#LIKE SOMETIMES THINGS ARE TOO VAGUE FOR ME DESPITE ITS MEANING BEING SHOVED IN MY FACE!! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bloomyagi · 4 years ago

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bleed me dry (m)

summary: where Itadori is your bottom-loving boyfriend and Sukuna reluctantly learns this vessel is the real curse. or: where seduction is a dangerous game, and the King of Curses loses.

pairings: itadori x f!reader, sukuna x f!reader

warnings: subby itadori, sub sukuna (yeah you read that right), light bondage, blindfolds, sukuna’s havin a whole ‘reconsidering life’s meaning’ moment, lotta swear cause u know sukuna things, coming untouched, he faints (yeah you also read that right) and is actually unabashed about it, all things considered

length: 1,432

notes: what? me? obsessed with jjk? that doesn’t sound like me at all!

His vessel is in love.

The word curdles in his mouth, tastes like ash. He has never known such a thing. It is part of his nature, he muses absently. Hardened from centuries of death and decay. Of destruction and war. He revels in it. Feels the most alive amongst the chaos.

But that’s the point. Curses can feel. They can have emotional attachment. Can’t you see? In so many ways, they’re not so different from us. He thinks you’re too loud. Your thoughts and beliefs are too loud. They’re also pointless and naïve, and he likes to pop by just to drive it home.

Hello, Sukuna. Where is the fear? Where is the resentment, the anger? The disgust? He enjoys it. But you—you just sit there and coax him into conversation like he’s another one of your classmates. Like he can’t crush your windpipe with a single flick of his hand. Like he isn’t the slow bleed of a death sentence for your lover. Like he isn’t anything at all. Like his titles and powers are stripped. What is he beyond it all? Who is he?

You ask about him sometimes. He rarely gives any indication he’s listening, but he does. Of course he does. There’s not much to do, bound and locked in this pink-haired boy. He lounges on this throne and watches his vessel pine and blush.

Sukuna watches his vessel fuck his fist and mewl your name every night.

It’s sad. “Brat,” he hisses. “Grow some balls. This is just pathetic.”

Itadori swallows. “Oh. Can you—?”

Sukuna shoves him off the ledge. A faint yelp travels, followed by a large splash. “Fuck her already. All this sitting and plotting is making my ass itch. If you won’t, I will.”

“You wouldn’t.” Sukuna tilts his head to peer down. Itadori’s eyes are narrowed, uncharacteristically solemn.

His lips bare into a slow grin. “Try me.”

Itadori blinks once. And then vanishes.

Fuck. It’s the only coherent thought his muddled mind can pierce together. He gazes down at his palm, opening and closing languidly. His vision is blurry, spine tingling. He raises the other hand, reaching for his palm.

Mmm. He shakes his head firmly. The sharp tinge of metallic and iron coating his tongue clears the fog a little. The pain fades quickly, muted from his years of conquest and ruin.

Every nerve is on fire. His skin, this flesh cage, burns, an unfamiliar heat curling in his lower stomach. Sukuna is no stranger to the pleasures of the flesh—is well-acquainted, spent much of the centuries indulging in his vast harems. In the haze of blood and carnage, there is the memory of writhing bodies, of soft thighs and breasts, of glazed eyes and cries of his name. Of women fucked into wanton abandon, bred and lost in the worship of his cock.

But this. This heat is foreign in every sense. In its strange intensity and all-encompassing hold. All his senses are heightened but laser focused on the other pair of hands mapping his body. On the addicting sensations they’re inducing.

Can you—? Yes. Yes, he fucking can. He can feel everything and he wants to wrap his hand around your throat and squeeze.

His eyes roll back. Ngh.

“Fucking wench,” he snarls. You’re a fuckin’ tease and if you edge him again, he is going to murder—

“Ah, ah. Watch your language, Sukuna. Ask nicely.”

He jolts. Finds his eyes cloaked in darkness, arms tied to his back and legs spread. Bare, save for a pair of briefs that’s slick and restricting. Kneeling. The sheets bunch beneath him. Every muscle in his body is tensed, body coated in a thin layer of sweat.

This position—!

“That brat—mmph!” Is that a fucking—gag? Did you just gag him? He struggles harder against the binds, but he feels your lips curl into a smile where you’re suckling against the column of his neck.

“You’re powerless here. The binds will restrict you for the next twenty-four hours … unless you can be good.” You trace the thick knots, smiling only growing at the way he lets out a muffled growl.

Every fucking sense is heightened tenfold. He’s on firefirefire. The flames consuming him inside out, like he’s being exorcised from within.

It’s humiliating. It’s exhilarating. It feels—

“King of Curses. I want you to beg.” You’re a witch. You’re enthralling. Temptation incarnate. His head falls forward, chest heaving.

“Mmmmf!”

“What a dirty mouth,” you murmur, and his struggling is renewed when he feels your fingers dig into his thighs.

Oi, brat, he growls. What the hell is this?

His vessel is silent, but the back of his mind prickles. He’s watching. That freaky little shit.

“So stubborn. Let go. You’re good at that, aren’t you?” Fuckfuckfuck, you’re palming his cock over the thin fabric. Maybe it’s been a while, maybe there’s a little more truth lurking beneath it, but he vaguely notes he’s never been so hard before.

You—! You’re fuckin’ burning his briefs off. Ash tickles his nose. A small part of him thinks it’s hot. His cock throbs, and even without visual confirmation, he knows you’ve paused at the sheer size. His mouth curls into a lopsided smirk, dark pride making his chest swell. What was he so worked up for? You’ll just end being another one of his breeding bitches, fucked stupid by his thick, long cock.

But then you pinch his left nipple, twisting harshly. Electricity courses through him and a sound he’s never heard in his absurdly long life escape his lips, muffled by the gag. His back arcs, head hitting the mattress beneath him.

His mind blanks, eyes rolling back as white noise fills his ears.

He rouses slowly.

He blinks lethargically at the ceiling, gaze unfocused. Everything feels muted, limbs heavy like he’s swimming in a pool of ink. But he’s not restrained anymore. There’s a blur of movement in the corner of his eye.

He turns his head to peer at you, half-lidded.

“That’s a very nice expression,” you chuckle, moving to sit by his side. The mattress dips lightly. He lifts a hand to tug at the hem of your outfit, expression twisting at the staggering movement.

“That’s a very nice look on you,” he murmurs in response. You’re wearing one of his vessel’s dress shirts, the oversized fabric falling mid-thigh. It simultaneously swallows you and presses against your curves. Something inside him stirs. His throat feels shot, even though he knows he hasn’t had much of a chance to speak.

You help him sit up, propped against the headrest, before offering him a glass of water. His lips lift into a half-smirk and you sigh, shaking your head but acquiescing. You take a mouthful before kissing him. Water dribbles down his chin.

You wipe it away with a half-fond, half-exasperated expression. His chest tightens.

“How long—?” He tries to move, but you stop him with a firm hand. He’s conflicted at the way his body responds immediately to the touch. His temperature flares despite his obvious fatigue.

“A few hours. I asked if Yuuji would keep you out until you woke.”

There’s a pause, and the knowing look in your eye tells him you know he’s mulling it over.

And then—

He reaches for you, and you set the glass aside to climb on his lap.

He bares his fangs. “Then let’s make the most of it.”

As you press him into the bed, tongue stroking his in such a manner his brain is starting to haze over again quickly, he thinks, brat, we’re going to have a long talk after this.

Sukuna doesn’t expect an answer after his vessel’s continued vigil, so he starts when Itadori replies, she’s ours.

I don’t share, he slurs. He thinks he sees a flicker of Itadori’s grin.

You’re going to have to. Because you like her, too. And she’s the one in control, not either of us.

Dimly, Sukuna acknowledges he’s right. You might be the one bouncing on his cock, but he’s not the one fucking you, you’re the one fucking him.

Fine, he gasps as you run your nails down his abdomen. Deal.

Good, his vessel says. Because I’m next, and you better not get in the way.

He growls, eyebrows knitting.

Your smile only grows.

#jujutsu kaisen #sukuna x reader #sukuna smut #itadori x reader #yuji itadori x reader #itadori smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #jujutsu kaisen imagines #sub!sukuna

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beardrabbles · 4 years ago

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invitation.

characters: GN!reader, claude, mentions of GN!byleth

warnings: none

word count: 2,814

notes: posted this on ao3 ages ago and totally forgot to post it here too :’) got into the fandom late, like alwaaaays! but i have an enormous claude / golden deer bias and wanted to write some fluff with him.

You forgot sometimes that this peaceful spot tucked between the trees wasn’t yours alone. You shared it with another from time to time, but it had been so long since the last time you both stepped foot in the clearing that it startled you to hear footfalls crunching at the grass behind you. Pushing yourself up halfway, eyes blinking blearily, you spotted the richly dressed prince with his hands planted on his hips.

“Napping without me?” Claude clicked his tongue, and you quickly replied with a roll of your eyes.

“I can’t nap here on my own?” You fell back again, letting the soft grass cushion you. A soft, content sigh escaped through your nose as the sweetest of breezes barely brushed your skin. It smelled of flowers and damp leaves, dense soil and a distant storm. There was no zing of hot iron or blood, and it was a relief.

“I thought it was our thing. . .”

You felt him sit beside you, taking up his usual position to your left. The tiniest flutter tickled the inside of your ribs, his nearness nearly making your head spin. “Before I came along, it was just your thing, remember?”

“Well, yeah, but I like it better this way.” Claude leaned back on his hands, eyes up towards the greying sky. It had taken fighting a war to bring back their usual glimmer, but it was there in full. Bright, hopeful, determined. Laying there, gazing up at the unsuspecting prince, it was almost as if you were looking at the man from five years ago — the cunning, clever and sometimes troublesome man that you had fallen head-over-heels for and had continued to painfully pine for.

“Me too.” You dared to smile, his gaze shifting to you. Adoring him hurt, but no amount of hurt would have you appreciating his presence any less.

Claude returned the smile, and the gesture sent your heart slamming against your chest. But just as quickly as it came, the smile faded. “I spoke to Byleth.”

You sat up in an instant, concern etched into your face. You were aware that he had gone to meet them, but he had failed to tell you why. You equally failed to push the subject, as it wasn’t your place to disrespect a man in his position. Curious as you might have been, you assumed it was best not to ask and only hope that he trusted you enough to confide in you later. Seemed you were right, though you acknowledged to yourself that it was a rare thing.

“How did it go?”

“They’re disappointed I won’t be here for the coronation. I can’t blame them. After everything we’ve been through together, I should be here for them. I want to hope they understands. They always have.” He exhaled sharply. “But, hey, I got to see them smile again! I think as long as they’re here, Fódlan will be in good hands. If they keeps smiling, if they keep breaking down the walls that were built up, I can go home and do my part there. I trust them.”

You shifted, feeling uncomfortable in your envy.

“So they’re not coming with you to Almyra?” You wondered. Claude shook his head.

“No, and I didn’t want to ask. Fódlan needs to be taken care of. It needs a parent that will hold its hand and lead it in the right direction. It’s gonna stumble around like an infant walking for the first time, but that’s why they’re the best person to lead. They’ll know what to say and do to help this little baby along.”

You screwed up your face and nudged him with your shoulder.

“You really like talking about babies.” You pointed out. Claude’s cheeks and the tips of his ears darkened a fraction, but he dismissed it with a hearty chuckle.

“I guess I do. I wonder why that is.” He trailed off, voice soft but nowhere near as confused as his words would have lead you to believe. You had long ago resigned yourself to never truly understanding him, so you shrugged. Trying to pick through his mind was like attempting a hedge maze without a map.

“Does that mean you’re going to be heading back soon?”

“I can’t stay for long. There’s so much I need to do if I’m going to see things through, but there’s something important I need to do here before I can go home.” There was sharpness to his eyes that you recognized and deeply adored. He was planning something, and you felt your curiosity rise again.

“What is it? Can I help?” You were always so quick to offer him aid. Usually, he gently denied it, stating time and time again that most of his schemes were for his mind alone. Things often worked out for the better that way. The fewer people that knew, the less chance they could commandeer the plan or ruin it. Yet you still asked just in case he needed you.

“Maybe. Before that, can I ask you something?”

You frowned. “Of course. You can ask me anything, you know that.”

“You’ve been saying that since we met. Is it really true?” Claude smirked and raised a single brow, only for you to shove him harmlessly.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” You eyed him for a moment, worry mounting. “Was that what you wanted to ask me?”

The prince shook his head, as if he were getting off track. “No. I wanted to know where you plan to go. What are your plans for the future?”

“Oh! Oh.” You frowned when the sudden realization that you had no plans slammed into you. “I don’t. . . know. I haven’t thought about it. I’ve been so busy supporting everyone else, doing what I can for them, that I don’t know what to do with myself. Everyone’s grown up. They’re all doing their own thing, starting their own lives. No one needs me anymore.”

“That’s not true.” Claude’s voice was firm in your ear, and his expression was set to match. You smiled meekly.

“I grew up with all of you, but it felt like my purpose was to help you all find yours. Not that I really think I’m capable of being that helpful, but I never took the time to think about myself. I was too worried about you all reaching your dreams that I didn’t have one. I don’t have one.” You amended the last part quickly because it was blatantly clear to you that you had no direction to go in.

“There has to be something you want.” Claude pushed. You laughed.

“At the risk of repeating myself, I want what you want. I want you to succeed.” You opened your mouth again, but were quick to clamp them shut when another thought arose. I want to be with you.

It was lovely to imagine, but you had lived with the fact that any future with him was left solely to your imagination. You met him as an heir, and you knew him now as a prince. The differences in your status was vast and hard to ignore. Claude had his mind set on making those differences unimportant, but you doubted that he could find room in his heart for you. He had a country to take care of and love, not to mention you two had been friends since the start of your time at the academy. Too much time had passed since then, and while your feelings had grown deeper and more troublesome, you were sure he had none to begin with. No, as students, he had been too preoccupied with tormenting you. Teasing, poking, taking up your time with nonsense and rarely giving you a moment to yourself.

Despite him being a brat at times, you loved him. And even if he didn’t reciprocate, you were grateful to have known him at all.

“So you’re not bound to Fódlan?” His voice shook you from your thoughts.

“What?”

“Do you have any obligations here in Fódlan?” His gaze was so intently set on you that it made you squirm, the feeling ten times worse since coming out of your own head.

“No, not that I can think of.” You couldn’t recall making any promises.

“Right, so you could leave.” Claude hummed thoughtfully and got to his feet. Once upright, he dusted the grass from his clothes and offered you a hand. Confused, you took it and let him pull you into standing.

“I guess I could, but where would I even go? I don’t know anyone outside of Fódlan.” You felt something subtle was being said, you couldn’t catch on. Some days, you could. You had learned him just as he had learned you, but he was always several steps ahead. You could read him, but only the pages he allowed you to see. In this case, the pages were written on, but only in bits and pieces.

Claude gave you a pointed stare and a gentle, encouraging squeeze to your hand. When you failed to understand, he raised both eyebrows and pointed to himself. No words were needed. His gestures and odd line of questioning were like a clarifying slap to the face. You reeled, giving him a wide-eyed stare while sputtering idiotically.

“Wh——”

“That took you while. I was starting to worry I’d have to spell it out for you.” Claude put on a convincing pout. “Unless this is your weird way of telling me you don’t want to come with me.”

“No!” You leaped too soon, your eagerness prompting a smirk on the prince’s face. You fell silent again, worried that saying anything more might reveal all of what you had been trying to hide for over five years. “I’m not saying that.”

“What are you saying?” He purred cunningly, hand still holding tightly to yours. You didn’t resist when he to eased you closer, your heart screaming in your chest. Cheeks red and breaths shallow, you could hardly think. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening.

I’m still napping, and this is just another stupid dream.

You swallowed hard and peered up at him. “I think I should be asking you that, Mr. Vague.”

“Ah-ah,” chided the cheeky man, “you’ll have to address me as Prince Vague now.”

You scoffed and gave him another shove. When your hand pressed to his shoulder, he trapped it there with his own. Even closer now, Claude lowered his head until your noses nearly touched. You sucked in a breath and found yourself unable to move away, attention trapped in his bright, beautiful eyes.

“You want to know what I’m asking you?” He lowered his voice, tone growing tender and warm. You nodded. “I’m asking if you’ll come home with me. I want you to meet my parents and my people, and I want them to meet you. I want them to love you as much as——”

He choked for a moment, a rare flicker of pure emotion startling him.

“As much as what?” You didn’t want to get your hopes up, but he was making it incredibly difficult not to.

Claude calmed himself with a shaky breath and tilted his chin down, lips barely ghosting the curve of your cheek. His eyes fluttered half closed, while a single lock of his dark hair tickled at your cheek. When you didn’t shy away, he spoke again in honeyed tones. “I want them to love you as much as I do.”

“You can’t mean that.” Your entire being felt numb with glee, but you couldn’t process his confession without a little doubt. He met your doubt with a chuckle, so you persisted. “Why me?”

“Why not you?” He nuzzled into your cheek, and you felt the compulsion to reach up and thread your fingers through his hair. You had done so many times before, letting the gentle touches calm him during his bad days, but there was new meaning behind it now. There was an honest love behind it as your dragged your fingers through the strands, pushing them back and away from his darling face.

“There were so many others. . .” So many people wanted his attention, his affection. You were but one in a thousand that longed for him.

“I didn’t care. I dreamed of many futures, and all of the best ones had you standing there beside me.” He muttered into you, the softest of kisses resting just under your eye.

“We argued so much.” You shuddered, warmth blooming in your cheeks.

“You kept me grounded. How can anyone expect to be a decent ruler if they’re always agreed with?” He countered. You huffed and tried to think of another argument.

“You used to tease me all the time.” You muttered.

“I’ll admit that was dumb of me, but it felt like the only way to get your attention.” His lips found the tip of your nose, and you couldn’t contain a snicker. “You looked so cute when you were embarrassed, especially when you wrinkled your nose. I couldn’t help it.”

“Why do I feel like you still can’t help it?” You tucked a lock of his hair behind his ear and let your fingers follow the path of his facial hair. He was putty in your hands, cheek pressing to your hand.

“It’s part of my charm.” Claude flashed his usual smile, then took a step back. The lack of closeness left you feeling a little colder, but the distance let you appreciate him fully. Tall, handsome, commanding. You were exceedingly proud of him, and you felt yourself falling for him all over again. But before you could think to speak, he started again. “You don’t have to answer me right away. I know this a lot to ask of you, so I want to give you the time you need. I’m leaving in two days. Meet me at the——”

You didn’t allow him to finish. Your heart was too full and on the verge of bursting, and it seemed silly to you that he didn’t know what your answer would be when he was so skilled at predicting you. Rather than let him wonder, you removed your hands from his and took his face between them. You gathered your courage, mustered with his help, and pulled him down for a soft but silencing kiss.

Claude wasn’t often rendered speechless, but he supposed he didn’t mind being put in his place if it meant your lips fitting against his as perfectly as they did. Unfortunately for him and the heat radiating throughout him, you didn’t let the kiss last long. He wanted to wrap you in his arms and crush you against his chest like he’d long to for years, but you parted from him too soon for his liking.

“Where are you going?” He took chase, but you placed your hand over his mouth. Claude stilled and arched a brow.

“I’ve had my answer for years, Claude. I’m with you in every possible way. But if I ask you a question, will you answer me honestly?” You uncovered his mouth, but his silence told you more than words would. “How long have you, uh. . .”

“Cared for you? Admired you? Wanted to kiss you the way you just kissed me?” Every question he posed in response to yours made your heart thud and your cheeks burn. “A long, long time.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I was never given the chance.” He answered so surely that you wondered if he had those words prepared. You couldn’t pester him about it — too many things had gone horribly wrong during your time at the academy, and it didn’t make sense to plant seeds in dead soil. There would have been no guarantee that it would bloom and flourish, but with the land starting a slow recovery, you hoped that what you two started here would become lusher and more far-reaching than any forest in Fódlan.

“It’s alright.” You giggled giddily and granted him another kiss, this one to the corner of his lips. “We were given our chance, and you took it.”

“Does that mean you’re going home with me?” He asked.

“I told you——”

“I want to hear you say the words.” Claude softly pleaded. Weak for his doe eyes, you melted in his arms and relented.

“I’m going home with you, Claude. I want to meet your parents, and I want to get to know your people. And for as long as I’m there, for as long as you’ll have me, I want to get to know you better.”

A soft sigh tinged with relief escaped the man as his head came to rest on your shoulder. His grasp on you tightened, and you felt his heart beat against your chest.

“Thank you.”

You smiled and embraced him. “Don’t thank me. Just take me home. . .”

#claude von riegan x reader #fire emblem reader #fire emblem three houses #fe3h

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hops-hunny · 4 years ago

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Pride Lost, Feelings Found

Pairing: Neville Longbottom x Reader

Pronouns: They/Them

Word Count: 2.2k

Request: @summerstardust “Could you do a Neville with a gender neutral reader. It can fluff/smut/bit of both 🤷, whatever you want. With the prompts: 4. "You think she looks at me? Am I invisible?”, 12. "I’ve always liked you, you’ve just never noticed.” and 17. "Make me fall in love with you.”

Maybe where Neville is secretly crushing on the reader from afar and the reader is told, in some way, about this and he just runs away from the scene. Then the reader follows and finds him and tells him that they want to get to know him.

Don’t feel pressured to use this idea, though. I am just feeling a bit angsty at the moment. Thank you! :)”

Summary: It all crumbles down before Neville’s eyes, but it’s replaced with something he’d never expect.

Warnings: angst but it turns to fluff!!

A/N: Ok ok, if you want a part 2 with what happens after reader says that? Lmk and I’ll probably write it! I’m so sorry this took so long esp for one of my favorite readers. I hope you enjoy <3

4. "You think she looks at me? Am I invisible?”

12. "I’ve always liked you, you’ve just never noticed.”

17. "Make me fall in love with you.”

Sometimes Neville wish he had never noticed (Y/n). But when you shine as bright as they did, how couldn't you notice? They bewitching, enchanting everyone around them with a simple smile, him included. However when miracles as amazing as (Y/n) come to be, so does a lot of attention. He adored everything about them, the way they always smeared their ink on their scroll when they wrote, how they’d walk into class every morning with that same sleepy expression, even down to the way they’d always have to pull their socks up because they got the wrong size and they’d fall down. They was his dream partner. But sadly, that’s the thing about dream lovers, they’re meant to stay dreams.

From as long as Neville could remember, he had been on the bottom of the social ladder. Hell, when your familiar (who is also a toad) causes a wild goose chase during your first years at a new school, it’s really not hard to understand why. If it had been someone else instead of him, he would've made fun of them too. He was a loser and no one would ever let him forget. Not his friends, not Malfoy, not anyone. But they did. In all his years at Hogwarts, (Y/n) had never made him feel like a loser. Every interaction the two of them had made him feel normal, like himself.

Granted every interaction they had was small. Accidentally bumping into them in the halls, a tight lip smile when eye contact was made. One time he thought (Y/n) was waving to him but was in fact waving to their friend behind him but luckily they hadn't seen (Malfoy definitely did..). Out of all the people who could have noticed the way he looked at them or the way his cheeks would turn red when they'd pass him it had to be Malloy. That was awful for a multitude of reasons. One being that for some reason, (L/n) and Malfoy were the best of friends. Everyday he wished that it was him who got sat next to them in potions instead of that weasel of a boy. The second reason being that despite knowing how Neville felt for them, he still had yet to do anything with the information. To most people, they’d be relieved if Malfoy found out one of their most personal pieces of information and had yet to do anything but, Neville knew better. Draco was a vile creature and if he hadn’t teased him about it yet, that surely meant something even greater was coming. Something truly awful and devastating.

The first week after Malfoy found out had Neville staying up to the break of dawn, stirring around restlessly at the thought of what he’d do. Would he spill something on him when he was set to have a class with them, tape a note to the back of his shirt with the information on it, or worse...no, no. Not even Malfoy was cruel enough to do that! If anything, if he was going to tell (Y/n) he’d probably do it when Neville wasn’t around so they could come up to him and reject him at random. Although it was sad, what got Neville to sleep at night was imagining that they already knew. That (Y/n) was more than aware and it was only a matter of time till they’d reject him and his life would go back to normal without any pesky thoughts of how beautiful he found them to be.

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

Seamus’s words went in one of Neville’s ears and right back out of the other, sounding like white noise to the boy. He couldn’t listen to whatever idiotic thing he was going on about. How could he when (Y/n) was a few feet away, looking just as gorgeous as they usually did? It was hard not to focus on them, the way their pretty lips would curl into a smile, giggling at something one of their friends had said. He felt a smile grace his own lips at the sight, letting out a noise of protest as Ron chucked a cushion at his head.

“Are you even, listening Longbottom?” he heard him ask, still not ripping his eyes away from the (y/h/h) across the hall.

“You think they look at me? Am I invisible?” he asked in a hushed tone, as if he was to speak any louder, they would somehow hear them despite them being so far away. Seamus let out a loud snort, beginning to cackle as he slapped the boy on the back a bit too hard.

“Fat chance, Longbottom! You think (L/n) would notice you? They wouldn’t even notice me, and that’s saying something!” Seamus wheezed out. Neville shot him a pointed glare, fuming from the boy’s words. He shoved him off the couch, rolling his eyes.

“It’s not that people don’t notice you Seamus….it’s that they do for all the wrong reasons.” Dean pointed out, causing the other 3 to laugh, growing louder as Seamus failed to push himself off the ground.

“Oh don’t worry, Longbottom. (L/n) will be sure to notice you soon enough.” he froze at the sound of the cold voice, turning around to look at the platinum blonde prince himself. Draco stood their, smirking. Crabbe and Goyle tried to nod along when in reality, they had no idea what their leader was going on about. Neville gulped, standing up to face him completely.

“W-what do you mean?” he asked him, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants. Draco simply shrugged, beginning to walk in the opposite direction. He turned around briefly looking the boy up and down.

“Means exactly what I said. Nothing more, nothing less. Well as much as I’d love to stay around and lose brain cells with you idiots, I’ve got better things to attend to.” and with that he left.

“Don’t worry, Nev. Draco is always just talk, I’m sure nothing will come of it.” Harry said, offering the boy a reassuring smile. Although Neville knew he meant well, he couldn’t stop the sinking, tight feeling in his chest. Draco had yet to do something so he had no reason to feel this way, but it was just a hunch that the worst was yet to come.

Even hours later, as Neville lay in his bed that night, all he could think about were the words that echoed throughout his head over and over.

“Oh don’t worry, Longbottom. (L/n) will be sure to notice you soon enough.”

He didn’t know if he was grateful for how vague that was or if it was the bane of his days. Draco could’ve meant anything by that, all he knew is whatever it meant the intent behind his words were less than kind. He turned again, sighing as he looked out the window. There was a full moon tonight, a beautiful silver halo of light dancing its way around it.

“Merlin, save me please.” he pleaded quietly, to no one in particular. Every bit of hope, every positive thought laced in his words. Although he prepared for the worse to happen, he had a sliver of hope that it wouldn’t. That tomorrow he’d wake up and his day would be as mundane as usual, just the way he’d like it. And if he was lucky (Y/n) would give him a small smile in the hall.

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

Neville’s small sliver of hope had grown into an entire cake. Looking back on earlier in the week, he was worried for absolutely nothing! Malfoy once again was all bark and no bite which for once, he was glad for! He let out a sigh of content as he made his way from the library, heading in the direction of the main corridor. He saw Seamus give him an uncharacteristically serious look from the small crowd that was gathered around something. As he grew closer, in the middle of the circle he saw Draco stood on a crate as (Y/n) sat next to him, listening as he read something from a paper.

“Nev, you might wanna...might wanna leave.” Seamus whispered to him. However, he looked as people stared at him, some giggling while some look sympathetic.

“Why? What’s going o-”

“Here’s another one I found in his bin! ‘Dear (Y/n), although I’ll never give you this letter, I can’t help but write about how amazing you are! When I saw you help that injured bird the other day, I wanted nothing more than to help you tend to it. I find it funny how even when you’re sad, you manage to brighten up my day.’ God how dorky is this loser? I can’t believe he fancies you so much (Y/n)!” Draco howled in laughter, a few others joining him. Neville found himself at the forefront of the circle, frozen in his spot. That was his letter! He had started writing them as a way of coping with his feelings, knowing that the person he fancied would always be out of reach of him. “Anything to say for yourself, Longbottom?”

Neville felt tears well in his eyes, the warmth of them mixing with the heat of his red flushed face. “I...I..” he looked at (Y/n) who look like they had something to say however, he didn’t wanna stick around to hear it. Without another word, he ran off, tears streaming down his face as soon as he was far enough from anyone. In his time of despair, he ran to his only place of comfort. The one place that he wasn’t Neville, the loser who just had his feelings ripped from safe keeping in front of half the students in his year. The place where he was just Neville.

He took in a deep breath of the familiar muggy air of the greenhouse, relaxing slightly as he took a seat on the ground. “God I’m so stupid!” he wailed, tears flowing down his face. His crying grew harder, harsh hiccups shaking and jolting his body as he screamed into his knees. He knew there was a matter of time before (Y/n) was to find out, he just didn’t know it’d be like this. If this was just the pain from them learning about his feelings, he didn’t wanna know how bad he’d be wounded when they came to reject him. Neville’s head jolted up at the sound of soft footsteps making their way over to him. He noticed the familiar pair of black shoes, turning his head as they kneeled down in front of him.

“I thought you may be here! You always seemed so passionate about plants during herbology so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to check here first.” (Y/n) said, placing a hand on the boy’s knee. He looked down at where they connected, feeling his face flush slightly from the contact. “You know, your friends care about you a lot. After you ran off, Ginny came up and socked Draco straight in the face. It was quite a sight really.” they let out a soft giggle at the memory. “Hermione went in to drag her off but when she saw how smug Draco looked, she couldn’t help but to join in. While they did that, your other friends set off looking for you and I did too.”

“Why?” he asked, catching their attention. The (y/h/h) gave him a confused look, tilting their head to the side. “Why did you come looking for me? Don’t you hate me now? Gross, stupid Longbottom having a crush on Hogwart’s sweetheart. How pathetic, huh?” he sniffled, ripping his eyes away from them. He knew if he was to continue to look, a completely new set of tears would be triggered.

“Why wouldn’t I? I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t! Although I don’t know much about you, I do know you’re a kind individual and you didn’t deserve what Draco did to you.” they said in a soft tone, moving into the spot next to Neville. They sat in silence for a moment before (Y/n) cleared their throat, looking over at him once more. “How long?”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, how long have you liked me for? I wasn’t even aware until today.” they queried curiously.

“I’ve always liked you, you’ve just never noticed. I don’t blame you for not noticing though, we’re from two different worlds. You’ve got everyone in hogwarts begging for a moment of your time and you hang out with some of the most elite and prestigious people in the castle.” he sniffled some, wiping his nose on his sleeve as he set his hand down on the cold cement ground. “It was stupid of me to let my feelings last for so long.”

“Why was it stupid?” they asked, scooting closer to him. Neville turned to look at them, losing his breath at their closeness.

“Because you don’t feel the same..not that I expected you to. You didn’t even know I existed until today.” he let out a huff of air. (Y/n) bit the inside of their cheek before placing their hand on top of Neville’s, tangling their fingers together.

“You’re right, I don’t feel the same,” they started, tightening their grip as the boy began to get up. “But that doesn’t mean I never will. Let’s get to know each other a bit more.” they leaned in closer, the feeling of both of their breath being exchanged like whispers amongst their lips.

“Make me fall in love with you.”

TAGSLIST:@vayeya11 @pink-hufflepuff @clancyscookies @beewitchedlou

@nevillelongbottomsgirlfriend @redpanda-poetry @vibingaesthetically

#Neville Longbottom #neville x you #neville longbottom x you #neville longbottom x reader #neville x reader #Harry Potter #harry potter imagines #harry potter imagine #harry potter x reader

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paperpocalypse · 4 years ago

Text

family outing.

50 Wordless Ways to Say “I Love You”: 29. Tucking their hair behind their ear to help them get it out of their face.

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Reader

Word Count: 1,436 words

Warning: Mild swearing

[A/N: Mild S2 spoilers!]

“So,” Vanya’s brow furrows, “Five met you after the apocalypse?”

“Yep.” Leaning against her car, you cross your arms and sigh dreamily. “Hate at first sight. He almost shot me in the head.”

“… With a gun?”

You grin. “Well, he couldn’t’ve shot me with a Twinkie.”

Vanya looks ahead at where Five is talking to some middle-aged guy, his expression friendly and polite. What a businessman. Her eyes narrow in shocked disbelief. “This is crazy,” she murmurs. “My family is crazy.”

Your grin widens as she shakes her head. Something about her mannerisms helps you realize why Five is so fond of her, though he’s never said it outright. She’s definitely your favorite of the bunch. Sans murderous intent.

“Some types of crazy can be good,” you reply, nudging her arm. “But your family’s got all of them and it’s gonna get real messy. Time to spice up your little farm life, Vanya.”

She chuckles a little awkwardly and shrugs. “I just hope I’ll have time to talk to them. Again, I mean. Maybe I’ll remember something when we’re all together.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Noticing Five bidding farewell to the man, you push yourself off the bumper and wave at him. “Any luck, Five?”

He points down the street behind you as he walks back over. “Plano Street Rooming House for Solitary Men,” he answers. “It’s just a few blocks from here.”

“How do you know he’s there?” Vanya asks.

“I really doubt Luther would live anywhere else.”

You snort, raising your hands in surrender when Five returns it with a semi-faux withering look. With a sigh, he shakes his head and opens the rear passenger door, gesturing for you to get in.

As Vanya starts the car and turns into the street, you look through the rearview mirror at Five as he tells her where to go. Despite being stuck in a thirteen-year-old body, he still has that resting glower of his that makes him look perpetually stressed.

(Of course, it’s not just a matter of looking stressed – he is definitely stressed. Wound up tighter than a spring. You’ll probably need to force him to sit down and relax for at least a half-hour tonight before he explodes.)

His hair is a little disheveled, so you reach over to brush it out of his eyes. It doesn’t really work, but just going through the familiar motion grounds you somehow. “You know,” you muse as Five glances back at you, “Luther’s probably living there, but I doubt he’ll be in right now. He’s probably with Ruby somewhere.”

“Even if he is, we can ask around. I assume that at least one person there knows his business.”

He absently lifts a hand to smooth his hair back, and you smile. “Good point.”

—

“Hello, do you know Luther Hargreeves by any chance?”

After some door-to-door work, someone from Luther’s hall finally answers your knock. He’s a burly man, though not nearly as big as Luther, and obviously drunk off his rocker. Definitely solitary. He squints at the three of you through red, puffy eyes.

“Luther? Yeahhh, I know ‘im. Huge bloke. Real hairy.”

“That’s the one,” Five confirms. “You see, we’re his brother and sister. He hasn’t visited home lately and we’re pretty worried, so we’re just wondering if you know where he is.”

Burly picks at his teeth. “Brother n’ sister, eh? Well,” he rumbles, “I dunno where he is, but I know some of the boys are gonna watch ‘im fight tonight.”

“Where’s the fight?” Vanya asks.

The man regards her with suspicion. “Well, it ain’t a place for a little lady like you.” He swirls his beer around in its bottle, then jabs a finger at all of you. “Don’t want you three squealing to the cops, either.”

“We won’t,” you assure him, smiling sweetly. “We just want to check on Luther.”

With a little more cajoling, you finally obtain the time and place for Luther’s fight before the man waves you away with a grunt, slamming his door shut. You give your companions a self-satisfied grin before descending the staircase back down to street level. Worked like a charm. (You suspect your youthful looks probably helped a lot, though.)

“How’d you do that?” Vanya wonders as the three of you step out onto the sidewalk.

“Simple,” you respond. “I have a knack for sweeping tough guys off their feet.”

You wink secretly at Five. He rolls his eyes, the minutest of smiles at the corner of his mouth, before ushering you and Vanya back to the Chevy.

Your little trio spends the next few hours driving and poking around, looking for Luther or Klaus or Allison. The optimist in you hopes you’ll run across at least one of them. But Dallas is a big place, and darkness begins to fall around 5:30 without a single sighting.

“Dammit.” Five clicks his tongue as you exit a paint shop alone.

“At least we know where Luther will be,” you point out, shoving your hands in your pockets. “How about we get something to eat before we head to the fight?”

Vanya unlocks the car. “There’s a place I know close by,” she says, lips quirking up. “They have sandwiches and donuts there.”

You pat her back. “Sounds great, Vanya. Five? You’ve got to eat something, too.”

Your favorite number crosses his arms as you and Vanya stare at him expectantly. “We’ll get something quick,” he eventually says.

The trip only takes a few minutes. The three of you get sandwiches and a donut each and unwrap them on the bench outside the bakery.

“Sissy and Harlan and I get something from here whenever we go into town,” Vanya says, finishing the last of her sandwich and picking her donut up. “It’s pretty good.”

“So good,” you agree. Lands alive, sitting out here like this makes you nostalgic. Ignoring the upcoming doomsday and the ‘60′s aesthetic, it feels like you’re back in 1927 again, staying out past curfew with your peers. You smile to yourself and look down at your half-finished maple bar. Best to enjoy it while it lasts.

A finger quickly sweeps your brow, tucking a lock of hair out of your face. You blink and glance over at Five, but he’s looking across the street and starting on his own pastry. (Apple fritter. Perhaps you’ll ask him one day why he always gets those.)

Heart feeling even softer than before, you lean silently against his side. He doesn’t move.

After a moment, Five speaks up. “When we were kids, I brought you to this donut shop near the academy a couple times.”

“You did?” Vanya asks.

“Yeah. Griddy’s.” Oh, the one near the academy. The one that had gotten destroyed along with everything else in 2019. He gestures at the last bit of donut – plain, glazed – in her hands. “You usually got that kind.”

She raises her eyebrows, looking into her napkin. “Oh, wow. I guess it must’ve been a subconscious choice or something, then.”

“Hm.”

“You know, I’m glad we found you, Vanya,” you offer warmly. “I didn’t … really have time to get to know you the last time we met.”

A smile spreads across her face. “Same here. For both things, I mean. Not that I’d know much about our first meeting.” She pauses, examining you for a second, then blurts, “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

She awkwardly motions between you and her brother. “Are you and Five …?”

“Partners,” you finish, “in every sense of the word. From what I know, at least.” With a grin, you turn to Five. “Is that more or less right?”

He rolls his eyes fondly. “Unfortunately,” he mutters as you move to smooth his hair back again. He sure had lovely hair when he was a kid – not that you didn’t appreciate his looks back in your Commission days. This de-aging thing really knocks you for a loop sometimes.

Vanya nods, still looking vaguely confused. “Okay. I don’t want to make things weird, I just – well, you two are kind of … young –”

“Believe me, we’re much older than we look,” you quip, standing up. “But that’s a tale for another time. We gotta go.”

Disposing of your trash, you join the others into the Chevy and start your next journey to Luther Hargreeves. Radio turned off, the leather seat squeaks as you lean back and listen to Vanya and Five murmuring in the front.

To see the siblings together again makes you glow inside, a bit of calm before the inevitable storm. You drink it in as much as you can.

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chaoticallysapphic · 4 years ago

Text

Oh my heart

Summary: Lin never expected to have a soulmate, in a world where your mark appears whenever your soulmate is born she grew up completely blank. So when she’s thirty and it finally etches itself around her arm, she vows to never be with the one meant only for her.

A/N: there is an age gap so if that's not your thing, then please don’t read. This will be a two, maybe three parter and the reader is Korra’s older sister who is also a waterbender, besides that I’ve tried to keep any physical descriptions of her as vague as possible.

Word count: 4k

Lin was terrified. Something she had longed for her entire life had finally appeared but at the worst possible time, those strange words etched onto her forearm stared back at her in a taunting manner, making fun of her new attempt at happiness. You wished for me all your life, aren’t you pleased? The voice in the back of her head taunted, but she wasn’t. A moment meant to be filled with joy was one drenched in dread. Lin had finally accepted her feelings for Tenzin, despite him having had his soulmate mark since he was sixteen. Her glances grew longer, her smile seemed reserved only for him, and she finally felt happy, until now of course. Thirty, that’s how old Lin was, which meant she was thirty years older than her soulmate which seemed wrong, disgusting even, so Lin did what she thought best, she burnt it off. She blamed it on a work-related incident when asked, a pesky firebending criminal got a little to close and she paid the price. No one knew she did it to herself in the darkness of her apartment with tears on her face, a hint of regret gnawing at her heart.

Two months later, Tenzin asked Lin out on a date and despite that nagging feeling that this was so wrong, she accepted. After a few months Tenzin made her forget about the burnt skin on her forearm, the shameful secret she’d take to the grave. She felt happy, so happy, she felt loved and accepted, like maybe she had a shot at a happily ever after despite his mark and her own. Lin knew he’d choose her, knew he loved her, and had nothing to worry about, so she laid her head on his chest as they basked in the sun on Air Temple Island.

-----

“You can’t force me into wanting kids!” Lin shouted, her hands waving around as she glared at Tenzin, his usual calm demeanor seemed to crack, his voice rising as he shouted back “I’m the last air bender there is! I have to keep the line going, I have to repopulate my kind!”

“I would be a terrible mother, I hate kids and I’d have to leave my job for at least nine months, I just made Chief!” Tenzin pinched the bridge of his nose, his pale complexion turning red with frustration, he loved how dedicated she was to her job, but it seemed to be all she cared about since getting promoted.

“I think we need a break from each other, maybe a week or t-”. Her eyes widened in horror at his words, her hand's grip at her hair in frustration as she cuts him off “fine, but I am coming back in a week and we are working this out for good, I’m tired of this argument.” Without letting him say another word, she stormed out and made her way back to republic city.

As the week dragged on, Lin put her colleagues through hell. Slamming doors so hard the glass on them shattered, an even shorter fuse than normal, she even fired two of her best detectives for trying to ask her what was wrong. Her apartment seemed cold, her nights seemed never-ending and an undeniable sense of dread clawed its way into her heart like she knew he was slipping away. Maybe she could have one kid, to make him happy and keep the air benders going. If it was an earth bender then fine, she’d have another, but she wouldn’t quit her job, wouldn’t loosen up on the hours and Tenzin would understand, right? He’d just be so happy to be a father that he wouldn’t care, he’d always respected her work before, what was to stop him after a kid or two?

She caved, she decided to go back to air temple island on the fifth day, a sense of determination to fix their relationship fueled each step and she tried to dismiss any fear she had of becoming a mother as she made her way up the steps to where she’d known Tenzin would be. In her state, she didn’t notice the pitying looks the acolytes sent her way, all she cared about was finding him. When she found him in the courtyard, she thought nothing of the young woman speaking to Tenzin with a wide grin but when she put her hand on his shoulder mid-laugh, Lin paused. Tenzin noticed her then, a million emotions flashed through his eyes before his shoulders sagged and a sorrowful expression settled on his face, and somehow, she knew.

Who could blame her when she wreaked havoc on a place she once called her sanctuary, when she wished misery on him before leaving her destruction behind, her fists clenched tight as the best thing she ever had slipped through her fingers.

-----

“Korra!” a feminine voice shouted from behind Tenzin, you pushed past him and ran forward to hug the avatar in the interrogation room, murmuring something to her in a furious tone. Lin rolled her eyes as she looked over at Tenzin who said smoothly “Lin, you are looking radiant as usual.”

“Cut the garbage Tenzin” she replied in an annoyed tone “why is the avatar in republic city? I thought you were supposed to be moving down to the south pole to train her.” you, who came in with Tenzin let go of Korra and walked over to stand by him, your arms crossed over your chest.

“It was too cold for his bald head” you answered right as Tenzin opened his mouth to speak “now why is my sister in so much trou-”. Lin tuned the rest of her words out as shock slammed into her like a rock wall. No. This wasn’t meant to happen, she’d scorched off any chance with her soulmate twenty years ago, or so she thought. But this… this twenty? Yes, a twenty-year-old water tribe girl with brows furrowed, and an expectant look on her face was it. You were what sometimes kept her up at night when she was so lonely it felt like the feeling would surely eat her up as Lin imagined some faceless figure who loved Lin with all their heart, someone who would never leave her.

“Lin?” Tenzin asked, putting his hand on her shoulder which successfully pulled her out of the raging ocean that was her thoughts, no not ocean, definitely nothing water-related. Lin looked into Tenzin's eyes, completely ignoring her one chance at happiness.

“Just get her out of my sight and keep her out of trouble” she practically growled out before storming off. Her heart was racing so fast she’d thought it’d surely give up any second now, maybe she should have known that her hasty decisions from her past would one day come back to sucker punch her in the gut.

“Well that was weird” Lin heard you say behind her as she continued to rush away from you before she accidentally said something. Lin vowed then that she would never say a single word to you. It was better this way anyway, who would want her? Bitter, old, scarred Lin who was practically married to her job and hated all things romantic ever since Tenzin crushed her heart beneath his shoe.

-----

She learned that your name was y/n a few days later, she heard Korra call out to you at the gala and when Lin followed Korra’s excited figure and her eyes landed on her soulmate, the wind was successfully knocked out of her for the second time since meeting y/n. You were wearing a deep blue satin dress that went down to the floor with a blue sheer shoulder shawl that had silver snowflakes embroidered onto it. Your hair was down instead of up, and you had a small amount of makeup on, just a bit of rouge and red lipstick. Lin thought it was the perfect amount, any more and it might distract someone from your beautiful eyes, or your enchanting smile. Her heart began to pound despite her desperate attempt at keeping her emotions in check. A large part of her hated this, hated you, and what this feeling blooming in her chest meant.

When Bolin came up to you and threw an arm over your shoulder, which caused you to laugh, Lin remembered that it would never happen. She shoved her feelings down and turned away from you as her thoughts went from how beautiful you were to how you would never love her.

Later on in the evening, Tarlock calls Lin over and she sees you peek around Korra to eye her curiously, a look of intrigue settles on your features as Lin pushes down any feelings she has at the fact that you’re looking at her and it feels like her whole body is on fire under your stare. “I believe you and avatar Korra have already met” Tarlock looks over at her with that sly look of his that she’s already determined means he’s up to no good.

“Just because the city is throwing you this big to do, don’t think you’re something special. You’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve this” she says to Korra, leaning down a bit to glare at the young avatar. Your curious gaze turns to one of annoyance as you glare at Lin. “Hey! Who gave you the right to be mean to my little sister,” you step in front of Korra almost protectively, as you stare her down. Don’t speak to her, look away, don’t reply, she tells herself. Lin turns on her feet and walks off, trying to seem as if she doesn’t care about what you said. “Why does she always ignore me?” she hears you say in an exasperated tone before she loses your voice over the loud music playing nearby.

-----

When Tenzin stands next to Lin at the pro-bending arena with you by his side, she’s not surprised. It seems the universe has decided to continuously throw you in her face, dangling you teasingly despite knowing her decision regarding your bond. You're holding a bag of fire flakes as you eagerly watch your sisters match, but soon your once excited expression turns to annoyance once the game starts. The Wolf Bats tipped the referee off. Lin wants to go beat the referee up until he starts being fair, just to see you smile once more.

“C’mon! This is bullshit” you shout as the Wolf Bats gain another point. Lin can’t help but notice the way your nose scrunches up as you continue to shout at the referee or how your hair which originally was pushed behind your ears has come loose and is framing your face so beautifully. Her left hand unconsciously grazes over her armor where her burn mark is as she watches you, completely tuning the game out. As Tenzin goes to shout something alongside you, his eyes catch Lin staring at you with a look of longing, he takes a step closer to Lin causing her to tear her eyes away from you and back to the match.

“Lin....” Tenzin begins but she clears her throat and mutters out a sharp “drop it.” To which Tenzin does, for now. Later on, as the match intensifies, Lin says “I can’t believe your sweet-tempered father was reincarnated into that girl, she’s tough as nails.” Lin doesn’t see it, but you smile at her words before deciding to tune out the rest of the conversation between the two, too focused on your sister to care.

You're practically seething at the outcome of this botched game, fire flakes are flying out of the bag as you shout in anger, not noticing the figure approaching with sinister intentions. By the time you do, it's because you're in excruciating pain as something electrifies you, your vision blurs and you make out Lin dropping onto the floor. The figure who electrocuted you steps over your body, you reach out to the Airbender, trying to warn him but nothing comes out of your mouth as he falls to the floor beside you. Soon your eyes droop closed due to the pain despite trying your hardest to stay awake.

When Lin awakens her muscles feel like they're about to give out and she lets out a weak groan as she slowly goes to stand up. Her eyes land on you the second her vision is no longer a blur and her heart fills with panic as she sees an equalist take you into their arms. She stumbles forward, not fully awake, and catches the attention of your capture. You let out a pained groan, in your unconscious state, the sound tugs at her heart and she’s suddenly filled with boiling rage. The equalist is shaking as he continues to stumble backward, another appears to help him take you away and without a second thought Lin shoots out her wires and wraps them around both of their ankles, she gives them a harsh yank which causes them to fall to the ground with a loud thud, for good measure she cuffs them to the floor, warping the metal of the floor beneath them around their wrists and ankles. You land on top of your capture, your eyes begin to flutter behind your lids and you finally stir awake. Pain wraps around your muscles, in your head you think maybe it's best to just lay still, momentarily forgetting about your situation.

You let out a whimper, knocking Lin out of her frozen state as she had gazed at you. Lin rushes forward and wraps an arm around your waist as she pulls you up onto your feet, you open your eyes, blinking the blurriness out of your eyesight. Lin takes you over to the railing as Tenzin also begins to regain consciousness and she props you up against the metal railing. You stare up at her in confusion, your mind is buzzing a mile a minute, not only at the situation at hand but at how her arms felt wrapped around you. “Uhm… Thanks for that.”

“Amon probably ordered them to kidnap you to hurt Korra” she replies, not realizing what she’s just done. Your eyes widen in shock at her words but before she can even notice your shocked state an explosion sets off behind you, sheets of metal from the bending platform go flying and she wraps her arms around you, forcing you to duck down so she can shield you with her body. You pull up a wave of water to protect you from oncoming flames. The heat of the steam from the water causes you both to begin sweating before the flames from the explosion recede only seconds later. You let go of the water, suddenly the discovery of Lin’s secret doesn’t seem so important as you think of your sister. When you passed out she was in the water below, surely she’s somewhere safe, right?

As if to answer your question, Korra appears as she hurtles herself up into the air with a large twisting waterspout. As it begins to falter and then completely goes out you let out a shout filled with terror “Korra!” Lin quickly gets up and shoots her metal wire out towards the roof to send her flying across the arena towards the avatar, before Korra can hit the fiery platform below, she shoots out a second wire to her waist and with all her might yanks her up into the air.

You stand beside Tenzin with wide eyes and bated breath, suddenly the two most important women in your life, I mean Lin has been ignoring you and you’ll have to figure out why later but she is your soulmate which does make her incredibly important to you, are out of your sight and dangerously fighting above as you uselessly stand there with your water bending abilities that won’t get you up there to help fight off equalists. Not being able to just stand by you summon water from below and create an ice bridge to the platform, if you can’t fight, you can try to put out the raging fire caused by the explosion.

“Y/n, wait!” Tenzin calls after but you're long gone. If you just stand there you’ll go insane and you have powers that can help, even if you don't get to kick some equalist ass. Up above Lin finally lands on the glass dome and immediately sets out to take down as many people as she can at once, Korra watches in amazement for a moment as she wraps her wire at some guys foot and slams him into the roof before she gets knocked off the rope and lands onto the dome with a loud thud and the crackling of the glass starting to break below her.

It’s a collision of fire and electricity with metal wires flying towards the men and from below where you are using all your strength to put out the fire, it looks almost beautiful with the sparks of blue and flashes of red if not for the current circumstances. Tenzin has taken to help you with the fire by trying to use air to snuff it out. Suddenly glass from above sprinkles around them and you look up to see your little sister free falling once more.

“Tenzin can you do something with your air?!” You shout and he goes to try and send a force of air to help slow her down but she's going too fast, she’s flailing and if she doesn’t do something soon she’ll most likely die from the impact. As you run to the edge of the platform to try and save her yourself, Lin appears from above Korra and shoots a small wire to her so she can hold onto it like a rope.

Your shoulders sag in relief as you stumble away from the edge and use everything you’ve got to summon a massive wave to once and for all put out the fire. It works and the force of the water has it crashing into the stands taking with it some of the seats and any trash left behind in the frenzy. When you see Lin and Korra land you race off towards the now soaking wet stands, using the water below as a set of frozen stairs to reach them. When you do, Lin has her hand on Korra’s shoulder and is saying something but you don’t make it out before you crush them both in a hug. Some sort of strangled sound of relief bubbles up through your throat as your hold on them tightens.

Korra wraps her arms around you, softly saying “thank the spirits you're okay” as Lin stays perfectly still. As her adrenaline slowly leaves her body and she realizes you aren’t in danger, she suddenly can’t be touched by you. She remains frozen until you pull away, you know it's not the time to bombard her so instead you offer Lin a thankful smile, too worried about how she’d react if you did anything else.

-----

A few days later you finally let Korra out of your sight, letting her run off to deal with her boy problems as you head towards the main police station. You tried to casually ask Tenzin what kind of tea Lin liked best, to which he’d furrowed his brows and said “why?” You simply shrugged and repeated your question. Apparently, it was jasmine, which was a favorite of yours as well so you stopped by your favorite tea shop and grabbed two to-go cups. As you enter the station you square your shoulders and give yourself a little pep talk “You can do this, you just need to march in and figure out why, maybe butter her up with the tea first of course, and then ask why, that’s if she lets you into the office…” you trail off once your eyes land on the door of Lin’s office, the words “Chief Beifong” are written in gold on the glass door which has a blind pulled down so you can’t see inside, which your slightly grateful for.

“Chief Beifong doesn’t want anyone to disturb her” one of the cops called out, but you ignore him and open the door, who cares, you deserve answers.

“I said I wanted to be alone, how brain dead are yo-” her words cut off as you walk in, balancing two cups in one hand so you can shut the door. You swallow, suddenly being in front of her has made most of your bravado slip away, along with your original plan, leaving you speechless. She doesn’t say anything, seeming to forget that she already spoke to you in the arena. You set the cups down and lift your shirt, which causes Lin to blush but you don’t stop until she can see her own words.

“I used to hate them… y’know,” you say quietly before dropping your shirt back down, Lin glares at her desk. “I used to be jealous of Korra and all the attention she got, so imagine growing up with her name etched onto your skin.”

She goes to open her mouth to speak, most likely to spew out some lie so you beat her to it. “I don’t know why, exactly, you kept it to yourself, I asked Tenzin the other day and he said you didn’t have a mark which is odd seeing as you are my soulmate." You pause, your voice softening, "you could have just told me straight away that you didn’t want me, didn’t want this instead of ignoring my existence and leaving me to wonder what I'd done to offend you.” Finally, she looks up from the desk and you make eye contact with her. You're trying so hard not to cry as you try to figure out what's going through her head, will she kick you out? Is your soulmate going to reject you?

“I thought…” Lin begins, she looks away from you, not being able to look you in the eyes anymore. “I thought I was doing you a favor, I’m old, and I’m not the most personable or charismatic person, I thought maybe you’d want someone your own age, maybe someone like your sisters' teammates.”

“So someone who is young and a guy? Did you think that maybe you should let me decide what I wanted instead of just assuming?”

“Look I gave up on the idea of having a soulmate years ago!” Lin shouts and you flinch away in surprise, “thirty years is a long time, do you know how I felt when those words suddenly appeared on me at thirty?”

“Oh, so you do have a mark!” You let out a disbelieving, angry laugh. “So you just went around telling everyone you didn’t have one, pretending the idea of me, of us, didn’t exist.” Tears cloud your vision and you let out a frustrated groan as you quickly gaze up at the ceiling in an attempt to keep them from falling. Lin’s gaze softens and she slowly stands from her desk.

“Y/n… I thought about it every day, but… We can’t be together, I’m far too old and I’ll just hold you back.” You scoff and aggressively wipe at the tears falling down your cheeks, your heart feels like it's beginning to crack.

“Your mark?” You croak out and cringe at how you sound. Lin hesitated before using her bending to take off the armor on her right arm. On her arm is a massive burn scar, you keep staring at it, not knowing what to say. Did someone else do that to her? As if she can read your thoughts, Lin says softly “I did it to myself a few days after it appeared.”

Oh. So this is what it's like to have your heart cleaved into two, what you felt just minutes before seems like nothing compared to the pain wrapping so tightly around you that it seems hard to breathe. She hated the idea of you so much she'd rather hurt herself and lie to everyone in her life. Without another word you turn your back on your soulmate, despite the sound of calling out to you, just like she did to you twenty years ago.

#lin beifong x reader #lin beifon/reader #lin beifong #fanfic #legend of korra #lok #tenzin #korra #pema #soulmate au #bolin #lin #beifong #angst

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nonbinarychaoticstupid · 4 years ago

Note

She-Ra movie where Catra just goes to therapy. that's it. that's the whole movie.

JHSBJHBNJHJNDNDN

this is not my best, but. here you go!

“Good morning, Catra!”

Catra doesn’t move from her position on the arm of Perfuma’s bench. “You’re late.”

Perfuma rolls her eyes. There are flower petals in her hair. “You’re early.”

“Time is relative, Flower Girl.”

She actually laughs at that and moves to sit down on the bench next to her, smoothing down her skirt. “Time is also a construct, but that might be a little too much for morning meditation.”

“I thought this was a therapy thing.”

“It can be a therapy thing if you want it to be.”

Catra huffs a laugh. “Do I want it to be? I mean, we haven’t exactly done much in these... things.”

“That’s because we’ve only done four of them, Catra.” Perfuma crosses her legs, settling her hands in her lap. “I’m working up to bigger things.”

“‘Bigger things’?”

“Bigger things,” she repeats serenely. Catra frowns into her lap.

Perfuma takes the silence as an opportunity to start humming, guiding flowers up from underneath the bench to wind through the slats and curl around her crossed legs. Catra shakes her head when the stems start to bend inquisitively towards her and forces her eyes shut.

She pulls her tail into her lap (just in case Perfuma’s flowers decide to start winding up it) and fiddles with the hem of her shirt. “Are we just gonna sit here for an hour?”

Perfuma sighs loud enough for her to hear it. It’s not... directed at her (at least, that’s what she tells herself), because she never sighs at Catra, so she puts it down to a plant dying or something (which is literally the only reason she sighs now. She hopes) and keeps her eyes shut.

“Did I ever tell you about my first meeting with Scorpia?”

Catra opens an eye to level a Look at her. “No? Why is this relevant?”

Perfuma shrugs. “I thought you might like to hear it. It’s not a particularly soft or romantic story. It’s not what you’d think our first interaction would be like, looking at us now.”

“Um-”

“I know you’ve been worried about your relationship with Adora,” she tells her gently. “Did anything specific happen between you?”

Catra swallows and shoves down the ball of anxiety in her chest.

The answer is... complicated. Technically nothing happened at all. Technically they’re still fine - still ridiculously, ecstatically in love, still disgusting the fuck out of anyone in a 10 mile radius. But Catra feels... off. Something’s off, and it’s probably her fault, and she feels... tense. Like she’s four seconds away from slipping up, from driving Adora away again, and Adora knows. (Maybe she wants her to drive her away, which is a stupid thought that makes no sense.)

“No,” she says, and Perfuma frowns at her.

“I don’t believe you.”

Catra shrugs, tugging her sleeve. It’s cold out.

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“I would not like to talk about it.”

“You don’t have to. But is it okay if I talk about myself and Scorpia?”

“... Yeah.”

She can feel Perfuma smiling. In the silence that hovers between them, she can feel Perfuma’s smile like sunshine on her skin.

Connecting with people feels good, actually.

“Scorpia came into the war council room with Emily,” Perfuma begins, playing with the ends of her hair. “So of course our first response was to attack. We didn’t know why she was there, or why she had a Horde bot with her. We were scared. I... I didn’t know. I sensed there was more to it. She’s not an intentionally malicious person, you know. When she said she genuinely wanted to help us, I believed it.” She smiles. “I’m glad my first instinct was right.

“There’s more to the story than that, but she accidentally stung me whilst I was stood behind her. It hurt less than you might think, and the paralysis wore off quickly. She apologised. It was very sweet.”

Catra grins. “That sounds like Scorpia.”

Perfuma nods, almost to herself. “She didn’t mean to.” She turns to Catra, smiling gently. “Scorpia wouldn’t hurt anyone intentionally.”

She gives her a significant look. Catra stares back blankly.

“Was there... a lesson or something?”

Perfuma laughs. “I was worried you thought you’d intentionally hurt Adora or something.”

And despite herself, Catra laughs to. “No, it’s not- that. It’s something different. I’m just paranoid. Don’t worry.”

“It’s my job to worry,” she tells her. “It’s what I do.”

“What, worry?”

She laughs again, and a flower grows up from behind the bench and settles between them. She plucks it off its stem as gently as she can and hands it to Catra, who takes it without a word. “Help.”

She stares at the flower in her hands for a moment.

Silence again.

“I.. I don’t know. I guess I’m just... scared.”

“Of what?” Perfuma prompts.

Catra swallows. “Of not being the person Adora wants me to be. Something’s felt... off recently. I feel like it’s my fault. I feel like it’s something to do with all these nightmares I’ve been having, or like I’m disappointing her, or something. I feel like it’s something to do with the fact that we don’t - talk - like we used to, because she’s spent so much time overworking herself and staying up writing reports or something and I don’t know how to help her. I feel like I’m not... good enough for her, y’know? I’m just so-”

Perfuma touches her wrist, and her voice falls away nothing. “Catra, all I want you to do for now is sit and breathe with me,” she says slowly, gently. “Do you remember those breathing exercises we practiced?”

Catra nods.

She takes a breath in and Perfuma lets go of her, retreating back to her circle of flowers. Breathing exercises. Those. She remembers about two of them, but both of them seemed to involve exhaling and inhaling slowly, which is something she can do.

(Maybe breathing works. Sometimes.)

And after ten minutes, Perfuma murmurs, “You’re not doing anything wrong. You have no reason to be worried. I know that doesn’t make anything any easier, but if you need direct reassurance, don’t be afraid to talk to Adora. She won’t be annoyed with you for talking to her.” She leans sideways again, shifting closer to Catra. “She loves you. And she’s struggling too.”

Catra pauses.

It isn’t... it isn’t some big new revelation. Perfuma knows exactly what she needs to hear - know she needs to verbalise what Catra understands.

Fuck.

“But- but I don’t know how to help her. I feel like I’m... I’m useless. I can’t- I can’t solve this.”

“You don’t have to. You just need to be there for her. Hold her when she needs it. Tell her you love her when she needs to hear it, and when she doesn’t. I can’t give specific advice to stop her from overworking herself, but I suggest you talk to Glimmer about lessening the amount of work she takes on. And try asking her to come back to bed, and help her with her work when you can sense she needs it.”

It’s vague, but... but Catra finds herself nodding, internalising the information, storing it away in her mind.

“Okay,” she mumbles, and her voice comes out much smaller than she wanted it to. “Okay.”

Perfuma nods, smiling. “I hope it helps you to some degree. Relationships can be hard.”

She laughs, and the flower in her hand curls its petals inwards and out again. “Yeah. They can. Thank you. I don’t know, I just... needed to hear that. I know it already, but...”

“I understand,” she murmurs.

They fall silent again.

Catra smiles to herself.

#sep texxt #ask #meh-66 #writing #once again no idea what my tags were #sep's writing

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aellynera · 4 years ago

Text

An Off Day (Nathan Bateman x Reader)

AN OFF DAY

(okay, look. my husband thought he was being funny and said “give me a character and i’ll give you a scenario” and then i snorted laughing and then...well. this happened. set sometime before the events of the movie.)

((shoutout to @anetteaneta for an important bit of info and @tinygaydemonbby for the random chat and another key bit.))

Word Count: 2100(ish)

Summary: It’s your day off and you’re just trying to enjoy it. Nathan is working and he’s trying to enjoy it. It doesn’t at all go the way you imagined.

Warnings: Cursing. Banter. Robot sex (not graphic). Personal injury. Innuendo. Propositions. Nudity. Complete and utterly ridiculous trash. Possible typos. Nathan Bateman.

The absolute magnificence of the Alaskan landscape was something that, quite frankly, you were never going to get used to. The trees, tall and majestic, towering over the lush green grass. The river, crisp and pristine, bubbling its way to the immense waterfall that cascaded down the cliff face and eventually made its way into the ever-vast ocean. The bald eagles that would soar from treetop to treetop, even the occasional moose that would make itself known at the edges of the compound and then disappear like ghosts into the forest beyond.

It was otherworldly.

The occasional twig snapped and leaf crunched under your boots as you hiked along your usual trail along the north side of the property. Today’s air felt cool on your cheeks despite the sun overhead; at least it was summer - technically, even if the temperature wasn’t getting much above 60 degrees Fahrenheit these past few weeks - so you had twenty hours of daylight instead of the twenty hours of darkness in winter.

You found your favorite spot on a nearby rock and perched on the smooth surface, tilting your face up to that glorious, shining orb. This really was what you needed right now.

*ding!*

...And that was really what you didn’t need. Definitely not right now, and probably not later either. Speaking of otherworldly.

Your boss was a difficult man, and you had a strange rapport with him that was irritating on a daily professional basis, and to your dismay, increasingly so on a personal level. To be fair, you were the only two humans out here. To also be fair, your boss was kind of annoyingly hot.

You sighed and reached into your pocket, pulling out your phone and glancing at the screen.

God: Where the fuck are you?

God? What the… You were annoyed by the text, but more annoyed by the name. When the hell did that bastard changed his name in your phone? He was insufferable on the best of days, but this was a new low. A new high? You weren’t really sure. Sighing, you shot a text back.

You: It’s my day off.

God: You know that’s not really a thing here right?

You: It is when I need a break from you.

God: I’ll make it up to you.

You: Unless you’re asking me to dinner, I don’t want to hear it.

You groaned. You really didn’t mean to say that.

The little ellipses that showed he was typing back flashed across the screen several times, then stopped. Then popped back up, and stopped again. And just because your boss was your boss, it did it four more times, but still no response.

You shoved your phone back in your jacket pocket and returned your attention to the river, breathing deeply and watching the water swirl around a pile of rocks on the opposite bank.

*ding!*

Dammit.

God: I need you to come back like right now.

You: I’m not gonna sit around and be your Eliza Doolittle today, Nathan.

You weren’t just saying that. Last week, the man had dragged you, literally, into the lab by your elbow and had you repeat vowel sounds and random words extremely phonetically while holding a pulsing orb of glowing blue goo. He claimed it was some kind of brain training. You’d said it wasn’t part of your job description, but honestly, it probably was. You were there to assist, you were there to manage, you were there to occasionally have a satisfyingly intelligent and non-arrogant conversation, and you were mostly there to make sure Nathan Bateman didn’t blow anything up or burn anything down.

That didn’t necessarily mean you liked any of it. Okay, fine, you kind of liked the assisting part and definitely the intelligent conversation part. But it was your day off, and all you wanted to do was not be in the house.

God: What? No, it’s...I just need your help with something.

You: Nathan. It. Is. My. Day. Off. No assistance today. Bother me tomorrow.

God: ...Please?

That gave you pause. Since when did he actually ask for anything politely?

You: Fine. I’m halfway up summit trail, give me like 20.

God: Make it 10.

You: Asshole.

God: And bring a bag of frozen peas.

What the actual hell.

You blinked at the screen twice, turned your phone off completely, and started back towards the house.

*****

You didn’t know why you paid the slightest bit of attention to Nathan’s request, but once in the house, you found yourself in the kitchen, pulling a bag of frosty legumes out of the freezer. With it in hand, you made your way to the lab.

Nathan hadn’t told you where he was, but you knew where to find him. He was always in the lab.

“Okay, I’m back,” you called out as you pushed through the door to Nathan’s inner sanctum. “Now what is so damn important that…”

“Oh thank fuck,” Nathan’s voice called out. “Do you have the stuff?”

You glanced around suspiciously. You couldn’t see him. Until you came around the side of the long table in the middle of the room and found him. Your eyes widened at the sight of Nathan, curled up on the floor in a fetal position, sweating and vaguely shaking.

And totally naked.

He glanced up as he saw your shoes approached and weakly raised his arm and made a grabby hand. “Gimme.”

Tossing the frozen vegetables to him, your mouth opened and closed several times, trying to process the scene. Before you could really take it all in, you watched as Nathan reached over his shoulder, grabbed his discarded t-shirt, and wrapping the icy bag in the shirt, placed it directly on his crotch.

“All right,” you finally got out, “what the actual hell is going on?!”

“Ohhhhh,” Nathan moaned as the cold compress made contact with his skin. “I thought I was gonna die.”

“Why are you naked?” you yelled at him.

“There was a malfunction,” he replied, nonchalant as if you were simply discussing the weather.

You just gaped at him. This was definitely not in your job description.

“A malfunction,” you repeated.

Nathan made a feeble gesture at the table. It was covered in metal parts and wires, screwdrivers and other things you assumed were robotic but couldn’t recognize. He had been working a new body build for the past few days, that much you knew. But now there were metal bits everywhere and Nathan was bare as the day he was born, sprawled in the middle of the floor. Your eyes scanned the table again; the biggest object, in the middle of the mess, looked sort of like...oh, you did not like where this was going. You pinched the bridge of your nose.

“I may have miscalculated the required tension,” Nathan said, still curled up on the floor.

The required...oh hell no.

“Nathan...you know you’re the literally the smartest person I know, and you know I think you’re brilliantly creative and inventive and all that important stuff, but please, please tell me you were not actually doing what I think you were doing,” you muttered.

“I was working!”

“You know I can just check the security footage, right?” you stared him down.

Nathan looked at you over the top of his glasses. “I had to test it and make sure it worked.”

You buried your face in your hands.

“Why does a robot have to have working...parts?!” As soon as you asked, you wished you hadn’t. This idiot genius actually had the nerve to blush. Slightly. He would never admit it, but his ears definitely got pinker than they’d been a few seconds ago.

Nathan sat up suddenly and glared at you, adjusting the ice pack again - thank the heavens - to keep himself covered. “First of all, it’s not a robot, it’s an AI. There’s a big difference. And second of all, we talked about this. The point is to make it as human as possible, so this particular part was necessary.”

The glare you shot back at him could have melted his current loincloth. It was your day off and Nathan couldn’t even leave you be for one whole day without his compulsion to cater to whatever whim was in his head and get under your skin. You dropped into one of the lab chairs.

“So...let me get this straight,” you sighed. God help you. But not the God in your cell phone, because he could go fuck himself. Or get fucked. Whichever.

Suddenly, through your haze of utter exasperation, what you’d just thought clicked into place and you snorted a laugh. Your eyes flashed over to the thing in the middle of the table. It was definitely shaped like a pelvis.

Nathan’s eyes became daggers. “What’s so fuckin’ funny?”

Your eyes went to the thing on the table and to his hands, and then back again. You shook your head, cleared your throat, and tried not to laugh again. It didn’t work. “Sorry. Um. So...what you’re saying is...you got injured because you were...fucking a robot pelvis.”

“I should fire you,” Nathan grumbled.

“And you got injured - from fucking a disembodied robot pelvis -”

“I am so going to fire you.”

“...because it was too...tight?”

“I shouldn’t have asked for your help. I should have just let myself die here, naked and unsatisfied.” He flopped back down.

You couldn’t help yourself any longer. Your laughter rang through the lab, a mixture of actual amusement and horrified reality. You snorted again and that made you laugh harder. Nathan had always joked about making a sex robot. Well, you thought he had been joking, but now, clearly not - and he’d hurt himself in the actual process of trying to make sure it worked. You weren’t a monster, you hoped he wasn’t truly actually injured, but you also took a little satisfaction in knowing karma existed.

After a few minutes, you wiped your eyes and looked down at him. Nathan stared back, but you could see the start of a sheepish smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“I told you I miscalculated the tension. It was fine--”

“Until it wasn’t?” you wheezed.

“--until it cut off all the circulation to my dick.”

You bit your lip. “Nathan Bateman. You literally cockblocked yourself.”

He didn’t respond right away. But then he spoke, at the same moment you noticed the smirk on his face fully bloom and what you’d come to call his “up to some bullshit” look glimmer in his eyes.

“Are you gonna come help me or not?”

“Excuse me?” You were fairly certain your eyebrows could not go any farther up your forehead.

“Well, I’m not in excruciating, unimaginable pain now, and I’d like to make sure my dick isn’t going to fall off. And I didn’t finish. Need a little help here.”

“You want me to--” you stuttered.

“Un-cockblock me,” his wolfish smile broke out fully now.

You hurled a pen at his head. “You really are an asshole.”

“I admit,” he continued, easily dodging your projectile, “this wasn’t what I was expecting for the first time you saw me naked, but I’ll work with what I got.” He started to remove the ice pack.

Another pen went flying his way. “You know, I’m just going to pretend that you’re not about to flash me with your mechanically impaired penis, and that you didn’t just proposition me, and I’m leaving this room now,” you said, standing up and shaking your head.

“Baby, you’re just gonna leave me hanging here?” he grinned, stretching back out on the floor. He folded his hands behind his head. The t-shirt wrapped bag of frozen peas remained - now perched rather proudly, you noted - on his groin.

A vexed growl left your lips as you walked towards the lab door. “Leaving now!”

“Well could you at least toss me my pants?”

You glanced down. Nathan’s sweatpants were balled up behind the lab door. How they’d gotten all the way over here...nope. Nope. You decided that information was entirely unnecessary.

You threw his pants at him and they hit him in the face with a satisfying whump.

“You sure I can’t convince you to help me out here?” Nathan asked serenely from under the fabric.

He couldn’t see the small smile on your face as you walked out the door. Thank god. Or...God. Whatever. The man was a menace.

“Ask me to dinner,” you called over your shoulder.

“I’ll text you,” he called back.

God.

~end~

taglist: @anetteaneta @autumnleaves1991-blog @damerondjarin @deeandbobbymcgee @rosemarysbaby13 @iamthe-shadow-on-the-wall @itspdameronthings @poedjarin @spider-starry @tinygaydemonbby @writefightandflightclub @woakiees @veuliee2 @yourbucky084

(taglist open, click here to join if you’d like)

#nathan bateman #nathan bateman x reader #fanfic #oscar isaac characters #my writing

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quidfree · 4 years ago

Note

prompts,.,, fem tdbk and a date gone very wrong ? ❤️

ohhhh my god anon. pump this shit directly into my veins i love this whole premise let’s go. also all inspired by whatever the fuck horikoshi was doing in this

just so everyone is on the same page here, it is not a fucking date.

it’s lunch. a singular lunch. people do that shit all the time. even katsuki does lunch, sometimes. she went to that semi-shitty diner place with kirishima that one time when the food hall was shut because some dumbass first year exploded into goo or whatever. and todoroki does lunch, too- her and deku were on some shitty lunch date like a week ago, as evidenced by deku’s even shittier selfie of them having a grand old time doing whatever the fuck they do alone.

fuck, not a shitty lunch date. a shitty lunch. whatever.

the point is lunch is a normal non-date thing people do, and the fact katsuki and todoroki are maybe not the usual suspects for it is just circumstantial. it’s not like they planned it ahead of time, or made some big thing about it. they literally arranged for it in public, so obviously todoroki didn’t think there was anything weird about it. and there isn’t! they’re both going to be in tokyo on the same day, and todoroki’s always happy for any excuse to spend less time with her old man, and katsuki sure as fuck wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to avoid her hag of a birth-giver for a few blissful hours, so when todoroki had very nonchalantly gone ‘oh, bakugou, we could do lunch then”, it wasn’t like she had any real reason to tell her to go fuck herself. like, yeah, maybe a year ago, on principle, she would have, but even katsuki can only take so much trauma-bonding before she resigns herself to the reality that she’s stuck with half ‘n half for life, one way or another, and she may as well suck it up and approach civility because said moron is determined to ignore her open malice until she plays along anyways. they’re... you know, whatever. friends. or something. jesus.

the point being that it’s not a date, and the fact that she’s getting increasingly annoyed at her limited wardrobe is just because she would have packed more shit if the crone hadn’t insisted that they ‘pack light’ so they could get cheaper train tickets for less luggage. it’s just annoying that she can’t wear anything that’s not screaming holiday.

it occurs to her as she sits and scowls at her suitcase that her mother has been watching her from the doorframe for some undetermined amount of time, which is criminal mainly because she’s a goddamn hero-to-be and getting snuck up on by anyone is a blight upon her good name. she tries to disguise the ego damage dealt by glowering murderously in her progenitor’s direction.

“what the fuck do you want?”

“you know,” the she-devil says, cocking a hip, “if you want to borrow something nicer...”

“i wouldn’t be caught dead in your shitty clothes!” katsuki snarls, which prompts the witch to immediately scowl back.

“watch your damn mouth!”

“watch your waistline! no way in hell are we the same size!”

“why you little-”

the interruption at least reminds her that she is obsessing over her clothes ahead of meeting todoroki for lunch, which is so humiliating it kickstarts her brain again long enough to grab some normal shit and get the hell out of there.

on the walk she checks her phone again. the previous day she’d had to bite the bullet and make the first move, todoroki’s infamously terrible communication skills making themselves known once more, and their ensuing conversation had been so mortifying she’d nearly cancelled all-together.

to: Half ‘n half

Yo asshole are we still meeting tomorrow or what

I’m busy as shit

from: Half ‘n half

Yes. TS

to: Half ‘n half

What the fuck is TS

from: Half ‘n half

I was signing off.

to: Half ‘n half

SIGNING OFF ON YOUR OWN TEXT

YOU THINK I DONT KNOW YOUR DAMN NAME

from: Half ‘n half

[Pin attached]

Does here at 12.30 work for you?

to: Half ‘n half

Yeah whatever

Don’t be late

And don’t think I’m forgetting the fucking signing off thing

from: Half ‘n half

Glad you can make time for mockery in your busy as shit schedule.

the venue looks like some rich person shit, which she semi-expected, but it means a lot of people give her weird looks as she makes her way inside, probably on account of the shorts and t-shirt she’s wearing if not her general vibe. some old woman actually drags her purse to her, which makes katsuki sorely tempted to bare her teeth and maybe hiss for effect, though she settles for scowling and shoving her hands in her pockets. it’s 12.27, because she wasn’t going to be late but being any earlier would have given off some dubious impression that she’s eager to see todoroki, except now she kind of wishes she’d just come for 12.30 because if there’s some reservation bullshit she gets the feeling she’s going to start fighting with the waiting staff, and then-

“bakugou,” todoroki calls, from inside, raising a hand with unnecessary formality. “you made it.”

“course i made it,” katsuki grunts, absolutely not relieved as she by-passes the suspicious looking waiter to join her outside. “think i can’t ride the damn underground by myself?”

todoroki is wearing jeans cuffed at the ankles and a white t-shirt on top of which she’s thrown on an open button-up with the sleeves rolled up, and she looks casual and normal and incidentally kind of like they dressed to match, but the important part is that she doesn’t look dressed up at all, so katsuki was totally right about the non-date situation, and also isn’t the only one totally underdressed for the shitty venue.

“you look nice,” todoroki says then, completely shattering katsuki’s brief moment of reprieve. “i’ve never seen so much color on you.”

katsuki almost chokes on her own tongue, but the worst part is that the asshole seems completely nonchalant about the weird as shit observation, focused on her stool as she takes a seat on the balcony. which- what the actual fuck? since when does todoroki issue compliments unprompted- of the non-professional variety, at that? and what the fuck does she expect katsuki to say now- return the compliment? say thanks? is this whole thing some kind of exercise in psychological torture?

well, fuck it. she can’t look like a little bitch just because todoroki said something inanely positive. two can play that game.

“yeah. you look half decent yourself. did you hire someone to dress you for the occasion?”

todoroki blinks up at her in surprise, which is totally a win and would make her more smug if she could stop feeling so weird and prickly all over. for a dangerous moment todoroki seems on the verge of blushing, but miraculously the world rights itself and the usual deadpan persists, one brow quirking up in completely feigned ineptitude.

“there was a compliment somewhere in there, so thank you, i think. i thought we were past this vendetta.”

“we’ll be past this vendetta the day you burn your piece of shit hero suit,” katsuki retorts, back on familiar ground, and relaxes long enough to squint down at the menu.

this turns out to be a mistake.

“the fuck? is this whole thing in french?”

“oh,” todoroki says, after a beat. “that makes sense. i thought my english had deteriorated.”

“are you- you didn’t know? you recommended the place!”

“it was the nearest place to our hotel,” todoroki defends, now having the decency of looking slightly put out. “coq can’t mean what i think it means, can it?”

“that’s chicken, asshole,” katsuki hisses, flinging the menu down. “great, now we’re going to have to flag down one of the shithead waiters and ask for a japanese menu. excuse me! hey! yeah, i’m talking to- what the hell, did he just blow me off? hey, jackass! you with the shitty mustache!”

“sorry about that,” todoroki interjects, when mustache asshole turns an offended stare their way. “do you have the japanese menu?”

“we only serve the food in its authentic form,” mustachioed asshole says, with frigid self-satisfaction. “might i suggest google translate?”

“might i suggest my foot up your ass, you shitty-”

“that’s fine,” todoroki says, in a flat tone that implies otherwise. “we’ll make do.”

the waiter sniffs pretentiously as katsuki thinks about all the ways she could beat his ass into next tuesday, running an aggravated hand through her hair when the wind rustles it into her face. she’d half expect todoroki to suggest they fuck off elsewhere, but when she looks back her way she finds an ill-boding gleam of determination in her eyes despite the impassive set to her face, and it’s a testament to how fucked in the head ua has made katsuki that she feels a sort of sick thrill of recognition at the sight. todoroki’s in stubborn bitch mode.

“i’ll have this,” todoroki says, sure enough, pointing to the most expensive item on the menu. “and also this. and one of those.”

the waiter’s eyes nearly pop out of his skull, and todoroki looks unfazed in katsuki’s direction, tapping pointedly at a sleek black and red credit card in her wallet. “bakugou?”

well, if endeavour’s paying....

“sure,” katsuki says, slowly, and then turns her meanest smile the waiter’s way. “i want the frog legs.”

mustache clears his throat, attempts condescension. “we don’t serve that here.”

“you’re a gastronomique restaurant,” katsuki says very loudly, as other clients turn to stare, “and you don’t have fucking frog legs? is this a joke? does this napkin say authentic french cuisine or am i hallucinating?”

“i can ask the chef,” the waiter demurs, casting a nervous glance at the muttering snobs nearby, and attempts an ingratiating smile. “anything else for you, mademoiselle?”

“what did you just call me?”

once the ordering debacle is over, todoroki slants katsuki what may well be an apologetic glance, vaguely contrite frown sitting pretty atop her usual dead-eyed stare.

“i probably should have read up on the place ahead of time.”

katsuki is well within her rights to chew her head off, she thinks, but food’s on the way and she got to yell at the asshole who gave her the once-over when she came in, so she’s feeling forgiving, even in the face of todoroki’s annoyingly doll-faced apology. the bitch really has to do the bare minimum and she looks like a fucking kpop idol.

“yeah, whatever. i always knew you were a shitty ops planner.”

todoroki, who is an asshole, looks relieved at her generous forgiveness for all of a second before she quirks a brow. “between the two of us, i only count one person who has actually spoken the words ‘shoot first, ask questions later’.”

“that was in a training simulation,” katsuki protests, outraged. “and you know damn well the actors were annoying as shit!”

“i did find them slightly too committed to the role,” todoroki concedes neutrally, which totally means she agrees with katsuki 100% and is being precious about it. katsuki scoffs.

“least the view’s decent.”

“the-“ todoroki starts, in weirdly confused tones, until she follows katsuki’s gaze outward and nods in understanding. “oh, the skyline. yes.”

what else katsuki could have meant she doesn’t fucking know: they’re sitting pretty in the middle of tokyo. the only thing the hellhole of a restaurant has going for it at this point is the cityscape.

todoroki stares out into the distance for a good long moment, and with the breeze her negligently loose hair whips this way and that, red and white blur where the two halves mingle. instinctively katsuki itches to braid it flat so it doesn’t tangle. if todoroki asked her she’d tell her to just cut her damn hair into a bob or something- it’s not like icyhot has any attachment to her princess hair, and she’s got the obnoxious bone structure to pull off any length. not that she’d mention this last part. or that she’s given it much thought. it’s just fucking obvious.

if todoroki could keep her mouth shut throughout the rest of the meal, it could be sort of nice. tokyo skyline, and companionable silence, and presumably edible food. worse ways to kill some time, and way less incriminating than anything that may be said otherwise.

“i think this is the part where we make small talk,” todoroki says instead, sadist that she definitely is, as katsuki grimaces feelingly her way.

“no, we don’t.”

“well, we don’t. but this is the part where we should.”

“i don’t even believe you can last a minute of small talk, icyhot.”

todoroki looks pensive, mismatched eyes thoughtful. “...how has your day been?”

“uneventful,” katsuki says, combative, and eyes her watch. todoroki does not give.

“this place seems nice.”

“you don’t even think that.”

“how have you been finding tokyo?”

“noisy.”

“the weather seems-”

“no.”

“you look nice.”

“you said that already, dumbass,” katsuki grunts, palms crackling with sweat, and does not at all read into the way todoroki makes a stupid little movement with her mouth that could ungenerously be interpreted as a pout.

“well, i meant it, so i’m saying it twice.”

“give it up, half ‘n half, just ask me about training.”

“...how is your training?”

“i did this thing yesterday,” katsuki starts, leaning back in her chair, and from then launches into a very technical and barely exaggerated retelling of the batshit insane stunt she pulled off with her quirk the day prior. todoroki’s focused attention is gratifying, in a totally platonic non-weird way- it’s just that her parents couldn’t very well follow why exactly said stunt was as insane as it is, but todoroki obviously can, and also there’s that thing with todoroki where pulling a reaction out of her ice queen act is admittedly more satisfying than most people. it has jack shit to do with the fact katsuki’s got a very minor complex about todoroki paying her her dues, and even if it did then that’s entirely fucking reasonable considering she still hasn’t forgiven her for the sports fest incident.

it is a little weird having todoroki’s sole focus on her outside of hero shit, though. it’s not like they really hang out one on one outside of school or work. it’s kind of- unnerving. yeah. unnerving, to be making prolonged eye contact, todoroki’s expression intent but not intense the way she gets in fight scenarios, frowning lightly because she has resting bitch face but apparently genuinely interested. it’s kind of a relief that todoroki asks questions- moves them safely into a conversation, so katsuki’s not just sitting there talking and sort of dry-throated. fucking waiter, leaving them water-less.

it’s fine. they talk about training, and quirks, and then todoroki pushes her hair behind her ears and leans forward to demonstrate on a small scale this thing she’s trying to do where she melts her ice and refreezes it in rapid succession so it causes what is essentially ice rain, but there’s logistics and shit that need to be worked out for it to work the way she’s thinking it might, and katsuki knows her thermal shit so they start scrawling maths over the napkins, and then bicker over the finer points of first year chemistry, so when the food actually arrives to interrupt them todoroki’s startled blink is weirdly relatable, like she also forgot where they were.

the waiter’s there and gone before they’re really recovered from the brief misplacement, which katsuki registers only when she looks down at her empty glass.

“goddamnit- how hard is it to bring us water?”

“they only offer sparkling,” todoroki says, gravely, then outpaces katsuki’s disgust by placing her hand over her glass, ice rising before she switches hands and melts it down. “tell me if the temperature’s off.”

intensely mollified and trying not to look it, katsuki sips it. “’s fine.”

“okay,” todoroki says, faintly pleased, and tilts her head to look down at her food. “i have no idea what any of this is.”

“moron,” katsuki snorts, except it comes out way fonder than it has any rights to, and from beneath the convenient curtain of hair todoroki’s smiling a little, so she hastily stabs a frog leg and gets to eating before anyone gets any ideas.

the actual meal goes okay-ish. most of the stuff todoroki ordered is extremely pretentious french cuisine, and todoroki secretly has the culinary adventurousness of a five year old, so it befalls katsuki to impatiently attempt every dish and pronounce it edible before todoroki will deign to brave it. she’s still trying to bully an unyielding todoroki into attempting the weird bird soup thing when there’s commotion nearby. it takes the both of them approximately three seconds to spring into work-mode; katsuki’s on her feet poised for a fight before she’s even consciously thought about it, scanning her peripherals, and she doesn’t even need to look to feel todoroki unconsciously covering her back, cool sting of air signalling her quirk at the ready.

the commotion turns out just to be some old dumbass choking, relaxing them both out of their stances as she falls back to let todoroki ahead. they’re both uber-qualified for first aid shit, but she’s self-aware enough to know even todoroki’s bland reassurances are usually preferred to her bedside manner. unfortunately, the whole entourage seems to be braindead, because they’re all crowding the old guy in a panic while he chokes, his wife in shrieking hysterics.

“oh, my god, he’s choking! he’s choking! sugar-plum, stay with me!”

“fuck me,” katsuki mutters, unethically thinking that she would personally prefer choking to being married to someone who calls her sugar-plum, but todoroki’s pushing ahead with implacable calm, so she trudges after her anyways.

“excuse me. excuse me. i need access to your husband.”

“who are you? don’t touch him! help! get this woman off my husband!” wailing hysteric yells, bosom heaving dramatically. katsuki is starting to suspect she poisoned him on purpose or some shit, because no way does anyone talk like that in real life.

“she’s a fucking qualified first aid provider, lady, shut up and let her through!”

thankfully, the woman seems on the verge of an outrage aneurysm, which drags her focus away from suffocating her choking husband to dramatically pointing at katsuki long enough for todoroki to duck past her and reach the guy as he turns purple.

“how dare you speak to me that way? who do you think you are?”

“ma,” chinless moron number one says, clearing his throat. “i think that’s one of those future pros from TV.”

“what?”

“you know, ma,” chinless moron number two adds, glancing nervously between them. “the one that explodes things. you know. from UA.”

katsuki takes great pleasure in watching recognition dawn in the old cow’s beady eyes, but in any event there’s a hacking noise and then the old man’s coughing out a bone into his plate as todoroki steps noiselessly back from the table.

“he’s fine now. enjoy your dinner.”

“god, that was gross,” katsuki says, as they ignore the woman’s sputtering and return to their seats. todoroki tilts her head.

“not really. if he’d thrown up it would have been.”

“not the choking guy,” katsuki scoffs, casting a glance back his way. “his wife. talk about theatrics.”

“she seemed more afraid of us than her husband dying.”

“for good reason,” katsuki mutters darkly, spreading out in her chair. “i hate civilians.”

“i don’t think she recognised us,” todoroki counters, pensive, and absent-mindedly takes a bite of the weird soup before she screws her face up like a betrayed kid. “oh. you didn’t say it was sweet.”

the look on her face thoroughly distracts katsuki from asking what other reason the pearl-clutcher could possibly have to be so terrified at the mere sight of them; instead, she chokes back a laugh, stifling a grin. “what are you, five?”

“i don’t think i like this,” todoroki says, mournful, which makes katsuki grin harder. she can’t help it- todoroki looking stupid is her kryptonite.

“then don’t pick a restaurant where you can’t read the menu, next time.”

todoroki’s midway to looking up, but for some reason her expression transforms instantaneously, which makes katsuki reflexively try to quash her amusement. todoroki always gets weird when she’s smiling.

“next time?”

motherfuck. obviously she didn’t mean next time like next time, she meant next time like- hypothetically, in the future, when todoroki’s on a lunch date with someone else. a lunch non-date. she’s just about stopped sputtering furiously long enough to try and express this sentiment when it occurs to her that todoroki seems- pleased, one eye soft sky-blue when katsuki accidentally meets it, and that draws her up short long enough that she ends up just muttering lamely to herself. fucking todoroki.

on the heels of this utter embarrassment, she downs the rest of her water, scowls in a neat 180 at everything in sight, and wonders for the first time in her life how the fuck extras get through dates. not that this is one.

it’s fine. they’re done eating, and no one’s died, and katsuki is no longer fifteen and thus mostly trusts her ego to lick its wounds and recover from the ordeal. even if they stick around for desert that’s only another half hour of this to endure. as long as todoroki doesn’t make any sudden moves they’ll be fine.

...the problem is, of course, that sudden moves are todoroki’s modus operandi. katsuki has not forgotten the bitch calling them friends on national television in the same breath that she was vociferously denying them being anything of the sort. in todoroki’s fucked up brain, they’re always ten steps ahead of whatever they actually are- considering katsuki’s come around to privately acknowledging she’d take a couple more stakes through the gut for the asshole, in todoroki’s world they're practically hitched.

platonically. platonically practically hitched. this is not a thing, goddamnit. no matter the weird looks aizawa’s been giving them, or utsushimi’s nefarious schemes, or the alarming cardiopulmonary condition katsuki’s been developing of late. she’s not some shitty yuri protagonist pining over the nearest female bishōnen in her vicinity.

admittedly if she was to pine over anyone it sure as fuck wouldn’t be some guy, but that’s besides the point, since pretty damn near every person on earth is just some guy by her standards, regardless of gender. the fact that todoroki is not one of said people is entirely irrelevant.

her internal irritation is so distracting that she misses the tremors nearby until entirely too late, by which point todoroki’s stupidly perfect brows raise an incremental fraction and she goes: ‘oh’.

when todoroki goes ‘oh’, some shit is about to go down.

katsuki turns slowly with an impending sense of doom, and sure enough, the sight that greets her is so nightmarish she seriously reconsiders whether the entire day has been just that.

“don’t freak out,” a giant building-sized deku booms, apologetically, as his hideous giant face stares at them. “it’s just a quirk thing.”

it’s probably a good thing katsuki has gone speechless with outrage, since it permits todoroki’s constantly composed ass to ask useful questions katsuki probably would have coated in a fair amount more threats and cursing.

“midoriya. i didn’t know you were in tokyo.”

“well, i wasn’t meant to be,” deku says/booms like a foghorn, as the restaurant clientele shrieks and stampedes behind them. his sheepish expression is even more punchable when magnified. “it’s a long story. it’s almost sorted out now, though. i just saw you guys from over at the NPA office and thought i’d come ask if you maybe wouldn’t mind lending a hand? i wouldn’t ask but there’s going to be a lot of cleanup and your quirks would be really helpful to-”

“we’ll do it as long as you shut the fuck up,” katsuki yells, to cut him off, massaging her temples. “the monologuing’s bad enough when you’re not about to burst my fucking eardrums, jackass.”

“oh, sorry! i’m trying to be very quiet but this body’s just hard to get used to- thank you so much for helping, i didn’t mean to come bother you on break...”

“it’s fine,” todoroki says, and then seems to realise that her monotone doesn’t reach midoriya’s giant-ass ears and clears her throat, raising her voice to a shout. “it’s fine. let me go deal with the bill and then we’ll go.”

“sorry?” midoriya whisper-shouts, craning his monstrous head closer to them, the sight of which will haunt katsuki for the rest of her life. “i can’t hear what you’re saying!”

“she said she’s going to go pay for our nice fucking lunch,” katsuki hollers, with no small sense of satisfaction, as deku winces and todoroki slinks off. “since you want to come crashing it like a dipshit.”

“sorry, kacchan!” deku begs off, flapping hand gestures creating enough wind to knock over a nearby umbrella stand. “i just thought it would be a lot of help if you came to oversee the fall-out- especially with the building damage-”

“we’re good,” todoroki announces, to katsuki, apparently having given up on matching her in decibels. she’s got that classic hero look on her face, already in work mode, but just when katsuki’s about to do the same and jump into action, the look wavers a little and she frowns vaguely awkwardly. “thanks for doing lunch.”

“huh?” katsuki stutters, thrown, and then scowls at nothing in particular, stalling. todoroki’s the one who paid, albeit indirectly- it’s typically weird of her to be all formal about it all of a sudden, leaving katsuki to attempt to wriggle them out of the awkwardness of the moment. “i didn’t do shit except show up and eat, weirdo.”

“it’s been abnormally hard to show up and eat in the circumstances,” todoroki replies, a little wryly, and more concerningly a little resigned sounding. which is just unnatural, because todoroki may have expanded her range of emotions considerably since first year but resignation is not on her usual roster, and there’s nothing to be resigned about unless she had some kind of vested interest in this whole fiasco playing out any better than it did.

which she didn’t, obviously. katsuki’s been through this. she chose the nearest possible venue and rocked up in jeans and a t-shirt, and- and why is the fact that todoroki never dresses so normally out of class only now occurring to her, again?

she’d said ‘i think this is the part where we do small talk’. the part of what?

“yeah, whatever,” katsuki says, automatically, as her brain plays catch-up, which is the excuse she will forever stick to for what leaves her mouth next. “should have known you’d be a lousy date.”

todoroki goes ‘what?’ at the same moment deku does, ten times louder and more bug-eyed, which reminds katsuki that 1) deku is still there, 2) deku is still as big as his martyr complex, and 3) deku is the fucking worst, and allowing him to trap her into friendship is somehow responsible for this, she’s sure of it.

“can we go handle this fucking mess or what?” katsuki snaps, instead of screaming or breaking deku’s very large nose or maybe self-immolating in abject humiliation, hands erupting into explosions as she jumps onto the balcony railing. maybe if she throws herself headfirst into the debris she’ll concuss herself and turn amnesiac.

“um,” deku is saying, when she turns a withering glare his way. “um, yes! yes! yeah! let’s go do that!”

so she jumps skywards, explosions blasting her high into the air, and very scrupulously does not look towards the sounds of slick ice forming just behind her until todoroki skates into her peripheral vision, hair waving flag-like behind her. ahead there’s a building with a crater clean through it where deku must have erupted from, though when she turns to comment she finds him a fair deal behind them, lumbering pace slowed further as he avoids stepping on anyone or anything along the streets. instead her eyes lock on todoroki’s where the latter is staring at her, face unreadable, and she bristles hard enough to disrupt trajectory, correcting course rapidly before she plummets into an office.

“what?”

“i’m a lousy date,” todoroki repeats, neutrally, over the wind. katsuki grits her teeth.

“and what about it?”

she’s bracing for a lot, but not the horrible, sickening eye-crinkle thing todoroki does, dark eye twinkling even as her expression stays carefully impassive. “you think you can do better, then?”

“hah?”

“next time,” todoroki intones, very precisely, and then dips ahead like a complete coward as katsuki goes a color never previously visible to the human eye, sifting through about fifteen emotions before she decides to stick to outrage.

“what the hell? you suck at asking people out, icyhot!”

“you don’t have to say yes.”

“what, you think i can’t do better than this mess? you’re on, asshole.”

“i look forward to it,” todoroki says, gravely, and then there’s a collapsed building to handle and shit to do and if anyone wants to ask why katsuki is so especially gleeful in blowing shit up they wisely keep their mouths shut. she just likes the job, all right.

(for the record, it’s still not a date until katsuki says it is.)

#qui repond #qui ecrit #anon #prompts #tdbk #todobaku #fem todobaku #fem todo #fem baku

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kareofbears · 4 years ago

Text

plainly in truth, chapter 3/5

"Without you around, it's sorta like stuff is just kinda...bleh."

—

Or: hiding, confiding, and misguiding.

read on ao3 or below the cut :)

Ryuji grips the letter like it was silver and he was a werewolf in the full moon.

He picks it up, skims over the first line before putting it down beside him, feeling worse every time he does it, only able to read the fine-printed lettering from the flickering lamp post above him. The constant change in light would normally bug him, but he doesn’t really care about it now; it’s not like the words would change in his hand, and he’s long since needed to actually read it to know what it reads.

His feet dangle over the canal, enjoying the way a rush of adrenaline would go through him when he looks down into the deep waters. It’s late enough in the night that even with the city lights around him, he can’t gauge how deep it goes.

Soseikawa Park was only a five minute walk from Odori Park, but with the narrow river and steeped hills, Ryuji found it secluded enough to let himself sit. Breathe. Not exist, even for just a few minutes. It’s like having his own bedroom, except it smells faintly like a sewer and there’s an intersection about ten meters above where he sat underneath the overpass. If he can ignore the never-ending rumble of cars and trucks driving above him, it can almost be considered peaceful.

He lets himself fall back, the grass tickling the back of his neck and his spine screaming in relief. They’re heading out again in two days, which means more days of being in an inescapable RV surrounded by his best friends who are keeping an eye on him because they’re good people who don’t know how to mind their own fucking business.

Idly, he lets his hands pull and brings it to his face—blades of grass. He lets it get taken by the wind. After brief consideration, he shoves the letter back into his pocket before he can do the same thing to it.

He is so tired.

Blindly, he hits the vague area of where his pocket is and fishes out his phone, hitting the first speed dial before he can talk himself out of it. As two rings go by, he stupidly hopes that she doesn’t pick up, as if she hasn’t ever missed a phone call from him even when she’s at work.

The third ring gets cut off halfway through. “Ryu!”

Despite himself, he grins. “Hey, ma. Checking in for the weekly call.”

“I was just thinking about you,” she says, and he can hear the laundry machine run in the background. “I was wondering if you had eaten today.”

“Ma, you ain’t gotta worry about that kinda thing anymore. I’m a big boy now.”

“You’re breaking my heart!” He can almost see her, phone tucked in the crook of her neck, work-worn hands folding her laundry as fast as she can so as to not hold up the next person in line. “It doesn’t matter how big you are, you’re my boy. How can I not think about whether my boy is eating or not?”

“All I’ve done on this trip is eat, ma.”

“Oh, and Akira! How’s that handsome boy doing? Still taking the world by storm?”

That pulls a genuine laugh from him—he never needs to hold back when it comes to talking about Akira, at least. “You know it. He’s the only guy in the world who can stand toe-to-toe with me in chowing down. I swear, he’s slipping some of it under the table ‘cause he’s so damn fast. Forty seconds! Forty seconds to inhale an extra large beef bowl! Blows my mind, seriously.”

“Could never do anything in halves, can he?” she chuckles, before the quality of her voice shifts. “And are you enjoying yourself?”

He hesitates. “Yeah, of course. It’s a roadtrip across Japan, how can I not?”

“Good.” There’s some crackling over the receiver, and he guesses she’s probably adjusting the basket full of clothes on her hip. “That’s all I want to hear. As long as you’re happy, Ryu, I’m a happy old woman.”

Ryuji opens his mouth, ready to console her.

I’m always happy!

You worry too much, ma.

There’s nothing to worry about.

“Sorry, but,” he swallows thickly. “I think they’re calling for me? So—”

“Alright,” she says, and he might be imagining the disappointed tinge to it. “Call back when you can, okay sweetheart? I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” he clears his throat. “I love you, ma.”

“I love you too, Ryu.”

He hangs up, letting the phone slip out of his fingers. It lands hard on the flat grass

For a long moment, he just lays there, listening to the gentle lapping waves and cars honking with impatience of people who have somewhere to be. He tries to meditate for half a minute, with all the information he had learned from a couple of YouTube videos, and gives up, because of course he does. Squeezing his eyes shut, he can’t do anything about the creeping dread that’s in his stomach getting stronger, squeezing and squeezing until he feels sick. It’s like his insecurities are having this huge fight against each other, feeding off of one another until it gets too big for him to handle and all he can do is breathe and try to do something about it.

And he’s fucking sick of it—breathing. He’s sick of the stupid breathing techniques, sick of counting down from ten and waiting for his own heart to chill out because his brain won’t stop reminding him of everything he did wrong, of shit he’s still doing wrong because at least this way, nobody knows what he did was wrong. It’s just him that can point and laugh at himself, and that’s way better than having the world do it for him.

He doesn’t cry, because he’s not a crier. He’s the type of guy to throw a fist through drywood before shedding a tear, and he hates that about himself. Rather than do something that will actually help, Ryuji lays there, perfectly still. Listening. Waiting for a meteor to fall on him, or for the overpass to crash its entire weight on top of him.

Instead, he hears footsteps.

His heart rate slows by a fraction, and opens his eyes to meet gray ones. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Akira says, a smile in his voice. “How did you know it was me?”

Ryuji almost feels offended. He would know Akira by sound alone, the way his heels would click in the Metaverse. The way the balls of his feet would strike the earth, hardly muffled by grass or cheap sneakers or anything else as trivial. Ryuji would know he was there; no matter how blind he was with hatred for himself, his love for Akira would always guide him back to where he needs to be.

“Lucky guess.”

“One hell of a guess.” He plops down onto the grass and Ryuji lifts his head, allowing Akira to wiggle until he could use his lap as a pillow. “Your turn,” Akira says.

“My turn to what?”

“To ask me how I knew where you were.”

“Oh.” He lets his eyes slide shut again. “I kinda just assumed you could do that.”

“You assume too much of me sometimes.”

“I assume the right amount.” Ryuji refuses to shiver when he feels long fingers start to card through his hair. “You’re giving me goosebumps,” he sighs.

“That’s a good thing, I think.” The fingers pull away and he’s about to complain when he feels something gets thrown over his torso. “Here. You always end up forgetting to wear an extra layer when you go out like this.”

Ryuji rearranges Akira’s jacket over himself. “Sap.”

“You know it.” He resumes combing through his hair, and Ryuji lets himself relax, just a little. It’s strange—it’s hard as hell being around other people nowadays, and even though Akira can make him feel that sometimes, mostly it helps the eternal twisting of his stomach to settle.

“You’re good at that,” Ryuji mutters.

“Thank you. I’ve had plenty of practice with Morgana.” And just to make it worse, he uses a little bit of nail on his nape, sending electricity running down all the way to his fingertips.

His mouth twists unhappily. “Don’t do shit like that while talking about the cat, for the love of god.”

Akira does it again, like the little shit he is. “You still have that weird thing with your neck?”

“Quit it!” Ryuji slaps his thigh and he can’t muster much anger when he can feel Akira’s shoulders shake from silent laughter. “You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“You’re right.” Gently, softly, like the world’s lightest feather, he feels lips brush his temple. “I’m funnier.”

His eyes open, and his entire vision is obscured by curly black hair and tender eyes. “You’re right,” he breathes. “You’re funnier.”

Akira bends down again, and Ryuji catches his lips, overflowing with something soft but unafraid, and it’s so good that Ryuji reaches for his cheek just to make it last a little bit longer.

When they break off, Akira kisses his temple again, this time on the left side. “Do you know what day it is?”

“Uh,” he scratches his head, brain a little fuzzy. “Tuesday?”

“It’s Wednesday, and I meant the date. It’s August tenth.”

“Okay?”

Akira thumbs at his collarbone. “I know this might be a little lame that I know it by heart, but I left Tokyo on March 19th. That would mean it’s been—”

“One hundred forty-four days since you moved away,” he finishes. “I know.”

Akira blinks, and then laughs, and Ryuji knows it’s an especially good one because sound actually comes out this time. “Yes,” he says, elated. “Exactly what I was thinking.”

“I told you dude, we’re really on that telepathy shit.”

“We really are.” A pause. “I miss you.”

He’s about to joke—I’m right here, you big dummy—but find that he just can’t. “I miss you too.”

They can’t say what they mean: I will miss you. Summer vacation doesn’t last forever, and two months will always be a hell of a lot shorter than the rest of the ten months that they’ll be apart. Somehow, he dreads seeing Akira gone, and he’ll dread seeing Akira back in Tokyo because it would mean that he’d actually have to see what Ryuji’s really like. Actively pushing away his best friend just so he doesn’t have to see his failures; doesn’t that just make him the worst piece of shit in the world?

There’s a gap, though. A little loophole. A crack in the timeline. A place where maybe he’s allowed to be a hollowed out version of happy; the now.

“Tomorrow’s our last day in Sapporo?”

“Yeah?” Akira replies, surprised at the change in tone.

“Which means Jail stuff is done, right? All your grocery shopping and Sophia Prime’s been ordered and packed up?”

“Yes,” he says, a lilt in his voice. “It’s all done.”

Ryuji sits up and faces him, reaching for his wrists, relishing in the heartbeat thumping against his palms. “Let’s do something. I don’t care what, but let’s do something. Eat at a diner, go to a museum, rob a bank, whatever.” He runs his thumb along the veins there, long since those bumps have been ingrained in his brain. “Let’s do something, just you and me.”

“Are you asking me out on a date, Sakamoto?” He has a cocky look in his eye, and Ryuji’s half-tempted to kiss him again just to wipe it clean off his face. “You know I’d follow you anywhere.”

He knows. That’s the scary part. Would Akira still follow someone he doesn’t know as well as he thinks he does? “I’ll get us lost,” he jokes.

Akira doesn’t laugh. “I’d rather be lost with you than learn to lose you.”

It’s been ages since he’s been flustered at anything Akira does, but he feels a rush of heat crawl up his neck. “I’ll—” Ryuji shakes his head, willing his embarrassment to go away. “Shit, uh—”

“I’ll pick where to go,” he interrupts, a little too smug for his liking. “I’d say I’ll pick you up at your place, but…”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a comedian,” Ryuji rolls his eyes. “I’ll be ready whenever.”

“Fantastic.” Akira checks his phone, wincing. “It’s late.”

He grips his wrist tightly. “I know.”

Thankfully, he’s never needed to explain much to Akira. “Okay,” he says softly. “Ten more minutes?”

“Yeah.” He lets his eyes slide shut once more, letting out a breath. The world will keep spinning. His stomach will keep twisting. Time will keep marching on, but at least he has this. “Ten minutes sounds good.”

—

The first words that Futaba says as she enters the RV was: “Oh, hell.”

“Hello Futaba-chan, Yusuke-kun,” Haru greets cheerfully from the booth. “How was your shopping trip?”

“...Fine,” she replies, stepping aside to let him in, lugging a four-foot tall canvas in his arms that accidentally hits the ceiling. “Got a new Featherman action figure.”

“I got a canvas,” Yusuke answers from behind the wall of white. “Though I assume you can see that.”

“I can.” Her smile doesn’t falter, and it’s making the hair on Futaba’s nape rise like a nervous animal. “Quick question, since you both are here…”

Haru pulls a tote bag from underneath the table, and it’s so heavy that when she throws it on the table, her teacup nearly topples over. “Would you like to take a guess of what’s in this bag?”

A billion jokes pop into Futaba’s head, but both of them stay silent, terrified and confused. They both knew this was coming, but they didn’t expect her to be so forward about it.

“I suppose that’s a pretty strange question, I’m sorry. Let me try again.” She reaches in and pulls out thick, heavy textbooks, all brightly coloured and consist of beaming, diverse students on the front cover. “Care to tell me why you were both looking at cram books while we’re on our fun roadtrip?”

Yusuke pushes Futaba aside, eyes on the books and wide with shock. “You bought them?!” he exclaims.

“Wait—” Futaba hops repeatedly, trying to catch a glimpse from over his shoulder. “You bought all of them?”

“Of course.”

“But why?”

She thinks about it for a moment. “Hmm, think about it this way. If Akira’s in charge of the group as a whole, and Makoto’s in charge of the more analytical aspect of things, think of me as a somewhat stern yet loving parent who doesn’t quite know how to mind their own business.”

“I thought that was Ann’s job,” Futaba mutters, heart hammering in her chest.

“Now,” Haru leans forward, and as if to prove her role, speaks in a gentle tone. “I’m not mad at you. That would be ridiculous. But I saw you two looking at these books, and I know how expensive they can be, so I’ll give them to you.”

She blinks. “You would?”

“Absolutely!” Haru smiles wide. “On the condition that you tell me why you need them.”

Futaba and Yusuke exchange a glance, before Futaba makes a T with her hands. “Timeout!” she yells, dragging Yusuke by the collar out of the RV.

“What do we do?” he whispers once the door is shut. “It’s not as if we can tell her.”

“I don’t know, maybe we should?” she pushes up her glasses. “Damn, the things money can buy you. Our vow of silence is getting thrown out the window for two handfuls of yen.”

He looks her dead in the eyes. “I would tell the world my deepest secrets if it meant having lifetime access to a grocery store.”

“Don’t say that, you sellout!”

“I’m not selling out. My art already reveals the deepest portion of my soul, it’s not my fault that the common observers cannot pick up what I’m putting down.” He squints against the setting sun. “She’s waiting. What do we do?”

“Okay, okay, okay, just let me—” her mind whirrs rapidly, and for a second she really feels like Sophia. “Give me a second.”

“I have a suggestion,” he points at her. “If we’re not averse to lying, let’s tell them that you need them for school. You’re struggling with academics, you need a bit of outside help, so we took a look at the textbooks.”

“Good idea! Wait.” She frowns. “They’ll never buy it. Let’s say that you need them.”

“I’m at the top of my class!”

“But they don’t know that!” She balls her fists together, determined. “Okay, let’s do this.”

“I didn’t say yes to this.”

Futaba kicks the door open, making Haru pause wiping her spilt drink mid-stroke. “Inari’s struggling with his classes!”

“I—“ Yusuke stammers. “Yes,” he confirms. “I’m struggling with my classes. They’re mighty indeed, and even I find them difficult. I am...struggling.”

Haru looks at them doubtfully. “Yusuke is?”

“I am,” he answers as Futaba says, “He is.”

“Yusuke,” she repeats, gesturing to the neatly-stacked pile of textbooks on the table. “Is struggling with precalculus?”

They stare at her. “Yes,” Yusuke says, slowly. “I am struggling with previous calculus.”

“Out of curiosity, Yusuke,” Haru scratches her cheek. “Do you know what a parabola is?”

“Of course I do,” he replies with the wisdom of a thousand monks. “It’s a self-contradictory statement.”

“That’s a paradox,” Makoto corrects from the steering wheel.

“What the heck?” Futaba jumps a foot in the air. “Why are you here? Why were you hiding?”

“I like to sit here a few hours before we start another road trip,” she says, before glaring at them. “You two. Does this have to do with Ryuji?”

“T-timeout!”

Futaba makes a beeline to the door again, but Haru’s faster. She slips past them, standing in their way, perfect smile still in place. Sometimes Futaba forgets how strong she is in negotiations; her and Yusuke were probably tutorial levels compared to the upper management of Okumura Foods. “Answer her question, please.”

Yusuke sighs, tired. “You know what you’re asking for, don’t you? If we tell you what’s happening here, it would be breaking the trust of one of our teammates.”

“Yusuke!” Futaba hisses. “Are you really thinking about telling them? It’s not even our secret to tell.”

“No, it isn’t.” He makes eye contact with Makoto. “But she made a point. What would make us better friends: if we kept a secret to the grave while letting him suffer, or tell someone who can help even if it means being some sort of tattletale?”

“But…” she trails off, resolve crumbling. “Dude. It’s going to suck so much.”

“I know.” He pats her head, before moving to Ryuji’s backpack once more. “Don’t worry, I’m willing to take his anger if need be.” Yusuke gestures to the booth. “Everyone, take a seat. It’s about time this finally gets cleared up.”

Smoothing out the envelope in his hand, even more crumpled than when they had it last, he clears his throat, takes one last glance at Futaba to make sure. At her tentative nod, he begins to read its contents in a loud, clear voice.

When he finishes, they sit there, staring at the thick paper in silence.

“Oh my god,” Makoto breathes. “I knew it was bad, but—”

Haru shakes her head. “Not this bad. And he talked about it so much, but we didn’t even…” she glances down at the textbooks, idly rubbing its spine. “I didn’t think much of it.”

“None of us did,” Yusuke says. “But does that make it any better?”

They fall in silence again, but Futaba can hear the answer loud and clear. Hell no.

The door opens forcefully, pulling them out of their stupor.

“What’s up, my beloved friends!” Ann calls, shopping bags in tow. “God, I’m gonna miss Sapporo. Things here are so cheap compared to Tokyo, sheesh!” She sets them down, laughing when nobody says anything. “Jeez, what’s going on? Did I miss something?”

“Ann-chan,” Haru says carefully, all sense of cheer, for intimidation or otherwise, gone. “Take a seat. There’s something you should know.”

—

The Ferris wheel looms over them, blocking out most of the sunset behind it. “Nice,” Ryuji grins appreciatively. “I should’ve seen this one coming.”

“You should’ve,” Akira agrees, tugging him into the open carriage. He goes in willingly. “It was staring at you the whole time we’re in Sapporo. And besides, every romantic movie has a Ferris wheel scene, doesn’t it?”

“Oh yeah? Name one.”

“Death note.”

Ryuji makes a face, and Akira laughs. “Yeah, I know. Bad example.”

It’s a tight squeeze but they sit next to each other, ignoring the bench in front of them. The seats are hot, and even though it’s nearly evening, the heat barely eases up on them. Still, he finds himself pressing himself against Akira. He runs cold, much colder than Ryuji; narrow wrists are ice, prominent collarbones frost.

The two of them lean over the window, pointing out random scenery as if it were the first time they were seeing them. Restaurants, statues. Weird looking cars and flower beds. Decorated high rises and insects that fly by. It’s like they were tourists, or a retired couple who just want to travel the world. He’s never wanted to be old before, but Akira always has a way of making him change his mind.

Like clockwork—Ryuji makes a joke. Akira laughs. His heart feels lighter.

When he finds himself leaning against him, feet up on the bench, Akira wraps his arms around his shoulders unhesitatingly. Ryuji wonders if he can hear the way his heart thuds inside his bones. He wonders if he knows it's for him. The Ferris wheel stops, right at the very top, gently swaying like it were a giant cradle. They’re not very high up, but it’s far enough that he feels like he’s left the entire world behind.

Ryuji presses his lips against those wrists, relishing in the way he can feel the heartbeat increase. “You nervous?”

He can feel his head shake behind him. “I’m happy, I think,” Akira says in a hushed voice, like it was a secret, like it was a sin.

A breeze flows through, and Ryuji closes his eyes when lips press against just below his ear.

Would it be worth it to have a Palace? A Jail? Would it be worth it to lose himself, just to be in this moment for the rest of time?

Carefully, he flips himself sideways, just so he can press more of himself against Akira. The carriage rocks gently, and the metal bench underneath them is sharp and uncomfortable. Arms tighten around him. Chest to back, knee to knee, they couldn’t be closer, but Ryuji leans back, wanting nothing more than to bottle the rhythm of his breathing and the smell of his soap.

I’m happy, too, I think, he wants to say. If we stayed like this for the rest of our lives, until our skin is permanently tattooed into the hot steel and our bones are the only thing they take out of this bench because the rest of us had already rotted, then I’d be pretty damn happy.

Craning his neck backwards, Akira is already staring.

Then he’s kissing him—once, twice, again and again, and Ryuji realizes that something’s different. This wasn’t the kind of kiss he was used to. There was a desperate air to it, an urgent edge from both of them that neither was ready for. Stealing each other’s breath and giving it back; the cycle continues, the clock keeps ticking.

Ryuji pulls himself up, not breaking the kiss, cupping his cheek and soaking him in like a flower to the sun; an endless yearning, like he’d shrivel up and suffocate if it vanished. The sun framed Akira, and for a split second, he feels like he understands what Yusuke sees on a canvas.

When they part, foreheads leaning against each other, Ryuji lifts a trembling hand to wipe the tear that rolled down Akira’s cheek.

“What’s up?” he asks softly. “Is something wrong?”

“I feel like you’re a miracle, Ryuji.”

How do you respond to that? When the person who said it feels like they’re the one who’s magic, who’s too good to be true?

“Fuck miracles,” he says, pulling Akira in again.

—

The circuit felt like it ended too soon, but it’s night when they finally stepped off, holding hands and faces flushed. He hopes the ride operator doesn’t hate them, but he’s in too good of a mood to really complain.

Ryuji stops in his tracks when he sees who’s in front of them.

“Ann?” Akira questions, taken aback. Eyes dark and brows pulled close together, clutching her purse like a weapon of war—she looks like she’d just seen someone set an orphanage on fire.

Her voice is shockingly deep, gaze fixed on Ryuji. “I’m borrowing him for a second.”

Before either of them can say anything, Ann takes him by the bicep, and he can only glance at Akira before he’s dragged back into the Ferris wheel.

“Did you even pay—?”

“Don’t start,” she hisses, pushing him on the bench, hard. “Don’t you dare start, you damn liar.”

His blood runs cold. “What?”

No. That’s impossible.

“Don’t play dumb with me.” She shoves her hand in her bag and throws something rubber at him. “Do you know how long it took me to find a good one here? I spent my entire day in the shopping district—not looking for clothes, or shoes, or whatever the hell I thought would be fun. No, I spent our last day in Sapporo looking for that.”

Ryuji looks down at the hot compress in his hands, a lump in his throat.

“Because you weren’t doing anything to your knee,” she continues, jaw tight. “Despite me trying my best to help you get better. I thought that you must’ve been really fan-freaking-tastic at hiding the pain that you told me about. That I trusted was the truth because you’re one of my best friends and I trust you. I trust you with my life, my secrets—” Ann grits her teeth. “What the hell?”

“How did you find out?” he asks hoarsely.

She knows. If she knows, they could know. If they could know—

“Damn you, it doesn’t matter how I found out!” she throws her hands in the air, voice so hurt that it twists his insides impossibly tighter. “You think I would care? You think that this is important enough to lie to me about? Dammit, I don’t care that you—”

“Don’t say it,” he begs. “Please.”

“I don’t give a single shit that you failed second-year, Sakamoto!”

Her words ring against the steel walls, deafening.

Bile crawls up his esophagus, and he readies himself for another attack. But for some strange reason, his vision doesn’t blur. Instead, anger kicks in like it always does.

“You don’t care?” he asks, incredulous. “This doesn’t even have anything to do with you!”

“It does when you lie to me about it!” she yells back. “Do you not care about me? About your friends who would go to hell and back for you?”

“How dare you—!”

“You lied to me, you hid it from everyone else, you ignored our advice because it doesn’t mean shit to you.” She points a finger at him. “And look where that got you.”

“Shut up.”

“We all noticed, you know! Each and every one of us noticed that something was up, even the literal robot—”

“Shut the hell up, Ann.”

“And for what? All you accomplished was hurt our feelings, hold in yours, and keep it from the love of your life—”

Ryuji stands up, rocking the carriage and nearly toppling Ann off her feet.

“It’s because I fucking hate myself!”

She grips the barred window, eyes wide. They stare each other down for a few long moments, before the ride comes to an abrupt end. The door swings open, allowing a cheery greeting from the oblivious employee.

And then Ann sighs, shoulders deflating. “Come on,” she jerks her head to the door, before stepping out herself. “Let’s go.”

“What?” he asks, puzzled. “Where?”

“If we’re going to delve into the psyche of Sakamoto Ryuji, we might as well do it with some food in front of us.”

—

The cafe Ann takes him to is bright, filled with pastries and crowded with people—stools are pastel blue, baristas are wearing cute bowties, and each cup of coffee comes with an alarming amount of whipped cream on top. Sojiro would have a heart attack if he walked three kilometers of this place, but Ryuji’s glad that the resemblance is far and away than that of Leblanc.

The booth is pressed into the corner of it all; up against the window and far enough from the main bustle that they’d have to really put their all into it if they wanted to take their order. On one side sat Futaba, nervously tracing shapes on the window while Haru sits beside her. The opposite end has Yusuke and Makoto.

They all look up when they hear the bell chime, and Ryuji almost laughs. “It’s been a long ass time since I’ve seen you guys look so serious,” he remarks, sliding next to Makoto while Ann sits next to Haru. “Where’s the food at? Come on guys, food’s good for you.”

He raises a hand. “Excuse me! We’re ready!”

“Ryuji,” Futaba’s voice is brittle. “I—”

“Hold on shorty,” he reaches to pat her head, voice coming out soft. “We’ll get to that. I promise.”

A waiter comes, takes their drink order, and leaves. When he does, Yusuke places a heavy hand on the table. “I was the one who told everyone.”

“That’s not true!” Futaba cries out, and everyone jerks back in shock. “That’s bull! I’m the one who told him to go through your stuff ‘cause he was worried about you, but I’m the one who actually—”

“No, I’m the one at fault here,” Haru casts her gaze downwards. “It was really none of my business, but I forced these two to tell everyone here. I’m so sorry—”

Ryuji sighs. “Guys, it’s fine.” He’s met with an incredulous look. “Okay, it isn’t, but none of this is your fault, you know? I’m not mad.” His gaze shifts to Ann. “But you’re allowed to be mad at me. I know I shouldn’t have hidden it.”

She gives him a weighted look. “Then why did you do it?”

“Ann,” Makoto warns.

“No, I’m not budging on this.” She leans forward. “He lied to me. Lying doesn’t get you anywhere good. That was really stupid of you.”

“Ann!” Futaba cuts in, horrified.

“You’ve seen what happened with Shiho.” Ryuji flinches back like he’s been hit. He knows. Ann knows he knows. But she keeps going anyway. “She lied to me about what was happening, and I lied to her back. It kept going and going, and—” she snaps her fingers. “She’s gone from my life. For how long? I don’t know, maybe until we graduate. Maybe until her rehab ends. Maybe longer. Who knows? All I know is if we had just—talked, or—” Ann shakes her head, frustrated. “From the start. Tell us what happened. And afterwards, let us help you, or I swear to god I’m going to cry, and I know you can’t stand it when people cry.”

The silence is deafening, even with the clamor of people and voices around them.

Ryuji lets out a breath. “Yeah, alright.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You will?”

“I will,” he repeats, idly checking his pulse. Heart rate is a little quick, but in no danger of having another breakdown. “I’ll tell you everything.”

The waiter chooses that time to drop off their drinks; all cold except Haru, nursing a hot cup of tea. They definitely didn’t buy enough to justify the god-knows-how-long they’re going to spend here, but they’re just gonna have to suck it up.

“Alright,” he starts when they’re alone again. “We going from the start?”

“The very beginning,” Ann confirms.

With one last glance at his friends, he sighs, sits up straight, and flashes them the biggest grin he can muster:

“Hi,” he greets. “I’m Sakamoto Ryuji, and I failed my second-year of high school.”

No one’s expression shifts, not even an inch. He can’t help but be a little impressed. “You guys know that I’ve never been the greatest with books. Shit, screw greatest—I’ve ranked bottom five ever since I started middle school. Didn’t help that my leg got fucked to high heaven and everyone started hating me. Nearly dropped out a couple times. Had no one, really. Worst time in my life, hands down.

“So imagine this dumb little kid, middle of April, running into this guy.” Without meaning to, the grin shifts into something more genuine. “Good-looking dude, super smart, real charmer but you wouldn’t be able to tell just by lookin’ at him. And that guy saved my life. Ten, twenty, thirty times over. He was so great that the dumb kid obviously fell in love with him. But what’s even crazier is that the guy fell in love with the dumb little kid, too.

“Crazy, right? Sounds made up, but I promise it’s true.” He catches Futaba’s expression shift to exasperation. “I know, I can’t believe it either.”

“That’s not what I meant, you sap,” she says.

“Yeah, but that dumb little kid,” he explains. “Couldn’t believe it. Literally couldn’t believe it. Thinks that he struck the lottery, struck by damn lightning. I mean—” Ryuji laughs a little. “How can someone so amazing and cool be in love with such a moron? What made it worse…”

He gestures at all of them. “Was that the guy had so many people in his life who was also amazing. His social circle was made up of, and correct me if I’m wrong: a successful journalist, a politician, some dude from the mob, a random child who breaks gaming records on the daily, and I’m not even counting people from this goddamn table. So dumb little kid knows, he fucking knows that somehow, someway, he tricked the cool guy into falling in love with him. The kid sucked, no, sucks,” he corrects. “At everything. Can’t do anything worthwhile.”

“Ryuji…” Haru whispers.

“Almost done, I know it’s running on kinda long,” he promises. “So the dumb little kid became kinda obsessed with the group’s ‘activities’, and it’s obvious why he would, right? If he knows he’s not good enough for the guy he’s in love with, then he can at least try to be. But since he already sucked at school to begin with, dummy over here completely bailed on school and ended up flunking so bad that he failed an entire year.”

An entire year. An entire year.

It’s becoming harder and harder to breathe, but he’d rather get hit by a truck than lose it in front of so many people. Gritting his teeth, he does what he knows is bad, what every google search and YouTube video says you should not do—he pushes his feelings, far and hard away from himself, so far that it’s like it doesn’t even exist.

It works surprisingly well.

“And, uh—” Ryuji clears his throat. “He hid it. Because you know the one, single thing that’s worse than realizing you’re not good enough for the other person?”

No one answers. “Waiting for the day that they realize that you’re not good enough for them.”

“And that’s pretty much the bulk of it.” Reaching for his mug, he takes a sip of his lukewarm lemonade. Damn, he really did talk for a while. “I didn’t want to tell the rest of you because one, it’s really fucking embarrassing that I failed, and two—”

“Akira can’t know,” they all say in unison.

“Exactly, you guys get the point by now.” He drums his fingers against the table, trying to ignore the blatant gloom cast on all of their faces. “Question time starts now, if anyone wants to ask anything.”

Makoto opens her mouth, but he beats her to it. “If anyone even thinks about feeling pity, or be all ‘no, you’re smart actually!’, I am walking out of this cafe and I am not looking back.”

“What about summer school?” Makoto asks immediately. “If you didn’t want us to know, then you could’ve taken that without even telling us.”

“Summer school was never an option.”

“And why not?” she slaps her hand against the table. “It would’ve solved this entire situation!”

“Because Akira was coming home for the summer,” he says simply. “And I wanted to enjoy my time with him without this hanging over my head.”

Her jaw drops open. “But...that’s…”

“Stupid?” he offers. “Idiotic? Really dumb? Potentially throwing away my entire future? Yeah, I gotcha. Another part of it was that the thought of staying at Shujin for another minute makes me want to jump into traffic, if that helps make me look a little better in your mind, miss prez.”

Makoto’s expression of confusion freezes, taken aback by the harshness of his words. Ryuji cringes at himself. “Sorry.”

“No,” she says finally. “The fault is mine. I have no right to judge your actions, or to pretend I know what kind of stress is burdening you.” Hesitating, she asks, “May I request another question?”

“Shoot.”

“What were you going to do when we eventually go back to Tokyo?”

As expected of someone who went head-to-head against the ace detective in front of the entire school; her questions are brutal. “I don’t know, honestly. I was planning on ignoring the problem for now and just sort of,” he gestures vaguely. “Enjoy the summertime sun?”

“A moment,” Haru goes through her bag. “It’s a long story, but I have these—”

The second the books peek out of her tote, he recognizes the cover immediately. “Cram books? You bought some?”

“Yes!” she answers, mistaking his reaction for eagerness. “It’s a very small gesture, but I’d love for you to have them.”

“I—” he leans away from them, breath catching in his throat. “No.”

“No?” she blinks.

“Not now, senpai.” Trying out his new trick again, he forces his heart to slow down, forces his breathing to regulate again without any of the techniques, and forces himself not to feel any of the fear that he’d normally have to go through. It works, but barely. “I’m not—I don’t think I’m ready to deal with that yet.”

“That’s fine.” Haru puts them away, and as hard as he tries, he can still see how dejected she was. “I’ll hold on to them for you.”

“Thank you.” He glances around. “Any last takers? Q&A is almost up.”

“I have one,” Yusuke pipes up.

“Go for it.”

“How are you?” he asks genuinely.

Ryuji can’t help it—a laugh gets pulled out of him. “How am I?” he repeats.

“Yes. How are you?”

“Uh,” he laughs again. “Not good, man. Not good.”

Everyone startles when Ryuji stands abruptly. He slams down the rest of his lemonade, relieved at how it helps his parched throat. “Alrighty, that took a lot out of me! Let’s get out of here, I’m sick of being surrounded by fake coffee and poser cafe fanatics.”

“I’ll take care of the bill,” Haru says, following his lead and scooting out from the booth.

“What? No, come on. I don’t care how rich you are, at least let me pay half.”

“Ryuji.” She looks him dead in the eye. “I’ll take care of the bill.”

“...Yes ma’am.”

Slowly, they all start filing out, some exiting the cafe while Makoto goes to the till with Haru. Ryuji reaches for Ann’s elbow before she can leave. “Hey.”

Turning her head, it’s as if her lips were permanently stitched downwards. “Yeah?”

“I’m really sorry I lied to you,” he says, somber. “That was shitty, and it doesn’t matter what I’m going through—you can’t deal with lies. I get that. I won’t put you through that again.”

Ann kisses her palm before slapping it against his forehead. “You better not,” her voice drips in affection. “You said not to console you—”

“I did, and I meant it.”

“But I’m here for you,” she rubs his skin harder, and he winces at the chafing. “You know that, right? No matter how crazy the shit inside your head gets, I want you to talk to me.”

“I know it,” he says, not just because he wants the friction to ease up. “I know it now, for sure.”

“Good.” Ann releases him, and goes to join Haru and Makoto up front. “You might want to head out. Someone’s starting to make a fuss.”

“What?” he turns around, making direct eye contact with Futaba, nursing a blank expression on her face. “I see.”

The bell chimes once more when he steps out, relieved at the cool summer air that hits him. “Shorty,” he says in lieu of a greeting. “What’s good?”

“Here.” Ryuji glances down at her, who’s holding a familiar, now very-crumpled envelope between her fingers. It’s weird seeing her hold the letter announcing his failure like a bomb, but he understands the sentiment. “I had to show Ann because she wouldn’t believe me until I got some proof.”

“Thank you,” he says, shoving it in his pocket. “I’m not mad at you, you know.”

“I know you’re not.” She swallows and stares down at her shoes. Her laces were covered in little beads and stars, something he had bought for her during a weekend hangout once. “This isn’t me pitying you, or showering you with some kind of boohoo potion.”

She swallows again. “I failed my first year of high school. It was for a completely different reason—guilt for who I thought I killed rather than wanting to be something else. But I know. I know so much about what you’re going through.”

Futaba looks up, and his heart wrenches when he sees the tears in her eyes. “I’m so, so sorry if I made you sad, or that I kept calling you stupid back then,” she sobs. “I don’t mean it, and I’m so mean to you all of the time but I don’t mean any of it. I told everyone your secret because I wanted to—” she hiccups, and she pushes her glasses to the top of her head. “I wanted to give you your own version of what the Phantom Thieves did for me, but I reached out to you guys back then. No one forced me to do anything, but I took that choice away from you.”

He pulls her in his arms, and her tears are hot even through his shirt. “I know, Futaba,” he says, patting her head. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

She hits his chest weakly. “Me taking care of you?” she sniffs. “I’m literally the one crying right now.”

“Just for now though,” he shrugs. “Next time I cry, you’ll be the one handing me tissues, I swear.”

They stand there, the two of them standing in the middle of Sapporo while people give them weird looks—Futaba, unable to stop the tears from flowing down her cheeks, and Ryuji, refusing to ever let his emotions make things worse for everyone else again.

—

When they get back to the RV, each of them emotionally exhausted, Ryuji goes to kiss the top of Akira’s head. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Akira looks up from his card game with Morgana and Sophia. “You look like you had a wild night. Ann take you all somewhere fun?”

“Totally,” he says, sliding the letter back in his backpack. “Best night ever.”

“Take me next time. Sophia’s kicking our ass.”

“She is not!” Morgana denies, tail swishing. “Just a little,” he relents.

“I’m gonna get ready for bed,” Ryuji announces, hiking his backpack on his shoulders and heading out, before running into Ann outside.

“Oh my god,” she says, disturbed. “He really, really doesn’t know.”

“Yup,” he moves past her. “And we’re keeping it that way.”

#p5 #p5s #mine #fic tag #plainly in truth #ryuji sakamoto #akira kurusu #akiryu #pegoryu #ann takamaki #futaba sakura #persona 5 #persona 5 strikers #chapter three! *thumbs up*

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tintinwrites · 4 years ago

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dreams and other things | Frankie ‘Catfish’ Morales x Reader

A/N: This is inspired by an episode of King of the Hill, a show I did not even watch of my own volition yet vaguely enjoyed sometimes. No tags since the subject of this fic is quite touchy.

Rating: T

Warning: Trying for a baby and not being very successful with it. Discussions of possible infertility. Many sexual references. Naughty words. Depression. Arguing.

Word count: 1,907, apparently!!

Summary: Trying for a baby is taking longer than you thought it would, so Frankie tries to cheer you up.

GIF credit: ^ Please let me know if you don’t want me using your GIF!

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When you and Frankie first talked about trying to have a baby, it was quite possibly the best thing ever.

Yes, your sex life was pretty damn healthy if both of you did say so yourselves, but the moment you were working towards something with no condoms, no birth control?

You barely kept your hands off each other, whether you were somewhere private or you needed to sneak off to somewhere that was only semi-private.

Frankie didn’t know shit about ovulation until you peed on those little sticks and told him that meant you were at your most fertile; which meant three days of as much sex as possible, which meant he now knew a lot about ovulation and considered it to be a pretty damn great invention.

The first month of trying resulted in an obscenely expensive pregnancy test blinking a timer at you before it said ‘not pregnant’.

You were obviously disappointed, but you kissed him on the cheek and told him that it was pretty rare for a couple to get pregnant so quickly and you would keep trying.

He didn’t mind that.

But then one month became three, and three became six, and six became eight.

If someone is wanting a baby, they can only deal with throwing so many ‘not pregnant’ or one-lined sticks into the trash before it starts to chip at something. Frankie would hear you sob in the bathroom when your period came and sit outside waiting until you were pulled together enough, but you would just start sobbing again in his arms anyway.

With how disappointed he was with each month that passed without you being pregnant, he could only imagine your disappointment.

Fuck, he’d watched you weep on the bathroom floor about what a failure you were, how you couldn’t bear him a child, how much you just wanted to see two stupid fucking lines, and he still wasn’t sure he understood the extent of your disappointment.

Those three days he’d loved were starting to become something he hated, sex now an effort you both made yourselves do three days a month when it used to be something you needed to be pulled apart from doing; would this time result in a baby? Was he shooting blanks? Was there something up with your uterus, or your ovaries, or something else?

All your worries made the two of you bicker, then cry, then apologize, over and over again, until you finally broke down and told him you just didn’t know what was wrong with you.

That, at this point, you knew each pregnancy test would say you weren’t pregnant and that you hated yourself so much you were taking it out on him.

He was pissed because this was supposed to be easy, damn it. Creating a family was something biological, something anyone should be able to do if they wanted to, and he couldn’t do that for you? He wanted to yell at whoever the fuck would listen each time you cried because something that should’ve been simple just wasn’t.

Any yelling he wanted to do was kept in for the most part, aside from one time when snippy bickering made him raise his voice with everything he was shoving down.

I don’t know how to fucking fix this, okay?!

The moment the words left his mouth, his face had softened and he moved to you immediately, dropping to his knees at the couch in front of you and rubbing his palms up and down your thighs.

I didn’t mean to yell, okay? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby.

Maybe he was apologizing for more than just yelling as he laid his head in your lap, letting a few silent tears fall with the way you were running your fingers through his hair, telling him that you were sorry too, that you never meant anything you said and you just wanted a damn baby.

You decided to ease off on trying since it was so stressful for you both, and Frankie watched your heart break.

He watched it break even more when, despite not really trying, you were weeping in the bathroom once again at the blood in your underwear telling you that you still weren’t pregnant.

He held you to his chest, and kissed your head, and whispered all the truths to you of how great you were, and he suggested you take the week off work to just take a little more stress off.

You spent each day laying on the couch with dried tear tracks on your face as you watched almost every sitcom that was streaming, but he didn’t care. He’d leave something for you for breakfast in the morning, call in for something to be delivered for lunch, then make you dinner when he was home.

Most nights, he’d bring you to bed and help you change into fresh clothes, smiling at you when you’d kiss him and say a little thank you.

And then you’d fall asleep and any smile he tried to keep on for you dropped.

You were so...sad. There was no other word for it. Empty, maybe. Longing for something that should’ve been yours.

Shit, maybe he wasn’t going to be the best dad in the world, but you needed to be a mother.

Wherever he would’ve failed, he knew that baby would be okay with you loving it, and nurturing it, and kissing it, and holding it close to you.

Seeing the way you yearned for a baby made him think of all the other things you’d talked about with him, all the little dreams and other things you hoped to do with him.

He thought maybe one of them would help, maybe he could find something to help fill that void even if it didn’t fit quite right.

Something that would occupy your heart until you were finally pregnant or you looked into adopting a kid.

He came home that Friday you’d taken off work with a box in his arms, setting it outside the door before he pushed it open and stepped inside. He took off his boots like always and walked over to the couch where you were watching an old show, bending down to kiss you gently.

“Can you close your eyes for me, baby?” He tugged on your bottom lip with his thumb as you gazed up at him.

“If I open them to find you naked, I’m not gonna find it very amusing.” The time off work brought back a bit of your humor, but you did close your eyes as you moved to sit up.

“Not doing that, but I really hope you like this.” He made sure your eyes were closed before he moved towards the still open door. “It’s, uh...it’s gonna be a little work, but I know we talked about doing this before.” He balanced the box in his arms carefully, kicking the door closed as he moved inside.

“I’m still convinced this is a sex thing.” You furrowed your brow, wringing your hands anxiously.

“It’s not a sex thing, hon.” He set the box at your feet and reached in to take out the furry, wriggling creature.

“It really sounds like it is.”

“Hold out your hands.”

You did with little hesitation because you trusted Frankie more than anyone, brow furrowing even more when something soft was placed into your hands.

“Open your eyes.”

You did, pausing when you looked down to find what looked to be a little mixed hound puppy staring up at you and wagging its tail, trying desperately to lick at any part of you it could.

The longer you stared at the puppy in silence, the more nervous Frankie became that this was a bad idea and that you were going to be offended by him trying to cheer you up with a dog.

Then you started sobbing, putting the puppy in your lap and reaching up to Frankie, who quickly moved to sit next to you.

He wasn’t sure if you were happy or not, but he wrapped his arms tight around you either way and let you cry against his neck.

“Is this good crying?” he asked tentatively, relaxing considerably when he felt you nod.

“Good, it’s good. Is it a boy or a girl?” For some reason, that question broke his heart a little, but he pulled away to watch the puppy paw at your shirt.

“A girl. Someone dumped her and her brothers and sisters at the shelter. But she’s ours now, if you want her.”

“Oh, baby. She’s so beautiful, Frankie.”

You held the puppy again and she wriggled around, teetering forward to lick at your chin which made you laugh loudly.

That was Frankie’s most favorite sound in the world and he’d been hearing it so infrequently that he was pretty sure he’d just fallen in love with you all over again.

He gently rubbed up and down your back, watching the puppy gnaw on your finger with those little sharp teeth. “You like her?”

“I love her. Thank you for...everything.” You kissed him gently, for loving you, for putting up with you, for wanting a baby with you, for doing his best to provide something else you dreamed of when your dream of a child wasn’t working out.

He pressed his head against yours and looked into your eyes in a tender moment that was quickly interrupted by the puppy leaping up and licking at you both. You both laughed and you set her down on the couch, letting her sniff around the new environment.

“You’ll need to pick out a name. Alright, alright, damn.” The puppy was trying to nose in behind him impatiently and he scooted forward a little, chuckling.

“Catfish,” you said so surely that Frankie looked at you with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re kidding me.”

“I want her to be named after her daddy.”

He shook his head, looking to his side to see that dopey little tan and black face staring up at him with her tail thumping on the couch cushion. “I guess there’s enough room for two Catfish around here, huh?”

She tilted her little head as he spoke, ears flopping around slightly, then dove right into his lap and started nipping at his hands.

You laughed, leaning over and nuzzling his shoulder. “We need to buy her some chew toys.”

“Uh, I did.”

“You sound guilty.”

“—I took off work early to grab her and we stopped by the pet store for food and shit, so I bought a few toys.”

“How many is a few toys?”

“Anything she wanted.”

“You softie.”

You watched him with adoration in your eyes as he playfully scolded the puppy for chewing on his jacket. “Put the puppy in the box.”

“Huh?”

“Put her in the box for a minute.”

Frankie looked confused until your hand slid between his legs, eyes widening when you squeezed him lightly. “Alright, baby girl, you hold tight and play with the ball I put in your box, okay?”

It was a month and a half later as Frankie stared at eight lines, two on each of the four pregnancy tests you’d taken, as well as the three digital screens that said ‘pregnant’ on the other ones, that you kissed Catfish’s head again and again and told her it was thanks to her that she was going to be a big sister.

#frankie morales x reader #frankie catfish morales x reader #frankie morales imagine #triple frontier imagine

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smol-nevi · 4 years ago

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I don't generally make this kind of thing a habit, but I think if you happen to be on the Crystal RP Discord, aka @crystal-rp-ffxiv, you should probably be aware of this kind of behavior, so here goes.

If you're on Crystal RP and the admin team decides they don't like you, you're going to be living under a microscope while they wait for you to mess up, if not bait you, probably while making up conspiracies about you as well. As for how I know this, I was a moderator for about a week's duration and saw it first-hand.

Unapologetically lengthy post. Receipts in the link above, long version below the cut.

From the first time I looked in the mod chat I knew something was wrong. I read backwards in the channel, thinking I'd acclimate myself and see what kind of rules precedents had been set and that sort of thing. I mostly just found out that they had it out for a particular member (at the time using the name Jericho) for not much reason. They'd spent a troubling amount of time over the past few months watching him and another member like vultures, believing them to be the same person and waiting for them to make some kind of mistake that would justify banning both of them...despite keeping different schedules, having different personalities and typing habits, and visibly being two different people. The admin team had come to the conclusion that Jericho was a troll who wanted to make them look bad, and anything he said or did was scrutinized to a ridiculous degree for evidence that would corroborate their belief.

Except none of the things they believed at all were true: he'd had a minor argument via DM with the head admin Benjimir Thursby's wife, Tessariel Aerlinn, who had made an overly broad statement about anime and Asian culture. Jericho had told her that overgeneralization about 'Asian culture' is potentially racist, and she became extremely angry, saying that because she's Asian, she can't be racist against Asians. After that, it seemed that Jericho was considered fair game for whatever retaliatory actions the two of them could justify.

Even a cursory glance at actual racism in Asia pokes Tessariel's statement entirely full of holes, and having personally read the conversation I didn't see anything actually inaccurate in his statement even if she believed it didn't apply to her. I asked what he had done that would merit such a response, because it felt very disproportionate to anything I'd ever seen him do publicly, and that was what I was told. The exchange via DMs had been screencapped and kept in a channel for evidence, and while I didn't get a copy of it, I did read it, and I said that I thought it sounded awfully one-sided and punitive and would have been much better as an actual conversation. I also expressed that I was concerned how much of the channel had been solely devoted to what was basically a witch hunt, considering that some of the server members had over the course of the past couple of months commented that the admins' behavior towards Jericho seemed biased.

I basically got a pat on the head and told that my opinion was "valued" but wrong. This would happen a lot over the course of the week.

Shit continued to escalate. Their favorite punching bag, who was acutely aware of the grudge by now and probably trying to be nice and discuss something that he thought they could all talk about, brought up some articles that stated that LOTRO might be having a graphical overhaul. This actually ended in him being put into some kind of time-out mute, because "everyone knows those articles are debunked already" despite them still being hosted on reputable games news sites. Back-channel, the admin consensus was that he was in fact trying to bait Benjimir and Tessariel into somehow looking stupid in public, because [paraphrasing] 'he knows how important LOTRO is to them.'

Benjimir in fact went off publicly about how he knows the dev team and they sent him 'personalized swag' for 'being himself' and that everyone should just listen to him because he's right. Someone else made a reasonable request for sources on statements that Benjimir made about the LOTRO improvements not happening, and they immediately became the team's private #2 punching bag.

The whole time I reiterated that this was really uncomfortable and I had serious concerns about the way they were handling Jericho. And as always I received a pat on the head and was told to not worry about it, there were really good reasons for it, really. He was 'bringing down the quality of discourse' on the server somehow. Benjimir decided that the only way he would unmute Jericho is if Jericho talked directly to him, and that Jericho tried to talk to any of the more level-headed members of the team first was taken as obvious evidence that he wanted to evade rules and create problems. I asked when we planned to unmute him, and Tessariel immediately jumped to the conclusion that he had messaged me, which wasn't incorrect but the way she worded it felt highly accusatory and I was beginning to feel that I was also in trouble somehow for not agreeing with the rest of the team.

Things came to a head quickly when I woke up and looked at the mod chat and they were having an animated conversation that started with Benjimir asking if it was 'bad that he was laughing at Jericho' and most of the rest of the team talking about how he was stupid, uninformed, a troll, etc. for the sin of having some misgivings about cryptocurrency, of all the things. One of the mods self-described their behavior as bullying. I said that this was extremely unprofessional and that I thought they should keep conversation to actual moderation matters, and if they had a personal disagreement with a server member they should handle it in a personal venue, not via official server moderation channels.

I was, for the final time, patted on the head, and told that this was not something they would consider, because the moderation team 'needs to be able to vent for their mental health' (never mind that the job was not stressful except for the rest of the team committing worse behavior than the server members) and that maybe I was in fact too sensitive for the job. Benjimir heavily implied that I had become too close to Jericho and was being manipulated, managed to misgender me somehow despite my having used solely male or neutral pronouns the entire time I'd been on the server, and after relating a story in which a couple of years ago a well-liked moderator left after having the same complaints as I did (which he saw nothing at all troubling about), suggested that I should be demoted to babysitting the lore channel.

So I took some time to collect receipts, which are linked at the top of the post, and told him where to shove it.

Since that time, things have actually somehow gotten worse on Crystal RP. Benjimir posted an entire page screed vaguely talking about "rampant negativity" that stated anyone with questions should DM him.

Upon DMing him with questions, Jericho was banned, the only reason given being that he was a 'poor fit' for the server in some vague way. I was immediately banned afterwards for calling out this decision as being driven by a personal vendetta in the feedback channel and let him know afterwards via DMs in no uncertain terms that I had logged everything I needed and would be building my case (and that he is an asshole). Jericho was reinstated, though I'm not sure what the conditions of his return were as that was after my ban and I didn't ask since I didn't want to stress him out further. Benjimir also reprimanded someone for discussing asexuality, stating in a DM to them that the conversation was somehow ERP related. I called him out on this via DM as well. Tessariel was not much later caught posting my last DMs to Benjimir in an entirely unrelated server, though she didn't include the part after that where I brought up his aphobia (during Pride Month, in a server with a rainbow icon no less). Benjimir for some reason decided to suddenly start following my FC's Tumblr well after our falling-out.

And as of today (6/24), Crystal RP now has seven pages of draconian rules, because it wasn't micromanaged hard enough before or something. Notably, a lot of these rules describe behaviors that they wanted to punish Jericho for but couldn't at the time justify, or that they'd like to punish me for but have nothing they can do to me. Or they exist to justify their own behavior, as now seen in the very beginning of the channel:

"This approach also provides our volunteers with leeway to act in good faith without the burden befitting a professional occupation."

"So we afford them the means to speak openly, vent, lament, candidly and yes, sometimes crassly and raw about everything and one."

Not only did they behave unprofessionally and shit-talk before, they have now encoded in the rules that this is acceptable and even good moderator behavior, because they saw someone else do it so it's fine (a lot of this wording is very similar to what I was told when I protested it). So rather than address anything I ever said past or present, Benjimir is choosing to double down and giving himself and his team explicit permission to be shitty, right in the opening paragraphs where you'd have expected a mission statement or at least some sort of welcome.

Which is about all you need to know about that server and its owners, in my estimation. I'd considered not even posting to Tumblr about it, but given that it's only getting worse, I think it should be generally known that this is how you can expect to potentially be treated.

#FFXIV #FFXIV RP #Crystal Data Center #Crystal RP #Balmung RP #Mateus RP #on one hand it's drama on the other I can and will call a spade a spade or in this case a douchebag a douchebag #this shouldn't be surprising to anyone who knows me even a little

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happyandticklish · 4 years ago

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Silent Laughter

Notes: It has come to my attention that I have written nothing for Shincelty, despite the two of them being one of my favorite parings on that show, and I have decided to right that wrong today.

Summary: Shinra proposes an experiment and Celty deals with her own inner doubt.

Usually, Celty didn’t mind the fact that she couldn’t speak.

It had its downfalls, of course. Pulling her phone out every time she wanted to communicate even the simplest of concepts wasn’t ideal, and could be highly frustrating at times. However, she had found over the years that there weren’t many moments when she needed to speak. Living with Shinra meant that conversations tended to carry themselves, even if she never spoke a word. His bubbly enthusiasm for everything more than made up for her monotonous silence.

There were moments, though, when she found the block highly aggravating.

That day brought forth one such moment. Celty had been relaxing, her body splayed lazily upon the leather couch the two shared while she waited for her husband to return. Normally, Shinra was the main occupant of their household, as he worked from home. Today though, he had been invited out by Izaya.

Or. Well. Invited probably wasn’t the right word. Izaya had called the other up on the phone and threatened to kill Shizuo should Shinra not meet with him to discuss “important personal matters”. This was code for Izaya being too stubborn to merely ask Shinra to hang out with him. He did this often, threatening homicide (usually towards their beloved Shizuo) if the other did not agree to meet up with him. At first, Shinra had been concerned, but after it had happened a couple of times he quickly saw through Izaya’s lazy façade. He called him out on it occasionally, but each time Izaya would merely shrug, insisting he had no idea what the other was talking about.

Celty herself had never understood their friendship. It wasn’t that she necessarily disliked Izaya; she understood that people were complicated and did complicated things because of it. Still, he seemed like a dangerous friend to keep, and one whom Shinra was often irritated by. Whenever she inquired about it, Shinra would just smile in confusion, replying, “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t we be friends?”

Celty allowed her thoughts to drift aimlessly as she waited, allowing the sun filtering through the blinds to warm her. Today was the first day in a while that she hadn’t been busy with work. Izaya, one of her main employers, was pre-occupied for the day as previously stated. Even the various gangs scattered throughout the city, all of whom tended to want her for some impossible task or another, had lightened up in their normally relentless persistence. She could hardly remember the last time she had been free to simply lounge around. She decided to take advantage of the moment, allowing herself to drift off into the vague semblance of sleep she exhibited.

She was roused almost minutes later by the sounds of a door kicked open and the exuberant tones of Shinra’s voice as he entered. “Celty! I have returned! Sorry I’m late; Izaya ended up running into Shizuo at Simon’s and I had to prevent the two from destroying the city in one go. Are you home?”

He struggled out of his shoes, hopping back several steps in his attempts. He popped his head into the living room, smiling once he noticed her. “Hey.”

Celty sat up, waving slowly as she brushed off the remaining lull of sleep. Shinra slowly slipped off his coat, taking a seat besides her on the couch. She started to bring her phone out from her pocket, intent on typing some semblance of a “how was your day?”, but before she could do so she found herself enveloped in the arms of the scientist. She froze, the suddenness of the action throwing her off guard for a moment. He buried his face into her shoulder, softly mumbling, “I missed you.”

Slowly, Celty allowed her muscles to relax, melting into the embrace. Shinra tended to be a more physical person than most, eagerly leaning against shoulders and knocking knees with others while watching movies; whenever they went out for any kind of date he always made sure to interlace his fingers with hers as they walked through the crowded streets. Sometimes, if the stress of work had caught up to him, he would curl up on her lap and she would run her fingers through his hair, allowing the other to relax. For him, touch meant affection, love, and caring. She had learned as much over the years.

She wrapped her arms around him in unison, wishing she had a mouth to kiss him, to reassure him how much she loved him too.

“How about we stay here?” he implored into her shoulder. “Forever. Just you and me and Shooter. We’ll both quit our jobs and I’ll cook you omelets and you can watch those dumb tv shows you’re so fond of, and neither of us puts our lives on the line for the sake of Ikebukuro.”

She curled her fingers in his hair, implying in that gesture everything she couldn’t say. He sighed, his body drooping against her. “I know. That doesn’t mean a man can’t hope.”

Celty retrieved her phone where she had dropped it on the cushion. She typed out a quick sentence, tapping Shinra’s shoulders insistently. He glanced up, eyes scanning the screen. We can grab something to eat, if you’d like? There’s a new sandwich place that opened up downtown.

“No,” he said, shaking his head resolutely. “If I cannot stop time, then at the very least I can make this moment last as long as possible. I’m sorry Celty, but I’m afraid I cannot move from this position. If I were to let go of you, there could be earth-shattering consequences.”

Earth-shattering? she replied skeptically.

“Utterly disastrous,” he confirmed in deadpan.

She tilted her neck down at him disapprovingly. You’ll have to let go eventually, you know.

“You can’t make me.”

Those words, spoken impetuously from the mouth of the foolish scientist, forewarned his doom. In the two’s time together, Celty had discovered many things about Shinra. She knew that he was fond of games and had a strange taste in cooking. She knew that he still listened to pop music, completely unashamedly, she might add. She had also learned that he was, quite possibly, one of the most ticklish people she had ever met before.

If she had possessed a mouth, she might’ve smirked.

Slowly, she returned her hands to his back, running her nails gently up and down the other’s spine. Shinra closed his eyes with a relaxed sigh, utterly unaware of the trick she would soon play on him. As time went on, her touch traveled casually away from his back, almost, almost, brushing against his sides. He tensed against her, arching a little against her touch.

“Celty.”

One finger carefully drew a path up his left side.

“C-Celty,” he tried again, his smile transforming into a wobbly grin as he tightened his grip around her. “No.”

Two fingers, scratching just under his ribs.

“This is entirely unfair,” he informed her, squirming away from her touch. “C-Completely and u-utterly uncalled fohor.”

All at once ten fingers on either side, scribbling with devastating softness. He yelped, bursting into a round of panicked giggles and squeezing her tight as he fought to keep himself from shoving her away. “Cehehelty, thihis ihihis mehehehean!”

His thin button-up did little to protect him, and she managed to get at his slender sides with ease. Each curl and twitch of her fingers sent him into helpless spasms, his arms trembling in their hold. Only when she pinched that one spot on his hips did he finally let go, arms shooting down protectively.

“Ohohokay, okay!” Shinra yelped, scrambling back on the couch. He took a moment to regain his bearings, pointing a finger at her accusingly. “You can’t use that against me every time you want something, you know.”

But you love it?

“That is…” he trailed off, a flush rising on his cheeks. “Irrelevant information. Besides, it’s not fair. How come you’re the only one who ever gets to tickle me?”

The black smoke surrounding her swirled inquiringly. What do you mean?

“Well, I mean, you’re—” he stopped himself, giving her a stern look. “You’re… not ticklish, right?”

Why wouldn’t I be ticklish?

“Well you’ve never reacted when I tried before,” he pointed out.

Shinra, she typed slowly, as though she were speaking to a child. I don’t have a head—I wouldn’t be able to laugh.

This gave the other pause. It had never occurred to him that her lack of reaction could have been because she couldn’t react, as opposed to her being unaffected. Now that the idea had entered his head however, it wouldn’t leave him alone. Part of it stemmed from a purely scientific viewpoint (could Dullahans be ticklish?), though he couldn’t deny that a greater portion of him was grateful for the chance at revenge.

He leaned across the couch eagerly, his attention entirely captivated by this new concept. Celty leaned back warily, but not away. “We do know that you feel pain, admittedly to a more muted level than most. That would imply that you can feel sensation. I guess I never connected the dots in my head before.” He put his hand to his chin, considering. Finally, he looked back up at her, a slightly hesitant look to his eyes. “Would you… would you be okay if I tested it?”

Tested it? Celty repeated slowly. As in…

“Tickle you,” Shinra filled in. “Only if you want to, of course. I wouldn’t consider doing it without your permission. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be dying of curiosity. But I understand if you don’t want to.”

Celty tried to imagine it, what it would be like to experience what had brought Shinra to the ground many times in the past. She knew she had been tickled before, though usually never purposefully. Merely an accidental glance against the side, a poke to get her attention. Once Shinra had grabbed her hips and squeezed suddenly, but his attempt had ultimately failed as Celty merely turned questioningly towards him.

She found it difficult to believe that something as simple as a light touch could bring her to hysterics, though she’d seen it work on Shinra countless times.

Alright, she agreed at last, finding that she herself was curious as to the outcome. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Shinra’s eyes widened, clearly having expected more of a fight from her. Still, he wasn’t about to let a chance like this pass him up. Cautiously, he uncurled her leg, placing it on his lap gently. He raised his hand, pausing inches away from her foot and quickly adding, “Oh, and make sure to tell me exactly how this feels! This is research, after all.”

Celty tensed, preparing herself for an onslaught of… well, what she wasn’t sure. But when Shinra lightly dragged his finger up her sole, she didn’t experience any kind of profound reaction. It was a prickling sensation, one that alerted her nerves to the action, but nothing altogether noteworthy. Shinra continued to drag the same finger up and down her arches, seemingly wanting to take it slow so she had time to process.

“How does it feel?” he asked curiously, glancing up from his task but not stopping as he did so.

Celty raised her phone, ready to type out a response, when suddenly Shinra’s finger drifted slightly, going in vague zig-zags down her foot. She jerked forward with a start, her toes curling protectively.

“Celty?” Shinra asked hesitantly. “Are you okay?”

Yes, she typed out, the words halted as she tried to come to terms with her own feelings. It just… tickled.

“It did?” Shinra confirmed excitedly. “That’s incredible! What did it feel like?”

You know what tickling feels like, she pointed out.

“Well, yes,” he said, nodding. “But for all we know, it’s an entirely different sensation for you.”

Celty’s fingers paused over her phone as she tried to decide a way to describe the earlier feeling. Electric. But also soft, at the same time. Sort of like when a bug crawls on your skin, but more intense.

“Interesting,” Shinra murmured. “I would say that’s pretty accurate to what it feels like. Still, we’ll probably have to do more testing to further confirm it. Would you be okay if I kept going?”

Celty thought about saying no, the vague devious excitement in his eyes making her wary, but she found that she was just as curious to experience the startling sensation again. It was strange to think that in all the time she had been among humans, she had never participated in the silly ritual. She nodded, and eagerly Shinra returned to his task, scratching lightly at her soles once more.

Again, strange sparks of feeling shot up her leg, and she jerked against his hold unconsciously. Shinra appeared more bold now, spidering his fingers softly over her sole with reckless abandon. She clutched her phone tightly, drawing her other knee up to her chest. It was somehow a comfort to protect the one foot that she could, the action giving her a strange sense of control over the situation. When he reached the ball of her feet, she spasmed, hilarity rising in her throat.

It was odd. Throughout all her life, Celty had never known the ability to laugh like others could, and never before had she felt an especial need for it. Now though, with Shinra’s fingers wrecking hell upon her, she found the need to laugh growing stronger, despite the fact that there was no outlet for it. She shook noiselessly, her shoulders drawing in.

“Wow Celty,” Shinra said, smiling affectionately over at her. “I never realized you were this ticklish. If I had known, I would’ve struck my revenge years ago.”

Celty wrapped her arms around herself, knowing that had she the ability to, she would be blushing right then.

She was able to survive a couple more minutes, squirming futilely on the couch, though that was more an unconscious protest than a genuine attempt to escape. He had discovered a spot on her toes that made her jump, her hands fisting into the fabric of the couch as she fought to keep herself from shoving him off.

It was only after five minutes had elapsed, that she began to realize the silence filling the room, stretching like a chasm between them. Guilt prickled slightly at her chest. Normally when the two of them were together, she had her phone on her and could therefore uphold easy conversation. Now though, with the distractingly pleasant and unbearable sensations squirreling through her, she was finding it impossible to type anything.

In an instant, black mist had wrapped itself tightly around Shinra’s wrists, pulling his hand away. His eyes widened in surprise at the sudden gesture, and he turned to see Celty quickly typing out a response. “C-Celty—”

Wait.

He frowned, tilting his head in concern. “Is… is everything alright? I didn’t go overboard did I? Whatever I did, I’m sorry—”

No, she interrupted, waving her hand fiercely in denial of his statement. You didn��t do anything. It’s only…

She hesitated on her next sentence, trying to think of a way to phrase it. Shinra waited calmly for her response, his eyebrows drawn down with vague worry.

I was just thinking that this can’t possibly be fun for you, she said at last. Shinra opened his mouth to deny the statement, but she quickly began typing again before he could say anything. I can’t laugh like other humans, or smile, even though everything in me wants to. Doesn’t that take away from it? For you I mean?

Shinra blinked, the words clearly the last thing he had expected. “Celty… how could you possibly think that?”

Celty didn’t respond, though her silence said everything he needed to hear.

He held up his hands imploringly, and after a moment Celty dissipated the mist with a flick of her hand. Once he was free again, he reached out, grasping her hand in his.

“For all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never had to identify you with a voice. And so I learned to recognize you by the other things that made you you, the soft step of your footsteps, the impatient cross of your arms when you’re exasperated with me. I don’t need to hear your voice to know you’re there. So in that case, how could I possibly long for a sound I’ve never even heard? I don’t need to hear your laugh to sense its presence. I can see it in the way you scrunch your shoulders, the tension in your muscles, the way your body shakes besides me. It may not be audible, but to me, it’s the most beautiful sound in the world—the laughter of silence. It’s so perfectly you, how could I possibly hate it?”

His words were spoken innocently, like when a child brings forth a truth they know to be real beyond a shadow of a doubt because they haven’t learned to suspect the world yet. Celty’s heart lifted in her chest, a burst of euphoria lighting and melting her limbs. She clutched his hand back, before reaching for her phone once more and quickly typing a response.

Thank you.

He grinned, flushing a little, as though her ineloquent reply had meant just as much to him as his words had to her. “There’s no need for that. I was simply speaking the truth. Although…”

She startled as he reached forward suddenly, enclosing the two of them in a hug. The true intention of his gesture became clear in a moment as his hands latched onto her sides, his fingers curling in just slightly. “If you really want to thank me, then I wouldn’t mind a continuation of our earlier experimentation?”

Celty paused, and then, with a wild carelessness, she hugged him back, tracing out a simple word onto his back.

Yes.

#tickle fic #shincelty #durarara #tickling #shinra kishitani #celty sturluson #durarara!!#fanfic #fanfiction

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scandeniall · 4 years ago

Text

always forever

Always Forever

pairing: rnb singer!iwaizumi x f!reader (technically its gn until the very end though)

summary/warnings: Iwaizumi asks his fwb to be in his new music video basically/aged up as the normal, fwb dynamics?, implied nsfw (aka asking to come over later), cursing, pretty tame tbh

Music video is Always forever // bryson tiller

a/n: this is 3k words of me wanting to start an rnb series and this stemmed from the headcanons i had started working on where i said “asks u to be in his mv”

“Are you guys nervous?” The question has a teasing nature to it which causes both you and Iwaizumi to look up from your respective phones to be met with Oikawa’s amusement.

“I think the video came out well. I am the one who produced it after all,”

Oikawa was met with a scoff from you and an unamused look from the man beside you. “I think I also did a really good job with casting didn’t I?” You don’t miss the mischief in his eyes as he looks between the two of you. You’re heard mumbling something about him being annoying before stating that you needed to go to pee. The door to the small studio closes with a click before Oikawa takes what was your place. The spot on the couch right next to Iwaizumi. “When are you gonna ask (Y/N) out?”

“When are you going to learn to mind your own business,” the words come out with a sigh, but the slight redness that creeps up Iwazumi’s neck isn’t missed by his friend.

“I’m just trying to help my dear friends out,” he waves off. “You’re about to drop a music video where you’re making out with (Y/N), which by the way you two looked awfully comfortable doing.” The suspicion in his voice isn’t missed and the reaction, or lack thereof, by Iwaizumi causes the brunette's eyes to widen in disbelief. “What the fuck—when did- is that why you wanted (Y/N) in the video,” “Will you keep it down.” This time iwaizumi groans before covering his face with his hands. “We’ve been weird for a few months now” he ignores the shock on his friends face. “When you came up with the concept, I don't know my mind just automatically drifted.” It took a moment for the shock to wear off before Oikawa speaks back up. “Are you two dating? What else have you been keeping from me. Your best friend might I add” “Would you shut up. We’re not dating it’s just-“ “That’s even worse,” Oikawa scoffs. “Not only do you keep the fact that you’re hooking up with (Y/N) a secret for who knows how long, but you’re not even dating to soften the wound.” He easily dodges the shove aimed at him by getting up. You’d be back soon and he figured he’d move back to his spot in the chair. Especially now. “You know Iwa, the two of you had chemistry. I’m sure I won't be the only one who picks up on that.”

— — — — — — — — “Iwa say something fun for once so (Y/N) can actually look like they wanna be here. We’re gonna reshoot that moment.” At the call from Oikawa you let out a laugh, head instinctively falling on Iwaizumi’s chest. “And Y/N, run your finger across his lip or something. You two are so stiff” “He’s not funny.” You can feel the words vibrate through his chest as you sit up a bit. As you do, you feel the way his finger shifts from your clothed back to the bare skin under the T-shirt. “You gotta admit he is sometimes,” you laugh out. “But he’s right. Come on Haiji, loosen up. This is for your first single off your long awaited album,” you exclaim sitting up fully now on the mattress. Iwaizumi can’t help but smile at the lilt in your voice before following suit. When he asked you to be the love interest in his music video you were kind of shocked. Sure, being friends with several musicians you’d been in your share of music videos. But never as a lead or a love interest. He’d asked you one night as he was heading home from a recording session. You’d stopped by after work seeing several of your friends there (working or just messing around, who knows). Everyone else had headed home for the night and he casually bought it up. “Hey Y/N?” The sound of his voice stopped you as you began heading to the door, Iwazumi trailing behind. You hummed a bread acknowledgement before turning to face the man. “What’s up?” Your eyes furrowed in concern. Something was off about him. He almost seemed nervous but you couldn’t be sure. “I chose the first single off the new album. Always Forever.” The news was a surprise to you. He’d been grappling between a few songs off the future release for a few weeks now, confiding in you several times about not knowing what to pick. He hadn’t told you that he finally decided on a track. “Oikawa came up with a video concept like the next day too-“ he was stalling. Something he only did when he was nervous. The speed at which your friend who had directed and produced several music videos for Iwazumi in the past peeked your interest. “I need a love interest and i was wondering if you’d be cool with it,” the words came out rushed and low but you still picked up on it and you felt your heart flutter for a moment. He was nervous. Nervous to ask you to be in his video. Your answer came embarrassingly quick yet you ignored it and played it off. “Of course. You got anyone else in mind for the video?” “It’s just us.” “Oh.” And after that a flurry of scheduling, planning, costuming and more you were ready to go. You were currently shooting the first of several bedroom scenes. This particular one had you clad in just a T-shirt and pretty tight shorts, halfway cuddled onto Iwaizumi the two of you faux conversing. “Hey just relax. We've been close before-“ “Not in front of a camera,” Iwaizumi groans, flopping back on the bed. The warmth on the bare skin of your back has you looking at him eyebrows raised. “No ones paying attention to us right now. Besides, they wouldn’t be able to tell.” You feel his hand slide up and down your back careful not to drag the fabric of your shirt up. You don’t miss the way he eyes you blatantly checking you out. “You look really good. “Just wait to you see the look for that scene” And it didn’t disappoint. The minute Iwaizumi saw you step onto the set he was speechless. Of course this was the outfit he’d be kissing you in. “I look good don’t I? Yachi did it again,” you give a quick spin in the outfit. The orange silky fabric hugged you in all the right ways and looked as if it was made only for you. “Wow.” It was the only thing he’d said causing you to laugh. He’d thought that Oikawa had been exaggerating when he teased that you were going to look good hot in the video, because you always looked amazing to him. He made a mental note to fuss at his friend later for not giving him a heads up that you’d be looking like that. “Like it,” you question, pushing him back towards the bed prop. You were vaguely aware of Oikawa telling you to get in place and we’re only helping Iwaizumi out. The grip on your wrist had you stopping. “You look amazing,” you felt your confidence skyrocket as he eyed you. That and your heart flutter at the subtle caress against the underside of your wrist. It took for one obnoxious whistle by the director to break him out of his trance. Good thing too because he almost acted in a way that would’ve shown everyone there that the two of you were more than just friends. You couldn't help but laugh at the scowl sent Oikawa’s way.

The two of you made your way onto the mattress and you let Iwaizumi get settled first. This particular scene had you straddling him and the reality of having to do so was finally hitting you. You're thankful for the set commotion going on around you—it means Iwaizumi’s tease isn’t heard by anyone else. “Nervous? Not like it��s your first time doing this.” Its enough to break the nerves that had started to form as you take his outstretched hand to help you up.

“No wandering hands,” you whisper once you're finally settled, his eyes immediately catching yours. You don’t miss the way his breath catches for only a moment as you shift lightly across his lap before your hands find their way to his chest.

“I could tell you the same thing” His hands find their way onto either of your thighs giving the slightest squeeze.

“I hope you know I’m coming over tonight.” This causes him to laugh and you can’t help but smile back.” He jokes that he was already planning on that before you two are taken out of the little bubble you’d found yourselves into.

“Remember you two have to kiss. Build it up slow. Put all that sexual tension you’ve got going to good use.” Your eyes widen quickly shifting to the man underneath you to gauge his reaction to Oikawa's words. He offers you the finest nod, an apology before flicking his friend off ignoring his “just saying Iwa,” before telling them to start the music.

The track is so loud you could feel the bass practically through your body. You listen for the cue as your lean down face hovering over his. You're thankful for the moments before the camera rolls as it allows Iwaizumi to calm the nerves that had started growing again. “You ok?” Despite nodding, he saw right through you.

His response is to guide one of your hands to his face, discreetly placing a kiss on your palm. “Relax. Pretend it’s just us. Just me and you. Can you do that.” You feel the hand not facing the camera offering comforting rubs along your leg before nodding. The part of the song nears closer as you lean in, lips ghosting his. “Good.”

Little did you know the part right before had been recorded as well. As soon as your cue hit your lips here on his. Moving as if you’d done this a million times rather than 1. The kiss started out as slow, lips moving hesitantly due to your awareness that you were in fact on camera. You’d pulled back just the tiniest bit almost ready to ask if that were good before Iwaizumi quickly stopped you. “Relax baby,” before pressing his lips back to yours. The words sent several emotions through you. He’d never called you that before. Yet it was enough to shake the hesitation. You allowed yourself to get loss in the kiss and in the way he smiled against your lips. You were vaguely aware of Oikawa yelling out praises and more instruction.

“Keep your hand right there (YN)!” “Soften the grip just a little” “Wait Iwa let Y/N take the lead”

You pulled away when the need to breathe overcame you. Your eyes locked on his now shiny lips, a quiet apology escaping you.

The sound of footsteps quickly approaching you forced you to slide yourself off his lap and onto the edge of the bed instead. “Well that was—hot. Now I’m gonna need you two to do it again. I want to try a different angle”

— — — — — — —

It’d been two hours since the music video dropped and you had to shut your phone off while you were at work. You’d been getting tagged in dozens of tweets. Fans of Iwaizumi are either speculating ‘I just knew (YN) was dating someone. You’re not friends with that many musicians and can’t not be’ or complaining that their fav was in a relationship or could’ve done better, or better yet that he was still dating Oikawa and they weren’t ready to go public. You haven't spoken to Iwaizumi since the night before when you saw the final version, edits and all before he dropped you off.

You sigh in relief when you see the time and that you could finally go to lunch. Turning your phone on, you clock out and scroll through the notifications on your phone. A few from friends, congratulating the video or suggestive emojis with question marks. The only one that stands out are three texts from Iwaizumi

You take lunch at 12:30 right?

Coming by with food

Hey, whenever you’re out I’m parked out back. Far end of the lot.

Despite your surprise you send a text confirming that you were on the way before heading out.

“What did I do to earn lunch from the Iwaizumi Hajime? Famous singer and wet dream to many.” It’s the first thing you say when you see him. He’d reached over to open the door and you hadn’t even gotten in yet. You only laugh at the look he shoots at you, knowing it was fake annoyance as he told you to just get in the car.

“Congrats on the single. And the video,”

“Couldn’t have done it without you.” You watch as he reaches in the bag to pull out a takeaway bag from one of your favorite spots. “So I brought you lunch. Figured I’d treat you for being in the video.” You gratefully take the container offering a thanks and follow his lead as he scoots his seat back. He almost looks as if he wanted to say something else but decided against it, instead turning on the aux. You’re aware of the way his eyes keep falling on you as you eat and it has a feeling of unease settling in.

“You gonna eat or keep staring at me?” The words come out quieter than you wanted them to and you mentally curse yourself for it. He mumbles an awkward sorry which has you shifting uncomfortably in the seat. Something was up. You finish your lunch unusually fast. Maybe it was due to the way you forced your focus onto the meal rather than the strange tension that had settled in the air. The sound of Iwaizumi clearing his throat has you looking back at him and you suddenly find yourself annoyed at the dark sunglasses covering his eyes and thoughts.

“I actually wanted to talk to you about something. But I figured I’d let you eat first just in case we ran out of time.” He motions for you to hand him your trash before moving the bag out the way. The way he nervously knots the bag does nothing to settle your own thoughts. “It’s about the video, well kind of”

“Do people hate it?” Your voice comes out disappointed. Not because of people’s thoughts of you, but you knew how much this song meant to him. He chose it as the single for a reason and wanted it to be the start of releasing his favorite album yet. You’d heard about how late he got back from the studio, and even witnessed some of his writing sessions for it and the intensity, care and passion that went into each song.

“I haven't been online much today but from what I’ve seen they like it. But that’s not what I mean. I kinda wanted to talk about us.”

“Oh”

“Yeah,” he sighs before removing his sunglasses to face you. “Oikawa knows about us messing around. He found out yesterday when you went to the bathroom. Said we had chemistry and he put two and two together.” He rushes the words out but you’re still able to understand. “Listen, I’m sorry. I just didn’t want him to like blabber it to you. Sometimes I hate how smart he is.”

You let out the tiniest laugh. “Dude why were you so nervous to tell me that Oiks knows were sleeping together.” Suddenly all the tension that had been building seemingly cleared. “Like you said. He’s smart. I’m surprised it’s taken this long.” You watch as he considers your words before agreeing.

“He told me that others would be able to pick up on our chemistry. Mattsun and Makki both texted me about the video so I guess he was right.” This time you agree. You’d gotten your own texts from mutual friends. Friends who should’ve been focused on their tours overseas rather than your love life. You’d have to remember to text Kuroo back later.

“Speaking of that. There’s one more thing I wanted to say. Actually it’s why i came down here.” You watch as he turns down the radio completely before grabbing at one of your hands. “I haven't slept with anyone else since you and everyone was right. We do have chemistry and I like you.”

“Are you asking me out,” your hand tightens slightly around his before he nods.

“I’m asking you to be my girlfriend, if that’s ok with you? We already made out on camera, it’ll be really awkward if you say no,” he teases. He could already tell by the way your eyes lit up. He also may have gotten a confirmation from a friend that you were into him too.

“Skipping the dating stage? How bold of you. But I guess I’m gonna have to say yes. I like you too. But now you have to write a song about me.” It’s you that leans in first but he’s quick to follow his handling coming to rest on your cheek. His next words have you pausing and pulling away right before your tips touched his, much to his annoyance.

“Already done that. Several times”

“Wait are you serious,” his lips come to meet your cheek as you avoid him yet again. “What songs.”

“Can we talk about this later. I kinda want to kiss my girlfriend before she has to go back to work.” His eyes shift towards the clock and you see that it’s almost time for you to head back.

“Come on just one song Haiji.”

“Kiss first. Song second,” he sighs in compromise, pulling your face back towards him. You roll your eyes before agreeing, placing your lips on his. Unfortunately for him your phone's alarm goes off signaling it was time for you to head back. You can’t help but laugh at the way Iwaizumi groans in annoyance. “See now it’s time for you to go,” he scolds before pressing a quick peck against your lips. Then a second and third before pulling back for good. “Can I come over tonight?”

“Not unless you tell me a song.” Your hand creeps towards the door handle as he stays silent. “I’m leavingggg. You got 15 seconds.” You mentally start counting down as you put more and more pressure on the door handle. Right as you reach 1 he speaks.

“Learn Ya is about you. Now I’ll see you tonight.” With that he gently pushes you out the car, rolling the window down as you start walking back. “Have a good day.”

a/n: now listen idk what this is or if it even makes sense. all i know is that i wanted to be both bryson and lani and didnt know who i was more jealous of. and iwa gives me bryson vibes. also wrote this over several days little by little and did not read in its entirety so who knows if it even makes sense. I also think i wanna do a whole rnb boy series so yeah

im thinking suna next but also big sean and jhene dropped the body language video just hours ago and the ideas are....swimming. might fit suna bc i dont see him as the best rapper like sean but makes hits anyways

#haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #iwaizumi x reader #iwaizumi imagine #haikyuu imagine #haikyuu imagines #hq imagines #hq headcanons #iwaizumi x you

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ace-oreos · 4 years ago

Note

For the prompt ask if you’re still doing it- alpha gets back from being tortured by ventress, Fordo’s there to pick up the pieces, both mentally and physically

I have to admit, I was excited to do this as soon as I read it - putting Alpha in a more uncertain situation like that and seeing how it develops is really fun. It’s also very challenging, which is partly why it’s so fun. @shadow-hyder was a huge help when I was stuck halfway through trying to navigate Alpha in an emotional situation we rarely see him in.

Prompts like this that make me explore new aspects of Alpha’s character are my favorite. 😁 So many thanks to you, anon!

I feel like I should mention that I was listening to Nonstop from Hamilton... well, nonstop right around the halfway point. So there may be a few vague references in there. XP

tw: mentions of blood (nothing graphic)

The barracks block is empty and silent, and Alpha-17 can only be grateful. He’s not ready to face anyone else.

Luckily, Fordo isn’t due back from the Mid Rim for a few weeks yet - Alpha made a point of checking not long after he was discharged from the medbay.

(It still isn’t enough time.)

(The most he can hope for is that he’ll be able to pull himself together long enough to ward off any concern.)

He forces himself to shower, rinses the last of the caked blood from his skin. The water would almost be soothing if it didn’t make the wounds littering his skin sting and burn. Proper medical treatment wouldn’t go amiss, but the idea of admitting to his vulnerability makes his stomach twist and his throat tight.

It’s nothing I can’t handle by myself, he decides, shoving away the doubt that’s already wormed its way into his thoughts.

It’s nothing he can’t handle when he wakes from a fiftful doze some hours later, damp with sweat and breath coming short. It’s nothing he can’t handle when scars that are just beginning to form break open and bleed anew when he pushes a little too hard during a solo training session. It’s nothing he can’t handle when he can’t bring himself to let his guard down long enough to sleep and instead paces the halls at all hours of the night.

At first, the quiet is a relief - time to process his thoughts he wouldn’t be afforded otherwise. But it becomes stifling over time, the silence that both presses in and somehow leaves too much room for him to think at the same time. The stark walls don’t offer shelter so much a reflection he’s not yet willing to see.

He almost misses Fordo, some days. Other days he can only be thankful that Fordo isn’t here, because his brother is the only one who would see that he’s falling apart at the seams.

_______________________

Training becomes an escape, of sorts, and Alpha throws himself into it for hours on end. He can almost convince himself that nothing has changed if it weren’t for the twinge and pull of half-healed wounds that leave thin trails of blood on his skin when he refuses to let up.

(It wasn’t enough last time.)

He suspects Fordo wouldn’t approve, but it’s for the best.

(He won’t make that mistake again.)

(He isn’t any less of a soldier than he was before, and sometimes he even recognizes as much, but then he remembers feeling utterly powerless and he can’t bring himself to stop.)

Alpha can’t shake the feeling that he’s running out of time somehow, so he attacks it the only way he knows how: relentless, single-minded, determined to find the vulnerability at its source and eliminate it.

He doesn’t know what he’s trying to prove, but he does know - all too well - it’ll keep eating away at him until he does something about it.

_______________________________

It doesn’t take long for Alpha to find comfort in his voluntary solitude. Training alone after hours lets him breathe again. It’s… calming, almost; nothing like the uneasy restlessness that overtakes him when he slows down a breath too long.

(You don’t know when to stop, Fordo warned him time and again - but he’ll have to eventually, and he doesn’t know what will happen when he does.)

He’s putting himself back together for the first time in his life, and he thinks it might just work if he were left to his own devices.

But Fordo, being the sort who would give his life for a brother without a second thought, never met a challenge he didn’t like to puzzle out so he could piece it together again his way. It’s only a matter of time before he adds himself to the equation, so Alpha isn’t as surprised as he should be when Fordo arrives unannounced just before reveille.

“I thought you were slugging it out with the CIS in the Mid Rim,” Alpha says slowly, not bothering to hide his bemusement.

Fordo shrugs. It’s not like him to evade the unspoken question, but there’s something his face Alpha can’t quite read. “We took their forward operating base a few days ago. My squad can manage without me.”

“Fordo…”

“We’re winding down anyways,” Fordo dismisses. “This wasn’t much of a haul as far as those things go.”

Never one to dance around an issue, Alpha asks pointedly, “So what are you doing here?”

Fordo’s silence is enough of an answer. The carefully neutral expression is gone, and Alpha doesn’t like the look playing across his brother’s face now.

“You shouldn’t - ”

“- have bothered?” Fordo interrupts. “Don’t give me that osik.”

“Your men need you.”

“And my brother doesn’t?”

“I thought you could figure it out for yourself,” Alpha returns.

“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t,” Fordo counters.

Alpha closes his eyes against the rush of anger that overtakes him. He wouldn’t be half as furious if he didn’t know there was gratitude somewhere beneath it. I don’t need your help. He doesn’t need Fordo’s help, except -

Except he does, and it terrifies him to admit it, and there’s no chance Fordo will be fooled by any sort of front he puts on -

“Udesii, ner vod.” Fordo’s hands are raised, placating. “I know it’s not what you want, but let me worry about you just this once.”

“Because I could jeopardize the mission?” Alpha grinds out.

Something he’s tempted to mistake for hurt flashes across Fordo’s face. “Because I care.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he doesn’t even try.

___________________________

It’s a mark of how remarkably Fordo knows him that he isn’t put off when Alpha spurns his attempts to help. He navigates Alpha’s temper with steady patience Alpha has never seen before and responds with diplomacy to rival Kenobi’s. If he’s frustrated, he hides it well.

A few days and Alpha doesn’t bother taking out his residual anger on his brother. It’s not really directed at him, anyways - he just happens to be a convenient target for the deep-seated disquiet that’s been threatening to overwhelm Alpha for weeks now.

Alpha doesn’t resist when Fordo drags him to the mess hall, more for his brother’s peace of mind than his own. It’s still too much of a crowd for his taste, but letting Fordo have his way spares him a great deal of aggravation.

Fordo doesn’t press him for conversation, which suits Alpha fine. Bad enough that there’s been plenty of time for rumors and speculation to circulate the ranks; the last thing he wants is to recount everything that happened after Jabiim. Some days Fordo relays his squad’s latest doings, and Alpha can’t help but smile despite himself.

It’s early enough that the mess hall is nearly empty aside from a handful of pilots just returned from a simulation. Alpha is forced to admit, however grudgingly, that Fordo might’ve been on to something, insisting that they come so early.

“You should eat,” Fordo adds halfway through what’s shaping up to be a long-winded account of a recent misadventure on the other side of the galaxy.

Alpha shrugs noncommittally in response. “‘M not that hungry.”

Fordo looks skeptical. “How long are you going to keep this up?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Alpha mutters, studying the table so he doesn’t have to meet his brother’s eyes.

“You’re impossible,” Fordo says under his breath with an eye roll to match. He shoves his own plate towards Alpha. “Go on.”

Alpha swallows a few mouthfuls without complaint. As is his standard now, it’s for Fordo’s sake more than his own. No doubt Fordo knows exactly what he’s doing, but his brother doesn’t question it.

__________________________

Fordo joins him to train now. He follows Alpha’s lead and goes about it in grim silence, but there’s something companionable about it nonetheless.

Alpha soon takes to challenging Fordo over the training droids. An organic opponent is more complex; another Alpha ARC means it’ll be a good fight. Fordo doesn’t hold back by any means, but he’s mindful that Alpha isn’t quite back to top form yet.

It would be a lot easier if he didn’t feel every pull and strain when he and Fordo are locked body-to-body or when he’s slammed to the floor because he couldn’t dodge his brother’s attack in time. Afterwards he’s careful to hide the new scars that have opened again, dressing the wounds when Fordo is out of sight.

He’s cursing at a length of bandages that he can’t quite secure one-handed when the door slides open. Bracing himself for the lecture, Alpha lifts his chin.

Fordo, to his credit, takes it in stride. “Let me give you a hand with that.”

Alpha fights the urge to pull away when Fordo touches his arm. He’s careful, gentle, but Alpha’s skin burns with the contact. Thankfully, Fordo knows what he’s doing and doesn’t take longer than he needs to; Alpha’s hands are shaking by the time his brother sits back.

“It’s okay, ner vod,” Fordo says softly.

It isn’t yet, but Fordo is here with him, and Fordo is hurting with him too. Alpha can’t express it, but he nods anyways, and he sees in his brother’s eyes that he understands.

__________________________

Fordo is unusually quiet, even for 0500 and barely six hours of sleep. Alpha still prefers to conduct their meals in near silence, but he’s become accustomed to Fordo’s idle chatter. Their corner of the mess feels odd without it.

Just as he’s readying himself to speak, Fordo draws a deep breath and says, “I got new op orders last night.”

“It was bound to happen,” Alpha answers like it doesn’t cut far deeper than he expected.

“Given the chance I would’ve sent this one on,” Fordo continues slowly, “but I’ve got a squad waiting for me.”

And we don’t have forever.

“Don’t worry about it,” Alpha assures. “I get it.”

A look of relief crosses his brother’s face like he had something to feel guilty about in the first place. “Vor entye, ner vod.”

Alpha allows himself a smile. “Someone has to keep your di’kute in line.”

Fordo laughs at that. “You’re telling me.” Then his face becomes pensive. “What about you?”

“I’m lucky to have made it this far without Kenobi asking when I’ve got time to help him win over another unsuspecting Senator. I’m sure I’ll have a new assignment soon enough.”

Fordo turns his fork over in his fingers. “We could always use another soldier.”

It’s not an offer he extends lightly, Alpha knows. He’s tempted to take him up on it, but…

“I appreciate it. Really, I do.” He hesitates as he mulls over how to phrase it. “But I have things sorted out now. And…”

Fordo smiles. There’s an edge of regret to it, but it’s genuine. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“I will,” Alpha promises.

Fordo’s gone by the next morning. They don’t waste time on goodbyes; neither of them put much stock by promises that can’t be kept.

After so many days of his brother’s quiet company, his quarters are strangely empty. The silence isn’t the refuge it was, but it’s not hostile, either, like it’s still holding on to some part of his brother’s presence. It’s still comforting in its own right, but not in the way he’d imagined.

It’ll be back to the front soon enough. He can only guess what the war will throw at him next, but if he’s lucky, it won’t be long before he sees Fordo again. He hasn’t properly thanked his brother yet, and he’s curious to see if his brother’s squad lives up to their reputation. It’ll certainly be interesting, Alpha thinks.

Vode an.

#alpha-17 #alpha 17 #captain fordo #the clone wars #star wars #fanfic prompt #thanks for the prompt!#i had so much fun with this one #my askbox is open!

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imjusthereforbatfam · 4 years ago

Text

Never-Ending Encore, ch. 4

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5

Chapter Summary: Eden is just fine, thank you very much. Stitches? Hospitals? Noooooo thank you, sir.

Warning: minor swearing, minor blood, injured character, nonchalance towards death

—

Chapter 4:

“Hey, you okay?”

“Gah!” Eden snapped toward the sudden voice — too fast. Her vision went black.

Someone swore as the earth careened under her, spinning like a carousel gone wild. She slipped into the darkness, her stomach doing somersaults. It was as if a powerful storm had caught her and twisted her outrageously high into the air, leaving her hurtling blindly toward the earth.

Something strong grabbed her, holding her steady. Eden blinked, her sight gradually returning from the blackness. Everything continued to sway and she groaned in dizzy displeasure.

“Easy there,” the strange, familiar voice urged. “Easy.”

She did her best to focus on the red figure in front of her. It swam around in her vision before eventually settling in place. A shiny red… something above a strong pair of shoulders. A… head? No, no. It was a… a… Eden furrowed her brows, trying to pull the word from her murky mind.

A helmet. That’s what it was. And she knew the man wearing it. She remembered the angry look of his “eyes” and the way he’d towered over her. He’d frightened her. But then he laughed with her — and then he laughed at her. She squirmed as the memory grew clearer.

“Hold still,” he ordered, his voice sounding more robotic than human. Under his brown jacket, a red symbol popped against the dark grey of the rest of him. A red bat.

Was that his name? No, no— it was Red Hood. He wore a red helmet and a red bat, but Red Hood was his name. He’d made a joke about it. She remembered.

“Shit,” he hissed, looking down. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

Blood?

Slowly, Eden became aware of the pressure on her neck and the sticky wetness there that went all the way down her shirt. Then she noticed the same with her left hand. She tried looking down at them, but Red Hood forced her chin up. For that brief moment, her hand was empty.

“Hold still,” he said again.

“Okay,” she murmured, still struggling to come out of her daze. She felt the pressure on her hand again. “Are you holding my hand?”

“No. I’m trying to stop the bleeding.”

“Oh, okay.” She furrowed her brows. “Why?”

“Because you’ll die if I don’t.”

“Well, that’s not such a big deal,” she mumbled, confused by the gravity of his words. “It’s fine if I die, you know.”

Red Hood shifted and stared straight at her. Despite being unable to see it, his gaze was piercing. It drilled right through the fog in her mind, making Eden realize what she’d said. More importantly, she realized what it sounded like. Especially to someone who didn’t know.

“I’m sorry!” she said jolting forward. Red Hood pushed harder against her neck, forcing her to lay against the building again. “That wasn’t—” She glanced down, embarrassed but trying not to move her head. “That wasn’t what I meant to say, I swear. I meant to say… um… I don’t know what I meant to say but it wasn’t, uh, that.”

Red Hood didn’t respond. The angry glare etched into his helmet’s white eyes amplified the intense, unreadable emotion coming off him.

Eden looked away, her face hot. From the corner of her eye, she caught the sight of one of her dead attackers.

“Um. So. About those guys…”

“Don’t worry,” Red Hood said gruffly. “They’re not dead.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” he scoffed.

“I’m not disappointed!” she said quickly. “Just…”

“Surprised?”

“No! … Okay, maybe a little,” she admitted. “But are they really not dead? You kinda shot them, Mr. Hood. Where I come from, that generally kills people.”

He made a short noise. “They’re alive, I promise.” He moved her head slightly, readjusting the pressure on her neck. “You’re the cookie girl,” he said after a moment.

Eden blinked at him in surprise. She didn’t think someone like him – a masked vigilante, an ex-mob boss and killer, a hero – would remember a random spaz like her.

It wasn’t a question, but she still nod—

“Don’t nod.”

She totally did not nod.

“I’m the cookie girl,” she confirmed with a smile. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Hood. Though I wish it was under better circumstances.”

Red Hood hummed, then quietly dipped his head. He glanced down to where the two men lay in the street, apparently still alive.

She couldn’t know for sure, but Eden had the sneaking suspicion his face held the same pensive look Mama's sometimes did. The one she slipped on when someone hunting for their spouse or kids started crossing a line. The look that warned people just how dangerous her mother could be. The silent reminder of what she could, would, do to scumbags stupid enough to push their luck.

“I’m glad you liked them by the way,” Eden suddenly chirped, relieved when his attention returned to her. “The cookies, I mean. I got your note; it was very sweet of you to leave one. I guess everything went okay with the, uh,” she gestured vaguely in the direction of her apartment, “the vigilante thing on my street last week?”

He stared at her a moment. “Uh… yeah. Yeah, it worked out,” he said sounding more than a little baffled.

Eden grinned, pleased to have distracted him. “Glad to hear it, Mr. Hood."

After another moment, Red Hood suddenly moved forward, tilting his head as the pressure on her neck lessened briefly. Then he did the same with her hand, checking it.

“The bleedings almost stopped,” he muttered to himself, almost in disbelief.

“Well, that’s good!”

He looked up at her again. She lifted her brows, smiling innocently. A small sound escaped him, either a scoff or a chuckle.

“And it doesn’t sound like you’re choking on blood.”

“More good news,” she said happy to hear the amusement in his distorted voice.

“And you have your chatty, chipper attitude back.”

“I’m not chatty and chipper,” she shot back. “I’m a witty bundle of nerves that doesn’t know how to shut up.”

“Oh, is that what you are?” Red Hood asked with a snicker.

“Unfortunately, yes. As you can see, it’s worked out very well for me so far.”

He mumbled something – too garbled by whatever it was that garbled his voice for Eden to understand – and shook his head. He looked over her wounds again. She could almost feel him frowning at her neck.

“You’re gonna need stitches for that.”

A hearty chuckle came from her throat. Her – her! Eden Smith! – with stitches! The boys would howl at the moon if they heard!

But her humor quickly evaporated when a sudden, sharp pain followed the laugh.

She gasped as her body jerked. A stinging, burning feeling in her neck dug down into her chest. Every ounce of air hissed out of her lungs. She clutched at Red Hood’s hands — already on top of the deep cut and forcing more pressure back onto it.

“Don’t move. You’re okay,” he urged. “You’re okay, Cookie Girl.”

Eden – gapping like a fish out of water, blinking through the pain – still had the good sense to glare at him.

“Breathe,” he told her.

She forced a deep breath of air into her lungs. Then another. And another.

“There you go,” he soothed. “You got it, Cookie Girl. Keep it up.”

“My name’s—” wheeze “—not—” wheeze “—Cookie Girl!”

“No offense, but I really don’t care right now.”

“Well, I do! My name’s Eden,” she said stubbornly. “Eden Smith.” She took one more good breath then forced her body to relax as the pain slowly ebbed. A few seconds passed; Red Hood kept applying the same amount of force to her neck. “You can stop that now. I’m fine.”

He made a gruff noise. She gave him a small shove with her good hand but was like a breeze pushing against a rock; ridiculously ineffective. He got the hint though, and the pressure eased. She took another big breath right after, to reassure him.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah,” he grumbled. “You need to get to a hospital.”

“Absolutely not, but thank you.”

Red Hood tilted his head. “Did you hit your head, too? I already said you needed stitches, and after that little episode—”

“No, I’m fine, thank you,” she said hurrying to her feet.

The world veered off its center again and Eden leaned too far over trying to correct it. Her body stumbled and fell into Red Hood as he came up after her. He caught her with unfair ease and Eden’s face exploded with heat.

“That was on purpose,” she grumbled, desperately ignoring how firm his muscles were as she used his arms to balance herself. “I’m fine.”

“You are definitely not fine, Cookie Girl.”

“Eden.”

“Whatever. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

She’d just about gotten her footing back when he moved his hands around her. Surprised at the action, she jolted and slipped. Red Hood caught her a second time, with even greater ease.

“Did you do that on purpose, too?” he mocked.

“I might’ve,” she said indignantly, her nose in the air.

He shook his head at her. He turned her so she could lean into his hold as he budged her forward, but Eden just used the position to dig her heels in. He huffed.

“You realize I can just throw you over my shoulder if you're gonna keep being difficult, right?"

“Mr. Hood, please!”

He stopped, startled perhaps by the seriousness of her plea. Eden took the opportunity to turn and face him again. She took a gloved hand in her good one, holding it as tightly as she could, begging him to listen.

“I’m sorry I’m being difficult – I really am – but you don’t understand. I can’t go to the hospital, Mr. Hood, it’s… I'm...” She looked down, not sure what to say.

It wasn’t dangerous, necessarily. Or bad, or unsafe. She could go to the hospital and get treated. The victim of a mugging-gone-wrong needing some stitches wouldn’t raise any red flags. And if they told her to come back for a checkup, she could just cancel the visit later or skip it entirely.

The problem was her name. Specifically, them putting her name into their databases.

Did hospitals let patients go by Jane Doe if they asked nicely? Maybe. But anonymous patients still have to tell the staff their name at some point, don't they? For payments or whatever? That was a risk Eden couldn't take, especially not for something as small as two little cuts.

Chances were, Mama already knew where she was. That was the first thing a person learned living under her roof: Louanne Smith always knows more than you think she does.

She was probably just leaving Eden alone for now; giving her space until she was ready to reach back out unprompted. She probably checked in on her from time to time, too; in some invisible way Eden could only guess at.

But if her name popped up at a hospital, or an urgent care, or – heaven forbid – a morgue? There was no doubt in her mind that her mother would swoop into Gotham City and be standing face-to-face with her in mere hours. Eden couldn't handle that right now. And if Frank somehow caught wind of it, too? Now that he – apparently – cared about her well being again?

Eden really could not handle that possibility right now. Or ever.

“Alright.”

Eden peered up at Red Hood's sudden verdict. “Alright?” she said.

“I won’t take you to a hospital.”

"You... You won't?" A breath of relief spilled from her lungs as her worries left her body. With a sincere, gracious smile, she put a hand on his chest. The metallic-like material of the bat symbol was cool against her sliced palm. “Thank you, Mr. Hood. Thank you very, very much.”

Red Hood shifted, moving his hand up and across his helmet as if to push his hair back, then gripped the nape of his neck. “Yeah, you’re welcome,” he grumbled. The distortion nearly garbled his voice completely, making him sound more embarrassed than he probably was.

Eden snickered at the idea – the dangerous, infamous Red Hood embarrassed by little ol' her – then gagged and shoved her good hand on top of her stinging neck. She put up the other hand to stop Red Hood from grabbing her. The pain wasn’t as intense this time, nor did it dig quite as deeply into her throat and chest. She was starting to heal — not that it sounded like it, the way she was gasping.

“You still need help,” he said, serious again as she took long, deep breaths. He tilted his head upward, toward the rooftops. After a moment of silent contemplation, he huffed and wrapped a tight hand around Eden’s waist.

Her entire face went up in flames as he pulled her close. She wanted to ask what he was doing, but what came out instead was a very proper and dignified “Gyuhh!?” sound.

“Hold on tight,” he said pulling out and aiming a— a grappling hook!?

“Waitwaitwaitwaitwait!”

Red Hood, with his finger on the trigger, jerked to a halt. He looked down at her, his head tilting to the side.

“I almost died going to the store so I could make some bread,” she said pointing to her nearly forgotten grocery bags. “I sure as heck ain’t leaving my stuff behind now!”

He stared at her, his hold on her faltering. Eden felt her face heating up again. She wondered if he was beginning to regret coming to her aid.

Even so, she did not dip her head or back down. She’d paid for those ingredients fair and square, and if dying wasn’t on the menu tonight, there was absolutely no reason for her to have to go back to the store and buy the same things a second time.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” he muttered.

“Incredibly so,” she said nodding firmly.

He stared at her another few seconds, then sighed. Letting her go, he went and quickly collected her things. Picking up the last bag, he glanced into it and looked back over at Eden.

“You seriously went to the store in the middle of the night to bake bread?” he asked in disbelief.

“I just said I was serious."

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you were serious serious.” He shuffled her bags around as he walked up to her again, looking through them. “This is literally just eggs, flour… yeast...”

“Yes. We’ve been over this, Mr. Hood. I just told you I was serious, like, two seconds ago.”

“There’s not even any booze,” he said mystified.

Eden blinked at him. “Mr. Hood, I’m starting to think you need more medical attention than I do.” She reached out to take the bags from him, but Red Hood just slid them up his arm, scoffing.

“I think you need help in the head, Cookie Girl.”

“Keep it up, mister," she said with a glare, "and I’m gonna start calling you Red Bat.”

“You know,” he contemplated, pulling her close again and taking out his grappling hook, “I could just bring you to a hospital. It’d be much faster and easier than me—”

“Actually!” She threw her arms around him, talking in a high, fast pitch. “I suddenly feel Cookie Girl growing on me, Mr. Red Hood, sir! It’s a real sweet nickname; you can 100% call me that anytime!”

Red Hood chuckled at her. The vibrations from his chest ran through to hers, reminding Eden just how tightly he was holding her. “Then hang on, Cookie Girl.”

She nodded, lowering her head and tightening her grip on him. This wasn’t her first time traveling through Gotham via grappling hook; she’d done it once before, years ago, on her first visit to the city. She could still remember the breathless thrill of soaring across the city's skyline; her remaining fears transformed to smiles and laughter. Her hero had laughed with her.

She would try not to do that now that she was an adult. Especially not with Red Hood. He would certainly tease her.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

He lifted the grappling hook and lowered himself slightly. Eden followed his lead. He pushed off the ground and they were brought high into the air.

Eden immediately grinned, weightless and free in the city's skies. It was as amazing as she remembered it. —

Any feedback is loved and appreciated! 💕🥰💕

Chapter 5

#red hood #jason todd #red hood x oc #jason todd x oc #red hood x reader #jason todd x reader #jason peter todd #oc: Eden Smith #Never-Ending Encore #jason todd fanfiction #red hood fanfiction #my writing #cross posted on ao3

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