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shurisneakers · 2 months ago

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unsolved (v)

Summary: Bucky doesn't even believe in the paranormal. So who the hell thought it was a good idea to stick him in a series about everything haunted for the internet's amusement? With his loose-canon of a teammate who has no concept of subtlety or shits left to give, to make things even worse. (Buzzfeed unsolved AU)

Warnings: swearing, frustrated bucky, obnoxious reader, witchcraft

A/N: it's like i never left amirite (im sorry it has been like 10 months pls forgive me ily guys let's pretend this series never went on hiatus) (i had cancer and college but now I've graduated from both and i live babyyy. anyway. welcome back to my house of horrors)

Previous part || Series masterlist

When you tell Maya you want to do witchcraft, you'd done so with the full expectation of defending your idea with the force of a PhD student who was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

She surprisingly agrees.

“Really?” It's hard to stop the astonishment from entering your voice. Honestly, it sort of pisses you off that the Canva presentation you spent five hours on wouldn't actually see the light of day.

“Yeah, sure. I think it'd do well with the older demographic. ” She shrugs.

"Really?" Now you weren't sure she was on the same plane of existence as you were.

“Make some animals talk. Conjure up some parking spots.”

Ah.

“I was thinking more like... hexing people and shadow demons,” you test slowly.

That seems to tether her to reality.

Her head cranes towards you centimetre by centimetre, like she was buffering in real time.

“Are you insane?" she states, not very much sounding like she was expecting an answer. "Do you want to end up on the news? Do you know how vicious Facebook groups can be?”

“No PR is bad PR,” you preach wisely, parroting advice you’d seen bots on Twitter tell other bots.

“That doesn’t apply to you. I already have a tough time explaining Stephen Strange and why he’s not literally the devil to the public."

Now that was a little unfair. Perhaps it warranted another Canva presentation.

"Have you considered that I'm hotter and significantly cooler than Stephen Strange?" you suggest helpfully.

She squints at you, or more likely your audacity. "I will not have another scandal on my hands this week.”

“But next week is okay?”

Her hardened stare tells you quickly what a thousand words cannot.

You cross your arms over your chest. “Thou limit me so, Maya. How is one to find you invigorating content in these trying circumstances?”

Maya taps your shoulder on her way out, crooning, “There’s a reason I asked you to do this series. You’ll figure it out.”

You hide a smile with an all too dramatic sigh. “Thou compliment me so. How am I to not fall in love with thee?”

Maya shakes her head playfully. “Nothing that will get me called into a press conference by mid-day. No hexing. No extreme curses. ”

“Mid-level curses it is, then” you call after her.

Her leaving figure does not give you a reply.

After a week of staring at the corner of his room through the night, delirious to the point where he seriously considered using Sam’s Amazon Prime account to buy his own stupid ghost apparatuses, Bucky throws in the towel.

Clearly, he was mistaken. Sleep deprived and probably missing his family a little more than he would have ever admitted to a living soul.

Bucky's sleep deprivation adds to his already charming and sociable personality.

No one would touch him with a ten-foot pole. Bucky’s usually grumpy and while everyone had sort of built a tolerance towards his regular nonsense, he was now the very sexy combination of grumpy and sensitive.

For his part, after last week's shenanigans, Bucky has stuck to avoiding anything and everything horror.

He watches only romcoms and finds that while everyone says he seems most like Harry from Harry Met Sally, he hates that Mike Wazowski motherfucker with a passion.

While everyone else seems to get the memo, you have chosen to ignore it blissfully, and have instead been prancing about all week, shoving meme after meme into his face.

Bucky Barnes smiling compilations that were 7 seconds long. Bucky Barnes social media fanfictions that showed him replying far more than he had ever replied to anyone in real life ever.

Bucky’s learnt to ignore you with a long-suffering glare. You adapt quickly, skillfully dodge the daggers shooting out of his eyes and shove another TikTok in his face. It is an edit of him to Toxic by Britney Spears. He doesn't want to ask where they got some of the footage they used.

After the fifth Twitter screenshot, he takes to avoiding you like the plague.

Unfortunately for Maya, that involved avoiding the set too. He sees on the official The Graveyard Shift channels that there’s an announcement put out about an episode delay.

It is undeniably his fault. No, he still won't answer the group chat or the several knocks at his door every day.

But because the universe is invested in his sorrow, you seem to find him wherever he goes.

In the garden, digging through the vegetable bed.

In the storeroom, looking through oversized cookware.

When he walked into the alley behind the Tower and found you there, he hissed at you like a feral cat and you asked very loudly what the fuck was wrong with him.

He checks every part of him and all his clothes for a tracker but no-- you just seem to have a karmic connection level of being exactly where he is.

When he runs into you for the fourth time at the library, he really thinks he’s lost it.

“Are you following me?” he asks, voice sharp.

You look at him in wonder. “Your ego is so big it could have its own gravitational pull. How do you carry around your massive head all day?"

“Everywhere I go, you’re there.” He continues, finger pointing in accusation.

“Bitch, you're the one who walked in here," you exclaim. "I’ve been here all day.”

“Doing what?”

“Who’s following who now?” you dare.

“Because you’re in this section.” He does a quick check to see what section it actually is. Witchcraft and Wizardry. He may not have known that when he accused you but he definitely was not wrong.

“Why do you care what I do here?”

Because he's wondering if he’s managed to shut down production permanently and sent a bunch of people into unemployment.

“I don’t trust you here," he settles on instead. "What are you actually doing?"

“I’m learning things. Gaining knowledge. And such." You gesture vaguely before you narrow your eyes at him. "Not that you would know, you ape.”

He scoffs. He had the intelligence of a thousand suns, mind you.

“You don’t even have a book," he counters.

“So? I’m gaining knowledge through osmosis.” You look around. “I’m absorbing.”

His nose twitches, teeth clenched.

“Whatever,” he mumbles instead, turning his attention to the bookshelf.

As he thumbs through various titles he’s too annoyed to read, a small movement catches his attention.

He watches you from the corner of his eyes.

“What?” you demand, this whole exchange too damn loud for a library.

“What?” he challenges right back. “Why are you watching me?”

“Why am I– you’re the one staring at me.” You throw your hands up. “First you follow me here, second you accuse me of things that would get me burnt at the stake a couple of years ago, third you accuse me of watching you just 'cause you know you're pretty. You–”

Bucky narrows his eyes, not missing the random compliment you slipped in.

“Hold on just one second. That’s why you’ve been avoiding everyone all week.” You stare at him, wide-eyed and unrelenting.

He thinks he must have missed some part of the conversation because he has no idea why you're looking at him like you've figured him all out.

“That’s why you’ve been so jumpy and sleep deprived ever since that episode you filmed.”

Bucky’s gaze doesn’t waver, but his mind races and his breath falters for a second. There’s no goddamn way you knew what had gone down, he’d deleted every footage that could possibly–

“You missed me.”

He stops his overthinking right in its tracks.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” You tilt your head, face full of pure sympathy. “You filmed one episode without me by your side and realised you couldn’t live without me.”

“Fucking ridiculous,” he mutters, eyes pressed closed tighty, partially in relief.

“You want me, don’t you? You want me so bad it makes you throw u–”

“Fuck off.” Bucky turns on his heel at the speed of light.

“You have a fat, raging crush–”

“I’m fuckin' moving out.” His voice is like rocks.

“You can move out, but you can never move on, baby,” you whisper-shout. “When’d you realise you liked me, Bucky? Night one? The first hou–”

He slams the library door behind him.

From: Stevie Left some strawberries outside your door. They’re good.

From: Stevie How are you doing today, by the way?

From: Bucky alive

From: Bucky and thanks

From: Stevie Anything we have to talk about? Your wood chisels didn’t break again, did they?

From: Bucky nothing im fine

From: Stevie You sure? Time for a Cypress Hills visit?

From: Bucky no im fine

From: Stevie You haven’t left the room in a week. Beat your old record and I'm going to start getting worried here.

Bucky stares at his phone wondering how he ended up with a mother a century after his own died, before sighing.

From: Bucky going to film a video this week. im fine

From: Bucky promise

Because there really was no other way to convince Steve that he as leaving the cave he constructed from his comforter.

From: Steve Good to hear. I’m always across the hallway if you need anything.

From: Bucky i know. your gramophone won’t let me forget it.

From: Steve Dick.

From: Bucky it is too damn loud. old ass

From: Steve Got a new record. Haven’t listened to it yet.

From: Bucky ill be there in 10

That Friday, Bucky walks onto the set in his finest black hoodie and darkest sunglasses, looking less like a badass and entirely like a hungover teenager.

Before he has a chance to even register what’s going on, he is ambushed by lights, a team touching up his face and his stupid dollar store sunglasses leave him before he has a chance to protest.

“I told you he’d show up,” you pipe up proudly from your place at the table. “Lil' shit simply missed me too–”

“Stop,” he interrupts, finally getting around to look at the set when the foundation brushes stop assaulting his line of vision.

For a hot second, he thinks you've taken over Steve's cooking show.

There are candles floating around, which he assumes you're holding up. A large… cauldron, gigantic wooden mixing spoons and 50 little bowls worth of ingredients are neatly arranged on the table.

“What the hell is going on?” he questions immediately. “What is all this?”

“Mise en place, baby,” you reply, shutting a book you had on the table loudly before looking at him. “You’re on dish duty. Come on.”

“What?” His eyebrows pull into a frown.

You dust off your hands before reaching under the table and chucking an apron at him. “Back when I worked as a line cook, the number one rule was to clean up as you go. I like to think of it as--”

“What is going on here?” he specifies, already trying to piece together your timeline in his head with every new piece of lore.

“Welcome to my kitchen, motherfucker.” Your grin is nefarious. “We're gonna do some witchcraft.”

After he spends fifteen minutes on the phone with Maya confirming that yes, that is indeed the episode and that the heads up he needed would have reached him if he opened the seventeen million messages on the group chat– he finally comes to stand behind the bench with you, a tick in his jaw but also with enough self-awareness to be sheepish.

He thought his grand return to the channel would be a simple video with some ghost reading or whatever, not… this.

He turns to you, ready to reach a compromise that ends with him not having to be there at all.

But in the fifteen minutes he had turned his attention to the call, you’ve somehow convinced them to start rolling before he gets the chance to leave, so he’s immediately hit with a--

“We’re on in three…two–”

“Where is your apron?” you demand, looking him up and down.

“I’m not wearing that shit.” It had some stupid slogan like ‘Life is about taking whisks!’ and he had already been through enough.

“Jeez, annyone would think that you're not in love with me--"

"I'm not."

"--by the way you're so ungrateful. I got that custom-made for you,” you tsk. “I could've gotten the other one. Mine could've said ‘he’s my sweet potato’ and yours could've said ‘I yam’.”

Bucky experiences a whole-body chill.

“Whatever," you dismiss with a wave of hand before looking into the camera. "Before we get started, we recognize that for some, witchcraft is a deeply meaningful religion and spiritual practice that should be approached with respect and curiosity.”

“We’re not claiming this is the definitive guide to witchcraft, we’re simply trying out a book that’s been highly recommended for better or worse, and seeing where it leads us. Whaddya say, Bucko?

You look at him for input. Bucky stares at the dusty, hole-ridden monstrosity on the table.

“What’s it called?” Bucky asks finally after a long pause.

You tap the thick, old book. “Witchcraft for Weenies: A Totally Legit Guide to Authentic Witchcraft by A. Harkness.”

“Is that the actual name or are you just making it up?”

“Rich coming from the only one between us who actually lied on camera--" you glare at him. "I would never fabricate my sources, I’m a champion for academic integrity.”

You pick up the book to show him, flipping it towards the camera too and sure enough, the book that was basically falling apart at the binding was called exactly that.

“Let’s-a go, baby.”

You stare at him, lips pressed together. Bucky gives no inclination towards changing his answer.

“Fine. We’re going to do this the hard way, I see.” You exhale, reaching into the pocket of your apron.

Bucky’s eyebrows knit together when you brandish a deck of cards, yank his arm towards you and drop it into his open palm.

“Shuffle," you command.

Something very familiar faces him.

Bucky stares at the cards before looking back at you. “Why’s my face on it?”

“It’s a tarot deck I got from Comic Con,” you insist. “Avengers themed. Now shuffle it.”

He thinks you left that card on top on purpose, but regardless, he's already been too much of a menace to the crew to be the cause of any more disturbance.

So he slowly begins, careful and skilled, before you scoff in his face.

“Faster, grandpa," you chide. “I’ve seen the way those hands cut garlic when no one’s around, I know you move faster than that.”

Bucky rolls his eyes but complies anyway, shuffling the cards with the adeptness only a certain Jim Morita could have taught him in a dark tent to keep him awake on a night watch.

“Faster,” you goad, face smug. “Faster. Come on now, Barnes, your age finally catching up to you?”

It’s stupid– he doesn’t even know why he’s actually complying and increasing his speed. He can’t believe that he was letting you pressure him.

“C’mon, faster, Barnes, you abso-”

His hands were moving so fast by then that they’d have to put the video in slow motion to catch all the movement.

“Faster–” and in the commotion, a few cards fly out.

“Brilliant, thanks.” You slam them down on the table, plucking the deck out of his hand before he has a chance to process why the fuck he actually went ahead with what you were trying.

“Right, so the universe has decided that these will be your cards,” you tell him, and he finally looks down at what had fallen out of the deck.

The cards show Sam’s Captain America shield, Carol Danvers, and Spider-Man, with words written below.

“The Star, Six of Cups, The Hanged Man,” you read out thoughtfully.

Bucky rolls his eyes so hard he thinks they’ll fall out of his skull.

“You know, I’m going to just make a general assumption and say you need help.” You hum to yourself. “I'm gonna make a potion to get you some.”

“Get me some?” He's too busy trying to figure out what the cards could possibly mean to see that he's walked straight into that one.

“Get you some perspective. You need an advisor who’ll dish it to you straight. Give you the facts, no bullshit–”

"No." He had too many of those in his life and he has had enough of people being “honest” and "straightforward” and telling him his moustache was ugly every time he dared to try out a new look–

Until you reach under the table and again and suddenly, there’s a white creature buzzing around on the table in front of him.

“Behold– your new advisor,” you announce.

From the corner of his eye Bucky can see the production team scrambling to figure out where the hell this was going. He lip-reads producers’ orders to find adoption links or resources to insert during post-production, and teasers on social media, to make this look more planned. Great, so no one was prepared-- it wasn't just him.

“Whose fucking cat is this?” He looks down at it, all white except for a few brown spots all around, green eyes and evil in her aura.

“Relax, I'll give her back when we're done.”

“Give her ba–” he echoes. “Where did you get her?”

“The alley outside,” you coo, rubbing under her chin. “I checked and she doesn’t have an owner. But look at her, she’s meant to be here.”

Bucky looks at the cat. The cat looks back at him, irises narrowing into slits. His nose twitches.

“You can’t just bring a cat–”

“Remember to adopt, not shop,” you say to the camera before clapping your hand. “Anyway. If my potion goes according to plan, she will be giving you unsolicited life advice for eternity.”

“You will be unemployed, then,” Bucky manages to add while watching the chaos unfold behind the camera.

“Nonsense, I’m irreplaceable.” You grin. “Besides, you can't manufacture chemistry like this even in a cauldron.”

You send him a flying kiss. His glower was as sharp as laser beams.

“Let’s get started.” You grin at the camera.

Bucky tries to pet the cat. She hisses at him.

Well all-fucking-right then.

One hour later, things have descended into madness of the most mundane kind.

It was precisely when you started telling him ten minutes in that a book had nothing on your instincts and raw intelligence that Bucky knew that this was going to shit.

The cauldron was on an electric stove unlike the open fire demanded by the book because the team had enough foresight to know it would be a fire hazard.

You toss in something that looks like cardamom but he isn’t sure at this point. He just wanted to get away from the bright lights and the strange smiling liquid boiling awai.

The cat sits obediently by your side, watching curiously. He is convinced that she is evil.

Unfortunately, Bucky has had to hold her back twice when she tried to stick her paw in to attack a bubble, and at this point, he doesn’t think he has it in him to do it a third time.

You read the recipe as if it makes any sort of fucking difference now.

“We’re almost done,” you sing.

Bucky nurses his headache. “Don't give me hope.”

“Put some more reegelbeetle seeds in,” you dictate. “This is gonna work, I can feel it.”

Bucky uses his free hand to do as you say. He doesn’t even think it’s the right one, he just reaches for whatever is closer to you and you don't seem to care either.

You toss in some more seeds, stir twice and then turn off the stove.

“Boom.” You lift the spoon up, watching the thick liquid drip back. “This is either a talking potion or a hex.”

"Hex to do what?”

“I think it activates dormant allergies.” You squint at the book that literally had no significance besides being a prop. “You got any?”

“No.” But it makes him think of Steve’s pollen allergies.

“Oh. Well, then there’s only one outcome here.”

“Alright, here we go.” Of the gigantic pot that you’d just stirred, you fish the tiniest amount out on the smallest spoon he’d ever seen, which you also apparently stored in the vast space that was your apron pocket.

The cat watches you hold the spoon near its face.

It takes a sniff. Then two. Finally, after deeming it non-poisonous, it sticks out its tongue the tiniest bit and takes a lick.

The whole crew is silent.

Bucky’s hand is still pressing against his temples.

“Tell us your name,” you urge, voice hopeful.

The cat looks at Bucky, and for a second, something akin to understanding flashes in its eyes. It’s uncanny and weird and something about it unsettles him deeply.

You seem to catch it too because you look at him in surprise. He looks back at you, face pulled into a frown.

And for a moment, he wonders. If you'd somehow done it. Because there’s no fucking way–

Then it meows.

He exhales.

Your shoulders drop as you let out an “Aw, man.”

"Great. Goodbye. Like and subcribce to the bell icon," he calls out, dusting his hands against his pants.

Someone from the production crew sneezes.

Both of you turn to him immediately.

At the same instant, someone else all the way on the opposite end sneezes again, and the whole crew turns to look at them, before another sneezes in the front.

“We did it!” you cheer.

“We didn’t do jack,” Bucky interjects immediately as the crew errupts into a cacophony of chatter and sneezes.

“It’s a hex that activates allergies and they’re sneezing,” you point towards them with the spoon, triumphant.

“You threw fifteen fuckin' pounds of pepper in there,” he argues. “You've turned this room into a sandstorm of dry spices. This proves nothing.”

“I’ve connected the dots.” Your eyes shine, ignoring him.

“You didn’t connect shit.”

“I’ve connected them.”

Someone in the corner sneezes. He wonders if Steve’s allergies would be activated by the trace amounts of... cursed soup that he carries with him back to the floor.

“Well, we can’t leave them like this, Bucky.” You look around, tsking. “We gotta make a reverse hex or something.”

“You can,” he says. “It’s called opening the windows.”

“Nope,” you pop the last syllable. “We’re making another potion. C’mon.”

“First of all, this is not a potion–” he begins, but is interrupted by a buzz on his phone, the screen lit up by a text on the groupchat.

From: Maya I don’t give a shit if it’s placebo or not. Make a damn potion before you get sued for hexing employees.

“Fine,” he grumbles.

“Beautiful. Grab the ash sphinx flakes,” you brandish another big cauldron from fuck knows where.

Bucky stares at you, unmoving.

“Just get the oregano,” you sigh.

The cat tries sticking her paw in the pot again.

Bucky feels a sneeze incoming.

Whether the hex and subsequent anti-hex Maya forced you to make at gunpoint was real or not, is yet to be determined scientifically.

What actually does happen, is the damn apron you give him carries enough trace amount of your stupid experiment, that it somehow activates Steve’s very real pollen allergy. Bucky finds himself on edge for the rest of the day every time the man rattles the walls with his middle aged dad sneezing.

It carries on over to his show, which means Steve’s episode on baking a 1950s chocolate cake from tomato soup is edited extremely strangely to cut out every sneeze.

Which means Nat’s episode on spy inaccuracies in Argylle takes twice as long to film because they have to take a few seconds every time Steve’s sneezes interrupt her from the set next door.

Which means Bruce’s video on the science behind memory is delayed on shooting.

All in all, something does seemed to have been hexed, but it mostly seems to be everyone’s fucking productivity.

Finally, everyone manages to get through the day, and the videos are sent to post production.

The same night when everyone’s gathered at the dining table to commemorate the end of another shoot day, Bucky slips out, knowing that Steve would save him a slice of pizza if he never returned.

He goes back to the library to return his copy of Understanding Wood Finishing, when his curiosity leads him back down a familiar path.

It’s where he finds you again, in the same corner as the last time, on the floor, surrounded by shelves.

“You again.” You quirk an eyebrow when he appears from the shadows. "Aren't you supposed to be eating pizza?"

“What are you absorbing now?” he asks, voice low for once, respecting the sanctity of the library now that day had slipped into night and everything seemed a bit more solemn now.

“Nothing,” you answer.

“Then why are you here?”

He figured you’d be out there, introducing everyone to the cat that was now set to be roaming the halls, before someone assumed it was a shapeshifting enemy and dealt with it accordingly.

“God forbid someone get some peace and quiet for once,” you mumble. “It’s too loud out there.”

Oh.

You don’t say anything else, leaning back against the bookshelf with your eyes closed.

There really isn't a need for more words. He gets it.

The understadning leaves silence in its wake. Bucky doesn't really have anything to say.

“Did you come here just to stare at me?” you ask finally. “Did you finally admit your feelings?”

“Jesus Christ,” he groans. “I’m not in love with you.”

“Only a matter of time.” You smile before changes to something more subdued, a bit more serious. “You wanna talk about what’s actually been bugging you for the last week?”

Bucky looks at you wearily. “The tarot cards tell you something?”

You eye him. “Not more than what’s obvious. Wanna talk about it?”

He swallows, throat suddenly feeling like it's closing in on itself.

“No.”

“Alrighty.”

You say nothing more than that, leaving the both of you in relative quiet, save for the buzz of the warm fluorescent light above.

Bucky takes an awkward seat next to you on the floor.

You pry open an eye to look at him in suspicion.

“Y’mind?” he manges.

“Mind what?”

He gestures to himself uncomforably, readiy to jump up and leave at any second.

You observe him for a second, and for once he stares back with no irritation in his look, just permission.

“No, you can sit.” You close your eyes. “So long as you don’t tell anyone else 'bout this place.”

If there’s anything Bucky’s good at, it’s keeping a secret.

He settles back into the shelf with an exhale, letting the weight of day roll off his shoulders.

You wordlessly slide a thermos towards him. He doesn’t even have to open it to know it’s the damn soup from that afternoon.

And if he’s being honest, it doesn’t taste that bad at all.

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pinkie-quinns · 3 months ago

Text

rocker eddie/actor steve | exes to ??? | slightly nsfw under the cut | fame au p3 |

p1 p2 p4 p5 interlude p6

Steve’s presented at award shows countless times. He’s good at it. He’s funny, he’s charming. But usually, he didn’t want to strangle the guy standing next to him. Usually, the guy hadn't been pawing at his dick ten minutes before.

But he gets through it. 'Cause he’s a professional.

He is aware. Aware that the tension stifling the room isn’t exactly appropriate for the Animated Feature Film category.

Aware that he did, in fact, tear Eddie’s (uninsured) silk shirt.

Aware that, despite a scurry of last-second HMU efforts, his perfect hair looks insane.

Aware that this is a live broadcast. Aware that anyone with eyes could look at the state of both of them and probably only come up with 3 feasible conclusions. Aware that unlike the photo, this is pretty fucking incriminating.

But he gets through it. Cause he’s a professional.

Eddie's being punchably smug about it, of course. Emerged from the bathroom, pupils blown, eye glitter smudged, lips swollen, and “Ready for his close-up!”

He didn’t even talk to Steve after they were escorted off stage. Just slipped a note in his pocket.

Skip the afterparty?

Skip the afterparty. Who does he think he is? Steve’s expected to show face. His team needs him to show face. They have another suit prepared and everything. He gets it's a foreign concept to Eddie, but people actually rely on him.

Fuck him. Steve can’t just skip the afterparty.

He skips the afterparty.

He ignores the 40 frantic texts from Robin.

He gets his car to drive him to Los Feliz.

It's just the same as 5 years ago, but all reverse. The deja vu is making him woozy, making him sick. Same place he was five years ago but no one's here for apologies.

This time it's a knock at Eddie's door.

Stupid and hollow and idiotic. Steve’s still in his ugly velvet suit. The door swings open. Eddie’s changed. Showered. Hair damp and frizzy. Liner and stage glitter staining his under eyes. He looks soft under the yellow porch light.

There’s a moment, a millisecond where Steve knows he could turn around. Slam the door in Eddie’s face and pretend this never happened.

But he's all red inside, all forward momentum and frustration and anger.

“I still fucking hate you.”

Eddie offers him a sad smile. “I know.”

And then the door is shut behind him and Eddie’s got him against the wall and Steve’s tongue is back where it belongs. Where it’s always belonged. He wants Eddie to choke on it.

Eddie’s grinning, glassy-eyed worship, panting into his mouth, “Missed this.”

Nope.

Steve needs be miles away from whatever the fuck that is. So he gnashes Eddie's lip between his teeth. It's hard enough to draw blood. He needs him as red as he feels.

“Fuck you.”

In the hallway drag to the bedroom, he’s all destruction. Wants to knock down everything in sight. Wants to shove Eddie into his stupid platinum records and his stupid ten thousand dollar guitars. He wants fire and earthquakes. He wants Eddie split in half.

Eddie hasn’t gotten the memo, apparently. Keeps a cool laugh through the whole thing, laughs when Steve pushes him against some hideous credenza (a fucking credenza, the Eddie he knew would’ve throttled himself.) Laughs when some marble thing gets swatted to the floor like Steve’s a particularly bratty housecat.

“Damn. Really got you revved up, huh?” Eddie’s grinning at him like this whole thing is some kind of fucking joke. They’ve made it to the bedroom, finally.

Steve bites bruises at his neck. “Do you ever shut the hell up?”

“Nah, kinda my speciality, Ha–”

He pushes the heel of his palm into Eddie’s crotch. “You’re pathetic.”

“Yeah?” It’s a whine.

“So fucking pathetic.” And then Steve’s on his knees.

He gets lost in it. Just like he used to. He never does anymore. He’s still a bit drunk but he feels all heady like he’s taken the wrong pills. Feels wired too, like he drank three red eyes. Feels a lot of things.

It’s all the same and it’s all so different. Their bodies are different. Soft in places they once were hard. Hard in places they once were soft. They’re not old yet, not really, not at all. But they’re not teenagers anymore.

It’s like he can’t find the ground anywhere– Eddie’s hands on him, Eddie’s skin on him. Bare and rough and different and so familiar it whips the air out of his lungs. Eddie knowing just what works, knowing how to touch him better than anyone. Knowing him better than he knows himself.

He feels cursed. He feels ruined.

And when Eddie finally fucks into him, on that gaudy four-poster bed, a mess of sweat and sheets and glitter, he can’t help the part of him screaming home home home home.

Eddie lights a cigarette when it’s over. Offers one to Steve but he quit years ago. Not that he would know.

Steve says, “You've got to stop that shit, man. It’s gonna kill you.”

And Eddie does that stupid sad smile again. “I’d deserve it, wouldn’t I?”

So Steve finds as many pieces of his suit as he can. Hopes to god Tom Ford doesn’t like, sue him for losing it. Hightails it to the front door. He’s not interested in small talk. Not interested in throwing this asshole another pity party.

Eddie follows him out, leans against the door frame, easy and sad and stupid handsome and Steve hates him nearly as much as he hates himself. “Will I see you again, Harrington?”

Steve can't let him have this. Can't let him win after all this time.

“Don’t count on it.”

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #twitter threads #fanfic #steddie fanfic #angst #fame au

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hxlxnaaa · 1 month ago

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𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧

★ 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: over one summer, a whirlwind romance creates an obvious choice: to stay in the life she's always known or follow sylus into the unknown, chasing love and freedom.

★ 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫: sylus

★ 𝐜𝐰/𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: first-person POV, sort of present day au? pretty fluffy, some implications but nothing obvious, soft sylus, may have spelling errors (i wrote this at 2 am)

★ 𝐰𝐜: 1.3k

★ 𝐚/𝐧: this is super short and not really meant as an intense read. just some poetic fluff about sylus (lord knows we need more sweet reads of him *sob*)

I remember the first time I saw him.

He was so… different from everyone around. The way he acted, the way he held himself, the devious smirk that always graced his devilishly handsome face. He had this aura that was off, but in this perfectly, sickeningly good way. He was something this dull town never had.

He came in once to my bakery, smiling and talking to me as if he had known me forever.

“What’s your name, sweetie?” That was different, no one spoke to each other like that around here. Anyone in their right mind would be creeped out, yet I enjoyed every second; every word that came out of his mouth spoke with his deep, velvet voice. I loved the difference, I loved the attention he gave me. Constant indulging in the feeling his presence brought on.

Introducing himself as Sylus, I said his name thousands of times in my head.

The look he gave me when he learned my name was engraved in my mind for centuries. His hard eyes softened, repeating every syllable as if it was candy on his tongue. Of my name.

Sylus, Sylus, Sylus.

After that, he would visit at least once a day, if not a few times. He’d lean over my counter, propping himself up on one of his arms. He always rolled his sleeves up, and buttoned his shirt to his lower chest, showing enough of his perfect skin that I always resisted to touch.

“Red is your color.” I had told him this after he wore this delicious, wine red top. It complimented everything on him, like a rose in the snow.

“Everything is your color.” He leaned towards me, holding his face in his hand.

“Why do you say that?” I started serving a customer, and I could feel his eyes on me.

“Well,” He started, “Your personality is very warm, like yellow, orange, and red.”

I glanced at him, “Have a good evening!” I bid the lady I served goodbye.

“And your looks are very cool, blues and purples fit you best.”

Turning away from him, adjusting things on my shelves, I asked, “What about green?”

“What about green?” He repeated.

“You didn’t mention green. Does green fit me?”

He smirked, “I told you every color fits you. So green would too. I’m sorry I didn’t mention every shade in the rainbow.”

I turned back to him, and he had his head resting in his arms, staring at me with his usual smug look. Walking up to him, I ran a hand through his hair, “Y’know, green actually takes up most of the color spectrum. It has a countless number of shades.”

“Really?”

“Mm,” I gave him one of his favorite pastries I made, “it's evolutionary. Humans are omnivores, so our eyes help us differentiate between shades of green to help us find plants to eat and avoid, but it can help us find prey animals that are seeking specific kinds of plants.”

“You’re truly fascinating, sweetie. You and all your shades of green.”

“As are you, Sylus.”

As are you.

Sylus was on a trip here for the summer. When I asked him why?

"To find someone like you."

I thought of him as borrowing my heart, when I knew he wouldn’t return it when he left at the end of the summer. When the leaves turned yellow, red and orange, just as he described my personality, he’d take my heart with him back to his home.

I felt something with him, a spark, a waterfall of passion. Something I had never felt in this city before.

There were the ruins, a place where all the young civilians would go to party into the early mornings. Sylus convinced me to go with him once.

“I want the experience of being here.” He had stated matter of factly, yet I knew the tall man was just finding an excuse to be with me a while longer.

I rolled my eyes, “That’s not much of an experience, being around a bunch of sweaty drunks.”

Oh but it was. To travel back to that night, where we had danced together, our cheeks flushed with red wine, or bodies pressed into one.

He took me back to the bakery, and kissed me against the old brick walls. Him in his red shirt, buttoned down and sleeves up, his hair a mess, but still shining in the illumination of the moon and street lights.

From there, something shifted.

I’d show him all my secret spots, just to fall into a field together, tangled in each other's limbs. He’d kiss me like I was his world, and nothing else existed; and with him, nothing else did exist.

I tried to teach him how to bake, how to knead dough, how to remember measurements without a recipe. Sylus would get flour in his hair, on his cheeks, his nose, his shirt and his pants (all on purpose, courtesy of me).

"We have to match.” He’d say, before taking his flour covered hands and taking my face in them, rubbing his dusty nose on mine, rubbing our cheeks together. I giggled and smacked his chest with a towel, before wiping his and my face off.

There was the night where I wore a new dress; an emerald green sundress that matched the grassy hills of the city in the night. He took one look at me, his red eyes burning with love and desire, and as I took a step forward his hands were all over. Dinner was scrapped, and I spent the night under him tangled in the sheets, one with love.

After, cuddled together, a sweaty beautiful mess, he adjusted his bare chest against mine. Placing his hand on my hip, drawing shapes with his finger, he whispered to me as I was about to fall asleep,

“So many shades of green, and I was lucky enough to find you.”

“I love you, Sylus.” I mumbled through reality and my dreams.

He smiled against my lips, “I love you too.”

As they say, time flies when you’re having fun. Eventually, the end of summer came around.

I would have to say goodbye. Say goodbye to Sylus, say goodbye to everything.

No more grand entrances into my work, messing with the collar of his red billowy shirt. No more watching his bare back as he’d stretch in the morning, smirking back at me as he’d trace his fingers over marks on his neck and chest. Life would go back to routine, everything in this town staying quiet and still as it once was. Before I knew him.

The day before he had to leave, he swung open the door to my bakery, a wild look in his eyes.

“Come with me.” He said, stern. The look on his face told me I wasn’t getting much of a choice. I wasn’t sure I wanted one.

I raised a brow, “What?”

He walked behind the counter, one hand grabbing my waist, the other going through my hair.

“Come back with me. Stay with me. You can open a bakery there, I’ll help. Everything will be the same. You said it yourself, you wanted out of here, come with me.” His usual put together look was coming undone, his lips pulled tightly together as a silent plea.

He could make it happen, the man had more money than I could ever imagine. Going with him could make all my dreams come true; getting out of this monotonous town, living comfortably, being…happy.

I shook my head, almost trying to convince myself not to listen, “Sylus, you’re not thinking about this.” Hypocritical, I’m not sure I was either.

His brows furrowed, “I have. That's all I’ve done. Now, sweetie, say yes.”

I thought about all the shades of green.

…

“Yes.”

(divider by cafekitsune)

#sylus x reader #sylus x you #sylus x y/n #love and deepspace sylus #sylus #l&ds sylus #lnds sylus #lads sylus #lnds #lnds smut #lnds fluff #lnds angst #sylus love and deepspace #sylus fluff #sylus x mc #love and deep space

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anthurak · 5 days ago

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Having been rewatching some of Ice Queendom lately, I’d like to talk about something I really wanted to discuss after the series wrapped, but haven’t gotten around to until now.

Namely, the shows use of Jaune, and specifically how it’s one of my biggest issues with the anime.

Now talking about this is somewhat complicated because I don’t have any issues with how Ice Queendom presents and writes Jaune directly. In fact I was actually pretty IMPRESSED watching the show at the frankly keen understanding the writers seemed to have of Jaune’s character and what he’s meant to represent.

Namely, that Jaune is a massive subversion of so many classic male fantasy-hero protagonists. He’s NOT some cool, badass fighter and whenever he tries to be one, he gets his ass handed to him. Instead, he’s able to show his real strength by supporting and helping others.

And there’s a bunch of great subtle details like how Jaune’s dream weapon being this flashy, oversized sword that he just cannot fucking use not matter how hard he tries is just the PERFECT metaphor for his character in the early volumes. A weapon that represents all the ‘big strong hero guy’ expectations Jaune believed he had to live up to at the beginning of the show but is actually IMPOSSIBLE for him to use because that’s NOT what he’s really meant for. And the one time he IS able to wield that sword is though the assistance and support of his friends, namely (dream)Pyrrha, which in turn provides a great hint towards his still-dormant semblance.

Instead, the real issue I have is that every time I look back on Ice Queendom and see Jaune, I can’t help but ask myself ‘Why is Jaune even here?’ Specifically, WHY does the story need Jaune to be Team RWBY’s ‘guest party member’ to go into Weiss’s dream to rescue her from the Nightmare?

Now sure, they bring up the idea that Jaune having just been possessed by a Nightmare basically ‘inoculated’ him to the Grimm and could allow him to be undetected by the Nightmare possessing Weiss. But let’s be real; that’s a justification, NOT a true narrative REASON for Jaune to be going into Weiss’s Nightmare.

Because what actual connection does Jaune even HAVE to Weiss that would give him a thematic reason to be going into her Nightmare? He’s not on her team and they only even met a few weeks ago. Especially given that IQ even removes almost all references to Jaune having any kind of big crush on Weiss. During Ruby’s first visit to the nightmare, we see what Weiss thinks of him:

Lumped in with Nora, Ren, Cardin and literally everyone else she doesn’t have time or patience for.

So what’s the actual narrative potential of Jaune joining Ruby, Blake and Yang to save Weiss? How can he tie into the story of Weiss’s character and Ruby’s, Blake’s and Yang’s attempts to free her?

Simply put, he can’t. And so he DOESN’T. Instead it feels like the only reason Jaune is here is simply because he’s the most prominent supporting character in the franchise.

And the REASON this sticks out to me so much is that I can’t help but think that a different character would have made a far, far BETTER option to join Ruby, Blake and Yang to save Weiss:

PYRRHA.

I mean, the reasons for Pyrrha going into the Nightmare to help Weiss kinda write themselves, right? From minute one it’s clear the Weiss idolizes Pyrrha, and it’s really all but outright stated she has a huge crush on Pyrrha. It’s only natural that Ruby, Blake and Yang would go to her for help getting past Weiss’s emotional defenses in the dream.

Like I think it’s easy to imagine how Ruby might happen upon this idea: In her first entry into Weiss’s Nightmare, Ruby could note that Jaune, Ren and Nora are all in ‘Silly Jail’, but Pyrrha notably ISN’T. And later while scouting or perhaps while fleeing from Weiss, perhaps Ruby catches a glimpse, far off, of Pyrrha within the walls of Weiss’s castle, perhaps looking out a window.

And when Ruby mentions this to the others, Shion could comment that this means that Pyrrha is special to Weiss, and thus keeps her memory ‘close’ to her. At this point we’d probably get Yang chiming in with a quip about how Weiss ‘Hasn’t exactly been subtle about that.’

Then of course, one of Ruby, Blake or Yang hit on the idea that if they brought Pyrrha into the nightmare, she might be able to get past Weiss’s defenses much more easily. Something which Shion confirms to be very likely. From there, RBY seek out Pyrrha for her help much like what happened with Jaune. But with the difference being that Pyrrha being some kind of ‘secret weapon’ feels FAR more natural based on what we already saw in the show up to that point.

And from that point on, I feel like it’s kind of obvious just how well Pyrrha would fit into the narrative and both Weiss’s and Ruby’s character arcs. Like I joked about a ‘White Rose/Schneekos Love Triangle’ while the show was airing, but that’s kind of exactly what we see potentially set up in the first three episodes of IQ:

Weiss is clearly massively enamored with and idolizes Pyrrha, while Ruby really wants Weiss to like her and be friends with her.

And placing Pyrrha into the nightmare as a major figure alongside Ruby, Blake and Yang for Weiss gives the perfect opportunities to play Pyrrha and Ruby off of Weiss. Exploring what Weiss being so enamored with Pyrrha actually means to her, what that could mean for her feelings about Ruby, and how Ruby and Pyrrha could get her to confront those feelings.

Imagine the story making a point about Weiss having essentially put Pyrrha up on the constructed, idealized pedestal instead of knowing the actual Pyrrha, and then contrasting this by showing that Ruby actually embodies so many of the traits Weiss idolizes Pyrrha for.

Which in turn has Pyrrha being the one to help Weiss realize that.

Not to mention on the flipside, this change would give us a lot of Pyrrha and Ruby interaction. Which I think we can all agree would be VERY fun and interesting.

I mean just picture Ruby really wanting Pyrrha’s help to save Weiss, while also clearly repressing a fair bit of insecurity and maybe even a bit of jealousy over how enamored Weiss is with Pyrrha, which in turn leads to a meaningful and cute conversation where Pyrrha gives Ruby a much-needed pep-talk while also diving into Pyrrha’s own well-hidden insecurities and generally revealing just how similar these two really are.

Which in turn perfectly plays into Ruby’s journey to save Weiss across Ice Queendom.

Finally, there is a more subtle, but perhaps most meaningful reason why I think Pyrrha would have made a much better option over Jaune:

For as well as Ice Queendom writes him, we really don’t learn anything new about Jaune that we didn’t already know. The fact is, we know Jaune pretty well after the (at the time of IQ’s release) eight volumes he’s had in the show.

So what if instead of a character we’ve already spent all this time with, what if Ice Queendom focused on a character we only had three volumes to get to know?

A character who, unlike Jaune, Nora, Ren or basically any of the other supporting characters at this time in the story, is no longer around to get focus or development.

Simply put, Pyrrha being the member of Team JNPR to get the most focus in Ice Queendom would have been a chance to explore and develop a character who we simply DON’T have opportunity to do so in the series proper.

#rwby #rwby ice queendom #Weiss Schnee #Ruby Rose #Pyrrha Nikos #jaune arc #rwby ice queendom au #a long overdue analysis of my biggest issue with IQ

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uravitypng · 4 months ago

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𝐈 𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐊 𝐓𝐎𝐎 𝐌𝐔𝐂𝐇: 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄

pairing: denki kaminari x reader, (hanta sero x reader)

word count: 6.6k

content warnings/things in part five: not a lot in this chapter! some inappropriate thoughts and daydreams, reader kind of has self esteem issues but it's mainly fuelled by the paparazzi, reader wears a bikini, petnames (babydoll, pretty girl, princess->used playfully), jealous denki, maybe jealous hanta (if you squint really really hard??), mineta (ewww), written with a chubby reader in mind/// minors do not interact (in later chapters there will be more smut and more explicit content!!)

a/n: chapter five is finally out!! sorry it took so long but it's finally out and boy is it longer than previous chapters. i really really really hope you enjoy this part, i've loved writing it! i was meant to finish it last week but i've been binging romance animes lmao.

summary: it's terrible when you're in love with your best friend. it's terrible that he's in love with someone else.

<< previous | next >> | masterlist / polls for this chapter: 1 & 2

"I can't believe our agencies are letting us go to the beach! Out of all the ways they could deal with the current situation they choose this!" You say excitedly and beam as you walk a little ahead of everyone but they can still all hear you.

"Yeah it's like that typical anime beach episode." Denki runs up over to you grinning. As denki runs up to you he trips over on the sand before catching himself, you bite you lip to stifle a laugh and process what Denki just said.

"Did you just compare what's happening to a beach episode right now Denks?"

"She's right Kaminari, this may seem like a relaxing day but we're here for a reason. If those League of Villain copycat group show up here like we suspect then we need to be ready." Todoroki 'reminds' you all and you have to resist the urge to roll your eyes. You weren't referring to the mission when you said that Denki, you were just stating that beach episodes are different to real life beach trips.

A couple of heroes with you seem so suspicious, shifting their eyes around the surrounding area. Plus you don't understand the choice of bringing along Todoroki and Bakugo, they're to recognisable and well known, even if the villains did show up they wouldn't stay for long after noticing who's here too.

You have a gut feeling this mission will come up with nothing. This whole time will be a wild goose chase leading you here with zero results. You've told them just as much, 'when have I ever been wrong about this kind of stuff guys? this whole mission to the beach will be useless we should focus on other things, find out where they really are.'

It's so frustrating that they don't believe you... Well most of them... All of them to be honest but they can't voice that out loud. Everyone whose hair is currently blowing in the wind and sand beneath their feet knows you very well and trust your instincts but they can't just ignore this lead they've been given. Katsuki expects you have a second quirk that allows you foresight, he especially trusts your intuition.

Denki stretches, groaning in pleasure while you quickly turn your head away from him and try to drown out the noise.

"Well I for one think we can relax, I have it on good authority" he grins at you before continuing, "that nothing will happen today. We might as well relax. This reminds me of our extended three day weekend holiday our class went to on the last week before leaving school."

All of the UA, Class A, alumni heroes that are present reminiscence on your time together. Bittersweet feelings flood your emotions as you think about how much you miss seeing them so often, yet glad and blessed with the time you did get to share with them back when you were all teenagers.

"Or when we went to Nabu island in our first year," Ochako adds.

"I didn't like that at all. Not only did villains attack but on top of that every single hour of every day people on the island was calling into the hero centre wanting us to do something, no matter how trivial." Minata replies, his voice more apparent with age, mostly losing the lisp he had.

"That's not the reason why and you know it. Every other day you were being perverted to random girls on the island." Hanta doesn't try to hide his annoyed tone from everyone. He's never concealed his disapproval of Minata's actions and that was originally one of the first things that drew you to strike up a conversation and friendship with him.

"Can we just sit down and make snide comments in a minute?" You ask, holding onto a large cooler with both hands and a couple heavy bags slung over your shoulder.

Ochako hums in agreement and pulls the massive beach towel from under her arm and places it down.

You hear Mineta mumble, "how are you a hero?" as he sees you strain to hold the icebox and it becomes so quiet but even though it's mumbled it sounds like the loudest anyone has spoken since you got to the beach.

Your quirk isn't suited to strength, everyone knows that. Your quirk isn't like Midoriya's or Kiri's or Sato's. It doesn't mean you aren't strong though, your quirk is very strong. Struggling to hold a box full of ice cubes and cold drinks plus two bulky bags for over an hour doesn't make you weak.

He's so hypocritical... he wouldn't even be able to lift it up and get it off the ground.

You're a hero for a reason, you know how brilliant you are but hearing that bothered you and distressed you for a reason and coming from Mineta it's even stranger that it effected you, he's made plenty of jabs towards you before but the way he said it irked you, especially because he said it in front of so many other heroes.

Before you can even defend yourself and before anyone else can, Denki does. Mina was about to speak, Hanta was about to, Katsuki took a deep breath in to start yelling and making tiny explosions in the centre of his palms but Denki beat them all to it, he even beat you to it. "What the fuck does that mean?" You stand in shock and your eyes widen at how much rage is in his voice, almost hostile. You've never heard him speak like that before. It doesn't only shock you but everyone else is taken aback.

Denki was so distracted and enraged by what Mineta said he didn't even notice his own tone, all he could think about was 'how dare he say that about you.'

Mineta started stuttering a response about how it was a joke and he didn't mean it. That snapped you out of you stupor and you pull on Denki's sleeve. "Denki, what are you doing?"

His eyes snap up to look at you and his body relaxes, "I- I no one should speak to you like that 'doll," he murmurs gently but you still hear him, all of you do.

A small smile slips on your face and you grip his sleeve tighter. "Thank you Denki," you tell him sincerely. He turned bright pink and you miss it instead whipping your head round to face Minata and pointing a finger out in the air, "listen here small fry, don't speak to me like that again. Who beat you all the times in training? Oh yeah, it was me." You tell him sternly and firmly, not leaving room for any hollow argument.

Katsuki smirks when you call him 'small fry' and wonders how many other nicknames he's made that you use.

Mina claps her hands together after you said your peace and had shut Mineta up, "right, let's get this towel down so I can start sunbathing," she grins. She sees from the corner of her eye that Todoroki is about to say something again about how they need to stay completely focused so before he can say anything Mina adds on, "just kidding," mumbling "kinda" under her breath.

One second Mina's fully clothed and the next second she's only in her bikini laying face down with her face to the side pouting at you and Ochako, "can someone put sunscreen on me? I don't want to burn."

"I'll do it!" Mineta replies automatically, just when you thought he wouldn't say anything else perverted today.

"The fuck you will!" Katsuki yells and you can almost hear the threat of explosions coming from his palms. He stays silent after that and doesn't say anything else, he leers over all the girls but in silence this time.

Everyone relaxes and starts up idle chatter and it was worth it carrying all those heavy things when you finally get to open up a cold drink, refreshing you. Ochako lathers Mina's body in sunscreen claiming that she doesn't want her to burn. You pat next to you and set your eyes on Todoroki, "come sit down Todoroki, you look really shady just standing around."

His lip quirks up in a rare small smile and accepts your offer. "You're right, we're heroes, we're ready to fight and apprehend a villain at the drop of a hat."

You giggle, "that's the spirit."

Due to the sweltering heat everyone has shredded layers, apart from you and Hanta. Even Todoroki has taken off his shirt and is currently annoying Katsuki while most of the heroes are playing beach volleyball. You're boiling and you can feel a few drops of sweat running down your neck but you don't get changed- you can't.

Underneath your clothes you're wearing a bikini but you feel too self conscious to get rid of your clothes, even though your hair is sticking to your face and your skin feels tacky and kind of gross. In your head you curse out those paparazzi from the gala a couple months ago who made you feel insecure as the photos taken of everyone started circulating online.

You gaze up at Hanta, squinting as the sun hits you eyes. Noticing this, Hanta moves the parasol to the side so it covers your eyes from the light. Now in the shade, Hanta grins "better?"

You make a noise of confirmation and nod your head, "thanks Hanta."

Hanta tells you that you're welcome while he lifts up his top starting at the top of his body, near his neck, his voice muffled under the top making you giggle. Your brain catches up with the situation too late as you watch his midriff exposed and the rest of his top half soon after. You swallow your saliva and time seems to slow down as you check him out. His hero costume is skin tight so it's not hard to imagine how he looks under his clothes. It wouldn't be fair to actually compare the two of what you envisioned to reality because after seeing him topless, wow reality is that much better you'd thought.

You wish those thoughts didn't rush though your mind but alas they do, 'my subconscious didn't do Hanta enough justice in my dream.' His arms are particularly muscular, which makes sense with his quirk and you wonder how much he can lift up with all that upper arm strength. There's a large pink scar on his shoulder that you've never seen before and you speculate silently how he got it.

One minute you were admiring his physique and the next you were nearly jumping out of your own skin as Hanta takes off his shorts and you feel the need to bury your head in your hands. You see his thick thighs and you have no control as all you can hear in your head is him calling you 'pretty girl' over and over again.

You're incredibly embarrassed by thinking about your sex dream. You try to avert your gaze away from him but beforehand Hanta can feel your watching eyes on him and spins his body around making eye contact with you, grinning wide and winking. You fiddle the hem of you top, suddenly shy that you've been caught and Hanta flops down next to you, still grinning. "Like what you see princess?" He asks teasingly, emphasising 'princess.'

"O-oh, shut up," you roll your eyes at him. Hanta chuckles and reaches over to the cooler and gets himself a drink. You elbow him on the shoulder, "idiot," and burst out in a fit of laughing and Hanta joins in.

"What's with the shirt?" Hanta asks gesturing to what you're wearing.

You feign ignorance, pretending you don't know what he's talking about. "Huh?"

"You must be hot in that."

"I'm okay," you say and you hope he doesn't notice that you're lying.

"I can see sweat trickle down your forehead, don't get me wrong you're still hot, just now in every sense."

You feel a combination of scoffing at his playful flirting and wrapping your arms around yourself shy and embarrassed but Hanta doesn't let you get too in your head and grabs an unopened drink and places it on your cheek, making you yelp and interrupting your thoughts. "Any better?" He moves the can up onto your forehead. "Why don't you want to get changed pretty girl?"

You stay silent and Hanta waits for you to speak patiently. "What I'm wearing underneath exposes more than normal."

"You've worn swimming costumes and bikini sets in public before, has anything changed. Is it a bad day today?"

Your heart warms when he asks if you had a bad day. "Not a bad day as such but there's been photos of everyone circulating after the charity gala a little while ago and the dress doesn't look as good as I thought it did. Because we're in public I'm kind of wary if someone takes photos and like I said it's more revealing than other ones I have... I regret choosing this one to wear today, it's not very flattering."

"I'll be the judge of that pretty girl." he grins lazily and you huff at his behaviour. You were intending to condone his reaction after you've just been so sincere about how you're truly feeling, especially since Hanta is typically more considerate than that but you should know not to jump to conclusions because after a pause he starts speaking again.

"In all seriousness you looked beautiful that night and I saw photos of everyone all over my twitter feed the day after and it didn't change my mind about how you looked that night. If people take pictures then they take pictures, we're here on a mission," you wince at the reminder that this is a mission but he gives you a reassuring smile, "a pointless mission with your perfect intuition but a mission all the same. You shouldn't sacrifice the relief of cooling down and if your swimming costume is revealing then that's okay, Mina is practically naked," you giggle and he smiles wide. "All of us are hot so anyone who sees us should be lucky,"

There's a cross between a chuckle and a raised eyebrow as you ask him, "even Mineta?" The immediate hard reply of 'no' makes you laugh again. "Haven't you always preached body positivity and acceptance for all?" You tease.

"If he wasn't such a pervert than my answer would be different," Hanta's says simply and you don't know if he's unaware of the affect that had on you. Hanta never once treated anyone different if they didn't fit societal norms, even when other people would, he didn't. Both him and Kiri were like that, it's probably why you always respected them so much.

Hanta's words did convince you to pull off your clothes, you were boiling but you finally shed off your clothes, grimacing as the top sticks to you. Hanta's resting his face in the palm of his hand, looking at you with hooded eyes that makes you feel almost bashful. You can tell his gaze isn't one of leering so you don't mind it so much.

You're completely free of clothes now and feeling a lot better now but you're still sticky, planning to go for a swim in a bit.

"I knew it," Hanta smirks and you look at him confused. "You look beautiful in that pretty girl, pink and white suits you."

"Oh please Hanta, sweat is trickling down my back and clinging to my eyebrow and cupid's brow. I can practically taste it," you disagree with him.

Hanta chuckles deeply, "you're still beautiful."

You tut and grab the sun-lotion from one of the bags, wanting to hide your face for a second. "Who first?" You grin at each other.

"Whoever you want."

"Okay, turn around to face me." He does what he's told, beforehand downing the rest of his drink and sitting so close that your knees are nearly touching his back as you sit on your heels. Opening the cap and squirting some in your hand, you begin to place you hands on his back. Hanta jumps slightly and you ask if he's okay, he responds that he is but it was colder than he expected, you apologise but laugh louder than the apology you give at that answer.

You rub your hands over him, making sure you don't miss any spots not wanting him to burn and have to take a deep breath as you feel his defined shoulder muscles under your palms. You lift his hair up slightly that's covering his neck and make sure it's covering his neck too. Half of you is thinking about how you're very physically close to Hanta and you've never done anything like this before but a louder voice is disagreeing, you both are very touchy-feely, you fall asleep on him and spar together all the time and when watching films in groups you'll share blankets, so is this really different?

'He's kissed me too, so this isn't a big deal...'

You don't pay much mind when you start to press your hand over the places that he can reach. You don't think as you rub cream on his arms and get up and face him, sitting back down as you make eye contact and give him a small smile. He doesn't say anything and neither do you. You put sunscreen on his chest and marvel about how built he feels, you carefully pick up his arms and make certain you cover every inch of him. You squeeze more sunscreen on your hands and close the lid before gently swiping along his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. You see the genuine smile that adorns his face and that snaps you out of your stupor, you momentarily stop putting the lotion on him, freezing, before starting again, although this time a bit more bashfully and not being able to make eye contact with him, instead just looking at the rest of his face.

"Think I'm nearly covered. Next it's you, yeah?" He says softly and you hum confirmation.

At the same time Denki's breathing deeply, trying to catch his breath after overdoing it while playing volleyball and he lets everyone know he's going back to get a drink and he's missing the next match out. He runs up, not noticing until he got close how your hands are running along Sero's body and how you're too close for comfort, it's looks far too intimate, too sensual. Denki clenches his teeth so hard it's a wonder they don't shatter.

"What's this?" Denki asked you both, forcing a smile on his face. You're surprised by his sudden appearance and feel almost guilty, you're really not sure why though.

Kaminari chooses to ignore the exasperated sigh that comes from Sero and gazes at you. You take your hands off Hanta and place them in your lap, "helping each other with putting on sunscreen. Have you already put yours on?"

"Uh. Yeah?"

You scrunch up your face not believing that and give him a pointed look, crossing your arms and it gives both Denki and Hanta everything in them to not look down as you unknowingly push your breasts up higher as you cross your arms. "I don't believe you."

"I did! Just.. Probably not the most thoroughly." He admits sheepishly and you cross your arms.

"Hey Sero, come join our team! We're a player down," Mina hollers to him, not asking you, knowing that you wouldn't want to play. Hanta goes slightly rigid at the request, he doesn't want to leave, he's supposed to put sunscreen on you in a minute and being around you one on one was wonderful, your soft touch on his cheeks and how you delicately moved his hair out of the way.

Little does he know you're in the same situation, although Denki's here now you don't want Hanta to go, you want him to jokingly make more flirty comments and call you pretty girl again. Even though you know he isn't serious about it and even though you know he does it with everyone it still makes you feel good.

Denki sits down very close to you and has a drink before saying, "You should go Sero, a lot of them won't let it go about an unbalanced team. They'll either have won unfairly with an extra player or lost unfairly because they were a player down."

Hanta sighs again before sitting up, "yeah you're right, I don't think I can handle another repeat of similar situation with Bakugou beating Todoroki at the sports festival." You chuckle and he leaves.

You want to ask Denki if he likes your swimming costume but you can't get the words out so instead you ask him, "Hanta was going to put sun-lotion on me but he left, can you do it instead? Just my back and stuff," you ask him. "The places I can't reach," you clarify. You really don't want to get burnt and hopefully if Denki's only touching quickly from behind you won't get too flustered and if you slightly do he won't see. You're definitely not strangers to physical affection with Denki but you are strangers when it involves so little clothes.

"I... uh-"

You interrupt him, taking his pause and lack of answer as reluctance and you don't want to force him to do something he doesn't want to do. You try and ignore the voice in your head that's asking a million questions about why, what's so bad about it. "Don't worry about it Denks I'll just put my top back on," picking up your top and turning it the right way round. 'Ah it was really nice to cool down for awhile.'

Denki grabs onto your top before you can put it back on. "No!" He rushes out and lets go of your top. Levelling his voice back to normal he says, "no, don't do that, you'll get too hot. Let me just move behind you." You give a tiny nod and hum. "Can you pass me the bottle babydoll?"

"Oh yeah," you open your hand and lay the sunscreen bottle in it so he can take it, his fingertips brush against your palm as he takes the bottle from you and you feel him shuffle behind you. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah! All good!" He hopes you don't hear the strain in his voice as he tries to sound okay and squeezes some cream out. "Okay it's going to be cold now," he warns you, "although it might just be refreshing," he adds. He talks so close to you, you can feel his breath on your shoulder blade and for a second there you thought he was going to kiss it by the way he lingered after he spoke but he pulled away and you told yourself about how ridiculous that idea was.

Denki pulls back and repeats that he's going to start now. He's right when he's said it would be cold but also when he said it would be refreshing. However you underestimated thinking Denki touching you wouldn't impact you. What you didn't realise is Denki was doing worse of than you were and you don't hear his swallowing over your own thoughts. Your soft body melds in between his nervous fingers as he makes gentle large circular motions on your skin.

You fight back a shiver as he touches your sides and goes all the way up to your shoulders. "Do you want to lay down?"

"Huh?!" You say a little louder than necessary. Denki is taking so much care with you, more than you thought and it's making you try to force down all the butterflies that are trying to flutter in your stomach. With every minute that passes with his gentle touch, the more heat rises to your cheeks and the more bashful you become. You don't know if you'll be able to handle much more of this.

"You asked me to help you with the places you can't reach." He reminds you and you wince. You didn't ask Hanta to lay down but now the man you love is asking you to and that means he'll be touching you more. Half of you is almost happy about this but the other half is thinking back to how Denki was silent when first asked and why was he silent, it would of been so much easier if Hanta didn't have to leave but you do what he says and lie down on your front, your head turned to the side watching everyone play volleyball in the distance.

You jump as Denki touches you again, still with care. You start to ball up your fists and your cheeks get hotter and hotter, especially when he touches your thighs. You were about to break the silence between you both when he touches your plush thighs but he quickly moves on, quicker than when he's touching other parts of your body.

Simultaneously Denki sucks in teeth and squeezes his eyes shut when he touches your thighs, he almost regrets asking you to lie down. He doesn't stay on your thighs long and goes over to your hips, you feel like his hand itches a bit to close to the string of your bikini bottoms but you dismiss it as he quickly moves his hand away again.

"All done," he says quietly but deeply as he retracts his hands from you.

"What?" You ask. It's not your fault you're distracted it's his, if Denki's going to hover around certain parts of your body he's to blame for any daydreams. It's not your fault if you imagine Denki lowering your bikini bottoms and untying the strings of your bikini top while he actually does place kisses on your shoulder blade, all along down your spine reaching the place he normally keeps his hand when you get too panicky and overwhelmed at events. Holding onto your hips and leaving bites and marks all over your body, letting small sparks go from his fingertips in your inner thighs making you moan-

"I said I'm all done now," you nearly squeak as you're interrupted from your daydream again and swiftly move to get up, Denki holding out his hand for you to take to help you up and turn you back round so you're facing each other again. "Do you want me to do your front?"

You shake your head rapidly and reply, "it's okay I can do it." Your eyes narrow as you see how red his cheeks are, "I know you said you didn't put sunscreen on properly but come on Denks at least put it on your face," you condemn.

"I did!" Denki rebuttals but you don't believe him for one second as you see his face and you tell him just as much.

"I don't trust you, if you've put sunscreen on your face why are you so red?"

"I must not have put it on properly, I should have had someone do it for me. Even though it's the front of my body I should have been more careful with applying." He hopes you don't call him out on his lie and his wording, you don't. After you don't he pushes a bit more, "Sero won't have the same problem because you made sure he was completely covered... I don't want you to burn."

You weigh the pros and cons and in the end the pros outweigh the cons. On one hand you'd prefer not to have anymore dirty inappropriate imagery of Denki but you don't want to get burnt, you're going on a blind date in a few days from now and you don't want them to see you with peeling skin and burning, angry, crimson hot streaks from wherever the sunscreen didn't cover.

"I'll take you up on that, if you still don't mind."

"I offered didn't I?" He smiles at you kindly and gestures for to lie on your back.

"Do I have to lie down Denki?" You ask a bit wary about any more daydreams you might have.

"You don't have to if you don't want to, it's your decision. I think it would make the most sense though."

You're not entirely sure about his logic behind that answer but you trust him and if it makes the most sense then you're sure you'll be able to survive a couple more minutes.

"Great!" Denki says a bit to enthusiastically and he's not deaf to how strange it must sound with how quick his attitude towards this situation seems to have changed.

Lying on your back you suppress the urge to cover your face with a sun hat to hide from him and from this position. The sight you're seeing takes your breath away. You're often reminded about how attractive Denki is, and at random times of the day too, like right now. His pretty golden eyes are reflecting against the sun at this angle, making you get lost in them. Denki unintentionally flexes as he reaches over you to pick something up you don't see and it's only natural that your eyes drift to his well-earned muscles from hero work, his lean body shining with sweat and his blonde hair is falling down his face. You don't even think about it before reaching up and running your hands through his hair and away from his face so you can see his whole face more clearly. A tender smile that you return appears on his face and you swear his face looks redder than before.

What he was reaching before becomes into your view and you see it's his black headband to push back his hair, he didn't think it was necessary earlier but now he's more confident in his movements and in his mind getting his hair completely out of his face so he can see you properly is the best way to go to make sure you're completely covered from the sun and he tells you just as much, although leaving out the part of him being previously not confident and being nervous about it, because you would ask 'why?'

He pushes his hair back with his headband and continues to rub lotion in circles on your skin, this time on the front of your body.

Denki's hand stops and even though you can't see what he's looking at you just know. "Denki?" You say quietly.

He's jolted from his thoughts at your voice and rests his whole hand gently on your rib where a faded jagged scar decorates your skin. His hand is now no longer covered in any cream after rubbing the remaining sunscreen left over in his hand and was currently just gently stroking your scar after hearing your voice.

Subconsciously he's moved his other hand to your hip and normally you would be more flustered than you are by this gesture but the way he's holding you clues you in that all he's thinking about is how you got that scar and he's holding you for comfort- his own comfort.

The first year of hero work out of UA you encountered a villain that got the better of you. You were too slow or maybe she was too fast but either way you ended up with her arm slicing into you. Realising too late that her quirk allows her to form rough, sharp, knife-like shapes in her forearms, cutting deep into your skin as the quirk then secretes poison after making contact with your blood after the slash.

You don't remember much after that just everything fading to black and waking up, lying in a hospital bed, with Denki by your side, looking like he hasn't slept in days as he tells you that Sero found you and luckily he did find you because you lost a lot of blood but more urgently the poison had entered your blood stream and destroying your body from the inside, luckily you were treated when you did.

That wasn't the only time getting injured while working but it's the one that seemed to scare Denki the most, from your point of view that's what it looked like at least. You surmised a long time ago that that incident was more serious than everyone told you.

"Denki, I'm okay now." You assure him softly.

"Yeah," he says so quietly that it's almost silent.

Trying to cheer him up but also sharing your honest feelings about the matter you admit to him, "plus I think it's kind of cool y'know? It's almost like we're matching now. It reminds me of a lightning bolt."

Denki's eyes snap up to look at you, and squeezes your hip subtly for a second before letting go. His mouth opens and it looks like he's about to say something before closing it.

"You're right babydoll," he doesn't say anything for a second before adding, "I promise you won't get hurt like that again," he tapers off at the end and it becomes more of a mutter.

You giggle because how's he going to do that? You're a hero, just like him and his protectiveness of you makes you giggly and giddy because what is he going to do, wrap you up in bubble wrap?

Denki brightens up as he hears you laugh and smirks, uncapping the lid of bottle again and finishing the rest of his assigned role. He surprises even himself as he lifts up the strap of your bikini top a bit to put sunscreen under it, he's not sure what he'll say if you question it but you're too busy biting the inside of your cheek because 'that was intimate, he was basically undressing me'. You know that's not entirely accurate but he was still moving your clothes, and your bikini top no less!

Luckily for your own sanity the only other noteworthy thing that happened was when Denki applied the cream to your neck unlike how he's been doing the whole time beforehand. Instead of making circular motions he was wrapping his hand around your whole neck all at once and rubbing it in all in one go. You can only imagine how rapid your pulse was beating and it's astonishing that Denki didn't say anything. You think at that moment you exploded and couldn't help but wonder about how his hands seemed very confident and comfortable around someone's neck...

Lifting yourself up, Denki stands at the same time and holds out his hand for you to hold onto, "wanna go swimming?"

"I'd love to," while taking his hand you answer.

As soon as you stand up the voices from your friends get closer and you watch as they make their way over to you. You hear Mina exclaim, "Ahh, I love your bikini! It really suits you. Where did you get it from?" You heart warms when you hear the compliment, knowing that not just Hanta likes it but Mina does too.

Even though you haven't been playing volleyball like some of the others you're still equally hungry having been sweating all day and only having a light breakfast so your plans to go swimming gets delayed as everyone sits down and gets ready to eat lunch. Bakugou starts laying out food prepared by him, not trusting some random person at his agency to do it or anyone else going on the mission, people like Todoroki are notoriously bad when it comes to anything involving or similar to cooking. Denki grabs a couple of sandwiches for the both of you, and you can't help but scrunch up your nose at his choice, having a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich is completely normal but the amount of mayonnaise he adds to it is not. He's kind enough to grab your favourite though so you don't verbalise your slight disgust (this time at least) and happily eat lunch with everyone else, listening as Katsuki brags about how he scored the most in the volleyball.

After finishing your sandwiches Denki picks up a watermelon slice from the platter and holds it near your mouth, "say ahhh" you automatically open your mouth humming 'ahhh' not even thinking about it. Denki feeds you the watermelon as you take a bite of it.

"Want to go swimming now?"

"Sure."

" 'Kay." Denki then speaks louder so everyone else can hear him, "we're gonna go swimming."

Then a swarm of replies of people saying 'okay' and Kiri saying, "see you in a bit, i'm going to go swimming after finishing up eating".

Taking the already inflated doughnut with you, you leave and get to the sea line, yelping as the cold water moves and touches your legs. Denki chuckles and you scowl at him. He sprints into the water and sighs as it cools him down, gingerly you walk into the water, reaching him and a cross between a sigh and a shiver escapes you.

Denki takes the doughnut ring from your grasp and places it over your head onto your waist, pulling the side, with you in it, further into the water while you float along with him, you halfheartedly complain but he grins at you while you pout.

"Cooler now than you were earlier in the day 'doll?"

"Yeah," you smile softly.

"I'm glad," Denki replies back.

As you get farther from the tide Denki stops and spins the float that's holding you around a couple times, before stopping and holding the inflatable with his two hands on either side and grins as you. "Remember when we were like fifteenth and we went to the beach together, you ended up burying me in sand, I still have nightmares about it," Denki says solemnly, jokingly.

You giggle uncontrollable at the memory remembering it like yesterday. "It's your fault, I mean who falls asleep while eating an ice cream at the beach. It was only natural for me to lay you down and bury you. Plus, it was payback!"

"Payback for what may I ask?" He knows what you'll say.

You gasp in fake horror of him forgetting, "you knocked down my sandcastle when we were little! We went to the beach together for the summer, both of our families, and I begged you to make a sandcastle with me but you didn't want to, you ran off and made a new friend for the day and while you were running back from the sea with him you ran into my sandcastle and knocked it over! It was traumatic!"

"I don't remember that, are you sure?" Denki smirks and you slash him. He starts spinning you around again, this time rapidly and continuously, you squeal and get dizzy. You try and splash him more as you both laugh. He halts spinning you and you make eye contact, "please forgive six year old me, it's not like he brought you a coke and an ice cream and let you decide what film to watch that night when you stayed at mine to make up for it or anything." He teases you with a grin and you think about how you'd like to stay in this moment forever, this perfect moment, his arms brushing against your body as he holds onto the float, the grinning and laughter you share, the memories and the now, just the two of you.

You're thankful you were right about the mission.

tag list: @st4r-girl-official @xnorthstar3x @cherribxio @stabbygabyy @boreaswrites @skylardarling (i don't remember if you wanted me to tag you, sorry but you sent me an ask about i talk too much so i thought i'd tag you) @kelly-fushiguro345 ♡♡

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thepenultimateword · 28 days ago

Text

Monster Compendium

CW: Murder scene, some gore

Petra sat as still as stone. Half out of habit, half to avoid unnecessary attention. She’d helped put at least half of the villains present away; the last thing she needed was to cause an uproar before she even completed what she came here for.

"Cillian Morse, aka 'Monstrosity'," the judge said. "Please come to the stand."

The villain rose from the bench of handcuffed, grey-clad criminals, packed side by side like sardines in a can.

The Superpowered Penitentiary and Rehabilitation Center (SPARC) was overstuffed. Because of this, their semiannual parole hearing usually involved slotting as many prisoners as possible into one big day-long hearing. Maybe not the smartest idea when half the criminals present had some of the most dangerous, volatile powers on record, while the other half were too clever to be kept in a regular prison, but that was the city government for you. Impatient. Lazy.

Sure they had a line of guards on every wall, but who would that stop if any of these criminals had skipped suppressor meds?

As Monstrosity settled into his new seat at the head of the room, he swiveled his head around at the crowd. He met Petra's eyes at the back and blinked, tilting his head a little before grinning widely.

Petra didn't even blink.

"Mr. Morse," the judge said, scanning the file in front of him. "It seems you've been a resident at SPARC for three years now."

"You seem correct, sir," Monstrosity said. He tucked his hands under his chin, fixing that wide grin on the judge now.

"Your last 3 hearings deemed you unfit for parole." His finger trailed down the page. "Lack of empathy, uncooperative in therapy, riling other inmates, cheeking the super suppressors you've been prescribed, a downright refusal to make outside goals. I could go on."

Monstrosity waved his hand nonchalantly. "I was immature then. Angry. Lost. In denial. Over the last year, I've made vast improvements, as you'll see in my chart."

He mimed a page-turn.

The judge raised his brows but flipped to the next page in the file. His eyes scanned it from top to bottom.

"You have been successfully medicated for 8 months. Ah, and you passed your sanity test… and reintegration tests.” He narrowed his eyes at the page. “Your goal is to work at an animal shelter?"

"What can I say, I'm an animal guy."

"You've been expressly forbidden from interacting with any biological entities."

Monstrosity tilted his head with all the innocence of a puppy caught chewing shoes again. "Little hard to enforce that. Biological entities are all around us. Birds, grass spiders...heck, your honor, you are a biological entity."

The judge frowned severely. "Do you really want to make a threat right now, Mr. Morse?"

"What? We can't state facts anymore?" Monstrosity raised his locked hands in front of him. "All I'm saying is shelter or not, I will have access, so why bar me from a supervised space? Besides, I assume I'll be on meds still?"

The judge scoffed quietly as he scanned the file again. "It's indefinite how long you'll stay on suppressor meds." He looked up from the page and folded his hands together on the bench. "Tell me, Mr. Morse, do you know why you were sent to SPARC? Have you ever felt any remorse?"

For just an instant Monstrosity looked uncomfortable, but then he swallowed and it was gone, replaced by another smile. "The name sort of says it all. I was a monstrosity. I needed to be taken off the street." He smiled a little wider. Petra thought he might've meant it to look grateful, but to her, he looked like a hyena baring fangs. "But SPARC cured me."

The judge waited for more, perhaps something on that remorse question, but when Monstrosity didn't offer it he continued with the final question.

"Do you believe that you are reformed?"

"1000%," Monstrosity said, raising his right hand oathlike.

The judge gathered the file pages up in his hands, tapping them against the bench until they were even. "Unfortunately, I don't find you genuine."

Monstroisty opened his mouth but the judge continued.

"Eight months of good behavior is not a guarantor of rehabilitation. Make it last a whole year and we'll see at the next hearing. Cillian Morse will remain at SPARC for the next 6 months." He banged his gavel like a seal on the end of his sentence.

Monstrosity's entire expression morphed. Gone was the playful puppy, something toothy and terrible taking its place. "You--"

"Excuse me," Petra interrupted.

The entire room swiveled. A few criminals flinched back, but most started cursing furiously, the bitterness soon rising from loud voices to full out shouts.

The judge banged his gavel repeatedly until the criminals quieted enough that he could at least be heard over them. "Sentencer."

Petra didn't miss the way he looked at her, with little more respect than he looked at these criminals, but with more wariness. After all, she wasn't taking suppressors.

"You were not expected. I hope you have something relevant to add for you to interrupt."

Petra strode up the aisle, past the guards, past the shouting and lunging criminals, right up to the bench. She folded her hands neatly behind her back.

"I have an order from the top to take Cillian Morse into temporary custody."

The judge narrowed his eyes. ''Orders from who?"

“Accolade." Then, in case the director of SIRA (Superhuman Investigation and Response Agency) wasn't enough, "Chief Sanders and the warden also signed off on it." She reached into her pocket for the signed document. "I have proof of the order here if you need it."

The judge read over the page scrutinizingly, taking in all the unpleasantness that Petra had hesitated to voice somewhere so public.

"What makes you think that a villain could be any help in a criminal investigation?" he said finally.

"Body modification is his specialty."

"It seems risky."

"He will be under my supervision throughout the day and he will be returned to SPARC every night," Petra said coolly. "Any exceptions will be signed off directly with the prison."

Petra played along, but they both knew it wasn't in the judge's authority to say no. Yes, he could sentence the prisoners to more or less time in SPARC, but the warden and the prison's directors were the ones who decided if prisoners could be taken off the premises. It was only because today was hearing day that Petra was here instead of standing in front of a cell.

"If he's so important go ahead and take him." The judge extended the order back to her. As she went to take it, he suddenly leaned in close, voice lowered but commanding. "Keep him on his medication."

Petra pulled back without reaction. That wasn't her job. The orderlies at SPARC gave dosages once a day. Her responsibility was just to keep a good eye on the criminal so he would try to slip away.

She nodded curtly in Monstrosity's direction, and the man quickly rose to his feet, trotting after her with a smug smile.

"Bye," he sang to other criminals. "I'll see you all for dinner!"

"Screw you, Monstrosity!" one of the criminals shouted after him.

"Sorrrry, I don’t date criminals!”

That only made the group of villains rowdier, but Petra closed the door on the noise, and soon enough they were descending the steps of the courthouse.

Monstrosity trotted faster to catch up with her stride, cozying up against her shoulder. “Together at last.”

Petra shrugged him off, but the resistance only made Monstrosity bounce back more aggravating. He didn't touch this time, but he lingered close. The tiny sliver of space he left between them like a tease, an insistence he wasn't doing anything, while obviously putting in effort for something.

"Really, I never knew the Sentence had such a crush on me. A hero breaking a villain out of jail? It's so Romeo and Juliet!"

"Not a jailbreak," Petra clarified, pulling out her keys and clicking the bottom button until she heard the locks click on the little tightly parked sedan. "A temporary consultation."

"Riiight," Monstrosity winked. "Oh is this your car? Not exactly what I picture when I hear 'Sentencer'. I kinda thought you would drive around in some sort of Batmobile type vehicle. But nice parking. I love a person who knows how to parallel park."

Petra opened the passenger side door

Monstrosity pouted a little at her non-reaction but slid obediently into the passenger seat.

Petra took a breath before walking around the other side of the car. This was just how Monstrosity was. He’d probably flirt with a brick wall if he thought he could get something out of it. Not that he was one to actually keep up with any of the people he succeeded in wooing. A few of the informants she'd worked with to track him down had called him objectively charming--well, when he didn't have a rat tail or an extra set of arms or any of his other quote-unquote "freakish modifications"--but Petra didn't really see the appeal.

Petra spared the criminal a glance out of the corner of her eye.

Hypothetically, this time when he was on his suppression meds was the chance to see him as wholly human as possible, but he didn’t seem much different from any of the other villains at SPARC. Close clipped hair. Dark circles under the eyes. Baggy gray prison jumpsuit with the prison’s acronym across the back in bright orange and three matching stripes wrapping up each ankle and wrist. He was tall, probably about as tall as her, but he walked with a slump. At the very least, his eyes were something. A sharp pale gray, like frosted steel, piercing into everything he turned them upon.

"So where to?" Monstrosity said.

"Crime scene."

"Yay!"

"Don't be so happy about it; it's not exactly pretty."

"I expect crime scenes rarely are," Monstrosity said, grinning.

Petra started the engine.

“Excuse me, you’re not going to put me in danger by depriving me of a seatbelt, are you?” Monstrosity waved his cuffed hands in the air.

"Your arms work."

"The cuffs dig into my wrists whenever I bend them."

Petra flicked on her turn signal to enter traffic. "Sounds like a personal problem."

"So mean," he said. He twisted halfway around, holding his arms rigid and straight as he grasped for the belt. It took him a few tries, but he did manage to buckle himself. No sooner had the buckle clicked, than he tossed himself melodramatically against the door, the backs of his hands raised to his forehead. "And you call yourself a hero."

"We'll arrive in 10 minutes."

He side-eyed her. "You're not much of a conversationalist."

"Why should I be?"

"Fun? Entertainment? To pass the time?"

"I'm driving to a brutal crime scene with a handcuffed criminal. Does that sound fun to you?"

"It doesn't sound not fun." He slumped in his seat. "Just saying, for someone whose powers are in their voice, I thought you'd use it more."

Petra clenched the steering wheel. "No more talking."

"Seeee, that's what I'm saaaying," Monstrosity mumbled.

Petra ignored the partial taunt in his tone.

To be honest, she wasn't entirely sure why she was doing this. Yes, the scene was...interesting. And Monstrosity had experience both in criminal activity and biological manipulation, but she'd worked hard to get each one of these criminals off the street in the first place. She didn't love taking them back out. Monstrosity had been particularly tough to corner. She'd only set eyes on him a couple of times before her team had managed to pinpoint his location and make a collective attack. The element of surprise had been critical for that success even with all five of them.

Monstrosity had certainly lived up to his name that night.

No, out of all of the criminals Petra had put away, she couldn't take credit for Monstrosity. She never managed to get a proper read of him either. Usually when she investigated a criminal, she--in a way--got to know them. She learned their motives, their background, their character. All she knew about Monstrosity was that he was inhuman. Not only in the grotesque presentation of his powers but in his soul. He might have come off as charming to some, but he held no regard for anyone but himself.

The Welcome to Noville sign blurred as they passed it, and Monstrosity straightened in his seat.

"I thought you said the sight was ten minutes away."

"It is."

"But we're leaving the city."

"Not far."

She abruptly turned off on a dirt road so narrow it could barely count as a proper exit.

Monstrosity braced himself against the door.

"Be gentle with me Tency, I haven't been in a car chase in a while."

"Tency?" she growled.

"Not a lot of good nicknames for The Sentencer." He said "The Sentencer" like an old cartoon narrator announcing the hero.

"I don't do nicknames."

"Wow. You really are no fun, Tency."

Petra was not going to grace that obvious provocation with a response.

The grass grew tall and obscuring the further they traveled down the road, casting shade over the car. The blades reached over and through the rotting split-rail fences of abandoned private property.

She slowed a bit to maneuver around the roots of an enormous tree growing out of the left side of the road. Why anyone would build a road without fully clearing it she didn't know; maybe the tree was property too, preventing its removal as much as the fields prevented the road's expansion.

Monstrosity cricked his neck upward to look up through the windshield.

"Ugh."

"What?"

"Why are a zillion creepy tissue paper ghosts tied up there?"

Petra quickly glanced up into the depth of the trees, catching glimpses of swinging white.

"I only noticed the ribbons." She paused. "Probably just a tradition from one of the landowners."

They curved around the bend in the road and the stone ruins of a building came into view.

"Someone actually owns this place?"

"Trevon Bass and Theo O'Hannon. They're joint owners. Bought the land over two decades ago to use as farmland. And they did, a couple miles out."

Two cars--a police cruiser and a black Volkswagen--were already parked in front of the stone wall, so Petra pulled up beside them.

"But apparently this house here is historical. Meaning the direct area may also have historical value. They didn't want to mess with it, and now only come out occasionally to ensure no one is vandalizing or squatting in it. Bass found the body yesterday."

"Body? Oh, this is interesting."

Petra jerked the gear stick into park. He really was too excited about this.

She got out of the car and walked around to open the passenger side door, eying the neighboring Volkswagen all the way. It was one of the shared agency vehicles. What was another Hero doing here?

"Such a gentleman," Monstrosity said, stretching a little as he slipped out. He closed his eyes against the breeze for a moment and sucked in a deep breath.

"Mm. It's rained recently."

"Unfortunately, yes," Petra said. "Come on, let's see what you make of it."

She slipped sideways through a gap between the crumbling walls, avoiding looking to her left as she came into the "inside" of the building. As she entered, the two men at the center of the ruins looked at her--one short, mustached, and in a suit and the other in sweats and muscle shirt with the caption "Athletics Check" over a 20-sided dice, piles of long blond hair cascading out of his half ponytail and down his back.

"Detective Valero. Prophet." She acknowledged the blond with a short nod.

“Heeey, Sentencer!” Prophet beamed, clapping an arm around her shoulders and shaking her playfully. "Accolade told me you'd be slinking around the scene at some point today, but I thought by this point we'd missed you!"

Petra grimaced but before she could speak, Monstrosity bumped against her back.

Prophet leaned around her. "Is that--"

"Oh, it's future boy!" Monstrosity pointed.

"Er...it's Prophet."

"Right, right, right, visions and predicting stuff and all that. Isn't your deal predicting bad things before they happen? How is that going to work for you when you're here post-crime?

Prophet turned his gaze back to Petra. "What's he doing here?"

"Orders from Accolade. He's consulting."

"Why?"

"Because this wasn't a regular murder."

"Well, yeah that's why they call us. That doesn't mean--"

"Prophet," she interrupted, voice cold. "You follow your orders and I'll follow mine. Is that clear?"

He flinched. For a moment, she could see the thoughts running through his eyes, deciding whether her words held power or were merely convincing.

"Right," he finally said and stepped back a couple paces. “Um…I've been trying to read the scene, for an hour now. But, uh, the future keeps looping in on itself. I just keep seeing…”

He motioned to the Petra’s left and she finally allowed herself to turn fully toward it. It had been worse last night before all the pieces had been collected, but once again she was taken aback by the sheer breadth of the gore.

Nearly the entire wall was stained with a rusty splatter that extended onto the edge of the adjacent wall and the undersides of the dewy grass blades growing at the base.

Monstrosity stepped forward, cocking his head a little. “This blood spray is massive. What? Did your victim explode?”

Petra shot him a look. “Yes.”

#hero x villain #creative writing #heroes and villains #heroes and villains community #writblr #hero x villain community #crime fiction #investigation #writeblr #superhero fiction #stoic x flirty #slow burn

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just-a-ghost00 · 5 months ago

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What blessing is coming your way?

Group 1

5 of pentacles, 10 of swords, Black Numen, Hanged man back of the deck

A period of isolation is coming for you. You may lose relationships, resources or situations that mattered to you and feel really sad about it. You may consider this as a betrayal or as life abandoning you. But the reality is that these changes and endings are important for you to shift your perspective and slow your roll. There were things you were not seeing or overlooking and in order for you to get back to light and clarity, the Universe is momentarily putting you in the dark. This is a blessing in disguise. And I know, how scary and depressing that sounds. Believe me I've been there. This will be a cleasing time for you. Things and people that were no longer serving you or were detrimental to your well being and progress will leave your life without you even having to lift a finger. Once you are able to understand why this is happening in your life and see past the darkness and confusion that surrounds this phase, you will then progress significantly and quickly go back to a better state of mind, a better way of living. This is likely to take a lot of time and patience. And I know how hard it may sound but I want you to know you are more than capable of overcoming this challenge. I send my best wishes and positive vibes to you with the hope that it will protect you and carry you through this trying time of your life. Remember that you are not alone and that your emotions and opinions matter. If you are having a hard time, feel free to contact any professional if you feel the need to. I am also ready to read your messages if you don't know who to turn to. I can't promise you that I will solve all your problems but I can tell you that I will do my best in providing a safe place for you to release your sadness and worries.

Group 2

The Fool, 3 of swords, 4 of wands, back of the deck ace of wands

After a heartbreak or a separation of some kind, whether this is relating to family, romance or business, you will be starting anew as a new partnership is coming your way. You may have a hard time trusting this at first, as memories of the past are still fresh in your heart. But you will take the opportunity nontheless and choose to move forward with a new positive mindset. This partnership may inspire you to get out of your comfort zone and overcome certain fears. It might be a bit challenging but your optimism and ambition will be your best tools in this situation. As the 4 of wands often represents the home and committed relationships, this may speak about the renewal of vows or of a contract. You are given a second chance to prove your worth and work on a clean slate. You will be supported in this journey by a feminine figure. Spirit animals may also be present to protect you and provide you with guidance. Especially the wolf spirit. You may have to travel or make a significant change in what you bring to the table. This may particularly concern your creativity and your ideas. You may feel inspiredto use your passions and creative skills as a fuel to progress further on your path. You are encouraged to keep an open mind and find support and inspiration by your loved ones and/or cowerkers. Though this may be intimidating, you will be more and more satisfied with this blessing the Universe is sending your way. When it comes to romantic relationships, you may feel a renewal of your desire and attraction for your partner.

Group 3

4 of swords, 3 of cups, Hanged man, back of the deck 4 of wands

The blessing coming your way is healing. Especially through friendships and siblings. You will be granted a period of rest to be able to focus on your needs, spend quality time with your loved ones and recharge your batteries. You could be spending a lot of time at home. If you're in a romantic relationship, your connection may be going through a very calm phase. You are feeling comfortable in the presence of your partner and the pace has slowed down. Some of you may get engaged during this period of time. You may be celebrating the healing of a disease. Your focus will be on your home and your center, as well as the relationships that matter the most to you. Your loved ones will be fully supporting you during this period of your life. If you are feeling a bit confused or uncertain, they will help you gain perspective on what is troubling you. Your blessing is the slowing of time to enable you to build solid foundations and restore your balance. I asked for further information as I wasn't getting much from your cards. You got the Queen of wands. You will be glowing up and also empowered during this period of your life. Though it may feel like not much is happening, a lot of changes are slowly but surely taking place for you.

#pick a card #just-a-ghost #pac reading #spiritual pac #tarot reading

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inv3ga · 3 months ago

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Okay, so drabbles are one thing, but this is my first time writing smut, so be easy on me.

+18 MDNI

ii × female reader

P in V, unprotected (please only do this if you're trying), degradation, use of one singular BDSM apparatus, possessive sex, marking, a hint of praise kink if you really, really squint.

Big thanks to @365granitegirlx for proofreading this catastrophe <3

It was already November, the tour was starting, and ii was adamant that he leave with a memory to jerk it to. You always did like doggy style, so how could you deny your throbbing cunt and the smoldering Dom look in ii's eyes? ii didn't even wait to lead you up to your plush bed. He whined that he couldn't wait any longer and that he needed you now. He dragged you to the first room without windows and instructed you to strip. Your cheek pressed against the tiling, while your pussy was presented in the chilly kitchen air. As he gently placed ankle and ankle, wrist and wrist in the restraints connected to the spreader bar he brought home that he said he'd bought specifically for your pleasure, his coos and soft caresses turned into a harsh smack on your bottom. With a strong grip and twist of your hair, and with a force he had never used on you, he smashed your face into the kitchen tile as he yanked his joggers down. “You're gonna be a good slut, yeah? Just my little slut this time? I heard you were making eyes at the crew.” Before you could protest your innocence, you felt his cockhead glide ever so slowly between your folds as he breathlessly chuckled. Your juices were already running down your inner thighs and there was no way of hiding it. “So desperate to be fucked, love? I bet anyone would do.” ii stilled as a horrifying thought crossed his mind. “Don't bother visiting me while I'm on tour. Don't you dare, you fucking whore. You'll just end up fucking one of my bandmates. You'd fucking love that, wouldn't you, you fucking community cocksleeve!” Without further warning, ii thrust into your unprepared pussy. You shrieked as he laughed. “As long as I have you first, they can have my sloppy seconds,” he murmured darkly as he kept a pace of slowly drawing himself out of your already abused cunt, then gripping your hips hard enough to draw blood in crescent moons as he slammed himself back in. You mewled, you whined, and you panted every time he took a moment to bring himself back from the brink of filling up your pussy, once he found a steady rhythm of barely rubbing up against your G-spot to tease you; to make you pay for crimes you hadn't committed, it mostly just made you moan his name mixed with, “Don't stop, please don't fucking stop. Fuck, ii. Please.”

No matter what mood ii was ever in, he was a sucker for your pleas. “Whatever my slut desires,” he whispered as he leaned in and placed a chaste kiss to the small of your back. ii didn't even need to leave that position to have you screaming his name as he rut into you like a wild animal.

“Say it. Say it, kitten. Who do you belong to? Hmm?” Your head was pulled back this time by the same grip and twist of ii's hand while the other was wrapped around your throat, making you lightheaded and euphoric. A triumphant smirk plastered his face and he felt your cunt clench around his twitching cock. He slowed his thrusts. Even though he had slowed, looking at you in your fucked out state had him ready to blow. Your eyes glazed over with tears streaming down, how red and swollen your cheek was after being smashed against the marble and grout, and how throughout all of it, your hands had done nothing but reach for him, had his cock throbbing. It wouldn't be much longer.

“Yours, Daddy. All yours.” Came a shaky voice barely above a whisper. ii shuddered and let out an involuntary groan. He didn't know how much longer he could stave off his orgasm, but he was certain he was giving his good girl one with him.

“Say it again, love.” He resumed his relentless pace, keeping one hand clutching your hip while the other snaked under you to rub messy circles on your sensitive nub. ii was no longer looking to punish, he just needed two things: he needed to hear those words from you again, and fuck, was he going to do his best to have you writhing on the floor; making a mess with him.

“Say it!” ii jammed himself against your G-spot mercilessly, and you felt like all you could do was scream and cry in bliss.

“You, ii. Jus’ you. Always. Jus’ love you.”

ii sighed in relief. “Good girl.”

White heat struck your core at the sound of his words of endearment as you chanted his name along with ramblings of I love you's as you fell apart. ii had withdrawn his cock and was pumping himself slowly, unwilling to cum until he watched you break before him, but when he knew he could no longer hold back he lunged forward.

Mimicking your position above you except with his one hand planted on the ground with a fistful of your hair, yanking your head to the side, and the other stroking his cock. “Mine.” You had one second to feel him spasm above you and something hot and sticky being spurt on your back before you felt his teeth sink into the juncture between your neck and shoulder. The sounds you both released were nothing short of guttural. ii wanted nothing more than to continue to bite, suck, lick, and nibble his claim on you, but his body said otherwise and he had two seconds before he collapsed upon you instead of the floor beside you. Pants and sighs of satisfaction were all that filled the air. When he finally had the guts to look you in the eye, there was nothing but love. Both of you wore soft, worn out smiles. “I love you, and I'm sor-”

“How about you unlock me and make it up to me by running me a lavender and calendula bath and then cuddles until we fall asleep, yeah?”

ii chuckled, “Do I get to kiss you?”

“Depends on how well you cuddle.”

#sleep token #ii #sleep token ii #vessel ii #ii x reader #ii x you #sleep token x reader #sleep token x you #sleep token smut #sleep token fanfiction #i tried ;-;

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sukibenders · 2 months ago

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Glinda mentions to Elphaba how Fiyero can't stop thinking about that moment in Dillamond's class, or that he's having thoughts in general and how it worries her because it's not something she's used to from him (which is him thinking about actual things), in contrast to Elphaba, who doesn't seem all that bothered and, even more so interested in the manner when Fiyero brings up how he can't stop thinking about when they rescued the lion cub. I don't know about everyone else but for me, even with this scene probably being added for lighthearted value, I also see it as another piece in the puzzle cementing how Fiyero's and Glinda's actions will, eventually, either pull them closer or further away from Elphaba. I lowkey don't like it when people act surprised or confused as to why Glinda was spelled or get annoyed that Fiyero is in her place but I, personally, don't think she would have helped in that moment, specifically in the movie.

Prior to the train scene, Glinda is shown to, not only, be completely rude and spoiled (as shown with her literally fainting over not getting her way), when in class, she publicly points out Dillamond's inability to pronounce her name correctly even though it's an obvious struggle, parading in front of the class how easier it was for her other teachers to do it, then being dismissive during the rest of the lesson when learning the importance of history and why to learn from it (correct me if I'm wrong, as it has been a minute since I've seen the movie). All that already tells me that she doesn't really care for the animals' cause, let alone enough to follow Elphaba and Fiyero into the woods after stealing the lion cub and I think, subconsciously, Elphaba knew that. In fact, I can only see Glinda trying to sway them to leave the cub and how what their new professor wanted to teach probably wasn't all that bad (not saying that she would want the cub to be harmed, just that she would try to rationalize what's going as we've seen her do before). This is the same woman who, after learning that the Wizard was a fraud and responsible for the missing and harmed animals, still tried to justify his actions and berated Elphaba for not "acting accordingly" to the news, but yet we still think she should have been there to save the lion cub? That she would have helped those animals alongside Fiyero and Elphaba? I think it could allude to how Glinda could/will be used to help further push propaganda for the Wizard, especially given how it benefits her socially, as figures of propaganda often don't think too hard, or enough to critique the system around them not because they aren't smart enough too (for the most part), but more so because they understand how their world works and understand the consequences that follow when stepping out of line.

You don't have to like Fiyeraba or even find Fiyero interesting, but to purposely ignore what the movie is presenting you is such a cop-out. Fiyero enters the film being a sort of anti-establishment-like character, caring little if he gets kicked out of Shiz for breaking the rules, or just hardly caring in general (something Elphaba calls him out for), and so on. Why wouldn't he be down to rescue the lion? Even if it was to just feed his rebellious streak, he still would have gone, but when he and Elphaba meet, he's on a talking horse and they are conversing like lifelong friends. That might add another layer to the pair saving the lion. Even if he wasn't on the same level as Elphaba at that moment, the train scene shows that it had a profound impact on him that he couldn't shake. I think, had he been presented with the choice of joining Elphaba or staying, he would have gone, not only for her but also because he now knows that the Wizard is a fraud and most definitely wouldn't stand for what he [Oz] is doing. This is what sets him apart from Glinda which, isn't necessarily me hating on her but just stating facts. Glinda isn't/won't be willing to sacrifice her position and what it brings her, until it's too late (which is the tragedy of her character and her relationship with Elphaba), while Fiyero risks everything, even to some extent his own body (Scarecrow) and, in the end, gets to stand with Elphaba.

#i don't want to ship tag this bc im sure if either would necessarily fit but also bc i don't want to attract a certain audience #but idk we'll see how it goes #this was just my perspective giving an analysis to both the train scene and the lion cub scene #it's not an attempt to paint one character as better than the other (in a way bc glinda was acting wild ngl)#i also notice some in this fandom get touchy when you say glinda didn't change until the last minute (which is true)#but lost everything by that point and how tragic that is it's okay to admit that #while i do think fiyero could of had more character development in the movie i don't think he's completely pointless like some try to paint #him as and i hope act ii gives us more of him #dni if can't have a calm conversation #glinda upland #glinda the good witch #elphaba thropp #fiyero tigelaar #wicked spoilers #wicked #wicked 2024 #even my friend who just got into the wicked fandom was like “yeah glinda wouldn't do shit for them animals”#so i know im not tripping

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undreaming-fanfiction · 11 months ago

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Thinking of a modern AU when the kids get to be kids after it's all over and they go to the movies, they play games, hang out, all that. And of course, Steve drives them everywhere. He vouches for them in front of their parents, watches them like a hawk, tries to tell them about the adult stuff he's learned so far and chases Robin and Nancy to give them info on uni application and the things he feels he's too dumb for. Still, when Robin and Nancy are away and one of his kids needs something, he'll grab that legal document and either stare at it long enough to get a migraine or begins hounding the smart people who stayed in Hawkins (Mr. Clarke is Steve's go-to person and Mr. Clarke won't say it, but he's so proud of Harrington's progress).

So, Steve's life is basically nonstop work and babysitting (with lots of complaints and grumbling from the teens), they ask him to drive them somewhere and he'll bitch about it, sure, but he will get up after 4 hours of sleep and do it anyways. Dustin often reprimands Steve for not taking care of his health, but he doesn't see why.

When Encanto comes out, El really, really wants to see it, and how can Steve say no to her? He drives the whole gang to the movie theatre (some of them stacked on top of each other, some in the trunk on a pile of blankets) and decides to join them. He doesn't really like animated stuff, but Robin loves these movies and he wants yet another reason to call her and talk through the night.

He didn't expect to enjoy the movie so much, but it's colorful and catchy. The songs are nice and the characters are relatable. He makes a lot of mental notes to discuss with Robin. He thinks she will love Mirabel.

And then "Surface Pressure" starts playing and Steve wonders why he suddenly feels like crying. "I'm pretty sure I'm worthless if I can't be of service" hits especially hard. He's just sitting there and feeling incredibly stupid for tearing up at flying glitter-covered donkeys.

When they leave the movie theater, everyone is pretty excited and discussing which characters and songs they liked the most (even if some feel like rolling their eyes at a kids' movie, El's excitement stops them from doing that). They all start discussing to who they relate the most, El feels with Mirabel for being left out and different, even if she actually is the only one who has a gift, Will dares to utter that he really sympathizes with Dolores, Dustin loves Bruno for trying to fix the cracks in Casita.

And then they turn to Steve and someone makes a jab at him, saying he resembles Mariano the most. Steve is ready to shrug it off, there's some truth in that with what happened to his relationship with Nancy, but El just shakes her head and says: "No. Steve is our Luisa."

Everyone goes silent. There's a lot of hmmming and "well, he did get up to drive us when he had a night shift..." and "we could have just biked...". Steve tries to make them feel better about it, joking that he really has nothing better to do, but the drive home is full of whispering, and the party actually diligently thank him when they leave his car.

The next day is Sunday and Steve is ready for his usual routine, making himself busy until someone needs something. But there's a knock on the door to his small apartment and when he opens it, he sees his group of kids, proudly presenting a tray of muffins and two cartons of orange juice.

Out of all of them, it's Mike who speaks up. "Nancy said you often forget to eat breakfast," he states in his usual annoyed tone. "She also said that you like chocolate muffins, so we are here to ensure you don't die from hunger. Now move, I'll get the glasses and plates."

Steve just watches in awe as they swarm his flat, Will smiling at him and producing a DVD of the latest Spider-man movie. "This one was a tip from Robin, she says you haven't seen it yet."

Max is standing in the kitchenette with her cane, watching the pile of meds Steve has to take after his injuries with disdain. "This has to take forever for you to find what you need. Don't argue, I remember how shitty it was for me. Let me help you build a chart and thank me later."

El and Lucas are rearranging Steve's couch and placing pillows in front of the TV so everyone can sit comfortably. El also ensures the blinds are closed so Steve's eyes don't have to fight against the light.

And if that all wasn't more care than Steve has known in years, Dustin grabs his elbow and sits him down, threatening him with violence if he even thinks about working on Sunday.

As the opening titles start, Steve is surrounded by six teenagers in his tiny and cheap flat, chewing on a subpar muffin with an orange juice that probably never saw the actual fruit, and he thinks that there's no greater happiness than this.

#steve harrington #steve harrington drabble #the party #stranger things #stranger things drabble #stranger things au #encanto #healing and understanding your roles through movies is awesome #steve harrington is and will be loved

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lidiasloca · 5 months ago

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delicately

cassian x reader

part three

summary: when cassian meets reader, he doesn't think past her privileged life. but what if there is more behind her appearance? what if, who she really is, is meant to meet with him on a cold night at the court of nightmares for a reason?

Feeling tears roll down your face, you jump into his arms.

Of course he knows.

Your mate.

You gently pull away from the tight embrace. You have to find his eyes. Find something that can hold you to this earth. And so you watch each other. Silent, no words needed.

At least no coherent words. “We are mates,” you mumble in disbelief, the words running from your mind to your lips.

“We are,” he smiles lovingly.

You smile back. “So what now?”

He lets out a youthful laugh and sets you down on the floor delicately. He turns his face to you again, and his expression is softer, as if he’s thoughts had met yours.

You are mates. You are bounded. Together.

“Well, I think now we have forever,” he states evidently.

Forever.

You beam, shocked in a thrilling and heart-melting feeling. ‘Forever’ is too serious to be in the same sentence with ‘Cassian’, a male you barely know.

Where does he live?

What’s his favorite color?

His favorite animal?

You realize you had lost yourself in your stupid thoughts when his rough hand softly takes your chin to look up at him instead of the ground.

He reads you well. And you read him well, as if you both knew your souls like the back of your hands. And you find peace in that knowledge. You find peace in the reassuring look in his eyes.

You could memorize all the trivial facts and characteristics of a person and never know them as well as you know a stranger whose soul is intertwined with your own.

Yes, it’s scary. But it is also exciting. You will have forever to get to know him better.

You cannot wait to start eternity with him. With Cassian.

‘We have forever,’ he had said…

“Maybe we should start with something simpler,” you reply playfully.

He chuckles. “Yes. You are going to meet my family first.” The male must have sensed the anxiety in your eyes, for he quickly adds, “Is that not reasonable? You have not to-”

You nervously excuse yourself, “It is - No! It’s more than reasonable. It’s just that… Well, what if they don’t like me?”

He bursts out laughing.

You just stare at him. Wordless as you take in his scoffing. It’s hard to keep a serious look when his laugh is so contagious. Nonetheless, once he notes your straight face, he tries to cover his smile and explains, “What - you scared me there. I thought you didn’t want to meet them. I feared for your life. And mine.”

You open your mouth, astonished, waiting for his teasing smile. No smile. “You feared for our lives?”

“My family would do terrible things if I didn’t present my wife properly to them. The High Lord is not to be messed with. And his cousin…” He pretends to cover his face in fear. “And don’t get me started with the spymaster. You’ve probably heard of Azriel - be careful with that one. It’s a relief you were just being a timid little thing about meeting them.”

What?

Your mate considers his family the High Lord and his cousin, and a Spymaster. His family is not blood, you guess, and you totally understand. You don’t even like considering your father by blood your family, true, but it’s still odd. You make a mental note for later to ask him about it. When the proper moment comes.

Because now your thoughts are elsewhere; in teaching your mate manners.

He tries really hard to contain his laughter when you pretend to be furious. Maybe you are a bit. “First. I hope you are kidding about your violent family. Second. Timid little thing? Dare you speak to your mate that way again, and I will be the one doing terrible things.”

“I was going to go for timid dork but you-”

“Cassian,” you bark as you poke him in the chest. He is unmoved. And giggly.

“Sorry,” he mutters, still smiley. “I won’t call you a timid little thing again, if you agree to meeting my family.” You smirk triumphant; you can accept that. “Tonight.”

Your eyebrows shoot up. “What? Tonight?”

“Tonight,” he replies plainly. “I fly you to our house. I show you the place. I call my friends when you are ready. We eat dinner. I take you to my room.” You turn visibly read as he continues. “And I read you a chapter of a book - what in all hells were you thinking about, love?” he asks loudly, making you want to dig yourself a grave and stay there.

You will strangle him.

But before the opportunity is given, he takes you in his arms, lifts you up and looks at you intensely as you swallow a panicked scream.

“Say yes,” he pleads.

“I-”

“Please, love.”

“Yes.”

And strong wind hits you in every centimeter of your skin as he takes off flying.

…

“I will surely lend you a dress. And lucky for you, I know just which one will be perfect for you,” the gorgeous female tells you as she leaves for said gown.

It’s been about ten minutes since you arrived to the Hose of Wind. Ten minutes since Morrigan befriended you and treated you like you had known each other for a lifetime.

You enjoy her presence. But not enough to ignore that you miss your mate, who had stayed in the living room to wait upon the others' arrival. The though of yet more people to meet makes you again anxious. They are not just people. They are Cassian’s family. If you made them hate you…

“They will adore you,” Morrigan says as she returns to you, now with a stunning red dress in her hands.

“What?” you mumble.

“Azriel and Rhys. They will love you.”

You prayed they were as kind as Mor. Half as decent as her was even enough.

“How do you know?” you ask, trying not to sound as desperate as you feel.

“Because they love Cassian, and you are Cassian’s mate. They will surely love the best thing that’s ever happened to his best friend.”

Oh. Well, that is reassuring. You make sure to smile thankfully at her as she hands you the gown. You’ve never worn anything like that before. Nothing so fancy or eye-cathing. But the dress is a ruby red too familiar to reject.

“Thank you,” you tell her, both for her words and for the dress. You love this girl so much already.

She leaves you alone in the room so you can change, and in the silence you think about how you have never felt so accompanied. Cassian and Morrigan already fill a whole gap in your heart. Never had you befriended anyone, thanks to your father’s strict rules. Never had you actually bonded with anyone.

Anyone but your mother.

You had tried to avoid the though, but guilt quickly creeps in your heart. You have left your mother in that place alone. No - even worse - with your father. The thought of what your father would do to you when he found out you were missing.

You felt tears run down your cheeks.

Another perfect moment ruined by the though of your father. Guilt quickly changed to fury. No. He would not ruin one of the few good moments in your life. You have found your mate. You are about to meet his family, and you will do it with a smile on your face. Not your father on your mind.

You are decided when you put on the dress and walk to see your reflection in the mirror.

“You look…” You swiftly turn to the voice. Cassian looks, and looks, and keeps looking as you turn more and more red under his piercing eyes. “Y/N you look…”

“Never had you for a shy lover,” Mor says as she appears on the door, next to Cassian. He turns to her with an exhausted look, yet the surprise and tenderness of a second ago is still in his eyes. “You look lovely, Y/N,” the female says.

You don’t look at her as she approaches to fix your hair gently. You only have eyes for Cassian. And he is just as lost in you.

“You do,” he finally corroborates, but it’s almost a whisper.

“Thank you,” you murmur, not helping the timid smirk on your face.

Morrigan sighs at the two of you, her eyes going from you to him again and again, as if in disbelief. “Girl, I’ve never seen Cassian act so silly.” Then she leans in and whispers for only you to hear, “You really have him wrapped around your finger.”

You smirk as you watch Cassian’s eyebrows rise in question. But it’s your secret. You turn to Mor and grin at her mischievously, liking this new playful part of you.

She is walking out the room when she turns and says out loud, “Be sure to use this to your benefit.” And she winks exaggeratedly.

At that, Cassian’s eyes find yours in a silent question. But you nonchalantly ignore him and walk to him to the door.

“Have they arrived?” you ask, but the nonchalance is now gone.

“Yes,” he answers. His eyes turn sympathetic when he takes in your uneasy demeanor. He moves his hands to hold your face lovingly. “Do not worry. I didn’t mean what I said about them being so violent,” he jokes.

You chuckle softly, the nerves dissipating a bit. “I know.”

“Well, at least I hope they aren’t tonight,” he teases.

You smack his arm, shushing him as you laugh. “You are a dork.” He feigns indignation, and you shake your head in exasperation. “Stop being stupid and present me to your family,” you order, taking his hand, needing the reassuring feeling of having him close.

At your words, his eyes spark with joy. Presenting you to his family is not just something big for you. You realize it is very important for him to.

You are his mate.

Then you think about how you don’t have a family to present to him. And that breaks your heart. You know your mother would love him, she would love anything in this world that could make you happy, but with your father at her side, there was no chance you could present Cassian.

Your mate senses your momentarily sadness, and yet again asks you only with his eyes. You dismiss his question with a genuine smile as you start walking to the living room. You deserve to enjoy this moment. You deserve to let go of your father for a night and only fill your heart with love for Cassian.

Love and nervousness.

“Y/N, these are Rhys and Azriel…”

-Charcaters by Sarah J Maas

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YES we are back with Delicately. thanku for reading and especially for waiting so long. but better later than ever. love to hear your thoughts on my fics and love to see my work being read so yet again THANKU.

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