#You were just going to withhold this vital piece of information from me?

[yallthemwitches]

Talk to Me

When Lily and her boyfriend have a public breakup, James suspects he is to blame.

Pre-dating Jily angst-ish fluff ft. good guy Sirius for @jilytoberfest Day 9, Prompt: " You Literally Checked your phone 3 seconds ago"

....look at me finding any way possible to NOT write an AU fic.

AO3 Link Here

“Prongs—just give it back.” Sirius leaned on the edge of James’ four poster bed, cigarette dripping ash from his mouth, hand outstretched and grasping. 

“Not yet—she might still–”

“She’d be calling for me remember—or Moony I guess, but c’mon mate. I’m going nutter just watching you.”

James stared up at the canopy of his four-poster bed, hand gripping around the handle of the two way mirror. He flipped it up to his face for what had to have been the hundredth time in an hour, seeing only his reflection glare back. 

“I’ll give it to you if you tell me what happened.” Out of the corner of his eye he watched Sirius snub out his cigarette on the bedpost, hair shrouding any emotion on his face.

“I’ve told you, she didn’t want to get you involved—”

“Bollocks. Apparently I already was involved.” He sat up, leaning on his arms. Sirius glared back at him, two equally stubborn boys at an impasse. 

“They had a row. Sparrow went mental, threw his butterbeer, and Rosmerta kicked him out.”

“I’ve heard.”

“--And I assume they are broken up. At least Moony heard her say something along those lines while I helped Rosmerta and the other Hufflepuffs get him the fuck out.”

“Ok, fine. So then why were they rowing?”

This was the vital piece of information that everyone was withholding. Peter, Remus… even Marlene remained tight lipped, offering a simple shrug as he had cornered her earlier in the main hall. 

“They were rowing about me—weren’t they.”

Sirius snorted, but James could tell it was forced, a weak performance at best. 

“Don’t start being arrogant again.”

“I’m not, I’m just saying what seems to be the only conclusion.”

James flipped the mirror up to his face again. Every flash of his reflection felt more and more grotesque, like the anticipation and confusion was twisting his soul into a tight ball. 

“Can you quit it—I highly doubt she’s gonna call anyways. I just gave her the mirror in case Sparrow decided to do something even more stupid on her way back.”

 James could feel anger rising .“So why didn’t you walk her then.”

“Because she didn’t bloody want me to and she already had one arsehole bloke overstepping his boundaries to deal with, alright? Merlin for fucks sake.”

Sirius threw his arms up, a rare action of exasperation. He kicked some of the records laying on the ground out of his way and threw himself onto his bed face first. 

James softened, sitting up to look at his mate. “Pads, fuck mate I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be taking this out on you—I’m just—if I had just been there and not at bloody quidditch practice—”

“Then it probably would have gone a lot worse.” Sirius’ voice muffled through the fabric of his pillow. 

A sting of pain shot through him.  “What do you mean by that?”

A knock echoed through the dorm, the knob turned and a vibrant green eye peeked through the crack.

“Nobody naked in here? Remus said you’d be–”

She stopped speaking as she caught sight of James. Unintentionally swinging the door wider, he could see she was grasping Sirius’ mirror in her other hand. She had clearly been crying, streaks of salt bleached skin lined her cheeks, eyes red and puffy. 

“Nope, unfortunately fully clothed!” Sirius’ mood made an immediate rebound, hopping off his bed towards her. 

Lily eyed James for a fleeting moment before turning her attention to an approaching Sirius, mirror outstretched. 

“I wanted to give this back—and thank you. I didn’t think Sawyer was capable of–of acting like that.”

Sirius gave her a smile, all frustration completely melted, flashing one of his biggest and most genuine grins. 

“No worries Evans. Sorry your boyfriend–er, ex boyfriend was such a fucking idiot.”

Lily nodded, offering him a weak smile. 

“Right—well have a good night.”

She closed the door behind her and Sirius spoke, not turning to look at him.

“If you go right this second I bet you could catch her before anyone else does.”

It was the confirmation he needed to hear. James bounded towards the door and ripped it open. Lily was only a few steps down, clearly not too enthused to walk back into a room full of people who wanted to hear about the newest scandal. 

“Hey Evans–”

She turned to look up at him, eyes glassy. 

“You alright?”

Lily tried to give a weak smile. “Yeah, peachy.”

He took a calculated step forward. “I heard what happened with Sparrow—it was a real shit thing he did.”

Her eyes wandered around the dim lit stairwell, looking everywhere but at him. 

“Yeah well, I guess he isn’t going to make the cut.”Her eyes glanced up at him. Mouth open, poised for something. He was about to say his goodnight when it tumbled out of her mouth, clear and unwavering.

“It was about you, you know–.” Her eyes were steady on him, even with tears in her eyes, she looked defiant. 

“All I did was mention how we sit together in the library after charms—guess that hit some jealousy nerve I never knew about.”

James could feel his whole body tingling. She continued.

“I kept telling him it was nothing, that you and I were just mates but—he just went raving,” she hesitated, “--anyways, I’m sure you know the rest. Everyone is talking about it.” 

She turned to step back down the stairs, clearly spent from the emotional toll of it all. To James, she had never looked more beautiful, like the most resilient person in the world. 

“Lily wait,” he called down and she turned back to him, eyes glowing from the reflection of the candlelight. 

“You can always talk to me. I’m here for you—you know, if you want me to be.”

It was the first real smile he had seen her give since he saw her. 

“Yeah, I guess I do want that.”

[dweetwise]

[Jeff X Ace] Full of surprises

Jeff learns something new about Ace. Rated M | Light smut, d/s, sub drop 1.5k words | ao3 link

”You never told me you’re a dom!”

Ace's affronted exclamation made Jeff look up from stocking a toolbox. The gambler was leaning over him, hands on his hips and looking down at Jeff with a demanding stare. 

They were on the edge of the survivor camp, yet some of the others had clearly heard Ace's little outburst. Nea let out a snort and Bill threw his hands up before power-walking away in a clear sentiment of 'I'm not drunk enough for this shit.'

If Ace wanted to have this conversation within earshot of the others, so be it.

“Huh." Jeff gave a one-shoulder shrug. "Guess it never came up,” 

Ace's gasp was as dramatic as it was fake, but the corner of his mouth twitched up as he struggled to keep a straight face.

“You’re withholding a vital piece of information!" Ace argued. "I had to find out during a poker game from Ash—Ash! Do you have any idea how unfair it is that that gossip-hungry bastard knows my boyfriend better than me!?”

Jeff bit back a comment about pots and kettles and merely watched as Ace went on a rant, hands moving in a blur above his head as he gestured vigorously.

“This is like a whole new side of you I never knew!" Ace said. "I thought relationships were supposed to be based on trust! Why would you keep something like this from me?” 

Ace actually pouted, then, seemingly trying to imitate a kicked puppy and finally giving Jeff a chance to respond.

“Because you’re not a sub,” Jeff explained calmly.

Ace scoffed. “I could absolutely be a sub!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jeff caught Nea shaking her head and mouthing an exaggerated ‘No’ to a snickering Meg.

“But you’re not," Jeff said. "And even if I used to be involved in the scene, it's not something I need from a partner. I think you’re perfect exactly as you are."

The compliment made Ace fidget and clear his throat. “At least let me try.”

“Alright," Jeff relented. "What’s your safeword?”

“…Well, you see—”

“You don’t even have one, do you?”

“I’m thinking!”

 –

Jeff had never shied away from admitting he was wrong, and he was thrilled when that turned out to be the case with Ace.

As Jeff soon found out, Ace only needed minimal guidance to fall into a more submissive role in bed. Though he was far from passive, Ace was in fact capable of following orders—

"Put your hands against the tree."

"Make me."

—For the most part.

It shouldn't have been a surprise that Ace turned out to be a bratty type of sub. Luckily, Jeff could work with that.

"Hmm," Jeff said. "No, I don't think I will."

If Ace was just going to push back to get some sort of rise out of Jeff, he was fighting a losing battle. Rather than go along with Ace's goading and manhandle him into place or give another smack to the already reddening skin of Ace's ass, Jeff switched his touch to a gentle teasing, his touch feather-light on Ace’s heated skin.

"Wha…?" Ace said. “Come on, I was bad, punish me!”

“Not a very good punishment if you enjoy it more than your reward,” Jeff murmured against the skin of his neck.

He pinned Ace's chest against the tree with his bigger frame, rendering him mostly immobile. Jeff's fingers trailed over a bony hip before ghosting down Ace's leaking shaft, making the gambler feebly attempt to buck up into the touch.

"Nngh, tease," Ace whined. “What happened to the spanking?”

So impatient.

“New rules,” Jeff rumbled. “If you’re good, I’ll make it worth your while. If you’re bad, I’ll slow down until you can’t even think straight.”

Ace grunted in annoyance. "Not fair." His thighs were straining with the effort to grind against Jeff’s hand.

Jeff nosed against the baby hairs on Ace's neck. “Still remember your word?”

“Yeah,” Ace breathed. "Tramposo."

"Very good."

Ace sighed happily at the praise and Jeff smiled over having learned something new.

 –

They settled easily into this new aspect of their relationship. 

But, sometimes, Jeff forgot just how unfamiliar all of it was to Ace.

“That was pretty amazing, not gonna lie," Ace said one such time.

They were both still coming out of their respective headspaces after a successful scene. Ace was lounging on his back, a lazy smile on his face as Jeff carefully cleaned him up with a rag.

Ace's arms were still trembling from being restrained for so long. There were red marks of rope burn on his wrists that Jeff made a mental note to spread some herbal lotion on later.

“I loved it too. The rope was a great idea,” Jeff said. He placed a peck on Ace’s heated forehead before turning away to dispose of the used cloth. 

With his back turned to Ace, he started gathering their discarded clothes throughout the small campsite. As Ace preferred lazing around and enjoying the afterglow, it was usually up to Jeff to take care of cleanup.

Right as he was reaching for Ace's shirt hanging from a nearby tree branch, Jeff heard a choked whimper.

He whipped around, only to find Ace sitting up and staring at his trembling hands, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

“What the fuck—” Ace started with an unsteady voice, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.

Jeff was by his side in an instant and pulled him into his arms.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Jeff said, hugging Ace tight against him. “I shouldn’t have left you alone. I’m so sorry.”

“What’s happening? Why on god's green earth am I bawling?” Ace’s voice was rising in pitch, a panicked edge to it. 

“Shh,” Jeff murmured against Ace’s hairline. “It’s just a sub drop. Completely normal.”

“I’m not a crier, I swear!” Ace tried to argue.

Leave it to Ace to be worried about his ego at a time like this.

“It can happen to anyone,” Jeff reassured. “Just let me hold you and we'll see if it goes away.”

For a moment, Ace tensed and looked like he wanted to protest. But eventually he gave in, collapsing into Jeff's embrace with a broken sob.

Jeff cradled his lover's head and kept talking. “You did so well. You’re perfect, and I love you so much.”

Ace choked back a whine and clutched at Jeff's back.

“Everything’s okay," Jeff murmured. "Take your time. There's no rush."

Jeff kept petting Ace’s hair and pretended not to notice the tears and snot running down his shoulder. Throughout all these years, he'd never seen Ace cry, but had experienced first hand how subspace could do funny things to one's emotions. Regardless, Ace sharing this moment with him felt both precious and fragile.

Once the worst seemed to have passed, Jeff spoke up again. “Talk to me, Ace. How do you feel?”

“It’s so dumb," Ace choked out. A hysteric laugh escaped among the tears. “First I was on cloud nine, everything felt incredible but then… you left, and it was like—like everything came rushing back and I was alone, even though I could see you were right there.”

“That's not dumb,” Jeff said. “I've seen people with years of experience drop much harder for the same reasons. You didn't do anything wrong.”

Ace exhaled heavily against him and, god, Jeff loved him so much.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jeff promised. "I’ll always be here for you, for as long as you want me.”

Ace nodded against Jeff's shoulder and hugged him tighter.

They stayed like that for a good while. Guilt gnawed deep within Jeff's heart, yet he tried not to blame himself. Now he at least had a much better idea of how to properly care for Ace after a scene.

Eventually, Ace pulled away. “Ugh, I’m sorry." He grimaced. “This is pretty embarrassing. Talk about being clingy.”

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about,” Jeff said, kissing Ace's cheek and the dried tears there. “It would take much more than a few tears to make me love you any less."

“You’re such a teddy bear. A big, sappy teddy bear." Ace smiled, poking Jeff's belly playfully. “But thanks. The, uh… the cuddling helped a lot.”

"Of course," Jeff said. "Maybe we should wait before doing something like this again. If that was too intense for you—"

"What?" Ace balked, looking thoroughly offended. "No, nuh-uh, you are not taking this away from me. Just because I happened to cry a little doesn't mean I wanna stop."

Jeff blinked. "You don't?"

"Fuck no!" Ace exclaimed. "Now get back over here and kiss me and promise we're doing this again tomorrow. Because if you don't, I'll tie you up myself, I swear to god."

Jeff chuckled and obediently moved in for a smooch. "That's actually a pretty tempting offer."

At that, Ace's smile morphed into a downright lecherous grin. Jeff merely kissed him again and mentally prepared himself for yet another new step in their relationship.

[bouncingkadachi]

Blessed Rain

Summary: A Hunter’s weapon of choice says a lot about them. OR: Kyle upgrades his weaponry and gets caught red-handed in the act. Luckily (?) for him, only Tsukino seems to know exactly why he's having an emotional crisis over this.

Word count: 3,260

Note(s): set post-game

Also available on AO3!

Kyle’s had his new bow for a good couple of weeks before the feel of the limbs and the weight of the draw became comfortable enough for him to consider upgrading it. If he’s going to be injured, he reasons, he’d rather it be purely by way of monster and not because he pulls a muscle wrestling with a bow that hasn’t been properly broken in. His wallet despairs as he forks over the zenny, but this’ll hopefully let him take on some of the bigger hunts like the ones that Reverto goes on. It’ll all be worth the investment up front once he has his completely finished bow and restocked his coatings and finally drops the last of his coin on a couple new talismans.

He refuses to think about the implications of his reasoning with a literal coin, rolling it around and around his fingers as he pushes through the market throngs towards the smithy’s. Perhaps he ought to have a change of scenery—the fog-shrouded summits of Terga were said to be particularly beautiful at this time of year, and the heat in Lamure was becoming just shy of unbearable.

The final product that the blacksmith puts into his hands when he finally makes it to collect is nothing short of gorgeous. Blessed Rain is sleek where his old Rex bow was bulky, far lighter and certainly not as clunky. The upgrades on the riser gives the entire weapon a pleasant solidness in his hand, yet the delicately reinforced plating on the limbs doesn’t retract at all from its flexibility. The decorative grip protector gleams. Just looking at it makes Kyle excited to shoot.

“Bring her back if you��re finding that you need anything adjusted,” the smith tells him after Kyle’s diligently inspected every inch of the bow. “Kept the poundage the same for you, but added another inch to the draw length like you asked.”

“Thanks,” Kyle says. Eventually, he’d like to work up to the point where he can up the poundage again. Even just another five pounds would be good. He can do most of the hunts in his skill range alone now, but extra firepower would make him just that much more efficient, or that much of a better support for team hunts. 

The smith laughs when Kyle sheepishly admits this. “Well, I always like to help a Hunter improve, and you know where to find me,” he says cheerily, clapping Kyle enthusiastically on the shoulder. “Come by again anytime if you need a tune up or want to test out something new.” 

And with that, he waves Kyle away so that another Hunter can step up, holding a tired-looking sword and shield and looking equally exhausted. “Aye, rookie Hunter?” Kyle hears as he wanders off to find a more relaxed corner of the market in which to admire his new bow some more. “If you’ve got the materials I can repair and upgrade that for you.” The conversation peters out and melts into the general din of the marketplace as Kyle slips into the crowd, taking care to step out of the way of a Felyne carrying an absolutely massive basket groaning with produce. He watches the precarious load totter away, trying and failing to locate Tsukino in the brief respite the parted crowd affords him. They’d split earlier that morning and he hasn’t seen her since.

He still hasn’t managed to find even a whisker of Tsukino’s whereabouts by the time he settles into a decently quiet nook next to a stall selling all manner of spices. Pity, because the dappled light spilling through the colorful drapes of the marketplace catches so beautifully on the milky-white sheen of the bow, and he’d been looking forward to showing it to her. As a Hunter, Kyle will always care more about weapon practicality than aesthetics, but as a normal human being he certainly won’t turn down the opportunity to have both an aesthetically pleasing and perfectly functional weapon. He’s still grinning a little when he goes to strap the bow to his back, and it’s in the process of looking up that his gaze catches onto wide eyes staring plainly at him from across the street. 

He freezes, arm suspended awkwardly halfway to sheathing. His beautiful bow glints damningly in the bright Lamure sunlight as his unexpected friend wades through the throngs of people towards him, gesturing for him to stay put with a wave of her hand that really can’t be mistaken for anything other than a greeting.

“Hey,” he says cautiously and lamely when she finally reaches him. Belatedly, he remembers to lower his arm. He is momentarily thankful that she doesn’t try to reach up for his face in the Mahanan greeting, although his goodwill evaporates when she leans in to inspect his bow, body thrumming with unexplainable anticipation.

“Oh, that’s pretty,” she says finally. Kyle can’t help himself from preening just a little, shifting his grip so that she can get a better look. After all, what was the point of spending all that money and materials if there was no one to excitedly show the end product off to? Besides, it’s been a while since they last saw each other. Last he heard, she had been traveling, keen to finally see the world on her own terms and at her own pace.

“It’s fresh off an upgrade,” he answers smugly. “Easier to handle than the Rex.”

“Slightly less intimidating though,” she chimes in, and Kyle bristles, not liking where this conversation is going. And true to form, she goes in for the kill: “Mizutsune? I recognize the plating.”

Kyle can feel the flush crawling up to his ears. Logically, he knows that there’s nothing for him to be embarrassed about. It’s a mark of good smithing that one can tell at a glance which monster a weapon was inspired by, and a Mizutsune was both powerful and extremely iconic. This bow in particular had good stats and the ability to fire rapidly, which admittedly took him some time to get used to after focusing mostly on piercing shots. The paralysis coating that works so well on this bow has also already saved his skin on more than one occasion. There is little more a career Hunter can ask for out of his weapon. It’s not like he’d been heading out to Pomore Garden at any given opportunity and holding onto an increasing multitude of Mizutsune materials just because he wanted some physical reminder of what was probably the most pivotal moment of his life, something that never failed to put a very complicated and jumbled mess of emotions deep within his chest whenever he thought back to it.

He’s starting to feel very, very hot under his collar. The sun is terrible. He resolves that his next big hunt really needs to be somewhere outside of Lamure.

His friend, however, just looks more and more baffled as he launches into an unprompted defense of his newest purchase. Every time she opens her mouth, Kyle talks a little faster. Eventually, she doesn’t even bother trying to interject, which is arguably worse, because instead she just looks progressively more and more thoughtful. Kyle wished desperately for Tsukino to peel away from whatever hidey hole she was tucked in. Then, his train of thought screeches into a rude and abrupt halt.

“What,” he croaks. “What are you doing.”

One of her brows quirks up. “I sure hope your eyes are still working because that’d be a detriment to your job,” she says plainly. “What does it look like I’m doing? I promise it’s not a trick question.”

What she’s doing is holding Kyle’s hand—the one not clutching his new bow—the one that had apparently been waving about with increasing agitation as he jabbered on and on. What Kyle doesn’t understand is why. It’s not like he just did some impressive shot to give them the edge in a battle or anything else that was cool and hand-holding worthy. He’d just been yammering about bow mechanics, and maybe embarrassingly dipping into his talisman hopes and dreams. He stares a little helplessly at his trapped hand. Her kinship stone winks up at him.

“Look,” she says patiently, when it becomes very clear that Kyle is going to need a moment before he can get his brain back online. “There’s nothing wrong with a bow made from Mizutsune parts and I am the last person who will ever turn down pretty things. What I was going to say was that this is an interesting departure from your whole—” She pauses, as though looking for a specific word. “Well, your whole image as a very grown-up and serious and intimidating Hunter or whatever it was you were trying to convey with that scowl you used to like so much. And you weren’t letting me get a single word in.”

“You’re getting plenty of words in now,” Kyle scowls, just to be contrary. “And I’ve grown since then.”

“Someone’s in a mood today.” She smiles, crinkle-eyed, up at him. Kyle very seriously debates wrenching his hand out of her hold like he did the last time this happened and then pointedly doesn’t act on the impulse.

“Why’re you in Lulucion?” he asks instead with a truly remarkable level of self-restraint. “Thought you’d never want to come back again after what happened.”

She shrugs, the greatsword on her back heaving with the movement. “Guess I’ve grown too,” she says loftily, though she sobers quickly. “I was actually visiting my grandfather. He used to go back to Mahana around this time of year… he can’t do it anymore of course but I’ve got Ratha now, so I figured I could do it instead. And then I figured I’d stop by Rutoh before going home, to see Ena and Alwin and wheedle a few more stories out of them.”

She lets go of Kyle’s hand. He tries not to miss it. “Even Ratha can’t make the trip in one go, and Lulucion was closest, so we’re stopping to rest. I dropped by the Scrivener’s Lodge earlier because I was hoping Reverto could give me a few weapon pointers as I’ve saved up just about enough for an upgrade, but they told me that he was out on an urgent mission and wouldn’t be back for a while.”

“Oh,” Kyle says, a little stung that she hadn’t come specifically to see him first, out of all the Hunters in the city. He’s slightly mollified when she grins at him, though.

“And then I met Tsukino by the cannons. She said I could find you here, so here I am.”

“I don’t know anything about greatswords,” Kyle blurts out, and immediately wants to kick himself. She blinks at him, and then bursts into laughter.

“I was just going to ask the smith,” she wheezes when she’s got herself somewhat back under control. “Can’t I see a friend just to say hi to him anymore?” Kyle stares very intently down at some of the finer detailing on his bow.

“Where is my Palico anyway?” he finally settles on, falling into a tried and true grumble. “I haven’t seen her all day.”

She waves her hand vaguely in the air. “Navirou said something about getting donuts. I wasn’t really listening.”

But there was a donut stand right here in the marketplace, Kyle wanted to cry out. He should have seen Tsukino by now if they’d really been going to buy snacks! And how was it possible that he had missed Navirou in his entirety, between the Felyne’s penchant for wearing ridiculous little outfits and his inability to shut up?

“Why? You have a hunt you need to run off to?” 

“Yes,” Kyle says hotly. It’s a lie. He’d accepted a subquest that wouldn’t depart until later that evening for the sole purpose of testing out his new weapon in a relatively stress-free environment. Before that, he’d just planned on hitting up the shooting range in the training arena to break in the new string. His schedule was very, very free. Tsukino was perfectly aware of that.

His eyes widened. Tsukino had been with him on every excursion into the Gardens. She went where he did (usually), and it’s not like Kyle would ever begrudge her a visit home. But she’d been with him every step of every single Mizutsune job he’d ever taken—had watched him craft traps when he needed to capture and had kept watch for opportunists hoping to sneak up as he’d carved. She’d been the one who’d recommended the spinner for all the excess purplefur he was ending up with. At first, he’d simply thought that she’d wanted the thread to mend some of her own items, or to send back home to her brethren, but instead she’d tucked each skein of vibrant, silk-soft thread into the bottom of his pouch with gentle paws, cryptically talking about how strong a material it was, and how nice it looked when woven. Kyle has never touched a loom in his life, but now he’s looking at someone who he definitely knows has.

His stomach drops. Hadn’t Tsukino looked particularly smug ever since he’d lingered on the blueprints for Blessed Rain after getting a look at its stats and required materials?

“She got me,” he groans. His friend just looks at him bemusedly, though perhaps with a touch of wariness at his ferocious frown. Hastily, he tacks on: “It’s nothing. I, uh—I just remembered that I needed to tell Tsukino something. Important. Later, when I find her again.”

“Alright,” she says, though she doesn’t quite look like she believes him. “A quest’s a quest, though, so I won’t keep you here. The bow really is pretty though. I know I just said it doesn’t match your image and all but I really don’t think you can go wrong with something you like. You’ve got the skills for it, anyway.”

“Thanks,” he croaks, feeling a little overwhelmed. He manages two whole steps out of the nook before he pauses, worrying at his lower lip. “Actually,” he says sharply, spinning around on his heel and nearly causing his friend to startle right into a spice display. “How long are you staying for?”

“However long it’ll take to upgrade my sword, I guess,” she says after she collects herself, the words lilting into a question. “Three days or so, I guess?” She skirts nervously away from the glaring vendor, careful not to overbalance on her greatsword.

“Cool,” Kyle says with a nod, steeling himself. “Great, even. Look, how about this. Your last visit to Lulucion was terrible—” an understatement, “—so when I get back from my hunt I’ll show you some of the better sights Lulucion has to offer. There’s a hole in the wall that I think you’ll like. Dad used to take me after hunts—they grill really nice queen shrimp. And the parapets—you can climb them, and they’ve got all these little carvings in the stone that you can search for like a scavenger hunt.” He’s keenly aware that he’s rambling again, but she looks interested, so he barrels on. “I’ll come pick you up tomorrow just as soon as I can get a nap in. We can stay in the city or take Ratha out to the Barrens, down by the water. Just make a day of it.” He’s pretty certain that he looks at her with something akin to hope as she considers. It feels like a lifetime before she finally comes to a decision. 

“I want to take Ratha out in the evening,” she says finally. “I don’t want him to be cooped up too long here ever again.”

“Yeah,” Kyle breathes out, the word rushing out of him in a flood of relief. “Yeah, I can work around that.” She beams at him.

“I’ll look forward to it,” she says, sincere and looking more than a little surprised despite herself at the prospect of looking forward to doing anything in Lulucion. “I’m staying at the inn closest to the stables. Pretty sure I’m the only Rider there currently so they’ll know who I am.” Kyle nods, and lets himself get his hand squeezed again, though not without her hands first hovering in an instinctual bid for his cheeks before she remembers herself.

“Good luck on your hunt. If I see Tsukino I’ll let her know you’re looking for her.”

“She’ll show up in due time,” he mutters darkly. “I’ll let you know if Reverto gets back early or if he’s just been loafing around this entire time. For your next upgrade or whatever.” She laughs, bright, and then slips off into the crowd to wrestle her way into the smithy’s queue. Kyle is left staring in her wake before his gaze is drawn back down to his bow.

“This is all your fault,” he tells it. Predictably, it doesn’t answer. Also predictably, Tsukino takes that exact moment to drop down from seemingly nowhere. 

“I didn’t know we had another job lined up,” the Felyne says delicately, carefully brushing crumbs off of her coat. Kyle groans, sheathing his weapon.

“Don’t tease me,” he huffs. “I’m going to the shooting range. Are you coming?”

“Hmm,” says Tsukino. “I suppose I can spare the time.”

“Of course you can spare the time!” Kyle hisses, indignant. “You just spent the day eating donuts and eavesdropping!” He pointedly doesn’t look towards the smithy, where his friend was patiently browsing the display while another Hunter was getting their hammer looked at.

“One must always be prepared with the latest intel,” Tsukino says mildly. “I’m glad the upgrade went well.” 

“It’s got good stats,” Kyle protests weakly in what is quickly becoming a tired argument. “The rapid shots have been going very well. And I had a surplus of Mizutsune parts.”

 “Yes,” his hunting partner agrees readily enough. “Have you thought of what you’re going to do with the thread?”

“This conversation is finished,” Kyle says abruptly, making a very determined push towards the market’s exit. “Either come or don’t, so long as we meet at the gate for tonight’s hunt.”

Tsukino looks at him with exasperated fondness, which is frankly a little insulting, but readily falls into step next to him. Kyle wonders how many rounds he’s going to have to shoot in order to clear his head again and rid it of thoughts of Hazepetal Garden or Mizutsune or high-grade thread that he’ll never use himself. He’ll examine them again someday—because he’s not a coward—but that day is most certainly not today.

He does his rounds in the training arena and marvels at the way the string slides off his fingers with a satisfying twang, even though it’ll still be a good few days before it’s fully broken in to his liking. Tsukino’s saved him a donut, the cakey sweet sticky with honey and practically melting in his mouth. He’s got some free time even after stocking up for the evening hunt, so he takes a few minutes to browse the quest board, taking careful note of the jobs that were situated near the Harzgai Rocky Hill, or the ones from further afield in Alcala that’ll take him closer to Rutoh. And when he leaves the city, he pointedly doesn’t look up at the familiar shape circling in the dusky sky, even as he knows that they’ll surely see the last rays of the setting sun winking off of the plates of his bow like a beacon.

[littlebigmouse]

I'm thinking about the Big Bang Job and again and like-

I don't think Hardison is mad at Eliot for almost drowning in that pool. Yes, he was probably freaking out in six different ways, but if Hardison made a list of Top Three Reasons To Be Mad At Eliot For Today, the pool wouldn't even show up on the list, or make a tentative third place tops.

The primary reason Hardison is angry with Eliot? Lack of communication. Because Eliot spend six months being prissy with Sophie for "conning her own crew" by withholding information about the Second David, and then turns around and spends six months withholding information about their mark. Because even when it was clear that they were finally going up against Moreau, Eliot stood quietly. He announced that Hardison and him would take care of the invitation, watched Hardison come up with a plan how to get in, and still didn't say anything. There was presumably a bit of a drive to the hotel, and Eliot said nothing. They were standing by the door, Hardison already trying to get through the first line of security with his plan, and then Eliot starts derailing the plan, as bare-bones as it is, and still doesn't explain anything. Hardison spends the elevator ride down hissing questions at Eliot, but doesn't get an answer or a signal or anything, which is granted the point at which an explanation was long overdue and not really possible anymore.

I don't think Hardison thought Eliot had betrayed him, he still plays his part and probably puts enough of the puzzle together just from the brief interaction he catches between Eliot and Moreau ("He prefers beer"). I don't think he blamed Eliot for getting kicked into the pool, was probably still counting on Eliot to get him out in time. because Hardison can think of plenty of reasons why Eliot wouldn't've wanted to tell them anything, but even more reasons why he should have anyway.

The first thing Hardison does once they're out of Moreau's earshot? Ask for reassurance. Extend an olive branch. He tells Eliot how he got more air and asks whether that was Eliot's plan. It's something Nate would have done, probably, get Hardison into the impossible situation and rely on him getting himself out of it, make that part of the plan. Hardison is freaked, but he isn't angry yet. It's an implied "I did the thing, did I do good? That was part of your plan?" Maybe even "You counted on me getting out of there in one piece, right?" And Eliot, all angry and prickly and vulnerable dismisses Alec, admits, under a layer of sarcasm, that there wasn't a plan, he had no idea Hardison would suck air out of a chair, dismisses his request for reassurance.

Now, the next time we see the two? Hardison is furious. They reunite with the rest of the group and Hardison just bites out "Tell them".

I think it's safe to assume that even after they got out of the hotel, they spend the drive back in silence. Or at least, Hardison asking questions until he realizes Eliot still won't give him answers, Eliot all frustrated himself, just telling Hardison to shut up. Maybe Hardison didn't ask questions and was waiting for Eliot to start talking, start explaining what just happened. Eliot remaining still, and stoic and still not saying a word.

That's why Hardison is angry after the pool scene. Because Eliot had had all these opportunities to open up and explain vital information, trust Hardison with it, and didn't. Even after the fact. Because Eliot betrayed his trust, plain and simple, and didn't even have a plan to show for it. No exit strategy. And they could have come up with one for sure, had Eliot just given them the intel. If not six months ago, then when they split up to start taking down Moreau. If not then, then on the way to the hotel the latest. But Eliot didn't, and didn't even explain after the fact, not until the crew was all reunited again and Hardison's suit dry. Not until Hardison, fuming with anger, hissed at him to "Tell them."

[ Because Eliot may have counted the seconds, but he had no idea how Hardison would keep himself alive, and by all accounts, Hardison, an untrained geek, who can hold his breath for thirty seconds and significantly less if freaking out, wouldn't have survived the encounter according to Eliot's calculations. ]

And honestly? I'm disappointed there never was a follow up. Hardison seems to deflate once Eliot opens up even the tiniest bit ("Don't ask me that, Parker"). He probably gets why Eliot didn't say anything, understands not wanting to bring up memories on a scale of bad he can imagine but will never be through. And then he's busy with a bomb either way. But just because Hardison understands doesn't mean they shouldn't have talked about it again, because after three years of friendship and trust, after months of shared frustration over Sophie, and then Nate, conning them, after "You don't con your own crew", Eliot still didn't tell Hardison anything until it was too late. And even then only gave a sliver of intel once the rest of the crew started pressuring him about it too.

And yeah, that should have left more repercussions than it did.

[fantasyinvader]

Because of what's been on my dash these last couple of days, I just want to say the following.

Is there a place for Death of the Author, the idea that what a piece says to the individual is more important than what the author intended to say? Absolutely. There is absolutely a place for such kinds of analysis and takes, as people don't always have access to what the creators were thinking when they made something. If the creator can't get their intended meaning across to the audience, than that's a failing on their part in my opinion.

For instance, Gundam IBO tried to be meta with it's themes. In-universe, the actions of it's protagonists are whitewashed by one of their allies who made them out to be heroes. Fair enough right there, and works nicely with the idea that the show is encouraging it's audience to question what they are being told rather than simply going along with it.  But when the show withholds information from the audience, information that is vital to understanding what is going on, in order to whitewash their actions out of universe? People are going to be less accepting of that, especially when it's been admitted by one of it's producers that they deliberately attempted to make the show look as black and white as possible. Granted, Japan seemed to be less supportive of Tekkadan from what I've heard over the years so this might be a cultural thing and the show had it's intended effect domestically, so there's that. But I also know enough guys who say the creator didn't know what they were doing, and would have preferred a less meta narrative.

But anyway, back to the point at hand. Yes, what Crimson Flower makes people feel shouldn't be dismissed entirely. But, and this a big but here, Death of the Author doesn't mean you can disregard canon. It doesn't mean that you can make things up to support your own feelings towards it. Because this part is important here, Crimson Flower does not make up the entirity of Fire Emblem Three Houses. It's literally the route with the least amount of content.

Like, you can't say the game says this or that it says that when you're intentionally altering it to suit your needs. That's not how literary analysis works.

And that's what this really is, we need to look at everything in the game to get a grasp of what Edelgard's character actually is. What we don't need is to make excuses for her. What we don't need is to turn a blind eye to her less favorable aspect. Because let me put it bluntly, the person who I see a lot of people defending isn't Edelgard. The Teacher Theory, created by someone who refused to accept Edelgard would do anything he did not approve of, is so trashed by reading the script of the game that TV Tropes of all places refuses to humor it.

And that's really what the issue is, isn't it? People want the story to say what they want it to say, want to feel what they want to feel, and to do this they disregard the story. Stuff like “the lore in other routes isn't canon to CF,” or “who the Flame Emperor is should change based on the route.” Like, they are legit uncomfortable with what Edelgard is doing or what they support when held up against the context of the rest of the game. That they have to create all these fanfictions in order to justify what she is doing, refusing to accept when they\re misconceptions are proven false, and then playing the victim when called out on it.

Edelgard is not the heroine.

Azure Moon does not restore the status quo.

The game was written to support the route where the Church is the good guy in the fight.

Edelgard is a liar and manipulative.

The Empire is fighting for conquest and genocide.

All of these and more are what is supported by the script, the things the player is supposed to take away. The fact that players refuse, absolutely refuse to acknowledge these things and instead resort to this fantasy version of the game? That's them denying the game it's own intended meaning. It's them not accepting what they are really doing. It's them rejecting Edelgard for some creepy waifu clone they have of her.

And most of all, it's them being children. It’s been two years, can we please start acknowledging these bad takes for what they are and instead look at the actual game in our hands?

[diary-of-deadweight]

Suggested by @t-amajiki

Marvel: how Peter and the readers relationship are before and after he reveals he’s Spider-Man.

Before the reveal:

This puppy dog of a man was ridding off the high of having asked you, the person of his dreams, out that during missions he as a few close class if it wasn’t for his ‘spidey tingle’ as aunt May put it.

Which meant he got scolded by dad!Tony, who might’ve gained one too many grey hairs from his recklessness.

Peter was going to be the death of him he swore it much to the avengers amusement and Peter’s embarrassment.

He would blush whenever you kisses his cheek

He would stammer when he saw you wearing something of his, it was the cutest thing his eyes ever saw

He would always stare at you in whatever classes you had together cuz he’s a lovesick puppy, it did earn him several scoldings from the teachers but he didn’t care, he just wanted to see you smile that bedazzled smile more often even when you thought it was hideous.

He encourages you to do a lot of things you wanted to do but didn’t have the confidence to. He’s super supportive.

You would be there on the anniversary of uncle Ben’s death to offer him comfort and reassurance that he would be proud of the person peter is today without a shadow of a doubt about it.

Whenever he wasn’t scheduled for future missions and he was up to date with homework he would always invite you over for a sleep over.

He bribed you with excessive cuddles, kisses, his baggy jumpers he’d knows you die for, pizza and a movie marathon of your choice. The boy was whipped to a T.

Needless to say you caved because who would pass up a goldmine like that accompanied by a cutie like Peter? You wouldn’t, you couldn’t.

Peter would feel ashamed in keeping a part of himself away from you when you promised to not withhold information from one another

but then he remebered why he with held this vital piece of information from you.

In order to protect you from the people who would, without hesitation, hurt you in order to get to him in the most heinous of ways.

He couldn’t afford to do that to you, more importantly he couldn’t do that to himself. He had already amassed a lot of losses that he didn’t want to add you to that body count, it would break his already fragile heart.

Ned and MJ pretty much approved of the relationship when it started off as totally-not-creepy- admiration stares across the room from two lovesick idiots, they would make bets on who would do what first.

MJ won most of those bets, without question.

Peter knew that his last night escapes would go under heavy suspicions from you and rightfully so, there would be a time where his excuses run their course dry.

He didn’t want you thinking he was cheating but...what could he do when his confessions aren’t enough?

So for now you’d continue being the cutest couple everyone wishes to be.

After reveal:

“Why didn’t you tell me Peter?” You asked with an calm, cold voice, your face completely devoid of any emotions, of the smile that would brighten his life even if it was just for a fraction of a second; It was the smile he’d treasure more then anything but right now he didn’t deserve that blinding flash of pearly whites in this moment with what he had hidden from you for a good proportion of your relationship. He knew he wasn’t going to be as trusted as he was when the relationship began after this.

The damned red and blue suit that would bring him a sense of joy now only brought him a sense of dread as it laid upon his mattress, mocking him for his faults.

“I wanted to protect you,” he cried out, voice cracking from the raw emotions,“to protect you from the people who would hurt me through you!” Tears brimmed the doe eyes you’ve fell in love with but now...you weren’t so sure anymore...you scoffed, unable to believe what you were hearing right now, not really seeing any reason to take his words for granted when he could be lying to your face more.

“I’m sorry to break it to you but your reality and mine are one in the same, I’m going to get hurt one way or another. Whether it’s by you, me or someone else,” you stepped closer to the now silent boy, voice lowered to a whisper, “I’m still gonna get hurt but hey, that’s what makes me more human then most.”

You both stood there in silence for a while that felt like forever, refusing the break eye contact with one another as you let your words work their paralytic affect while you questioned where you should go from here with your relationship knowing damn well that there was going to be mistrust lingering overhead going forward, painfully becoming more and more apparent the longer the silence lasted.

You phone went off, notifying that your ride was here, ready to take you back to the comfort of your home. “That’s my ride,” you broke the tense tension, reading up to adjust the strap upon your shoulder, coughing awkwardly when Peter didn’t say anything, keeping his eyes glued to the socks and his hands toying at the sleeves of his jacket. Seeing that there was no need to stay any longer then you already had, you turned on your heel and made your way to the bedroom door, silently hoping he’d do something to stop you so when he didn’t it fractured your heart more, “goodbye Peter.”

With that you shut the door behind you softly, you knew he only meant well but as for right now it was probably the best if you spent sometime apart to recess your relationship.

[wickedgamesoyaoya]

Amnesia - Hearts ~ Aug 4.

Malignant emptiness had secured reign over your heart. Slowly it spread throughout your system, beginning its quest to contaminate the liquid coursing through your veins. Not a single atom would be spared – each memory attached to your skin would be vanquished. The simplest touches to the warmth of your best friend, nothing would remain. Any efforts to combat the virus plaguing you was futile; you were no match for the craftsmanship of an ethereal being. As your final memory was seized by the excruciating cleanse, the person you once were ceased to exist. Born anew, y/n, welcome to your game.

The sound of foreign voices engaged in casual conversation had jolted awake your dormant senses. Due to your malfunctioning hippocampus, your face had naturally scrunched up as fragments of still-shots flickered inside of your head, resembling a filmstrip with numerous punctures. The only image that persisted long after the others incinerated was of a bed-headed male crouched on a staircase, with his face buried in his hands. It was the same male that regarded you with such concern the second your eyelids had fluttered open.

“She’s awake.” Within seconds, the droopy eyed stranger was at your side, his irises searched yours for any sign of injury, while yours struggled to retain any recognition. “Hey, y/n. How are you feeling?”

That was a valid question, one you were not prepared to answer, not because you did not want to. But because you did not know the answer yourself.

Groggily you pressed your hands on either side of the single mattress, as your elbows threatened to cave in, Kuroo slid an arm around you, stabilizing your movements. Behind him Makoto released a sigh, locating a hand to her forehead as she mumbled a comment about her blood-pressure.

Your heart skipped an involuntary beat the second his fingers connected with the fabric draped over your skin. The sensation, however, was prompted by fear, rather than fondness. Kuroo, who had felt your muscles tense, had removed his arm after confirming you were steady.

“Y/n, honey. Can you say something?” Makoto proceeded a cautious step closer, with a reassuring smile on her lips. “Are you in pain?”

Your y/e/c irises focused on the black-haired girl’s ensemble, searching for any indication of where you were or who you were with. A nametag had revealed her identity along with their location – Jack Rose. A small ache developed in your temples as you repeated the café’s name, striving to instigate any recollection. Using two fingers, you applied pressure to the throbbing location, with your gaze settling on your own uniform. Y/n – employee of Jack Rose was sewn into the right corner.

The reality of the situation was beginning to dawn on you. From what you could gather, something had occurred during your shift and now you were experiencing a form of amnesia. Miraculously, the realization had not thrown you into a state of distress. The memories would come back, they would have to... You just needed a trigger.

“I’m okay. Um…Where’s my phone?” The sound of your own voice had startled you – a fact that had chipped away at the little hope you were clinging to. How could you forget yourself? What had happened to you…?

If there was anything that would kick-start your mental processes, it would be past photos or videos. For now, it was vital to discover your relationship to the three people gawking at you.

“She’s asking for her phone, how typical. She’s fine.” Makoto clicked her tongue in distaste, while fetching the device from her apron pocket. “You dropped it when you fainted, silly bird.” She then lobbed the phone towards your lap.

“I don’t know…I still think we shoul’ take her to the hospital.” From the very moment he arrived, Atsumu’s attention had remained secured on you. The older male was tracking your every movement to form mental notes that he could relay if need be to a physician. “What do ya think, ‘surou?”

“If she won’t answer our questions, then we have no choice.” Kuroo’s response did not register as your attention was solely on the smart device held within your palm. The quest to discover your identity began with Twitter – your profile to be exact.

It was strange to say the least to read over your inner thoughts with no recollection. Twitter was in some forms the new generations version of a dairy. What had you meant about acting on your feelings? Feelings for what? Or feelings for who? The guessing game was brought to a pause as an incoming message demanded your attention.

It’s not safe…? The three simple words had punctured your lungs, the air within the confines of the lunchroom could no longer be accepted. Dread etched across your chest, yet the small voice in your head directed you to present yourself as collected.

“Y/n?” Suddenly the blonde male had a palm over your forehead to assess whether you had a fever. During your little exploration, Makoto had exited the room and only the two boys remained.

“I’m fine, guys. But I am a bit tired, do you think I could go home?” A weary smile was forced onto your lips to verify the truth of your words –but it failed to convince either of them.

“You already worked a shift today; I can help in the kitchen. It’s alrigh’. Take her home. But if she doesn’t feel any better, take her to the hospital.” Atsumu lifted his shoulders into a short shrug, the response was evidently directed at the black-haired male who agreed with a nod.

“Okay, let’s go.”

* * *

The journey home was laced with silence, outside of the occasional inquiries from the younger male on your health. He was insistent, you mentally noted, but also endearing. Before leaving Jack Rose, you skimmed through your contacts and following to ascertain the names of those closest to you. The one from earlier was Atsumu – the person you had tweeted about. The girl was Makoto, your co-worker and perhaps one of your best friends. The person who was currently staring at you questionably was Tetsurou. At one point a spark of longing had flashed in his irises, only increasing the guilt hovering over you for forgetting his existence.

Well, if it made him feel any better, you also forgot your own –

“Oi. Where are you going?” Kuroo’s fingers tangled with the fabric of your collar, tugging you a few steps back as you accidentally missed the entrance of your building. “Did you forget where you lived?” The latter part of the sentence was spoken through a slightly higher pitch, demonstrating his growing concern.

“Oh, sorry. I was lost in thought.” Artificial laughter bubbled in your throat, irritating your tonsils in the process.

“If something was wrong, you would tell me, right?” His hands found refuge in his jacket pockets, yet his gaze did not waver from yours. Your attempts to reassure him were once again dismissed instantly. Withholding the truth from him was beginning to become more difficult, and you were unsure whether you could – he was incredibly perceptive.

“Yes… I promise. After some sleep, I’ll be brand-new.” Or so you hoped.

“Okay. I’m going to hold you to that.” Truthfully, there was nothing you could say to ease his concerns. But a promise would suffice for now. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Fifteen minutes. Fifteen whole minutes until you were able to determine what apartment number was yours. The task would have been much simpler if you checked your ubereats account rather than scrolling through your messages. A small sliver of hope had ignited within your heart when you twisted the key in the lock, perhaps seeing your apartment would trigger a memory or two. Anything would be helpful at this point; you were sincerely grasping at straws.

Instantly any hope that lingered deflated, only to be replaced with frustration. Answers – you needed answers. Retrieving your phone from your bag, you tapped on messages and alerted the one person who knew about your predicament that you were home.

No, this could not be happening. An elaborate joke, maybe, but not the truth. How could you digest this information – how could anyone? A sob clogged the back of your throat as fear washed over your system. Desperate to confirm you were simply stuck in a warped nightmare, you forced yourself to search the apartment for anything that would make sense. If you had to accept this reality, how could you arm yourself without your memories? Who was friend or foe?

It was only when you crumpled onto the ground in defeat when your eyes landed on a charm glimmering under your bedframe. Attached to the dazzling piece was… a dairy. Instinctively, your fingers brushed along the cover before tugging on the string to where the latest entry was written.

                                                                                                             Aug 3rd.

One day will it be different…? Will he wake up and see me differently? Or am I destined to feel this way forever? Ah, unrequited love, the subject of many Shakespearian stories and the source of my latest dilemma. Could he come to love me? See me beyond a sister-figure? The question remains unanswered… and I doubt I shall ever know it. And so, I welcome this bittersweet misery.

Ew, this sounds like a cheesy poem, not a diary entry. I feel sorry for my future self, having to read this garbage. But my problem remains. To be or to not be? Just kidding, this isn’t Hamlet. To tell one of my childhood best friends that I love him or to not? I guess not.

 Amnesia - Hearts ~ Aug 4.

Masterlist - Previous - Next

A/N: I really hope the formatting on this didn’t fuck up. someone pls let me know if it did. 

Tag-list: @kara-grayson04 @namyari , @cuddlesslut , @iloveanime691 @shakiraisawesome @idiot-juice-enthusiast@fangirling-25-8 @krynnza @yetchann @chxrry-wxne​ @tsukiak4ri​

[foxy-pawsy]

I think part of the problem is that there is a very vocal group of people saying that Ironwood did nothing wrong and that RWBY are in the wrong for not backing him

I agree. There's definitely a lot of infighting going on regarding Ironwood's actions, that's certain. And I can assure you, it's all based out of morality and opinion.

But what seems to be forgotten is that Ironwood's actions are completely logical based on what he knows and RWBY and co. withholding information.

But he's not the villain a lot of people seem to think he is; Salem and Team WTCH are. He's a good man- everything we've been shown points to that. It's his actions in v7 that lead up to his fall from grace, and thus, makes him a potential antagonist to Teams RWBY, JNR, and the others. And it's my opinion that he's making the worst decisions for the best goal: defending against Salem; with the information he has at the time and while under attack.

We as a fandom have to remember the circumstances. Salem's goal is to break Humankind and Faunuskind by dividing them.

Ironwood prioritized Atlas' safety because it houses the Staff of Creation, the Winter Maiden, and the Amity Communications tower.

She knew that he'd prioritize Atlas, and thus, leave Mantle vulnerable to Watts' and Tyrian's influence and actions. She knew that after the Fall, Ironwood would go to extremes to prevent Salem's plots. Salem planned the destruction of Solitas' border defenses when all attention would be directed to evacuating Mantle and defending against Grimm. Salem even planned Watts' and Tyrian's causing chaos, because they go to Atlas/Mantle to prepare for Salem.

Although it's Cinder that places the glass, queen chess piece on Ironwood's desk- it all suits Salem's goal because the queen chess piece was her way of letting him know that she was steps ahead of him, and there the entire time.

His having a PTSD break is due entirely to him realizing that all his countermeasures played to Salem's plans. That she accounted for everything he could have possibly done. Because she is steps ahead of them.

It's all according to Salem's plans.

Ironwood's shooting Oscar, while horrible because he's a child and undeserving, makes total sense.

He's distanced himself from his emotions, because that's not going to help him defend against Salem when she's already winning. And it's because vital information was withheld from him. Information that he needed to know in order to better defend against Salem. And while Oscar goes to meet with Ironwood in the vault in order to talk things down, it's all the worse because Ironwood had trusted them, and had it backfire in the worst way.

And he puts warrants out for everyone's arrest because he's trying to win the war. Because that's what this is: a war. Yes, RWBY and co. are right by wanting to prevent casualties, but he's stuck thinking in war perspective.

A lot of those in the fandom are jumping to conclusions and letting their emotions cloud their judgments.

Do I think that RWBY and co. are in the wrong for not backing him up?

No, because they have the right idea in mind. Ironwood's only serves to further Salem's advantage. It'll divide them, just like she wants. And RWBY and co. were right in not knowing whether or not to trust him; Leo sold out Mistral to Salem. And Ozpin hid so much more than they knew (I have my feelings about that too, though).

Am I defending his actions?

No. They're horrible decisions, but they're deeply based in logic and circumstance.

But do I think that he's a highly complex character? And do I like his character despite his actions?

Yes. I love his character. He's one of my favorites.

And I will throw down.

I'm tired of the majority of the fandom claiming that we, who like his character and aren't harming anyone with our opinions, are "bootlickers" and "fascists".

I'm tired of people using his PTSD as a weapon against him as a character, and not take into account the entirety of what's at stake and is happening. And I say this because I've come across this in the fandom.

And I'm f-ing pissed that the fandom's even considering that as a point of contention, that mental illness automatically makes a character a show's equivalent of the devil.

Because that's so hateful to those of us with mental illnesses.

That's hateful to people like me.

[ryanmeft]

Movie Review: Under the Silver Lake

Under the SIlver Lake is pointless. By that I don’t mean that it lacks a plot, which it does, or that it doesn’t go where I think it should, which for me is a non-issue. I mean there’s no reason for the film to exist. Perhaps there was at one point: the central premise seems to be a revival of the sin-drenched old Hollywood noir, mixed with the hallucinatory sensibilities of David Lynch and a bit of the low-budget wackiness of Terry Gilliam. The end result is a hodge-podge of images, as if someone woke up from a dream and wrote it down as was. I can relate. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve woke from a surreal dream thinking “That’ll make a hell of a story”, only to write it out and look at it and realize it only sounded good in my head. David Robert Mitchell may have had that kind of dream, and never hit the point where he looked at it all printed out and said “This needs an editor.” We open with Sam (Andrew Garfield), a pointless 30-something living in a suburb of Los Angeles. His life consists of easy, meaningless sex, conspiracy theories, fawning calls from his mother and failing to pay the rent. His neighbor, Sarah (Riley Keough) is clearly intended as the traditional femme fatale: rebellious, mysterious, hard to get a bead on. The first time he meets her in person and not through a pair of binoculars, she emerges in mild slow motion, in a close up that calls back to every mystery dame that ever walked through a detective’s office door. Sam and Sarah get high, talk about life, and the next day she’s vanished and her apartment is empty. So far, so good. With previous mentions of a local dog killer and sun-drenched details of down-and-out life in seedy California, Mitchell has established his tone and set us up for a nice mystery. 

The trouble here is that a good mystery movie has to be explicable; the trick should be invisible at first but incredibly obvious when you look back on it. Almost as soon as Sarah disappears, the film drifts off into a series of tenuously related images and stories. A billionaire daredevil vanishes. A band called “Jesus and the Brides of Dracula” plays at drug-infused parties. A girl dances with balloons on her skin suit. A local conspiracy theorist and ‘zine author presents theories about a naked female serial killer in an owl mask and hidden messages in music---you know, Paul is Dead kind of stuff. A prostitution ring employs failed actresses. A man appears claiming to be the king of hobos. A topless neighbor’s parrot may be saying something important. There are many skunks.

It’s not possible for the viewer to thread all this together into a cohesive list of relevant facts. That wouldn’t be a problem if the movie presented itself as simply an ode to the oddballness of Lynch and Gilliam; if that’s what you’re looking for, you’ll get it, and in spades. The Homeless King, in particular, clearly owes much to Gilliam’s The Fisher King, while the aimless depictions of L.A.’s largely identifier-free landscape are an ode to Mulholland Drive. To court such influences is to play with fire, and indeed, Mitchell loses himself after a while, the images themselves becoming more important than anything they might be meant to convey. Still, that’s a feature, not a bug, for Gilliam and Lynch fans. The film has instead been held up more as a successor to an older tradition; posters on walls and TVs film-drop everything from Psycho to Farewell to Arms to How To Marry a Millionaire, and silent/classic-era actress Janet Gaynor is a frequent-but-unexplained presence. The legacy of the best of old Hollywood was not that of murky, ill-defined plots and obtuse meditations on life, however. The noirs Mitchell seeks to emulate were sleek affairs, ones in which the mystery ultimately made sense and you could discern it if you were paying attention. The answers were constructed out of information the audience was given, and clever eyes could put them together. Mitchell instead opts to withhold vital facts until he’s ready to reveal them, in effect tasking you with solving a puzzle but keeping half the pieces in the box. He cheats also with the camera, visually portraying things that either don’t really exist or are not parts of the puzzle, frequently and deliberately confusing dreams with reality until we’re not even sure that anything we see is real. There is a certain audience out there who will praise that, some who will claim to have found un-findable answers, or even those who say the film’s flaws don’t matter because it is about the art.

I find these defenses unsatisfying, for one simple reason: even if you forgive the film’s lack of direction, it simply isn’t good, and that’s a standard even indie darlings have to meet. Mitchell’s previous film was the tightly-directed, always-tense horror thriller It Follows, which also had an unsolvable mystery but which did not seek to cheat the audience. Even scenes which, in the end, are revealed by screenwriting convenience to have been important are themselves jarring and off-putting. Witness the bit where Sam confronts an elderly musician (Jeremy Bobb) who claims to have put subliminal messages into every popular song ever made. The scene plays as parody, as something Mel Brooks would have done, and Mitchell almost seems to be taunting the audience with silliness after asking them to take him seriously beforehand.

That feeling pervades the film: the sense of a creator who wants you to love his images, but only on his terms, without the slightest concession to the audience. That works sometimes, if what you’ve got is good. If it isn’t, it just makes us feel used.

Verdict: Avoid like the Plague

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

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All images are property of the people what own the movie.

[rk800downloading]

“Save me” Connor POV - Ch. 2 - Connor x Reader

Disclaimer: Wow!! Hey everyone! I’ve been kinda dead for a bit and not on Tumblr at all (school at work!!), so I hope everyone is doing well!

** IMPORTANT NOTICE: I WILL NOT BE DOING A TAG LIST ANYMORE!! **

Just from my now crazy time constraints! Tumblr is weird, and I had to re-tag everyone everytime, which was really time consuming! If you’d like to know when a new chapter comes out, please turn on the notification for this blog (click Connor’s sexy face on the left of this post, and then in the top right corner of my blog, click the little ‘human’ icon and then ‘get notifications’) I don’t post anything other than save me chapters on this blog!

Please enjoy! And and always, thank you to my dear friend @autumn-otome.

MAIN STORY: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14/ 15 / 16 / 17 / 18

CONNOR POV: 1

Connor wrung the cloth, letting water spill through his fingers and splash onto his synthetic skin. He knew what water felt like - the trickling sensations of rain, and the heavy dampness of humidity. He could slow time to a crawl and watch hydrogen bonds forming between droplets or van der Waal forces interacting between his sensors and the stream pouring from the tap.

Connor knew that humans could not observe intermolecular forces, that they could not analyze the amount of water vapour pressing against their skin.

He ran the towel over your curves, erasing the blue from your skin, patting you dry, scrutinizingly placing nanomachine band-aids over any cuts that he could find.

What could a human like you feel?

The temperature of the water or the texture of the cloth?

Or the feeling of Connor’s fingers brushing against you?

//SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^

Again, Connor blinked at the message in the corner of his vision. The probability that this ‘message’ was a random error had begun to grow further and further from chance, and closer to its occurrence being dependant on you - but why? Why had Connor seen this message four times since meeting you?

He looked over your bare skin one last time, analyzing, discovering. You had scars, marks - intricate and delicate features all canvased across your body. Connor became reminded of art - how each spot seemed to be put in the perfect place, distinguishingly and meaningfully. He wondered if those ‘messages’ had appeared because he thought you were beautiful. Androids always did have the ability to find something aesthetically pleasing - Connor had just never found that ‘something’ until now.

It didn't matter though, he convinced himself until those irritating messages disappeared.

He pulled fresh DCPD sweats over you, letting your unconscious body lean against his as he slipped your arms through the shirt's holes. He carefully slid the pants up your legs, pulling it's drawstring into a neat bow at your navel.

All of these illogical ideas did not matter.

All that did matter was ensuring your help once you woke up.

“She decent?” A voice rang from the other side of the door.

Connor walked over, opening the door to a very impatient gray-haired man. Hank stood, arms crossed, foot tapping - an impressively grumpy scowl across his face.

He paused as he walked into the room, raising an eyebrow. “Phew - you did a good job, huh? You sure you’re not some refurbished cleaning model?”

“Hank.” Connor could barely contain a scoff.

“Heh,” the man chuckled to himself. “How long has she been out now?”

“Nine hours and thirty-one minutes.”

Hank’s grin faded into another scowl. “Damn. GOR’s trail is gonna be cold by the time she does come around.”

Connor went to speak, stopping as your heart rate began to climb and your breathing became quicker. He turned to look at you, pushing his earlier thought processes far from focus.

“Hey, the kid’s awake.” Hank peered at your barely conscious body, folding his arms tightly across his chest again. “She didn’t bump her head or anything did she?”

Connor mirrored the action. “No. I managed to catch her in time.”

Hank’s gaze quickly shifted to Connor, skeptically running up and down his lean frame. He laughed. “With those scrawny arms?”

“Lieutenant,” Connor did scoff this time. “Did you forget I was an android?”

“Ah, screw you.”

Suddenly, your eyes fluttered open, eyelashes illuminated by the LED lights overhead. Connor couldn’t help but commit the color and freckles of your eyes to memory - he didn’t get a chance to notice them the night before.

“Welcome back.” Hank’s expression was soft - contradictory to his irritable one earlier. “You hanging in there?”

Connor continued to monitor your condition. “Her vitals indicate that she isn’t fully awake yet, Lieutenant.”

Hank glanced up, the irritated expression back for a moment before he looked down again. “Cut the formal crap would you? I told you to call me Hank when Fowler isn’t around.”

Cyberlife had programmed Connor to maintain a sense of professionalism - he was the most advanced prototype the company had to offer. Calling the Lieutenant by his first name even when other humans were in proximity conflicted this - but priorities could be changed.

“Sorry...” He began to say, determined to further integrate. “Hank.”

The Lieutenant grinned in response.

Without warning, you sat up - eyes frantically scanning over your hands and then your body. It didn’t take Connor’s analytic abilities to know the question on your mind - “what happened?”

“You’ve been unconscious for nine hours, thirty-two minutes and five seconds.” and 35 milliseconds, Connor thought but did not say aloud. He attempted to smile again, briefly looking up images of ‘friendly smiles’ and trying his best to replicate them. He hypothesized that it was not his smile that Hank didn’t like, or that shocked you the other day - but rather that he had smiled at the wrong time.

But you gasped in response, and Connor’s hypothesis was rejected as fast as you had unknowingly rejected his smile.

“Connor, damn it, you’ve gotta get better at explaining things.” Hank sighed, stepping in to offer an explanation. “Look, I’m Lieutenant Anderson, and if you don’t remember, the pretty boy here is named Connor - we work for the Detroit City PD. We tried to get you out of that crime scene last night but you started screaming - then you passed out. It started when you saw all the thirium so we figured it would be best to clean you up before you came to, but we didn’t have any female staff so-”

“I cleaned you up.” Connor finished, straightening his posture. “I am not a caretaking model by any means, but I think you’ll find your hygienic state satisfactory.”

Your face grew pink - and Connor noticed. Increased heart rate, flushed cheeks - classical symptoms of embarrassment.

“Oh, do not worry. I am a machine after all.” He kept his voice short in an attempt to defuse the situation.

Hank furrowed his brow, lightly kicking the side of Connor’s leg - an indication that he didn’t understand what was going on.

“When I informed her of who cleaned her, I noticed her heart rate elevated.” Connor answered. “So I thought it might assure her to know that, I as a machine, did not try to take advantage of her unconscious state.”

You hid your face and Hank groaned simultaneously.

“Oh, God, Connor!” He landed a hard smack on the android’s back, shaking his hand in pain from the aftershock. “Can you download a subtlety app or something?”

Connor grunted from the impact, hastily queuing social etiquette videos for later analysis.

“... I will make a note of that.”

“Getting this shit show back on track,” the lieutenant sighed as he sat down next to you on the couch. “Can you remember anything of the incident that happened last night?”

“I-” You began to say, but looked as if the words had gotten lost. Instead of finishing your sentence, you sat still - only opening your mouth again to utter the words “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“Well, that’s gonna be a problem.” Hank exchanged a meaningful glance with Connor, his lips turning downwards into a frown. “There’s a deviant who goes by the alias of GOR. We’ve been hunting him, but now it looks like he’s hunting you.”

Did Hank think you were withholding information? Connor entertained the idea. “We were able to extract some badly fragmented data from a nearby surveillance camera. The android corpse from the night before protected you - although from the video, its motive is unknown.” He paused, taking a moment to monitor your stress levels.

Almost optimal.

He pushed a bit further. “However, it’s clear that GOR tried to kill you that night.”

Your face became pale again, jaw locked as if you were trying to swallow the information and had choked on it.

Connor reached out, grabbing your hands the way he had when he found you. “You’re trembling.” He spoke softly - it appeared as if you genuinely did not remember.

He had gone too far.

A look of regret flickered across Hank’s face as he realized the same. “It’s a lot to take in kid, don’t force yourself to remember all at once.”

You gulped, blinking hard. “I’m okay.” A whisper escaped your throat. “Please continue.”

Despite your permission, Connor hesitated. You were not a deviant, you would not self-destruct - but something made him falter.

“All of the evidence we have - the android body, the video…” He spoke reluctantly. “It’s the most we’ve had for weeks...”

All that mattered was ensuring your help, he reminded himself. Amanda would overlook these illogical thoughts if he continued to apprehend deviants - especially a deviant like GOR.

“We need your help putting all the pieces together.” His voice took on a convincing tone - although unsure of who exactly he was trying to convince.

But you didn’t respond right away - something was making you falter too. Instead you turned to face the gray-haired man, eyes wide and glossy. “Lieu-”

“Just call me Hank.” He interrupted.

“Hank- what if this GOR hurts you two for being by me? Like the other android…”

Connor froze, having failed to anticipate your response. Hank was a weapons-trained, seasoned officer and Connor was a replaceable machine - an android without emotion or feelings. Why were you concerned?

“You don’t need to worry about that.” Hank spoke first. “Me and pretty boy would never let some deviant prick get to us. Anyways, decide if you wanna help or not, but I’ve got shit to do.” He stood from the couch, making his way to the door. “Tell Connor when you’re ready.”

Connor watched as Hank's back disappeared from sight, more and more questions beginning to formulate and surface into his vision. His sensors fixated on the delicate hand clasped within his - you had never once pulled away from his touch, instead you leaned into it as if the android had a warmth he could share.

“Does holding my hand comfort you?” Connor asked aloud, carefully observing your reaction. Heart rate elevated, again. Breathing shaky, but within normal limits. Blood flow increased to cheeks and ears.

“Y-yes,” You murmured, startled. “It’s very nice.”

‘Nice’. Connor pondered the word. An adjective - pleasant; agreeable; satisfactory.

“I noticed it helped stabilize you at the crime scene when you were unresponsive.” He began to speak openly. “Although I am equipped with a module that helps me easily integrate and adapt to humans, I am unsure as to why my hand would have such an effect on you.”

“It feels nice to hold your hand Connor, that’s why it eases me.” You replied, and the message appeared again - instantly, as if Connor hadn't spent the last nine hours and thirty-eight minutes trying to rid himself of it.

“I see.” He muttered absentmindedly, running another diagnostics program despite having full confidence that it would return with no errors to report - but Connor tried anyways, again and again - unsure of what else he could do.

He looked into your eyes as if they held an answer - but they only held more questions.

//SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^

This time, the message could barely flicker to life before Connor dismissed it, no longer willing to give the matter any more attention. If this continued, he would lose efficiency.

He would lose purpose.

“Well then,” His voice came out more curt than he had intended. “You may hold my hand at anytime if it helps you. May I continue talking to you about this case?”

Expression bleak, hands beginning to take on a cold sweat - you had noticed his tone, but nodded anyways.

“We’ve spent some time looking for this deviant.” Connor wasted no time getting to the point. “We believe he has ties to red ice manufacturing as well as many other android and human homicide cases - also to reiterate, it is confirmed that he is trying to kill you.”

He leaned forward, giving your hand a small squeeze as he attempted to negotiate. “You are invaluable to this case. I can personally protect you if you agree to help us catch GOR. I’ve done a background check on you. You’re a good girl and I think it would be a shame if anything happened to you.”

And it would be a shame - from Connor’s background check, you were nothing but an upstanding citizen. You moved to the city in your late teens. From there you took on multiple jobs, never late, always with good reviews. You paid your taxes, you had a good reputation.

How did you get mixed up with a person like GOR?

“A good girl?” You giggled, making Connor lose track of his thought processes. “Do you say these things to everyone?”

He tilted his head at the absurd question. She was truly the only ‘good girl’ he knew - not that he could even fathom a situation where he found himself saying it to someone else.

“No.” He decided to respond truthfully. “I’ve only ever said it to you.”

An abrupt rush of heat crept to your face, staining your cheeks pink again - like Connor had already seen so many times today. Was it still embarrassment? Perhaps nervousness or even attraction?

“Will you agree to help me?” He asked, leaning just a bit closer - testing the depths of red that your cheeks would flush.

But you stopped - eyes no longer on Connor, instead somewhere in the distance.

“Do you promise to protect yourself?” You finally replied, gaze steeled in a way that Connor couldn’t understand.

Protect myself?

Connor did not want you to see him as anything more than an expendable android, a machine designed to accomplish a task.

But he now knew that you did.

He knew that you saw him as having a life worth protecting - that you saw him in the likeness of a human. Suddenly everything made sense - why you were embarrassed earlier, why you exhibited those symptoms that you did.

“Is that android’s death bothering you? It’s just a machine.” His face twisted into a frown. “It can be replaced. I can be replaced too if anything should happen to me.”

Connor also knew that you hated what he had just said - but you refused to back down.

“Do you promise to protect yourself?” You repeated, firmer this time.

Connor sighed - the same programmed human tic. “Is that what it’ll take for you to help us with this case?”

“Yes.” You spoke sincerely.

He could see in your eyes that you wouldn’t take no for an answer - but that didn’t matter. Connor knew he was good at being convincing.

“I promise.” He lied.

[scarletraven1001]

Retribution: 2

[Book 1] [Chapter 2]

Summary: A cherished friend that she had long thought to be dead comes back into Bulma's life. However, he is determined to show her that her cherished memories are now truly nothing more than mementos, and for all intents and purposes, the boy she had known years ago might as well have truly perished. 

A Vegebul Mafia AU Fic, for the @vegebulocracy Big Bang Challenge, 2018

Story Rating: E

Chapter Warnings: Violence, Swearing, Angst

All Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

Also on Ao3.

8-8-8-8-8

Notes: Hello! Here is Chapter 2. Thanks once again to @blacksheep1105 for the incredible beta work! As for everyone, I hope you like this!

8-8-8-8-8

Chapter 2

8-8-8-8-8

Bulma was shaking.

Her hands ceased their useless struggles against her binds as everything within her leapt in elated disbelief at what she realized she had found.

Vegeta… her dear Vegeta, was alive.

“I- I… I can’t believe it,” she stuttered, lips quivering amidst the flow of tears down her cheeks. “Vegeta… it’s you, isn’t it?”

He looked the same and yet so different, and the changes notwithstanding, Bulma could not possibly have been mistaken.

The boyish bangs were gone, leaving a sharp, severe widow’s peak that led up into the familiar tempered flames of his dark hair.

His face – though essentially the same – had lost its round, cherubic aura, and had gained defined, patrician angles. His dark, narrow eyes were intense, accentuated by his thick brows that slashed down sharply, contrasting with plump lips that were currently twisted in thinly-veiled contempt.

He tensed, looking away from her while she continued to stare, helplessly swept away by her rioting emotions.

“I knew it. Even in the dark… before I saw you. Something in me told me that I knew who you were,” she rambled on, her elation blinding her to the turmoil of the man before her. “My friend, my best friend!”

His eyes simply glared in response, and at that, Bulma’s brows furrowed in confusion.

Why did he seem so… different?

Closed-off… So aloof, angry…

“I don’t understand,” she whispered, unconsciously moving forward, wanting to touch him… make sure that he was real. “You were dead! We buried you… I cried for months-”

“They buried the body of a homeless child. It was not me in the casket,” he finally responded.

Bulma smiled, her heart thumping in excitement once again. “This is great! My father... He took over the Saiyan Mansion, you know. You can live there again, it’s in great shape because Dad took care of that place-”

“Of course he did,” Vegeta suddenly cut her off with a hiss, taking her aback.

Bulma frowned deeply. “What do you mean? Vegeta…”

“Stop speaking to me with such familiarity,” he growled, and Bulma’s jaw snapped shut with a click.

“But… why? I do know you. Vegeta-”

“And stop saying my name that way,” he said, face now twisted in enough fury to make her recoil away from him. “You may have known me as a child, but believe me, woman, I am not the same friend from before. The child you knew might as well have truly been dead.”

Her jaw fell slack in shock.

“Why… why are you doing this?” she asked. “What are you even saying? I… I don’t understand…”

Bulma leaned forward slightly, trying to look at his face, to see into the eyes of the beloved friend that she had cherished so much her whole life.

“Please? Tell me…” she tried again. “You’re alive, and I am so happy that you are, but-”

“But what?” he asked, and Bulma sat straight up when he finally turned to her again.

She was utterly shocked at the amount of rage, the hatred, that she saw burning in his eyes.

“But what, woman?” he asked again. “But why, how, am I alive? Wouldn’t you like to know?”

She sat unmoving, in denial over the resentment that she could feel from his every word.

He had pulled himself up, and he loomed over her, his wide shoulders intimidating her, his fists shaking as if he was trying his hardest to keep from lashing out at her.

“I almost did end up dead. But I lived. I survived. And it is no thanks to you, the Briefs,” he said, his tone dripping with malice.

Bulma’s lower lip quivered as true terror began to make its way into her heart.

“You’re… you’re scaring me,” she whispered.

“And you are right to be afraid, because I am here now, I am back,” he answered, “to claim what should have always been mine.”

Bulma was stunned. She could not understand his anger, his resentment, and she definitely was astounded by how it all seemed to be directed at her and her father.

“Why are you saying these things to me? Why did you need to abduct me?” she asked, desperately trying to understand his motives. She refused to believe that her friend had become so…

Malicious…

Desperate to get through to him, she leaned forward, eyes begging. “Do you need help? I know lawyers who can help you with your estate. You don’t need to force me to help, Vegeta. I will do anything to help you.”

“Tch,” he scoffed. “You think I need your help? No, I need the information that your father is withholding from me. What I want, what I need, is vengeance, for what he had done to my family.”

She tensed.

There it was again… that very vital piece of information that her father had kept secret at the expense of her own life.

He had left her to die, all to keep the Syndicate’s secrets…

In the face of the realization of her father’s carelessness and Vegeta’s clear hatred of her, Bulma felt despair begin to swallow her whole, feeling sick to her stomach as she began to truly understand that something was very, very wrong.

The information… was it linked to Vegeta’s parents?

What was Vegeta talking about?

“Your family? Then why are you going after my father?” she asked, trying to piece together all the half-truths hat she had dealt with for the past hour. “Dad tried to help you... He tried to get to you, and to your brothers, but he was too late. He was so devastated when he found out that your parents had been killed-”

“Shut up!” he yelled, turning to fully face her, one hand in a tight fist as the other shook convulsively around his grip on the gun.

She backed away, eyes trained on the weapon.

Would he actually hurt her? Kill her?

The hopeful part of Bulma, the one that held on to the memory of the innocent boy who had once played under the sun with her, fiercely believed that he would not.

Yet, the rational part of her, the one currently looking at the furious man sitting mere inches from her, holding a gun with the safety clicked off, knew that he just may be capable of anything that he will need to do just to get the information he needed.

Her attention was pulled away from the gun when he started speaking again, but it was not just his guttural voice that arrested her notice, but also the words that spilled angrily from his lips.

“It was your father who plotted our downfall,” he said, and Bulma shuddered in denial, even while a part of her suspected that Vegeta may be right.

“But no matter,” he went on. “Trunks Briefs may hold the secret to finding him, but we will get our answers, one way or another. We, the Saiyans, will rise again.”

Bulma was confused. “What do you mean, finding him? Who are you looking for?”

Vegeta turned away, training his eyes on the road while his gun lowered, pointing to the ground.

She finally started putting the pieces together. “The third. You were asking my father about the third. Is that what you are looking for? A person? The third person? Third to whom?”

He ignored her as Bulma felt the car come to a very sudden stop, and, without a seatbelt, she was hurled forward into the back of the driver’s seat.

At least, she would have if not for Vegeta’s arm, still holding the gun, blocking her way and saving her from painfully hurtling face-first.

“Oof!”she exclaimed, leaning heavily over his thick arm, clothed in the expensive dark cloth of his suit. She looked down at the limb, a steady barrier keeping her from getting injured, and a miniscule part of her rejoiced in the fact that he had still looked out for her, in spite of his apparent hatred for her and her father.

Her Vegeta, her dear friend from the most innocent part of her youth, was still in there…

Firmly buried beneath the apparently sadistic man who was keeping her hostage.

She swore that she was going to do everything in her power to find her Vegeta once again.

With a small sigh, she sat up, and she was just about to ask him where they were when the door beside Vegeta opened.

She looked up, and her jaw fell slack.

A tall man wearing a bright orange jacket, with cheerful eyes belying a stern frown, looked into the car at her and Vegeta. He had thick, unruly hair that stuck out in all directions, and an unmistakable tiny birthmark on the lower right side of his chin.

It all made so much sense.

After all, if Vegeta was there, alive, somehow…

“You’re… Little Karot? Ka- Kakarot?” She stuttered.

…It made complete sense, that his brother would be, as well.

The man looked at her coolly, and Bulma almost smiled as she saw in him the small boy who had used to run around her own home, playing with rocks and sticks while she and Vegeta had reclined on the grassy lawn.

He looked almost exactly the same, and her heart was bursting with happiness at finding both brothers alive…

Kakarot barely managed a nod before he turned to Vegeta, his thin lips in a tight line.

“Big Brother,” he began, confirming Bulma’s suspicions.

It truly was Kakarot.

“The other camp has been compromised. We will set up here, instead,” he continued.

Vegeta turned to her then, pointing the gun at her as her side of the door opened, revealing the thin, dark-haired man who had trained a weapon at her as they called her father earlier.

He grabbed her roughly, dragging her out of the vehicle. Before she was able to open her mouth to scream, his hand quickly slapped a thick piece of duct tape over her lips, keeping her silent as he quickly and painfully held her arm, pulling her along with him towards a simple two-storey house.

They were surrounded by thick foliage and tall trees, and Bulma realized in distress that she was out of the city, without the faintest idea of where on earth they could possibly have taken her.

She struggled futilely against his powerful grip, wondering at how his thin frame hid such strength within his hands.

“Lapiz,” Vegeta called, and she paused as the dark-haired man with icy blue eyes turned to regard her old friend.

“Yes, Prince?” he asked, his voice a strange monotone that seemed out of place from his severe features.

“Be a little gentler with her. She will not be good as leverage if we were to damage her,” Vegeta said as he briskly walked past them, heading into the house after Kakarot.

Bulma’s heart pounded at his words, while her eyes followed Vegeta until he was inside the house and out of her sight, and hope blossomed within her chest once again.

Perhaps, there truly was a way to get to him, still.

She barely noticed when the man – Lapiz, he had been called – muttered under his breath as he began to pull her into the house once again.

As soon as she was inside, her eyes cast around, assessing the structure, trying to find any flaws that she could exploit should she be able to try to escape.

It truly was just a typical house, with a stairwell off to one side and a kitchen and dining room in the other, with what looked like a wooden picnic table and chairs in a large back yard. There was a rather spacious living room, with a large couch and two wide armchairs that stood around a small wooden center table.

It was strange, how cozy the place looked. It looked as if it had been regularly occupied, the furniture and electronics looking well-worn but intact.

She was tugged upstairs, and before she knew it, she found herself pushed into a small, brightly-lit bedroom. Lapiz released her hands, but before she could move to try to hit him or force her way past him, he shoved her away from him as he backed away, loudly shutting the door in her face.

Stunned, she catches herself before she trips over her feet, feeling about her face to pull off the thick tape, cringing in pain as the adhesive pulled harshly at her skin.

“Let me out!” Bulma cried as soon as she removed the tape, and she pounded on the door, gritting her teeth in rage. “You can’t just keep me here!”

“Yes we can,” Lapiz replied coolly. “And if I were you, I would pipe down and relax. If you keep making noise, I assure you that I can find ways to make this very uncomfortable for you.

She stood, pounding madly at the door for what seemed like hours, her voice growing hoarse as she screamed, going from threatening them all with law suits to begging to be let out.

However, she had begun to tire, and before she truly wanted to give in, her exhausted body made her decision for her, leading her to slump frustratedly against the door.

“Argh!” she yelled, her hands slamming angrily against the wooden door one more time before she turned to look around the room.

It was, just like the rest of the house, deceptively comfortable. However, Bulma immediately noticed that in place of blinds, the windows were barred with closely-welded, thick metal grates, covering heavily-tinted glass. She would hazard a guess, that the windows were bullet-proof.

She moved forward to sit glumly on the edge of the bed in the center of the room, feeling twenty years older than she had been just that morning. With a loud sigh, she leaned down, placing her face in her hands as she mulled about her situation, a part of her still unable to believe what had just happened.

Worry ate at her as she finally accepted the fact that she had truly just been abducted, held hostage for information that her father likely would not give, and her kidnappers were headed by her dearest childhood friend whom she had long believed to be dead.

She was dejected and utterly exhausted, and with a groan, she glumly leaned back against the mattress, looking up at the ceiling, still trying to make sense of all that had happened.

Her eyes felt heavy, her fears about her situation keeping her from rest, even while she felt her mind begin to jumble with the mental fog that was quickly taking over her. Her awareness was dwindling, but how could she possibly fall asleep when she was in a strange house, unsure even of whether or not she would still see the light of the next day?

She fought back bitterly against her body, but soon enough, she found herself laying on the bed, her eyes drooping closed, and against her own will, her consciousness gave way to the darkness of slumber.

8-8-8-8-8

Vegeta found it strange, that she had stopped yelling.

He had been convinced that Bulma would have been screaming herself hoarse, all night, and it was rather unusual for a hostage to be so… docile.

Curious, he walked up the stairs, finding Lapiz dutifully leaning against the door, standing guard.

“How is she?” he asked, and Lapiz smirked, a small quirk of his thin lips that raised Vegeta’s hackles. “I swear to God if he says something stupid, I will-”

“She’s asleep,” he answered.

Vegeta blinked. “Asleep?”

Lapiz nodded. “Rather fitfully, too. Would you like to go on guard duty now?”

Vegeta nodded once, and Lapiz walked off, not even glancing back as he opened the door slowly, carefully peering into the room where they had dumped Bulma.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered half-amusedly as he saw that the woman really was asleep, lying on her side diagonally across the small bed, hands curled together beside her head like a small child.

Like the child that he had last seen her as, before that day.

Banishing the infuriatingly sentimental thought, Vegeta stepped closer, watching her chest move gently with her breaths, her thick lashes brushing against the tops of her cheeks. Her blue hair had been pulled out of her earlier ponytail, and now her long tresses sprawled wildly about her head, like the waves of an ocean fanning over the shore.

He found himself sitting beside her, silently observing her, wondering how on earth she had managed to fall asleep at a time like this.

A powerful impulse to touch her seized him, and he watched helplessly as his hand lifted to rest softly on her head, his fingers tangling whimsically amongst the strands of her mussed-up hair.

He marveled at how the strands flowed like water between his fingers, at how they curled around his wrist, and he was so fixated on the contrast of the blue against his caramel skin that he failed to notice as she began to stir.

Bulma turned, and seemingly suddenly, the widest, deepest blue eyes he had ever known were staring questioningly at him while he sat dumbly at the edge of her bed, beside her.

He pulled away, determinedly staring at the wall, schooling his features into a stern frown even while he felt his ears burn painfully from his embarrassment at being caught.

“Vegeta,” he heard her speak, and against his better judgment, he cast his eyes back towards her, taking in her bleary eyes and the pinkened part of her cheek that had rested against the pillow.

He merely grunted.

He felt her shift so she was sitting up beside him, and in spite of the small distance between them, it was as if he could feel her heat, follow the beating of her heart.

“Hey,” she called cautiously. “Can we… can we talk?”

He smirked. “And are you not talking, already?”

He felt her small hand slap playfully at his arm, and he stared at her with wide eyes, unable to believe her brazen, unguarded action.

She was his hostage, and she still had the audacity to act so familiarly with him.

Does she truly still hold some confidence in him? A misguided sort of trust or kinship?

“You know what I mean,” she said pulling him from his thoughts. “This… you have to know, dad has nothing to do with the crimes against your father. You know my dad, Vegeta-”

He stiffened, immediately sobering.

“Stop,” he said, his voice hard, angry. “You know nothing. You have absolutely no idea-”

“Vegeta, please!” she cried. “I… I remember that day. I remember it so well. I was with my father when he received the call about your family.”

He clenched his fists. How could that be?

“Don’t you dare lie to me,” he hissed.

“I’m not lying! I swear to you,” she said, moving closer to him, a hand hovering over his, as if she wanted to touch him, but was hesitant, afraid.

He turned to her, brows low, teeth bared. “You cannot possibly-”

“I was in the car while my father was at the plaza.”

This stopped him cold.

He did not know that she had been in the plaza when he – when he –

“Dad was yelling at me to stay put, and I screamed when I heard the – the gunshots,” she murmured, and Vegeta watched as she turned pale, memories of her fear on that fateful day filling her face with clear dread.

She gulped. “I tried to go after him when he ran off, but it was so… so chaotic, and I froze, and suddenly, dad was there, and he shouted at me for leaving the car. He dragged me back into the car, and his phone rang, and… and then he was screaming at someone for letting Aunt Gine die.”

The sound of that name, a name that he had not heard spoken aloud in decades, sent a furious shudder to course through Vegeta, and he stood, fists tightly clenched as his teeth ground angrily.

“Do not speak that name,” he growled. “None of you Briefs can ever speak that name-”  

“I loved her too! Like she was my own mother! She-”

“She was my mother!” he finally yelled, and Bulma recoiled as the sound of his voice echoed harshly within the small room.

“Vegeta-”

“She was slaughtered,” Vegeta said, choking on the final word as he remembered the fate that had befallen the gentle woman. “And my father was killed when he tried to avenge her.”

The edges of his eyes burned with furious tears that he refused to let fall, would never again let fall.

He moved from the bed, pacing angrily around the room, his eyes determinedly watching his feet as he tried, tried so hard, not to look back at her, lest the sight of Bulma’s watery eyes tear his resolve from him.

He had to remember… Had to remind himself…

Bulma was the enemy.

“And after that, they stole them…” he continued. “They stole Kakarot… And Raditz.”

He heard Bulma gasp, and he knew that she finally understood…

What it was he was looking for…

What it was that he was so desperate to find…

“They… they separated you three?” she asked, tone shocked, teary. “Vegeta, I am so sorry-”

“You mock me with your sympathy,” he snarled. “Your father and his people stole my brothers, and it took me years to find Kakarot. Now, nothing will stop me from finding the third child, our youngest brother, Raditz.”

He looked up, wanting to look into her eyes as he laid his anger out bare.

“You do remember, do you not? What it was that they said about the Saiyans,” he seethed. “We three, together, will dictate the fate of the Syndicate. It is our destiny. And no one, not you, nor your father, can keep me and my brothers from fulfilling that fate.”

Bulma leaps to her feet, her hands held out to him, as if reaching for him, but before her hands could touch him, he moved, grabbing her wrists, pushing so her hands clenched near her chest, away from him.

“Vegeta, you have to believe me,” she said, her voice broken, full of the weight of unshed tears. “My father would never hurt your mother. He was not responsible for this! Set me free and I will prove it to you!”

He laughed. “You think me so ignorant? No. You shall stay here until we have the answers we need. Your father holds the key to finding Raditz and he will lead us to him, whether he wants to or not.”

“Please,” she begged again. “Don’t do this. You… this isn’t like you. I will help you, Vegeta. But you need to let me go. You are a good person and-”

“Do not,” he shouted, shaking her slightly, “presume to know who I am. I have changed. What your father and the rest of those men have done to me has hardened me.”

“I-”

“You do not know me,” he hissed, “just as much as I no longer know you.”

With those words, he pushed her away, forcing himself to ignore the pained little yelp she made when she stumbled, knocking her knees on the wooden bed posts while she fell back against the mattress.

He turned to go, and as he held the doorknob to let himself out, he heard her speak.

“I am still the same, Vegeta,” she said, the force behind her words surprising him, making him glance back.

“Tch,” he spat. “Keep telling yourself that.”

“I am,” she insisted. “I am still Bulma. Your friend, your friend who loves you. And as your friend, I am telling you that my father knows nothing. If he knew anything, he would have told you before you had taken me away.”

He turned away again, a sneer crossing his lips before he left her with his parting words.

“Stop fooling yourself. You are a smart woman. We both know that he knew something. However, it appears as if keeping the secret is more important than keeping you safe,” he said as he turned away with a sneer, his eyes on the wooden grains of the door. “If he could forsake his own daughter, think about how easy it would have been for him to forsake me.”

He stepped out, locking the door from the outside as he heard her call out to him again, her voice raw from her hurt and denial.

Summoning all of the hatred and pain from the past years of his life, he steeled himself, and walked away.  

8-8-8-8-8

To be continued…

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[taeliciousdaelicious]

Instagrammable || kms

Genre: Fluff (’cause I’m a sucker for this kind of toothache)

Pairing/s: You and barista!Minseok

Description: You were out to meet your friends but unfortunately, your go-to bubble tea shop was full already. You were in search of a possible place to hang out in when you found this gem tucked away in the busy city—and it comes with its own cute barista, too.

Note/s: I have no other excuse except for I was lazy to start this fic just in time to finish and post it for Minseok’s birthday. But, better (extra) late than never, right? Also, this was inspired by a café my friends and I found by chance when we had nowhere to go and were on a budget. This is gonna be an extra short drabble so don’t expect too much—

Word Count: 2,155

“I’m free later. Are we going to meet at our usual spot?” While speaking on the phone, you squeezed into a soft, pastel yellow sweater, putting it over the Mickey Mouse shirt you wore since you were lounging at home. You decided the black leggings would do as you decided to spice up your outfit with brown, high-heeled ankle boots.

Your friend responded with an affirmative and you smiled. It had been a while since the four of you last saw each other. Ever since all of you officially became working women, there seemed to have been lesser opportunities and time to meet up. This made you look forward to today.

“Alright, I’m all dressed up. Remember the rule: whoever is the first one at the usual spot should inform everyone whether it’s full or not so we could decide what would happen” you reminded her. She merely scoffed and agreed, knowing everyone would follow it since the said rule had never failed to serve your group during instances like this. You said your farewells before grabbing your purse and stepped out of your apartment.

Your usual spot was a bubble tea shop with an all-day breakfast diner. It was a popular place for students since it was right next to a university. This was where the four of you hunched over your textbooks and paperwork as you studied late into the night or early in the morning. You’ve been regulars for so long that the staff only needed to greet your group upon entering the establishment before they start making your usual orders.

Riding a bus, you sat next to the window and thought about what would happen later. Would one of you rant about their insufferable colleagues? Or maybe a date gone wrong? What kind of stories would you share later as you caught up with each other’s lives? It made you excited all over again as you considered the possibilities. Since you were merely a bus stop away, the ride was short as you got off and started walking towards the familiar building.

Judging at the amount of people sitting by the windows, you already guessed that the shop might be full today. Still, you trudged forward and went in, the windchime tinkling to signal your arrival. The lady at the counter looked up and gave you an apologetic look. You knew already that they weren’t about to empty out anytime soon.

You walked up to her and flashed a small smile as you said, “Hello. Have my friends come here before me?”

She chuckled and shook her head no, adding, “If they were here, I would have known immediately, especially with how loud your group is. All of them are loudmouths except you. Sorry, sweetie. Shop’s full today. Best of luck in finding somewhere to hang out.”

Sighing, you nodded your thanks and stepped out into the sidewalk. You fished out your phone and sent a quick message to all of your friends.

Y/N: Usual spot is full. Head home or head out? (Sent at 5:48 P.M.)

They replied right away and the decision was unanimous. No one was going to let this day pass without seeing each other’s face. So, you started moving again, now in search for a place to meet them and be able to catch up.

Y/N: I’m on the move already. I’ll text once I found a place! (Sent 6:01 P.M.)

It took fifteen minutes of walking around aimlessly before you found the right place you’ve been looking for. None of the establishments you passed by appealed to you. They were either too mainstream, too expensive, too boring, etc. They just didn’t seem like something you and your friends would all like until you found the little coffee shop tucked in a corner, a street away from the main business center. Suffice to say, it was Instagram-worthy and you were sure your friends would swoon upon seeing it.

Its storefront was the timeless, grilled windows that were huge enough to allow passers-by to peek in to the interior of the shop. It was reminiscent of a classic, Western coffee shop found along a line of establishments. You found your feet directing you to it and your hand touched the cool handle, pushing it open to enter. There was also a windchime here that announced your entrance. For a moment, you thought you were alone—that is until a person jumped up from behind the counter.

“Good evening, miss! Welcome to Infallible!” he cheerfully greeted you. The sudden action made you yelp in surprise and stumble back for a few steps. You both looked at each other with wide eyes before you nervously laughed at him.

“I’m sorry. I’m easily surprised and, well, I thought this place was deserted or something” you said awkwardly, unconsciously tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. Now that your brain wasn’t ringing alarm bells in your head, you finally noticed how cute the barista looked. His uniform only made him even cuter and you had to make a conscious effort of not being too obvious with the staring.

“Right. I’m sorry. I thought there was a thief because I was busy fixing some stuff under the counter” he explained, laughing a little. “Anyways, I’m Minseok and I’m your barista for today. How may I help you, miss?”

“You’re open for business, right?” you asked. Then, realizing how stupid that question must have sounded, you quickly backtracked and said, “I’m sorry. I should have looked at the front door for any sign or something—”

His chuckle broke you out of your rant and he kindly said, “Calm down, miss. It’s okay. I’m happy to answer your question. Yes, we’re open for business.”

You nodded at him, unable to look at him directly out of embarrassment and shyness. “Um, okay. I’ll just... go sit in that booth over there. I’m waiting for my friends. We’ll order later once they arrive. Yeah. Sorry for bothering you again. And what’s the address of this coffee shop again?”

After giving you the complete address, you thanked him one last time and scurried to the booth. You focused your attention solely on your phone as you typed out your text message before sending.

Y/N: Hey guys, I’m in this coffee shop called Infallible. Here’s the address. Get you asses here in ten or else. Last one is in charge of buying the snacks. (Sent at 6:20 P.M.)

After sending it, you immersed yourself in logging into your social media accounts, scrolling through your feeds to pass time. You did anything to avoid looking at the cute barista who made you self-conscious. Soon enough, your friends started appearing and finally, you were complete.

Without any preamble, one of them said to you, “Okay, girl, why didn’t you tell us there’s a cuteass barista here? My hair looks like a bird’s nest from running all the way here just so I wouldn’t pay for snacks! I’m broke as fuck but holy hell, look at that gorgeous eye candy. I bet if we take a picture of him and post it online, it would become viral. Shame on you, Y/N, for withholding this vital piece of information. Shame on you.”

You laughed merrily before crossing your legs in a sassy manner. “Of course, I can’t be the only one who should make a fool out of herself because of a certain good-looking guy. Alright, we’ve stalled long enough. Time to order food and drinks for ourselves.”

You all stood up and went to the counter to quickly give your orders. Just like what the worker said back in the bubble tea shop, your friends were all loud—except you. When it was finally your turn, Minseok gave you a bright smile and said, “Hello again, miss! May I get your order?”

You smiled sheepishly at him and replied, “Hey again. I’d like a regular-sized, iced coffee, chocolate-flavored. Oh, and go crazy on the whipped cream. I apologize for my friends’ rowdiness, by the way. It’s been said that we bring a hurricane of noise wherever we go.”

He laughed as he started getting a plastic cup and a permanent marker. “No, don’t be. It’s exactly what this coffee shop needs. Better than being as silent as a tomb. What name should I put on the cup?”

“Um, Y/N” you told him and he swiftly jotted it down in neat strokes. “Here’s my payment.”

“Oh, thanks” he said, accepting it. He looked at you with curiosity in his eyes as he punched it in. You felt a little strange under his scrutiny before he finally spoke up as he handed you your receipt and change, “I’m sorry if I’m staring too much but I was wondering... uh, was that your real name? That name you gave me?”

You blinked in surprise and laughed a little. “Yeah, that’s my real name. Why? Are you going to stalk me now or something?”

He laughed as well, his cheeks faintly reddening. He rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at you through his lashes. You couldn’t help but swoon at how great his features seemed at any angle. Just then, he said, “I just thought it’s a beautiful name, Y/N. I should probably start making the coffee.”

“Oh, sure! Sorry, I’m keeping you from working” you said awkwardly. You flashed him a smile and tilted your head as you told him, “I’ll go back to my friends now. It was nice talking to you, Minseok.”

You turned around then and hurried to your seat. You missed the stunned look on his face at the mention of his name but your friends didn’t, as well as the rest of your interaction. When you looked at them, they were wearing knowing smiles.

“What?” you asked dumbly, a defense mechanism that everyone seemed to have. This just made them smile wider.

“I think I know why Y/N didn’t tell us about the barista. What’s his name again? Ah, yes, Minseok” your friends teased you. You weren’t able to control your reaction when you flushed a little. They simply laughed at your reaction, to which you groaned in embarrassment.

“Shut up. I swear, I just forgot to tell you about him” she mumbled. They still didn’t believe you and kept on teasing you a little longer before they diverted their attention to another topic. Welcoming it, you started contributing your thoughts to the conversation and the flow went smoothly after that. It was fun while waiting for your food and drinks as you were able to exchange silly stories, memorable experiences and complaints that had all piled up since you last saw each other. There was something bittersweet about the entire thing. You couldn’t help but think about the amount of time you would have to spend without them again.

Suddenly, there was a hand outstretched in front of you. You noticed how muscular the arm was and immediately, it jolted you back to reality. You were met with your friends’ amused faces and Minseok looking down at you with a small, shy smile on his face. “Hi, here’s your drink. Sorry for interrupting your train of thoughts. I guess I’ll get going now.”

You mutely accepted the drink, feeling the coldness seeping through the stack of tissue paper wrapped around the plastic cup. Unconsciously, you followed his figure until he turned around and met your eyes. You froze on your seat, making him visibly chuckle behind the counter.

“I suggest that you better get his number” one of your friends said excitedly. You blushed at that while giggling.

“Nah, if there’s imaginary sparks, I would be more than embarrassed. I don’t want to risk sacrificing this gorgeous place for a gorgeous face” you said, sipping the coffee through the straw. You made a sound of approval before commenting, “Oh my god, this is it. Whenever our usual spot is full, we go straight here, you hear me?”

They laughed before falling silent. You all made positive comments about the drinks and the food, immensely satisfied with your discovery. You were about halfway through your cup when your friend sitting beside you said, “Hey, what’s that thing peeking through the tissue paper?”

Frowning in confusion, you checked it yourself. Gently peeling it off the cup, you gasped in surprise when you saw digits written with blue ink on the white surface, coupled with a smiley face.

“It looks like there’s no imaginary sparks and you don’t have to ask for his number. Damn, I should have started a bet” your friend murmured. The girls took turns in passing the paper around to confirm it to their disbelieving eyes, squealing and probably already planning how to dress you up for a possible first date. Smiling widely, you turned around to see Minseok smiling as well, looking straight at you. He raised an eyebrow, as if asking something. You merely breathed out a laugh before turning your head away.

“Alright, give me the damn tissue paper. Now, where did I put my phone? Oh my goodness, help me find it!”

[evabellasworld]

Death of Mandalore

Chapter 1: Prologue

AO3 Link | 1

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Summary:  After murdering Chancellor Palpatine of the Galactic Republic, Vanya Doyvesky joined leagues with both Death Watch and Darth Maul, hoping to reclaim her Mandalorian warrior heritage. But with broken promises and betrayal against Death Watch and Maul's crime syndicate, the former Mandalorian Jedi had to choose the right path not only for her but for Clan Doyvesky as well.

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Walking out of a convenience store, a brunette Jedi was carrying a bag of snacks while slurping her cup of protein shakes that she bought from a smoothie vendor earlier. Clad in her maxi white dress, Vanya could only sigh as she paced through Rencia Streets, which was located in the lower level of Coruscant. Unlike the upper level where Vanya lived, the roads had plastic bags floating on the roadside as the air surrounding her reeked of rotting food that was thrown away for a while.

Vanya didn’t want to come here in the first place, after reading the news where a woman around her age was found dead in the streets. She shivered as she gripped her arms on the handle of her bag, looking left and right just to make sure she wasn’t being followed by a strange man.

As if that wasn’t worst, Rencia Streets was notorious for murder cases, with high-profile serial killers like ‘The Archangel Slayer’ and ‘The Monday Killer’ lived here, targeting both women and children alike. But she didn’t have much choice, since her apprentice, Ava Lira Young wanted a box of chocolate chips, along with her sister.

Reaching the hoverbus stop, she noticed a tall figure sitting on the bench, alone. Vanya could barely recognise his face since he was wearing a hood, but she does notice sharp horns almost protruding from his hood. For safety, the Jedi Master avoided him by sitting on another bench, waiting for her ride back to the Temple. 

Since there was no sky in the lower levels, Vanya could only assume that it was already late, and she needed to head back as soon as possible, in case the Jedi requested for her personally. With the war effort going on in the Outer Rim, she barely has enough time to rest, let alone meditate on her own thoughts.

She also hardly sees Lira anymore, as she and her twin sister were also occupied with battles that she had to endure for days and days. Hopefully, the cookies that she bought from the convenience store would compensate for her absence and show them her affection towards them. 

“Waiting for someone?” the hooded figure asked, making her gasped. Vanya wasn’t expecting the man to say anything to her, let alone start a conversation with her since they both barely know each other. 

“Yeah, sure,” she lied, hoping for him to leave her alone. She turned away from him as she glanced at the box of cookies that she got for her child, reminding her that she will return to the Jedi Temple safe and sound. 

The hooded figure stared at her, much to her discomfort. “You know, a little bird told me that you were from Mandalore,”  he conveyed. “Is that true, Vanya Doyvesky?”

Her eyes widened as she turned to him, igniting her blue blades. “Who are you, and what do you want from me?”

The hooded figure gave a slight smile as he unraveled his hood, revealing a horned man with red skin and black stripes tattooed all over his body, including his face. “I can assure you that I am only here to meet you personally,” Maul raised both his hands in midair. “I am not here to hurt or kill you, Master Jedi.”

“Tell me, Sith, did Dooku send you here to kill me?” Vanya gave him a hard glance. “Because if he did, then I want you to notify him that your mission was unsuccessful.”

“Count Dooku was merely a Sith pretender,” Maul growled, as he clenched his fist and let the small pebbles hover in midair. “I am Darth Maul, the true Lord of the Sith. I was born with the dark side, while he merely joined the rank of the Sith. He is just a pawn to my master’s plan to destroy the Jedi and the Republic into ashes!”

For a moment, Vanya could only deactivate her weapons as she let her bag drop on the floor, her lips quivering. “But I thought there can only be two Sith, which was the master and apprentice, from what I learned.”

“Ah yes, the Rule of Two,” he spoke in a calm voice. “Formed by our lord and saviour, Darth Bane as a way of ruling over the Sith for millennia.”

“I think the word you were looking for to describe Darth Bane was a mass murderer and a psychopath,” she rolled her eyes, picking up her bag. “Look, thanks for your offer, but I’m happy with the Jedi Order so if you excuse me, I should get going.”

He let out a sinister laugh as she watched her leave the bus stop. “I think happiness is an exaggerating word to describe the Jedi Order, Master Doyvesky?”

She stopped dead in her tracks, her blood running cold. “What did you say?”

“Oh, I spoke with your sister, Vasilia,” he continued. “She’s in Death Watch if I’m not mistaken.”

Vanya clenched her teeth as she turned around, her eyebrows furrowed. “How did you know that I have an older sister?”

“My brother and I were rescued by Death Watch. Their leader, Pre Vizsla, wanted to take back Mandalore from Duchess Satine, in exchange for my revenge against Kenobi.”

“Kenobi is my best friend,” Vanya defended, her voice turning harsh. “Why would you want to kill him?”

“He took everything from me! He chopped off my legs, made me suffer in agony for decades, and stole years of hard work that I've achieved as a Sith Lord.”

“Maybe you deserve it,” Vanya shook her head. “You did kill his master right in front of him anyways so-”

“If you and Kenobi are such good friends, then why do you have to hide from him?” Maul invoked a question towards her, making her heart race. “I thought close friends don't keep secrets with each other.”

“Well,” she stammered, not knowing how to answer. “He's part of the Jedi Council, which was strict with their rules.”

“And what kind of rules did you broke, Master Doyvesky? Was it forming an attachment with your family, or was it having an intense feeling towards a woman that you meet in the streets?”

“He doesn't need to know that,” she gulped, her palms feeling clammy. “Kenobi has too many things on his plate, and those aren't relevant to him anyways.”

“Ah, but he does share his last with you with the Duchess, am I correct?”

Vanya felt exposed. It is true that Obi-Wan told her about how he and Satine fell in love when they were younger, and how he regretted not confessing his feelings towards her. But somehow, she couldn't find herself telling him about her crush on Sohee, whom she always sold her the best pura cera on Coruscant.

“You can't even say a word, can you, Master Jedi?” the Zabrak mocked her, noticing her sullen face.

“Whatever it is, it doesn't matter,” she looked at him, dead in the eye. “Obi-Wan and I are friends, and nothing will ever change my friendship with him, no matter what.”

“But what if I told you that both the Republic and the Separatist were controlled by a Sith Lord?” he smiled, placing his arms behind him. “What would you do, Master Jedi?”

“Then I'll warn the Jedi and the Chancellor about this piece of information,” answered Vanya. “Assuming that the evidence was present, of course.”

“Well, from what I heard, it seems that Count Dooku has taken a liking to Kenobi very much, to the point where he told him about what I've just said to you earlier.”

She burst into laughter. “That's ridiculous. If Dooku actually told Obi-Wan that the Sith controlled the Republic and the Separatist, I would have known as well.”

“And yet he kept that away from you and your apprentice,” Maul pointed out. “For a good friend, he seems to keep you in the dark instead of enlightening you with this vital information that would've saved the galaxy from darkness.”

Vanya pondered, wondering if her friendship with Obi-Wan meant anything to her. All this while, she thought she was a terrible friend for having secrets from him, but now she realizes that he's done the same to her. 

All those years of their friendship, she thought that he was the most trustworthy person in her life. She felt that she could rely on him whenever she needed support. And she considered Obi-Wan Kenobi as an honest person she's ever known, until now.

She couldn't believe that she forgave him for faking his death just to save the Chancellor from assassination. She couldn't believe that she excused him for keeping Lira and Eva's true parentage from them, justifying that they're too young to understand. Whenever Vanya screwed up, Obi-Wan would ignore her but if it's the other way around, she had to forgive him and move on.

Maul is right, Vanya thought, as she shifted her focus towards the Sith, withholding her tears. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“I'll give you a warm reunion with your family,” he offered. “And liberate Mandalore from oppression. I know that the Duchess has forced you and your family to assimilate with her pacifist ideals, but in return, you'll have to do what I ask. That way, we both get what we want, and everybody is happy.”

Vanya sighed, knowing that she won't like what she had to do to see her family again. “Fine, what do you want?”

[laurent-ofvere]

BIRTHDAY FIC FOR BIRTHDAY MOD

@safetytank: “to help make up for the lack of party hardying ;n; here’s a bit from yon unfinished wedding fic set along the journey back to vere”

~

            “I’ve spoken to the remaining Councilors,” said Laurent after seating himself comfortably beside Damen, “who were more than willing to accept that what transpired in Ios should remain undisclosed in exchange for refraining from having them all executed for treason.”

            “Aside from Guion?”

            “Loyse and I have yet to come to an agreement.”

            It was a small concession, one that would buy Laurent no social or political advantages, but the small gesture of mercy towards the Councilor’s wife warmed Damen’s heart. “So all of Akielos will know what happened, but Vere won’t.”

            “There will be rumors, but merchant gossip has always been of a rather outlandish sort.” Laurent seemed content despite this, as he often did when able to control the situation to his liking. “Our transcript of events will only reveal as much as we wish it to.”

            Withholding information still struck Damen as a very Veretian manner of going about things. Even without his authorization, there were already scribes and bards throughout the south detailing the trial and all accompanying details in poetry and song. To suppress a vital part of history from the public for the sake of leveraging evidence seemed almost a selfish thing to do. “We’ll still be riding into Arles with half an army.”

            “Half an army and your honor guard. I don’t anticipate immediate retaliations in my uncle’s name, but it is a risk to leave you undefended in what many would still consider enemy territory.”

            Damen nodded, thinking of the soldiers he’d handpicked for the excursion.

            “I’ll send out invitations for the coronation as soon as we reach the palace. Until the summons are heeded, we’ll have time to prepare for first impressions.”

            “What did you have in mind?” Despite himself, Damen was excited. It felt as if it had been eons since they’d last put their heads together to drum up a plan against insurmountable odds, though this time they weren’t quite as insurmountable as they’d been before.

            “The necessary people will arrive within two weeks, three if they’re waylaid by inclement weather. They won’t recognize you right away, which we can use to our advantage.”

            Damen stared at him incredulously. “You can’t be serious, of course they’ll—”

            “They won’t,” Laurent interrupted, tucking a loose curl of yellow hair behind his ear. “They could barely tell that shipment of slaves apart, especially the ones of similar coloring. And you weren’t in view often enough to become a familiar sight.”

            An awkward silence settled between them, the unspoken because I imprisoned you for days at a time hanging over their held gazes.

            “You’re sure of this,” said Damen.

            “Absolutely.”

            “Because if-”

            “Damen.” Resolute blue eyes bored into his own. “I guarantee that four months after the fact, having glimpsed you at most thrice a week, every member of the court has already put your face entirely out of their memory. They have their own petty concerns to hold their attention, their prince’s foreign plaything will be nothing but a faintly-remembered talking point.”

            “Touars recognized me,” he pointed out.

            “Touars first met you at Marlas. Encountering him again on a battlefield gave his memory the context needed to identify you.”

            He didn’t want to beleaguer the subject further, despite all the rebuttals marshalling at the tip of his tongue. Laurent was steadfast in his convictions, and Damen had yet to experience a plan of his going too dangerously awry.

     ��      “All right,” he conceded reluctantly, “they won’t recognize me.”

            “If it will calm your nerves, I also suggest you don one of your Akielon accents—”

            “What.”

            “—Since the slave they glanced at in passing spoke perfect Veretian,” Laurent finished. “Without a silk sheet and speaking with a disguised voice, there will be no connections made between Damen and Damianos but their shared country of origin.”

            He exhaled for a long few seconds, resisting the urge to rub his temples. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

            “It’s better to draw foes into traps of your own making than to risk them taking the initiative,” said Laurent. “Your pride will have to recover, but we still breathe at this moment because our enemies underestimated us.”

            Damen understood perfectly, even if the underhanded nature of their tactics didn’t sit well with the part of him that demanded honor and truth in all things. “How versed should I be in your language, then?” he asked, laying a thick coat of Akielon over Vere’s smoothened consonants and flowing sentences. If his language tutor were there to hear him butcher the pronunciation so, she’d have swatted him on the back of the head.

            Laurent stared at him with a delicate wrinkling of his nose. “That was appalling.”

            “You aren’t giving me much direction,” Damen continued, this time with substantially less accent flavoring his speech. “Have I been practicing these long years, or will you have to translate for me?”

            “Your skills have fallen into disuse, but you’ve been studying diligently ever since our introduction.”

            “Our introduction,” he repeated with a smile and only a dusting of Akielon to harden his syllables. “And how exactly did we tumble into each other’s good graces?”

            “With decidedly less tumbling than the truthful version.” Laurent did not comment on Damen’s snort of laughter. “Accounts of the trial are guaranteed to circulate, but perhaps Prince Damianos was not so much rescuing a lover as he was coming to the aid of a foreign dignitary unjustly sentenced to the execution block.”

            “All tales should have a dramatic rescue, certainly,” agreed Damen, “but this one shouldn’t gloss over the part where the rescued in turn becomes the rescuer.”

            “Nobody else was there in the baths,” Laurent said with a minute shrug of one shoulder. “It’s not so important whether the bastard king died by another’s hand or by his own.”

            “Of course it’s…” Damen trailed off, holding Laurent’s cool blue gaze. “You…don’t want it known you bested Kastor.”

            “The crown prince of Vere avoided patrolling the border for years and hasn’t much experience with combat in the field. Just as well, since his hypothetical murder of an acting ruler, however illegitimate the man’s claim to the throne, would spark much more of a political incident than if Akielos kept its regicide between members of the royal family.”

            He didn’t like it. He was already going to be greeted by fleeting whispers of Prince-killer the moment they set foot in Arles; he didn’t want to add King-slayer to his repertoire.

            “We will confirm nothing, of course,” Laurent added. “Such topics are not fit for polite conversation.”

            “And how polite is our conversation going to be?” Damen asked, despite the question settling into his gut like a lead weight. He’d grown accustomed to acting warmly towards Laurent during their time in Akielos. The thought of giving it up…

            “Damianos is, of course, idealistic and headstrong enough to mount a rescue fueled by a perceived injustice. However, he and the prince are still strangers, knowing each other for less than two months. Rumors will inevitably circulate of their being lovers, but the rest of the court will see no evidence in how they behave toward each other.”

            Damen’s heart splashed sadly into his stomach.

           It must have shown on his face, as Laurent paused a moment before placing one fine-boned hand over Damen’s closest knee. “Because of this,” he explained in the manner he did when revealing some complex piece of intellectual acrobatics, “the king has no particular attachment to the prince. If a noble who felt the prince unfit to rule wished to undermine his reign and ultimately depose him, that noble might follow in the Regent’s footsteps and seek outside assistance.”

            Damen’s eyes widened, the wheels in his brain spinning. “I’m…to act as bait for the traitors in your court?”

            “Should they approach you with propositions, express skeptical interest but agree to nothing until they’ve laid their plans before you,” Laurent instructed. “Any reasonable co-conspirator would familiarize himself with every step of their strategy.”

            “I can’t imagine the prince’s rescuer betraying him so easily,” Damen said softly, covering Laurent’s hand on his knee with his own. “It doesn’t fit his character at all.”

            “The treachery won’t be framed as such.” Laurent let his fingers slide into the spaces between Damen’s. “There will be efforts to convince the king that the prince would make a terrible ruler, that the country would be better off if a puppet candidate held the throne instead. Perhaps the prince need not be executed at all, but entrusted to the king as a prisoner while a more qualified leader takes his place.”

            Damen squeezed Laurent’s hand gently. “If the king is agreeing to all of this, I feel he’d specify that the prince not be harmed during any phase of the operation.”

            “The prince will not appreciate his benevolence,” said Laurent.

            “No,” Damen agreed, “he wouldn’t.”

            A long, quiet minute passed. Damen’s thumb rubbed idly at one of Laurent’s knuckles while he tried to think when they’d last had time to sit and hammer out a battle plan together. Outside, the sounds of general camp activity had quieted as their entourage bedded down for the night, leaving only crickets and the rustle of wind on silk to fill the air.

            Laurent did eventually break the silence. “Were you harmed, when they took you?”

            “Yes.” His capture in Ios was not something they had previously discussed. The memories still carried an unpleasant aftertaste. “They had to, otherwise I’d have fought through them to reach Kastor and demand he explain himself. After that, they settled for sleeping draughts.”

            Laurent stilled, clearly weighing options in the privacy of his own mind. Damen waited patiently, and was rewarded with Laurent shifting to lean his head lightly against one bared shoulder, his hair tickling Damen’s skin. To distract from the newness of the action, Laurent asked, “Were you afraid?”

            Damen kept himself very still, half-worried the slightest movement would dislodge Laurent and this tentative intimacy would be lost. “Afraid, confused. Disbelief…then just anger.”

            Laurent made a small acknowledging hum.

            “…You know,” Damen said after a time, “Anyone I take up on their offer of dethroning you is going to be offended when it turns out we’re to be married.”

            “That will be the card we reveal last,” said Laurent. He paused again, as if each successive degree of physical contact came at great personal risk. Damen wanted to reassure him that nothing between them would ever be a danger, but Laurent would only take such talk as coddling. The best he could do was to let Laurent come into such understanding on his own, which he achieved by turning to cautiously press the warmth of his body into Damen’s side. “I know you won’t enjoy playing at being strangers again.”

            “I’ll endure it,” he replied, looping an arm comfortably around Laurent’s waist. “There’s little I wouldn’t do to secure a future with you.”

            Though the lights from their various candles was too dim to see well, Laurent still turned to bury his face in whatever part of Damen he could reach. “We can visit at night,” he murmured, as if sharing a great secret. “I won’t go months without you for the sake of infallible discretion.”

            “I can be discreet,” Damen promised, reveling in their closeness. “Arles has plenty of window shutters.”

[overwatchreader]

Ooh could i request something written for reaper, soldier 76, lucio, and sombra interacting with a person who had been a talon experiment?

where’s the lenny face? i need it right here.

You aren’t entirely sure what you can do yet. The experiments had been plenty and painful, with various injections and tests of durability and strength. You know you can lift more than probably a hundred times your own weight and you know that you sat for a long time in a cold chamber for days on end with less than the barest minimum of food and water to survive. You spent probably weeks underwater with little to no oxygen and you’re not really sure you can be called human anymore.

Time doesn’t matter to you anymore. You can’t remember anything from before you were in Talon’s hands–it hurt to think too hard about memories that you couldn’t call to mind. You were beaten into submission; programmed and tortured until you understood your primary objective to serve Talon. You are dubbed only “The Asset” and considered one of Talon’s primary weapons.

One day you will be free. One day you will no longer be beneath Talon’s thumb and you will get to see the light of day again. These are the people you meet throughout your life.

Reaper observes first. He has seen the project as it happens in real time; watched you be experimented on and changed. Even though he knew it was a bit extreme what Talon was doing to you. When you are deemed ready for combat or human interaction, he is the first to step in and speak to you. He is not kind at first; he tells you straight that if you are a waste of time and money, a failed project, they will not hesitate to put you down. He’s mainly interested in how useful you are, but as time passes he comes to consider you a vital piece of his core team.You are something… important to him. You think it’s just because you are an important asset, but just like with Sombra and Widowmaker, Reaper makes a point of checking up on you periodically during missions. He ensures your safety just like the others. In the nights, when the terrors return and you find yourself screaming in your sleep, Reaper comes and he comforts you, something small he will never let anyone else know about. When you are crying and can’t recall why you feel so much pain or who you were in the moment, he shushes you, rocking you gently while humming something from his own times long past. It is those moments when he regrets knowing what has happened to you, but even still, he would not go back and change things, as he wouldn’t want to let you go.

Soldier: 76 comes across you after you’ve made a successful escape from Talon. He finds you days after you’re out of their grasps, a pariah in a small village that people avoid. He knows there is something about you that is off, knows you are not fit to be around people. He can tell in the way you react whenever anyone approaches you, can see it in your eyes when you throw panicked looks at him when he has you pinned down. He doesn’t entirely know what to do with you other than to bring you with him as he makes his way back to Ana.He recognizes that you’re a lot like him, but so completely different. You hardly sleep and don’t touch any of the food he gives you. Your skeptical of him at every turn until he saves your life. You don’t entirely understand the concept of thanking someone for something like that any more; whenever Widowmaker or Sombra did anything close to it they usually tacked on a “you owe me.” But Soldier doesn’t say any such thing. He tells you it was the right thing to do, and you’ve forgotten the concept of kindness for so long, it’s weird to you. You eventually find the words to thank him, and he’s startled to know you can actually speak. He decides there’s still hope for you yet, and also decides to keep you close.

Lucio meets you while you’re under Talon’s influence, further down the timeline, but way before your eventual escape. You are sent to aggravate the situation in Brazil, and would have succeeded if Lucio had not intervened when he did. He manages to subdue and capture you in an attempt to take you to the police (anonymously of course) but during the time of your capture he comes to learn a bit more about you, albeit intentionally. For starters, he finds out you are very valuable to Talon. And then he comes to know that you don’t even know your own name and have rarely been allowed too much kindness. He gives you your first concept of freedom as well.It is dangerous, the two days you spend with Lucio, because the more time you are around him, the more you begin to think for yourself. He tells you that what’s been done to you is wrong; that you deserve freedom and happiness and to live a life from beneath Talon. He tells you that he can help you find your family again; that he can help you build a new life and become your own person again. This is a concept foreign to you, but it sounds so wonderful and amazing that you think it could be true. You honestly should have known that it could never be for you. The minute he leaves you to help someone else in need, you are taken by Talon once more. You fight against them and it is deemed that you were too free. Within minutes you are taken to be reconditioned once more, your memories of your time with Lucio wiped from your mind.

Sombra had been tasked with erasing your identity from the world when you were taken by Talon. She ensured no one knew who you were and that your friends and family, if you had any, wouldn’t be able to find you again. She had little care for what happened to you during the experimentation, but after, she was very interested in keeping you close to her. The only way she really knows how is through manipulation. She keeps little bits of information about your old life over you to ensure that you keep coming back to her.Unfortunately, this sort of backfires for her, as she begins to feel an actual connection with you. Even if she was manipulating you, she finds that you respond positively to her either way. It is likely the human contact and connection that makes her appealing to you. She is one of the very few that don’t treat you like the experiment you are, instead teasing you and making you feel like you are someone valuable in a way that others don’t. Even still, she ensures that you know who has the power in your friendship, always reminding you that she knows your real name, age, and any other miscellaneous information. It sometimes leaves a bitter taste in your mouth to be reminded, but you are so starved at times that you cannot help running back to her whenever you are feeling the worst bout yourself, because even when she withholds the important information, she still indulges you with little bits of your life from before, reminding you that you were human once too.

[hellomissmabel]

“I can’t fall in love without you”

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Bucky x reader

Warnings: Angst but with a happy ending. Mentions of car accident, death, loss of left arm.

Word count: 2.507

Summary: Five years after moving away from her friends and everything she knows, Y/N receives a surprise visit by Tony, bringing some bad news with him. Sequel to the fic I wrote for @bionic-buckyb that you can find here: “Someone will love you”

A/N: I know I promised you a fluffy fic @mrshopkirk but that’s coming next, okay?

Bucky was your happy pill. He told you he’d hold you until you died. So when you left, every single time you scratched your nails down another man’s back, another man that wasn’t Bucky, you forgot about everything cordial and just let go. Because you have nothing but a memory to hold on to now. A memory and some curse words you’re about to get thrown to your head in order to deal with some overdue debts. Because you’ll pay in order to heal your wounds and those of others, too.

You had set up shop in a little sunset town in Europe. Your motivations for travelling all this way were as clear as day but you feed the same story, the same lie to everybody who showed at least some interest in your previous life; A family member died and left you a generous amount of money, enough to give you a fresh start. They didn’t need to know that you broke your lover’s heart and asked your ridiculously rich best friend Tony Stark if he fancied funding your escape to Europe, to which of course he said yes. With a little pushing and shoving from Caroline, your partner in crime.

You turned your key into the lock, opening the door to your two-bedroom apartment you shared with your colleague Henrietta. You both worked two jobs, not that you needed to with all of Tony’s money, but it was more to keep your mind from wandering to Bucky. Henrietta worked as a waitress at the diner around the corner with you and was a house sitter on the side. But your job at the diner is only your side-job. Henrietta needs all the help she can get since she can’t run the place on her own with the owner always passed out between the liquor bottles. Your actual job however is at a little pastry shop two blocks down where you have built up quite the loyal clientele thanks to your mad baking skills.

“Y/N, my love, would you mind sharing a piece of your famous apple pie with us?,” Henrietta asked you from her spot on the loveseat in the living room as the door falls back in the lock. Unaware of any visitors you might be expecting, you cautiously followed the sound of her chipper voice.

“Yes, Y/N,” a slippery charming voice pipes up, a familiar dark-haired man sitting next to Henrietta. Your groceries bags slip from your hold and through your fingers, crashing onto the floor with a clattering noise.

“Tony you motherfucker Stark what the living fuck are you doing here?” you scream at the top of your lungs. But it’s all inside your head, because once you open your mouth to let the words out, you have lost all ability to speak.

“I ran into this handsome stranger at the diner. He asked me if I knew a certain Y/N Y/L/N and I told him of course I knew Y/N, she’s my roomie!”

You rush towards the kitchen and taking out the leftover apple pie, the need to escape from Henrietta’s good-natured chatter too great. Yet you soon feel his presence hovering behind you and as you turn around, you dive deep inside the bubble of pain growing inside your chest. The apple pie is soon abandoned on the kitchen counter as you begin a staring contest with Tony, Henrietta having vacated the room the give you two some personal space.

You’ll be damned if you let him be the first to speak, so you clear your throat and ignore the chills running down your spine. “Is there something wrong with Bucky? Is that why you’re here? Because I clearly remember our agreement like it was yesterday and I’m fairly sure it didn’t involve any impromptu visits.”

“Just calm down first,” is all you get. A sarcastic chuckle and a friendly warning. So you turn your back to Tony and take out a knife from a nearby drawer. Whilst cutting the apple pie in three pieces, one for Tony, Henrietta and you, your gut feeling tells you it’s a lie. He is withholding a very vital piece of information from you.

“Where’s Caroline?”

“Home. Taking care of our two kids.”

There’s so much left unsaid behind those eyes but you’re too proud and too scared to probe any further. Nevertheless, there’s no goodbye hiding behind that picture perfect smile, all your goodbyes discarded a long time ago when you couldn’t be bothered to tell anybody you were leaving. Anybody but Bucky.

“How long have I been gone?”

“Like you haven’t been counting, Y/N,” he strikes back with sharp precision. You have been counting, that much is true. But your tongue is tied.

“I need to hear it from you,” you press with a stubborn insistence.

Tony sighs a desolate “Five years.”

Your old home is now a place the world around your forgot. There’s nothing you can do except forget about it too, forget about the brightness of Bucky’s smile and the longing, the aching of your heart for his touch. “How’s Nat?,” the masochist inside you asks.

“Y/N…,” Tony replies with another languid exhale.

What follows is an unfortunate reunion with the tiles of the kitchen floor, your knees giving out instantly due to the shock. Tony’s there to catch you before you hurt yourself, lifting you up and sitting you down on the kitchen counter, locking eyes with you as he cups your face in the palms of his hands. His thumbs stroke your cheeks lightly, scared that his touch will somehow make you combust into flames.

“That’s exactly why I’m here. Nat and Bucky were in a car accident. She… She didn’t make it.”

“They were arguing,” he explains and it’s as if all the tiredness you’ve ever experienced in your entire life comes like a tidal wave right back at you. Mind reeling, eyes red from the tears, you listen to his quivering voice.

“Bucky and Nat separated not long after you left. Well, it was Bucky’s decision and Nat just went along with it, much to her dismay. And not long after their break-up, they got back together. The two of them have been dating on and off again for as long as you’ve left the country.”

Tony heaves out a dry laugh but there’s no humour to be found in his expressionless eyes. Taking out a handkerchief, Tony hands it to you and you gladly expect it, wiping away the excess tears. “The only reason they stayed together is because all their other romances failed.”

You want to wash out your brain with bleach the moment those words reach your ears, processed by every single brain cell tainted by the memory of Bucky Barnes. “I don’t want to hear it, Tony. Just tell me when it happened.”

“The car crash happened just yesterday. Like I said, we planned an intervention at my place. The medics said Nat died on impact. Bucky suffered some severe injuries... They immediately took him to the OR and according to the doctors he’s out of the woods. For now.” Tony looks down at your shaking hands. “I came here as soon as I heard.”

“Why? Why would you ever think about coming to me first? You should be there with Bucky and everybody else. I’m not a part of this anymore.”

“Y/N, you will always be a part of this. Bucky needs you, he will need you now more than ever. He’s… He’s lost his left arm, Y/N.”

So this is what it feels to have hit rock bottom. Tony tries to save the conversation by ensuring you that you have a flight back thanks to his private jet, already getting prepped for take-off. Part of you wants to come, wants to go with his so desperately you can’t even be bothered to pack your things. Bucky is badly injured, the thought following you like a ghost.

But there’s another part of you that whispers like the devil, coaxing you with wrong intentions. You can’t go back. You can’t face all your friends, or now former friends, after eloping half a decade ago without another word. “They’ll hate me, Tony. As soon as they see my face, they’ll cast me out.

“They might. What you did was ugly, Y/N. You were unfair to so many people, so many people that loved you. But I have come here to make peace, I’ve come here to offer you a way to make amends.” He takes your hands in his, squeezing them softly. “Pack your bags, sweet thing. You’ve been hiding for long enough.”

You never set a foot in a hospital unless it’s absolutely necessary. It’s ironic that a hospital is the first place you set foot in after five long years.

“Y/N Y/L/N and Tony Stark here to see James Buchanan Barnes,” Tony announces to the woman at the nurse station. Her light blond hair is tied back in a neat bun, her sharp facial structure on full display. But her soft lips cut off the edge of her symmetric face, adding a kindness to her obviously very beautiful face.

“Mister Rogers is still with him so you’ll have to wait until he leaves to visit mister Barnes.”

“Very well,” Tony concludes and with a curt nod thanks to lovely woman.

Nervously you sit down on one of the chairs nearest to the nurses’ station, staring at the people passing you by in order to give your mind a welcome distraction. That is, until your name falls from Steve’s lips with the utmost indignation.

“You brought her back?” he then turns to Tony. “You brought Y/N back? You actually thought this was a good time to bring back the one that got away? Nat just died, Tony!”

“I know I shouldn’t be here,” you say in a meagre attempt to save Tony’s ass as well as your own.

“Damn right you shouldn’t be here. You left, Y/N. I’m never going to forgive you for that.”

Tony’s vice grip on Steve’s wrists prevents him from turning away, his eyes spitting the fires of hell whilst darting back and forth between you and Tony. “Let go of me, Stark,” he snarls in a hostile tone.

“You know, Steve, I never pegged you for the type that holds long-term grudges.”

“Fuck off. You had no right to involve her in this. She’s not our friend anymore. She stopped being our friend when she left without a word five fucking years ago.”

“Please stop. Both of you,” you snap in the middle of their hurricane.

Addressing Steve directly, you waver slightly as your system drops into a critical mode. He is so angry. He is fuming. He is pissed at you and he has every right to. Before you and Bucky, there was you and Steve. You were friends with benefits and even though the transition back to just friends went smoothly, you don’t think he ever let go of you. Maybe he’s still cross with you for going from his booty calls to romantic dates with Bucky and not some other dude you picked up at one of Tony’s parties.

“Steve, I’m not going to overstay my welcome at all. I promise you I’ll be outta here by nightfall.” You take a deep breath and finish with an insecure “But only if Bucky wants me.”

The blond huffs, eyeing you suspiciously, but agrees to your terms after which Tony releases him. “If you hurt him again, I’m going to come after you.” Giving Tony the stink eye, he albeit power walks around the corner.

“C’mon darling, let’s go see your boy,” Tony encourages quietly, his hand on the small of your back as he leads you towards the right room. You’re afraid to walk inside, so you let Tony do the knocking first, hoping that Bucky will already be fast asleep and didn’t hear anything of the altercation that occurred earlier.

“Yeah, I’m awake. Come in, whoever you are.” He still sounds the exact same, your heart skipping a beat at the sound.

Shortly peering your head inside, you quickly retract again as your nerves catch up to you. Steve was right. Steve was right and you shouldn’t be here because Nat just died and they were still together even though their relationship wasn’t all too stable and they weren’t faring well at all and…

“Y/N, is that you?”

It’s Bucky’s voice that snaps you out of your insecure ramblings. You had only shown your face for a feeble second, how on earth could he have known it was you?

“Tony kept his promise,” he mumbles to himself and suddenly all the pieces to the puzzle fall together. Your feet lead you through the door and into Bucky’s hospital room.

“Y/N,” Bucky whispers softly. “Sweetheart…” And then he starts to cry.

You rush over to him immediately, cradling your ex-lover into your loving embrace. It’s then that you notice he indeed only has one arm and that there’s a firm bandage around his left shoulder. But you’re not given too much time to think any further about it before Bucky’s ugly cries turn into whimpers and his heartbeat levels out to a steady thumping.

Pulling back a little so you can take another good look at him, you finally get to see the changes behind his eyes. The long hair, the lush and thick, black eyelashes together with that million dollar smile. It’s all still there. But his eyes, his baby blue eyes carry a dead sentence. They show you the five years you’ve been gone in just mere seconds, all the hurt and the misery he’s been through, trying to fix himself up with little help from Nat.

“Nat’s dead,” Bucky chokes out in between loud sobs. “I lost my arm. My God how I’ve missed you,” he croaks out in a hoarse voice.

“You don’t have to talk about that, Bucky. Not now,” you reassure him, weaving your fingertips through his chestnut hair.

“I love you, Y/N.”

“You don’t have to say that, Bucky. Not now,” you repeat weakly, your movements having come to a stop.

“Do you still love me?,” he questions as he looks up at you, baby blues drowning in a sea of tears.

“Of course I still love you, Buck.”

“Then what took you so long? Why didn’t you come back until now?”

The questions hovers mid-air, mingling itself with the air in your lungs. “I couldn’t. I didn’t know if you’d still want me. You will always live in my heart, I just can’t fall in love without you. But I hurt you, I hurt you so much.”

“Don’t. I’m also to blame for this mess. Just – Just stay. Please stay this time, okay?”

“Okay,” you nod softly, “I’ll stay.”

“Okay,” he smiles and in the heat of the moment Bucky makes a rash decision, pressing his lips to yours in a soft, chaste kiss. He inhales deeply, savouring this reunion as much as he can.

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