#She just…. Stares and deadpans and is usually seen holding a knife. But somehow that doesn’t creep him out. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

internalsealpanic · 4 years ago

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Of Midnight Smoothies and Murder Mysteries

Summary: Sneaking out for a movie turns out to be a bad idea.

A/n: So... this was supposed to com out on Halloween then I confessed about thirst then my priorities shifted. Well, since I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving this is just extended Halloween. It would be funny to do a Thanksgiving thing with the Batfam. Thanks to @littleredwing89 and @lucy-roo for proof reading this crack. Thanks for @ereawrites for the encouragement. And thanks to @littleredwing89 for the mood board. (I love you my dear enabler.) Also “[ ]” will indicate characters speaking in a different language. I sadly could not find grammar stuff for the language so you will have to bear with me. This is still part of the Merc! Reader series.

Warnings: Gore, a lot of blood, dumb bickering, Dick being a cute dork, and snake bleps.

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"Aliens don't exist," You huff around your thoroughly chewed straw, swirling the radioactive green smoothie Dick insisted that you try. You debate on whether to take out the bag of confectioners sugar you bought and pour it in. Dick makes a noise, indiscernible with his own straw in his mouth. You cast a glance at him only to see his neon blue smoothie spurting out of his nose. Your snort quietly, the noise hidden by the rustling of grocery bags against your bouncing leg but based on the way he’s pouting at you, Dick clearly sees your lack of sympathy and takes offense. You shrug at him.

Brushing the liquid away with the sleeve of his denim jacket, Dick levels you his best batglare. You give him an impassive half-asleep response of ‘hnnn’ which just gave him flashbacks about talking to Bruce. You’re entirely too focused on the fact that the blue of the smoothie is still alarmingly stark even against the blue of the denim. “You’ve met Superman, right?”

You roll your eyes at his piss poor attempt at intimidating you and pinch your straw between your thumb and index finger, trying to break apart the clumps of ice preventing you from getting more smoothie. “-Met is a strong word-” You drawled causing him to sneer. “Just say he kicked your ass six ways to Sunday like a normal person.”

“I fought him.”

“You got your ass beat-” You glare at him sticking your green tongue out at him and in return he sticks his blue tongue out at you. It was true but he didn’t have to say it. This is always how your long-held arguments start.

“Besides, aren’t you and Slade metas?” He breaks in after a long moment, instantly cutting off the possibility of weeks of not talking to each other. You smile balefully at him. “Precisely.”

“What? How does you being a weirdo disprove aliens?”

You make an affronted sound through your nose but launch into your explanation in your professorial voice. “The guy’s gotta be some kind of meta and he probably just came up with the Krypton thing afterwards. It sounds cooler, yanno?”

Dick looks up to the smog covered Gotham sky, leaning back against the solid brick pillar behind him. “Well, why can’t he be an alien?” He says dreamily tracing unseen constellations with his right hand. You briefly remember him mentioning stargazing with his parents when he was younger. There is something warm in the memory even if it wasn’t yours. You look down at him, eyebrow ticking. “Ok genius, tell me why there would be aliens that look exactly like us?”

“Why not?” He says grinning at you. The sterile lighting of the grocery store light filtering through smudgy windows highlighting his features. The shadows highlighting the shape of his cheekbones and the dimples forming at the edges of his cheeks. When had Dick gone from cute to handsome? You shake your head, avoiding his smiling corscian blue eyes.

“Becaaauuuuuse, dipshit, that’s not how evolution works” You bite out.

“What about convergent evolution?” He offers casually and your tongue freezes. A light flickers in his eyes and his pretty mouth twitch up into a laugh when you fail to respond. “You forgot about that, didn’t you? HA”

“I regret this conversation.”

“HA”

“Superman fanboy” you accuse, jabbing a finger into his chest. Dick giggles either from your weak deflection or the fact he’s ticklish, either way, your stomach does somersaults.

“Just say you’re wrong.” He says grinning, the divots formed by his dimples becoming more apparent. You feel Yasiri’s tail flick across your collarbone, her body coiling up in response to your irritation. Your mouth curls too but the irritation doesn’t quite boil over as you expected it to, not when Dick smiles at you like that. There’s a strange twisting in your stomach. You aren’t sure what it is but you’re pretty sure that you don’t like it. You blow out a breath, sound caught between a tired laugh and a long-suffering sigh, and pick your grocery bags before getting up.

Not even 5 seconds after you resolve to abandon him, Dick’s already by your side, falling into step with you bumping his shoulder against yours in a placating gesture. Yasiri slithers from the skin on the base of your neck to hiss at him. Dick smiles at her unfazed despite the clear and present danger. He pets her without much fuss from your usually ferocious snake. You make an amused noise at her compliance.

The walk is spent in easy companionable silence. The kind you two settle into when Dick knows you need to settle down. You were a sore loser when it comes to arguments but so was he, so you tend to let the other work through it. You grimace at your lightly scuffed shoes. They weren’t expensive or flashy or even one of a kind but they were comfortable, reliable, and most importantly they were from Mr. Wintergreen- Uncle Wintergreen, he insisted. The fact that he’d taken the time at all made your stomach flip-

Your stomach dropped. Your throat and mouth felt dry. The scent of copper permeating the air as you stared at the red puddle beneath your white shoes, a severed finger poking at you.

"Y/n?"

You must have stopped abruptly. You turn to Dick mechanically and see his face crumple into worry. Before you can rush out words of dismissal, your ears tune in to the sounds of a haunting melody. Yasiri rattles around your neck once again leaving the safety of your collar bone. Your head swivels mechanically towards the old theatre. Dick looks at you curiously, concern flashing in his eyes when another scream erupts from the theater. You both stiffen, spines straightening. Eyes blown wide, your feet take you toward the theater.

Dick falls into step with you.”You’re not seriously going, are you? You’ve- Didn’t we just watch a horror movie?”

“You seem to be going the same way.” You point out, side-eyeing him sharply, the sour look on your face not betraying the anxiety cloying at your spine. In the corner of your eye, you can see Dick huffing and crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’m Robin.”

“And I kicked your ass just 2 days ago and served it on a silver platter while quoting the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger,” You grin absolutely, unequivocally unapologetic.

“I was protecting civilians!” He protests, throwing up his hands theatrically.

“Iieerrelevant~”

Dick opens his mouth to contest your point but there really was convincing you on that. His face screws up and being the gracious loser that he is, he sticks his still neon blue tongue out at you. You, being the graceful winner that you were, stick your radioactively neon green tongue at him in answer.

You continue to bicker about the merits of his heroism on the battlefield 'til you reach the front of the theater. You tuck your grocery bags behind debris by the entrance making sure to keep them well hidden. Dick wants to point out that they’ll probably be gone by the time you two are done but Yasiri was staring at him like she was about to strike at him for real this time.

It- It wasn’t hard to get into the building. Dick held out his hand to you as you climbed over another set of debris. You take it. You thank him clumsily. He bows to you a gremlin smile spreading across his face. You sneer but give him a sharp smile in return.

It’s dark. The absence of light is thick. It makes the sounds of your heartbeats uncomfortably loud. You swallow. You trace your finger along your skin, the hilt of your knife falls easily into your hand. You trace your finger on your other arm and hand the knife to Dick who shakes his head. You shrug and let it melt back into your skin.

“You have a tracker on you, right?”

“No-” You eye him, cutting him a look of disbelief. “I-”

“Relax, I have one too.” You deadpan.

Dick sighs. “You’re dad’s paranoid too?”

“So is yours” You snip, hackles drawn.

“Bruce isn’t my dad.”

“Slade isn’t mine either.”

“Mentors?” Dick offers placatingly.

“Polite way of saying bossy prick, I guess.” You roll your eyes but concede.

“I mean I don’t know about Wintergreen but Alfred taught me some manners.” Dick shrugs, folding his arms behind his head somehow relaxed despite the thick scent of blood in the air or maybe this was how Dick was when he was nervous.

The truth was Wintergreen had attempted to teach you manners but he’d run into quite a few problems. The first being that you were a terrible student. Sure, you caught on quickly when you could but anything you didn’t gravitate towards didn’t hold your limited attention long enough to make an actual impact on you. Now that in of itself was fixable with the right kind of bribery. The other problem was less so. Your mentor, if you could really call him that, was a rude bastard. Long story short, you’ve never seen the point, much to Wintergreen’s chagrin and Slade’s amusement. You were, however, a master of mouthing off.

“Shouldn’t we call back up?”

You flick your eyes to him, uselessly, but based on the shifting of the body beside you he somehow got the message. “Go ahead, if you wanna explain to big daddy bats why you’re hanging out with me, sure.”

Yeah. That wasn’t an option. There was, of course, a silent understanding that bats probably knew about your little hangouts but still.

You pad the walls with your left hand while your right was gripping Dick’s sleeve, white-knuckled. You cringe every now and again feeling the walls slick with what you weren’t eager to investigate. You strain your ear to listen for odd sounds but mostly to see if Dick, as you suspect, is echolocating.

“How are you doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Silently echolocating?”

Dick snickers. “I am not. You do know B isn’t an actual bat, right?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot he was just a furry.” You sneer. Dick snorts a sound caught between amusement and offense. He clearly respected Bruce. Not the same way you respected Slade, maybe, but you understood how larger than life the Batman was even if he was the biggest pain in your ass by far.

“Do you really have any room to make fun of my mentor when yours has ‘Stroke’ in his name?”

“I have plenty of room, probably. Why not echolocate to check just how much room I have?”

“Listen here-”

The opera music floods the silent hall, sharp and clear. You feel the air around you catch fire and your fraying nerves. You turn your head to Dick. Despite not being able to see him, you know his mouth flattens and his brow wrinkles the way they do when you two agree to do something incomprehensibly stupid. This time you do not argue or question or even complain. You simply go forward.

A scream, messy and jagged, tangles with the smooth crispness of the opera music. It makes your stomach turn almost as much as the idea of who or, more appropriately, whatever was behind it. You were familiar with the cruelties Gotham’s monsters were capable of. You have, after all, worked for quite a few.

But this?

This pure, uncut agony in that scream? That was just something you could not stomach. You feel Dick flinch at the sound, almost jumping out of his skin. You squeeze his arm once, then twice, then twice once more. You feel his hand on your wrist, reciprocating the gesture. You smile at him reassuringly not knowing whether it would make things better or whether he can actually see it.

Neither of you is particularly good at dealing with people’s pain. That might not be the right word for it. Neither of you coped well. You absorbed too much of it. You were, however, much better at hiding it. Not that you could fault Dick on that. You didn’t even attempt. For Dick, humanity was a part of the job. Compassion? Kindness? That was to be expected of a hero not derided. To uphold that in the face of Gotham’s worst, that took strength.

Strength, in your case, was directed elsewhere. Something bone-breaking, more visceral. You suppose that was the problem with keeping company with survivors. Perpetually dancing on the brink of death robbed you of something but you haven’t exactly known any other life besides this.

The end of the hall is light by bright lights, sterile white, the kind you only saw in clinics. Your head runs through the catalog of Gotham’s rogues, possibilities of which utter psychopath could possibly be doing this.

“We should call the cops.”

Not really really paying attention, you nod. You should probably. You grip the handle of your knife, flexing your fingers nervously, as another scream cuts through the air. Dick’s body curls, recoiling at the sound. The sound, this close, was enough to make you twitch.

“Can’t we just text them?”

“What do you think this is? Canada?”

“Ok, fair but make sure to tell them you’re Dickle Grayson.” You tease, smiling way too easily considering the creepy atmosphere.

Dick crosses his arms over his chest.“And summon a media storm?”

“It would get the police here faster.”

“I hate it when you’re right,” Dick wishes he could wipe the absolutely smug grin off your face. “We need to back up. You know, in case, he can hear us.”

“I mean you are the one unarmed here.” You say, waving your arms at him.

“No, I’m not. I have my bird-a-rangs.” Dick preens, taking them out from some pocket hidden in his jacket.

“Bird-a-rangs.” You echo, raising a brow.

“Yup. Bird-a-rangs.”

“You are officially- no, you are legally not allowed to name things.”

Dick makes an offended squawking noise.“Oh, come on! Still not as bad as Sharknado.”

“Take. That. Back. Heathen.”

“Make me.”

Both of you still. Yasiri unfurls from your collarbone, her tail rattling. You spin on your heel. Your knife swings out in a wide crescent of light. Thick crimson splashes across your face. At the end of your knife was a person- no, it was a person in the past tense. It makes a small cry when you wiggle the blade planted in its throat a fraction. Otherwise, it ignores the fact that it is, in fact, bleeding out from its jugular. It’s thick, clumsy limbs reach for you. Your stomach rolls. The thing in front of you, the mangled approximation of what was once a person, is lurching towards you. You think you sneer in disgust but your face is far too numb to tell.

“Dick! Just call the cops!” You snarl, panic rising audibly as more bodies emerge from God knows where. You kick the one to your front off to the side, shredding its neck. It takes everything in you not to vomit. In the corner of your eye, you see Dick type as he kicks another one away. You two back into each other as the bodies close around you, cutting off all the exits. You roll up your sleeve tracing a blood-soaked finger over the lines of your tattoo and producing another knife. Dick pulls out his bird-a-rangs.

Dick landed blows but they weren’t hard enough to maim or be fatal. Even if he was to hit them with the sharp bird-a-rangs, he would still aim non fatally. Slade would kill you if you fought so inefficiently or maybe he would just taunt you. Either way, you didn’t care much for Dick’s squeamishness right now as the bodies kept getting back up. As far as you can tell, you’re doing them a favor.

The first wave of bodies rushes towards you. Their limbs jutting towards you clumsily. You swing your blade, vicious and precise. You feel metal clash against flesh, against bone. Blood coats every available surface on you. You hear Dick squawk and you don’t really need to turn around to check that he’s also covered in it too. The spray of blood makes the air thick with the scent of copper. The blood on your skin burns.

“Duck!”

“Goose!” You shout, ducking and slashing down at a row of bodies and legs. You hear his bird-a-rangs slice through the air cleanly and land on one of the creature's shoulders. You let out a huff of air thinking of all the more permanent places it could have landed. He throws a few more hitting them in the face.

Dick launches over you, using you as a springboard. You grunt and he winks at you like a showman. His foot predictably lands an impressive blow on one of the creature's faces. You two regroup back to back immediately after he lands.

Your eyes widen a fraction when a hand from out of nowhere grabs at your face catching you off guard. Your breath catches when you feel a hand at your shoulder pushing you down. A fist makes contact with the creature’s swollen face and it takes a moment for your mind to realize that it’s Dick’s hand on your shoulder and Dick’s fist making contact with the creature.

“Thanks,” You mumble, straightening yourself out. “I had it.”

“You’re welcome, Pookie.” You flush as Dick winks at you. “You know I literally have your back.” He teases. You groan bending back into a fighting stance.

“When we get out of here alive, we are working on your sense of humor.” Dick chuckles at that, making your muscles ease. “Says the person who shouted ‘Goose!’.”

You land every blow with every intent to make it fatal. Dick is still sticking to his nonfatal method. Normally, it was pure joy to watch Dick as he fights. The sheer control he commands over his muscles was awe-inspiring. Despite his size, he’s able to land blows just as powerful as yours. He would truly be terrifying if he were to be anything but himself.

These bodies. They’re too alive, too much. The next wave comes at you more fervently with more bodies. Another wave of nausea hits you when hands grasp at your arms. Your stomach tries to twist out of your abdomen. You try to wrench yourself free. You pull and twist and thrash, only succeeding in getting yourself pulled in deeper.

“Dick!” You cry reflexively. The coarseness in your voice lets the fear spill all over your vowels.

Dick’s corscian eyes widen with a flash of panic. To Dick, you and death were two separate lines running on parallel tracks next to each other, never quite crossing and never belonging to the same headspace. Completely mutually exclusive as far as he knew. But right at this moment, right as you’re about to be swallowed whole by the crowd of misshapen bodies, he watches those lines slowly intersect. Dick doesn’t know where his heart has leaped to.

“Y/n!”

The world resurfaces in a surge of bright white light. Some small part of you is really hoping that Dick is, for once, right about the alien thing. Quietly you draw in a calming breath. It’s shallow not wanting your chest to rise too much to give away your consciousness.

The opera music is blaring in your still ringing head which isn’t helped by the wannabe opera singer belting his lungs out. Thankfully, that means he’s distracted. You move your limbs checking. Everything seems to be intact AND you seem to be tied up to someone instead of something which was either good or bad depending on who it is.

“Mornin’ sleepy head” Dick mumbles quietly, sounding relieved. You click your teeth in irritation.

“Morning, Disco Stick. Any chance you magically woke up with a plan or were you just taking a beauty nap?”

“I don’t need one and sort of.”

“Well shit, we’re screwed then.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m sorry which of us is running around doing somersaults when they’re assaulting criminals?”

“In my defense, flipping makes my kicks land harder.” Which was true but you were feeling snippy. “It also gives them much more time to dodge or counter.”

“Killjoy.” You roll your eyes, smiling. You know he’s being cute and pouting. Given this is really not the time considering there is a man butchering another man a few feet away from you while singing bad opera. You really did stumble into a horror movie. “Please tell me you called Batman or the police.”

“Both.”

“How?”

“Some of us are good at multitasking.” Dick chirps proudly leaning against you. You scoff judging just how tightly the ropes are bound around you.

“Well, you are good at being insufferable while still breathing.”

“Isn’t that part of my charm?”

You snicker accidentally tugging at the binds around you. You hear Dick wince likely from what is a bruised rib or, heaven help you, a broken one. “Sorry.” You whisper low and small.

Shit. What if he had a broken rib. Shit. Shit.

“I’m ok, Hon.” Dick laughs making sure to lay the Delaware accent thick. It makes your chest feel warm even though everything else in you was freezing from dread. You snort. “Fine, bleed out for all I care.”

“Awwww don’t be like that.” You sigh. You hate how weak you are to his puppy dog eyes. You can’t even see it. You decide to change the subject instead. “So what are the odds that we’re escaping if we break out of their bonds now?”

“Not high.”

“Even if I get Yasiri to gently inject him with poison?”

“Please tell me you didn’t bring poison to our hangout.”

“I mean. Do twinkies count?”

“No.”

“Ok, fine. So we’re stalling then.”

“Pretty much.”

“I hate this.”

“You were the one who started heading in.”

“Why didn’t you stop me then?”

The man at the surgical table turns to you with a whimsical flourish as the body on the table goes limp. No, not limp. Docile. You have just witnessed a person become a body, you think numbly. The way the fight so easily left its limbs made you shudder, feeling the fight in your own limbs fleeting out. This isn’t how you want to die, not by the hand of a madman. At least, not until you’ve put your own demons to rest.

“Look who’s awake,” He drawls, his voice slimy and all the vowels coming out at the wrong pitches. Dick shifts the two of you so that he’s angled slightly in front of you. He squares his shoulder trying to make his lean form look far bigger than it actually is. You smile at his attempt to be protective because deep down you both know you’re the more intimidating one and you’re the one who can take more punishment. Your power and training have those pleasant side effects.

You see him draw closer making you snarl. “Come any closer and I swear I will rip your throat out.” You are surprised at how even the threat came out but the distilled ferocity you had put into it didn’t quite show, likely blunted by the fear pooling in your stomach.

“Don’t worry I’ll make you perfect too. I promise.” He reaches past Dick, grabbing you by the back of your neck. The grip on you is bruising and callous. He forces you to bow your head and look down at the bloodstains on your clothes. The browning blots of red stain your white Wonder Woman shirt. You swallow. You felt like a lamb being dragged to slaughter. Dick, likely without thinking, bites down on the man’s wrist.

The man pulls away with a cry, cradling his bleeding wrist. “Are you ok?” Dick asks, spitting blood out, eyes shiny with concern. You gulp down air before nodding. Dick presses closer to you reassuring you. Shaken, you press back, careful not to press hard enough to hurt him.

Your floundering mind comes to one conclusion. You can’t let him touch Dick. You use your strength to shift your positions so that Dick is completely behind you. Dick tries to move you back but you plant your heels preventing him from even inching.

The man grabs you by the collar of your shirt, pulling you off the ground. You hear Dick’s breath hitch. His heart rate kicks up and so does yours. Fury burning in the man’s eyes. “WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?” He screams, shaking you. “NO. NO. NO. MY- I’M- NO! PERFECT. I NEED- I NEED TO BE PERFECT.” Somehow the spit flying in your face grosses you out more than the blood probably drying on your face. It’s only winning by a small margin though.

Bile is rising in your throat. Still, you grin, sneering and taunting. “Trust me you didn’t need help in the department,” You jeer. Dick squirms behind you. Urging you to stop. You don’t. “You think those pisspoor excuses for creatures you sicced on us were perfect. HA!” You can feel Dick shaking his head behind you. You nudge him assuring him you’ve got a plan. You did. Sort of. It’s more of a goal really. Take his attention off of Dick.

“[Y/n, please no. Don’t do this. I know what you’re doing. But I can take it. Moon, please.]” Dick pleads, voice hoarse and desperate. ‘Shion’. Moon. The endearment glances of your ribs like a well placed kick to the chest. You don’t let your eyes flick to him. “[Which us is meta here?]” You whisper back in broken Romani. You cringe a little knowing just how badly you butchered the sentence. Dick makes an affronted noise. “Cham.” You whisper quietly, trying to shape your vowels and consonants correctly. Dick’s breath catches. Sun. Sure, the endearment seemed inadequate, too succinct, when compared to how much you care for him but as of right now it will have to do.

The man shakes you again dragging your attention away from Dick. Your smarmy grin cuts across your face as if you’re not pissing yourself from fear. A large hand grabs your face. Your entire body braces itself for your neck to be twisted but it does not come. He tilts your head back side to side. “You’re going to need a lot of work.”

Your heart stops. Dick thrashes behind you. You want to elbow him. You want to scream at him to stop fucking moving but you’re entire body is numb. Your eyes flick to the man, no, the body on the table. It is breathing and writhing in agony. Your breaths pick up. You- you don’t- you can’t-

You hear a crash and the fall of debris on a dozen bodies.

“B!” Dick shouts distantly. The grip on your collar disappears. A black clad fist hangs in front of you. Your eyes trace up the arm in front of you only to be met with the scowling face of the Batman. You swallow nervously while Dick lets out another enthusiastic ‘B’. Batman makes quick work of your ropes, all the while glaring at you for what you don’t know. Maybe somehow he knows this whole situation was your fault.

Once released, the first order of business, at least for Dick, is to throw his arms around Batman’s shoulders. Awkwardly, he reciprocates your friend’s affection. The hold he has on Dick cannot be mistaken as anything but protective. You find humor in the fact at how obvious their familial connection is yet they deny it. A teasing remark rises up your throat but is abruptly shoved back down by Batman’s unrelenting glare. Was he born glaring?

“What are you doing here?” Less of a question and more of a growled accusation.

“Careful, his rib might be broken.” You stumble out dumbly. Dick glares at you but compared to Batman’s it looks more like a pout which is, again, hilarious. Batman loosens his grip on Dick and apparently, this is now the time Dick chooses to realize that his mentor (read: dad) is trying to turn you into ash with a scowl.

Dick peels away from him stepping in front of you. He widens his stance to shield you from the larger man. Dick feels an odd surge of protectiveness and he’s not about to let B attack you, especially not after what just happened.

They stare each other down. They seem to be having a silent argument. You want to cut in but you’re afraid you might actually turn into ash with the intensity of Batman’s gaze.

The loud blaring of sirens mingle with the still playing opera music in the background as a tidal wave of police officers and paramedics rush in.

-----

You pestered the medic to let you stay with Dick.

“So, what do you plan on doing?” Dick asks, leaning against you pointedly ignoring the paramedic's instruction to be careful. You let him lean into you. You know he needs all the comfort he can get. You rest your head against his hair, placing a kiss on his scalp. Dick doesn’t comment afraid that you might withdraw if he teases you too much.

“Maybe grow out my hair,” You joke, pinching a lock of hair between your fingers. “Might as well considering how grounded I’ll be. Well, if uncle Wintergreen has anything to say about it.”

Dick extricates himself from your shoulder and turns to you with a pensive look. Tilting his head, he looks at you appraisingly, wrinkling his brow. You can’t blame him. He’s never seen you with long hair mainly because you’ve never let it get too long. Too much of a hassle, too much of a health hazard.

Dick places his jacket over your head, draping it over you like a wedding veil. You chuckle at him, barely able to keep the smile off of your face.

“How do I look?” You joke twining your fingers around the cloth. You think you see Dick blush but it was probably just the cold. Dick coughs poorly disguising his laughter. He covers his mouth, depriving you of his dimples. “ Like you’re going to get married in a jean pants suit. I have dibs on walking you down the aisle.”

You tilt your head. Your smile tilts along with it. “Nah uncle Wintergreen has dibs on that.”

Dick huffs, his shoulders sag in disappointment. It’s the closest he was gonna get to being your groom, he thinks.

I want you waiting for me at the end of the aisle. The thought makes your heart twist. You swallow it along with the huge lump in your throat. “You can be my last dance though.”

You concede. Dick brightens a little at this but not by much.

“You sure Deathstroke wouldn’t mind?”

“This implies he’ll show up. He’s a busy man.” Dick laughs at that. Genuine and very Dick. This time you don’t fight the smile off of your face.

You smile at each other and laugh. A million unspoken sentences hang between the two of you.

This love of yours is reckless.

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a/n: Thanks for reading. Also yes I did have to include good dad Bruce and bastard mentor Slade. I only have one braincell and it is dumber than shit.

tag list: @batarella , @anothertimdrakestan , @lucy-roo , @multifandomgirl-us , @idkmanicantenglish ,@birdy-bat-writes , @boosyboo9206 , @americasmarauders , @l-inkage @arestorationofbalance , @cloudie-skay , @wunderstell @hyp-oh-critical, @ereawrites

#dick grayson #robins #batboys x reader #batboys #dick grayson x reader #dick grayson imagine #dc x reader #dc fanfic

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soukokuwu · 5 years ago

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OSAMU DAZAI

dazai x reader ⚉ angst, mostly (slight swearing, as usual) ⚉ note: did not proofread this because i procrastinate so much, i’m sorry, hope it’s still okay ⚉ the ending is... happy/sad you decide ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ⚉

(also: this is an alternate scenario for my earlier dazai work! anyway, not my best by a mile, so constructive criticism is very welcome)

⚉⚉⚉⚉⚉

He had predicted this far, so why? Why was this scene breaking his heart even more than he thought it would?

You were hunched over on the sofa, head in your hands, elbows propped on your knees. Dazai was seated beside you and was as insightful as ever; he knew you were trying your best not to cry, not to show your tears.

⚉⚉⚉⚉⚉

Just moments before…

“Who the fuck is she?”

You had had enough of this. He had been coming home later than usual these few months, bringing back with him the stench of alcohol and the pungent smell of women’s perfume. Sure, you loved him, but enough was enough. Even you can’t stand sharing the one you loved with someone else.

At first you had thought that it was for a mission, but the month spread into two, and by the third you had given up. You had not once asked him anything about it, simply out of the respect and trust you had for your partner and his unconventional job – being one of the detectives at the Armed Detective Agency. You knew that meant sometimes cases were confidential, or that Dazai simply wouldn’t tell you about it to protect you. To ease his potential concerns, you never questioned him. But this was definitely different, and you knew it. This was no case.

You had made sure to check it out for yourself. You knew his favorite bar spot: Lupin. Thanks to being in a relationship with the most tactical person you knew, you had picked up some skills. One night, exactly two months ago, you had told him you would have to go out of town to visit your aunt, an easy lie to get away with since he didn’t care much of what you were up to by then. That night, you made sure to wait until you saw Dazai leaving the bar before you made your way in. It was way too risky to head in while he was still there. Even loaded with alcohol he would have mad observation skills and realize you were there. But of course, aside from making a new friend in the bar with which you had to praise your boyfriend and act like nothing was wrong in spite of what he’s been doing, you found next to nothing about Dazai’s secret affairs.

But that didn’t matter anymore. Not now, as you were choking yourself from holding back your tears. His voice was clear as day, and there wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in his reply. “One of the bartenders at Lupin” fell from his mouth, as nonchalant as ever. There, he admitted it.

As you looked at his face, it was as though you couldn’t recognize him anymore. This wasn’t the Dazai you fell in love with all those years ago. No, this person in front of you, he’s different. No way the Dazai you fell in love with would ever do this to you. You felt a tightness in your heart as you continued to wonder what it is that you had done wrong.

It killed you inside; remembering all the sweet moments that happened over the years. Every single memory that you remembered just felt like a knife through your heart.

“How long has it been?”

He chuckled, not sounding the least bit apologetic, “three months.”

“Fuck, Osamu.”

⚉⚉⚉⚉⚉

Dazai was still sat next to you, paying attention to your every movement. He noticed the way your shoulders were trembling, because try as hard as you may, you couldn’t stop yourself from sobbing.

He knew how you were feeling, but he couldn’t bring himself to comfort you. He loved you – and he still does – but he couldn’t admit that to you. Not after what you think he did. This was going according to plan, so why couldn’t he feel any sense of accomplishment? Instead, all he felt is anger and regret welling up inside him. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to turn back on his decision to push you away.

A penchant liar, a wanted man – Dazai knew he couldn’t be the person you deserved no matter how hard he tried. You deserved a better life than this. One with no threats, one where you didn’t have to look over your shoulder every time you stepped outside. He knew you wouldn’t leave of your own accord, so, he dealt with this the only way he knew how: lies.

For the past three months he had been frequenting Lupin, but as much as he wanted to push you away, he couldn’t actually bring himself to be intimate with another woman. No fucking way. No one could hold a candle to you. So, he thought of an alternative.

⚉⚉⚉⚉⚉

Exactly two months ago:

“Thanks for this.” Dazai could have gotten it easily himself, but he didn’t want to risk getting caught buying props for his ruse.

“And what exactly do you need it for? Can’t you just ask your girlfriend for hers?” His partner, Kunikida, grudgingly handed Dazai what he had asked for. Why on earth would he need women’s perfume? It wasn’t your birthday or any special occasion, that much he knew. Kunikida smirked, thinking it could be that maybe Dazai was being thoughtful for once and gifting—

“No, I’m done with her.”

“What the fuck are you on about?”

“It’s exactly as I said, Kunikida. Are you going deaf?”

As much as the blonde wanted to punch him, he held back, clenched fists by his hips. “You’re being an ass.”

“I know that.”

The blonde could feel the anger bubbling up inside him. He had seen them together, and as much as he and Dazai didn’t really get along, he had to admit that getting together with you was the one decent choice the guy has made in ages. He didn’t know you personally, but Dazai had been going on and on about you ever since you got together with him. All of a sudden, he realized what the perfume was for, and he scoffed at his partner’s cowardice.

“If you want to end it, just man up and break it off. Don’t you dare make her think she isn’t enough of a woman for you. She’s the best you could ever do.”

Kunikida didn’t have to ask to know what his partner was thinking. Asking him to get some lipstick and ladies’ perfume? He was just looking to make you think that he’s cheating on you. Whatever Dazai was planning, he definitely did not approve.

Dazai laughed in self-deprecation as he finally looked up to look Kunikida in the eyes. “You and I both know that if I tell her the real reason that she wouldn’t leave.”

Not wanting to hear any more of it, Kunikida stormed off, obviously against Dazai’s decision, but he also knew that he shouldn’t interfere in other people’s affairs, which only served to frustrate him even more. But before he could leave, he turned back to Dazai once more, “if you want to protect someone, protect them with your own two hands.” To which, of course, Dazai pretended not to have heard.

Later as Dazai up and left, he spotted a familiar figure in the alleyway, walking towards the direction of the bar. He sighed as he approached the man, not feeling up to his usual routine of annoying him to no end. “Whatever you want I’m not giving it to you, I’m about to go play some mind games, so if you don’t mind, I’ll be off.”

Left behind without being given a chance to say anything, the ginger scoffed and crossed his arms. “Huh? What’s this shitty Dazai talking about? I didn’t even know he would be here…”

⚉⚉⚉⚉⚉

“There’s nothing I can do anymore.”

Dazai snapped out from his thoughts as he processed what you were saying. He didn’t expect such a reaction, such… calmness in your tone. He almost thought he was dreaming. He lightly pinched himself on the arm. No, he definitely wasn’t dreaming. Slowly, he brought himself to look at you.

Your beautiful eyes were staring straight at him, as though they could see right through him. Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. You were the only one that ever could. Rarely has anyone ever made him stumped, but if anyone could be an exception, it would be you. And now, you caught him off-guard with how stoic you were.

“What – what do you mean?” Dazai croaked out, eyes unblinking, fingers slightly twitching.

Then he heard her laugh a similar laugh, much like his self-deprecating laugh with Kunikida. “Exactly that.” And she proceeded to the bedroom, presumably to pack her belongings.

Somehow, Dazai felt his hands moving of their own accord, and pull her back. And as she stood next to him, he realized what went wrong.

She thought she knew everything. One thing that she got right was that he was deliberately pushing her away. But what she didn’t see through was the real reason why he did it. Because in her eyes, he only saw sadness. And he knew. He knew at that moment, she thought he had implied she wasn’t worthy. She thought she failed at bringing him joy. She thought that everything he faked to push her away was to send a message: You don’t cut it for me, you’ve failed at making me find a reason to live, and I got bored.

That was far from the truth, though, and Dazai couldn’t bring himself to confess. He knew that in doing so, it would not help him achieve his goal. So, he kept up the part he was acting, and gave her a deadpan smile, trying not to let his voice waver as he told her, “I’d appreciate it if you left as soon as possible. I’m expecting company.”

⚉⚉⚉⚉⚉

“Isn’t that…?”

Dazai looked at where Ranpo was gazing at and saw you there, with your long wavy hair in a ponytail, sampling flavors at the new gelato store in the corner of the street. He felt his heart skip a beat, not that he would ever let it affect him. Today he had a case to see to with his subordinate, and Dazai was trying his best to concentrate on said case.

It had been a year since that fateful night, and he’s been doing his best not to keep any tabs on you. Which was relatively easy, given the nature of his job. All he had to do was keep himself busy. Very busy. He also noticed that he couldn’t even joke about a double suicide with any of the women he usually would flirt with, but he dismissed it, refusing to think of this as an effect your departure had left him with.

“Mhmm,” he mumbled, before turning away to get back to the case on hand.

But before he could get away completely, Ranpo’s sudden exclamation caught his attention. Dazai couldn’t help but look, curious at what’s gotten him so surprised. Then, Dazai realized, you weren’t alone, as your hands reached out for someone else’s, dragging them with you toward the gelato store.

You had chosen a classic butterscotch flavor. Dazai had expected that, seeing as it had been your favorite since you were a child. But what he didn’t expect was to see you with someone, let alone someone he knew. As he watched you feed a spoonful of your favorite flavor to your new lover, Dazai felt his fists clenched tight, which Ranpo caught on to.

“Isn’t that…” Ranpo trailed off, this time referring to your companion. But then he decided it was maybe best not to pursue the matter so much. He was almost, if not more, insightful than Dazai was, and he knew exactly what kind of reaction he would get should he press the matter further. “Dazai, it was you who felt she needed to move on, no?” he reminded him.

“To keep her safe, not –” Dazai raised his voice before getting a grip on himself as he noticed he was attracting some attention from the people around him. Not to mention nobody aside from you had seen him as rattled as he was right now. ‘Not to let her fall back into it,’ he finished in thought to himself.

But to his dismay, as he shifted his attention back to you, he realized you and your lover both didn’t notice him, because your attention was on each other, and only each other, both of your smiles sickeningly sweet. All he could think of was how all that hard work, all those sleepless nights spent after you left, was actually going down the drain. Because he didn’t make you safer, no. If anything, his heart sank as he realized that he definitely pushed you into a more dangerous life.

Why would you do this? Why were you with him? Out of spite? No, Dazai knew you way better than that, and you weren’t so petty. That could only mean one thing – what you felt for your new man was genuine. And as he heard you exclaim your next sentence, hands tightly intertwined with your new lover’s, Dazai knew he was at risk of losing it.

“Let’s go to the beachside next, Chuuya!”

#i couldnt help myself im sorry #ALSO I USED MOBILE TO POST THIS AND THE APP IS ASDJKDHH URGH #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd dazai #bsd osamu dazai #bsd x reader #bsd scenarios #please dont kill me #bsd dazai x reader #dazai x reader #soukokuwu writing #rachwrote #bsd imagine #bsd imagines #bsd oneshot #bsd osamu dazai x reader #bsd angst #osamu dazai x reader

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sapphic-scylla · 4 years ago

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@the-one-and-only-blake-llewell @dimitrescuslustwine I hope you enjoy Petra’s encounter with the rogue’s gallery that is Alcina’s Castle. It’s not a great story and not perfectly well written but regardless I hope you like it.

Ch. 1: Heresy

A smell of iron and wine mixed with the spruce trees nearby. Such a odd welcome to the plane she had just appeared in. It was so different from Rexentrum too. Nature seemed at peace with the world instead of deception lurking around every corner. Even these poor hopeless souls were honest about their intentions rather than manipulating people to their will. Not that it helped them in the end but it was refreshing.

Petra sheathed her sword, pulled out some incense, and lit it with a sacred flame. Just outside the village where she’d stopped in for a drink after planeshifting here to find a new home, three men tried too hard to take advantage of her only to fall into a trap of her own make. With extreme prejudice as they tried to feel her up as she tried to walk away, she severed limb and head from body without a care, leaving them in a heap of flesh. No tolerance, no mercy.

A very large castle-like manor loomed in the distance. At least a half an hour walk from here, but she felt like she was being watched. Not by an unfriendly being, but like she was being evaluated. Ignoring it, she wanted for the spell to finish.

Without a beat missed, she heard a voice behind her. “Well, you certainly know how to make an entrance now, don’t you?”

“They attacked me first, you saw it. I don’t claim to understand the mind of men like this or why they thought it was a good idea to try and take advantage of me as such, but here we are.”

Petra’s 5’6” frame slightly shuddered from the cold. She was wearing her usual outfit. Cloth wrap around the bust with her trench duster and black pants now covered in blood, not that she of all people minded blood. She picked up a nearby wine bottle dropped by one of her attackers. It still had a little bit left.

“Such a shameful waste of good wine.” Petra said, drinking the last, enough for one mouthful.

The figure behind her started to inspect the carnage. She looked like a tall drifter who passes through town without making a fuss.

“So you had questions, my dear?” Nytoria, Petra’s patron asked.

“It’s nice to talk to you. Considering you’re my only friend. But yes, I have a few questions.” Petra responded.

“Well, my dearest champion, considering you’re my only follower and you’re faithful to the last, I can’t help but protect you, but you really should find some friends.”

“Friends are a distraction and I’ve been betrayed too many times.” Petra deadpanned.

“You’re worth all the time in the world, which we have considering you traded your ability to see your sister for immortality as my champion. Fall in love, see the world, live a little, my dear.” Nytoria smiled mournfully.

“My sister was happy. She found a girl and she settled down after we brought that spineless priest that ordered my death all those years ago to justice. Emotional bonds slow me down. It’s why I never told her I was alive.” Petra said, studying the blood red brand on her arm.

“You did the right thing. She never would have rested had she known.” Nytoria said, her 6’7” frame giving Petra a sympathetic hug.

“She deserves to rest. But not me. I still have work to do and loving someone just isn’t in the cards.” Petra said, her thoughts of the past swimming through her brain, reliving the trauma and pain she had gone through in her 21 years.

~~~~~

Petra grew up in a village a couple days travel from Rexentrum. Years before the war with Xhorhas, Petra grew up reviled by the very people she was born to. Her people worshipped a god of protection and being the chosen of a god no one had heard of with a brand on her arm didn’t make things any better. Even her parents refused to accept that their child was heretical by nature. Thankfully her sister, Neraia managed to sneak her out of the city and raise her properly. When she turned 14, she and her sister were separated by assassins sent by the priest, St. Morvarian and she spent the better part of 2 years searching for her. During that time she became renowned as the Heretic, a cryptic mercenary with abilities only the gods could grant, hemocraft, mental domination, and blood red wings. She eventually used these skills to hone her sword skills, find her sister who, to this day, believed her sister to be dead, and burn the corrupt town to ash.

~~~~~

“One question for you before you start inquiring of me. Why keep your made up name? Did Anezi Diasea not suit you?” Nytoria asked.

Petra smiled. “It was a name given to me by family. As an aasimar with divine blood that runs through my veins, I felt no love for a name that was given to me by a corrupt system. Plus, Petra Naverrian suits me much better.”

“Fair. Well, as the goddess of free will, I accept your reasoning. Now, how can I help you, dear champion?” Nytoria drifted in front of her.

“What plane did we land on?” Petra asked without hesitation.

“Oh come on, love, you know the rules.”

“Oh shit, sorry. Yes or no questions only for this spell. Is a safe haven somewhere close to here?”

Nytoria pondered. “Safe isn’t the word I would use, but knowing you, you’d probably think so.”

“Fantastic. The village where these poor bastards come from, will they be missed?” Petra asked, grimly.

Nytoria smiled with a devious grin. “Oh absolutely not, you chaotic little thing. Though once old toothless over here tried to put his hand on your arse, I knew his fate was sealed.”

Petra laughed. “He deserved everything that came his way. Had it under control this time, not like the day we met.” As she thought back to that traumatic day.

~~~~~

Petra was tired and hungry. As she searched for her sister, her brand burned like ashes on her skin.

“NERAIA, WHERE ARE YOU!” Petra called, trying to focus while ignoring her brand. Why did she have this? It had never helped her. She was only 14. Those assassins from a few days ago were still tracking her, but this persistent burning was starting to hurt.

“Ah, there you are.” Three shadows walked out from behind the trees.

Petra spun around. “No, no please don’t.” She pleaded, her arm now exuding a crimson red aura.

“What? We just have a gift for you. Be a shame not to grant you something only we can give.” As they rushed her. Right before they grabbed her, Petra felt time slow to a stop. Except she was still moving.

She took a second to catch her breath, a knife inches away from her flesh brandished by the men and women who separated her from her sister, when she heard a voice.

“It’s about time we met. I heard your pleas. I wanted to wait until you were old enough, but it seems you’re ready now.” A woman said.

“Who are you? And what is going on?” Petra stuttered, clearly at her wits end.

“I am the goddess who saved your life. You poor thing, I’ve watched you since you were a baby. You’ve seen and experienced so much. So much rage, so many traumas. Assaults, violations…” The woman answered.

“Why are you just showing yourself now?” Petra said, tears streaming down her face.

The woman smiled, hand on Petra’s face. “The gods don’t interfere with human matters unless we need to, but I couldn’t keep watching you suffer rape and attacks like you have been. The pantheon forbade me from acting until now and considering I’m fairly new to this, I’ve been trying to reach out since you were born. I am Nytoria and I’m here to grant you the power to take back your control.”

Petra cried. “How? I don’t know any magic.”

Nytoria smiled. “My dearest champion, you need only ask. You need not lift a finger. Have them destroy themselves. I promised the world free will, but that does not mean all deserve it. And so, my girl, you will be my arm of judgment. Take their freedom that they have taken from you multiple times and rend them in twain.” She said, disappearing.

As time slowly started to move again, Petra turned and with a flourish of her hand, the woman of the group of three, knife extended, slashed the throat of her comrade, then stabbed her other friend several times in the spine. Finally, when she awoke from her domination and saw her actions, screamed, and ran in the opposite direction. Petra, drenched in blood and holding a divine saber, which she had no idea how long she’d been holding, stared in awe and her own prowess and knew this might be enough to take her life back.

~~~~~

As Petra refocused after remembering that day, she had her final question. “Is there a person watching me and if so, are they friendly?” Petra asked. Nytoria thought to herself. “Because I like you, I’ll let that slide, you rulebreaker. Yes, there is someone watching. A very interesting being to be sure, but friendly is an operative word. But who knows. Knowing you, you might get along famously.” Nytoria said before disappearing with a wink.

Taking a deep breath, Petra called out. “I promise I won’t hurt you. These rats deserved it, but I promise I won’t attack unless you give me reason.” Out of the shadows strode a hooded creature. She looked human, but not human. Smiling with a creepy grin, but somehow, Petra wasn’t unsettled.

“You smell new, child. Something not of this world.” The creature spoke with a witch-like tone. “You would be correct. I am fairly new to this place and am looking for refuge. Would you know of a place like that?” Petra asked the hooded woman.

The woman smiled a creepy smile. “We may be able to help each other. We have been watching you since your arrival not long ago and my lady, intrigued by your demeanor and energy, requests an audience. My name is Daniela and if you would be so kind, I would have you follow me.” Petra, skeptical but interested, spoke after some thought. “I guess. I don’t see why not. Lead the way.” “Fantastic. Follow.” Daniela urged.

~~~~~

Petra arrived with Daniela at the huge castle, slowly feeling more and more nervous. She couldn’t help it. Something was sapping her self-confidence, but not in a bad way.

Daniela knocked on the large front door and said “You know, my lady does not take interest in many people, so feel honored that you have this chance. She is an imposing woman and will not accept impudence, so please try to make a good first impression.”

Petra nodded, unable to form words as the door swung open. As they walked in, Petra was unable to hide her amazement as the castle had an extremely refined nature to it. Tapestries, paintings, and decorations lined the walls as she walked into the room leading to the main staircase. It felt strangely warm in this castle, so without thinking, Petra removed her coat and slung it over her shoulder, revealing her usual lack of shirt and gauze-wrapped chest binder. Petra was a fighter, but hated clothes because they restricted her movement and hindered her fighting, so she preferred just to tie down her assets.

As she entered the main room, she beheld a fireplace, burning with an intense light, and several candles to keep the chamber illuminated.

As they travelled up the stairs, they heard the thudding of footsteps, but not normal footsteps. It sounded like wolf footsteps.

“Shit…” Daniela muttered, diving out of the way as a massive wolf leaped at Petra. Petra, in an instant, sidestepped the pounce and drew her saber and pointed it at the creature. The wolf snarled as it turned toward her, haunches bristled as it slowly crawled closer to Petra.

“Tyrian, no, down, this is a guest.” Daniela scolded in a way what seemed to be out of character for her. As Petra turned towards Daniela in confusion, the wolf changed forms to reveal a naked girl with markings and a long braid that looked a foot taller than Petra. Petra blushed bright red, not because she was naked, but because “Oh my god, she’s gorgeous.” Petra accidentally said out loud.

“Fucking make me, I do what I want.” The wolfgirl said, staring at Petra for whatever reason. Petra, having the biggest gay panic of her life, could not look her in the eyes in fear of giving too much away. She sheathed her sword and said, voice cracking like crazy, “Yeah uh I’m just here to see the Lady of the Castle is that you by chance wow I’m still talking how are you?” “No, of course, it’s not me.” The wolfgirl said, eyes still trained in pure confusion on Petra. Petra was having a really hard time keeping eye contact with Tyrian because the view was stunning and her mind was running wild. Tyrian continued. “Dimetrescu is just down the hall. And Daniela, go fuck yourself.” “Yeah, fuck you too, Tyrian.” Daniela sneered. “Follow me, Petra, ignore her. Petra followed, but, God, was it hard to leave a girl like that.

Daniela finally led Petra into a sitting room where a woman was sitting. She was as tall as Petra was. Sitting. As the woman turned towards her, she had pale white skin, just like her and had this air of sophistication around her that intimidated her. Petra was never good at small talk and especially in high class situations. As she turned, Petra had a heart attack. The second one tonight. She was attractive as all hell, but not in the same way. Tyrian was attractive in a feral, wild child, would probably strip Petra naked at a moments notice kind of way. This woman had an intense, powerful, enticing vibe that drew you in and made you want to follow her every word. And Petra hated being told what to do.m which made this all the more confusing.

“Petra. What a lovely name for such an adorable girl. I am Alcina Dimitrescu and I own this estate. Daniela, leave us for a moment while we talk. And bring back Tyrian, I want to talk to her.” Daniela nodded, leaving the room. Alcina continued. “So, my child, you have a touch of immortality about you. Care to explain?” Petra could not speak. The gay panic attack she was experiencing was too strong. “I know the feeling. As a vampire, death does not come easily and especially someone of your figure…” Alcina said, giving Petra a noticeable once over, “would garner some interesting attention.” Petra swallowed hard and finally spoke. “If you’re interested in the men I killed, I’m sorry they were being…” “Oh no worries at all, my dear. Have a seat, drink some wine.” Petra sat, trying hard not to fan herself from how hard she was blushing. God, this woman was a gift to the senses. “Those men definitely deserve it and you disposed of them so elegantly, I can’t help but be impressed.” The lady said, eyes trained on Petra.

Petra felt so self conscious. This is the second time in a row she’d been blatantly eye scanned by an attractive woman and the attention was getting to her.

Lady Dimetrescu, clearly sensing Petra’s emotional state, smiled lovingly. “I’ll cut straight to the chase, darling. I want you to feel at home here. I have dozens of extra rooms and I would be honored if you filled one of them. You’re just so adorably vicious and it would be a pleasure to get to know you.”

Petra, still blushing, finally spoke. “It would be my pleasure. I’m just so new here. I am a cleric, miss, and do have loyalty to my goddess, Nytoria, but it would be a pleasure to stay here and continue to craft my magic here.” Petra, stumbling over her words as she got shy and reserved.

Lady Dimetrescu smiled. As she did, Tyrian bounded in. “Ah yes, Tyrian, I need your help with something. Petra darling, stand up for me and take the binding off for me.”

Petra blushed profusely. “Yes, mistress.” She said and did as she was told. Lady Dimetrescu smiled with such a warm loving glow and Tyrian had this wild grin on her face. Petra should have felt self conscious but she felt loved and attractive. Something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

“What do you think Tyrian? Should we marry her?” “Wait what?!” Petra said, not hiding her excitement at all. “You called me in to ask me about something you already knew the answer to?” Tyrian said. Petra gushed with embarrassment. All of this was happening WAY too fast and she did not care. “Then it’s settled. Welcome to the family, Petra. We’re your new wives.”

Petra smiled and immediately sat down in Alcina’s lap as she gave a loving kiss on the forehead and Petra felt a presence. Nearby, in a place somewhere only Petra could feel, Nytoria was smiling in such a proud manner and could not be happier with her little champion.

#Petra Naverrian

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chaoticevilbean · 4 years ago

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The Flames of the Moon

Chapter Three : Fans and Fear

"You have no idea where you're going, do you?" Sokka deadpanned, staring at the monk who had taken over flying for the day.

"Weeelll, I know it's near water," Aang trailed off a bit, and Sokka gave him a flat look.

"I guess we're getting close then." He sighed silently and continued mending his pants, showing the progress to Katara every now and then. While he was pretty good with a needle and thread, Katara had been sewing her whole life, and not just the five years their dad had been gone.

"Momo, marbles please," Aang called to the newest addition in their group. Sokka didn't look up at what was happening until the boy spoke again.

"Hey Katara! Check out his airbending trick!" Aang held the marbles midair between his palms, making them spin in a circle extremely fast. Katara giggled at his antics, complimenting him on his trick. How she didn't see that he was in love with her, Sokka had no clue.

When the bison started descending, Sokka had just finished his pants and pulled them on, examining it as some of his better work. Looking over the edge, he saw a crescent-shaped island, and Appa was heading for the beach.

"We just made a pit stop yesterday. Shouldn't we get a little more flying done before we camp out?" Sokka complained as they landed, though he didn't really mind too much. They weren't in that big of a hurry, after all.

"He's right. At this rate, we won't get to the North Pole until spring," Katara added. Both siblings knew the spontaneous trips would die out, but that didn't mean they couldn't complain. Aang didn't bother looking over, instead shading his eyes as he gazed over the water.

"But Appa's tired already, aren't you boy?" Appa did nothing. "I said, aren't you boy?" Aang nudged the bison, who yawned on cue, yet obviously not tired.

"Yeah, that was real convincing. Still, hard to argue with a ten-ton magical monster." Sokka was stopped from saying more by an excited gasp from Aang.

"LOOK!" A giant koi fish jumped out the water, and Sokka groaned internally at what he knew was going to be both awesome and terrible. "That's why we're here... elephant koi. And I'm going to ride it. Katara, you've gotta watch me!" Aang quickly took off all but the bare minimum of clothes and rushed into the water, leaping out with a shocked expression quickly. "COLD!"

Sokka twirled his finger away from his head in a 'he's crazy' gesture at Katara, before the both of them watched Aang attempt to ride the elephant koi. He succeeded, waving at Katara who waved back, both whooping and hollering. Sokka moved over to Appa so his sister could have her full attention on the lovestruck preteen, stopping Appa from eating a rock in the process.

"There's something in the water!" Katara yelled, bringing the firebender rushing back.

"What's wrong?"

"Aang's in trouble! Aang!"

"Get out of there! Come back here! AANG!"

"AANG!"

The boy was too far to hear them, and instead returned their frantic waving, no doubt misinterpreting their panic. His koi steed bucked him off, and the siblings watched in horror as a fin appeared behind him. He screamed, and ran on top of the water all the way to the shore, running right into Sokka. They both crashed to the ground near the tree line, watching the fin slowly turn and head back out to sea. Katara ran over to the two, helping them up as Aang got dressed.

"What was that thing?"

"I don't know."

"Well, let's not stick around and find out. Time to hit the road," Sokka declared, moving to board Appa.

~_~_~_~_~_~

They did not end up leaving just then. Instead, they were captured by an unknown force and tied to a large pole. Sokka somehow managed to keep silent during the interrogation, Katara taking the reigns in asking for their blindfolds removed. When the warriors that captured them were revealed as girls, Sokka tensed, though not enough for it to be noticeable. He didn't do anything when Aang revealed himself as the Avatar, and they were shown around town by Oyagi, the village leader.

Suki was apparently the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, and she kept giving him weird side-long looks as he pointedly attempted to not stare at any of them in their green armor and bright warpaint. Katara introduced him when he remained ever silent, deciding against opening his big mouth that might insult one of the girls. He definitely didn't want to be on the wrong side of one of those fans.

They ate lunch, where Aang asked after him. He simply shrugged and let Katara explain that he wasn't used to female warriors, since the women back home technically didn't count. Sokka thought that maybe he had avoided any problems as he went to practice his fighting with a full stomach to feed his inner flames. It wasn't that difficult to find a secluded spot where there was little to no chance of someone finding him, even if they were looking really hard.

In, out, release, Sokka thought as he practiced his boomerang's aim. It hit directly center of the knot he was focusing on, returning to his hand soon after. He did it again and again for a good half hour before putting it away and taking out his club. His moves were still choppy and it was strange to practice on actual earth instead of ice that could slip out from under him at any second, but he still improved, trying to remember the moves he had seen his father practice so many times before.

"GAH!" He stomped his foot and dropped his club so he could hold his head in his hands as he yet again failed to complete a move that he remembered perfectly fine, just couldn't seem to do.

Suddenly, he froze. He stomped his foot again. He remembered something a nonbender from the Fire Nation had done during a raid. They had slipped on the ice, nearly getting impaled by a spear, and had stomped on the snow. It somehow got them balanced, and now he understood why. He stomped one foot, then the other as he slipped back into a ready stance. Picking up his club, he fluidly moved, performing the move that caused him so much pain. With a smile, he raised his hands in victory, weapon high over his head in elation.

Sokka continued his training with renewed vigor, barely stopping for breaks as he worked, having brought all of his weapons and being determined to improve with all of them. He practiced with his club, boomerang again, spear, machete, knife, jaw blade, whale-tooth scimitar, and plain old hand combat.

As the Moon started rising, Sokka realized how late it was. Katara would worry, but hopefully she knew him well enough to guess where he disappeared off to. Aang and the others would take her word for it as well, since she was his sister. With a deep gaze around the clearing he was in, Sokka sat down in his meditation pose. Since no one was around, he did what he rarely was able to do with his firebending a secret.

His palms turned to the sky, Sokka lit two small flames in each, breathing deeply with his eyes closed. Tui shone down on him, bright and vibrant as always.

Unknown to the peaceful firebender, he was, in fact, being watched. Suki had noticed that the boy didn't speak, and the looks the Avatar and his sister gave him were enough to convince the warrior that he usually let his voice be heard. No matter how hard he tried to hide it, she and the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors had seen him staring at them. She didn't know why he was staring, though it could've been because he was Water Tribe and the Tribes, to their knowledge, valued men over women, so the girls were definitely a new experience for him. Ting had said that he was silent even when alone with his companions (although technically not alone because Ting was eavesdropping). Suki couldn't figure out what was keeping the boy silent, or why he was so interested in her fighters.

So the four of them that had found the group in the first place followed him as he wandered off into the forest. It wasn't too surprising that he found an extremely isolated clearing, far away from possible interruptions. It was surprising when he took out a boomerang and used it with deadly accuracy. If he wanted to, he could knock out or even kill an opponent without them being able to stop it, since even Suki underestimated the simple weapon. After all, it looked like a toy one might give a small child to watch them fail at getting more than a few feet.After the boomerang, he practiced with a club, at which he kept failing a move and screamed at the sky. Then he stopped in his frustration, stomped his feet and performed it with little problem.

Weapon after weapon he brought out, until he apparently had no more and began attempting to fight imaginary combatants with just his fists. At one point, it looked as though he was fighting an invisible opponent with a fan like the Kyoshi Warriors. None of this explained why he was silent, and so the hidden girls kept watching.

They were rewarded by the Sun setting, it's light fading and being replaced by the Moon. Sokka searched the trees for something, but he couldn't spot the four warriors where they sat perched in the leaves of trees. He sat in a mediation pose when his curiosity was satisfied, and Suki thought that he was maybe a waterbender.

How wrong she was.

Blue fire grew in his hands, and the other girls stared at their leader in apprehension. They had let a firebender into their village. Not only that, but they had only watched him because the few words anyone had heard him say was when he was still at the beach. He could've burned everything to ash by now.

Suki knew better than to jump to conclusions, instead motioning for her comrades to encircle the possible enemy. He didn't move as they did so, a peaceful lax expression on his face as he breathed rhythmically. Fans unfolded silently as they all prepared for his reaction.

"Sokka," Suki spoke bitterly. The firebender flinched violently, eyes snapping open and the blue flames surging in strength before snuffing out completely. The pure fear in his eyes almost gave her pause, but she didn't show it. Sokka remained frozen in place, body tensed as though he was a rabbit that heard a twig break.

"You're a firebender," she continued when he made no move to speak. "Why are you traveling with the Avatar? Are you going to spy on him? Attack him when he least expects it?"

"Make sure he doesn't die?" Sokka's words were phrased like a question, but from uncertainty or nervousness, Suki couldn't tell. His voice cracked as well, showing just how young he was. About the same age as herself.

"You're a firebender."

"You already said that, and I get that firebenders as a general rule are bad and following the orders of their evil leader. Trust me, I got that, my mom was killed in a Fire Nation raid that traumatized my sister and my dad left to fight in the war, but I'm not like them. I mean, I am a firebender, but I'm not Fire Nation, I'm Water Tribe, and I got these powers because there was a blizzard and the Spirits decided to help us. I really was only meditating because I'm trying to do it every day and I thought I was alone, otherwise I would've kept my flames to myself because it makes everyone really tense and worried and I don't like tha-" Suki held her hand up to stop the now rambling boy. Glancing at her fellow Kyoshi Warriors, whose faces weren't in the line of sight for Sokka, she saw they were just as stunned, however more visibly, as she was at the flood of words that spilled from his mouth. He was honest, that much was clear, and he wasn't there with a bad purpose. Suki thought for a moment. He had said Spirits.

"You mentioned the Spirits decided to help. What did you mean?"

"It was the polar night, and there was a blizzard, and we were all probably gonna die so Gran-Gran said to pray and we all did and I ended being the one the Spirits answered, and it was pretty terrifying for us all but the fire helped us survive until the men came back with fuel and it made it so I could swim in the ocean without freezing so we got more food and you can ask Katara about all the times she nearly killed me for terrifying her by not coming up for air."

"You- what?" Spirits, this boy talked a lot. How had he managed to remain silent the entire day?

"The Spirits gave me firebending and resistance to cold when I was a little kid," Sokka simplified. Suki looked once more at her companions, reading their thoughts on their faces.

"Get his sister," Suki ordered, sending one of them running off.

"She's gonna kill me," Sokka groaned, abruptly flopping onto the ground. "Uuuuggghh."

"Get up," Suki pushed him with her foot.

"No thanks, my body won't let me."

"What is he talking about," Mera asked, peering at him from behind her fan. He rolled over, watching the Moon instead of the three people with weapons aimed at him.

"I sat in a saddle without moving all morning, then got tackled twice, walked around for an hour, ate a big meal the likes of which I haven't had since my dad was around, and proceeded to train until night. My body currently hates me and wishes me dead." He finished his explanation and let the words fade away, leaving a stillness in the air. Silla had never liked the quiet, so she didn't last long while just standing around.

"So, what style were you practicing?" Mera facepalmed at the awkward attempt to make conversation with a definitely-not-an-enemy-but-still-a-firebender.

"I was attempting to mimic the traditional fighting of my tribe."

"Attempting?"

"The men left about five years ago, so it's not like I have anyone to learn from. When you're young, it's mostly learning hunting and fishing and surviving in the wild. I had to teach myself from memory."

"...wanna spar?"

"Silla no!”

“Silla yes!" Sokka lept to his feet, staring at the girl like she was a Spirit in mortal form. "I've been wondering what your fighting style is because I didn't really get to see it and I saw your fans, and then there was the whole fact that I didn't want to risk upsetting or insulting any of you just because I grew up in a patriarchy founded in centuries of tradition." Silla grinned at the teen, handing him one of her fans and demonstrating a starting form.

"Once we get your sister to confirm your story, you're gonna go to sleep, wake up early and learn to be a Kyoshi Warrior," Silla announced, sending a pointed look towards Suki, who sighed long and deep.

"If his story is confirmed, you can teach him to fight with fans, but boys aren't allowed in the Kyoshi Warrirors."

"Technically, that means you can have one boy, because you said boys as in more than one," Sokka pointed out.

"Suuukiii," Silla practically begged as she adjusted Sokka's grip and stance.

"You know what, fine, but he follows all of our traditions," Suki caved.

"Does that mean I get to wear full warrior garb?"

"Why does that just make you happier? Seriously, telling a boy he has to wear a dress usually makes him give up!"

"One, I'm not normal. Two, boys are allowed to like dresses, though your outfit is a traditional warrior's armor, not a dress. And three, that's kinda mean. Imagine me saying girls can't fight. I have every reason to, seeing as I grew up with that thought being the underlying current of everything in our tribe. I didn't so you definitely shouldn't." As he scolded her, Sokka began copying Silla's movements, going through the basic forms with ease, though he also wasn't wearing heavy armor.

Suki gave up, wondering how the boy had gained her trust so shortly after she had assumed him an enemy. He just had a look to him that made her feel like he meant no harm.

"So were you staring earlier because you hadn't seen female warriors before?" Silla asked. Sokka nodded, mirroring the thrust she had just shown him.

“I tried to teach the women back home how to fight, but it didn't work as well as it could've because I barely know any moves."

"Barely know any moves," Suki scoffed, drawing a bewildered expression from him. "You just used a variety of weapons well enough to hold your own against most people who haven't trained their entire lives to fight. And that was without guidance or any sort of instruction for what you said was most of your time training. Barely any moves." She grumbled the last bit, scoffing again as she turned to peer through the trees. She was relieved to see Ting returning with Katara in tow.

"What's going on," the waterbender demanded instantly, barely sparing a glance to her brother learning to fight and instead glaring at Suki.

"Your brother's a firebender."

"Yes, he is." Her gaze narrowed further. "And what of it?"

"When did he first show his abilities?"

"When the Spirits gave him them during a blizzard when he was six. Why?"

"To confirm his story. We'll be heading back to the village. He's going to join us for training early tomorrow, and he's not allowed to miss it." With that, Suki led her girls away, Silla taking her fan back and following after a wave. Only a little ways into the shadows of the trees they heard the begin of what sounded like a very loud reprimand.

~_~_~_~_~_~

The morning after Sokka's secret was revealed to the Kyoshi Warriors, he woke up at dawn, brimming with energy as the Sun rose. Aang and Katara got up shortly after, yawning as they joined him in his meditation. Katara struggled a bit more to stay awake with the Moon no longer in the sky, but she managed to remain conscious until they were done an hour later. Both her and Aang promptly fell back onto their pillows, eyes closing instantly with the lack of motivation to keep them open.

Sokka, however, rushed down to the kitchen where they had been told they could make their own food if they wished. They actually shared it with the Kyoshi Warriors, who slept in a main house nearby due to the location being near to the village center. The firebender lit the stove with a tiny flame, setting a pot of water on it and moving around to find rice and meat. He cut up the meat and some chili peppers he had found, mixing them with some seasoning and setting them aside in a bowl as he added rice to the boiling water, wary of the fact that he wasn't used to making rice himself, as it wasn't the most common meal back home.

After finally adding the meat and peppers, Sokka boiled some more water and began to steep some tea. He kept a closer eye on the tea than he did on the food, but still paid attention. He had only made tea a few times, considering they didn't often have nonpoisonous plants that could be used for tea.

He was just finishing putting the food in a large bowl when someone cleared their throat. Looking up, he saw what seemed to be all of the Kyoshi Warriors waiting in the kitchen's entrance, and Suki beside him with the kettle. He glanced down at the bowl in front of him, which only had enough for him, Katara, and Aang, and sighed, moving to get more water.

"Hold on and I'll make more," he called over his shoulder as he put a larger pot back on the stove. "There's about three servings in that bowl if some of you girls want to start eating. Do you need cups, Suki? Although I'm guessing that tea is now horribly burned or not done yet considering my amateur skills in tea-making.”

He was met with no replies, though he did notice a few of the warriors walking further in to grab smaller bowls and some cups from the cupboards. A small smile formed on his face, timid but stuck in place. Sokka loved cooking. He never understood why only the women had been taught, especially since the men had to cook whenever they hunted if they wanted warm food.

He once again cut up peppers and meat and seasoned them, turning around with the prepared items to find a warrior, Silla if he remembered correctly, already putting the rice in.

"Aw, man, Suki," another warrior spoke up, her mouth full of food. Sokka glanced over briefly to see exactly three warriors with chopsticks eating straight from the main bowl, Suki pouring tea into the many cups next to them. "Suki, we gotta keep him. Silla was right, this dude is meant to be one of us."

"We are not 'keeping' him, Sho," Suki said, eyes never leaving her work. "We are teaching him how to fight because he and Silla are literal toddlers."

"I was noticed by the Spirits when I was a toddler and got firebending powers," Sokka reminded her, putting the extras into the rice once again.

"So you are a firebender?" a warrior questioned as she started nibbling on some lychee nuts.

"Yep," Sokka nodded, adding a bit more seasoning to the pot, before grabbing some fruits and cutting them into slices. The knife was taken from him by a warrior he remembered was called Maya, and she pushed him aside so she could take over. Smirking at the challenge, he pulled out the knife he usually used as a weapon and nudged the girl out of the way, proceeding to continue his task. Maya attempted to squeeze between him and the counter but he held strong, years of staying in one spot on slippery ice giving him an advantage now that he was on solid wood.

"How are you so steady," Maya panted as she gave up trying to move the boy.

"Years on the ice and being an older brother to every kid in the tribe," Sokka replied smoothly as he put the fruit on a plate and handed it to the warrior, before taking the pot off the stove and pouring it into a larger bowl than the one he had before. There was definitely enough there, thanks to the different pot sizes. The bowl was immediately taken and the food dished out by a warrior, the amounts almost perfectly equal for each person. Sokka grabbed one of the cups Suki had poured, sipping on the tea and pleasantly surprised when it didn't taste absolutely awful. Apparently, Suki knew when to take it off the flames, but that would also mean...

"How long were you guys watching me?" Sokka asked, his head tilted as he gazed over all of them. Every head turned his way, and he was struck with a distinct sense of being prey with all the eyes boring into him.

"Long enough to see you struggle to find your way around the kitchen," one of them said, a sly smile on her lips.

"Wow, feeling the love," Sokka muttered, closing his eyes as he gulped down the rest of the tea and felt it warm him in a way his fire couldn't. He yelped when cold hands grasped his arms, which were bare without his jacket. His eyes jerked open and he saw one of the girls grinning at him.

"Come on," she laughed, dragging his dazed self over to the table with the rest of them and shoving a bowl into his hands. She switched his cup out for chopsticks, refilling his tea and grabbing herself some as well.

"Man, Oka, when you say you'll do something, you go all the way," Silla giggled as she put some meat on her chopsticks.

"This is Oka we're talking about, not Tilen," Maya teased.

Sokka fell into the background as much as the girls allowed, listening to their conversations as they ate and enjoyed his okay tea. Apparently, Silla, Suki, and the two other warriors from the night before, Ting and Mera, had described the events of their confrontation to the entire group to prepare them for training with him. Some hadn't believed it and some had, and Oka had declared she was going to make Sokka feel like one of them if it was the last thing she did. Fimo was the one who kept refilling his tea and bowl everytime it got close to empty because she had heard that firebenders needed more energy in order to make their flames. No matter how many times he assured her that there were more of them than him and therefore he really didn't need more food, she kept finding ways to get his hands away from his bowl long enough to dump another scoop in.

After they all had eaten their fill, Sokka started stacking the bowls in one hand, initiating a balancing act that had Geyo and Ba Be giggling. Granted, Suki took half of them when they got too high for her comfort, but he still had a sizeable amount when he walked to the sink. Before he was able to start washing the dishes, Silla yanked him away, tugging him along as she left the kitchen.

"Um, Silla?"

"Hmm," she hummed in acknowledgement.

"I need to wash the dishes."

"You made breakfast when you didn't have to and you woke up earlier than any of us. You are not washing the dishes."

"I made the mess, so I gotta clean it up."

"I don't remember you eating from a dozen different bowls. Though, with how much Fimo was feeding you, you might have eaten that much."

"But I-"

"Nope."

"I need t-"

"Not gonna happen."

"Ugh, why are girls more stubborn than guys? It's the worst stereotypes for us dudes and yet I've never met a girl I could out-stubborn!"

"It keeps boys from being idiots."

"You've obviously never met Bato."

"Who?"

"My future stepfather." Silla led him outside as they talked, going all the way to the training studio. As they entered, she released his hand and sprinted into a different room, returning moments later. In her arms was a large bundle of clothing that Sokka lit up upon seeing.

By the time the other warriors made it to the studio, Silla had managed to teach Sokka how to properly put on a set of the green armor they wore, and was beginning his warpaint.

"Wow, you look just like one of us," Geyo mused, traipsing around the boy. "Good thing, if you're gonna be our one male warrior." Sokka smirked at Suki when he heard that part, and Suki rolled her eyes at him.

It took very little time to finish Sokka's paint, and teaching him how to do it was rather simple since he was very good at replicating. Suki got him moving through warm-ups the moment she could, adjusting his stances and movements every time and mildly (greatly) pleased when he almost never repeated a mistake.

The warriors joined the duo soon after they started, going through each kata with the ease of practice. As the village began to grow more awake, Suki started taking them all through more advanced katas, deciding that Sokka worked better when moving with others.

At noon they stopped the practice for lunch, and Fimo literally dragged Sokka away when the Water Tribe boy attempted to continue alone. Laughter filled the air when Sokka sulked for a few minutes, and more came when the girls realized that he had a plethora of really bad jokes that were as funny as they were terrible.

The firebender was finally pitted against these more experienced fighters after they'd eaten. He failed again and again, but lasted marginally longer after each fight. It was late into the afternoon when they're training was interrupted, the Kyoshi Warriors impressed by how fast Sokka was progressing, though he had a long way to go.

"Firebenders have landed on our shores! Girls, come quickly!" Oyagi shouted, before rushing away once more.

"Yay, I'm a girl," Sokka called flatly as they ran outside and towards the village, bringing fleeting smiles to his new comrades.

Near the far edge of the village was Prince Zuko and his men on armor-clad komodo rhinos. He was searching the houses and streets with his eyes, posture tall and regal. The Kyoshi Warriors spread out, waiting for Suki's signal.

The signal was given and instantly, twelve green-clad fighters attacked the Fire Nation. Sokka moved to take down one of the soldiers, but lunged towards Zuko instead when he saw Suki go down. He blocked the fire blast sent her way with his new fans, reveling in the prince's startled expression. The banished royal fell off his rhino, quickly being surrounded by Suki, Sokka and Ba Be.

More fire was sent towards them from the teen's feet, and Sokka was the only one who remained upright after the flames. Zuko leapt up, standing off against his enemy.

"You're the Water Tribe warrior," he spoke with bewilderment.

"Right now, I'm a Kyoshi Warrior," Sokka amended, surging forward without warning. Zuko blocked the attack, trying to sweep the other's legs but failing as he flipped backwards into a handstand then fell upright again.

"Hey! Over here!" Both teens swung around to face Aang.

"Finally!" Zuko kicked a distracted Sokka away, hurrying forward to face off against the Avatar. Suki moved to Sokka, helping him away from the battle and behind a house.

"There's no time to say goodbye," she whispered.

"What about thank you?"

"For what?"

"You accepted me, a firebender, into your ranks for a day." The girl leaned forward with a small smile.

"It's not just a day, Sokka," she murmured, kissing his cheek before pulling him into a hug. "Now get out of here! We'll hold them off."

Sokka nodded numbly, darting over to Appa.

"Appa, yip yip!" The bison took off, grunting as he flew out of the town. Zuko called his men back as they did, probably preparing to follow them again. Katara was saying something to Aang, and then he was jumping over the side. The boy rode the unagi, a great big catfish eel, letting the spray from its jump put out the fires on Kyoshi.

"I know, I know. that was stupid and dangerous," Aang said as he climbed back into the saddle after jumping mid-unagi-leap and letting Appa catch him.

"Yes, it was," Katara remarked before embracing the boy. Sokka was confused, but knew he could ask for a recount of their adventures later.

"So, Sokka," Katara smirked knowingly at her brother. "What was that thing I saw happening between you and Suki?"

"Um, you mean the thing where I apparently charmed her with my awful fighting skills and bad jokes or the thing where she was ready to kill me?"

Sokka basked in the sound of his sister's hand hitting her forehead.

#atla #sokka #katara #aang #suki #appa #momo #kyoshi warriors #zuko #waterbender #firebender #airbender #avatar #flames of the moon #blue fire #firebender!sokka #aang is in love #sokka is kyoshi warrior

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writethehousedown · 4 years ago

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And The Livin's Easy, Chapter Three (Multi) - Zyan

a/n: hello! welcome to chapter four of zyan tries her best to juggle all of the characters. i think we’re pretty much done as far as introductions go? so here’s where things start to get interesting. hope you enjoy! my sideblog is @chachkisalpaca - and frey is an angel for beta-ing.

“Is that a hickey?” Jan asks during their improvised breakfast.

It’s still early, so there aren’t many people at the beach just yet. The Sun is up and shining bright, and Gigi is so sleep deprived she forgot about the purple spot in the crook of her neck.

Gigi shakes off the tiredness and blinks repeatedly, her cheeks getting as red as a tomato when she notices all of her friends are staring at her. She decides that there’s no point in lying and sets down her plastic cup with steaming hot coffee Jackie somehow managed to prepare.

“I had sex with someone last night,” she simply says with a shrug. The screeches from her friends hurt her ears, but she had seen them coming.

“What? When did your hoe ass get a hook up?” Brita exclaims, “Did you download fucking Tinder again, sneaked out when we were all asleep, and came back?” Gigi laughs at Brita’s incredulous tone, though she’s nervous and her cheeks are still red.

“Ew, no, you know I don’t do dating apps. That’s how my ex happened,” Gigi says, matter-of-factly, “You see, Nicky was hoarding the tent with her inflatable mattress—”

“Hey! I did ask you if you wanted to sleep with me!” Nicky complains, folding her arms, though a laugh fights to escape her mouth.

“Yeah, and I told you my name’s not Jackie,” Gigi deadpans, and both Nicky and Jackie shut their mouths. She smiles cheekily and goes on. “Anyway, as I was saying; I left the tent, walked along the beach, found this girl all alone, talked a bit, and I guess it just happened.”

She purposely leaves out that the girl was no one other than Crystal, and they entered the sea, floating near the shore until, much like Gigi predicted it, she fell off the board and Crystal had to drag her back to the shore. The fabric of her tank top stuck to her skin, making her shiver like crazy, and Crystal tried to help her warm up, she really did — but one thing led to another, and before Gigi knew it, Crystal was sucking on her neck as her hands pinned her down.

The girls holler, not believing what they’re hearing. All of them say some sort of variation of there’s no way your game is that good, and Gigi just lets them talk as she sips on her coffee.

Her phone rings in her bag so she aims for it, juggling to unlock it. She bites back a smile when she sees the notification from Instagram.

@crystalandmeth has started following you.

Gigi wants to smack Crystal for having such a handle. No wonder she couldn’t find her when she searched her up after that night at the bar.

Scarlet vaguely scans the pool; it’s just opened and it’s still fairly early, but there are girls sunbathing, taking pictures, and some children playing by the edge of the tiny pool, splashing each other. She smiles at that. Sometimes she even likes the kids - when they’re not pushing each other into the big pool and Scarlet has to prevent a child from drowning, that is.

The hotel is medium sized, but since it’s the summer, there’s not a room that’s not booked. She knows. Her mothers have owned it for the last twenty years. She grew up running around the halls and with the noise of the tourists settling in their rooms, dragging their suitcases with big smiles plastered across their faces.

Though her mothers have insisted that she didn’t have to work at the hotel during the summer if she didn’t want to, Scarlet had decided to fill the position of lifeguard for the morning shift until they find someone else. It’s not as if she minds, anyway; she has nothing better to do, since all of her friends traveled outside the country for their vacations, leaving her stuck in the island. That’s the downside of being friends with stuck up rich kids, she supposes.

She tells a few kids to stop running, brings back a volleyball that ended up landing on the deep side of the pool, and that’s about it, for the most part. The morning shift is very laid back; the pool usually gets crowded during the afternoon, but that’s Adore and Courtney’s problem.

Lunch time rolls around before she notices it, and she closes the pool with a relieved sigh, immediately going to the cafeteria.

Scarlet picks a frozen burrito and asks one of the ladies working at the cafeteria if they can pretty please heat it up with the nice microwave they have in the kitchen. Belinda rolls her eyes with a playful smile and squeezes Scarlet’s cheek before complying with her wishes.

“Damn, I didn’t know we could ask to use the good microwave,” a voice pipes up from her side. Scarlet giggles and turns around to look at whoever said that.

She’s met with the sight of a gorgeous woman with pink wavy hair. Scarlet licks her lips before answering.

“Oh, no, that’s uh, that’s staff privilege.” She shrugs, and the woman clicks her tongue, visibly disappointed. Scarlet looks at her plate and cocks an amused brow when she sees the bland vegetarian sandwich. “I don’t think you’ll need the microwave now, though,” she points out, nudging at her plate, and the woman stifles a laugh.

“Ah, that, yeah. This is all my stomach can handle right now — one of my friends got a little too carried away doing the drinks last night,” she comments, shifting her weight from one foot to another. Scarlet chuckles, she knows the feeling.

“Hangover food? Been there. I’m a little bolder though, I prefer French fries with a lot of ketchup,” she replies, just when Belinda hands her back her burrito. Scarlet blows a kiss her way and turns her attention back to the woman, slightly biting her lip before speaking. “D’you wanna sit together? I mean, unless you’re waiting for your friends.”

“No, it’s fine, I’m not waiting for them, I’d be stuck here for hours if I was,” she dismisses it with a wave of her hand and laughs. Scarlet thinks she has a pretty laugh. “I’m Yvie.”

“I’m Scarlet,” she introduces herself with a shiny smile.

Crystal sighs as she juggles her phone, struggling to put it on speaker as she currently is trying to make a decent lunch — never mind the fact it’s four p.m. and she skipped breakfast to sleep in.

She finally manages to put it on speaker and Vanessa’s voice fills the room, her tone far too annoyed and one Crystal’s grown to know all too well.

“Can you believe it, Crys? She’s but a child, and the bitch is almost thirty! I’m disgusted,” Vanessa rants, and Crystal almost snaps her optic nerve with the way she rolls her eyes.

“Vanj, hold the fuck up. Plastique is twenty two, in case you didn’t know, and Brooke is still twenty seven; the gap isn’t that big,” Crystal says. “’Sides, you two broke up last year, it’s obvious that she has moved on. So why don’t you focus on your hot bodybuilder girlfriend before I steal her off you.” She smiles cheekily when Vanessa gasps offended on the other side of the line.

“Hey! Plastic, Plastique, or whatever her name is, looks like a fucking teenager. How was I supposed to know?” She defends herself; Crystal can almost see her folding her arms with a childish pout. “Kameron is doing some gigs in California, photographing for an ice skating tour or some shit. She’s busy, but I did invite her for the competition.”

“Ajá.” Crystal is more focused in her lunch, making sure to cut the pepper as thin as possible. She knows it would’ve been easier to just order takeout, buy a soda from the drugstore around the corner, and settle in the couch and watch some garbage TV, but sometimes she misses the taste of a home cooked meal.

Vanessa goes on, talking her ear off about Kameron and how happy she is with her. She rolls her eyes; for someone in a happy relationship she sure talks a lot about her ex.

“…But that’s enough ‘bout me. What happened with you last night? Jaida came back way before you, bitch, and you reeked of sex. Like, you could barely walk straight, and you weren’t that shit faced. Spill, Glass,” Vanessa changes the topic, and Crystal nearly cuts her finger with the knife.

Her cheeks heat up when she remembers what happened at the beach with Gigi. Crystal doesn’t know if telling her to take off her soaked clothes on a whim had been a good or a bad idea, but she doesn’t regret anything — even if she still has sand in her scalp.

She clears her throat before speaking, glad that Vanessa can’t see her awfully red cheeks.

“Well, uh, remember Smoothie Girl?” she begins, throwing the pepper in the cooking pot. Vanessa musters an affirmative response. Crystal breathes in deeply. “So, like, Jaida and I finish our thing, and she tells me we should stop sleeping around, and I got excited, thinking she wanted to go on a date or something like that. But no, she actually meant that in a literal way, and naturally, I had already embarrassed myself,” Crystal rants with a groan. Vanessa just listens, “So, she left and I just. Stared at the water I guess. Then Smoothie Girl appeared out of nowhere, shit happened, one thing led to another, and suddenly I was pinning her to the ground.”

There’s silence on Vanessa’s end for what seems like an eternity, and Crystal proceeds to cut the chicken in tiny cubes, trying to not let her nerves get the best of her. She expected Vanessa to screech so loud she’d end up deaf.

“So, what you’re tryin’ to tell me is that your cheesy ass got ditched, and instead of moping around for a week, you went and slept with someone else right after?” She inquires slowly, as if she’s talking to an infant. Crystal rolls her eyes.

“Yeah.”

“Bullshit, Glass,” Vanessa declares calmly, “There’s no way in hell. You’re bullshitting me. You’ve been chasing Jaida Eleanor Hall’s ass for two years now—”

“Hey! That’s not true. It’s been a year and a half,” Crystal defends herself.

“—a year and a half, and you didn’t feel the least bit heartbroken? Really?”

Crystal shrugs, but soon realizes that’s stupid; Vanessa can’t see her.

“Vanj, you act as if I was in love with Jaida, to begin with,” she points out, perching herself against the countertop for a moment. “The girl was hot, I won’t deny it, and the sex was great — but, like, I told you I didn’t think we’d ever be something serious. I don’t hold any grudges against her.” And it’s true. Crystal’s disappointment at the moment had been magnified by the fact she made a fool of herself by misunderstanding what Jaida meant, and the alcohol usually made her a more sensitive person, if that was even possible.

Vanessa stays silent for a moment yet again, until she hears a loud sigh and some rumbling. Crystal frowns as she throws the chicken to the cooking pot, turning up the flames.

“Alright, I believe you, Glass. Now tell me, you and Smoothie Girl…?” She leaves the sentence hanging, prompting Crystal to complete it.

She laughs shortly, before checking her phone and seeing a notification from Instagram. She grins cheekily, wondering if Gigi had waited so long to follow her on purpose.

Jaida takes a spoonful of ice cream, trying not to choke with laughter at Monique’s re-telling of the previous night. She’d been gone for a short while, though apparently that didn’t prevent shit from going down.

“You should’ve seen Vanessa’s face when Brooke left with Plastique, oh my God, it was priceless,” Monique tells her, as enthusiastic as ever. Her ice cream melts more and more with every second that passes, but she can’t bring herself to care. Except when Monét tries to steal some of it, apparently. “Girl, had I known the bitch was that bold, I wouldn’t have invited her. I’d like her to still be alive by the end of the week.”

“Hey now, it’s not her fault Vanessa isn’t over Brooke,” Monét cuts in, “Plastique hardly knew any of y’all. She may not even know Brooke is Vanessa’s ex.”

Jaida hums in agreement, her mouth still full of ice cream. The three of them are staying at the same hotel, and they’re lucky enough there’s a good ice cream shop around the corner, so they decided to take the day off and just hang out. Not that the hangover allowed them to do anything else in the first place.

“Also, Vanessa’s a grown woman; I don’t think she goes around pitching fights because her ex’s over her, she’s better than that,” Jaida adds, wiping the rests of ice cream off her face.

Monét and Monique agree with her, and the conversation drifts to various topics, though Jaida notices they’re making an effort not to bring Crystal up. She appreciates it, because right now that’s a can of worms she rather not open.

It’s not that she regrets being with her, it’s more like she hates herself for dragging their thing for so long, and by the way Crystal bit her tongue and nodded wordlessly when she told her she rather stop this, she can tell she hurt her — at least to some degree, because the rest of the night she’d acted as if nothing happened and everything was cool. Jaida doesn’t know if it was faked or not.

Monét and Monique start to argue about something, probably about how they’re not going to be easy on each other just because they’re girlfriends now; they go way too fast for her to catch up, especially since she’s still eating her frost mint ice cream and can’t be bothered about their relationship right now — she hears about it on the daily, anyway.

Jaida brings the spoon to her lips when she looks past Monique’s shoulder, looking at the entrance of shop, and she freezes for a moment. She blinks repeatedly, until she knows for real this is not her eyes deceiving her; the same woman as last night is seating near the entrance with someone else, chatting and laughing and looking even prettier in the daylight.

She squints, trying to remember her name; Jen, was it? She’s pretty sure she heard her friend say it, but she can’t remember that well.

Jaida pulls her gaze away when she realizes she’s staring, and tries to focus on whatever Monét and Monique are talking about. But soon she feels someone looking at her, and she steals a glance at the girl out of the corner of her eye; she finds that she’s staring back at her, but she quickly withdraws her gaze.

Jaida smiles against the spoon. She doesn’t question how is it possible she ran into her again, especially considering the island is big and the chances of seeing her again were slim. Perhaps it’s a coincidence.

“I’m telling you, ‘Nét, this bitch had an edgy phase!” Monique exclaims, tugging at Jaida’s arm, causing her to accidentally throw a good chunk of ice cream on her blouse. Monique stays still for a moment as Jaida fumbles with the tissue paper. “I’m sorry, girl,” she says, with her tone so high pitched and full of regret, Jaida finds it hard to get mad at her.

She sighs dramatically, leaving the tissues aside and standing up. “Don’t worry, sis, it’s no big deal. I can wash this, anyway.” She shrugs. “Though I’m expecting you to buy me a pina colada next time we hit the bar,” she teasingly says before leaving to the bathroom.

She can hear Monét’s laugh and the smack Monique gives her on the arm, pitching the blame for Jaida’s ruined blouse on her. Sometimes Jaida swears neither one of them knows the volume of their own voices.

She wets a tissue and gets the ice cream off her skin before it gets sticky. The bathroom is tinier than she expected, but at least there’s no one else.

Or so she thought.

“Sweet baby Jesus, Nicole, how did you manage to burn the eggs?” a voice speaks from one of the stalls, and Jaida jumps a little.

A woman comes out from one the three stalls, holding her phone in the crook of her neck as she washes her hands. Jaida stiffs a little when she notices it’s the girl from the beach. Jen (or Jan), apparently, remembers her too, because she stops for a moment when she sees her, biting her lower lip before speaking again.

“Nicks, just, don’t touch anything else from the kitchen. Jackie and I will come back in a moment — please don’t listen neither Gigi nor Brita, they’re as bad cooks as you, 'kay?” She hangs up and sighs loudly, drying her hands before putting the phone back in the pocket of her shorts.

“That’s quite an interesting daycare you got there,” Jaida comments lightheartedly, throwing the tissues to the trash. The woman chuckles, turning to see her.

“Keeping toddlers in their twenties alive is my passion,” she deadpans, playing with the hem of her shirt. Jaida laughs shortly. “I’ve heard they’re easier to take care of once they’re thirty,” she comments with a cheeky smile, making Jaida laugh again.

“I wouldn’t have my hopes up if I were you,” Jaida replies, checking herself in the mirror and making sure she’s wiped off all the ice cream

She sucks in a quick breath, looking back at the woman, who’s perched against the sink, texting someone.

“Hey,” she says, catching her attention. “This probably sounds crazy, but is there any chance you were at O'Ahu beach last night, looking for a ball, maybe?” Jaida wonders, and almost right away she sees Jen (or Jan) cheeks lit up.

“Oh, Jesus, I was hoping you wouldn’t remember me. That was so embarrassing. I’m sorry.” She covers her face with her hands and Jaida laughs softly, coming some steps closer.

“Girl, it’s fine, for real,” she assures her, and Jen (or Jan) slowly uncovers her face. The rosy tone in her cheeks makes her look cute. She bites her lower lip before continuing. “I did mean it when I said I can’t be mad at a pretty girl.”

Jen (or Jan) smiles sheepishly and laugh, tucking a strand of lose hair behind her ear.

“Well, I meant it too when I said you’re not so bad yourself. I didn’t mean to finger gun you, though.”

Jaida laughs, and for a moment she forgets she has to go back to Monét and Monique. They strike up a conversation, and Jaida learns that her name is Jan and not Jen, and that she blushes a deep shade of red whenever she compliments her in any way. Jaida thinks she’s the cutest girl she’s ever met.

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rosedavid · 5 years ago

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Pumpkin Carving

- A tyrus oneshot in which TJ and Cyrus end up learning more about their relationship while carving a pumpkin for Halloween

...

“That pumpkin is almost as big as you!” TJ comments at the tuff of hair just peaking above the warped stem.

“Har, har,” Cyrus deadpans. “Can you quit joking and help me lift this up onto the table?”

Just then, TJ notices the beads of sweat forming on Cyrus’s brow. The arms which barely wrap around the girth of the pumpkin shake with strain. TJ immediately holds out his arms, gathering the pumpkin up into his own arms. Even he has to admit that the pumpkin isn’t lightweight by any means. He’s surprised Cyrus made it all the way here without falling over.

TJ carries the pumpkin the remainder of the way to the table, Cyrus trailing beside him and watching for fray carpet bumps and the edges of the door. Finally, TJ lugs the massive pumpkin up onto the table with a huff. He dusts his dirt covered hands across his jeans, making Cyrus click his tongue in disappointment.

TJ shrugs at his response to his uncleanliness. “We’re going to be getting dirty anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

TJ stares at Cyrus in confusion. “I thought you said you’d carved a pumpkin before? You know how dirty it can get while trying to dig all the guts out.”

“What?”

He decides to demonstrate, taking a knife from the drawer in the kitchen and cutting the top off the massive pumpkin. Cyrus watches curiously, following his movement as TJ gestures at him to look inside the freshly carved hole in the top.

“Wait, that’s what’s inside a pumpkin?” Cyrus gasps in horror, nose wrinkling.

“Yeah! How did you not know that?”

“I guess my parents did that part for me.”

With that statement, Cyrus glances over at TJ with puppy dog eyes and a pouty lip, but TJ refuses to tackle this task alone. He shakes his head and crosses his arms. “No way, you have to help. I can’t do this all by myself.”

Cyrus whines but gives in quickly. “Okay, fine, but do you have something I can change into? I probably shouldn’t get my nice clothes covered in pumpkin guts.”

Sure enough, TJ realizes that Cyrus is dressed nicer than usual with a pair of khakis and what looks like a fancy, striped sweater. It’s in season for autumn. TJ motions Cyrus up to his room with his hand, and Cyrus beams before racing up the stairs to TJ’s room. Meanwhile, TJ rolls his eyes, already knowing exactly what Cyrus will have borrowed.

Like he suspects, Cyrus tromps back downstairs a few minutes later wearing one of TJ’s too small pairs of sweatpants and sweatshirt. He looks so soft and cozy that TJ pulls him into a hug when he walks over. Cyrus giggles, wrapping his arms around TJ in return and pecking his lips. TJ cups his cheek again to bring him back in for a longer, deeper kiss.

“I thought we were here to carve a pumpkin?” Cyrus teases, gesturing at the massive object on the table.

TJ chuckles, “Well yeah, but kissing you is just an extra perk. Why were you wearing such fancy clothes, anyway?”

Cyrus goes to sit down at the table right in front of the pumpkin. He looks over it, inspecting a few nicks along one side. “It was Andi’s official SAVA Halloween Gallery opening today.”

“That’s really cool,” TJ admits honestly, going to sit beside him. “How was it?”

With that question, Cyrus’s eyes light up. TJ loves how proud Cyrus is of his friends. The amount Cyrus cares about everyone, even those not as close to him, is one of his most endearing qualities. TJ continues to watch and listen raptly as Cyrus launches into a play by play of everything that happened.

“And Andi’s was by far the best one! Not that I’m biased or anything,” Cyrus smiles. “But you should’ve seen it, I can’t believe how well she did! Everyone was really impressed.”

“That sounds awesome!”

Cyrus muses for a second. “You should come next time. They’re really fun. Besides we could make it a date night, sort of…”

“Are you sure Andi would want me there?” TJ worries, biting his lip. Despite the fact that him and Cyrus are dating now, he’s still not certain both of Cyrus’s best friends are completely fond of him. Although he and Buffy may be closer, he’s still hardly spoken more than a few words to Andi.

“Of course! I promise that they’re both okay with us. More than okay, actually. Andi shrieked when I told her the news.”

TJ chuckles as he imagines it. Before he can say anything in response, though, Cyrus reaches across the edge of the table and grabs TJ’s hand. The small, warm hand squeezes his own, making TJ’s heart jump. He’ll never get tired of holding hands with Cyrus, that’s for sure.

“You’re stuck with us, now. All of us,” Cyrus smiles.

“There’s no place I’d rather be.”

They squeeze each other’s hand once more before letting go, turning back to face the daunting task ahead of them. Cyrus frowns, poking his head back down into the bowl of the pumpkin again. He gets pulp on the tip of his nose which makes TJ grin. Before Cyrus can wipe it off himself, TJ reaches forward himself to brush the pumpkin off.

“I told you it would get messy,” TJ laughs. “Let me get some paper towels to put all of this down on, then we can get started.”

Although TJ has cleaned out pumpkin guts by himself in the past, he’s never encountered a pumpkin this large. In fact, even with both him and Cyrus reaching in to yank out the insides of the pumpkin, there seems to be a never-ending amount inside. Within minutes, their hands are all orange and sticky with pumpkin seeds clinging between their fingers. Somehow, Cyrus managed to get pumpkin all the way up past his elbows. Fortunately, Cyrus remembered to roll up the sleeves before starting.

“This is awful,” Cyrus complains. “My muscles are going to be sore tomorrow.”

“Our pile is bigger than the pumpkin itself, and there’s still more to go!” TJ adds on, looking incredulously at the leaning pile that’s trailing off the set up paper towels.

“Urgh.”

It takes them at least another half an hour before they deem the pumpkin cleaned out enough to start carving. The pile of seeds is so large that it takes up almost the entire table, and their hands are stained orange despite the numerous times they washed them. By then, they’re both feeling exhausted already, but they also know that they can’t stop now.

“So, what are we going to carve?” TJ asks him.

“I have literally no artistic bone in my body, so don’t ask me,” Cyrus declares.

“That’s ridiculous. You’re way more artistic than I am! I know you can come up with something way better than I could.”

On that note, Cyrus sighs, going closer to inspect the pumpkin. He turns it so the less dented side faces them. He then tilts his head, holding his hands out in front of the surface and squinting. His tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. All the while, TJ watches him with complete adoration.

“I know pumpkins are supposed to be scary, but what if we just made it special to us?” Cyrus wonders. “We could carve our initials and other stuff that represents us.“

TJ beams. “I think that’s a great idea.”

They get to work. Despite the master plan they have set in place, it definitely doesn’t go as smoothly as they hoped. While TJ carves out his initials and Cyrus carves out his, they realize that they definitely don’t line up correctly. In fact they aren’t even the same size to begin with. Things only get worse from there. TJ attempts to carve out a basketball, but he underestimated how difficult it would be. Meanwhile, Cyrus tries to carve a muffin, but it looks more like a blob or a cloud.

In the end, the pumpkin’s surface looks way scarier than they planned to. TJ doubts whether or not anyone will be able to tell what half of the words and pictures are let alone what they represent. Cyrus stands beside him, also trying to make sense of what they just created.

“Maybe it will look better in the dark?” TJ offers, pulling out a battery-operated candle and sticking it inside the pumpkin. He then flips off the lights of the kitchen so everywhere is dark, including the sky outside.

All lit up, the pumpkin still isn’t a masterpiece; the words are a bit hard to make out, and some of the pictures look more like accidental knife cuts, but there are some really good parts. TJ’s favorite part is their initials carved in the center with the little, lopsided hearts Cyrus managed to carve out. He also loves how uniquely them it is. No one else could make a pumpkin like this if they tried. Everything that the two of them represent together is in some way carved out onto this pumpkin, whether you can tell what it is or not. But TJ’s absolute favorite thing about it is that he and Cyrus made it together.

“It’s definitely not perfect,” Cyrus admits as he looks at it. Then, he looks up at TJ, whose eyes are like embers in the reflection of the lights.

“No, it’s not,” TJ smiles. “But it’s us.”

#tyrus #andi mack #tyrus fanfic #andi mack fanfic #tj kippen #cyrus goodman #tj x cyrus #cyrus x tj #fluff #halloween #tyrus fic #andi mack fic #andi mack fanfiction #tyrus fanfiction #fanfiction

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thepetulantpen · 4 years ago

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Ink And Petals

(Flower Shop/Tattoo Parlor AU! I already posted this to my ao3, but I decided to put it up here, too. Enjoy!)

“You’ve never once thought it was odd that you’re next door to a tattoo parlor?”

It’s the third time Geralt’s heard that question- and it’s not the last time he’ll ignore it entirely. He hasn’t figured out Yennefer’s ulterior motive in getting him to check out the tattoo shop, but he’s probably better off not finding out.

“No. You want your usual?”

Yennefer huffs and leans on the counter. “Do I have to buy something every time I desire your company?”

“If it’s during business hours, yes.” Geralt turns, producing a bouquet of lilacs, violets and a number of other purple flowers. “Do you want it or not?”

“You already had it ready for me? So sweet.”

Geralt hums and opens the register expectantly. “And it would be a shame for you not to pay me, after all my thoughtfulness.”

She slides the money toward him with unnecessary seriousness- and an equally unnecessary tip. He’s past the point of complaining; honestly, he puts up with enough from her that he deserves it.

“I suppose it’s only right to pay top dollar for such a masterpiece.”

“I’m not sure whether the other customers should thank you for taking away such an atrocity, or curse you for buying out every purple flower I have.”

Yennefer’s grin turns wicked, a glint of a knife before a strike. “What other customers?”

The flower shop isn’t as empty as it used to be, but Yennefer insists he’s driving people away with his scowl- which is counterintuitive, as pointing it out only makes him scowl more. It’s fine- he makes enough to get by, and he doesn’t need anything else. If anything, the lack of customers- people he has to talk to- is a blessing.

“Relax,” Yennefer smiles and pats his cheek, “I’m just teasing. But really, with all this extra time you should... explore.”

“Explore?”

“The tattoo shop next door! Just think, it must be filled with interesting people, people for you to make friends with.” Yennefer takes her flowers and holds up a hand before Geralt can respond. “Don’t give me any nonsense about not needing friends. You’re lonely, Geralt.”

“I’m not—"

“Flowers don’t count as company. Just think about it, ok?”

And she’s gone, taking the scent of lilac with her.

Geralt goes back to watering, and tries to forget about the tattoo shop.

...

Of the few customers he gets, Geralt doesn’t see much variety. The vast majority are rushed, forgetful boyfriends. Or repentant boyfriends. A handful of girlfriends, a few older people shopping for an occasion. And Yennefer, of course.

The man who walks in on Thursday morning does not fit in any of those categories.

Tousled brown hair, striking blue eyes- all irrelevant details, outshined by the tattoos across nearly every available surface. Full sleeves, designs stretching over the bit of exposed chest. Winding up his neck, and the sides of his face. A flower curls on his right temple, and a series of music notes over his left cheek.

Somehow even more attention-grabbing is his smile, bright and wide and seemingly producing its own light. He strides up to the counter when he sees Geralt, sticking out a hand that Geralt hesitantly takes.

“I’m Jaskier!” He shakes Geralt’s hand, with more fervor than appropriate. “I run the shop next door.”

Geralt must make a face, because Jaskier is suddenly leaning even closer, excited. “Have you heard of me? I released an album last-“

“No. It’s just an odd name-“ Geralt cuts himself off and rephrases, “I mean, Buttercup is an interesting choice.”

Jaskier grins, a little surprised. “Not many people catch that! But then, it’s your profession, I should expect you to be an expert on those sorts of things.”

Geralt is an expert- but it’s not something he lets on easily. Mostly, he doesn’t talk enough to get on the topic of specific flower trivia and etymology, but the rest of the time, he tries not to come on too strong. Surprisingly, florist is not always synonymous with flower nerd (as Yennefer has taken to calling him).

He just shrugs, which Jaskier accepts with not even a pause for breath.

“Anyway, as I was saying, I work next door, as a tattoo artist,” he gestures to his tattoos- that is, to his whole body, “Shocking, I know. But I also release my own music- which, ok, also isn’t very surprising.”

“Did Yennefer put you up to this?”

“Who? No.” Jaskier doesn’t look overly concerned by the interruption. “I’ve just- it’s been suggested that I need to spruce up our lobby. More decoration, something pleasant like flowers. Which is where you come in, I hope.”

That answers a couple of questions, and raises several more. Whether Yennefer is trying to set him up, or make him socialize, or is just doing this because she thinks it’ll be funny is a mystery to him- but it doesn’t matter, in the end. This is a perfect out; just a customer, just an order.

Jaskier is waiting patiently, fiddling with business cards while Geralt stares at him. When Geralt shifts, he looks up expectantly, face lighting up at the attention.

“What do you have in mind?”

“Something bright! I like yellow.” The flower on his face crinkles slightly with his smile lines. “It has to smell good, and be generally inoffensive to clients. I, uh, don’t know a lot about flowers.”

“Most people don’t.”

Yennefer would tell him off for saying things like that- she claims it drives away customers- but Jaskier grins even wider, if that’s possible.

“Oh, good. You can help me, then? I’m thinking two bouquets for the front desk, and we’ll see how that goes.”

Jaskier insists on waiting while Geralt does his arrangements, exploring the store and all the flowers thoroughly. Geralt can hear him reading out names to himself and repeating them- memorizing them. To what end, he doesn’t know. Artist types are always doing weird things- Geralt tries not to read into it, to save himself a headache.

It ends up being a pretty simple arrangement- Geralt figures Jaskier wouldn’t know the difference, even if he did put more effort into it- so he’s done by the time Jaskier finishes his slow lap of the store. Jaskier grabs the flowers and inhales deeply, taking in the mild scent.

“Oh, these are lovely. Truly beautiful work, thank you.”

If it were anyone else, Geralt would say they were overexaggerating to irritate him, but he gets the impression that Jaskier has a flair for the dramatic. He does and says everything with a theatrical air, constantly performing. If the tattoos hadn’t given it away, Geralt could’ve guessed he was a musician- the type that needs a stage to feel seen.

He tips well, at least. Almost too generously, but he smiles, genuine, so Geralt lets it go.

“I’ll be returning for all my future flower needs.” Jaskier winks, which pulls at the music notes. “Of which I’m sure I’ll find many.”

Geralt doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean. It doesn’t sound sarcastic- maybe it’s just a Jaskier thing, spouting nonsense when nothing needs to be said at all.

He realizes, with horrifying certainty, that he may discover many Jaskier things if he really intends to visit often. For his flower needs.

Why are all (all two) of his regular customers so fucking weird?

Geralt hums, for lack of anything else to say, and Jaskier smiles, like he’d said something inspiring.

He’s left to sit at the counter for the rest of the day, half-expecting Jaskier to wander back in, looking for more conversation.

...

Jaskier only makes it a week before he finds an excuse to visit Geralt again. His curiosity has been a driving force in his life so far, and Geralt is a very intriguing man.

And attractive- unfairly attractive, some might say.

When he arrives, Geralt is lurking in the rows of flowers, misting them with a little spray bottle. It’s hilarious to see a man as big and intimidating as Geralt watering flowers, but it’s... sweet, too. He clearly cares- an artist in his own right.

“Geralt, my new friend,” Jaskier greets, and ignores Geralt’s unhidden skepticism. They’ll get there. “I need flowers.”

“I have flowers,” he deadpans, in a way that should not be funny, but definitely is.

“Excellent.” Jaskier steps up to him and points to the nearest flower. A pretty purple thing- lupine? He thinks he read its tag last time. “Tell me about this one.”

Geralt raises an eyebrow- unstoppable force- at Jaskier’s smile- immovable object. “Why?”

“I’m just curious.”

Geralt sighs, put upon, and looks very much like he’d prefer curiosity be eradicated altogether, but taps the nameplate. “Lupine. The wolf flower, named after the belief that it would destroy the soil. It’s part of the pea family.”

He delivers it as dryly as possible but Jaskier sees through him- if he knows that many facts, just off the top of his head, he must enjoy them. Jaskier points to another flower- another purple one, the whole store is color-coded.

“What about that one?”

“You can read, can’t you?” Geralt crosses his arms. “Why the sudden interest? You taking up gardening?”

“Maybe.” He grins- aiming for charming, rather than overly flirtatious, and lets his voice do the rest of the work. “Maybe I just like to hear you talk shop.”

Geralt makes a noise somewhere between a grunt and a hum- there is a difference, Jaskier is starting to learn- but starts anyway, giving Jaskier short, informative descriptions of every flower he points out. He also gives him gardening tips- which Jaskier does not need, as his apartment is too small for even houseplants- and delves briefly into the basics of flower language, though, as he informed Jaskier with barely disguised disdain, “They all mean the same thing: they’re nice to look at it. Nobody cares if they represent unconditional love, or just regular love.”

It’s fascinating, to say the least. At face value, Geralt presents everything with the same plain facts you could read off a google search, but his little amused smile when Jaskier asks a dumb follow up question or the subtle, blink-and-you-miss-them deadpan jokes make a world of difference.

They end up pacing the store for an hour, Jaskier providing color commentary as Geralt silently goes about the maintenance of flowers. It’s only broken up by an alarm going off on Jaskier’s phone, reminding him that he has an appointment soon, and that he did actually want to get flowers.

“I look forward to a pop quiz about etymology next time I’m around, but I need to get going. Think you could get me some flowers?”

Geralt blinks, like he’d forgotten that was the original purpose of this visit. Jaskier has that effect on people- one of his many talents is derailing trains of thought.

“What’re you looking for?”

Shit. Jaskier spent the entire night googling flowers and reading Wikipedia pages, planning out an impressive bouquet that would show off all his newfound knowledge, but between the amount of flowers he’s seen today and the fact that he didn’t write anything down, he can’t remember a single part. Geralt is staring at him expectantly, so he smiles, like this was all part of the plan.

“Something with my namesake, I think, but with different colors this time. Bright, um...”

“Is this for an occasion? A special someone?” From anyone else, that might’ve been a come-on, but Geralt asks it so evenly, just gathering information.

“Nope,” Jaskier answers, too quickly. Too eagerly, but subtlety isn’t his style. “Just like to treat myself to flowers, that’s all.”

His phone goes off again. Technically, he has plenty of time, since it’s just next door, and he’s his own boss, but-

Geralt nods and turns back to his flowers. “You can go. I’ll deliver it to your store tomorrow morning.”

“You sure?”

This might not be a good idea- on one hand, he wants Geralt to visit him, but on the other, it’ll only prolong the inevitable slow death of this not-thing they have. Geralt, as far as he can tell, is immune to flirting, but Jaskier will be damned if he doesn’t give it a shot.

He’s in luck- Geralt nods, absently, and Jaskier is free to go about the rest of his day thinking about him. Not obsessing.

Definitely not.

It’s not his fault that he falls fast. He always has, always will. It’s not his fault that Geralt is handsome and sweet and surprisingly funny.

Usually, it wouldn’t be a problem. Usually, it’d just be a one-night stand, maybe a few dates. Usually, Jaskier doesn’t fall for someone because their eyes sparkle when they recite facts about flowers.

Usually, they don’t own businesses right next to each other, making the potential fallout very awkward. He’s not willing to dissolve his store and burgeoning local music career because of some poorly planned affair with a weirdly muscular florist.

He knows the drill, knows that he’ll get over it eventually. Maybe he’ll get lucky and fall for someone else, someone without strings attached. Maybe he’ll hire a gardener to take care of the succulents he’s going to buy- following Geralt’s advice- and hope they’re charming.

He resolves to move on, and the resolution lasts approximately a day. Right up until he spends the night tossing and turning with a song stuck in his head, begging to be brought to life. He gives up a few hours before his alarm goes off, snatching his journal from his night stand and jotting down what looks like a fully formed song. It’s bad, it’s cheesy, it’s obvious. The imagery- a wolf and flowers- barely makes sense.

Worst of all, he thinks he can work with it, as a rough draft.

...

Geralt is not sure why he’s standing in the waiting room of a tattoo parlor. That is, he knows why- he’s going to deliver Jaskier’s flowers- but he’s not sure why he suggested this, instead of just forcing Jaskier to wait.

Well, he technically knows that, too. Jaskier is loud and pushy and a little annoying but genuinely interested. Maybe it’s a low bar, but Geralt has met very few people who cared to hear about his interests- not even Yennefer can stand to talk about flowers, or bother to ask Geralt about them, not that they did all that much chatting when they were an item.

Jaskier talks a lot and can spin a conversation out of very little. It’s a relief to be able to talk as little as he prefers and still carry on a conversation.

From someone like Jaskier, Geralt expects to stop talking and look up to find him staring blankly, waiting to say his own piece. But Jaskier hangs onto every word Geralt says, asking follow ups where he can and carrying off into related tangents where he can’t.

He’d like to hang out with him again, if he’s honest. Some would say that’s enough.

Others- Geralt would need a practical excuse like, for example, a paid delivery of flowers.

“Sorry! We’re a bit short staffed today- hope you weren’t waiting long.” A blonde woman slides into the seat behind the front desk and smiles up at him, and at the flowers. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Jaskier.” He lifts the flowers, hoping she gets the idea.

Her smile widens- certainly getting an idea, but likely not the one Geralt wanted her to. Before Geralt can correct her, she points. “He’s in room two, right over there.”

He can feel her watching him as he turns, sees her leaning over her desk out of the corner of his eye. The first time he goes anywhere but his store in months and he’s already generating gossip- Yennefer is going to have a field day when one of her spies sends this down the grapevine.

Jaskier is in room two, but doesn’t immediately notice Geralt enter. He’s got headphones on, music playing loud enough for Geralt to make out the tune, and he’s working on a notepad and a tablet- at the same time. He must be ambidextrous- a pencil in one hand and a stylus in the other- and his head jerks back and forth between sketching out a design in a drawing program and writing out lines of text on a lined page, already filled with other text and scratched out notes.

Geralt can’t read the writing, between the messy handwriting and his distance, but the drawing is easy to make out. It’s the profile of a white wolf surrounded by purple flowers, rendered in stunning illustrative detail.

Lupine- wolf flower. So he was listening.

It’s a hell of a coincidence- maybe that’s why Jaskier was interested, as part of a project he was stuck on. Still, he could’ve googled it, or stopped after one flower- Geralt shakes his head, trying to stop theorizing, since it’ll get him nowhere.

He clears his throat, a little too loudly, and Jaskier jolts, fumbling his tablet and barely catching it. Geralt reaches out to help, but gets there too late, leaving him uncomfortably close with no reason to be. Just to do something, he puts the flowers on Jaskier’s table, pretending that was his original intention. If he accidentally brushes Jaskier as he reaches over, no one is the wiser.

“Ah, they look wonderful. Thank you, really.” Jaskier puts down his work and takes the flowers, pulling them close enough to smell. “I feel like I should give you a delivery fee, or something.”

“I’m literally next door.”

“I know! But I could be keeping you away from other paying customers.”

Jaskier’s eyes are wide, earnest, and Geralt gives him the benefit of the doubt that he truly doesn’t realize he’s become Geralt’s second-best customer.

“It’s fine. It was,” he hesitates and glances around the room, settling on, “nice. To see your store.”

Nice is a word to describe it. This room serves as Jaskier’s portfolio- the walls are covered in prints of his designs, all in the same vibrant, illustrative style of the wolf. They’re beautiful, a clear extension of Jaskier’s personality.

Jaskier grins, then his smile softens, with his voice, “That’s kind of you to say, Geralt. If not very creative.”

Geralt shrugs, as if to say I’m not a very creative guy. He thinks Jaskier gets the message- he always seems to. It’s time for him to leave, and let Jaskier get back to work, but he looks around for an excuse to stay longer. He lands on the tablet, sitting beside the flowers.

“Who’s that for?” It’s an offhanded question- he doesn’t care, but it’s conversation, and he’s trying.

Jaskier freezes, both hands stilling. “It’s, uh- just practice.”

It doesn’t look like practice. It’s massive, intricate and the photoshop file has twenty different layers, at a glance. Then again, Geralt knows fuck all about art. It could be normal, for all he knows.

“It looks good. You nailed the flowers.”

He doesn’t know [j1] why he said that. It’s the truth- Jaskier is, without question, a good artist- but Geralt doesn’t go around complimenting people he hardly knows. Or people he does know, for that matter.

Then, Jaskier smiles- bold and brilliant, like he did at the shop, while Geralt explained dozens of flowers for him. Ah. That’s why.

“You mean it?”

“I have no reason to lie. You clearly paid attention, yesterday.”

Jaskier beams and Geralt has to look away- it’s like the sun, gods. There’s a brief pause and Jaskier stands, prompting Geralt to look back at him.

“You know,” Jaskier starts, cautious, “this place is great, but I could do with a change of pace. Flowers have been popular lately- maybe I could visit your store once in a while, for unique reference?”

It’s a bad idea, an invitation for someone to invade his space, someone loud and annoying and-

Nice. It should be enough- people tell him it’s enough, to just be around people you like, and who like you.

Maybe he’ll try to take their advice, for once.

He nods and lets Jaskier convince him to hang around a while longer, pouring through his sketches and asking for unneeded advice- he brings up anything that has even a hint of flower, for Geralt’s reference.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d say Jaskier was looking for an excuse to make him stay.

...

It’s reached the point that Jaskier has become a permanent fixture in Geralt’s store. At odd times, between his appointments and concerts, Jaskier perches himself on a stool and doodles flowers, talking aloud to himself or Geralt or the flowers. Geralt half-listens for the occasional question, or joke, to react to, but mostly, it fades into pleasant background noise.

He’s also started bringing his guitar to test out songs, on the quieter days. Geralt almost draws the line there, but it’s not as obnoxious as he predicts and Jaskier keeps it low, muttering the lyrics and only testing out a few chords at a time.

The first few times turn out to be a test run- following those, without incident or complaint from Geralt, Jaskier brings his guitar every day. He composes as often as he draws, always creating, always inspired. The name plates of flowers get decorated with their own mini-portraits and Jaskier sits outside on Valentine’s Day, playing a jingle he wrote that makes Geralt want to deafen himself- but he can’t deny it brings business.

He still buys flowers semi-regularly, asking for increasingly ridiculous arrangements, just to see if Geralt can do it. Geralt delivers them while Jaskier is working, definitely giving the receptionist the wrong impression. He realizes he’s not worried about correcting her.

Yennefer tells him he should just start bringing Jaskier flowers- as a gift, a casual romantic gesture. It feels at once way too easy, and way too daunting. Maybe he just doesn’t understand how this works (Yennefer assures him that is absolutely the reason).

Nonetheless, he can’t bring himself to upset their peaceful coexistence, so he lets Jaskier keep coming over, and keeps delivering flowers. He tells himself he doesn’t need more, not if he’d have to risk what he already has.

Another step, a new thing, is complicated. Not as easy as Yennefer, or… anyone else says it is.

Jaskier rarely comes to the counter, since there aren’t as many flowers there, but he does today, hopping up to sit beside the register, where Geralt is organizing papers. “Hey, can I ask your opinion on something?”

“If you must.”

“Do you think it’s classless to buy something from someone, and then gift it to them? Even if it’s at a later date?”

Geralt raises an eyebrow and looks up at Jaskier- but Jaskier is looking away, towards the windows. “You’d just be gifting them money.”

“Do you think that’s classless?” Jaskier’s eyes cut back to Geralt, raising his own eyebrows.

“No.” Geralt pauses- that’s probably the wrong answer, but he’s the dug this hole, so, “Everybody likes money.”

“Fantastic, in that case,” Jaskier slaps down some twenties on the counter, “I’d like a bouquet of your favorite flowers.”

It takes a second to process that. Then another second to come up with a response- and a bad one, at that.

“Why?”

Jaskier scoffs and laughs. “Have you looked in the mirror? You’re handsome, funny, and passionate about what you do. I’d love to spend more time with you, without pretense.”

It’s that easy, he supposes.

Well, almost that easy. There’s still-

“What time?”

...

It gets even easier, miraculously. One movie night leads to another, one dinner becomes a weekly event, one late night turns into waking up in each other’s arms.

It all culminates into Geralt going to one of Jaskier’s concerts. Jaskier insists that he doesn’t have to - he knows Geralt doesn’t like crowds, doesn’t like loud music, doesn’t like people- but Geralt’s put it off so long that he feels like has to now, so he’s here.

He’ll admit that it’s not his scene, but he likes to see Jaskier in his element.

Jaskier shines on stage, lit up with more energy than usual- which is already a lot. He borrows from his audience, letting his chorus be lifted up by their voices. A lot of the words, and the overall message, are lost on Geralt, without knowing the lyrics beforehand, but Jaskier has a way of making anything sound emotional, meaningful. Geralt understands now why Jaskier insists on tea when he gets back from concerts; Geralt doesn’t know how Jaskier isn’t completely hoarse, after all this.

He can’t wait to get home and make dinner, maybe watch a movie. It hits him that he’s been thinking that a lot lately. Waiting to make dinner with Jaskier, laughing through pasta tutorials and ending up ordering instead, waiting for Jaskier to pick a movie, arguing over his terrible taste, waiting to go home, wherever Jaskier is.

When did it become home?

It’s a strange thought, the answer lying somewhere in the nebulous period between tolerating Jaskier and wanting Jaskier. It wasn’t hard with Yen- he knew what he liked about her, and what she liked about him- but with Jaskier, it’s harder to pin down the odd sense of loss he feels every time Jaskier leaves for the day and the warm feeling he gets every time Jaskier promises to come back.

All he knows is that he’s happy when Jaskier is around, and the other complicated stuff matters less and less every day. Jaskier makes it look effortless, so he tries to copy him, concentrating on the moment and not worrying about what’s to come. For now, he focuses on Jaskier’s last song, Jaskier’s sequined jacket shining in the spotlights, and Jaskier’s smile, aimed directly at Geralt.

Once he’s done, Jaskier mingles with the audience for a while- the venue is small, but packed, and he has to push through what’s quickly amounting to a mob to get to Geralt. Geralt is only saved from overcrowding by standing in the very back and putting on a scowl that he’s been told is “completely terrifying” and “inappropriate for society”. Jaskier doesn’t seem to mind it.

Geralt lets Jaskier pull him outside to stand in the parking lot, the space in the back that Geralt likes, for its privacy and the reduced risk to his car. Roach has been a fixture of Geralt’s life for a long time- he refuses to replace it, preferring to go to lengths to get it fixed. Jaskier thinks it’s adorable, a rare occurrence of sentimentality in Geralt’s life- which, Geralt insists, is untrue; it’s simply easier, more practical, to make this car work than it would be to adjust to a new one.

Jaskier hops up on its hood- reminding Geralt why he usually makes Jaskier find his own ride. He grins at Geralt, confident, like he knows Geralt won’t make him get down, or complain about boot marks, because he’s too fond of him.

He’s not wrong.

“Well?” Jaskier starts, leaning forward on his hands, elbows propped on his knees. From where Geralt’s standing, he can see new tattoos peeking over the edge of Jaskier’s collar, a bouquet of flowers blooming at the base of his skull. “How was it?”

The show, Geralt translates for himself. Jaskier is, frustratingly, a fan of non-sequiturs- which is only ever a problem on the rare occasions he actually expects a response.

“Loud.”

Jaskier stretches to kick Geralt in the shin, in retribution. He can’t quite reach, and pouts at Geralt, like he expects him to shuffle forward to be kicked. “Come on, you must have some review.”

“Of course.” Geralt rolls his eyes and pushes Jaskier to make room to sit next to him. There’s not enough space, and he ends up awkwardly half-sitting on the hood, but it gets him closer to Jaskier, which is his only real goal. “I’ll just use my extensive knowledge of music to write you an analysis.”

“That’s the spirit. I want to hear your favorite, and a breakdown on its core theme, melody, and rhyme scheme.”

Geralt pauses, trying to think of a legitimate answer. Jaskier is just teasing- he knows Geralt is hopeless with these things- but Geralt did try to listen, so he might as well give him something.

“I liked the one about the white wolf. Reminded me of your drawing.”

Jaskier blinks, surprised, and flushes. “Why that one, in particular?”

Geralt shrugs- he didn’t anticipate having to back up his response. Honestly, it was the first song he could remember, in the haze of loud music and half-heard lyrics. The tune, as he recalls, was tolerable; he figured if Jaskier took him seriously, it wouldn’t be too irritating to hear again and again. He hopes there wasn’t a weird, deeper meaning that he missed entirely.

Maybe he should listen next time Jaskier tries to teach him about music. He’s aware, on some level, that his inability to keep up with even a basic chorus is on par with Jaskier’s inability to keep even the hardiest plants alive.

“I just liked the tune.” He redirects, hoping to distract, if not recover, “You never did tell me who that drawing was for.”

Jaskier breaks into a grin, for no reason Geralt can discern. He puts an arm around Geralt’s waist and pulls himself in closer- nearly making them both lose their balance in the process. They’re in a dark, dingy parking lot, on their way to a small apartment and a mediocre dinner, but Geralt can’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be.

“Maybe one day I’ll clue you in. On a completely unrelated note, are you interested in getting a tattoo?”

#the witcher #jaskier #geralt of rivia #geraskier #flower shop/tattoo parlor au #pure fluff #i cant believe i havent done one of these yet #jaskier with tattoos is the hill ill die on

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aphelionsam · 6 years ago

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cold // s.w.

pairing: (soulless) sam x reader warning(s): typical show violence, angst word count: 2k writing prompt by @rosesphoenix <3

The door of the black Dodge Charger slammed shut behind you, reverberating in the deserted parking lot. The light of pale dusk shone feebly on the scenery. You slumped the heavy duffle bag over your shoulder, wincing as you felt the bone giving in slightly under the weight. Blood spotted your clothes and its smell came in strong, irony waves, yet you didn’t really mind. Your nostrils greedily inhaled the slight scent of upcoming autumn in the air, grateful to finally escape the smell of heated leather and strong air fresheners that dominated the car.

The motel room was quiet, dark and moldy, but the stiff, king-sized bed resembled heaven when your sore body sank into its sheets. You sighed deeply, closing your eyes and momentarily enjoying the silence before it was broken by Sam’s heavy steps. The last sliver of evening light died when he closed the door of the room. “You got any weapons that need cleaning?” His smooth, warm voice bounced off the walls and you mentally winced. And this is how your plan of ignoring him went straight to shit. “Um, just the machete.” You mumbled, never daring to look into his kaleidoscopic eyes even if you could feel the burn of their gaze. They felt like icicles stabbing through your soul whenever you stared into them. Empty shells holding the crumbling remains of who he used to be, an explosion of colors that hid no emotion. “I’ll take care of it later.” You knew you could’ve easily brushed off the question and he wouldn’t have cared, but you couldn’t ignore the way your heart skipped a beat every time he spoke. Sometimes, when you could only hear his voice, it awakened buried memories of the tenderness it used to hold. For just a second, you felt as if he came back to you. Like he had never been gone in the first place. You quietly relished in the sound of his voice, even if was oftentimes monotone and drained of any inflections. At the end of your peripheral vision, you could see him shrug and grab his own bag, slamming it on the table and sitting down on a chair. The sound of clinking metal was the only thing that perturbed the stillness of the room. You wanted to say something, anything, or at least to find the will to get up and go drink your thoughts away. But somehow you felt like no liquor could match the bitterness in your heart. Not even the idea of a (mostly) warm shower soothed you, it was like all the energy in your body had been completely drained. Maybe having to chop the heads off of a vampire pack hadn’t been so easy on your body, and the fact that you had to work with a disinterested Sam and his overly critical grandfather surely didn’t diminish your frustration. It was your thousandth vampire case and surely not the last since these specific monsters were your specialty. You had proven yourself worthy of your “title” on multiple occasions and Samuel’s gang seemed to enjoy chopping heads off as much as you did. This time hadn’t been an exception. You had managed to kill about five vampires with not much of a struggle, and it had seemed like you were on the winning team. Until you had felt the sharp, unexpected sensation of teeth trying to sink into your jugular and a strong hand pulling roughly on your hair. You had fruitlessly tried escaping the vampire’s grip, but it had been too late. You’d been taken by complete surprise. Thankfully, Gwen had been quick to use her machete on the monster and you’d escaped with only two red spots on your neck. She had worriedly asked you if you were okay, and you had nodded, offering her a tight-lipped smile. What she didn’t know was that the physical pain couldn’t even compare to the feeling of having Sam watch your life being put in danger and do nothing about it. The adrenaline hadn’t allowed you to feel the full force of the emotional blow at first, but after it was all over and Sam climbed in the car without asking about your physical or emotional well-being (since his grandfather had spewed words of contempt at you just three minutes prior), it truly hit you. Sam didn’t care. You’d always known it, deep in your heart. Ever since he had shown up at your door, a day after you’d seen him jump into the cage, you had sensed a change. In the way, he had hugged you, short, cold and distant, or the way he’d just smirked in response to your happy tears and genuine smile. In the way he kissed you, hungrily, dominating and lustful, but not the least bit tender. Even the way he touched your body felt numb like it was all driven only by primal instinct. At first, you had tried convincing yourself that maybe his time in the Cage had taken an emotional toll on him and he needed space. You had deliberately ignored the frozen, dead look in his eyes. But your heart had crumbled and broken into a million pieces in that quiet night when he’d left your shared bed and came in next morning with red lipstick marks on his neck. In other circumstances, you would’ve been outraged, furious. But the only thing you did was let him slip out of your arms night by night while never mentioning it. It was a sentiment you couldn’t quite place, but one thing was for sure: he had slowly stopped feeling like home to you. You didn’t know what he had experienced in the Cage and how it had affected him, but it had produced a great change in him. Sometimes, you felt like your Sam had never truly come back, and you were living with a broken shell of a man. The sound of him getting up from his chair and clearing his throat awoke you from your thoughts. His weapons had been thoroughly cleaned and tucked back into his bag. And he hadn’t taken his shoes off, which could only mean one thing. You barely glanced at him while attempting to swallow the lump forming in your throat. “I’m going out.” He deadpanned, throwing you one quick, numb look before heading for the door. Your heart stung in your chest and for a few seconds, all air was drained from your lungs. If he would’ve just left and slammed the door shut behind him, it would’ve hurt less. Yet having to hear those words coming out of his mouth crushed you in ways that not even you could understand. “I miss you.” You only realized that you have spoken out loud when his hand froze on the door handle. His jaw visibly clenched. “Y/N…” “You don’t have to explain yourself, Sam.” You exhaled slowly, desperately trying to keep your voice from trembling. Even his name sounded distant to you. “I know you’re… different. You’re not him. Not anymore, at least.” You paused, swallowing back the salty taste in your mouth with great difficulty. Sam turned away from the door. He was standing tall in the middle of the room. his eyes giving you the sympathetic puppy dog look that he’d thoroughly exercised. That gaze usually made your heart swell, yet now it felt anything but genuine. His pink, plump lips parted to form some half-assed excuse, but you spoke before he could. Sam, ever so polite. “Please, don’t say anything. Just…” You couldn’t stand to see him fending sympathy, so you let your gaze fly pointlessly out the window. “I’m not trying to blame you for anything. I just miss him. His warmth, his tenderness. And you look like him, you talk like him… and it hurts that I can only have him in my memories.” Sam sighed, the heavy atmosphere making his shoulders slump slightly. “Maybe we didn’t have the best lives, but at least we had each other, you know?” You chuckled bitterly, the tears threatening to spill from your eyes. “Fuck, it hurts.” You could see him shifting uncomfortably out of the corner of your eye and you exhaled, clearing your throat and chasing away the tremble in your tone. “Look, I know you don’t give two shits about this. But I think I’m about to start crying, so if you could just…” your gaze eventually turned back on him, “If you could just hug me and pretend you care for two minutes, then you’re free to go and fuck some random whore at a bar or whatever.” The last words acted like a knife stabbing through your heart, and you couldn’t help the stray tear that fell down your cheek. His delicate features were contorted into an expression you couldn’t quite figure out, yet he never broke eye contact as he seemed to contemplate the situation. You honestly expected him to just open the door and leave, letting you wallow in your tears and dead memories. Or, even worse, laugh in your face. But you sure as hell didn’t expect him to nod and open his arms slightly. You hesitantly stood up from the bed and walked over to him, a wary look in your eyes and suspicion rising in your gut. Despite lacking any kind of empathy, Sam was still excellent at reading people, and he sensed your hesitation immediately, trying to soothe it with a weak smile. Eventually, you gave in, wrapping your arms around his waist and burying your face into his chest, the way you used to do before when he was all yours. His arms engulfed you immediately and even if his hug lacked warmth, you were encased into his scent and the familiar sound of his heart pounding steadily against your ear, so you were content. Tears and sobs ran freely out of you as his hands clumsily caressed your back. Only now you realized how much you had missed his touch. He let you cry into his chest as much as you needed, never trying to interrupt you or break the hug and you appreciated his efforts. You knew he didn’t care, you weren’t going to fool yourself, but you could tell he tried his best. Maybe out of politeness, or for the sake of what you two have had before, you had no idea. You just knew that you never wanted to leave those arms, even if they were clumsy and cold. “Uh…” Sam started, and you instantly tried breaking the hug, assuming that you’ve made him uncomfortable. Yet his arms remained wrapped loosely around your small figure. “I don’t… care about you like he did. And I’d be lying if I said that I wish I could.” You sniffled, nodding softly as one of his hands wiped a stray tear from your cheek with surprising gentleness. His eyes were still as empty as before, but you could tell that he was being honest. “But I still have his memories. I remember all the moments you’ve had together, I remember the way he felt… and he loved you. He loved you so much that it’s almost… vivid still.” You smiled feebly, your gaze lost somewhere around his shoulder. In the following second, his lips were on yours, kissing you with a gentleness that almost resembled your Sam. At first, you were completely caught off-guard by his actions and you couldn’t quite respond. But soon enough, your eyes fluttered closed and you lost yourself in the kiss, your hand involuntarily reaching out to cup his jaw. His kiss was different. Your Sam put everything he had in his kisses and you could feel the passion coursing through him, showing through the way he always cupped your face into his large hands or the slight whimpers that escaped him. He always used to tell you that he couldn’t get enough of your kisses. Present Sam was gentle, a big step from his previous roughness, but it lacked passion. Sure, it was nice, a bit mechanical, probably guided by what he could remember. And of course, not sincere. Sure enough, he broke the kiss soon. “Thank you. I… I needed that.” You mumbled, slowly backing out from his arms. He licked his lips, nodding nonchalantly. “You know what?” He spoke all of a sudden, breaking the silence in the room. You looked up at him, surprised. Why was he still there? Why wasn’t he bolting for the door? “I have to look through a case that Samuel gave me, so… Guess I’ll stay in tonight.”

#sam winchester #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester one shot #supernatural #sam winchester fanfiction #masterlist #soulless! sam winchester

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youngjusticeslut · 6 years ago

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And They Were Roommates (Chapter 3)

Fandom: Young Justice Links: FF.net // AO3 Characters: Artemis Crock, Jade Nguyen, Roy Will Harper, Lian Nguyen-Harper Ships: Light RedCat Summary: On her first night in Jade and Roy’s apartment, Artemis experiences her first Nguyen-Harper dinner. Quite fluffy. Rating: T Word Count: 2343 Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters. Also I wrote this while sick so I’m really sorry in advance if it sucks but I like it so whoops.

Upon exiting the bathroom, Artemis was greeted to the happy gurgles of her eleven month old niece. The sound brought a rare smile to her face; if there was one good thing about living with her sister, it was that she would get to spend some more time with Lian. How Jade and Roy both managed to produce such a cute and charming little thing, she’d never know.

She returned to the living room, already expecting to hear her niece’s garbled version of her name. From the sounds of it, Lian must be playing. Artemis snuck her phone out of her jeans, ready to capture the rare sight of her sister playing with her daughter; she’d put it on a Christmas card and send it to her mother.

Instead, she found Lian playing with an impressive assortment of silver knives.

Artemis didn’t think twice before she dropped her phone, scurrying to pick up her niece and get her away from her chosen playthings. Lian squealed as she was scooped up so quickly, clapping her hands in delight. After a quick once-over, Artemis finally exhaled in relief as the baby appeared to be just fine.

“‘Mis, ‘Mis!” Lian cheered, grabbing a blonde lock of her aunt’s hair and tugging excitedly. Wincing, Artemis tried to breathe through the sudden pounding in her heart, bouncing her little niece to calm herself down.

“Jade?”

“Kitchen.”

Artemis carried Lian to the kitchen, still trying to wrap her mind around the image she’d just seen. Roy stood at the stove, stirring a pot. She knew she was being rude by not saying hello, but at the moment she had bigger things to address. Jade lounged at the kitchen table, glass of red wine in her hand. She looked up as Artemis entered, smirking once Lian cooed and reached for her. “Looks like you two are getting along.”

“Did you know that I found her playing with knives?” Artemis hissed.

Roy stiffened and turned to look at his wife, brow furrowed in utter exhaustion. “Jade,” he deadpanned, annoyance dripping from his voice. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time this had happened.

Her sister shrugged, plucking Lian from Artemis and holding her close. “They were butter knives, Red.”

“Like that makes it any better?” Artemis nearly screeched.

“Relax, Sis,” Jade purred, grinning at Lian. “She likes it.”

“That’s besides the point, babies shouldn’t play with knives!” Artemis turned to look at Roy in incredulous disbelief. “You’re okay with this?”

“Of course I’m not okay with it,” the redhead snapped, turning the burner off and glaring at Jade. “This is the last time we’re having this discussion, Jade. No more knives; she’s already prone to like violence, and I won’t encourage it.”

“Really, Roy?” Artemis said, watching as Lian began to get restless in Jade’s arms. “Your problem is with her genetic tendencies, and not the fact that she could hurt herself?”

“She won’t hurt herself,” Jade scoffed. She carried Lian over to her highchair and buckled her in. “Ignoring the fact that Lian is my child and is too smart to hurt herself-”

“Our child.”

“No, my child still stands. Your logical reasoning skills are average at best,” she corrected as Roy rolled his eyes. Artemis had to fight hard against the smirk forming. “Lian barely has the strength to pick up an apple, let alone hurt herself with a knife. Besides, they’ve all been dulled.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Artemis asked.

“I wasn’t trying to make you feel better. If it really bothers the both of you so much, I’ll find her some plastic toy knives to play with.” Finished with the conversation, Jade strolled over to the cabinet and pulled out some baby cereal for Lian.

Artemis shook her head at her sister and turned to Roy. “You won’t really let her do that, will you?”

“Trust me, downgrading to toy knives is going to be the most reasonable compromise I’ll get from her. I’m not going to attempt any further,” Roy sighed, pulling out three plates from the cupboard and watching as Jade poured out some cereal puffs on Lian’s tray. “Hey, by the way,” he greeted, nodding at Artemis.

“Hey,” Artemis greeted back. “You cooked?”

“Chicken.”

“It smells good.”

“Would have tasted better an hour ago,” Roy chided, unable to keep the irritation from penetrating his words.

Artemis held her hands up in defense. “Sorry. Didn’t realize mealtimes were so strict.” Roy grunted, somewhere between a scoff and a snort. There were bags under his eyes, and his t-shirt was too big on him. She hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing Roy in the thick of his depression, but according to Wally, he’d really gone off the deep end in his search for Speedy. At the funeral, he still hadn’t looked completely back to himself. It was a relief to see him acting so normal. Normal for Roy, at least.

Roy handed her two plates of food and she dutifully carried them to the table. Jade was watching Lian pick up the cereal puffs and shove them into her mouth with drool-covered fists. She grinned as Artemis set the plates down on the table. “Well, look at that. Treated like royalty in my own home.”

“Shut it.”

“Do you do dishes, too?”

Artemis scowled as Roy brought over the last plate and sat by Lian. “How do you put up with her?” Roy didn’t answer. Instead he took some chicken from his plate and cut it up into small pieces. He made sure they were cool enough to eat before setting them on Lian’s tray. The baby looked up at her dad and flashed him a gummy grin, peppered with a few baby teeth; Artemis pretended not to see the small grin Roy gave back.

“So,” Jade began, wine glass in hand again. “Let’s break the tension.”

“Smooth, Jade,” Artemis grumbled, stabbing at her chicken. It was hard to be mad at it when it tasted so good. She’d never known that Roy could cook this well.

“Someone had to. And it wasn’t going to be Roy.”

“She’s got a point there,” Roy agreed. “I’m better at causing tension.”

Artemis chuckled. “Was that supposed to be a joke?”

“Was it funny?”

“Little bit,” Artemis admitted. “You haven’t returned to the league yet. I thought you’d be jumping to go back once you were back in shape.” He hummed, looking away from Lian and directing his attention to Artemis.

“I extended my leave. Lian needs my full attention right now,” he explained. Roy’s eyes glanced over to his wife before he went quiet. “Most of my attention, at least.” Jade didn’t say anything in response, but from the way her eyebrow twitched it was clear that things still weren’t fixed between them.

“Dada?”

“Yes, Sweetheart?” Roy answered on instinct, ears going pink when he realized that he had. He had no problem calling his daughter a variety of different pet names; it was other people’s reactions that took some getting used to.

“Juice.”

Before Roy could get up, Jade rested a hand on his shoulder and stood. “I’ll get it,” she insisted. “You still haven’t touched your dinner.”

Roy looked down at his plate, almost as if he’d forgotten that it was there. “Thanks,” he mumbled, picking up his fork. “How did the chicken turn out?”

“It’s good,” Artemis complimented, taking another bite. Her appetite had been touch and go as of late, but she couldn’t deny that this was the best food she’d had in months.

“Needs more salt.” Jade returned to the table, handing Lian her sippy cup before she sat down again. “Stop glaring at me, Artemis. I was only kidding. Red knows I like his cooking.”

Roy snorted. “Only because your cooking fails in comparison.”

“Won’t argue there,” Jade agreed, but she couldn’t hide her pleasure at his quip. They ate in comfortable silence, trying their best to pretend that it was normal. Lian certainly helped. She hummed as she ate, taking absolute pleasure in scooping up the bits of food her dad put on her tray.

When she cleared her tray, Lian threw her hands up in the air. “Done!”

“Good girl,” Jade approved, smoothing down her daughter’s hair. “Maybe you can teach your Dad a thing or two.”

“I’m eating, Jade.”

“She’s talking more now,” Artemis noted as Jade unbuckled Lian and sat her on her lap. Despite being ‘done’, Lian made to grab at Jade’s plate, picking up a scoop of mashed potatoes and placing it into her mouth. “It’s impressive for a one year old.”

“She’s not one yet.”

“September fourteenth?”

“Sixteenth, Red,” Jade reminded gently, slowly pushing her plate out of Lian’s reach.

“Right, I… right,” he said, a flicker of regret briefly flashing across his face as he laced his hands together. “She loves to talk. Walking is another story.”

“She isn’t walking yet?” Artemis asked. “Don’t kids usually start toddling around this time?”

“Not this kid,” Roy sighed. “We think she likes being carried too much.”

Artemis watched as Lian licked the potatoes from her fingers. Eventually, she cut out the middleman and just stuck her whole hand in her mouth, sucking happily. “Who can blame her?” she noted, making a funny face when Lian looked her way. The baby giggled and flailed her arms, getting some potato residue on her mother. Jade didn’t flinch; to Artemis’ surprise, she smiled. A small one, but it counted.

“I think it’s time for a bath.”

“I got her,” Artemis said, reaching for her niece. Jade raised a brow but Artemis shrugged. “Gotta pay board somehow. Finish dinner in peace while Lian and I get better acquainted.” Her sister stared at her before she finally acquiesced and handed her daughter over.

“If you need us, just call out,” Roy said. “She likes to splash. And the baby soap is on the rim of the tub. Don’t use too much, she likes to eat the bubbles. Toys are in the cupboard under the sink. And-”

“Roy,” Artemis interrupted. “We’re going to be fine. Isn’t that right, Lian? Your daddy is a big worrywart,” she said, bouncing her niece.

“I am not a…” Roy trailed off before he leaned back in his seat. “Fine. Just call if you run into any trouble.”

“I won’t. Eat your dinner, Roy.”

Jade snorted into her forkful of chicken.

Lian’s cries woke her up around three in the morning. They stopped around three fifteen, but Artemis couldn’t return to sleep. She wasn’t surprised; Artemis hadn’t slept a full night since Wally had ceased to exist.

At three thirty, she crawled out of bed. Brucely was on the alert, but he soon returned to sleep once determining that his owner was okay. Artemis rubbed his head and left the bedroom in hopes of sitting outside on the balcony. To her surprise, the door was already open. Jade sat on one of the chairs, holding a sleeping Lian to her chest.

“Did she wake you?”

“No,” Artemis said, leaning against the doorframe. “I couldn’t sleep.” Jade nodded, pulling the blanket around Lian a little tighter when the breeze hit. They didn’t speak for a little while, instead listening to the sound of the waves slapping the sand.

“You can sit, if you want.”

“And if I don’t?” Artemis tried to tease. She couldn’t shake off how odd this was. Jade and her had never been that close. Not growing up, and especially not after Jade had left her behind. Once in a while, Jade would pop in for a random visit, but that was the extent of that. To live with her, to even sit beside her as she calmly held her daughter was more than a little jarring.

“Then you don’t.”

Artemis sat anyway. “Roy still asleep?”

Jade shook her head. “I don’t think he’s slept a full night since finding out he was a clone. Some days he’ll only sleep an hour or two,” she said, holding Lian closer when she fidgeted in her sleep. “He usually calms her down before I do.”

“He looks good, Jade. Better than before.”

“Better. But not there yet,” Jade said. “Your boyfriend’s death sent him spiraling again.”

Artemis sucked in a breath. She hadn’t been expecting this to come up; she was surprised that Jade was even talking to her in the first place. Her sister wasn’t one to mention what happens behind closed doors. “But he seems to be improving. He’s there for Lian, isn’t that what you wanted?”

“More than anything. He’s a good dad,” she admitted, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“Anybody would be a good dad compared to ours.”

“Fair point. Crusher did set the bar pretty low.”

Artemis didn’t expect to laugh so early in the morning, but she did anyway. She leaned back in her seat, staring out to the sand. A figure appeared at a distance, slowly making its way closer to the apartment. “Is that Roy?”

Jade nodded. “He takes walks to clear his head.”

“That’s good.”

“I prefer to fuck him into next week, but it’s a little hard to do when there’s a baby sleeping in between us.”

Artemis grimaced, making sure that Lian was still asleep. “You’re disgusting.”

“No, I was disgusting. Now I’m just moderately filthy.” Jade pushed herself from the chair, taking her time as not to wake up Lian. “Got plans this Friday?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Good.” Jade shot her a grin. “You’re babysitting.”

#young justice #artemis crock #jade nguyen #roy harper #lian harper #yj fanfiction

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clenastia · 3 years ago

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What’s this? Clena, writing many original things!

If only my fanfic would be this productive.

Prompt: “It’s been over an hour since you were bit, and you still haven’t turned into a zombie. You’ve also been oddly nonchalant about the whole thing. Your group is starting to suspect you weren’t human to begin with.”

Fic below the cut!

---

It itches. You try not to scratch it, try not to drag attention to it, because if the rest of the group finds out they’re going to flip.

You’re not even sure if they’ll let you try to explain, although what you could possibly say to make the situation any better is… a bit beyond you.

But by all the stars does it itch.

“Alright, sound off, how’d the run go.” Aaron barks, a crisp order from a man who’s had too much pressure on him for too long.

You almost miss the young man who was your college roommate once upon a time.

It feels like a lifetime ago.

“It was all clear for us!” Sarah chirps, clinging to her peppy attitude with a tenacity that is almost desperation.

Her sister was bit two weeks ago, and sometimes you wonder if she’s going to do something stupid.

She’d probably have the worst reaction, you know, if only because of how fresh her pain is.

It’s not like you could have done anything, but you’ve come to learn that for humans, that often doesn’t matter.

They just need something to blame, sometimes, and you don’t want to be that ‘something’.

Your fingers twitch, a desperate need to scratch, but you know it will fade in a few hours.

This isn’t your first bite, although you hadn’t yet found Aaron and the others, last time.

You really should have been more careful.

Everyone else gives their reports, and you’re about to offer your own, when Mike says those damning words.

“-but I thought I saw Tannik go down, coulda swore you were dead man, til you clawed your way out. Nearly gave me a heart attack!”

Mike claps you on the back, and you fight not to groan.

You know the procedure as well as everyone else.

If you try to cover it up, you’ll only look worse, so you just nod brusquely.

Aaron’s face falls.

No, rather, he looks nearly in tears.

You shift awkwardly on your feet, a human gesture that was… picked up unusually quickly, if you’re honest.

You hold out the bag.

“I was in charge of medical supplies - I had to at least bring them back.” You offer, trying to play it cool.

If they behead you you’ll die, but they usually only do that to people too far into the bite’s thrall. As long as they just shoot you through the heart or something, you’ll survive, and you can strike out on your own later.

You can’t give them reason to think you’ll need to be beheaded.

You try not to think about how lonely it was, before you found Aaron again, how much you’d missed your roommate and the bustling human activity.

You got bit, and worse, you got seen.

And more than that, you know what S’thalissae did. The humans don’t know where their plague came from, but you know what will happen if you tell the truth. Even if you betrayed them, it’s not going to matter to the people who’ve been living like this constantly asking why.

“It’s been over an hour though,” Alice murmurs - she’d been with Mike, and she’s always been good with time.

You should be much further along in the infection after so much time.

You have to try and convince them of- something, anything, you can’t protect them if they actually kill you (you ignore how likely you are to get caught, if you follow after them)

(it’s not important)

“I- guess it has, yeah,” you return, and finally, finally give into the urge to scratch. “Itches like the fucking devil, but that’s all it’s done so far.” You offer - scratching is a symptom, but it’s not a severe one, hopefully they’ll think it was just a delayed response-

Aaron clings to that statement with a desperation that terrifies you.

“An entire hour and you’re only at the itching stage?!” he asks, voice pitching up in hope.

This is not what you want. “I- well- I haven’t actually looked at it, been a little scared to, s-so-”

He leaps forward with fervor, ignoring the calls of the rest of the group, jerking up your sleeve.

You close your eyes.

You know what it looks like, after all.

“It’s- not swollen?” Aaron stumbles over his words, twisting your arm this way and that.

You crack open an eye, taking in the very faint green lines twisting out from the bite.

If you watch them for long enough, you know, you’ll see them shrinking slowly back towards the bite zone, and eventually leak out of your arm entirely.

Your body, for all the tech and magic you’ve used to hide it, is not human. The poison can’t find an anchor, no matter how hard it tries, and it’ll bleed out in the end.

You might get a minor infection from the general unsanitary nature of a zombie’s mouth, but the poison is nearly more a curse than a biological process, and it can’t hold you.

“Do you think it’ll heal?”

“Aaron! Don’t be stupid! There’s no saving him, there’s no saving anyone!” Sarah snaps, hands trembling.

You fight not to react.

Once her sister was bit, there was nothing you could do. Not that there’s much you can do before anyone’s bit either, you don’t know where the cure is kept or if it even exists.

Your people have perfected the art of creating biological weapons that don’t affect them.

Half the time, they don’t even bother to invent cures.

You try not to think of how long you helped them without thought, until Aaron and that college dorm.

Somehow, humans are just… different.

Or maybe it’s just Aaron, who was such a different person before all this, always willing and eager to help you as you struggled through college courses when you barely knew how to speak any human language.

Even the math is different, and you’d been under the impression that math never changed, and-

Humans are just so needlessly complicated, but Aaron was so invested, even from the very beginning, helping you learn more than you ever thought there was to know-

You were wrong, you know now. All those other planets, all those other species, you’ve come to learn that you were wrong, but.

There’s nothing you can do to help them.

You’re pretty sure there’s nothing you can do to help the humans, either.

Perhaps it’s selfish then, to want to keep these humans alive, as best you can. It’s your information that damned their species, that gave your superiors everything they needed to craft the virus.

Your conscience came far too late to do any good, and at this point you’re not even sure your death will absolve you of the crimes you committed against all those other worlds. All those other people.

Aaron and Sarah keep arguing, but-

This is your fault. Maybe not directly, because if it hadn’t been you, your superiors would just have sent someone else, and you know you can’t beat them, can’t overthrow them, but it was you, here, and so it has to be at least a little bit your fault.

Aaron shouldn’t defend you like this.

“He has a chance Sarah, please, let him take it-”

“You didn’t let my sister take it-!”

“She was dying, there was nothing we could do, but it’s been an hour and he’s not that bad, he has a real chance, Sarah please-”

“Just because you-”

“Wait! Are those marks… fading?” It’s Alice who grabs your arm, just as you reach for your knife.

Everyone turns to look, Alice dragging your arm into better light and staring with intensity at those faint green lines. The curse is trying to seep deeper, you know, trying to find some piece of humanity to latch onto. It’ll start draining out soon, though for now the itch is almost unbearable.

“I don’t know what it’s doing,” you lie, desperate to keep the truth from them, to keep your friends just a little while longer.

You know they’ll hate you if they learn the truth.

“But I don’t think we should take the chance. Just- just kill me, and get out of here. Yeah?”

“Absolutely not!” Aaron all but snarls, grasping your arm tight enough to hurt, staring with wide-eyed desperation at the bite. You don’t know what else you can say to convince them.

You just know you can’t tell them the truth.

It may be what you deserve, after so many planets and so many innocent lives on your hands, but you’ve always been a coward.

“Aaron, it’s not safe.”

“I’ll be the judge of that - or are you going to change your mind on electing me leader?” He addresses the question to everyone, and you close your eyes.

They won’t, you know.

You wish they would, but Aaron’s got them through too much, led them too well. They’ll keep you under observation, and the truth will spill out with all that unnatural green poison.

Perhaps-

Perhaps this is no less than you deserve.

Mike and Tommy argue with Aaron, enough to have you tied up, just in case - you almost wish it would be necessary, but you know it won’t.

The lines grow fainter, and then darker.

Watching Aaron’s face swing from bright hope to utter despair is painful, but you know it’ll only get worse.

Sarah nearly has him convinced to kill you, when the first drops of unnatural green drip uncomfortably out of the wound.

Everyone freezes.

They crowd around, almost too close, and watch as the cursed poison that’s all but destroyed their people leaks out of you, drop by painstaking drop.

“That- shouldn’t be possible.” Tommy offers.

Everyone looks at you, and you play dumb with a desperation that borders on madness.

“Well it’s certainly not something that came up in med school,” you grin, and realize only too late that perhaps reminding them about your course of study in this sort of situation is a bad idea.

“Yeah. You were in med school, weren’t you.” Sarah says, deadpan and bordering on angry. Your entire being seems to skip a beat.

No no no no, please no, you beg to whatever silent gods bear witness over this world.

You never did quite figure out humans’ religious ideology.

Some planets are easier than others, but humans have turned out to be especially complicated.

“Yeeeeees?” you finally manage to respond, a question as much as a stall for time.

Humans do that sort of thing all the time, when they want to pretend they don’t know where you’re going with something.

You know it won’t work, but-

You can’t just tell the truth.

“Come on Sarah, I was in med school too! I don’t think that has anything to do with this! He’s just- lucky, or like, I dunno, fucking real-life Ellie or some shit, it’s- I know you’re still upset about Susie, but this is a good thing it’s-”

“It’s fucking suspicious is what it is! He barely eats, Aaron! And everyone knows he’s creepy-fast and have you seen the way his eyes glow at night? At least, before he started wearing the fucking goggles! Maybe he’s the- the fucking antichrist or some shit, maybe he’s actually Ellie fucking Williams but I’m certainly not trusting him until I get some answers!”

Sarah points aggressively in your face as you try not to cringe.

Have you really been moving faster than normal? You didn’t think so, you’d studied human limits very thoroughly to make certain, but-

There have been a few times, when Aaron was in trouble, or one of the others-

Perhaps you’ve been a bit careless.

You really should have been more careful with your eyes though, the goggles were too little too late.

In your defense, humans have a bit of a wider visual spectrum than the last two species you helped destroy, and you’re a bit out of practice.

You sink back against the tree you’re tied to, hoping that if you don’t say anything they’ll just kill you.

But then Aaron turns to face you properly, eyes wide in realization as he puts together facts no one else in the group would have.

He’s been your roommate since the very beginning, after all.

He knows you barely spoke the language, that you never claimed a nationality, that you’d sometimes make noises in your sleep that a human throat couldn’t quite mimic.

Aaron’s never really thought about it, you know, because humans are selectively blind like that.

He’s thinking about it now.

You can practically watch as the betrayal creeps across his face.

He knows just as well how deeply you studied human biology and infections, even though you hadn’t been in the college long enough to specialize in a particular medical branch.

Suddenly, you need to explain - before he gets the completely wrong idea, before he decides that you’re responsible for everything (even though you are, even though you did, you may not have given the orders but you made the choice to obey them)-

“I tried to stop them- I swear, I swear Aaron I changed my mind and betrayed them and tried to stop them I didn’t want to help anymore-”

You bite your tongue.

Duck your head.

You don’t-

You know that’s a pathetic excuse.

You could have tried harder to stop them, but you wanted to find Aaron and make sure he was safe.

Maybe, if you’d fought more, you could have stopped them.

A fist slams into the tree above your head.

You hunch your shoulders.

You’d have rather died while everyone was still your friend.

It hurts more, you think, to know that your death won’t be mourned, but celebrated.

You hunch deeper into yourself, curled close to the tree trunk.

You hope it’ll be quick, the way the others’ were, even if it won’t be mourned.

Your hopes die with Aaron’s harshly snarled question.

“Who did this?”

So it will be torture, you think, distancing yourself. You’ll answer, of course. But you doubt they’ll believe you.

The humans have such a glorified opinion of their so-called ‘aliens’, how could they ever take the truth seriously?

But he’s your friend, they all are, so you can only answer.

Your hopes for a quick death die more swiftly than you will, you’re sure, but you can at least cooperate.

You can at least give them that much, when everything’s your fault.

#clena's original ficlets #clena writes a zombie fic!#i have no idea where I originally found this prompt #okay so really I'm just on an alien bandwagon #it's that fucking Voltron Seasn 8 rewrite I still want to do I fucking swear #voltron haunts me #all the alien fics #all the time #this is not fanfic #not even a little bit #but like #haunted man #maybe one day I should just give in and write the fuckin voltron fic #but its like #so many other people have written so much better fic #I just don't feel like it'd be able to stand out among all the other awesome fics #second person #because the prompt was in second person and it just... happened that way #Tannik is hopelessly in love with Aaron #but he doesn't realize #Aaron is hopelessly in love with Tannik #and he DOES realize #but y'know #Zombies #bit more important eh?#cursing warning

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aknazer · 7 years ago

Text

Plagg’s Day Out: Captain Oblivious

Also on Ao3

Day 4 << Day 5 >> Day 6

Plagg let the human have his delusions, since he was thoughtful enough to not try to squash Plagg with any (more) books. The ride to the mansion was silent as always, Adrien tossing a hurried “Thanks!” over his shoulder as he dashed into the house and up to his room with his bag banging against his hip.

“Adrien! Walk.” Nathalie’s voice was clipped and irritated.

“Sorry, Nathalie.” Adrien said, and Plagg sighed in relief as the bouncing became more bearable.

All too soon the reprieve was over. The bag was yanked open and Plagg scooped unceremoniously out and dumped onto the desk as Adrien dropped into his chair.

“Spill.” He commanded, pointing at the little kwami severely.

“Ask nicely.” Plagg snapped, annoyed.

“Don’t disappear.” Adrien spat, but slapped some camembert onto the desktop...then slid it away as Plagg made to pounce. “Story, then cheese.”

“Excuse me?” Plagg sneered, but privately was impressed with his kid’s gumption. A year ago he wouldn’t have dared. “I am the avatar of destruction. Do you want to mess with me, mortal?”

“Yeah, yeah, puny human.” Adrien rolled his eyes impudently. The two glared at each other before Adrien slowly withdrew a knife. Eyes never leaving Plagg, he cut a wedge of cheese, holding it out with a flat stare and an arched brow.

“...Deal.” Plagg said, snatching the cheese out of Adrien’s fingers. He restricted himself to only two bites before setting it aside. “Right. So, you chucked me out because your dad wanted to talk. Right?”

“Right.” Adrien muttered. “Sorry about that, by the way. He wasn’t happy about my performance at last week’s show, so he wanted to lecture.”

“Whatever.” Plagg waved away the apology. “So I’m out there eating my cheese, when this pigeon - do you know you guys have some ballsy birds around here?”

“Yeah, they’re notorious.” Adrien’s eyebrow cocked, clearly wondering where this was going.

“Fucking bird came and stole my cheese!” Plagg complained, waving his arms to try to impart the sheer enormity of this offense to the unimpressed human. “My cheese!”

“And you…” Adrien rolled his wrist, fingers circling as he urged Plagg to continue.

Plagg scowled at the lack of respect for the crime, but soldiered on. “Hopped on it’s back to try to strangle it.”

Adrien burst out laughing. “You did what?”

“Tried to kill the foul beast!” Plagg snapped. “But it made off with my cheese, and took me with it!”

Adrien laughed harder. “You rode a pigeon? You rode a pigeon!”

Scowling, Plagg finished his wedge while he waited for the laughter to subside. Finally, Adrien managed to calm himself down, wiping tears from his eyes.

“Okay. Alright. So what happened next?” Adrien’s eyes flicked up to Plagg, and a snort escaped as he abruptly clapped a hand over his mouth.

Scowling, Plagg silently held out a paw. Adrien cut another wedge, nearly slicing his finger while trying to contain his giggles. Still sniggering, Adrien set the wedge in front of Plagg, and Plagg ate it while his chosen (finished) getting himself under control.

Truthfully, Plagg had a decision to make - and he was still torn. He would have to tell Adrien who had been Chat Noire...but which person should he admit to? The fact that they were essentially the same person was irrelevant.

“Oh.” He said as the thought occurred to him. “I found a new place for you to get cheese.”

“What?” Adrien’s smile was puzzled, eyebrow knitting together as he looked at Plagg in confusion.

“So as I was riding the pigeon - don’t laugh - fighting for my cheese…” Plagg trailed off as Adrien dissolved into giggles again. “Am I going to get to finish? I thought you wanted to know what happened!”

“I do! I do.” Adrien waved his hands helplessly. “I just...keep imagining you...riding a pigeon…”

More laughter.

“You need to stop before you hurt yourself.” Plagg muttered sourly. It wasn’t that funny. “Man, just as your Princess for a picture. Lord knows she’ll be happy to draw it for you.”

He hadn’t realized how loudly he’d spoken until Adrien said. “I can’t. She doesn’t know what a kwami looks like.”

Oops.

“Oh, yeah.” Plagg nodded. “That’s right. Oh well, guess you’ll just have to draw it yourself.”

“Plagg?” Adrien’s voice was unexpectedly serious. “What did you do?”

“What? Me? Nothing. I did nothing.” Plagg temporized. “So I was riding the pigeon and-”

“Plagg.”

“Yes.” Plagg nodded. “Plagg. Riding a pigeon. Did I tell you the bird found un fromagerie for me? A whole shop filled with nothing but cheese! We need to go back there! I don’t know the address, but if we get up high enough I’m sure I can-”

“Plagg.” Adrien was staring at him, hard, and Plagg was abruptly reminded of why Adrien made such a good Chat Noir. “What. Did you. Do.”

“I ate a whoooollleee lot of cheese.” Plagg nodded sagely. “Seriously, we need to go back there.”

Adrien nearly growled. Pulling his mouse towards him, he clicked the internet icon. A picture of Chat Noire popped up on the screen, posing and grinning on Alya’s rooftop.

“Who is that, Plagg?” He demanded, jabbing a finger at the screen.

Plagg hesitated. On one hand, he’d been dropping figurative breadcrumbs about the connection between Marinette and Ladybug for quite some time - telling Adrien that Marinette had been Chat Noire could well be the crumb that loafed everything together for him. On the other, would that be so bad? Wayzz may be making stalling noises about it, but there was an itch between Plagg’s shoulder blades that said something rotten was in the wind.

Marinette loved Adrien, but she didn’t know all of him. Ladybug loved Chat Noire, but her feeling for Adrien held her back from fully committing. Adrien was drawn to Marinette more than he would admit, and was held back by his devotion to his partner, Ladybug.

Plagg had seen this song and dance play out countless times over the millennia. And while normally he was mostly indifferent to it (he knew how it would end), Adrien needed the support that the combined affections of Marinette and Ladybug could provide. The rest of the circle closing around him would add to the protection, but without the foundation of a committed partner, it would all fall apart.

Or he could be worrying for nothing. Adrien wasn’t stupid, but he was naive and more than a little oblivious. The chances of him not connecting the dots were very real.

“Let me finish the story, and you’ll find out.” Plagg sniffed, realizing that Adrien was impatiently waiting for an answer.

Adrien sighed, slouching in his seat. “Fine.”

So Plagg told him about the cheese shop, and hiding from the irate owners before escaping in the delivery van.

“So you escaped into a delivery van, found more cheese, and fell asleep.” Adrien repeated.

“Yep.”

“You didn’t eat the cheese?”

“I was full.”

“...Wow. I...wow.” Adrien shook his head. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“It wasn’t. That’s the point.” Plagg said.

“No, I mean, I have never seen you full. Like, never have you ever turned down cheese.” Adrien shook his head again. “I mean, ever.”

“Maybe you’re just stingy.” Plagg pointed out.

Adrien’s eyebrow arched skeptically.

“Anyway, I made up for it at the next stop.” Plagg said.

Somehow, Adrien didn’t look surprised. And that was the point where Plagg decided screw it, it was going to be a lot funnier if Adrien knew who Chat Noire was.

“Turns out, the next stop - I think, anyway - was where the cheese was unloaded.” Plagg continued. “Turns out, I was in a bakery.”

“I can see where this is going.” Adrien groaned.

“Can you?” Plagg asked rhetorically. “Great. Because I was totally not expecting to be in a bakery. So, since you know where this is going, what happened next?”

“You ate something.” Adrien deadpanned.

Plagg beamed and clapped enthusiastically. “Maybe you do know this story! And then…?”

“I know you’re patronising me.” Adrien pouted.

“Such a clever little Kitten.” Plagg cooed, before dropping the act and smirking at his boy smugly. “Now, can I tell the story?”

Sarcastically, Adrien made a half-bow and gestured for him to continue.

“So, I’m in the refrigerator eating cheesecake when the door opens-”

“Eating cheesecake?” Adrien interrupted. “In a bakery?”

“Did I say bakery? Sorry. Bakery and patisserie.” Plagg grinned menacingly as Adrien’s expression turned suspicious. “But the door opens and who is standing there staring down at me? None other than your Princess.”

Adrien has gone chalk white, and Plagg doesn’t even try to suppress his cackles.

“Mar- Marinette?” Adrien’s voice cracks on the first try through his friend’s name, and Plagg only laughs harder. “You were in Marinette’s house? Plagg! Does that mean-?”

Adrien is staring at him like with the same look of abject horror that Plagg usually sees reserved for far more heinous crimes. Like killing puppies, or cannibalism. Or eating your main course with the salad fork.

Plagg grins harder and waits for Adrien to squeak the conclusion out.

“Plagg… that means,” Adrien looks so honestly horrified that Plagg is starting to become a little concerned. “That Marinette was Chat Noire!”

“Correct.” Plagg says with relish.

“Oh my god.” Adrien cried, grasping his hair and pulling on it comically. “She must have been so afraid! You must have terrified her! And then she, she probably tripped over something and got hurt and-”

“Wow.” Plagg drawled. “Way to give your girl some credit there, pal.”

“This is not funny!” Adrien screeched. “You probably really scared her! And then you turned her into Chat Noire? How did you even do that? Why? Why would you do that to her?”

“...What?” Plagg is now honestly confused.

“Plagg, Marinette can’t even walk half the time!” Adrien wailed. “She has, like, an inner ear problem! I know you’ve seen how she randomly falls over and trips over nothing! Sweet baby cheezus, you took her vaulting around Paris’ rooftops with nothing but a baton and a death wish?”

Plagg blinked. “You do know I could control her movements until she got the hang of it, right? Like I did with you? Ring any bells?”

“Okay, I might have needed help to do triple flips throw a good punch, but I didn’t need you to help me walk.” Adrien pointed at Plagg dramatically. “I at least had a sense of balance.”

Plagg stared at Adrien, who seemed very legitimately on the edge of panic. Nibbled his cheese, and watched some more as his chosen unnecessarily hyperventilated and fretted over his (non)girlfriend’s safety.

“You must have terrified her.” Adrien muttered. “A flying cat-god-demon in her fridge eating her food that turns her into a superhero and sends her catapulting around Paris. Oh my god, she must be having nightmares.”

“No, not really.” Plagg muttered. “Pretty sure she’d do it again.”

“I’m not talking to you.” Adrien snapped, before burying his head in his hands. “Poor, poor Marinette...”

“Seriously, your ‘Princess’ is fine.” Plagg was thoroughly exasperated. “She wasn’t too upset by finding me in her fridge, she probably has already drawn me riding a pigeon, and she handled your baton like a professional.”

Adrien’s head snapped up and he gaped at Plagg, pale and wide-eyed.

“She was in school today.” Plagg continued blithely. “Did she look scared and traumatized to you? Did she seem hurt?”

“...No?” Adrien seemed to be torn between being appalled and being horrified as he obviously tried to remember what Marinette had looked like that day.

Probably a stuttering mess, Plagg reasoned. It seemed to be her default around Adrien. Plagg snorted. “Inner ear problem” indeed!

“If you’re so concerned, why don’t you just go ask her?” Plagg reasoned.

“She doesn’t know who I am?” Adrien asked suspiciously.

Plagg rolled his eyes. “Please, what kind of amatuer do you think I am? No, she doesn’t know who you are. Did she act like she’d discovered the identity of one of Paris’ superheroes?”

“She also didn’t act as if she’d found the pocket-sized avatar of destruction munching cheesecake in her refrigerator.” Adrien pointed out dryly. “And yet, she did.”

“...Point.” Plagg conceded. “Guess you’ll just have to take your chances then.”

Marinette was sitting on her terrace. It was hot outside, but between the attic and the bakery’s ovens, inside was worse. So Marinette sat on her chair, hunched over her math, with a tall glass of water sweating at her elbow. She was busy chewing on the end of her pencil and trying to decipher the equations on her paper, and didn’t notice Chat approaching until he’d hopped over the railing.

“Chat?” Marinette’s head jerked upright, eyes wide as she took in her black-clad partner standing uneasily on her porch. “I mean, um, Chat Noir! How can I help you? Is everything alright?” She asked, widening her eyes and trying to sound impressed.

“Oh? Ye-yeah! Everything is great, Princess.” Chat shifted looking a tad uncertain before his normal bold demeanor asserted itself. “Or should I say, Chat Noire?”

“O-oh!” Marinette tittered nervously. “Plagg told you, huh?”

“Did you think he wouldn’t?” chat’s head cocked curiously. “I hear that I have you to thank for his safe return.”

“Not really.” Marinette waved him off. “I mean, all I did was feed him.”

“Not a small task.” Chat muttered. “Considering he only eats expensive cheeses.”

He only eats..? Marinette blinked, then giggled. “Oh, we managed.”

“And then he took you joyriding around the city.” Chat shook his head regretfully. “I’m sorry, Princess. That must have been terrifying.”

“Oh, I was a little nervous, but only at first.” Marinette chewed her lip in what she hoped looked like anxiety...but really, she was trying to hide her amusement. Sure, a baton was different from her yo-yo, but seriously. She went flying over rooftops all the time. Vaulting around the city and giggling with Plagg had been different, sure, but it had been fun. “Really, it was a lot of fun.”

Chat beamed, looking absurdly relieved. “You’re very brave, Princess.”

“Would-” Marinette hesitated, but only for a second. Plagg’s words from the other day, and the impressions that had drifted across while they were connected, came to the fore. She hadn’t wanted to blend her two lives together, but… nightmares about a faceless boy, sitting alone and hungry in a dark room had plagued her last night.

How could she call herself a hero, if she ignored her own partner’s pain?

“Would you like something to drink? I mean,” she continued when he hesitated, “it’s pretty hot out, and you’re running around in black leather. That can’t be fun.”

Idly, she reached out, tracing a finger down the side of her glass and chasing the condensation that pooled there. Chewing her lip, she slip him a glance out of the corner of her eye as she picked the glass up and took a sip. Watched as he eyed the cool water as half-melted ice clinked inside the cup.

“Maybe just a little.” Chat said ruefully. “That would be wonderful.”

“Sure. Be right back!” Marinette set the glass down abruptly, smiling brightly before she turned and disappeared inside.

I want her. Plagg laughed inside Chat’s head.

Plagg? Chat asked, confused. Plagg’s amusement was nearly palpable.

Just give her the ring, kid. Plagg teased. Fu messed up - she absolutely should have been Chat Noir.

I know you’re joking, but I’m not sure what the joke is. Chat complained, frowning.

Hey! I am not joking! Plagg protested. I mean, mostly. I’m like, 30% serious. She’s got you by the balls, and you don’t have a clue.

What are you talking about? Chat cried. It’s just a drink of water! It’s like, twenty-eight degrees centigrade outside, and I’m in black leather. It’s hot, and I’m thirsty.

Well, you’re not wrong. Plagg muttered as Marinette reappeared with a glass of water and a plate of snacks. Keep telling yourself that.

Marinette had brought up a variety of treats: baguette slices with butter and cheese, some sliced vegetables, and petite fours to finish off with. Chat had asked her what she was working on, and the two of them had sat, working through equations, for another hour or so. The sun was sinking steadily towards the horizon when Marinette sat back, beaming at the finished worksheet in front of her.

“Thanks, Chat!” She grinned at him. “That made a lot more sense with you explaining it. I think you may have explained it better than the teacher.”

“Not a problem.” Chat smiled back.

“Wow, it’s getting late.” Marinette frowned out at the skyline.

“I should probably be heading back.” Chat nodded, looking ruefully towards the Agreste mansion.

“Actually…” Marinette hesitated. “Do you...think you could help me out just a little more?”

Chat’s brow furrowed in concern. “I...might. What do you need?”

“Is anyone expecting you home?” Marinette asked, suddenly worried that she might get him in trouble. “I don’t want to get you in trouble if you’re needed somewhere.”

“No, nobody is expecting me.” Chat shook his head. His father was out of town, and the staff didn’t take dinner with him. If he didn’t show for a meal, then it would be packed into the refrigerator for later. As long as it wasn’t there in the morning, nobody would report him.

...Then again, he’d couldn’t remember having ever gotten in trouble for missing a meal, only for taking extra.

“Oh, well then.” Marinette’s lips pursed at the strange look on his face before rearranging her expression as his eyes refocused on hers. “It’s just that, my parents are working late tonight, and I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner with me?”

Chat stared at her, and Marinette tried not to fidget as she smiled at him, belatedly realizing that it probably looked like she was coming on to him. A nervous blush fought it’s way up.

It’s not like that! She screamed internally. I just want you to eat, you silly boy!

The things she did for her friends…

“It’s just...there’s a big order for a wedding cake.” She stammered, wincing at the potential implications, hand rising to cup the opposite elbow nervously. “And mom always makes a ton of food! It’s like she thinks there’s ten of us, instead of three, you know? And I’ll be stuck eating dumplings for the next week if someone doesn’t help us finish them off, so…”

Chat’s face relaxed. “I’d love to have dinner with you, Princess.”

#ml #Plagg Appreciation Week #We are Miraculous #Marinette can play #But Plagg is the master #Adrien doesn't even know the game #Plagg's Day Out

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ravenvsfox · 8 years ago

Note

heres a prompt if u were interested: neil being oblivious when flirted with constantly while andrew doing nothing, passing by, twirling his racquet is enough to get neil's attention (the rest of the foxes smirk)

“You’re all zoned out,” Matt says in her ear. Dan tips him immediately backwards with a hand to the chest.

“Shush,” she tells him, gritted through the straw she’s worrying between her teeth. She ran out of the watered-down pepsi they’re serving in battered plastic jugs a half hour ago.

“Dan.”

“Shush,” she insists, pressing two fingers to his mouth. She’s watching Neil trying to fill his water cup over at the far side of the banquet hall. He’s hovering in that way he does, like a shark who hasn’t figured out if something’s food yet.

There’s this sweet brown-eyed boy trying to talk to him, possibly the only male cheerleader in the room, certainly the least in the loop about Exy gossip. Dan watches him touch Neil’s arm and Neil jerks backwards into the table, toppling an entire icy water jug so it slops onto the floor and seeps through the tablecloth to the dark wood underneath.

Heads pop up, the boy falls all over himself to pour Neil a new glass, and Neil wanders off, bored.

Dan has noticed that people really want Neil to have a heart of gold. They like the news stories and they want them for themselves. They want the seams showing on his face and the tragedy in his back pocket, and they want to show everyone how accepting they are for finding his scars sexy.

All they really want is his trim waist and his pretty eyes and his vice-cap badge and the way he shoves cameras away and has more history than any twenty-year-old has any business having.

Dan’s seen it all before. The way people like the character you’re playing so much that they want to take you home and open you up and see how deep it goes.

Neil’s worse at knowing when it’s happening. Dan’s a professional. She can see the way their eyes follow him because at least a dozen are always following her too, especially in places like this banquet. They look at Neil, or Dan, and a little part of them expects a show.

She watches Neil walk towards them with his eyes pouring over the room like liquid and finding every crevice, every exit. She looks at Matt.

“He’s doing that thing where he’s making a spectacle but he thinks he’s being very subtle.”

“That’s his whole shtick. I’m fond of it, now.” Matt grins.

“Do you think he actually noticed he was being hit on?”

Matt hums, watching Neil wind through the tables back to the fox—trojan extravaganza at theirs. “I doubt he knows anything about that boy other than the fact that he was in front of him for a bit.”

“Poor kid,” Dan says. Neil pulls up and drops back into his chair, looking grim.

“Who was that?” Matt asks him, and Neil looks around, unsure if he’s the one being spoken to.

“Who?”

“Mr. blue tie.”

Neil glances back and they collectively notice that the cheerleader boy has followed Neil all the way back to their table, and he’s trying to wedge himself behind Allison and Laila’s chairs to reach him.

“Hi, hi sorry, I know you actually—I know you left, right,” he says, and everyone looks at him blankly. Dan can see his anxiety cranking up, his shoulders almost touching his ears. “I just wanted to give you—um.” He holds out a damp water glass, and Neil ignores his hand, frowning.

“Don’t you sit across the room?” He jerks his head at the Jackals sitting somewhere near the doors.

The boy deflates. “Well. I mean. I just thought I should replace what I spilled.”

“I spilled it,” Neil corrects, confused.

“Yeah, but. I startled you. I forget some people don’t like to be touched as much as I like touching them.” He looks disarmed by his own forwardness, and he flushes hard, looking at the floor. “I didn’t want you to be thirsty.”

“Buddy, sorry, but I really don’t think this is your audience,” Matt says, and the boy darts a look between Neil and the rest of the crowd staring at him.

“And I don’t think he’s thirsty,” Dan says, deadpan. She can see Alvarez whispering furiously to Jeremy out of the corner of her eye.

“Neil,” the boy says imploringly, putting one hand close to Neil’s, which is next to a conspicuous set of cutlery furnished with a steak knife. Renee quietly tugs it away. “I liked talking to you. I think you’re so interesting.”

“Interesting,” Neil repeats, and his face kind of changes like his eyes aren’t taking anything in. He comes back online when someone clears their throat. “Where’s Andrew?” he asks abruptly.

“I think he had to rescue Kevin from some raven with a king complex,” Matt says. Neil frowns severely. “There was a whole argument. No punches thrown though, thanks to you not being there.”

“Minyard?” the boy asks, caught off guard. “Isn’t he kind of a dick?”

Neil’s eyes snap to his so quickly that Dan half expects there to be sparks in the air. “Are you still here?”

The boy steps away, taken aback. “I—“

“I’m not going to tell you anything that’ll help your school,” Neil says. “And I’m not sure why you think it’s appropriate to come all the way across the room to touch me without asking and insult my teammates. But maybe they do things differently on the losing team.”

There’s a chorus of gasps, and the boy’s skin goes mottled red with embarrassment. “I wasn’t trying to— I don’t care about teams, I was just. I thought you were—“

“Interesting, yeah, I heard you. Better people than you have told me that before.”

The boy stumbles back, close to tears. Allison laughs loudly as he turns and breaks into a run back towards his friends.

“That was brutal,” Dan says, grimacing.

“He’s pissing himself,” Matt agrees, watching him go with a sympathetic, pinched expression on his face.

“What?” Neil says. And the thing is— he really doesn’t get it. His expression is so readable: bone-deep confusion, anger from the guy’s comment about Andrew sprinkled all over it. “Why are you always so shocked when I don’t let people get away with their shit?”

“I don’t think he was trying to pull shit, I think he was—“

“Completely in love with you,” Allison says, and Renee shushes her from across the table.

“What?” Neil asks, his mouth all turned around.

“Nothing, Neil,” Dan says, raising her straw back to her mouth and smiling around it.

_____

It’s so frequent that it would be funny, if Andrew weren’t always a strong breeze away from breaking someone’s nose.

This month alone, Dan’s seen a girl sit with Neil at the library and get asked bluntly to leave, watched a gaggle of fans with ‘I heart Neil Josten’ posters get ignored at a game, and had to look away when some guy tried to be cool and sexy by leaning Neil into a wall and he got his arm wrenched backwards in its socket.

Matt likes to lean in and whisper what flirty things he thinks the latest suitor is saying, and Dan laughs and fills in Neil’s parts of the dialogue. Dan’s gotten into the habit of searching for Andrew whenever it’s happening, watching his immovable face angle towards the threat, his body tense up. He’s so transparently jealous that it’s not even fun to bet on it.

They’re out dancing, and Dan’s wiping sweat away from her nose and sipping Allison’s fizzy gin concoction with her nose wrinkled. The club is a pulsing migraine.

She becomes aware of Andrew all at once, somehow more visible than he usually is, like his body is made of matches that are just now lit. Neil isn’t with him, but it feels weirdly like he’s all over him anyway.

There’s something odd about the way he’s floating over to them with his neck craned in the direction he just came from. All their conversation falls away, Aaron puts his shot glass down still full, and Andrew takes a stool without looking at it. Dan meets Matt’s gaze, widening her eyes at him until he clears his throat.

“You lose Neil?” he asks.

Andrew doesn’t reply, his eyes are flung somewhere Dan can’t see, moving with the roll of the crowd.

Matt looks back at Dan helplessly, shrugging. Nicky comes toppling over to them and lands heavily on his elbows in the centre of their table, hard enough that the drinks jump and spill.

“Neil is getting seduced outside the women’s bathroom,” he tells them gleefully, until his eyes slip and focus on Andrew and his expression hollows out. “Uhh, not— it’s unreciprocated, terrible seduction.”

“I know,” Andrew says simply.

“You know,” Matt repeats. “And you don’t care, I bet?”

Andrew raises a glass to him in mock cheers. “That would be the first bet you’ve ever won.”

Dan snorts, surprising herself.

“They were talking about exy,” Andrew adds. Dan blinks. It’s disarming to be offered information from Andrew, like if a temperamental animal brought you something dead and you didn’t know whether to be flattered or disgusted.

“Well you’re fucked then,” Matt says.

“Exy talk is dirty talk to Neil,” Dan agrees. Andrew doesn’t answer, unsurprisingly, but his eyes are sharp, slicing through the thicket of bodies straight to wherever he thinks Neil is.

“Were they a fan?” Allison asks, thick and sweet, and Andrew’s hands clench.

“She was wearing Neil’s number,” Nicky whispers loudly across the table, and Allison crows.

Neil comes into view a minute later, looking sick and distracted. He slides onto the stool next to Andrew and steadies himself on his shoulder. Dan watches the way Andrew’s whole frame drops open at his touch. She squeezes Matt’s hand under the table.

“She tried to kiss me,” Neil says, almost to himself. Andrew is immediately up out of his seat, and Neil has to catch him around the wrist.

“Let go,” Andrew says. His voice is the too-tight string wrapping a parcel together.

“She stopped when I asked,” Neil says lowly, thumb swiping over Andrew’s pulse point.

Andrew methodically removes himself from Neil’s grip, only to stay exactly where he is. “She shouldn’t have started.”

Neil shrugs, Andrew sits, Aaron takes his shot.

Dan catches Andrew’s eye for a sliver of a second, and the look she sees there is bleeding and human.

_____

Neil doesn’t swing, except that he sure seems to when Andrew’s the one pushing him. Sometimes it looks like he’s grappling with the adrenaline you get when you’re high enough on a swing-set that you think you’re going to wrap around.

He doesn’t look that way around women at bars or cheerleaders with floppy hair, but if Andrew’s in the room Neil’s always going to be watching him.

It’s endearing, seeing the way Neil gets clumsy when Andrew’s around. He stops chewing when Andrew slides into their booth at lunch, eyes following Andrew’s arm down to wherever his hand has settled under the table. Dan can tell that the beginning and end of his reality in those moments is the exhilaration of Andrew’s touch.

She recognizes that early relationship feeling: when you want a person more than you want the food in your mouth or the conversation rushing around you.

Neil’s on a frequency that even the foxes struggle to hear sometimes, but Andrew walks in and turns all the right dials without trying.

The unlikely way they fall after each other reminds Dan of the way Matt lulled attention out of her, like she fell into the spill from a lighthouse and steered slowly, slowly home.

It’s strange to watch from the outside; seeing them pretend not to be preoccupied with each other, seeing how Neil’s focus looks like tough cement until Andrew walks through it and makes a mess.

All Andrew’s doing now is standing in goal, blessedly where he’s supposed to be. He’s dropped his helmet and he has his fingers threaded through the net of his racquet.

Dan’s turning to yell at him for being unprepared when she runs straight into Neil’s back. She makes a little involuntary ‘oof’ noise and stumbles sideways.

“Sorry,” Neil says vaguely, one hand half out like he’s trying to hold her back from breaking his focus. When she follows his gaze, it’s to Andrew’s hand ruffling through his sweaty bangs, his other hand sliding from the net of the racquet to the handle. “Sorry,” he repeats. His face is bright pink.

It’s stupid, because it’s interrupting her practice, and Neil’s supposed to be her biggest help in these fast-paced drills, but she smiles. Andrew looks completely grim and uninterested, but his uniform is snug to his arms and his hair is a shade darker because it’s so wet. He had to participate in the brutal running drills and he looks like he’s still sorting out his breathing.

Neil is so obviously in love with him that she’s a little surprised Andrew’s withstanding it. His face is so sad when he looks at the people who are important to him, sometimes. It’s worse when he looks at Andrew, like he cares so much that it’s breaking his heart.

“You’ve got it bad,” Dan tells him. Neil looks back at her, caught.

“He took his helmet off,” Neil says dumbly.

“I can see that.”

“I’m— he’s—“

She watches hims struggle with an excuse and then stop, frowning. She looks over Neil’s shoulder and finds Nicky laughing, Matt making a heart with his hands and putting it in front of his eyes. The foxes are sort of scattered, breathless and hot and half hunched to get their bearings, but they always seem to have the energy to mock their teammates.

She purses her lips, trying to keep amusement from warping her irritation.

“I didn’t think we should be hammering balls at an unprotected goalie,” Neil says finally.

“Right,” Dan says, biting her tongue against a joke that Neil wouldn’t get. “Maybe it’s time for a five minute break.”

He tilts his head. “If you think they need it.”

“I think you need it,” Dan corrects, not quite tamping her smile down all the way. “Go cool off,” she says meaningfully, and Neil’s eyes twitch back towards the goal.

She leaves him like that, claps and announces a break to the team, and crosses to Matt at the other side of the court. She slides easily into his arms, hanging off of his waist and smiling into his chest when she feels him laughing.

“He’s lucky Andrew’s just as bad, or it would be embarrassing.”

“It’s still embarrassing,” Kevin says from a couple of paces away, scowling at his water bottle.

“It’s sweet,” Renee says. “He’s smitten.”

“Yeah but he’s like—so bad at it,” Allison says. They look collectively over at the opposite goal, where the two of them are staring at each other, Andrew’s hand now fisted loosely in Neil’s collar.

“Still seems to be working,” Dan says, and Matt presses his face to her hair.

“Guess they’re meant for each other.”

#welcome to metaphor-a-palooza where everything's a metaphor and nothing is edited #aftg #the foxhole court #andreil #tfc fanfic #prompt #mine #fluff of the highest order #dan wilds #Anonymous #ask

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flugelato · 7 years ago

Text

Of mishaps and cat naps

Ritsu Sakuma x Producer/Reader

***

It was just a cut, really. Nothing serious. A careless slip of the hand while handling an apparently very sharp knife (she was trying to peel apples and cut them into those cute bunny-shaped pieces). It was her own fault for not focusing on her task and letting her mind wander about the idols’ next project and ways on how she could deliver a copacetic work.

Lately, she’s been getting the feeling that she’s doing unsatisfactorily at her job. The idols have been working hard, racing here and there to meet photoshoot schedules, practicing dance choreos, polishing their vocals and preparing for lives. It was a very taxing, very exhausting and demanding course yet at the end of the day those dorks still manage to smile their brightest, which amazes her. Which is why, if they were doing their best, then she too should put some more work and give them only her best too.

It somehow slipped her mind that she was holding something dangerous, possibly lethal, and in a fit of frustration gripped the damned knife too hard and drew blood. She immediately snapped out of her remuneration when she felt the stinging pain and the blade digging through her flesh. Crimson liquid dripped to the counter blending nicely on top of the red peelings which was to be discarded. Now, she thought sadly, she would have to throw away the whole fruit after soiling it with her blood.

“Ah”, she muttered, feeling stupid

A gash, which ran across her palm from the middle of her thumb and forefinger through the base of her pinky now adorned her hand. It was an ugly sight, but weird enough she thought papercuts hurt even more.

She immediately went to Sagami-sensei after cleaning up her mess, and the girl can’t help but snort mentally at the fussy doctor who was scolding her nonstop while treating her lacerated hand. After getting bandaged up, she tried to assure him, repeatedly of course, that she was fine and well, that it hurt a bit but it was nothing she couldn’t take. Alas, it seems her words fell on deaf ears as the doctor stubbornly insisted that she must rest at the clinic, and that she was free, or rather prohibited from doing any work until her wound heals.

She sighed in resignation when she realized that she wouldn’t win this pointless debate and straggled towards one of the clinic beds. She slipped through the curtains and layed on the bed, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply.

Stupid sensei. He was always worrying about other people’s health and well-being when couldn’t even take care of his own. Plus, just because she couldn’t use her not-even-dominant hand for a while doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be able to do any proper work. She was a producer, and her role is to produce songs, not write a 500 page novel. She furrowed her forehead.

Deciding to disregard the doctor’s instructions (what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him) she resolved to rest only for a while and get back to her job right after. Yes, that is exactly what she’ll do.

After coming to a conclusion she finally layed on her side and pulled the blanket up to her chin.

She didn’t know how long she was asleep. It could be hours or minutes, she wasn’t sure but she was definitely awakened by the sound of the curtains sliding across the metallic rod.

Silence.

She made no indication that she was awake, but she didn’t hear the curtains sliding back. It could be sensei, trying to check whether she escaped or it could be another patient looking for a place fo rest. Those are the only possibilities she could think of, and yet she had this funny feeling that someone is staring at her, that someone’s gaze is practically boring at the back of her head. She discarded the thought, thinking it silly and ridiculous and tried to went back to sleep.

Her attempt to rest was halted however when she felt the other side of the bed dipping from an unfamiliar weight. Her eyes widened in shock but closed them immediately. She wanted to know the identity of this weird and mysterious person, but if this is a prank then she’d very much like to see what the idiot is up to by feigning sleep and scaring the shit out of him later.

Expecting the tip of a permanent marker to land on her face (it was a classic prank she had to admit) she was definitely surprised when she felt the sheets move as if the person was trying to lie down beside her. Alarm bells blaring in her mind, her eyes snapped and she automatically twisted her body to face the perpetrator of this so called prank.

She met with a pair of droopy, bloody red eyes.

“Ritsu.” she voiced.

“Hn.”

…

“What the heck are you doing?” she asked, thinking she didn’t need inquire the obvious.

He blinked and continued to stare blankly at her. For a second she was tempted to smack that perpetually bored face of his just to see his deadpan expression crack.

“Producer, can I sleep here?” he asked in the middle of her contemplation. Her mind strived to process his words.

“Uh, sure?” her reply came out as a question. Of course, this boy has always been languid and tends to sleep anywhere, if not everywhere. Now that she think about it, it made much more sense if he suddenly felt sleepy and looked for somewhere comfortable to rest. Which brought him to the clinic, and he couldn’t be bothered whether someone was already inside if he wanted to doze off and stay in dreamland.

Just when she was about to get up, he grabbed her waist and pulled her back down to the sheets. Her eyes widened in surprise. Puzzled, she asked, “Ritsu what are you doing now?”

“I hate it when someone bothers me while I’m sleeping.”

“So?”

“I hate it even more that I’m doing the exact same thing I hate.” ‘What?’ She mentally asked while raising an eyebrow.

“It doesn’t matter,” she assured. “I’ll just move to the other-

"It is occupied,” he cut her off.

“Then I’ll just go. I’m wide awake now anyways,” she tried to get up once more but Ritsu only gripped her harder.

“No,” he mumbled. 'Ritsu I swear..’

“Then what do you want me to do?”

“Go back to sleep.”

“I can’t.”

“Sleep anyway.”

“Sagami-sensei will scold you.”

“He was not here when I entered.”

She groaned. Ritsu being pushy is something new to her. Perhaps this is his everyday disposition towards his members or classmates, but this is surely the first she’s seen him act like this.

“Why? Is this to satiate your conscience? You feel guilty about waking me up is that it?”

Instead of replying, he burrowed his face in the soft pillow and nodded. She grunted. It was hard to scold him when he was acting like this.

“Fine,” she muttered. Showing her back to him, she tried to put some distance between them, which wasn’t much for the bed wasn’t wide and can only occupy one person to begin with. She inhaled and closed her eyes.

And opened them again when she felt Ritsu’s gaze at her back. She mentally shook her head and shove the thought aside resolving that it was only her imagination. Despite all the convincing she made the uncomfortable feeling wouldn’t leave her alone but seemed to sink its claws deeper on her instead.

She gulped.

Was it just her or does Ritsu suddenly seemed nearer. His warm, steady breath was tickling her nape, making the hairs on her back stand up.

“Ne, producer.”

She bit her lip and tried to calm down her hammering heart. Ritsu was now sniffing her hair, tickling her even more. Because she couldn’t see his face, she could only imagine how wrong, not to mention intimate their position was. His hot breath fanning her nape sent shivers down her spine, and her heart thundered inside her ribcage once more.

“W-what?” she asked, face red in embrassment.

“I like your smell.”

Right after he said that his hand landed once more at her waist and pulled her towards him. He boldly burrowed his face deeper at her neck and inhaled her scent.

'She smells like Arashi-senpai’s flowers.’ he thought. Eager to get more of that scent he took a big sniff and exhaled at the girl’s ear. His warm breath swirling at the shell of her ear and ghosting across her cheeks leaving behind a trail of red taint on her soft flesh.

'Lavenders’ thought Ritsu.

Meanwhile, the girl couldn’t help but shut her eyes tightly. Is this a joke? Is this a test to see how well she can control her raging heart? If that’s the case then she was definitely failing especially when his other hand parted her hair and exposed her nape. As if suddenly feeling cold, she unintetionally shivered. Ritsu, unconsciously or not responded by pressing his chest against her back to warm her up.

Feeling bolder by the moment he touched her naked neck with the tip of his nose. Because she didn’t say anything he dared to move, rubbing his nose against her nape as he smelled once more that addicting fragrance. Somewhere at back of his mind was a voice persistently telling him to stop, but he seemed to have lost control of his actions, tightening his hold on her waist.

Was he…purring?

This was too much. The heat and of his breath and body was too much that she could feel herself heating up in turn. Her face was now burning, and it seems like her heart might jump out of her ribcage or burst. She dreaded thinking about what would happen first.

As if in a trance, Ritsu trailed his nose across her neck, his blood-red eyes closed as he travelled upward when his supple lips accidentally collided with her jaw.

Stunned, her brain didn’t comprehend the added weight on her back. Somehow, along the way Ritsu stopped sniffing her like a dog and was now leaning on her side, rubbing her cheeks with his. Yup, he is definitely purring.

The friction created by his soft cheeks and her warm flesh sent electrifying sparks and jolted her out of her reverie.

In one swift motion she grabbed the hands on her waist and twisted her body to face him. Now she was above him, their faces inches apart. Their breaths mingled in the little space between them as they stare at each other’s eyes, one pair in shock while other was back in its usual half-lidded look.

'Wait. Why am I breathing hard, dammit.’

She groaned and tried to get up. She was on her feet and ready to leave when Ritsu once again stopped her by capturing her wounded hand with his own.

“Where did you get this?”

“I-it’s none of your business,” she stammered.

Seeing Ritsu study her palm intently suddenly brought back memories of that certain duel. That time, Ritsu noncommitally licked the blood off her bleeding finger and started saying nonsense about Rei and blood and things she couldn’t quite remember because she was too flustered her mind went blank. This situation was exactly the same, except instead of a bleeding finger she now has a deep, wide and glaring gash across her palm.

'He w-wouldn’t try to do that again, would he?’

She internally panicked when Ritsu bent his head down and slowly pulled her hand towards his face. As if time itself slowed down, she watched, eyes wide, as Ritsu brought her bandaged hand to his mouth. With misty eyes Ritsu spared a quick glance at her stunned form and smirked, the rubies of his eyes slowly and almost painstakingly being concealed by his lids, like curtains trying to hide those mysterious, precious stones from onlookers who stare for too long.

She held her breath as he parted his lips, just a little, enough to peek a bit at those pearly whites, he bent down and closed the tiny gap between his lips and her hand and…

She felt the most tender, most gentle and warmest medicine she could receive; a kiss for her bleeding hand.

Ritsu looked up and gave her a heartwarming smile. Eyes twinkling with mischief he said, “Be careful next time, producer.” A laugh. “But if you ever get wounded again, come to me and I’ll heal you with my kisses.”

Blood rushing to her face, she pulled away ftom him and took a step back. She opened her mouth and tried to say something but no words would come out. Ritsu stared at the blushing producer and smiled.

After taking a few deep breaths to calm herself she once tried to speak.

“Ritsu y-”

She was cut off when she heard a loud and obnoxious voice entering the clinic.

“Ritsuuu where are youuu?”

Ritsu’s smile dropped. At once he sat up and giving one last look at the girl, he opened the window nearby and left quietly.

'Huh?’ she thought, puzzled at his actions. Her attention was brought back from Ritsu’s exit when she heard the curtains open.

“Oh, producer. Have you seen Ritsu?” Ah. It’s Rei. No wonder.

“Um, no,” she lied. Smiling awkwardly, she hoped he wouldn’t suspect a thing. After studying her a while Rei finally spoke.

“Oh okay then, sorry to bother you,” he promptly left.

She sighed. Geez, what a day. Remembering what happened a while ago, she blushed.

'Come to me and I’ll heal you with my kisses.’

Dammit. She really needs to be careful so as to avoid any more mishaps.

#enstars #ritsu sakuma #fanfic #knights

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