#anyway another midnight post but at least i proofreaded this one | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

takenbyheartstrings · 3 years ago

Text

MY BIGGEST ENEMY.

summary: after years of torment from your ex-best friend Thomas Stanely Holland, one night you go to a party and it's revealed that Z and her boyfriend Haz are too drunk to take you home and the only person sober enough to take you home was your biggest enemy.

pairing: enemiestolovers! tom holland x fem!reader

warnings: DIRTY DIRTY SMUT, angst, fluff, swearing, mentions of bullying, not rlly a warning but the reader is shorter than tom in this fic <3 Haz and Zendaya are together in this fic, but it is pure fiction and all fake! I respect their current relationships!!!

word count: 9.6k (2.5k of it being pure smut <3)

authors note: sorry for not posting for a while! school has got me in a chokehold! Anyway, enjoy <3 (also did not proofread, so, sorry if there's some weird bits!)

HEAVILY inspired by Bully by Penelope Douglas, the opening scene is very similar, as is the reader going away for a year, but other than that the plot of this fic isn't really the same, but it kinda follows the same trope if that makes sense idk.

Your breath caught you awake; it was a late night, and your neighbour was throwing a party. A boy with many tattoos, a boy with friends, a boy with a loud exhaust system and a boy who had no regard for the neighbourhood that surrounded him. You sat up, looking over at the clock that sat on your dresser. The digital numbers flashing red, telling you that it was just around midnight, twelve forty-five to be correct.

You had no idea why yourself and Tom had stopped being friends. No idea why he had cut you off. It was heartbreaking. For you, at least. It was a warm summer day and Tom had just gotten back from this army camp his parents had sent him on. He said goodbye to you when he left, wrapping his arms around you, threatening to never let go. Tom wasn’t a bad kid, not at all, so he was confused as to why his parents would send him somewhere for discipline. But when he came back, you couldn’t be so sure that he wasn’t a bad kid. It was only 3 months that he was gone. It was the last day of summer and although it was warm, there was also a chill in the air. You went to say hi to him and he walked straight past you. You knew his parents were getting a divorce, that could be why, he was being left by his brothers and his father. Only staying with his mother. But his mother was barely there, and he was always alone. You tried to reach out, on a number of occasions. But regardless, he had started to make your life hell.

Spreading rumours about you, making up lies about you. Your first year of High-School was spent crying in the bathrooms. He continued on and on, making your life miserable. Pulling stupid pranks that would end with you in tears and end with you eating lunch in the bathroom. Zendaya accompanying you because you didn’t want to face them. Even though she was dating his best friend Harrison, she sat with you. Every day, every lunchtime. She was your best friend, and she wiped away your tears.

It was now years later, you had one year of Highschool left under your belt and you were determined to make it the best. You were not going to let him in the way of your final year here. You were not going to let him get in the way of your success.

You had no reason to worry about your parents. Both of them abroad on a transfer for about another two years, but that always changes. It was long, but you promised them you could manage all on your own. Tom’s mother, however, was not around. It didn’t seem like she was around much anymore at all.

You ripped the blankets off my skin, now of course you were only in a pair of booty shorts, that rid up your thighs and a t-shirt that showed a little too much skin, but you were too tired and angry to care – you had school tomorrow, a shitty concern, but you did and you figured with the booming music that came from next door, you would not be able to fall back asleep, like when it was much quieter earlier before Tom and his friends had started playing the sounds that made your ears bleed.

You stomped down the stairs, not bothering to put on your shoes, but when you entered the house, you immediately regretted it. The floor felt sticky; you felt sick.

You walked around the party searching for Tom, feeling the wind suddenly knocked out of you, looking up you had bumped into Tuwaine, “Y/n, you’re back!” He smiles. Tuwaine had always been nice, even if he was a part of Tom’s possie, he treated you like a person.

“Hey, Tuwaine.” You spoke, a year at boarding school will do that to you, disappearing, well, not totally disappearing… your parents going on their 3 year transfer all the way over in Monaco, sending you away to boarding school, you were seventeen, and had just turned eighteen, they said you were old enough to go back home, go back to school back in your hometown, “Do you happen to know where Tom might be?”

He chuckles, “Kitchen.” Tuwaine made an effort never to get involved in Tom’s advances of bullying you and making my life torment. Although it was the bare minimum, you appreciated it a lot.

“Thomas!” You yelled as he jumped, pushing the red headed girl off of himself. She scampered away quickly, realising by the look on your face, I was a. someone who wanted to kill her. b. someone who wanted to kill him… or c. a girlfriend, which you most certainlywere not.

Tom froze in his spot, I dunno why it shocked him to see you. Daya had said that your name had been whispered in the halls more than once. You can only assume he had heard it. Maybe he didn’t, but you knew he didn’t give a fuck about you.

“Y/n. You’re back.” He stated a muscle flexing in his jaw as it clenched shut. Your eyes made way over his body. You could see a few new tattoos. One stuck out from underneath the sleeve of his t-shirt, but you couldn’t quite make it out. There was now a tattooed band on the other side of his arm. Vines stick out from his V-neck, running up to his neck. If Iyou didn’t hate him, you’d think they were hot.

“That I am, and I am here to kindly ask you to turn down the music.” You said softly. You didn’t want an argument. You didn’t want a fight – Not today at least. You just wanted sleep.

His eyes roll down your body, checking you out, your t-shirt hugs you, and as his eyes make way down to my shorts, they still ride up my thighs. You suddenly feel naked under his gaze. “No can do.” He gives a chaste smile before walking away from you… The audacity!

You go to chase after him, but it seems like he’s disappeared into the crowd – typical Tom.

So, I guess he wants a fight.

You shuffle back into the Kitchen, going through drawers to find a pair of kitchen scissors, when you finally find them, you make my way over to the cords connected to the speakers. I guess he won’t be able to turn the speakers down.

The scissors snip right through the cords, one by one. You hear murmurs of ‘what the fuck’ and so forth. You leave the scissors next to the cords and sneak out of there before Tom can find you. You make it back home, shutting the door behind you and locking it. I’m safe… I think.

You go back to your room and watch all the people leaving, Tom stands in his front yard, now that all the people are gone, you can see it’s been littered with red solo cups. Tom goes to face my house and catches your eye. All you can do is wave and give your best attempt at a smirk.

He wasn’t going to wreck this year for you. You were back and better than ever.

Z laughs from her stomach, “You cut the cords to his music, y/n you are amazing!”

You look down at your food, today, you weren’t sitting in the bathroom – you hadn’t in a long time, “I have, however, been avoiding him all day,” You sigh, “I don’t want him to ruin my high.”

She shakes her head, “I’m glad you’re finally sticking up for yourself. There’s a point in time where I knew this was going to happen and I just always hoped I wasn’t wrong. That you would and now you are… and I’m proud.”

“I love you, Z,” You smile.

“Love you too, y/n.”

“How sweet.” A voice says from behind you, and your stomach seems to sink.

Whipping your head around, you face Tom, his eyes are dark, angry, rageful. You missed Tom’s old eyes, the eyes that smiled and the eyes that bled of happiness, you stand, but don’t quite reach his height, “What can I do for you, Thomas.” You speak.

“You can pay for the damages you caused to my sound system,” His voice seems to go dark too, deeper than you had heard it before, he was mad, but he wasn’t going to let himself explode.

You shake your head, “No. I went home as soon as you told me that you wouldn’t turn your music down.”

Tom chuckled, “Don’t lie to me, y/n.”

“I’m not.” You don’t flinch, you let yourself stand your ground.

He shakes his head, his eyes meeting his Doc Martins, only then did you notice what he wore was a classic V-neck and a pair of black jeans. His hair was longer than before you left, curled, and styled in a way that would let your legs fall from underneath you. But you pushed down whatever you were feeling as his next sentence surprised you, “Fine. I’m not going to argue with you, just know y/n… that if you ever mess with my fucking shit again, I will fuck you up. Do you understand?”

This was the first time you had visibility shrunk, a ball of saliva hard to swallow in your throat and when you did, your voice came out in a rasp, “Whatever, Holland.” Even if your volume was quiet, your voice shrivelled, you still sounded somewhat confident.

Tom walked away from you, his curls bounce slightly as he walks away, his t-shirt hugging his biceps, those tattoos peeking out from underneath once more. It all begged the question onto your mind once more, what happened to Tom Holland? You doubt you’d ever find out why he hated you, but you always knew that question would go unanswered.

Z let out a huff from behind you, “Well, that was… Intense.”

You looked around, eyes on you. People looked at you like they were afraid, something you had never seen before. Was it because you had stood up to Tom? Or was it because people were finally realising you were more than just those stupid rumours, he had spread around all those years. Did they realise you were more than those stupid pranks Tom would pull on you? Pranks were supposed to be funny, and what Tom Holland had done was not funny.

Your breath hitched against the air as you and Z walked to your next class, taking a seat in the back, which was quite unusual for you, but Zendaya had joined you. A boy sat down next to you. His name was Timothée, captain of the football team. He usually sat at the back, so it didn’t surprise you that he was sitting here. What surprised you was that he had started talking to you.

“Y/n, right?” He asked. He was quite a cute boy, curled hair, pretty brown eyes, and his letterman jacket sat perfectly on his shoulders.

You chuckled, “That’s me.”

“So��” Timmy started, “I was thinking, there’s that new yogurt place that opened up in town square, and while I was thinking, I thought, ‘Hey! I should invite y/n’.” He spoke, a small smile sat on his face.

Your eyes turned into a playful glare, “And how’d you come to that conclusion?”

“I dunno,” He shrugged, playing it off, turning back to the front, “But I have been wanting to ask you out for a while.”

“So why didn’t you?” You questioned the boy, as he turned to face you.

He shrugged once more, “Maybe I was shy.”

You chuckled, “I’ll think about it,” You turned back to the front, thinking for a moment. Could this be another one of Tom’s plans to humiliate you? No. No. You couldn’t think like that. Maybe Timmy was just a genuinely good guy. You shook your head of your thoughts about impending doom. You turned back to whisper to him, “Okay. I’ll go out with you for frozen yogurt.”

He smiled, it seemed genuine. “Okay, I’ll pick you up at seven, then?”

You nodded, “Seven it is.”

Z sat there doing your makeup, you had gone for a natural look, and a cute outfit that consisted of Chuck Taylors and a pair of jeans, paired with a varsity pullover, “What if this is one of Tom’s fucking plans to embarrass me, Z? What if he shows up out of the blue and says, ‘Hey y/n, fuck you!’ and runs me over with his car or, I dunno, does that shit he did before I left and pours his food all over me again.”

Z shakes her head, “He won’t… I think Timmy is a genuinely good guy. I don’t think this has anything to do at all with Tom, it won’t.”

“What do you mean, ‘it won’t’?” You ask her, curious.

She sighs, “Well, I was talking to Haz, and he was saying that every time someone thought or had mentioned they wanted to ask you out, he would go and spread a rumour or do something against you… or threaten them.” She speaks, “I dunno, I think it’s pretty fucked, but somewhere deep down he still cares about you. ‘S not like that kind of shit ever goes away.”

“But it does, Z!” You cry, “He has shown no compassion toward me. No love. Most days, he won’t even look me in the eye. I’ve been back for three whole days, and I can tell it’s the same as it has been for almost eight years. He hates me. He doesn’t like me. He doesn’t care about me.”

She shrugs, “Believe whatever you want, y/n, but I know you still care about him too.”

You went quiet after that. Mostly because you had no idea how you felt about him. You had no clue if you cared about him or not. You had no idea if you still loved him the way you had when you were little, and it fucked you up. You were scared that you did. After all the fucked-up shit he had done to you… you were scared that you did care about Tom. You knew you hated Tom. He had done things to you – things that messed with your brain.

In the ninth grade, people believed you had lost your virginity in a gangbang, when in reality, you hadn’t been touched before. In the tenth, people thought that you had fucked your math teacher to get your grade up to an A, when in reality, you had worked your ass off – it’s safe to say that rumour got shut down pretty quickly. If you were being honest, you had no idea how much of it was Tom. But it felt better to blame it all on him. Blame all your misery on someone who had left you in the dust.

The fact that you could care about someone that you blamed all your problems on scared you. To death. It made your breath catch in your throat. It made you choke on air. Thinking that Tom still cared about you made you want to throw up, but you couldn’t help but think about it. What if he had done this because he thought he was protecting you? But that’s fucking toxic, why would he do that at all? Why would he sought out to help you? There were many questions that ran through your mind. Too many that would remain unanswered.

Your gaze flickered to Tom’s window as you thought about him, it happened to be situated right across from your room. The light turned on and the curtain was pulled. You could see his shadow lifting his shirt over his head and unbuckle his jeans. You almost wanted to see what the sight would look like without a curtain in the way. Another ball of saliva got caught in your throat. But you couldn’t give yourself away. Your eyes flicked back to Z who was applying a tinted colour to your lips. She held up a mirror.

“What do you think?” She questions you, and all you can do is smile.

“It’s perfect, Z, thank you.” Your grin expands.

She returns it, “Well, I should probably get going before I’m late to work. I’ll text you later.”

“Yeah, ‘course,” My smile dips a little as she walks out of my door, I can hear her footsteps hitting the stairs and the door finally close behind her, the ignition of her car starting. I turn to the clothes that sit on my bed. Was I really going on a date?

The answer was yes.

You hadn’t been asked out on a date in years and remembering that made Z’s words travel through your mind once more ‘…Threaten them.’ You didn’t know what that made you feel. You didn’t know if that feeling was good or bad. But you hated Tom, and Tom hated you… right? There’s no way that could be true at all. Maybe Haz was lying. He did have a reputation for it. But Z could always see right through his lies. So, if he was telling the truth that really did mean Tom would threaten boys that would try and get close to you. The only questioned that pried your mind was Why?Add another never-to-be-answered question to the list of many.

You slid off your top, your boobs hung from your chest as you put on your bra, peeling off your sweatpants, you put on your jeans and your sweater. Seven O’clock was coming closer and closer. But you noticed something strange, and when you looked up into the window. The window and the curtain you forgot to close, and a Tom, who’s towel was wrapped around his abs, letting his six-pack breath against the cold air. You could see his defined V-line. The way it led to something you were sure was long, and filling. Something that you knew brought every single girl he ever fucked to a mind-blowing orgasm. His hair was slick back, and dripped, the water droplets still fresh on his skin. Your eyes met the tattoos that sit inked in his skin. The vine was beautiful, the band was tied into it, you hadn’t noticed before, but it wasn’t a plain black band. It was tied into the vine. You could finally see the tattoo that had been covered up. Angel wings. They weren’t too large and sat right where his shirt cut off. He used to call you Angel. But you hadn’t put two-and-two together because you wanted to see what else lie beneath that towel. It dawned on you what had happened, it dawned on you what the wings meant – Tom Holland had seen your tits and all he could do was stand there and make eye contact with you and wear an angel tattoo that signified you. This tattoo was new. He had a tattoo that signified you.

… and his gaze didn’t even make you feel flustered? The tattoo didn’t even make you want to cry. Everything was making you confused.

It was like his gaze was worth a thousand words. But you were supposed to hate him. You were supposed to have this pent-up rage. This blistering ache that leads to nothing good, and only arguments. This made you angry. Your thoughts made you angry. The fact that you had wanted to know what was underneath Tom’s towel. The fact that you had thought about him giving orgasms to other women. The fact that you had thought about how amazing he must be in bed. The fact that you had ogled him for what felt like ten years. You didn’t mind ogling him, but he was staring at you the whole time and he knew exactly what you were thinking. There was nothing there, there was no hate in his eyes. No compassion. No care. No emotion.

You’d think he’d turn red after seeing his ex-best friend’s tits, but he just stood there. He stood there until Timmy’s car pulled up in your driveway, ready to whisk you away. You almost couldn’t move for a moment. Like there was some unspoken connection between the two of you – regardless, you knew this silence wouldn’t last long between the two of you. For a moment you hesitated leaving your window.

But when you did, you made sure to close the curtain.

You laughed against your spoon, “So for statistics you sent in a video… singing about how much you loved Ms. Lawton? How have I never heard about this?”

He nodded proud and chuckled, “You didn’t hear about it, because, you only focused on the rumours about yourself,” Cut deep, but it was true, “and she’s still my favourite teacher, I miss having her though.”

You sighed, “Well, I hope she’ll teach you again someday.”

“Naw,” He shakes his head, “She failed me for that… and let me tell, you, y/n. That video was a masterpiece.” He picks up his spoon of chocolate yogurt and smiles taking it in his mouth.

You liked this. You liked hanging out with Timothée. It felt good. He felt kind. He felt like he was drama free. It didn’t matter that he was the football captain, because in reality, if you did end up being his girlfriend, you thought it’d be fun to do all those spirit things you’d seen in the halls. Homecoming was always the time of the year you enjoyed. You’d like to enjoy it with someone else, and Timmy was safe. He was nice. You could paint your face the colours of the school and cheer him on from the sidelines. It made part of you smile, but also part of you sad. That, that’s all your relationship could be. Face paint and cheering. But that’s only because he was safe. That’s because he was drama free.

You could do drama free.

Well, apparently, that had proven to be difficult, because whilst laughing at Timothée’s jokes and stories, you found yourself thinking about Tom. How he had seen your tits. How he hadn’t left the window. You could’ve devoured him in that moment, and he you. You had no idea why it felt like that. But you were sure Tom had felt that way too, there was no way he didn’t. There was no way he didn’t feel the electricity in the air… that electricity was a spark. That electricity was something you found yourself craving.

But you hated Tom.

You hated Tom.

You hated Tom?

No. He hated you too. He couldn’t stand you. He made your life hell… you hated Tom. You hatedTom. Nothing could change that for you. Not him seeing you naked. Not you seeing the way he was carved by some of the Gods above.

It pained you.

It pained you because you were sitting across from a really nice guy. A good guy. A guy any girl would kill to have. A guy any girl would be lucky to have… and you were thinking about the man who tortured you.

But the angel tattoo had to mean you. It had to.

Maybe Z was right, maybe he did still care about you.

But you shook it off and turned back to Timmy, enjoying your frozen yogurt.

After Timmy had dropped you off at home, you went to your room and turned your lights on, heading into the shower. The water was warm and burnt against your skin. You closed your eyes, letting your head fall underneath the water, as all you could think about was Tom. All you could think about was how he looked. All you could think about were his tattoos, his biceps his V-line. My god, his V-line.

Your hand slid down in between your legs, and you contemplated everything in your life. Were you really about to get off to the thought of Thomas Holland, the man that made your life hell? Yes. You were, and it felt good.

Your fingers landed on your lips, as you teased yourself, the hot water dripping down your body. Your tits feeling warm. You moved down onto the floor of your shower, your legs propped up, as you let your fingers toy with your clit, moving in slow and soft circles. The images of Tom flashed in your mind. How his gaze trailed your body after you got dressed, almost as his eyes craved for more. How his body was laced with water droplets. How his hair was wet and slick on his head. How his eyes were dark every time he looked at you. Hatred in his eyes, but as you touched yourself to the thought of him, all that did was turn you on. Feeling the anticipation, you placed a finger into your wet pussy, feeling your g-spot. Letting your other hand focus on your clit. You removed your finger out of your pussy and continued to rub your clit, this time it was faster, this time it was how you thought about Tom Holland’s cock. How large it must be. How it would hit your g-spot as he pumped into your aching pussy. You thought about his tongue. How it would suck your clit. Moving in circles. How he would taste all of you. You thought about how you would suck his cock and let him cum inside your mouth. You thought about him all hot and bothered because of you. Something you were almost sure would never happen, but the thought of it, the thought of him getting off to you just like you were to him. The thought of him fucking you. The thought of him getting a boner just by looking at you. Just by looking at your tits. You swear, you could feel his hand on your body as you moaned his name over and over again. Hoping that if you opened your eyes, you would find him there and let him fuck the life out of you. Let him fucking the devil into your body. Let him fuck you so hard that you couldn’t bear to walk the next day. You let your fingers pump into your own body, imagining his cock in place of your fingers. As you reached your orgasm. As you reached your peak, feeling that final knot in your stomach. That warmth. You were afraid to open your eyes, disappointed if you would not find Tom standing there watching you touch yourself to the thought of him and his cock.

And what a surprise.

He wasn’t there.

You let yourself sulk in disappointment. Still feeling the vibrations from your orgasm.

You finished washing yourself up, sliding a towel around your bodice, letting it cover yourself up. The curtain was closed, but it was tempting to open once more. Give Thomas another show. Maybe you were still horny.

How could you let yourself feel like this?

When did you start feeling this way?

Maybe fighting back gave you something to feel. It gave you exhilaration. You had barely talked to Tom this week and he had more of a hold on you than he knew about, and you had to let yourself suffer in silence, because there was no way he was going to want to make amends.

...and you were too proud to go over there and tell him off for the past few years.

The next day was cold – sliding on a jumper, you made your way out of your car, walking into school. You were excited to see Timmy. Despite having jerked off to the visual images of Tom, you couldn’t help but be excited to see him. He was a good friend. But unfortunately, that’s all you could see him as.

But when you showed up at his locker, you had seen a sight you didn’t want to see.

Timothée had a black eye.

Holy shit.

The bruise was so purple, you swear his nose was slightly broken, and there were cuts all over his face. What had happened to him?

“What happened to you?” You questioned, going to place a hand on his cheek, but before you could, he backed away slightly.

“I dunno,” He sighed, “Look, if I’m being honest, last night was a mistake.” Timmy said, you were quite confused from where this was coming from, but it was coming out of his mouth. You weren’t so sure it came from his heart, but he continued, “It was a bad idea, and I don’t really see you in that kind of way. We’d probably be better as friends.”

You nodded, “Cool, I get it. I kinda felt the same way,” You said honestly, “Anyway, I should get to my locker before the bell… I- I uh- I hope that heals well.” You gesture to your own face, in an attempt to get across your point – which probably could’ve been put together just by words.

It hadn’t crossed your mind till you say Z standing at your locker.

Had Tom done this?

You didn’t want to know. If you did, you don’t know what you would feel. Would your heart warm at the fact that he was so protective of you? Or would you throw up because he had beat up someone who hadn’t done anything but take you out on a date?

Probably a mixture of both.

Your thoughts were interrupted by Zendaya, who talked your ear off about her night with Haz, talking about how they went and saw a movie and went to the same frozen yogurt place Timmy and I had gone to.

You sighed, “Timmy was great, but we decided to just be friends this morning. But I’m not really sure that it was because of his own heart.” You closed your locker.

You and Z started to walk, “What do you mean by that?”

“He had a black-eye this morning and then when I went to touch his cheek and see what went wrong, he backed away and told me we could only be friends.” Your face twisted, “I have an idea of what might’ve happened, but I don’t really want to believe it.”

She chuckles, “What’s your ide- Oh.” She realises as she stops, before catching up to you again, “You don’t think it was Tom, do you?”

You shrug, “I dunno. It’s weird. This whole thing is weird,” You lower your voice, “He saw me naked last night! I forgot to close my window.”

“Why were you getting changed in front of your window?” She questioned you.

You shake your head, “Usually, the curtain that leads to his room is just closed, but yesterday you opened it and it got dark and I guess I just forgot to close it. Then I saw him standing there, shirtless, staring at me.”

She laughs softly, “I shouldn’t be laughing but that’s actually funny.”

“It’s not. It’s not Zendaya,” You braced yourself, your voice coming to a low, low whisper. “Because I liked the sight of him standing there.”

Her jaw physically drops. You could probably feed her a three-course meal all at once, “Holy shit y/n.” She closes her mouth, “I thought you hated him?”

“That’s the thing, Z! I do. I do hate him. I hate that he tortured me for years, but I’ve been thinking, he threatens boys, he spreads rumours around me to stop people from going out with me. He makes me look like a major loser, so they will stay away… maybe. Maybe he’s jealous?”

She scoffs, “There’s no fucking way he’s jealous, y/n. Boys who like you won’t make your life hell.”

“…But that’s the thing, recently, he hasn’t. He hasn’t bothered me. Hasn’t done anything to me actually… the only reason what happened in the cafeteria happened was because I messed with him.” You sigh, “I thought he was going to get in the way this year, that he was going to continue to torture me. But he hasn’t.”

She knows you’re right, “Look, I don’t know what you’re going to try and do, but please, be careful. I don’t want to deal with another crying you in the bathroom stall during lunch. There’s been a lot of that. It hurts me to see you hurt.”

You nod as she walks away from you, it seems as she runs over to you, remembering something, “Hey, there’s also a party that Haz invited me to, I think you should come. It’s on Friday night. I was going to tell you yesterday, but you know… Timmy.”

You chuckled, thinking about it for a short moment, before nodding your head, “I’ll go. Promise.”

She smiles before walking away, “See you at lunch!”

“See you at lunch!”

Friday rolls around quicker than expected, you pampered yourself up. Z picked you up that night. You were wearing a mesh dress with a white crop underneath. Z whistled as you walked out, and Haz was sitting in the front seat too. Your heels clicking against the concrete of your driveway. Tom walked out at the same time; you met his eyes as they trailed over you. But you didn’t give him the satisfaction of checking him out… you wish you did. Tom got into his own car. It was a sleek black car, which was typical for him – you had no idea when black had become his favourite colour. But it looked good on him, like really good.

Your breath hitches as you get into the car, Z drives off and the two of you make it to Penelope’s party. She was head cheerleader, and you knew you were only here because of Z having extended her invitation to you. Though, you weren’t sure she was really keeping a list. The party boomed with people all over the house. Red solo cups littered the floor – It reminds you of last Saturday at Tom’s party, but you shook that out of your mind.

You walked into the party, feeling the intoxicated gaze of everyone there. You walked into the kitchen, deciding to hang out there. You could see Haz and Z dancing together as she grinds up against his body. You sigh, debating if you should’ve come or not. But you were here. So, you kept to yourself, pulling out your phone and just scrolling on Instagram, your legs crossed on the counter.

Your phone showed with 10% flashing onto your screen. Shoving it back in your pocket reluctantly. You hop of the counter – it’s been twenty minutes since you got here, and you grabbed a red solo cup, filling it with Sprite. You didn’t want to get drunk. Not tonight.

You sigh, taking a sip of your drink. The time was going by slowly, and the next thing you knew, it had been three hours. Time was a terrible thing, and this party was so boring. Z and Haz looked like they were having the time of their lives.

They were both too drunk to drive you home, and you realised you hadn’t a ride home anymore.

Sighing, you took a seat on the front porch. The only thing you could do was wait out the time, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon.

“You need a ride home?” A voice spoke from behind you. Immediately, you knew it was Tom. The darkness in his voice always seemed to surprise you, but today, it was not unwelcomed. Tom wasn’t drunk.

You sighed, your hands hugging you, the dress was thin, and it was cold. You could only curse the night, “What does it matter to you?”

“It matters to me because I’ve been watching you sulk around the party, unimpressed, and quite frankly, you look like a fucking buzzkill.” He takes my red solo cup and takes a sip, “Not even drinking.”

You scoff, “Neither are you.”

“Not for the past two hours. When I got here, I was, but something tells me you haven’t even tried.”

He was right.

“Let me take you home, y/n.”

You shiver once more, and he peels his own jacket off of his body. You had just noticed, he was wearing a pair of jeans and a black Henley, paired with a leather jacket. Your fault for not checking him out earlier. He throws it over your shoulder, and the scent of his cologne fills your nose. You could almost give out.

“Fine,” You sigh, “You can take me home.”

You and Tom make it to his car. You sit inside the small, as he gets into the driver’s seat. You sighed, as Tom started his car, turning the heat on. You shivered when the warm air of his car hit you.

Tom’s music played over the speakers, R&B and Rap music. Drake played over and you opened the window, his jacket covered you, but you were warm as the wind blew through your hair. You questioned your life at this moment.

You questioned everything.

Why was Tom being nice tonight? Wasn’t he supposed to make your life hell? Why did he hate you one day? Why did he abandon you? Why didn’t he love you like you loved him all those years ago? Would he hate you like he hated you tomorrow?

“Pull over.” You told Tom.

He didn’t stop and your breath quickened. Thinking about this only made you want to feel fucking sick.

“Pull over, Thomas.” You spoke careful.

He didn’t stop.

“Tom. Pull the fuckover!” You raised your voice.

Tom finally stopped. The road was empty. There were no houses. Just wood, trees, and bushes.

You unbuckled your seatbelt and got out of the car. Trying to breath, but you felt sick. Why was Tom being like this? Why was thinking about Tom being kind to you making you feel sick? It wasn’t the gesture. It was the thought that tomorrow he would go back to making your life hell. It was the thought that he could just switch up and make everything so hard for you. He could just leave you again. He could just throw everything out the window.

He got out and watched you pace, his hand resting on your shoulder, “Y/n, what’s wrong?” He questioned and you swore, you could’ve punched him in the face. You could’ve broken his nose. You could’ve made him regret it all.

“YOU TOM!” Was all you could scream, before speaking once more, “You’re the problem. You’ve made my life hell these past couple years and it makes me want to scream at you. There have been countless rumours about me. I have never had a boyfriend. My first kiss was a bet to some boys. I haven’t lost my virginity yet and the only boy who seemed to take interest with me, had a black eye and told me he just wanted to be friends. All the girls at school think I’m a skank and still believe the rumour about me and Mr. Rule was true… and you started it all Thomas, and my only question is why? You left me. I was your best friend and you left me and decided to make my life hell. So, my only question is why? What did I do to you?”

“It wasn’t you, y/n. It was me.” He sighed, “After coming back from army camp, shit happened at home. Shit happened there. My whole life was crumbling around me. I didn’t believe in love. But you were still there and even though I felt like I hated you, I still loved you. I didn’t want anyone else to touch you. I didn’t want anyone to make you feel what I couldn’t. But this year. I let it go – I thought I could let it go. But seeing you with Timmy.”

He walked closer to you. His breath stalking your face.

“…It made me want you even more.”

Your breath shuttered. Feeling every bone in your back crumble as you felt cold, but there was no more wind around. Just Tom, his gaze made you want to fall to your knees. It was like he had you in a trance. It was like he had you.

… and he did.

You would do anything he asked you to right now. You would do anything for him. You don’t know why you felt like this. You don’t know why you felt like this. You had no idea what his eyes were doing to you. He wasn’t even touching you and you felt like a thousand suns. You could feel your heart swoon out of your chest. You felt yourself give in to him.

You gulped, carefully choosing your next words, “Tom.” Was all you could sputter out. His face came closer to yours, his brown eyes deepening in colour. The only thing you could see was him, and the only thing he could see was you.

“I want you to kiss me, y/n.” He speaks, “But only if you want to. I want you to want me.”

And you did. You wanted him.

Your lips connected with Tom’s; his breath hot on your face as you gave in. His lips felt hot on yours and as his hands trailed down your body, grabbing your ass, his touch felt hot. Full of desire. Full of want. His lips parted from yours as he pushed you against his car, his breath thick on the side of your face as he whispered in your ear. “That night when I saw you in your window, I touched myself to the thought you.”

Your breath caught in your throat. Most likely because you realised you had done the same thing to yourself and knowing that Tom had done it too made you all the more turned on. It made you want him more than you already had.

His kisses nipped at your neck as you shuddered. Feeling yourself grow all the more flustered. Feeling his soft lips press onto your skin and as your leg went in between his thighs, you could feel the jeans tighten around his groin.

“Fuck, y/n.” He speaks, “The things you do to me.”

You feel yourself grow eager for him. You feel yourself want him more than you’ve ever wanted anyone before – you feel a pool grow in between your legs; you feel yourself grow wet.

Tom’s hands travelled down your body, and back up, cupping the tit you know he had once seen, you let out a soft whimper, “Tom, please.” You could feel your head roll back, his kisses now on your neck.

“Let’s go back to mine then, yeah?” He asked you.

You nodded, so eager. As you drove – probably above the speed limit, Tom’s hand rested on your thighs. Not letting go of you, he moved his hand up and down, making your body tingle. His touch burning your skin. You could barely breathe. You wanted to feel his touch so badly.

When the two of you finally got to Tom’s, you rushed to get out of the car. Not a moment before Tom kisses you against his car one last time. Your tongues connecting in the most intimate way.

You pulled away as Tom moved, unlocking his front door, and pulling you up to his room. The walls were white, and his bedsheets were of course black. You fell onto the soft mattress, Tom’s body landing over you, pinning you down as he kissed your lips furiously. This time it was sweeter, it was careful, it was slow. He was slowing down because he knew you were a virgin. He wanted to care for you. He wanted this to be good for you. He wanted you to have a good time.

You never thought Tom could be like this toward you. So sweet and kind. The last few years were a blur and what he had done was toxic. You knew that. You told yourself you’d have a proper conversation about it. But even if it was. It only made you want him even more than you could ever imagine – and you wished this feeling would last. You wished he wouldn’t turn into someone who hated you the next day, but you were too lost in your desire for him to let yourself worry about what happens after.

Your breath caught itself as Tom kissed your neck again, he was going slow this time, giving you time… His hands ran up your dress, feeling your thigh, tickling the upper. You whimpered softly as he pulled the mesh dress over your head. He adored you. His eyes lit up at the sight of your body… It was perfect. It made him feel so many things. It made him feel happy. It made him feel the best he had felt in years. It made him feel sorry.

He knew tonight wouldn’t amount to the torture he had caused you. But he had hoped it would be the start, “God, you are so perfect.” He voiced.

You felt flush as he peppered kisses down your body once more. His hands toyed with the back of your bra, removing it from its clasp. Letting it fall, throwing it to the side, “Just as perfect as Monday night, y/n.” He smirks as he places his mouth over your nipple, sucking softly. Making you moan.

That had now become his new favourite sound.

Tom’s hands held your waist, touch still burning your skin. Stomach fluttering, you weren’t sure because if it was because of your pleasure, or the intense crush you had on Tom. Maybe it was because his lips were making your nipples hard, and his grip held onto the other. Pinching it lightly, making you wet. Soft moans escaping your mouth again.

Tom’s fingers moved from your boob to the waistband of your panties. He wanted to rip them off and see how wet you were for him. He pulled his mouth off of your tit, looking at you for permission and all you did was nod.

“If you don’t like anything I do, tell me… promise me.” Tom mutters loud enough for you to hear.

It’s just the two of you, and your heart stops. The window above his bed highlights his face in the moon, the light accentuating his jawline and his beautiful curls hung low, his hair had no gel. His hair was free. His eyes were filled with desire, but they were soft. His gaze wasn’t harsh. He had been waiting to hold you for so long and you were finally here, in his arms. He hadn’t taken his clothes off yet, but you were sure the two of you would get to that soon.

You nodded, understanding, “I promise.”

Tom slides down your body, placing kisses down your chest, down your stomach and when he finally reaches your underwear, he pulls them off and throws them into the pile where your bra sits.

Tom’s large hand grazes the lips of your pussy, “God, you are so wet.” He sounds almost hungry for a taste of you.

And he is.

Carefully, Tom places a finger in between your lips, moving his finger slowly around your clit. You shuddered slightly at his touch, feeling it was so much better than imagining it like you had done the other night. His fingers were large, and the palms of his hands were rough, but so soft at the same time, one of them gripping on to your thigh. Tom’s finger was soon replaced with his tongue.

The taste of you was better than he could have ever thought. You were sweet and he loved it. His tongue did wonders on your clit. He moved it slow at first, but he sped it up a little as you slid a hand into his hair, holding onto it, letting out soft moans as your head fell back slightly. But you had moaned your loudest when Tom placed two fingers inside of you. The fingers pumped in and out, touching your g-spot, and although he moved his fingers slowly at first, it was still the best you had ever felt. You needed more. You needed to cum for the first time that night.

“Fuck Tom, faster, please.” You groaned as Tom smirked against your pussy, pumping his fingers faster, licking your clit furiously, waiting for your pussy to clench around his fingers.

For the first time that night, your stomach felt warm, feeling like it was tied in a knot. Your back arching slightly.

“That’s right, y/n, come for me,” He moves his fingers slower as you come down from your high.

Your pussy continues to throb, your clit feels like it’s pulsing.

You look at Tom, “Take off your pants, I want to make you feel good.” You whisper carefully.

“Are you sure, baby?” He questions, “I want you to feel better than I ever could.”

“And you’ve done that,” You smile softly, “Let me make you feel good, Tom.”

He smiles. He loves this. He loves you.

Tom pulled his shirt off first, and he could feel your gaze on his abs. You had previously looked at these through your own window but seeing them up close was like a dream for you. You could finally see the angel wings, they were beautiful. The vines that lead to his neck were beautiful. The band on his arm was beautiful.

His pants were the next thing to come off, he pulled his boxers down with them. You were finally staring at the cock you dreamt about. This was in your head. But it didn’t look like this… no. It was better. It was bigger than you ever imagined it could be. It was long and you knew it would fill you up. You wanted it inside of you. But you knew you had to make Tom feel good first. You promised yourself you would.

Tom was standing up at the end of his bed. So, when you got up and got on your knees, he swore to himself he could’ve came right there and then. You were so beautiful, staring up at him. So, innocent. All the girls he had got with before were either full of STD’s or just looking for something quick. But you. You were something else. You had never been touched before. You were all Tom’s and Tom had made it evident that even though he had been with many girls before you. He was yours.

You slowly wrapped your mouth around Tom’s cock, wondering if you were doing the right thing. You were following the stuff you had seen in porn – but that wasn’t anything like real life and you knew that. But it was the best instruction you had.

The confirmation that you were doing something right was when Tom moaned as you licked his tip. Your tongue moved around his tip, kissing it and then you pushed your head further over it. Tom knew you had never done this before. He could tell, but it turned him on even further, just made him want you more.

“Fuck, y/n.” He spoke, his head falling back, much like yours earlier. His hand then slid on your head. Pushing you further down his cock. You gagged slightly but moaned as you took all of Tom in your mouth. Carefully pulling away, you slid your hand in between your legs, using your natural lube to jerk Toms cock off with your hand. Pumping it, from the base to the tip over and over. Tom knew he was going to cum. But he wanted to be inside you.

“Let me fuck you, baby.” He said after a long moan.

You smiled up at him, he was going to fuck you. And you were excited.

You lay down on the bed. A slight nervousness built in your stomach. As excited as you were, you were kinda afraid, and Tom knew that. He could see how nervous you were in your eyes. He could see that you were ready, but in readiness, there was still that anxiety, that what you’re doing might not be right.

“If you don’t want to do this, that’s okay.” Tom spoke gently, “…and if you do want to and then you don’t, that’s okay too. But if we do this and you want something from me, tell me and I’ll make it happen.”

You pecked a quick kiss to his lips, “I want this, Tom. I want you.” You spoke honestly.

He matched your grin, “Okay… this might hurt, okay?”

You nodded, slightly scared. Tom’s arms wrapped around you making you feel the safest you could’ve felt in a situation like this.

His cock entered you slowly, pressing against your g-spot for a moment, you felt a jolt of pain. It was sudden and lasted a few moments, but soon, it was all pleasure. You felt the tip of Tom’s cock touch your g-spot, moaning as he did so. Louder than you had that night.

“Fuck, Tom!” Your head flew back as your lips connected to his. The bed shaking from underneath you as you both moved in sync with each other. You both knew exactly what you wanted from each other. Pleasure.

Neither of you were short of it.

You could feel yourself coming closer and closer to the edge. Trying to hold out for Tom, but you couldn’t do it anymore, and Tom could sense it.

“Y/n, it’s okay, cum for me, sweetheart. Cum right all over my cock.” He moans as he continues to push into you.

Your knot returns, the warm feeling in your stomach doing the same, as you let go right all over Tom’s cock. He groaned at how your pussy clenched around him. He slowed down, continuing to push in and out, before pulling out of you. Rubbing himself. You sat there in awe of how he jerked his own cock, of how he pleasured himself, and you were turned on at how the sticky white cum landed on your stomach as his head fell back.

Tom fell beside you, and you placed a kiss to his mouth, “Thank you, Tom.” You spoke sweet, your tone calm and he looked at you with the softest gaze in the world. His brown eyes encapsulated you.

“I should probably go get cleaned up.” You look down at the cum that sits on you, now going cold against the air.

He chuckled, “Yeah, feel free to use the shower in there.” He pointed to a door that led to the bathroom.

As you walked inside, Tom watched you walk. Tom thought about how lucky he was to have a girl like you. But he questioned whether or not you would come back to bed. Whether or not you would choose to lie beside him and let yourself fall for him. Tom had fucked it up and he knew that. But he was going to be better. He had to. He loved you.

You stepped out of the bathroom, all cleaned up and patted dry, “Is it okay if I stay?” You asked him, and all Tom could do was smile, feeling the bed dip as you got back in, his arm snaking around your still naked body.

You were pressed against his chest as you spoke to him, "Is the angel tattoo about me, Tom?" You questioned, you could feel him freeze, you could feel his heart stop for a moment.

"Yeah it is." He sighed, "I wanted to get something that meant something to me, y'know, and everything that is on me. It means something. But, it's all symbolic. I couldn't ever bring myself to truely hate you, y/n. I always loved you. I thought what I was doing was okay, until Haz snapped me out of it, called me an idiot, told me how I really felt. I'm sorry."

You were silent before pressing a kiss to his chest, that's all you did. That's all you needed to do. Although no amount of sorry could fix what he did, his actions. His taking care of you, him making you feel good. It was a start.

You sat in Tom’s car as he looked at you, the gaze still the same; softest in the world – you had a feeling that’d never change, “Tom, I’m nervous. What will they think of us? What will they think of me? You literally tortured me and now I’m out here kissing your perfect lips and holding your hand.”

You and Tom had talked about everything. How he hurt you. How he’d made your life terrible. All he did was cry and apologise.

“I’m sorry, y/n.” His eyes welled up, now bloodshot red. “That was never my intention. I wanted to love you, but I had no idea how… Military camp, my parents divorce. It all fucked me up – that’s no excuse for what I did to you. I pushed you out when I should’ve let you in. I want to be your boyfriend, I want to love you – I want you to trust me and know that when I say I’ll never hurt you again, I mean it. I mean it y/n because I love you.”

There were almost twenty-five other monologues almost completely similar because he couldn’t stand the fact that he had hurt you. Not at all. You weren’t ready to completely trust him all the way yet. But you loved him, that was a fact. Despite all the fucked-up shit he did to you. You loved him and only him. He understood that it would take you awhile to trust him whole. But you loved him, so you agreed to it. You agreed to be his girlfriend.

You took his hand in yours, “God, Tom, I love you, but I’m scared.” You pouted. This was the only way to announce your relationship. By being the way the two of you had been for the past 3 days, where you had enjoyed your beautiful honeymoon bubble.

“Hey, baby, it’ll be okay, alright?” His lips graze the back of your hand, “I promise.”

“I hope you’re right, Thomas.”

He chuckles, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

And it was okay.

Despite the stares and the confusion.

Everything was okay.

Because you were you.

And Tom was Tom.

And you loved Tom.

#tom holland smut #tom holland imagines #tom holland au #tom holland fanfiction #x reader #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland x reader imagine #tom holland fluff

1K notes · View notes

iamfitzwilliamdarcy · 2 years ago

Text

Lex Luthor: A Demonic Role

(Here it is, as promised!! It got VERY long but I think Tumblr cuts off posts now... if not I’lll edit in a read more (it’s nearly midnight and I didn’t proofread this so hopefully it is ok and at least a little insightful/interesting:)

So as promised– my Lex Luthor and demons post!! This might go along with @catie-does-things Clark as a saint post from years ago that is still excellent (I am now also considering Clark as a St Michael specifically and in contrast to Lex but that needs more exploration)

Anyway I was listening to this specific episode of the podcast The Lord of Spirits, where two Orthodox priests discuss…. spirits. As a general disclaimer I am not Orthodox. I am not even an Eastern Catholic, I am just a humble Roman and a Modern American laywoman at that. So that perspective colors my approach here a bit. As another disclaimer is that I did not re-listen to the podcast and it’s been about a week since I first listened– I did, however find the transcript and am referencing, likely quoting it– it can be found here, along with the show. I am also not an expert on ancient near-East cultures and so if my language is not precise, please forgive me.

To summarize the episode (and I guess the podcast as a whole), they are discussing how we encounter the spiritual in the physical world, and that our term of “angel” is not entirely specific as “angel” is a rank (messenger). As English speakers, we kind of dance around the idea that there are other “gods” because we think that means we are talking about polytheism. But the Hebrew does not and is pretty clear there is only one God worthy of worship even if there are these other spiritual beings, lower case gods. For ease of this post, I will use gods to refer to named pagan gods, and angels/demons to reference spiritual beings– however, note that pagan gods and demons (that is, a fallen angel in the English sense) are the same.

What does that have to do with Lex Luthor? I am getting there. This specific episode talks about pagans and pagan beliefs. Pagans were not dumb– they were experiencing the same spiritual reality that we are— but they were misguided and misled. Many of the demons who fell had been assigned to different natural phenomena or nations – the sun, the stars, storms, various nations or cities. They are supposed to direct worship to the only God worthy of worship– the Hebrew God, the actual Most High, but many began to accept the worship of humans and so this is part of their fall.

One point the podcast returns to is these succession myths– that is, across various cultures, there is usually a myth of a son of god (or at least a new god) overthrowing the previous high god– Zeus overthrowing Cronus, Cronus overthrowing his father are common ones we know but there are two Mesopotamian/babylonian ones involving Baal as well, who we know is a frequent player in the Bible. This is essentially demon propaganda– the demons remember are spiritual beings who rebelled against God by rejecting Him and refusing to serve Him– but they could not actually overthrow the actual Most High God, so they tell stories to the humans of how they wish it had gone. For some more in depth, here is a quote from the podcast:

Fr. Stephen: The first of these probably is what’s referred to, generally by scholars, in all of these stories together, is you find in pretty much every ancient culture some version of what’s called the succession myth, which is, bare bones, the idea that there was a—we talked before about how there was the idea of a council of gods and sort of a divine father-type god, and then a divine son who was the head of the council. We talked about how in Israel that was Yahweh in both cases, so you already have [this binary] built into ancient Israel religion. But the idea in most of the other cultures of the ancient world, pretty much universally, is that there was an original most high god, who was overthrown at least once by a later god who rose up from among the council, by one of his sons in the council, who overthrew him and took his place, that of the most high god.

So the most common—you mentioned Baal already—this happens with Baal. The Baal cycle is primarily the tale of Baal’s insurrection. This happens twice in Babylonian mythology. It happens twice in Greek mythology, as people may be aware, when Chronos castrates his father, Uranos or Uranus, and becomes most high god, and then Zeus later kills his father Chronos and takes his place. So there are actually two successions there, as well as in Babylonian mythology.

So you have this story of a rebellion, but in every case in these other nations, that rebellion was successful, and of course the version that we are going to see in the Old Testament in the Hebrew Scriptures is going to be inverted in that this insurrection is going to have failed.

Lex Luthor, of course, buys into this. He projects his hatred for his father– who used his power to abuse Lex– onto God– and then onto Superman. He is attempting the succession myth – “and now god bends to my will”-- it appears to work too– he might be in jail but by the end he’s “killed” a god, he’s won.

Another fall of the demons, however, is also giving humans knowledge and technology they are not ready for– the podcast doesn’t get super in depth about that (or if it did, it was the part where I was driving in a congested area and I missed some of it lol), but they did specifically address Prometheus from the Greeks and alluded to other Sumerien myths. It’s a bit of a long quote from the transcript, but I think it’s worthwhile:

There’s a narrative before the flood and then after the flood. Before the flood, that’s the time of the seven sages, the Apkallu, the first of which comes out of the sea, and as an Apkallu has one of these lesser gods who is advising him. Because of this advisor, the king is able to create astrology, magic, technology, all of these things, based on this knowledge that he’s given from these spirits.

The major figures in Cain’s line who are named, it talks about the technological innovations that they produced, which are weapons of war, all of these things. So this idea is, yes, these spirits gave technology to man, but it was not to benefit man; they were giving man technology that humanity wasn’t ready for, but for destroying themselves.

…

Fr. Andrew: Right, and this same story is played out in multiple other ancient mythologies. The one that probably most of our listeners are familiar with is Greek mythology, and you’ve got the story of Prometheus, who gives fire from the gods to mankind. But of course in that story, it’s depicted as Prometheus… It’s correct in the sense that Prometheus is sort of rebelling, he’s doing something he’s not supposed to be doing, but it’s presented as positive, like: look at this wonderful gift that he gave mankind.

But the problem, of course, is that, again, it’s propaganda. This is these demons saying, “Look at all these good things that we gave you. Why don’t you just go ahead and bow down and worship us?” … There’s this promise of being great, being smart, being beautiful, being popular, being wealthy, being prestigious—if only you would serve whatever it is that you are asked to serve. It’s a trick. As you said, it’s for their destruction. Notice whom this technology is given to; it’s given to Cain, the first murderer, and to his descendants.

But the problem, of course, is like, you look at this stuff, and you’re like: What’s so wrong with iron-working and with music? What’s wrong with that stuff?

Fr. Stephen: Right, and it gets expanded firstly in the book of Jubilees, to include all kinds of things in terms of pharmaceuticals and sorcery and means of seduction of the opposite sex. But even if we’re just talking about raw technology, again, it’s not that it’s evil any more than the tree of knowledge of good and evil is evil in and of itself, but it was wisdom for which humanity wasn’t ready to use it appropriately. So it comes to these men as: “I’m giving you this knowledge so that you can use it to gain power and to conquer your neighbors, to set yourself up as a king, to seduce members of the opposite sex, so you will have this power and wealth and authority,” and that’s what humanity uses it for.

From the pagan perspective, kingship and these kings are these glorious beings; from the perspective of Scripture, they are these wicked beings who are destroying themselves and each other and the world around them.

I bolded the parts that remind me of Lex in particular. We have talked before about how BvS, is, to an extent, entirely about power (“men with power obey neither policy nor principle” “that’s how it starts the the fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men cruel” “knowledge without power is paradoxical” “do you know the oldest lie in the book, Senator? That power can be innocent – good luck,” “if God is all-good, he cannot be all powerful, if God is all powerful, He cannot be all good… and neither can you be”)

We see Lex is seeking power throughout the movie– he is projecting his rage at his father, who abused his power and authority over Lex, onto both God and Superman. Bruce, also, feels powerless against the violence enacted upon him, but that’s a separate post, we are focusing on Lex, who is attempting to re-gain power he feels he does not have. Interestingly, when he confronts Superman on the rooftop, he has the Advantage– he is the wealthy, authoritative one, wielding all the power and yet…. Still casting himself as a victim.

Anyway, back to the technology distribution – Lex specifically mentions Prometheus– I just watched this scene– he says “Prometheus went with us and he ruined Zeus’ plan to destroy mankind… and for that he was given a thunderbolt! Zoom! Seems unfair.” Diana rolls her eyes at this, but it’s an excellent throw-away line about Lex’s perception of both himself and the world– he is viewing himself as a Prometheus figure.

We know Lex is obsessed with power and knowledge– he has a weird breakdown over it at the Friends of the Metropolis Library speech immediately following his mention of Prometheus – “the bittersweet pain among men is having knowledge with no power because that is paradoxical”. – We also see Lex exploring technology he was not ready for – he tells Bruce ““My R and D is up to all sorts of no good” – which on the surface is bit of light hearted business Talk…but we, as the audience, know better. We know he is messing around with Kryptonite and with Zod’s body. We see him in the Genesis chamber, assuming command. The Genesis Chamber tells him it has knowledge from a hundred thousand different worlds and Lex says-- “good, teach me”. This concludes with him over-riding the chamber itself and participating in the creation of an abomination, an abomination he is warned against. He is using technology for his own gain, for his own power-- for evil-- he was not prepared for it and does not use it appropriately

(We have talked before about how doomsday also casts Lex in a Creator and Father role, once more casting of himself as a mythological high god.)

ANOTHER piece here– Lex messing around with alien technology, with things that were Beyond him and not made for him– at least not yet– leads him to contact with Darkseid. He knows Darkseid is coming – the bell can’t be unrung– and seems to be working in his service. Beyond that– he intends to distribute this technology –he wants to get an import license for the Kryptonite so we don’t have to rely on the kindness of strangers. Obviously he will still have control but… he allows Bruce to take the Kryptonite because he wants Bruce to have it. He intends for Bruce to have it… as part of his plan to take down a god.

So we have Lex actively casting himself both in a succession myth and as a benevolent, powerful being, providing technology to the simple folk (the way he says “kindness of strangers”-- the mocking of the Southern accent….). He is the type of man to enjoy a Good Narrative– his constant referencing of mythology and art and even his Lolita references– and so how he places himself as a god, not realizing he is only buying into propaganda, that he is orchestrating his own fall.

His complete rejection of good has invited the demonic into his life. He’s unleashed something he is incapable of controlling and in fact threatens him— not just Doomsday but an old god beyond his control (in an act of seeking power and control for himself). In casting himself as a god, he has only given himself the role of a fallen god– a demon, who has no more power and authority over God than he did as a man.

(There are similar ideas here also with Suicide Squad’s Enchantress – but that’s a different post.)

#dceu #lex luthor #zack snyder #chris terrio #batman v superman #i uh wish this were better but i want it out there #bvs #bvs:doj #dawn of justice #batman v superman dawn of justice

17 notes · View notes

snowdice · 3 years ago

Text

Big Bang (Sort of) Editing Story [Day 67]

I started writing this fic while editing my Big Bang story, but am going to continue doing it for other things now that Kill Dear is out. I will write and publish 100 words of the story every time I finish doing whatever task I’m doing. If you’d like to block these proceedings, please feel free to block the tag proofread stories. I will reblog this post with the parts of the story I do today. Edited chapters are linked; everything else I’ve done so far is under the cut.

My Master Post Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30

Got many things to do today, though I do have a meeting in a bit over an hours, so there will be a break.

Chapter 31

Logan waited for a while after Patton left to check on Virgil, but the two never resurfaced. It was odd, Patton would usually remember to come back and get Logan or at least tell them where they were. With a sigh, Logan climbed to his feet to go find them. It took him a while to weave his way through the maze of bushes to them especially because they were suspiciously quiet (Well, suspicious for Patton. Virgil was often unnervingly quiet when alone.) Luckily, he knew the bushes enough after all of these years not to get lost and managed to find the two after a few minutes.

��Ah,” he said, immediately identifying the reason for Patton disappearing.

“Logan!” Patton said, his voice excited, but also quieter than normal. “We found a kitty!”

“I can see that,” Logan responded, taking a step closer. The cat hissed at him in response. The hissing was so intense and wild that he’d suspect the thing was feral if it wasn’t happily on Virgil’s lap having had it’s head in Patton’s lap before Logan had approached.

“No,” Virgil told the animal as though it could understand words. “That’s Logan. Be nice.”

The cat still glared at him and swished it’s tail back and forth threateningly. Virgil pet the top of it’s head and it broke eye contact with Logan to purr.

Patton seemed delighted by the purring, reaching to stroke under the thing’s chin carefully. “We should give her a name!” Patton said.

Virgil frowned. “I thought her name was Ghost Kitty.”

“That is ‘Ghost Kitty’?” Logan asked skeptically. From what Patton had said about that cat, it was terrified of people and no one could ever get near it, even him. Now it was in Virgil’s lap?

“But that was a temporary name,” Patton said, “for before we officially met her. Now we have to give her a real name.”

“Do not give it a name,” Logan said. “You will get attached.”

“How do you name a cat?” Virgil asked.

“Do not name it,” Logan said.

“You give them names based on their personalities, how they look, or even just because it’s a cute name,” Patton explained. “Like, remember Mittens? I named her Mittens because she has white fur and black paws!”

Virgil looked at the cat. “She’s completely black,” he said.

Patton hummed. “So, we could give her a name based on that like Midnight or Shadow.”

“Those are fine,” Virgil said.

“No, no,” Patton said. “I’m just giving you examples. You get to name her yourself.”

“This is a bad idea,” Logan said.

“Just throw out some names,” Patton said. “Anything you can think of.”

“Uh,” Virgil said. “Knife.”

“…Just Knife?” Patton asked.

“Nightmare.” Virgil seemed to think about it. “No, that’s mean.”

“How about things you like?” Patton suggested.

“Alfredo?”

Oh no, Logan thought, he was worse than Patton at cat naming.

“Good start,” Patton said. “Logan, do you have any suggestions.”

“Cat,” Logan said.

“Real suggestions,” Patton scolded.

Logan sighed and thought for a moment. “Aphrodite.”

“Catphrodite!”

Logan glared at him. “Helena.”

“Helenpaw.”

“Claudia.”

“Clawdia.”

“Persephone.”

Patton smiled at him, cheerfully.

“…Damnit!”

Patton turned to Virgil again. “Like that! They don’t even have to be serious. Like, uh, you could name her Madam Fluffywuffykins the Great!”

“Do not name her that,” Logan said, scrunching up his nose.

Logan sat on the ground, the cat eyeing him, but no longer hissing. Logan gently guided them towards more sensible names despite Patton trying his hardest to drag them into stupidity.

Virgil still didn’t quite get it. He mostly tried to name it after foodstuff, and often not even appropriate foodstuff such as “Corn” and “Acorn Squash” and “Sandwich” and occasionally would drop in semi violent ones such as “Razor,” “Nightshade” and “Void.” Patton suggested names like “Fluffers,” “Bobette” and “Darling” as well as some that were puns. Logan tried to direct them towards more sensible ones like “Salem” and even went so low as to suggest the contrary “Snowball.”

It quickly seemed to become less about actually naming the cat and more of a game. Patton had taught Virgil about playing with cats and had even gotten out a ball of yarn he cared around for his crafts. Both Virgil and the cat seemed to find endless entertainment with that. Logan hoped Patton had another ball of yarn that color because, he was never going to get that ball back.

The barrage of names fizzled out into naming things around them like “Leaf” and “Bush” until they stopped suggesting names altogether. Patton and Logan sat back and watched Virgil play with the cat.

Logan watched as they stopped playing suddenly and Virgil and the cat squinted at each other. “Marisol,” Virgil said, pulling the name out of nowhere. “That’s her name.” He said it with a certainty that was surprising considering how he’d treated the naming process with confusion and caution earlier. If Logan did not know better, his tone of voice would indicate that the cat, or Marisol he guessed, had gotten bored of them coming up with stupid names and decided to tell him her actual name herself.

The cat made a sound and batted at Virgil’s face without claws to grab back his attention.

He turned back to it and bopped its face with a finger in kind. It attacked his finger, but in a clearly playful matter as it still did not extend it’s claws and its teeth did not draw blood.

“That’s a great name, Virgil,” Patton said.

“Much more pleasant than any that Patton suggested all afternoon,” Logan said. He received an elbow to the side for his quip.

“A pretty name for a pretty kitty,” Patton said, scooting over to where Virgil was sat and attempting to pet Marisol’s head. Marisol, however, was too keyed up and batted at the hand.

“I love you too!” Patton said.

Logan rolled his eyes, but he had long since resigned himself to watching the two of them play with and coo over the cat for the rest of the day.

Eventually, though, it started to get darker. Even after Logan pointed this out, it still took over an hour for them to relent and leave the bush maze to go to the door. The problem was of course, that the cat had managed to grow very attached to Virgil in the last few hours and she followed them all the way to the door with manipulatively heart breaking mews.

“You’ve got to stay out here,” Virgil said, when they got to the castle door. He pet her ear softly and she shoved her head into his hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t have anywhere to put you.” He sounded horribly sad about that fact and Logan felt himself shift uncomfortably. “I basically live in a closet and Logan doesn’t like cats in his room anyway.”

Logan immediately felt unreasonably guilty, probably more so because Logan did not think Virgil was trying to make him feel guilty. “…Bring the dammed thing inside.”

Virgil blinked up at him. “What?”

“It will get cold soon anyway,” Logan said.

He frowned at Logan from where he was crouched. “But you don’t like fur in your room…”

“I will have to find a potion that works,” he said with a sigh, “and we’ll have to say it’s mine to the guards and Father since it will be staying in my room, but it is yours in every other way. That means you are going to feed it, clean it, and clean up after it.”

Virgil nodded immediately and swooped Marisol up in his arms. The cat went without complaint. “Thank you!” he said. “I love her.”

“I know you do,” Logan said, already regretting it already. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to even consider recanting the offer considering how happy Virgil seemed to be. They had a cat now, he guessed.

Chapter 32

“What are you doing?” Helen asked a few minutes after her son walked into the kitchen and started looking around as though he were trying to find something. It was a few hours into the afternoon, and she and a few workers were already prepping for dinner.

“Uh,” Patton said. “Have you seen Virgil?”

“No,” Helen said. “Why.”

“Er… Logan and I sorta, lost him,” Patton said. He was wringing his hands anxiously. Helen put down the knife in her hand.

“What do you mean you lost him?” she asked.

“Well, see, we were trying to teach him how to play hide and seek, um, but then we didn’t think to tell him that he eventually had to come out if we didn’t find him, and now we haven’t seen him since breakfast.”

“He didn’t know what tag is?” she asked. That was just one more thing to add to the list of why Helen worried about Virgil and where he came from. Every morsel of information she’d managed to wring from Patton despite his evasions made her lists of concerns grow larger, even little things like him not knowing about simple childhood games. Actually, thinking of concerning things having to do with Virgil. “Wait, so he hasn’t eaten lunch.”

“Um, we don’t know that,” Patton’s mouth said while his eyes said ‘no.’

“He needs to be on a consistent diet, especially when he’s still taking the malnutrition potion,” she scolded.

“I know, Mama, I know,” Patton said. “I’m trying to find him. I’d kinda hoped he’d gotten hungry and snuck down here. He probably wouldn’t want to risk being caught stealing food though.”

Helen grimaced. Yet another concerning thing.

“Wait! I have an idea, I’ll be right back.” Patton turned and ran out of the room. Helen frowned at the space he’d been and finished chopping the carrot on the cutting board in front of her. If it had been any other person in the castle missing, Helen wouldn’t have worried, but she had literally never seen Virgil without Patton and/or Logan by his side. Even when he’d gone to help Jeff can some fruit, Logan had reportedly hung around to read a book.

Considering that Logan had never exactly been clingy even with Patton, she imagined that either Virgil asked, or Logan thought he should stay with him for his comfort. So, she was surprised that he was apparently hidden away somewhere in the castle where neither of the other kids could find him.

Still thinking about this, she walked over to the entrance to the cellar below the kitchen where they stored most of the vegetables, planning to grab some more carrots. She was confused for a moment when she heard movement from deeper in the pantry. She reached over and touched the panel near the door that controlled the magic lights.

The newly illuminated figure startled as the lights came on, whipping around to stare at her with wide eyes.

“Virgil?” she asked.

“Sorry,” he said immediately, taking a step back.

“It’s fine,” she said immediately, “but what are you doing here?”

He considered her for a long moment, but apparently, she passed some sort of mental test, because he relaxed, at least as much as he’d ever relaxed in her presence. “Where are we?” he asked.

Her brow knit together. “The cellar under the kitchen,” she said, “You don’t know that?”

He shook his head.

“The only entrance is from the kitchen.” Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen him go through the kitchen at any point.

“No, it’s not,” Virgil said. “There’s a tunnel.”

“A-a tunnel?” she asked. Actually, taking a closer look at him, he seemed a bit grimy. He had dust all over his front and dirt on his nose. She thought he might even have a couple of cobwebs in his hair.

“Yep,” he said.

“Where’s the tunnel?” she asked.

“It’s right over here,” he said. He took a couple of steps and pointed to the ground. There was an open square hole there that clearly had been made a long time ago but which she had never noticed in all of her time working here.

“How did you find this?” she asked.

“We were playing hide and seek,” Virgil explained. “Logan said I could hide anywhere inside the castle. I hid on top of a dresser upstairs in some unused sitting room. There was a hole in the wall above it, so I climbed into it. Then, I crawled a little bit and it let out into a hidden passage in the walls. I wandered around in it until I found another hole in one of the walls. I thought it was a way out, so I squeezed into it, but it took me to a different hallway where I found an old room. There was a different hole in that room that had probably been covered by something because it was in the floor but whatever it was had rotted away. I crawled though it into a tunnel and came out here.”

She couldn’t help but laugh a bit at his explanation. “Well, it sounds like you went on an adventure,” she said, “but Patton and Logan have been trying to find you. You missed lunch.”

He tilted his head at her. “I know. I was supposed to hide.”

“Yes,” she explained, “but you are supposed to come out at some point if they can’t find you for things like food.”

“Oh,” he said.

“They probably should have explained,” she said. “For now, why don’t we get you something to eat? You must be hungry.”

Virgil frowned. “But I missed lunch.”

“You can still eat even though it’s not in normal hours,” she said. “You could even if you had made it to lunch.”

“Really?” he asked, he looked tragically confused by this offer.

“Of course, sweetie,” she said. “In fact, I insist you get something good to eat right now. How about I made you a grilled ham and cheese sandwich? Maybe some cookies too!”

Virgil titled his head. “You are Patton’s mother,” he stated.

Helen laughed softly. “He gets its all from me,” she said. “We should probably go find him and tell him you’re okay. He was worried.”

“I didn’t mean to worry him,” Virgil said with a frown.

“I know,” Helen said. “It’s okay. He’ll probably laugh when he figures out where you’ve been, and Logan will interrogate you all about the secret passageways.” He seemed happy about the prospect of seeing his friends. “Come on, let’s go upstairs for a bit,” she said.

Chapter 33

Patton’s mom had already made Virgil sit down at the small table in the corner of the kitchen and had handed him a sandwich by the time Patton barreled into the kitchen, Logan coming after him at a more sedate pace.

“Virgil!” he said, sounding surprised and relieved.

“Patton,” Patton’s mom scolded. “No cats in the kitchen.” Patton had brought Marisol in with him and had let her go as soon as he’d seen Virgil. She immediately plodded over to him and hoped onto the table to sniff at his face in greeting.

“But she’s the princess!” Patton argued.

“No,” Logan said.

“Yes, she is!” Patton said.

“The stupid cat is not a princess.”

“Don’t be mean to your little sister, Logan.”

“I regret every life decision that has led me to this point.”

While Logan and Patton were distracted squabbling and Patton’s mom was distracted watching them squabble, Virgil tore off a bit of the ham in his sandwich and offered it to Marisol. Marisol gracefully took it from his grip and ate it.

“So, this is Logan’s new cat I’ve been hearing about?” Patton’s mom asked.

“Indeed,” Logan said, his lips thinned. He and Marisol were mostly amicable when alone with just them and Virgil, but Patton had a habit of cooing over the kitten and needling Logan into being irritated.

“Mmm, yeah,” Patton’s mom said. She glanced over at Virgil right as Marisol basically slammed her face into his chin in a bid to get pets. “Your cat.” She shook her head. “But Princess Kitten or not, I do not want fur in dinner,” she said.

“Sorry,” Patton said, honestly not sounding sorry at all. Virgil was always a bit surprised when the insolent shrug garnered nothing more that a scowl that did not reach Patton’s mom’s eyes. “I thought she could help me find Virgil, but you already found him.” He turned to Virgil. “Where have you been all day?”

“Found a tunnel,” Virgil said. He had to use one hand to hold Marisol back from his sandwich as he took another bite, but then gave her a bite of cheese.

“You found what?” Logan asked.

“There’s a tunnel under the cellar,” Virgil said. “It goes to an old closed up room and also to a set of secret passageways.” It was a bit of a security risk honestly, though clearly no one had used it in years by how dirty it was. He did plan to go back into it and make sure the sprawling tunnels didn’t go to anywhere more dangerous like the royal wing.

“A closed-up room?” Logan said. He could see a bit of curiosity already building in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Virgil said. “Where the door used to be seemed like it had been bricked over.”

“Really? Can you show me.”

“Sure,” Virgil answered.

“Ah, perhaps we should be a bit more cautious about climbing through random tunnels we don’t know the stability of,” Patton’s mom said.

Logan’s frown edged on a pout.

“Talk to your father,” she said. “I’m sure he can get someone who understands these things so you can safely investigate.”

“It was safe enough for Virgil,” Logan pointed out.

“No, Logan.”

He sighed but seemed to concede. That was another strange thing about living here. By all rights Logan didn’t have to obey anyone except the king, but he often listened to those around him, not just the adults but Patton as well. It was interesting though it sometimes made the hierarchy hard to figure out. Virgil did sometimes stress out about the hypothetical situation where he got conflicting orders from two people, and he wouldn’t know which one to obey. So far it hadn’t been a problem luckily. They always seemed to work it out amongst themselves in some give and take social interaction that was a bit too complex for him to understand.

Patton walked over to where Virgil was sitting. “I’m glad your safe,” he said. “We should probably put a time limit on hide and seek in the future, so you know when to come out.”

“Did I win?” Virgil asked. He’d honestly forgotten they’d been playing a game until Patton’s mom had asked how he’d found his way into the cellar.

Patton laughed. “I’d say so, yeah,” he replied. He leaned over to kiss Virgil’s forehead, but drew back immediately with a pinched expression. “You are… very dirty,” he said, rubbing his mouth.

Virgil nodded. “Your mom made me sit on a tablecloth,” he said gesturing to the fabric she’d laid over the chair.

Patton snorted out a laugh. “We’ll get you into the bath when you’re done eating and you can tell us all about your little adventure.”

“I would also like to hear about your discoveries,” Logan said. “Though you are not allowed to sit on the bed until you do not have spider webs in your hair.”

Patton’s eyes widened and he jumped away from Virgil, startling both Virgil and Marisol. The latter hopped from the table onto Virgil’s lap. “Spiders?!”

Virgil tilted his head at him in confusion.

“He isn’t a fan of spiders,” Logan informed him, his voice amused at Patton’s reaction.

Apparently deciding that she was no longer startled, but more confused by the noises Patton had just made, Marisol jumped out of Virgil’s lap to investigate, wrapping her way around Patton’s legs. He bent down to pat her back, though he still looked a bit startled.

“Your cat, huh?” Patton’s mom asked Logan once again. Virgil studied her. She had apparently missed Logan mentioning that he allowed Virgil on the bed. Or perhaps Logan was correct in his insistence that it wasn’t actually that big of a deal here. Virgil would rather not test that assumption, however, so was glad that it had been distracted from by Patton’s outburst.

“Creepy, crawly death dealers,” Patton mumbled into Marisol’s fur, having picked her back up. Virgil made a note to not inform Patton of all of the different types of spiders he’d seen skittering around in the castle walls today. Maybe he’d talk about them with Logan once Patton left. He’d probably be interested. Virgil had seen some he’d never seen before! Logan probably could even help him figure out what their names were. “You’ll protect me, won’t you kitty?” Patton asked Marisol.

She made a little ‘burrrr’ sound in response, which Patton seemed to take a confirmation.

“Aw thank you, baby! Such a good baby.”

50234

Virgil popped the rest of the sandwich into his mouth. Patton’s mom turned away and grabbed a plate stacked with cookies. She handed it to Logan. “Take these, and please get the health hazards out of my kitchen,” she requested.

Logan took them without complaint. “Come on, Virgil,” he said. “Let’s go get you clean.”

“We’re going to need so much soap,” Patton said.

Virgil looked down at himself. “I can go outside and get most of it off if you get me a bucket of water,” he offered.

“Virgil, it’s below freezing,” Logan said as though that had a baring on what he’d just said. Logan sighed. “No. Bathtub.” Virgil shrugged. “Honestly,” Logan said. He turned with the plate of cookies in his hand, clearly expecting to be followed. “You’re not going to catch your death pouring a bucket of water over yourself in the cold when there are literally over a hundred perfectly good bathtubs in this castle. For goodness sakes.” And well, Virgil wasn’t going to complain.

Chapter 34

Patton, to be completely honest, was not all that interested in the room that Virgil had found. Beyond just the fact that it would definitely have creepy crawly death dealers in it, he really did not understand the intrigue. If it had just been him, he probably would have just let a castle worker deal with it, but it was not just him. Logan was ecstatic with the prospect of investigating a secret in the castle. People who didn’t know him well may not believe it considering he spent most of his time with his nose in a book, but he was an adventurer at heart.

Thomas had been easily swayed into finding someone to help tear down part of the wall into the secret tunnel near the room (so no one would have to crawl through the kitchen cellar like Virgil). It had taken a few days, however, and Logan was practically bouncing off the walls waiting. Virgil, despite having already seen the room before, also seemed excited, though if that was because of his own curiosity or because he was just excited that Logan seemed so exited remained to be seen.

“They are silly, aren’t they,” Patton asked Princess Marisol. He was laying on his stomach on Logan’s bed and Princess Marisol had just put her little paw on his nose.

“Yes, I agree,” he said. “Don’t they know that we’re literally going to be 2 feet away from the normal hallway?”

“It is not silly,” Logan defended himself. “Any number of things could go wrong.” He sounded far too excited about the prospect of something going terribly wrong. “The tunnels could cave in and block off the exit or there could be some unknown pathogen in the air.”

Patton did not ruin his fun by mentioning that Logan’s dad had definitely basically baby proofed the tunnels for them ahead of time. Instead, he just said, “Don’t let Virgil hear you say that sort of thing. It will just stress him out.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he said, waving off Patton’s concerns as he mulled over two different weird green planty things (potion ingredients, Patton assumed) before setting one aside and sticking the other in his bag.

“So silly,” Patton cooed at the cat. Logan let out a huff but did not choose to say anything about it this time.

Speaking of silly, Virgil came back from Logan’s bathroom then, and Patton tried not to giggle. “Is this right?” Virgil asked, sounding and looking confused. Logan, in his overexcitement about adventure had commissioned Virgil an outfit that actually fit. Said outfit, however, very much made it look more like Virgil was going on a safari instead of a two-foot detour from the normal castle hallway.

“Almost,” Logan said, “Here, let me.” Logan started straightening everything out and flattening the collar, reminding Patton of an overbearing parent on picture day. Virgil accepted the fussing without protest. It was adorable. Well, the outfit was ridiculous, but still, adorable. “There,” Logan said. “I think we’re ready to go now.”

It was about time. Patton was sure people were already waiting for them downstairs. Patton got up and patted Princess Marisol on the head. She looked up at them with interest.

“You can stay here, sweetie,” Patton told here. She seemed to consider it and then hopped down from the bed to go rub up against Virgil.

Patton guessed she was coming. It didn’t matter too much since Logan had given her a magical collar that allowed her to open most doors in the castle and everyone knew she was the royal cat now, so if she decided she wanted to come back to the room and nap, she could. (She was very aware of the power she held.)

She pranced happily by Virgil’s side all the way down the steps to the first floor of the castle. She was such a good kitty.

Well, she did hiss angrily at everyone who came too close to them, but still, a very good kitty.

Patton did lean down and pick her up so they could actually talk to the man waiting for them at the large hole in the wall. Logan went to talk to the castle worker while Virgil half hid behind Patton. He was clearly listening very intently to the conversation however, at least more intently than Patton was. Patton was busy shaking his head fondly.

“Yes, yes, Princess,” he said to the cat. “I know we do not trust the strangers, but I promise this stranger is perfectly safe.”

“How do you know?” Virgil asked.

“His name is Chester and I’ve known him since I was 9.”

This seemed to slightly alleviate Virgil’s suspicion, but Princess Marisol still seemed antsy. Patton really needed to start slowly introducing the both of them to more people.

Logan finished talking with Chester after a few moments and it was time to climb through the hole in the wall. He wished he saw in the tunnel whatever Logan with his excited eyes and bounce to his step obviously saw. Or even that was more comfortable in the dark closed in space as Virgil obviously was. As it was, Patton’s nose scrunched up at the thought off all of the spiders that could be living everywhere in the secret tunnel, but he pushed through.

The entrance to the tunnel had been made only a little bit from the room Virgil had mentioned and Chester had led them through it after only a couple of seconds. As Patton had suspected, the room was already lit up and probably cleaned a little bit by the people who had cut into the wall, not that he was complaining.

Virgil was still clinging a bit to Patton’s shirt, though it seemed to be less out of anxiety at this point and more out of a desire to stick close. He was peering around curiously at the lit-up space. He probably hadn’t seen much of it in the dark when he’d been here before.

Yet, his curiosity was nothing compared to how excited Logan seemed to be. Now Patton may have not been interested in the room itself, but he was entertained by how interested Logan was and was happy to encourage that.

“What do you think this place is?” he asked Logan.

Logan hummed contemplatively, eyes looking around. “Well,” he said. “It’s a bedroom clearly, and old. Considering the location it is in in the castle, the size, the decorations, and it’s likely age, I’d imagine it was a bedroom of a royal family member. This used to be the royal wing three royal lines ago.”

“Bearing that in mind, there are a couple of likely possibilities for the origin of the room as well as the reason it was sealed up, but we will need to investigate more in order to come to an actual conclusion.” He had already placed the bag he’d brought on the ground and was going through it, pulling out things that Patton did not recognize. He also got a piece of paper and sat on the floor to start to sketch.

“What are you doing?” Virgil asked.

“I’m sketching the floorplan of the room,” Logan said. “I will then put a grid on it so we can investigate while being sure that we aren’t missing anything.”

Virgil seemed uninterested in this part of the adventure, instead electing to go poking around by himself. Princess Marisol squirmed out of Patton’s arms to go follow him. Patton swore that he only looked away from those two for 5 seconds, but the next thing he knew he heard metal clicking against metal.

“Oh,” Patton said, eyes wide when he saw what Virgil was fiddling with. “Honey, you probably shouldn’t touch…”

The old but fancy looking chest that had been at the end of the remains of the bed creaked open. Virgil sneezed as a cloud of dust puffed out of it. “Huh,” he said studying the contents. “There’s a skull in here.”

“Oh, I don’t like this adventure anymore,” Patton commented.

Logan was on his feet within moments. “Let me see,” he said eagerly.

“What if it’s cursed?” Patton pointed out.

“Then I’ll just break the curse,” Logan waved him off. “Oh, it’s just a horse skull,” Logan said, sounding disappointed. “And also what seemed to be potion ingredients. Though they seem very fresh considering the state of the room.”

“Maybe we should get someone else to…”

Logan already had both arms inside the chest and was pulling things out of it. “This chest must have some sort of stasis effect to it.”

He started pulling things out to look at them before setting them on the floor with no caution. “Well,” he said, “that answers the question of what this room is.”

“It does?” Patton asked.

“Ah, yes, between the horse skull and the potion ingredients, this is obviously the bedroom of Princess Marianne Elicia. She was the third child of King Simon IV and was quite the fan of horses.”

“…So she kept a horse skull in a stasis chest in her bedroom?” Patton asked.

“Of course,” Logan said. “Back when her family was in power, magic was outlawed and had quite the stigma against it, but she ended up learning magic and become quite proficient.”

“It’s debated what exactly happened when her father found out about her activities. Some sources say that she was executed silently by her father, but others say she managed to escape with the head of the stables but not before putting a curse on the country of Prijaznia. That is until she or one of her bloodline sits on the throne, every royal line will end in madness and blood by the 5th seated monarch before an heir is born.”

“Isn’t that something you should be worried about?” Virgil asked.

Logan shrugged. “It’s just a myth,” he said. “Besides I’m 6th in the line, so there really isn’t any concern.”

52142

“There are a lot of interesting things in here,” Logan said, still focused on the chest. “Not to mention the books. We’ll have to be careful with those though since they don’t appear to be in stasis.”

Logan pulled the horse skull out and set it on the floor making Patton wince.

“Marisol no!” he said as Princess Marisol immediately went to go sniff at it. He swooped her up in his arms. “How long are we staying in this creepy room?” Patton asked.

“Patton, we just got here,” Logan said.

“We just got here and already found a skull!”

“Yes! Exactly!”

Patton groaned into Princess Marisol’s fur even as she tried wiggle away to go back and investigate the skull. This was going to be a long day.

Chapter 35

Logan was surprised when he woke up alone in bed. He’d grown to anticipate waking to a smaller body unrelentingly clinging to his in the past couple of weeks. Confused he sat up and peered around his bedroom. He wouldn’t have seen Virgil with the way he melted into the darkness if it he hadn’t heard the sound of purring coming from near the window. He could just barely make out a dark blob shifting up and down at the cat kneaded at a different blob sitting mostly hidden behind the thick curtain.

“Virgil?” Logan questioned. “What are you doing?”

“It’s snowing,” was the answer.

“That is not an answer,” Logan grumbled at the ceiling. With a sigh, he pulled himself out of bed. It was a bit chilly in here, he thought. The temperature must have dipped suddenly and intensely enough that the runes keeping the castle at a warm enough temperature hadn’t caught up yet. He pulled one of the blankets off of the top of his bed to wrap around his shoulders as he approached the window. There wasn’t much light outside, the stars and moon covered by clouds, but there were some lanterns lit for the night guard who patrolled the outside. “Oh,” he said in surprise. “It’s really snowing.”

It had been colder but not quite cold enough for snow to stick the day before, so it came as a surprise when he saw snow was piling up quite high to the point where familiar paths outside his window had disappeared.

“I don’t like it,” Virgil informed him.

“Why not?” Logan asked.

“It’s cold,” Virgil answered. It was clear in his tone that in Virgil’s opinion ‘cold’ was a horrible insult to the concept of snow. Logan quirked a half smile and his attention was drawn to the fact that it was quite cold right here close to the window.

Frowning, he pulled at the blanket around his shoulder so he could wrap it and his arm around the lump that was Virgil. He brushed the boy’s hand when he did so and found it was like ice.

“You’re freezing!” Logan said. “How long have you been by the window?”

“I dunno,” he replied.

Logan was already tugging at him. “You need to get back in bed,” he said.

Virgil obeyed the pulling at his arms even as he frowned. “I’ve been colder than this before,” he said.

“That actually doesn’t make me feel better,” Logan replied dryly as he shooed him towards the bed.

He took the thicker blanket that usually stayed folded at the end of the bed and pulled it up over Virgil before climbing into bed beside him.

“There,” Logan said, rubbing Virgil’s arms through the fabric of the sweater he wore to bed. He was glad he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt at least. “The runes for heating the castle should catch up within a few hours, but until then this should do. Assuming we don’t sit by the freezing window for an undetermined amount of time.”

“I don’t like the cold,” Virgil told him.

Logan sighed. “Then why did you sit by the window?”

Virgil shrugged and ducked his head a bit. Logan reached out to grab his hands to help him warm more but was surprised when one of the hands was much warmer than the other. He found his fingers were clutching a crescent shaped stone: the protection charm they’d made. Logan knew that he kept it in his pocket most of the time, but he didn’t normally see him holding it like this. It was warm to the touch, of course, indicating the safety of the room around them.

Logan looked over his face. “Are you…” he said. “Scared of the snow?”

“I don’t like the cold,” he said once again.

“You’re scared of the winter,” Logan concluded. He looked at Virgil who was far too small for his age and seemed surprised at every casual act of kindness. It was clear that his basic needs were far from being met before he came here. Logan had to wonder what winter usually meant for him. His experiences were doubtlessly very different from Logan’s own. “That makes sense,” he acknowledged, “but you don’t need to be scared of it here. The castle is always perfectly warm and safe in the winter and Mr. Deknis and Ms. Heart work hard during the other seasons to make sure we have plenty of food. There is nothing to fear here.”

He did not seem convinced.

“You don’t even have to go outside if you don’t want to,” Logan promised. “The castle is plenty big if you’d like to stay inside all winter long. It was made for the winter even without the magic devices that keep it warm. We have fireplaces and well insulated rooms even if those that ends up failing.” Logan pulled open the hand that had the protection charm just to transfer it to his other hand to warm it. “Though, while no one would force you to go outside, the snow isn’t always bad.”

“Yes it is,” Virgil said, his voice sure.

“Not all the time,” Logan insisted. “Some people love the snow.”

“They’re stupid.”

Logan laughed. “It can be fun for a while with the right equipment if you have someplace to get warm again afterwards. Royal duties slow down during the winter and Patton tends to come up with all sorts of games for both the inside and the outside to pass the time. He’s particularly proficient at snowball fights, at least against me.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Play fighting,” Logan answered. “Like pillow fights, but snow.”

“I’ll stick with the pillows,” he replied.

“And then there’s a hill to sled down on the western side of the castle, and people like to build snowmen along the path.”

“What are snowmen?” Virgil asked.

They’re temporary statues made out of packed snow,” Logan explained. “Typically, they’re made of three different sized balls of snow: the largest being the base and the smallest the ‘head’ though there are some variations. After building them one typically decorates them with different articles of clothing and objects found lying around. It’s usually sticks and rocks for the face and then things like extra hats and scarfs for decoration.” He smiled softly. “When my Pa was alive, we used to steal my Dad’s crown and fanciest robes. Sometimes Pa would steal it right off of Dad’s head and we’d run away. We’d find a secluded area of the castle yards and build the biggest snowman we could as quickly as we could before we got caught. He’d usually end up letting us keep the robes, but we’d have to give the crown back since some of the metals in it would rust when wet.”

“That sounds…” Virgil’s nose twitched. “fun if you take away the touching snow part.”

Logan laughed. “It is fun,” he said. “Even with the touching snow part. Though, I admit that some of the ability for it to be entertaining does come from the fact that we could warm up afterwards with ease. You’ll enjoy Patton’s mother’s constant offering of hot chocolate during the season even if you never go outside, I’m sure.”

“Hot chocolate?” Virgil asked intrigued. His dark eyes shone brightly in the little light coming through the window. It was clear he could guess something about the drink just by the name and enjoyed the implications.

Logan smiled fondly. “It is a hot drink,” he explained. “It’s a warm drink made out of milk and chocolate. I can get you some to try in the morning.”

Virgil nodded, eyes still wide with interest.

“For now, we should sleep though,” Logan said. “Are you warm enough? I can get more blankets.”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Good,” Logan said, reaching up and adjusting the blanket over them once more, tucking it around Virgil a little bit for good measure. “Goodnight Virgil,” he said.

“Goodnight,” he replied softly. Logan reached under the blankets to grab the hand that was still slightly chilly from the window between his own. Virgil’s eyes slipped closed after a moment as he nuzzle his face into the pillow. At some point they both drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 36

Thomas had already been well aware that winter was on the way, but he and the rest of the castle occupants had been surprised at how intensely and suddenly it had come on. Most things were ready for the winter, but not all of them had been initiated. The fireplaces that took some pressure off the castle heating runes were cleaned out and ready, but they hadn’t been started yet. The stables for different animals on the grounds had been checked over and staff assignments had been made, but most were still in far out fields. Staff that went home for the winter months had been dismissed, but there were a few stragglers that would have to be helped home before things got worse.

He’d gone out to the main stable to talk to the three workers that were the heads of different areas of animal husbandry to make sure a plan to get everything to where it needed to be soon was in place. It took a while to figure out considering that they’d expected a little more time before the first major snowfall. Thomas also asked them to make sure all of the workers’ homes were in good enough condition for the weather. Ranch hands typically had homes on castle grounds but not in the castle themselves since they needed to be close to the animals. Thomas knew at least half a dozen of those who spent most of their times out in the fields were the type to forgot to maintain their homes because they preferred camping amongst the animals in the summer months and then would be in for a bad time when snow began to fall.

There should be enough extra rooms in the castle if they needed a place to stay until repairs could be done.

Those conversations took a good couple of hours, before Thomas was satisfied. Before trudging back to the castle through the still falling snow, he made a point to stop at one specific horse stall in the main stable. The horse turned his head to see Thomas when he stopped in front of his stall and puffed out a rather disaffected snort before sticking his head over the gate so Thomas could pat his nose. “Hello, Mr. Apples,” Thomas said.

The horse seemed to conclude he’d tolerated Thomas’s petting enough and ducked his head to nudge at his torso. Thomas rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes,” he said. “I brought you an apple. Some things never change.” He reached into his pocket to grab the red apple he’d brought the white Arabian. “At least you don’t bite me anymore.” He paused, apple slice in hand and eyed the horse’s nose suspiciously. “Do not bite me,” he said even though he hadn’t felt the animal’s teeth in a decade. It would be just like Mr. Apples to wait until his guard was down.

After a bit of scrutiny, he offered an apple slice. It was snatched out of his hand and there was a loud crunch as it was bit into.

“It’s snowing out,” he told the horse. The horse seemed to roll his eyes at the statement of the obvious. “I’ll remind again that if you run out in a snowstorm, I’m not running after you, so you’d be out of luck.”

Mr. Apples snorted.

“You’re old now. You’d probably not survive long enough for people to find you. Besides, you blend in with that white fur of yours. They’d probably walk right past you a few times.”

He went back to nosing for treats as soon as he finished his first and Thomas sighed, pulling out another apple slice. “What are they not feeding you enough?” The gusto with which the horse snatched the apple slice was a very clear answer. “Well, we both know that’s not true.” Thomas fed the horse a third slice of apple when he was done with his second. “I have to get back to the castle now. Don’t be a devil horse.”

Mr. Apples threw his head a bit, splattering apple smelling foamy spittle all over Thomas’s front.

“Understood. Have a nice afternoon.”

He left Mr. Apples in his stall then, knowing he’d be well cared for no matter how ill-tempered he could be at times. He’d been a king’s horse once, after all, no matter that said king had been dead for more than a decade now.

Winters were hard.

Winters were the times when things always slowed down at the castle, where royal duties were often thin. There were a lot of memories in winter.

The trip back to the castle was not particularly long, but it was also not particularly pleasant. The snow had not been cleared away considering it was still snowing which meant his feet and legs were wet and cold by the time he made it to the nearest castle door.

He wasn’t sure if, when he entered, the castle heating runes had started to work in earnest or if he’d just been so cold that any measure of warmth was appreciated, but he was relieved to be out of the snow either way.

He decided to check up on the progress of the castle staff lighting the fireplaces. With any luck, they’d be lit already, and he could warm up even more. That in mind, he headed towards the main foyer where the largest fireplace in the castle sat to take off the chill brought in by the large front doors.

The main foyer was bustling with activity when he snuck in along the sides, giving the guards stationed around nods as he passed. The main fire in the room was burning brightly, though only one of the two smaller ones near the side exits from the room was lit. The other one was still being set up with safety mechanisms. It was good progress and assuming other areas of the castle were being set up as efficiently, he assumed they’d all be set up by nightfall.

He’d need to go check around to be sure, but for now, he walked up to the main fireplace to warm his hands.

He’d gotten into the habit when he was younger to every so often glance upwards. There had been a certain stable boy who had a propensity for climbing trees. These days, he usually found nothing when he did so, often not even consciously noticing that he’d turned his gaze momentarily skywards. Yet, today, he was startled out of his own idleness by dark brown eyes looking back at him from a small ledge in the shadows high above him.

He froze as he met the young boy’s gaze. Virgil seemed as surprised to be caught as Thomas was to have caught him.

Slowly Thomas raised one hand and waved to the boy. He slunk back into the shadows at the acknowledgment. If Thomas peered hard enough, he could see a shadow stretch up towards the third-floor balcony in the darkness and disappear over the railing.

Interesting boy.

Thomas found himself smiling despite the oddity. They still had not found out much about Virgil. He would speak to Jeffers about many things apparently, but often could not be redirected to invasive topics and he was still a bit skittish around Helen. He hadn’t willingly existed in a room with Thomas. Thomas hoped that changed at some point. There was something about him that made Thomas like him.

Chapter 37

Virgil had not spent a lot of time out of Logan’s room. What little time he had spent outside of it was either with Patton and/or Logan or tucked away in secret corridors he found in the walls where no one would stumble upon him. Yet, here he was willingly in a, well, not public by any means place, but one that was still more exposed than he was used to being in. Somehow, he was managing to not care at all.

It was helped by the fact that both Logan and Patton had been in the room at the start, but they had gone off to go… somewhere. Food sounded like it might have been the reason.

He liked food, and usually he would have been all for going to get some, but between them promising to bring him back some and the fact that he was never going to move ever again, he’d decided to stay.

Princess Marisol seemed to be the only other rational being in the whole castle because she had also not moved since discovering the contents of this room. She was currently laying on his chest purring happily.

The fireplace was a wonderful invention. Now, Virgil had, of course, warmed up by a fire before when it was cold, but this was much different. There was a grate that blocked off the fire a bit keeping it from burning the person in front of it and there was a plush rug right by it, perfect for laying down on. Someone had known what they were doing when designing this room.

He didn’t even care that the king had access to this sitting room as well as Logan.

…

Okay, so he did care a little bit, but he was ignoring that. He was probably busy this time of day anyway, right?

…

He really didn’t want to run into him after being caught watching the castle workers set up the bigger fireplaces. Kings probably didn’t like people sneaking around watching things from the shadows even when they didn’t know that the person sneaking around was literally sent to kill them.

Princess Marisol must have had a sixth sense for his anxieties (or he’d just started breathing faster and disturbed her) because she stirred a bit.

#proofread stories #not writing

35 notes · View notes

sleekervae · 4 years ago

Text

The Neighbour [0.7]

Masterlist

The sun was high in the sky, bright and casting everything in a flattering golden light. The grass blades beneath Eva's body pricked at her fair skin and Remington's hair tickled her spine, the May heat was blazing but she was happy as she proofread her latest article.

Remington had his white heart-shaped sunglasses on, and Eva was sure he must've been asleep from how still he was. She broke her attention from her laptop and looked over her shoulder, stormy blue eyes gliding over the expanse of his torso and the many tattoos that were like a gallery to his world. A gallery that she had the pleasure of enjoying just for herself.

With a sharp intake, Remington stirred when he felt he was being watched. And when he saw Eva's delicate face looking back at him, he smiled back, face thick with sleep but he looked happy.

"What are you looking at?" he asked.

"Just checking on you," she replied coyly, "You comfortable?"

"Yes I am. Had no idea you made such a good pillow," he grinned, to which Eva simpered amusedly, "How's your article coming?"

"Just proofing before I send it," she said.

"How much you getting for it?"

"Seven hundred and fifty bucks"

He gave a stirring whistle, settling down against her flank and closing his eyes, "Make that money, Eva,"

Eva was quiet as he nestled down again, but she kept her eyes fixated on his body. She admired the way the light bounced over the sunscreen-slick film on his skin, and how effortlessly pretty and cool Remington looked in contrast to the lush green grass beneath him. The tips of her fingers brushed at the cooler blades beneath her chest, fighting the urge to reach over and touch the ink on his bicep.

And just like that, a new poem jingled in her brain and sprinted to her fingertips. The poem was drafted in minutes, and as Eva read it over and over to herself she was at a loss as to whether she should publish it to her blog. She knew Remington had looked at her poetry, and she wondered what he would think if she posted a piece about him. Or what his fans would think if they happened to find her blog. Would people even know it was about him?

Nevertheless, she took another glance at his rising and falling chest. In her lens she looked at him like a muse, a piece of art that she wanted to record and worship with her words. And that feeling made her nervous.

... But it also had her simmering with excitement.

"You're still staring at me," he suddenly said, a mischievous smile spreading across his face.

Eva rolled her eyes, though a sheepish grin spread across her own lips as she pushed her laptop across the grass, "Let me up,"

Remington's eyes snapped open again as he lifted his head so Eva could get to her feet, "You alright?" he asked.

"I'm just gonna' get something drink. You want anything?" she replied.

"I'm good," he threw his hands behind his head as he laid back down in the grass, "I'll guard your computer for you,"

Eva chuckled, "You're so brave,"

"Aren't I?"

Eva slipped her tank back over her bikini top, rubbing at the hot spot where Remington's hair had prickled over her skin. Her hand seemed to shake as she pulled back the glass sliding door, quickly slipping inside and finding Emerson sat on the couch with his notebook and variety of charcoals. Pepper was sleeping at his feet, but she perked up and tried to crawl to the top of the couch when she heard Eva's footsteps.

Emerson turned to his neighbour, "You okay, Eva?"

"Yeah," the small brunette replied, "Could I grab some water?"

"Of course," he smiled, "You know where the glasses are,"

"Thanks," she grabbed herself a glass of cold water and headed back for the door, stopping when she peaked over Emerson's shoulder and gazed in awe at the gothic victorian architecture covering two full pages in his journal, "That's so sick,"

"Thanks," he replied happily, "Did Remington tell you about our graphic novel?"

"He did. Did you illustrate everything?" she asked incredulously.

Emerson shrugged sheepishly, "I had a lot of help. I'll let you read the first copy that comes out, if you'd want"

"That would be awesome,"

It was then an idea stirred in the back of Emerson's head, "Do you write any fictional stuff?"

Eva shrugged, debating whether she should bring up her fanfiction hobby, "... I've dabbled,"

Emerson smiled, "Well, I'm planning to make these into a series. When we start drafting the next volume, would you want to work on it with us?"

Eva's heart nearly leapt into her throat, "You serious?"

"Why not?" he shrugged, "It's always more fun working with friends, anyway,"

Eva's face flushed, "Emerson, I'm honoured! I'd love to work with you guys,"

Over in the backyard, Remington shifted and sat up from his nap. He blinked his eyes a few times to get used to the sudden influx of light, then focusing in on the shadowy silhouette of Eva and Emerson in the house. He watched her smile, and the hand that wasn't holding a water glass came to rest on her chest. He wondered what they were talking about: probably art, the pandemic, the album party that was coming up this week.

Or was it possible that they were talking about him?

Remington took a glance at her macbook, the screen having just fell asleep. Curiosity got the better of Remington, he wondered why Eva kept glancing at him between her writing. He checked again and Emerson and Eva were still having their conversation, and Remington reached over and tapped the touchpad, bringing the laptop back to life. Eva's main page was her article about dog fighting and the people who ran these gambling rings, but Remington clicked on the open Tumblr tab. A draft of a new poem stared back at him, and before he knew what he was doing he was reading it word-for-word.

"You sleep soundly, protected by the company of

snakes, angels, and demons.

They guard your organs, flesh, and muscles.

Without moving eyes they watch the world pass you by

While you're none the wiser, drunk on beer and sunstroke.

The breath that leaves you fans over a crest of regality, valiance,

The summer grass tries to scratch away the frowns of the skulls on your arms,

You've come too far to continue to be sad.

At least, that's the impression I get.

I like your homage to the illuminati: that little triangle below your intestine

forever searches for lies and enlightenment.

Or maybe you just decided that it looked cool?

And I love that angel, clinging to your spine as you dive into the four corners of hell

Yet it drags you back to the surface, reminding you of the better qualities you have

that overshadow the bad ones.

Your body is a gallery, and I've bought myself a ticket.

I only planned to take the basic tour, a brief introduct --"

Remington quickly clicked back to Eva's article when he heard the door sliding open again, but Eva had caught him snooping. She looked down at him quizzically.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her standing figure blocking out the searing sun.

Remington glanced back at the screen, "Reading about the bastards who exploit defenseless animals and force them into fighting for monetary gain," he replied quickly, "Very profound work,"

Eva had the mind to know he was spouting straight bullshit, but she didn't press on, "Thank you," she set down her water glass and started to pull off her shorts.

"Your thirst quenched?" he asked.

"Yes, and now I'm going to go for a swim," she smiled, "You're more than welcome to join me,"

Remington sat back as her tank top fell to the ground, revealing the small flower tattoo on her ribs peeking out from the band of her bikini. Eva stood at the edge of the pool, shook out her hair, and dived head first into the crystalline water. Remington smiled to himself as he stood up, his heart thrumming as fast as a hummingbird could bat its wings when as the words he read fluttered behind his eyes.

She was writing a poem about him.

Eva emerged from the water just as Remington took a running start, and without warning, cannonballing into the water beside her. As she wiped the water from her eyes more had splashed over her head. Remington broke out of the water seconds later, laughing when he saw the scowl on Eva's face.

"You're so fucking chaotic!"

"You love me,"

The album was to drop this Thursday at midnight, and they were going to stream and celebrate its release at Sebastian's place with a party. A small party, with Daniel, Andrew, their mom, and their girlfriends.

And of course, Eva had been invited.

Remington assured her it was just going to a small casual affair, and all she needed to bring was her "gorgeous smile". Those were the words he used. Nevertheless, Eva had a constant flutter in the pit of her stomach as Thursday neared; annoyed because no matter what she pulled out of her closet she seemed to have nothing to wear, and popping advil because her period decided to pay her an early visit the morning of the party.

Remington continued to check Eva's Tumblr and Instagram pages now and again, wondering if she had posted the rest of that poem. He felt a little guilty about snooping, and he wondered what her reaction would be if she knew he had looked. Or perhaps she already knew that he had and she was only letting it slide because she didn't want to talk about it. And as he stood in the shower on the morning of the party, not snapping out of his thoughts until Emerson banged on the door loudly for his turn, Remington began to realize he wanted Eva so much more than he should have for a friend.

Pluto lay diligently at the foot of Eva's bed while she worked, wearing a face mask to hopefully keep her period acne at bay. She read through her most recent poems, a shiver crawling up her spine every time she read them. It was scary because within the last few days, she realized Remington had become the muse she examined and picked apart in her pieces. It wasn't that she hadn't written about boys before, she had, but they didn't elicit the same excitement Remington did when he touched her; or when he was even near her.

In the two and some months she had come to know him, Eva's world had grown so small and yet exploded so suddenly in such little time. Remington was a firecracker of wild colors that splattered across the folds of her brain and drew her into him like a moth to the light. She wanted to watch him move, work, and no matter what she wanted to make him smile. After listening to his music, she knew how badly he needed to be happy. And there was a part of her that wondered what it would be like; how would he be with her if they started a relationship? What's it like dating a rockstar? She imagined the day-to-day wouldn't be very different from how they were now: great friends just one step further on the scale of intimacy.

The more she thought about it, the more she wanted it. She wanted him.

✧✧✧

Remington's tongue tingled as he approached the complex courtyard in the late evening, his gaze flying to her balcony to hopefully get a small glimpse of Eva. He smashed the call button for her apartment and waited for her sweet voice to pick up.

"Yellow!" she answered happily.

"It's your friendly neighbourhood psychopath," Remington smiled as he spoke into the speaker.

Eva chuckled, "Come on up! I got the door open,"

The front door clicked and Remington slipped inside, his mask over his face as he waved to the landlord who was too nose deep in his newspaper to give a damn about him.

He pulled his mask down and knocked first before entering Eva's apartment, first being greeted by Pluto who leapt out of his bed and began to rub himself against his pant leg. Remington scooped him up in his arms.

"It's good to see you too, buddy!" he cooed at the cat, "Are you coming to the party with us? Maybe if we ask nicely your mom will take you?"

Remington's attention diverted from Pluto when he heard Eva walk in from behind. Turning around, any words he had were suddenly stuck in his throat when his eyes fell over her. Just when Remington thought she couldn't look any more gorgeous, she blew all his expectations out of the water in a body-hugging black, white, and red plaid dress, white sandals on her feet and her short hair loose and wavy. She only had on mascara and some eyeliner, but in his opinion, Eva didn't need any more than that.

She was absolutely beautiful.

Her smile faltered when Remington hadn't said a word, not even a hello, "... You're looking at me weird," she said, bordering on panic as she glanced at her dress, "Do I look weird? 'Cause I can go change --"

Remington quickly snapped out of it, "N-No! You're fucking gorgeous," he gaped, "Sorry, I didn't mean to stare like that --"

"No, it's okay," she assured him, smiling sheepishly as her heart skipped a beat, "You look really good, too. Yellow suits you nicely,"

Remington chuckled, continuing to cradle Pluto as he glanced at his pants, "See -- me and Emerson got into a debate. I say they're yellow, he think they're lime,"

Eva shrugged, "Regardless, they're on the citrus spectrum," she grinned, going to grab her purse, "Are you sure I can't bring anything? Like a bottle of wine, or --"

"Nope! Seb's got all the alcohol we'll need," he replied, "You can bring Pluto if you want, though. Emerson's gonna' bring Pepper,"

"He's better off here where I know he'll be safe. Over there, I'll constantly be worried if he's trying to tear up the carpet or... or eating another shoe," Eva shook her head.

Remington shrugged as he set Pluto down, "Just as well, I don't think he and Pepper like each other," he said.

"Oh really? What gave that away?" Eva asked in mock disbelief, "The constant hissing, the yapping, the growling? The cat's staying here,"

"Sorry bud, I tried," he said to Pluto. The tabby spun his tail before striding off back to his bed.

Eva took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling, "He'll be fine," she sighed.

Remington cocked his head, "You okay?"

"Yeah," she nodded quickly, "It's that time of the fucking month again and my stomach does not like me,"

He swallowed with uncertainty, "... It's just a period thing, right? You're not losing taste or smell or anything, right?"

"No, it's just a period thing," she assured him, "I'll be fine. I feel like shit, but I just need some fresh air and some good music,"

"Lucky for you, I can provide all of those things. And just to reiterate, you look fantastic," he said.

"You're sweet," she smiled, slinging her denim jacket on and clutching her purse, "Shall we?"

"We shall," Remington quickly held the door open for her, "After you, my lady,"

"Why thank you, kind sir,"

#remington leith #Remington Leith imagine #emerson barrett #sebastian danzig #palaye royale #Palaye Royale imagine #Palaye Royale fic #poetry #boy bands #band imagines #band imagine blog #band blog #original story #original female character

38 notes · View notes

tranderas · 4 years ago

Text

My email to Failbetter Games

I rarely see a reason to hide my motivations or actions. I don’t have a lot of regrets in life, because as I got older- I’m 34 now- I came to understand that it’s pointless. Try to learn, grieve things like lost friendships and loved ones as best you can, and be the best person your emotional and physical state allows you to be.

Anyway

To that end, I thought I’d air out my grievances to FBG in a rather long email. It was a long time coming as I wasn’t convinced emails would do anything. Elias on the Failbetter Community discord server suggested I at least try, and I spent a week of proofreading to make sure I was as courteous as I could manage to be despite my feelings. I’m angry, angry because this game was so dear for me for so long and it feels like the current team has taken it in a direction so much in the opposite of what I find fun.

That anger is unhealthy, of course. Art evolves. Bands change their sound because they get bored or they want to make money tapping into a new audience. Painters refine and improve their style. Writers improve the range of their vocabulary and change tone. Everything shifts in this world. The healthiest thing to keep in mind is the fact that the thing you loved was there for that point in time and nothing can take that away from you, from your favorite game as a child to your favorite bands in your teenage years, you’ll always have those moments of joy.

I want to hold onto this moment of joy that I experience with Fallen London as long as possible, so I wrote this email in the hope of convincing them to alter their direction so I can enjoy it a little bit longer. Except for the signature that contained my real name at the end- not that it’s hard to find if you care, as my facebook url is /tranderas- the text is unmodified. Hopefully this shines light on what I want.

What I don’t want is discussion about my needs. This is my place to explain, to vent, to point people to instead of typing everything out every time someone asks. But enough stalling.

___

Hello, I was encouraged in a Twitter interaction to write in and expand on my thoughts on the game so I figured I would do so now. Since I started writing this email before reading the December balance announcement, I'll address that at the bottom. The sparknotes version of what I'd like is as such: More content in London itself (especially socials), more Zee destinations, a profession uptuning, a fundamental rework of the deck that goes beyond favors, and a non-docks favor buff. From most to least important, the things I'd like to see addressed are:

1. The lack of endgame content within London itself is concerning to me for two reasons:

a. I play FL because it is a social electronic game, and I want to stay in zones in which I can continue to do social interactions. This is the reason I stay in London rather than going to Iron Republic and Port Carnelian, my first and second favorite zones respectively. If I wanted a story rich solo game I'd play Sunless Sea; if I wanted an analogue experience I'd play Blades in the Dark or read one of the books that influenced FL's style.

b. I simply don't like the mechanics of lab or parabola or how they gatekeep content. Because of this I haven't had any free content to pursue since the release of the new heists, and for a much longer length of time before that.

2. I'd love to see the remaining tier 3 professions given something they can do at lodgings. In general I prefer buffs instead of nerfs, especially in story games, and think it would be silly to nerf midnighter/correspondent/crooked-cross downward. Instead, give the others roles, perhaps in special options in the 4/5 card lodgings.

3. With the changes to Paramount Presence and the BDR power creep Notability has been significantly de-emphasized. I'd like that changed. To me the notability grind had the best balance of difficulty to cost-benefit analysis to end reward in the game, and while overcapping removed that, I would like something to use it again to make going above 10 worthwhile more often. Recent BDR items should make going even beyond 15 possible for very lategame players.

4. In addition to more endgame content within London, I'd like more midgame content at Zee. Sunless Sea got me especially interested in Frostfound and Irem, and a roleplay point for my OC is that she'd like to quite literally punch Mt. Nomad to death. Please don't feed us to spiders, though. The ones in London cause enough sorrow.

5. I would enjoy more free spouses that are not seasonal, and more ways to interact with player spouses. Again, it's a social game, and it makes sense to reward a desire to be social with the community. On the other hand, the NPC spouses in the game are limiting in their roleplay potential to the point that I've created a character around the Esoteric Accomplice for one of my OCs to get involved with between one roleplay relationship and another. Now allow me to take a deep breath while I discuss the proposed balance pass. The short version here is that I think it's wrong to release a deck refresh nerf without a fundamental change to what cards appear in the deck, and that the nerf to docks favors and yet another nerf to revs favors is misguided.

Here's the long version: I actually support a removal of the deck refresh mechanic. I got in trouble for calling flash lay resets an exploit on a private Fallen London fan server, and refused to use it until the lab convinced me it was a mechanic intended for use by FBG.

The widespread use of deck resets isn't a problem in its own right; rather, it's a symptom of how fundamentally broken the deck is in its current state. You have cards that are so bad that the narrative acknowledges they're awful and the mechanics give you a way to get rid of them at the cost of objectively worse lodgings. You have story signpost cards that clog up space held by desired cards. It can be nearly impossible to get Portly Sommelier (before deck refreshes i was getting one a month playing 60 actions a day) and dream qualities (my PoSI-ready SMEN alt has DbW3 playing every dream card that comes around). And most lodgings have cards that are objectively bad in a way that no new player can know without reading the wiki or asking someone- the exact problem you claim a desire to address in your announcement.

It's telling that players will do SMEN- a quest chain ostensibly about how much you're willing to sacrifice to some faceless maybe-god- in order to get rid of bad lodgings. I personally only bought back salon (Notability grind), rooftop shack (3 epa wine option), and bazaar premises (5-card potential plus good certifiable scraps/money option) after Trand got St. Beau's Candle, and JanieS only ever got the bazaar premises, her Remote Lodging, and the Orphanage. Even the other 4-card lodgings are only good under specific circumstances, and the rest of the 3s have worse cards with no endgame benefit.

Tranderas and JanieS both use remote lodgings. Trand is stuck with the Advertisements of a New Venture and Devices and Desires cards in his hand. Advertisements is an Abundant-rarity card. Since I have no intention of doing railroad due to disliking its mechanics the card simply sits in my hand. If I discard it, its rarity means it pops back up quickly. I think a way to opt out of story signpost cards such as aunt and railroad would be good progress toward solving the deck problem. There could be a large action or monetary cost involved with both removing it and reactivating it to balance, but without a way to get rid of these story hooks I need to keep refreshing to draw other cards around them.

As for the favors, I consider that part of the change mostly good. However, the docks favors -> Silk expedition doesn't really compete that well with other endgame grinds at the moment. Further, the Revolutionaries favor turn-in was already reduced dramatically this year, and I don't think it needs further tweaking. Rather than tuning docks and revs down, I would prefer to see the other factions tuned upwards, and the cost of earning favors eliminated from their cards (no 10 rostygold donation to the Church, for example). I'd still like to see the faction cards remain in the deck after they're given storylet sources, but made more rare, with the conflict options getting a boost to remain attractive in line with my proposed buff to payouts as they are good for London from a flavor/narrative perspective. In closing, it feels like the current FBG's team has a vision for the game that doesn't mesh well with how I see it and want to play it. Content has consistently moved away from what I want to do, leaving me with only SMEN and cider as goals to pursue (and as mentioned, I've run two characters- Samia R and Tranderas- through the quest chain to its completion). I obviously care about the game enough to want more things I like or else I wouldn't bother writing and proofreading this post or discussing and debating changes on the community discord, so I hope you'll take these opinions and suggestions into consideration moving forward. Regards,

Tranderas

#fallen london #tranderas #writing #game #game design #browser games #failbetter games

11 notes · View notes

midnightmorales · 5 years ago

Text

only a scrape - p.p.

prompt: "it's only a scrape," "only a-? you've been fucking stabbed!"

warnings: light blood mention, stab wound, swearing, just the slightest dash of angst, also i didn't proofread this so

word count: 2.1K

pairing (platonic): peter parker x (ex bestfriend!) reader

summary: peter gets stabbed, and doesn't know who to go to besides his old best friend. while reader is cleaning his wound, they realise that they miss being friends with him.

a/n: this is my birthday post for pete! she's a bit late, because i forgot to queue her before bed last night, but i did write her yesterday, so it still counts! i also tried to make this gender neutral! i may have slipped up somewhere... but i hope you enjoy it! another thing- there are some slight crush themes in there, but they don't quite develop.

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

you sighed, drumming your pencil on your desk.

it was 3:43am, and all you still hadn't come up with a topic for your essay, which, unfortunately, was due in five hours.

you were supposed to write an analysis of a theory of your choice. the catch? it had to relate to current events.

your friend had jokingly suggested you write your essay on spider-man. you had to admit, it was a great idea.

just a week ago you were always talking about spider-man. you had his merch, and you'd even seen him in action once or twice (though, helping old ladies cross the street is much to call 'action'). everyone knew you were obsessed a fan.

that might've been the one question everyone in your class was dying to know the answer to, as well. as the masked hero grew in popularity, everyone was growing more and more curious: who was spider-man, really? whose face lay behind the mask?

and you could've done it too. you could've written a fifty-page analysis on spider-man, and in the process you probably could've figured out who he was. and you would've too!

if it hadn't been for the fact that you already knew who he was.

to be fair, you'd only just found out three days ago. you laughed to yourself thinking about it, but the circumstances under which you had found out were definitely nothing to giggle at- that is, at the time of the event.

you remembered it vividly, as if it had happened only a few seconds ago.

it was friday. you'd been in your unicorn footie pajamas, sitting on your bed eating oreos and listening to music, when you heard banging on your bedroom window.

you paused your song, listening for it again. it was almost midnight, you realised, shooting a quick glance at your clock. who would be at your window at 11:56pm?

"y/n!!" you heard. you froze. that was definitely not one of your parents. someone was at your window.

to be honest, you were kind of freaked out. out of everyone you knew, you didn't think any of them would just show up at your bedroom window at midnight- at least, not without texting you first.

you quickly searched your room for defense- in case this visitor was not a friend. unfortunately, there were no stray weapons in your room.

so you opted for the next best thing- perfume. if promoted, it could be sprayed into someone's eyes, which would at least allow you time to get your parents.

you crept toward the window, perfume in hand. "y/n, please be up! i don't know who else to go to."

the voice sounded scared. you looked at the perfume bottle in your hand before setting it down and dashing to your window.

"spider-man?!" you cried.

spider-man! he was at your bedroom window? begging for your help?

you opened the window, and he climbed in, almost immediately collapsing on the floor.

you noticed he was clutching the side of his torso. "are you hurt?" you asked urgently, trying to move his hands.

they let up easily, allowing you to see the bloody, dirt-covered stab wound.

before you could react, the superhero pulled of his mask, gasping for air.

you sat there, shocked. peter parker? spider-man was dorky peter parker?

you felt bad for thinking it, but you couldn't help it.

up until high school, you and peter had been best friends. then, as you got older, you gravitated more towards the popular crowd, and peter the opposite.

you rarely spoke to him now. your new friends had him grouped with the nerds, and you didn't object.

instantly, you felt mounds of regret wash over you. how could you have let this happen to him? you shouldn't've let your friends talk about him like that! you should've been there for him.

"hi," he said, offering a weak smile.

"peter...." you breathed. you wanted to tell him you were sorry. that you had made a mistake. that you wanted to be friends again.

but you were smart. you knew that right now, your feelings didn't matter. peter was wounded, and he needed your help.

you snapped yourself out of your trance, and instructed him to apply pressure to the wound.

after that, you didn't really know what to do.

years of watching tv and reading books had taught you that much, but what came after.

you pulled out your phone and hesitantly typed in the words "how to treat a stab wound".

you weren't quite sure if you could trust wikihow, but it was your best bet at the moment.

"okay, lay down," you told your former friend. he followed your instructions, laying on down on your floor. "oh, here,"

you handed him a pillow from your bed, and he put it under his head. "next we need too...." you trailed off as you read the page. how many times did they have to say 'deadly'?

"is that the only one you have?" you asked him, glancing up from your phone.

"yeah," you nodded, returning your gaze to your phone.

after a second, you looked up at him again. "peter?"

"yeah?"

"i'm gonna need you too uh... you have to.... you have to take off the suit." his eyes widened. "i know, i know... but i have to clean the wound,"

"y/n, you don't understand- i'm not wearing anything under this,"

at this, your eyes widened. "what do you mean you not-? you've got to be..."

"all i have on is underwear,"

"aw, you've gotta be shitting me, parker!"

"i'm sorry!" he said frantically.

"don't be, i'm not the one with the stab wound!"

"it's only a scrape," he said sheepishly.

"only a-? you've been fucking stabbed!"

he smiled faintly. "yeah...."

"look, how about this? i'll see if i can find you some of my brother's pants to wear? but you can't have a shirt,"

"that works, i guess,"

"don't move," you said, switching the light off in your room before opening the door, and slinking out of your room.

you snuck down to the laundry room, and searched the dryer. you rummaged until you saw some black sweatpants. you snatched the, praying they were your brothers, and dashed back up to your room.

"here," you handed them to peter in the dark. "while you put these on I'm going to get you some water and a snack,"

peter started to object, but you quickly cut in. "this is not about hospitality, parker, you're losing blood by the second!"

you went down to your kitchen and grabbed a couple bottles of water. before you got anything to eat, you realized the oreos you had been eating were still in your room.

you went back up to your room with the water. "you dressed in there, pete?" you whispered.

"yeah," he replied.

you went into your room, shutting the door and switching the light back on.

peter parker. the nerdiest of nerds. the most awkward boy you'd ever met. peter benjamin parker. had an eight pack.

woah.

you restrained yourself from saying this out loud. you hoped you hadn't been staring as you turned away from him, pretending to be dealing with something on you bed. "lay back down," you told him.

a million thoughts were running through your head. could he tell how flustered you were? why were you so flustered anyway? and why on earth were you pretending to be so interested in your comforter???

you took a deep breath, grabbing one of the waters. you spun around to face peter again, trying to only look at his face, and handed it to him. "i've got some oreos too, if you wanted any,"

you returned your attention to your phone. it told you to put hand sanitizer on. you quickly found some , and applied it. next step.

"okay, peter, it says i have to talk to you to keep you calm," you told him, string your phone down face up. he nodded. "and you can't look at the wound,"

"so what do we talk about?" he asked. you quickly read the next step. you grabbed a blanket from your bed and threw it over him. he gave you a look of bewilderment.

"it said to keep you warm," you explained, looking back at your phone. "and i don't exactly know..."

"you wanna talk about when we were friends?"

you looked up at him, and tears began to sting at you eyes.

"sure," you breathed, returning to reading your phone. it said to clean the wound. "one second,"

you quickly ran to the bathroom, grabbing some bandages and a hand towel, dampening the towel with some water. you came back and knealt down beside peter.

"they said this was gonna hurt," you warned him. "so just talk through it, okay?"

he nodded. as you pressed the cloth to his skin, he gave a light gasp. "talk to me, pete," you urged him.

"do you... do you remember when we met?" you continued cleaning his wound, not answering. you were afraid that if you did, you may start to cry.

he didn't mind you lack of an answer, though. "we were six. i'd just moved in with may." you nodded as he spoke. "somehow, everyone found out about my parents. one kid told everyone that i was bad luck. he said if you talked to me, your parents would die."

you were tearing up now. you moved your hand to wipe your eye as you continued to work on the wound.

"you were the first person to talk to me." he laughed. "you told me that i should tell on 'those meanie heads'."

you laughed with him, bringing one of your hands up to your cheek again to wipe away the tears.

wikihow said not to close the wound, so you placed a bandage over it as instructed in a way that was 'packing' the wound.

"why did we stop being friends, y/n?" he whispered. you refused to look at him. instead, you focused all of your attention on making sure you'd put the bandage on him properly. "what happened to us?"

you couldn't pretend you didn't hear him anymore. finally, you looked him in the eyes. "we grew up." you answered. "we drifted apart," you looked away again, checking the wikihow for more steps.

"can we drift back together?"

he said it so quietly that at any other time, you wouldn't've heard him. but it was 1:23am. no one was awake, and the traffic was especially light that night.

"you still want to be friends with me?" you asked him, your voice wavering.

"no," he said, smiling lightly. "i want to be best friends with you, y/n. like before!"

you sniffed, smiling at your lap. "can we?" he asked.

"of course pete," you laughed, wiping both your eyes.

he sat up, and you hugged him as tightly as you could without affecting the wound.

"you know you still need to get that wound professionally looked at," you grinned.

"yeah..." he said, staring at the bandage. "you did a good job, you know,"

"google did a good job you mean," he laughed.

you'd found him one of your brother's t-shirts to wear after the emotional rebirth of your friendship. since then, you'd been chatting and eating oreos on your bedroom floor.

"how are you gonna tell may?"

he laughed. "are you kidding? she'd freak out. i'm going to have to ask mr. stark for help, though he might have a couple of quest- why are you looking at me like that?"

"mr. stark? as in tony stark? as in you know the tony stark???"

peter shrugged. "yeah, i mean, i didn't think it was a big deal-"

"you didn't- peter, do you hear yourself? you just casually said you might ask iron man to help with your stab wound!" you had grown a substantial amount in volume as you said this

"shhh, you'll wake your family up!" peter whispered quickly.

you'd forgotten it was the middle of the night. you glanced at your clock, as the time of day set in.

"you've probably got to go now, right?"

peter looked at the time. "oh, shoot, you're right." he stood, grabbing his suit. "where's the bathroom?"

you realised he wanted to change back into the suit. "no- peter, your suit is all dirty and bloody... and there's a hole in it!"

"but-"

"keep the clothes, pete. my brother won't mind,"

he looked from you to the suit in his hands. you did have a point. "are you sure?" he asked.

you nodded. "see ya at school, pete." he waved goodbye, climbing back out of your window.

as you snapped out of your memory you laughed again. you couldn't believe that it took a stab wound to bring you and peter back together.

you looked back down at your empty paper, and the perfect idea hit you like a train.

you began to write furiously- you just hoped you'd be able to get everything down before your alarm clock rang.

99 notes · View notes

hyun-swoon · 5 years ago

Text

Statistics Angel

@heonie-ween it’s me!!! your secret santa!!! my gift to you is a fic that may or may not have gotten away from me and possibly inspired me for many other monsta x fics!!!

it’s like 2300 words so it’s under the cut so the post won’t be so long

Summary: Kihyun regretted a lot of things. Not rooming with Minhyuk and just accepting the randomly assigned roommate. Taking MInhyuk's advice for elective. Not taking the professor's advice for when to start the project.

He's not sure if he regrets ending up in the library in the middle of the night, yet.

Link to AO3 here

Kihyun stumbled into the library. It was half past midnight and his roommate sexiled him. Normally, he’d just go to Minhyuk’s room and crash on his floor but Minhyuk was a light sleeper with an early test and Kihyun was in the middle of a huge project.

It was his fault for leaving the whole project until the last minute even though he explicitly remembers his professor telling not to do exactly that. Hyungwon was in the same class and had texted him a picture of his submission screen that morning. Kihyun had simply sent the middle finger emoji and stewed in bitterness over his own poor choices.

So here he was, cursing his roommate for making him leave the safety of their room for the judgment of the library.

“No one is judging you,” Kihyun hears in the back of his head in a voice that sounds suspiciously like Minhyuk’s. “You only get judged when you play sound and don’t have headphones or when you hold obnoxiously loud conversations.” Kihyun supposes that Minhyuk would know from working at the circulation desk and otherwise spending every waking hour outside of class in the library, but he was disinclined to believe his friend who gave an entire half-hour rant before noticing Kihyun’s earbuds.

The library is thankfully empty, most classes have tests instead of projects for midterms and by Thursday night (Friday morning), everyone has either taken their exams or decided that if they don’t already know it, they won’t learn it before morning.

Kihyun picks a table and begins spreading all his supplies out. Although, once he has the file open and the printed instructions in front of him, all progress grinds to a halt. God, who needs statistical analysis anyway? Not Kihyun with his vocal linguistics major, that’s for sure. He needed an elective and when Minhyuk, a business and mathematics double major, said statistics was an easy elective, Kihyun didn’t even think to consider Minhyuk’s majors.

Taking a deep breath, Kihyun puts his earbuds in, cranks up his music and sets to reading the instructions one more time. He starts with formatting and the heading for his paper. Little by little, he begins running the analysis and organizing the numbers into a table. With the easiest part finished, Kihyun checks the time and becomes disheartened once again. It was already nearing 2 am and he still had several more analyses to run and a whole paper to write explaining it.

Saving his work, he pushes his laptop away and lets his head fall onto the table with a thunk. He’s not sure how long he sits like that, but sometime between his wonderings of if it’s too late to drop out and become a trophy husband and if a concussion would get him out of the assignment, something drums on the table. Kihyun turns his head slightly to see a hand resting near his laptop.

He had downed an energy drink and a half before his sexile and after finishing the second one on the walk to the library, he was halfway through his third but he was fairly certain he hadn’t texted Hyungwon about his plans of self-inflicted concussion.

Looking farther up the arm the hand was connected to, Kihyun realizes that it is not Hyungwon or even anyone he knows. The man is buff, certainly way more than any of his own friends, if the state of his forearms were anything to go by. He is wearing a light gray hoodie with the university logo huge across the chest. The hoodie rests halfway on his head and the sleeves are pushed up to his elbows. His hair is fluffed like he just woke up from a nap and if not for his thick framed glasses, Kihyun would have put him squarely into the jock category. Still not sure if he’s hallucinating, Kihyun continues to stare before reaching out to touch the man’s hand.

When he actually makes contact, he jolts out of his stupor and nearly falls out of his chair, stopped only by the man’s grip on his forearm.

“Um,” Kihyun’s voice cracks slightly and he grimaces, “Can I help you?”

“Well, I’m working up on the second floor—” he starts.

“Oh my god, can you hear my music all the way up there?!” Kihyun interrupts before the man has a chance to finish, “I’m so sorry! My friends are always saying that I’m going to go deaf with how loud my music is. I can—” Kihyun cuts himself off when the man raises a hand.

“That’s not what I was going to say.” The man smiles and Kihyun nearly cries with how his face goes from stoic to adorable. “I was going to say that I was going for a walk to take my mind off my test in 5 hours when I saw your screen,” he gestures towards Kihyun’s laptop which has since gone dark. “Did you need help with your statistical analysis? Because I would love to help you.”

Kihyun is dumbstruck. He reaches out again, just to make sure this man was real. Then he pinches himself to make sure he isn’t dreaming. “God, this is due at 10 am and I would love some help.” Kihyun mutters. "My name is Kihyun."

The man smiles once again, his eyes crinkling shut, “My name is Hyunwoo. I have to grab my stuff I’ll be right back.”

Once Hyunwoo was gone, Kihyun scrambled for his phone to text Hyungwon. A gorgeous man just offered to help me with statistical analysis. I think I’m in love and I can die happy.

Kihyun stacked most of his shit to make room for Hyunwoo. Just as he is puzzling through a page that looks more like doodles than notes, Hyunwoo sets his stuff down next to Kihyun.

Kihyun wakes his screen up and from the questioning look from Hyunwoo, simply shrugs his shoulders. “I have no idea what I’m doing at all.”

“Well,” Hyunwoo switches from the spreadsheet to Kihyun’s paper, “Kihyun, you are in luck, I had this class two years ago with this same professor. The data is different but I can tell you that she won’t like the way your report is formatted at all.”

Hyunwoo makes quick work of the formatting while Kihyun stares dumbfounded. Hyunwoo has switched back to Kihyun’s spreadsheet and the data he has collected when his forehead wrinkles in confusion. “Where did you get this data? No offense, but it’s kind of shitty.” When Kihyun starts to explain what he did, Hyunwoo shakes his head, “Yeah that’s not how you’re supposed to do it.”

Before Kihyun can question him, Hyunwoo starts walking him through how he should have generated the data.

“Now you have these price points to run a regression and you just have to interpret the equation for how the two data sets relate to each other.” Hyunwoo looks at Kihyun. “Make sense?”

Kihyun looks at the regression Hyunwoo ran and blinks, “Not at all. Where do you get an equation from that and what do any of these numbers mean?”

“How have you made it this far in the semester?” Hyunwoo mutters under his breath before he starts explaining what the different parts of the regression mean and what to do with all the numbers.

Sometime around 4 am, everything clicked and started making sense, “Alright no offense, but I need you to shut up so I can write before I lose all coherence and understanding.”

Hyunwoo nods and returns to his own notes to study for his exam. The two work in silence until Kihyun hits a wall. “Wait, can you explain this part to me again?” Hyunwoo looks where Kihyun is pointing and nods before setting into an explanation.

Kihyun is furiously taking down notes so he doesn’t forget again while Hyunwoo watches on, “Why are you in a business statistics class as a linguistics major?”

“Dumbass friend recommended it as an easy elective and I didn’t even consider the fact that Minhyuk is a double major in mathematics and business.” Kihyun mutters. “At least Hyungwon is in my class, even if he’s also a business major.”

Instead of trying to continue the conversation, Hyunwoo hums in acknowledgement and returns to his studying.

Somehow, Kihyun makes it all the way to the end of his paper without needing any additional explanation.

Hyunwoo groans at 6:30, dropping his head onto the table and mirroring Kihyun’s position from several hours earlier, “7 am is really too early for a test.”

Wordlessly, Kihyun pulls his last energy drink out of his backpack and sets it in front of Hyunwoo, barely stopping his typing.

“No, I can’t take this.” Hyunwoo tries to protest, “You’ll need it for your classes today.”

Kihyun pauses his typing, saving his work. “I only have the one class today at 10 and there’s going to be places open then on campus, I can buy another one. There is nothing open now. Just take the energy drink as thanks for helping me.” He is so focused on finishing his report that Kihyun doesn’t notice the way Hyunwoo’s eyes crinkle up into a smile again.

Hyunwoo begins packing up his study materials and Kihyun has turned his music up again with more people coming into the library at the more normal hour. When Hyunwoo leaves, Kihyun absentmindedly wishes him luck, busy proofreading his report.

Just as Hyunwoo is getting out of his test, Kihyun hits submit on his report and data, holding his breath until the confirmation screen appears. Once it does appear, Kihyun saves all his material from the project and closes each one. He looks at his phone, seeing that Hyungwon had been awake during his love declaration but less than helpful. Minhyuk texted at 6:45 cursing 7 am tests and complaining that they should get coffee together. His roommate texted only 2 minutes ago that his hook up left and Kihyun can come back to the room. Kihyun scoffs and ignores him, responding an affirmative to Minhyuk about coffee and telling Hyungwon he didn’t die and his statistics angel explained everything so he was able to finish his project with 2 hours to spare.

As he is shuffling through papers so he can pack up and meet Minhyuk at the coffee shop just off campus, Kihyun notices a smaller note with a phone number.

Text me and maybe I can explain statistics at a more reasonable time :) -Hyunwoo

Kihyun blinks and regrets giving his last energy drink to Hyunwoo because now he’s not sure if he’s hallucinating. Who knows how long he would have sat there if Minhyuk hadn’t texted him wondering where he is and why he isn’t at the coffee shop.

Immediately shoving all his notes and his computer into his backpack and Hyunwoo’s note into his back pocket, Kihyun briskly walks out of the library, letting Minhyuk know he’ll be there soon.

Adding Hyunwoo’s number to his phone, Kihyun opens a new message, Hey, it’s Kihyun. Thanks for basically teaching me the first half of the semester last night. Just name a time and place and I’ll bring my notes.

Upon reaching the coffee shop, Kihyun doesn’t see Minhyuk anywhere. Just as he’s about to text him, hands from behind cover his eyes. “Guess who?”

Kihyun turns around, “Minhyuk if you aren’t here don’t text me like you are.”

Minhyuk pouts at him, “I just wanted to make sure you would get here without making me wait too long. You’ve done it before.”

Kihyun groans, “It was one time!”

Minhyuk huffs, “It still happened.”

“If you’re trying to guilt me into buying you coffee it won’t work.” Kihyun steps up to order his own coffee before stepping aside for Minhyuk, “I do have some news to share though.”

Minhyuk nearly lights up and quickly orders his coffee and pulls Kihyun to an empty booth. “Tell me. Quickly too because I’ve got a classmate coming to discuss a project.”

“Okay so you know that hell statistics project that Hyungwon and I had due today that we weren’t supposed to start the night before?”

Minhyuk groans, “Kihyun I warned you about this!”

“I know!”

Before Kihyun can continue the story his and Minhyuk’s names are called. Kihyun rises to get the coffee because no matter how much of a hurry he claims to be in, Minhyuk always chats up the barista.

“Okay so as I was saying,” Kihyun continues, “I started it last night and then my roommate sexiled me so I had to go to the library. I got the first part done and then considered concussing myself but an angel descended from the second floor and helped me with everything and I got it done and statistics makes sense now! He gave up time to study for a 7 am test to help me.” Kihyun looks dreamily out the window, “He was a statistics angel. I think I’m in love Minhyuk.”

“Does your statistics angel have a name?”

“Hyunwoo,”

“Hmm,” Minhyuk hums. He looks over Kihyun’s shoulder, “Hi, Hyunwoo-hyung.”

The force that Kihyun turns his head should have given him whiplash. True to Minhyuk’s greeting, there stood Hyunwoo. He seems to have gone home after his and Minhyuk’s test. He’s wearing a different sweatshirt and a beanie over his hair. Most noticeable is his lack of glasses.

Kihyun feels his face heat up, “How much of that did you hear?”

“You think I’m a statistics angel?”

Kihyun puts his face in his folded arms while Minhyuk cackles. Hyunwoo taps the table like he did in the library so many hours ago. Kihyun looks up reluctantly, “Can I suffer my embarrassment in peace?”

Hyunwoo smiles and Kihyun tries very hard not to swoon. “No because I was ready to text asking if you wanted to go on a date that didn’t involve statistics.”

(“Wait, Hyunwoo-hyung when did you get so smooth? Stop asking my friend out and teach me your ways!”

“Minhyuk we have a project to work on.”)

#ps i follow from tigercallalily #mss #my gift!#i hope you like it!!!!#fun fact i definitely did exactly what kihyun did for a project #except minus the energy drinks and shownu explaining stats #i was on my own and i still don't really understand them

3 notes · View notes

snowdice · 3 years ago

Text

Big Bang (Sort of) Editing Story [Day 68]

Had an early doctor’s appointment today so I’m tired, and the tests done made things feel worse, so idk how long this is going to go, but I want to get at least a bit of my work done. Also brain is not running at full capacity... so if I just disappear it means I forgot I was doing something, laid down, and fell asleep and/or zoned out.

Chapter 31

“Ah,” he said, immediately identifying the reason for Patton disappearing.