#I think the fact that some office chairs spin is the only thing that makes them bearable | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tojiscrack · 11 months ago

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𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋: 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐇𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑

summary: 18.1k words — you and the rest of your friend group experience all the changes and activities that high school has to offer.

notes: so during the making of this chapter, i put up a poll where i left it up to my little liars (you guys) on what colour the school should be. as much as i absolutely HATED that the majority of you picked blue over red (i'm still salty about it) i'm glad 132 of you actually participated in the vote. now enjoy this monstrosity.

tw: swearing, mention of dicks, mention of suicide in a metaphor, and that's probably it lmao

i do not own any of the characters of jjk, i only own the character of y/n and her mother. the other characters belong to gege akutami.

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.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

2017-2018 freshman year

"i don't like this."

"nobody cares, porcupine."

the two of you were currently sat in satoru's — correction: mr gojo's — office at school. it was orientation week and both you and megumi had collected your ID cards and your locker numbers. you were yet to receive your timetable for the coming year, but you were certain that they'd hand it to you some time this week, seeing as freshman year officially started in the coming week.

megumi had put up a pretty stubborn front when it came to admiring the larger corridors and the midnight blue lockers littered around the entire school (which was pretty massive, you had to note). you imagined that it would be terribly easy to get lost in, with the corridors no longer as narrow as the ones back in your middle school and with several other buildings attached to the main one in order to make room for specific departments for specific subjects. currently, you found yourself in the science department, satoru's — mr gojo's — expertise, fiddling with the new keys you'd have to take extra care of.

you'd read about jujutsu high all over the internet (and heard quite a lot about it from satoru himself). apparently, he, ieiri, and suguru attended here back in their youth. the pictures you'd seen in his camera roll, and on several polaroids, indicated that it had been a really good time ("the best time of my life," satoru would never fail to remind you). changing schools for the third time had become much easier knowing that you might experience everything that they did. it also didn't hurt that high school lasted for four long years. there were plenty of things you could do to make tons of memories in that time, especially due to the fact that yuji and nobara had both found seats in jujutsu high too.

sato— mr gojo's office was pretty decent. the walls around you were littered with several display boards showcasing a bunch of his students' work and diagrams of subcellular structures. he clearly took pride in his teaching, even if he randomly spurts out that he'd rather have their yearbook pictures up instead. apparently they had been horrendous, but a good laugh all the same. though, you'd hate to think what this man would do after you and megumi left the school. probably put up our identification pictures, you thought with a grimace.

"so," he'd said, leaning back in his spinning chair with a grin, "you nervous?"

as megumi eyed the display boards with a look of concentration you'd only seen on him when he would read the questions presented to him in an exam, you answered cheerfully.

"excited, mainly." you were seated on the chair opposite your future teacher. "but megumi was throwing a fit about it on the way here —"

"i was not," he harshly interrupted you. you did not have to look over your shoulder to tell that he was glaring at the back of your head.

sa— mr gojo paid his reaction no mind, only continued to tease him as though he hadn't spoken at all.

"i can tell! you look kinda roughed up, kid," he said, and you nearly laughed when megumi patted down his haywire hair as if it were a new thing for it to be standing on different ends. mr gojo merely flashed him a toothy smile. "i mean, that picture on your ID card —"

"that wasn't my fault," megumi snapped coldly, fiddling with his lanyard that was falling out of the pocket of his pants. "the lady kept telling me to smile."

you perked up excitedly. "but get this: he told her that is him smiling."

the picture itself was megumi being typical megumi, a bored expression that could very well be mistaken for anger. you'd never let him hear the end of it. mr gojo threw his head back and laughed.

"i'm leaving —"

"okay, okay, we're sorry!" you said hurriedly, sitting up in your chair because slouching meant that you wouldn't be able to turn and face your friend with urgency.

megumi glowered at you, but did not leave. you took that as a win as he came to stand behind you, eyes narrowed at s— mr gojo.

"i hope we get ieiri as our teacher," he grumbled, because apparently, ieiri had also taken a job here to teach.

mr gojo, looking mildly offended, simply laughed his statement off, tilting his head forward to present his weirdly-blue eyes to the two of you behind his sunglasses. you wished someone would get this man brown contacts.

"keep an eye out for your timetables, yeah?" he responded, his tone all too teasing.

you did not mind having mr gojo as a teacher, to be perfectly honest. as annoying as he could be, he was extremely laidback and matched your humour in ways many adults could not. megumi might hate him, but you supposed that it was only because you and mr gojo would team up to make fun of him, no matter the situation. there were, however, instances where you thought megumi didn't actually hate him. not really,��at least. but that was a story for another time.

sitting up straight, your back to the head of the chair, you tilted your head slightly. "wait... did you do something so that we'd be the unlucky few to have you as our teacher?"

mr gojo's lips pursed. if it hadn't been for his sunglasses, you supposed that his eyes were probably wide enough to give you a shock wave and send you straight to a hospital bed.

"why would you be unlucky to have me as your teacher?" he demanded, clearly offended.

mr gojo had always put himself on this pedestal where nobody could ever find him anything but endearing. in short, he truly believed that he was above everyone and that if you have a class with him, you should be grateful, if anything.

you barely had time to respond before megumi cut in coldly:

"you'd lose your own head if it wasn't screwed on tight."

mr gojo raised a brow at him, pulling out a small mirror from his desk drawer and holding it up to take long glances at himself. "how could i ever lose such a beautiful thing?"

megumi looked as though he wanted to shatter the mirror and everything else in the room just from louring.

"you keep a mirror in your office?" you questioned, confused.

mr gojo lowered the mirror and frowned. "you don't?"

"millennials," you heard megumi sigh from behind you.

mr gojo tucked the mirror away and fiddled with the framed picture he seemed to have propped up on his desk, its back facing you. since both you and megumi had entered his office, he seemed reluctant to show it to the both of you, storing it away with a cheeky grin you felt meant trouble. even now, he seemed to be taking glances at it and chuckling to himself, as if the two of you were part of an inside joke you had no knowledge of.

with the framed picture now resting on his lap, cleanly out of your sight, he looked up at you, lazily spinning on his chair.

"are you guys taking any extra-curriculars here?" he asked, perhaps the first ever serious question he'd posed to you that day.

"no, not me," you answered truthfully. you actually hadn't even given it a slight bit of thought. "but megumi wants to take football!"

mr gojo beamed. "really?"

megumi nodded. "heard they had a good pitch and everything."

"great coach too," the white haired male added. "the old one left last year. i had to fill in for him till the new one came around. you'll like him."

in saying that, you had expected his gaze to be directed at megumi, who had shown genuine interest in the sport. however, his head had lowered ever so slightly, showing that he was looking at you instead; you, who had shown no interest in taking an extra-curricular, namely football, at all.

"were you on the football team when you were here?" asked megumi, the harsh tone he usually used with mr gojo now lowered and at ease.

mr gojo shot him a lazy grin. "nah, i did basketball."

"so why did you fill in for the football team then?"

"i'm not bad at football," he said calmly, but you already knew that seeing as the annual family football game was usually dominated by either him or toji. but for once, he didn't sound cocky about it either. "i'm really good at it, obviously. i just prefer basketball."

before either of you could respond, the door behind you opened abruptly. annoyance ran through you, swift as an arrow, for the conversation had just begun to get interesting. all three of you peered at the door, watching as a head of a blonde, stern woman popped through the gap, lips pursing at the sight of you and megumi.

"no students allowed in the teacher's lounge, mr gojo," the woman had stated icily.

you decided that whoever this karen was, you didn't like her much. she stirred up old memories of a teacher from kindergarten that you weren't too fond of, and judging by the bored look on megumi's face, you were certain that he also agreed (a rare occurrence, seeing as the two of you were usually on opposing ends of several arguments).

mr gojo didn't look too pleased at the interruption either. already slouching in his chair as it was, he barely sat up straight to respond to her.

"i'm their legal guardian," he sneered, discontent. "and this is my office."

the woman, clearly disoriented, left without another word. you let out a low whistle.

"who was that beauty?" you said, looking back at mr gojo with raised brows.

"i like to call her negative nancy," he said, before standing up and walking around his desk to gesture to the door, ushering you out. "but anyway, you should check out the football pitch! i think the new coach is out there too, it'd be good to introduce yourselves!"

you and megumi made your way over to the door, a sense of delirium washing over you. the one major thing you'd been looking forward to out of everything was the football pitch and the late night games that would take place. due to mai showing you several clips of how rowdy the games could get, you only wished that high school would come sooner in order to experience it all in real time.

as the two of you made your way down to the football pitch, passing several classrooms filled with people listening intently to an adult doing a speech, you spotted tsumiki leading a line of students down to what looked like the school library. you instinctively glanced at megumi.

"she's part of the student council," he reminded you, continuing to walk past the library and then outside the building. "she has to help out with this stuff."

"ooh, maybe i could do that too," you commented determinedly.

megumi looked down at you, monotonous.

"you have to be elected in."

"that's no big deal!"

"no one would vote for you," he said at last, continuing to walk and not stopping even though you had, stumped and stupefied.

"that's rude, porcupine!"

he ignored you, figuring that you'd follow him eventually; you did.

it wasn't long before your constant bickering had lead you to the football pitch in no time... and it was everything you'd imagined and more.

it was like any old football field, but wider, larger, bigger: surrounding the field of grass was the running track that went round in one giant oval. behind you were the seats, benches upon benches that went higher with each step in order to make space for every viewer to sit comfortably. the field itself was adorned with several white lines, each marked with expert precision, ready and prepared for any football game that would take place. on much higher ground, behind the benches, was a wide, dark blue building, with speakers attached to the left, middle, and right sides of the roof. it was also adorned with several massive windows on the front, allowing you to see that the inside also had seats. you squinted your eyes to clear your vision a bit and found that there was a microphone for each chair.

"i was hoping for the school to be red, like the one your mom wanted us to go to," you stated, eyeing the blue on the benches with disgust.

"i like blue," megumi countered calmly.

you scowled at him. "no, red is better. who the hell made the decision to decorate it all blue?"

megumi stared off into the distance, breaking the fourth wall and peering at the people who were left the responsibility to make the choice, deadpanned.

until you broke the silence, tugging on the arm of his shirt to grab his attention.

"am i seeing things or is there someone standing over there?" you asked quietly, pointing at the figure standing in the middle of the field, unmoving.

you and megumi were on the pink track, therefore the distance between the two of you and the mysterious person in the centre of the field was great. you wouldn't be at fault for making a mistake with your presumption.

"probably the new coach," your stoic friend responded, simultaneously leering at the person.

upon further inspection, it looked to be a pretty tall man, perhaps tall enough to be at even satoru's height (and satoru was pretty damn tall, which he never let anyone forget).

"let's go," said megumi, turning away to leave the pitch.

you hadn't moved, blinking at him in confusion.

"you don't want to introduce yourself?" you questioned, addled.

megumi shook his head; you sighed exaggeratedly and pulled him in by his arm. surprisingly, you didn't need to put any extra effort in doing so: megumi put up no fight when you dragged him along.

"don't be so shy, porcupine," you said, your tone teasing because you knew pretty well that he wouldn't like it one bit. hell would freeze over before you ever neglected a single day of annoying him till he snapped. "the emo in you is showing."

"i'll hit you."

"you wouldn't," you sang, and weren't surprised when he didn't argue with you on that. "now c'mon, malakai —"

"you're really testing my patience, mermaid —"

but you'd found no time to start a brawl with him (as you usually would) at his cruel comment. instead, you stopped dead in your tracks, your arms still wrapped around one of megumi's against your torso, but your eyes were no longer focused on him. instead, you were ogling at something in front of you, namely the peculiar being that the two of you had questioned only a few minutes prior.

you felt megumi's free hand poke at your cheek.

"what's wrong with you—"

"MASAMICHI?" you yelled, uncaring of the fact that your emo friend had flinched at the sudden volume of your voice.

initially, megumi had thought your cry of the name of your former p.e teacher from middle school was a mistake. after all, there were numerous times in the long years that he'd known you where you were wrong, whether it be in an argument, a factual comment, or even your opinion on something (he held no regard for the fact that an opinion can't actually be wrong, but you were always an exception for him). however, when the figure at the centre of the field became stiff with your call, he had a pressing feeling that today must've been the night of the blue moon or something: you were actually right.

"MASAMICHI YAGA!" you repeated, louder and with less questioning in your voice.

megumi's arm had become loose in your hold, he slowly took it back, grateful for the distraction. you didn't mind.

the man had finally turned around as you hurriedly dived forward, more excitement in you at the idea that your favourite former teacher (no matter how many times he'd yelled at you) had followed you here! you had to be dreaming, there was no way this was happening.

coach yaga's appearance had changed over the years since you'd first met him. he was still as tall as ever with a muscular frame and tanned skin. though what stuck out to you the most was his hair. where it used to lie flat on his head, barely any to run his hands through, now he was sporting some that were flying up on different ends, short yet spiky. the rest of his head had remained shaved.

the final thing, along with his frame, moustache and goatee combination that had remained the same, was the tired, annoyed, and exasperated expression on his face, as if simply being in your presence was a chore.

"megumi, pinch me," you said once you'd arrived in front of your former teacher, staring up at him in awe.

"gladly," your friend had responded.

from the corner of your eye, you could see his hand flying towards yours — you slapped it away without a second thought or a single glance.

"of all the high schools you could've gone to," coach yaga sighed, staring down at you as if you were the bane of his existence (you might as well have been), "it's the one i happened to join this year."

"right?" you perked up, thrilled. "isn't that great?"

megumi thought he looked anything but thrilled. he seemed to be questioning his choice in partaking in that long process of application forms and interviews for the job here, clearly. and when megumi caught a glimpse of you, practically buzzing with excitement, it was as if all the memories of your troublesome nature had come flooding back to him in one go. he thought he understood what coach yaga was so distraught about. he thinks he might have even experienced it once or twice.

coach yaga seemed to have come to terms with it, for he let out a long, drawn out sigh and then turned to face megumi with a critical look.

"you been practicing over the summer, fushiguro?" he said, voice gruff and stern. "you once said you wanted to take football properly in high school. you haven't changed your mind, have you?"

"no."

coach yaga regarded him stoically.

"don't bother turning up to try-outs," he'd said after a few seconds of merely nodding. "you're on the team."

you felt megumi stiffen up beside you, so when you looked up at him, gauging out his expression, you were concerned to see that he'd completely frozen, and not even with a half-smile curling at his lips whenever he was secretly happy about something. megumi's face was morphed into an expression of distress, you might even say that it bordered annoyance.

you couldn't help but question why: he'd been given a free position on the football team without even having to (as a theatre kid would see it) audition for the part.

unless he was being righteous again, which always managed to irk you to a certain degree. uncle ogi called him foolish because of it, yet his mother had called him an angel.

"favouritism!" you accused, pointing at him in shock. "masamichi is doing favouritism!"

"if you don't lower your voice, girl —" your former teacher threatened, raising a fist at you, though you knew it was a completely empty threat.

ah, this was the teacher you remembered.

"...and it's coach yaga to you, for the millionth time."

"sorry, but i can't accept that," megumi had intervened (though that probably was not the right word for it, seeing as the topic was centred around him to begin with).

both your heads had turned to face him. it was, perhaps, the first time that you and coach yaga could see eye-to-eye on something: you weren't happy with megumi's refusal to the offer. you couldn't understand it.

megumi was incredibly good at football. in fact, you had so much faith in him, you were certain that even if he did take part in try-outs, he'd get in without question. you had no doubt about it. so why, you thought in your head, ready to voice it if need be, did he have to go on this whole righteous tangent if the offer could save time for both him and coach yaga?

"what the hell do you mean by that?" snapped coach yaga. "you were on my team last year, different school, but my team nonetheless. you've got a talent, i don't need to see it again to decide. you're on the team, that's final."

"you can decide after i turn up to try-outs," said megumi, clearly unmoving on his view. "it's only fair."

"fair?" sputtered coach yaga, as if he hadn't heard of the word in his entire life. you couldn't blame him, simmering in silence as you watched the interaction between them with irritation. "life's not fair, boy! you're on the team. i saw the line-up for the team last year: inumaki's on it, so you'll have a familiar face to work with."

"that doesn't matter," megumi stubbornly continued. "yuji's coming here too."

"well you can tell him he's on the team too, then," said coach yaga, also stubborn.

megumi glowered at him. "i'm not doing that —"

"then i will!" you added, pulling out your phone from the pocket of your jeans and hurriedly opening up your texts with yuji.

you could feel two holes being burned into your left cheek where megumi was glaring daggers at you, but you didn't care. you were happy for him and yuji. it was a moment to be proud of. the two were so good at the sport, that coach yaga felt the need to eliminate them from even trying out for the team, insisting that they were that talented. this, if anything, was something to celebrate. you knew that megumi would probably hold a grudge against coach yaga for the rest of his miserable life, but you were also aware of the fact that your grumpy teacher just simply would not care. so long as he has a winning team in his hands, he could not care less. that, you were grateful for.

in the end, like you had expected, megumi gave in (though not without a word; it was routine for him to complain about something) albeit reluctantly. later that day, when you met up with yuji and nobara, your pink haired friend had been as ecstatic as you, only to feel guilty at the look on megumi's face. one righteous grump was enough, how had he influenced yuji to be the same (minus the being-grumpy part)?

as the week continued to roll on — and you began to question when it was that they'd finally hand you your timetables — all four of you had found yourselves sitting around a table at the school, your first official day as a high schooler, excited...

only to deflate the second you examined megumi's sheet, eyes darting left and right, up and down, just to go on repeat.

"megumi!" you gasped, feeling more disappointed than angry.

the only classes that you shared with megumi, out of the nine that you were in, were chemistry, biology, and math. you didn't even share the same homeroom, and aside from the three mentioned, the only time you would be able to see him again would be during study-hall and lunch, all of which were not nearly long enough to compensate for the time lost with each other.

eyes bulging out of their sockets, when you'd darted them to ogle at your dear friend, you thought he seemed to be thinking the same thing. megumi never usually smiled, so it wasn't a shock when his lips pressed themselves into a thin line, but you could differentiate each and every one of his expressions as if they were your own, and megumi (though he'd never admit it) was not pleased with the arrangement of each of your timetables.

at all.

"this is all your fault," you said, shaking his timetable aggressively. he snatched it out of your hands with a look of irritation. you let him. "what did you have to go and pick business for?"

he glowered at you. "can you imagine me on stage doing performing arts?"

"of course i can!" you snapped, waving a hand dismissively. "i literally edited you on a stage once, don't you remember —"

"you did?" yuji perked up, to megumi's annoyance. "show it to us!"

"yeah, let's see!" added nobara, extending her arm across the table and making a 'hand it over' motion.

"let's not see," megumi interrupted icily, slapping nobara's hand away with enough force, the sound reverberated around the hall; nobara hadn't taken that lightly either, kicking him under the table with an expression of pain and vexation.

you ignored them all, staring down at his timetable, which you'd swiftly swiped off the table again, with confusion. how was it possible that you only shared three classes with him? it seemed that these classes were based off of the end of year exams from middle school, and megumi was at the top of the class for everything, to no one's surprise. but so were you, except for math. last year, the only reason you passed with flying colours was because of megumi, because even though he'd made rude and judgemental comments when tutoring you, he actually happened to be a very good teacher.

the thought did not compute to you. when you'd compared your timetables with yuji and nobara's, you'd been over the moon at the fact that you shared several classes with them, whether it be individually or as a group. it wasn't mentioned enough (mainly because you were quite careless about it) but you had done just as well as megumi in the exams for every other subject, so why were you in only three classes with him?

clearly you'd committed a terrible crime in your past life to be punished with such a sentence. who else will blame megumi for the funny writing on the board the second everyone enters the class? who, other than you, will frame him for the aeroplanes thrown at that one kid you despised for being so cruel for no apparent reason? who, but you, will provoke him enough to start a dictionary fight from two opposite ends of the classroom simply because his angry face was belly-ache-laughter inducing?

from the looks of it, it seemed that you'd have to pass the torch on to yuji. you did always think he would be your replacement... ever since you first met the annoyance.

"this isn't fair," you sighed.

megumi agreed, shaking his head, monotoned and bored. "yeah it's just not fair."

"anyway, megumi might physically abuse me if i show it to you guys right now," you said, changing the subject begrudgingly, only to smile just as soon as a lightbulb flicked on over your head. "but satoru has a ton of pictures of him from our christmas play back in elementary school!"

you did not have to glance at megumi to know that he was scowling (what was new?). yuji beamed at your statement, eyes sparkling with curiosity that was certainly not mild enough to restrain him from demanding that you send every single one of those images to him.

"did you play baby jesus?" he asked loudly, smiling from ear-to-ear as he awaited megumi's response.

"you're intellectually challenged," your dark haired friend snapped, visibly irked at the way you and nobara laughed at the thought of little megumi, ever the grumpy one, playing baby jesus. "how the hell would anyone play a new born?"

"just... wrap them in a towel or something," yuji suggested, though he sounded less passionate now that megumi had set the record straight. if it wasn't yuji, you might have actually felt bad.

"so what did you play then?" nobara swiftly questioned. "the shepherds?"

"maybe he played the livestock!" yuji perked up excitedly, turning to you for confirmation. he seemd to have effectively recovered from the disheartening moment of being told he wasn't very clever. "he's always loved animals, right?"

megumi let out an exhale of disbelief. "the hell makes you think i wanted to be one?"

"wouldn't put it past you," scoffed nobara. "didn't you try and stay at the zoo when your family went to visit, like, a decade ago?"

surprised at the prospect of megumi's head remaining in tact with his neck due to how fast he'd snapped it round to face you in apparent annoyance, you did not meet his gaze, resting your chin on your hands held up by the table, still examining his timetable that you hadn't returned.

"why'd you tell her?" he questioned, when it became crystal clear that you had no intention of voicing the elephant in the room.

"it was supposed to be a secret?" you replied, looking up at him with faux innocence. but megumi knew you, and he knew you very well; well enough to tell that you had done this on purpose. if there was one thing you were an expert in, it was trying your absolute best in annoying, shaming, and angering megumi fushiguro.

and he hated it.

how it worked, mostly, but he hated it all the same.

"uncle ogi said we couldn't tell anyone," he reminded you, firm and very visibly offended.

you grinned at him. "what, because of the reputation of the zenin family?" you continued before he could answer. "well guess what, porcupine? i'm not a zenin."

"and neither am i," he stated, the frown on his face deepening with each passing second.

"by name, maybe not. you're literally toji's son —"

"i would've found out anyway," nobara intervened confidently. she twirled a piece of her short hair around her finger mindlessly. "you ended up on national television —"

"national television?" yuji repeated, his voice raising several octaves. you expected him to look a bit more impressed, but your pink-haired friend merely pouted at the three of you. "why am i being segregated? what happened on national tv?"

that particular day had been very hectic. a visit to the zoo with the rest of the family (along with suguru and his two girls, mimiko and nanako), was meant to be how any other family would act, admiring the animals and walking in sync with one another... only for it to turn into absolute chaos when little megumi had ended up in the gorilla enclosure and decided that he wanted to live there.

you never let him live that one down.

"megumi became one with the gorillas —"

"did you tell them about your interest in the aquarium?" he cut through your statement coldly.

your eyes widened, gawking at him in something in between disbelief and complete annoyance. if there was one thing megumi knew embarrassed you (and you don't tend to get embarrassed by much) it was the mermaid lie you'd made years ago.

"i was interested in the sharks," you explained, growing more and more agitated with the way megumi's face became more and more dismissive, as if you were lying. "they were scary but i liked it —"

"makes sense," he interrupted again, "they're a danger to your species."

you could see yuji laughing; the knife lodged itself deep in your heart. you could see nobara holding hers in; you felt the knife twist in its place.

the irritating part of it all was the fact that your dark-haired, cruel friend deserved credit for that one. it was good, and if it hadn't been directed at you, you might have even voiced how impressed you were.

"okay i'll give you that one," you said, turning away with your nose in the air. "it was good, you got me there. but only this time, porcupine."

you hoped and prayed that yuji and nobara would forget this moment: it happened to be the only time your constant teasing came back to bite you right in the ass. you wondered to yourself how many times the four of you could sit like this together, pester megumi because it happened to be something you, yuji and nobara all had in common, a habit you did not believe would ever break for as long as you lived on this great, green earth. from the looks of your timetables, there weren't many classes where the four of you would be in altogether, only a the three that had been previously mentioned: chemistry with ieiri (who you'll now have to refer to as miss shoko), biology with satoru (who you'll now have to refer to as mr gojo) and one of the teachers you'd never met here, math, with mr kento nanami.

he sounded strict.

you didn't like strict.

but you also could have sworn that the name sounded familiar.

you happened to be correct, and you'd found that out in one of your first lessons with mr kento nanami:

he was a tall man, with blonde hair that had been styled in a neat side part. his cheeks were hollow, making the cheekbones on his face seem more prominent and emphasised. he didn't smile, not even during the first lesson, which had mainly been an introduction, and he spoke very formally, like a business man. you had learned that the business attire (the suit, tie, formal pants and pointy shoes) had not been a one-off dress code for him. after attending several of his lessons, getting to know him better, you'd found that this was an everyday fit for him.

that tie was a bit weird though, and mr nanami was anything but weird.

so you'd been correct in assuming that his name sounded familiar. he was just a year younger than satoru, suguru and ieiri, a mutual friend (though he did seem adamant that satoru and him were most definitely not friends, no matter how many times the white-haired beanstalk declared that they were).

mr kento nanami was a funny man, you'd decided. strict, firm, and constantly exasperated, but funny nonetheless. without even trying, that is. you liked his lessons very much. the one thing that you didn't like, however, was the learning part of it — math was not your strong suit. that had been established years ago when you first started learning it, but it only became more emphasised in his classes.

"i can't do it," you declared out loud, using an eraser to erase yet another one of your miscalculations. "this is too hard —"

"you can do it," said kento nanami, who had made you sit right across from his desk because you seemed to need the most help out of everyone in the class. it turned out, this very class had been one of the top sets. it was a miracle you'd been placed there, let alone managed to stay there. though, arguably, you had been moved down several times, only for you to fail even more because apparently, only kento nanami's teachings stuck in your head, even if it was a struggle.

"i can't," you sighed, rubbing your temples, feeling a headache starting to form. whoever created math was going to wish they hadn't. "i'm going to die —"

kento nanami pinched the bridge of his nose: he didn't like it when you became dramatic.

"you're not going to —"

"yes i am."

"you cannot expect to do even remotely well with that attitude," he said, completely disregarding your dramatic comment. "the last exam you completed —"

you grimaced. "don't remind me! even yuji did better than me... and he never studies!"

"i do study!" the pink-haired idiot lied from somewhere behind you.

you knew he never studied. in fact, one time, when you spent most of the day at nobara's, her grandmother had forced you to sit and work through multiple equations, meanwhile yuji spent the day teaching football to the neighbours' kids. you knew — you watched him enjoy himself through the window.

"you can't believe him kento, he's lying to you to impress you —"

"i have half a mind to believe him simply out of spite," kento firmly told you, and there was a tick in his jaw. "for the millionth time, y/n, you will refer to me as mr nanami."

there was a habit that you'd adopted, which applied to teachers you really liked, but not limited to teachers you really hated. it was something that had always existed, calling teachers by their first names rather than their last names, if only to show them that they were your friends (or you simply had no respect for them if they were seen as your foe). masamichi, kento, satoru, ieiri, are candidates you liked very much. other teachers... not so much.

"mr kento nanami —"

"mr nanami," he repeated, stoic and stubborn. "as i was saying, the last exam you completed was notably better than the one prior. that shows improvement."

you stared at him, deadpanned. "i was only two points higher."

"any improvement is improvement."

you never considered yourself a pessimist. in fact, you always looked at the brighter side of things when no one else would. but with math, it almost felt like you would become a whole different person, and the last person you wanted to be like was emo, depressed, careless megumi. the thought sent a shiver down your spine.

"this is too hard," you sighed, placing your pencil down on the table with a look of defeat. "just bury me already —"

kento gave you a long and hard look, his expression stern and brows furrowed to the point where a deep line had been formed between them. he looked at you... perhaps not at you, maybe something or someone behind you, as his eyes fell over your shoulder meeting someone else's.

you would soon find out that it had been megumi.

as if they'd created their own form of communication through the eyes itself, you found yourself sitting by megumi's desk now, his judgemental and critical look only serving to offend you.

"i'm helping you —"

"you literally called me dumb," you scoffed, brow raised in scepticism.

megumi's eyes grew half-lidded, apparently bored with your accusation. "no i never."

"yes you did," you said firmly. "you said i'm as 'sharp as a marble'."

the offender simply raised his own brow at you in apparent confusion, as if to say 'and?'.

"marbles aren't sharp!" you snapped angrily, taking everyone around you by surprise at the sudden volume of your voice.

megumi ran a hand through his hair, dragged it down his face, and let out a small groan, muffled so as to not distract the rest of the class any further. he did not seem impressed, but you didn't care. the audacity he had to call you dumb when his teaching was clearly not working spoke volumes for you.

you leaned back in your chair, arms folded over your chest, reluctantly sliding your completed work across from you and over to him.

"mark my work," you demanded, with every intent to make it sound as bossy as you could.

he glared at you, but did not oppose, picking his pen up and going through the questions with you with a look of deep concentration. at times, he would scratch the back of his neck, rub his brow, grasp his chin, shake his head, and you had no idea what any of those actions meant (probably that you got every question wrong, again).

only for you to be completely stumped when he looked up and met your eyes once more, no longer sporting the look of exhaustion, but one of pride.

at least, you thought it was pride. all of megumi's expressions tended to be the same: his mouth a straight line, his eyes half-lidded, his brows unmoving, etc. though with time, you had managed to dissect each and every one and figure out whether he was happy, or sad, or angry, and so on. right now, you thought he looked impressed. you knew for sure that he didn't seem annoyed with you — that was usually his default, too!

cautiously and gradually, you leaned over and pulled the sheet towards yourself, eyes darting up and down before finding the final mark:

7/10 - good.

beaming, you met his eyes with a toothy smile, brows raised in pleasant shock.

"i'm so smart!" you declared, confidently and immensely proud.

he let out a long exhale through his nose. "why did you have to go and ruin it?"

you ignored him, snatching the paper and rushing over to kento's desk, taking enough care to slide in between the discarded chairs and tables people are sitting at, and swiping yuji's pencil case off the table just for the fun of it. at his wail of despair, you merely responded with a quiet 'oops' knowing quite well that your actions had been very much intentional.

you did nearly slip on one of the stray pencils that had rolled out of his discarded pencil case, to your doom, but politely flipped yuji off when he laughed 'karma'.

by the desk, on kento's chair, sat a baffled nobara, her eyes drooping and her soft, short hair dishevelled through, no doubt, constantly running her hands through it in obvious exhaustion. like you, math was not her strong spot. also like you, she looked ready to absolutely throttle whoever decided to add letters to numbers and make it part of the compulsory curriculum.

kento himself stood opposite her, bent forward and holding himself up with his hands on the desk, pointing at the numerous equations on her own paper, and giving her extra guidance and clarification on them.

"do you understand it now?" your teacher asked her, looking down, sombre yet patient.

her hands were hidden somewhere beneath her hair, holding her head up as she stared grimly down at her own messy work, slowly nodding.

"yeah... but i'm going to torture, and murder, and torture —"

"— the guy that created math," kento finished off, looking slightly tense as he stood up to his full height, straightening himself seriously, "i've heard it, nobara." he looked over his shoulder and noticed you standing excitedly behind him. "what's wrong, y/n —"

"i get it now!" you informed him honestly, though you could tell the enthusiasm in your voice simply encouraged kento to feel more suspicion than anything else. "i got everything right!"

the small gasp of envy from nobara did not go unnoticed by you; kento tilted his chin downwards to take a better look at your paper, held up proudly by yourself. his narrowed eyes darted left and right, examining each question, each neat tick megumi had left behind, and finally reached the bottom of the page where your impressive score had been written in a bold red.

kento nodded at you.

"seven out of ten," he quoted, almost like a machine. "that's more than fifty percent."

"please, ken— i mean mr nanami —" you added when you'd caught sight of the pursing of his lips, "no more numbers. i've retired from being the genius i was just two minutes ago. i got everything right!"

"seven out of ten," kento repeated, voice gruff. "definitely an achievement, but not one hundred perce—"

"i'm still a genius," you interrupted, apparently choosing to select which parts of his statement you truly wanted to hear. "megumi said so —"

"no i never," your traitor of a friend had intervened from somewhere behind you.

you regarded him, boot-faced and unimpressed. he was sitting next to yuji now, finishing off his own work. but apparently, your little white lie was enough to break him out of this cycle of work, work, and more work.

"stop lying," he gracefully added.

you felt your eye twitch in indignation, turning around to face kento and plastering on a smile to mask your obvious discontent.

"he's the one lying," you whispered, though that did not stop kento from believing him over you. it became a habit over time, you'd noticed. you were still trying to figure out a way to break it.

"be more humble," grumbled nobara, still slouching on kento's chair with a permanent scowl painted over her face. "some of us are being beaten black and blue with all of this."

"i can teach you!" you offered, relishing in the smile that nobara's face had formed, extending to her eyes where the spark that usually lay there had been re-lighted.

giddy, you skipped around kento and his desk to reach nobara on the other side, ignoring his weak protests about how he wasn't sure that you were absolutely confident in your skills at the particular topic. you and nobara were in your own world, sitting on the thin arm of his spinning chair, one half of your body slumped against her side and the other hovering above her as you guided her on the questions.

it was later found that kento had been correct. helping nobara only served to take away the knowledge that your teacher had already tirelessly given her. you walked away in shame after that, completely unaware of the fact that half of the method you'd used to solve the equations out were actually correct...

and not just over fifty percent, but one hundred percent.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

due to a series of upcoming exams, you and the rest of your little group had spent majority of your break times at study hall, looking over a bunch of your notes from social studies, to performing arts, to biology, chemistry, physics. however, the only one you had to truly focus on was math.

you slumped over your textbook, your expression a mix of frustration and defeat as you stared at the seemingly indecipherable equations before you. to you, math was a labyrinth of confusion, a tangled web of numbers and symbols that ensnared your mind with its complexity. each problem felt like a battle, with your thoughts colliding like opposing armies on a chaotic battlefield. the numbers mocked you, dancing tauntingly on the page as if daring you to unravel their secrets. it was as if you were trying to navigate through a dense fog, each step forwards only leading to a hundred steps backwards. math, to you, was a relentless adversary, an insurmountable mountain that you could never hope to conquer.

your gaze flickered over to yuji, who seemed to effortlessly breeze through the math problems with a nonchalant ease that left you envious. he was like a graceful dancer, effortlessly gliding across the stage of equations while you stumbled clumsily in the wings. each correct answer he produced felt like a dagger to your pride, a reminder of your own inadequacy in the face of his natural talent. it was as if he had been born with a mathematical compass embedded in his mind, guiding him effortlessly through the labyrinth of numbers and formulas. you couldn't help but feel like a mere spectator in the shadow of his brilliance, your own struggles magnified in comparison to his effortless mastery.

what pissed you off more was the fact that this was yuji.

yuji.

he barely studied (no matter what lies he fed to kento, your sensible math teacher). you could pass him a math paper without a warning and he would bring it back to you without a single strand of grey in the field of pink on his head.

so, naturally, whilst megumi tutored an ever-growing depressed nobara, you asked yuji to help you...

you wished you hadn't made fun of megumi's hair that morning, that way, mustering up your courage to ask him for help instead probably would have been easier.

"so first," yuji began slowly, carefully writing out the numbers over your blank sheet. and then it was as if your life went by in two times speed. "you do that, and then that, and then that."

you took a careful glance at megumi's watch. your life hadn't zoomed by that fast: yuji was just a terrible tutor.

he dropped the pencil in front of you, letting it roll right next to where your hand lay, sitting back on his seat with a happy smile on his face, as if he'd actually accomplished something.

you felt your eye twitch.

"how about i show you how i do this, and then this, and then this!" you said, each emphasised word paired with a harsh smack on yuji's head with a rolled up booklet you snatched off the table. you did not know who it belonged to, probably megumi, but you did not care.

"okay okay okay! — ow! — okay, woman!"

"is that my business booklet?" megumi icily interrupted, eyes narrowed, following each and every movement of your hand that waved it around.

you shot him a glance, mild fury smouldering in your eyes.

"no..."

megumi fixed his gaze on you, his face a mask of calm that barely hinted at the storm brewing in his head. his eyes were like twin daggers, piercing through your facade with chilling precision. a muscle in his jaw twitched slightly, the only betrayal of his controlled exterior.

"it has my name in bold," he informed you, bored.

"okay..." you said, peering down at the booklet in your hands with a masked expression. "you can have it back if you teach me how to do algebra?"

megumi's mouth set itself in a firm line, conveying a silent but unmistakable challenge. though his expression remained stoic, the intensity of his gaze was like a glacier, cold and unyielding, and also a bit tired, as though he'd expected nothing less from you. with a grin, you knew what it meant: you won.

before you could carry out your plan to throw yuji off his seat and reach megumi and nobara, an external voice jolted you out of your intense focus.

the four of you looked up, distracted: it was noritoshi kamo accompanied by chad montgomery, both of whom were part of the school's official football team alongside yuji and megumi. noritoshi (who preferred to simply go by kamo) had dark, straight hair that stopped a little further down his chin whereas chad was rather big, tall, and blonde, with a friendly face to match. it was a running joke that chad was very unlike the typical chads you'd see on tv. he was kinder, friendlier, yet still rather well-known.

"nice catch at gym today, y/n," kamo had said, barely smiling. you thought he had some sort of face freeze like megumi.

"thank you!" you beamed, turning to your friends as the two boys casually walked off. "see? people do appreciate the effort i put in at sports."

"you and nobara weren't meant to be in our class to begin with," said megumi, sliding a worksheet in your direction. you accepted it gratefully, though your attention was hardly on the paper.

"touche," nobara muttered into her own hand, her other scribbling over the doodles she'd drawn around her paper. "our class is boring."

"huh? i thought you liked coach lauren?" said yuji, visibly surprised.

you tapped the back of your pen on your worksheet impatiently.

"we do! but it's not as fun when she doesn't care about us not participating," you told him thoughtfully. "but when it's coach yaga —"

megumi scowled. "he lost his voice because of the two of you."

you mirrored his scowl. "hey, we didn't tell him to yell and chase us across the field, did we?"

"and he wouldn't have even noticed us if you hadn't ratted us out, snitch," nobara helpfully added, levelling an accusatory look at megumi while pointing the end of her pen at him.

megumi regarded you and nobara with a blank, almost bored expression. his mouth remained a straight line, devoid of any hint of emotion, as if he were staring at an unremarkable, distant horizon. the only movement was the slow blink of his eyelids, which seemed to convey a sense of enduring your antics with the patience of a stone statue.

"you guys were standing at the back and laughing at everyone," he stated.

"wrong," you hummed. "we were laughing at you."

yuji's laughter erupted, nearly causing him to topple from his chair as he doubled over, resting against the table. his whole body shook with mirth, his laughter filling the room with its infectious energy.

nobara sliced through it with unbridled ease.

"we were laughing at you too, you clown," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "you and that todo guy being in your own little word —"

"it's not my fault!" said yuji, defensive. "he keeps following me, even when i go to megumi! he keeps saying we're brothers — i don't even know him!"

"i can't imagine you with a brother anyway," you said, barely registering yuji's alarm and stress, but it had completely disappeared at your comment, now masked over with an expression of pure confusion.

"but i do have a brother," he'd said, resulting in all three of you to look up at him with raised brows, parted mouths and narrowed eyes.

"huh?" nobara voiced, aggressive. "what do you mean? you never told us you —"

"i did!" he interrupted, eyes darting from megumi to you to nobara and then back again. "my half brother!"

"half brother?" you repeated, outraged.

you spent the next few seconds thinking deep and hard as nobara verbally assaulted him for causing the three of you such distress with such a lie, racking your brain for a time where yuji had voiced to you that he had a half brother, something that you'd been blissfully unaware of for the last four years you had known him.

"what's his name?" megumi asked, intervening loudly so that yuji would hear him over nobara's attacks.

"choso," said yuji, as though it were the most obvious and easiest thing to remember. "i told you guys!"

"so every time we watched movies at your place, how come it was only ever gramps and your parents?" you asked, notably surprised.

on the days you'd sleep over at yuji's, you'd see mr and mrs itadori, both of whom insisted you'd call them kaori and jin, as their day shifts at their respective work places would end. never once did you see another being, another male by the name choso.

"he's much older than us, so he's already got his own place to live in," yuji explained, which, as much as you hated to admit it, made sense.

the initial shock of finding out that yuji had a half brother by the name choso had worn out after the next few minutes had been spent looking at different pictures of him and his odd family. they looked nothing alike, with choso sporting dark hair styled in odd pigtails and a more mature face and yuji having pink hair (you still insisted that it wasn't natural) and a more friendly, soft face. they didn't even have the same eye colour or remotely similar features.

somehow, the conversation had spun back to yuji's alleged brother, todo:

"maki told me that when he gets to senior year, he's planning on doing it twice," said nobara, glancing between a panicked-yuji and an exasperated-megumi for confirmation.

you nodded in agreement. "yeah, toge said the same thing."

nobara grinned at yuji. "looks like you'll be dealing with him for as long as we stay here."

yuji looked like he could be physically ill.

the rest of the day had gone by with yuji making multiple attempts to persuade the three of you that him and todo were most definitely not related by any means, and he only grew more and more panicked and alarmed when nobara would make sly comments about how todo would replace megumi as yuji's best friend and run off into the distance together, to which megumi pretended not to care (but you practically spoke in megumi-facial-expressions, and could tell that he very much did).

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

satoru's classroom was significantly larger than any of the other classes in the school. you noticed this the second you'd entered it back in september. he said it was because of the fact that he's a science teacher and therefore needs a larger room for laboratory experiments and so on, but you knew it was a lie. why did ieiri, who was also a science teacher, have a classroom slightly smaller than his?

you ran the thought in your head multiple times, before ultimately deciding that he had probably thrown a fit over it and bribed his way up that ladder. it helped that he was also filthy rich, not that anyone else needed to know that.

there were three lab tables in his room, his desk on the left of the whiteboard and projector, and the door on the right. windows surrounded two of the four walls in the room, brightening it up so much so that on the days that you were plagued with headaches, satoru's classes became dreadful (which was saying a lot, seeing as you and several others thoroughly enjoyed his lessons).

you, megumi, yuji and nobara sat on the table in the far left, closest to satoru's desk. there wasn't necessarily a seating plan, but the one time you and nobara sat on the table furthest from his desk, he did act pretty prissy about it the entire day.

"reproduction!" he said, a little too enthusiastically though knowing him, he most likely meant to. adjusting the circular glasses on his nose, he gestured to the board where a presentation of said-topic demanded each and every viewer's attention. no other topic within the subject of biology ever had this many balloon stickers or confetti gifs. "my favourite topic!"

"fuck's sake," you heard megumi mutter under his breath from across yuji, who was sitting nervously on your right.

the other boys in your class, sitting around the table in the middle and the table on the far right seemed to be getting a little too excited, in your humble opinion: sitting up straighter with ugly grins forming on their ugly faces, looking around and making cheeky eye contact with one another.

"i know a lot about that," you heard tyler jenson announce, his too-happy face only serving to irk you in ways even megumi could not. but whilst you sat there with a sour expression forming second by second, nobara (seated next to megumi) turned around and voiced your thoughts.

"and yet you've never been touched by a woman."

the classroom was then filled with muffled laughter as many hid the lower halves of their faces behind their hands, giggling and chuckling as tyler's face became more compatible to the colour of a cherry rather than the colour of the skin on his hands and arms. nobara turned back around with her lips in a straight, thin line, shaking her head due to some of the hair that had fallen over her eyes.

"mr gojo," one of tyler's minion-friends spoke up, very clearly offended. it became quite clear that tyler would not speak for himself from here on out. "aren't you going to — like — say something about that..?"

satoru raised a brow, the smile he usually adorned with pearly-white teeth non-existent, almost as if it were never there.

"no," he said, hands resting in the pockets of his pants, "because she just demolished you."

he went back to teaching as though nothing had happened.

the rest of the lesson had gone by quite well. few of tyler's minion friends had gotten the message and remained silent for the remainder of the hour, chalking it up to 'favouritism', though everyone knew otherwise. as many odd jokes that satoru had made, he did eventually teach the curriculum, even when the comments from tyler's other foolish friends had irked everyone by opening their mouths:

"okay," nodded satoru, visibly tense as he stood up and slammed his entire hand against the whiteboard so suddenly, with such aggression, the projector wobbled. "listen here! reproduction? sex? it's bad. who can tell me why?"

you looked around. everyone seemed just as startled as you. as fun as satoru's classes were, when he pulled random shit like this, you were more inclined to feel scared than enraptured. but it wasn't a class lead by satoru gojo unless satoru gojo became melodramatic at some point during it.

"no one?" he continued, head turning left and right. "megumi?"

"leave me alone."

satoru promptly turned to your other friend instead. "yuji!"

"er... because... it distracts you from school work?" yuji guessed, scratching the back of his ear, a random habit you realised he'd picked up over the last few months.

satoru nodded slowly.

"warmer..." he'd said; yuji beamed. "nobara!"

"because men don't perform —"

"no, but i should've seen that comin'," your teacher interrupted mindlessly, the smile unwavering as he turned his gaze to you. although, it was hard to tell for certain, for the silly sunglasses he wore indoors concealed his eyes. "y/n!"

"it's a sin —"

"why on earth did i ask you to begin with?" he said, turning away and shaking his head. "okay, note this down, all of you. you can die if you have sex, yeah?"

clement roy, who was seated by the middle table (also one of the smartest in the class) spoke up with a frown:

"no you can't. having intercourse isn't dangerous."

satoru did not seem impressed. he stared at clement roy with the expression a child would give to their parent over rejection of candy before dinner.

"all right smarty-pants, want to explain to the class what'll happen when you get chlamydia?" hedemanded, visibly nettled. before clement could even think of a response, the drama queen had already pressed on. "you'll die. you'll suffer in silence because you won't want to communicate to another responsible human being about how you were being irresponsible and then die because chlamydia got you."

you could drop a pin on the floor and the sound would echo around the room and bounce off of the walls with how eerily quiet it had gotten. had it not been broad daylight, you were certain the croaking of crickets would be the only thing perceived in this awkward silence.

"don't just stare at me, write it down!"

barely fifteen minutes later, satoru had gone back to behaving more positively playful than negatively dramatic.

at some point in the lesson, he'd handed out worksheets for everyone to go through and complete, filled with a series of questions based on what he managed to teach for the last thirty to forty minutes. the questions hadn't been too hard; you whizzed through them in no time. to check your answers, you stretched your body over the table and snatched megumi's paper without warning, sitting back down comfortably and ignoring his demands of handing it back.

"give it," he'd said, but the look on his face was too funny to pass up.

megumi's default expression was always that bored, grumpy look. his angry expression, however, was much more emphasised: his nose had a way of scrunching itself up the tiniest bit, his jaw became tighter, and when his brows closed in on each other, he looked as though he'd aged ten times faster. this expression was harder to catch on camera because he always managed to swipe your phone out of your hands whenever you'd reach for it, like his sixth sense was knowing just when you'd go for the kill, the oddbot. that was why it mattered a million times more when he'd look more angry than he did bored or careless.

"i have to mark my work," you told him, placing it side-by-side with your own.

"ha! thanks, megumi!" added yuji, adding his worksheet (with scribbles, writing, and more scribbles on it) next to yours and megumi's.

"you're not welcome. give it back, y/n —"

"hand it to me when you're done. think i got the last few wrong," said nobara, and without looking up, you raised your thumb, giving her your affirmative.

megumi growled. "no —"

"what're you gonna do, huh?" said nobara, poking him on the shoulder with the end of her pen. "tell mr gojo?"

"what is this, mean girls?" megumi grumbled, deadpanned. "oi, regina, give me back my sheet —"

you shook your head. yuji came to your defence:

"we're not done —"

"shut up karen."

he gasped. you probably would have laughed if you weren't so occupied with scribbling out the few answers that you'd gotten wrong (based off of megumi's own work, which tended to be correct nine times out of ten).

before you could blink, megumi's work had been swiped away from you, but not by the owner himself (you were silently surprised that he hadn't marched around the table to snag it from you by now) but by an audibly annoyed yuji, who was mumbling curses under his breath as he sketched something in the top left corner of the paper.

vexed, exasperated, and disturbed, you pinched yuji's thigh before snatching the paper back, brows furrowed and eyes narrowed. your hardened expression became less tight at the sight of the literal penis that yuji had drawn. two seconds had barely passed before you found yourself gasping for breath, hand over your mouth at a futile attempt at muffling your own laughter.

nobara perked up, interested and offended.

"hey, don't leave me out," she snapped, back straight and chin held high. "what's so funny?"

with the deliberate intention of ensuring that the sulky boy seated diagonally across from you had also seen his own paper, you lifted it and showed it to her.

"what the hell?" he demanded, making a move at swiping it out of your hands, but you were quicker, sliding it across the table to nobara instead.

megumi's face twisted in irritation as his dark eyes landed on the defaced worksheet. a faint flush spread across his pale cheeks, a rare sign of his mounting frustration. his jaw clenched, muscles tensing visibly under his skin as he took a slow, deep breath, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly, betraying the effort it took to suppress a scathing retort. he glared at yuji, his gaze as cold and hard as steel, before flicking back to the offending drawing. with a huff of exasperation, he snatched the paper back, his movements quick and brusque, clearly indicating his annoyance. for a moment, he sat still, radiating a palpable aura of vexation, before muttering under his breath and looking up at you all, clearly done with your antics.

nobara whistled lowly, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. "damn, who pissed in your cereal, megumi?"

"why would you do that?" megumi demanded, his voice edged with irritation as he fixed Yuji with a piercing glare, completely ignoring nobara's teasing remark.

yuji, with his arms folded over his chest with a look akin to a child after throwing a tantrum, returned megumi's glare with one of his own.

"revenge," he stated simply, his tone carrying a quiet but unmistakable resolve.

before anyone could chime in with their own thoughts, satoru materialised from behind megumi, sporting his trademark easy grin, which only widened at megumi's apparent annoyance.

"who rained on megumi's parade?" he'd asked, sounding curious yet looking devious. it wasn't a surprise to anyone that satoru enjoyed anything that made megumi unhappy (in terms of teasing, of course).

"yuji doodled a bit on his paper," you said, rolling your eyes. "now he's throwing a fit over it."

megumi shot you a sharp glare, his expression a mix of annoyance and disbelief. his eyes narrowed slightly, silently questioning your choice of words, but refrained from saying anything, opting instead to let his disapproval speak for itself.

until he couldn't.

"stop being such a grump, megumi," satoru chortled, his teasing only exacerbating the tension brewing within megumi fushiguro. "it just makes you look more like your dad, and who the hell wants to look like toji —"

"he drew a dick on my paper," megumi interjected sharply, his frustration evident in his tone, like a rope pulled taut in a tug-of-war.

satoru's laughter bubbled up, a blend of genuine surprise and amusement twinkling in his eyes as he shook his head, a grin playing on his lips. he had obviously not expected megumi’s straightforwardness and yuji’s unexpected action.

"big deal," he said, forcing himself in between nobara and megumi. "let's see de vinci's art —"

"ugh, you're squashing us!" nobara snapped, but satoru had paid no mind to her. in fact, her comment had only seemed to have encouraged him to force himself between them further, all with a knowing smile on his face.

his laughter continued to burst forth as he caught sight of the drawing, genuine amusement evident in the barely-noticeable crinkles that had formed around his eyes, his shoulders shaking slightly with suppressed mirth as he took in the absurdity of the situation. this had eventually caused him to double over, and he instinctively reached out, grabbing onto nobara's shoulder for support. his fingers gripped onto her firmly — though not aggressively — just enough to steady himself as he attempted to regain his composure.

nobara's irritation became palpable at satoru's hand that had landed on her shoulder for support. she shot him a pointed look, her body stiffening slightly as she made subtle attempts to wriggle out of his grasp.

"as wonderful as this is," he sighed, wiping an imaginary tear from his shielded eye, "i have to get rid of it."

it was, perhaps, the first time in that lesson that megumi had looked up in approval.

yuji shrugged, his tone matter-of-fact.

"i don't care, i did it to prove a point," he stated, his brows furrowing in mild annoyance.

"what point?" said nobara, apparently having given up on trying to pry satoru's hand off her shoulder. even so, she didn't look too pleased about it.

yuji shrugged, his expression easing as the tension left his jaw and his furrowed brows smoothed out. eyes widened, and his brows lifted slightly, yuji's lips parted, and his forehead smoothed itself out.

the overall expression on his face was one of genuine puzzlement.

"i... can't really remember to be honest —"

"erase it," megumi commanded, his voice tight with irritation.

"no," yuji shot back, defensive. "maybe you should learn to be more nice to me —"

"after this?" said megumi, voice sharp and cutting, brimming with barely restrained fury. "like hell."

"there's too much testosterone on this table," said nobara, eyeing your other male classmates that sat down a little further down from the four of you. "y/n and i should've sat near the door —"

"oh yeah?" began satoru, bending down slightly to level his face with hers. he did not look too pleased. "and how well did that work for you last time, huh?"

but before she could actually answer his question, he had already moved on, looking around at you, yuji and megumi, and pointing at the cursed sketch on the paper.

"i don't want to do this," he said, leaning over to grab it and slide it towards the end of the table where he stood with an eraser in his hand.

he pressed it against the drawing, letting out false sobs of despair with each swipe, loud enough to draw the attention of the rest of the class. it was ugly, drawn-out, and extremely sonorous. you regarded him with a look of disgust; megumi slouched in his seat, as though that would conceal him from the onlookers; nobara pressed a hand to her forehead, head bent and gaze averted; yuji watched satoru without shame, apparently still his biggest cheerleader.

"okay you can stop now," you added, when it became crystal clear that satoru would go on and on just for the sake of someone finally addressing his shameless acting. you would rather die than have it continue.

he grinned, radiating self-assured pride as he addressed your little group.

"now i wish i took a picture before i got rid of it," he sighed, placing the paper in front of its rightful owner.

from where you were sat, you could still see the outline of the sketch, faded yet visible. it seemed that yuji had released his anger from his hand straight to the pencil, applying enough pressure to leave a mark even when erased. if that didn't teach megumi to be more polite, you didn't know what would.

a deep voice suddenly interrupted the commotion, cutting through the conversation like a knife. the speaker's tone was unnervingly calm and composed, each word enunciated with precision and the use of complete formal english added an air of false-authority and distance, sounding almost archaic due to the lack of contractions.

all five of you turned your heads to stare at the figure hiding beneath the table surrounding the outer-edge of the classroom where multiple sinks were built in: malakai the emo, who you had first met in middle school. he just so happened to attend the same high school too. even so, the only classes that the two of you shared were satoru's biology and physics ones.

"there is a disturbance occurring on that table near the desk belonging to the teacher," he began, voice slow, almost snarling. "and i do not like it very much..."

satoru frowned, watching him with obvious exasperation. if there was one being that threw even satoru gojo, the drama queen off, it was malakai the emo (who, if anyone had forgotten, preferred to be called 'kai' and will visibly glitch if referred to as 'malakai').

"disturbances should never occur inside classrooms..."

you scoffed. "coming from the biggest attention-whore of today's history."

satoru waved a hand in your direction, a silent dismissal, one that very clearly communicated that he would handle the issue.

"and this is my class," he told the emo, raising a white brow.

"mr gojo..." malakai began, still borderline snarling, "you do not know how to manage this class very well..."

you couldn't exactly tell due to his opaque glasses, but judging from the way his brows shot up dramatically, nearly disappearing beneath his white hair, you knew that satoru's eyes widened in exaggerated shock. his mouth dropped open in a perfect 'O' of disbelief. he gasped audibly, the sound loud and theatrical. his usually playful demeanour transformed into one of theatrical indignation, his entire face a portrait of mock outrage. his head tilted back slightly, as if to better display his expression to everyone present.

"you don't even know how to stand without glitching, kid," he teased, with every intent of offending malakai. "ah-ah, not another word outta ya," he added, pointer finger raised with a smile. "i'd send you to miss shoko —"

you did not need to take a look at malakai to know that he was smiling hopefully. if there was one teacher he loved, it was ieiri, for her classroom was shielded from the light outside, and she did not have a care in the world for whatever he did.

"— but she said she'll beat my ass if i do that again. so, i'll make sure you sit on the table, kai, not under it."

context: malakai had this thing where he detested sitting in the light, hated classrooms where the blinds weren't down, and loathed anyone who wore bright colours. according to him, the 'darkness will consume him'. on the first day of high school, he'd sat underneath the sink where it was dark, tight, and cramped. when satoru made an attempt to get him to sit on the table (like everybody else) he visibly shook and caused a scene, turning animalistic over nothing.

satoru had never made another attempt since.

at some point in the year, it had come to your attention that the teachers in his other classes had forced him to sit on the tables, but not without a negotiation: he would sit on a table on his own, so long as he was at the very back of the classroom, in a secluded corner, where no visible sunlight would reach him. even then, he would glitch and tweak, but he would sit there quietly nonetheless.

there was a time where kento had to teach one of his math classes due to his regular teacher falling ill, and when you'd asked malakai about it, he'd described it as 'hell'. you could only assume that kento hadn't let him sit under a table, nor made an effort in following any negotiations.

but, surprisingly enough, malakai's grades in satoru's classes were the highest out of the rest of his classes. perhaps sitting under a table like he wants actually has its benefits.

malakai let out a loud hiss at satoru's words, as if they'd burned him to the point of no recovery.

satoru had given up.

"okay i'll risk the ass kicking, go to miss shoko."

malakai crawled out from his spot beneath the sink and sprang up, a maniacal grin plastered on his face. his arms flailed wildly, as if he had downed ten bottles of alcohol in one sitting. malakai's eyes widened, the gleam of anticipation shining through the heavy kohl lining his eyes. a wide, ecstatic grin stretched across his face, revealing a flash of his sharp canines (apparently he loved to use charcoal toothpaste). he practically bounced on his feet, his whole body vibrating with eager energy as he ran across the classroom in that weird way that he runs — body bent forward and arms extended backwards (satoru once said that he should be part of the ninjas in naruto — you couldn't get the image out of your head now).

"yes — miss shoko — and her dark, dark under-eyes —"

the rest of you watched him ninja-run out of the classroom and down the hall, his footsteps echoing and fading.

satoru adjusted the glasses on his nose with an air of quiet concern. "there is something seriously wrong with that kid."

barely five minutes had gone by before his phone vibrated in his pocket; he took it out, checked it, and then smiled up at you all.

"if i don't turn up tomorrow, it was ieiri shoko: thirty one years old, brown hair, brown eyes, about this short —"

he did show up the next day, but with a cut on his lower lip and quite the story to tell.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

as several other paying customers walked into the quaint cafe, the bell above the door chimed softly, announcing their arrival. the interior was a charming blend of rustic and modern elements, creating an inviting atmosphere for its patrons. the space was not overly large, you'd noticed since your introduction to the place, but it was very clearly thoughtfully designed to maximize comfort, with several circular tables made of beige wood on each side of the room, all of which were adorned with fresh flowers in small vases. your favourite part, however, was the soft ambient lighting from the hanging pendant lamps that created a warm glow, casting a muted illumination all over the space.

the walls were also furnished with framed artwork and vintage posters, which you thought added some character and charm to the place. where you and megumi sat on the stools by the counter, a large chalkboard stood behind it displayed the day's menu offerings, written in elegant script with colourful chalk illustrations of pastries and beverages. the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and baked goods wafted through the air, tempting your senses and inviting customers to indulge in the cafe's delectable offerings.

you and megumi tended to avoid the place during peak time, but if you just so happened to be passing by, sometimes you'd force your way to the front to offer some help to the distressed, kind lady (also known as miss B) serving everyone. since it also happened to be local, you had become regular customers and people she looked forward to seeing during the day.

with kento's gruelling homework laid out messily over the counter before you, the gentle chatter and soft music filled the air, further distracting you from the cruel equations on the papers waiting to be solved.

while you and megumi had come here to study together, you only did so for, perhaps, twenty minutes before the laptop you'd stolen from the bakery woman working diligently behind the counter had been used for activities other than studying math. it wasn't a new occurrence: it was a daily routine to search up the reviews on the cafe (buttercup brew) and respond to any that were badmouthing miss B, the food, or the place itself since the two of you both acknowledged the fact that she was too lenient and nice to do so herself.

"'what's the opposite of delicious?'" you read out, leaning in to megumi's side to read off of the laptop that he had pulled towards himself.

megumi scoffed, his pale fingers typing away aggressively at the keyboard before him.

what's the opposite of clever? he had silently written.

your eyes widened in both surprise and delight, a bright, melodious laugh escaping your lips, eyes crinkling at the corners, sparkling with amusement. your laughter eventually subsided into soft giggles, and you looked at megumi with a twinkle in your eye.

"impressive," you praised, glancing back at the laptop, intrigued. "any more?"

megumi nodded, a carefully manicured finger gently swiping down the touchpad.

"'came in the day they were trialling savoury dishes. the food was bland. this is a bakery, stick to sweets,'" he'd read out, monotoned. "by a woman, this time."

your cheerful demeanour fades slightly as megumi read out the negative comment, brows furrowed as a small frown tugged at the corners of your lips. you pulled the laptop towards yourself, eyes narrowed in mild irritation.

"i got this one," you told him, reading as you typed. "you'd... know... all... about... bland... wouldn't you... no-season-susan?"

you hit 'enter' and smiled, self-satisfied.

but before you or megumi could voice your thoughts on your comment, the soft sound of the bell chiming behind you had the two of you turning in your stools to examine the stoic man walking into the cafe. you pinched megumi's thigh, hard enough for him to angrily slap your hand away with a low grunt. you didn't mind, smiling as you watched the aloof man with the undercut walk up to the other side of the counter and order his food.

"i want to do this one," you said, voice low so as to not attract the attention of the man. "he dressed up as levi and went to the military, asking to join the scout regiment."

megumi peered down at you, blank faced. "where the hell are you going with this?"

"he got sent home."

you watched his face carefully, noting how his eyes shifted away from yours, as if he were suppressing his emotions. you could tell he wanted to laugh; it was evident in the subtle curl of his lips and the slight tremor of his shoulders as he exhaled through his nose.

"that's not levi," he finally settled on saying, glancing at the man in question. "that's ivel."

you grinned. "close enough... i was thinking more along the lines of evil."

your usually stoic friend let out a rare chuckle. with a broad smile, you nudged his side, eager to show him that you had the unique ability to make even him laugh.

"look," you called out to miss B, preparing what looked to be black coffee for mr evil-not-levi, the strong aroma of the coffee beans wafting in the air. "porcupine's smiling! quick, take a picture!"

miss B chuckled, her brows raising so that her soft bangs fell over her closed eyes as she stirred the mixture in the cup. megumi, on the other hand, scowled, any trace of what once held a small smile eradicated.

"too late," he'd said, moving the laptop so it was in front of him instead, and holding the bottom arrow to scroll further down the website with critical eyes.

"you should just take it secretly from now on," you told miss B, watching as she handed the fake-levi his coffee and politely told him to take a seat. she now stood opposite you, smiling as she adjusted the red baker's hat resting on her head. "megumi smiling is a super rare occurrence."

"why would you say that in front of me?" said megumi, looking up and facing you with an expression of mild irritation. "defeats the purpose of secrecy."

"what are you gonna do, attack us?" you challenged, rolling your eyes. "i'll tell my dad never to bring you any of those weird artifacts that you like."

"stop lying."

"okay so maybe i wouldn't do that... but i could change my mind! so you're treading on thin ice, porcupine! i'd be really careful if i were you."

megumi's eyes grew half-lidded, his expression teetering between a scowl and a look of complete disinterest as he stared down at you.

"i'm so scared right now," he stated, the obvious sarcasm making miss B giggle at the interaction.

you had a witty response resting at the tip of your tongue, but could not execute it in time before the bell by the door had chimed again. all three of you had turned your heads so as to check who had entered. you beamed in excitement, watching as a rather beefy man waddled up to the counter to place his order.

before he had reached it, however, you glanced at miss B, lip curled in interest.

"why don't you have a go?" you asked her, sounding slightly pleading. "i promise you, it'll be fun!"

"because no matter what you say, they're paying my wages," she said calmly, though not unkindly as she prepared to walk over to the other end of the counter to take the man's order. "and it's mean!"

you pouted, looking over at megumi with slightly puckered lips and a frown.

he got the message and (as always) feigned reluctance before turning to scrutinise the stranger. you sat up straighter, a rush of excitement coursing through your veins as you awaited his theory, the disappointment that you had been feeling for all of two seconds evaporating as if it had never been there to begin with.

"he definitely had a wife and three kids with him years ago," he began leisurely, as if to build some suspense to this unconfirmed story, "but someone called cps on him because they would resemble skeletons and he'd resemble the do-the-roar-kid , but if he was older."

"he ate all their food?" you gasped, surprised at the dark turn of events.

"and their plates too."

"oh!" you nodded, focused. "so like your dad?"

the corners of his mouth turned downwards, and his eyes narrowed, darkening with annoyance.

"i'm not having this conversation with you," he stated matter-of-factly.

you smiled sheepishly. "yeah, don't tell him i said that."

"won't make any promises."

"well then i'll tell satoru that you and hana reunited at the hilltop downtown —"

"he knows you like lying."

"doesn't mean he won't tease you for it regardless."

"..."

"yeah, that's what i thoug—"

"i'll tell everyone tonight about what happened when you lied about being a mermaid —"

your embarrassment surged like a wave, your face growing uncomfortably warm. you felt the heat radiating from your cheeks, a prickling sensation spreading across your skin. your heart pounded in your chest, a mix of anger and mortification causing your pulse to quicken, the heat of your blush intensifying as the urge to defend yourself burned inside you, evident in the way you jammed your elbow into his side.

you relished in the pained grunt he let out as he rubbed the targeted area, slightly bent forward as he glared up at you through narrowed eyes.

satisfied and proud, you pulled the laptop towards you and scrolled down to find more rude and dishonest reviews to casually debunk and argue with.

"'saw rats around in the shape of two kids... they should get an exterminator'..." you read out slowly, a tense silence falling over the two of you and (in your mind) the entire cafe too. your stomach dropped, eyes widening as you snapped your head over to face an already-disgruntled megumi. "is this incel talking about us?"

"ye—"

"how dare it?" you gasped, angrily typing up a response, the sounds of the buttons on the keyboard being pressed more aggressively than it should be resonated around the small interior. "look at the profile picture, that's the guy we shouted at last week!"

megumi leaned in, chin resting a little over your right shoulder as he examined the image with a glower.

"he could afford to skip a few sweet treats —"

"it, megumi," you corrected, hitting 'enter' after you finished typing up your response. "it could afford to skip a few sweet treats."

he read out your response, tone bland and unwavering:

"'is that why they call you the rat whisperer?'"

he locked eyes with you, his usual blank expression barely masking the faint trace of amusement in his gaze. you looked away, back at the laptop to find another rude comment to respond to.

"oh, one star review! look!" you said, pointing at the screen enthusiastically. "'chocolate too sweet. bad.'" you stared at the review, unimpressed. "i mean, it's almost as if that's the point."

you sighed and rolled your eyes, fingers flying over the keyboard as you typed a response to the absurd comment. megumi watched quietly, noting the way your eyes narrowed in unimpressed concentration as you crafted your reply. you wouldn't be actively defending this cafe and miss B if you truly believed that her food and service was not good: her bread, pastries, cupcakes, sweet treats were the best in the town. people ought to know that.

your response was quite simple, written in the same manner this liar wrote his:

dave schlager too stupid (chocolate is meant to be sweet). bad.

the bell behind you gave a soft chime, heralding the arrival of yet another customer. however, when you and megumi eagerly and robotically looked over your shoulders to observe the newcomer, you hadn't expected to feel that familiar strain in your stomach, an itch that ran all the way up to your throat, prompting you to laugh. you usually had this reaction when you'd see men, but the sight before you proved otherwise.

the woman who had entered the cafe was a sight to behold. her hair was an untamed mass, sticking out at odd angles that defied any sense of natural order. strands of grey wove through the wild mane, giving it a streaked, chaotic appearance. her eyes were wide and bulging, darting around the room with a manic energy that made them seem even larger. her clothes were dishevelled, adding to her overall rugged and eccentric look, only making it more of a struggle for you to suppress a laugh, her appearance so wildly unconventional, that it seemed almost surreal. you had half a mind to ask megumi to pinch you, but refrained, knowing he'd enjoy it too much.

the two of you faced the front again. megumi didn't seem too fazed, face stony and tired. you, on the other hand, found your shoulders shaking with the effort of holding back several incoming giggles. he looked down at you, very clearly unmoved.

"i'm gonna take a wild guess and assume you want to take this one?"

you slapped a hand over your mouth and faked a cough, forehead nearly meeting the table as you hid your laughter, bent forward and chest heaving. you felt megumi's hand tapping and rubbing at your back, almost as if to hold up the act that you were ill.

you almost thanked him before you heard his low, grumpy voice.

"you're not embarrassing me today."

you didn't even have it in you to shrug his hand off. instead, you straightened up and made an attempt to mask your expression as much as possible, facing him with a sheepish smile.

"her story's not too long," you began, almost letting a giggle slip. almost. "megumi... she stole from the bank and the fbi tased her. and then — and then she got electrocuted!"

you laughed harder at that, making little effort to conceal it. even megumi, who barely ever smiled in a day — and who you very much expected to scold you for this one — looked like he was struggling to hide one (but just scarcely).

he eventually let out a small chuckle, which only encouraged you to laugh some more. you doubled over slightly, gripping onto the counter for support, some of your abandoned math sheets falling on the floor, your infectious giggles filling the quiet air. megumi's lips twitched slightly, a silent chuckle escaping him as he watched your reaction, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. at the sight of him joining in on the fun, you pointed at him, realising something else.

"why are you laughing?" you inquired, then reached down to retrieve a mirror, holding it up so he was met with his own reflection. "haha! you both got struck by lightning!"

his smile had disintegrated, only watching you as you rocked yourself back and forth at his expression, feeling a stitch in your side with how funny the situation was. silently and angrily, he swiped the mirror out of your hands, raising his own hand to flick at your forehead.

you choked, the minor pain at the centre of your forehead jolting you awake from your laughing fit. scowling, you rubbed at the area he'd intentionally hurt, barely registering the fact that he had taken the laptop to continue attacking the bad reviews.

you let him, acknowledging the fact that what you had said was rather mean.

"'i came not once, not twice but THREE times for food, every time it tasted not up to par,'" megumi's disinterested voice read aloud, the annoyance from what you'd said still lacing each word with slight venom. you laughed. "why would you go back to a place if you didn't like it? idiot."

"you tell 'em, porcupine," you encouraged, anticipating his response.

megumi's witty comebacks were always funny. he didn't even mean to make you laugh with them, but even then, they were enough to have you practically rolling around on the floor, belly aching and heart running a million miles per second. his nonchalant behaviour only added to the amusement.

he wrote his reply, sent it, and then slid the laptop over to you. you leaned forward, reading and judging:

stop coming for breakfast, lunch and dinner, we're not a food bank.

you gave that one an 11/10 — the man behind the account would need to change his name, date of birth and identity, and then remove himself from the face of the earth if he ever wanted to recover from that, you concluded wisely.

your praise sat at the tip of your tongue, only to be abandoned at the echo of the bell's chimes that bounced off of the walls, signalling the arrival of another customer. figuring that this would be megumi's turn to create a theory, you turned on your stool excitedly, only to have your jaw drop to the floor and under.

standing in front of the door was none other than your favourite (and only) math teacher of the year: mr kento nanami!

your heart skipped a beat as you caught sight of your math teacher entering the cafe. shock painted your features as you gawked, wide-eyed, hardly believing that the business-attire man was standing in a setting that wasn't your typical school environment. you exchanged a quick, incredulous glance with megumi before hastily adjusting your posture, trying to appear composed despite the unexpected surprise.

it was typical. he still wore the same clothes (which made sense since you and megumi had too seeing as you went straight to the cafe right after school had finished). but something about seeing him enter such a cottage-vibe, almost feminine cafe made you recoil, not that you were displeased at all. in fact, you thought that this was the best arrival that the bell had drawn your attention to yet!

"kento nanami!" you yelled, ignoring megumi wincing at the sudden volume of your voice as you raised an arm over your head to enthusiastically wave at him.

a slight scowl of annoyance marred his usually composed face when he heard you call out to him using his government name. his brows furrowed, and a hint of disapproval flashed in his eyes, portraying his strict demeanour, but you didn't mind. surely school rules did not apply outside of the school environment? surely it didn't matter whether you referred to him as kento or mr nanami or whatever?

"kento, look!" you tried again, turning halfway to grab your math homework sheets and present them to him. "i'm sitting here doing your homework! in this beautiful cafe! because of you!"

"actually, you spent the last thirty minutes laughing at my customers and arguing with the bad reviews again," miss B corrected you, apparently materialising out of thin air.

you jumped slightly, the sheets scattering and your brows furrowing as you watched her shut the laptop and take it away. kento's response also took you by surprise.

"i was correct in believing that it wasn't you disrespectfully responding to them."

he had made his way further down the interior, leading up to the counter where miss B, you, and megumi were.

you beamed. "no, it was megumi and i."

megumi grumbled something along the lines of 'wasn't me', which you knew was a complete and utter lie. megumi was your accomplice in all of this; it didn't matter whether you were the mastermind behind it all. he still served his purpose and did it brilliantly too. you couldn't have asked for a better partner. except, perhaps, nobara, who was equally as good as him at silencing people when it was necessary.

although, kento did not look as though he believed you. you didn't like that much.

"keep an eye out for the one where he told the guy that he shouldn't come so often because we're not a food bank!" you told him honestly, still smiling despite kento's obvious disbelief.

he glanced at megumi as if to say is-this-true?

you chortled, knowing full well that megumi would not lie with his chest, especially not in front of you.

"megumi is sensible," said kento, with such confidence, you almost felt bad for him. you wondered what his reaction would be if you told him about that one zoo incident where megumi jumped into the gorilla enclosure and declared that he'd stay there for the rest of his life? or the occasion where little you and megumi had been scolded by your parents so badly, he made the suggestion of running away together (and went through with it) even though it was bound to have failed from the beginning? or the time where he helped you torment your unfriendly, rival neighbour mrs daphne on facebook to the point where she had marched down to your houses to complain to your parents?

megumi is sensible, you thought, and nearly laughed. how comical, loud, and wrong.

"why do you think the punctuation is so perfect?" you asked, raising a brow. "you think i'd care enough to put capital letters and full stops everywhere?"

kento's eyes widened slightly, a flicker of surprise crossing his face as he processed the unexpected news. a momentary pause followed, during which his features tensed with mild astonishment, and yours only grew more joyful. megumi, on the other hand, was silently forcing down the urge to push you off your stool and walk home without you (he would never).

"the usual?" miss B interrupted, still smiling the elegant way that she does.

kento nodded slowly, she began organising his order behind the counter. you blinked several times.

"the usual?" you repeated, bewildered. "kento nana—"

"y/n," he snapped, still composed even so. "refrain from referring to me with my first name."

"we're not at school," you reminded him.

he adjusted the odd, spotted tie he wore, looking irked. "doesn't matter —"

"you come here a lot?" you asked, curious. even megumi seemed interested, and he had been frowning and grumbling the second kento had walked past the door.

"this place has the best bread in town," he told you, stiff. "better than my local supermarkets."

you grinned. "and miss B is the best cashier and server ever, right?"

you sensed megumi's gaze on you, causing you to adjust the way you sat slightly in your seat. you ignored the feeling, understanding that megumi knew what you were trying to do and was making it extremely clear that he wanted you to look at him for a second, if the way he was tugging at the bottom of your sleeve aggressively was anything to go by. you slapped his hand away, grin widening ever so slightly as the hiss he let out, still getting into character. your role? temporary matchmaker.

kento watched miss B work behind the counter.

"i respect her a lot," he said, barely answering the question.

you wanted to gruel him for some more information, but your time had been cut short when miss B's soft voice had driven a smooth knife through the heated conversation.

"here you are," she said, handing him his food in a bag.

he exchanged it for some money, she tried to give him some change, he told her she could keep it. with a final look at you, megumi, and the homework he'd assigned you, he told you to take care of yourselves and left the cafe, his strides even and his back straight.

what took you by surprise was the fact that miss B had followed him out, waving at him from the door and telling him to come again after a brief conversation with him that you and megumi, from where you were sat, could not hear. she never did this with any of her other customers. you were here so often that you knew she did not. the two of you exchanged looks of obvious bafflement, sitting up straighter and raising your chins to nosily observe the sight before you.

when she returned, you did not miss the rosy pink in her cheeks.

"miss B —" you began, only for her to interrupt you with a laugh.

"he's a regular customer, quite like the two of you," she said, and then looked around at the mess on the counter that were your unorganised math papers. "and he told me to tell you that you only needed to do page ten and eleven of the booklet."

you felt your stomach flip itself upside down.

you had fried your brain for no reason at all, for you'd completed nearly half of the booklet instead of the assigned designated pages. perhaps that would teach you to meddle in business that wasn't yours, you thought you heard megumi grumble from next to you, but you weren't so sure...

not when you'd dropped your head on the table, hopeless.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

bonus scene:

megumi and yuji were both traitors.

during gym class, coach lauren did not seem to mind that you and nobara had migrated to the corner of the gymnasium, gossiping and laughing about who-knows-what. naturally, the class grew quite boring for the two of you, so you'd snuck out and gone to the football field where you knew coach yaga's class would be residing.

long story short: megumi and yuji both rat you out and coach yaga had kicked the two of you off his field and had you stay with him for detention.

all. because. of. them.

so in conclusion, the two of you had seated yourselves far, far away from them in any class that you could, which included satoru's physics class.

you were wary not to sit near malakai, who always had something odd to say to nobara. in fact, when she'd come into school with a brighter, new hair-do (no longer the dark colour that you were so used to) malakai had a few things to say... but that was a story for another day.

now, you only just realised the mistake you had made sitting on the middle table instead of your regular seats. and it was not because of megumi or yuji, no.

it was because of the drama queen that just so happened to be your male, adult, mature teacher: satoru gojo.

when taking the register, which usually went by pretty quickly, the second he had come to either of your names, he had started an act that made you believe that perhaps he should have been the one taking performing arts as a subject:

"y/n?" he'd called out, looking around the class as if you were not seated across the whiteboard, the first seat on the middle table.

"here," you said, unfazed.

"huh — oh!" he said, resulting in the eyes of everyone in your class to look at you as though you'd done something wrong, as though you were malakai, even. "oh, right, y/n... are you new here?"

you scrunched your nose up in something in between confusion and annoyance. what the hell was he talking about? unlike majority of the people sitting in the classroom, this man knew of your existence since you were four years old. what game was he playing?

"you're joking, right?" you said, watching him carefully as he scratched the top of his head and shrugged. "sa—"

"o-kay!" he perked up, rushing through the register with such ease, you hadn't expected him to stop and squint a second time. but he had. "i might get this one wrong so forgive me but... no— nobara? nobara?" he called out, once more, looking up and all around the classroom as though he couldn't see her sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with you.

unlike you, she had a much shorter fuse that he'd lit.

"what's wrong with you?" she demanded, eyes narrowed. "i'm here."

he raised his eyebrows up at her and nodded, muttering to himself. the two of you were both equally confused, and so was the rest of the class, it seemed, if the whispers were anything to go by.

the register had been completed not long after that. you assumed his weird antics would also finish too, but you were proven wrong once the idiot had opened his mouth to address the class again.

"so we have two new students with us today!" he said, excited. "make them feel welcome! their names are... nobara and..." he thought long and hard before looking over at you, tilting his head forward so you could see the terrifying blues that were hiding behind the circular lenses. "hmm... what's your name again?"

your anger simmered like a pot left too long on the stove, bubbling beneath the surface. as you stared back at satoru's clueless expression, it felt like a storm brewing in your chest, thunderclouds gathering with each passing moment. his feigned ignorance was like a slap in the face, a sharp thorn pricking at your patience, igniting the flames of your frustration.

how dare he?

he moved on to teaching the class before either of you got to call him out for his bullshit.

only for it to slowly get worse as the time went by.

he was sat at his desk, explaining the slide from the powerpoint that he'd presented on the board with a lazy smile and stretched out legs that resting on a spare chair.

"what's at the centre of an animal cell?" he asked the class, encouraging people to raise their hands.

nobara raised hers, eager to answer.

"new kid!" he said, and when she glared at him, he backtracked. "i mean nobara! — that was scary — what's at the centre of an animal cell?"

"the nucleus," she answered.

he frowned. "huh?"

she frowned. "the nucleus," she repeated helpfully.

he leaned forwards, a hand cupping his ear. "sorry, i can't hear you, you're too far away."

oh, it made sense now, you thought in your head. he was throwing a fit over the fact that the two of you had chosen to sit in the centre of the room, a little further away from his desk, than at the back table with megumi and yuji, closer to him.

what a diva.

he directed the question to maryam, who sat at the table closest to the door and furthest from his desk.

"you're right! it's the nucleus!" he cheerfully praised her, continuing to teach as though he hadn't just distracted the entire class due to his theatrics. even malakai sensed something was wrong, claiming that 'the darkness is starting to reach the lightness of his hair... it is consuming him', whatever the hell that meant.

it hadn't ended there though, for when the worksheets were being handed out by yuji, he had completely skipped over you and nobara (though he looked quite frightened at doing so). it was no doubt satoru's instructions he was acting on behalf of.

"give it," nobara demanded, standing up and approaching him.

yuji held the papers close to his chest. "but mr gojo said —"

"mr gojo also once said that he's married with thirteen kids, do you believe that?"

she forcefully snatched two sheets from him, marching back to where she was sat with you and slammed them down onto the table with such force, it shook, your pencil committing suicide off the edge.

"men will be the death of everyone, mark my words," she'd said.

when you raised a hand for help, your pencil clasped in your curled fingers, he asked what happened to gravity and why an inanimate object was suddenly floating.

that was the last straw for you.

if he was going to pretend that you had miraculously turned invisible, then you were going to do as you pleased with this ability. pencil still in your tight grasp, you stood up, made eye contact with your childish teacher, and sprinted out of the classroom.

satoru perked up, alarmed as he ordered for help.

"whoever's closest to the door, close it before she —"

you'd already left.

he let out a long sigh, only to raise a brow when you'd returned the second you'd disappeared from view, running across the classroom to take nobara's hand, glance up at your teacher, and say...

"malakai."

— before taking off with your friend, chaos ensuing behind you.

the chaos being malakai emerging from under the sink, arms flailing around himself, eyes rolling to the back of his head, snarling and growling as he shook, only creating more issues for satoru who, everyone knew, hated dealing with the odd emo.

that'd teach him to pretend that you (out of everyone) were invisible.

lesson learned, he thought in his head, letting out a loud and drawn out groan when malakai refused to stop.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

(random tweets cuz i think you guys waited long enough for this chapter to come out, eat well 😁)

(p.s. ignore the date on the tweet, it was meant to say 2017 lmao)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

notes: i'm so tired, gonna take a longgg nap. not my favourite chapter tbh, but it's needed to set the scene for high school because the real part of the story (the one where all the drama starts and stuff) is arriving in less than three chapters!! and we also have a lovely character, important to the plot, to introduce next chapter, so stay tuned my little liars?

previous chapter :)

next chapter :)

taglist (send an ask or comment to be added):

@1l-ynn @shaigimo @shuupiu @myguumi @momoewn @xbarrjallenx @reinaswrld @anintrovertedechoe

if you enjoyed my writing, i’d really appreciate it if you tipped me — tumblr no longer has the tip function, so maybe here in my tip jar :)

i do not own any of the characters of jjk, i only own the character of y/n and her mother. the other characters belong to gege akutami.

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eliotquillon · 5 months ago

Note

Okay there’s that part in Both Sides Now where Cameron tells Chase she’ll destroy the sperm and they can’t hug because they’re scrubbed. How many sappy couples things do you think Foreman or Wilson or House or even Cuddy has seen them doing? Can be drabble if you wish!

this all ended up being set at the start of s4 and you know what. i’m not mad about it.

i. Wilson

It is a given, almost, that Cameron gets a job in the ER. The nurses like her, she’s happy to work unsociable hours, and all the external candidates for the role are male—Cuddy will always jump at the chance to promote another woman. “And maybe she can reel House back in from the deep end,” Cuddy suggests hopefully to Wilson one morning. Wilson doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he’s got his own plans for how to weaponise Cameron against his best friend.

It isn’t as easy for Chase. Sure, House provides him a glowing reference—well, signs a glowing reference pre-written by Cameron, same difference—but surgery has always been a competitive department; the fact that most licensed surgeons in New Jersey hate House on principle doesn’t exactly help matters. “I told him to apply to Princeton General,” Cameron says conversationally at lunch, winding a strand of her newly-blonde hair around her finger with a frown, “but he really wants to stay here.”

Wilson pays a vague kind of attention to the saga—mostly, of course, to ascertain just when he should start putting the pressure on House to start hiring again—but it’s only a few weeks later when he realises Chase has the job. He’s sitting in his parked car, trying to undo whatever the hell House has managed to do to his cell phone—it involved three sticks of gum and what appears to be a magnet—when he hears someone make a loud oof!, and he looks up.

“You got it?” Cameron asks excitedly, loud enough that Wilson can hear her through his closed windows; she has her arms wrapped tight around Chase’s neck and he’s spinning her around the parking lot like she weighs nothing. For the first time in a while, Wilson feels suddenly aware of the fact that Cameron is ten, fifteen years younger than him. It never really seems that way, when she’s worrying her lip while debating him in House’s office, or when she’s arguing with him frustratedly about a terminal patient’s chances, but right now she looks worlds away from the doleful woman he’s used to seeing around Diagnostics. “Oh my God, Robert, that’s amazing!”

Wilson watches as Chase sets her down tenderly—like she hasn’t just spent twelve hours being vomited and bled on in the ER—and say something inaudible, before pressing a kiss to her cheek. The devotion is really quite sweet, Wilson thinks, even as he desperately hopes that neither of them glance over and see him looking. He’ll have to see if there’s a betting pool as to when they’ll get married.

I wonder if House’ll believe they’re engaged already, Wilson thinks with sudden glee, and when he next looks over at Chase and Cameron, they’ve already disappeared back into the hospital.

ii. House and Cuddy

“I’m here to put in a human resources complaint,” House announces as he walks into Cuddy’s office one morning, fresh off the back of being scarred for life in the lobby. “It’s about blond and blonder.”

“First of all, this is not HR,” Cuddy says, without looking up from her paperwork. She’s wearing a particularly low-cut blue sweater today, which might have provided some passable eye bleach if only she weren’t so insistent on sitting up straight in her chair. “Second of all, even if it was HR, you have fifty-seven outstanding complaints against you that you need to address before you even think of accusing other people. Third of all, you’re gonna have to try harder if you want to trick me into firing Cameron and Chase.”

This is deeply offensive, House thinks, not least because it was technically his fault that Chase and Cameron ever got hired in the first place, and therefore his word should be the final say on the matter. “They’re holding hands,” he complains, “in the lobby. It’s an infection control issue.”

“Cameron’s working nights this week,” Cuddy counters, “and Chase was on call. They’re both going home. Even if they weren’t, they’re not idiots. Stop being jealous because nobody ever wants to hold your hand.” Well, Cameron did want to hold my hand once, House almost says, but thinks better of it.

“It’s disrespectful,” he insists. “Think of poor Wilson! Constantly being reminded of his own inability to keep a woman!”

“Unless I missed something deeply concerning about Cameron, I don’t think that’s their problem,” Cuddy deadpans. “What is this really about?”

House checks his watch surreptitiously, and tries not to grin around his responding mouthful of Vicodin. “Oh, nothing,” he says. “Just so you know, my patient’s in surgery now. That Taub guy’s on it. You know, I might just have to hire him.”

He sees the exact moment it sinks in: Cuddy’s head snaps up, her eyes widen, and there’s the lean over the desk he was looking for. “Your patient with the DNR?” she says shrilly. “House!”

iii. Foreman

“Hey, you can’t be here,” Cameron nudges Foreman with her foot, startling him from his new copy of the NEJ of M. She’s wielding two cups of coffee, though, so her next chastisement—“This lounge is for ER staff only,”—is clearly intended only to tease. Foreman accepts the proffered drink gratefully, and shudders.

“I needed a break,” he says wearily. “House’s reality TV mind games are driving me insane. Cutthroat Bitch won’t leave me alone because she thinks I have some say in who gets hired.” As if, Foreman thinks bitterly, and takes a large swig of coffee to try and clear his head.

“Cutthroat—oh, you mean the blonde one,” Cameron realises. She takes a prim sip from her mug, and offers, “Chase thinks she’s a shoo-in, if you want to get in on the betting pool.”

“Well, I think she’s ontologically evil,” Foreman mutters, “so I hope not.” It doesn’t matter anyway, he thinks. Kutner is just enough like House to be guaranteed a spot—especially since Cuddy clearly wanted him gone; Taub offers enough opportunities for House to poke and prod for him to be too irresistible; Cuddy will most likely insist on a woman, but whether it comes down to Thirteen or Amber is really just chance, and Foreman doubts he’ll care particularly for either. Cameron opens her mouth to say something—maybe about the ethics of him accusing a woman of being Satan incarnate—except she locks eyes with someone across the room and her whole face lights up and Foreman thinks, with great misery, oh no.

“My shift just finished,” Chase greets Cameron, kissing the top of her head and leaning over to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. He’s still in scrubs. “I’m just gonna go get my stuff from my locker. Want me to get you anything from the cafeteria while I’m up?” Notably, he does not bother to greet Foreman.

“I’m okay,” Cameron demurs. The height difference between them, especially with her sitting and Chase standing, means she easily loops her arm around his waist; Foreman finds himself looking hopefully around the break room for a window to throw himself out of. “I’m off in three, so I’ll come by yours later?”

“I’ll leave the door open,” Chase says, kissing her forehead again when she relinquishes him, and then he finally seems to notice Foreman’s presence. “Oh, hey Foreman. Any news on the new fellows?”

“I hope Amber wins,” Foreman says through gritted teeth. “I hope she kills me in my sleep.”

#asks #house md #allison cameron #robert chase #james wilson #lisa cuddy #eric foreman #gregory house

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hedgehogsaretheultimatelifeform · 7 months ago

Text

Kinktober 2024 Day Four

Phone Sex

John Price/Rodolfo Parra

Price groaned and tossed his pen down when his phone rang. What now?

His frustration vanished when he turned it over and saw the caller ID. One Colonel Alejandro Vargas. It was a tad over professional to have full name contacts on his personal phone, but really it was just another piece in the puzzle that kept Price’s less than work appropriate proclivities hidden.

John leant back in his chair, turning away from his desk to gaze out of the window as he answered the call, grinning as he murmured down the line, “needy, aren’t you?”

He waited for Alejandro’s response, for whatever excuse he’d come up with that would justify why he was calling again only a couple hours after they’d last… spoken.

There was a pause, then someone else’s voice came through the phone.

“Hello, Captain Price? This is Sergeant Major Parra.” Rodolfo’s formal tone caught Price off guard, making him sit up in his chair, spinning back to face his desk, withdrawing his hand from his belt like Rudy was there in the room with him, able to see what he was doing.

“Ah, Rudy. Hello. Has something happened?” Price pushed past the awkwardness, his mind suddenly focusing on why Rudy would be calling him from Alejandro’s personal phone.

“No, nothing’s happened.” Rudy clarified. Price sighed softly in relief that Rudy apparently hadn’t heard what he’d whispered. “I just need to ask you about something. If you have the time.”

“Of course. What do you need to know?”

“Just, why Alejandro needs to spend so much time on the phone with you.”

John swallowed. Rudy’s voice was exceedingly neutral, like it was being carefully controlled to sound that way. Did he already know, and want to hear Price admit to it? Or, did he only suspect; or could it be that he was genuinely clueless?

Rudy coughed to break the silent beat before continuing, justifying his enquiry. “It’s taking him away from work, so it must be important.”

“Sure.” Price started, swallowing. “We’ve been talking more than usual, the last couple of days, to finalise the operation in Al Mazrah. Then, we were working on the possibility that myself and the rest of the task force could come over to you, for some training, and to assist in pinning down your El Sin Nombre.”

His words weren’t lies. He and Alejandro had discussed these things… they just hadn’t been the main topic of conversation.

“Valeria isn’t ours.” Rudy snapped, annoyance edging into his voice. “Are you sure that’s all? Because I’m not seeing much evidence of that being coordinated with Laswell, or Lieutenant Riley.”

Price rubbed his chin, brow furrowing as he thought about how to respond to that. Rudy was definitely on edge about something, and was doing his homework about it. “That so? I can do some follow ups, if that helps.”

“What would help, is you telling me the truth. I’d like to think that we can trust each other, Captain.”

“Jealous, are you?” Price deflected the bait.

“Hardly.” Rudy scoffed, but his denial was half-hearted. “I need Alejandro to focus on his job, not sit on the phone for hours. I ask you again, Captain, what is so important?”

‘For hours’ was exaggeration. Sure, over time the calls added up, but it wasn’t like Price had Alejandro sitting on the phone with him all day. “You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“To know how to get Alejandro off it, or to join in?”

Rudy didn’t appreciate Price’s serious tone, half laughing when he asked, “what, are you two fucking each other over the phone?”

“More or less.” Price’s confession was met with stunned silence. He actually looked down at his phone to make sure he hadn’t been hung up on. “You still there, Rudy?”

“How… does that even work?” Rudy muttered on the other end of the line.

He was more thinking aloud, than asking, but Price supplied anyway. “I talk, he jerks himself off, everyone’s happy.”

Rudy fell silent again, and Price glanced around his office. He looked at the door, and got up to check if he had in fact locked it, as he waited for Rudy’s response.

“It’s not exclusive.” Price clarified into the lengthening silence after sitting back down at his desk, the door now locked and the blind drawn down.

“How many people do you have in on this?” Rudy mumbled.

“How about we don’t worry about that,” Price said, as he didn’t actually care to keep count, (that made it feel like a conquest, or like he was collecting things), “and worry about you instead?”

“Me?” Rudy asked.

“No, Alejandro.” Price sighed at Rudy’s noise of indignation through the phone. “You’ve been feeling neglected, is that it?”

Rudy didn’t respond for a moment again, as he considered what Price was offering.

“If you don’t want to be involved, you can just hang up.” Price murmured.

“I don’t want to. To hang up.” Rudy let out his own confession. “I’m interested. Just… don’t know what to expect.”

“That’s okay. I’ll walk you through it, one bit at a time.” Price rumbled, leaning back in his chair, back in comfortable territory.

“Okay.” Rudy sighed.

“Where are you right now?”

“Ale’s office. He always leaves his phone here.”

“Little snooping, eh?” John tilted his phone against his shoulder, needing two hands to undo his belt.

“Only a little. He uses my phone whenever he forgets his. Which is often.”

Price chuckled. That sounded about right for Alejandro. “Only fair then, right?”

“Only fair.” Rudy echoed.

“Is the door locked?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Wouldn’t want to be interrupted in Alejandro’s office with your dick out, would you?” Price glanced at his own office door again, holding the phone with one hand and his dick with the other, glad he’d checked and locked it.

“Probably… probably not.”

“Unless… it was Alejandro?” Rudy sharply inhaled at Price’s words. “What do you think he’d say? Finding you in his office, sat at his desk, with your cock in your hand?”

“Probably that I have a pretty cock.”

“Hmm. Why do you think that?” Price slowly started to stroke his dick, his office chair creaking as he sank back into it.

“He said it, once.” Rudy groaned. “He was drunk, but…”

“Drunk words are sober thoughts.”

��Yeah. Something like that.”

“You touching yourself?”

“Yes.” Rudy coughed lightly. “Are you?”

“Yes.” John replied, shifting his hips up to get a better grasp on his dick. “You think about Alejandro a lot like this?”

“Maybe more than I should. Should… should I be thinking about you while we do this?”

“You can think about me if you want. Or, Alejandro if you prefer.” Price swallowed, closing his eyes as he imagined what it would be like to be on his knees, sucking Rudy off while Alejandro watched. “Even, both of us at once, if that’s your fancy.”

“Do the… do the others think about you?” Rudy whispered, like he was unsure if he could ask.

“Some do, some don’t.” Price grunted, trying to push the thoughts of the others from his mind. Right now, this was about Rudy. “How are you feeling?”

“Good. Little too relaxed.”

“Go a little faster for me then.” Price listened as Rudy’s breathing stuttered, his hand tightening on his own cock as he too sped up. “There we go.”

“You think Alejandro would want to find me like this?”

“He talks about you enough; I should think so.”

“Fuck…” Rudy bit out, sighing heavily against the mic in a way that grated through Price’s speaker.

“Even when we’re talking work, he talks about you.” Price continued, upping his own tempo again. “How strong, how capable you are. How much he trusts you. How much he depends on you.”

Rudy moaned.

“That’s it, Rudy. Come when you’re ready.” Price let the silence hang, only letting out a groan of his own as he finished, holding his limp cock in his hand as he waited for Rudy to speak, listening as Rudy’s little groans evened out into deep, calming breaths.

“Thank you.” Rudy murmured eventually. “This… was nice.”

“Of course.” Price said, tucking himself away in his trousers.

“And, you’ve given me some stuff to think about…”

“Hopefully, to talk to Alejandro about.” If Price did anything with this moment, it was going to be trying his darndest to make that brief fantasy come true. For his and Rudy’s sake.

“Hah… Maybe.” There was a beat of silence before Rudy’s voice came through, faintly. “Can I call you again?”

“Sure.” John chuckled, tightening his grip on his phone. “But, from your own phone next time, eh?”

#kinktober #kinktober 2024 #kinktober day four #cod kinktober #cod #call of duty #captain john price #rodolfo rudy parra #price x rudy #rudy x price #john price x rodolfo parra #cod price #cod rudy #rodolfo parra #captain john price x rodolfo rudy parra #mw2 #mw3 #cod mw2 #cod mw3

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the-hole-in-terzos-shoe · 2 years ago

Text

Intro to Romantic Literature: Prologue

Professor!Terzo x TA!Reader (pretty gen for this part, but the main fic describes fem parts)

CW: implied smut, MDNI, 18+ only please, romantic tension, professor Terzo is a tease ✨

Word Count: 1.2k

I have been working on a Professor Terzo fic for MONTHS now, literally months. I'm getting close to the end, and this prologue popped in my head at 5 o'clock this morning, so I had to scribble it down. Plus, I think it'll make a cute little teaser 🥰 enjoy!

Intro to Romantic Literature: here!

Every day feels like a big day as you barrel towards the end of your degree. The pressure of arranging your final portfolio of works, defending final arguments, typing papers... it's all really starting to get to you.

𝘐𝘵'𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘰𝘯, the bittersweet thought crosses your mind. You'd finally be done with all this stress and move onto the ease of a consistent career, but you'd also be leaving behind the best job you've ever known. Leaving 𝘩𝘪𝘮 behind.

In fact, you're so lost in your thoughts, collecting and organizing papers and files so efficiently--you could do it in your sleep at this point--that you don't notice him staring at you, the pained expression on your professor's face that would tell you it eats him up to see you like this: so stressed you're ready to snap.

He reads you like the many leaves and pages studied in his romantic literature class, like a poem written just for him. You recite your feelings to him daily without knowing it; it's in the way you walk, the way you hold yourself, the way you tilt your head when you rest the tip of your pen on your bottom lip, lost in thought on the class discussion at hand.

Sauntering into his office, you drop your shoulders as you flop into his soft leather chair, taking a deep breath before sorting papers accordingly: lesson plans in the bottom right desk drawer, books on the bookshelf, papers to be graded in the third slot of the black wire rack, anything needing immediate attention left squarely on his desk in plain sight.

"Grazie, stellina," his voice snaps you back to reality, immediately causing your cheeks to flush at the nickname. 'Little star' is what it means. It makes you feel like a teacher's pet, which would've bothered you if it had been anyone else; however, it makes you feel special to earn attention from him. "La mia brava ragazza, you always do such a good job for me." He leans in the doorway, running a hand through his graying locks.

"Thank you, Professor Emeritus," it comes just above a whisper, and you look down at the desk briefly before standing to make your exit.

"Ah, ah, ah, not so fast," he murmurs, catching your waist as you try to pass him in the little room. Spinning you around, he pins the back of your thighs to the desk before leaving some space between you... Just enough space to be respectful, but a clear indication that you're not getting out of this so easily.

You're so caught up in the intoxicating scent of his expensive cologne that you hardly hear him when he asks how you've been. "Hm?" you reply, playing naïve.

"Tesoro, please, I can't have my favorite student looking as distracted as you've been lately," he starts, but you interrupt him.

"I'm not your student, I'm your teaching assistant," you remind him with a light hearted smile.

"You are still learning things, no?" he cocks one thick black eyebrow in that way that always makes your heart skip a beat, his intense white eye putting you in checkmate.

"I suppose so," you whisper, looking down at his ridiculously shiny loafers.

His fingers under your chin direct your stare back up, "What has you so distant, eh? Would you like to talk about it, cara? Confess your sins... So to speak." He winks at you, earning a small huff of a laugh from you.

"What are you, the Pope?" you joke.

His eyebrows quirk in an unreadable way, but he stays silent, urging an answer from you.

"I've just been really stressed with school," you finally concede, letting out a breath you'd been holding.

"Have I put too much on you?" he worries about the workload he's given you cutting into your schedule.

"No!" you look up at him almost desperately, "No, I enjoy this position so much. It's everything else. The final papers, getting good grades, trying to graduate." You choke on the last few words; it was something you'd been emotional about the last few weeks, plus your professor had your guard down.

"Don't cry, tesoro," he commands softly, but it's already too late as tears flood your waterline. Without a second thought, he cups your face in his hands, wiping away anything that threatens to spill across your cheeks. Wrapping a protective arm around your waist, he pulls you flush to his chest before fishing a handkerchief from his pocket, because of course he has one, and dabbing softly under your eyes before offering the piece of silk to you.

"Thank you," you stutter, clutching the cloth in your hand. Hesitantly, you glance up at him before laying your head on his chest, folding your arms under his in a hug.

His hand on your waist falls to caress the small of your back while the other cradles your head, while you regulate your breathing. You can't say for certain, but you think you feel a whisper of a kiss placed on the crown of your head. Holding each other like that for however long, you don't know, but when his fingertips gently start to massage your scalp, you let out an involuntary moan.

Your cheeks blush pink again, meeting a much more heated look in his mismatched eyes. As his warm hands move to grasp at your hips and waist, suddenly all of your worries melt away, as the only thing you can think about is him hoisting you up on the perfectly organized little desk and having his way with you, your panties tossed aside in his office chair, and you laid back and arched up into him while he works every tension from your needy body.

Your fantasy fades away when Professor Emeritus's hand cups your chin again, fingers pressing into your jawbone in a dominant way to lift your face to his. Your gaze wanders to his plump lips... how many times you've thought of having them on you.

His thumb gently strokes your cheek as he leans impossibly closer, and one of your hands smoothes over his firm chest.

But before he makes a move that he can't come back from, he presses the pad of his thumb firmly against your supple lips, stopping himself from crossing the line, even though he so badly wants to... wants you.

He gives you a solemn nod before putting some distance between your bodies, "I hope you're feeling a little better, after our, uh... chat, stellina."

"Uh huh..." is all you manage to breathe out before straightening up. "Yes, sir."

Offering a reassuring squeeze to your shoulder, he carefully presses a kiss to your cheek before sending you on your way.

Tonight, you'll tell yourself that you misread the situation, that he was only trying to be a kind and caring professor, but somewhere deep down inside you, under lock and key, you know that isn't true. Especially because you felt something hard graze against your hip as you squeezed past him and out into the hallway, but you put that thought far behind you as you head back to your dorm.

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hazbinstohell · 1 year ago

Text

Late Night Paperwork

Warnings- None, just suggestive; ya been warned!

Inspired by fanart from @chubs-deuce

Charlie was always working. Making sure everyone was happy and taken cared for. She didn’t mind it…as a matter of fact, she lived for it. But if there was one thing in Hell besides the absolute violence, sinful pleasure, and all the in between, you’d bet that paperwork would be anything but in Hell.

Wrong.

It was a part of Hell just as much as turf wars. It was after midnight, and Charlie had forgotten all about a few forms left on her desk. She snuck out of her room exhausted, her robe wrapped around her as she entered her’s and Alastor’s office. She tapped a small lamp and a she grabbed what she needed, sat down, and put her pen on the paper…

Until she felt eyes on her. She looked up to see Alastor at his own desk, his head propped up by his fist, and she pushed against the desk, making her chair screech against the floor, “WHAT IN THE…”

Alastor beams at her, “Why hello dear! What brings you into the office so late?”

Charlie, whose heart feels like it will rip out of her chest, lands back into her chair, her palm on her trembling chest as she tries to take a breath, “Alastor, you could of said you were in here when I came in!”

Alastor shrugs, “I figured you’d of noticed, what with my bright eyes!” He raises his eyebrows and she huffs, “I’m doing paperwork I didn’t get to earlier. It will only take me a few minutes, then I’ll leave.”

Alastor hums, “Don’t let me stop you, darling! I’m sure you’re wanting to go back to sleep soon anyway.”

Charlie sighs and picks up her pen, scribbling her signature on a few pages, before she looks up and sees him leaning over her, pointing at one of the papers, “Ah! You missed that.”

Charlie turns to look at him, and his smile is friendly enough, albeit it’s Alastor. She thanks him, and marks the overlooked part. She feels him leave her, but his presence is daunting, and she tries to focus on her next paper.

For a few moments she is reading when she sees him standing in front of her desk, “Darling, you look exhausted…”

Charlie looks at him as he leans forward, his face inches from hers, she sighs, “Yes, Al. But, these have to get done.”

Alastor moves back slightly, “Yes, but I’m talking about other days. Are you sleeping well? Nightmares?”

Charlie paled a moment, it wasn’t nightmares keeping her up…well, some might find them to be nightmares. Instead, they were more of him…

Doing…things…

She clears her throat as he watches her with interest, “Just having some trouble.”

He seems to leave her then, that is, until she feels his hands on her shoulders, “That just won’t do, my dear! You are the proprietor of this hotel! You need rest more than the lot of us!”

His hands tighten a moment, and she bites her lip to stop a moan from escaping her. He stops however, and pulls her chair back, coming in front of her. All she can do is look up at him and point around to the papers, “Alastor!”

Al “shhs” her by placing his finger on her lip, “If you’re having trouble with sleep, you should have came to me. I could of taken over this excruciating paperwork. And you could be lying in your bed, warm, cozy, and relaxed. Unless…”

Alastor beckons her forward with a finger. She takes a sharp breath and stands, and Alastor’s smile is almost dark, “Are you thinking of something else you’re needing?”

Being this close, she bites her lip, “I don’t need…”

Alastor leans forward, “Sure on that, darling…?” His voice is low and close to her ear, and she almost leans in a moment…

Until Alastor picks up the pen, and hands it to her, “One more signature. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Charlie looks annoyed, and she rips it out his hand, slamming the pen to the paper and signing it swiftly, he takes the pen and slams it down, grabbing her wrist and spinning the two of them, Charlie now trapped between the desk and himself.

Alastor’s smile is just menacing, as he leans her back, Charlie’s hands land on the desk, her hands smudging the papers. He tsks at her, “Oh too bad darling, the papers are destroyed!”

Charlie argues, “They are not!”

Alastor flicks his wrist, and the paper around her bursts, “Alastor!!! Really!? That’s…”

Alastor leans forward, and she leans back more on the desk, “Enough for tonight, my dear. You need help getting to sleep. I believe I know just the thing…”

#charlastor #alastor and charlie #charlie x alastor #Alastor #charlie morningstar #hazbin hotel fanfiction #suggestive

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bunnytornado · 10 months ago

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Between a Desk and a Hard Place Chapter 1

Cross-posted on Archive Of Our Own

Chapter 2

“Let’s make a deal…You scratch my back…I’ll leave yours alone for a set time,” Alastor purred out, the signature grin of the Radio Demon firmly placed on his face.

I frown and tilt my head. “What…kind of deal Alastor,” I ask cautiously. Alastor was never one to leave one alone or even offer this unless there was some sort of entertainment.

“Well… Let’s just say… I want you to do a little spying for me. I want you to search through Good ol’ Luci’s office and see if you can find something for me. See if you can locate anything that would make it where Charlie would be give up hope on her father.” The look in Alastor’s eyes told all. He didn’t believe she could do it, but it would be entertaining.

“I-I can’t do that! Charlie and Lucifer just started to rekindle their relationship!” In truth, the fact Alastor was even thinking along these lines was revolting, but not surprising. “And what if I get caught?”

“Then you get caught. He doesn’t know you, doesn’t know that Charlie even has you here in the hotel just yet. So, wouldn’t it be such fun for him to find a human in his office? What’s the worst he will do? If he’s trying to appease his daughter’s whims…You should be safe…in theory.” Alastor laughed and held out his hand. “If you do this, I’ll leave you alone for a month. No requests for your soul, no stalking, no invasion of your privacy.”

“And…no references to me being used as a meal?”

“Correct,” Alastor said with a twirl of his cane. “No references to you being the perfect little snack.”

I frowned and slowly took his hand. “D-Deal.” The room flooded with a green light as Alastor’s horns grew, stitches formed on his face, and his eyes turned black with red dials. Within seconds, everything returned to normal.

“Well then. Off you go,” Alastor laughed and instantly opened an Eldritch portal, and I dropped through, being deposited instantly into Lucifer’s Office. With a yelp, I hit the ground and winced.

Looking around, I noticed I was alone in the office. There were pictures of Charlie, random little rubber ducks, and the occasional odd trinket. I also saw on a small table some apples.

“Wow…this is…actually rather nice all things considered,” I said quietly and stood up and started to look around. Alastor didn’t say I had to bring anything back…I just had to look around.

So, I looked around at what Lucifer had out. After a while, I sat in his chair and spun just a bit. He had the cool spinning chairs. After a bit, I got up and went to the door to try and leave.

The lock rattled as I turned the handle of the door. I tried again, only hearing a “kgkgkgkgkgkg” sound as I tried the handle. There was no lock on my side, indicating that it was a lock that was on the other side of the door.

Panic settled in as I tried to figure out how to get out. I paced and tried to figure out a plan. There was a window, but judging by the view, I wasn’t going to be able to use that for escaping.

I looked up at the ceiling, trying to gauge if the ceiling tiles could be moved and I could escape that way. Realizing they were too high up for a mere human to even try to get to them, I shook my head and looked around for any other forms of escape.

I did not want to be caught in the King of Hell’s office. Regardless of Alastor’s assumptions that it would be fine, I did not believe it was a good idea. Honestly, Alastor probably just wanted the laugh factor of seeing the King of Hell rip a poor human apart. Or whatever a King of Hell did with a trespasser.

As I tried to figure out an escape from my predicament, I heard the clicking sound of the lock being undone and instantly dove under the desk. I scooted as far back under the desk as I could as the door swung open. I covered my mouth as there were footsteps walking to the desk.

A growl, and then a man’s voice could be heard. “I don’t fucking care if you took care of the fucking Incubus. You’re just now telling me there is a human in Hell! My daughter is trying to rehabilitate former human souls! Think of what heaven will say when they hear a demon dragged a living mortal to this realm! I do not want anything to destroy her dreams or create additional problems. The fact that your worker lost the human in my realm is even worse!”

#hazbin hotel #helluva boss #lucifer hazbin #lucifer hazbin hotel #lucifer x reader #lucifer hazbin x reader #lucifer magne #lucifer morningstar #no beta we die like adam #x reader #Between a Desk and a Hard Place

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erimeows · 1 year ago

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Knowing (NSFW)

The night that Vogler gets voted off the board, Wilson drives back up to Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in the pouring rain to go celebrate with Chase, Foreman, and House in the latter’s office. Wilson, whose position was conveniently reinstated by Cuddy and the rest of the board, brings a bottle of whiskey in for the four of them to split between the shot glasses he knows House keeps in his desk drawer.

They stay there, making fun of Vogler and chatting away until half past midnight. Chase and Foreman excuse themselves around the same time.

“And then there were two,” Wilson chimes with a half smile as he screws the lid back onto the glass whiskey bottle and slides it under House’s desk. He doesn’t drink much- hardly drank any of it tonight- so he figures House will get more use out of it than he ever will. “How are you feeling?”

“Think they’re going home together?” House hums, totally ignoring Wilson’s question. House is shaken due to that day’s happenings and just refuses to admit it to anyone- even himself. It makes sense that he won’t acknowledge it. “I could’ve sworn there was some tension recently.”

“I think that has more to do with the fact that you had them at each other’s throats than it has to do with what you’re implying,” Wilson scoffs and shakes his head.

Wilson looks toward the window. House has the blinds open for once. Finally, even if it’s only for tonight, House isn’t closing off the rest of the world.

Wilson stands from where he’s sat in front of House’s desk so he can go to peer out the window. Rain continuously showers over the building and trickles down the window in big fat drops to shroud their already-foggy view of the city.

“Ah, you’re no fun,” House feigns a pout and lifts himself from his spinning chair so he can slip his big coat over his shoulders. A few awkward seconds pass. Wilson waits for House to inevitably make his exit with a sarcastic farewell, but the exit never comes. Instead, House uses his cane to walk until he’s standing next to Wilson. He leans against the window and stares out at the city rather than at Wilson himself. Meanwhile, all Wilson can stare at is House. “Why are you still here? Shouldn’t you be going home to your wife? She might get lonely without you. Poor thing.”

Wilson rolls his eyes at that. He doesn’t want his wife- he wants House. His marriage has been over since it started and at this point, he’s just waiting for Julie to serve him with papers.

“I’m an oncologist, House, it’s not like she’s used to having me home at this time of night anyways. The only reason I’m not working right now is because I just got hired back.”

“But you could be home with her if you really wanted to,” House points out- ever so excited to correct someone, even if it’s Wilson- no, especially if it’s Wilson. The man is sadistic; always seizing the opportunity to point out somebody else’s flaws if it draws attention away from his own. By pointing out the fact that Wilson should be home with his wife right now, he draws the attention away from how he refused to keep his head down with Vogler and got Wilson fired. “And you could also be pounding that hot nurse you had lunch with if you really wanted to. I bet she’d light some candles at her apartment and put rose petals on the bed to make it real nice- a contrast from the dead bedroom you’re probably suffering from with Julie right now. So, why are you here with me when you could be with either of them? Or anyone else, for that matter.”

“You’re right,” Wilson shrugs. He knows better to engage with House by arguing. That’s exactly what House wants, so he refuses to play into it. He puts his own jacket on and shoots House a sharp glare. “If you’re going to be like this about it, though, I’m going home.”

Wilson goes to leave, only to feel a hand on his shoulder. He turns his head to see House standing there with an unreadable expression (because even after all these years, this man is still an enigma).

“But do you want to go home to her?”

Wilson gulps and looks down, avoiding House’s prying gaze.

House reaches up to grab Wilson’s chin- to make Wilson look at him. Wilson does what he knows House wants him to and makes eye contact. Icy blue burns into light brown at the same time that Wilson’s cheeks flush pink.

He’s had feelings for House since… Well, he doesn’t know when. One day, their friendship was just that, and the next, Wilson found himself with a notebook full of the man’s favorite things; found himself stealing glances and dreaming of things that he shouldn’t have been. Casual outings with his best friend turned into him spending his afternoons in preparation, trying on different outfits and mulling over which one would impress House the most. Peaceful nights with his wife- wives, over the years- turned into early mornings with him knelt on the floor of his bathroom, praying to God for House’s health, for House’s happiness, for House’s work, for House. Things changed so fast he couldn’t see it coming, let alone stop it.

Wilson remains lost in thought until House clears his throat, impatient. He recenters himself and meets House’s eyes again. Clearly, House reciprocates. Wilson isn’t oblivious to that. Wilson is the only person House spends time with, the only person House is interested in, the only person House has decided not to shut out. Wilson is the only person House has loved since Stacy.

But, whether or not House actually wants a relationship, Wilson has no idea. House isn’t the kind of man to hesitate. He would’ve made a move by now if he wanted it. Then again, he clearly returns Wilson’s feelings. So, if it’s not a relationship, what does House want? For them to stay in this limbo forever, wanting each other so desperately but never doing anything about it?

Wilson eyes House up and down. Still, his expression remains unreadable, but Wilson can tell that he’s tense with the way he taps his cane against the floor and purses his lips.

“You know Julie and I haven’t been doing well. Why would I want to go home to her right now? And why does it matter to you?”

At that, House’s face falls. Wilson has successfully backed him into a corner and it’s apparent he doesn’t like it.

“No reason.”

House backs away from Wilson like he’s on fire and retreats to his desk to gather his things. Wilson follows, unable to notice how House puts extra effort into facing away from him to hide his reddening cheeks.

“You never ask questions without a reason- you never do anything without a reason,” He argues.

“I can’t help but notice that you’re still here,” House grumbles and points up at the analogue clock on the wall. It’s almost one in the morning now. “You said you were going to leave two minutes ago, so leave.”

“You’re the one who stopped me,” Wilson shrugs. With each of these tense, awkward interactions, he feels as if he and House are getting progressively closer to something big. But then nothing happens, and he’s left disappointed like he is every other time. “You should be getting home, too. It’s late.”

“Ooh, so we can leave together,” House smirks and clacks his cane against the floor again. “I love it.”

Wilson flinches at a crack of thunder that booms through the sky.

“Are you sure you should drive in this?” He asks in reference to the downpour outside.

“What, are you gonna offer to chauffeur me to my place and then make that drive all the way back to yours?”

“No,” Wilson answers with a shake of his head. “I was gonna ask if I could drive us both to your apartment and stay with you tonight.”

“Wow, you’re really trying to get in my pants, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, obviously,” Wilson snaps. House blinks in what Wilson assumes is surprise. “You’re not a genius for figuring that one out; I’ve only been interested for a decade. So what?”

House pauses, standing behind his desk and staring at Wilson with a twinkle in his icy blue eyes. The tension in the room becomes so thick that it’s palpable until House walks towards the door of his office and utters one sentence.

“I don’t sleep with married men.”

Then, he shoots Wilson a wink and a smile before gingerly exiting the office, leaving nothing more than a confused and disappointed oncologist. Wilson sighs and looks at the clock again.

It’s one in the morning. He should be getting home.

A few months pass. Wilson moves out of the apartment he shared with Julie, which she doesn’t question. He also gets together with a lawyer and gets her served with divorce papers. Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t question that either, and when he goes back to the apartment for the rest of his things, he’s not shocked by the fact that there’s another car in his parking space and a pair of men’s steel-toed boots by the front door.

As much as Wilson could complain about acquiring a third alimony payment, he’s so relieved that it’s over that he doesn’t think to do so. Instead, he makes copies of all the documents pertaining to the divorce, storms into House’s office, and throws them down onto the diagnostician’s desk.

House, who was sitting in his chair and bouncing his tennis ball on the floor, glances up at Wilson with a half-smile.

“What’s this? STD test results? I knew your panty-peeling ways would catch up to you eventually,” House jokes before picking up the stack of papers and staring down at it. Upon reading the words, his eyes go wide. “You really did it…”

“I’m not a married man anymore,” Wilson smirks. “What now?”

House tilts his head. His small half of a smile morphs into a large, cheshire grin.

“I don’t sleep with people who know me.”

“Really? That’s it? Not ‘I’m not gay’?” Wilson sputters. House must be coming up with excuses to avoid the inevitable at this point- either that or just trying to fuck with him for the fun of it. They love each other, and they both know they love each other, but that was never the problem. It’s always been House and whatever reservations he has back in that complicated head of his. “That’s your reason, that you know me?”

“Yes,” House nods and tosses the copies of Wilson’s divorce papers into the trash can next to his desk. Then, he starts spinning in his chair like a child and tosses his tennis ball in Wilson’s direction. Wilson barely catches it. “And I’ve never confirmed or denied the thing about being gay- I like to keep people on their toes, keep ‘em guessing.”

“You like to keep people on their toes, huh? That’s one hell of an understatement. What about Cuddy? Or Stacy? And I’m pretty sure you’ve at least considered Cameron. You know all of them.”

“Sure I do, but they don’t know me,” House explains and crosses his arms. “You, however, do.”

“And you don’t sleep with people who know you- you won’t risk being with me even though we have these feelings for each other-” Wilson pauses, pointing at himself as he puts it together. “Because you’re afraid of being known.”

“No. I just know better than to mix being known with the terrible thing that is my sex life. Why are you so insistent on making this a me problem?” House demands. While it’s apparent that he’s trying to maintain his composure, Wilson has known the man long enough to tell that he’s frazzled as he looks for his cane. Upon locating it, House grabs it from where it fell onto the floor at some point and gets up from his chair. “Is it because you don’t want to admit that it could be you?”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Wilson huffs. He throws his hands up in frustration and furrows his brow in anger. House starts to walk like he’s going to go past Wilson and to the door of his office, so Wilson blocks his way by moving in front of him. House shoots a glare that would work on just about anyone else- that would make Cameron or Chase or Foreman or any of House’s clinic patients turn their backs and walk away- but Wilson hasn’t been friends with House for over a decade by walking away from him. “You just admitted it was you and the weird prerequisites that you have for your sexual partners!”

“Well, you’ve had three failed marriages and you’re the only common denominator, so are we going to sit here and pretend that I’m the problem in this relationship?”

“I know I’m not perfect, you idiot- we’re both the problem!”

“Listen, Wilson, we’re at work and I’m sure you’ve got a ton of dying bald little freaks to save,” House says with a harsh tap of his cane to the floor for emphasis.

“You’re fucked up.”

“I know. We both are,” House says and leans down to Wilson’s ear, daring to nip on the lobe. A flash of heat tears through Wilson’s spine. He can’t remember the last time he was so enthralled with someone; was it during his marriages? No, he would’ve remembered. Before House? Or was it always House? He’s so close that Wilson can smell past the cologne he wears and the shampoo he puts in his hair to get the scent of him, just him. Wilson knows his eyes are wide as House whispers in his ear. “Now get back to work. Or, if you’re just going to spend the rest of your shift thinking about me anyway, go home where you can fantasize about what I’m like in bed without getting interrupted.”

House, thinking he’s won this, side-steps as smoothly as he can given his infarction and goes to take another step forward so he can briskly escape this tense situation. Wilson, however, doesn’t intend on letting House escape. He’s always been good at surprising House, which he does yet again when he entangles his fingers in the loose ends of House’s hair and moves closer until they’re chest to chest. He waits for House to push him away, to say something, to tell Wilson that he doesn’t want this for some other stupid reason he’s come up with to push Wilson away for the millionth time.

Silence ensues. House doesn’t speak, just remains perfectly still with his back pin straight and his icy blue eyes trained on Wilson. He’s just holding his breath, watching, waiting for the oncologist to make the next move. Wilson enjoys the moment for what it is; being this close to House and being able to touch him isn’t something he’s ever gotten to partake in.

House’s hair is peppery in color and a little coarse, and the ends are grown out so he has a couple small curls at the base of his neck. He’s long overdue for a hair cut. Wilson runs his fingers through it and revels in the sensation of his chest against House’s.

He wonders what it would be like if they were at House’s apartment and not surrounded by the staff of the hospital walking by. He thinks about what this would feel like without the layers of clothes between them. He imagines what House would sound like if they weren’t standing here at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital staring each other down- if they were in House’s queen-sized bed, mouths on each other’s, hands roaming bodies and sweat staining House’s dark blue bed sheets.

“Tell me you don’t love me, or that I’m ugly, or that I have too much baggage. Tell me something- anything- about me that’s so bad that you don’t want this,” Wilson commands. “Tell me that I’ve put on too much weight since my second divorce, that my savior-complex is annoying, that I’m a serial cheater, that I always put your empty cereal boxes back in the pantry after I finish off the bag, anything. Please.”

“It’s not-” House starts with a quizzical expression, only for Wilson to quickly interject.

“Not about you or your fears. Give me a good, valid reason you don’t want me, and I’ll stop. I’ll leave, we can go back to being normal friends- hell, you can choose not to talk to me ever again- and that’ll be the end of it. But I’m not going to walk away knowing that you want me just as much as I want you. I can’t do that to us, House.”

“I…”

House looks anywhere but at Wilson now; the clock on the wall, the cane in his hand, the floor, Wilson’s stupid pink tie. He can’t do it and they both know that. Wilson isn’t surprised. What he is surprised by is how House kisses his forehead so tenderly. Wilson almost doesn’t believe it’s him doing it… and then it’s his nose, and his cheek, and finally, House is kissing him on the lips, slow and sweet.

Wilson hesitantly kisses back. It doesn’t seem real, but it is. It must be real if the large hand squeezing his waist and the stubble brushing against his chin are anything to go off of. He pulls away just enough to whisper against House’s lips.

“We’re at work. Shouldn’t you stop now?”

“Yes,” House breathes, even as he goes in for another kiss, and then another, as if he’ll die without; as if he’s drowning and Wilson is his only source of air. Wilson accepts it, craves it, allows himself to be taken in and kissed until he’s out of breath and his lips are bruised. It quickly escalates into something that he knows he’d get fired for at any other hospital. Briefly, he worries about people walking past and seeing this through the glass door of House’s office until he realizes that he wants them to see. He wants them to see that no, his devotion to House isn’t meaningless- that their relationship does mean something, that House can and will feel love for the right person, and that Wilson is the only one worthy of said love. “I should.”

“But you’re not going to?” Wilson laughs.

“No, I’m not,” House says and dips for another peck between sentences. “Fuck, I don’t think I could stop this even if I wanted to.”

“Then shut the blinds, lock your office door, and bend over the desk.”

A couple more weeks pass. Some days, they sleep together. Some days, they don’t. Regardless, things are the same as they always have been minus the sex.

Wilson should be disappointed. He wanted House to open up and he wanted them to connect, to have a real relationship. But right now…

Well, he can’t bring himself to be disappointed when they’re like this, having just finished.

He’d seen House naked many times before; it’s hard not to when you’re friends with someone for so long. He can’t even count the number of times he’s accidentally walked in on House jerking off or pinned to his couch by some random hooker. He can count the number of times the pain has been so bad that House has needed help with things as basic as getting dressed or getting in and out of the shower. It was never like this, though, with House underneath him, back arching off his bed. The older man’s icy blue eyes are shut with his lashes fluttering against his cheeks. He’s flushed dark pink from his head to the center of his narrow chest, which rapidly rises and falls with every labored breath he takes.

The mattress they’re on is an old, creaky piece of shit that creaks when Wilson carefully rests his weight on top of House. They’re covered in sweat and cum and god knows what else.

“Look at me,” Wilson pleads. House does just that, forcing his eyes open enough to meet Wilson’s. His pupils are blown wide and though it’s clear he’s drowning in their shared pleasure, Wilson can’t read much else. Is House just as enraptured by Wilson as Wilson is by him? Is House hoping he’ll stay after they clean up? “You’re beautiful… So beautiful.”

“And you’re cringeworthy. We’re in my bed, not The Notebook,” House references with a half-hearted roll of his eyes and a playful smack of one hand against Wilson’s shoulder. “So shut up and get off of me.”

Wilson does as told and rolls off of House, onto the bed. He’s learned where House keeps everything so that House can just lie there and let Wilson clean the both of them up on nights like this. They never have sex at Wilson’s as Wilson is living in a hotel following the divorce and has yet to settle into a new place of his own.

He settles on his side next to House with his head on one of the pillows. There used to be one, but Wilson noticed after the first night he came over to do this, House bought another. Still, he hasn’t asked Wilson to stay the night. Wilson wonders if House even wants him to. Then again, there’s a lot of things he wonders about House.

Wilson stares at House, who is still on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He already has his boxers back on which makes Wilson self conscious enough to grab his from the floor and put them on as well.

Wilson wishes he knew what was running through the man’s mind right now. He’s quiet, contemplative, and serious in a way that’s out of character for him. Usually it’s awkward enough that Wilson leaves, and they pretend this never happened (until the next time it happens), but Wilson is growing weary of this cycle they’ve created over the last few weeks. Instead of quickly dressing himself and leaving, he gets back into the bed and pulls one of House’s large blankets over the two of them. House’s eyes widen. His gaze flickers to Wilson; questioning, cautious.

“There’s more I wish I knew about you,” Wilson softly murmurs. “More I wish you’d tell me. Things I’d ask about if I thought I could actually get an honest answer out of you.”

House furrows his brow.

“Like what?”

“Will you answer me honestly?”

“Depends on what you wanna know,” House answers.

Slowly, as if approaching a wild animal, Wilson worms his way between one of House’s arms and his body so he can rest his head on the man’s chest. House tenses at first before relaxing his muscles and wrapping his arm around Wilson’s body to return the affection.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this… A few months ago, you lied to me about that transplant patient- Carly Forlano- you lied to all of us.”

“Who was that again?” House questions.

Wilson doesn’t know if he’s serious or not.

“That business woman who came in with a ton of problems and ended up in congestive heart failure despite being perfectly healthy. You lied-”

“I like to call it ‘spinning the truth’.”

“So? What was wrong with the patient that met the exclusion criteria for the transplant list anyway? We both know that Chase figured it out and ratted to Vogler and Cuddy during her surgery.”

“She was taking Ipepac,” House says after a long pause, to which Wilson blinks up at him with confusion written on his face.

“You mean she took it once? There’s no way one use would cause that kind of damage to someone so young unless-”

“She said ‘maybe three times a week’. She was bulimic- or, is bulimic- who knows,” House shrugs as much as he can do so considering that Wilson’s weight is on top of him. Still, the expression on his face is unreadable. Wilson remains baffled; why would he lie for her? Why would he take the chance with his medical license by lying like that? Did he have some sort of personal connection with her, or was it just for the sake of solving one of his cases? Just to prove to himself that he was right? “But when bulimics give you a number for the amount they’re purging, it’s usually much more than what they’re actually willing to admit out loud, so I’d bank on it being at least once a day.”

“She’s a smart woman; smart enough to know the kind of damage that could do to her heart, and she did it anyway,” Wilson huffs. He knows everyone copes with stress differently, but he also remembers being very frustrated with that patient while she was in their care. She would use her cell phone during important texting and prioritize her many business calls over her health. Worst of all, she tried to rush herself out of the hospital to get back to work, assuming nothing was seriously wrong and that it was just a random one time health scare at first. If not for the staff’s insistence that she stay, she would’ve died from heart failure. “So why the hell would you grant her the transplant? Better yet, why would you lie to everyone to get her that transplant and risk your job- your medical license? You said you thought you were doing what’s right when we talked about it the first time.”

“I did, because that’s what I thought, and I still think that.”

“Why?”

“Would you believe me if I said I saw a bit of you in that patient?”

At that, Wilson gets off of House and sits up in the bed to stare down at the man, whose expression is unreadable as ever.

“House, I’m not-”

“I know you’re not bulimic, but you’re great at making the worst possible choices for yourself at every turn and ruining your otherwise very accomplished life. That’s another form of self-harm in itself,” House says, sitting up as well. Wilson doesn’t miss the wince that momentarily takes over the other man’s face as he grabs his leg in pain from performing the motion. “Going into oncology even though it makes you miserable, jumping into three marriages that you knew weren’t going to work out, beating up that guy over a Billy Joel song at a bar during an important medical conference, allowing me to befriend you-”

“-you bailed me out of jail, what was I-”

“Staying as my friend even after the conference, allowing me to seep into your personal life and ruin aspect of it, and better yet, your professional life, too!”

“I still have a job and a good reputation, so-”

“Sure, because you got lucky with Cuddy pulling the plug on Vogler, which you had no way of knowing she would do. If that hadn’t happened, your little gesture of voting to keep me on staff even though you knew you’d get canned too still would’ve played out the way it was supposed to. You would’ve been fucked.”

“And what you’re saying is?” Wilson sighs.

“Everyone else in my life; they’re sane enough to not want to deal with me the way I am but crazy enough to try and fix me. You, on the other hand, are sane enough to know I can’t be fixed but crazy enough to stay with me anyway. Even though you’ve made the mistake of getting to know me, you’re still here,” Silence. Wilson isn’t sure what to say, so he tentatively reaches out. House holds his hand and intertwines their fingers with a bittersweet smile. “Nothing to say?”

“Well… What’s so bad about knowing you?”

“Being known is simultaneously one of the best and worst things that could happen to someone. When it works out, it’s great, and when it doesn’t work out, it’s not… And let’s not pretend I’m not a huge asshole. It’s a miracle you’re still friends with me after all these years.”

“That’s all it is?” Wilson asks, to which House nods. “I don’t get it, then. We’ve been friends for a long time, House, you know I can take whatever you can dish out… Unless… Are you afraid I’m going to leave?”

“We could be naive enough to sit here and assume that things are always going to be this way; that we’ll always catch each other when we fall, but people fall out of love. People turn their backs, and they let each other fall. People grow and change and before you know it, your best friend becomes a stranger, and you don’t know them like you thought you did,” House drops Wilson’s hand and turns around to toss both of his legs over the side of the bed. Again, he winces from the pain caused by his infarction. It looks like he wants to stand to leave the room for something but can’t gather the strength to do so. “We’ve both had it happen to us before, and you know it’s real. You’ve been through three marriages and I’ve ran through plenty of relationships in the last few decades. You’re just making the worst possible decision for yourself yet again by throwing yourself into the pits with me.”

“But that’s my decision to make. Whether or not we do anything about our feelings doesn’t change them. There’s no stopping this, at least not for me,” Wilson insists and rushes to stand up so he can go around the side of the bed and offer his hands.

House refuses to take them, refuses to accept the help. The older man fumbles around until he manages to retrieve his cane from where he abandoned it on the floor earlier. Instead of using Wilson as leverage, he uses his cane and stands from the bed to walk towards the door of the bedroom. Wilson follows him into the kitchen in wait of a response.

“You’re not scared at all?”

“Of course I’m scared! I’m terrified. I’ve seen our track records with relationships, but… If it means that I get to be with you, I can be scared and still put my best foot forward, to try and make this work. I’m in love with you, Greg House.”

House walks towards the fridge without a word. Again, Wilson follows in wait of a response, this time wrapping his arms around House’s waist and resting his chin on the man’s shoulder from behind.

“You’re persistent.”

“So? You’re going to give me a heart attack if you keep making me wait on you. Seriously, it’s been over a decade of this nonsense with two weeks of confusing sex stacked on top of it,” Wilson scolds. House just looks back at him as if he’s not sure this is real. “So? What do you say?” “I say… I’m in love with you too, James Wilson,” House chuckles, reaches into the fridge, and grabs a beer for each of them with a large grin. “Good luck.”

#hilson #house md #house fanfiction #house x wilson #housemd #gregory house #james wilson x gregory house #greg house x james wilson #james wilson x greg house #james wilson #fanfiction #oneshot #oneshots #drabble #drabbles

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bigassmoonchild · 2 years ago

Note

please enjoy the email i had to send our favourite team because of them being pure gremlins { i have known most of them since i was 18 so 7 years }

just to fluster them the hell out and since im at my main job tonight and cannot do it myself

can we get the 141 ones reactions

{ never thought to request reactions until the latest one about crocheting which i total understand }

this is my third time trying to answer this. both times i initially tried tumblr closed me out of the submission and deleted the entire thing. i will answer all other asks tomorrow 🫶🫶

(also, why is croissant banned? who did what with croissant? and if your team is good, i am always more than happy to write them little drabbles or hcs 😉 )

Simon 'Ghost' Riley:

initially, he walked past the medbay door. he briefly saw the sign on the door but didn't think much of it. until he fully registered what it said. spinning around and marching back the way he had come, he pulled it off the door and read it.

fully. he read all of it and had to pause for a few moments to gather his thoughts. what the hell? why did you have to write this? who caused you to write this? he had too many questions that he didn't exactly want answered.

almost worried, but just more confused than anything. simon wasn't entirely sure what to think about the paper, but he knew the only way to figure it out would be through questions. he didn't entirely need them answered, but it would be nice to know. he almost didn't want them answered.

still, simon found himself entering your office and laying the paper down in front of you. your head turned to the side, looking almost flustered at the fact that he had seen the paper. you didn't give an answer, and so he sat down in the chair across from you, staring nearly through you.

sighing deeply, you looked up from the paperwork and gave him a little grimace. 'what?' you asked. simon once more gestured to the paper in front of you.

'what's this?' was all he asked and you looked away again. biting at your lip, you picked it up to read it over. 'stop stalling,' he told you and you heaved a deep sigh.

you didn't make eye contact. 'we've read a book together, my squad 'n i,' you started. 'it made a lot of comments and little quips start. then they started to argue about certain parts of the book and well,' you gestured at the paper.

he nodded slowly in understanding, standing up and grabbing the paper to return it to where he'd found it. turning around, he held it up and raised his brow. 'ghosts medical blower?'

Captain John Price:

the way to the mess hall had him pass by your office, and so he figured he'd bring some paperwork meant for you. kill two birds with one stone, it would be easier than running back and forth later on.

placing the files and others miscellaneous papers down, he nearly missed it. just one quick glance brought all of his attention to one piece of paper, just barely uncovered by other random items strewn across your desk.

The below terms are banned:

and so he read it. curiosity killed the cat, so to speak, but the satisfaction of knowing what this was did not bring it back. all price could do was stare for a few moments, just trying to think through it. and as he thought, he knew he did not want answers.

it was either some new terms and language that people were using but he wasn't caught up on, or it really was just some strange thing within your own squad. either way, he tucked the paper away so that you wouldn't know he saw it.

when you returned to your office, you knew price saw the paper. it was tucked between a few files and some of the papers he'd given you. you wanted to give him answers, you wanted to let him know what it was, but you didn't. maybe he'd come to you, or maybe you'd just moved it without realizing.

he didn't meet your eye for a few days, loking a little worriedly at you when he thought you weren't looking.

Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick:

you weren't one to email him. you almost never did, unless it was absolutely important that he be added. so when he opened up his email after a long mission, he found one from you with no subject line.

to be honest, he was a little worried about what it might be. maybe spam? did someone hack your account? he wasn't sure, but gaz wanted to make sure it wasn't anything important.

he almost wishes he didn't read that email. almost wishes he had just left it alone, especially without a subject line. and so when he'd gotten to 'ghosts medical blower' he closed the email and deleted it.

it had to be a joke. he wouldn't admit it, but it made him a little flustered to read some of that stuff. did people really think of his lieutenant like that? especially those working so closely with him?

and he'd found you, in your office typing away. standing awkwardly for a few moments, gaz looked around the room. he wasn't often in your office, especially not regarding these types of situations.

when you'd finally looked up at him, raising your brows expectantly, he could barely get the words out. 'you sent me an email,' was all he could say. you nodded, giving him a confused look.

'i send a lot of people emails, gaz, you need to be more specific,' you told him. he didn't meet your eye, just looked around and nodded slowly.

finally opening his mouth, he gave you a little grimace. 'some terms needed to be banned?' he asked and watched your eyes widen. covering your hand with your mouth, you clicked and tpyed a few things before sighing in relief.

'lord, gaz, that was absolutely not meant for you,' you whispered, clearly flustered and not meeting his eye. 'i am so, so sorry about that,' you looked at him briefly.

he gave you a little smile, finally making eye contact. 'all is forgiven if you tell me what it's about,'

Johnny 'Soap' McTavish:

you were a tough nut to crack. soap spent weeks trying to wear you down to the point where you'd become comfortable enough with him that you would talk with him freely. and when it happened, he was ecstatic.

but he never expected this to happen. you'd handed him a few papers absentmindedly as you walked by him, giving him an affirmative sound when he'd asked if it was for him to read. and so he read them.

when he'd gotten to the one paper, he had to rub his eyes. he was tired, sure it had been a long day, but soap was positive he was dreaming. you would never just give him this paper, not without context.

and so he found you, waving it around in front of your face and giving you a cheeky smile. with a quick glance, you'd jumped up and tried to rip the paper out of his grasp. soap was faster, though, and easily held it out of your reach.

'now what's this, lass, about being ghosts medical blower?' he asked you and you huffed angrily. shoving at his shoulders, you tried harder to get the paper back.

he tsked at you, waiting for an explanation. 'my squad's been reading some weird stuff online, and they're making comments and it's turned nearly into an argument over some things,' you told him. he howled with laughter at that, bending over to catch himself from falling.

you'd snatched the paper from him and turned around. and that's how, for the next four or five weeks, you found yourself at the end of his jokes. all of them seemed to somehow mention some term or phrase mentioned in the paper he'd read.

it took you elbowing him in the stomach and making your own comments about him before he finally put it behind him. soap may have found it and made a copy, which sits hung on on his wall in the flat back home.

#simon ghost riley x reader #captain john price x reader #kyle gaz garrick x reader #john soap mctavish x reader #simon riley #john price #kyle garrick #john mctavish #ghost mw2 #price mw2 #gaz mw2 #soap mw2 #cod mw2 #task force 141 #modern warfare ii #call of duty x reader #call of duty #no use of y/n #fluff

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crazyk-imagine · 2 years ago

Text

Being Steve's Childhood Friend Headcanon

A/N: This was just something fun to write and I could not get it out of my head

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

- You've known Steve for too damn long, or at least that's what you tell Danny when you first meet him

- Danny is interested in you, everyone can tell

- You don’t want to admit it but you also find yourself drawn to him

- Also, admitting it would make it real (and you don’t want to lose the bet)

- You’ve got big bucks coming your way if Danny asks you out first (which you’re of course thinking of putting towards your future date or a new tie. He seems like he’d like another)

- You try to be a people person but that doesn’t mean they always like you

- Speaking of, when you met his kids, they loved you and thought you were super cool like their aunt Kono (only cooler, to which she agrees on)

- Grace loves you (she tells you all the time, trying to help her dad out)

- So does Charlie (when he's born)

- They really like you because you protect their dad and make sure he comes home in one piece and same with uncle Steve

- Danny didn’t know but during one of your cases, the bad guy was aiming for him and would have gotten to him had you not been there to pull out some moves

- Grace only knew when you tried to hide your injury later while everyone was celebrating at Steve’s

“Are you okay? Do I need to have uncle Steve call an-”

You shake your head, “Nope. I got it.”

She shakes her head, “I don’t think you do. You’re bleeding.”

You glance at your stomach, “maybe I need medical attention.”

She nods and runs into the kitchen, looking for her dad.

“Wait- Grace, no.”

Her, Danny, and Steve run into the living room of Steve’s home and the detective catches you before you could fall face first onto the floor

That was the day when Danny started to look at you in a different light and started to pursue you

To which, your longest and childhood friend did not like… at all

“You’re not dating him.”

You roll your eyes. “I can date whoever I want.”

“Anyone but Danny.”

“Wouldn’t you rather I date someone who isn’t like every other guy I dated?”

Steve furrows his brows. “What- what about that one guy you dated back in high school?”

You shrug, “dead.”

He stares at you as if you’ve lost your mind, “I’m sorry? He’s dead?”

You wave him off, “Danny’s the better choice.”

“No.”

You spin around, keeping one hand on the door. “I’m going out with him and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Steve doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that you’re dating his best friend but when he sees how you two are

He stops making nit picking comments to joking about your guys future

You two laugh along with him before you shut him down with a sarcastic remark

And of course, Danny adds onto it

Another reason why Steve didn’t want you two to get together… the sarcasm is too much

Working together has its pros and cons

You and Danny didn’t realize how much it would affect you two until a bad case came up after you started dating

It was worse than the time when you quite literally took one for him

You were being held hostage with Kono and Jerry (who kept annoying the head honcho with his questions)

It was a few hours until they found you three

It wasn’t until Danny punched the day lights out of one the bad guys till he saw your face again

He’s never told you but he nearly collapsed at the sight of you looking all banged up, clearly taking the worst of it

About two months had passed by before he decides to pull back from you, feeling it was his fault you got hurt in the first place

Steve became more protective and kept a closer eye on you (Chin doing the same with Kono)

No one needed to worry about Jerry because he kept showing up

You knew what the detective was doing, you’ve done the same thing

Another reason why it took you so long to come back home

You can’t take it anymore and confront him

You close the door to his office and sit down at the chair across from him.

He raises a brow, “hello to you too.”

“Cut the bull, you think it’s your fault, don’t you?”

“Can we rewind to when you gave me a little background information?”

You push yourself in the seat, resting your elbows on your knees as your butt rests at the edge of the seat, “no because you know exactly what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“I miss you.”

“I’m here.”

“You’re not,” your fingers run through your, usually, neat hair; messing it up. “We haven’t been the same since the case and don’t pretend like-”

He nods, “you’re right. That’s on me. I mean,” he sighs, suddenly feeling uncomfortable talking about his feelings. “It was because I was scared before but then I realized what I was doing and it felt like it was too late to change something and now, we’re here.”

“Can we at least make an effort for some kind of familiarity? I mean, its been months since we actually talked for more than three minutes.”

“How about we ditch our favorite person and go out?”

“Please tell me were not going on a break to Komokona’s shrimp truck.”

He smiles and fixes your hair before pecking your lips. “No, I’m taking you somewhere nice. Somewhere a beautiful and amazing person like yourself deserves.”

You gasp and accept his help. “You mean your bed?!”

A faux chuckle escapes him, “very funny.”

“I try.”

Steve was speechless when you two quiet literally said you’re ditching and wouldn’t be back for a bit

You two enjoyed yourselves

You managed to hold off responding to your friends many, many messages which annoyed the both of you

After that it was good, you two had never been closer or had better relationships than now

Danny still doesn’t know how he got you to agree to go out with him but he’s happy and you make him feel like the luckiest guy ever

You feel the same and consider yourself lucky to be apart of Williams family and your work family

You’re happy you decided to come back and stay where you grew up

Steve still can’t handle when you two gang up on him for anything and everything

The sarcasm is off the charts

#hawaii five 0 #hawaii five 0 fanfic #hawaii five 0 fanfiction #hawaii five 0 headcanon #danny williams #danny williams x reader #danny williams fanfiction #danny williams fanfic #danny williams x you #crazyk-imagine

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cutesyscreenname · 1 year ago

Text

The Last Great American Dynasty: Chapter 1

This Was The Very First Page

Series summary:

Addiction, deadlines, a nasty divorce. In an effort to shed your skin and find yourself again, you pack up and move to a historic seaside home across the country. It's all a blur, you're hurting and spinning your wheels in a big house all alone. Until Frankie shows up on your doorstep.

Pairing: Frankie Catfish Morales x AFAB Reader

Rating: 18+ MDNI

Word Count: 1709

Warnings: allusions to former drug use, mention of divorce, not too much to warn of yet we just getting started bby

Notes: I hope we all have a marvelous time and I don't ruin everything 💀 I've been gone for a long ass time, taking baby steps getting back into things.

Also much thanks to @pr0ximamidnight for helping flesh this out (aka letting me rant at her until it came together) and @mydailyhyperfixations, @joelsgreys, and @mylostloversbookmarks for also listening to me ramble 😂 lub u 🩵💙

Chapter One Playlist 🎶📻⚓🌊⛵🎶

This was the very first page

Not where the story line ends

My thoughts will echo your name

Until I see you again

It feels pretentious to drive across the country like this when you don't have to. In fact it was a struggle to do so - insisting and arguing with everyone that you wanted, no - needed to. You could feel the eyes rolling behind your back, hear the sarcastic thoughts unspoken.

Who does she think she is, Kerouac?

Truthfully you just wanted the white noise of wind, pavement, and your Spotify playlist of guilty pleasure pop songs, too occupied by operating a motor vehicle to check the deluge of emails and texts that had been pouring in for months.

A Tale of Two Addicts

Best Selling Author Loses Control of Her Own Narrative

Authoring Her Own Disaster: Detox and Divorce

How could you blame them when the headlines practically wrote themselves?

“So let me get this straight. Not only am I not getting new pages, you’re putting this project on hold to move to the east coast so you can - what? - live out some whimsical seaside fantasy?”

You sat in your office chair, surrounded by stacks of cardboard boxes, pen hovering above the signature line of your divorce papers like a memoir you don’t want to take ownership of as your editor sighs at you over speakerphone.

“I’m doing what they told me to do in therapy, Miles. I’m changing the scenery, starting over. It’s difficult to write any pages for you if I’m too catatonically depressed to get out of bed. Take it as good news, a strategic move. Literally.”

The house has a history. That’s the reason you’d chosen it, frankly. You’d discussed the listings with your realtor over the phone, clicking through the pictures as they recounted the amenities and specs of each property.

“And then there’s the Harkness house…”

If her goal was to intrigue you she’d accomplished it tenfold, having you on the hook for every sordid detail as she regaled you with the story of a widowed heiress making a splash of scandal through the coastal town with her extravagance. She leaned into the impropriety of it all, trying to sell you with gossip, but all you heard was the story of a woman who had reclaimed her life after losing love. Perhaps the house held that energy in its foundation. Maybe if she did it there, so could you.

Pulling up the winding driveway you almost feel a page turn, a fresh start. Then the moving van crunches gravel behind you and your phone pings with a missed call from your lawyer, breaking the spell of your daydream.

It’s been a long day already, an endless stream of delays and snafus. Missing parts and tedious tinkering with finicky engines has left Frankie a mess of sweat, grease, and frustration. The sigh of a long day finally finished whistles out as he climbs the stairs to the office, ready to hand in a few leaves of paperwork and drag himself home when the sound of muffled conversation gives him pause.

“She’s ruining everything, we’ve all but flown in the film crew and we hardly have half a film without that house in it!”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Ray, she could be perfectly cooperative. We don’t know-”

“It’s for fucking NETFLIX, Tim. I won’t be made to look foolish by some scandalous, self important, Hollywood-”

“And you won’t. Let’s just give her the packet, for all we know we could have signed papers come Monday morning.”

That’s all Frankie hears before the desire to get out of there steers his body back toward the stairs. I can turn these in on Monday, not worth the hassle...

Before his steel toe can touch the second step, though, the door swings open and a booming voice sounds behind him.

“Ah! Mr. Morales! Good timing, son. You pass the Harkness house on your way out of here, don’t you?”

The question is moot, the offices and hangar located along the coast such that there’s practically no choice but to pass the seaside estate if you want to reach the town and its modest sprawl of surrounding neighborhoods.

“I do, sir.”

“Then it’s meant to be. I’m sure you’ve heard that it’s newly occupied and we have a…welcome packet of sorts…for the new owner but the courier’s service is closed. Would you mind dropping this off on your way home?”

Tim, the more even keeled of the two executives that frequent these offices, hands over a manilla envelope without waiting for an answer, traces of engine grease still clinging to Frankie's skin leaving faint fingerprints on the hefty packet. The man cuts in again before Frankie can open his mouth to speak.

“Is the jet ready for takeoff in the morning? We’re expected in New York by eleven.”

Frankie studies the name on the envelope for a long moment before looking up to meet the impatient gaze of the man in front of him.

“Ah, yeah- Yes, sir. She’s ready for takeoff. Pilot’s ready for you anytime after eight, should you decide to leave earlier.”

He only receives a slight nod before both men push past him and he’s left alone outside the office door, eyes drawn back to the neatly printed label with your name on it. Why does it sound so familiar?

Lost in a daze of curiousity, Frankie’ feet carry him down the stairs, through the hangar, and out to his truck. He’s so distracted by the strange feeling in his gut that he starts his drive with his steel toes still on and the work orders still stacked along with the mystery packet in his passenger seat.

It's been a week and you're still staring at, discovering, stumbling over boxes.

How the hell does one person accumulate this much stuff?, you think as you sit on the sofa and nurse the soon-to-be bruise on your shin from the cardboard cube you'd just rammed into rounding the corner into the living room. The house in LA had seemed so desolate when Trevor had moved out and now you sit surrounded by a sea of what now feels like junk.

Even in this vast expanse of square footage and seaside it seems the walls might close in on you at any moment.

Thoughts manifesting into reality, you begin to feel too hot seemingly from nowhere. Pulling at the collar of your worn t-shirt, you go to crack open the nearest window when a blue pickup truck rounds the bend and pulls up to your gate. Before you can take too long to squint and guess at who the hell would be at your gate on a Friday evening, the driver presses the call button and your phone begins to ring.

“Hello?”

The phone crackles lightly and a deep, dulcet voice answers you.

“Yes, ah- I've got a delivery here. Is this the new owner?”

From the window you can see the figure in the truck cab lift an envelope to read it and he confirms your name.

“Yeah, that's me. I'll buzz you in.”

“Thanks.”

You hang up and press the button to let him through, watching as he winds up the drive and stops in front of the house.

Had you forgotten to sign something? He asked about being the homeowner, so it can't be another addendum to Trevor's many demands attached to the divorce. Your confusion and curiosity gives way to a flustered state when you open the door.

The first things you notice are the rich brown orbs looking back at you, brows, lids, and laugh lines working to form a frame of sincere apology, like he knows it's unorthodox for him to be standing on your front step at this hour. The rest of him is just as entrancing - plush lips beneath a gorgeous nose, a broad frame just as soft as it is strong, and a rueful smile that has your cheeks flushing as he adjusts his Standard Oil cap to lend you a peak of soft brown curls.

“Hi there,” he interrupts your stupor and you wonder just how long you've been staring.

“I'm here to deliver this. It's from the Standard Oil offices, ah…courier service is closed and it's pretty important I guess.” He holds the envelope out for you to take, his free hand rubbing the back of his neck in what seems like a nervous habit. You can see the faint grease marks on his fingertips, a matching set of smears on the paper in his hand.

“Oh, um. Thanks. Any idea what it's for?” You take the packet from him, eyeing it curiously. It's simply addressed to you with no further indicators on the outside.

“Something about the property I suppose, not really clear on the details. Lot of history in this house, ya know?”

“So I'm told.” You smile softly, toying with the metal fastener, more intrigued by the messenger than the message at this moment.

After a brief silence he shakes his head, seeming to come back to the present, and you wonder where his mind had drifted to. “Anyway, I'll leave you to it. Sorry for the interruption.”

“Not at all. Thanks again.” You wiggle the packet lightly in your hand.

He cracks another smile and you're certain his eyes roam over you before he mutters a goodnight and turns to go back to his truck. You stay stagnant for a while, watching as he gets into the cab and pulls out of the gate, and a few long moments after that as well.

Finally closing the door, you pad into the kitchen and pour a glass of wine to sip while you open your mystery packet. As you set it on the island countertop a few stray sheets slip out from beneath the envelope. Picking them up, you notice they don't seem to have anything to do with you or the house. In fact they look like order sheets of some kind, a list of mechanical sounding items listed with costs and quantities scribbled next to them.

Next to a black smudge to match your packet and the stranger's fingertips is a carefully printed name on a line marked ‘authorized by’. You read the name aloud and your stomach flutters at the way it somehow feels familiar to say.

“Fransisco Morales…”

More to come soon, let me know in the comments or my inbox if you want to be tagged for the next chapter 😬

#last great american dynasty #frankie x reader #francisco morales #marry me frankie #frankie catfish morales #she had a marvelous time ruining everything

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manyothermusingsofmine · 2 years ago

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so huyandere posted this on twitter with the notion of like “did anyone write a detailed analysis of kristoph’s solitary cell already bc why is there a pink chair. Insane.” and like I don’t know if it counts as a detailed analysis but I certainly have Opinions about this. I’m a bit sick though so this is really rambly and not on track in the slightest. and if you click the read more it’s all there so uh like

Okay first of all I’m going to have to fact check this but I feel like the wiki told me Kristoph apparently talked the guards into getting him all this stuff?

-one wiki search later- “He managed to call in some favors to some of the prison guards whom he had befriended to get various items into the cell, turning it into something of an office.”

Okay yeah so that’s fucking terrifying? Kristoph already doesn’t strike me as the type to have legitimate friends because everyone is a means to an end with him, but- bro that’s not pulling favors that’s mafia boss behavior what the hell.

But like the bigger Thought I have about the whole thing that derails a little from huyandere’s original question is just. The fucking paralells between Simon and Kristoph? Like okay no hear me out actually.

They’re the same character archetype, in a way. They’re both cool, collected, kinda detached loners- arguably the flip side of each other’s coin because where their character wildly diverge is in motive. Kristoph’s whole motive in his story is greed and envy; wanting the fame and fortune others have and feeling like his rightful place in the spotlight is being usurped by people who don’t deserve it Simon on the other hand’s whole motive is undying loyalty to protecting someone he cares about. He’s on deathrow for a crime he didn’t commit, but can we not gloss over the fact that he’s doing so to protect Athena, who, at this point if the story gets spun in her direction, would befall the same faith? That’s -deskslam- why I’m so mad actually that Simon and Klavier don’t interact in Dual Destinies. Like, at all. And that’s a fucking crime because no matter how you spin that their dynamic would be so interesting! Like, would Simon’s similar demeanor freak Klavier out and does their coworkership therefor become kind of strained and uncomfortable? Or are you like me and do you think that Simon takes one look at Klavier and goes “-Markiplier voice- oh he’s traumatized” and instinctively adopts this weird rockstar prosecutor as his brother because eh what’s another adoptive sibling at this point. And in that case does Klavier look at Simon’s behavior and just go “well thats similar to what I was used to anyway so yeah you can stick around.”? Also I’m not done you clicked on this that was your choice entirely it’s even more fascinating to think about Simon and Kristoph spending even one day in the same jail establishment because first of all I feel like Simon would look around that jail cell and just go “show off” and leave it at that. And while I think the fandom has a point in that Simon probably wouldn’t like Kristoph, have we even considered how much Kristoph would fucking loathe Simon? Simon is pretty much the better version of him because Simon has honor and loyalty; things Kristoph definitely lacks. Furthermore with his background in psychology and just the general way he is Simon wouldn’t fall for any of Kristoph’s manipulation tactics, and there’s not much else Kristoph can do because there’s no way in hell that he would win in a physical fight against Simon; the man’s build like a fucking tank come on now. Do you have any idea how much it would piss Kristoph off that he has this absolute powerhouse of a man in a cell next to him and the bastard’s completely immune to his manipulation skills?! And before I forget the fucking?? paralell?? between Simon owning a trained hawk that I can only assume he trained himself which takes time and talent and trust and sfmdfmg the sprite of him petting Taka makes me feel things. Vs Kristoph having a dog where the general consensus seems to be that it’s a golden retriever, which makes me feel things as someone who has owned golden retrievers and who knows their unconditional love, because he wants to be loved unconditionally with no questions asked FDS,MFNSDFG,MNDF,GM-

#ace attorney #headcanon territory #simon blackquill #kristoph gavin

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halimpark7 · 2 months ago

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Episode One from Anonymous.

Idk if it's my fav.. but it's a decent story.

Triggers

Within 1wk of me starting this job the entire building was buzzing. 98%women (115+ employees)(Developmental Disabilities Org) I was program coord. Admin

I attempt to ignore MOST of the women clearly looking at my dick through the thin material of my slacks. Easy to do cause i usually assume I'm not being "looked at"

Most times I wear untucked shirts.

I had just came off a pretty serious breakup and just wasn't in the mood for b.s.

I had a pretty big office to myself. I kept the vibe chill in there, natural light hung up some meditation decor..had already become the calm down slot for the whole building within my first 3wks..also got a promotion. When I was hired, during the phone call, my boss (woman) asked me if I could "handle" my women. She laughed but I was slow and confused in the moment ...just didn't understand what she was clearly telling me. She toured me around the building and apparently the place was buzzing about me

Girl 1. Blk 30 5'3" built like toned dancer (stripper I learned later)

They would admit and I can say..I NEVER tried to fuck any of these women. They came to me and through effort, ended up triggering me or after them making their case, and maybe me just tired of holding back (for what) I let "him" out.

Girl 1: Trigger: I'm there was a company party I think Halloween (makes sense I started in Sept so few wks later). I never really celebrate it and I was super busy trying to get my dept together, I tend to need out on things that interest me.

My door was almost all the closed as usual. I'm sitting at my desk..I hear 2 taps on my door. Turn around in my chair to say come in. She steps through the door, looking me dead in the eyes. I noticed right away that she was breathing pretty hard, deep, but quick. Im trying to read her face expecting to see signs of tears or anger.

She closes my door as, she walks towards me/towards a chair next to my desk. I spin in my chair to try to get a read on what's upsetting her. She side steps the chair and reaches for the stick of my window blinds ..twist(closed). I'm very confused (on the surface) but "HE" is fully alert and ready to take control.

As I sit in my chair, she steps between my legs..breathing deep, but pace is rapid. Looks me in my eyes and says, "so what's up"

(We have had no prior sex talk or even remotely close to anything of the sort)

Triggered

I pull her close..kiss her deep as I stand up. I tell her I've been waiting for this. I turn her around to fact my desk. She lets my hands explore her body with no hesitation..except a look of surprise on her face..looked as if she's surprised things went this smoothly..but she doesn't know what she's fucking with (which I whisper in her ear).

I her hands on my desk with me standing behind her.. I pull her pants down while moving to my knees, kissing her back and ass as soon as skin is expossed. Her skin smooth and smelling sO good. I reach up and gently fORce her to bend over a little bit. I lay my tongue on her pussy (from the back). I let my tongue ring lay on her clit while I use the rest of my tongue to lightly press on her lips..until I slide my tongue slowly into her pussy. She cums immediately.

I grab her hand and show her it's okay to pull my head ..my tongue deeper inside her. Her knees shake.. she's mine..she thought she was in control and now.. "HE" rules.

I stand up..she can feel my dick through my slacks.. she turns around and strokes it as she unbuttoned my pants her breathing only slightly calmer..but she's looking me in the eyes.. i try to avoid..direct in my face eye contact (trigger)

Once she pulls out my dick and sees it, strokes it slow..almost like a loving gf.

I turn her around..gently while touching her skin..kissing her face with a very firm grip on her waist. My dick laying on her ass.

I'm wondering if she bought any protection since it was her idea and all. She didn't think she would get this far. Luckily ..I did. I told her if she still wanted toooo, that's all it took. I grabbed it..s

Send a tip so I can pay the writer and you can learn more about spontaneous porno sex.

Cashap-halimpark7 venmo HaLim-Park PayPal hapark7 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

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flurglhinge · 1 year ago

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Rachel sticks her head in Debbie's office door and waves a tablet at her.

"Did you see this?"

"Ms Luthor's new urgent project?"

"Yeah, what do you think of it?"

Debbie leans back in her chair and looks at Rachel, who is reading the email again, frowning at it like it's written in a language she's not quite proficient in.

"Shouldn't be too difficult. Your basic Seasonal Affective Disorder lamp, isn't it?"

"Yeah, no, but we already had a SAD lamp in development that we shelved because there wasn't a market for Luthor-branded consumer medical equipment. You know, because of," Rachel gestures vaguely in the way that L-Corp employees tend to when alluding to the time Lex Luthor lost his god-damned mind, built a super-suit and tried to kill Superman.

Debbie makes a face that's halfway between 'listening to a racist uncle at Christmas' and 'there's a screaming lunatic in the parking lot and he's standing next to my car'. "Yeah, sure."

"And anyway SAD lamps are supposed to simulate bright sunshine. Like, bright sunshine. These required outputs-- I don't know? I looked them up and it's like, red."

"Maybe there's a mistake?"

"No, the brief says to have a really specific range of wavelengths in a certain ratio. And it's straight from Ms Luthor. So, you know."

Debbie nods and leans further back in her chair, folding her arms and sighing. "Okay, sure. Let me take a closer look at it. Hopefully we can just dust the old prototype off and tweak some settings."

"But what is it for? This doesn't even say if its consumer-grade or medical or what."

"I'll take another look at it," Debbie says before Rachel spins up into a full panic. Rachel is an excellent project manager but she tends to get twitchy about anything unusual, a tendency only exacerbated by her realisation, after the fact, that she'd been managing development of the (frankly revolutionary) impact-absorbing materials that had allowed Lex's suit to take a punch from Superman without turning into a highly inefficient sausage maker.

Debbie is baffled by the project specs. They're pretty straightforward, but utterly ludicrous. It's not a proper SAD lamp at all. If anything, it's the exact opposite of one. It mustn't put out half of the wavelengths of light that are generally considered to be beneficial. The spectra it must be active in are largely out of the human visual spectrum. She stalls for time, researching any practical applications but the entire thing seems pointless. It's not for growing plants indoors, or incubating eggs, or lighting darkrooms, or anything. It's technically achievable, but ridiculously over-engineered for any practical application.

She's trawling through the old Luthor Corp whitepaper database when she stumbles across a design for a 'sunlamp' supposedly meant to allow crops to be grown out of doors during the winter. Which is Joker-shit on the face of it, leaving aside the fact that they draw enough power to run a small town and appear designed to withstand a simultaneous hurricane, earthquake, and strategic bombing campaign. But the lamps are designed to emit a very similar set of wavelengths to her stupid, obviously-not-a-SAD lamp. That, together with being a nonsense Lex Luthor project from a certain point in the company's less than glorious recent history, means the 'sunlamp' is some kind of anti-Superman weapon.

Debbie freezes at her desk. Is Ms Luthor going Lex? Should Debbie be calling the supervillainy hotline? But her project is for a lamp that can run off domestic current. Is Ms Luthor just more willing to sacrifice spectacle for efficiency? But Ms Luthor is quite publicly friendly with Supergirl. Supergirl has saved her life a bunch of times. And the whole L-Corp rebranding was the most minor of the changes she'd made to the company.

[Scene where one of them works out What The Lamp Is For.]

"Okay, so, remember that really creepy article that guy wrote a couple of years ago about Superman's sex life?"

"What? No."

"Ugh, lucky. It was the one where he was speculating about the speed of Superman's ejaculate and its effect on a human-"

"Yes, oh god, I'd managed to repress that, fuck you very much for reminding me."

"Well, sorry, but I think it might be relevant."

"I think I'm going to be sick."

"Buck up buttercup,

[Meeting with Lena, Supergirl drops in, Lena introduces them as 'the ones working on the project' :significant eyebrows: Supergirl gets very flustered but also pleased. Kara discovers that Super Blushing is actually a thing, R just about chews through her tongue because it is definitely an HR violation to high-five the CEO about her sex life, D is trying to astrally project herself to the moon, Lena is The Smuggest Person Who Has Ever Lived - like a cat that has just bought a dairy farm with an attached canary aviary]

#wip #supergirl fanfiction #no but seriously who makes all this stuff

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cloon-swoon · 3 months ago

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Blood Moon and Comet Chapter 2: Plotting and Planning

6:00 AM. An alarm would begin to ring, however it would be turned off within seconds and Cory Lancaster sits up in his bed, yawning and brushing a strand of his hair out of his face, before hopping out of bed. Cory was a young man in his twenties, doing what everyone else in his position is doing, just trying to survive. He grabs some clothes out of his closet and dresser, carrying the pile of clothes into the bathroom. After about 15 to 17 minutes, Cory would step out of the bathroom, dressed in a green shirt, gray hoodie, and a dark pair of jeans. “One of the few perks of this job,” as Cory would always say. Cory walks into the living area/kitchen, grabs his wallet and his house key, before exiting his house and beginning his long walk to work.

Cory lived in a fairly slow part of Lynsboro, so slow in fact that even crime was low, it was still there, but it happened very infrequently. Whilst the walk was long and he was by himself, Cory didn’t mind, it gave him time to think and more importantly, people-watch. That was one of Cory’s favorite things, he simply liked to see what the people were up to, whether it was family enjoying a fun time at the park, or just some teenagers spray-painting swear words onto the walls on buildings. Cory would stop at a local bakery, grab a quick bagel and continue on his way to work. Just as he was outside the studio he worked, he’d glance over at a few cops standing on the street corner, side-eyeing him. He shrugged and entered the studio, as he knew why he got those looks.

The studio was full of people, workers and executives alike. The movie they were working on was due in a month so the hustle and bustle made sense. Despite this, Cory would simply walk through the crowd, not really saying much and simply offering nods to his “superiors,” if not just so they knew he actually showed up. Cory would finally make it to his office in the studio, or more it was just a little cubicle with a desk and a computer, but again he didn’t really care. Cory would take off his hoodie and lay it over the back of his chair, before sitting down. He sighs in relief and is about to get started on his work, when suddenly there’s a harmonic knock on his door. Cory turns his head towards the door, only saying,

“Judging by that knock, there’s only one person that could be.”

Cory spins around in his chair and opens the door slowly.

“Hey Gloria, what’s up?” Cory would say in his usual dry tone.

The tall, red-haired woman in the doorway would smile at the young editor, saying, “Not much, just saw you come in and thought I’d say hello!” This was Gloria Cane, the lead actress in the movie Cory was currently editing and a humongous fan of the strange and unnatural, and to Gloria, Cory fit that bill perfectly. Not only had she never seen anyone go out of their way to talk to people, but she had never seen or heard anything about Cory outside of work, he was a complete anomaly to her.

“What’re you up to?” She’d ask.

“Well nothing yet, I just sat down when you knocked,” Cory would reply, brushing another strand of hair out of his face. Gloria blushed a bit, realizing she already said she just saw him come in.

“Oh right…” She’d nervously laugh. “Sorry.”

Cory would give her a reassuring smile, “Don’t worry about it, you’re fine.” Cory would clear his throat before hitting the power button on his computer and continuing the conversation, “I heard today’s the last day of shooting for the year, you looking forward to the holidays?”

Gloria would immediately shoot back to life, “Oh yes, I can’t wait, at the very least it’ll be nice to just break from the rush of work, you have any plans for the holidays?”

Cory would shrug, “Not really, probably just get some fried chicken and beer, and watch ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ you?”

Gloria would fidget with her hands a bit, “Oh, well, I have some family coming up for Christmas dinner, but not really…”

Cory would give her a thumbs up, “Sounds like a fun time.”

Cory would turn to start on his work.

“Actually, I was gonna ask if you wanted to do something?” Gloria would finally pipe up.

Cory would turn and look at her, a little puzzled. “There’s that winter carnival going on in the city until the end of the year and I was wondering if you’d want to go with me on New Year’s Eve?”

Gloria looked back at him with a small smile.

Cory was shocked, both that he was even being asked this, and that it was her asking it.

“Um…” He clears his throat, “Yeah…Yeah sure, I’d love to!”

Gloria nodded quickly, “Great! I’ll see you then… have a great day.”

Gloria would exit the room, slowly closing the door.

Gloria would sink down in front of the door, her smile growing wider. Not only did she now have a date, but she got him to break his monotone shell. Gloria would stand up, compose herself, and finally leave to get started with work.

On the other side of the door, Cory was attempting to work, running his fingers frivolously through his hair. His face may not have shown it, but he was anxious. He’d never really been a social butterfly and had no idea what to do or what to expect, but in typical Cory fashion, he decided he’d just take it in stride and see how it plays out.

On the other side of the city lies an abandoned speakeasy, where the King of Spades and his loyal subjects call home. The king and his goons were throwing a wild party, complete with booze, gambling, and dancing. The king himself was lying on a leather chair, talking to his “faces,” as he called them. Camari Braeburn, the Queen of Hearts, and Jack Warner, the Jack of All Trades. Cammy was lying across the King’s lap, playing with his hair, and Jack was preparing some drinks when suddenly the King got up to give a speech.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we were successful in once again gaining the attention of the city, the police, and most importantly, the Blood Moon. However, I’m sure you’re aware of the upcoming new year, so we’ve got to end this year with a bang!”

The crowd of goons would applaud, and Jack would smugly roll his eyes as he slipped something into one of the drinks.

“On New Year’s Eve, we’re going to make an appearance at the winter carnival and show the people just how we like to party, and we’ll give them a night they’ll never forget!”

The goons cry out and cheer on their leader, Cammy jumps up and down, clapping, and Jack returns with a drink for the King, who downs it in a flash.

After the speech, the henchmen would go back to partying, with the King returning to his chair, but before Cammy could sit down as well, the King would spring back up, clutching his throat and coughing and gagging. The king would keel over on the ground, his face becoming more and more blue. At the sight of their leader choking, the goons would break out into chaos, with Jack attempting to make his escape. However, a rogue right hook would knock him on his ass.

Eventually, the king would stop coughing, and the room would fall silent.

“Kingy-wingy, are you okay?” Cammy would ask him, walking over to his side. The king would stand up slowly, staring at his hands and slowly moving to feel his face, before turning to face Cammy, who would gasp. "Why, l've never felt better, Queenie Beanie...

The King would reply, pinching a lock of his new snow-white hair, "Go fetch me my gun, please." Cammy would nod and run off to go get his gun, while The King would slowly approach Jack, the crowd stepping out of his way. "Reagan, please!

Believe me, I was only trying to give you your medication, I swear!" Jack would plead, making a desperate scramble to escape. "Oh Jack, l'm not as stunted as you may think I am. I know what you were going for." The King grabs Jack by the collar of his shirt and pulls him to his feet, as Cammy returns with a pistol, placing it into the King's blue outstretched hand. "Didn't anyone ever tell you? Play shitty games..." The King places the muzzle on Jack's forehead, "Win shitty prizes." The King would pull the trigger and release Jack, his limp body hitting the floor as the King erupted into laughter.

#my characters #original character #hero oc #superhero oc #oc story #writers on tumblr #writing #superhero story #oc stuff #story #short story #original story #writers and poets #storytelling #literature #literary fiction

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drabbles-mc · 9 months ago

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the way that i am just!!!!!!! so fucking excited!!!! for what you have in store!!!!!!! 👀

Everyone likes movies in some sort of way, sure, but Johnny? He loves them. Really really. <- johnny as a fan of the cinnamontography is something that really makes all the sense in the world and i'm kissing you on the mouth for including it in this. imax would've knocked his socks clean off i think

“Yeah, and he thinks he’s the coolest guy around, til he meets someone cooler, that is.” <- i'm giggling and kicking my feet over them. you do this banter so well. i adore how these two speak so often in these hypotheticals and have such a fun time with it 🥰

With the bikes and the trucks, you thought you had his wheels all covered, but then he pulls up in this thing—real neat looking, all black and low to the ground, but not too showy, like something he could still put his girls in, when it’s his turn or something <- my lame unicycle jokes aside, i truly love how you describe johnny's car not just through its looks but also its function. like the fact that it's a nice car because Of Course johnny has a nice car but!!!! it has to be kid friendly!! for the children!!!! adoreeee

His thighs in those washed out jeans of his—cause he sits the same in a car as he does on a bike, would you believe it, his knees all spread out like that. <- mj.........you can't do this to me........and expect me to be normal about it........

Not in a freaky way, you know, just something to stop you thinking all crazy like. <- Lips, my beloved, i don't think that being able to touch ANYYYYY part of him would've made you less crazy. nor should it. peace and love and light to you in these trying times

He’s watching the movie with both hands on his lil’ pouch of M&Ms <- no no no you can't do this to me. you can't throw that pendulum back and forth from feral to this mental image that has me 🥹🥹🥹🥹

Running your own thumb all over it like you’re in love or something. <-the way that i am Smug Pablo-ing to the max right now. BOYYYY do i have some news for our friend Lips. Do. I. Have. Some. News. For. Them.

Someone you couldn’t bring to your mother but would bring to an office party. <- I can't even properly articulate how much i fucking love this description of him. i'm just. flabbergasted. gobsmacked even.

Just sat there looking mean, you know. <- file that shit under his special skills on his resume

“There I was,” he says, “thinking I was doing something good, you know. Giving you a break from all that talking, Lips.” <- if there weren't an ocean between us, you could've heard the sound i just let out in my office. i am so glad that i'm the only one here right now but LORDDDD i'm squealingggggg

“I’m thinking it’s getting real hard to look and not touch,” you say. <- LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Like he knows how to but can’t remember yet, or doesn’t know if he likes your mouth enough to forget about the last one he was used to. <- every single line you write is another shot directly to my jugular. i cannot go on like this. but i can. and i will.

Which is the wrong fuckin’ thing to say apparently <- i'm so sorry for them in this moment ofcourse but i also need you to know that this also made me laugh at the sheer bluntness of it 😂

“See you tomorrow, Lips,” and he don’t even know if you’re free for him or not. Which you guess means you haven't scared him off at all, if that’s what it is. <- WHAT A FUCKING CLOSER!!!!!!!!! IM LOSING MY MIND!!!!!! IM SPINNING IN MY DESK CHAIR LIKE A CRAZY PERSON!!!!!!!!

white room - pt. 3

johnny davis x gn!reader, 18+, canon typical themes and language, 4k words, 3 of ? part one | part two a/n: if anyone's curious, the fics named after the song white room by cream, which was both relevant enough, and playing on spotify at the time, to be chosen for such reasons skskssk gif credit to @hausofmamadas mi amor

Friday, well, that one turns out to be a movie. Not in the romantic feeling kind of way, but in the real movie theatre with a bucket of popcorn and everything else kind of way, and you would’a never expected that from a guy like Johnny.

Really surprised you at first, caught you so off guard that you made him say it twice when he picked you up, but then he said besides riding and racing, movies are his favourite way to spend an hour or two, which really warmed you up to the idea. And you know, he wasn’t lying, neither. Everyone likes movies in some sort of way, sure, but Johnny? He loves them. Really really. His eyes lit all the way up when he told you which one he’d picked out for you, and you didn’t mind anywhere near enough to complain or choose something else, so that’s what you ended up doing.

And on the way there, he asks what your favourite thing is, for passing time and stuff, and you tell him, well, you suppose that’d be writing. So he says, books? And you says, yeah, stories. Adventures.

“You ever think about writing a movie script?” he asks.

And you shrug, cause you ain’t never thought about it really. “I could do.”

“Bout some guy who starts a bike club?”

“Yeah, and he thinks he’s the coolest guy around, til he meets someone cooler, that is.”

He smiles. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, someone they call Lips.”

Then he’s laughing, and not looking at all where he’s going, eyes all sticky to yours, but the road's straight, so you figure it’s alright for a little while. “It’s good,” he says, “but, ah, I don’t think it’ll make it. Won’t get the audience, you know?”

“Sucks,” you tell him, “I had a real good feeling bout that one.”

Oh, and he picked you up in his car this time too, which you ain’t never seen before. With the bikes and the trucks, you thought you had his wheels all covered, but then he pulls up in this thing—real neat looking, all black and low to the ground, but not too showy, like something he could still put his girls in, when it’s his turn or something. And you know as much about cars as you do about bikes, which is nearly fuckin’ nothin, so you couldn’t tell him anything about it, other than it looks nice, and that he was in a real surprising mood today. Keeping you on your toes, you said.

His reason was something about not wanting to leave his bike someplace he can’t get to in a pinch, and apparently that’s the movie theatre. So, you’re sitting next to him this time, instead of clinging on like a second jacket, and talking all that crap about movie scripts while he drives you there.

You figured you’d be feeling a sort of way about the car thing, cause you were getting real used to having him in front of you, really enjoying it, you know, but side by side? Well, that’s a whole other drug. Spent the whole ride so far just looking at him. At his face, his hands. His thighs in those washed out jeans of his—cause he sits the same in a car as he does on a bike, would you believe it, his knees all spread out like that. And sure, maybe it’s not polite to eat him up so much with your eyes, but you’re listening too, and talking when he needs something from you.

Plus, you only caught him a couple times, but he’s been looking at you as much as you’re looking at him. At your jeans and thighs as well, you reckon. Between the both of you, you’ve made the car feel like one of those Swedish sauna things on wheels, or maybe it’s just you thinking that way, but your neck is hot, real world hot, and even your brow’s a little damp too. God, if he notices the sweat on you, you’ll be opening that door and rolling out onto the road before he can shout at you to stop.

At one point, he says, “You like the bike or the car more?”

And you say back, “Well, whichever one you like driving, Johnny,” cause the real answer is that one makes you dizzy and the other makes you act like you ain’t never seen a man before. You’re not precious neither, about what he thinks of you, but you’re not gonna go and say something that’ll make you sound like that now, are you?

By the time you’re finally getting out of that thing, you’re thinking thank God, cause you don’t know how much longer you could’ve survived without taking one of his hands off that steering wheel just to feel some part of him. Not in a freaky way, you know, just something to stop you thinking all crazy like. Some little bit of him to hold on to, like you have on the bike.

Who would’a known that was the lesser evil of the two, right? At least when you’re pressed up against him like that he can’t look at you, all hungry and curious like he has been doing—and you can’t look at him neither, but you can feel him. All big and strong and warm. Then you don’t gotta sit and wonder like you were just then, going all crazy thinking about how it would be, how it would, well, you know. With his hands and his face and his lips and stuff. Thinking bout that, you know.

So you get out the car, and for a few minutes you’re free, feeling normal, and he buys the tickets and the candy, and the soda that you need dowsing with, and you think, yeah, sure, you can play nice. You’re chatting and laughing just like last time. And he’s letting you go in first, cause he’s a gentleman with things like that, so it’s easy to feel like you’re a respectable person still.

But then you’re sitting next to him again, and this time it’s in the dark, and his knees are touching yours, actually touching, cause your seats are closer in the theatre and he’s still spread out like he’s got a damn engine under him.

Like, fuck, you feel altogether insane by the time the movie’s going.

No other man’s ever got you like this, right? Sure feels that way at least, like you’re fifteen again, and letting the kid next door take you out for the very first time. All heart hammering and sweating like you ain’t never kept a guy’s company before.

Johnny don’t notice of course. He’s watching the movie with both hands on his lil’ pouch of M&Ms, and every time he laughs, he’s no idea that his knee’s rubbing up on yours or that his elbow’s bouncing right into your arm. You don’t tell him though, cause these are perfectly normal things to happen on a date, right, and you wouldn’t want him to stop, you only want your brain to quit thinking all these things you ain’t got the right to know yet.

Like how his lips are so big and pretty looking. Like they’re made for kissing, carved out just for that one thing, but they don’t make his face any less handsome, right, and you certainly wouldn’t call him pretty allover. Just, rugged, you know. Good to look at. And, Jeez, you can’t even go five minutes without something like that. Wondering what his lips are really like to kiss, or whether he’s got any more tattoos any place you can’t see.

It’s a good thing you ain’t supposed to talk in here, cause the way this is going, something might slip out that you really shouldn’t say. So you just keep looking forward and watching the movie that you’re already losing track of.

_____

Turns out, biting your tongue is worth it sometimes, cause about half way in you get the answer to one of those crazy questions of yours.

Only a little something, but it gets your heart going all over again. Out of nowhere, his hand goes right there on the arm rest between you, and it’s not just resting, it’s inviting, cause the palms up, you know, waiting for you. And when you don’t move, like you might not’ve seen him do it, he reaches and puts his fingers through yours until, yeah, you’re holding hands, and he’s sitting them both in the middle right where he wanted them.

Before, you’d been wondering if his hands were as rough as they looked like, and well, now you know. And they are. But that bird tattoo, that swallow by his thumb? That’s smooth as anything, and once you start feeling it, you can’t stop. Running your own thumb all over it like you’re in love or something. But his hands are a little cool, you know, compared to yours, and you guess you got some habit you can’t help, about warming things up by rubbing them all sweet like that.

You guess you’re also feeling like he’s sort of familiar already, and that’s what you do when you hold a hand and it’s one you’re used to, right?

But how’s he got you feeling that way after doing so little? Like he’s got you holding hands and tracing swallows and thinking about his thigh against yours, when really, you’ve seen him three times and that’s it. Which is next to nothing, you know? You haven’t even kissed him properly yet. The other night, when he dropped you home, you got a peck on the cheek and a mouthful of cologne and that was that. Which you’re not complaining about, course not, it sent your heart scattering like a mouse across the kitchen floor, but normally you got a real hold of yourself at a point like this.

Instead, here you are, acting like you know who he is and what he looks like under all the layers. Acting like maybe you wouldn’t mind so much to one day marry a sort of guy like him—if you were to marry anyone at all, that is. You figure one like Johnny wouldn’t be too bad. Quiet when he needs to be, rough looking, but nice still. Someone you couldn’t bring to your mother but would bring to an office party. It could work, you know, if you were ever really wanting something like that to work.

Boy, you’re almost making yourself sick thinking about it. You barely know the guy and you got no interest in marrying, not any time soon, and God knows Johnny ain’t wanting that either, so what does it matter to you? You’re just thinking all sorts of things for the sake of thinking them—just to avoid thinking about all the other things that you’re trying not to think about and, yeah, you’re really going round in circles about it. If he could hear you now, he’d be leaving you right there in the dark.

Then he breathes by your ear, and he’s whispering about the girl on screen looking like his Aunt Tina in a hair piece, and you laugh so loud the people in front turn round to shoot you with their eyes—until they see Johnny, that is. Cause then it’s right back to the screen again like they didn’t see nothing. Even in the dark, when all you can make out is what the light off the screen gives you, that jacket of his means something. One look at the leather and the patches and, whoosh. Suddenly nobody’s got the guts to say anything about it.

And the worst part? That all makes you feel even more like you’d marry him. Or someone like him, if it came up, of course. You’re even squeezing his hand a little afterwards, like you’re thanking him for it even though he didn’t do nothin. Just sat there looking mean, you know.

But maybe you want someone sitting there looking mean. Maybe you don’t wanna be doing it for yourself no more, and are perfectly happy to let someone like Johnny do it for you.

Who knows, but you really should be watching the movie now anyhow, cause he’s gonna ask you all about it, you’re sure, and you don’t even know any of their names yet.

_____

“So you like it?” he says after, just like you knew he would, when you’re walking back over the lot to that four wheel surprise of his.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“What, you only think you like it?” He throws you one of them big, crumply, frowns, with a cigarette bouncing in his mouth already. “How can you not know if you liked it or not?”

“I’m still deciding,” you tell him, cause you are, cause you were distracted for most of it. But that part you’re not telling. “I know I prefer things where I can talk to you, though. Face to face and stuff.”

He don’t smile but his eyes do, and you know before he says anything, that he’s gonna say something in a real sort of a way, just to get a rise outta you. “There I was,” he says, “thinking I was doing something good, you know. Giving you a break from all that talking, Lips.”

“No way.” There it is. “That’s not stickin, Johnny.”

“Yeah…” He nods in a sorry looking way. “I kinda think it already has.”

“And I kinda think three dates is enough. How’s that for thinkin?”

“Oh, calling it then, are you?”

“Yeah, I am.” But neither of you are pretending like you believe it, not even for a bit of a game to play; like it’s a given that you’re lying, you know, three dates and he and you both know you’re sticking around for more. No question. “You ever gonna light that thing?” you ask, pointing to the long smoke dangling over his chin. You’re at the car now and he still ain’t touched it, acting like he’s not even thought about it since he put it there.

“Was getting round to it,” he says, making no move to do anything other than standing there looking at you.

And you’re looking right back.

It’s dark out already, cause that movie was longer than you thought it’d be, but there’s enough street lights round here that nothin’s really hurting by it. He’s just got a little orange on him, shoulders glowing like you’re sitting with a campfire or something.

So you lean back against his car, right on the driver’s side, and ask him what he thought of the movie, cause you can tell he’s thinking a lot on something or other, so you figure it’s probably that. And he sets off talking like you’re right, going on about one of them cowboys in particular, but you gotta admit, you're not listening to a word of it.

Real bad manners it is, really awful of you to get a guy talking and not even hear one thing he says, but Jeez, you’re just watching those lips and that cigarette and not helping yourself in any sort of way at all. You just agree and shake your head when it feels like the right thing to do—and you know you’re making it obvious, may as well be screaming kiss me, Johnny, kiss me, but he just keeps going. Talking more than you ever heard him talk about anything.

And right when you think he might ask you something, or call you up on that look you’re giving him, he takes the smoke from his mouth and tosses it. Never even lit, clean as the day they made it, and he throws it right into that grimy little puddle there with no warning at all. He could’a kept it you know, put it back in the box and had it later, if he didn’t want it no more.

“What d’you do that for?” you ask him.

He says, “You wanna go?”

It’s the way his voice sounds when he asks, it makes you frown a little. Like he’s upset or something. Or maybe, and most likely, he saw how rude you were being and got worked up about it, instead of going the other way. And you wanna tell him it’s not that at all, and you’re sorry, yeah, you’ll listen better now, but all you can do is shake your head at him.

No, you don’t wanna go. What you want is—well, you’re trying to be good about it, cause he said before that you’re the first person he’s looked at in any real sort of way since Betty left, and that’s a whole load of weird, every step of the way for him, you know—but, God, what you really wanna do is kiss him. You want to kiss him.

Guess he’s used to you by now, cause you’ve been so quiet that he notices something off about it. Then he don’t look upset, or mad, he just looks confused when he asks, “You okay?”

Well, then you figure, screw being nice, just for a little bit.

“I’m thinking it’s getting real hard to look and not touch,” you say.

Slips right out of you, gone without stopping, but you said it in a dazed kind of way, so it came out sort of nice, you guess. Honest without being crazy about it. And he says nothin, no surprise right, but you do catch something—yeah, right there, he goes and does it again—his eyes drop from looking at yours, to looking down at your mouth. Bingo. He’s thinking about it too. All you can do is wait it out.

After a second that feels like a minute that feels like an hour, his head shakes halfway and he says, “I don’t,” but that’s all he says, I don’t. Then he goes and pulls you into him.

Just like that.

Two hands, either side of your face, scratchy on your cheek and cool feeling cause you got hot real fast, and then he’s kissing you. Not quick like some other guy might, but slow and careful like a man really thinking about it. Kissing you like. Well. Like nobody’s ever been kissing you before.

You feel yourself curling in, right up close to him, and grabbing onto the edges of his jacket a little. Letting him kiss you, not the other way around, but doing all you can to keep it going, you know, cause you can tell by his lips, by the way he’s moving, he’s still sort of worrying about it. Like he knows how to but can’t remember yet, or doesn’t know if he likes your mouth enough to forget about the last one he was used to.

And you’re not caring about anything to do with any of that, you’re just making sure you remember every bit of this, incase he decides he don’t like it after all.

But he keeps going still, and your mouth starts tasting like his mouth, which is like a load of ash and candy, cause he’s a sweet tooth, you know, who knew, and he was tossing them back like water in there. Which you’re glad of, cause somehow it’s all adding up to taste like the best sort of thing you’ve ever had, and you don’t think he’d get that title if it was just the cigarettes on his tongue.

When he pulls back—and God, you fight him on it—you make a noise like he hurt you. Embarrassing, right? A little whimper like an animal, or something, and that makes him keep you real close for a sec, just to be sure he didn’t actually hurt you somehow. Then you’re both saying “sorry” at the same time, for some reason. Sorry, you know, over nothin.

And that’s dumb enough that you laugh right up against his lips, and he breathes in a lazy sort of way, all heavy like he’s not had his fill yet.

Well, you’re already standing straight again and letting go of his jacket, cause it seems impolite to be tugging on him like that now he’s waiting a little, and one of his hands moves to your neck like he’s trying to leave but can’t make his body listen to his head.

Course, you don’t mind either way. He could have another, or he could shove his hands in his pockets and rush you into the car, and you wouldn’t complain one bit because now you know. You know what it’s like.

You’re smiling still too, while he looks at you all hungry like, and you know it’s in your mouth and your eyes and the way you find yourself saying to him,

“Take me home?”

Which is the wrong fuckin’ thing to say apparently, because his hands drop off you so quick it almost stings. Like you were never hot, he was, and now he ain’t there holding you the cold is real sharp feeling. Then he steps back a bit, and he’s clearing his throat and rubbing his nose with his knuckles, and you figure you’ve scared all of that right back out of him again.

“You know,” he says, like it really hurts him to say it, “I—I can’t. I mean. I don’t wanna rush into nothin with us, you know?”

“I know,” you tell him. “Who’s rushing anything?”

You watch him scratch the back of his neck—always itching when he’s trying to get outta something, yeah, you seen him do it enough times already—and he’s screwing his face up like you ain’t getting it, and he can’t think of any way to put it that'll help. “We should probably, I mean.”

“You gonna tell me you don’t wanna date me no more?” you ask him.

Which is funny, cause you said that before he kissed you, and neither of you meant it then, but now there’s a little sour guy in your gut saying maybe, just maybe, you know.

“No, no.” He shakes his head, voice all whiny like it actually is hurting.

“Well what is it then?”

“I know how you get, yeah…you, when it gets like that. Taking you home, staying over. I mean," and then he says, "I can’t give you a life, you know?”

You stare at him real hard. “Did I ask you to?”

“Not yet, but,” he shrugs, “I’ve done all that before.”

A part of you is thinking, God, worrying about all that already? This guy’s a real piece of work. But the sensible part thinks, yeah, you too, even if you weren’t really thinking in any serious kinda way—plus he’s got a divorce two steps behind him, so why wouldn’t he be worrying about it? He’s figuring all this out like it’s brand fuckin’ new, and all the while trying to make sure you’re not getting cut up in the process. A little early on, sure, but that’s what you gotta do, right? Clear the gutter out before the rain comes.

So you tell him, “I only wanna spend time with you, Johnny.”

And he thinks on that, looking like he don’t believe anyone could ever say it and mean it, then he says, “S’pose that’s alright then, if that’s what it is.”

And you say, “Yeah, that’s what it is.”

And when he drives you home, he’s got one hand on the wheel, and the other on his thigh, and you put your pinky round his like you’re scared of holding it proper. Scared of touching him like you’re used to doing it, and scared of him dropping you off without saying nothing else at all. Just your pinky and his pinky, and the radio on quiet like you’re dreaming, or something.

But then it comes to it, and you get another taste of candy and ash right under your porch light.

It’s short and a little polite, like Mrs Saccone might be watching, but that don’t matter, cause you figure it means he’s decided you’re alright spending time with him still. Not rushing into nothing, yeah?

He’s half-way down the steps again when he says, “See you tomorrow, Lips,” and he don’t even know if you’re free for him or not. Which you guess means you haven't scared him off at all, if that’s what it is.

_________________

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