#I need to draw genuine backgrounds more it’s embarrassing… it’s not even like I can���t do it I’m just lazy.

[maythewidowtakeusall]

SUN-KISSED Pt. 2

Part 1 | Part 2

Read on AO3

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x reader

Wordcount: 2894

Warnings: alcohol

Summary: An argument with your boyfriend Steve Rogers is the perfect incentive to go out drinking with Natasha.

It's sunset again, Natasha notices, but she pushes the thought down as your fingers tangle with hers. You tug on her arm and she follows you silently, pathetically at your whim at all times, even when she knows she should tell you it's a bad idea. Because it is. She doesn't trust herself sober around you, and she's scared of what a few drinks will do.

But you're adamant, your mascara smudged under your eyes from crying earlier. She hates it, she hates Steve for making you feel so bad about yourself, about your work. You're fucking amazing, and though she respects the old man, she's not going to let him do this to you. He can stick his second world war virtues up his ass.

Despite the considerable force you're pulling her along with, she stops you, spins you around, curls an arm around your waist tightly to hold you close. She can't help but smirk as your eyes widen.

She probably enjoys this too much. But it was you who called her.

You watch with confusion as Natasha licks her thumb and swipes it across your cheeks gently, wiping away the last telltale signs of your argument with Steve. Your eyes shine more brightly than they usually do, but otherwise you look perfect again, even with your tousled hair and carelessly thrown on leather jacket.

"There."

"It was the mascara, right? I forgot about that," you say with a sheepish smile that soon drops, the feeling of your cheeks heating up deepening your embarrassment. It's the proximity of another human being, or the two shots of tequila you had back at the Avengers Tower, or the fact that at least she genuinely seems to give a shit about you. At any rate, it feels soothing after all the jarring words you and Steve threw around earlier. You need a girls' night out, you need to be told not to overthink things, to let loose.

And the moment you stormed out of Steve's room, you knew who you had to turn to. You knew it was only Natasha you wanted around and no one else.

She didn't protest. In fact, she dropped her plans at a moment's notice to go out with you. She promised to take you to a dive bar, one she knows like the back of her hand that has good drinks and even better prices. It's close to her place, and you will crash there afterwards. She said will, not can. She's not letting you go back to Steve in the state you are in, the state he's put you in.

And you are perfectly alright with that plan.

The Coyote is a small but handsome place, with soft blues rock whining in the background, furnished with tables and bar stools from a bygone era. There's a pool table in the back, a woman in her fifties tending the bar with a frown as one of the patrons knocks his drink over. You stand in awe for a minute as the bartender - who also happens to be the owner of this particular dive - berates the man in front of her for spilling his beer. "You think I want to clean up after you all night, Larry?" she throws him a disdainful look before muttering under her breath as she fetches a rag to mop up the beer that bleeds down the wooden surface just like your mascara ran down your cheeks not so long ago. "Fucking lightweight."

"Well, what do you think?" Natasha smiles, pleased to see enthusiasm stealing behind your eyes.

"I love it. It's so..."

"Vintage?" she helps. She knows you love old things in the most adorable way. You love everything that is vintage, everything that takes you back to times you never lived in - buildings, furniture, streets, monuments, museums... People. Old people too, she reminds herself bitterly.

"Yeah," you smile.

She matches your smile, knowing eyes drinking in your improving mood greedily. "Wait til you've tried their drinks. Holly prides herself on only keeping the best of the best."

The night is a lot slower and more mellow than what you expected. You wanted wild, you wanted to force the thoughts out of your mind, you wanted to be exhausted, maybe even blackout and start over fresh tomorrow. But you're just tipsy, the alcohol filling your body with a gentle buzz that's not at all unpleasant. You and Nat have paced yourselves, and you talk, and fill the booth you took for just the two of you with genuine laughter and ease. She matches your teasing tone when you joke, indulges you when you steer the conversation to deeper waters. However, you've been tiptoeing around Steve, and the argument, but Natasha unravels you, and she listens to what you have to say, and it's fucking difficult to admit, but she seems to understand you more than Steve ever did - so you cave in when she puts a hand on your forearm. It feels right, too right, but her question distracts you.

"So... Should we address the elephant in the room or is this the point where we pick up the pace a little?"

Your shoulders sag when you realise you don't really want to get drunk. You don't want wild. Or reckless. Lights out, with the bittersweet relief of not remembering a god damn thing about tonight. You just want this moment, even if it is difficult to open up to her. "I don't know what to say."

"I do," she quips. "Steve's a moron."

You laugh, despite everything, and it makes her tighten her grip on your arm encouragingly for a second. "He's not a moron. But he did act rather moronic today."

"I think you did well on the mission," Nat declares, leaning back and lifting her glass of beer to her lips.

"I was reckless."

"Those are his words, not yours."

"Yeah... The thing is, I don't feel guilty about what I've done at all. I calculated the risks, and I trusted my abilities to see me through the job. Mission accomplished - even if my tactics were questionable from a strictly military perspective."

Nat nods, and a silence settles over the two of you as she draws patterns on the cold wet glass in her hands. It's comfortable, and her wordless agreement wraps around you like a warm blanket. Your gaze meets the attentive green emeralds of her eyes, and you swallow thickly. Maybe it's the alcohol, maybe it's your loneliness, but she looks so fucking beautiful in the dim light of the bar, green military style jacket slipping down on one shoulder to reveal her black tank top. You shouldn't, you shouldn't, and you can't help it, and she frowns softly, trying to read your thoughts. And you worry, you worry she can read you easily, you worry she can open you up and trace the lines of your attraction to her with her fingertips.

Because that's what this is, you realise. Attraction. No matter how fucked up it is, no matter how angry it makes you at yourself. Steve's back at the Avengers Tower dissecting the argument in his head while worrying about where you've slipped off to. But you know he doesn't approve, not even his guilt can make him see that you shouldn't have to justify your every move on missions. You're far from helpless, and yet he treats you like a damsel in distress. Like you're less than him in a way, just because you weren't injected with the super soldier serum.

You want to be treated as an equal. In the team, in your relationships, during your missions. You want to be seen for who you are - a capable person, an effective agent, a force to be reckoned with, a mind that can easily keep up with the rest of the Avengers. Alas none of them really see you that way, and Steve is no exception.

But Natasha is.

The cab ride is quiet, you two sit in the back, eyes somehow glued to each other, Steve forced to the back of your mind as an unpleasant thought by what you feel for Nat in this very moment. You wonder if this feeling has always been in you, hidden, denied, labelled impossible and maybe even shameful. She reaches across and gently places her hand in yours.

And for whatever reason, you don't pull it back.

You've never seen her flat before, but it's everything you've expected. Laid back yet angular, stylish yet chaotic, inviting yet intimidating. It's an effervescent mixture, just like she is, and she pulls you inside without a second thought, exposing her hideout as if you came here every other day, as if letting you in her most private corner of the world was absolutely normal.

The thought of it makes your insides burn with a feeling you know you shouldn't allow to even exist.

It's late, but you're both hungry, and you make sandwiches in the small kitchen while joking and keeping the conversation light, amicably bumping your shoulders together. It hurts, for the both of you, to see the what ifs, the what could bes, the life you can't have but suddenly seem to crave. She accidentally smudges some pesto on her finger and licks it off. You lose your mind. You eat. Hunched over the tiny kitchen table, you feel yourself sober up completely. You're exhausted, but you don't want this night to end. Neither of you have done or said anything inappropriate, nothing has happened here for which you should apologise to Steve on the next day. And yet it's the most comfortable and loved you've felt in a long time.

You feel self-conscious when you wipe your makeup off in the quiet seclusion of her bathroom, a pair of her sweatpants and an old band t-shirt waiting for you, neatly folded, on top of the laundry basket. You expose the dark circles underneath your eyes, along with all the imperfections of your skin, and your lower lips trembles at the thought of having to bare yourself in front of her. Your body is shapeless after you've changed into your makeshift pyjamas (you try not to think too hard on wearing her clothes). Your hair, released from the tight updo you've forced it into is messy and loose now. To be fair, it was messy before too, but it's not really helping your confidence right now. You will have to leave eventually, and face her, and you're terrified of not seeing the same light and warmth in her eyes when she looks at you, the same smile she always wears on her lips whenever you're around.

She smiles even wider than usual when you emerge. The simple explanation would be that you're beautiful - it's the truth, without any embellishments whatsoever. The more complicated one she doesn't allow herself to dwell on, so she nods towards the bedroom and you follow her, even if a little forlorn.

"I don't often get guests," she smiles, sitting in the edge of the bed. The room smells of clean sheets and her perfume. "And even when I do, it's Clint, and I'm making him sleep on the sofa. But I'm willing to make an exception for you."

"Oh, you shouldn't," you protest as she stands. "The sofa is perfectly fine for me."

"It's alright, I don't mind-"

"Please-"

"It's no fuss-"

"This bed is big enough for the two of us anyways."

A small, awkward silence settles on you as you stare back at one another. If Natasha feels as bewildered as you do, she hides it well. Her head lolls to one side in thought, eyes assessing you. She seems content with whatever she's found in your gaze as she shrugs and sinks back down on the bed.

"Don't even think about hogging my blanket."

You regain your composure and grin, unable to feel uncomfortable around her any longer. You plop down on your belly unceremoniously and starfish on the mattress, and you can almost see her roll her eyes at you even through your closed eyes. You sigh as the firm mattress rises to meet your tired bones. "Ooh, I'm never leaving this bed."

"Move," Natasha nudges you, and you oblige her as you roll on your back. She lays next to you, and you stare up at the ceiling, glow in the dark stars blinking back at you in the dim light.

"I used to have those on my bedroom ceiling as a kid," you smile fondly.

"I didn't exactly have a conventional childhood. Figured I had some ground to cover on that front," she murmurs softly, lost for a moment in her memories. Your quiet laugh draws her back to the present and she's so very grateful for that. So very grateful for you.

"Well then, this is a good addition too, our little sleepover."

"Oh, yeah?" she grins, rolling on her side as she props her head up on a hand. "What do you want to do then to make it memorable? Gush about our crushes? Have a pillow fight? Play spin the bottle? Truth or dare? Get drunk? I have a bottle of wine, we could do that."

Your eyes land on her soft lips and you imagine daring her to kiss you. You imagine what it would be like to draw her in, to give in to the feelings inside you, to deepen the kiss, blame it on being drunk, trail your lips down the length of her neck...

But you could never do that to Steve.

"I think I've had enough excitement for tonight."

"Suit yourself, love."

Does she look disappointed? You don't have enough time to ponder as she nods and pulls back the covers to wrap them around the both of you. She then reaches to switch the lamp off on the bedside table and settles down beside you. You're still facing each other, and in the darkness you can see the outlines of her smile when your eyes adjust. She puts a hand on your shoulder, gives it a little squeeze. She's upset, she really is, she was so close to reeling you in, trapping you, telling you all she's been wanting to say for months now. But she's proud of you. For being loyal, for not breaking the trust Steve put in you even though you could do it without consequences. She'd never tell on you. But somehow, your silent refusal has made you even a better person in her eyes than if you would have given in to the kiss you've both obviously wanted.

But this all must be very confusing for you. Your week was an emotional rollercoaster, and she just wants you to be okay. "Wake me if you need anything."

You nod, and satisfied, Natasha turns to her other side. It's difficult, being so torn, wanting love but not knowing where you're supposed to get it. Overwhelmed by everything, you seem to spiral into mild panic. You don't know this place, and Steve is a stubborn asshole, and you just want to feel safe and sheltered for a single night, is that too much to ask for?

You scoot closer to Natasha, letting her feel your warmth first before you tentatively snuggle up to her from behind. She lets you, deathly still as if any movement on her part would scare you away. You slide your hand on her waist, afraid to go too far.

She takes it and wraps it around her midsection.

You don't talk about it in the morning. The sun shines brightly as you sit together in the kitchen. Coffee. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Slipping slices of tangerine to one another. A long hug before you leave.

And somehow you both feel a little less when you're apart.

You have much to think on, you both do. You don't avoid Steve when you get back. You go straight to him and you ask him for a break. He deals with his heartbreak as he soldiers though every hardship in his life - lips pressed together, emotions repressed, stiff nod straining his neck, regret shining in his blue eyes. But you need this. You need this, because he deserves better than to be lied to. Than to be led on. So does she.

Weeks pass. Missions come and go, all successful. You work together professionally, there's nothing forced. Tony remarks on the sudden drop of temperature in the room during a mission briefing where you and Steve sit in opposite ends of the room, but Natasha steps in and whacks him on the back of the head with the file in her hand and that's that.

You go to the top floor of the tower one evening, the staggering height's isolation comforting you now more than scaring you. You sit there for a while, watching the sunset, when you remember Italy, 3 months ago, stopping to marvel at the sunset, Natasha by your side.

And then you know. You just do. You need more time to accept it, of course. Probably even more time to act on it. But in the meantime, you can't stop thinking about her feeding tangerine to you in the morning, fingers brushing against yours as she passes the slices to you.

Tag list: @fayhar

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Stare Enough

Fandom: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Pairing: Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes Rating: T Word Count: 4034

Summary: Bucky's got a new stare. Sam spends all afternoon and most of the evening working up the courage to meet it.

Both Sam and the food are the main attraction at this party and the problem with that situation is that it takes so damn long for one main attraction to get a second to enjoy the other.

He’s grateful—god, is he grateful—for the turnout. Friends, neighbours, the kind of people he and Sarah call family without there being any actual relation by blood, they’ve all shown up. Since the Blip, Sam’s felt like he’s always around, but this feels like a real homecoming. No sadness, nothing bittersweet. It’s a celebration and he’s at the center of it. Him and the food.

At last, Sam’s done the circuit with his plate, spooning creamy salads and grilled vegetables, stacking shellfish pink as a sunrise. There’s a fresh-baked roll perched atop a scoop of sweet potatoes and caramelized onions that smells so fucking warm and mouth-watering he has to resist walking with his nose buried in it. He collects a set of utensils furled in the middle of a paper napkin (courtesy of an efficient assembly line of old ladies, chatting and twisting neat rolls of cutlery), plate bowing into the palm of his other hand, and that’s when his damn phone vibrates in his pocket.

Sam halts and makes a sound of frustration. Nobody’s come to this thing empty-handed, so there are dishes crowding the surface of the tables, no place to set his plate down. His phone vibrates again. A teenager comes up to peruse the spread in front of him and Sam sighs, knowing what he’s about to do.

“Here,” he says heavily, offering up his beautifully arranged and wonderfully fragrant meal. The cob of corn shining with the butter he lovingly smeared over it nearly rolls over the edge. “You’re the luckiest kid in the world.”

Quickly, Sam turns away, sliding out his phone and bringing it to his ear. He doesn’t want to witness the boy digging in. His stomach growls as he greets Joaquin Torres.

“Sam,” Torres says. “Uh, I mean, sir. Mr. Captain Am… Captain Wil—”

“Take it easy,” Sam laughs. “You know me, Torres. Don’t get starstruck now.”

“Honestly, I never really got over you being the Falcon. Now that you’re Captain America… Apologies if it takes me a little while to be cool about it.” After a pause—taken while Torres attempts to become cool with Sam being Captain America, Sam assumes—he asks, “You celebrating?”

Not far from where Sam’s standing, there are two little girls singing along to their clapping game. At a table behind them, a trio of elderly gentlemen are arguing over which one of them it was that caught that 50-pound snapper off the dock back in 1978. There’s a sear of meat and fish being rotated onto and off of the grill and, bouncing over everything, music from a speaker someplace.

“Yeah,” Sam says with a broad grin. “Yeah, we are. I’d save you a plate, but I can’t even manage to hang onto my own.”

He doesn’t mention that Torres is responsible for that situation; he’s aware that, besides being a fan, the Lieutenant is a little bit infatuated with him. Sam’s trying to be gentle until the day he can respond to Torres with friendly smack-talk, the way he would Steve or Scott or Bucky. Maybe not exactly like he does with Bucky.

“Don’t worry about it,” Torres cheerfully insists. “I wasn’t calling for that, I just wanted to give you a heads up about something.”

“Alright. Let me just…”

Sam strides away from the heart of the party towards the water, seeking quiet. Kids dart in front of him and that’s nothing unusual, but when he follows them with his gaze, he sees they’re running towards Bucky. Bucky, who has his Vibranium arm extended and two kids dangling off it already, one of whom might be Sam’s nephew. Of course, Mr. Casual, Mr. Smiles, Mr. Social Butterfly, is carrying on a conversation like his arm isn’t being used as a jungle gym. A conversation with Sarah.

For just a moment, Sam stops in his tracks, considering whether he should go over there and break up any potential flirting. But then he watches them. Bucky’s just talking to her, not flicking his gaze up and down while he checks her out. And Sarah, she’s relaxed and smiling, totally at ease, like Bucky’s another member of their community. That makes him a friend. Family.

That’s one thought too far and Sam jerks himself into motion again, walking until he’d be swimming with another step.

“What’ve you got for me?”

“Well, I’ve been trying to watch as much of the coverage of the fight outside the GRC vote as I can, trying to get a sense of how they’re spinning Walker’s reappearance, the legacy of the Flag-Smashers now that Karli and her inner circle are gone… Anyway, there’s a lot of footage and you’re at the center of most of it.”

“Guess the new suit draws the eye. And the cameras.” It’s no surprise to Sam. Part of the job of being Captain America.

“Yeah, but…”

“What is it, Torres?”

“Bucky’s in the background a lot,” he explains in a voice that tells Sam there’s more Torres isn’t saying.

“Makes sense. He was in the thick of it as much as I was.”

“He’s there at the end too. When you were talking to the Senator about power and the common struggle. Man, that was a great speech. Do you think—”

“Torres. Please. The point.”

“Right, for sure, man. Bucky never takes his eyes off you.”

That flusters Sam for a second. He wasn’t expecting the blunt delivery, especially of those words. He squints down at the water where it’s lapping the side of the dock. He knew Bucky was there; they spoke right after, when Bucky tried to feed him that bullshit (and he knew it was bullshit at the time) about texting and missing the exact speech Torres is apparently still hung up on.

“So Bucky was actually listening to me,” Sam says carefully. “That’s a surprise, but it isn’t really the kind of thing that’s significant enough for you to bother notifying me about, is it?”

“I’d say that depends on what you consider significant.”

“Torres.”

“I know, but he’s not just listening! It’s how he’s looking at you!”

“Like he’s wishing I would wrap it up?” Oh, Sam remembers Bucky’s miracle from their session with Dr. Raynor.

“Like he’s totally into you! Major heart eyes. Sir,” Torres hastily adds.

And Sam should reprimand him for this. Calling with a trivial piece of information when he must know Sam’s already being very selective about which of the hundreds of recent calls (and it’d be more if more people had this number) he chooses to pick up. Calling to speculate on how Bucky was staring at Sam that night in New York.

“I don’t need to tell you this is gonna be one of those investigations we keep between you and me,” Sam states.

“For sure. I just thought maybe you’d wanna know.”

“Uh huh. You get any real news, you pass it along.”

“I will.”

Sam ends the call and turns. He looks to his right: the sparkling river. His left: his people, all the way down to the squirt with the glasses who’s hanging off a metal arm, and the man that arm belongs to.

He’s felt it, the way that Bucky stares. It’s not like it used to be though, when it irked Dr. Raynor at the police station in Baltimore, or confused Walker and Hoskins in the back of that jeep in Germany. This new stare of Bucky’s isn’t one Sam’s ever caught him doing. Bucky hasn’t quite let him. That’s actually how Sam noticed it was happening—Bucky would immediately glance away instead of leaving that dead expression on his face when Sam met his eye. Now that he has proof of it, proof he’s certain Torres would send him footage of in an instant if he asked, he’s scared to look.

Instead, he watches Bucky look at other people. Like Sarah. Like kids from the neighbourhood. His literal hangers-on disperse as Sam observes, scattered after Bucky leans towards them to say something. Sam sees half his smile and even that much has his heart swelling up in his chest. Bucky weaves through the tables and standing groups, the dancers and the kids who’ve broken out a skipping rope. (After eating from that buffet? Kids are crazy. Gonna make themselves sick.)

Without thinking too hard about it, Sam returns to the noise and the smells, trailing Bucky with a stealthy eye on his ass in those jeans. There’s no friction here between him and everybody else Sam cares about, he can see that in every short, friendly exchange someone engages Bucky in as he walks. Things flow as smoothly as the butter oozing off the corn Sam reluctantly gave up. Clearly, they remember Bucky from when he was here helping with the boat. They respect him. They like him. They’ve gotten to that last thing faster than Sam has, which makes Sam feel a little embarrassed as well as a little overwhelmed by how much the two of them have actually been through. He’s seen Bucky as a mindless killer and it almost brings a genuine tear to his eye—here on this glorious day in front of all these folks—to see the dork who rushed out to get his hands on a copy of The Hobbit in 1937 return in his current form as the dork who’ll take a fake punch from AJ and blush over brazen old women telling him how handsome he is.

Bucky stares different? Well. Sam feels different about the staring.

Sam keeps his distance until Bucky reaches the food, then his stomach gurgles a reminder than he hasn’t eaten yet. No ass is nice enough to distract him from his meal. He sidles up beside him and Bucky seems unsurprised, not even glancing over.

“Anything important?” he asks.

“What?”

“Your phone call,” Bucky clarifies, adding a heap of glossy green beans to his plate. Damn, those are some of Sam’s favourite. Bucky better not take all of them. “They need us somewhere?”

“Oh. No.”

Bucky shoots him a suspicious look after this stilted response, but he doesn’t say anything until Sam grabs a plate of his own, hungry eyes roving the feast that’s diminishing now that people have started coming back for second helpings.

“Put that down,” Bucky instructs. He doesn’t wait; he takes the plate out of Sam’s hand and tosses it back towards the pile. Thankfully, the plates are made of paper.

“Buzz off, man,” Sam tells him, reaching for the plate again. “I’m starving.”

“I figured.”

Wait.

“That’s for me?” he guesses, gazing longingly at the plate Bucky’s preparing.

“Yep.”

When Sam doesn’t reply, Bucky pauses with the plate in one hand and a serving spoon in the other and sighs.

“I didn’t want you to miss the good stuff. This party’s for you.”

“I think it might be for both of us.”

Bucky seems too self-conscious to say anything to that. He goes back to loading up Sam’s plate while Sam quietly feels his throat close up with emotion as he watches. He clears it gruffly.

“I woulda had to eat the cake you brought,” he jokes. “Pretty sure only the really little kids have eaten any. You know, people who don’t know better.”

“I was tryin’ to be a good guest.”

“I can’t believe you brought a store-bought cake,” Sam says, laughing as he grabs a set of cutlery for the second time and continuing to shuffle along next to Bucky.

“Have you ever seen me cook?”

“…No.”

“Exactly. Trust me, what I did was kinder.”

“If you say so.”

“You know what, Sam?” Bucky demands challengingly, turning to face him. “I do say so.”

Sam’s eyes go from the plate Bucky’s holding between them up to Bucky’s face. He’s close. And he’s got this look, this dancing look in his eyes that undercuts the shit out of the hard line of his eyebrows. Trying to seem all stern. All Sam can think for several seconds is that, if he just grabbed Bucky by the chain around his neck and hauled him forward, they’d never get the food stains out of their clothes. But their laundry would smell delicious.

He clears his throat.

“Then you better stay for a while.”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth twitches up and he hands Sam the plate he’s prepared for him.

“I plan to.”

When Sam picks a table to sit at, he makes sure there’s enough room for Bucky too. When Bucky sits next to him, he sits so close that their thighs press together and claims that’s all the space there is. Bucky talks and laughs when other people at the table talk to him. He’s easily drawn into conversation now and Sam feels weirdly proud of having brought this great guy home to meet everybody, even if he’s not here like that. People tells stories about last week and last century interchangeably, one old smartass making Bucky howl with laughter when they toss out a memory of Little Sam Wilson streaking from his house to the river for a naked swim. This is the danger of welcoming Bucky into the community. Sam, suppressing a smile, doesn’t really mind.

Elbows up on the table so he can eat, talk, and gesture emphatically with his fork, Sam feels Bucky’s stare creeping up on him. Slow, like the sun slides across the landscape when the clouds blow past. Bucky didn’t make this food, but Sam can feel his satisfaction as he watches Sam accept what he provided. Feels like there are grasshoppers springing around in his stomach. He still has a roll on his plate, one side soaked in family-secret barbecue sauce, and he tears it in half. While the rest of their table are caught up in some story being boisterously told by overlapping voices, Sam turns to Bucky and wordlessly offers the bread, edges dimpled where he gripped to split it. They watch each other chew and Sam’s closed mouth is smiling.

Inevitably, somebody pulls Sam back into the conversation and he does his best to laugh and heckle, covering the fact that he wasn’t listening, that he dropped the thread. The voices rise and rise and fall like water slopping over the side of a bucket.

In the next quiet moment, Bucky inclines toward him slightly and says, “You wanna talk later?”

And Sam says, “Sure.”

The day feels long, long, long, and Sam’s face gets sore from smiling, tired from talking. He does not confess that to Bucky, who’s almost always at his side. Lights go on overhead and beers come out of coolers, leftover food packed up and redistributed among neighbours, small children with drooping eyelids toted home. At first, Sam thinks Bucky’s leaning into his side because he’s drained from so much socializing too, but when he meets his eye, he just sees an invitation.

“Where are you two goin’?” Sarah asks when they slink past her carrying a too-big Cass in her arms.

“Just walkin’,” Sam tells her.

“Gotta stretch our legs,” Bucky contributes.

She looks from Sam to Bucky and back, smiling knowingly.

“Uh huh,” Sarah says.

Sam grabs Bucky by the shoulder to turn him forcibly away from his sister’s insinuations and just… forgets to let his hand fall as they wander along the water. Bucky’s steps angle towards his until his arm’s bumping Sam’s side, Sam’s arm slung around his shoulders. Is this still the body language of a couple buddies on a warm Delacroix night? Is it now, when Sam drops his arm and brushes the back of his hand across Bucky’s?

They leave the party lights on the horizon with the lazily setting sun, scrabbling off the end of the dock and onto the riverbank. Sam reaches up to give Bucky a hand down, so he won’t step in the soft mud and sink to his ankles. Bucky clasps his hand firmly and jumps.

The sound of people drops off down here and the sound of wind in grass, frogs hiding between reeds, rises.

“Are there alligators in here?” Bucky wonders, scanning the river’s edge.

Sam laughs.

“For sure.”

“And you swam here when you were a kid?”

“Even then,” Sam boasts, puffing his chest out, “my courage was legendary.”

“Yeah, and your nudity. Is there anyone within a mile of here who hasn’t seen your bare ass?”

Their eye contact holds. Oh right. Sam breaks away with an awkward, hiccupping laugh, directing his gaze at the dirt.

“The gators haven’t gathered too close to the dock in decades,” he promises Bucky. He stares out at the undisturbed water, enjoying the sun on his face. “Got skittish of the boats. Most of ’em, anyway.”

“Consider me not entirely reassured.”

“You scared of a little Louisiana lizard, man? Didn’t you grow up with Creature from the Black Lagoon?”

“Nah, that was after my time.”

“Damn, you’re old.”

Bucky snorts a laugh, refusing to look at him.

“You wanna take a dip?” Sam goads.

“No.”

But by the time Sam’s pulling his shirt over his head, Bucky’s peeling off his socks. Sam spares him a smile and keeps going, the ground soft underfoot. It could be like the few times they’ve changed in proximity to one another before, but it’s not. He senses Bucky’s eyes on him the whole time. Face hot, he takes a quick look in Bucky’s direction as he’s unzipping his jeans. His heart feels like his new suit—wings just waiting to unfurl.

When they’re down to their underwear, they wade in.

God, it feels nice. The water’s cool and the sun’s clinging to the horizon.

“Just don’t get any water in your mouth,” Sam instructs, then dunks his face and comes up squirting water at Bucky from between the gap in his front teeth, a trick he perfected as a kid. “That arm ain’t gonna rust, right?”

“You asked for this,” Bucky warns. He points a menacing finger and plunges below the surface.

Sam twists as he treads water, trying to see what’s going on down there, searching for a ripple or bubbles of released air. His legs move in twitchy kicks because that’s where he’s expecting Bucky to grab him. But the idiot is playing some kind of psychological game first, making Sam wait a full minute. Two minutes. Three.

He’s opening his mouth to call out Bucky’s name when he breaks the surface. Sam’s ready to swap the concern he was about to form into words into a taunt instead—did Bucky get down there and decide the scariest thing he could do was let Sam’s imagination take over?—until Bucky shakes his head and slicks his hair back. Then the words get caught in Sam’s throat and he just kinda stares.

“There was a really gross fish down there,” Bucky informs him. “Do you guys have eels there? Mighta been an eel. Maybe we should get out.”

“Alrighty, scaredy-cat, let’s get you to shore.”

Bucky propels himself out in front, arms moving in powerful strokes, and Sam’s hand darts out on instinct, fingers closing around Bucky’s hard calf muscle. Bucky jerks and Sam burst into loud laughter.

“Did you think that was an eel? Did you?”

“You’re lucky I…”

I’m lucky you what? Sam wants to ask when Bucky trails off, but he just swims after him.

During their game/possible eel panic (there’s no way it was an eel), they weren’t always fighting the current, so they’ve drifted downstream some. Bucky takes sloppy, sloshing steps out of the water, underwear that might’ve been light grey now dark and plastered to his ass. Sam feels like he’s choked on river water, though his mouth is dry. He lumbers out too and they begin the march back in the direction of the dock and their clothes. The water tickles as it runs down Sam’s legs; must be bugging Bucky too because he plucks his waistband away from his skin before letting it snap back. Clenching his jaw, Sam stops himself from trying to see too much.

This end of the dock is made of old boards before it transitions to pavement farther down, wood smooth on Sam’s feet when he and Bucky haul themselves up, dropping their collected clothes and shoes into a single pile. No point getting dressed until they’re dry, so they sit on the edge of the dock, feet swinging. Feels good. Feels home. They don’t speak until the sun’s set, the sky orange, then grey, then rich, velvety blue.

“You know, don’t you?” Bucky asks softly.

“Know?”

“Yeah, you know. Whenever you don’t know something, you talk and talk—”

“Sometimes I can work through a problem better if I vocalize,” Sam explains.

“But when you do know,” Bucky goes on, ignoring Sam’s input, “you’re quiet.” He looks at Sam. “You’re quiet.”

What else is Sam? Nervous. His skin’s prickling with it, and because even the warm air feels cold when he’s just climbed out of the river. There’s a wet patch spreading around him that he can barely see with evening rapidly deepening into night. He lifts a hand from the dock and sweeps it up his neck, brushing water droplets away.

Without glancing over, he says, “You’re doing that thing you do.”

“What?”

“Staring. That new stare you do.”

“Maybe,” Bucky acknowledges. A bird starts calling, the sound drifting in and away like the sway of a hypnotist’s watch and Bucky’s silent until it’s over. “Maybe I’m staring for the same reason you’re quiet.”

Sam waits. Bucky doesn’t add anything, so Sam turns to look at his face, hung with cool shadows.

“You’re not gonna say it, are you?”

“I thought you would say it,” Bucky argues defensively.

“You’re the one who’s been staring at me like that for a week. You should go first!”

“Please, you don’t even know how I’m staring at you, I only do it when you’re not looking.”

“Do it now then and see what happens,” Sam dares him.

“Fine.”

Just like that, Bucky locks in like Sam’s attention is the only handhold on a sheer cliffside. Vital and stable, a last chance, the one thing around him that wants to help him higher instead of watching him fall. A lot of that’s familiar from his regular hard stare, but then something opens up behind his eyes. Some fragile thing (that might be Bucky’s sense of caution) breaks. Suddenly, Sam’s seeing what Joaquin saw in the news footage and amateur cell phone video. Except he’s seeing it two feet in front of him. It’s intense. It makes the air a little harder to breathe.

Bucky’s lips curve into a smile, then part as he says, “I love—”

Hopefully, he wasn’t going to end that sentence with ‘store-bought cake,’ because Sam can’t really take back his reaction. The finger slipping behind Bucky’s ear as he cradles his face, the mouth sealed to his. Especially that. Thankfully, Bucky kisses him back, just as hard, and then harder.

“Thank god,” Sam pants when they break apart.

“You interrupted me.”

“I got you to stop talking? Guess we’re in my miracle.”

“I’d complain…” Bucky shrugs. “…but your miracle is pretty nice.”

“Not bad, right?”

He sighs and looks out over the water. Bucky pushes up on his fists and sits closer, offering his hand for Sam to interlace their fingers.

“Hey,” Sam prompts when it hits him that it’s super dark outside and they aren’t gonna dry much more like this, “did you book a hotel room again?”

“You kiddin’ me? I spent all my money on that cake.”

Sam laughs.

“Right, well, I guess you need a place to stay tonight then.”

“You know anything nearby?” Bucky asks with a soft smile.

Getting to his feet and bracing to pull Bucky up after him, Sam uses his free hand to motion towards their clothing pile.

“Put your pants on,” he says, “and I’ll see what I can do.”

[inquisitor-of-hearts]

Not Even Close

Sam Drake/Reader

Sam is away on a job and you miss him. Naturally, he never forgets to call, and one thing leads to another. No spoilers.

Rating: Explicit (Dirty Talk, NSFW)

Word Count:  2,429

On Ao3

“You’re terrible.” A broken off sound of surprise is heard before Sam chuckles. “That’s how you want to greet me?” “You made me wait on purpose!” you announce, having waited for his call for more than a few minutes, and it just so happened to put you on the edge. “I didn’t” “You’re a liar” “We’ve established that already.” “Fair... Fair.” you admit at last, laughing. Hearing his voice finally just felt too good. “What have you been up to?” he asks after you spend a second in silence, in which both of you simply enjoy the presence of each other. “Thinking about you.” you answer and he chuckles softly. “Good girl.” “What about you?” “Wait, you’re not telling me what else you’ve been up to? Where are my steamy shower stories?” “I never signed up for that” you remind him playfully. “That’s exactly what you signed up for when you decided to stay with me” he reminds you equally, and you laugh it off. “What else have I been up to... I took a walk outside.” You look out of the window and see the sun shining brightly, though a few clouds threaten to conceal it. As your gaze comes back into the room, you see one of Sam’s books on the coffee table, the one that he had left there. “I read a little - that book you put out for me.” “Oh, did you like it?” he asks, genuinely curious. “I liked the parts of it that reminded me of you. It’s like I could taste you through it” You draw your bare feet up onto the couch as the intensity of remembering his touch becomes too much to bear. He seems to notice the change.

“Did you... play with yourself when you thought of me?” “Sam!” you gasp in shock and laugh. “You did.” “Just because you do that when you think of me doesn’t mean the opposite is true!” “You're saying that like it’s a bad thing.” “... It’s not.” you correct yourself with a suggestive undertone. “... Off to a promising start.” he responds, playing it cool.

“So what have you been doing over there?” you ask in a lightened manner. “Besides thinking of you?” “And masturbating while thinking of me, yes” you confirm. “Not much” he confesses after a weary sigh, “Meeting a few contacts, getting a certain collector’s item.” “Huh. Contacts. Any hot women?” “They don’t even get close to you in terms of hotness” he replies without hesitance. “So there are hot women around.” you conclude sharply. “Not according to my standards now, no.” he explains chuckling, managing just barely to convince you the bar had been raised dramatically since he met you. “Anyway give me, I don’t know, two more days I think, and I’m out of here.” “Off to the next spot? Where you’ll meet me?” you ask grinning, but you notice his answer does not come as fast as usual. “We’ve talked about this.” he says, and it sounds almost accusing, though you knew it was not his usual tone. It was just when he genuinely cared, and he did not want to argue because he cared. “I know” you answer gently, thinking a long time before you decide to speak up again. “I just wish--” “It’s just one week, baby. I’ll be back before you even finish that book.” he assures you. “Who says I was planning on finishing it?” you remark. “You just want to be a tease now, don’t you?” Your hand runs along one of your legs as you think about what he was implying, feeling the sensation of the sun on your skin and remembering the other sensation, namely his touch, of so many past times. “Maybe” “Sounds like you need to be put in your place.” His low tone ignites a fire in your core, and yet it is not a demand, but an open invitation clearly. “Definitely” you answer, knowing that although he was polite and caring, in the end he wanted you to obey. “Are you alone?” “I am.” he chuckles as if he knows what you are implying. “All alone in my hotel room. You?” “All alone at home” you reply, your own hand grazing over your thigh, only stopping at the fabric of the shorts you wear. “Squeeze your breasts for me, will you?” he asks with what sounds like a sigh of remembrance. You do as he says and while one hand holds the phone even closer to your ear, your other runs up, squeezing one of your breasts through the fabric of your T-shirt, a hum making it past your lips in reaction. “Hmm, that feels good” “You really miss me, don’t you?” You moan quietly at his seductive low voice and nod to yourself. “I do” “Give your ass a nice squeeze from me too” he demands, but as your hand already moves over the fabric, he hastens, “Wait -- slowly. Enjoy the ride down.” You stop instantly, but then follow up, running your hand down over your stomach and hips, then towards your side, shifting at once for better access. “There” He sounds accomplished as he hears you change positions. “Take your time.” A sigh announces that you have fulfilled his wish. The light squeeze feels much better than expected, the instruction creating the illusion of your hand being led by another. “Does it feel good?” He finally grows impatient as you forget communicating your feelings. “So good” you answer. “Please, I want more” “So eager” he remarks and you can tell from the sound of his voice that he wants nothing more than to have you beg for it. “Sam” you say still eagerly, giving yourself to him fully, intimately, “I miss your hands so much. I want to feel your strong hands” “You’re gonna have to be patient and wait for it, babygirl” he reminds you softly, but follows up right away when he hears your restless sigh, “Is your hand between your legs?” “No” you answer honestly, though now your hand runs from the side of your hips over to the front. “I’ll--” “Easy there. Go slow.” he reminds you in his firm and sensual voice, picking up on your intention. “Are you wet?” “I think so” you answer not entirely sure, your hand resting upon the fabric. “What are you wearing? Take it off.” he insists. “Just... a pair of shorts. And a T-shirt” You comply with the demand, struggling to undo the button with one hand for a moment, then unzip the short pair of pants, resettling and letting them drop to the floor, feet pushing it off before retreating to rest on the seat. It seems like Sam knows that you have complied once he hears the sounds of you pushing your shirt up just enough to see yourself.

“Let your hand run along those beautiful legs” he breaks in, but again stops you from touching yourself too fast, “I want you to go real slow.” You swallow, your own hand stroking the outside of your thigh up, then down on the inner side, building the tension that is released in a sigh when you touch yourself through your underwear. “I’m wet” you answer, noticing the shiver in your own voice. Sam breathes deeply and you can hear the clasp of his belt being undone over the phone, then the hint of a zipper becoming unfastened. “Yes, touch yourself for me, too” you request. “Already at it, baby” he sighs, “You’re in my head now” “What are you thinking of?” “Of how weak you become and how you moan when I stretch you with my cock” “Oh Sam” you moan immediately, caught off-guard with your core instantly tightening. “Run those fingers along your clit” His voice becomes softer when he calls your name right after, revealing to you that he himself was struggling with his arousal. “Hmm, yes” you hum, your thighs loosely pressed together as you run your hand past the thin fabric along your clit and entrance. “You’re going to take me when you come back home?” “First thing I’ll do when I get home” he answers breathlessly and you can hear the rustle of fabric in the background, leading you to imagine how he was stroking himself. You keep caressing yourself softly, but lazily and he seems to become aware of the difference in pace.

“Do you remember that present I got you?” he suddenly breaks in. In your memory you recall the little gift for lonely hours he handed you before he left, as well as your own surprised face upon undoing the ribbon around the little box and opening it - and his mischievous grin when you looked up to meet his gaze. “Yes... I-- I tired myself out on it the other day, to be honest” you admit with a light blush upon your cheeks, making him chuckle. “That’s how much you miss me?” he asks amusedly. “You wanna get it and use it for me?” You agree soft-spokenly, although there is no lack of embarrassment that comes with it.

With the long, slightly curved silver wand taken out of your lingerie drawer, you come back to your seat on the couch. “Use it. Tell me how it feels inside you” he guides, and though you are somewhat shy about it, it excites you so much that you feel your skin prickling at the idea - and your whole body tenses, then becomes hot when you push the thicker end - as opposed to the narrow one - of the metallic wand inside you, your underwear hastily shoved aside. “How does it feel, baby?” he asks again when he hears only the held-back sounds of pleasure you make. “It’s so good, my-- It’s big” “It’s smaller than me” he chuckles. “I haven’t had you in 3 days!” you remind him, then moan quietly as the wand seemingly slides inside on its own, your own body longing to be filled. The smooth metal feels cold at first, creating an unusual sensation, but warms up right away. “Sam” you whimper. “Yes?” he sighs in anticipation. “I need you to fuck me” “Imagine it’s my cock, baby. Imagine me on top of you” “Oh God” The thought drives you crazy, and as you close your eyes you can really sense him on top of you, leaned over, grasping onto the backrest while burying himself deep inside of you. You see his muscular chest and arms, his abs, the way his body moves against yours. “Yes, that’s it... let me inside you all the way” he encourages, speaking in such a low, aroused tone that you feel your wetness along your own fingertips as you carefully push the toy further inside. “Oh God” you say once more, withered and tainted by the lust you feel in your core. You remember the build of the curved toy from when you tried it the other day, and it hits the same sensitive spot again, making you squirm, your feet autonomously setting up on the very edge of your seat, legs wide apart.

“Fuck yourself for me” he demands, breathing heavily along with you and you sense he must be stroking himself too. You again do as he says and are unable to hold back your moaning when you push the toy in and out of you. “Your voice is so fucking sexy” he curses and you hear the faint metallic sound of his belt against the button of his pants, your imagination of what he was doing to himself running wild. “Tell me how it feels for you, too” you demand helplessly. “I’m so hard for you, I can’t take it.” he answers in between heavy breathing. “Fuck yourself harder, like I do when I make you come” You whimper as you feel your stomach in a knot at his words, but comply nevertheless. He must be able to guess you are pleasuring yourself harder just from the sounds of it. “God” he breaks in weakly, “I can hear it -- I can hear your wet cunt taking it” A deep blush settles on your cheeks as you take note of the wet sounds created by the toy being shoved in and out of you. “Don’t stop” he says when he notices you hesitating, breath hitching from his own handwork. “I want you to go hard just like that” “Oh God, Sam” you whimper, fucking yourself in the same hard pace again, legs growing weak when you feel yourself getting closer and closer. “That’s it, baby... Touch your clit” “I can’t-- I’m gonna come if I do” “I’m gonna come too” he warns, his voice so weak, like he was all yours, “I want to hear you first” You hesitate for a moment but then position your hand in a way that the lower end of your palm casually brushes your clit while you keep pleasuring yourself with the toy. Involuntarily you thrust the wand in faster, harder, and with the gentle tapping of your hand against your clit feel the release arising. “Ah, Sam-- I’m coming” “Good girl, stretch that tight little cunt-- ” He breaks off in his own groaning, reluctant sighs of lust releasing along with your name. “Fuck-- I’m-- fuck” You moan hard when you realize he is coming at the thought of you, your stomach twisting until the sparks are released and your conscience vanishes for a split second. The heavy breathing calms down slowly and the two of you share the last few strokes together quietly.

“That was hot” Sam comments, and after a short break you hear him shifting in his seat. You slowly slide the toy out of you and let your legs drop weakly, lying down on your side, sighing in peace. “You’re hot, doing yourself like that” he adds. “Says the man who makes it a point to seduce me every damn time” you counter, making both of you laugh in amusement. “I have to, right? Can’t have you run off somewhere.” he comments. “Be a good girl until I come home, alright?” “I am not making any promises.” you answer. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “You’ll have to call and check up on me. That’s what it means.” you state the obvious. “Check up on you” he repeats, chuckling. “Got a taste for it now?” “Never said I didn’t like it.” you reveal. “Although nothing beats the taste of your kisses.” “You’ll get so many that you’ll grow tired of them when I get back.” “I wonder if I ever will.” you say and smile happily.

[anntidote]

:club room keys - sawamura daichi

back to: series index || ann’s playground

pairing: sawamura daichi x fem!reader

word count: 2.6k

warnings: timestop!au, TW!!dubcon, smut, angst, pwp, blowjob, deep throating, penetration, i still don’t know if this counts as somnophilia (?), mentions of kageyama, michimiya, and oikawa

summary: rain comes down heavy after student council duties, but you still have to drop off a set of keys. luckily, daichi helps you out- and there’s only so many ways that you can repay him.

a/n: dedicated to @ceo-of-daichi simply because lydz deserves a different daichi D word than drought. so here’s some dick LOL. 

the ring of the intercom and the bustling life of students. the clatter of shoes against the blue tile and chatter of passing conversation, definitely fell on deaf ears. your form slumping against the desk, and the weight of your face leaning into your palm. 

it'd been a couple days since your last run in with tobio, and the whole ordeal of the bathroom incident. the thoughts of him still living rent free in your mind-- at how his eyebrows scrunched up. pursed lips and the weeping tip of his cock, almost blushing the same shade of rose that graced his cheeks. 

wait. you shook your head. no. you told yourself you wouldn't think of him like that anymore. 

 tobio doesn't deserve to be a rebound. he deserves to be treasured, and loved correctly. your job was to keep that awkward, wobbly smile on his face when sipping on his milk straw. you were to worry about his studies, and whether he goes straight home after practice.

the last thing that should be bothering you is the voice at the back of your head. tethering your mindset elsewhere, and questioning why he was jacking off in the school bathroom in the first place. 

what made him so frustrated that he went during class?

did he like someone that much? was it someone you knew?

was that someone perhaps you?

"so will you do it?" hands slamming down on your desk, you bolt upright in shock. snapped out of a day dream, you're met with the sight of michimiya, captain of the girls' volleyball team. a crumb or two still on her face, her lopsided grin holds hope when she stares down at you. 

"h-huh?" you barely register her words to respond, still alarmed. "i asked if you were willing to drop off our gym's keys after practice. i need to hurry home to do something-- but…" she retracts her hands and props them on her hips. "... are you doing alright? you've seem out of it these couple days. it's not like you." 

"if i could turn back time and fix what i did, i would."

your nose scrunches up a bit at the impromptu flashback. "just peachy." 

"oh really?" a tinge of sarcasm sprinkled into her reply, you luckily miss the flash of pity in her eyes when you finally look up at her.

 almost as if she knew.

 "well, i hope things get better for you."

"yeah, yeah." you wave off the topic. "but you said you needed me to drop off keys or something?" 

"ah, right!" her usual go-lucky smile making an appearance. "sawamura asked if he could borrow our gym after practice for the last couple days, but i have to promised to run some errands back at home. i was hoping you could swing by the club room after student council, and drop off the keys for me?" 

you bit back a laugh, trying to keep the best poker face you could- as the pleading expression on her face looked like something out of a cartoon. "i don't know…"

"oh my goodness, please! i already promised sawamura, and it's already hard enough, trying to get all the members to get to practice and-" 

you grab her shoulders, halting the blubbering, and frantic look in her eyes. "calm down, yui! i was only joking- of course i will."

…

rain was something tooru despised. 

his complaints were one of a child, as it ruined his hair. it made everything sticky, and smell like wet dog. being out too long would make him sick, and if there was too much of it- it would turn into a storm. it could turn into a hurricane. or even a typhoon. 

and it's honestly ironic, even as you hold your bag over your head. your rubber sneakers hitting the mud and pavement, rushing to get under the roof of the club building. much to your luck, the reminiscent squeak of rubber isn't heard, as the gym doors were shut. letting out a huff, the sheer amount of relief that pours over you when the familiar screech of the metal door opens is a blessing. 

"hey! you made it-- oh my gosh, get inside!" he cuts off his warm greeting, as he grabs your wrist, pulling you into the room before the door slams behind you. "holy crap, you're drenched."

"thanks for stating the obvious, daichi." you snarkily remark, but still giving him a small smile. 

you knew daichi for a lot of reasons. being the karasuno boys' volleyball captain, he's been noted as one of dependability. a solid rock in a foundation, and everything the student body says about him is relatively positive. 

but even as a third year, you can still remember his shenanigans like it was yesterday. how he dashed past you whilst racing the basketball team's captain, and accidentally hitting the fire alarm. you couldn't even count how many times he'd had a run in with the principal's toupee. 

but even now, in his plain tee and black shorts-- there's this responsible look in his eyes. a quality only built up by experience, and you mentally applaud him. especially when you learn the sheer amount of siblings he had. 

"here's the keys for the other gym." you drop the keys into his open palm.

"ah, thanks." a hand moves to the back of his neck, a tell tale sign of his nervousness. "but i thought michimiya was dropping these off."

"yui had something to do today, so she asked me to. hope you don't mind it being me instead of your girlfriend." 

his eyes widen, beginning to frantically shake his hands in front of him. "n-no! that's not what i meant at all! she's not even my girlfriend, i-" he cuts himself off at the sound of your laugh, as you clutch a palm on your mouth. a grin peaks through his annoyance. "hey! why're you laughing so bad?"

"i'm sorry but what the heck is this?" you push past him to point at the poster at the far right corner of the room.

"bikini girls? really?"

the blush that comes over his face is absolutely hilarious. "t-that was-!"

"man, who knew sawamura daichi, captain of the volleyball club was a boob man! wait until yui hears about this!" you almost double over in laughter, watching steam puff out of daichi's ears in utter embarrassment. 

"don't you have somewhere to be?" he tries to divert the subject, only to hear a crack of thunder beat you to a response. the onslaught of rain beginning to hit the window panes at full force, and the lights flickering. "... nevermind." 

"i meant to ask, is it okay if i'm in here?" looking down, you fiddle with the hem of your skirt. "this is the boys' club room after all." 

unfortunately for daichi, the implication doesn't go over his head. and the fact that you're confused about why his face seems to flush a further shade of red seems to seal the deal.

that man, does daichi hates being a guy right now. 

his initial intent was to simply shield you from the rain. the simple connection that he didn't want you to get further drenched, and fall sick because of the favor he asked for. but now?

he feels guilty when his eyes draw lower, the tune of your laughter and friendly banter playing like background music. he swallows at the translucency of your uniforms while dress shirt. how the faint blue shape of your bra cups your chest, and how the damp fabric seems to cling to your skin. the jealousy of the water droplets that run down your neck and into the divet of your collarbones. 

you're in the boys' volleyball club room right now. clothes and gym bags strewn about, the smell of teenage cologne, and all alone. 

"t-the rest of the club is in the gym with the coaches." daichi stutters, before coughing to clear his throat. "we can just wait until it lightens up and make a dash for it." 

"sounds like a plan! how's tobio doing with sho-- achoo!" you start, only to sneeze mid way. 

"crap, your clothes are soaked from the rain." you hurry to wipe your nose, as daichi hands a set of spare clothes toward you. "here."

you raise an eyebrow. "why do you have another set of gym clothes?"

"after hinata puked at our seijoh game, i'm not taking any more chances-- oh shit, wait!" he explains, before his eyes widen at your fingers undoing your blouse buttons, and hurriedly turning the other direction. 

you giggle at his panic stricken face, before proceeding to peel the dampened cloth off your body, and your mind still processing the fact he had to have mentioned seijoh. but then a voice chimes in from the back of your head, crying out desperately. 

"if i could turn back time and fix what i did, i would." 

it's truly unfortunate. and you genuinely sorry for daichi, as you dig into the pocket of your soaked blazer, and pressing the lone button on the stop watch. the pattering of the droplets against the window, halting in its path. the swirl of winds silencing, and the thunder strike through the air, simply pausing at your fingertips. 

you're not stupid. you knew where daichi's eyes trailed, especially as you drop your underwear and skirt to the floor, altogether. stepping out of the clothes and bounding toward the captain, sinking to your knees, and staring up at the frozen crimson tint of his face. 

you knew the moment you were pulled into this room, that this was a bad idea. and right then and there, your entire consciousness told you that this was your chance to be a good person. 

… but was tooru ever a good person? 

you let out a small gasp as you grab at his clothed bulge, already half hard through the cloth of his shorts. feeling yourself salivate, you begin to slowly pump. pawing at his size, coaxing him into a full erection. 

and honestly, you wonder what would go through daichi's head right now. what would this man think as you pulled down his athletic wear, and how you stared at him in pure wonder. what would he do when his cock lewdly slaps against his abdomen, and falls shy of your lips? what would he do when you swirl your tongue over hips tip, lapping up the weeping cry of arousal, and savoring his taste? taking him deeper, peering back up through fogging vision, as your struggle, and choke around him. coating him in spit, saliva dripping down your chin, and making an utter mess. 

you coo at how responsive he is, even when unconscious. the frozen look of his face is one of guilt, but the tips of his ears are the same shade of his cock. you wish to tell him that it's alright, as you were definitely more of a sinner than him. popping off of his length and heaving a full breath, you stand. cupping his face by the cheek, and gently nudging his face to meet yours. 

"sorry." your whisper fans hotly against his face, as you continue. moving his limbs almost like a doll, laying him against the floor, and having your legs on either side of his hips. 

but if you were going to have fun, it's only fair you'd share it. 

the thunder strikes far from where you are, and the heavy breeze makes the windows wobble. but daichi doesn't seem to care- as everything hits him like a truck. 

the slick of your mouth, and the choke of your throat. the pumps of your soft hand against his shaft- and how you brutally sink your weeping cunt onto him. the ungiving clench and sheer heat of your pussy had his hands flying to your hips. his eyes widening at the sight of your hands against his chest. fucking yourself onto his cock, moaning his name like a mantra, and lust blown gaze staring right back at him- his eyes roll back as everything becomes too much. 

he cums. rope upon rope of milky essence spills from him, legs shaking and earth shattering. daichi almost screams, as the pleasure is borderline painful. the sight of you was too much to handle, and undoubtedly made him double over. "ah shit-!"

daichi doesn't know how you paused time once again, just to make sure he doesn't cum inside you. he doesn't know how quickly you dropped to your knees, mouth wide open, and how he releases down your throat. how you milk every single drop out of him before freezing the world at will. 

all daichi knows is confusion and the fuzziness his head pounds with. when suddenly, you're not on top of him anymore. his form is turned, facing the wall again. shaky legs, and not laid against the floor. 

"daichi? are you okay?" you call out. 

he coughs, turning toward you. "y-yeah…" his confusion etching even more as you're wearing his spare shirt, still in your skirt, and a tilted head facing him. "... i think."

you laugh, hitting his shoulder playfully. "goodness, does the lightning scare you so bad? you look like someone just sucked the soul outta ya!" 

he thinks you don't know a thing. the sight of your walls sucking him in fresh in his mind makes heat, and guilt simultaneously pool at his gut. he thinks you're the most innocent soul on earth when you lean in toward him, pressing your palm on his forehead, and giving him an eyeful that makes his breath hitch, before taking a step back. 

"don't get sick on me now, captain. you take care of everyone else, so who's going to take care of you?" you tell him off with a wink, only for him to hum an incoherent response, and his mind still buzzing. 

was that all his imagination? 

"oh look! it's lightening up!" you snap him out of his train of thought when you smile, grabbing his hand, pulling him forward. "let's make a run for it!" 

"w-wait!" he stops your other hand from turning the door knob. 

you turn toward him, eyebrows raised. "huh?"

it definitely catches you off guard as daichi leans in to look into your eyes. you feel your heart pound in your ears when you stare back. the caramel shade of his skin and the dark pupils trying to analyze you- trying to figure you out. "d-daichi?" you stutter out. 

"a-ah… sorry." he pulls back before muttering something under his breath. something about it feeling real. 

and it almost hurts as you facade innocence, letting go of his hand and racing toward karasuno's second gym. bags over your heads as you pound against the door, and laugh heartily as kageyama messes up a serve in your presence. it almost hurts as your cunt weeps arousal, and ruins your new, navy blue set of panties. 

because it's ironic at how much you told tooru how much you loved the rain. how fun it was as a child to jump into puddles, and dance. how the pattering felt like the knock on a door and a call out to play. how easily rain covered for all the moans that daichi never got to hear when you came around him, walls creaming him in your slick. how the wind howls loudly so that no one could hear you babble your gratitude, and at how thankful you were. and how rain was the best excuse for your tears. the most viable excuse of why your face was an utter mess the other day. 

and how it seemed to rain the same day tooru broke your heart in two. 

[goldeneyedgirl]

TwiFicMas20 Christmas Eve: All These Broken Things

... Is it really the end of FicMas if I haven’t posted something from All These Broken Things? I think not. The first sections can be found here and here. This is the fic where Alice travelled with James and doesn’t meet the Cullens until that baseball game. 

It's very strange finally being with the family she was always destined to be with, when she thought she had lost them so long ago.

She finds great satisfaction just watching them - Emmett yelling at the sports on the television; Edward perched at the piano, Rosalie working on her cars. She hovers, like a little ghost, folded into corners and against doorframes, vanishing the second they might acknowledge her.

Esme seems to like her company, as she goes about day-to-day things, chatting away to the silent girl with the enormous, sad black eyes, who trails after her like a stray.

She stays away from Carlisle, trying to avoid the moment he declares her to be cast out, too far gone for them to redeem.

And she stays away from Jasper, because it hurts too much. She doesn't tell Jasper what she knows, what they were meant to be to one another. The past is gone, and she has been broken into too many pieces. He watches her like a hawk, and without words, she knows he will be the one to destroy her if she steps out of line. His hands will crack her limbs apart and he will not flinch or feel any loss.

She wonders if she should tell him that if he was the to destroy her, she would not fight it. She would part in his hands like a paper doll, and hold no ill will to him for such an act.

Sometimes, she lets herself remember the old visions, the ones where they were everything to one another. Only when Edward's away, though; she doesn't like him rifling around in her head. No one deserves being forced to see some of those things.

And it hurts, a raw wound in her heart, that she was meant for something else, for happiness and peace and love, instead of what she was dealt in life. One of her greatest unanswered questions is why? What unforgivable thing did she do in her forgotten human past that earned such a punishment?

Then she remembers what she has done at James’ side for so many decades, at the faces and the screams and the suffering, and somehow she lived her crimes and her penance at the same time.

So she continues to pretend she doesn’t notice that Edward keeps Bella away from the house; that Emmett or Jasper hover in the background as she trails after Esme, as she watches Rose. That she can only go hunting when Jasper and Emmett can go along too; the ones strong enough and fast enough to restrain her.

When Edward does bring Bella back to the house at Esme’s insistence, she sits on the opposite side of the room, and listens to the conversation, keeping still and silent.

When Carlisle arrives home from work, she focuses on the magazine or book she has found, pretending to be absorbed by the glossy pictures, still and silent, to not notice as he studies her with patience she isn’t sure is genuine.

When Jasper joins Emmett for something noisy and angry on the television, their gazes occasionally sliding towards her, she is frozen in place, her gaze out the window.

She’s played this game before. Be good and quiet and still. The blow will come, eventually, but at least she can prepare herself for it, brace herself for the inevitable fall. They don’t trust her.

She doesn’t trust her, either.

Six.

They settle into a sort of routine.

She’s allowed to hunt with Esme and Rosalie now, though she’s careful to keep her distance, to trek a little further into the forest, to reassure them. She usually waits until they call her back.

She is always carefully supervised during their hunts, and finally, finally, the cracks James left across her nose and cheeks have finally faded away. They hunt too often for her, and when she forces herself to finish the animal, she vomits everywhere. She says nothing, but she feels safer a little hungry, her eyes black rather than a strange gold-orange.

Edward lets her sit beside him when he plays the piano, tells her about each of the pieces of music. He tries to teach her once, attempts to guide her hands into position, but she panics and jerks away, and he doesn’t offer again.

Emmett is nice to her. He seems to understand not to come up behind her without warning, not to touch. Sometimes she perches on the end of the couch and watches the television with him. She doesn’t stay very long, but he always gives her a big smile when she leaves, as if he’s had a wonderful time.

She doesn’t understand Emmett, but she thinks she could like him.

Rosalie can’t seem to decide whom she dislikes more – her or Bella - and she’s sure that Rose is going to get whiplash from changing her mind about both of them so many times. But Rose addresses her and is reasonably civil, mostly out of some kind of misguided caution that she is some kind of threat, and that is some kind of progress.

She and Bella have few words to say to each other. ‘Sorry I helped someone attempt to torture and exsanguinate you’ isn’t something she can work out how to say out-loud and have it sound genuine. Mostly because the truth is closer to, ‘I’m sorry you found yourself in this situation, but I don’t regret my choices. The consequences for me would have been much, much worse than you can ever comprehend. Your fragile mortality would have spared you of the worst of it. I’d make the same decision one hundred times in a row without a second thought.’

She’s certain that would upset everyone.

Bella seems rather reluctant to spent time in her presence, and she does wonder if that’s because she’s the side of the coin that isn’t beauty-wealth-love. She’s the side of suffering, of pain and of misery, murder and regret. Bella wants perfection, wants the glamour and magic of the Cullens, and none of the honest truth of being a vampire.

But it’s probably the murder attempt.

Then there are things that haven’t changed since she arrived. She’s not allowed to be alone, or to leave the house aside from hunting – even then, she has to be accompanied.

But every single day, James is still gone and she is still here. And there will never be a time when that knowledge is not sweet.

//

Her wardrobe is limited - a few old t shirts that once belonged to Esme and are too big, her worn jeans and the filthy, stained cardigan that she had when they found her. Her thin knees have long since torn through her pants, and the cardigan's sleeves are frayed and holey, but she is clean and free.

And then she is deemed in control enough to go shopping. Esme approaches her with the idea, with glossy magazines and gentle suggestions. It is an idea that has even intrigues Rosalie enough for her to join them.

They clearly still think she is a risk, though, because it is a family outing, with looks of such boredom and long-suffering on the faces of the male Cullens when it is decided, that she laughs softly behind her hand.

The building they take her to is huge and full of people. It is like a blow to the face, of blood and scent, and she visibly recoils from it at first, unsure and on edge. And they are patient, escorting her in, with encouraging words.

Eventually, though, they show her the clothes and the sight of the racks is enough to distract her from the heady scent. It is overwhelming, the colours and fabrics and styles, and she simply stares, with Emmett laughing at her stunned expression.

Esme is so kind, guiding her gently through the racks, telling her to choose anything she likes. She is careful, though, picking new jeans, a new cardigan, soft and clean and sunshine yellow. Esme helps her pick shoes out - the first pair she's had in decades. Soft brown winter boots, black sneakers, gold and black flats that make her feel like a princess. At her childlike delight with her fancy shoes, Esme buys her a black sundress with ties at the back and bows on the straps, that will bare her arms and triangles of flesh on her back.

Underwear is a strange concept. It's nothing that she has ever bothered with before. She is useless in the wake of so many choices, and let's Esme and Rosalie choose what she needs, dress her like a doll, whilst she amuses herself with how clearly uncomfortable both Jasper and Edward are in such a department.

She almost feels pretty – even desirable - in the plain cotton that make her skinny frame look almost womanly. She’s too embarrassed to even try on the satin and lace sets Rosalie has chosen. They aren’t for girls like her – girls that wear those things are more than she will ever be – prettier, sweeter, bolder. They are too much, and when she refuses, she doesn’t understand the look Rosalie and Esme exchange, Rosalie looking sly and Esme with an expression of warning.

Afterwards, they look for other things. The books hold little interest for her, as do the endless electronics. She doesn’t mean to wander off, but a demonstration by the art supplies store catches her eye, and she stands a little away from the crowd, watching the man draw. It is Esme and Jasper who find her, both looking alarmed, but she pretends she doesn’t see them, her gaze focused on the pencil that so carefully makes its way across the page.

“Alice,” Esme is at her side. “You scared us.” Her smile is bright, but her eyes worried – what would the Cullens do if she attacked in a place like this, with so many eyes? She doesn’t get to ponder that thought much longer, as Jasper’s hand closes over her shoulder and she is guided away.

For the rest of the afternoon, Jasper is her ominous shadow, as she dutifully trails after them.

She doesn't have her own room, but she doesn’t truly need one. Until now, she hasn’t had any possessions to store, and she doesn’t require the privacy a mated couple does. But, she has found she likes the attic. Full of things that need repairs or to be stored, it is a mad tea party of furniture and items.

There’s an old grey chair is missing a leg, and has an ugly stain that not even Esme could draw out that she likes. She folds herself into it, and she feels safe in that little corner, with the narrow window that overlooks the forest and spills in afternoon light. There's an old dresser up there, too, so that's where she arranges her new things, carefully folding and smoothing them into each drawer, precisely and lovingly.

Rosalie brings her some cosmetics and half a glass bottle of perfume – the bottle is shaped like an egg and etched with tiny flowers and curlicues and it is so delicate and beautiful, she is frightened to hold it. Rosalie watches as she sprays the scent into the air, the delighted look at the scent of flowers. She is nervous at Rosalie’s gesture, but grateful. Grateful enough that she allows Rosalie to cut the matted ends of her hair off into a neat, shorter style.

It makes her look more delicate, younger, maybe sweeter, she thinks as she strokes the strands in the mirror. And less like a roving maniac, at least according to the shiny-haired Rosalie, who watches her with satisfaction in her eyes.

She should be offended, but there’s this tiny hope that maybe, just maybe, Rosalie is turning her into something new. Something good and better.

Something like a sister.

//

It’s Esme’s idea to invite Bella around the evening of her birthday. Just a family gathering, with a few simple gifts. Everyone sort of agrees, and try to work out what to give the sullen girl.

She manages a portrait of Bella and Edward seated together at the piano that Esme gushes over, and has framed.

There have been some hints, from Carlisle and Edward that she will have to attend school eventually. She doesn’t understand that, but is just waiting for them all to graduate. They’ll leave when they’ve graduated and she won’t have to worry about school again.

She arranges peonies on the piano for Bella, upon Esme’s request, and is reminded of her old, fragmented vision of blood and glass. But nothing comes to her; the future is clear and her mind has decided to play tricks on her again.

Or perhaps her mind is the best part of her, the gentle warning she ignored becoming obvious as soon as Bella’s finger slips against the wrapping paper. Jasper’s eyes blacken as soon as Bella’s flesh parts and the blood beads, and suddenly he is lunging. She sees it in an instant, Bella’s crumpled body in his grip and Edward’s howls and the house of the Cullens irreversibly fallen. She sees an endless parade of James’ victims, broken and dead in Bella’s blank eyes.

She sees the horror and the guilt in Jasper’s eyes, sees the vastness of Mexico and the rise of a monster born of regret and impulse.

It is over before he even moves, decision made, and she has to stop this.

The shriek startles them all, coming from her mouth as she darts in front of him.

In another life, the flavour of her desperation and fear would be enough for him to pause, to grasp wildly at his resistance. Instead, he throws her aside, her body crashing through the front windows in a rain of wood and glass, leaving an imprint of her body in the flowerbed outside.

She picks herself up out of the flower bed as Emmett and Rosalie drag Jasper bodily from the house, Esme close behind them. Their eyes are all pitch black; a harmless paper cut did not cause this reaction.

“She cut open her arm,” is Emmett’s grim explanation as Jasper’s struggles slow, his eyes firmly on the door of the house.

“It was an accident,” Esme adds, shame in every line of her stance.

“Alice seemed to know,” Rosalie murmurs, her eyes still on Jasper.

She will never understand Rosalie, why she always needs to assign blame, to identify the victim and the antagonist. She ignores the statement, even as they all swing to look at her, as she examines her shoulder. Jasper didn’t hit her hard enough for cracks to form, but it doesn’t look like it’s properly aligned.

When she does look up again, she can see it in all their eyes – did she let this happen on purpose? Does she hold some ugly vendetta against poor, sweet Bella?

She did help James …

She’s surprised – she thought it would be Edward that came after her, later, to criticise and punish her for the limitations on her faulty gift. He still might – he hasn’t decided properly, too focused on patching up Bella.

But it’s Jasper, wrenching out of Rosalie and Emmett’s grasp, with murder in his eyes and the target on her.

He doesn’t yell, but his words are poisonous, nasty and accusing. She flinches, Esme gasps and even Emmett tries to get him to stop. Some of them, she knows, aren’t meant for her. They are frustration, humiliation and disappointment directed at himself, at his own weakness.

But when she instinctively backs away, and he grabs her wrist, and she lets out a tiny cry of fear; it is Rosalie who comes to her rescue, who snarls and yells and pries his iron grip from her.

“I don’t care how pissed you are, you don’t touch her like that.”

The words seem to echo, and Carlisle, Edward and Bella are watching from the front door.

Her apology is stammered, weak in the sudden silence, her insistence that she didn’t know sounding bewildered and feeble as she darts away, into the forest to pick glass and wood out of her hair and wonder just how many other warnings she’s missed.

//

[risingmoonyue]

Batman/P5 Crossover

-Sometime before Akechi but after Futaba or Haru

-Damian is sent to Tokyo to check it out for whatever reason (maybe they had a fight, or he’s going stir crazy, or he’s just the only one they can send at the time and didn't bother with all that "you're not old enough" business)

-Dami is younger than Futaba by a year or three or four

-He is baby

-He is transferred to Shujin as a child prodigy where he also immediately joins the "outcast" community because of his attitude and intelligence

-Talia goes too, manages to cut off all his communications with the Batfam, and is planning to take him home in a month whether he likes it or not

-For whatever reason, Batfam doesn't realize this??? (Like, either she's faking reports or they're too busy (think fight or chaos in Gotham scenario maybe???))

-Anyways, obviously Dami doesn't want this

-Somehow the Phantom Thieves hear about the situation

-Maybe he was assigned to shadow Makoto for a while, and they managed to overhear a phone conversation either to Talia or Dami trying to get in touch with the Batfam and nothing really working

-And eventually they outright see him fighting with his mother with him at some point (either in person or over a phone call) mentioning that she already disowned him, he's happy with his Father's family, and that he will head her family business over his dead body—and oh would you look at that, you already managed that, care to try again Mother?

-The PT's are understandably alarmed

-And learn her name from Damian (from Makoto maybe or someone else he bonded a little with) (MORGANA) (THEY GAVE HIM MONA FOR A DAY AND NOW THEY KNOW EVERYTHING FROM HIS MANY PETS TO HIS LEAST TO MOST FAVORITE SIBLINGS STARTING FROM TIM TO DICK TO HIS FAVORITE FOODS TO EVERYONE IN HIS FAMILY’S NAMES TO HOW STUPID HE FINDS EVERYONE AND WHY THEY'RE STUPID TO HIS FAVORITE MUSIC TO WHY ANIMALS ARE SUPERIOR TO HUMANS AND MONA’S LIKE OMG TMI BUT LOVED IT THERE BECAUSE HE WAS PAMPERED LIKE NO TOMORROW GOT ONLY THE BEST FOOD AND THE BEST BEDS AND TOYS THAT HE GOT TO TAKE WITH HIM BACK TO LEBLANC AND NOW AKIRA AND SOJIRO ARE LIKE DUDE WHY AND MONA’S LIKE IM KEEPING HIM THIS HUMAN IS GOOD SORRY AKIRA YOU’RE DEMOTED)

-The palace is basically a fortress full of assasin ninjas and clones

-Dunno what her keywords are tho

-Or her what her palace actually is

-Help?????????

-Cognitive Bruce, Ra's, Damian, Dami clones, and Jason (maybe rest of batfam??? Idk)

-Long story short, the traps are so assassin-y that they need someone who knows the actual Talia because egads, this is the closest they have all come to actually dying

-And they didn't really want to do it and were just gonna power through

-But Dami manages to find out and get in and of course uses his background to help out whether they like it or not

(-he's slightly off put by Joker's name, but then decides to just solely call Gotham!Joker "The Clown")

-At some point they are captured by the Shadow Talia who is decked out in super fancy traditional Arab clothing and probably every conceivable hidden weapon known to man

-Talia says Damian won't and can't ever change from who he "is meant to be", referring to him as her Alexander and basically brutally addresses all of his insecurities concerning the batfam and people and society in general

-And all this is kinda killing him cause he still loves Talia despite the fact that she killed him and had a violent citywide custody battle with Batman but he also loves the batfam too even if he would absolutely never admit it (except to maybe Grayson)

-Joker does his emotional kick-start thing and/or Dami is like Makoto and just gets so mad he triggers it himself, but either way, lo and behold, Damian is now a persona user, usurping Futaba's place as the baby of the team

-The outfit is kinda inspired by his future adult league outfit with the top and bottom and gold jewelry, but has a raggedy cloak with dull gold edges, a Robin mask and gauntlets, and his main weapons are batarang-sword hybrids

---acknowledging his past and moving on with his present

-Persona: Aladdin, Tsun Zu, Ali Baba, somone else???? Need ideas plz help

-Probably the fastest member of the group

-His small body makes his hits not as strong, but hoo boy can that kid move around

-Hits a lot and dodges most

-Most of his Persona abilities are physical and have high crit and/or are status affects

-Downside is he has not a lot of SP (compared to the rest of the group)

-And he has pretty good HP

-Those good ol' “superior genetics” have to be good for something after all

-Anyways they escape to find the treasure another day

-And Dami is all smug because HA you definitely can't stop me now

-And the PTs are just resigned to keeping an eye on the extremely competent snotty assassin/vigilante child

-They do like him though so it's not too bad (comes with learning all his darkest secrets via his mother and thought processes that tends to accompany watching someone at their lowest get a persona)

(-They do manage to temper him a bit and help him adjust better to actual society too that's nice)

-As such, they also know about Batman and Robin and his whoooole family. Both sides.

-Damian decided not to tell batfam because he does agree with the whole "most adults suck" mentality that the Phantom Thieves have; despite his deep, deep respect for his father and mother and Grayson, they all do kinda suck

-And he’s rather not get pulled out as he surely would if he told them

(-On a side note, he likes Sojiro

-The man gives him coffee, curry, and leaves him mostly to his own devices

-Instant win)

-He is dubbed "Mockingbird" apon return to the metaverse because of his freaky talented vocal skills in mimicking anyone and everyone's voice

-Eventually, they beat Talia

-She doesn't publicly confess to all her sins unlike everyone else

-PTs don't realize it worked until Damian came into school with a genuine smile on his face, and more relaxed than he'd been since he got there

-PTs are confused until Damian's like, this works out because hey, don't want to have several people assassinated and draw the entire freaking league to Tokyo

(-Which was probably why Talia didn't)

-They agree

-But she does break down to tears in Dami's arms and promise to ACTUALLY TALK CIVILLY with Bruce to try and make up for everything and try to fix up the league

-He stays for the rest of p5

-But steers all his reports very much away from the Phantom Thieves

-If anything, he downplays absolutely everything, and makes it seem like it's nothing super big but he's gonna stay a while to keep and eye out because y'alls are busy and I like it here and I haven't gotten expelled so there

-The PTs like to add funny stuff on there just to see if they’ll notice

-Like, Akira likes to have Dami describe his day in excruciating detail. Like, recounting the entirety of his nine or so months to Sae during police interrogation, excruciating

-Mona is pushing for the shiny stuff

-Yusuke just likes to put in bursts of randomness (Dami once mentioned that an acquaintance made another acquaintance T-pose in a church for art lol)

-Ann loves to rant about food

-Haru is always insisting on about feelings

-Ryuji likes to complain about everything and puts in ridiculous requests

-Futaba is just putting in every gen-z thing ever

-Makoto is actually responsible and tries to get him to talk about his progress in school and his social life

-And Akechi is absolutely nowhere near any of this and doesn’t know it exists

-When they have the Tokyo/Japan-wide calling card, Batfam sees it too because let's face it, that's totally the sorta thing that they would keep an eye out for even if he didn't look at the news in the entirety of the time Dami was in Tokyo

-And they send a message to Damian (the first actual communication they've had since before Talia) saying "WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON OVER THERE????"

-And with the entirety of the Phantom Thieves looking over his shoulder, Damian's just like "Chill dudes, everything's fiiiiiiiiiine"

-And they're like "UH WHAT PART OF THIS IS FINE????" because they've dug around a bit and found every news report, and oh hey, this isn't anywhere near as calm as Damian described and he’s being super OOC and what’s going on?!?!?!?!?!

-And Damian, being egged on by the most of the PTs, just sends a winky face

-Just

-😉

-And he's smug, because it's still chaos over there so they can't actually come get him and try to pull him out because he's being super ooc

-Which means he's free to do what he wants/needs in the meantime

-Cue the end of the game

-And Dami is going with them on their summer road trip and cackling because the batfam is scrambling to find him in Tokyo but lol nope he's in a van the Japanese government tried and fail to follow

-And he found all the trackers like, a year ago

-Every

-Single

-One

-They eventually track him down to Akira's house where they're calmly eating dinner (and they've been expecting this for the past week so Mona was keeping watch just so they could pull this off) and talking about how uneventful the school year was

-Cue mass confusion in the batfam

-As the PTs enjoy just confusing them so much

-By talking to Mona

-Talking normal then crazy then normal again

-And just generally being their normal selves lol

-They explain absolutely nothing beyond gushing about how much progress socially and academically he’s made (gotta embarrass the baby of the group somehow) and making sure that if Dami absolutely has to go home that he's able to stay in touch

(-Later, Damian forms his own hero persona outside of Batman and Robin)

(-He names it Mockingbird)

(-Batfam proceeds to have a brain aneurysm while the PTs dab their happy proud tears out of their eyes on their regularly scheduled tea time at the Wayne Manor)

(-Damian sends a private plane every week or two lol)

(Bonus: ARTTTTTTT)

(Psst if you guys have ideas for art, outfits, interactions or scenarios, let me know)

[markleetrashh]

Nct as Youtubers

Request: Do you think that maybe you could do short headcannons of the members as youtubers please?? Like, you said in the makeup voiceovers that they were also on YouTube but didn’t really describe in depth what they’re like so maybe that could be a thing(??) sorry if it doesn’t make sense

A/N: i hope this is what you were looking for!! i’m sorry if it’s short or repetitive, this was so fun to write, i hope you enjoy reading!

——

Taeil:

started out his channel for fun

mostly makes song covers & also tag videos

didn’t thought his videos would blow up

when he realised he was shookt??

because he’s such an awkward bun, his videos usually consists of his friends

and they help him out a lot because when he’s on his own filming most of the time he doesn’t know what to do or say

tries his best to reply to comments

when people recognizes him irl he gets all blushy and shy

“i’m not that popular!! you’re all so sweet”

we all know you are taeil

Hansol:

that one youtuber who posts random videos at the weirdest timings

his videos range from dance covers, to vlogs, to gaming then to even unboxing videos

despite all that he still gains much attention?

hardly ever talks in his videos but when he does all his subscribers get heart palpitations because wow

dance covers gets the most views and likes because they’re always on point?

promotes his channel on his instagram

random posts with captions

“new video”

“✌✌ video?”

see what i did there hansol he needs to stop with his peace signs

another one who’s awkward when fans recognize him in real life

but if they ask for pictures he wouldn’t mind so!!

Johnny:

mostly reaction videos

and probably many vlogs too

gaming occasionally, but only when he’s with his friends

has the funniest and most dramatic reactions to videos ever

tries to make his subscribers by making puns and jokes

“i guess you could say… that video was pun-believable”

daily updates on social medias

“how are all of you doing today? the weather’s great so i hope you all are well!”

doesn’t reply to every comment but he likes them

treats his fans like family and tries to chat with them he can

which is why when one meets him in real life he’s super friendly and tries to start conversations

an angel tbh

Taeyong:

cooking tutorial videos

alongside with song covers too

sometimes he writes his own songs and lyrics too

often goes live so that he’s able to chat with his fans

one of the most genuine and sweetest youtubers!!

would reply to every one of the comments, and he never forgets to thank them for their support

“I’m stressed & tired” captions on his social media websites always scare fans but turns out it’s only because of the other boys

gets all shy when people recognize him

even when he’s rushing for time he wouldn’t hesitate to take photos or chat with his fans

the youtuber you just want to protect with everything tbh

Yuta:

gamer

also makes prank videos occasionally

and probably also videos on current issues/problems

and he shows so many different sides his fans love it,

especially when he talks about current issues he gets all smart & serious and is so good with his words he leaves everyone shookt

but on prank videos he’s all giggly and immature laughing at his successful pranks

while his gamer side can sometimes can aggressive and competitive

but despite all that he’s super sweet to his fans

holds meetups often and treats each of them like angels

smile and laughter can brighten up anyone’s day

Kun:

mainly vlogs

travelling & visiting ones to be exact, together with his friends

takes really good videography and editing is on point too

another one who’s smile could make anyone’s heart burst

always recommending new places for people to go to, be it cafes or countries to visit

kun’s recommendations are trustable™

loves hyping his friends up in videos

doesn’t hesitate in promoting their channels too

deserves so much more subscribers & views

Doyoung:

versatile videos too

song covers, reaction videos, vlogs, challenges & tag videos

is really well known for his talking skills and his intelligence

and also his sweet voice who puts people to sleep

cherishes friendships and often shows it in videos where he vlogs about outings with them

updates daily for fans too and tells them how much he’s grateful for them

also asks them for suggestion for new videos

probably nags at and gets upset with his fans when they do something that isn’t too his liking

“you all waited in the rain for an hour because of me??? what if you all fell sick omg please don’t do that again”

but it’s because he cares and loves them so

Ten:

king of dance covers

makes dance tutorials too

when people want to learn a dance, ten’s videos would always help because they’re so on point?

random videos of him in stores and supermarkets

with him being amazed by new things he sees or learns about

attempts to make cooking videos too but fails

almost burnt himself and was caught on tape, uploaded on youtube & viewed by morw than hundreds of people

his fans’ words give him energy and he’s always thanking them

a little shy when gets recognized but he doesn’t show it, only that cheeky smile on his face

Jaehyun:

hypebeast who makes videos of new clothes he got and hauls too

random late night videos where he answers fans’ questions and it’s just him chilling

food reviews too!!

his favourite videos because you can tell he gets all excited when he sees food

makes sure to update every week so his subscribers will be well fed

loves having live videos too because he’s able to interact with fans

holds giveaways for subscribers every time he reaches a milestone

acts all calm when people recognize him

but inside he’s super happy and excited because he feels extremely loved?

likes photos that fans uploaded together with him,

making them go even crazier

WinWin:

that one youtuber who’s always being complimented and praised by other youtubers

because he’s super sweet and soft?

pretty boy who shows off his face routines and tag videos

because he’s so shy he finds it hard filming videos alone too

which is why he calls his friends to join his videos

aka kun

they often go shopping together and you can tell he looks super happy and excited

vlogs about his daily life and has the cutest edits ever

even more shy in real life, he’d get super embarrassed and shy, cheeks flushed red if he notices people recognizing him

but he’d feel bad for rejecting them so he takes photos with them anyways

super cute

Mark:

endless talents and seems to be able to do everything?

playing the guitar, song/rap covers, reaction videos, dance covers, gaming

he’s able to film quality videos

and at the same time he’s super humble and sweet it makes others love him more

has many collabs with other youtubers

his fans are blessed because they’ll always be a video related to him

a super shy ball in actual fact

when he does live videos he already gets all blushy and red when people compliment him

irl you can actually see him wanting to hide and run away because he’s super shy when it comes to compliments

but also tries to be friendly and talk to his fans when he can

Renjun:

mostly posts videos at night

so his subscribers can fall asleep soundly after watching his videos

mostly reviews

on clothes, food and other things

smile is the sweetest thing you’ll ever see

is also the softest when it comes to his fans

sometimes would also post short korean classes too

and his drawing videos

just really calm and satisfying videos honestly

super happy when he receives positive comments

still your no.1 moomin fan who has a big moomin plushie in his background of videos all the time

Jeno:

videos that are guaranteed to make you smile

like him playing with puppies and small fuffly animals

or even interacting with children at playgrounds in his vlogs

they’re guaranteed to make you s o f t

an angel who smiles and laughs at everything

super positive!!!

tries his best to reply to every comment and prove to fans that they’re noticed

mainly just vlogs of his daily life

but he’s always super cute in videos so!!

still the same angel irl because he’d be the one suggesting to take photos

and probably give you autographs too

sweetest little thing ever

Haechan:

games often

and always wins in games for some reason

also many prank videos too

and they’re always super creative and new

and you can see the look of satisfaction on his face whenever he succeeds in pranking his friends

really strong bond with his fans

they’d probably have inside jokes too

“thank you for always supporting your handsome donghyuck”

never runs out of ideas for videos

and loves it most when people leave positive comments

it makes him all happy and excited like a small child

and he’s ten times cuter irl like that because he’d have the biggest smile ever with his pink cheeks??

Jaemin:

does weird challenges

and probably being a meme in every video

with thousands of different expressions ready for his fans to screenshot and use

also does tutorial videos

and tag videos

he loves talking and discussing about popular topics and sharing his opinions

loves spreading positive vibes too

super flirty & sweet with his subscribers

calls them his babies??

would occasionally film vlogs so as to show his fans his life

which is usually just him being that same meme and having fun

i miss him dkdndn

Chenle:

super energetic and fun

when you watch his videos, they’d immediately cheer you up because he’s always so happy?

makes reaction videos a lot

which ends up in his fans mentioning how their ear drums ache everytime they watch them because his dolphin laughs and screams

loves taking videos of sceneries and views during vlogs

but other times vlogs would just consist of his face

“my handsome is enough for you all”

knows he’s popular but still gets shy when he’s noticed

he’d always give that same cheerful laughter and thank his fans for their support

Jisung:

dance covers

ten is his role model

would film freestyle dances and also dances he’d choreographed and ask fans for their opinions

occasionally, he’d also film tag and challenge videos so his fans are able to know him better

super shy at first but as time goes by he opens up and he’d joke around a lot

still a child who gets fascinated and amazed by new things

still learning and is trying his best for his channel

which is why he’s super happy when he sees the amount of support and love he gets

making him blush like mad all the time

[hulksmashin-bannerpackin]

Green Juice

Pairing: Bruce Banner X Reader

Summary: With the Hulk under control and the government pardoning Bruce Banner under provision of working with the Avengers, Bruce finally feels safe enough to live a relatively normal life. He even steps into the dating world but what happens when he looses control in front of Reader’s 4 year old son?

It started off small. Baby steps. Bruce needed to readjust to having a normal life. Going out more for example Tony had suggested going out for tea at a shop instead of at home. Small things… He could do small things. That was the plan, atleast until his plan was halted and completely derailed of its tracks.

He was currently sitting with Tony in a corner booth in a tea and cake shop, trying to “adjust” to being social as Tony put it when Bruce saw the most beautiful woman he had ever laid his eyes on. She was currently helping an old woman pick up the contents of her purse that had fallen and made a clanging noise which had made Bruce look up in the first place.

Her voice was sweet and genuine and Bruce couldn’t help but stare at her. Tony noticed Bruce’s attention was taken elsewhere and followed his gaze. He smirked when he saw the woman Bruce was staring at and Bruce’s expression. This was the first time he had seen Bruce interested in a girl so his only thought was ‘I’m gonna get that for you’ as he quickly stood and followed her before she left the store.

Bruce’s eyes widened at Tony’s sudden movement.

“Tony what are you doing?” Bruce knitted his brows together in confusion when Tony only waved his hand dismissively at him.

“T-Tony?!”

Once more Tony ignored him and walked up to the woman.

“Hello!”

“Oh!” The woman gave a nervous jolt at the sudden approach. “H-hello.” She stuttered out nervously. Tony raised his hand and the woman shook it. “Tony Stark. Nice to meet you.”

“My name is Y/N L/N. Nice to meet you too.” She smiled awkwardly at him and Tony grinned. This woman seemed perfect for Bruce! Tony was honestly surprised Bruce had such a good eye.

“Are you single?”

Y/N’s eyes screwed in confusion at the intrusive question and Bruce in the background slapped his palm into his head. What was Tony doing?!

“I, uh, yes I-I am single but-”

“Great!” He draped an arm around her shoulder and walked her towards his booth. “I’d like you to meet my pal Bruce! And wow what a coincidence he’s single too! Look at this nerdy hunk of man! Don’t you want to get to know him? Sure you do!” Tony continued his speech delicately pushing her towards him, Bruce was awkwardly blushing and wanting to be looking anyway but at them. He was going to kill Tony when they got home!

“Bruce this is Y/N. Anyway Bruce here was too shy to ask you out so how about you crazy kids get to know eachother.” Tony finished off his charade with a wink and quickly made himself scarce.

The two were left in silence as they awkwardly stared at eachother not sure how to initiate conversation.

“I am so sorry!” Bruce mustered up the courage to say, his cheeks still dusted pink and his hand covering his face. Could a person die of embarrassment? Bruce was starting to think so.

Y/N inhaled deeply to calm herself before letting out a small giggle, which only served to make Bruce more nervous. “Well that’s certainly one way to meet someone.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she pulled a small notepad and pen out of her handbag.

“I have to pick up my son from daycare but here’s my number if you still want to call me sometime for a date. I don’t normally do this but your friend is very charismatic.”

She turned to see Tony very obviously attempting to secretly watch them. “And… You’re pretty cute.” She smiled shyly at bruce, tearing the page from the pad and sliding it onto the table, trying to look confident despite her own nervous blush and quickly shuffled out of the store. Bruce looked at the slip of paper dumbfounded like the digits were a complex code he needed to decipher.

Did… Did that just happen? Did he just get a date?

——————–

And that was how Bruce met and started dating Y/N, they eventually grew into having a much more serious relationship.

It even got to the point where he met her young son Nicky and soon Bruce had integrated himself into their small family unit. Bruce almost transformed then and there when Y/N confided in him that her ex boyfriend left her as soon as he found out she was pregnant and was keeping it. He didn’t know how anyone could be stupid enough to leave someone like Y/N. Bruce was pretty sure he loved Y/N. He already loved Nicky like his own and Nicky might as well have been his own son at this point since he couldn’t have his own children anyway. Even though he’d been with them a short time Bruce just couldn’t really imagine his life without them anymore.

“Juice!!!!” Nicky screamed as he scurried to the door holding up his hands, for whatever reason Nicky had decided Bruce’s name was Juice, and Bruce being the sweet man he was just rolled with it.

“Hey buddy!”

Bruce bent down and picked up the small boy and lifted him into the air. “Do you wanna see my drawing!?”

“Yeah of course!” Bruce said in an overly excited voice to match the child’s enthusiasm.

He put Nicky down and he ran away to get his picture as Y/N greeted Bruce, closing the door as he stepped over a few stuffed toys and trucks to enter the room. He sat on the couch as Nicky came and dumped a piece of paper onto Bruce’s lap before climbing onto the couch himself.

“This is me and this is Mama and this is Juice!” Nicky explained pointing to each of the coloured figures.

“Wow you drew that all by yourself?”

“Yes!”

Y/N watched them both with a smile before she picked up Nicky, causing the child to squeal.

“Time for your nap baby.”

“Nooooooooo I wanna play with Juice!”

“Bruce will still be here when you wake up.”

Nicky pouted as he waved goodbye at Bruce, who returned the gesture before picking up the remote and flicking through channels to find something that wasn’t aimed at under 5s knowing that it would take atleast 20 minutes to put Nicky to sleep.

Y/N appeared from the room 37 minutes later and sat down beside Bruce smiling. “Sorry, he was a little fussy today.”

She let out a small gasp as Bruce circled his arms around her waist and pulled her into him. “I missed you.” He mumbled against her lips before kissing her. She let out a sigh as Bruce lightly pushed her to lean against the arm of the couch and deepened the kiss. “You saw me yesterday.” She managed to say between kisses as she slid her hands up Bruce’s neck and into his chocolate curls.

“I still missed you.” He breathed as he laid a trail of kisses down her neck, her mouth made an O shape as she let out a small moan and closed her eyes, tilting her head back. Bruce’s hand slowly but surely made its way under her shirt, his hand glided over her smooth skin and he traced along the curve of her bra and-

“MAAAAAMAAAAAAA!!!!!”

Y/N snapped out of her blissed out state. “Sorry.” She gave a small shrug and apologetic look and quickly removed herself from Bruce to go to her son. Bruce sighed in defeat before he took a moment to calm down and follow her into his bedroom.

He saw her holding him in her arms and rocking back and fourth as she tried to soothe him. Bruce watched from behind frowning and feeling helpless. Y/N was soon able to calm him down enough to gentle sobs but he refused to go back down to finish his nap. At this point she had resorted to bribery, trying to lull him back with promises of sweet things and fun.

“Ca-can Juice come to parents day?” Nicky sniffed, looking at Bruce from his place in her arms. Y/N bit her lip and frowned. “Baby I’m sure Bruce has other things to do then to come to-” She couldn’t finish her sentence as Nicky’s wailing started up again at full volume causing Y/N to try to soothe and hush him once more.

Bruce stepped forward and gently patted Nicky’s head. “Of course I’ll come to parents day.”

This caused Nicky to stop crying almost immediately and blink up at Bruce with large hopeful eyes.

“R-really?”

“Yeah but you have to go to back to sleep right now.”

Nicky’s eyes widened as he started wiggling, wanting to be put back down to bed. Y/N had no objections as she tucked him back in, sang him a lullaby and quietly walked out with Bruce.

“You don’t really have to go to parents day Bruce.” She looked at him with a soft sympathetic smile but Bruce only shook his head.

“I want to go.”

This caused Y/N to smile wider and place her hands on his shoulders as she pulled him in for another kiss, which Bruce was more then happy to oblige too, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her back to the couch.

———————

A few days later Bruce met up with Y/N and Nicky. He looked at Nicky with an eyebrow raised and then up at Y/N.

“He wanted to be a princess.” Y/N said smiling down at her son who was wearing a yellow princess dress and fiddling with the plastic tiara on his head to make it sit just right. She narrowed her eyes just the slightest at Bruce, warning him with her eyes that if he said anything about how it was strange, she’d immediately pounce to defend her sons dress choices.

Bruce looked down at Nicky and smiled as he bent down to his eye level.

“Well every princess needs a noble steed right?”

Nicky’s eyes lit up and he squealed in delight as Bruce hoisted Nicky up onto his shoulders. Nicky immediately clutched fistfuls of Bruce’s curly hair and yanked hard.

“Yaaaay giddy up horsey!”

“Baby be careful!” Y/N bit back a laugh as she watched Bruce’s face contort in mild pain at the treatment his hair was receiving.

“It’s okay Y/N he’s fine.” Bruce said smiling at her, she could tell the way that his head was moving that Nicky was tugging hard enough to cause discomfort and her heart melted at the kind act and acceptance towards her son. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“You’re the sweetest.”

Bruce grinned proudly, about to respond before Nicky screamed “Faster horsey!” with another yank to Bruce’s hair.

As they arrived at the daycare Bruce paused at the sign in sheet, gripping the pen tight enough to create an indent in the paper. Y/N noticed and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright Bruce?” She whispered, concern showing in her eyes.

“I’m fine.” Bruce smiled and signed his name. His real name. And he was fine. He was safe. He was able to write his name without any negative repercussions.

Everything WAS fine, until out of nowhere an SUV came crashing through the wall, bringing with it the protective childproof gate. The sudden shock and well of fear when he heard Y/N scream in pain had made Bruce transform almost instantaneously. Y/N was caught under a roof beam after pushing her son out of the way for safety. He stood up, wobbling a bit before seeing the Hulk and started walking towards him.

“NICK ISAAC L/N!” Y/N screamed, fear in her eyes as Nicky stopped where he stood, looking back at his mother knowing when his full name is used it meant he was in trouble.

“Come here now!” Her voice was stern and harsh despite the tremble of fear in it. She didn’t want to hurt Bruce by showing she was afraid of the Hulk but her motherly instincts kicked into high gear and she needed to get her son to safety. She continued to struggle against the beam she was under to try to free herself. Nicky looked between Y/N and the Hulk who gazed back at the small boy, watching him carefully.

Nicky continued to toddle forward ignoring his mothers plea and stopped in front of the Hulk. He raised his arms and made grabby hands towards the enormous green behemoth.

“Green Juice!!!!”

Y/N’s heart was beating so quickly she could feel it pulsing in her eardrums. She prayed to every single God she could think of to keep her son safe as she watched Hulk reach out to the small boy and pick him up gently. Nicky giggled in delight at the sudden rush of air as he was lifted high off the ground.

“Mama!” He then pointed towards Y/N and lightly slapped Hulk’s arm indicating he wanted to go to her. The Hulk carefully stepped towards Y/N and lifted the beam off her with one hand. She scrambled out from the rubble and to her feet, ignoring any pain she felt she quickly and carefully plucked Nicky from the Hulk’s grasp and held him close to her, pressing kisses to his chubby cheeks.

She looked up at Hulk and smiled, feeling less fear after having her son safely in her arms.

“Thank you.”

Hulk snorted and as gently as he could (though it was still forceful) patted her on the head. He moved to push the crashed gate and car out of the wall, pulling the unconscious man behind the wheel free as well and laying him down. Hulk then saved the other workers and parents who had been trapped under pieces of roof or crushed wall like Y/N had been. Suddenly loud sirens cut through the air overpowering the sound of the various children’s cries and Hulk snapped his head away. They were ambulances mostly but Hulk still had the instinct to leave, so he jumped away into the distance.

Y/N finally collapsed onto her knees, unable to ignore the throbbing of her ribs anymore.

———————–

When Bruce woke up he felt disoriented as he usually does when he comes back to himself but quickly snapped out of it when he remembered what had happened. He shot up and looked around, a deep biting fear clenching his heart. If he hurt Y/N or Nicky or anyone at that daycare he would never forgive himself.

“Hey calm down!”

Bruce had recognised the voice of Tony and looked his way. “Everything is okay Big Guy, you did good.”

Bruce looked around realising he was in the tower’s med bay just as he was about to speak he was interrupted by a familiar squeal of delight.

“Juice!!!”

“Nicky?”

He saw the small boy who had currently been laying on the floor drawing hop to his feet and wave a piece of paper. Tony reached down and picked up Nicky, placing him on the bed Bruce was on.

“Juice! Look! I drawed Green Juice saving Mama for you!” He shoved the paper into Bruce’s face, Bruce took it and pulled it away so he could see it properly. “That’s-that’s great buddy.” He tried to sound happy at the green squiggle saving the stick figure in a dress but he could only think about Y/N.

“Tony what happened?” Bruce pleaded, begging Tony to tell him that she was alright. “Why is Nicky here? Where is Y/N?”

“She’s fine Bruce. She’s at hospital with a couple cracked ribs. The guy in the SUV was drunk and is dealing with the cops. You were down as Y/N’s emergency contact and since you were green mean and otherwise unavailable I took it upon myself to take care of the little tyke.” Tony explained, raising a hand to his chest and praising himself.

Bruce felt a wave of relief crash over him knowing she was okay, well mostly okay.

“Juiiice can we see Mama now?” Nicky’s eyes started to water, being away from his mother for too long now. Bruce picked Nicky up and he clung tightly to Bruce’s neck as he stood.

“Yeah we are buddy, and when I see her I’m never going to let her out of my sight again.”

[imaginarybird]

Unwilling and unable to face everyone on her own when it comes time to attend Auggie and Ava’s wedding, Riley Matthews hires a solution in Lucas Friar. Loosely based on The Wedding Date.

Part One II Part Two 

Rating: Around a PG 13/14

Notes: Hey everyone, thanks for reading Part One, sending in your comments, liking, reblogging, whatever you did! It really means a lot to me that you enjoyed what I have so far, and I’m looking forward to writing more and sharing with you. 

I’m going to be on vacation from Wednesday through the end of the week, so Part Three may be a little slower in coming. I’ll try to write when/where I can, but I just might not have much of a chance for a few days. 

In this installment, Riley opens up to Lucas a bit, they arrive in Cape Cod, and Lucas meets Auggie.

“So tell me,” Lucas says, pushing his laptop shut and angling towards Riley in the confines of their airline seats, “what sort of lion’s den am I going to be walking into when we get to the Cape?”

Riley closes her magazine and looks at her companion. They’re well into the flight, somewhere over the Midwest and having already spent a fair amount of time chatting and deciding on some more relevant pieces of the story they’re going to tell people they’ve been doing their own thing. She’s been pretending to read while her mind is preoccupied with thoughts of the coming week and he’s been doing something on a laptop that she hasn’t tried to look too closely at, not wanting to be seen as nosy.

For all the ‘getting to know you’ chatting they’ve done so far, the topics have been centered around her; Riley’s not sure if it’s a matter of professionalism or just who Lucas is as a person, but he hasn’t shared much about himself, even something as minor as his favorite color. He insists that if anyone at the wedding asks about him, she can improvise and he’ll go along with it. No matter the reasoning, Riley figures he clearly values his privacy and doesn’t want to violate his trust.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you didn’t lie to your brother about having a date and hire me just for the fun of it.” Lucas clarifies. “The whole thing obviously makes you nervous. But the the thought of going to this wedding alone worries you more. And I want to help you with that, but I have to know what I’m helping with.”

“It’s...complicated.” Riley equivocates, not wanting to delve into the whole sordid tale. She knows there’s little point in keeping it secret--Lucas surely sees her as just another overwrought client that he has to put up with to earn his living--but a part of her wants to spare herself the embarrassment and maybe have him see her as one of the nicer, more enjoyable clients. She can’t even explain why she wants that when she has every intention to never see him again after this week, but she does.

“If it were simple you’d probably be on this flight alone right now.”

Riley almost scowls at Lucas’ gentle but matter-of-fact tone, but limits herself to simply sighing. It’s not his fault that things are the way they are, and he’s just trying to get the information he needs to do his job well. Maybe a few vague bits and pieces wouldn’t hurt. Just so he’ll know what to expect. “Let’s just say, I’m not what my parents were hoping for in a daughter, and they aren’t very good at pretending that I am.”

“Your parents are disappointed that their daughter is a nurse in a pediatric emergency room?”

It should be illegal for a man’s confused expression to be so attractive, Riley thinks.

“Does it also bother them that you brake for animals in the road?” Lucas continues. “And that you participate in the NPR and PBS pledge drives?”

She figures him getting offended on her behalf now is just him getting into ‘character’. There’s no other logical reason for him to be so bothered, even if he does think she’s nice or something like that. He barely knows her, and he’s never met her parents, so how could he possibly be sure enough in her assessment of the situation (and of his assessment of her for that matter) to start defending her? It has to be a part of the job.

“It’s not my work that they don’t like.” She corrects. “It’s that...they don’t know how to relate to me I think? My dad used to, but the older I got the more my interests changed and the less he seemed to want to deal with me. I don’t think it’s because he stopped loving me or anything but I think he couldn’t navigate what having a daughter post-puberty meant. And my mom...my mom is this amazing lawyer. She’s incredibly smart and strong; she’s constantly helping people and changing the world. But I’m not a carbon copy of her and I don’t think she could ever figure out how to connect with me. We shared some traits but our personalities are very different and the older I got the more obvious it was that she didn’t think our differences were a good thing.”

“That had to have been hard, not having a bond with the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally is one of the most painful feelings…”

Riley glances down at her tray table where she'd started folding the corner of her magazine cover back and forth during the conversation--just to give her hands something to do. “It’s not even that. The story of my life is people not liking me for who I am.”

“Even if that’s the case,” Lucas says, laying his hand on top of hers and stilling her fingers, “it’s different when it’s family. When it’s your parents… It can’t be easy.”

It’s the first time they’ve really touched outside of their initial meeting and a couple of moments as they walked through the airport where he guided her with his hand on the small of her back and Riley freezes. How can one hand on top of another--just his five fingers resting on hers and a small brush of his thumb--feel so intimate? Does he even feel that or is this just another rote gesture for him, like using antibacterial gel on her hands every time she enters an exam room is for her?

“You get used to it.” Riley nearly moves her hand away to break the connection (it feels like at any moment the soft warmth could turn and consume her and then she’ll be a goner) but stops herself, reasoning that she has to get comfortable with small gestures like this; this is how couples act and everyone at the wedding has to believe that they’re a couple if this week is going to work. She settles for biting the inner corner of her lip and trying to disconnect herself from the sensation instead.

This is make believe. A business transaction, nothing more. Don’t go falling for someone you can never have, Riley. It’ll only hurt you.

 “Maybe you do but…” Lucas’ thumb sweeps across the back of her hand again, “you shouldn’t have to, and I’m sorry you did.”

Her inner monologue doesn’t work. She can’t look away from his eyes--his deep, green, sorrowful, lovely eyes-- and what starts as a trickling shiver down her spine starts to feel more like a flood of hot tea. They sit, staring for one second, then two, and then Riley realizes he’s waiting for her to say something.

Completely unsure of what to do, Riley pulls her hand back. “T-thanks.” She undoes her seatbelt and stands, bending slightly to avoid hitting her head against the ceiling. “I, um, have to…” She points towards the back of the plane.

Lucas gets that smile on his face again as he rises to let her slide past him.

Riley mentally repeats her mantra a couple more times as she walks down the aisle and barricades herself in the tiny bathroom to give herself a few moments to get her head back on straight.

She is in so much trouble.

Thoughts of inappropriately falling for Lucas are out of Riley’s mind by the time they’re on the ground in Massachusetts and driving from the airport the hour or so it takes to reach Cape Cod. She attributes this to two things: 1) the plane was a confined space, whereas Lucas had suggested that they rent a sporty convertible for the week (‘If this week is about projecting a new image to your family, that car will paint one hell of a picture’) allowing most of the tension to dissipate into the air as it arises and 2) the closer they get to the bed and breakfast where the wedding party and immediate family of the bride and groom will be staying, the further her mind drifts from thoughts of anything other than what’s going to happen over the course of the week and how she’s going to make it through, even with the help of Lucas.

There’s a lot of unpredictability in play. She doesn’t see any of these people very often anymore, hasn’t outside of major holidays (and even those she sometimes skips these days) since the middle of her undergraduate degree; it was easier to move to the west coast for school and never look back.

Riley would love to think that she’ll be able to go through the week invisibly, just popping into the forefront of activity when she’s performing her wedding duties to Auggie and fading into the background the rest of the time, but she figures that her luck isn’t that good; a lot of her good fortune had to have been cashed in for her to have seemingly hit the jackpot on the escort front (she has to think that good-looking, interesting, guys that are not only respectful, but also manage to come off as genuinely caring have to be rare, even in the unfamiliar world of high end male escorts).

“What are you thinking?” Lucas’ question draws her out of her thoughts and back to reality. They’re well into one of the many beach towns on the Cape, she realizes, probably quite close to the B & B, but stuck in a substantial traffic jam, so Lucas is risking next to nothing by taking his eyes off the road to look at her.

“Just worrying about this week.” Riley answers. “Who’s gonna be here, what’s gonna go wrong…”

Traffic inches forward, and Lucas turns his gaze back. “Do you do that often?”

“Do what?” Riley frowns. She’s not doing anything.

“Borrow trouble.” He shrugs, like it’s something obvious. “I know you don’t have a great relationship with your parents but that doesn’t mean something’s gonna go wrong. And when you assume that it will...you’re setting yourself up so that even if things go well, you’ll be so tense that you won’t get to enjoy it.”

“Something will go wrong.” Riley shifts a little in her seat. When that doesn’t ease her discomfort she reaches over to adjust the vent for the air conditioner. “It always does. Someone will say the wrong thing, or take something too far, or be upset because not everyone is happy enough for them and--,” She cuts herself, realizing she hadn’t intended to say the last bit. She shakes her head and starts to correct herself. “Something will go wrong, and inevitably, I’m the one who will be blamed. So I’d rather plan for that and be tense than hope for the best and be disappointed again when nothing changes.”

Lucas doesn’t say anything for a moment, taking the moments when traffic isn’t moving to consider her carefully. When he finally speaks, it’s soft and Riley can’t assess his tone. “You didn’t even scratch the surface with what you told me on the plane, did you?”

“Like I said. It’s complicated.”

They don’t say anything else for the rest of the drive.

“Riley-Ellie!” 

“Auggie-Orrie!” Riley abandons getting her things out of the trunk of the rental car in favor of rushing her younger brother near the bed and breakfast’s porch steps. She throws her arms around him and launches him up in a spin--their longstanding tradition, her worries temporarily forgotten in the face of the reason for the trip. This part of the trip she’s more than happy to deal with. “How does it feel to be an almost-married man?” She asks, lowering Auggie back to the ground. “Is she driving you crazy yet?”

“It’s a-maz-ing.” He grins, every inch the dramatic boy he always has been. “I can’t believe we finally made it to the wedding week. And with none of the nightmares of a typical Matthews Marriage.”

“There’s still time.” He was, of course, referring to the pattern that had started with their parents. Their wedding had nearly been a disaster several times over from meddling relatives, a massive fight between the groom and his best friend, and of course Uncle Eric stealing the venue and reception out from under an unsuspecting diaper tycoon. Then Aunt Morgan’s wedding had ended up with her being left at the alter. After that, Uncle Eric had tried his hand at marriage to have the whole thing wind up under a mandatory evacuation order due to severe weather and flood risk. Uncle Josh’s nuptials hadn’t experienced any of the bad luck of his siblings but he had eloped and Riley knew her grandmother considered being left out of the big day as big of a fiasco as anything her other boys had been through (Morgan being dumped the day of was, of course, in a class all it’s own).

“I figure the curse will end with me.” Auggie says, quite confidently. “I have something that the rest of the family didn’t.”

Riley quirks her eyebrow. “Yeah, what’s that?”

“Ava Morgenstern.”

He has a point. Ava had been strong-willed at age six and had only grown more self-assured as they got older. She had standards for everything that she did, and woe be to the person who stood in the way of her exceeding them. It’s entirely possible, Riley thinks, that if Ava decided she wanted a sunny day for her wedding and a cloud appeared in the sky, that the girl would simply plant herself in place to glare up at the sky and will the cloud into retreating.

“Well, you’ve got me there.” She concedes, smirking and glancing down the wraparound porch. “Where is my future sister-in-law?”

“One of her bridesmaids stumbled at graduation so she is hosting a pre-rehearsal walk-down-the-aisle-in-your heels practice session before she has to get back here for the big family welcome dinner.”

Again, not exactly out of character for Ava. “You mean the high school graduation that happened three years ago?”

“The middle school one, actually. Ava has a long memory.” Auggie says matter-of-factly. “But enough about that.” He taps her shoulder. “How are you? How was your flight? Where is this mysterious boyfriend that you never once mentioned until all of a sudden you were bringing him here?”

Riley knows he’s only really asking the last question; he cares about the other stuff too, but they talk all the time, so the sticking point for him is definitely that she hasn’t ever talked about Lucas before. Auggie will be the hardest sell of the weekend, not only because he knows the most details of her life to poke holes in her story, but because he’s always been suspicious of her suitors and protective of her. She’ll have to be careful to be as normal as possible around him.

“I’m fine, the flight was long, and Lucas is getting our things out of the car.” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder towards the parking lot. She can’t help but glancing over her shoulder as she does so. Playing it cool might be the best option to lower any suspicions but she’s never been very good at it. Her nerves always manage to take over.

Auggie follows the gesture and blinks. “The blond guy in the jeans and the smedium t-shirt?”

“Yeah.”

“The one pretending it takes more than thirty seconds to take two bags out of the trunk of a ridiculously beautiful sports car?”

“Uh-huh.”

“The one who looks like he was ripped from the cover of American Apple Pie Boy’s Next Door?”

Not exactly how she would have put it but she can’t exactly deny the resemblance is there. “That’s the one.”

“Are you sure?”

“Auggie!” Riley smacks lightly at her brother’s shoulder.

He dodges, laughing. “I’m sorry, but I watched a lot of guys flirt with you when you were pulling shifts at the bakery and whenever you were into it, it was not with the guys that looked like that.” He waves his hand up and down. “That is not the sort of guy you go for. I know I haven’t seen him without a shirt off or anything but I’m pretty sure his abs have abs.”

Riley’s not sure how she’s supposed to respond. Partially because Auggie is right--she has never dated or even seriously flirted with a guy that’s so blatantly handsome and athletic; Charlie had been her first serious relationship and after him it had taken her a long time to even want to flirt and date again. It had taken even longer to start tackling the resulting self-esteem issues, a problem that, if she’s being honest with herself, she’s still working on. She’s never really been sure that guys who look like Lucas are genuinely interested in her so it’s always been easier to treat them as if they aren’t and stick with other types of guys.

She’s also at a loss because she also has never seen Lucas without his shirt off. Which sounds incredibly stupid, she knows, but the moment Auggie mentions it, Riley realizes that the status of Lucas’ abdominal muscles is almost definitely something that she should be aware of. After all, as far as everyone else is concerned, she and Lucas have been dating for several months.

And for all the planning she and Lucas have done, discussing the details of the nature of their fake relationship like where they met and where he took her on their one month anniversary, they have not really talked about whether or not they’ve taken any kinds of steps as a fake couple where she really would be privy to the what sort of torso he is barely concealing beneath his t-shirts.

“Yeah, he is really...really muscular.” It seems like a safe enough comment; anyone with eyes can tell that the man has muscles, even when he has his shirt on.

“Who’s that?”

Riley nearly jumps out of her skin in the split second it takes for her to realize that the smiling voice near her ear and the arm snaking around her waist belong to Lucas, but when she reaches her conclusion she manages to tamp back her reaction to something that she hopes is a bit more appropriate for being joined by one’s boyfriend. She still stiffens in surprise, but manages to release most of the tension and ease back into the embrace with a nervous giggle. “You.”

Being this close to Lucas, there’s really no question: with or without his shirt, he has a very healthy form. Riley swallows.

“I don’t think I’m that--,”

“You are.” Riley and Auggie cut off Lucas’ protest in unison, then share a grin.

“Well I’m not gonna argue the point too strongly.” Lucas says. He glances between the two siblings. “Did I take enough time getting the bags out of the car for you two to catch up or do you need me to go back?”

“Nope, you’re perfect.” Riley answers and then realizes what she said. She blushes and peers briefly at the ground, even as Lucas threads the fingers of one hand with hers and squeezes gently. She supposes that’s probably meant to be reassuring and a message that they’re doing OK but it’s just another reminder of how bizarre and out-of-character this situation is; she doesn’t do this sort of close contact with people she’s known forever, and yet here she is with a practical stranger. And not hating it. Struggling to figure out what to say and how to act the part, but not hating it. “I was just about to tell Auggie about you. Auggie, this is Lucas. The guy I’ve been seeing.”

Lucas doesn’t let go of her hand, merely uses his other hand to reach over and greet Auggie and offer his congratulations on the wedding. “You know, Riley’s told me so much, it’s great to finally meet you.”

“Likewise.” Auggie nods. “I mean, Riley hasn’t told me very much at all. Nothing actually. But it’s always fun to meet the guys who manage wiggle their way into her life.”

Auggie is supposed to be the easiest part of the week, but at the shrewd look on her little brother’s face, Riley is starting to think that while it may be on a different front from the rest of the family, he might be just as much trouble.

[thefreckledone]

Pompeii 26

@vesperlionheart

Sakura stared at the near catatonic man on her couch. Since showing her his tongue, as if that explained everything, he’d remained silent, gazing off into the distance with unfocused, glassy eyes. She’d left him there, giving him space, but the hour was drawing to a close and Sakura was starting to feel concerned.

“Sai,” she said, trying to bring him out of his daze.

He didn’t even blink.

“Sai!” she said a bit more forcefully.

He shivered, distant but miserable in the cold.

That was what decided it for Sakura as she gently took his hands in her own. He didn’t respond and Sakura could almost feel the ice running in his veins. She’d no idea how long he was outside, but it had been far too long.

“Sai,” she said in a firm tone. It was the voice she used to control unruly patients or speak with those who looked down upon her. It wasn’t exactly a kind tone, but it was effective. “Sai, stand up.”

Sai stood as she pulled him, following her lead of gentle touches and strong voice. She pressed him into the bathroom, turning on the shower. Sakura tested the water, waiting until it was lukewarm before turning and assessing Sai’s state.

He was still completely unresponsive and she worried to leave him alone.

Sakura chewed at her lip, weighing her options.

Sakura stared down at him for a moment, heart in her throat. She turned abruptly, heading to her balcony. Sakura threw it open, ignoring the rain and the way the dark birds scattered with cries of dismay, and leaned over across her balcony to knock on Kimimaro’s window.

She waited for a moment, banging on it again until Kimimaro came stumbling out of the kitchen, dressed in silk pajamas. He looked around wildly, hair unkempt before settling on Sakura. He blinked, before hurrying to the sliding door.

“Sakura? You’re soaking wet! What are you doing?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Sakura said. “I have a...friend over tonight. Just...wanted you to know.”

He furrowed his brows, green eyes lightening with understanding. “Are you...alright?”

Are you safe?

Sakura thought about it for a long moment, remembering how unresponsive Sai was. “It’s fine,” she said, shaking her head. “I just...needed someone to know.”

She turned to go back inside, only to stop as Kimimaro wrapped a hand around her wrist. Sakura paused, looking up into his inscrutable expression. “Yes?”

“Sakura...stay safe. Not everyone in Pompeii can be trusted,” Kimimaro said, rain soaking through his pajamas, making them translucent against his skin.

“I know,” Sakura replied, pulling out his warm grasp. Her thoughts flew to a snake eating itself, dancing faux foxfire, whispers among the trees, and secrets wormed in deep beneath the soil of Pompeii. “Trust me, I know.”

She left him there, on the balcony and returned to Sai. He was where she left him, eyes glazed over even with the running water behind him.

Finally, with a sigh, she rolled up her sleeves and tugged Sai with her to the shower. As gently as she could, Sakura moved him beneath the spray of the showerhead, watching him for signs of life. His eyelids flickered before closing, a deep sigh rattling out of his chest.

He was still far too cold so Sakura grabbed a washcloth and began methodically rubbing over his fingers before moving to his feet. Along the way, she slowly increased the heat of the water until it steamed. Sai’s translucent skin was flushed a deep, healthy red when Sakura turned off the tap.

Sakura ignored the way her clothes clung to her skin as she directed Sai out of the shower. She didn’t pay attention to the trail of water on her tiled floor as she made Sai take a seat on the toilet. She glanced into the cabinet, pulling out two towels. One she left to the side as she tilted Sai’s head forward and began tousling his hair. The thin veins beneath his skin were clear in his neck, a shimmery silver in color. She stared down at his back, wondering what had happened to him.

Sakura felt him stiffen beneath her touch and she pulled away, allowing him to sit up straight. He regarded her warily, eyes trained on her.

Sakura sighed in relief, leaning back against the counter. “Good to see you’re back,” she said. She grabbed the extra towel and tossed it his way. “Take off your clothes and dry off. I’ll get you something else to wear.” Sai was watching her with a perplexed look as she pulled something off a hook. “Wear this for now,” she said, passing him the robe. Sakura felt a bit embarrassed as she looked at the fabric, dogs playing poker against a searingly green background. Ami had given it to her as a gag gift for Christmas one year and, to her surprise and shy chagrin, Sakura kept it. After all, it was Ami’s first haphazard attempt at sewing. Now, Sai was going to wear it. “I’ll grab a t-shirt and sweatpants for you.”

Sakura bustled out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. She couldn’t help but wonder if she’d done the right thing, bringing Sai here. He clearly wasn’t in a good head space. And that whole tongue tattoo…

Sakura paused in her thoughts before scurrying into her bedroom. She lifted the book, stroking her fingers over its spine. The book fell open and asked in bright ink, What’s up?

“What can you tell me about tongue tattoos?”

Bad idea. Fade in about a year and you can’t taste shit for a while after eating...Not that I’d really know. Hell, go for it!

“What?” Sakura shook her head. “Terrible advice aside, that is not what I was talking about. I...I saw a tattoo on someone’s tongue. It was...I don’t know, a bunch of dark lines, some segmented and some not.”

what.

“What does it mean?”

is that person still here.

Sakura’s brow furrowed; the book always used correct punctuation. “Yeah, he’s in the bathroom-”

get him to leave NOW.

The absolute rage in the lettering made Sakura jump. “What the hell?” she whispered, glancing toward her bathroom door. “What’s your problem?”

Not safe. Whispers. Spider. The trees have eyes.

“Stop,” Sakura said, heartbeat speeding up in her anxiety. “Sai has been nothing but...well, pretty cryptic but he’s done nothing to earn your enmity.”

Sakura you don’t understand! He’s bad news-

“Haruno,” Sai called, almost tentative.

Sakura closed the book, shaking her head. “Coming!” she said before turning her gaze back to the book. “I’ll deal with you later.”

Sakura tossed the book down and headed back into the living room. She had to fight her instinct to laugh at the sight that greeted her. Sai stood calmly in her living room, swamped in her hideous robe. Ami hadn’t done the best job with the proportions. Sai’s pale knees peeked out beneath the robe. As unbecoming as the garment was, Sai seemed completely unaffected.

“Let me grab you those clothes,” Sakura said, remembering her initial goal.

“This is fine.”

They stood there for a moment in silence as Sakura searched for something to say.

“Why were you sitting out in the rain?” Sakura asked.

He shrugged, not quite meeting her gaze.

“Didn’t you have somewhere to go?” A blank look greeted her. “You know, a house, your home?”

“Home?” He blinked and Sakura had the sinking suspicion that he was suppressing a flinch. “I have no home.”

“Where do you live?”

“Nowhere. Everywhere.”

And thus continued his (and everyone else’s) habit of cryptic evasiveness.

“So you’re homeless?” Sakura clarified.

His nod was minute, but it was still there.

“Stay here,” Sakura said, before she could talk herself out of it. She didn’t know Sai, not really, aside from his abrasive and socially inept attitude. But she knew he was wounded, hurt in a way that festered and rooted itself deep beneath his skin. She couldn’t just stand by and let his suffering continue unabated.

“What?” he asked, an expression of shock clear across his face.

“Stay here,” she repeated, reckless. “You can sleep on the couch tonight. Tomorrow and the days after…” She shrugged. “It’s not much but I can set up one of the patient rooms for you. There’s beds and while I can’t promise fantastic food you’re always welcome at my table-”

Sakura was cut off as she was wrapped in strong but shaking arms. The worn fabric of her robe brushed against her face and Sakura was surrounded by the strange intermingling scents of herself and Sai, spicy and earthy. Sai pressed his face into her hair, exhaling heavily.

“Sai-”

“Thank you,” Sai said and Sakura could feel his tears in her hair. “Just...thank you.”

Sakura brought her hands up to his back, drawing nonsensical patterns across the expanse. They stood like this for a while, Sakura aware of her wet clothes and the way Sai’s breath heaved from his chest, trying to escape. Sakura made small noises of comfort, hoping that she was helping.

“Are you...writing out the bones of the body on my back?” Sai asked, voice steady but subdued.

“I’m surprised you noticed,” Sakura said, flushing with embarrassment. “It’s something I used to do in medical school too, after I learned all the bones for an exam. It...soothes me.”

Sai pulled back slightly, only to smile down at her. It was a genuine smile, small, wobbly at the edges, but genuine nonetheless. “It soothes me too. Thanks.”

Sai was the first to pull away from the hug and Sakura let him, ignoring the way her heart squeezed as he did his best to erect the barriers he held at the beginning of the night. They were tattered and frayed but Sakura could still see the way his gaze shuttered as he looked away from her. Then he yawned, mouth opening wide.

Sakura giggled. “Time for bed I suppose. Let’s get you fixed up here.”

Sai nodded, following in her footsteps.

As they gathered blankets and pillows, Sakura couldn’t help feeling at ease with her decision. There was something right about it.

Sakura bit her lip as she took in the befuddled expression on Sai’s face. I think I could get used to this...

The pounding of her heart woke her.

Sakura sat up in bed, glancing around wildly. Her clock read 3:20 AM. What had woken her? Sakura’s brows furrowed. It wasn’t a nightmare, she didn’t get those anymore. It was…

Sai .

Sakura bolted out of bed, stepping out into the living room.

Sai stood outside on the balcony, barefoot and dressed once more in his dark clothing. Somehow, it seemed that the garish robe suited him better. Sakura swallowed back the protests on her tongue like whiskey, heavy and bitter, stinging her throat as they went down. “You’re leaving?” she asked instead, doing her best to keep her voice level.

She failed.

Sai looked at her, pale face ancient and distant beneath the silvery light of the moon. He stuck out his tongue and Sakura’s breath caught as she saw the tongue tattoo suffused with golden light. “I am called,” he said, simply as if it explained anything.

“Stay,” Sakura entreated.

He looked at her, pure misery carved into his expression. Sakura blinked back the tears as she took in the pain in his eyes. “Thank you,” he said, forcing one of his fake smiles. Sakura hated it.

Her eyes burned as he stepped off the balcony, consumed by shadows.

Then, she let the tears-the tears that she knew Sai couldn’t cry-fall.

“What did you just say?”

Sakura winced, ducking away from Naruto’s gaze as she continued to wind the bandage around his chest. She wished she hadn’t spoken at all. “Nothing, Naruto, just forget it.”

“It’s not nothing!” Naruto exclaimed, leaning in close to her. “It’s your birthday.”

“I highly doubt birthdays are a major celebration here in Pompeii,” Sakura said. “It gets monotonous after awhile does it not? Centuries passing by in the briefest flicker.”

Naruto pouted at her. “But, but it’s your first birthday in Pompeii! That’s something worth remembering right?”

Sakura found herself softening beneath the weight of his charm. “It is special only because Pompeii is special. Besides, my birthday’s already passed. What does it matter now?”

“It was yesterday! There’s still time isn’t there Menma?” Naruto asked, looking to his silent twin. “It’s still March 28th somewhere right?”

Menma scoffed, shaking his head. “Not on this plane of existence at least.”

“It’s fine,” Sakura said, redirecting her gaze to Naruto’s wound. He’d been messing around with foxfire and found himself with some serious burns. While they were healing at an accelerated rate, Sakura knew that dressing them would expedite the process further. “There’s no need to worry about it. Things have been very busy recently and everyone’s been away on business. It was a peaceful birthday.”

Though she was trying to soothe Naruto, she couldn’t have said anything else that would strike guilt into his heart like her words did. “I’m sorry Sakura,” he said, voice quiet. “We may have been busy, but that’s no excuse for making you feel so unimportant on your birthday.”

Sakura shivered, looking up into the face of a man who suddenly seemed eons beyond her. “That isn’t what happened at all, Naruto!” she exclaimed hotly, looking to Menma in support. He wouldn’t meet her eyes either however. “Oh for the love of-! Look, it does not bother me at all in any shape or fashion that we did not celebrate my birthday. You didn’t know!”

Naruto looked up at her. “Can we make it up to you?”

Sakura sighed, fight leaving her. “Look, we can get a small group together and go out for dinner tonight. I am paying for my meal and we can celebrate the party that way.” Sakura glanced up at the clock, paling. “I need to get prepped for my next appointment. I assume you know your way out?”

Naruto and Menma waved her off before turning to look at each other. Menma shook his head as he took in Naruto’s wide-eyed enthusiasm.

“She said small party,” Menma warned.

“Semantics!” Naruto exclaimed, waving a hand in Menma’s face.

“Naruto…”

But Naruto wasn’t listening.

Menma shook his head, grabbed Naruto by the collar, and headed for the door. Sakura would have no idea what hit her.

“Have a wonderful rest of your day,” Shizune said, heading toward the parking lot.

“Sure you don’t want to come along?” Sakura asked, fiddling with her handbag. “We’re meeting at Akimichi’s.”

Shizune laughed, stopping and taking Sakura’s hands. “I would love to join you for a celebration of your birth. Unfortunately I have a prior engagement. With the Spring Planting at hand, I am kept rather busy.”

“Do you need a few days off? A few weeks? Is Chiyo working you too hard?” Sakura demanded, clasping Shizune’s hands.

Shizune blinked, startled before giggling. “No, it’s fine, it’s fine. I’m glad to be a part of the Planting; it’s a pretty big deal here in Pompeii.”

“Please take a couple days off,” Sakura said. “Paid and everything. Don’t run yourself into the ground for my sake.”

Shizune smiled beatifically and bussed kisses over both of Sakura’s cheeks. “Thank you, love.”

“Have fun!” Sakura said, waving her friend off.

Then she looked down at her watch and cursed herself.

She was late.

Sakura raced down the darkened streets, making her way into downtown. Nestled cosily between the florist and the hair salon, Akimichi’s green sign glowed warmly down upon her.

She frowned, surprised to see how dark it was inside. Was it closed? She was only a few minutes late, right? Sakura peered into the window closely, scrutinizing it. This darkness was strange, a shadowy dark that seemed nearly solid.

It seemed artificial .

Sakura braced herself, tensing slightly as she pressed against the bright blue door. It gave, opening with a heavy groan.

The darkness did not extend beyond the doorstep. Sakura swallowed, clutching her phone as she called, “Hello? Anyone there?”

There was no response.

Sakura stared into the blackness before shaking her head. She wasn’t dealing with this. She turned and headed back down the street.

“Happy birthday!” a multitude of voices exclaimed as light suddenly streamed out through the restaurant.

Sakura turned, blinking in shock at all the people who stood before her. There were nearly a hundred. She located Naruto and scowled. “I said small party!”

Naruto shrugged, grinning at her. “C’mon, this isn’t even the best part!”

He bounded forward, taking her hand and tucking it at his arm as he weaved through the sea of faces.

Sakura answered all the well wishers with cheer, grinning as Ino attached herself at her other hip, scowling all the way.

“I cannot believe you didn’t tell me it was your birthday yesterday! How could you?” Ino pouted. She looked truly hurt.

“Sorry,” Sakura said, patting her hand. “I’d no idea this was such a big deal.”

“Here we are!” Naruto said, pushing her up the stairs and stopping before the door. “Are you ready?”

Sakura nodded, finding anticipation curling in her gut.

Naruto pushed open the door and Sakura found herself breathless. She wasn’t sure how, she expected it to be a combination of some people’s magic, but the sky was magnified above her. It seemed much closer, like she could reach out and brush up against the shimmering stars. Galaxies and planets were within the touch of her fingertips and Sakura couldn’t speak.

“You like it?” Naruto asked nervously. “We got the Nara family to help with casting the skyscape, the Senju brothers did some of the magnification, Karin and the coven of course maintain the spell and the Uzumaki…” He stopped, grinning. “Well, you’ll see what we did shortly.”

“Naruto, this is incredible!” Sakura exclaimed. “How did you pull this off?”

“It was nothing.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, smile pleased. “Everyone was happy to pitch in. We’re really happy you’re here.”

Sakura blinked away the mist that came to her eyes, smiling up at him tremulously.

“Hey, Sakura!” Kiba called. “Come try some of these ribs. They’re to die for!” Sakura headed over, losing Naruto in the crowd. Kiba crowded her into a breath stealing hug before he set her back on her feet. “Happy birthday!”

“Thank you,” Sakura replied. “Now what was this about to die for ribs?”

Sakura settled into her seat between Menma and Naruto, grinning at Ino and Deidara who were arguing across from her. She was full, both of delicious food and of pleasure, surrounded by her neighbors who came out tonight to share in a celebration of her life. She felt warm. She felt welcomed.

She felt at home, even among the strangeness.

“Okay, okay,” Sakura said, pushing Naruto away. “Stop rubbing this big ‘surprise’ in my face. Go ahead and show me!”

Menma looked up. “It’s about to start.”

Sakura turned her gaze up to the sky. It was still a magnified view of space and Sakura found herself lost again among the galaxies. She laid back from the low sitting table, focusing slowly on the sky above.

She gasped as a streak of light streamed across the sky. She cut her eyes to Menma, surprised to find him watching her with a soft look. He grinned, pointing back at the sky.

Sakura obediently looked back at the sky. Numerous stars were falling across the skyscape. Sakura watched the bright spots as they came more alight before fizzling out into nothingness. There was something poetic about it.

Sakura wasn’t sure what the future held, wasn’t sure when the other shoe would drop. She knew that the higher she climbed, the further she had to fall.

Sakura wasn’t sure she’d survive the impact.

There were still so many unanswered questions and Sakura wasn’t sure of her place in it all.

Somehow she just did not care.

Sakura decided to enjoy the moment, regardless of what the future held. She had people here; people who loved her, who were family to her.

The tears that were shed were surreptitiously wiped away before Sakura said, “I suppose that was the Uzumaki contribution?”

“Yeah,” Naruto said with a wry smile. “How’d you like it?”

“That was one of the best birthday gifts I’ve received in a long time,” Sakura replied, meeting Naruto’s gaze.

He seemed puzzled. “But...you haven’t even opened your presents yet.”

Sakura blinked. “My what?”

Naruto turned, gesturing to a veritable mountain of gifts. “That’s how these things usually go, right? Presents on a birthday?”

Sakura sucked in a heavy sigh. “Oh boy.”

[cyberblogin]

[ad_1]

Nestled among the many indistinguishable buildings of Microsoft’s Redmond campus, a multi-disciplinary team sharing an attention to detail that borders on fanatical is designing a keyboard… again and again and again. And one more time for good measure. Their dogged and ever-evolving dedication to “human factors” shows the amount of work that goes into making any piece of hardware truly ergonomic.

Microsoft may be known primarily for its software and services, but cast your mind back a bit and you’ll find a series of hardware advances that have redefine their respective categories:

The original Natural Keyboard was the first split-key, ergonomic keyboard, the fundamentals of which have only ever been slightly improved upon.

The Intellimouse Optical not only made the first truly popular leap away from ball-based mice, but did so in such a way that its shape and buttons still make its descendants among the best all-purpose mice on the market.

Remember me?

Although the Zune is remembered more for being a colossal boondoggle than a great music player, it was very much the latter, and I still use and marvel at the usability of my Zune HD. Yes, seriously. (Microsoft, open source the software!)

More recently, the Surface series of convertible notebooks have made bold and welcome changes to a form factor that had stagnated in the wake of Apple’s influential mid-2000s MacBook Pro designs.

Microsoft is still making hardware, of course, and in fact it has doubled down on its ability to do so with a revamped hardware lab filled with dedicated, extremely detail-oriented people who are given the tools they need to get as weird as they want — as long as it makes something better.

You don’t get something like this by aping the competition.

First, a disclosure: I may as well say at the outset that this piece was done essentially at the invitation (but not direction) of Microsoft, which offered the opportunity to visit their hardware labs in Building 87 and meet the team. I’d actually been there before a few times, but it had always been off-record and rather sanitized.

Knowing how interesting I’d found the place before, I decided I wanted to take part and share it at the risk of seeming promotional. They call this sort of thing “access journalism,” but the second part is kind of a stretch. I really just think this stuff is really cool, and companies seldom expose their design processes in the open like this. Microsoft obviously isn’t the only company to have hardware labs and facilities like this, but they’ve been in the game for a long time and have an interesting and almost too detailed process they’ve decided to be open about.

Although I spoke with perhaps a dozen Microsoft Devices people during the tour (which was still rigidly structured), only two were permitted to be on record: Edie Adams, Chief Ergonomist, and Yi-Min Huang, Principal Design and Experience Lead. But the other folks in the labs were very obliging in answering questions and happy to talk about their work. I was genuinely surprised and pleased to find people occupying niches so suited to their specialities and inclinations.

Generally speaking the work I got to see fell into three general spaces: the Human Factors Lab, focused on very exacting measurements of people themselves and how they interact with a piece of hardware; the anechoic chamber, where the sound of devices is obsessively analyzed and adjusted; and the Advanced Prototype Center, where devices and materials can go from idea to reality in minutes or hours.

The science of anthropometry

Inside the Human Factors lab, human thumbs litter the table. No, it isn’t a torture chamber — not for humans, anyway. Here the company puts its hardware to the test by measuring how human beings use it, recording not just simple metrics like words per minute on a keyboard, but high-speed stereo footage that analyzes how the skin of the hand stretches when it reaches for a mouse button down to a fraction of a millimeter.

The trend here, as elsewhere in the design process and labs, is that you can’t count anything out as a factor that increases or decreases comfort; the little things really do make a difference, and sometimes the microscopic ones.

“Feats of engineering heroics are great,” said Adams, “but they have to meet a human need. We try to cover the physical, cognitive, and emotional interactions with our products.”

(Perhaps you take this, as I did, as — in addition to a statement of purpose — a veiled reference to a certain other company whose keyboards have been in the news for other reasons. Of this later.)

The lab is a space perhaps comparable to a medium-sized restaurant, with enough room for a dozen or so people to work in the various sub-spaces set aside for different highly specific measurements. Various models of body parts have been set out on work surfaces, I suspect for my benefit.

Among them are that set of thumbs, in little cases looking like oversized lipsticks, each with a disturbing surprise inside. These are all cast from real people, ranging from the small thumb of a child to a monster that, should it have started a war with mine, I would surrender unconditionally.

Next door is a collection of ears, not only rendered in extreme detail but with different materials simulating a variety of rigidities. Some people have soft ears, you know. And next door to those is a variety of noses, eyes, and temples, each representing a different facial structure or interpupillary distance.

This menagerie of parts represents not just a continuum of sizes but a variety of backgrounds and ages. All of them come into play when creating and testing a new piece of hardware.

“We want to make sure that we have a diverse population we can draw on when we develop our products,” said Adams. When you distribute globally it is embarrassing to find that some group or another, with wider-set eyes or smaller hands, finds your product difficult to use. Inclusivity is a many-faceted gem, indeed it has as many facets as you are willing to cut. (The Xbox Adaptive Controller, for instance, is a new and welcome one.)

In one corner stands an enormous pod that looks like Darth Vader should emerge from it. This chamber, equipped with 36 DSLR cameras, produces an unforgivingly exact reproduction of one’s head. I didn’t do it myself, but many on the team had; in fact, one eyes-and-nose combo belonged to Adams. The fellow you see pictured there also works in the lab; that was the first such 3D portrait they took with the rig.

With this they can quickly and easily scan in dozens or hundreds of heads, collecting metrics on all manner of physiognomical features and creating an enviable database of both average and outlier heads. My head is big, if you want to know, and my hand was on the upper range too. But well within a couple standard deviations.

So much for static study — getting reads on the landscape of humanity, as it were. Anthropometry, they call it. But there are dynamic elements as well, some of which they collect in the lab, some elsewhere.

“When we’re evaluating keyboards, we have people come into the lab. We try to put them in the most neutral position possible,” explained Adams.

It should be explained that by neutral, she means specifically with regard to the neutral positions of the joints in the body, which have certain minima and maxima it is well to observe. How can you get a good read on how easy it is to type on a given keyboard if the chair and desk the tester is sitting at are uncomfortable?

Here as elsewhere the team strives to collect both objective data and subjective data; people will say they think a keyboard, or mouse, or headset is too this or too that, but not knowing the jargon they can’t get more specific. By listening to subjective evaluations and simultaneously looking at objective measurements, you can align the two and discover practical measures to take.

One such objective measure involved motion capture beads attached to the hand while an electromyographic bracelet tracks the activation of muscles in the arm. Imagine if you will a person whose typing appears normal and of uniform speed — but in reality they are putting more force on their middle fingers than the others because of the shape of the keys or rest. They might not be able to tell you they’re doing so, though it will lead to uneven hand fatigue, but this combo of tools could reveal the fact.

“We also look at a range of locations,” added Huang. “Typing on a couch is very different from typing on a desk.”

One case, such as a wireless Surface keyboard, might require more of what Huang called “lapability,” (sp?) while the other perhaps needs to accommodate a different posture and can abandon lapability altogether.

A final measurement technique that is quite new to my knowledge involves a pair of high-resolution, high-speed black and white cameras that can be focused narrowly on a region of the body. They’re on the right, below, with colors and arrows representing motion vectors.

A display showing various anthropometric measurements.

These produce a very detailed depth map by closely tracking the features of the skin; one little patch might move further than the other when a person puts on a headset, suggesting it’s stretching the skin on the temple more than it is on the forehead. The team said they can see movements as small as ten microns, or micrometers (therefore you see that my headline was only light hyperbole).

You might be thinking that this is overkill. And in a way it most certainly is. But it is also true that by looking closer they can make the small changes that cause a keyboard to be comfortable for five hours rather than four, or to reduce error rates or wrist pain by noticeable amounts — features you can’t really even put on the box, but which make a difference in the long run. The returns may diminish, but we’re not so far along the asymptote approaching perfection that there’s no point to making further improvements.

The quietest place in the world

Down the hall from the Human Factors lab is the quietest place in the world. That’s not a colloquial exaggeration — the main anechoic chamber in Building 87 at Microsoft is in the record books as the quietest place on Earth, with an official ambient noise rating of negative 20.3 decibels.

You enter the room through a series of heavy doors and the quietness, though a void, feels like a physical medium that you pass into. And so it is, in fact — a near-total lack of vibrations in the air that feels as solid as the nested concrete boxes inside which the chamber rests.

I’ve been in here a couple times before, and Hundraj Gopal, the jovial and highly expert proprietor of quietude here, skips the usual tales of Guinness coming to test it and so on. Instead we talk about the value of sound to the consumer, though they may not even realize they do value it.

Naturally if you’re going to make a keyboard, you’re going to want to control how it sounds. But this is a surprisingly complex process, especially if, like the team at Microsoft, you’re really going to town on the details.

The sounds of consumer products are very deliberately designed, they explained. The sound your car door makes when it shuts gives a sense of security — being sealed in when you’re entering, and being securely shut out when you’re leaving it. It’s the same for a laptop — you don’t want to hear a clank when you close it, or a scraping noise when you open it. These are the kinds of things that set apart “premium” devices (and cars, and controllers, and furniture, etc) and they do not come about by accident.

Keyboards are no exception. And part of designing the sound is understanding that there’s more to it than loudness or even tone. Some sounds just sound louder, though they may not register as high in decibels. And some sounds are just more annoying, though they might be quiet. The study and understanding of this is what’s known as psychoacoustics.

There are known patterns to pursue, certain combinations of sounds that are near-universally liked or disliked, but you can’t rely on that kind of thing when you’re, say, building a new keyboard from the ground up. And obviously when you create a new machine like the Surface and its family they need new keyboards, not something off the shelf. So this is a process that has to be done from scratch over and over.

As part of designing the keyboard — and keep in mind, this is in tandem with the human factors mentioned above and the rapid prototyping we’ll touch on below — the device has to come into the anechoic chamber and have a variety of tests performed.

A standard head model used to simulate how humans might hear certain sounds. The team gave it a bit of a makeover.

These tests can be painstakingly objective, like a robotic arm pressing each key one by one while a high-end microphone records the sound in perfect fidelity and analysts pore over the spectrogram. But they can also be highly subjective: They bring in trained listeners — “golden ears” — to give their expert opinions, but also have the “gen pop” everyday users try the keyboards while experiencing calibrated ambient noise recorded in coffee shops and offices. One click sound may be lost in the broad-spectrum hubbub in a crowded cafe but annoying when it’s across the desk from you.

This feedback goes both directions, to human factors and prototyping, and they iterate and bring it back for more. This progresses sometimes through multiple phases of hardware, such as the keyswitch assembly alone; the keys built into their metal enclosure; the keys in the final near-shipping product before they finalize the keytop material, and so on.

Indeed, it seems like the process really could go on forever if someone didn’t stop them from refining the design further.

“It’s amazing that we ever ship a product,” quipped Adams. They can probably thank the Advanced Prototype Center for that.

Rapid turnaround is fair play

If you’re going to be obsessive about the details of the devices you’re designing, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have to send off a CAD file to some factory somewhere, wait a few days for it to come back, then inspect for quality, send a revised file, and so on. So Microsoft (and of course other hardware makers of any size) now use rapid prototyping to turn designs around in hours rather than days or weeks.

This wasn’t always possible even with the best equipment. 3D printing has come a long way over the last decade, and continues to advance, but not long ago there was a huge difference between a printed prototype and the hardware that a user would actually hold.

Multi-axis CNC mills have been around for longer, but they’re slower and more difficult to operate. And subtractive manufacturing (i.e. taking a block and whittling it down to a mouse) is inefficient and has certain limitations as far as the structures it can create.

Of course you could carve it yourself out of wood or soap, but that’s a bit old-fashioned.

So when Building 87 was redesigned from the ground up some years back, it was loaded with the latest and greatest of both additive and subtractive rapid manufacturing methods, and the state of the art has been continually rolling through ever since. Even as I passed through they were installing some new machines (desk-sized things that had slots for both extrusion materials and ordinary printer ink cartridges, a fact that for some reason I found hilarious).

The additive machines are in constant use as designers and engineers propose new device shapes and styles that sound great in theory but must be tested in person. Having a bunch of these things, each able to produce multiple items per print, lets you for instance test out a thumb scoop on a mouse with 16 slightly different widths. Maybe you take those over to Human Factors and see which can be eliminated for over-stressing a joint, then compare comfort on the surviving 6 and move on to a new iteration. That could all take place over a day or two.

Ever wonder what an Xbox controller feels like to a child? Just print a giant one in the lab.

Softer materials have become increasingly important as designers have found that they can be integrated into products from the start. For instance, a wrist wrest for a new keyboard might have foam padding built in.

But how much foam is too much, or too little? As with the 3D printers, flat materials like foam and cloth can be customized and systematically tested as well. Using a machine called a skiver, foam can be split into thicknesses only half a millimeter apart. It doesn’t sound like much — and it isn’t — but when you’re creating an object that will be handled for hours at a time by the sensitive hands of humans, the difference can be subtle but substantial.

For more heavy-duty prototyping of things that need to be made out of metal — hinges, laptop frames, and so on — there is bank after bank of 5-axis CNC machines, lathes, and more exotic tools, like a system that performs extremely precise cuts using a charged wire.

The engineers operating these things work collaboratively the designers and researchers, and it was important to the people I talked to that this wasn’t a “here, print this” situation. A true collaboration has input from both sides, and that is what seems to be happening here. Someone inspecting a 3D model for printability before popping it into the 5-axis might say to the designer, you know, these pieces could fit together more closely if we did so-and-so, and it would actually add strength to the assembly. (Can you tell I’m not an engineer?) Making stuff, and making stuff better, is a passion among the crew and that’s a fundamentally creative drive.

Making fresh hells for keyboards

If any keyboard has dominated the headlines for the last year or so, it’s been Apple’s ill-fated butterfly switch keyboard on the latest MacBook Pros. While being in my opinion quite unpleasant to type on, they appeared to fail at an astonishing rate judging by the proportion of users I saw personally reporting problems, and are quite expensive to replace. How, I wondered, did a company with Apple’s design resources create such a dog?

Here’s a piece of hardware you won’t break any time soon.

I mentioned the subject to the group towards the end of the tour but, predictably and understandably, it wasn’t really something they wanted to talk about. But a short time later I spoke with one of the people in charge of Microsoft’s reliability managers. They too demurred on the topic of Apple’s failures, opting instead to describe at length the measures Microsoft takes to ensure that their own keyboards don’t suffer a similar fate.

The philosophy is essentially to simulate everything about the expected 3-5 year life of the keyboard. I’ve seen the “torture chambers” where devices are beaten on by robots (I’ve seen these personally, years ago — they’re brutal), but there’s more to it than that. Keyboards are everyday objects, and they face everyday threats; so that’s what the team tests, with things falling into three general categories:

Environmental: This includes cycling the temperature from very low to very high, exposing the keyboard to dust and UV. This differs for each product, since some will obviously be used outside more than others. Does it break? Does it discolor? Where does the dust go?

Mechanical: Every keyboard undergoes key tests to make sure that keys can withstand however many million presses without failing. But that’s not the only thing that keyboards undergo. They get dropped and things get dropped on them, of course, or left upside-down, or have their keys pressed and held at weird angles. All these things are tested, and when a keyboard fails because of a test they don’t have, they add it.

Chemical. I found this very interesting. The team now has more than 30 chemicals that it exposes its hardware to, including: lotion, Coke, coffee, chips, mustard, ketchup, and Clorox. The team is constantly adding to the list as new chemicals enter frequent usage or new markets open up. Hospitals, for instance, need to test a variety of harsh disinfectants that an ordinary home wouldn’t have. (Note: Burt’s Bees is apparently bad news for keyboards.)

Testing is ongoing, with new batches being evaluated continuously as time allows.

To be honest it’s hard to imagine that Apple’s disappointing keyboard actually underwent this kind of testing, or if it did, that it was modified to survive it. The number and severity of problems I’ve heard of with them suggest the “feats of engineering heroics” of which Adams spoke, but directed singlemindedly in the direction of compactness. Perhaps more torture chambers are required at Apple HQ.

7 factors and the unfactorable

All the above are more tools for executing a design and not or creating one to begin with. That’s a whole other kettle of fish, and one not so easily described.

Adams told me: “When computers were on every desk the same way, it was okay to only have one or two kinds of keyboard. But now that there are so many kinds of computing, it’s okay to have a choice. What kind of work do you do? Where do you do it? I mean, what do we all type on now? Phones. So it’s entirely context dependent.”

Is this the right curve? Or should it be six millimeters higher? Let’s try both.

Yet even in the great variety of all possible keyboards there are metrics that must be considered if that keyboard is to succeed in its role. The team boiled it down to seven critical points:

Key travel: How far a key goes until it bottoms out. Neither shallow nor deep is necessarily good, but serve different purposes.

Key spacing: Distance between the center of one key and the next. How far can you differ from “full-size” before it becomes uncomfortable?

Key pitch: On many keyboards the keys do not all “face” the same direction, but are subtly pointed towards the home row, because that’s the direction your fingers hit them from. How much is too much? How little is too little?

Key dish: The shape of the keytop limits your fingers’ motion, captures them when they travel or return, and provides a comfortable home — if it’s done right.

Key texture: Too slick and fingers will slide off. Too rough and it’ll be uncomfortable. Can it be fabric? Textured plastic? Metal?

Key Sound: As described above the sound indicates a number of things and has to be carefully engineered.

Force to fire: How much actual force does it take to drive a given key to its actuation point? Keep in mind this can and perhaps should differ from key to key.

In addition to these core concepts there are many secondary ones that pop up for consideration: Wobble, or the amount a key moves laterally (yes, this is deliberate), snap ratio, involving the feedback from actuation. Drop angle, off-axis actuation, key gap for chiclet boards… and of course the inevitable switch debate.

Keyboard switches, the actual mechanism under the key, have become a major sub-industry as many companies started making their own at the expiration of a few important patents. Hence there’s been a proliferation of new key switches with a variety of aspects, especially on the mechanical side. Microsoft does make mechanical keyboards, and scissor-switch keyboards, and membrane as well, and perhaps even some more exotic ones (though the original touch-sensitive Surface cover keyboard was a bit of a flop).

“When we look at switches, whether it’s for a mouse, QWERTY, or other keys, we think about what they’re for,” said Adams. “We’re not going to say we’re scissor switch all the time or something — we have all kinds. It’s about durability, reliability, cost, supply, and so on. And the sound and tactile experience is so important.”

As for the shape itself, there is generally the divided Natural style, the flat full style, and the flat chiclet style. But with design trends, new materials, new devices, and changes to people and desk styles (you better believe a standing desk needs a different keyboard than a sitting one), it’s a new challenge every time.

They collected a menagerie of keyboards and prototypes in various stages of experimentation. Some were obviously never meant for real use — one had the keys pitched so far that it was like a little cave for the home row. Another was an experiment in how much a design could be shrunk until it was no longer usable. A handful showed different curves a la Natural — which is the right one? Although you can theorize, the only way to be sure is to lay hands on it. So tell rapid prototyping to make variants 1-10, then send them over to Human Factors and text the stress and posture resulting from each one.

“Sure, we know the gable slope should be between 10-15 degrees and blah blah blah,” said Adams, who is actually on the patent for the original Natural Keyboard, and so is about as familiar as you can get with the design. “But what else? What is it we’re trying to do, and how are we achieving that through engineering? It’s super fun bringing all we know about the human body and bringing that into the industrial design.”

Although the comparison is rather grandiose, I was reminded of an orchestra — but not in full swing. Rather, in the minutes before a symphony begins, and all the players are tuning their instruments. It’s a cacophony in a way, but they are all tuning towards a certain key, and the din gradually makes its way to a pleasant sort of hum. So it is that a group of specialists all tending their sciences and creeping towards greater precision seem to cohere a product out of the ether that is human-centric in all its parts.

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How Microsoft turns an obsession with detail into micron-optimized keyboards Nestled among the many indistinguishable buildings of Microsoft’s Redmond campus, a multi-disciplinary team sharing an attention to detail that borders on fanatical is designing a keyboard… again and again and again.