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barnes-dameron · 4 years ago

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Heat Signatures

*not my gif

The Mandalorian x reader

Summary: The Mandalorian spots something interesting when you’re in a his line of vision while he’s looking with his thermal tech...

Word Count: 1.6k

A/N: Got this idea when I saw Chapter 10, and Mando’s thermal tech. Some sexual implications but, no new season spoilers here!

***

The Mandalorian sighed as the bounty he has been looking for runs from him. It’s not that he was disappointed, but was annoyed to say the least. They always ran, thinking they can get away and escape, but in the end they’ll be frozen in carbonite. It was exciting when he was a relatively new bounty hunter, the thrill of the hunt giving him an adrenaline rush. But at this point in his life, with you and kid now with him, he’d like to settle for a new routine.

Din looked around at his surroundings, the forest wasn’t dense, and the ground was soft enough to leave footprints in the wake of a traveler. Towards his side, he saw you with the Child, the little womp rat chasing a frog much to your amusement. He had to admit that it was nice having you around to look after the kid so he can go out and hunt for his bounty without worrying about him. But that wasn’t the only reason he likes having you around...

The Mandalorian prided himself for keeping his emotions in check, but ever since you came along, he lost all sense of self control. He found himself staring at you at times longer than he should. He would try to find bounties on planets that he’d thought you would enjoy. Din would even bring back indigenous plants back to the ship after hunts since you mentioned one time how you wanted a plant to brighten up the seemingly dreary ship.

Din sighed once again as he slung his blaster into his holster. He couldn’t let his feelings for you distract him from his mission. He reached up to the side of his helmet, activating his thermal technology, and began tracking his target.

***

You observed the Mandalorian disappearing into the tree line, not saying a word to you before his departure. Your heart sank a bit in seeing him leave, silently afraid that he might not come back. It was always a fear that you held in your heart, but it quickly subsided whenever he returned. You basked in his company, even if he didn’t say much. The beskar clad figure provided comfort and security to you that no else could. It wasn’t the security as in protection, but the security of knowing that your heart is safe in his hands. Only if he knew that he had it...

You watched the Child prance around the grass in search for the frog that he took interest in. The little green guy’s face was scrunched up in concentration as he pulled back the blades of grass that was taller than him. For a minute, he looked like he was imitating his dad. You couldn’t help but laugh at the little reenactment.

You stood up from your place on the ground, looking down to better keep track of the Child. You were focusing on the Child with such intent, that you didn’t even notice the Mandalorian returning.

***

The Mandalorian came back trailing the gagged and bound bounty behind him. It was easy to target him with the bounty’s contradicting heat signatures compared to the ones of trees and foliage around him. He was so caught up with capturing the guy, that he forgot to switch off the thermal tech. It was a bit annoying to travel through the forest like this, but he didn’t have the time. He just wanted to get back to the ship and freeze this guy.

Din knew he was close when he spotted you in the clearing, your hands on your hips as you stare down towards the floor, probably looking at the Child. He neared the treeline, and grunted when he gave a final pull of the bounty before letting it go in relief. The Mandalorian watched as you looked up towards him. Though he couldn’t see the expression on your face, he saw a red blot brighten in your chest and face compared to your yellow figure. He watched as you brought a hand to rest over your heart.

“You scared me,” you breathed out, sighing in relief after realizing it was him.

“I didn’t mean to,” he replied, before motioning to the bounty below him. “Help me get him to the ship.”

You approached him, brushing past him while positioning yourself on the other side of the bounty. Din couldn’t help but notice that heat bloomed on the spot where your bodies momentarily touched. It was normal for some heat to be created through a simple interaction, but he never anticipated that much. Why were you suddenly burning up when he touched you?

He put it out of his mind for now, and concentrated on getting the bounty to the ship. But curiosity still gripped Din, so he looked down at the bound prisoner, examining his heat signatures. The friction from your grip on his arm was warm, but not as hot from when Din saw you upon his arrival or when he touched you. Din had to admit that at times he would get warm when you would touch him, but that wasn’t often. Of course, it only occurred when you needed to walk behind him in the tight ship and you would place your hand near his waist to signal him that you needed to get through. Whenever this happened, Din would feel the heat run to his face. He relished in those little touches, and he began to wonder if you felt the same way.

You released your hold on the bounty, dropping him in front of the carbonite freezer upon the Razor Crest.

“I’m going to grab the kid so we can go,” you said, motioning towards the open hatch before beginning to make your way out.

“Good,” Din replied. “Thank you.”

Din watched as you stopped in your tracks, looking back at him.

“Your welcome,” you returned, giving him a smile before exiting the ship.

That smile. That damn smile. You didn’t need to touch him to make him blush. Even if the smile was distorted, he committed your signature grin to memory. He silently thanked the helmet and his Creed while he shoved the bounty into the freezer.

Din needed to know if there was any inclination that you might share the same feelings for him that he has for you. He can’t go on like this. Din turned off his thermal tech, and headed up to the cockpit. He heard you and Child board the ship, and set the coordinates to Navarro.

The Mandalorian sat in the pilot’s seat contemplating his options, but ultimately coming up short. Knowingly creating an emotional connection with someone wasn’t his forte, and every time he thought he had some idea, he immediately discarded it. Din threw his head back, sighing heavily. Maybe he was going about this wrong. He was trying to approach as an experienced seducer, something he clearly wasn’t. Din quickly realizes that he should be approaching this as a hunter, something he clearly was. Din reached up and turned his thermal tech back on, and went out to search for you.

He climbed down the ladder, and turned to find you sitting in the haul, disassembling and cleaning the blaster’s parts. Din knew you were aware of his presence, making his plan all the better.

“Where’s the kid?” he asked, scanning the haul.

“He’s sleeping,” you replied, looking at the part you’re cleaning with concentration. “Little guy was tired from chasing around that frog all day today. You must be too after dragging that bounty.”

“Far from it,” Din said. “You’d be surprised how long I can last before getting tired.”

Din watched as your movements slowed, but still not meeting his eye. Red heat signatures bloomed in your chest and cheeks, and he noticed a temporary change in your breathing. He usually wouldn’t make any suggestive comments to you, but this was his only way to see if what he hopes for is true.

“Must be hard,” you breathed out, shaking your head slightly.

“Yeah,” he said, taking one step towards you. “But some things are harder.”

Din watched as the red blots in your heat signature grew, and how a another one appeared in the area between your legs. Blood rushed to Din’s cock when he saw the red spot, but he evened his breathing to hide his slight discomfort from the tightening in his pants. He knew he should stop this while he already got his answer, but he couldn’t help himself. Din bent down near your figure, placing a hand on top of yours, which was gripping the barrel of the blaster.

“Make sure to keep a tight grip when handling something like this,” he instructed, dropping his voice to sound deeper.

Din heard you take a shaking breath before wrenching your hand away from his. You stood up quickly; your back straightened, your thighs closed together, and your breathing was irregular.

“I’m going to go and check on the kid,” you said in rush, forgetting about the half-cleaned, disassembled blaster that was lying on the floor.

Din watched you disappear into his bunk, and quickly shut the door. He got up from his place on the floor, turning off his thermal vision. Din stared at the door for a long while, once again weighing his options. He got his answers, and was pleased with his results, but he didn’t plan out what to do when he got this far. But he was a hunter, and you were his prey.

Din took a deep breath, and walked to his bunker door.

Taglist: @absurdthirst

#the mandalorian #mandalorain #mandalorian x reader #din djarin #din djarin x reader #star wars #fanfic #fluff #angst #mandalorian season 2 #mandalorian season 1 #baby yoda

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furikakyo · 3 years ago

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a return to roots | 5

pairing: kita shinsuke x f!reader

summary: y/n is a rising star in the music industry, having almost everything you could have ever hoped for as a small-town country girl. now after releasing two triple platinum albums in consecutive years, you face the dreaded artist’s burnout… in order to recover, your manager suggests, you should return to your hometown in hyōgo for a long-deserved break.

genre: socmed/smau, slice of life

warnings/tags: timeskip!, mutual pining, slow burn? more like rekindling, slight canon divergence

masterpost

Ichiro arrived right on time at 5:45 in the morning, buzzing your door just as you had gotten dressed after a quick shower. Steam wafted out of the bathroom as you rushed to the door to greet him and show him where the luggage was. Without anything to say, he promptly picked up one of the large hard case suitcases and you followed suit, going after him into the elevator. When your bodyguard loaded both of your cases into the trunk of his car and then opened the door for you to get into the car, you quickly said, "I need to double check everything in there is fine. I'll be back in a minute."

After reassuring Ichiro that you would be ok by yourself, you dashed back inside to survey your apartment, checking each room to make sure you hadn't left anything important behind. The kitchen and living room were clean, check. When you got to your bedroom, you paused, seeing one of your acoustic guitars sitting in the corner. Should you bring it? Were you actually going to write music? When you had announced your hiatus officially, you had stated that it was to gain inspiration for new music... but then that wouldn't really be a break, would it? You gnawed on your lip, remembering what Kuroo had asked of you the night before: "Take care of yourself in Hyōgo, alright? You're there for a reason; to take a break."

You scowled, cursing Kuroo and his knowledge of your work habits. But, a voice inside you reasoned, it wouldn't be work if you were writing just for fun... You thought back to those moments in your childhood home, in your room, writing songs and uploading them to YouTube and SoundCloud without thinking that anything would come of it; back before you felt any pressure to perform. Back to when you wrote lyrics that weren’t very sophisticated, but earnest and heartfelt all the same… back to when you had your muse to sit beside you every step of the songwriting process.

Before you could convince yourself otherwise, you ran to the corner of your room and snatched the guitar, put it in its case, and then snapped it shut with finality.

If Ichiro was confused about you carrying down another piece of luggage, he said nothing, only staring ahead and driving when you were buckled. "Onigiri Miya," you reminded him, then settled into your seat. The ride there wasn't too far from your apartment; you had rented out the space because of its convenience, so anywhere you usually wanted to go to was within a reasonable distance. You watched the traffic with disinterest and spotted restaurants with dim lighting inside, most likely already prepping for the day ahead of them. The world kept moving on ahead, regardless of whether or not you liked it.

When you arrived at Onigiri Miya, Osamu was already out back in the van, probably waiting impatiently. You checked the clock in the car and clicked your tongue. You weren’t even late.

When you stepped out of the car, Osamu opened his door and got out too. You smiled widely. “Samu!” You rushed forward and gave him a strong hug, which he somewhat reciprocated. He wasn’t as big on physical touch as his brother.

Osamu only rolled his eyes though, patting your back as you told him he looked great. “You do, too. Want me to help with your bags?”

You led him to the trunk of your ride, where Ichiro was already opening it and carrying one of your suitcases. Osamu hefted the other one up, and you trailed behind with the guitar case. After securing everything in the back of the van, you turned to your bodyguard.

You smiled, a genuine smile, and then repeated what you’d already told him over text. “Well, Ichiro-san, I don’t know the next time I’ll see you. I’ll make sure to text you in advance if I plan on going to more public areas.” He said nothing, so you continued. “Thank you very much for all you’ve done for me, and I look forward to seeing you again in the future!” You gave him a bow, which he reciprocated stiffly before quickly getting back into his own car and driving off.

You sighed, then looked to Osamu. He quirked an eyebrow. “Ready?” You nodded determinedly, getting into the passenger seat of the van and buckling, him doing the same.

“Alrighty, then,” he cracked a grin. “Time for a road trip.”

After a while of scrolling through your social media accounts you sat back and stretched. Then you flopped back into your seat and looked over to Osamu. “Samu,” you whined in the most obnoxious voice possible, “do you have any food? I’m so hungry.”

Osamu rolled his eyes, jerking a thumb towards the back of the van. “Ya really think I wouldn’t bring food for the trip?”

Immediately, you turned around and began looking behind your seat for food. Sure enough, there was an insulated bag with onigiri. You gasped, bringing the bag into your lap with stars in your eyes. “You brought some?”

You ignored whatever his response was, instead unwrapping one and biting into it. “Mmm,” you moaned, chewing slowly. The nori was still crisp and the rice was fluffy yet still sticky. You closed your eyes to focus on the food. He must have made them right before you got there for them to be this fresh.

“I’m guessing you didn’t eat breakfast, then,” Osamu said, eyes staring ahead at the road.

Your grip on the rice ball tightened before you quickly realized what you were doing. Your apartment didn’t really have much left to eat after you’d finished up the gyoza last night, and even if you’d had food, you weren’t sure if you would’ve been able to keep it down. Butterflies had filled your stomach as you had tried to go to sleep, and they hadn’t really disappeared yet. “No,” you shook your head. “I woke up early in the morning and was tired.”

Osamu hummed and then didn’t say anything else. After another long beat of silence you squirmed in your seat, a little on edge. “Mind if I play some music?” He shook his head at your question and so you took over the AUX, playing some songs that had been stuck in the back of your mind lately. After the music started, any awkwardness immediately dissipated as you sang along and Osamu tapped his thumb on the wheel to the beat of whatever was playing. At one point you had even pointed out his cute habit to which he had denied before doing the same thing twenty minutes later. Giggling, you just looked out the window and didn’t comment on it that time.

After about an hour of songs, Osamu finally spoke again. “You can go back to sleep, if you want. Ya look tired.”

You looked over at him and then nodded, curling into yourself, rubbing your wearied eyes. Sleeping would be a good opportunity since you hadn’t gotten much last night. You leaned against the seatbelt and window and closed your eyes, ignoring the bumps in the road which made your head hit the glass each time. Before you knew it, you were asleep.

After a little less than five hours, you woke up to Osamu driving, now playing the radio instead. You looked outside. Gone were the skyscrapers and bright lights; in their place were rows and rows of empty fields, all blurring past you. "Are we in Hyōgo yet?" you asked, turning back to him.

Osamu gave you a quick glance and then switched his gaze back on the road. It was just the Onigiri Miya van on the stretch, the rest of what you could see of the roadway completely devoid of another vehicle. "Yeah," he replied. "We have about an hour left. I was gonna stop at the next place to stretch, though." He looked over at you again. "Is that alright with you?"

You nodded and then dug out another rice ball from the thermal bag, munching on it as you stared out the windshield. The nori wasn’t crispy anymore but at least the filling was still yummy. "So we're going to stop somewhere first. What's the plan after that?"

Osamu adjusted his grip on the wheel, driving with only one arm. "I was thinking that we could stop by your house, unload your luggage, maybe clean up your space since no one's been there for a while, and then go to do my business in Hyōgo." He paused, then added, "With Kita."

Your heart raced. It was your first day back and you were already going to have to face Kita. You could just stay home, a voice nagged at you. No, you thought, your face filled with grim determination. You could do it.

Almost as if sensing your internal strife, Osamu said, "Y'know, Y/N, I think Captain is just as nervous, if not, more." He continued staring ahead, not looking at you. Now he started tapping his thumb against the wheel again.

But you, your head snapped to look at him. "Really?" you asked, eyeing him skeptically.

Osmau nodded, smiling. "He's barely said a peep in the group chat he's in with me. Although now that I think about it, that's usually how he is." He chuckled. "Unless he's getting in between me and Tsumu."

You sighed, sitting back. Why had you expected Kita to hold anger towards you? Because you chose a career over him? Because you chose success over two of you, the voice in the back of your mind whispered. You ignored it, crossing your arms. You felt bad for thinking he would be anything less than how he always was in your mind (he was always Mr. Perfect), but it also made you feel better knowing he was scared too. No, not scared. Nervous, Osamu had said. Oh, god, how were the two of you going to act when you saw each other?

"Hey, Y/N." You turned to Osamu just as he pulled into the driveway of probably the only gas station within a 50 mile radius. He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "You'll figure it out."

As you followed him out of the van to stretch out your legs, you could only hope that you would figure it out. Preferably before you had to see Kita.

You had, in fact, not figured it all out by the time you and Osamu reached your childhood home. Instead of thinking about your lack of a solution, you resorted to reaching under the dingy welcome mat and pulled out a plastic bag with a key inside. “Still here,” you said cheerfully, showing the dirty bag off to your friend.

Osamu rolled his eyes and waited as you fumbled with the key to the house and then eventually opened the door.

You peered into the dark corridor and slipped off your shoes before stepping onto the hardwood floor. “I called the electricity and water guy,” you muttered, dragging one of the suitcases behind you. You paused and then grabbed the handle, which extended, then let the suitcase’s wheels do the work for you. “Everything should be functional by the end of the day.” When you got to the end of the foyer, you gasped. “What…?”

The inside of the house was, contrary to your belief, not at all covered in a thick layer of dust like you’d expected. Instead, it looked almost exactly the same as when you had moved out from there.

Osamu trailed behind you, taking his cap off and scratching the back of his head. “To be honest, I forgot that this was happening. Everyone here didn’t want to see your house collect dust and fall apart, so they..." He motioned around him, your eyes following.

The tatami mats in the living room and your parents' bedroom were clearly cared for, otherwise there would’ve been the overwhelming scent of dust or mold. You could imagine the diligence it would’ve taken to clean them so regularly. And the furniture— you ran a finger along the top of the kotatsu and then looked at it; nothing. You’d have to move the kotatsu into storage since it wouldn’t make much sense to have it out right now; you only used it in the winter...

You drank in the rest of the house, mentally planning where to place things and what to rearrange to your own liking. "I'll get the other case you brought," Osamu muttered, sidestepping around you to reach the doorway. You barely noticed him leave as you crept to your own childhood bedroom, sliding open the shōji screen door.

…Huh. It didn't look any different from what you last remembered. You walked inside. You had your western-styled bed, which still had the furniture sliders under the legs to protect the tatami mats; the bookshelves along the wall with your favorite books and shōjo manga... You paused at the string of fairy lights strung above your dresser. Clipped onto them were photos from high school: you and Osamu proudly holding a double-tiered cake you'd made in home economics, you and a few of the other Inarizaki boys fooling around after practice, you with your parents in front of the school in your third year. You laughed to yourself while looking at them, recalling the moments in which the pictures were taken; back when Samu's hair was grey and Tsumu didn't know what toner was, back when your only responsibilities were as Y/N the assistant manager and co-class representative of 3-A.

You stared at the end of the string lights, where there was a picture missing. You knew what was supposed to be there, in that gap. You were unsure of where it had gone though, so you searched your entire bedroom, taking out all of the books in your shelves and turning them upside down, removing all of the drawers in your dresser and peeking inside the base. You scoured your belongings for a sign of where that photo could have been, but to no avail.

"You looking for something?" Osamu pushed off of the doorway he'd been leaning on and peered over your shoulder. "I can try to help ya find it."

You shook your head, smiling. "No, it's okay. I lost something but it's not that important." You stood up and dusted yourself off, brushing your hands together. "We have some free time now that I don't have to clean up around here. What should we do?"

Osamu nodded, thinking to himself. "Well, we could go reacquaint you with your neighbors… or we could get to the farm early. It’s,” he checked his phone, “around 3 right now so we would have a couple hours to check out the entire farm. It’s big, so having too much time on our hands wouldn’t be an issue.”

“Uh…” You bit your lip and stared expectantly at Osamu. You make the decision.

He lifted an eyebrow incredulously, then said, “Alright, farm it is.”

You dropped your phone into your lap in disappointment, tempted to just throw it out of the window of Osamu’s van. Kuroo really is kind of useless, huh, you thought, staring out of the window glumly.

The sound of the tires hitting gravel road caught your attention and you looked out the front windshield. You sucked in a breath. You were here. At Kita’s farm. Or rather, you thought, Kita’s house. You had parked in the driveway of his home which overlooked all the fields. They were still somewhat of a muddy brownish color from how far away you were.

“Ready?” Osamu tried to look grim, knowing of your inner turmoil, but his glittering eyes said otherwise.

You exhaled and then nodded. “Yes.”

The two of you didn’t end up getting very far along the fields before Osamu ran into someone he knew, probably someone else working on the rice fields under Kita based on the way he was dressed. He wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and, somehow, long sleeved shirts and pants. Osamu smiled, greeting the man, “Koji.”

His recipient smiled too. “Osamu. How’s business in Tokyo? Still thinking of opening another shop in Osaka?” Koji motioned for him to follow him down the path in between the rice paddies, and he did, already lost in a conversation. You watched as another group of workers came towards the duo, and you heard laughing and cheering as Osamu talked to them.

Well, damn. Osamu had left you behind. You looked around and then checked your phone. You still had basically two hours to kill. “Ugh…” Should you just wait in the van for Osamu? What if Kita saw the van pulled up and approached it, though? You did NOT want to be alone with him, just the two of you. Plus it would be hot waiting in there. You pulled at the front of your t-shirt. At least there was a slight breeze every once in a while when you were outside.

Am I really going to do this? You looked up at the sky and shielded your eyes from the sun. It was already beating down on your shoulders and back. Sighing, you started in the opposite direction of where Osamu and the workers had gone. There seemed to be a lot of property, you thought, admiring the view. Although the rice paddies were still muddy, the view you had from this side of the farmhouse was stunning. In the distance were lines of trees so dense, and mountains even further away, just a faint silhouette smoothed against the sky. You imagined what it would look like when the rice was ready to be harvested, all green and heavy with the fruits of labor.

A few days ago you’d thought absentmindedly that life had been kind to you, Kuroo, and Kenma. But now, looking around the serene landscape and close-knit community of workers, filled with a fresh green newness brought from only the spring, you wondered: maybe the years had been kind of Kita, too.

Behind you, you heard dull rustling, and you turned automatically. You froze, stunned. Your mouth moved and formed words before you could even comprehend what it was you were saying.

“Kita?”

a/n: ohhh my goodness i had the worst experience with a karen yesterday and i never thought i would have to deal with one for some reason…. fuck you amy and i hope i never have to see your bitchass face again

taglist (pm me to ask to be added): @papiibuprofen, @duhsies, @succulentmom, @kenmaslov3r, @introvertatitsfinest

some ~fun facts~

- ichiro the bodyguard/driver may or may not have shed a tear or two after y/n left. (i told you he was a big softie)

- he wanted to give you a hug goodbye but wasn’t sure if that would be overstepping 😔

- imagine samu loading the van with your luggage and pushing off the doorframe after previously leaning on it with his muscly arms and glorious tiddies… BEEFY SAMU SUPREMACY 🧎‍♂️

- one of osamu’s guilty pleasures is pop music 😭

- one of y/n’s fav things to do on social media is just go through atsumu’s public profiles and read the thirst comments 😭😭

#haikyuu #kita shinsuke #kita shinsuke x you #kita shinsuke x reader #kita x reader #kita 🧍‍♂️#miya atsumu #atsumu miya #haikyuu!!#inarizaki #kenma kozume #miya osamu #ojiro aran #kuroo tetsuro #suna rintaro #haikyuu x reader #farmer kita

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7wanderingpaws · 4 years ago

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Always, yours (2)

(gif not mine) - THIS Baek tho..... ㅠ

Warnings: none

Word count: 6.5K

Tags: @geniusloey (please let me know if you want to be un/tagged!)

❤ Enjoy! Please let me know your thoughts! ^^ Have a good start of the week!❤

Also, the new apartment!

Masterlist / story masterlist

<-- Previous - Next -->

Second - My name is Lee Junho and I will be your trainer

You stood at the entrance of the gym, your palms somehow clammy. You didn’t realize putting on leggings would look this bad. Tears welled up in your eyes when Sukyeong took your hand to yank you inside.

“C’mon, don’t be ridiculous,” she whispered to you and when she managed to pull you inside, she pressed her fisted hand against your back, making you walk ahead. “You look great! You don’t even look like you’ve been pregnant,” she hissed in your ear.

Arguable, you thought right away but decided not to be any more negative. The only good point was you were able to leave home without the triplets. Baekhyun, just as promised, was home by six so you didn’t have to worry about leaving them at the baby corner (it was baby safe, you went to check the place out).

Slightly bowing to the other girls as you walked past, most of them your age or older, you decided to be in the back, far away from the teaching lady. You imagined her being young, and very fit. Her black hair would be shiny and she would have make-up to look perfect. A great way to ruin one’s self-esteem such as yours.

However, a single nudge from Sukyeong and your non-existent self-esteem basically vanished into thin air. Instead, anxiety with a sprinkle of bewitchedness, hit you for in walked a handsome male, around Baekhyun's age, with eyes like that of a cat's; narrow and sharp, his features leveled, nose straight with a pair of plump lips. He had longer dark hair that fell over his forehead in fluffy waves.

“Good evening, ladies!” he announced himself, clapping twice to gain everyone's attention. He didn't have to do it though; more than half of the ladies were already salivating over him, including your best friend. When the trainer saw wide eyes on him, he let out a boyish chuckle and this time, you couldn't escape the charm either. He was incredibly handsome. “My name is Lee Junho and I will be your trainer! I have some experience with working out,” he joked and, of course, everyone laughed louder than it was necessary. His toned chest and arms spoke volumes about his experience. “Please, let me know in advance if there are any injuries you have so that I can adjust the exercises to you accordingly. Do you have any questions?” He looked around with interest, his eyes skimming through any possible curious hand.

“Should I tell him that I'm…. you know,” you mumbled to Sukyeong but before you could finish your sentence, you shook your head, stopping yourself. It will be alright, you thought. As always, you made sure to feed the triplets properly and pump your breasts, so you expected no problems with the excessive breast milk leaking over your t-shirt this time.

Just like that, you found yourself jumping up and down as the exercise started. Lee Junho seemed to be a great professional, always adjusting everyone's postures to ensure full effectiveness. With the help of the deafening pop music, everything seemed suddenly possible. Until it came to you and until he lingered more by your side than the rest of the girls.

It was to be expected, but you still felt stupid. You couldn't do the push-ups like all the other girls who already had a great body. Meanwhile, hidden under Baekhyun's huge black shirt that you stole, was your still-fading baby bump. It was difficult to even try to get your shoulders off the mat as you did sit-ups; you were heaving loudly, sweat dripping down your face.

“Push just a little bit more,” murmured Junho with an encouraging smile as he put his hand between your shoulder blades, helping you sit up higher. It was a good support, but your abs were on fire, numbing everything that was made out of your core. “That's right, keep doing it like that.”

You hummed, and tried a few more times before giving up. Sukyeong wasn't that much better than you, but she still could sit up. She flashed you a small smile and mouthed: “Are you okay?”

You nodded, resting your head on the mat, trying to breathe through the workout.

As you moved through various core strengthening exercises, you started to feel it. The hurting in your breasts, the kind of feeling that you tried to prevent from happening at all costs. The closest you could compare it to was rocks.

You felt yourself panicking when you looked at Junho who was paying attention to someone else. If you wouldn't leave now, it would be too late.

“I'll be back in a minute,” you told Sukyeong, scrambling up to shaky legs. Baekhyun's shirt was getting wet now, your sports bra quickly becoming a bucket full of milk. Making few quick steps, you walked over to the door when Junho spoke up:

“Oi, are you okay? Are you sick?” He came running to you by the entrance door.

You shook your head with a polite smile. “I really need to use the bathroom.”

“Oh, we will be finishing up soon,” he said, giving you a look. Right, kids in kindergarten were learning how to hold their pee in, not how to hold back the breast milk.

You were embarrassed, but you still said: “Well, I ate something bad and this won't wait any longer-” you pushed the door open and jogged for the toilets, already pushing up the soaked shirt. Once safely inside, you yanked down the sports bra and let the milk out. You exhaled a loud sigh of relief. You knew this would cause a little mess as it was several streaks that were leaking, the milk staining everything around.

Chewing your lips, you strained your ears when you heard commotion outside, the class most probably finished. You'd been in the toilets for at least ten minutes now, so you expected Sukyeong to come search for you soon.

There was a hasty knock on the door and you were fast to hide your chest back under the shirt. Then you heard your best friend's whisper: “It's just me! Can I come in?”

You were fast to give her the permission. She closed the door behind her and you took out your breasts again, the milk once again spraying everywhere. Sukyeong scratched her head, clueless. “I have a spare shirt. Here,” she handed you the white thermal-shirt.

You shook your head. “No, I cannot wear this. It'll stain and I bet the shirt was expensive,” you bit your lip. Before she could protest with a conflicted gaze, you just waved your hand nonchalantly. “I'll be done soon. It's already much better. Besides, I don't think I could push it over my chest. I'm huge,” you admitted quietly, a little embarrassed. You trusted Sukyeong and she would never joke or judge but it was still an uncomfortable situation only Baekhyun was allowed to witness. When you saw she wasn't convinced, you added with a smile: “Baekhyun gave me a sweater before coming here, so I will wear that. Go and get our stuff? I'll be out in a minute.”

“Will you be fine?” she said, her eyes widening in small fear at the sight of the milk.

“Of course,” you winked. She gave you a look over and when she was convinced, she turned, leaving you in the toilets alone.

Just a few minutes later and the flow finally calmed down. You took some toilet paper, wiping yourself up before cleaning up the surroundings. You were drained and you didn't even finish the workout.

When you were sure everything looked decent, you finally walked back to the gym. It was empty; only some distant sounds of chattering coming your way. Sukyeong was in the corner, entertaining the trainer.

“Are you okay?” he asked you when you walked over to them, taking your bag and your phone along the way. Junho didn't look necessarily worried, but he seemed to care enough about his clients which you found good enough.

“Yes,” you smiled half-heartedly. “Thank you.”

Sukyeong bowed to Junho. “Then we will take our leave!”

“Alright, it was nice meeting you. I will see you on Thursday, ladies,” he pressed a smile, bowing politely. He kept following you with his sharp eyes and, unconsciously, you became shy under his scrutiny. There was something happening whenever your eyes met and you weren't sure what it was. Maybe you were just making it up because he was handsome and you wanted to believe he had an eye for you. It would make you feel like you could have been special.

“Goodness, what a hotshot,” murmured Sukyeong to you as the both of you left the premises of the gym. “He is so smart!”

You sighed, quickly putting on the sweater Baekhyun pushed into your hand before leaving the apartment. You will be sweaty, make sure to wear this once you're done, he would tell you. “You managed to get something out of him?”

“Doesn't seem to be here just to eye the girls,”she informed you proudly as she slugged her bag over her shoulder. “So that is a plus point!”

She led the both of you to the carpark, her shiny small Kia awaiting you near the exit. It was a good idea to park it nearby as you didn't have to walk more on your wobbly legs. Once seated inside, you threw your bag on the backseat and sighed, leaning your head back against the headrest.

“Are you alright?” asked Sukyeong, uncertainty evident in her eyes as she placed her bag behind her seat and turned back front, pressing the button to bring the car to life.

You nodded, though she couldn't see you. “I'm okay, thank you.” You hesitated. “Maybe a little embarrassed,” you finally admitted, staring out of your window to see other women entering their cars. Many of them owned Mercedes' or BMWs and you instantly wondered how they were able to afford such a car at such a young age.

“Oh, dear, no.” Sukyeong was fast to turn to grab your thigh, trying to bring your diverted attention to her. “There is nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I literally told him if I don't leave I will poo myself,” you whined and turned to her dramatically.

Sukyeong was about to refute but she stopped, surprised at your words. “Wait, you told him that?”

You nodded, exasperated. “I told the handsome dude I can't keep it in if he won't let me leave. I couldn't possibly tell him: yo, move or else I'll shoot you down with my breastmilk now, could I?”

She burst out into a huge laughter, her nose scrunching up in the process. “Well, if you say it like that!”

Both of you were now laughing, though you were more on the desperate side. You really made an idiot out of yourself while still having the issue of controlling your milk.

“You know, I think it would be good to tease Baekhyun a little bit. I told you that you shouldn’t let him prioritize his job. If he does it you need to show him you aren’t someone he can take for granted.”

Your joyful smile slowly melted into a frown. “Baekhyun never took me for granted and you also know it.”

“Of course I know it! I’d trust Baekhyun with my life,” she insisted quickly and started driving out of the car park and out to the busy Seoul traffic. It was incredible how this city never slept. “I’m just trying to say that a little bit of teasing never hurt anyone. You’re now a mother and you have three kids together.”

Small silence took over the car. You were looking out of the window, enjoying the unusual luxury of being in a car instead of a packed bus while your mind was roaming over what your friend said. “So, you say our relationship can become rusty? He would lose interest after some time now that I’m not so... fresh?”

Sukyeong breathed out a small laugh at the choice of your words. “I doubt Baekhyun would get tired of you. Ever. It is true that men see their women differently after birthing their children.” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, thinking over what to tell you. “You’re only twenty-three —you’re too young, so make sure to let him know you’re still full of life and can become hard to tie down.”

You let out a doubtful snort but you felt uneasy at the topic. It never occurred to you that one day you and Baekhyun wouldn’t be together. It never occurred to you that you could lose love for each other because both of your interests would change and he would seek consolation from another partner and maybe you would stay alone. This wasn’t a new thought to you; Jiyoung, Baekhyun’s ex colleague, was challenging you more than enough in the past but even then you knew Baekhyun wasn’t interested in her. What if he found someone that actually piqued his interest?

You shook your head quickly, rejecting the ugly idea. “You city girls have a very interesting way of thinking.”

“Just do it.” Sukyeong looked at you with excited eyes when she stopped at another red light. “Mention a hot trainer and see what’ll happen,” she told you wickedly, giggling.

Upon arriving at home, you were met with Baekhyun's high-pitched talk. It calmed you down right away, and you felt like in safe haven after the small fight in the gym.

“I'm home,” you sing-sang, dropping the bag down by the entrance and taking off the sweater.

Baekhyun faked a gasp. “Who is it, Jun? Is it mummy? Let's check it out quickly!” And within a second, he appeared with Jun hanging off his connected arms, pretending he was on an airplane. Even though you trusted Baekhyun with keeping the baby safe in his arms, it gave you a little heart attack. Besides, triplets were still too small for that. “Look, Jun, it's mummy!” he exclaimed while looking over his shoulder, most probably checking Juna and Junhee. “Welcome home, babe,” he told you with a leveled voice, looking at you now. He adjusted Jun in his arms, having his head on his shoulder while you took off your shoes, watching him.

Your husband looked so incredibly soft. His hair was now covering his forehead, somehow making his eyes look much more puppy-eyed, just like the baby he was holding. Despite being so wide and incredibly manly, you had the urge to squeeze his cheeks like you would do to your triplets, because he was so adorable, so loveable. He was wearing his huge white T-shirt and black pants and no socks; the typical look when he was home, but for some reason, after going through challenges in the gym, you felt like he was much more inviting and cuddly, providing you comfort by simply being him, by simply staring at you with those soft eyes. He was so Baekhyun.

“I see you are having a good time,” you noted with a smile and stood on your tiptoes when Baekhyun demanded a kiss with puckered lips like a little duck. You made sure to cradle Jun’s tiny butt, your expert hand immediately knowing he had a change of the nappy recently.

“Now it's much better,” he muttered, kissing you with a loud smooch. “How was the work-out?” he asked when he straightened up, rocking Jun exaggeratedly in his arms. Just then, his eyes dropped to your chest, the white stains very much obvious on the black textile. “Shit, did you leak?”

You shrugged, not wanting to talk about it as you walked past him to greet your daughters that were on the playmat with their little toys. “I should have known better.” Baekhyun followed you, watching as you sat down and kissed the two baby girls. “Time to change the nappies over here, hm?” Your voice was light as you touched the babies’ butts but you were surprised when they were all clean, too. Baekhyun must have worked hard during your absence.

“Sweetheart, we should go to the doctor's,” Baekhyun told you as he sat down on the couch in front of the play mat. Jun squirmed in his arms, whimpering, so he laid him gently on the blanket that was splayed next to him. “I don't like this and they could solve the issue.”

You took Junhee's tiny feet into your hands, massaging them, the skin incredibly smooth under your palm. “I'm scared they will do something that will prevent me from feeding them.”

“You know it doesn't matter whether you feed them breast milk or we give them formula. You breastfed long enough anyway. This is about your well-being, too.”

“I just want them to be close to me as much as possible,” you said, lowering your voice. It made you remember how you didn’t even think much about feeding your kids while being pregnant, and now here you were, reluctant to let go of breastfeeding. Three babies was a lot of hard work, but it was always your dream to be a mother. You wanted to make sure you really didn’t have a choice before you would make a decision. Baekhyun was correct, but you still believed the longer you were with the babies the stronger would be your bond with them. “It's a good way for them to be connected to me.”

Baekhyun observed you for a moment before checking Jun whose feet were up in the air, his tiny hands coming up to pat on them clumsily. He was a little baby ball discovering all the possible movements his body was slowly able to make. “I understand. I just want you to know that it isn't a bad thing if you stop doing it. Some women can't breastfeed at all.”

“Because they are unable to, Baekhyun.” The way your voice had an edge to it made you look up at him to catch a little panic in his eyes. He didn't want to make you upset and you felt guilty right away. “I am perfectly able to provide them with milk, but I overproduce and yes it makes my life a little more difficult but I don’t want to lose this opportunity. I'd rather not go.”

“Okay, as you wish,” he gave up quickly, not wanting to argue. He understood why you would be upset. And usually, he would try to be more persistent since he didn’t want you to suffer but he could sense your damp mood; the workout most probably gave you a harder time, he guessed. And, of course, he, as a man, couldn't comprehend completely what you were going through when your milk was flowing from you like an unstoppable mountain stream.

You hummed and stood up, your ankles sighing at the movement. “I'll go wash up.”

Baekhyun followed you with his gaze until you disappeared in the corridor that led towards your shared bedroom. He looked back down at Jun and then at the girls on the mat. “Well, what shall we do to make mummy feel better?” he pouted at them.

Small baby gurgles came back to him in response. “Right, I agree,” he replied thoughtfully. He was quiet for a moment, only hearing the distant sounds from the TV and your movements in the bedroom. Checking the clock on the opposite wall, he was fast to jump up. “Now, you naughty kids, it’s way past your bedtime and you still don’t sleep! Let’s get you all to the crib before mommy comes back!”

Since the triplets were calm, he knew they would fall asleep soon. He made sure their energy would be somehow drained while you were away although he was sure he used up more energy than they did. It was difficult to work with infants and he didn’t know how you managed it on a daily basis nonstop. Another reason for him to admire and respect you.

“I’ll see you whenever you wake us up,” he told them when he put Jun, the last baby, in the crib. He laughed gently to himself and observed his offsprings with a tender gaze. He had to admit that Jun looked like him when he was a baby. Junhee was definitely your splitting image while Juna seemed to be in the middle, though her eyes were Baekhyun’s, too. She was the perfect mix of you and him.

He wondered which one of them would love hapkido. He wondered which one of them would be smart in mathematics like you were. Which one of them would hate foreign languages and cucumbers? Which one of them would cry the most in the kindergarten and which one of them would always be the quiet one? Baekhyun hoped and wished that the triplets would have a special bond that would always protect them from getting hurt by other people. After all, the world kept getting harsher and harsher day by day.

“I’ll always be there for you,” he whispered just when Junhee’s eyes closed, her small mouth hanging open when she let go of the pacifier. “You’ll always have me and mummy to protect you. Always.”

You took your time in the bathroom. Muscles you didn't know existed were aching, so you took the luxury to let yourself be soaked in warm water a little bit longer. There was a soft knock on the door and you quickly let Baekhyun enter.

He was expressionless but when you locked eyes as he closed the door with his back, he pulled a smile meant only for you. “Do you feel better?” he asked quietly, setting the monitor on the sink before walking up to you. He leaned down, pecking you on the top of your head.

“Much better,” you sighed, closing your eyes when you felt his hand slide down your cheek and to your neck. Since he brought in the monitor with him, you took it he managed to put the babies to sleep. It only made you feel worse that you still could become irritated at such a good husband like Baekhyun. “Sorry I snapped at you.”

“No,” he was fast to mutter against your hair, his thumb grazing the skin on your jaw. “I understand. I am just worried, is all.”

“I know, and I don't appreciate it enough,” you replied and Baekhyun pulled away to look down at you with crinkled eyes.

“You do much more, sweetheart. Don't be so harsh on yourself, hm?” He let go of you and slid down next to the bathtub, his back against it. You had the urge to splash him with water but you decided you would have a water fight another day. “Besides, you went to work out after a full day of mothering. It's only natural you'd be frustrated.”

“If only you couldn't read me so well.”

Baekhyun smiled to himself. “How could I tease you if I wouldn't know my wife so well, hm?”

He heard you let out a small chuckle from behind him. “Life would be so much easier.”

Your husband laughed and turned his head to look at you over his shoulder. Water was just barely covering your chest, your cheeks were rosy from the heat and your baby hair was curled up from the humidity. Goodness, he couldn't stop staring. You looked like an angel.

“What?” you murmured, his intense gaze making you pink even more.

“Nothing,” was his breathy reply. “Just admiring my gorgeous little lady.”

With a shy smile, you sat up, causing small waves in the bathtub, and you pressed your lips to his pouty ones. His eyes widened playfully and when you wanted to pull back, he chased your lips, grounding you. You smiled, bringing your wet hand up to his cheek, but he didn't react to the wetness, simply prolonging the innocent kiss. “You know,” you told him when you separated, your noses still touching. Baekhyun hummed in interest, watching your lips before he flickered his orbs up to yours. “There was a really hot guy in the gym.”

Baekhyun blinked a couple of times, letting your words sink in and he was fast to withdraw from you. “What?”

You giggled, satisfied at his reaction. It wasn't that bad to listen to Sukyeong's offer after all. “Yes, he was the one leading the class today.”

“A hot guy leading a class for women?” he repeated, surprised.

Now then, why did he ever expect you to just not pay attention to other males? You never did, or so he thought, but he was still taken aback. The way your eyes sparkled in mischief was an obvious sign that you were just trying to rile him up for whatever reason, yet he still felt a little protective. Did that man look at you, too?!

“Why, you don't like it?” you quipped, poking your tongue out to him.

He observed you giggling, your eyes crinkled up when you took note of his disapproval. Something moved within him. “You want me to like it?”

You sighed lovingly and booped his nose. “I want you to like me, silly. I’m just playing around.”

Baekhyun huffed, offended, and spoke in a prominent pout: “I don't like it, young lady. You have me. You have triplets with me. I love you. And you love me.”

“That, I do.” Bringing up in the air your left hand, you looked how the band on your fourth finger caught the light in the bathroom. “And here is the proof.”

He was looking up at your hand and he joined it with his, his own ring shining just like yours. He enveloped his fingers around yours gently. “Why would you try to make oppa worried about such things?” murmured Baekhyun in wonder as he stood up and towered over you. He let go of your hand and leaned further down so his face was close to yours, his long neck chain swaying in the air between you. “Oppa doesn't like sharing, but you know that, right?”

You nodded, awaiting his next words. Except, it wasn't words. Baekhyun surprised you by swiftly lowering his hands into the warm water to grab a hold of you under your knees and waist. You squealed, suddenly scared you might slip out of his grip so you quickly circled your arms around his neck, water splashing everywhere. But seeing his biceps flexing you knew he was much better than Lee Junho or any other trainer there was.

“I'm naked and wet, Baekhyun!” you screamed and Baekhyun laughed loudly, enjoying your little panic as he moved you out of the bathtub, bringing you over where the sink was.

“Hmm, exactly,” he hummed in appreciation, his eyes twinkled and you quickly hid your face in his neck, embarrassed. “You don't get to play with oppa's heart like that and not get punished, baby girl.”

Despite the excitement, he put you down, more worried about you catching a cold than teasing the hell out of you. As soon as your legs were on the floor, you slapped his chest, making the male groan. “You silly! You could have dropped me!”

“I would never,” he denied quietly, pecking you sweetly and reaching for the towel that was hanging next to the bathtub. “And don't forget,” he reminded, wrapping the towel around your shoulders, making sure it was catching every drop of water, “that you still have a punishment list from when you were pregnant. Don't think I forgot.”

Your eyes widened in horror and you frowned at him like a little kid though secretly you really thought he had forgotten. “You are being so mean right now!”

Baekhyun only smirked and tapped your naked bum gently as he brought your body closer. “You asked for it. From now on, I won't hold back anymore,” he murmured, brushing your hair behind your ear. It tickled.

There were feelings of excitement, eagerness and curiosity bubbling in your tummy, or maybe those were just the butterflies Baekhyun awakened whenever he did something heart-fluttering and challenging to your relationship. It was a long time since you two had been together, but finding ways to ignite the passion and desire in the both of you was Baekhyun's specialty. And you would try to make it yours, now that you seemed to find a weak spot of his.

“You can start by kissing me as a thank you for bringing you out of the tub,” he said when you didn't reply.

You scoffed and re-adjusted the towel, bringing it around your body. It made you feel conscious that you were completely naked in front of him, although Baekhyun didn't even pay attention. His own clothes were wet since he brought you out of the water. The white tshirt was stuck to his stomach, perfectly outlining his muscles.

Baekhyun pursed his lips when you didn't listen. You turned to walk out of the bathroom but he was fast to grab your wrist, turning you back to him. “I said, give me a kiss.”

“No!” You shook your head resolutely, sticking your lower lip out as you frowned, hoping to make him agitated.

The excitement in you only doubled when Baekhyun quirked an eyebrow, leaning his head closer to yours and turning his smooth cheek towards you as he tapped his long index finger on it. “C’mon, a peck for oppa.”

His other hand sneakily wandered to your side to tickle you and you were fast to giggle crazily, pushing his hand away. “Okay, okay,” you said quickly and pressed your lips to his awaiting cheek. He hummed, feeling your mouth stretched in a smile and he turned his face, his lips colliding with yours.

You squealed, wanting to step back - because he was being unfair - but his hands sneaked around your waist, bringing you to him and therefore successfully caging you in. He urged your mouth open, slowly pushing his tongue into your cavern that became quickly eager to feel him. You sighed and slid your hands up his sturdy chest. You nibbled on his lip though he quickly stopped you when he sucked on your tongue hard, bringing out a small moan out of you. He made out with you sensually and you knew you were becoming giddy because of him.

He let his hands grope your bum, giving a good massage to your aching muscles and you moaned again, satisfied. “I guess I will have to show you a much better workout routine,” Baekhyun whispered when he let go of your lips with a smack.

Your heart skipped a beat when you realized there really wasn’t anything standing in your way. The triplets were asleep and Baekhyun riled you up so much it would be difficult to lie down next to him without touching him. “Then show me, oppa,” you made sure to emphasize the “p” sound, his twinkly eyes on your swollen lips.

He chuckled lovingly and kissed your forehead, his lips leaving a bit of moisture behind. Gently intertwining your hands, he led you out of the bathroom and straight to your bed.

“Lie down for me, sweetheart,” he told you quietly as he went to close the bedroom door. Once you got the needed privacy, he reached behind him, pulling on the shirt that he swiftly took off, your eyes appreciating the way his muscles flexed. He threw it on the floor and walked over to you, already lying on bed as he told you to. “Let me remind you that you’re oppa’s,” he mumbled with passion, already distracted by your body that was still covered with the towel.

His words ignited the desire in you and when he hovered over you with a focused gaze, you knew this would be a long night for the both of you.

On Thursday, you went to the gym with determination. The reason was simple: two babies hanging off you and one hanging off of Sukyeong. Baekhyun was running late from work so you had to bring them with you this time. Despite your huge worries, you had to drop them off at the baby corner. The kind, elderly lady showed you the young babysitter that would be in charge of your triplets (after everyone stopped ogling them and squealing about how cute they were). Her name was Sonhee and her smile was the purest you had ever laid eyes on. Her face was gentle and her eyes seemed to be telling a story of a difficult life. What was a little interesting was that you had a feeling you had seen her somewhere before and it wasn't in this gym.

“Do you have any license to prove that she is capable of taking care of three infants?” barged into the conversation Sukyeong, her eyes suspiciously looking over the girl. Even though you had the same question, you wouldn't have uttered it so bluntly. “She looks too young. Even younger than their mother,” she added with a huff.

The lady in charge, Mrs Lee, didn’t show her shock - that was if there was any. “She is the eldest sibling in her family. At home, she is taking care of five more siblings and she is a kindergarten teacher in practice during the school year.”

Your mouth shaped an “o”, nodding thoughtfully and you quickly nudged Sukyeong, catching her opening her mouth to rebut again. “Thank you. I know Sonhee won't do anything to undermine my trust.”

“I will do my best.” Sonhee bowed the perfect 90 degrees and you quickly lowered your head as well, accepting her respect. “I will make sure nothing bad will happen!”

You smiled and quickly looked over the triplets again. They were three months old and you would already let them be with a stranger. Were you still considered a responsible and good mother?

“All the rich mothers do it and they are considered great for doing it,” answered your question Sukyeong in a monotone as you were walking to the gym. “It is just sixty minutes - what can happen during such a short time?”

You frowned, pouting. “Oh, once you'll have kids, you will know, Sukyeong-ah,�� you mumbled under your breath. With babies, things could go wrong within seconds. What made Sukyeong ever believe leaving babies alone for sixty minutes was safe?

“Well, it'll be fine!” she smiled brightly as you entered a still empty gym. You put your bag and phone down, and noticed the last message Baekhyun wrote:

sorry again baby enjoy your workout let me know if the munchkins were okay when you dropped them off love you baby ❤️

Your heart fluttered at the last sentence and you shot him a quick reply with an update when you heard the door of the gym opening, you trainer, Lee Junho, appearing.

He had a sleeveless sports shirt that showed his defined arms and boy, was he chunky in all the right ways. You were the first one his eyes fell on and his straight lips stretched into a delightful smile. To your surprise, he called your name: “Hello! You came already today! Ah, Sukyeong, too!”

You gave him a shy smile and caught him looking quickly over your outfit. The typical. Baekhyun's huge shirt with old pants that your legs could get lost in. You wouldn't be wearing leggins any time soon, you swore. All the ladies wore tight pilates clothing, so you were aware you looked like a trash bag but you never felt more comfortable. Just to see whether Junho let something on in his face, you watched him, but he only diverted his attention to Sukyeong who greeted him with a wide smile.

“Were you alright on Tuesday after the class?” asked Junho as he started to stretch on the floor.

Sukyeong, wanting to be a good student, followed him while you were still standing, the phone in your hands vibrating with most probably incoming messages from your husband. You pinked.

“Ye-yeah, I was … okay,” you mumbled. You already forgot about the stupid lie you made up so he would let you go to the troilets on Tuesday. Baekhyun made sure you forgot about every sane thought that night, so in conclusion, you were more than alright after class on Tuesday.

Junho nodded attentively. “Well, you can try to take it easier today, I won’t mind,” he winked with a grin.

Your eyebrows shot up. “Alright.”

“Is it exam season at uni that has you so stressed?” was his next question when he reached for his stretched out feet.

“Sorry?”

“Ah, right, well she could easily be a uni student,” giggled Sukyeong, looking at you. “My friend is still so young. She shouldn’t be so stressed, right, Junho?”

Junho watched your friend from the corner of his eye with amusement. “It would be great if no one had any stress in their lives.”

Deciding not to answer, you wanted to check your messages but the rest of the class started to arrive, so you joined Sukyeong instead. Stretching was always a good choice and Baekhyun told you about the importance of warming up properly.

“He seems to be interested in you,” whispered Sukyeong eagerly when Junho became busy replying to his fangirl students. “You piqued his curiosity!”

“Shh, stop that!” you winced, pushing her. She was spitting nonsense to tease you but- why was your heart skipping like that?!

After waiting for five more minutes, you started the workout. Even though you were already terrible, you had a weird anxiety from Junho. Maybe it was Sukyeong’s teasing that made you weirdly conscious of his gaze whenever he looked your way or looked directly at you.

You were sweating like a pig, your face shiny from the perspiration but you were determined not to give up. It was for your own benefit, your own health and if you worked on yourself, you could carry the triplets and carry the groceries - you could become a physically acclaimed superwoman!

“Make sure to straighten your back when you do the plank!” shouted Junho over the loud music just when he walked by you. Stopping, he crouched down and placed his hand first between your shoulder blades. “Keep it straight for me,” he told you and then both of his hands landed on your hips, making you go stiff under his touch. “Hips square to the mat. Make sure to squeeze your abs to keep your core strong and balanced,” he was telling in a hushed tone that felt weirdly intimate to you.

“I don’t have abs,” you heaved out, your arms shaking as you tried to keep the plank straight and correct. Junho huffed a laugh, standing up. “Well, you're doing great anyway!”

Feeling the relief when you saw him walk away, you heaved out a heavy sigh, focusing on being in the moment and imagining becoming strong; for yourself. For the babies. For Baekhyun. You could do it-

There was a distant shout calling out for your name. Recognizing the voice of Mrs Lee, you almost fell face-first on the ground from panic when you registered her words.

“Jun wouldn’t stop throwing up!”

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

A/N: Second chapter - done! But Jun :( What do you think about Junho? And Baek was busy, oh well...

Your feedback for the first part was SO NICE! Thank you to everyone who took the time to write me a comment in any form. Its so, so appreciated!

See you soon!

P.S. some people took notice AND pointed it out (which made me feel so happyyy!) that Baekhyun and OC seem to talk a lot in oppa/younger girl reference. That stems deeply from the prequel times when OC referred to him only as oppa (no, referring to Baekhyun - or any older male that is not too old, and the situation allows it - as oppa is not wrong as everyone is portraying it out in the "weirded out" culture. Baekhyun is older than OC and now it became a small game for him; after all, he loves that she is younger and he can take care of her and with the addition of triplets, he wants to embrace this a little more. Also, bear in mind they are both quite young!). So when I get to write the prequel, it will only be their oppa/younger-girl relationship! ^^ (which is why also in Captain Bucheon Lee Nari refers to Baekhyun’s character as oppa - same reason).

#baekhyun fanfiction #baekhyun fluff #baekhyun au #baekhyun angst #baekhyun smut #baekhyun scenario #baekhyun #exo fluff #exo angst #exo smut #exo fanfiction #mywritings #AY #pregnancy au #family au

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loquaciousquark · 5 years ago

Note

Hi! I think I remember you posting about "making" your own computer? I'm sorry to bother you with something like this, but was it difficult? Would you say you have to know a lot about how computers work to do it? Thanks!

Heck yeah!!! Oh man!! Gosh guys can I talk to you about building computers and how EVERYONE willing to do some basic googling is almost certainly capable of this I promise?

Welcome to:

Okay okay okay so let me spin you a li’l yarn: I was in optometry school in 2010-2011ish and I had been living up to now on prebuilts, mostly laptops, but DA2 was recently out and gosh darn it I wanted something I could play a proper game on. A friend of mine had a 10yo daughter who wanted to build a computer herself, and he told me if I’d buy the parts, he’d walk both of us through how to do it (what really happened was the 10yo built my first computer and I watched and brought drinks, so–no, I wouldn’t say you have to know a lot about how computers work to do it!).

The physical requirements are some basic manual dexterity & arm strength (you gotta be able to manipulate some tiny things and put some pressure on some connections) and you will most likely need to lift up to 15 pounds, although you can limit that if you go for smaller components. The ability to bend forward and twist and reach will also probably be necessary, although some careful planning can also likely mitigate that.

I think I have pictures of the actual build process somewhere, but regardless, it resulted in this bad boy that served me well for about nine years. I was shocked to see how easy it was to put together, honestly; if you can follow a Lego assembly book, you can put a computer together. With tools like PCPartPicker that have built-in compatibility checks to make sure all your pieces fit, it’s a piece of cake to put together a parts list that you can feel really good about. You just pick whether you want your motherboard to come with fancy lights or not (hint: rgb is unironically cool & i’ll fight anyone who says otherwise).

In the end, you’ll need a set of basic components. You’ll need:

A case to put all the pieces in

A motherboard, the circuit board of the computer that connects everything, basically the heart of the computer

A CPU, the brain of the computer that determines processing power, or basically how fast it can do math and direct traffic

a CPU cooling system, which can be either mechanical fans or liquid cooling, gotta keep that baby chill; may or may not come packaged with the CPU depending on what you get

A graphics card (aka GPU), the thing that makes video games look pretty (and what will probably be the single most expensive item in the build depending on how good you go)

RAM, a short-term memory processing component that comes in different amounts (4gb, 8gb, 16gb, 32gb, 64gb if you’re a madman) depending on how fast you need your short-term memory to work. Good RAM allows you to do things like open a bunch of Chrome tabs at once, run Photoshop at the same time you’re listening to youtube videos, or process the demand of loading up a host of enemies in Mass Effect. Most everyone these days can get by just fine with 16gb of RAM, which is what I have.

a hard drive (or the new, faster, more expensive version, a solid state drive) which functions as your long-term storage bins. This is where you save documents, images, and install your programs. These come in tons of sizes–the larger your files are, the more storage space you’ll want. I always put at least a terabyte of storage in my builds.

a power supply unit or PSU, which gives the electrical juice for everything to run

a monitor (the more hertz, the smoother the video will be - you’ll want either 60hz or 144hz depending on how much your number of frames-per-second matter to you)

a keyboard and mouse

speakers or headphones or both!

Optional addons:

RGB lighting for everything :O

an optical drive (aka something to put DVDs, Blurays, or other physical CD disks into)

fancy liquid cooling pipes

additional case fans; most cases come with adequate fans, but if you are using the computer in a room with poor ventilation or you find that certain components are running hot, you can install additional fans

coincidentally you can also get fans with RGB lighting too

cable extenders when you are going for a specific color scheme

So it can definitely all look overwhelming at first, but when you start to look at how everything is laid out, you’ll notice some trends. Look at these motherboards, for example.

These are just four random motherboards I pulled off Newegg, a commonly used computer parts purchasing site. Sure, the colors are a bit different, but the layout between them…is all basically the same! Here, I’ll draw it out.

In just about every modern motherboard you buy, this will be the rough layout. Everything else is window dressing–what kind of GPU you get, what kind of CPU you get, whether your RAM lights up cool colors or not. Your motherboard will ALWAYS include a map that has extensive descriptions of what each connection does.

Much, much, much more under the jump!

Most of these you won’t even need!

There are always some compatibility things to consider–as I mentioned, PCPartPicker can help you figure out a lot of these–but the biggest one to care about is the CPU. There are two major companies that make CPUs, AMD and Intel. They both have pros and cons on the chips they make, but right now, AMD makes a family of CPUs called Ryzen that both outperform and are cheaper than Intel’s current leading brands, the i7 and i9 lines. Intel was king of the hill for a long time, though, and their CPUs are still really good quality, so some people still go with them over the cheaper alternatives for now. (There are some reports of black screens with the new Ryzen lines, but as I’ve never owned one, I can’t personally speak to how common that is.)

Regardless, once you pick which family of CPUs you want to go with, AMD or Intel, you just have to pick an Intel-friendly or AMD-friendly motherboard. This is always specified in the description of the motherboard. I own the Asus z370 motherboard, so here’s what it says in the description for CPU:

Anyway, once you’ve picked all your parts and had everything shipped to you, it’s literally just a plug-n-play, step by step until everything’s plugged in. Your motherboard manual will also include recommended order of installations, too, and often how to install them.

It helps to remember that the manufacturers of all these parts understand that they are expensive, and they really DON’T want to make them hard to install! Broken or difficult pieces during installation means that the customer is upset, and upset customers ask for refunds and lose brand loyalty.

It also helps to understand that a lot of these connections are based on certain standards–I didn’t realize until I was rebuilding my current machine that these holes set for screws really do work with just about everything you get, as long as it’s the same generation, because motherboard manufactures WANT you to have the flexibility to go any attachment brand you like and still be able to use their board to mount them.

So, you pick your case and open it up, and you put the motherboard down on top of all the little screw holes until they match, and then you screw all the screws down firmly.

Old rig, partially disassembled:

New, in approximately same state:

(One of the reasons I went with this larger white case than a smaller, slim case like my old one, is because this nicer case has what’s called “cable management;” that means there’s a built-in back area behind the motherboard where all my cables can be jammed without messing up the “aesthetic” of the glass window. My first build obviously did not have that, as seen in that first picture at the top of this post, so I had to just jam my cables wherever I could fit them so that the sides would close, haha.)

Anyway, you can see that the motherboard is just screwed in where it should be, and my CPU is already installed where it should be. I haven’t mounted the cooler for it yet because I needed to clean off the old thermal paste and install new thermal paste before doing so. My two sticks of RAM are also mounted in the top right in the motherboard’s recommended configuration & locations for two sticks (vs. one, vs. four).

Then, with the cooler in place, it looked like this:

So the cooler I have is liquid cooling in a closed system (the thick black tubes running right to left) which is attached to a fan that mounts in place of the white fan on the left from the previous picture. It was as simple as unscrewing the old fan and putting the new one in its place. I think I even used the same screws. The fan is powered by that thin cable running along the top of the case that plugs into a little socket on the motherboard labeled “CPU Fan.” It was as simple as just finding the right plug; it doesn’t even have directionality, just a three-pin socket, so it doesn’t even matter which way you plug.

Already it’s looking like a proper computer! And because this case has cable management, I took a picture of what it currently looked like from the backside.

This case is cool because it has a neat set of connectors mounted on the back of this little hideaway to connect the case fans. I could have run the white fan cables through to the front of the motherboard for them to get power/marching orders, but it was cleaner aesthetically to attach them here in the back. Nothing wrong with connecting them on the front, though–that’s what I did in my original build!

You also might have noticed I’ve mounted the PSU in that white case by now as well. It’s the large black and red box in the bottom corner, seen best from behind. The white case comes with what’s called a PSU shroud, which just means there’s a fancy white cover over it to keep the ~aesthetic~ when viewed from the front side.

The next step is to mount the graphics card!

There’s instructions in your manual as to exactly how these mount, but it really and truly is just removing the dust cover brackets where you need to, and then a delicate plug & play, pushing that big guy in until you hear the click! (Click good, snap bad. Haha. I’ve changed out these cards several dozen times and never broken one, though!)

You can also see the ugly red-tipped cables plugged into the GPU and the motherboard, both on the right side. These come from the Power Supply Unit (they are all permanently connected in most brands, and look basically like a squid’s tentacles–once you have your items mounted onto the motherboard, you just look for the connector from the PSU with the right number of pins and plug it in!)

This guy is the worst. He is fat and hard to maneuver and always requires SO MUCH FORCE to click into this delicate bendy board and your heart will ALWAYS be in your throat as your fingers shake from how hard you’re having to push to sink it, and it will ALWAYS eventually go in but you’ll hate every second of the doing. I hate you, 24-pin EATX. I hate you so much.)

The next thing I did was mount my optical drive (because yes, I still own one), my hard drive, and my solid state drive.

The hard drive and SSD both serve the same purpose (long-term data storage), but the SSD is much faster and uses newer technology. It’s also more expensive for the amount of storage you get, so I have a 256gb SSD that holds my operating system, my heavily-used programs like Firefox and Photoshop & Premiere, and one or two video games I play the most that I would like to load as fast as possible. This is the drive that can allow me to restart my whole system in less than five seconds.

The hard drive is 1.75 terabytes and holds everything else: fics, pictures, videos, music, other games, etc.They mount onto the racks with pre-drilled screws. The optical drive just slides into the socket snugly until it hits the back of the rack.

All of these use a standard connector called a SATA cable which runs between the back of the drive to a SATA socket on the motherboard. Most motherboards come with at LEAST six or seven of these connector slots, and some come with more. They look like this:

and are pretty universal. Any kind of extra storage or drive you want to add to your computer will probably connect with a SATA cable. I think my motherboard, my SSD & HD, and my case purchases all came with a pack of loose SATA cables of different lengths to be used for whatever I wanted.

The rack each drive is mounted to came installed with the case and pre-drilled with screw holes (and provided screws) for attaching either the HD or SSD in every slot. Because this case is all about aesthetic, it also comes with two vertical SSD mounts on the back of the case if you wanted to remove the right-side rack altogether, but as I mentioned, I have the optical drive, so I couldn’t go with that option.

So now we have all the major pieces mounted! The last set of connections are a collection of small fiddly pieces that all plug in roughly the same area and do things like light up the case’s LED, provide that startup beep, connect the USB sockets on the case’s front to power, etc. This is by far the section that takes me the longest because I guarantee I will ALWAYS plug at least two into the wrong socket and not have a beep, or my audio won’t work or something until I go back and reconnect them.

The next thing was to plug in my monitors and…see what happened when we hit the power button! (Monitor connections just plug directly into your graphics card in the back of the case.) And here’s what happened!

youtube

So it turned out when I was connecting my SSD (which has my OS on it), I was pushing on the little connector while sitting on the back side of the case. I thought I had the thing in the socket, but what I’d actually done was jam the connector just under the lip of the motherboard (that is, not connected to anything at all, just hanging in open space). Once I realized, though, it was an easy fix!

The last thing I wanted to do to complete the clean white look I wanted was to replace those UGHLY red PSU cables with what are called “cable extenders.” I bought some white ones on Amazon; because most PSUs’ cables are permanently attached at the box, you plug your cable extenders into the other end and then feed them through the case, so that’s the only portion visible. The ugly PSU cables are still there at the other end of the white cables, just hidden in the cable management area behind the motherboard.

I spent some time fixing up the cables to curve exactly how I wanted them to, then picked my LED RGB colors and closed up the open side with the glass wall. All that was left was to plug in my mouse/keyboard/speakers/headphones/mic/webcam, etc., and we were done!

Ta-daaaa!

The first build I did, the one in the blue & black case, took us about two days due to some unexpected problems. First, we were trying to salvage an old CPU from my HP prebuilt to save a little money. Unfortunately, they used basically no thermal paste to connect it to its fan, and when we were trying to get the fan off, it actually tore the CPU out of its socket and bent a bunch of its pins. I ended up going to Best Buy or something and getting a replacement off the shelf.

The other issue I had was that I foolishly didn’t back up my files, and lost a bunch of them in the rebuild (including my Hawke’s original run through the DA2 game :( :( :( ) Always back up your files before ever going in and messing with your case!

Over the years I replaced a bunch of components in it, which is why it lasted me so long, but the transfer into the new case only took me about three hours, and that was with a bunch of breaks throughout. I probably could have done it faster if I hadn’t wanted to savor it, haha. The cable management for the backless desk took a lot longer, though! (…and a LOT of zip ties.)

I do set my new build on a small glass stand (again, from Amazon) because Hamlet’s pretty sheddy and I wanted to keep airflow as good as possible. I’m limited on how many case fans I can install since I have the optical drive rack taking up a lot of space on the right, but I could install new fans on top if I wanted. My temperatures are great, though (I monitor with CoreTemp & GPUTemp, as well as my motherboard’s built-in temp monitoring software), so I don’t need to unless I decide I need more RGB.

Anything I might want to add, I run through PCPartPicker to make sure it’ll fit what I already have. For example, my parts list looks like this (full view and complete parts list available at this link):

ANYWAY.

If you are patient, if you can fit small Lego-like pieces in labeled sockets, and you are a decent googler, you can build your own PC. It’s really, really hard to do serious damage to components nowadays, even if you plug something in wrong. There’s a bunch of resources, though, and I’d recommend the following places to start:

newegg.com - parts for sale, getcher parts here

pcpartpicker.com - put your list of components together, and it’ll flag any compatibility issues or known problems

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/ - great starting point for new builders, tons of advice and how-to’s for every step of the process, and a decently responsive community to help troubleshoot any issues you might have

And I obviously love doing this kind of thing, so if there’s anything I can help with, I’m more than happy to try! Just let me know, and I hope this was helpful!

#anonymous #quark replies #quark's pc tag #long post for ts #very long post for ts #lots o videos and pictures for ts #a quest for fps

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libermachinae · 4 years ago

Text

Fault Lines Under the Living Room

Part IV: Touch - Chapter 11: Ripple

Also on AO3 Summary: They’ve only just arrived at their destination when things start to go wrong. Word Count: 2193

---

“Picking up some light readings,” Drift reported. “Limited tech, similar to Vitrious. You getting anything?”

“Just a massive, concentrated energy spike a few degrees northeast,” Rodimus said. “Recent exposure, Cybertronian markers.”

“When’s the last time you took that rig in for a tune-up?”

Ratchet hated having to repeat himself, but either Drift was incapable of recognizing the severity of his ship’s disrepair (unlikely) or he was being even more obstinate than normal. Exchanging their vessels’ specs had revealed the truly horrific condition the ship was in: fuel efficiency half of what it should have been, unreliable pressure seals, thrusters that should not have made it into the air, let alone off a planet. That he had survived transit was a—not a miracle, an insult to probability and reasonable calculation of—

Rodimus put a hand on his shoulder and tried to think calm thoughts. Drift had survived. It didn’t make sense, and maybe the luck would run out now that it had been acknowledged, but—

Ratchet halfheartedly swatted at his hand, more like a firm pat.

No wonder you liked him so much. Morale officer doesn’t suit you. He failed to dislodge Rodimus’ hand and didn’t bother trying again.

“Haven’t had the time.” The sound of flipping switches was followed by a hard smack from Drift’s end, rounded out by imprecise grumbling. Drift’s report had lacked any details on the state of his ship’s user interface, but the variety of language he had spoken to it with, impressive even by Ratchet’s standards, gave the sense that it was functioning at about the same level as everything else: barely.

“Still think it’s an outpost?” Rodimus asked.

“Lot of things it could be,” Drift said, voice accompanied by a few more mechanical noises. “We’d need more info to say for sure. Or a visual.”

Rodimus considered the readouts in front of him. There were more he hadn’t read out, but only because he didn’t know how. Ratchet translated what he could, but they were trying to keep his focus on piloting which meant Rodimus couldn’t spend too long wondering about the more mystifying aspects of his screen. Was that box in the top corner a map, or a graph? He didn’t know, and he had to look away before it overtook their other priorities.

“There are also stockpiles, energon plants, and decoys out there,” Drift went on. “Traps, if you’re really unlucky. Whole lot of empty shacks; lot of boltholes won’t have anyone living in them most of the time.”

“On the move a lot?” Rodimus asked.

“Sure. Only one in a dozen stellar systems will have a planet good for energon harvesting, and then there’s having to be vigilant about competition and enforcers. Sometimes needs will change or new opportunities will open up, and a crew will split up to deal with it.” He sounded annoyed at that, briefly breaking from his researcher-describing-mysterious-outgroup tone.

“Couple Decepticons on holiday accidentally give you the slip?” Rodimus asked, just to keep him there.

“More like an entire platoon,” Drift said, rising to it so quickly that they could only assume he’d been waiting for someone to complain about this to. “I tracked them to their covert thermal operation on a smelter of a planet, got all the way in, only to discover the one mech they’d left behind was their communications specialist—it was a mess. But, that’s the past now.” And just as quickly, the wall was back up. “If our intel’s good and Grit’s got a byte of sense, there should be someone here. Just no idea how many.”

“Sounds like there’s a good chance we’ll get this thing cleaned up quick,” Ratchet said. “So long as we stick together.”

Drift’s Hm’d agreement was more than either had expected. Maybe they were making progress.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Good to go,” Rodimus said, adjusting the items on his screen to focus on the ship’s status. “Defense and surveillance up, and we’re at about descent altitude. Just give us a head’s up when you start improvising, so we can get out of your way.”

He was not supposed to say that. He shot over a grin in response to Ratchet’s disapproval; what point was there in denying the inevitable?

Practicing being a good friend, remember? That means saying no to stupid ideas.

It also means being there to catch him instead of holding him back.

It was the kind of argument that couldn’t be solved with a few pointed thoughts or memories, the kind that they did not have time for now, as the visual feed showed Drift’s ship starting its descent. They set it aside in their own ways: Ratchet simply stopped thinking about it, while Rodimus let himself run through the myriad arguments he would have made simultaneously before reconnecting himself to the present. A moment later and they were ready, Ratchet punching in the commands to follow Drift down.

The planet’s cloudless atmosphere gave them a clear view of the terrain below, its massive, dramatic rock formations contoured by deep shadows. North of them, the average surface elevation increased and smoothed out into tall hills, but where they were going the difference between peaks and valleys created a network of shelves and tunnels that would be perfect to hide a secret base in. And stealth did seem to be one goal of whoever had set up shop down there: besides the sloppy energy output, there were no obvious signs of cyberforming on the planet’s surface. Rodimus was about to suggest that only those who came looking for Cybertronians would ever notice they were here, when a glint in one of the visual feeds caught his attention. He brought the feed to his station and zoomed in. Metal?

The word hit his vocoder as Ratchet shoved them into a dive.

“Turret!”

The energy beam was hot enough to ripple the air around it. Even though Ratchet got them turned away fast enough, the whole shuttle shuddered from the near-miss. Crates and containers rattled in their restraints, and Rodimus was too busy keeping up with Ratchet to think about the sounds of crashing down in the hold. They should have been at a safe distance to avoid detection; how had they been pinpointed so quickly?

“Pull up! Get out of here!” Drift shouted.

No time to wonder about it right now.

“Can’t,” Rodimus said while Ratchet wrestled with the controls. “I’ve got visual; they’re charging up for the next shot. Reversing momentum would have us hovering like an auto-skeet.” If the console would stop bombarding him with warnings, he might have been able to make better estimates about their next move, but a ship this size wasn’t designed to be flown by just two bots with half a processor each. Ratchet was demanding so much of their attention that even reading the words on the screen demanded resources they didn’t have, so he scrubbed the whole thing until all that was left was the visual feed, the twinkle that shone just before the storm. “Diving. Keep on our tail.”

“No, that’s—fine. Aim for cover.”

Ratchet switched off the reverse thrusters and the ship plummeted out of its gentle descent. The entire world rocked nauseatingly as the discordant visual feeds broadcast the tilting horizon and rising ground, and they startled as the second blast singed the air behind them, the crackle of Drift’s failing comms suite not enough to prevent their sparks from clenching down in panic. The rear cameras recovered from the overexposure, and there was the speeder, intact and keeping pace.

“What now?” Drift demanded.

“Evasive maneuvers,” Rodimus said, following the ticker tape of Ratchet’s intentions. “Triple Thunderclash!”

Ratchet twisted hard on the controls and sent the ship spiraling. Rodimus would have been flung across the bridge had they not been secured, but even then struggled to maintain focus as they were thrashed around, over and over. He couldn’t see Drift anymore, or the distant turret: everything was swirls of color, broken up for only a split second as the third blast went wide and passed them by.

Ratchet drew back and pulled them out of the spiral, then hastily steered them aside as the recovered visual feeds revealed an oncoming peak. Landing thrusters were engaged; slightly dazed, Rodimus picked out a promising valley for Ratchet to maneuver them into. Drift reappeared in the rear feed, keeping his distance in case they had to dart again. Not that there would be much room for it, as the canyon walls rose up and enveloped them.

Ratchet brought the shuttle to rest on a wide shelf and sat back, optics dim. The constant, pounding beat of his focus dispersed, and he sunk into pillowy relief, buoyed by Rodimus’ burst of Wow we made its and What kind of gun was thats and I’m alive Ratchet’s alive Drift’s alives. It had been hard, keeping that iron grip on himself while Ratchet put in the work of keeping them alive, but—

“Wouldn’t have seen that shot coming without you,” Ratchet said. Rodimus looked away as he flushed, warm with appreciation and embarrassment; sincerity was an intimacy he was never quite prepared for. He was grateful when Drift’s speeder landed alongside them.

“Everybody intact in there?” Ratchet asked. He thought Rodimus’ embarrassment was amusing, frag him, but was willing to set it aside out of concern for their friend. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t find a way to exploit it later, but for now, Rodimus was safe.

“We made it,” Drift said. “That was more more like a Double Thunderclash.”

“Ratchet was between Thunderclashes and I had to make a best guess.” Rodimus tried to mime the path of the two ships with his hands, twisting his arms as far as his joints would allow. “It’s a Triple Thunderclash because it’s three times cooler than a thing Clash did in some fight,” he explained, since he felt Ratchet wondering.

“Battle of Ambustus Major?” Ratchet asked. Rodimus shrugged and tried not to pout when Ratchet immediately brought up an old vid file of the maneuver.

“Is the ship stable here?” Drift asked, reminding them they were here with a purpose. In the aftermath of such a close call, it was natural to want to ease back for a moment, but Rodimus couldn’t fault Drift for wanting to stay on track. The stakes weren’t any lower just because they’d made it to the surface intact.

“Should be,” Ratchet said, leaning over so he didn’t have to keep relying on Rodimus to funnel through the ship’s readings. “Holding steady for now. We’d probably need to conduct a physical survey to be sure, but I’m not seeing anything troubling from here.” Ratchet wasn’t sure of the composition of this planet, but the lack of dust in the atmosphere suggested it was made of a lot of hard, compact stone, hopefully strong enough to support a spacefaring vessel. They just had to hope that whatever geologic event had formed this shelf hadn’t terribly weakened the wall it was anchored to.

“Good,” Drift said. “The good news from all this is that the turret gives us an idea of where they have their main base; it’d be a waste of fuel to have to drive back and forth a long way. Once I’ve scouted it out and located Grit, you can come in.”

“Okay, and one more time with a plan we’ll actually follow?” Ratchet’s edge emboldened Rodimus. If it had been just him out here, he might have let Drift make all the decisions out of guilt, but the strong presence beside his mind pulsed with gentle encouragement.

Drift sighed.

“Right. Give me a minute.”

Ratchet gave Rodimus a thumbs up. Progress.

Rodimus got up from the captain’s seat and walked to the bow of the bridge, where the narrow viewshield gave him a closer peek onto the planet. The impression he got: rocks. Though the surface was painted mainly by dull shades of brown, down here they started taking on more color, hints of red and green only noticeable against the stark homogeny of everything else.

Why had the Decepticons chosen this planet? Were there fuel reservoirs buried too far below the surface to show up on orbital scanners? How would they have known to come looking for them? If not, if this was just a backwater hideaway, why the powerful defense system? Who was hiding here? And for how long? He itched to pop the hatch open and start exploring, but Ratchet’s presence kept him in place. This world, with its unknown Cybertronian population, confronted them with a new variety of complexity and danger. Though they could be rash in their decision to help Drift, they couldn’t risk being stupid about it.

Ratchet gently nudged him away from that kind of thinking. No one here was stupid. Everyone was trying to do the right thing for the people of Vitrious, the universe at large, and each other.

Rodimus cast a small, grateful smile over his shoulder.

“Okay.” The comms came back to life with Drift’s voice. “I still think this is a bad idea. But I’ve got something.”

#maccadam #transformers #dratchrod #ratchet #rodimus #drift #my writing #longfic #fault lines #edit: pfff forgot the link :P

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syilcawrites · 4 years ago

Note

for your zelink prompt,,,how do you feel about a modern AU where the two bike to the beach and have a picnic?

a/n: I added ‘high school’ to the prompt too hope you don’t mind asghjjhas (’: Also this turned out a lot longer than I planned hope that’s okay ;-; I want to practice writing in Link’s voice more so this is in his pov!! Anyway! I hope you enjoy this, and thanks a lot for the prompt <3

ao3

hot buttered apples with chamomile tea

There are two types of monsters: ones that sleep under your bed and ones that sleep behind your eyes. For Aryll, it's the former.

And Link saw a lot in the latter.

He rubbed his eyes to try to erase the bags that rest stubbornly underneath them, but he wondered if he was just making it worse. Probably. But why did it matter anyway? He usually got three hours of sleep tops, so he always liked to think that darkness had become a permanent edition to his features. He tapped his toes against the pavement, waiting, peering around the corner of the school's brick fence, trying to catch a glimpse of the black car that Zelda usually pulled up in. With five minutes left until school started, he was beginning to worry—she was never late. And for the first time in his entire high school career, he was early.

It was a last minute trip they had planned, when they had snuck onto the school roof after class yesterday.

"I want to see the ocean," she had told him, under the summer's unrelenting heat. They were both sticky with sweat, even though they were sitting under a shady area, and the next thing she said made no sense to him. "I've never been to the beach before." Living here and never once going to Hateno Beach? He thought she was kidding at first. But she stared at him dead in the eye with her lips pressed into a thin line, as serious as ever. When he jokingly proposed that they ditch school the next day to go to the beach, she didn't hesitate to say yes.

It had taken him practically the whole day yesterday to convince her to sneak up onto the rooftop, and yet she was completely fine with ditching an entire day of school to go to the beach.

She was weird and unpredictable and he loved it.

He decided to check his backpack again for the twelfth time in the past hour, just to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. His memory was pretty terrible to begin with. He always found something new that he had forgotten whenever he went to check his backpack. The first time he checked, he realized he didn't bring any cups. Just that one thermal bottle whose lid doubled as a cup. The second time he checked, he realized he had forgotten napkins. If worst came to worst, he guessed he could just offer up his jacket or something, if she really needed to clean her hands or wipe her mouth—would that be any better though? When was the last time he washed his jacket?

"Link?"

Before he could try to sniff his sleeve, Zelda's voice pierced his thoughts.

He zipped up the backpack once more and peeked around the corner again—and finally, he saw her familiar twin braided blonde hair bobbing up and down as she ran toward him.

With… a frenzied kind of pace.

"Link!" she shouted again, breathless, as she waved her arms up and down in panic. Behind her he could hear another person shouting—but it was hard to hear their voice, since it was drowned out by the sound of Zelda urgently telling him to go, go, go.

Fumbling, Link lifted the bike away from the brick fence and rolled it out, hopping onto the front seat.

"I thought you said you had two bikes!" Zelda exclaimed, quickly tossing herself over the second seat without missing a beat.

"I mean, this is kinda like two bikes isn't it?" She only learned how to ride a bike three days ago and he wasn't comfortable with leading her down a rather windy road to get to the beach on her own. The last time he taught someone how to ride a bike was Mipha, years ago, and she almost face planted into a cliff because he let go of her bike and had forgotten to tell her how to brake.

Besides, he had to bribe Aryll fifty rupees to take the tandem bike out today. If he wanted to borrow her regular bike, she would've asked for a hundred. That was equivalent to a week's worth of mowing Tokk's front lawn.

Link was probably getting scammed by Tokk, but he was only 40% sure about that.

"Won't we look ridiculous riding this around?" Zelda scoffed as they began pulling out onto the road. "I thought we were supposed to be discreet? A tandem bike—Oh Hylia!" She kicked his shin with her foot, urging him to hurry. "Impa's coming!"

"Who?" Impa? He didn't think Zelda had mentioned her before.

"Miss Zelda!"

Link glanced at the direction that Zelda had come from, and he saw an angry looking young woman in a black suit racing toward them at an alarming speed. A chill ran down his spine as they locked eyes.

"You!" Impa shouted, pointing a furious finger at him. "Who are you!"

Without a second left to waste, Link clicked into gear and pedaled away fast before that angry finger could intentionally poke out his eyeballs. They shot down the road, with Zelda's exhilarated laughter mixing in with the sound of the rushing wind whistling by them.

For some reason, it was a strange and distinct sound, like it was reverberating all around him; he felt trapped in it.

Until her laughter abruptly stopped.

"Look out—!"

He looked up; but by then, it was too late. An apple that hung low from the tree smacked him square on the forehead with a resounding thud.

——————————————————————

"You know," Zelda said, accepting his hand as he helped her down the rocky cliff that led to the shoreline, "the beach looks different from above."

Link hadn't been to Zelda's home before, but he knew what it looked like from below. It was an odd-looking building that used to be an abandoned lighthouse, but then someone moved into it a couple of years ago, and that someone had hammered on weird platforms and objects to it, so now it looked like Hateno's novelty sculpture.

"Your room's at the top of that lighthouse building right?" Link asked, grunting as he jumped down onto the sand with a hefty thud. He turned around and held out both of his hands to her.

"Mhm. Purah let me have the upper loft when I moved in with her. The view's amazing at night, you can see all the stars." Zelda crouched down and gratefully accepted his hands. Her hands were rough. She jumped down.

Link couldn't see the stars from his bed, because a gigantic tree was right in front of his window.

Her prickling stare withdrew him from his thoughts—she studied his face as if she was observing every detail on it. He could count the sun freckles that had begun appearing around her cheeks; heat climbed to his cheeks as he leaned back a little, finally aware of how close they were.

"I hope that apple won't leave a bruise on your forehead," she muttered, her eyebrows furrowing together, with that little crease appearing between her brows. Always one crease, never two. "You took quite a hit back there."

"I—" he paused, his mouth still slightly ajar.

What was he gonna say? That he was too focused on the sound of her laughter to the point where he wasn't paying attention to the road?

She tilted her head quizzically, waiting for him to speak.

Link let go of her hands to adjust the straps of his stiff backpack. "I know a spot near the rocks," he muttered, turning to a cluster of boulders near the water. It was flat enough that they could place the blanket down and set the lunchboxes and thermal bottle without having to worry about them falling over.

They walked side by side.

"The patterns on the rocks are so symmetrical," she murmured, tapping her chin with her finger. "Like the cliff we just climbed down from—you could tell during high tide the water reaches it, just barely though. I've always found it fascinating that exposure to water erosion could create such beautiful patterns. Don't you agree?"

Link nodded, and a smile quirked up on her lips. The hop in her step was a little higher than usual as she sped up to reach the cluster of rocks faster. He liked listening to her observations of little details, even though he didn't offer much opinion of his own. It was nice to hear and see Hyrule through a different kind of lens.

She was already climbing up the rock by the time Link reached it, and she stood there proud and tall with her hands on her hips, facing the vast ocean.

"We should eat before the food gets cold," Link called up to her, unzipping his backpack to hand her the picnic blanket. It used to belong to his mom. At one point he stole the key to his dad's chest and opened it up to find a bunch of things that used to be hers, probably, because there was a picture of her in there, squished in with a bunch of other stuff. He stole that picture too. And to this day, his dad still hadn't noticed anything was missing.

Link wondered if his dad knew, and just let him... have it.

"Of course," she said, her eyes glinting hungrily. She grabbed the blanket from him, and with it, his thoughts.

She spread it out as he climbed up to her.

Her reactions were always funny whenever Link brought food for her. For some reason, she always tried to mask her excitement—but she was terrible at hiding the anticipation that gleamed in her green eyes, and even more terrible at trying to keep a smile from erupting on her face while he pulled out the two lunchboxes.

"Chamomile tea," Link stated, as he pulled out the thermal bottle next. He paused to watch her, and her mouth formed an 'o' as she greedily grabbed it from him, opening the cap up. He popped open the lid of one of the lunchboxes and slid it toward her.

There were sliced hydromelons, egg pudding, honey crepes and fruits, and her favorite—

"Hot buttered apples!" Zelda exclaimed, reaching for one.

In the other box he had a handful of savory foods—maybe he should've opened that one up first.

"I'm glad you took my suggestion." Her fingers paused just before she picked the slice up. "But first, the tea," she said quickly, as if she was reminding herself. She poured it into the lid of the thermal bottle, handing it to Link.

"I want to see your expression when you try it," Zelda insisted, beaming. She was smiling a lot today—more than she has in the past two years that he'd known her. "You take a bite out of the apple first, and then drink the tea, and then it tastes amazing."

"Just like that?" he asked, eyeing the light crisp color of the chamomile tea she handed to him. It reminded him of apple cider.

"Trust me, Link. You'll want to keep eating it," she promised, tugging down at her two braids. She always did that when she was waiting for something—every time she was standing in line at the vending machines to get the both of them candy pop sodas at school, she did that same little tug. "I'm picky with my food, so you know I wouldn't simply be saying this without meaning it."

Link picked up the slice—the hot buttered apples had turned into warm buttered apples by now, but he figured it wouldn't change the taste all that much. As soon as he took a bite out of it and took a sip from the tea, her eyes sparkled.

The combination of the two warmed his stomach—the pinch of cinnamon she had recommended he put on it really kicked it for him, and he had to refrain from shoving at least ten more into his mouth. Considering how much she was staring at the hot buttered apples, he wanted to save the majority of it for her.

"Good? Right? They both have that toasty taste but it's a different kind of toasty. The chamomile tea, when brewed correctly of course, has that touch of floral kick to it too! And the hot buttered apples with that sprinkle of cinnamon just melts in your mouth and it's the most wonderful thing ever, isn't it?" She quickly thanked him as she accepted the tea when he handed it to her, and she picked up a slice to take an eager bite of her own.

"It's really good." He wasn't the best at expressing himself through words, but despite their simplicity, it seemed to have gotten through to her, as that gleeful glint in her eyes only gleamed brighter. "Did your parents—" He paused mid-chew, realizing just a little too late that his question was going to dampen her brightness.

And it did, just a little.

Idiot.

Whenever he asked about her immediate family, she would tense up—just like now. She cast her eyes down at the lunchbox, eyeing all of the food that he had prepared, her lips pursed. She would always be on the brink of telling him, but then she would turn away in the end.

Maybe… she needed a little push, to talk about it.

"My mom hated apples." The words felt weird in his mouth—he's never spoken about his mom to anyone, and he only brought her up once to his dad. Link raised his eyes to meet hers. Zelda had stopped chewing too, and looked at him with wide, curious eyes.

"That's what my dad told me at least, when I asked him what she hated the most." No one in his family ate apples that much, and it all made sense when he found out about that little fact a couple of years ago. It was hard for his dad to talk about her—time didn't heal the pain behind his voice when he told Link those three simple words: She hated apples.

And behind those three simple words were years upon years of grieving, and he never asked his dad about her again.

He watched as Zelda picked up another slice, her mouth parting slightly. "My mother loved making all sorts of meals with apples."

Loved, Link thought.

Past tense.

They sat in silence for a bit, just munching on those hot buttered apples, while passing the tea back and forth between each other.

"My mother made a snack for me that always involved apples in some way—whenever I was sad, angry, or when she was proud of me." He expected her to look lost in thought as she spoke, but she wasn't. She was as present as she could've been, and he was... it made him feel a little better. Less alone. "Hot buttered apples with chamomile tea was my favorite. She made it for me quite often," she said, chuckling. "What was your mother like?"

She gave him the last slice.

He hesitated; both in accepting the last piece and at her question. The only thing he had was a worn out picture of her, weathered down by age. And that blanket. "I don't know, I don't remember anything," he admitted, taking the slice from her.

Her gaze softened.

Link once punched another classmate in grade school because they asked him, how could he be sad? If he had no memories of his own mom? What was there to be sad about, since he couldn't remember anything? And for the longest time, he didn't let himself be sad over her. How could you be sad about someone you had no memories of?

But one day, Aryll barged into his room—her face red, with snot running down her nose, crying, because she had an argument with their dad. "What if I forget about her, Link?" Aryll had said to him in between her choked up sobs. "I feel like if dad never talks about her, she'll disappear forever."

He knew then that there was pain with memory, and pain without memory. One wasn't more valid than the other.

Because either way, no one won anything in the end.

"I wish I could've met your mother," she said. "I'm certain I could've changed her mind about apples."

There wasn't a lick of a tease on her face. She was serious.

For the first time in a while, Link laughed.

#zelink #botw #breath of the wild #sorry i took a hot second but I just kept adding stuff to it and then it became kinda long LOL #my fanfics #thank u sm for the prompt!!!#the-astrumnauta #syilca answers #one more prompt to go baby!

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theluckiestwitchatblackwell · 4 years ago

Text

Winter Love

HELLO hi @coffeecomicsgalore this is my @mlsecretsanta fic for you! I had so much fun writing this one, happy holidays! Massive thank you to @adrienettes-hamster for beta-ing!

Also on FFnet and AO3!

Mid-November is when the chill of the impending winter started to set in. Not cold enough for snow, but cold enough that Ladybug had begun to notice her kitty shivering while on patrols. Granted, she was quite cold herself, but she was handling it better than Chat Noir.

“Do you need to stop, Chat?”

“No, I’m fine,” he stuttered out between chattering teeth.

“Chat, go home and get warm. We can patrol again tomorrow night.” Her voice was soft but commanding, and his ears drooped. “I’ll bring some hot chocolate, okay?” His ears perked up a bit at the mention of that.

“Okay then. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he replied with a small smile, turning and bounding away with his staff.

She watched him for a moment before turning herself, luckily only needing to travel a few blocks to her own home. The dull light of the lamp she had left on before heading out cut into the darkness. It was still relatively early in the night, only around 9 o’ clock, but she knew that her parents would already be in bed, ready for next morning’s early rise.

Marinette landed on her balcony and hopped down through the skylight onto her bed before calling off her transformation. When Tikki swirled out of the earrings and into her hands, she was also shivering.

“Yeah, it is a bit too cold tonight,” Marinette mumbled to her as she cupped her hands around her kwami. “Let me grab us some hot chocolate, okay?” Tikki nodded, her little head bobbing up and down as vigorously as Chat’s jaw was. Marinette gently slid her onto her pillow then climbed down the ladder to the rest of her room, then the ladder to the rest of the apartment. Finding her favourite mug clean and ready to be used, she ducked down and grabbed the teacup she had hidden for Tikki. It was almost matching with her favourite design, covered with florals over a white background, and it had belonged to one of the dolls from her childhood doll house.

Marinette hummed while she filled the mugs with the still-steaming hot chocolate from the flask her mother had left out for her. She wondered whether or not it would snow soon, and if it would shut the school down. Would the snow mean Hawkmoth would slow down on attacks? Or would he send out more akumas?

She wondered about her friends. Alya would probably spend most of the time babysitting her sisters, Marinette by her side of course. Nora might be home for the winter. Nino would probably be glued to his computer, creating new tracks and networking with other DJs. Adrien…

Adrien would keep up his studies with Nathalie. Marinette knew how tough his dad was on him based on how detailed his schedule was. Mandarin lessons, fencing, piano, modelling and school? And she thought she was busy between school, sewing and saving Paris. Then again, saving Paris was never on a set schedule. She supposed she and Adrien weren’t too different in that aspect.

Adrien had been shivering a bit in class recently. While everyone else bundled up in their warmest sweaters and thermals, Adrien’s outfits didn’t seem to hold the same temperature. Did Gabriel favour style over comfort? The very thought burned Marinette.

She stopped pouring as she realised it was about to overflow her mug, and set the flask down with a hardened resolve. This Christmas, she was going to knit something warm for her two favourite people. The gears in her mind began ticking over as she thought of what to give each of them. She still had Adrien’s head measurements from when she created the hat for the contest a year or two back, and his body’s measurements from the designs she had made for her website... maybe a sweater? Or a beanie?

She didn’t have Chat’s measurements though. She supposed if she worked hard and fast enough she might be able to squeeze in a blanket. Now she had to think of patterns for both...

Marinette made her way back up to her room, carefully balancing the mugs in one hand as she pushed the trap door up then set them down on the floor to climb inside.

“Tikki?” She called out gently. “Hot chocolate has arrived.”

She set them down on the bench by her computer as she opened up her sketchbook. Knowing it would take longer, she began working on the blanket’s design, but stopped short as she realised that while she knew her partner, she didn’t really know him. She vaguely remembered his favourite colour was green, and funnily enough was a cat person, both literally and figuratively. Marinette began to worry that what she makes wouldn’t be good enough for him, or that he wouldn’t like it.

“What are you working on, Marinette?” Tikki asked sleepily while sipping her hot chocolate.

“Both Adrien and Chat Noir haven’t been dealing with the cold well, so I figured I’d knit them both something warm for Christmas,” Marinette replied as she began writing in some notes. Tikki peered over the book and looked back at Marinette.

“A blanket? Will you have time to make that? Christmas is only a month away.”

“I know, but I figured if I work on it in all of my spare time then I might be able to get it done in time. Hopefully there’s a few snow days in the next few weeks,” Marinette said as she glanced out the window. The window stubbornly continued to show no sign of snow, though there was the twinkling of stars between the clouds.

Tikki took another sip of her drink. “Who’s the blanket for?”

“Chat Noir. I have Adrien’s measurements, so I was thinking either a beanie or a sweater, but I’m not sure of Chat’s. What do you think?” Marinette picked up a green pencil and began to shade in the sketch. In each corner there was a small, blocky cat face with light whiskers.

“He does tend to wear that short sleeved top a lot. I think sweater.”

Marinette hummed and nodded in agreement. “I think you’re right. What about the middle of this?” She held the page up to Tikki, who had ditched the now empty cup and was snuggled into her neck. “I was thinking maybe the initials C.N. but that might be too obvious.”

“What about a Yin Yang symbol, but a ladybug as the white dot and whiskers on the black dot?”

“Tikki, you’re a genius!”

And so Marinette got to work, having most of the yarn colours she required already. Quite a few rows in, she started to nod off and, seeing that it was now well past her bedtime, climbed the ladder to her bed and whispered goodnight to Tikki.

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

“That’s… a lot of yarn, Marinette,” Alya said with mild concern. “You surely haven’t gotten this low by now?

Marinette shrugged, or at least shrugged the best she could with her arms piled up with rolls of yarn. “I’ve got a few commissions and wanted to be sure. I can use what’s left to make some gifts as well.”

Marinette had dragged Alya on a shopping trip for materials after school the next day. She had some pocket money saved up from chores and her birthday. Half an hour later, they emerged from the fabric store with a lot of yarn and some new shearing scissors, an early gift from Alya.

“Ooh, who’s commissioned you? It must be a big project!”

Marinette almost stumbled, unsure if she should tell Alya, even if she did have the perfect cover up for it. But then again, she knew her best friend.

“Uh, Ladybug commissioned a blanket as a gift for Chat Noir. Apparently they’re having a tough time on their night patrols with the chill.”

Alya’s eyes bugged out of her head and she squealed, “Oh my god, that is so cute! She’s totally in love with him!”

This time Marinette did really stop. “No way! She did not give off that vibe at all when she came around! It’s just really cold at night!”

“Babe, you don’t just commission a whole BLANKET for your friend!” Alya shook her by her shoulders, a few rolls threatening to fall out of Marinette’s arms, who gasped a loud “careful!”

“They’re friends, Alya, and friends can share a blanket when it’s cold. Can we please drop it?”

Alya huffed and rolled her eyes. “Sure, but you know I’m right!”

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

Later that night, Marinette was zooming through rows of knitting on her balcony. She barely stopped for a few bites of the dinner that her mother had brought up earlier. When her hands began cramping, she turned back to her sketchbook to work on the design for Adrien’s sweater. She figured it best to keep it simple, and made it light green in shade with darker green and black accents. When the cramping had lessened, she picked up the needles again and started knitting furiously again.

Around 8 o’ clock, Tikki nudged her and reminded her that she needs to meet up with Chat Noir. Marinette thanked her and transformed, grabbed the bag of treats she had snuck up earlier, then leapt off the balcony with her yoyo flying off into the distance.

She found Chat Noir on their rooftop an arrondissement away, huddled next to the chimney for warmth.

“Chaton, look what I brought!”

His ears perked up and his lips curved into a wide smile. “That doesn’t just smell like hot chocolate, m’lady. Is that…” his eyes lit up as she lifted the Dupain-Cheng bakery box out of the bag after the flasks, “croissants? And macarons?”

She matched his smile and replied, “all of the above, plus pain au chocolat. Only the best for the cat hero of Paris!” She had to set down the box quickly as he crushed her in a hug. She wrapped her arms around him as well, happy that he was happy. She didn’t miss his murmur of “what did I do to deserve you?” and simply hugged him tighter, almost shielding him from the cool wind. He let go after a few more moments, diving for the flask of hot chocolate and sitting against the chimney.

“Half hour of snacking before we make the rounds?”

“Works for me,” Chat Noir replied in between sips, visibly settling down as the drink warmed him up from the inside. “How did you get the Dupain-Cheng goods? Aren’t they closed by now?”

“They are, but I picked them up just before they closed for the day, so they’re pretty fresh.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, she did get them from the last batch her father made for the day.

Chat Noir hummed as he bit into a macaron, savouring the taste. “They are the best in town, no competition.”

“You’re not wrong there.” Ladybug took this moment of comfortable silence to take the top off of her flask and have a long drink of her hot chocolate. They sat together, shoulder to shoulder against the chimney and the wind started to settle down.

The sun had well and truly set by now, the moon as bright as ever with the stars shining like the streetlights below them. Tonight, there were no clouds, and nothing above them but the open sky. Ladybug loved the sight, and found it to be the second best perk of being a superhero, the first being partnered with Chat Noir. Her friend, Chat Noir, she thought, thinking back to Alya’s words earlier in the day. She was in love with Adrien and absolutely, definitely, totally had no such feelings for Chat Noir.

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

Marinette was exhausted, to say the least.

It was now the beginning of December, and the blanket was just over half done. She had resorted to bringing in her spare needles and knitting before and after class to start on Adrien’s sweater, and ignored anyone and everyone that asked about it with a small blush.

She also resorted to ignoring any pressing by Alya on Ladybug’s “commission” of the blanket, which had not died out as time had gone on. Alya wanted to know everything from the words Ladybug said to her expression and body language as she spoke about Chat Noir. Marinette now highly regretted giving in and telling her anything.

Thinking of the blanket, she thought about the surprise she was given when Chat Noir dropped in a few nights before.

A gentle rapping on the window shook Marinette from her concentration as she began a new colour for the Yin Yang. She looked around as she heard the telltale swoosh of Tikki hiding and saw Chat Noir waving from her balcony with a sheepish look on her face. She set down the blanket, laying it flat on the floor, and climbed up her ladder to open it.

“Chat Noir? What are you doing here?”

“Forgive me, but I saw your light on while I was out for a run. It’s getting very cold and my own place is a bit too far for me right now. Do you mind if I warm up in here for a few minutes?”

She wasn’t aware of any patrol they had planned. She double checked the day it was in her head and confirmed yes, it was their night off.

“O-Of course you can, would you like anything to eat or drink?” She moved aside for him to jump in, and watched as he looked around the room in wonder.

“Some hot chocolate, if you have any, please,” he replied, eyes moving from the chaise to the various mannequins and designs strewn about the room.

Marinette dearly hoped he wouldn’t know it was the same he had had just a few weeks ago, and a few times since as the temperature continued to drop.

“S-Sure thing, I’ll be right back.”

She climbed down after him, throwing a panicked glance to where Tikki was hiding and subtly gestured for her to follow. She climbed down the trapdoor to the kitchen and turned to Tikki.

“What is he doing here?” Tikki asked.

“I don’t know! It’s not patrol night! He’s going to recognise my recipe for sure!” She began to pace the kitchen.

“Calm down Marinette, he might just think you sell it here. You said you bought the treats from here didn’t you?”

“I mean yeah, but what if his civilian identity comes here often enough to know it’s not sold?” Marinette could not keep calm, but she kept her voice quiet. No need to freak out both her parents and her unexpected guest.

“New product for winter?”

That stopped Marinette in her tracks. “That could work.” Her nerves stilled, she grabbed two mugs and the flask, filling them and turning back to Tikki again with a smile. “You always know how to calm me down.”

Tikki giggled, “Kwami of luck and maybe logic as well. You best get back to him, we’ve been down here for a while now.”

As if on cue, they heard a soft knock on the door, and an even softer, “You okay down there?”

Marinette took the mugs by the handles, calling back, “Can you please open the door?”

The trapdoor opened as Marinette climbed up, and Chat Noir hastened to take one from her hand, and helped her up with his other one. Claws brushed her wrist as his grip tightened on her hand and while she shouldn’t have been surprised, his strength as he pulled her up caught her off guard slightly.

“I just couldn’t find my mug, I always have hot chocolate in it,” she raised her mug as she spoke.

“That’s a nice one. And this is really good,” he said, taking a sip. Marinette watched his eyes as a hint of recognition flickered over them, but he didn’t say anything about it.

“It’s a… family recipe. We just began selling it in the bakery for the winter.”

His face relaxed, and Marinette let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“What are you knitting?”

Man, if this cat didn’t stop. Sure, it’s an innocent question on his part, but Marinette was getting increasingly worried about hiding the truth.

“Oh! Uh, it’s a blanket for a friend of mine. They’re a… big fan of you and Ladybug.”

“And the other needles? I like the different shades of green on it.”

“That’s going to be a sweater, for another friend. He doesn’t seem to have a lot of warm clothes so I’m hoping this will help him.”

“That’s a really lovely gesture, Marinette. One of my friends is into fashion as well, you would get on great with her.”

Marinette hummed in agreement, then said, “I hope you don’t mind me returning to it, I’m trying to get them both done by Christmas.” “Of course not. I should get going now though,” he tipped his mug towards her, empty already, “Thank you very much for the drink, Princess.”

Marinette’s jaw dropped slightly and almost dropped her needles as well. “I-I… you’re welcome, a-any time.”

“I’ll take you up on that,” he replied suavely, adding a wink. Marinette waited until he was safely back out onto her balcony before rolling her eyes with a smile, and got back to her knitting. Stupid cat and his flirting.

Seeing that Madame Bustier was running late, she took Adrien’s sweater out of her bag and began to knit. She had switched out her small clutch for a larger, water-proof bag once she realised she’d need to bring the yarn and needles to class in order to finish it in time. Most of the class had been asking about it so far, including Nino and Alya, but Adrien had been quiet about it until now, when he walked in right as Marinette started another row.

“Hey Marinette, you’re early. What are you making?”

“Oh! Adrien, sweater- hi, uh, I mean-”

“It looks great so far. Green would look nice on you.”

Marinette squeaked and went bright red. “O-oh, uh, thank you, but it’s for a friend,” she giggled nervously.

“Well then, they’re a lucky friend!” Adrien smiled as he began unpacking his notebook and pencil case, and turned to the front. Madam Bustier walked in a moment later, gesturing for Marinette to put away the needles. Marinette didn’t miss the slight shiver that Adrien had to his frame, nor the goosebumps beginning to raise on his arms and the back of his neck.

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

“Chat Noir!”

It was the week before Christmas, and Marinette was in the home stretch of finishing this blanket. She was knitting on her balcony, hot chocolate by her side and just sheltered from the light snowfall. But now, she could just see the silhouette of the cat hero a few roofs away. He turned his head in surprise and as a result, almost fell off of his staff. She waved her hand, gesturing for him to come over to her.

As he got closer, she called out, “What are you doing out in the snow? It’s way too cold for someone in a skin-tight suit to be out here!”

“But Princess, you’re out here too!” he called back, now standing in front of her.

“I am wrapped up in sweaters and fuzzy pants, with a blanket over me, not a skin-tight suit, as I said! You should be at home, as warm and wrapped up as I am,” she finished on a gentler note as his ears drooped.

“I… don’t want to be home right now. I got into a fight with my father. Can I stay here for a bit?”

Her heart dropped and her eyes filled with sympathy for him. She knew it was a bad situation, but not leave-the-house-in-the-middle-of-winter bad. “Of course you can.”

She opened the skylight, carefully plopping down her almost-finished blanket and needles, then climbed in after it. He shook the snow from his hair, passed her half-empty mug of hot chocolate to her and hopped down onto the bed. She put the mug on a ledge next to her bed and said, “Do you need a hug?”

Almost immediately, he wrapped her in a bear hug not unlike the one he gave Ladybug a few weeks prior. She raised her arms just in time and curled them around his neck and if she happened to feel a tear or two slide onto her shoulders, she didn’t mention it.

Her hands weaved themselves into his wild hair, holding him close. She stayed silent, knowing words couldn’t convey the comfort she tried to give him. His arms were so long, they almost doubled back to himself. Together, they shivered, as he cried onto her shoulder silently and the wind blew through the skylight above. She untangled one of her hands to reach up and close it, but Chat Noir took this as a sign to let go and step back. Her other hand still tangled, she lost balance and they fell, Chat Noir landing on top of her as she hit the bed with an “oof!”

Marinette drew in a sharp breath as Chat Noir’s head hit her collarbone. That’s going to leave a bruise, she thought with a wince.

“I’m so sorry, are you alright?”

“Yeah, just knocked the breath out of me,” she replied, finally removing her hand from his hair. She sat up as he hurried to get off of her and sat at the end of her bed, both of their eyes wide open.

“So, um-”

“I-”

They both tried to speak at once, giggling when they stopped. Chat Noir gestured for her to speak first, so she did.

“Do you want some hot chocolate?”

“Please,” he replied gratefully, moving aside so she could climb down the ladder, following after her. She returned after a few minutes, setting their mugs down next to her computer. “Can you pass me down the blanket, please? I’m so close to finishing,” she asked as she held out her arms for it to be dropped into. She stumbled when it landed; it felt heavier than she expected it to be. Oh well, she thought, this means it should be extra warm.

She got settled in her desk chair, the blanket flowing down past her feet as Chat Noir settled on her chaise with his mug. They sat in a comfortable quiet, the only sounds in the room coming from the whirring of her computer, the clacking of the needles and a sip from Chat Noir every once in a while. She’d look up from time to time, and see his bright eyes staring back at her with a shy interest. There were hints of dried tears on his face, and she subtly elbowed the tissue box beside her towards him.

At last, she finished the last row of the blanket. She cast off, spreading it out on the floor and stepped back to look at her work. Chat Noir joined her, looking over it in wonder.

“How long did this take you?”

“Just under a month. I’ve been knitting as fast as I can and spent almost every waking moment on it. Except for when I’ve been at school, which I spent working on this,” she said as she pulled out the sweater for Adrien. “It’s for my friend Adrien. His father doesn’t really let him wear clothes that would give him comfort. I mean, I get that as a model he’s always representing the brand, but what kind of father chooses style over comfort for his own son? I’m surprised he hasn’t frozen to death already,” she tried to lighten the end of her rant as she realised she was getting angry.

He took a gentle hold on her elbow, and she looked up to face him. He had an odd look on his face, like he was embarrassed, though he had no reason to be.

“You’re an amazing friend, Marinette, and I’m sure he is going to love yo- it.”

She beamed at his praise and set it down on the chair, hugging him again with her whole body, his own arms wrapping tightly around her.

“Thank you for the hot chocolate, but I think I should go before my father realises I’m gone.”

She squeezed him tighter for a moment and whispered, “Will you be okay there? You know you’re welcome at any time, okay?”

He squeezed her back and replied, “I think I’ll be okay, but I will let you know,” and stepped back, taking care to not step on the blanket. She watched as he climbed the ladder and up onto the balcony, only looking back to wave her goodbye. She waved in reply then folded the blanket up, putting it into the bag she had reserved for patrols.

With only half a sleeve to go, she picked up the needles and set herself back down on the chair, continuing her work on Adrien’s sweater.

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

Conveniently enough, the next morning was announced to be the last school day before holiday break, as the weather predicted heavy snowfall for the coming days. Unfortunately though, it gave Marinette only today to give the now-completed sweater to Adrien. It was wrapped and labelled to and from (both Marinette and Alya made sure of it) but Marinette was frozen when she reached the classroom, causing Alya to bump into her back.

“Marinette! You can do this,” she heard her hiss, but she just couldn’t. There Adrien was, sitting and laughing at something Nino had said. She squeaked, almost losing her balance trying to step forward, which caught Adrien’s attention.

“Hey Marinette! What’s that you have there?”

Alya nudged her, and this time she did start to slip. This is how I die, she thought with a great internal sigh.

Quick as lightning, Adrien was in front of her, keeping her steady with concern masking his face.

“You okay?”

Marinette couldn’t do anything but stammer. “U-uh, you, I- gift! For you!”

“F-For me?”

He looked down to her hands, which were now shaking with the present between them.

“I-I mean…” Marinette looked helplessly back to Alya, who gave her a gentle nod, then looked back to Adrien and took a deep breath. “Yes, it’s for you. Merry Christmas, Adrien.”

The whole class was silent now, watching the two. Even Chloe watched, clearly fuming with a glare in Marinette’s direction.

He took it from her gently, their hands brushing for a moment. Marinette could swear she felt a spark, something warm in the cold room when they touched, but it disappeared as the package left her hands. She didn’t expect for him to set it down and sweep her into a hug so loving it reminded her of Chat N- no. No feelings for Chat Noir, only Adrien.

“Thank you,” he whispered into her ear with a squeeze.

In the middle of winter, Marinette felt like she was on fire. She tentatively raised her arms to hug him back, only for him to step back at the same moment and suddenly she was cold again.

“You’re welcome,” she whispered back as he turned away to open the gift. His eyes lit up with happiness as he unfolded the sweater, gushing, “I’m the lucky friend?!”

Marinette giggled, “You have my lucky charm, remember?”

That made Adrien snort, “Marinette, I think you are my lucky charm.”

The class dissolved into a chorus of “aww’s” and the two suddenly remembered where they were, both blushing furiously. Fortunately for them, Madame Bustier walked in to start seconds later.

He wore the sweater proudly for the rest of the day, and home, as far as Marinette saw.

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

“Tikki, spots on!”

Later that night, Marinette transformed once again into Ladybug. She made sure the lamp was on and her goodie bag was secured around her body before launching off of the balcony towards their meeting place for patrols. The snow was falling lightly, looking magical in the night. Chat Noir was already there, holding his own bag that fell by the side of the swea- sweater?

Her jaw dropped and she almost missed her target with the yoyo. Chat Noir caught on evidently as his face dropped with fear and he reached out for her.

“Ladybug, are you okay? What happened there?”

“Where did you get that sweater?”

His face split into a grin as he ran his claws along the accents. “Oh, isn’t it so cool? A friend gave it to me for Christmas!”

The pieces both fell together and shattered at the same time. Her face dropped in shock. “But I… y-you… I mean… Adrien?”

His mouth fell open and he stuttered back, “M-Marinette?”

They stared at each other in shock for a few moments before Chat Noir snorted, which made Ladybug break and they both just burst into laughter. It felt unbelievable, but made so much sense to the pair. The two who always got everyone to safety so they could be alone; they felt like idiots. Finally their laughter died down, but as Ladybug brought out the Dupain-Cheng box, they started up again. More things began making sense and they couldn’t help themselves.

They found their way to each other, holding on like they’ve been separated for years.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” Ladybug mumbled. Chat Noir’s body shielded her from the oncoming snow as they held each other.

“I can’t believe it either. We thought we were smart,” he laughed, and she could hear his smile.

“You’re gonna love this then,” she stepped back and opened her back, pulling out the blanket. She actually thought he might cry then and there. She held it towards him, who took it with such soft hands.

“You made this, for me?”

“I didn’t know your measurements- well, as it turns out I do, but I figured it would be something for us to keep warm under before patrols.”

“Marinette, I love you.”

They both paused, the phrase seemingly slipped out on its own, but she couldn’t help but reply, “I love you too.”

Winter patrols suddenly became a lot warmer.

#writing #fanfic #mlsecretsanta #ml secret santa #coffeecomicsgalore #mlsecretsanta2020 #miraculous ladybug #mlb #adrien #marinette #chat noir #ladybug #marichat #adrienette #ladrien #ladynoir

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thelightofthingshopedfor · 4 years ago

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just once, just fucking once I would like to have a reasonably productive long weekend instead of spending most of it too stuck in decision paralysis to actually do much of anything until I reach a point where I feel like I could very well break down crying because I’m too overwhelmed with everything I need to do but I still don’t actually do most of it because the decision paralysis is a huge part of what makes me so fucking overwhelmed in the first place

like. right now probably the most urgent thing is a semi-complicated Etsy commission that the buyer would ideally receive by Dec. 10, which probably means sending it Dec. 7 at the absolute latest. so I should be working on that, right? but it’s going to take a while so it’s a time commitment, especially because it seems kind of pointless to get out a lot of messy supplies to only work on it for a few minutes. and I need to order parts for a different order--well, at least that’s quick. I also really need to reapply thermal paste to my CPU as soon as I can because I think the fan’s getting louder and that can’t be good for anything in there, and theoretically it won’t be that hard, but realistically I’m sure it’s going to take a while and I have to look up a little info on how to do it, first--and it involves my PC being out of commission while I’m working on it, so that’s not something I can do halfway. and while my PC’s open I really need to replace my dead hard drive, which wouldn’t be that hard except I want to install the new one alongside the old one so I can try to clone the dead one onto the new one, which will definitely take time on both the hardware and software sides of things, but it needs to happen sooner rather than later because, again, there’s a lot of stuff I can’t do until I get that done. and I need to send the recent invoices for Hazy’s dental appointment to pet insurance to see if they’ll pay anything, and that should be quick, but nothing ever stays simple. and, shit, I should really do some actual work this weekend because I didn’t get enough done before...and I still need to decide what to do about the vision therapy thing now that it’s clear the best they can do for me is a payment plan for like 36 expensive appointments, ugh. and ah shit I signed up for Yuletide and I’ve done almost nothing, and that’s due...Dec. 17? fuck, that reminds me, I gotta go get a new notebook from my room because I just finished this one, I mean that’s quick and easy but it also means I now have two notebooks that mostly aren’t typed up, which is bad because I can’t do anything with the contents until they’re typed up and of course they’re not backed up (unless I put them in my fireproof safe, and then I’d never get them typed), and typing those is going to take forever, and yeah I’ve been meaning to make it easier on myself by just doing like 15 minutes a day but I haven’t done that at all and they really need to get typed--and, well, I could just do a 15-minute stint, sure, but that seems silly when there’s so much that needs to be done--and, ugh, I’ve sorta been ignoring my email for the last three days and I need to go through that because otherwise I’m guaranteed to miss something I won’t want to miss, but that takes time and it’s going to mean opening up more tabs when there are already too many tabs open (there are always too many tabs open) and I need to deal with those too, and a good share of the emails are probably about Black Friday sales that I’ll probably want to do but that means more tabs and more decisions and shit there’s all that stuff in my Etsy cart that I should really buy sooner rather than later because sometimes Etsy stuff disappears or sells out and then I’ll be sad and frustrated with myself and also some of the things I want to buy are for gifts, which reminds me that I have almost no Christmas gifts yet for anybody, and my birthday is soon so I should probably make some kind of list myself but actually why am I focusing on that at all when the Georgia runoff elections that determine Senate control are in barely more than a month and I need to be writing letters/postcards to voters since I don’t want to phonebank and time zones actually make it really impractical anyway? I was going to do that in a reasonable way this time too, just a few letters a day like I meant to before, use up a lot of these stamps and stuff I still have--and ah fuck it’s been a while since I’ve called my own legislators about anything, I need to do that, that’s theoretically quick because voicemails cut me off at two minutes, although to be able to do that I also have to do at least a little research so I know what’s the most important thing to call about and what to say so that’s more tabs and more time, and I still haven’t fucking reposted the tiny little Endgame fix-it fic I wrote at the end of August, let alone finished anything since then

and I would, on some level, like to work on one of the many, many writing projects that is theoretically close to being done, or one of the recent ones I started because I foolishly and incorrectly thought it was something I could bang out quickly

and on some level I would also like to work on more stuff for Etsy that could be pre-made so it’s not another stress point when I get orders, especially because several things are holiday-specific and some wouldn’t even take that long, but I’d still be choosing to do those instead of more urgent things

and none of that even begins to touch other stuff, like my room that continues to be a disaster and I need to sort through my shit so I know whether I can relist my most popular Etsy item (if I even want to, which I don’t right now because stress), not to mention all the stuff I need to clear out by listing on eBay, and I could do at least one part of that (flatten the boxes I’ve saved for shipping) without committing to a week-long project but even that part would take a solid chunk of time that I should be spending on something more urgent

and we can’t even put up the fucking tree until I move some of my shit away from the spot where the tree goes, which is tough because a lot of it is from work or otherwise theoretically temporary stuff that doesn’t have an actual home, so that’s going to take a while, and then putting up the tree is also going to take a while, and my room is already a disaster so I’d need to clean in there to make room, which would take forever, and for that matter my areas of the living room are generally a disaster too, as always

and while I’m thinking about stuff I brought from work, let’s go back to how I need to do some work stuff because I’m lucky enough to have a decent job with good insurance that can be done from home and I’m still just like...kiiiiiiinda endangering that by not being a functional adult in general? which is at least partly because my brain is a dumpster fire that doesn’t seem to be improving (which is something else to worry about) but regardless of the cause I still have to do something about it? oh yes and speaking of the good insurance I’m kinda endangering by being a fuckup, haha sure hope this knot under my jaw doesn’t turn out to be...you know, the type of bad thing that a knot under the jaw could turn out to be! which is another very good reason I need to stop being a fuckup so I’m not maybe endangering the job that would pay for that, along with all my other medical issues! and also the entirety of our rent because my mom’s really high-risk and the only available jobs she’s qualified for aren’t safe for her to do!

and my knee hurts! and my elbow hurts! and my neck fucking hurts, my head and neck always hurt and I think I’ve been sleeping even worse than usual lately, partly because neck pain and partly just my body fucking hates me, it’s always a problem and I don’t know what to do about it anymore

and now it’s after 8:30 pm and obviously I’ve done none of this, and I’m still tired, and my head and neck still hurt, and there are still so many things I need to do but I can’t choose because the time-consuming things are the urgent ones but I don’t have the time or energy for them and choosing a specific thing (an urgent time-consuming thing, or a less urgent but much quicker thing) means actively choosing not to do one of the other things, and it’s all important, and I can’t fucking choose, and I’m pretty much at a point where I can continue running ever more painful and crazy-making circles in my brain trying to make myself decide something or I can say “fuck it” and do something that would be fun but not urgent or important at all, which I shouldn’t do, so for fuck’s sake I should just pick even one productive thing to do and then maybe let myself do something fun and then get to bed at a good time for fucking once but I still can’t fucking choose and I want to either cry, scream, or possibly hurt myself, and none of this is healthy or productive

and I think possibly my therapist is getting impatient with me for not making much progress and not really having specific goals for our sessions aside from “I hate that my brain is Like This and I want it to not be Like This and no I haven’t done most of the things you’ve suggested and no I don’t have a good reason why, I just want the meds to work so everything won’t be so fucking hard and yes I know that wouldn’t be something you could control even if it was in your wheelhouse, which it isn’t, but I get overwhelmed so fast and I know I need to do better and be better but I don’t know how”

and I wrote this instead of actually doing anything, apparently, because there was at least some chance that dumping it all out would make me feel better or help me see more clearly what I actually need to do, but I think I actually made myself feel worse by articulating just how overwhelmed I am, mostly by things that objectively aren’t actually that difficult or important.

and I still can’t fucking choose.

#brains behaving badly #adhd #I am just...so fucking sick of my brain being...this

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greencrusader13 · 4 years ago

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All Were Innocent Once: Chapter 11 - Shootouts and Sand

So I checked when I last uploaded a chapter of this, and it’s nearly been a whole year. Talk about writer’s block! I appreciate everyone’s patience with me in getting a new chapter out. With all the craziness in the world I can’t promise a regular schedule for uploading, but I will do my best.

Without further ado, let’s just back into the adventure!

It had only taken Cirak a few minutes to determine that he unequivocally hated this planet. There was no breeze here; the desert air was still. The sun bore down on them with unrelenting heat, and though he felt that warmth was better than the cold it didn’t change the aggression that the heat possessed here. He wasn’t fully sure how the citizens of Tatooine kept themselves from putting blaster bolts in their head just from living here. Maybe the sun had zapped all of the intelligence from the moisture farmers’ minds.

Tatooine was a planet rife with cheats, smugglers, and swindlers of all kinds; truly a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Cirak was just surprised they hadn’t come here sooner. There seemed to be little shortage of potential work, and he was pretty sure that he could fire his blaster in any direction and hit someone with a bounty on their head. It was like Nar Shaddaa, but without the lights, duller clubs, and half of the fun. He had to give any fugitive credit if they chose this damned planet as their getaway destination: they really did not want anyone to find them.

Traveling with Taelros over the past several years had taken him to numerous planets, each with their own biome and flavor. They never stayed anywhere for very long – only for the duration of the job – before taking off again. Most of their time was spent on Taelros’ ship, The Reaper’s Prophet, with the rest of his crew, but even those faces changed from time-to-time. It was best to not expect consistency of any kind, not go looking for any sort of home.

His mentor had wasted little time acclimating Cirak to the bounty hunter’s lifestyle. Within a week of meeting the man he’d been given a blaster and some armor that was, at best, passable, before being thrown into the fire alongside Taelros himself. It wasn’t until later that he started learning more about the bounty hunter who’d taken him under his wing. Republic Special Forces Division, once upon a time, until he’d been dishonorably discharged from their ranks five years before meeting Cirak. He’d never asked Tael about the incident that purged him from service, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Tael had taught him how to survive as a bounty hunter, and the key philosophies of the career. Most importantly, he’d taught him the one philosophy that guided them above all others: somewhere, in some part of the galaxy, some shmuck was looking to part with their credits to have someone else dead.

In their case, however, that schmuck was some Imperial official, probably reclining on a luxury chair back in some high rise on Dromund Kaas, probably going through some bureaucratic nonsense while sipping on some fancy wine. Definitely someone Cirak would punch if given half the chance. He’d looked like the stuffy type on the holocom, what with his pencil mustache and balding head only somewhat obscured by his officer’s cap. Taelros had done most of the talking, but Cirak had assigned himself all of the judging. He’d watched in silence as his mentor negotiated their way into a wild bantha chase that, ultimately, had led them here.

Their mark, as explained to them, was a former Imp deserter-turned-raider and part-time treasure hunter named Lenurd Woth. After bailing on his assignment he’d given out the locations to several ordinances to the highest bidder, including the Black Sun, which had earned him a sizeable sum of credits from his buyers and malcontent from his former allies. He’d then vanished, only to resurface on Tatooine with a new yacht, guards under his employ, and a profession scamming the local settlers out of credits with whatever junk he’d find out in the wastes.

Killing him would be no trouble at all for the Empire, considering their vast resources. As much as Mr. Woth wanted to hide, he’d done a poor job of it with the ruckus he’d caused on his way out the door, and finding him had been relatively simple, as was tracking his routines. They could’ve dropped in an agent, put a dart in Woth’s neck, and that would be that, except for one simple reason: Woth wasn’t worth their time, not with a war going on. He was, however, worth sending a message about, hence the bounty hunters and the preference for being put in carbonite rather than the ground. Hence being on this blasted hot planet.

At least there’d be credits at the end of it all. That was the one and only solace Cirak could take on this hell planet.

Cirak lay on his stomach flat against the rise of a dune, binoculars raised as he searched the glistening sand for any signs of Woth’s skiff. The mark would be returning from treasure hunting any minute now, far from the defenses of his yacht. He and Taelros had spent the past hour planting ionic charges in the ground. Once he drove over it, Woth’s skiff would come to a halt; he’d be flat-footed and easy to take down. Using thermal or kinetic explosives would’ve made the job far simpler, but, unfortunately, he wasn’t wanted dead. Sadly, there would be no big boom.

With a sigh he pressed the binoculars into the sand. That is, however, if Woth ever showed up.

“Buck up kid,” Taelros said, as if sensing Cirak’s discontent. “Not every day we get asked by someone to go hunting for the Empire. Even less often that they ask us to go after one of their own.”

“And I’m gonna die of boredom and heat exhaustion if he doesn’t show soon.”

“You’re a bit of a whiny little thing today aren’t you?”

He kicked the ground, forming a divot with the toe of his boot. “I don’t like sand,” Cirak grumbled, baring his teeth. “It’s coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets ev-”

“Kid if I have to hear you wax philosophical about sand I’m going to lose my mind. Nobody cares about your whining.”

“Fine. Kriff it, whatever.” Cirak raised his binoculars again. He wiped at his face with the back of his hand. Sand was catching in his face fur, particularly his moustache.

It was a truly immaculate moustache. He’d begun growing it about a year into his life as a bounty hunter, but it hadn’t fully formed until a few more years after that. Now it was perfect: two strands of thin-but-bushy grey hair fell from both sides of his upper lip, framing his face in an edged way. The best bounty hunters had facial hair if they could grow it, or at least that’s what he’d learned from watching holovids in the early days.

Just as Cirak was about to prod Taelros about the veracity of the intel they’d received, a shimmer on the horizon stole his attention. He ducked against the sand dune, clasping the ion detonator in one hand while his other raised the binoculars once more. Three skiffs – not one – sped closer to them, all three mounted with a pair of turrets meant to rend metal from ships, and there was a man stationed at each one of them. Woth was nowhere to be seen.

“Think someone tipped them off?” Cirak asked.

“Looks that way. Plan hasn’t changed though. Just more blaster fire.”

“We’re charging extra for this.”

“Most definitely.”

Despite the increase in protection, Woth’s security didn’t appear as though they knew of Cirak and Taelros specifically. The sentries scanned the sands, but it was an aimless search, a general kind. Cirak recognized it well from the few times he’d been hired for security detail by overly-paranoid aristocrats fearing assassination attempts. They still didn’t know about them, and as such, they were heading right into their trap.

Cirak popped the lid off the detonator as the skiffs neared the ion charges.

“On my count Cirak,” Taelros said, raising three fingers. “Three…”

His thumb hovered over the red button. Red buttons were the best, especially when explosions followed.

“Two…”

The skiffs drew closer, their engines growing ever louder.”

“One…”

They were right over the charges.

“Now.”

Cirak clenched the detonator and slammed his thumb downwards onto the button. Instead of an ionic burst, there was nothing. The motors hummed, still approaching in what now felt like a lackadaisical speed. Cirak pressed the button again. Then a third time. Still nothing. He shook the detonator as though the resulting ionic burst was hiding somewhere within and simply needed dislodged. It wasn’t, because that’s not how detonations work.

Taelros sighed, running his hand down his face and dragging his features along with it. “Cirak, did you arm the charges when you planted them?”

“What kind of stupid question is that?”

“It’s not a stupid question if it makes the most sense.”

“Of course I armed them! They’re live!”

“Then why haven’t I seen any-”

The shrill sound of a singular round of blaster fire cut through the air, and Cirak looked up just in time to see it strike the engine of the outmost skiff. The vehicle burst into flame as shrapnel scattered across the desert sands. Without slowing momentum the wreckage veered into the center skiff, which in turn rotated violently into a collision with the third. In the distance he could hear shouting as panicked scoundrels fought to wrest control back from the increasingly devastating situation in what few seconds they were afforded. Both remaining skiffs flipped, their repulsor engines dying simultaneously and throwing their passengers in various directions before landing in separate dunes. Some flew higher than others, and, Cirak realized, had he been prepared it would’ve made for excellent skeet practice.

He glanced over at Taelros. His mentor looked equally shocked and no less amused. “Well,” Cirak said, storing his binoculars. “I’m not about to look a prize bantha in the mouth. Let’s clean up the security and then deal with poor Lenurd.” He unholstered his twin blasters – among them his father’s old holdout blaster (which, to be fair, he’d now possessed far longer than his father ever had) – and then bound over the dune.

Woth’s scattered retinue was still climbing to their feet as Cirak approached. He twirled his blasters patiently while examining them. For a former Imp he sure employed several aliens. Most Imps only tolerated Chiss. Maybe he found them useful, relatively cheap labor when he couldn’t otherwise afford selectivity. He shrugged at the thought. It really didn’t matter either which way.

From the corner of his eye he saw Taelros heading for the other downed skiff. Time to go to work, he thought. Cirak cleared his throat, aiming his blasters at the wreckage survivors. “Attention everyone having a bad day. We are just after your boss Lenurd Woth. Hand him over, and it’ll be less ammo I have to waste wasting you. There’s no point in dying for him; all you’ll do is increase my paycheck for resistance fees.”

No sooner had he finished speaking than one of the mercenaries closest to the skiff dove for his rifle several paces away. Cirak fired before the man could so much as take aim. The bolt struck him square in the chest, and he fell limp.

“Not smart,” he chided. “What’ll it be for the rest of you boys?”

Death, apparently. Viewing numbers superior to having a blaster trained on them, the remainder of the mercenaries all simultaneously reached for their weapons. It was a common fallacy, thinking that surely they would be the lucky one who got the shot off and ended the threat. No one ever was. Some were faster than others to their credit, actually getting their blasters from their holsters before Cirak’s fire reached them and ended their lives.

He holstered his blasters as the sounds of combat continued from the other side of the sand dune. “He’s not in this one Tael!” Cirak yelled, turning towards the presumed sound of Taelros’ slaughtering. “Any luck over-”

Sudden movement caught his attention, and he only had a mere moment to throw himself prone before an axeblade swung where his head had been. Cirak flipped onto his back. A gamorrean stood over him, axe raised for a second strike. He rolled to the side as his assailant hacked at the sand, pushed himself to his feet, and somersaulted past him. The gamorrean squealed, spit and sweat running down its piggish mouth.

Cirak drew, managing to fire off a single shot into the gamorrean’s chest, but the blast did little when compared to its size and strength. It was a strength Cirak was swiftly reacquainted up close. A backhanded slap sent Cirak sprawling backwards, loosing his blaster from his grip. His ears rang. The image of the gamorrean blurred from heat and pain as Cirak lifted his head.

Another blaster fire rang out, knocking the raised axe free. The pig-man made a sound that could only be described as a surprised snort, head swiveling in the direction of the shot. It was just enough time for Cirak to draw his other blaster, aim, and fire two clean shots into its head. The gamorrean fell backwards, sending a burst of sand skywards.

A blur of red streaked past from overhead, touching down hard in the sand. Cirak wiped at his eyes as he surveyed his savior. The figure stood covered from head-to-toe in brilliant scarlet armor that seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. His helmet, which obscured every aspect of his face, had two pincers that met just at the bottom of his black T-shaped visor. It was a unique touch, but Cirak still recognized the style, the symbology of the pieces. It almost made him want to shoot anyways.

The man was a Mando.

Mandalorians were far from uncommon in the bounty hunting business, but common encounters with them did little to mitigate Cirak’s instinctual hatred of those people. Centuries ago they’d invaded his species’ homeworld, partly for sport and partly for retribution for losses experienced in wars prior, and proceeded to butcher or enslave as many cathar as they could manage. It had led to the near-extinction of his people.

Cirak felt he had a birthright to feel bitter.

The Mandalorian in front of him, however, did not seemed particularly concerned about possible grievances pertaining to genocide, and approached him with an outstretched hand. Cirak slapped it away. “I’m fine,” he said. He pushed himself to his feet and recovered his dropped blaster, dusting sand from it.

Although he couldn’t see his face, Cirak got the sense that the Mandalorian was giving him the expression of someone who had just been slapped. “Your man is over this way,” the Mandalorian said coldly. The rocket booster on his back ignited, and he took to the air once again before disappearing beyond the opposite sand dune.

Cirak grumbled to himself before following suit. He found Taelros beyond the dune, leaning against a flaming skiff while deep in conversation with another human man; a fellow bounty hunter from what Cirak could tell of his armor and weaponry. A carbonite slate of some poor soul – probably Woth – floated on a transportation bed beside him, which Taelros kept a steady hand on. The Mando had landed next to this unknown person, arms folded in what Cirak only figured was silent judgment of the situation.

Taelros regarded Cirak as he drew closer. “Ah, see, this is the kid I was telling you about. Braden, this is Cirak Kiht, my protégé. Cirak, this is Braden. He’s an old friend of mine.”

Cirak looked him over. Taelros and his friend seemed roughly the same age, though Braden possessed a more weathered face with fewer scars. His head had been shaved bald, and contrary to Cirak’s personal beliefs regarding bounty hunting he had no facial hair. His suit of armor was that of Golan Arms make, specifically designed with survivability in mind and able to absorb all but the most powerful of blaster fire. It didn’t come cheap.

Braden extended his hand, which Cirak then shook. “I was curious to see how you’d handle a change of plans and if Tael here hadn’t dulled too much with age. You didn’t disappoint.”

“Well, it isn’t the first time one of our plans have gone sideways,” Cirak said, “Usually they’re his that do.”

“Yeah, shut up kid, or I might just ask Braden here to swap protégés.” Taelros snapped his fingers. “Right, your protégé here. What’s his name again? You said it in passing.”

Braden curtly nodded towards the Mandalorian. “This is Dekon of Clan Arrun. One hell of a shot, great merc. Been traveling with him for a couple years now.”

Cirak glowered at Dekon and moved closer to Taelros’ side. “Your man seems rather emotional Taelros. It’s hardly a beneficial trait in this profession,” Dekon said, insultingly matter-of-fact.

“Mando scum tend to have that affect on me. Funny how genocide does that to people.”

“Insult my people again and I’ll drop your numbers by one,” Dekon snapped.

Snarling, Cirak went for his blaster, but Dekon was faster, having his own drawn and in Cirak’s face. Shock gripped him. He hadn’t been outdrawn since he was first learning how. “I wouldn’t,” Dekon said coldly.

Taelros forced his way between them, lowering Dekon’s blaster with one hand while restraining Cirak’s wrist with his other. “Boys, boys, cultural histories aside there is a bigger picture here that we need to focus on. Cirak, can you play nice with the Mando for a little bit?” Cirak glared at Dekon, anger still hot on his ears and face, but he nodded all the same. “Good! Now let’s get the four of us to a cantina. Braden said he wants to team up for a job, and I think you’re gonna want to hear this.”

#swtor #swtor fanfiction #fanfic #star wars the old republic #cirak #cirak kiht #cathar #bounty hunter #my writing #fanfiction #swtor oc #my ocs #star wars #star wars fanfiction

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livefreeordie13 · 5 years ago

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Homemade

i wrote a really small, slice-of-life thingy for my friend @skye-maxwell because she is just a very sweet gal

here’s a link to the AO3 post but i also decided to post the whole thing here under a cut since there isn’t much to it.

i hope you all enjoy!

Homemade

It was a Tuesday night, and Yosuke was pleasantly surprised to find out as he came home that evening that Souji was making beef stew. Their entire apartment smelled like the thick, savory roux Souji had long ago mastered, and it welcomed him as he stepped inside, still shivering from the wind and damp of winter. The promised warmth of the stew, the softly roasted veggies and tender beef — it made Yosuke grateful, for a change, for the bitter freeze of January. He could really use the comfort, too, after a full day of work and class.

Even dead-tired, he’d offered to help Souji prepare dinner. But Souji had, as usual, politely declined. Yosuke had pouted and plopped his head into the crook of Souji’s shoulder and neck as his partner stood by the stove, stirring their dinner, but it hadn’t worked. His partner had turned and given him a particular look, familiar in its impassivity, that dissipated Yosuke’s urge to pout anymore.

So, Yosuke had started a load of towels in the washer instead and, trying his very best to avoid another stern glare from the kitchen, was now sprawled on the couch playing with a piece of his own hair as he stared blankly at the game show that always preceded the nightly news.

Like a good boy, he’d changed into his warm sweatpants and hoodie as soon as he’d been kicked out of the kitchen. A pair of Souji’s extra-thick thermal socks resting atop the neatly folded pile of laundry on the bed had been a natural addition to his loungewear. Yosuke had long ago stopped feeling guilty about stealing those comfortable socks since Souji hardly ever wore them. They were perfect in this kind of weather, too.

He had almost dozed off when he heard his name from the kitchen — Souji, telling him that dinner was ready. He sat up at once, wiping the sleep from his eyes as he listened to the clink of spoons in bowls and the sound of his partner’s socked feet padding across the laminate tile of their kitchen and over the jute rug that was starting to show its wear.

Souji handed him his bowl and Yosuke took it with a small but grateful smile, scooting over a bit so that he wasn’t taking up all of the sofa. He held his steaming bowl in one hand and with the other, grabbed the nearby blanket and began covering both their laps. Souji raised his arms to welcome the shield from the small apartment’s chill, which persisted despite their space heater running at High.

Yosuke was hoping that the stew would also warm them up. It felt nice merely holding the bowl, which was a comforting weight in his palms. It made his skin prickle and his stomach rumble in anticipation. The wafting scent of the stew’s spices told Yosuke everything he needed to know about how good it would taste.

Yosuke stirred the broth with his spoon, bringing the lumps of potatoes and beef and bits of carrot to the surface. The thin trails of steam immediately swelled into bigger ones, carrying heavy the stew’s scent and making Yosuke’s stomach that much crankier. He got a good spoonful and took his first, tentative taste. Exactly as expected: rich, meaty, and a sublime mix of savory with a hint of sweetness. Everything about it was perfect.

Souji really put everything he had into his dishes, even though he only ever cooked for just the two of them. On a busy weeknight, no less. Souji only had one day off every week, but he still found the time to make sure they had something good to eat at dinner. Souji would probably say it was because their breakfasts and lunches were usually left to fate in whether they had them or not, and Yosuke supposed he would have been right.

But Yosuke also knew that Souji just . . . liked this. Cooking for them. Making something that both of them could enjoy alone.

It didn’t matter — never did — that it was just a Tuesday.

Yosuke looked past his bowl, down at the blanket they were sharing (that they usually shared). His eyes followed the patterned stretch of wool over to Souji’s side, where they trailed up his waist, past his own bowl of stew, over his slightly exposed collarbone peeking above the neck of his long-sleeve tee, and finally, to his face — chewing on a bite of stew.

His cheeks were lit by the faint blue glow from the television, and his pale eyes shone in its reflection. He was clean-shaven and that always made his smooth cheeks appear more boyish than normal, even with his signature focus on the news story keeping his eyes properly trained on the screen. Yosuke had no idea what the news segment was even talking about, but he watched Souji’s jaw slow in the middle of a bite as something in the story grabbed more of his attention.

He had absolutely no idea how handsome he was, Yosuke realized, just eating stew in front of the evening news after a night of cooking over a hot stove. The snow outside fell and the sounds of traffic could be heard from their balcony window. The news droned on. Someone in the hallway slammed their front door. And Yosuke was still sitting there, studying the faint signs of maturity on Souji’s face, feeling lucky that he got to see them up close like this. That he got to see them at all.

Yosuke thought about kissing him, suddenly, like he’d never kissed him before, and the urge to do so nearly overwhelmed him until the weight of the soup bowl in his hands resurfaced to the front of his mind.

The spoon shifted along the lip of the bowl and he quickly grabbed it. The sound must have been a bit too loud, because a moment later he heard Souji’s voice over to his right.

“You okay?” he asked, with a slight smack of his lips as he chewed.

“Yeah, sorry,” Yosuke chuckled apologetically. He stirred his stew some more and then lifted another hefty bite to his lips, suddenly remembering how hungry he’d been moments ago. Thankfully, it was still piping hot. “Dinner’s amazing, by the way,” he said, once he’d swallowed. “I love it when you make beef stew.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Yosuke could hear the pleased air in Souji’s voice, and nodded enthusiastically, going in for another bite.

“It took me a while to find a recipe I liked . . . even longer for me to master it. I like it a lot, too,” he admitted, with a hint of pride.

“Honestly, partner,” Yosuke continued, his mouth full this time, “you haven’t made anything I don’t love.” He hummed over his bowl appreciatively. “But the beef stew, the beef stew,” he cried, scooping another bite onto his spoon before he’d finished that one.

Souji laughed. “Glad you like it so much.”

“I do,” Yosuke said, his chest expanding with warmth. “I really love it.”

They continued eating in companionable silence, with the soft sound of the TV in the background resuming its broadcast, as if the funny yet wonderful feeling fluttering around in Yosuke’s heart didn’t exist.

When they were finished, Yosuke brought both their bowls to the kitchen sink. Souji often washed dishes as he cooked, so there was never much for Yosuke to do by way of cleaning. He took care of their bowls and spoons and set them out to dry on the rack, then checked on the pot of leftover stew sitting on the holder. It was still too warm to put away; it probably needed to sit out another half-hour or so. He wiped down the counters and put away the spare ingredients Souji missed and headed back into the living space, towards the familiar lump of his partner on the end of the sofa.

The news had transitioned into the sports segment, a topic neither of them really cared about unless it was a national tournament of some kind. As Yosuke took his seat, Souji flipped channels until it landed on another program — an action movie that both of them had seen before and wasn’t as good as The Dumminator series, but a good watch nonetheless. It would do for a Tuesday night.

Yosuke curled up beneath the blanket again and tucked himself a bit closer to Souji than he normally might have. It was cold, after all.

And, of course, he did love Souji.

Souji gave Yosuke a curious yet pleased smile and nudged a little closer, as well. Their shoulders pressed together, and Yosuke laid one of his legs atop Souji’s knees which were tucked to the side and jutting into Yosuke’s personal space. Sitting like this, Souji’s face was just close enough to kiss. So, Yosuke did just that.

“Thanks for dinner,” he mumbled against Souji’s lips.

“Thanks for picking up,” Souji replied, and followed that up with another small kiss.

Their mouths carried the tang of the beef and spice of the stew — and like the stew, Yosuke savored it.

#work #souyo #yosuke hanamura #yu narukami #souji seta #homemade #fluff #fanfic

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chubbyooo · 4 years ago

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Blurred Lines: Cursed Past Chapter 93: To Catch Your Breath

hey i got some motivation so finally managed to write a bit XD sorry for the break my motivation is in the toilet right now

Ash and Guss escape the lab

Ash sighed to herself as she looked around the makeshift cell that had been built, she had absolutely seen this coming but her new help had not been so cautious and now they were stuck. Since then he hadn’t stopped apologizing and of course she’d accepted his apology but he just kept doing it, it was rather irritating at least he had stopped shooting at the forcefield.

Outside the cell the strange amalgamated droids crawled around the chamber, it truly was like someone had found two working droids and just shoved them together leading to some very strange designs. Ash was crouched down in the corner trying to mess with the emitter, it would be a lie to say she a slicer and was having a sufficient amount of trouble working out how this worked.

She wasn’t 100% sure but this did seem like everything else shoddily put together so her confusion may have been warranted, she felt the distinct feeling of someone looking over her shoulder “uh so how’s it going” Guss was peering at what she was doing.

Ash sighed “I’m trying my best with what I got but I’m not really sure what to do with this emitter to get it to stop uh emitting” Guss nodded clearly not taking it in but trying to anyway.

He rubbed his chin or whatever counted for one on a Mon Cal “that does look like a pretty messy design” Ash nodded at least he wasn’t offering bad suggestions or anything, she turned back around and started trying to cause some form of surge. They had to hurry, Armande was going to be back soon and her last encounter with the scientist had been less than pleasant although not too challenging.

After a little more tinkering Ash managed to get an open wire and caused the emitter to surge as Ash stepped back, she’d hoped it would turn off but the forcefield just seemed to change colour “damn it I must’ve had the wrong wires” Guss walked up to it looking at it

He seemed to have an idea “well maybe it’s different now maybe we can walk through” Ash shook her head that sounded like a terrible idea, but before she could say anything Guss had rushed forward and Ash’s surprise he went right through and turned around with a massive smile

Ash sighed and followed him out “of course that worked, I forgot to account for the level of dumb repurposing this scientist has done, her sarcasm was seemingly lost on Guss as he looked like a proud animal that had just done something clever.

Ash let him have it and looked around the room “now for a way out of here” she scanned the room by her count she could see ten Amalgamated Droids in this room with all manner of weapons and each of them were slowly noticing their escape. Ash clicked her neck, it’d been far too long since she’d had a good fight

https://open.spotify.com/track/3cOO5IQtOYs7huq4Z6lYfr?si=WrfLxJrxRfmdFmXu2DDdgA

First off three droids in front of her, one with a repurposed forklift, a buzzsaw from a tree felling robot and the last with a giant minigun in its chest. While formidable weapons, not one of these enemies seemed very maneuverable so she’d use her speed, take out their defences and avoid their weapons. Behind them were a group of four spider droids they had similar droids all fused to them from the looks of them they were once assembly line droids probably laser cutters and welders. This was more dangerous but the aim of the things seemed terrible so keep them moving and they won’t be able to get a clean shot, the last three were the most normal looking. They clearly were supposed to be bodyguard droids but each had something instead of an arm, one with a giant hammer, one with a vibroblade and the last with what looked like a laser cannon from a ship. The Laser cannon enemy was the one to watch out for, very dangerous but also could be damaging to its allies either way she’d need to be careful, with all the targets surveyed Ash dashed towards the first set.

She drew her blaster carbine and let out a barrage of blaster fire to get their attention and then began to jump and build up speed before flipping over them, just as she’d planned they didn’t have any time to react. Ash drew her sawn off slug thrower and shot it straight into the head of the minigun droid, its head exploded as the slugs made impact scattering metal to the ground and taking out the most dangerous of the three.

Ash noticed Guss firing off blaster shots from a safe position but more importantly he’d caught the attention of the Buzzsaw droid, danger may be but a perfect distraction. Ash quickly drew her Vibroknife and threw it towards the legs of the droid slicing through, causing it to drop to the ground and begin shambling towards him instead of rushing. She knew she had the adequate time now to take out the remaining forklift droid which came rushing at her trying to knock her down but Ash managed to hold it back as it tried to push her over. She smiled realising she had the perfect solution she let it gain a little headway as she picked a thermal detonator from her belt, took off the safety and shoved it into the robot.

She jumped out the way as the droid exploded from the inside out Ash turned to see the Buzzsaw droid but smiled when she saw it smoking on the floor, Guss had at least managed to take out the injured droid he gave her a thumbs up as she turned back around to the spider droids which were scuttling towards them. She drew her blaster rifle managing to take out two from long range before they caught up to her, the remaining two let off torrents from blowtorches causing Ash to have to duck to avoid them. She rolled her eyes, small droids had one fatal weakness, she grabbed one of the droids aiming the blowtorch away from her at the other droid it quickly burning up. With only the one in her hands left she threw it at the wall as hard as she could, hitting and falling to the ground with a crack deactivated, Guss caught up with her looking to the remaining three droids.

Ash braced herself here came the hard part, she got out her regular slugthrower as she walked towards them staggering the robots as she then switched into a dash. She jumped up and onto the robot with the laser cannon if anywhere was safe it was on top of this droid's head, it tried to throw her off but she made sure she was secure. She continued laying down slugthrower rounds onto the remaining droids but it quickly became clear these droids were stronger than that. She sighed getting her carbine back out shooting at each of them but still nothing these things were made of strong stuff, and they weren’t afraid to show it they started trying to hit her from atop the laser droid and Ash realised she had to do something.

She drew her remaining Vibrodagger and stabbed it into the laser droid's arm hoping to cause some form of misfire, she cinched it in deep and after a bit the laser began to fire at the floor. She had to be careful about this and the other droids were getting dangerously close to hurting her, she jumped off of the droid and then kicked the arm forward causing it to fire into the other two droids taking out everything but their arms and legs. The laser wasn’t stopping though she had to take out the droid before it destroyed the place, she crawled below it as it flailed around and grabbed hold of the other droid’s Vibrosword arm, she thrust it up through the laser droid’s head and finally the laser turned off.

Ash let out a sigh of relief as Guss ran up to her “oh wow that was amazing you took them all out and there’s barely a scratch on you” Ash caught her breath she may have done that but she was beat now

She nodded “yeah but I am tired now we gotta get outta here now” Guss nodded and led her out of the chamber to the main one

As they arrived however they could see the doors were opening Armande was back, Ash rushed after Guss “Guss I may be good at fighting but I can’t take them all on and I certainly can’t compromise the mission Armande knows I’m related to Gacen” Guss nodded and looked around his eyes locking on the submersible

Guss smiled “follow me” he led her over and Ash swallowed hard as he began to climb in

She had a bad feeling about this “uh Guss are you sure taking one of his inventions is good they all kinda don’t work” she knew she didn’t have another option though and got in as Guss worked out the controls

He frowned “I don’t see another option and they don’t do their intended purpose this thing was supposed to drill right it still flies I think” as he said that he hit a button and they zoomed forward out of the base and into the fresh Dubrillion air. Ash’s eyes widened this thing piloted like a kids first podracer she held onto the side for dear life as they sped out towards the ocean.

She looked around and saw ships were in hot pursuit “does this thing have any weapons” Guss shook his head Ash swallowed hard this was going the least conspicuous it could without failing

Guss pointed to the front “just this drill thing I doubt it’ll be any use” Ash sighed what were they going to do the fighters were closing in

Ash cursed “then what do you suppose we do to outrun these fighters they are a lot faster than us” Guss had a grin on his face as he pushed the controls down

They suddenly entered a nose dive “the things called submersible for a reason Ash, how’s about we hide under the sea they can’t pursue us down there” Ash’s eyes widened as the ship broke the surface of the water

She had no idea if this was a good or terrible idea “are you sure Guss I mean what if this thing breaks you may be able to breath underwater but I can’t I don’t have a rebreather and I am a really bad swimmer” Guss did seemed to hear her concerns as blaster fire breached the waters around her

Guss nodded “that’s a pretty good point but it’s this or get caught I think and you were very adamant you didn’t want that” Ash nodded she supposed he was right this time no matter how uncomfortable she was

The ship slowly began to go deeper and deeper into the water and the blaster fire got less frequent but as it did they found themselves at a wall, Ash shook her head “what now then they still will be able to find us down here” Guss was looking at the console and frowning

He gestures “look at the wall it’s a bunch of small rocks covering something up it’s manmade see this console says there’s something not too far through” Ash had her head in her hands unsure if following Guss’ lead was the worst idea or not “and this thing has a drill so we could hide deeper” Ash let out a long sigh and nodded

Guss fired the ship forwards turning the drill on and soon they were burrowing through the wall “this better work Guss I am not drowning because of you” Guss nodded a little nervous as the ship continued

It took about five minutes but soon they pushed through to a deeper part of the ocean, Ash shuddered as she began to hear cracks “are you sure this thing is capable of going this deep” Guss frowned as he looked at the console

Ahead of them they could see for miles there was everything she’d ever heard about deep in the ocean and a glowing area far off in the distance, Guss looked to her “it should be able to but I can try and go higher to lower the pressure” Ash nodded that sounded like the best idea

But as they started to rise Ash could hear the cracks throughout the ship whatever damage they were doing was already done she looked around and a great panic came over her “Guss! This ship is going to break you have to do something I can’t breathe underwater” Guss seemed equally stressed as the consoles started to power down, he made a beeline for the cave wall seemingly with some sort of plan

He stammered “I’m gonna make sure you’re ok I’m gonna f-” before he could finish the glass of the cockpit finally snapped and water rushed in, Ash held her breath but knew it was probably futile.

She couldn’t die like this, she had so much she wanted to do she would not die in an accident from a scientist's shit invention, she looked to see Guss grab her hand and begin swimming towards the cave wall. Ash had never trained for this; she'd never needed to swim without a fully submersible vehicle or suit; she had no idea what to do and was definitely weighing the weaker Guss down.

She tried to keep up as she felt herself running out of breath, what was she going to do? She had no answer for how to deal with this, all her training was useless. It wasn’t long before she couldn’t stop it anymore and water entered her mouth and filled her lungs, Guss held her tight trying to pull her along but she was clearly too heavy for him.

Ash struggled for a few moments but then became very light headed as her vision darkened, she could see how distressed Guss was desperately trying to help her as she felt black spots in her vision appear. What could she do? She was drowning all because she was reckless she felt her vision darken and darken as her view of Guss became less and less clear, he was more of a blurry orange blob now but she also saw a yellow glow on the corner of her vision. Before she could think anymore about it her vision went black, with no other options and nowhere else to go she passed out...

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vestedbeauty · 4 years ago

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I Tried 3 Monat Hair Product Samples

New Post has been published on https://vestedbeauty.com/monat/

I Tried 3 Monat Hair Product Samples

How Well Does Monat Work on Middle-Aged Hair?

One of my readers is a Monat distributor. We came to a happy arrangement. She’d send me some samples. I’d use them and write a review.

I had some preconceived notions.

A few years back, my hubby had a client who gave him a few samples. (He’s got this glorious mane, ladies. Seriously.) He shared, and I just remember the intoxicating aroma – and the fact that the bottle lasted forever.

So I was excited because… this stuff smells amazing.

Before I entered midlife, that was pretty much how I decided which shampoo and conditioner to use! (Who’s with me? Remember Body on Tap and Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific? How about Suave’s lemon-scented shampoo?)

Obviously, once you reach a certain age, it takes more than a good smell to do the trick.

@curlytexasmama

The Challenges

What’s going on with YOUR hair?

Mine seems to have a split personality. We’ve got:

Fine texture that goes frizzy no matter what the weather’s doing

Straight-ish in places

Curlicues in other places

Wavy everywhere else

What appears to be an under-shave at my nape. Over the past decade, that area may have grown about an inch. It’s about four inches long now, and the hair above it is about eight inches. (Yeah, I could cut it all to be the same length, but having had short hair most of my adult life, I don’t wanna!)

I haven’t colored it in a few years. Embracing the gray! But before then, I’d dyed it for about 15 years. First brown or auburn, then blue and purple and fuschia. Then I’d tried for metallic silver, which somehow ended up a very strange apricot shade. Back to colors for a while as I waited for that disaster to grow out. (I used Overtone then. It’s more like a coloring conditioner than a dye. It’s still messy, but not nearly as bad as actual dye.)

Recently, I shared what hair products I’ve been using. Always up to try new things, though!

Katie Hubbard, AKA @CurlyTexasMama

So, Katie, Let’s Try This Monat Stuff

My stylist works at an Aveda salon. Some people love that brand. I am not a fan. Aside from the scents (lol) it just hasn’t done anything amazing enough to justify the price. I only mention it because asking my stylist for product advice is pointless.

But Katie had great advice for me! I told her all that was going on with my hair and she made some suggestions.

The Monat shampoo detoxes your scalp – a process that takes a little while, longer than the sample would accomplish. We wanted maximum impact in just a couple of days of using the products. (So, we skipped the shampoo. But I’ll definitely try it soon.)

Here Are the Monat Products I Tested

The products are pretty concentrated, so I was able to get two days’ use out of each of them.

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Monat Super Hydrating Masque

You squeeze out about a nickel-sized glob and apply to your hair after washing. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes and then rinse. You’d only need to use it 1-2 times a week.

I really like how it left my hair feeling soft and smooth. Spending 5-10 minutes waiting for it to do the do… not so much. Probably, I could rearrange my morning routine to work that wait time in. But since hubby and I usually shower together, I don’t really want to throw a wrench into his schedule.

The verdict: Not my favorite.

Monat Restore Leave-In Conditioner

You apply this – again, just a nickel-sized amount – to wet, clean hair. Rub it together in your palms to get it ready, then apply from about halfway down to the ends. Style as usual.

Now “leave-in” is something I can get behind! This product is super convenient, made my hair feel like silk, and smelling wonderful (of course). My brush could glide through silky strands and not pull or break my hair. It’s light enough that it didn’t make my hair go limp after styling. Of course, using it for two days means I didn’t get all the benefits of regular use. But with just a sneak preview of what this stuff can do, I was impressed.

The verdict: Add to cart!

Monat Rejuvabeads (split-end mender)

This one goes on clean, wet hair, too. Again with the same nickel-size amount in your palm. Rub your palms together, then apply from the middle to the ends of your hair. You can still use other styling products (I use a heat protectant) – just use this first.

I get my ends trimmed about every other month, so they’re not in too bad shape. But still, this product is amazing. It seemed to make my hair much silkier and smoother. If it’s also somehow strengthening the ends, that can only be good, right? Plus, the scent 🙂

The verdict: Add to cart!

What Else Should I Try from Monat?

I’m putting a list of which products I want to buy. Monat carries 14 shampoos, 12 conditioners, 13 special treatments (like masques, serums, and repair), and 15 styling products.

So, I asked Katie for some guidance.

She explained that the scalp ages about 12 times faster than the rest of our skin. The scalp gets thinner and loses its elasticity. That leads to a reduction in the number of blood vessels. And that means thinner hair, graying, and balding. (YIKES)

Important Monat Facts

Products are vegan, designed to be anti-aging

No non-soluble silicones, parabens, or sulfates

They have four formulations:

Capixyl ™ – reduces scalp inflammation, strengthens and thickens hair, hydrates the scalp to stimulate natural, noticeable hair growth.

Procatline ™ – promotes hair growth, reduces the production of DHT hormone (contributes to hair loss). Antioxidants combat premature thinning, boosting color and shine. Prevents hair loss and protects against environmental damage.

Crodasorb ™ – acts as an intense defense against oxidative stress, protects from the sun’s damaging rays, and locks in moisture to keep strands stronger.

Rejuvenique ™ – called the “holy grail” of their products. Has 11+ unique molecular ingredients including vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, beta-carotene, omega-6 fatty acids, nutrients, and amino acids. Proven to mimic the body’s own natural oils to reduce hair thinning, creating volume and shine.

What Will I Try Next?

After completing a hair quiz to help figure out what on earth my hair is doing, I had a consult with Katie.

She said:

Here’s my recommendation. You will need:

A volumizing shampoo since you mentioned your hair is thinning and fine

The intense repair conditioner

Hair regrowth spray

A leave-in conditioner to protect against breakage would help seal and mend split ends and breakage

A thermal heat protector for your hot tools

Fair enough!

When I was a kid, it seemed like every woman over 30 had short hair, with a few notable exceptions. I cut mine when I got married, and mostly, it stayed short for a long time. But somewhere around my early 40’s, I was ready for a change and let it grow. My preference is definitely hair that goes a bit past my shoulders. But to keep it, it’s got to get healthier!

What’s up with YOUR hair? Have you tried Monat?

If you’d like to try Katie’s quiz to see what she’d recommend, do it right here.

You can connect with her on Instagram @curlytexasmama

Thanks, Katie!

#Monat

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