#also for reference she's a big girl which is good for her. a smaller dog would not have been okay.

[wizardnuke]

i am so over today i want to go home. and sleep for a week. fuckin ouch

[leos-regression-cove]

Ha! Jokes on you! The deluge of posts below were actually all #agere fic inspo all along!

Basically (no spoilers no spoilers), I have come to the conclusion (after lots and lots of careful deliberation), that officially, "All The Lessons I Never Learned" takes place in 2014!

Why? + Mobius backstory timeline

All the cultural references I've included up until now, are on track with that year! For example, Thor watches Peppa Pig, Yo Gabba Gabba, and The Wonderpets*, all of which were airing in 2014! (*Wonderpets had finished but it was still being aired) AND it would fit my imagined headcanons of a slightly dated, pre-pandemic New York City and Mobius using a flip phone, or Sylvie enjoying Frozen. All because I'm writing about her kids tablet, and I got mine in 2014 and was using that as a basis! So I started looking for inspiration from M0mspc and then I was like... "but if this is 2014, gay marriage won't be federally legal for another year!!"

So I got even more invested in the old images and started coming up with backstory for Mobius. It's mostly already in the story but like Idk I think the images make a moodboard, so I've made a timeline...

1983:

Mobius enrolls in a police science program but even though he really tries, he can't help but think it isn't what it should be. He stays in it for another year because of this girl he's dating, Ravonna Renslayer. She's in law-- Real law --studying to be a lawyer and he's pretty smitten with her.

June 2003:

Mobius and Ravonna get married. They took a long break after college but the universe seemed to want to push them together. They do all the typical couples things because they feel like they're supposed to. They have the big fancy wedding that everyone expects them to. They get a starter home. It isn't super suburban, but it's suburban enough. They both need to get to work easily, so they're in the city. They're happy like this it's the American dream. It's supposed to make them both happy. Mobius has been working in business for about 20 years now and is celebrating 15 years at his company. He hasn't moved up that much... but that's alright.

December 2007:

Mobius gets his first digital camera for Christmas. He takes photos of everything for the next several years but never develops a real eye for photography. He's been married to Ravonna for about 4 and a half years now. Things are going... fine. But not well. They're really more of friends and they know mutually that they're drifting apart but won't say it out loud. No one's abusive or especially mean, but they just aren't made for each other. They stay together because Ravonna brings home a good chunk of money and Mobius is good at making dinners and showing that he cares, even if he isn't a particularly intimate husband.

Late 2008/early 2009:

In a last ditch effort to fix their marriage, Mobius and Ravonna finally make the decision to adopt a little. They've gone back and forth on whether they wanted kids, littles, or just a dog, but something came up and they take home Sylvie. Because he makes a little less money, Mobius stays home to take care of her for the first few months. Ravonna, as much as she loves Sylvie, just isn't around enough to be a super present, driving force in her life. They go out as a family some weekends and on occasion Ravonna can take over for few hours but it's mostly just Sylvie and Mobius. Around this time Mobius also discovers that he's gay and makes a couple stops at The Barracuda drag lounge when Ravonna says she'll watch Sylvie.

2010:

Ravonna and Mobius separate and Ravonna moves to Pennsylvania for a new job offering. It's an amicable divorce and Mobius gets custody of Sylvie with a decent sized alimony/little-support check. He moves into an smaller, older apartment with cheap rent for Manhattan. He lets Sylvie paint her own room. It's a hideous green but... eh... everything in the place kind of was so he didn't beat himself up too bad about cleaning up when she drew on the walls or got slime in the carpet.

December 2013:

For her birthday, Sylvie gets a Samsung kids tablet. She loves it. It's almost the only piece of modern technology in the little apartment: Mobius still has a flip phone, and a landline, there's a family computer in the kitchen, and there's an intercom box in the apartment that doesn't work and just makes staticy noises and has never been fixed, Sylvie has a cheap, chunky CRTV in her room, and even the one in the living room is a pretty primitive flat (read: "thinner") screen. She's in love with the device and can't wait to show everything she can do on it to her papa.

April 2014:

Mobius lands a new job at some Norwegian company. What do they make? He couldn't really tell you but it's an office management position, it's closer to home and Sylvie's little school, and the salary is almost double. It's a dream-come true for him.

early June 2014:

Mobius meets Loki. Well, they've met casually, but Loki needs to go on a trip and asks him for the days off. (<- Hey! That's the first chapter of the fic!)

early August 2014:

Mobius runs into Loki at a playgroup for littles and introduces Sylvie and Thor. They hit it off!

November 2014:

All caught up with where I am in the fic.

Loki and Mobius both understand that the other has some romantic interest, but they haven't really actually talked about it yet and are putting it off because they're scared that it might be awkward if maybe they were wrong the whole time. Neither of them is exactly totally, openly, out of the closet (Loki is struggling with his genderfluidity and Mobius is still working on calling himself openly gay, especially since until now, he's never really met anyone he'd consider actually getting into a relationship with), but they're both pretty on board spending a lot of time with the other. You could cut the romantic tension with a knife but you'll just have to suffer for a few more chapters (it's not forever!!!).

Anyway yes this is all from the images and my accursed brain.

[miekasa]

Which AOT characters are cat or dog people? I like to think that Eren vibes better with cats but my sister fights me on this idea😤

I feel like Eren likes cats—and most animals—in theory, but in practice every cat treats him like a bastard so Eren does the same in return 😭😭 the cats are against him, so he’s turned against them too. He’s also… slightly allergic to cats, but on the rare occasions he finds a cat that doesn’t hate him, Eren is taking advantage of the situation to nuzzle and cuddle it, even if it would leave him a puffy, sneezing mess. He loves dogs tho, and feel like a german shepard or husky is quite literally him in dog form; and generally, I feel as tho medium-big dogs suit him.

Levi likes animals, and animals treat him like he’s Snow White—even the nastiest of house pets are calm around him, it’s like they know not to try it with him pls. However, he doesn’t think that he’s a pet person, so a pet would have to be gifted to him—and he puts up a good front at first, saying he’ll only take it in until he can find another shelter to return it to, but give it a week and Levi is ready to kill for that animal. He’s have one of those black and white, or grey cats; not super tiny, but not too big either. Both are calm, like to relax, and sit in the sun and be quiet. He’d have a pretty small dog too—“The smaller the dog, the smaller the shit”—and he tucks it right into his backpack when he goes to runs his errands.

Jean is also great with animals, he grew up around a lot of them with his mom, but he’s never had a pet of his own. He’s more of a dog person (and dogs LOVE him too, they always come up to him when he’s on a walk, and he happily stops to pet them all), and a bigger dog suits him too. He’s actually the one to get you a dog as a gift, but really you guys have joint custody, and he 100% will refer to it as your guys’ kid. He’d also train it to be pretty protective of you, so it doubles as a bodyguard. His dog would jump on him a lot, front paws able to reach Jean’s shoulders when extended and Jean just happily gives it all the pets in the world.

Armin likes both, but has a small preference towards cats because they’re slightly less maintenance. His cat is teeny, the tiniest little thing and when Armin is home, that cat is always on him: on his desk when he’s doing homework at his computer, on his shoulder when he’s in the kitchen making tea, in the hood of his hoodie when he makes a quick run to the store, on his back when he’s taking a nap. They’re best friends and they do damn near everything together. Sometimes he’ll look around for it, only to realize the little thing has been on his shoulder the whole time. It scares the shit out of Armin when it jumps on things/from him tho, he always is on the brink of a heart attack please.

Connie is the classic big guy, tiny dog combo and that dog is his mf BABY. That’s his princess, his best girl (“After you of course, babe!”), his little angel. He cradles her in his elbow around the house like it doesn’t have four legs to walk on please. He values the opinion of his dog too—her little head poking out of his tote bag while he’d at the store and pondering, “Should we get salmon or scallion cream cheese?… Scallion, right? That’s what I thought, too!” Also, they have matching jackets. Several of them.

Mikasa really doesn’t have a preference, and sometimes thinks that animals aren’t really her thing, but it’s not true—she gets along great with Armin’s cat and happily cat sits whenever needed, and she’s never met a dog she doesn’t like. But she wouldn’t get a pet of her own, so hers would have to be a gift, too; she’ll take either, and comes to find that there’s a strange sense of peace and happiness that comes with having a small animal for comfort at home. Sends you pictures pretty often, and if you play your cards right, you can get her matching dog/cat sweaters too.

Hange would for sure have a cat out of those two, but honestly…. they’re more the type to have a crazy intricate and huge fish tank 😭😭 like, not even with regular, with tiny jellyfish or something. They’re obsessed with it, names all of them and swear they can tell them all apart even tho the jellyfish are damn near identical. Performs surgery on jellies if they think even the slightest thing is wrong too with nothing but willpower, a spare scalpel, and a youtube tutorial for guidance—and just imagine getting a text back like, “Sorry my love I was busy!! Leonard needed emergency tentacle surgery, but no worries he’s all better now tho see: [1 image attached]”

Sasha calls every dog she’s sees the best boy in the world and she’s completely correct about it. She always wants and coos over the dogs that are basically twice her size, but she showers them in so much love that it doesn’t matter. She’d for sure love Samoyeds, and if she didn’t have her own, she’s the type to walk with dog treats for friendly dogs and owners she meets on the street, and the local dog cafe is for sure he go to study spot.

[keichanz]

Mistake

kay so i really don't care if some of this doesn't make sense because this is the first thing i've written in a while that i don't absolutely hate. well this version at least. ending up scraping the first draft because it just seemed wrong and went in a different direction. im glad i did cause im happy with it.

anyway i realize that this may not get much feedback because i took a different approach to it, aka the entire pov is from an OC but i can't bring myself to care too much because i wrote this purely for myself. got inspired, started writing, and i actually liked the content i was writing. end of.

btw the oc doesn't refer to inuyasha as a half-demon because he's unaware he is one and i was too lazy to delve into those waters anyhow.

also for the sake of this oneshot pls dont look too closely at the ranks of diplomat and ambassador. i was too lazy to put much research regarding positions of power so just...go with it.

inspired by @stillunderyourbed​'s art that can be found here.

It was…quaint. Smaller than what he'd expected. The housing structures looked subpar, there didn't appear to be any wooden walkways, and he could detect the distinct odor or fish in the air with hints of manure. There even seemed to be a perpetual dust cloud hovering at about waist high, thickening from the numerous carts, wagons, horses, and villagers kicking up dirt as they went about their daily lives. Already he felt like there was a layer of dust caked on the inside of his lungs and he wasn't even inside yet.

All in all, it was your typical countryside village, home to simple folk that made a living off of fishing, farming, and trade. The diplomat sneered in disgust. For being the rumored home of the creature strong enough to destroy the despicable Naraku, the village was…less than impressive. And to say that he was underwhelmed would be a vast understatement.

Shifting atop his mount, a chestnut gelding that had been his faithful companion for the last four years, Takeji frowned as he surveyed the sight before him. It was early afternoon, so men were out working in the fields, women were chatting amongst themselves as they laundered clothing at the river, and children were running about, playing and laughing while dogs barked at their heels. He could see the great red torii gate and the stone staircase that led to the shrine and he could hardly refrain from rolling his eyes.

The village was obviously poor, possibly even teetering on the edge of poverty, and instead of feeding themselves for a good long while, they decided to construct that monstrosity. He would never understand the minds of simple common folk. Daft. All of them.

Barely keeping himself from scowling, Takeji reluctantly climbed off his mount and forced himself to move forward into the pathetic excuse for a village. Already he knew he would have to burn his expensive attire; there would be no getting the dust and stench out of it after his ghastly visit. A visit he had not wanted to make, but being a highly revered and prestigious diplomat, it was his duty to travel to far off lands in hopes of establishing a profitable relationship that would ultimately benefit his homeland.

Although, looking around and fighting against the urge to retch at both the nauseating stench and the mere sight of all the unwashed villagers milling around, Takeji wondered not for the first time why he even bothered to accept this task. True, it was said the slayer of Naraku did hail from here, but surely having his homeland associated with this hovel would garner nothing but loss. So why had he agreed to come?

Oh, yes, he mused, grimacing as he stepped over a large manure pile right in the middle of the road. Because apparently, being all chummy with the nation's hero will allow us to have him at our beck and call, because who doesn't want a powerful demon capable of slaying the most evil demon in all of existence as an intimidating presence during negotiations, and let's not forget he alone would be equal to about one hundred soldiers in battle.

Rolling his eyes, Takeji tied his mount to a hitching post, withdrew his satchel with all the necessary paperwork, and set about finding this Inuyasha fellow. He'd been told the demon wore scarlet robes, carried a sword at his hip, and had white hair so no doubt he would stick out like a sore thumb amongst the droll browns and grays of the common folk, which suited him just fine. The sooner he was done, the sooner he could leave because there was no way he was staying even a second more in this village than he had to. Even if the next inn was hours away, he'd make the journey; the inn here was probably as unclean and riddled with bed bugs or something. Ugh. How vile.

Shrugging the satchel over his shoulder, Takeji bit back a groan, sighed, and hadn't even made it a single step before the sound of screaming froze him in his tracks. He gasped and immediately started looking for the danger, body tense, preparing to hop back onto his steed lightning fast and make a hasty getaway.

But as he looked around with wide eyes and a frantically beating heart, Takeji couldn't help but notice that he was the only one that appeared to have heard the sound of terror. The villagers were just continuing to go about their day, calm as you please, either severely deaf or completely uncaring. Takeji was beginning to wonder if he was perhaps hearing things when it happened again, a high-pitched sound that he realized with dread belonged to a child.

Takeji gaped. A child was in danger and nobody cared?! What kind of village was this?! Another shriek pierced the air, and Takeji made a decision. Very well; if these imbeciles weren't going to do anything about it, then he himself would see to the danger. While by no means a swordsman or warrior, he did have some weapons training he could fall back on for this precise reason. Traveling alone was dangerous, and you never knew what you would encounter.

Resolved, the diplomat set his jaw, unsheathed the dagger at his waist, and darted toward the direction the screams were coming from. He meandered between houses, hoped over lazing dogs, dodged startled villagers in his path, and he came into a small clearing by the forest's edge. The sight that greeted him was…not what he expected.

Coming up short, Takeji watched with a befuddled frown as one child chased around two other, slightly older looking children. One might think they were playing a game of sorts, and the diplomat started to believe that was indeed the case…until the one doing the chasing, clad in red, suddenly jumped high into the air, over the heads of the other two children, and landed before them with hands raised.

Hands, Takeji noticed with growing dread and disgust, tipped with claws on each finger and he quickly realized what exactly was happening. That wicked little demon brat, that creature was toying with those helpless children! It was keeping them trapped, preventing them from running away by leaping over their heads and blocking their route of escape! They screamed, the demon child laughed, and so potent was his fury, so enraged was he for the fact that the villagers apparently did not care about what was happening right beneath their noses, Takeji failed to notice the wide smiles on all three of the young one's faces. The blood pounding in his ears prevented him from hearing the gleeful giggles as the two human kids scrambled away from the one clad in red, and without another thought, Takeji moved.

"Run, children!" Takeji ordered as he hurled himself into the clearing, dagger raised as he charged toward the demon brat with a baleful glare. "I will take care of his filthy animal!"

All three children froze in place, eyes wide as Takeji inserted himself between the two human children - twin girls, he idly noted - and the demon spawn that dared raised its claws toward them. The brat stared up at him with big brown eyes and it - she - actually looked confused. Takeji scowled. He would not fall for such a ploy.

"I will not allow you to harm them," he spat and pointed his dagger at her. The child blinked at him and then looked behind him at the two girls who still had not taken the chance to flee. In shock, perhaps? Stunned? No matter; they were safe, so long as he stood between them and the threat.

The demon child made a face and started to walk around him, completely disregarding the weapon trained on her, but Takeji shifted and stopped her once more. He heard the two behind him whispering as the spawn looked up at him once again, this time frowning at him with narrowed eyes. And was that a growl he heard? He snorted. Was she actually trying to appear threatening? Pathetic.

Scowling, Takeji lifted a foot, placed it on her stomach, and shoved. The demon gasped as she stumbled back and then landed on her behind with a small grunt. He heard a gasp from behind him, urgent whispering, and then hurried scrambling. A glance over his shoulder told him they'd finally gotten wise and ran away. He nodded. Good. Now he could deal with this vermin without innocent eyes to bear witness.

But as he stared down at the pathetic sight before him, Takeji wondered maybe if such measures would even be necessary. The beast was still lying where she had fallen and was staring up at him with wide eyes brimming with…wait. What? Were those tears? Oh, you have got to be joking.

Rolling his eyes, the diplomat scoffed at the pathetic play for mercy and careless waved his dagger at her. The child actually flinched and followed the blade with her gaze, wariness clear in her eyes. Well. It appeared her self-preservation instincts have finally kicked in.

"Cease your theatrics," Takeji drawled, unimpressed. "They do not fool me. Now lucky for you, demon spawn, the pathetic sight you project has made me decide to spare your life. Your tainted blood is not worthy enough to soil my blade, so I will say this only one and you would do well to heed this warning, beast."

Hardening his stare and curling his lip into a sneer, Takeji spat, "Leave this place at once and do not return. There is no place for the likes of you, an abomination that preys on helpless children. Now get out of my sight, afore I kill you on principle. Your vile presence disgusts me."

The child grunted and Takeji watched, stone faced, as she got to her feet. Then to his surprise the little demon balled her hands into fists at her sides and glared at him, but the effect was ruined by the tears he could clearly see brimming her eyes. He cocked a brow, unmoved. She sniffled once, twice, and then to his utter surprise and bafflement, her face suddenly crumbled, her lower lip trembled, and she promptly burst into loud tears before spinning on her heel and running away.

"P-Papaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Takeji frowned. Papa? Were the brat's kin nearby, then? Body tense and weapon raised, he waited, prepared to either fight or flee - because he wasn't a fool and knew when he was in over his head - but when no demons came bursting out of the tree line, Takeji slowly relaxed.

Bewildered and more than a little annoyed at the whole debacle - what a waste of time! - the diplomat scoffed in derision as he turned to watch the little demon brat scurry away. And then right at that exact moment, a figure donned in red dropped to the ground seemingly out of nowhere and Takeji felt a wave of relief sweep through him. Finally! This had to be his demon quarry.

Nodding, Takeji stepped forward and opened his mouth to call out a greeting—

And then froze in his tracks as the greeting abruptly died on his tongue. Because the little demon girl, the one he'd just pointed his weapon at and shoved to the ground, ran straight to the figure robed in red and Takeji could do naught but watch with a growing sense of horrified dread as the older demon knelt down to take the child into his arms.

All color promptly drained from his face and Takeji suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He glanced behind the pair and he was somehow not at all surprised to find the twin girls from earlier glaring at them and holding onto the skirts of their mother with a monk garbed in violet robes beside her. They too were staring at him in a not so friendly manner, but upon returning his gaze to the two demons, Takeji numbly thought that if looks could kill, he would surely be dead by now.

Because the demon robed in red - which was now unmistakably the child's father and none other than Inuyasha, the demon he'd come here for - was glaring absolute murder at him and it was obvious that he was. Not. Pleased.

Takeji swallowed and unconsciously backed up a step. With one small hand fisting her father's robes, the child had the other pointing an accusatory finger at him as she no doubt recited to him their earlier…ah, exchange. Inuyasha said nothing in response, but he didn't need to. The deep, nearly subsonic growl that erupted from his mouth, complete with fully bared fangs in a truly fearsome snarl, told him very clearly of his thoughts on his daughter's mistreatment by him.

Which, if Takeji had to guess, were not very Takeji-friendly. At all.

Somehow managing to fight against the urge to flee, Takeji swallowed hard as Inuyasha pushed to his feet and stalked toward him with that same murderous look on his face. Something told him, perhaps some deeply rooted self-preservation instinct, that if he even tried to run right then, it would not end well for him. So he remained where he was and tried valiantly to control the trembling in his body as he slowly, very slowly, tucked his dagger back from whence it came.

Inuyasha stopped in front of him and Takeji cleared his throat before attempting a placating smile, but it looked more like a grimace than anything. "Ah…I assume you are…In—"

One second Takeji was staring into the scowling features of one pissed off dog demon. The next there was a bright flash of light and then he was staring at the business end of a very large and very sharp sword. With the tip just a hair's breadth away from his nose, Takeji gasped sharply and stumbled back a step out of instinct.

Sweet merciful heavens! How—?

"Usually I'd ask who the fuck you are," the demon growled, his eyes twin slits of baleful gold. "But honestly, I can't really bring myself to care enough to know the name of the asshole who threatened my daughter when she was doing nothing but playing with her friends."

Takeji blanched for the second time and he could actually feel himself breaking out in a cold sweat. He fucked up. Oh dear god he'd fucked up so bad—

"There's—there's been a misunderstanding," Takeji tried in a voice higher than usual, raising his hands up in what he hoped was a placating gesture as he eyed the very sharp point of that blade. "I—I admit I've made a grave mistake—"

"Shut the fuck up and tell me why I shouldn't gut you where you stand," Inuyasha hissed, lips feeling back off his fangs in another fierce snarl. With his ears pinned back and those golden eyes glaring absolute death at him, the demon made quite the menacing picture. Takeji had the brief, if a bit ludicrous thought, that perhaps the demon Naraku perished from the sheer animosity that was coming off of the silver-haired demon in waves.

Swallowing once, twice, Takeji realized that he only had his quick wit to get him out of his certain predicament. So bracing himself, he opened his mouth—

"He's from the continent, Inuyasha. You can't hurt him."

Startled hazel eyes swung toward the source of the voice but amber eyes stayed locked on their target, the only acknowledgment of the voice a flick of an ear.

The owner of the voice the human diplomat could only presume was the child's mother, as the child in question was standing behind her legs and was actually smirking at him. He frowned.

"You're from Shenshi," the woman remarked and Takeji swung his gaze back to her. "Right?"

Though her expression wasn't openly friendly, it wasn't exactly unfriendly either, however the human diplomat still felt he needed to tread carefully. Because while her face didn't betray anything, her stare was hard and her mouth had tightened into a thin, flat line. She had one hand on her daughter's head while the other clutched a longbow, and belatedly he realized she had a quiver of arrows slung across her back. He barely held in a flinch as he realized this was one of the demon's companions that had assisted in slaying Naraku, possibly the young woman in which Inuyasha held a more meaningful relationship.

A much more meaningful relationship, if the child currently glaring daggers at him was anything to go by since she was more or less living proof of it.

Wonderful. So he'd gone and threatened the only child of two of the most powerful beings in Japan. Clearly he'd stepped over the wrong grave and pissed somebody off.

Clearing his throat and aiming a strained smile toward the woman who was still awaiting his reply, Takeji nodded once. "Ah, y-yes, my lady. I'm—"

"The diplomat Ambassador Sharaku sent to convince Inuyasha to join his ranks so he'd have the support and protection of 'The Great Slayer of Naraku.'" The woman raised a delicate brow at him. "How am I doing so far?"

Takeji had the good grace to look a mite sheepish. "Ah…well—"

"You can't kill him, Inuyasha," she repeated and Takeji thought she sounded disappointed. "If he goes missing, the ambassador will send his troops to find out what happened or if he returns injured, it could be taken as an insult and you can imagine what would happen after that. You would risk mine or Moroha's life like that, and you know it."

Inuyasha growled but said nothing to refute her words, so Takeji assumed he agreed.

"He threatened her, Kagome," the demon spat, inching the blade closer to his throat and Takeji flinched. "Called her a fucking animal, shoved her down, and waved a goddamn dagger in her face! You can't honestly expect me to let that—"

"Papa," the child - Moroha - suddenly said, successfully stalling her father's angry tirade. A quick glance revealed the girl, still sticking close to her mother, was staring at the older demon with big brown eyes, bright with the threat of tears as she worried her bottom lip. And evidently the sight was enough to calm the raging storm of Inuyasha's fury because he grimaced, released a low growl, and then Takeji watched in stunned amazement as the massive sword suddenly transformed into a rusty katana before it was sheathed at his hip.

With a weapon no longer at his throat, Takeji could breathe a little easier and he released a breath he hadn't even been aware he'd been holding. But then he sucked it right back in when Inuyasha suddenly stepped in close and got in his face, a low, threatening growl leaking past rightly clenched teeth bared in another snarl. Golden eyes bore into his own, filled with a lethal warning that had the human male's back straightening and his blood to run cold in his veins.

"You listen carefully, asshole," Inuyasha hissed, glaring so heatedly it was a wonder Takeji didn't burst into flame. "Don't you dare think that my wife's words have any sort of sway over my decision to spare your pathetic life. I'm not scared of your weakling ambassador and I sure as hell ain't scared of his little human army. No, the only reason that I let you live is because I don't want my daughter, the one you foolishly threatened when she had done nothing wrong, to see me sully my hands with your disgusting blood when I reduce you to nothing more than a bloody smear on the ground."

Takeji paled and swallowed thickly. That particular image was…not pleasant.

Inuyasha watched the color drain from his face. Satisfied, he sneered before saying in a growl filled with sinister promise, "Now get the fuck outta my village and if you ever touch my daughter again, I'll gut you so fast you won't even have time to fucking scream."

Then with that, Inuyasha leveled him with one last dark scowl before spinning on his heel and stalking away, a clear dismissal. Neither mother nor daughter even spared the frozen human male a glance as Inuyasha paused to pick his daughter up into his arms before striding away, his wife close to one side and his friends on the other.

From over his shoulder, Takeji could only watch in a mixture of shock and befuddlement as the little demon girl named Moroha smirked and then stuck her tongue out at him, safe and sound in her father's arms.

Left standing in a state of numb bewilderment, Takeji blinked, looked down at himself, and had the passing thought that it was a very good thing he'd decided to wear brown trousers that day.

[delacyrose224]

Gold Rush

-Pairing: drummer!Jungkook x reader, with a side of guitarist!Jin x OC

-Premise: You were never one for rushing into relationships, but what happens when you meet a certain blue-haired drummer?

-Genre: rock band!AU, some fluff but also some angst

-Word Count: 8.1k

-Author's Note: This is based on the song 'gold rush' by the one and only Taylor Swift! It will still make sense if you don't know the song, but you'll find some fun Easter egg references if you do know it. Also, fun fact: this is the first fic I've written since high school...do with that what you will.

“Come...on!” Margot grunts as she tugs on your arm. You literally have no idea why you’ve agreed to this night out-it’s Tuesday, you have work in the morning, you’re already tired and the night hasn’t even started.

“I’m coming,” you mutter begrudgingly, as you step carefully in your heeled boots down very narrow steps into what looks like a very seedy bar. The Dynasty. You walk in the door, and instantly try to retreat-it’s tiny, the floor is sticky with who knows what, and it’s packed. More like The Die Nasty...this could not be further from your comfort zone.

Margot, meanwhile, could not look more excited. She’s been talking about this concert for weeks now. You can’t even remember the name of the band, that’s how not your scene this is. Margot steers you towards the bar. “What do you want? My treat, since I made you come out on a work night just to be my wing woman.”

You scrunch up your nose in disbelief. Her wing woman? Has she seen you? You’re the most awkward person alive around men, especially cute men. Plus, it doesn’t help that you barely had time to throw on an Eagles t-shirt with a pair of jeans, and your hair has frizzed out from the light drizzle of rain that started on the walk over. “A Malibu with coke works,” you say, adding, “And make it a double!” at her retreating back.

You turn and scour the packed room for an empty booth, table, anything. Your eyes finally land on a tiny two person booth in an awkward corner of the room. Margot may not be able to see the band perfectly from here, but at least you’ll have seats. “A drink for my best friend in the whole entire world!!” Margot smiles brightly as she brings your beverages over to the table. “Do you think Jin will notice me? I tried to look cute, but not try too hard, y’know?” She smoothes down the front of her blouse nervously. You immediately have a witty retort ready to go, but you don’t have the heart to say it when you look up and see how fidgety she is. “Mar-if he doesn’t notice you, he’s an idiot,” you smile kindly.

The show isn’t due to start for another 30-45 minutes, so you spend that time chatting with Margot about work, life, and everything in between. She’s convinced that if she can just get Jin to notice her, that she’ll be able to introduce you to one of his bandmates, and then you can go on double dates (or something like that). “Mar, do you really think tortured artists go on double dates? I really can’t see it,” you snort into your drink. Let alone a guy in a band being interested in you, you’re about as boring and straitlaced as they come. You lose track of time as you continue the conversation, and the alcohol is certainly making you less annoyed that you’re here.

“They’re starting, they’re starting!” Margot squeals, gripping your arm. “Really?” You try to twist around in your seat to see, but before you get very far, you’re being dragged out into the space right in front of the stage. You’re not quite front row, but you’re awfully close-too close for your own liking, if you’re being honest.

“Margot…” you hiss, trying to get her attention, but all hope is lost. Her eyes are glued to the small stage, waiting for the man she’s deemed to be the love of her life to walk out and pick up his guitar. You give up after a while, huffing and crossing your arms to show your displeasure. A few girls around you give you a sidelong glance, seemingly judging you for being upset at a concert. How dare you? After staring at you for what they deem to be an appropriate amount of time, they go back to their own conversations, which you’re able to overhear due to your close proximity.

“Were you at the last show? They’ve improved SO much since they started, I love them!!” one yells a little too loudly, while her friend nods enthusiastically.

“Have you heard that Jungkook dyed his hair blue?! He was hot before, but now…” the girl can’t even seem to finish her sentence, she’s so overcome by the ‘hotness’ of this Jungkook guy, whoever he is.

As soon as his name is mentioned, you suddenly seem to overhear it multiple times in the conversations surrounding you while the band’s crew finishes setting up for them. You lean over to ask Margot what the heck the deal is with Jungkook, but just as you open your mouth to begin talking, a loud strumming blasts from the speakers on the edge of the stage, and you mouth ‘nevermind’ and step back to where you were.

A tall, broad shouldered man steps out of the shadows at the back of the stage to deafening screams, his guitar already strapped across his chest. He lifts up a hand in greeting, and steps up to one of the mics set up. “Thank you all for coming out! We hope you have a great time tonight!” He blows a kiss to the crowd (to more deafening screams). Margot looks like she might faint-this must be Jin.

Next to walk out is a sullen looking guy, shorter and smaller than the first. He walks to the side of the stage opposite of you, and picks up a bass. Forget Jin, forget Jungkook (whichever one he turns out to be), you like this guy. Sure, he’s cute or whatever, but he literally looks like he wants to be anywhere but where he’s currently at. “Same, dude, same,” you mutter to yourself under your breath. One of the girls from earlier must have overheard you again, because she turns and gives you a weird look. The multiple Malibu and cokes you had earlier give you the courage to tell her to mind her own business and leave you alone, but just as you begin to lean forward, the loudest screams yet erupt from the crowd. You immediately clench your hands over your ears (which you realize looks ridiculous at a concert) and turn to look at what’s caused the reaction.

Over the heads of the people in front of you, you see a mop of almost neon blue hair making its way to the drum set, but the rest of him is obscured as he swiftly walks across the stage. This must be that Jungkook guy those girls were talking about earlier. His hair looks like a blueberry as far as you’re concerned, and you still don’t understand what the fuss is about.

He settles behind his kit, and as the people in front of you move slightly, you catch a glimpse of Jungkook. His blueberry hair falls around his face in waves, and his nose is scrunched up because of the giant grin on his face, clearly ecstatic to start the show. Okay, he was cute. Cuter than bass guy and Jin (though you’d never utter that sentence out loud to Margot for fear of losing your life). Still, he’s just another guy in a band, right?

Jin starts the opening chords to the first song to deafening cheers, bass guy starting to play shortly after, and Jungkook having the time of his life on the drums. After a long intro, you hear a smooth voice with a tinge of rasp come through the mic. It instantly feels like your bones have turned to jelly, and you want to melt into a puddle (in the best way). However, you are confused. You’re staring at Jin, who is immersed in his playing, sweat already starting to drip from his brow from being under bright lights. His mouth isn’t moving. Why? He’s the lead singer. Are you imagining the lyrics you’re hearing right now?

You lean over to Margot, who’s conveniently also looking at Jin, albeit for a completely different reason. “Why isn’t the lead singer doing anything?” you shout over the music. “Huh?” she screams back, unable to clearly make out what you’re saying. “I said, why isn’t Jin singing?!” you yell.

Margot looks over to you, mirroring the confusion on your own face. “Look!” she points towards the back of the stage. There you see Jungkook, not only playing the drums, but also singing lead vocals in one of most attractive voices you’ve ever heard. Not only that, but he’s somehow managed to keep that scrunched nose smile from earlier on his face while doing it. So THAT’S what all the fuss about Jungkook was over. Just as your brain makes the connection between it being his singing coming through the speakers, he makes eye contact with you and his smile seems to grow even bigger, his eyes sparkling with delight.

Oh, you’re in big trouble.

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

The rest of the concert seems to go by in a blur. You have no idea how many songs the group does, you are so caught up in watching Jungkook perform...he clearly has talent, but you can tell he’s in love with what he’s doing. Even when sweat makes his hair start to stick to his forehead, he merely gives his head a shake (sort of like a dog), and keeps going with that wide smile on his face. It certainly doesn’t help that it feels like at least every other song, he’s making eye contact with you somehow-even though you’re not front row, even though his drum kit is at the back of the stage. Surely you’re making that up. He’s just a good performer, right? He makes all the girls feel like this, like he’s performing just for them.

As Jin strums out the final notes of the last song, you shake your head to clear your thoughts. This is dumb, you had too much to drink, and you were distracted by a cute guy who has a pretty voice. That’s all.

As the song dies out, you turn to your best friend. “Margot, you ready to go? I’m tired.” What you’ve failed to notice is that your best friend has disappeared while you’ve been wrapped up in your own thoughts. Did she go to the bathroom? Had she gotten more drunk while you were busy swooning (no, NOT swooning) over a certain blue-haired drummer? Just as you’re about to start panicking, you see her as the group of fans in front of you starts to disperse...and she’s talking TO JIN.

He’s sitting on the edge of the stage, long legs dangling off the front, head tilted back laughing at something Margot has said. His laugh doesn’t quite seem to fit him-it’s loud and squeaky, kind of like a windshield wiper dragging itself across the front of a car. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his guitar pick, and goes to hand it to your friend. Simultaneously, he leans in and gives her a kiss on the cheek. Other girls that are around you, hanging back in hopes of meeting the boys, are clearly fuming at the action and some even stomp off.

On one hand, you are excited for Margot-she’s gotten the attention of the man she’s been talking about nonstop for days. On the other hand, you also want to leave-love is gross and you have no time for it. Since you can’t abandon your friend in a seedy bar with a man she hardly knows, you settle for the next best thing-your fifth (you think?) drink of the night.

“A Malibu and coke please,” you ask the bartender while sliding cash across the counter. You know you’ll regret the alcohol running through your system in the morning, but you can’t seem to bring yourself to care enough to stop. You pick up the drink, filled to the brim, and turn quickly to go hide in your booth from the beginning of the night. Surely Margot will come find you when she’s done talking, right? Just as you turn, someone walking the opposite way bumps elbows with you with enough force to cause half your drink to slosh down the front of your shirt and onto the floor.

“Oh wow, I am so sorry! I should have been paying more attention-let me get some napkins for you!” says some unknown male voice. You’re too busy mourning over your half spilled drink that you’d just paid too much for to reply. Suddenly, there’s napkins thrust into your hand, and you look up.

It’s Jungkook.

He’s even more attractive up close, if that’s even possible. He’s sweaty, but somehow makes it look good-his longer hair is swept back into a little blue half bun, his eyeliner is smudged, and he’s down to his white undershirt with ripped jeans. The dim lights of the bar are reflecting off both his earrings and what looks like the stars in his eyes.

“Um...are you okay? I can go get you a new shirt to change into-wait here!” Before you have the chance to form any words, he jogs off towards the stage where he has a conversation with the bassist. The bassist doesn’t look happy about what Jungkook says, but Jungkook still goes to the back of the stage, and comes back with a black piece of fabric in his hands.

“Yoongi’s pissed because these aren’t even ready to be sold, but whatever. Just think of it as an exclusive sneak peek or something,” Jungkook says as he hands the shirt to you. You accidentally brush your hand across his as you take what he’s handing you, and you feel like you might burst into flames with the way your insides feel like they’ve become molten lava.

You unfold the shirt to see that it’s got song lyrics written across it in dripping graffiti font, along with their signatures. The realization suddenly hits you that you still have not said a single word to the man standing in front of you.

“Y-Yoongi?” you stammer out. You hate how much you sound like a high schooler asking their crush to prom. “Oh yeah, that’s our bassist. The one who looks like he’d literally rather be anywhere else than playing with Jin and me,” Jungkook chuckles. “He’s really a softy underneath it all, but don’t tell him I said that.”

You laugh, though you feel like it sounds a little too forced and a little too loud. Your assumption seems to be right, as you see Jungkook raise one eyebrow.

“Are you sure you’re okay? I really am sorry I made you spill your drink.” He genuinely looks worried. About you. What universe are you even living in right now?

“I’m fine, really. Thanks for the t-shirt, you didn’t have to do that,” you mumble softly.

“It’s the least I could do for a pretty girl whose Eagles tee I ruined, don’t worry about it. Yoongi will get over it.”

Jungkook smiles that same smile he seemed to throw your way throughout the concert, nose scrunching up, eyes sparkling. It feels like you’ve been thrown overboard into the ocean in the middle of a storm. You can’t get your bearings, the waves keep throwing you under, and you’re disoriented. The only light is coming from the stars in his eyes. Surely this man who could date anyone he wanted to did not just call you pretty, as casually as he might have mentioned the weather outside?

You’re shaken out of your reverie as Margot and Jin approach the two of you. “JK, my man, sorry I took so long-I was too busy being enchanted by this lovely lady,” Jin smiles, and you can see that Margot is beaming with happiness. You’re glad someone’s night has gone well.

“No problem, I was just talking to...” Jungkook suddenly looks lost, realizing he doesn’t know your name.

“Y/N.” you blurt out. Margot looks at you strangely, but is distracted once Jungkook begins talking again.

“Yeah, I bumped into her and made her spill her drink, so I gave her one of our shirts and we were just chatting.” He smiles gently at you and your heart does a somersault.

“Nice to meet you. You must be cool if you’re friends with this one,” Jin nudges Margot with his shoulder. How long have the two of them been able to talk for, for him to know you’re friends? You’ll definitely need a debrief on the walk home.

You speak to Jin with much more ease and control than you can manage with Jungkook. “I like to think I’m cool,” you grin. At this, Jungkook smirks.

“She’s the best!” Margot chirps, clearly still a little drunk. Jin chuckles and puts an arm around her shoulders.

“Well, pretty girl, JK and I need to go help Yoongi with getting everything put up in our van. It was lovely to meet you,” he drops his arm from around her shoulders, only to pick up her hand in his and kisses her knuckles promptly. Margot giggles. “I’d love to take you out sometime.” She nods enthusiastically.

“It was nice to meet you too,” Jungkook leans in to half-whisper in your ear. When did he get that close?! You nod with a small smile in his direction-that’s all you can seem to manage when that drowning in the ocean feeling suddenly returns.

He and Jin turn to leave, and you go to your booth, making sure you didn’t leave anything behind before the whole drink-spilling fiasco happened. Seeing that you have everything, you turn to find Margot, only to see Jungkook whispering in her ear across the room and laughing.

Your heart drops. You were right all along-he does treat all the girls like this, like they’re special to him.

Margot comes up to you shortly after. “You ready to go?” you ask quietly.

“Yep!” she smiles, and drags you out of The Dynasty by the hand. The entire walk home, all she can talk about is Jin-how cute he is, how funny he is, how talented he is, and oh, did she mention how cute he is? You nod and smile in all the right places in her story. You are happy for Margot, but you can’t help comparing what she’s telling you with your interactions with Jungkook. You had acted like an idiot, and there was no way he was interested in you on any level. Plus, he clearly thought that your best friend was worth flirting with after Jin helped him escape your awkward conversation.

You shake your head to clear it as you reach your apartment building. Margot bids you farewell at the second floor, while you continue your trudge up the stairs to the fourth floor. You key into your apartment, throwing your keys into a bowl and heading for your bedroom.

Makeup off, pjs on, you’ve just finished washing your face when you look at yourself in the mirror. “Boys are dumb, and love is stupid,” you say to yourself, not sure if you actually believe what you’re saying. As you dry your face, you hear the sound of your phone receiving a text. Margot, no doubt, still waxing poetic about how she can’t believe that Jin wants to take her out on a date.

You slide into bed and turn off your lamp, grabbing your phone to set an alarm for the morning and to tell Margot that you’ll talk some more tomorrow during lunch.

Unknown Number

2:37 AM: Hey, it’s Jungkook!...I hope you don’t mind, I got your number from Margot. thanks for coming out to the show tonight, I hope you had a good time!! if you didn’t, you don’t have to wear the shirt I gave you, that would be weird for you to wear it if you hated our music…

2:41 AM: anyway, I just wanted to apologize again for making you spill your drink. Usually I’m not that clumsy, I guess I was distracted. You should come hang out with the band before our next show on Friday! only if you want. let me know...or don’t. Whatever you want.

2:45 AM: Can you tell I’m nervous? haha

2:46 AM: usually i’m not like this, but you’re really pretty and you seem cool. ANYWAY. I hope you hang out with us-bring Margot too, Jin would like that. I hope you got home safe and i hope i see you soon :)

You stare in disbelief at your phone. Jungkook just texted you. Jungkook just texted you FOUR TIMES IN A ROW. Good thing you are much less awkward via text, mostly because you have time to think out what to say. You can’t help the giant grin that forms on your face as you type out a reply.

2:50 AM: I made it home, thanks for checking in...I can’t turn down a good band shirt, so I’ll definitely be wearing it. Maybe I’ll wear it if we hang out, you’ll have to wait and see!

You place your phone on the nightstand and turn over to get comfortable. Maybe Margot wasn’t the only one who had a good night after all.

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

Three days later, you’re staring at your phone sitting on your desk. “Can you not?” Margot huffs from beside you, rolling over in her desk chair. “Just freaking text JK and tell him we’re coming to hang out with the band,” she rolls her eyes and lets out a huge sigh.

“Margot, can you not? Stop being so loud, we’re at work,” you hiss. Margot looks slightly taken aback at your comment, and then swiftly rolls back to her own desk.

You’ll deal with her hurt feelings later. For now, you go back to staring at Jungkook’s text that is boring a hole in your brain...he sent it about six hours ago, and you still haven’t replied.

Jungkook

8:53 AM: Morning! I know it’s kinda early, but i figured you might be at work already. You and Margot coming by later? Jin will cook for us! i think i can manage some cookies too, just don’t judge if they don’t taste as good as jin’s cooking...i swear he was a chef in a past life. You like chocolate chip?

You’d had brief text conversations each day since you met, nothing too crazy. Even so, you still can’t help but feel like your brain is freezing over, ceasing all functioning momentarily every time a text comes in from him. Margot is right, you just need to text him back already.

3:30 PM: Make it snickerdoodle and I’m there.

Jungkook immediately sends back a reply, overeagerly filled with emojis, their apartment address, and instructions to come over at 6. For a drummer in a rock band, he is surprisingly silly, kind, and warm. You’re not sure what you expected from him, but it wasn’t this.

The rest of the work day goes quickly, your mind preoccupied with what’s in store for you at the boys’ apartment. As soon as you and Margot step outside your office, her eyes are glued to her phone. “Hey, Margot...I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier. I just don’t know what this...thing...is with Jungkook, and I’m stressed. Not an excuse, but you didn’t deserve me being rude,” you say in a small voice.

“Girl, I forgave you like ten minutes after you said it, it’s whatever. Look at this!” She shoves her phone under your nose, and you examine what she’s trying to get you to look at. Pictures of food? You’re confused.

“What is it?” you ask. “Our dinner, silly! Jinnie’s making us pasta carbonara with homemade breadsticks!” Your mouth involuntarily starts watering at even the mention of food. Homemade bread? Jungkook must not have been kidding about Jin’s cooking.

“Look look look, your boyfriend is making us snickerdoodle cookies too-how sweet!” Margot gives you a sly smile, and you can immediately feel heat radiating off your cheeks.

“He’s not my boyfriend! He’s just-whatever! He’s not even interested in me like that, he hasn’t asked me out or anything. Not like someone I know,” you attempt to distract her by bringing up her date with Jin (it had literally happened the day after meeting him, and he’d set up a second one for the weekend-you couldn’t help but be impressed). Even though you’re flustered, you still can’t stop the warmth spreading through you. Yes, embarrassment. But also Jungkook was making snickerdoodle cookies like you asked.

“Boyfriend or not, we’re here!” Margot singsongs as you walk through the front doors of an apartment building, and step into an elevator, pressing the button for floor seven.

There’s a loud pinging sound as you step out, and Margot knocks on the door directly across from the elevator. You hear clanging sounds, alongside shuffling and male voices indistinctly talking. The door swings open to reveal Jin in a pink apron.

“Hey pretty girl,” his eyes light up when he sees Margot standing in the doorway, and he immediately bends down to kiss the top of her head. Margot is positively beaming, and looks up at him like he’s her entire world.

You clear your throat awkwardly. “Oh hey, y/n,” Jin smiles warmly at you. “Jungkook’s excited to see you, he hasn’t stopped talking about you coming over since he started making those cookies.” Jin winks as your eyes grow wide.

“HYUNG!!” you hear Jungkook bellow from you assume the kitchen. As you all walk into the apartment, you can see him glaring at Jin.

“What? I’m just telling the truth, nothing wrong with that-right, Margot?”

“Right,” your best friend grins.

“Not you too, M. Why do I put up with this torture?” Jungkook pouts in your direction, blue strands of hair falling messily in his face. You can see he’s also wearing an apron, black-but with lots of flour stains.

You walk closer to the kitchen and lean on the counter that separates it from the living room. You may be nervous as ever, but maybe if you fake confidence, things will feel better.

“Oh, I dunno, maybe because he’s one of your best friends and bandmates? Because maybe it is the truth?” you grin cheekily.

Jungkook’s doe eyes go even wider than you thought possible, and it looks like he may drop the mixing bowl he has in his hands.

“Weren’t you excited I was coming over, Kook? I can leave if you want…” you step into the kitchen with him, reaching forward and gently pushing a loose strand of hair out of his face. You swear he leans into your touch, and it feels like electricity is coursing through your veins.

“I-I mean, of course I was! I invited you over, didn’t I? Of course I want you here.” Jungkook has a fierce blush creeping up his neck towards his face, and he looks like he wants to sink through the floor.

A deep chuckle resounds from the corner of the living room, and you turn around to see Yoongi smirking at the two of you from an armchair. “Can we eat now, please? As much as I love seeing the two of you absolutely not know how to function like normal human beings...I’m hungry.”

Jin uses this opportunity to sweep into the kitchen, grabbing his pasta off the stovetop and bringing it to the center of the dining room table. Margot brings the breadsticks over and places them down as well. You each take a seat, Yoongi sitting at one end of the table, Jin and Margot on one side, you and Jungkook on the other. Dinner unfolds in a relatively normal fashion, mostly silent because everyone is so hungry. Jungkook may have actually been underselling Jin’s cooking ability, because you’re not sure when the last time you had pasta this good was.

Just as you’re finishing up, the timer on the oven beeps, signaling that Jungkook’s cookies are done. He hops up out of his seat to grab the pan out of the oven. A few seconds later, you hear a loud expletive and a metallic clang. “Kook?” you call, already walking towards the kitchen. As you round the corner, you see him holding his hand under the faucet, water streaming over what looks like a nasty burn.

“Kook!” you exclaim, swiftly moving towards him, peeking around him to see the injury. “What happened?”

Jungkook turns around, seemingly just noticing your presence. He gives you a smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing. The pan started slipping out of my hand, so I went to grab it with my other hand to steady it. I just happened to forget I was only wearing one oven mitt.” He forlornly looks behind the two of you. You follow his gaze to see that most of the cookies have fallen on the floor, save for three. “I just wanted the cookies to be perfect.” His lower lip juts out as he begins to pout, staring at the cookies littering the floor.

“Jungkook, look at me.” His eyes raise from the floor to your own. “The fact that you even made any cookies at all is very sweet-pun intended. It’s the effort that counts. That, and making sure you don’t have permanent burn damage.” You reach out for his wrist and delicately turn his hand to look at it. It’s angry looking, but you can tell it will heal pretty easily (you may have suffered several cookie-related burns yourself in your day). “Just make sure you put ointment on this a couple times a day for about a week, and you should be fine.” You shoot him a soft smile, which he returns.

“What are you, a doctor?” he asks.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” you reply, grinning widely.

“Yah, why do you have to be so difficult? Here I am, trying to be nice, trying to get to know you more, and this is what I get in return,” he gripes, but there’s a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Hmm...I dunno, Kook. I think you like it when I’m contrarian,” you giggle, turning to leave the kitchen. Before you can move through the door frame, Jungkook moves in front of you. You look up at him confused. He leans in close, lips brushing against your ear as he whispers.

“...maybe I do. But next time I see you, you should actually wear the shirt I gave you.”

He winks, leaves the kitchen, and leaves you to wonder what the heck just happened.

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

Your sporadic texts with Jungkook have turned into one long, continuous conversation over the past few weeks. It feels like you talk about everything, but also nothing. He remains somewhat a mystery, though you know this is because you’re still keeping him at arm’s length.

Jungkook is too good for you, you’ve decided. He’s cute, funny, charming, and talented. Everyone is in love with him for good reason. Every time he makes eye contact with you, his smile lights up his entire face. That smile has you falling faster than you’d like, and it isn’t a pleasant feeling. A cloudlike floating down to Earth? Try hurtling through the atmosphere like an asteroid determined to destroy the planet. You haven’t hit the ground yet, but you’re not sure if you’ll be able to properly recover once you do.

Kook

4:23 PM: Come with me to the beach this weekend! You need a break from work, and i need a break from the morons i live with...don’t tell them i said that. I need to work on song stuff too, but i’d like some company :)

Your chest constricts at his latest message. Is this a date? He hasn’t asked you on one before, but this feels suspiciously date-esque. But he’s working on band stuff, so maybe he really just wants company. You shoot off a quick text in the affirmative before you can think much harder about it. Jungkook immediately sends back a slew of emojis, as well as telling you he’ll pick you up at 8AM on Saturday to drive the two of you down to the coast.

The next two days go by in a blur. Before you know it, you’re standing in front of your closet Saturday morning, wondering what to wear on your not-date. It’s not quite summer yet, so you know the two of you aren’t wearing bathing suits (not to mention that would have been a whole other crisis to work through-being half naked in front of a very attractive man on a maybe-date? Absolutely not). You quickly put on a pair of jean shorts, and smile as you grab their band tee and slide it over your head. You still hadn’t worn it in front of Jungkook. You finish off with french tucking the shirt, sliding on sandals and wearing a simple gold necklace with your first initial on it-you didn’t want to be too fancy.

You make yourself a cup of tea to pass time waiting for Jungkook to arrive. Halfway through drinking it, there’s a knock on the door. You hastily place your mug on the coffee table, grab your bag, and open the door to find Jungkook leaning against the doorframe.

He lights up upon seeing you, his doe eyes widening when he notices your outfit. “You’re finally wearing it! I thought I was gonna have to bribe you or something,” he smiles.

“Let’s go, dork,” you reply, shutting your door behind you and making sure it’s locked.

Jungkook leads you outside to his car, opening the door for you. “After you, m’lady.” You roll your eyes, but not without laughing at his antics. He slides into the driver’s side and starts the car. “Off we go!”

The car ride is comfortably silent-probably because it’s still early in the morning, neither of you are completely coherent yet. The hum of the road beneath the car combined with the radio playing in the background puts you at ease. You can swear you keep seeing Jungkook look at you from your peripheral vision, but maybe you’re imagining things. You settle for looking out the window at the passing scenery, which honestly is beautiful-you should get out of the city more.

After about 10 minutes, you glance over to the driver’s side, only to make complete eye contact with Jungkook. “Kook, why do you keep looking at me?” His eyes widen, and now you know you weren’t imagining things earlier.

“Oh, uh...I-I’m just glad you decided to come. Yeah. And um, you look really good in my shirt.” You can see his ears reddening as he says this, and all of a sudden, you’re looking at anywhere but him.

There’s an awkward pause for a few moments, and then suddenly that molten lava feeling from a few weeks ago at the concert is back. You whip your head back towards Jungkook so fast, you think you might injure your neck. He has reached his hand across the console to where yours sits on your thigh, and as you watch, he intertwines your fingers with his. It feels like an out-of-body experience, where you’re watching yourself from above. Is this really happening? You glance up at Jungkook’s face with wild eyes, and he meets you with a steady smile. Not only is the molten lava feeling back, but it’s brought along the storm in the ocean feeling as well. Only this time, Jungkook is there to be the lighthouse that leads you back home.

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

The rest of the drive is peaceful. Jungkook continues to hold your hand the rest of the way to the beach, shooting you smiles every time you look over at him. You’re so mesmerized, you don’t even realize that you’ve parked until he lets go.

He immediately rushes over to open your door after getting out of the car, and then proceeds to pop the trunk open and grabs a cooler and a picnic basket.

“Kook, what is all this?” your eyes widen in surprise.

“Please, like I was going to take you to the beach and not pack a picnic. We have to eat, don’t we? I got those weird sparkling waters you like too.”

Your response is to grab the picnic basket out of his hand and immediately intertwine your fingers again with his free hand. Jungkook looks like his face might split in half with how big his smile is.

“You like it?” he asks with a hint of uncertainty.

“I love it.”

The two of you walk hand in hand down the beach quite a ways before you find what Jungkook deems the ‘perfect spot’. “And what exactly makes it perfect?” you peer up at him.

“Easy-one, we’re snagging the last free shaded spot,” he points at the umbrella stuck in the sand, “and two-it’s far enough away from other people that I can work on songs without a ton of noise distracting me.”

“Are you sure I won’t distract you?” you frown slightly, worried that he won’t get any work done.

“You’re never a distraction, you’re an inspiration.” He winks conspiratorially at you, and chuckles at the flustered look on your face. He sets the cooler down under the umbrella and looks over at you. “There’s a blanket in the picnic basket, can you get it out? As much as I love the beach, I don’t really want to find sand in my shorts for the next month.”

You set the basket down next to the cooler, open the lid, and pull out a bright blue blanket. Jungkook takes one side, you take the other, and you unfold it and place it lightly on the sand. He immediately plops down on one side of the blanket and reaches his hand up toward you, motioning for you to take hold. As soon as you do, he yanks a little too hard, and you careen sideways onto the blanket and into his side. “Well, that’s one way to sit down I guess,” you laugh at his appalled face.

“Are you okay? I didn’t mean to pull that hard…” his brow furrows in worry.

“I’m good, weirdo. Great, even.” You reach into the cooler, pull out a sparkling water (key lime, your favorite), and pull the book you always keep in your bag out. You lay out on the blanket, propped up on your elbows, and begin to read. Jungkook lays down beside you in a similar position, pulling a small notebook out of his back pocket and starts scribbling.

You sit in this position for a couple of hours, silently working, occasionally catching each others’ eyes and smiling when you do. Suddenly there’s a loud rumbling beside you. You laugh. “Hungry, Kook?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” he laughs, sits up and reaches over to pull the picnic basket closer to the two of you.

“What’s on the menu?” you peer over as he starts to pull plastic containers out.

“Gimbap. Simple, easy, and delicious.” He hands you one of the containers as he pulls out a second for himself.

“Did you make this yourself?” you ask, mouth half-full. He nods. “Delicious,” you concede through your mouthful. He grins.

“Maybe I could actually cook for you sometime. Without burning my hand on cookies, that is.”

“I’d like that,” you shyly respond, eyes firmly locked on the plastic container of gimbap in your lap.

“It’s a date, then.” Your eyes shoot up to meet his, and you can see dimples forming alongside his smile. You can’t help but smile back.

After eating, the two of you go back to your previous positions-you reading, him working on song lyrics in his notebook. This time, though, after about 30 minutes you start to get restless. Looking over at Jungkook, you notice he keeps shoving his hair behind his ears as it falls in his face while he’s writing. You rummage through your bag for a hair tie, and scoot over closer to him. He raises an eyebrow in curiosity at you, and you just lean over and gently start pulling his hair back for him into a half bun that matches the way his hair looked the night you first met.

“Better?” you ask quietly, running your fingers absentmindedly through the hair at the nape of his neck that’s too short for the bun. He looks up at you, awestruck.

“Everything is better with you,” he whispers. You’re not sure if he knows he’s said this out loud. He suddenly sits up on the blanket, flipping through the pages of his notebook he’s been working in. He stops about halfway through. “Can you look over these lyrics? I’m not sure they’re quite right, I need a second opinion.”

You look down at the page and see lyrics scribbled in Jungkook’s messy handwriting.

“I wish you were right here, right now”

“This mad, mad love makes you come running”

“See your face, hear my voice in the dark”

Different versions of these lyrics are scattered across the page, certain words changed, scribbled out, and moved around within phrases. As your eyes scan the page, they land on one final line etched out on the bottom of the page. No scribbles, no changes-it simply reads:

“I wish you knew that I’ll never forget you as long as I live.”

“This is really good, Kook! It’s so much different than the music the band’s done before, how’d you come up with this?” You’re genuinely curious, this almost seems more like a ballad compared to the band’s usual upbeat tunes.

Jungkook looks at you warmly. “I’ve had new inspiration lately, that’s all.” You suddenly notice that he’s way closer to you than he was when you started looking over his notes...he’s sitting directly in front of you now.

You feel frozen as you see him stealing glances at your lips while his face inches closer. Is he going to kiss you? He’s going to kiss you. Oh my gosh, JUNGKOOK IS GOING TO KISS YOU.

As his lips meet your own, the molten lava turns into an erupting volcano. You feel hot and tingly all over, and Jungkook is assaulting your senses in every way possible. You can smell his cologne, feel the softness of his lips, taste his mint chapstick, hear the satisfied hum that gets caught in his throat as your lips collide. Even though your eyes are closed, the vision of Jungkook leaning in to kiss you is seared into the backs of your eyelids.

The kiss is over far sooner than you’d like. As Jungkook retreats, he doesn’t go far, instead leaning his forehead against yours, gazing at you longingly. The stars in his eyes have become a full blown galaxy, and you can’t look away. Still recovering from the kiss, Jungkook breathily laughs.

“You make me want to write all the love songs in the world.”

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

Margot is tugging insistently on your arm. “Hello? HELLO? Is there anyone in there?” she taps the side of your head. When you don’t respond, she grabs you by both shoulders and gives you a shake.

The room comes back into focus and you look over at your best friend with eyes still lightly glazed over. “Huh?”

“I said, it’s intermission...are you enjoying the show? You certainly seemed distracted by Jungkook-I saw him smile at you,” she grins. “Jin made eye contact with me a couple of times, he even winked!” she gushes, continuing to talk about how hot she thinks he is.

Your stomach feels like it’s dropped completely out of your body, and your throat has gone dry.

“Hey...you okay?” Margot notices that you still seem slightly out of it.

“Yeah, yeah...I just...need another drink, that’s all,” you manage to choke out, turning on your heel and heading straight to the bar. While the bartender works on your drink, you run through everything in your head. The texts...the dinner at the boys’ apartment...the beach. The kiss. None of it was real, was it? What was wrong with you?

You take the drink that’s slid across to you and head outside to a side alley beside the bar. No one’s there, everyone has gone to the bathroom or to refill their drinks while waiting on the band to return. You let out a deep sigh, leaning against the brick wall and running your hands through your hair, making it even frizzier than when the night started. At least it isn’t raining anymore, you think to yourself.

You return to the question Margot had asked you-are you okay? You’re not sure. You’d apparently made eye contact with Jungkook, a man you had never spoken to, and imagined a whole entire relationship with him in the span of half the band’s setlist. Are you that desperate for a man? Apparently. You let out a deep sigh, replaying the scenarios you had created in your head. Once your brain reaches the kiss again, you find yourself getting teary-eyed at how sweet Jungkook had been...in your head. You feel a tear escape, and you quickly swipe it away.

Taking a steadying breath, you push yourself off the wall and move towards the door to head back into the bar. As you reach for the handle, the door swings open and hits you in the shoulder, turning you slightly to the side and spilling your drink on your shirt and the cobblestones of the alley.

“...again?!” you mutter, looking down at your ruined shirt.

“Um...are you okay? I can go get you a new shirt to change into-wait here!” you hear a male’s voice, but as you look up, the bar door is already closing again as he’s gone inside.

A minute later, the door is swinging open again to reveal none other than Jungkook-hair in a half bun, eyeliner smudged, and in a white undershirt and ripped jeans. Just like in your imagination.

He reaches out to you with a black t-shirt in his hand. “Yoongi’s pissed because these aren’t even ready to be sold, but whatever. Just think of it as an exclusive sneak peek or something,” he parrots your imagined scenario you had played in your head moments ago.

“Thanks,” you say as you take the shirt, unfolding it to see the familiar graffiti design.

“It’s the least I could do for a pretty girl whose Eagles tee I ruined, don’t worry about it. Yoongi will get over it.” Jungkook smiles at you the same way he did during the first half of the show. One thing your brain got right are the stars in his eyes sparkling at you, which makes you smile back at him.

“Hey, I need to get back to make sure we’re ready for the second half of the show, but it was nice to meet you. You should hang back after the show-Jin thinks your friend is cute, and he was talking about inviting her to come grab food with us when we’re done. Yoongi can’t come and I don’t want to be a third wheel. Come hang out with us and save me from dying of awkwardness?” he looks at you shyly, his rock star persona melting away completely.

“I’ll think about it,” you tease, turning away and heading back into The Dynasty. Jungkook is left wide eyed in your wake, smiling as he turns to head towards the backstage door.

You meet up with Margot again after changing into your new shirt. The crowd has started to gather in anticipation of the second half of the show. “Hey Mar, let’s move all the way up,” you motion at the space in front of the stage.

“Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?” Margot gapes at you in disbelief, but follows your lead as you weave through the crowd to get to front stage center. You shrug goodnaturedly and just smile as an answer.

A moment later, Jin, Yoongi and Jungkook come from backstage to get in place for the second half of their set. You can see Jungkook scanning the crowd, brows slightly furrowed. You give a small wave, which catches his attention, and his nose scrunches in a smile as he sends an enthusiastic wave back. ‘I like your shirt’ he mouths at you as he settles behind his drum kit, winking as he does so. You can feel the heat creeping onto your cheeks as a bar employee strides across the stage to the mic and the crowd starts cheering.

“Give it up again for Gold Rush!”

[kissinginkitchens]

You Bring Me Home — Chapter One: Flightless Bird, American Mouth

a/n: I've been working on this story for mooonths now and I'm so excited to finally share it with the world! It's heavily inspired by Harry's Behind the Album mini doc, except I changed the setting to Hawai'i because I've personally spent some time there and as they say, write what you know! YBMH takes place in the period between One Direction's hiatus and Harry's first album/tour, but with that being said, this is entirely a work of fiction and some events don't follow the true timeline. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my little story, I hope you love it as much as I do! It will be updated every Friday at 5 PM PST. My inbox is open, so feel free to talk to me once you've finished reading! I'd love to hear from you :) Much love, Mel <3

Pairing: Hawai'i!Harry x Original Character

Warnings: swearing

Word Count: 5.5k

May, 2016

Harry watches LAX get smaller through the airplane window and visualizes all of his worries stuck at the terminal gate, their magnitude also diminishing as he takes flight. He sinks lower in his seat and skims through playlists on his phone when a nagging feeling at the back of his mind pulls his attention away from the screen. Looking up from the song choices, he spots a cell phone quickly lowered from his line of vision and a girl with flushed cheeks who quickly averts her gaze. Harry shoots a tight-lipped smile in her direction and goes back to his phone with a sigh. The days when he could roam the streets freely without fear of recognition—or worse, harassment—feel like an entirely different lifetime. He sometimes imagines that he’ll wake up back in his childhood bed as if the past five years had all been a dream, but he never does. In fact, his privacy and anonymity seem to dwindle with each minute of radio play that One Direction receives. It’s a bittersweet pill to swallow, but one he hopes will go down easier with some time in the Hawaiian sun.

His close friend and new manager, Jeff Azoff, had suggested the vacation as soon as the band privately agreed to take a hiatus.

“You’ll go home for a few weeks,” his voice had crackled through the speakers of Harry’s phone. “Visit your mom and Gem, lay low for a while until the smoke blows over,”

Harry mulled it over in his mind, eyes flickering over the rolling landscape outside of the tour bus window.

“Then what?”

“Then you go for a little vacation. The label offered to cover a house in Hawaii so you can start working on the album,”

“Alone?”

Jeff chuckled lightly on the other end before responding. “I mean, if that’s what you want,”

“No,” Harry corrected. “You and Tom should come. Mitch and Bhasker, too,”

“The dream team,”

“And there’ll be a studio there?”

“Yes,” Jeff started, almost hesitant. “But I don’t want you to think about that too much,”

“But you said the label—"

“I also said vacation. Look, Rob said ‘it will all happen in due time,' did he not?”

Harry twisted the rose ring around his finger, tracing over the silver petals and thinking back to his conversation with the CEO of Sony Music, Rob Stringer. Upon the proposal of his debut solo album, Rob had told him that the most important ingredient for a successful debut would be patience. The singer had agreed in the moment, but every day not spent in the studio felt like a test he hadn’t studied hard enough for.

“Yeah.”

“So you take the free vacation,” Jeff suggested. “You go out, live, get some writing material. Maybe mess around with some tunes. And then we come back to L.A. and get to work. But until then, I just want you to focus on taking it easy.”

So take it easy he had. Or at least he had tried to when he was back home in England. Harry quickly grew restless after what felt like the millionth awkward conversation with past friends and acquaintances, all of which eventually led to the topic of One Direction and it’s unexpected hiatus. After one month at home, his mind and journal were full of ideas for songs, things that he wanted to say before he lost his nerve. One night as he tossed and turned in bed, he shot Jeff a text, just two words that would kick off a three month getaway to the Big Island of Hawai'i:

I’m ready.

********

“Sounds great, I'll go put in your order.” Alani offers sweetly, trying not to overdo it with the customer service voice. After waiting on the family at her designated table, she heads back to the kitchen and finds her younger sister, Pua, crouched in the corner taking what appears to be a serious phone call.

“I don’t know, I just saw it!” Her sister cries in a hushed tone. “Where do you think he’s going?”

“Is everything okay?” Alani cuts in with concern.

Pua whispers into the speaker before bringing the phone to her shoulder.

“Harry Styles was just spotted on a plane this morning,”

“Who?”

“The guy from One Direction,” her sister explains with a hint of irritation in her voice. “The band who sings that song you secretly like, ‘Fireproof,'”

Alani vaguely recalls the melody, but she waits expectantly for Pua to elaborate. “And this is news because…”

“Because the band just broke up, so where could he possibly be going?”

"The unemployment office?”

Pua rolls her eyes and returns to her phone call while Alani envelops her in a tight hug.

“I’m just kidding!” Alani apologizes, squeezing tighter despite her sister’s attempts to break free. “I’m sure he’ll be living off of royalty checks until he’s, like, eighty,”

“Get off me, freak!” Pua cries out, finally breaking the embrace.

Alani clutches her chest and pulls out an invisible knife. “Ouch. I’m telling Harry you said that,”

“This is exactly why I don’t tell you things.” the younger sister huffs, storming out of the kitchen through the employee entrance where Alani’s best friend, Maleah, has just arrived.

“Looks like someone forgot to eat their Cheerios today,” she remarks, tying her curls into a high ponytail.

Alani shrugs and leans against the counter. “She’s going through something. Just discovered that boys in pop bands are, in fact, just regular boys.”

“Poor thing,” Maleah frowns. “We all have to learn eventually.”

********

The sky is a blend of cotton candy pink and burnt orange when Alani returns home from the café with a strawberry smoothie in tow. She empties the mailbox and sorts through the various bills and advertisements, but her stomach drops when she sees a familiar return address label. After a quick greeting to her excited dog who waits at the door, Alani bolts up the stairs and quietly shuts the bedroom door behind her. Breathe, she reminds herself before tearing into the envelope and discarding it onto the wooden floor.

Dear Ms. Hale,

We are very grateful to have received your submission to Rolling Stone magazine. However, we regret to inform you—

She doesn’t read the rest, slumping to the floor in defeat. The sixth rejection letter from Rolling Stone lies crumpled at Alani’s feet and she kicks it across the room with a frustrated grunt. She had worked for over two months perfecting her analysis of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi and its allusions to the environmental impact of urban development in Hawaii. As part of her initial research, Alani had even traveled to both the Royal Hawaiian hotel in Honolulu, which is the famous Pink Hotel mentioned in the song, and Foster Botanical Garden that Mitchell referred to as “the tree museum.” She was certain that her effort and persistence would result in at least a consideration. The second third time's the charm! Maleah had joked watching Alani submit the piece. Six articles in the span of two years, each one facing the same rejection despite the increased effort Alani had put in over time. The fact that the rejection letter hadn’t changed over the course of the two years brings an incredulous smile to her face, and her stomach turns when she considers that the editors probably hadn’t even read her work, anyway. All that effort, she thinks to herself, all that time, for nothing.

“It will take time,” her favorite professor, Dr. Hudson, had reassured her three months after the Joni Mitchell article was submitted. “Every great writer faced countless rejection until that one piece. Yours will come. Keep your eyes open and your pen ready.”

Alani sighs and lifts herself off the floor, choosing to crawl into her unmade bed instead of slumping onto the hardwood. She hears a soft scratching at the door before her King Charles Spaniel, Freddie, pads into the room.

“Come here, bubs,” Alani whispers. He obeys and burrows into the duvet, giving her temple a gentle lick before nuzzling into the nape of her neck.

“You still love me, right?” she asks, voice cracking. “Even if I’m a failure?”

Freddie sniffs her ear in response.

********

“Right,” Harry says, his tongue peeking from the corner of his mouth as he reads the map. “No, left, sorry,”

“Do you actually know how to read a map?” Jeff teases, correcting the turn.

Harry pouts in response, his brows furrowing. “In my defense, we’re literally in the middle of fucking nowhere,”

“There are worse places to be,” Mitch pipes up from the back seat. “England, for example, where they say things like ‘litchrally’,”

“Very well said, Mitchell,” Jeff Bhasker adds with a fake British accent of his own.

Harry turns to his friends in the back seat with a finger pointed like an agitated mother. “If you lot don’t shut up, I’m gonna lead us to a volcano and push you in,”

“Where are we even going? I forgot,” Tom complains.

“To get food,” his manager responds from the driver’s seat. “I think,”

“Why can’t we just stop there?” Mitch asks pointing to a café pulling up on their right.

Jeff merges into the turning lane quickly without a second thought. “Good enough for me, I’m starving.”

“Sorry, H.” Mitch pats his friend on the shoulder.

Harry scoffs. “You’re the one who wanted poke.”

The Aloha Nui Loa Café is much more spacious than the exterior suggests, yet it still feels cozy. The walls are painted sage green and adorned with various local art pieces, as described by the plaques that accompany them. A skylight fills the center of the room with plenty of warm lighting, leaving the space along the walls in a bit more shade for an intimate feel. In one corner, a hanging disco ball leaves freckles of sparkling light along the walls where the sunlight hits, making the whole image very idyllic in Harry’s mind. As if he couldn’t enjoy the setting more, he hears the beginning of an Otis Redding song that he’s had stuck in his head drift through the restaurant speakers.

“Welcome in!” a voice calls, which pulls him from his survey of the room. His head whips to the source—a girl around his age with wavy, dark hair and honey skin. “For here or to go?”

Harry takes a hesitant step up to the counter. “For here,”

She smiles warmly and pulls some menus from under the counter. “How many in your party?”

“Five.”

“Great, follow me.”

Harry and his friends follow the waitress to the corner of the room under the disco ball and take their seats at the round table.

“My name is Alani,” she introduces herself, setting the menus down. “I’ll be serving you today. Can I get you started with some drinks?”

Harry continues scanning the restaurant while his group orders. His eyes land on the shirt that Alani is wearing, a white tee with the words “Enjoy Health, Eat Your Honey” in blue lettering that surrounds a picture of a cartoon bee.

“Harry,” Jeff says gently, catching his drifting attention.

The singer turns to his manager, who nods to Alani waiting with a pen pressed to her notepad. Harry feels a rush of embarrassment creep across his cheeks and he clears his throat to cover it.

“Just water,” he says, eyes glued to the menu. “Thanks.”

“You got it.” Alani nods, flashing a toothy grin at the rest of the group before turning back to the kitchen. Harry. Her mind repeats, finding a hint of familiarity, though she doesn’t know why.

When Alani arrives at the drink station, she finds her sister staring at her, mouth agape, while Maleah unsuccessfully conceals her laughter.

“What?” she questions, checking herself for any embarrassing stains or smells.

“You were—and he—” Pua stammers. “He was—and then he—”

“That’s Harry Styles,” Maleah translates, her voice hushed as she peers over her friend's shoulder.

Alani turns to steal a glance at the table she just seated, but Pua and Maleah latch onto her and shake their heads frantically.

“Don’t look!” her sister hisses.

Alani smirks, amused at their reactions. “No shit. That’s One Direction?”

Maleah snorts, clasping a hand over her mouth as Pua huffs. “No, dumbass! It’s just Harry. I don’t know who the other guys are,”

“But the blonde guy? That’s not—?”

“No!” Pua and Maleah giggle in unison.

“Okay, geez,” Alani relents. She manages to steal a quick glance at the table over her shoulder, immediately searching for Harry. Her eyes scan over the long, curly hair kept out of his face by a pair of white sunglasses that she had seen on Kurt Cobain once. All of his features are sharp and striking, from his pointed nose and defined jawline to the bright blue eyes. Or maybe they were grey? Alani wonders, trying to remember the exact shade. He doesn’t look anything like the fresh-faced teeny bopper she’d had in mind, the one from a music video her sister had shown her a long time ago. She would have never guessed that the What Makes You Beautiful singer had so much dark ink trailing down his bicep and forearm, though her knowledge of One Direction was very limited.

“What did he order?” Pua questions, her eyes wide.

Alani quickly snaps back to reality and resumes filling the drinks. “A water,”

“Oh my god,” Maleah swoons. “I’m never drinking anything else ever again,”

“I didn’t even know you liked him,” Alani teases with an eyebrow raised.

Maleah sneaks another peek at the table and catches her lower lip between her teeth. “I mean, I didn’t really think so either but look at him. What a fucking dream,”

Harry was objectively handsome, this Alani could admit, but she personally didn’t see the appeal and had a strong feeling that he was just like every other male celebrity. The fact that he hadn’t even bothered to make eye contact with her only served as further proof of what she knew to be true.

“Okay, well, your dreamboat is waiting for his water. So excuse me,” Alani winks, making her way back to the table.

The singer spots Alani returning out of the corner of his eye and the sight of her causes a strange flutter in the pit of his stomach that makes him want to duck for cover. Instead, he pulls his phone from his back pocket and pretends to be occupied with something on the screen.

“Okay,” she greets, setting the drink tray down. “I have a Blue Hawaii, a Mango Mama, two Loco Cocos, and a water,”

The group graciously accepts their drinks with a chorus of “thank you," but the only one under Alani’s scrutiny is Harry. He still doesn’t meet her almond eyes, and though she figured he wouldn’t, she can’t help the inkling of disappointment that washes over her. After taking their meal orders, Alani heads back to the kitchen, checking on her other customers along the way. Harry’s eyes follow her and he observes the way customers light up at her presence, indulging her conversation with laughter. He watches as she lingers by the jukebox in one corner of the room, a detail he had missed in his initial scan, and waits anxiously to see what song she chooses. Baby I’m-a Want You begins softly and Harry feels the corner of his lip curl ever so slightly. Good choice, he thinks.

********

“He’s still here,” Pua muses, peering through the tiny window in the kitchen door. It had been nearly two hours and the five men were still seated around their table cracking jokes and doing a lot of talking with their hands.

Alani doesn’t look up from her bowl of sliced kiwis, offering a hum in response. “And what do you want me to do about that?”

“Nothing,” Pua shoots back. “Don’t bother him,”

“What kind of girls do you think he’s into?” Maleah asks, attempting to peek through the window.

Alani shrugs, bored of the conversation and of thinking about Harry. “I don’t know, but I’ll bet he’s a real sucker for the ones who stalk him while he’s eating,”

“How does he make eating a salad look hot?”

“Can we talk about something else now?” Alani whines, poking holes in a lone kiwi with her fork.

Pua tosses a wet dish rag in her sister’s direction and cheers when it lands in her face. “Go see if he wants more water, he looks thirsty.”

“I already refilled it,” Alani defends. “Twenty minutes ago. I’ve refilled it a hundred times, I’m surprised he hasn’t peed his pants.”

I’m gonna piss myself. Harry thinks, his right leg bouncing to distract himself. He really wasn’t all that thirsty, but he couldn’t stop himself from finishing each glass of water that Alani placed in front of him. He really wasn’t all that thirsty, but he couldn’t stop himself from finishing each glass of water that Alani placed in front of him. Like clockwork, she would return to fill his glass almost as soon as the last drop had been drained, and so what began as a little experiment slowly turned into a bladder hazard. But if the trend was to be trusted, she would be back any minute and he wasn’t going to miss it; afterall, there were only so many ways to casually linger in a small café without making it weird. Unable to bear it any longer, he heads to the restroom and hopes that Alani doesn’t clear their table before he has a chance to see her again.

Harry pads down the back hallway with his eyes cast down at the floor, which proves to be a mistake when he walks directly into another person.

“Sorry!” they both apologize quickly, Harry’s palm taking purchase on the other person’s upper arm.

“I wasn’t paying attention,” he offers, finally meeting the dark, mocha eyes already looking back at him.

Alani presses her lips into a tight smile. “Me either,”

Harry’s heartbeat picks up when he realizes it’s her, and he isn’t aware of how close they’re standing until he detects the faint scent of kiwi on her breath. He takes a step back and rakes a hand through his hair.

“So I guess I’ll just—”

“Yeah, sure.”

Green. Alani notes to herself. His eyes are green.

********

Shortly after Harry returned from the restroom, him and his friends settled their bill and headed out. Alani cleared their table and her eyes nearly fell out of her head when she saw the hefty tip left behind. The word mahalo was also left behind on the receipt, underlined twice, and she wondered if it was his handwriting.

Later that night, she settled into bed with her laptop and hesitantly typed his name into Google. As she expected, countless articles about the split of One Direction emerged, most of them speculating what was next for each member. To her surprise, however, Harry’s name seemed to be mentioned more than his fellow bandmates as various sources labeled him “the next Justin Timberlake” and rising star of the group. Upon further investigation, she learned that the demand for information about the elusive Harry Styles was high, especially concerning any possible solo music. No news had yet been confirmed by Styles himself, nor anyone claiming to represent him, but she still wondered if his presence in Hawaii had anything to do with a possible solo project. Almost as soon as she thought it, Alani dismissed the theory in favor of the idea that he was most likely just taking a vacation. And from the buzz that she saw surrounding the news about One Direction, she couldn’t blame him.

The more Alani read, the more she wanted to know, and something deep down told her that his was a story worth telling. Of course, the only problem was that she had hardly talked to him, and there were only so many things she could say about the fifteen glasses of water he downed. There was no way of knowing if she would ever see him again, either, or if he was merely stopping in Hilo on his way to another island or somewhere else entirely. Alani sighed, thinking back to her most recent rejection from Rolling Stone. She knew that there was no possible way she would ever see or talk to Harry ever again, and even if she did, why would he bare his entire soul to a stranger? Still, she let her mind wander through the possibility.

Dear Ms. Hale, the letter would read, we are very grateful to have received your submission to Rolling Stone magazine and are pleased to inform you that your piece on Harry Styles will be featured in next month’s issue. Additionally, we would be honored to have you on staff, effective immediately.

It was far-fetched, Alani knew this, but she dozed off that night with endless ideas swimming in her head.

********

By the third day after his visit, the only trace of Harry is in Alani’s search history. She would have completely forgotten about him if it weren’t for her sister’s constant reminiscing and multiple attempts to rename the house salad to the “Harry Special.” As a result, a part of Alani’s thoughts periodically linger back to that day and the subsequent hours spent on Google that she’d rationalized as research instead of stalking. Somehow the knowledge that she’ll never see him again only adds fuel to the questions still burning in her mind, but a customer clearing their throat while she sorts menus below the hostess podium interrupts her thoughts.

“Welcome in!” She calls, standing. “What can I—”

She stops in her tracks, unable to believe her eyes. Harry blinks and waits for her to continue.

“What can I get started for you?” Alani tries again, hoping that he hadn’t noticed her shock. Luckily for her, Harry had been too focused on choosing his next words to register her mistake.

“What’s in the Honu smoothie?” he asks, mentally kicking himself for asking such a stupid question when the menu just inches above her head clearly spells it out.

Alani hums, thinking back to the times she had made the smoothie herself. “Kiwis, spinach, mango, avocado, and a hint of lime,”

“I’ll take one of those,” Harry says, reaching for his wallet.

Alani punches in the order with trembling fingers and nods. “For here or to go?”

“To go,”

Disappointment fills her chest. Sure, she hadn’t planned on seeing him ever again, but the fact that she did felt like a sign. If she wanted to take the chance, she’d have to do it fast.

“Anything else?” she asks, weighing her options while he skims the menu.

“No thanks.”

Alani makes the smoothie quickly, head spinning. She had spent most of the night after their initial meeting planning out exactly the type of questions she hoped to ask him and what kind of article she would write. She was used to writing about what she knew—artists and music she’d admired for years— but she figured that starting fresh with someone she hardly knew would be a good challenge. Not to mention that it seemed like just the thing Rolling Stone would jump for. Alani finally works up the courage as she finishes his smoothie, but when she returns to hand it to him and hopefully strike up a conversation, his ear is pressed to his cell phone. She holds out the drink and he graciously accepts, giving her a small nod as a “thank you” and rushing out of the restaurant.

Two days later he returns and is seated at the counter, typing away on his phone. Alani feels both a rush of optimism and annoyance at the universe for dangling his presence so unexpectedly. She starts heading over to him, but Maleah cuts in.

“Trade me?” she proposes, eyes wide.

Alani blinks. “Oh, I would but I—”

“Please,” her best friend pouts. “I’m leaving to see my grandparents in stupid California for two months. Who knows when I’ll get the chance to see him again?”

Alani sighs, but gives in, reluctantly exchanging Harry for the family of four seated by the window. A strange feeling settles into the pit of his stomach when he sees that she heads in the opposite direction after a hushed conversation with another waitress. He doesn’t know why she traded him for a different customer, but he takes the hint.

A week goes by without another sighting of Harry and Alani has permanently taken on the role of greeting hostess in hopes of seeing him again. Her heartbeat temporarily speeds up when she sees a long haired customer approach the door, but her spirits quickly fall when the face doesn’t match his.

Another week brings another disappointing realization that Harry might be gone for good. One rainy morning when the restaurant is quiet and only two customers huddle together in a booth near the back, Alani hunches over the hostess podium and doodles on a stray receipt— a sunflower, a crescent moon, and two hearts. The bell above the door jingles but she doesn’t look up, too absorbed in her scribbles.

“Do you serve coffee?”

The familiar accented voice stops Alani’s pen dead in its tracks. She lifts her eyes first to confirm, and then straightens up when she sees that her ears haven’t deceived her.

“Yes,” she swallows.

“Great. I’ll take it to go,”

She slightly deflates, but Harry thinks he’s reading too much into it.

“Actually,” he corrects anyway, just in case he isn’t. “I think I’ll stay for a while,”

Alani flashes a warm smile and nods in the direction of the counter. “Right this way,”

Harry sheds his windbreaker onto the back of the seat, revealing a black and white Rolling Stones t-shirt that makes Alani’s blood pressure rise. A sign, she thinks.

“What do you want in your coffee?” she questions carefully.

“Nothing,” he responds, shaking out his damp hair gently. “Or actually, uh, butter...if you have some,”

Alani blinks, not sure if she’d heard correctly or if there had been some transatlantic miscommunication.

“Butter?”

“Yeah,”

“Like the—”

“Spread, yeah,” Harry confirms. “It’s weird, I know,”

She lets out a light-hearted laugh and nods. “It’s a...unique request,”

“I thought the same thing at first,” Harry confides. “It’s not bad, actually. But maybe I’ve just been in L.A. for too long.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

She offers a polite smile and heads to the kitchen where the cook and two other waiters talk amongst each other. Alani is grateful that the restaurant is slow this morning because she knows that it means minimal interruptions to her time with Harry. To ensure this, though, she asks one of the other waiters to cover the podium and returns to Harry with his coffee.

“One butter coffee, free of judgement,” the waitress announces, setting it down.

Harry grins softly, stirring the drink with the spoon Alani provided. “You can judge, it’s alright,”

“I just wanna know why,”

The coffee had been part of a fad diet while on tour in order to boost Harry’s energy on stage and stay trim for the hundreds of photo-ops he would be a part of. He doesn’t know how to communicate all of this to Alani, however, not sure how much she knows about that part of him, so he shrugs and tells a simplified version of the truth.

“I read about this trend a while back, it's called bulletproof coffee. Supposed to get your energy up and I needed it for my job,”

“Which is…” Alani trails off, downplaying the knowledge that she had acquired from Google.

“I make music,” is all Harry says and he takes a sip of the drink to avoid elaborating.

“Anything I would have heard?”

He swallows hard and listens to the faint rumbling of thunder outside before replying. “Possibly,”

“Try me,” Alani challenges.

He narrows his eyes and takes another sip of coffee. “Why don’t you tell me something about yourself first?”

“What do you wanna know?”

Everything, Harry responds internally, though he reigns it in. “How you got into waitressing,”

Alani sighs, resting her elbows on the counter across from him. “There’s not much to tell, it’s a family business. What I really wanna do is write,”

“Music?”

“Articles. I’m studying Journalism at UH,”

Harry hums in response, filing the detail away in the back of his mind. “Sounds interesting. You ever publish anything?”

“Not yet,” Alani shakes her head gently, toying with the sleeves of her green University of Hawaii crewneck. “Hopefully soon, though,”

Harry racks his brain for something else to say, but before he can, Alani speaks up again.

“Is it my turn to ask something now?”

He offers a curt nod and stirs his coffee.

“What kind of music do you write?”

Harry chooses to be vague again. “Different stuff. Pop, usually. Been messing with some classic rock, though,”

“Explains the shirt,”

He peers down at the design on his tee and agrees. “Yeah, I guess so,”

“Do you like it?” Alani asks, her eyes begging to make contact with his again. “Writing music, I mean,”

“Yeah,” Harry confirms, tapping his spoon against the rim of the mug. “I really do,”

Alani’s heart pounds. This is her chance, a moment to finally secure her breakthrough piece. She doesn’t know how to approach it, so she opts to dive right in without looking back. The worst he can say is no.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“That’s cheating,” Harry teases lightly. “It's my turn,”

She pouts playfully, but obliges. “Fire away,”

Harry doesn’t know which question to ask first, but when he glances down at the crescent moon inked on her wrist, he decides to start there.

“What’s with the moon tattoo?”

Alani isn’t sure what she expected him to ask and wonders what purpose such a detail could possibly serve him, but she answers anyway.

“Oh, well,” she begins, tracing her index finger over the outline. “It’s kinda the meaning of my full name. It’s Mahealani, Hawaiian for ‘heavenly moon,'”

Fitting, Harry comments to himself. Every detail he learns about her makes him want to learn that much more, from her favorite foods to the last thing she thinks about before falling asleep. Studying her expectant eyes, he suddenly remembers that it’s his turn to respond.

“That’s cool,” is all he says.

Alani doesn’t know what to make of the faraway look in his eye, but she decides to pose her most burning question while he appears to be in good spirits.

“I know this is gonna sound totally out of the blue,” she starts, working past the lump in her throat. “But when you mentioned how you write music, I was just reminded of this assignment I’m working on in my class,”

Harry waits for her to continue, nursing his now lukewarm coffee.

“I’m supposed to write a piece about someone who I don’t know that well,” she continues. “You know, to practice our interviewing skills. And, well, I was just kind of wondering if you might be interested in helping me out—being the subject, I mean,”

Alani had every intention of telling Harry the truth, about how she really planned to submit the article to Rolling Stone in hopes of securing an internship before her college graduation next Spring. But as she started speaking, she quickly realized how it would come off: a complete stranger asking for personal information to submit to a well-known publication. She knew that there was a chance he would shut down and never return, so she lowered the stakes and hoped that this route would be less risky. Was it ethical? Alani hadn’t decided yet, but she would work out the details later. After six failed articles and two years of rejection, she saw a ray of hope and wasn’t going to let it slip away.

Harry ponders her offer for a moment, which confirms that she had recognized him. Normally he would be off-put by such a request, and to a certain extent he is, but there is something sincere in her voice that he trusts deep down. Before he agrees, however, he decides to fish around a bit to test her reaction.

“You know who I am,” he says gently. “Don’t you?”

Alani’s heart drops into the pit of her stomach, not sure what to say next. She hopes with every fiber of her being that she hasn’t upset him, or worse, ruined her chances, so she decides to offer some truth to throw him off her scent.

“My sister recognized you,” she explains. “That day you came in with your friends. I thought they were your bandmates at first,”

This lets Harry know that she isn’t a total stalker, which is comforting, but he wouldn’t have been minded if she were a fan simply engaging in conversation.

“Oh,” he laughs weakly.

“I totally understand if you say no,” Alani offers quickly, trying to smooth things over. “I just thought it was worth a shot. And that it might be more interesting than interviewing our produce guy,”

Harry decides to give her one last scan for any sign of insincerity. He’d always felt that his gut instinct was strong and it hadn’t led him astray thus far.

“An interview?” he clarifies.

“Just one,” Alani promises. “An hour, tops. And you can proofread all of it once I’ve finished, too.”

Harry waits a beat, already knowing his reply, but he wants to see how she will react to his silence. She doesn’t budge, almond eyes set and determined.

“Okay.”

next chapter

[yakocchi]

Becoming a Family With Him, Part 3 // Shuichi, Hikaru, Rhion, Luke, Eisuke

so this came out, as further celebration for the anni. VERY GOOD, much more appreciated than the prior story set lol that one was kind of boring but i get it

they made the kids for all the... kid-less ones, and the eisuke one that used to be VIP-exclusive is now here for everyone to buy (rip those ppl who gacha for it)

my rambling behind the cut (spoilers!!)

shuichi // as ud expect, shuichi has a literal hime ass looking girl (kikyo) for a daughter. she’s only 6, but is pretty calm and ladylike. She even calls her parents with –sama so... ok luckily shuichi does not strip down all the way in the presence of her daughter and only takes off his suit coat. thanks dad

anyway since shuichi has a break coming up, he wants to have a family trip how nice. but then the dang girl wants to go over to see eisuke WHAT when soryu exists and lives a block away? unrelatable, im closing the app anyway eisuke is her first love, which wtf he’s like 20 yrs older than u. even worse, mc says she’s been in love since she was like 3.

shuichi is reconsidering the benefits of democracy in his mind but eventually relents. but then they’re still following the fucc-days rule they set years ago. well, as he says in the story, RULES ARE RULES

blah blah i don’t want to go over everything bc then it’ll be boring reading the story when it comes out in engl right? also im tired bc it’s 1 am and i just want to play toontown in bed but nothing really bad happens. they are a v cute family bc shuichi is a pleasant and mature dad. kikyo and mc even do a little surprise for him at the end and it is very sweet. i feel like out of all the families, this is the most ideal

mad hatter // so they have twin sons named Rui and Kai. Rui is the childlike one that resembles Rhion in personality, Kai is the more mature one that resembles Al. man i forget that boy’s name but u get me i know they only can use stock bgs but it’s killing me that these dang kids get to sleep in what looks like separate king sized beds.

even though rhion is now a father of two, he still acts like... 10. i mean he still horni but it makes me feel weird

later it’s revealed that Ota teaches them both as an art tutor bc they both showed an interest in art. this is cute bc ota is bad with kids in this universe LOL

the ending on this one was weird cuz the kids didn’t show up in the entirety of the last ep bc it was about WORK. so uh... interesting

hikaru // so their son is named akari. haha get it because it means light. like how hikaru also means light. can mc name her kids unrelated to their father or is that against the Geneva convention

this kid actually acts like an actual little boy. like what hikaru would’ve probably turned into if not for the whole sad backstory. the story starts with akari just bringing a dog randomly home one day. he actually saved the dog (it is very cute bc he did not want the dog to cry), and then after a talk they decide to keep the dog as long as akari knows the responsibility of taking care of an animal.

so next day, the bidders come over to their house and everyone’s like woaw a dog. lol they come into their house as guests and eisuke and mamo still demand for beverages, they all suck

akari names the dog... “Light” (Raito) and i want out of this nightmare. Naturally bc Light is an abandoned dog it’s still kind of bad with interacting with things. But then Light suddenly be giving the ( ╹ਊ╹) to soryu bc remember, animals love him. everyone clowns on soryu for being an unintentional dog whisperer and then akari is like “soryu san pls make me ur apprentice” and he gives some advice like approaching it slowly, and talking to it from the front instead of back.

blah blah there’s a situation where Light goes YEET after a Doberman gets all angry and then hides bc then another dog is scaring it. hikaru swoops in to the save the day as the Real Dog Whisperer. ok it’s cute when hikaru actually gets to look cool  for once LOL

luke // luke is cute on the bc “pre-story” scene he’s actually pretty open to the idea of having kids; he actually goes “well imo we should think abt it pretty soon, but i wanted to hear ur opinion on it” but then he gets horni. and then he’s like “our kids are going to have your collarbones. awesomeee im looking forward to that” ....ok

ok cut to the actual story and they’re in Japan. Luke’s kid looks... strange versus the others. why are his eyes so big? omg voltage his eyes arent going to be saucers just cuz he half white also the kid’s name is Yuri (Or Urey). They couldn’t think of any other Brit-styled names? Like Harry? Henry? William? Wilfred? hey stan be my princess btw he’s pretty cute, though he gives serious “timid kid that gets bullied in the children’s movie” vibes. He calls Luke “daddy” and mc “mammy/mommy”.

so luke talks about his relationship w/ soryu and eisuke and then yuri is like “i want friends like that” wow cute but also find less ethically-complicated friends

so luke lets yuri meet a young patient of his (haru) so they can be friends. they get along so it’s good. haru gets in critical condition later so luke zooms outta there to do the operation.

LOL but at the end yuri is like, “i want to make more friends. (...) can i go to the bidder’s room from now on?” this boy works fast

And then he’s like “Eisuke-san... please be my friend.” HIS POWER. even eisuke was like :O so then eisuke orders a whole bunch of food and books up to the penthouse. But then yuri’s like “...i like eisuke’s eyes” and everyone’s like oh man that’s gonna be his fetish

Baba: why have u started to have an interest in eyes Yuri: I read it from one of daddy’s medical books Hikaru: wtf u can read that at 4??? (...) Soryu: wat Yuri: um... i want soryu to be my friend too Yuri: bc soryu’s eyes are also powerfully cool...

eisuke // ok this gets an extended ramble bc the more annoying the story the longer i must complain

so you might be thinking, “oh so this is gonna be a flashback in some in media res styled story with your 2 kids, u know in the style of the others” and well, no you just go straight to white screen into the flashback, back when eito was smaller and thus a little more cute. well it’s not really false advertising bc they did say “reminisce” in the description. but i wanted to see eito be a good big brother for a moment! or... less good? man i wanted to see kaito go waaaah like a baby idk i wanted to see him exist

so back to the story they cut to small eito. even as a smaller punk he does fight with his dad a little, just w/ a more narrow vocabulary to work with. tho at this point he’s still pretty sweet so clearly eisuke clowning him day and night was a negative effect on his development. (doesn’t treat his child like a child) (child grows up to a punk that doesn’t respect him) (surprised pikachu) being the son of a billionaire means that this child has to go study at a very young age and listen to MOZART. no child of eisuke ichinomiya will be listening to degenerate bops like lee taemin’s criminal next day they all go to the very fancy school that eito will be attending. eisuke does a speech, but then eito is all like “why is papa over there all the time” in reference to how all the other parents in attendance are having fun with their children, but eisuke is busy talking to other people for business and connections etc. etc. mc kind of has a hard time trying to explain it to eito bc... it’s honestly poor parenting... eiji shows up after arriving late, and he’s like “gramps is gonna be with ya today! instead of papa” which is cute but then she’s like psst thanks for coming and im like oh... so grandpa just didn’t randomly come to the open house for fun he’s just gonna be surrogate dad while real dad is busy... aw... and then at the end eito’s like FUC THIS KINDERGARTEN. eisuke is like “(smh) don’t yell in public. (despite everything) you are still the eldest son of the Ichinomiya family”

and so afterwards it’s clear that eito does not want anything to do with this school. he just sits in the classroom until mc is there to pick him up instead of playing in the courtyard or w/e, wanting nothing to do with the other kids.

so later there’s a hiking trip for the students and both of their parents, and mc asks eisuke if he’ll be available for it. eisuke is like, “i have a business trip that day, so I’ll have to adjust my schedule” and he’s been very busy in the opening of a new business or w/e. mc tells him to not do so much for something like that and that it’s ok if she goes alone with eito on the trip.

it’s the day of the trip, and mc goes alone with eito. she notes that a lot of dads did indeed come along for the trip. she apologizes to eito and says that she did talk to eisuke about the trip before, but he’s simply busy for this day. and im like... but girl, you were the one who told him not to change his schedule for the trip. yes a trip may seem less important than business ventures, but don’t make it sound like you weren’t the one who stopped him. lol. idk why im pressed abt this single line of dialogue bc later she does realize she fucced up there well eito is just like w/e about it and has pretty much accepted that sort of thing

anyway eito goes missing later and one of the kids said that he told eito that his dad (eisuke) didn’t come bc his dad thinks that his work is more important than his son. so eito got mad and ran off somewhere

and then mc finally gets the lightbulb moment that eito... wants to see his dad!! he ran off to go try to see him somehow??? !! wow so sweet

it’s raining like a mf but then in her search for eito eisuke randomly pops out of nowhere. He’s like “ho i did not remember saying that i wasn’t coming” and she’s like “im sorrryyy” and both me and him are like “just find the dang kid”

ok yea they find eito, he starts being a good student, and u start to see where he starts being antagonistic towards his dad LOL etc. etc. lol this story annoyed me so i don’t feel like doing the rest of the play by play orz

anyway thanks for reading my garbage LOL

[jaskiersvalley]

My life has been absolute shit lately, and your blog has been the one constant, an anchor if you will; for me. I've probably blown up your notifications and are prob sick of seeing my little icon and I apologize but you have kept me sane. I just love you so much😭❤

I’m so sorry to hear life has been absolute shit lately! Whatever it is that’s going on for you, I really hope it gets better soon. I’m there in your corner and rooting for you. On a side note, please never feel you have to apologise for blowing up notifications. As a writer, it is one of the loveliest things to see, to have someone enjoy works so much, they make their way through multiple stories. Generally, those usernames are the ones that I’ll remember and grin at going “it’s you again” and be really happy to see. Even if we never talk, regulars in notifications bring a special kind of warmth with them. So all the thanks and love should be given to you for being such a wonderful soul.

As thanks, and as a little something to take your mind off whatever’s been going on, have a strange modern AU.

The shelter where Jaskier worked was a relatively quiet one. They tended to specialise in last hope strays and those that needed a home that wasn’t expecting the animals to be cute, convenient and snuggly. Usually, Jaskier’s role was more to sit with the animals, sing to them and get them used to human presence. Sometimes it took weeks before one of the animals dared approach him or stopped growling at his mere presence. But each time it happened, Jaskier’s heart almost burst with love. He adored every single animal that came to the shelter, broken and hurting as they were. In part, Jaskier felt responsible for them and wanted to make sure that no matter what had happened in the past, their future was as bright as possible.

As well as the animals, there was another reason Jaskier loved the shelter. The people he worked with. Namely, one particular volunteer who came in at least once a week and often more when there was a particularly difficult case. Geralt had a reputation as a take no shit gentle giant. He’d had his fair share of bites, scratches and incidents but not once did he ever blame the animal in question. No matter how many times he got attacked, he returned, worked with the animal and tried his best to win them over. As far as Jaskier knew, he had yet to fail.

Some animals needed more attention than others. They were usually referred to as ‘Geralt specials’ because most of the time, it was Geralt who managed to start working with the animal in question. At that moment in time, there was only one such dog at the shelter, a mastiff cross of some description. She had come in half starved and petrified of any human contact. Even Jaskier sitting quietly on the other side of the door to her kennel had her snarling and snapping, throwing herself at the cage door. Any dog doing that would have been scary, when it was a dog Roach’s size, it was downright terrifying. But Geralt had come in and worked his magic. The first time Jaskier saw him slip out of the kennel, he hd expected to see copious amounts of blood. Instead, he got to see Geralt turn back to the kennel and offer a soft smile before acknowledging Jaskier with a nod.

Over time, Jaskier and Geralt started getting on better and better. While Geralt never stayed around when Jaskier played, claiming he wasn’t fond of the racket, he still seemed to linger nearby enough to catch the softly drifting music without being obvious about it. Their nods to each other had become a few exchanged pleasantries. Then it was chats int he staff room. Or even walking the dogs together, Geralt always taking Roach if possible.

“I’m moving,” Geralt announced out of the blue, Roach sitting next to him, tongue lolling happily.

“Does that mean we’ll lose you?” Jaskier’s heart actually hurt at the idea.

Thankfully, Geralt shook his head. “I wanted somewhere bigger, with a garden.” He looked down at Roach and patted her head. She growled, obviously not in the mood for gentle attention.

It was no secret that Geralt was absolutely doting on Roach. He’d even turned a few potential adopters towards other dogs, claiming she was still a work in progress. Though Jaskier had suspected that, with the right person, Roach would have been ready to leave the kennel. Maybe now, with Geralt getting a more appropriate place for a dog, he could actually adopt her himself.

“Will you not be lonely in a bigger place?” Jaskier teased, hoping to get Geralt to admit to his plans.

“No.” Geralt looked at Jaskier with a frown. “Are you asking if I need a housemate?”

Laughter bubbled up in Jaskier’s throat at that and he shook his head. However, he didn’t push the matter any further.

Days went by and Jaskier was called to the front desk. Two men, built like small mountains were standing there. While they looked nothing like Geralt, there were enough shared mannerisms that Jaskier had to wonder whether they knew each other.

“We’re here to adopt a dog called Roach,” the smaller one said.

Priscilla at the desk looked quite stricken. They all had been hoping Geralt would adopt her soon. But, as Geralt had said, moving was expensive and disruptive. He couldn’t bring a dog into the home if he couldn’t safely provide for them.

“I’m afraid Roach isn’t up for adoption just yet,” Jaskier tried to worm his way out of it. “I would be more than happy to show you a few other dogs though.”

“It has to be Roach,” the man insisted.

The other guy finally spoke up. “Sorry, to clarify, we’re Geralt’s brothers. I’m Eskel, this is Lambert. He’s been working with that dog for so long and hasn’t shut up about her. At first we thought it was two dogs, but we’re not sure who would name a dog Jaskier.”

Snickering, Jaskier nodded. “I’m Jaskier. Geralt won’t shut up about me?”

In testament to all of Geralt’s hard work with Roach, she greeted Lambert and Eskel in a civilised fashion. Which made more sense when Eskel admitted he was wearing a hoodie he stole from Geralt.

“She can spend the night at mine. Geralt’s got tomorrow off, his house is as ready as it’s ever going to be. Want to help bring her over?”

The plan was quickly hatched. Jaskier would pick Roach up from Eskel’s the next afternoon. Lambert and Eskel would be at Geralt’s and keep him from getting stuck in on some chore so when Jaskier arrived with Roach, he wouldn’t be interrupted.

There was only one hiccough to their plan. The following morning, Geralt turned up at the shelter even though he wasn’t on the rota. He walked to the back and Jaskier saw the moment he realised Roach’s kennel was empty.

“What’s happened to her?” Geralt’s eyes were wide, face stoically set into something vaguely neutral to hide a breaking heart upon learning she had been adopted.

Jaskier felt awful, realising Geralt had been hoping to finally adopt her. Instead, Geralt gritted his teeth and nodded.

“Did she go to a good home?”

“The best,” Jaskier nodded. “Guy with a house and a garden. She loved him and even tolerated the guy’s maybe boyfriend.”

That was a bit of a cheeky thing to add but Jaskier couldn’t help himself. He had hopes. What he wasn’t braced for was the way Geralt nodded once and made his excuses to leave. On the way out, he dropped a roll of money into the fundraising jar on the reception desk. Jaskier didn’t need to count it to know it was exactly the same amount as an adoption fee. There was a defeated slope to Geralt’s shoulders and Jaskier was reaching for his phone, calling Eskel.

“We need to move up the timeline. He just came by to try and adopt Roach.”

A quick jiggling of lunch breaks and cover later, Jaskier was taking an early lunch and on his way to Eskel’s. He smiled at the dog, loving the big old bow Eskel had managed to attach to her collar.

“Come on girl,” Jaskier coaxed her into the car. “Time to go home.”

He pulled up outside Geralt’s driveway. Somehow, Eskel and Lambert had already managed to coax Geralt onto the porch and Jaskier got to see the annoyed scowl before recognition smoothed Geralt’s features into something confused.

“Sorry to bother,” Jaskier said as he opened up the boot of his car. “But I’ve got something of yours that needed delivering.”

Roach hopped out with a huff and looked around.

“Roach?” Geralt’s voice was full of hope. His dog heard and Jaskier had no chance of holding her leash as she bounded towards Geralt.

Lambert and Eskel took a step back as Roach collided with Geralt and they went sprawling on the ground. They both looked so happy, Jaskier wanted to take a photo and treasure it forever. Thankfully, it seemed that Lambert had the same idea as he’d already whipped his phone out to take pictures. Meanwhile, Eskel pulled out the adoption papers from him pocket.

Finally a little calmer, Geralt sat up and stared at the three of them. “I thought she got adopted.”

“She did. By a guy with a house and a garden. The best home she could hope for,” Jaskier replied.

“Didn’t the guy also have a maybe boyfriend?” Off to the side, Eskel snorted and made no attempt to even hide it. Jaskier had the grace to blush lightly even as he shrugged. “Could we make it a definite boyfriend?” Geralt asked softly.

It was Jaskier’s turn to grin but he didn’t step closer. “While I’m very happy, I think I would prefer not to tackle you to the floor and lick you all over to express it. The bed however,” he trailed off suggestively.

Lambert barked out a laugh and punched him in the shoulder merrily. “We’ll leave you three to figure out who is allowed on the bed and who wears a collar. See you around.”

“Stay,” Jaskier replied. “I need to get back to work. But, maybe, when I’m done, I could come by and see how Roach is settling into her new home?”

He looked at Geralt hopefully. “I could even bring some wine and doggy treats.”

“Deal.”

That was how Jaskier found himself with a date for that evening.

[mofieroll]

Thunderstorms (Josuke Higashikata x Reader)

A Josuke Higashikata x Reader one shot where you were once part of the Crusaders, coming to Morioh with Mr. Joestar, and your pomp baby likes you.

Word Count: 5.2k

A chilly breeze under the warm sun. You were standing on the port of a moving boat, facing the wind that blew your [H/C] hair as you leaned on the sill with a calm expression, eyes closed and lips quirked into a wide smile. You loved moments where you just partook the natural quiet sounds around you, the splashes of water and whispering currents being music to your ears. The day has been serene so far, but you didn't really come here for vacation.

"Shizuka! Come quick! Come quick!"

The voice of a man called for you, disturbing your moment with the calming ocean. You stood from leaning and yawned, popping some stiff muscles before you ran off in panic upon realizing that you were supposed to take care of the person that called for you. Yeap, you forgot of your job for over a second.

You entered the lounging room of the boat and darted your eyes on the back of a crouching man who seemed to be inspecting something on the ground beside the couch. You couldn't see what it was but you were relieved, placing your hands on top of your heart as you sighed.

The man shifted his head and glanced at you with wrinkled eyes and parted lips, "I tried slipping on it, Shizuka, but I couldn't!"

You peeked over him after you reached his side and saw something yellow, "Is that what I think it is?" You replied, giggling as you realized his comedic attempt on trying to solve cartoon logic.

"This banana peel couldn't make me slip.." The old man repeated as he tried to stand up. You held his arm and helped him settle on the couch. He grabbed his wooden cane and placed it in between his legs before setting his eyes on the oceanic scenario outside the windows, "[Y/N]..! I'm sorry.. the name Shizuka has been on my mind lately.. It's-it's a pretty name, don't you think?"

You smiled at his words, grabbing the banana peel from the ground before sitting beside him, "I think it is, Mr. Joestar!"

Familial and friend, you were someone that Mr. Joestar would describe with those two words. Being a member of the Crusaders, and being the youngest one at that, had a big contribution on your platonic relationship with the old man. He was always looking out for you while your brave self assured him that you're afraid of one thing, but you're not afraid to kick the lingering enemy Stand users' peaches. He believed you like how a father would believe her daughter's imaginary stories, making sure you won't feel like you were invalidated. Although, his worry that the trip would scar you, both physically and mentally, increased to the max when the group arrived at Egypt, which led to you being transported back to your lonely home by the Speedwagon Foundation.

You couldn't understand the reason of his worry along with the other Crusaders, so you had a childish decision to to cut ties with them, only to reach out a few years later. At that time, you talked to Mr. Joestar himself, not even hiding the fact that you broke down on the phone when he hesitantly told you that only three of your group survived. You were joyed that he still considered you as a part of the Crusaders, but you were disappointed that you were immature, making you miss all the trivial things that happened. The old man comforted you like those nights when you were missing your parents, fondly telling you, "That's a no-go! The boys wouldn't want you shaming yourself now, and neither would I. Live your life like you're supposed to, little [Y/N]. Everyone would be so proud of the woman you'd become!"

Now that you're on the legal age of 18, you're trying to fulfill your number one goal in mind, and that is to be a doctor under the Speedwagon Foundation. Sure, you're a bit forgetful sometimes, but you have a free pass for being under special training which was only possible because of your Stand.

..and your connection with the Joestars.

You and Mr. Joestar were sitting in silence, lost in reminiscing thoughts, until the sound of a water vehicle grew to be disturbing the peace even if it sounded far.

"What..?" You glared at the surroundings, frantically looking from the door where you came from to the side of the windows, figuring out where the vehicle is most likely to be, "Mr. Joestar, I have to check something outside. It'll be quick, a'right?" You stood up, rushing outside after you received no reply from the unbothered old man who still had his attention on the scenery.

You ran through and up the hallway until you reached the edge of the deck. You held on to the red fence as you leaned with squinting eyes, trying to see who was on the.. motorboat approaching the boat you're on. The attempt took minutes, making you sit on the floor in boredom before you jumped to your feet in excitement as you finally saw the passengers of the smaller vehicle. One was a boy in a blue uniform you absolutely do not know and the other..

The other was your childhood emo crush who now wore a white hat and coat, "JOTARO! Jotaroooo!" You screamed, waving both your hands with a cheeky grin. This is your first time meeting him after a decade! You forgot, but you were just as excited when you were informed about meeting Jotaro Kujo during this boat trip with Mr. Joestar.

"I heard you're a Marine Biologist now, huh! Remember when you knocked that one shark out to save me?!" You ironically screamed before laughing, following the motorboat to the back as the boy in uniform whispered to Jotaro while pointing at you. The adult man didn't mind the two children around him and focused on driving the motorboat, tugging the brim of his hat down as he gave himself a small smile.

Two of the Speedwagon Foundation crew was already waiting for the motorboat when you reached the back, "Sirs! You knew they were coming?" You asked as you reached their side, eyes still on the said vehicle.

"[L/N]? We actually informed you about this.." One of the two answered, making you rub your neck as you looked up, trying to remember it happening. You tried.. and got extremely confused in just a minute that you didn't even notice that the passengers of the motorboat had boarded yours. You were snapped with your sudden realization that you've told Mr. Joestar you'll only be quick with checking, making you run back to the room he's in.

Okuyasu Nijimura, who actually thought you ran off because he stood in front of you, looked back at Jotaro with a puzzled face. The adult man shove his hands inside his pockets and gave permission to follow you with a jerk of his head, to which the student complied to, but not without a scrunched face and a dramatic hop on the small wall that separated the stern of the boat from the hull where the lounge was.

Mentoring three different teenage boys has been a pain in the back. Jotaro doesn't know if he should be happy that you're back with them or.. he should just devise an escape plan from all of this. Either way, with you here, he's certain that he doesn't have to look out for his Jiji that much.

The boat arrived at the harbor safely. Knowing that an enemy posed as a crew and wanted to get rid of Mr. Joestar was a bit surprising, you even thought Okuyasu was Mr. Joestar's son at first! But now that you're seeing his actual son who had an eye-catching pompadoured hair, you weren't surprised on how charming he was.

You whistled and nudged Jotaro who was on your side. Everyone had their eyes on the father and son walking away hand in hand, "Woah, that's Josuke Higashikata? Sheesh, Jotaro. What's with y'all Joestars being so hot and everything?"

Jotaro glared at you, "Gimme a break. You're older than him."

You glared back and faced him, "I'm literally 18 and he's 16! Don't say that like I'm some sort of creep!" You jokingly punched him on the shoulder and voiced an ora, to which he responded with tipping his hat down and turning his back on you, "Hmp— Oh, may you please tell Josuke that I could tend to his wounds? I don't wanna ruin their moment right now, so maybe later?"

Jotaro turned his head and nodded, "Coolness! Thanks, my dear ocean man!"

—

Several weeks have passed since yours and Mr. Joestar's arrival at Morioh, and you've grown closer to the group as to be expected. Okuyasu always goes out of his way to meet you at the hotel you're staying at because of how much he enjoys your pampering when he blurts to you about how his pomp-haired friend gets the ladies in school, he had even told you that Koichi had a scary girl obsessing over him, not forgetting to mention that she was cute anyway. You seldomly meet the said boy, Koichi, as he was not the type to go around town if not needed, and only accompanied him once when he walked his large fluffy dog. Josuke on the other hand, always comes with Okuyasu to the hotel but he doesn't speak to you and only observes your interactions with his friend and his father while you also played with the invisible baby they found, whose name is now Shizuka. You didn't know there was a relevant reason as to why he wouldn't talk to you even if you tried to start a conversation, so you shrugged it off and just shot him genuine smiles whenever your gazes met. You were technically the older sister in the gang and it would make sense that Jotaro was the older brother, but he was more of an uncle figure.

Josuke planned to continue his tsundere facade until he was sure of asking you out -on a date- for a hangout with just the two of you, but what he didn't expect was for a certain someone, who he just can't seem to get along with, to poof up and force him to ruin his own plans.

"Listen, listen! I met a Stand User earlier today. I was just doing my own thing when he took photos of me without my permission. He even directed me of what to do and straight up got mad when I hesitated! Turns out, he's a mangaka who found me as a good reference and I was like, good and not perfect? He glared at me for a second then he just summoned his Stand! Yo! It was a cute, white and gold dude! Of course he didn't get the chance to use the dude on me, I have my totally cute Stand too! Next thing I know, he invited me for coffee! Rad, huh?"

You didn't even need to mention his name for them to know who you were talking about. The two boys who listened, Josuke and Okuyasu, looked at each other in shock before talking to themselves like you weren't there. Calling him the 'spider-licking guy', badmouthing him and expressing every inch of their dislike for the man. Inviting you for coffee was a bad call, it just meant that you two became friends and scheduled a date. Josuke tried his best to make you back out of it, eventually talking to you all the time and taking care of you, his father and the baby, like the older brother —your partner— he wanted to be since the time he realized he likes you. He couldn't accept that the mangaka had the upper hand, so he tried to do everything he can to change that.

But of course, the 'pure love kind of guy' failed.

The day of your date with the great mangaka arrived. You were in a good mood as you prepared, the voice of Kai Harada playing on the background radio noise. The man had said that today is a sunny day, to your delight, but there is a chance of a hard gloomy storm at afternoon, to your dismay. If there's one thing about nature that you dislike the most, it's thunderstorms. Although those weren't mentioned, the anxiety of being out in the open while it occurred crept over you. You observed yourself at the vanity mirror: your hair fixed into a [H/S] that you do only for special occasions and a [F/C] [O/F] that fitted your style and body as you kept your face in a natural but fresh look, eyeing details of yourself to shrug off the previous thought.

It's now 1PM and you are finally face to face with the mangaka, seated outside the famous Cafe Rengatei in Morioh. You arrived earlier than the meeting time, making you certain that your efforts to fix yourself went to a shame.

"It seems you've made an effort for your meeting with me today. You look quite presentable," Rohan started, leaning on the chair as he crossed his arms and had his chin up.

You quirked a brow, copying his action, "And what does that imply, Mr. Good Reference?"

"It implies that you're a perfect reference right now so I'll be straight to the point of this meeting," He frankly stated. Puzzled at the word 'meeting', your brows creased, "I want you to let me use Heaven's Door on you, and you will be paid. Since I didn't get a good— let you get away before, I'm asking for the permission you're requiring me of. I heard from my friend, Koichi, that you might have an interesting story. I could have just used Heaven's Door on him, but his information of you is limited. So, is that settled?"

And here you thought this was a date.

You bit your cheek from the inside and held the clothing on your lap, "Yeah, yeah. When do we start? Oh, and you don't have to pay because you sounded real genuine and kind. Thank you very much!" You replied, a bit of sarcasm coming with it.

Rohan raised an eyebrow and battled with your blank stares before speaking, "Tch. I have the money to pay, [L/N]. Meet me at my house tomorrow morning. Don't make me wait." He grabbed his sketchbook from below the table and stood up, giving you one final, sassy look before he left.

You watched him walk away, sighing deeply as his form vanished. He got you hard with the coffee invitation and he didn't even stayed a little longer to order and enjoy an afternoon snack with you. Oh, right.

You were just acquaintances. Nothing more and maybe less. It's not that you liked him in a certain way, you were only bummed that you requested a day off for this. Taking care of the people you care about and studying for your medical course are much better than misinterpreting a business deal for a casual date. You sighed once again, lightly hitting your head on the table, "This is the work of the worst enemy Stand."

The disappointment took over your senses on your surroundings, so you became more oblivious to the Josuke that was watching you far behind.

And yes, he's been there all the time.

Shocking and unbelievable to the ears of the mutual friends of Rohan and Josuke, but the mangaka was the one to set you and the student up. It's true that Rohan had heard of you from Koichi, but that's not all. He had also heard that Josuke had been acting distant to you when all he talks about at school is.. well, you. How did he even know about that? It's absolutely not the work of Heaven's Door, Koichi just had to slip up.

You and Josuke both stayed at your respective places, unsure of what to do next now that Rohan had done his part. A few minutes passed, and you both sighed at the same time. You stood up, deciding that you'd go back at the hotel and play with the adorable Shizuka, while the nervous Josuke continued watching you, figuring out the right time to show up.

You were supposed to walk back, but then drops of water started falling from the sky. You opened your palm and looked up the sky, only to see gray colors eat up the blues. You closed your eyes and sighed once more, whispering to yourself, "This day is a work of an enemy Stand."

Not for Josuke who brought an umbrella that he'd share with you, though.

The drops of rain became a heavy storm within minutes, making you run to the nearest waiting shed. There were only hints of you being soaked, but it didn't help your body that had low resistance towards the cold. In this moment where you hugged yourself to keep your body heat, you remembered the Crusaders. The group of big men who all had a soft spot for you, and the small dog who accompanied you at your mischievous times. They were the group that always made sure to keep you warm, the group that always assured you that thunderstorms—

"AAAAH!"

You squealed upon hearing the deafening noise from above, the sound of pouring rain quickly enveloping after. You whimpered and tucked yourself in the corner of the shed, hands covering your ears and tightly gripping your now messed hair as you trembled greatly. Slowly and weakly, you dropped yourself, your knees meeting the coldness of the ground. This was supposed to be a nice day. A nice, enjoyable day that involved no stress and no professional work. Mr. Joestar also wanted you to enjoy but this, fighting back the urge to sob while you silently hollered in the storming public, isn't exactly your idea of spending your leisure time.

"[Y-Y/N]?"

Josuke stood just outside the waiting shed, a black umbrella, protecting him from the rain, in hand. He ran when he heard your scream, resulting to his shoes and pants to be thoroughly soaked. He looked at you with worry and guilt, although clueless as to what exactly caused your outspoken self to curl into a whimpering puppy. Rohan.. It must've been him. He shouldn't have just stood there watching, "[Y/N]..? Did Rohan do—"

A loud thunderstorm sounded once more, making you scream and push yourself to the corner. Josuke gasped, it's.. the thunderstorms that's causing this.

Josuke entered the shed and closed the umbrella, hanging it on the roof. You weren't paying him any of your attention, your conscious mind devoured by unsettling thoughts. Your phobia of thunderstorms was something you caught from your childhood. Something you caught from the freezing and lonely nights without your parents, people who you most expected to be there for you when you're being secluded by fright.

The boy who was now crouching in front of you noticed your lack of attention as he's been calling your name. He bit his lower lip, feeling more and more soft as each second passed. He should have known.. he usually did ask Mr. Joestar about you after all.

Josuke gave up on calling you and proceeded to his second move, which was to cover you with his gakuran. He stood up, unclasped the remaining buttons and gently enrobed you with the garment, slight joy sparking in him when you quickly accepted and wrapped yourself with it. He expected that you were still clueless of a person here with you, but you really are filled with surprises.

"T-thank you.. Angel.." You muttered, a serene feeling slowly emerging when you thought a kind citizen had randomly decided to be concerned over a breaking down woman. You exhaled deeply, eyes opening as your whole form has been blanketed by the coat.

"Angel? You think that suits me?"

You felt your heart skip a beat upon hearing the familiar cheerful voice. It wasn't some random citizen who helped you, of course it had to be someone you know.

You draped the coat over your shoulder and wrapped your body with it, head turning to the side where your sight met the ever-majestic boy's grin, hastily noticing his biceps as he only had a yellow sando as a top. Your eyes widened in surprise, bringing back the coat over your head to hide the creeping blush on your face. The turn of events had you sweeping away the thoughts of your phobia, at least.

"A-ah..? Of course it suits you! You're my.. our JoJo after all!" You faced him and answered after sighing inside the coat, trying to compose yourself, "Your g-gakuran is so warm, Josuke. I might just steal it now!"

Josuke let out a chuckle, comfortably glad that you feel better now. He had one more move up his sleep and he'd ecstatic if he could do it, but maybe some other time.. or later..? Woah there, he shouldn't be thinking about that right now. But for real, he's curious on.. how having you in his arms would feel. Your body insufferably close to his.. your loving arms wrapping around him as he shared his body heat so that you'd be shivering no more.. Sh*t, this is still a crush, right?

"U-uhm, Higashikata to e-earth..?"

"Ah? What? Oh! Yeah, sorry! W-were you saying something?"

Josuke got too far with his thoughts that he stayed still, staring at you with half-lidded eyes and a smirk, a pink shade on his cheeks which were becoming evident even with the storm blocking out the light from the sun. You didn't consider that he looked at you like a lovestruck boy and snapped him from his trance, concerned that he might be feeling cold now.

"I was asking if you.. uhm.. now that I think of it, I m-might sound like a creep," You said, still trembling. You closed your eyes and sighed, meeting his encouraging expression as you opened them again. A pursed smile formed on your lips, "You could have your coat back although I.. I was hoping if we could share it but—"

"Of course we can! I thought you'd never ask, [Y/N]!" Josuke jumped to his feet, a confident grin on his face. You looked up at him, confused, "Brr! I'm starting to feel cold too! Well?" He happily lied, crossing his arms and making an up and down motion over his biceps to add to his bluff. Josuke's not going to let this chance pass! You were the one to offer the.. intimate gesture, he'd be cursing himself forever if he messes this up.

You nodded with your mouth agape and tried to stand up on your feet. Your legs were numb for having to carry your weight on the ground, so it'd make sense if you stumbled for a bit. Fortunately, a strong and quick-thinking boy was there to catch you before it even happens, his hands —which flicked the coat— supporting your waist as you held on his wrists. Oh boy, why is it that you think he'd be a perfect gym partner?

"Perfect gym partner, huh? I wouldn't mind that too, Ms. [Y/N]!" Your eyes widened upon his words, "Yep, you just said it out loud!" Josuke laughed, giving you the urge to turn around in embarrassment but you couldn't, his stubborn hands locking you in place. An awkward silence engulfed as you looked into each other's eyes, the sound of pouring rain joining in again.

You gulped as Josuke sighed and cleared his throat, "I know this isn't a good moment to say what I'm about to say, but I don't think I could do it anywhere else without being awkward so I'm going to say it," Josuke sighed once more and you blink as a response. He sounded complacent yet also shakened while your confusion is getting ahead of you, "I'm really, REALLY going to say it now! I'm actually going to say it, will you let me say it? Uh.."

"..F*ck this is harder than I thought."

You creased your brows, adamantly switching to your sister form, "Language, JoJo!" You retreated your hands and tapped his cheeks, and.. you know you shouldn't have done that.

From another person's view, yours and Josuke's position just got more romantic than ever. Your small hands cupping his adoring face as his were firmly placed on your waist.. His almost bare top fighting the cold breeze brought by the storm just so you could be warm under the cover of his gakuran that was appealingly big on you.. This is much preferable than what Josuke daydreamed. You even called him JoJo, which he's never heard you call his nephew or his father with. Holy.. you're oblivious to the fact that you're setting the mood for him, aren't you?

You were about to pull your hands away when he swiftly locked your wrists, your waist now free from him. You gasped and felt your heart skip a beat. It was just like when you first heard his voice earlier. Being with him like this feels good but.. it doesn't feel right.

"I'm being pushy here, aren't I?" Josuke chuckled shakily, "I feel like bursting at this moment, so.. Ms. [Y/N], would ya listen? I know it'd be uncomfortable and freaky, but I seriously need to say it."

You barely nodded, his hands bringing down yours and holding it in his. He was looking down at the pairs, smiling at how yours fitted in his, "It's only been weeks since we've met— heck, since I've met you and Mr. Joestar, and this isn't really the right time for me to be having this.. puppy crush when enemy Stand Users are on the lose, but I don't usually crush over someone this hard." He grunted, his hands delicately squeezing yours, "I.. I like you, [Y/N]. Like, like-like like you. There.. I finally said it."

The moment would have been cute because of his mulish confession, but you just had to ruin it for the poor boy.

"Josuke we're.. we're family." Josuke flinched before looking at you, his arched brows hitting each other. The tables have turned, and he's the one that's waiting now, "Mr. Joestar, Jotaro.. they're like father and older brother to me while.." You sighed, successfully pulling your hands away from his weakened grip, "Josuke, I don't want to trade my close relationship with your father's family.. for a possibly temporary feelings for me."

Your words hit like Cupid shot their arrow backwards, but Josuke didn't let himself be completely fazed. He was taken aback for a second, but that doesn't mean he didn't expected this. He knew how much the Joestar Family meant to you. You're even proud that you owe your life to them, to such good people that were the epitome of justice and heroic greatness. He took note of that fact when he was getting to know you through his father, who seemed to enjoy telling stories about you. Somehow, he could say he was prepared for this.

"But, doesn't that mean if I proved my feelings aren't temporary and I'm proudly certain of it, I would have a chance with you?" Josuke grinned, tilting his head as he shove his hands in his pockets, "Also, Mr. Joestar approves of you being his daughter-in-law. Man, I'm just glad you didn't accept his offer to adopt you years ago. That would have sucked!"

Your lips opened and closed like a fish underwater, making Josuke smirk inwardly. You were almost speechless, and that's a good thing for him, "How did you.. Why do you even.." You stiffened, fiddling with his coat as you turned on to your side, facing the raining scenery, "Josuke, I don't know why you're doing this, b-but this ain't funny, y'know? Don't you like, see me as your older sister or—"

"At first," You glanced at Josuke who was now facing outside too, "When you introduced yourself as Mr. Joestar's caretaker, yeah," He stole a glance back and pouted, "But when we got to know you and literally took care of me like you're my caring girlfriend? Hell no. I could even bet Okuyasu also had a crush on you, but he told me you were like a mom, a cute mom at that." He shook his head, chuckling at what he said, "Misunderstanding your actions was a sh*tty move for me but I don't regret it one bit, Ms. [Y/N]."

There, Josuke did not just confess his romantic feelings to you, but also admitted how his decision to like you seemed inappropriate. It was valid nonetheless, as you weren't related to him by blood, but you take pride in being the Joestars' comrade —even if you seemed thirsty for them some times— and he acknowledges that.

No one gets to choose who they specifically prefer to be with, anyway. He had to 'Dora!' his way out of his boundaries with you or he would be lying to himself, which he dislikes the most, aside Rohan.

"Are you sure Mr. Joestar's okay with this?" You asked, sighing, "I don't mind giving you a chance now that—"

Josuke didn't even let you finish and proceeded to lock you in his arms, pulling you in excitement as his arms snaked around your neck and your head, "I said 'chance', JoJo! You haven't even asked me if you wanted me to be your girlfriend—"

"So you like me too?" Josuke cut you off again, smiling down at you. You sighed and nodded, accepting your defeat. He shouted a yes, an arm punching above, hitting the roof of the shed, "Aw—! But hey, you just admitted that you like me! Take that, Rohan!"

You slightly pulled away from Josuke, "What does Kishibe have to do with this?" You asked, glaring at him. Josuke shook his head, scratching the back of it as he grinned. Rohan totally had something to do with this as he didn't only set them up, but even tried to discourage the lively Josuke by saying that you'd reject him and tell him that you only see him as family. Technically, he was right— but that didn't last long!

You were going to ask about it again when a thunderstorm sounded, breaking down your collected spirit as you ended up holding yourself close to the boy in front of you. His playfulness aside, he fixed his gakuran that was still on you and wrapped you in his arms protectively, assuring you that you're going to be okay. Another thunderstorm followed, startling you even in his arms. You were a shaking mess, your fists grabbing a handful on the back of his sando, face buried on his chest. He should've been shivering from the cold all this time, but your presence provided warmth for him and he's grateful for that. Josuke willingly let you nuzzle yourself around him, knowing that it comforted you and it brought contentedness to his feelings.

"I hope you won't mind being the rainbow that brings color to my life, [Y/N]."

"Y-yeah, JoJo.. u-unless I strike you as a lightning w-when you break my heart.."

"I'm frightened that you can be scary while you're scared [Y/N] but.. sh*t, I just realized.."

"What i-is it now..?"

"It's also hot."

[End!]

[elliepassmore]

Elatsoe Review

5/5 stars Recommended for people who like: magic, urban fantasy, ghosts, #OwnVoices, regional gothic, mysteries, Indigenous legends I absolutely loved this book, from the casual magic to the stories of six-great-grandmother to the ghosts to the creepiness of Willowbee. I'm such a sucker for those Tumblr posts about regional American gothic, and so much of the little details of this book felt like those but woven into a complete world. I liked reading about the little alterations made to our world to make it the one in the book, as well as some of the ways magic might be dealt with considering the way we deal with non-magical things. I thought the worldbuilding was really good, obviously, and I thought things were introduced in a well-paced manner. The mix of exposition and reveals were also good, and Little Badger did a good job of making the exposition not actually feel like exposition. I especially liked the way Little Badger brought some new aspects to some of the lore in the book, like how vampires technically needing to be welcomed onto Indigenous land or fairies being interdimensional beings. I thought the discussion of how magic interacts with the world was interesting, and I liked the added 'realness' of having two characters discuss the carbon footprint of certain magic uses much like the way we'd debate plane vs. train carbon emissions. Since this is kind of worldbuilding, I'll mention here that I very much enjoyed the creepiness of Willowbee. It's mostly a normal town from the outside, except for the fact that the occupants will stare down strangers the entire time they're in town. And the fact that there's a mansion on the outskirts and there are several misaligned parts of the town's history. The deeper into Willowbee and its history the characters go, the creepier the town gets. It's a really good mix of creepy without being over the top, and honestly it might be more of a situation where you go 'well that's...weird and unsettling' more so than it can be considered creepy, but still. The stories of six-great-grandmother were also a really enjoyable piece of the book and I liked hearing about her adventures. She seems like a really cool person and just absolutely gives zero fucks what other people think of her (though at least most people she comes across in the stories seem to respect her). The stories were definitely a good way to do some worldbuilding as well as give life lessons to Ellie and allowed for those things to be included in a non-intrusive, natural feeling way. I think it would be cool at some point to see some more stories about six-great at some point, maybe in a smaller bind-up or ebook. As for the characters, Ellie is the 3rd person narrator for the entire book except for one chapter 3rd person narrated by Vivian, her mother. Ellie's goal is to figure out what happened to her cousin while also keeping her family safe and preventing it from happening to anyone else. This book is a nice change from most YA books with a similar theme in that Ellie's parents are present and supportive of her and help her along the way to reach her goals, never once doubting her word. Family is a really big part of things and you can tell how much it means to Ellie. She's devoted to her family members and the traditions and secrets of her family. She's a good detective, willing to do the dirty work, and is smart enough to realize that live streaming some of her adventures is a good way to avoid being disappeared. I enjoyed reading about her relationship with her dog, Kirby, as well, who has been a ghost for 5 years but is still a wonderful companion despite his incorporeality. Kirby serves as both a pet, a warning signal, and a good way to explain some of the ways of the world and about ghosts. All the ghosts were very cool and I liked learning about the family's history with them and some of the family secrets about ghosts. Ellie's grandmother seems like a serious badass for having a mammoth as her ghostly companion, and I think she would be another good one to have a book about. Below is also an interesting concept and I like Ellie's realization that it isn't necessarily one point in time, but it can be multiple stacked on top of one another, like all the oceans or deserts that were in one place across the billions of years that place has existed. Vivian also added some interesting complexity to the family's use of ghosts, since like all eldest girls in the family she has the ability but doesn't use it as much as her relatives seem to. In her narrative chapter we get hints as to why that is and a time when it was different, which I thought added some nice layers to her character and the story and use of ghosts as a whole. Jay, Ellie's best friend, also features prominently in the book as someone who helps with her investigation. He's a rather optimistic character and acts as a good support during the investigation, pulling out some pretty good resources as well. Jay himself is a fairy and aside from the obvious mentioning of it in the beginning of the novel, there are some more subtle bits dropped throughout the book that make it realistic, such as the pointed ears he hides under his hair or the part(s) where he uses a will-o-the-wisp as a flashlight. I thought his interactions with Al were amusing, considering he's fine with the other guy until it turns out how serious Al is about his sister, though I think he's more grumbly about it than genuinely upset. Despite being what Ellie calls a "Celtic-and-Nordic American," Jay respects Ellie's culture and traditions and is respectful when inquiring about things he doesn't know. I enjoyed the interactions between Ellie and Jay and it's obvious how close the two of them are. While the book ends with all the loose threads tied and I think it'll be a standalone, if Little Badger were ever to write about Ellie again I could see the two of them being partners-in-investigation in/after college. Something I did find off about their relationship, though, was the fact that they've supposedly been best friends since babyhood, yet don't know some pretty basic things about one another. In one scene, Ellie mentions that she didn't think he was actually related to Oberon and in another Jay is surprised to hear Ellie's full name is Elatsoe, both of which seem like things you would know about your best friend. I mean, the first name one is something you would probably know about your regular friends too, so it seemed kind of weird that he never would've heard her full name before. There are other times where it seems like they're more 'newly best friends' than 'lifelong best friends,' but overall I enjoyed their interactions and their friendship. Most of the characters in this book were awesome in different ways, though there's not enough room to go over them all. Ellie's parents were both supportive and trusting of her, though they did still worry and caution her like parents do. Pat, her dad, comes across as a warm person and I liked the little quirk of his that's revealed at the beginning re: gas and survival stories. He's a vet, so it only seems natural that he's married into a family where the women raise ghost animals. Vivian is a teacher and seems to be the more protective of the two, though she's not stifling about it. She's the parent who's mostly with Ellie during the book, since the dad has to work and is only really in the beginning, and we get to see a lot of how her and Ellie interact and the advice she gives El. Another family member is the cousin-in-law, Lenore. Poor Lenore has just lost her husband and has a still-young baby. I sympathize with that and with her sense of grief and pain. What I do not sympathize with is the way she handles some things. For one, she seems entirely too dismissive of the family's culture. In one part of the book Ellie is reminiscing on a time she visited with her cousin and that even then she knew there was tension between Trevor and Lenore re: cultural traditions. Well, in present-tense Lenore seems to almost completely ignore some pretty major parts of their culture, such as burying those who've passed with personal items and not using their name to refer to them for a certain period of time. Likewise, she knows the dangers of human ghosts, yet she still seems to want Trevor to come back as a ghost *SPOILER* and 1) even attempts to disturb his grave to get that to happen and 2) is said to seem very happy when news he did come back as a human ghost breaks *SPOILER END*. Al is, as mentioned, dating Jay's sister, Ronnie, and is a vampire/cursed man. The lore behind vampires was interesting, and I liked how Little Badger used a version of them that sees vampirism as an illness, since it adds a layer of complexity to the world and reveals some of how discrimination that is applied in situations in our world is applied in the world of Elatsoe. Al seems like a pretty laid back guy and he clearly cares about Ronnie and Jay. He's more than willing to help with the investigation, even when it gets him into some pretty serious trouble, and he takes most things that occur in the book with a pretty chill attitude. Ronnie, Jay's sister, appears toward the end of the book with some friends and is 100% willing to kick some ass in Willowbee. With only being in the book for a short time, she seems like a cool character and seems decently close to Ellie and her family as well. One thing I felt a little weird about was the one scene where she and Ellie are on the phone and Ronnie says "I get that you're asexual, so, like, it can be a friend or zucchini or..." (201), which felt a little along the lines of 'I don't care if someone's white, black, or purple.' I really enjoyed Elatsoe and thought the characters, worldbuilding, and plot were all excellent. I definitely recommend it for fantasy lovers, and I'll definitely be reading A Snake Falls to Earth when it comes out.

[purplesurveys]

1185

survey by xflirtykaosx

Alphabetti Spaghetti (3/3)

Please believe. - P

How many pages did the last book you read have? I don’t even remember the last time I opened it; but if I have to guess, it’s probably anywhere between 600–800 pages.

What do you like on your pancakes? Soaked in butter, with peanut butter and maple syrup on the side. My dad will also sometimes mix bacon into the batter, and it always turns out delicious.

Do you like small parties or large parties more? I love going to any kind of party, but I like large ones just a little bit more just because it’s easier to blend in and go unnoticed for the most part. I usually feel pressured at smaller parties.

What was the last exam you passed in? I have no idea. Maybe a history exam? I remember taking a Rizal exam right before the pandemic started and I never got the results for that since classes were canceled shortly after. I’ll never know if I actually passed that test haha.

Do you think paw prints are cute? Yesssssss.

How much would you pay a neighbour to do your lawn? We have someone in the village who does that, and my mom usually gives him a tip of I would guess around ₱100.

Ordinary pens, scented pens, gel pens or felt tip pens? Ordinary. The other ones write horribly.

Are you a people person? I’ve grown to be one over the years. I do like my alone time, but I have the most fun with a person or two or ten around me.

Do you put pepper on your scrambled eggs? No. I never use pepper myself, actually.

Who, except yourself, has the nicest pet? Angela’s, at least one of her dogs are. Hailey is super nice and she doesn’t really care what you do with her hahahaha.

What's your favourite piece of clothing? Right now, probably my IVP sneakers since they’re my newest purchase. Other than that, my mom jeans are always super reliable.

What place have you gone to that you never would again? Police stations that I had to visit to cover stories for my journalism classes. Maybe it’s other people’s passion – and I thought it was mine at one point, too – but once I found myself in places like that I slowly realized that I didn’t have the fire for journalism I once thought I had.

What do others seem to have plenty of and you have little or none? Nice photos of themselves. I’m very camera shy.

Is pink a nice colour, an okay colour or icky? I personally love pink, so.

Give me a description of a great film plotline? ...I don’t feel like it :(( I also haven’t watched/rewatched any films in a while, so my memory is a bit rusty.

What do you have in your pockets? Nothing I’m wearing right now has pockets.

Do you listen to podcasts? Not really. I’m part of the minority that finds podcasts a little boring.

Have you ever played Poker? I’d guess I’ve tried playing it one or two times, but I’ve never understood the rules and I probably just did some random moves when I did try it.

Do you have a pond in your garden? No.

How about a swimming pool? We don’t.

Do you like Poptarts? I loooooove Pop Tarts and I wish we had more flavors here :( and that they weren’t so expensive.

Do you write notes on post-it notes? Sometimes; but lately I’ve mostly just been making to-do lists on my laptop. Writing takes too much time considering how hectic my job is.

Quiet darling, shh. - Q

Do you ever use the word quaint? Very rarely. I never really get into situations where that word would be most fitting to use.

Do you know what quantum physics is? I know of the term from watching The Big Bang Theory, but I don’t know what it refers to.

Are you a quiet or loud person? Depends on the people I’m with, my general mood, and my level of comfort.

Do you usually ask a lot of questions? I never do. I feel like that’s a weakness of mine, too. My mind never wanders too far, and I’m only able to recognize good questions when someone else raises them.

What's your favourite quote from a film? “Rome. By all means, Rome.”

Favourite quote from a song? “Now I’m told this is life, and pain is just a simple compromise so we can get what we want out of it.”

Are you quick witted? In what aspect? Not always; but yeah, I guess it comes out sometimes. I’m pretty good at witty or funny comebacks, especially with people I’m comfortable with.

Do you find the word queer offensive? Er, no?

Roses are Red and Romance is dead. - R

Do you listen to the radio often? I used to, since I once drove to school everyday and I liked having the radio on - especially in the morning, since there was a morning program I was hooked to. But now that I’m at home 24/7, I don’t really tune in anymore; I don’t even have the slightest clue what songs are trending rn.

Do you prefer rain or snow? We only get rain, so.

Have you ever ran into someone and injured you or them due to it? Fortunately no, for both circumstances.

Do you listen to rap music? K-Pop groups always have their own rap sub-unit, so yeah I’ve definitely been more exposed to rap these days.

Do you find pet rats gross or nice? Why? I guess it’s cute when they’re pets, since I’m sure they’re harmless. Not so much when they’re big black filthy rats that are house pests and probably carrying a lot of diseases.

Have you ever been to a rave? No. I’d love to experience it once.

Are you somewhat of a rebel? Nah.

How about reckless? Now this hits the spot more, especially when it comes to money lol

Do you prefer red, black or purple dresses? Black, then red, then purple. I don’t wear a lot of the latter to begin with.

Do you know how to reload a gun? I don’t; I’ve never even held a real gun before.

Do you remember your first best friends Mum's name? I don’t think I ever met her mom. Our friendship was super short-lived and didn’t go beyond preschool.

Do you have a good or a bad reputation? Idk, you’d have to ask other people for this I think.

What song do you request most often on the radio? I’ve never requested a song to radio stations.

Do you prefer rice or tofu? I need rice for literally every meal, otherwise it won’t feel filling. I like tofu too, but I only have it occasionally when it comes with some dishes.

Have you ever held a rifle? Nope.

Do you know a Robert? What's he like? I have an uncle-in-law named Robert. He’s very nice, and super intelligent; he’s from New Zealand but currently lives with my aunt and their family in Vietnam. Since he’s from a different country, he has lots of fun stories and different perspectives to share at family reunions, which makes me always want to sit at whichever table he’s at so that I can be part of interesting conversations.

Do you like rollercoasters? No.

Been to Rome, Italy? Nope.

Are Roses your favourite flower? They’re one of them.

So sweetheart, lets fan. - S

Do you feel safe in your neighbourhood? Yeah, I mean that’s kind of the whole point in living in a gated village. I’d be pretty alarmed if I ever hear of a crime happening here.

Whose the Patron Saint of your Country? St. Lorenzo Ruiz. I actually didn’t know that for a fact, so thanks for the Google search and impromptu lesson!

Do you put salt on your fries? Yessssssss, I need my fries to be very salty. Unless it was already seasoned with something else, I’d find it boring if it wasn’t salty enough.

Do you think we are all born the same? In some ways, yes; in some ways, no. I know everyone is born as humans worthy of love and respect, but when it comes to factors like privilege then that’s when circumstances start to get all different.

When did you stop believing in Santa? I never bought it. I used to always get frustrated that I was never allowed to meet Santa (none of my relatives ever played as him), and that he apparently just likes to leave gifts at midnight. Not seeing a Santa made me doubt and eventually I just kinda stopped buying it by the time I was like 5.

Do you think the name Sarah is pretty? Erm, it’s fine but I find it a little common.

Is Saturday your favourite day of the week? Fridays are, but Saturdays are a very close second.

Have you ever watched Saved By The Bell? Opinions? Nope.

What about the Saw films? Opinion? I haven’t, but I know they’re my eldest cousin’s favorite so it must be a good series.

Are you easily scared? In certain ways. I hate jumpscares for one, and I easily get offended by them.

What's your secondary language, if any? English.

Name all the things you can see from where you're sitting? The entirety of my bedroom.

What's the last sentence you spoke out loud? “JAY KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY”

Have you changed your default settings on your computer? Some of them just to change some aspects of the appearance, but I didn’t do a complete overhaul.

What year did you turn seven in? 2005.

How important is sex in a relationship how important is sex from 1-10? For me, probably like a 3 or 4.

What is your favourite shade of blue? Sky or royal.

Shade of Purple? BTS purple, I guess? Hahaha.

Favourite shape? I don’t have one.

Do you know a girl called Sharon? Nope.

How about Shari? Nope.

Do you shave your arms, legs, pubic hair and/or somewhere else? I shave, but not all of these areas.

When was the last time you were sick? May 2020 was the last time I felt like death.

What's the worst side effects you've had due to a medication? I’ve never gone through side effects from a medication.

What does your signature look like? A very lazy scribble of the first and last letters of my whole name.

Do you like silk? What do you own that is silk? It’s okay, but I never actively search for it. I have one set of silk pajamas but that’s it.

Do you sip or drink hot drinks fast? As much as possible I don’t like getting in contact with hot beverages. I wait for them to cool down considerably before I take my first sip.

How about with alcohol? Sure, I like to take them fast so that I don’t feel the nasty burn on my tongue.

Do you have sisters? How many, what ages and what're they called? Nina is turning 21 this year.

Is your grandmother older than sixty five? Both of them are, yeah.

Do you slam doors often? Nope.

Have you ever slapped someone in the face? For what reason? Yes. Because he had slapped me first. I was in so much shock that my first and only instinct was to hit back.

Do you snack a lot or just eat big meals? I like letting myself go hungry then reward myself with a very generous serving to eat in one go.

Do you smile more often, or frown? Smile.

Are you wearing socks? No, I haven’t worn any in a while.

Do you say sorry too often? Yes.

What's a sound that always soothes you? This. I always play it before turning in, or when I need to calm down.

Do you carry a lot of spare change? How much is on you now? Not so much anymore, since I’ve been increasingly going cashless.

Do you own a swimsuit of the Speedo brand? I don’t think so.

Do you like sunflowers? They have a personal meaning to me, so yes. It’s not my ultra favorite, though.

[wonder-kid-pugh]

Emotional - (Julie Ertz x reader)

If there was one thing you could say about Y/n L/n, it was that she was extremely bubbly and emotional. Everyone knew since her first call up to the national team that Y/n was this innocent and soft little being that had to be protected. She reminded everyone of a new born puppy she's been told on more than one occasion with her hyperactive energy and adorable clueless nature.

So they were extremely surprised to see Y/n turn into this aggressive bulldozer of a player when she stepped onto a pitch. It was like on the field she was a completely different person. Her and Kelley wreaked havoc on opposition players as they tanked their way through them dominating the right side of the field. And with her being smaller than Kelley (which is hard) it had earned her the name of mighty mouse among the team and fans.

This team had a thing for animal nicknames it seemed

But that's how she attracted the attention of one Julie Johnson. She loved how Y/n was this cute ball of fluff but then be able to plough through a team no problem. She loved her soft side which just made her even more adorable in her eyes. She found it funny how the tiny player could scare the shit out of some international players but then break down turning into a big ball of mush at the simplest things.

Right now was one of those moments

The two were in their shared house in Chicago on one of their rare days off. Deciding to spend the day having a lazy day inside the house, which led to cuddles on the couch in front of the TV watching movie after movie.

Julie was focused on the movie Marley and Me when a sniffle distracted her from the film. She looked down at her chest where Y/n was cuddling into her shirt, tears streaming down her face as she watched the TV. "Awe love bug what's wrong?" Julie coos as she picks her up and sits her down on her lap.

She sniffles and mumbles something shoving her face into Julie's neck. "What was that love?" Julie asks turning down the volume on the movie leaving the room quiet, the light from the TV illuminating the dark room. "I can't believe they had to put Marley down!" Y/n cries into her shoulder.

Julie rubs circle on her back trying to calm down the girl in tears, "Awe it's okay love". Y/n looks up from her shoulder to see the blonde trying to stifle her laughs, "Stop laughing at me!" Julie finally breaks and bursts out laughing, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry but you do know it's only a movie right?"

Y/n pouts, "But it's so sad!" "That it is Love bug" Julie says kissing her forehead. Y/n rests her head on Julie's shoulder playing with her fingers, "We should get a dog". Julie just hums in response eyes locked in the TV.

Y/n moved to straddle Julie's legs blocking her view of the TV, "Julie". "Y/n". Y/n rolled her eyes at the midfielder, "Can we get a dog?" Julie slips her hands underneath Y/n's shirt landing on her hips, "I don't know Y/n". "Pleaseeeee JJ! Imagine how fun it would be with a small doggo running around" Y/n begs. Julie think for a minute before sighing, "I'll think about it".

Y/n squeals before leaning in for a kiss, "Thank youuu!". "Your lucky I love you" Julie murmurs looking up at the woman in her lap. "Yes I am" Y/n whispers before going in for another kiss.

"I love you Y/n Ertz"

"I love you too Julie Ertz"

They sit there getting lost in each other in this moment of pure bliss the movie long forgotten playing in the background.

XXX

"Y/N!" "I'm in the living room!" A few minutes later Julie walks into the living room with a box. "What do you have there?" Y/n asks as Julie sits on the couch handing the box to her.

"Open it and find out" Julie smiles at her. Y/n raises an eyebrow at her as she cautiously opens the box. She gasps as she opened the box and sees a small dog staring up at her with a small bark, "Oh my god he's amazing!".

"Well I thought about it and I guess I wouldn't mind having a dog running around. Especially if it makes you this happy" Julie smiles. Y/n grins and leans over to kiss Julie, "I love him thank you!". "I can think of a way to thank me" Julie smirks. Y/n giggles as kisses her again but this time they are interrupted by an attack of licks. Y/n chuckles, "I love you too bud".

"What are you going to name him?" Julie's questions wrapping an arm around Y/n. She thinks for a minute before she shouts out her answer.

"Stitch!"

"Why stitch?"

"Because he's FLUFFY!"

Hey guys! This was requested so I hope it was good even if it was a short one. Also Disney reference at the end for anyone who cares 😂 (stitch is the best anyone can fight me on this). Anyway I hope you enjoyed feel free to comment or send me requests for imagines. Until next time, bye!!

[hopeless-ro-simptic]

The Death of A Demon - Pt 1

Part 2 is out!

Part 1 of my pride and joy that I have been working on for the last couple months! The Feral fic. This is an OC that I created based off of the idea of not all quirks in the MHA/BNHA universe are “good” ones, and by that I mean that some quirks are awful to have. This focuses on the problems that come from quirks. 

Basic Summary- Feral is on the run from her past due to her quirk, working as a bounty hunter/mercernary and keeping to the shadows of Japan, she’s doing a good job of being invisible. Until one fateful night when she decides to be a good guy for once and ends up kind of saving a reporter who gets her on the news. Thus we start the downwards spiral that is her life, getting the league to help her out when an old foe shows up on Japan’s front door. 

Just letting you know now, things are NOT explained in the beginning regarding the main character. Like you don’t even know her quirk for a good minute. I did this on purpose. I think it works better if you are in the dark, but don’t worry, everything gets explained in great detail as the story goes on.  

Please read warnings: This is one big warning, it would be shorter to put what’s not in this fic, but here is a quick over all warning list, each part will have specific warnings as they are posted. Multiship, unhealthy relationships, nsfw, sexy times, graphic depictions of violence, murder, death, non-con, abuse of alcohol and drugs, main character is not in control, major character deaths, child abuse, also references to heaven and hell as well as demons. Let me know if I need to add another big one. 

Pairings: Female OC X Dabi, Female OC X Shigaraki, Female OC X Compress 

Word Count: 1.4 k 

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Mh…authentic spicey ramen. One of the many reasons why Feral loved Japan so much. Their food was so different, but it was so, so good. Finishing off the last of the broth, she set her bowl down, before calling out to the worker for another.

“Little lady has quite the appetite tonight.” Feral ignored the man’s comment, her fourth bowl of ramen being placed in front of her quickly to which she thanked the young worker before digging in.

“An interesting choice in accessories don’t you think?” She could feel his eyes ranking up and down her body, focusing on the black collar wrapped around her neck, a chain dangling down about a foot before slowly fading out of existence. Like a ghost. To anyone on the outside, it looked like it just stopped there, like a fashion choice, but Feral knew that chain went on for miles. Tethering her to something deep in hell.

“What is a pretty foreigner like you doing all alone in the big city this time of night?” She could see him leaning on the counter, his head in one hand, the other resting on top of the counter.  He looked so casual, but she knew better, men like him were always poised to strike, dangling their bait waiting for the perfect moment when your guard was down before they moved in for the kill.

“Why don’t I buy you a drink? You look a little parched.” His hand that his head wasn’t leaning on raised and reached out to her, like he was going to stroke her hair away.

Disgusting.

She was quicker than he was, switching her chopsticks over to her left hand, gripping the back of his head with her right and slamming it down against the counter, an audible crack sounding causing the worker to jump back, eyes wide as they stared at the scene. Feral released the businessman before switching her chopsticks back over into her dominant hand, eyes focused on the ramen in front of her.  

The offender was slow to stand up, his hand cupping his nose, practically whimpering at the bloody mess he was greeted with.

“Y-you bitch! You broke my nose!”

“Leave.” Feral shifted her eyes over to the man, usually brown eyes glowing red, her voice turning into a low animalistic growl. Her features almost sharpening, looking more crazed and dangerous than before. Teeth elongating, nails sharpening to a lethal point.

The man backed up with his hands up slowly, before turning and taking off into a full sprint. Feral snorted, going back to her ramen, glancing up at the worker who was watching her intently before sending them a weak smile.

“Can I get just one more please?”

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

It was well past midnight at this point, and Feral was stumbling around, drunk off of good food and not to mention the latest of her Tequila bottles gripped in her hand, wrapped in a brown paper bag. She had once again found herself lost in back alleyways that she did not recognize, her sense of direction completely off kilter now that she had her third bottle of tequila in her system. She felt good. Finally enjoying a buzz that she had worked so hard for. She probably shouldn’t have eaten if she wanted to get drunk, it would have been cheaper, but she wanted to be buzzed, not sick.

After turning a couple of corners and finally catching sight of a street-sign that looked somewhat familiar, she picked up her pace, thinking of the bed that awaited her once she made it back to her tiny apartment. She was going so fast she almost didn’t see the man in front of her, halting a few steps away watching as the scene unfolds.

A man, well… a rather large, gross looking, … is he supposed to be a fly or something? of a man had a young women pressed against the brick walls of the alley way.  Feral watched with disgust, feeling her stomach turn, as the fly looking … thing, pressed his lather large and almost tube-like mouth to the woman’s cheek making her sob out pleads to let her go.

He was messy about his ‘loving kisses’, like he was licking her almost, leaving saliva… god she hoped it was saliva, all across the woman’s face. His skinny arms, all four of them groped her up and down and his annoyingly high pitched and scratchy voice coo’d out to the girl, making both women shudder in disgust.

“You’ll look so good carrying my eggs…”

Feral couldn’t stop herself from gagging, gaining the attention of both of them. The women’s eyes looking hopeful as she called out, her voice sounding ragged.

“Please! Help me!”

“Go away, this isn’t your business!”

When he shifted his positions to face her, while still holding his victim against the wall, Feral could have sworn she saw four of him, her head was spinning and she couldn’t help but take a step back to get her footing, setting her tequila down on the ground. Getting a good look at him now that he was looking directly at her, he looked familiar almost… Feral could almost be certain he had a bounty out on him for slighting one of the fancy “business” men around this area. Hm…did it say dead or alive?

“Hey, bitch, I said get out of here.”

Feral couldn’t remember for the life of her. Maybe it said both?

He was quicker than she expected though, or maybe she was just that drunk, cause the next thing she knew he was in her face, peering down at her angrily with his beady eyes that shown hundreds of reflections of her own self. She looked a mess.  

“Maybe I should have you carrying my eggs. Clearly, you want to be bred if you’re wearing a collar out in public like that. What are you, some kind of dog?”

One of his gross little hands, if you could call them that… they were more like… graspers? Claws?, gripped onto the chain, not seeming to notice that the length wavered as he moved it like it was coming from an unknown source, giving it a testing yank to which Feral let out a warning growl, her mind clearing slightly.

“Don’t touch that, bug.” Feral felt her eyes starting to glow red, the voice in her head getting louder and louder even though she had drank it away.  Inky black trendils gripping ahold of her mind, caressing her like a lost lover.

Isabella.

The fly man in front of her ignored her remark, his grip tightening instead on her, all four hands grasping different parts of her now, his gross mouth making kissing noises at her as he drew nearer.

“You look like you will be a good mate. A little smaller than her in the chest area, but I’m sure we can fix that. You’ll be a good girl won’t yo-”

He barely had time to scream, a high pitch that was cut off instantly. Red eyes glowing in the night as Feral stared down at the fly-man a crazed smile on her face, his head was twisted backwards, two of his arms severed and bleeding, still attached to the chain where he had gripped her for a moment before she pulled them off discarding them on top of his lifeless form on the ground.  There was a momentary spasm in his body before it stopped. His wings which Feral hadn’t noticed until now, wilting against the gravel.

“I hope you were wanted dead.”

Feral pulled out her phone, scrolling through things before pulling up the bulletin with his face on it.

A low level thug, wanted for sexually assaulting someone’s wife. 2,000,000 yen.

She scanned the page, a smirk forming on her face as she noted the words at the bottom.

Wanted Dead.

She quickly took a picture. Sending a message to the requestor, her smile growing wider when mere seconds later she got a notification that money was deposited in her account.

What a lucky night.

She picked up her discarded bottle of tequila, making her way through the alley and winding up back at her apartment by some lucky miracle. The voice in her head quiet once again.

It wasn’t until she was halfway asleep did she even remember the other woman that was there, shrugging to herself, a slight smile on her lips that she was able to save someone for once.

She probably wouldn’t have felt so satisfied if she knew who that woman was.

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[xenoredux]

Balto but its been rewritten 24 years after its release

Okay so here's the Balto rewrite lol. It's quite a bit different then The Actual Thing but the plot itself is much the same, as are the major beats of the story. I dropped a lotta goofy shit in there just because it made me laugh, but try and imagine this stuff happening as if it's from an actual 90s movie made by a studio on its last legs.

Some things to know going into it:

I cut out the live actions segments because they seriously didn't matter at all. Like, who cares. The plot is fine without them and I don't think that one line from Rosie at the end makes a huge difference. I guess it's nice to see the statue but even than it's like..... whatever

In my fantasy world, Balto was a standalone movie that didn't spark any sequels. Eventually I'll write out my version of the sequels if they'd actually been good, but in the universe of this rewrite for this film, a Balto "franchise" never existed, hence why the ending is sorta different

It's still a "historical" fiction that holds very little relation to the actual events. There's a touch more actual history in there, but c'mon. You're not reading talking dog movie fanfic to learn anything. Pick up a book if you care about the actual serum run and don't get on my juicy ass about it if some things remain inaccurate

Please also note that I didn't baby this as much as I should have, so some major plot elements that are kinda stupid are likely still in there (I'm not a good writer lbr). I don't believe this is necessarily "better" then the OG, I just tweaked some stuff that always pissed me off about it. I also re-included cut content I thought was more interesting and made more sense then what we ended up getting. 

There's also a handful of fake screenshots throughout for shits and giggles, and I'll likely have at least one or two more to share later this month. Some links to past character designs are also provided for easy reference so you can make up scenes in your head but with Brand Spankin’ New Designz.

So here's Balto v2.0!

The year is 1925, and it's wintertime in Nome, Alaska. Two dogsled teams are participating in a race. A malamute named Steele leads his team against a powerful, but older and more experienced mutt named Wild Joe. Steele, despite being a decorated and much beloved champion lead dog, is a massive dick, and he snaps at a critical moment at one of Joe's teammates. Joe's team wipes out, his chances of winning are in shambles, and Steele is waaay in the lead.

A flare is shot into the air to let the enthused waiting townsfolk know that Steele's team has passed the race's 3 mile mark. Meanwhile, watching from his perch on the balcony of a house, a wolfdog named Balto excitedly bounds back and forth, unable to contain his excitement. He simply cannot sit still despite the protests of his closest friend Boris, an old Russian-Jewish goose who isn't a fan of all the excitement. Balto drags Boris around the roofs of the houses, ignoring his chiding all the while, until he can see the finish line of the race.

Back down on Earth, a young girl named Rosie is inside a woodworker's shop. She's receiving a gift she adores: a beautiful handmade sled, perfectly fitted to her size. The sled includes a harness in front that also perfectly fits her dog, a purebred copper Siberian husky named Jenna. Rosie's parents playfully lecture her to not lose the sled like she loses her other belongings. Almost as quickly as she receives the sled, Rosie and Jenna are trotting down the street in their new getup.

Jenna comes to rest in the race's sidelines among a group of other female dogs. The smallest of them all, a Pomeranian named Dixie, chides Jenna for allowing herself to be made a sled dog, even if it is in the spirit of make believe. After all, a canine of her slender frame and social standing shouldn't be performing manual labor. Jenna sighs at her friend's internalized misogyny and eugenics talk, rolling her eyes as if to say "oh you!"

Nor should someone of her persuasion be meeting up with any strays, Dixie continues while going on to show her racist side, for Balto and Boris have just plodded up to the group. The other girls scoff and huff at Balto's arrival, but Jenna and Rosie both are glad to see him. Rosie gives the wolfdog a hug, telling him to keep outta sight of The Parental Units. Just then, Steele's team rounds the corner, and Rosie waves her hat at them as if it's a foam finger and this is the most arduous baseball game in history. A sudden gust of wind picks up her hat and sweeps it into the path of the oncoming team. Rosie begins to panic and, while Jenna soothes her, Balto runs out alongside the advancing sled team to retrieve it.

Balto manages to snag and deliver the hat before Steele passes the finish line, which visibly upsets Steele. His owner speaks to the man who leads Wild Joe's team. He seems unimpressed with Steele's performance, enough so that Wild Joe's owner admits it's likely time that Joe was retired. The two imply that if a sled dog can't even outrun Steele, it's time for him to hang up his harness, even if he is wearing a bitchin' little number they speak in awe of called "A Golden Collar", a veritable necklace of medals awarded to sled dogs who have proven they don't suck. As one can imagine, this pisses Steele off something fierce. He gazes into the reflection of his face in his own golden collar, getting a bit of anger-saliva on it in the process.

The important thing, of course, is that Balto managed to save Rosie's hat. Jenna thanks him and playfully teases him about how nuts he'd have to be to do something like run alongside a car made of dogs, to which the quiet Balto just smiles. Rosie's dad isn't smiling very much, though, because all he saw was the town's favorite punching bag running wild with his daughter's hat. He swears at Balto and kicks snow his way, spooking him into running off down the street. Rosie's dad herds his child away, scolding her for playing with wild animals, while Jenna tries to follow her friend. Unable to recognize where he's not wanted, Steele blocks Jenna's path and starts flexing about his elite gamer/sledding skills. The other girl dogs can barely contain their ovaries around him, but Jenna just politely excuses herself as Steele begins spouting off insensitive remarks about "the howler from the cannery".

But Balto's not going home just yet. He knows exactly how to navigate the neighborhood and find his companion. Boris complains about the cold and how much he's walked around today, so he pisses off back to to their place. Balto simply shrugs and wanders until he finds Jenna again. He trails behind her, hiding in various places along the street as Jenna follows her masters home. Jenna talks passionately about how she'd love to do something big and hella just to show up guys like Steele. Balto encouragingly comments on how he's sure she'd be the best at whatever she did, and she smiles at him in a particularly heterosexual way.

Eventually the two part ways, and Balto decides it's time to go home. As he trots along, he notices a glove that Rosie dropped. He smiles and rolls his eyes as he picks it up and turns to head to Jenna's and give it back. Unfortunately for him, Steele's ego bruises like a banana and heals just about as well, so the meat-headed malamute has dragged along his team to harass the town's token minority once he was alone. The only dog on the team who seems against harassing someone for something they can't control is Star, Steele's smaller, weaker, more cowardly little brother. Steele jeers at Star for being too much of a puss to participate in the g-rated hate crime before rolling a barrel in Balto's direction. Balto's bowled over by it and falls face first into a bucket.

Steele's team howls with laughter, then literally howls in an effort to insult Balto. The words "howler" and "feral" are thrown around a lot as Balto struggles to free his face from the pail. He never manages to, and before Steele can harass him some more, his musher calls out for him and the rest of the team. Steele calls his men to his side and makes his way out. The only one who trails behind is Star, who gingerly pops the bucket off of Balto's head. The two stare wordlessly at each other for a moment, the stunned Balto dwarfing the underdeveloped Star, before Star gets too scared to stay any longer and books it. Balto looks around himself for Rosie's mitten, but he can't find it. He sighs and begins heading towards the harbor.

As Balto walks through the cannery, the other stray and unloved dogs take notice of him and begin jeering at him. Despite how pitiful-looking they are, almost all of them feel the need to tell Balto in livid detail about just how shit he is in comparison because of his wolf heritage. Those who don't jeer hateful words hole up and hide from him as he passes them by.

Boris takes notice of Balto returning home, and he goes to wave to him with his one good wing before noticing something peculiar on the hill by the shoreline: wolves! A small pack of wolves take notice of Balto. They even begin howling to him. It's clear that they're inviting him to join their DnD party, and for a tense moment Boris is afraid Balto will run after them. But Balto simply shrinks away, shaking his head. His shoulders slump and he makes his way to the wrecked boat he and Boris live on.

Boris attempts to cheer Balto up with some wAcKy SlApStIcK cOmEdY before having to realize that harming himself is increasingly silly ways will not cure Balto's bigotry induced depression. He slumps against Balto as the two notice a flock of geese flying overhead. Balto asks Boris what it was like in "the old country", and Boris soothes in the most Russian voice ever conceived what are likely concerns he's heard many times before by assuring Balto he came to Alaska for good reason because the old country sucked. He also assures Balto that the busted wing he has was the best thing that ever happened to him, because it meant he got to live in Nome and find that lonely wolfdog kid those several years back. Balto can't help but crack a smile.

When the sun has gone down, Balto begins to leave the hovel he calls home. Boris reminds him to be careful on his nightly excursion to find food, to which Balto merely smiles and nods. He pads past the sleeping cannery dogs and back towards town.

Meanwhile, Jenna is sitting outside of the hospital doorway. She watches as her masters lead Rosie inside. Rosie's gotten a nasty cough, and she makes an odd wheezing noise when she breathes. As mom and pop speak to the very busy doctor, Rosie gazes out the window at Jenna, waving and smiling at her. Jenna stands up excitedly, but feels her heart sink into her stomach as Rosie has the sort of coughing fit a Flintstone's chewable can't fix. Her parents come to lead her away from the window. Jenna tries her damnedest to find a way to peer inside from around the back. There is a window, but she's unable to reach it, even as she's standing on her hind legs.

Balto, dirty from digging around in garbage, spots Jenna's vibrant red coat from across the way. He calls out to her softly, and though she does acknowledge his greeting, she barely responds. This concerns Balto, and he comes to join her under the window. She explains that she wants to see in, and Balto allows her to climb up and stand on his back to do so. She obliges, too worried about Rosie's well-being to thank him, and gazes longingly inside.

She climbs down from Balto a beat later, saying how she wishes she could understand what was happening in there. Most of what went on was just the doctor talking. Balto pauses and thinks for a moment, and then tells Jenna he has an idea. He leads her around to the boiler room placed adjunct to the hospital where the doctor's dog, a St. Bernard appropriately named Doc, spends his nights. The two make their way inside.

Doc is in fact there, snoring like a buzz-saw on crack. Balto gently wakes him up, and at first he's both annoyed to be woken and offput by The Wolfdog being in his face, but when Jenna explains the situation to him he becomes much more amiable. He leads the two over to the crawlspace under the hospital, stating there's far too much of him to love to allow him to fit under with them. Balto and Jenna thank him and go inside.

The two creep through the creepy underside of the hospital until they find themselves under a grate beneath the doctor's desk. The doctor discusses with the nurses how the children of Nome have diphtheria, a fast acting, aggressive disease that causes fatal epidemics. The anti-toxin he was able to treat the first few cases with has run out, and without it, all infected children will surely die within two weeks' time.

Jenna is unsurprisingly distraught at the idea of her favorite person on the planet dying a slow, painful death, so she scrambles out of the crawlspace and begins crying. Balto follows close behind her to see that Doc has already begun to comfort her. He apologizes for bringing Jenna here, to which Jenna states she's glad he did. Aside from Jenna's gentle sobbing, all is silent for a moment. Suddenly, a loud crash can be heard outside. Everyone turns to see Steele and his dogs have come back to ruin another scene. Doc becomes upset at the sudden influx of uninvited guests crowding up his personal space, so he goes to alert the doctor and get them all the fuck outta there. Meanwhile, the team menaces Balto while Steele tries to impress Jenna by pulling Rosie's missing mitten out of his collar. He offers to walk Jenna home to deliver it to her family as the team, lead by a pitifully unintimidating Star, back a snarling Balto into the corner.

Jenna's obviously not interested in Dog Gaston's posturing, but she's also got an IQ higher then 6 and understands that he's not going to go away simply because she asks him to. As Balto watches from out the corner of his eye, Jenna flirtatiously backs Steele into the glowing red boiler. She mutters something about meatballs under her breath as Steele begins to howl and shriek in pain. The smell of burning dog ass and the cries of a defeated jock archetype alert people to the scene, and all the dogs begin to scatter. Balto and Jenna try to join the reverse flash mob, but Steele flings himself hard into Balto and forces all of them to stumble. Lanterns shine in the literal dogpile's direction. Steele refuses to get off of Balto, so Balto insists that Jenna get away. She forgets about Rosie's mitten, which Balto snags to keep away from Steele's posturing self, and the men finally descend upon the dogs.

Someone pulls Steele off of Balto, and he begins making as if he's injured, intentionally limping and stumbling melodramatically around. The men start to make a fuss about the wolfdog injuring the town's best runner when one of them, Rosie's dad, notices his daughter's missing mitten in Balto's mouth. He begins yelling and kicking at the dog, going on about how he's dangerous and he'd better not go anywhere near his child ever again. Balto tucks tail and barrels out of town, and all the men stroke a miraculously healed Steele to compensate for the trauma of being attacked by a dog half his size.

As Balto pounds pavement, he passes the telegraph office, wherein an important message is being sent. A request for more anti-toxin to treat the epidemic is being relayed, and in it are the details of why this situation is uniquely urgent: the Alaskan winter is doing its worst, bringing blizzards severe enough that ships and planes alike cannot manage to deliver the medicine. Nome's best bet becomes obvious: use a train to deliver the medicine as closely to Nome as they can, then set up relay teams of sled dogs to receive and deliver the anti-toxin.

The morning after the message has been sent, the town organizes a race to test which dogs in town have the highest stats in stamina, speed, and agility. Almost every husky in town is lined up to race... all except a very upset Jenna, who keeps insisting the other dogs make room for her. Some dogs look at her with concern. Others laugh. But most of them seem convinced that her place is here in Nome, keeping her people company and not chipping any of her nails. Dixie tries to lead Jenna away from the race, but Jenna's so pissed that she angrily stomps away from the race altogether.

Balto, who has been hiding around town this whole time, slips out of the shadows to meet her. She vents loudly to him about being disallowed to participate because of the snot-nosed chauvinists running the race. If Balto didn't know the depth of her conviction before, he certainly does now; she begins to cry angry tears over what will happen to Rosie.

Balto can't stand to see a grown womandog cry, but he's worried about what will happen if he tries to line up with the other dogs. Everyone believes he attacked Steele, after all. Nobody would tolerate him joining the race... at least, not while they're all there. He wordlessly slips away from Jenna, assuring her he has a plan. In a moment he's disappeared. The race is about to start, and Boris has hobbled into town. He goes over to Jenna and begins complaining about how Balto didn't come home last night. Jenna tells him it's a long story, but that she's sure he'll turn up again soon. Maybe. Hopefully.

The starting gun is fired off, and the dogs take off with the speed and accuracy of drunken Nascar drivers. Just as soon as they've all bolted, Balto boltos past the starting line right in tow, which causes some reasonable upset among the crowd given word of Steele's definitely-real-not-made-up scuffle with the wolfdog has spread fast.

Despite the jeering Balto is faced with, he continues on. By this point, Jenna and Boris have noticed him running, and they begin to cheer him on as they scramble to keep up with him. Turns out wolves and their relatives are pretty fast.

In contrast to the other dogs, Balto's saving grace isn't just his speed, but his ingenuity. Balto breaks off of the track as he begins advancing on the dogs in an effort to avoid their snarling and snapping at him. He shows his cleverness by traversing obstacles like frozen ponds, hanging pulleys, and crumbling wooden beams that bridge buildings, all while maintaining pace with the other dogs. Any townsfolk who are capable of seeing him are too impressed with his abilities to remember his alleged attempted dogmurder.

To the surprise of literally nobody reading this, Balto manages to cross the finish line before anybody else, which includes an especially tilted Steele. Unexpectedly, several townsfolk cheer for our parkour-loving protagonist, and Balto's face lights up in pleasure, having never experienced praise from basically any human person.

Steele and Wild Joe's mushers come around to give Balto the once over, discussing how he'd be an invaluable asset to any team. Joe's musher believes he'd made a good replacement for Joe now that that dog's been laid off of his animaljob. Balto ingratiates his coy self with a gentle tail wag, and Steele has literally never been more angry in his life. His ego as sore as a freshly kicked-in face, Steele looks around for some way to prove Balto is totes nasty. A toothy grin spreads across his face as he spots Jenna leading a hobbling Boris over, and he quickly rushes the goose and snags him up, carrying him away.

Balto doesn't like seeing his surrogate feathered father being doghandled, so he snarls and chases after Steele, startling the men. The men follow Balto, who is following Steele, who is following his own evil agenda. Steele tosses Boris off the nearby harbor, and the bird struggles to collect himself in the icy water. Balto rushes Steele, still snarling. This spooks Steele's musher, and he begins throwing rocks at Balto. The man tells the wolfdog to stay away from his animal, and he states to Wild Joe's musher why Balto would be useless as a sled dog: he can't manage to get along with other canines. He's too wild. The two men collect Steele and depart as Balto similarly collects Boris, who is little more then a honking popsicle by now.

As Balto begins carrying Boris home, Jenna stops him and asks what happened. Balto gruffly states that Jenna's master would be angry to see her speaking to him. After all, he doesn't get along with other dogs given how wild he is. Jenna is so surprised by her friend lashing out at her that she can't speak, and she watches solemnly and wordlessly as Balto and Boris make like Rosie's health and disappear.

That night, the relay teams are being dispatched. The electric cross hanging on the church steeple is turned on - the pastor says that so long as there's hope for the children, the light will stay lit and the electric bill will stay high - and a handful of teams are sent out, including Steele's. The sick children watch from inside the hospital. Jenna watches from her new favorite spot just under one of the hospital's front windows, her face contorted in worry. From his ship, Balto ignores Boris's cacophanic snoring as he watches the teams head out. He gives a sigh.

A day passes as the relay teams power through the awful weather. Steele's team receives the medicine from another team who just had it delivered to them by train. Now Steele's gang is intended to deliver the medicine once again to the team of a dog named Togo. Unfortunately, Steele's unwarranted self-importance prevents this, as he dislikes the idea of not being the guy to deliver the goods to town. He tells Star that he doesn't need to follow the rules of the relay - he knows the way home and he can do this himself. He intentionally ignores the path to Togo and drags his team helplessly onward, and none of them but Star are any the wiser.

The governor's dog calls a meeting in the boiler room for all the other dogs in town. It's been longer then the townsfolk expected it to take for the meds to arrive, and everyone is getting ants in their collective pants. Balto watches the meeting from outside a window to maintain some discreetness. Doc tries to calm everybody down once they begin panicking, but they're all too much in a tizzy thinking about what will happen to the kids to hear him. Suddenly, the rabbling of the crowd is halted when a sharp, reverberating bark cuts through the noise. Everyone turns to the door.

In the doorframe stands the tall, bulky silhouette of an unknown beefcake. The dog steps into the light, and Wild Joe finally announces his presence verbally and not just cinematically. He informs the dogs that he's had a lot of time to wander since being unharnessed, and tonight he wandered by the telegraph office. He's a gifted enough fella to understand Morse code and the hopeless sighs of an old man sending 1800s text messages, and he informs the dogs that Steele's team broke the relay chain. Nobody knows where they are, which means, more importantly, nobody knows where the medicine is. Wild Joe suggests that the dogs make peace with the passing of their childfolk before he steps back outside and disappears into the snowy night.

Whatever the dogs inside the boiler room are saying, Balto can't hear it. Not just because their voices are drowning each other out, but because he's stricken with too much grief to care. Rosie has only been getting worse. What's going to happen to her?

Meanwhile in the hospital, the doctor is managing as well as one can to explain to the parents of the sick children that their one hope of salvation may or may not be lost to the elements forever. This barely registers with the horribly ill Rosie who, despite being in the same room as a doctor forcing her parents to confront her mortality, is now too sick to lift her head from her pillow. In an effort to afford their child a sliver of comfort, Rosie's folks allows Jenna into her room. Jenna pads loyally over to her girl, and for just a second Rosie's eyes flutter open. "Jenna?" is all she can manage to wheeze out before passing back into unconsciousness. Jenna gloomily rests her head on her owner's chest, whimpering softly.

Balto pads through town. Nobody is really out at night anymore. They're all crowding the hospital to keep close to their children. Balto's main goal is to find Jenna, to discuss this horrible thing with her, but he's distracted as he passes by the woodworker's shop. The same jolly man who had made Rosie her bitchin' new sled was now hunched sadly over a new, much less bitchin', much more morbid project: tiny coffins, each no bigger then 4 feet tall. A small collection of them has formed in a corner of the room. Balto shakes his head and gasps, breaking out of a stupor he was not previously aware he was in. Something has to be done.

The morning sun is peaking out over the horizon when Balto begins to depart from his home. He trots down from the harbor and along the shoreline, aiming to enter the forest the teams left through. Boris is plodding behind him, slipping around on frozen patches of sea water and flopping around in puddles of slush. He's going on and on, trying desperately to convince Balto not to waste his efforts on a town of people who'd be perfectly happy if he were dead. Balto doesn't reply, instead flashing Boris a solemn look. His eyes light up with new intention, and he grabs Boris by the beak, dragging him along as the old goose honks angrily.

Balto releases Boris as the two come to the back of the hospital. Jenna, who had once again settled out front, hears the commotion of the intensely pissed off bird wailing and honking. Balto wordlessly releases Boris, and just before Boris can complain further, Jenna comes over to the two. She and Balto share one miserable, knowing look before Jenna begins to cry. She presses her face into Balto's neck, weeping softly into his fur. Another child is herded into the hospital by a concerned parent. The girl wheezes and shakes violently as the door closes behind her. Boris looks on, all anger having subsided. 

Instead, he says in a very business-like tone that Balto needs to hurry up if he's going to find the lost team. And he shouldn't keep Boris waiting. Boris is an old man who hates waiting more then he hates traveling. Boris begins to waddle off back towards the forest, and Balto can't help but smile. Jenna presses the pause button on crying long enough to ask what Boris means, to which Balto states that neither he nor his old man can stand idly by any longer.

Jenna understands, and she insists that the two allow her to come with them. It pains her to leave Rosie, but the child is barely ever awake at this point, and inaction won't make the situation better. Balto's smile grows wider, and the three take off to find the missing team themselves.

Hours pass. The three haven't ceased their journey, nor does it seem they've given up hope. Boris certainly has got a lot to bitch about, though. And he does this loudly and frequently as Balto and Jenna lead the way, exchanging words. Jenna vents about how it's ludicrous that Steele, a gloryhound who loves the smell of his own farts, was even selected to do the relay given how hard he is to handle. Balto agrees, if a bit softly. Jenna interrogates him gingerly, asking what happened the day of the race. Balto admits that the townsfolk have gone even more sour on him as of late, and that he's been genuinely afraid to be around anybody now... except for Jenna, of course. Jenna reassures him with the same viciously heterosexual smile as before that she'll stand by him no matter what. Balto can't help but smile back.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the frozen over Hell that is Alaska, Steele is blindly trying to redirect his team onto the trail, but the trail has long gone from his sight. Star, exhausted and growing antsier by the minute, suggests turning around and going back; it's totally obvious now that they're lost. Steele buckles for just a moment before snapping at his brother about how he knows where he's going and, having just told the worst lie in history, begins running directionlessly through the blizzard.

Expectedly, this sends his team careening down into a gully he failed to notice on account of the whole reduced visibility thing. The sled tips over - though it seems the anti-toxin is still secured and unbroken - the musher falls out and hits his head on a rock, and the dogs tumble into a heap. Some of them are bruised. Some of them are worse. But nobody is dead, not even the flame dancing inside the musher's lantern. The only thing that looks dead is Steele's spirit. He stares wide eyed and panting as he realizes the team truly is lost. "What are we gonna do now, Steele?" Star asks hopelessly. Steele doesn't respond.

Night has fallen. It's cold as shit out in the forest, but the three musketeers haven't ceased their journeying yet. Boris, effectively feeding into every stereotype about old men ever, complains about how long this road trip has lasted. Neither Balto nor Jenna have the energy left to respond to him, so they don't. Boris gets huffy and says the kids can keep going if they want, but it's time for him to sleep. He decides to set up a nest on a large snowdrift, and Balto finally gets frustrated and turns to explain to Boris that there's no time to stop now. And then the snowdrift stands up.

A polar bear, hulking and powerful, is standing on its hind legs in front of the dogs. A screaming Russian goose is flapping around on the crown of its head, and the bear immediately begins trying to attack its winged hat. Balto leaps to his grandhonk's rescue, but the bear lands an easy hit on him and sends him flying. The goose isn't nearly as threatening as the wolfdog, so the bear turns to Balto, ready to tear him to pieces.

This understandably displeases Jenna, and she flings herself headlong into the bear to save her friends. She's more lithe and agile then Balto is, which makes it easy for her to dodge most of the bear's swings, but she's not as quick as Balto is, so she still ends up taking a pretty nasty blow to the legs. She flies across the forest floor and strikes Boris, knocking them both to the ground. Meanwhile, Balto's trying to deal with the bear situation on his own. He's not doing so hot, though, as the bear makes like a 90s sitcom bully and starts wailing on him. This sends Balto careening down a hill and across a frozen lake.

The bear quickly follows him. It doesn't seem to notice the ice below it cracking like splintering glass as it walks towards Balto, but Balto sure as hell does. And so do Jenna and Boris, who, despite their injuries, are scrambling to reach Balto before the ice gives. But they're too little too late. The bear takes another step and the busted ice snap crackle pops apart, taking the bear under as it shatters. Balto stumbles away from the gaping icehole that's growing larger and larger.

The bear is thrashing wildly around, foaming up the water and swinging its claws around in the air. Boris thinks fast and grabs Jenna's bandanna to toss out to Balto. As the bear struggles to grab both Balto and the edge of the ice, Balto snags hold of the bandanna and hangs on as his friends drag him from the freezing water. As Balto collapses to the ground, the bear's struggles begin to subside, and finally it drowns.

Balto is badly shaken, but ultimately unharmed. Jenna, however, bit total shit, and now that Balto is safe her strength has left her. Balto and Boris drag Jenna off the lake and lay her down. Balto lays down beside her, shivering hard from his time in the water. Without thinking about it, Jenna pulls herself on top of him, murmuring about how cold he is. Balto tries to argue she should go easy given her injury, but the two go silent instead, smiling gently at each other. Then Balto's eyes light up as he turns to Boris. He thanks the bird for not just saving him, but for coming along in the first place. Boris absolutely beams.

But his grin disappears when the dogs get up... and Jenna falls back down. Balto insists she's too hurt to continue the journey. After all, who knows when they'll find the team? Jenna tries to argue, but falters when Balto insists that without her help he'd be dead now, and he'd be devastated if something happened to her out here. Jenna asks Boris to take her back to Nome when she notices that he's waddled a short distance away. He's gazing intently at something, looking worried and guilty. Balto pads over to where Boris is staring into space to see what the fuss is about.

Turns out the fuss is about two hairy little things: twin polar bear cubs. One is slightly bigger then the other, though he may just be bigger boned then his brother. The two are huddled close to each other, whimpering and cooing. It's obvious they're very young, toddlers at most. "Oh no," murmurs Balto. The cubs gaze up at the two with wide, frightened eyes. Nobody has to guess what happened to their mother, and Balto feels himself overwhelmed with guilt too.

The cubs follow Boris closely as Balto goes back to Jenna. He tells her that he's sorry she can't continue the journey, but that she can help by keeping the bear cubs safe until they know what to do with them. Jenna agrees and the two smile warmly at each other. Jenna offers up her bandanna to Balto "to keep him warm" despite how small it is as Boris helps her onto a large tree branch. Boris begins instructing the cubs on how to help, going demanding grandad on them in record time, and Jenna wishes Balto good luck. Boris pulls Balto aside and, out of obligation to the source material, tells Balto that a dog cannot make such a journey alone... but maybe a wolf can. The group depart, leaving Balto by himself in the snow.

It's a snowy night in Nome. A somber mood hangs so thickly in the air that one can almost taste the chunky sadness. The streets are empty aside from one stray black mass. It's Wild Joe, makin' his way downtown. He passes the hospital and sees a child who is obviously ill but not in bed. Joe's face crinkles in pain as the child, a boy, coughs so hard he wracks his body in great tremors. Joe pulls himself away from the sight and, face to the ground, starts walking faster. In a moment he passes the telegraph office. His ears perk rhythmically to the beeps of the morse code. He whispers sweet nothings to himself like, "Cannot send more antitoxin. Weather too severe. Lost sled team only hope. Our prayers are with them."

Meanwhile, in a somehow less depressing part of the Alaskan tundra, Balto has finally caught sight of a glowing pink light. The wind is too hard for him to smell properly, but as he mounts a rise in the path, he can see clearly what rests at the bottom of the slope. It's the team! The pink glow is the light from the sled's lantern. Balto's so beside himself with joy that he throws himself headlong down the slope, previously unaware of how slippery the embankment really was. He only just manages to gain his footing at the bottom of the hill. The sled dogs look up at him in amazement, unfurling themselves from the miserable balls of fur they'd tried desperately to wrap themselves in. "Balto!" is heard in a wave of gasps.

Balto begins asking a slew of questions. What happened, is the musher okay, etc. etc. Everyone does their best to answer. Everyone, that is, except Steele, who has been sulking wordlessly since Balto arrived. Once he's gotten a satisfactory amount of info on the situation, Balto picks up one of the now empty harnesses on the sled and tells the dogs he can lead them home. Steele is none too pleased with this, and he steps on the harness, jerking it out of Balto's mouth. Steele insists the dogs will be able to find their way home by themselves - after all, he's leading them.

Everyone immediately becomes uncomfortable as the tension rises. Balto shrugs, assures Steele that he can do as he likes, but that the kids need the anti-toxin and they need it now. Balto knows the way back for certain, so he'd be happy to just take the medicine. Steele just about goes batshit at the suggestion, crouching over the crate of medicine like a wild animal, snarling at Balto. He threatens to rip Balto to pieces if he so much as tries to touch the crate. Someone tells Steele to lighten up, and Steele just about shits himself.

He flings himself headlong into Balto, telling him to get out and leave them be. In the scuffle, the medicine crate is tipped over, where it begins sliding down a tiny incline towards a cliff's edge. Balto eyes it nervously and tries to get to it, but Steele continually throws himself at Balto, snapping and snarling and threatening. The other dogs begin telling Steele to stop, that Balto isn't worth it. Star suggests that maybe just this once the howler might be useful, so the team might want to listen to him. Balto looks Steele dead in the eyes and tells him that children are going to die if everyone can't be all kumbaya for a second.

Steele sneers eerily and simple states that he doesn't care. And with that, he outright flings himself into Balto, tearing into him viciously enough to send him whimpering in pain. The fight halts for just a moment as Steele looks down at the wolfdog, who is now battered and bleeding. Steeles give a triumphant huff and bares his fangs before he notices something. The other dogs are advancing on him. They've stopped their gawking long enough to realize that Steele's intentions haven't just soured. They were never good in the first place. The medicine crate continues its gradual trip down the incline.

Steele is spooked by the dogs encircling him, and he demands they get away from him and back into their harnesses. Meanwhile, Balto, despite his injuries, has wormed his way over to the escaping crate of anti-death juice, finally securing it between his paws. Star turns and notices this, praising him. The other dogs gaze over at him too, finally realizing he's probably an okay guy actually. If Steele was angry before, he's furious now. He leaps over the hoard of dogs that had formed a tight circle around him and barrels at Balto and the medicine, screaming for the wolfdog to let it go. Balto quickly shoves the medicine away from the cliff as Steele snags him by the bandanna. The two dogs teeter totter on the side of the cliff before the bandanna rips in half. Steele unceremoniously falls off the cliff's edge, tumbling down into the valley below.

Balto cringes at the sight as Steele refuses to get up from his epic fail landing. Still, there's no time to lose. Balto hobbles over to the sled, surprised to find the other dogs are securing themselves in their harnesses. All except three, that is. One dog, a Chinook by the name of Kaltag, notices an especially icky wound on Balto's leg, and he uses what remains of Jenna's bandanna to wrap it. Another dog, a chow mix named Nikki, is placing the musher in the sled. The man's in rough shape, but he's still alive. Finally Balto takes his place at the head of the team, where Star is holding the harness up for him. Balto slips into it, and it fits like a glove. He takes a moment to breathe and marvel at the situation.

The dog sled takes off again. As it departs, a couple of white paws grapple their way up the cliff's edge. Steele hoists himself out of the valley. He's bruised all over, but he's alive, and he's none too happy. He wastes no time. He tucks the remains of Jenna's bandanna into his collar and begins rushing after the dogs. The guy may be bulky and injured, but he's full of enough rage adrenaline (ragedrenaline?) to overpower an elephant's higher thinking, and he's not slowing down til the sled has stopped.

It doesn't take long for Steele to catch up to Balto. He tells Balto to stop the sled and leave the team alone, but Balto insists Steele doesn't know the way. The other dogs all but tell Steele to fuck off given they've seen what kind of person he is, but Steele doesn't care. He pulls out a handy dandy trick he's been itching to repeat since the beginning of this summary and snaps at Balto's legs, tripping him up. Balto regains his footing quickly enough so as not to slow down the team, but oh no! A moment later, Steele snaps again, this time grabbing Balto's injured ankle.

The wolfdog can't recover so easily from that, and he falls over. The team goes tripping and spilling across the icy forest floor. Steele allows himself to fall behind and watch the destruction unfold. The team is barreling towards another cliff's edge, and Balto's meager frame isn't enough to cancel out the laws of inertia. Balto slides out of his harness as the other dogs try to stall their descent, finally bringing everything to a standstill as the crate of medicine teeters on the cliff's edge.

Balto dives forward and snags the crate, and the team praises him... seconds before the cliff's edge starts to crumble. As the rock breaks to pieces beneath his feet, Balto and the antitoxin fall into the snowy abyss below. "Aaaaaa," is how Kevin Bacon put it.

The next morning, everyone is abuzz is Nome. The people even pull themselves away from their sick kids in the excitement, curious to see what's happening. Something has arrived, though it's not the medicine. The dogs are equally riveted, huddled in the boiler room to discuss their own canine-centric news.  Turns out Jenna returned home the previous night, aided by two polar bear cubs and a goose. The dogs prattle on excitedly, asking a weary Jenna all about her journey. But, in all honesty, they seem most concerned with how - and further, why - Jenna would ever be brave or foolish enough to pair with a howler while on a wild goose/dog/plot chase.

Jenna tiredly begins to explain what happened, why the goose and bears were there, etc. when a ruckus can be heard outside. The dogs all look up, but nobody gets up. Not yet. A few moments pass, and then the door, which has been only halfway open up to this point, swings open in full. Standing in the doorway is Togo's team, along with an exhausted looking Steele. Togo remarks that they found the dumb jock wandering delirious through the cold. He was just lucky enough to meander past their relay station. Togo shrugs and leaves the room.

Everyone immediately starts flipping shit again, asking a new flurry of questions so loudly they drown each other out. Finally, Steele breaks the silence by asking "Where's Jenna?" Everyone goes quiet and looks over at the token girl husky. Steele pads over to the middle of the room, looking at Jenna but speaking to everyone, as he explains in a voice so sincere it's sickening that his team died in the cold. Balto did in fact find him, the last dog alive, but all he cared about was taking the anti-toxin away. Balto never meant well, Steele asserts, his chest heaving with every passionate word. All he wanted to do was get back at the town for turning its back on him! Everyone gasps except Jenna and a stoic figure sitting in the corner of the room.

Steele says that Balto took the anti-toxin and, in a desperate effort to get revenge on Nome for never accepting his boorish, violent ways, threw it and himself over the edge of a cliff. The medicine, and presumably every bone in the wolfdog's body, shattered on impact. Why, Steele even tried heroically to stop Balto from this suicide mission by grabbing him by Jenna's bandanna, but... He punctuates his speech by handing Jenna the remains of her neckerchief. She gapes at it.

Steele says that this has been a tragedy for certain, but all the dogs must band together and be strong. Heck, he even generously offers to be a shoulder for Jenna to cry on in her time of need. Such a noble guy, that Steele. Except Jenna has a finely tuned 6th sense she uses solely to detect bullshit, and it's going crazy right now. She tells Steele to his face that she knows he's lying. Balto isn't violent. In fact, the primary reason he left to find the team was to save the children. To save Rosie.

The dogs in the crowd begin to murmur among themselves, but Steele casually states that it's such a shame the wolfdog managed to manipulate Jenna so efficiently that she honestly never saw him going feral, never considered his more selfish motives. Steele reminds the room of dogs that Balto attacked him several times before the relay teams were dispatched. Everyone seems a bit swayed by the reminder.

Everyone's trains of thoughts are prevented from actually leaving the station by the dog in the corner clearing his throat. Surprise surprise, the mysterious guy in the shadows was Wild Joe, resident lurker. Steele almost looks intimidated as the dog pads over to him. Joe basically goes off on Steele, detailing how it's hard to believe a dog who has proven himself violent for the sake of winning, is mysteriously the only dog out of about 15 to survive, and thinks himself a hero despite failing to bring back even one ounce of medicine. Everyone is silent as Joe and Steele glare daggers at each other.

Steele huffs at Joe and leaves the room, stating that he won't be insulted this way after having had such a traumatic experience. The dogs watch Steele go, then look at Joe and Jenna, then awkwardly begin to file out. There's nothing else of importance to be said, and damn has it gotten awkward in here.

When the two are alone, Jenna quietly thanks Joe for believing her. Joe snorts and states that he knows what Steele is like and he knows when he's lying. Then Joe tells Jenna plainly that he doesn't have much hope of the anti-toxin arriving, and that even if it did it's too late for his fallen boy. Taken aback at the realization, Jenna expresses sympathy for Joe, but encourages him to keep his chin up. Balto is a dependable dog who won't let the town down, because despite everything he's faced, he understands how important this is. Joe smiles for probably the first time in 50 years, then asks Jenna where the goose and bears she mentioned went.

That night, the electric cross on the church steeple turns off. Rosie's mother notices this from the hospital window, and her husband hopelessly wraps her in a hug. Rosie's condition continues to worsen.

While this is happening, Jenna abandons her post under the hospital window and leads Wild Joe to Balto's boat. Some of the dogs at the cannery ogle Jenna, but Joe sets them straight with a well directed glare and a scolding about the male gaze. Boris and the bear cubs are understandably shaken when they are met with a sentient hunk of muscle, but Jenna assures them that Joe is a friend. Joe makes himself comfortable in Balto's home and asks the goose if he can wait for Balto to come back with him. The two cubs remain anxious around the old dog, who playfully teases them by asking if they think he's gonna turn them into mukluks.

As all this is going on, miles away at the previously mentioned snowy abyss, the snow in the depths of the gorge begins to shift. In a few labored, measured movements, Balto manages to pull himself from the snowbank. He collapses exhausted back into the snow, realizing how dire the situation has truly become. God only knows where the medicine has fallen, let alone whether or not it's shattered. "Kids... Rosie... I'm sorry," is all he can manage to mouth as he begins to weep.

Soundlessly, a large mass moves across the snowy terrain towards him. The world is a void of white, and the figure is too, but when he looks up, Balto can just make out the dark features of a canine face. A majestic white wolf, large enough to dwarf any dog, is gazing down at him with vibrant amber eyes. The wolf howls, then pauses as if waiting for Balto to respond. He doesn't, instead shrinking away in embarrassment. The wolf gives him a strange look, then gazes past him for a moment, then finally withdraws, quickly disappearing from view.

Balto allows his eyes to wander. Suddenly, those wandering eyes widen. The medicine. It's sitting unharmed no more then 10 feet away. And after offering the cliffside its own glance, he believes it might be possible to get it back up.

Balto rises slowly but surely to his feet. He eyes the tracks the white wolf left behind as it departed. He reaches out a paw to touch one, and quickly realizes that his paw fits inside it perfectly. His shame melts away. He raises his head up high, nose aimed at the moon, and lets loose a howl.

As if by magic, the white wolf reappears in the fog. Balto continues to howl, feeling as if it's the most natural thing he's ever done. The wolf rejoins him, and it fills the air with its own howls. The blizzard rages on around the two, but for just a moment it feels as if the world around them shimmers with a newfound clarity.

Up on top of the cliff, the sled team is huddling close together. Their spirits all seem to have been broken by what they presumed was Balto's death and the lose of the medicine. The dogs straighten up, however, upon hearing... the howling of wolves? Everyone huddles in closer together, suddenly terrified. A second later, though, they realize the howling has stopped, effectively being replaced with the sound of shuffling snow. Wait, huh? Everyone peers over the cliffside.

It's Balto, very much not dead, and very much pulling the unharmed crate of anti-toxin behind him. The dogs yap with joy, cheering Balto on as he mounts the cliff. The moment he's within reach, several dogs lift him and the crate the rest of the way up. Balto collapses in the snow, absolutely pooped. He lies there for just a moment, beaming coyly as the dogs praise him for his feat. Is this what it's like to be respected? When Balto can stand again, the dogs go through the motions once more: musher in sled, lantern on crate, crate secured, Balto up front. And nothing can stop them now.

Well, they figure as much, anyway. But they're proven wrong a short while later. The team enters a deep valley, surrounded on all sides like a great white bowl made of high pale mountains. The air is eerily still. And then, breaking the silence, someone sneezes. The sound reverberates around the cereal bowl that is the mountain range. A moment later, a cascade of snowfall begins barreling down the steepest mountain. An avalanche! The team runs for cover in the nearest cave.

As the team enters the cave, the sled thumps loudly against the ground. The dogs hazard a look up as the tinkling sound of ice on ice becomes apparent. To their horror, they see a barrage of icicles begin to plummet down towards them. One severs the handles at the back of the sled, only inches away from the musher's head. Another slams down just beside the medicine crate, causing everyone to promptly flip shit. The team rockets forward as quickly as they can, just managing to clear the cave as the worst of the icicles shatters behind them. Okay, NOW it's gotta be over, right?

Dawn is just about to break. The cannery dogs are all struggling to rest in the cold weather. One of them, a shabby, long nosed creature, gently lifts an ear in his sleep. Some sort of sound is reverbing in the distance, so far away that it can't reach the true populace of Nome. But it's there, and it rouses him awake. Other dogs begin to take notice as well. On Balto's boat, the twin cubs follow Boris to the railing as they listen. The sound starts as a very low bellow, but soon it becomes clear...

Someone is howling. It's a foghorn! It's a train! No, it's... Balto!

Balto lets out another very primitive howl as he and the team advance towards the cannery. Everyone is overcome with joy. They're so close! The cannery dogs begin running to meet the team, eyes bulging in surprise. They didn't expect this because they really only skimmed the story up to this point. The sled team keeps pace, everyone acknowledging the cannery dogs with excited yips, as they continue towards town. Boris and the cubs climb out of the boat to greet Balto.

But the team is brought to a halt as a dog steps directly in front of the sled, unmoving. Everyone rams into one another, but at least the medicine isn't being flung off a cliff this time. The dog who stopped them is, of course, Steele. His bi-colored eyes shimmer menacingly as the sled's lantern's light reflects off of them. He says he's amazed that the dogs made it home, sarcastically giving Balto in particular a "Bravo". Very cute, very heroic.

But what does Balto expect to happen? Does he think all the townspeople are just going to accept that some guy they've always hated brought the medicine back? Balto has no idea what he's gotten himself into. His only choice, obviously, is to slip out of the harness and allow Steele to lead the team back into Nome. Now.

Wild Joe leaps out of Balto's ship, finally coming to see what all the hubbub was about. He pushes his way through the crowd of stunned cannery dogs and glares daggers at Steele, telling him that he never deserved to be the lead dog and now he's still so greedy for glory that he's holding up the cure for a child killing illness. Steele snarls at Joe, clearly not caring about his opinion. Then the other dogs in the crowd begin jeering "Yeah!" and "You tell him!" and various other cliches meant to show solidarity.

But the real surprise comes when the only dog who actually does slip out of his harness is Star. "Steele doesn't deserve credit for this!" Star spits at his big brother. "In fact, he doesn't even deserve the golden collar he's wearing! All he's ever done is boss everyone around. He's bossed me around since we were pups." Everyone's eyes drift towards Steele's neck. The golden collar and all the medals adorning it shimmer dimly. "You're the hero here, Balto," Star continues. "You deserve that collar. And you're gonna wear it."

He steps towards a stunned Steele, looking as frightened but unflappable as a weeaboo asking out a girl he likes, and lunges at Steele's throat. He yanks the collar off in one swift tug, stepping back and letting it fall to the ground at Balto's feet.

Everyone looks equally amazed at the sight of Star standing up to the guy who's shat on him his whole life. Balto looks at the collar before him, then at Star, then at Steele. "Thank you," he says awkwardly, "but he can keep it. It obviously means more to him then the kids do."

Now Steele is Peak Tilted. The team moves forward again, bypassing Steele and stepping on his collar as they do. Steele stands, chest heaving, for a moment's time before he loudly snaps "no" and drives himself at the team. He shoves cannery dogs out of the way left and right as he plummets towards Balto. Balto notices and comes to a stop beside a coal shoot. The team warns him to LOOK OUT BRUH and Steele flies at him, mouth agape and ready to bite. Just as Steele is about to land on Balto, Balto rolls over, sending Steele tripping over him in the process.

The coal shoot's hatch opens as Steele lands against the lever behind it. Steele tries to claw his way up out of the slowly opening hatch as the other dogs watch horrified. Balto tries to reach out to him, but it's too late. A load of coal drops down from another hatch above the ground. Hundreds of hunks from hell hit the hedonistic Steele as his grip slips. He screams as he falls down the shaft below, a 2 ton torrent of coal following right behind him. Eventually all that can be heard is the sound of stray chunks of coal bouncing around in the shaft. The sound fades as both hatches close. Steele is gone.

Wild Joe walks over, gazes at the closed hatch, and gives a low grunt. He laments on how it couldn't have happened to a nicer dog, then turns to Balto. He says that Balto can't stand around all day when he's got medicine to deliver. But first there's something he needs to do. Star was right, Balto does deserve a collar. And to make sure he has one, Wild Joe slips his own golden collar off his neck, effectively stripping naked in public, and puts it on Balto. Balto is awed. Boris comes up behind him and wraps a wing around him, complimenting him on his new look. Joe tells everyone to hurry into town, and so they do. Balto lets up a torrent of howls once more.

The team FINALLY enters town, and already a whole slew of townsfolk have gathered to see what's going on. They can't contain their relief and their joy upon seeing the medicine has honest to God arrived. Balto brings the team to a stop right in front of the hospital, and immediately the doctor and several other people pry open the crate. A wave of people descend upon the dogs of the team, petting and hugging them. Balto is no exception to this, as people he never expected to respect him begin rubbing his ears and stroking his back.

One of those people is Rosie's father. He hesitates for a second before stroking Balto's head, then leans down and wraps his arms around the dog's neck. Balto withdraws for a moment, but then allows himself to be held. When he's satisfied with the amount of wolfdog hugging he's done, the man coaxes Balto into the hospital, where the staff is already going about administering the anti-toxin to the children.

Balto is brought in to meet Rosie. It's been some time since he's seen her, and she's just been given her injection of the medicine. She's still too weak to lift her head, but she smiles at him all the same. She reaches out her hand to stroke his muzzle, and he licks her. "Balto," she cooes half asleep, "I'd've been lost without you."

She gives a sigh and begins to snore gently, and Balto considers this an appropriate time to head outski. As he turns to leave, he sees Jenna in the doorway, her face scrunched tight in a misty-eyed grin.

The two dogs throw themselves into each other, romping in the doorway. Jenna allows herself to weep, and even Balto's eyes get a little wet. Part of her had truly believed she'd never see her closest friend again. As the two pause and settle back down, she goes to git it and plants a kiss (or the dog equivalent of one I guess) on his nose. He returns the gesture and the two lean into one another. They sit in an embrace as the town continues its celebrating.

A year has passed. Balto, Joe's golden collar still adorning his neck, runs across the cannery harbor to the boat he used to live in. Boris can be seen teaching Luk how to sweep the deck with a poorly held together broom. Muk watches in amusement. Balto calls to Boris that it's time and that he and the kids are invited if they'd like to come along. Boris, overjoyed, leaps onto Muk's back and tells the cubs to pretend they're Paul Revere and hurry up. Everyone who lives in the cannery greets Balto as he rushes by.

Balto passes Dixie on the street as everyone hurries along. Dixie's owner is offput by the presence of the polar bear cubs hi hello what the hell, but Dixie nonchalantly asks Balto what all the fuss is about. Balto explains that it's time, and Dixie congratulates him. He continues his trek, and it goes very much like it did when he was competing in the trial race before the Great Race of Mercy took place.

Finally, Balto reaches the hospital's boiler room. Inside huddle a small crowd: Rosie, her parents, Wild Joe (who is looking a little green), Doc, the actual doc, and, of course, Jenna. Jenna's the center of attention, and she's clearly exhausted. But she's not so exhausted that she can't look up at Balto with a smile on her face. Wild Joe grabs the blanket that she's tucked into and pulls it off of her as Balto and his friends gaze over her.

A litter of 6 puppies whimper out complaints as they reorganize themselves against their mother's warm belly. They're sickeningly precious, squeaking and huddling together. Most of the little ones are varying shades of red like their mother, but the smallest newborn looks remarkably like her father. She lifts her tiny, trembling head and lets out quite possibly the smallest howl any living thing has ever uttered. Everyone chuckles, and Balto leans his head into Jenna's cheek. Their faces are awash with pride.

So there you have it, Balto But Not Balto But Still Balto. Happy 24th year of existing, you trashfire of a movie you. I genuinely love this movie more then I should, and this has been fun to work on. Later this month I'll dump some more Balto stuff here, but it's just about time for me to start a new project for this blog. Hope yous guys enjoyed the wolfdoggy content. Cheers.

[ofmythsandmadness]

i need a favour - four.

PART FOUR - and so, the truth starts to come out (just a little). or, someone starts to realise that what she’s feeling is a little more than just nerves about this fake relationship - that she might be a bit more invested than she ever would have thought.

WORD COUNT - 2819. A/N -  This is a mess of a chapter, sorry folks. I’m not great at this. My gay ass is really just trying to make this work for y’all and truly, it shows. If you want to be added to the taglist, just ask and let me know. As well, if I missed you, just shoot a heads up.

SHE EAGERLY ACCEPTED THE CUP, only to hissing and hurry to place it down. However, she waved off Vanya’s immediate ‘I’m sorry’s’ with a sheepish grin. “It’s fine, I’m good. See?” She waved her slightly reddened fingers to prove her point - which the girl did not really buy, but at least seemed somewhat mollified.

After daring to test another sip - and regretting it immediately after - Y/N turned her attention back to the other woman, sitting across from her. They were around the same height, and yet every time Vanya always looked so much smaller, like a child in an adult’s body who’s too lost in this cruel world to properly function yet.

Far too apt for a vague thought, she bitterly rebutted herself.

“Sorry for stopping by like this,” she started, readjusting herself against the couch cushions. “I just wanted to pass on my well wishes and I saw the posters for the orchestra, figured I should pass on the good will in person.”

Vanya smiled softly. “It’s no problem. And thanks, yeah...yeah, the kids have been working hard.”

By the kids, she meant a small collection of junior students who she had begun to teach after the apocalypse situation. She still nursed a myriad of trauma around performing herself, but she had been encouraged (by both Y/N and her therapist, as well as her siblings when they were about) to not give up on something she loved. And so, she took up teaching again, but went about it with the hopes of creating a mini group of performers of her own. Y/N could tell it was not the same as performing herself, but at least it was something. As she worked on both herself and her strange abilities, it would be enough.

“I hope I can still crash the party? I don’t know much about classical music, but I have gotten quite good at pretending like I know more than I do. Diego’s nonsense helps with that.”

The other girl’s smile bloomed a little, at that. “Is he playing plus one to that, too?”

“Huh - oh, yeah, well...I don’t know,” she stuttered, stumbling over every word like it was from a whole new language. “Haven’t asked, but you know, no matter what the guy says he likes kids. Maybe he can uh, put...put the knives away for the night. Or something.”

“He doesn’t have to-”

“-no, of course he’d-”

“-it’s not his scene, and he’s a busy guy,” Vanya rushed, “you don’t have to feel bad. It was just a joke.”

Normally, Y/N would know that. In fact, she would be so quick to catch any joyful points in their conversations that she would overplay her reactions, laugh a bit too hard and like, slap her knee or something stupid like that. But that time, the reference had gone right over her head and then slapped her right in the back, enough to make her fall over and collapse. She was doing her best to get up and rebuild that hole in her wall again, but it was difficult and she could feel herself coming undone by every passing second.

As if sensing her panic - or maybe just seeing it as it was displayed on her face - Vanya moved forward and gently touched her hand. “I didn’t mean to start anything, or - or say something wrong.”

“Oh. No. NO, you did nothing wrong.”

“But-”

“-sorry, I just lost my train of thought and along with it went my brain, I guess.” Y/N was back to smiling, but it was fake as shit and both of them knew it. “What were we talking about?”

“Hey...is ev-what’s wrong, Y/N?”

She knew Vanya was only trying to be nice - and genuinely nice, as sign by her changing the bland ‘are you okay’ to a real question. She also knew that she had dug herself into a really, really deep hole and it was going to take a whole shit tonne of climbing to get out of it. And this time, she was not sure a smack on the lips was going to solve the issue.

“Would you believe me if I say I’m all good?” Y/N tried weakly, only to sign and slump into the couch when her head shook no. “Alright. Uh...you got anything stronger than coffee? This is a douzy.”

“I think I can handle it. Considering...everything.”

She laughed bitterly from between her friend’s couch cushions, then attempting to smother herself between them. It did not work, but it was nice to hide her face for a quick moment. “This might just be more surprising then everything else, Vannie...believe me.”

Vanya came back quickly with the glasses, and Y/N hesitated none to gulp the drink down regardless of the burn. After that, she struggled through the entire story, the ups and downs and even the stupid little anecdotes shared between her and Diego just to make it seem a bit funnier than it was - like it was just a fun game and not her love life being through around and about like nuts. But honestly recounting it back just made it sound even more dismal and humiliating and plain-out weirder. More than it already was to her.

Vanya was silent throughout it all, simply nodding along and letting her speak without pause. She supposed that was a good thing, she was grateful there was no need to stop - mostly because if she did, she might just never speak again.

Y/N finished it off with a sigh and a wry smile, raising her glass to her lips in an attempt to get the last drops out, sans manners and any grace. “That’s that,” she grumbled. “That’s...that’s that.”

And all Vanya said to that, was a quiet, monotone, rather emotionless, “oh.”

Y/N blinked, surprised. “Oh? That’s it?”

“Well - I don’t - I don’t know what to say.”

“Oh.”

“It’s just unexpected,” she offered up. When the only response was a quirk of her eyebrows, Vanya moved to explain. “I just thought...you two really had just gone for it. Like we had always teased you two about.”

Her cheeks bloomed with colour, forcing Y/N to duck her head and hide the flush. Not that it did much good, the splotchy red was much too eager to show her embarrassment then appease her. “No. ‘Fraid not. We’re just friends...who are now pretending to be sleeping with each other.”

“But why?”

She shrugged haplessly. “He wanted a break from everyone dogging him about being single, I guess...and I didn’t have anything better to do. I figure do ‘im a favour, he does one back, we’re even - except I didn’t really think it’d be this...big.” As in, she did not imagine kissing him. In front of his entire family, sans Five and their dear old dead daddy.

And also, actually fucking enjoying it.

“And technically, we’re not supposed to say a word to anyone, it’s on the list - but man, I just, I just need to talk to someone about this.” She gratefully accepted the second drink, swallowing it down in three hearty gulps. “I feel like I’m drowning.”

“I’m sorry, Y/N.”

She shook her head. “Don’t be. I mean, I agreed to this, right? And it’s my fault for thinking this could be a walk in the park. I just thought...I don’t know what I thought. I guess I didn’t.”

Vanya smiled a little at that, and finally moved, walking around her coffee table to take a seat beside Y/N. She took the other’s hand in hers, squeezing ever so lightly. “It’ll be okay. It’s only a couple months, right?”

“I guess, but I feel like I’m already screwing it all up. I mean, it’s been like a week and a half? And I’ve already made a fool in front of everyone, and kissed him - and then blurted out the secret to someone! I mean, I might as well propose to him and then tell him our entire friendship is a lie, too!”

Despite herself, Vanya grinned, finding the humour in Y/N’s words, despite the panic on her face. She squeezed her hand a little tighter. “You’ll be okay.”

“How do you know that, though?”

“Because,” she replied slowly, “you told someone, but just one. And I’m not going to say a word to him. Okay?”

“Okay…”

“...and you didn’t make a fool out of yourself, really. You guys were cute. And everyone believed it, mostly because they’ve all secretly wanted you two to get together for years. I mean, since the moment they first heard your name leave Diego’s lips, Allison was making wedding invitations and Klaus was coming up with the worst moments to drop hints about you. I’m surprised you never caught them,” Vanya finished, lip curling a little at the memories.

Y/N knew enough about the siblings’ thoughts about her and Diego. It was unavoidable and for the most part she was fine with them conspiring. It was only when the mention of Diego came up, when one of them said something alluding to the fact that maybe he talked about her a little more than mere friends...that maybe there was a whole lot she did not know about.

Just as she was going to ask Vanya what she was referring to, the other girl cut her off. “And the kiss, like you said it was nothing. You had to do it, and it didn’t mean anything. So you’re still okay.”

And at that, she felt all the blood that had flooded her face drain right out, leaving her pale and panicked next to her close friend. And just like before, there was no hiding her expression or the plain out anxiety attack raging underneath her skin.

It did not take a wizard, to figure out what had caused it.

“Oh, Y/N-”

“-I don’t know, it just-”

“-Y/N...”

Y/N slumped back and covered her face with the cushion, groaning loudly into the fabric. “Shit.”

||

WHEN HE CAME BY THAT NIGHT, she was cold. 

Polite, and caring as always - but cold in her actions, in her few-word replies, in the way she shied away from any near-touch possibly laid upon her skin.

It was not intentional, at least not at the start. She was a mess most of the afternoon and early evening, but then as the sun fell and the hours crept away faster and faster, she felt herself close off. Even from herself. Like she had rebuilt that wall but it had been built too high and too close, so everything was left out of her heart. Not enough so it could not hurt, not so she could not feel waves of guilt every time she did something stand-offish - but enough to make it continue.

She knew he felt it too, but neither said a thing on it. For that, she was grateful. It was easier to move in silence then have to stop and think about the storm in her head. Mostly? Because if she did let her guard down maybe even a second, she might collapse entirely. And no one could have that.

“Here. Take these.”

His only response was a grunt and a nod, fingers barely brushing hers to take the small pills. She pushed back her worries and maintained the same blank expression, watching as he dry-swallowed the Advil. When he was done, she pushed off the coffee table.

“Need anything else?”

“No.”

“Okay. Shower, there’s some of your shit in the dryer now you can change into. Come in when you’re done.”

“I’ll just-”

“-you’re not goin’ anywhere,” she barked. For a moment, she softened, considering a sweeter tone and more reason than shouting orders. But quickly that idea shrivelled up. “It’s late. You need rest. You’re already here anyways.”

“I’m not-”

“-Diego, please.”

He finally left the couch. She heard him moving behind her, but dared not turn to look his way. Instead, her eyes remained train forward, frozen on the window he had come through Watching, tracing the frame, paralysed in replaying all the instances in which she had stood there before. 

“What did I do?”

Her eyes clenched shut, squeezing with all her might; gone was the window, replaced only by darkness. “Nothing. I’m just tired.” A slight pause, then: “sorry.”

“There’s more than that, isn’t there?” Slow, stumbling steps in the shallow dark walked her way. They remained a distance away - and yet she felt like he was right there. “I did something.”

“No.”

“Bullshit. You’re upset - at me.” There was bitter humour in his voice then. “I’ve known you too long to believe any of your lies.”

When Y/N opened her eyes again, they watered and struggled to even make out the shadows, finding the night still pressing into her skull. Digging its claws in, trying to wrench out all her fears and emotions and the shit she had buried deep deep deep within. Offer up her heart on a silver platter and leave her dead in the process.

She smiled ever so slightly. In the words of Cher fucking Horowitz, ‘as if’. No weepy confessions to be made that night.

Instead, she turned and made her lips turn up more, into a more believable grin. “I’m sorry. It’s been - it’s been a long week, feels like everything’s hitting me. I didn’t mean to take that out on you.”

“I-I know-”

“-it’s okay,” she murmured, voice hitching at his slight stutter. “It’s fine. Seriously, Diego, I just need to sleep this off. And uh, so do you.”

Diego sighed, hesitating as he thought over his words before pushing forward. “Why do you put up with me, do all this?”

“I’m not doing much.”

“You should be sleeping.”

“Sleep is overrated, you and I both know that.”

“Come on.”

“I’m being serious!”

“You’re exhausted, Y/N.”

She shrugged lightly. “Maybe. But I’d rather sacrifice an hour or two if - if it means I know you’re alright.”

Those words not the words that she had originally planned on saying. But they came out anyways, and hung heavily in the air, a wall of tension that left both sides unsure of what came next.

Before he could try and pry, ask about those softly spoken words, about the way her voice cracked a little at the end, she spoke. “I’m your girlfriend, Diego, can you blame me for caring about you getting home safe or not? I mean, I can’t have the love of my life dead in a fuckin’ alley somewhere.”

At that, she just smiled and turned, hurrying off to her room. She heard him speak, but it was too soft to pick up, and so she discarded it with the rest of the conversation. Just let herself sink into the blankets once more and shut her eyes, begging for sleep even when her brain was more awake than ever. Like she could sleep, after this. She never did.

Y/N listened instead as he moved around, shuffling into the bathroom and starting up the shower. He was brief, only a few moments before the water turned off and he was back to quietly rustling around. Soon enough, maybe ten minutes or so and he was in the doorway of her bedroom.

She shut her eyes and pretended to be already asleep, just as she always did. Let him feel safe within the darkness, moving to the other side and slipping under the covers. He laid still and at the edge, as always, still as anything so as not to overstep any boundaries. Sometimes, she smiled at that - other times, she longed for him to roll over and move close to her, put his arms around her and-

-with a start, Y/N realised that the silence had been broken by him. He had sighed, followed by a soft sniffle. She dared not move even a muscle, frozen against her pillow as Diego groaned once more and adjusted his pillow. 

And just when she thought it was over, he spoke. Just three words, soft as a breath. If it were not for the heavy silence, she would not have caught it, but he might as well had shouted it in that instant.

“You fucking idiot.”

Y/N dared to breathe, soft and slow, attempting to play asleep. But even if she wasn’t pulling it off, she was not sure if he even heard, so wrapped up in his own thoughts. 

Not for the first time, she longed to roll over and touch him, reassure him she was there with him. Ask what was on his mind, and if their thoughts paralleled in any way or form. But like always, they remained on opposite ends, too eager to maintain a friendship to overstep. She remained still and staring out into the darkness, listening to her exhales matching with his own shallow breaths.

Neither of them would sleep much, that night.

TAGLIST -  @asexualmarauder​ @thatshellfiredean​ @the-bird-suit​  @rangotangomango​ @fandomsandmore394​ @thatkidofwarandpeace​ @antoouu @soul-of-a-traveller​ @yall-wildin-like-siriusly​ @artsyle​

[carry-the-sky]

we drew a map to a better place

Two years after he comes back into her life, Frank asks Karen a question.

this is set in the same ‘verse as my kastle christmas fic, and it’s probably the fluffiest, most ooc thing i’ve ever written, lol. things are more than a little unsettling in the world right now, so writing this was a nice distraction from all of that. i hope everyone is staying safe and healthy, and i am sending my love to you all. <3 (the fic is also on ao3! special thinks to @ninzied for reading parts of this over!!)

He’s gone when she wakes up.

Frank’s an early riser. It’s not unusual for him to be out of the apartment before the sun is up, even on the weekend. Karen reaches toward his side of the bed out of habit, fingers sliding through empty air. The sheets are cold—he’s been gone for a while.

It isn’t until she sits up that she sees the folded up piece of paper on his pillow. She stares at it for a minute before her sleep-fogged brain registers that she should probably pick it up.

She recognizes Frank’s handwriting as soon as she opens it, and panic blooms in her stomach. Her mind jumps immediately to worst-case scenarios—his cover as Pete has finally been blown, someone's coming after him, he needs to leave town—

Her eyes skim the first lines. First things first, don’t worry. I’m fine.

Karen huffs a laugh, relief flooding through her. He knows her too well. She keeps reading.

Thought we’d try something different for our anniversary this year, maybe take a trip down memory lane. I’ve hidden a few more letters around the city—you remember the place we met to talk about a certain ex-NSA analyst?

 Frank

 P.S. Bring Lucy.

Karen blinks. She reads the letter again, digesting each word. He’s sending her on some kind of scavenger hunt—that explains where he’s been all morning. It’s an unexpectedly soft surprise, and her heart clenches in her chest.

There’s a thin whine from the other side of the room. Karen glances at the clock on the nightstand—it’s a little after eight, which means she slept in longer than she usually does.

“Sorry, Luce,” she says, sliding out of bed. After adopting Lucy, they had initially tried to sleep with her at their feet, but after multiple nights of her attempting to claim Frank’s side of the bed, they decided to buy her a dog bed for their room.

Lucy is curled up, but scrambles to her feet as soon as she sees Karen.

“Morning, girl,” Karen says, planting a kiss on the bridge of her dog’s nose. She slips into her robe and grabs Lucy’s leash and collar from the hall closet. They’ve been in the new apartment for over a little over a year, and it’s finally starting to feel like home. It’s a bit smaller than her last place, but it’s closer to Frank’s work, and there are no breed restrictions.

It’s far from perfect, but it’s theirs.

Once outside, Karen walks Lucy over to a small patch of grass. It’s unusually warm for this time of year—most of the snow that blew in over a week ago has melted, and the sky is a bright, cloudless blue. It’s a perfect day to be out and about in the city.

“What’s your dad up to, huh?” she asks Lucy, ruffling her ears. Most of Frank’s letters must be within walking distance of their apartment, because he’d told her to bring their dog along. Karen pulls up a mental map of their neighborhood, trying to determine which locations might be fair game—

She smiles to herself. It’s a welcome change of pace, using her investigative skills for something a bit less heavy than her work. That must have been one of Frank’s goals in setting this up for her. Her stomach churns with familiar anticipation, the thrill of chasing down a lead. At least she knows that something good is waiting for her at the end of this one.

Thirty minutes later, she and Lucy have both eaten breakfast, and she’s changed into comfortable walking clothes. They set off in the direction of the harbor.

The area is just as she remembers it. She rounds a corner and sees the two benches, and she stops for a moment. It feels like a lifetime has passed since the two of them were here—she had just found out that he was alive, and David Lieberman had him scared shitless. The thought makes her smirk. Frank has told her stories from their time spent living out of the bunker, and she knows that he now considers David one of his closest friends. So much has changed.

Lucy is eyeing a few seagulls that are perched near the water, but she comes when Karen gently tugs at her leash. There are a lot of places to hide a letter here, but Karen’s fairly sure she knows where it is. She crouches down, peering beneath the closest bench—

And sure enough, there’s an envelope taped to one of the legs.

Karen’s stomach does a pleasant little flip as she opens it and pulls out the piece of paper within.

Step carefully, the letter reads. And keep the coffee coming.

It takes her a second to piece it together. Step carefully—New York is infamous for its sidewalk grates, but most places in the city have them. That’s not particularly helpful in narrowing down a specific location—but she does know a place that serves endless coffee.

Three blocks later, she and Lucy arrive at Rosie’s Place. The local diner is a five-minute walk from Frank’s work site, and Karen has lost count of how many times they’ve met for lunch here. There’s a large metal grate leading up to the entrance, and Frank is always giving her a hard time about having to navigate it in her pumps. The infinite amount of free coffee refills makes up for that.

For a moment, she pictures another diner. She pictures Frank, bruises smudged below his eyes and the low rumble of his voice.

Karen shakes her head, and the memory dissolves. Now that she’s here, she’s not sure where to start looking. She and Frank have a corner booth they usually try to snag, but that doesn’t seem like the best place to hide a secret letter. There’s no guarantee that someone else wouldn’t find it first. Maybe he left it with one of the waiters? They’re on a first-name basis with a couple of them. It wouldn’t hurt to pop inside to check. Karen glances around, looking for a place to tie Lucy’s leash—

She stops, looking down at her dog. He told her to bring Lucy along for a reason.

Rosie’s has a small outdoor sitting area, used mostly for happy hour when the weather is warmer. Karen makes her way over to it. It’s empty now, but she notices a small water bowl by one of the chairs. Of course—she’d forgotten that the outdoor space is dog-friendly.

Lucy noses the bowl, then tilts her head, tongue lolling out of her mouth in a classic pitbull smile. “What’d you find, huh?” Karen asks, tucking a finger under Lucy’s collar and scratching at the soft patch of fur there. She lifts the water bowl gently, retrieving the envelope that has been tucked under it.

Still think I can rock a hipster beard? Look for a familiar face.

Below these words, there is a sketch of roses in a window.

She has no idea who the familiar face is referring to, but the hipster beard and roses—it’s her old apartment. He’s taking her to all the places that mean something to both of them, pieces of the city that represent the different facets of their relationship. After he came back from the dead that first time, her apartment was where she decided to help him. Even before he pulled out the roses, she knew what she would do. He was okay, he was alive—she would’ve done anything he asked to see him again.

Karen takes the long way there, sticking to main streets. The sun is warm on her skin, and she allows her thoughts to wander. Until now, she hasn’t really stopped to consider where all of this is leading, but her gut is telling her that it’s something big. She doesn’t want to get ahead of herself—she knows that Frank loves her and is committed to her, but she’s honestly never considered the possibility that marriage is something he might want again. Their life together isn’t a replacement for the one he lost, but those wounds run deep.

Karen crosses the street, and the apartment comes into view. The building looks different, maybe because it’s not her home anymore. Lucy sniffs the air, and Karen remembers with a pang that this is where she first found the dog, hungry and cold. It’s where Frank found her too, the night of New Year’s Eve. Karen gazes down at her dog fondly. She isn’t sure exactly how old Lucy is—there’s no way of knowing how long she was out on the streets—but in many ways she is still a puppy, all energy and innocence. Karen’s never been the parental type, but she thinks she’s maybe starting to understand it now. She would do anything to keep Lucy safe.

Dogs aren’t allowed in the building, so Karen knows that the letter can’t be inside, and Frank wouldn’t have left it in her old apartment if there was a new tenant. That must mean that it’s somewhere near the complex itself. She peeks down the alleyway where they both found Lucy. It’s too exposed—there’s nowhere to leave a piece of paper without it either blowing away or being seen by someone else.

Karen eyes the fire escape warily. It does seem like the type of place Frank would leave a secret note, but there’s no way she can climb it with Lucy—

That’s when she spots a poster taped to the side of the building—a poster of Foggy Nelson’s face. It’s from his campaign for District Attorney, as an official candidate this time, not just a write-in. Business at Nelson and Murdock has really taken off, but he’s been talking about making this career change for a while. Foggy is already a kickass lawyer, and Karen can only imagine the good he would do for the city in a position of authority.

She beams at his poster. He’s wearing one of his fancy suits, and he looks so professional—Karen can’t believe he’s the same goofy, shaggy-haired guy who introduced her to Josie’s and spent a night drunkenly wandering the city with her. Now that she’s looking closer, she sees the corner of an envelope sticking out from behind the poster. “Thanks, Fog,” she says, tugging it open gently.

Remember where you said you wanted an after for me? Meet you there.

Karen drags a thumb across the words, her heart painfully full. There was a time when she thought he had chosen the war for good, when she thought that the next time she saw him would be his face on the news, or in an obituary. He deserved more—she knew it, but she couldn’t force him to see it. He had to make that choice for himself.

It wasn’t an easy one. Karen knows how hard it is to live with your pain, tread its waters instead of drowning in them. But they’re both here, making that choice every single day—together.

Lucy barks, eager to keep walking. She looks hopefully up at Karen, the distinctive heart marking over her eye shining in the sunlight.

“Okay, girl,” Karen says. “Let’s go find him.”

.

He’s standing by the railing with his back to her. She takes the opportunity to study him, the familiar slope of his shoulders and the way the thin breeze teases his hair. It’s grown out a bit, curling slightly under his ears.

The bridge looks different in the daylight. It’s still a striking piece of architecture, arcing toward the opposite harbor. Karen lets her eyes shutter, remembering the lights reflecting on the water, the soft press of his lips to her cheek. She thinks she knew even then—what she felt for him went beyond friendship, even if she didn’t have the words to describe it yet.

Lucy pulls at the leash—she must have seen him—and Karen blinks her eyes open. Frank is still looking out over the water, but he turns as they approach.

“Hey,” he says, drawing her in to kiss her on the forehead. “Was wondering when you were gonna show up.”

She elbows him in the ribs. “So I slept in a little later than I meant to. Sue me.”

“I know just the guys for that,” Frank mutters, stooping to give Lucy some attention.

Karen leans back against the railing. “So—I found all of your letters.”

“Not all of them,” Frank says, patting Lucy’s stomach one last time before standing. “You’ve had one with you the whole time.”

Karen frowns, instinctively checking the pockets of her jeans—but Frank couldn’t have known which clothes she’d put on this morning. Her gaze falls to Lucy. When she looks back at Frank, he’s grinning.

“No way,” Karen says. She kneels down, pivoting slightly as Lucy attempts to lick at her chin. “You’ve been holding out on me, huh?”

Her hand goes to Lucy’s collar, where a small heart-shaped locket dangles. She gently eases it open, and a thin piece of rolled-up paper falls out onto the ground. She opens it slowly.

Both hands, remember? Turn around.

For a moment, she forgets how to breathe. Something is taking shape in her chest, something warm and buoyant-bright, and she feels like she might burst if she holds it in any longer.

She turns.

Frank is down on one knee. He’s holding out a ring, a simple band broken by a white rose.

“Yes,” she says, without hesitating.

Frank blinks. His mouth hangs open, as if he’s unsure of how to make it form words.

“Shit, I’m sorry—” Karen swallows a laugh, shaking her head furiously. She clears her throat, attempting to rearrange her expression into something resembling calm. “Were you going to ask me something?”

Frank makes a sound that’s halfway between a grunt and a laugh. “Gotta admit, I wasn’t expecting that.”

“What?” Karen says. “All I did was turn around like a normal person, and then I was absolutely silent. I said nothing.”

Frank is smiling again, and she thinks it might be the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. He ducks his head, and his eyes are a little wet when he glances up at her again.

“Karen.” His voice catches on the word. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she breathes, and before she can blink, he’s moving. His arms slide around her waist and her hands bracket his face, and then he’s pressing his lips to hers. His mouth is soft and warm, and she doesn’t care that they’re in a very public place surrounded by strangers—none of it is real, nothing exists beyond the feeling of his arms around her, the taste of salt when she parts her lips and kisses him deeper.

Lucy has other ideas. She threads between their legs, wedging them apart slightly as if to say, hey, pay attention to me.

Karen laughs, rubbing her ears. “Yeah, yeah, mom and dad are making it official. It’s very exciting.”

She meets Frank’s gaze. His lashes are rimmed with tears, and it isn’t until he sweeps his thumb across her cheek that she realizes she’s crying, too. He slowly reaches up to grab her left hand, and she watches him slide the ring onto her finger. The white rose catches the light, as if it’s winking at her.

“I love you,” Frank says, brushing his lips against her knuckles. “You know that, yeah?”

Karen tips her forehead to rest against his, pouring everything into that simple touch.

“I was starting to wonder,” she says with a smile, and kisses him again.

fun fact: i actually based this off of my own proposal! it was fun to try and apply the same idea to frank and karen. thanks so much for reading! <3