#because I can't just half-ass things with a <3 and go on the next chapter i just can't

[mamuzzy]

When i reach 1000 posts in my drafts I will drink a beer like a boring normal person and attempting to play videogames without probably telling anyone that it happened because there is nothing to be celebrated about that I can't keep up with my friends OCs and fanfictions so I save them to be when I actually have time and energy to read them with full brain capacity. (yes i triggered myself into sadness. don't worry about it.)

[lovifie]

Lift Me Off My Feet

Chapter 3: Poltergeist

Masterlist

Original Thought - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12

3.8k Words

Warning/Notes: Ghost x Reader, a little of ass eating from Ghost, fingering, a bit mean Ghost, hair pulling, angst.

“Hey, Birdie.”

“Hey, Ghost.”

The two of you look at each other, each expecting the other to make a move. But since he doesn't seem bothered by the silence, you break it.

“Here for work or pleasure?” You ask opening the door as he chuckles.

“Well, that's not my choice.” He answers looking at you. “Half and half, I suppose.”

“Why is that?” You ask as you enter your flat, leaving the door open for him to enter. But when you notice he is not moving you turn to him. “Are you gonna come in or do I need to invite you like a vampire?”

You see the smile on his eyes (mainly because that's the only thing you can see of his face), and he impulses himself off the wall as he walks closer to your door. 

“And what would your neighbours think? A girl like you letting a man like me inside her house?” He asks cocking his head.

“Well, actually, I don't know if you have heard. But just last night my neighbour was taken by the police because turns out he was a terrorist or something like that, I'm not sure. So I think I am out of the competition for worst neighbour of the year, so, yeah, please c’mon in.” 

You hear him chuckle behind your back as you walk into your room, and a little later you hear the door close. Maybe calling it a room is a big stretch, your whole flat is a room. A small hall that goes from the door to where your bed is, a door on the hall to your bathroom and another one to your kitchen. 

Having breakfast in bed sounds great, but having lunch and dinner sounds a bit sad. But that's the flat you could get, and honestly, thanks to your neighbour's hobbies, at least you know the rent is not going to go higher.

“You know, jumping the wall on your balcony was ridiculously easy, you should probably get a lock for that window.” He comments looking at your window as he enters your line of vision.

“Then I would lose my deposit.” You answer sitting down on your bed to take off your shoes. You take off your jacket next and hang it in your closet. “Are you hungry?”

“Hmm, depends on what's the offer.” He says leaning against the wall again. He follows you with his gaze as you walk to your kitchen and open the fridge with a face. He chuckles when you close the door back and look at him. “Takeout?”

“Takeout it is.” You answer taking your phone out. “What do you fancy, Ghost?” 

“You know? Most people freak out when I get inside their house, don't ask me what I want for dinner.” He says crossing his arms.

“Should I freak out?” You ask looking at him with an eyebrow raised as you lend him your phone with the delivery app open. “Order whatever you want, I'm no picky. I'm gonna take a shower, if the food gets here there is money behind that frame.”

You point out the only frame on your whole house and walk into the bathroom. You try to walk with confidence, but once inside the room, you let a sight escape your lips.

When you said yesterday you were going to push Price and Kyle away, you didn't mean it as in pulling the rest of the team closer. 

This is bad, is mean and honestly, you must be on some weird week of your cycle where you are producing more pheromones than usual because you were chronically single for years and now can't seem to catch a break. 

You open the tap to wait for the water to warm up as you undress. Just as you take your shirt off your pants you notice you didn't pick your pyjamas, so you walk back out.

You see Ghost seated on your bed, back leaning against the headboard, feet dangling off the bedside and scrolling through your phone.

“You can take off your shoes, you know.” You comment as you pick up the plaid pants and massive sweatshirt you wear to sleep as well as your underwear.

“You are a sneaky one, you know.” He responds looking at you almost offended he didn't hear you exit the bathroom.

You chuckle at him and walk back inside the bathroom. The shower helps you calm your nerves, the man is in your bed, and he hasn't made any moves yet; probably because he is not into you, you need to humble yourself a bit. 

At some point you hear the doorbell and your stomach grumbles almost as a reaction. You quickly finish your shower, put on your clothes and walk back to the room. 

“Chinese?” You ask when you see the containers as he stays looking around. “Let me get the table out.”

You say winking at him when he looks at you confused and he gets even more confused when you kneel before him. You look up at him, laughing internally at what he must be thinking and then you get your nice arm under the bed and pull the foldable table under it. You take it out and with a shake, you unfold it, take your seat on the bed in front of the table and tap the bed next to you. “Have a seat.”

He sits next to you, his thigh pressed against yours and he takes the container out of the bags opening them. 

After a little, you decide to finally talk about the elephant and the room and ask: “So, did you just drop by in hopes I would invite you to dinner or do you actually have a mission today, Ghost?”

“Oh, yeah, about that. I actually had two missions today.” He says pulling his mask up so he can eat. You try not to stare at the little skin showing, but you quickly notice the stubble on his jaw. Blonde. “First one, finding out we're the girl from the captain's office was. That one was easy, thankfully cause the captain was freaking out. And the second one, figuring out why she left. That one is still ongoing.”

“And if the captain was freaking out why is it you the one that's on my house?” You ask looking at your plate, curious enough to ask but not brave enough to look.

“Cause he was scared the reason you ran away, was because of him or something he did. So he didn't want to make it worse.” He answers simply, you can feel his eyes on you. He bends down a bit to be able to see your face and ask. “Is that why you ran?” You shake your head. “Then why? It looks like you had fun.” 

You turn to him with furrowed eyebrows and notice that he is looking at your neck, you remember the lovebites and quickly try to cover them with your hand. 

“It was just…” you sigh. “I know when I am no longer wanted, and rather than make it awkward by making him drive me back or having to say bye I just… got out before he woke up.” 

“Hm, I still think you should talk to him. I’m pretty sure he wouldn't agree with you with the ‘not being wanted’ thing” He says doing quotation marks with a hand and taking his phone out to send a message with the other.

“He doesn't even know my name. Neither do you.” You almost mumble. I’m just another one on the list, you think. “I think he will be just fine.”

He winces as if he was in pain and says. “You a tough one, birdie.” He cleans off the rest of his plate and stands up. “You don't know my name either and you don't see me throwing a hissy fit.”

“I'm not throwing a hissy fit.” You say rolling your eyes.

“Did you… Did you just roll your eyes at me, birdie?” He says moving the table and standing between your legs. “Now that” He says pointing at your face. “That's a brat move.”

“I'm not a brat!” You try to defend yourself standing up, but as quickly as you get on your feet, Ghost manhandles you to be laying down on your stomach. He sits on top of your ass immobilising your hips and grabs your arm putting them behind your back leaving you unable to move. “Ghost, what the fuck?!”

“Language.” He says and you feel a hard slap land on your ass cheek making you yelp. “Are you going to behave or should I teach you a lesson, birdie?”

“What? What are you talking about? Get off me.” You mumble squirming under him.

“No, I don't think I will until you learn.” He chuckles as he begins to grind against your ass. He bends down to talk to up to your ears. “You should be grateful, that I found you and not Price. Do you know what he would have done if he found out you got back, walking, alone, in the middle of the night?” Three more hard smacks land on the same cheek when he sits up. “And that alone, without talking about the fact you were missing a shirt. And didn't even say goodbye. Not a phone number, not a name, nothing.” He lands two more on the same cheek and an even harder one on the other cheek. Leaving your arse burning and you wouldn't be surprised if it bruised, but still, the most surprising thing about the situation is that you can feel your underwear sticking to your cunt.

You truly are learning about yourself these days. 

He grabs two handfuls of the meat of your arse, pushing your cheeks together as he grinds with a grunt. Then he lets go, you hear the unmistakable sound of his belt being undone and it sends anxiety up your column. He must sense it because he says: “Calm down, birdie. I'm not giving you my cock until you beg for it, and only if you deserve it. And trust me, you don't.” 

He takes his belt off, aligns your forearms and ties them together behind your back. 

“Are you going to talk to Price? You can still leave unscattered.” He asks, putting his hands beside your head and leaning in to be closer to your face.

You look back at him from over your shoulder, face still push against your mattress, and try to look offended by how easily he got you tied, immobilised and horny. “I don't know.”

He makes the sound of a buzzer, like in the contest when they answer wrong. “Not what I want to hear, birdie.”

His index finger hooks the waistband of your pyjama pants as well as your panties, right above your ass and he pulls them down slowly. You hear him whistle as he pulls them down, feeling the cold hair of the room against your skin and against your glistering cunt. “I think I'm going to start by the desert tonight.”

He lands a loud smack on your naked arse, and when you try to complain, the sound gets strangled into a moan when you feel his tongue against your puckering hole. Getting your ass eaten by the mysterious masked man was not on your plans for tonight, but you are not complaining. 

You moan against the mattress, biting the sheets to try and conceal the sounds leaving your mouth. Your consolation, is the fact that you can feel Ghost moan against your skin, the vibrations travelling up to your nape giving you goosebumps. 

He gets his hands under your hips pulling them up, leaving you completely exposed. Ass up, face down, arms tied and knees together by your pants. He pulls back for a second to admire his job, you look already ruined and it's been less than a couple of minutes. 

You await, expectant, his next move, every single thought that was on your mind about how you should push him away and stand your ground, is silenced by the feral voices of your mind scratching the walls with the need for his mouth to be back on you.

“Look at you, birdie. Such a good girl all of a sudden. You are not a brat, you just need that attitude fuck out of you, right, doll?” He asks massaging your waist with both hands. 

“Fuck you.” You mumble, and Ghost lands a slap right to your cunt making you scream and arch your back to find distance from him.

“Language, birdie!” He says chuckling, amused with the situation. “C’mon, play nice, love. Are you going to talk to Price?”

His finger starts to travel up and down your slit, collecting the juices flooding from your cunt. He teases your entrance without getting inside.

“No.” You declared, tired of being played with.

“No?” He ask genuinely surprised. “Oh, I think you will.” He lands another hard slap on your pussy, right on your clit, and position his fingers so that when you arch your back again, you fuck yourself right into his finger. A loud moan escaped your lips at the sudden intrusion.

He raises his hand up to your nape, grabs your hair in a handful and pulls lifting your head off the bed. “I wanna hear you sing, birdie.” His fingers begin to move inside and out of your cunt making you groan softly, raising in volume as his tongue finds her way back to your ass.

You can feel his drool drip down your ass to where his finger is fucking your pussy, only adding to the mess. He uses the knuckle of his middle fingers to brush against your clit making you mewl and causing him to chuckle again. He can feel you clenching around his finger, and he pulls back to ask again. “Are you going to talk to Price?”

“No, fuck, no I won't.” You scream back. And immediately you wish you didn't. Ghost draws his finger back, and remains holding your head but otherwise untouched.

“Wrong answer again, doll. C’mon, tell me what I want to hear and I'll give you what want to get. Are you going to talk to Price?” He asks. “No!” You answer, and the hardest slap to date lands on your ass making you cry out in pain. “Last chance, birdie. Are you going to talk to Price?” He asks again.

You bite your lip, an inner battle going inside your mind. The stubbornness in you taking the lead, not even being reasonable, just stubborn. Another hit snaps you out of it. “Shit! Fine! Whatever, I'll talk to him.” 

“Good girl, birdie.” He grumbles against your ear as his fingers start to piston in and out of your cunt, the sting of the stretch by the second finger completely buried under the waves of pleasure. He keeps whispering pure filth onto your ears, unable to hear him over the ring of your ears caused by the stimulus on your weak point.

You feel drool drip down your chin into the sheets, but you can only focus on the tight knot inside your body. It's unfair how easy it seems to be for these men to make you come undone with barely touching you, it makes you think about those mediocre ex-lovers who would put the blame on you for taking so long to cum. Fuck them, these men, Kyle, Price and Ghost had you coming in minutes without even taking off their clothes.

Ghost brushed his knuckles against your clit again, and you can only moan his name before you are gushing over his hand. He helps you ride out your orgasm and slowly draws back his fingers. 

He stands up chuckling softly, you hear him walk into the bathroom, you hear the faucet open and close and then hear him walk back.

You feel the cold wet towel between your legs and it makes you jump off the surprise. “Sorry, you spend all the warm water, doll.” He says still snickering. He drops the towel on the table, pulls your underwear and pants up, takes his belt back and lies next to you caressing your hair. “Solid, birdie?”

You shake your head. “Pretty sure I'm liquid now, Ghost” You say absent-mindedly and rub your eyes as you yawn. He may have fingered the attitude out of you, but he also fuck the energy out.

“I think it's time for me to leave, thank you for the dinner, birdie. And for the desert.” He says, smiling at you. He lands a peck on your temple and stands up. “Lock your door when I leave. And talk to Price.”

When he turns his back at you, you roll your eyes standing up as well to close the door. He turns on his heels and looks down on you. “And don't roll your eyes at me, birdie. Don't give me an attitude. Lock the door.” He says and lights a cigarette as he makes his way out of the building. 

While you're are cleaning everything, tidying your room, getting ready to get into your bed when you get a message from a contact that is just a skull emoji. 

💀: Lock the door, birdie.

That's what you get for trusting him with you phone to order food.

“So she didn't say why?” Price asks Simon as he sits in the booth at the pub.

The both of them met there, a pub close to your house, Price too anxious to wait to get back to base to find out about Ghost’s discoveries.

“Negative.” Ghost answers setting the pints down. “She did make a great point, Captain.”

“Which is?” Price ask expecting

“We don't even know her name. Well, we do because of the background check we did to find her, but any of us have asked her.” Ghost responds. “And I thought you were the less hotheaded of the team, Captain.”

Ghost shakes his head as he laughs.

“Maybe try to talk to her when you are not saving her life? Maybe she will feel less overwhelmed then.” Ghost says taking his phone out to check his messages when he notices the vibrations. “Talking about the little bird.”

🐦: I told you I locked the dor

🐦: door*

💀: Awesome

🐦: ?

🐦: Go away, Ghost

💀: What are you talking about, birdie?

🐦: Stop messing with my door, I'm trying to sleep, you weirdo.

💀: It's not me.

💀: Are you sure it's your door and not your neighbours?

🐦: what neighbour?

💀: You and the terrorist are the only tenants on the building?

🐦: STOP MESSING WITH THE DOOR 

🐦: You are giving me the deposit money if you break it.

💀: I'm not at the door.

💀: Birdie?

💀: Don't ghost me now.

💀: Not on purpose.

💀: Birdie?

Ghost knit his brows at the lack of messages and look up to Price who seems lost in thought. “Maybe we need to save her again, Price. Your heart to heart talk will have to wait.”

7 minutes.

That's all it takes for Ghost and Price to reach your building. Guns in hands as soon as they saw your apartment door busted open.

Price felt his heart sink at the possibility of your being hurt, because of him and his inability to treat you the way he should. Waking up alone didn't hurt as much, he hadn't slept that good in who knows how long, and it was all thanks to the warmth of your body pressed against his.

So now, that only now has he found this comfort, the thought of it being ripped away from him before he could mend his error, was truly heartbreaking.

The nice thing about your house being this small, is that there is not a corner that remains unchecked. And still, you are nowhere to be seen.

But your flat is a mess. The dishes are broken all over the hall and kitchen floor, the fridge is leaning against the wall obviously having been pushed, your clothes are thrown all over the place, your mattress is cut out it's inside thrown around, your clothes mixing with the rest of the mess on the floor, and your wall…

“You will pay for your actions, whore.”

Can be read on the wall, big letters occupying the whole wall.

Your TV is missing, only the metal skeleton that holds it to the wall it's on is place. And your window is busted, that's when he sees it, a chair. On your balcony, as if it was used by somebody to jump.

Price walks up to the balcony so fast, Ghost grabs his shirt unsure of the Captain's plan. “She probably jumped to the apartment next door, Captain. Let's check it.” The younger says to try and calm the Captain. He nods and they both make their way to the apartment next door.

It is just as destroyed as yours, but still, no sign of you. They make their way back to your apartment and Price sits down burying his face on his hands.

Ghost takes out his phone again and he calls you, anxious waiting for you to pick up. But you don't, instead, a silly music begins to sound from under your bed. Tranquillity floods their senses, only for it to be destroyed when the only thing they find is your phone under your bed.

“Fuckin’ hell, birdie. Where are you?” Ghost asks out loud.

THUMD

Both men whip their to the sound, and come face to face with your closet. Now, one of the things you like about your flat, is the closet. Built into the wall. With a ridiculously small space on top of it.

Both men look astonished, as a hand starts to crawl his way out of the false ceiling of the closet. You pop your head next, and when you confirm is the two men and not whoever entered your house just a couple of minutes ago, you start to bawl your eyes out.

When you heard the people force their way into your house, you automatically got yourself into the space on the false ceiling in your closet. You stayed there, contorted into yourself and used every ounce on yourself to not make a noise. 

You heard how they rampaged your little home, how they screamed, how they destroyed everything.

It was merely a couple of seconds, but it felt like hours. And when you heard them come back for a second time, you were certain they would hear the beat of your heart. Until you hear what sounded like the sweetest desert on the universe, Ghost's voice, asking where you were.

The sheer fear that just saved your life, now turned you into a sobbing mess of tears and drool as you melt onto Ghost's arms once he holds you.

You feel Price's hand rubbing your back as he kisses your shoulder shushing you.

“It's all right, darling. We are here now. You are safe. No one is going to get to you now.”

Hii! 💗

Hoped you liked the new chapter, reader collecting these men like they are pokemon hehe wish that was me

Taglist: @pagesfalling @thevoidwriting @darkangel4121 @tf141glory @skyler-loves-rick-grimes @ghostlythots @readerofallthingss @onewattson6529 @mynameismothra @xinyiline

[scary-grace]

Opposites Attract (Chapter 2) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Your quirk lets you capture almost anyone with ease, and you can't believe you let Shigaraki Tomura escape. Shigaraki can't believe it, either, and according to the League, there's only one possible explanation -- you let him go because you've fallen in love with him. He decides to find out if it's true. You decide you won't fail to capture him again. You both get a lot more than you bargained for. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapters: 1 2 3

Chapter 2

It’s been two weeks since the League of Villains vs Kamino Ward: Round 2, and there hasn’t been a single day that somebody hasn’t read you the riot act. It wasn’t enough that Miruko did it on-scene, well within microphone range of every single news crew who swarmed the park – every senior hero in Yokohama got in on it, too. And as if it wasn’t already your worst week ever, the HPSC called you in for a formal review of your pro hero license. You didn’t sleep at all the night before, and when you got to the hearing half an hour early with sweat stains already oozing through your one nice blouse, you found out that they’d done the review already, and the hearing was just to present the findings. One of the members of the committee mentioned that you looked a little pale. In hindsight, you’re amazed you didn’t have a heart attack.

You found out that the review of your license was a PR thing more than anything else – although your choices weren’t popular or flashy, nothing about how you handled the incident fell outside the hero code. Not that it matters to the general public. If you had an agency, they’d be booking you on podcasts and talk shows so you could explain yourself, but you’re underground, so you’re stuck listening to TV presenters who’ve never met a villain and podcasters who’d piss themselves if they came face to face with even the pettiest of criminals, all talking about how badly you blew it. There was even a petition circling demanding that you make a public apology for what happened to the All Might statue – one apology to the sculptor who made the statue, and one to All Might himself. When that one started making the rounds, you set your social media accounts to private and hid from your phone for the next three days.

Things are starting to die down, you think, but you’ve still got one stop left on your humiliation tour, and it’s the one you’re dreading the most. Your alma mater is always looking for learning experiences to offer their students, so you’re spending this afternoon at UA, listening while the first-year hero students pick apart every action you took in Kamino Park.

It’s an open forum, so everyone who wants to run their mouth gets a chance to do it, and you sit stonefaced in your chair, praying for your composure to hold. Eraserhead said he’d give you chances to respond, and he does, every time a student sits down. But you don’t want to get into a back-and-forth with a bunch of kids. You did what you did. You can’t go back. Maybe they can learn from what you did wrong.

What did you do wrong, actually? The HPSC cleared you. You’re so unpopular right now that they’d seize any chance they got to strip your licenses, but they cleared you – and you’re still here, listening to a bunch of teenagers take shots at you. The unfairness boils up inside you all at once, and when the next kid sits down, you stand up before Eraser invites you to.

“You all think you could have done better than me out there,” you start. “Maybe you’re right. There are always things that could be done better. What did I do wrong?”

It’s quiet for a second. “Are you stupid or something?” Bakugou asks you. “They got away! That’s what you did wrong!”

“Is it? Kurogiri and Shigaraki got away at USJ, and again at Kamino the first time. I don’t see you lighting All Might’s ass up,” you shoot back. Bakugou makes an affronted sound. “Answer me for real this time. What was my actual, quantifiable mistake?”

It’s quiet for another beat. Eraser opens his mouth, but Class B’s teacher speaks up first. “That’s the more interesting question,” he says. “We’ve talked about how Skynet could have done better. What actual mistake did Skynet make that led to the final outcome of the incident?”

You know what it was, deep in your heart, and you also know that the only person who could call you on it is somebody you hope you never see again. A hand creeps up, and Vlad calls on the student – one of Eraser’s. “Yes, Midoriya?”

“I don’t know if I would call it a mistake,” Midoriya says, “but I was wondering – why didn’t you use more of your quirk?”

That’s a new one. You wait quietly, and Midoriya elaborates. “I mean, Magnetism has dozens of applications. You’re sort of known for being creative with how you use it. And r/herojapan did a power ranking of every active hero and you ranked the highest out of all non-charted heroes.”

That’s news to you. “So I guess that’s what I want to know,” Midoriya concludes. “If you have a quirk with a lot of applications and a lot of power to work with, how could the League of Villains escape?”

“Uh –” You glance at Vlad King, then at Eraserhead. They both gesture for you to go on. “What you said about my quirk – you’re right. I can go big with it. But the bigger I go with it, the less control I have, and I’m not creating magnetic fields out of thin air. I’m enhancing and altering what already exists. Every magnetic field I alter is touching another one, and my alterations affect those fields, too. If I want to use my quirk safely on a large scale, I have to alter some magnetic fields while stabilizing others simultaneously, and I have to do that while protecting civilians and assisting my fellow heroes and trying not to get killed. Using my quirk on the scale I would have needed at Kamino just isn’t possible.”

You can tell Midoriya doesn’t get it. Nobody else does, either. “Maybe you should demonstrate,” the girl from Class B who can make her hands enormous says. “Show us what would have happened if you used your quirk the way Midoriya is talking about at Kamino.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Vlad says. “Ground Beta should be open right now. Let’s go.”

Vlad was your homeroom teacher in your first year at UA. You’ve been struggling not to call him sensei since you set foot on campus, and you know he knows how much you’ve struggled with your quirk. You also knew he was going to support you, but you’re not sure you like how he’s doing it – proving that you’re right, sure, but proving it by proving that you can���t handle your quirk at even partial strength, when the way you were using your quirk wasn’t even the real problem. If you had reacted faster, gotten a solid grip on Shigaraki through other means instead of getting distracted by how not-okay he is, you’d have held all the cards by the time the warp villain came to play. You’d like to see the warp villain try to back you into a corner when you’ve got a piece of rebar wrapped around Shigaraki’s throat.

But you didn’t have your shit together, because you were too stuck on just how shocked Shigaraki looked when you asked if he was okay. Not fake-shocked, not mocking-shocked, not look-at-the-hypocritical-hero-pretending-to-care shocked – truly, honestly shocked, like you’re the first person who’s asked him that question in a while. You flatly refuse to entertain the thought that you’re the first person who’s ever asked him that, because that would be too goddamn sad and you’re not into woobifying villains. You know more than a few heroes who have those romance novels about getting captured and ravished by a not-bad-just-misunderstood villain hanging out on their e-readers, and that’s not your style at all. So why did it bother you, seeing that look on Shigaraki’s face? Why are you still thinking about it two weeks later?

You shake it off as you, Eraser, Vlad, and the students reach Ground Beta. If you don’t want anybody to guess how you actually messed up, you need to do a good job proving that their idea of your mistake is the right one.

Vlad sets up a target a quarter of a mile down Ground Beta’s main street – the distance from one end of Kamino Park to the other – then makes his way back to you and the others. Eraserhead ushers everybody away from you. “Okay,” you say, projecting your voice, “I’m going to show you what it would have looked like for me to use my quirk to drag the League of Villains to me from across Kamino Park.”

Part of you is tempted to just blow it. Use your quirk recklessly, without worrying about consequences or property damage or anything but how it feels to finally let loose. But you’re a hero. You need to set a good example, not give the students even more reasons to question why you still have your license, and even here, there’s a chance that using your quirk at full strength isn’t safe. You get set, feeling the stabilizers in your boots anchor you to the ground. You tap into your metal sense, identifying the target a quarter mile away. Then you extend your hand, activate your quirk as precisely as you can manage, and pull.

The practice target starts moving. Unfortunately, so does everything else. No matter how hard you try to keep your focus on the target and only the target, metal fragments in the concrete lurch upwards, responding to your shift in the magnetic fields, pulling the street apart. The buildings on either side crumple inwards as their steel frameworks tear free. Lightposts bend into impossible shapes. Manhole covers lift from the street and fly towards you, forcing you to employ your other hand to stop them from striking the students behind you. The air vibrates. And sure, the practice target is flying towards you at high speed – but the destruction you’re wreaking on everything in between you and it is worse than what anyone but Shigaraki could have done to Kamino Memorial Park.

You let your grip on the magnetic fields fall when the target’s within thirty feet or so, and let momentum do the rest. Then you turn back towards the students. “This looks bad, right? If I’d done this at Kamino, it would be even worse. Anybody want to guess why?”

“Water mains,” the girl from 1-A with the Creation quirk says at once. You nod. “Cities are full of underground infrastructure, and most of that is made of metal. If your quirk is hard to focus narrowly at a distance from the target, you could do billions of yen worth of property damage.”

“What about people?” the electricity kid from 1-A says – the electricity kid who, if you remember right, also has a wide-range quirk. “Do they get caught when you do that?”

“No,” you say. “I have to be at close range to manipulate the iron in someone’s body. And they have to have enough iron in their bloodstream to make it possible.”

You say that, cringe, and brace yourself for what must be coming – one of the students, probably Midoriya, realizing that Shigaraki’s weapons-grade anemia is what kept him out of your reach at first. Followed by one of the students, probably Midoriya, asking why you didn’t use any of the other means at your disposal to capture him. “Oh,” the electricity kid says instead. “I get it now.”

“I have a question, Skynet,” Bakugou says loudly. “Couldn’t you do all that without destroying everything if you trained your quirk harder?”

You asked yourself that question a lot when you were a student at UA. The theoretical answer was always yes. “No,” you say, without getting into all the reasons why. “Does anyone else have a question?”

A Class B student named Honenuki has a question about what types of property you should avoid damaging if possible, and a Class B student named Monoma wants to know whether you were in Class A or Class B when you were at UA. He looks pretty happy when you say Class B, which is weird. You’re persona non grata among heroes right now. It doesn’t make a ton of sense that he’s excited that you were in the same class as he is. Vlad doesn’t ask you how things have been going; he just pats your shoulder and walks off. You try to escape before Eraserhead can talk to you, and make it exactly five steps before he calls out. “Skynet.”

You grit your teeth. “Do you want me to apologize, too?”

“For what?” Eraser looks irritated. “I asked you to look after my students. You looked after them. I’d be asking you to apologize if you’d let them fight.”

“Oh.” You weren’t looking forward to making that apology. “Then, um – what did you want to talk to me about?”

“My students are used to having their quirks temporarily canceled, but my quirk is unique. They’re much more likely to run into villains whose powers serve to restrain them,” Eraser says. You get where he’s going with this and try to interrupt, but he talks right over you. “I want you to come back for at least one of our basic training sessions. It’s rational to give them a chance to practice against a power set like yours, and it’ll also allow you the chance to work on fine-tuning your quirk.”

You knew there was a backhand somewhere in there. “My quirk’s as fine-tuned as it’s going to get.”

“We’ll see,” Eraser says. “The next basic training where all my students will be present is next Thursday. Come in.”

You recall making a promise to yourself, one which included telling Eraser to go to hell if he asked any more favors. But you still need to rehab your image. A lot. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

You change out of your costume before you leave campus – everything except your boots, which you wear almost all the time – and while you’re waiting for the train, you get a text from the group chat you have with the three other female pros who debuted in the same year as you. That’s about the only thing the four of you have in common, but that’s not stopping Yue from messaging in all caps. I MISSED MY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! WE NEED TO CELEBRATE <3 <3 <3

Yue was the last one of the four of you to debut. Her agency held her back for maximum press impact, whereas you just picked a day at random to quit working as a sidekick and strike out for yourself. Kagura, another member of the debut class, texts back before you can. Spa night?

That sounds good to you, but it’s not Yue’s speed at all. GOING OUT! I CAN GET US INTO CLUB 100 IN TOKYO!

Right – Yue’s number 25, as of the most recent billboard chart update. Mayuko, the member of the class you get along with best, texts next. It might be nice to see what it’s like?

Kagura gives a thumbs-up, and Yue sets the celebration date for tonight – and orders you all to come to her apartment to get ready. She has a special message for you. NO BOOTS, SKY. THEY’RE TOO CLUNKY FOR DANCING.

You send back a frowny face, and Mayuko chimes in. You can borrow my shoes. It’s been so long since we got together! I can’t wait!

That’s true, and you’ve missed them – but right now you’re a liability. Are you sure you want to be seen in public with me? I’m sort of radioactive right now.

Nobody will recognize you out of costume, Yue says, instead of what you were hoping she’d say, which is that it doesn’t matter and she has your back. Be at my place at 6!

There goes your quiet night. You board your train and lean back in your seat. If you have to go dancing tonight, you’d better catch some rest now.

Shigaraki refreshes the page, frowning. Then he refreshes it again, getting the same message. What the hell does ‘set to private’ mean? He googles it, learns that only approved followers can see an Instagram account that’s set to private, and feels a surge of annoyance. It figures. He spent two weeks debating whether or not to look you up, and by the time he’s finally decided it’s not creepy to look up the weird hero who has a crush on him, you locked all of your stupid social media accounts.

Part of Shigaraki still thinks everybody’s messing with him – everybody except Toga, who’s delusional, and Twice, who’s probably never touched a girl who wasn’t in the process of arresting him. But something about it keeps bothering Shigaraki. Something about you keeps bothering him. Thinking about it makes him itch, and not thinking about it isn’t working. After two weeks of trying both, Shigaraki decided to look you up and find out what you’ve said about him and the League of Villains, so he can finally delete the mental save file with you in it.

But you haven’t said much about the League of Villains. Shigaraki can’t tell if that’s because no one’s asked you or because you don’t have anything to say – or at least not anything you’d say publicly, which is why he went looking for your personal social media accounts and found them all locked. Shigaraki scratches with one hand and looks you up on Reddit with the other. He has to be pretty specific in his search query. Just looking up “Skynet” brings up a lot of stuff about movies.

The Reddit threads about you are a mix of obsessive hero fans and people who think you’re hot. The latter group spends a lot of time bitching about the fact that you don’t post enough thirst traps. It doesn’t seem like you go for fanservice. Good. Shigaraki hates heroes on principle, but he hates the ones who don’t showboat ever so slightly less.

You used to work with Eraserhead, which is probably why he let you supervise his class. You went to UA. There are links to all your Sports Festival performances, and Shigaraki bookmarks them for later, in case you’ve got skills you didn’t show in the fight at Kamino. You’re not very well-known, and none of your arrests have been of big-time villains. And as far as Shigaraki can find, you’ve never said a word about the League.

It’s not like Shigaraki was expecting to find a whole essay about why you don’t hate the League and why you have a crush on him. He wouldn’t have liked that. But he also doesn’t like the fact that you apparently didn’t think about the League at all before you fought him at Kamino. Maybe you did and you were just keeping quiet about it. Or maybe you didn’t care at all until you met Shigaraki in person, and then you – what? Worried about him? Cared about him? Wanted him to live? Do people actually fall in love at first sight?

Toga would say yes, but Toga’s seventeen, and also insane. Shigaraki can’t take anything Toga says at face value.

There’s one other spot on Reddit where Shigaraki finds you – in a thread on the weirdest hero names. He remembers the movies that kept popping up in his earlier search results and finds one of them on his favorite pirating site. He’s bored. There’s nothing to do right now. He’s decided not to do anything else until the dust has settled. He has time for a movie.

The hideout is quiet right now. Dabi’s been gone all day. Toga and Twice left this afternoon, either to scout things out or to steal more supplies, and Spinner, Compress, and Magne are all napping in the next room. This afternoon, Shigaraki sent Kurogiri to ask the doctor for help. He didn’t want to do that, but with Sensei gone – gone, and it’s Shigaraki’s fault, because it was his stupid plan – the League is out of Nomus and running out of money. They need backup, and Kurogiri’s better at convincing the doctor to do things than Shigaraki is. A scarecrow with a paper bag over its head is better at convincing people to do things than Shigaraki is. If Shigaraki was convincing at all, he would have won Bakugou over, and none of this would have happened.

The movie is sci-fi, or maybe horror. It’s also really old, from some time period where all the movies were set in a world where quirks don’t exist. If quirks existed, this movie would be over before it even started. Probably. Shigaraki wonders if you’ve seen this movie. If you liked it. What other things do you like, in addition to him?

A few minutes later, he gets an answer to at least one of his questions. You’ve definitely seen this movie, and you must have liked it, or you wouldn’t have named yourself after the evil supercomputer that nuked humanity and started building killer robots to take out anybody who survived. Now Shigaraki gets why you were on the list of heroes with weird names, and he’s pretty sure you should be at the top of it. You must have at least a couple screws loose. That’s probably why you took one look at Shigaraki and decided to fall in love with him. If you have fallen in love with him. Have you?

Shigaraki needs to stop thinking about this. He presses play on the movie again. Now that he’s got at least an answer or two, maybe he can focus on something else. Something other than the fact that he’s tired and hungry and has a headache and will probably get dizzy if he stands up too fast, just like he always has. And the fact that none of those things were a problem until you asked if he was okay.

He must fall asleep or something, because the next thing he knows, the screen of his phone’s gone dark, and someone is hollering at him from the other room. “What?” Shigaraki shouts back.

“Get in here,” Dabi says. Dabi’s back. “Your girlfriend’s on the news.”

“All over the news,” Toga adds gleefully, before Shigaraki can argue back that a) you’re not his girlfriend because b) he doesn’t even like you. “She’s even cuter when she’s covered in blood!”

What? Shigaraki stands up too fast, comes close to blacking out, and scrambles unsteadily into the other room. Magne has the TV on, and Shigaraki elbows his way past Compress and Dabi for a look at the screen. It’s the national news, a special report. Something about speed brakes failing on a Shinkansen headed through Tokyo and a catastrophic derailment. Or what would have been a catastrophic derailment, if it wasn’t for you. Before Shigaraki can tell somebody to look up what happened on their phone – his is dead – the news broadcast plays a video of the incident. All Shigaraki and the others can do is stare.

“Damn,” Spinner says into the silence that falls afterwards. “If she’d done that at Kamino, you all would have been toast.”

No kidding. Shigaraki didn’t go to school past kindergarten, but every idiot knows that trains are heavy, and knows that the faster something is going, the harder it is to stop. In the video, you’re on the tracks behind the speeding train, hand outstretched. Shigaraki sees the train shudder when your quirk catches it. It yanks you off your feet about three seconds later, and you get dragged out of the frame facedown, one hand still extended, still hanging on. Whoever’s holding the camera pans left, following the train, and it’s pretty obvious that the train is slowing down. Shigaraki thought your quirk was good for paralyzing people and pulling wires out of the ground. He’d never have guessed you were capable of this.

“Why didn’t she do that at Kamino?” Dabi asks, baffled. “She could have made it big as the hero who took down the League of Villains instead of getting dragged by the press for letting us go.”

“Which do you think dragged her harder, the press or the train?” Magne cackles, and Dabi snorts. “She looks like roadkill –”

“Don’t be dumb,” Toga says to Magne. “She’s got blood all over her. It’s cute! And she let us go at Kamino because she loves Tomura-kun.”

“Oh, right.” Magne nods. Dabi’s still snickering. “The train isn’t half as cute as the boss is!”

Dabi’s snickering gets worse, and Twice is guffawing in the background. Shigaraki yanks the remote out of Magne’s hand and turns up the volume on the TV to drown them out. “ – pleased to report a lack of severe injuries to the passengers, courtesy of the gradual stop achieved by what was first believed to be a civilian acting without authorization,” the newscaster is saying. They’re on the scene. There’s an ambulance in the background. “We’ve since confirmed that the individual responsible for the save is an off-duty hero by the name of Skynet. We have her right here –”

The camera zooms in on you, just in time for you to spit a mouthful of blood into the gutter. Magne was right – you look like shit – and Toga was right – you’re covered in blood. You’re not wearing your costume, and your clothes are pretty shredded. You wipe your mouth on the back of your hand and stand up straight, grimacing. Shigaraki’s taken his share of hits in battle before. He’s impressed against his will.

The interviewer is asking you a bunch of questions, and Shigaraki listens carefully. Now that he knows how powerful your quirk actually is, he needs as many clues as possible about how it works. He picks up things here and there, but he keeps getting distracted by you. By the blood dripping from the corner of your mouth. By the big, bloody scrapes across your torso. By the way one of your shoulders is pretty obviously dislocated, and the fact that you’re standing there doing an interview when you should be getting help. Shigaraki doesn’t need to ask a stupid question about whether or not you’re okay. He knows you’re not. Why does he care?

Because you were off-duty. Because this wasn’t your job. Because you got in trouble for letting Shigaraki go at Kamino and still jumped onto the tracks to get dragged four hundred yards behind an out-of-control train. The heroic system is bullshit, and there’s nothing defensible about it, but that train probably had hundreds of people on it, and they’d be dead if it wasn’t for you. Being a hero is idiotic at best. But if it’s possible to do an idiotic thing the right way, you’re doing it.

The interviewer is asking you why you stepped in when you weren’t on duty, and you’re getting pretty visibly annoyed. Spinner is the only person other than Shigaraki who’s still watching. “She’s underground, right?” he asks. Shigaraki nods without looking away from the screen. “She acts like a true hero. Stain would approve.”

Shigaraki doesn’t give a shit what the Hero Killer thinks about anything. But he has a really bad feeling that he’s starting to give a shit about you. What the hell is he supposed to do about it?

Turn you, obviously. The League could use a quirk like yours, and it would be a serious blow to hero society for an established hero to join forces with Shigaraki. You probably weren’t trying to get Shigaraki’s attention by stopping a speeding train, but you’ve got his attention now, for a good reason instead of a stupid one. The thought of your feelings for him is a lot less uncomfortable now that they’re something he can use.

Kurogiri gets back from the doctor with bad news – the doctor can’t help them right now, because they’re taking too much heat. It sounds like bullshit to Shigaraki, but he has something else on his mind. He talks to Kurogiri away from the others. “Find out where Skynet lives.”

Kurogiri looks surprised. “Why?”

“She’s stronger than I thought. We can use her.”

“I see,” Kurogiri says, but he’s giving Shigaraki a weird look. “Why do you need to know where she lives?”

“So I can let her know I’m interested,” Shigaraki says. Kurogiri’s expression doesn’t shift. “I don’t have to tell her what I’m interested in.”

Kurogiri’s still making a weird face. As much as Kurogiri can make any kind of face. “Right?” Shigaraki prompts, and Kurogiri nods. “Right. Once we know where she is, what should I do?”

“Something subtle,” Kurogiri suggests. “Consider it while I seek the information you requested.”

Something subtle. Easy enough. Shigaraki feels better about the whole thing than he has since he ran into you for the first time. You’re in love with him? That’s fine. If you love him so much, you can help him destroy the world.

[stealthnoodle]

How to Scrape Your Way Through Honour Mode and Look Reasonably Good Doing It

I won't say I beat Honour Mode on my first try, because my Dishonour Mode playthrough served as a critically useful dry run, but I will say that the first character I made with the intention of completing Honour Mode properly did in fact complete Honour Mode.

Below are the 13 most important lessons I learned along the way that made this possible.

1) Do not be Mothman.

You really want to minimize fights and maximize available vendors. Ask yourself "What would Mothman do?" and then do not do that thing.

2) Do be a half-orc.

Fights can go real wrong real fast, and in the early game, you are perpetually one bad round of combat away from oblivion. In my case, the harpies critted Shadowheart to death, and then every chucklefuck in my party failed their wisdom save at the same time. The other two members ate more multiattacks than they could handle, and then so did Pizzazz, but she held on with one single precious hit point after the last blow. She dug herself out of the hole with heal potions and her fists of righteous anger.

Pizzazz being a half-orc saved the entire run here. Having Death Ward once a day comes in fucking clutch when you're below level 5, and tbh the hardest part of Honour Mode is getting to level 5.

The harpy fight was also when I realized the need for a critical strategy:

3) Make one party member your panic button.

I only really needed this trick in the early game (I cannot emphasize enough how most of my close calls were before level 5), but it saved my ass several times. Panic early, panic often.

Pick the party member who has the least to contribute to a fight and park them where they can't get drawn into initiative. You can leave them all the way back at camp, or if you're me, just put them far back in hiding so it's easy to pull them in to help with late-fight cleanup if things are going well (or to finish a fight in the goofiest way possible, see above). Either way, their job is to run crying to Withers if everyone else dies.

Speaking of which…

4) Exploit Bone Daddy's indifference to being pickpocketed.

You can get back whatever "the price of balance" is by yoinking it right out of Withers's pockets. If you fail the sleight of hand check, no worries; you get pulled out of hiding, but he doesn't react at all, and you can just squat back down and get right back in there.

5) Tell Jesse you need to cook.

Potions of Speed are the goddamn Philosopher's Stones of this game. So I made Gale a Transmutation Wizard, made him proficient in Medicine, and put him in charge of alchemy. Just clearing the gnoll zone got me pretty well set for the first two acts.

Getting double heal pots sure doesn't hurt, either.

6) Start a local chapter of the Warding Bond Cleric Club.

This is something I discovered was possible while I was fretting over prepping for the end of Act 2, because last time was such a clusterfuck. You can hire three hirelings, give them fun names like Ouchie Magnet, Sexy Pincushion, and Yoohoo Loviatar, get them to cast Warding Bond on the party members you actually intend to use, and enjoy the full benefits of it out in the world while your hirelings stand around bleeding at camp.

Any buff that lasts until the next long rest and doesn't require concentration works like this, fyi. Death Ward and Longstrider are also especially handy (and once you get to level 11, Heroes' Feast). Setting this up is tedious enough that I only did it a few times during the game, when I was going into situations I couldn't easily extricate myself from in case of emergency. (So the Mindflayer Colony, the Iron Throne, the Steel Watch Foundry, and one last time for the Temple of Baal.)

7) Break big battles up into bite-sized skirmishes.

Why would I fight all the cultists at Moonrise Tower in a grand climactic battle when I could sneak around before finishing the Gauntlet of Shar and pick off my future foes in packs? Since they're not hostile yet, it's pretty simple to wipe them out one room at a time, using Minor Illusion to lure guards away from their posts. Then I got the joy of showing up with Jaheira and all her Harpers to curbstomp the two (2) guys I missed.

Also good for removing all the intellect devourers before you pick a fight with Mindflayers in the Mindflayer Colony and for surviving gnoll swarms. Sometimes you even get lucky and a hyena falls into a hole, somehow.

8) Fill your camp with literal tons of explosives.

See a smokepowder barrel? Pick it up and send it to camp. Do this consistently and you will have deeply nervous party members every time you light a campfire, probably, but you'll also have a way to cheese boss fights that you're worried about. I chugged elixirs that raised strength before the end of Act 2 so that I could bring a dozen smokepowder barrels with me to the Myrkul fight and absolutely trivialized it.

9) Become a partial illithid.

Mourn your aesthetic and commune with that frosty little worm. (Take Volo's amateur eye surgery, too, btw. Just fuck yourself up.) The powers are worth it. A truly hardcore player would also get their companions to dip a toe into ceremorphosis, but I started by asking Astarion, who fucking loves regular tadpoles, to try it, and his response made me feel so bad that I abandoned the cause entirely.

10) Start your day with a delicious and nutritious Heroes' Feast.

So I never really read the description closely because sometimes I'm just like that, but thanks to the Warding Bond Cleric Club, I started paying closer attention to buffs and holy shit??? Thoroughly Stuffed is a baller condition, and it also makes food. I didn't have to go grocery shopping even once! Having three bonus clerics with spell slots to burn also meant the 6th-level cost wasn't coming out of Shadowheart.

11) Accept that late-game enemy saving throws will mercilessly fuck you.

It feels real bad when you cast a 6th-level spell that operates on saving throws and your target shrugs it off with 0 damage. Spells with attack rolls are usually better bets, and Artistry of War is a wizard's once-per-short-rest MVP. Open Hand Monk Pizzazz was consistently my best damage dealer, especially once I looted the Bonespike Gloves from Strangler Luke.

12) Skip the high-risk low-reward quests in Act 3.

Consider your party composition and tactics and whether any optional quest line is worth completing for its rewards. Cazador, the Sharrans, and Ansur are non-trivially difficult fights that I didn't need to subject myself to, so I didn't. But there's real good shit under Sorcerous Sundries, so of course I cleared out that vault.

Hell isn't actually that bad on Honour Mode (no, really! The restoration faucets have unlimited uses!), but it's not a sure thing and I could live without the rewards. Had a tense moment passing the DC 30 Persuasion check with Kith'rak Voss later, but he chilled out and even let me borrow his dragon's breath.

The only unnecessary hard fight I did was the Steel Watcher Titan, which was a bad call on my part; I kinda wanted the crossbow and I really wanted to keep the runepowder bomb in case I needed it, but Mothman didn't do this fight, so I was not prepared for the Hellfire Steel Watcher Titan's bullshit. I won, but it was a closer shave than it should have been.

Then I ended up not using the crossbow at all.

13) Thank Gale for his sacrifice.

The Netherbrain is fucking nasty on Honour Mode. Fuck Karsite Grip. Fuck Aegis of the Absolute. Does it feel bad to make Gale sacrifice himself? Yes. Would it feel worse to lose the run right before the finish line? Also yes.

I brought every explosive I had with me (which required two rounds of strength-boosting elixirs, because the game hits you with a long rest before the Astral Plane) just in case Gale got cold feet and I burned all my inspiration fucking up the persuasion roll, then went through the sewers to avoid the larger fight. Someone (Gale, so I couldn't be too mad) failed a stealth check and aggroed them all anyway, but Pizzazz covered the ground to the brainstem in like three rounds and everyone warped up after her for the cutscene, so no harm no foul.

Then Gale volunteered—nay, insisted on blowing himself up and I felt bad! Real bad! Not bad enough to change course, but Pizzazz's face was also my face during epilogue:

P.S. At least for me, the achievement procced after the epilogue, credits, and post-credits scene, and I was tense af the entire time. But not so tense I couldn't be sad about Gale (oh no he wrote me a letter) and Astarion (oh no he's still in hiding because of Cazador). Luckily my big hot wife was there to support me.

Anyway, let's load an old autosave on another campaign and check out those golden dice, shall we?

Ahhh, my horrible son

[bellaxgiornata]

Alright friends, I am here to tell y'all I am going on vacation this weekend and through most of next week! It's been literal years since my ass had one (2019 for my honeymoon to be exact) and I'm in desperate need of a break. Though it was a literal last minute thing and I now only have two and a half days to plan and pack and prep a 3 year old for their first vacation...

Story update-wise that means y'all won't be getting much from me the next week. I was hoping to stockpile a couple of updates because I wasn't planning to leave for another week, but schedules worked out differently. So far chapter five of You're Safe With Me is almost written! I think I'll work on ATYs next update after that to hopefully get some Matt content ready. And I'll probably run that poll for FFTD soon to figure out a name for Matt and Reader’s new furry addition before I work on that story.

Obviously fanfic is not my priority over vacation though, but I'm also vacationing with a toddler who takes a nap daily in which I can't do much so I'll probably still write a bit or maybe post something I have finished while I'm gone. It just might pop up as a surprise if I do! I just wanted y'all to know what's going on with me content-wise this next week! I've been writing nonstop since last November and I could use a minute to turn off my brain before I come back with more ideas 😆

[mariaofdoranelle]

Look at Us Now — Ch. 3

Fic Masterlist

Sorry I ghosted last week! This chapter is (unintentionally) twice the usual size, though, so I’m forgiving myself. It’s a bit of a rollercoaster, just remember that it’ll get worse before it gets better.

Warnings: NSFW, cursing, mentions of bullying, anxiety attack, bitter exes.

Word count: 5,9k

Aelin’s whole body startled before she gained consciousness of what was going on.

She didn’t know what woke her up, her classmate’s hurried taps or Rowan’s intense eyes on her.

The last thing she remembered was one sergeant telling their next instructor couldn’t make it, so they’d have an hour free. Aelin had woken up at 3 am to study Military Law today, so she thought it’d be a good idea to set a timer for 50 minutes and take a nap.

Rowan‘s class was scheduled for later, what the fuck was he doing here this soon?

His gaze lingered on her for a beat that felt like a month. Maybe like the month and a half since that night. Then it landed on the guy in front of Aelin.

"What happened with your beard?" Was the first thing he said. His voice alarmed the whole class, it sounded like a threat one is barely trying to hide.

Aelin couldn't see the recruit’s expression, but she had a good view of the way his shoulders tensed. He looked around. "I- um-"

"Don't look around, look at me!" Rowan shouted, making many eyes go wide. "What the fuck happened to your beard!?"

"The- the razor was a little dull, so I-"

But Rowan wasn't listening. Probably because he didn't care.

No, he was slowly, threatengly walking around to examine each person in the room and pointing out the ones with something wrong about their uniform. Anything, really. He must have a hawk eyesight to notice some of the mistakes he pointed out.

He looked angry, she thought. Aelin didn’t know which state was the class when he walked in, since everyone was already frozen in place when she woke up.

When the people he selected were out of their perfectly aligned rows, Rowan crossed his arms and roared, "ON THE FLOOR, NOW!"

A few jumped to a plank position, ready to start. Others just stared, gawking.

Rowan rested his hands on his hips and stood face to face with one person who didn't move.

"Did I fucking stutter? ON. THE. FLOOR. NOW!"

Everyone followed suit this time, so he started to count.

"One, two, three, four..."

He stopped counting when he noticed someone in the wrong position. He was not in a straight line, so his butt was sticking out. Aelin held on a grimace while Rowan was going his way.

"Do you call that a push-up?"

On the man's side, Rowan's boot pressed against his low back to correct his position.

"How do you expect to be in the Air Force if you can't to a fucking push-up!?" He barked at no one in particular. "The body stays in one line." He poked at someone's arm with his boot, only enough to bring attention. "And watch those elbows! You're not a frog!"

He was still looking around, searching for any flaw in those push-ups. "Pathetic," he spat. "Spineless and pathetic." Rowan rested his foot on another person's back and announced, "I'm starting again! Until y'all stop training like teenagers! One, two, three..."

Aelin could only blink, trying to process this.

Then she forced herself to snap out of that shock. Her great-uncle was a brigadier, for Mala's sake. She knew better than to be surprised. Besides, what did she expect? A little love letter from hot lieutenant saying that he also couldn't forget their night together? Absolutely not.

If Aelin was there to learn the basics of military life until she could work at the hospital, so be it. She was going to kick basic training's ass.

"But we can't keep all the fun to ourselves, right?" Rowan snarled. He looked around the ones with the correct uniform, that kept only watching chaos unfold. "Everyone else on the floor!” He restarted counting, ”One, two, three..."

She was so ready for this. She'd absolutely nail this.

Except that it didn't take long for her to grow annoyed at Rowan's voice counting and barking orders non-stop.

And after Mala knows how long, Aelin came to one conclusion.

She was so fucked.

That was the only thing in her mind as she trained. Even when she felt like her lungs would give out or her legs would soon turn to ashes, Rowan’s scolding was still flawlessly echoing through her ears.

When he wrapped things up, her shoulders almost dropped in relief. They would, if Rowan wouldn’t give her a hard time about posture. This class was longer than usual because he was using the missing instructor’s time along with his own. Also because she started feeling like dying around the fourth minute of so, so many.

“Who’s today’s class leader?” He asked before dismissing everyone.

Aelin’s spine went rigid. Every day, a different recruit was picked to be the class leader. They said it was to learn about leadership and how to cooperate together. In practice, it basically meant she’d lead the class while marching.

Everyone looked at Aelin, and she raised an arm. “It’s me, sir.”

Rowan sighed, as if he couldn’t believe he had to deal with her more than he was obligated to.

“You have 15 minutes to show up at my office.”

Which meant she had 15 minutes to get her things, take a shower, get in another uniform and find his office.

She did it in 13 minutes, though.

Rowan’s office was simple and neat, but at least the chairs were comfortable. After she knocked and he told her to come in, silence took over. They sat one in front on the other, the only sound in the room being Aelin testing the squeak of the chair by repeatedly leaning against it. Annoyingly, by the stiff expression Rowan wore.

“I think you already know what I’m going to say to you.”

She shrugged. “You’ll tell me to pretend it never happened?”

“Excuse me?” His tone was sharper than she predicted. Was he that eager to fuck her again?

Aelin leaned back and suppressed a smile when the chair squeaked again. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind a round two, but I understand that things just got complicated.”

Oh, she definitely wouldn’t mind hitting that again. Besides, she’d work at the hospital in ten weeks. It’s not like they’d need to see each other every day after.

He sighed. “I’m talking about what just happened, Aelin. You were today’s class leader.”

Aelin frowned. “Which means I’m in charge of the drill commands while marching—“

“It means you have to lead them throughout the day. When there’s no instructor, you don’t just take a nap and let everyone run wild!”

When she crossed her arms and glared, trying to think of a retort, Rowan looked up for a second and took a deep breath.

“I know you must struggle being one of the few women in your class, but—“

“Struggle?” She cut in, eyebrows raised. ”Why would I struggle?”

“It’s a common issue among female officers—“

“That’s not an issue, sir.“ Aelin leaned closed and lowered her tone of voice. “I’m more alpha than most of these men, you probably know that already.”

“Then act like it.“ He didn’t look impressed.

Aelin got up and slowly rounded his desk, until she was standing on Rowan’s side. “You’d really like that, wouldn’t you?”

He looked at her up and down, swallowed, then looked away a second too late. “That’s inappropriate behavior, Galathynius.“ 

Positioned between him and his desk, she tilted her head. “And what? You’re gonna punish me?”

“I’m not afraid to,” he immediately answered, but his tone had an edge to it.

Aelin’s eyes sparkled. She had no idea if he was answering to her innuendo or talking about her relations to his superiors, but she was horny enough to jump to conclusions. She knew he was hesitant, though.

Anything happening between them wouldn’t be exactly against the rules, even though it would be frowned upon.

But having sex inside a military base? They’d be fucked if anyone found out.

Aelin was beyond caring by now, and she had a suspicion Rowan was holding tight to whatever shreds of conscience he had.

She held both hands on the desk behind her, thrusting her chest out. Rowan’s gaze was shameless as it burned through her, his eyes darkening every inch. He looked at her as if he remembered everything she had under that uniform, and just the thought of it made her press her legs together.

“You know, I thought it’d be easier to get you to fuck me after you got your cock that deep into my throat.”

When Rowan finally looked into her eyes, she knew she’d won. He placed a hand on her knee and caressed the inner part with his thumb, but it was enough to send a spark through her body.

“Can I touch you?” He quietly asked. However, the intense look on his green eyes betrayed the strained politeness on his tone of voice.

How gentlemanly of him. Didn’t even sound like the man who climbed her uncle’s fence to fuck her until dawn.

“Oh, you definitely can’t.” Aelin had a triumphant grin on. “But I want you to.”

Rowan’s eyes combusted into hers, and her smile grew. In that millisecond, Aelin knew she had just ripped off his conscience with her teeth.

He got up from that chair in a swift motion, standing just one breath away from her.

“Let’s see how much you want me,” he taunted before taking her pants and panties down all at once, so roughly one button flew away.

Without wasting a second, he inserted two fingers between her folds and plunged in, making her choke a sob. Rowan’s thumb started working on her clit to soothe her from that sudden move, but he scooted closer and whispered, “You were already soaked when I started, baby. I could put a third finger and you wouldn’t even feel it.”

Aelin whimpered. He made her taste herself in his fingers, then kissed her when she licked his index and middle finger the way she’d to another member of his. Rowan cradled her head in a commanding, bruising kiss. He kissed like he could unravel her whole with his lips. He kissed her like he thought he’d never see her again. Aelin pressed her hips against his, moaning, and he moved his mouth to the shell of her ear.

“Were you thinking about me?”

Aelin nodded.

“Use your words, baby. Were you thinking about me?”

She looked deep into his eyes, smirking like the devil. “Yes, sir.”

Rowan’s gaze burned into her while he brought his hand to her neck, squeezing just enough to make her ache for him even more. “Is that why you came to my office begging for my cock like the little slut you are?”

“Yes, sir,” she whimpered.

Before she could think, he turned her around and pressed her against his desk, laying on her stomach with her ass up. The sound of his zipper was the only warning she got before Rowan pushed himself inside her all the way, stretching her whole in one swift motion.

Aelin cried out, cursing. It was the most delicious kind of pain.

He gave her a few seconds to adjust and muffled her cries with his hand, probably afraid someone would hear from the outside.

She bit his hand to speak when he started on a languid pace, but Rowan spanked her ass before she could open her mouth. The pain from that smack spread under her skin, making her wiggle her hips against him even more.

“Don’t bite me,” he warned.

“But you loved it last time.”

He gave one ruthless thrust as a warning, and that sweet ache made her sob. God, she loved Rowan’s punishments.

“Condom,” she rasped, finally remembering what she was going to say.

He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back until he was close to her ear. “I don’t bring condoms to work, baby. You think I fuck every slut that comes into my office?”

Rowan started thrusting in a merciless rhythm, making Aelin’s legs shake.

Aelin did a mental note to see on her period app if she needed to take a Plan B pill. These things were hormone bombs, but she wasn’t on birth control. She had mostly stopped sleeping around after uni, and Dorian has a vasectomy. These days, the only reason Aelin even used condoms was to prevent STDs.

When Rowan hit a spot that made her see stars, Aelin relaxed on the desk and let herself be fucked senseless by him, relishing on the sound of their hips snapping together and his low grunts.

Of all the times people had reckless sex, how many actually led to a baby?

Exactly.

And knowing Aelin’s luck, she knew things would turn out her way. They always did.

***

The shade of Rowan’s hair never let Aelin know which strands were in its natural shade, and which ones were grayer because of Maisie. Or work. Maybe Aelin herself.

The dark circles under his eyes weren’t that static, though. Over time, she had seen them go from almost invisible to a purplish shade that didn’t sit well with his tan skin. Aelin always thought it was a shame seeing a face like his looking so worn out. But today? Today it looked like exhaustion itself had beaten him up from the outside in, not the other way around.

Aelin knew she should keep their interactions to a minimum, but she couldn’t help herself.

“You look like shit, Rowan.”

”Gee, thanks.”

Aelin wriggled in her seat, knowing she should keep her mouth shut. It did nothing to stop her.

“Elide was grouchy today. She said you’re ruining her sex life.”

He laughed, but there was a bitter edge to it. “How so?”

Aelin fully turned to him from the passenger side. “Were you really watching a recorded livestream about ADHD until late with Lorcan last night?”

He opened his mouth to retort, then closed again. A moment later, he said, “In my defense, now I’m convinced she doesn’t have it. And Lorcan thought it was enlightening.”

“Ellie’s a psychiatrist, Rowan. If any of the kids were showing signs of it, she would tell—“

“Is she willing to give me an hour-long lesson about it? Because the Instagram doctor—“

“Rowan, are you listening to yourself?”

“What?” He snapped.

“Do you know what I do every time you send me an article about diabetes in children?”

“You read it?”

“No. I give her ice cream.”

He gripped the steering wheel tighter. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not. I fill her pink unicorn bowl with chocolate ice cream, and I enjoy it.”

He clenched his jaw. “You know damn well my dad’s diabetic—“

“You’ll drive yourself fucking insane if you keep this way, Rowan,” she barked. “This is my weekend with Maisie. Do you at least have plans to take fucking a nap?”

Rowan stopped at a red light and narrowed his eyes at her. “I have walls to fix.”

Aelin sighed. “You can’t let her draw on every wall you own.”

“She’s expressing herself through art.”

“You did not just say that.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! You’re just an engineer who traumatizes young people for a living, of course that line came out of your mouth.”

Rowan rolled his eyes. “Okay, I heard it from a pediatrician. Happy now?”

When she saw the school’s front, Aelin knew she had to wrap this up quick.

“And not Maisie’s pediatrician, because—“

“Because it was from one of the pediatricians I follow online! What is your point?”

“My point—“ Aelin stopped herself when her voice got too loud. She took a deep breath and started again, in a calmer tone. “My point is that you can’t know everything about every specialty child-related just in case your one kid needs it. You can’t be Maisie’s dad 24/7.”

“But I am Maisie’s dad 24/7.”

“When was the last time you talked to Lorcan about something that wasn’t kid-related?” She tried a different approach. When Rowan opened his mouth, she added, “Doesn’t count if it happened while you were watching the kids.”

He shut his mouth and didn’t answer.

She knew it.

When was the last time you went on a date?, was on the tip of her tongue, just to finish proving her point, but Aelin didn’t dare say it out loud.

Her guess would be at least last year, from one time she caught Fenrys trying to play cupid, but it probably wasn’t serious. Their rule was that they’d have to meet the other person before Maisie, but it hasn’t happened yet. For neither of them.

Rowan parked his car, quiet as a mouse. Deep down, he knew he was overexerting himself. And it wasn’t Aelin’s job to worry about him, but she had learned the hard way how important it was to take care of herself so she could take good care of Maisie. Their daughter was the only reason she was concerned. It’s not like Aelin would care about her ex-fling from five years ago. Absolutely not.

Aelin frowned when Maisie came their way with a different change of clothes. It was the second time since starting preschool, and she never peed herself at home. She remembered her daughter always complained about going to school, and wondered if she should start sending Maisie with pull-ups until she finished adapting to that new environment.

After Maisie greeted them both, Rowan crouched and asked, “What happened to Fleetfoot, Mais?”

Aelin’s eyebrows shot up. Fleetfoot was a golden plastic dog Maisie made Rowan buy at a 99 cents store, but she loved it more than many of the expensive toys her family showered her with. She took that miniature puppy everywhere.

Maisie raised her hand and looked at Fleetfoot. Half of its plastic tail was missing, and just the sight of it made her lips wobble and brought moisture to her big green eyes. Rowan immediately hugged her and started soothing his daughter, but Aelin looked around, searching for the teacher’s assistant that always stood outside.

Something was off, and Aelin would find out no matter what.

The TA looked frightened all the time and followed the teacher like a puppy, so it wasn’t hard to get information out of her.

And when Aelin did, she saw red.

She stormed through that school until she found the teacher, Lieutenant Maeve Valg, in a corridor close to the entrance.

“Inside,” Aelin growled and pointed to the empty classroom near them.

The only response was a raise of her eyebrows, somewhere between surprise and scorn, and entering to sit behind the teacher’s desk.

Aelin followed her and banged the door closed. She rested both hands on the table and leaned to get closer and look deep into Mrs. Valg’s eyes, her own slightly bulged. She could feel her blood pumping through her veins like her heart was on steroids, and if looks could kill, that fucking teacher would be on her grave already.

“Tell me why my daughter’s toy is broken.”

She leaned back in the chair, and Aelin felt like that woman’s dark eyes were reading into her soul. “Looks like you already know.”

“I want to hear it from your mouth.” Aelin’s nostrils flared.

The teacher tilted her head, assessing. “I see where Maisie gets that terrible behavior from.”

They were interrupted by the door abruptly being opened and slammed closed. Rowan stood there with crossed arms and eyes darting between the two of them. His glare was so sharp it could cut ice.

Lieutenant Valg sighed in what looked like relief. “Mr. Whitethorn, could you please make—“

“It’s Captain Whitethorn to you,” he commanded in a taut tone.

Aelin didn’t know if the TA told him what happened as well or if he just read too much into the room’s energy, but Rowan seemed pissed. He never used his high rank on people like this.

She glued her eyes back on the teacher and slapped the desk, then immediately pointed at Rowan. “Tell him why Maisie wet herself,” Aelin shouted.

Mrs. Valg held her chin high, but didn’t say a thing.

“I’m waiting, Lieutenant,” he said in a carefully controlled tone and walked closer to them.

His patience seemed to end when his request was met with silence.

“Do I need to remind you again that I outrank you, Lieutenant?” Rowan shouted, making Maeve’s eyes go wide. “If you don’t tell me what happened now, I’m putting you under restriction at the guardhouse, do you understand?”

Mrs. Valg paled, but she was still grinding her teeth together, shooting daggers at Rowan with her eyes. The guardhouse was basically jail, but for petty crimes inside the military. It was the biggest punishment someone could get before being kicked out.

“Your daughter is a little nightmare!” She spit out. “Every other kid was ready for nap time, and she wouldn’t stop playing with that stupid dog! I warned her one, two, three times, then I grabbed that ugly thing and threw across the room.” Mrs. Valg got up, her eyes jumping between Aelin and Rowan. “And then Maisie peed, but you think I enjoy sending my TA to clean the kids every time? It’s not my fault your daughter has a bad bladder,” she spat.

Aelin’s eyes grew with each sentence. When the teacher ended, the only thing she could hear was the muderous thoughts in her head and the pounding in her ears. She felt like her body was slowly being taken over by rage and the hammering flow of her pulse.

“Aelin, could you give me five minutes with Mrs. Valg and come back with Maisie, please?”

“Why—“

Rowan’s gaze was so intense it rendered Aelin speechless. His pine green eyes were being ruled by raw, cold fury, and it looked terrifying framed by all the blood that made his face look crimson. “We’re going to have a little chat, and then she’s going to apologize,” he slowly explained in a deadly tone. There was no arguing with the way he said it, and as much as Aelin wanted to scream and fight and pour all her anger into the teacher, Rowan was the one who could actually do something about what happened. He was a captain, after all.

Maisie was on the playground near the entrance, with a few other kids. Aelin quickly checked on her and if her daughter knew about the shitshow currently going on, she didn’t show.

Aelin never understood why Rowan didn’t want Maisie to be in the free preschool the Air Force provided for them, five minutes away from home.

She understood now.

Aelin’s throat closed when she remembered his words from one of the arguments they had about this. “I teach these Lieutenants myself, Aelin. I don’t trust Maisie around them.”

Her chest started feeling a little too tight, and she took a deep breath to recompose herself.

This was absolutely her fault.

There was no use in crying at the school playground, though.

On the way back to the classroom, Aelin was ready to go back if she heard screaming—there was no way she’d let Maisie see that—but the only sign that something had happened was the quiet whispers outside the classroom, and two people not so casually peering through the window.

If something exploded in there, Rowan kept his promise of doing it for five minutes only.

He looked absolutely unhinged, though. And the teacher looked white as a sheet, the armpits of her uniform sweaty.

Noticing the weird energy of the room, Maisie stiffened. “What’s going on?”

When Rowan heard his daughter’s voice, his whole demeanor changed. He didn’t relax, but still crouched on the floor and ran his fingers through one of her pigtails. “We were talking to Mrs. Valg about what happened today. She’s going to apologize for being disrespectful and hurting Fleetfoot.”

Maisie didn’t say a thing.

Neither did Mrs. Valg

“Seven days,” Rowan prompted.

Maeve’s jaw clenched.

“Fifteen days.”

She drew in a sharp breath.

“Twenty days.”

She swallowed.

Of, fuck. Was this how many days she was spending locked up in the guardhouse?

“Thirty—“

“I apologize.” Maeve spit out, eyes focused on Maisie.

The little girl took one step to the side and looked at her dad, but wouldn’t meet his eye. “It’s not Mrs. Valg’s fault,” the little girl quietly explained, ”I was being a bad kid.”

Aelin didn’t even register Maeve’s lips curling up, she dropped on her knees to talk to Maisie. Immediately. She didn’t know how to explain to a four-year-old that in this case she was expected to mess up, but not the teacher, but she would try until—

“Aelin?”

“What?” Aelin’s head snapped towards Rowan. He was sitting on the chair, clutching his chest. Oh, fuck.

“I might be having a heart attack.”

“You’re not.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

His eyes bulged, aimed at Aelin’s. “Do I need to call my ambulance myself?”

Aelin’s heart plummeted. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She called the hospital’s front desk as she got the car keys from Rowan’s pocket.

“Hi, this is Dr. Galathynius. I’m coming with a patient. I need a heart team by the side entrance in five minutes.”

˜˜

Dr. Cortland stared at Rowan’s exams with furrowed brows. “I don’t see anything.”

“Try harder.”

Aelin gave Rowan her mom look. She said with her eyes, Could you try to be polite?

He answered her look with another of his own. No. Can we see another doctor?

Aelin sighed and waited while Sam finished looking at Rowan‘s exams. He was still grouchy because of the situation at Maisie’s school, that was the only explanation. There was no way he could’ve known about the brief relationship she had with Sam a year ago.

“Nope,” Dr. Cortland concluded. “Your heart is looking so good you could even join the military.”

Rowan didn’t laugh.

“Maybe there’s something going on at work or at home?” Sam’s gaze slid to Aelin, a bitter smile on his lips. “How’s Maisie?”

Rowan gripped the arms of his chair. He growled, “Do you know her?”

“Can’t say I do, no.”

Aelin’s nostrils flared. Their relationship started going downhill when he asked to meet Maisie. Her daughter was very easygoing, but as a rule, she’d need to introduce him to Rowan first. Nope. Sam wanted too much too fast, and he never truly understood how hard it is to date as a single mom.

Rowan leaned back on his seat, but Aelin couldn’t say he was relaxed.

Dr. Cortland hummed. “Do you think there’s a chance this could be related to anxiety?”

“Absolutely not.”

Aelin tried not to cringe. Knowing Rowan, she wouldn’t discard anxiety that easily. But what does she know? Aelin fixed bones, anxiety was Elide’s specialty.

She politely dismissed herself, wanting to give Rowan privacy to discuss this with Sam. Actually, she didn’t even know what she was doing in that office. She brought him to the hospital and went with the flow, not even thinking that maybe she should have stayed back. The only doctors she needed to see with him were the ones who had Maisie as a patient, but Aelin didn’t think about that in the heat of the moment.

When she finally reached the conference room, Maisie was drawing with the intern Elide borrowed her for babysitting duty. The poor thing.

Her daughter looked up with big, expectant eyes when Aelin approached. “How’s Daddy’s heartbeep?”

“It’s good. Your dad’s fine.” A pause. “And it’s heartbeat,” she corrected.

Maisie frowned. “That’s what I said.”

The stubborn little thing. For the first time in a while, Aelin felt like smiling. Until she remembered the conversation wasn’t over.

“Do you know that feeling when you get scared and your heart beats really fast?”

Maisie solemnly nodded. “Like when Uncle Aedion lets me go on the big slide at the pool.”

“He does what?”

Maisie’s eyes widened. “Let’s talk about Daddy.”

Aelin sighed. She had no idea how to explain an anxiety attack to a kid.

“The doctor said he’s good, Mais. He was probably just feeling scared.”

Her daughter chewed on her lip and nodded, understanding. “Daddy never does scary things. It must be confusing for him.”

Aelin let out a soft, watery chuckle and kissed Maisie’s forehead. “That’s right, baby.”

“Not a baby!” Her daughter complained.

After Rowan was done and Aelin thanked Elide’s intern for babysitting, they had one of the quietest car rides she’d ever witnessed.

Aelin still drove to her house, but when Rowan got off his car just to go back in and drive away, Maisie watched the path he went with a longing gaze.

“I want to go with Daddy.”

Aelin crouched by her daughter’s side. “You’ve already spent last weekend with him, Mais.”

“But what if he gets sick again?” She mused with furrowed brows.

Scratching her forehead, Aelin sighed.

Rowan would be alone at home, no Maisie to keep him up. He’d think. He’d worry. He’d create worst-case scenarios for every consequence of this day.

“You want to spend the night at your dad’s and come back tomorrow morning?”

Maisie nodded, her eyes eager.

“Then go pick some toys to take there, okay?”

She rushed to her room without question, leaving Aelin a small window to pack two bags. One for Maisie, another for herself. She wouldn’t keep Maisie here worrying about her dad, but what if something really happened to Rowan while he was alone with Maisie? Fuck, no.

Aelin’s pack was a lot simpler than Maisie’s. Something to sleep on, her toothbrush. She could survive one night without her skincare routine. Her gaze landed on a little box on a tall shelf.

She grabbed a tissue and enveloped two pills in it. One sleeping pill and the antidepressant tablet she needed to take with breakfast. It wasn’t a big deal, and her depressive episodes only got easier to deal with time. She just didn’t want Rowan—or a judge—finding out about it. She had seen parents losing custody for a lot less.

Not that she thought Rowan would take her to court anytime soon. In fact, he was adamant that they didn’t need lawyers when they first decided to co-parent Maisie.

But Aelin had very little room for mistakes when it came to her daughter. Besides, Rowan did criticize her parenting on a daily basis.

For now, everything was under control. He doesn’t care about her, and it doesn’t affect Maisie. There was no need for him to know about her antidepressants.

Aelin still waited a little longer to go. Maisie liked taking her time picking her toys.

Just like her dad, the intrusive thought came as quickly as it went away.

She grabbed Maisie’s hand and they went by foot. Rowan lived so close it wasn’t even worth it to get a bike, he was always one small block away.

Aelin tried to open his door, but it was locked. She frowned.

They lived in a military housing complex, right next to the Air Force base. Who the hell locked doors here? This was the safest it could get.

Rowan appeared a second later, and the confused look she saw him wearing through the window was almost comical.

“What’s going on?”

Aelin shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “Just making sure Mais doesn’t become half-orphan.”

He shifted on his feet. “You don’t have to.” Something charged passed behind Rowan’s eyes. Aelin looked away.

“I know.” She swallowed and entered the house a second later, without invitation. It wasn’t her job to read into Rowan’s feelings, so she wouldn’t.

The first thing Aelin did was go into Fenrys’ old room and put the bedsheets she brought from home. He moved out years ago, so it meant only half of the STDs this bed used to have were still lingering. It’d have to do.

She found them in the kitchen, Rowan gathering supplies while Maisie painted her coloring book at the other end of the table.

Aelin grabbed the first knife she saw and pointed at him. Rowan didn’t look surprised.

“Sit.”

He leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “I would, but I’m not mentally ready to dine a microwave meal.”

Aelin narrowed her eyes. She knew about all the drowsiness and fatigue that came after an anxiety attack. Rowan should be resting, not playing chef.

“I can use a pan,” she spit out, then looked at his pans. For fuck’s sake, why did he have so many? Aelin picked one she didn’t know the exact purpose, but would do. “This one, for example, is perfect for making pasta. I’m making pasta tonight.”

When Rowan opened his mouth, Maisie beat him to it.

“Mommy.”

Both of them turned to her.

“I think we should let Daddy make dinner,” she politely insisted in a matter-of-fact tone.

Aelin’s jaw went slack.

Did she just say Rowan makes better dinner? In her face?

By the triumphant grin he wore, Maisie did.

”You can cut the vegetables,” he offered.

Aelin squinted her eyes and sat on the table, begrudgingly accepting the role of sous-chef.

Silence took over, and she couldn’t stop thinking about what happened today. That bully teacher. Rowan going to the hospital. She swallowed a lump in her throat. It was her fault.

Aelin was stubborn, but she’d be damned if she’d let her little girl go near that teacher ever again.

“Maisie?”

Her daughter hummed.

“There’s this other school your Aunt Sellene told your dad about. I was thinking we should take a look there on Monday. We could go to Skull’s Bay when we’re done.”

The pirate-themed restaurant she loved to go to. She looked at Rowan to see if he looked mad that she decided this without telling him, but his eyes looked soft. There was even a tiny tilt in the corner of his lip.

That wasn’t Maisie’s reaction, though.

“I don’t need school.”

Just like that, Rowan’s soft moment ended.

“And why’s that?” He demanded, arms crossed.

Their daughter dropped her colored pencil and fully turned to her dad. “Because I’m a smartie about everything.” A pause. “Duh!”

Rowan clamped his lips together, trying to keep a straight face, and Aelin’s reaction was pretty much the same. If they laughed, Maisie would think she won this argument.

Aelin took a deep breath, trying to compose herself, and thought of a good argument to beat this one.

“You’re right, kiddo. You’re too smart for your own good.” Aelin heavily sighed, letting her daughter think she had the upper hand. “I guess I‘ll have to call Aunt Sellene and tell you won’t be joining Bree at school.”

Breanna, Sellene’s daughter. She and Maisie were thick as thieves.

“Wait.”

Aelin and Rowan exchanged a look. They were so close.

Maisie continued, “You didn’t tell I’d play with Bree.”

Rowan continued to prepare dinner, pretending this wasn’t a big deal. “You’d play with Bree every day. I’d make sure you two stay in the same class.”

The little girl fidgeted with her pencil, brows furrowed. Aelin would pay good money to know what was going on inside her head, but it wasn’t too difficult to tell.

“I’ll think about it,” was the only thing she said before going back to her drawing.

The stubbornness was one of the few traits Maisie inherited that couldn’t be blamed on one parent. She had gotten it from both of them.

“I’ll think about it”? In Maisie language, that was very close to becoming a Yes.

Not that the kid had much of a choice here, but it was best to let her think she did.

Rowan seemed think the same thing as her. His surprised look turned triumphant when their gazes met, and when his slightly parted lips reshaped themselves into a smile, Aelin grinned back.

This day had been hell, so she’d enjoy this small win.

A/N: I highly recommend reading the bonus chapter 3.5 before reading chapter 4

A/N 2: I promise I won’t hurt baby Maisie ever again! I did it for the plot!!

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[daisymakesstuff]

Fandom: The Wayhaven Chronicles

Description: Nat tucks the detective's drunk ass into bed because I was devastated when she didn't. Set in Book 3 Chapter Eleven. The purple text is direct quotation to set the scene.

Fandom: Detective x Nat (first person, vague enough I think it works for all genders)

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

"You waited up for me?" I slur, happiness surging through me and mixing with the alcohol currently fuelling my veins. My balance stumbles as I tip further against her.. 

Her arms wrap around me to catch me and keep me balanced. She examines me with a brow arched. "I see that you're drunk."

I tap the tip of her nose with my finger and ease my smile into a grin. "What gave you that impression?"

"Hm, I wonder," she replies through a short chuckle. "Let's get you to bed."

I sink a little deeper against her embrace, blinking with wide eyes. "You mean like…you're coming with me?"

“Not like that, ya rouhi,” she hums. "Though I can't say I wouldn't be more receptive to that invitation should you ask me when sober."

Her arm wraps around my middle, hauling me back up onto my feet as she guides me toward the stairs. I manage to lift my foot onto the first step, leaning heavily into her side. 

“How much water have you had, ya rouhi?” Nat asks, amusement making her voice light. I eagerly hold up two fingers. 

“I had two glasses, ‘cause I’m sensible,” I slur. Nat makes a noise of agreement, though her lips roll together like she’s holding back a smile. Somehow, I’ve made it up another three steps. 

“And did you eat anything?” she asks. I puff air into my cheeks. 

“No…” I admit. 

“Then I suppose it is a good thing I brought something up for you.” Nat gives a gentle sigh of disapproval as she eases me up the last few stairs. She effortlessly opens the door to my bedroom with her free arm, making sure I am relatively balanced before she lets me go so I can wobble inside. 

Nat puts her hands on my arms to gently guide my sozzled body into my desk chair. My vision eventually focuses enough for me to register the plate of artfully-arranged crackers, cheeses, meats, and fresh fruit on the desk. A large glass of water sits beside it. 

“You made me a charchoochie board!” I gasp with delight. I’m not fast enough to see if the expression Nat hides behind her hand is a grimace or barely-contained laughter. 

When I next look up from gleefully inhaling my snacks, Nat stands beside me with a set of my pajamas in one hand. She flashes me a knee weakening smile, and slowly, very slowly, reaches out with her thumb to brush away the cracker crumbs on my lips. 

“Let’s get you out of these clothes,” Nat says it sweetly, but the gleam in her eyes suggests she knows exactly the kind of heat that rushes through me at the words. When she kneels down in front of me my throat goes dry. 

Trying to resist her when there's no alcohol in my body is hard enough, but this is impossible. I bend forwards, my eyes fluttering shut as I go in for a kiss. They snap back open when I find my lips pressed to something that doesn't feel like lips at all.

Nat has placed one of her hands between us, my mouth now smooshed up against her fingers while she hunches over, her free hand taking my shoes off. Disappointment wells in me, but it is pretty nice to get to wiggle my toes once they’re free from their confines. 

I wait until I have the attention of her warm brown eyes again before I pull my shirt off. The fumbling action is nowhere near as a sexy as I had hoped. Eventually, she wrangles me into my pajamas. 

“You should drink some more water before you go to bed,” Nat encourages. She looks at me with such affection that I chug half the glass just to make her happy before I flop into bed. Nat takes the time to ensure I actually get under the covers (not just on top of them) before leaning down and pressing a soft kiss to my temple. 

“Get some sleep, ya rouhi.”

[deadheaddaisy]

Your turn! 😁

How many words have you written this year?

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? 😈

What’s your longest work of the year?

What’s your shortest work of the year?

Which work of yours have you reread the most?

Biggest surprise while writing this year?

Finally done with my homework, as set by @more-better-words! 😁

How many words have you written this year? 116,922 published, but outside of that? Probably double, looking at my document list, though I'm too lazy to confirm.

Because I suck at brevity (who knew, right?), the rest of this long-ass answer is under the cut.

2. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? As ever, I don't have just one, but I narrowed this down to three, since it's not specifically about my favourites. Going Under, which required a combo of logistics and feasibility, as well as considering types of panic attacks vs Malcolm Reed's character. And then a lot of checking with my scuba diving/first responder friend. I think it's one of my best works, especially since I very deliberately did not want to drown the man, and wanted to show how competent Hoshi can be, too. AND my friend then wrote a coda for it from Malcolm's POV, which sadly remains unpublished, but still! Nothing To Fear, even though it's not complete. I just kind of love everything about it at this point, even though it takes weeks or more between chapters (apologies to my readers). I generally don't spend too much time writing anyone outside of Malcolm & Hoshi because I struggle with other voices, but I low-key love how I wrote Jhamel, Shran, T'Pol, and Phlox. Plus it has one of my favourite lines I've ever written: He would, without demur, lay down his life for anyone on the ship - even the MACOs, if it came to that - but for Hoshi, he would walk through the gates of hell itself and challenge the devil to single combat.  Outrun, my first action piece, first real banter, and one that also required me to think a bit because the shuttlepod would not work like a modern plane or helicopter under such circumstances. So I had to research both the disaster type and the shuttlepod characteristics to a) see if they'd have time to flee and b) if the shuttlepod would do what I wanted, and then get my resident science/physics/detonation expert to talk me through the logistics to make it plausible (Malcolm is not the only one who likes things that go boom but aren't necessarily weapons).

3. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? 😈

... 32 ... (so far) (shuttup, stop laughing!)

4. What’s your longest work of the year? Money Or Nothing (19,434 words) (warning, it's E-rated)

5. What’s your shortest work of the year? Bedtime Stories (388 words)

6. Which work of yours have you reread the most? I don't have the numbers since I can't find these in my History, but the ones I reread at least weekly are:

Dynamite Comes In Small Package (I don't enjoy fight scenes for nothing! I was able to bring in quite a few of my favourites, and apparently I can write those in a fairly entertaining manner, too.) Outrun (and its E-rated sequel Outrun - Outtake.) Going Under Revisiting Risa (I love all my E-rated stuff but this one makes me super happy because they use their words and it's also hot AF IMNSHO.) Better With You (And The Angels Sing coda) (it's fluff, Hoshi & Malcolm in their 40s, with the comfort of a long-established relationship, there's a little half-Vulcan godson, it's in your 'verse, and it's a warm hug of a fic.) Money Or Nothing (it took me 9 months of writing, refining and polishing, trying to be as sex-work-positive as possible, and while it will never be my best work, I don't care, I love it and I adore their interactions in it.) (E-rated, naturally) Nothing To Fear (yes, it's not finished, I still enjoy it.)

7. Biggest surprise while writing this year? Just how much people enjoy Hoshi kicking MACO ass. Dynamite Comes In Small Packages far outstrips my other fics in terms of kudos (31, with 19 the next-closest) and is in the high end of hits to kudos ratio at 17%. And then how much people enjoyed my menstruation fic, A Hint of Salt, A Taste of Sweet - it has as many bookmarks as Going Under, despite the latter being tense and action-driven, and Salt being slice-of-life and fluff and comfort. That's probably it, tbh - the comfort factor and Hoshi's friends looking after her.

So there you have it!

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 3.5.2024

So, Polynya, did you finish the fanfic? Well...sort of? No. No, I guess the answer is actually no.

Last week, I said I had two and a half scenes left, one of which was the epilogue, and one scene I wanted to rewrite. I wrote the scene and a half that were not the epilogue, and then I tried to do that scene re-write. It came out better than it was, but I still didn't love it. I figured I would just go ahead and write the epilogue and then maybe come back and try again. 3/4 of the epilogue went great, and then I just couldn't manage to end it, and got stuck for three days. I went back and tried to re-write that scene I didn't like *again*, and barely got into before realizing that the way I was hoping to make it better did not, in fact. Yesterday, after Much Struggle, I managed to pull together an end to epilogue with is...okay...but I don't love it. So the current state of things is: 107,408 words, and it is strictly speaking, A Whole-ass Fanfic, but with two half-scenes that I hate.

It's really frustrating, because I had a bunch of productive weeks in a row, and my brain has just utterly collapsed on me in the eleventh hour. I've been trying so hard to push it over the finish line, but it's one of those things where I can't just brute force it, I need to somehow have a good idea. I am also so so tired this week. I know, logically, that probably I just need to relax and rest up for a few days and this will be easy to fix when I am feeling better, but it's hard to relax when I have this stupid almost-but-not-quite-done fanfic hanging over my head.

Here are some other stupid facts:

The scenes in question are important and I want them to be good, but they aren't exactly load-bearing, in the sense that nothing else depends on them

I don't even *need* the epilogue, and in fact, after I realized that I end all my Heart is a Muscle fics with people drinking (not on purpose, I'm just unoriginal), it made me want to drop the whole thing on principle (except that I also don't because it's sort of a thematic lead-in to the next story in the series and also Ukitake is there)

The two problem scenes are way at the end of the fanfic. When I do start posting this thing, I plan to post one chapter per week like I often do, meaning that I have literal months to fix these

Chapter 1 is beta'd and ready to go and literally nothing is stopping me from posting it this very second

BUT I don't want to post Chapter 1 until my beta has seen the whole fic because what if she notices something in Chapter 12 that needs to be fixed back in Chapter 1

AND literally nothing is stopping me from just sending my beta the last few chapters with a little note on the scenes I'm not happy with. It's highly possible she might have some ideas! Or just be like "you are insane these are fine"!

EXCEPT I don't want her to see my bad writing that I am embarrassed about

And so, here we are. I am probably going to give it another day or two, and if I can't manage to fix those two scenes, I'll just suck it up and send the rest to her.

I guess I also should re-do the banner, except I don't feel like re-doing the banner. It's....okay. I don't know. I just kind of slapped it together based on a thing we were doing at Art Club. Maybe I don't even want a banner.

Speaking of Art Club, it's March now, which meant there was a new theme at Art Club (nature) and I decided to try to get back into my daily drawing. I think this is possibly what killed my momentum on my fanfic. I am just literally only capable of having one priority at a time, even if it's a little tiny one, otherwise my brain just plays tug of war with my priorities and it's hard to manage either of them.

Anyway, I've been in kinda rough shape for the last few days, but I am sure it will pass. It's got some good bits, but I think I just never really managed to fall in love with this one, and I'm really worried about it getting a cooler reception than I'm used to, since the fandom seems to have quieted down significantly since the last time I posted one of these. On the other hand, I've worked too hard on this to not post it. Also, it's got some stuff in it that had to happen for the series to progress. And maybe other people will like it! Who knows! Not me!!

I had hoped to be able to start posting it this week, but that's not looking likely at this point, so I guess you can have another preview.

--- from Ch 3

"You really didn't have to go to all this trouble," Rukia pointed out, as she methodically piled her bowl with a heaping serving of everything on offer.

Renji grabbed a big pinch of the shirasu before passing it over to her. "It's fine. I'm not sure when I'll be up for cooking again, so I'm trying to clean out my fridge."

"Oh, so I'm helping?"

Renji grinned. "Sure."

"I love helping! If you need me to take this pickled ginger with me, I could take it off your hands."

"I think the pickles will probably keep for a bit."

"Hmmph," Rukia replied skeptically, and scooped some more into her bowl.

It was always difficult not to just sit and watch Rukia eat, in part because she truly did have an extraordinary talent for shoveling food into her mouth, but mostly because it reminded Renji of why they had come to the Seireitei in the first place, of how lucky he was these days. You have to go to work, too, this morning, he reminded himself, and dug in.

"You know, speaking of helping…" Rukia said a few minutes later, once she'd managed to eat enough to shave the edge of her morning ravenousness. "There's something I want to talk to you about."

The pleasant feelings in Renji's chest abruptly turned cold and gloppy. He frowned, and raised one eyebrow skeptically. “Yeah?”

Rukia looked up at him with her big, stupidly blue eyes. “Do you remember when we talked about how important it was for you to have a comfortable and peaceful recovery from your surgery?”

“I do. I distinctly remember asking you to drop it and not bring it up, again, actually.”

“Right, well, I never actually agreed to that. I think that you should come stay at my house.”

Renji gave her an incredulous look. “Your house? Kuchiki Manor, you mean? Your house that is actually my captain’s house?”

“It’s very nice there, as you know. The food really is very good and we have a million servants with nothing better to do--”

“I am sure they have better things to do, Rukia.”

“--and you can sit in a sunny spot in the garden and I’ll read you books and it will be so much nicer than staying in the Coordinated Relief Station!”

Renji heaved a huge, exasperated sigh. “It’s a nice idea, Rukia, but think about the look on Captain’s face if you even--”

“He said it was okay.”

Renji felt all the blood run out of his face, possibly out of his body entirely. “You asked him?”

“I know you’re only getting it done because he ordered you to. He obviously wants you to do your best to heal up well. He cares about you, too, you know, in his own way.” 

Renji stiffened, his fingers tightening on his chopsticks. “You probably told him the whole story, then? How I broke my arm in the first place?” His voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away.

“Not the whole thing!" Rukia shook her head vehemently. "He knows you broke it saving me, that's the only important part.”

Renji drew in a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. All he could focus on was the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears. “Why do you always have to do this?” he finally managed through gritted teeth. “I asked you to just leave it, but you never can.”

Rukia shoved out her lower lip. “Maybe if you took care of yourself half as well as you take care of everyone else, I would!” she protested. “Just let me spoil you for a few days, would it be so terrible?”

“Yes.”

[parsnipping]

I REALLY HOPE THIS DOESN’T COME ACROSS SUPER INTRUSIVE — but i’ve just binge read ‘Only in Private’ on AO3 and I’m obsessed??? Instant favorite, that cliffhanger at the end of chapter 6 made my heart skip SEVERAL beats and the whole date as a whole just had so much romantic tension I was on the edge of my seat. Something about Thrawn being *desperate* is just CHEF’S KISS and the way you’ve written it is just perfect and conveyed everything so beautifully.

I don’t want to talk your ear off too much, but everything was just wonderful, LITERALLY breathtaking, literally heart-stopping. I’m so looking forward to the next chapter I’m getting giddy just thinking about it.

ADHD can be a real pain in the ass sometimes (I’m speaking from experience) so in the meantime, please know that you can take your time with updates and look after yourself. Take breaks, remember to drink water, and most of all please know you are a wonderful writer.

“i’m not gonna talk your ear off” proceeds to do exactly that LOL

Oh my gosh this is so sweet of you!! ;A; You absolutely aren't being intrusive or talking my ear off. I adore these kinds of comments and you've really made my night. Thank you so much! I'm so glad I'm portraying him in a way readers are connecting with and enjoying because I always get a little afraid of making a character too OOC (even though I'm so vocal about "make characters ooc all you want, people don't have to read your fics if they don't like how you write"). It's also my first x Reader fic so I'm especially relieved that people are able to see themselves in the RC and that things are progressing smoothly. Thank you so much for understanding and your encouragement re: the ADHD. It really kicks my ass sometimes especially when it comes to creative endeavors. I have a really hard time staying with long-term projects so that's why most of my fics are short one-shots. So this has really been stretching my creative muscles and pushing me out of my comfort zone to keep a coherent story for so long. Especially one that I'm doing by myself instead of rping with someone where I'm getting help with at least half of it lol. I seriously can't thank you enough for such a kind comment, I appreciate it so much. This sort of thing is what keeps me going. I'll get the next chapter out as soon as my brain will allow me, but I AM taking care of and being kind to myself. <3

[iviarellereads]

Harrow the Ninth, Chapter 52

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Fifth House icon) In which I struggle to choose just one thing to "in which", so I'm going full meta instead.

August and Mercy talk about how they could go back home now, as long as the undoing of the Resurrection isn't immediate. Ianthe asks what Mercy has done, and she admits she has killed Dominicus. It will form a black hole in a few minutes. August asks Gideon Senior if he has any retribution, to which he replies no, but there's something August should know…

Suddenly, white light blinds Gideon, and then she sees red. Particles emerge from everywhere in the room, turning the air pink, then cherry red, then scarlet. Powder becomes grit, grit becomes aggregate, and then bone.

Instantly, and in a laborious process, a body constructs itself, until the King Undying stands once again, behind Mercy. He kills her, a fist through the heart that explodes her whole chest, splattering it onto Augustine's. He says the sun has stabilized, and he hopes the Sixth wasn't destroyed in the flare.(1) He says he will ask them all a question, and if they give the correct answer, what happened to Mercy won't be repeated.

Augustine pressed his lips together; that was it. God said, "It was a lovely bit of work on Mercymorn's part. She must have been training for thousands of years, to bring that off. But I didn't get to where I am by being able to die, you know?" The Lyctor said, "The Resurrection Beasts--" "Can't kill me." "You acted afraid--" "Acted is operative. But this is not an FAQ.(2) Let's get a move on. Gideon," he said. Then he looked at us, gave a little crooked half smile, and said, "Gideon Episode One,(3) I mean. Gideon the First--third saint to serve me--my fingers and gestures. Mate, I'm not mad about Wake. I'm not even mad that you failed to either fix or put down Harrow. I just want your loyalty. Do I have it, or not?"

Without hesitation, Gideon the First says he does. John tells him to stand on the side of the room opposite the dead. Next, Ianthe, who says yes, he has her loyalty before he finishes naming her. He bids her stand with Gideon Prime. He despairs lightly that he can't ask Wake, though he knows what she'd say, because "why be an ass to the mother of your child?"

Which he takes as a prompt, to turn to Gideon in Harrow's body.

I said, "You told that bastard to beat up Harrow?" That was my job, after all. God said, "I was trying to save her."(4) Also my job. "Go to hell, Pops."

He says this isn't a question for Gideon, as his child. He won't give her an ultimatum on their first day together, and it's not her body so he'd hate to punish Harrow for Gideon acting out. She is tossed, gently, across the room to land next to Ianthe.(5)

He turns to August, who asks if he gets a chance to answer. Of course, says John. He's willing to offer August a clean slate, a fresh start. August says no, lifts his hand, and does something funky. He drops the whole station into the River, and wades out into it. Ianthe follows him, but G1deon drags Gideon the other way. The Saint of Patience says "Wish he'd given me the packet."(6) which Gideon finds rather irrelevant to anything.

They move through the station, as outside in the River, John and August fight, and the whole lot of them are descending.

Gideon suggests they swim for it, but Duty says they won't last in the River, nobody knows what it's made of but it's breaking everything apart with the pressure, and the ghosts will be back soon.

The station listed again. I said, "Okay. You're a necromancer. Are you going to do something, or what?" "My necromancer is dead," said Gideon.(7)

Truly, this is not any sort of Gideon Supreme. All that's left is Pyrrha. Initial Gideon died after fighting RB7. He fought it alone for hours, and then the ghosts (sent by Harrow and Abigail) showed up. They almost had Number Seven, but in the end Duty could never walk away from a losing fight.

Pyrrha introduces herself formally, and explains that she was able to hide her consciousness, even from her necromancer. Both she AND he had been having affairs with Wake, ahead of Gideon's conception.

At any rate, Pyrrha sees what August's plan is.

A hole had opened. It was big enough to swallow up the whole of Drearburh and have room to spare. It was a huge, hideous, dark expanse, and it had seething, weird edges; it took the lights pattering over them for me to see that the edges of the hole were enormous human teeth. Each one must've been six bodies high and two bodies wide, with the dainty scalloped edges of incisors. The teeth shivered and trembled, like the hole was slavering. And that hole had nothing in it; that hole was blacker than space, that hole was an eaten-away tunnel of reality.(8)

The stoma has opened, probably thinking John is an RB. Augustine has lashed himself to the Emperor, somehow, and is dragging him down toward it. God is making no apparent move to disengage or get away, even as the tongues emerge from the stoma.(9)

Pyrrha has a loaded gun, she and Gideon could end their own struggles quickly. Gideon watches John, Augustine, and the Mithraeum station get dragged down into the stoma. She thinks, really hard, about what dying was like the first time, and what to do now. She wants so badly to say that she was thinking of Harrow in those moments, but everything was literally and figuratively crashing down around her.

As I dithered, Pyrrha sandblasted me with the calm, "Your mother would've picked the bullet." "Yes, well, jail for Mother."(10)

The River rushes in, and she forces her way out. When she has some control over her direction, Gideon watches Ianthe break August and John apart, pull John to safety, leave August for the tongues emerging from the stoma.

Gideon thinks Ianthe did it wrong, she should have saved August, not the man who lied to everyone he ever loved.

And then, Gideon feels Harrow's chest cave in, from the pressure of the River-essence. She asks Harrow if she knew that your life is supposed to flash before your eyes. She doesn't know if dying like this, in Harrow's body, will cause them to merge, will make her see both their lives blurred together.

But as everything went black and I died the second time round, I didn't see you. I didn't even see me. The final thing I saw was a great sunshiny light: a blurred figure, hazing in and out around the edges. At first it looked to me like a woman--a grey-faced, dead-eyed woman, with a face so beautiful it almost went out the other side and became repellent; a woman with my eyes, dimmed dark yellow in death, whose hair fell in wet leaden hanks. I realized with exhausted indignation that, at the end of everything--after all I had been through--after the last word, the last strike, the last drop of blood in the water--your bullshit dead girlfriend had come to claim you. And she said in the wrong voice twice removed:(11) "Chest compressions! I know her sternum's shattered; ignore it. We need that heart pumping. On my mark." Hands pressed. We died.

=====

(1) So, it wasn't a lie that he's connected to the Sun somehow? Or at least, he gets to claim it wasn't for this. (2) What a curious turn of phrase for him to use. But then, he was the Resurrection, his world was our world, so he would remember phrases, wouldn't he? (3) Muir is playing with this one, as she seems to have fun doing. In this case, Star Wars Episode 1 came out after the original trilogy, despite being set before. So, John referring to his G1deon this way is a joke because we knew our Gideon first and the Lyctor showed up later for us, despite his time technically taking place before. (4) Why would constant attempts on her life be saving her? Was it a form of training? Was it trying to make her access power he thought she'd hidden, maybe from herself? Or is it all a lie? (5) I'm not sure John's making the first impression he might want to with Gideon, though given the end of the chapter… how much does that matter? (6) Like an information packet you'd get first day on the job. Pyrrha could use the operating manual for G1deon's body and life. (7) You know, there's something ominous about this statement. I know that it's G1deon, not Gideon, but it feels… weighty. (8) No wonder there's theory that the stoma could found another entire school of necromantic study. (9) Ew, with a side of ack. (10) Miette! (11) Who? How? What's going on here? What do you think the odds are we find out in the final two books? How about the one additional book that's been published?

[violets-in-her-arms-writes]

WIP Wednesday Tag

Thank you @rubywrite for the tag ! ♥ (even though it took me 3 days to answer XD) It forced me to write on my main WIP, so thank you so much !

RULES:

In a reblog (or new post/w rules attached) post up to five filenames of your WIPs, not titles, file names

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be something you wrote in the last 7 days (we're posting progress here. If you haven't made any, go make some and come back to post!)

After you've posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file. If the filename is one you can't share from, write 3 sentences on it anyway and then 3 more on another to share!

That's it! You can invite others to join in or just post. If you tag me in your post, I will send you an ask request.

I usually name my WIP documents with the (temporary) title, so I'm afraid it won't be very interesting but anyway, here are 5 of my recent-ish WIPs:

🦇 La Fledgling (version complète) → doc where I compile all the things I've written for this WIP, because otherwise they are separated in "chapter 1" to "chapter 11" documents, but I like to have a complete doc to know how many words I have

🧜‍♀️ Mermaid AU → not very original since this is, you guessed it, an AU where the two main characters of the Fledgling are mermaids (well, one is currently drowning but I only have 600 words, I'll get to the mermaid part one day). It's a baby WIP, something I write for fun when I don't feel like writing for the main WIP. I might try my hand at a soulmate AU next, but I need to decide what kind and that's gonna need a lot of thinking (15 minutes to three business weeks, basically).

🌠The Wishing Star → it was my Camp NaNo project, about a woman who wants to become a pilot in a war-torn galaxy but first has to serve in a postal ship. Unfortunately, the ship is attacked but the resistance, she discovers she's adopted and has to fight to liberate her birth planet. Poor girl. It's currently on hold, because I was tired of it by the end of April XD

🐍The Witch's Time (tome 3) → the love of my life and bane of my existence. I'm stuck in the middle of this book, I need to cut half of it and put it in the 4th book and figure out... so many things. I printed the first two and they are soooo pretty. Unfortunately, this third book is kicking my ass. I'll be back Llewella, I swear, but I need time. It's not you, it me (I say, like a liar). It's technically an AU of another project of mine, but it grew a mind of its own and now I'm attached.

👽 Le truc avec les aliens (tome 2) → technically, its name is "Empire Déchu, tome 2 - La malédiction de Suli" but that's way too long so I just call it 'the thing with the aliens' because, really, that's what this is. A novel. With aliens. And a poor girl kidnapped and hailed as the saviour of a dying sect who want to resurrect a dead guy.

Now that I'm face to face with a few of my WIPs, I realized a lot of them have English titles, for some reason. I mean... I know why "La Fledgling" is called that (hint: it's because i couldn't find a good equivalent in French. Come on, jeune ? Débutante ? That's... not good. I'm not writing about a noble woman making her debut in society, be serious). But the others are just... choices. It sounded good and now it's stuck. Ok, maybe not 'the wishing star' because I don't like this title, but for WsT it's too late. I'm three books in, I can't go back.

Excerpt behind the cut, because this post is getting a little too long.

Excerpt:

"What do you want?" I asked her without giving her a chance to say anything.

As much as I hoped she would call me with something positive to say, I had known Anaëlle Charles since kindergarten. If she called me, it was always a bad sign.

"Jo, dear, I could use your help."

"Yes, I know. That's why I asked you what you wanted, moron."

I got up from my warm and cozy bed, still talking, put my phone on speaker the floor, and began to fumble for my clothes in the dark. Where the fuck was my left sock ? I was pretty sure my shirt was inside-out, but I doubted anyone would notice where I was going. Wherever that was.

Please dont let in be the swamps again, I prayed while putting my boots on.

"I'm... in trouble."

I was about to tell her that, yeah, obviously she was in trouble, she wouldn’t be calling at four in the morning if she wasn't, but something in her voice stopped me. It didn’t sound like the «I’m lost in the swamps again» kind of troubles, not even the «I think my magic is trying to eat me (again)» kind of trouble, both of which I could solve with my eyes close (mostly). It sounded… Like the bad kind of trouble. The one I wasn’t awake enough for.

Before I could ask her what the fuck was going on and why she sounded so… off, she went on, her voice almost as low as a sigh. Her breath sizzled in the receiver and I could hear her fingernails clicking against something metallic.

Ana was good at pretending, but she always ended up betraying herself.

"I'm at 23 Boulevard de l'Aube. Come get me. Hurry."

She pulled the phone away from her, shouted something I didn't understand, and hung up.

Tagging : @ladyniniane, @flowerprose and @amewinterswriting if you want to play (even tho it's not wednesday...)

[a-student-out-of-time]

As an opponent of switch theory, I will try to answer the points that you present. 1. Firstly, the fact that Teruko prosopagnosia is mentioned in chapter 2 does not mean that it will play an important role in chapter 2, that if the author thought if Teruko prosopagnosia was mentioned in the chapter where this aspect is used, it would be very obvious, so they placed this mention on one chapter earlier in the hope that the reader might slightly forget, thus making the mystery harder for himself. and by the way, THE OTHERS DON'T HAVE prosopagnosia THEY WOULD NOTICE IF J SOMETHING IS WRONG AND HOW THE THEORY of conspiracy failed, how do you explain it?

2. To show that Teruko still feels pain for Min's death and that although she can pretend that she doesn't care, she will feel pain for people's deaths.

3. Isn't the CG where Arei epicly opens the door, the hair isn't the same length? artistic approach.

4. Why weren't we shown the wigs during the investigation? Maybe because they are not involved in the murder at all? during the search for the body of Arei Teruko, she would have noticed that something was missing here and the investigation returned in time, but if this did not happen, then they are unlikely to be connected with the crime. and what if wigs play a part in chapter 3 where teruko prosopagnosia comes into play.

One of the reasons why I don't like this theory is that it's not Arei's character to follow what plan is not clear, seeing as Eden the person she worries going through a difficult time thinking she's dead. Did Arei continue to pretend to be J after seeing this? NO it's not the character of Arei, it's not only an OOC theory for Arei but a theory of a completely waste character J that hasn't even started going through the character path.

//First of all, thank you for taking the time to offering some counter-arguments. It's nice to have someone addressing the points I've made.

//But I still don't see these as particularly strong ones for a few reasons. And by a few, I mean I've gone into a lot of detail as to why:

1A. It doesn't matter because, as I've talked about before, the only people who actually examined Arei's body were Teruko (the person who can't differentiate faces) and Arturo (who we've learned had reasons to half-ass the investigation, if not kill her himself). Not to mention they didn't exactly do a good job investigating her actual death regardless of those details, and what they found was very surface-level. Nobody would've found out it's not her because nobody would've known to check if that wasn't her body.

1B. The idea that they're placing that detail a chapter early, where it isn't going to be relevant, feels very wasteful to me. Yes, they did place setup in the prologue and chapter one, but those were small moments and would've come off as just comedy if you weren't paying attention. Xander's super strength was relevant to Chapter 1, after all; it proved vital in decoding the murder plan. Veronika asking probing questions about the details of Teruko's prosopagnosia is very different from Teruko not remembering Charles until Hu mentions his hair color and outfit. DR chapters are often each self-contained stories, and the details we get are always relevant to the case, no matter how small, and potentially the cases that come later. There's been no DR game that includes character details that don't become relevant at all until the next chapter. Putting in details that won't have payoff until later, unless we're talking about contributing to a larger narrative, doesn't happen here. That's not just a DR thing, that's a basic good writing thing; let the information we get in the middle of a story be relevant to that story, not just serve as setup for a different one.

2A. If it were as simple as that, why not just include a brief flashback to Min. Xander has gotten plenty of mention this chapter, such as when Teruko was playing with cacti and very clearly roleplaying a scenario where she defeats him and begs for forgiveness. That's definitely a sign she misses Xander. But if Teruko was referencing Min there, she would've said Min and Min would've appeared. Instead, the screen went black and we got no mention of what she was reminded of. I'm actually not fully convinced it was Min because...

2B. Something I haven't really discussed in detail here is the scene with Charles and Whit in the computer lab, where they're doing some hacking. Teruko asks about Charles' brother, the one he doesn't even remember, and Charles proceeds to ask her if she knows what Childhood Amnesia is. That also got no follow-up, as Teruko was hungry. I'm starting to think Teruko wasn't reminded of Min, but someone else from her past, which I'm certain is going to be VERY important given the nature of her motive secret.

3. Yes, but she was actually herself in that CG. I'm not talking about when she confronted Arturo, because that was very clearly Arei. I'm talking about the corpse found in the playground, whose hair is clearly longer than it's supposed to be. That was before the window of time where the two of them could've switched places, and thus the body found. And as I've said before, you can't just assign artistic license because Xander's look wasn't subject to that.

4. Again, the idea that things are only here for setup in Chapter 3 is unsubstantiated. This floor was created for Chapter 2, thus the things here- like with every other DR game- are going to be relevant to Chapter 2. Not only that, but we saw the wigs on three separate occasions in this chapter: when they first entered and got new clothes, when Teruko asked Rose about her secret, and when J tried to get Teruko to help her get away from Arturo. After that, the one time they went back there- when they were looking for Arei- it didn't pan over to show the wigs again, and that was the last time we saw inside the dressing room. That doesn't strike you as suspicious? Furthermore, why can't the wigs be relevant here and now, rather than later?

//To be honest, it sounds more like you're specifically trying to discredit my theory rather than offer a solid alternative. You can't just look at this and say "Well, none of it is guaranteed to be relevant now." Why not? What makes you so sure it isn't?

//You also can't just say "No, you're wrong" in a debate without some kind of solid basis for why I'm wrong. Otherwise, it comes across as you disagreeing on the grounds of "I don't like what you're saying."

//I'm not trying to be petty, I'm just offering my stance on debates. You need to work on your counter-arguments, though I really do appreciate you taking the time to offer them.

//And I can understand the disagreement, I honestly can. It's a crazy theory and I don't even expect to be right about everything, and I totally get why you'd see this as nonsensical and that it would come at the cost of another character who's comparatively gotten much less development. But let me offer you an alternative to your final point of disagreement.

//Arei said several times in the flashbacks that Eden is someone she needs to protect. We don't know what exactly happened on her end of things, before or after she confronted David, or how all the other moving parts of this chapter fit together. We don't even know how the murder actually happened yet.

//With that in mind, we can't make the assumption that, if Arei is really disguised as J, that there would be zero risk of her exposing herself. As I've said before, that would be an easy way for David and/or the Blackened of this case to pin the crime on her, because all she'd really be able to defend herself with are hearsay on her part.

//And given that she knows David's, Arturo's and one more person's secrets, would it really be a stretch to say that she could convince J to help her? That maybe the two of them worked together to try and protect the others? Especially since J, knowing that Arturo pulled a knife on Eden, seems like the kind of person who'd want to take action.

//I never suggested the story sacrificed J so Arei could live. I'm suggesting that, much like we saw with Arei in the flashbacks, plenty of things could've gone on behind that scenes that show the two of them were major players in what went on. The flashbacks with Arei and Eden were phenomenal, so the very same could be true with J.

//That feels more interesting to me than "J gets stalked and harassed by Arturo for a chapter, and then gets to dunk on him in the trial." Yes, I'll be sad if she's actually gone, but what matters is how it actually happened and the circumstances that lead up to it.

//Again, we've gotten basically no details on the murder itself as of yet. Nothing that suggests things couldn't have played out like this, or, like with David, there isn't more going on here than appears from the surface. We can't say anything is ooc for anyone, because we don't know the full story here.

//When we actually start getting into the meat of this chapter's murder plot, how it happened and who was involved, as well as the last secrets, then we can start to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of my theory.

//If my theory is wrong, then it's wrong. But if I'm right, this could be an amazing trial that would rely on those themes of rebuilding trust. Especially if, like I said, Arei's goal was to help protect Eden, and unmasking herself now would threaten that goal. And for Teruko, it means having to actually put genuine trust in someone and hope they're not lying.

//Before we start considering what is or isn't setup for the next mystery, we should try and solve this one first with the tools we've got our disposal.

[alba8688]

Love hurts

Warnings :just fluff,mention of throwing up and if I missed anything let me know please …

Chapter 29

Word count :3328

Eddie's pov

Sunday February 12

"Baby I'm gonna miss you ." I hugged Dani tightly. Today we were moving out the final things of her apartment to a storage unit .She decided to buy a house but won't be available to move in till June so she will be moving with her mom till she gets her house .

The only reason she decided to get a house was because of Nate. I'm not gonna lie, it was a beautiful house in a beautiful neighborhood. It was close to Harrington's house and she got it for a decent price.Well for her it seems like a decent price for me was way out of my budget .

And the only reason she got it so cheap was because the house was vandalized  by some kids so the price went lower. It needed a lot of TLC but for Dani it was beautiful since the first time we saw it .

We had been searching for apartments since she told me she had to move out but there was nothing to her liking and there's was a lot of apartments close by the her work and she didn't want nothing close to the school ,she wanted something far away because of me ,I've told her not to worry about me .Right now all she had to worried about was Nate .But she was stubborn and we kept searching  but we couldn't find anything that wasn't close to the damn school.Until we decided to drive around the neighborhoods and we saw that house it was beautiful from the outside but from the inside it needed a lot of remodeling .

I remember telling Dani to call the number ,she was debating thinking the price would be out of her budget ,but she was surprised when they told her the price and she made an appointment to go see it the next day . Dustin ,Dani and Myself .

It was a two story house with 4 bedroom 2 and a half baths and it had a small swimming pool on the back with a decent backyard.

But the walls had holes. There was graffiti on the walls and they had stolen the appliances from the kitchen and it also needed windows downstairs.

But to Dani she didn't see the house like we did ,she was already imagining how it would look remodeled and yeah that's how we found that house .

She put an offer for the house and for a whole week she was nervous thinking they wouldn't take it but eventually they called her saying the house was hers .

The next day Dani and Dustin went to sign the papers and talk numbers.I wish I could have gone that day but it was during school and Dani wouldn't let me miss because I needed to graduate .

The only Reason Dustin went was because he said Dani Needed a man to take care of her .

I laughed because I thought it was funny. I got a punch in my arm by Dustin .

Back to present day

"Eddie, you're gonna see me everyday at school."

"Yeah but I'm not gonna be able to kiss you like this." I lean in to kiss her lips softly "and I can't do this ." I kiss her neck "or do this ." I squeeze her ass "Eddie !! " she giggle

"It's just 3 months, Eddie ." She told me and I pretended to stab myself in the heart and fell to the floor sticking out my tongue to the side pretending I was dead "OH MY GOD !!!" She laughed I open one eye to look at her

"I  cough, need cough , a cough kiss ."I pretended to cough "you need a kiss huh? And where ?"she tells me crawling on top of me .

I move my hand down to my pants to point to dick."Oh really there ??" She says smiling

"Hmm hmm."i hum

"Ok if that's what it takes to bring you back ,then I have no choice but to do it right ?" She says playfully and I smirk .

"Fuck!!" I winced in pain and She gets off me laughing "oh wow you're awake I guess all you needed was a squeeze on your balls to wake up ." She belly laughed

I get up protecting myself from Dani .

"Now I need you to rub them till they feel better ." I pouted getting close to her .

"Oh yeah ?" She says softly pecking my lips "maybe you can come over tonight while my mom is working ." She whispers

My eyes widen and I felt like a little kid who just got handed candy.

"I can do that ." I Peck her lips

"Ok."I'll see you there. She smiles and turns around to pick up some boxes to take downstairs to my van .

.............

February 14 (valentines day )

DanI pov

Today was Valentine's Day and everyone at school was all lovey dovey with each other. It was disgusting, maybe it was the fact that I couldn't do that with Eddie in public and it made me mad seeing everyone else happy and receiving all those stupid flowers and stupid gifts .

Ahhhhh!!! I needed to get laid ASAP...

Been in a bad mood the whole morning since my night got ruined last night when Eddie and I were about to, you know,When  Dustin walked in my room .

If I was guy I would have a big boner right now with the way Eddie look today I mean he always looks good in anything he wore but today he look delicious 🤤 I mean really handsome ,is not like he is lollipop that I can suck .

I chuckled to myself "lollipop." I said softly

I was in my class grading some papers ,Eddie left early this morning so my mom

Wouldn't see him ,I felt like a high school girl sneaking in her boyfriend to her room without her parents finding out .

Knock knock knock

I picked up my head to see who was knocking but all I saw was legs and a  big bouquet of flowers .

"Danielle Henderson ?" The person behind the roses spoke

"Yes, that's me ." I stood up from my chair walking towards the person ,they set the bouquet down on my desk and gave me a note .

"This is for you, Happy Valentine's Day ."

The guy smiles politely and walks out the classroom .

The roses were beautiful. There were some red and some black as well .I noticed the flowers came with a note so I opened the note.

"Dani you are my other half ,my partner in crime ,my best friend and soulmate I love you with every drum beat of my heart,and it continues to grow every single day .I'm so excited for the days we get to spend together for those nights of us talking until the sun comes out ,and mostly for what the future hold for us I love You Danielle Henderson."

     P.s Happy Valentine's Day don't worry I'll give you The D tonight baby ."

I was a crying mess but leave it to Eddie to be romantic then come out with something to ruin it .

I look at the letter for a little while .

"Good morning Miss.Henderson." A familiar voice says .

Eddie was leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed looking at me

"Good morning." I said softly

My eyes glazed ,I bit my bottom lip "I love you ." I mouthed

I wanted to hug him and kiss him to thank him for my flowers but we just stood there looking at each other like two idiots .

"I love you ." He mouthed back,I chuckled but blush like a schoolgirl. I cover my face with my hand,of how stupid I might look blushing .

"Don't cover your face. I love it when you blush." He says in a low voice

He was still leaning against the door frame, his arms in the same position. I know he has told me he crosses his arms when he is around me because like that he can contain himself from touching me .

"Are you two gonna stand there giving each other lovey dovey stares or are you gonna kiss?" Dustin says walking in with Gareth into my class

Snapping us both from Our trance .

"Dustin! " I smack his arm

"Well ,we will cover for you won't we Gareth?" Gareth nods and closes the door to the class standing in-front of the door ,Eddie rushes to me, hugging me, picking me up from my waist and kissing my lips passionately.I wrapped my legs around his hips instantly, something I always did .

"Ughh ." Dustin gagged "I know dude who would have thought Eddie the banished would go mushy for a girl ." Gareth said teasingly but Eddie wasn't listening, his lips were on mine the sweet taste of mint on his mouth it always seems he ate a whole pack of gum.But I know he does it because he knows how much i hate it when he smokes cigarettes.

"I love you ."I Lean my head on his forehead

"I love you too ." He smiles putting me down slowly

"Thank you Eddie, I love the flowers ." I blush when telling him this ,I look down not wanting for him to see me like this .

He puts his index finger and thumb on my chin picking my head up to look at him.

"You're beautiful when you're blushing." He pecks my lips

"Abort mission." Gareth suddenly says and Eddie and I pull apart quickly.This is something I hate the most .Hiding our relationship.

I walk back To my desk placing the flowers to the side while Gareth opens the door With Jason walking In handing me a rose 🌹

"Happy Valentine's Day Miss.Henderson."he says sweetly

"Thank you Jasón ." I smile politely

He goes and takes his seat and I could hear Eddie mimicking Jason "Happy Valentine's Day Miss.Henderson."

Gareth and Dustin burst out laughing.They were both sitting on the back With Eddie .

"Hey you Two ,to class now!!" I said sternly  both Dustin and Gareth stood up, saluting me "yes Ma'am ." Gareth says playfully

"Bye sis !!" Dustin says walking out of the class

But Gareth opens his backpack   before leaving handing me a rose and a heart chocolate box with a rose 🌹.

"Happy Valentine's Day Miss.Henderson." He says looking back at Eddie and winks at him .

"Thank you Gareth ." I smile and hug him .I could see Eddie staring at Gareth and me and I just give him a smile .But Eddie didn't smile he just cleared his throat ,I saw that he clenched his jaw and was holding to the desk making his knuckles Turn pale White.

I roll my eyes .I don't understand why he gets jealous of Gareth.But I remember what he has told me about Gareth being able to talk to me or give me a gentle hug without being told anything or being judge .

I pull away from Gareth and smile and thank him once again before saying our goodbyes .

As soon as Gareth leaves I look at Eddie who had his sight down looking at his desk .

I get you baby I feel

The same .

—————-

So as the day passed I received a lot of gifts from my students: roses,chocolates and even some bears .I'm gonna love to See Eddie's face when I tell Him that some of the gifts were from the basketball team .

"Dustin hurry up!!!" I shouted as I was opening the trunk of the car to put my bag and the gifts I had received today .

"Well I'm holding like a million flowers so it is kind of hard to see where I'm going ." He tells me with an exasperated tone.

It was funny watching my little brother with the big bouquet walking ,you could only see his legs .

I open the back door to the car helping him put the roses inside .

"Eddie sucks ." He scoffs and gets in the front seat ...

......

So here I was getting ready to go on a Date with Eddie for Valentine's Day. We weren't going anywhere fancy, just his trailer .

He said he made dinner for us "spaghetti  and meatballs." Was on the menu today. It was kind of cute everything he was doing today for me and today was also the day I was telling Eddie a secret I was keeping from him. Hopefully he took it well.

As I was doing my makeup I felt the sudden urge to vomit. I ran to the toilet, puking everything I had eaten the whole day .

I don't understand what was wrong with me. I have a few weeks of throwing up or feeling drowsy. Maybe I need vitamins .

I didn't feel sick or anything. It was just the times that I smelled something or ate something that upset my stomach. If I didn't have the thing in my arm I would say I was pregnant .

But with the implant in my arm it is not possible for me to get pregnant at least that's what I think .

I got up and brushed my teeth before finishing getting ready. I walked out of the restroom to my room that was connected to the restroom.I was glad for that because Eddie was staying and I knew he was going to stay every night .

I went to my closet looking for something to wear. I honestly didn't know what to wear to be at his trailer.

Suddenly I heard the door to my room open and someone walked in, "Mommy." Nate said softly .I still couldn't believe my sweet baby was here with me after a whole year without seeing him .

"Yes baby ." I replied, "I miss Eddie ." He said softly .If he only knew how much I missed Eddie too .Having Eddie around was never boring .

"Come here ." I cooed .

I carry him and walk to my bed sitting down "will go see him on the weekend ok." I said sweetly .It's the only thing I knew that would calm him down .

He smiles widely "you promised ." He says excitedly, hugging me tightly. "I promise baby ,now go have your sleepover with uncle Dustin ." I tell him and he runs off to Dustin's room .

While we are here he was sharing a room with Dustin,Nate loved spending time with his uncle Dustin and Dustin loved being an uncle .Spoiling Nate and teaching him the ways to be a better kid .

So after Nate left I stay sitting in bed contemplating the floor somehow it seems interesting but that's not really what was really so interesting.I had so many things in my head things that I know I could t say .Eddie being one .But right now wasn't the time to depressed myself because I'm going on a date with Eddie .

So I just got up and went back to deciding what to wear for our date. I wanted something simple but sexy as well .

"Bingo !!" I reached for the dress my mother had gotten for me for Christmas. It was simple but yet sexy .

I decided no heels for Today just for Eddie it could be one of his Valentine's Day gift cause I know how much he hates me wearing heels cause I'm always tripping or twisting my ankle but I tell him no matter what I wear I still ends up twisting my ankle even just standing up I can twist my ankle .

Don't ask me how but it just happens instead I wore my black Boots  that would make him happy .

I left my hair down to dry by itself with some simple makeup with red lipstick.

I look at myself one more time in the mirror looking satisfied with my look .

I grab my keys, purse and Eddie's gift before leaving I stop by Dustin's room to let him

Know i was leaving and I'll be back later .

"Be back later baby ."I tell

Nate and blew him a kiss which he blows one my way as well.

"If any.."

"I know call you if anything don't worry sis I'll take care of him go have fun." My brother gets up's from

His seat and closes the door on my face .

How rude

I guess that was my queue to leave .

So I made sure I had everything with me and before leaving I made sure to lock the house ,even though my mom said she would be home in 5 minutes I felt safe this way .

So I got in my car, turned it on and drove away to Eddie's house .

********

I've been sitting outside Eddie's house for 15 minutes already thinking of the many ways I can tell him the decision I had made.

The door to the trailer opens slightly and I see Eddie peaking out .I flash my headlights at him and he opens the door completely walking out .

I turn off the car and get out locking it .

"Hey there ." Eddie says shyly with his hands inside the front pockets of his jeans.

"Hi." I said softly

I get on my tippy toes pressing a kiss on his lips.

"You look beautiful ." He tells me "now close your eyes sweetheart I have a surprise for you ." He tells me covering my eyes with his hands and guiding me with his hand on my lower back to his trailer .

"There's a step right here ." He tells me

I carefully moved my feet up the steps so I wouldn't trip .

"Ok stop ." He says softly

I listen and stay standing still with my eyes closed.

He removes the hand from my eyes to open the door ,I try opening my eyes But Eddie's hand goes back to cover them .

"No peeking ." He whispers in my ear ,I let out a small giggle ,this was really making me anxious .

I hear him close the door behind us .

"You ready?" He ducks his head down and whispers in my ear sending a shivering sensation down my spine .

"Yes ." I reply and Eddie removes his hands from my eyes sloping them down my hips .

I open my eyes and I'm met with a small circular table with a white tablecloth and two tall candles with two plates and two glasses .

The floor is scattered with red petal roses and some candles .

"Baby ,t-this is so beautiful." I coo ,

a big smile appears on his face. "I'm glad you like it ,I-I wanted to take you to Enzo's but I know we couldn't  so I brought Enzo to us ." He tells me ,I smile, placing a kiss on his cheek ."Come on ." He guides me to the table to take a seat while he heads to the kitchen to grab something .

"Ed's this is so beautiful ." I say softly "I'm glad you like it ,actually Wayne and his girlfriend help me decorate ." He says from the kitchen ,but I stop what I'm doing .Did I hear right ? Wayne has a girlfriend?

"Wait ,what ?" I ask ,he chuckles slightly and walks back with two plates of spaghetti and meatballs and places one in-front of me and one for him and he takes a seat in-front of me .

"Yes ,Wayne got himself a girl." He chuckles

****

"That was delicious Eddie ."

"I'm glad you like it ." He says putting his beer down

"Eddie i-I need to tell you something ." I tell him suddenly not wanting to wait any longer ,I needed to get it out of my system ,I needed to tell him what I was planning to do ,because I couldn't take this anymore .

Eddie gets up from his chair bringing it close to me and sits right next to me .

"What is it sweetheart ?."

I open my mouth and close it again, the words not wanting to come out of my mouth .

I close my eyes and took a deep breathe before opening my mouth again and I was able to

Talk .

"I'm putting in my two weeks notice ."

Next chapter

[the-batcats-mder]

Description of Book

About Her

Soulmates

[Posted on here on: July 2, 2024]

Chapter 1 Forest

Note: Don't hate me, but I'll like to state that I haven't watched Titans yet. I've seen clips, povs, and read some fanfics, but i haven't seen the show yet. I've seen in total like 1 or 3 episodes…. A year or two ago.

It's on the list of shows to watch, just not yet to be watched.

This is, of course, following the characters from the show, but I'm going off on something totally new. So, I won't be following the show anyway. Just wanted to state that right away that I haven't seen the show yet. So I can't fully take requests for the show… yet. I bet when I watch it fully, I'll be writing for it 🫣.

First posted on here: [July 1st, 2024]

(Might have to edit again, and might change name of book later on)

Chapter 1 Forest

Third person pov.

Forest, a nineteen year old teenage woman, peaks over her shoulders every few seconds as she does her trick of getting a car that she doesn't own to start working without its keys; doing so very quietly.

It didn't take Forest that long to get it started up and had the car moving fast down the road, leaving the motel behind so she could start another long day of trying to find her family.

Gotham was still dark out at this time of early morning.

Forest knew where she had to go. Working late last night, she found a possibility of where Dean and Sam Winchester could be.

Before she could go and check the place out, she knocked out and slept at least an hour before she was rudely awakened by the next motel room beside her being….. eighteen plus shit.

Her leaving so fast this morning wasn't just because of the maybe find of her siblings; it was also not being able to handle the whole,

‘PLEASE MORE’ ‘DADDY YES!’ screams of the next room.

So she left fast.

Today is October thirty-first. Halloween.

It's Halloween! Well, five in the morning on Halloween day. Still Halloween, though.

Half the population celebrates this ‘holiday’ and is looking forward to it when they wake up. Though, there are people who don't enjoy it or even celebrate it, maybe for religious purposes, or just don't celebrate it or, in general, hate the holiday.

For Forest and her brothers… they don't totally hundred percent hate the pagan holiday, but they do hate ninety-seven percent of it.

Maybe if it wasn't for the monsters, creatures and so on that people dress up for fun; were actually fake, then maybe it would be good fun for them too, but that's not their reality.

Almost every monster, creature and so on are real; and most of the time are causing more problems on Halloween day and night because they are able to do more than they can on October thirtieth or November first.

In general, Halloween is just ‘worse than normal’ for hunters.

So when the clock hit twelve o'clock, marking it as October thirty-first, she kind of dreaded it. She knew how this day and night might go.

Especially when she's in Gotham city trying to find her brothers because they once again went missing and probably needed saving.

Gotham City was one of the most active cities out there when it came down to the creatures, monsters, and so on. Now add Halloween to the mix; it was ‘worse’.

Today she had a time limit, before it hit dark out again, she needed to find her siblings.

She wasted too much time sleeping and trying to find any hints on where they could be.

Though, this wouldn't be happening if Dean and Sam weren't…. Stupid.

Dean and Sam Winchester were getting Forest really pissed off recently. For the past few months they keep on going on hunts without her; she's fine with that, never really cared about it now, but every time they do, she's having to track them down and save their ass's from getting killed or at least hurt really badly.

If they just brought her along, maybe, just maybe, things would go differently, and they wouldn't be wasting time on really anything.

She could be home watching a show on her long list of shows she wants to watch, or doing her own hunts; but they keep not bringing her or at least telling her where they are off too or what they are even hunting, causing a long ass search for them. A lot of the time, though, the hunts the fifth hunt, causing her to either pass them or have to go farther off to find them.

She's been to three different towns and cities before finding herself in Gotham city with a hopefully better lead than before.

It's been a month and three days so far, and it's just getting more annoying and frustrating. More than just one reason why.

One, she wants her brothers to be safe and so far she doesn't know if they are, two, to her she should have already found them and got this all dealt with already and it's not, three, as selfish as it sounds, she hasn't watched anything for this month and three days and all she kind of wants is to watch something or at least get more then three hours of sleep, but she can't because her brothers comes before shows and at times sleep.

So here she is, semi speeding down the back roads of Gotham city in a car she doesn't own going to where she thinks and hopes she needs to be going to. Hoping that it won't take long to get there too.

The sun is finally slowly peeking out now, casting the cold October air with some warmth.

Forest bounced her head and fingers to the music she's blasting. She loves when she has control of the music, she hardly has it when she's with her brothers because the driver gets to pick the music and the others keep their cake holes shut, so having the music choice all for herself she's taking every chances to blast what she wants to listen to… but she misses it though. She misses her brothers a lot. She wouldn't say it to their faces, but she does.

She kind of wants to be bickering in the backseat about why she can't play something she wants to play.

‘Ring!!!!’

“FUCK!”

The car came to a stop with a loud screeching noise. Her back hits the seat, and she groans, and she stops the music and picks up the call.

“Hello?”

---

Across Gotham city Dick Grayson is slowly getting ready for work.

Five pm was the time he had to clock into work. The last few things he was able to do before five were to do a quick workout before showering, eating, and then finally leaving for work.

He was dreading this work day. He knew what he was being put to work today, and he didn't want to do that job. He would rather be on a lead than scan the abandoned buildings around Gotham city.

It was so fucking boring to him. He didn't understand why he was put on this job when there are semi newbies that could be doing it.

He had no say, though. He had to do this or else he would be put to desk work and as much as driving around and checking if there is any activity in a place that's not supposed to be active is boring, it's not as boring as desk work.

So he just did what he wanted to do and then got ready for his work day.

Before he left, he got a quick kiss from Starfire.

“love you, baby!”

“Love you too!”.

Off goes Dick Grayson to his normal day (also at times night) job; the one without the masks and the badass ass kicking.

He was hoping this Halloween night would be a calm one.

Yeah, not going to be happening. This is Gotham City, after all.

And Halloween.

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I hope you like it.

I’m sorry for any short chapters.

I'm also sorry for any bad grammar or spelling errors.

I would very much like to say thank you for taking the time to read my chapters, I really appreciate it.

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There's warnings ⚠️ for a reasons. If you skip them, that's fine, but not my fault if you're taken back by what I write for.

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[crepus]

"that last bit was my opinion" na fam ur whole essay was an opinion where you ignore all the character development bits because you hate bakugou's guts

1st of all we don't "see" bakugou consistently abuse Deku, we have two scenes, one were they were toddlers and another one the scene where bakugou tells midoriya to jump off, all the rest of the flashbacks we have of them as kids show them to be normal around each other, with midoriya following bakugou around.

I would agree that bakugou isn't very heroic in the first episodes, good thing the manga had like 500 chapters where this dumbass 14 year old got character development

Izuku never con ciders suicide what are you talking about, the most he says is 'kacchan u are so stupid if I did what u told me U would be in jail' that's not concideration that's calling bakugou a dumbass

Izuku was reprimanded bc he is a 14 year old quirkless boy running towards a villian, take his main character plot armor away and it would be a very sensible thing to say. Bakugou is also NOT praised for being brave, the heroes praise his quirk, because this scene is also a showcase of hero society at the time where spectators are not supposed to intervene when someone is struggling (because bakugou was about to die there) and they please more value on the power of someone's quirk rather than on the individual.

"in UA we see no changes in his behavior" proceeds to say a way in which his behavior did change, yes he tones down his bravado (well, first he turns it up so he can still feel like to biggest fish in the bowl but he realizes sort of quickly that won't work so he turns it down)

when is he using his quirk illegally on UA tho? and don't tell me in the slapstick sections because, need I remind you this is a SHONEN series you need to met the story where it's at to analyze it, and slapstick is normal on shonens

same argument for the heroes versus villians, it's a Shonen, there's going to be fights, bakugou wasn't trying to kill Izuku, try to hurt him? sure, but that scene is meant to show us how inmature bakugou is, because he loses, which to you might not be a big deal but it was for bakugou, he cried and everything, this is actually the first of many scenes bakugou has where his worldview is being reconstructed. he is told to be more mature because that's the purpose of the scene, "Izuku survives just barely" doesn't he jump out of there?? and Izuku is told to not break his bones because in case you forgot that's the purpose of the class exercise, it would be useless if Izuku broke all his bones fighting a villain

wow it's so interesting that you spend half ur paragraphs on and on about stuff from the first season, I wonder if it's because bakugou changes as a character later on, hmm mm.

again, are you talking about the slapstick or what? in what other context outside of school is bakugou using his quirk now??

nothing to comment on the training camp because yes he was being a very entertaining ass there.

He didn't force Izuku to fight, Izuku literally says 'okay let's throw hands' and again SHONEN SERIES it's a staple to have fight to resolve emotional conflict, which is what this fight is about, resolving the miscommunication between Izuku and bakugou

so Izuku gets less time than bakugou and it's still a problem? maybe 3 days is standard for missing curfew, you don't know, also I'm pretty sure they destroyed some property there

next is you thinking a parallel wasn't sincere, which is ur opinion, then a massive paragraph with ur opinion on why the apology wasn't sincere, that treats class A like a bunch of idiots that can't pick up on past bullying if it sint spelled out for them, ignoring that in the Japanese bakugou does literally use the most heavy word for bullying (one Izuku never used) and then ur opinion on his death.

which by the way, he came back because it was a symbolic death where the last of his old self died and only his new self came back, that's why he came back, and Bacause Izuku would have gone berserk mode if bakugou was truly dead

But also you proved the point I made in February that y'all anti bakugous just use the same bits over and over and over Bacause bakugou has behave like a dumbass for a long time in the manga

okay anti bakugou's I love y'all you always make me laugh but can ya get some better arguments??

the latest is like 'wow is so shitty that bakugou took credit for killing afo' and the response is literally no he didn't, were y'all blinking really hard when he said 'I couldn't do it alone'

I'm sorry one of the main characters killed one of the main antagonists but honestly what were you expecting?

it's honestly getting kinda tiresome rebutting yalls arguments in my head