#anyways this idiot's the reason why i started loving jellyfish so much | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

starrynite7114 · 4 years ago

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everything is you: eight

A/N: Happy Monday everyone! Monday is such a hit or miss, I will let you all know how Monday is once I get to work later. I hope you all are having a wonderful Monday thus far. I know I’ve been promising Snapshots, I am working on it. I’m just having a difficult time with it for some reason, but I’m pushing through!

School starts back up again next week, yay! Pray for me. Full time school and work again, yay! This is my literal escape, so I hope it will continue to pull through for me.

Anyways, hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Enjoy the update! <3

Thank you @carlaangel86 for the collage! <3

everything is you

one : two : three : four : five : six : seven

Word count: 9562

Warnings: Angst

Masterlist

Request tagged list: @justahopelessssromantic : @ifoundmyhappythought : @carlaangel86 : @woahitslucyylu : @encounterthepast : @enamoured-x : @thewarriorprincessxo : @briana-mishell24 : @bribri-82 : @chibsytelford : @agirllovespasta : @twistnet : @everyhowlmarksthedead : @trulysuccubus : @jadert15 : @sammskellington : @cind-in-real-life : @claytoncardenasbabymama : @sadeyesgf : @thickemadame : @summertimesadnesswithadashofsass : @gemini0410 : @elcococruz : @samcrobae : @sesamepancakes : @iambabyharry : @blackmissfrizzle : @mrs-losa : @1-800-imagines : @phoenixhalliwell : @lady-pswrld : @dazzledamazon : @getyourcrayoncas : @fvckthisbxtchup : @lukealvxz : @scuzmunkie : @lilac-tea-time : @danie1432 : @cocotheclown : @soaronmywings : @my-rosegold-soul : @buttercup812 : @itskiranbitch : @angelreyesgirl : @sheeshgivemeabreak : @vicmackeybullshxt : @bigcreatorwombatdreamer : @khyharah : @strawberrywritings : @cherry-icetea : @fuzzy-jellyfish : @losolvidad0s : @brownsugarcoffy : @courtrae89 : @prdsdjarin : @blessedboo : @marvelmaree : @enamouravecleslivresetlechocolat : @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead : @thesandbeneathmytoes : @dark-twisted-and-mechanical-mind : @maddie-georges : @pearlkitten33 : @aquamento : @incorrect-mcdanno

If you would like to be added to the tag list, please let me know!

Alena yawned as she gathered her things, glad to be finally done for the day. She was out at her scheduled time of six in the evening. Cruz was with Angel so she was free to do as she pleased. She messaged Carla, but she picked up a shift at work. She decided she was going to stay in and order some food, catching up on some Korean drama she’s been meaning to see.

Making her way down the stairs, she forego her car today since she wanted to walk home. It was Friday and she meant to call Victor, but she knew he had family dinner tonight. She was invited as well, but she didn’t want to make their relationship more personal till she and Angel were divorced.

She missed Angel.

She thought of going to see Angel, but she had to remain strong. As much as she wanted to just go back to normal with Angel, this was for her own good.

Walking out of the building, she was surprised to find EZ outside.

She hasn’t talked much with him either since everything fell apart between him and Angel. While she understood his reasoning to some extent, he put Angel in danger. He was holding the sleeves of his kutte and offered a smile.

She returned his smile and gave him a questioning look. “What are you doing here?”

“You got plans?” EZ knew she didn’t, but things could have changed since Carla informed him of their failed plans. He knew he shouldn’t approach Alena for help, and she technically wasn’t talking to Angel. But he figured he could help his older brother out, maybe Angel would forgive him.

“No, well besides enjoying some take out and a Korean drama, no.”

“Want company?”

Alena was hesitant, but it was EZ. The same one who betrayed Angel. “I don’t know. Angel wouldn’t want me to speak to you.”

“Well, Angel isn’t around is he?” EZ sighed. “I’m sorry, come on Alena, just like old time, our Friday night hangouts.”

“Okay.”

Alena held the door for EZ as he brought up the food Alena picked up. They set it up on Alena’s coffee table, sitting on the floor against the couch. Ever since EZ got out, he’s never had a moment alone with Alena, but with her not talking to Angel as often, keeping a distance between them, he had the opportunity to talk to Alena.

And if he played his cards correctly, he could convince his sister-in-law to have mercy on his idiotic brother and in turn, maybe Angel would forgive him.

“Why won’t you catch me up?” EZ opened the packages of Korean fried chicken that Alena picked up. They had original flavor and a spicy one, which EZ knew was mostly for Alena. She loved spicy food. Two individual containers of rice, and udon that they could share. She also got French fries, since Alena loved the carbs. Alena always has a big appetite, so he wasn’t even surprised that they had this much food.

“About?” Alena handed him a paper plate. EZ knew everything in some sense, maybe not all the gritty details, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Come on Alena, about you and Angel, you and Cruz. Apparently you and Victor now.” EZ teased her making Alena blush, playfully smacking her brother-in-law.

“There’s nothing to talk about. I realized it was time for us to just put some boundaries so that we can still remain friends once we divorce.”

“You’re going to divorce my brother?” EZ thought it was cute that Alena thought Angel would let her go.

“That’s what he wants.”

“But what if that’s not what he wanted? What if he wants you to stay by his side?”

Alena smiled, slightly laughing. “He doesn’t, your brother made that very clear a few months ago. It’s time to stop hoping you know? I’ll always cherish my friendship with Angel, but that’s all we’ll ever be.”

“God, Carla is right, you’re infuriating.” EZ shook his head. “How can someone so smart be so naive and stupid?”

“Ezekiel Reyes!”

EZ chuckled. “I’m joking, but you are. You’re refusing to see what’s finally in front of you.” He knew of Alena’s crush on Angel. She used to tell him about Valeria and Angel whenever she came to visit and how happy Angel appeared. Yet, when EZ spoke to his father, he didn’t even fucking know Valeria.

“Can we just enjoy a quiet night, no mention of your brother or Victor? We can talk about Cruz though, I’m glad you finally can spend time with him.” Alena would bring Cruz from time to time to meet EZ, after all, he should know his uncle. Angel wasn’t really onboard at first, but Alena eventually got him to see her reasoning.

“Alena, Angel doesn’t want to divorce you.”

“And you know this as the person he confides in?” Alena sighed. “I’m not going to apologize, what you did to your brother was not right.”

“I fucked up, I get it, but that’s why I want to help him. If he doesn’t forgive me that’s fine, but he deserves to be happy and that happiness is with you.”

“EZ, your brother is a great guy, he has a big heart and he would do anything for you. When he told me you were getting out, expressed your desire to join the club, he was overjoyed. Something he could share with his baby brother, help him assimilate back into this life.” Alena placed some food on her plate, starting to nibble on the chicken. “All he wanted was for you to be happy, to be safe. Regardless of how he felt towards you, Angel prioritized you because that’s what big brothers do.”

“I’m not going to excuse my actions, but I always made sure Angel and the club would be protected.”

“That’s not the point. You didn’t trust Angel enough and yet again, he was left out by you and your father.”

EZ saw Alena’s point, he came here to help Angel out and somehow, Alena helped him out with his struggling thoughts about his betrayal with Angel.

“Can you help me?” EZ put some food on his plate as well, his appetite gone with the shift in conversation.

“No, this is up to Angel, I wouldn’t force him to talk to you. He’ll talk to you when he’s ready.”

“What if that never happens?” EZ itched to tell Alena about his mother since she was such a big part of Alena’s life as well, but he knew it would upset Angel if he dragged Alena into this.

“You're his brother, he’ll come around.”

==================

Carla walked in Alena’s apartment and gave Letty and Cruz a quick hug before dropping her purse at the dining table. Alena called her over since they haven’t seen one another and Alena wanted to catch up.

“Where is Alena?”

“Room, she’s catching up on her korean dramas before dinner.” Letty nodded her head towards the room.

Carla went inside Alena’s room and found her watching television. “Alright, first of all you look like hell.”

“Hell?” Alena sat up frowning. She looked at the mirror across from her and she didn’t see any difference. “Thanks for the insult jerk.”

“Alena, your eyebags look like that cartoon dog with droopy eyes.” Carla teased, sitting next to her best friend.

When EZ first told her that Alena finally put some distance between herself and Angel, she didn’t believe it. After all, who would? Alena was in love with Angel and the last thing she wanted was to put space between them. But when EZ told her why Alena put the distance between them, she went to Angel’s while Cruz was napping and slapped him. He had given her an incredulous look before she uttered Alena’s name and he took it, nodding his head.

After that, she rarely spoke to Angel, upset at him for his actions.

She was on Alena’s team afterall.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m good.”

“This is good to you?” She looked around and Alena was much neater than usual. She figured with all the time in her hands, all she did was organize and clean.

“Carla, I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m hurting, but I don’t want to dwell on it. I made my choice and it’s better for us to get used to this instead of just ripping off the bandaid.” Alena turned her television off, giving her full attention to Carla.

“True, and I’m proud of you Alena, I just want to make sure that this is what you truly wanted.” Angel was such an idiot. All he had to do was confess to Alena, but instead, the two were suffering.

“I don’t even know, what I do know is that I want to get used to not having Angel around. I can’t always count on him.” Alena knew that she eventually had to pull away from Angel. It would make things easier and on Cruz as well. They could just co-parent and Cruz was used to going back and forth anyway.

Carla frowned. She was all for Alena moving on, honestly whatever made her happy she was happy with, but she was conflicted. Angel was prone to making stupid ass decisions that he thinks was a good idea, but in reality, it was far from that. She was sympathetic to Angel, who basically became a brother to her, but maybe this was what he needed, to lose Alena to finally prompt him to do something.

“You’re right, you can’t. But I always thought you would do it slowly, not rip the bandaid off.” Carla slightly laughed. “Alena, are you really okay? It’s me, you don’t have to lie.”

“I’m not, not at all. But I always figured it was going to hurt, I didn’t think it would hurt this much.” Alena felt herself tearing up, but she tried to hold back, tired of always shedding tears.

“Alena, you can’t keep doing this to yourself. You have to make a stand. If you want to stay away from Angel, hold your ground, but if you want to stay until it’s done, then stay. But for once, think of yourself. Angel will never hate you for thinking of yourself, maybe this would wake his big butt up.” Carla wrapped an arm around Alena’s shoulders, pulling her close to her.

“He told me he had feelings for me.”

“And you don’t believe him.”

“Am I supposed to? He tells me that then next thing I know, he takes it back. I just don’t want to fall for it. I feel that he just tells me that to keep me grounded cause he knows I have feelings for him.” Carla agreed. Angel definitely knew Alena had feelings for him, but she doubted that Alena would believe it. It was definitely a dick move on Angel’s part, but Carla knew it had something to do with Angel’s own insecurities of not deserving Alena. That if he gave her enough, she would stay, but joke was on him, Alena would eventually reach her point.

And this was her point.

They were supposed to divorce after the fifth year.

“Good on you Lena, it was time for you to walk away.” Carla softly squeezed her arm. “What about Cruz?”

“I’ll always be here for Cruz.”

“Look, I get it, you don’t want to believe Angel has feelings for you, but Angel almost always takes it back right away. Did he take it back this time?” Carla didn’t want to push Alena, but she had to do her due diligence.

“No, he kept telling me that he had feelings for me.” Alena looked at their reflection on her television. She was always so grateful for Carla. One of the few women who didn’t befriend her due to her connections to the Reyes brothers and her older brother. “I don’t know. It’s not about Victor or anything, it’s about me and Angel, it always has been. Maybe it was a mistake I stood by him, but have you seen him with Cruz? He’s so happy, so good with him. He’s always felt inadequate in their family, but now he has Cruz, a family of his own.”

“Don’t do that Alena, you’re Angel’s family. Look, I’m not his biggest fan right now, but you should see how he talks about you. Whenever you’re not around it’s my wife this, my wife that, my wife and Cruz did the funniest thing.” It was the reason Carla slightly favored Angel. Whenever Alena wasn’t around him, he always spoke about her. “I’m not trying to convince you to stay, but I also want you to know that Angel is a big dummy, your big dummy.”

Alena wipes her tears, slightly laughing. “He really is, I miss him so much.”

“He misses you two you know, he’s miserable with you. He’s also a pain without you. He’s not talking to EZ, so she bugs me more.”

“Did you know about the deal?”

Carla sighed. “I did, but Angel chooses to ignore it because he knows you listen to me.”

Both women laughed knowing that’s most likely the reason Angel was talking to her. And he didn’t expect anything from Carla. EZ and Felipe were different, they were his family and they shunned him as always.

“I’m serious though, you’re Angel’s family. You, Cruz and Angel, that’s what he needs, that’s what he’s needed for the last few years.” Carla leaned her head against the top of Alena’s head. “I love you Alena, you’re my best friend, but I also want you to know that this time, I don’t think Angel is going to take it back. I think he finally realized what you’ve been waiting for, he just hasn’t come out and said it yet.”

Alena remained silent, letting Carla’s words sink in. She wasn’t sure where they stood, but whatever it was, she wanted to move forward. Whether it would be with Angel or not, that was yet to be determined.

==================

Coco watched as Angel busied himself with the vehicle in front of him, Angel had been picking up more hours when Cruz was with Alena and taking on more runs to keep himself busy.

It’s been a month since Alena put her foot down with whatever was going on in their relationship and Angel has not been taking it well.

Not even close.

Coco has seen Alena a few times, he drove up to San Diego to see her and she looked better than Angel, but this distance was taking a toll on her as well. She came to the scrapyard and Vicky’s to do her weekly drop off, but she avoided Angel as much as possible.

Watching them do this, it was painful, and he thought it would be what pushed Angel. But from what he understood, Alena put a wall between them and Angel couldn’t tear it down as he was accustomed to do so.

“How long is this going to go on for?” Gilly was watching Angel as well, breathing out the smoke from his lips. “He isn’t talking to his brother and he’s barely talking to Alena.”

“There’s just so much he could take.” Riz added. “Is Alena with the Italian now?”

“No, she’s getting closer to him, but from what I understood, she’s just busying herself with her job.” Coco was coming over Alena’s later. Letty has built a relationship with Alena and was currently over at San Diego, taking her away from the craziness of Santo Padre. He appreciated Alena’s help knowing she would be a good influence on Letty. She took care of Cruz while Alena was at work. “This isn’t healthy man,” Coco shook his head.

“What can we do?” Gilly questioned.

“For once man, I don’t think we can interfere. If we do, we might hurt Alena and none of us want that. Maybe this is for the best. Angel took advantage of having her around for all these years. Alena deserves to be happy.” Coco threw his cigarette butt to the floor. “And maybe her happiness isn’t with Angel anymore.”

Angel took out his phone after he wiped the grease off of his hands. It was nice to busy himself so he didn’t constantly check his phone. Usually, he would have a picture of Alena and Cruz on their latest adventures, but Alena rarely texted him these days. They were very formal and to the point. He didn’t know how much more he could take, but he would give her time.

He would do anything to appease Alena.

Angel was a prick and he thought she wouldn’t last long. Alena has tried putting space in between them before, but was always able to charm her and she came back to him.

This time around he wasn’t able to do so.

She was fed up.

Rightfully so.

He treated his feelings for her like a yoyo and he was a fucking idiot.

“You good?” Bishop’s voice broke Angel from his thoughts.

“Yeah prez, I’m good. You need something?” Angel slipped his phone back in his pocket.

“Coco tells me you sleep in your car these days.” Bishop was well aware of what occurred with Angel and Alena.

Everyone did.

Alena was slightly putting distance between herself and the club as well and no one was a fan.

Angel has been sleeping in his car from Sunday-Thursday in Alena’s parking structure. He didn’t want to be far away just in case Alena needed him. He felt pathetic, but he tried to sleep in his home after he dropped off Cruz and he couldn’t. He became anxious and all the thoughts wouldn’t turn off.

They quieted down when he was in her parking structure.

It wasn’t ideal, but he couldn’t let her go.

He didn’t want to push her, so it was the second best thing. Luckily, he was cool with the security guards and they didn’t pay him no mind when he slept there.

“Yeah, I can’t sleep at the house without Cruz.” He couldn’t sleep without Alena, but having Cruz slightly made him feel at ease.

“Angel, you can’t keep doing this.”

“I’ll do it for however long it takes. I’ve always pushed Alena and this time, I want to give her time. I want to let her come to me.” Angel pushed the hood of the car closed, leaning against it. “I honestly don’t know how to fix it.” Angel chuckled as he placed a cigarette in between his lips. “She closed me off. Alena has never closed me off.”

Bishop sighed, leaning against the car beside Angel. “Have you told her you love her?”

“Did everyone fucking know?” Angel mumbled under his breath as he shook his head. “I did, I just don’t think it registered.”

“Angel, even a blind man could tell you love Alena. You have a hero complex and Alena was the perfect damsel in distress. Somewhere between that and now, your dynamics changed and Alena is the one whose saved you. She let you become a father to a son your ex gave away to spite you.” Bishop fucking hated Valeria. “She married you, became Cruz’s mother, and was content with whatever you two had because Alena has always love you. Now, she’s twenty-nine years old with nothing to show for. She gave away her 20s to you and Cruz. She stood by and smiled at all those girls at Vicky’s knowing there was a possibility they all slept with you while she was gone.” Bishop always adored Alena. She was a genuinely kind person who never expected anything back from anyone. Her actions was purely selfless and it was rare for him to see. It was the reason most of the Mayans men were protective over her, even going against Angel at times since their brother couldn’t get his head out of his ass. “Never once did she expect anything from you, want to know why?”

“Why?” Angel felt that familiar pressure on his chest, this ache whenever he thought of all the sacrifices Alena made for him and Cruz. People rarely spoke to him about it, but he wasn’t obtuse, he knew the lengths Alena went for him.

“Because you’re her angel, as cheesy as that fucking sounds. You saved her when she was drowning in her own pain and she would forever be thankful for that. And because of that, she doesn’t think you could fall for her.”

“I’m so in love with her, it’s fucking suffocating. I can’t breath without her. I can’t sleep without her. I’m at a fucking lost.” Angel threw his cigarette butt to the ground. “I’m fucking losing her to that pendejo and it sucks.”

“Then I guess it’s time for you to truly fight for her.”

“What you mean? That’s what I’ve been doing.”

“No, you’re playing a pity party hoping Alena will realize how pathetic you are right now.” Bishop chuckled. “It’s time for you to man up and show Alena why you deserve her.” Bishop clapped a hand on Angel’s shoulder, giving him a soft squeeze. “Try to do it before the second week of August cause I got big money on this.”

Angel laughed genuinely for once in the last few weeks. “How the fuck are all of you always making a bet on Alena and I?”

“Cause we’re fucking invested. You have two weeks to fix this, don’t disappoint.”

Angel knew he had to fix this with Alena. He wasn’t sure how much more his sanity could take.

==================

Angel settled in his car for the night letting out a sigh. Every night when he was done with whatever club business he had to handle, he made his way to Alena’s apartment, parking at a free spot the security guard let him take up. It was within sight of her car and the elevator so it kept him at ease.

It was ten at night so Cruz and Alena should be sleeping.

“You really do this every fucking night?” Coco questioned.

He decided to accompany Angel tonight, just to see what he did when he went to San Diego.

“Yeah man, only way I can sleep.”

They heard the laughter before they saw them. Cruz walked out of the elevator with Victor holding his hand. On his other hand was a trash bag. Angel sat up then watching as his son was animatedly talking to Victor who was paying attention.

If Angel was honest the fucking whole thing killed him. Alena was preparing for this life without him and he just couldn’t have that. They came out from where the bins were, Victor now carrying Cruz.

He was fucking playing stepdad to his son.

“Don’t bro,” Coco dissuaded Angel knowing the look on his brother’s eyes.

“I can’t do this man.” Angel sighed, closing his eyes. “I can’t fucking do this.” This feeling of dread just seeped in and he felt nauseous.

“Angel, come on, no one would ever replace you.”

“Maybe not to Cruz, but what about Alena?”

Coco sighed. “This was your own doing. I told you to tell her what was going on, but you know, you became complacent.”

“Coco, I literally don’t need this right now.”

“Tough shit, you didn’t want to tell her you love her, fine, now you have to live with that decision. Don’t play this pity party. You love her? Prove it. You want her to stay? Deserve it.”

Angel was not happy with the Church of Coco, but he definitely needed this. And he was going to show Alena he was worthy of her, he just had to break down her walls. He wasn’t used to being the one that Alena closed off. Seeing her do it to her father, he was proud of her.

Her doing it to him?

The worst fucking thing.

==================

Alena frowned at Coco’s message. Angel slept at the parking structure in his car? She was frustrated at him. How could he do that? He knew he had a bad back and it was the reason they got that expensive mattress that would help with his back pain. She watched as Letty and Cruz were finishing off Moana.

This past month has been hard avoiding Angel, but after the reports Coco was giving her, he was making it harder and harder on her to continue this. She missed Angel terribly, she never thought this was how dependent she was on him, but this was painful.

Whenever she saw him, all she wanted to do was hug him, care for him, but she couldn’t. She had to protect herself.

But not at the expense of Angel’s health.

Cruz wasn’t taking this too kindly either. He was confused and she shouldn’t have put him through this, but she just explained to him that mommy had loads of work lately so she had to stay in San Diego.

It worked for now, but she wasn’t sure how long it would.

“Can you just put us all out of our miseries and talk to the Giant?” Letty didn’t mind staying with Alena in San Diego, there was more to do and Alena was amazing. At times, she wondered who Angel fucking killed for Alena seeing as how devoted she was to him, but after seeing how Angel was without her, it was evident that Angel was definitely more into her than he let on. He was pathetic and honestly, it kind of made her like Angel more. He wasn’t Coco’s obnoxious best friend. He was Alena’s obnoxious husband.

“Letty, I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, have you had to deal with him these past few weeks? He’s annoying. He sleeps in his car just in case you need him so he can be here immediately.” Letty didn’t believe much in love or romance, but seeing Angel and Alena, she might actually start believing in it. “And you think he doesn’t love you? Pssh, you’re fucking crazy.”

“Ooh, Lele said a bad word.” Lele, a nickname Cruz made for Letty and it was her favorite word.

“Sorry Cruzie.” Only mommy and Lele could call him Cruzie, no one else.

“It’s okay,” he hugged Letty’s middle before he continued to watch Moana.

“You two are so cute.” Alena gushed, taking pictures of them.

“Yeah, we are.” Letty grinned. “So are you going downstairs or you’re gonna keep punishing yourself?”

“What?”

“Don’t you think that maybe you’re putting distance between you and Giant because you feel bad for kissing Victor?”

“What?” Alena always admired Letty. Due to her circumstances, she had to be more mature than anyone her age. She was strong and just pushed through everything. Alena was going to make sure she was taken care of, that she didn’t have to feel alone again. “That’s crazy.”

“No it isn’t, you decided to protect your heart, I get it, but you feel like you did Angel wrong by kissing Victor, but you didn’t. You two are technically not together. You’re punishing yourself because you hurt Angel so you’re keeping yourself away since you don’t feel like you deserve Angel’s devotion to you.” Letty looked at Alena who was sitting on the armchair with her legs under her. “You’ve given up a lot for Angel, that’s what Coco tells me. He finally realized how much he really needed you and it seems like you have as well. Go get your boy, the other Mayans are plotting on how to kill him.”

Alena sighed, closing her eyes. She didn’t see it that way. She wasn’t punishing herself, this was just for the best so they could get used to the arrangement. This was so complicated and fucked up.

But she wasn’t going to let Angel sleep in his damn truck.

Grabbing her keys, she made her way downstairs, taking the stairs since she was too wired to wait on the elevator. She could have sworn she heard Letty say thank god and explain to Cruz where mommy was going. When she reached the parking lot, sure enough, Angel’s car was right there. Walking to the car, she saw Coco who muttered a thank god. He exited the car and Alena handed him her keys.

“Don’t do this again and if you do, just give all of us a heads up.” Coco kissed her forehead after he pulled away from hugging her.

Alena got to his window, and watched as Angel was laying on his side, arms crossed over his chest. She frowned knowing how uncomfortable this must be for him. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the window, startling Angel.

His eyes focused on her, and she saw a small smile appear on his lips.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Angel opened the door.

Alena moved to stand next to him, frowning. “Why are you doing this Angel?”

“I can’t sleep at home alone.” Angel studied her, making sure she was okay. “Sorry, if you don’t want me to be here I can leave.”

“No, I just,” Alena wanted to tell him that she did want him here, she always did. “We bought that bed for a reason because of your bad back from that football injury in college.” It was during his brief stint in college. Angel played football and had so much potential, but he was injured and he was never really able to play again.

“I know, but it didn’t matter how comfortable I was, I couldn’t sleep.” Angel’s eyes connected with hers, man did he miss seeing her. Just being in her fucking presence. “You doing okay? How are you?”

“I’m good,” she smiled, her hands folded in front of her. She wanted to reach out to him, smooth back his growing hair, run her fingers through it, but she had to keep to herself.

“I miss you, Cielo.” Angel sighed. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to hear that, but I really do. I can’t fucking sleep without you.”

“Do you want to come upstairs? I don’t like you staying here.” Alena offered. She didn’t tell him that she didn’t sleep much without him as well.

“Do you want me to come upstairs?” Angel questioned.

She looked up at him then. “Yes.”

Angel internally cheered, overjoyed by this whole situation. He didn’t know who the fuck told Alena, but he didn’t care, just to be able to see her he was thanking every deity out there.

He followed her up, noticing that she still kept the distance between them. He unlocked the door for her when they arrived in front of her door and held the door open. When they walked in, Coco was on the couch getting ready to sleep.

“Letty brought Cruz to the second bedroom, you two good?” Coco mostly looked at Alena since he was done with Angel today.

“Yes,” she nodded her head and smiled. “Good night Coco.”

She made her way to her room, stopping at the door to wait for Angel. He looked at Coco and mouthed a thank you.

“Yeah you fucking owe me.” He chuckled, turning the television on.

Angel walked in Alena’s room and she closed the door behind her once he was inside. She got into bed at her usual side and turned the television on. Angel joined her once he stripped to his undershirt and boxers. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he was pretty sure that it was due to Alena’s presence that he felt more at ease. She laid on her back and he did the same.

He was becoming sleepy, but he was trying to stave it off so he could just enjoy being around her.

“I missed you too.” She broke the silence between them and Angel just let out a sigh of relief turning to Alena.

“I can’t do this Alena, I’m going fucking crazy without you. Please don’t continue this, I get you’re trying to protect your heart, but I don’t know how much I can take.” Angel waited for her to react, he saw the tears spill from her eyes. “Cielo, if this is what you want, that’s fine, I just, I miss you so fucking much.”

Alena turned to him and she moved till her arms were around him. Angel’s arms immediately wrapped his arms around her.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be selfish. We can just keep it how we’ve always done it till we separate.” Alena made up her mind. She was just going to cherish these moments with Angel and go from there.

“You’re not being selfish Alena, you’re far from that.”

Angel was going to confess to her soon. He couldn’t let her go, this was such an eye opener for him. He would be lost without her, he would die without her. He was going to convince her that he was worth it, that he deserved her.

She gave up so much for him.

It was time he repaid her tenfold.

Alena was the love of his life and he was done playing games.

==================

Angel has been giving Alena space ever since they reconciled three days ago. They were back at their house and Alena kept sleeping with Cruz, which was not ideal for him. When they woke up the next morning, Alena was talking to him, but she kept her distance, which he could respect. But he just wanted her to be playful with him again, to blush every time he flirted with her.

He was going to win her back.

Currently, he was at Vicky’s playing with the guys before going home to have dinner with his two favorite people. He’s avoided EZ successfully and he planned to do so till he was ready to forgive his younger brother.

Angel laughed as everyone around him groaned after he put down another winning hand.

“Seems to be my night boys, let’s do another hand.” Angel ordered before he left the table to use the bathroom.

His phone began to rang, Myrna who was standing behind Angel’s chair noticed it. She picked up the phone and smirked.

‘Wifey ♾👑💍’

“Hello?” She answered. The guys looked at Myrna in curiosity, she was far too bold to answer someone’s phone who clearly disliked her. But none of the guys made a sound to stop her.

“Hi, sorry, I think I called the wrong number.” Myrna heard Alena’s confusion.

“No, it’s the right phone. Angel’s busy, can I take a message?” Myrna’s smirk grew knowing that this would hurt Alena.

“The fuck are you doing?” Coco grabbed Angel’s phone, checking the caller ID. “Are you fucking insane?” Coco walked away, placing the phone on his ear. “Lenny, hey, Angel went to the bathroom. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, sorry, I was gonna ask him to buy the VapoPads for the humidifier, but it’s okay, I’ll go get it.”

He could see the thoughts running in Alena’s head and he couldn’t have that, they just made up. He couldn’t fucking deal with mopey Angel again, fuck no.

“Lenny, don’t let Myrna get to you, you know Angel isn’t interested in her.” Coco reasoned.

“No, it’s okay, I don’t need an explanation. I’m gonna go to Target with Cruz. You don’t have to let Angel know I called.” Alena requested. “You guys have fun, remember to wrap it up. Please tell Maxine the cake is ready for Olalla’s birthday.”

“Alena, I’ll go to Target, just stay home.” Coco knew that Alena was having her seasonal allergies right now. The last thing he wanted was for her to go outside when she should be resting.

“No, you’re fine, I don’t want to intrude.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Coco turned around and found Angel behind him giving him a curious look as to why he had his cell phone and saying Alena’s name.

“That bitch Myrna answered Alena’s call, insinuating she was busy with you. Handle that.” Coco kept Angel’s phone to his ear, hearing Alena’s disagreement with his actions. “You know she’s been targeting Alena right? That night at the club, it wasn’t the first time she’s given her shit. Now be Alena’s husband and handle her.”

Angel’s eyebrows furrowed, his good mood down the drain because of this stupid woman. She was a thorn to his side that he never paid much attention to, but knowing he mistreated his wife more than once, that was fucking unacceptable.

He made his way over to her and Myrna’s smile could only be categorized for him as creepy.

“I’m going to say this once, and only once. I’m not fucking interested and never will be. I’m married and even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t give you the time of fucking day. Who the fuck do you think you are to answer my phone when my wife is calling?” Angel got in her face, making her step back due to his intimidating stance. “Stay the fuck away from my wife, if you even breathe the wrong way towards her, I have a bullet with your name on it.”

Myrna nodded her head before running up the stairs. Gilly, Creeper and Riz looked on at Angel, impressed by his words.

“About fucking time.” Gilly clapped.

“The fuck? You all know this has been an ongoing thing?” Angel sat back down on the table, looking over at Coco, slightly worried that this put things between him and Alena in a bad place again. “Why didn’t any of you tell me?”

“We didn’t want to fall out of grace with Alena.” Riz answered. “She said she had it handled, we never let her go too far.”

“That’s not the fucking point, she’s my wife, she should have told me that she was being mistreated by one of Vicky’s girls.” Angel was frustrated with Alena. She always did this. He knew he couldn’t fight every battle for her, but this was fucking ridiculous. How many more times have Alena endured shit from women and not told him?

“It’s Alena, she knew you would have waged war against all these women.” Creeper reasoned. “You have to let her fight her own battles.”

“So how many of these women did you all fight for her?” He knew his brothers were hypocrites. They all had a soft spot for Alena.

“All of them of course.” Coco joined the conversation, placing Angel’s phone on the table. “Alena needs the VapoPads.”

“Next time this happens, please fucking tell me. I’m not going to fight these women, but I just want to know what’s going on with her.”

“You’re so fucking whipped.” Creeper teased.

“Don’t give a fuck, you fuckers are just jealous that Alena’s my girl.” Angel slipped his phone inside his kutte.

“Yeah, if we didn’t like you so much we would have made a move on Alena.” Gilly shook his head. “Fair game if we all met her at the same time.”

“Tough shit, she’s my wife, always will be.”

==================

Alena sneezed into her mask as she made her way down to the medicine aisle at Target. She paused and sneezed before continuing to walk. Cruz was walking beside Alena, holding her hand.

“Bless you mommy,” he told her, looking up at her. “Mommy, why didn’t daddy get it?”

“Daddy is busy baby, don’t you want to go on an adventure with mommy?” Alena looked down at Cruz who smiled up at her.

“I always like going on adventures with you.”

“Cute kid.”

Alena looked up and as luck would have it, Dante was standing at the same aisle she needed to go to. She immediately stepped in front of Cruz and Dante held his hands up.

“Hey, you know I honestly mean no harm.” Dante knew the kid was Angel’s and judging by the ring on Alena’s finger, he finally made a move. “I’m glad Angel got his head out of his ass and married you.”

“What are you doing here?” Alena questioned.

“Visiting my sister, just came to pick up some VapoPads for my nephew’s humidifier.” Dante held the box up. “Your guard dog isn’t here?”

“Right behind you, asshole.” Alena looked up and found Angel standing tall, his hands holding his kutte by the zippers, gloved hands covering his rings. “What are you doing here? Thought we had a talk.”

Dante froze up and turned around facing Angel.

“Daddy!” Cruz ran to Angel who easily picked him up.

“Hey, man, I honestly just ran into her.” He quickly turned to face Alena, the frightened look on his face surprised her. Dante was always so confident and sure of himself. Nothing hardy scared him. “It was nice seeing you, I’m sorry again Alena for the way things ended.”

Alena just nodded her head. Angel kept his eyes on Dante till he was out of sight. He looked over at Alena, shaking his head.

“Why are you so stubborn? I told you I was picking it up.” Angel picked up the box of VapoPads making his way over to her.

“And I also told you I got it.” Alena countered taking the VapoPads from him.

“Cruzito, mommy’s stubborn huh?”

Cruz shook his head. “No, mommy just knows you forget.” Angel doesn’t know why he bothered, Cruz always took Alena’s side.

“Me?” Angel tickled Cruz causing him to shriek in delight. “Doesn’t daddy take care of you and mommy?”

“Yes.” Cruz nodded his head, coughed a little due to the laughing fit he had.

“So Daddy wouldn’t forget right?”

“Mmm, yes, but mommy said you were busy.”

“I’m never too busy for you and mommy.” Angel looked at Alena as he said that. She was walking in front of them and she didn’t skip a step, but he knew he heard her. Alena chose not to acknowledge Angel’s words. She had to get used to doing things on her own, she couldn’t rely on Angel.

They went to the self checkout, paying for the VapoPads. Angel held Alena’s hand then, walking her to her car. He parked his motorcycle right next to her vehicle.

He buckled up Cruz, closing the door once he was set.

“Did you eat?” Angel questioned as he opened the door for Alena.

“I made pasta, but I wanted to get the VapoPads first.” Alena placed her purse on the front passenger seat.

“Okay, I’ll see you at home.” Alena slid in the seat and before she could close the door, Angel prevented her from doing so. “Hey, that thing with Myrna, you know it’s not true right?” They literally just made up, the last thing he wanted was for Myrna to get to Alena.

“Yes, of course not. I would like to think you have some standards.” Alena teased. Coco talked her off the ledge and after everything that happened with Myrna, she trusted that Angel wouldn’t do anything with her.

“Yeah, I do, you’re my standard.” He was pushing it, but he wanted her to be flirty and playful with him again. Maybe if he showed her it was okay, then she wouldn’t be opposed to it.

Alena blushed, playfully pushing Angel away. “You’re trouble.”

“Let me get a kiss.” Angel puckered up and she giggled.

“Nice try.”

==================

Alena got out of the car and opened the door for Cruz who jumped out of the car. Angel has Cruz’s backpack while Alena carried Cruz all the way inside the school.

It was Cruz’s first day of school.

It was the day Alena had been dreading, but she was excited for Cruz as well. It would be good for him to meet kids his age and it was a plus that their neighbor and Cruz’s best friend Devin was in the class with him.

“Mommy and Daddy will come at three, okay? Stay with Devin or the teacher then we can go get a snack. What do you want to have Cruzie?” Alena was rambling on because she was nervous. How would Cruz do with other kids? Was he nervous?

Angel smiled watching Alena. She couldn’t sleep last night due to how anxious she became. No matter how many times he tried to reassure her, nothing got to her. He understood, he was nervous too, but he figured he had to seem less anxious to keep Alena sane.

They stopped in front of the classroom and he had to laugh at how fate could be.

“Monica?” Angel came face to face with his ex-girlfriend, Monica Avalos. They were together for four years and broke up when she left to further pursue her education. It hurt when it first happened, but over the years they kept in touch and he was happy for everything she’s achieved.

“Angel Reyes, still a looker I see.” The two embraced, confusing Cruz.

“Mommy, who is daddy hugging?”

“That’s your teacher.” Alena answered. The one that got away, she knew how much Angel and Monica meant to one another. It was crazy that Monica was his teacher. Alena looked at Monica’s ring finger and there was no ring.

Oh lord, it was like those romantic films, this was their chance to reconnect.

“Alena, oh my god, last I heard you were going to Paris.” Monica walked over and was going to hug her, but Cruz has his arms wrapped around her. “Oh hello, you must be Cruz.” She gave Cruz space, not wanting to overwhelm him. “I’ll be your teacher Ms. Avalos.”

“Hello,” Cruz looked at Angel who gave him an encouraging smile. He looked uncertain now, noticing how his mother tensed up. “Mommy, are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine Cruzie, mommy is just nervous cause it’s your first day of school.” She placed him on the ground and crouched before him, holding his hand. “Mommy packed you a snack and you can share with Devin too, okay? Be a good boy for Ms. Avalos. I love you.”

“Okay mommy, I love you.” Cruz hugged her and Alena fought her tears, not wanting to be that mom.

Angel crouched beside Alena and gave his son a hug and a kiss on the head. “Daddy and mommy will be waiting for you.”

“Cruz, your mommy and daddy were my friends when I went to school.” Monica heard the gossip around town, but she didn’t think it was true. She was always confused as to how it happened. She thought Cruz was Alena’s child and Angel was just helping her out. It turned out it was the other way around especially since Cruz looked so much like Angel. “And you’re married.” She smiled. “Always thought you would end up with EZ.” Monica teased Alena knowing it would irritate Angel.

“Haha, so fucking funny.” The two kept in touch these past few years, so she knew he was married to Alena.

“Angel, language.” Alena scolded him.

“Sorry cielo.” Angel kissed her cheek.

Monica envied them, mostly Alena. She always had Angel wrapped around her fingers, it wasn’t even funny. She never mistreated Alena or hated her, she knew that somewhere down the road, Angel would get his head out of his ass and she was glad he finally did.

The two stood up, handing Cruz his backpack.

“Let’s go Cruz, say bye to mommy and daddy.”

Cruz waved goodbye to them before running in the room when his eyes landed on Devin. Angel wrapped his arms around Alena, leading her away after saying goodbye to Monica. Once they were outside, Alena cried a bit harder and Angel just hugged her.

“Cielo, don’t cry.” Angel kissed the side of her head. It wasn’t like Cruz never did school before. He has a hybrid for kindergarten, which was also a daycare. But that wasn’t as bad as this. He was starting first grade, he would have homework and field trips. “Cruz is going to have so much fun and at least Monica is his teacher.”

Alena nodded her head, pulling away from him and wiping her tears. They went back to their car and drove home. Angel had a shift at the scrapyard for a few hours, but he was free after that.

“I’ll drop you off at the house then pick you up before we get Cruz.”

“Sure.”

Alena remained quiet and she just mostly paid attention to her cell phone. Angel hoped she wasn’t rattled by Monica’s appearance.

“You okay?”

Alena nodded. “Yes, sorry.” She felt stupid for fretting over Monica. It’s been years since they were together, but it was too convenient that she came back around the time she was divorcing Angel. This was their second shot and Alena was the one before his forever. She let out a bitter laugh, startling Angel.

“Hey, you’re overthinking this, don’t let that shit sink in.” Angel knew what she was thinking and he wasn’t going to let that sink in. Monica didn’t mean anything to him, she was just a memory. “Monica means nothing to me, get out of your head.”

Alena turned to Angel, surprised that he knew what she was thinking. “Don’t act brand new cielo, I know you, I told you, I have feelings for you and have had feelings.” He took her hand in his, kissing the back of it. “Let’s go grab food and just stay at the clubhouse with me, I don’t want to leave you alone cause god knows what you’re gonna conspire against me.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “It’s fine Angel just drop me off.”

“Nope, you’re stuck with me.”

==================

Alena was sitting in the office with Chucky, when a customer walked in.

“Howdy John.” Chucky greeted the man that walked in.

Alena looked up and greeted him with a smile before going back to the files she was organizing for the yard.

“I’ve never seen you around,” John commented, leaning against the countertop of the office that separated the customers and the workers.

“Oh, I don’t work here often.” Alena answered once she realized he was speaking to her.

“Better not miss my opportunity then, you want to grab dinner sometime? I’m new here so it would be nice to have a local take me around.” John smirked, watching as Alena looked over at Chucky.

“Oh, is he your husband?” He was slightly judging her as Chucky wasn’t much of a looker, but ugly men usually got the most beautiful women.

“No sir, but I’m sure her husband wouldn’t appreciate you hitting on his wife.”

“I don’t see a ring on your finger.”

Alena cussed under her breath. She had taken off her ring since she washed her hands. Her ring was loose and she was afraid it would slip off of her finger.

“Oh, I was washing my hands.” Alena took it out of her pocket and slipped it back on. “But I am married and not interested.”

“I’m sure a friendly date wouldn’t be so bad, just take me to the spots around town.” Marriage was a farce for John. A beautiful girl like this woman before him wouldn’t be happy with just one man. “Maybe I can entice you enough to leave your husband?”

“Can I help you?” Chucky and Alena looked over at Angel who heard the whole exchange.

“Just trying to get your secretary to give me her number.”

Creeper who was standing behind Angel, moved in front of Angel, making sure his brother didn’t do anything crazy.

“I’d be careful, Angel is her husband.” Chucky warned.

John looked back at Angel and then at Alena. He knew he fucked up. He’s heard of the Mayans and the last thing he wanted to do was get on their bad side.

“My bad bro, I didn’t know.”

Alena stood up and tried to diffuse the situation. “It’s okay, he didn’t know Angel. It’s fine.” Alena made her way over to Angel and wrapped her arms around him. She didn’t want him to fight anyone for her behalf.

The way Angel quickly relaxed, it always surprised Creeper. He was hot tempered and acted on impulse, but Alena just had this sense of calm and control over him.

Alena stood on tiptoes and kissed Angel, which surprised him, but he was completely distracted after that. Who the fuck was John? Where were they? His girl just kissed him after a month or so, he just needed to bask on that.

John quickly excused himself and left. Creeper just chuckled and patted Angel on the back. But nothing could get to him. He had his girl in his arms.

“You just have to be so damn cute cielo.” He playfully scolded her, kissing her again.

“Shut up.” Alena tried to pull away, but Angel just kept his arms around her.

“Just stay like this.”

“Is it close to his time yet?”

“No babe, it’s only 930, we dropped off Cruz an hour ago.”

Alena groaned, resting her head on Angel’s shoulder.

“It’s literally too early for this cute shit.” Coco teased as he walked by them.

“You're just jealous, you want a hug?” Angel extended an arm towards Coco making him laugh.

“From Alena, sure.”

“Nope, fuck no.” Angel wrapped both arms around her again.

“You’re so needy.” Coco rolled his eyes, shaking his head.

“Let me get another kiss.” Angel bent down and kissed Alena once more earning groans from the people around them. Angel lifted one of his hands and flipped them off.

“I rather have them kissing than fighting.” Coco chuckled, happy that they were finally back in good terms.

“Come on, let’s go take a nap, you slept a whopping three hours last night.” Angel led her to the clubhouse, she waved goodbye to Coco and a Chucky.

Once inside, the cool air made Alena sigh. Angel wrapped an arm around her shoulders, leading her towards the back.

“Hey, no fucking, it’s too early.” They heard Taza tease making Hank and Bishop laugh.

Alena blushed and Angel just laughed.

“I mean, if you really want to cielo, I would not be opposed.” Angel whispered into her ear, placing a kiss on the top of her head.

“Stop it,” she hit his stomach.

They entered Angel’s designated dorm room in the clubhouse, a place he hasn’t used in years. He’s had a few escapades with Alena here, but it was rare since he was mostly at his home or hers. Alena immediately took off her flats and slipped under the covers.

“You want to change baby?” Angel took off his sweaty Romero Brother’s work shirt and changed into a white muscle shirt.

Alena couldn’t help but check him out. It was sinful how good Angel looked. She was going to enjoy these last few months with him. This was so depressing.

“No, I’m okay.” Alena pulled the blanket to her chest since the AC was blasting in Angel’s room and she was trying to remain as modest as possible. She felt like an idiot for doing so since Angel has seen everything, but a little boundary didn’t hurt anyone.

“Are you cold? Do you want me to turn off the AC?” Angel stood beside the bed, waiting for Alena’s answer.

“No, it’s okay,” she took off her glasses and turned away from Angel.

He knew what she was doing and he didn’t want to push her. But she just kissed him, what would be so bad with cuddling?

“Cielo, you don’t want to cuddle with me?” Angel slipped in beside her.

“I’m okay,” Alena kept her back turned to him.

Angel started poking her back, Alena had to pay attention to him. This was unacceptable. Finally after ten pokes, Alena turned around and she glared at Angel. He chuckled, awing at her attempt to look annoyed.

“Baby, you look so cute glaring at me. Come on, cuddle with me.” Angel pouted. Alena hated the man before her. She did not want to cuddle, she literally hasn’t slept on the same bed as him since they made up.

“No, your body heat is literally not what I need right now.”

“Alena, you covered yourself all the way to your neck, I think you need my body heat.” He wiggled his eyebrows, pulling on her shirt.

“No, I’m good, so good.” Alena shook her head, slapping his hand. “Behave or I’m going to Coco’s room.”

“Fine,” Angel huffed and puffed, turning away from Alena. This would work, he knew it would. All he wanted was to fucking cuddle. They did that before they were married.

Alena didn’t want Angel to be upset at her. He was going to hold this against her the whole day.

She sighed and scooted closer to Angel, wrapping her arms around him. Angel smirked triumphantly. Alena closed her eyes, not wanting to admit how much she enjoyed hugging him, or any contact with Angel. She really enjoyed any contact with Angel, he always made her feel safe, protected and comforted. If she was being honest, the thing she loved the most was being wrapped around Angel’s arms after a long day. When he would run his fingers through her hair when she was having an especially awful day. When Angel would hold her hand whenever she became anxious.

God, she loved him so much, it was going to be awful to try and get over him.

Angel turned around, crushing Alena to his chest.

“Thanks cielo,” he kissed the top of Alena’s head just as sleep took over.

#angel reyes #angelreyes #angel reyes fanfiction #angel reyes fic #mayans mc imagine #mayans mc fanfic #mayans mc fic #eiy #angel reyes fanfic

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greekletters · 4 years ago

Text

insert clever title here..

honestly, I was going to try to bait you all with a better title, but this is all I got..

not really a prompt, but more of a topic...

The Kissing Booth

When you had imagined college life, you had always thought about late nights studying in the library, or parties where you would go out drinking with your friends, or complete isolation and last minute study sessions in your dorm as you prep for exams.

Having to run the bottle ring toss stand for the dorm hall's charity event wasn't even anywhere near your college to-do list. But here you are. Carefully standing up about forty glass bottles on a table.

You always hated this game. It was completely rigged. The rings you had to toss were always smaller than the bottle tops they were supposed to fall on.

To make matters worse, you had found out that your roommate and love of your life would be running the kissing booth. Of course, Weiss Schnee had no idea that she was the love of your life. But that was a minor detail.

Luckily for you, Weiss' booth had presale tickets. So you may have bought some, just in case. What you hadn't anticipated was her booth being right next to yours.

"Oh hey Blake, looks like we are going to be booth buddies." You look up to see Weiss setting up her sign and placing a plastic bag of some kind on the shelving behind the booth.

"Yeah. Looks like it."

"Did you get stuck doing the ring toss again this year?" She tilts her head to the side and gives you a small smile.

"It's not that bad. I just hate when people, well, really when the kids don't win. It's totally rigged. I usually just give the kids the prize tickets anyways." Shrugging, you set about five more bottles on the table.

"Well that's very kind of you. They said my tickets sold out this year. So I'm a little nervous."

"I mean, why wouldn't they?" It falls out your mouth before you can stop it.

She looks away, smiling. Probably because you're blushing like an idiot because you've totally embarrassed yourself. Not like the two of you have to share a room for the remainder of the school year.. oh wait.

By the grace of God, when you stand up you see Pyrrha making her way towards you, purposefully.

"Hi ladies! Are you ready to go? We are about to open everything up!"

"It's as good as it's gonna get." You mumble as you place the little plastic rings along the counter top of your booth.

"As enthusiastic as always, Blake. Weiss? How about you? You have the only booth to sell out of tickets before we open."

"Really?" There's a slight crack in her voice.

"Most definitely. Yang is quite upset that her booth didn't sell out first."

"I mean, who would honestly pay to arm wrestle her? You're already going to have to pay for your own medical bills when she breaks your arm or wrist." Weiss giggles into her sleeve, and it makes you smile.

"Now, now, that's not fair to say. I asked her to behave and participate fairly."

"Well hopefully she listens." Weiss says as she hops up onto the stool behind her booth.

"Alright, it's go time. So I have to head back up front and make sure Nora and Ruby don't eat all the food. Or set something on fire."

"Wouldn't be good to have a repeat of last year, would it?" You say, and Pyrrha looks at you clearly unamused by the smirk on your face.

As soon as Pyrrha is gone, Weiss leans over towards you.

"Remind me, what happened last year?"

"You mean you really forgot that the two of them tried to deep fry every kind of food they had at the concession stand and the wall caught fire?"

She doubles over in laughter, slapping her knee.

"No, no I didn't forget. But it never gets old. The two of them smelled like corndogs for a month afterwards. Pyrrha was so mad."

The first group of kids approaches your booth and you take their tickets, handing them each three rings.

"And yet, even after the concession stand bonfire, Pyrrha thought it was a good idea to throw the same kind of fundraiser again this year."

None of the kids get any rings on the bottle, but you give them all a prize ticket anyways, and they walk off.

"Yeah, especially since half the money we raised ended up going towards the damages."

"What booth did you run last year? I forgot." It was true. You just know it wasn't the kissing booth.

"Face painting. And I was terrible at it. It was more like a 'Picasso painting in five minutes or less on your face' booth. Kids kept asking for animals or super hero masks and it was just a mess."

"Oh yeah, I asked you to paint a flower on my cheek and it looked way more like a jellyfish than a flower." She grabs one of your rings off the table and throws it at you.

"Who did the kissing booth last year?" She asks, propping her chin in her hand, looking off pensively. But she answers her own question. "Coco. How could I forget? She got in trouble for… how did Pyrrha refer to it?"

"Aggressively trying to suck face with every willing participant." Your air quotes are only to emphasize the ridiculousness of Pyrrha's word choice.

"Poor choice of words, considering it was Coco, so everyone that wandered by was willing."

"You aren't wrong. Still funny though."

Another five or six groups of people come and go from your booth. Weiss' booth still remaining unvisited. But for some reason, she seems unbothered by the lack of people.

"Have you started studying for Goodwitch's exam yet?" When you stand up from picking the rings up off the floor, you face her direction.

"I finished the readings and taking notes but I haven't started studying yet, no. You?"

"Not really. I started to color code my notes but then I was just too distracted."

"Too busy worrying about running the kissing booth, huh?"

"Actually, yes." It surprises you. Weiss isn't the kind of person to let certain things distract her from school work.

"Good news," you look both left and right from your seat, "doesn't seem like you're as busy as you thought. So not much to worry about after all."

"Right? So much for a sold out booth. I even went out of my way to figure out a way to not actually kiss people."

"Wh-what do you mean?" The nervousness in your chest building exponentially.

"Well, I didn't really want to kiss anyone in the first place. So I had to figure out a way to get out of it, without just quitting. So I got these." She leans over and places the plastic bag on the counter top of her booth.

"Hershey kisses. You bought a bag of chocolate?"

"This way, I can technically still give anyone a kiss, but not have to physically kiss them." She dances a little bit on her stool. Clearly proud of herself for coming up with the idea.

"That's kinda smart." It's all you can think to say as your brain comes to realize how much money you just spent on carnival tickets for basically no reason at all.

"So imagine my disappointment when there are no visitors to my supposedly sold out booth." She huffs in defeat.

"More good news, we have less than an hour left, so it's almost over. And you get to keep the chocolates for yourself."

"Still somewhat disappointing."

Suddenly, from around the end of the aisle, Jaune appears, with an armful of tickets.

"Speaking of disappointment." You mumble,

"Those tickets better not be for me." The look of terror is plastered on Weiss' face.

"Hey guys!" He's always so chipper. It's exhausting. "There's only like half an hour left of the carnival so I figured I needed to come drop these off if they plan on getting used."

"Oh God no, please God no." Weiss repeats a few times under her breath.

"And these are…?" You ask him as he lays them across the entirety of your booth's counter.

"Your tickets." He says to you like it's obvious. "You know, all the tickets you bought for the kissing booth. At first when Pyrrha said you had bought them all, I was a little confused. But she told me to just be quiet and bring them here for you. I still can't believe you bought every single one. That's like, over eighty tickets!"

If it were possible to die from embarrassment, you would be six feet under.

"Thanks, Jaune. I'm sure Pyrrha will be delighted to hear that I have received every single one of my tickets, right now, standing here. Now, please do me a favor and leave so I can die in peace."

"Alright then. You two ladies have a good night!" With that, he wanders off back the way he came.

When you finally turn to the right and look in her direction, Weiss is propped up on her forearm and leaning against the booth. Her eyes narrowing as she looks at you. This certainly hadn't been how you thought this would go. You had been hoping she would never find out.

"Just when exactly were you planning on telling me that you bought not one, not two, but ALL of the tickets to my booth, Blake Belladonna?"

"Never? Probably. Maybe eventually?" You fidget nervously.

"Why would you do that? How much could that have possibly cost? Over eighty tickets? You shouldn't go around wasting money like that!"

"It wasn't a waste." You mumble as you begin to start cleaning up your booth, placing bottles back in their boxes under the table.

"What do you mean? Of course it was."

"Selfish maybe, but not a waste." You take a deep breath. "Because maybe I didn't want to spend my night watching other people kiss you, over and over while I supervised the ring toss." Folding the legs of the table, you slide it back against the wall. "It was for charity too, so I didn't waste my money."

You don't really want to wait for her to say anything back. You already feel like your heart had arm wrestled Yang, and lost. So you start cleaning up all the tickets Jaune had left scattered on the booth. Habitually, you count them as you fold them into rows.

"How many?" Her voice almost seems far off, or like you're hearing it through a wall.

"I'm not letting you pay me back for the tickets, Weiss. I'm not sad or feel guilty that I bought them" You dismiss any notion similar to that as well.

"Blake Belladonna, how many tickets did you buy?" Her voice a little more stern this time. Rolling your eyes, you look over at her.

"Eighty four. There are eighty four tickets." Humiliated. You feel humiliated as you hear her shoes scuffing along the floor as she walks over towards you.

"Hold out your hand." You glance up at her suspiciously.

"Why?"

"Just do it, please." She lightly stomps her foot. So you stick out your left hand, palm up.

She reaches up and places a single chocolate kiss in your palm. And you just stare at it for a few seconds.

"Only one? I mean, technically I bought eighty four, so shouldn't you give me the whole bag-"

Before you can finish saying anything she grabs your face and pulls you down, pressing your lips together. If you weren't dead before, you were now.

"Took you two long enough. It was getting painful to watch after three years." The addition of another voice startles the two of you into separating.

Looking over, you see Pyrrha standing at the front side of your booth, holding a box full of supplies under one arm.

"And I'll be taking a few of these, as payment for my continuous pain and suffering that you have caused me over the years." Reaching her hand into the candy bag and grabbing a handful before she walks off.

"I can't believe she took my candy." You say as your eyes follow Pyrrha around the corner.

"I guess you're just going to have to redeem the other eighty three tickets the old fashioned way." Weiss says as she rips one ticket from your collection.

#rwby monochrome #rwby checkmate #rwby fanfiction #blake belladonna #weiss schnee

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distractedhistotech · 6 years ago

Text

Ghost +1

Sydney was in the back of the van. She preferred it back there since she could move around more. Plus it felt weird staring out the window since losing her eye. She guessed it was the loss of depth perception. She was still learning how to gauge distance.

“So, that was kind of lame. Why did they think that guy was a ghost anyway?” asked Sydney as she tried to contact juggle some balls they had and dropped them all over the place. “He didn’t even put a lot of effort into his costume.”

“They were really superstitious,” said Arthur. “Only a few steps from being a cult when you think about it. They decide that anything strange has to have a supernatural or spiritual cause. Don’t even think there’s a scientific explanation because why couldn’t it be something that proves they’re right.”

“Arthur, you’re starting to ramble,” interrupted Vivi.

Arthur blushed. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. They were a bit…extreme,” admitted Vivi. “I can see why it would upset you.”

Mystery decided this was a good reason to lay his head on Arthur’s lap. Sydney then flung her arms around him. “Yeah! I thought they were creepy too!”

“Sydney! I’m driving!”

“Pretty sure they thought I was an idiot,” continued Sydney. “I mean that tone they used with me was just insulting! Just because I’m missing an eye doesn’t mean I’m an idiot! Lots of people are missing parts and are smart! I’m not a pirate!” Sydney paused. “Actually, there were some pretty intelligent pirates. I don’t know where I was going with that. I seem to come back to pirates a lot lately. I know why I do, but it’s getting kind of old. I need to find something else to obsess with when I get riled up.”

“You could go back to talking about comics,” suggested Vivi.

Sydney sighed. “Yeah, I miss that…Why do I have so much trouble bringing comics up nowadays? It used to be second nature, but now I have to focus to talk about them. Even though I still love comics. It doesn’t make sense. Is this part of growing up? Part of recovering from a traumatic event? Both? It feels like something’s wrong. But isn’t that normal now?” Sydney rested her forehead on the back of Arthur’s head, not noticing how hard he was gripping the steering wheel. “Do you ever feel like that?”

“Yes,” said Arthur. He’d felt like it since he woke up in a hospital missing an arm, missing a friend, missing memories, missing so much… “I don’t think it’s gonna go away.” Mystery let out a whine and licked one of Sydney’s hands.

Vivi looked between the two as the mood quickly started to darken. God, she just wanted her two friends to be happy like they used to be. She needed to find a way to change the subject and make them smile. “Why don’t we pick up a couple of pizzas or something and then watch a couple of hours of Star Trek or Star Wars or Captain America?”

Arthur caught on to what she was trying to do and smiled. “That would be nice. It’s been a while since we hung out.” He frowned. “That’s my fault.” He’d been busy looking for Lewis. He was trying not to ignore his remaining friends, but it was hard when he wanted to find the other one and mentioning him did…something to them.

“What the heck are you working on anyway?” asked Sydney. “You’re not usually this secretive. You’re not trying to make a mechanical eye again, are you?”

“No!...Not usually anyway,” admitted Arthur.

“I can see where he’s coming from,” said Vivi. “I don’t think we can buy another eye if something else goes wrong. We need an alternative method.”

Sydney shuddered. “Okay, point taken. Being blind sucked. I don’t know how someone can live with that for a lifetime. Especially if you’re born like that! Can you imagine never knowing colors? And I bet light doesn’t make a lot of sense either. And you can’t play videogames!”

“Can’t work on cars or fabricate parts,” continued Arthur.

“Probably can’t paint either,” mused Vivi. “Unless the various colors smelled different from one another.”

Sydney wrinkled her nose. “Is-Is that a thing? And I don’t mean synesthesia! Can blind people have synesthesia? Or deaf people? Or anyone missing one sense?”

“What if sounds are linked to smell instead?” suggested Arthur.

“Can that happen?”

“Dunno. Maybe.”

“Pigments are just a type of chemical compound, so it would make sense for them to have a scent,” said Vivi, keeping the conversation from veering off in a completely different direction for once.

“Depends on the chemical. Some don’t have a scent, or at least the scent is too faint for humans to pick up on,” explained Arthur.

“I dunno, I swear I was smelling more right before you fixed my eye,” argued Sydney.

“It’s not quite the same thing. When you lose a sense you pay more attention to the ones that are left, like reassigning roles. We get the most information from sight, so when someone loses their sense of sight they pay a lot more attention to little things that they didn’t even realize they were ignoring. Also, I think there’s some neuroplasticity involved. Your brain isn’t using the part that used to be for putting together what your eyes saw, so it starts using it for other things over time.” Arthur was silent for a moment. “Um. But you, uh, would know better than me, given, you know. Sorry, I got a little too into the science papers I’ve been reading.”

Sydney smiled and shrugged. “It’s fine. I think it’s pretty interesting, even if I don’t understand all of it.” She tapped her eyepatch. “Does losing an eye affect how much of my brain it uses?”

“Just one? I’m not sure. You are seeing less…”

“Can you still smell and hear more than you’re used to?” asked Vivi.

Sydney shrugged. “Dunno. I don’t think so. Was kind of distracted at the time. Plus, everything looked different when I could see again.”

Vivi huffed. “It is just so unfair. How is it that my abilities still haven’t manifested but my half of the eye lets you see spirits?”

“It is really strange,” agreed Sydney.

“Maybe it’s because your abilities are already active,” suggested Arthur. “And you do have some control over ‘em.”

Vivi hummed in thought. “That might be it. There are still so many unknowns…”

“Hey, I don’t care how as long as no one else has to go blind,” said Sydney. “Besides, I’m sure something will wake you up eventually.”

“Yeah, but what if I’m like 40 when it finally happens?” complained Vivi. “Heck, if I have kids by then, they might have gotten their power before me…”

Arthur winced. “Do you want kids?”

Vivi nodded. “Of course! One, maybe two. I just have to find the right guy,” she said, giving Arthur a significant glance.

Arthur missed said glance entirely as he was distracted by thoughts of what could have been. Sydney was blind on that side. The only one to notice was Mystery, who huffed. Why did life have to be so difficult for these kids? The last time he’d had charges this prone to trouble…

It hadn’t ended well. Mystery would rather not dwell on the depressing memories.

Vivi realized her hint had gone over their heads yet again and decided to just move on. “Do you guys want kids?”

“I want one! So there can be a Sydney Scoville III!” proclaimed Sydney. “But just one. Don’t think I could handle more than that.”

Arthur was silent. Lewis wanted kids. He’d be an amazing father with how well he handled his sisters. “I dunno if I want children. I don’t want to pass on any of my issues.”

Vivi and Sydney both frowned at Arthur’s reasoning. “Most of your issues are due to your early upbringing,” pointed out Vivi. “You wouldn’t make those same choices and mistakes. That would prevent most of those issues from happening.”

“They could still pick up the behavior from me,” argued Arthur. “There’s only so much that I can change.”

“I don’t think you need to change,” said Sydney. “I mean, yeah, you’ve got anxiety issues, but lots of people do. You’re also smart and nice and help people and have cool hair and stro-”

“What if I attract something dangerous?” interrupted Arthur.

“Then I’ll just keep living nearby,” reasoned Sydney. She’d live with him if he asked. “I mean, I don’t see why I would leave Tempo.”

“Me either. Tempo is our home,” agreed Vivi. She placed a hand on Arthur’s flesh and blood hand. “We’re stuck with each other. For life.”

Arthur felt himself cheer up a bit at that. He gave Vivi a smile and tried to give Sydney one as best he could. Maybe he was being selfish, but he wanted to stay close to his friends.

And then the dashboard started to spark. Arthur’s eyes widened. “What?! No, no, no…” He stomped on the gas several times but failed to pick up speed.

Vivi frowned. “Is something wrong with the van?”

“There shouldn’t be! I just performed maintenance on it!”

Sydney raised an eyebrow. “Am I the only one who thinks the purple sparks were weird?”

Arthur blinked. “Purple?”

Sydney nodded. “Yeah, I was staring right at the dashboard.” The high beam light looked like a jellyfish. “Definitely purple.”

“That is not a thing that should happen!” shouted Arthur.

Vivi nodded. “Electricity’s supposed to just be white, which suggests this isn’t normal.” The van came to a stop right in front of…Vivi blinked several times. “A dancing mansion?”

Okay, it wasn’t actually dancing. However, it was sort of pulsing/bopping to a beat that one could fell in their bones. It was noticeably run down and purple and had eerie lights in the windows.

“There’s no way that’s not haunted,” deadpanned Sydney.

“Erm…” Arthur tried turning over the car again. “We don’t, have to investigate, do we?”

Vivi thought of what happened last time they’d jumped into an investigation without any preparation.

Blood. Hospitals. Loss. Guilt.

“If you can get the van started, we’re leaving,” said Vivi. “Sydney, you’re not wearing your suppressor?”

Sydney shook her head. “Still practicing controlling it on my own.”

“Good. Don’t reign it in.”

Mystery just stared at the mansion. He recognized its aura. He could barely believe it.

When did Lewis come back and what did he have planned?

Lewis was planning to exact his revenge. The plan had been simple: Create a mansion on a road that they often traveled along near Tempo (He couldn’t get into Tempo, but that could be because of some of the wards Vivi had tried setting up.), lure the Mystery Skulls (especially Arthur) into the mansion, separate them, bring Arthur to his location, kill Arthur, and reunite with the girls and Mystery, with possible minor changes as were needed. He was also open to making Arthur confess what happened to the girls (They must not have seen what happened to just go along with him.) before killing him.

The plan started to unravel as soon as the van came to a stop in front of his mansion. Part of that was because instead of rushing into the mansion on the heels of Vivi like he was expecting, they stayed in the van. And stayed. A lot longer than he recalled them ever doing so when he was alive.

Part of it was indirectly Sydney’s fault. He’d known that her aura was potent against malevolent spirits and the like, but he hadn’t really appreciated it until he felt it pressing down on him. From all the way outside. He found himself rubbing his temples. Ow. No wonder the nastier spirits went out of their way to avoid her. He was actually leaking some energy. He could last for some time as long as he was careful, but theoretically, they could just stay in the van until he was too drained to keep them here. If they tried that, he’d have to go out and confront them. Not something he wanted to do, but if it became necessary…

Lewis wondered why he was being affected in the first place. He wasn’t evil…Well, okay, he did want to kill Arthur. That was justified, but maybe it was gray enough for Sydney’s ability to categorize him as malevolent. If that was the case, then it would probably stop after he killed Arthur and no longer had any desire to hurt someone.

Lewis was dragged from his musings as several figures started exiting the van. Finally! Lewis quickly started setting up the finishing touches of his plan.

It was time to end this.

Arthur had to admit defeat. “I’ll need to look under the hood, and I don’t want to do that in front of a haunted mansion.” He sighed. “I don’t wanna go inside either.”

Sydney had been staring at the mansion the whole time. She could see the music. And anger. This eye was so weird. “I think you’d be okay. Pretty sure my aura will reach that far.”

Mystery could confirm that her aura did extend that far and would retain enough potency to be effective. Not that he could tell them, but it was certainly a weight off his shoulders.

Vivi started handing out various items for protection and fighting. “It’s a tough choice. Stay out here alone but relatively safe or go inside with us to stay close to Sydney and me.”

Arthur groaned. If he was less worried about the girls’ safety he would stay outside, but he couldn’t help but worry that if he let them go inside that he would never see them again. It had happened before. Even if he couldn’t do anything to protect them, he could draw fire away from them.

“I think I’ll go with you guys,” Arthur decided.

Sydney and Vivi studied him for a moment before Sydney suddenly bit her thumb and smeared some blood in the center of his forehead. “Just in case.”

Arthur instinctively looked up with crossed eyes for a moment. “Uh. Okay. I guess that’ll work.”

“It should. There is power in blood,” said Vivi as she gave him some holy water and slipped a beaded necklace over his head and under his shirt. “We can try practicing making protective symbols with it too.”

Sydney chuckled. “Like an anime.” She nodded. “Anything that you think will help.”

Arthur fought down the urge to wipe at the blood on his forehead. “Can I just say that I don’t like having other people’s blood on me?” It brought back bad memories.

Sydney winced. “Oh. Sorry. Should’ve asked first, shouldn’t I?”

Arthur took a deep breath. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. You said it might help so it’s something to try.” The blood itched on his forehead. “But I am totally scrubbing it off when we get out of here.”

Vivi nodded. “Sounds like a decent enough compromise.” She handed an ofuda to Sydney. Sydney smeared some more blood on the back of it. “I don’t want either of you getting hurt again. You’re just starting to get back to where you were before.”

That made both of them wince. The last few months of learning to live with new handicaps had been difficult and frustrating in several ways. They didn’t want a repeat with themselves or Vivi or Mystery.

All four of them silently vowed to protect the others.

The walk up to the mansion’s front door took just a few seconds. Vivi knocked on the doors (She was concerned that the inhabitants would be excited by Arthur knocking and see Sydney knocking as a declaration of war.), which creaked open ominously. The inched in, the doors slamming shut behind them.

The darkness didn’t last long enough for them to pull out flashlights. Several purple wisps of fire floated by and lit candles lined along the walls and set on a chandelier.

Vivi absently noted that the layout kind of reminded her of the Spencer mansion, except a lot more purple.

“Sydney, stop humming.”

“Oops. Didn’t notice-”

Several purple ghosts suddenly popped up. “Who-o-o-o-oa!”

Most of the group immediately tensed up. Vivi didn’t immediately though. “Cute!”

They really were adorable…until more popped up behind them. “This time I might just disa-Who-o-o-o-who-o-o-oa!” They suddenly got pointy toothed with claws. “Oh yeah!”

Nope. They took off running down the hallway through break in the ghosts.

“This time I might just disappear!”

A suit of armor suddenly lunged towards them and swung an ax. Sydney and Vivi dove under the ax. Arthur vaulted over it. Mystery barely dodged it, having to use his kitsune magic to retract his head into his body.

“Gah!”

“Mystery!”

“)%$*&$^#$(%^)*%(&%*&$&!”

Mystery popped his head back out before any uncomfortable questions could be asked.

“Who-o-o-o-who-o-o-oa…”

They abruptly realized that the paintings lining the hall were moving. They suddenly leapt out. “Oh yeah!”

The Mystery Skulls leapt into each other’s arms. Thankfully, the portrait spirits pulled back into the paintings. “Who-o-o-o-oa…” And then the lady painting reached out and pulled a rope next to her painting.

A trapdoor opened under them. They fell down screaming, and things became bizarre, even by their standards. They weren’t falling as quickly as they should be. It was more like they were floating. Not to mention there were several random items in the space with them. A few hours later, they would comment on how it was oddly reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland.

They floated past several mirrors. Vivi was a bit confused by the fact that her reflection had completely purple eyes. From what Mystery could see in his cracked mirror they could see past glamours. Arthur was facing away from the mirrors so he didn’t see that they failed to reflect his prosthetic. Sydney did faintly notice this but was a bit distracted by how her reflection showed her right after her injury with her remaining eye leaking various colors from it.

Then Arthur’s fall suddenly sped up. Vivi and Sydney made to grab him, but just missed him. Then they noticed Sydney was falling even slower and tried to grab each other, but it was too late again.

Sydney let out an ‘oof’ and shot to her feet as she landed. “I’m armed!” she shouted, brandishing the ofuda. She turned around. There were a bunch of boxes, a dusty bed with no covers, and… a mannequin in a wedding dress and holding an ax? Sydney thought she was in the basement until she noticed some windows that she ran over to. She felt her brain short circuit. “How the *&^*) do you fall down into the attic?!”

Vivi and Mystery had landed in a kitchen where a pair of dagwood sandwiches were laid out on the center counter. The two stared at them for several moments but managed to pull themselves away. “Right. Separated…We should look for Arthur first. Sydney can take care of herself in this sort of situation.” Her stomach growled. Mystery’s growled even louder. “…I wonder if it would be safe to grab a few pieces.”

Arthur landed on his ass in what was probably the basement. He absentmindedly glanced upward in confusion (How did that work? Ghost logic was so weird.) before zeroing in on a large coffin with a skull and thorny vine design on the top of the lid. It was beating like the rest of the house.

Not good.

The coffin slowly opened, revealing a jawless skull floating above a large body in a nice suit.

Lewis narrowed his eye sockets as he floated out and slammed his feet in front of Arthur. He glared at his murderer, full of hate and anger.

Arthur stared in fear, unable to recognize his dead friend. All he saw was a scary, probably powerful, likely dangerous ghost that had separated him from his friends.

Lewis broke the silence by pointing a finger at Arthur. “Fuck, it’s you I hate the most.”

Arthur gulped and pointed at himself. “Buh-buh-Why?”

It was a reasonable question from Arthur’s point of view. Lewis…it did occur to him that he wasn’t as recognizable without his face. He lit the braziers and let his hair form. “Does this answer your question?!”

No, it didn’t, but Arthur decided he wasn’t going to explain that this was a case of mistaken identity to a ghost that probably wasn’t going to listen. He threw the vial of holy water, turned on his heel, and ran.

Lewis did recoil a bit at the holy water. He was a fire ghost. Water stung even if it wasn’t holy. Then he threw it off, decided this was proof of Arthur’s guilt, and gave chase.

Arthur was in good shape (He didn’t understand how he was still so healthy when he’d been hospitalized and locked in his workroom so much for the last few months.) and used to running from scary things. He glanced behind him and saw the ghost practically flying towards him. No more glancing back. He put on a burst of speed.

Oh, hey, Vivi and Mystery. “Angry ghost! Run!”

Vivi and Mystery looked away from the sandwiches they were still debating eating. They looked in the direction Arthur came from, threw the sandwiches at the angry ghost, and ran after Arthur. Lewis didn’t bother trying to avoid the sandwich contents and flew right through them.

“We need to find Sydney!” shouted Vivi.

“Where is she?!” shouted Arthur.

“I don’t know!”

Mystery could feel that Sydney had ended up in the attic and was managing to work her way down. He pulled ahead and ran up some stairs, Arthur and Vivi close behind him. They ran through a bunch of doors and rooms.

Sydney heard the racket and threw open the door of the room she’d wandered into. “Angry Elvis ghost!”

That threw Lewis for a loop. “Elvis? Are you kid-” He saw the eyepatch. “What happened to your-”

Sydney threw an ofuda at him. Lewis yelped and pulled it off. That hurt!

“You stay away from Arthur!” demanded Sydney.

That hurt almost as much as the ofuda. “You don’t get it. He-”

Vivi darted back and grabbed Sydney. “What’re you waiting for?!” She then dragged Sydney off.

Okay, Vivi and Sydney didn’t know about his murder. Somehow. Maybe it was post traumatic amnesia or something. Clearly, this needed to be remedied. Also, why was Sydney wearing an eyepatch? She wasn’t wearing an eyepatch for the heck of it. There’d been scars peeking out. He gave chase, now equally intent on telling Vivi and Sydney what happened along with killing Arthur.

He threw fire to keep Arthur from moving down a hallway. Arthur turned and stared at him fearfully. Lewis felt his desire for vengeance clawing up his heart.

And then Vivi and Sydney put themselves between them, Vivi with her arms outstretched as if to shield Arthur as much as possible, Sydney with her hands up as if she was prepared to fight him.

This was wrong. Vivi and Sydney were supposed to be on his side. He wasn’t the enemy! He just needed…Maybe…Yes. That would work. He willed his anchor towards them.

They just needed to see the proof of who he was, that they knew him.

The flames died down. Arthur was certain he knew the way to the front door from this spot. He grabbed Vivi and Sydney and booked it.

Vivi and Sydney glanced back once.

Mystery made sure to take up the rear.

Lewis stared in disbelief and heartbreak as his murderer and the love(s?) of his life and (more than) best friend.

And his anchor fell and broke.

And Lewis switched to frustration and anger and despair and why did this happen to him?! Why why why?!

He screamed, pouring his everything into it as his fire erupted around him.

The living Mystery Skulls barely made it through the doors in time to avoid being burned alive. Mystery might have had something to do with it. They rushed to the van. “Go go go!”

Arthur revved the van. It started. “I’m going!”

They peeled out of there.

None of them saw the figure watching them from one of the high windows. Lewis watched as the van drove away. He pressed down on his cracked anchor and looked at the picture inside.

It was from shortly after he and Vivi started dating. He had an arm around Vivi, who was hugging him. Sydney had an arm thrown over his shoulder while he used his free arm to support her. No Arthur. The three of them were smiling and happy and whole and alive.

They could never go back to that.

Lewis barely noticed the tear running down his face as he finally passed out and returned to his anchor, the house fading around him.

#MSA + 1 #msa+1 #Mystery #Vivi #Arthur #Lewis #Ghost #mystery skulls #extra member #au #grrlpowercomic au #What am I getting into?

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missingno · 6 years ago

Note

🔥 Pokémon and/or The Elder Scrolls?

This got. Really long.

Pokémon:

… Wow gen VII was a train wreck. I’m all for redeemable villains, but the problem presented was that neither Guz/ma nor Lusa were actually redeemable. Guz is noted repeatedly by his own grunts to be violent, one straight up calling him a bully, and is implied to have a pretty fucking terrible temper to the point he shatters bottles and destroys the house they’re hanging out in?? Like the grunts say that was his doing? His grunts are straight up afraid of him. He’s not very nice to you, the player either. I dunno, maybe I’m too biased because he reminds me of someone in my life but he seems way too horrible to be… Redeemed. Nor was there really any effort to show him changing… like he’s just suddenly “nice” now. At least with Archie and Maxie they were already pretty friendly to the protagonists and weren’t as threatening.

All of this criticism is two fold for Lusa. The problem is, Lusa is an INCREDIBLE villain. But GF for some reason doesn’t actually want her to be one? Sorry GF, but no, I’m actually not gonna be pleased by you redeeming a woman who abused her children. She says Lillie became beautiful and now we’re supposed to think she’s all good now? I can’t believe GF, the same company who gave us N and Ghet, are for some reason going “psyche, child abuse is okay if it’s your mom!!” They never even gave us a good fucking REASON for her acting the way she did!! Was she possessed by the Beasts?? Was she poisoned?? She was fucked up way before she fused with the jellyfish, so how the fuck does that justify her manipulating and emotionally abusing her children to the point that one runs away??? Like, Looker and Anabel are perfectly fine, so why is her contact poisoning her but not them??? WHY MAKE LILLIE HELP HER??? LILLIE, WHO WAS FUCKED UP FOR YEARS????? “Mother, you’re terrible!” to suddenly fucking off to go heal her mom because she’s “still my mom uwuwuwuwu”. That’s just such an UNBELIEVABLY BAD TAKE for a kids game to give to children. Kids with abusive moms owe said mothers FUCK ALL. There’s no justification for child abuse and it was such an unbelievably bad take I can’t believe this is from the same franchise that gave us a pretty good fukin’ take with N. She’s such a great villain, because she really makes me hate her and want to destroy her, but the game is more interested in making here a uwu mIsUnDeRsToOd BaBy than actually giving us a good villain. Who is, by the way, the only thing close to a female villain in this franchise.

Also the Ultra Beasts and Mega Evolutions are stupid but that’s just my onion there. Why are these aliens cooler than like… the OTHER aliens we have…? Like we have aliens already. Also why can some Pokémon evolve even MORE???

Also Sycamore can suck my dick but that one is absolutely because I think he’s annoying and not for any legitimate criticism.

For the Elder Scrolls:

… Todd…

I’ll start with Morrowind, since that’s where any self-respecting TES fan starts.

I’m joking, apparently Daggerfall is pretty good. I just never played it.

Anyways, Morrowind is conceptually good. I like… A lot of aspects about it. But here’s my HUGE beef with Morrowind: I work for the Imperials, yeah? And the Imperials are against slavery, yes? And House Telvanni practices slavery, mhm? So uhhhhh… WHY IS THE TWIN LAMPS QUEST NOT A MAIN QUESTLINE QUEST? WHY CAN I JOIN HOUSE TELVANNI? I DIDN’T because “slavery = bad” is an incredibly cold take at this fucking point but uhhhh hey Bethesda? What the fuck? Morrowind has a good storyline but that little fact about it kind of makes my skin crawl since it’s… So vile… I do the Twin Lamps questline of course but the fact that it’s an optional sidequest is very off-putting to me.

Plus Morrowind’s combat system sucks ass, but that definitely takes the backroads to you know. Slavery.

10/10 story but 0/10 game for letting people be slave owners because what the fuck.

Did you know Oblivion had their actors read their lines alphabetically? If you played Oblivion, you would.

Shivering Isles is good, but both Oblivion and Skyrim suffer from the side quests being better than the main quests. In Oblivion’s Thieves Guild you have to STEAL AN ELDER SCROLL!!! Like how COOL is that!!!! Way better than the main quest where you just. Watch your buddy Martin. A lot of Oblivion’s quests feel like there could’ve been... So much more. For example, the Deep Ones. That could’ve been a really interesting quest but instead... It feels like it ended before it really began. The Mage’s Guild is just you being a hired thug for some magicians who barely teach you magic before promoting you, and the boss fight with Mannimarco is... So terrible. This man is a lich, almost a GOD, arguably BECOMES a god, and when you meet him he looks like a bitch in a dumbass Halloween costume. They did my boy Manni SO dirty. This is the KING OF WORMS and he’s treated like he’s just a bandit you have to kill and not, you know, the Necromancer’s Moon, the King of Worms, the GOD of necromancers, the man who tricked a Daedric Prince and almost got away with it. The Dark Brotherhood questline is good though, as is the Thieves’ Guild one.

Skyrim is as wide as an ocean and deep as a lake, I feel. A lot of the storylines feel half-baked. Again, the DB and TG are good questlines, but everything else feels a little... Less put together, and even those two suffer a lot. I hate the radiant quest system of post Hail Sithis! DB a lot... Mother, I am the Listener, the leader of the Black Hand, why am I the one who has to kill Idiot Farmer #3486 on a farm? I killed the EMPEROR, MOTHER! Have some respect for your favorite child! Seriously though, why can’t I pawn off these quests to the two new recruits, or to Nazir and Babette? Also why don’t the new recruits get names? Also why can’t I marry Nazir (please Todd I love him).

Now, I don’t mind the radiant quests for the TG as much, to be honest, mostly because they’re optional and I can quit them. Plus, I like Vex and Delvin, so it makes me pretty happy to turn in quests to them. But goddamn WHYYYY do I need to go through so. Many. Fucking. RUINS?! I hate dwemer ruins with a passion, and I haaaaaaate that Blindsighted forces you to go through one. Also, somehow, the two trained thieves with my manage to alert the fucking falmer of our presence so I have to go save their asses because I’m the only healer. Also also why... Why can’t I marry Brynjolf... You give me a man who says “lad” enough to rival me, and then I can’t gently kiss his cheek?

Also the Nightingale Hall looks like shit even after you finish the quests. Which is stupid.

Also FUCK the main quest.

#LONG post #colress responds

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queen-of-hearts92 · 6 years ago

Text

Revue Starlight 4: Where in Tokyo is Hikari Kagura?

BANANA, IN PAJAMAS, IS VERY BANA-NICE!

For the previous episode go here!

To go to the start of these posts, go to the Prelude!

Sup everyone, this week we have a what is known as a breather episode. It’s a break to get to know everyone more pretty much! But it was still a good time! Like wow, even the breather episodes are fascinating! Ok! Here we go!

Quick note: I discovered Claudine’s nickname is Kuro, given by Karen it sounds like, so I’ll probably use that from time to time. So Kuro=Claudine, now you know and won’t be confused when I call her that being like “who the fuck is Kuro?”. Odd her image color is orange but her nickname means black and theres no orange on her stage outfit. Eh, whatever.

>Guess who watched the stage play?

Recently I decided to go ahead and watch the stage play, it was a chinese sub (I’ll link ya to it if you like, just message me) so while I couldn’t gather a ton of info I did gather some interesting shit. First off, the stage play story and the anime story are quite different from each other as far as I could tell. So don’t worry too much about spoilers, the show is very quick and compressed pacing wise for example. Ok so first off, remember the mystery names in the cast list on the bottom of the fan translated website? In the stage show there are three teachers overseeing the fights, I only know one of their names so the other two I’ll call Red Jacket and Yellow Sweater.

Red Jacket seems to be a gym teacher of sorts, Yellow Sweater is a music teacher. Yellow Sweater dislikes the fights right away while Red Jacket gradually gets more and more uncomfortable with the kids fighting. The third teacher is the most important one, she’s in charge (might be the headmaster of the school) and orchestrating the whole thing. Her name is Souda Haseda, the girls call her “Souda-sensei”, and I really think its very likely she is going to be in the anime. So we are probably gonna get a face to the system! Good, this will be exciting!

Second thing here, in the stage version it seems like the audition duels magically jack up the girl’s aggression and worst possible traits A LOT. This way they fight each other and its, wild. You can break out of the influences but man does it hit hard! Examples being Maya being really bloodthirsty (my curiosity of the play started cause I saw a screenshot of her stabbing Claudine, don’t worry Claudine is fine its not really mentioned or has consequences as far as I can tell), Nana’s aggression is fuckin nuts, and Hikari starts taunting her opponents and during a fight with Mahiru she knocks Mahiru the fuck out! Like holyyy shit Hikari!

And they snap out of this blinding rage when the duel ends but the winners go right back into it once their next duel starts. Like when Maya beats Kuro she isn’t happy, no. She’s upset and has this look on her face that says “I won but at what cost?”. And then the next fight she’s right back into stabby time. I’m not describing everything cause you could see it for yourself but wow man. I actually don’t think any of this stuff about the auditions will be true in the anime but I think the underground stage is probably set up to egg everyone on into wanting to fight each other. Yikes.

-The word Kirin was used in the musical, and I think it was referring to the mythical animal. I’m thinking I’m right about my theory of what Giraffe is! But there's still a lingering question, if Kirins are supposed to be beings of good luck and fortune why is there one associated with a game of misery and conflict? Hm. The mystery continues.

--Also btw, I tried to see if Souda-sensei’s name meant anything but I couldn’t get anything to make any sense. All I know is her name involves running and feathers and maybe camels and gauze or something silky? I got running away/escaping, going fast. Idk, it’s this 走駝紗羽 (and I’m pretty positive her name is written this way) if anyone wants to give it a go themselves. I’m not an expert at all so maybe you’ll find something I missed.

Alrighty that’s all I gotta say on the play! Glad I watched it, still don’t know what’s gonna happen in the anime tho lol. Yay surprises!

>*Carmen Sandiago theme intensifies as the ep summary starts up*

The episode starts with baby! Hikari and Karen watching the Starlight play. The roles are filled by all the girls doing a repeat of the stairs from episode one. Teen! Hikari and Karen are playing the two goddesses, just like we saw Maya and Claudine do in the flashback last episode. The pink star shines brightly as it did last time we saw this play.

Y’ALL I ALREADY WARNED YOU ABOUT THOSE STAIRS!

After Hikari and Karen’s characters reach for the star, they are each on a raised platform. And then, THEN THE STAR BLASTS KAREN’S CHARACTER IN THE FACE AND SHE DIES. Yeah. Anyways Karen’s platform goes down while Hikari’s goes up and sand rains down from the sky onto Hikari’s character who is crying. Notably the tower that held the star is empty.

Twinkle twinkle little star, IT WILL UNLEASH THE WRATH OF GOD!

Now we are in the present, its the next day. Karen wakes up and notices Hikari isn’t there. So she proceeds to run around the dorm barging into all the rooms looking for Hikari. She wakes up Nana and Junna, looks around the bathing room while Maya is there, and startles Claudine into speaking French while she was looking at photos of Maya dancing on her tablet….Which is for researching Maya’s dancing of course, and for no other reason even though she hides her tablet screen so Karen can’t see the photos. Research purposes only!

After this show is done I might do a best screenshot compilation post. This will be one of them, it’s priceless.

We then go to the living room where we find out Karen woke up Futaba and Kaoruko and the two are on the couch looking very sleepy. Everyone else is also there and being like “God dammit Karen, she’s been doing this all morning!”. Karen runs into the living room, sad she didn’t find Hikari anywhere in the dorm. Nana asks if Karen tried calling her and Karen is like oooh yeah phones are a thing. She thanks Nana by combining her nickname with the word nice getting the amazing phrase “Bana-nice” and floofing Nana’s pigtails. Nana likes this.

Karen calls Hikari and asks where the fuck she is, Hikari doesn’t say anything but Karen can hear a train station and is like “wtf are you off campus?! You need a notice! Curfew is at 6!” but Hikari hangs up. Karen decides to go and find her. All the girls (including sleepy Kaoruko draped over her gf like a sloth) follow Karen to the door. Futaba is like uh are you gonna get a notice? Junna reminds Karen it's her turn to clean the hallways. Karen is like, sorry I gotta go find Hikari! Karen runs to the train station but no Hikari. She sends Hikari a text and Hikari response with the best emote known to man. And no translation needed honestly.

Hikari won’t hesitate bitch!

Eventually Hikari sends a picture of herself in front of a, blurry blob. Karen guesses a rock climbing wall, its wrong. Karen runs around and asks a little girl what she think it is and the girl thinks its jellyfish. Karen runs to a aquarium, its the wrong one. Hikari sends another jellyfish picture and Karen races out to the train. Btw Hikari has her roller suitcase with her the entire time. Anyways, Hikari is in another aquarium but Karen is tired so she sits in a train station. Hikari then finally texts words instead of jellyfish photos, she asks why did you lose. Karen replies saying that Maya and her aren’t on the same stage (as in she means Maya is much stronger than her), if you could even call it a stage that is. Hikari calls her an idiot. Karen then asks well what should she have done then?! Hikari responses with, I don’t know. She wonders what should they do. Karen decides to call her and this time Hikari picks up and responds! She asks if Karen remembers “their Starlight��.

Back on campus, Futaba and Kaoruko are chilling in a training room. Kaoruko complains about having to wear school uniforms/school wear while in the school building. She then brings up the audition duels, she is surprised Futaba is in them and didn’t talk to her about doing that. She wonders if the prize of being Top Star is real. Kaoruko says “aw man that means we gotta fight one day, but you’ll let me win right?”, Futaba doesn’t give an answer. Instead she slides Kaoruko off of her lap. This is fine. Just fine.

Anywho Kaoruko is then like, I got an idea! She starts skipping towards the teacher’s office with Futaba right behind her. Yeah she’s gonna go tattle on Karen and Hikari being off campus without permission cause then less rivals for Top Star, don’t ever trust the sleepy ones you guys. Luckily Mahiru stops them in their tracks saying she’s the goddess of the hallway while pointing with and spinning her baton. Mahiru says she senses wicked intent from them, and figures out Kaoruko’s plan right away and does a great impression of her. Kaoruko tries to be like “uhhh no we weren't gonna. Do anything like that.” Mahiru then aggressively spins her baton at them until they run away. Mahiru then dramatically laments that she’s jealous that Karen was chasing Hikari and not her.

ALL HAIL THE HALLWAY GODDESS! PROTECTOR OF THE IDIOTS!

Back with Karen and Hikari, Karen is like ofc I remember our promise! Then the two have a long much needed catching up talk while they individually wander around Tokyo for the rest of the day. Eventually Karen talks about how much she loves the stage and wants to go even higher, hence she’ll keep doing the audition duels. Finally, at night, the two meet in person at the lit up Tokyo Tower.

Meanwhile, we go to Claudine practicing dance. She’s been doing so for awhile. Maya then comes the fuck in and asks if she wanted to dance with her. They turn on sweet jazzy music and they dance. Maya comments that Claudine seems all psyched up again and Claudine says that Maya tends to fire her up and Maya is like “orly? Cool” (Maya don’t be coy you already knew that). Claudine asks “So, why the hell are you even IN the auditions in the first place? It’s not like you need em, you’re already take center stage with everything!” Maya playfully says she gets jealous is all. They finish their dance with Maya dipping Claudine, she says the idea of anyone having the Top Star besides herself makes her very jealous. What Maya is really saying is she wants Claudine to challenge her and try to take the Top Star, Claudine smiles and calls her greedy. Challenge accepted.

Maya is NOT subtle with her crush at all, it’s amazing.

Back with Karen and Hikari, they try to go to the aquarium that’s under the tower but sadly its closed for maintenance. The two sit in a park nearby the tower, Karen is like “its okay we can always come together here again!” Hikari then finally talks about the audition duels. She says if you lose too many times and get booted out, you will lose the most important thing to a Stage Girl. Damn.

Karen is like ooohh that's why you locked me in a shed, but she points out that not going to the duel meant she’d lose by default and Hikari very obviously didn’t think of that. Karen, running up a slide, is like Hikari don’t worry I won’t lose anymore! She’s gonna be shining! She will shine with Hikari! Hikari points out there's only one Top Star and Karen is like uh Giraffe never said there couldn’t be two! Not a bad point. Hikari is like dude thats not gonna happen but Karen is like let’s try anyways. Hikari is like, ok. And joins her on the top of the slide. They stand together holding hands, the tower glowing softly nearby.

They say if a couple witnesses the turning off of Tokyo Tower’s lights at night, they will stay together forever......uh. It’s still on. Uh oh.

Meanwhile at the dorms, their teacher is checking if all of them are there so the girls gotta cover for Karen and Hikari. When their teacher checks the room, Mahiru is like oh they tired so they went to bed early. Kaoruko and Futaba are being body doubles in Karen and Hikari’s bed. However because they didn’t use pillows like most kids in media do, now Kaoruko and Futaba’s room is being checked and they ain’t there. Everyone is thinking fffucck.

So, to allow the gfs to sneak back to their room, Maya and Claudine join in to help their dumbass friends/floormates. Claudine’s brilliant idea is to stage faint and start rambling random words in French, Maya catches her and is like “oh nooo. She fainted!” the teacher runs over asking what happened and Maya says, what's most likely the first thing that popped up in her head, “She’s got, stage fright!!” I’m. You guys.

Anyways, Futaba and Kaoruko sneaked back to their room door while the teacher’s back was turned. The teacher turns around and sees them by their door. Maya very quietly asks Claudine how long she was gonna lay there rambling in French, so Claudine springs up and is like “HEY I’M FINE NOW!” The teacher is like, well alrighty then. After she leaves, Nana is like “wow i’ve never done that before….but Bana-nice!” Junna is like let’s NEVER do this again.

This goes to show. Top of the class or not, teenagers are teenagers.

The next morning, Mahiru is waiting on the stairs in front of the dorm and sleeping. She wakes up and sees Karen and Hikari walking towards the dorm. She’s like YAY THEY’RE BACK! Junna and Nana come outside while everyone else looks out their windows. Junna is like “WTF What were you two thinking?!” Turns out they ran out of money so they couldn’t take the train back, oops. Karen is like, it’s cool we got back at 6. Junna groans and is like 6PM not AM! Junna scolds them and Nana says Junna did Karen’s cleaning duties for her, Junna blushes. Karen gets emotional, apologizes, and hugs Junna, much to Mahiru’s dismay.

Then, because these useless lesbians were outside shouting about covering for Karen and Hikari, the teacher rides by on her bike and is like Karen and Hikari come to the office later and bring all those who covered for you too. Yeah she found out, oops. She says they will get “the legendary punishment” and rides away. Junna is like fffffffffuck I’ve heard horrible things about that! Rumor has it that it has caused students to leave the school all together! Karen is like, fuck. Uh, it’s fine! We’re all in this together. Junna is dying squirtle.

But, she says she’s glad they are safe. Then all the girls tell them “Welcome back”! Hikari is obviously touched by this. The girls go back inside for breakfast. Hikari puts her new stuffed jellyfish next to her bear and the episode ends with the ending theme being sung by both Hikari and Karen.

Let’s face it, getting the jellyfish alone was worth going out for!

>Even the breather episodes have a lot going on!

-Odd to mention now I know, but I love how they draw bangs in the show! They so flippy and cute!

-Also fun fact, the white bear Hikari has everywhere is an in universe mascot character called Mr. White. Hikari loves this mascot so much its on her stage uniform!

-So Hikari straight up leaves the dorms this episode and I think the reason is this, she realized Karen only auditioned cause she was there. If she wasn’t there Karen would’ve never auditioned, so her quest was doomed from the get go. So she leaves hoping Karen would now stop dueling since she isn’t there. But what Hikari underestimated was how much Karen cares about her, she didn’t expect Karen to call her or go looking for her. Hikari at this point is at a loss of what to do, the reason why she came in the first place was a failure. Hence she wanders looking at jellyfish, avoiding Karen since she didn’t want to admit how she felt and that she fucked up. But Karen got it out of her via texting and they finally spoke extensively to each other. This was a good step for them! Looks like Karen convinced Hikari, for the time being, of getting Top Star together!

But is it really such a good idea?...Dunno yet.

-I love that sleepy Kaoruko just drapes herself onto Futaba like Futaba is a big old pillow and she is a sleepy sloth. Very cute girlfriends. Though, there was very strong foreshadowing here that their relationship will be strained thanks to the duels. Futaba isn’t going to just let her win, her silence after Kaoruko asks her that just proves it. Good luck dear lesbians.

-I can’t believe Claudine “I keep photos of Maya dancing on my tablet just for observing her dancing and not because I think she’s hot or anything. JUST FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES!” Saijo is fucking canon. I made a joke of that nature in my last post but then this really happened! I’m SO pleased. Also Karen startled her so much she reverts to speaking French lol. Kuro is the living embodiment of the “600 photos fly out of pockets” meme I swear. I really like her, she’s great!

-Nana’s reaction to Karen fluffing her pigtails was very cute. She is very cute.

-Junna with her hair down is very cute yes but oh man this screenshot of her being startled awake is the funniest fucking thing oh my god. I can’t decide if she was dreaming of titty or if she was ready scratch the face off of whoever came into her room lol.

-I love how comfortable the 8 girls are with each other? Like not all of them are best friends or anything they are just used to living with each other, I assume they’ve been living with each other since their 1st year. And yeah you just kinda get used to any weird shit your floor mates do. We got a good look at that this episode. Karen is running around looking for Hikari and she’s comfortable with everyone enough to barge into people’s rooms and any other room and be like “HAVEYOUSEENHIKARIISSHEINHERE?!”. Also it is funny seeing Karen burst into every room in the dorm like that. She even startled Maya lol. Karen pls.

It kinda gives me flashbacks to when I was in theater and summer camp lol, er not the running into the bathroom while someone was there part tho.

--Also Karen, why do you keep looking under places that Hikari can’t possibly fit or hide in? Unless Hikari is a cat, if she can get her head through she can get in. Maybe, she is a cat. *X Files music*.

-Being Mahiru is still suffering. Like damn it’s suffering! Karen didn’t even really talk to her getting back from the big city. She looks so sad when Karen hugs Junna and not her. OUCH. Currently I’m putting my bets on us losing Mahiru first, she’s the odd man out and that would hurt Karen greatly and up the stakes a lot. Either way it’s only a matter of time b4 she mcfreakin loses it now, and judging by some episode five screenshot teaser that might come soon. SPEAKING OF WHICH!

--THIS. OK. WHAT. IS. THAT. WHITE. THING?! IT HAS AN EYE?! AAAAA?! Is it a prop?! Is it real?! Is it a lovecraftian horror?! What?! Whatcha got in store for us episode 5?! I’m excited and scared at the same time.

-What’s very interesting is that Karen wasn’t sleepy or tired this episode even though it’s post duel. I’m thinking her drive to find Hikari overrode everything else, amazing. The power of gay love!

-When Claudine suddenly dropped to the ground, for a hot second I was like WHAT IS SHE OK but then I realized it was a distraction. Shout out to Maya for just going with it, catching her and everything. Also well well Kuro it looks like you trust Maya enough to catch ya when you stage faint. :3c

Anywho what cracked me up the most was how slapped together their distraction was, like you guys you’ve been actresses for awhile now and this is the best you can do? Guess they aren’t one for improv lol. I’m honestly glad it went this dumb cause it goes to show that even the top students are still teens, covering for their idiot friends/floormates. I am also happy they took part in this hairbrained scheme, I’ll say more about this later.

-Hikari says when you get booted out of the duels you “lose the most important thing to a stage girl”. Well that’s really vague Hikari. Either she is still withholding information OR that is all she knows. I got the impression in the stage play she was Souda-sensei’s spy/agent to get people to fight, can’t say if that’s true here though.

-Kaoruko omg. I knew she had a secret mean streak but wowww. The good news is she isn’t very sneaky about it, nor is her girlfriend, so Mahiru easily stopped that shit in its track. I still love her though, Sailor Neptune's spirit lives on and is as passive aggressive as ever!

-The Venus de Milo statue didn’t pop up this episode, but that’s likely cause we weren’t on campus very much this time. The pink light was still everywhere like usual though. Also we learned the school has free practice days! That’s neat.

-Hey Maya, I don’t think saying ominous things about the audition duels while dancing is how you flirt with a girl. Granted it looks like it worked? Weirdos. And I told ya guys, Maya really loves dancing with her. She went out her way to do so this episode! Also good to know Maya always smiles at her when they dance even if no one else is watching so her smiling isn’t performative. And man, I’ve noticed Maya seeks out Kuro and only Kuro instead of hanging out with anyone else. That girl has got it bad.

--Maya hun, did you learn all your flirting tactics from the theater? I think she did, amazing.

-Honestly I’m loving Kuro and Maya’s dynamic more and more each episode, they are actually really adorable? Kuro is in deep denial while Maya is like “That’s ok, take your time. :)”. In the meantime she’s here to impress and think “She’s so pretty when she fights and when she dances and when she-” and so on and so forth.

However like with everyone else’s relationships, their relationship is going to end up strained thanks to the audition duels. Right now, Maya very firmly believes that being a Top Star means being alone. Throwing everything and everyone away, no matter what. But that begs the question, how will she handle it when it’s Kuro’s time to get booted (I think Maya and Karen will be the last ones standing)? I don’t mean just losing, being kicked out of the duels all together.

If my theory on radiance aka ability to perform on the stage is the thing taken is correct, than that means Maya can’t dance with her or see her fiery passion for the theater anymore after she’s kicked out. When that time comes, will she really be ok with leaving Kuro with nothing and standing alone? Ha ha, what if Maya knows they have limited time together so she’s trying to have as much time as she can? Ahaha...oh I just made myself sad.

-Speaking of Maya and Kuro, those two are a lot different than I expected. Way nicer and for sure not so above it all. They are just teenagers like the rest of them. I really love how different Maya is off the stage, when fighting/on stage she is very intimidating and seems all powerful. But when not she is, very respected and talented yes, but she is just another girl in their class. Maya isn’t an asshole to her classmates like you’d expect most characters like her to do, and like I said she obviously enjoys dancing with Kuro even though they are rivals.

Kuro on the other hand could’ve been like your average rich bitch character but nope! She's actually very chill and playful with everyone not named Tendou Maya, hell she even has a nickname, all of her intensity goes towards Maya instead. And ofc her deep denial about how she feels about Maya. It's very fascinating and I love it, I love them. They could’ve easily been the stock popular snobs/jerks but they aren’t, they are much deeper than that. And that’s wonderful!

-How odd that Claudine is asking Maya why she’s even in the underground duels and says that Maya “doesn’t need them”. So does that mean these fights are for girls who are desperate to get to the top and feel there’s no other way? If so, then why is Maya there? Maya herself doesn’t give an actual answer. Hm.

-The curfew for the dorms is 6pm apparently but the duels obviously go way past that time and into the night. So there’s at least two possibilities here. One, the school is very much in on it so the curfew is null and void for the girls who fight that night. Or two, the dueling does indeed take place in a dream world or dreamlike world. The question is when do the girls enter it? How does the elevator work then? Do their real bodies go with them? Are they just teleported back into their beds afterwards? Or a mix of both, school is in on it and there’s some magic shit going on? Like the school knows but the audition duels are in a dreamlike place is what I mean. HM. There is so much we don’t know about the duels honestly. What are they hiding? And, how much do the Stage Girls really know?

--I’m thinking that it’s likely the duels are taking place in a dreamlike world, that would line up with Karen waking up in bed after them and line up with the girls being tired the next day. However I must point out that even if the audition duels do take place in a dreamlike world, it doesn’t make it less real. No the experience is very real it just takes place in a dreamlike reality (think like in the movies Inception or Paprika). The Stage Girls remember the duels and no these aren’t just normal auditions, we have zero evidence suggesting that still so I’d say get that idea outta yo head.

I’m also thinking any wounds or hell even dying would all be temporary, like you’d wake up and you are fine physically. However emotionally not so much, you’d remember the experience of either dying or killing someone and that will probably fuck you up a bit, shit. And I think there is a way to die but it maybe only the Revue itself can do that. I’m guessing losing will really scramble your brain in some way. Oh dear.

-We see more of the Starlight play, so the summary I got right now for the plot of this play is this. Once upon a time there were two goddesses, they loved each other very much. But they both wanted to reach for a light high up in the sky, a star. So together they leave their nymphs friends (Idk are they nymphs or what) behind, and they go to the star. Both goddesses reach for the star but, the star fired a laser beam and shot one of the goddesses out of the sky. The other was being pulled into the star, unable to go back for her lover. So she turned her into sand to spare her a horrible death. They were forever separated, their dream could never come true. The End! Soooo this foreshadowing makes me nervous for the girls, I’ll talk about it more in the speculation part.

--Quick note here, I learned that the names of the two goddesses in the play are Claire and Flora. Now Flora is a latin name that means flower and is the name of the Roman goddess of flowers and plants. Interestingly, the school’s symbol is a flower! Or looks like one to me at least. Claire is also a latin name and it means bright, clear, and….famous. Hm, I think I’m gonna assume Claire is the goddess who didn’t die. Could be wrong though.

>IMMA FIRING MY SPECULATIONS! RAWR!

(Is that meme considered old now?)

-So is the legendary punishment legit or was their teacher just fucking with them? I suspect if it is, and if we see it, the punishment isn’t as bad as it’s rumored to be. If it is, maybe it's like the stage play. In the stage play, because Karen was late to class too many times I think, the girls got thrown into the fighty Greek Chorus hell pit. Most of them without weapons, at least Maya and Kuro went for using their bare hands instead. Wow. Death by greek chorus, what a way to go.

-I’m thinking that starlight equals radiance aka talent. The starlight gatherers thing I pointed out last week would match up to this idea.

-The penalty of losing too much in the auditions is that something important to Stage Girls is lost. I strongly think what they lose is their radiance aka starlight. Basically all their abilities they can use to perform. Maybe even weakening their bodies? My current thought for the truth about being Top Star is that Top Star is given all the radiance of the girls who lost, maybe used as a battery by the tiara but even just being given all the radiance is painful too. You’d be alone at the top, all your friends are gone and you’ve literally taken away everything they had. Basically the winner doesn’t even win, the only winner is the cruel system.

So I got two ideas of where this could go, one is that the girls who lose become shells of their former selves after losing their starlight. Blank eyes, not very active, that kind of thing. And maybe the effect can be resisted for a little while but it will come for you in the end. And maybe it could even cause you to fade away into nothing but pink light....which is all over this anime. UM. OH GEEZ.

The other idea is that, the stage literally steals you away. If the idea is to give all the radiance at once to whoever the Top Star is, storing the losing girls would work too. Like the stage basically catches the losing girl, drags her under or upward (or even stage left or right) and then the girl is put in a deep sleep pretty much. They sleep in coffins or boxes until there is a Top Star, then they will be taken out and drained. This could be a good way for the school to not have to deal with zombie like girls, they can just say they are sick. Not like the other Stage Girls can tell anyone otherwise. What happens afterwards can’t say I know really. Could go with them fake joining the Starlight group like in my theory. Or they just bury whats left of the girls under the stage. Shit.

-Heres a theory that came to me while I was watching the stage version, the Starlight story isn’t made up. The myth is real. The goddess that lived is among them, maybe as the head teacher Souda-sensei? That would explain all the goddess symbolism, specially love goddesses because this one lost her lover and so did Inanna and Venus. It might also explain our Qilin, he is loyal to her.

So if the goddess is real why is she here? Well, I think she did indeed take the star and stored it away. However, this goddess has become cruel. She had seen other women with their best friends and their lovers and became angry. Why do they get to keep who they love the most and she had to lose hers? So maybe this is a recreation, she might just be a goddess who loves theater and sees it as a good way to lure girls. She puts the same number of girls as there were goddesses or goddesses and their nymphs idk. They fight for the Top Star, fighting friends and lovers alike. And the girl that wins gains the star powers, but now she’s alone and she lost everything else. Just like the goddess herself, another lonely star.

>Bana-nice!

This was a nice breather episode! Got to hang with the girls more, got some more foreshadowing, got some more gay, it was fun! And it gave the animators a break! It looks like episode 5 is gonna be a doozy though, oh boy.

See you on the stage for episode 5!

#shojo kageki revue starlight #revue starlight #moo watches revue starlight #shoujo kageki revue starlight

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sp4c3-0ddity · 7 years ago

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So a week (or less) ago I was taking ‘a softer world’ prompts, and @hailkuvira sent me three and I already did one, but I wanted to try at least one of the others, so this is the result!! It’s a fluffy, cliche college AU of about ~5500 words, so enjoy :)

(44) I am writing a book of love poetry for you. For example: “The only reason you could possibly need your music that loud is if you were planning to listen from my apartment. You downstairs motherfuckers.” (Every day I hope to see a moving truck pull in. Or an ambulance.)

Pidge recognizes the guy sitting two rows in front of her in her history lecture, or she thinks she does.

He's the only other senior in a class of eighty or more freshmen, and that alone might convince her to gravitate towards him if she didn't also recognize him.

Naturally that means she avoids him instead, which backfires two weeks into the semester when he drops himself into the empty seat beside her and says, "You're Pidge, right?" When she turns her face towards him, he adds, "You worked on that one project with Hunk?"

Her jaw doesn't drop in surprise that their recognition is mutual, but it's a close thing. She says, "Yeah, and you're his friend Lance?"

He grins at her and says, "Yep, that's me."

They don't speak again for the rest of that lecture, and Pidge puts him out of her mind in favor of focusing on the professor's slides. But her eyes are still drawn to him, curious about someone she only knew casually for a few weeks.

He doesn't seem to be paying attention, but he makes a good show with an open notebook in front of him and a few hastily scribbled lines. Instead he spends most of the class alternating between a game and a messaging app on his phone.

Pidge pointedly turns away; this may only be a general education class that she spent the last three years procrastinating, but she'll be damned if she lets an acquaintance - one she distinctly remembers being flirty - distract her.

(Even if she had something of a crush on that acquaintance, once.)

Pidge's final year of college sees more changes than she would like. Her brother finished graduate school the year before and moved across the country, and her parents - chasing a new job opportunity for her father - weren't far behind. And that all means that Pidge has to lease an apartment - live alone for the first time - until she graduates.

She foregoes a roommate and finds a cheap studio apartment ten minutes from campus, close enough that she can walk, and she has her Vespa for when she'd rather not. And it's not so bad, if a little lonely, except for one problem:

The resident in the apartment beneath her blasts music at random times of the day and night.

They'll play anything, from catchy pop beats to hip hop with a bass that shakes the floor beneath Pidge's feet. She snuggles her noise-cancelling headphones on, trying to focus on the internship application she's filling out, but the music is so loud, so pervasive, that they don't do her much good. They're only man-made, after all.

Pidge grits her teeth and packs her laptop in her bag; at least the campus library opens on Saturdays.

Lance's presence in her history lecture becomes a fixture, and she even starts going to class early in the hopes of seeing him. At first they only really talk about Hunk, their mutual friend, and their classes. Lance is a science major, rather than engineering like her, but there's still a surprising amount of common ground between them.

They exchange phone numbers during the third week of class, just in case, and exchange notes too. Pidge is good at getting down the information on the professor's slides, but Lance latches onto her spoken lecture more easily; conveniently their notes complement each other, allowing them to fill in gaps that Pidge might've struggled to if she braved history lecture alone.

But for those first few weeks, their acquaintance begins and ends for an hour a day, three days a week. They don't talk much outside of class, though Lance will sometimes text her asking if she can explain a particular facet from their lecture notes.

And that's all right with Pidge, at least for now.

Pidge's downstairs neighbor turns on the show tunes while she's in the middle of a video chat with Matt.

She groans and buries her face in her arms, and Matt asks, "What's wrong, Pidge?"

"My idiot downstairs neighbor," she complains, turning her head up to look at her computer screen. "Almost every day, without any pattern I can find, they blast their music." She tilts her head, trying to identify the musical in question. "It sounds like Rent today."

Matt laughs. "Welcome to the college life, Pidge," he says cheerfully. "Or maybe the apartment life." He shrugs.

"You lived with us all through college," Pidge points out, narrowing her eyes at him.

"And now I live alone!" Matt says, shrugging.

She shifts in her seat and, when the music doesn't falter after a few seconds, she plugs her headphones into her laptop and puts them on. "So you haven't found a roommate yet?" Pidge says. She reaches into the bag of pretzels open on her desk and pulls out a few, munching while chatting with Matt.

"Nope," Matt says. His cheer falters, and he admits, "Damn, it's expensive here in Silicon Valley."

Pidge snorts, snapping a pretzel with her teeth. "Even I knew that."

"Yeah, but..." He waves his hand dismissively and says, "But enough about me. How's your last year going?"

She shrugs and rearranges a few things on her desk. "It's going."

"Really? That's it? Nothing interesting?"

For some reason, her mind flies to Lance. "I actually know someone in my history lecture," she admits.

"Oh yeah?" Matt smiles, looking relieved. "That's good since it means you have someone to sit with."

"Sure," Pidge agrees, but she doesn't want to talk about Lance. Instead she occupies herself with eating another handful of pretzels, and asks Matt, "How's work?"

Matt smirks and gets into his new topic of conversation, and Pidge breathes a sigh of relief.

When they finally end the call - Matt's a whole three hours behind her and she's starting to feel sleepy - Pidge takes off her headphones and immediately regrets it when she hears that her neighbor has moved on to Wicked.

Lance invades her life so subtly that an hour doesn't pass without Pidge catching herself thinking of him, whether she's eating lunch with a few classmates or sitting in a completely different lecture. She catches herself reaching for her phone to send him a meme she thinks he'd find funny, or photos of jellyfish or dogs or sharks or any other animal he once mentioned liking.

She smiles more in a class she thought she'd hate than she does any other time of the week, even when she's talking to her brother or parents, and when she finds herself looking forward to history she knows there's no going back.

The week of their history midterm, Lance suggests they get together and study, and Pidge accepts more quickly than she'll ever admit.

Pidge meets him at the library, and they closet themselves inside one of the private study rooms. She provides the snacks and the comprehensive notes, and Lance provides the coffee and the distraction.

Not that they don't focus on actually studying, at least at first, but Lance's attention wavers within a half hour, and Pidge can't help expressing her frustration.

"Why did you want to meet if you won't even study?" Pidge complains, prodding his arm with the tip of her pen.

Lance glances at her. "Maybe I like spending time with you?"

"Then why didn't you suggest something else?" Pidge demands. And she doesn't blush, no, she does not.

Lance shrugs and rubs the back of his neck. "I didn't think you'd agree?" He sips his coffee, then says, "Tell you what, if you can beat my high score at this game"--he holds up his phone to show her--"then we'll keep studying and I won't distract us anymore."

"And if I don't beat you?" Pidge crosses her arms. "We still have an exam, you know."

"Oh, I know." Lance smiles disarmingly. "But knowing you, you've got it in the bag."

"Knowing me?"

"Yeah. Hunk says you're a genius."

Pidge stares at him, wide-eyed, but then she shakes her head and gestures for his phone. "Give that to me then."

"You don't want to know what I want if you lose?" Lance asks, raising an eyebrow at her.

Pidge drops her arm on the table. "It's not to just have done with it?"

"Well, it is," he says. He taps his fingers against the table, looking thoughtful. "But there is something else."

She sighs. "And what's that?"

Lance smirks. "We level-up our friendship."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Easy. We start hanging out outside of history class." He props an elbow on the table, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. "If you want to anyway." He leans towards her a bit, close enough that she catches a whiff of the cologne he wears, smiling hopefully.

Pidge doesn't tell him he could've asked her anytime, without the pretense of a stupid game. Instead she snatches the phone from his hand and tries her best. But she's never played it before, and she's seen him playing this rather than paying attention in history for weeks now, so she can't beat his high score in the time they still have the study room reserved.

She can't help sulking as she hands his phone back to him outside the library, and her scowl only deepens at the smug grin on Lance's face. "So lunch after the exam tomorrow?" he asks her cheerfully.

Pidge rolls her eyes. "Fine," she says. But once they're going their separate ways - Pidge to an evening class and Lance to wherever he has to be next - she can't help the smile that splits her face.

Pidge's newest coding assignment comes along so poorly that the next time her neighbor plays their music, she composes an angry letter as a warmup:

Dear Downstairs Motherfucker, Congratulations. I hold you singlehandedly responsible for any of my failing grades. Do you have to blast your music so loud? The only logical reason I can think of is if you were trying to listen to it from MY apartment. I'm looking forward to seeing a moving truck, or even an ambulance, but I don't know if it would be more satisfying for ME to kick your ass or to watch some other annoyed neighbor do the honors. With all my love, Your Livid Upstairs Neighbor

In a fit of pique, she draws a heart with a green highlighter on the bottom of the page. And after another moment of consideration, she tapes a Reese's peanut butter cup to the paper as well. What can it hurt? Maybe they'll accept bribery.

Pidge storms down the stairs and finds the apartment right beneath hers. She tapes the letter and peanut butter cup to the door and returns upstairs.

Her downstairs neighbor doesn't blast music that evening, allowing her some headway on her homework, but when she wakes up the next morning she finds a response taped to her door along with a fun-sized Snickers bar:

Dear "Livid Upstairs Neighbor", Thank you, I accept the responsibility and the consequences, but maybe you should come down here and say all that to my face? Or invest in some noise-cancelling headphones? I can even make some recommendations for you, if you'd like. Love, The "Downstairs Motherfucker"

Pidge scowls and crumples the paper into a ball, but a prickle of familiarity seizes her and she smooths it out on her desk. She thinks she recognizes the handwriting, and brings the paper close to her face, squinting at it. A whiff of cologne or perfume tickles her nose, but even her scent memory fails her.

She scoffs, balling the paper up again and dropping it into a desk drawer. She eats the candy as she considers her retaliation.

"...and that's how I got that scar," Lance finishes his story with aplomb. He rolls up his sleeve, showing off a thin, ridged line of white on his forearm.

Hunk frowns at him. "What are you talking about?" he asks. "You fell and cut yourself on a piece of glass at the beach. I remember; I was there."

"Hunk!" Lance screeches indignantly, glaring at him.

Pidge laughs and sips at her milkshake. It's late on a Friday night, and for once she's taking a break from worrying about midterms (she still has one left, though it isn't for another week) and homework assignments and applying for graduation and all the other stuff she has to do before the end of the semester.

"Next you're gonna try to prove that your belly button is a heroic battle scar too," Pidge quips.

"You think anyone would believe it?" Lance asks hopefully.

"I once told someone that my birthday is on the thirtieth of February," Pidge says, smirking.

"And did they believe you?" Hunk says.

Pidge says, "No, but it took them a hot minute." She uses a spoon to finish the last of her milkshake, scooping whipped cream and the maraschino cherry out of the glass. Her phone buzzes with a text message from Matt, inquiring if she wants to video chat.

Lance teases Hunk about his not-really girlfriend while Pidge sends a quick negative reply to Matt. He shoots back almost immediately asking why, and:

Did you finally make friends? Three years late?

Pidge rolls her eyes and returns a terse, simple "yes".

"Who're you talking to?" Lance asks, startling her into almost dropping her phone.

It lands in her lap though, and Pidge says, "My brother. He's surprised I'm out since he thinks I don't have any friends." Her phone vibrates again, making her jump.

Pics or it didn't happen.

Pidge scowls at the screen and asks Lance and Hunk, "Do you mind if I take a picture?"

Lance's eyes light up as he grins, and Hunk says, "Sure."

Pidge gets up and walks around the table so she stands behind and between them, but Lance snatches the phone from her hand before she can hold it out in front of her. "Hey!" she says, indignant as she reaches for it.

Lance holds it away from her, almost out of reach. "I'm the selfie expert here," he claims with a wink. "Besides, you have short arms."

Pidge hates the way she flushes, but she manages to hold his eyes in a silent battle of wills. He does, however, have a point, and she might as well send her brother a decent photo rather than a half-assed one, so she agrees, "Fine, just don't drop it."

"O ye of little faith," Lance says, holding the phone out before the three of them and turning the screen towards them, "that will definitely not happen."

She sighs but bends her knees so that her head hovers between his and Hunk's. "Take the picture," she says, "before I lose my balance."

"Then why don't you hold onto my chair?" Lance suggests, glancing sideways at her.

They're close, close enough that she can see he has a few freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose, and the way her heart beats leads her to think that she might've consumed too much sugar tonight. "Just take the photo, Lance," she says.

Lance turns his head towards the phone, and Pidge, usually uncomfortable being in photos, doesn't have to force her smile.

Two weeks after her history midterm, an entire weekend passes that Pidge doesn't hear a peep from the apartment beneath her.

By now Pidge and her neighbor have exchanged more notes, ranging in length from a salutation plus a few words to a half page of irritated ramblings on either of their parts. One of her desk drawers is filling with balled up letters, and the waste basket beside it is becoming a receptacle for Snickers wrappers. Pidge herself has left her neighbor more Reese's cups than she's kept for herself in the last two weeks.

At first she wonders if her neighbor finally surrendered, and she makes good use of that quiet weekend, drafting a term paper and applying for summer internships (it may be autumn, but it's never too soon). She even finds herself with enough time to play video games.

On Saturday evening though, Pidge is so bored that she texts Lance asking if he and Hunk want to do something, only to receive the reply that he was visiting his family for the weekend. So she frowns at her phone and texts Hunk instead, asking what he's doing on Sunday.

She meets Hunk at the nearby mall, and he asks, "What do you usually do on weekends?"

Pidge shrugs and admits, "Not much. Homework, play video games, fight my neighbor."

Hunk raises an eyebrow at that. "What did your neighbor do?"

Pidge scowls. "Play their music loud enough to wake the dead."

He laughs as he leads the way down the street, his eyes scanning the surrounding shops.

"Are you...looking for anything in particular?" Pidge asks him.

"Shay's birthday is this week," Hunk explains, pausing thoughtfully outside a store selling inexpensive - but still pretty - jewelry.

Pidge glances sideways at him, a sly smirk curling her lips. "Very cute," she says. "I'm sure she'll love whatever you get her."

Hunk narrows his eyes at her, but to his credit he doesn't blush. "We're just friends," he insists. "She is a classmate I met and admire very much."

Pidge crosses her arms, still smirking. "Uh huh, sure."

"Oh, not you too," Hunk gripes. But he pushes the door and steps into the store.

Pidge follows, and every time Hunk picks something, he shows it to her. But she shrugs and admits, "I not only don't know Shay, but I'm also awful at gifts."

"She likes earrings," Hunk says. "She seems to wear a new pair almost every day." He smiles, eyes distant like he's daydreaming, and Pidge wonders if she looks like that when she thinks of Lance.

Which is itself a strange thought to have, Pidge realizes, shaking her head to clear it and focusing on another pair of earrings that Hunk shows her.

Pidge grows bored quickly, and Hunk picks up on her mood and finally decides on a pair of earrings that likely pushes the envelope of his budget. Out of gratitude for her patience, Hunk buys her coffee, and they linger in the cafe, talking about classes, what they want to do after graduation, and, inevitably, Lance.

"So does Lance still bother you during history?"

Pidge shifts in her chair and toys with the sleeve on her cup. "I wouldn't say he bothers me," she says.

Hunk snorts. "Weren't you complaining the other day about him distracting you?"

"Well, yeah..."

Then his eyes widen, and dread curls in Pidge's stomach as he says, "I see what's going on." He smirks. "You like him."

"No I don't," Pidge is quick to lie.

"You do!" Hunk says gleefully, probably in revenge for all the times she teased him about Shay. "You want to sit-in-a-tree with him!"

Pidge chugs her coffee, wishing it's still hot enough that she can delude herself into thinking that the heat in her cheeks is from the beverage rather than a blush. She roughly sets her now-empty cup on the table and tells Hunk, "You can't prove anything."

Hunk shrugs. "I don't need to," he says. "Your face is all the proof I need."

She covers her still-warm cheeks. "Please don't tell him."

"I won't," he promises, "but I think you should."

She frowns at him. "That's a terrible idea."

"And why's that, Pidge?"

"He..." Pidge sighs and tugs on the end of her ponytail. "I can't unless I know for a fact he..." She scowls, frustrated with her inability to say it outright.

"Likes you too?" Hunk suggests. At Pidge's nod, he concedes, "That's fair."

"Besides," she continues, squeezing her empty cup in one hand, "he's never shown any sign of that."

"He will, Pidge." Hunk pats her shoulder, comforting her, and Pidge doesn't bother contradicting him.

When Pidge gets home, she hears her neighbor playing their music again, and there's a note taped to her door, a reply to the last one she left for them:

Miss me?

Pidge rolls her eyes and smiles as she tears it off.

So tell me about Lance.

Pidge waits outside the lecture hall before history when Matt messages her, and she stares incredulously at the words on the screen, trying to formulate a reply in her head at least based on everything she might've said about Lance to her brother.

What about him? she asks.

Matt doesn't reply immediately, giving Pidge the opportunity to glance around her surroundings. Her eyes catch on Lance's approaching figure and narrow when she sees he's not walking alone but is with a girl, the both of them laughing about something, Lance's eyes happily alight.

Pidge feels a rush of irrational anger and looks away. When the lecture hall opens to admit them inside, she rushes into class towards her usual seat without waiting for Lance, and once he joins her she avoids his gaze and only mumbles a halfhearted greeting.

Her phone buzzes as the professor sets up her laptop in the front of the hall, and she glances at the screen to read Matt's message:

I need to know what kind of guy I might have to fight.

Pidge rolls her eyes and leaves Matt on read, so he sends another text seconds later:

Just kidding! But seriously, what's he like?

She finally glances at Lance, who meets her gaze and smiles warmly. And the knot of anger and hurt inside her loosens, and she smiles back.

The professor starts her lecture, and Pidge ignores Matt in favor of listening. But of course, Lance has other ideas.

"So...you missed me over the weekend?" he asks with a smirk, voice low so they don't disturb their other classmates.

"You wish," Pidge retorts, eyes fixed on the professor's slides.

"I know, I'm sorry I had to deprive you of my presence for an entire weekend--"

Pidge snorts.

"--but don't worry, I missed you too."

Her pen freezes, halting her notes mid-word, and when she glances at Lance he winks. Pidge blushes and scowls, trying to recover her focus, but she says, "Yeah, I guess I missed you too."

Lance grins and, apparently satisfied, lets her pay attention to the lecture.

Afterwards, Pidge texts Matt, Wouldn't you like to know ;)

During dead week, Pidge's irritation with her downstairs neighbor comes to a head, and leaving passive aggressive notes and candy taped to each other's doors isn't cutting it for her anymore. So after two minutes of trying to study through AC/DC, she shoves her feet into her kitty slippers, grabs a whole unopened bag of Reese's peanut butter cups, throws on a robe over her pajamas, and storms downstairs, practically jumping down the steps in her hurry to reach the offender.

She pounds on the door and waits, impatiently tapping her foot.

Her neighbor pauses the music, and for a moment Pidge thinks that would be the end of it, there need not be any confrontation, only for them to open the door.

She doesn't look up until after she's thrown the bag of candy into their chest.

"H-hey!" they screech.

It's Lance.

Of course it's Lance.

Her anger and irritation melt away, and she gapes at him, standing there with wide eyes, barefoot and wearing a blue t-shirt over sweatpants. His hair looks like he's been running his fingers through it for hours, and Pidge is so stunned that she can't remember the rant she planned on her way downstairs.

Lance recovers first, and he leans against his door frame, arms crossed. "So you're my 'livid upstairs neighbor'?" he says, smirking.

"'Downstairs motherfucker'," Pidge breathes.

"You know," Lance says, reaching down to pick up the fallen bag of candy, "you have a weird way of showing you hate me."

"I don't hate you," she says. God, this is uncomfortable; she shuffles her feet. "I just hate how loud you blast your music."

"Yeah, the guy who lived in that apartment before you felt the same," Lance says. He waves a dismissive hand, and then opens the bag. "Actually, he might've hated me too."

"What happened to him?"

"Oh, I murdered him and stuffed him in my closet when he complained." Pidge stares at him, crossing her arms, until he laughs and says, "Just kidding. He dropped out."

"Not your fault?"

"Please, Pidge, what kind of person do you take me for?" He offers her the bag.

Pidge rolls her eyes and says, "I have plenty more upstairs."

"Yeah, I should've known it was you from all the Reese's."

"And I should've figured out it was you from the scent." Pidge waves a hand over her nose. "Did you spray those notes in cologne?"

Lance, halfway through unwrapping a piece of candy, glances up in surprise. "You pay attention to my scent?"

Pidge, now realizing how strange that must sound, flushes. "What?" she says, voice pitched higher than usual. "You always wear cologne, and I sit next to you in history, so..." She shrugs.

He snorts, but she thinks he might also be blushing. "Right, sure."

Thinking it's finally time to end this, she forces a smile and says, "Uh, keep it down? Please?"

Lance returns her smile, something soft and private. "Sure," he says, "anything for you, Pidge."

Pidge exhales, relieved, and turns to leave, but she doesn't hear Lance shut his door until she steps into the stairwell.

Nothing notable happens during finals week, and at the end Pidge is more than ready to go back home for her three weeks of winter vacation, though not without saying goodbye to Lance.

"See you in January?" he says while they stand together outside their apartment building, with Pidge waiting for her ride to the airport and him there seeing her off.

"We don't have a class together anymore," she points out, disappointed.

Lance rolls his eyes. "You have my number, Pidge," he says. "Use it."

Pidge's shuttle finally pulls up to the curb, but she still turns to Lance and agrees, "Fine, you've convinced me. I'll call you when I get home, okay?" She smiles and stands on her toes so she can press her lips to his cheek.

It's a gesture she doesn't think about, something that feels natural though she's never done it before, but when Lance stiffens her awareness of her own actions returns. She stares at him, eyes wide, and says, "I'm--"

Lance hugs her. "This isn't weird, right?" he asks, his breath warming her ear.

Pidge buries her face in his shoulder. "It's not," she tells him. "I actually really like it and...you."

"What was that?" Lance says. "I couldn't hear you."

Pidge pulls away from him, face hot. "You, I like you, you...downstairs motherfucker."

Lance snorts and laughs, and Pidge joins in, and they both just laugh until they're breathless with it. When they finally stop, the shuttle driver is giving her a dirty look, and she promises Lance, "I'll see you in a few weeks."

"I'm counting the days." He leans down and kisses her cheek, and Pidge pulls him into one last hug.

When she's at the airport, before she boards her plane, she receives a text message.

Oh I forgot to tell you I like you too <3

Pidge smiles what feels like the entire flight.

---

Matt is the first one to greet her when she exits the gate. He flings his arms around her, even spins her around once, and she laughs, giddy after being away from her family for almost half a year. When he puts her down, he takes her bag and asks, "So anything interesting happen before you left?"

It's almost like he knows. Pidge narrows her eyes at him and says, "Like what?"

"Like...?" He waggles his eyebrows at her.

She sighs and admits, "Lance was my downstairs neighbor blasting music."

Matt stares at her, then laughs. "No way. You've been at war with your crush for months and didn't realize it?"

Pidge flushes and crosses her arms. "Don't remind me."

"Oh, no, this is too funny," Matt says, jostling her with his free arm.

Right, of course he would never let her live it down.

"So does he still blast music?"

"He stole my headphones," Pidge admits. "Said if I was gonna complain with them, I didn't deserve them." She rolls her eyes but still smiles at the memory. "And then I stole his favorite jacket." Which she has stuffed in her bag; she wonders how long it will take Lance to figure out she took it with her.

Matt glances at her, looking skeptical. "Are you together now?"

Pidge scoffs, "No." Then she frowns and amends, "Maybe a little?"

"Pidge..."

"Which reminds me, I promised I'd call him."

"Now?" Matt stares at her incredulously.

"Please," Pidge says with a snort, "I missed you enough to hold off until later. For your sake," she adds, mockingly bowing her head.

"What a relief," Matt scoffs, but he reaches up and ruffles her hair playfully.

At home, her parents greet her warmly and with her favorite meal, and Pidge doesn't have a chance to call Lance until after dinner, when she closes her bedroom door and dials his number.

"Pidge!" he greets her. "Do you miss me yet?"

"Definitely not," she says, "but I might miss your music."

"No way," Lance says incredulously, but she can hear the smile in his voice. "By the way, did you take my jacket?"

Pidge covers her face and laughs.

Pidge gets a roommate for her last semester of college.

Lance's lease expires over break, and during one of their many conversations, she idly suggests he move in with her, disregarding how small her apartment is. He agrees without too much convincing on her part, but it's not until she nudges open the door upon first getting back that she recognizes the implication behind what they're doing.

Lance gets back the day after she does, and since his stuff is at Hunk's since he's already lost the use of the downstairs apartment, Pidge visits him there.

"What are we?" she demands before he can do much more than smile at her.

Lance raises an eyebrow at her, confused. "Uh...people?" he says.

While visiting her family, they'd texted on and off daily, and talked on the phone or video chatted at least once every few days. And they never ventured into unfamiliar territory, never spoke of them, through an unspoken agreement that they would discuss it once they stood face-to-face again.

Which is now.

Hunk is out buying groceries and other last-minute things he needs for the upcoming semester, affording them some privacy. "That's not what I meant," she says. She stuffs her hands into her jacket pockets - his jacket pockets, since she's wearing the one she 'borrowed' from him.

Lance pats the sofa cushion beside him, and she sits next to him. "What do you want us to be?" he asks.

Pidge pulls her feet onto the couch with her, hands on her ankles. "I've never had a boyfriend before," she tells him, glancing sideways at him.

He shrugs, as if unconcerned. "Well, I've dated"--Pidge snorts, because she knows--"but I've never lived with a girlfriend before." He stares at her. "You're right, this is weird."

"I didn't say that," Pidge backtracks, waving her hands. "I just meant I...want us to know what we're getting into."

"Well, I like you," Lance says like it's the most natural thing in the world, like him simply saying it doesn't make her heart beat faster, "and you like me. So let's...be together? Like...that?"

Pidge stares at him. "Very romantic," she deadpans.

Lance rolls his eyes and says, "I didn't have time to get flowers. Also, do you know how expensive red roses are?"

She flushes until she's just as red. "Who said anything about roses?"

He shrugs sheepishly. "I looked into buying some... Which reminds me." He stands up and disappears into Hunk's second bedroom, and when he comes back he's carrying a tiny box with a blue bow wrapped around it. "Here; consider this a late Christmas present."

Pidge takes it and removes the bow. When she eyes Lance suspiciously, he smiles, and she opens the box.

"What's on this?" she asks, picking up the flash drive.

Lance laughs, but his cheeks turn red. "Every song you interrupted to leave a note on my door."

Pidge puts the box - with both earrings and flash drive - aside and flings her arms around Lance's neck. "Thank you," she says, grinning, "but I, uh, didn't get you anything."

Lance's arms circle her waist, and he says, "That's okay. You're letting me live with you."

"You're paying rent," Pidge points out, pulling away just enough to look him in the eye.

Lance smiles and teases, "Is that negotiable?"

"No."

"Fine," Lance says, rolling his eyes. "You'll just have to make it up to me in some other way."

Pidge raises an eyebrow at him, and she feels a slow smirk tug up her lips. And she says, "I think I can live with that."

#plance #pidgance #lidge #why is this so long #also hard to finish #also my style is so inconsistent #but it's cute??#anyway #voltron #reem writes fic

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