#I'll try it later. His fragments are probably still around...

[euclydya]

i had a dream about you, you, you

[rispwr]

Hate you - chapter 1 - J.JK

Pairings : ex! Jungkook x ex! Reader

Notes : finally here!! lowkey didn't get to my word goal:((

Genre : Ex2L, angst, slow burn, fake dating, slice of life, fluff, e2l, corporate rivals, smau, smut

Sypnosis : ‘You were always told that hating someone is the only way it doesn’t hurt but what if you can’t hate him? No matter how hard you try your heart will always find it’s way to his’

2 years after breaking up with your boyfriend of 2 years you were finally on your way to become the ceo of your family’s company your rival turns out to be your ex.

Contents/warnings :

Misunderstood break up, insecurities, mentions of self harms or mental health issues, jk is mean at the start, yelling, sensitive language or words, mentions of family trauma, corporate au, smart (both), mentions of yoongi x oc, mentions of cheating, soon to be ceo! Jk, soon to be ceo! Oc, oc is still named Y/n or {__}, corporate rivals?, fake dating, lack of communication, death of a character, mentions of suicide attempt, platonic relationships with other members

NSFW contents : specified in chapter

series masterlist

The question that lingers in my mind

Namjoon quickly made his way to your house, arms loaded with a tub of your favorite ice cream and a bag filled with your favorite go to alcohol or probably beer. He was your closest friend, practically a brother, and he always seemed to know how to comfort you when you needed it most. The familiar sound of his knuckles tapping against the door echoed through your silent apartment.

"Y/N! I'm hereee!" he called, his voice bright and cheerful, trying to cut through the heaviness of the moment.

"It's open! Just come in," you managed to reply, though your voice cracked, betraying the tears you had been trying to stifle. As soon as the door swung open, you felt a fresh wave of sobs building in your chest.

Namjoon rushed in, his expression shifting from playful to concerned in an instant. "What happened??" he asked, worry etched across his features as he approached your room.

You couldn't find the words, the emotions overwhelming you as you sat on the edge of your bed, crumpled tissues littering the floor around you. Instead, you just continued to cry, your heart breaking all over again.

"Do you want me to call Jungkook??" he offered, but at the mention of his name, your sobs intensified. The thought of hearing his voice was too painful, too fresh.

Namjoon paused, taking a moment to assess the situation. He knelt beside you, turning your head gently to meet his gaze. "Did you guys fight?" he asked softly, as if trying to piece together the fragments of your distress.

You shook your head, tears spilling down your cheeks. "Worse," you finally managed to reply, voice trembling. "Joon... he fucking broke up with me. He fucking—fuck. He dumped me."

The air felt heavy with the weight of your confession, and Namjoon's eyes widened in shock. "Why?? What happened??" he pressed, his tone a mix of disbelief and concern.

"Exactly... I don't know what I did wrong," you sobbed harder, the floodgates opening. "How can he just throw away our memories like that? And he has the fucking audacity to tell me to wait for him" Your words trailed off, and you buried your face in your hands, unable to contain the wave of sorrow crashing over you.

Namjoon instinctively pulled you into his arms, wrapping you in a comforting embrace. "Hey, it's okay. Just let it out," he murmured, gently rubbing your back as you tried to cool down.

After a few moments, you pulled away slightly, wiping your eyes with the back of your hand. "Let's go to a club later, Joon. Maybe I'll find someone better there," you suggested, the anger in your voice barely masking the hurt.

"No, Y/N. You are not getting knocked up or catching dirty diseases from filthy men in clubs," he replied firmly, though there was a hint of a smile at your reckless idea. "Let's just drink or hang out today, yeah?"

You considered it for a moment. "We can bring friends too if you want," he suggested, gauging your reaction.

Flashback

The moment you received Jungkook's breakup text, your heart sank. The message was blunt, cold, and devoid of any emotion—just like the man you once thought would love you forever. With shaking hands, you stared at your phone, disbelief coursing through you. After two years of shared dreams and plans, he had chosen to end things with a simple text. It felt unreal, like a cruel joke played by the universe.

You had to see him, to confront him. You couldn't let this end without hearing his voice, without understanding why. So you drove to his penthouse, each turn of the road amplifying the dread that clutched at your heart.

When you arrived, you barely registered the grandeur of his place—the sleek furniture, the breathtaking view of the city that had once felt like a backdrop to your love story. Instead, all you could think about was the weight of Jungkook's decision and the emptiness that came with it.

You stepped inside, the familiar scent of his cologne wrapping around you like a memory. Your footsteps echoed in the spacious hallway as you made your way to his room. You could feel your heart racing, a mixture of anger, confusion, and sorrow bubbling up inside you.

"Y/N... I told you we're done," Jungkook's voice was strained as he stood with his back to you, facing the window. His shoulders were tense, and he seemed unwilling to meet your gaze.

"Is that really how you're going to do this? You sent me a text. A fucking text, Jungkook! You didn't tell me anything." Your voice rose, a sharp edge of frustration cutting through the pain.

He turned slightly, just enough for you to see the profile of his face, marred by uncertainty and conflict. "Y/N... I need space, alright?!" The sudden snap in his tone took you aback, his frustration spilling over.

"Space? Why?" Your voice cracked, the gravity of his words sinking in. "What did I do wrong? Was I not enough?" Each question felt like a dagger, piercing through the thin veil of composure you had left.

"Was there someone el—" Before you could finish, Jungkook stepped forward, closing the gap between you in an instant. He grabbed your face with both hands and crashed his lips onto yours. The kiss was desperate, consuming, as if he were trying to devour you, to erase the reality of what was happening.

You melted into him, instinctively wrapping your arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer. Your heart raced, conflicting emotions swirling inside you. But just as quickly as it began, he pulled away, breathless and tearful.

"Jungkook... baby, please, no..." you begged, your voice trembling as the tears you had been holding back began to spill over. "Don't do this to us."

"I think it's time we take a break, Y/N." His voice was softer now, but it carried an unyielding finality. "I'll come back to you once I'm all better and perfect for you. Hm?" He brought your face up gently, forcing you to look into his eyes, those familiar brown depths that had always felt like home.

You nodded silently, your heart breaking at the thought of being apart. The weight of his words crushed you, leaving you feeling small and defeated.

Minutes passed in silence, a heavy tension settling between you. It felt as if the air had thickened, each breath becoming a struggle as you both tried to navigate the emotional turmoil that had engulfed you.

"I just... I don't understand," you finally whispered, trying to process the whirlwind of feelings. "We were happy, weren't we? What changed?"

He sighed, raking a hand through his hair in frustration. "It's not that simple, Y/N. I don't want to drag you down with me. I need to figure things out... for both of us."

"But I want to help you! I want to be there for you!" you protested, tears streaming down your cheeks, mascara running down in dark streaks. "Why can't you see that?"

"Because sometimes love isn't enough," he replied, his voice strained with emotion. He stepped back, distancing himself as if he were afraid of the intensity of what was happening between you.

The moment stretched painfully, the silence growing heavier. You felt as if you were teetering on the edge of a precipice, unsure of how to step back from this chasm. You wanted to scream, to shake him and make him see reason, but all you could do was stand there, vulnerable and exposed.

"can you do something for me baby?" Jungkook said, his expression softening for a moment. "just- just wait for me. i'll be back once i'm all ready, better and fit for you. can you be okay with that baby?"

The thought of moving on without him felt unbearable. "How can you ask me that? How can you just walk away and expect me to be okay?" Your voice was barely a whisper, each word laced with sorrow.

"Because I love you," he said, and it felt like a knife to your heart. "And I don't deserve you. his is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, i'll be back once i finally deserve you."

The finality of his words hung in the air, suffocating you. It felt like the walls were closing in, and you struggled to breathe.

"I can't believe you're doing this," you murmured, feeling your heart splintering into a million pieces. "I thought we were in this together."

"Y/N... please," he said, his voice breaking slightly. He stepped closer again, his hands cupping your face. "I need you to trust me. This is what's best for both of us."

You searched his eyes, looking for any sign of doubt, any flicker of hesitation. But all you saw was resolve, and it shattered you. You couldn't fight against him anymore; it felt like trying to hold back the tide.

"Just... go," you finally said, the words tasting bitter on your tongue. "If this is what you want, then go. But don't expect me to be here when you come back."

With that, you turned away, feeling like a ghost in the place that had once felt like home. The silence followed you as you walked out of his room, your heart heavy with the weight of your shattered dreams.

The drive back to your penthouse was a blur. You could barely see through the tears streaming down your face, mascara staining your cheeks. Each turn felt like a reminder of what you had lost. You replayed the moments you had shared, the laughter, the plans, the way he had looked at you with such warmth. Now, it was all gone—an illusion shattered by a single text.

When you arrived at your penthouse, the familiar surroundings offered little comfort. The walls felt like they were closing in on you, suffocating you with memories that now felt tainted. You dropped your keys on the table, the sound echoing through the silence.

You collapsed onto the bed, wrapping your arms around yourself as if trying to hold together the pieces of your broken heart. The emptiness inside you ached, a deep, gnawing pain that refused to let go. You could feel the tears coming again, an uncontrollable wave of sorrow crashing over you.

Why couldn't he see that you were enough? That you wanted to fight for him, for the love you had built together?

2 weeks

It had been two weeks since Jungkook broke up with you—two weeks of silence that felt louder than any argument you'd ever had. Two weeks without his messages lighting up your phone, his reassuring voice calling you just to check in, or his sweet words that somehow always knew how to soothe the deepest parts of you. The absence was a void, consuming and hollow, yet sharp at the edges, cutting into you with every reminder.

You missed the little things. How he would text you "good morning" without fail, his sleepy voice leaving voicemails if he couldn't reach you. The silly pictures he'd send to make you laugh on your roughest days, and his small, unexpected gifts. They'd come in glossy packages, ribbons you'd undo with eager hands only to reveal something so extravagantly expensive you'd feel your heart swell and your voice catch, telling him he didn't have to spend so much. But he would just smile, his hand resting gently against your cheek, saying, "You deserve to be treated for what you're worth. And you're worth millions... billions. So much more than that."

No amount of words had convinced him that you didn't need all those grand gestures. It was his presence, his love, that was priceless to you. He was what you wanted, all you needed. But now, without him, even those little things he left behind seemed like they were mocking you, a painful reminder of promises unkept.

Two weeks should have been long enough to let go, to start piecing together the shattered remains of your heart. You told yourself every day that it was time to move on, to forget. But your heart betrayed you every night as you lay in bed, reaching instinctively to the other side where he used to lie. The sheets were cold now, his scent slowly fading. And with each reminder, a thousand questions echoed in your mind.

Why was it so easy for him to leave? Why did he walk away so quickly while you were still drowning in the memories he left behind?

You took a deep breath, swallowing down the ache that rose in your throat. This wasn't healthy. You couldn't go on like this, holding onto fragments of a love that no longer existed. Standing up, you made your way to your closet, determination stiffening your resolve. If he could move on so easily, then so could you.

Opening the doors, you took in the rows of clothes neatly hung, interspersed with items that weren't yours—hoodies, shirts, and jackets that he'd left behind after countless nights spent together. You reached out, fingers brushing over a worn T-shirt of his, the fabric soft and familiar beneath your touch. You could still remember the last time he'd worn it, his arms wrapped around you as you lay in his embrace, your head resting against his chest, his heartbeat lulling you to sleep.

But that was then. And now... now it was time to let go.

You started pulling his clothes out one by one, each article feeling heavier than the last. It was almost a ritual, each item you took out a small act of defiance, a reclaiming of the space he'd left behind. As the pile grew, so did the anger simmering within you. It bubbled up, breaking through the sadness, sharpening into something fierce and raw.

"Fuck you, Jungkook," you muttered under your breath, barely realizing that you'd spoken aloud. "For making me love you and then leaving me like this." The words tumbled out, each one laced with the bitterness that had been building up inside you.

With each piece you tossed into the box, the weight on your chest seemed to lessen just a bit. You threw in the hoodies he'd lent you on cold nights, the shirts you'd worn as pajamas, each one carrying the ghost of his touch. You wanted them out of your sight, out of your life.

Once his clothes were gone, you moved on to the other things—the little keepsakes he'd left behind. His toothbrush next to yours, his cologne bottle half-empty on the dresser, the small stack of books he'd borrowed and never returned. You swept it all into the box, each item feeling like a wound you were finally closing.

But as you finished packing everything, your hand brushed against something cold, and you froze. It was the necklace—the one he'd given you on that perfect night when he'd promised you forever. Your fingers trembled as you held it up, the delicate chain glinting in the light. You remembered how he'd clasped it around your neck, his fingers grazing your skin as he whispered, "This is my promise to you. I'm never leaving, no matter what."

The weight of his broken promise pressed down on you, and before you could stop it, the tears spilled over. You clutched the necklace tightly, the cool metal digging into your palm as you struggled to hold yourself together.

Why had he left? Why hadn't he fought for you, for the life you'd planned together? You'd given him everything, yet he'd walked away as if it meant nothing.

Your knees buckled, and you sank down onto the floor, sobs wracking your body as the pain you'd tried so hard to contain came rushing to the surface. You felt like you were drowning, lost in a sea of grief and anger and confusion. It was as if every part of you that had once been whole was now fractured, broken beyond repair.

In the midst of your tears, you fumbled for your phone, your fingers shaking as you scrolled through your contacts. Without thinking, you dialed Namjoon's number, needing the comfort of someone who understood, who could help anchor you in the storm of emotions.

The phone rang, and after a few moments, his familiar voice answered. "Yes, Y/N? Is everything okay?" His tone was warm, tinged with concern, and it only made the tears flow harder.

"Joon..." you choked out, trying to steady your breathing. "Why—why is this so hard? I just... I just wish there was something more I could hate him for. Something to make this easier, to stop myself from loving him..." Your voice broke, a fresh wave of sobs escaping as the words you'd been holding in finally spilled out.

"Oh, Y/N..." Namjoon's voice softened, filled with empathy. "He's an asshole for doing this to you, babe. You didn't deserve any of it. I'm so sorry." There was a pause, and then he added gently, "Want me to come over? I can bring some ice cream, or we can just sit and talk if you need."

For a brief moment, the thought of having him there was comforting. But you shook your head, even though he couldn't see it. "No... I'm alright. I just... I just needed to hear your voice," you murmured, the exhaustion in your voice evident.

"Okay," he said quietly, and you could hear the sadness in his tone, the frustration that he couldn't do more to help. "But if you change your mind, I'm just a call away. Promise me you'll take care of yourself?"

"Yeah..." you replied softly, the words barely more than a whisper.

Before he could say more, you ended the call, feeling a pang of guilt. Namjoon had always been there for you, a steady presence in your life, yet right now, not even his reassurance could ease the ache inside you.

You looked down at the necklace still clutched in your hand, your fingers loosening around it. It felt heavy, a tangible reminder of the promises he'd broken, the love that had once felt so real. Slowly, you unclasped it from around your neck, feeling a strange sense of finality as you placed it gently in the box, on top of everything else.

The last piece of him, gone.

flashback

Paris was like a living dream. The city's air felt soft, carrying the scent of fresh bread, blooming flowers, and that slight trace of romance found only here. Jungkook's hand held yours as you both strolled down cobblestone streets, the lights of the city casting a warm, golden glow on the world around you. It was your first anniversary, and Jungkook had insisted on making it memorable.

"The city suits you," he murmured, his eyes soft as they roamed over your face. You squeezed his hand in response, feeling so grateful to be here with him.

"It's... perfect," you breathed, taking in the architecture, the people, and, most of all, him.

That day, as you both wandered through Paris, something caught your eye in a small shop window—a necklace, delicate yet striking, in the shape of a butterfly. You stopped in front of it, drawn in by the design's subtle elegance. But you were careful not to linger too long, as you weren't one to ask for material things. Growing up, you were used to having everything handed to you without a word, and you always felt a tinge of guilt about it. It made you appreciate thoughtfulness over wealth.

Jungkook noticed the way your eyes lingered, though you quickly looked away. He smiled to himself, filing the moment away in his mind. You had no idea that he'd already decided on a plan.

That night, back in the hotel room, you were peacefully asleep after a long day. With your steady breathing as his only company, Jungkook slowly and carefully slipped out of bed, glancing at you one last time to make sure you were truly asleep. He moved quietly, slipping out the door and into the Parisian night, with a mission in mind.

Jungkook made his way back to the boutique. The shopkeeper, who was just about to close up, welcomed him with a knowing smile as he walked in.

"Changed your mind about the necklace, sir?" she asked, recognizing him.

"Yes," Jungkook replied, a hint of excitement in his voice. "I'd like it custom-made."

He explained his idea: the initials "K.Y." and "J.JK" engraved on the back, where only the two of you would know. The butterfly itself meant more to him than he could easily say; it was a symbol of transformation and new beginnings. Y/N had helped him see that change didn't have to be terrifying, that it could be a journey to something better. She was the one who had encouraged him to open his heart and embrace the unknown. In a way, she had transformed him. The necklace was not just a gift; it was his heart, crafted in gold, for her to wear close to hers.

after paying. he held the necklace in his hand, feeling a wave of excitement wash over him as he admired the initials engraved so delicately. He could already imagine your face when you'd see it, and he smiled to himself as he headed back to the hotel, hiding the box carefully before slipping back into bed beside you.

On the last night of the trip, Jungkook took your hand, guiding you to a spot near the Eiffel Tower. The sky was a rich, deep blue, and the lights of the tower illuminated everything around you, casting a golden glow that felt almost magical. You were mesmerized, feeling a sense of peace and happiness that only deepened with him beside you.

Jungkook stopped in front of you, letting go of your hand to reach into his pocket. "Close your eyes," he whispered, his voice warm.

You laughed, your heart fluttering. "What? You're not proposing or something, are you?" you joked, cheeks warming as you looked up at him.

"Not yet," he replied softly, his eyes holding a promise, "but close. I'll definitely do that one day, baby." His words sent a shiver through you, and you obeyed, closing your eyes as your heart raced.

"Okay, open your eyes," he said, a note of excitement in his voice.

You opened them, and there it was—the butterfly necklace you'd seen on the first day, resting in his open palm. "Oh my god...!" You squealed, your hands flying to your mouth. The necklace was even more beautiful up close, the delicate wings catching the light perfectly. You launched yourself at Jungkook, wrapping your arms around him in a tight hug. "I love you! I can't believe you did this!"

Jungkook laughed, holding you close and watching the pure joy on your face. "Look at the back," he said gently, guiding the necklace to face you.

You turned it over and gasped as you read the initials, your own and his, engraved into the back. The sight of it brought tears to your eyes, the meaning behind the gesture sinking in deeply. "Oh my god, baby..." You could barely speak, your heart full.

He brushed his thumb over your cheek, smiling softly. "It's a butterfly, like you, because you helped me through my fear of change. You showed me that change can be beautiful, that letting go and starting new... can lead to amazing things. You opened my heart to new beginnings, and the best beginning you gave me... was with you."

"Jungkook..." Tears brimmed in your eyes, and for a moment, all you could do was look at him, taking in every detail of the person who had become your whole world. You reached up, pressing a soft kiss to his lips, then to his nose, and both his cheeks, making him giggle.

"I love you," you whispered against his cheek, "so, so much. Thank you for this—for everything."

back to present

As you closed the lid, you felt a strange sense of emptiness. The box sat there, filled with fragments of a love that had once been everything to you, and yet now, it was nothing more than a collection of memories you were desperate to forget.

For the rest of the night, you sat in silence, the weight of the loss settling over you like a heavy blanket. You wanted to hate him, to erase every trace of him from your mind. But no matter how hard you tried, his presence lingered, a haunting reminder of what you'd once had and what you'd lost.

I'll get over him, you told yourself, though the words felt hollow, as if you were trying to convince yourself of something that wasn't true. But maybe, just maybe, if you repeated it enough, one day it would be real.

3 months

The days blurred together after the breakup. Three months. For three whole months, you'd convinced yourself that this hatred for Jungkook was all you needed to numb the pain. At first, it worked, almost like a coping mechanism—every time you felt that ache in your chest, you would remind yourself of the reasons to be angry, to stay distant. But no matter how many times you reminded yourself of the anger, it was never enough to cover the emptiness, the loneliness that slowly crept in, hollowing out pieces of you.

You were isolating yourself from everyone who tried to reach you, pushing them away as if they were intruders. Namjoon had called and texted every day, and Jennie had stopped by repeatedly, but you never opened the door. Even Seokjin had come over with Sana to try and pull you out of this haze. Yet you felt too far gone. You loved Jungkook. Too much. And every time you thought of him, it felt like a fresh wound tearing open.

Then came that Thursday morning, the first rays of light slipping through your curtains, though you could barely feel them. You'd spent another night tossing and turning, haunted by memories of him. And something within you just... broke. You reached for the bottle of sleeping pills by your bedside, not thinking, just wanting the pain to fade. One pill, then two, then three, then more. You felt yourself drifting, the world becoming softer, quieter.

But the next thing you knew, you were waking up, blinking against the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room. It felt like a dream, surreal and hazy, until you began to focus on the faces surrounding you—your family, looking terrified and heartbroken, Namjoon with his head in his hands, Jennie crying softly beside him, and Seokjin gripping Sana's hand tightly. And then, your gaze landed on him. Jungkook was there, his eyes red and swollen, a look of devastation etched across his face. They were all worried sick.

The night before, Namjoon had wanted to surprise you with Sana. They'd brought over your favorite snacks and movies, hoping to lift your spirits. But when they arrived, your place was silent. Namjoon had called your name, but there was no answer. That's when they found you, lying on your bed, your hand loosely clutching the bottle of pills. Sana had screamed for him, her voice trembling and desperate. "Namjoon! Call 911! Please, I beg you!" She was sobbing as she held you in her arms, trying to shake you awake, her own heart breaking with each unresponsive second. "Y/N, please... please wake up!"

Namjoon's hands had shaken as he called for help, explaining the situation to the paramedics, his own voice cracking as he fought to stay composed. They both were crying, praying as they waited for the ambulance, the moments dragging on as they feared the worst.

Now, seeing you awake, a mixture of relief and heartbreak filled the room. But the silence was thick, tension brewing as everyone grappled with what had almost happened. It was Jungkook who broke it, his voice raw, trembling with both anger and hurt.

"Y/N, are you... are you insane?" he snapped, his fists clenched, his face a mixture of anger and fear. "Do you have any idea what you almost did?"

You felt your heart clench, the pain resurfacing, sharper now in his presence. "So what, Jungkook?" you replied bitterly, your voice shaking. "Why do you even care? You didn't care about my feelings when you decided to just leave me. You left, Jungkook. You left, and now you're acting like you care?"

The words spilled out before you could stop them, each one filled with months of pain and anger that had been bottled up. Jungkook opened his mouth, about to say something, but you cut him off.

"Leave, Jungkook. Just leave."

The finality in your words hit him like a punch. He froze, staring at you, his face contorted with hurt. Then, without another word, he turned and walked out of the room. The door shut behind him with a loud thud that seemed to echo through the silence, leaving everyone else frozen in place, tears streaming down their faces. Jennie clung to Seokjin, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs, while Namjoon looked at you, his own face wet with tears as he fought to hold himself together.

It was only then that the weight of everything you'd put them through hit you, the reality of how close they'd come to losing you. They sat in silence, each one lost in their own thoughts, grieving for the person they'd almost lost, the pain written across their faces as they struggled to find the right words.

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[pigeonwhumps]

Shock collar

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AI-less Whumptober alt 6: shock collar

Brynn tries to escape.

634 words

CWs: hero whump, immortal whumpee, gagged, shock collar, electric shock, failed escape attempt, mouth whump

Brynn needs to escape.

It's been a few hours, she thinks, since Sovereign loosened her bonds. She still has the mask and the rope but her hands are tied in front of her now. She can't blow out the lights, for all the good that would do. But she is at last losing the pins and needles sensation in her legs. She might be able to walk again.

Regardless of whether anyone is coming, she still needs to escape. She's not sure they would (why would they help a traitor?) but she doesn't want to risk anyone getting tortured or killed anyway. Escaping is the only way to ensure that.

She just has to make it out.

And stop Sovereign from finding out, at all, because she knows what he fastened around her neck last night, once she'd ‘settled in’ a little, and she knows, she knows, what kind of a range it has.

She climbs to her feet, taking it slow. Crouch, then stand, arms out for balance as she wobbles.

She walks towards the door.

One step at a time.

One step at a time.

The double doors are right there. She pushes them and mercifully they're unlocked.

Is it mercy? Or is it cruel? Is it just a trap?

Whichever way it is, she has to try.

She's in the gleaming white hallway now.

One step at a time.

One step at a time.

One step at a time.

She needs to go faster. One step, two steps, three steps, she's almost at a run now, constantly stumbling but not stopping, never stopping, she can't. She can't she can't she can't, no matter how much it hurts, she–

She slams to the floor, stars sparking in her vision, as her body convulses with pain.

She comes back to herself in pieces, throbbing, jerking, pain in places she'd forgotten she could feel it. She closes her eyes and breathes away the pain, both real and remembered.

Everything still throbs. Her head feels like she's been thrown into a brick wall. Her mouth tastes sour and metallic.

She screamed, then.

She opens her eyes. Her view comes in fragments at first, and she squints and strains to put it all together.

She's back in… back in her cell. Yes. On the floor. And Sovereign's there.

She wants to close her eyes again. Pretend she's anywhere but here. But the clear and present danger makes that impossible.

“Really, Brynn? I thought I taught you better than to attempt escape like that. That was pathetic.”

Brynn scrambles to her feet, pressed against the wall to keep herself upright. Well. She thinks this way is upright.

“Come, Brynn. You're not leaving here. You know I could… well, not kill you with that collar, but simulate the experience. Don't make me do that. I don't want you wishing for death just yet.”

Brynn feels tears welling in her eyes and start to spill over, despite her best efforts at keeping her weaknesses from Sovereign (although he probably knows them all anyway). She determinedly stays standing, glaring at him.

He smirks.

“Goodbye. I'll be back later.”

He turns and starts walking away.

The door swings shut behind him.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

Four steps.

Brynn gasps and lets herself crumple to the floor, limbs still twitching from the aftershocks. There's still a metallic taste in her throat, her mouth and tongue torn up from the screaming.

She thought she'd got away. She thought she'd never have to wear anything like this again. And it's worse this time, because he's not training her, and she's seen what happens to his prisoners. She's partaken in it, although not from this angle.

And she's the worst of the worst. She betrayed him.

What's he going to do to her?

[felixcloud6288]

Higurashi: Festival Accompanying Chapter 17

This is the first time we see Hanyu actually playing the role of Oyashiro rather than being the whimpering little girl she was through Massacre.

As she and Takano have their back and forth, Hanyu admits that Takano truly understands how the world works. It's not up to the gods to decide the future. All they do is decide what will occur but humans have the will to choose what to do with the outcomes.

Again, life is much more like Yahtzee.

Takano has an indomitable will and she will trample anyone who stands in her path. No one person can oppose her, and Hanyu was nearly overwhelmed by Takano's will during their argument. Hanyu was only able to push back because she believes in the strength of her friends to help bring about a miracle.

So the battle begins. On one side is someone who seeks happiness for herself at the cost of everyone. And on the other end is everyone seeking their happiness together.

While Hanyu has been paving the way forward, Rika is still waiting in the space between time. Every other person has been gathered to fight for the miracle they want, but there's still someone who they haven't managed to secure just yet. And Rika calls out to the infinite timeline fragments hoping for an answer.

We cut to a different timeline several years after the Great Hinamizawa Disaster. Akasaka is on a job and for a moment he thinks he hears someone call him only to dismiss it. Akasaka's problem has always been that he never properly hears Rika's calls for help, and he's doing it again.

But that night, he cries out in his grief over never hearing Rika's warnings or her cries for help, and he cries out for another chance to set everything right. And he finally hears Rika's calls to him.

Something like this is probably what happened to Keiichi in Atonement, though he didn't need Rika to act as an intermediary. The sorrow and grief he felt in Abducted by Demons, and his wish to set everything right pushed itself beyond the fragment that he was in and flowed into the Keiichi of Atonement.

And now the grief and regrets of Akasaka of another fragment (I'll assume Time Killing) can travel beyond this fragment to reach the Akasaka of Festival Accompanying.

I'd only watched the anime of this arc prior to this reread and I was honestly floored by this moment. I actually began to cry when Rika asked for help.

In June 1983, Akasaka finds himself crying in the middle of his office. He doesn't know why but he felt like he heard a familiar voice. Then he sees some documents related to a big fixer who recently died (Koizumi) and how he'd been laundering money through a certain hospital in Hinamizawa.

As an aside, I wonder if some of the events in Beyond Midnight might have been something similar to what happened to Akasaka. Maybe the Rika and Mion from a later timeline were trying to reach out to the Shion in that fragment in the hopes that Shion's love for her sister and friends might get pushed forward to another Shion.

A lot of navel gazing from Hanyu. The scene of her standing around was from Curse-Killing, the absolute lowest point where everyone felt like they couldn't do anything at all.

...Um, Hanyu seems to have forgotten that Shion was in this scene. God has willed that Shion doesn't get to be a main character.

With every other piece in place, Hanyu moves herself onto the board by becoming a student at the school. Judging by Rika's expression, she was not expecting Hanyu to actually get directly involved like this.

back

[mareenavee]

Talk to me about plot bunnies! Since I know you're largely a planner/outliner, I have a question about what you do with the sorts of lightning bolt, "I wasn't planning on this" story ideas we all I think have to contend with at one point or another. How do you discipline plot bunnies in your writing - do you let them hop around, do you shuffle them into side projects, do they multiply unnoticed? What is the strangest/weirdest plot bunny you've hatched since you started The World on Our Shoulders that you've decided to not pursue after all? Alternatively, was there a plot idea that wasn't planned, but that since then happily made it in and hopped across the page? Bonus: with your editorial hat on, what advice would you give writers who suffer from plot bunny population booms?

HIII So sorry it's taken me a mortal age to get to this one LOL you know perhaps better than most that my writing has had me in a hyper focus for a WHILE. But I'm glad for it. This is fun because in the time since you asked this ONE plot bunny was allowed to escape LOL. I'll get to him in a second. You know the one.

But first, I do generally stick to the plan to get from point A to point B but I allow some creative freedom with the prose. Sometimes cool scenes crop up -- usually character building things. I have to keep an eye on my plot threads but there's still wiggle room. I like to cause problems on purpose. And sometimes if I write a scene and it doesn't quite fit, I move it into a fragment file and return to it later. And if I'm really feeling like the scene might fit sooner rather than later or be more fun to work with, I absolutely will shift cards around so to speak. A whole mini arc got added into the Raven Rock arc (second arc of the fic) because I was just feeling like shaking the jar of beans. Rude of me, I realize. I also dragged part of that encounter down to arc 1 to begin with, toward the end when I decided I was going to make trouble. This usually all stems from my practice of just writing ideas down when they come to me, after having a really long stretch of time where I wasn't really feeling very creative as the world was...well...you know. A few spinoff fics have been created from this. One is my Ondolemar project I'd hinted at here. Well... you did actually LOL. It had previously been unannounced. And I have another one where I'll redo the college of Winterhold later. I'm also really loving some of the prompts we've been coming up with here and there, especially the cursed kiss prompts (Ya'll can thank @thana-topsy's reply to this post for a few of ours at this point.) So at least one of those has become sort of more than expected; a plausible if not tragic end to my fic series.

Considering I'm not really opposed to the challenge of weird, as we've seen lately lol I've definitely decided that if an idea fits, there's a way to make it work within the fic universe or an alternate universe, really. But there was a point where I was deciding who would be a POV character and who wouldn't for World and, before Athis was a POV character (and he was very, very needed for the story) someone else had been. I have a fragment from something very early here in another ask. He'll be returning for the sideways sequel, so it's not that I just decided it was too weird, per se, more that the voice was better for a different idea.

Now on to my favorite plot bunny! VARLAIS. My new OC. My idiot (endearing.) He just...exists now. He was not in draft one. He was not in the first published version of World. But he just happened to be perfect for what I needed when I was, as mentioned, causing problems on purpose for the mini arc I'm currently working on in the WIP. And now everyone is in love with the boy, even though he'd probably break his leg trying to tie his shoes. (You can meet him in this post. ) He is a Thalmor, technically, and a spy. A double agent if you will. But we're not really sure if he's a good one? Somehow he's been surviving. He is being shuffled into the Ondolemar fic I've mentioned above, but for now he's finishing up the Raven Rock arc of the fic with Nyenna and Teldryn. Does his surname sound familiar? It's Ayleidoon for "Stars." It does mean something. Para, I know you've seen this. But, for those of you new to the chaos of a new OC just kind of willing themselves into existence, here's a snippet of the very first instance of Teldryn encountering the boy. This, by the way, was a very stupid mistake on both their parts. (:

From Chapter 25:

He didn’t get far. As he was adjusting the sail and knocking off as much ice as he could from the canvas, he heard the crunch of snow and wood from the abandoned, half-collapsed shack, which he’d completely forgotten to check. He’d barely spotted the Thalmor archer perched on the avalanche before the arrow caught him in the elbow. Pain exploded from the wound as he let out a strangled cry of surprise. His Candlelight spell ended abruptly. Something was wrong. The agony wasn’t isolated to the injury — it was radiating everywhere. The attacker ran to the shore in seconds and tossed a ball of Magelight in Teldryn’s direction. He made a show of jumping into the boat with unnatural grace. The Thalmor threw back his hood, scarred, gilded face grinning maliciously. Pin-straight, straw-colored hair fell forward, left half missing or trimmed away, revealing more angry scars on his skull and a network of burns on his neck that disappeared into his collar. “Goodnight,” he said. That was all. He waited. Bold of him, really. The two of them stared at each other for a moment — the Thalmor smug, Teldryn perplexed. He looked like the kind of person who would deserve to be stabbed in the neck with the same arrow he’d just shot someone in the elbow with. If only Teldryn could reach the damned thing. This was normally not a difficult or slow process. What the hell? Teldryn’s fingers were numb to the bone, more than they should’ve been in his gauntlets. He didn’t feel cold. In fact, all he felt was pain. He found no matter how hard he willed it, he couldn’t get his other arm to reach the arrow protruding out of the joint. The muscles were locking up. It struck him then exactly what this was. Fucking Paralysis poison. He tried to shout, to curse, to cast a spell — anything. But it was too late. He felt himself collapsing woodenly into the hull of the boat. His head struck one of the benches on the way down and his vision swam. He could not yell. Could not struggle. Could not even blink. The Thalmor archer walked toward the back of the boat around his limbs and kicked him out of the way with a derisive snort. His eyes, blue and full of hate in the Magelight, were the last things Teldryn saw before darkness closed around him.

[opheliajupiter99]

Scarlet Snowfall (Juu Flashback)

*High up upon a mountain, a small village lay mostly isolated. They had trade, and they allowed letters to the outside and other such things, but in terms of the people themselves, they were tight knit and kept themselves, some would say a bit too picky on how each one of them behaved*

*It was the kind of place where technically speaking, nothing was keeping anyone from leaving, but a strict sense of tradition and cultural attitudes made one feel almost guilted for wanting to leave. As such, a young Tabaxi woman, Mrs. Kageyama, and her husband had lived in the village all their lives*

*Most of their lives had been content and perfectly pleasant, not feeling the effects of their culture's strict views - that is, until the birth of their son Juu. Juu, from the moment he progressed past babyhood, proved to be extremely violent by nature, clawing, biting, and yowling, especially at strangers*

*Despite this, Mrs. Kageyama, as she went down the small path from her home towards the nearby forest, where she'd seen Juu run towards, found herself left angry at her son's actions, and angrier at the village itself. That is because she had seen, first-hand, that her son was capable of being calm, in his own odd way, much less prone to outbursts when he was around her and his father*

*She knew for certain that the village's insistence on him doing things like going to school, speaking, and making friends were only making him worse. And even with the state she was soon to find her son in, she would stand firmly to that thought*

(Gore and death warning below. I'll leave most to the imagination but still, you guys probably know by now I can get pretty gnarly lol)

*Her pace slowed as she heard the sounds of flesh tearing and squelching, until finally she came to a small clearing in the depths of the woods, her eyes widening*

*There, in the center of said clearing, was her dearest son Juu, only six years of age, sat before a small, mangled corpse, blood completely soaking the area, drenching the young boy, and the turning the fallen snow around him a bright scarlet*

"Juu?" *She said, the boy's ear flicking as he turned his head to look at her, the lower portion of his face splattered with blood, chewing on a mouthful of flesh as he stared at her with wide, curious eyes. She blinked rapidly, looking around the gore-ridden scene. The corpse he was feasting from was so savaged, she could hardly even recognize what it once was - though shredded fragments of a kimono strewn about confirmed her worst fears*

*She just...stood there for a moment, trying to process what she had seen and what to do next. Juu's happy expression slowly melted into one of innocent concern, genuinely not understanding why his mother was so upset, and stood up, moving over to her and giving her a hug, staining her own kimono with blood as well*

*She stared down at him for a moment, eyes still wide with shock - before with a soft sigh, she knelt down and hugged him in return. This would be different, she thought to herself, if there was malice; if she felt like he was doing these things out of hatred or cruelty, and she admitted it was easy to write all of these actions off as such. But those innocent looks in his eyes...she knew he considered all of this as normal as breathing, it's why he appeared so confused when the sight made her distraught*

*She knew perfectly well what would happen if the village knew what he'd done upon this day. They already loathed him enough for the dead animals and scratches and bites towards their neighbors, and she knew they wouldn't kill him, he wasn't even ten after all - or at least, she really hoped they wouldn't. Regardless, they couldn't know...they just couldn't*

*Sometime later, around the same time Juu's father returned from a rather lengthy trip to the village market, Mrs. Kageyama and little Juu returned home, kimonos freshly cleaned, as the loving mother tended to the boy, who to his father's surprise was even calmer than usual, until bedtime came, and his mother soothingly sang him to sleep...*

*Even as the village panicked over one they were missing..*

[localwebslingers]

It was hard to fight to keep the hurt out of his features at the news, it was impossible to and Peter wasn't sure he had it in him to try very hard either. Not on top of everything else that had happened. No memory about what had happened with Venom, and maybe even with the symbiote as a whole, that he could swallow easily enough. That was what, a week? Maybe a little more than that? It was hard to say when he was bouncing between universes but that sounded right. That would be easy to help fill in the gaps. What Harry was describing, the details and fragments, was so much more than that and Peter wasn't sure there was anyone who would hear that news and be happy about it. Not fully, not deep down.

But...there were those details. Remembering laughing or cooking things together, Harry didn't know him but he still read him just fine by the sounds of it. Even if it was based on instinct from the familiarity of it, he could, "So...you don't know me, but you do." he said slowly, watching Harry a moment in case that explanation needed corrected or added to, before he nodded slowly, "Okay..." Peter took a slow breath and swallowed, "It...isn't great to hear, I'm not going to lie, and I'm sure it's even worse and more stressful for you, but okay." because even if it wasn't fast, even if it was only scraps right now, it was still something.

It was still a reasonably good chance that, with some time, more would come back and sort itself out.

Peter wasn't going to hide that it hurt, but that didn't mean he was going anywhere, "Then...I guess I should clarify a few things that I kinda assumed that you already knew?" he tired carefully, watching Harry a moment and pointing towards him, "Like, you can read the frown I have and what it means, and I know what that look you have right now actually means." that guarded, careful look he'd seen come down slowly with time, and eventually watched hold one moment with others and fall completely when it was just them. If Harry couldn't remember him, and more importantly if that slow to trust nature was still at the forefront and it seemed like it was, then it seemed only fair to tell him that for as well as he could read Peter, the same could be said the other way around.

"But most importantly right now," he continued, "at least I think it's the most important part, is me coming to see you here. Right now I'm sure Norman is on his way over here because someone called him to say I got in here, that I even found it at all. Becuase I don't think he hates me, but he might not be my biggest fan either." Peter cracked a small smile, "I might have very carefully told him to back off more than once and the impression he gave about it was a mixture of respect that I would but also how dare I." which really was probably the best result he was going to get. Peter was in a pretty good place for it.

"He'll probably insist I leave when he gets here, or just demand I do, I'm not really sure. But I won't...unless you want me to." he tilted his head to nod back to the door out of the lab, "You say you want me to leave, I'll go right now. If when your dad gets here, you decide that's too many people and you want me to go, then I will, but I'm not going because he wants me to. I'm here for you, not him, so as far as I'm concerned you're the one who can ask me to go. And I'll come back, maybe later today, or tomorrow, or in four days if that's what needs to happen, but I will, Harry. I promise you that."

|| @inhcritance ||

He'd woken up with nothing but the bloodlust in his veins, at some point. He'd seen nothing but fear and confusion and the need to lash out, to heed those whispers. They had been all-consuming, at first. And that had felt like a dream, in a way.

Then he'd woken up, and he'd felt a bit more human. He'd felt like the most basic shape a human mind could have, and some things had come back. Some things he'd gathered, from what he'd listened. And some things, he was just trying to piece together from sensations and dreams of senses and little more than that, and it was as frustrating as it was terrifying, to someone who had been used to hoarding knowledge in search of opportunities. And he could remember that, just like he could remember a dozen thousands of disjointed moments.

Just like he could read the shifts of Peter's weight, the way his face showed emotion. It felt familiar, it felt true. It felt also a shade wrong, because he was not fond of the worry, nor of the conclusions Peter was likely reaching. Because without his memories... what was Harry?

"It wasn't easy, from what I've been told." He conceded, his smile a shade mournful. Because he could recall so little about it, and he knew they were trying to keep it from him, and he didn't know if it was worth trusting their criteria.

He was not too good at trusting, he was finding out. He wished he knew what had led him to that. Or maybe it had just been part of who he was, enough to survive what had happened to him.

But then Peter reached the right conclusion, and Harry did not need to consider it for long, before he nodded. Because there would be little point in going back on his choice now.

"I remember the sound of your heartbeat, and the smell of cooking pancakes. I remember your laughter, and that little frown in your face." He settled on. And then, "I remember a thousand little details, each one sharper than the previous ones. But that's it." He admitted, shrug nonchalant, almost easy. A familiar lie, in a way.

The kind of lies he used to protect himself when he felt he was about to be hurt, and wanted to keep himself safe. Alas, good liar that he might have been, he wasn't sure it would be enough.

"Some things are coming back." He sighed, in the end, before sitting on the bed himself, managing to at least walk back without the screaming getting worse. "But it's not... fast."

@localwebslingers

[sage-nebula]

STH — Beyond Oblivion, ch.1

Notes: Six days ago I made this post, wherein I talked about being inspired by @chaoxfix's works (specifically "build away and away and away", which is fantastic and you all should read it) to think of a world where Sonic didn't exist, and so Eggman raised Tails instead. I couldn't stop thinking of the idea, and so here we are, the first proper fic I've written in a while. Thank you, Chaofix, for the inspiration; it feels nice to really write something after so long.

This is still rough; I'll probably clean it up later before putting it on AO3. But until then, here's chapter one. Fic title comes from this song from the Neo: TWEWY soundtrack.

Summary: After an accident with what is believed to be a fragment of the Phantom Ruby, Sonic is catapulted into a world where he never existed, leaving Tails to be raised by the one person who should never be put in charge of children.

— — —

“Wow. That’s the biggest chunk of ugly red rock we’ve found yet. Think it’s real?”

“Not sure. I’m scanning its composite signature now so we can compare it to that of the real ruby. We should know in a few minutes.”

“Gotcha. Thanks, li’l bro.”

“No prob—hey, did you see something move over there?”

“Huh? Where?”

“On the other side of the—isn’t that Shadow’s chao?”

“Shadow’s chao? What’s that doing her—hey, stop!”

“Is it trying to take the ruby?!”

“Not if I have anything to say about—”

“Sonic, don’t—!”

Sonic’s eyes shot open.

Above him was a dismal grey sky thick with clouds, a stark contrast from the clear blue of before. Under his back was dying, yellowed grass, scratchy against his quills and so different from the sweeping green plains he and Tails had found the Phantom Ruby chunk in moments before. When he closed his eyes, Sonic could see the chunk of ruby glistening in the dirt, the tiny black paws of Shadow’s chao reaching for it. Sonic could see his own hand reaching out, pushing the chao back . . . and his knuckles swiping across the gleaming, glowing stone.

Sonic snorted as he opened his eyes again.

Well, that answered the question of whether the ruby chunk was real or not.

He sat up, and rolled his shoulders to work the stiffness out of them. It felt like only a second had passed, but the throbbing through his body suggested otherwise. There wasn’t much around him; a parched plain stretched for miles in any direction he could see, barren trees dotting the landscape here or there and what looked like a rocky mountain range in the distance. It was . . . wrong. Sonic didn’t know where he was, but he knew that it was wrong. The grass, the trees—they shouldn’t look like this. And the wind, growing stronger by the second, stank of exhaust even though there weren’t any cities around for—

Sonic jolted to his feet as a foghorn blared, setting his every quill on edge. For a half second, he had no idea where it came from; but as the rank aware gusted around him in a cyclone, he finally turned his eyes back up to the dismal sky, and felt both recognition and revulsion at once.

“Huh,” Sonic muttered. “Didn’t realize he put it back in commission.”

Eggman’s airship—the Flying Battery.

A gargantuan mass of steel and gunpowder, the Flying Battery was, at one time, the military flagship of Eggman’s would-be empire. Boasting more cannons than badniks, the Flying Battery was meant to rain unrelenting missile fire onto the world below, and smog into the sky above. Not that it had much of a chance, of course; Sonic had wasted no time (but had plenty of fun) ripping it apart from the inside out before he sent it careening to a fiery demise.

Yet here it was again, leisurely wading through the clouds as it trailed smog and—Sonic realized, the ground pulsing beneath his feet—bad music behind it. Because the throbbing he had felt before wasn’t coming from inside him, but from inside the ship above his head; a pulsing beat radiating over the empty plain.

Sonic frowned, and tapped his foot.

He didn’t know where he was. He was only vaguely sure of how he got there. And one look his wrist communicator, which flashed a dead signal message back at him, told him he wasn’t going to be able to call Tails for a lift back home any time soon. But no matter where he was, there was never a bad time to bring down a megalomaniac’s prized warship.

Sonic grinned, and sped off after it.

- - -

Hitching a ride on the Flying Battery was as easy as it ever was, if a bit slow for his tastes. All he had to do was wait for it to pass by the mountain peak where he waited, and then take a flying leap. Easy as pie, none of the security sensors so much as twitched a cannon in his direction.

If he was honest with himself, Sonic would say he was a little disappointed.

The Flying Battery was much as it had been before, albeit with a few more clucks guarding the corridors than he remembered. The curious thing Sonic noticed as he smashed each and every one to bits was that not a single one had an animal powering it. As yet another technosqueak broke apart against the wall, not a single flicky or ricky scampered out. And they weren’t concussed, either, as sometimes happen when a bot bash was particularly rough; Sonic took care to pick through the pieces of broken machinery, and found not a strand of fur or loose feather for his efforts.

Weird. But not unwelcome.

The badniks were sparse, anyway. It was how it had been in the past, too; the Flying Battery boasted traps and cannons, with badniks being put to use as shock troops and foot soldiers down on solid ground. It was for this reason that Sonic was able to make his way to the engine room pretty quickly, even for him, leaving a trail of smashed cannons and broken badniks in his wake. He roughly remembered where it was from the last time he was on the ship, but even if he hadn’t, it wasn’t hard to find; the thumping bass audible from the earth below only got louder the deeper into the ship he went, and outside the engine room door it was so powerful it rattled his ribcage from the inside out.

Sonic grimaced. His ears were going to hate him for this later.

The second the door to the engine room slid open, the pounding bass transformed into blaring EDM. On instinct to protect his hearing, Sonic clapped his hands over his ears and scanned the room. The engine room didn’t look much different from how he remembered it. The engine itself was situated dead center, taking up most of the available space, and the music was blasting from a speaker in the upper right corner of the room. But as much as his first instinct was to throw a couple quills through the center of the speaker to shut the noise off, what caught his attention in a lightning-fast vice grip wasn’t the music at all, but instead the fluffy orange fox tails poking out from behind the engine.

Sonic slowly lowered his hands from his ears. “Tails? Is that you?”

The tails—Tails’ tails—twitched, but otherwise there was no movement from behind the engine. Before Sonic could call out to him again, though, the music’s volume jumped up another few decibels. Sonic’s eyes widened, his jaw dropped a little in indignation.

Did Tails seriously just turn up the music to drown him out?

Sonic scanned the room, but there was nothing immediately available that suggested a control for the speaker. That being the case, he settled for the next best thing; in two bounds he cleared the room and up the wall, and with one solid yank he pulled the cords connecting the speaker to the wall loose. The music cut out instantly with nothing but a sputtering crackle for its efforts, and in the newfound silence in the room (and ringing in his ears), Sonic heard metal clang to the floor behind the engine.

“Ugh, are you serious?” Tails—and that was definitely Tails, Sonic would recognize his voice anywhere—snapped. Sonic hopped back down to the floor as Tails, lying horizontal on a metal scooter, slid out from behind the engine. “I swear, there better be an emergency for you to—”

Tails’ voice died in his throat as he sat up and looked in Sonic’s direction, and Sonic didn’t need to see the eyes behind the welding goggles to recognize Tails’ shock. He grinned, and raised his hand in a wave. “Hey buddy.”

Tails said nothing. He moved his welding goggles up to the top of his head, and continued to stare at Sonic for a moment, his expression uncomprehending. Then, before Sonic could do or say anything to break Tails from his stupor, Tails frowned and bounded up off his scooter, circling Sonic with a look of intense concentration.

Sonic raised his eyebrows, bemused, as Tails poked one of his quills. “Uh, bud—”

“What are you?” Tails asked, and before Sonic had a chance to laugh at the ridiculousness of the question, he continued, “You’re definitely not a robot, or at least not one of the Doctor’s models. You don’t look like one of Dr Starline’s either, unless . . .” Tails, now standing in front of Sonic again, frowned as he met Sonic’s eyes. “Are you a cyborg? But no, that doesn’t make sense. There’s no way his experiments have progressed to the prototype stage yet, especially since I’m supposed to be—”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down.” Sonic held his hands up, and Tails, still frowning, took a step back. “I’m not a robot, and I’m definitely not a cyborg. I’m 100% pure hedgehog.” As Tails’ dubious frown deepened, Sonic patted his hand over his heart. “Tails, it’s me. Sonic. Don’t you recognize me?”

The moment the name Tails left Sonic’s mouth, Tails scowled, his hackles raising slightly over his teeth. “I’ve never seen you before in my life. And you’ve obviously never met me, otherwise you’d know my name is Miles.”

“Well, yeah, your first name is, but . . .” Sonic frowned as Tails turned back toward the engine. “Wait, what are you talking about, you’ve never seen me before? I’m your best friend.”

Tails scoffed. “I don’t have friends, much less a best one. You’re thinking of someone else.”

Sonic opened his mouth to point out how ridiculous that was, but closed it a second later. Now that he got a better look at Tails, something was definitely wrong (and that was an understatement considering Tails had been working on the engine of one of Eggman’s warships, but besides that). He was Tails, unmistakably, but with differences, like he was one of those “spot the differences” picture puzzles. His fur was orange, but grimier and matted in a few different places, such as clumps behind his knees and around his elbows. His eyes were blue, but the right one had a strange, glassy look to it, and caught the light oddly depending on how Tails tilted his head. More alarming was the chunk that was missing from the outer edge of his left ear, as though something had jammed straight through it and ripped a piece off. His gloves were black with red trim, and instead of sneakers he had donned a pair of work boots. Which, whatever, if he was working instead of running—but Sonic had never seen him wear boots like that once in his entire life. And considering Sonic himself had practically raised him, that was saying something. This was Tails, but it wasn’t Tails. Which meant—what? Had the Phantom Ruby sent him to another dimension? But couldn’t it only do that when used with the Chaos Emeralds? And it wasn’t even the whole ruby, so why—

Tails groaned, breaking Sonic from his thoughts, and rubbed his forehead between two fingers. “I have a headache. And what did you do to the speaker?” Before Sonic could answer, he looked up in its direction, scowling at the dangling wires. “Did you just rip them out?”

“Yup,” Sonic said, and popped his lips on the “p”. Tails turned his indignant stare on him; Sonic stared unrepentantly back. “And it’s a good thing I did, since the ear-shattering volume you had it on is probably why you have a headache.”

Tails rolled his eyes. “No, I just haven’t had a chance to eat today. And now that I have to fix the speaker on top of the modifications to the engine, I won’t be able to eat until even later. So thanks.”

“The speaker and the engine can wait. Food comes first, always.” Sonic put out a hand to stop Tails from making it to the toolkit open beside the engine, but Tails batted his hand away.

“Maybe wherever you come from, but not here.” Tails paused, and scrunched his nose as he looked back up at Sonic. “Where did you come form, anyway? How did you get up here? If you're not a robot or a cyborg, there’s no way you made it up here. Am I hallucinating?”

“Do I look like a hallucination?” Sonic asked, and before Tails could answer, he poked Tails’ cheek. Tails swatted his hand away again. “Nah, I just jumped on when you passed by those mountains down there. Easy-peasy.”

“‘Easy-peasy,’” Tails repeated flatly. Sonic nodded, grinning, and Tails shook his head as he knelt down beside his toolkit. “Well, go jump back down onto the mountain, or wherever else you can go that’s not here. I’m busy.”

“And leave you here? Yeah, no dice,” Sonic said. Because Tails might not have been his Tails, but there was no reality Sonic could think of where he’d just leave Tails by himself on an Eggman warship. “What are you doing here, anyway? And what happened to your ear?”

“I work here,” Tails said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. His left ear twitched when Sonic mentioned it, but he otherwise ignored the question as he pulled a pair of wire cutters out of his toolbox.

“For Eggman?” Sonic barked a laugh. “Come on, get real.”

Tails shot Sonic a weird look before he spun his tails to gain altitude, hovering up near the broken speaker. “Who’s Eggman?”

“Uh, the megalomaniac who owns this warship?” Sonic said, and when Tails gave him another strange look, spread his arms wide. “Big guy. Bald head. Orange mustache. Makes a lot of ugly robots and tries to take over the world with them.”

“Oh, you mean Dr Robotnik.” Tails used the wire cutters to clip away one of the broken cords of the speaker, and tossed it onto the floor. “Why’d you call him ‘Eggman’?”

“Beeecause that’s his name?”

“No it’s not.”

“Well, it is where I’m from.” Sonic crossed his arms and tapped his foot as Tails dropped another clipped wire to the floor. “But whatever, doesn’t matter. You can’t seriously be telling me you work for that guy.”

“I can and am, because I do. Have since I was like, four.” Tails scowled at the back of the speaker. “Could you have done a worse job on this? You tore part of the connector off halfway. This is going to be so annoying to fix.”

“That’s the least of my concerns right now,” Sonic said, as Tails dropped back down to the floor. He reached out a hand to steady Tails as Tails stumbled, but once more Tails ducked under his hand and made his way to the toolkit. “What do you mean, you’ve worked for him since you were four? Where was I?”

“I don’t know, where were you?” Tails quipped, as he dropped the wire cutters back into the box. Sonic fought the urge to roll his eyes, and channeled his energy into tapping his foot instead.

“Look, Tails—”

Tails whipped back around to look at him, gaze burning. “Miles.”

Sonic returned his stare in kind. “Look, Miles. I don’t know what’s going on here. Frankly, I’m not even from here and from the looks of things so far I don’t wanna be—”

“Then leave.”

“—but this whole situation?” Sonic gestured to Tails, and then the engine room at large. “Is messed up. And I’m not leaving here without you.”

“Then I guess you’re not leaving, because I’m stationed on the Flying Battery at least until it docks tonight, and probably even later if I don’t finish the engine modifications by then.” Tails dug a few black cables from among the loose parts in the bottom of the toolkit. “But you should know that Dr Robotnik is going to be waiting at the dock so he can check over my work, and if you’re here he’s not going to be happy since I’m the only sentient thing authorized to be on the ship right now. So it’d really be better for both of us if you got out now, or at least within the next hour.”

“‘Sentient thing?’ I think the word you’re looking for is ‘person,’” Sonic said, but Tails ignored him, still rummaging through the toolkit. “But sure, I’d be happy to leave. I finished just about everything I wanted to do before I came in here anyway. So once you’re ready to go, just say the word.”

“Everything you wanted to do?” Tails furrowed his brow, and then sat back on his haunches as he looked up at Sonic. “What do you mean? Why are you up here, anyway?”

“Oh, you know,” Sonic said vaguely, and he folded his arms behind his head as he grinned. “Seeing the sights, trashing the place. The usual.”

Tails snorted, and turned back to his toolkit. “Yeah, okay. Good joke.”

“I’m not joking,” Sonic said, and when Tails made another disbelieving sound in the back of his throat, added, “I smashed every cannon and badnik on the ship before I made my way back here. I went through every room. You can go see for yourself if you’d like.” And then, as soon as he was in the open air, Sonic would grab him and jump ship. Not that Tails needed to know that, of course.

“Yeah, sure. And then you can get a good laugh while I waste even more of my time looking at a perfectly in-tact warship.” Tails peered at another pair of cables before evidently deciding they weren’t good enough and dropping them back in the box. “No thanks.”

Sonic couldn’t help it; he laughed. “I’m not—”

“Look, I don’t know you. And I know you don’t know me.” Tails finally stood up from the toolkit and looked back at Sonic, who once again felt an uneasy swoop through his stomach at the odd way the light glinted off his right eye. It was almost as if it wasn’t— “But I’ve been a sysadmin of the Robotnik Empire since I was four, and chief mechanic for almost as long. I’d know if something was going wrong on this ship. I installed all the sensors and alarms myself.”

“Then you might want to double-check ‘em, because either they didn’t work or your music drowned them out,” Sonic said flatly, fighting against the bristle in his quills at Tails’ stated life story. “Because I’m telling you, I trashed the whole ship on my way here, and had a good time doing it, too.”

Tails rolled his eyes. “You’re lying—”

“I’m not,” Sonic interrupted. “I would never lie to you.”

Tails watched him for a second before he sighed, and shook his head. “Okay,” he said, and gestured for Sonic to follow him as he looped around the front of the engine. “Come here, then.”

Sonic followed, and watched as Tails brushed his fingers along the metal countertop jutting out of the left wall. Instantly, the steel paneling in the wall flared to life, revealing itself to not be paneling at all, but a wall of computer monitors, ten in total. The countertop gleamed with a luminescent keyboard, across which Tails’ fingers skipped as he entered in a username and password.

“This is the central processing mainframe of the entire ship. All of its artillery, security systems, and defenses are controlled through here,” Tails explained. He didn’t once look back at Sonic as he did so. “And if something happened to damage any component of the ship, not only would I be able to see it from here, but alarm would have . . . been . . . trigg . . .”

All ten monitors connected to a different security camera around the Flying Battery, and while each one focused on a different area of the ship, each one showed a similar level of carnage. Pieces of badniks were strewn across the corridors. Cannons smoked feebly where they had been destroyed. Lights were shattered and dangling from the ceiling by half-torn cords.

“This . . . this can’t . . .” Tails switched the feed on a few of them, tapping into different cameras around the ship. More than one of them returned nothing but static to their feed. Sonic examined his fingernails.

“Told ya,” he said, as Tails frantically opened another program on the computer. “I’m very thorough.”

“I didn’t hear it,” Tails whispered, staring in horror at the list of ignored warnings and alerts his security program now displayed. “The security system did go off, it did alert me, but I . . . I didn’t hear it, I didn’t notice.”

“See, that’s what happens when you play your music too loud.” Sonic tsked his tongue. “I’ve told you before, buddy, you’re gonna blow your ears out one of these days. Music is just as enjoyable at a normal volume. Maybe even more so.”

Tails wasn’t listening. He splayed both hands next to his keyboard, leaning forward with his head bowed. “It’s gone. It’s all gone. Everything, destroyed. The whole ship is destroyed. I haven’t finished modifying the input-output ratio of the engine, but that doesn’t even matter because the artillery and defense systems and everything on the entire ship has been destroyed and I—I just let it happen, I didn’t even notice, someone infiltrated the ship and destroyed it and I didn’t even notice—”

Sonic frowned. Tails’ breathing was shallow and quick, tremors starting to wrack through his body. “Whoa, Tails—”

“And now it’s wrecked, and—and—and destroyed, and in pieces and we dock in an hour, in less than an hour and I have nothing—I have a—have worse than nothing to show for it, because at least if I had nothing it would be at the—at the baseline, sa-same as it was before, and that wouldn’t be great but it would be better than having less than nothing because everything is destroyed and broken and ruined and this isn’t possible or acceptable and he’s gonna be furious—!”

“Tails!” Sonic grabbed Tails’ shoulders, in an effort to ground him, to steady him, but Tails flinched and yanked himself out of Sonic’s grasp, stumbling back against the countertop. “Stop, okay? Breathe. You’re gonna be—”

“I can—!” Tails’ voice broke off in a squeak, and then violent coughs; he doubled over, and wrapped his arms around himself as choked over gulps of air. Once more Sonic reached out to steady him, and once more Tails stumbled back, away from his touch. “I can’t—I can’t—I ha-have to—”

“Breathe,” Sonic said, and when Tails’ eyes flicked to him, he took a slow, deep breath, and then exhaled it just as slowly. “Just like that. In, and out. Nice, slow, and—”

Tails screwed his eyes shut, and yanked his ears down against his head, squeezing them tight. “Don’t—don’t tell me what to do! This is your fault! You did this! You—you broke everything, and wrecked it, and we dock in an hour and Dr Robotnik is going to see it and I—”

“You aren’t going to be here,” Sonic said firmly, even as Tails shook his head, releasing his grips on his ears to tug one of his tails around him instead. His grip on it was like iron. “Egghead can think whatever he wants, but he can think it far away from you. We’re leaving.”

“No.” Tails continued to twist his tail in his fist, in a way that honestly looked like it would be painful to Sonic, and chewed hard on the fingers of his other hand, his eyes darting around the room. His breathing was still quick, and Sonic noticed punctures in Tails’ glove now that looked like they’d been made with his own teeth. “No, no, I can—if I work now, and have a boost, then I can—I can fix it, or at least most of it, at least the actual structural damage to the ship before we land, and then he never has to know that I screwed up and ruined anything and that I’m not useful anymore—”

“Tails—”

“—and—and everything will be, it’ll be, I can do it, I can, I can—” Tails flew the short distance back over to his toolkit, and unceremoniously dumped it over, spilling tools and loose parts over the grated floor. A peal of frantic giggles escaped him as he picked a vial of glowing magenta liquid off the floor, and tossed the toolbox over his shoulder. A shiver raced up Sonic’s spine. “Yes, yes, this can work, it can—I can—”

“Wait, Tails—stop a minute, okay?” Sonic grabbed Tails’ wrist, and as if on instinct Tails threw his entire body weight to the floor, twisting to get out of Sonic’s grasp. Sonic didn’t let go. “Just—stop. What is that you have? It looks like the junk from Eggman’s chemical plant.”

Tails gave Sonic a baleful stare. “It’s a performance enhancement serum developed by Dr Starline. If ingested orally or intravenously, it shuts down pain receptors, heightens muscle strength and elasticity, and enhances adrenaline output to—hey, what—what are you doing?!”

Tails’ voice broke off in a shriek as Sonic swiped the vial from his hand and threw it hard against the opposite wall. The glass shattered, and its contents oozed down the wall and onto the floor.

“Nothing made by Starline has any business being anywhere near you,” Sonic said, fighting to control his own temper as Tails stared in horror at the ooze on the wall. “Shutting down pain receptors? Enhancing whatever? Were you listening to yourself?”

“It’s the only way I can fix anything,” Tails said in a tiny voice. Sonic’s anger started to fade as he felt Tails shaking in his grasp. “It’s the only chance I have and—and you—you broke that, too—”

Sonic sighed. “Nothing here needs to be fixed, aside from the fact that you’re still here when you really shouldn’t be. Come on, we’re bailing.”

“No.” Tails threw his weight hard against Sonic’s grip as Sonic tried to pull him up from the floor. Sonic gritted his teeth, and swallowed down any guilt that started to well up at the tears that started to pool in Tails’ left eye. “No, you’re not—you’ve done enough, stop, stop trying to make things even worse—”

“I’m not making things worse, I’m trying to help—”

“You’ve destroyed and ruined everything—!”

“I haven’t—”

“Just stop and let me go, let me go, let go, let go, let—!”

“No, I—ow, Tails—!”

Tails kicked Sonic hard, the sole of his boot connecting with Sonic’s knee hard enough to make him stumble and loosen his grip. Tails didn’t waste a second; he twisted free of Sonic’s hold and dodged around him, sprinting for the door.

“Oh no you don’t!”

Tails barely cleared the doorway before Sonic was on him. Sonic wrapped his arms around Tails in a bear hug, and in an instant Tails thrashed in his hold, kicking both feet back against Sonic’s legs and twisting around as hard as he could manage it.

“Damn it, Tails, just listen—”

“No, let me go!”

“So you can try hiding in an air duct or something? Not likely. We’re leaving.”

“No! You can’t make me!”

It was so childish Sonic might have laughed, were it not for the way Tails was digging his elbow into Sonic’s ribs. “Wanna bet?”

A wordless, furious growl escaped Tails instead of an articulate response, and for just a moment, he slowed his struggling. Sonic loosened his grip a tad, hoping that maybe Tails had tired himself out and was going to see reason—only for Tails to twist around and sink his teeth into Sonic’s arm.

He bit him. He actually bit him!

Sonic yelped and released Tails, who dropped to the floor in an undignified heap. But he once again wasted no time; he scrambled to his feet and took off down the hall, tails whirling to boost his speed.

Oh, that was it. Sonic’s patience was officially gone.

He tore down the corridor after Tails, who—despite using his tails to increase his speed—only managed to make it around one corner and halfway up to an air vent in the ceiling by the time Sonic found him. Sonic snorted. Predictable. Tails whipped around as Sonic neared, and held the vent cover between them like a shield.

“For what it’s worth,” Sonic said, “I really don’t want to do this. And I’m sorry in advance.”

Tails narrowed his eyes. “Don’t want to do wha—?”

Before he had time to finish his sentence, Sonic zipped under and behind him. And before Tails had a chance to turn, Sonic skirted up the wall and knocked his elbow into the pressure point at the base of Tails’ neck, near the top of his spine. The vent cover clattered to the floor as Tails went limp, and Sonic caught Tails in a bridal carry just before he hit the floor.

“Sorry, bud. But this is for your own good.” Sonic shifted Tails into a more comfortable position in his arms, and after a millisecond of consideration, placed a quick kiss to his little brother’s forehead. Then he set off to find a parachute, so they could leave the Flying Battery behind them.

[academicgangster]

what are your favorite canon ice/mav moments? :)

Ah, but there are a lot of those, anon! :D Mav and Ice are great at bringing the tension even with the quickest of exchanges, so practically every moment makes it onto the list.

(I'm about to get on a plane without my laptop, so I'll say right now that I'm probably going to remake this post with gifs in a few days. You can still reblog in the meanwhile!)

From Mav and Ice's very "that is a dominant and that is a masochist" enemies-to-lovers vibe in 1986 to their former-enemies-now-only-lovers married for years vibe in 2022, it's all golden. They have a whole arc, and I'll show you what I mean:

ACT I. SEARING SEXUAL TENSION

Searing sexual tension at their first meeting at the club ("No, you mean notorious. I'll see you later." "You can count on it.")

The Snap, obviously, with Ice telling Mav to never leave his wingman (a decent case for Mav being a few years younger, scrappier, than Ice)

Searing sexual tension in the air. ("Just a walk in the park, Kazansky." The looks on their faces are competitive, but a lot more than that. They're respectful rivals, both the kind of people who are turned on by a challenge, and it shows.)

ACT II. HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO HANDLE THE WEIGHT OF THIS

Ice trying his best to reassure Mav after Goose's death, to reach out and offer him the tiniest bit of comfort when everyone else around him (including Viper, a straight-up parent figure) is refusing to handle grief. Ice doesn't do great at this - he's also young and also, clearly, doesn't know how - but he's clearly genuinely trying, and he notably does a lot better than Charlie in the very next scene.

Mav coming back to graduate, shaking Ice's hand to congratulate him, looking genuinely happy for him and supportive of him - there's zero grudge or competitiveness here, which I really think points to the important core tenet of Mav Being A Good Boy.

ACT III. WINGMAN OUT OF TEN

Mav refusing to leave Ice, and relentlessly pursuing and shooting down the MiG that's chasing Ice.

The Wingman Hug we all know and love. The one that spawned fic upon fic of their wedding vows (guilty, lol). The one that persists all the way into the angsty, angsty present day.

And then, speaking of the present day, there's ACT IV. FORMER ENEMIES, LONGTIME LOVERS

Sugar Daddy Guardian Angel: We hear that ~mysterious forces~ are responsible for keeping Mav up in the air, where he belongs. We then pretty much immediately learn that said mysterious force is Iceman. Mav is not surprised about this. In fact, it's apparently such common knowledge that literally no one in the narrative is surprised about this. Iceman kicks off the whole plot of TGM. Those kids came home safe because Ice fought for Mav to train them.

Pictures Hanging In The Hallway (And The Fragment Of A Song): Who put those pictures in the hall at TOPGUN? Mav hasn't been back there in decades. Cyclone sure as hell isn't going to come up with that shit. I bet it was Ice who did it - and Mav's little smile at Ice's picture is the fucking cutest thing I've ever seen.

Everyone Kind Of Acknowledging They're All But Married (Sugar Daddy Guardian Angel 2.0): We hear of their bond from Cyclone and Penny; we see it in their texts. We see it at Ice's house.

There's That Picture Again, This Time In Ice's Study: Mav finally lets himself break in front of Ice, the literal only person he ever cries in front of. Ice is the only one who can truly break his defences down, get vulnerable truths out of him he would never discuss with anyone else. And Mav clearly doesn't want to bother Ice, with how sick he is, but all Ice ever had to do was ask, and Mav will give him whatever truth he wants.

Mav Giving Ice His Wings: Mav officiates Ice's funeral, and straight up gives him a piece of himself to keep for eternity. If that isn't love, I don't know what is.

tl;dr I love these idiots and their love for each other right to the very fucking end.

[silverynight]

Protective

Izuku finds himself in the hospital again. It's definitely something he's gotten used to since he got in the UA; the only difference is that this time he almost dies.

His mother, All Might and his classmates go to see him a couple of times; Bakugo is oddly silent, standing in a corner with his arms crossed over his chest and looking anywhere but at Izuku while the others are telling him how worried they were.

Izuku wonders if Bakugo was brought there by Kirishima and Kaminari against his will and sighs with a fond smile on his face as he realizes that he's the same as always.

Choosing not to worry anymore about his childhood friend, Izuku looks up at Todoroki, who's trying his best to make him feel better even though he's not that good at it.

***

He returns to his classes pretty soon, he's not allowed to train or exercise the first couple of days though it's the last thing in his mind at the moment. Izuku is just so happy to be back.

It takes him a while to notice that something is not quite as it used to be. At first Izuku thinks it's just because he's giving Bakugo the space he was constantly begging for since things turned out bad for their relationship when they were just kids, but it's just that everything has gotten considerably more quiet because Bakugo has stopped growling and insulting him at all.

But that's not the weirdest thing that happens.

It begins when he's walking next to Iida, Uraraka and Todoroki back to Heights Alliance when a boy runs towards them (he's clearly in a hurry so he doesn't seem to be paying attention to his surroundings) and bumps into Izuku, prompting him to fall to the ground.

"Ouch!" He can't help but yelp.

Quickly, Todoroki asks if he's alright and offers him a hand.

"Hey! Be careful!" Uraraka is already hissing at the boy, but he looks so concerned that she calms down immediately.

"I'm so sorry!" The boy mumbles again.

"It's alright." Izuku grins at him at the same time Iida starts giving the boy a speech about rules and security.

And that's when it happens. The boy is suddenly grabbed by the shirt, a strong hand quickly slamming him against the nearest wall.

He's terrified and honestly Izuku doesn't blame him. Bakugo has that effect on almost everyone even when he's not that angry.

But now... Now he's livid.

"I SAW HIM FALL, YOU FUCKING EXTRA!" Bakugo roars, baring his teeth at the poor, terrified soul. "Now... If he has ONE scratch on his body because of you then consider yourself dead..."

"I didn't mean t-to!" The boy stammers, unable to control the way he's trembling.

It's the little explosions coming from Bakugo's open hand what make Izuku react; his friends are probably as shocked and confused as him because they haven't say a word.

"Kacchan, stop! I'm fine!" Izuku takes a step closer which prompts the grumpy blond to glance in his direction. "Don't hurt him! It was an accident! He apologized already!"

Bakugo's eyes roam all over Izuku's body before snarling at the pale boy. He huffs and releases him though, prompting him to fall on the ground.

"You're lucky," He tells the other student before the boy runs away.

Iida starts scolding Bakugo for his behavior but the blond ignores him completely and gets closer to Izuku. With one hand he grabs the green haired boy by the chin.

"You better not be lying to me, Deku," he warns him. "Are you really not hurt?"

"Not even a scratch, uhh–"

Todoroki slaps Bakugo's arm away from Izuku; the boy narrows his mismatched eyes at him.

"That's enough, Bakugo. You'll be the one hurting Midoriya if you keep like–"

Bakugo growls; he's fuming. His red eyes are almost glowing with rage.

"I'M NOT HURTING HIM! I WON'T HURT HIM, YOU HALF AND HALF BASTARD! THAT'S WHAT YOU THINK?"

"Based on what I've heard about your relationship, wouldn't be the first time, would it?"

This time the blond doesn't have an answer. Actually, he looks like he's been hit across the face.

Instead of the explosive rage Izuku is used to see in him, Bakugo freezes and looks at the ground.

"Kacchan, Todoroki..."

But Bakugo just shakes his head and walks away.

***

Izuku grins the first day back at the gym; Cementoss has prepared the place for them to train and he can't wait to use OFA again. He needs to practice if he wants to keep up with the rest of the class.

Above him, he hears a couple of explosions and a growl; Bakugo has fallen for the third time in the day, Izuku has no idea what's happening to him, it's not like him to fail so many times.

He considers running towards him to see if he's alright, but remembers all the times Bakugo has slapped his hand away and snarled at him, claiming he didn't ask for help. So Izuku, feeling like a terrible person, decides to leave it to the teachers.

"Focus, Bakugo!" Aizawa scolds him and upon hearing the irritation in his voice Izuku knows the blond isn't actually injured. "You're very distracted today. It's not your job to keep an eye on–"

"I'M NOT DISTRACTED!"

Izuku rolls his eyes and goes back to the spot he chose to train.

"Hey, be careful!" Someone above him screams.

However, when he sees the pieces of cement falling towards him, Izuku doesn't move. There's a grin on his face as he gets ready to use Full Cowl in order to get rid of the huge fragments before they hit him.

Sadly, someone pushes him away and they both end up on the ground, although Izuku notices that strong arms have managed to shield most of his body from the impact.

"Wha–cchan?"

Bakugo doesn't utter a word, he's lying on Izuku but untangles himself from him quickly. He's on his hands and knees to support his own weight, but doesn't move away from him.

"Kacchan, I was going to–"

A hand is on Izuku's cheek now, however it's surprisingly gentle.

"Are you hurt?"

It has happened before, but it's still odd to hear Bakugo using his voice not to yell; it sounds almost soft and... vulnerable.

Like he's worried.

"I'm fine," Izuku hears himself answer, still confused.

Bakugo looks like he desperately wants to say something else, but he's suddenly yanked away.

"I warned you, Bakugo," Aizawa scolds him. "You're banned from the gym for the rest of the day."

"WHAT? AREN'T HEROES SUPPOSED TO SAVE PEOPLE?"

"Midoriya was going to take care of that himself," Aizawa retorts. "You've been distracted the whole day, trying to protect him even though he doesn't need it. You need to learn to trust him more, he's a hero in training too after all."

Everyone has stopped to watch the interesting but confusing scene in front of them. Izuku feels completely lost.

Bakugo looks at the ground, his eyes are shadowed by his own hair so no one can't see his expression at the moment. He whispers something to the teacher that no one is able to hear.

"I know... I understand," Aizawa mumbles, softening a little bit. "But if you keep like this you'll only get both of you hurt."

After saying that, he drags the boy away. There's an uncomfortable silence that follows and everyone turns their heads to stare at Izuku like he has the answer to that particular puzzle.

Fortunately, Cementoss scolds them for stopping and they all go back to train.

***

After the incident in the gym, everyone knows something's going on with Bakugo. The problem is that some of them already have a few theories about it.

"What are you going to do now that Bakugo is acting like your overprotective boyfriend?" Uraraka gets closer to his seat, prompting Izuku to almost jump and turn bright red.

Fortunately, Bakugo hasn't arrived yet.

"He's not," Izuku whispers, feeling the blush quickly spreading down his neck.

"I guess you really scared him that last time you went to the hospital," Uraraka continues like Izuku hasn't said a word. "Well, to be fair, you scared all of us."

"I'm sorry."

"Just be more careful, alright?"

Izuku smiles at her, putting a hand over hers when a protein bar falls over his desk a little bit aggressively.

"Grabbed this for you at the cafeteria, Deku," Bakugo growls, glaring at Uraraka as he sits in front of his own desk. "I don't think you'll manage to surpass me anytime soon if you keep coming to class on an empty stomach."

Oh. He's right, Izuku didn't have breakfast that morning... However, he had no idea that Bakugo noticed.

"T-Thanks," he mumbles, feeling suddenly flustered; he refuses to look at Uraraka.

"Whatever!" Bakugo turns around. "Eat it before Aizawa arrives though."

***

"I think you should talk to him," Uraraka tells him, hours later. They're in Todoroki's room, studying for their upcoming English test.

"Don't," Todoroki chimes in, prompting the girl to narrow her eyes at him. "I don't trust him."

"Kacchan is not bad," Izuku says, sighing when the boy with mismatched eyes quirks up a brow at him. "He really isn't. And you know it, he's helped you a couple of times."

"Because he wants to win."

"That's what he says, but he doesn't really mean it."

"He worries about you," Uraraka adds, with a smirk on her face. Izuku tries not to shake his head at her; it looks like she hasn't abandoned her theory after all.

"He's not the only one that worries about Midoriya," Todoroki protests, although his expression softens when he looks back at Izuku.

"I know," Izuku smiles at him before rising from his spot on the floor. "But Uraraka's right, I got to talk to him."

"Fine," Todoroki sighs. "I'll see you tomorrow."

***

When he's right outside Bakugo's door though, Izuku has second thoughts.

"Are you going to talk to him?" Kirishima rushes down the hallway, startling Izuku. "Please do, he really needs it. He's been worried about you since... that day. He was... devastated."

Oh. So it is because of that after all.

Izuku takes a deep breath, nods at Kirishima who grins at him encouragingly. When he knocks at the door, the boy with red hair vanishes.

"I TOLD YOU I DON'T WANT TO GO OUT, KAMINARI! IF YOU KNOCK THAT DOOR AGAIN I'LL–"

"It's me! Deku!" Just seconds after he says it, the door opens. Bakugo is already staring at him from head to toe.

Before he can say anything though, the blond grabs him by the arm, pulls him inside and closes the door behind them.

"What is it? Are you hurt?

Only then Izuku notices the shadows under Bakugo's eyes. He looks really tired.

"No. I'm f-fine. I just wanted to talk to you."

"About what?"

There it is, same old Bakugo, acting aggressive as soon as someone tries to mention feelings.

"About this." Izuku points at the space between the two. Curiously, there's not much at the moment. "You're worried about me."

Bakugo looks at the floor, hands quickly turning into fists; Izuku knows he's going to yell at him that he's NOT WORRIED AT ALL and he'll probably scream at him to get out of his room.

But none of that happens.

"I am," the blond admits instead, voice rough. "And it's killing me. I can't stop it."

"Hey," Izuku mumbles softly. He takes Bakugo's face in his hands and to his surprise, the boy just lets him. His eyes are red, like it's taking every single bit of his strength not to cry. "It's alright. I worry about you too. It's okay to worry about your friends."

Bakugo grimaces at the word "friends" and Izuku feels a little bit sad when realizes he doesn't want to consider him his friend.

"I have nightmares about you... About that day, about you in the hospital," Bakugo flinches at his own words. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"I can't promise you I won't," Izuku whispers, holding back a chuckle when he notices Bakugo leaning closer to him. "But I can promise I will try to be more careful."

"Let me protect you, let me help you..."

"When I really need it and only if you let me do the same for you."

Izuku swears that for a moment he can see the pride shading those red eyes before he pushes it away.

"Alright. It's a deal."

"It is," Izuku agrees with a smile. He moves away quickly, realizing that it's getting late. "Well–"

"Stay," Bakugo blurts out, cheeks turning slightly pink when he realizes what he just said.

Thinking this is probably about the nightmares, Izuku nods and then, to push away the nervousness he's feeling, he mumbles:

"Of course... Like when we were kids..."

Except that this is completely different, because Izuku's heart is beating like crazy inside his chest as he moves as far away as he can from Bakugo.

However, he's so tired he falls asleep quickly.

When he wakes up he finds himself facing Bakugo, face buried in his chest because strong arms are stubbornly keeping him that way.

Izuku blushes, trying to gently escape from the embrace, but the only thing he manages after pushing the other away is to make Bakugo growl and pull him even closer to him.

And of course, because that's just what happens whenever Izuku gets involved, the door opens suddenly and Kaminari rushes in excitedly, followed by a concerned Kirishima.

"Bakugo! Wake up it's–"

"Sorry! I told Kaminari that it wasn't manly to get in other people's room without– Midoriya?"

Izuku groans as he covers his face with both hands. He feels like he's burning.

"Congratulations, Bakugo!" Kaminari smirks at him, making everything worse. "I always thought Midoriya was really cute and–"

"No!" Izuku protests immediately. "It's not like–"

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT KNOCKING FIRST? GET OUT, BOTH OF YOU!" Bakugo growls, however, he doesn't move his hands away from Izuku nor he tries to explain what it's really happening.

Kirishima nods and he does pull Kaminari by the shirt, but he is still grinning as he moves towards the entrance.

"I'm really happy for you, man!"

"This is not what you think..." It's too late for Izuku to explain though, because they're already gone.

Bakugo doesn't explode anymore after that, he doesn't try to kick Izuku off his bed, instead he closes his eyes and buries his face in the curve of Izuku's neck.

"Kacchan... I need to go."

"Why? It's Saturday..."

"I promised Todoroki I'll go with him to the mall so I can help him get a present for his mom."

"He can do it himself," Bakugo argues, looking back at Izuku.

"I promised!"

"Fine, but I'm coming with. Because after that we'll have our first date."

There is too much for Izuku to process in a few seconds, so he just blinks, nods and watches as Bakugo moves off the bed and towards the bathroom.

"I'll take a shower first. I'll wait for you outside your dorm."

Izuku nods again, realizing that he's really looking forward to their date, even though part of him thinks it's not really a good idea.

***

Patreon

[your-average-weeb-dealer]

☘️ Back at it with my Junpei thirst.

☘️ AgedUp! Sorcerer! Junpei AU! Where nothing went wrong and everything is fine

☘️Pt. 2 same night just alot later

☘️Junpei woke to the sound of his phone buzzing. A comfortable weight across his chest breathed deep before nuzzling into his neck. . The night now a heavy dark blanket in the flat. Blinking rapidly he tried to remember what had just happened.

The moan of his name across your lips. The feel of fingernails across his back. The smell of sex hung heavy in the air. Right that had all happened. Before you two had collapsed still tangled together on the futon. Dried sweat and other fluids clung to you both. Tightening his arm around your back in reflex as the heat that he had thought had been sated climbed back into his lap. The memory of your thighs around his waist. You definitely were heaven wrapped in skin even as you lips and body promised sin. A thousand little deaths he would take joyfully after years of hell.

Again his phone buzzed.

Its probably Yuuji, the thought broke him out of reverie. With as much care as he could he called Moondregs forth. The Shinigami buzzed pleasantly with a faint glow illuminating the room. Silently he commanded it to grab his phone and give it over. In his arms you stirred mumbling incoherent nonsense, causing his heart to stutter while he tripped falling for you further. Completely forgetting that Moondregs was completely visible and you weren't a sorcerer till it was almost to late to set it back in to the shadows. But still it gleefully dropped the phone next to his head and vanished with a squeal.

"Jun, wha was that?" You asked sleepily.

"Must have been a helicopter, go back to sleep hun." The lie felt sour on his tounge but he had shocked you enough tonight with the scars, he would leave this lie to stand for a while longer.

"Can't, feel all sticky" lips pressed against his chest smiling. His own smile formed.

"Can you walk to the bathroom? Then we can shower and go back to bed."

"Maybe, but I'm having some trouble feeling my legs."

"If your looking for an apology."

"Absolutely not."

"Good because I wasn't going to give one. Let me answer my phone and then ill help you."

You murmured your agreement placing more kisses on his chest. The slight smile on his face grew while he tightened the arm around you before the free one reached for the phone. Unsurprisingly it was Yuuji who had texted him, asking if he was alive and wondering how the date was going. He was tempted the take a picture you laying on his chest hair messy to him.

"Yuuji wants to know how our date is going."

"Take a picture of the pile of our clothes, that should give him a good answer." Junpei laughed and did just that. Tossing the phone on to the side table he turned his full attention back to you. Kissing the top of your head slowly moving to sit up arms wrapped around to keep you steady. With a slight exhalation he stood one arm under your thighs the other across your back. Your squeak of delight sent a jolt of pleasure down his spine. Carefully he walked to the bathroom before placing you an a stool next to shower head.

"I'll be back with your bag. I was going to change the sheets on the futon then come join you."

"Sounds good, do you want me to fill up the bath or are you ok with just a shower?"

"Shower is fine with me." He gave a quick kiss on your forehead before leaving.

When he returned a second later with your bag he admired the fingerprint bruises on your hips and thighs, while tensioned desire kept swirling the longer his gaze lingered. The sultry look you gave him back as you admired your own marks made it hard to not just pick you up and pound you in the wall. But there would be time for that later. He left before he could change his mind and returned to the main flat to set out what he had promised. His phone buzzed continually, no drought Yuuji yelling about the picture. He'd deal with it in the morning.

Soon he came back to the bathroom. Steam greeted him as did the sight of your wet body. Your legs did look shaky causing the slightest hint of animalist pride to grow.

"Can I wash your hair?" You asked surprising Junpei.

"Sure?" He sat on same stool he had placed you on.

Slowly you rinsed hot water down his back and chest working your way up careful to not get the warm water in his eyes. Then came gentle hands massaging in the lather. When was the last time he had enjoyed a moment so tender? He leaned back into your hands a contented sigh rumbled from his chest. Your own laugher filled with smiles filled his head till he was drunk on the sound.

Your hands came down to clean his back, this time a sharp intake of breath escaped you both. While his forehead might be the most visible of the scars of his youth, his back was by far the worst. He turned towards you to see anger and sorrow flicking across your face.

"Are you ok?" He asked.

"What? That’s silly, I'm fine but you. I can't imagine." It was like you couldn't form a full sentence only able to speak in fragments. His guts churned trying to parse out your feelings he couldn't stand it if this whole night had happened out of some form of pity you felt at seeing his scars. So he took the dive.

"It was hell. But I'm asking if you are only staying because of pity. Because that not right for either of us."

"What the hell no. I'm angry that people did this to you and I'm sad because it looks like no one cared enough to help you. It's not pity but caring about someone I love." Your eyes widened in shock as the words tumbled out, Junpei's eyes too widened while his breath caught. He waited for you to take the words back, but you never did.

Water continued to fall around you both a soundtrack and the only evidence that time hadn't frozen. Tears started to gather in your eyes as you waited on his reply. So he gave one a speed up moment of gathering you in to his arms kisses falling on your lips, cheeks, and neck as he whispered adorations ending in him pulling back to say "I love you too." before returning to your lips with a gentle kiss. The water running cold before either of you could think to move again. ☘️

AHHHHH GIRL OMG THIS IS ALJAH IM FREAKIN OUT HOLY SHIT AHHHHHHH *screams into the void* 

Thank you for the meal 😩😩💕

[chuuyas--boo]

Fic time <3.

AN; read the tags luvs.

"Riley be careful, he might hurt you again..."

Riley glanced back, her gaze locking with Eddie's under his mask. "I'll be fine, don't worry~ plus what could happen? He's probably weak at this point."

"But...he's hurt you before." Eddie was very close to the slightly taller ginger girl, and fond of her, she was always good to him.

"Trust me, Eddie. I'll be fine. If something does happen, Danny can help."

Eddie sighed and nodded. "Just...be careful..."

Riley smiled softly before going back to her floor. The revolver was already loaded, but, Riley took out all the bullets except one. And now, all she could do was wait, the grave was already dug, she'd do the headstone later, if she decides to even give him one. Those who had caused any part of her trauma hadn't gotten proper graves, she'd burned her mother alive, killed her sister on Cathy's floor which made it so she couldn't make her a grave, why would he get one? Spinning the barrel of the revolver, Riley watched him run from the other Angels, giggling like a maniac every time he got close to getting caught. Sure she wanted to kill him, but it was still funny to see him suffering.

"Ahh I bet he'd look better in a pool of his own blood..tch, not as if that's help how ugly he is."

Riley had thought of different ways she couple tortured him and killed him, but ultimately decided to borrow a revolver from Eddie, promising she'd give it back after.

While Riley seemed like a sweet girl, she was actually terrifying, giggling like she'd just seen the funniest thing ever after killing someone. Though, no ones mental state was good in that facility, so almost everyone was like that, but her sudden changes in attitude could be scary.

Her green gaze shifted to the screen, noticing he had made it to her floor. "Finally, I thought he'd never get here" Riley watched as the brunette boy; Jordan aimlessly wandered around the floor, confused and breathing heavily.

"Ahh, it couldn't have been that difficult. Especially for you...unless...you're weak."

Riley's voice echoed through the floor as she walked around in the dark, of course she knew where she was going, unlike Jordan who became even more startled.

"W-who's there?! GET OUT HERE–"

Riley giggled and circled around the boy, though still out of his line of sight.

"Who are you?"

Jordan grabbed Riley's wrist. Riley pulled her wrist away and stood right in front of him.

"I half expected you to remember me, especially since you beat me oh so many times, laughed and giggled when I'd get beaten by my family, and you tried to kill me."

Jordan's hazel gaze met Riley's piercing green gaze.

"R-Riley–?!"

"Nahhh...OF COURSE IT'S ME DUMBASS!"

"I-I'm sorry..."

"Don't lie. You're not sorry. If you were I wouldn't have a gun pointed at your head."

Jordan stumbled back, almost falling, but Riley grabbed him by the arm and yanked him towards her. "Yeahh you're not getting away like that." Riley's grip on his arm tightened every time he tried to pull away. "Stop struggling, idiot. Unless you want me to blow your brains out right now." Jordan stopped, his gaze seeming to shake with fear, Riley giggled "I guess I can see why you liked to hit me and make me cry, fear in peoples eyes is quite amusing. Especially yours, all panic stricken and afraiddd, quivering in fear~" giggling still, Riley pressed the barrel of the gun against Jordan's temple. "You have two choices, I can blow your brains out right nowww~ orrr we can play a game"

Jordan trembled violently, trying to pull away. "What g-game?"

"Oh I dunooooo..." Riley paused and smiled "Russian Roulette!~ you win, I die, just like you'd want."

"Y-yeah...that's how it works..."

"Shut up! I win, you die, and you're mine, forever."

"What do you mean by that..?"

Riley pulled the gun away from his temple and giggled "You're real dumb, huh? It doesn't matter."

"Why do you suddenly want me to be yours?!"

Riley just quietly stared at the boy "SHUT UP-"

"No! Tell me why!"

"You know exactly why! YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME AND THAT YOU WOULD FOREVER! AND I SAID I'D DO THE SAME-"

Breath hitching, Riley spun the barrel, then tilted her head back, holding the barrel against her chin so that if it did end up actually shooting she'd die for sure.

"I-I DO! WAIT-"

Riley just smiled and pulled the trigger.

. . .

And nothing happened, Riley giggled "Your turn now!~ ahh you'd better hope you die from it!"

Jordan's hand grabbed Riley's, attempting to pull the gun out of her grip. "HEY– What're you doing?!"

"I didn't say YOU'D be the one to pull the trigger, after all it wouldn't be me killing you if you did. Plus it'd be more fun if I did it."

Pressing the barrel against Jordan's temple again, but before the ginger could pull the trigger, Jordan, without thinking, grabbed the girls hips and pressed his lips against hers. Riley squirmed and pulled away "WHAT THE HELL–?!" her face grew hot from embarrassment and anger.

Eddie who was watching grew slightly jealous, but also worried for the ginger girl, what if Jordan did something else...?

"I-Im sorry! I just–"

Riley smacked the boy causing him to stumble and fall, standing over him she glared at him "Don't ever touch me again. You won't get another chance anyway." Not caring about the "rules" of Russian Roulette, she spun the barrel so the slot with the bullet would be the one shot and pointed it at the trembling brunette.

"Wanna say anything else before I blow your brains out?~ mm...you'd look better in a pool of your own blood..."

Jordan could barley breath, let alone form words but he managed "I-Im sorry...I shouldn't have d–"

Riley giggled "SHUT UP YOU LITTLE LYING MANWHORE!" Without any sort of hesitation, she pulled the trigger. Blood, skull fragments, and brains splattered everywhere, on the wall, floor, even on the ginger who started giggling more, like a psychopath, her laugh was enough to send chills down the spine of even another killer, and it did, Eddie shuddered where he stood, watching the girl giggling and laughing. The sight of Jordan's body was quite gruesome, one eye hung out of its socket and the rest of that side of his face was blown off.

Sighing, Riley set the revolver on the floor, glancing at the grave she'd dug. "He'll rot too fast..." Letting out a small huff, Riley ran off and came back with an old scarf, gently pulling Jordan's body into her lap, Riley tied the scarf around his head, hiding the eye that was dangling out of its socket. After hiding the severely damaged side of Jordan's face, she carried the body towards a large freezer. "Ahh, sorry I couldn't make you look nice..." Opening the freezer, Riley sighed before gently placing the body in it. The cold would preserve it, especially in the freezer, it was alright pretty cold on her floor, but it wouldn't be cold enough. Sighing happily, the ginger left the room, Jordan was hers now.

[giuliafc]

Stuck in a cabin (with you) - Chapter 5

Stuck in a Cabin (with you)

Ao3 || FFN || Wattpad

Summoned to save his Lady's life, Adrien gets stuck with her in a cabin during a blizzard. Identities get revealed, feelings come out...but who's been plotting to kill Marinette? Will the culprit be punished? Read to find out :) (Adrienette)

Chapter 5 — Gorilla to the rescue

“Oh my, M’lady, 39.3!” Adrien looked very carefully at the little mercury column that displayed the temperature through the glass stick. He cupped a hand on her forehead and looked up. “That’s very high, especially considering that you were a block of ice only a little while back.” He eyed her with concern and made to get out of his spot on the couch, but Marinette snuggled up to his chest and firmly resisted his attempt to move.

“I’m so cold,” she whispered, her teeth chattering.

He smiled softly. “Your body’s very warm, Marinette, but probably you’re cold because of the temperature. If you let me, I think I saw some paracetamol tablets in the first aid kit over there.” He pointed at the little box he had taken the thermometer from earlier, but Marinette’s hold on his chest grew stronger.

“Stay,” she whispered, burying her face deep in his chest. His cheeks tinged in pink and his eyes widened, but after a minute, his gaze softened and he rested his chin on the top of her head.

“All right, Buginette. I’m not going anywhere.” He could feel her temperature going up from her forehead resting against his chest and he would have wanted to reach the first aid kit for getting those tablets. But Marinette was holding on to him as if he was her last safety anchor. He couldn’t leave her like that. He really couldn’t. So when he felt her arms wrapping firmly around his back, he sighed in defeat and relaxed into her hold. If this was a dream, please don’t wake him up.

He had just closed his eyes and rested his chin on the top of her head, feeling with worry how warm her forehead was against his throat, when he felt something tapping him near his right hand. His eyes shot open and he looked in the direction of the nudge he had felt; Tikki and Plagg both were floating near his arm. Plagg held in his paws the box of paracetamol Adrien had wanted to get from the first aid kid and Tikki was holding a glass full of water..

“There, gamin,” said Plagg as Tikki continued, “no need to panic.”

He smiled brightly. “Thank you guys! Where did you find the water?”

Tikki giggled and chirped, “A kwami has her ways!”

With a little difficulty, since Marinette was leaning heavily against him, he picked up the paracetamol tablets and the glass and moved slightly Marinette, trying to loosen up her hold enough to make her take the medicine. She just hugged him tighter.

“Come on, Marinette, just two tablets and a drop of water. Do it for me,” he muttered as he tried to push her back a little. She looked really red in the face and her body felt like boiling in his hands. Her breath was also catching quickly and when she opened her eyes briefly to swallow some water to take the tablets, they looked red and puffy. She did smile though when she sipped the fresh water. “Good girl,” he commented and she wrapped her extremely warm arms around his neck and looked at him with glassy eyes. Adrien wasn’t sure whether she was seeing him for real or if she was just being hallucinated by the fever.

“I love you, mon chaton,” she whispered.

Adrien’s heart skipped a beat, his eyes widening in shock. “W-what?” he muttered to himself. She wrapped herself closer to him and rubbed her head against his chest.

“Mhh-hm.” She sighed contently. “For… forever,” she continued, her voice hoarse, her words all slurred.

An adrenaline rush ran through his body as she said so. His heart was pounding in his throat. “But… the o-other boy?” he inquired, his throat instantly drying up.

“Adrien,” she whispered sluggishly.

“Yeah?” he whispered back and his breath caught up because she started drawing small circles on his chest with her index finger and the sole feeling of that was giving him goosebumps.

“‘Twas Adrien,” she repeated again, even more sluggishly.

Him? The boy she loved was really him without the mask? Just his luck! Having spent all that time being in competition with himself. How many people could say that? He opened his mouth to reply, but when he looked at her he noticed that she had fallen asleep. The hand that was tracing his chest was now lying limp on her lap, her head comfortably leaning on his chest, just over his heart, a cute smile curling her lips.

He spent a long time looking at her, at the elegant curve of her jaw blending with the slender length of her neck, at how her mouth was adorably slightly open and her cheek became even pinker where it leaned on him. She was sleeping so peacefully that he didn’t want to move, in fear she would wake up; so he just sat a little better, legs crossed on the bed, wrapped the blanket securely around them and rested his chin on her head, trying to find a comfortable position.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, in a half asleep stupor, but his torpor was suddenly disturbed by a loud beating at the door. Marinette jumped in his arms. He quickly checked her temperature by placing a quick kiss on her forehead and realised that she was much cooler now. She was still asleep, though, even if some more bangs resounded from the same direction.

Very carefully, Adrien detangled from Marinette and laid her down on the couch, covering her with the blanket, and then moved closer to the door, suddenly embracing himself and shivering from the cold.

“Who’s there?” he said when he was behind the door of the cabin. A loud grunt resounded from the other end, making him understand that it must have been the Gorilla. At bloody last! He heard somebody on the other side of the door starting to bang at the door. He saw the door’s handle going up and down, but another loud groan told Adrien that the Gorilla couldn’t get in.

“Hang on, let me help you,” he shouted, and started pulling on his side of the handle, with no success. Shoot. He looked up and it was clear what had happened, now that he thought about it. The ceiling of the cabin had gone so low that the door hinges had collapsed. The metal structure of the door looked bent and not even a man as strong as the Gorilla was able to move it an inch.

“The door is stuck!” he shouted to his bodyguard. He heard some more rummaging on the other side and ran to the window to see if he could see anything. The Gorilla was trying to lift one of the trees that had fallen on top of the cabin. God, they looked so big and heavy! And so covered in snow. As his bodyguard was trying to lift one, Adrien heard a cracking sound inside the cabin and saw some fragments of mortar and debris fall to the ground. The Gorilla pulled a bit harder and a further loud crack resounded eerily in the cabin.

“It’s not working, you’re making it worse!” he said, trying to stop the Gorilla and prevent further damage. He swore that he had seen the ceiling lowering even further. The Gorilla walked to the window and exchanged a worried look with him. Adrien put a hand to his ear, mimicking a phone and then drew a cross with his hand, trying to signal that his mobile phone was dead. The imposing man took his own phone out of his pocket and messed with it, undoubtedly trying to send a text message from the look of it. But after a few seconds of skimming through things aimlessly, he sighed and signalled “no” with his hand.

Shoot! Was there no signal? Had the storm caused damage to the telephone line somewhere? He heard more desperate bangs coming from outside. “Can you hear me? It’s not working!” said Adrien as more debris fell to the ground. His bodyguard returned to the window, giving him a nod full of what looked like sadness and frustration. Good, at least he could hear him, he didn’t need to get creative with signals any longer. “You need to go look for help. I’m not alone here, I had to help a friend who had an accident earlier and she’s stuck in here with me now. She’s very sick and her phone is broken. We have no food that I could find!”

The Gorilla signed something that Adrien knew meant, ‘Are you okay?’

He nodded decisively and leaned closer to the window to say, “Yes, I am, but the cabin is very damaged. I don’t know how long it will resist. The electricity is gone. It’s really cold. Please go find help!” Gorilla shook his head but Adrien clasped his hands in a prayer gesture. “Please! You won’t be able to get us out by yourself!” He scratched his head. “I think I remember seeing some houses not too far from the park. Maybe you can get there and bang at someone’s door and ask for help? There should be some mobile signal there too, so maybe you can call Nathalie.” After a few more head shakes in protest and begging from Adrien on the other side, finally the Gorilla gave in. He closed his eyes, nodded and put a hand in front of himself, as if telling him ‘All right, I'll do it.’

“Thank you!” said Adrien with a sigh. “Would you be able to find any sweets or pieces of Camembert cheese while you’re there?” Adrien clearly saw the man closing his eyes and lowering his head in the closest imitation of a facepalm he had ever seen him making. And was that a sigh? “Wait!” he added stopping the man in his tracks before he could turn around and leave. “We also have a bit of a… situation here.” He brought his hand to his nape. “Don’t ask please, but my friend Marinette needs clothes. Uh… underwear possibly.”

The man’s gaze clearly hardened, he raised an eyebrow and gave a curt, long stare at Adrien, his eyes navigating allegedly on his naked torso. Adrien felt all blood rushing to his face. “Nonononono, you’ve got it all wrong. She fell in the lake. I had to help her or she would die. I’ll tell you later, but now she’s sick and her clothes are all wet.” He gave his bodyguard the most pleading puppy eyed look he could get himself to come up with. “PLEASE!” Again he put his hands in together in prayer, right in front of his face. He saw the man keeping on thinking about it, his hand still firmly on his chin, his eyebrow still raised in scepticism. But eventually, he signalled again and nodded. He made a gesture signifying ‘later’ and walked away. Adrien breathed easier.

oOoOoOoOoOo

“Adrien? Is that you?” came Marinette’s voice from the couch.

“Who else?” he asked walking back there. He kept embracing himself and looked sheepishly at Marinette. “Do you mind if I put some clothes on? I’m freezing.” She chuckled a little and nodded shyly.

“Sorry, minou. Of course you can; I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

He smiled as he hurried to fetch his clothes from his own little pile on the floor. “Don’t think about it, it’s okay. It was warmer earlier, but the heater must have stopped working when the ceiling collapsed. We don’t seem to have any electricity.” When he had finally put some layers on to protect himself from the freezing temperature, he sat down again by the couch. They sat in silence for a while, both looking down with flushed faces.

“Were you talking to your bodyguard?” asked Marinette eventually, breaking the silence.

Adrien nodded. “Yes. He’s gone looking for help. He tried to move the trees fallen on top of the cabin but even he couldn’t move them, not even by an inch.”

“Shoot,” commented Marinette. “And Plagg was right earlier, there’s no point in you transforming and trying to Cataclysm the cabin.”

Adrien nodded again. “Yeah… I hadn’t thought about it carefully enough.”

“You never do,” came Plagg’s voice from his side.

Adrien pouted. “Cheers, Plagg...”

“Sorry, but it’s the truth, gamin. At least when you’re Chat Noir. Too often you act before connecting your brain to your mouth.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say, Plagg!” said Tikki, showing herself up from behind Marinette’s back. She grabbed Plagg and zipped away, leaving them some privacy.

Once again, an awkward silence wrapped around them. Adrien kept looking at Marinette, who was also glancing at him from time to time. His hand ran to the nape of his neck.

“Uh, about earlier,” started Marinette and at the same time, Adrien asked, “Talking about earlier…” They both stopped as they heard the other talking and blushed. “Please carry on,” they both said at the same time. “That is…” They both pouted and sighed.

“Okay,” finally managed to say Adrien, his blush darkening when he realised that she wasn’t going to talk with him. “Uh, what you said earlier, I was wondering if you remembered any of that at all.”

Marinette sucked her breath in and gave him a sheepish look. “W-what did I say earlier?”

His back tensed and he held his breath as he said it, slowly but surely, “That the other boy was… Adrien.” She paled and his eyes widened. “It’s true?”

She hid her face behind her hands and started uttering some undefined noises. However, after an interminable moment of doing that, she lowered her hands and locked her gaze into his, nodding shyly. She sucked her breath in when his eyes became as big as saucers and he lost the ability to breathe.

“Sorry,” she said. Her gaze fell and she pouted uncomfortably. “Sorry to disappoint you,” she added.

His heart skipped a beat. “What? Disappoint me? Oh no! I mean, it’s just—weird, I suppose. Just my luck. I was in… competition… with myself. Haha. Who else on Earth. I mean… yeah, cool. Honestly.” He laughed awkwardly and rubbed his neck, with his eyes closed as he didn’t feel able to look her in the face. Then he crouched over himself and hugged his arms, trying to disappear from the world. “I’m sorry if your image of Adrien is being crushed completely today. I… I’m not perfect. I’m just your partner, the clown.” He blushed and lowered his gaze.

Marinette sucked her breath in again. “You don’t need to be perfect, Adrien.” She smiled warmly when his eyes darted immediately to her face in surprise. “And I love your sense of humour, you know that.” They exchanged a soft look, then she lowered her gaze as she continued, “I suppose I’ve never told you how I fell in love with… the other boy, did I?” She saw him shaking his head, even if she was still looking down. Her lips curled up in a small smile and she hugged herself, her heart racing in her ears as she tried to find the courage to talk. “I-it was your first day at school and you gave me your umbrella.”

Adrien gulped awkwardly. “What? My first day?”

She looked up at him and nodded shyly. “Yeah.”

“I thought you hated me!” he muttered to himself.

She sighed. “I must say that at the beginning I wasn’t really impressed.” He pouted so she continued, “But that was on me, Adrien. I had let myself get carried away by my prejudices. You were a rich boy, model, gorgeous, friend of Chloé… I thought you would have been as much a bully as she is. And when I found you messing with chewing gum on my seat I just got that suspicion confirmed so… I didn’t give you a chance to explain and just judged you on that. It wasn’t nice of me, and I never even really apologised for it, so I’ll do it now. I’m so sorry for misjudging you that day.” She put a hand to her forehead. “I can’t believe I misjudged you twice.”

“Huh?” asked Adrien, giving her a pointed look.

“I misjudged Chat Noir too, you know. I thought for a really long time that you were just a clown, someone to not take seriously, and that you didn’t love me for real, that it was all part of an act.”

He paled. Did she really think that of him? “But—”

“Shhh,” she interrupted him, “I know it’s not the case. When you joined me on my balcony the day that André was akumatised into Glaciator, for the first time I discovered a side of Chat Noir that I had never seen before and I realised that maybe I had misjudged him. And slowly my feelings for my partner have grown so much. I learned to appreciate him and respect him. And to love him,” she added in a whisper.

Adrien gasped. “Say that again?”

“You heard well the first time,” said Marinette with a soft smile on her lips. “I love you, chaton. I was rejecting Chat Noir for Adrien but… slowly Chat Noir also stole a piece of my heart.” She smirked and eyed him in a flirty way as her elbow hit him lightly in the ribs. “You cheeky cat,” she added with a giggle.

He giggled as well. His hands reached her shoulders and his gaze locked instantly into hers. Marinette felt blood rushing to her face for the intensity of that look. “Can I kiss you?” he asked, his gaze trained on her, as if there was nothing else left in the world. His heart threatened to jump out of his ribcage when she nodded and smiled softly. Timidly, she cupped both hands around his cheeks and pulled his face forward until their lips met.

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

Author’s Note:

Hi there! Here we are at the end of chapter 5. Hope you all enjoyed it. So… the secrets start coming to the open. next chapters are going to be crucial for the plot, but I really wanted to give the characters a little bit of fluff before hitting them with the $h*t…

What do you say? You thought the $h*t had happened already? Well, think again. There’s more. Yes, I know I'm cruel. It’s my middle name!

In the next instalment of “Stuck in a cabin (with you)”, “A very unexpected help”:

— “I have been trying to get in touch with Marinette for hours and her phone’s always been off.”

— “What? Adrien is missing too?”

— “Apparently he has helped a friend of his, who was in trouble. That Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She’s sick and,” she gulped, “needs underwear.”

So… I hope that you enjoyed chapter 5. Let me know what you thought about it and drop me a comment! I will continue soon :) can’t promise I will publish every week, but let me know what you think and I’ll publish as soon as I can. Please subscribe if you’re interested in knowing what is going to happen, so you will know when the next update is!

And please check out my other WIPs, “When Magic Fails”, “Caught in the Loop”, “Errata Corrige” and “La Caverne du Papillon d’Or”!

Last but not least, as usual, if you read this and you’re not part of our wonderful Discord server already, but you enjoy reading, writing and talking about Miraculous, please join our Discord server, Miraculous Fanworks. See you there soon. Not sure when I will update this story but it won't be too long! Promise!

[blueeyedheizer]

All Over Again - Matt (part 4 - the end)

WARNINGS: amnesia, implied sex, super soft overall <3

A/N: it's finally here, the last part to this short story!! I really like this part although I had a bit of a hard time finishing it. It's a bit cliché but i'm happy with it. Also, thank you so much to everyone who still reads my Matt fics, I appreciate you guys so much <3 (PS: I know the transition from part 3 to part 4 is really sudden...I hope the timejump isn't too disappointing) Anyway, enough talking. Enjoy xx

•••

After two months, you are finally released from the hospital.

You weren't surprised to find out that you shared an apartment with Matt, and at this point you didn't mind at all. You felt comfortable around him and despite not remembering your old life with him, you were starting to feel strongly for him. He had been there for you since day one, he never gave up on you even though you still couldn't remember anything about him. You never thought it was possible for someone to ever love you this way but there he was, doing absolutely everything in his power to help you get through this, even when he knew things might never be the same again.

Matt opened the door and you walked in closely behind him, taking a look at your surroundings. The house was quite messy, but you couldn't blame him. His mind had been all over the place these past weeks and he had spent most of his time with you. Tidying around was really not his prioritiy.

Everything around you looked familiar. Somehow, you still remembered where most things were situated, and you had no trouble in finding each room, including yours and Matt's shared bedroom. And yet you had no real memory attached to it. You couldn't associate anything with it. You knew it was there, but the room itself was just like the rest; a blur.

---

Your first week home was mostly focused on resting. You were dying to go out and do something other than sit on a couch and watch TV but the doctor had said it would be better if you spent a few days home to let your bruises heal properly before envisaging going back to your normal everyday life. Matt was just as supporting as he was before, cancelling his plans to stay with you, hoping that you would remember something, just a fragment of your old life with him. But that was a long process, and even though you two were basically back to being a couple it was different. You loved him, but it was different. You loved the boy who visited you everyday at the hospital, not the boy that you had met at a gig almost a year ago now.

In order to train your brain, the doctor had recommended to regularly go through familiar things such as photos, videos and possessions. Considering the fact that you and Matt had a common passion for music and cinema, you decided to focus on this.

You were cuddled up against him, a blanket covering the both of you as the end credits of your favorite movie rolled on the screen.

"Why didn't you tell me he was going to die?" you sniffled, wiping a tear from your cheek while chuckling.

"Didn't want to ruin the experience"

"Well that would've spared me a heartbreak." you pouted. Matt chuckled, pressed a kiss to your forehead then stood to turn off the TV before settling back next to you, allowing you to cuddle up against him. A comfortable silence fell upon you both as he intertwined his fingers with yours, squeezing your hand every so often and running his thumb over your skin.

A few more minutes passed by and you glanced at the clock, sighing softly.

"I should probably get some sleep." you announced. Matt kissed the top of your head and you reluctantly pulled away from the warmth of his body.

"I still need to work on some things, I'll join you later."

"Alright."

"Good night, love"

"Good night." you smiled and pecked his cheek before making your way to your shared bedroom. You quickly changed into your night clothes and brushed your teeth before slipping under the covers.

You tried to close your eyes but your mind was racing with thoughts about everything and nothing. You just kept moving around on the bed, changing your position every two minutes, unable to find your usual comfort. You sighed heavily and rolled onto your back, hands crossed over your chest. However a small smile tugged on your lips when you heard the quiet sound of Matt's guitar as he worked on his song. It probably would have lulled you to sleep if your brain cooperated with your desire to sleep.

You spent another fifteen minutes or so just laying wide awake on your bed, waiting for sleep to eventually come. A few more minutes go by and you hear footsteps approaching before seeing the door open, Matt walking in seconds later.

"You're still awake?" he asked and you hummed in response.

"I can't sleep."

"I'm sorry, was it the guitar? I tried to be as quiet as I could—"

"No, it wasn't the guitar. I actually enjoyed it." you chuckled. "It's just me. I have a lot on my mind."

Matt stripped down to his underwear, put on a random shirt then slipped under the sheets, taking his spot next to you. He propped himself up on his arm so he could look at you.

"What's on your mind, love?" he wondered. You shrugged, looking down at your hand as your fingers drew small patterns on the sheets. Your face dropped a little bit.

"Everything." Matt brushed a strand of hair off your face as you spoke, tucking it behind your ear.

"Tell me everything then."

You stayed silent for a moment, knowing that the conversation you were about to start wasn't something easy to talk about on both sides. A few more seconds go by and you finally ask the question you were dying to know the answer of.

"Matt...— what were we arguing about?"

You didn’t miss the way his entire body froze at your words. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it again, detaching his gaze from yours. Then he shifted and sat back against the headboard of the bed, causing you to sit up as well.

With a heavy heart, he began to explain what happened. How it all started, how he snapped at you when you were just being rightfully worried about not having any news of him over two hours after he was supposed to be home. He was hardly holding back tears by the end of his explanation, and so were you. You couldn't help but feel a sting in your heart at the thought of him raising his voice at you.

"I'm not mad at you." you assured him in a small voice, seeing guilt written all over his face.

"You would be if you remembered. I almost got you killed."

"Don't say that."

"But it's the truth Y/N! If I had just kept my mouth shut and dealt with my anger alone then nothing of this would've happened. You wouldn't have had this accident and you wouldn't have lost your memory. I did this to you."

"And I could've just locked myself in our room instead of going for a drive in the middle of the night." you argued. "You're not responsible for any of this, Matt."

He didn't say anything after that, he just kept his head lowered and shook his head. You could see tears begin to fall down his cheeks. Pulling yourself closer to him, you placed your hand on his face, wanting him to look at you.

"Matt." when he still refused to look at you, you climbed over him so you could straddle his lap. "Matt, look at me." your hand came underneath his chin and brought his face up to meet your eyes. You moved your hand to cup his cheek, gently wiping away some tears while one escaped the corner of your eye. "This is not your fault." you whispered, leaning in to press your forehead against his, your hands moving to the back of his neck and gently scratching. "Okay? This is not your fault."

You stayed like this for a moment then you kissed him, pouring all your emotions into the kiss. Your hands found their way to his head, threading your fingers through his hair as your whimpered softly, pulling him closer as the kiss deepened, both your breathing gradually growing heavier.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he murmured against your lips after pulling away, understanding your intentions. Your thumb brushed softly over his bottom lip as you nodded, still slightly panting for air.

"Have we ever...?" you said and he nodded. You answered with a barely audible 'okay' before pressing your lips back against his. But this time he didn't kiss back.

"Y/N..."

"Do you not want to do it?" you asked as you pulled away, sounding disappointed.

"It's not that."

"Then what is it?"

"I- I don't know, shouldn't we wait until you get your memory back? Are you actually ready for this?" he spoke hesitantly, and your face softened at his words.

"I don't want to wait for something that might not happen anytime soon." you said softly, brushing a strand of hair off his forehead. "And yes, I am ready."

He looked down sadly, his thumbs stroking your hips gently. Your forehead was resting against his as another tear rolled down your cheek.

"I love you..." you murmured, trying to fight back more of them. "Please don't give up on me now." that seemed to have startled him as he looked up at you almost immediately before cradling your head between his hands.

"I won't. I promise."

You nodded and closed the space between you, your lips meeting in a soft, passionate kiss. Your heartbeat was accelerating in your chest since this was new for you. It wasn't for the old version of yourself, but the new one had never been in such an intimate situation with him. You broke the kiss to pull his shirt over his head, discarding it to the side. You did the the same with yours before cupping his cheeks and kissing him again.

His lips eventually started moving down to your neck, pressing a trail of kisses there as you leaned your head back, giving him more access. His hands started roaming over your lower back and you shyly began to grind your hips, moaning softly.

---

"I love you too, you know." Matt said as you both laid on the bed, your head resting against his chest as his hand moved up and down your back soothingly. The silence of the room only highlighted how loud you had been moments before.

"I know." you smiled. Your hand travelled across his torso, absentmindedly caressing and drawing small patterns on his skin.

Tilting your head up a bit, you laid your eyes on a small framed picture of the two of you that was on his bedside table, one you hadn't seen yet. It looked quite recent. You propped yourself on your arm and reached for the picture, looking at it closely.

"That was the day I came back from London."

You turned to Matt, a genuine smile curving your lips.

"You've been to London?"

"Yeah." he smiled, his thumb caressing your shoulder. "One of our biggest gigs. 450 people, more or less. I'm not sure if they appreciated the music, but they were here." you both shared a quiet laugh and you shook your head, looking down at him before leaning in to kiss him softly.

"I'm sure they did."

You placed the picture back on the table and cuddled back against his chest, sighing in content. You quickly felt your body relax fully against his own, your breathing becoming even, steady, slow. With his fingers running through your hair soothingly you finally allowed sleep to take over, staying snuggled tightly against him.

---

The next morning you woke up to an empty bed and the smell of coffee. Rolling onto your back, you stretched your arms and smiled at the thought of last night's events, remembering how caring Matt had been the entire time.

You eventually rolled out of bed and got dressed, pulling on a shirt of his along with your jeans.

Then you decided to rummage a bit through your stuff to train your brain like you had been told to do. You started with the books that were on the shelves; you let your fingers run along their spines, reading their names. Then you looked through Matt's records before picking one and placing it on to play. The Sun Always Shines On T.V. began playing and you smiled when the chorus came on, the lyrics easily coming back to your mind.

You continued your exploration around the room and opened up a jewelry box, taking out a small star shaped earring. Your lips pressed into a thin line and you frowned as you searched your mind, feeling a déjà vu.

And that's when it happened.

***

"Is that...is that an earring ?"

"Huh?"

You smiled and cupped his cheek, tilting his head to the side to take a proper look at the small moon shaped jewel. Then you tilted his head to the other side, noticing another one with a different shape; a small golden star.

"I like the moon one better." you smirked, leaning in to peck his lips.

***

"Matt..." you breathed out. Your eyes widened and you called him louder this time, breathing and heartbeat accelerating as you started crying.

After two more almost desperate, sobbed out calls of his name, Matt came running into the room, a terrified look on his face.

"What is it? What's wrong?" he rushed to your side and cupped your face, forcing you to look at him. Your eyes were already puffy and red and your breathing was ragged as you cried, hot tears soaking your cheeks, heavy hiccups leaving the back of your throat. You didn't answer, instead you grabbed his face and crashed your lips against his, kissing him as deeply as you could.

Matt immediately understood what was going on and kissed back, his own eyes watering up quickly. You eventually had to pull away for air, your current state making it hard for you to breathe. You rested your forehead against his and played with his earring, unable to say anything.

You eventually let out a small laugh through your tears, smiling softly as you looked into his teary eyes. Then you kissed him again, pouring out all your love and gratitude into it as you held onto him, wanting this moment to last forever.

"I remember."

[bumbershots]

A CERTAIN ROMANCE

CHAPTER THREE: WHO ARE YOU?

Author’s note: Hello! Once more I would like to thank you all for the love this story’s been getting, it truly blows my mind. I am also looking for a beta reader so if anyone out there is interested let me know! (: Let’s pick up right where we left off...

Story masterlist ** Word count: 2.3K **

Two souls don't find each other by simple accident, Harry thought after taking a seat for the first time that night, his feet were probably going to be swollen tomorrow, they were killing him already. But he wasn't keen on turning down a dance from the girl collapsing in the settee right next to him. A slow Amy Winehouse song was their cue to rest.

"Do you want a beer?" Her voice sounded a bit hoarse, probably from all the giggling and singing she did while dancing the night away.

"Yes please."

He watched her trot to the small bar on the other side of the flat, focused on how the multiple bracelets bounced in her left wrist as she instructed her brother which beer to give her. As she came back to take her previous seat, he felt a small wave of anxiety for wanting nothing more than to start a conversation with her, as she handed him the beer. Usually it was the other way around, but in most of the cases, people wanted to know his persona.

He knew the silence was becoming awkward, but he was still debating whether to ask about her upbringing or what she did for work, whatever the case was, he didn't want to make a fool out of himself, he almost never seemed to be that lucky.

"You're not used to people being calm around you, are you?" Alma’s frown os curiosity is a mirror to the one on the musician's face.

"Yes and no?" Harry's coy tone makes her smile warmly and shake her head in denial, "so, I'm Hampstead station guy?" Her eyes widen, a shy smile appears on her full lips before she takes another large sip of her drink.

"It's unlikely to find the same person thrice in the tube! I told my friend Laura, it felt like a glitch in the matrix." She answers and he lets out an amused laugh.

"For the record, I wasn't following you, at all..."

"I know, you just had to take the same line I did and it was a happy coincidence," she interrupts him, the new song gathers a few more dancers and Harry wonders if she will ask him to dance again, "although it would've made a great anecdote for my YouTube channel; story time, a famous musician follows me around the city possibly plotting my painful death." She joked as she gingerly flashed her hands before the two of them, as if presenting the latest play from the West End.

It was Harry's eyes turn to be wide and smack his hand into his forehead.

"You have a YouTube channel?" His interest was genuine and Alma made herself more comfortable on the sofa, before proceeding to fill him in about what that was about, just videos about her 'sort of interviewing remarkable people' or so she claimed.

It was something that started as a class project back when she was seventeen, trying to get good grades to win a scholarship and study abroad —none of those things happened. She kept doing it afterwards because it was too much fun, once she interviewed all her friends, she moved onto her family. "Believe me when I tell you, that I have more relatives than I should!" With a smile as big as hers, he sighed before breathing 'lucky' as his heart sped and she continued.

Restaurant owners, chefs, firefighters, barristers, doctors, accountants, waitresses, sexual workers, sex shop employees, bankers, homeless people, hairdressers and apparently every person from her home country had been on the informal interview series. Harry was impressed with the whole concept and her.

"I sort of abandoned it a little when I moved here last year, it was crazy busy the first couple of months and the whole bureaucracy... and I was a little homesick to be honest." For the first time in the night, her voice is thinner, he has to lean in a few inches to hear better, "I miss my parents, my cousins, my aunt, my grandparents. But this is something I've wanted for the longest time you know?" Her eyes bore into his, allowing him to see the vulnerability swimming in them, "I've never felt like an outsider here, never got lost in the tube, took the wrong bus or anything like that. Isn't it weird?" Harry smiled at the sentiment, thoughts of his latest trip to Japan flashing before him.

"No, I think it's marvellous that you feel that way." He cannot be real, is the only thing running through her mind like a restless hamster in its wheel.

Harry and Alma talked about everything they didn’t have in common, despite the brief interruptions to do some shots and drink champagne with the birthday boy. Their families were discussed, their favourite things to do in the summer. Alma even asked him how was work going, as if she didn’t know that he was one of th world’s most successful artists. Harry was thrilled to joke through their drinks and the girl wasn't shy to ask him for a couple more dances. None of them noticed the partying dying around them, it was only after Fernando said his goodbyes to his laughing sister, that they noticed how late/early it actually was.

Before they knew it, golden hues streamed through the window behind them as Freddie walked out of his room and offered them coffee.

"I'm never drinking straight vodka again," Freddie mumbled to himself after finishing his cup of coffee.

"At least it wasn't Vodquila like last time," Alma's words make him groan but agree. "I should go now, need a shower and a healthy breakfast."

After Harry also admitted he needed to be on his way, with all their belongings gathered and after saying goodbye to a very ill Freddie, neither Harry or Alma looked forward to their imminent separation. He had spent hours hearing how busy she is, when not recording content, she was working at Wenzel's and teaching Spanish to her neighbour's daughter on the weekends. Still, he was determined to meet with her again.

As soon as they started moving down the street, Harry noticed the next one was where he had to turn right in order to go home. It wasn't a short walk but the most effective route for sure.

"So, the bus stop is that way," Alma nodded her head to the left, smirking knowingly as she stuffs her hands in her coat pockets.

"Of course," they had come to a rolling stop at the corner. Harry suddenly felt beyond nervous about asking the girl for her phone number. "Thank you, for keeping me company last night." It was amazing he wanted to add, but licked his lips quickly instead.

"You mean keeping you from catching up with all your friends," she corrected him.

Harry shakes his head and smiles, the dimples graciously adorning his cheeks, his racing heart giving him the last push needed to finally ask. "Do you think we could go, like for coffee... sometime?” With that she laughed, immediately memorising the sound of it, her loud cackle is one of the nicest things he has heard in awhile.

"Only if I can buy you something from the selection of pastries." Harry laughed loudly, completely relieved by her answer. She dug around her purse for a moment before taking out a pen and what seemed to be an old receipt, quickly scribbling down her number and handing it to him.

"I'll call you," he beamed, carefully placing the piece of paper in his wallet. He'd be an idiot to lose such a precious fragment of information.

"Looking forward to it," Alma smiled at him for one last time before she started walking to the opposite direction. "See you around Harry." His face was a bit puffy from not having slept properly, but she would be lying to say he didn’t look adorable at the same time.

He waved and watched her walked away, her sweet and tired morning smile seemed to be engraved into the musician's mind as he headed home.

The air was still a bit cold, but the heat was starting to rise and plague London for the rest of the day, the hot summer everyone's been yearning for was finally here, even Harry could feel it in his bones as he continued down his path. He was still highly enamoured by the amazing night he spent sharing a piece of himself with Alma. His feet felt heavy, were even burning a little, but it was nothing as he made his way through his home gate twenty minutes later.

He decided to get some toast and a cuppa for breakfast, his high spirits not faltering even one bit although he could feel the consequences from the all-nighter already with each yawn. After eating he decided to take a shower that got him ready for a well deserved sleep in his comfortable bed.

Waking up around six o'clock startles him at first, Harry is well rested now but a bit grumpy for the weird taste on his tongue, something usual after drinking beer. He scolds himself for not brushing his teeth earlier as he walks in his bathroom. The cool tiles against his bare feet wake him up a bit more. After some needed dental hygiene, Harry gets dressed to go out and pick up his sister for their weekly dinner. Hopefully he can convince her to stay in, that way he can go on and on about the events from the night before.

His feet still hurt, he can even feel a blister underneath his big toe. But it doesn't bother him, it's actually a nice reminder of the incredible things that miraculously happened. Harry knew that since Alma was related to Fernando, someone that was bound to be in his life for the next six months or so, there was a big chance they would've met at some point. But he'd rather think it was fate, some sort of good karma coming round, he stared at her contact on his phone, still charmed by the fact that she gave it to him on the back of a receipt. Ignoring that she only did it that way, because the thought of asking for his mobile to enter it herself, was a very bold move. And Alma wasn’t really that confident, not when his green eyes were boring into hers anyway.

"When are you gonna call her then?" Gemma's voice snaps him out of his daydream for the third time during their quiet dinner in her flat. "What is it? You've got that look."

"What look?" He asks before his sister frowns and pinches her bottom lip with her thumb and index finger. It's his nervous quirk, he sighs, "I don't know, I'm just so nervous." Without a valid reason, he knows the girl is so lovely, maybe that's why.

"You're afraid of fucking it up," she knows, Harry nods. "Well, you could tell her that, perhaps on a text—

"—I want to call her, texting her will make me feel a wanker." Gemma smiles at her little brother, he looked uncharacteristically unsure of himself but nonetheless excited. It was endearing how the first thing he told her after crossing her home's threshold was 'my life is officially a chick flick!' Before proceeding to explain with detail about the whole situation.

"What about a text that reads: hello, this is Harry please save my number so when I find the guts to call you, you don't think it's a telemarketing scam," Gemma might be joking and mocking him all at once, but has a point. A text so she also has his number, makes the situation more even, she can call him too. "Assuming she gave you a real phone number."

"What?" Harry is mortified.

"I'm kidding, you should've seen your face," his sister wanted to drag a bit more her joke, but the preoccupied look on his face stopped her. Gemma couldn't wait to tell their mum, knowing that she would be just as absorbed. "There's nothing wrong with showing interest right away. If you want this to be honest and genuine, set an example." She finished before taking the last bite of pizza.

Harry knew that to be true, but now he was left wondering if it was the right time for him. Had he really left behind all the ghosts and baggage from his past? Or was he still carrying them in the new tattoos of his knees?

Despite his sister's encouraging words about how nothing could go wrong this early with Alma, he couldn't help but wonder if his still grieving heart was ready.

He takes his time walking back home, not caring if it was a really long one, he was aware of the curious eyes once he reached the Southbank but paid no attention to them. He welcomed the chill breeze, hoping for it to cool his boiling mind. Remembering the last time he walked along the river arms around his former flame, her laughter still ringing in his ears, her tender kisses in his knuckles, her delicious scent flying away with the airstream into London's sunshine.

Missing someone is not wrong, Harry reminds himself.

There's no point going down the rabbit hole of what ifs about their relationship. Harry can admit his mistakes, no matter how hard it comes to him, he can also apologise wholeheartedly. He did all those things already, months ago. Which is why he was able to keep her as a friend, not a close one, more like an acquaintance. And she's happy, he can see that, knows it.

Why does he feel like he's still drowning? He's already been pulled from the vast ocean of hers. Harry groans, struggles to open his gate, his good spirits from this morning nowhere to be found.

He doesn't know if it's the memory of her, the fear of loneliness, coincidence and laziness, or a bad habit? But he doesn't text the girl with warm brown eyes, instead he plays the voicemail that sometimes haunts his nightmares, on repeat, for the rest of the night.

///

Let me know if you like the story! *** Join the taglist!

///

TAG LIST: @laurxn-robinson // @mellamolayla

Next chapter

[devourer--of--books]

SGE x PJO AU: wiki pages

PART I: Hester

Okay, so hm, before we start.

Warning: some minor cursing, as well as spoilers for all percy jackson and the olympians, heroes of olympus and school for good and evil books. Basic knowledge of the main plot points is heavily recommended. 

Now that that’s out of the way, an unnecessary note:

I was unsure on how to structure this au, as I was originally going through the events of the novels book by book, but turns out that made the posts way too long (longer than they already are) and more like a mini-fic than an au post, so, for now, we’re sticking to a character-based wiki-like structure, one at a time.

This is obviously an au, so while we'll follow loosely the events of the riordan-verse, there's many tweaks, so it's easier to follow if you're familiar with the canon material but hopefully, I'll be able to answer any questions y'all might have.

I just might do mini-fic posts or write a one-shot or two, but that takes a while so maybe tell me if you’d be interested in that, because as usual, I am fueled by validation.

This is so goddamn self-indulgent. 

Hester Ravenswood

Daughter of Nemesis

Occupation: Head counselor of cabin 19 / High school student.

Early years: Used to live with her father, until he tragically died in a mysterious factory fire when she was 10. 

It is unknown how Hester got to camp, aside from the vague explanation she gives to Sophie and Agatha: she ran away from an orphanage and her mother guided her to Camp Half-Blood using dreams. She arrived at camp in the same night as Chaddick Edwards, and witnessed his death at Half-Blood Hill.

Camp years: Hester used to be a year-round camper at cabin 11. Since Nemesis didn’t have an actual cabin at the time, Hester was placed there, as per camp tradition, and while she often flaunted her parentage, she never got officially claimed. 

Within her first year, Hester dueled an older, unnamed demigod for a bunk bed at cabin 11. She wins the duel, but ends up with a bad reputation as a “shady back-stabber” around camp, due to her use of a hidden knife to win. The bottom bed of said bunk used to be always empty, despite Hermes’ cabin being very crowded, until Agatha’s arrival a few years later.

Hester is the third member of the quest to retrieve Zeus’ lighting bolt, alongside newcomers Agatha and Sophie.

The following summer, she runs away from camp with Sophie Martin to help on the quest for the golden fleece. 

Later that year, she participates in the mission to retrieve Yara and Willam Thomas from Westover Hall. 

During the quest to rescue Artemis, Hester is absent due to being given another quest by oracle/camp director August Sader: scouting the labyrinth. 

Next summer she leads the quest to find Daedalus, but after the incident in Hephaestus’ forges, she chooses to remain at camp to prepare for Kronos’ invasion, as well as aiding Dot Nottingham with Anadil Bloodbrook’s recovery after her time wandering by herself in the labyrinth.

A year later, Hester and Agatha blow up the Princess Andromeda cruise together, and she is heavily involved in the events leading to and during the Battle of Manhattan. Hester and Anadil are responsible for convincing a few minor gods, including Hester’s mother, to betray Kronos and help the campers fight off his army once Kronos cuts off connection between himself (alongside Sophie, Agatha and Yara) and his army to get to Olympus.

Post-war, she attends school alongside Dot Nottingham. It’s unknown what she plans to do after graduating, though it’s implied she might have to retake the year, as she often skipped classes to look for Agatha with Sophie. In one of those missions, Nemesis guides Hester to rescue Nicola Saylor, bringing her to Camp Half-Blood.

Currently: Hester is one of the seven demigods of the prophecy, and is abord the Argo II, headed towards Camp Jupiter.

Connections:

Dot Nottingham

While Hester mostly kept to herself during her first years at Camp Half-Blood, she has a secret soft spot for Dot, as she once overheard the girl standing up for her against Beatrix Jolie. 

She is the one that teaches Dot how to use a dagger. 

Every year, Dot offerers to house Hester for the school year, and every year she refuses, until after the Battle of Manhattan, when she accepts the invitation.

Agatha Schwartz

Hester and Agatha become friends shortly after her arrival, alongside Sophie, at Camp Half-Blood, when Hester claims to be impressed by Agatha’s confrontation with Aric Lesso, which seemed to freak every other camper out. 

Through the years, Hester  develops a not-so-one-sided crush on her, leading to a, rather messy, undefined romantic relationship between them after Hester kissed Agatha at Mount Saint Helens, but the two decide they are better off as friends after the Battle of Manhattan.

Hester is greatly distraught by Agatha’s disappearance after the war and feels horribly guilty for ignoring Agatha’s attempts to contact her prior to it due to remaining pettiness post-break-up.

Sophie Martin

Off to a bad start upon meeting, the two become tentative friends during the quest to retrieve the lightning bolt, and they even manage to join forces to aid Agatha, Hort Scourie and Aric Lesso on their quest for the golden fleece. 

However, Hester quickly grows suspicious that Sophie might be a spy for Rafal at camp. Once she hears that this accusation was proven true, during the quest to rescue Artemis, it causes an irreversible shift in their mostly playful previous dynamic, even though Sophie changes sides again after Rafal betrays her trust at Mount Tamalpais. The peak of their animosity is at their duel after “Agatha’s funeral”, in which Hester nearly strangles Sophie with her whip while blinded by grief, only stopping due to interference from Agatha herself.

Thankfully, things seem to have smoothed over between them after Sophie stabs, and sucessfully kills, Rafal in the Gods’ Throne Room, "ending” the Battle of Manhattan by keeping Kronos from destroying Olympus.

Sophie and Hester grow closer during Agatha’s disappearance, often meeting up for search missions whenever one of them believes to have a lead on their friend’s whereabouts.

Anadil Bloodbrook

Hester first meets Anadil during her first mission an the labyrinth, in which she manages to convince Anadil to help her escape Kronos’ forces, but isn’t able to take her along, feeling horrible guilt, believing Anadil to have been killed.

Once she learns that Anadil managed to escape and is actually alive, having been wandering through the maze on her own for months, Hester vows to save her, stepping down and handing over the quest for Daedalus to Agatha.

Hester manages to find Anadil, whose mind appears fragmented after so long in the labyrinth, and begs Dot to help her find a solution. The daughter of Dionysus eventually does, combining her mild influence over madness with Reena Shazabah’s healing talents as a daughter of Apollo.

Anadil and Hester keep in touch often after that, becoming very close friends and formulating a plan to secretly recruit minor gods and their children back to the olympian side.

The two of them start dating officially a few weeks after the end of the war and are currently still together.

Nemesis

Hester is contacted by her mother more often than most demigods, probably due to Nemesis status as a minor goddess. Nemesis offers to help Hester on occasion, but Hester always stresses that her mother is anything but kind; no help from her ever comes free of charge.

August Sader

Despite making a few jokes about the oracle’s host being past his prime, Hester shows a deep respect for the camp director, even if she doesn’t always agree with his tatics.

Reena Shazabah

Hester’s active dislike for Beatrix during her first few summers at camp lead to her passive dislike of all of the daughter of Aphrodite’s friends and flings, including Reena, but they eventually become friends and, after Reena aids Dot in healing Anadil’s mind, the two of them can often be spotted training together at the arena.

Rafal

While they were in the same cabin and Rafal was one of the few campers that didn’t avoid her, Hester tells Agatha she does not trust him. 

Once Rafal reveals himself as Kronos’ son, offering Hester a spot in his army, due to her being a child of a minor goddess, she tells him to “get fucked” and stabs him in the arm with her dagger, establishing their dynamic for the rest of the war.

Nicola Saylor

Hester is initially resentful of Nicola, for her presence reminded Hester of her own failure to find Agatha, but once the roman girl reveals that Agatha was most likely stuck at Camp Jupiter without her memories, Hester starts acting less hostile towards her.

Yara Thomas

Hester is part of the rescue party that retrieves Yara and her brother Willan.

At first the two seemed to get along, but after Yara joins the Hunters their friendship sours, as Hester has a very strong disdain for the group.

However, they start talking again during the Battle of Manhattan and grow closer once Yara offers to try and track down Agatha once she goes missing.

The current status of their friendship is unknown, as Hester will probably be livid once she finds out Yara met amnesiac!Agatha at Camp Jupiter months prior to Nicola’s arrival at Camp Half-Blood.

Hort Scourie

She doesn’t really care much for Hort at all before he is revealed to be one of the seven, but tolerates his presence on occasion, though Hester does state that kicking his ass on the arena is one of her favorite hobbies.

Weapons and Powers: Hester is very skilled with daggers and knifes, though her weapon of choice is usually a whip given to her by her mother on a deal they made when Hester first found out she was a demigod. Whatever Hester had to give her mother to keep her end of the bargain is currently unknown. 

The whip is shown to have a mind of its own, moving in fast snake-like motions that Sophie describes as “demonic”, glowing red when “awake”, but its use is rather dangerous for long periods of time, as it draws energy directly from Hester’s life force.

Hester has some sort of control over chance, being able to strike deals to tip the scales of balance in her favor, allowing her to succeed in unlikely situations, but more often than not, the price for doing so is way too high, being a last resort for her.