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edda-grenade · 4 years ago

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Sleep.

Adaar and Solas attempt fadewalking for the first time.

#feral verse, 2000 words. on AO3.

They were lying on a hilltop in the forest, on a fur to keep the cold of fall at bay. Well, Adaar was lying down—Solas had sat up to give her a curious look.

“You wish to leave?”

“No! I mean, yes, kinda—maybe—I don’t know.” She groaned and covered her face with her hands.

“You seem very happy, here,” he said, in that slow, careful way he had.

“I am! I am. I don’t want to leave my family, or this place, or you—”

“Me?” His voice cracked, just a little. Adaar glanced at him from between her fingers.

“Yes, obviously. I know you like to pretend you’re some lone wolf apart from all living creatures or whatever, but you’re my friend, alright? You’re not getting out of that so easily.”

“I don’t—pretend…” He sighed, his skin staining with blush, the faint freckles even fainter. His lips twitched like he was trying not to smile, until he gave up and his mouth crooked. Adaar loved it when that happened. She was pretty good at making it happen, too.

“You do not wish to leave, but?”

Now she sighed and clamped her hand over her eyes again. It was easier in the dark, unwatched.

“The world is so big and so full of things I don’t know,” she said softly, “and I want to learn everything.”

“Adaar…”

She hadn’t figured out if she loved that yet—the way he said her name sometimes, how he looked at her. Like she was the sun coming over the horizon, or a thunderstorm in the distance, or the wind dancing through the fields so hard it sang. At least that’s what she imagined the expression would look like on her face—an expression that was meant for immense and somewhat unfathomable things, not for a single person.

“There is a way I could show those things to you. Not all of them, of course—but more than what is accessible to you right now.”

Adaar sat up so quickly her head spun a little.

“I’m listening.”

He explained, and her head continued to spin, although for different reasons. Lucid dreaming, delving into the Fade like into a cave, how the deeper you went the older the memories imprinted upon the Fade would be…

It sounded ludicrous. Like magic, if she had never heard of it before. It sounded amazing.

“Can we just do that?” she asked. “Right now?”

Solas gave her another weird look; his eyes wide and searching for a brief moment.

“I—yes. Come with me.”

They left the little barren hilltop that poked above the forest behind and instead descended into the small cave Solas had chosen as his resting place. She’d tried often to convince him to join her family at the settlement, but he’d steadfastly refused every time. It didn’t bother her as much anymore—the cave looked more and more like an actual home these days, with a fire pit and cooking tools, shelves he’d carved out of the rock to hold utensils using a spell she hadn’t quite figured out yet herself, and a warm, dry place to sleep.

Solas had a ball of light bobbing in the air above his shoulder, and gazed down at the bedstead. It was cozy: a pallet of hay covered in cowhide, with a blanket and fur to keep warm in winter. It was also not nearly big enough for both of them. At least not if they intended not to share breathing space.

“There’s a bigger bed at home, you know,” Adaar said. “Actual walls and a door, too.”

“I would prefer to try it here. I have set the requisite wards quite often, and I’m familiar with the peculiarities of the Fade in this place.”

She shrugged, glancing around at the runes and sigils he had marked into the walls of the cave. “Yeah, makes sense. I’m just saying, you can get familiar with the farm, too. There’s space for you, it’s not a problem.”

“I’m aware, since you keep reminding me so diligently.”

“It keeps being true.”

She smiled a little at how that statement made his ears dip and his head turn away so she wouldn’t see his face. He cleared his throat.

“I have never… attempted to teach this to anyone else.”

“Because you didn’t want to, or because there was no one you could teach it to?” She hesitated, thinking of his arguments with Lavellan's Keeper. “Or because no one wanted to learn it?”

He let out a low breath. “All of the above,” he replied quietly, “at one point or another.”

Adaar slapped her hands together to resist the urge to hug him, then clapped her palms briefly onto his shoulders because not touching him at all was even more frustrating than being shrugged off. “First time for everything. How do we start?”

Solas showed her how to set the wards—they’d talked about spellwork like it before, but mostly in abstract terms. It took a good while, because she kept stumbling over new questions, like how specific a ward could be, how permanent, how big a space it could cover… They were halfway into designing one that might be used to keep beetles out of the grain, until they managed to get back to the task at hand.

She settled on the bedstead with crossed legs while Solas puttered about by the fire pit and brewed a concoction he insisted wasn’t tea to help them fall asleep. Then she got up again and started pacing, as much as was possible, because her legs were too jittery to sit still. She was just glad most of the cave was high enough that she didn’t have to stoop—she halted, gazing at the stone close above her.

“Solas, did you shape the ceiling, too?”

“What do you mean?”

“The rock here has a different texture.” She reached up to touch it and closed her eyes, searching for that low echo of past magic—and found it. “And it’s been worked with magic.”

“…A little. It is not your fault you are so tall.”

A smile bit into her cheeks. “Aw, that’s sweet.”

“It was a practical consideration,” he muttered, but he didn’t sound like he was actually put out. “You insert yourself into others’ spaces inevitably, it was only a matter of time until you would find your way into this one.”

“That almost sounds like a criticism.”

“An observation. Foremost.” He handed a steaming cup of the not-tea to her, then sipped from his own. She breathed in the smell—chamomile, juniper, and something spicy she didn’t recognize—then exhaled a bit of frost across it to cool it down before taking a sip.

Solas was watching her when she looked up from the cup.

“Something wrong?”

“No, it is simply… nice, to see how certain magic has become easier for you.”

“The frost? Yeah, I barely have to think about it anymore.” She blew a puff of snow into his face to demonstrate. Solas startled, grimacing, and wiped the rapidly-melting crystals from his cheeks.

“Sorry,” Adaar said, very earnestly. “Couldn’t resist.”

He shook his head and grumbled something in Elvish, but he was smiling again. That small, helpless, trying-not-to smile. They finished their cups, put them aside, and regarded the bedstead again.

“I shall take the fur, next to the pallet,” said Solas.

“I thought the point was to fall asleep more easily? And to sleep more deeply?”

“Yes.”

“Then why make it harder on yourself? We just gotta… scrunch up a little, it’s gonna be fine.”

There was a long silence.

“I am not used to sleeping among other people,” Solas said finally, his tone even. He wasn’t used to other people—flesh-and-blood people, that was—in general, Adaar suspected, but she kept it to herself. Right now was probably a bad time to bring that one up.

“Alright, no spooning then,” she said instead and sat down and stretched out along one side of the bedding. Then she remembered she had to get rid of her shoes, untied them, and hucked them against an empty wall. Lying down, the scent of lavender became obvious amid the hay and fur; sprigs had been stuck to the corners to keep bugs away. She’d told him about that trick months ago.

It really was cozy; warm and inviting. She curled onto her side, drawing her feet up, and patted the mattress next to her. Slowly, Solas joined her, folding himself up so he took up even less space than usual. It was still a tight fit, especially since he tried to avoid any real contact beyond the brush of fabric.

“I will attempt to find you once we are dreaming,” he said. “With our current physical proximity it should be an easier task.”

“There’s really nothing else to it? We just fall asleep?”

“It is… difficult to put into words. Question your dreams, if you can. The key is to become aware—awareness begets agency, which in turn begets control.”

Adaar tugged the fur and blanket up to cover them. “Alright. Sleep well?” There was a flash of a smile on Solas’s face before he closed his eyes.

“I shall see you soon.”

It was not soon. Adaar’s mind refused to quiet, anticipation thrumming in her limbs. She kept shifting, unable to relax, and she worried she’d spend the entire night sleepless, when she finally woke up again to a dark, quiet cave.

She must have fallen asleep at some point, then? So was this the Fade? It didn’t feel different. She was sleepy and bleary-eyed just as she would be when waking up in the middle of the night, and a cursory examination of the cave with a bit of conjured light—a spell that behaved no differently than any previous time she’d used it—told her it looked exactly as it had when they had bedded down. Except…

Solas lay tucked against her front, his body warm, his breathing even. His temple rested against her collarbones and his folded legs leaned against her hips. He was curled up as he’d been before, but now it seemed less about making himself smaller, and more about fitting into the curve of her body.

Adaar stared into the darkness. That was… unexpected. Solas didn’t seek out physical contact. Sure, he usually melted into it for one or two seconds when it was offered before pulling away, but nothing like this.

Cautiously, she tried to brace herself on her elbow to get a better look, both at the cave and at him. She bit down on a sharp inhale when pins and needles erupted in the limb, breathing through it with care until the sensation passed. But even on a thorough second look, nothing changed. The cave was still the cave, nothing remotely immaterial about it, and Solas still slept soundly, curled up against her.

Part of her wanted to wake him up. Let him know it hadn’t worked, at least not yet, and try to figure out what might be changed, because merely the thought of consciously walking in the Fade was enough to make her heart beat faster.

But he looked so much younger in his sleep. His features softened and relaxed, like he might actually be at peace. Adaar wasn’t sure she had ever managed to catch him this unguarded. When they were together, it felt like he hardly stopped watching her.

She let out a small sigh and settled back down, gently wrapping one arm around his waist. Hopefully that wouldn’t upset him, if he woke up before her come morning. Right now at least, a soft, sleepy noise slipped from him, and he rolled even more thoroughly into her embrace.

#don't worry solas is gonna get slammed with the pining soon enough #feral verse #adaar #solas #saar gets her own tag #inquisitor x solas #soladaar #time for those tags to make a regular appearance in this verse :3c #art tag #fanart #fic tag #fic related #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #da:i

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writingsoftheghost · 4 years ago

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Room to Breathe

Based on this post by @sleepyvirgilprompts but I deviated from the intent a lot.

Tw: Panic attack, Unwanted physical contact, yelling, accusations, anxious thoughts, swearing

Ship: Platonic LAMP

Virgil was an idiot, a tired idiot, but an idiot. He’d just wanted out of his room, the shadows and the dark making it impossible to relax that night. Just like it had the night before. He was exhausted, he didn’t even plan to sleep that night, he just wanted to breathe a little. So, he grabbed his blanket and headed to the Light Side living room. It was the first time he’d really left his room in the last few days.

He’d turned the tv to the lowest volume and clicked on the first thing he saw. An episode of Over the Garden Wall. That was fine, Virgil liked the animation.The low volume was soothing, he turned the subtitles on and let himself zone out.

This of course was dumb, relaxing somewhere he shouldn’t be when he was exhausted. Predictably, he fell asleep.

He didn’t know how long he was asleep, but he woke up to the sound of footsteps, footsteps coming closer. He woke up slightly at that realization, looking around and realizing where he was, sending himself into a panic.

He looked around in vain for a place to hide, the tv was still playing softly, when the footsteps sounded impossibly close and Virgil had gone completely delirious with the cocktail of exhaustion and pure panic in his body, he threw the blanket he’d brought over his head and willed himself to stop breathing so loud.

Now, in any other state, Virgil would’ve recognized this as stupid and ridiculous. But right now, his brain seemed to be operating with a child’s ideas of object permanence. “If I can’t see them, they can’t see me.”

So when he heard Princey’s voice his heart almost stopped, “Hello? Patton?”

When Roman got no response, he tried again, “Lo?”

Virgil briefly thought of making a run for it, if he kept the blanket on his head, maybe the prince wouldn’t know it was him. This plan actially sounded pretty good, but just as Virgil was about to make a breal for it, he felt the blanket being tugged away from him.

He was too shocked to resist, suddenly, the anxious trait found himself staring into the eyes of Creativity.

“Anxiety!” The Prince cried incredulously.

Virgil flinched away at the loud noise, “Good Evening, Princey.” He said in a forced casual tone.

“What in Thomas’s name are you doing down here?!” Roman looked mad. Virgil could feel himself moving closer to the edge with every shouted word.

“I could ask you the same question.” Why was he making this worse?

“I live here, you creep!” Roman is in his face now and it’s too much, Virgil has to get out of there.

He pushes Roman away, not hard, but enough to get him to back out of his way. He runs to the stairs, panic blinding him. He bumps into something solid and firm, arms catch him from falling down the few stairs he’d made it up.

“Woah, there, kiddo? Whatcha doing down here so late?” Patton. Patton, oh no oh no oh no oh no...

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Roman huffs angrily from the bottom of the stairs. “He pushed me, trying to make an escape attempt. Good job, Pat, you got him.”

Patton frowns, “Anxiety?” He asks softly, “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

Virgil lets out a strangled cry, Patton’s arms are still holding onto him, keeping him in place and it’s all too much. He can’t get away, he has to get away. He’s settled on flight, he didn’t want to hurt any of them, but he was so close to losing all control. Why couldn’t they just let him go?

“What are you all doing?” God no. Why did they all have to be here? Why couldn’t he have just stayed in his room?

Virgil was hyperventilating, he couldn’t get himself to focus enough to even explain himself. The only thoughts in his mind right now were, “Go! Go! Go! Danger!” And it was making it impossible to even listen to the words being spoken to him.

“Patton let him go, for Pete’s sake! He’s having a panic attack!” Logan snaps.

“Oh no, kiddo, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize-” Patton stops talking when Virgil yanks away from Patton’s loosened grip and immediately starts running up the remainder of the stairs. They all three flinch at the sound of Virgil’s bedroom door slamming shut.

Patton makes a move to follow the anxious trait, but Logan puts a hand on his shoulder, “Don’t.”

“But he-”

“Is in a serious state of distress, due to the both of you. I doubt he wants any comfort right now. Give him space,” Logan interrupts irritably.

“He left his blankie...” Patton mumbles sadly.

“Logan, that fiend was down here doing gosh knows what, and you want us to give him space?” Roman cries indignantly.

“Ro,” Patton frowns at the prince, “He probably didn’t mean anything by it. He hasn’t come downstairs in days, why’d you chase him out?”

“He was hiding under a blanket,” Roman rolls his eyes, “That’s pretty suspicious. You need to stop being so nice, Pat. Not everyone is good.”

Logan descends the stairs with a blank expression, he looks around the living room critically, “It appears he was watching television,” he drawls.

“Well, yes, I’m sure it appears that way,” Roman defends weakly.

“You chased my dark strange son away for watching cartoons,” Patton looks like he might cry. “Ro, he may never come back down here again!”

“While I doubt that’s true, he may be reluctant to leave his room for the foreseeable future.”

Patton shoots Roman a sad look.

Roman huffs, “You won’t make me feel bad. It’s not happening.”

“Ro...” Patton whispers in a pleading voice, “He didn’t even do anything.”

“Maybe not this time,” Romman mumbles defensively.

“Any-” Logan pulls out a vocab card “-beef, you have with Anxiety is merely because he’s doing his job. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean you can treat him like a criminal for every little thing he does.” Logan states firmly.

Roman groans, “Why do you always take his side?”

“Because he needs the support,” Patton shoots Roman a firm look, “You shouldn’t be so mean to him, Ro. He doesn’t mean to make you mad, he’s just doing his job.”

“Okay, okay! Enough with the guilt trip! I’ll apologize to him!” Roman stomps up a few stairs before Logan stops him.

“Not tonight,” Logan looks at both sides seriously, “Neither of you should bother him anymore tonight. He needs some time to breathe. We can discuss it in the morning.”

Patton nods sadly, “My poor kiddo...”

Roman rolls his eyes, “Whatever, I’m going back to bed.” He never even gets the glass of water he came downstairs for in the first place.

*****

Virgil spends the rest of the night on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. For someone to come pounding on his door, demanding an explanation for the previous night, and his solemn oath to never do it again.

Neither of those comes, not even in the morning, when Virgil is sure everyone will wake up angrier than before.

Roman was probably furious. His worst enemy lounging on the couch.

Virgil waited all day for that pounding knock, it didn’t come. Instead he spent the whole day expecting it. And being shocked when he heard a soft tap early on in the evening.

“Kiddo? I brought you some pizza?” Patton. Probably to lull him into a false sense of security. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to ignore the moral trait.

“No thanks, I’m good.”

Outside the door, Patton frowns. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Virgil wants him to leave, he wants him to leave. The silence stretches on for long enough to make him start to think he had.

But then, “Anxiety, I’m sorry Roman chased you out of the living room last night.”

Virgil freezes, his entire body tenses up. He knows he should say something but his entire mind has gone blank.

“He really shouldn’t have done that, kiddo,” Patton continues, “I’m sure he feels bad about it.”

Virgil seriously doubted that, Roman didn’t feel bad. About anything, ever. “It’s fine, I shouldn’t have been down there anyway.” His voice sounds nonchalant, but the fact that this was just another way he’d never be accepted made his heart ache.

“Oh, Anxiety, no!” Patton cries in a horrified voice, “Kiddo, you’re allowed to be in the living room.”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks, Pat.”

“I mean it.” Patton’s voice had done solemn and serious. “Roman shouldn’t have chased you out, you have just as much of a right to be there as the rest of us.”

Virgil sighs and climbs off the bed, he stalks to the door and swings it open. Patton blinks at him in surprise, “You don’t really want me there. I appreciate the thought, I really do. But you and I both know I’d make it awkward. No one really wants the embodiment of fear and nervousness in a room, Pat. Thanks anyway.” He attempt to shut the door, Patton stops him with his foot.

“Wait! That’s not true at all, Anxiety. I’d love for you to come downstairs and hang out with us. Logan doesn’t mind you doing so, either.”

Virgil nods, “And Roman?”

Patton grimaces, “He’ll come around. But he doesn’t own the living room. You have just as much right to be there as he does.”

Virgil shakes his head, “I don’t want to piss him off.”

“Language,” Patton warns lightly, “and he’ll get over it. Why don’t you come down with me? I won’t let him chase you out again, promise.”

And he looks so hopeful, and Virgil didn’t even realize he’d nodded until he felt Patton’s hand grab his and suddenly he was being pulled along downstairs.

“Wait, Patton!” Virgil protests.

Patton stops in the middle of the hall, “If you don’t want to go, I won’t make you. But I really don’t want you to feel like you’re not allowed downstairs.”

Virgil nods, “I just don’t want a repeat of last night, I’m sorry I ran away. It was just...”

“Overwhelming?” Patton offers, “that’s okay, Anxiety. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just glad you’re not mad at me, I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that. And besides, Roman promised me he wouldn’t do that again.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, I think Lo and I made him feel bad. He shouldn’t have chased you out.”

“I—are you sure he’s not more mad now? He did find me downstairs in the middle of the night.”

“Which you’re completely allowed to do,” Patton replies.

“I’m just saying, it was odd. And I know I’m not the easiest person to trust. Just...don’t be too hard on him about it, okay? He doesn’t deserve that.”

“Do you really mean that?” Virgil whirls around to see Roman standing at the end of the hall.

“Jesus! Are you trying to kill a guy? Who sneaks up on Anxiety?” Virgil cries exasperatedly.

“I wasn’t sneaking up on you, I just happened to over hear. But you really aren’t upset with me for last night?”

Virgil shrugs, “I was in your living room in the middle of the night. It’s fine.”

Roman shakes his head, “It isn’t, you...you were just watching cartoons. I’m sorry.”

Virgil’s eyes widen in surprise, “Thank you.”

Roman offers a tentative smile, “Would you like to come downstairs and watch a movie?”

Virgil smiles, “Yeah, thanks, that sounds great.”

Patton squeals excitedly, “I’m so glad you two made up! Now! Let’s go get Logie to make us snacks!”

__________

I just ran with this i don’t even have an explanation

Taglist: @idont-freaking-know @aceawkwardunicorn @emo--nightmaree @a-yeet-bop-bop-boom @me-a-mess-morelikelythanyouthink @katlikethesword @tranquil-space-ninja @book-limerence @cute-and-angsty-princess

#sanders sides #platonic lamp #platonic moxiety #ts sides #fanfic #thomas sanders #ts roman #roman #roman sanders #ts patton #ts virgil #Patton #Patton sanders #Virgil #Virgil sanders #Logan #ts Logan #Logan sanders

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emilyoftheshadows · 4 years ago

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Person A catches a bus home everyday, but today, they're so exhausted that they fall asleep, suddely they feel a light tap on their shoulder and open their eyes to see a cute guy/gal/person smiling at them. "Sorry to wake you, bit this is your stop, i hope you slept well"

So, this is the first piece I have written and posted here! This is a fluffy drabble loosely based on the prompt above as well as some tik tok ideas i've seen. I hope you enjoy and don't judge too hard :)

~~~~~~

Aelin never knew that she could feel such a wide range of emotions in such a short amount of time. The hectic events she had endured earlier in her day had left her drained and in dire need of sleep.

She started out her mornings as usual - brewing her coffee with the help of an overly excited Fleetfoot. On the subway ride to work, coffee in hand, she explicitly remembered checking her emails for any important notices regarding her job. As an advertising agent, she dealt with multiple clients at one time. With her meticulously organized calendar and the help of her overworked assistant Marion, she was usually able to keep everything in check. Today was not one of those days.

As she entered her office, Marion greeted her with her tablet in hand- Aelin’s schedule color coded, labeled and sorted by hour.

“Good morning Ms. Galathynius, ready to hear your schedule for today?” Aelin nodded, sipping her coffee as Marion listed her client meetings for the upcoming day. As they entered her office, Aelin paused.

“Marion, could you please repeat that first meeting again?”

“The Havilliard Scotch pitch at 12?” And that was when Aelin knew she was fucked. This pitch was meant for a well known drinking company in New York, fast on the come up. Havilliard Sr. was known to be picky about his branding, scrutinizing most agencies that had helped him before. She had barely gotten this client, practically begging Nehemia for the job. As she worked the branding, she had become worried about the content she was producing.

She was so worried about this pitch, that she had taken her laptop home last night in hopes of triple checking her work for mistakes and to fine tune some details. And that's where her laptop was at that moment. At her apartment, across town, sitting on her desk, collecting dust. Her mind raced at how to solve her predicament. The subway ride to and from her apartment was too long of a trip to make before the meeting and, like an amateur, she hadn’t saved her files anywhere else but her laptop. She was completely fucked.

Marion stood in the doorway, confused on what was going on in Aelin’s head. Aelin decided to finally release herself from her stupor. “Marion, could you please go find Aedion for me? And tell him it’s an emergency.”

With a determined look on her face, her assistant went as fast as her short legs could carry her to Aedion’s office on the adjacent part of the building floor she was on. Within minutes, Aedion was standing at her door, panting like he had just sprinted the fastest race of his life. The good thing about having her overbearing cousin work with her, is that she knew that in any problem he would help in an instant. And this was one hell of a fucking problem.

“What happened Aelin? Are you okay? Were you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?”

“You idiot I am physically fine, but still screwed and I need your help.” Aedion released the first breath Aelin had seen him take since entering her office.

“You know, when Marion power walked into my office saying you had an EMERGENCY and she didn’t know what was wrong with you, I definitely thought you would be passed out on your floor with blood on your face. But, you know, thanks for the heart attack. Really woke me up this morning.”

Aelin rolled her eyes at him. He was more dramatic than her, and that spoke volumes in itself.

“Aedion, please it really is an emergency. I have the big pitch for the Havilliard Scotch today and I left my laptop with the presentation at my apartment.” Aedion’s eyes widened in surprise. He knew that Aelin had been obsessed about this pitch and that mistakes like this only happened to her once in a blue moon. Aelin saw understanding dawn on his face and took that as a sign to continue.

“Now, I know a while back I sent you the rough drafts of the branding from when I first got the pitch. Is there any chance that you have the email or presentation saved still? If I have the basis of the presentation, I have an hour to build on it and hopefully fix this.”

Aedion’s face fell at the request. “We can go look, but you know I’m not the best at organizing my files Ace. It could be anywhere on my computer or not at all.” With those reaffirming words, Aelin and Aedion walked at a brisk pace back to his office. Combing through Aedion’s computer was an agonizing process. There were files saved from years ago that should’ve been deleted, and backtracking through all the contents of his computer made Aelin want to stab her eyes out. But it was all worth it, because hidden in the depths of this man’s terribly organized computer was the presentation. With a quick click of a button, she emailed the document to herself. She gave a half ass hug to Aedion, then practically ran to her office to start reworking her pitch on the computer there.

Aelin believed it was pure adrenaline that enabled her to finish her pitch in time for the Havilliard meeting. With a strong foundation laid out before her from her first draft, she had constructed almost her exact pitch that was left at home. Aelin waited for the Havilliards in the boardroom, smoothing out her clothes as she paced at the front. Far too soon, Marion escorted Havilliard Sr., Dorian Havilliard, and their close friend and partner Chaol Westfall into the room for her presentation. The three men had sat down in silence with no introduction, except for a small encouraging smile from the younger Havilliard. Taking that as her sign to start, Aelin cleared her throat.

“Hello gentlemen, today I want to present to you the future of Havilliard Scotch…”

---

As the men had exited the room single file, Aelin finally allowed herself to relax. That had felt like the longest pitch of her life. Going into the meeting, she had known the men were notorious for being extremely serious and critical of their agents. What she had not expected was the whispered words between the men after she had finished her presentation. As she looked on, Dorian Havilliard had finally broken away from their circle to address her.

“Miss Galathynius, thank you for your time. We will get back to you shortly about our decision to run with this branding or not.” With a quick nod and gesture to his companions, the trio had stood up and left the room. She was utterly shocked. Aelin had poured her sweat and tears into this pitch, quite literally, and they had just thanked her and left. No critiques, no opinions, no nothing.

Quite honestly, Aelin was exhausted. She had spent most of her brain power reworking that pitch in that 45 minutes before that meeting and she had nothing left to give today. Yet, she still had a full schedule left to woo clients and work on her other projects. By the time Aelin trudged back to the subway, she was ready for a nice dinner at home followed by a restorative night of sleep with Fleetfoot at her side.

Now, as she entered the subway, she immediately noticed the mystery man sitting down a few feet away from her. The man was moderately built, with muscles that were outlined by the fabric of his long sleeve t-shirt. His style was simple with a pair of nice jeans and Doc Marten boots, but that just allowed one's focus to settle on the beautiful creation that was his face. Mystery man had a strong jawline, lined with a bit of stubble and scruff. His eyes were a beautiful shade of green like none that she had seen before, his head topped with luscious silver hair. As the subway started, Mystery Man continued to sketch drawings into his book. Now, Aelin was never one to back down from an opportunity to flirt with one of the most attractive men she had ever seen. She was a single woman in a big city, why the hell not. But her day had taken a toll on her, and she just didn’t know if this was the right time or place. So, she opted to put in her headphones as she waited for her stop, listening to relaxing music to calm her anxieties regarding the failed Havilliard pitch.

Seeing that her stop was next, Aelin rose from her seat to wait in line for the doors to open. As she waited, she felt a light tap on her shoulder. Low and behold, there was the Mystery Man standing next to her with a piece of paper in hand. As she pulled her headphone out, the man silently handed her the paper. Looking down, she saw a pencil sketch of herself on the subway. The drawing was beautifully done with bold lines and harsh shading, contrasted by highlights created from the fluorescent lights of the subway. Her eyes welled up, immediately grateful for this thoughtful gift after such a horrible day. The Mystery Man saw her emotions, startled to see tears welling up in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude on your privacy. I just… I like to draw and when I saw you… I mean, it’s just you’re so stunning..” The man’s face flushed red as he tried to justify his beautiful art. Aelin laughed out loud for the first time today at his misunderstanding of her swell of emotions.

“Oh no, these are just tears of..uhmm.. happiness? I guess…” She started to flush at her own awkwardness, trying to explain her emotions this time.

“I just had a really rough day and feel like shit. But this drawing is beautiful and I really am grateful that such a talented artist like yourself chose me as your muse today.” Aelin watched as the Mystery Man reacted to such a lavish compliment, somehow developing an even deeper blush with a shy smile . Gaining confidence from his reaction, she decided to make her move before she exited for her upcoming stop.

“Hey, Mystery Man, why don’t I give you my number? Seeing that I am your muse and all, I would really like to learn more about your art.” It was a subpar pickup line at best, but hey, she had a long day and for the circumstance she thought it good enough. The man gave a deep timbered laugh at her pickup line, clearly enjoying their conversation now.

“I think I might be one step ahead of you actually. Flip the drawing over.” As she flipped the paper, she saw a messy scrawl with the name Rowan, and what she could only assume was his number. The sight of these two things brought her complete giddiness. Giddiness that made you want to jump in the air and pump your fist because you're so excited. She looked up at Rowan, smirking as she tucked the piece of paper into her purse.

As the subway doors opened and they were pushed apart by bypassers, she turned around one last time to look at the man who had brightened her day beyond belief. She winked at Rowan as she walked away, not missing the wide smile he gave in return as the subway doors closed and continued on to the next stop.

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page-doctor-bekker · 4 years ago

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Cat out of The Bag (transfemme!sarah)

(A/N) this takes place before Human Error, and THIS CONTAINS FLASHBACKS, PANIC ATTACKS, DISSOCIATION, GUN VIOLENCE, AND IMPLICATIONS OF A HATE CRIME

no ava in this one :( but caring dr charles and some lovely backstory

ED service was never, ever a boring day. Gaffney Chicago Medical Center could see a dozen traumas by noon, coming off the streets of the city Sarah called home.

Less often than traumas, they saw more serious emergencies; Code pinks when a newly-walking child wanders off, code greys when someone attacks someone without a weapon, a code red when someone decides it’s a great idea to smoke in the bathrooms, or…

“This is Maggie Lockwood in the ED, we have a code silver in the ED,” Maggie was quiet, glancing rapidly between the phone, and a treatment room where Dr. Charles was locked in with another man, maybe in his mid-40s.

Code silver. For guns.

Sarah’s heart practically stopped. She made panicked eye contact with Maggie, who shook her head and motioned for her to be quiet.

He covered her mouth, dragging her into the alleyway.

“Treatment two?” Sarah mouthed, and Maggie nodded.

Maggie hung the phone back up, and Sarah saw two security guards move into position outside the glass door to treatment two. Sarah felt short of breath, and like she wasn’t in her own body. She felt a sharp pain in her lower right abdomen, and she touched her thumb to the area, feeling the crater of a scar she had. She felt herself losing grip on her calmness, and really all she wanted to do was hide. Her head felt full - Not physically, but full of thoughts.

The phantom pain from her side got more intense, and Sarah squeezed the edge of the desk. Her knuckles were white, her breathing was shaky, and physically she could see but she was so in-her-head she couldn’t see what she was looking at.

She was under the table before she realized shots had fired, and she covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, focusing solely on her panic attack.

They’re going to get me.

She choked out a quiet sob, realizing she was the only one left inside, other than the doctors treating… Someone.

“No exit wound. Bullet may be lodged in his spine, push him on his side. He’ll choke on the blood if we don’t.”

“ED’s clear, PD’s on their way.”

“Are you sure there’s nobody else in the ED? Are the exits locked down?”

“Yes, positive. Checked every room. All critical patients are being transferred upstairs or to East Mercy, and all non-critical patients are being encouraged to relocate to other hospitals. We’re going on bypass,”

She threaded her hands through her hair and tugged, soliciting an ache at her scalp. It hurt, but it was almost grounding. Her heart felt like it was beating out of her chest, she couldn’t catch her breath as if she had run two miles in the peak of summer.

The sound of the gunshot rang through her head, echoing through her skull, bouncing around and rebounding. She felt hands on her skin, and opened her eyes. She frantically checked her entire body, searching for the hands. They weren’t there, but they sure felt real. She twisted and flapped her hands rapidly, her fingers outstretched and extended as far as they could go. The stimulation usually calmed her, but nothing seemed to calm her right now. She couldn’t seem to get herself back to reality, although reality wasn’t much safer than the flashbacks she was stuck in.

She couldn’t breathe. She felt like she had been kicked in the stomach, and she wished she had never felt what that feels like in the first place. She heard another gunshot, whether real or fake, and felt searing pain at the site of her scar. White, hot pain, that burned and she clenched her teeth and held her hand to her side.

She felt warmth on her right flank, and her fingers were wet and red. She was oozing blood through her new shirt, a white transgender pride shirt that she had picked up from the festival, and changed into inside the teal port-a-potty. The festival organizers had hung flags and streamers on it, and a sign that said “ANY GENDER”.

“No pulse, bag him!”

She felt warmth on her side, but her fingers were dry and cold when she touched her scar. She untucked her shirt, and lifted it up. All she could see was the scar. She let out a sigh of relief. Just as soon as she let out that sigh, she was back.

She could see stars, and the Chicago streetlights, and feel the concrete on the back of her head. She tried to lift her head and look around, but her vision was blurry. Her hearing was echoey, and she writhed in pain against the rough concrete. Her hair felt warm, and wet, and she knew it was blood. She heard the men running, and a police officer’s siren.

Sitting up made her feel dizzy, and she felt a sense of vertigo from the discrepancy between her position in the flashbacks and her position in real life. Her vision doubled, and the hyperventilating wasn’t helping her mental state. She imagined she was satting maybe in the low 90s, high 80s. She felt lightheaded, like she may pass out.

She’s laying in the backseat of a police car; A huge step up from the concrete. She heard the sirens even worse now, piercing her eardrums and making her head pound. She felt helpless.

“Dr. Reese?”

She could vaguely see Dr. Charles through her tears.

There was a doctor standing over her.

“Can we use a treatment room? I think she’s having a panic attack. She needs somewhere dark, and quiet if possible.”

“Treatment four, close the curtains and the doors.”

She heard the beeping of monitors, and all alarms went off just before she passed out. She felt ribs crack as the doctor gave her chest compressions.

“She’s going out, too much hyperventilating.”

She woke up in the dark. She blinked, groggy, and her eyes set on Dr. Charles.

“Sarah?” Dr. Charles looked concerned, “You had a panic attack. You were so upset you made yourself pass out.. Do you know what triggered it?”

“Were the shots real or… Or…” Sarah rubbed her eyes, hard enough that she saw colors that she wasn’t even sure existed.

“There was a shot, yes,” He nodded, “But… We thought we evacuated everyone. What were you doing under the table? You seemed like… Like you were having some sort of dissociative episode, flashbacks…?”

“Uh…” Sarah shook her head, with a short sigh, “I don’t… I don’t need you to shrink me. I have generalized anxiety, it’s in my chart.”

“You passed out,” He shrugged, “Standard protocol, you can’t return to work until I sign you off. And I want you to finish your saline, we want to make sure you aren’t dehydrated, that there’s nothing else contributing to passing out. And…” He gave her a tight-lipped smile, with concerned eyes, “It just seemed like a bit more than a normal panic attack.”

Sarah stared at him, quietly, “It was just a panic attack, Dr. Charles. Nothing more.”

“If it was something else, I will leave it off your chart and not tell anyone, I just don’t want you to internalize it.”

Sarah was quiet, and heard another gunshot ring through her head. She shuddered.

“Sarah.”

“Okay, okay,” She threw her hands up, “I…”

She sighed. Dr. Charles raised an eyebrow, and Sarah pulled up her shirt. She pointed to the scar, “I was shot in college, okay? I just… I’m just afraid of guns. That’s all.”

“You were shot?!” Dr. Charles exclaimed, quietly, “When? Why?”

“Look, Dr. Charles, it’s not a big deal,” Sarah murmured, putting her shirt down, “I’m over it.”

“You’re not over it, Sarah.”

“I am,” She argued.

“Sarah, it’s okay, don’t work yourself up, but in order to help you I-”

“I don’t need your help!”

Dr. Charles was quiet.

They both sat silently for a minute. The only sounds were the saline drip, heart monitor, and the oxygen machine that led to the cannula in her nose.

“I was walking home alone at night,” She trembled, “From Chicago pride.”

Stop. You’re doing to lose everything.

“Oh Sarah, I am so sorry,” Dr. Charles gave her a look of pity, which filled Sarah with anger, in addition to the remaining anxiety.

“Wearing a transgender pride shirt.”

Dr. Charles was quiet, “Sometimes allies are mistaken fo-”

“I’m not an ally, Dr. Charles.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

They were quiet for a minute, and Sarah started braiding a few strands of hair together.

“I won’t write this down in your chart,” He affirmed, standing up, “Finish your saline, then have someone take your IV out. I’ll… I’ll sign you off to come back to work tomorrow.”

He started to leave, then stopped. He had his hand on the door, but he looked back.

“I care about you, Sarah.”

She nodded, swallowing nervously.

“This doesn’t change that, okay?”

(A/N) thank you for reading! lmk what you thought~

#chicago med #dr charles #daniel charles #sarah reese #dr reese #transfemme!sarah #idk how i feel about this #i think i like it #but im not sure #whatevs

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bedlamsbard · 4 years ago

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Part two of the reluctant roommates AU concept! A reminder that my concept writing is deliberately not titled, chaptered, or betaed and is generally low pressure writing. (I think to some extent I burned myself out on the titled stuff, but that’s for another post.)

Previous: Part 1

About 8.2K below the break.

Please note that while I don’t generally do content advisories, this contains discussion of fairly severe (unnamed) depression and anxiety, as well as physical abuse (about the same as other Inquisitor!Kanan concepts).

Agent Syndulla’s fear made Kanan’s back teeth ache, leeching into his dreams and giving him a flurry of nightmares that he knew had to come from her, not from within himself. He woke with a start and lay in the unfamiliar bunk with one arm thrown up over his eyes, feeling like a voyeur despite the fact that he hadn’t done it on purpose. Dreams weren’t a reflection of reality by any means, but they often had more to do with it than most people wanted to believe. From what he had seen in Agent Syndulla’s dreams, most of them had been drawn from her memory. He wished he didn’t know that.

At least it made a change of pace from his usual nightmares.

Eventually he made himself get up, wincing as his recently broken ribs twinged with the movement. They were mostly healed now, but were still fragile and painful, liable to get broken again if he wasn’t careful for the next week or so. With any luck, this particular assignment wouldn’t involve getting shot or stabbed or thrown off in any cliffs, though given the way the past decade had gone Kanan wasn’t sure he really believed in luck anymore. He still felt as though he had used up whatever he had remaining to him getting away from the Hunter for however long that lasted.

He dressed slowly, careful of the ribs as well as the rest of his assortment of healing bruises, cuts, and other miscellaneous injuries. Some were from the assignment where he had gotten his broken; some were the Hunter’s parting gift, since his master had been extremely displeased by the order that split them up for the foreseeable future and Kanan had taken the brunt of his ire. He touched his tongue to what he thought was a loose tooth and winced at the confirmation, feeding the Force through it to reseat it in the gum.

He could sense the Agent Syndulla was awake now, her attention focused on something other than her fear. Kanan delayed leaving his cabin again as long as he could, not wanting to disturb her, but eventually had to answer the call of the refresher. He was washing his hands when he sensed her sudden realization that he was awake and the spike of terror that followed, and winced. He was used to people being afraid of Inquisitors, but usually his master got the bulk of that kind of attention; when it was aimed at Kanan it tended to be mixed with an odd kind of pity and relief. People in the Imperial service expected nonhuman Inquisitors; they didn’t expect human Inquisitors, especially one with the right accent and one who was so obviously subordinate – as well as other things – to a Pau’an. Service members looked at the Hunter and felt fear; they looked at Kanan and thought, thank the gods that isn’t me. It shouldn’t have surprised him that a nonhuman officer would feel differently.

He splashed water on his face, running a finger along the line of his jaw and the new growth of beard there; he eyed it in the mirror and decided to leave it for now. It was something he hadn’t had at the Crucible, anyway, and at the moment he felt rather desperate for anything to remind him he wasn’t just the Hunter’s Hound.

He ran his damp fingers through his hair, finger-combing it, then drew it back into a short tail at the back of his skull. When he couldn’t think of anything else he could do to delay, he went back out into the corridor, and then up to the cockpit where he could sense her presence.

She jumped as the door slid open, having obviously not heard his approach, and Kanan flinched back, startled by her reaction. They stared at each other for a few moments as her astromech grumbled threateningly at him, then Agent Syndulla dropped her gaze back to the datapad she was holding.

She was a beautiful woman, the kind of woman he would have tried to seduce back before the Hunter had dragged him to the Crucible and beaten the spirit out of him, and he thought he probably could have succeeded, too. He was hardly about to try now; for one thing, she was clearly terrified of him, and for another, the idea of letting anyone else touch him after the past few years was agonizing. Even a pretty girl.

He said, “Can I get you some caf, while I’m up?”

She gave him a wary look, then said hesitantly, “All right.”

“How do you take it?”

“Milk and sugar,” she said after a moment. “A lot of both.”

Kanan nodded to her in what he hoped was a friendly fashion – he wasn’t sure he knew how to do that anymore – and let the door slide shut between them as he stepped back. He took his time making the caf, pouring equal amounts of milk and sugar into her cup, and enough sugar into his that the spoon nearly stood up. He had started drinking caf while he was in the field with the Grand Army of the Republic a decade ago, and after the first time he had spat out his mouthful – to the uproarious laughter of Styles and Gray and Depa Billaba’s barely concealed amusement – any clone who had made it for him had sweetened it enough to be tolerable for his palate. He’d never lost the taste for it that way.

He took both mugs back to the cockpit. Agent Syndulla didn’t jump when he came in this time, but she had clearly been braced for his return. She took the mug from him with polite murmured thanks but didn’t sit back in her chair, sitting with the balls of her feet pressed against the deck, as if bracing herself against the need to suddenly flee. Kanan prudently took the seat furthest from her and only belatedly realized it was the one nearest both exits. He could tell from her fast, sideways glance towards the door to the living quarters and the hatch to the hold that she knew it too. The droid grumbled again, rolling so that he was placed defiantly between the two of them, then swiveled his dome to glare at Kanan.

Agent Syndulla took a sip of her caf, looking a little wary at first, then surprised. “I didn’t know it could taste like this,” she blurted out.

“I worked in a tapcaf once,” Kanan offered. “Some of it stuck.”

She looked badly startled by that response.

He could have told her that he hadn’t always been an Inquisitor, but he wasn’t in the mood for the kinds of questions that might inspire. He sat back and drank his own caf instead; neither the caffeine nor the sugar would do much for him, since Force-users processed most kinds of stimulants too fast for them to have any meaningful effect, but the taste helped wake him up.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, drinking their caf, until Agent Syndulla finally settled herself, as if bracing for a fight, and said, “I’ve been looking at the files you sent me.”

Kanan raised his gaze to her. She was, if nothing else, lovely to look at, but she wouldn’t have made it to the ISB or lasted this long if she was just a pretty face. She clearly didn’t enjoy being under his scrutiny, though – most people weren’t when it came to Inquisitors – so after a moment he flicked his gaze slightly away from her.

“There’s an auction the day after we’re scheduled to arrive,” she went on, after a moment’s brief hesitation. “We could call in the local Imperial garrison for backup, but if the regulars could deal with this, then they would have done so by now.”

“This isn’t the sort of thing they’re really equipped to handle,” Kanan said. If it had been, no one would have bothered to send an Inquisitor and an ISB agent to deal with it. Though he had his suspicions about why the Whip had assigned it to him as his first solo assignment. He was less certain about what it had to do with Agent Syndulla and didn’t have enough of an idea about the ISB’s internal politics to even begin to guess.

She nodded in response to his comment. “Depending what the situation is like, we might want them later, but Barzhun doesn’t have a large Imperial presence. As far off the beaten path as it is, it’s not impossible that the local garrison has some sort of relationship with the black market there. It isn’t unheard of.”

And was usually the job of the ISB to deal with, though on occasion the Inquisition dealt with corrupt officials instead. Kanan nodded. “What do you want to do?”

She looked a little surprised that he hadn’t just tried to give her an order. Kanan said in explanation, “Most of my assignments have either interfaced directly with the local garrisons or been – ah, more direct. And my ma – I wasn’t the one who did any of the planning.”

He saw her lekku twitch slightly at the slip, but she didn’t ask about it. Instead she braced her shoulders again and said, “Can you pass as a civilian?”

Kanan glanced down, giving the question due consideration because it had been a long time since he had been in a position where that was even an option and he wasn’t immediately certain of the answer. “Yes,” he said eventually, “but I don’t have any civilian clothes.”

When she looked a little worried, he added, “I’ve got clothes that don’t have the Imperial seal on them.” And there were plenty of civilians who only wore black or gray. “You’ll have to lend me a blaster, though.”

She met his gaze for an instant. “Can you use one?”

“I wasn’t always an Inquisitor.” He looked her over, this time with a more a critical eye than he had done before; past her prettiness she was muscled under her gray ISB field uniform, her holstered blaster a natural extension of both uniform and self. He had also noticed earlier that her lekku signals were erratic, not quite explicable to anyone familiar with Twi’leks “Can you pass as a civilian?”

“I’ve done it before.” She glanced down, clearly uncomfortable under his inspection. “Chopper too.”

“That I can believe,” Kanan said.

That startled something that was nearly a smile out of her, a quick flash of amusement that warmed the Force for no more than an instant as the astromech grumbled at them both. Then she dropped her gaze again. “The HoloNet posting on the darknet said that there would be a reception the night before the auction for potential bidders to review the items up for auction. I assume that you’ll recognize what we’re looking for?”

Kanan nodded. “I’ll know.” And a Twi’lek and a human together wouldn’t make anyone look twice at them, no matter how they played it. Both were common species and common in company with each other.

Agent Syndulla looked at the chrono, then said, “We should be making planetfall in two hours and the reception is in six.”

“All right.” He started to stand up, putting his hand out for her empty caf cup.

She handed it to him once she realized what the gesture meant, then hesitated, looking up at him. Kanan stopped rather than leave the way he had intended to. “What is it?”

“I can’t call you ‘Inquisitor’ in the field,” she said, sounding uncomfortable. “Do you – do you have a name? That I can use, I mean?”

Kanan bit his lip. She didn’t know how loaded that question was, and he wasn’t about to answer her with “the Hound.” Still, it took him a surprising amount of effort to say, “It’s Kanan.”

No one had called him that in almost four years. Sometimes he was surprised that he could remember it at all.

Something about either his face or his voice must have made her realize the gravity of the confession. She said, her voice suddenly very shy, “Thank you.” She hesitated, then said, “My name is Hera.”

He hadn’t been expecting that, and the surprise must have showed on his face. She shifted uneasily in her seat, then looked away, embarrassed. “I’ve sent you the ISB files on the local garrison and government,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if you had them.”

“I don’t. Thank you.” He looked back at her for a moment, putting personal name and surname together, and blurted out, “Syndulla is a clan name.”

Her eyes went wide. He felt her low-grade anxiety snap into sudden fear, jolted from its previous course onto a new path. “Yes,” she said eventually, small-voiced, and then, with a defensive edge, “There are thousands of Syndullas.”

“I’m sorry,” Kanan said; he could tell he had said something that he should have avoided.

She dropped her gaze, but it didn’t do anything to hide the unease juddering along the Force.

“I’m sorry,” Kanan said again, then fled before he said anything else stupid.

Hera knew from personal experience that she mostly just looked uncomfortable in civilian clothes, which wasn’t exactly something she could do anything about. She suspected that if she had been human she could have attended the black market auction in an Imperial uniform, if not an ISB one, and not had anyone look twice at her, but a Twi’lek in uniform always got attention. At the moment she felt even more obvious in her plain dark spacer’s trousers and jacket, as if she was wearing a beacon or a sign that said “I’m an Imperial agent, ask me how.”

She snuck a sideways look at the Inquisitor, who was slouching in the co-pilot’s chair next to her. Hera didn’t like having him that close, but since they were working together she couldn’t exactly justify not letting him be there as long as he didn’t touch anything. She supposed that he had to be able to fly, though she doubted he had ever flown a freighter like the Ghost before. Basic piloting was required for officer candidates at the Imperial academy, but unless you were tapped for pilot training, the Naval Academy, or the ISB Academy, most officers never actually had to fly anything larger than a landspeeder or anything faster than a speeder bike. She had no idea what Inquisitors learned or how they were trained.

Without his armor or his lightsaber he looked less like an Inquisitor than she had been worried about – less so than she still felt she looked like an Imperial agent, even dressed in all black. He wore the DL-18 blaster pistol she had found for him – its grip was too big to be comfortable in her own hand, so she had thought it might work for him – and somehow managed to look as if he had been carrying a blaster for most of his life, not a lightsaber.

He straightened up as they entered atmosphere and entered one of the flight lanes on approach to the planet’s capital city. If any of the other ships in the flight lane happened to glance into the Ghost’s cockpit, they would see a pilot and a copilot both apparently doing their jobs, though Hera hoped the Inquisitor didn’t actually touch anything.

“You can fly, can’t you?” she asked him reluctantly.

He flicked a glance at her. “Yes.”

“Freighters or just starfighters?”

“I’ve flown freighters,” he said after a moment. “Not recently, but I’ve done it. Cargo freighters, mostly, short-haul – longer haul sometimes, but not as a regular thing.”

Hera turned to look at him in surprise, trusting Chopper not to let the Ghost veer off course. The Inquisitor was stubbornly not looking at her, his gaze fixed on the viewport in front of him. I wasn’t always an Inquisitor, he had said a few hours ago. She had assumed that that meant he had been elsewhere in the Imperial service before he had been recruited by the Inquisition, though he wasn’t that much older than she was. Well, people came to the Academy from all walks of life, especially those recruited by the flight academies, who could sometimes skip normal Academy training. Presumably the Inquisition operated similarly.

She didn’t have anything to say in response to him and he didn’t seem to expect one, so she turned her attention back to their flight path. She set down in one of the spaceports in Kethun City, the planet’s capital, and had the Inquisitor transmit the docking fee while she and Chopper shut down the ship’s engines.

Hera eyed him again once they were outside the ship, standing in the small docking bay and trying not to frown at the drift of wind-blown dirt and yellowish pollen that coated the floor. She sneezed involuntarily, her eyes watering, and dug into her pocket for the allergy tablets she had grabbed when she realized what season it was here. She dry-swallowed them and hoped that on this occasion they wouldn’t make her sleepy, which they seemed to do at entirely random intervals rather than consistently.

In the thin light of the overcast sky that filtered down through the open hatch doors above them, the Inquisitor’s dark garments looked pale, nearly washed out. Black didn’t suit him, especially in daylight. Hera looked at him, sneezed again, then wiped at her streaming eyes and said, “We should probably get you more clothes.”

He flicked a wary glance at her, then relaxed slightly at whatever he saw on her face. “Is it that bad?”

“If we’re going to several days of receptions and auctions,” Hera said. On some of her ops he would be unremarkable, but he would stand out amongst the kind of people who attended black market auctions, and not in a good way.

“All right,” he said, sounding more weary than anything else. “Let’s go find the market.”

Hera was startled at how much the addition of colors to his garments changed the Inquisitor’s appearance. He looked deeply uncomfortable, as though he knew he wasn’t supposed to be wearing anything other than black and gray, but his green shirt brought out color in his face and pale eyes and eased some of the hollows in his scarred cheeks. Hera thought that he wouldn’t raise eyebrows or twitch tentacles in company now, or at least not for the reasons he would have done before. He also looked younger, more vulnerable, less dangerous; she wasn’t sure whether or not that was a good thing, but there was nothing she could do about it.

Hera hated paying any attention to her appearance other than making sure that her uniform was neat and that none of her caste markings were showing, but for this particular occasion she made sure that she was wearing something that at least suggested she had more money than the average spacer. She didn’t even own any clothes that could pass muster as something a high-caste Twi’lek would wear, not that that was a distinction that would make much sense off Ryloth or outside the enclaves. Maybe not even the enclaves, but Hera avoided them whenever possible and had no idea what went on there. Being among other Twi’leks made her so nervous that it was often debilitating; she had almost failed her ISB Academy field trials for just that reason.

She left Chopper with the Ghost; even though this wasn’t her usual kind of op, she knew that in this setting an astromech droid might stand out – Chopper certainly had no talent for being unobtrusive. She and the Inquisitor got their cloaks and the speeder bikes from the Ghost’s hold – while the city was small enough they could have walked, there was always the chance that they would need to make a quick getaway. Hera felt a little better with the handles under her hands, anyway.

She watched the Inquisitor out of the corner of her eye as they sped down the road towards the site of the reception. He handled his speeder with a light, delicate touch, less heavy-handed than a scout trooper – more like a starfighter pilot than anything else, but not a TIE pilot, she decided after a few minutes of silent observation. That puzzled her, since privately owned starfighters were illegal except under very rare circumstances – not that you couldn’t make those circumstances come about with enough credits – and the vast majority of those available were TIE-variants. He must have learned on one of the others, since she knew Inquisitors flew TIEs. If he was aware of her attention, he didn’t show it.

They pulled up in front of a neon-lit nightclub, where they handed their speeder bikes over to a parking droid and received a claim token in exchange. Hera tucked it away, bemused, and fell into step with the Inquisitor as they made their way to join the queue at the door. The sound of pounding music from inside made her wince; she hated clubs and crowds alike.

The bouncer let both of them in after relieving them of their blasters, for which they both received claim tokens. If the Inquisitor had his lightsaber on him, the scanner didn’t turn it up; Hera wasn’t certain whether he had brought it or not, and hadn’t been about to ask. Hopefully he wasn’t so trigger-happy as to pull it out without absolute necessity, but having never seen him in action Hera had absolutely no idea.

Once they were inside and past the initial crush of people at the door, Hera surveyed the wide dark room beyond with distaste; it was full of beings of various species dancing, drinking, and eating, with a stage set up at the far end and a band playing something that she supposed technically counted as music, assuming you had no taste.

She glanced at the Inquisitor to make sure he followed her, then edged around the dance floor, past several shadowed – and definitely occupied – nooks. Hera fixed the instructions from the darknet posting in the front of her mind and hoped that the Inquisitor remembered them too.

After several minutes and a handful of propositions – to both of them, not just her, which was a refreshing change – they made it to the back of the club. A back hallway led to the kitchens and some refreshers that Hera suspected were intended for the staff rather than the patrons, as well as a door with a keypad on the control next to it. Hera punched in the code from the darknet, holding her breath until the door slid open, revealing descending stairs. It slid shut again as the Inquisitor stepped in after her and the pounding music from the club vanished as cleanly as if it had been cut by a knife. Hera let out her breath in relief.

She went down the stairs with the Inquisitor at her back and emerged into another room. It was a little smaller than the dancefloor above them, but more brightly lit and with far fewer people. There were still a good number of beings, but they were older than the club-goers and mostly more finely dressed. A pair of Togruta lounge singers draped themselves over the top of some kind of big instrument being played by a Nautolan who struck keys with a number of small hammers held expertly between his fingers.

A serving droid came up to Hera and offered a tray with a selection of stemmed and un-stemmed glasses holding a variety of colored liquid. “Drinks, madam, sir? I have alcoholic or non-alcoholic as you prefer –”

“Non-alcoholic,” Hera said; she could tell she was in the mood where alcohol would make her paranoid and angry, even if she drank on the job, which she didn’t unless there was no choice.

“The same.” The Inquisitor’s voice was soft.

The droid obligingly rotated the tray for Hera. “I have fruit juices, carbonated beverages, flavored waters from a variety of worlds –”

Hera accepted a glass of what she hoped was meiloorun juice – it was about the right color – and was gratified to find she was right when she tasted it. The Inquisitor chose a glass apparently at random and took a perfunctory sip; she suspected he had taken it mostly to have something to do with his hands.

Once the droid had gone, she sipped her drink and looked around the room. Another look revealed that there were a number of tall display cases placed at regular intervals; the beings gathered around them had obscured them from Hera’s initial observation. She flicked a look at the Inquisitor to make sure that he had seen them too, then moved towards the nearest one.

The beings already there – a trio of Rodian males, an Ithorian couple, and a human of indeterminate gender – all glanced up at their approach, briefly registered their appearance, then went back to their conversation. The male Ithorian moved aside so that Hera and the Inquisitor had a better look at the contents of the display case.

She heard the Inquisitor hiss softly through clenched teeth. The sound made the Rodians twitch, looking over at him before apparently deciding it was an expression of interest rather than – whatever it was. Hera glanced up at him worriedly, decided it was unlikely that he was going to snap and go on a murder spree – at least not in the next thirty seconds – and looked back at the case.

The contents were unremarkable, at least to her eyes – a set of four small sculptures of various near-human beings in long robes holding upraised lightsabers in different poses. They were made of some pale gray stone she didn’t recognize.

Hera was trying to figure out a discreet way to ask if this was what they were looking for when she realized that under the current circumstances, there was no real point in being discreet. She looked at the Inquisitor and said, “Is that it?”

He nodded without saying anything, his expression grim.

They moved onto the next display case, which held more statues and a stained glass window propped up with a light behind it. Hera glanced at the Inquisitor again and saw the tightness in his jaw; she didn’t bother asking this time, since his face was answer enough.

They rotated through several more display cases, all of which got the Inquisitor’s nod. Now and then someone new would come down the stairs, but by and large the occupants ignored each other, except for a handful who all obviously knew and liked each other well enough to speak to one another. Hera supposed that there weren’t too many people in the galaxy who traded in Jedi relics and most of them were probably in this room with her; she wished she had dared come down with a recording device so that the ISB could match known names to faces.

The serving droid came up to them again to take their empty glasses – well, to take Hera’s empty glass; the Inquisitor had barely touched his, but handed it over anyway. Hera accepted another glass of fruit juice and drifted over to the nearest case that they hadn’t inspected yet.

She felt the air change as the Inquisitor went absolutely still beside her.

Because she knew what he was, she looked at him first, not the contents of the case; some of the other occupants of the room had felt the shift as well and were looking around warily at each other or at the cases.

He was shaking so badly that she could hear his teeth chattering together, his stillness transmuted into fury that she could feel like a weight in the air. Hera shot a look at the case to see what it was that had upset him so badly and saw a collection of innocuous-looking thin braids and strings of mismatched beads; they struck something in her memory, but she couldn’t remember what at the moment. She set that aside to worry about later, hesitated for an instant, and grabbed the Inquisitor’s arm.

He flinched violently at her touch, his eyes gone suddenly wild with shock. She could feel muscle beneath her palm, stiff as steel cording; as much as she wanted to she didn’t release him. “Calm down,” she said to him, pitching her voice low but not whispering. “Do you need some air?”

He didn’t look around, but she saw awareness bleed into his panicked eyes. He shook his head slightly and Hera felt the pressure in the air lifting as he forced himself to something resembling calm, pulling his furious response back inside his own skin. She could still feel him trembling beneath her hand.

She pushed her half-full glass of fruit juice into his other hand. “Drink that,” she said.

He hesitated, and she snapped, furious and embarrassed, “It’s not tainted just because a tailhead drank from it.”

He shot her a startled look and said, sounding genuinely baffled, “Why would you think I thought that?”

Hera stared back at him, so surprised by that reaction that she briefly forgot why she had handed him her drink. “Humans –” she started to say, then shook her head. “Just drink it.”

He drank it.

She kept her hand on his arm until he had stopped shaking, then released him, tucking her hands awkwardly into her pockets to have something to do with them. When he had finished the glass, he stared at the display case again, then dragged his gaze away and went off to the next one, handing the empty glass off to the serving droid as he did. Hera followed, hoping her fury wasn’t plain on her face. The other guests veered away from him, though something about the way they did so made Hera think they didn’t know or understand why they were doing it.

The next case only held more art, to Hera’s relief. The Inquisitor stared blankly at the delicately figured tiles as if he didn’t really see them, though Hera suspected he knew exactly what was on them and – going by his reactions so far – what they meant.

“I suppose some of these still have some juice in them,” a passing Quarren woman said in her watery voice, and laughed. Hera saw the Inquisitor’s shoulders tense in response.

She stepped tentatively up beside him. “We’ve seen most of it,” she said. “We’ll be back for the auction tomorrow.”

He shook his head. “I need to see all of it.” He shut his eyes tightly, clearly trying to calm himself down even though he was still badly upset.

Hera eyed him doubtfully. Looking at him now, it was hard to remember that he was in all likelihood one of the most dangerous beings Hera had ever met; all of that coiled threat that had been there only a few moments before was gone, replaced by real distress.

She recognized the expression abruptly. She had seen it in the mirror, on one of the occasions when she had been back at the Academy and invited to some event or another at the home of a local potentate on Naboo. He had been a collector – “of everything,” he had said while showing cadets around his estate. He had looked at Hera as if he was considering collecting her too, but she had managed to avoid being in any proximity to him for most of the evening, and once the other cadets began drinking heavily she had made her excuses and left early, for which rudeness she had been roundly rebuked the next day. She had been looking at his displays – arranged in order of what he thought was most attractive, not in anything that made sense – when she had turned a corner and found herself looking at a kalikori.

It wasn’t a Syndulla one, not her family’s and not from any of the patrician Syndulla families; she had known that immediately. She hadn’t recognized the clan, but kalikori were intimately personal to each family; no one would ever let it pass out of a family line except through marriage or adoption. But there had been a lot of looting done during the Clone Wars, and more during the Imperial occupation.

Searching further through the collection and trying not to make it look as though she was doing so, Hera had found a lararium, the household shrine each family kept, and the little figures that represented the protective spirits of a Twi’lek family, the ancestral genius and the patron lares, both separated from the lararium and the kalikori alike and jumbled together on a shelf of other small statues that Hera hadn’t recognized. She hadn’t thought, at that point, that she had much Twi’lek feeling left after four years in the Academy. Apparently she had been wrong about that.

It was the same expression on the Inquisitor’s face now.

She raised her gaze to the Inquisitor again, keeping her voice low as she said, “Those braids in that case – they aren’t from the High Republic, are they?”

He shook his head a little, his face a mask of grief and fury fighting for calm. Then he looked at her sharply, some of that starting to bleed into alarm. Hera could guess why; she didn’t know much about Jedi, but she had known enough to ask. She met his pale gaze, resisting the urge to look away; she hated making eye contact with other people and there was something disorienting about him.

It was the Inquisitor who looked away. He swallowed, his throat working, and looked back at the tiles in the case in front of him. “I’m sorry,” he said eventually, then swallowed again. “I need to see the rest of the items up for auction.”

Hera bit her lip. “I want to get a feel for the crowd,” she said to him. “Will you be all right on your own for a few minutes? I don’t think we need to stay long.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said a little distantly. “I was surprised. It won’t happen again.”

“All right,” Hera said. She stepped away from him, hoping that he actually could behave himself if left to his own devices. It was balanced against her own nervousness about interacting with other people; she wasn’t particularly worried about being recognized as an Imperial agent, since in her experience no one ever looked at a young Twi’lek woman and came to the conclusion she was an ISB officer, usually including other members of the service, often including times when she was in uniform. Hera was a decent field agent, but she knew that she hadn’t exactly lived up to Agent Beneke’s desires for her, which was how she had gotten this assignment with the Inquisitor in the first place.

She got another drink from the serving droid, this one a fermented fruit juice with some bubbles in it that looked alcoholic at a glance but wasn’t, and settled her shoulders before she went back to the case with the figurines in it, which had a small group of people gathered around it. She lingered on the edge of the group, drinking her juice and listening in on the conversation – a trio of scholars debating the authenticity of the figurines, apparently. After a few minutes of that she drifted away to another case, which held what looked like ornaments. She glanced up to track the Inquisitor’s location in the room and saw him steadily working his way through the remaining cases, his mood like a thundercloud keeping people away from him.

“Lovely, aren’t they?”

Hera turned, pasting a polite smile on her lips, and saw a thin, white-bearded Pantoran male standing beside her. “It’s very intricate work,” she said.

He smiled with as much appreciation as if he had been the creator rather than some long-dead Jedi. “Mirialan,” he said, indicating a pair of round belt buckles propped up on display. “Do you see the floral work around the rims and the eclipsed suns at the centers? Variations on those themes have recurred amongst Mirialan Jedi for centuries – millennia, perhaps, though the older examples are disputed. They stem from an old Force cult on Mirial, one that hasn’t been active since before Mirial joined the Republic. We know nothing about that cult, not even its name; it no longer has any worshipers on Mirial, but until a decade ago there were still elements of it amongst the Jedi.”

He gestured to a collection of small coppery rings, each about the length of a knuckle and inscribed with knot-like decorations. “Weequay hair ornaments – for their braids, yes? You still see some Weequay wearing them today, but if you ever have the occasion to examine them closely, you’ll see that the finework is all different. That’s because Weequay Jedi had their own patterns that were used back on Sriluur before the Hutts conquered the world more than eight thousand years ago. Another Force cult, perhaps. When Weequay were first recruited into the Jedi Order, they took the symbols with them; you won’t see them on Sriluur or the other Weequay worlds today.”

“Eight thousand years is a long time,” Hera said, since she couldn’t think of anything else to say and it seemed like the point in which he expected a response.

“Perhaps longer. The Hutts – especially in the days of the old Hutt Empire – prefer to destroy the records of their conquered worlds, so that those worlds might seem to begin with their coming. It’s hard on historians.” He sighed wistfully, then looked at her more closely.

Hera resisted the urge to double-check that her markings were covered, since he seemed like the sort of person who might know that caste markings were more than just decorative tattoos the way most non-Twi’leks thought.

When she didn’t say anything one way or another, he seemed to decide that she was interested and pointed at a quartet of ivory bangles inside the case. Each one was a double-curve, small enough to fit around a near-human’s wrist, and incised with intricate patterns, some of which had been filled in with black, red, or gold, others of which were bare. The ivory was yellowing with age. Something about them was familiar and Hera frowned, trying to place them.

The Pantoran saw her expression and smiled, open and pleased rather than malicious. “Ryloth river hog tusks,” he said. “I can’t pronounce the name in Twi’leki –”

“Ruti’ara,” Hera said after a moment of thought. “From a region in the equatorial jungle. They’re extinct now.” She didn’t say that there was a set of similar bangles in her mother’s jewelry case back on Ryloth, a gift from Cham’s grandmother – then the clan head – when they had married; they had been passed down among the women of the family for a thousand years.

She looked back at the bangles in the case, now seeing the pattern of half-familiar clan markings amongst the carvings. “Fenn,” she said slowly. When the Pantoran blinked, she said, “The geometric patterns, there – in black. Those are Fenn clan markings. They’re a curial clan on Ryloth –” And had been in vendettas with the Syndullas no less than three dozen times over the past thousand years, including after the Curia’s ban two centuries earlier (which everyone on Ryloth had just taken as a strong recommendation for the first few decades), but who was counting.

“The clan is still extant?” the Pantoran asked, sounding a little disappointed.

Hera fought back family feeling she didn’t know she still had and resisted the urge to reply unfortunately. Instead she said, “Last I heard, yes. There was some scandal a few years ago, but they’re still around.”

“There is a clan that has died out, though, yes?”

Hera bit her lip. “There are a few, mostly smaller patrician clans. You’re probably thinking about the Indahs. They were a curial clan like the Fenns and the Sy – the Securas. They were in a –” She had to search for the word in Basic before going on. “– a vendetta, a blood feud, with the Fortunas. That’s another curial clan. The Fortunas tricked the curial family – the Indah Hid Indah – into agreeing to peace talks. When the Indah Hid Indah and the heads of the patrician families in the clan were all at table for the banquet, the Fortunas slaughtered them. Then they hunted down all of the other Indah patricians and killed them too, not to mention most of the plebeians. When news got out, the Republic Senate wanted the Jedi to come in and arbitrate it, but the Curia – that’s the governing body on Ryloth – wouldn’t let their ships land. They sent the Fortuna – the clan head, I mean – into the Bright Lands and ostracized most of the patrician family heads, and banned the Fortunas from being able to vote in the Curia for twenty years. They also banned the vendetta, so there aren’t supposed to be blood feuds anymore. The only Indah patricians who survived were the ones who had married into other clans cum manu, and when you do that you give up your clan rights – they weren’t legally Indahs anymore, I mean, they were legally members of their spouse’s clans. I know at least one petitioned to revoke her marriage, but there weren’t enough Indahs left for there to still be a clan. And the Fortunas had destroyed their lararia and kalikori, burned the shrines. That’s supposed to destroy the clan’s connection to their ancestors and the genii – the – the earth-gods, I suppose is the closest thing you can say in Basic. Since the Indah Hid Indah were a curial clan, they traced their line in direct descent from one of the gods – I think it might have been the –” She fumbled for the Basic again, aware that her Ryloth accent was starting to come out very strongly, and if anyone knew enough to recognize it, that it was the purest high-caste Twi’leki. “The Son of Sands. There are other curial clans descended from the Son of Sands too but the Indah Hid Indah were very, very old, as old as – the Fenns.”

She had almost said “as old as the Syndulla Tann Syndulla.” One of the surviving Indahs had actually been married to the Syndulla prime heir at the time, and had almost succeeded in convincing her and her twin brother to declare vendetta against the Fortunas themselves before the Syndulla clan head had gotten wind of it and stopped them.

“This was a long time ago?” asked the Pantoran.

“Not really,” Hera admitted. “About two hundred years.” She tensed in expectation of a comment about how barbaric Twi’leks were, never mind that there were humans on plenty of worlds who still practiced various forms of blood feud, but none came.

“An old custom?” the Pantoran said instead.

“Um, yes,” Hera said. She was too embarrassed about having given a speech about the Hid Indah Massacre to offer up that the vendetta went back to the days of the gods, when the children of the Mother of Mountains had torn Ryloth apart in war with each other after the Son of Sands had murdered his sister’s lover. It was why so much of the planet was desert, except for the equatorial jungle; their oldest records showed that millennia earlier much more of the planet had been jungle and there had still been enough ocean to separate the continents. “What does that have to do with the ruti’ara tusks?”

“Ah. Nothing.” The Pantoran beamed at the case again.

Hera let out her breath through her teeth, annoyed. She could feel heat in her cheeks, traveling up to her ear-cones and the base of her lekku.

“The marvelous thing about the Jedi is that they were so very, very old and had members from all over the galaxy, all kinds of species, so customs, traditions, peoples – animals, even – were preserved within them like insects in amber, passed down from master to apprentice over so many generations few sentient minds can really comprehend them. They provide a window into a past where there are no other windows – no holograms, no texts, no oral memories. And yet that past was preserved amongst the Jedi – it was still a living thing. The Empire might have you believe that the Jedi stole children from thousands of worlds, stripped them of their identities, their cultures, their species, and made them all Jedi and nothing else, but if that was true, then how would there be any of this?” He swept an arm around at the room and its display cases. “When I was a very young, there were pirates preying on my family’s station, and a Jedi came to deal with them – a Togruta woman, very beautiful. She wore the akul teeth headdress of a Togruta warrior, an animal which those among the Togruta who wish to prove their strength hunt and kill. Why would she do that if she was not Togruta as much as Jedi?”

He looked back at the case and sighed. “Many of those here are here for the money, or are enthusiasts for the forbidden – some for the Jedi. Others enjoy beautiful things, the rarer the better.” He flicked a glance at the Quarren who had passed Hera earlier, his expression disapproving. “When they were destroyed, it was not merely the Jedi who were lost, but a thousand others who were preserved only amongst the Jedi.”

“Most of the people on those worlds pay attention to their own history,” Hera said hesitantly.

“Ah. Yes. Some do. Others would, but their histories were stripped from them – the Hutts, as I said. The Empire, more recently. Even the Republic, in its way, as you said yourself.”

Hera blinked. “Did I?”

“When you said that your people would not allow the Republic to take over the punishment of its wrongdoers,” the Pantoran explained patiently. “Others were not so stubborn; at other points, the Republic would not have cared about their wishes.”

“They’re not –” my people, she wanted to finish, but she couldn’t get the words out.

“But sometimes history is just lost,” he went on sadly. “Not maliciously or in war or natural disaster, it just…falls out of use, and then out of memory, and if there are traces at all, then they are traces we cannot recognize. By the time one realizes it is gone, it is just not there to find.”

Hera bit her lip.

“You make it sound as if the Jedi are only the composite of others, with nothing of o – of their own,” the Inquisitor said quietly from behind Hera.

She almost jumped out of her skin. She hadn’t heard him approach, and from the way the Pantoran flinched he hadn’t noted the Inquisitor’s arrival either.

“No – no, of course not,” he said, when he had gotten control of himself. “But my – my interests have always lain elsewhere. There are so many who are interested in the Jedi and only the Jedi for what they themselves are, and not all that they represent.”

“I see,” the Inquisitor said gravely. He sounded more amused than anything else, which Hera decided to cautiously take as a good sign.

Hera half turned so that she could watch him and the Pantoran at the same time. He was looking at the case, not at the Pantoran, his gaze moving over the beautiful objects inside. She realized abruptly that he had used the present tense, not the past. And that he had started to say “our,” not “their.”

“You are an enthusiast of the Jedi, perhaps?” the Pantoran said, recovering.

Hera tensed again, but the Inquisitor just raised an eyebrow. “I have an interest.”

The Pantoran turned to Hera again. “And you, you are a student of history, I see?”

The Imperial Academy’s version of history was “things were terrible until the Emperor took control” but she wasn’t about to tell him that. “Just a few things,” she said instead. “But I enjoyed our conversation,” she added, because she did know how to be polite; not something she had learned from the Empire. She took a chance and laid her hand on the Inquisitor’s arm, suspecting that he was probably aware of her brief hesitation before she made contact. “I think we’ve seen what we came here to see,” she told him.

He was tense under her palm, giving her the impression that he didn’t like to be touched any more than she did. None of it showed in his face as he glanced down towards her and nodded.

“I will see you tomorrow evening, perhaps,” the Pantoran said.

“Perhaps,” Hera agreed, and hoped a little vaguely that she wouldn’t have to arrest him.

She released the Inquisitor as soon as they turned to walk away. They were silent all the way up the stairs into the noisy, crowded club, as they retrieved their speeder bikes, and on the ride back to the Ghost, the wind from their passage whipping Hera’s lekku back behind her.

Hera was stowing her bike and trying to decide whether the appropriate thing to do in this situation would be to debrief the evening when the Inquisitor said, very tiredly, “I’ll see you in the morning,” and vanished up the ladder. A few moments later she heard his cabin door slide open and shut again.

“Well,” she said to Chopper, who had come down to make sure she was all right. “That was interesting.”

#cut scenes and concept writing #reluctant roommates au tag #as always comments are appreciated #I'm trying for a bit more plottiness with this concept

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blackcherrykiss · 4 years ago

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BLOOD BOUNDARIES - Enhypen OT7 Fanfic (ch.7)

[CH.1] [CH.2] [CH.3] [CH.4] [CH.5] [CH.6] previous chapters

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You fell into a distrustful panic that night now that knew the screams of the woods were also where Jungwon and his friends lived. You weren't sure if you should be scared for those group of boys or be scared of them. You'd be lying to yourself if you tried to believe it was only a coincidence the boys had a place in the forest of violent cries.

You questioned your sanity, were they murderers? Was that their dirty secret?

Your conclusions were endlessly dark, repeating themselves countlessly. You had never wanted to sleep away your thoughts more than ever. Eventually, you got exhausted from your thoughts. It was mentally draining to try and tear apart the possibilities of the situation, you didn't have enough evidence to be so sure. You lay in a cold sweat as you drifted off into a deep but horrible sleep.

You dreamt in full awareness. The boys with blood spilling down their hands and onto their swan white clothes. A red mess everywhere on the cream walls of an orphanage that overflowed with rays of a full moon. Although you were scared of what you were witnessing, you could not wake up even if your life depended on it. It seemed as if the dream had sped up your sleep as you woke in what felt like a few seconds. Calmly, you awoke in the misty autumn morning in a crushed up pile of blankets. You sit up to peel your wispy curtains away from the window to get a good look at the dark forest that steamed with a muddy blue fog. All of the memories of Jungwon yelling at you for just being near the woods flooded your brain as you stared. This time you were determined to search deep into that forest and get to the bottom of its mysteries as it called out to you.

"Y/N I think you're going to be late for your first class." Nana knocked before bursting into your room in full uniform, not a wrinkle on her shirt.

"Y-you're already ready? What time is it?!" You glanced back and forth between your pyjamas and uniform that draped over a random stool as you were too lazy to fold nicely the night before.

"We didn't want to wake you... So we went ahead thinking you'd come down eventually." She yanked you out of bed, gripping your forearms tightly before backing out the door, "Don't be late! We promised we'd keep out of detention this year!"

Within a blink of an eye, you slip into your uniform, slinking your arms through the holes of your blouse and adjusting your legs to be cover by your ashy plaid skirt. With your bag and binder in hand, you sprinted across your campus to the gymnasium where you found yourself arriving, everyone already in the proper athletic attire.

"You're late." Your health teacher grit her teeth in visible disappointment. Your teacher knew how unlike you it was to be late as your classmate's eyes followed your every movement.

"P-pardon me." You clawed your fingers through your bedhead, speeding to the change room, nervous she'd assign you detention.

You let out the deep breath you were holding in as you got into the empty locker room, frustrated at yourself for waking up so late. You can't help but feel upset that you let your thoughts get the best of you and ruin your perfect attendance. Truly you were ashamed but began to see no point in continuing to rush the pace at which your day was running.

The locker room door opens and you see Kyungeun peep herself inside, "Y/N? You alright?"

You pull your boxy shirt flat down, zipping and tying every spot on your tracksuit jacket, "Yeah, sorry rough morning..."

"No worries, I just said that I had to go to the bathroom but I really just wanted to check on you." She had a motherly sound to her voice which comforted your bad start to the day. Perhaps she was in a good enough mood for you to ask her briefly about her relationship with Sunghoon.

"Kyungeun, I think I need to just clear the air... I saw you with Sunghoon in the library." You tilted your head in regret as to whether or not you were starting off the conversation in the right direction.

"Y-you saw us???" Her face drained to an unrealistic hue, "Lord... Sunghoon will kill me if he finds out you know."

"Stop! What do you mean? He'll kill you? Is it because I know that you two are dating?"

"NO! Nevermind then!" She cut you off right after the question mark in your voice. She looked rather relieved at your response which could only mean their relationship was much different than you had presumed. "I just can't tell you about our relationship I'm s-sorry it's between just us two."

"So then it's okay for him to flirt with my roommate?"

"No? Are you serious right now ?!" Kyungeun panicked.

"So you are dating?" You gave a smug smile.

"It's not that..." She was visibly frustrated not being able to describe herself in words, "I'll tell you this, I'm bound to him..." She ran her index finger along the reddened gash on her neck He's blackmailing me."

"So you're like his pet?" You held in your laughter, you knew you should be more serious but you had no other way of trying to help Kyungeun express the gist of her relationship.

"I'll tell you another day... Let's just go before the teacher gets mad at you for taking so long to change."

...

After your class full of advanced leg exercises and mediocrely fun games, you got halted by your gym teacher, "Y/N can we speak about how tardy you were today?"

You got fearful of her sentencing you detention, freezing up from your heel upwards, "I'm so sorry, I just had a lot going on last night..."

"Sweetie, I know this is your first late in my class but unfortunately the school does not tolerate tardiness in the way I believe it should be." She tapped her chin a few times, "I have no other choice but to send you to detention but it'll just be a half-hour at lunch." You felt better that it wasn't for a full hour or two after school but you were still dreading the idea.

"Can't you just let me off the hook? I promise it'll never happen again" You pleaded desperately.

"I'm afraid I cannot... If the other teachers or students knew you didn't get sent to detention I could get into trouble for giving you 'special treatment'. I know you didn't mean to love but I cannot afford to lose my job so I'll see you then." She patted one of your shoulders, giving it a little squeeze to cheer you up.

"I understand..." You nod with your head that already hung low.

"It's in the English room down the hall, there is usually only a few students there. Some familiar faces."

...

That rest of your morning would only pull through faster as you got some weird anxiety over walking into the detention room. You could not concentrate at all in the class you had before lunch. You felt as if you were too good for the detention group of kids, but here you were about to join those you criticized. Karma.

"Make sure to answer the questions 8-16 on page 300, you have the rest of the class to do so. Any questions?" Your physics teacher stood with his hands balled up behind his back.

Realizing you had no physics book in your bag after triple checking, you shot your arm up in distress, "ME! I forgot my textbook today... I was in a rush this morning." You faked a polite laugh with the expectation your teacher would have a spare.

"I'm afraid I don't have an extra, anyone willing to share?" The teacher lifted his head to scan the class.

"I could share." Jaeyun winked making your face recoil

"Perfect! You'll probably have to move your stuff to his seat then." Your teacher suggested.

With a thick coat of disappointment, you pulled a chair up to Jaeyun's desk to which he kneed you annoyingly.

Within just a few seconds of settling down, you complained "How the hell am I supposed to write? There is no space... Desks are made for ONE person."

"Okay then don't use my textbook and fall behind" He sneered.

"Wait wait, I just had the greatest idea Jaeyun." He gave you puppy eyes when you said his name, "What if you look for half the answers I do the other half then exchange?" You whispered so the teacher could hear.

"I can't trust you make good answers though..." He jokingly sighed.

"HEY! Okay or work together for every question to get it done twice as fast? Oh wait but then I'll be the one carrying the team... Bummer..." You stretched the corners of your mouth until your lips disappeared.

"I honestly don't feel like doing work so lose-lose." He pouted and rolled his eyes.

"Same... I can't even focus, I'm having a rough morning..." You openly admitted, "I got sent to detention for being late in my first class."

"Detention? Didn't think you were the type." Jaeyun had an unexpectedly sweet giggle which contrasted with his lower tone voice, "Heeseung and Sunghoon get sent often, surprised they aren't kicked out of the school."

"They get sent often?!" Your voice rose to which you quickly quieted down to avoid trouble, "Will I see them there?"

"Why? Looking forward to going now?" Jaeyun whispered with a grin, causing you to scoff.

"As if..." A sudden idea coming to mind, "Say Jaeyun... About the party... Heard you guys have a place in the woods...?" You became aware that you could pry some information out of him that would help you when searching the woods that night.

"Yeah, we do... We don't normally tell people about it." He said casually yet still with some sort of caution.

"So why tell us then?"

"Haven't had any visitors in a while..." Jaeyun toyed with his mechanical pencil, using the plastic part to trace around his lips, "Awfully interested aren't you?" He seemed to have caught on to your intentions, shifting the mood of the conversation around in a full 180.

Suddenly the dream you had earlier slipped into mind, causing you to sit in growing discomfort, "What do you want from my friends and I?"

"Nothing sweetheart... We're more interested in you than your dormmates. You look like someone we know." He laughed like a psycho and it creeped you out how the two of you were just poking lighthearted jokes to something much darker and mysterious, "I know you're afraid of us, you know far more than most girls." His voice dropped to a whisper as he watched the teacher behind you to make sure he didn't see the both of you slacking.

"Kyungeun knows your secrets too she said she'll tell me."

"She's acting like we don't know her secrets." Jaeyun closed his textbook, "Y/N just remember this, Kyungeun is half as bad as we are and half as pure as you are."

"Alright class, that's it for today's class. This textbook assignment won't be due until Friday have a good lunch." The teacher interrupted, causing your conversation with Jaeyun to end on a hanging note.

"Good luck with detention."Jaeyun hushed in your ear.

_______________

p.s, i changed the cover lol don’t make fun of my photoshop skills!

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fangirlovestuff · 5 years ago

Text

The Heart Wants What it Wants - Chris Evans x reader pt.2

a/n- Hey lovely people, welcome back to angstland, hope you enjoy your stay, likes and reblogs are welcome. Summary is once again an angsty pinterest post. Enjoy hehe <3

part 1

Summary: It’s hard to wait around for something you know might never happen; but it’s harder to give up when you know it’s everything you want.

Warnings: angst, age gap

The next morning you woke up alone, the light hitting your face from the window. Apparently, Chris had decided to save you the awkwardness of the morning after and left early, which you should be thankful for.

But you weren't; not really. You felt your heart clench as you registered that the night was over, that he's gone and not coming back. You both knew what happened could never happen again, you had agreed - just for tonight. Yet, you couldn't help but feel suffocated by the bittersweet memories of the previous night. It wasn't just the sex, which was admittedly better than anything you already experienced. More than the physical connection, you felt an actual emotional connection with Chris. You were mourning the loss of that connection, not the sex.

The intensity of the realization shook you from your reverie. You got up and took a shower. This was just for one night and you knew it. Don't get all mushy now, you told yourself as you went through your morning routine, determined to ignore the odd feeling of sadness in your chest.

And life went on, as it always does. You acted in more movies, made acquaintances in Hollywood as you continued to build your career. Scarlett and you were still very close, but she finally let go of the Chris thing.

You wished you could finally let go of the Chris thing.

You'd managed to avoid seeing him again, keeping your distance in events like you did before. You kept telling yourself that "out of sight out of mind," and that you'll get over it eventually. You dated around for a while, never long enough for the paparazzi to have an opportunity to catch you together. Then, you started aiming to get more serious in your relationships, hoping that would help, but it didn’t.

Every one of them, as charming or handsome as they were, wasn't who you wanted. You could never stop comparing them to him. You were trying so hard to find the right person, to move on from this stupid fling that happened years ago. But there was always a tiny, persistent voice in your head telling you that you'd already found the right person, you just let him go.

And you wanted, so badly, to be able to let him go and forget about him. But you couldn't bring yourself to do it. You watched every single one of his movies when they came out, sitting alone in the back row of a local theater so you won't get recognized. You read the gossip, the news. You felt so incredibly stupid. In every relationship you had, there were other reasons you broke up of course, but somehow you always came back to him in your mind. You tried to keep yourself safe, away from the flame, but you just couldn't, and the consequences were evident. You got burned.

You broke up with your most recent boyfriend a month ago. But that's not the reason you were drinking alone on the night before your 24th birthday. You were in one of those hole in the wall bars, sitting on a couch in a corner of the room so you won’t get recognized.

Apparently, that didn’t help, because a man was getting closer to your table, shaking you from your melancholy thoughts. You put on a fake smile, ready to great the fan, but then you realized – it was him.

His electric blue eyes met yours and you realized you had nowhere to run or hide. Why would he even want to see you? You were the one hung up on him for five years, and even you didn't want to see him right now. Your heart fluttered in your chest at the sight of him, his shirt tight over his biceps, his tongue darting out to wet his lips as he took the liberty of having a seat on front of you, and oh my fucking god he ages like fine wine and it's so unfair. You had seen pictures of him, obviously, but seeing him in person made you remember how captivating he is, how you wanted to be as close to him as you could. But right now, the closest you could afford was miles away, you reminded yourself.

"Hey," he started hesitantly.

"Hi Chris," you said, your voice coming out as a whisper.

"How've you been?" he asked, trying to start a conversation. You let out a sound between a chuckle and a scoff. "Seriously, what's it been, four, five years? There must be some interesting stories," he tried again.

"Look, I appreciate the effort, but I'm fine. I'll be even better if you left me alone."

He swallowed, his eyes darting down before coming back up to meet your determined gaze. You felt like if you caved now there would be no coming back at all, no healing for your heart.

"Okay," he said after a beat. "I'll leave. I just have one question. Please." You nodded your head for him to continue.

"Are you happy?"

Your intoxicated brain took a moment to register the question, and then your thoughts started racing. What kind of question was that? Why would he ask that?

Were you happy?

"No." The answer was out of your mouth before you managed to stop it, sitting heavily between you. "But is anyone really?" you said, trying to correct yourself. "Ya know, like happiness is supposed to be the constant pursuit of happiness or whatever," you chuckled lightly. "So, um, yeah. I answered your question." You looked at him expectantly.

"Me too."

Maybe it was the alcohol, but something inside you snapped. "Fuck off," you scoffed. "Sure, yeah, what could you possibly be unhappy about? Your career is thriving, your family's well as far as I've heard, and you've probably got a girlfriend or something. Your life must suck so bad." You mocked, your anger evident on your furrowed brows and fiery eyes. "You have everything you could possibly want."

"Oh, and you don't?" he asked, his blue eyes filled with emotion. Whether it was anger, concern, or something else entirely, you couldn't tell. You bore your eyes into the table in front of you, averting his gaze. You couldn't let him win, couldn't let him know you spent the last five years pining for him, the stupid, handsome little sh-

"And for the record," he made you lose your train of thought, "I don’t have everything I want. I can't. At least, the chance I could is close to zero. Believe me, I've done the math and thought it over for the last five years," the words left his mouth in a voice so low it was almost a growl. Your head snapped up, your eyes meeting his fiery ones. It’s weird, how the color blue is usually considered cold. In that moment, nothing about him or you felt cold.

Your breath trembled, you suddenly felt warm and dizzy. His eyes made you realize what you were avoiding all along – what you could have with Chris. All this time, you convinced yourself he forgot about you. That he didn't want you, that he was out of your league and he knew it. You never allowed yourself to think what if- if he liked you back. If he wanted you too. You almost laughed out loud at the thought, but maybe it wasn't as unrealistic as you thought it was. You never allowed yourself to hope that there was really something there – a connection, a romance – even though you felt it from nearly the first minute you laid eyes on him. The narrative you'd created was that it was one sided, that not being with him was your pain only. But now you were overwhelmed with hope for something else, something more. Your mind filled with thoughts about it, or maybe they were there all along and you just paid them no attention. About the kind of life you could have together, how perfect it could be - Chris making you breakfast, going on walks together, you holding his hand whenever he felt nervous. The visions kept flooding your mind, even of mundane things like helping each other read lines and-

But there would be no lines to read. No movies to make. No fans to greet. If you had that with Chris, you'd both need to stop doing what you love. That reality seemed almost inevitable. The critics will slay away at the both of you. Public image is pretty much everything in this business, and dating would ruin yours, both of yours. And that would be unbearable for you and Chris. You couldn’t give up your dream for love, could you?

"Hey," Chris' low voice shook you from your reverie. "You here?"

"Yeah, unfortunately," you whispered, almost voicing the wish to move to a fairytale land where love always won.

His eyebrows furrowed, but he didn’t push. "Look, I'm sorry for springing on you like this. But there wasn't really any other way, since you were adamantly avoiding me, which I get. I just," he sighed and moved to stroke his hand over his beard, "I just needed you to know. I'll go." He got up from the chair, turning his back to you on his way to leave the table.

"Chris, wait." The words were out of your mouth before you had the chance to stifle them back into your throat, or to think about what you wanted to say to him. He turned around but stayed standing, waiting patiently for your next words.

"I… I'm sorry too." Tears flooded your eyes, but you didn’t let them out. "I can't… I can't give up on my dream job. Which means I should have probably given up on you. On us." His eyes were shining, mirroring your own. "But I couldn't do that too. I wish I could, or you could, to spare us the pain. I just… please Chris, give up on me. Tell me what you need to hear and I'll say it, I promise I'll say it but please don’t make me be the person that causes you pain. I could never bear being that."

He stood still, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. After a beat, you couldn't stand the silence. "I hate you, is that what you wanna hear? I hate you, go away, I don't want you." Your heart nearly shattered to pieces at the words, the lies that you both knew were lies. Even you weren't that good of an actress. The tears were now flowing freely from your eyes, ruining your makeup but you didn't care. The only thing you could care about at the moment was Chris, and you cared about him so much it physically hurt.

Chris made his way over to you, sitting down beside you. He took your hand in his, intertwining your fingers and kissing the back of your palm. You turned your head to him; tear tracks down your face. Your eyes met his aching ones and you let out a shaky breath. He was beautiful, and you couldn't help but get closer to him. Your heads pushed closer, and like puzzle pieces fitting together, your lips touched in a tender dance. Your hand went up to cup his face, his went to yours, caressing your cheek with his thumb as your lips pushed against his soft ones. The kiss wasn't starved like the last one you had; it was gentle, hesitant almost. You hated it, but you were saying goodbye.

You pulled away slightly, your foreheads staying touching. Your tongue darted out to wet your lips as you pulled your hand away from his cheek. He pulled away from you as well, his breath somewhat shaky as he put some distance between the two of you. "I'm sorry," you whispered.

"I know. Me too."

He got up and walked away. He didn't even look back. You knew it was because he didn't want to make it harder on the both of you, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

That night you went back home feeling numb. It wasn't even the alcohol. Leaving him behind left you feeling drained and empty. You felt helpless, like you were struggling to keep your head above the water but didn't have the strength.

You changed into pajamas mechanically and climbed into your bed. As your head hit the soft pillow, you felt your heart smash to pieces in your chest. If you were feeling numb before, now in the safety of your bed you felt everything – love for him, anger at the world, grief over what could have been. Tears started flowing from your eyes once more, and you sobbed quietly, your whole body trembling. You didn't know what was worse – the numbness or this.

You cried yourself to sleep that night, and the next one, and the one after it. You got to be more stable as time went on, going back to business. But the ache inside your chest stayed, and you had a feeling it would never really go away. Once something is broken, even if you try to fix it, there will always be cracks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taglist: @swatson06 @horny-nd-bored @shannon124 @perfectlyharolds @phoebe-21-99 @wintersoldierslut @iceebabies @wanessalopesueiros

if you wanna join / be removed from the taglist, comment/reblog/message me! for now I tagged the people who liked my post anouncing this was dropping today. much love <3

#chris evans x reader #chris evans #chris evans smut #chris evans imagine #chris evans headcanon #chris evans angst

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pink-peony-princess · 4 years ago

Text

Ruin

-Ellen-

I stood staring in the bathroom mirror at the large pink scar that snaked across my forehead from my left temple to just above my right eyebrow.

It had been almost three months now, and I was still in pain, some days it felt like I couldn't escape it.

I lifted my shirt to show my tummy, yet another angry looking pink scar this one jagged from where the glass had gotten me. It still pain, dull ache ever-present, the itch constant. I frowned, frustrated with how long everything was taking to heal.

"Morning baby," Shawn whispered into my neck,coming to rest his head softly on my shoulder and smiling at me in the mirror.

"Hey," I couldn't help the small smile that pulled at the corner of my lips. He was so beautiful, even first thing in the morning, dressed in an ugly washed-out green coloured pair of scrubs,ready for another day as a doctor in the local emergency department.

"What was that frown I saw before I walked in?" he asked, still watching me in the mirror.

I sighed, "Im just sick of being sore and having these ugly scars all over my body. I can't get it out of my head," I whispered, feeling the tears welling up, an all to familiar occurance these days.

"It's gonna take some time baby," he murmured, pulling me to his chest and holding me tightly.

"Yeah I know," I sighed leaning back into his hold. He really had been the best thing and he had quite literally saved my life, both physically and mentally. Our relationship had never felt forced, we'd just naturally fallen for one another, but if I was being honest I would never have imagined to be where I was today three months ago.

-Three Months Earlier-

-Third person-

"This is a trauma call for an eta of ten minutes," a voice came over the Emergency Department intercom.

"I hate trauma calls," Brian sighed as he got geared up, placing the label that declared him to be team leader onto his protective gown, before pulling a fresh pair of gloves on to replace the ones he had just used to help stitch up a little girl's head after she took a tumble.

"Is the bed all ready?" he asked, ducking his head around the curtain of the only free bay in the department. It had been one of those nights, and it was only eight, meaning that he was only two hours into a twelve-hour shift.

"Almost," his college, and fellow critical care doctor, Connor spoke as he wheeled the crash cart into place, and situated the supplies draw.

"What do we know so far?" Michael, another doctor asked, coming to stand by the other two doctors.

"Adult female, hit and run, while crossing the street." Connor spoke, while glancing down to check his watch for the time remaining before they were set to arrive.

"That sounds nasty," Michael commented, wincing slightly in sympathy. "It's a good thing the nurses decided to page Ortho I suppose, it sounds like you'll be needing my expertise," he turned to face his colleague.

"I hate to say it, but I'd have to agree," Brian replied, sharing a knowing look with the other two doctors.

All three of them knew that pedestrian hit and runs where never good, and there was a high rate of critical injuries sustained, and of course these were usually inflicted on the innocent party. They didn't speak for several minutes, each fidgeting, just wanting to start helping the poor girl already. They didn't say it, but they knew it wouldn't be pretty. This has been confirmed when they got a message via one of the nurses, saying that Shawn, one of their friends and fellow colleague, and, emergency care physician was on route to the scene of the accident after the paramedics requested his help. This was not something that happened ogten, and only when completely necessary. The hospital liked to keep Ashton there as his expertise was so useful in many of the situations that the department faced.

-Ellen-

All I could feel was pain. Pain everywhere. Every inch of my body was hurting.

I tried to piece together how I had come to be here, but was met with some unknown resistance when I tried to turn my head, and survey my surroundings. "Stay still honey. We're going to get you to the hospital shortly, but just bear with us okay," a voice spoke from somewhere above my head. It was then that I became aware of the hands touching me, and instinctively I tried to pull away. "Dave, I think It'll be best to sedate her for the time being," a different voice spoke. That was the last thing I was aware of before I woke to bright lights, and calm, but still somehow urgent, voices.

-Third Person-

When Shawn and Dave arrived on scene, it was worse then they had expected. The poor girl was laying in the middle of what would normally be a busy street, onlookers everywhere watching with baited breath. "Can we move some of these guys out of here?" Shawn asked one of the many police officers that were standing around, waiting for direction. The last thing his patient needed was an audience when they were completely defenceless.

When they finally managed to push their way through the crowd of people, and get the relevant equipment set up, it was to find that things were much more complicated and critical then they had first thought.

"What do we know?" Dave, the paramedic on the case asked.

"They've not been able to give us much, but they're saying that someone ran a red, hit her, and took off. They're trying to run the plates now, track the person down," a burly police officer spoke. " I'll leave you guys to it," he spoke, patting them both on the shoulder, before getting up and going to help the other officers control the swelling crowds,"

As they both surveyed the situation, the injuries were clear to see. The girl had dislocated her left shoulder, broken her collarbone, and from the blood soaking through her pants and the angle of her right ankle, she had a compound fracture. Perhaps more concerning though was the blood that was fishing from a open head wound above her eyebrow, and flowing from her nose. The latter was usually a sign of internal bleeding.

"Hello?" Shawn spoke, as Dave started getting the collar ready. "If you can hear me, give my hand a squeeze okay," he continued slipping his gloved hand into the girl's bloody one, and praying there was a response.

After a moment there was, and they both thanked the heavens.

"Sweetheart, my name is Shawn, I'm a doctor, and this is Dave. Can you remember your name?" Shawn asked, leaning down in the hopes of hearing the young woman's response.

"Ellen," she whispered. It was barley there, but it was still a response.

"Okay Ellen, this is going to be uncomfortable, but we need to put this collar on you so that you don't hurt your neck or back okay. And then we'll get you to the hospital," Dave reassured her, before going about fixing the hard plastic to the girl. Both the medics had had to put the collar on to experience what it was like for the patients, and it was uncomfortable to say the least. Neither one could fathom how bad it would be to have injuries on top of this.

They both felt dreadful when Ellen started trying to claw at the collar, desperately trying to get it off, tears flooding down her bloody face.

"I know sweets, it's okay," Shawn tried to comfort her once they were in the ambulance and had hooked her up to an I.V. with pain medication.

"Shawn, I think It'll be best to sedate her for the time being," he informed his partner, getting the sedative ready.

"Can you check her vitals again please?" he requested, "And get some oxygen on her for good measure," he added, before stepping out of the ambulance and heading to the driver's side. "I think she's stable enough to go," he added, before starting towards the hospital with lights and sirens on, indicating that this was a life-threatening situation.

In the back of the vehicle, Shawn was going about checking her pupil reaction, which turned out to be slow, indicating a moderate concussion. After this, he placed a mask on the girl, ensuring that the saturation levels were as high as possible, as after attaching her to the relative monitors, it was found that she was only satting a 80%.

Finally, he went about checking the heart and lungs, and by this point they were beginning to pull into the hospital, which relieved the medic immensely.

They were met with a team of people at the entrance, Shawn was glad to see this included his three colleagues, Michael, Connor and Brian.

"What do we have?" Brian asked, stepping behind the gurney to help Shawn push it now that Dave had left on a new call.

"This is Ellen, she was hit by a car side-on while crossing the road. She's got a dislocated shoulder, broken collar bone and a compound fracture to the ankle. Possible internal bleeding and concussion. The paramedic also found some swelling, possibly indicating spleen bruising. Lacerations to the head, with nasal bleeding. Her BP is low, same with heart rate, lungs sound normal, standard dose of pain medication given on route." He finished as they made it to the bay that had been set up before their arrival.

"Okay, I want a CT, scan of the head and abdomen and spine, and can someone get me an ultrasound machine, stat, and in the mean time let's get her hooked moved on the the bed so we can start preliminary examinations. On my count!" Brian commanded, directing the team in transferring her safely to the hospital bed.

-Ellen-

The first thing I was aware of when I came to be was the bright lights above me, making me want to shut my eyes again almost instantly. After this, it was an annoying tickling sensation on my face. I moved my hand to try and swipe it away, but was met with resistance.

"Leave it there, Ellen," a calm voice spoke. A young man came into view then. "My name is Brian I'm one of the doctors looking after you, do you know where you are?"

"In the hospital," I answered, beginning to feel overwhelmed at the gravity of the situation, which was only made worse when I realised I couldn't move anything apart from my arms.

"Just try to stay nice and calm for me, you'll be fine, we just need to do a few tests and then we should be able to get you out of this contraption," he smiled sympathetically.

"Shawn?" he called. Another youngish looking doctor, this time with tanned skin, dark hair curly hair and several visible tattoos came over.

"You called?" he asked, before turning to me. "Hi Ellen, my names Shawn," he introduced himself with a smile, "I'm another one of the doctors."

"I want to roll her to do a spinal check,"

"No problem, so on three, I'm going to roll you onto your side and Brian is going to check for sensation." He explained to me, seeing the confusion I was feeling.

A few minutes later, they determined that my spine was fine, and this was confirmed by scans they had done when I was out, that came back fine.

"There you go, that's got to feel better," Shawn smiled, readjusting the blankets to provide me with more modesty.

"Ellen, are you in any pain?" Brian asked, coming over and shining a small light in my eyes.

"My tummy is really sore, and my shoulder and chest area," I told him.

"Okay, I'll get the nurse to increase the hourly dosage, there's no reason you should be in pain. You'll probably still be a little sore though, you've got a bruised spleen, which given time will heal, but you'll be tender for a while. As for your chest, you broke your collar bone on impact. We've put your arm into a sling to help limit the movement and give it an opportunity to heal. You did dislocate your other shoulder though, and we're going to have to put it back into place- don't worry though, we've got Michael doing it for you, and we're going to dose you up so you won't remember a thing," he laughed, giving my hand a gentle squeeze.

"You needed me?" yet another doctor walked in, dyed blonde hair, sitting across his face. "Sorry," he added, "There was an emergency in the pit,"

"Ellen, this is Michael, are you ready?" Shawn asked.

"Mmmmm?" I responded unsure.

"You'll be fine," he responded, going to adjust my meds.

To the say that the process was painful would be the understatement of the year, and I may have called all three of them some uncomplimentary names, but after the fact I got some immediate relief.

The rest of the night was spent getting my many cuts stitched up, with the doctors, helping to keep me distracted by talking to me about my everyday life. I ended up in tears when I was introduced to Shawn again,apparently I'd met him a few times before, but I really couldn't remember, who I was told was one of the main people who got me to the hospital. "It's okay," he had spoken, giving me a gentle hug. "It's what we do!" he smiled, grabbing a tissue and wiping the tears off my face.

"They told me you're studying vet science?" he asked, sitting down on a chair next to the bed Connor another doctor and Brian went back to stitching me up. I felt my whole face break into a smile.

"Yep, I'm already a certified carer, but I wanted to take the next step."

"I really admire that," he told me, "Hopefully we'll be able to get that ankle of yours fixed up first thing tomorrow and onto the road of recovery." he spoke, referring to the compound fracture in my ankle that Shawn had told me about not long after I woke. Admittedly, I had thrown up when he told me what a compound fracture was, and had gone into a panic when he explained it would need surgery, but he had calmed me quickly.

"You'll be fine, you've got the best Ortho in the place working on you, Michael. You won't know anything happened once he's done, and you're all healed.

The coming weeks were filled with highs and lows, the surgery went well, and there was no post op infection, something that made all the doctors very happy, however the pain was almost unbearable at times, and they had to give me multiple pep talks to get me through it. I did it though, we their help.

The experience had helped to shape me, and when it was finally time to leave, I knew that I was leaving with four new friends.

But the one person I could always count on was Shawn. He helped me through everything, physio appointments, monthly reviews but above everything else he was a shoulder to lean on, someone to cry to when things got tough. And I guess through all of that our relationship had blossomed without us even realising. But one thing was for sure...

-Present Day-

I turned smiling now, as Shawn looked down at me I uttered the five words that meant so much to me.

"You save me from Ruin."

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes imagine #shawn #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes imagines #shawn peter raul mendes #shawn mendes blurb #doctor!shawn #mendes triplets #werewolf!shawn #peter mendes #raul mendes #shawnblr

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howtowhumpyourhiccup · 4 years ago

Text

Winter Whumperland Day 5: Animals

Summary: Written for Winter Whumperland Day 5. Set in a modern AU, follows up on Day 4 'Gift'. Alone for the day, Hiccup watches a dragon documentary as he thinks back to how he and his Bud first met and contemplates why he knows his way around his abuser.

Rating: Mature

Characters: Hiccup, Toothless, Viggo, Ryker

Pairing: Vigcup, past-Hiccstrid

Words: 3 045

Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon

Prompt: “Animal attack”

Whumpee: Hiccup

Author’s Notes: As fun as this project as been, physical whump is what I enjoy writing the most. So there are two parts here that I particularly liked about writing this one-shot.

Constructive criticism is appreciated! On tagging, too!

Enjoy!

@amonthofwhump

Ao3

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Out in the forest with nothing but trees and snow and as far as the eye can see, which isn't far at all, Hiccup is freezing.

He wishes he could've gotten a coat before he ran, or was already wearing one when he did, but getting one would've meant going back inside the cabin, where Viggo was, and he wouldn't have expected to see him again. And if he's seen the shovel Hiccup is using as a makeshift crutch, he'd know.

So suffering the cold it is. He'll just have to hurry it up and find the help that he needs.

If only he wasn't so frustratingly slow, but with the state of both of his feet, one broken and the other a fake, slow is his only speed available.

It makes him worry. Every few seconds he looks behind him, worried to suddenly find his abuser standing there and that is more stress than he needs right now. Getting out of this predicament alive is already difficult enough.

Every little sound makes his heart leap and his eyes search for the source, wide-eyed and useless. If only he had a little bit of moonlight to work with, at least then he could see a little. But there's a snowfall coming and that means the only thing in the sky are clouds.

The white carpet is thick enough that it hides secrets and Hiccup's left foot gets caught in a tree root he didn't see. His broken foot unable to steady him, he falls with a surprised cry and eats a faceful of snow. A big jolt of pain rushes through his nerves and he lets go of the shovel, his hands shooting to his injured limb.

"Oh, fuck!" He moans and groans, hoping the terrible pain will subside quickly. He can feel it radiate through his ankle now and he wants it gone. Not just for his comfort, but also because he needs to get going. He needs to put distance between himself and the cabin he came from.

It barely fades in the minute or two he lies on the ground and that's about as much as he can give his foot to recover. The temperatures are so low that he can't wait for much longer, so he's forced to get up. His hands, face, and ears are all numb and tingling from the cold, frost nipped, and his foot is pounding and not taking kindly to the slightest of movements. But he needs to get up, he can't stay here.

Grimacing, he takes the shovel again and somehow finds the strength to get back up to his feet. He's still groaning and the occasional swear leaves, but he makes it. Somehow, he's standing again and he breathes out deeply. His face is wet with tears, a result of the pain in his foot.

His prosthetic is no help at all in the snow, especially now with his good foot out of commission, and it's infuriating. He finally has it back with him for longer than an hour or two every day and it's still useless to him.

And to think that, before they left, he was so relieved to have it back with him. He used to believe that it would be the thing to carry him out of this situation in a way. That if he got it back, if his plan worked, he could've used it to walk away from Viggo and walk away proudly.

But he has it now and all he can do is struggle.

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Surprisingly enough, while at the Grimborn house, Viggo isn't home often and neither is Ryker. Hiccup knows Viggo has a company that he's CEO of, but what Ryker is up to during the day, he has no idea.

But it matters little. One of the rules specifically for him is that he can't watch tv without permission, which he never gets, so that's what he does when they're away.

Sitting on the couch when he should be doing his endlessly long list of chores, he has a knee up as he searches between channels to find something interesting to watch. Eventually landing on a documentary about dragons, he can't help but watch it and wallow in the memory it brings him.

One would think this would be the perfect opportunity to get away. Both brothers are gone, what's stopping him from leaving? Even if the windows and doors are locked, why not just break the glass or pick one of those locks and get going?

Well, first of all, his prosthetic is missing.

They took it away from him before he first woke up in this house and they've been keeping it locked away in a safe behind a locked cabinet door. How those two expect Hiccup to do the work around the house and still do a good job with only one leg and a crutch is beyond him.

Though perhaps, that is the point. If he has to do it slowly, if he has to get it right, if he has to get it done to avoid being punished, then he's losing whole days just to his chores and that is part of what makes the list so endless. So endless and so tiring. It's another tactic to make him stay, can't escape if he's too tired to.

But Hiccup's already found the key, it was hidden inside of one of the many books in Viggo's study, where the safe also is. And he's cracked the code through patience and a good hearing. Unfortunately, he still can't just take it and leave.

This house is surrounded by unseen walls he can't break through. Those infernal invisible fences are a thing because there's an ankle band around his ankle, hidden by his pants.

It's not a monitoring device like the ones often given to criminals who are on house arrest, they won't be given a painful electric shock every time they try to leave the house. Hiccup's does and it's been confining him to the inside for as long as he's been upstairs. it's a shock collar, except it goes around his ankle. As someone who can go stir crazy easily, it is a maddening thing.

He wasn't always allowed upstairs, or rather, he wasn't always allowed on the ground floor and up like this. He used to stay in the basement, like you'd see on tv or hear from other stories like his. That's where he first woke up after he was taken. In a way, he's actually relieved he gets to see sunlight and the yard outside.

But on the first day that they could "trust him enough" to let him up, let him see natural light again for the first time in much too long, they also told him what the ankle band was for. He'll never forget that day.

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"Let's call it a safety precaution." Viggo had told him, speaking in such a way as if it's completely normal to put a shock collar on a human being. It's already inhuman to put them on animals.

He's seen some on dragons before. When his mother and her team rescued them and brought them to her sanctuary, he'd sometimes see these collars around their necks and it sickened him everytime. To think that they put one on him...

"Would you care for a demonstration?" From the second that they'd met, Hiccup had Ryker pinned for a bully. Someone who would take enjoyment out of someone else's misery and that offer only backed his observation up.

"I'd prefer not to." Hiccup remembers being quiet that day, exhausted in every possible way after the time spent in darkness. He'd lost weight, too, not good for someone who was already as lean as he was.

"Ah, but that's no fun!" Ryker, however, insisted on it, grabbing Hiccup by his upper arm and dragging him towards the front door with no protest from his younger brother.

"W-wait, no-" Hiccup didn't have the strength to fight back, too weakened, and then the front door was opened and he'd been thrown outside for a test run.

The second he hit the front porch and the steps leading up to it, the ankle band activitated immediately with a few beeps. Terrible surges of electricity ran up his body from his right ankle, setting fire to his nerves. He doesn't remember much, just his body convulsing on the ground, muscles tensing uncontrollably, and the want to scream, but being unable to with his jaws clenched so tightly on one another. He can't remember breathing either.

Does it take minutes? Or has it been only seconds of him writhing on the ground, silently pleading for his suffering to stop? There mustn't be any neighbors nearby or they would have questions. But with the press of a button, the surges end and Hiccup is left sobbing and shaking.

"You couldn't end his suffering just a little sooner?" Viggo asked when he finally joined them outside and stuffed the little remote in his pocket, his tone not fitting his words as it sounded quite uncaring. If anything, he's annoyed he had to be the one to press the button. They both have it and it can make the shocks start and stop at will. Ryker will come to abuse that one whenever he feels like it.

"I just figured a practice run would it through his thick skull," Ryker replies, feeling quite satisfied with the display.

"He's only just arrived, Ryker, it'd be a shame to kill him already." They both looked down at him, watched Hiccup as he panted and lies motionless on the front porch. His body trembled in the aftermath and the tears silently rolled down his face.

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He won't think about that line again until the trip to the mountains, but for the moment, he watches the documentary and pushes the memory of the ankle band to the deepest corners of his mind. Instead, he should pick apart the dragon facts that aren't quite as accurate as he'd like.

Now is not the time to think, now is the time for dragons.

And then a bit about the elusive Night Fury comes on and his mother's sanctuary for dragons is mentioned. This particular species of dragons is hard to find and that makes the sanctuary's specimen all the more important.

Hiccup knows that particular individual very well. He's the one he lost his leg to, the reason why he has a prosthetic that can be taken away like a toy is taken from a disobedient child. As if having a working leg isn't a basic right.

After his parents' divorce, his mother came to live in the sanctuary full-time. And since she had their son for the weekends, Stoick had him during the weeks for school, which meant Hiccup sometimes lived amongst the dragons as well.

It happened one day when he was 15-years-old, an injured juvenile Night Fury had been rescued and was brought to the sanctuary for treatment with every intention to let him go afterward. That is, until they saw the severity of his injured tailfin and realized he would never fly again. That was before a certain someone invented a prosthetic for him.

They didn't know his story, they still don't, not in its entirety. But upon waking up and seeing nothing except for humans, he lashed out. And the closest one standing nearest to him was Hiccup.

The leg was still there when they managed to sedate the dragon and call in a helicopter from overseas, having done everything they could to stop him from bleeding out. The sanctuary was on an island without a town or even a village, so the nearest hospital was the one on the mainland, in New New Berk. The next day, the leg was gone and so was his mother. She'd been sent away by his father, who was outraged that she let something like this happen under her watch.

In the weeks afterwards, Valka would completely lose custody of Hiccup in a court battle for him while he recovered. Nothing she said could persuade Stoick, or the court, to change their minds.

Hiccup never blamed his mother or the dragon for the leg he lost or for the terrible scarring on the lower right side of his back. Something Viggo had once looked at and promptly decided should be surgically removed in the far future.

He despises that decision more than he could ever even dislike Toothless for doing this to him. Toothless was scared, hurt, and acted out because of that. And with how little they know about Night Furies, they couldn't have known how fast or how slow his metabolism would take care of the sedatives. Every dragon reacts differently to them.

Once his stump healed, his physiotherapy was done, and he'd made his own prosthetic with Gobber's help, months had come and gone. When he was about 16 and a half, he demanded his father to be allowed back on the sanctuary and see that dragon.

Stoick had told him no, of course, but when had that ever stopped him before?

Toothless had recognized him instantly and what Hiccup saw was guilt and a need to shrink away. In the months there, he'd come to realize these humans weren't out to hurt him and he'd nearly killed the most defenseless out of all of them, a juvenile like him.

Imagine his surprise when that human, that would turn out to be his best and closest friend, came at him not with anger, but with a fish as a good gesture. Their relationship only went uphill from there.

He remembers screaming, remembers the ferocious beast tearing away at him, remembers, the blood and the pain of a leg that was quite literally hanging by a thread at that point. And then there were the nights when he would wake up crying and his father would come in to console him. It's part of why he wanted to see the dragon, to be rid of those nightmares as he refused to fear what he's loved all his life.

But those times, he won't look back at them in horror as he probably will look back on his time with Viggo.

His time downstairs in particular.

Before he realizes it, Hiccup sits on the leather couch, knee up to his chest, and feeling like he wants to cry. He just wants to see his Bud again. Toothless doesn't like humans very much, but he loves him as much as he does him.

After bonding with his Bud, and a lecture from his father that went in one ear and out the other, Hiccup continued to work with the dragons his mother and her personnel looked after. He garnered skills with them that no one but his own mother had developed before him and it seemed like his goal in life was to work with them.

His thoughts take a sudden turn.

Maybe that's why Hiccup is so good at quelling Viggo, he's used to dealing with animals.

Except when a Monstrous Nightmare is angry, it could be suffering from a toothache that keeps him from eating, starving him for days until the cause is found. When a Gronckle comes to a human post to wreck stuff, it might be because she ate something she shouldn't have and feels worryingly sick, this her way of calling for help. When a Nadder is acting up, it might be a spine that sits wrong and hurts her.

Dragons can be angry and have a million reasons why they are and that means there are a million ways to help them out. It's their job to figure out what is wrong and take care of the problem. Hiccup is exceptional at this.

But Viggo, for all his smarts and his complexes, wants only one thing from Hiccup and that makes him easier to quell. That is, if Hiccup can beat him to the punch. Literally.

Funny and ironic, how they would put a shock collar of some kind on Hiccup when the beast out of the two of them isn't him.

But he shouldn't have to and, unlike with his dragons, he doesn't want to either. That makes him angry.

But what can he do? The police haven't come for him yet and neither have his friends or family, if they even know where to look. Hiccup doesn't even know what address this house is situated at and it's not like he can go outside and intercept the mail before Viggo or Ryker can. And they're so quick to dispose of the envelopes, too. Ryker even stares him in the eye with a glint of satisfaction as he burns the envelopes above the sink each time he gets their hands on them.

And the only people who really know about Viggo are Astrid and Heather. Would they think to look into him?

Hiccup looks towards the direction of the study, where not only his prosthetic is kept under lock and key for "safekeeping", but also where Viggo's computer is.

It's the 13th of December, the day after the party. He can't go outside, there is no phone to use, no neighbors to rely on, no housekeeper to scheme with, but those party guests from the night before have given him an idea. It's the first one he's had since being allowed up the stairs.

He's ashamed of how long it took him, but his mind was simply... preoccupied with other things.

If he can just get onto that computer then he has something to work with. A way to get rid of this shock collar that he doesn't dare tamper with like he would with other objects would be great. What would be even greater is something that he can use against Viggo, maybe something having to do with those party guests.

If he can just get onto that computer, he might find something that will be his ticket out of here, and he won't have to worry about being treated like a child anymore, like a toy, like an object, like an animal.

The one who will be treated like an animal then will, hopefully, be Viggo.

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vaycasinobk · 5 years ago

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Mind and Heartache

Peter Parker X Male reader

Author’s Note : Hey guys, haven't post a story in a while so here you go.

Summary : Someone attacked Peter. You, his boyfriend with telepathic/telekinetic powers must found out who

Warning : Male!reader, angst, reader focused, mention of blood and some broken bone

Word Count : 2887

Inspired by @bigfan-fanfic

Gif by : @sincerelysaraahh

*Want to request something? Just ask!*

*Constructive criticism are welcome*

One of Peter’s hand is clutching the side of his stomach while the other one is prompted against a wall, both are covered in blood. ‘How many ribs did I break?’ Peter wondered, ‘three, four, or maybe even six?’, it feels all the same to him, his whole body hurt. He limped across the dark alleyway, ‘what matter is he already send his distress signal, they will come soon’, Peter’s thought was interrupted by that cold and ruthless sound. “Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout, down came the rain and washed the spider out”

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(Y/N)’s body was backed up against the wall in front of the bed, which Peter’s body lies lifeless in. Machinery surrounds him and tubes are coming out of his mouth, the morning sun still makes him look ethereal, but now is not the kind that you admire. His brain activity was low, too low. Wanda managed to intervene and stabilize his mind, but it almost like he’s gone, like a faint whisper just out of your earshot while loud noises enveloped his soft cries.

“He got jumped on by someone, someones, the crime scene was very contaminated by other variables that aren’t important, so combing through it will take a long time. Unfortunately, all of the Avengers were on a mission, so the ones that were able to respond were standard S.H.I.E.L.D agents”, normally when Tony Stark is addressing you, you should pay close attention, but now, all you cared about is who did this to your Peter.

“No use, it’s all blurry and disoriented, I’m guessing he had a lot to process when it happened. Trust me (Y/N), I’ve tried”, Wanda said out loud before you even try reading through his mind and the thought of Wanda poking through Peter’s mind makes you sick to your stomach, but if she can’t do it, in your condition right now, you cant do it too. “We’re doing our best to keep him alive, we’ll keep you updated, now go home (Y/N). You need to rest”

“All right”, you said reluctantly. The door to Peter’s room, your mind is made up.

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“Can I have latte and that chocolate brownies?”

“Do you want to have the brownies re-heated?”

“Yes, please”, you then gave your card to pay for your order.

You sat across the window, looking at the stream of human going about their day. One are excited for their first date, while another are scared because they broke their new phone. Still not the one you’re looking for.

“Here’s your order”, the waitress sat down a vanilla latte with a love drawn on it and a warm chocolate brownies.

“Thank you”, you smiled at her and then continue searching.

This is another café you have visited in the last couple of hours. You aren't used to this amount of caffeine even though you usually like coffee. Another latte you order to drink on the go. It was a nice day out actually. The setting sun lay a golden hue to the city as you walked along its block, sipping on your coffee occasionally while walking back to Peter’s apartment. Aunt May was kind enough to let you stay at Peter’s room when he’s still in the hospital and unable to be visited. To show your gratitude for her you are the one who did all the cleaning and the chores.

After arriving at the apartment you started doing the laundry, with May’s shift and Peter at the ward no one is there to do it. While waiting for the laundry you decided to cook something, with the groceries you bought at a nearby deli. You prepped all the ingredients that you need, thinking about what you should make and decided on meatballs, macaroni, and cheese with cuts of smoked beef, a soup, and some fried rice. When all is done you eat the leftover pizza that’s on the fridge accompanied by some of the meatballs you cooked. You put all that’s left in containers and put a note on the table that states May’s dinner, breakfast, and lunch are all in the fridge and only needed to be re-heated. You spent sometime after dinner ironing and folding the clothes that are out of the dryer before you went to bed, with your nose buried in his sweater.

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"I need to tell the Avenger about this", Peter muttered under his breath while climbing down the side of the building he is on. He only managed a few feet of swinging before he fell. He was shot at the right side of his abdomen. His back slam against the concert of the silent part of town.

"You can break my bone, hurt me, beat me up, even kill me, but for the love of God and all things good, do not hurt him", Peter said as intimidating as he could.

The man stood in silence before continuing the rhyme, "out came the sun, and dried up all the rain, and the itsy-bitsy spider founded dead. The end"

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The next morning when you woke up you have a massive headache, like every brain cell that you have is on fire and just ready to explode ‘maybe this is the side effect of over-exerting your power’, you thought, you never really use your power to this much capacity over the last few days. You barely get into the kitchen without falling, when you hear a knock on the door. Trying your best to read who it is, but failed, like someone is blocking you or because when you did it your whole body hurts. With the last bit of your power, you took one of the kitchen knives and dragged yourself to the door. Your vision was hazy so you didn’t know who it was through the peephole.

“Who is it?”, you mustered up every ounce of power that you had to sounded normal.

“It’s us”, you opened the door to Wanda and Natasha.

You let them in and you guys talked about Peter’s condition, he’s getting better, slowly but surely, his physical condition is getting stable by the day, but still can’t be visited. You sigh in relief, it was the best news you heard all week.

“You know that we are doing our best to investigate who did this to Peter”, Natasha spoked softly.

Shocked because you know that she sounded like she knew what you’ve been doing before you ready to blame Wanda on reading your mind Natasha spoked. “I was a spy for most of my life, it’s not hard to read what you’ve been doing with just a few glance”.

So you talked more about how the investigation has been going, you also told them what you already find. Before they leave Natasha spoke, “I’ve been there you know, wanting revenge, it was never the answer, never will. I’m not your mom, so I can't tell you what to do or not to do, what I can tell you is be careful and you're not in this alone”, she gave you a button and then leave.

Your grumbling stomach requests your attention before anything else, so you head to the kitchen once again. May left a thank you note on the fridge, opening it you see that May finished the soup, some of the fried rice, and brought the meatballs for her lunch. You eat what’s left of the fried rice in silence, wondering what to do. You decided on taking a shower before doing anything else. After getting out of the shower you went into Peter’s room to put on some clothes. With a black Nasa sweatshirt that you have and black sweatpants, you went out. The first couple of hours wasn’t productive because your powers were still acting up, your head still feels like it was going to explode, but not as bad as it was in the morning. Without you realized it was noon already. With some sandwiches and bottled water, you take your lunch in the near park bench. Eating alone again while watching people go about their day. After you threw away the trash in the garbage can nearby, you walked around the small park. Seeing a tree you decided to sit on it. Without realizing you drifted off.

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It was supposed to be just a normal patrol, maybe catch some muggers, web some burglars, and maybe, just maybe prevent a heist. But this, this is above his power, how much Peter doesn’t want it to be.

“The plans are going smoothly, I presumed”, a man in black tuxedo spoke.

“Yes, we’ve already found out his patterns, his associates, people that are close to him, and most importantly, his ties to our friendly, neighborhood spider”, a man in a hooded robe answer.

Peter was shocked, who could this group of people are. Targeting him, or the people around him. They noticed Peter was eavesdropping on the conversation.

“There he is our little spider, gracing us with his presence”, the man in the black tuxedo announced. Peter can feel guns pointing at him.

“If you do anything to me, the Avengers will know about it”, Peter shouted while pushing his distress signal.

“ The world doesn’t just revolve around you or your little Avenger friend”, the man in the black tuxedo smiled coldly.

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You got woken up by the rough wind. Unlike the other day, today seemed to be a gloomy one. The clouds are rolling in heavily, it’s going to rain, hard. You were only a couple of blocks away before it rained like cats and dogs. Entering Peter’s apartment, you were soaked to the bone. To your surprise, May was home, in the middle of the day.

“Oh my god (y/n) go dry up and change into some other clothes, I’ll make some tea”, she pushed you into Peter’s room. Wearing his sweater and some short, you put the wet clothes on the dryer before you sat down in the living room, next to May.

She offered you some hot tea to warm you up. “The hospitals let me leave early, Meg cover the rest of my shift for today, fortunately, I got home before it was raining”, she looked to you while you sipping on the comforting tea.

“Before I got home I visited Peter in the hospital, maybe you were there. I was planning on taking you to an ice cream shop or something, thanking you for doing so many chores for these past few days”, sadness sipped out of her every word.

“But when I arrived at Peter’s room I didn’t find you anywhere. He’s still can’t be visited but I was hoping you were waiting outside. I was ready on looking for you in the hospital. That’s when Natasha came to me and said that you never visited Peter since the day he was admitted”, she looked at you, stared at you with tears pooling in her eyes.

“What have you been doing these past few days (y/n)?”, May asked a question you don’t dare answer.

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You were ecstatic, you finally find a lead on who attacked Peter. You told Natasha and here you are on an impromptu Avengers meeting.

“I didn’t get much since it was outside of my range. All I got was the named Jack O’ Riley, something about Project Liberation, and the code name ‘Sound’, you spoke to the one present, which is Tony, Wanda, Natasha, Clint, and Bruce.

“Jack O’ Riley, somehow that named seemed familiar”, Bruce spoke.

“Because it is, he worked with HYDRA before, we come across his name couple of times, we didn’t what role he play, until now”, Natasha spoked.

“Where were you when you find this out (y/)?”, Tony asked.

“I was just on the outside of Queens, maybe they’re in Brooklyn?”, you answered.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y you know what to do, let’s get to work guys, double time”, announced Tony.

“We will find those who did this to him and we will bring them to justice”, Wanda reassured you.

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You sneak around the abandoned warehouse, using your power to hide your presence, but you still need to walk quietly. You stepped into the abandoned warehouse through the broken window on the top and slowly glide down to the behind a container.

You wanted to sneak around but someone announced your presence, “Finally, we’ve been waiting for you”.

Knowing your cover is blown you stopped hiding your presence and got out of the backside of the container, “you must be a telepath, being able to sense my presence like that, I know I should've concealed my presence more”.

You saw a man with a black tuxedo standing there, the darkness behind him. He stood with the support of a walking cane.

“Why did you target Spiderman?”, you shouted, knowing this man right here was the one that’s behind Peter’s attack.

“Peter was never our goal”, he smiled before snapping his fingers, and you were bombarded by a barrage of bullets from all sides.

You didn’t have time to wonder how you didn’t sense any man or machine inside the warehouse expect the one in front of you right now. You created a force field with your telekinetic powers. Minutes went by and they didn’t show any sign of stopping, you mustered up some power to produce a shock wave, stopping the rain of bullets.

“Marvelous, marvelous, you’re better than we expected”, the man in the black tuxedo clapped his hands.

You were astounded, with that blast he should've been sent flying, but he’s still standing with nothing on him. A hooded figure shows up next to him, but since when you should've felt them but you got nothing like it was dead.

“Where are my manners, my name is Jack O’ Riley and this is my sweet Nathan”, you were flown back to the stack of old crates as soon as he finished talking, thanks to your telekinesis you were able to soften the blow.

You saw him leaping to you, so you throw some of the broken crates to him before you doges his attack. You rested you back to a container before you can react he already got you pinned.

“You see, Nathan here is a telepath, but his power was weak. Until we figure out a way to take the telepathic and telekinetic ability of another just like him, the price is the person that we take their ability from died. Peter was a setup, we did want to kidnap him before that damned agents storm the place, but I guess by breaking a few of his bone did well enough to bring you here”, Jack said that as he walked to you.

“The sound of his bone when it cracked, the way he practically begged to spare you life, he was pathetic. You should've seen his face”, Nathan dumped images of Peter on the ground, the pain he felt, the fear that consumed him, the readiness to die to save you.

It makes you mad, enrage, furious. All of that anger you channeled into your power, it manifests by creating a big shock wave, big enough to destroy the warehouse. You can still see Nathan and Jack still breathing, badly wounded but still breathing, maybe Nathan tried to shield them both but it was only enough to let them on the brink of death. No matter what, more fun for you.

You lifted them up and then smashed them on the ground, “Did you feel that that’s what my Peter feel when you shot him down”.

You started to break their bones, “Do you like it when it’s you bones that are being broken?”, one by one, starting from their arms you break them.

“(Y/N)! Stop this! Please, I’m begging you”, you heard his voice. A voice soft as the sunrise but now is filled with pain and hurt. ‘Who dare hurt his Peter?’ you thought before you realize that most of the Avengers are around with Peter. You saw him there, standing, healthy, safe and sound, and afraid of you. You dropped down slowly, with two of you victims that are quickly being taken care of by the medic team.

You walked slowly to Peter, your Peter, that’s here, not in a hospital bed, with machinery around him. You only manage a few steps before falling, but not to the cold, hard, ground. The soft, warm, arms of your boyfriend are the one that breaks it.

“There, there, (y/n) everything is going to be all right, no need to cry”, Peter said to your eyes, whipping away the tears you didn’t know you have. He places a comforting kiss inside of his warm hug. You felt it was only you two in this world.

#male reader #male!reader #x male reader #m!reader #peter parker #peter parker x #peter parker x reader #peter parker x male reader

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idiot-detectives · 4 years ago

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Pandora’s Trick - Ch 1: Shrunken Thief?

Finally getting around to archiving my fic here on tumblr! I will be updating AO3 first however, and if this first chapter intrigues you, I have eight chapters up as of writing this!

Ao3 Link!

Description: Kaito had finally done it, His mission was almost over. Pandora was just within his grasp until he woke up that morning. It turns out Pandora has a little more up its sleeve than immortality, and Kaito found out the hard way. Unexpectedly mind-swapped with a shrunken Kudo Shinichi, The unlikely duo of a thief and detective have to work together without killing each other as well as ruining each other's lives. Kuroba finds that the small detective's life isn't actually as put together as he makes it seem...

Word count: 4423

Warnings: Mind swap, Body Swap, extremely brief mentions to drugs.

That morning when Kuroba Kaito woke up, little did he know it would be the strangest period of his life. He woke up that morning on the floor, on top of an unfamiliar futon in an unfamiliar room.

‘That’s weird… How did I end up here?’

His head felt heavy and full of fog, he couldn’t remember anything from the previous day. He… had a heist, he thought, but that’s all he could recall. It hurt to think about it, a dull ache ended up pulsing through his forehead when he tried to recall the day.

‘Was I drugged somehow? Just what exactly happened?’

He groaned as he threw the covers off of him, but what he saw was not his legs, nor his own pajamas. He noticed two things right away. One, It was a kid’s body, and he was fairly certain he wasn’t physically a kid anymore, despite being called one at his night job. Second, The groan wasn’t his own, it was a different voice than his own. The voice sounded familiar, however.

He jumped up as fast as he could, stumbling slightly on his smaller legs. In a panic, He scanned the room for anything that could work as a mirror - anything reflective. He couldn’t see much from his lower viewpoint, however. He eventually managed to find his way into the nearby bathroom, and with a little difficulty, got up on the nearby step stool. As he stood on the tips of his toes to even be remotely able to see his face in the mirror, he found it wasn’t his face that was staring back but rather the face of his youngest critic Conan Edogawa... No, rather Kudou Shinichi.

“What… The hell…” Kaito whispered.

Sure enough, what he heard was not his voice, It was the smaller detective’s.

‘This can’t be real...!’ Kaito’s thoughts raced as he tried to keep his emotions under control.

He kept poking at various spots on his face as if the illusion would wear off and his face would suddenly appear. He’s worn masks before as KID but this felt different. While he could feel under the mask the pressure when someone would touch his face, but never the actual skin from someone’s finger, much less his own. It was becoming increasingly clear that this wasn’t a dream unless he was lucid dreaming or something like that. Still… It was worrying. Why did this happen?

He hissed as his head began to dully ache again. Looks like remembering is still a no-go.

Damn, if only he could remember what happened during the gap in his memory then maybe he could figure out why the hell he was like this or even how it happened. He knew real magic existed (Thanks to Koizumi and Pandora supposedly existing), but was this something that magic could do? He didn’t have enough information right now to figure this out.

Kaito slowly stepped off the step stool, taking cautious steps out to the bedroom. Now was not the time to panic, despite panic being the only thing he felt. He just had to take things slow for now, everything would be fine… Right?

He took a deep breath, attempting to calm his nerves.

“Poker face…” Kaito muttered.

At this point, the phrase has become akin to an affirmation, something he can say to himself when he’s experiencing an unexpected situation - and this definitely qualified for an unexpected situation. It also helped as a way to remain close to his father, the one who taught him this in the first place.

‘Wait... If I’m in Tantei-kun’s body then… is he in mine?’ He wondered.

‘If that's so then… Ahah... I'm in trouble.’

The magician wanted to laugh. He hoped that the smaller detective didn’t realize his identity, but sooner or later he knew that he was going to get curious and find his KID lair. This was definitely not how he anticipated his identity being revealed.

“Conan-kun?” A voice called from a nearby room.

Kaito recognized it as the girl that Conan was always with, Ran was her name, right? Damn, He didn’t need this right now. Looks like he’d need to keep his rival’s cover maintained for now, As it just now became his cover. At least it would give him leverage if Conan decided to reveal his identity as KID.

A realization struck him: He’d never had a chance to impersonate Conan, only ever his real self. A child-like smile slowly crept onto Kaito’s face. Maybe he could attempt to have a little fun with this, he always did with trying new disguises.

“Ah... Ran-Neechan? What is it?” He called out.

He was glad all he had to do was imitate the tone and not do the extra work to match Conan's voice.

“It’s almost Noon, are you doing okay?” The door slowly swung open as Ran walked in. “Come on, You’re not even dressed?”

“S-Sorry! I was up late!”

“Well… Hurry up and get dressed, Your friends are waiting outside.”

Kaito nodded, telling Ran that he would be out soon. She gave a warm smile and began to leave.

“Make sure you eat something before you leave since you missed breakfast.” She said from the doorway, turning to look at the small magician.

“Right, Thank you for reminding me.” The magician nodded.

The door closed with a soft click, which immediately activated Kaito’s nerves. There would be no way in hell he’d be able to fool Tantei-kun’s friends, especially that brown-haired girl he hung around. He didn’t know them that well, despite them being at a few heists. However, There was a big difference between seeing them around and knowing them personally.

“Damn it…” He groaned.

What was he going to do?

“I guess… The first step is to get dressed. Then I can figure out what to do about those guys…”

The first problem he ran into was actually finding where his rival actually stored his clothes. He debated on bringing the gadgets that caused him so much grief, eventually deciding that it would be useful despite the lack of knowledge of how to use them. He managed to go out thirty minutes later than he figured he was supposed to, He had to skip eating of course. He figured he could just get something out later and then figure out a way to pay Shinichi back. What he didn’t anticipate was the lecture he had to get out of when Ran caught him, skipping what was supposed to be an extremely late breakfast. He yelled a quick apology as he ran out the door, every inch of his body screaming at him that this was a bad idea.

“Conan!” The larger kid - Genta, He remembered- yelled at him. “You’re late!”

“Sorry, Sorry, I’m just having a weird day, that’s all!” Kaito laughed nervously, glancing over at the brown-haired girl.

She was already giving him a weird look, then again it could just be her resting face. Her name was… Haibara, he believed. The three other kids had stopped giving him glares and were back to the mischievous smiles Kaito had seen at his heists. The next thing he knew, He was being pulled by the three children as they cheerfully talked about who was going to win the soccer game they had planned. At some point down the road, they let go and ran ahead, excitedly trying to snatch the black and white ball from each other’s hands.

“Geez, so much energy.” Kaito laughed wearily.

There was no way he could keep up with them, He underestimated Kudou’s ability to deal with these children.

“I wonder where they get it, Huh?” Haibara said, walking at his side.

“Hm? Yeah…” Kaito trailed.

“So?”

“...So?”

“You said you had something to tell me about the heist last night.”

The magician’s mind froze for a moment. Tantei-kun contacted her?

“Ah.. I-I forget, Sorry. It was a long night.” Kaito tried to laugh it away.

“Hm… is that so? Sounded pretty important on the phone last night.I doubt you would have forgotten right away. You’re… doing okay right?”

Kaito laughed nervously. It probably would be valuable to get this girl on his side, after all from everything he’s collected about her it sounds like she and Kudou are more or less in the same situation. But would anyone really believe him if he said that he and Kudou somehow switched bodies? And that’s still just a theory, he still has no clue if Kudou is even in his body. He would have to think it over for a little longer.

She sighed. “Well. Can’t be helped I suppose. We can talk about it later. Come on, The kids are getting out of sight.”

“Right…”

A few minutes later the five found themselves at a lone field set for a soccer match. The three children who had run ahead were already getting ready, and it seemed like they were going to have a 2 versus 3 match.

“Geez! You guys are slow!” Kaito believed the one who spoke was named Mitsuhiko.

“Conan-kun! You’re on my team!” The younger girl - Ayumi, right? - waved her arms as she shouted.

“Sorry, Edogawa-kun and I are going to sit out for a few.” Haibara spoke out all of a sudden, causing the three to groan in disappointment.

“Come on Haibara-san!”

“No fair, You just want Conan for your team!”

“Ai-chan…”

“Just for a little, okay? We’ll come in when we can.” Haibara assured, receiving disappointed affirmations from the three children.

She began to lead Kaito over to the side, Far enough that the children wouldn’t be able to hear. Just what did she want? The two watched the children play for a few minutes, Kaito anxiously looking back over to Haibara on occasion.

“You aren’t Edogawa-kun are you?” She finally spoke, her voice low.

Kaito didn’t really know how to respond. Sure, he was planning on somehow telling her, but not at this exact moment.

“What gave it away?”

“Last night. At the heist, the phone call I told you about. It sounded like he was in pain almost.”

This piqued Kaito’s interest.

‘He was… in pain?’

“His voice was far away like he wasn’t there mentally. He was mumbling something about something called ‘Pandora’ as well, I wasn’t quite sure. His voice was way too low. Now, in the morning you wake up late and forget about meeting us for soccer, one of his favorite pastimes. Your voice also pitched up slightly, when you weren’t imitating Edogawa-kun, as if that’s how you’re used to speaking. Something happened last night, At the heist.”

“Pandora…?” Kaito’s voice was reduced to barely a whisper at the mention of Pandora. He was sure his poker face dropped for a split second, judging by Haibara’s surprised reaction.

“So you do know what he meant by ‘Pandora’? Care to share?”

Kaito laughed quietly, sipping from the confidence he carried with him as KID.

“Sorry. That would put everyone here in danger, I can’t do that to a young lady such as yourself.”

Haibara’s eyes narrowed, her posture shifted to become a little more defensive.

“Just who are you?”

“Well… I planned on telling you anyways… But...hm. Kudou is... probably sitting there on my bed, surprised at my true identity. I’ve been told we look alike.”

“... Kaitou KID?”

“Bingo.”

“But how - “

Haibara stuttered for a second, trying to wrap her mind around what Kaito just said. He panicked slightly as the young girl’s expression shifted.

“Hey hey hey, Calm down, don’t think about it so hard, I’ll explain later in a safe place.” The thief turned to the brown-haired girl, attempting to calm her in some way.

She took a deep breath, her eyes still casting suspicion over at the thief.

“Fine. Later then…”

‘Well… I doubt she’ll accept it as the reason… But if Pandora was involved… Then did it do this? Damn, I wish I could remember more of that night! Looks like there might be more to Pandora than immortality…’

“Oi!! Conan! Get over here!!” The three children had stopped playing and Genta was now shouting at him.

“Wait, they want me to play?” Kaito looked to Haibara with a nervous expression.

“Go on, Great Thief. Show them your amazing soccer moves.”

“H-hey…��

Kaito had no choice but to play a few rounds with the kids. While he could easily keep up with the kids in terms of endurance, he had no way of maintaining the level they expected from Conan. He had to admit that the detective had skills, otherwise how else would he be able to nail him night after night with that hellish soccer ball?

“Conan-kun, Maybe you should take a break….” Ayumi suggested, kneeling to approach Kaito, who had fallen to the ground in feign exhaustion.

“Y-yeah maybe I should…”

“Hey, then why don’t we talk about KID’s heist last night!” Mitsuhiko excitedly blurted, running up to join the other four children.

“Oh right!! I can’t believe I forgot!”

“Man wasn’t it cool how he just appeared out of nowhere like that??”

“I know, I know, But I really liked it when…”

Kaito found himself more and more confused as he listened to the children excitedly list off the things that he supposedly did that night. He looked over to Haibara for confirmation, if he really did everything they were talking about. She sighed and moved closer, kneeling down to be able to whisper in his ear.

“What’s that look for? Don't tell me you really don’t remember this.”

“I don’t. Honestly.”

Haibara looked genuinely shocked before her expression melted back to her sour look.

“Geez, This gets more problematic by the second.”

“Tell me about it…”

“Ah Conan, That’s right! You fought KID that night!”

Kaito looked up, gazing at the three who had stars in their eyes. They all were looking at him, big smiles on their faces.

“How did you win??”

“Was he tough to beat??”

“How did you guys escape??”

“One at a time!!” Kaito couldn’t help but blurt.

He couldn’t keep up with the children’s overlapping questions. How does Kudou do it? He took a deep breath, calming his exhausted mind.

“Wasn’t it on TV? There were news ‘copters around the site right?”

“Mh. But, the signal was lost when the gem you two were fighting over flashed red. There was a split second, I could see it.” Mitsuhiko answered.

‘A red flash…? Was it really..?’

“C’mon Conan! Just tell us!!” Genta insisted.

Kaito found himself making up multiple lies in order to just get the kids to stop asking questions. He seems to have satisfied them - for now at least. Looks like there would be more he needs to ask Haibara once they get somewhere safe.

A few exhausting hours later, The two parted ways from the rest of the detective boys and Kaito found himself in front of a rather uniquely shaped house, at least for the neighborhood. Haibara had led him here and was insisting he go inside. She claimed the person who lived there was a friend. And so, Kaito had no choice but to trust her. Haibara entered first, announcing her arrival with a guest.

“A guest? Who- Oh! Shinichi!” The voice belonged to an older man, Kaito recognized him for the few times he saw him.

Agasa, He recalled, was his name.

“Wrong.” Haibara cut him off quickly, startling the older man.

“W-what do you mean?”

“I mean. I think I deserve an explanation, Magician under the moonlight-san.” Haibara turned to glare in Kaito’s direction.

“Wait... Wait a second.” Agasa’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. “This can’t be KID, He’s too small, He could never imitate Shinichi as of now.”

“Exactly. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. You said earlier that Kudou-kun is sitting on your bed, Shocked about your identity right? You do realize what you’re implying.”

Another disguised laugh from Kaito, this was where it all could go wrong if he wasn’t careful.

“It’s exactly what I’m implying. That my mind and his were swapped.”

“Hey…” Agasa laughed nervously. “That’s not possible. It would have to be magic, right?”

“Magic doesn’t exist, beyond petty party tricks.” Haibara retorted.

Kaito scoffed. “Magic does in fact exist, It’s just known as sorcery.”

“Sorcery?”

“There’s many different types, y’know. I believe what happened to me and Tantei-kun happens to fall under the realm of sorcery.”

The room was filled with a heavy silence as the inhabitants took in the words the small thief said. Haibara broke the silence with a scoff.

“You don’t believe me?”

“Sorry. I don’t believe fairy tales and supposed flashy thieves. There’s probably a different reason for whatever’s going on. One that isn’t in the realm of fantasy.”

“It’s the only one we have, however.”

“Then why don’t we go find Shinichi? If you’re right then he should be wherever you were last night.” Agasa suggested.

Kaito��s eyes widened in realization. His hand hit his forehead as he silently cursed. Why the hell didn’t he think of contacting his own home first? Why hasn’t Shinichi contacted him at all?

“Don’t tell me you didn’t think of that, Oh Great Thief.” Haibara remarked.

“In my defense, I’ve been rather disoriented…” Kaito admitted quietly.

“Well, Where were you last night? If you can remember that much.”

“I was…”

Kaito fell silent as he tried to recall where he was. If anything, he should have been in his house, but it’s possible he fell asleep at Jii’s again. It happens once or twice after an intense heist, from how it sounded from the kid’s recollection of it. Either way, His house would be the best bet. He really didn’t want to explain to Jii why his rival is calling his bar asking for Kaito Kuroba. This was something he’d rather explain in person.

“...Probably at home. I had planned on resting after the Heist, after all, it’s Sunday. I’ll give my cell a call, If anything he should pick up if he has it on him.”

‘I just hope Aoko didn’t drag him out anywhere. He can act, but…’

“Please do. If you could, Put it on speaker?” Agasa requested.

Kaito nodded, reaching into the pocket of the coat he wore, pulling out one of the two phones he had picked up from the kid’s room. He hesitated for a moment with the phone in his hand before pulling out the second one.

“.... Which do I use?” He turned to Haibara, nervous.

She sighed. “Either one. He’ll recognize the number.”

“R...right.”

Kaito ended up using the one that belonged to Shinichi, He figured it would be useful to have the number for later if they both got out of this mess. Of course, even if the number was deleted later, Kaito was sure to commit both to memory, just in case. He took a deep breath and began to put in his cell phone number, being cautious not to mess it up. Within seconds of placing the call, the phone was picked up by someone. Kaito hesitantly pressed the speaker button and spoke.

“Hello-”

“Kuroba, What the HELL did you do?!” His own voice screamed back at him.

“Ah… So you figured it out… Eheheh…”

Well, there went that trail of hope. Kaito looked to the other occupants of the room, who both were staring blankly at the phone in the small thief’s hands.

“Sh-Shinichi… is that you?” Agasa came closer, slowly at first.

“Professor? You’re at the professor’s right now?”

“Yeah, The brown-haired girl is smart, Saw through me when I was trying to figure out what was going on. Anyways, Please don’t tell me you went out.”

“Relax, I’m not stupid. Your neighbor though is definitely something. Does she always wake you for breakfast?”

“Y-yeah... That’s Aoko…” Kaito couldn’t help but pitifully laugh.

Great, Guess today was ‘tell all the details of your personal life to your rival’ day. He’d figure it out soon enough, However. It was probably better for Kaito to tell him rather than have Tantei-kun sneak around and find out.

“Anyways!” Haibara snatched the phone out of Kaito’s hands. “Where are you right now?”

“Where am I? I guess this is KID’s home…”

“You called him Kuroba earlier.” She gave a sideways glance to Kaito, who was sure looked very pitiful right now. “I’m guessing that’s KID’s real name? He didn’t give it to us earlier.”

“Yeah, His ID is right here, Name’s Kuroba Kaito. At least I have a name to a face. It was hell this morning.”

“Can you stop giving all my personal details? I’d like to have some stuff I can keep to myself.” Kaito groused.

“Anyways, I can’t really tell where the town is. Most of his apps are locked with different passwords, including GPS. Geez, You really have to lock up everything huh?”

“Ekoda. That’s where you’re at.” Kaito begrudgingly informed. “I use a different phone for heists, that’s the one you probably found. There was two right?”

“Yeah. One was on the desk and the other was in a drawer. I answered the one on the desk, so this must be your personal one. I couldn’t figure out the code to this one, but the other was unlocked minus every single app. Might as well have been locked.”

“It ruins the fun, besides I can access them quickly enough when I need to.”

“Anyways, I’m coming over to where you’re at. If you’re at the professor’s there shouldn’t be a problem.”

“You can’t! I’ve - Wait no, You’ve got school.”

“Actually, According to your neighbor, Aoko, There is no school on Monday. So yes, I think I will be coming to where you’re at, and we’re going to have a long talk. On the other hand, YOU do in fact have school at Teitan elementary.”

He could hear his own voice hiding snickers of delight. It felt very strange to Kaito, even though he was used to not hearing his own voice coming from his mouth, his own voice coming from the other side of the phone was just unusual.

“You don’t have to be so enthused you know.”

“Sorry, Sorry, But I guess your name fits now, Huh KID? KID going to elementary school. It’s just a wild thought.”

“Oh shut up.”

“Anyways. Haibara, Keep an eye on him. Make sure the others don’t figure him out and he doesn’t give me away. Although I guess someone switching minds is just as unbelievable as someone shrinking, if not more.”

“Yes, Yes, Will do.” Haibara replied in her bemused tone.

“Keep Ran safe for me, Kaito.”

“... Only if you do the same for Aoko.”

“Of course. But I mean it, if she’s hurt in any way I’ll-”

“Yes, Yes I getcha. Just get over here tomorrow. It’ll be fine.”

“Oi, Wait-!”

With the dexterity of a thief, Kaito took back the phone and ended the call in one swift motion.

“Geez, Revealing a guy’s identity like that, Who does he think he is?” Kaito grumbled.

“Well. You should probably stay here in the meantime. It would be the safest thing to do.” Haibara suggested.

“You mean stay... here with you guys?”

“Who else? It would help also keep this from the girl at the detective agency too.”

“Fine, Just until we can sort this out.”

“Then, I suppose I should start on dinner huh?” Agasa asked, looking out to the window.

The sun was already rapidly setting, Kaito didn’t realize he had been out so long already.

“You should probably call Ran-kun and let her know that you’re staying over here tonight.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that…”

Kaito quickly called up the detective agency using the number saved in Conan’s phone, shifting his mindset back to that of Conan’s. He made something up about the professor having a sleepover at the professor’s house. Ran objected, on the reasons of school, but Kaito quickly answered by saying he’ll swing by to grab his school stuff when he leaves with Haibara. Ran was angry but begrudgingly let him stay, as it was already late. He hung up the phone, bidding his farewells. He was going to regret that later, he was sure.

“Kuroba-san, You’re lucky that you’re here tonight. I picked up a good deal at the market today.” Agasa said from the kitchen.

“A good deal?”

He barely had time to react as Agasa held up a massive fish that he had on the cutting board. His heart dropped as he barely had time to prepare himself. He stopped moving, stunned as he looked at that slimy, scaly terror in the professor’s hands.

“They had this amazing snapper half off! Ai-kun, can you help me out?”

He was lucky that the professor had turned away, Kaito’s poker face was beginning to slip. The fish kept staring at him, those beady eyes taunting him. He began to hyperventilate, the fish just kept staring at him, why did it keep looking at him???

“Why the hell did you pick fish?” He whispered rather loudly, venom dripping from his voice.

“Oh? Kuroba-san do you not like fish?” Haibara teased.

“I-it’s not my favorite, no.”

He maintained deep breaths, attempting not to look at the monstrosity being cut up on the counter. He had to leave after a few minutes, as his anxiety grew too much for him to control with his repeated affirmation. He was not going to let his phobia of fish be found out by his enemies, the last thing he needed was fish at his heists making everything harder than it needed to be.

He found himself on the roof after roaming the house for a while, watching the sunset behind the houses surrounding the neighborhood. Everything felt so serene, it was strange. It felt… almost normal. But he couldn’t help but pull out his phone, setting it to the front-facing camera. Kaito’s face was still the same, Tantei-kun stared back on the phone. He pinched himself on the cheek, feeling the sharp pain. He watched the spot slowly grow red, proving that this wasn’t a dream nor a mask. With a defeated sigh, he turned off the phone. He decided to stay up there for a little longer before he went back down, letting the cold night air revive him. He’d have to figure out a way to get out of eating the snapper eventually...

This was going to be a very interesting time, Kaito could tell.

#DCMK #detective conan #meitantei conan #case closed #magic kaito #magic kaito 1412 #shonen tantei dan #kuroba kaito #kaitou kid #kudou shinichi #haibara ai #agasa hiroshi #professor agasa #agasa hakase #detective conan fanfic #please let me know if I need to tag any other warnings!

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fitness-collegetips · 3 years ago

Text

Fitness - My Cup of Black Coffee

By Shubham Arya, Intern at CollegeTips (http://collegetips.in)

One day I was sitting idle in my room besides the window with my lazy self when two birds, racing towards me, caught my attention. They were so engrossed in competing for my oily snacks lying on the table. And I thought to myself that birds are usually very sensitive to human presence, then how come did they ignore me and started having my waffers. Soon I realized I was just as still as a couch besides me with no motion ..just like an innate object. I wondered how these birds wake up everyday before the sun and are always so active and look at me - I am a couch potato! This sudden realisation proved to be a major turning point of my life.

As a result, I decided to meet these birds daily and for that I obviously had to wake up early. The next day, however, I was only able to see the dogs. This was the first day of my fitness journey. The next day I decided waking up early is not my cup of tea so I decided to have 2 cups of tea instead, but without sugar (ofcourse!). That was my first step. Now for the next step I decided to take 100 steps a day. But soon I fell on the steps of my home! (Haha)

𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝑀𝒾𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓀𝑒𝓈

I planned to join a gym to cure all my fitness related problems, only to realize that simply thinking of going to the gym and actually going to the gym and working out everyday are two VERY different things. I went there but soon started comparing myself to others and would always come home cursing and hating myself all the more. You know sometimes in life you are at a stage where you know you have to step back but you just cannot. It was that day for me. (And yes, I had started seeing instagram pages on fitness and yes, I started having anxiety). I had hit rock bottom. Friends and family were concerned and started to give me advice on losing weight quickly. Some recommend using slim belts, eating absolutely raw food, exercising 3 hours a day and some even suggested to just pray! None of this rang a bell for me and my only comfort during my low days was coffee. Soon I started to loathe my body. I even didn't look myself in the mirror. In fact, after contemplating with myself, I came to the drastic decision to only have coffee and no food at all.

I thought coffee will calm me as well as help in reducing weight. And yes, it actually did. I had lost 5 kgs in 2 months. However, this was the biggest mistake of my life.

𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝑅𝑒𝒶𝓁𝒾𝓏𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃

I started losing sleep from few to almost zero hours a day. I lost all my appetite and even my snacks didn't feel good anymore. One day I was that critical that I fainted and had to be hospitalized, only to realize that my intestines had shrunken. The doctor said due to my sole consumption of black coffee I was unable to digest anything needed immediate assistance so that my condition does not deteriorate. My soul left my body at that point. I was unable to move or say anything. Though I had achieved what I was aiming for, but I was even worse.

𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝑅𝑒𝒹𝑒𝓂𝓅𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃

My treatment commenced and I started spending more time with myself. Along with my treatment , I started waking up early and going for a jog. Having salads, home cooked food and exercised every evening helped me. I made this my routine and gradually instead of jogging I stared running and my appetite grew but I decided only to consume healthy and nutritious food items like sprouts salad, avacado toast, fresh juices, etc. Not only did I lose weight, but more importantly, I was healthy. I started to pull myself through. Though I was feeling better but still there was something that just didn't feel right.

𝓘𝓼 𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓻𝔂𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓯𝓲𝓷𝓮?

Everytime we think about fitness the first thing that comes to our minds is 6 pack abs, strong bisceps and a lean body. But what about being fit mentally? The doctor was treating my body but I was still very affected by the blunder I made and its consequences. It costed me so much for so little. I was always unsatisfied with thhe way I looked.

This was the time I decided to work on my mental health. I started reading articles and my first step was to accept my mistake, forgive myself and move forward. I woke up early not just for running but also spared half an hour just to sit with myself and meditate. I started pursuing my hobbies, spent time with my family and friends, and even having some cheat meals. Basically, I was not being hard on myself anymore and I started feeling better. I slept peacefully and woke up afresh. Eventually, I started loving my self and yes, the day came when I could look into the mirror with pride.

I am still learning daily and I think I can finally call myself fit - both physically and mentally.

Lastly, the biggest fitness tip I would give my readers is to not follow my mistakes. Instead, learn from my story. Don't compare yourself to others and never expect overnight results. Fitness is a process. Enjoy it and you will soon embrace your body and mind.

For more on fitness, visit http://www.collegetips.in/lifestyle/

#CollegeTips CTLifestyle CTClasses

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darktypeimagines · 5 years ago

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Hi! I was wondering if you could expand a bit on the ´S/O from Unova´ who travels the world (Specifically Leon). This request is a little specific so here goes; The S/O has a thing for fire types, and while in Galar studies under Kabu (They are a HUGE fan) They have two partner pokemon, an Emboar and a Drifblim. Thank you so much, for your time :)

2nd ask – I assume you saw my message about missing posts and re-sent this. Since the asks have slightly different details, I’ll just combine them into one post

“Hiya! Could you do some HC´s for a trainer who´s mentored by Kabu? To elaborate they´e been a fan since a young child, and also adore fire types. Said trainer has gone to Galar to test their mettle against gym leaders w/ their ace Emboar. After the match, the trainer asked if Kabu could help them specifically w/ fire types.”

So, based on the asks, I’m assuming you want the same character as from the Unovan strategist ask, so I’ll expand on that. I changed up the order of things a little bit. AND OH BOY I WROTE WAAAAY TOO much again. I split it halfway to save your dashes. There’s nothing really triggering, although some people might not be into a relationship with a decent age gap.

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You were pretty young when you decided to be a trainer, much like many kids. But, unlike many kids, you were hyperfixated on one particular trainer: the fire type specialist, Kabu.

You first became a fan ALL the way back when he first joined the Galar League. Despite being from Unova, you often watched the Galar league because there was just a sense of excitement that was lacking in other leagues. Galar made a show of their tournaments, so their televised battles were watched worldwide.

Once you set out beyond Unova, you decided to head over to Galar. You needed a fresh challenge, and considering it was the Galar League that helped you decide your course in life, it felt natural to head there next

You ended up battling all the other Galar gym leaders before finally heading to Kabu. Might as well save your favorite for last!

Apparently, he heard about you already. News travels fast, especially when the news is about a famous Unovan trainer who’s randomly challenging all of the gym leaders of his region. He knew he’d encounter you eventually.

He greeted you in the gym, rather formally, saying he was expecting you. You were low-key freaking out on the inside, but managed to keep yourself together. For about a minute. Then you lost it. You started gushing, telling you how you watched him on TV since you were a little kid. How you looked up to him. How you became a fire-type specialist because of him. And how, growing up, you wished you could have trained under him. How that was your most common daydream.

And then you stopped. Oh no. You went too far.

Kabu gave you a knowing look, and let out a small laugh. He was used to this; it happened all the time with fans. Although, it wasn’t every day such an accomplished trainer came up to him and told him he inspired them… It was incredibly flattering.

He said he would have loved to train you, but you probably surpassed him by now. He wasn’t sure if you could learn much from him.

WHATAREYOUTALKINGABOUTOFCOURSEICOULDLEARNMOREYOUREAMAZINGYOUHAVESOMUCHMOREEXP- was basically the gist of what you incoherently blurted out.

Kabu was surprised at the outburst, but he just smiled again. Did he blush, or did you imagine it? You’d never know.

Well… in that case. He knew you came to battle, but if you really, really wanted to, he could train you. He wouldn’t mind. He’s still not sure what he could possibly teach you, but he could try to come up with something!

After a bit of mental short-circuiting, you said yes! Of course! It was a dream come true for you, and… it took you a while to feel like it was actually happening.

You stayed at the inn during your training. The first thing Kabu had you do was change your schedule. You had to meet up with him before dawn and then make your way down to wherever you were training that day.

Usually, it was one of the mines or his gym. What surprised you was the content of his training. Often, it wasn’t even battling. It almost seemed like he was training you rather than helping you with your Pokemon or battling…

You had to endure the elements. Snowstorms near Circhester. The heat of the Dusty Bowl. Battling in the pitch-black night.

You jogged together. Meditated. Kabu even talked to you about eating a little healthier.

You asked him when you were actually going to train with battling. And that was when Kabu decided to explain his thinking to you. It was clear that you were a talented trainer. You knew strategy. You knew your Pokemon inside and out. But, what about you? Were you in peak condition, mentally and physically? A battle could occur anywhere, at any time, so you needed to be prepared at all times. Otherwise, there was a chance you could let down your partners…

Plus, as he said earlier, he explained, you seem to have surpassed him in terms of actual battling long ago.

After this, you agreed to continue. Being with him was a dream, even if it wasn’t what you were expecting.

This went on for months. You began to wonder how long this would go on for. Not that you were complaining. And, in that time, the two of you grew closer.

You started having dinner together frequently. Kabu was a pretty good cook, so often the two of you just ended up at his house. Due to the intensity of your training, you often ended up curled up next to Emboar on the floor, passed out after dinner. You always found a blanket on top of you when you woke up.

But, in time, you began to feel the itch to battle. Specifically, against him. So, one morning, when you first met up, you simply asked him.

He smiled, and said sure. If you felt you needed to battle him, then you needed to battle him! So, the two of you headed down to his gym. It wasn’t open yet, so it was eerily quiet, but in a way, it felt right.

He asked if you wanted to battle in a certain way; he knew Unovan people sometimes had battles with three Pokemon, after all. And he knew you didn’t Dynamax. You said a typical single battle would be fine, and that you’d LIKE it if he Dynamaxed! More challenge, after all…

You did agree to have a three on three battle, though, since he only had five Pokemon.

You sent out Emboar; he started with Arcanine. The large dog growled, baring its teeth – the aggression was quite intimidating and seemed to daunt Emboar. You knew its attacks might be weaker and more hesitant now…

But, before Kabu could give an order, you had Emboar use Sucker Punch, catching Arcanine off guard and stunning them. Despite being intimidated, Emboar landing quite the hit!

While Arcanine was trying to recover, you had Emboar follow up the last attack with a Fire Punch. Not a very effective attack type wise, but it would be fast enough for a quick follow up attack.

Before Emboar could ready another attack, Kabu had Arcanine launch a flurry of Extremespeeds. They took their toll on Emboar, and it was difficult for your Pokemon to get back on its feet.

·As Arcanine was about to start another round, you had Emboar strike the ground and use Earthquake. It hit Arcanine before it could reach Emboar, and it fainted.

Kabu sent out Ninetales next. This round was a bit more uneventful, as Emboar got another Earthquake in, which badly injured Ninetails. But then the fox got in an Extrasensory, knocking out Emboar.

You sent off Drifblim next, the balloon ghost rising high on the residual heat from Emboar’s attacks. Most people were surprised that you, a fire type specialist, had a random ghost type on your team. But this was purely strategic. What most people didn’t know is that Drifblim, like a hot air balloon, could rise higher and faster with hot air. You used their lack of knowledge to your advantage.

With Drifblim flying high above, Ninetales tried to launch a Fire Blast at them. Before the move could hit, though, you had Drifblim use Phantom Force. The ghost vanished, making the fire move miss. Both Kabu and Ninetales searched around the arena, but Drifblim was nowhere to be found. Ninetales braced itself for an attack, but didn’t know where to focus its attention.

Moments later, a dark portal appeared behind the fox, and Drifblim flew out, attacking Ninetales. Between this powerful move and the damage Ninetales took earlier, Kabu’s Pokemon fell, unable to battle further.

Kabu sent out his last Pokemon, Centiskorch. Luckily for your strategy, just the fire bug’s presence bought new heat to the arena, speeding up your Drifblim. Kabu immediately Gigantamaxed his Centiskorch, the bug type surrounding itself in energy and quickly taking up the other half of the battlefield.

And you know what? You had a plan to deal with the giant Pokemon. It was a cheap tactic, but you knew it’d work. You had Drifblim use Phantom Force throughout Centiskorch’s Gigantamax time. The giant bug tried to hit Drifblim with Centiferno multiple times, but due to the hot air, Drifblim kept out speeding its opponent. Finally, Centiskorch reverted to its normal sized form.

It hadn’t taken much damage due to its defense boost, but it was far from unscathed. As Centiskorch reverted back to its normal form, Kabu surprisingly had it use Crunch, landing a critical blow on Drifblim.

Drifblim wouldn’t be able to last much longer. It sputtered up and down, trying to keep altitude, obviously exhausted. You felt a little bad doing this… but, you knew it would earn you the win.

You had Drifblim rush Centiskorch, which Kabu didn’t expect. When they were within range, you yelled to your Pokemon to unleash Explosion! In the blast of smoke and fire, you couldn’t see whether or not it finished the job. But as the battlefield cleared, you saw both Pokemon, Drifblim laying on top of Centiskorch, fainted. You had won, with a Pokemon to spare.

After returning your Pokemon, and quietly promising Drifblim a nice treat when you got home, you and Kabu approached each other.

He congratulated you. It had been a while since he had such a fierce battle! With an explosive ending, too! He said he hoped to battle you again someday, and wished you the best along the rest of your journey.

What?

Oh yeah. You were traveling the world. Right.

Honestly, though, being with Kabu reminded you what “home” felt like. You felt comfortable with him. You didn’t want to leave.

And. You broke down and got emotional. Kabu was rather worried, and quickly crossing the space between you, putting a hand gently on your shoulder. He asked what was wrong, although you have a feeling he had an idea.

You told him. You blurted it out. That you adored him, beyond that of a regular fan. You… loved him? You weren’t sure yet. But you knew you had feelings for him and the thought of leaving was a nightmare for you.

It took a moment for Kabu to respond. He seemed to have to gather his thoughts. And then, he said it. He felt the same way. But he felt you needed to move on. After all, how could you improve yourself if you stayed here?

But… While he doesn’t want to admit it, because of the age difference between you two, he, too, had feelings for you. He loved your passion; how you were willing to go to such lengths for your dreams. You looked up to him for so long, and worked your way towards eventually meeting him. And even after you realized how hard his training was, you stuck with him! He admired you. And he also didn’t really want you to go.

After a long talk, which took place at his home since you both needed somewhere more comfortable to work things out, it was decided that you two would give this a shot.

You immediately moved in with him. But, beyond the added romance, the same structure that bought you together remained. You still trained together. You still woke up early together. Only now, you woke up before dawn with a kiss and retired to your home – the one you shared.

#kabu #kabu x reader #pokemon swsh #pokemon sword and shield #pokemon imagines #pokemon #scenario #ask #x reader #darktypeimagines

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