Right?" You looked at him. "Yup, you seem to catch on quickly. I guess I won't have a problem getting you up to speed." He chuckled; a beautiful sound you'd be hearing a lot of, as it turns out, in the time you'd be helping him. "Let's hope so, I never was the best student." He smiled at you. "I suppose we'll have to see how well your teacher explains modern politics. Something I'm only aware of because my job requires it." You shrugged. He shook his head laughing. 😊😚😊😚 "Well, welcome home Captain." You opened the door to the medium sized apartment decorated in typical 40's fashion. "Wow. Indoor decorating hasn't changed very much." He stepped in, admiring all the detail used to help make him feel at home. "Oh it has. We just decided it'd be better to have a home that looked familiar, so you have a place of comfort in this new and strange world." You set down the keys and your hand bag on the kitchen table before slipping your feet out of your three inch black pumps and sliding them under one of the chairs around the table. "So." You turned around to see Steve still admiring the open plan kitchen and lounge. "Tour?" 🙂🤔🙂🤔 "...and this is your bedroom. We got some of the clothing essentials for you, but I've been given a budget for when you want to buy something more to your taste." He held a teal shirt that was two sizes too small against himself. His gaze went from the shirt to you and back to the shirt. You laughed. "Which I can see will be happening sooner than my colleagues who bought that expected." He turned the shirt around and looked at it from an arm's length. "You think?" He teased. "No, no no no. You're supposed to say 'ya think'. It sounds more sassy." You put your one hand on your hip and snapped a 'z' in the air with the other. Now that is sass. You both laughed on the way to the kitchen. "As far as I can remember, there's a pre made meal for tonight and then I'll need to figure out what I'm cooking from tomorrow onward." You rummaged through the fully stocked fridge. "I could cook if you'd like." Steve offered concern in his voice. "No need, I've been cooking supper for myself almost everyday for three years. Now where is that darn... Ha! Found you!" You pulled a cling-filmed dish of honey mustard chicken fillets with fluffy white rice out of the fridge. "That looks delicious, I've only just realised how hungry I am." Steve said, marvelling at his first taste of proper unrationed food in who knows how long. "Mhhmhh, sure does. It'll take a few minutes to reheat though. I saw a bag of apples in there if you're that hungry." You responded  unwrapping your supper and putting it in the microwave. "No, I'd like my first meal after the war to be a proper, unspoiled one." You chuckled at his adorable mock determined face. "Okay. You're the one with abs of steel. I'm not going to argue with those." You poked him in the abdomen. He leapt back releasing a Yelp like giggle. "Wait, are you ticklish? Is Captain freaking America freaking ticklish?!" Another jab to the stomach proved the unthinkable. That's such a compromising weakness! "Are you?" He asked eyebrows raised playfully. "No no no no no no no no hahahahaha....." He jabbed you in the ribs, unleashing a litter of kitten giggles from your petite frame. And so the tickle fight began. You were the first to end up on the floor, pulling the super soldier down next to you on the lounge carpet. You two were rolling around on the floor in fits of laughter, you trying to stop his jabs to your stomach and ribs, and him crying from laughing so much at your kitten giggles and walrus cackles. "Ok...ok....ok..I give up." You panted. "You win, Rogers." You were both trying to stop laughing and catch your breath when the timer on the microwave went off. You managed to stand, eventually. "Alright, that's enough for now. I thought you said you were hungry?" You held out your hand to help him up. "Hungry? Please, I'm starving!" He grabbed your hand and pulled himself up. You chuckled. "Then lets EAT!" You grabbed a towel off the stove top to get the hot food from the microwave. He snatched the towel straight out your hands and stuck his tongue out at you as he proceeded to try and fail to open the microwave door. You laughed and pressed the, clearly labelled, open door button. He responded with a 'hmf', a pout and stuck his nose in the air as he used the towel to take the steaming hot food out of the microwave. "Oh, well done Captain Rogers. You've successfully taken a dish of food out of the microwave and placed it on the counter top. Well done." You proceed to slow clap sarcastically as he did jazz hands and bowed; but what happened next, you did not expect at all. He threw his hands in the air before bringing them down to wrap around you and lift you off the ground in an, almost bone crushing, hug. He spun around the kitchen, still holding you with your arms pinned to your sides. "Ok...um...you're excited." Your voice was filled with shock. What the hell was he doing? He put you down and continued to look in cupboards and draws for cutlery and crockery, acting as if nothing had happened. "Okaaayy? I'm now very confused." You looked at him sceptically. "Now why would the extremely intelligent agent y/n y//l/n be confused." He looked at you, innocence plastered all over his face. You shook your head in mock disappointment. He chuckled as you helped him dish up your first meal together. 😧🙄😧🙄 "I've got a few paperwork assignments I need to get done in the next few weeks. They should keep me busy while you're reading up on what you've missed. Speaking of which..." He looked up at you from his plate that he'd been silently staring at for a while. "Would you prefer for me to catch you up from after you crashed to the present or from now back to when you started your nap?" You asked teasing slightly. "Um...then to now, that way, if anything comes up you don't have to keep going back to the present to add on what's happened." He gave you a small, distracted smile. You nodded, understanding his distanced mind. You ate the last forkful of rice on your plate. "Right, I'm going to shower. You can put your plate next to the sink with mine when you're done. And...um...yeah. See you in a bit." You stood from your place at the kitchen table, picking up your empty plate and pushing in your chair. 😕🍴😕🍴 "...say what you wanna say, na na na na na na, honestly, I wanna see you be brave..." You sang softly to yourself as you walked into your bedroom to get changed into your pajamas. "...with what you wanna say, and let the words fall out, honestly I wanna see you be brave, I just wanna see you, I just wanna see you, I just wanna see you, I wanna see you be brave." There was a knock on your door. "Y/n? I'd like to ask you something. Are you decent?" It was Steve's voice, shy and vulnerable. "Just give me a sec." You slipped on your track pants and sweatshirt. "Ok, done." He slowly opened the door, his face was full of confusion. "What's wrong?" You sat on your bed looking at his sad expression. He sat next to you, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. You put your hand on his back comfortingly. "I....um,....I'm just trying to get my head around all this...all my friends are gone...everywhere I used to go out is either closed down and refurbished or nonexistent...my childhood home is gone and different...everything is so different." He sighed. You started rubbing his back. "Hey, it's okay. I'm sure some of your friends are still around, and you'll be surprised how long some of the Brooklyn restaurants have been open for. I'm here to help you through this. WE can do this. It's going to be fine, trust me." You rest your head on his shoulder comfortingly, giving him a sideways hug. And that's when the tears started to fall. You heard his muffled sobs, which caused your own tears to appear silently. "It's okay. It will be alright. We'll get through this, Steve. We can do this....you can do this." He turned towards you, eyes red, tears staining his cheeks. "I...I just." He sighed and tears started falling again. You pulled him into a comforting hug, rubbing his back up and down, whispering encouragement. He wrapped his massive arms around your small waist and dug his face into the crook of your neck. "I'm scared y/n." He confessed in a small whisper. "I know, so am I. But we can and are going to get through this...together. Okay? You're not alone. I'm right here." You answered honestly. You stayed there in each other's arms for a while as the tears slowly stopped falling. "Y/n?" Steve shifted his head off your shoulder slightly. "Yes?" He lifted his head, turning to face you, his eyes looking down. You put your hand on his cheek and gently wiped his tears. His gaze found yours. "You...um. You said you were scared." He looked at you for confirmation. You nodded. "Why? What are you scared of?" You left his gaze sighing and sliding your hands into your crossed legs. He put his hands on your shoulders. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you." He apologised. A sad smile crossed your face. "Being an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D puts my life at risk. I have information about people who aren't particularly fond of my superiors. I recently blew one of my covers. They're sure to be after me soon if not already." You looked into his sympathetic eyes. "But that's not what I'm scared of, I'm scared of who they'll send after me. I could easily take on one of their assassins or gunman. But there's a rumour, a legend if you will, of a highly trained, physically and mentally enhanced, ruthless, master killing machine. He's been around for decades and is still as young as he was when he started. He has no emotion, no soul, no past, no family, not even a name. He's referred to as the Winter Soldier by the few in the intelligence community who believe he exists. He's a ghost, everything I've told you, that's all S.H.I.E.L.D knows about him; and we have some of the best hackers and infiltrators in the world." You shivered at the thought. "Enhanced." He muttered. "Is that all you got from what I just said?" You chuckled. "Does S.H.I.E.L.D know about any Hydra scientists taking in people to experiment on?" He asked, fiery determination in his eyes. "I'm sure there are plenty of human enhancement files in the Hydra filing cabinet, but that's not our immediate concern. You just worry about catching up. I'm sure I can figure the rest out myself. I am a secret agent after all." He chuckled. "True, if ever you need help sifting through those documents....let me know." He looked at you, he wanted confirmation that if anything happened you wouldn't hesitate to ask for his help. You nodded. "Thank you, Steve. I really appreciate your concern. It's not often someone is willing to help me. You know, before I've saved their lives, and them mine, a few times." He pulled you into a nice warm hug. You hugged him back, finding comfort in his arms. You wrapped your arms around him, wishing the moment wouldn't end. He slowly pulled back only to cup your face with his hands and wipe away tears you didn't realise you'd shed. You sat there, eyes locked, emotions stirring, so close, but something preventing either of you from making the obvious next move. He glanced at your lips. You smiled, cocking your head to the side slightly and leaning back to stand up. You didn't know what made you do that, but you felt it was the right thing to do, given the fact that both of you were swimming in a pool of mixed and confusing emotions. "Coffee?" You offered. He nodded with a smile. 😪😙😪😙 "But...how?" He stared at the coffee machine. You put your hands in the air wiggling your fingers. "Magic." You said mysteriously. You both laughed, heading to the table coffee in hand. "So, what's the first thing you'd like me to teach you about?" You sat down, sipping the cappuccino in your hands. "Well, at some point, how on earth that thing works..." He pointed to the coffee machine, you scoffed smiling. "But for now I think we should start with the basic, everyday things. Like that, and this, and definitely that." He pointed at the microwave, your phone and the tv respectively. "Okay, well this you won't be using until yours arrives from S.H.E.I.L.D, that I'll show you how to use when next we need to heat food, and that...c'mon." You headed to the couch, grabbing the remote from it's place atop the TV cabinet. "Okay, this red button with the circle and the line, that turns it on." It turned on showing the news channel at an eardrum bursting volume. "This controls the volume!" You shouted over the reporter's bored voice. Once the sound was at a tolerable level you looked at Steve. "Well, that was interesting." You giggled. "This changes the channel. We've got about two hundred to chose from. So, hopefully you won't run out of stuff to watch." You were flipping through channels when you came across some really old footage shot during the Second World War. "History channel. Wanna check if these people even bothered to do their research properly?" You asked. He shrugged. "Might as well. You never know, they might even play one of my videos." You both chuckled and got comfy, this looked like it'd be a long documentary. 🎞📺🎞📺 😂😍😝😘😂😍😝😘😂😍😝😘😂😍😝😘

[mrlove-loveme]

MLQC: After Hours

NSFW/18+

Themes: doemstic living and steamy sex

Pairing: Victor x MC

Writer's notes: I think I went into too much detail for the sex scene idk i've never written smut before (also i did some of the drawings before i actually wrote it so the first one is a bit inaccurate ;-;) click on pics for better quality

~♡~☆~◇~

It's been such a long day at work. We had our talent booked for next week cancel us so I had to run around searching for someone to fill in the spot. Thankfully, Victor was able to give me some advice and the following week's talent agreed to move to next week instead, so that gives me a little more time to find someone. I'm just glad I'm home.

I search in my purse for my keys. They always somehow end up at the bottom. I finally find them and unlock my apartment. I flip on the light and take off my heels. "I'm home," I say to the empty apartment. I frown to myself. He promised he'd come today. I check my phone but no messages. "I guess not," I exhale.

Feeling very disappointed, I throw myself onto the couch. I'm so tired, I slowly start to drift to sleep.

-click clack click clank-

I walk up to a delicious smell and sounds coming from the kitchen. As I sit up, I realize that I'm covered with a blanket. I set it aside and head toward the noise.

As I walk into the kitchen, a tall silhouette is facing away from, gracefully cooking. I go up behind him and wrap my arms around him. I could feel him tense up in surprise, "Hey, that's dangerous!" he says in a worried tone.

"I thought you weren't coming" I say into his back. He then turns off the stove, turns to face me. 

Victor then warps his strong, warm arms around me, "I'm sorry I'm late, I was stuck in the office."

I let go of him and cross my arms, "You could have messaged me!", I pout. I know it's childish of me to act like this, but I was really looking forward to seeing him, especially after the day I've had.

"I know," he sighs. He leans down and kisses my forehead. I can feel my cheeks become flush, and somehow I feel a little better.  "But that doesn't mean you should be sleeping on the couch without a blanket! You're gonna catch a cold, idiot!" Victor scolds me.

"Don't worry 'Idiots don't catch colds'," I say playfully. I can see his face turn into a scold.

Victor pulls me closer by the waist, "You do know that, I don't really mean it when I call you an idiot," he said suddenly very serious. He's looking at me in the eyes very intensely, I'm taken by surprise.

I'm overwhelmed by his sudden intensity that I look away, "I know," I reply sheeply.

"Good! That means you should get a blanket or sleep on the bed next time!" He says as he lets go of me and turning back to the stove to finish up dinner. I'm dumbfounded, it kind of makes me really happy how worried he is that I'll get sick. I can't help but smile to myself. "I bet you have even eaten," he says suddenly.

"No," I respond shyly. 

He sighs, "As expected, well dinner is almost done. Can you set up the table?" I'm still smiling, I feel like I'm getting more and more used to his tsudere ways.

"Hey Victor!" I say standing next to him.

"What?" he responds coldly, and I jump up at him and plant a kiss on his cheek.

"Thank you my CEO/ chef boyfriend for taking care of me,'' I say with a big smile before turning away to set the table.

"You and that random fixation of your's," he says smiling. Victor then quickly grabs my wrist before I could get away and kisses me on the lips. His lips are soft, and the kiss was rough yet gentle. I start to move my lips to his rhythm and I could feel the blood rush into my ears. He pulls away saying, "That's how you thank someone," with a smirk.

I am left in shock, completely red in the face, and my brain stopped working. Honestly, I still can't believe we are dating.

We have dinner together, and while is Victor showering I'm wash the dishes. By the time, I'm done Victor is asleep on the bed. "I'm sure you had a long day too," I whisper as I stroke his hair. I then head off to shower as well. After drying my hair, I crawl into bed next to Victor.

             ~ ♡~NSFW/ 18+~♡~

Victor then suddenly turns over and spoons me, his body feels warm and firm with muscles pressed against me, my heartbeat quickens. His hands then sneak under my clothes start to trace the curves of my body. "I thought you were asleep," I turn my head to tell him. 

He starts to kiss the back of my neck and my shoulder, and the kisses turn to suckling. It's a little painful but it also feels good. I can't help but let out a moan; I can feel my nipples begin to perk from excitement. 

Victor's hands then wander to my breast, "Did you miss me that much that you're already like this," he teases, whispering into my ears, turning me on even more.

I turn my body towards him, now facing him, he takes my lips to his. Victor pulls me closer to him until there is no space between our bodies. His kiss is feels almost desperate, I pull back to catch my breath. He's now hovering over me; me on my back, pinning me on my bed. Victor continues kissing me down the nape of my neck, pausing to start suck at my skin. "No!" I say barely audible, but Victor heard and immediately stopped.

"I'm sorry… you don't want?" he asked worried, realizing he got carried away.

"That's not it!" I said, covering my eyes, realizing I made him misunderstand. I remove my hands from my eyes, and I see Victor patiently waiting for me to finish answering."No hickeys" I say shyly "...at least not there, I have work tomorrow," I respond with a blushing face.

He dropped his head onto my shoulder in defeat and sighed "That's all?"

"...Yea" I responded, worried about what was going on in his mind.

Victor then looks up at me, "So is it okay if I continue?" He asked with yearning eyes, and slightly blushing face.

I smile and wrap my arms around his neck, "Of course," I say as I pull him down for a kiss. The kiss is tender and gentle, in contrast to the desperate kiss from earlier. Our lips intertwine, becoming more passionate. His tongue teases, in search for mine, its soft and almost sweet. 

Victor hands begin to wander again, under my shirt and up to my breasts. He then pulls away from me, and begins to lift my shirt, "This in the way," he says removing my shirt and then pulling off his. 

He tosses them aside, and he kisses me again only briefly this time. He works his way down, kissing my neck until his mouth meets my breast.  

Victor sucks at my nipple, using his tongue to tease them. He knows its my weak spot, and my excitement only continues to grow. He uses his hand to grope my other breast, playing with my nipple between his fingers. Moans begin to escape my lips, and I can feel him smile on my breast when I do.

"...mmmm.. v..vic..victor" I mutter out, biting at my hand. I see him look up without stopping, as if asking me 'what'. "..I...I want more," I say almost begging. My whole body feels hot, yearn, even desperate. I can feel that I am dripping wet.

"Yea?" He asks chuckling, the begins a trail of kisses  down my midriff, getting closer to my hips.

"..Yea.." I say in a trembling moan, getting even more excited with anticipation.

"What do you want me to do?" He says teasingingly, keeping his eyes on me as he removing my panties with his teeth.

Ugh he really loves to tease me, but I'm so turned on, that it helps me overcome my embarrassment, "I want you to fuck me!" I say wrapping my legs around his waist so that his hard cock is pressing against my crotch. 

Victor is taken a bit back by my assertiveness but only for a second, as lust takes over. He then plants a kiss on me, almost as eager as his initial kiss. His hands wandering down to my crotch, feeling my wetness and spreading it up and down, lubing me up. Victor then whispered in my ear, "That's a good girl," making me even wetter. 

Victor then retreats, moving down and setting himself up between my legs. He then kiss my labia and teases along my slit with his tongue, "viiictoooor," I moan as if demanding for more. 

He chuckles but fulfills my wish, and he begins to tease my clit with his tongue, and my voice let out more moans. His tongue feels so good, rubbing, circling, and sucking at it. I can feel the blood rush all the down to my feet, they feel as if they're burning in ecstasy. I try to hush my voice by biting into my hand again and Victor noticed.

He then uses one of his hands to start rubbing at my entrance, "I want to hear your moans," he suddenly declares as he enters 2 fingers and begins thrusting them. At that point, being eaten out and finger-fucker, I didn't care if my neighbors hear, I gave Victor the satisfaction of my moans. 

My whole body felt hot and tingling, but I wanted too pleases Victor too. I gathered my courage and moaned, "I wanna suck you off."

He stopped, looked at me in utter shock, "What's with the sudden boldness," he asked. I felt embarrassed, my face was beet-red, but I wanted it and I wanted to please him.

"I want to make you feel good too," I uttered as I sat up. I moved closer to him. I tried to mimic him from earlier. I kissed him and then down his neck. My hands beginning to unzip his pants, stroking his cock over his boxers. 

I position him sitting against the headboard, and strip him of his remaining clothing. I position myself between his legs, just as he had, and I take his cock into my mouth.

I begin bobbing my head as one hand helps my stroke the shaft. I look up and see Victor's face twisted up in pleasure. Ah, this is exactly what I wanted to see. I want to see that always stoic face of his riled up. 

I hear him grunt, trying to hold back. But I want to mess him up even more, I put my focus on the tip and my hand continues stroking his shaft and playing with his balls. Some precum enters my mouth, and I swallow.

Victor is panting hard now, that's exactly how I want him. I stop blowing him, and I go to get closer. I position myself over him and adjust him to enter me. As I'm trying to straddle Victor, I see his flush face, and he's holding my waist as I try to ease him inside me. 

Victor is so big, I feel overwhelmed but he's finally all the way in. I'm panting, my head resting against his chest, and his cock throbbing inside of me. "Are you okay?" Victor whispers into my ear, still holding onto my waist.

"..yea..its just...you're so big," I moan looking up at him, know damn well what saying something like that does to him. And I immediately feel him get bigger.

"You…" he grunts out, and I smirk. He then grabs me by the back of my neck and pulls me in for a kiss. I then begin to move myself up and down his cock. I place my hands on his bare chest to steady myself, to be able to ride better. His hands are still guiding me as if when I get tired he'll take over and help me.

"You're doing a great job love," he praises me, then suddenly I'm on my back, "but let me take it from here," he says as he begins thrusting into me. 

"Ahhhh~" I let out a loud moan, and Victor continue thrusting, panting, with a bead of sweat forming on his forehead. The headboard is beginning to bang against the wall, and even the springs in my bed have become audible, adding to the stimulation.

"Mmmm~if feels so good~" I moan and I see Victor smile. He slows down, and takes his right hand and begins to stimulate my clitorus. I feel heat spread over my body. "Ahhhh-" I let out only for it to be covered up by Victors lips. 

"I love you," he whispers in my ear,  nearly making me cum with just those words. 

Victor then thrusts hard into me, and slowly pulls out only to quick thrust in again. He does this over and over, it becomes overwhelming.

"..m..mm..mmore" I beg. I see Victor smirking.

"Hm?" He asks as he slowly pulls out and thrusts quickly in again.

"..i..i wanna..ahhhh~" my moan didn't let me finish as he had began stimulating my clit again to keep my from finishing my sentence, that jerk.

"You want what?" He says licking the fingers that were just stimulating me. Ugh he is such a tease.

" I WANNA CUM!!" I beg and he smiles pleased with himself.

"With pleasure" he responses as he quickens his pace, thrusting deeper and faster than before. It was so overwhelming my mind began to go blank. I began to feel so overstimulated, a part of me wanted to push him away because I've become so sensitive, I felt I couldn't go on anymore. But the other part of me wanted him to go even faster and even harder.

Victor notices me squirming underneath him from all the stimulation, he grabs my wrists and pin them together above my head, making me still. He leans down and kisses me while still holding onto my wrists, still vigorously thrusting into me. Droplets of sweat from his fringe, fall onto my face. 

Victor looks like he was about to cum too. "Vi..Victor?" I say panting, and he looks up at me questioningly. "Are gonna cumming too? Let cum together," I say as erotically as I can between pants, "Cum for me" I moan. I see him smirk. 

And that look, that look set me off. That cocky smirk, his flushed cheeks, the strain look of lust and pleasure on his face, and love… love in his eyes. The blood rushed throughout my body, sending tingling sensations everywhere, it was overwhelming. Overwhelmingly good, "IM..IM CUMMING!!!" I basically scream out. 

~☆~The next morning~☆~

"MC?...wake up love...MC!" I hear a gentle voice call out to me and a warm hand stoking my hair. As I open my eyes, of course its Victor. He's dressed in casual clothes sitting on the edge of the bed, next to me.

"Mmm..I'm up," I said half awake as I try to sit up.

Victor let out a small chuckle, "Good morning sleepy head. Come on, go get ready so we can have breakfast together before you go to work," he says caressing my face.

I let out a yawn as I stretch, "hmm okay". 

"Good girl," he says as he kisses my forehead and get up from the bed, "Imma go finish making breakfast".

"Okay," I respond and he head out the door. I sit there for a moment, thinking how nice this is: It was a beautiful morning, the sun coming in through the window felt warm on my skin, being gently woken up by the love of my life, the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the air, and sharing breakfast together before going to work. It may be simple but it gives me so much happiness; I hope everyday can filled this sort of happiness.~♡

~◇~The End~◇~

[jhsbrat]

the dick & the dancer, pt. 1 | knj

part ½

genre: brooklyn 99/cop au, enemies to lovers au

word count: 11.9k (there’s still another part to go, i hate myself)

warnings: crass humor, general idiocy, lightest of angst

a/n: i enjoyed writing this so much even though my other wips are staring at me in disbelief from my drafts page asfklsflk

special thanks goes to @guktwt and @seokinkjin for reading my drafts and convincing me that this wasn’t a total dumpster fire, ily :’)

“All units, come in. We’ve got a 10-31, back up needed.”

“Unit 2 here, what’s the situation?”

“Looks like a robbery in progress in the kitchen.”  

“Copy, I’m en route. Did you get a good look at the suspect?”

“He’s got his back to us, but it looks like-“

“Son of a bitch! I knew it!”

“Wait, don’t-“

“Unit 1? Unit 1, come in, what’s happening?”

You charge at the silver haired man standing at the kitchen counter, sandwich still in his hand. Tomato and mayo go flying as he falls to the ground on his back, breath punched out of him. He blinks once, then twice, dazed, looking up to see you sitting on his chest.

“What the hell just- are you cuffing me?”

“That’s what happen to people who steal, Jimin, they get arrested.” You snap back, clicking the silver metal over his wrists.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me, it was a sandwich!”  

“Theft is theft, buddy.” Pulling the man up into a standing position, you huff and blow away a loose strand of hair that escaped from your braid when you rushed him.

“Nice job, officer.” Jungkook comes up from his crouching spot behind the door. “Although in the future, you should probably let me know before you decide to assault the perp.”

Rolling your eyes, you prepare to respond when Taehyung comes skidding into the room.

“Jimin, they’re coming- oh. Uh, hey guys.”

You quirk a brow at the out of breath cop, his chest still heaving from running in response to your call. Jungkook’s eyes shift between the man you’ve got in cuffs and the one standing at the door.

“Don’t tell me-was this an inside job?”

“Tae!” You exclaim, surprise coloring your features, “I can’t believe it, you know how important my lunch is to me! I have to go all the way downtown to get the specialty ham imported from Spain!”  

Taehyung sheepishly rubs the back of his neck. “I’m sorry guys, it’s just that-well, sometimes Chef Boyardee just doesn’t cut it anymore and you’re so good at cooking and-“  

Jimin lets out an exaggerated sigh and shakes his arms in annoyance, cuffs clinking together noisily. “Can I remind you all that we’re talking about a sandwich?”

You round on him, jabbing a finger into his face. “And let me remind you that I carry a taser and I’m not afraid of using it on a civilian-“

“What exactly is going on here?” A voice boomed.

All four of you whip around to see Seokjin standing at the entrance, arms crossed over his chest. Yoongi is leaning on the pillar behind him, clipboard in hand and a blank expression on his face.

“Captain!” Your voices chimed out simultaneously, all of you drawing your backs up straight to stand at attention.

“Can someone answer the Captain, please?” Yoongi drawled, “Something tells me this isn’t worth the public service salary I get paid.”

“Uh, well. You see-“ Taehyung begins, stuttering.

“We were really just-“ Jungkook tries to continue, coming up with nothing.

You sigh and pinch your brows together. “Captain, we caught Jimin and Taehyung as the ones who keep stealing my lunch. So, naturally, I cuffed him to teach him a lesson.”

There’s a long pause as Seokjin stares at each of you in turns, all of you waiting with bated breath.

“His arms should be behind his back, it prohibits balance and prevents suspects from running off. You should know better, Detective.” He finally says, wagging at Jimin’s hands linked together in front of his body.

You blink in surprise. “Of course, sir, you’re right.”

He nods and walks off, Yoongi shaking his head and following behind him. All of you exhale, letting out the breath you had been holding in. Jungkook high fives you as Taehyung moves to release Jimin from his restraints.

“You’re all idiots,” Namjoon calls from his desk, “Every single one of you.”

Bodies crowd into the briefing rooms, people fighting over the limited number of seats at the tables. Yoongi stands at the front, flipping through papers and scribbling last minute notes, before he clears his throat and begins to speak.

“Good morning. Last night-“

“Hold that thought, Sergeant.” You say, walking into the room late, boot heels clicking against the over shined linoleum floor. Stopping at the seat in the very front, you tap on the shoulder of the young beat cop currently occupying it.

“Out of my chair, pipsqueak. You get the back.”

“But-but I was here early.” The boy stammers. You glance down and read his nametag.

“Beomgyu, is it? Listen here Beomgyu, I’m gonna give you some advice, free of charge,” you squat down to look him in the eyes, “When a ranking officer gives you an order, you follow it. Now up, you’re making my seat warm and I’m not a lizard.”

The boy gathers his things and walks to his relegated spot in the back as you plop down and prop up your feet. Next to you Namjoon scoffs and shakes his head, turning back to face front.

“Nice of you to join us, Detective. I was actually just about to mention you.” Yoongi says, focusing his gaze on you.

“Was it to congratulate me on my 98% conviction rate? Because I’m flattered, Sergeant, but I don’t do this job for the thanks. I do it for the fans.” You smile cheekily up at him.

“You have absolutely no fans,” Taehyung calls from his seat.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Yoongi continues, “Because I was not going to thank you. Actually, I was getting ready to reprimand you in front of everyone. You know why?”

Your shit-eating grin slides off your face. “Why?”

“Because the train pick-pocketer you arrested on Thursday has been released.”

Everyone in the room simultaneously lets out a groan and Jungkook throws a paper ball of his crumpled notes at you. Leaning forward to place your head on the table, you cover yourself with your hands.

Over the melee of sudden noise, Yoongi goes on speaking. “Would you like to tell everyone why your suspect has been released and cleared of all charges, even though three cameras and two cops clearly saw what he was doing?”

“I forgot to Mirandize him,” you mutter from your hiding place under your arms.

Commotion breaks out again as everyone decides to let you know exactly how annoyed they were with you.

“We’ve been trying to catch him for weeks!”

“That’s the first thing they teach you in the Academy, how do you just forget-“   

“Listen!” You sit up and turn in your seat to face the crowd of your angry coworkers, “I was caught up in the heat of the moment, okay!”

“He was a seventeen year old kid, dummy.” Jimin quipped, perched on the windowsill at the other side of the room. “Even I know you’re supposed to Mirandize first during an arrest and the closest to being a cop I’ve ever been was binge watching Law and Order for 48 hours.”

“SVU?” Taehyung asks.

“Duh, dude.” The pair laugh and high five each other.  

“If I can all have your attention again,” Yoongi taps his pen loudly on the podium he was leaning against, “I want to finish the briefing by talking about The Dancer.”

The noise quiets down immediately and everyone leans in to listen closely. Yoongi pulls up a slide show on the board and flips through photos of a crime scene: an upscale penthouse.

“Last night, between the hours of 7 pm and 1 am, a Caravaggio art work was stolen from the residence of Royston Cornwallis Staley, a local businessman. At the time of the burglary, Staley was at a charity event with his wife.”

“And how do we know it’s The Dancer who did it?” Jungkook questions.

“The same way we always do. He left his calling card.” Yoongi clicks to a photo from the scene of a barely consumed and still smoking cigar, the side stamped with the words Cohiba Behike.

“Jesus, those Cubans are expensive. He’s a real prick for just leaving them there and not even having the audacity to finish one.” Jungkook huffs.

You sigh and lean back in your seat, tapping your foot against the table leg. “He’s taunting us. It’s his way of proving how much money he’s making off these heists.”

“I’m sorry, but who’s The Dancer? And why do we call him that?” Beomgyu asks from his place in the back.

“He’s a fine arts burglar that we’ve been trying to catch for months. We call him that because he’s light on his feet, newbie.” Namjoon explains, turning around to look at the boy. “And the next time you have a question: Don’t.”  

Beomgyu blushes in embarrassment as Taehyung raises his hand to get the Sergeant’s attention. “How much was the painting worth?”

“Wait! Don’t answer!” Jimin cries, jumping suddenly to his feet. “I’m taking bets on people’s guesses. Irene, go.”

“10 million,” The petite crime scene investigator answers. Jimin jots down her response.  

“No way, isn’t Caravaggio an Italian name? Gotta be at least 25 mil,” Jungkook posits.

“32!”

“You’re crazy, it’s like 13.”

“Staley is a rich guy, must be somewhere in the 50s.”    

Jimin nods, writing down everyone’s names and bets, then turns to you.

“You wanna put down a number?”

Shrugging, you offer, “98.”

“Million?” Jimin’s eyes bug out of his head, “Are you sure?”

“Nah, let her bet it, I’m tryna win this money.” Jungkook says, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

“Alright then. Sergeant, if you can do the honors.”

Yoongi looks down at all of you, bored expression still unchanged from when you first walked into the room. “The private appraiser Staley hired valued the work at around $101 million.”

You stand up and whoop, much to the dismay of about everyone else in the room. They all reluctantly hand over their money to you when you go around to collect it. You nearly have to pull the cash from Jungkook’s hands, who gave it up with a grimace on his face. Shaking his head, Namjoon regards the scene. “This is really just sad, guys.”

“No, what’s really sad is the hole in the ozone layer from all the hair spray you used this morning to make that coif of yours stick up.” You turn to face the other detective, counting the bills you hold. “Seriously, do you use butter in there? I can see it shine from the parking lot.”

“Yeah, I did. Borrowed it from your mother last night.” Namjoon retorts without missing a beat.  

“Oh, real classy, Kim-“

“And you think you’re one to talk about class-“

“I’m glad to know the two of you get along just as well as you always do,” Yoongi says, not bothering to raise his voice any louder than his usual speaking tone even though the two of you were yelling over each other at this point. He had a tendency to do that instead of shouting, forcing other people to lean in closely to listen. It gave him a sort of weird power trip to know he didn’t need to do much to catch people’s attention. You just found it annoying, but stopped your bickering long enough to hear what your superior wanted to say. He has a small smile on his face as he looks between you and the detective on your right, knowing there was only one reason Min Yoongi would smile like that-  

“Because I’m putting you both on this case.”  

You whip around to face the man in disbelief. “Sergeant, you can’t be serious.”

“Sir, I’ll work with anyone else, even Tae-“ Namjoon pleads.

“Hey!” Taehyung cries out from his seat.

Yoongi shook his head. “Not happening. You two have the highest conviction rates of anyone on the team and I needed this guy behind bars yesterday. I want you both on this.”  

“Sarge, I’m sorry, but I can’t work with this dick breathing down my neck-“

“And I don’t want to be blamed when she eventually commits a lawsuit worthy offense!”

Yoongi holds up a hand to stop your pleas. “You,” he points in your direction, “are sloppy. The rules are a suggestion to you and I need to make sure there’s someone responsible watching what you’re doing.”

Rolling your eyes, you cross your arms over your chest in defeat.

“And you,” the blonde continues, swiveling to Namjoon, “are too uptight. You don’t know how to think outside of the box and quite frankly, that’s something you can learn from your new partner here.”  

The other detective’s lips harden into a straight line at that.

“The only way either of you get off this case is if one you gets shot and honestly, I don’t want to fill out the paperwork for that. So you’re going to follow my orders or you can pack up your desk and find a new precinct. Have I made myself clear?”

You and Namjoon nod. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now get out of my briefing room.”

“Hey, Jimin?”

The man in question picked up his silver head to regard you. “Oh, hey, I thought I smelled the scent of failure.”

Speaking through a clenched jaw, you continue with the reason why you came to the assistant’s desk. “Is the Captain available? I really need to talk to him.”

“To chat with you about changing partners? No, he’s not. Busy man, you know, being the Captain of a police precinct and all.”

You glance up to look through the window into Seokjin’s office. “I can see him, Jimin. He’s playing with a yo-yo.” The man in question stares at the toy in his hand and proceeds to try and throw it forward, resulting in the hard plastic whipping back to hit him in the face.

Jimin just gives you a simpering smile. “Like I said. Busy.”

Pursing your lips in annoyance, you turn and stalk back to your desk where Namjoon waits for you.

“No luck?”

You fall into your seat. “Nope. You can go ahead and try, but I’m pretty sure he still has a grudge against you for the St. Patrick’s Day parade last year.”

“I didn’t recognize him with all that green paint on, all I saw was a drunk guy pissing in a public park!”

You lean forward to place your chin in your hands. “Look, the sooner we start this case, the sooner we can finish and get out of each other’s hair.”

Namjoon lets out an exasperated breath and nods. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go talk to the Staley’s.”

“Wait, what?” You scrunch up your nose in confusion, “What do we need to talk to them for, we already got their statements. We should be looking into The Dancer.”

“Like I’m going to follow the advice of someone who forgot to Mirandize a perp,” Namjoon snorts, “We’re doing this whole thing by the book. And that includes getting our own statements from the victims.”

“This is seriously a waste of our time.” You stand up to look at him and he straightens up to do the same. Although your boots gave you a little lift, Namjoon still had inches on your height and he used them to stare you down.

“I’m not arguing about this. Right now we need to talk to them while their memory’s still fresh.”

“Ooh, I love it when you use your cop voice,” Taehyung snickers as he walks by, tossing an apple for Namjoon to bite into.

“Just go, dude,” Jungkook sits next to you. “You can always do the research later. Stop being stubborn just because of that one thing years ago-”

“Alright!” You squeal, swatting at him before he could finish his sentence. “I’ll go!” Taehyung’s brows raise and Namjoon watches smugly, still chewing.

And that’s how you found yourself in a ritzy, high-rise apartment an hour later, speaking to an annoyed housewife in a designer dress worth more than your yearly salary.  

“I already told the other cops everything I remember from that night,” Victoria Staley shrilled. “I don’t understand why this is taking so long!”

“We’re just trying to be thorough, ma’am.” Namjoon grit his teeth into a polite smile.

You chuckle and look back down at your phone, tapping away its keys.

“Well, I have nothing else to say other than we came home and the painting was just gone. No broken glass, no door ajar, just our missing property. It was one of a kind, you know. Italian, Baroque, not another like it.”

Namjoon made a noise of understanding. “Could there have been anyone else with access to the apartment? A maid, maybe?”

The woman twirled the earring dangling from her ear, thinking. “Yes, of course. The maid, the cook, the nanny, and the gardener. But they’ve all been vetted and checked by us before. Besides, none of them were working that night.”

“In any case, it would still be helpful for us to speak to them. Are any of them here now?”

Ms. Staley sighed dramatically and uncrossed her legs to stand up. “No, none of them are here. I’ll give you their contact information so you can find them instead.”

“That will work, thanks,” Namjoon’s face dropped as soon as she left the room. “Hopefully one of them knows something.”

You give a noncommittal hum, phone still in your hands. He turns to look at you.  

“Detective! Can you stop texting and focus, please?”

You look up and blink. “I am focused. What do you think they pay the gardener to do here, anyways? They live in an apartment.”

His lips straighten into a thin line as he regards you. “How did you even get this job?”

“My brilliant wit and killer fashion sense,” you deadpan back. He doesn’t have the chance for a retort before Ms. Staley saunters back in.

“Here’s all of our staff’s contact information. Now please leave, I have a very important charity event to get ready for.” She hands Namjoon a list and crosses her arms over her chest, Manolo Blahnik clad foot tapping against the marble floor in impatience.

The two of you are quickly hurried out the door and back down the stairs, sharp autumn air hitting you once you step out from the posh private residence and back into the chaos of the city streets. As you stride down the sidewalk, Namjoon begins to deliberate aloud.

“I’m thinking we can start with the maid, she probably might have been the last person in the building before-“

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before all that, I need another cup of coffee if I’m going to be stuck with you for a while.” You interrupt him, cutting through cars onto the other side of the road towards 14th street, your eyes still on your phone. Namjoon trails after you, long legs easily catching up with your brisk pace.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you to look both ways before you cross the street?”  

You pointedly ignore him in favor of pulling open the heavy wood and glass door of the café in front of you. The scent of caramel and chocolate infiltrate your nose and you step forward in line behind an office worker with dark rings under his eyes and a college student yakking away on a call. Your eyes peruse the menu above the counter and your lips curl into a frown when you realize they weren’t yet selling their annual festive options.

“It’s November, you would think they’d have holiday drinks by now,” you murmur to yourself, resigned to the idea of a plain cup of joe.

Namjoon moves closer and looks down at you. “I thought you hated the holidays, anyways?”

“No, I just hate you.”

At that, he sighs. “Listen, we’re going to have to figure out how to be cordial if we want this to work.”

You shrug half-heartedly. “I think what we have going for us right now is working well.”

“Look, I don’t know what you have against me-“

You snort in derision, moving forward after the beleaguered office worker completes his order and steps aside. “I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that you think you’re better than everyone else. Or like to namedrop where you attended college in every conversation. Or that you attended college at all, unlike some of us. Or maybe a million other things that I can’t list right now, because I would die before I get to them all. Just a thought.”

He bites the inside of his cheek, frustrated. “You’re not the easiest person to deal with either, you know. You reek of overconfidence and never know when to shut up. Just because you’re a brilliant cop doesn’t override that fact that you’re rude and crass and a bully.”  

“Mhm, keep sweet talking me, Kim.”

“You’re so insufferable-“

“Detective!” A honeyed voice calls and you both turn your heads to see the barista at the counter smiling sweetly at you. Her upturned lips, lobbed short hair, and reddened cheeks from the heat of the espresso machine made her look like an elf.

“Yeri!” You walk up to her and grin back. “How’ve you been?”

“Better. The usual?” The girl is already writing the order on a blank cup.

“Sure. And whatever this guy is having.” You point back at Namjoon and begin digging through your wallet.      

“Small coffee, black. No sugar.”

You hand the girl her money and fix him with an unamused look. “You really fulfill every cop stereotype, you know that?”

“I think it’s cute.” The barista smiles at him and the man blushes, coughing and looking away.

You chuckle and lean against the display of mugs emblazoned with the café logo for sale precariously piled one on top of another. “Anyways, Yeri, I wanted to ask you a question. You’re an art history major down at the university, right?”

“Yep!” The petite brunette beams excitedly, “Just a semester away from graduation.”

“Great, so maybe you can answer an art history question for me. What do you know about the Baroque period?”

The girl’s eyes light up. “Oh, what don’t I know? It started in Italy and it’s all about really ornate, grandiose aesthetics. Think dramatic lights and shadows, gold glided architecture, and Michaelangelo-esque sculptures.”

Namjoon leans forward to whisper in your ear. “Shouldn’t we get going? We still have other people to interview.”  

You ignore the heat from his peppermint-scented breath tickling against the side of your face and wave him off instead. He huffs, walking away to wait at the other end of the counter. “Interesting, so they’d be pretty expensive pieces?”

“Oh yeah, hella expensive. There’s an art gallery down the street that is actually displaying one for an exhibition on Rembrandt. If you’re interested, you should totally check it out-“

At that moment, Namjoon’s walkie-talkie buzzed insistently. “Unit 1, there has been a 10-65 in your area.”

Yeri’s eyes widen. “What’s that?” She whispers to you as Namjoon picks up his device.

“Burglary,” you whisper back to her.

“Detective Kim here, go ahead.” Namjoon grabs his coffee, nods at the girl in thanks, and begins to head out the door.

“Someone reported a break in and theft from an art gallery on 14th street-“

His back stiffens and he slowly rotates around to face the two of you again, tongue pressed against his cheek. “Yeri. Where did you say that gallery was?”

“So you’re telling me,” Yoongi lets out a long, exasperated exhale, as if he had just caught his two year-old drawing on the walls with permanent marker again, “That the Dancer pulled off another theft. And the two of you were blocks away?”

You and Namjoon look at each other as if to confirm, then face him again. “Yeah, pretty much.”

The sergeant groans and slumps his entire body over the podium, sending papers flying to the floor. You wait a few seconds to see if he would straighten up again before going on.

“To be fair, sir, we did figure out-“

“Kid, I could give two shits about what you figured out, unless it happened to be who the hell this guy is,” Yoongi snaps, face still planted against the wood. “And I don’t think it was that because you’re still sitting here talking to me.”

His rebuttal leaves you reeling, mouth snapped shut and grimaced in a straight line. Though your cheeks don’t turn red, you feel your face heat up in anger and you have to fight to force your retort back, irritation sliding down your throat like bile. Namjoon glances at you for a moment, taking in your response, then turns back to your superior.

“Sergeant, we’ll get him next time, we swear.”

“There better not be a next time, Detective. Because next time, I want him behind bars. Now get out and do your job.”

You stand up without another word and exit the briefing room, letting the door slam shut behind you in frustration. Jaw clenched and shoulders hunched forward, you’re marching back to your desk when you feel a hand clasp onto your wrist. Bristling, you yank yourself away and pivot to see Namjoon behind you. He takes a sheepish step back and looks down into your eyes.

“I’m sorry he said that to you, it was uncalled for-“

“This is all your fault,” you hiss at him. His brows shoot up.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about your need to ‘do things by the book’, even though it was a waste of time. If you had just listened to me, we could have figured out the gallery thing hours ago!” You blow out your cheeks and rub your temples.  

“We found out about the gallery by accident, just because you happened to want some coffee!” He barks back. “It wouldn’t have mattered anyways!

“I didn’t want any coffee, you dolt, I was doing research!” Your hands are balled into fists at your side, trembling against the urge to smack him in the face. “I know you could only fathom doing that by typing in a database, like some nerd, but some of us do it by talking to actual people!”

Namjoon falters, blinking in surprise, and you take that moment to fall onto your chair and release the irascibility you had been holding in until now, breathing in and out deeply. When you feel your heart rate return to normal and your hands steady themselves again, you open your eyes to see the man still standing in front of you.

“Look,” you begin, leaning forward to rest your elbows on your knees, “I get a lot of shit for a lot of reasons on this job. I’m young, I’m a woman, and I’m not highly educated. That would make it hard for me anywhere, but it makes it especially hard here.

It doesn’t matter how bright or quick I am, I’m always going to be judged differently than you. I’m sure he didn’t even realize it, but the Sergeant called me ‘kid’ in there while you referred to you by your actual rank. And it’s like that every day. I have to work twice as hard as you to get the same amount of recognition.

So, yeah, maybe my methods are a little unorthodox. Maybe I am too brash, or loud, or ‘don’t speak like a lady’, whatever the hell that means. But a few mistakes aside, mistakes that are no where near as bad as the ones other people on our squad have committed,” You look up to stare at him directly in the eyes, “I’m a damn good cop and I demand you to treat me as such.”

Namjoon opens his mouth and then closes it again, at a loss for words. He simply nods and grabs the chair beside you to sit down. The precinct slowly returns to its previous hustle and bustle, noise level rising back up after everyone in the immediate vicinity had paused to witness the spat.

“Hey guys, I have the statement from the gallery owner,” Beomgyu walks up and smiles brightly at both of you, unaware of the tension still lingering in the air.

“Learn to read the room, rookie,” Taehyung comes up from behind him and takes the paper in his hands to hand off to you. “Understanding body language will save you from getting shot someday.”

The boy’s eyes widen comically, making him appear like one of those anime characters Jungkook loves to watch so much. “Has that ever happened to you?”

“Get lost.” Namjoon grunts, still watching you. The younger cop takes off and you chuckle, running your gaze down the notes from the interview with the gallery owner.

“So it was the Baroque piece Yeri was talking about that he stole…”

“Ba-what?” Jungkook comes to join you all, hand buried in a bag of Taki’s.    

“Baroque. Renaissance era art style, heavy handed and elaborate.” Taehyung rattles off. The three of you look up at him in shock and he shrugs casually. “I took a few art classes at the local community college. Could have been a painter in another life, you know.”

Jungkook snorts. “Yeah, and I could have been a pop idol.”

Namjoon disregards both of them and still keeps his gaze locked in your direction. “What’s our next move, Detective?”

You look up at him for a split second, then back down at the page in your hands, thinking. “Tae, did the owner mention hiring any new people recently?”

The man scrunches up his nose in thought. “No, I didn’t think to ask him that.”

You hum and then cock your head back towards Beomgyu’s desk. “What about you, noob? Notice anything?”

The boy startles up and almost trips over his own feet in a hurry back to you. “Uh, well, I did see carpenter’s materials- a ladder, couple tools. Maybe he was renovating the building for a new exhibit and temporarily hired a contractor to do the work.”

The corners of your lips lift and the gears in your brain turn faster, a pattern beginning to form in front of you. Chewing your lip in silent contemplation, you give it a second more thought before you decide to posit your hypothesis to the rest of the team.  

“As suave as he’s been, the Dancer has proven to be incredibly predictable. I looked up the past jobs he’s done and each city he’s been to, he’s focused on a specific historical period or origin. In London, it was all Spanish Cubism. New York City, French Impressionism. Brussels, Russian Futurism,” you explain, words falling out of your mouth as soon as you think of them. “His mind thinks like a collector, a curator. And here, he’s only done Baroque pieces so far.”

The men sit in stunned silence, taking in what you had presented. “When did you have time to research this?” Namjoon asks, confused.

“When I was texting earlier,” You shoot him a pointed glance and then press on. “Unlike those other big cities, though, we don’t have a bunch of art pieces from the same period strewn all over the place. Baroque art is expensive, costly to procure and there’s only three places in the entire city that currently house any works of its kind. Two he’s already hit and I’m thinking he can’t stand leaving here without attempting the last one. That’s where he’ll be next.”  

“Okay, so tell me what was so important that you insisted on interrupting my practice time,” Seokjin demanded, rolling up his yo-yo to put away in his desk drawer.

You, Namjoon, Yoongi, Jungkook, and Taehyung were all currently huddled in Seokjin’s office, the crowded space making the air a little warmer. The younger two detectives were standing by the door, while Yoongi stood next to the Captain, eyes watching the clock on the wall tick closer to five pm.

“Well, sir, we’re fairly confident we know The Dancer’s next move.” Namjoon starts. Seokjin cocks a brow and leans forward in interest.

“I looked into the past jobs he’s done in past cities,” you explain, “And I noticed a repeating theme.”

“You gotta talk faster than that, folks. I’ve got a bottle of wine and a bubble bath waiting for me at home.” Yoongi interjects, eyes still on the clock.  

“We have reason to believe that he has one more heist to pull off in our very own city.” Namjoon continues in a rush, “Because guess where one of the world’s most expensive pieces of antique Baroque jewelry is currently located?”      

Seokjin sits back in his chair, grinning. “I’m thinking it’s right in our very own city.”

You nod. “It’s housed at the Museum of Art downtown and they’re having an after hours benefit gala tonight. It’s the perfect opportunity for him to steal it and all we need to do is be there.”  

“So we attend the event as security and just wait. That sounds easier than I thought.” Jungkook bounces on his toes in excitement.

“I’m thinking not quite, buddy,” Namjoon shakes his head. “My partner also realized that both the victims had recently hired on new employees; the Staley’s a gardener and the gallery owner a contracted carpenter. Both of whom were left alone with the art and both of whom have not shown up for another day of work since the pieces were stolen from each place.”

“So he found a way to get inside access, making the theft easier to pull off.” Seokjin murmurs, rubbing his chin.  

“Exactly. This guy is a professional and I don’t doubt he’s done the same for the gala. He’ll be tipped off immediately if we show up in uniforms and squad cars and then he’ll slip away because he’ll look like he belongs.”

Surprised with Namjoon’s mention of your discovery and sudden change in thought, you turn to look at the man. “What do you propose then?”

He beams and you can’t help but stare at his dimples. “We go undercover.”

“Ah, fuck yeah, a sting!” Taehyung punches a hand in the air, then quickly covers his mouth. “Sorry, Captain.”

Seokjin gives him an unimpressed look and then turns to Yoongi. “Looks like you’re not going to be making that bubble bath, Sergeant.”

Yoongi drops his eyes from the clock, seconds away from 5 pm, and releases a long sigh. “Why are you all trying to ruin my life?”

Things moved quickly from there on. Papers were signed, calls were made, and soon enough the entire precinct was scrambling in order to provide extra support to your team. Catching this thief would be a big deal for your squad and could be the kind of high-profile case you needed to propel you forward in your career. So you did everything you could think of in order to make it work. And that included squeezing into the only formal dress in your possession.

Huffing, you stare at yourself in the mirror, eyeing the red sequined fabric stretched a little tight since you had bought the piece years before you joined the force. You had packed on more weight in muscle since then, a necessary requirement in your daily life of chasing down and wrestling with criminals. But it gave the cloth material little room to move and made you a slightly hesitant about wearing the piece while on the job.    

A loud knock sounded on the bathroom door, a signal to hurry up and leave. You take one last look at yourself and then walk out to come face to face with this rest of the team.

Taehyung whistles at the sight of you. “Someone call Tyra Banks, cuz we got America’s Next Top Model right here.”

You brush past him to grab your gun and holster from your desk. “Shut up, idiot.”

Jungkook comes up behind you to squeeze your shoulder. “Honestly, though, why are you always wearing leather jackets and jeans, you’re smokin’. I don’t know what Namjoon was thinking back when-“

You throw his arm off and whip around to look him in the eyes. “Keep talking, Jeon, I’ll tase your nuts here and now.”

“Absolutely no unnecessary tasing, I promised the Sergeant that-“ Namjoon walks into the room and then stops dead in front of you, mouth agape. “Um.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” You bend down to lift up your skirt and attach the gun holster to your upper thigh, Namjoon’s eyes following your movements. Snapping the band once to check that it’s secured, you raise back up to catch him staring.  

“You’re gonna catch a fly, dude.” Taehyung walks up to shut Namjoon’s mouth close. The man blushes and pushes past you to the whiteboard in the back of the room. He takes a few moments to write figures and draw diagrams, then turn back to the rest of you.

“Alright, well, here’s how we’re going to do this. Jungkook and I are going to be in the control van out back, manning the communications and camera systems.” Namjoon gestures his crudely drawn map of the Museum’s premises, then points to you. “Taehyung is going to pose as a waiter and you’re going to be a wealthy patron attending the gala.”

“So how are we supposed to figure out which person is The Dancer? He’s not exactly going to show up with a name tag.” Jungkook asks.

“We’re going to keep an eye on people hovering around the exhibit the necklace is in. That’s why we need two sets of eyes in the actual room to check everyone out.”

“I feel like we need a seducing aspect in here somewhere. Detective, how about it?” Taehyung leers at you and leans his elbow on your shoulder.    

“Oh, what, because I’m the only female on the squad- which points to some larger issues with our hiring practices, may I add- I have to be the honey pot?” You shrug him off and re-adjust your fallen dress straps, not noticing Namjoon’s gaze on your exposed collarbone.

“Honestly, my first choice would have been Jimin. He’s prettier than you.”

“Thanks babe!” The administrator calls from the lobby.

You roll your eyes and start to head out the door. “Let’s get this done.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Jungkook maneuvers out of the parking lot and onto the busy city street.

“Shoot.” You’re readjusting your earpiece, making sure your hair hid it well.

“I know you want to avoid this subject, but I have to know: Why are you still holding this grudge against Namjoon?”    

You look over at the man driving, eyes trailing from the strained veins in arms from gripping the wheel up to the gentle turn of his nose and the small scar on his cheek, a parting gift from a criminal he apprehended years ago. He was smart and sweet and supportive, everything anyone could want. And you wished with all the strings and sinew of your heart that he was the one you had feelings for.

“Because he was a dick and you know it. I won’t forget that easily.”  

Jungkook frowns. “Give him a break, he had just found out that his drunk hookup from the night before was his new co-worker. It’s not that easy to-“

“It wasn’t just that!” You suddenly explode, pent up emotion finally getting the chance to escape after years of seething below the surface. “You were late that morning when we were all being introduced, you didn’t see it. His eyes glazed over me like he’d never seen me before, like he’d never want to be associated with me. He essentially refused to say a word to me until Yoongi basically forced him to by pairing us up for that first case. And you know how well that one went.”

The man stops at a traffic light, red glow illuminating his face as he looks over at you. “Yeah, you lost the guy because you were too busy arguing and you were both put on desk duty for a month. But we both know that’s not it.”

You stare at him, mouth set and gaze unwavering. “Then what else could it possibly be?”

“He’s everything you’re not. Graduated from a top school, comes from a wealthy family, probably had an uncle score him this job. You cut your teeth on working your way up from a rookie traffic cop, poured the salt of your blood into getting where you are today.” Jungkook’s eyes are unforgiving as he looks right back at you.  “You like to talk big and bad, but deep down, you’re just insecure. And when he ignored you that day, your mind immediately went to the worst possible place and it was that you’re not good enough.”

You bite down on your lip hard enough to pierce the skin, taste of iron bubbling on your tongue. The light switches to green and Jungkook accelerates, leaving you to face front again in silence. The two of you stay quiet for the remainder of the ride, an uneasy strain hovering between you both.

Minutes later, you arrive at the museum. Red carpet is laid out to welcome the loaded guests and waiters with platters of champagne glasses stand at the entrance to ply them with free booze. Taking a deep breath, patting your upper thigh once to ensure your gun was still secured, you prepare to exit the vehicle when Jungkook lightly touches your arm.

You don’t turn around and he doesn’t give you the chance to before he says his final piece. “I don’t think Namjoon was right, or even a decent person for what happened. All I’m saying is that your reason for treating him the way you do stems from a deeper place than just being a jilted one night flame and it’s time you confront it.”    

A pause. Then you nod once, opening the car door to stand up and paste a brilliant smile on your face.

“Holy shit, they’re pouring you all Costco brand wine.”

You pick up a flute of champagne from a nearby tray and smile politely at the waiter before whispering; “I wouldn’t classify that as pertinent information, Taehyung.”

“I would,” Jungkook scoffs, “Considering how much a ticket costs to get into this thing.”

“Let’s stay sharp, people.” Namjoon comes in on the line. “Tae, anything you’ve noticed so far with the wait staff?”

“Uh, yeah, I think I went to high school with one of these guys.”

Namjoon sighs. “Anything happening on the ballroom floor?”

Your eyes run over the room, soft chandelier lights sending all the Tiffany necklaces and diamond cufflinks twinkling. The gold glided walls draw your gaze up to the second floor balcony, lined with wealthy philanthropists decked out in their designer brands. They all had on the same polite, uninterested smile wealthy people had while shopping for their next big purchase. Expected for an event like this, crafted exclusively for them. You shake your head in response to Namjoon’s question before you remember that he couldn’t actually see you. “No, just a lot of older people. Nothing suspicious.”

“Maybe try heading to the exhibit room where the necklace is held,” Jungkook adds. “He could be hanging around there.”

Your eyes scan the room until they land on the bar, its seats raised up a little higher than the rest of the space. It would give you a good vantage point to check everyone out and a decent reason to people watch without appearing strange.

“No, too obvious.” You walk up to the counter and slide onto a stool, gesturing to the bartender to catch his attention.

“What can I get you?” His lips stretch wide to reveal white, even teeth, and his eyes crinkle into half moons. You take in his high cheekbones, the gentle slope of his long, straight nose. Caught off guard for a moment, you blink at him.

“Uh- whiskey sour.”

“Coming right up.”  He smiles again and moves away to prepare the drink.

“Detective, you’re on the job.” Namjoon hisses into your earpiece. You ignore him in favor of picking up the glass the bartender sets down in front of you.

“Let me know if that tastes alright, it’s my first night doing this.” The man grins sheepishly at you and watches as you take your first sip. It’s sweeter than you would have liked, heavier on the lemon and sugar than bourbon, but you weren’t going to tell him that and risk his smile disappearing.

“Perfect.”

He lets out the breath he’d been holding in, earlier confidence returning. “I’m Jay, by the way. I’ll be taking care of you tonight.”

Something more than customer service civility is laced in his voice and a throbbing hum fills your head. It takes you a second to remember that you were indeed on the job, here to catch an internationally renowned art thief and not flirt with the museum wait staff.

“Thank you, Jay.” You shoot him a polite smile and swivel around on your stool, facing the rest of the grand ballroom once more. Taking small sips of your drink to appear casual and stave off the sudden throbbing in your head, your eyes dart among the crowd, looking out for anything and nothing in particular. The room was full to the brim with the wealthy, expensive perfume doing nothing to cover the entitlement oozing off them in waves. You watch them get schmoozed by museum staff, writing off donation checks like it was nothing, and feel starkly out of place.

“Fuck!”

You narrow your eyes in worry, unable to respond lest someone nearby saw you talking to yourself. Jungkook does it instead.

“Tae, do you copy? What’s going on?”

A moment passes and your blood heats up in panic. Then the line crackles to life again.

“They put me on bathroom cleaning duty, the lazy shits. Someone puked in there already!”

You groan and close your eyes in frustration, anxiety dissipating.  

“You’re officially cut off from using this line unless it’s absolutely an emergency.” Namjoon barks. You hear Taehyung wince before the line goes dead again.

“Bad drink?”

You startle and turn to your side to see a man in a suit leaning against the bar next to you. He smirks at your surprised expression and leans in closer.

“C’mon, I’ll buy you a new one. What will you have?” His hair is slicked back, an obscene amount of gel used to get it to lie flat like it does. A neatly trimmed beard and clean-cut suit defined the sharp angles of his face, the hollow of his cheeks. Your nose crinkles on instinct when he moves nearer, the heavy scent of cologne surrounding him like a cloud. He wasn’t ugly by any means, just the kind of handsome that only money could buy. You find yourself longing for the softness of full cheeks instead, of deep dimples that hold a promise.  

“It’s an open bar.” You reply coolly and turn back around, finishing off the glass in your hand.

He chuckles, undeterred. “Alright, so no drink. Fancy a cigar?”

You fix your eyes determinedly in front of you. “I don’t smoke.”

“Pity. It would complement all this Bernini here perfectly.” He gestures to the glinting bronze and gold of the museum ceilings and you snort, unimpressed. Then there’s the click of the lighter and you glance at him again, shocked at his boldness.

“Sorry, sir, no smoking allowed.” Jay declares, tapping the stranger on the shoulder. The man’s mouth stretches, wolfish, and he turns to blow a ring in the bartender’s face.

“Careful, kid, I’ll have your job.” He sniggers, sucking in another breath of tobacco.

You curl your lips in disgust, contemplating the consequences of slapping the asshole right there, when your eyes land on the gold seal of the cigar in his hand. Cohiba Behike.

Pulse racing, you get up out of your seat and head towards the restroom, ignoring the stranger’s calls for your return. Struggling to keep your expression neutral, you whisper desperately into your earpiece.

“Tae, meet me in the ladies bathroom now.”

“I’m still cleaning up puke here.”

You clench your jaw and rip off the earpiece to speak directly into it. “Right the fuck now.”

The urgency in your voice gets across and minutes later, he finds you in the last stall, sitting on the toilet in your dress.

“What is it?” He leans against the stall door, crisp white waiter’s shirt drenched in rings of sweat from the exertion of mopping.

You release a breath. “I think I found him.”

“Found who?” Jungkook asks.

“The Dancer? You think you found The Dancer?” Namjoon follows up, frantic.

“Which one is he?” Taehyung looks ready run out and pounce, matted honey brown hair a boyish contrast to the gun you knew he had tucked in his waist.  

“I don’t know, I’m not sure!” You’re frazzled by the multiple voices speaking at once, unsure of who to answer first. “The guy talking to me at the bar, he mentioned another artist from the same era, and then he pulled out a cigar-“

“So?”

“It was the same Cuban cigar that The Dancer always leaves behind, it can’t be a coincidence!”

Taehyung chews on his inner cheek. “I don’t think that’s enough. We haven’t witnessed him actually do anything.” Jungkook hums in agreement on the other end. There’s silence for a moment while the three of you wait on Namjoon’s vote.

“What does your gut tell you?” He asks softly.

You sigh and put your head in your hands, squeezing your eyes shut in thought. The throbbing hum returns at full force and it’s what convinces you. “It tells me that he’s in this building somewhere. That I’ve talked to him tonight. It has to be that guy.”

A beat, then: “Okay, we’re coming in.”

You stand up and nod at Taehyung, straightening your dress and pulling out your badge to brandish. He does the same and rolls his shoulders to ready himself, leading the way out. On the other side of the door, you’re met with chaos.

“It’s gone! It’s gone!”

“Did anyone see? Who could have-“

“Someone call the police!”

Blood running cold, you grab ahold of one of the museum employees as they run past. “What’s going on?”

The woman is frantic, sleek bun gone astray, glasses on the tip of her nose and threatening to fall off. “One of our most valuable pieces has just been stolen!”

Taehyung steps forward and thrusts his badge in her face. “Which one?”

“An antique necklace! Baroque!” The woman wails.

Your breath stutters in your chest and you drag your gaze back towards the bar. The stranger is still leaning against it, puffing on his cigar and watching the turmoil unfold in confusion.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Good morning. I’d like to begin by congratulating our team of detectives on their job last night.”

A polite round of applause follows and Yoongi nods his head.

“Just really amazing work, you guys. The Dancer escaped from right under your nose with his loot not once, but twice.”

Sinking lower into your seat, you pull the hood of your sweatshirt over your head and tug on the ends until it tightens to hide your face. Beside you, Namjoon is staring determinedly down into his lap as if it hid the secret spell to magic him out the room.    

“I don’t think I need to tell you that this case has been pushed to priority 1. The Dancer has no reason to stay in town now since all the works he’s been after are now gone, so we need to figure out where he is before he dips. Have I made myself clear?”

“Crystal.” Taehyung mutters, arms crossed over his chest.

The rest of the briefing carries on in its usual fashion, but Yoongi’s words go in one ear and out another. There’s a buzzing in your ears and your lip has become bruised from biting it so hard. Your leg is jittering under the table, knee knocking against the wood, until Namjoon reaches out to rest a hand on it.

You shift to look at him, but his gaze remains locked downwards. He squeezes once and leaves his hand there, preventing you from fidgeting anymore. You let it happen, loosening your teeth’s hold on your lip and the buzzing quieting down a little.

The briefing ends and everyone shuffles out of the room. The remainder of the day passes by in a blur of paperwork and collecting statements from witnesses. It did absolutely no good, however, since no one saw what happened. Or rather, no one could remember clearly what had happened. The museum staff’s plan of boozing up the gala’s attendees in order to get them to empty their pockets had the most undesirable effect in ensuring that nearly everyone was drunk and no one was a reliable witness. To make matters worse, the surveillance van’s camera lines had been hacked, so that the screens Namjoon and Jungkook were watching had really been just a repeating minute loop. There was no way to recover the lost data or get people to remember their night. The clock was ticking closer to the end of the day and you still had not figured out your next move.  

Namjoon rubs his eyes and lets out a breath. “He had to have had inside access some how. Tae, you’re sure you didn’t see anyone or anything with the wait staff look out of ordinary?”

The man shakes his head, honey brown hair mussed from running his fingers through it in frustration. “Nothing. If anything, everyone couldn’t wait to leave.”

“We’re missing something, guys. C’mon, what is it?”

You stay quiet. It was your fault they had all been distracted, your fault there had been a brief window of time where the thief could go in and do the job. You were so sure you were right, something about the moment at the bar screaming that he was there in front of you. It was the first time your instinct had failed you and the knowledge of that shook you to the core. The rest of your team followed your dejected mood, Namjoon the only one still determined to tease out the solution somehow.

“We’re not giving up, we’ve gotten this far. Snap out of it!” He comes up to shake Jungkook on the shoulder, but the other man just brushed him off.

Seokjin walks by your team on your way out, yo-yo dangling from his finger. He pauses next to your desk and looks down at your forlorn face. “Why so glum, sugar plum?”

You hit refresh on the police database page profiling The Dancer, hoping it would miraculously reveal some new information, like his current whereabouts. “Sorry, Captain, we just kind of…”

“We don’t know what to do, sir,” Jungkook finishes for you. “We’re stuck and have no idea what’s next.”

Seokjin makes a noise of understanding and moves to sit on Taehyung’s desk, scattering piles of folders and papers astray. The captain pays no mind as the detective huffs, kneeling to reorganize the mess.

“Well, I certainly can’t let you leave before coming up with something concrete.”

All four of you groan, the possibility of overtime something you were trying to avoid.

“This isn’t even our case, sir!” Taehyung says from his spot on the floor.

“We’re a team, Detective. So their case is your case and you’re not going anywhere.” Seokjin replies righteously and looks around at each of your faces, desolate expressions still unchanged. He sighed and walked back to his office, returning moments later with a handle of rum and a couple of paper cups from the water cooler. He sets them down and proceeds to fill them up, all of you watching in shock.

“You just need to relax,” he says, handing off a cup of the amber liquid to each of you.

Namjoon coughs, uncomfortable. “Sir, is this really…appropriate?”

“Jesus, you really are uptight, Kim.” Seokjin chuckles. “This is what my generation would do when we hit a rut. Sit back, have a drink, and come back to the problem later with a fresh mind.”

You blink. “Captain, you’re barely older than us.”

He swings back his cup and grimaces at the taste. “And yet, so much wiser. Drink up, I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.” Gathering his belongings again, Seokjin tips his head in goodbye and walks out the door.

All of you watch him strut out, then turn back, eyes flitting between each person to see who would be the first to take the plunge.

“Fuck it,” Namjoon grumbles and downs his cup, filling it up again immediately after. Taehyung just whoops and follows in his stead. Jungkook sighs, then shrugs and does the same. They look expectantly in your direction; your mouth still dropped open in shock at the turn of events.    

All you can do is groan and pick up your own cup in solidarity.

Hands slid over your body, from the nape of your neck down to your back. They were rough to the touch; palms calloused from years of gripping the handle of a gun. A leg is shoved between your own and a groan resounds through the room. Your breath turns into labored panting and your arms tremble in anticipation.

“Taehyung! Stop trying to knock me over, that’s cheating!” You’re holding yourself up on the mat, body posed in a bastardized downward dog, right foot on yellow and left hand on green.

Taehyung finds a way to lean over you and successfully plant his hand on blue, a winning grin on his face, eyes nearly becoming slits. He shifts his leg; movement threatening to tip your precarious position over and you jerk your head over your shoulder to glare at him.

“Where did you even manage to find Twister in here?” Jungkook hiccups, cheeks glowing red from the booze. He had tapped out of the game five minutes in, collapsing on his second turn after trying to execute a move to somehow get both his left foot and right hand on the same red circle.

“You’d be surprised at the shit they keep in evidence lock up,” Namjoon answers from his seat, legs splayed out and cup still in his hand. He had refused to play altogether, stiff attitude still unchanged even after having a couple drinks in his system. Instead, he preferred to watch you twist and turn according to the rules of the game, intent on beating Taehyung. The other man had drunk the least out of the four of you, rambunctious personality needing no more aid from alcohol. So his limbs remained adroit and nimble, easily able to coil himself to where his hands and feet needed to go. It was a stark difference from you, sheer determination and stubborn refusal to lose being the only things still keeping your body up when the rum sloshing around in your belly insisted you fold to the ground.

“Alright, right hand blue.” Jungkook calls out. Both you and Taehyung immediately go for the same circle, the closest one to either of you. His hand lands first, but yours falls right over it, all the weight of your entire body lending its pressure to push down against it. He yowls in pain and his knees buckle out of position, pulling his arm out from under yours to cradle it.

You scramble up and cheer. “I win!”

“No way, that was cheating! You broke my hand!” Taehyung whimpers, still massaging his sore fingers.

You scoff and get up, dusting off your knees and stretching out your arms. “If that was cheating, then so was the round where you tried tickling me so I would fall.”

The man’s only response is to stick out his tongue childishly. Chuckling, you move to pour yourself another drink when you realize the entire handle of alcohol was empty. “How did we manage to finish the whole thing?”

“Why are you asking as if you didn’t guzzle your first few cups like water?” Jungkook responds, eyes opening blearily, blush now extended to the tips of his ears.

“Just go buy some more,” Taehyung suggests, still cradling his hand. “The bodega around the corner sells Fireball, get us that. And some snacks while you’re at it.”

You snort but grab your wallet anyways. “Just because you designated this task to me doesn’t me I’m going to do it well. You’re getting some shitty Captain Morgan.” As you move towards the door, the sound of footsteps follows and you turn to face Namjoon. He nods at you, as if right there was exactly where he needed to be.

“Didn’t want you to go alone. It’s dark out.” He offers as an explanation.

You cock a brow. “I’m trained in two different kinds of martial arts and carry a gun.”

“Humor me.” He brushes past you to walk out, cool city air gusting into the police station for a moment before the door closes shut again. Your lips purse before you follow the man out into the street. The two of you walk for a few minutes in silence, sounds of bustling metropolitan life around you providing the background music. At a cross walk, you stop to wait for the light to turn and decide to glance at the officer next to you, his features doused in the sallow light of the street lamps.

His jaw is sharp, regal. It’s a contrast to the softness of his cheeks, the pillowy padding of his lips. Though his expression was neutral now, you knew that if he turned his lips up in a smile, two twin dimples would appear on either side, deep and unforgiving. Your eyes drag up to the gentle curve of his nose, then to the straight line of his dark brows drawn against the tan of his skin. Though it pained you to admit, Namjoon is handsome. Always was handsome, it was the first thought that run through your vodka muddled mind when you first laid eyes on him years ago in that bar. He looked exactly as he did now, though his dress shirt had a few buttons undone then, collar splayed open to reveal the blush creeping up his chest. You hazily remember the clutch of his hands on your hips, the bite of his teeth when they sank into the skin of your neck-    

“See something you like?”

You blink, startled out of your reprieve, only to see Namjoon’s back as he strolled across the street. The cross walk signed glared in front of you, little green walking man taunting. Shaking your head, you jog to catch up to him, already walking into the entrance of the bodega.

“You were just waiting for the perfect moment to say that, weren’t you?” The bell of the door rings as you enter and you find him standing in the beer aisle, inspecting a 6 pack of Bud Lights.

“I mean, you also were staring.” He decides on Natty Light instead and picks it out, turning to face you. “I know I’m devastatingly good looking, but you need to be a little more discrete with your ogling.”    

You bite the inside of your cheek, embarrassed at being caught. “I was looking at your hair, dorkus. Was considering calling NASA since that shit is defying gravity.”

His smile softens, then falls from his face slowly, expression turning serious. “I wanted to apologize.”

You jerk your head back, perplexed. “What are you talking about?”

He shifts from one foot to another, clearly a little unsure. “I mean for how I’ve been treating you. And not just since we started working together on this case.”

Your mind goes blank and your nose fills with the scent of peppermint as he shifts a little closer. There’s no way he’s talking about what you’re thinking of, right?  

“I haven’t been fair to you.” Namjoon continues, still holding your gaze firmly. “I know I called you overconfident, but so am I. On the first day, I came in all cocky and that ruined what we could have had between us.”

I can’t believe he actually admitted it. Your heart rate picks up speed at his words.  A beat passes and though you have no reply prepared, your mouth opens-

“I shouldn’t have been so stubborn on that first case. I was so sure I was right just because I know I got the highest scores on the detective’s exam. I didn’t stop to listen to you and if I just had, we could have caught the guy-“

Your mouth snaps shut in confusion. “What?”

“The credit fraud guy? The first case we had together? You talked about how people don’t take you seriously and I realized I did the same thing all those years ago and that’s how this whole stupid feud started-“

You can hardly hear the sound of your own voice when you speak over the loud ringing in your ears, anger slipping over you like a shadow. “Namjoon, you think I hate you because of the fucking credit fraud case?”

His brows furrow and his mouth hangs open dumbly. “I-what? Yeah, what do you think I was-“

“Just go pay.” You turn your face up and keep your gaze locked above, fighting back the prickling feeling behind your eyes. A long moment passes as you and Namjoon stand there in the aisle, an awkward silence enveloping the two of you. He breaks first and eventually leaves you to stand there alone, moving towards the cash register.

You release the breath you had been holding and open a freezer door to stick your face in, determined to dry out the wetness growing in your eyes. Counting down from a hundred, you stand there and wait until you were sure your voice wouldn’t shake when you spoke.

Inhale. Exhale.  

After picking your head up and closing the freezer door, you grab a random bag of chips and pay for them at the counter. You smile, thank the cashier, collect your change, and walk out to see Namjoon still standing there, waiting for you. He looks like there’s more he would like to say, but you don’t give him the chance before turning and heading in the direction of the station. He catches up easily, your brisk pace no match for his long legs. But thankfully, he decides to keep quiet.

The two of you reach the station after what feels like hours, the silence between you dragging out the seconds. You reach for the door, determined not to get caught outside in another failed conversation with Namjoon, when you catch sight of someone leaning against the brick wall of the police station. Brows furrowing, you pause. Namjoon does too, eyes flitting between you and the person.    

“I’m going to stay out here for a second.”

Namjoon glances at you, but concedes, most likely thinking you need a moment alone and were using questioning the poor innocent guy probably just waiting for someone as an excuse. You watch the door swing shut behind him before walking up to darkly clad figure.

“Are you waiting for someone?”

The man’s head rises and at this angle, you can now see under the cap that shaded his face, revealing a small smile.

“Yeah, you can say that.”

The lift of his cheeks and the crinkle of his eyes ring familiar.

“Do I…know you?” It comes out of you in a staccato, hesitant lest this random stranger be only just that.

His smile widens and he turns to fully face you. “Don’t have the best observation skills, do you, detective?”

You squint at him. “How do you know what I am?”

He tilts his head, eyes watching you like a bird in a cage. “In my line of work, I’ve learned to pick out cops from a mile away. Besides, you made it pretty obvious when we met. Picked out the best vantage point in the room to observe everyone, just like someone on a stakeout. I just had to come by and see if my guess about you was right. Settle a bet with myself, you can say.”

A throbbing hum fills your head and you straighten, arms folding over your chest. He mirrors your motions, smile never leaving his face. His gaze unnervingly never left your own and you racked your brain, trying to figure out where you had seen him before.

“C’mon, detective,” he teases, voice lilting, “Surely someone as smart as you can figure it out.”

His teeth appear, pearly white and straight. The motion turns his eyes into crescents and accentuates his high cheekbones, the slope of his nose.

You’re wary to speak, unsure of what the feeling in your head meant, before the realization came crashing back into your mind. “Jay?”

“Bingo!” He laughs and claps his hand onto your shoulder. You’re startled by the action, but if he noticed, he didn’t care. “Though I don’t really answer to that name, I’ll let you call me whatever you’d like.” His grip slides down your arm to the side of your torso and you’re made suddenly aware of the firearm you have sheathed under your jacket. As his hand inches closer, you jerk away like you were burned and take a step back.

“What are you doing here? How did you know where I work?”

He raises his hands up, palms towards you, as if he was calming a nervous animal. “I guess you can say it’s my job to find special things. I’d love to tell you all about it, but I have a meeting to run off to.”

Your head is absolutely pounding now, your vision practically vibrating as you watch him pick his back up off the wall. Panicked, you blurt out, “I’m a cop and I’m telling you to stay here.”

He laughs, the sound hollow in the suddenly deserted street. “We both know that doesn’t mean anything. Besides, this is a very important businessman I can’t keep waiting. Most important in this whole damn city and you know what rich people are like. Think their money can buy our time.” He winks and steps around you to leave, the faint smell of smoke following him.

You’re left frozen for a split second, trying to piece together all of what he said. Then your instinct kicks in and your limbs move, turning to follow him. Your lungs whine in discomfort as your feet pick up into a run before your mind even realizes what was happening, skidding around the corner to chase after the mysterious man. But when you make the turn, he’s nowhere to be seen. The road is empty and there isn’t a soul in sight for blocks. There is only you on the empty sidewalk, soaked in the yellow light of the lamp and an insistent hum in your ears letting you know you’ve found what you’ve been looking for. You spend a moment more standing there before turning back to push open the doors to the station and find your team. The three of them look up at you, cheeks ruddy and mouths stretched in the ghost of a laugh before they catch the determined look on your face.  

“I know where he’s going to be tonight.”  

e/n: i genuinely enjoyed writing this so much and can’t wait for the next part! come tell me your thoughts :)

[sapphiretrams]

Get to Know Me Tag

I was kind of tagged by @intricately-silly? Like, I have a notification that I was mentioned??? Idk, but thanks if you did!

Rules: Post a pic of your simself with your traits and answer the questions!

Traits:  creative + good + music lover

1. What is your full name? Riley, and that’s all I’m gonna say

2. What is your nickname? I kinda gave myself the nickname RPS? You can also call me Trams cause of my url, I don’t mind.

3. When is your birthday? September 5

4. What is your favorite book series? Favorite book series... probably Harry Potter. I’m not obsessed with it (cause J.K. is kinda not a good person) but it’s one of the few series I remember reading.

5. Do you believe in aliens or ghosts? Sure. I’m not a hardcore believer, and when I watch Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural, I’m DEFINITELY a Shaniac, but I’m definitely not closed to the idea.

6. Who is your favorite author? Probably Charles Dickens or Shakespeare. I’m a sucker for that classic literature stuff.

7. What is your favorite radio station? Eh, I don’t really listen to the radio.

8. What is your favorite flavor of anything? Lemon! It’s just SO good in all candy flavors, and I love it so much.

9. What word do you often use to describe something great or wonderful? Rad, awesome, cool, the usuals and occasionally terms that are super dated like tubular.

10. What is your favorite song currently? God that’s hard cause I love music so much... maybe Planetary (GO!) or Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) by MCR.

11. What is your favorite word? Petrichor

12. What is the last song you listened to? The Cage by Genesis

13. What TV show would you recommend everyone to watch? Forensic Files, it’s fascinating to me

14. What is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down? I haven’t been one to watch movies when down so I don’t really have one

15. Do you play video games? Yep! I’ve been playing them a lot

16. What is your biggest fear? Being abandoned. It’s happened to me so often by friends that it’s just sort of become common place and I’m terrified of it.

17. What is your best quality in your opinion? My optimism!

18. What is your worst quality in your opinion? My inability to talk alshdafsdf I’m such a klutz at speaking

19. Do you like cats or dogs better? Dogs, though I do love cats.

20. What is your favorite season? Spring! Everything is turning green and flowering and it’s so refreshing to feel the rain on your face!

21. Are you in a relationship? Nope, I am tragically single

22. What is something you miss from your childhood? Having my parents read stories to me and my brothers, it was such a fun time in my childhood.

23. Who is your best friend? My friend Elli, a super cool nb person who’s been my friend for around 2 years now.

24. What is your eye color? Hazel

25. What is your hair color? Dark brown, though it’s been bleached and I would love to have green hair again.

26. Who is someone you love? Myself 💕

27. Who is someone you trust? My mom. She’s on my side no matter what, and she’s the first family member I told about my sexual and gender identity.

28. Who is someone you think about often? My ocs

29. Are you currently excited about something? Not really, I’m just kinda drifting atm

30. What is your biggest obsession? The Adventure Zone. It is SO. GOOD. I love the McElroys, and they mean a lot to me.

31. What was your favorite TV show as a child? The 1994 Spider-Man series. That SM has always been my favorite and he always will be.

32. Who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to? What’s a gender?

33. Are you superstitious? Sorta I guess

34. Do you have an unusual phobias? I HATE arteries and tendons. HATE HATE HATE them. They freak me out and I have to cover them up when I start getting freaked out by them. I’ve had this fear since I was a child.

35. Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? Both baby!

36. What is your favorite hobby? Drawing!!!

37. What is the last book you read? Pieces of Happiness by Anne Ostby

38. What was the last movie you watched? Thor: Ragnorak

39. What musical instruments do you play? Violin, a little guitar, some piano?

40. What is your favorite animal? It’s hard for me to pick, but my favorite since I was a baby is a tiger.

41. What are your top five favorite Tumblr blogs? @viper-fish @berrybloomsims @lunacysims @mellindi @sim-borg

42. What super power do you wish you had? The power to refill stuff.

43. When and where do you feel most at peace? When I’m driving. There’s something about the freedom that just makes me feel so at peace, and I love feeling like I’m not restrained by anything.

44. What makes you smile? My dog. Everything about him just makes my heart swell

45. What sports do you play? I used to be a soccer champ when I was young.

46. What is your favorite drink? Diet Peach Snapple or Dr Pepper

47. When was the last time you wrote a handwritten letter or note to someone? When I was in like, 8th grade

48. Are you afraid of heights? Not really, though I was when I was younger.

49. What is your biggest pet peeve? I’m a very patient person, so probably when people talk to me when I wanna be left alone tbh.

50. Have you ever been to a concert? Yep. Maroon 5 was the last one. I hope to go to more too.

51. Are you vegetarian or vegan? Nah

52. When you were little what did you want to be when you grew up? A wild life veterinarian. I would throw my stuffed tiger down the stairs and “rescue” her.

53. What fictional world would you like to live in? The Adventure Zone: Balance world.

54. What is something you worry about? My dog since he’s getting up their in years, finding a college to go to and what I want to major in college, my bf’s safety, occasionally my parents when I’m paranoid and worried something might happen.

55. Are you scared of the dark? Nah. It’s nice. I’m more paranoid something might be in the dark, but,

56. Do you like to sing? Yes! I’m pretty decent at it, too, so I love it.

57. Have you ever skipped school? Yeah. I got really depressed when I was in high school and I stayed at home, calling in sick. Which I was, but it wasn’t entirely honest.

58. What is your favorite place on the planet? My desk, it has all my stuff on it and it’s cluttered to my liking.

59. Where would you like to live? Germany, or maybe France if I can learn the language. Maybe split the difference and move to Switzerland.

60. Do you have any pets? Just my baby boy TJ whom I adore.

61. Are you an early bird or a night owl? Night owl, though I’ve been making more of an effort to wake up early. I also get more done when I wake up early, cause it feels like I have more time to do things before noon.

62. Do you like sunrise or sunsets better? Sunsets, mostly cause I’m able to see them from my house.

63. Do you know how to drive? Yep!

64. Do you prefer earbuds or headphones? Earbuds. I have headphones, but you can’t really wear them in public cause they get in the way.

65. Have you ever had braces? No, though I did have a chin strap when I was younger cause I had (and still have) an underbite.

66. What is your favorite genre of music? My music goes all over the place, but showtunes are my jam.

67. Who is your hero? 1994 Spider-Man. I specify because he’s really different from other versions, and he’s so smart and such a klutz and I grew up with him. I’ve been playing the new Spider-Man game for PS4 and I almost started crying from how close he is to MY SM, and he just reminds me of my morals.

68. Do you read comic books? Nah

69. What makes you the most angry? Politics atm. Don’t even talk to me about them. I don’t like being angry and any talk about the current political situation is just infuriating. 

70. Do you prefer to read real books or on an electric device? Either, though real books hold a special aesthetic to them.

71. What is your favorite subject in school? English. Like I said, I’m a literary nerd.

72. Do you have any siblings? Two, an older and a younger brother.

73. What was the last thing you bought? Ariana Grande’s song No Tears Left to Cry

74. How tall are you? 5′ 7″, perfectly average

75. Can you cook? Eh, I can do the basic stuff, and if I have a recipe in front of me then sure, but otherwise? Don’t ask.

76. What are three things that you love? My dog, myself, my mom.

77. What are three things that you hate? Politics, White™ people, being expected to know things I was never told about (cough cough @ my boss)

78. Do you have more female friends or more male friends? Honestly, I have more nb friends than either

79. What is your sexual orientation? Pansexual

80. Where do you currently live? The Midwest

81. Who was the last person you texted? My mom

82. When was the last time you cried? Yesterday because I was laughing so goddamn hard

83. Who is your favorite youtuber? Game Grumps and you can fight me on that

84. Do you like to take selfies? Yep! I’m hot and I know it. I’ve hated myself for 5 years, I deserve to be infatuated with myself.

85. What is your favorite app? Monster Girl Creator. It’s so fun.

86. What is your relationship with your parent(s) like? My mom and I are super close, but my dad and I... eh. It’s kinda damaged, though it’s better than it was when I was in high school. He doesn’t understand LGBT stuff or depression so he was just... awful.

87. What is your favorite foreign accent? Probably French, but the funniest to try and do is Russian. I suck at it and it turns into Italian after a while.

88. What is a place that you’ve never been to but want to visit? God I want to travel so bad. I’d love to go to Puerto Rico, France, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Vietnam... so many beautiful places.

89. What is your favorite number? Three

90. Can you juggle? Not for my life

91. Are you religious? I’ve kinda been burned out of religion cause my childhood church was really just... bad. I came out as bi to them when I was a sophomore and it caused a HUGE scene with the church. I was called ‘a slap to the face,’ people left the church, it was just bad. I’m spiritual, but not religious, though my life’s not over yet, so who knows.

92. Do you find outer space or the deep ocean to be more interesting? Space. Space space space. Do you know how badly I want to go to space? I almost became an engineer just so I could go to space.

93. Do you consider yourself to be a daredevil? I’m pretty tame, in all honesty, though I do some stupid shit every now and then.

94. Are you allergic to anything? Bullshit, any and every kind of body soap known to man kind, and pollen.

95. Can you curl your tongue? Yes! I can do the double fold think with your tongue where it looks like a scoop chip, you know what I mean?

96. Can you wiggle your ears? Nah

97. How often do you admit that you were wrong about something? I come from a really stubborn household, though lately I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to be humble and just admit I’m wrong. It’s hard.

98. Do you prefer the forest or the beach? Forest. I’ve only been to the beach twice in my life so it’s not really my scene.

99. What is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you? Do what makes you happy

100. Are you a good liar? I’ve gotten very good at it. I’m not proud of that fact, but I’ve gotten very very good at it.

101. What is your Hogwarts house? Slyterin. No, I’m not joking.

102. Do you talk to yourself? All the time.

103. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? I’m an introvert, though I think I’m more of an ambivert.

104. Do you keep a journal or a diary? Nah.

105. Do you believe in second chances? Yes, but you really can’t give them out really freely. You have to judge who you want to give them to.

106. If you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do? Check for an ID and try to contact the person it belongs to. But if there’s no ID, probably give it to the nearest business or police station.

107. Do you believe that people are capable of change? With most things. If they really wanted to.

108. Are you ticklish? Ye

109. Have you ever been on a plane? Yeah, but not many times. My first time on a plane was 4 years ago.

110. Do you have any piercings? Just the basic earlobe pierecings, but I really really want more.

111. What fictional character do you wish was real? Shiro from Voltron, aka my husband. 

112. Do you have any tattoos? No but I want so many

113. What is the best decision that you have made so far? Learning to love myself. It took a lot of time, but I’m so happy I did it

114. Do you believe in karma? Not entirely, but I think there’s some truth to it.

115. Do you wear glasses or contacts? I  have bad eyes, so yeah, I wear glasses. I tried contacts, but they got irritating to put in after a while.

116. Do you want children? SO badly. I want a little girl so fucking bad

117. Who is the smartest person you know? My little brother. He wants to be a freaking accountant when he’s older.

118. What is your most embarrassing memory? I went to a museum one time, and they had a cool dinosaur tour or whatever, and I wanted to know what the dinosaur Parasaurolophus was called, but I forgot the name and only remebered like, Ducky from Land Before Time, and Phineas and Ferb had just started airing, so I asked the guy if a platypus was a dinosaur and that haunts me to this day

119. Have you ever pulled an all nighter? Yes. Don’t do it.

120. What color are most of your clothes? Blue cause it’s always looked good on me, but now any color looks good on me cause I know how to own it.

121. Do you like adventures? Yeah man! I love them!

122. Have you ever been on TV? Not that I know of

123. How old are you? 20

124. What is your favorite quote?  “When someone leaves your life, those exits are not made equal. Some are beautiful and poetic and satisfying. Others are abrupt and unfair. But most are just unremarkable, unintentional, clumsy.” -Griffin Mcelroy

125. Do you prefer sweet or savory foods? Sweeeets!

I tag @viper-fish @berrybloomsims and @lunacysims

[moonmothmama]

Tagged! Get to Know Me!

Tagged by: @pleiadic-magic

Rules: Answer these questions, then tag up to 20 blogs you’d like to know better!

Nicknames: none that are in service anymore. i have honestly always just liked my name (Kathleen).

zodiac: Virgo sun, Scorpio moon, Virgo rising

Height: barely five three

Time: ... of what? time now? time i was born? four thirty pm and five fifteen am respectively

Favorite band/artist: boy, too damn many. i could honestly be here all day. lately: Willie Nelson, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Donovan, Shirley Bassey, Janelle Monae, Glenn Miller, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, The Puppini Sisters, every single version of Creep by Radiohead, Dolly Parton, Connie Converse, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Mama Cass, The Kossoy Sisters, Johnny Cash, PMJ, Fairport Convention... i have broad and eclectic musical tastes

Song stuck in my head: Pirate Jenny by Nina Simone

Last movie I saw: we watched Coraline on Netflix  

Last thing I Googled: black beak mask -plague

Other blogs: my main blog that i’ve abandoned bc a popular post broke my notes: @thegreenthingslivebeforetheydie, my recent poetry blog: @yourlocalreclusewitch, an Inactive For Now photography blog: @somnambulant-suburbia, a starship blog @starship-inspo where i collect cool looking spaceships to inspire my man who likes to draw them sometimes, and my Penguin (Batman) blog: @cobblepot-classique which was created bc i am bitter about Gotham and it’s Suddenly Super Popular Thin, Conventionally Attractive Penguin

Do I get asks? very rarely

Why did I choose this username? i have a Thing about moths/It Just Felt Right

Following: 622

Average amount of sleep: usually about eight hours

What I’m wearing: black leggings and a grey star wars sweatshirt

Dream job: homesteading tbh

Dream trip: 1) to where my friends and family are 2) i wanna see some standing stones before i die

Favorite food: hmmm... tea isn’t food, so... i mean i love veggies. but i love a lot of things. i’m a foodie. i love to cook. but ok. ok. narrowing it down... i love salad. i love anything with pesto on it. i love mushrooms. i love sushi. i love an everything bagel with cream cheese and lox. i love sicilian pizza. i love avocado. i love hot sauce. i love black beans and rice. i love beets. this is difficult. my favorite food is variety

Play any instruments? all the musical talent in this family line went to my older brother 

Eye color: bluish green? greenish blue? the color of seawater.

Hair color: a darker shade of gold blonde. obviously it lightens up in the summer a bit. 

Languages you speak: mainly english... spanish has lapsed but i could probably still get by

Most iconic song:  Children of Darkness by Joan Baez, Within You Without You by the Beatles, Scenes From An Italian Restaurant by Billy Joel, Nantucket Sleighride by Mountain, Summerbaby by Polaris, Kozmic Blues by Janis Joplin

Random fact: my hair is over four feet long and i can only cross one eye

Describe yourself as aesthetic things: tea steeping in a huge mug, slanted afternoon sunlight catching curling incense smoke, a grey sky over the bay, moths around a porchlight, butter melting, chipped glitter nail polish, going barefoot all year round, rain drops on the windowpane, fog rolling down a suburban street just before dawn, a room lit by candles and a lavalamp, piles of notebooks both new and old, the halo around a full moon, a kitchen knife on a cutting board, huge tatty black sweatshirt with the neckline cut wide enough to expose a freckly shoulder and a broad purple bra strap, a pincushion shaped like a hen, mascara smudged bags under greenish eyes, an unmade bed, green fingers from a faber-castell drawing pencil

tagging: @sadnarwhal @amagurith @thylekshran @jazzypizzaz  @robertstiltskin @bigbitterbee @audio-sexual and whoever wants to do it

[pixelgrotto]

Three free games on Steam, part two

Two months ago I decided to take a dive into the free section of Steam in search of weird, experimental and under-the-radar stuff that could be played without spending a cent, and now I’m back with three more games. And wowzers, we’ve got some unusual stuff this time. 

Marie’s Room - This is the most mainstream game on here, since it was released just a few weeks ago to a reasonable amount of fanfare. It’s a one hour “explore the room and figure out the story it holds” game that’s drawing a lot of comparisons with Gone Home and Life is Strange, which are both titles that I haven’t actually played but want to at some point (Life is Strange moreso than Gone Home). Anyhow, in Marie’s Room you play as a girl named Kelsey who’s gone back to the childhood room of Marie, a high school friend from 20 years ago. She finds Marie’s journal, and as you investigate objects in the room, journal entries will appear, outlining the story of these two young women from very different backgrounds. Kelsey was a “cool” chick with a boyfriend, Marie was a kinda nerdy and socially awkward introvert, but despite this they managed to bond with each other until a dramatic incident occurred. And naturally, piecing together that incident is what the game’s all about.  It’s a quick and interesting enough storytelling experience, though if you’re not a fan of what are increasingly being called “walking simulators” it’s doubtful that you’ll like it. Marie’s Room also carries a lot of the same tropes that Gone Home and Life is Strange apparently possess, and one of the complaints I saw on Steam is that experimental slice-of-life storytelling games like this predominantly seem to be falling into a routine, where they usually focus on showcasing the friendships of American white girls (who usually turn out to be lesbians, though not so in Marie’s Room, sorry) living in suburbia. On one level, this is fine, because lord knows we could use more games from the viewpoint of women. On another level, though, this is quickly becoming a trope, almost like how the grizzly, generic male action hero is in AAA mainstream titles. I saw a Steam review stating that gamers who love interactive storytelling should begin demanding more diverse tales, and I’m inclined to agree. A game like Marie’s Room set somewhere besides suburbia and starring a protagonist of color - like an Asian American boy or an African American woman, for instance - would be a good start. 

Path Out - Not to be confused with A Way Out, which is something else entirely, Path Out is a tiny game based on a wonderful idea: under the guise of a cartoony and nostalgic JRPG, tell players the tale of one young Syrian’s escape from the country after the 2014 civil war. It’s based on the true story of Abdullah Karam, who pops up in the upper left corner of the screen as you examine various objects or end up in a sticky situation that leads to death, and I love the way he comments on his homeland and your decisions. For instance, at one point in the game you’re wandering around a Syrian household and see an intentionally placed and stereotypical looking camel, and Abdullah’s face emerges and is like, “Yah, to be honest this is sorta racist since we don’t have camels like that in Syria aside from in the super touristy areas.” And then the camel disappears. There are little asides like this throughout the game, and Abdullah’s stories can get quite serious and touching, especially when he has to leave his family and sneak past ISIS troops in the woods.

I enjoy it when I feel like I’m learning something from a game, and if Path Out does anything, it manages to communicate how difficult it was for average Syrians during the war. It also fosters a sense of camaraderie via Abdullah - after all, here’s a normal dude who enjoys playing video games and fiddling around on the computer just like any other kid across the globe. The only problem is that it’s way too short and ends on an extremely abrupt note, though other episodes are planned for release in the future if Path Out does well. Hopefully they’ll be made, because I wanna see the rest of Abdullah’s journey. (I wouldn’t mind buying the dude a beer someday too.) Everlasting Summer - If you want to know more about Everlasting Summer, then you should go read my Steam review, which I rattled off a few evenings ago and am actually quite proud of, lol. It’s a fairly negative review, which is rare for me, and it’s also divergent from the mainstream, since the game currently has an “Overwhelmingly Positive” score on Steam. But you might feel differently, and Everlasting Summer is certainly a novel concept at the very least, because how many other communist visual novels with a Japanese flair rise from the depths of the Russian web? Yep, Everlasting Summer is an erotic game (or eroge) about Soviet Union waifus, though the erotic scenes are frankly, few and far between. The story centers on an annoying guy named Semyon who finds himself transported from his mundane existence in a northern city to a strange pioneer camp where all of the girls are busty and cute, and mysterious time loops may be going on, trapping everyone in place. Or is it alternate dimensions? Or ALIENS? Honestly, I’m not really sure, and I don’t think the makers of the game are either. This was a project that was in the works since 2008, frequently approached vaporware status, and was constructed by a variety of different individuals who frequented Russian image boards and VK groups. It certainly feels messy, like something put together by too many cooks in the kitchen, but the setting is interesting, and just like in Path Out, I occasionally felt like I was learning things about USSR history. The girls are also okay, though I’m a tad salty that the purple-haired one I fell for ended up being the unstable choice who has a mindfuck of a bad ending but a disappointingly mundane good one. But at the end of the day, Everlasting Summer’s writing wasn’t good enough for me to recommend it, especially when there are stronger free visual novels out there like Doki Doki Literature Club that also offer more than enough weird twists and turns in their narratives. I will admit that there’s a certain appeal to playing something that formerly only existed as a mysterious urban legend on websites ending in .ru, though.

Screenshots all taken from each game’s respective Steam and Facebook pages.