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hopeisour4letteredword · 4 years ago

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personal furnace, ch1

Summary: Winter renovations at the inn in Zaphias leave Yuri in need of a warm bunk for the night. Good thing he can always count on his good buddy Flynn.

Read it below or at the AO3 link in the notes.

"It's freezing out there," Yuri complains, when he pushes in through Flynn's window. Flynn grimaces at the gust of cold wind through his room. It rustles through the papers on his desk threateningly.

"I'm quite aware, so if you could please get the rest of the way inside and close—thank you." He sighs with relief as Yuri slams the window closed behind himself. "I hope you realize that I was making a sacrifice for you by leaving that unlocked."

"You're indoors, you run hot and you have a fireplace, I don't feel sorry for you," Yuri says. He's shivering quite badly when Flynn looks up from his desk. Flynn frowns at him. When he rises from his chair, he scoops a blanket off the bed on his way past, and approaches to wrap it around Yuri's shoulders. Yuri makes a grateful noise. "Oh, fuck, thank you."

"You aren't in nearly enough layers," Flynn says. He fusses with the drape of the blanket and scowls down at Yuri's clothes. He's not so foolish as to be wearing his usual garb, but a full-fronted tunic and loose jacket are hardly a full winter kit. Yuri huddles into the blanket with a tight shrug.

"Wasn't so bad when I left Halure."

"Halure's always warmer," Flynn says, absentmindedly. He tucks the blanket all the way up against Yuri's throat. Yuri leans into it, eyelashes dipping against his cheeks when he sighs with relief, and Flynn has to swallow to stop himself from saying something stupid about how long they are or how soft the tender skin of Yuri's throat is against Flynn's knuckles. Gods, but he's always at his easiest to knock off kilter when they've been apart for a while. Sometimes he thinks if Yuri went away for long enough, Flynn would blurt out a confession just from seeing him again, because he'd forget how to cope with how beautiful Yuri can be.

"Sometimes by a great deal."

"Yes, well, I don't think about that when I travel."

"Have you got better jackets in your bag?"

Yuri grimaces. "Yeah, but I dropped those off at the inn. Speaking of..."

...Ah. The inn in Zaphias is undergoing renovations to improve their insulation right now. It had happened that furnace blastia had been compensating for more structural deficiencies than anyone had realized, and now the whole city is scrambling to prepare for the worst of winter. The Knights are helping wherever unskilled but professionally directed labor is of use, and Flynn had made certain that some of the Flynn Brigade was stationed in the Lower Quarter, but... renovating an entire building with the proper amount of care can't be done instantaneously, no matter how many spare hands you provide.

"The renovations," Flynn says, sympathetically. "They didn't get enough rooms ready?"

"I got the impression they'd already done an absurd amount for how much time they had," Yuri says, which is probably very generous of him. "But no. Seems like it's a little cramped. Mariam's sorting by priority right now, so the elderly and those who really need it are first..."

"You don't have to run through the list for me," Flynn says. "You wouldn't take a finished room now if Mariam told you to. I know you. You're waiting for everyone else to get their space first."

"Yeah," Yuri says. He rolls his shoulders back and straightens a bit to stare Flynn down, defiantly. "Of course. Who's going to handle sleeping out in the cold better than me? I mean, really. I've slept in the Drifts before."

"Right," Flynn says. He knows that, objectively, but he hates the thought of Yuri having to sleep in the snow and freezing winds of Zoephir. He can't begin to fathom what task brought Brave Vesperia there that was worth sleeping that way. It must have paid quite handsomely, or been quite important. "Well, that's very noble of you and all that. Yes, you can sleep here instead."

"That's not—" Yuri splutters. His cheeks are red, but Flynn can't be certain that's not just the flush of the cold air yet to fade. "I wasn't going to ask for that! Just if I could take any spare blankets off your hands until the renovations are complete!"

"I suppose you can if you insist," Flynn says, doubtfully. He still doesn't really enjoy the mental image of Yuri shivering under a pile of quilts in a room so drafty as to be frosty when Flynn is perfectly content to share his space. Not that he would have any problem donating some spare blankets to Mariam in the morning, for others who didn't have a warm space yet, but for Yuri... And anyway, Yuri has never slept well when he has to share his space with strangers. He has enough trouble getting to sleep without further complications. "But really, you can just sleep here. There's no reason for you to be cold."

"Mariam said it would build character," Yuri says, presumably just to be a shit, because that's pretty much the only reason Yuri has uttered the words Hanks said or Mariam said since they were seven.

"I don't think anybody would accuse you of lacking character."

Yuri grins, sharp and proud. "Why thank you."

"I didn't hear any real objections, so I assume you're sleeping here," Flynn adds.

"I mean, yeah, if you're serious," Yuri says. He finally reaches up and takes the edges of the blanket into his own hands, adjusting it around himself. "Like you said. No reason to make myself suffer as some weird exercise in stupid pride."

"Good," Flynn says, satisfied. "I can lend you some clothes to sleep in tonight, so you don't have to go back for your bags."

"Alright," Yuri says, easily enough. He shuffles along behind Flynn when Flynn heads for the dresser and retrieves some soft pajamas. He takes the clothes, and Flynn excuses himself to the desk again to let Yuri change. They used to share clothes more when they were children, which is to say that they treated most of their things as interchangeable when they were children. Flynn tries to remember that so he doesn't feel so embarrassingly warm and fuzzy about Yuri wearing his clothes. Yuri promptly sabotages this by saying, "We are the same fucking size, how do you stretch the shoulders out so much?"

"My shoulders are broader than yours," Flynn says. He stubbornly doesn't turn to look, because he knows the warm, fuzzy feeling will only get worse when he sees the shoulders of his shirt hanging loose on Yuri's leaner frame. Good grief. He has no right to feel any kind of way about Yuri wearing his clothes. "Stop whining. At least it's not the other way around, and you stretch all my shirts out when you borrow them. I'd never let you borrow anything otherwise."

"Sure you would. You'd just whine about it."

"My uniforms are actually meant to look crisp and fit properly, you know."

"Not your pajamas, smart-ass. Since when have I ever borrowed one of your uniforms?"

"When you were in the Knights with me as a rookie," Flynn says. He risks a glance back. Yuri has finished pulling the pajamas on, and wrapped the blanket back around himself as a cloak. "You stole my spare uniform a few times, remember?"

"Aside from that. You weren't that much bigger than me then, anyway. I didn't fuck them up that much." Yuri gives him a sour look. "And you certainly chewed me out for it enough at the time."

"Well, you knew better than to be stealing my clothes."

"Not my fault we shared a drawer. I didn't even realize I was taking yours half the time."

"I'm not going to argue with you about idiotic things we did when we were eighteen," Flynn says. Yuri could have just paid attention to which side of the damn drawer he was reaching into, but this debate is pointless. "You can go ahead and get in bed. I need to finish reading this."

"Don't stay up all night," Yuri teases, climbing into bed with the blanket still wrapped around him. Flynn wonders, with some amusement, whether he gave up the right to share that blanket with Yuri later by handing it to him now. But no. Once he's snuggled down under the covers, Yuri wriggles until he frees himself and can haphazardly yank the cloak-blanket out. It spreads mostly-evenly over the rest of the quilts.

That's one way to do it.

It doesn't take too much longer for Flynn to finish looking over his document, but it does take longer than it should. He keeps catching himself peeking over at Yuri, a glimpse of dark hair settled cozy and comfortable against Flynn's pillows, the quilt-softened shape of him under Flynn's covers. Flynn has to force himself to be responsible and complete his task rather than just following him to bed.

Yuri doesn't react when Flynn finally joins him. His eyelashes are a dark curve against his cheekbones, and his breathing is steady and even. Asleep already, it seems. Good. Flynn is glad he feels safe enough in Flynn's space to rest easily. He slides under the blankets as carefully as he can and settles down with his back to Yuri. For all that Yuri always says Flynn runs hot, he's putting off no shortage of body heat himself. It's nice and toasty under the covers as a result. Flynn has no trouble falling asleep.

---

He wakes up and smells citrus.

In the time it takes his newly-conscious brain to begin processing that that's confusing and unexpected, he realizes that his nose is buried in someone's hair. Silky, dark, soft hair, which smells faintly of citrus—

—Oh. Yuri must be buying new soaps in Dahngrest these days. He used to just use whatever plain soaps could be bought for cheap in the Lower Quarter. Flynn supposes that nicer, interesting-smelling soaps are the kind of luxury that a person might consider if they recently gained a consistent source of income. Somehow he still smells, in some unidentifiable way, like Yuri.

Because it is Yuri, of course. Yuri still huddled almost up to his own nose under the blankets. Yuri bundled tightly in Flynn's arms, his chest pressed to Flynn's chest as Flynn wraps around him like a clinging octopus. He's warm, very warm. Flynn can take comfort in the secure knowledge that he made sure Yuri was warm at night. Which isn't to say that this embrace was an intentional move to get him there. No, Flynn is just guilty of sleep cuddling, and now he has to try to undo that without waking his friend. There are several associated problems with this; the first is that Flynn doesn't actually want to stop cuddling Yuri, both because he's soppily in love and because Yuri is warm and Flynn can already tell the rest of the room is distinctly not. The second is the actual logistics of the maneuver. Flynn can't move him too much or he'll wake, but if he just moves himself without moving Yuri at all, Yuri might flop around enough to wake anyway. And even if he can avoid both of those, the frigid air that will sneak into the blanket roll when Flynn leaves it might be enough to wake Yuri on its own.

The third problem is that as soon as Flynn leaves the bed he's going to be haunted by every faint citrus perfume he encounters for the rest of the winter, remembering this moment of Yuri safe and vulnerable and content in his arms, but perhaps that's more of a new extension to Flynn's general in love with Yuri problem than an issue with leaving the bed.

Alas. He must attempt the thing anyway. He uses gentle, soft touches to Yuri's person and little shifts in tiny increments of his own. When he's finally extricated himself, he watches Yuri for a second longer just to be sure his stealth operation was successful. Yuri huddles down into the warm spot Flynn left behind, blankets still tucked up around his shoulders and tousled hair concealing his face from view. His breathing is still slow and even, the mountain of blankets falling and rising with every sleeping breath. Flynn sighs with silent relief and heads for the bathroom.

When he emerges, fresh-faced and dressed in his under-armor uniform, he walks as softly as he can over to his armor stand. Metal is still metal, but he tries to be quiet as he begins to assemble it.

The blankets rustle. Yuri says, hoarsely, "Oh, what the fuck, are you really getting up already? I thought maybe you just had to pee or something." Flynn looks sharply over his shoulder. Yuri has pushed himself up onto one elbow, and peers back, looking crabby and half-asleep. "I'm sorry. I was trying not to wake you—"

"You've gotta be joking. It's not even fucking light outside yet, Flynn. What's wrong with you? At least wait until dawn."

"It's the dead of winter," Flynn says. He snaps on the wrist-piece of his gauntlet that he was already holding and turns to face Yuri. "Dawn's still a while off. I have to get started on my day. I meant to let you keep sleeping, though." "I know you were still awake when I got here, and you haven't slept any more than I have. Seriously? You do this every night?"

"I think it's later than you realize," Flynn says, miffed to be lectured on his sleep habits by a known insomniac. To be fair, Yuri has the excuse that his sleep problems are involuntary, but still. "I don't—hang on. What did you mean, you thought I just had to pee?"

"What does it sound like?" Yuri groans, a rough, exasperated growl of a sound, and pushes himself the rest of the way into a sitting position. Ah, no. Flynn had been hoping Yuri wouldn't follow his example, and he would rest some more. It is difficult for Yuri to find peaceful sleep, after all, and he had been traveling yesterday, too. If he came through Halure, he couldn't have taken a shortcut by sea, either, nor been dropped off by Ba'ul. He has to be exhausted. "I thought you got out of bed to use the bathroom or something, not because you were getting up for real. I'd have stopped you before you got out of the blanket nest if I'd realized."

Flynn smacks down the tender, flowery ache that blooms in his heart at the conjured image of Yuri sleepily grabbing after him to keep him in a shared bed. "Since when were you awake?"

Yuri scrubs a hand through his hair with a grimace. "I don't know, whenever you started moving around? I'm a light sleeper."

"I know that," Flynn says, tightly. He tries to wrestle his voice back under control. "I—my apologies. For—"

For the cuddling. He can't quite force the words out, though, in a moment of spiked mortification and shame. Yuri squints at him for a few seconds in confusion before his expression clears, realization dawning on his face.

"What, for the cuddling? You don't need to apologize for that. It's fine. Is that why you got up? Good grief, you're an idiot. I don't care. You could have stayed."

"It's not why I got up, the clock says—never mind. Even if you don't care, I care, since apparently you refuse to do so for yourself." Yuri gives him an outraged look for that one, which makes sense, but which is also a point Flynn is willing to start real shit over, so good luck, Yuri. "If I'm going to offer to share my bed, I should be able to control myself enough not to invade your space and your boundaries. So—"

"I said it's fine," Yuri snaps. Flynn prepares to argue more before Yuri, red in the face and avoiding eye contact, adds, "You're really warm."

Flynn stops and stares at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"You're warm," Yuri repeats, sounding frustrated. "I've told you, you run hot. Hotter than me, anyway. Human furnace. You always have been. It's—it was helping."

Flynn has to stare for a few more seconds, stupefied, before Yuri rallies himself enough to glare back. Yes, Yuri had been a comfortable heat source in his own arms, but... Flynn finally shakes his head, slowly. "Well, I... Alright. Fine, then. If you're sure."

Yuri rolls his eyes and shakes his own head. He climbs out of the bed and begins gathering his clothes from around the room. "We've slept in beds together before, Flynn. I knew what I was getting into. I wouldn't have agreed to share the bed if I had a problem with it."

Flynn feels heat rush to his face. Yes, they've shared beds a few hundred times if they've shared them once, but the vast majority of those times were as small children. That is to say, young enough that cuddling was seen as cute and friendly and permissible, not invasive and creepy. Flynn knew before last night that he'd never lost his unfortunate sleep habits, had mortified himself on several past occasions bed-sharing as young adults by waking up to discover he'd wrapped his body around Yuri's as they slept. He had hoped that Yuri had slept through the disentanglement process, but if what Yuri is saying is true, Flynn failed at that particular task miserably.

"So I... every time...?"

Yuri stops with his arms full of his own clothes to stare at Flynn incredulously. Flynn can only imagine he's comfortable being dramatic instead of dressing because he's standing directly beside the fireplace. "You did know you do that, right? Hey. You did know? I need you to confirm that now, actually."

"Of course I—"

"Because you've been doing that since you were six, every single time, and if nobody else has bothered to tell you—" Yuri shakes his head again. "No, hang on, you're the one who always wakes up first. Did you honestly think I was the one who—?"

"No! I know it's—me, I know I'm the one who does that," Flynn bursts out, freshly embarrassed. "But I thought you slept through it when I woke up and tried to give you some space. You really woke up every time? Or did you just assume—"

Yuri looks amused now. "You think I sleep on the road where monsters might try to eat me and I don't have the survival instincts to wake up when someone is manhandling my body?"

Flynn doesn't know what to say to that.

"Yes, it's true. You aren't the stealth master you thought you were and I still knew you cuddle in your sleep. Sorry to be the one to break it to you."

His mortification must show on his face, because Yuri laughs at him. He turns away from Flynn at long last and starts stripping out of his borrowed pajamas to put on his clothes. "I guess I'll give you a little credit for the effort. It's kind of my bad for not making it obvious I'd woken up."

"Why didn't you?"

"Why do you think? I wanted to go back to sleep. And steal your warm spot, usually."

Flynn gives him an offended look. It's wasted on the back of Yuri's head. "You really have been using me as a human furnace for twenty years, then."

"Using you is such strong language. Appreciating you, maybe."

"You don't even run that much colder than me!"

"C'mere for a second," Yuri says, muffled as he finishes pulling a thick, woolen second tunic on over the first. That's definitely Flynn's, and Flynn's not sure when he stole it but he won't call Yuri out on it. He'd rather Yuri was warm on his way back to his bags than raise a pointless fuss. Yuri holds a hand out to Flynn and wiggles his fingers. "I wanna show you something."

"Absolutely not," says Flynn, who has known Yuri long enough to know when he's being threatened with cold fingers on his neck. Yuri grins wolfishly.

"No? It's for science."

Flynn watches warily as Yuri strides across the room, towards where Flynn's sitting at his desk. "It's not for science, you big bully."

"Aww. Don't be such a baby—" Yuri comes within an arms-breadth and reaches for him. Flynn bats him away, and Yuri cackles and climbs half-over the armrest of the chair, fighting against Flynn's protective arm.

"Yuri, I swear, don't you dare—"

Which is, of course, the moment Flynn's maid knocks and opens the door, Yuri balanced perilously on one knee and wrestling with Flynn to regain the advantage on the assault.

"Good—morning. Sir," Cecelia says. "Uh. Mr. Yuri?"

"Good morning," Yuri says, cheerfully. He yanks a wrist out of Flynn's grip and tries to shove it against Flynn's neck again. Flynn smacks him away again with a low growl. "What can we do for you?"

"Um."

"Ignore him," Flynn says. He finally gets a hold on both of Yuri's wrists at once, and after a brief struggle of pure brute strength, manages to shove him back so that he stumbles the step off the armrest and trips backwards onto Flynn's bed, laughing the whole way. Flynn strongly suspects he was only launched so far because he let himself be. Good grief. He tries to fight down his answering smile as he turns back to the door. "I'm sorry about all that, Cecelia. Good morning. Have you brought breakfast?"

"Yes, sir," Cecelia says. She dutifully presents him with a tray of food, which he accepts gratefully and moves to his desk. Tentatively, she adds, "I can... fetch more, if...?"

"Ah, don't bother," Yuri says. He sits up on the bed, stretching. "I should get a move on, see who needs an extra pair of hands in the renovations today. I'm sure someone will feed me when I get there."

"Come back for lunch if they don't," Flynn says, absentmindedly. Yuri makes an affirmative noise and shuffles around behind Flynn, locating his boots. "Is there anything else you need me to address at this time, Cecelia?"

"Why..." Cecelia starts, then turns pink. "Not anything I need you to address, sir, but why is Mr. Yuri here at this hour?"

"To be a pain in the neck," Yuri says. Flynn rolls his eyes.

"Literally, if you had your way."

"Ha! Maybe."

"The inn in the Lower Quarter is among those having emergency renovations," Flynn tells Cecelia. She nods. "They need re-insulation and fireplaces for all of the rooms. They were able to renovate enough rooms with urgent speed to house most of the people who need shelter there, but things are still cramped, and there wasn't a spare room for Yuri. So I offered to let him sleep here until the inn is sorted out."

"That was kind, sir," Cecelia says, slowly, giving Flynn a confused, almost studying look.

A thought occurs to Flynn. He tilts his head back towards Yuri, who appears to be putting on boots somewhere in the vicinity of the bed. "Now that Cecelia is here with breakfast, will you believe I didn't wake us up absurdly early?"

"No," Yuri says, without hesitation. "I'll believe you trained the poor girl to deal with you waking up absurdly early. Sorry about him, Cece."

"I think it's the standard time for the Knights, Mr. Yuri," Cecelia says, doubtfully. "I've seen other people about, and the kitchens have started, of course. I don't need to cook breakfast myself if I bring it now."

Flynn cranes his neck enough to be gratified by the comically horrified look on Yuri's face. He snorts fondly and turns away again. "You had to get up at this time for your stint in the Knights, too. Or have you repressed that?"

"I must have. I don't remember Niren inflicting this kind of suffering on me."

"Maybe you're simply cranky because of the dawn being late."

"The dawn's even later in winter in Dahngrest, too, they just handle it like sensible people and sleep in until it's light out." Yuri's heels thump against the floor, one-two, presumably as he stretches out after he finishes assembling his attire. "It's funny, up there, it's almost like the whole city's hibernating—I'll tell you some other time. You've got your stupid early Commandant stuff, I've gotta go convince Mariam I'm still worth feeding. Thanks for letting me crash here."

"It was the least I could do," Flynn says, sincerely. "Keep warm out there. Are you still interested in taking those extra blankets to Mariam?"

"Hm. Yeah, actually."

"Cecelia, would you mind terribly—"

"No, sir. Here, Mr. Yuri."

At the very least, Yuri's arms loaded with blankets force him to leave out the door rather than making an escape out the window. He bids Flynn and Cecelia goodbye and heads out.

"Sir," Cecelia says, after she finishes making Flynn's bed. "Will you be requiring two sets of breakfast tomorrow?"

"No thank you," Flynn says, after a brief moment of consideration. "We've no timeline for when Yuri will be able to return to the inn, so let's not waste the food in case he doesn't come."

"Alright, sir," Cecelia says, but she looks dubious. She takes her leave.

#fluri #flynn scifo #yuri lowell #tales of vesperia #long post #original character

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shianhygge-imagines · 4 years ago

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Silver Rose [Vergil/Reader] [V/Reader] {Devil May Cry} The Mortal Half

AN: I apologize for the wait! The road of life took a bit of a wild turn, and my writing (along with a few other things) suffered for it.

On another note... anyone as excited for DMC5: Special Edition as I am :D

This chapter is a long one that I wanted to write and post as soon as possible (I was tempted to wait until all chapters of Visions of V were out). I will probably come back to re-explore V’s character at a later time because damn it, Visions of V really kicked my ass with the character development.

WARNING: As I have mentioned in a separate post, there is a section of smut in here. This is actually the first full smut scene I’ve ever written, so please excuse the awkwardness... and the kinks... and if it sucks.

So, yeah. It’s now a Vergil/Reader as well as a V/Reader story. Cheers!

If you like the content I create, please consider donating to my Ko-fi! Please help me feed my tea addiction!

|Masterlist Link| |First Chapter| |Prev. Ch.| --- |Next Ch.|

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

4th May 01:40pm

When you woke the next morning, Shadow was still curled into your side, its eyes closed and seemingly content despite the afternoon sunlight pouring through the windows. Though you’d slept peacefully through the rest of the night, it was rather strange having another presence in the same bed as you. After all, you hadn’t shared your bed with another individual since Vergil had started leaving on his alarmingly frequent trips away from your home in Red Grave City. And although it had been years since you visited that place, the mere thought of those nights brought a frown to your previously content face. Closing your eyes and exhaling slowly, you mentally gave the box of memories a rough shove away.

It’s best not to dwell on unpleasant thing, Y/N. You muse to yourself with the slightest tensing of your body.

Sensing your change in mood, Shadow shifted to rest a lightly dozing head on your stomach, cracking a single ruby eye open to check on you as a purr rumbles throughout its body in an effort to calm you.

Running a hand through the shadow panther’s silky ‘fur’, you hummed absentmindedly in response. “Just unpleasant memories, Shadow.” When the remnant of your husband’s memories merely huffs in a feline scoff, you turn to cuddle into the Nightmare demon. “I am 100% sure that V didn’t tell me the truth last night… but if there’s anything I’ve learned over the years, prying is generally not the correct course to take to learn the whole truth. Still though,” you sigh wistfully, “My life has been so chaotic and cryptic that there are times where I wish that I was born a normal girl.”

Although you wished to say more, your lips clam up the moment that you hear a knock at the door. “Y/N? It’s nearly 2pm. Are you awake, yet?”

You share a look with Shadow, “Well, speak of the devil, I guess.” You don’t bother moving as you call out to the moral man, “You can come in, V. I’m awake, but I sure as hell ain’t getting out of bed yet.” Even though you say this, you lift your head to peer over Shadow’s dark body as V enters the room with an eyebrow raised.

“Do you have any intention of leaving your bed, Y/N? It’s well into the afternoon.” V inquires with a furrowed brow as he closes the door and continues forward to the side of the bed with a limp.

“Oh…. Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” You remark cheerfully, settling back down into the sheets as you pet Shadow. “I don’t think I will any time soon, no.”

Unsure as to how to proceed with your blatant denial to rise from bed, V gestures towards the edge of your king sized bed. “May I have a seat?”

“Knock yourself out, V. This bed is too big anyways, so… ‘free real estate’ I guess.” You found yourself repeating the meme that a group of orphans in Fortuna City had taken the time to teach you… though you were unsure if you had used the meme in the proper context.

Your eyes shifted to meet V’s green once you felt the edge of the bed dip to your left. In the daylight, with the sun’s rays pouring into the room, V seemed… sickly. It was worrying how skinny and pale he was despite the hint of power you could feel in him. If it weren’t for his contract with Vergil’s remnants, you would not have any confidence in V’s ability to defend himself should you all take on Urizen. And once Vergil had been defeated again (though you found yourself in pain just thinking about killing your beloved), would the powers disappear and leave the young man before you weak and on the verge of collapse?

“There’s no need to worry, Y/N.” V’s gaze is almost gentle as he reassures you, “I promise that I’ll not suddenly collapse.” Not realizing that you had been staring, you blinked your eyes and mumbled an apology. “No, don’t apologize. It is only natural to doubt my abilities when I look like this.” The young man gestures towards his weakened body with a carefully bitter expression that would stick with you for days to come. “My powers are limited, which is why it is absolutely imperative that we stop Urizen before he grows too powerful.” When you don’t respond, trying to find a way to comment without offending him, V took it as a sign of sadness. “I couldn’t help but overhear you before I entered. That you wished that you were born to a normal life.”

Your face scrunches up as you force yourself to sit, “If I’m being perfectly honest, V… I don’t really know you well enough to pour my heart and soul out.”

V’s smile remains slightly bitter even as he pulls out the anthology of William Blake poems and hands it over to you. “Fair enough, Ms. Y/N. By all means, save your words. I only ask that you listen to what I have learned about you and your past.” When you reluctantly take a hold of the tome, V gestures towards it, “The note written on the back cover of that volume seems to imply that the person who gifted it to you was rather fond of you.”

The book’s cover was immaculate, but upon closer inspection, you noticed that the pages have yellowed from its age. Brows scrunched and curious, you immediately flipped to the back cover and withheld a gasp at the painfully familiar handwriting scrawled along the back cover.

To my beautiful silver rose,

Perhaps it is just the slightest bit vain that I gift this book to you. After all, an exact copy of this anthology sits on my book shelf in the study. But I noticed that you’ve taken a deeper interest in these old poems as of late, so I sought out a copy for yourself. Please do not think I turn a blind eye to your sadness when I am away, Y/N. I do my best to comfort you while I have you in my arms, but I must see my goals through. When I am gone, please read these poems and think of me. Just as I will think of you.

Rest assured that no matter how far I travel, Y/N, that I will always find my way back to you.

Your loving husband,

Vergil Sparda

“You were in that place, weren’t you?” You asked V as your fingers traced the note written into the cover. “There is no way you’d have this particular volume if you hadn’t been.”

V nodded, his eyes carefully watching as you caressed the book. “When I found Vergil’s remnants, they had been drawn to that book which had been left in one of the upstairs bedrooms.”

“I left it there when Vergil embarked on his quest through Hell.” You admitted, melancholic. “The book had been a constant reminder of an empty promise, so I tried to bury my past. Obviously it didn’t work, but I left the book in Vergil’s childhood room regardless.”

“Why the book?” V wondered, “Aside from the note in the back, the tome seems ordinary.”

Handing the book back to the younger man, you merely smiled a tame smile, “It was a symbol of hope that I didn’t want, as well as a constant reminder that the man I love abandoned me in favor of demonic power.” Slipping out of bed, you grabbed a robe and ventured into the bathroom, only a final statement leaving your lips before the door shut behind you, “And nothing’s worse than to be reminded that I wasn’t enough.”

22nd May 11:32am

You’re not sure if you should be worried or relieved by how easy it was to trail V through the city wreckage as you sprinted and jumped from one roof to another. The mysterious young man traversed the streets below with his Nightmare demons protecting him as low leveled demons appeared along the path. Over the course of the past few days, you and V had taken shelter within your home in Red Grave City. Although there were times where you interacted, V regularly ventured out into the city on patrols and supply runs, seemingly under the impression that you were still injured from the encounter with Urizen at the heart of the Qliphoth Tree. More often than not, V would leave in the afternoons and return in the morning.

Although you were touched by his care for your well-being, you still couldn’t but feel distrustful and suspicious of V. The names of his demon contracts… Hence your current trailing… and as it turns out, his actual hair color is white.

With how many demons there were roaming the streets, you were surprised that V had lasted this long. Though, from your spot seated on the roof above the corner where V fought to protect a small group of surviving humans, you could tell that the younger man was becoming weaker the more he used his abilities. You would jump down and aid him if he needed it, but only if he needed it.

Your initial assessment of V was that he didn’t care for humans in the slightest after watching him walk fast the human corpses without a care. The way the younger looking man had gazed upon the carnage with indifference… you remembered shivering and thinking that there was no way he was completely human. Though, after that night, you were pleased to learn that V had quickly taken up the role as protector while the humans evacuated.

Your attention drifted back into the present when V slumped over below you, exhausted as he sat upon a pile of demon corpses. The humans that he had protected were cowering against the wall opposite of V, and you frowned when none rose to offer aid to the sickly man, who had begun to pale more than he normally did.

You heard V heave a tired sigh as he asked Griffon a question, “How many days has it been?”

The demon summon flapped its wings and hovered above his master, “Three.”

V slumped over, curling in upon himself, his dark hair hanging to cover his face. “I’m not sure that I can even last a month.” Your frown deepened at that comment. That’s news to me… shit. Now I feel bad for not helping him. You rose from your seated position and removed your eyes from V to sweep the area with a vigilant gaze.

“You’re just going willy-nilly, spending all your strength like that.” Griffon squawked mockingly, “Nicely done, buddy. If you continue like this, you’re gonna croak before the kid even returns.”

So, V’s dying? You wondered, Who is he? What’s his deal? How is he involved in this mess to begin with? Your gaze also darkens when the humans call V and Griffon monsters. We have to protect humanity, yes. But this is one of those times where I understand Vergil’s distaste for humanity. Then again… nothing is perfect.

Your eyes sweep briefly back down to make sure that V was in the clear while searching for food just as you felt several demonic presences appear behind you. Stepping away from the ledge, you nodded and unsheathed the Totsuka just as several Hell Bats and a Lusachia attempt to ambush you.

Your steps are quiet as you slide under several fireballs and sprint across the rooftop to a less narrow roof. “Okay, folks. I’m going to have to ask you to be as quiet as possible during this entire transaction we got going here.” You chirp with a smirk, voice carefully lowered to just below your normal speaking voice. “I don’t want my friend knowing that I’m spying on him. Heh.” As expected, none of the demons respond, opting to rush you with fireballs and incantations.

Your feet are moving before your brain catches up with the attacks, running in wide arcs and tight turns to avoid the incoming fireballs and incantation circle. “Sorry, what was that?” Your grin is feral as you push off from the rooftop in a wide swipe at the Lusachia, striking it with a shallow cut before kicking off of it in a backflip, free hand pulling out your Silver Rose to shoot it in the face a few times. “I couldn’t hear what you were saying!” As you stick the landing, you shoot it once more before raising the same hand to your ears, “You’re gonna have to speak louder!”

Of course the Lusachia can only groan as it falls, dying from the wounds you’ve inflicted upon it. Around you, the Hell Bats screech and rush, swooping down in lines of fire as you duck and dodge. “No, no! I wasn’t talking to you guys! You’re a bit too loud, so imma have to ask you to shut up!” Just as two Hell Bats swoop down to attack you from both sides, you holster the Silver Rose and Totsuka, getting into a wide stance. When the bats are close enough, you unsheathe the Totsuka in a single movement, cutting down the demons before they could even touch you.

The remaining Hell Bat screeches and flies back towards the grocery store’s roof, but you only grin and follow, Totsuka sheathed once more. “No, no! I’m gonna getcha!”

You are probably a step away from killing the bat yourself, when you notice a giant meteor suddenly appear in the sky above you. “Ah! Nope!” You are just in time to kick off the grocery store roof and flip to safety when Nightmare crashes into the grocery store, completely decimating the building. Wincing at the loss of the area’s last remaining food source, you crouch down upon the ledge of another roof and scan over the wreckage below. “…that was overkill.”

It seems… from how loudly Griffon was protesting, that it agreed with your assessment. “You’re killin’ me here, V! Didja really have to take it that far? You could’ve just-oh, I don’t even know where to begin!”

You watch as a boy and his mother walk out of the wrecked grocery store before jumping down from the rooftop, casually strolling over to where V and Griffon continued to converse. You were about to speak when V crouched down and suddenly took a bite out of a demon’s carcass.

The only thing you could do at seeing the younger man eat the demon meat was dry heave loudly.

Both V and Griffon freeze before turning their heads to look at you. “Aw shit!” Griffon curses, “It’s the Lady Sparda!”

You hold back the gag threatening to escape as you approach the two, eyes trained on the blood staining V’s mouth. There’s unfiltered horror on V’s face even as you crouch down and wipe away the blood with a handkerchief. “Raw demon meant cannot be good for you.” The horror softens when you sigh and offer V a hand, “Come on. I still have canned food in the pantry back home. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

You don’t see the grief and regret upon V’s face as you turn to lead him out of the wreckage, hand in hand.

~~~~~

V’s Point of View

V’s green eyes never leave your back the entire way back to the house that Vergil had bought you all those years ago. He is exhausted from overusing his abilities, his mind muddled and unfocused. V can tell that the silence bothers you. He’s known that the silence bothers you ever since you’d both fled from this very city when you were children. Still, the past few hours have rendered him too tired to speak. So the silence continues.

Even as you fix him a meal.

Even as you sit down with him to eat.

Even as you guide him to the bathroom.

Even as you place a set of his pajamas on the counter.

Even as you leave the bathroom with a comment that you’d be in the study.

Even in his mute state, V doesn’t fail to see the melancholy in your eyes.

As he undresses, leaving his demon blood soiled clothes in the sink, V laments his current situation.

The house that he’d bought for you is still very much the same as it was over twenty years ago. Aside from the changes in products and appliances on the inside, it is as he left it. There are signs that Y/N doesn’t live in the building as often as she should… canned and dried food products in the pantry… a fridge empty except for bottled water and frozen meals… untouched kitchen appliances… a vacuum that seemed to be over ten years old… dust gathering in the unused rooms where they had planned to put a baby crib… his old clothes packed into boxes and shoved into the very same dusty rooms…

When the overly large bathtub is filled with hot water, V forces himself into the separate shower to quickly rinse off the dried blood and grime coating his skin. In the back of his mind, he recalls a memory where you told him that it was gross to sit in filth when taking a bath. The memory brings a constricting feeling to his chest and he doesn’t care that he drips water everywhere as he leaves the shower in favor of the bathtub.

The soap used in the shower is the same scent you’ve always used. The brand has changed, but it seems that you haven’t. His chest constricts some more when he realizes that you haven’t changed much since the last he saw you aside from your overuse of snark and slang. Sinking into the hot water and wrapped in your scent, V laments that the melancholy in your eyes was nothing new. When he was Vergil… a young Vergil from over twenty years ago… the last year spent with you before Temen Ni Gru… there were times where he noticed your eyes fill with melancholy. V winces, visibly in pain as he forces himself to remember. Vergil had known you were sad and lonely… but he had chosen to ignore your pain.

And even now, when he was no longer that man, V continues to hurt you.

The mortal half slips under the water before he knew it, his mind running wild with reflection.

Strange.

I feel rather peculiar.

I’m scared because I am weak.

I’ve resorted to depending on others because I am afraid.

That is what the weak do.

I’m…

…ever since I got this body, all I’ve been doing are things that I don’t want to do.

All of my thoughts are things I don’t want to think about.

(Y/N. Mother. Dante.)

While I’ve always intended on reflecting on why I lost (to Dante… to Mundus),

The reality is, I’ve moved on a long time ago.

I always thought I could fill this emptiness with power.

Anything that I lacked could be compensated with raw power.

How ironic.

It was only after I was stripped of all my strength that I realized…

That it was always within reach.

Always.

Deep inside, the answer was always there.

~~~~~

Y/N’s Point of View

“V?” You knock on the door to the master bathroom after around ten minutes, intent on taking the man’s clothes in order to wash them. “V, I need your clothes so I can put them in the wash.” When there is no answer, you knock again, “V? If you don’t answer me, I’m just gonna come in.” Your brows furrow at the lack of answer. “… Well, I warned you. I’m coming in.”

There’s a distinct lack of sound inside the bathroom when you enter although the dirty clothes are in the sink, “Um… V?” Your gaze sweeps across the large bathroom to rest upon the filled bathtub, and you frown when you notice the bubbles rising from the middle of the large tub. Creeping closer, you can see V under the water, his gaze empty and melancholic. No more bubbles rise from his lips, and you suddenly realize that V might be too tired to notice that he was drowning.

You don’t notice the wet floor, and you don’t care that the man is completely nude. Something in you beckons you forward, and you practically sprint to climb into the bathtub, taking a firm hold of his torso and lifting V’s upper half out of the water.

V’s green eyes blink blearily as he stares into yours. “V?” You whisper, letting go of his torso once he’d sat up on his own. Your hands come up to brush his dark hair out of his eyes. “Are you okay?”

The man lets out a shaky breath and ducks his head, nodding. “I appreciate the sentiment, Y/N. But I wasn’t in any danger. You didn’t have to climb in to save me.”

“You weren’t breathing, V.” You deadpanned, bringing up a hand to flick his forehead. “Nobody’s dying in my house.”

The two of you are quiet for a few moments until V turns to look away from you. “As much as I am grateful for you kindness, I don’t want to imagine what your husband would do to me if he finds out that you bathed with another man.”

You flush a deep red when you notice the position you were in… straddling a completely nude V in the bathtub while you sit in a soaked white nightgown that was becoming see through. “I… uh…”

You’re at a loss for words and continue to be at a loss for words when V turns back to stare you down with darkened eyes. He scoots you closer, pressing you against his body as he teases lowly, “Unless… I entice you…?”

You swallow hard when you notice that something hard is pressed up against you.

~~~~~~

Third Person Omniscient Point of View

“I… don’t…” The water is starting to cool in the bathtub, sending chills up your body even as you flush from head to toe. The only source of warmth is from V, who holds you close, his green eyes gazing at you with a myriad of emotions… Lust… Affection… Loneliness… Guilt… Mischief… Love… It has been over twenty years since someone has made love to you, and for all your faith and devotion, you want to feel that intense pleasure… that warm intimacy once more. You know that a demonic Vergil has run rampant across your home city, that what remains of your husband’s humanity has bonded with the man before you… You know that something within you call for V and beckons you to continue… to give in.

The moment that you pulled V out of the water, soaked from head to toe with concern in you eyes, V knew that he could continue this charade with you. He’d been cruel to you for most of your life, and he couldn’t bear to be cruel for another minute. He wants you to know him completely once more. As Vergil as well as V. What he wanted and need this entire time had been something you’d been willing to give him from the beginning, and Vergil had been a fool to cast you aside. Yet, with you pressed so close to him, your scent invading his senses, all V can think about is his love for you. A love that had never died, just stubbornly ignored. He’d neglected you for over twenty years because of his mistake. And now, if you are willing, he would make love to you until that melancholy has been chased away.

You gasp when V presses his lips to the crook of your neck, whimpering as he simply brushes his lips over your skin in light caresses. The mortal half smirks against your skin and whispers to you in a low rumble. “I’ve slacked in my duties, Y/N.” His hands trail up your bare thighs resting on either side of his hips, bunching up the material as his hands rise sensually to rest upon your waist.

“W-what are you…saying?” It would be remiss of you to not notice the same phrase that Vergil used on the day he asked you to marry him. When did your breathing become heavy?

V’s lips trail upwards along the column of your throat achingly slow as he kisses teasingly along the way. His thumb traces gentle patterns on the skin of your waist even as he lifts you from his hips to place you close to the edge of the bathtub. He’s on all fours, knelt before you with his arms propped up on either side of your head as he continues the kiss until he’s at your ear. “I’ll show you how much you mean to me, my beautiful wife.” V growls as he gently nips your ear.

Shocked, you pull away to stare at the man. “V…” you plead, voice weak from arousal and heartbreak, “Please don’t play with my heart like this.”

The dark expression softens as V leans forward to press a loving kiss to your lips before pulling back. “I’ve made so many mistakes in the past, Y/N. The greatest was leaving you in pursuit of power.” His green eyes are filled with guilt as he sighs miserably, “You were right. Power isn’t everything. And I was wrong to call you a burden all those years ago.” At the reminder, you flinch backwards, and suddenly it is no longer just guilt on V’s face, but self-loathing. “Because of me, we lost so much time. Over twenty years of sorrow and regrets, and I didn’t want this to be another regret.”

“So, you’re…”

“I am Vergil… but not quite.” V confirms, “I… made another mistake, and this is the result.”

V’s lip move to continue, but you quickly shut him up by pressing your lips firmly against his. Your arms are raised to drape over his shoulders, pulling him closer as you deepen the kiss with a hungry moan. You part your lips before V can tease you, and heavy desire pools below when his tongue teases the roof of your mouth.

V’s hands find their way to the hem of your soaked nightgown, grasping the edges firmly and lifting when you separate briefly to assist him in undressing you. You hear your nightgown flop into the water as V tosses the article of clothing to the side, but you can’t bring yourself to care. You press yourself into V, hands rising to hold his face as your lips capture his once more. “Explanations can wait until tomorrow.” Your voice is thick with desire as you pull away just the slightest to leave the bathtub.

After casually slipping your soaked panties off, you turn back to V to beckon him after you. You can hear him leave the tub as you walk out of the master bathroom and into the bedroom.

(Smut Alert!!!)

You don’t make it to the bed before V catches up to you, his hand snatching yours and halting your progress forward. The air conditioning is on, and the cool breeze on your wet skin elicits a shiver through your body just as your nipples harden. Soon, your shivering is not from the cold air, but from the heat of having V’s naked body pressed into your back. His right arm moves to circle around your waist, pressing his palm flat against your pelvis while his left arm releases you in favor of cupping your left breast. You can feel him hard against the small of your back as V presses urgent kisses along your shoulder.

“Tell me, Y/N.” His voice is a husky growl between sensual kisses as his fingers tweak your nipple with a quick flick. “Did you ache for me while I was gone?” V’s right palm lowers to rest just over your mound drawing molten patterns just upwards of your clit. “Did you stay up touching yourself to thoughts of what I might do to you when I returned?”

You know your husband, and even if V wasn’t completely Vergil, the teasing was enough of a tell to know that he could play the long game. If you don’t answer. If you don’t let out the sinful sounds he’s looking for… V would refuse to continue. And after twenty plus years without, you didn’t want to wait another moment.

“Y-yes!” You moaned, body aching for more as your pussy gets wetter. “Every night that I’m alone.” The tortured whimper from your lips pleases V immensely as his hand dips lower to cup your sex, long fingers swiping just lightly before pulling away to show you just how wet you are.

“And when you thought of me during those nights, were you as soaked then as you are now?” His voice had been sinful as Vergil, but the deep airy whispers that V makes has you licking your lips in anticipation as his fingers play with your juices. V rests his chin upon your shoulder and brings his fingers up to his lips, “No, right?” You can’t reply, too entranced as he licks your juices off his fingers. “Hmmm.” He moans as you whimper, bringing his hand back down to rest exactly on your clit. “I want to taste more of you.” V growls, a finger toying with your clit while his remaining fingers dip into your slit, spreading your juices all over your lips.

Head tilted, you can only moan when V dips a long finger into your pussy before immediately pulling out. “V… please s-stop teasing me!” You beg, quivering as your hands raise to tug his arms close.

He hums and thrusts his hips into your back slightly, not enough for him to receive any pleasure from it, but enough so that you know how much harder he’s become. “Hmmm” V purrs into your ear, turning his hand so that it locks with yours, fingers intwined for just the moment, “Well, if that is what my love desires…” In a single fluid movement, he’d spun you around and gently guided you to rest upon your bed. “Then who am I to deny?”

Although sickly, you can’t help but salivate over how the black markings decorate his torso and arms. They trail in intricate patterns all over his torso and down to his pelvis, ending at… oh. Fuck. He’s longer than I expected. The part of him that stands at attention, partially curved up, draws your attention better than his beautiful green eyes and dark hair. You’re sure that V can hear how fast your heart is racing as he smirks, completely at ease as he saunters forward and crawls over you. There are whispers at the back of your mind telling you to touch him, but you only ignore them as V presses slow, open mouthed kisses along every inch of skin on his way up to your mouth.

He stops just shy of kissing your core, where an unbearable amount of heat has gathered.

He presses gentle, mournful kisses to the spot that Vergil and Urizen stabbed, his eyes briefly meeting yours with a silent plea for forgiveness.

He licks up the valley between your breasts, eyes closes as if he’s savoring the taste of your skin.

He issues a silent challenge by meeting your gaze as he pulls one of your nipples into his mouth while a hand plays with the other. You meet his gaze and stubbornly refuse to look away even as you feel his tongue flick and lap, even as the heat of his mouth becomes almost too much to bear.

When he finally makes his way to your mouth, V’s smiling, something that has always been rare even when he was Vergil. The slow kiss that follows is sweet and loving, but is interrupted as you gasp. V smirks smugly as his fingers circle your slit a few times before he presses a finger into you… then two. His green eyes watch you in adoration as he pumps his fingers in and out of your soaked pussy, taking in your moans as if it were the sweetest melody he’d ever heard.

You can’t help the moans that fall from your lips or that your legs spread to give V more space. You want more.

“V!” You whimper, even as he presses a third in. “P-please!”

He pretends he doesn’t hear you, continuing to finger fuck your pussy as his thumb plays with your swollen clit. It has been over twenty years since he’d had you beneath him. And with all the shit he’s pulled in the past, he wants you to cum at least once before he takes you.

After years without, you don’t last as long as you’d hoped. The rush of pleasure builds up faster than you expect. Your legs stiffen and your toes curl as the heat builds up to a climax, sending you over the edge of wild abandon and heavy breaths.

You come back from the haze to find V grinning triumphantly, licking your juices from his fingers once more. When scowl dangerously, V only continues to grin. It doesn’t take much more than a push to reverse your positions, but still V’s grin persists.

“Not satisfied, my love?”

“You know damn well that I’m not satisfied.” You mutter with a pout, throwing your legs over his hips so that you can press your soaked lips against his throbbing cock. Biting your lip, you stay still for a few moments as you look down at V, his dark hair sprawled upon the bed and lustful gaze staring up.

“And how would you have me repent, Y/N?” The words are out of his mouth before V realizes it.

You hum, tracing your fingers along the black lines adorning his chest before moving your hips to slid your pussy along his cock. “I want you to fuck me, V.” His body tenses when you continue to tease him, “I want you to fill me up. To make me cum so many times that I forget my name. To make me scream so loud from pleasure that fucking Urizen can hear it from his stupid demon tree.”

A growl is your only answer before V’s gaze darkens once more and you find yourself pressed into the bed, watching as V positions himself between your legs, lining himself up so that the head of his weeping cock is pressed to your opening.

“If Urizen hears the sounds of your pleasure, he might be compelled to take you as well.” He’s teasing you again.

“Urgh, V, jus-ah!” You’re interrupted when his hips snap forward, sheathing his cock to the hilt.

“I’ve never been one to share.” V gasps, holding onto your hips as he pulls away and snaps back.

All you can do is moan and move to meet his hips, lewd noises filling your quiet home as V sets a quick pace. After years of denying yourself the pleasures of the flesh, you can feel your cunt stretch around V. Already sensitive from your previous orgasm, it takes everything for you not to cum again just from being filled. Your soft moans and gasps of his name fuel V’s desire, and soon, as you cry for more, he sets a brutal pace, pounding into your pussy as your writhe beneath him.

His green eyes are wild as he pounds deep into your womb, something like determination in his eyes, “Y/N.” Your name is like a prayer upon his lips, “You asked me to fill you up.”

If it was possible, another jolt of pleasure shot through your body and straight to your core, and you found yourself tightening around him at what V was implying. “Yes.” You moan, throwing your hands up to wrap around his shoulders, “Yes, V! Fuck! I need you to cum in me!”

Unable to stop himself anymore, V let go of whatever control he had and thrust into you with wild abandon. He didn’t even know if he could impregnate you in his current state, and he knew that it was reckless to try, but fuck if he wasn’t going to try anyways. It was all you’d ever wanted with Vergil. A family. And if he could give you this, too…

God, you wanted to be filled. The thought of finally having a child leaves you wailing and on the edge of release. You could feel him throb as he abandoned rhythm, muttering ‘I love you’ as his body quaked with each thrust before abruptly stopping. The moment you feel his warmth spilling deep into you is when you finally allow yourself to fall over the edge with a wordless moan, pussy pulsing as you milk V of his release.

Coming down from the high, you find yourself entangled in V’s arms, the both of you breathing heavy as you both lay on the bed. Like all times before Vergil left, the two of you lay in silence, content with each other’s presence.

(Smut end… *fans self* as a side note, they absolutely cleaned up after an additional two rounds :P)

23rd May 09:32am

You woke up to the sounds of a struggle, bolting from the bed with light steps and snatching the Silver Rose from your nightstand. You heard something clank and clatter from within the bathroom just as you pressed yourself to the wall, gun raised as you peered into the room. What you saw in had you in a fit of laughter.

“Ahahahahaha! Oh my gosh! V!” Your finger leaves the trigger as you bend over with a laugh, , “I have a washer and dryer for a reason!”

V grumbled and flushed lightly as he wrestled his clean, but soaked pants from Griffon and Shadow. “…” The set of pajamas that you’d coaxed V into the previous night were thoroughly soaked through because he’d decided to hand wash and hand dry his only set of clothes.

“Guess we’ve been camping out too much, huh, buddy?” Griffon chirped after letting go of the black pants.

Shadow lets out a growl in warning, also letting go of the pants in favor of approaching you, rubbing its face against your side with a purred greeting. Though you raise a brow in question, you raise a hand to scratch behind the panther’s ears. “I have many questions, I’m not going to beat around the bush.”

V sighs and sets his clothes on the sink counter before walking towards to pull you into a loving embrace, “Let me change into some dry clothes, and we’ll talk over breakfast.”

His wet clothes feel cold against your nightgown, but you don’t mind, humming as you snuggle into V’s embrace.

15th June 06:00am

“Hurry up, Shakespeare! The Lady Sparda and I aren’t gonna wait for your slow ass all the time!” Griffon called back towards V from his perch on your right arm.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Griff. He’s trying his best.” You chide, turning to stare at V just as he closes the remaining few meters to stand at your side. The past month had been an ordeal, but here you were, about to meet up with your son to end this mess. Turning to V, you playfully nudge him, “Let’s go, V.”

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

I will definitely be writing more about Reader’s time with V as chapters of Visions of V release.

As always, thank you so much for reading!

PS. Hi, yes, Tumblr. Please don’t eat up my chapter again.（╹◡╹）THanks

246 notes · View notes

pickalilywrites · 4 years ago

Text

a little smth for halloween ~ smth for the playlist

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Heart Skips a Beat

Rivetra. College/University AU.

10012 words.

Read on AO3!

“We should get back to the dorms.”

“Why? I’m completely sober,” Petra says. Slowly. Carefully. Her words are perfectly coherent the way any sober person’s would be. If you ask her, it’s pretty impressive after downing half a dozen shots of very disgusting (but very invigorating) vodka. She can still feel the burn of it going down her throat even though it must have been half an hour ago since she actually drank it. She feels like she could breathe fire if she tried. “You’re just jealous because my alcohol tolerance is amazing.”

A rock appears under Petra’s foot and she stumbles over it, nearly falling flat on her face.

“Right,” Rico scoffs. “Because a completely drunk person wouldn’t have been able to avoid a rock.”

Petra huffs, straightening out the nurse’s cap on top of her head. “If anything, this just proves how right I am. A drunk person would have totally tripped and ate shit, which I didn’t do, if you hadn’t noticed.” She gestures at herself - her completely inaccurate nurse costume that shows off far more than it covers with white fishnet stockings and red heels, nurse’s cap sitting lopsided on her head - smiling proudly. “The people at the party back there were super wasted in comparison.”

They hadn’t gone to very many parties during their previous years - just the occasional ones that were thrown by their class when they were awkward freshmen and sophomores - and Hanji had just decided to drag them to the annual Halloween party thrown by a fraternity a few streets off the main campus. (The school claims that they’re not affiliated with the fraternity, but they’re not fooling anyone. Their campus revolves around Greek life.) Fraternity parties were on an entirely different level than other parties Petra had been to. For one thing, everyone was a lot more obnoxious, but that was forgivable a few drinks in. Before she knew it, she was laughing in the bathroom with a bunch of girls from the rowing team that she swore she couldn’t stand at the beginning of the year. They even let her take their pulses as if she was a real nurse. Maybe Petra’s costume was more convincing than she had thought.

Overall, it was a good experience. Petra now has new numbers in her phone from contacts that she won’t remember the next morning, Rico bobbed for apples with a tall, handsome stranger in a Batman costume with cheekbones so sharp they could probably cut diamonds, and Hanji has enough donations from kind, drunk strangers to fund the chemistry club for the rest of the academic year. Really, it was a win for all of them.

“You’re going to wake up with a wicked hangover,” Hanji says with a roll of their eyes, but they smile at Petra fondly (albeit a bit awkwardly because of the plastic vampire teeth that sit crookedly in their mouth). They wrap an arm around Petra, long black cloak covering the pre-law student-turned-nurse for the night. “Come on, Nurse Petra. Let’s sleep off the alcohol and I’ll get you an ibuprofen in the morning. I’ll even let you cuddle with Rico.”

“What?” Rico squawks indignantly. She waves her broom about as if to ward Hanji and Petra away. “I didn’t agree to this! Don’t crawl in my bed. I don’t want you to get sick all over the sheets.”

Petra sticks her lower lip out in a pout. “That was only one time! And it was an accident. I didn’t drink nearly as much this time!” She unlatches herself from Hanji’s side and stumbles over to Rico, looping her arm around the witch’s. Even as Rico leans away, Petra tries to plant kisses on her friend’s cheek. “You’re so cold now, Rico. If you’re not going to cuddle with me, who is? Do you want me to go to sleep cold and alone?”

Rico brings a hand to Petra’s face for an affectionate pat. “Yes,” the witch replies with a wicked smile. She wrestles her arm away, leaving Petra to stand by herself as she and Hanji walk away.

Petra has never felt such cold-hearted rejection in her life. Her skin is prickling with gooseflesh just at the memory of Rico’s heartless smile as she left Petra to fend for herself. Or maybe it’s just the fact that it’s nearly midnight and freezing and the skirt of her nurse outfit barely covers her ass.

“You’re the worst!” she howls with a stomp of her foot. Tears prickle at the corner of her eyes. She’s absolutely heartbroken and all Rico can do is roll her eyes. Petra expects Hanji to embrace her or at least give her some sympathy, but all the vampire does is snicker behind their elbow as Petra’s bottom lip wobbles and tears trickle down her face.

“I’d offer to let you sleep with me, Pet, but my bed’s a mess,” laughs Hanji. They cock their head to the side, an impish smile on their face. Perhaps Petra would have noticed how mischievous her friend’s grin was if she weren’t so distraught over the thought of not having anyone to cuddle with tonight. Hanji crooks a finger over for Petra to come closer, which the nurse does after much pouting and sniffling. They throw an arm around Petra once more. “Why don’t you try asking someone?”

“I don’t …,” Rico begins with a frown, but Hanji quickly hushes her.

“You made a lot of friends, didn’t you? Why don’t you ask one of them?” Hanji says. Behind them, Rico begins to protest once more but Hanji just waves her away with a hand. The sight makes Petra feel a little giddy. Rico absolutely deserves to be brushed off the same way she brushed off Petra just a few minutes ago. It’s what she gets for being so cold-hearted.

“Mm, alright! That’s a good idea,” Petra hums happily. She looks through her phone, her smile quickly transforming into a frown when she realizes that she doesn’t recognize any of these names. Some of them aren’t even names but descriptions of people’s costumes - wolf, firefighter, fairy - many of which are terribly misspelled. That’s only if they were lucky enough to have a description. There’s a surprising number of entries that are just random key smashes that definitely don’t make up any known words in the English language. The depressing sight of her phone contacts is starting to make Petra tear up again. “I don’t know any of these people.”

“Oh jeez, you’re a lot more far gone than I thought you were,” Hanji says with a little bit of a giggle. “Well, you must have talked to them at some point, or how else would you have their numbers in your phone?”

Offended, Petra hiccups. “Don’t blame it on me! Rico probably bewitched my phone or something,” she sniffs as if this a more plausible explanation. She’s too drunk to remember that Rico isn’t really a witch and that they’re only wearing costumes. In her defense, Rico’s witch costume is really good. Even her eyeglasses are spooky tonight with little bats dangling on some kind of chain. “I don’t want to just cuddle with any random person. I want to have some kind of connection with that person. We have to have had at least one conversation.”

“This is ridiculous,” Rico mutters. She snatches Petra’s phone and waggles it in the nurse’s face. “You talked with them enough to get their phone numbers. Isn’t that conversation enough?”

“I haven’t talked to any of them before!” Petra insists. She looks over at Hanji for help, but they’re looking pensively in the distance at something Petra can’t see. Wanting attention, Petra shuffles over and tugs on the vampire’s cape. “Hanji, back me up!”

“How would you like to talk to someone that might cuddle with you, Petra?” Hanji asks. They tug their cape from Petra’s hands. Normally, this would have offended Petra but she’s too busy staring wide-eyed at Hanji after hearing their suggestion.

“Talk to someone?” Petra repeats. She looks at Hanji eagerly, eyes growing wide. “Who?”

“Hanji, you can’t just have her talk to a random stranger!” Rico hisses, but Hanji ignores her.

“Shh, it’s fine,” Hanji assures her. They turn to Petra, patting her lovingly atop her nurse’s cap. “You see those guys over there? They’re dressed like EMTs. Very thoughtful, caring guys who want to look out for people. Maybe you should ask one of them if they’re interested.”

Petra looks to where Hanji is pointing and sees four guys dressed like EMTs sitting on one of those carts student EMTs ride around to (almost) run over other students when getting from place to place. She can’t really tell if they’re good-looking from where she is even when she squints, but the fact that they’re dressed as EMTs is pretty attractive already. Most guys go for a police outfit, but that’s a little overrated now. Firemen are an improvement, but the costumes tonight were bulky unless they were going as a sexy fireman, which was a bit of an overkill. Even drunk, Petra’s brain couldn’t fathom why a fireman would be shirtless to fight fires. It just seems dangerous. But an EMT. Their uniforms are plain but still fitted enough to be attractive, navy blue over taut arms that probably gave the best hugs. EMTs aren’t nearly as recognized as firemen and policemen and they save so many lives, which is incredibly sexy.

“Which one should I talk to?” Petra asks Hanji, tears gone. She’s too distracted to remember what she was crying about just moments ago.

“Maybe the short one,” Hanji suggests, pointing at the one sitting in the back of the cart. He’s flipping through his phone, the screen lighting up his face.

“The cute one,” Petra agrees even though that’s not what Hanji had said at all.

“Hey, don’t you know him?” Rico asks Hanji.

Hanji nods, but Petra doesn’t notice. She’s too busy tugging on the skirt of her dress and wondering if the amount of cleavage she’s currently showing off is a turn-off. Is there really such a thing as too much cleavage?

Petra pulls her stocking up over her knees and stands up proudly. “How do I look?” she asks. She does a little twirl so that her friends can properly inspect her. She’s a little disappointed when neither Rico nor Hanji cheer, but she’s not too surprised. Maybe if they had drank more vodka like she had, then they would have a little more energy.

“Wait, let me just,” Rico mumbles before reaching into her black clutch and pulling out some tissues. She dabs a little bit at Petra’s face, wiping away the nurse’s snot and tears. She holds another tissue to Petra’s nose. “Blow,” she commands.

Petra obeys. Even as Rico grimaces, Petra feels a great appreciation for her friend. She even begins to tear up again. “I didn’t know you cared so much about me, Rico,” she pouts. “You’re usually always so cold.”

“I’m always a good friend, you’re just drunk,” Rico replies. “And stop crying. You’ll ruin your makeup and nobody will want to cuddle with you.”

“You look perfect, Pet,” Hanji assures her. They whirl Petra around and give her an encouraging smack on the butt. “Go get ‘em!”

Fueled by her friends’ encouragement (well, Hanji’s encouragement, really) Petra begins to skip over to the EMT cart parked on the grass. She would have happily skipped over the entire way if she hadn’t tripped over her foot and almost face-planted on the cement. She doesn’t want to fall on her face in front of the cute EMT guy. She wants to make a good impression. So a little less happily, Petra walks with one foot in front of the other until she makes her way to the EMT cart. It takes a lot longer than she would have thought. The route was more of a strange, loopy path than it was a straight line, but Petra’s feet aren’t entirely cooperating with her at this point. It doesn’t matter though, she thinks, as long as she makes it to her destination, which she absolutely does.

They’re murmuring to themselves, casting curious side glances at her when she approaches. Petra finds the attention flattering, although she does notice that the EMT that she had set her eyes on doesn’t look up from his phone even when she stands right in front of him. The rest of his party looks over at her though, watching and waiting to see what will happen.

Maybe he has an important message to take, Petra thinks as she waits patiently for him to look up, but he continues to scroll mindlessly through his phone. Impatient, Petra coughs to catch his attention but he still ignores her. It’s rude, she thinks, to ignore someone as pretty as her. She stomps her foot, thinking that it’ll be enough to get the guy to look at her but he doesn’t even flinch even as the rest of his friends jump. It’s twice as frustrating once Petra realizes her heel is stuck in the grass and no amount of yanking will get it out. Humiliated, she steps barefoot on the grass, staring at her toes and wishing she had painted her toenails even though she’s never painted her toenails in her life. Maybe she should start.

This is all the stupid EMT’s fault, Petra thinks. Stupid EMT and his stupidly attractive ability to ignore her. Or maybe he’s just playing hard to get. Is he?

Petra puts a finger on his phone and pushes it down. The interruption finally gets a reaction out of the EMT, but it’s not exactly the one Petra wants. He doesn’t look intrigued or even a little bit curious as he lifts his head. He looks bored. Maybe even a little bit annoyed. Why is that so sexy to her?

“Pay attention to me,” Petra tells him, but he just looks from side to side as if she’s speaking to someone else.

“Uh, Levi, I think she’s talking to you,” says the EMT in the driver’s seat while the rest of their friends gawk at Petra.

“Your name’s Levi?” Petra asks. It’s not a lot of information, but she’ll take what she can get. She takes a seat next to him behind the EMT cart, snuggling up a little too closely to him so that their thighs touch.

He finally puts his phone down, but he doesn’t check her out the way most people did at the party. He looks first at the little white cap on her head and then at her face, staring as if looking for something. “Do I know you?” he finally asks when he doesn’t recognize her.

“No, but I want to get to know you,” Petra replies. She thought the answer would impress him - it’s cute, flirty, and earnest - but his lips just curl in a sneer and she almost wants to scream at him.

“You’re one of Hanji’s friends, aren’t you?” asked another EMT, the one sitting directly behind Petra and Levi. He has curly, sandy hair and a long face that Petra doesn’t think suits his EMT costume. He would have been better off dressed as an elf from the Lord of the Rings or maybe a wizard.

Petra doesn’t know if she should confirm or deny it. The EMT guys might run off with one of her friends instead. It would be unfair for Rico to run off with the EMTs and the sexy Batman with the amazing cheekbones. Petra would be fine with Hanji running off with one of the EMTs (and maybe even the other ones), but she wants to make sure she gets her first pick. She decides to play coy instead.

“Maybe.”

Levi looks over in the distance where Hanji and Rico are watching, Hanji barely containing their giggles. “That makes more sense,” he says. He turns to Petra again, his expression a little less cold. “Did they tell you to talk to me?”

“No,” Petra huffs. “I wanted to talk to you myself. Because you’re cute and I want someone to sleep with.”

Someone behind them chokes.

“We’ll just … leave you two alone,” says the driver, shuffling out of the car. The others follow, the sandy-haired one a little more reluctantly than the others.

“We’re still on our shift,” Levi calls back.

“It’s fine,” the driver says, waving his hand awkwardly as he leads his team far enough away to not overhear the conversation. Petra should thank him sometime for being so sweet and thoughtful. She half-regrets not chasing after him first, but maybe she’ll think about asking him if this guy rejects her. Which won’t happen, of course. It’s just safe to have a backup plan.

Petra returns her attention to the first cute EMT she had laid eyes on. “Let’s sleep together,” she says.

“You should at least buy me dinner first,” Levi tells her.

Petra frowns. She hadn’t anticipated this being a serious courtship, but if he wanted dinner, then she would have to get him dinner. She reaches into her bra and pulls out a five-dollar bill, some candy corn, and a Kit Kat bar that’s probably melting in its wrapper. She probably would have had more money if she actually had pockets, but her slutty nurse costume would not allow it. Then again, women’s clothing rarely had pockets anyway. It probably would have been smarter to bring a purse like Rico, but she didn’t have one that matched her costume.

“I have five dollars,” she informs the EMT. It’s probably not enough to buy dinner, but her drunken mind is hopeful. Maybe he’ll take pity on her and cuddle with her for a bag of chips from a nearby vending machine. She holds out the money and candy to the EMT.

“That’s …” Levi looks as if he’s at a loss for words. He pauses for a moment before closing his hands over Petra’s. His hands are unexpectedly large for his short stature, his palms are calloused but his touch is gentle. “It’s okay, you don’t have to buy me dinner.”

“So you’ll sleep with me?” she asks hopefully.

“Why do you want to sleep with me anyway?” asks Levi.

“Because you’re cute and we’re, like, matching,” she tells him, pointing at her costume and then at his EMT uniform. “It’s like fate or something.”

He blinks at her. “Do you think I’m wearing a costume?” he asks. He frowns when he sees Petra nod at him eagerly. “This isn’t a costume. I’m actually a student EMT. Look, I have my … stuff.” He pats at his pockets as he tries to find a tool on his person that will prove his profession. His hand finds the radio strapped to his belt and he unhooks it, holding it up so that Petra can see the initials of their college printed on the side as well as the words Student EMT.

Petra gazes at the radio and then nods seriously. “You did really well with your costume. I have props too!” She grabs at the stethoscope hanging around her neck, yanking it off and handing it over to Levi. She doesn’t remember having the stethoscope at the beginning of the night - she’s not even sure if one came with her costume or if someone dressed as a doctor gave it to her - but she’s glad she has it now. Maybe Levi will be more impressed once he sees how realistic her nurse costume is, even if she’s wearing fishnets and high heels that would definitely not be allowed in any type of hospital environment.

The EMT looks at the fake stethoscope warily, but he takes it anyway. “You know I’m a premed, right?” he asks as he turns the prop in his hands. He raises an eyebrow at Petra. “I’m really a student EMT.”

“Yeah, and I’m pre-law,” she replies. She pauses, thinking for a moment. “Wait, I mean I’m a nursing student,” she backtracks.

“Sure,” says Levi in a tone that says he doesn’t believe her at all.

Beside him, Petra pouts, her cheeks puffing out. What does she have to do to get this guy to sleep with her? “Look,” she says. “It’s just a one-night thing. Don’t overthink it. It’s just …” Petra waves her hand and looks up at the sky as if the stars have the words she’s looking for. When she finally remembers what she’s going to say, she points a finger at the EMT, poking him in the chest. “A night of companionship. I don’t know why you’re playing so hard to get. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“If it’s not a big deal, then you can ask anyone else, can’t you?” Levi asks, swatting her hand away although he doesn’t do it with malice. He sounds a little annoyed, but he doesn’t make an effort to tell Petra to get lost. She takes it as a sign that he likes her, even if it’s just a little bit.

Petra lets out a high-pitched whine because she’s far too drunk and upset to come up with any words right now.

“Stop, stop, stop making that noise!” Levi hisses, panicking because the noise is attracting the attention of tipsy passersby that are stumbling home from other Halloween parties. His request is only met with an even louder high-pitched noise from Petra, forcing him to clamp his hands over her mouth.

In the distance, Hanji and Rico watch, the vampire barely able to contain their laughter.

Petra blinks at the EMT. It might be because she’s drunk or maybe it’s because she’s in love, but he looks very pretty up close. Even if he glares at her like he’s about to kill her, she can’t help but notice what a clear crystal blue his eyes are and how nicely they contrast with his jet-black hair. She reaches up, trying to pry his hand off her mouth so she can tell him just exactly how attractive he is, but the guy is crazy strong. Who knew EMTs could be so jacked?

“If I take my hand off your mouth, will you promise to be quiet?” he asks.

She nods.

Levi removes his hand and Petra takes a deep breath of the night air, cold as it hits her lungs. He watches her cautiously as if he’s afraid she’ll let out another piercing whine, but she doesn’t. He relaxes beside her.

They sit like that for a while, Levi watching Petra as she sits sullenly beside him, just breathing deeply and glaring at him every once in a while.

The EMT leans forward, elbow resting on his knee and chin in his hand. He prods Petra with her foot, the touch making her jump. “Hey, you’re awfully quiet now.”

“You told me to be quiet,” Petra mumbles.

He rolls his eyes. “Just don’t make that noise again.”

“Okay,” she agrees brightly. She scoots over, her thigh against his again, and beams at his tired expression. “Does that mean—?”

“You’re very drunk,” he replies.

Petra makes an offended noise. “Why does everyone keep saying that? I’m perfectly sober,” she tells him. She starts to stand up, wobbling at the end of the EMT vehicle. She’s not sure what she’s going to do, but she wants it to be impressive. Maybe a cartwheel or something amazing. “Would a drunk person be able to do this—?” Before she can do anything, Levi yanks her back down.

“You’re at that level of drunk where you could probably do anything if you really wanted to. But you don’t have to prove any of it to me,” Levi says. His hand is still firmly around her wrist in case she tries to do something dangerous. “But you did just stumble over here - in a very crooked line, I might add - and propositioned me, a complete stranger, for sex.”

“I did what? No, I didn’t.” Petra wrinkles her nose. She has no idea how he got that idea. Maybe it’s her dress? But he didn’t seem very judgemental about it before. Maybe he was a lot more attracted to her than she had thought. “I just asked you to sleep with me. Like …” Petra wrestles her hand away from Levi so she can tangle her index fingers and wiggle them together, a gesture that does absolutely nothing to clarify what she means to Levi. “You know, like cuddling.”

Levi just stares.

“You can’t really be a pre-med if you couldn’t even figure that out,” Petra snorts.

Exasperated, the EMT runs his hands through his hair. When he looks back up, his hair is sexily tousled back away from his forehead. Petra’s not sure if it was intentional or not, but it’s a good look on him.

“And you couldn’t ask your roommates?”

“They said no,” Petra whines. Her bottom lip is sticking out again, but he seems impervious to any kind of pouting.

“You can’t just, I don’t know, hug a teddy bear?” he asks.

“Stuffed animals lack the warmth and affection humans do,” Petra replies. She clings to Levi’s arm, blinking up at him through mascaraed eyelashes. “Please?”

He opens his mouth and Petra is almost certain that he’s about to refuse her again but she bats her lashes at him and the EMT almost chokes. He coughs, pounding a fist against his chest while Petra rubs his back sympathetically. When he’s finally caught his breath, he looks at her and says, very calmly, “I don’t think you understand. You’re very, very drunk.”

The fact that they’re still playing this game makes Petra want to scream in frustration, but she doesn’t want another hand clamped over her mouth. Instead, she smiles very sweetly at the EMT and repeats, “Yes. I’m very, very, very, very, very drunk.”

“And even if I wanted to sleep with you, I’m still on my shift,” Levi says, gesturing towards his getup.

Geez, he’s so dedicated to his costume. Petra’s not sure whether she should be impressed or annoyed. She decides to just go along with it and nods. “You can just wear the costume then. I won’t mind.” She doesn’t really make a habit of asking complete strangers to spoon with her in bed, but she’s not opposed to them wanting to roleplay in bed as long as they don't make it weird. And at least Levi looks hot in his EMT outfit. It might be kind of hot, actually.

“This isn’t … nevermind,” Levi says with a frustrated sigh. He rubs his face in his hands and then looks at Petra, who’s still looking at him with the same hopeful expression she’s been looking at him with all night. “What if I just gave you my phone number?”

“Your phone number?” she repeats. A new phone contact means a new friend, which means someone new to distract her from reading case files. It sounds like a good idea, but then … “Does this mean you won’t sleep with me?”

“If you ask me again when you’re sober, I might consider it,” he tells her. He holds out his hand.

Petra looks Levi up and down. “Will you still be wearing your costume?” she asks curiously.

“I …” Levi looks down at himself and sighs again. “Most likely. Now hand over your phone. I’ll give you my number.” He gestures for Petra to give him her phone.

“Okay,” Petra says happily. She fishes her phone out of her bra, ignoring the scandalized look on Levi’s face, and plops it into the EMT’s hands. Her head rests on his shoulder as she watches him put in his contact information.

“You can only call me from here,” he tells her as he finishes inputting his name. “I don’t have text at this number.”

It’s awfully inconvenient, but Petra won’t complain. It was such a struggle just to get anything out of him tonight. Maybe he’ll be friendlier tomorrow when she calls. When Levi hands her back her phone, Petra looks at her screen and frowns at her new contact.

“Why did you put your name as EMT?” she asks.

“Those are my initials,” he replies.

“Ah,” Petra nods as if this makes perfect sense and, really, it does when you’re drunk enough. “Is that why you dressed up as an EMT?”

“Sure,” he says amusedly. He gets off the back of the cart and pulls Petra’s heels from out of the grass. Petra is about to reach for them and put them on herself, but Levi is already kneeling down and helping her into them. The experience makes her feel a little bit like Cinderella. “Call me if you’re having trouble getting home or something.”

“Shouldn’t I be calling you when I make it home okay?” she wonders.

“No,” Levi says. He holds out a hand to help her up. He looks at her for a moment before shrugging off his EMT windbreaker and wrapping it around her. “It’s cold tonight. Can you make it over to your friends okay or do you want me to walk you over?”

Petra doesn’t respond. The only thing she can think about right now is how unexpectedly gentlemanly he was with his jacket. She doesn’t really know what to do with the windbreaker so Levi helps her put her arms through it so she can wear it properly, her heart skipping a beat when he zips it up and she realizes just how warm she is now that she has the jacket.

“I think my heart just stopped,” she tells him.

“Really?” Levi asks with an eyebrow raised. He pauses for a moment and, when he makes sure Petra hasn’t fallen over from cardiac arrest, he pats her on the head. She almost whines from how gently he does it. “You’re fine. Go to your friends. And remember to call if you need help.”

“Okay,” Petra says, a little dazed even as Levi turns her around and she begins to stumble back to her friends. She would have skipped, but she almost broke her ankle after taking the first step and the EMT seemed very concerned about her safety. Petra didn’t want to make him worry.

“You’re back,” Hanji says, holding out their arms for Petra to run into.

“I’m back~” Petra sings as she throws her arms around Hanji.

“What about your cuddle buddy?” asks Rico.

Petra goes limp, Hanji being the only thing to hold her up. The tips of her shoes drag as Hanji carries the nurse awkwardly back towards their dorm. “He said I was too drunk to sleep with, so he gave me his number,” Petra mumbles into the soft silky-fabric of Hanji’s cape. The more she thinks about Levi and his gentle EMT hands, the more teary-eyed she gets. Her nose starts to run and tears prickle the corner of her eyes. “But I think he ran away with my heart.”

“Aw,” Hanji says sympathetically as they pat Petra on the head. “You’ll get him next time, Pet.”

Petra falls asleep with her head on Hanji’s shoulder and dreams of a raven-haired EMT with careful hands and pretty blue eyes.

----------

Petra wakes up with a pounding headache that starts at the back of her eyes and only gets worse from there. She squints, covering her eyes from the little light that streams in from the curtains in her bedroom. Her eyes feel swollen, like she had been crying all night. Her throat is unbearably dry, but her mouth tastes oddly of mint instead of the gross morning breath that usually follows after a night of reckless drinking. Rico probably brushed her teeth for her last night and, Petra thinks as she takes a glance at her person, dressed her in her pajamas too.

With a moan, Petra rolls off her bed, her blankets wrapped around her to cushion her fall as she crashes onto the ground. She’d groan at the pain, but everything hurts and a fall doesn’t make much of a difference at this point. She sits up, shaking her head so that her hair isn’t all over her face anymore, and scoots on her butt, only getting up once on her knees to pull open the door before continuing her scooting until she finds herself in the living room. Rico and Hanji are sitting at the dining table watching her with amused expressions on their faces.

Petra rolls over onto her face so that she doesn’t have to look at the lighting in the kitchen. Everything is so fucking bright.

“How are you feeling, Pet?” Hanji asks as they munch on a sandwich that Petra was pretty sure was hers.

“I feel like shit,” Petra mumbles into the carpet. The nylon on the floor scratches against her cheek, but it feels strangely pleasant rubbing against her skin. She nuzzles her face harder against it before she realizes that it’s been a while since any of them vacuumed. Maybe the alcohol isn’t entirely out of her system yet. Petra rolls over. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost 2,” Rico replies, nibbling on a cracker. The soup she’s eating smells incredibly enticing, but Petra doesn’t think she can stomach food at the moment. “You’ve been sleeping for over twelve hours.”

Petra groans again, pulling the blankets over her head. “Why did you guys let me drink that much?”

“Well, we tried to stop you, but you’re awfully convincing,” Hanji says. A piece of lettuce hangs from their mouth. “Your law career is looking promising.”

“Thanks,” Petra grumbles. She lays on the carpet for a few more moments before she decides she should try to become a decent human being again. With an unholy moan, she manages to stand upright and hop over to the kitchen table, her blankets still wrapped around her.

“Eat something,” Rico says. She pushes the rest of her chicken soup towards Petra, but her roommate only shakes her head.

“I don’t think I’m gonna be able to eat anytime soon,” Petra mumbles, resting her head on the table. The surface is nice and cool against her skin.

“Just drink the broth then,” Rico tells her, pushing the soup even closer.

Petra lifts her head and takes a sniff. The smell of chicken soup - a mixture of hearty broth, succulent chunks of chicken, diced carrots and celery, and sweet kernels of corn - is incredibly enticing even as her stomach churns uneasily. It couldn’t hurt to just take a sip of the soup, Petra decides.

“Fine.” She leans over and laps up some of the broth like a dog. Warmth fills her mouth, slips down her throat, and fills her belly. It’s so good that she lets out a whimper.

Her roommates watch her - Rico with an expression close to disgust while Hanji’s is closer to fascination. Petra ignores the both of them and continues to lap up the broth, sometimes managing to get in a kernel of corn or two too. She hopes she’ll be able to keep this down because it tastes so damn good.

“So are you going to call that guy?” Hanji asks.

Petra looks up from her soup and only blinks at Hanji in confusion. “What guy?”

“The one from yesterday,” Hanji reminds her. Their chin rests in their hand as they watch Petra. “You know. The EMT.”

She does vaguely recall talking with someone dressed as an EMT yesterday, although she doesn’t remember much of their conversation. Petra takes a pause on drinking her soup and tries to remember the rest of their conversation, only coming up with bits and pieces. He had friends that left them alone for a bit. She talked with him and she remembers him having very gentle hands. And she does remember that he gave her his number … so that she could ask him to sleep with him another time.

“Oh my god,” Petra moans as the bits and pieces of last night begin to fall into place. Her head falls and it probably would have hit the table if Hanji hadn’t reached out to act as a cushion. She doesn’t know why her head feels impossibly heavy this morning when it was clearly empty of any thought last night. “I asked him to sleep with me, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Rico confirms.

“And I didn’t specify …?” She looks up at Hanji, who only snickers at her. With a groan, she lets her head fall again, forehead falling so hard against Hanji’s hand that they pull it back with a yelp.

She doesn’t know why she’s so mortified. She’ll probably never see the guy again seeing as last night was the first time they’ve ever interacted in all the years that Petra’s attended the university. Even if she does see him again, she can just pretend she was too drunk that night to really remember anything, and maybe he’ll be kind enough to play along with it. After all, he was considerate enough to decline her offer to sleep with her, although she doesn’t know if she should be grateful or slightly offended since she looked great last night. But he was very sweet last night and he was very good-looking and Petra thinks that it wouldn’t be too terrible if she saw him again. Maybe she should give him a call to apologize at least.

“Where’s my phone?” Petra asks suddenly.

“Oh, I’ll get it,” Hanji says, jumping up from their seat. They walk over to the counter and pull out Petra’s phone from the fruit basket, buried under some bananas and oranges. They plop the phone into Petra’s hand and shrug at their roommate’s puzzled expression. “You kept calling his number and we had to take your phone away from you.”

“I kept calling him?” Petra repeats. She doesn’t remember that at all. With a frown, she unlocks her phone and scrolls through her call history to find over a dozen calls to the same number - EMT. “How many times did I call him?”

“Too many,” Rico replies.

Petra doesn’t remember any conversation with the EMT after he gave her his number. She looks suspiciously at the number, thinking that it looks awfully familiar. “This isn’t his number, is it?” she says, somehow already knowing the answer.

“It’s the school’s Emergency Medical Service,” Hanji snickers. Halloween is over, but they look incredibly wicked with that grin on their face. “You kept telling them that some guy named Levi broke your heart and they said they didn’t provide any medical services for heartbreak.”

Ugh. That name does sound familiar. As does that conversation. And the EMS. She had really thought that it was a costume, but suddenly all his “props” and the EMT cart and all of his EMT friends made sense. She really was an idiot last night. Petra lays her head on the table again and wonders if the school EMS does euthanasia procedures. She wouldn’t mind dying right now.

“I was so annoying that he gave me their number instead,” Petra sniffles.

“Do you want ice cream?” Hanji asks sympathetically.

Ice cream does sound good right now, but Petra’s not sure if she should eat that. Even if she could keep it down, she doesn’t deserve it. Ice cream isn’t for hungover people that made fools out of themselves in front of handsome strangers.

“I’m not sure that he thought you were entirely annoying. If that were true, he wouldn’t have talked to you for so long. Or given you the number to EMS in case you needed help. Or lent you his jacket,” Rico points out.

Petra perks up at the last one. “I have his jacket?”

“Yeah,” Hanji nods. “You said you would use it to find him. Like Prince Charming and Cinderella’s shoe.”

That … absolutely sounds like something a drunk Petra would say.

“Okay, well, I don’t have his number so it’s not like I can find him,” Petra sighs. She sits up. “But maybe I can ask EMS …?”

Rico shakes her head. “You tried that at least half a dozen times. They said they don’t give out private information. You even cried because you told us they wouldn’t even confirm if Levi was actually a part of their service.”

She doesn’t blame them. She probably wouldn’t give drunk Petra her number either. “Then how am I going to find him?” Petra whines.

“Ask Hanji.”

Petra whips her head around, forgetting about her hangover for a second until she’s hit with another migraine. She tries to glare at Hanji, but she has to wince through the pain so it probably just looks like a very unflattering squint. “You know him?”

“Yup,” Hanji hums, but they don’t offer Petra his number.

“You’re not giving me his number, are you?”

Hanji grins. “Nope,” they say, popping the “p.” Their grin grows wider. “You gotta earn that shit, Pet. If you want your Prince Charming, you’ll have to do it on your own.”

Petra pouts, but Hanji doesn’t budge. She turns to Rico instead, putting on her biggest puppy eyes. “Ricooo~” she whines, but Rico only shakes her head.

“No, you’re not dragging me into this. It was bad enough just having to deal with you last night. You know I brushed your teeth last night?” Rico asks. “It’s a lot more difficult than brushing your own teeth, especially when the other person is trying to bite you.”

“And I am very grateful,” Petra says, leaning across the table so that Rico can get the full effect of her puppy eyes. Unfortunately, Rico is now an ExpertTM at dealing with Petra and looks away, getting up to disappear into her room. Petra stumbles after her, almost tripping over her blankets.

“You’re on your own,” Rico says, shutting the door in Petra’s face without even looking behind her. Petra doesn’t know when Rico became so heartless.

“I can’t believe you guys are just leaving me to find the EMT guy on my own with only my drunken memories and hangover migraine to help me,” Petra wails. She leans against the door to Rico’s room and slides down against it like a tragic heroine in a Victorian novel.

“Rico has her own love life to attend to, so don’t be too hard on her,” Hanji says from the table. They get up to place their plate in the sink, rinsing the crumbs off with water. “She’s going on a date with Batman.”

“Oh, Batman?” Petra says with a wistful sigh, a little envious that Rico can snag a date with her own handsome stranger. Then again, he probably isn’t that much of a stranger if Rico can get a hold of him. Petra can’t even contact her stranger.

Rico’s door opens and Petra falls on her back. She looks up and sees her roommate dressed out of her pajamas and into a plaid dress thrown over a cream-colored blouse and black tights - very appropriate for the autumnal weather.

“You dressed really quickly,” Petra says, sitting up as Rico steps around her. “Batman must be just as handsome with his mask off as he is with his mask on.”

Rico only rolls her eyes. “He has a name, you know.”

“Bruce Wayne?” Hanji asks.

“Cheekbones?” Petra suggests cheekily.

“You guys are so …” Rico’s voice trails off without filling in the blank, her roommates giggling childishly. She slips on her flats and fixes her purse strap over her shoulder. She pauses to take a look at Petra, who’s still sitting on the floor sulking. She reaches for the door, thinks for a moment, and then says with a sigh, “There’s an event EMS is holding next week. They’re offering a CPR class. Your Prince Charming might be there.”

“Really?” Petra asks, sitting up straighter. She frowns. “This isn’t a true love thing. I just want to return his jacket. And, like, maybe apologize for being a creep.”

“Right,” Rico says, unconvinced. “I’ll text you the details in a little bit.”

“How did you even find out about that anyway?” Petra asks curiously.

“I literally just looked at the EMS website. It took me five seconds,” Rico snorts. They’re all roommates, but Rico is the only one with any brain cells. Petra isn’t sure what they’d do without her. Rico pulls the door open and gives her roommates a wave. “I’ll see you guys later. Don’t let Petra do anything stupid. I think she might still be a little …” She makes a loopy motion with her hand.

“Bye~! Have fun on your date,” Hanji sings as Rico shuts the door behind her. They toss a grin over at Petra who’s still sitting on the floor. “Aren’t you lucky? You might be able to get your EMT to give you mouth-to-mouth.”

“Shut up,” Petra mumbles, but the thought of the EMT’s lips pressed against hers does make her heart flutter. He looked like he had nice lips. Pretty and pink. Good for kissing.

She flops back on the floor and pulls her blankets over her head. She can’t deal with anymore teasing. She’s been humiliated enough and she’s only been awake for half an hour. Petra sleeps there until Rico comes home and drags her to her bed.

----------

The EMS class began at 5 PM. Petra knew that - had written it in her calendar and set about five alarms on her phone in case she forgot - and yet she still finds herself frantically running around the STEM building an hour after the class began because she doesn’t know where any of the rooms are except for the chemistry labs. The fact that she took far too long getting ready even though all she was doing was dropping off a jacket is probably also a major factor of her tardiness. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have the talent of getting ready in under five minutes like Rico does.

“All of these rooms look the same,” Petra mutters as she wanders around the basement of the STEM building. They’re all cold-looking with speckled tiles and off-white walls. Some of these rooms still even have chalkboards, which Petra finds ridiculous because the law building transferred to smart boards by the time she was a freshman. The school really needs to funnel more of their funds into the STEM department, she thinks with a frown.

She notices a classroom that people are slowly filtering out of. A few people wear the same EMT getup that she remembers seeing a few nights ago. Before they can disappear down the hall, Petra begins running down the hall, her heels clicking against the tiles.

“Hey, excuse me!” she says, waving her hand to flag them down. “I need to talk to you guys!”

The group of EMTs turns around, some confused and others surprised. She doesn’t really recognize any of them, but it’s not like she remembers too much about that night. The details are all fuzzy.

“Hey, do you guys know someone named Levi?” Petra pants when she finally stops in front of them. She puts a hand against her chest and can feel her heart thudding against her rib cage.

“Do you know him?” asks one of them, a tall blond with his hair tied up messily in a bun. Something about him is familiar, but Petra can’t say for sure.

“I think I remember her,” someone murmurs behind him.

Petra glances at the other EMT - someone with his brown hair cut short and his bangs neatly trimmed. She can’t remember him either. “I borrowed his jacket the other night. I came to return it to him,” she explains.

“Ah!” says another man, one with sandy hair in curls. He points at Petra, probably not realizing how rude it is even when Petra wrinkles her nose at him. “That’s the girl from Halloween. She was a nurse last time.” He pauses. “You look really different.”

“Yeah, believe it or not, I don’t usually dress like that,” Petra replies. She clears her throat and tosses her head. “So can you tell me where he is? I kind of want to give his jacket back to him today.”

The EMTs all glance at each other before looking back at Petra. The first one that spoke raises his eyebrow at Petra. “Is that … all you’re going to do?” he asks.

“Yeah, what else would I …?” Even if she can’t remember them, it comes to her realization that they do remember her as well as what she said last night. She really didn’t think she was stupid enough to proposition a stranger in front of a bunch of other people, but it seems that drunk Petra will continuously find new ways to embarrass her. Her cheeks flush as she tries to form coherent words. “I … am … I’m only interested in returning this. I promise.”

They study her for a minute and, after deciding she’s harmless, visibly relax. Their reaction is a bit insulting. She doesn’t look that threatening, does she? Then again, maybe she should appreciate the fact that they care enough about their friend to protect him from harassment.

“He’s in the room still,” the brunet answers, gesturing towards the room they had just left. “He’s packing up.”

“Thanks,” Petra says. She’s about to take off but hangs back for a minute. “And sorry if I was, you know, weird the other night. I had a little bit too much to drink.”

The tall blond nods understandingly. “So did a lot of people. After you showed up, we had to attend a call at a nearby party because way too many people got alcohol poisoning.” He shrugs. “Some people just don’t know their limit.”

Petra nods in agreement even though she’s 95 percent certain that she was at that same party the other night. But they don’t have to know that. “Thanks again,” she says, waving awkwardly at them before disappearing into the classroom to find Levi.

There aren’t very many people in the room aside from a few stragglers, the instructor, and a lone EMT who’s kneeling on the ground and packing up his things. He’s incredibly meticulous about packing, Petra notices. He makes sure his instruments are the right way, taking the time to inspect every tool before placing it back in his kit. When Petra approaches, he doesn’t look up even when she stands right in front of him. This situation seems awfully familiar.

“I’ll be leaving now, Levi,” the instructor calls as they usher the other students out of the room. “I’ll see you next week, yeah?”

“See you,” Levi grunts, still packing things back in his kit. He doesn’t pay any mind to Petra.

Petra waits a minute, thinking that it might be because he’s one of those people that likes to finish what they’re doing before they move onto another task. It only takes five seconds before she begins to lose patience. It doesn’t matter if he’s trying not to get distracted, she thinks. Ignoring people is rude. He should at least acknowledge her.

She stomps her foot, hoping that will be enough to get him to look up, but he doesn’t. Frustrated, she lets out a whine but that doesn’t prompt the EMT to pay her any mind either. Finally, she kneels down across from him and puts a hand on top of his kit so that he can’t ignore her even if he wanted to.

He looks up, his eyes the same cool blue they were the other night. They’re impossibly pretty. It should be a crime to have eyes that shade of blue, Petra thinks.

“Hi,” she manages to stammer. It isn’t the introduction she was hoping for. Or re-introduction, really. Not that a re-introduction would help after the first impression she gave him on Halloween.

“Hi,” he replies. He removes her hand from his kit and continues to pack. Petra shouldn’t find his standoffishness so attractive, but she does, frustratingly enough. She thinks he’s going to continue ignoring her but he suddenly says, “Class is over. You’re late.”

“I’m not here for the class,” she begins.

“Oh, right.” His eyes flicker upward as he shuts the kit closed. “Because you’re a nurse. You probably already know CPR.”

“It was just a costume,” Petra mumbles, feeling her cheek heat up again. She’s beginning to think that meeting up with him again was a mistake. Clearly, he just thinks she’s an idiot. He’s probably not wrong though. “I’m pre-law.”

“Makes sense,” he says with a nod. He picks up his kit and stands up, brushing off his pants. To Petra’s surprise, he offers her a hand. His hand is just as nice and gentle as she remembers; calloused palms but a sweet touch. “You made a very compelling argument about how you were a nurse.”

“Okay, you don’t have to keep reminding me. I’m embarrassed enough as it is,” she says. Her head hangs, eyes looking at the tip of her heels. She doesn’t think she can look him in the eye right now. Or maybe even ever. “I’m sorry if I was acting creepy the other night. I was just … super drunk.”

He shrugs and turns towards the door. He doesn’t exactly make a gesture for Petra to follow him, but she can’t exactly stay here so she trails after him. She also notices that his shoulders are very broad. Were student EMTs always this attractive? She never hung out in the STEM building enough to notice.

“It’s fine,” he tells her. “At least you didn’t throw up on me.”

Even if it’s true, Petra isn’t sure this is a good thing. Did his job require him to encounter a lot of drunk people? “Do lots of people throw up on you?” she asks curiously.

“You’d be surprised how many,” Levi replies. He stops so suddenly that Petra almost crashes into his broad and manly back. She kind of wishes she had. He turns around, head tilted. “If you didn’t come for CPR lessons, why did you come?”

“Oh!” She had almost forgotten. Petra reaches into her bag and pulls out his windbreaker. She kind of regrets just shoving it into her bag and getting it all wrinkled. Maybe she should have ironed it and brought it on a coat hanger as if she had just brought it from the dry cleaners. Do people dry clean windbreakers? Or even iron them? Petra frowns as she offers the jacket to Levi. “I came to bring this back. Thanks for letting me borrow it the other night. Even though I was kind of being a weird creep.”

“Oh.” Levi takes the windbreaker. “Thanks.”

“I washed it,” Petra tells him. She doesn’t know why she needs to tell him this. It’s a given that she would wash someone’s clothes before returning them, but she doesn’t want Levi to think she isn’t. She just needs to make sure so that he doesn’t get the wrong idea about her again.

He blinks at her but doesn’t say anything. After a moment, he says, “Is that it?”

Is there supposed to be more? Petra isn’t sure what else there’s supposed to be. She thought he would have wanted her to leave as soon as possible. The possibility that Levi isn’t merely just tolerating her - that he might actually find her cute - isn’t something that she’s anticipated.

“Do you want there to be more?” Petra asks, narrowing her eyes at him.

Levi doesn’t blush. It figures that he’s the type not to blush. He has to be so goddamn cool all the way until the end. He does, however, avoid making eye contact Petra, which she finds incredibly suspicious. Suspicious and very cute.

“Maybe … you thought I was cute that night and you wanted to see me again?” Petra asks, a sly grin growing on her face. She points a finger at him, poking him in the chest. “And you were hoping I’d return your jacket so you could talk to me again?”

He doesn’t confirm or deny any of her statements. He just reaches back to scratch his neck, probably unintentionally flexing his bicep in front of her but Petra is definitely Looking and he is definitely a lot buffer than any EMT needs to be. He could probably throw her over his shoulder easily and carry her like a potato sack.

“Aw, are you upset that I missed the CPR class?” she teases. She pokes him in the arm and, yes, his bicep is very firm and toned and muscular. “Maybe you were hoping to teach me how to do mouth-to-mouth?”

Levi sighs tiredly before walking away, but Petra eagerly follows behind him. “You know that’s not what we teach in CPR classes, right? It’s only really necessary to learn how to administer chest compressions unless you’re an EMT yourself.”

“Oh,” Petra frowns. She was starting to think she was getting the upper hand in this conversation, but she’s sorely lacking in knowledge on lifesaving techniques. This is what she gets for missing the CPR class.

“I, however,” Levi says, turning around to face Petra, “am certified to give mouth-to-mouth.” He takes a step towards her and Petra finds herself standing very, very close to the hot EMT guy.

Levi was gorgeous when Petra was drunk out of her mind and he’s gorgeous now standing inches in front of her and completely sober. He might be even more gorgeous now that she’s sober and able to take in every detail about him. Like how dark his lashes look against the pretty blue of his eyes. Or the way the look in his eyes grows slightly darker when he approaches her. Or the way he parts his lips - slightly chapped but an intriguing shade of pink - just the tiniest bit. He’s the perfect height for kissing, Petra thinks. She could easily take a step and press her lips against his without having to stand on her tiptoes. The thought of it causes an awkward thud in her chest.

“I think my heart just stopped,” she blurts.

Levi raises his eyebrow. “You’re going to have to see an actual doctor for that then,” he tells her, but he continues to stand insufferably close to her with no indication that he’s going to move anytime soon. Maybe he just likes to make her heart suffer.

“Are you going to kiss me?” she asks. Her voice sounds a lot more breathless than she’d like it to be, but between her almost suffering another cardiac arrest under the hands of Levi and the fact that she can’t quite breathe because of the lack of distance between them, she supposes she could sound worse.

He looks at her, head tilted, and the cockiest grin Petra has ever seen begins to grow on his face. “I should at least buy you dinner first,” he replies. Levi turns and continues down the hall without her.

The sight of the EMT’s broad back brings Petra a lot less joy than it did ten minutes ago. She stares at him and his wide shoulders wistfully until she realizes what he had just said. That wasn’t actually a rejection, right?

“Hey, are you buying me dinner?” Petra asks, chasing after him.

Of course, he doesn’t slow down for him, the bastard. He grins when she catches up to him, giving her a cheeky side glance. “Do you like Korean food? There’s a place nearby. They have good hangover soup.”

“I haven’t even drank anything since last week!” she protests. She pouts, her cheeks puffing up like a chipmunk’s. “You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?”

His grin grows wider. “No.”

Seeing his smile makes Petra’s heart do that weird thing where it skips a beat again, or maybe it just stopped entirely. It’s a strange feeling that doesn’t exactly hurt, but it’s certainly new. Maybe she’ll get used to it. It’s probably not serious anyway. And, well, even if it is, she’s sure Levi can help.

#rivetra #petra ral #levi ackerman #hanji zoe #rico brzenska #college au #university au #this is probably like the 4th college/uni au i've written for them sigh pie

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luna-paradoxz · 3 years ago

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Soulmates

Summary - In the world on Teyvat, you receive a soul mark when you also receive a vision from the seven archons. A gift from the gods they call it, a mark that Eula treasures, a mark that Childe doesn't care about.

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Eula had gotten her vision, something she did not expect after all people hated her so much, she couldn't believe the archons would love her. It had soothed her heart, it made her believe in the ideals that old outrider had thought her, that she needs to be herself before she can please others. To love oneself before others love her. It was a hard battle, a battle she kept fighting every day. But she plans to reach there, a place where she can carve out her own happiness and it seems the archon are helping her since they even gave her a tattoo. A mark that was reddish grey, a mask-like thing with blue blades protecting it. It was beautiful to her and had become precious to her. She did find it lucky though it was on her back, her shoulder blade a place that easily covers up with her cape. It is also something she can find only when she wants to search for it.

Eula has been born and brought up in Mondstadt, her hometown for forever. As she grew up, she learned about its history, present and its future, to be thought to hope for the past to become the future again. She rejected it, the more she learned, the more she wanted to forget the past and forge a new future for Mondstadt along with the people who long it now. Still, other people do not see that, her name carries too much weight for people to forget it. They hate her for the atrocities that the members of her family in the past had committed in the past, the anger they have still carried from that they hate her for that and want someone to remove their anger on them. She is their scapegoat as she entertains talks with them instead of just looking down on them as her family people. Since she joined the Knights of Favonius though things have become better though, Still, they hate her, they hate her family and will probably carry that anger for more generations to come.

It is something she has become used to, she has always but learned to live with it. To protect the freedom of Mondstadt outside of the city walls, in the wild is where she must defeat their enemies. For most days she is strong with promised vengeance and teachings instilled in her blood, she can carry herself simply fine. She held high and her steps firm, she does not show weakness to anyone in the city. She remains vigilant, carries out the duties bestowed to her and the ideals she herself carries as a noble of the city. On usual days Eula is fine but on certain days she is not.

Such as when she had to arrest her own uncle and throw him in the cell on charges of treason and attempted terrorism. The Lawrence clan is truly despicable, rumours obviously fly, and she decides to retreat out of the city today to keep away from listening to their words filled with venomous anger.

A tent is all she needs as she camps out near the old temples of wind. She sighs as she sets it up, the fire is lit and she starts her cooking, food is generally good for her. Years of practice has made her good at cooking and it is one of her skills that she was proud of. She eats for a bit and is going to sleep soon when she hears disturbingly sounds from the temple that sounds like battle sounds. She gets up and heads out with her claymore in her hand.

Childe believed only in himself and Traitsa, other people only interested him when they posed an actual challenge to him in a fight. As such someone who only craved god fights and to become stronger, he was not the happiest when he got his vision. Hydro vision is known to heal people, he was the opposite of that, he did not care much for his loft vision. The lesser for the non-interesting mark it bore him on his left shoulder blade, he does not care for notions such as soulmates or so. It did make his siblings happy so there was that and his vision did allow him to play with them especially Teucer, so he did not really mind it so much, it took a bit of honing, but he was able to develop it enough that it worked in his battles. It was when he got his delusion that he felt strong, he loved the badge, not for his nor but the power it brought to him. It also made him feel closer to the archon he believed in the strong warrior Tsaritsa. The mark forgot, just as it was in the distant lands of wind.

He has been sent to Mondstat for some work, Signora went back so he is left to pick up her slack, how truly annoying. But being the loyal follower of Tsaritsa, he can't reject her orders. He finishes some paperwork and decides to head out in the wild so that he can leave out some steam. He walks down the wild areas and comes around some ruins where some ruins guards must be present, his blood sings and he run around finding them. He came across one that looks in the middle of a temple, an ancient ruin that doesn't matter to him. He pulls out his bow and aims straight for his eyes. The fight raged on as he jumps from pillars to pillars to avoid its missiles and with a maniacal grin. It is then when a glow brightens and a woman lands with her claymore aiming straight for the head, breaking it cleanly and lands elegantly in front of the breaking machine. Her pale blue hair shines in the moonlight but it angers Childe, she stole his prey.

He frowns, trying his best to retain his blood lust as he jumps down and confronts her, the woman dared to take his prey, "Why did you take it out, milady?" he is smiling but he is feeling anything but blood lust, anger to take out this swordswoman to take away his prey for him.

She turns, her posture elegant and confident as she flips her hair and looks down on him and it makes him angrier if it's plausible. "You were destroying the ruins, as a knight, I can't allow any of our ruins to be destroyed by the likes of you." So many sharks and it makes his eyes twitch.

"I was just taking out a danger, milady it would cause problems for the archaeologists that might come tomorrow in the morning."

She frowns, "That is the job of the knight. I must ask you to stay within your borders. You must be aware Fatui," she says with a sneer, "You are not welcomed in Mondstadt. So, I would be careful to maintain the weak support that keeps you here."

He smirks, ok this woman is interesting she just seems to not hate Fatui, but also look down on him, he can use this. He was itching for a fight and being a knight, she should be at least giving him so entertainment. "Then make me milady."

She smirks as she takes a pose, "I would love to throw you rats out of our city of Freedom."

His blades are frozen as she quickly passes cryo through her blade and applies it on his blades, he smirks as he jumps back, throws his blades on her as he jumps on top of the pillars and aims his bow, the water focuses, and he shoots his arrows. Little hydro made arrows pierce her and she aims her blade above to push her cryo to cover as she tries to dodge as many of them as she can. Some of them cut her pale skin but she cares not as she waits for the arrows to finish and jumps after him, but he has already moved and takes cover on the opposite, sniping her as much as he can, and she must keep applying her cryo to cover her weak spots as she tries to run after him. He is a sneaky rat alright. They chase after each other as she tries to aim cryo arrows at him, but he is flexible enough to dodge her and frustrated she decides to use a large attack, she infuses cryo in her blade, gets as close and makes a wide swing as it cuts his chest and he jumps back, grinning manically. She is far stronger than he had thought. Oh, he is having fun alright, even more than travellers fights recently. He does not notice, but a small cryo sword hangs behind her back, she is slowly infusing with large cryo as he pulls out his swords again and gets close to her to aims at her spots, she does her best to avoid and make sure he does not notice her trick. It takes a bit of them, injuries that she could have otherwise avoided and then she releases the pent-up energy, and it blows in his face. It pierces his skin and cuts him away, freezes his skin and injures him enough to put him on his knees but his grin does not leave his face and it only makes her scared a bit. It is then he decides as he pushes his own hydro energy and activates his Foul legacy.

The electro pulses around them and she understood the danger so she moves, running making sure that they will get out of the ruin. Their survey will get disturbed especially since this is Barbato's old temples, a national symbol of Mondstadt. She runs, running through the trees avoiding his electro arrows. She applies cryo to her back as she runs across the field, jumps down the path and lets out some cryo to push the monster towards him to make sure he gets disturbed. She jumps and turns around circling the mountain and then starts climbing, as fast as she can. She runs around, making sure no one is around before she places herself in the middle of the Snarsnatch cliff making sure he will follow her. She pulls out little potions she had made to increase her cryo power and power her up as she closes her eye, relocates her powers, and feels herself smirk a little as he floats near, and they start dancing again.

They stay injured as they lay opposite to each other panting heavily and wincing from their wounds. they both had fallen at the same time, the winner has not been decided but they can't carry on their fight, so they lay there not sure what to do but also not ready to give the other an upper hand.

The wind caresses their wounds, and he gets up, adrenaline pumping his blood, "I didn't know knights had such a good fighter in them. I thought only their grandmaster was worth a fight."

She frowns, springing up regardless of how hurt she was, "Knight's safeguard Mondstadt, the ones are chosen out of hundreds to protect the city. You will do well to not look down on us Fatui." She flips her hair, "To insults knights and me. Be forewarned vengeance will be mine."

He smirks his blood pumping, oh how would he love to fight with her again. "Oh, lady I would love to see you try that."

She frowns, "stop calling me lady, you would call me by title, I am Eula the Spindrift knight of knights of Favonius."

He nods and smirks. "I am Childe, the 11th harbinger of Fatui."

It was two days later when she ran into harbinger again. Childe with his annoying smile as he slides across her with a pint of wine in his eyes, glares. Drinking is one of the few pass times that help her relax after an exhausting day of work, most of the time no one's shares a table with her and that does sadden her but other times she is glad to have a little bit of silence to herself and enjoy her own company without having to worry about others opinion of her. Today she wanted to be left alone since she was tired from work and recovering from the wounds, he gave her. So, she needed a good drinking time to herself, but it seems the damned= Fatui didn't get her message and he still refuses to budge even after she and many others are giving him all kinds of glares and look.

He ignores them as he with his annoyingly honeyed voice says, "Hello there Eula you look as beautiful as you always do." If she was not a noble lady, she would have smacked him right there and then. I

instead, Eula tries her best to ignore his presence and keeps on drinking, but he doesn't care and continues the chat, starting to say things about one of his adventure or another, she cares not but he is close to her so hears, nonetheless. It was something about taking on some monsters and enjoying the fight. She sighed, what was up with this man, she just couldn't figure it out. She finally relents and replies to him when he is talking about his siblings and ice fishing and she just losses her lips and smiles a little, amused as she says,

"How foolish to fall in the sea in Snezhnaya of all places." He smirks when he hears her reply and she groans, oh the drinks are getting to her. To ensure she doesn't make a fool out of herself, she gets up, pays her money, and tries to leave, he blocks her exit.

Diluc's shift had just started as he clears his throat loudly and glares at him as he asks her, "Is everything ok here?" Childe glares back but she pushes him away, thanks Diluc and leaves. The chilly wind calming her down as she quickly makes her way to her dorms.

The man won't leave her alone though and instead is hell-bent on talking to her, she 'coincidentally' runs into him many times even on her routes to take care of work.

She finally gives up when he is waving at her while she makes way to observe a treasure hunter group. "Oh, hello milady, a coincidence to run into you here again." He says so innocently.

She glares at him as she sighs and moves around, "I will not tolerate if you interfere with my work. " She moves not waiting to see if he follows and heads to the site, she was given information about.

She slowly creeps down to a nearby bush and stations herself there, he takes a seat beside her and turns to her, "Why are you hunting these weak ones."

She sighs, "Why do you keep following me if are not even interested in my work."

"You are the one in quite a while who made my blood boil in a fight. I haven't fought with someone who made me injure so much in quite a while. I would like to spar with you again."

She gives a flat look; did he seriously follow her around because she fought well? How stupid. "I would rather you leave right now," she says seriously but he ignores her,

"I would like to spend time with you, I want to know who my opponent is."

She glares at him, trying hard to hide her slightly flushes cheeks. This is foolish, he is an enemy, someone they will expel from the city eventually. So, she ignores his words and decides to do what she had come here to do originally to monitor the treasure hunters' group and gather intel if they were up to no good. She glares at him from a side-eye as she listens to them. He smirks. oh, he hasn't been this curious in a long time, he decides to let her work this time later they can spar again. They focus on the men, few feet away from them. They are talking about some of the ruins that are being excavated recently, she notes as they continue wondering if they will get any treasures from it, she notes this as she keeps intently listening while Childe observes both groups and it was then when the sun hits right above them and her headpiece glints, one of them catches it and in few seconds, everyone springs to action.

She is sparing against one of the bulky ones while he takes her back and shoots down the projectile’s others throw towards them; she is trying her best to not rely on him, but she must admit it secretly that his help is nice since she hates the reactions they cause when they throw elemental projectiles at her. She focuses on taking the ones fighting in close counters, he is wielding a bow, so he needs her to defend him. She keeps a vigilant out for them, easily parring their blows when three of them jump together and she pulls him to swing him aside with her right hand while she twists herself and lets out a cryo energy as they hit her right on her upper chest. She huffs as she kneels and she looks up to see a dark murderous look come up on the fatui as he suddenly puts away his bow and makes a long lance with only hydro as he swings it wide, cutting them all down before he puts it away and goes over to her giving her a hand. She pushes away his hand, putting her great sword in the ground and pushes herself up.

They head to the only man left from the group and she glares at him and asks about their plans, and he confesses that they plan to sabotage the survey and steal all the treasures that might exist in there. She frowns and with a heavy hand takes the man and decides to head back to the city, when he tries to pull the man in his grasp and takes it from her as he turns to her while putting the limp man on his shoulder.

"Are you going to put him in jail?" He asks looking bored, and she is trying hard to ignore the pile of bodies and glares at him her hands crossed.

"Yes, you have already a mess, that I will need to explain, and I would like to decrease the count even by one."

He smiles, "Well I can't tolerate such wimps taking you out, milady."

She shakes her head and just starts walking back to the city as she laments the fact, he has gotten stuck to her because of the sins her clan must have committed. Truly, how annoying.

She finally decides to give him the fight he wants so much so would just stop following her around everywhere like a lost puppy. It is starting to not only worry her but others too, the incident from that day spread like wildfire, and Jean also looked worried as she stared at the duo standing in the HQ. Everyone obviously knew by now that he was part of the Fatui so rumours have started flying considering it has been only some time since the last incident with her uncle so everyone had become cautious, and she would like to crush the rumours before they became a problem, so she gives him a look as she gets him out of the city and finally says.

"We will fight, a proper one until one of us wins and everything is allowed." His whole face lights up in excitement, like a dog that was given a bone, she doesn't get him, his eyes are always so dead and his feelings so fake and yet whenever they spar, or he fights someone he looks genuinely happy. It makes her curious of what kind of person he is to be so happy with only fighting and yet so uncaring of everything else, even his own life. She continued her declaration, "On one condition."

That straightens up, cautious as he asks, "And what will that be milady?"

"I want you to leave Mondstadt once we have decided a victor."

He smirks challenging, "We fatui haven't received orders to leave so I must decline that condition unless Traitsa herself orders it. I will not remove my men and betray her highness."

She sighs, knowing this, in the weeks he has been following her she has learned his undying loyalty to cryo archon. A city without any archon to rule, she didn't understand that devotion, but she knew well that it surpassed his need for strong fights, "Then I will ask at least you a harbinger to leave, it would make it easier for us to keep an eye on the Fatui." He gets that and anyways once he fights, he can leave he was forcefully staying here even though he has already gotten orders to return to Shenezaya to discuss their plans for the Electro archon. He smirks and agrees to the condition.

They decide on time and place and separate to prepare for the battle. The traveller arrives on time who gives an explanation to Jean and all for Childe's weird behaviour and helps her train against his annoying foul transformation that is something he has experienced too dealing with. The week comes quickly, and they both meet each other on top of Storm bearer mountains, ready to fight as they pull out their weapons, get ready and fight with only each other as a witness.

Hours pass as she dodges another of his arrows while jumping and trying to cut him down, he pushes back, butting out his blades to parry her and it tuns again into sword fights. He uses all the weapons in his arsenal while she must keep up with his changing ways of fighting. She hates to admit it, but he is the superior warrior, so adept, so agile, and so honed to the art of fighting. She knows it's a matter of time as the wounds cover both, their pants filling the mountains, all the wild have since left them alone and both humans move only with their willpower. Her arms are heavy, the claymore too heavy for her but she swings it regardless as he puts away his bow and instead takes the lance to fight knowing well, he needs to give his all. The fight is coming soon to a close and she wonders when he will bring out his delusion, but he doesn't, and her leg falls as it gives up on her finally and he takes the moment to take the jump on her. He pushes her to the ground, taking hold of her hands, placing both above her as he stresses right in her face, so close their eyes glaring at each other as one grins maniacally while the other tired. They pant as his lance is kept near her neck and she knows it's her defeat.

It makes her angry, but she swallows it with her dignity and says, "I lose." The lance disappears but he stays there, and she stares into his dull blue eyes, and he stares back in her pink-hued ones, far brighter than him. The silence and wind flow between, neither says a word but something passes between them as they stare further into each other and engrave this memory in each other's minds.

He leaves after that day, and it lets go of one of her burdens. The whispers don't fade right away but they soon disappear and is all well again in the city of freedom. Or at least it should have been but as she sits alone again in Angels share, she feels lonely. She doesn't want to admit it though, after all, you feel lonely for people you care for, love. She does neither for him, but she misses him, his too buttery smile as he slides across her seat and chats continuously about all kinds of things especially his three siblings – Antonio, Teucer and Tonia. He always spoke happily of his siblings, for them they were his greatest pride, she had siblings too, but she hardly ever met them since she joined the knights. Her family never mattered to her if they hold on to their old beliefs but for him, they were his entire world. She misses his constant presence as he hovered around her everywhere, it worried her but now it had become a daily occurrence in the months he had stayed. She hates to admit it truly but she mises Childe, she missed spending time with him. He always accompanied her and made it even easier to ignore the scorned voices, the loneliness, the need to always be on the edge to make sure she will not be taken over. It was tiring but with him, she could be safe that her back will be protected, that the voices will quiet down, and the darkness will recede from her.

She changes another glass of red wine from Shenezaya to drown her feelings alongside the feelings he has left in her.

He twirls an ice charm in his hands, a gift he got from her. She had been making them to please some kids, to gain some brownie points with them. An extra was left so she had handed it to him. He had at that time had decided to give it to Teucer when he goes back home but now as he sails back home, he can't help but keep it close to him. He acknowledges his feelings quite quickly, the loneliness she has left in him is something curious and striking. He has not felt this in a long time, he misses his siblings, but it is not the same as that, it was different stronger, a feeling that he can't let go just like the ice charm that twirled gently in his hand. It was for the ae reason he had refused to use his foul transformation; he dint want to leave her. He didn't want to leave the girl who had broken herself to his heart, a place deep buried in the darkness of his mind, no one has entered since that frost day when he had felt into the abyss.

He leaves a smiling breath, the lady doesn't want him though, so he has left, and he refuses to acknowledge it feels the same as leaving his home behind after all he is heading back to his home.

It is Tonia who points out the similarity that the charm possess. She says with wonder as she puts down Teucer's favourite soup in front of all of them as she asks about it that he has always kept around him, "Doesn't that look similar brother? Where did you get that?" She asks and it triggers an image in him that he has long forgotten. He doesn't show it but as soon as dinner is done, he all but rushes back to his room to confirm and it stares into his face and calls him an idiot. It is similar, far too same as his soul mark, the same insignia she always wore around on her hip, his mark was the same. The pale blue of her ice calling him foolish as he traces and hands-on it gently, he had forgotten it for so long, not caring about it but now it all makes sense. His uncanny attraction to her, his feelings that blossomed so strongly only after knowing her for few months, the feeling of home he had to leave behind. Oh, it all makes sense now.

She was his soul mate and he had fallen in love with the girl who spoke vengeance when she wanted to express her love.

He loved Eula. He smirks as he makes his way to the ice fortress, he is heading back to Mondstadt, he refuses to let her go now that he knows about their future. He refuses to ever let her go; he promises he will be being a beautiful lady to his siblings as he boards the ship back to the city of freedom.

The city is just as he remembers all those months back and he steps out of the harbour, letting his subordinate's take his luggage as they try to please him, but he ignores them and heads out, leaving the city behind and heads to the wilderness. The trails she leaves are easy to find as he heads to the thousands wind temple where they first met and finds her camping out again today. He finds anger simmer under him, but he ignores it as he makes way to her smiling slightly as he wonders how she will react. He quiets his feet down as he comes near her, pulls out his bow and with precision aims it right at her, and as he expected she jumps back, turning with that grace she no naturally possessed. She glares at him, her blade ready to attack him and he smirks, oh gods she is incredibly beautiful as he pulls out his own blade just in time for her to recognize him and he attacks her. This is the dance they both are familiar with now and fall in step quickly, it takes few jabs from her before he collapses on his knees in front of her and she puts her sword on his neck, and he submits to her with a smile. Oh, he will always submit to this beautiful woman. She is panting as she puts at him and puts away her claymore to glare at him, but he stops her as he gets up quickly and takes her hand in him, guiding to her another familiar once he remembers seeing her practice and she flushes as she falls in step, her body remembering the steps too well for it not fall alongside him. Their hands placed properly, and she stares at him in mix of emotions.

"What is the name of seven archons are you doing here?" She asks, her thoughts too jumbled and the sudden changes of actions by him.

He grins as he sides steps and pulls her along, they are dancing in the empty temple surrounded only by wind, "I missed you my princess, so I came back."

She flushes as he tightens her hold on his shoulder and sweeps her leg back as they twirl around, "Have you gone further mad? What are you even saying?"

He laughs as he spins her and pulls her back in his embrace, oh even her coolness warms his heart, "Well, I will say these feelings are kind of madness but yes I mean every word I say. I did miss you princess and even if it meant breaking my promise to you. I wanted to see you again." He says as he stares into her eyes, and she notes that his dead eyes look more alive now. It affects her heart, and she tries to push, but his grip is tight, his eyes determined as he steps with her in perfect rhythm, like this dance was always meant to be danced with him.

"You are a fatui, my enemy."

His gentle smile doesn't leave his face, as he places his hands on her waists and picks her up to spin her and she does as gracefully as always, her feet land light as he gives his answer, "I don't care, I wish to stay by your side no matter what."

"You will leave the Traitsa for me?" She asks, she hears beating anxiously waiting for his answer, as she clicks her toes, and they move straight among the pile of rubbles.

"No, I have sworn my loyalty to her," her face falls, "But I shall give all my left-over time to you." How selfish of him to swear his loyalty to two women but Eula is not surprised as she looks up to him, a smile not leaving her face.

"You are truly an insufferable man, aren't you? To ask me to take your loyalty while knowing well how much I have to lose." She quips even with the gentle smile, she is sad, so scared everything she has built will fall if she takes his hand.

As if he knows this very well, he uses his last weapon, the dagger stabbing in her heart just like he wanted, "I love you, Eula." He pulls her closer as the words sink in her, "I am your soul mate and I want to spend our future together," He slows down, they rock with each other as the winds slow down, the silence far too loud around them as the words linger in the wind. He is so selfish and yet she knows the truth has been spoken from his lips for the very first time and she obliges as she closes her eyes and places her head on his neck, trying to gain what warmth she can from him. It chills her bones, the feelings she holds but she knows the words that express them are not false and they came far easier as the sun sets on them.

"I love you too, Childe."

Years later an eternal bard will sing about a forbidden love between two enemies, fated by gods to be together as they fought the world's hatred towards them and stayed together until their end of time. He would smile gently as he would sing about their eternal dance among the wind and snow.

A/N - It is a rare pairing, but I love it, and I love their ship. The discord server is lovely and if anyone wishes to join us feel free to drop a message. I hope you guys like it and I am working on the same concept for some other genshin couples too mainly my OTP Xianyu. so, look forward to that.

If you like my writing and wish to support me in some way, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-fi, /luna2572, or you can also commission me. You can dm me or visit my Tumblr to get the details.

Don't forget to review, favourite and/or follow.

Xoxoxo, Luna.

#my wrtitng #genshin impact #childe x eula #soulmates au

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samsexualdeancurious · 4 years ago

Text

His Own Hands | Chapter Four

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Words: 1,218

Summary: Bucky is settling in well with the Avengers but he keeps having nightmares - flashes of repressed memories of a girl being tortured by his hands and then vanishing into a swirling black portal. He's not sure who she is until Fury introduces them to their newest potential team member, a girl Bucky recognizes on sight and Fury calls "Portal".

Warnings: Hurt!Reader, Lack of Communication, torture, trauma, PTSD

Written for Nanowrimo 2020

Betaed by Saxxxology and Amory

Cover art edited by me

---

The rest of the team is already in the larger training room, the one with crazy holograph tech installed to simulate potential threats. Everyone’s wearing their uniforms, with the exception of Y/N whose uniform hasn’t arrived, and Bucky spots the case for his arm sitting on a bench. He grimaces but pops the locks open and lifts it out of its foam bed. Tony steps in, tools in hand to make sure that everything gets connected right.

The process is quick, streamlined by practice, and it’s no time before Bucky feels the little zing - he’s never quite sure how to describe it but zing is pretty close - that means everything is online. He rolls his shoulder, flexes his fist, and watches as the plates shift before putting on his uniform jacket. When he looks up, his eyes meet Y/N’s. She’s watching intently, clearly interested in the process. He searches her eyes a second for something - anything - to indicate that she recognizes or remembers him, but she just smiles.

“That’s some pretty impressive tech,” she observes as the others begin to move away. “What’s the metal?”

“Vibranium,” Bucky answers, tearing his eyes away from her.

“From Wakanda?”

“We should get moving.”

He joins Nat at the edge of the room. She eyes him.

“I think that’s the most you’ve ever said to her.”

Bucky grits his teeth but doesn’t reply.

“Wanna tell me what’s up?”

“No.”

Nat rolls her eyes. Before she can say anything else, though, the room hums to life and the simulation begins.

Their first run actually goes fairly well, considering this is the first time anyone but Nat has ever worked with her. At first it’s just what Bucky was expecting - using portals to hop around the simulation and help wherever needed, occasionally taking Wanda with her because “Wanda’s had contact with an Infinity Stone but we don’t know how the rest of you will react”. React to what, Bucky has no clue, and there’s not much time to explain.

They’re in their second more difficult simulation when a whole new level of Y/N’s power is revealed. The team is getting their asses kicked and Bucky, along with Y/N, Nat, and Steve, have been cornered by their enemies - some kind of robot that’s frankly one of the creepiest things Bucky’s encountered, humanoid shaped with a flat metal face and glowing red eyes. The others are attempting to rescue them but not having much luck.

“Move,” Y/N says, shoving at Nat and Bucky where they’ve stepped in front of her.

Bucky glances back at her. “What-?”

That’s all he gets out before she shoves him out of the way. Her eyes glow purple and a huge portal opens behind her, bigger than any Bucky’s seen her make so far. Something comes out - something gigantic and dark, swinging a great horned head - and plows through the robots.

They scatter but the beast is fast, much faster than something that size has any right to be, and destroys a large amount in no time. The team is quick to dispatch the remaining few and then everyone turns to stare as the beast returns to the portal.

“What the hell is that?” Tony says, coming to land a few feet from Y/N.

The creature looms huge even through the portal, stooping low to peer through at them with glowing green eyes. Bucky studies the creature, taking in the great furry head that reminds him a bit of a bull’s. In fact, the creature probably most resembles, in Bucky’s opinion, a minotaur. A really big minotaur.

“This is Stuart,” Y/N explains, reaching through the portal to stroke the beast’s nose. “He and his kin are good friends. They’re more than happy to help if I ask them to.”

Stuart - what the hell kind of name is that for a minotaur? - snorts and moves away. As he goes, Bucky catches a glimpse of a world. A dark, shadowy place; he can’t make out many details but still definitely a real, physical place. A world he’s seen before, caught a glimpse of once upon a time.

“What the hell,” Clint breathes.

Y/N glances between the team and the still-open portal. “Oh,” she says with an embarrassed chuckle. “I guess we didn’t really explain the Dark Dimension, huh?”

The Dark Dimension, as Y/N calls it, turns out to be exactly what it sounds like - a parallel dimension of sorts, according to Dr. Strange. Apparently, he and Y/N have worked closely over the last year to help her further master and understand her abilities. Y/N explains to them that she travels through the dark dimension with her portals, using it as a stepping stone between locations. She can go anywhere she’s already been or seen pictures of.

Tony and Bruce are fascinated and immediately want to visit the Dark Dimension. Y/N is able to dissuade them, though, when she explains how dangerous it is. She has friends, yes, in the form of Stuart and a few others, but she’s never explored much beyond what she has to in order to travel through it or visit them. The Dark Dimension is full of unknowns.

The team wraps up their training session soon after and everyone begins heading for their respective bathrooms to shower - all except Y/N. Tony lingers long enough to help Bucky remove his arm and then he’s gone, too, leaving Bucky alone with her.

“Don’t like wearing it unless you have to, huh?” she asks, voice soft.

Bucky nods, sliding on the black sock-like cover he wears to protect the circuitry embedded in his shoulder and draping his uniform jacket over his arm. When he starts off toward his bedroom, Y/N follows.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to wear it all the time?”

“Probably.”

“Why don’t you?”

Because it reminds me of all the things I’ve done. The things I’ve done to you. “That’s not really your business.”

She shrinks back from his words. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. Curiosity killed the cat, I guess.”

Bucky immediately feels bad for snapping at her. “You’re fine. I’m just tired and I really need a shower.”

“Oh, of course!” she brightens up again. “I’ll let you go shower. See you at dinner?”

Bucky nods stiffly and picks up the pace, leaving Y/N behind. Why does she have to be so sweet? He knows she’s not asking questions because she’s nosy, she’s genuinely curious and wants to get to know him. He just keeps pushing her away and, honestly? It’s not fair to her. But what else can he do?

Despite his coldness, Y/N still makes valiant efforts to befriend him. She does her best to include him wherever she can, inviting him to things like the weekly movie nights she implements. She sits next to him at dinner every night and Bucky forces himself to at least be polite. He knows Steve and Nat are concerned about his behavior but he can’t explain himself to them. He can’t explain himself to anyone except possibly Fury and there’s no way Bucky’s going to Fury with his personal problems. Nope, not happening.

So Bucky endures, remaining polite but still keeping Y/N at a distance for as long as he can.

---

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—

Team Forever: @mrswhozeewhatsis @laughing-at-the-darkness @tumbler-tidbits @imsuperawkward @emoryhemsworth @manawhaat

#his own hands #bucky x reader #my writing

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immortalcoelacanth · 4 years ago

Text

PTA: Science Team (HLVRAI Fic 1/3)

*pulls dusty story out of garage and drops it into Tumblr*

I have been trying to finish the first chapter for AGES, and I finally got it done! I crave PTA AU content due to the wholesomeness and angst, and I just had to work on one short fic for this fandom. So, welcome to the first chapter out of three!

Word count: 1788

Summary: PTA meetings are a sham and no one hates them more than Gordon, but upon being forced to miss a “mandatory” meeting because of work, Benrey comes up with a brilliant idea to deal with this problem.

Chapter 1: Hostile Arrangements Require Equally Hostile Solutions

“Fuck! Shit! Okay-okay, I’ll just-motherfucker she did what?!”

Cursing was in Gordon’s nature. He often used it as a way to express his angry, dismay, shock, and all sorts of other negative emotions. As such it was not unusual to see pacing about and spitting insults left and right.

What was unusual, however, was the fact that he was cursing in his own home. He had a strict swearing free zone in effect as a way to stop Joshua from picking up on any foul language, including a swear jar that tended to fill up whenever Bubby visited. It was quite fortunate that Joshua was currently being distracted by Benrey as the pair had been playing video games together for the past hour or so.

Or they had been until, in a surprising display of stealth, Benrey crept out of the young boy’s room and slowly approached the frustrated Gordon.

Gordon, who was currently continuing to quietly yell into his cell phone.

“Are you kidding me?! I was scheduled for a meeting on the weekend! I have work tonight! How in the FUCK did she-”

“psssst, hey, hey feetman. you might wanna chill out there and, uh, stuff. turn down the volume.” Benrey cut in while pointing the tv remote at Gordon and clicking the volume button. “don’t wanna be a bad boy and teach joshie any naughty words.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Gordon sighed, no real anger in his voice before redirecting his attention back to the phone call. “No, not you Natasha, it was just Benrey-”

“tell tasha her cookies are baller.”

“Wha-baller? Who the fuck says baller anymore?!”

“c’moooooooon man, be a bro.”

“Natasha I am so sorry-tell her that yourself!”

“i can’t feeman, you know i don’t have a phone.”

“YOU WERE THE ONE WHO STUCK IT IN THE MICROWAVE!”

“i-i was just chagrin’ the battery with those radio waves, man. ads… they never lie.”

Laughter could be heard coming from the phone in response to the conversation going on between the two men. It was enough to snap Gordon out of his somewhat enraged state and refocus on whatever it was that Natasha was telling him. He gestured for Benrey to leave and only succeeded in shooing the ex-guard to the kitchen so he could have some peace.

Not that the peace lasted long based on the muttered cursing and general sounds of Gordon stomping around.

About ten minutes later, the frustrated physicist joined him in the kitchen, quickly making himself a cup of coffee and grumbling under his breath. Welp, looked like this was the perfect moment for some interrogation.

“soooooo, wha was that about?” Benrey asked as he took another bite of the block of cheese he had been digging into. If you asked him, he’d say it tasted pretty gouda.

Damn, he needed to torment Gordon with more puns again.

“Fucking-” Gordon exhaled sharply and ran a hand through his messy hair, too angry to noticed how Benrey reached out and gently pulled at some of the locks, watching them bounce and resume their previously curly shape. “Linda.”

Well, there went his good mood.

Benrey’s eyes immediately narrowed, becoming nothing more than glowing slits in his shadowy face, as a disgruntled frown replaced his previous smile. Even the cheese in his hand seemed to start burning, smoke wafting off it as it began to melt in response to the sheer anger that name invoked in him.

Linda Smith, the scourge of the neighborhood and one of the most uptight, pieces of shit that Benrey had ever encountered. A narcissist with a massive superiority complex, she constantly put down everyone around her who she thought of as being inferior.

Which was just a cover for how much of a racist shitwad she was, plus there were the various comments she made about fags invading the neighborhood.

An obvious insult aimed at not just Gordon and Benrey, but the other “not normal” couples that lived here and there. Poor Joshua had overheard some of the insults on multiple occasions, and she had called the kid a mutt to his face-

“Benrey? You wanna calm down before you poke holes in the ceiling again?”

Fortunately, Gordon’s exasperated voice snapped Benrey out of his enraged state before he accidentally inflicted more damage to the kitchen. A place that had seen many, many small explosions and fires. At this point, he towered over the other man as sharpened, boney spikes poked out of his back and scrapped the ceiling. Plaster fell and dusted the countertop.

“oops, s-sorry dude.” Benrey awkwardly shrugged, flesh dripping from his arms and face in a rather gruesome display, not that Gordon was bothered by this. He was used to how… horrific his partner could become.

Especially when someone mentioned Joshua being hurt or insulted in any way. It was actually quite wholesome thinking about how much Benrey cared about the young boy and how much their friendship had bloomed since they first met.

“I get it.” Gordon sighed. “She’s such a bitch she’d make anyone Hulk out.”

“ten points for the ref there, feetman.”

The physicist somewhat seriously flipped Benrey off, making him laugh, before continuing to rant about the purpose of the now finished phone call.

“I still can’t believe that stupid school listened to her, and I’m not the only one getting fucked over here!” He spat. “I can’t just drop out-”

It was at this moment that the source of Gordon’s rage dawned on Benrey, and the ex-guard spoke up. “wait, the school thingy?”

“You mean meeting?”

“ya.”

Gordon groaned and hid his face in his hands. “The MEETING! Linda fucked up my schedule! I don’t know what she said to the administrator, but they canceled the weekend meeting I was booked for and rescheduled me for tonight. When I have WORK!”

Benrey winced in sympathy and reached out to pat Gordon’s shoulder with his not cheese coated hand. “damn, th-that’s a real cringe move. can’t you get, uh, joshie’s mom to take care of it? s...shea?”

“I can’t,” Gordon muttered, face muffled by his hands. “Shea’s been on a business trip for some conference and she gets back in five days.”

“oooooh, that’s why you’ve had little josh bro for so long?”

Rather than respond, the physicist just continued to groan and hide his face in his hands as he tried to figure out how to fix the mess he had been caught up in.

Joshua’s school had a very… specific structure to how it was run. Standard funding and where it would be directed was determined by the staff, however, sometimes the school would receive donations or raise large amounts of money through fairs and other events.

And it was how this extra funding would be spent that the local community had the chance to weigh in on. Determining if it should be used to get more sports supplies, help fund after school programs, or be used to help make the school more accessible.

The ramp that had been added two years ago was one such example of the potential good that these extra funds had, however there was one problem with this process.

All parents were required to attend a meeting and voice their thoughts. This was a rather new development that had been added after a small group of disgruntled parents, ones who had objected to using the extra funds to improve the school and arguing that it should go towards planning fun trips instead, had tried to sue the school board.

Of course, the case had immediately been thrown out and dismissed, but it had set a dangerous precedent. A precedent that now made it mandatory for all parents to attend one meeting to determine their opinions on where the funding should be used and write it down so they could not claim their voices had not been heard.

Honestly, it was such a stupid arrangement in Gordon’s opinion. Why not just send out an email? Or forms that kids could take home to their parents. It was so… disruptive and annoying, especially for single parents who had to work long hours.

Like him.

His hands tensed, nails nearly dug into his skin before Benrey carefully moved them, holding them. As Gordon looked up, the ex-guard sent him an awkward yet warm smile. An attempt at reassuring him that things would turn out alright.

“hey... you-you gotta chillax feetman, things’ll be okay-”

“How the hell am I supposed to chillax in this situation?!” Gordon barked as he removed his hands from Benrey’s, shoved himself out of his seat, and began pacing around, furiously staring at the floor.

“I’ve been fucked over by some racist bitch! Joshua needs someone there and it has to be someone who has some kind of guardianship over him for that stupid funding bullshit!”

As his partner raged on about the unfairness and overall stupidity of the situation, Benrey decided that it was time to think. To think, and plot, and come up with something that would hopefully calm Gordon down while solving the problem that Linda had caused.

Simply put, Joshua needed someone who had designated guardianship over him to be present during the meeting to act in his best interests. Not surprisingly, Benrey did not have this title due as both he and Gordon had agreed that it would not be the best idea due to both his inhumane nature and the potential destruction he might cause.

But, that did not mean that only Shea and Gordon were listed as the young boy’s guardians. There was one other who had been granted the title in case of an emergency, although his presence had never been needed up until this point, which was probably why Gordon had forgotten about him in his stressed out state.

Dr. Coomer, one of Joshua’s “grandpas”.

And, of course, if one member of the Science Team went somewhere, then the rest had to follow. The Science Team stuck together through thick and thin, no matter the strife or struggle and always left chaos in their wake.

Hostile arrangements required equally hostile solutions, after all.

“this is gonna be baller.” Benrey chuckled, his eyes flashing brightly at the brilliance of his plan. Now all he had to do was get Gordon to agree to it.

“pssst, yo, xen to gaydon.”

There was something about the tone that Benrey’s voice took on that snapped Gordon out of his ranting. How calm and collected he sounded, the coherency and confidence in his words. Somewhat concerned, the physicist turned around and saw the scheming look in the ex-guard’s glowing eyes as his fingers drummed on the table.

“feetman, i got a plan.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I would like to make it clear that no offense is intended towards anyone named Linda, aside from the one racist Linda I know that she was named after who will never, ever read this so my sins will forever remain unknown :>

#my story #fanfiction #hlvrai #hlvrai gordon #hlvrai benrey #pta au #humor #quick warning that a racist and homophobic character is mentioned #and as such her crimes of using slurs are used #chapter one of three

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punkscowardschampions · 3 years ago

Text

Amber & Cosmo

Amber: [Okay so my vibe is that she leaves the necklace for him after they’ve done the shopping trip like here’s an old sentimental thing to say thanks for helping me get a new thing and after she’s used Dash’s room to study like also thanks for that, but we’re leaving the envelope under his door/propped against it because he very much didn’t want her to go in his room again lol so he can find it when he gets back from his dad’s]

Cosmo: Does a token mean the ghost likes me?

Amber: I guess you must have managed not to anger the spirits for a while

Amber: impressive

Cosmo: My room also remains intact so, must be true

Amber: I won’t tease you by pretending there are things missing, that’d be too 👶🏽

Cosmo: I don’t have as much shit as he does, I’d notice before I worked out who this necklace is really from

Cosmo: If only there was some subtle hint, like

Amber: If only someone had filled the envelope with ⭐️ to the point it was difficult to close

Cosmo: Your dad is gonna think someone’s been really good

Amber: He knows you have, giving me somewhere quiet to study, though he’d take them all back if I’d told him about 👗 shopping

Cosmo: I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the quiet

Cosmo: and people donate things with tags on all the time, he won’t find out, yeah

Cosmo: You could keep it here but the undeniable ego boost he’d get from thinking he can’t even remember the girl who left it is not happening on my watch

Amber: You really do spend time in a better postcode if you think anyone’s gonna believe a dress like that was donated, it’s the nicest thing I’ve ever owned

Amber: while I own it anyway, it won’t be long before it gets borrowed… but you’re right, that inevitable 💔 for me is better than the maybe of having to overhear to him brag

Cosmo: It’s a good dress

Cosmo: I definitely weren’t saying it wasn’t

Cosmo: You legit have to share everything?

Amber: I know it is, you’d have made a face if I looked stupid

Amber: You put something down, it gets picked up by whoever wants it, there’s nowhere to hide anything

Cosmo: Put it in your school bag

Cosmo: Sounds weird but I bet no one is looking in there for anything

Amber: Less people are wise to that as somewhere to rummage through, it’s definitely worth a try

Cosmo: Now you’ve got no stash, anyway, right

Cosmo: When’d you leave here?

Amber: When did you get back? I tried to time it to just before

Cosmo: You must’ve done a good job

Cosmo: Maybe an hour but I’ve only just come upstairs, I had to talk to my ma first

Amber: I had to finish reading a chapter I’ll need for tomorrow and it wasn’t going in, but I couldn’t let myself be discovered this soon, not by anyone but you

Amber: how was the rest of your weekend?

Cosmo: Your secret is safe with me 👻 girl

Cosmo: We won our Sunday match, so that was good

Cosmo: then we had sunday lunch with my dad’s new girlfriend and her family, that was alright too

Amber: 😁 CONGRATULATIONS!

Amber: did you play 4-2-3-1?

Cosmo: Was that the chapter you were reading up on?

Cosmo: Otherwise, impressive

Amber: But did you? Because according to my research it’s ⭐️

Amber: A LOT of the tactics and why they apparently revolutionized football went over my head, but I remember that formation is really popular because it’s flexible and balances the defensive and attacking aspects

Cosmo: You should talk to our manager

Cosmo: because we didn’t

Cosmo: you really do like learning new things

Amber: Are you unbanning me from matches or practice?

Cosmo: I can’t say I’m just unbanning you from the changing room can I

Amber: maybe check with the rest of the team first

Cosmo: 😂

Cosmo: I didn’t ban you, anyway

Cosmo: I didn’t know you were genuinely interested

Amber: in anything other than how you all look in shorts, you mean

Amber: which part of my first impression made you think I was starved of male attention? Because I’d like to strike it from the record

Cosmo: It was the opposite, if we wanna be honest

Amber: We always wanna be honest

Cosmo: Sometimes there’s no need

Amber: If you didn’t have fun at lunch with your dad’s new girlfriend, that’s a kind lie, but this wouldn’t be

Cosmo: It’s not kind to offer up my opinion when it don’t matter

Amber: it matters enough to you to have formed one

Cosmo: What, you don’t have any opinions on me?

Cosmo: It’s what people do, you can’t help it

Amber: Not about your sex life, because it’s none of my buisiness, and mine wouldn’t be yours if Dash hadn’t gotten you involved in it

Cosmo: Well exactly, you can only base it on what you know

Amber: and you know I slept with your brother once, it isn’t enough to base anything on, because you also know he lied to me

Cosmo: Honestly, forget about it, I shouldn’t have said anything

Amber: All that’s gonna achieve is you carry on thinking the same

Cosmo: It doesn’t matter, you have nothing to prove

Amber: no, I don’t

Cosmo: Sorry

Amber: I can tell you are, it’s okay

Cosmo: I’m not like that

Amber: that’s obvious too, I don’t need crystals or cards to read people

Cosmo: I don’t care or judge you, it’s just what I thought

Cosmo: it wasn’t 👎 or 👍

Amber: Because of the reputation your brother and the commune has or because of me?

Cosmo: I guess it’s mostly because of him

Amber: if I’d met you first you could’ve warned me and neither of us would have to feel like this

Cosmo: I wouldn’t have done that

Cosmo: realistically

Cosmo: you look like his type, even if you actually aren’t

Amber: He obviously thought I was too

Cosmo: I mean the last thing I want is a lecture on polyamory or whatever

Cosmo: and equally the last thing that type appreciates is the warning so

Amber: I’d be the last girl to give you one, my parents’ failed attempts at it are the main reason we move

Cosmo: That’s shit

Cosmo: Whatever your parents love life looks like, shouldn’t affect your life at all

Amber: it’s not a deliberate act of sabotage on their part though, and when I was younger travelling had more upsides than downs, I didn’t really prioritize school and I still don’t know what I wanna do when it’s over anyway

Cosmo: It’s still wrong, whether they meant it or not is irrelevant

Cosmo: Where’d you get the necklace?

Amber: You can't get your wallet out again and offer to buy me another this time, boy

Amber: besides, I want you to have it for what it represents now, not what it used to

Cosmo: Thanks, I appreciate it

Cosmo: I should’ve got you something more than ☕️🥐

Amber: You’ve given me a room of your house

Amber: and secrets, I never get to have those

Cosmo: It’s not any trouble to me

Cosmo: and I’d take anyone over him so

Amber: Oh thanks 😂

Amber: after I’d set you up with the perfect opportunity to give me a compliment…

Cosmo: Can’t catch me out that easy, like

Cosmo: Try harder

Amber: You’re gonna regret saying that

Cosmo: 😏

Cosmo: You ain’t scary and I ain’t, remember

Amber: That’s for your manager to decide when we’ve talked tactics, maybe he’ll think I’m really intimidating

Cosmo: Maybe I’d pay to 👂 & 👀 that

Amber: I won’t ban you from the changing room while it’s happening, don’t worry

Cosmo: I reckon everyone’s thankful for that

Amber: that many pairs of 👂 and 👀 would probably be intimidating for a girl who didn’t live with what feels like 100s

Cosmo: I dunno how you put up with it

Amber: I’ve never lived different

Cosmo: I know

Cosmo: but you can still be annoyed by it

Cosmo: I’ve always had a brother and I still know he’s a dick

Amber: You don’t think I’ve vented to you enough about what annoys me?

Cosmo: You said that one, let the record show

Amber: Because you’re too well mannered to go there

Cosmo: Steady on

Cosmo: Just ‘cos you want a compliment of your own

Amber: so give me one

Amber: 🥺!

Cosmo: Don’t pout at me

Amber: [a pouty selfie ofc]

Cosmo: Dirty tactics

Amber: that's why they didn't work on you

Amber: you like good clean fun

Cosmo: Maybe

Cosmo: not giving a 👍 or 👎

Amber: Unless we're talking about the offside rule, I think I can cope without any tips

Amber: there wasn't a need for a ? now that I've gained a good understanding of what you like

Cosmo: Good’s pushing it

Cosmo: the offside rule you’ll have more luck with

Amber: pushing it if you've stretched the truth when we talked about what you're into, sure

Cosmo: As many questions as you ask, you reckon we’ve covered it all? 🤔

Amber: Because you want me to be wrong for the sake of it or because I really am and there's more you want me to know…

Amber: why are you suggesting we haven't covered it?

Cosmo: I’m suggesting we don’t know each other

Cosmo: not that we need to or have more to cover, like

Amber: You know too much to suggest you don't

Cosmo: Alright, James Bond

Cosmo: I don’t know anything THAT criminal

Amber: I don't do anything that criminal

Cosmo: Now it sounds like you definitely do

Amber: 😂 too bad for you that you don't wanna find out either way

Cosmo: 😏 gutting, yeah

Amber: It would be if you didn't have a head too full of ⚽️ to think about me

Cosmo: You’ll never get one of my mates with that attitude

Amber: I don’t need an in with them, I’ve got one with the manager

Cosmo: An in to…

Cosmo: free 🍊?

Amber: 🎫!

Cosmo: You can come, I’ll get you in

Amber: Your dad though

Cosmo: He can’t come next friendly

Cosmo: plus you’ve got no in with him, there’s not a box

Amber: it’d honestly be hard to concentrate surrounded by 🥂🤵🍾

Cosmo: It’s not the premier league, it’s not that fancy, I swear

Amber: thank god, I’d like to be invited back some other time

Cosmo: That sounds so sarcastic but I’m pretty sure you mean it 😅

Amber: See, I told you, you know me

Cosmo: Maybe my head isn’t all ⚽️

Amber: shh no, I’ll be back on a ban

Cosmo: Only if you piss of your manager friend

Amber: ruining the focus of his ⭐ player would

Cosmo: Alright, I’ll compliment you now

Cosmo: just to get you to stop, obviously

Cosmo: Talking to you hasn’t been awful

Amber: That isn't gonna be enough to stop me, but thanks

Cosmo: I might have to pout in a minute then

Amber: Don't even try it, you've maybe got me beat in any race but that's a contest I know I can win

Cosmo: Just say you don’t wanna see my face

Amber: I barely tried to get you to not try, admit you're a bad loser and you'll cry when I take 🥇

Cosmo: Is reverse-psychology hippie approved?

Cosmo: Seems a bit passive-aggressive to me

Amber: You thinking I'm a ⭐ hippie would mean I have to change my mind about how well you know me

Cosmo: I don’t

Cosmo: and that’s a free accidental compliment for you

Amber: it’s really sweet of you

Amber: [an adorably happy selfie]

Cosmo: Be a gracious winner, will you

Amber: after your 🥺📷 before it’d feel hollow

Cosmo: I can’t compete with that

Amber: because your competitiveness disappears off the pitch?

Cosmo: Not that

Amber: camera shy?

Cosmo: Come on

Amber: compliment shy then

Cosmo: I’m not shy

Cosmo: You know what you look like

Amber: But you can compete with me

Cosmo: Maybe it’s reward enough

Amber: or it’s been too long since anyone told you what you look like

Cosmo: You think I’m starved of female attention?

Cosmo: Interesting

Amber: the right kind, maybe

Cosmo: Maybe

Cosmo: the ‘wrong’ kind gas you up just as much

Amber: it doesn’t feel the same though

Cosmo: true

Amber: When’s the friendly?

Cosmo: [a weekday moment, I think they’re midweek vibes usually, thus making sense why your dad could be busy]

Amber: 😁 I’ll be there!

Cosmo: Me too

Cosmo: Once more and it’ll be a habit

Amber: it won’t cost you anything that time, not sure it even counts

Cosmo: So you’re saying we can have one more time

Amber: I am

Cosmo: Swimming?

Cosmo: It’s the other thing on your list

Amber: it’s something we have in common, a like, because I don’t know how you feel about dancing

Cosmo: I can

Cosmo: I don’t have to lurk by the bar

Amber: how many drinks do you need before you do?

Cosmo: I said I don’t much

Amber: okay, I believe you, you’re not shy and you must like it

Cosmo: Probably not how you like it, or as much

Cosmo: but I don’t feel cringe

Amber: and I won’t have to either, which I would if I was forcing you onto the dance floor against your will

Cosmo: So, what would you prefer?

Amber: If you picked, it’s not ALL about me

Cosmo: Meet me [some beach] at [a crazy early time, potentially before school if we are in school rn]

Amber: [I totally think we should say we are because it fits for the awkward date timeline and I think I mentioned school earlier in the convo because of it being Sunday eve rn]

Amber: I don’t know it but I’ll find it

Cosmo: I forgot you’re new

Cosmo: I can pick you up again, if you’d rather

Amber: that’d give us more time there

Cosmo: The phonebox then

Amber: I don’t mind if it becomes a habitual meeting place

Cosmo: We could both get quite the rep if it did

Amber: no worse than the one I already have

Cosmo: I don’t even think that’s debatable, soz

Cosmo: however sex-positive you wanna be

Cosmo: and footballers involvement with sex workers is long and checkered so yeah, not a good look for me most of all

Amber: okay fine, slightly worse

Cosmo: 😆

Amber: you turn the wrong things into contests, you know

Cosmo: If you were a lad you’d have to think about those things too

Cosmo: especially a lad with things to lose

Amber: I have to think about things that are more likely to actually happen, because I’m not a boy and you are

Amber: reputation is nothing on the threat scale

Cosmo: That works until you’re getting into a car with, and have met up with me on multiple occasions

Cosmo: despite the fact I’m a total stranger, so I doubt the sincerity of your fear

Amber: I never said I made good decisions, or that I was scared of you

Cosmo: I know you don’t

Amber: Hypothetically, I have more to lose, that’s all, because you could easily kill me, especially if you keep holding what I did with your brother over my head

Cosmo: Yeah, that’s what I mean

Cosmo: it’s not more likely I’m a serial killer

Amber: If you don’t like the way I interpret what you say, say it differently

Cosmo: I’ve not expressed any intention to hurt you

Cosmo: I said scandal would kill my career, which is true

Amber: I know, and I’ve said before that I’m not gonna get you involved in anything scandalous

Cosmo: then we’re fine

Amber: we can meet somewhere else if it’s gonna be not fine for you

Cosmo: It won’t be

Cosmo: it’s just that people like you always act like reputation means nothing

Cosmo: It’s everything and it’s a lot of work to maintain a good one

Amber: People like me have it decided for them, I’m not gonna give power to bullshit that isn’t even true

Cosmo: No, that means you’ve not ever tried and you never will

Cosmo: no one is gifted a good reputation, you earn it, you prove yourself

Cosmo: you sit back and cry about your lack of privilege, if you wanted it, you’d go and get it

Amber: Tried to what, change people’s innate bias? Obviously not because it’s inevitable they think those things about me, you said it and you did it

Amber: I look like your brother’s type, you’re waiting for a lecture on polyamory, all that free love bullshit, I shouldn’t have to prove what I’m not like

Cosmo: Why shouldn’t you?

Cosmo: And why wouldn’t you

Cosmo: Who do you think you are that you’re exempt, proving yourself is the only worthwhile thing you could spend your time doing

Cosmo: Not holding yourself back by what people automatically think by never challenging that and acting like that’s their bad

Amber: It is their bad if they don’t challenge it by bothering to get to know people individually

Cosmo: That’s stupid, and unrealistic

Cosmo: You aren’t special

Cosmo: If you don’t offer something to the world no one is ever going to give a shit about you, that is the actual reality we operate in

Cosmo: you’re setting yourself up for more complaining and disappointment by expecting anything different

Amber: I could be special to someone, if we both look deeper than the surface and get to know each other, who I am is what I have to offer the world, that’s the reality

Cosmo: Maybe

Cosmo: You’re gonna meet a handful of people in your life, and you’ll stick with one of them, ‘til it falls apart and then you pick another one

Cosmo: If that’s what you want

Amber: Why wouldn’t I want that?

Cosmo: Loads of reasons

Amber: such as…?

Cosmo: Both aforementioned, you really think out of all the people in the world, you’re going to find the right one

Cosmo: no

Cosmo: and it will end, usually badly

Amber: I think it’s possible and lots of impossible things happen daily anyway

Cosmo: Good luck then, seriously

Amber: that implies I’m just hoping and won’t actually do anything to make sure it doesn’t end badly or the person is right for me

Cosmo: Most people try on both fronts

Cosmo: the numbers don’t lie

Amber: odds get beaten and then the numbers don’t matter

Cosmo: I said good luck and I meant it, for real

Amber: and what you're really saying is drop it now, right?

Cosmo: No but what more do we really need to say on it

Cosmo: go ahead if you’ve got something

Amber: Cynical

Cosmo: I’m realistic

Amber: I'm realistic, you point out the downside

Cosmo: The downside is realistic

Amber: 😂 as is admitting the existence of a plausible upside

Cosmo: I know there is

Cosmo: I’m on the path to mine

Amber: I can't wait to see you play

Cosmo: I’ll try not to disappoint you

Amber: Not gonna happen, we're both realists

Cosmo: Not another thing in common 😏

Amber: We’re not up to 9, you can relax

Cosmo: Tah, like

Cosmo: So, what’s on the agenda for you now?

Amber: feeding the 5000 with my share of meal prep for the week, putting the 🐓 to bed, counting plastic babies ready for my mama's morning drop in session… because I don’t know why but they go missing quicker than 🌿 in this place and there’s never enough for the number of parents who come, maybe it’s 👽

Amber: and finishing the homework I didn't at yours

Amber: What are you gonna be doing?

Cosmo: Well, none of that is anything I would’ve guessed 😅

Cosmo: Maybe the meal prep

Cosmo: I have to do that too, help my ma

Amber: I’m surprised you didn’t guess about the animals, and honestly shocked if you’ve never had any 🐐 visit you

Cosmo: You haven’t looked out the window you’re coming in?

Cosmo: we’ve got our own here, I’d not notice yours from my nans

Amber: I thought you’d be able to tell them apart

Cosmo: Why did you think that? 😂

Amber: you’re pretty observant, I don’t know

Cosmo: Yeah but, hardly on my radar

Amber: but you could tell me apart from the other girls here before I was on your radar

Cosmo: You aren’t a goat

Cosmo: neither of us can count that as a compliment

Amber: I’m gonna, they nearly knock me over all the time, it’s annoying

Cosmo: More annoying than the other girls?

Amber: that’s girl dependent, some of them for sure

Cosmo: I get you

Cosmo: I’ve seen plenty come and go

Amber: Am I the first you’ve spoken to?

Cosmo: Are there still Cavantes there?

Cosmo: Because I have some tenuous connection to them, some of them have spoken to me before

Amber: [list any that could be because I’ve forgotten which Caleb children exist and when lol]

Cosmo: Yeah, those ones [the ones around your age range]

Cosmo: most of them suck

Amber: I can’t argue with you, as much as I know you like it

Cosmo: Nah, you don’t have to pretend they ain’t, is all I’m saying

Cosmo: they’re not family or anything I care about

Amber: I probably wouldn’t have, I don’t have your manners

Cosmo: Yeah, fair enough

Cosmo: Why’d you ask?

Amber: more curiosity, I guess

Cosmo: Not wanting to be ⭐️?

Amber: you don’t believe I’m special, we covered that

Cosmo: I don’t think anyone is

Amber: What about yourself?

Cosmo: You think I’m that dickhead

Cosmo: No one but me

Cosmo: no, obviously not

Amber: I think you must have self belief to do what you’re doing

Cosmo: I believe in hardwork

Cosmo: and luck

Amber: but hard work isn’t all it takes, or anyone could be a ⚽️⭐️

Cosmo: right, that’s the luck

Cosmo: I’ve not earnt it, but if it happens I have to work hard to not waste it

Amber: Why haven’t you earned it? You’ve been working hard since you were a kid

Cosmo: I didn’t earn having a dad who already got his shot

Amber: that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve yours, you’re not your dad

Cosmo: It means I’ve had help loads of people don’t get

Cosmo: that doesn’t make me less deserving any more than it makes them more because they’re the ‘underdog’

Amber: right, but you also have talent lots of people don’t have

Cosmo: Lots of people do too

Amber: okay, but special isn’t a bad word, it’s allowed

Cosmo: I just think it’s bullshit

Amber: it’s just praise

Cosmo: I don’t need it

Amber: doesn’t everyone, sometimes?

Cosmo: Maybe, I really don’t know

Cosmo: achievements works fine for me

Amber: so you’re fine and gonna be fine

Cosmo: What are you saying?

Amber: nothing, what do you want me to be saying?

Cosmo: Just that

Amber: 😶

Cosmo: Go search for the 👶s and 🐓s

Cosmo: and don’t forget your towel

Amber: You’d let me share, no question

Cosmo: I’ve told you the changing room isn’t like that, babe

Amber: I’ll bring my own when I meet you at the gym, your friends don’t have to pout

Cosmo: It’s like you have met them already

Amber: you’ve told me plenty about them, I feel like I’ve got the picture

Cosmo: You think that about me as well

Amber: are you asking me or telling me what you think I think?

Cosmo: You’ve said as much, so I’m just reiterating

Amber: I definitely don’t have your full picture

Cosmo: 🖼

Amber: 👨🏽‍🎨

Cosmo: Is that you or me?

Amber: you still creating yourself, meet me at the phonebox in maybe 70 years and you can give me the full picture

Cosmo: But you’re done already?

Cosmo: bit rude

Amber: I'll never be done but you don't wanna know me like that, boy

Cosmo: Maybe

Amber: you'll remember to keep the date with me when we're old?

Cosmo: If I’m still around, sure

Amber: 👴🏽💪🏽

Amber: you again, absolutely not what I’m gonna be looking like in the future

Cosmo: A serious downgrade 😅

Cosmo: I can’t imagine being that old though

Amber: if you still won’t send me selfies I’ll have no idea what to expect

Cosmo: You’ll have time to get better at stalking

Amber: or asking you politely to do what I want

Cosmo: If you show that much perseverance, I’ll definitely reward it, like

Amber: I'll stay in touch wherever I am in the world, until technology gets too complicated for me and my grandkids refuse to help me flirt with faces from the past

Cosmo: 🤣

Cosmo: they sound ungrateful already

Amber: They're cynics too, it makes sense they would be, where's their granddad in all this? He can't be that special to me if I'm talking about you as the one who got away

Cosmo: Maybe a lifetime of every day does that to a relationship

Cosmo: I’m sure he was special once upon a time

Amber: Are you saying I wouldn't be fun to spend every day with?!

Amber: I won't keep haunting you then

Cosmo: Your husbands the dead one, not you

Amber: you called me a 👻 first, before I had a husband

Cosmo: I also said it wasn’t horrible hanging out with you

Amber: talking to me wasn't, is what you said, but now I know you like hanging out with me too

Cosmo: Damn it 😏

Amber: You kinda gave yourself away on that on the shopping trip anyway, I wasn't looking in the mirror or at 👗 for the FULL hour, I saw you 😏

Cosmo: I weren’t looking at you in the mirror or at you in the dress the whole time either, just FYI

Amber: but we did pick the best, didn’t we? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️?

Amber: hiding dresses in my school bag can’t become a habit, I need some space for 📚

Cosmo: I’d say 9 going out dresses was excessive but I’m sure the girls I know would think the exact opposite

Amber: I assume they have the wardrobe space I don’t and 🥂🤵🍾 places to go

Cosmo: That’s the goal, anyways

Amber: I only need one if it’s the right one

Cosmo: And it is

Amber: promise it’s not a kind lie?

Cosmo: Cross my heart

Amber: okay, I’ll remove the tags

Cosmo: Remember to recycle for the karma to get back in your favour, yeah

Amber: I could use it to make a really tiny sign supporting you, since you hate praise so much

Cosmo: I don’t hate praise

Amber: that isn’t the impression you’ve given me so far, but maybe you just hate it from me

Cosmo: Maybe I only like it when I’ve earnt it

Amber: When have I tried to give you anything you haven’t earned?

Cosmo: You and me probably have different ideas of when praise has been earnt and when it’s premature

Amber: I don't see why we would, it's quite clear cut when praise has been earned or not, isn't it?

Cosmo: Nah, it’s definitely not

Cosmo: I’m not gonna tell you you’ve been over-praised and start something but I’m sure your parents are quicker with the ⭐️ than most

Amber: You're sure because…?

Cosmo: how you are, it’s quite obvious

Amber: Oh because I have an understanding of my self worth, I'm happy that's obvious

Cosmo: See, you even said that dead cocky

Amber: You're making an assumption, I could've had lots of really supportive friends or boyfriends, or spent every day looking into the mirror giving myself praise

Cosmo: I’m not wrong though

Cosmo: and parental relationships trump those by far in terms of shaping development so double not wrong

Amber: Not wrong just very smug about being right

Cosmo: You’ve taken it as an insult, I didn’t say it as one

Amber: When has cocky ever been used as flattery?

Cosmo: First time for everything… ?

Cosmo: I only called you cocky once you got on the defensive

Amber: if I'm on the defensive it's because the negative traits you think I have are piling up

Cosmo: I didn’t say it was negative, for the 2nd time

Amber: I don't believe you any more than I did the first time

Cosmo: Well I can’t change that now

Amber: My attention's on dolls and chickens anyway

Cosmo: 👍

Amber: You really can't change it, can you?

Cosmo: What do you mean?

Amber: how you are, how these conversations always go

Cosmo: Were you expecting me to?

Cosmo: Sorry to disappoint

Amber: You're not, or the apology would be realer

Cosmo: Because who are you to ask me to change myself

Cosmo: what the fuck

Amber: Who am I to ask you to think before you speak? The person you're talking to

Cosmo: I don’t need to listen to this

Amber: and I don't need you making me feel bad about myself every time we talk because you think I need to be humbled or whatever this is

Cosmo: Why are you still talking to me then

Amber: Because there's a side to you that doesn't make me feel like that

Cosmo: You deserve better than that

Cosmo: and I don’t want to be someone who makes anyone feel like shit

Amber: So try not to be

Cosmo: It’s not that easy

Cosmo: not with you, I don’t know why

Amber: change isn't easy ever, that's where trying comes in, and why I said it instead of telling you to just do it with a please tacked on so it seems less demanding

Cosmo: Or we could admit we’re a poor match

Cosmo: Wouldn’t that be easier for us both, and more sensible as well

Amber: No, you already admitted you like talking to and hanging out with me, which means we can do this

Amber: everything isn't wrong because we've identified a problem area

Cosmo: If you feel like shit I feel like shit

Amber: You're not your brother, it's not that bad between us

Cosmo: It’s not a comparison I need so close to hand

Amber: it's not a comparison

Amber: you sound like you're this close to offering to give me my necklace back when that's the opposite of what you should be doing

Cosmo: Alright

Cosmo: [my vibe is time to go to the phonebox and leave his necklace for her because clearly we shouldn’t see each other rn but that is the opposite]

Cosmo: left something for you

Amber: Where?

Cosmo: Come on

Amber: No, if you say the phonebox it means you’re not coming

Cosmo: I’ve just left

Cosmo: If you want it, it’s there

Amber: This feels like a breakup

Cosmo: It can’t be a breakup

Cosmo: just go to the phonebox, I obviously weren’t coming in

Amber: [do go and get that gal]

Amber: It's not your good luck charm, right? I don’t want it to be my fault you lose your friendly

Cosmo: It isn’t, you’re fine

Cosmo: I don’t have one and I wouldn’t gift you my own bad luck

Amber: thanks for not being upset enough at me to wanna hex me

Cosmo: I definitely haven’t chatted to enough girls there to know where to start

Cosmo: My dad got it for me, when I got my contract and my number

Amber: you’re sure you want me to have it?

Cosmo: I didn’t leave it for the next person who needs to call breakdown services to find

Cosmo: ‘course I do

Amber: I know, but you don’t have to give me anything to try and make up for what I said

Cosmo: I’m not, it’s not like that

Cosmo: You said you didn’t want yours back

Amber: and I don’t, I’m just checking you won’t want yours back when you have time to think about it

Cosmo: put it on and show me?

Amber: oh okay, if it looks stupid you want it back

Amber: [but do obviously]

Cosmo: Yeah, you can keep it

Cosmo: I’m sure

Amber: Are you gonna wear yours?

Cosmo: [send your first selfie back boy]

Amber: you do know how to 🤳🏽!

Cosmo: click and points not beyond my capabilities, yeah

Amber: your secret’s safe with me

Amber: and I won’t be expecting them all the time from now on, you can relax again

Cosmo: I’m sorry

Cosmo: for talking to you like that

Amber: I am too, for pushing you, I can usually communicate better than this

Cosmo: Me too

Cosmo: believe it or not

Cosmo: that’s what I meant, this isn’t how I usually interact with anyone, seriously

Amber: Neither do I and if it was always like that I’d drop it, but yesterday shopping, it wasn’t, I did something I never do but I didn’t once feel 👽

Amber: I have school friends I’ve known for months now that can’t put me that at ease

Cosmo: I know

Cosmo: I’m not going to say you’re imagining it or something

Cosmo: If we really were just incompatible, I’d have found a polite way to tell you by now

Amber: of course you would 😂

Amber: be my friend, please

Cosmo: I can hear the 🥺

Cosmo: You don’t have to ask nice

Cosmo: We can be friends

Amber: I thought I’d give you a break from seeing them

Cosmo: I thought that might be punishment

Amber: I don’t want to

Cosmo: That’s a relief

Cosmo: I know how tough you are

Amber: No you don’t, boy

Cosmo: You can prove it another time

Amber: at the beach?

Cosmo: It will be cold

Amber: I was convinced the necklace meant we weren’t going

Cosmo: No, I just didn’t want to see you RIGHT now

Cosmo: no offence, obviously

Cosmo: it’s just a lot, isn’t it

Cosmo: but we both still like swimming

Amber: I’ve liked it since I was a 👶🏽 you’re not having it in the breakup

Cosmo: 😏 Alright, ‘cos you can’t be claiming your new found love for the game/my income

Cosmo: I’ll have to cope

Amber: give me enough time to work out the offside rule before your next goodbye

Cosmo: It’s not that hard to get your head ‘round, just hard remembering it as you play

Cosmo: I’ll explain it before I go

Amber: if I didn’t have homework to finish I’d let you try now

Cosmo: Can’t say I’ll miss having to do mine

Amber: Do you have to do ⚽️ homework too like dribbling and headers?

Cosmo: I think we just call that training 😂

Cosmo: but yeah you’re in deep shit if you don’t show for that

Amber: pretend I knew that and didn’t make myself look stupid

Cosmo: It’s not stupid, I don’t think I’ve ever heard it put like that though

Cosmo: keeping up your skills and fitness is like homework, when you think about it, but I guess that delegitimizes it being ‘work’

Cosmo: Do teachers call their marking homework? Maybe

Amber: my dad calls it marking but he’s not like my teachers at [whatever the school is called]

Amber: some of them would definitely try and be relatable like that

Cosmo: Ugh, yeah, I can hear that, like

Cosmo: they also get holidays that only school kids get as well though, which they don’t like attention being brought to

Amber: 😂 maybe I’ll draw attention to it when they ask me a question I don’t know the answer to

Cosmo: I didn’t recommend it 😶

Cosmo: can tell your dad though if he gets an attitude about the weed

Amber: He’s forgiven me, I promised to help him do lesson plans and get his students to follow them, they’re all acting like they break up for summer next week

Cosmo: Teacher’s pet makes sense 🍎

Cosmo: glad you sorted it though

Amber: it’s kinda put me off 🌿 maybe my body will be a temple by summer

Cosmo: I know it’s like, meant to be the same as a glass of wine to take the edge off

Cosmo: and I know it could be

Cosmo: but what the fuck is my brother ‘taking the edge’ off of, all day, every day

Cosmo: I don’t care how benign, how ‘harmless’ but how is that any different from drinking or doing any other drug all day?

Amber: I’m not someone he’ll accept an intervention from, but he needs to hear it from somewhere, because you’re right, it’s too much

Cosmo: People have tried

Cosmo: You know how he is

Amber: and he’s not the only one, we both know being here all the time, surrounded by like minded people validates it as though it’s just another part of the daily routine

Cosmo: Yep

Cosmo: I can’t be bothered with him, I really can’t

Cosmo: it’s just infuriating

Amber: What does your dad say? It seems like something he’d have an opinion on…

Cosmo: Yeah he don’t like it

Cosmo: no one would care if he did it as well as doing anything fucking else with his days

Cosmo: he’s just living up to that lazy black boy stereotype, so dad doesn’t love that, of course

Amber: infuriating is a good choice to describe him and how intent he is on wasting his time

Cosmo: Fuck him

Cosmo: he’ll have to grow up eventually

Amber: And he’ll have to stop fucking other people over when I deny him as many easy ways to do it as I can, that’s what punishment from me looks like, FYI

Cosmo: Noted

Cosmo: and suitably impressed, once I see the results, like

Amber: I’ll try not to disappoint you the first time you’ve admitted you could be impressed by me

Cosmo: Shh

Cosmo: Sounds like something a loser would say, not a winner

Amber: 😶

Cosmo: 😁

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years ago

Text

Survey #438

“i won’t let you die, keep you alive just to remind you of what you are not”

What is your favorite card game? Probably Magic: The Gathering, even though I'm not great at it. I just ADORE the artwork, mainly. Is YouTube one of your favorite websites? Yeah, given I'm constantly on it. Does your mother have a sister? If so, what’s her name? Yeah, named Kelly. What are you doing tomorrow? I'll be going with Mom to the pool at the gym. She goes Tuesdays and Thursday, so I'm going to start joining her to help ease soreness from my exercise days. Would you ever want to go to Africa? It's high on my bucket list! I am DESPERATE to visit the KMP and photograph and pet and pamper the meerkats. :') Last time you went bowling? Not since I was on a date with Girt. Would you ever want to own a bakery? Noooo, I don't enjoy cooking of any sort. I'm way too impatient. Do you like to text? It's funny, I don't enjoy it as much as I used to. I make typos too much and autocorrect only wants to work at the WRONG time, it seems. I'd still rather text than actually talk on the phone, though. You want your next pet to be what? To be realistic, it'll probably be a western hognose snake. I REALLY want a tarantula, but Mom absolutely will not allow it for as long as I live with her, lol. Trust me, I've pestered her about it. Would you rather be a vampire or a mermaid? Eh, probably a vampire. Do you prefer white or black electronics? Black. Do you like Nerds candy? Yeah. Is your favorite animal something you can have as a pet? I could write a college-length essay on why you absolutely shouldn't, but it's sadly legal in some countries. Thankfully, not America. What was the last classic novel you read? Did you enjoy it? Oh yikes, I have no idea. Name three movies which have a soundtrack you really love: Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Tarzan, and The Blair Witch Project: Book of Shadows. What’s the scariest video game you’ve ever played? I know it's super cliche, but I genuinely found Outlast terrifying. As well, SCP Containment Breach is a game I can't even play because the jumpscares startle me too much, lol. They're just too loud. Do you own any pet fish? What kind of fish are they? No. I'm not really interested in keeping fish as pets. What is the most irritating thing that a boyfriend or girlfriend has ever done to you? Tyler wanted to talk CONSTANTLY. Barely even two weeks in and he got all bent out of shape over there being days we just didn't text. Like dude, especially this early in a relationship, I don't want to talk 24/7. He acted like we were together for years or some shit. Like sorry I want alone time. That relationship was just a bad idea. Have you ever known someone who was in an abusive relationship? Sadly. Out of all of your friends/relatives, who would you say has the best vocabulary? Probably Girt. He's just in general very smart. When yawning, do you cover your mouth? If out in public, yes. If you had a garden, what would you plant in it? Would you actually tend to it, or would it wind up neglected & withered? I could NEVER maintain a garden, but if I had the motivation and tolerance for the heat, that'd be nice. I'd love mostly flowers, and a grapevine would be pretty! Plus some strawberries. Do you like peanut butter? Yeah, definitely. What about marshmallows? Yep. How do you roast your marshmallows? They have to be BARELY brown at all. Like it has to be the liiightest toast. Do you eat s’mores? Ugh, hell yes. I really want some now, thanks. Own a lava lamp? No, but I'd love a pink one. :( Or black. Own any sort of glow-in-the-dark room accessory? No. Ever done something sexual in public? No, I have common decency. Do you like the taste of squid or eel? I COULD FUCKING NEVER TRY EITHER. Slimy or rubbery stuff like that is such a massive no. Ever date anybody in middle school? Yeah, Aaron in the 7th grade for a few months. Did you like to get dirty when you were little? I think I did. Like I know I loved speeding through mud puddles on my bike as a kid. Own anything that has to do with dragons or unicorns? I have a lot of dragon decor. Ever wanted to be a vet? Yep. Ever written your number in a public bathroom or a school text book? If so, did anyone actually call you? No. What type of weapon do you prefer? Uh, none...? I don't like weapons. Is there something that you haven’t told anyone that you actually would like to tell someone? No, not really. Would you rather watch a full season of American Idol, or So You Think You Can Dance? The latter, by far. I used to love that show. I really enjoy watching dances. Have you ever worn boxers? Pretty sure no? Last hickey was from? I've only gotten to that point with one person, you can figure it out. Have you ever put a kick me sign on the back of someone? No, that is so rude. Are there any inappropriate pictures of you anywhere? No. I've never taken an inappropriate picture. How many times do you tend to sneeze in a row? Two or three. Karma; believe or don’t? I don't believe it's a thing. I wish it was. Ever changed a diaper? Once. Or maybe twice? No plans on ever doing that again. When you see anything smaller than a quarter on the ground, do you pick it up? I don't even pick quarters up, really. Can bald guys ever be attractive? Um, yes? Do you like hugs? Yessss. Would you ever donate blood? Yeah, I have before. I'd just have to get better about drinking water so I don't faint. Are you keeping a secret from someone who needs to know the truth? No. Ever had the opposite sex over when no one was home? You make that sound so scandalous, lmao. Yeah. What is the last song to make you cry? "Another Life" by Motionless In White. Have you ever kissed someone in the rain? Yeah. Have you kissed someone with braces? No. Are you anyone’s first love? I don't believe so. Anything happen to you within the past month that made you really happy? I'M LOSING WEIGHTTTTTT. :') The gym is paying off! Is there a person of the opposite gender on your mind? That's kinda a permanent thing. He's always there, even if only in the back. Who was the last person to wink at you? My cat, ha ha. Did you parents know what gender you were before you were born? Yes. Are any of your really close friends pregnant right now? REALLY close friends, nope. Are you for or against inter-racial relationships? ... You know it's 2021, right???? This never should have been controversial. Have you ever been addicted to something unhealthy? Well, there's caffeine... When the holidays come around, do you watch holiday movies? No. When was the last time someone insulted you? What was the insult? I don't recall. Do you say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” in order to avoid offending people who don’t celebrate Christmas? I honestly just say "merry Christmas." Have you ever made/played with a sock puppet before? Yes. Have you ever seen a waterfall (aside from in a fountain or other manmade things)? Only small ones. Are you a frequent sufferer of heartburn? Yes; I actually have a prescription for chronic heartburn. If I don't take it, I'll get heartburn to the point I come near tears. How many different colleges have you gone to? Three. How much stress can you handle? Ha, not a lot at all. What is one thing you thought you’d never do but have done or are doing? I'm 25 and feel like I've just... wasted so much, and I continue to. I never thought I'd make it to this age and to have gone so short a distance in terms of being a successful adult. Have you ever disowned a friend or family member for their beliefs? I've stopped being friends with people, yes. Do you ever feel like your life is too boring or predictable? It 120% is. Do you think you will die happy? To be honest... I think no a lot of the time. Do you like looking at pictures? Yeah. Are you a submissive person? Very. Do you believe the dead can have connections with the living? I do. What are your views on the death penalty? I support it in extreme cases. Once you prove to be a thorough monster that deeply endangers other humans... you don't deserve life. We as a society have to work together, not destroy one another. Do you like horror movies? Why or why not? Yeah! I like the thrill of them. Would you ever be able to become a vegan? No; I am FAR too picky with my food. I want to be vegan, but I just wouldn't survive. What was your favorite toy as a child? I had a whole story based around some plastic dinosaurs, alligators, deer, and Pokemon figurines. Who was your first best friend? What is your favorite memory of/with them? Are you two still friends? Brianna. I don't know what my favorite memory is... We made a lot. We're Facebook friends, but we don't talk anymore. Would you rather hang out with someone who is always high or someone who constantly wants to get drunk all the time? High, I guess. Drunk people I think get sloppier and, in some cases, angry. The (few) high people I've been around have just been chill and friendly. How did you meet your newest friend? I'm not entirely sure who I consider to be my newest friend. The last time you kissed someone, were your arms around their neck? I don't think so? I'm pretty sure I was just hugging her around the waist. You have to get a facial piercing, what do you get? I've mentioned how I wanna get my nose re-pierced in multiple surveys. Do you straighten your hair? No. When is the next time you will see the person you like? Who knows, dude. I really want to be able to walk for two minutes without feeling like I'm dying before I go to an airport again, and even more importantly, even as a fully-vaccinated person, I want Covid to chill out before I travel again. And who the fuck knows when that'll be since people don't want to listen to goddamn professionals. Did you get to sleep in today? I actually slept through my alarm and was late to gym today. :x Your first dog? I was born into the family with a collie named Trigger, but she passed when I was a baby, so I don't have any memories of her. We got what I want to say was a Rottweiler mix named Angel at one point, who I consider our first family dog, but she was born with that disease that some puppies have where they just... die. Who I consider MY first REAL dog was Teddy. <3 Stood loyally by my side as my furry son and most devoted friend for around 13 years. Do you prefer mint, citrus, or cinnamon toothpaste? Mint. Are you one of those people who are always cold? No, I'm always hot. Have you done anything sneaky lately? No. Have you ever had feelings for someone and thought “This is the person I want to be with forever”? Yeah, twice. Do you keep notes, drawings or letters that people give you? Of course! Have you had a significant other that you never kissed? Well, boyfriends, but I wouldn't count the ones I haven't kissed as truly "significant other"s. Has anybody ever dated you only for your looks? I don't think so. Do you have any handshakes with anybody? Nah. What are you listening to? "Necessary Evil" by Motionless In White & Jonathan Davis. Would you take back your last boyfriend/girlfriend? Yeah. Who is your favorite band? How long have they been? Ozzy Osbourne. Since middle school. Who is your favorite author? I don't have a fave. Do you like cheesecake? BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH- How did you meet the last person you kissed? YouTube, back when it had more social aspects. Do you wake up cranky? Not usually, no. I'm actually in my best mood in the morning. Have you ever met your favorite band/singer? No, but holy fuck would that be awesome. I want to thank him for his music so badly. Do you have a good relationship with your parent(s)? Yeah. Has the last person you kissed ever been to your house? My old house, yes, but not this one. Do chickens have feelings? Yes. Have you ever been to a spa? Yeah, even though I really wasn't interested. I just went with Colleen because she invited me. I appreciated her wanting to hang out and include me of course, so I was happy to go, but it's not something I'd do of my own volition. The last time you were in the fridge, what were you looking for? The lemonade. Favorite South Park character? I don't have one, given I'm not interested in the show. How often do you have to shave? When/where I shave grows back FAST, so frequently. Ever go ghost hunting? No but omg I'd love to. Someone date me just to go do this together one night lmao. Do you have any family in the military? No. Can you talk to your mother about most things? I know I CAN talk to her about absolutely everything, but I don't always. Would you ever homeschool your children? If they wanted it and it'd be beneficial to their health and educational success, then yes. Are you afraid of change? Oh boy, am I. Who’s your favourite character from one of your favourite books? I'll go with The Outsiders, in which case I remember it was Dally.

#survey #surveys #random questions #lyrics: ''necessary evil'' by motionless in white (ft. jonathan davis)

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robinrunsfiction · 5 years ago

Note

can you do a smutty vampire mikey fic please

Bite Me, Baby

Pairing: Vampire Mikey Way x Female Reader Rating: Mature (Smut) Requested By: Anon Word Count: ~2300 Author’s Note: I really don’t know how this story ended up so long, but there’s some fluff for good measure.

It was a typical Thursday happy hour after work with your friend Christine and her coworker Becky. You were doing your best to have a good time, but something about Becky irritated you to no end and you were trying to think of any excuse to leave sooner rather than later. After another story from Becky that went on way too long, you felt your phone vibrating in your purse.

“Tonight?” the text read. You couldn’t help the smile that crept across your face as you replied.

“Who are you texting?” Becky asked incredulously.

“Is it your vampire boyfriend?” Christine asked.

“Vampire?” The word dripped from Becky’s mouth. “You’re dating some guy who thinks he’s a vampire?”

“His name is Mikey, and yes, he is a vampire,” you smirked.

“So he takes you out on dates and then drinks your blood?” Becky rolled her eyes. “Yea right.”

You dropped some money on the table to cover the cost of your drink, and stood up. “You’re half right,” you replied as you pulled down the collar of your high neck top to show two healing puncture wounds on your neck.

“Holy shit,” she replied in awe.

“Have a fun night,” Christine laughed knowingly.

“Bye,” you waved over your shoulder as you headed out.

You had met Mikey at a Halloween party where his vampire costume, with some of the most authentic looking fangs you’d ever seen, caught your attention. After making a cheesy joke about donating blood, as you were dressed as a sexy nurse, you found yourself alone with him, making out hot and heavy on the hosts’ bed when you felt the sharp teeth glance across your neck.

“Are you gonna bite me with those things?” You asked breathlessly as he continued to pepper your neck with kisses.

“Can I?” He asked, pulling back and you could see the hunger in his eyes.

“Wait, you’re not really… no, they’re not real,” you stammered and sat up.

“I really am a vampire,” he replied.

You didn’t know how to respond. “Then why haven’t you already bit me?” You finally stammered out.

“Because that’s rude. And I’d hate to make a bad first impression and have this be our last encounter," he said, his fingertips grazing your cheek, down to your jaw, then dancing across the side of your neck.

All logical thought had left your brain as you considered what he was asking. “What if I taste bad?”

“There’s no way that’s possible,” he replied with a smirk.

You nodded. “You know what? Sure, it’s Halloween, let’s do this right. Bite me, baby.”

From that night on, Mikey had been dropping by your place regularly to hook up, or drink your blood, sometimes both. It had been an arrangement that worked out well because you really liked Mikey, he was funny and interesting, not to mention hot as hell and really good in bed. But as you walked back to your apartment something Becky had said was nagging at your mind.

You never went on dates. You weren’t actually boyfriend and girlfriend like Christine had teased. You just had this symbiotic relationship that was on every level purely physical. But you had grown fond of him, and you couldn’t help but wonder if he maybe liked you for more than just a lay and a meal.

On a typical night, Mikey would have leapt to the fire escape outside your window, but it had been a while since he had been able to come around and he was weak from hunger.

He climbed the metal framework on the side of your building until he was outside your bedroom window. You had left the blinds open and as he looked inside, he could see your sleeping form in bed.

He tapped on the glass and your eyes fluttered open, smiling once you realized what had woken you.

"Hey, come in," you greeted him as he clambered in, less than gracefully. "What do you need tonight?"

"Blood," he replied sitting on the edge of your bed. His voice sounded weak to you, so you knew he meant it.

"Ok," you replied softly as you sat down, pulling your hair back from your neck.

He leaned in, lips pressing against the spot he always bit. Then the fangs sank in. You gasped at the pain, but as always, it subsided quickly once he started to drink. Then the gasps that escaped your lips turned to those of pleasure at the sensation of his lips on your neck.

When he finally pulled back and placed one last tender kiss on the wound, you found yourself feeling lightheaded.

"Are you ok?" He asked when he noticed you blinking hard.

"I'm ok, I'm just gonna lay back down," you replied. Mikey kicked off his shoes and climbed in next to you, holding you close as you rested your head against his chest.

"What's on your mind?" He asked after a few minutes of silence.

There was no use denying when something was off. It wasn't that he had the ability to read your mind, but sometimes it felt like he did with how easily he could certainly sense when things were off with you. “When I was out tonight, this girl asked if we went on dates, but we don’t really and I kinda started wondering... what we are.”

The look of surprise on Mikey’s face quickly changed to a thoughtful one. “(YN), would you like to go out tomorrow night?”

“Mikey no, don’t feel like you have to take me out on a pity date,” you said burying your face against his chest.

“No, it’s not that,” he said, pressing a kiss against the top of your head and squeezing you tighter as you looked up. “I don’t think I’ve properly conveyed what you mean to me. Can I try to make it up to you?”

You sighed. "Not a pity date?"

"Absolutely not."

"Ok, then yes, we can go out tomorrow night."

The next evening after work you hurried home and changed into a nice outfit. Mikey had left a note before he slipped out the night before that you didn't need to worry about dressing up for the date and he'd be around after dusk to pick you up.

You were still in the bathroom getting your hair just right when the intercom for your door buzzed. You hurried to let Mikey into the building. When your doorbell rang, you couldn’t believe that you actually felt nervous. You had spent so many nights with him, but this was your first real date.

“Hi, oh!” You were surprised that Mikey had brought a bouquet of deep red roses. “Thank you.”

“You look beautiful,” he complimented, his smile almost shy and you couldn’t help but grin in response.

“Thanks. What did you have planned tonight?”

“Follow me,” he replied as he took your hand and lead you out to his car.

Mikey drove out of town, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on your knee. The road climbed upward as the trees grew more dense until eventually he pulled into a clearing at the top of the hill.

“What is all this?” You asked in awe as Mikey parked. There was a tree with twinkling fairy lights strung up carefully and below it a blanket was spread. Mikey grabbed a bag from the backseat and smiled at you as you headed to sit down in the glow of the lights.

“I brought dessert,” he said as he unloaded the bag with pastries, cupcakes and other sweets, “and coffee,” he said, pulling out a large thermos.

“Yes,” you grinned as he poured you a cup. There was a chill in the air, and clouds blocked out the stars above, but the twinkling lights more than made up for it. You took a cupcake and leaned against Mikey’s side contentedly. “This is quite impressive. How did you manage to get these lights up before coming to pick me up?”

“I had help from my friend Ray,” he replied, taking a sip of his coffee.

“A human friend?”

“Yea. But I don’t bite him, if you’re wondering.”

“So I’m your only,” you paused searching for the right word, “food source?”

Mikey laughed. “Yea, you can say that.” You laughed too, but the question from the night still lingered in your mind. What were you and Mikey, other than a source of food for him? But once again, he seemed to sense what you were thinking. “But that’s not all you are to me.”

You glanced up and saw the look of concern on his face. “What do you mean?”

He nodded. “You mean everything to me. I’ve never met anyone who was so willing to put themselves on the line for me like you have. Plus you’re beautiful and funny and kind.”

You couldn’t help the smile that cracked across your face. “Mikey, you don’t have to say all that.”

“I do, because I’m in love with you (YN).”

You were stunned. You had no idea that his feelings ran that deep. Suddenly butterflies filled your stomach and your smile grew even bigger. “I love you too Mikey.”

He grinned back, relief evident in his eyes. He leaned in and kissed you deeply. You shifted so you were straddling his legs, not breaking the kiss, as his hand ran over your back and you played with his hair.

It started slowly, with big heavy raindrops falling down around you, but neither of you noticed until the rain really started to fall.

“Oh my god!” you exclaimed, as you started to feel your shirt getting wet.

“Let's get in the car,” Mikey suggested as you got up.

“Wait, the food!” You cried, grabbing the treats, and tossing them in the bag as he grabbed the thermos and blanket and hurried to the vehicle. When you were both inside, you couldn’t help but crack up laughing. Mikey’s neatly combed back hair, was now hanging in dripping strands, and you were certain you didn’t look much better.

“What?” Mikey asked, unable to keep from laughing as well.

“We look like a couple of drowned rats,” you laughed, although it was hardly audible over the rain that was pouring down on the car, and the rumble of thunder in the distance.

Mikey laughed, and shook his head before running his hand through his hair. “We should probably wait for the storm to pass before we go.”

“We should probably get out of these wet clothes, wouldn’t want to catch a cold,” you suggested with a wink.

“Getting sick isn’t something I have to worry about, but I’d hate for you to get sick, love,” he said shrugging off his black coat and pulling off his striped scarf.

You peeled off your top and climbed into the backseat of the car. You shimmied out of your pants and tossed them into the front seat as well. Mikey was pulling off his clothes as well before joining you.

In the dim light of the fairy lights in the tree outside, you were able to make out the expression on his face. He was looking at you with awe, even though he’d seen you in all states of undress, but things were different now. “I should have told you every day how beautiful you are.”

You blushed and put your hands over your face, but he pulled them away before leaning in to kiss you again. Your hands found the hem of his shirt and broke the kiss to pull it over his head. You slid down, until you were laying back, his hips pinned against yours. Mikey’s hands ran down your sides and then back up to your chest as his lips trailed from yours to your jaw, then your neck. He tenderly kissed the freshly opened wound on your neck from the night before.

“My everything,” he murmured against the spot.

“Yours,” you sighed.

Things moved swiftly from there, with the rest of your clothes coming off, discarded to the front seats as the windows started to steam up. His lips were all over you, kissing down your body until he was leaving marks across your thighs, then he was dipping a finger inside you as his tongue found your clit. The sensation made you shiver as his fingers, like the rest of him were cold to the touch. Moans spilled from your lips, sounding like music to Mikey’s ears.

“Baby, I’m close,” you breathed.

He hummed in acknowledgement before slipping his digit out, kissing back up your body. “You ready for me?”

“Yea,” you nodded excitedly as he shifted up, his lips meeting yours as he pressed into you. The pace he set was slow and steady as you rolled your hips to meet him. Your gasps and his moans drown out by the rain pounding on the roof of the car and more rumbles of thunder.

His lips were again on your neck, kissing and leaving marks that for once weren’t bite marks. “I love you (YN), you’re my everything,” he murmured again and again like a mantra as his pace picked up.

“Love you too, Mikey” you moaned. “I’m close again, can you bite me again?”

When he heard your request, he looked up and locked eyes with you, the passion written across his face was undeniable. His pace quickened as he began kissing your neck. “Tell me when.”

“Now,” you moaned and as you came around him he bit down. Then the feeling of him coming undone as well completely overwhelmed you completely.

Minutes later as you caught your breath, he kissed away the last of the blood from your neck.

“I mean it, you’re everything to me,” he said again as he caressed your cheek. “I hope you never have to worry about that ever again.”

“I don’t think I will,” you smiled back.

#mikey way x reader #vampire!mikey way x reader #Anon #mikey way fan fic #mikey way fan fiction #mikey way imagine #my chemical romance fan fic #my chemical romance fan fiction

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skvaderarts · 4 years ago

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Hiraeth Chapter 22: Proposition

Masterlist can be found Here!

Chapter Twenty-Two: Proposition

Note: This entire chapter feels like a shitpost, and I love it. Also, dear god have I been busy working on things for a physical release of the fic! You’ll hear more about that next week on Wednesday, but if you are interested in beta reading, I have left a form below. Doing it myself is tricky, and there is a free copy in it for you bound in your choice of type (hardback, paperback, hardback with a paper cover, etc) and you will receive credit because I’m not a monster XD.

I think I want to do it as a charity thing, so suggest charities the proceeds should be donated to in the form below even if you’re not interested in being a beta reader! The size of the charity is irrelevant. They just have to be credible (IE not a nightmare like Autism Speaks or the Salvation Army, or PETA, not to get judgy or upset anyone. They just have a very bad rep.) Anyway, enough of that! Back to the story!

(-~-)

By all accounts, the initial plan had been simple enough. They were going to eat dinner and then see where the evening took them. The only issue was that not a single one of them had really thought the plan through. That was typical enough, all things considered, but none of them really considered the fact that accomplishing that goal might be a little bit harder than they had originally expected it to be. Namely because of one major problem.

While Sirrus’s intentions had been pure enough when he had offered to cook, and V’s had been equally so when he had agreed to allow him to do so, the execution of those plans had left much to be desired. Making plans without knowing the full extent of their impact seemed to be something that ran in the Sparda family, regardless of the context of the plan, and while this was a minor occurrence in a sea of what had otherwise been huge high stakes situations, that didn’t change the fact that it was literally impossible to cook without food. And if it wasn’t, no one present wanted to know how that was done.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that you might be a little short on… everything at the moment.” Sirrus said as politely as he could, clearly amused by the utter emptiness that he was presented with when he opened the cabinet door. “Am I getting my hopes up by assuming that you have something in the refrigerator, or are we just going to have to make a run to the store? I mean, we’re probably going to have to for what I had in mind, but still.”

V felt himself die a little inside at his companion’s polite yet ruthless assessment of his current living situation. Sirrus was entirely correct, it was too much to hope for. He hadn’t really been home much recently, if at all since he had acquired the place, and as such, grocery shopping had been very low on his list of priorities. It had been easier to just grab something and call it a day in the two days that he had actually been in the house so far. He only wished that he had thought of that before he’d offered to allow Sirrus to cook! He could have saved himself a lot of unneeded embarrassment.

Was this what it felt like to be Dante? Because if it was, that was a tragedy. The only upside to his current situation was that Lucia, Nico, and Nero were in the next room talking, so they were not able to experience his deep loathing and shame first hand, not to mention the verbal beatdown that he had just suffered at Sirrus’s hands. Or should he say vocal cords? Either way, the point still stood that he did indeed need to procure food because the only thing available to consume in the house was peeling wallpaper, dried-out paint, and dust. And knowing V’s luck, Shadow had probably already consumed those already when he wasn’t looking. That was absolutely something she would do.

“I would say the latter is the most true, given the options at hand. That is not to say that the second option is not correct, as it absolutely is… but that’s not the type of narrative I’d like to weave at this juncture.” V “But the thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest, so it is probably best that I simply accompany you to the store so I can see to it that my cabinets are not as bare as Dante’s office is dark.”

Sirrus nodded as he closed a stary cabinet door, turning to fully face the slightly frazzled young man. “That seems agreeable enough. Hopefully my matter of fact, no-nonsense way of stating the obvious wasn’t as abrasive as it seems now that I am able to look back on it. Hindsight is 2020, as they say.” He straightened out his long shirt, adjusting his shoulders as he allowed his head to pull from side to side. He was slightly uncomfortable as, for the first time, he stepped close enough to V to notice that they were largely the same size and stature. What an eye-opening realization. “I’m sarcastic, some would even sardonic, but I like to think I’m not unfeeling. I’ve yet to lose my grip on the reality of the world around me and start to view the rest of the world with a sort of cold dissonance like so many around me have. What do people call that now? Being edgy? Somehow I am under the impression that that might not be the proper use of that term.”

V brushed him off, taking a step to the side instead of taking a step back. He wasn’t intimidated by the tall redhead despite the fact that he was sure that he probably had ample reason to be. There was a certain mysterious quality to him that was carefully outlined with a certain measure of involuntary menace that he couldn’t quite place, and his prior comments didn’t help in that regard. There was just something… feral about him, some sort of wild strength that he knew that his guest could reach into if he wished to do so and bring to bear against those he considered deserving of it. It was something that he could just feel in the pit of his stomach, a sort of primordial sense of strength and power that reminded him of his own family, but it was notably different in a way that was hard to describe. Was it darker somehow? Was that the right way to put it?

But that wondering was enough to keep him grounded in a situation like this. He seemed trustworthy, but he would still keep his guard up until he was absolutely sure, even if he wasn’t actively trying to do so. It was simply instinct, and going with his gut had kept him alive this long, so he was going to continue doing so. If it wasn’t broken, then he wasn’t going to fix it. “Think nothing of it. I take no offense to you stating the obvious. I don’t think that there has been food in this house in at least a decade.”

“Probably longer than that, if I remember correctly. This place has been empty for about fifteen years. After the will was read, Magnolia’s side of the family cleaned the place out as quickly as they could before they went their separate ways. Quite a lot of bad blood between them, from what I could tell. It was a shame how that all played out, but grief brings out the worst in people, especially when the root cause of that grief is so… unexpected.” The man with the long red hair peered out of the back door for a moment as though he were expecting something or perhaps had heard a commotion of some sort. He seemed to study the bushes against the back wall for a long moment before continuing. “As per your request… that is more than fine by me. I won’t, then. I shall pretend that we never mentioned the food in the first place.”

“You say that as though you were personally there to see it. You seem too young to have witnessed something of that nature, but you have first-hand knowledge of it from a viewpoint that would suggest that you were a neutral party witnessing it from within the inner circle of what was going on.” V was admittedly curious as to how Sirrus would explain something like that in a way that made sense. Or would it make sense at all? Who was to say. He would simply have to wait and find out. “I had assumed that we were quite close in age. But then again, everyone knows what they say about assuming things. I should have known better than to think that I know everything about someone that I barely know. My mistake.”

“Looks can be deceiving, as I’m sure you know first hand. Your family is quite literally living proof of that concept. I assure you however that I was present. I just seem younger than…” He stopped, catching himself as though he were about to say something that he didn’t mean to, waiving off both his near mistake and V’s apology casually. V was clever, something that he had pegged about him from the very first moment that they had made eye contact. It was something intrinsic in the way that he held himself, and every time that he had opened his mouth since then had only served to strengthen that notion. But now his keen intellect was becoming troublesome, not that it changed anything in the end either way. ”That quote from before about the harvest… William Blake, if I remember correctly? I’m quite fond of his works, especially the illustrations. Quite the brilliant man.” He stopped for a moment, seemingly considering something before looking over at the doorway. He then nodded quietly to himself before redirecting his attention towards V once more, finding his companion’s silence interesting. He seemed to be waiting for him to continue. “Personally, Mary Shelly is my all-time favorite. Frankenstein and all that. I have a more contemporary favorite as of late, but telling you that might say more about me than I mean for it to, so I’ll keep it to myself for now.

Now V had more questions than answers. Sirrus was a walking mystery, and the more that he spoke, the more V questioned his own perception and his impression of him changed. It was as fascinating as it was confounding, but he couldn’t say that he disliked it. There was just something captivating about not being able to read him, regardless of how hard he tried. A part of him wondered if anyone else in his family had this issue. He would ask them when presented with the chance to do so. Well then, back to what we were discussing before.”

“We were discussing something before? I can’t say that I remember anything. But I do recall you saying to “think nothing of it.” The playfully smug, all-knowing tone of voice that he spoke in was enough to make V shake his head and roll his eyes, but he resisted. It was a welcome juxtaposition to the conversation that they had just indulged in, and they were both somehow simultaneously relieved that they didn’t have to indulge in it any longer.

He couldn’t help but snicker somewhat at that response. Sirrus was endearingly hatstand, wasn’t he? Despite the unintentionally tense conversation that they had just indulged in, the white-haired summoner couldn’t help but be amused. It was complicated, and yet so very simple. “Let’s go to the store, Sirrus. I’ll tell the others that we will return shortly. You may accompany me if you’d like.”

Sirrus nodded politely, using both hands to signal to him that he was to walk first as he bowed lower than what was needed and stepped back out of his companion’s way. V scoffed in amusement but went along with his slightly antiquated gesture, admittedly entertained by it. Yes, this had to be what other people felt like when they met him for the first time. He understood why they looked at him like that now. Slowly but surely, it was all coming together.

(-~-)

From what they could tell, the store was mostly empty. It was nearly 9 o’clock at night, and it seemed that everyone who wanted to buy groceries had done so by then. While it was understandable that most people in the city wouldn’t want to start cooking this late, it was still a little bit surreal to see just how few people were willing to make a midnight dash to the supermarket to stock up on general goods and necessities. One could only imagine that recent events in the region had made people more than a little bit jumpy, but this was an entirely new level of silent unrest that made an already somewhat eerie environment that much more uncomfortable.

As the absentmindedly browsed the shelves in relative silence, V shifted in discomfort. He couldn’t shake the persistent feeling that something simply wasn’t right, and that he should go with his gut and leave this place before something happened. Although it was basically impossible to predict something like that, V was convinced that the persistent feeling of unrecognizable dread that he felt brewing in the very pit of his stomach was something more substantial than he was allowing himself to believe. And under the guise of trying not to seem silently panicked, he couldn’t help but feel a nameless terror overtake him. This feeling that he felt was familiar in the worst way possible. It reminded him of the train ride back in Lucia’s homeland, the strange subconscious sensation that he was no longer in the driver’s seat in regards to his own cognitive feedback. And the idea that his enemy might be trying to do something, anything at all, was not good. He needed to do something fast.

“I apologize if my being around you alone is subconsciously offputting. I get the impression that you are disturbed, and you probably aren’t sure what that is just yet. Let me assure you that it is in fact, me, and that I am not doing so intentionally.” Sirrus casually reached up and took a can down from a shelf, turning it over in his hands absentmindedly as he studied it to see if it was something that he could use. “But the disturbance that you feel is most certainly tangible. I recognized your specific gifts and aptitudes a while back. You have a heightened sensitivity to certain things. Very useful if utilized correctly.”

He paused for a moment to look at V, seemingly waiting for him to respond in some way. As he realized that his companion wasn’t speaking, he sighed with bated breath, looking slowly from side to side as he checked to make sure that no one was around them. Not that he needed his eyes to do that. It was more for V’s benefit than his own, in any case. “To someone with a trained eye, abilities like that stick out like a sore thumb, especially when the person in possession of them doesn’t yet know how to control them. But that is not to say that you don’t have amazing potential if only someone were to educate you as to how to do deliberately what already comes to you so naturally.”

“Gifts? What are you…” V paused as he considered what he wanted to say next. Sirrus could see something about him that the rest of the people he knew couldn’t? That was alarming to him for reasons that he couldn’t quite place at the moment. Was he that obvious? What else had he been doing that he just hadn’t noticed was a dead giveaway in regards to his true nature? Could anyone else tell, or was that something specific to Sirrus?

“Your grandfather is the Dark Knight Sparda, yes? I couldn’t help but notice your surname. He was a good man. And he was very powerful. I see things in both you and your brother that I do not see in your older relatives.” He seemed to be speaking carefully as he headed to the center aisle in his search for… whatever it was that he was looking for to cook dinner with. He seemed to notice V’s quiet, well-concealed panic, but the atmosphere had changed notably in the air around them. There was a certain latent hostility to V’s demeanor that hadn’t been there before, and for the first time since he’d arrived in town to carry out his mission, he felt genuinely threatened by someone. While he had indeed encountered resistance, nothing so far had felt so pure, so dynamic in its ability to utterly destroy him, and he got the impression that neither V nor himself truly knew what the young man with the white hair was capable of at that moment. And as exhilarating as that might be under most circumstances, this was far from the case at this moment in time.

It was time to start explaining himself.

“... Sometimes things skip a generation, carried in latent genes by your forebears. This may be one of those cases. That’s what makes me as powerful as I am in some regards. And it is why we have what I like to call Dry Generations; instances in which nothing particularly interesting happens.” The hostility level didn’t decrease much, and Sirrus took a mental note of that, preparing himself should the worst happen. And he hoped with every fiber of his being that it wouldn’t. Something told him that if he had to resort to that, Vergil wouldn’t appreciate him having to explain it after the fact, and the last thing he wanted to have to do was pry Yamato out of his own chest. Vergil had quite the throwing arm. And as fast as he was, he wasn’t sure he was quite that fast. “But when more interesting individuals are born, well, they are most certainly more… intriguing. You and Nero seem to fit that bill nicely.”

“Are you threatening me?” V asked point-blank, his posture slightly more straight than it had been a moment before. Perhaps without thinking it, V had shifted into a readied stance, unwilling to be taken off guard by any kind of sudden attack. Resorting to this kind of public display of power had to be against some code of ethics or something, but he wasn’t going to stand there and take something like that laying down if it came to it. He needed to make that clear, even if Magnolia probably wouldn’t appreciate him bringing Sirrus to her in the middle of the night filled with puncture wounds from Shadow and several broken bones from a trip off of a local roof, courtesy of Griffon. He just hoped that he wouldn’t need to do that. And although he was somewhat sure that he wouldn’t need to, that didn’t change the fact that he might still need to defend himself.

In a moment of self-awareness, Sirrus shook his head, stepping back slightly as he allowed his head to rest on the edge of the center bin that he stood next to. There was some kind of meat inside of it with a sale sign next to it, but that would only become relevant if they made it out of this encounter in one piece. What a fascinating reaction. I would have never thought that he was capable of actually being overtly aggressive considering his physical state and general disposition. He normally has such a mild mentality.” He thought to himself as he let his arms fall to his sides, wanting to demonstrate as clearly as possible that he was not trying to intimidate V or cause him any harm. One could only imagine what he had been through in his young life, and he wasn’t going to add to that pain and suffering if he could help it.

Maybe it was simply the demon side of him showing itself a little in that moment as a natural defense mechanism? He knew that they were not entirely human, after all, and he had no idea how much demonic blood ran through his veins. It mattered very little if he was being truthful with himself. His pedigree alone ensured that he was powerful, And that was something he could deeply sympathize with on an extremely personal level. He too carried his own darkness locked away deep within himself, even if it was a different form of it. He couldn’t judge him for the one time he slipped up. Hell, he’d give him a hug if he wasn’t so sure it would get him stabbed through the gut with V’s cane.

“Oh, perish the thought. Not even slightly. I wouldn’t dare. Though I do admit that it probably seems that way.” He watched V relax slightly, at least physically, sliding back into the comfortable leaning position that he was accustomed to associating with him. It made him wonder what the young summoner had been through that had made him this way, or if perhaps it was a one-off fluke reaction to this exact situation. Maybe he could ask him another time when he calmed all the way down. It seemed that he had at least a little bit of his father in him after all. “Quite the opposite though. I am extending an invitation. I would like to help you with that. Now, were you thinking fin or fang in regards to protein for this meal? It seems we have simpler choices to make this time around. But something tells me it won’t always be that way. Darkness looms on the horizon, and I have the feeling that something sinister might be readying itself just out of view.”

V gave him an apprehensive look, unsure as to what to really say to that. This entire conversation had certainly changed his outlook on a few things, to say nothing of how it had nearly taken a turn for the worst. He needed ample time to think things through. He was used to being the logical, level-headed one in situations like this. Something about that conversation had severely taken him out of his element, But at least a few of his questions had been answered, even if more now lingered in the back of his mind. And more importantly, there hadn’t been a public display of supernatural violence that could have destroyed both of them and the building along with them.

Sighing gently as if to physically rid himself of the toxic experience he had just suffered through, V looked at Sirrus, the both of them somehow knowing that the other regretted what had almost just happened even without saying it. It was best to leave things alone for now and just leave this store. Maybe the building itself was driving them both insane. “Fang.”

(-~-)

Gosh, writing this chapter makes me want to work on the story that I’ve been wanting to write for so long now. But not yet! I don’t pick projects up easily after I walk away from them, so for now, I will wait. There is still much to be done with this AU, but gosh writing Sirrus gets me in the mood for that. Let’s just say he doesn’t originate from this AU universe.

Here is the link to the form! It’s only 4 questions and should take about two minutes to answer. Thank you! You’re a big help to me. I want it to be clear that I’m not making anything from this fic, I just want to do something neat for charity and give you something cool in return.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jD0AKYiX3EfLjt-M_Rk8CapJ0GdzVqB-9oDMhV3SG2A/edit?usp=sharing

Sorry for my rambling this week! I’m just excited, I guess! Also, a special thank you to the like 2 people on Tumblr that like my chapters every week. I like your energy =^~^=

#Hiraeth #V #Vitale #Devil May Cry AU #Sirrus #DMC #DMC5 #Post DMC5

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tsuki-chibi · 5 years ago

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Avengers Valentine’s Fic: Six Hands are Better than Two

Read it on AO3!

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When her cup of tea was ready, Pepper carried it over to the table and sat down. She took a careful, too-hot sip, then set her cup down and looked at the tablet sitting in front of her. This was it. The moment of truth. Despite of her nerves, her hands remained remarkably steady as she picked up the tablet and unlocked it. The first file opened seamlessly, and she scanned it with a critical eye.

She knew exactly what she was looking for. The biggest issue was finding it. The first few she dismissed out of hand due to various health problems. The fifth file showed a man with blond hair; she lingered over that one for a minute before flicking past, knowing that she would prefer someone with darker hair. The sixth was passed over for the same reason. Then she landed on the seventh, showing a striking man with dark brown hair, blue eyes, and a broad smile with straight, white teeth.

“Not him. Too much like a movie star.”

Pepper shrieked and jumped about a foot in the air. “Tony! What the hell?!”

Tony laughed as he sat down beside her, close enough to steal the tablet but out of range of any punches. “I asked JARVIS to tell me when you started looking at the profiles,” he said smugly. “I wanted to see too.”

“JARVIS, you traitor,” Pepper muttered without any heat.

“My apologies, Ms. Potts, but Sir was most persuasive.”

Knowing what that meant, Pepper shook her head. “Tony, you have got to stop threatening to sell them to MIT,” she said, exasperated. “One of these days JARVIS is going to take you seriously and have himself voluntarily moved, and then where will you be?”

“J loves me too much for that,” Tony said dismissively, continuing to flick through. “Is this really all you have to choose from? Slim pickings.”

Pepper sighed and rested her cheek on her hand. “Well, fewer men are donating sperm now,” she said frankly. “People are nervous about having biological children showing up on their doorstep in twenty years.” She could appreciate that fear, but it made this process no less frustrating.

When she had first decided that she wanted a baby, Pepper had thought long and hard about her choices. As an aromantic woman, she had absolutely zero interest in a relationship. She liked sex – was rather good at sex, actually – but that was about the extent of it. And no one night stand or frequent booty call was going to agree to have a baby with her without bringing feelings into the mix. Eventually they’d want more: they’d want a relationship, the whole 2.5 kids and white picket fence, and the thought made her skin crawl.

No romance. No relationships. Just a kid. That was harder to get than she had anticipated. She had done quite a bit of research into adoption, but every place she had reached out to had unapologetically informed her that they were reluctant to adopt a child to a single woman. She probably could’ve paved the way by throwing money at the situation, but she was loathe to do that when she’d already be facing a ton of media scrutiny as it was.

There was also surrogacy as an option, but Pepper was more than willing to carry the baby herself. It was Rhodey who had suggested that she go to a donation clinic. Pepper hadn’t seen any harm in looking to see what was available; she wasn’t committing herself just by looking. But she hadn’t anticipated how lackluster it would be. Did she really want to choose the father of her child like she’d pick out a pair of shoes?

Well, no. Of course she didn’t. But she was running out of options – and time. She was turning thirty-five after this year, so she was approaching the threshold where pregnancies were a higher risk. She was already aware she was probably only going to do this once, so she had to make it count. This was the best resort. She held a hand out for the tablet back, but Tony shook his head.

“Seriously, Pep, you don’t have to go with one of these losers,” he said.

“Then how else am I supposed to make it happen? I am not interested in a relationship,” Pepper said, a bit more forcefully than was necessary considering who she was talking to, but she was so damn sick of having to repeat herself. People thought there was something wrong with a woman who didn’t want a relationship. There was a reason she and Tony had covered for each other for as long as they did.

“I know you’re not,” Tony said, far more kindly than she deserved, and Pepper’s shoulders slumped.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to bite your head off,” she said. Out of everyone, Tony knew exactly what it was like to fall short of people’s expectations. He had cultivated a reputation as a slut early on to keep people from figuring out that the infamous Tony Stark had no interest in sex: he would bring drunk women home with him and then put them to bed. Anyone who remembered going to bed alone never wanted to admit that Tony hadn’t slept with them, so they’d make up stories. And she was pretty sure the sex tapes had been faked.

After Afghanistan, when Tony could no longer bear the idea of bringing strangers home, he and Pepper had officially become a couple to give them both some relief. Unofficially Pepper had cultivated a few discreet fuck buddies, while Tony had been content to remain alone. Their agreement had worked very well to keep them both from being bothered by the media, or worse hunted by prospective partners, until Tony met Dr. Stephen Strange.

Pepper had seen the writing on the wall from the moment they returned home from the fight on Titan, having been victorious. Stephen looked at Tony like Tony was something precious, and Tony’s eyes lit up whenever Stephen walked into a room. Naturally, the two of them had awkwardly danced around each other for a few months before Pepper got impatient and forced them to talk it out.

“That’s okay. I get it. Hell, no one gets it better than me,” Tony said. He set the tablet down and looked at her seriously. “What if I offered to do it?”

Her eyebrows jumped. “You’re gonna have sex with me. You.”

“Eww, no,” Tony said, making a face. “But I’d happily donate some of my sperm to the cause. Stephen says that the whole process is way more advanced than it used to be, but that there’s plenty of room for improvement… maybe he and I will take a look at it and see if we can’t figure something out.”

“If anyone could do it, it would be you too,” Pepper said, still reeling from the offer. “You… you’d seriously want a baby?”

“I’ve been thinking about it. I know you and I didn’t work out, but I still think any kid of ours would be awesome.” Tony gave a small smile that quickly faded as he added, “I mean, I understand if you don’t want to. I’ll probably end up being a shitty dad –”

“Tony, no. That’s not it. Anyone who sees you with Peter knows you’re a wonderful dad,” Pepper said immediately.

“It’s not really the same,” Tony mumbled, looking embarrassed.

“Yes, it is and you know it. He literally calls you and Stephen ‘dad’,” Pepper pointed out.

“But we didn’t raise him,” Tony said. He shook his head. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know that the offer is there if you’re interested.”

Pepper hummed softly. “What did Stephen say?”

“He’s okay with it. You can talk to him about it if you want to, which you probably should.”

“He’s ready to be a parent?” Pepper asked. “Or are you just looking to make a donation and that’s all?”

“No, we want to be parents with you. Midnight feedings and all. You could move into a room on our floor, and we can set the baby up in the room between us and you. That way, we can help equally. And you’d still be able to go back to your floor when you needed a break,” Tony explained, sounding adorably eager.

“You’re really serious about this,” Pepper said, amazed. At one time, Tony hadn’t been sure that he wanted to be a father at all. That was all Howard Stark’s influence as far as Pepper was concerned. She knew that Tony would be a great dad, but Tony was petrified that he was going to turn out like his father. Having Peter around had done wonders for Tony’s confidence in that regard.

“I am… but only if you’re okay with it. I get that it could be awkward or uncomfortable,” Tony said. “I mean… Stephen and I would still be Avengers and everything.” He looked up uncertainly.

“Let me think about it,” Pepper said slowly. “Is that okay?”

“Sure. Take all the time you need.” He stood up, passed her the tablet, and ambled causally out of the room. Only someone who knew him well, like Pepper did, could recognize how tense he was as he went. He really, really wanted this, she realized.

“JARVIS, have Tony and Stephen really talked about this?” Pepper asked.

“Yes, Ms. Potts. In great detail,” JARVIS replied. “Dr. Strange has just arrived home. Would you like to speak with him?”

“Please,” Pepper said. She believed Tony when he said that Stephen was okay with this, but she wanted to be sure before she even started considering this. She didn’t want a baby to be the thing that came between Tony and the only person he’d ever seriously fallen in love with.

It was only a few minutes before Stephen joined her in the kitchen. He was wearing his uniform, minus the Cloak, and looked tired. Pepper waved him to the table and got up to make herself another cup of tea. She also poured one for Stephen. Unlike Tony, who might as well have had coffee in his veins considering how much of the stuff he drank, Stephen preferred tea. When she turned around, Stephen had picked up the tablet and was flipping through the profiles. Pepper rolled her eyes.

“See anyone interesting?” she asked, sitting again.

“I see some people who may have lied on their applications,” Stephen said critically, stopping at one profile and frowning down at it. “Besides, I believe the more important question is whether you’ve seen anyone interesting.”

“I didn’t get very far before Tony interrupted me,” she admitted. “He had a proposition.”

Stephen didn’t look surprised. “He mentioned he was planning to bring it up today. What did you think?”

“I’m not opposed to the idea,” Pepper said carefully. In truth, it was the best option she’d heard yet. “But I wanted to see what you thought. This isn’t just between me and Tony. I know Tony; he’ll want to be there 100%. And that effectively makes you a father too.”

“It does,” Stephen agreed, his blank expression giving nothing away.

“So… are you okay with that?” Pepper said. “Is that something you want? If it’s not, now is the time to say it.”

“I never imagined I would have a child,” Stephen told her. His hands shook as he lifted his cup. “Particularly after the accident. I lost all interest in sex after that, and a couple of the medications that I’m on would make it difficult for me to get someone pregnant.”

Pepper nodded, having already known this. Tony had told her in confidence after she professed worry over how the two of them would get on, what with Tony’s complete lack of interest in sex. Stephen wasn’t asexual, or at least he didn’t claim the label for himself, but based on what Tony said he was pretty adamant about never wanting to have sex. Luckily, that suited Tony perfectly fine.

“But that doesn’t mean I’m not intrigued by the idea. I like having Peter around. I like seeing the joy that Peter’s presence brings to both Tony and myself. I would very much enjoy raising a child. We’ve talked about adoption, but then when you started looking into donations, Tony suggested this could be a convenient solution for all of us.” Stephen hesitated briefly. “My one concern is that I’m not sure how much help I would be at first. My hands…” He trailed off, grimacing.

“It’s fine,” Pepper said gently. “Tony and I will be there. Hell, there are plenty of people in the tower to help. And trust me, there is still plenty you could do.”

“So you’re considering it?” he asked.

“Well… yes, I am. Some people might think it’s crazy… my mom sure will. But I really want a baby, and I like the idea of my child being a part of someone I know and love,” she said. “Even better if it’s Tony, because I know him so well. Plus, Tony brings you to the table as well. The idea of three parents instead of being a single mom sweetens the pot significantly.” She smiled to show that she was teasing, even though she was partially serious.

Stephen smiled too. “Give it some thought. You don’t need to decide right away.” He sat back, rubbing his neck. “JARVIS, where is Tony?”

“Sir is in the workshop.”

Pepper and Stephen exchanged exasperated looks, and then Stephen stood up. “I better go get him out of there, or he’ll pull another all-nighter.”

“Please do,” Pepper said, standing up herself. She picked up her tablet as Stephen left, and did a quick pass through all of the profiles. Some of them sounded impressive, but… she cast a thoughtful look at the door and hummed under her breath as she washed her cup out and set it in the dishwasher.

She did a lot of thinking over the next couple of days. She talked to Rhodey, who was very much in support of the idea, and she talked to her mother, who was very much not. And she also spent some time looking seriously at the files that the agency had given her, trying to decide who she might pick if she decided not to take Tony up on his offer. The problem was, Stephen’s skepticism had made her nervous. After all, she was trusting that complete strangers were who they said they were, and Pepper had been burned that way before in far less high-stakes situations.

There was always the option of asking JARVIS to run background checks, but honestly Pepper wasn’t sure she wanted JARVIS to bother wasting the processing power. Not when, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she had never wanted to be a single mother. It was just the only avenue that she felt was open to her, and she wanted a baby badly enough to accept the cons.

But why do so when she didn’t have to?

It was late at night when Pepper crawled out of bed and padded, bare foot, to the elevator. JARVIS took her down to the common room floor, where she knew that some of the Avengers had been having a late night watching movies. As expected, everyone else was gone and Stephen and Tony were alone in the room, cuddled up on the couch: the two of them had a bad habit of falling asleep there and then regretting it the next day.

Pepper paused for a moment in the doorway, staring at the two of them with a smile. Stephen was laying on the couch itself on his back, bare feet stick out from beneath the blanket. Tony was laying half on top of him and half on the couch, mostly buried beneath the blanket. They made for an adorable sight, one that made her heart swell with happiness on Tony’s behalf.

This was all that Tony had ever wanted. This, right here. Or so she had thought. But maybe there was something else that Tony wanted too, which Pepper had never considered before. Being asexual and not wanting to have sex meant that there was a very obvious obstacle in the way of Tony having kids, but even more than that Tony had to be extremely careful about who he had a child with. Way too many people would take total advantage of him if it meant getting their greedy hands into the Stark fortune.

She didn’t need to take advantage; Tony would gladly hand her his entire fortune without blinking an eye. Hell, in a way he already had by making Pepper the CEO of Stark Industries. Technically, if she had been so inclined, Pepper could’ve overthrown Tony and forced him out of his own company. Thankfully for Tony, she had absolutely no intention of doing that. S.I. would die without Tony’s genius guiding the way, which was something that men like Obadiah Stane were too stupid to realize.

She padded over to the couch and sat down on Tony’s side. Stephen awoke first, blinking owlishly. “Something wrong?”

“No, not at all,” Pepper said. She patted Tony’s knee.

“Huh – wha?” Tony was slower to stir. “Pep?”

“I wanted to see if your offer was still open,” Pepper said.

Tony snapped to immediately. “Of course it is!”

“Good. Because I think I want to take you up on it,” she said.

“Seriously?” Tony said.

“Seriously.”

“Oh my god,” Stephen said. “You’re going to have a baby.”

Pepper wasn’t sure who he was talking to, but she shook her head. “No. We’re” she gestured between the three of them “are having a baby.”

The resulting brilliant smiles that lit up both Tony’s and Stephen’s face made her feel warm from head to toe, and she knew immediately that she’d made the right decision. She beamed as Tony and Stephen kissed with joy, and then Tony pushed himself up and threw his arms around her. Pepper hugged him back happily, returning Stephen’s smile over Tony’s shoulder.

They were really gonna do this, and she knew that three of them would do it right.

#avengers #pepper potts #tony stark #stephen strange #ironstrange #aromantic pepper potts #asexual tony stark

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lia-jones · 4 years ago

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Growing Together - Chapter Ten - How Far We've Come

Victor watched her from afar as she fumbled with the zipper of her dress. He found her adorable, lightly scoffing at herself, her small hands trying to position to a good angle to get the job done, while she carefully watched herself in the mirror.

He mischievously stood in the distance, concealing himself from her, letting her fend for herself a little longer while he observed. This was his guilty pleasure, a small moment that was only his, when she was alone, oblivious to his presence, lost in a secret dialogue with herself. He drank every one of her expressions, how she silently scolded herself when she failed to do what she intended, how she would secretly pat herself in the back when she finally achieved it.

Eventually, feeling he had had his daily fix, he walked up to her and placed his hands on top of hers, still trying to pull the zipper.

“Need help?” He couldn’t help the slight amusement in his voice.

“Ugh. Yes.” She scoffed, turning her back to him so he could help her. “These dresses are so needlessly complicated. I’m always afraid I’ll pull too hard and rip the fabric.”

“That’s why husbands were invented.” He joked. “To help their clumsy wives zip their dresses.”

“Is that so?” She played along. “I thought it was to change tires.”

“No, that’s why road assistance was invented.” He quipped.

“Right, I’ve never seen you change a tire ever.” She turned and placed her hands on his chest, looking pensive. “Hm. I got myself a faulty husband.” She teased.

“And I got myself a wife that can’t reach the top shelf without help.” He smirked. “Life isn’t perfect.”

“How dare you?” She smacked his chest, making him chuckle. “That’s it, you’re sleeping on the couch tonight.” She went to look for her purse, pretending to be offended.

“Tonight is a big night.” He changed the subject. “Feeling nervous?”

“I think, at this point, feeling nervous is pretty much my normal state.” She laughed at her own exaggeration. “Ok, honestly, how do I look?”

The deep green satin dress looked stunning on her. The lace on the corset hugged her breasts in a perfect and elegant way, and the backless design showed her soft skin, the one he loved to kiss in their most intimate moments. He softly ran his fingers on her back, anticipating the events that would follow the gala.

“Honestly?” He pulled her closer, whispering wet in her ear. “Breathtaking.”

Inside the limousine, on their way to the ceremony, he heard her laugh, looking at her phone.

“Just look at this.” Andrea showed him the screen. He immediately identified Guy, Xavier and Mr. Mills in Guy’s restaurant, toasting with red wine, a caption below the picture that said: Á belle Andrea! Felicitations!

“That was heartwarming.” He quipped. “Remind me to send them something to thank them for the support.”

The beautifully decorated ballroom was brimming with warmth and life, and Victor could hear in every corner people engage in interesting conversations about religion, economy or politics. The greatest minds of Loveland were gathered into that very same place, and anyone that was remotely interested in drinking a little bit of knowledge was bound to have a very bountiful night.

Victor and Andrea were received with honor and enthusiasm by the GESA president and his assistant, Andrea being treated almost like royalty. True to herself, his wife was impervious to all the flattery, as she still couldn’t place herself among the great. Victor knew that was her greatest weapon: because she never felt like she was finally arriving, she would never stop walking. And because of that, no one knew how far she would walk.

As they sat at their table and Andrea, the eternal social butterfly, chatted idly with some guests, Victor let his mind wander to years before. Two years before, to be exact, when he didn’t know she would be his, and she didn’t know she would be brilliant. But on that specific day, he saw something on her that told him she would go far. And how.

It was a Saturday morning, and he was visiting Loveland’s Public Library. The Mayor had invited him under the pretense of showing his last monetary donation had been used, but Victor was no fool. He was perfectly aware that the politician was after another donation. Still, he let himself be led by the man through the many floors of the building, pretending to be unaware of his true intentions. It wasn’t like he had better plans anyway, and he knew how important his donations were, especially to students that couldn’t afford the books that their classes demanded.

“This should interest you since it’s your field.” The Mayor announced as they arrived at the Economic Sciences floor. “We are proud to say that, thanks to your generosity, we have an extensive collection of books and manuals. As you can see by how busy this place is, many students come here to study and research during the weekends.”

Victor took a look around at the place, and just like the Mayor said, all the tables were occupied with laptops and books, the people sitting at them engaged in stimulating conversations. Most of these people weren’t born with a silver spoon on their mouths like he had, and thanks to something that required little effort from him, they could study and work for a better life. Victor couldn’t think of a better use for his money. Enjoying a sudden feeling of accomplishment, Victor was about to leave to visit the next floor, when something caught his eye. At the end of the room, by the corner, was that Portuguese girl that worked for him, the one he had hired just a couple of months ago, Andrea.

His heart gave the alarm, pounding heavily, giving the rest of his body all sorts of instructions. He could feel something inside him flutter, his breath becoming faster, his palms starting to sweat. He had no idea why that woman caused such a reaction in him, the only time he spoke to her was during her interview, and he sure wasn’t going to let himself get all flustered for someone he barely knew. So he took a discreet deep breath, trying to regain control, telling his own body to quit the nonsense.

Despite it all, there was no harm in staying for a little longer and observing her. He was naturally interested in studying people’s behavior, especially the people that worked for him. It was not like he was staying behind to look at her, per se, he just wanted to know what she really was like. He could even say it was a precautionary measure, no more than that. With that thought firmly in mind, because there was obviously no other reason to do what he was about to do, he turned to the Mayor.

“If you don’t mind, I would like to take the time to explore this place a little bit further. Alone. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

Before the Mayor could retort, Victor turned his back on him. Taking a random book from one of the shelves, he sat on a corner where he could see her but was sure she couldn’t see him. It would be enjoyable to just sit and read for a while, enjoy the ambiance, he told himself. No, this had nothing to do with her at all.

However, Victor realized that he had no idea if the book he was holding was actually interesting. He was yet to read a word of it. Instead, his eyes kept stubbornly drifting back to her, curious to see what she was doing.

Her table was full of books, her open laptop, and a notebook ridiculously filled with colorful sticky notes. She looked different than usual, wearing casual jeans and a navy blue sweater, her curly hair in a messy bun that a pencil kept in place. She was laser-focused on her work, apparently taking quotes from one of the books and typing them on her laptop, making the occasional annotation on her notebook. The several empty cups of coffee at her table indicated she had been working since quite early, probably the whole morning.

Victor realized that, much to his surprise, a feeling of pride was growing inside him, and he simply put it aside, like he did with most of his feelings. He had nothing to be proud about, she was merely an employee, no one of relevance in his life. Besides, for all he knew, she was working hard but failing miserably, making all sorts of unforgivable mistakes.

Still, he had to admit, her effort was remarkable. Most people slept in on Saturday mornings or spent their weekend resting or entertaining themselves with ludic activities, and yet she was there, buried in books for who knew how long. Furthermore, Victor knew the previous day had been hard for her, as Ted had told him that they left the company close to midnight, due to a problem one of his clients had. Regardless, she was there. It was ridiculous for Victor to feel proud of her, but completely understandable if he experienced at least a shred of surprise.

She stopped her work, reading the covers of the books she had on her table, and frowning. She suddenly got up from her table and walked to the librarian’s desk. Without a second thought, Victor followed her.

“Excuse me.” He heard her call the librarian. “Do you by any chance have “The Theory of Development”, by Aidan Thorpe?”

Victor knew that book. It was a study published in the ’90s that had caused immense controversy, so further editions had been canceled, remaining only the first printed copies. Victor had purchased it for his personal collection and found it brilliant. It was interesting that Andrea was also using it.

The librarian struck a few keys on her computer and shook her head, Andrea’s face falling, disheartened. Thanking the woman, she turned to leave, absorbed in her thoughts. In fact, so absorbed that she wasn’t minding where she was going and bumping-

On him.

“Oh God, it’s you!” She jumped back, looking slightly frightened. “I mean, good morning, Sir. And I’m sorry.”

It was obvious to Victor that she became deeply uncomfortable with the sight of him. That quickly put him in a bad mood.

“Watch where you’re going.” Victor scolded her, although he didn’t mean to. “Looking for Thorpe’s work? It’s incredibly hard to find.”

“I know.” She sighed. “There was a copy at Calouste Gulbenkian, back at home, I’ll try to see if I can get any copies of it.” She tucked a curl behind her ear, not looking him in the eye.

“Interesting fashion choice.” He mocked, pointing to the pencil in her hair. “Is that how young people use stationery these days?”

“I forgot my hair tie.” She seemed unamused. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work. Enjoy your weekend.”

Victor had no choice but to watch her and she hurriedly walked to her table, gathering all her things and leaving in a rush. She obviously couldn’t stand him. But then again, he knew he wasn’t all that loveable, being a business mogul comes with a price, and for the most part, he was willing to pay it. Yet, he couldn’t shake the sadness to see her leave like that.

Back at his apartment, Victor found himself staring at his bookshelf. Something was brewing inside him, he could feel it, but he was too much of a coward to look at it. He had been hurt before. He needed to tread lightly.

But she needed this. And it was so easy to give it to her. Was he really the kind of person that would disregard someone’s need for the sake of self-preservation? With a decided scoff, he took the book off his shelf and placed it on his coffee table. On the inside of the cover, he wrote a few words, closing it immediately.

He took his phone and dialed the number. She could never know.

“I will give you the donation you need.” He spoke, eyes focused on the book. “However, I have a special request.”

“Is everything ok?” He heard her ask. “You’re awfully quiet.”

“What? Are you done listening to Frank’s dissertations about his trips to Namibia?”

“I find them interesting actually.” She came close to him, whispering in his ear. “But the man does talk a lot .”

They both chuckled privately, as they watched from the corner of their eyes the said guest go on another tirade, gesticulating furiously. He lovingly took his wife’s wrist, the one where she wore her charm bracelet.

“You’re wearing it today.” He twirled the V charm between his fingers, proud to have her show that part of him.

“I wear it every day.” She gave him a confused frown.

“I assumed you wouldn’t today, fearing it wouldn’t go with the dress.”

“It’s part of me.” She touched the bracelet on her wrist like it was her favorite thing in the world. “I could never take it.”

He took his wife’s hand again, kissing the back, the softness of her skin and her scent making his heart swell. He loved how she proudly wore his gift, the testimony of their life together like it was her lucky charm, her source of strength.

She was very fond of symbols and superstitions, and although Victor was more of a logical man, even he had to admit the power objects seemed to have in summoning the best in someone, or their worst.

He could still remember that Sunday afternoon, after taking her out to lunch. He was at her place, baking cookies, while she worked on her study.

“It smells delicious.” She commented from the table, as he took the cookies from the tray to cool.

“It will only take another ten minutes. Are you ready for a break? I’ll boil some water for tea.”

“Yes, please.” She stretched her body, stiff from sitting so long. “I’ll clear the table.”

As the water boiled and the cookies cooled, he helped her clear the table of all books and sticky notes she had laying around, spotting the book he had donated to the library. He held it in his hand with a smile.

“That one belongs to the library.” She explained. “I should return it soon, but the librarian says I can keep it as long as I want, and to be honest, it’s breaking my heart to have to return it. I may buy it from them.”

“Why is it so special?” Victor smiled, hoping his expression wouldn’t give away his secret.

“The previous owner wrote this on the cover, see?” She opened the book, showing him the inside of the cover. “Probably for motivation. And you know what? Every time I feel overwhelmed, I look at that inscription, and I feel stronger. It does work.”

Victor couldn’t have guessed the impact his words on a cover of an old book could have on her life, but he was glad to be a positive influence in her work, even if disguised. The following week, while on a business trip, he texted her.

You no longer need to return the book. It’s yours.

“Why do I feel so nervous? I already know I won.” Andrea commented as they started announcing the awards.

“Is it because of the speech?” He held her hand. “If you forget it, just speak from the heart.”

“And now, ladies and gentleman,” a voice announced, “to present the award for Most Promising Mind in Economics… Professor Chauncey Williamson.”

Andrea froze on her seat. It was the teacher that gave her an incredibly hard time when she was defending her doctorate thesis. The professor climbed the stairs to the stage, taking the microphone.

“Ladies and gentleman, good evening.” He started. “Most of you don’t know this, but Mrs. Lee and I share a piece of history together, when she was still Miss Jones. In fact, I was one of the teachers invited to evaluate her thesis. I must admit that, while back in the day I considered Miss Jones too good to be true , Mrs. Lee has not failed to disappoint. Her ongoing study shows a lot of promise and raises many important questions, which is why it is my greatest honor to give the winner for Most Promising Mind in Economics, Dr. Andrea Lee!”

Andrea turned to her husband, pecking him on the lips, before getting up to deliver her speech.

“Go get them.” Victor whispered, before he saw his wife walk towards the stage.

“I have to admit, Dr. Williamson, I wasn’t such a fan of you back then, but I kind of like you now.” She joked, and everyone in the audience laughed. “First of all, I would like to thank GESA for this honor and its juri, and all of the present here for sharing this moment with me. I am deeply honored. There is a saying, no man is an island. And this is particularly true for this award, because, as you may imagine, I didn’t win it on my own. I’d like to thank my husband, who has been with me since day one, who believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself, and made sure I was supported in every step of the way. I love you handsome, and I’m so grateful for having you in my life.”

Victor found himself close to tears, the pride and emotion being too much to bear with a straight face. He mouthed I love you too to his wife, although he knew words wouldn’t be able to convey the warmth he felt in his heart.

“I’d also like to thank my family and friends, for putting up with my absence and moods when I was too busy, you guys are the best, and I wouldn’t trade you for the world. I also want to thank my team, who worked relentlessly and believed in my project, taking hours and hours of their personal time so we could make the deadline we had defined. And lastly, I want to thank who I like to call my silent supporter.” Andrea’s voice faltered slightly with the emotion. “You see, when I was just starting to write my thesis for my doctorate, and I couldn’t afford expensive books for reference, I had to use the Loveland’s Public Library. There was a book that I needed, The Theory of Development, by Aidan Thorpe, and that the library was kind enough to let me take home temporarily for consultation. Inside the cover of that book, there was a quote that said The best view comes after the hardest climb. I have to say, that quote changed my life. Every time I felt disheartened, or tired, or felt like giving it up completely, I would go to that book and read that quote, and I found myself strong again. I don’t know who you are, and maybe you won’t listen to my speech, but I want to say to the world that your words gave me strength, and you are also a reason why I’m here. Thank you.”

Victor smiled as he applauded her speech, his heart feeling so big that it could barely fit in his chest. He would never tell her that the book was actually from him, and he was the one who wrote those words, although she could easily figure it out by his handwriting. He would keep it secret like his own personal treasure, the knowledge that he had been her supporter since even before she knew, that he loved her even before she loved him. This was for him and him alone. His guilty pleasure.

That day was a memorable day in their lives, and Victor couldn’t help to trace back all the events that led to it. How she started as a not so shy intern at Loveland, but so unaware of her potential. How even when faced with major difficulties, her past being all over the media, her career being on the line, she never gave up. How she bravely stood up to her abuser, and his father, and anyone who was unjust or had hurt someone significant in her life. If he had to describe his wife with a handful of adjectives, two of them would certainly be brave and relentless.

Later that night, he sat in his living room, nursing a glass of brandy and watching the city skyline, like he did many times when he was too overwhelmed by his own thoughts. Feelings like pride and love filled his heart, but there was one he could not shake off: sorrow. He had never seen his wife give up on anything, except for the thing she wanted the most. She had come so far, improved her life in so many ways, healed from the past, but there was one thing that still stung her heart: the fact that she would never become a biological mother.

As his loving husband, Victor decided that it was his duty not to let her give up on her dream, or better, their dream. He had seen her barely recover from their last try, and his heart feared that mentioning the subject again would reopen old wounds, but he couldn’t let her fold like that. There were still options. They still stood a chance.

“The bed is cold without you.” He heard her complain from the door.

“Come here.” He extended his arms to her. “I’ll warm you up.”

She sat on his lap, running her fingers through his hair.

“You’re drinking alone in the dark.” She looked at him with worried eyes. “Is something upsetting you?”

“Just lost in thought, that’s all.” He leaned his head against her chest.

“Anything in particular?” She kept combing his hair with her fingers. Victor closed his eyes, enjoying her care.

“How far we have come. How we were before, how we are now.” He mumbled.

“We did come a long way, didn’t we?” She was reminiscing. “I remember my trip to Loveland. It felt like navigating uncharted waters. I have changed so much since then.”

“Why did we give up? We never give up.” He looked up to her, knowing he didn’t need to specify. The look in her eyes told him she understood.

“I can’t give you a child, Victor.” She answered weakly.

“But we can have one. We can adopt. She may not be our blood or share physical characteristics, but we will love her. She will be ours, be a Lee, all the same.”

Andrea watched him lovingly as he spoke, tears brimming her eyes.

“I don’t want to give up just yet.” This time, it was his turn to ask. “Will you do this with me?”

“Yes.” She smiled as she let a tear fall. “I will.”

#growingtogether #Growing Pains - Series #mlqc victor #mlqc li zeyan #mlqc fanfic #mister love queens choice #mister love dream date #love and producer

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andersunmenschlich · 4 years ago

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Episode 17: The Boneturner’s Tale

Ah, finally. It’s about time I got another episode listened to. Amazing how long that takes; so much to do. And still I have no bookcases. Oh well. This one’s the statement of a Sebastian Adekoya, and apparently it has something to do with books. I am pleased.

...Oh, I am very pleased.

It seems to me that Sebastian Adekoya understands books very well. I’ve said before (and will doubtless say again) that all books are books of magic. Just as this episode’s statement-giver says, opening a book allows you to enter the mind of someone who may well be long dead. In such cases, reading is a form of necromancy.

To read a book is to change your mind: to place thoughts there that are not your own, to see things you’ve never seen, walk through worlds you’ve never been to, that no longer exist or don’t exist yet, or that never will.

To write is to preserve a fraction of your own mind, freezing it in symbols which wait to be decoded by the incautious.

You don’t know what thoughts you’re inviting to live inside your mind when you settle down to decipher a lexical set. You can’t know what they’ll do to you, nor you to them (nor what they, changed, may do to you again). The promises in the titles, in the genres and the labels, can only tell you so much. What does this set of words contain? Have you even understood what is meant by the description—are you sure you know what it means when an old story is called a “romance,” or when a newer one is labeled “wuxia”?

Some thoughts won’t be able to live in your mind. Some you’ll never be able to get rid of. Personalities and people, scenes and scenarios, images and ideas... foreign things birthed in the minds of others; decode the twisting lines on the page before you, and they’ll spring to life in your mind as powerful as the day they were written.

Words can be wonderful—and dangerous.

Books are beautiful—and bewitching.

You should never read unwarily, because when you read you’re bringing alien thoughts to life in your mind, and you may not want them to make a home there....

Sebastian Adekoya says he used to work at Chiswick Library. As he describes it, it’s a local library very like the one I grew up with: cheaply furnished, full of battered paperbacks, open-feeling, and frequented by friendly, quietly chatting patrons. Probably the occasional Children’s Corner with a librarian who reads aloud well and a much-loved copy of, say, Matilda or Owl at Home, depending on the audience.

Our statement-giver says it was 1996 when the thing happened.

He’d been working for the library about a year at that point, and knew that the library bought its books new, when it bought them (though he didn’t know where they bought them from).

A patron returned five books at the front desk. One of them, he’d never seen before. It was not, however, new. “The barcode and ISBN,” Sebastian says, “both registered as being that of Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, but the book itself was an almost featureless black paperback, with a title on the front in faded white serif font: The Bone Turner’s Tale.”

Confused, he calls the librarian (Ruth Weaver) over to look at it.

She also didn’t remember ever seeing it before, but it had the appropriate markings for a book from Chiswick Library, and the stamps on the lending label indicated it’d been in their collection for several years.

Weaver shrugs and says not to worry about it: they’ll get it put on the system properly. Sebastian, however, is bothered. So he does a bit of quick research.

The man who brought the book in, one Michael Crew, apparently only checked out four books, not five. Our statement-giver thinks maybe he’s a self-published author trying to get his book into the local library, and suggests this possibility to the librarian, who laughs and says that’s probably it—though why anyone would bother trying to get a book onto the shelves of this particular local library was beyond her.

Sebastian Adekoya notes that the book looked worn, “like it had seen decades of being read, with a line creased down the spine and one half of the cover faded from the sun. Nor, from what I could see, did it list any author at all.”

At this point, our fascinating book story is interrupted by the arrival of another character.

According to our statement-giver, this Jared Hopworth is, “not to put too fine a point on it, thick as mud.” He was also Sebastian’s best friend when the two of them were kids: inseparable. Hm. I must admit, I never had (nor wanted) anyone like that in my life. I suppose there was that other preacher’s oldest kid, from the church in the next church region over (it’s not called a diocese when you’re Protestant, but the effect’s much the same...). We were mostly friends in name, though, and never spent much time together.

In any case, Sebastian went to college and Jared hit the back alleys. For some reason, it seems, Jared Hopworth saw this as Sebastian Adekoya betraying him by being too smart, not him betraying Sebastian via being an idiot too stupid for college.

I do have to wonder how intelligent our statement-giver actually is, however, given that he apparently decided to just put up with what he describes as “a campaign of petty terror” for the sake of a memory of childhood friendship. Oh, sure, “he was always very careful to stop before he did anything that might get the police involved—but let’s be honest with ourselves, shall we?

You should only brush off malicious behavior from others if you’re enjoying it, and want to encourage them to do more.

...And now we get an even larger interruption. Excellent.

I do believe this is the very first time another character has actually broken into the middle of a recording. I don’t like it. Who is this Miss Herne, and why is her complaint so important that my story has to be disrupted?

I don’t even remember ever hearing her name before. I don’t know her, I don’t care about her—weren’t we in the middle of something?

...Oh, no, wait... I do remember her.

Naomi Herne, the annoying woman who doesn’t know how to appreciate a misty moonlit graveyard meadow. The one with the unusual attachment to that large piece of headstone. What’s she complaining about? I don’t remember that she had anything to complain about besides her own unfortunate lack of, as the children say, “chill.”

Well, whatever the case, it seems Jonathan Sims considers Naomi Herne’s statement a waste of time. It wasn’t, it was beautiful—but never mind. The interrupting messenger, someone named Elias (which rings a faint bell), tells the head archivist that the Lucas family gives the Magnus Institute financial support, so he shouldn’t annoy anyone connected with them if he can help it. Does Naomi Herne count as “connected to the Lucas family”? Her Lucas husband’s dead. She doesn’t even have the name. No children that I’ve heard of. No reason she should be connected that I can see. And they didn’t seem terribly interested in a connection at the funeral, did they? I think Mr. Sims can antagonize her all he wants without damaging future Lucas donations, frankly.

Our interrupter is also looking for Martin (the supposedly-but-not-apparently incompetent archival assistant). Mr. Sims says Martin is off sick with stomach problems this week, and Elias leaves.

...Wait.

Elias Bouchard? Jonathan Sims’ boss? Why is he running messages down to the archives? This makes even less sense than Rosie the receptionist being in charge of upkeep on recording equipment. Just how much disbelief is supposed to be suspended here? I’m asking seriously, because the Magnus Institute seems like a very badly put together organization if you think about it too much. Or at all.

Well. Elias Bouchard leaves, Mr. Sims expresses “blessed relief” at the fact of Martin’s being sick and thus not at work, and we return to the statement.

...Our main character really dislikes this particular assistant, and for (it would seem) no good reason. Is there history there? Did Martin do something especially bad to Mr. Sims at some point in the past?

Or is it just some kind of negative bias, like thinking a man will be no good with children because he’s a man, or that a woman will suck at math, or that a Hispanic cleaner will steal your jewelry because they’re Hispanic (you dropped your necklace down the back of the dresser, Grandma—I am never going to forget that unjust accusation, nor how plain you made it that your suspicion was based entirely on race).

In any case: back to the library.

Sebastian Adekoya notes that it’s typically a bad thing when Jared Hopworth turns up at the library, because it means Jared’s “bored enough to seek me out for harassment.”

This is apparently exactly what Mr. Hopworth has in mind, because he waits for Weaver to go back to her office and close the door, then knocks the returns cart over, spilling books everywhere. Which is a horrible thing to do. I can’t stand seeing books mistreated this way, I’d rather watch someone bash innocent children around (which, I realize, isn’t saying much given I’m the one talking—but still).

Despite obviously having done it on purpose, he smiles and apologizes.

I’m familiar with this particular method of annoying people. Deliberately doing something terrible, then acting as though it was accidental? Yes, indeed.

People have trouble dealing with this. You did a bad thing. You clearly meant to do the bad thing. This should give them the right to demand retribution. But then, instead of continuing in the “person who does bad things deliberately” role, you switch to “friendly mistake-maker,” and it throws them.

Really they shouldn’t give you the benefit of the doubt.

There’s no doubt!

Sebastian Adekoya bends down to pick the books up, and as anyone with a capacity for noticing patterns of behavior could have predicted, Jared Hopworth hits him in the back of the head with a book.

Which is, again, a terrible thing to do to a book. Human skulls are, on average, much sturdier than the covers of books.

This book, however, may be capable of taking care of itself.

“Behind me, Jared stood holding the book I had put aside—The Bone Turner’s Tale—and had apparently picked it up to hit me with. But rather than offering me a fake apology, or further violence, instead his eyes were locked on the book. We stood there in silence for a few seconds, until he said something about needing something new to read, turned around, and walked off.”

According to our statement-giver, Jared Hopworth isn’t much of a reader, “and the look in his eyes when he left had something in it not entirely unlike fear.”

Yes, I think this work might be able to handle that book-abusing felon just fine.

On his way home after leaving the library that night, Mr. Adekoya passes Mr. Hopworth’s house. Apparently they’re both living in the same houses they occupied as children, which is rather unfortunate for Sebastian, don’t you think? It’s late September, which is a nicely spooky time of year, and something’s moving in the pool of orange light under a streetlamp.

It’s a rat. A large white rat that looks as though it was once a pet. Something’s wrong with the back half of it, and its head seems to be turned around farther than it should be as it drags itself along by its front paws.

Which is also deliciously spooky.

Sebastian Adekoya stares at it until it drags itself off into the darkness and disappears from sight.

He notes that the lights were off in Jared Hopworth’s house. As someone who sleeps days, works nights, and routinely doesn’t turn the lights on as I go about my nightly affairs, I don’t find this particularly indicative of a lack of activity—but that’s me. I suppose most people, when their lights are shut off, don’t make and eat food, read books, do jigsaw puzzles, etc. Ah, how limiting it must be to have such weak senses.

Jared Hopworth more or less vanishes from the scene for a while. Weeks go by without him turning up to torment Sebastian Adekoya, who begins to feel worried. Almost a month with no torment? Surely something must be wrong!

...Hmm. Do you suppose our statement-giver might be just mildly masochistic?

Whatever the case, he’s not eager enough for unpleasantness to actually go to Mr. Hopworth’s house and check on him, so the Jaredless time rolls by until late October, when Jared’s mother turns up at the library with her arm in a sling, wearing an unnecessarily bulky coat and a hateful expression, carrying a familiar black-bound paperback book, which she flings onto the floor at our statement-giver’s feet before turning to leave.

Sebastian Adekoya asks after the health of her son, which arrests her departure and provokes a bit of an outburst: “She spun back and started to swear violently at me, told me I had no business with her son and that I—and my books—were to stay away from him.” This outburst also gives Sebastian a bit more time to inspect the arm... which reminds me markedly of the rat.

“As she spoke, I couldn’t look away from her arm and the odd ways it twisted as she gestured. How her fingers seemed to bend the wrong way.”

Well, well, well.

Before leaving, Mrs. Hopworth spits at Mr. Adekoya—and I find it interesting that, while she clearly has no problem throwing the book onto the floor like it’s a live animal and she wants to smash its skull, she avoids spitting on it.

Despite the absence of spittle, our statement-giver decides to employ paper handkerchieves in picking the book up, rather than touch it with his bare hands.

He sticks it in the book returns cart, locks up the library, and goes home.

It rains heavily that night and Sebastian Adekoya, in his converted attic bedroom, can’t sleep. He’s worrying about the book. He’s worrying that perhaps he shouldn’t have just left it there, unsupervised, as it were. “What if Ruth came in earlier than I did tomorrow and took it? What would happen to her?”

Frankly, that strikes me as an interesting experiment. What would happen to Weaver? Come to that, what happened to Hopworth? Was the idiot eaten by the bone book? Twisted beyond telling? Possessed, perhaps?

I’d quite like to know.

“Should I have destroyed it?” Sebastian Adekoya asks himself.

I’m not sure this question would even occur to me. “Should,” after all, presupposes some kind of ideal state for things to be in.

Should you do thus-and-such a thing? It’s an incomplete sentence. You’ve left off your goal. “In order to [X], should I [Y]?” That is a complete sentence. So—should Sebastian Adekoya destroy The Bone Turner’s Tale? It depends on what his goal is. If he wants to study it, then no: he definitely shouldn’t. If he wants to stop it from doing what it seems to be doing, then yes: he probably should.

Completely failing to define his goal for an ideal state of things RE: The Bone Turner’s Tale, Sebastian discards the idea of destruction on the grounds that he wasn’t sure he had it in him to destroy a book—”even one with such a strangeness to it.”

Well now. Thank you, Mr. Adekoya, for letting us know that you consider strangeness a helpful push towards destruction.

...Oh, I’m not really surprised. I do have a passing acquaintance with humanity, after all.

Sebastian Adekoya lies awake in bed until sometime around two in the morning, when he finally gives up and goes to get the book. He gets out of bed, dresses, grabs his gloves and a jacket, and walks twenty minutes to the library in the rain, where he unlocks the door, goes in, deactivates the alarm, and begins turning on as many lights as possible without making it too obvious that there’s someone in the building.

He tells us that part of him wanted to keep the library in its nearly pitch-black state, but he turned on lights anyway. I’m guessing this is due to his weak eyes, since he says “I had to half-feel my way through the foyer and into the library proper.” [with a complete lack of sympathy] Must be rough.

He also uses a flashlight—but not before he puts his bare hand on the book returns cart, catching his balance, and his fingers come away wet.

The books, it would seem, are all bleeding.

...That is very annoying. I think I would be very nearly angry. Blood-soaked books!? Have you any idea how difficult that is to clean? Frankly, it’s impossible! This had better be the type of supernatural blood that vanishes without a trace.

The Bone Turner’s Tale, meanwhile, is as dry as... well... a bone.

Sebastian Adekoya puts his gloves back on (which means, unless he washed his hands without telling us or this is the type of supernatural blood that vanishes without a trace, that the inside of at least one of those thick gloves is going to need some rather tricky cleaning done), and picks up The Bone Turner’s Tale. He puts it on the desk and—clumsily, because of the thick gloves—begins reading.

He doesn’t begin at the beginning, just opens it randomly, which I suppose is understandable given the current unwieldiness of his fingers, but still. I can’t really approve.

“It was written in prose, and certainly seemed to be a story of some kind. The part I read dealt with an unnamed man, at various points referred to as the Boneturner, the Bonesmith or just the Turner, watching an assembled group of people as they made their way into a small village.

“It’s unclear from what I read whether he is traveling with them, or simply following them, but I remember being unsettled by the details he observed in them: the way the parson would move his hand over his mouth whenever he stared too long at the nuns or how the cook looked at the meat he prepared with the same eyes that looked at the pardoner. It was only at that point that I realized the book was describing the pilgrims from The Canterbury Tales.”

You know, I’ve never read The Canterbury Tales.

“Now, this certainly wasn’t some lost section of a Chaucer classic,” our statement-giver tells us. “It was written in modern English, with none of the archaic spelling or pronunciation of the original, and besides that the writing itself was of questionable quality. There was something compelling about it, though.”

“I flicked ahead a few pages, and found the Bonesmith had apparently crept up to the miller while he slept. It described him silently reaching inside him, and… it’s a bit hazy. All I remember clearly is the line ‘and from his rib a flute to play that merry tune of marrow took’. And as for the rest, I don’t recall in detail, but I know that I almost threw up, and that the miller did not survive. This was on page sixteen, and it was a thick book.”

Funny, since he described it as a small paperback earlier. Hmm. Something like my paperback copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, maybe? 6.75″ x 4.25″, over 1000 pages long—a veritable brick of a book. Hmm. Could be.

It also gives a bit of a hint as to what might have happened to the rat (and the mother... and possibly the son).

I like it.

Our statement-giver is notably less pleased, and turns to the frontispiece to see if he can figure out where this book came from. Apparently he’s given up on the idea that Michael Crew wrote and self-published it? I don’t see that that’s entirely out of the question at this point. I mean—what, after all, do we really know about Michael Crew?

Peeling off the Chiswick Library label, Sebastian Adekoya discovers another library label beneath.

This label is not in excellent shape. According to our statement-giver, it says something like “Library of Gergensburg” (or “Jürgenleit,” or “Jurgenlicht”), which suggests that the last library wasn’t in Britain.

I wonder whether it was still written in English there?

Giving credence to my tentative hypothesis regarding masochism, Sebastian Adekoya prepares to return to reading the book that nearly made him throw up.

At this point, however, Jared Hopworth breaks in. Literally. Through a window. Sebastian Adekoya recognizes Jared via voice, which is one of the only ways I ever manage to recognize anyone. (Why, yes: I am indeed borderline prosopagnosic. I blame humanity’s insistence on all looking basically identical. Two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth—and all in the same arrangement, at that. How, I ask you, is anyone supposed to tell any of you apart?)

As far as visuals go: Jared has apparently decided to dress himself in baggy pants and a thick coat with a face-concealing hood. This strikes me as a very reasonable way to dress, particularly if both coat and pants come well-supplied with those deep and useful pockets I take so much for granted in my clothing.

Sebastian says that Jared is now “longer” than he used to be, whatever that means.

If he meant “taller,” I’d expect him to say “taller.” But “longer”? I’m not entirely certain.... Does he mean to say that Jared has, perhaps, been a bit stretched? That would seem to fit with the pointyness of his fingers.

His bones, I’d say, are longer than they once were.

Jared Hopworth is also “standing at a strange angle, as though his legs were too stiff to use.” That’s interesting.

If I were to guess (which I’m about to), I’d say that reading this book gives people the ability to manipulate bone inside living bodies. Now, I might hypothesize that the book simply warps things all on its own... but that rat really did look like an experiment, and Jared coming for the book strikes me as an “I haven’t mastered this skill yet, I need more practice, give me the manual” type of thing.

Sebastian Adekoya, declining to give Jared Hopworth the book despite the obvious tidiness of giving a strange thing to a strange thing, decides to punch Jared Hopworth right in the solar plexus.

Whereupon Jared bites Sebastian with, not his teeth, but his ribcage.

“...I felt his flesh give way and almost retract, drawing me in close. And then I felt his ribs shift, shut tight around my hand, as though his ribcage were trying to bite me. They were sharper than I would have thought possible, and at last, this was what actually started me screaming.”

Now, if that isn’t just perfect for late October, I don’t know what is.

Sebastian drops The Bone Turner’s Tale. Jared grabs it and runs off. Sebastian starts chasing him, but....

“I started to chase after him, until I saw how he was moving. How many limbs he had. He had… added some extras. That was the moment it finally all got too much for me; I stopped running. It wasn’t my book, it wasn’t my responsibility and I had no idea what I was dealing with, so I didn’t. I just stood there in a daze and watched the thing that was once Jared disappear out into the rain. I never saw him again.”

Uh.

Well, that’s probably all for the best so far as Sebastian Adekoya’s concerned, but does he really think things are going to stay that way? Jared Hopworth likes bullying him; I somehow doubt that gaining new powers will have changed that.

Our statement-giver, I think, is just as doomed as... huh. As pretty much all of the others seem to have been, come to think of it.

Somebody heard Mr. Adekoya screaming, it seems, and called the police. They turn up to receive the best lie Sebastian Adekoya can come up with on the spur of the moment, which involves falling asleep at his desk and being awoken by an attempted robbery. He can’t remember how he explained the bloody books, which seems to me like a thing that would take some explaining.

Hmm. I wonder how many strange things the police see in the Magnus Archives universe. Maybe Sebastian didn’t explain the books at all—perhaps there are some things the police in this universe just... leave alone.

The blood, apparently, was not the disappearing type. Mr. Adekoya says “it took weeks to get out,” and I assume he means to imply “out of the carpet,” because let’s face it: blood-soaked books don’t clean. Those books had to be thrown away and we all know it.

...I wonder what the blood type was.

Jonathan Sims describes himself as “deeply unhappy” about this statement.

“I’ve barely scratched the surface of the archives, and have already uncovered evidence of two separate surviving books from Jürgen Leitner’s library. Until he mentioned that, I was tempted to dismiss much of it out of hand, but as it stands now I believe every word.”

So interesting, the things he believes and doesn’t believe. I’m becoming more and more convinced that he stubbornly denies things until evidence actually forces him to believe—which might seem like a good way to remain sane in a universe like this one, but consider: is the denial of reality sanity? I don’t see that it’s even safety, since not knowing about a thing (germs, say) has never prevented the thing from killing you.

An interesting side note: Mr. Sims’ boss, Elias Bouchard, apparently has a very hands-off attitude when it comes to the supernatural.

“Record and study, not interfere or contain.”

Personally, I think that study and interference aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive... but that’s me. In any case, I do think Sebastian Adekoya’s either very dense, or that library label was very oddly written. Two separate words with two separate capitals (Jürgen Leitner) seem difficult to confuse for a single word! “Jürgenleit”? Really? Come, now.

Tim and Sasha, two of the three amazingly competent archival assistants, have done research which proves that yes, Jared Hopworth had a warrant out for breaking and entering and assault, but no, nobody found him and the case was dropped.

And aha!

About seven years after giving this statement, Sebastian Adekoya was found dead in the middle of the road, body so messed up they figured it had to be a hit-and-run.

Even though there were no signs of crushing or trauma marks.

That’s lovely.

I’d like a Leitner.

#The Magnus Archives #episode 17 #commentary #late to the party

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