#I think my brain is dead from trying to edit errors :')

[lootsofathousandsworld]

Life of  a Pirate Chpt 5

Here’s a new chapter for you all. *Falls on ground.* 

Hope you like it and sorry if grammer is wonky. 

Preview: https://at.tumblr.com/lootsofathousandsworld/life-of-a-pirate-chapt-4/7yyz0xb47e3i

I manage to get some dishes off the sink without gagging. It was because some of these plates still had some unknown go, and I dared not think about what it was. Not wanting to get my stomach turned.

I put the bucket in the sink and reached my hand for the faucet. But realizing seconds later my hand couldn't find one. I blinked in confusion and saw this sink didn't have any faucets for me to turn on the water.

"What?" I leaned over the sink to look for anything to start the water, but there was nothing to turn on. Then I caught a glimpse of rope close to the sink. I hummed and looked at it for a second. Believing this will give me some, I reached over and was about to pull it.

"NO! DON'T PULL THAT!" I yelped in startle and B.E.N came zooming in out of nowhere and stops right in front of me. While I was getting my heart to beat normally, the robot touched the rope and points up where it leads to.

"This is the food bell." He explained. "It's where one of us rings the bell when food is ready." I took a glance up and saw one silver bell attached to it.

"Oh," That's all I can say, and B.E.N. gives me a sheepish smile.

"Sorry to scare you. I didn't want you to deal with men coming crashing in. They're pretty aggressive whenever a meal is ready."

"It's alright," I replied but asked." But if that's the food call, where I can get water?"

"Oh, it's right over there." He casually points toward a few barrels in the corner. Noticing the water was there the whole time, I can't help to let out a huff and pull my bucket out from the sink.

"Getting all that dirty dishes out was such a waste," I grumbled while setting down the bucket and grab many dirty dishes as I could to put them back in.

"Hey let me help," I saw B.E.N get on his knees, grab some dishes, and begin talking, "I'm really sorry about the mess here. I was supposed to get them clean. But Captain Flint wants me to be at his side all the time."

"And why he wants you at his side?" I asked. I sort of knew the reason why due to reading his character description, as he was paranoid about one of his men deciding to take B.E.N away. To either kill him or sell him on the black market for tons of money.

But I want to see his point of view on this. Since he had been living on his ship for who knows how long. Maybe it was something else that wasn't brought up in Flint's description. I saw him only shrug and answered.

"I don't know. Maybe he's protecting me from his men? He tells me how when he's not around the crew will do something to me. And he's not there to save me,"

Definitely paranoid, I suggest, almost rolling my eyes. As we both get the rest dirty dishes back in the sink. I took the empty bucket and make my way toward the barrels.

"Try on the left," B.E.N. called. "Its has half full in it."

" Um, thanks," I said. I turned on the faucet that was on the barrel and fill the bucket with water.

"And the soap is right here!" I gasped when he proudly handed me a bar of soap on my palm. "Just don't use it all."

"I know," I replied. The old crabass turtle informed me."

"Oh good!" B.E.N smiled.

"Still though, he never told me where the water is,"

"Oh?" B.E.N added.

"Yep," I snorted and mimicked while adding a little soap to my bucket. "Just get down there and fill it up blah blah blah,"

The robot almost snickers at my Bone's impression and puts his arm around me. "Aw once you get the hang of living here, things won't be that bad,"

"Won't be that bad?" I glance at him oddly. He uses his other hand to rub his back neck after he saw my puzzled look.

"Well, won't be that bad is not the right term for living here huh?"

"Even when you are living with the scariest pirate for life," I said. But after my replying, I was surprised he just shrugged it off.

"Sure he can be. But I promise once you get to know him, he's not a monster as you may think." Not sure if his words are just him being Stockholm syndrome since he has been living with him for so long.

Still, I have a hard time believing it. Reading about how Flint abused him despite acting like a father figure to him. I'm just secretly surprised he kept B.E.N alive until upon his death he took his memory away. He could've just murdered him after B.E.N had done helping him set up his booby trap.

I just shook my head and pick my water bucket up. "Sure I'll keep that in mind." I got up as he did the same. " But when the bargain is done, I'm going home,"

"Home?" He blinks but then soon understands it was part of the parlay, and his face turns disappointed.

"Oh."

With that face he made, I felt guilty for leaving him. But if I take him now, the treasure planet timeline will mess everything up with him not meeting Jim and starting a good new life from there.

But then he asks this question that made me lose my breath.

"Where are you from?"

I bite my lips on what to fib and then answer with one planet I can think of. "Its...Montressor. It's where I came from,"

"Oh, Montressor!" B.E.N's facial beamed, clasping his hands together. "I hear so much about it! Wonderful planet despite its only for mining. And of course, I knew you might be from there. Mostly terrians are born from there am I right?"

He winked at me and I quickly made my more fibbing answer.

"Yes of course! You got that one right," I winked back at him, smiling despite feeling more guilty. Then B.E.N. gets all excited and speaks fast.

"Oh, I have so many questions about your planet! I want to know everything like does your planet has gems, gold, or silver when you mined. And I'm curious as your queen ever come to visit the planet? I'm sure she had and.."

I grit my teeth in silence when he begins rambling about his curious questions, and I have zero knowledge about that planet. I almost panicked about how am I going to answer all of this after I made a lie. I don't know anything about Montressor besides that it has a spaceport and Benbow inn.

I felt relief when B.E.N starts talking about food his eyes lit up. "Holy Nebula supper! Captain Flint is going to kill me!" Before he dashes, he turns to me.

"We'll talk later! See you soon new friend!"

New friend? His words stabbed me with much more guilt to see he fully trusted me. I forced myself to smile and made a little wave.

"Yeah! I'll see you soon. Thanks for your help," He gives me a thumbs up and hurries to the stove to prepare Flint's cooking. With that, I made my way to the deck to start mopping as my heart was still sinking on B.E.N seeing me as a new friend.

I muttered to myself. "B.E.N, I hope you can forgive me when you find out the truth."

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

After a few hours of mopping the deck, I hear the food bell ringing. I let out a huge sigh of relief due I was already tired with sweats running down my forehead. Not to mention my arms and back were sore.

I saw all men charging toward the gallery like hungry hippos and I followed behind so I won't get stampeded on. Soon I was in line to get my food.

About a few minutes later, it was my turn to grab mine. A large alien with a weird squidlike shape face handed me a bowl with soup in it. I winched when I saw it was bubbly and had some strange meat in them.

He notices my facial he grunts. "What?"

"What kind of meat is in this?" I asked. The tentacle alien face looks down at my soup.

"I don't really know,"

"You don't know?" I gulped.

He snorted. "It could be from orcus galacticus or something. Now move along ye holding the line!" One of the men behind me give me a nudge and I grunted, moving aside for him to pass.

I let out a sharp sigh and walked to the other side to find a table to sit at. I spotted one empty in a corner which was perfect since the table was a bit away from the crew. I sat down with my soup and glanced down at it.

Using the spoon, I scooped a few chunks of meat and brought it close to my face. The smell itself wasn't too bad, but the taste however would be different.

I lick my lips nervously. "Well, like Simba says, hakuna matata," I slup my soup and chew it. After a few seconds, I swallow it and hums.

"Hey, it's not bad. Short of tastes like steak."

While I was eating my soup, I overheard a few pirates speaking and in corner of my eye, some were looking at me. I looked down to avoid their contact and try to enjoy my soup. But then I overheard someone muttering. I looked over my shoulder and saw a bird-like alien, having blue-green peacock feather hair.

Unlike the other pirates, he looks clean with small spectacle glasses on his beak. Like he'd just come from a wealthy home, having a bit snob look on his face. He was writing something down on his notes beside his bowl while eating. I blinked and couldn't help to wonder what he was writing. All of a sudden he stopped his writing.

I swallowed when he perks up as if he sense he was being watched. He turns over to me and I quickly glance away. I breathed and scooped some more meat to finish eating.

"You know it's rude to stare at people,"

I almost choked my food in startle when I heard a person speaking. I coughed and find the person who spoke. It was the same bird alien. He tsks while I use my sleeves to wipe my saliva mix soup off my chin.

"Careful about how much you put food in your mouth unless you want your trachea to open in the wrong lane.

"Well if you haven't... frighten me, it won't go down the wrong tube," I manage to speak. The bird alien watches me still coughing and walks over to grab a cup of water which was beside his bowl.

'Here drink this, it'll soothe your throat." I grab his cup and drink a little. I sighed a second later, putting the cup down after my cough went away.

"Thanks,"

"So you are new to the crew yes?" He sat down in front of me and put his hands together.

I shrugged and kept on eating my soup. "Not really. Once the merchant ship, the Captain made a promise to release me."

"Release you?" He made a laugh. "Don't get your hopes up,"

"What do you mean?" I frowned at him after swallowing my food. He looks at me seriously and leans toward me.

"You are on a ship where many of us double-crossed one another." He spoke lowly. I suggest you be careful about who you are dealing with."

I felt my stomach turn when he says those words. There is no way their Captain will do that. We shook on it.

"But, the Captain and I made a paraly. That is one of the codes," I said.

"And some codes can be broken miss," He replied. "And this Captain you dealt with can be the one you will regret." I was silent as he gets up from his seat. Before he leaves for his table he turns to me.

"By the way, names Nicolas D. Allyrdace in case you wish to talk to me again." As he left, I looked down at my soup. Now losing my appetite for worrying about that bargain.

I huffed and scooted the bowl away. I'm not letting his words get to me. I was determined to be free and find a way to fix my wish no matter what.

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

Third's person POV

Meanwhile, inside the cabin, B.E.N was on the other side of the room. Sitting on his chair, he was looking through his compass disc. He gulped at how his captain is in a bad mood right now. Due to there being no merchant ships to raid for the evening.

Flint was studying his sphere map while calculating the distance of his other map on his desk that contain the whole Etherium universe. Trying to make him in a better mood, he spoke out.

"Don't worry Captain! I'm sure tomorrow will be the best day to plunder,"

Flint grumbled and snatches his rum bottle beside him. "It better be," The robot gulped at his tone and watched him drink his bottle down.

"Y-you shouldn't drink that much. Remember what Nic said?"

"I know!" Flint barked. "I'm aware of my drink, I don't need a reminder," B.E.N shrinks down from his yell. The whole cabin was quiet for a moment until Flint clears his throat.

'Have you spoken to our new crew member?"

"Oh yes! Yes sir," B.E.N replied.

"And how is she?" He added.

The robot almost smiles. "She sounds wonderful! Even though I think she could be homesick." Flint raises one of his eyebrows.

"Homesick you say?"

"Yep," B.E.N nodded. "I didn't know this paraly you and her made was the key for her to go home."

"Hm how interesting," Flint hummed while playing with his half-empty bottle of rum. And then asks this question.

"Had she said why she wants to go home?"

"Well, I think she's scared of staying here sir. Which I understand why since being on your ship is scary," Then B.E.N looks down sadly. "Still though, I'm going to miss her when she leaves,"

Flint almost smirked when he saw his robot looking gloomy. For him, it was the perfect way to have this woman stay longer. He pretends to act in sympathy for him.

"Aww don't worry B.E.N. She won't be leaving anytime soon."

"Really?"

"Sure," Flint replied. "If you try convincing her how my ship is not that scary she might change her mind. Calling her parlay off,"

"Oh maybe I can," His robot grinned. "I can show her being on a ship won't be that bad, after my experience of course." He points to himself proudly.

And then spread his arms out excitedly. "And we're going to be best friends in the whole galaxy,"

"Ah, I'm sure you both will," Flint chuckled darkly. His plan was coming along good than he expected. Tomorrow he might be able to find out her secret sooner. And whatever the secret she is keeping, he will make sure to make her spill it all out.

[hyperfixiation-station]

Choice, Choices, Choices Pt. 2

TW: Swearing, canon typical violence

Pairing: Reader x Graves Summary: Well your week off wasn't very productive, hopefully a really stressful, fate-of-the-world-is-in-your-hands mission will help clear your brain. As usual, I didn't beta read, so lmk if there are an errors :) Also sorry for the reupload, I accidentally deleted it whilst trying to edit something lmaooo.

When Price said a lot, he meant a lot. 

In the time you had been gone, a new terrorist threat had popped up, a man named Hassan who somehow had gotten ahold of American missiles. You didn’t even have time to unpack before Price was shipping you off to Mexico to help Soap and Ghost infiltrate a cartel to find the location of said missing missiles. It seems the talk with Graves will have to wait.

You get no rest on the flight to Mexico. Instead you spend the entire time focusing on your and Grave’s relationship. Maybe it’s the threat of imminent annihilation, or maybe it’s the fact that you are going to be seeing him soon, but whatever it is, you were thinking more clearly than you have all week. 

Graves was a man of authority, and you had recognized it from the moment you had met him. He took what he wanted, when he wanted, and made sure everyone knew he was the top dog. In your relationship he always had the last say, always chose the restaurant, always chose the movie. And for the most part, you didn’t mind, enjoying the feeling of not having to be in control for once when all you did all day long was make choices that could mean life or death. 

He had this belief that he could do no wrong, and was smug and uptight and sometimes even cruel about it. 

And yet there was something…alluring about him. Some magnetic charm that drew you in every time you wanted to take a step back. He didn’t even have to try, hell, he had stopped putting effort into the relationship years ago, and yet you still found him almost irresistible. 

You weren’t stupid, you knew what there were issues in the way your relationship worked, but you loved him, and he…loved you too. It wasn’t until Ghost stepped fully into the picture that you realized that may-

“Y/N!” You flinch, your eyes coming up to meet your pilots as his voice snaps you out of your musings.  

“You okay in there? I’ve been yelling at you for at least a minute.” He says over the headset, “Anyways we’re about to land, so get ready.” You nod, shouldering your pack and making sure your vest is strapped correctly. 

5 minutes later, the helo begins its choppy descent. The second it touches down you are ushered off, ducking under the blades in an odd crab run as you make your way to where Soap, Ghost, and 2 strangers stand to the side. The pilot takes off before you've even cleared the LZ. 

“Good ta’ see yer no’ dead lassie.” Soap grin, clasping your shoulder, “Ah trust Price has briefed ye?” 

“Aye.” You nod, “Though he didn’t mention these two. Who are they?”

“These are th’ Los Vaqueros.” Soap says giddy, “Means th’ cowboys” 

“My name is Alejandro.” The taller one on the left tells you.

“Mine’s Rodolfo, tho y’ can call me Rudy.” The one on the right says moments later.

“Nice to meet you.” You incline your head, avoiding Ghost’s searching gaze, “I take it you’re the ones leading us through this, uh…whatever we’re about to do?” 

“Aye.” Alejandro turns and begins walking, everyone else falling in line behind him, “Soap here is infiltrating Las Almas, we are looking for El Sin Nombre. We believe he knows the location of the missiles Hassan has stolen.” 

You climb into the back of a truck, consciously avoiding sitting next to Ghost. The drive is tense, the silence only occasionally broken by questions from Alejandro and Soap. The truck comes to a stop, and you all pile out, getting Soap outfitted for his ‘Day in the life of a cartel member’ extravaganza. 

“Y/n!” You spin around, seeing Graves walking towards you, “How was your week off?” 

“It was good. Did a lot of…thinking.” 

“Wonderful.” He says, his eyes already looking past you. He presses a quick kiss to your cheek and moves past, going to speak with his Shadows. You sigh internally, moving over to Soap and Ghost. 

“How wis yer week off?” Soap asks as a Shadow helps fit his comms. He’s grinning, his blue eyes almost glowing in the dark, but you can see the faint lines of fear in his expression.

“It was since. Did a lot of thinking, I guess.” Ghost shifts, a subtle movement you notice out of the corner of your eye. Your face flushes, and you’re grateful it’s dark out so he can’t see. 

“Let's roll!” Alejandro calls. Soap nods, and you follow him and Ghost back to the truck. This drive is tense for a whole other reason, everyone thinking about all the ways this could go wrong. 

You get to the compound, and take your spot on a ridge with Ghost. No words are exchanged, but you know him well enough by now to tell he is worried about you. If Soap’s life, and the lives of millions of Americans, weren’t at risk, you would be grateful for this mission delaying the inevitable conversation you have to have. 

You both get into position, sniper rifles trained on the building. You wince as Soap is manhandled, a deep pit of fear in your stomach once he disappears from your view.

 Now all that's left is to sit and wait. 

He emerges victorious, much to yours and Ghost’s relief. He brings with him El Sin Nombre, who apparently is actually a woman, and an old friend of Alejandros. You could see yourself liking her, if she hadn’t sold missiles to terrorists.

She is feisty, smart, and cunning. She keeps her mouth shut, refusing to volunteer the location of the 2nd missile, instead goading Alejandro into a frenzy. You watch, eyes narrowed in distaste, as Graves tries to make a deal with her. Not for the first time, you judge his ability to make decisions. 

But she does give you all the missile location. In what feels like a matter of moments, you find yourself on a boat, heading through stormy waves towards an oil rig off the Gulf of Mexico. Grave’s Shadows launch an attack, only for Ghost to find that the missile not only has entered pre-launch phase, but wasn’t even on the oil rig to begin with. Instead, you find it on the deck of a ship, primed and ready to fire. You, Graves, Soap, and Ghost file onto the cargo ship, where you find that there is no way to disarm the missile. 

Your heart sinks, until Shepard has the great idea to turn the missile on the oil rig. Alejadro and the Shadow Company clear out, and Soap hacks in and resets the missile's trajectory. The burning ball of flame is a beautiful sight to see, in your opinion. 

“Gold Eagle Actual, Shadow-1. Good hit. Good hit. Missile and rig destroyed.” Graves crows,  a grin lighting up his face. He grasps Soaps shoulder, and you watch him mouth a quiet Good work, his voice too quiet to hear over the noise of the shadows and everyone celebrating.

Without thinking, you press a kiss to Ghost’s masked cheek, the euphoria of victory clouding your senses. Soap steps in to give Ghost a moment to recover, and gives you a side hug, slapping you on the back a little too hard for your liking. You don’t notice Graves eyes on you, narrowing with your every action. 

The ride back is still tense, the tension between you and Ghost so thick you can almost taste it. Luckily Soap either can’t sense it, or just is just ignoring it, the Scotsman happily chattering away as the sinking feeling in your heart grows and grows. 

The crisis is over, and once you get back you won’t be able to put off your conversation with Graves any longer. 

It’s still raining when you get back to the Los Vaquero’s base. The truck comes to a stop outside the gates, and you slide out of the truck after Ghost, confused and a bit wary. 

“What’s this?” You hear Alejadro’s voice from the other side of the truck. 

“This is the immediate future.” You stop short, Grave’s voice making your blood run cold, “Step away from the gate.” No. There is no way. 

“You’re outta line Graves.” You blink, hard, realizing you had zoned out for a moment. You force your feet to move again, rounding the truck, stiffening as a barrel is pressed into your spine.

“Hey!” Grave’s voice echoes in your ears, “Let her go. She’s with us.” You inhale sharply, looking up at him in shock. Soap looks at you in betrayal, taking half a step towards you before the Shadows are on him as well. 

“Don't do that. Don't... do that. No one needs to get hurt here.” Graves says, eyes narrowed. 

“Are you threatening us?” You can hear the betrayal in his voice as well, though he does his best to hide it. You want to look at him, try and communicate that you have no part in this, but your mind is still reeling, and you’re unable to draw your wide eyes away from Grave’s face. 

“Soldier, I don't make threats. I make guarantees. So, let's not do this.” The animosity in Graves' voice surprises you. 

“I’m calling Shepard.” Soap turns, hand reaching for his radio. 

“General Shepard sends his regards.” Graves' grin is predatory, and you have no doubt he’s enjoying this, “He told me you wouldn’t take this well.” 

“He knows about this?” Ghost’s eyes are dark, his body tense and ready to spring. 

“He's put me in command of this operation from here on out. So, y'all need to stand down. It's time to let the pros finish this.” You watch Graves still, eyes trained on his face, your brain numb with shock. Shock and…disgust. 

“And why the hell are we talking like this is some kind of a negotiation?” Graves continues, “It's not. I've got my orders and now you have yours.” 

“And who the fuck do you think you are, cabron? My men are inside!” 

“I'm afraid not.” Graves pauses, meeting your eyes with a disgusting grin, “Your men have been... detained.”

“Cabron!” For the first time, you manage to tear your eyes away from Graves, your gaze falling on Alejandro as he launches himself towards your boyfriend only to be beaten down and restrained by his Shadows. 

“Graves, what th’ fuck?” Your eyes dart to Soap as he lunges at the Shadow next to him, holding him hostage. You let out a small cry as Graves and his men open fire. You duck behind the truck, watching as Ghost elbows the Shadow behind him before stabbing another one in the neck, quickly ripping the blade back out and hurling it at another Shadow before disappearing into the dark. 

“Get your fucking hands off me!” Your hands fly up to cover your mouth as you watch Graves slam the butt of his gun into Alejandro’s head, dropping him. You stare at Graves in shock, unable to move as your mind tries to process what's happening. 

Soap yells in pain, snapping you from your reverie as you spin to look at him. He’s on the ground, the Shadow he had taken laying dead on top of him. 

“Go, Johnny! Get out of there!” Ghost yells from somewhere behind you “Soap, Go!” You watch as Soap heaves himself up and throws himself over the barrier, disappearing from your view. You slide down the truck, sinking to the ground as your legs give out, your entire body shaking. 

Graves' actions start to sink in, and gods does his betrayal hurt. It’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before, worse than the time you broke your arm, worse than the time you got shot in the thigh, worse than any wound you had ever received. It’s like a physical pain, your heart feeling as though it’s been ripped from your chest. Tears well in your eyes, your fingers digging into your palms in an effort to stop your tears. 

You don’t know how long you sit in the rain, but it’s enough time for you to be completely soaked head to toe. You are surrounded by blood and bodies, and your mind reels as you survey the scene. Alejandro is gone, you’re not sure when he was taken away. Soaps rifle is still laying in the street, a very damming pool of blood underneath and around it. With the amount of blood he lost, you're surprised he's not dead. Oh gods he better not be dead.

“Y/n?” Graves' voice breaks the fog in your brain, “Darling? Are you alright? I know this was...a bit of a surprise…but I’m sure you understand.” 

“Graves…”

To be continued.

Notes: Sorry for how long this took!!! But it's here now! Hopefully Pt. 3 won't take me another thousand years. Anyways I hope you enjoy, and sorry if this is not the direction you wanted it to go :/ Tags: @redhoodxsupergirl @infpt-zylith @scarletdfox

[bundoesnotcompete]

I need this to leave my brain. Reader is a Stellaron Hunter and Gender Neutral as possible. Reader is in their bad guy arc. Violence and likely lore inaccuracies. Also probable slight oocness but i do not think so but a warning just in case. See end for author notes. Edited some errors

Elio watched as the Stellaron Hunters left with their scripts for the Zakryn system. It was one of the few places where all hunters would meet in this script. It was also one of the most important scripts for the plan. Halovian wings appeared beside him as the Stellaron Hunter leaned down to look at him.

Elio, in cat form, looked to the hunter. The hunter in front him holding unimaginable power and potential. If all went well, a piece of power would be restored. The hunter tilted their head, Elio knew the question.

"You are to go to the Zakryn system with everyone else. You are to make your own script, with the exception of playing along with the others, as I said before." Elio stated, watching as the hunter's head wings fluttered slightly in response. "All i ask is that you be careful and try not to cause too many problems for the IPC. Once the scripts have been run through for this system, I do not care what you do to them. I already know your answer anyway." The Halovian smiled at the added orders, pleased about what they could do when the script ended. "Go, time will not wait and the Astral Express is already on their way to this system. Go meet the other half." Nodding, the Halovian left the office, only turning back to wave goodbye to Elio.

Yes, Elio thought, with the power Saturday will aquire, they will be one step closer to regaining aeonhood. Soon, the aeon of origin shall return and set all things right.

---------

When you had gotten truck-kuned into one your favorite video games you had not expected to wake up on a dead planet. One you appreantly killed when your spirit was Isekai'd into Honkai Star Rail. Then the IPC showed up, and things only went south from there. They seriously wanted you dead after finding out you had accidently killed the planet. They especially wanted you gone after turning one of them into a Herrscher. Sweet heavens, you didn't know you could throw up so much until the Herrscher had slaughtered everyone before exploding from their own power, your power.

The silence afterwards had nearly driven you insane until you had found a stream nearby that was somewhat clean. The shock of finding out you were Halovian had given you a panic attack. Well, maybe that was you questioning everything you had been through in the eight or so hours after your isekai.

Thankfully after cleaning yourself up, you were able to quickly find the IPC agents' ships. Of course, you couldn't read a damn word of the ships nor understand any of the buttons. After some expermenting, it turned out it wasn't too complicated to drive and after that you spent nearly twelve hours figuring out how to get to a nearby planet.

Once you got to that planet, things did calm down slightly. Well, that was until you had tripped over a cat not even five minutes away from where you had abandoned your borrowed ship. When you had gone to apologize to the cat and see if you had hurt or, your throat closed up, and it seemed you couldn't speak. It took everything in you to shove that panic attack and crisis down.

Then, surprise surprise, that cat turned out to be none other than Elio himself. The leader of the Stellaron Hunters had been shocked, and you had thought it was because of your reaction. Unknown to you at the time, Elio had been shocked for a diffrent reason. He had sense the intense power coming from you and knew what he was seeing.

This hadn't been part of any script, your reincarnation wasn't supposed to happen anytime soon. Elio had quickly composed himself and shifted to a more human form. A discussion was had, and soon, you were off to join the Stellaron Hunters.

At the time, only Blade and Kafka had been apart of the group. Since you were unable to say anything, including your name, Elio gifted you the name Saturday. He noted your similarities to the Halovian sibilings Robin and Sunday and assumed your were their recently pronounced dead sibiling.

Not that you seemed aware of that, of course. It wasn't long until you had quite the bounty. Between your growing hatred for the IPC and your Honkai powers, many considered you highly dangerous. In fact, the IPC downright hated you which was mutual on your part.

Speaking of Honkai powers, you had guessed that you were some sort of manifestation of The Will of Honkai. Of course, you didn't have the absolute insane powers over it. But, you had figured out that if you poured enough of the Honaki energy into someone, they would turn into a sort of makeshift Herrscher. The expiration date for you victim often depended on the victim themselves.

If you felt that they were too dangerous, you could simpily take the energy back early and terminate them early. Oh boy, you had thought when you had first began experimenting with your powers, if you ever meet Welt he was not going to react well to what you were doing.

It hadn't taken long for you to be desensitized to violence and gore. Between getting beat by Blade and Kafka in spars constantly and the experimentation with your powers, you did not have any choice but to be desensitized to it. The first day of your Isekai still haunted you, but even those nightmares began to fade.

Along your journey, you had discovered a new Aeon that hadn't been in lore when you played the game. The Aeons of Origin and Creation. You didn't find much other than theories about how they had been siblings and how they gave their lives to create the universe. Other than theories on their return, not much was found about them. The reminder of sibilings had made you depressed for days afterwards, halovian wings drooping. You missed your friend. You two had been siblings in all but blood.

Those thoughts had been banished within days, Elio distracting you with a script that had been absolute fun to play. So here you were, on your way to the system of Zakryn, ready to cause problems and be a menace to those who deserved it. Maybe you would even help those who couldn't help themselves while you were at it.

----------

Welt watched as the planet Zeven came into view outside the Astral Express's windows. Appreantly, the entire system this planet was in was dealing with intense Stellaron activity and Abundance issues. Himeko had suggested that they land on Zeven since it appeared to be the safest planet. While still dealing with a stellaron and abundance issues, the planet was in a rather stable state compared to the rest. In fact, when the crew had last talk to Jing Yuan, he had said that the Xianzhou Alliance would be helping the planets. With so many planets in the system suffering, the entire Alliance would be arrive in few weeks time at most. While the crew splitting up in two diffrent teams worried Welt slightly, it was nothing compared to his true worry.

This Universe was largely unaffected by the immense amount of Honkai energy that often plagued his own. While there were spots of intense concentration, it was nothing compared to what he was feeling in this system. Was the Honkai energy amplifying the issues in this sytem? He attempted to ignore the ball of dread forming in his stomach.

Looking at the planet of Zeven was only stressing him out more. Taking a deep breath, Welt broke from his thoughts to try and focus on the now. All he could do was be cautious and watch his team, heavens know how much trouble Stelle and March unintentionally get into. The sound of Pom-Pom's voice echoed thoughout the train announcing the arrival to the planet of Honkai and to get ready for landing. Turning away from the window, Welt adjusted his glasses and found a place to wait for March and Stelle to arrive.

Things were going to change for all involved with the system of Zakryn. From simple Citzens to the Stellaron Hunters, this system was the first of many major shifting points in the script and tapestry of fate. The first of the Aeon of Origin's power shard was to return to it's true owner, one way or another.

BEGIN ARC: The World of Nostalgic Greenery

-------

Notes:

In my Honkai Star Rail phase. Don't worry SAGAU and things of the like will be back. Like all other stories this was pumped out in like an hour or two. I tagged characters who have POVs in this story but not mentioned ones. The planet of Zeven had like 5 diffrent names i think i got the names in sync? Think thats all i got for now. Hope you enjoyed.

End notes

[previousloversandmuses]

FREQUENCY: Episode 7 - A Soldier Boy Story

FREQUENCY: A Soldier Boy Story

EPISODE 7: “Dead Man Walking”

WORD COUNT: 6033

PAIRING: Soldier Boy X Reader

WARNINGS: (NSFW) SMUT (spoiler sorry) (finally) P IN V UNPROTECTED SEX (pls use proper birth control in your everyday life) Mentions of suicide, depression, drug & alcohol use. Violence, stalking. Homelander and SB being themselves. Offensive slurs.

A/N: This story is dark, and covers mature themes. The main character, as well as other major characters, are offensive in nature, and may offend some people. Please peruse with caution, and remember that this is fiction. Reader discretion is advised. Please message me for any questions, comments, or concerns.

PLEASE DISREGARD SPELLING ERRORS AND FORMATTING ISSUES SOMEONE BROKE MY COMPUTER AND I HAD TO FINISH WRITING AND UPLOADING THIS ON MY PHONE. I WOLL EDIT THIS WHEN I GET HOME TMRW ON MY DESKTOP BUT I WANTED TO GET IT UP ASAP ILY

Masterlist | Taglist

Sure, he could have ventured downstairs and harassed Vought Security by now, but no. He wanted the satisfaction of guessing this. He wanted to know how well he knew her. He wanted her to know how well he knew her. That he would appear on her doorstep like a knight in shining armor. But right now, he’s convinced he doesn’t know her much at all.

He started with her birthday, which he didn't know, but neither does she-- at least, he didn’t think she did. He’s not sure when his birthday is either, and they were both raised in the lab, so. That makes sense, right? He tried her favorite color, which he thinks may be green? That would make sense? She likes the forest? But it also could be pink because she is a woman after all, and all women love pink. Celebrity crushes? Him, of course, but that doesn't work either. And he thinks he doesn’t have the emotional security to even try another name.

“ILoveJohn…”Johnandme”...“John123”… “john1234” … ”homelander” … ”ilovehomelander”...”green”...”green123”...”password”... “frequency3” … “frequency123”... “freak+john”... “freakandjohn”... “ilovepink” …

She has her real name too, not “Freak”. Her real name, her given name, her birth name-- which he's sure is beautiful and suits her well. He just has no idea what it is. He has scavenged every computer file attached to Vought for years trying to find out even a hint. It has always come up dry. Without a lead. He has brutally assaulted security personnel over it.

“How fucking hard is it to find a fucking name? A registered supe name?” He would scream.

They would stammer, and quiver, and beg for their lives. Saying some Vought files are strictly kept on paper, so they could avoid the possibility of a cyber attack. That, of course, was never good enough for him.

“And you can’t even tell me the location of the fucking file, at least? Are you that fucking incompetent and mentally retarded? How the hell did you idiots even get a goddamn job here?”

Then he would raid storage rooms all round the city. Data centers from here to DC, which contain the most sensitive information. Of course, he’d threaten them too.

The worst part of it all, the only person he’d met that knew her name, was her. And of course, she never, ever told him. She taunted him with it. He begged like a dog salivating over raw meat.

He works at it for a few more hours until he goes for help. He must've just spelled something wrong, or is having some sort of brain fart.

When he enters the security room, the intern from the other day is already there. She had the night shift tonight, he's assuming. Although he hopes she isn’t on the clock as she snores onto the keyboard in front of her.

He clears his throat, looking around awkwardly--which does nothing. He then grabs a pen from next to her, and pokes her with it. Still nothing. He rolls his eyes, then claps so hard her hair flies back in a gust of wind. She jolts awake. Disoriented. She grabs her ears in pain.

“What the fuck?” She cries.

“Move.” Is all he says as he pushes her out of her swivel chair and takes her place. He hands her the computer from over his shoulder like it's a piece of paper. She grabs it reluctantly.

“What is this?” She asks, rubbing the side of her head to self-soothe.

“You have eyes. I need you to unlock it for me.” He mumbles, peeking down at his cuticles.

She inspects the computer, then sets it on the table next to him. She squats down onto her knees so she doesn't have to bend over. Grabbing a cord from the computer, she connects it and then waits for her main system to boot up.

“I need you to move a little, please…Sir.” She grimaces, moving over his shoulder to begin working on unlocking the computer.

He sighs, craning his neck over to the left so she could squeeze in. She begins to type, pulling up some system he doesn't want, or care to know about. She taps her hand impatiently on the mouse until-

“A-ha,” She says smiling, leaning back over to the laptop and typing in the information. “There you go.”

She hands the open laptop back to him. He inspects it with hesitance. Almost nervous to see the contents inside.

“What was it?” He asks, trying to be nonchalant.

“What was what?” She asks, not daring to look him in the eyes.

“The password.” He presses, glaring at her.

“Oh, um,” She pulls at her collar. Was it getting hot in there? “It was uh, fuc….”

He tilts his head towards her in a feigend attempt to understand what the fuck she just said.

“I’m sorry, in fucking english please.”

She swallows the lump in her throat.

“It was, uh, fuckyoujohn…nicetryasshole…” She grimaces.

He nods his head. Right. Of course it was.

---

When a maaa-aan loves a woman

Can't keep his mind on nothin' else

He'd trade the world

For the good thing he's found

The club had gotten significantly more packed as the night went on. The two of them are squished together, her back to his front. He nestles his face into her neck as he sings along to the songs blasting through the speakers. They are both wasted beyond belief. Ama and Asher had bought everyone a round of drinks after the long awaited makeout.

If she is bad, he can't see it

She can do no wrong

And turn his back on his best friend

If he puts her down

This was it. This is everything he needed to feel better. It was like he was floating. Her smell was intoxicating. He had never been this close to her skin before. It radiated a bouquet of roses and vanilla, even through the sweat and cheap liquor. He would never admit it to her, but he thinks he was pining for her since the moment he saw her. Like a mirage. It was one of those moments where the breath is stolen from your lungs. Where you’re taken aback by the sheer intensity of the moment.

When a man loves a woman

Spend his very last dime

And trying to hold on to what he needs

He'd give up all his comforts

And sleep out in the rain

If she said that's the way, it ought to be

When a man loves a woman

He begins to think in his foggy, mashed potato brain, that maybe, just maybe, everything he ever did, everything he ever experienced, was to lead him straight to her. That his time hidden away, chilled to the bone, was the universe crafting her especially for him. Like she was a hot summer day, and he was a piece of ice thawing out on the hot pavement. That he got to spend thirty years in hell to reflect and remember and regret, so he could be ready for her.

I give you everything I've got

Trying to hold on to your precious love

And baby baby please don't treat me bad

When a man loves a woman

Deep down in his soul

But he could just be drunk. Lovesick after what felt like eons of being starved of affection. Maybe he was more drunk off the scent of her than the liquor. He used to be able to hold it much better than this. But as she sways, and sings, and keeps her sweet feet planted on the ground, he can’t help but imagine that this was all he was ever made to do. Gee, when did he become such a sucker?

On the other hand, she definitely doesn’t have the capacity to even think in abbreviations, let alone full, complex, and poetic run on sentences about how they quite possibly had been made for each other. She was so drunk, she almost called him John a few times now. I mean, like father, like son, right?

Ah- there it is. There’s the thing she was so eager to stow away into the deepest parts of her brain the moment she even began to feel an inkling of attraction to this ancient man.

Her hand flies over her mouth- she thinks she’s going to be sick. What a way to ruin a great moment.

She goes stiff in his arms, he doesn’t notice at first until he looks down and sees her clawing at Ama.

Her eyes are wild, nervous. She hates being sick like this. Vomiting was no fun for someone who not only was a germaphobe, but experienced the five senses tenfold. A simple puke in the toilet became something of midevil torture when you considered the sights, the tastes, the smells-

Ugh, why the hell did she take that last shot?

Ama holds onto her shoulders, cocking an eyebrow, visibly confused. That is until she sees just how cartoonishly green she is. Her skin is completely rid of all colors. Her legs giving out on the dance floor.

Ama yanks over one of the other girls from the res and peels Freak out of Ben’s vice grip.

“What the fuck?” He shouts over the music, watching as the two girls float her out of the crowd.

He follows them out, tripping over Amas heels.

“I was in the middle of using that!” He shouts.

Ama pushes Freak and her friend into the bathroom, and whips her head around to him, rolling her eyes.

“Okay, well that can’t hold its liquor and is about to spew chunks all over the place. So I’d recommend going back with Asher.”

“What?” He asks, trying to push past her and into the ladies room. “Is she alright? Let me through.”

“Oh no no no,” she says, stepping in front of him. “You can happily wait out here.”

A club goer leaves from the bathroom, her flaming, flamboyant gay as her accessory. She looks Ben up and down, scoffing.

“Pervert.” She sneers.

Her gay friend, who is wearing more makeup than she is, glares at him even harder. Ben watches them in shock as they go back out onto the dance floor.

“Was that a girl or a guy?” He grimaces.

Ama cocks an eyebrow, scoffing.

“Please go listen to NPR, or put on CNN, I’m begging you. For the good of the world.” And with that she shuts the door in his face.

Ama walks over to the stall Freak is currently knelt in. Their friend holds back her hair as she dry heaves into the toilet.

“J-John-“ she groans incoherently.

Ama and the girl look at each other.

“Who is John?”

She puked again. Coming back up for air, “John- he’s John…”

BLEH

The two girls turn back to freak, cocking their eyebrows.

“Right…John…” Ama says, reaching down to pat her back.

Freak pulls herself away from the toilet, wiping her mouth off, trying to turn around to them.

“No j-john… he- Ben..”

BLEHHH

The girls grimace as she hurls into the toilet again.

“Freak, what about Ben?”

“He’s his dad…”

“Who is who’s dad? What about Ben’s dad?”

Freak grips on to the sides of the stall now, trying to bring herself up to her feet.

“H-homelander,” She grumbles.

Now that’s a name they know. And a name they know that she knows very well.

“Wait, Homelander is Ben’s dad? How would that even work?” Asks the other girl.

Ama glares at her, then turns back to Freak.

“What about Homelander? Does he know you’re here?!” Ama is worried now, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her towards her face.

She looks half asleep. She doesn’t answer, just smacks her lips and feels around for some sort of water source.

“What about Homelander??” Ama cries.

“He-“ She hiccups. “Homelander is Ben’s son.”

Amas eyes widen. She lets go of freaks shoulders and steps back, hitting the door of the stall.

“I forgot- I feel like a pervert.”

Ama rubs her head, “No, no, you’re not a pervert.”

She squats down to get onto freaks level.

“He- I don’t know. This may change things. How angry would Homelander be if he knew you were going to screw his dad?”

Freak smiles, her eyes glossy and heavy. It’s a goofy smile, one that makes Ama grimace. There’s no way this girl had only four drinks.

“Let’s just hope,” she hiccups. “That Ben doesn’t find out I screwed his son.”

And with that she passes out onto the grimy tile floor.

-----

Her computer is exactly what he thought it would be like, organized and hard to maneuver. He didn’t understand her filing system, and he sure as hell wasn't going to ask the intern to figure out any more of her offensive passwords.

As he looked around in the files, he noticed that almost everything had been wiped clean. All the folders were empty, just leaving the titles of what could have possibly resided in them before. Bringing his eyes up to the top of the screen, he sees the history tab. He thinks there is no way she wouldn't have cleared it, but it's at least worth a try. He brings the cursor up, and selects.

Yahtzee.

She cleared everything else but this. Quite possibly the most valuable information of all. Her search history.

He begins to scroll down, taking note of the last visited websites. Wikipedia, and mapquest. He goes for the mapquest link first. It takes him to coordinates that look to be in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York. No buildings for miles. He sighs. Scrolling back up to the top of the screen, he then selects the wikipedia link. The color drains from his face. He looks like he's seen a ghost.

“Soldier Boy”

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

----

A picturesque morning. The birds are chirping. The sun is shining in through the cracked windows. A stream crackles along in the distance. The smell of coffee brings her out of her slumber.

Ah, what a beautiful day.

She sits up slowly, stretching out her sore limbs. Cocking her head to look out the window, she is greeted by sun rays--only then to let out a rough groan, grabbing her head in pain.

Fuck, she thinks. What happened last night.

The memories flood back like a scrapbook. More like images than pieced together scenes. She can see hints of the night, the important parts obviously sticking out like a sore thumb.

She drops her hands into her lap, looking down at her palms with shame. Was that- is that blood? No, no. It’s lipstick. Okay, just lipstick.

Turning her head cautiously, she checks the other side of the bed. It wasn’t undone, so it obviously wasn't slept in. She nods, applauding herself for not doing anything too stupid. Peering down at her body, she notices she’d been dressed in her own pajamas. That’s also a good sign. She knows for a fact if Ben undressed her, he would've just put her into bed stark naked.

From what she can ponder through the ringing in her ears, and the relentless pounding of her head, she doesn’t think she regrets the acts of the night before. She knew the moment she stared into his eyes last night that she had obviously felt something for him the whole time. She wonders if it's the mutual trauma bond. Similar to the one she and John share. John…his son. Bleh, and there is the warranted nausea. She doesn’t even remember how the hell she got home.

Did Ben carry her? Did Ama and the girls drag her down the road by her hair? Judging by the Sinatra playing from the kitchen, there really is only one way to find out.

She stares at the door in deliberation, stretching one last time. Why is her heart racing? Taking a deep breath, she pulls herself out of bed and through her bedroom door.

He sits on the sofa, coffee in one hand, the paper in another. She squints her eyes at him, dumbfounded.

“I’m sorry- are you reading the New York Times?” She gapes, cocking her eyebrow.

He turns back to her, taking a quick intake of breath. He smiles softly, setting his coffee down onto the table in front of him.

“I made coffee too.” He says smiling, like it was some huge feat

She looks around with her eyes, wondering what was so impressive about that. He notices her aloof response and sighs.

“I haven't made coffee in thirty years…and that one has a computer in it.” He crosses his arms.

He refers to the digital screen on the Keurig.

“Ohhhhh,” She says, grasping the importance. “It’s not a computer you idiot.”

“A small celebration for you and an all encompassing victory for me.” His ego was visibly bruised by her indifference.

She smiles at him softly. She thinks something would have been different. That maybe he would have lifted her off her feet when he saw her. Spinning her around and placing hundreds of little kisses all over her face. Enveloping her in their beautiful slow burn love story--unless last night was really just the heat of the moment. I mean, he was the player of the century after all. She looks down at him from her spot in the kitchen, and he meets her with the same eyes he always has. A sharp pain rings out in her chest, her heart sinking down into her stomach.

What a silly little girl, she thinks. A silly little girl to think something like that wouldve really meant something to him. The guy was out of his mind on any substance the facility had to offer last night. Nearly a gallon of liquor, for starters.

She looks down at her feet, then bends down to pick up one of her earrings she assumes fell out during her wrangle inside. She stares at it, turning it over in her hands. Her eyes are bruning. Are they- is she really welling up with fucking tears right now? Because she thinks some prehistoric asshole wouldn’t be willing to give her the time of day? She huffs, turning around and making her way into the bathroom.

“I’m taking a shower.” She calls as she closes the door behind her.

He sits on the couch with a confused expression.

She looks in the mirror. God she looks awful. Her makeup smeared, her eyebags sinking deep into the pits of the socket. Her cheeks hollowing out. She looks grotesque, and gross. Obviously someone who is planning on being gone within the next few weeks.

Right, she forgot about that. The activities with him from the night before distracting her from her imminent demise. A distraction, right. Thats all he is. She doesn’t need to be wasting her time on a man anyway. The future was what was really important. Her end goal being the greatest win of all. The most satisfying feat.

She steps in the shower, letting the warm water cascade down her hair and skin. She cups the water, bringing it up to her face, rinsing off the night before. She sticks her hand out of the shower, grabbing her toothbrush from the counter. She makes quick work of her teeth, also making sure to properly cleanse the impurities from her face and body. She sticks her arm back out to place to toothbrush back on the counter. A hand wraps around hers, grabbing the toothbrush. She jumps in response. How the hell did she not hear him come in there?

He takes the toothbrush and sets it back down on the counter. She rolls her eyes at him.

“A knock would be nic-” And before she can finish her sentence, he rips the shower curtain wide open.

She jumps again, her wet body fully exposed to him.

“Ben-” She begins, going to cover her breasts.

“Don’t,” He says, stepping one foot into the shower, fully clothed. She stammers, objectively confused. He shakes his head, looking down at her figure, and then back to her face, caressing her pretty cheeks. He then leans in. She's reluctant at first, her eyes staying wide open. She still has her body covered. But he takes his arm and wraps it around the small of her back and she's putty in his hands. She melts into his embrace as her eyes flutter closed. His mouth and hers mold together as the kiss becomes heated and sloppy. She can taste the fresh toothpaste from her mouth inside of his. The waster rushing in between them making it hot, wet, and messy. The water is hard, tasting vaguely of minerals. She doesn't care. She pulls back a little, but his mouth follows the flow of her face. She takes in a quick breath, gasping for air.

“Your clothes,” she starts, through broken peppered kisses all over her mouth and face.

“So take them off.” He mumbles like it was obvious.

This was a new one for her.

His clothes are heavy and fully drenched. She goes to lift off his skin tight shirt but struggles. He just reaches up and pulls at the collar, the whole thing ripping in two from the middle.

She looks down at his now exposed torso, brining a delicate hand up to rub up the ridges of his stomach. He looks down at her with gritted teeth. He hadn’t been touched like this in a very, very long time. He thinks he feels his skin burning. He sucks in air into his parted lips. Her mouth is agape, admiring his chiseled torso. She drags her hand up to his chest, her nails digging into his skin. Bens eyes roll back into his head. She’s not sure what to say.

“I,” she starts, chasing the rest of the sentence.

He looks down at her through heavy eyelids, bringing his hand up to her jaw and gripping it tightly. He holds onto her awed expression. Searching her face for any sort of reluctance. He sees nothing, although she is hard to read. Such an intense gleam of bewilderment.

He takes her hand from his chest and moves it down to the front of his pants. He lets out a deep groan. She looks up at him with the innocence of a girl gone untouched for years. She palms him gently, trying to elicit some sort of verbal response again. She enjoys the sounds he’s made. No sex had ever felt this intimate before.

She grips onto him harder, wrapping her nimble fingers up and around the button of his jeans. He watches as her hands make quick work of the top of his pants, beginning to drag them down the length of his legs. She follows them down to the floor of the shower, now ending up on her knees. She stares up at him through her eyelashes, staring directly at his rock solid package, begging to be set free.

He steps out of his pants, she grabs them and throws them out of the shower. They plop into a puddle on the floor. Her reaches down and grabs her chin again, pulling her up to meet his lips. He slips a strong arm behind one of her knees, hiking it up around his waist, never once breaking eye contact. Their lips graze, never touching. He reaches his hand behind her and grips her ass, kneading it like dough. She tilts her head back, letting out a small gasp. He leans into her neck, leaving a trail of nibbles from her clavicle all the way up to under her ear. She writhes under each one, her body struggling to stay upright. He doesn’t mind of course, this was light work for him. She was light as a feather.

He drags his other hand up her chest and around her supple breast. He toys with her nipple, pulling and twisting at it. He watches her pleased face from the crook of her neck. Then moving his mouth down and wrapping his lips on one of her stiff peaks. He sucks on it, nibbling slightly on the top. She watches him from her spot on the tiled wall. Her hand moving up and into his hair, scratching up and down his scalp. She swears he’s moaning more than she is. His eyes have gone white, making a new home in the back of his head.

He pulls back, now hiking both of her legs up and around his waist. He pins her against the tiled wall. Their noses brush, their lips grazing over each other. Her womb aches, begging to be filled. She had never felt this way with John.

“I’m rusty,” he whispers.

“If this is rusty I’m scared to see you well practiced.” She laughs breathlessly.

He smiles into her, kissing her gently.

“How are you feeling?” He asks, genuinely curious.

“Better now,” she coos.

He chuckles, planting a kiss on her cheek. His hands massage her ass, pulling apart the skin. Grazing his fingertips around the spots she so desperately wants him to fill.

“I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression this morning.” He starts.

She rolls her eyes, leaning her head back into the headboard.

“Is now really the time for small talk?” She asks, cocking an eyebrow.

He laughs again, moving one of his hands around to her front. He cups the soft skin of her pulsating heat. Teasing his digits around her swollen bud.

She moans, which in turn, elicits a big goofy smile from him.

“I didn’t realize you wanted me so bad.” He toys.

“I didn’t either,” she starts, arching her back off the wall. She gets in closer to his ear. “If only the V worked the same way on you. The only thing I could smell last night was how much I needed you.”

He groans into her neck, slowly inserting a long, thick finger into her dripping cunt.

“You feel that?” She asks.

“Fuck, do I?” He breathes.

He starts his slow assault on her pussy, rubbing his fingertips up and around inside of her. Massaging his augmented digits around until he can hear himself reaching the right spot. With her long, strung out moan, he can tell he’s gotten there.

From that, he inserts another, and begins to pulsate his hand in even, steady beats. She writhes against the wall, her stomach pushing into his. He kisses at her neck, biting and nipping, sure to leave a mark. All this talk of V has him forgetting how fragile she really was.

He pulls his hand out, and drops her legs. He steadies her as her feet slip around on the wet shower floor. He rips the curtain open. His hard cock standing at attention. Her mouth waters at the sight.

“Eyes up here, sweetheart.” He motions his hand out for her to take.

She looks at it reluctantly, then he leads her into the bedroom.

“I’m soaking wet,” she starts, yelping as he picks her up and tosses her on the bed like a ragdoll.

“Mm, that’s an understatement.” He smirks, crawling up the bed and nestling himself between her thighs.

“What if I told you I need you inside me right now?” She asks, pleading with him to fill her up.

He smiles, leaning down to face her pretty slit.

“Then I’d tell you you’d get it right after I had myself a quick taste. I’m starving you know?” He rebuttles, only then licking a thick, wet stripe up her dripping hole.

She tosses her head back, mewling. Her legs going to clamp around his head. He grabs her knees, spreading them apart, and pinning them down to the bed.

“Keep these open.” He mumbles.

He dives in feverishly, like he hasn’t eaten in years, and all things considered, he hasn’t. He starts on her clit, drawing circles with his tongue. Going back and forth between kitten licks and long thick stripes. He makes audible slurping noises, lapping up her juices from her hole, only to spit back into it making it even sloppier.

She is writhing back and forth, shaking as she fights to close her legs. Not that she even wanted to. Her body and brain were disconnected in this moment. Her muscles constricting and spasming. Her altered touch sense doing a number on her reproductive organs.

She tries yanking him up by his hair. Obviously he doesn’t budge. Still going forward with his assault.

“Ben,” she moans, giving up on physcial methods. “Ben please, I want you.”

He mumbles what she thinks is a “you have me”, but she isn’t too sure. Either way he doesn’t stop.

“No,” she whines. “I want you inside of me, please. Need it so bad.”

He lets out a deep groan, rubbing his hard cock into the mattress. Doing everything he can to relieve the intense pressure.

He sticks his head back up, his face glistening with her sweet juices. She moans at the sight. Sticking her pointer finger up, she beckons him towards her. He crawls on top of her until he’s hovering over her mouth.

Their lips barely touch, his teeth nipping at her bottom lip. She wraps her hands around his torso, digging her nails deep in his back. He sucks in air through his teeth. He lifts her knees up and over the bend of his arms, pushing them down onto the mattress. She watches from under him as he lines his angry, red cock right up to her slick entrance.

He sucks air in through his teeth as he sheathes himself inside of her hot core. His eyes roll back into his head. Fuckin A, he thinks. He feels like an addict getting their crack fix. He feels like a caught fish being thrown back into water. This was it. This is everything. Now he remembers why he was such a fiend back in the day. When good pussy was his only kryptonite. But pussy never came like this, he thinks. Pussy with personality, and similarities to himself, and beautiful eyes, and darkness, and light, and human. For once something he dips his cock in really feels human.

“Fuck me,” he groans, beginning to move into her slowly.

Her mouth is wide open, nothing coming out but strangled grunts. She takes it like a champ. Savoring every second his big meaty cock massages her deep, tight ridges.

He watches her face in awe, bringing one of his hands up and brushing strands of hair away. He kisses her lips, keeping his mouth there as he begins to speed up, hiking her legs up higher, and plowing into her sopping wet pussy.

The room is loud. Wet sounds and muffled moans fill the space. It’s hot, and humid. He swears the windows have begun to fog up. The two of them are ravenous. He tries to hold her down but she’s able to lift her hips up to meet his in a fit of impressive determination. This girl is a dream.

He readjusts, hiking her legs up onto his shoulders, admiring her smushed, fat pussy glistening under the flourecents. He watches himself disappear into her juicy folds, hugging onto him like a warm coat. Like a life vest. Squeezing him like a fucking blood pressure monitor.

He’s relentless now, pounding into her, and leaning down to suck her perky tits into his hot mouth. She gapes, her face contorted in pure ecstasy. No sounds leave her lips. Having the breath fucked out of her.

She regains it, letting out a shallow, strangled breath.

“Just like that,” she gasps. “Please, God, don’t stop.”

He smirks at her, wrapping a secure hand around her throat. Not squeezing, just simply for his own leverage. He goes harder, her poor legs definitely will be bruised by his fingertips tomorrow.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” He shouts through gritted teeth.

His head flies back as he spills himself into her. She milks him for all he’s worth. He thrusts into her a few more times before collapsing on top of her chest out of pure exhaustion. He takes deep breaths, trying to catch his breath, which never happens to him. But this took everything. Something so pure and raw and good. A craving that had finally been satisfied. She rubs her hands into his scalp as he lays his head on her sweaty chest. He leaves cute, and quaint little kisses. This is it. He thinks. This is every reason to stay.

If only she felt the same way.

——

He stalks up to Ashley’s office, an unreadable look on his face. He barges into a meeting with her and some other Vought executive. Both of their heads flying up in surprise.

“Homelander, what a nice surprise.” She exclaims.

“Shut it, Ashley,” He presses, turning to the executive. “Get the fuck out of here.”

The executive looks at Ashley, and then scrambles away out the door. She watches him in horror as he leaves the room, the door slamming behind him. John doesn’t take his eyes off of her for a second.

“Why didn’t you tell me that the CIA had Soldier Boy's body?” He asks, cocking an eyebrow.

He gets closer, staring down at her with an intense gaze.

“I-,” she starts. He holds a hand out to stop her.

“And why the fuck didn’t you tell me that he had been fucking kidnapped from the bunker in upstate New York?”

She stumbles over her words as he glares at her. She can’t bare to look him in the eyes.

“Okay, first of all, we were under the impression that he had been eliminated.”

“Well, obviously he hadn’t been fucking elimated, Ashley!” He bellows.

She trembles, finally turning to face him. His nostrils are flared, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Let’s slow down. How do we even know he’s still alive? How do we know that he’s even escaped?” She searches for the right things to say. The way she knows to console him.

“Are you really fucking questioning me right now?” He scoffs.

She just stared up at him with big eyes, unsure how to continue.

He sighs, beginning to pace around the room. If Vought found out about Freaks' plan for the summer, they would surely kill her, which he didn’t want. Killing him? Obtaining Soldier Boy? That was fine. He’d happily fly him into the arms of the military and let them do whatever the fuck they wanted to him. But she was off limits. Anything that would happen to her would be in his own hands. He decides to not push it. Maybe just letting Ashley know about his disappearance was enough.

“You know what,” he lets out an ominous chuckle. “It’s fine. It’s fine! I’m sure he’s gotten himself out and is halfway through South America by this point.”

Ashley looks around, nodding her head. Anything he says goes. She'd rather keep her head than question what the fuck he had to say.

“Forget I even said anything.” And with that, he walks out of her office.

He’d take care of this himself.

Masterlist | Taglist

Taglist: @sl33pylilbunny @Lanassmarty @Sydneyyyya @1-800shootmeplease@muhahaha303@nancymcl@speedyrebelfan@ghh05ttt@agentorange9595@let-me-luve-you @peachytits @darkdahl @deans-spinster-witch @soggybasementfries @ladysparkles78 @madamthemoo @lyarr24@sadlittlecountess @mickaelly007 @mrscountryclub @vtheoneandonly @decadentanchorwerewolf @wonderland2022@buckybarnes-1917@rebeccathefangirl@daisy-the-quake @tiredbibi @greyish-wallpaper@previousloversandmuses@is-this-a-febreze-commercial@justrealizedimmascifygurl@broimamy@freewastelandstrawberry@breadsgalore@savagemickey03@franblaq6466@lustendreams@atinylittlebee @VtheOneandOnly

[dairogo]

20 Questions for the Writer

Tagged by @griseldabanks ^_^

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

Only 18 :O I have a bunch on fanfiction.net that I never transferred over, but they're all an extra 10 or so years older than the Ao3 ones so ... there's some disparity of quality, partly in the writing but also very much in the content present.

2. What is your total Ao3 word count?

168,935

3. What fandoms do you write for?

FMA! I had other things when I was younger, but FMA bit and it's the one that stuck with me.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

A Bed Too Small (Mustang POV, same bed trope, tongue-in-cheek)

Wayward Youth (Hawkeye POV, learning about crushes and affection from the girls at her boarding school while seeking her father's attention)

Order 3066 (Hawkeye and Mustang POVs alternating, Ishval fic about being broken and coming out of it [still broken, but moving])

Partiality (Mustang POV, post-canon, broaching the topic of a relationship)

The Next Step (shifting POV, written soon after giving birth to my youngest and in a bit of a family-related haze. Mostly fluff.)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I certainly try to! I might have missed some along the way, but I usually get there!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hurrrghgh, one from my ff.net days: The Manga-ka Has Her Reasons. It was basically saying, hey, they can't get together guys - things will go bad if they do. And so it ended with them both dead.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I'd say The Next Step, because it's just fluffy and lovely :)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really. The last time I remember feeling taken aback by a comment it was over a decade ago and it was someone rightly pointing out a factual error I'd made. The FMA community I've found myself in is largely positive, and I don't know if that's about the FMA community in general, or that the stuff I write appeals to people who are just cool about community instead of looking to be jerks. Whatever the reason, I'm very grateful!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nah

10. Do you write crossovers?

I've got a half written FMA/HP crossover that I started in like 2005, resurrected a few years ago, and then haven't touched for the last year and a half. Sigh. It's probably going to be stuck in my brain forever.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not a fic

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Royai for suuuuure <3 I'm so big on romance as a side-plot, and if that's not the perfect way to explain their relationship I don't know what is. Like, FMA aside, their own personal story is that romance is their side-plot, not their main thing.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Wayward Youth! I have a few really rough drafts of later chapters that need to be edited, but I still haven't written all the way to the end and I'm happily working on another project with all the time/headspace I have, so I don't want to interrupt that flow. But I'm hoping to slowly accrue the last of it, then go through and make it presentable and post it one day.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I can write fairly clear action. And I like putting together a lot of threads to tug on as I go - not all big plot things necessarily, but just things that repeat again later to add an extra layer.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I don't know. I feel like I can write in a very blunt way sometimes, so I have to be intentional about adding in colour and emotion - that doesn't always come through on the first try.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I wouldn't do this to show to a native speaker, oh boy oh boy nosirree! Currently reading a book on English idioms and my main thought as I looked at it today is that this is exactly why I'll never consider myself fluent in other languages.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

In year 5 we had to co-write a story and my best friend and I basically wrote an AU of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

20. Favourite fic you've written?

Look, it depends on my mood. If I want something light and short, I can't go past Desperately Hoping He Didn't Look Like an Idiot (modern AU, Royai without angst). But I'm probably proudest of Order 3066, because it took a lot of work and a lot of emotional catharsis to get through that and I ended up with a bit of a deadline for when I had to finish it up and made it! So I feel good about it.

Tagging @scienceoftheidiot and @fullmetalscullyy if you're interested :)

[sonicenvy]

now that I am no longer half awake I have a lot more patience for this thing actually:

I figured out how to get VLC media player to convert the dot mov screen videos that premiere didn't like to m4v videos which is a file type that premiere pro will actually import with no complaints. Downside is that to do this conversion VLC has to play the video back in real time as it is essentially re-recording it, so these 20 minute videos are going to take 20 minutes to convert. boooo on that front

I converted the shortest clip first, so I could try to figure out why the audio wasn't properly synced to the video and I think I have an answer, which is basically just that I clipped the dead space out of the audio and video separately BEFORE importing them into premiere instead of doing them at the same time. 🤦‍♀️ I'll just chalk that up to my brain being tired from work and being up late and move on actually.

I remembered that there was this tool in premiere that you could use to mark specific time stamps in a sequence. this is the weapon of choice for project re-align audio and video that my zoinked brain fucked up. How? I watched the video back until I got to a point in the video where there should have been a very specific, distinct piece of audio synced with it (in this case the sound of me typing) and marked that location. Next I listened to the audio again until I hit the start of the typing sound and marked that particular moment. The two timestamps marked, I then manually aligned my two markers, replayed the video/audio again to see if I was right and tweaked as needed. Finally, I resolved the length mismatch by cutting out the short remaining dead space at the beginning of the video and adjusting the speed until it was enough to fill the void in properly. Then I re-inserted the dead space, moving around the other clips as necessary and re-adding my crossfades.

This method should work for the other clips, which I am still waiting for conversions on. 🤞

Once all of my clips are re-aligned and properly in my timeline, I can go back and skim watch the video for errors before exporting it and submitting it. I also need to make the associated short write up, but that should be pretty painless and take no more than 30 minutes. Maybe more if I chose to include labeled screenshots.

Assignment will be less than 24 hours late, which is as good as I could have hoped for under the circumstances actually. One day I will finally turn in an assignment on time. On that note, I should get a jump on the discussion for next week so I'm turning that in early.

Hopefully I can have the assignment done BEFORE I go to work at 2:30. That's the goal anyways. Otherwise, I'll have to finish some stuff up AT work, which I'm gonna be real I'm not keen on.

Once again, my deepest, sincerest apologies to my profession (M) for my general lack of organization and whatnot. Fuck adhd, fuck adobe and fuck apple for this situation. Also fuck my lack of saturdays off actually. I'm glad for the hours, but also it is really screwing my school work time lines up. fmllll

sidenote, the professor suggested a different method for making the videos but I honestly did not want to spend the time learning how to do something else for this when I already knew how to do it this way. I wasted enough time in the past learning how to professionally produce video content in premiere pro, that I've honest to god wiped my brain of basic, consumer end, "easy" video editing which is objectively funny as fuck.

fuck you adobe and fuck you apple for deciding to stop talking to each other correctly. I just want to use my stupid dot mov mac screen captures in my pproj file. bpleaseee free me. this video was due almost an hour ago i hate it here.

i so thought I was going to get through this whole half assed project without having to google adobe error messages. like a fool. y’all i tempted fate. local grad student hates googling adobe error messages news @ 9. etc.

[violynt-skies]

Okay I have a lot to say in response to this repost from @cyanisatakenusernamefuckit regarding that lil post I made about sick kusuo, hence the entirely independent post, but just roll with it for a second k cause there’s a lot and I love looking into this stuff. 

okay so this reply involved a little bit of research on my end (there is a little room for error in what i’m saying bc it wasn’t super in depth so if i’m wrong abt anything lmk)

so after googling i’ve found that most bacteria will die around 60-80 deg C; there are some bacteria out there that can thrive in 100 C heat but whether those can negatively impact humans im not sure

We don’t really know how hot Kusuo can make his fire. We’ve seen him go up to around 93 C in the first episode when he made temp of the thermometer go up to make takahashi seem sick. He can go higher than that as seen when making fire (edit: so about 200C) but what I want to know is exactly how high can Kusuo go and be able to tolerate it.

I think an important thing to remember is that Kusuo is still human and he still has limits and he’s not immune to everything he just has a much higher tolerance than regular people. Take from his fight btwn him and kusuke in Season 3, while the heat energy ray wasn’t enough to really injure him, it did effect him, and he admitted that his arm would’ve turned red had the ray hit him dead on, which isn’t a big effect but it shows he’s not immune, plus he was bleeding some near the end of the fight. So there’s a limit to how much heat Kusuo can take.

edit: it was shown that Kusuo would’ve been burnt by the lava when trying to prevent the volcano which can get up to 1200 C so that’s most likely his limit

That being said, there’s a chance with his genius brain Kusuke could be able to mutate some form of bacteria that could tolerate high heats enough so that Kusuo couldn’t kill it without simultaneously effecting himself, and even if he couldn’t, like you said a biological weapon created by Kusuke probably wouldn’t need to. 

But let’s take a different approach. Instead of bacteria and viruses let’s look at allergies. We’ve seen that Kusuo has allergies and it also impacts his powers in that he’s not able to fully control them when he’s partially sick.

Knowing this, what if Kusuke was able to look at his research (bc he def did a lot of testing on kusuo) and found other substances that kusuo was allergic too. There’s a chance that Kusuke could send Kusuo into anaphylactic shock if he was able to inject enough of the allergen into him or smth similar.

Or let’s look at poisons, as far as i’m aware, i don’t think?? Kusuo is completely immune to poisons, just that he could see if they were put in food. Kusuke’s been able to get the jump on Kusuo a few times so i don’t think it’s out of the question for him to be able to pull something, especially if he had a high dosage of said poison. It wouldn’t even have to be an injection it could simply be poisonous gas, because as we’ve been told, even Kusuo can’t filter out what’s in the air.

There might also just be some substances out there that negatively effect his psychic powers, like how germanium impacts his telepathy. There could be some material that impacts his immunity to substances or just inhabits him. Like a psychic kryptonite.

I wouldn’t be surprised if through a large amount of testing Kusuke would be able to find something that could effect Kusuo. And if Kusuo got sick enough, the amount of control he has with his powers is up in the air so he might not have enough control to help himself.

or if kusuke just found a way to block kusuo’s pyrokinesis with some material, then it’d be much easier to make kusuo sick because again he’s not immune to bacteria and virus’s he just kills them with heat before it can effect him.

Regarding the question about pain, I don’t think it’s that Kusuo is always in pain (tho i wouldn’t be shocked if he has chronic migraines) but again just a lot higher tolerance to pain than regular humans.

and the thing about premonition is that Kusuo doesn’t have control over it and it happens at random. There’s no telling if kusuo would get a warning about a Kusuke scheme or not, and tbh in the past he hasn’t. Half the time kusuo doesn’t really know what Kusuke is up to, and a lot of his plans take him by surprise. Take toritsuka’s demon possession, or Kusuke’s weird ass birthday card, or him taking himself hostage in the cat fight episode. Kusuo was surprised by all of it. So i wouldn’t depend on precognition to warn Kusuo about an impending illness. Theoretically Kusuo might be able to teleport away before things got too severe, but Kusuke could probably plan out something that would make Kusuo not want to leave, or maybe his powers would be so inhabited that he couldn’t.

Fortunately, I don’t think Kusuke would ever try to actually kill kusuo. So i don’t think we have to worry about that, which is great because Kusuke is definitely a force to be reckoned with

[thera-daydreams]

ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴡᴇᴇᴛ ᴏʟᴅ ʟᴀᴅʏ ɪꜱ ᴀ ᴡɪᴛᴄʜ

ᗢ jujutsu kaisen x scarletwitch!reader ᗢ

08. spellbound

Chapter Index & Synopsis

warning: will contain spoilers from the jjk manga and the latest mcu shows (particularly wandavision and loki, as well as rumors from doctor strange in the multiverse of madness). once again, this will contain heavy spoilers—you have been warned. Another warning? This is unbeta-ed. We shall die like men in the sea of typos and errors! This took a month and I just finished three exams this morning. Ugh. You might see the next update next month. Might. That is, if I'm still alive and kicking after class...

[EDIT] 6/22/2022, 2:02PM: Made some minor edits & changes after Dr. Strange 2.

(word count: 6,293)

(previous chapter.)

Choso woke up to the warm smell of freshly-steamed rice and miso soup. Rubbing his eyes, he exited his bedroom and padded into the kitchen. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks.

"Oh! Good morning, Choso-kun!" you greeted cheerfully, pouring a cup of coffee for yourself. "The food's ready. You should eat before it gets cold."

As if on cue, Geto and Toji followed right behind him, also stopping in the doorway (which was getting very crowded with all of them in it). They only stared at you. Wondering why they were so quiet, you looked down on yourself. Was it your clothes? The white Pikachu shirt and the mismatched frog pajama bottoms you wore weren't that weird, were th—

Oh. You weren't in your elderly form. You'd just come back from talking to Stephen, Clea, Loki, and America an hour ago and forgot about it while cooking breakfast.

Blinking, you asked them as they stared, "Is... Is it bothering you? I can change back, if you want."

It was Toji who snapped out of his daze first, smirking as he pushed Geto and Choso to the side and grabbed a bowl of miso soup from the stove beside you. "Well, if you stay like that, granny, I can't call you granny anymore." He glanced at you with a deep chuckle as he leaned against the table. "How was work, mama?"

"Mama...? Work...? Well..." You tilted your head at Toji at that last word (normally Yuuji was the only one who called you that), but disregarded it quickly and gazed up at him (he was so freaking tall even if you were in your younger form). "You mean destroying the Darkhold? It went fine. All's good and safe now that it's gone and the runaway demon is with my friends."

"Nice. At least you don't have to keep leaving us now." He shrugged with a shameless grin on his face before gulping down the first bowl (it was scorching hot; you had no clue how the ex-assassin even did it). "Good soup."

Clearing his throat, the more-gentlemanly Suguru slightly bowed his head to you as he retrieved his own bowl of miso soup. "Good morning, Y/N-san."

"Good morning to you too, Suguru," you smiled. "There's also tamagoyaki on top of the rice. Just take it out of the rice cooker if you want."

"A-Ah, thank you," he stammered out, trying to get the image of your much younger and practically glowing, smiling face out of his head. He was not about to have a crush on the older lady who turned his life upside down for the better. No sirree! He had too much respect for you to think about the way you bit your plush lips cluelessly at how he stammered—oh, God. He was praying you weren't reading his mind because that would be totally embarrassing. He knew that you only read minds when the situation called for it but if his brain would be loud enough, he'd be dead!

"Are you alright, Suguru? You seem pale," you inquired worriedly, seeing sweat drip from his temple. Thankfully, you didn't read his thoughts at all.

"Yeah, I'm good! Great! I'm fine!" he hurriedly said, pacing towards the table and forcing himself to eat to distract himself (with your food, it was pretty easy). Toji snorted, but didn't comment on it.

"Well, if you say so," you murmured, turning to Choso who was still in the doorway. "Would you like some miso soup, too, darling?"

The preciously shy half-curse half-man blushed at your sweet terms of endearments—how the hell could someone be so nice and scary at the same time—and nodded wordlessly. Humming, you filled up another huge bowl with warm soup and handed it to him, "Careful! It's hot!"

"Thank you," he muttered, in the same hurrying fashion Geto had before rushing to sit and finish his breakfast. You sat beside Toji, clapping.

"Itadakimasu!" Before you could pick up your chopsticks, however, a knock resounded on the front door of your home. All four of you stopped eating. You glanced at them, "Were you guys expecting anyone?"

They shook their heads.

"Ooh, I'll get it then." You stood back up and rushed to the door. Maybe it was Gojo doing his pranks again. If he did, you really would turn him into one of those three blind mice in Shrek (you'd threatened him once before; he quickly stopped). What you saw on the other side of the door were two girls around the first years' age. One had light hair pulled into a bun while the other had dark hair chopped into a bob. They seemed awfully familiar, like you'd seen them somewhere before.

"Oh God, this might be the wrong address," the shorter-haired teenager whispered. "They said the owner was an elderly woman!"

"May I help you, dearies?" you inquired.

"Are—Are you the owner of Charmed Coffee & Confectionaries? The one... the one they call a witch?"

Your guard heightened (you also sensed their cursed energy), then nodded in affirmative. They seemed hesitant, but it was the one with light hair who spoke up first, "Um... do—do you know a man named Suguru?"

It then clicked to you. Well, now you've met another set of twins apart from yourself, your own kids, and the Zenin sisters. Smiling widely, you opened the door for them.

"Ah, you must be Mimiko and Nanako! Geto-kun's told me a lot about you two!" You also saw their deaths very briefly in the Shibuya premonition, but of course you didn't say that.

"E-Eh? You know us, Miss?" the one with a bob haircut questioned, still apprehensive.

"Well, Suguru tells me he practically raised you two!" you shared kindly, a spark in your eyes as you recalled the former Curse User saying that he was a proud dad. "Come on in. We're having breakfast. Feel free to join us!"

After they removed their shoes, you led them to the dining area. Seeing the visitors, Suguru choked on his glass of water.

"Geto-sama..." Mimiko and Nanako trailed off, eyes wide at the sight in front of them. They couldn't believe that their savior was alive. Breathing. Eating, even (and currently hacking his lungs out while hitting his chest).

"Well, go talk to your daughters, Suguru! They seem very much worried!" you encouraged. "Oh, girls, you should have some soup to warm up your stomachs! December's coming up real soon and it's getting terribly cold."

The twin sisters shared a look, and then turned to you, falling to their knees and bowing deeply, heads touching the floor.

"H-Huh?" you stuttered out, trying to pull them up. "Why are you bowing, sweethearts?"

"Thank you for saving Geto-sama, Miss!"

From that moment on, the two girls ended up worshipping the ground you walked on. Embarrassed, you pulled them up before giving them some breakfast and pushing them to the rooftop area—along with Geto—so that they could talk.

"Gosh, that was a bit too much," you sighed out, sitting back down and using your magic to make breakfast hot again. Toji and Choso stared at their bowls of soup, once emptied but now automatically refilled.

After a long conversation with his adopted daughters, Geto returned back to his seat, head flopping down on the table. "You alright there, Sugu?" you asked, concerned. You could nearly hear his mind buzzing with billions of thoughts per second. It was hard to keep up.

"Daughters," he huffed, voice muffled.

You and Toji snorted at the same time, knowing what he was talking about. Parenting.

"I beg to disagree," Toji commented, guzzling down some hard black coffee. He was basing it off his experience with Megumi and Tsumiki. "Sons are a hella more difficult."

"You were barely there for that Megumi kid, though," Choso mumbled, making Toji roll his eyes. "I don't know anything about being a father, but I have been a parent for my younger brothers."

You grew lost in your thoughts. What if you didn't let the Hex down in Westview? What if you spent a few more sitcom-like time skips in it? Disregarding the other residents, perhaps... perhaps you could've lived more of a life with Vision, Billy, and Tommy. Maybe you could've even had a daughter. A sweet little girl who looked just like you. You could have named her after your mother, Iryna Maximoff, or even your late Avenger best friend, Natalia Romanoff. Hmm... but wasn't Clint's son already named after Nat? Still, if you went with classical names like what you did with Billy and Tommy, you could name her Mary or Emily like—

"Y/N?"

You snapped out of your thoughts, seeing the three men looking at you questioningly.

"Hmmmm?"

"You've been spacing out for the past minute, granny," Toji pointed out.

Geto added, "Penny for your thoughts? Unlike you, we can't read minds."

"A-Ah, it's nothing," you brushed it off, waving your hand. "Yeah. I agree with Toji. From my experience, sons are much harder to raise. It would've been nice if I had a daughter, too, if I got the chance."

That was a first. You barely talked about your family nowadays but here you were, saying something about it. To the boys, all they knew was that you had family and they weren't here anymore. They weren't sure if that meant dead or you'd been abandoned, though (but who the hell would want to abandon someone as sweet as you?).

"... If I had the chance?" Toji repeated, incredulous. "Y/N, if you're my age... younger, even, you're not that old. Go out and have daughters, then."

"Um, I've got a... not so good experience with relationships, so that's a hard no," you sweat-dropped. "I'll just settle for Yuuji as my adopted kid."

"Where's your husband, anyway? Or, uh, boyfriend or fiance? Partner?" Geto inquired curiously.

"Oh, he's dead," you marked impassively. Too quickly. "So are my children."

Okay. That was their confirmation, then. Your family was dead. Gone. It was why you were alone—why the house was empty—before Toji came along to stay with you. Choso's eyes widened. Didn't you tell him before about it? The day he first met you? You'd said that you were an orphan, a widowed woman, a woman who's lost her children, and a sister who lost her brother.

"I... I'm sorry for your loss," Suguru quickly bowed his head shamefully. "I didn't mean to bring up bad memories, Y/N."

You looked out of the open window in the dining room, a nostalgic smile in your face, "It's okay... I think I'm okay now. It's been a few years since then. You did nothing wrong." You glanced at them, smiling, "If I hadn't lost my family, I probably never would have become a witch. And I probably won't be here with you guys, either. I probably wouldn't have met Yuuji, too, so that would've been really sad."

They gave you a concerned look, frowns on their faces.

"Besides, whenever I tried bringing them back to life or getting them back, bad things happened. Really bad things," you gazed down on your hands, fiddling with them on your lap. "The lengths I've gone to have my family back were... not exactly something to be proud of." You laughed humorlessly, looking back up at them, a dark glaze over your eyes. "I may or may not have lost my mind back then."

Choso, Toji, and Suguru stared, unable to help the pity in their hearts as they saw the sadness reach your eyes.

You waved your hand, "But enough of my past! I don't want to remember that. We've got to get to work now."

ᗢ▪︎ᗢ

And so how exactly did you end up here in this situation, a couple of days later, being spoken to by this misogynistic hound of a man?

The other occupants of the cafe, which included your everyday regulars (ahem—Nanami, Gojo, and the first-year students—ahem), gawked at the scene occuring in front of them. From inside the one-way mirror you'd added to the kitchen, your three male housemates were silently glaring at the unwelcome visitor of the shop.

"My father told me that it was an old witch who freed Gojo Satoru and even revived Zenin Toji and Geto Suguru," Naoya haughtily declared to you in front of the counter. "You must be her daughter, then. Or granddaughter. Whatever. Where is the witch? I must speak to her."

Your eye twitched. When you were about to speak, however, the man cut you off.

"I don't have enough time for this, woman. Hurry up."

Seems like you'd found someone more irritating than that volcano-headed cursed spirit. You inhaled deeply and soothed your nerves.

"She's—"

"Are you deaf?" Naoya complained (in the background, Megumi was trying to hold back a fuming Nobara and the I'm-about-to-punch-you-for-talking-to-my-mom-like-that Yuuji). "I ordered you to go call the witch."

With an annoyed tone you, for once, allowed to seep into your voice, you interrupted him this time. "You're speaking to her."

"What?" he repeated, eyes narrowing at you. You raised a brow at him.

"What?" you shot back irritatedly.

Naoya scoffed. "Impossible. You're the witch who resurrected two jujutsu criminals and released Gojo Satoru from the Prison Realm? What a joke."

The said blindfolded man snickered in the background, returning back to eating his favorite red velvet brownies, "Ohohoho, be careful. You'll be the joke here if you continue talking to her that way, Zenin!"

A vein popped on Naoya's temple from the comment, but he focused on you instead. "I have no more time for games in this meager shop of yours, woman. Where is the wit—"

Your hand shot out to his chest, where you briefly ejected his astral form from his body. Just for about a second or two. It was one of the tricks you learned from Stephen (who learned it from the Ancient One). When his nasty-ass soul returned, he was panting heavily.

"What was—"

You innocently (and very much threateningly) smiled at him, "Have you ever seen that in a meager shop before, Zenin-san?" The smile disappeared. "Get out."

It was his unlucky day that there were no civilian customers in the shop right now. His brows furrowed, "What?!"

You nonchalantly pressed some buttons on the cashier, clicking your tongue, "I think you're the one who's deaf here, Zenin-san. Not me. And no one talks to me like that." You pointed at the door calmly, your voice frighteningly soft. "Now, get out of my shop."

"No," Naoya refused, allowing his cursed energy to emerge. He wouldn't go down without a fight.

As if that threatened you at all.

"Oh?" You tilted your head at him, "Okay, then. I'll just forcibly remove you from the premises."

Before he knew it, tendrils of red energy wrapped around his entire form and literally threw him out of the bakery-café. Your mini-Hex barrier wouldn't let him past the doorstep, too.

You leaned on the doorway, unaffected by the barrier and smugly reading his mind as you gazed down at his fallen form, "If you want to ask me out for dinner at the Zenin Estate, do it more respectfully, you chauvinistic pig! And tell your father I'm not interested in any alliances of any sort. If he thinks he can sway me with money and power in the jujutsu society, he's wrong. I don't care about any of that. Goodbye!"

The doors slammed in his face.

You found Nobara with starry eyes directed towards you, "You're so awesome, Y/N-san. I wish I could be as badass as you."

You patted her head, grinning, "You already are, missy."

Sukuna, whose eye had been observing from the now-awestruck Yuuji's cheek, chuckled darkly. He very much liked what he just saw. God, he really did have a thing for scary women. "Well that was a sight to see."

You rolled your eyes. Ever since you revealed your younger form, he'd taken every chance to verbally hit on you. At this point, the King of Curses was terribly obvious with his interest (so was Gojo with his newfound level of clinginess, but for some reason, it hadn't clicked to you yet).

"Aaaaaaah, serves him right!" Gojo happily stretched his arms up and grinning at you. "Nice to see Naoya's ass get kicked every once in a while. Do you know how much of a fanboy he is for you, Toji!?" he shouted to the irked man in kitchen.

"I don't give a damn!" the ex-assassin scowled, kneading some dough with his skilled hands. (The older Fushiguro was very pleased seeing you literally throw the other Zenin out of the shop, though; Naoya totally deserved it).

Geto, who was making rice bowls for the first-years, and Choso, who was adorably concentrated on the sundaes he was perfecting (especially making Yuuji's with lots of love), were relieved that the unwelcome visitor was out, too.

"If Naobito Zenin knows about you, there's no doubt that word has already spread to the elders," Nanami pointed out, reading the newspaper and taking a sip of his espresso.

"Those damn geezers get on my nerves everyday," Satoru muttered.

"Are the elders really that bad?" Nobara, Yuuji, and Megumi chorused questioningly.

"Even worse," Gojo snorted. "Trust me, you wouldn't wanna meet them. Unfortunately, Y/N, you've gotten quite involved in jujutsu affairs."

"Didn't want to, but was absolutely expecting to," you frowned. "After that stunt I pulled in Shibuya, I think I just gained a hundred more enemies here."

Then Megumi spoke up for the first time in all this chaos, pointing at a retreating Naoya outside the window with his thumb, "What if that stupid guy comes back here?"

"I've made it so that the barrier in the shop won't let him in unless his intentions are respectful and honorable," you answered, a hand on your hip as you flopped on the plush sofa seat beside Nanami. "Gosh, my retirement's going down the drain. I need a vacation. Wanna go on that trip to Malaysia, Kento-kun? I can reserve a place there in Kuantan near the beach."

He paused in reading the newspaper, then peered at you from above his round glasses, "Now?"

"Now," you smiled up warmly at him. For a second, he felt his heart skip a beat at the sight. The now-flustered Nanami cleared his throat, shaking his head.

"Unfortunately, we jujutsu sorcerers still have much to do after the Shibuya Incident," he apologized, trying to keep the blush out of his face. "But I'll take you up on that offer next time, Y/N-san. It would be... nice."

"I wanna go to the beach, too, Momma!" Yuuji exclaimed, raising his hand. "I'll be your lifeguard and Nobara can take pictures of us! Megumi can be the floater, too!"

Said Fushiguro hit him on the head, "Why am I the floater!?"

Before you could respond to any of them, you were suddenly glomped by the playboy of a stickman everyone knew. Nuzzling his face into your neck and wrapping his arms around your waist, Gojo wailed, "Heeeeeey! Why are you asking that stuck-up, no-fun guy to go to Malaysia with you and not me, Y/N? I'll go to Malaysia with you anytime! Especially to the beach!"

You attempted to pry him off your body, rolling your eyes, "I know that, but you're not the one who deserves a vacation after getting stuck in that box after I already warned you!"

Toji came out of the kitchen with a paper bag of hot bread. He frowned deeply seeing Gojo cling onto you like a koala. Geto followed with the freshmen's packed rice bowls, a vein appearing on his head as he personally dragged Gojo back to his chair.

"Stop being so embarrassing to her, Satoru," Suguru hissed into his ear. The white-haired sorcerer pouted.

"Don't you find it unfair, too? She invited Nanami to go to the beach! Only him!" Gojo crossed his arms like a child. "Hmph!"

Choso, exiting the kitchen with sundaes for the now-sparkly-looking teenage trio, turned to you after hearing the information. "You're going to the beach, Y/N-san?"

You shrugged, "Apparently not today, though. Well, just tell me when you're available, Kento-kun. And the rest of you guys, feel free to come along! I can just... like, magic all of us there, after all."

Yuuji started eating his chocolate sundae (every once in a while trying to keep Sukuna from stealing a bite), "So we can go there without buying expensive plane tickets, Mom?"

"Yup! But if we do need money, I'll just magic it out of Gojo's credit card," you hummed.

Megumi approved with a thumbs-up and a blank face, "I support you one hundred percent, Y/N-san."

Satoru gasped dramatically, "You would not. You didn't even invite me in the first place!"

"You're the rich one here, not me, so that's your problem," you shrugged. "Either way, the rest of you don't have to worry about paying an—"

Again, you were then interrupted by the doors of your shop opening loudly. Everyone, including you, gaped like a fish when a reluctant yet persistent looking Naoya Zenin entered with a neat white envelope in his hand. He briefly glanced at Toji, Choso, and Suguru before hurriedly rushing to you. He reached his arm out, handing you the envelope.

"A formal invite to dinner at the Zenin estate," he muttered, for the first time speaking to you with some level of respect. You took the envelope from his hands, surprised at his attitude. "We're... expecting you."

As quickly as he entered, Naoya Zenin left Charmed Coffee & Confectionaries.

"That's first," Megumi muttered, a spoonful of sundae in his mouth.

Yuuji spoke first, "Huh. How'd that guy get in the barrier—Sukuna, don't steal my ice cream!"

The King of Curses rolled his eyes (both from inside his domain and the eyes on his vessel's cheeks), "Deal with it, brat. Oy, granny! Don't even bother thinking about going to that weakling's clan manor."

"Why not?" you asked, opening the envelope with interest. You skimmed through its contents. It was indeed a formal invitation. "He got through the barrier, meaning his intentions were... probably decent?"

"It's likely those scumbags in the clan are trying to get in your favor now that they're aware of your power," Toji rolled his eyes. "What's next, the Kamo and Gojo clan?"

Satoru cleared his throat, trying to look as suave as possible, "As the leader and representative of the Gojo clan, I would like to formally override the Zenin clan's invitation to you by asking you out to dinner myself—ow, Nanami!"

"Stop that," the blonde man scolded, glaring at the other man. Suguru, Yuuji, Nobara, and Megumi snorted in the corner.

"Well, I was just planning on stopping by at the Zenin estate for less than an hour," you replied to them, tapping your chin. "I've got more important things to do today, actually. I forgot that it's my special day-off!"

"Special day-off?" they simultaneously asked.

"Yeah," you smiled. "Nobara-chan, would you help me pick an outfit out for later?"

In an instant, the teenage girl was beside you, reverently bowing like a loyal butler, "Anything for you, Y/N-san. I might even call Maki for this if she weren't busy..."

"Why would you need her help choosing an outfit? It's not like it's a date," Suguru pointed out, a hint of jealousy in his voice.

"It's not," you shrugged. "But might as well look my best scaring off the conservatives, right? Plus, they were expecting an old woman. It'd be nice to see the shock on their faces."

...

"... I like that idea," Toji and Gojo agreed (for once, what a miracle).

"Show them what you're made of, Mom!" Yuuji cheered while keeping the spoon of chocolate sundae away from Sukuna's mouth.

"Fucking brat, give that to me!" the Curse King wrestled for control over his vessel's body. The silent Choso sitting beside him was already plotting murder in the back of his mind.

Meanwhile, Nanami and Geto simply sighed.

ᗢ▪︎ᗢ

All of them, except for a pleased-looking Kugisaki, didn't see you come out of the shop... well, physically. You'd decided you'd just magic yourself to the entrance of the Zenin estate to get this thing done and over with.

It was why all nine of them—the three first-years plus Sukuna from inside Yuuji, as well as an exhausted Nanami, an overeager Gojo, a scowling Toji, a hesitant Choso, and an uncomfortable Geto—were hiding by some nearby bushes attempting to get a peek of what was happening inside the manor. The spying didn't really work because they couldn't see anything.

There were also guards roaming around so that was bad news (except for Gojo who could teleport, Toji who was maximum level in stealth, and Megumi who'd learned how to use his shadows in being uncover courtesy of training with his dad).

"This is useless," Nanami sighed out. "Why am I even here? This is an invasion of her privacy."

"Nanami-san is right," Megumi added somewhat guiltily.

"What if they hurt her?" Gojo hissed back, still acting like he was in Mission Impossible or some sort of action spy film. Heck, he was crouched down like one.

"Satoru, this is Y/N the witch we're talking about. The one who can drag out souls from bodies with a flick of her hand," Geto hissed back. "We shouldn't be here."

"Y/N-san can definitely handle herself in front of those pigs," Nobara muttered confidently (but still used a portable telescope to zoom in on a window).

"Yeah, Momma can kick their asses with no problem," Yuuji nodded, a determined look on his face. "Isn't that right, Choso-nii?"

Pride surged in the half-curse's chest at being called older brother, "Yes, Yuuji. You're right. She can kick their asses. All of them."

"Shhhh, all of you shut up! Look, she's already coming out!" Gojo pointed, before whistling softly at your attire. "Daaaaamn, you did a great job, Nobara-chan. Very Kate Middleton-ish elegance, but you made it work. Classy."

Geto and Choso visibly swallowed. Nanami cleared his throat. Sukuna, from his domain, was watching—giving a single pleased nod with a huge smirk on his face. Toji had a shit-eating grin, too.

You calmly power-walked down the stairs of the huge manor, placing the oversized black sunglasses over your eyes and letting your black coat hang over your shoulders. The helpless guards of the Zenin clan could only watch as you exited the gates with a strut that was nobody's business.

Indeed, you were a force to be reckoned with.

"I was going for a more rich chaebol daughter look from Crash Landing on You, but I'll take that as a compliment, sensei," Kugisaki grinned.

"Where'd you get the white and black two-piece suit dress from? Michael Kors, right? Is the black velvet clutch a Jimmy Choo?" Gojo curiously asked (apparently very well-versed in luxury fashion, but that was a given if you'd seen the absurd prices of the shirts he wore). "Did she actually magic it?"

"Yup!" Nobara popped the last letter. "Kinda convenient, if you ask me. I think the watch and jewelry aren't magic, though."

"I've never seen even her older self wear high heels. It suits her," Toji mumbled, very particular thoughts running through his head with the sharp Louboutins on your feet. Clearly, they could be used to stab someone. Megumi noticed the look on his father's face and cringed as he mentally gagged.

It was absolutely clear to him and the other first-years that the six older men with them had a thing for you.

And so they continued following you for the next thirty minutes, becoming even more suspicious when you entered a flower shop in town.

"Are we seriously going to keep following her?" Choso mumbled as they secretly crept behind you from meters away.

"Well, she's buying flowers for some reason. Preeeetty sus," Satoru noted to himself, attempting to look cool.

"Jesus Christ, stop acting like Tom Cruise. It doesn't fit you," Kento massaged his throbbing temples. His blood pressure must be pretty high now.

"She's going somewhere again," Choso murmured as you exited the flower shop, carrying a small bouquet of lush, red and white roses. Your face seemed blank the entire time, making them wonder what exactly had happened in the Zenin estate and why you bought flowers.

"Is... Momma seeing someone?" Yuuji blinked.

"Only one way to find out," Nobara chimed in.

"Follow her! Let us depart!" Gojo ordered, dragging Geto and Nanami with each of his lanky arms. Toji and Choso rolled their eyes but complied, also curious as to where you were going.

You stopped by a cake shop, which made them even more suspicious of the box in your other hand.

"Oh damn, she must be seeing someone and we didn't even know," Geto realized, feeling a bit hurt.

"Seeing someone? How can she even be seeing someone when she spends most of her time in the shop?" Toji thought out loud.

They kept following you.

About an fifteen minutes later, they proved themselves wrong.

ᗢ▪︎ᗢ

All of them ended up watching as you stopped at an unmarked grave in a cemetery. You set down the flowers into a vase and placed the box by the tombstone, preparing to clean it off.

"God, this was a mistake," Nanami muttered with a deep frown on his face.

"We shouldn't have assumed anything," Geto sighed, guilt gnawing at his heart.

Another woman who was visiting the gravestone right beside you—probably in her fifties or sixties—glanced at the cake box you'd brought along.

"Special occasion?" she asked lightly.

You politely removed your sunglasses, smiling, "Yes. It's their birthday today. My children."

"Children? Ah, but you're so young, dear! My condolences. It must be difficult also losing your sons so young." She gazed at you with pity in her eyes.

"... Yes, it was very hard," you replied, touching the cold stone.

"May I ask why your family grave is unmarked?"

"I felt like it was better off that way," you answered. You left it unmarked because there were too many people to put in one stone. "And you, madam? Who are you visiting today?"

"Oh, just my husband," she brushed off lightly, waving her hand. "He's been gone for... quite some time now." She glanced at her watch and gasped. "My, would you look at the time. I have to go feed my cats now."

She passed by you and headed to the opposite direction, but the moment she did, your right hand instantly shot out to grip her left bicep. The onlookers blinked, confused. Why'd you do that?

The air seemed eerily still now. Even the birds stopped chirping. The leaves and the grass stopped rustling. The sky was turning dark, as if it was about to rain. The atmosphere was almost suffocating.

"What are you doing, young lady?" she asked, trying to remove her arm from your hold. You tightened your grip on her bicep, a faraway look in your eyes as you gazed into the distance.

"Sons. You said sons." Your voice was devoid of any warmth as you spoke out, "I never said my children were both boys." Your lips thinned. You tried reading her mind the moment she spoke those words, but strangely, you couldn't. "How did you know about them?"

It was silent for a moment, but then a wide grin appeared on the woman's face. "Wanda, Wanda. Still as touchy as ever about her dead family."

It was strange to hear your old name being spoken in Japanese.

"Agatha." Your eyes glowed red, "What are you doing here?"

She shrugged, "Hmm. Just thought I'd check up on how the all-powerful Scarlet Witch was doing in this new universe she moved into. You've made a bit of progress, I'll give you that."

The glower on your face was a huge warning that she was stepping over her boundaries. Meanwhile, the rest of your hiding spectators watched carefully, preparing for a fight if necessary. Clearly, you and this person weren't on good terms.

"Don't talk about them," you whispered lowly. "And leave this place while I let you. Just because you mentored me for a time after... what happened to the Multiverse... doesn't mean we're friends."

"Aww, you're hurting my feelings, buttercup. Have you forgotten our days as neighbors?" Agatha mockingly cooed. "Don't worry, I'm already leaving. Wasn't planning on staying too long." She glanced in the corner where the others were hiding.

You frowned. You already knew that your friends had followed you to the Zenin estate and up to this cemetery, but now that Agatha was somehow here, you didn't want any of them to be caught up in a possible fight. Curses and cursed users, you could leave it to them, but another witch and a powerful one at that? They had no place in this.

"Why don't you go first and tell your snooping little friends the truth, sweetcheeks?" your former nosy neighbor suggested, wiggling her eyebrows. "I bet you haven't even told them about your dear parents... Natasha... Billy and Tommy... Pietro... and oh, let's not forget the love of your life, Vision. Judging by how they're spying on you, they don't know much about your past, do they? Do they even know what you've done?" The older witch was clearly implying the events that occurred when you were under the influence of the Darkhold.

Unwanted memories resurfaced.

"Stop," you glared at her. "Leave. Now."

Agatha cackled, "Fine, geez. No need to be so huffy, dearie. I must say, what an interesting place you've... retired in. Cursed energy and curses. Quite different from the world we've come from, hmm?" She hummed, handing you a maroon metal flash drive. "Good thing that Darcy Lewis lady used some fancy technology to keep these... very important files. Trust me, I made some modifications that you might... appreciate. If I was any crueler like you, I'd only give you screenshots! But unlike you, I prefer movies over sitcoms."

Your brows furrowed as you tilted your head at her, "What do you mean? And why are you even doing this?"

She rolled her eyes at you, snorting, "Consider this as my apology and a... thank you for letting me go after the Multiverse fiasco. Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything too bad. Especially since that Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme now. Then that Loki from the other timeline is working with the TVA now. He helped me come up with this... gift, by the way!"

You had no idea what to say.

"Ugh, just open it later. Bye!"

With that, Agatha vanished in a puff of purple smoke. It was silent for a moment until you sighed heavily, "You guys can come out now, you know."

Slowly, the nine individuals emerged from their hiding spots, looking like children caught with candy. Though, they looked pretty curious with the flash drive in your hand, too.

"Momma, what's that? Looks fancy." Yuuji pointed to the flash drive on your hand. You raised it to your eye level, the metal glinting in the light.

"Obviously a flash drive, dummy," Megumi lightly elbowed Itadori, who whined.

"Owie... what's in it, though?" Yuuji rubbed his tummy protectively. Beside him, Choso patted his back comfortingly.

"I don't know. I can't read that woman's thoughts sometimes," you muttered back, pocketing the flash drive.

"Who was that, Y/N?" Nanami spoke up worriedly. He could feel the tension between you and Agatha.

"Old friend?" Gojo chimed in.

"Didn't look like a friend to me," Sukuna snidely commented as a mouth on Yuuji's face, snickering.

"Not a friend. Not an enemy, either... anymore... I hope," you mumbled back, avoiding their gaze and returning your focus to your family's tombstone. "She might be a bit pissed I stole the powers that she stole from her coven... and then locked her in her own mind for a while..."

They all blinked at you, surprised but also not at the same time. Your powers really were something else.

"Anyway, that was a long time ago," you quickly changed the topic, smiling at them and lightening up the mood. "I think it's time I introduce my family to... well, my family."

Nobara was the first one to go along with your cheery mood, "It's your sons' birthday today, right, Y/N-san? We should celebrate!"

You clapped happily, "Absolutely! And I should tell you guys all about what happened in the Zenin estate. Toji, you're right, they all have sticks up their asses. That Naobito had some nerve mocking me..."

Toji chuckled, "Told ya so, granny."

Geto tilted his head at you, "... Did you do something to them? Like, pull their souls out or something?"

"Eh. Nothing as extreme as that." You shrugged. "I just removed gravity from the room we were in and made them stick to the ceiling. It'll wear off sooner or later."

All of them sweat-dropped.

Meanwhile, in the aforementioned Zenin estate, a spellbound Naobito and Naoya were still stuck on the ceiling, feeling like they were absolutely tripping on drugs. The laws of physics were irrelevant. The witnesses in Shibuya weren't lying when they said you were a force to be reckoned with.

(next chapter.)

Author's Note: Hmm... what's in the flash drive and what will they see? And why were Darcy and Loki mentioned? Guess we'll only know in the next update, tee-hee! And yes, I kinda followed a portion of the Marvel comics where Agatha was Wanda's mentor. They sorta like, just frenemies now. 🤷‍♀️

Oh, and about Naoya, yeah... he's attractive but I hate him, lol. Gonna think about if he's gonna like Reader-san or not. The others will definitely be interacting more with Reader in the next chapter. Gosh, I might spoil ya'll if I'm not careful. Imma shut up now. 🤐

What made me sad was that Billy and Tommy (plus Vision) actually died in November. So technically, it really is their death anniversaries after the Shibuya Incident. 🥲

Moving on! Reblogs, comments, hearts, interactions, and constructive criticism are very appreciated! If you wanna be tagged in the upcoming chapters, feel free to message me or comment (just pleaaase make sure you allow yourselves to be tagged in your settings). 🤗❣️

Perhaps you can support me here. Honestly, I need cash and sleep. ☕

taglist: @ibelievein2dmensupremacy @binibiningbabaylan @coldvillainess @vampireindistress @sparklingmallow @gummy-dummy @haleypearce @artemishunter18 @torasshu-sama @pastel-catto @nanamin-pointo @whoreuc @simpinsimpleton @sache41 @osiris1rhi @crzyinluve @dame-sunflowers @thirstyfangirl @yuh-tears @cioara @butyfigers @fiona782 @t-misaki @jihaegguk @revenge-of-the-bucket-demon @beeframon @simpforporcoandlevi @unkn0wn2024 @dibhachu @todaywasafairytale07 @vishousmate

[xxdragonwriterxx]

🔥You Are Human, And Damn It, You Are An Important One!🔥

A/N: Hey everyone! I’m back! It looks like my tags finally decided to sort themselves out so I wanted to (finally) post a new story! I’m still working on requests though, so don’t worry, those are coming soon! I just wanted to post this in the mean time while I edit those and test if my tags are really fixed on one of my originals so that any requested fics will actually be seen later should an error occur. Thank you so much for your continued support and patience, you guys are so amazing! I hope this makes up for my temporary hiatus! This one actually has a bit of a heavier tone to it but I think I’m finally happy with it! Thanks again for the support, and don’t be afraid to talk to me! Shoot me a message or just spew random bullshit and I’ll still respond 😂. Enjoy!

(Warning: themes of non-con & abuse. This is set in a brothel, but there’s nothing explicit, it’s just mentioned or implied. Just wanted to put it out there! Viewer discretion advised!)

🐉Song Recommendation: “The Gardener” By: Sarah Sparks 🐉

Word Count: ~7k

~~~

It was that time of year. The time of year that Levi hated the most. The Underground Market Festival. It was the time of year in which merchants from all around would come down to the Underground City, away from the prying eyes of the Military Police, and sell anything and everything to the nobles who weren’t exactly looking for orthodox materials. The normally filthy, mostly empty streets would be filled with members of the wealthy, dripping in jewelry, cash, and lavish clothing as they paraded around the sorry excuse for a city, boasting of their wealth and privilege as they bought enough food and luxurious goods to feed three times the number of people in the Underground while sharing none of it.

The days were starting to blur together. Levi honestly couldn’t tell if it had been a day, a week, or a month as the drugs in his system continued to work just like the brothel owners wanted them to, rendering him practically inoperative and perfect for use. His head pounded, swimming with confused thoughts. His gaze was unfocused, warped, and his whole body felt suffocatingly hot despite his lack of cover, his legs shifting as his body instinctively searched for a relief he didn’t even want. But that was exactly how they wanted him.

The sound of his door being unlocked made him look up slowly, his eyes taking a few seconds to fully focus on the man standing in the entrance of his room, a wide, malicious grin on his face. Levi couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose in disgust. The man smelled of sweat and stale alcohol, and his unkempt appearance made Levi itch, even when drugged out of his mind.

“Oh, Levi…” the man cooed, making Levi shudder. “I have another customer for you.”

Even though Levi had been through this time and time again, even though he had been trapped in his filthy room since he was caught stealing from a merchant friend of the brothel owner at age twenty, even though the drugs in his system were making his body scream for what this new customer could give him, he still couldn’t help the wave of dread that washed through him, the fear. Levi didn’t fear much, having grown up on the streets of the Underground alone since he was abandoned by Kenny at the age of ten, but this? This he was scared of.

He thought back to the wretched old man that had abandoned him as a small child and wondered what he would think of him now. Would he be disgusted? Unsurprised? Angry? Not that it mattered. Levi knew he would never see him again. But even so, his brain couldn’t help itself from going down those roads, asking questions of “what if?” no matter how many times he reminded himself that it didn’t matter. He was just some bastard thug turned whore in the Underground. Nobody was going to even remember him, let alone care about who he was or who he may be in the future.

Levi was once again brought out of his daze when the pig in the doorway moved to the side, letting a noble woman saunter into the room. She had a wicked grin on her face as she approached him, ignoring the brothel owner as he slammed the door shut behind her, giving them some privacy. She was covered in glittering jewelry, and although the dress she wore was extravagant, it was very tight fitting and low cut, barely considered decent, her large breasts one breath away from spilling out over the top. Her hair was pinned up in a lavish braided style, twisting and coiling tightly, and held together with real gold pins that Levi knew must’ve cost a fortune.

“~Well, hello sexy,” the woman purred as she approached the raven-haired man.

Levi had to force himself not to grimace, even with the effect of the drugs, when she slithered her way over his thighs, her hands reaching up to cup his face. The smell of whatever custard perfume she had on was overwhelming, making his eyes water and his throat close up. Her hands felt clammy from all of the lotions and creams she had slathered over her skin to make it look shinier, making them feel like dead fish rubbing against his cheeks.

“Well? Aren’t you going to ask my name?” The woman demanded in a sickly sweet voice, making Levi close his eyes in barely suppressed agony.

“What is your name?” Levi asked in a low voice. He felt the woman preen above him at the sound of his voice, knowing she thought his deep tone was for setting the mood rather than the effect of his despair.

“My name is Lady Clarissa! What’s your name, hmmm?”

“Levi,” He said quietly.

“Oooh, Leevviiii, I like that,” Lady Clarissa practically moaned. “Say, Levi, you were quite expensive. That must mean you're really good at what you do. I can already tell that you fulfill my personal tastes in terms of appearance, so why don’t you convince me of the rest and give me a good time. Don’t make me regret spending my good money on you. Don’t make me punish you.”

Levi gritted his teeth when she ground her hips into him, trying his hardest not to fight back. He knew it would be difficult, the drugs making his movements and mental processes much slower, but at that moment, all he wanted to do was shove her off of him. Swallowing the bile in his throat, Levi reached for her as she leaned down to force her tongue into his mouth.

It was that time of year. The time of year that (Y/N) hated the most. The Underground Market Festival. It took everything in her to avoid groaning in annoyance as the people she was expected to call her friends dragged her down into the filthy Underground City for a day of “fun”. (Y/N) would much rather be back at home, reading a book in the library, or relaxing with the horses in the barn, or secretly practicing her sword fighting skills with the guards of their estate. But her father had forced her to go when her friends had shown up at the house, begging for her to come with them. He claimed she needed to get her priorities straight and actually present herself, show the honor and pride that came with being part of the (L/N) family. (Y/N) thought there was very little honor and pride in parading their wealth around like they owned the world, especially in front of people who constantly struggled to survive on a daily basis.

(Y/N) walked slowly down the worn cobblestone streets, suppressing the urge to gag at the sight of other nobles walking around, looking and acting as if they were rulers of the walls. She barely looked at anything, only stopping to occasionally buy food when she noticed the hungry children hanging around, looking for a scrap to steal. She could tell they were wary of her, but she never stopped trying, always offering them the food in some way, even if it meant leaving it in a secluded space for them to find later.

Her friends constantly tried to get her to engage, running up to her with crystal jewelry, silk clothing, and delectable foods, attempting to entice her, only to get pushed away. (Y/N) wanted no part in any of it. Even her attire spoke volumes about how little she wanted to be there. She knew that to the people of the Underground, the dress she wore would be considered something of utmost value, but when compared to the nobles around her, she looked underdressed and plain. She wore nothing more than a subtle red dress covered with a black leather jacket, paired with black combat boots and matching gloves, no jewelry to be found except for the simple white earrings she wore in her lobes.

Her father had been less than pleased with her appearance, but stopped arguing when she announced she was leaving, the lord just happy she had at least agreed to go to the festival. She knew he was disappointed in her, annoyed that she wasn’t like the other noble ladies who loved to flaunt their luxurious lifestyles and bend to the every whim of the lords around them, looking to marry early for money and power. (Y/N) wouldn’t be surprised if the entire reason her father wanted her here was so she could possibly win over the affections of a single lord milling about, one that was rich and influential. It was for that possibility alone that (Y/N) had originally thought to wear something that made her look underdressed, having to swallow the bile that rose in her throat at the prospect of catching some snobby noble’s attention.

“Yeah, her name is (Y/N)! She’s the one right over there, I think she could use a good time.”

(Y/N)’s head snapped up when she heard her name, her eyes shooting over to where her friends were standing in a group in front of a large building. All of them were looking at her, covering their faces with their hands to hide their giggles. Dread filled her to the brim when she saw the sign in front of the building, her face paling in horror.

“That one, eh? I think we can arrange something like that,” the brothel owner said, a smug smile on his lips as he stared at her, his grin only widening as her cheeks flushed a brilliant red. “Don’t worry, I’ve got one in particular that could give you a good ride. He’s expensive since he’s my most popular, but he’s worth it.”

(Y/N) opened her mouth to argue, her cheeks on fire as her brain fought to think of something, anything to get her out of this situation. She didn’t want to fuck some random stranger for no reason, but she especially didn’t want to have sex in a brothel. She found them vulgar, repulsive, and horrible. The way they treated their “workers” was appalling. Just as the words finally reached the tip of her tongue, one of the girls she had come to the festival with cut off her impending argument.

“Damn, I’m jealous! If he’s that good I’m almost tempted to take him myself. But she needs this. She hasn’t loosened up the entire time we’ve been here and I think this might help. She’ll take him.”

The greasy man smiled and wrote her name down, happily accepting the roll of cash her friend handed him before getting up, supposedly to let the man know that he had another customer on the way. (Y/N) tried to escape when she could, but her friends rushed up and caught her before she could slip into the shadows, dragging her over to the brothel and shoving her towards an open door where the brothel owner stood, a creepy smile still plastered on his face.

“Guys! I don’t want this!” (Y/N) whispered frantically as she was dragged towards her doom.

“It doesn’t matter if you want it or not, you need it!” One of her friends said with a laugh. “Besides, you’re going to have a fun time. Don’t make us regret spending that money for you!”

(Y/N) was practically thrown into the room, stumbling as she fought to catch her balance, before the door was slammed shut behind her, the loud sound of the lock being latched reverberating around the room with the finality of a death toll. Huffing in anger, (Y/N) stood and brushed herself off, smoothing out her dress and straightening back up to her full height, fighting off the panic slithering up her spine.

A low groan of pain coming from behind her made her whirl around in surprise, her eyes landing on a shorter, pale skinned man with stunning silver eyes and raven black hair. Gods he looked pathetic. She could definitely tell he was attractive, it made sense now as to why he was a popular choice, but he looked sickly, his cheeks hollowed out, dark circles under his eyes, and a muscled yet neglected body starting to wear thin from years of hunger and constant overuse. The sight made her want to be sick. How could anybody be cruel enough to force themselves onto this obviously abused man? How could anyone willingly pay money to fuck him rather than help him?

“Um, hello,” (Y/N) said quietly. “W-What’s your name?”

The man raised an eyebrow, not used to the soft, kind, almost shy way she asked for his name. The women and occasional men he dealt with most of the time were demanding, controlling, and sadistic, knowing they paid for a man they could use, and their voices usually projected that. Yet, this woman looked as if she had been forced to do this, further supported by the way she had been nearly thrown into the room by whom he assumed was her friends.

“Levi,” he said quietly, waiting for the usual routine to start, no matter how much his gut twisted in disgust at the thought.

“Hi, Levi, I’m (Y/N).”

“(Y/N)...” Levi murmured softly, training himself to memorize it despite his swimming brain, knowing she would want him to scream it out later. Whether in pain or in pleasure, he wasn’t sure yet.

“Um…” (Y/N) was about to speak, her mind scrambling for something to say when her eye caught sight of a large bruise on his neck. Her eyes widened and suddenly started scanning his entire body, her stomach roiling more and more the longer she stared. Now that she was really paying attention, (Y/N) could see painful bites, hickeys, and splotchy bruises littering his neck, jaw, chest, and thighs. Her eyes narrowed on the long, bloody scratches running down the length of his chest and back, and she noticed blooming red patches of skin all over him that were raw and aching from being slapped hard and rough over and over again. 

He was wearing a loose pair of worn boxers as his only cover, and (Y/N) could only imagine what other horrors the thin cloth was hiding. Glancing down, she saw him shift uncomfortably, his boxers tented by his arousal. The sight made her growl in anger, knowing that to keep him going after he had already had so many customers for the day, a drug was being used to make him insatiable, forcing him past the point of pain and probably clouding his judgement and mental process as well. It made her want to go cut up the brothel owner and serve him to a pig.

Without thinking, (Y/N) rushed to him, reaching out to him, only to freeze when he flinched. She heard him curse at the involuntary movement, knowing it was his job to appear as unaffected and sexually appealing as possible, and it made her heart clench even harder, her hatred for this place and the people who ran it increasing tenfold.

Taking a deep breath, (Y/N) immediately slowed her movements, trying to appear as calm and unhurried as possible. Her gaze softened and glazed with unshed tears when he closed his eyes, his arms reaching out as he prepared for her to sit on his lap and have her way with him like she knew every other man and woman who used him did. Gritting her teeth against the fury she felt, she carefully slid her way across his thighs. She felt him force himself to relax under her as he leaned forward to let her kiss him.

When he felt nothing, and heard something click, Levi cracked open his eyes in curiosity, only to have them fly open all the way when he felt something cool and wet against his neck. Looking down at the woman in his arms, his lips parted in shock, watching in confused awe as she leaned back and soaked a small cloth in some water from a bottle, rinsing the fresh blood from the fabric. Looking to the side, he saw a small first aid kit by her feet, the container open to reveal a variety of medical tools inside.

(Y/N) leaned forward again, raising the towel to his neck to dab at his abrasions, washing them carefully, reverently, almost... lovingly. Levi opened and closed his mouth but no words came out as she continued to work on him, delicately cleaning his jaw and neck before carefully moving on to his chest. Was this some kind of strange ritual she always performed during sex? Did she just find him dirty and want to clean him up before putting her lips or her pussy on his skin? His mind was running a million miles a minute as she worked on him in silence, only pausing when he hissed quietly at the feeling of his gashes being washed.

(Y/N) frowned as she gently swiped the cloth along the red gouges in his skin. They were deep, most likely caused by the long, sharp nail extensions some ladies liked to wear, or the dull blade of a man with violent tendencies. It didn’t surprise her, a lot of the men and women who used people like this did have sadistic qualities, but it didn’t help to quell the now roaring fire in her blood, wanting nothing more than to fight against the injustice of this man.

“W-What are you doing?” Levi finally managed to ask.

“Cleaning your wounds.”

“Why? Is this some kind of-”

“Preparation? No. We aren’t going to do anything. I just want to help your injuries heal.”

Levi felt like his brain was full of static, like his mouth was stuffed with cotton. He wasn’t complaining, far from it, but he couldn’t get a reading on this woman. Why would she, a noble from the surface, want to help him, a hopeless whore from the Underground?

“Wha-”

“Before you ask what my intentions are, I’m just going to tell you that I didn’t even want to do this. I was forced to come to this festival because my father wants me to become more of a proper noble woman. But since I wasn’t too thrilled about having to be here, the people I came with thought I could use an opportunity to loosen up, and paid for me to do this with you in the hopes that I’d start having fun with them afterwards. But I have no intention of doing any of that. I hate how everyone in the Underground is treated like shit, and the last thing I want to do is take advantage of someone who obviously isn’t in control of his situation. I just want to help.”

Levi closed his mouth, all of his protests dying on his tongue. He still had questions, a lot of them, but he decided those could wait, her explanation making him feel surprisingly relaxed for someone who had trained himself to never take the word of a noble at face value. He had never met anyone like her. Even before he was forced to whore himself out, all he had ever known of nobles was their complete lack of humility and egotistical sense of self-importance. 

It was silent for a moment, but this time, the silence was more comfortable, both of them starting to relax a little as (Y/N) continued to patch him up. Levi felt himself loosen up a bit, his muscles unwinding as his hands settled on her waist, keeping her securely balanced on his lap as she worked. Pride swirled in (Y/N)’s chest as she felt his tense muscles soften, her eyes sparkling as she started to work her way towards earning his trust.

“What’s your happiest memory?” (Y/N) asked suddenly.

Levi quirked an eyebrow in suspicion, “Why should I tell you, brat?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” (Y/N) said, shaking her head and stifling a giggle at the nickname. “I only asked because I figured we may as well talk while we do this. Not only that, I feel like you could use some happiness right now. But I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, so if you don’t want to talk to me, you don’t have to.”

Levi was silent for a minute, the cogs in his mind turning as he tried to make what he believed to be the right decision despite the fog clouding his judgement. Just as she had promised, (Y/N) waited patiently, not pressuring him to answer, or even bringing up another question. She merely sat in silence, her clear (e/c) eyes narrowed on his injuries as she worked to make him feel better.

“There was a time when I was with my friend Farlan, a few years back. We were doing a job, trying to get rid of a troublesome merchant for a client of ours when we found out the merchant had a cat. We were hiding around the corner, waiting to strike when that damn cat jumped up onto Farlan’s lap. I’m fine with cats, but that was the day we found out Farlan had some kind of allergy to them. He was trying to hold back his sneezes but finally lost control right when the merchant came around the corner, and Farlan ended up sneezing really violently in his face. That merchant got so scared he must’ve jumped at least three feet in the air, and even managed to piss himself before he took off. We still had to finish him off later, but in that moment, when Farlan was mortified and our target was running for the hills because of a cat induced sneeze, I couldn’t help but laugh a little.”

(Y/N) had paused in her work to listen to him, and couldn’t help but smile when he finished his story. Going back to work, (Y/N) didn’t ask what happened to Farlan, not wanting to drag him back down after she had finally gotten him to talk to her, about something so personal no less.

“What about you?” Levi asked.

“Hmm, I think I’d have to say when I got my horse for my birthday,” (Y/N) said. “I was never around the horses, wasn’t allowed to be in the barn because it wasn’t “proper for a lady”. But I loved them, loved seeing them on the streets when other nobles would come visit my father or when the soldiers from the Survey Corps would come back from a mission. I couldn’t stay away, so no matter how much my father tried to squash my love of them, it just wouldn’t happen. My mother eventually convinced him to let it go, and surprised me with a little chestnut filly that I named Sashay when I was about sixteen years old. Now, she’s my best friend. We’ve been through everything together, and she’s the only one who doesn’t try to force me to be something I’m not. Aside from the royal guards, I guess. They learned a long time ago to stop trying to get me to sit still and look pretty when I beat all of them in the sword fighting ring.”

Levi’s brows shot up into his hair at that, his lips parting in surprise. “You know how to sword fight?”

(Y/N) chuckled. “Yeah, not what you were expecting, huh?”

“No,” Levi said. “I’ve never heard of a noble woman who could fight, let alone with a blade. Are you any good?”

“I tend to think so, but that all depends on who I’m up against,” (Y/N) said with a cheeky smile.

For some reason, Levi couldn’t help but smile back for the first time in years. His lips felt chapped and strained from disuse, but it felt good, a light feeling flooding his chest with warmth. “You said earlier that your horse’s name is Sashay,” Levi said, suddenly changing the topic.

“Mm hm.”

“That’s weird.”

(Y/N) giggled at his bluntness, making another fluttering feeling swirl in his chest. He had never met anyone other than Farlan who saw his language as something other than rude.

“Yeah, I suppose so,” (Y/N) said. “But I named her that because she is a sassy chestnut mare. I like to imagine that if she were human, she’d be someone you wouldn’t want to mess with, someone who wouldn’t take shit from anyone, but would do so with a spicy attitude. So I named her accordingly.”

Levi huffed a laugh at her response but almost immediately regretted it when the movement of his chest caused the rough gauze at her fingertips to brush against his injuries a little harder than before, the stinging sensation making him hiss in pain.

“Sorry!” (Y/N) said, quickly retracting her hands and holding them up, waiting for him to give her the signal to continue.

“Not your fault,” Levi mumbled, motioning that it was alright for her to get back to work. “Thank you, by the way. I don’t think I said that before.”

(Y/N) shook her head. “You don’t have to thank me. I want to do this.”

Levi wanted to ask her why but remembered what she had told him at the start of this and decided to trust her word, swallowing the question and instead changing topics. “Why do you even have this? Do you always just carry a first aid kit around?”

“Only when I come to the Underground. I want to have it available for those who really need it.”

“You do know that at least half of the people down here would kill you without a second thought to get to that medicine. Or they’d kill you if they thought you were pitying them.”

“I know, but I’d like to think I can handle myself a bit more than the average person. Even so, I usually keep it hidden unless I really want or need to use it on someone, and it’s only for quick patch-ups anyway. I can’t really fix anything major.”

(Y/N) finally finished with his front and carefully slid off of his thighs, moving slowly to begin working on his back. She made sure he was okay with everything she was doing before settling herself down onto the edge of the bed behind him, her hands reaching up to start her work once more.

Levi wanted to know more about her. He felt as if he could talk to her for hours, as if he had known her for years. He wanted to know what made her laugh, what made her cry, what her vision was for the future. It was insane, so much so that Levi idly wondered if he’d fallen off the deep end. But he couldn’t deny it. She was just too intriguing, so surprisingly kind, so genuine.

What was your childhood like? What are your favorite things to do? Do you come down here often? When will I see you again?

The questions continued to rattle around in Levi’s head as they once again lapsed into a comfortable silence but he forced all of them back, not wanting to seem either too desperate to get to know her, or be seen as coming on too strong.

After debating with himself for a while, Levi finally settled on, “You’ve mentioned your father a lot, and how he doesn’t want you to be yourself.”

(Y/N) tensed a little, her face twisted in a grimace behind Levi’s back. “Yeah… he used to be better about it, but ever since my mother died, he’s been like a tyrant. He’s upset he didn’t get a son in the first place, but now that he’s stuck with me for a daughter, he’s even more disappointed that I’m not someone he can easily make profits off of by marrying me off to someone. Not only have I been adamant about not allowing it, but no nobleman wants a woman who can think for herself. A woman who can ride a horse, go toe to toe with her soldiers, has an opinion, and is knowledgeable about current conflicts. They want someone who will dress up all pretty for them and be in bed, ready to satisfy them when they get home from gambling and drinking all day while sitting on their parents’ money.”

Levi scoffed and (Y/N) huffed in agreement. “I’m just not that kind of person. Every suitor that has ever met me has run away from my casual attire and sailor’s mouth.”

“Your father wasn’t like this when your mother was alive?” Levi asked.

“He was, but he wasn’t as bad. My parents were in an arranged marriage, but they got along alright. At least my father loved my mother enough to listen to her most of the time when she told him to lay off of me. I honestly think she’s the reason why I have such a strong fighting spirit.”

“I’m sorry she’s gone,” Levi said awkwardly, not used to providing words of comfort.

“Thanks,” (Y/N) said genuinely, a warm smile gracing her beautiful features.

“I didn’t know my mother that well,” Levi said haltingly, still unsure why he felt comfortable telling her about things he hadn’t even talked to Farlan about. “She died of a disease when I was four years old. She was a prostitute, like me, so I never knew my father. When she died, I was picked up by a man named Kenny, who I thought might’ve been my father for a short while, but as I grew older, I realized he wasn’t. I don’t have any proof, I just know. When he abandoned me at ten, I was alone for a few years before I met Farlan.”

“So… you didn’t get stuck doing this because of your mother?” (Y/N) asked carefully, almost afraid to ask in case it made him shy away from her.

“No,” Levi said slowly. “I was twenty years old when I was caught stealing from a rich friend of this brothel owner. I had made a mistake and there was no way out. He figured out who I was, a thug who was known at the time for carrying out favors for people, whether that meant stealing or killing depended on how much they were willing to pay. Unfortunately, this led them to Farlan, and he gave me a choice. Me, or my best and only friend.”

“And you chose to save your friend at the expense of yourself,” (Y/N) finished for him in a hoarse whisper, filled with horror and unbridled fury at what this man had been through. She figured she should’ve been alarmed, he had just admitted that he had blood on his hands. He was a thief, a thug, a criminal, a murderer. But (Y/N) knew those things were nearly requirements for living in the Underground and no matter how she thought about it, she couldn’t think of anything that would make this man deserve what he was going through.

(Y/N) opened her mouth to say something just as she put the last bandage in place when a loud pounding on the door startled them both. “Time’s up, you two!” The brothel owner shouted through the door.

(Y/N) shot up from the bed and rushed around to where the water and first aid kit sat, quickly packing up the little box of supplies and splashing her face with water, trying to make herself look sweaty enough to look convincing. Once everything had been packed away, (Y/N) stood and shrugged off her leather jacket, throwing it to him.

“Here, take this, it’ll keep your boss from seeing the bandages and trying to get rid of them. It’ll also give your injuries a little more protection from the bacteria in this room.”

Levi wanted to refuse, tell her he couldn’t accept a gift like this, even if it was temporary, but no words would come out as he watched the beautiful woman in front of him mess up her hair and swipe her fingers across her lips, trying to make herself look as wrecked as possible. When she finally looked the part enough to seem convincing, (Y/N) made her way to the door, turning one last time before she opened it to throw him a wink and a sweet smile.

“~Goodbye Levi, I hope we can see each other again soon.”

The lilt in her voice was fake, an act for anyone who may be listening on the other side of the door, meant to be taken as a sickly promise of more sexual endeavors to come, but he could feel the genuine emotion in her statement.

“I hope so too,” Levi said quietly after she had already left, the once comforting quiet of his room now making him feel lonely and empty.

The sound of pounding on his door woke Levi abruptly, making the raven-haired man growl in anger and annoyance. It was rare that the poor man got to sleep, not only because customers could come in at almost any time, day or night, but also because of the horrible insomnia that often plagued him. It made him even more irritable to be woken up, his body sore and his mind groggy as another round of pounding roused him further and prompted him to swing his legs over the side of the small cot he was provided when not busy fucking, and make his way to the door.

“What?” Levi snapped when he swung open the door, genuinely surprised that the pig who owned him hadn’t just burst into his room like he always did, raving about yet another customer for Levi.

“Get your shit, you’re going to the surface.”

Levi blinked. This had to be some kind of joke. The brothel owner never let anyone under his foot leave the brothel, let alone the Underground. Even the highest class noble women couldn’t request for him to come to them, the old man not trusting his prostitutes to be sent back. Especially Levi.

“Oi, your ears gone to shit now? Grab your pathetic bullshit and get out of my sight,” the man snarled, his small, watery eyes narrowed on Levi like he was the scum of the world.

Shaking himself out of it, Levi didn’t hesitate for another moment, rushing back into his room to grab the pitifully few things he had with him, including the leather jacket he had gotten from (Y/N), draping it over his shoulders to hide his healing injuries just in case it was a trick. The festival was still going on afterall, this could just be some ruse the old man set up to make the experience more interesting for the men and women who paid for him.

When Levi returned, the man pulled a gun from his jacket pocket and jerked his head, signaling Levi to follow him. Levi knew better than to risk running. In his full health he could’ve easily escaped from the man’s clutches, but with little more than a half hour of rest, his injured body, weak muscles, and the remnants of the drugs still working through his system, Levi didn’t trust himself to outrun a bullet, and knew the pig wouldn’t hesitate to fire, no matter how valuable Levi was to him. 

Even though Levi kept expecting the brothel owner to turn down a secluded street and lead him right into an ambush or trick of some sort, he never did, leading Levi right to the stairs exiting the Underground. When they reached the guards at the base of the stairs, the man took two slips of paper from the inner pocket of his worn brown coat and showed it to the guard. When he was cleared to continue on, the brothel owner turned and motioned for Levi to stay close as he stomped his way up the stairs, grumbling incoherently to himself all the while.

Breaching the surface, Levi brought an arm to his face, shielding his eyes from the intensity of the sun as it attacked his face with warm, bright light. He eventually got used to it, slowly lowering his arm and rushing to catch up with his boss, who was impatiently grunting for him to hurry up.

Passing through what appeared to be a busy market square, Levi followed the brothel owner along the lively cobblestone streets until they reached a quieter part of the town, stopping along the edge of a beautiful flower field, the grassy meadow filled with colorful blossoms that secretly took Levi’s breath away.

The sound of horse hooves caught his attention, and Levi looked up only to have the air fly from his lungs when (Y/N)’s bright face came into view, the stunning woman seated astride whom he assumed to be Sashay and flanked by two armed men.

“Right on time,” the brothel owner grumbled, his little pig eyes narrowing when he saw her passive aggressive smile.

“Of course I’m on time, this is my deal, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the man growled. “Are you sure you want this one? He’s my most popular, I’d hate to lose him.”

“Yes, he’s the one I want. Besides, I believe the money I’ve paid you has far exceeded the profit you have earned from having him around. I’m sure you will be able to manage.”

The man sneered at her but didn’t respond, using the muzzle of the gun to push Levi forward and digging in his pocket to fish out the same pieces of paper he had shown the guards on the stairs, handing them to (Y/N).

“Thank you, sir. I believe we are done here.”

The brothel owner slunk off, casting dark looks at her but refusing to argue as he hunkered off to head back down to the Underground, where he would continue to rot like the rat he was. Levi watched him go before turning to (Y/N), surprised by the bright smile she flashed him when he met her gaze.

“(Y/N)? What’s going on?”

(Y/N) smiled even wider and held up the pieces of paper she had been handed. One of them was the file labeling him as a slave to the brothel owner, keeping him from escaping, and the other was a bill of sale. His eyes widened when he saw her signature on the bottom of both pages, officially registering her as his new owner. He opened his mouth, about to speak when she took both pages in her hands and ripped them in half, letting the torn pages float onto the street below, forgotten, useless.

“There, you’re free now.”

Levi was at a loss for words, his mouth gaping open. “(Y/N)? What-”

“Before you ask me what my intentions are, I’m just going to tell you that I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I couldn’t stop thinking about your life, your sacrifice, your pain, and I decided I could do something about it. You are human, and damn it, you are an important one! I couldn’t just leave you there. Now, you won’t have to work for anyone but yourself. You won’t have to cater to anyone else’s needs and you can fulfill whatever dreams you have.”

“But, that must’ve cost you a fortune, to cover more than the amount of money he’s made off of using me? What about-”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Levi. I want to use my funds for good, put them towards the people who need it the most. That includes you. Especially you. I couldn’t bear the thought of you having to stay in that shit hole for even a second longer than necessary.”

“What do I do now, then?” Levi asked, trying to focus on keeping his voice steady.

“Well, you can do whatever you want now. You’re a free man, you can find a house and settle down somewhere, or you can go back to the Underground and pick up your life where you left off. You can join the military, or you can start a small business here in the square. It’s anything you want. You get to choose your life now.”

“And what if I don’t want to do any of those things?”

(Y/N) couldn’t help the smile that flashed across her face then, her heart filling with warmth. “Like I said, it’s your choice, you can do whatever you want, carve your own path, but if you want to come with me, you’re always welcome to.”

Levi’s lip twitched and he took a step forward, reaching up to pat Sashay’s muzzle as he got closer. “Alright, I’ll follow you.”

(Y/N) beamed before turning around to nod at each one of her guards, dismissing them. When they had left, presumably returning to (Y/N)’s family estate, she reached down for him, her hand extended for him to take. Placing his rough palm into her warm hand, he allowed her to help him up into the saddle behind her, his arms wrapping around her waist to keep himself secure as (Y/N) kicked Sashay into an easy canter. Sighing blissfully, Levi let himself relax, his chin coming down to rest on (Y/N)’s shoulder as they made their way home, together.

Levi had never expected to see the day when he would willingly go with a noble, but then again, he never thought he’d ever meet a noble like (Y/N). Now, as he felt her warmth soak into his chest, he knew he’d made the right decision.

Levi finally felt the remnant effects of the drugs in his system fade away as the sun beams broke through the fluffy clouds in the sky, leaving his mind clear. He was making this decision all on his own, nothing left to impair his judgement, and no matter what, he knew he would never regret the path he chose to take just so long as (Y/N) stayed by his side.

[amimimi]

kissing face

synopsis: tiktok makes langa a lil insecure

genre: fluff

pairing: langa x reader

warnings: mentions of insecurity and physical appearance, kissing

word count: 1.4 k

notes: i started thinking about what langa’s fyp on tiktok would look like (it would be chaotic. pure, utter chaos. that and cooking tutorials. no in between) and then I wrote a lil paragraph for sh*ts and giggles. and THEN it turned into...all of this. also, i wrote this during my study breaks so if the gramma/spelling is off, it’s because my brain is actually fried. enjoy!

langa sees all those tiktoks making fun of that face boys make before they kiss you and he’s like “ew?”

but then he tries to practice kiss in the mirror and he’s horrified because wtf wtf wtf wtf? has he been kissing you like this since you started dating him? why haven’t you said anything?

so when he’s over at your house for a studying session, the both of you sitting on your bedroom floor, you don’t notice that langa is purposely withholding from kissing you because you’re in study mode.

the timer on your phone goes off, signaling for you both to take a break. sighing deeply, you rub the back of your cramping neck and look up from your laptop. you turn over to langa, who’s eyes are glossed over from reading, his hair a mess from frustratedly running his fingers through his locks—he looks like he’s just been shuttled from another dimension.

“i’ve...been rereading the same five sentences for the last thirty minutes” he murmurs, sounding equally as dazed as he looks.

this earns a giggle from you, as you shimmy over to wear he sits. with a sympathetic smile on your face, you smooth his hair down as you coo “poor baby”, before you start giggling again.

langa, whose brain is way too fried to respond, can only stare at you, blinking ever so slowly. you settle closer to him, cupping his cheeks and langa catches your gaze dropping to his lips.

suddenly, he gets a mental image of those god awful expression he saw on tiktok and he’s shaken from his studying induced stupor. Wide eyed, langa wriggles out you grasp feeling a little bad at your confused expression.

“is something the matter?” you ask, frowning slightly. “i’m sorry—”

langa places his hands over your cheeks before you can finish your apology. “close your eyes” he says, straight faced.

you blink. “huh?” you question.

“can you close your eyes...please?” he mumbles, a lot less confident than before. he pouts a little in an attempt to conceal the fact that he’s slightly blushing (you notice).

still confused, you shut your eyes. “okay, but hurry up. your hands are cold—” you stop yourself when he feel his breath fan your face. without thinking, you inhale on instinct. it was embarrassing to admit, but you loved the scent of langa’s breath. he was impeccable when it came to hygiene, so he always smelled nicely. but you loved langa’s scent—it was hard to explain. he always smelled like mint and well, himself. him. him. him. him.

you knew what was coming next, but you couldn’t help but jump when his lips met yours—soft and hesitant. inhaling much more deeply this time, you slightly part your lips and lean into the kiss. langa hums appreciatively and you bring your hands up to grasp onto his forearms.

before you can open your eyes, langa swiftly pulls away, leaving you slightly dazed. you open your eyes to see langa cautiously staring at you.

“why...what was that all about?” you ask, trying to keep your face from twisting into a smile. you give langa’s forearms a squeeze and he drops his hands from your face, resting them on your lap.

“nothing...” langa mumbles, looking everywhere but at you.

he was obviously not telling the truth, and you knew that. but you also knew that the inner workings of langa’s mind was an enigma and if you were being honest, this wasn’t even close to being the strangest thing he’s done.

so you let it go—that is until he’s getting ready to go home.

you’re standing in the doorway, watching langa tie his shoes before he stands up straight and adjusts the strap of his messenger bag over his chest.

you grin. “that was hot”

langa blinks. “what was?” he asks, bending over to pick up his skateboard.

“when you adjust your bag like that” you reply softly, sliding your fingers over the strap before you bring your hand over his chest.

langa’s confused expression melts into a fond smile. you think he looks prettiest like this, smiling so easily with a gentle shimmer in his eye, like moonlight reflecting off the ocean.

“okay, i’ll keep note of that” he replies quietly and you can’t help but giggle at the sharp contradiction between his formal choice of words and the affectionate tone of his voice.

langa continues to softly grin as you giggle.

but then, oh shit, you’re staring at his lip again. langa panics, not wanting to ruin the moment but he’ll be damned if you see that ugly ass expression on his face before he goes in for kiss. but you must’ve seen it before right? did you notice but chose not to say anything out to preserve his feelings? did he really look like a fish while kissing you? a fish?

“all that studying must’ve fried your brain, huh?” you smile at him through half-lidded eyes, drumming your fingers against his chest. langa realizes he’s been staring at you with a dead expression and bites his lip.

langa takes the hand you’ve placed in his chest and grips it. “goodnight, y/n” he whispers before hesitating. “c-close your eyes”

the smile on your face falters as you take in langa’s tensed appearance. you tilt your head to one side. “why?”

“so...”

“so...?”

“i can kiss you goodnight”

there’s a long pause. langa’s grip on your hand has increased tenfold as he stares at you expectantly and he almost looks—nervous?

you blink, still confused, before langa reluctantly continues on.

“just...until i figure out how to fix my face...” he mumbles, eyes flitting off to the side.

“okay, now I’m really lost”

“i—” langa starts before sighing, deciding it would be better to show you. with the hand that isn’t clasped against yours, langa whips his phone from his pocket and unlocks it.

bewildered, you watch your boyfriend closely as he navigates through his phone—for what? you have no clue. off handedly, you think to yourself about how cute his expression is, brows furrowed and his lips set in a tiny pout.

“this, this” he rushes, bringing up his phone up to your face. you watch the tiktok he’s pulled up for you, in which a girl imitates the different ways boys go in for kisses.

you purse your lips in an attempt to conceal your smile, your chest jumping with an aborted giggle.

“oh, that’s—” the sentence dies in your throat when you look up at langa to see his dejected expression. “oh, no no no, langa, no. sweetheart, no”

“we’ve been dating for months—” langa mutters as you cup his cheeks, standing on your tip toes so that you’re eye level with him.

“no, oh my god, langa!” you half-whine, giggling as you try to get langa to look at you. he directs his gaze toward the ground, cheeks warm in against your palms.

“—and you didn’t tell me that I was making fish eyes at you?”

“well, not fish eyes” you offer thoughtfully and langa peers up at your earnestly. you drop one hand from his cheek to grab his forearm, raising his hand so you can examine his phone again. you rewatch the tiktok again. “your eyes don’t get scary wide and you don’t let your mouth hang open like that”

the sigh of relief langa let’s out almost sends you into a laughing fit.

“but...”

langa winces, giving a slight whimper behind shut lips.

“i mean, you do cross your eyes a little—”

langa shuts his eyes, face grim, like you just told him his puppy passed away.

“but it’s really cute, insanely hot, very model-esque!” you rush, but langa hangs his head. you fight the urge to roll your eyes at his theatrics.“there has never been a time in which you’ve looked even remotely mediocre, let alone unattractive.”

langa glances up you.

“but it’s embarrassing...” he murmurs.

“but your hot...”

“i can still be embarrassed!”

“so you agree?”

“agree?”

“that you’re hot?”

langa’s face flushes as you smile up at him innocently. “i...never said that” he mumbles, turning his face from you.

“well if it truly bothers you, we can practice” you offer, gently pinching his cheek.

“right now?” he asks incredulously.

“only if you’d like” you shrug, placing your hands on top of langa’s biceps. his heart beat quickens when you grin up at him coquettishly. “i think you kiss fine, but i can make you into a bona fide kisser if you want.”

“how long would that take?” langa questions. in his head, he imagines that it would take days—weeks, even, to scrap off the awkward expressions from his face.

“hmm,” you hum with faux thoughtfulness, tapping your finger against your cheek. “when is reki coming to take you to S tonight?”

“11:45?”

“i’ll have you done by 11:30”

langa blinks at you, cheeks slightly rosy. then, his face falls into that easy smile, the smile that you love so much.

notes: dramatic langa is very pleasing to me. this was supposed to be like, two paragraphs long but then it turned into all of this. please excuse me for any errors, i’ve been studying for midterms all day and I wrote this during my 5 minute breaks lfkgkdk@&:$:

i’ll come back to edit this!

[aforrestofstuff]

Oh fuck it’s been two weeks already uuuhh Chapter 148 expert review time!!

Sorry for skipping out on chapter 147. I was too busy doing nothing.

First off: oh my god it’s normal Garou my sweet boy I haven’t seen you in ages—

Also a lot of people have been pointing out the height difference in this pic, and I was gonna say that could be attributed to Bang always being hunched over but he’s definitely not hunched over here!! Fucking manlet! Little bitchboy! Googoo gaga bitch! Gonna get his ass beat by an 18 year-old prick while also being short. Pick a struggle, Bang.

Ngl I thought Garou’s irises were tears for a second and I got all up in my shit about it but turns out he’s just cooked out of his fucking mind. I mean, his brain is medium rare at this point. What the fuck is up with him. Why is he standing like that. Why are his feet so skinny??? He’s standing on pogo sticks??

I thought Garou and Bang’s little dumpster scuffle was pretty cool. Murata’s fights are always really well choreographed and his posing is amazing. Only issue is I kinda thought their inevitable beat-down would be a little more climactic? The story thus far has been pretty plateaued and we haven’t really had a proper buildup towards this moment, I think. It’s just been one fight after another, and so far this feels no different. But, I could be getting too far ahead here. The fight’s just begun, maybe something will happen that’ll shift my opinion. But so far… yeah this seems like just another segment of punches being thrown.

I will say though, I do like Garou’s obvious improvement in this rematch with Bang. It was kind of expected since he’s gone through a lot since the Hero Hunter arc, but seeing him actually land a solid hit on the old fuck was really satisfying. He’s grown! He’s gotten stronger! Good for him! He’s still going to hell for nearly killing Mumen, though. But good for him!

Garou’s nonverbal-ness throughout this fight does bring mixed feelings in me, though. I was kinda looking forward to he and Bang’s banter; like maybe they’ll reveal things about Garou’s past that we didn’t know about or something. A few people have brought up that it could be because Garou’s asleep in this fight like he was with PPP and Darkshine, and if that’s the case then I’m a little disappointed. This confrontation was long overdue, and if Garou’s not even lucid throughout it then that could be a lot of character growth being missed out on. But like I said, it’s still early on. Maybe things will change.

I’m thinking impure thoughts.

Man what the FUCK is this.

Also, what he says here kinda stung at first. Like, wow, Garou is more teachable when he’s literally a monster that just makes animal noises and doesn’t have any signs of even being lucid?? Made me a little nervous about how Silverfang treated Garou in the past, since he’s kind of treating him as just a vessel of strength right now, not as something that was once human, much less his beloved disciple. I know Silverfang is objectively Not a good teacher or caregiver but I wasn’t expecting him to just disregard Garou like that.

I talked with Kiyoko about it and turns out it’s a bit of a translation error. Silverfang does say that, but it’s with no regards towards younger Garou and more towards how present Garou is a lot more receptive to picking up techniques. So, it’s more just banter and not a “I’m disgracing all the years I’ve taken you under my wing” sorta thing. I’m happy about that. One of the more compelling things about their relationship is the lingering guilt and love Bang still holds for Garou.

EDIT:

Also I just love the “you twisted punk” line. A lot of the dialogue in the manga is a little eeeehhh sometimes (not at the fault of anybody, by the way. Translations just be like that) but that line just feels so human. Very boomer, very witty, very funny.

So, Amahare and Nichirin are both dead but hey we got a funky lil’ sword and side quest out of it.

Portal magic, motherfuckers. I thought the use of his necklace for this was really clever.

I’ve said before how I thought the manga was overloaded with deadly situations and yet lacking death, but boy has Murata turned all that shit around. Granted, I still think the heroes have too much plot armor but this is a nice change of pace. Now we got actual blood being shed. Yay.

We had some reveals here, which I thought were cool. Apparently Nichirin was Kamikaze’s teacher, which gives me some feelings. Nichirin was also Spring Mustachio’s teacher, but Spring Mustachio is nowhere near Kamikaze’s level yet. So, Nichirin died before he could see Spring Mustachio become a master, and Spring Mustachio watched his master die without having completed his training. That shit’s fucked! The council of swordsmasters is disbanded, so who the fuck is he gonna have as a teacher now? Is he gonna go under Kamikaze’s wing? Because clearly, we haven’t seen all of that fucker (and his disciples) yet. Now we got a fucking side quest for some gay little sword or something.

This makes me… kinda excited for Kamikaze’s arc? Like, holy shit we might actually get a decent chunk of the story told around him (and maybe Spring Mustachio if Murata doesn’t forget about him because I certainly did). Idk if this is the best place for this massive lore drop but yay now Kamikaze has a working sword and a life mission to go on once we get up to speed with the webcomic. Also RIP Nichirin, your character was just used for plot progression lmao sucks to suck.

Golden Sperm looks like the shit I took today. I knew this was coming from the webcomic but nothing could’ve prepared me for the actual cyst this dude is.

Also, his gay little mask or whatever is literally just a face copy of serious Saitama lol. I fucking hate this bitch I want to stick him in some soup broth and whack him against a brick wall until he no longer making a schlorping noise. Anyways.

In conclusion, still stan Bomb because he’s trying his fucking best, even after getting his shit rocked by an 18 year-old edgelord lmao. Also, he didn’t rip his shirt off pre-fight like a fuckboy.

[pretty-idol-hell]

Idol Land PriPara 01

I’d suggest watching the episode before reading this because this is very disjointed and rambly. If nobody is working on subbing it I can make a detailed play-by-play summary at a later date (lemme know). 

TLDR: PriPara took my OC and made her real but that’s OK.

She even has the same room as me. I literally live in an attic and have that SAME exact wall over my bed that I may or may not bump into... occasionally....

So it was immediately obvious to me why they wanted us to watch episode 01 before 00. That reason being the scene where Laala is stalking Amari trying to get her to be an idol is WAAAAY funnier if you’re not already aware that everyone has apparently forgotten about PriPara. It was just so.... SO PERFECT. 

So yeah, if my understanding is correct, PriPara went through an update error which caused everyone to forget about PriPara and it’s up to Laala and the gang to get kirakira (the new iine?) by bringing all the people who were once idols back to PriPara. 

And also Yui is dead. I mean asleep. You know the character they spent a year trying to sell as the new main character only to find a way to write her out of the series as quickly as possible. Hahah yeah. We’ll find out about that in episode 00.

Also I want to quickly note that they described PriPara as a “park of dreams” in this episode. I don’t EVER remember PriPara being described as a park before, do you? (That’s PriChan, no? ??)  

But okay, let’s rewind. The way they were talking it seemed to suggest that Amari was already a PriPara idol in the past and just forgot about it. But was she? I thought it was kind of unclear. Because in the flashbacks they only showed Amari WANTING to be an idol and not actually going to PriPara/performing.

OKAY HOW OLD WAS AMARI DURING IDOL TIME AND LAALA IS STILL IN 6TH GRADE--

Haha they are in on the joke though. That’s why we got this going on. All of this is intentional. 

*GASP*... so... SO.......

So if I’m understanding correctly.... Amari is NOT Mario but at the same time... she kinda is? She created him. (And now he’s going to take on a mind of his own?)

Edit for anyone who didn’t see the episode: Mario is like literally Amari’s DanPri OC (brother?) based on a black rabbit at her school that she drew when she was going through a pHaSE. In embarrassment, Amari desperately tries to hide the notebook with his picture in it, and ends up ripping out the page (or it flies off? But after rewatching it I think she rips it out) while in Idol Land.

Love her pose AHHHH. They really put a lot of effort into making her refreshingly quirky. 

So Hysteric Bunny’s Making Drama hasn’t been programmed into the game yet eh. 

.....The amount of time it took my brain to pull out the words “Making Drama” from the dark depths of my mind was shocking. (Yattemita...? No. Appeal? ...No...) Probably about the same amount of time it took Amari herself to remember what PriPara was. (This episode is totally calling me out.)

So this is a Cyalume Hurricane. Is this another Amari-ism or is this just how we do things in Idol Land hahah...

But man. I think it took until this very moment for me to realize this is real. PriPara is really back. We have Cyalume Coords AGAIN!!!!! I had no idea how much I missed them in the PriChan era. 

So we don’t have PriTickets anymore. This is how they are showing adding friends in the app, or at least that’s my assumption. And I think that’s neat. They really put a LOT of work into rebuilding the PriPara world to work as a mobile game and it’s awesome. Going to a Prism Stone shop is a good allegory for going to an arcade. Falling into PriPara from the sky is a good allegory for taking out your phone and falling into playing the game wherever you are. 

Oh man please let the game be good please please PLEASE

[nightlight-firelight]

Hi everyone, I’m really hoping you guys like this one! I’m hoping to continue this story, if you all like this. I’m not used to writing for other people, so please give me some feedback on how I could make this more enjoyable.

“Small Things Come With a Awkward Price”

Chapter 1

Getting home was a nightmare and getting back into your room is the top priority in your mind. The trip from Walmart had you exhausted due to the unexpected heat. Looking at your phone, you swear that today was only supposed to be in the seventies. You drop off your grocery bag onto your bed and pull out the item you have been waiting to open up. The Sonic Boom season one DVD set came with Sonic and Dr.Eggman figures. Even though the box was banged up, you bought the set anyway. The thought crossed your mind that a kid tried to open the box to get the figures but luckily didn’t succeed. You opened the banged-up box and pulled the figures out and set them on the bed. Then, taking out the two DVD cases, you set those on the bed and take a walk to the kitchen with the busted box and the excess plastic.

On the way to the kitchen, your thoughts began to wonder why you had picked up the box set to begin with. It was a good price and with the addition of the figures, you thought yourself lucky to get the last one they carried. Looking back, however, you did remember that this box was just under one of the shelving units next to the videogame isle, not even covered by a speck of dust. You had only seen the box when you went to look closer at a price tag, seeing the corner of the disheveled box and its contents. Pacing your dominant foot on the small peddle of the garbage can, the lid lifts from its closed positions and you gently toss the trash into the bin, only seeing a slip of paper glide out of the now trashed box.

You groan in annoyance that you have to take care of the fallen slip and pick up the small piece of paper after a try or two keeping it slightly stick to the floor. You take a closer look at the paper and see that it had some writing to it.

‘Hope you like my surprise!’

Staring at it puzzled you. Who was this for? I wasn’t meant for you to find, at least that what you believe. Was this put in here as a joke or an accident or-,

‘Clack!’

You jump ever so slightly from the odd noise that had pulled you away from your thoughts. The noise appears to come from your room, from the way the sound was only slightly distant and lightly muffled by the walls. You take more of a pep in your step and get to your room to investigate the noise. Taking a look around your room, you find after a minute of looking to see your Sonic figure on the floor. Picking him back up you take a look at him and see that his paint job was really impressive for a small action figure. You rolled him around in your hand and were impressed that the figure, all around, was correctly put together and made. No chip marks, no lack of paint, or extra paint where it shouldn’t be. No mistakes. You smile a bit at the thought and set Sonic on your small table next to your bed. You see that the Dr.Eggman figure, however, was almost to the edge of the bed, laying on his tummy, and had his arms pushed out in front of him. ‘Looks like he pushed Sonic off.’ You laughed at that thought of the plastic toy throwing its plastic arch-nemesis over the edge of the bed.

You pick the doctor up and examine him as well. He just like Sonic with the most impeccable paint job you’ve seen. You blush a bit and hold him more gently. You won’t lie and say that you may have had a crush on the doctor for a while now, not trying to deny it anymore. The first time that you had seen him on screen when watching the cartoon, you had butterflies swarming inside of you. The way he spoke was like music to your ears, and the way that he got when he thought he was about to win was so cute to you. You wished that they had made a third season to keep going with the cute doctor, but alas, good things must come to an end.

Taking the doctor and placing him onto your mountain of pillows you take a new pair of clothing into your bathroom and get cleaned up again, remembering that the heat had not been kind to you earlier. Once done, you put your old outfit into your laundry hamper and grabbed your portable DVD payer from the corner of your room. You had gotten this for the holidays and once you had gotten it, you never put it down for more than a few hours. You open up the player and take the first DVD case and open up the side of it up to show you the contents inside.

Your mood changed to a sour one when you saw the DVD itself. A plain disk with the words ‘Sonic Boom Season One, First Disk.’ repaced what would have been the official disk. You were upset that this was a false product and went to look at the second case. When you opened that one you were greeted by the bootleg copy of the second disk. You set both cases down and head to the kitchen you grab your favorite drink.

‘Really should have grabbed this earlier when I went to throw out the box.’ thinking bitterly as you swing open the fridge door and grab a bottle of your elixir that would of relax the current mood you were in. Opening the cap and dowing a few gulps of the drink, you realized that maybe you might have had gotten a copy that may have been a gift to someone or a factory error. You put the cap back on and take a deep breath. You had wanted to watch the show and still hope that the disks were holding the content you crave.

You made your way back to your room again to find your DVD player’s disk tray opened with the first seasons stuck in the correct spot. You freaked. You KNEW that you did not put the disk is the try, not even taking it out of its case, what is it ended DOING out of the case? You panic for a second and take a look around your home to make sure no one was in the house with you. After a check of the windows, rooms, closets, and even checking under furniture, you concluded that no one could have been in your house. You take a calming breath and sit down on the edge of your bed. You try and come up with some sort of explanation. Mabey you had put the disk in your DVD player and forgot about it. You were a bit sleep-deprived due to the last week of finals, so maybe you may have forgotten? You try and relax and after a few minutes you calm down enough to stop thinking of making scenarios of how this could have happened. After getting a grip, you push the lid down of the DVD player and start up the system. Sitting on your bed, you get to the main menu and sigh of relief that it was a copy of the show and not a knock-off. “So this must be a prototype or an unreleased version, cool.” Speaking to no one in particular. You press play on the first episode, ‘The Sidekick.’ and lean back the ride.

At first, the episode appeared normal. That ended when it got to the scene where Dr.Eggman got the poster for the sidekick tryouts and when the fourth wall gag kicked in and dropped the camera away from the doctor’s face, when he picked it up, however.

“Lousy security camer-.” he had stopped and looked dead into the ‘camera’. His eyes widened and he gave off a soft gasp, and you swore he was looking dead into your eyes, however, the scene quickly changed into the next stop before he could react. You pause the clip there and lean back.

NO WAY that happened. Your brain at the moment was fried and you KNEW he looked at you. Your heart was pounding a mile a minute and you had to take a few deep breathes to make sure you didn’t hyperventilate. ‘Breath,’ You keep telling yourself. ‘Breath!’ After few minutes of reconciliation, you looked back to the paused screen and ponder on what you should do. This has to be edited or who knows what. You were too far into this to give up now. First, the way the box was hidden was now becoming way too suspicious, second the way the figure looked way too good to be sold in a box set like that, and now this? You realized that this might be bigger than what you anticipated. Your eyes connect with the figure on your bed. You wanted to see where this goes. You had to see where this leads. You press play again.

You kept watching and when it got to when the doctor was introduced it was normal until it got to the Doctor entering the try-outs. He would keep going with the same dialog but kept taking glances over to you. The episode kept playing. The ending was different, however. Once BurnBot was destroyed via growing in the ice lake, Sonic and Tails didn’t kick the doctor away from the area. Instead, they did kick the Egg-Mobile out into the distance, but the doctor jumped out, landing in the area around the lake, letting Sonic and Tails leaving the scene. The camera focused on Eggman again as he lifted himself from off the ground and into the camera’s range. This time there was absolutely no way that the Docter did not see you as his expression look of that of confusion and worry. You decided to test out to see if you were going insane or if this was just an amazing edit. You wave to him. He hesitates for a moment. “Who-” But before he could finish that sentence, a very large light appears from the screen, blinding you. You cover your eyes and try to maneuver your body away from the small screen, only forgetting that you were seated in your bed and had just flung yourself off of it. You yelp out of fright and waited to hit the floor. You felt something grab you by the waist and pull you back up on the bed slowly. Uncovering your eyes you were met with something that happens only in fanfiction. A, very real, Dr. Eggman holding you in his hands, keeping you from falling off the bed.

“Hello.” His voice wavers from either the awkwardness of the situation or the fact that he just showed up into your room.

This is awkward.

[drabbles-mc]

Protective Detail (14/?)

Nestor Oceteva x F!Reader

Warnings: language, Nestor being in his feelings

Word Count: 3.9k

A/N: Not me writing a late-night update after the 2-second clip of Nestor in the trailer put me in my feelings 😅 Regardless of the source of the motivation, here’s another chapter! Just a little snippet of something. A little bit of Miguel backstory, perhaps?? Something to build upon in later chapters, maybe???? Stay tuned to find out hahaha. Hope y’all enjoy! (Also I literally wrote and posted this all in one go so sorry if there’s any grammar/spelling errors. Got caught up in my feelings and editing was not a priority lmao)

Chapter Index

Protective Detail Taglist: @masterlistforimagines​ @sillygoose6969​ @holl2712​ @lakamaa12​ @mydaiilyescape​ @lovebennycolonmiguelgalindo​ @the-radical-venus​ @gemini0410​ @garbinge​ @slutformayansmc​ @paintballkid711​ @chibsytelford​ @yourwonkywriter​ @sesamepancakes​ @mayans-sauce​ @tigers2019​ @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead​ @plentyoffandoms​ @xladymacbethx​ @georgiaaintnopeach​ @twistnet​ @themoonandthewicked​ @bucky-iss-bae​ @capnsaveahoe​ @encounterthepast​ @everyhowlmarksthedead​ @rosieposie0624​ @mylittlelonelyappreciationtoo​ @mijop​ @blessedboo​

The following days were quiet. Despite the fact that you had absolved Nestor, telling him that he didn’t owe you anything, you could sense that there was a shift somewhere in his brain. He didn’t mention the conversation, and didn’t try to start it over again, but you could see it in his eyes that it was weighing on him. Part of you wanted to ask what he was thinking, but you weren’t quite sure if you would be able to handle the answer.

You noticed that his phone hadn’t been going off as much. It made you wonder what else he said to Miguel on their little phone call a few days before. You also wondered if your father had reached out and said something to either of them. Everything left you feeling like you were just a little too far outside the epicenter of what was going on. You were coming up short on a lot of answers that you desperately wanted to have.

As you were pouring yourself a cup of coffee, you felt a pair of arms slide around your waist. You let your eyes shut for a moment as you let out a hum of contentment. Nestor pulled you back against him, placing a kiss on your shoulder.

“Good morning,” he mumbled, his beard tickling the sensitive skin where your shoulder met your neck.

You giggled, squirming lightly at the sensation, “Good morning.”

“You’re up early,” he kissed your neck.

“Every now and then the smell of coffee is enough to bring me back from the dead,” you turned around in his arms so you were facing him, his face hardly inches from yours. Your smile started to fade when you saw the heaviness in his eyes, “What’re you thinking about?”

He shook his head, “Nothin’.”

“C’mon,” you gently cupped his face in your hands, “you’re not that great of a liar either, you know.”

He chuckled, pulling you in tight so your head was pressed against his chest, “I’m fine.”

You leaned into him, letting your arms wrap around his middle, “You can talk to me too, you know. I might not listen as well as you do but I’m still pretty good at it.”

You felt his lips curl into a smile as he pressed them against your temple, “I know.”

“So?” you didn’t try to pull away to look at him, “What’s going on? Whatcha thinking about?”

There was a pause before he finally spoke up, “You.”

You hummed against his chest, “Me? What about me is making you get that serious look in your eyes, hm?”

His chest vibrated against your cheek as he tried to bite back a quiet laugh. He slid his hand underneath the fabric of your shirt, running it up and down your back as he spoke, “I think about you a lot, you know that?”

Your cheeks warmed at the sentiment, but you felt a knot beginning to form in your stomach, unsure of where the conversation was going to go from there, “At the risk of sounding conceited, I would sure hope you do.”

He laughed, fingers still dancing up and down your spine, “I do. I think about you. I think about you and what you’re capable of, the things you could do if you really wanted to. I think about how you’re incredibly hard-headed and how frustrating it is that you’re almost always right. Sometimes I think about how you were this close to kicking me to the curb the first day you met me, and how different both of our lives would be if you did.”

You had to laugh a little, “You mean how much simpler your life would be if I did?”

He pulled back from you a little bit so he could look in your eyes, “Simpler doesn’t mean better.”

Your heart skipped a beat inside your chest. Nestor had always been more into showing than telling, and the fact that he was taking the time to say all of this to you wasn’t lost on you. You could see it in his eyes that he was conflicted, battling it all out in his head.

“And I know,” his thumb rubbed small circles into your back, “that I’ve unsimplified your life a lot, too.”

You smiled, shaking your head, “My life was never simple, Nes.”

“Yea,” his lips formed a small smile as he looked down at you, “I’m starting to realize that.”

You let silence hang in the air for a minute before asking, “Are we okay?”

He nodded, “We’re okay,” he kissed your forehead, “Don’t let your coffee get cold.”

Your back felt extra cold with the absence of his hand as he walked away towards the living room. You gnawed lightly at the inside of your lip as you lifted your coffee mug, letting the heat seep into the tips of your fingers.

The two of you spent the day on the couch. You were tucked up underneath Nestor’s arm as you read through everything that Raymond and Jude had given you. Nestor minded his business for the most part, but every now and then you could feel him looking over your shoulder. You wanted to ask him for his opinion on a few things—you knew that he had a lot more business knowledge than he let on from working with Miguel. For some reason though, that felt like it was crossing a line somehow.

“You talk to your father about it yet?” Nestor asked, his eyes fixed to the television.

You shook your head, “Not yet. Still a few more things I want to look into before I talk to him about any of it.”

“Didn’t think that you’d be so into it.”

You had to laugh, “Honestly? Me either. Been trying to avoid this shit for so long but all of this stuff has been kind of…I dunno…refreshing?” you shrugged, “Maybe I’ve just been cooped up for too long.”

“Cabin fever making you become a business woman?” he chuckled, “Pretty fuckin’ productive.”

“It was either this or cross-stitching,” you laughed.

“You think you’re going to do it? Partner up with them?”

You sighed, tossing your folders onto the coffee table as you rested back against him, “Maybe. What’s the point in running from it, right?”

“Not sure how much my opinion really matters to you, but this is the most invested I’ve ever seen you.”

“You shoulda seen me in college,” you laughed, “This shit is light-work compared to that.”

He chuckled, “I can imagine,” he pulled you so that you were laying between his legs, your back against his stomach while your head rested against his chest, “Whatever you end up doing, I’m proud of you.”

You smiled, chuckling as his hands came to rest on your stomach, “Thanks.”

“I’m serious. I know that you’ve been avoiding this shit like the plague. It takes a lot to go back to the table after walking away from it.”

“Yea, well, all these other assholes are taking seats at the table. I might as well take mine too, right?”

He laughed, “Spite is one hell of a motivator.”

You tilted your head so that you were looking up at him, “Spite feels like a strong word.”

“I think a strong word is necessary after seeing the way you talk to Galindo.”

You chuckled, “Hmm. Maybe,” you let your eyes drift shut as he started to massage your temple, “I met Miguel when I was like, thirteen, you know,” you said, eyes still closed.

“Really?” he didn’t stop caressing your face.

“Yea. He’s a few years older than me but not much. First time we met was brief. Usually only saw him because of the business our fathers had with each other. We went to the same high school but he kept his distance from me. It wasn’t until I was about to graduate that I really had any extensive conversations with him. You knew him back then too though, right?”

“More my brother than me. But yea I kinda knew him.”

“Hm. Gotcha. Well, our fathers found it to be rather…serendipitous that they each had a kid around the same age. Figured that a friendship would be good for business in the long-run. Which was whatever. He seemed nice enough. We’d talk or whatever whenever our fathers had meetings with each other. It was a little awkward at first but we actually got along alright. We’d go grab coffee or whatever while our fathers talked business. There is something to be said about being the only children of cartel leaders—that’s the kind of shit other people will just never get.”

“How’d you go from that to not wanting to even be in the same room as him?”

You laughed, “Parents got kind of pushy. I was halfway through my bachelor’s degree when my father casually mentioned that Jose’s son is a fine young gentleman. And I knew exactly where that conversation was going to lead.”

“Did you…did you two ever date?”

You finally opened your eyes and shook your head, “Kind of? I mean, not really. Truthfully, I’d gotten the vibe from Miguel before my father even said anything about it. It didn’t come as a surprise when he finally asked me out. We went out a couple times—nothing crazy. I was gonna give it a shot because, well, why not, right? What other guy is gonna be accepting of the fact that my father is the head of a fucking cartel?”

“What happened?”

You chuckled, “We started getting to know each other. I think we both mistook commonalities for chemistry. The problem with being our father’s children was that we were raised pretty much the same way. Miguel was raised with the belief that he would be in charge of things one day, and so was I. The only problem was, Miguel was looking for someone to just have on his arm—a wife and a baby-making machine. That’s not how I was raised. Some of the things he would say didn’t sit right with me. Even back then he was a little bit of a chauvinist,” you chuckled, “And my father didn’t raise me to sit back and take it. So I didn’t. Told Miguel that he could either look at this as a partnership, an equal partnership, or he could stop wasting my fucking time.”

“Shit.”

You laughed, “Yea. That went about as well as you think. He was caught between wanting to deny that he was trying to land himself a trophy wife, and also wanting to make it clear that if I was going to step up to the plate, I was going to need his help. It was an impossible line to walk and it caused some tension between the two of us for a while. But you know Miguel, the word no isn’t really in his vocabulary.”

“So what happened?”

You shrugged, dragging your fingertips lightly over his knuckles, “I kept going with my life. I was still in school, and at that point I hadn’t completely backed out of things with my father, so we still had to see each other somewhat regularly.  Every now and then, when it was just the two of us, he would mention how beneficial a partnership would be. And I would, very kindly, remind him that our fathers had maintained a partnership for years without fucking each other and I was sure that he and I could do the same. Which he didn’t like. I became a game that he didn’t know how to win. He kept it together around our fathers, the same way that he does with my father now. But, you know, he’s got a hard time letting things go.”

“You really got under his fuckin’ skin, huh?” you could see a twinkle of amusement in his eyes.

You chuckled, “I guess so. After all of that, while I was finishing school, I realized that I wanted a life outside of my father’s business. So that’s what I started working for. But I still helped my dad out whenever he needed it—like with social appearances. But when Galindo heard why I hadn’t been around, seeing me at events felt like a slap in the face. I had the audacity to tell him to treat me as an equal only to step back away from that life altogether. It only confirmed his belief that I wasn’t cut out for it,” you shook your head, “Whatever bitterness he’d been holding onto only solidified when he saw me reaping social benefits for a life that I didn’t want to be a part of—a life that I tried to cut him out of. It’s been a long time, but there are still some old wounds there. Bruised egos don’t heal easy.”

“You think that’s all it was? Just a bruised ego?”

“What? You mean do I think he ever actually had feelings for me?” he nodded but didn’t say anything, waiting for you to continue, “I don’t know. I doubt it. I don’t think he’s very altruistic in any of his relationships. There was never any love there or anything…I think when he sees me, he just thinks about the time that someone got the better of him.”

“Your fathers know about all of that?”

“Can’t speak for what Miguel told his father, but I told mine that it just wasn’t going to work and he respected that. Wasn’t a huge deal to him. Worked out for the best anyway—looks like Miguel found exactly what he had been looking for.”

“Exactly might be a bit of a strong word.”

You laughed, “You got some good drama for me, Nes?”

He smiled, “I’m not giving you that kind of ammunition.”

“That’s probably smart,” you sighed, drumming your fingers against the back of his hand, “But yea. That’s why I had to admit I was a little surprised when you said that he didn’t say anything to you about me.”

“Mikey doesn’t brag about his losses.”

You laughed, “I guess that makes sense.”

There were a few beats of silence before you heard Nestor chuckling quietly. You looked up at him, your expression asking him what was so funny. He smirked down at you, “You dumped my boss.”

You burst out laughing, “You make it sound like high school drama,” you paused, “But yea. And I woulda moved past this shit years ago but he never learned how to be civil towards me afterwards. So now I gotta be a dick, too.”

“Yea and you seem really upset about that.”

You turned so your chest was resting against his, “What, you’re telling me that you wouldn’t take advantage of the opportunity to be honest with him? To get away with being smart with him knowing there isn’t really much that he can do about it?”

“Don’t think I could do it as well as you do.”

“Well,” you rolled your eyes, “that goes without saying.”

He chuckled, shaking his head, “I see he taught you a lot about humility.”

You playfully slapped his chest, “Shut up,” once the laughter died down, you looked up at him, “You’re alright with all this? I know I kind of just dumped a lot of shit on you all at once.”

He shrugged, nodding, “It’s all history, right? Nothing anyone can do about it now,” he drummed his fingertips on the back of your neck, “Thank you for telling me—I know it’s not something you like talking about.”

You smiled, placing your hands on his chest so that you could rest your chin on top of them, “If anyone deserves to know, it’s you.”

“I gotta admit, I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall when you had that conversation with him.”

You shook your head, trying to hide your smile, “It was just as tense and awkward as any conversation between he and I now. Only difference is I was younger and a little more…temperamental.”

“More than you are now? Didn’t think that was possible.”

“You ain’t seen nothin’, Nes,” you smiled up at him.

Part of you was expecting him to have more questions, but you supposed that he was right—there was nothing that anyone could do about any of it now. Saying it all out loud made it feel a little trivial, but you knew that beneath all the drama and the snide, back-handed comments over the years, there was the weight of whole empires resting on your shoulders as well as Miguel’s. There was a type of pressure there that other people wouldn’t be able to wrap their heads around, no matter how much you tried to explain it.

The difference between you and Miguel, was that your father raised you to know that whatever you decided to do, you’d be capable of doing it on your own. Somewhere along the way, Miguel became dependent on too many people who weren’t himself. You knew that above all else, that was the biggest degree of separation between the two of you—he couldn’t take that sense of independence from you, and you couldn’t instill it in him even if you tried. That sense of dependency was still causing him issues. It was the reason that he couldn’t take his claws completely out of Nestor, and it was the reason that no matter how much time passed, there would always be resentment between the two of you. He had too much ego to protect on his own.

Something told you that everything you thought about Miguel, Nestor already knew. All the years that you had been out of Miguel’s life, Nestor had been in it. It made you wonder what Nestor was like when he wasn’t working with you. You wondered how differently he carried himself, how he spoke and what kind of advice he gave to Miguel when he was asked to. It was hard to picture the Nestor that you knew, who was all soft curls and sweet smiles, being cold and detached for cartel business. Nestor was capable, you didn’t doubt that, but it was difficult to see him as the kind of man that Miguel would keep in his inner circle.

“We gotta think about dinner soon, Y/N,” Nestor broke the silence and interrupted your train of thought.

“Pizza?”

“You gonna let me pay this time?” he asked with a laugh.

“You can pay when you beat me to it. I think that’s more than fair.”

Without another word, he reached down and wrapped his arms around your thighs, expertly moving so that he slid and slung you up over his shoulder as he stood up off the couch. You let out a squeal that broke into laughter as he carried you out of the living room towards the bedroom. He was laughing hard enough that he was tilting his head back slightly as he gently kicked the door in to the bedroom.

He tossed you onto the bed and positioned himself over you, straddling your hips. You were still trying to rein in your laughter as you looked up at him. He was shaking his head with a smile on his face.

“What, you gonna trap me here while you run off and get the pizza?”

“If I could trust you being unattended, I would,” he smiled.

You propped yourself up on your elbows with a smirk, “You can just say that you’d miss me, Nestor. I won’t judge you.”

“Hm, that’s a lie,” he said with a laugh.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to yours. You smiled and instinctively rested your hands behind his neck, pulling him closer to you. His hands rested on your sides as his lips continued to move against yours.

Before things could go any further, you felt a phone going off. Your initial thought was that it was Nestor’s, but then you realized it was going off in your own pocket. You shimmied just enough to be able to pull it out and see who it was.

“Hola, Papí, cómo estás?” you waved for Nestor to get off of you but he refused to budge. You sighed, shaking your head at him, “Yea, no, I was going to call you about those in the couple of days,” you squirmed as Nestor leaned down and started leaving kisses all along your neck and shoulders, “I think it all looks solid so far. Like I told you there are a few other things that I want to check out before I give them any definite answers,” you swatted Nestor’s hand away as he tried to slip it underneath your shirt, “Hold on a sec for me,” you hit the mute button and stared daggers at Nestor, “What are we, fucking teenagers?” you were trying not to laugh, “It’s my father!”

“You can keep talking, I don’t mind,” the smirk on his face was enough to nearly end you.

You shook your head, “Give me two minutes, will you?” you unmuted the call and pressed the phone back to your ear, “Sorry about that. Yea, everything’s fine, just had to run something by Nestor real quick. But listen, I will call you either tomorrow or the day after with more details, alright? Okay. Talk soon, I love you too. Bye,” you hung up the phone and tossed it to the side, immediately returning your attention to Nestor, “For someone who seemed real nervous about my father finding out about us, you’re getting pretty reckless.”

“Not so fun when you’re on the other side of it, huh?”

You rolled your eyes, “Yea, yea. I’m still paying for the pizza.”

“Yea,” he pressed one hard kiss to your lips, “We’ll see.”

He hopped off the bed and took off out the room. You sat there in disbelief for a moment before you realized that he was going to grab your purse. You launched yourself off the mattress and darted through the house after him, both of your laughter and his echoing through the house.

“Keep your sticky fingers out of my purse, Nestor.”

It was too late, it was already in his hands, “You said I had to beat you to it, and I did.”

“Using affection as a distraction was smart—I’ll give you that,” you laughed, shaking your head, “Fine, fine. You win. You can get dinner this time.”

“Thank you,” he set your purse down, “Still keeping this though,” he held up your card holder, “If I look in here will I get to see what teenage Y/N looked like?”

Your eyes went wide, “Don’t you fucking dare,” you shook your head with a laugh.

“I won’t…for now,” he grabbed his keys off the coffee table with a smile, “C’mon, let’s go.”

You laughed as you made your way over towards him. You pulled your shoes on and playfully pushed him out the front door. He threw his arm around your neck in a headlock as he half-heartedly dragged you to the car. For the first time in well over a week, things felt alright again. You looked over at him as you collapsed into the passenger seat, and when he looked over at you and smiled, for the first time in a while there was no hurt in his eyes. You felt like you had earned yourself a few more days of peace with him, and you wondered what it would take to keep it that way for good.

“For as messy as it all gets sometimes, Nes,” you said as he pulled out of your driveway, “I’m glad you’re here.”

He rested his hand on your thigh, “Me too.”

[homeofjonicles]

The Jonicles - Entry 2

Note: This is the second entry of The Jonicles and was written on day #5, hence why the date does not match when this is being posted. This was written back in May of this year before I started this blog, and there will be errors or developments in how this series was being written. Please enjoy (or don't enjoy) the second entry of The Jonicles!

It's May 23rd, 2022. It's also 6:30 pm on a Monday, the day of unending dread. Fitting! Today is day #5 of my Jon Arbuckle fixation.

Hello. I write again to document my current fixation on Jon Arbuckle. I've downloaded more images of him, especially the ones I think he looks particularly dashing in. My profile picture on Discord was updated to a panel of Jon dancing with a broom (displayed above) taken from a Garfield Minus Garfield strip. And furthermore, I am becoming quite enchanted by Jon's voice in the Garfield And Friends series. He sounds so... gentle, it's really soothing. It's reassuring, soft, and sounds trained, for quite an unhinged person like Jon.

Oh yeah, did I mention that Jon is most likely suffering from mental illness? Many in the Garfield fandom already know of this theory, but it's just so... interesting to me. When Garfield is around, he acts as something Jon's own sadness can bounce off of as a sort of punchline, but when the cat isn't there, it feels... empty, relatable, and Jon's character just hits you like a truck. And even when Garfield is there, with this context in mind, Jon is just a lonely, sad cartoonist who talks to his cat to fill in the void. He can't hear Garfield, but it works, just a little. That's part of why Jon has such bad social skills when talking to women and people in general. He's not really shy, but he's a recluse and can't get the "correct" words out (correct in terms of what people are supposed to do, anyway). He's... really relatable, except for the whole "desperately trying to pick someone up and get a date" part. I'm demiromantic and have trust issues, so that's not as relatable, haha......

Anyway! I've also listened to "Shake Your Paw" about 20 or so times today. It's the same song Jon dances to when he obliterated disco with his slick moves. The real reason disco is dead is because it couldn't handle carrying Jon's pure, unstoppable gigachad energy. Additionally, I drew Jon in my film class book, one of them being him as Sans, which is proof my drawing abilities were a mistake.

Not much to say here, other than I want to go watch the "Here Comes Garfield" special, not only for THE scene (the one that broke the hearts of millions of Garfield fans.... you know the scene....), but for Jon Arbuckle's unbeaten presence that always seems to enthrall me. Jon, I hope you're still enjoying your stay in my chaotic mess of a brain, because this is still only the beginning.

Last edited: 6:49 pm, May 23rd 2022.

EDIT (7:25 pm): i'm fuckignf xrry cryign... im.g.... not fcrying ovcer garfdeld nono,, ,yiyu are...... pleaee im in tteatrs.....

Ahh, the second entry. Back when I was only on day #5 of this whole mess. The image I used for this entry when I wrote it on my phone is one of my favourite Jon images, he just looks so smug, it's hilarious

Also, regarding the third entry... I'm not exactly sure if I want to post that one yet. It's very personal and I go into my.... *gags* my feelings.... Yeah. I may provide a shortened version or a summary of the entry, but for now, I think I might lay it off until I feel ready to post it. Also, demiromantic reveal! Blind dates are so bizarre.

And yes, I did actually cry during Here Comes Garfield, and that is genuine crytyping... Listen, if you've seen the special, you know exactly what I'm crying over, I think I'm completely justified for crying at that bit...

Cheers,

Your Local Jonnoisseur

Posted on the 18th of July, 2022 at 6:30 pm.

[viceadmiralrieka]

So, I don’t know how I ended up writing so much but yeah this is it. It’s not edited or anything so I apologize in advance for errors. It’s just something my brain has been playing on repeat. Also I am not a good writer 😅

This is a nsfw fic , sort of. They don’t like have sex. Just .. reader discretion advised! You’ve been warned!

If you don’t watch One Piece it’s kind of confusing. Anyways I hope someone likes it.

The water was warm, it gave Suki a hug while she sunk in. The heat in the room making it stuffy but not unbearable. The ocean breeze would give a much needed chilling touch to the backs of the women. Everyone was having small quiet conversations for a while besides the ooo and ahhs of relaxation escaping their lips.

“Here suki. Have some.” Hina passed the marine a warm cup of sake.

“It’s been days since I could have a moment of peace. Physically and mentally.” With each sip of the liquid suki began to feel her cheeks warm up and body relax deeper.

“I told you, you’d regret challenging him. Akainu has been even more ridged and cynical since you came to HQ.” Hina said matter of factly.

Suki paused for a moment going over memories of the past few days. She was right between the volcano and the 24 hour shifts, Suki had never been tested like this. Even when living among street rats and pirates her body never ached like now. Her own ego though came knocking on her door. She turned to Hina with a grin,

“Yeah you were right… but I’m still here so he still hasn’t won. Truthfully I don’t know what I gain out of this but my mind won’t let me give up. “

Hina gazed over to her comrade who was now tossing back the last of her sake. The area was now thicker and quiet while the entire room honed in on their conversation.

“I can’t imagine, Akainu is one of those men that want nothing more than order. And you… Well to be frank. You’re the most unconventional marine I’ve probably ever met, you’re fearless to a fault.”

“Thank you Hina”

“That wasn’t a compliment. How long do you think you can keep this up ? Akainu will kill you if he sees fit. A pretty face with an ass and an attitude can only get you so far. He’s a cold man ironically, I’ve never seen him act as anything besides a vicious animal. Which in his defense is justified when facing pirates but he also shows the same to you. If not worse around you.”

Suki stared at the women wondering what emotions were about to surface. She had no clue what to say. Until she just began to snicker and laugh. Hinas face dead paned.

“Everything your saying is correct. Akainu has more than once thought about killing me, I’m sure of it. Although when in regards to his demeanor. He’s not as bad as you think. He hardly lets any emotions in or out besides anger or disgust. I have experienced his kindness though. I can only imagine what sad truth is behind his anger. But when he stayed out to teach me armament haki I got a quick glimpse of his real nature.”

“Suki, you’re an idiot. Him staying to teach you something isn’t kindness that’s his job, he’s a leader. An admiral.” Hina tossed back the rest of her sake.

Suki just stared back at the water.

Was she right ? I am I just trying to see things that aren’t there ???

“You’re the only one who would really know Suki. I’m not saying I agree with you but if anyone could get close to him it’s you. Mostly because you’re the only one stupid enough to do it.”

Tsuru stated from across the bath.

“Well this was a depressing topic. Aren’t we sapposed to be relaxing, enjoying ourselves. So I start the next topic. If you had to sleep with one ☝️ admiral or vice admiral who would it be ???” Lexi the newest of Garp’s recruits says louder than needed.

Everyone begins laughing histerically except for Tsuru who was more than displeased with the comment.

“We are NOT about to have this conversation! It’s completely unbecoming of a marine to talk about such things!”

“Well we’re off duty and it’s not your turn to pick the topic. So pick someone or shhhhhh!”

“Come on Tsuru ! You got to see garp and songoku in their prime! You had to think one of them was worth risking it for? “ One of the girls asked.

Tsuru ‘s eyes widen. She then sat back down in a huff and sighed because she noticed all the women were now edging closer to hear. She rolled her eyes.

“Please they’re both complete idiots with anchors for brains! I would never.”

Suki laughed and made a buzzer noise.

“Wrong ! Not possible I’ve seen pictures of you and garp together! Y’all were like at some party or something !”

“What!?”

“No!!!!! No way Tsuru-San ! You and vice admiral garp???”

“THAT WAS THE NAVY BALL AND HE WAS JUST MY DATE I HAD NO OTHER OPTIONS!” Tsuru frantically stated and shook her finger at Suki.

Everyone began laughing even more than before.

“Come on Tsuru-Chan, pick one ! If you absolutely had to! No other options.” Suki asked in a funny voice.

“ Sengoku or Garp?” …

“…. The second one.”

All the girls gasped and laughed while whistling.

“Couldn’t even say it huh. Can’t utter his name because then it’s true right ??? It’s fine I’ll take that answer!”

“Okay miss sex on the brain, Lexi. Who would you pick ?”

She suddenly stopped laughing and her eyes grew wide. She laughed and began looking everywhere except at Suki.

“…k….” She mumbled a name quietly.

“WHAT WAS THAT?!?” Suki yelled.

“KIZARU OKAY! “

Everyone was shocked even more by Lexi’s confession. Everyone began laughing again and drinking more.

“ wow lex , I never would have guessed! He’s the oldest one! And you’re like the youngest of all of us here ! “

She began pouting. Then she narrowed her eyes at suki and hina.

“He’s definitely got something though Lexi so don’t be upset. He’s definitely not the worst on the list. Plus I’m sure the foreplay would be amazing!” One of the women stated trying to make Lexi less upset. Tsuru let out a surprised gasp.

“ okay that’s enough of this!” Tsuru stated.

“Hina ?”

“No I don’t think so . “

“Am I gonna have to drag it out of all of you?”

“No I just don’t have anyone that I can think of. Plus when you have that kind of interaction with a man you’re letting your self be vulnerable to that.”

“To what?”

“She means getting pregnant.” Tsuru says now looking angrier than before.

“Oh … “ Lexi and the others say.

“I guess Hina is the only one you young ones who thinks about things fully before saying them.”

Hina smirked at Suki and fake put a crown on her head. Suki raised a brow.

“You’re right Tsuru, Hina has definitely never thought about that with the admirals or vice admirals. (Long pause) but I’m sure that’s not the case when speaking about captains we know of, like smoker-kun?” Suki smiled slyly back at Hina while the entire room oooooo’ed.

“It’s not because I like him or anything ! It’s just that he’s the only logical choice every other man is completely brain dead!” Hina frantically stammers out trying to defend herself.

A loud spurt of water is heard suddenly everyone stops and listens for a moment.

“What was that ?”

“How bout we focus on the real question at hand Suki? Who would you pick and why do we all assume it’s Akainu?” Lexi says condescendingly.

Suki felt a knot form in her gut and heat all over her face.

“I mean you’re not wrong for assuming that but I don’t think he’d be my first pick, no. I’d probably have to go with Bastille honestly.” Suki ststes while looking at her empty cup.

“Hmmm. I think Bastille is a great choice but I know that’s not the truth. Bastille is sweet and rough around the edges and would match you great but that’s not who you’re after. Hina says to Suki.

“Akainu is cold like you said before. Why would I want to sleep with someone who’s tried to kill me? Plus Bastille would be amazing in bed, something tells me he’s into hair pulling. Both ways.”

Another loud noice is heard in the distance and a flock of seagulls take off in a flapping storm.

“No I still don’t believe you. You love challenging people and who would be better to challenge than the scariest man in the Navy? You refuse to give up on him being your instructor.”

“That’s because I want to learn from the best!”

“Well I don’t see any other women who’s worked for him defending him or saying he showed them kindness…. Maybe. He interested in you too. Plus we all know you’ve got a kink for being punished. Why else would you act like a brat 24/7.”

The noise is made once more.

“I AM NOT A BRAT. I DO NOT HAVE A THING FOR BEING PUNISHED! You’re just making things up now!”

“Hm. Maybe you’re right.”

“But I wonder how you would react if he came up to you and explained how he actually cares for you. Why he keeps you around. How your smile is so annoying it’s cute. Then offers to take you right there on his desk. You’re telling me you’d turn him down. Big arms wrapped around caging you in as he pounds away into you.

“HINA!” Tsuru stated in shock.

…. You’d say no to him?” Hina’s words were like daggers but unfortunately they were effective.

“Yes! I’d say no!”

“Oh really? Then stand up.”

“Why?”

“Humor me.”

Suki was so annoyed by Hina’s back lash she didn’t think twice and shot up out of the water. However she quickly realized why she was asked to stand. Suki’s legs were trembling, struggling to hold herself up. She fell back down into the water.

“I rest my case. You like him. You want to be with him, the idea of taming a beast turns you on.”

“Wow. I knew I never liked you.” Suki stated to Hina.

“I’m sorry but for your own sake, give up. That man is an absent hearted animal with very little regard for your life or anyone else’s. Justice is the only thing he thinks about day and night. Great Marine …. Terrible boyfriend material. You think you can see the good in everyone. Stop. If you keep trying you’ll get hurt or worse used.”

The room was filled with giggles and whispers mixed in the air with salt.

Suki sunk into the water till only her eyes were visible.

The woman from the front desk poked her head outside the entrance.

“Excuse me ma’am’s. I was wondering if anyone know who Suki is ? She’s being requested for duty by Vice admiral garp.”

Tsuru looked over at Suki who was now someone she didn’t recognize. A certain kind of glum or sadness was one thing but being embarrassed by her emotions was new territory to her.

“She’ll be right there. Tell Garp that she will be there in 10.” The woman nodded.

After Suki got out, a lot of the other women soon followed suit. Leaving Hina and Tsuru to simmer.

Tsuru went to speak but was cut off.

“I didn’t mean for it to go that far.” Hina spoke seldomly.

“I know. You have you’re own issues you were faced with. That’s why you lashed out.” Tsuru looked over to Hina who now had a single tear rolling down her face.

“She was the first person I’d met that I truly felt like she was my friend. Who didn’t just assume I was a bitch because of my facial expressions. She also never gave up when I pushed back.”

Tsuru sighed deeply. She took the bottle of sake in hand and poured a cup. She drank the entire cup in one sip.

“OKAY! HOW MUCH DID YOU GUYS HEAR AND WHOS ALL OVER THERE!!” Tsuru yelled with authority.

Hina was so confused.

“Who? Are you?”

“I KNOW THAT THE MENS BATH IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION, SO THEY HAVE THE TEMPORARY ONE SET UP ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS BATH!”

Hina’s face became more distorted.

“Ah… we… We apologize severely Tsuru-San! We will never speak of what we just heard!” A voice spoke unsteady from the other side of the wall.

“Thank you, momonga! What about the rest of you?”

Unbeknownst to the women that were in the bath house that night. The vice admirals and admirals gathered to discuss things besides work, as friends. Everyone was listening intently to the conversation that just transpired. Occasionally with each of the men experiencing nose bleeds. Except for Sakazuki. The man sat there quietly the entire time. Even when Kuzan elbowed him at the mention of his name.

The slightest hint of pink could be seen across his face. Though I’m sure he would play it off from the heat of the bath or liquor.