#but my manager will make some kinda snide comment about me not managing my team better

[prospitfox]

.

[adorerdraco]

It’s Only Quidditch ✧ Draco x Slytherin!Reader

Request: can i please request you and draco being in slytherin and dating for a while and you two are on the quidditch team with him so maybe you two are in a match together but you get hurt and he gets worried and has to win the game and visits you after and maybe even wrecks the person who hurt you hehe just fluff and angst

AU AROUND 6TH YEAR NO VOLDY

Warnings: angry!draco, vengeful!draco, VIOLENCE, kinda graphic details like blood and injuries, lil bit of angst

Words: 3.9K (love making these long for no reason)

A/N: ANGRY DRACO IS SO HOT IM SORRY WOW BUT I HOPE THIS IS GOOOOD PLEASE ENJOY MY MADE UP CHARACTER AND MY SUPER LONG QUIDDITCH GAME THAT CONFUSED ME AFTER A WHILE OF TRYING TO WRITE LMAO and i made gif :)

November had begun and with it came the new season of quidditch at Hogwarts along with very poor weather and over-bundling nerves. Tensions had always gotten high around this time of the year amongst the teams and all animosity between the house’s respective players was on the forefront as the competition was building. It was like clockwork every year; captain’s starting strenuous training schedules, begging Snape to help book the stadium even if it was already occupied, spying on other teams to figure out their strengths and weaknesses. Not to mention the arguments that would happen regularly in between the first couple of games when you and your teammates would be accused of cheating or using dangerous and illegal moves. Which did happen to be true most of the time.

It was safe to say that it was the most eventful time of the year, and as suffocating as it sometimes got - you looked forward to it every time the new term started. It was in quidditch that you found yourself feeling the freest in, zipping around the stadium in a flash of green with the wind blowing through your hair and crisp autumn air biting at your cheeks. But most notably, it was in quidditch that you met Draco Malfoy and had quickly evolved from teammates to friends, to him now being your boyfriend.

You made Slytherin’s team your second year as a Chaser, a shiny new broom being given to you on the first day of scheduled training when Lucius Malfoy had made a generous donation that came along with a new platinum blond seeker. With the two of you being the latest additions to the teams, your captain, Marcus Flint, had decided to leave the dirty work for the two of you to do in the downtime every one else was able to enjoy. Marcus never changed that as the years went on.

So you and Draco would be sent off to other teams’ practices nearly every other day or week, depending on how secure Flint was feeling, both of you huddling closely together for sometimes hours behind the thick wooden benches as you watched and studied tactics with conversations in between. You would joke around a lot and call him your partner in crime which he would always roll his eyes to and make a snide and playful comment about even if he secretly loved hearing it. And the two of you stayed partners in crime for a while, neither of you ever making any move towards the other besides lingering touches and longing looks, and very rarely, a shy compliment.

It wasn’t until last year when you were hiding behind the bleachers, bored out of your mind watching Ravenclaw have a flawless run through around the stadium when you were graced with the dumbest idea.

“They’re playing good today,” you drawled out, “too good that it’s boring.”

“You reckon they studied so hard and found the key to quidditch?” He snickered as he played around with a pebble on the ground with his wand.

“We should help them out,” you suggested as Draco turned to raise a puzzled eyebrow at you. “Prepare them for the unexpected, nothing too crazy.”

You took out your wand from your pocket and pointed it towards one of their Beaters that was sitting idly by on their broom, a faint “confundus” leaving your lips that caused the broom to jerk swiftly to the side and nearly topple over its rider.

“You’re a genius,” Draco laughed quietly, repositioning himself so that he was right beside you with his wand directed out into the field. He spotted one of the bludgers flying towards the same Beater and instead of colliding with the bat, he used a charm to direct it into the back of their broom and then doubled it back around to try and hit one of the passing by Chaser’s that moved at the very last minute. 

You were a giggling mess, gripping tightly onto Draco’s arm as you watched everyone begin to look around wildly for the wild bludger with panicked expressions. What either of you didn’t realize in the middle of your joyed hysterics and Draco’s smugness for causing the angelic sounds, was that the bludger was flying idly still in front of the bleacher’s as his wand was still trained on it without moving it around anymore, his focus completely gone and concentrated on you.

It wasn’t until you heard someone yell out a, “Is that Malfoy and Y/L/N back there again?!” That made you get up with a sudden jolt, grabbing onto your accomplice’s hand as you ran towards the set of stairs that descended out of the stands. All you heard was distant angry insults and threats quickly fading out of ear-shot while you ran, laughing uncontrollably alongside Draco with his hand still tightly gripped in yours. 

When you finally reached the entrance of the empty courtyard of the castle with flustered cheeks and wheezing chuckles, you looked down at your joined hands at the same time he did and after a few seconds of realization and lingering adrenaline, you quickly moved into each other with a yearning kiss that changed everything from that day forward.

Draco stood beside you while you sat on a bench outside the locker room, your head resting lazily on the side of his leg while his fingers carded soothingly through your hair. Marcus was pacing in front of you, using his broom as a walking and pointing stick whenever he wanted to add any calculated words to his very hostile pep-talks that left everyone feeling more irritated and stressed.

Today was the last game of the season and the most important, it was the game that ended the season with a shimmering Inter-House Quidditch Cup and it just so happened to be against Gryffindor, making the stakes much higher than they already were. The matches against Gryffindor were by far, the most dangerous as they weren't afraid to play roughly either if push came to shove. The determination to beat each other and to win was critical on both sides and the day always ended with some sort of injuries.

“I don’t care how dirty we have to play today,” Flint fumed to the team, “I don’t care how many fouls we get, as long as we win.”

“Relax, Flint,” you sighed deeply. “We have the best players on our team and we’ve been working our arses off all season, we’ll be fine.”

“Still, I want to see blood out there,” he muttered back, walking towards the entrance of the field as Madam Hooch started calling your team out to start.

You stood up with a huff, Draco frowning when he noticed how tense you looked when your eyes worriedly met his.

“All right, love?”

“I'm just nervous,” you shrug, “I don’t want to mess up.”

The silver-haired boy moved to stand in front of you, placing two strong hands on either side of your arms to stand you in place so that he would be the only thing your wandering eyes were able to focus on.

“You are the best Chaser that Slytherin has ever had, no, that Hogwarts has ever had and I know for a fact you’re going to do amazing out there,” he cups your face with care, brushing a few stray hairs out of your face as he spoke. “You’ve got this.”

He pressed an encouraging kiss onto your forehead and then your lips, smiling at you supportively before taking your hand and hurriedly walking the two of you out into the field where the match was about to start.

Almost the whole school had shown up in an overcrowded sea of red and gold for Gryffindor. There were red sparks and small fireworks of lions that were charmed to roar when the animal would open its mouth. On one end of the stands, however, was the entire student body of Slytherin that was throwing green and silver ribbons and sparklers from their wands, yelling loudly in support as if their life depended on it. Over the rails, they had thrown down a large poster of a snake that moved around sleekly over large green words that read, “SLYTHERIN FOR THE WIN.”

Rain was lightly drizzling from the grayed dense clouds above, a sharp chill in the air from an approaching winter that always seemed to give the worst weather during the last couple of games of the year. You didn’t mind it since the cold had always felt nice against your sweaty skin during the game and it served like a small revitalizing shock that gave you a surge of energy to push forward with. 

Madam Hooch quickly went over the rules, set free the bludgers, and the snitch, forced the two captains, Wood and Flint, to shake hands and by the time she had counted down from three to one - brooms were soared into the sky with such speed it looked like a tornado had formed as she threw the quaffle up into the air.

A roar of cheers erupted from beside you as you got ahold of the quaffle, dashing past your House while you headed straight towards the Gryffindor’s goal post and managed to make the first shot in within the first five minutes of the game putting you at 10-0. You spotted Draco flying around above, smiling down brightly at you with triumph that only fueled your confidence as you darted forward to catch the ball again. You were, just as Draco had said, the best Chaser on the team and in all of the school. You were fast, agile, and smart when it came down to it and you were the reason why your team had easily wracked up 40 points with thirty minutes down in the match. Marcus was always trailing behind you with focus, shoving anyone who tried to get to you or pulling them back by their robes that landed Slytherin a couple of fouls throughout. 

You didn’t like to play dirty, but when Katie Bell had rammed into your side either accidentally or on purpose, it knocked the quaffle out of your hands and into one of their other Chaser’s, Rowan Rees, a muscular and tall seventh-year boy that had made the team that same year. With Katie still closely trying to cut you off, you veered sharply into her with your shoulder before breaking away from her and heading towards your goal post where they were trying to shoot. 

“ILLEGAL PUSHING FROM Y/L/N, FOUL AGAINST SLYTHERIN!” 

You rolled your eyes at the announcer, completely ignoring the boo’s that had filled the air as you whizzed past the other houses even though it was you who got hit first. Just as Rees had raised his arm to score, you flew over him, swooping your arm underneath your broom until you felt the quaffle back in your palm and ripped it from his grasp. The match was becoming more intense by the second, Gryffindor was promptly catching up in points because of the penalties they were awarded from the illegal moves your team was making and it left you feeling more pressured that it was nearly a tie now, Flint reminded you of that every chance he zoomed past you.

Unbeknownst to you, Draco was watching you cautiously from across the field most of the game when he noticed how close everyone was trying to get to you. You didn’t see the way you were almost tugged back multiple times or were missed by inches when someone was about to push you. Or how the Beaters were deliberately directing the bludgers in your direction. You also didn’t see how irked you had made Rees with your constant scoring and with the sporadic few times you had cut him off or almost bumped into him - but your boyfriend did, and he was much more focused on your safety now than the Golden Snitch he or Potter hasn’t spotted yet. Instead of searching for it, he was purposefully maneuvering himself around in front of the other Chasers to throw them off their focal point towards you so that you would have a clearer path to fly through.

He watched as you pulled your broom upwards to try and twist away from the area but Rees had reached out and pulled at your ankle, sending you out of your seat as the quaffle fell while you tried to rebalance yourself. That was all the encouragement the blond needed when he hurtled down into the mess, kicking at the back of Rees’ broom and sending him quickly spinning on a dive before he could try and move any further. 

“FOUL AGAINST REES AND MALFOY FOR KICKING AND TUGGING!”

“MALFOY!” Flint roared as he flew past, “Potter’s spotted the snitch! This isn’t your place, get out of here, NOW!”

And when he looked up, sure enough, Harry was going around desperately with an arm outstretched towards the small glint of gold that was moving too fast. 

“Go, I’m fine!” You shouted out to him when you flew back up with the ball back in your arms.

It was like slow motion when he forced himself to leave your surroundings, everything around him was moving fast and intensely with everyone screaming wildly that he couldn’t think straight. In a daze, he haphazardly sped towards Harry but noticed the panicked look on the seeker’s face when he had lost sight of it again which directed his attention right back to you. You were right in front of the Gryffindor goal post, arm stretched over your head and releasing the quaffle with a harsh throw.

“Y/L/N MAKES THE GOAL, TEAMS ARE AT A TIE-”

It wasn’t until the very last minute that everyone, including you, had realized the flash of red that came hurtling into your side at full speed, Rees colliding so loudly with you that it echoed around the stadium in a powerful clang and crack.

Draco watched in horror as you were thrown off your broom, your now unconscious body falling like a rag doll with a speed that sent his stress levels into overdrive. He had never pushed down on his broom so fast, immediately abandoning his spot to bolt towards you even as Marcus was screaming at him to not go. 

A few feet above the ground and before you met it, he managed to loop his arm around your waist and heave you onto the front of his broom with a slight struggle as it was now raining hard and clouding his vision. He saw Madam Pomfrey and Mcgonagall rushing into the field, hands holding tightly onto their hats as they worriedly rushed towards the area where your broom had fallen and where Draco was hovering over with you. 

“TEAMS ARE TAKING A 10 MINUTE TIME OUT!”

Marcus had flown down towards him, face twisted in fury and annoyance as he approached. 

“Is there a reason you’re not being a seeker, today?” He spits, “because I’ve been seeing you do everything but your job.”

“My bloody girlfriend just got knocked out!” Draco seethed at him. “I’m not going back into the game, I’m going with her to the hospital wing.”

“Like hell you are,” Flint scowled, “if you leave, you'll forfeit us the game. If you stay and let Potter catch that Snitch so it’ll be over quicker, I will personally make sure that this is your last year on the team. You’re going to win this for us.”

“Mr. Malfoy!” McGonagall called up to him, waving her arms hastily. “She needs to go to the infirmary, immediately!”

The two Slytherins were staring each other down aggressively as Draco contemplated the threat he was just given. There was nothing more he wanted to do than to throw a hex at Flint and leave with you, but he just swallowed thickly and nodded at him before descending towards the ground and letting you off carefully into the hands of Madam Pomfrey. A surge of fear ran through his body when he finally saw you clearly; a harsh red mark was making its way up to your neck, the corner of your bottom lip had split and doubled in size, there was a small scratch on your cheekbone. It made him feel queasy, but he tore his eyes away from you and hopped back onto his broom while glaring angrily at Marcus and the distant group of huddled Gryffindor’s. 

He was blinded in rage when the match resumed and even more enraged when Flint had cheered loudly when the announcer granted Slytherin a penalty for the injury Rees gave you, allowing them basically to get a free score in against Gryffindor. Draco let his eyes wander around for the snitch for the first time that day and he could hear his heart thundering in his eardrums in distress as the rain continued to make his search worse. All he wanted was to get out of the game to check up on you, and then he'd come back to the stadium to throw his fists into Rees’ face with maybe a few hits in on Marcus.

Just as he was losing hope, he saw a flash of gold whiz past him with a loud buzzing that shocked him into alertness. He didn’t care that catching the snitch would win the game, or the cup, or give him all the glory, no - this was his ticket out. He dived towards it with his arm outstretched, hand thrashing around in the wind as he tried to eagerly catch it. In seconds, Harry was right beside him, bumping him with his shoulder to try and throw him off the path but Draco only pushed back harder. There was a flurry of shouting as everyone watched, the announcer was yelling into the mic about the seekers going head-to-head, bludgers were flying past him. 

It was pure chaos and urgency, Draco could feel the fluttering of its wings beneath his palm and when Harry pushed into him one more time, he felt the coldness of the Snitch get trapped into his enclosed hand, the vibration of its wings sending a current of relief up his arm that spread throughout his whole body as he soared up into the sky while brandishing it to the schools’ painfully watchful eyes.

“MALFOY HAS CAUGHT THE SNITCH, WINNING SLYTHERIN THIS YEAR’S INTER-HOUSE QUIDDITCH CUP!”

Draco hurriedly made his way down to the field where the rest of his house was pooling into, celebrating proudly and calling out for him to praise, but when he landed on the ground and was met with half of the Gryffindor team including Rowan Rees - all his wrath came flooding back into him. 

Angelina, another Gryffindor Chaser, had nudged Rowan with her shoulder, pointing towards the Slytherin Prince that was stalking towards them.

“Malfoy,” Rees started bitterly, “sorry about the girlfriend, I was only trying to knock the quaffle out her hands.”

“After she had already thrown it?” He glowered, walking closer up to the boy that was beginning to straighten himself out and flex. “Looked a little personal seeing how she was dragging you through the dust the whole game.”

“Accidents happen, mate,” Rees shrugged, “it’s only quidditch, you won didn’t you? Maybe you should be thanking me for giving you that extra push to win the game.”

A clear line had been crossed and everyone who was listening knew it. But before Rowan could say anything to try and drag himself out of the hole he had just dug himself into, he was being tackled into the ground with Draco above him throwing punches wherever he could land them. There was loud hooting and laughing coming from the Slytherins that gathered around the fight, cheering loudly for their House superior.

Rees was thrashing around on the ground, trying frantically to throw off the extremely infuriated boy that was repeatedly pounding into his face with bloodied and bruised fists. Oliver Wood ran up to the sudden brawl, Fred and George following closely behind him as they all started trying to rip the fighting boy’s apart from each other. Oliver had gotten Draco off briefly, allowing Rees to try and get a hit in but it was dodged at the last second as the blond quickly leaped up to his feet. The fight immediately ended when a muddy shoe had collided with Rowan’s jaw and Draco stepped back satisfied with the damage he had done, roughly shrugging off the grip Oliver still had on his arm.

“It’s only quidditch, right?” He spat venomously from above the Gryffindor who was holding his now battered face in pain. “That’ll teach you from putting your hands on a woman too.”

“Mr. Malfoy!” Madam Hooch bellowed as she broke through the crowd in a frenzy. “50 points from Slytherin, go wait outside Professor Snape’s office for further punishment, go right now!”

Draco did go, and instantly, but he didn’t go down to the dungeons to hear about the lengthy detention that he knew he was going to get and the scolding for being reckless and stupid. His feet carried his sore body up the many stairs that led to the hospital wing, his pace picking up swiftly when he saw the large double doors of the infirmary ajar and he was able to hear a faint and familiar voice speaking indistinctly. 

He threw open the doors, walking straight in as if he owned the place and ignored Pomfrey’s requests for him to leave as he made a beeline towards your hunched figure that was facing away from him. 

“I need to see her,” he said to the nurse quickly when she stopped in front of him. “I’ll leave soon, please.”

At the sound of his voice, you hastily turned around in your spot to face him, a yelp escaping your lips for moving too quickly through your injuries. Pomfrey stepped out of the way with a sigh allowing Draco to jog over to you.

“I’m going to kill him,” he scowled when he reached you. You were wearing a sling, a deep purple and yellowed bruise quickly set itself over the side of your arm and the same cuts he saw from earlier were still scattered over your features. His fingers ghosted over your skin and he let out a deep shaky exhale of anxiousness before moving his thumb up to graze your cheek tenderly.

“What happened to you?” You asked quietly in shock when you noticed his mud-splattered clothes and tattered fists. 

“Long story,” he drawled. “Don’t worry about me, are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” you muttered with a slight shrug that made you whimper lightly. “Did we win?”

He nodded quietly, his eyes still scanning sadly over your face with a frown. “I swear, I’m going to kill him.”

“Only if I can help,” you sniggered faintly, trying to make light of the situation and succeeding in doing so when you saw he had cracked a small smile. With his hand still on your cheek, he bent down to press a firm kiss on the top of your hair and then warmly on the side of your mouth that wasn’t bleeding.

“I’ll just let you finish him off then,” he mulled amusingly when he pulled away.

“Finish him off?”

The doors of the hospital wing were thrown open again, a sea of red flowing inside as they carried in a pummeled Rowan with a busted lip, bloodied nose, black eye, and deeply bruised jaw. You looked briskly between Rees and Draco, both of them staring daggers at each other and it rapidly clicked in your mind why your boyfriend had looked like he just walked through a battlefield in your absence.

“Oh.”

[izukult]

haiykuu boys react to a long distance partner surprising them

characters: hinata, kageyama, oikawa, sugawara, nishinoya, tsukishima

established relationship | warnings: swearing, my fan behavior, why are my head canons so long in this gd it’s like a tiny story without structure

hinata shōyō

-SUNSHINE BOY (i went crazy for this one i’m so sorry)

-you were sugawara’s old middle school penpal which turned online friend

-so obviously you’d heard about his volleyball team and the new first year star players

-and one thing led to another where he introduced you to hinata

-actually you were facetiming suga and you saw hinata and told your old friend you thought the tangerine boy was cute and then koushi “accidentally” put you in a gc together

-you and hinata have been dating for about four months

-you’ve heard everything to a t, including small little remarks from tsukishima to every toss, kill, and miss your boyfriend and kageyama managed

-side note but it’s so cute this boy is so whipped for you if you don’t respond for a certain amount of time he’ll find some dumb excuse to talk to suga just so he can shift the convo to making sure you’re safe

-anyway

-so you’re going to meet suga finally

-like FINALLY you’re so excited

-but you’re also boutta see your boyfriend!!!!!!

-buuuuuuuuuut your boyfriend didn’t know

-so it’s safe to say you were a little nervous about it

-you made suga swear up and down that he wouldn’t tell any of his teammates that you specifically were coming, but he did ask to make sure it was okay to have a semi open practice

-so you’re standing outside the volleyball gym with sugawara, backpack with hinatas favorite snacks over your shoulder. practice had already started so suga was late, but he still stood outside with you and let you prepare yourself

-you felt like you were about to throw up even though that’s shoyo’s thing

-suga walks in before you and you follow shortly after, holding in a sharp breath.

-there he was. standing on the other side of the gym, talking to who you knew as kageyama

-he hadn’t seen you yet, but other member of karasuno had

-”yoo who’s this hottie” bald, flirtatious, you had to assume its tanaka

-hinata was in the middle of jumping for a spike when he saw you, and he froze and fell to the ground, stumbling to keep his balance

-the gym got quiet at the tangerines reaction, but he was just staring at you.

-and then he was doing that “woosh” run he always told you about and before you knew it his arms were around your waist and his head was buried in your shoulder.

-everyone (literally EVERYONE) was looking at you two but you just laughed and placed a hand in his hair (which, holy fuck, is soft)

-you mouthed an apology to suga and he shrugged you off, and focused your attention back on the boy in front of you

he pulled back just enough to look at you, leaving his hands to rest on your back. his eyes were filled with tears (cute) and he offered you a smile.

“you’re here” his voice was quiet, for once, but it didn’t have any lag this time. and it was so fucking beautiful.

“i’m here.” you nodded, eyes scanning the features of his face. he chuckled lightly, a tear falling to his cheek as he shook his head.

“you’re so pretty.” his voice was watery and he moved his head back in your shoulder before you could utter a compliment back.

-he stayed attached to you for like minutes okay and this man completely ignored the teasing of his classmates.

-eventually you tried to pull him off you so he could get on with practice (and so you could watch him practice) but he refused to get off

-”bubs. babe. honey. you gotta get up”

-”hey hey hey, what about showing me a cool spike?”

-”i am literally asking you to do your favorite thing in the world sho,”

-”new favorite thing is holding you.”

-YOUR HEART

-eventually you did get him off of you and he practiced the HARDEST he had

-after practice he introduced you to everyone as his girlfriend even though you’d literally been introduced to them like an hour before

-his eyes stay on you and he constantly tells you how pretty you are face to face and how you smell good and how soft your hands are

-it would sound stalkerish if you werent whipped

-its ok hes whipped too

kageyama tobio

-no idea how youd meet this mf online

-maybe some volleyball forum or like arguing over which setter was betting in youtube comments

-or if you know nothing about volleyball,,,,

-i have no fucking clue BUT

-he doesnt mind long distance honestly

-he doesnt have to get worried about completely embarrassing himself and he never has to make like physical moves

-but he does wish he could hold your hand sometimes.

-but he ignores it🙄

-so you are like obsessed w this bitch u r in love w him🤢🤢

-and ur a good 90% sure he luv u too

-so you plan a trip to him

-you do it all out. you talk to his mom, you find the cheapest hotel that’s perfect distance between his house and his school bc ur just that cool

-and you even make up an excuse to kageyama for why you won’t be on your phone during the flight

-you know he’s gonna be at practice bc you know his schedule cos gf things

-you stocked up on banana milk (aka you brought like four)

-you hit him up yknow yknow

- “hey bubs i’m back<3 how’s practice going?” you’re literally standing outside the gym but you want to make sure you’re not coming in at a bad time

-after like three minutes he texted u “good:). just got done with a practice set.”

-so now you’re going and you’re excited and you’re Nervous

-you open the door and you’re met with a rly tall guy with a headband on

-“hi, can i help you?”

-“uh, is kageyama here?” and he turns his head, and you follow his eyes, and there he is

-and he’s already staring at you

-a ball is lightly held in his hands

-if anyone who didn’t know him saw him they would genuinely think he’s angry

-but it was kinda the same look he’d give you when you talked about things you cared about on facetime

-so maybe that’s love? 😳😳😳

you give him a little wave

-“sup kags”

-he’s just staring

-blankly staring

-which you should’ve expected

-“sorry, are you mad? i should’ve told you i was coming, that’s my bad i just thought i could surprise you and it would be really nice and then you wouldn’t be stressed out sorry-“

-literally why are you saying all this all of his teammates just like “wtf”

-he shook his head quickly and opened his mouth to say no but just continued to stare

-“i- uh- you want to watch me set?”

-you LAUGH. and i mean LAUGH girly and he just turns all kinds of red and you know his team is gonna be on him for that

-“yea! if that’s like, allowed?” daichi doesn’t care so you are literally balling

-you watch him play and like at first he’s REALLY awful like rly bad but then he kind of tunes everything out (i.e. you) and gets back in his groove

-afterwards he comes over to you and asks you what you think and he’s looking at you like this is normal but you can tell he’s shaking and he kisses your forehead REALLY REALLY FAST and mumbles a quiet “i’m glad you’re here”

-he opens up w affection more along the trip

-he appreciates the banana milk. sm.

-from then on out he constantly brags ab having a gf to the team

oikawa tooru

-he suspects smth is up to be honest

-he’s like “ohhh shawty gon do sum😫”

-(he doesn’t fucking call you shawty)

-but to be fair he figured more like you were gonna send him smth rather than send yourself

-surprise again he’s AT PRACTICE who would’ve guessed

-but this time you come at the end of practice because seijoh has like set schedules and oikawa tells you everything so

-you’re just standing by the door waiting for him to come out, ignoring the literal group of girls forming at the end of the hall knowing dAmn well they are your bf’s fangirls

-oh well

-you hear his voice before you actually see him

-he’s giving someone tips on their serves and you hear someone make a snide remark at him and you only assume its iwa

-he’s in the middle of a sentence and he just stops.

-there’s a good couple of seconds where he completely loses composure

-which is not tooru like

-you took a step closer and smiled

-”is this the oikawa tooru fanclub?”

-”nah it’s actually the oilykawa hate club” it’s the same voice from earlier and it’s definitely iwa

-you laugh a little and keep looking at your boyfriend

-”that’s even better”

-he just walks up to you and gives you a real, genuine smile

-pushes a piece of hair behind your ear

-and KISSES u

-EPIC MOMENT GAMERS

-”what are you doing here, pretty? come to see me play? if so, i hate to break it to you, but you’re late”

-you just roll your eyes and kiss him again

-once you two are alone he literally cries

-LMAO

sugawara koushi

-literally the only one who can keep his cool out of all these mfs (aside from tsukishima)

-however, when you show up to his practice wearing the hoodie he sent you like two months earlier, he lost his shit

-you set it up with daichi and everything beforehand.

-(and daichi literally made sure suga would look like a setting genius the day you showed up)

-he had just made a really good set when you walked in and you clapped

-”nice one, koushi”

-he looks at you like 😦 & is just like “you- what- you’re- how- why?”

-lol and then he goes on “not why like i’m not happy you’re here just how”

-and all the third years think it’s so funny to be honest, because typically suga can keep his cool

-he eventually gains his cool and shines you one his signature amazing smiles (which, is somehow better face to face)

-omg he goes over to you and once he gets there he turns to his teammates and like

-”this is my s/o!!!”

-mf is BEAMING

-he’s so happy

-you find out right after he gives literally the best hugs ever i live by that and i will die by that

-he doesn’t kiss you til you two are alone

-and its so fucking sweet and personal he puts his forehead on yours and tells you you’re the most beautiful person hes ever seen

-he is literally so in love w you

-ew

-i love him.

nishinoya yü

-ok he’s so loud

-literally the second he gets a gf everyone knows

-he shows the team pictures of you literally anytime one of them will look

-he luvs u

-he is your BIGGEST fan no doubt

-you make a nice meal? he wants to post about it

-you have a nice outfit? he will put it on his story

-you breathe? expect an “omg baby im so proud of u”

-so when you show up, he reacts the way you expect him to

-so like obviously this man isnt checking his phone during practice

-but he puts his phone on dnd and has you as his only favorite contact

-so you can text him if its an emergency during practice

-you know that, he knows it, the team knows it

-he gets the little ping!

-and he’s out the game

-no one is recovering the ball #peaceout

-he jogs over to check because you never text his number during practice bc you respect his passion for volleyball

-the text just says “come outside:))”

-he’s like wtf?? but bitch gonna do what u say😐

-he sees you and he just yells “holy shit” so loud dude

-daichi goes to call him on his language but steps outside and sees the short libero hugging the person they’d all seen in the photos, he just goes quiet

-nishinoya will not shut up as he hugs you

-he’s literally just hyping you up and asking you literally every single detail about how you’re there, where you’re staying, when you’re leaving, how your flight was, everything

-you just kiss his forehead :)

-literally only good vibes

-you guys have such a good trip bruh

-after you leave he literally just cries while looking at pics of you two together

-^ he took so many pics and vids of you pls

tsukishima kei

-unlike the others, you wouldn’t meet him at practice

-you don’t really know his team, nor does he tell you about them outside of mostly complaining

-you do know tadashi, but like you’ve only talked to him in a gc all three of you are in and never like alone

-you did not tell him you were coming because you’re 100% convinced he would’ve accidentally told tsuki even though he can keep his own shit secret lol

-you just show up at his door when you know he’s home

-and he’s texting you as you’re there and he had actually had a moderately rough day so you told him you were gonna order him food from his favorite restaurant

-which, technically wasn’t a lie you just had to make an extra stop

-you knock on his door (once you’ve prepared yourself because you honestly have no idea how he’s going to react)

-and he opens it ready to give a half hearted thank you to some delivery guy

-but instead his s/o

-he just stares at you

-he looks like a fish

-after like fifteen seconds you decide to try to break the ice bc you are nervous

-”delivery here for uh one…” you pretend to look at the paper, you’re doin a whole skit here “one dumb bitch. are you dumb bitch?”

-he just rolls his eyes and shoves your head

-he walks back but he leaves the door open

-”take your shoes off”

-he’s not even looking at you smh but you smile so fucking wide bc that’s the kind of reaction you were honestly hoping for

-(what you don’t know is he will literally break his whole hard exterior act if he looks at you right now and he is not ready for that)

-you put the food on the table and move to stand next to him

-and after a bit he finally looks at you

-and you look at him

-and you smile

-and he does too,, kind of

-(which is so fucking cute,)

-and you just keep starin at him and bite your lip to keep from grinning

-and after a couple minutes you clear your throat

-”can i hug you?”

-bro he’s so fucking whipped he doesnt even answer he just wraps his arms around you and puts his head on top of yours

-and he mumbles a thank you and its so fucking SWEET

-he does open up more the longer you’re there and u have a very good trip mwah in luv

[cienie-isengardu]

Erron Black. Arguably a character I don't know much about. Is Erron Black feminist, sexist, or just soft on girls? Now I know MK everyone can fight everyone, but in story mode...

In MK10 Milenna impale his hand with a knife, but he doesn't fight her. I'll except injury for that one.

But then with Cassie Cage later, he fights her, only after she engages him, but once he knocks her down he stops fighting her to fight Kung Jin in the market.

Later on the bridge fight, we do see him fighting Jacqui Briggs, in the background, but she charged him, so she initiated it, and when they focus in he is fighting Kung Jun again.

In MK11, when young Erron Black goes after Jade and Kotal, he let's Jade leave without so much as a glance.

In the Black Dragon fight pit, even though she is right next to him, he ignores Sonya Blade until she actually attacked him. He doesn't even point the other gun at her, he points it up and looks away, until she punches him.

The only time it looks like he initiated a attack on a woman was when Sheeva got shot in her shoulder armor (and shrugged it off), but we immediately see him chasing down Nightwolf, so that looks like a accident. And they only fight after she punches him across the room.

And in the comic's when he kidnapped Cassie and Jacqui he defended them against Kano, telling him not to hurt them, and when he realized they were in serious danger, tried to free them and help escape.

Unless I'm missing something, well he doesn't avoid it, he doesn't fight initiate fights with women.

Before I will talk at length about Erron Black and his attitude toward women I wish only to emphasize this is my subjective opinion and there is no need to agree with me on this. Because no matter how much source material will be brought into discussion, there are many ways to interpret his mindset, especially since A) what Erron says is not always compatible with what he is doing and B) the specific game mechanics that limit and/or adapt his “personality” to the needs of the storyline.

Long text ahead!

Mortal Kombat X’s stated Erron Black was hired by Shang Tsung 150 years ago. So he was born and raised at least the previous century and half, thus his approach to women may be old-fashioned but I wouldn’t say he was somehow deeply concerned per se about gender to begin with. Yes, the mentioned examples suggest otherwise but their context is as important as Erron’s action alone. Because the context of the game will not always work well with in-universe logic. I’m talking here stricte about game mechanics that are built around chapter’s main hero that must win against the opponents and in the mentioned examples Erron was sadly just an obstacle to beat down so it is not like he could headshot Mileena, Sonya or Sheeva or any woman and be done with the problem despite how marksmanship is his forte. Also, the game mechanic in MKX kinda made me joke that Erron shouldn’t be left on his own for too long because his competence in those chapters seemed that bad (from Outworld’s main cast only D’Vorah looked to me as a competent character and she was a traitor, that says a lot about Kotal’s team doesn it?). Anyway, on the basis of the specific nature of the game alone I wouldn’t go so far to judge Erron’s mindset, especially since he was a background/supportive character in MKX and MK11 story modes. So far, Black didn’t have his own chapter - thus the story isn’t told from his POV.

To be honest, games and comics present Erron in different lights, thus his approach to women may vary from one source to another. Because of that let’s firstly look at the sources separately.

In MKX, on Kotal’s voiceless order, Black was going to kill Rain. Mileena attacked Erron by surprise before he could shoot down the rebel but it was Kotal’s chapter so the emperor was the one that dealt with her. Erron was part of the background during chapter 2 without any impact on the story.

Then we have chapter 4 about Kung Jin.

When Cage Team met Erron Black for the first time, the man demanded to know what is Special Forces’ business here including “a reason why we shouldn’t kill you”. Despite the not so friendly welcome, Erron was willing to address Takeda’s remark (“I can read you… You’re not from Outworld.”) and did not resort to violence once Cassie’s explanation did not satisfy him. Looking at the uncertain situation of Outworld, Erron’s lack of trust is understable - Kotal was still at war with Mileena thus in constant danger. Of course, it is up to interpretation, did Erron listen to Jin solely because the prospect of money spoke to him so much or there is some bias (thus the cynical remark about Raiden’s seal and dismissive attitude) against Cassie, the woman in charge. I personally tend to think Erron was simply cautious because the last Earthrealm that got close to Kotal tried to kill the emperor. And yeah, Kano is nothing like Cassie, Jacqui, Takeda or Jin but there was no way for Black to know that for sure, especially since Outworld and Earthrealm weren’t really at the best terms at that time and Raiden’s name did not foreshadow anything good.

The next sequences may be interpreted as Erron being soft on women but I’m gonna present here different possibilities:

Once Jin went ahead to disrupt the execution, Erron’s first reaction was to shoot him yet Black took aim instead of shooting blindly without care for the crowd (or at least the slow down of his action is how it looked to me). Because he was focused on Jin - the main culprit whose action caused unwanted riot, Cassie easily stopped the attack. Should Erron be more focused on the female soldier at his side? Most likely, but all of this happened in mere seconds so I can understand why stopping Jin acting on his own accord was priority to the mercenary since it was related to his job and he was the one that agreed to take Earthrealmians to Kotal. Which may be the reason why Black just knocked down Cassie and immediately ran after Jin. And mind you, Erron knocked down Cassie by hitting her on the head with the butt of the pistol, which is not a gentle way by no means.

The chapter 6 is focused on Takeda and partially on Cage Team’s run from captivity. The Earthrealmians were important hostages, even if falsely accused of working with D’Vorah. So it makes sense that “Outworld Champions” weren’t trying to kill them. Otherwise Kung Jin would be shot down for good yet Erron kept him just at gunpoint. Once again, the game mechanics don’t make much sense considering how Jin stayed behind as air support but somehow ended up on the bridge while Jacqui disappeared somewhere in the background. Also, the same as with Cassie in Chapter 4, Erron did not kill defeated opponents nor tortured / injured for fun (Rain is a different matter because Erron went for killing only after Kotal’s voiceless order to finish the traitor).

In Chapter 11, Erron is even more degraded into a support role and he did not attack nor take part of the skirmish in the forest until Jacqui beat down Kotal. Personally I suspect he could be (in universe) too injured for hand to hand combat but once Team Cage was surrounded and Kotal gave the order for execution, Erron was aiming at Jacqui and if Sub-Zero did not show up, Black most likely would shoot to kill.

(Also, he did not shoot any enemy from a distance, so the women and men were treated the same although if this is a matter of game mechanics or Erron’s own moral code, hard to tell. Black recognized himself more as Outworlder than anything else so he may actually follow the common there idea of one on one fight.)

So, MKX story mode alone does not tell us much about Erron’s mindset about women because he has never been the one starting fights in the first place. This kinda makes sense since he is a mercenary and kills or injures only those who Kotal wishes to see dead or punished. Besides that he didn’t injure / kill Cassie when he had a chance but he didn't do so with Jin either. MKX!Erron gives the impression of a collected, detached type of person who is far from macho stereotypes or psychopath/sociopath like Kano.

Thankfully there is additional information like dialogue intros and Erron’s ending (from what we learned about Erron's approximate age) that aren’t canon per se but at least give some insight into his psyche.

The best counter argument for eventual Black’s habit of going easy on women is his own ending in which he ambushed and killed Cassie, Jacqui, Takeda and Jin (this situation was repeated in Briggs’ ending except this time Cage Team was saved by Jax). This is a rare moment in which Erron was the attacker and on his own initiated the violence toward others. In this case, he attacked women and men alike.

Then we have intro dialogues in which Erron usually deals with people in a professional manner, some even sometimes addressing in a polite way. Like “Mr. Kung” to Lao, “Mr. Hasashi” to Scorpion and “Mr. Takahashi” to Takeda. Surprisingly, he addresses Cassie and Sonya by their military rank (Sergeant Cage and General Blade respectively) which suggests that whatever Erron learned a century or two ago about gender-related social norms most likely evolved accordingly to his own life experiences, especially those gained in Outworld.

At the same time, it seems some of outfashioned - harmful - convictions are still enough deeply rooted in him to say stuff like that:

Kenshi: The friendless wanderer.

Erron Black: Least I don't take orders from a woman.

Kenshi: Which century are you from?

Which is kinda ironic since Kenshi takes orders from Sonya whom Erron addresses by high military rank without any snide comment about a woman in the army. But as far as I managed to check the intros, this is the only(?) one outright sexist thing Erron said to anyone and surprisingly, he didn’t say that to any woman, just to Kenshi. Frankly, if the idea of taking orders from women was so offensive, why would Erron bother to call Mileena the Crownless Queen or Kitana the Fallen Princess, if both titles by itself imply facing women that are used to give commands or even hire people like him? Once again, there is little to no sexist attitude toward women in context of their power over other men. Which suggests that whatever prejudices Black may have, he does not allow them to affect his interaction with other characters. Usually, at least.

Okay, the insult toward Kenshi could be some of Erron’s deep-seated sexist beliefs adding to the reason why he didn’t support Mileena in the fight for the throne. Yet, at the same time, if that was the case, he could outright say he doesn’t agree to be bossed by a woman to her (or he could be accused of that by her or any character really). Of course, it could be something similar to Black’s claim to care only about money with MK11 strongly hints he is saying one thing and doing differently but I will come back to this topic in a moment.

Another argument against this insult: Erron was one of the characters that did not mock Mileena’s look, origin or called her crazy. If he really thought listening to women's orders was so bad, then he didn’t show that when interacting with her or other female characters.

At the same time, like many other male characters, Black is not immune to the beauty of women around him and some of his comments sounds disrespectful and are unwelcome by the ladies:

Sonya: The gunslinger.

Erron Black: I could take you away from all this.

Sonya: I must be a jerk-magnet.

→ Sonya is not amused by Erron’s words at all.

Erron Black: Hello, beautiful.

Jacqui: Messin' with the wrong girl.

Erron Black: But it feels so right.

Jacqui is like the only one woman described by MKX!Erron as the beautiful one, the other he usually referred to along the lines of hot / sexy. Yet once Jacqui outright warned him to not mess with her, Erron deliberately ignored her because it amuse him. Whatever it is a sign of an old-fashioned mindset (a remnant of the times he grew up) or just simply (male’s) egoism on his part, Erron likes to flirt with women but he does not always respect their opinion or wish to be left alone.

At the same time, Erron rarely tried to change women’s minds about him or their eventual relationship. So far, only the intro dialogue with Kitana seems to be the exception:

Kitana: Stop!

Erron Black: We've barely begun, my lovely.

Kitana: It will end quickly.

Black may put his own amusement above other people's personal comfort, yes, but didn’t act creepy like Kano did, especially toward Blade-Briggs-Cage family as a whole.

So we have this

Jacqui: I really don't like you.

Erron Black: I really don't care.

Jacqui: As long as we're straight on that.

in which Erron doesn’t care for Jacqui’s dislike of his person but doesn’t impose himself on her. He does not resort to the common rapist “excuse” that woman says no but her body says otherwise, like Kano did (“Your mouth says Kano, but your eyes say Kan-yes.”) and this contrast puts Black in a more positive light. Similar thing happened in the intro dialogue toward Tanya.

Erron Black: My friend, Tanya.

Tanya: We are not friends, bounty hunter.

Erron Black: Have it your way...

Again, whether trying to be friendly or ironic, once Erron was “turned down”, he simply accepted the situation without any additional crude remarks.

Interestingly, interaction with Sonya showed that Black was capable of rethinking his statement about hot/sexy women:

Erron Black: Girls with guns? Always hot.

Sonya: I'll shove 'em up your ass and fire.

Erron Black: Almost always hot.

Those examples suggest Erron may treat women differently, depending on their “fighting experiences”, age and origin and maybe even how sexually / aesthetically appealing they are to him. For example, veteran Sonya’s threat was taken seriously while (novice / new generation) Jacqui’s warning was ignored. At the same time, the intro dialogues didn’t hint at any romantic or sexual interest in Ferra (a young female symbiote) nor D’Vorah (Kytinn) and relatively good looking Mileena who deserves a separate paragraph.

To be honest, Erron, Johnny and Kano are like the main three men openly showing their (sexual?) interest in women around them. Understable, Black’s flirting / comments rarely were appreciated yet he still was less creepy or aggressive towards others than Kano. Erron didn’t bother to hide his eventual (sexual) interest in beautiful women but it can’t be said A) he had no control over his sexual drive and B) has rapist / sexual predator tendencies.

Another interesting thing: with few exceptions like Kano or Quan Chi, Erron threatened people with violence usually after they offended him and most of the time maintained professional neutrality toward his rivals. In that regard, Erron treated other characters the same regardless of their gender.

This is something worth keeping in mind how Black, as mercenary, in general is not the initiator of violence. Unless someone will pay him. For money, Erron would attack (kill) anyone, including women (to Tanya, “The Kahn wants your head.” + Erron’s Epilogue).

The last detail to talk about: one of the intro dialogue with Cassie suggests Erron thought she was an easy opponent.

Cassie: Is something funny?

Erron Black: I'll win this easy.

Cassie: You're going down hard.

but to be fair, he thought the same about Sub-Zero

Erron Black: You're an easy target.

Sub-Zero: As are you.

Erron Black: Bullets beat snowballs any day.

so I wouldn’t say it was the bias toward Cassie because of her gender and just Erron’s own arrogance (and maybe lack of good judgement on his part).

In summary, MKX!Erron in game alone tends to act in a professional manner. He had an occasion to shoot defeated opponents but did not seize the opportunity against not only Cassie but Jin as well. During the storyline he was rather collected, emotionless. In intro dialogues he openly expresses his interest in tough, relatively attractive women yet the banter is far from the creeping tone of Kano’s interaction with female characters.

Then we have Mortal Kombat 11 in which past and future timelines are messed up. Sadly, Erron’s characterization departs from the neutral-polite one seen in the previous game. Of course, this could be blamed on the younger version of Erron, but frankly, twenty years for someone living at least for a century and half shouldn’t make that big difference in behaviour and well, MK11 outright claims Erron is prone to violence for violence’s sake instead of just money. Which is one of many plot-holes and divergences between both games I guess.

Anyway, Erron, again, was the background character to beat down, so it is worth remembering that he couldn’t permanently hurt or kill anyone from the main cast. In chapter 2 he let Jade get away when he was facing Kotal and frankly, there is little explanation for that in-universe wise. I personally suspect it may be related to Erron’s own sense of honor, as in respecting one on one fight without cheap moves like shooting someone’s beloved person. Not practical in the mercenary job but it is possible for someone born and raised around two centuries ago. Also, Shao Kahn’s anger was focused mainly on killing Kotal for taking the throne. Because of that Erron could be not interested in Jade who simply did not have any significant political matter at that time. Sadly, it is really hard to say for sure what was on his mind.

In chapter 6, past!Erron stormed the Special Forces Base alongside Black Dragon members. There were women in that group but sadly, Black did not interact with anyone beside Johnny Cage. We can at least assume, Black did not mind fighting side by side with women.

Similary, present!Erron in chapter 7 showed up in the background during the alliance attack on Coliseum. The attack was led by Kitana (albeit did Erron join her to save Kotal out of loyalty or for money, it was not explained) and there were female fighters in the group. It seems then Erron does not mind fighting side to side with women.

During the pit fight (chapter 8), past!Erron faced the past!Sonya and the past!Johnny. Frankly, the same as in the previous chapter, game mechanics make little sense because there was no real reason for Erron to open the ring and face the characters when he could simply shoot down both from a safe distance. This really undermines the whole point of Black being a gunslinger, isn’t it?

Anyway, Cage took the forward position (which I think is both because despite his injuries he tried to shield Sonya AND because he actually met Erron during an attack on a Special Forces’ base) and got shot in the arm. After a short skirmish, Erron knocked down Johnny and aimed to kill the injured man.

The most logical thing for Erron in this situation would be to shoot down Sonya first and then finish already beaten down and exhausted Johnny. In defense of the Black though it is worth emphasizing that he didn’t completely ignore Blade nor turned away from her.

Most likely the weird slow-down action of aiming at Johnny was a moment of distraction that Sonya simply used to attack. Similar to MKX, game mechanics do not allow Black to headshot the main heroes, even though, in-universe, he should do just that and be done with the job. There is also a possibility that past and present Kano still wanted to keep Sonya alive for their own amusment (torture and sadly most likely rape) what could explain why Erron didn’t shot her from safe distance. I mean, the game alone did not voice what Kanos really ordered Erron to do.

I know that MK games like to slow down action for dramatic effects, but I strongly believe it was actually a matter of a few seconds of distraction (Erron looking aside to shoot Johnny and aiming) that Sonya took advantage of rather Black ignoring her on purpose. Even more since Black did not hesitate to shoot at her and seemed to enjoy facing “the legendary” Sonya Blade.

The same as MKX, Mortal Kombat 11 does not explain Black’s mindset. He does not shoot Jade or Sonya when he has a chance but he does not make any rude remarks toward women in general. However the intro dialogues shed a light on the complicated relationship that Erron has with women.

From what we learn about Erron, his childhood was far from normal or safe. We don’t know details, but what he shared with Cetrion and Cassie strongly suggest that Erron’s both parents were abusive people:

Cetrion: You shot your own father, Erron Black.

Erron: Sonofabitch had it coming.

Cetrion: Honor thy parents, mortal!

or

Erron: My Ma would’ve loved you, Cassie Cage.

Cassie: Aw, sounds like you miss her bunches.

Erron: I hated Ma.

or

Erron: I grew up around tough women.

Cassie: Didn’t they teach you respect?

Erron: They taught me to hit back.

The last statement suggests young Erron was abused by women (most likely including his own mother) to the point he is now willing to hit back anyone regardless of their gender without remorse. Erron himself says “I ain't above shootin' a lady” (intro dialogue vs. Sonya).

Beside that, an abusive mother alone could influence Black’s approach to women - and most likely she did, since he admitted to hate her. Surprisingly, Erron uses the past tense (“I hated Ma”) so there is a chance he gained distance over time in that matter. It also seems like whatever he feels about mother usually doesn't affect his relationship with other female characters. For example, in the mentioned banter he did not insult Cassie for reminding him about the abusive parent. Despite the bad childhood intro dialogues hint Black actually likes dangerous women.

Erron Black: I stepped out with Nitara before you.

Skarlet: You clearly have a type, Erron.

Erron Black: Just like living dangerously.

Like in the previous game, Erron openly shows his (sexual) interest in various women. The interesting change however is how:

His interest extends now to more alien-looking female characters like Nitara or Sheeva. Surprisingly, Mileena’s advances are still rejected. Also, Erron has like zero respect for the goddess Cetrion but to be honest, he does not respect any god.

Erron is more disrespecting by using nicknames like Legs or Baby Doll for Sonya or Sugar for Cassie. Of course, it may be just the “charm” of younger Black - hard to tell in most cases which version is speaking - but it creates an overall feeling of ironic, at times irritating or insulting approach to female fighters. At the same time, there are women that Erron refers to in a rather consistently respectful manner - Jacqui (Miss Briggs, Little Lady), Jade (ma’am, missy), Kitana (Princess, Kahn).

Before I will focus on the complex situation with Mileena, I need to talk about Erron’s important trait: he often says one thing but does the opposite. This is especially noticeable in intro dialogues concerning money and loyalty. Both games agree the main motivation for Black is a good payment, albeit MK11 highline also the thrill of danger. Anyway, Erron admitted he is willing to betray Kotal, a current employer, if someone offered a better deal (“Until a better offer comes along.”, “There's always a better offer, Kotal”). This strengthens the impression Black cares only about himself yet he rejects all propositions coming from Kotal’s enemies such as Shao Kahn, Rain or Mileena, Quan Chi, Shinnok and Kano/Black Dragons. At the same, he is willing to work with/ for Kitana who happens to be the best friend of Jade, Kotal’s beloved. Which makes Erron still operate in a group wishing no harm to the ex-emperor.

I’m bringing this into discussion because there is strong possibility that under the tough guy act, Erron still follows some “old-fashioned” sense of morality and is decent enough to not attack or harm women (and in my opinion, people in general) unless A) it is part of the job or B) is self-defense. Which could explain why he let Jade walk away or why he didn’t shoot Sonya from a safe distance but faced her in hand to hand combat. Depending how long he lived in Outworld, he could simply adapt into local customs - the people of Outworld are a combat-focused society and because of that have a strong sense of honor code. Erron’s eventual softness toward female fighters would get him in serious problems and I doubt he could afford such weakness when serving Shang Tsung or Shao Kahn.

So, why did Erron not want to serve Mileena, the designated successor? As the Empress, she was in position to offer the best (materially wise at least) deal after all.

In MKX!banter Erron claims Kotal paid him better:

Mileena: You aided the usurper.

Erron Black: He offered more coins.

Mileena: ...and no protection.

Meanwhile, MK11!Black outright says it was not a matter of money but of Mileena’s behaviour. Considering how prone to violence she was, it is no wonder why Erron decided to work for someone else.

Erron Black: Now what's got you all rip-snorting mad?

Mileena: When I gained the throne, you abandoned it.

Erron Black: Wasn't no pay worth dealing with your crazy.

This brings me back to the MKX’s banter suggesting Erron may dislike being bossed by women. Considering the implication he is currently negotiating a proper deal with Kitana Kahn (“New Kahn, same deal?”), the problem is more complex than judging someone by gender alone. I mean, Erron worked for Shao Kahn who himself was a cruel tyrant so sadism shouldn't be anything new for Black, right? Except, he was hired by Shang Tsung and because of that I think it is highly possible Erron had just indirect contact with the Emperor. Thus Erron could be not ready for Mileena’s unstable nature(?) and cruelty.

I mean - Erron comes from a pathological family and grew up around tough women. In his opinion Cassie has some traits or behaves in a way for which his mother would’ve liked the girl. So there are certain things that Black connects to hated mother. Now, Cassie is more of an extrovert type of person, showy and with sharp ripostes but she is one of the good guys and cruelty for fun is not her thing. So, if someone like Cassie can somehow make him think of a hated parent (that most likely is dead for decades now), how much Mileena could trigger Erron in the wrong way? To the point he chooses his mental health over money and/or thrill of danger?

If this is true, we may further wonder if bad experiences with tough women in childhood are the reason why despite flirtatious nature, Erron’s interest in female fighters usually is strictly sexual attraction? Because it really looks like he does not try to emotionally connect with women. Even his “thing” with Skarlet seems to be more a matter of thrill than a serious relationship, considering how Erron was okay with her eventual death.

(The possibility of Erron being freaked out by Mileena also rises an interesting question about her mental state between MK9 and MKX)

This is why I think Erron did not have a problem with working for women as long as they did not remind him too much of past abuse. And this is pretty nice implication, considering how tough guy Erron is for most of the time.

Because of that, Kotal questioning if Erron is jealous of Jade could be read in different way too:

Erron Black: So, you and Jade, huh?

Kotal Kahn: Jealous, Erron Black?

Erron Black: She's quite the looker, Kotal.

And yeah, Erron brings this to the matter of appearance alone, but hopeful as I proved earlier, Erron sometimes says one thing but does (thinks) something totally different. Because of that I suspect he may not be really jealous of Kotal for having a sexy lady but actually of the relationship itself. You know, build on respect and love than just build on sexual drive.

Like I said before, the game cutscenes and character banters may be interpreted in many ways but for me MK11!Erron Black - at least the older version - seems to mask his trauma and/or complex nature of his relationship with women under the act of tough guys. At the same time, there is a high possibility he still follows an out-fashioned sense of honor and though he is not above shooting women, he does not attack them unless it is demanded. Though to be fair, in my opinion this is how he approaches everyone. A mercenary’s mindset that distinguishes him from the likes of Kano.

In Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermatch, Erron met Sheeva, when the Shokan Queen in the company of Fujin, Nightwolf and Shang Tsung carried a coffin to the Soul Chamber. Black and Baraka decided to confront the Shokan woman and it quickly turned into a fight (and the typical game mechanics).

There is a question though - did Erron really take Kitana's offer or did he stay with Kotal? Because it’s really suspicious that he happened in the place where defenless, injured Kotal was in the healing process. Anyway, whatever the case, Black directly or indirectly worked for the new Kahn so it is highly possible his actions were dictated by Kitana’s best interest rather than his liking or disliking anyone.

Let’s just look at the situation - Kitana is the empress but she promised to treat her allies as her equals. That means Sheeva, as well respected Shokan Queen, plays an important role in the new regime - killing her or permanently injuring was out question, otherwise Shokan people could rebel against Kitana and in result the freshly established peace would go straight to hell.

In my opinion, this is why Erron asked Sheeva’s group to go with them quietly so the situation could be explained to Kitana without unnecessary violence. Black actually was okay with Sheeva go to Soul Chamber as long as Shang Tsung (Shao Kahn’s sorcerer) and the suspicious coffin was returned to him. Thanks to Shang Tsung, one of Tarkatan warrior died and thus the situation got out of hand. It makes sense Erron was more focused on Shang Tsung (hated by Kitana), Nightwolf (whose current self is revenant) and Fujin than on Sheeva who, potentially, was protected by political immunity.

When the Shokan Queen beat down Baraka, Erron in my opinion did not try to hurt her, only fired a warning shot. Maybe to make sure Sheeva will not kill Baraka (another important leader whose support Kitana needed to uphold the peace in Outworld). The Earthrealmers on other hand were another matter. Maybe Erron was too trusting or too reckless to not pay more attention to Sheeva or simply didn’t really think she was the traitor. It was after learning she is trying to resurrect Kitana’s evil mom - a dangerous, not consulted with Empress decision - Erron faced Sheeva in hand to hand combat.

Not much to analyse here, especially not with limitations of game mechanics yet I strongly believe Erron’s course of action was dictated by political situation and Kitana Kahn’s best interest so killing or seriously injuring Sheeva could be out of question. Also, like I said previously, Black is rarely the aggressor, what I believe is related to his mercenary’s mindset.

The last source, Mortal Kombat X comics series, requires a little clarification: I treat it as a potentially additional insight into Erron’s psyche than any real canonical material. Partially due to many plot-holes but also because of overwhelming violence used for violence’s sake alone. That said, here what happens:

Earthrealm (Special Forces) and Outworld (Kotal Kahn) weren’t on the best terms. To help Kotal, Erron and Black Dragons kidnapped young (under 21 years old) Cassie and Jacqui and took them to Outworld. During the journey through the dangerous jungle, girls tried to run away but got hurt in the process by Kano. Erron openly talked against brutal treatment of prisoners.

Looking at the difficult situation of Kotal, it was in Erron’s best interest to keep Cassie and Jacqui in one piece. Otherwise the whole plan would fail and then Kotal would be forced to deal with really pissed off Sonya Blade. And that would take a bad turn for Black himself. But like I said earlier, the tough guy act could also cover Erron’s more empathic nature that in the mercenary world was seen as a weakness to exploit. I personally think he did not like torturing people if that was unnecessary but also that he would have spoken against it even if Cassie and Jaquie were boys.

Then the Red Dragons attacked to take over hostages.

(Once again, a tough guy act with the “girls are Kotal’s property” as in cover up his worries about the situation or his true mindset, or mix?)

When the fight started, Erron went to tied hostages:

One one hand, Erron needs the girl to stay alive and not be taken by the enemy. On the other hand, he does not promise them safety nor ask them to run away. He is freeing them so the two girl (both under 21 years old) will fight against experienced criminals armed with swords and other dangerous stuff. This is actually an interesting detail, because it suggests Erron thought Cassie and Jacqui had a chance against thugs or that at least that way they wouldn't be a burden to him.

Jacqui punched him and Erron, either was taken by surprise or did not want to hurt her, was “saved” by Kano. And then betrayed by the Black Dragon leader.

Kano’s worlds raise a question, how much Erron is driven by the money and how much he uses the tough guy act to actually hide his unwanted “vulnerability” (as in, having moral sense and not being the heartless psychopath like Kano).

My general conclusion about Erron is that, for a side character he has a really complex relationship with women around him. I strongly believe that Erron sticks to some old fashioned sense of honor that mixes well with a mercenary's mindset. Thus rarely he is the one attacking first. This most likely influences his interaction with female fighters but at the same time, Outworld is not a place where people are judged by gender but for their skills and powers. So, Erron living there for decades for sure got influenced by that mindset to some degree.

I would not call him a feminist - not because he couldn’t be one but for lack of proper material to analyse. Feminism has many shades but in the most general sense is about establishing the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Erron does not show much opinion on that matter and does not interact with “common” women; those truly weaker than him, disabled or anything else other than warriors, soldiers or queens. With lack of such interaction there is no chance to come to a proper conclusion.

Does Erron have a soft spot for women? It is possible but that would not stop him from hitting back or killing them if the situation called for such action. I think the safest option is just that Erron is in general a more emphatic and honorable human that he wants to admit, to not look weak or be exploited by others. In contrast to Kano, Black for sure has some moral code he follows no matter what. Even if this get him into trouble more often than not.

Hope it answers your question!

[nonstop-haikyuu]

Social Media Apologies

This is my first fic with the Haikyuu Headquarters server! And it's my first Daishou fic, as much as I love that snake bastard!! This month's SFW prompt was "meet ugly" so this is about Daishou serving a ball into reader's face which leads to him groveling on social media. Honestly, I hope you guys like this!! Here's the link to the masterlist!

-

For years, I had a string of bad luck that seemed to follow me around no matter where I went or how I acted. My parents cited bad karma or a curse placed upon me when I was a child. I simply called it life being an asshole. When I gained the job as the Sendai Frogs trainer, I knew the dangers of what I was getting into. Volleyballs were constantly flying across the gym and it wasn’t uncommon for someone to catch a spiked ball to the face.

For the most part, I had managed to avoid any strays that came my way, whether it be me blocking the hit or the players that I worked with saving my ass.

That changed the day that we played Yotsuya Motor Spirits. Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting the day to be anything special, especially since Kyotani, Koganegawa, and Kei had finally started working as a team, with their fellow players supporting their talents both as a trio and separately.

“Hey, don’t let them in your head, okay, Kyo? And Tsukki, please don’t rile them up too much. I really don’t want to deal with their coach coming to rip our heads off cause you want to be a dick.” I encouraged, crossing my arms over my chest. The two rolled their eyes at my usual pep talk then mumbled their agreement, turning towards their opponents. Kanji bounced eagerly in front of me and asked, “What about me?”

“Just take it slow, okay? Don’t rush your sets,I know you can do this.” I replied, patting him on the shoulder. He grinned at my words of wisdom and they soon walked away to line up, prepared to take their stances on the court. The first set passed without anything too out of the ordinary, with snide comments and smug grins exchanged between the net.

It was the second set that seemed to make the match all the more interesting.

Daishou Suguru, an outside hitter from the Spirits, was the man responsible for the shift of the atmosphere. I was returning from the trainer’s room with a bag of supplies, knowing that at the next timeout, Tsukishima and Kanji would need tape for their fingers. Along with that, our libero would likely want his knee braced better, due to an old injury.

I was walking on the corner of the court when the whistle blew and Daishou took his stance for his serve. I glanced up for a brief second to see who would take on the receive, only to realize that the ball was hurtling towards my face at a pace much too fast for me to hide from. Shouts and gasps filled the stadium as I slammed to the floor. Blurry faces crowded around me and I faintly acknowledged the fact that my three friends were looming over me, waving their hands in front of my face.

“Hey, hey, easy. Just lay back, okay?” Kei encouraged, pressing a gentle hand against my shoulder. I groaned at the pain in my head and nose then mumbled, “Hurts. It hurts. What the hell happened?” Kyotani masked his snarl and bit out, “Bastard snake nailed you in the face with a serve. Might wanna hold still, Coach thinks you have a concussion and a broken nose.”

“You realize that I can hear you, right? It’s not like I meant to hit them. I was shooting for a service ace, give me a break.” Daishou replied, rolling his eyes.

“Shit, this hurts.” I grumbled as Tsukki pressed a wad of tissues under my nose. Daishou knelt beside me and murmured, “Hey, I’m really sorry about hitting you in the face. I didn’t see you there.”

“I’m kinda pissed that you serve bad enough to hit someone on the sidelines.” I snapped, pushing myself up. Kogane’s eyes widened at my bitter tone and harsh words, then Daishou spat, “You were walking in front of the barrier. You should have enough brains to know to walk behind it.”

I jerked my head towards the wing spiker, groaning at the sharp jab of pain and bit out, “Maybe you should learn how to serve properly then. If your serves are that high, then you’re not doing something right.” Kyotani helped me to my feet then I heard the snake hiss, “Bitch just needs to learn where to stand during a game.”

An argument between Tsukishima and Daishou began to rise with Kogane attempting to coax his teammate out of the fight. Kyotani braced against me then grumbled, “You never know when to stop talking, do you?” I let out a bitter laugh and mumbled, “He’s the one who will have to deal with the backlash. And I’m the one with a broken nose!”

He patted me on the shoulder and replied, “I’ve learned that you usually get screwed by what you say in the end.” He was right but shit, I was really hoping that I would escape any trouble that followed.

-

I, in fact, did not escape the results of Wednesday’s game. Kyotani, Kogane, and Kei came to visit me in the trainer’s room on Saturday, my first day back from my concussion, and they showed me the results of my broken nose and bitter words towards Daishou.

“Sendai Frogs’ Trainer and Motor Spirits’ Wing Spiker in the midst of a social media battle? Daishou Suguru has gone to social media to publicly apologize to the Sendai Frogs’ trainer after a stray serve broke the trainer’s nose and left them with a concussion. As of right now, the Sendai Frogs have not addressed the situation. The wing spiker seems to be desperate for a response and his fans seem irritated with the lack of acceptance from the trainer. ” Kei read off, raising an eyebrow in my direction. I scoffed at the ridiculous headline then snapped the first aid kit shut as I bit out, “Give me a break. He’s the one who won’t stop tagging me in his stupid apology. I mean, why should I accept his apology twice?”

“Because it’s good publicity and if you don’t accept on social media without a single ounce of sarcasm in it, I think you’ll be finding a new job.” our PR manager answered, entering the room. We twisted at the statement and I snapped, “What are you talking about? I could be fired over this?”

“Not my idea but the Motor Spirits’ manager is pissed that you’re not replying to him publicly so the fans of his team say that you’re being a stuck up bitch.” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. I groaned and flung myself on the trainer’s bed, whining, “This isn’t fair! I’m the one with the broken nose and he’s the one gaining the sympathy? Ugh! Fine, I’ll tweet him now.”

Yanking out my phone, I opened the Twitter app and constructed a tweet, “Daishou-san, I accept your apology. I’m sorry for taking so long to accept publicly.” I clicked send on the public message and grumbled to myself as Kei chirped, “You think the public will leave your little feud at that?” A simple chime followed his question and I glanced down, surprised to see that Daishou had privately messaged me.

“How about dinner on me? I’d really like to make it up to you.” Kei blinked in surprise at the statement then laughed, “Are you going to accept? It’s been a while since you’ve been on a date. I mean, people already think you guys are a thing.”

“Seriously?! Who asked you anyway? Hmm. I mean, I guess I could go out with him?” I asked, tapping my chin. My best friends continued to laugh as I thought over Daishou’s offer then mumbled, “I guess it can’t get worse than it already is.” Typing a quick response, I hovered over the send message then Kyotani huffed, pushing the button himself. We loom over the phone screen, waiting for his response, then a new chat appears with an address linked and a simple, “Tonight, 9 pm. I’ll see you there.” I tilted my head back then asked, “What am I thinking?”

“You need a boyfriend, that’s what you’re thinking.” Kei supplied, patting me on the back. I came to a stand then stated, “I guess I should go get ready for this date, then.”

“You’re gonna have a great time!” Kanji called out, laughter following me out.

9 pm came surprisingly slow, likely due to my repeated glances at my watch. The ramen shop was actually a ten minute drive from my apartment and I often frequented it during the weekends. I was thankful for the familiarity and lowkey manner of the shop. It would provide some comfort to me.

Bowing briefly at the shop owner, I glanced around and spotted Daishou in the corner. He smiled at my appearance then pulled out the stool across from him. I settled down on the seat and he admitted, “I’m not going to lie, I kind of thought you weren’t going to show up.” I laughed at his statement then replied, “I wasn’t sure if you were going to come. Tsukki definitely wasn’t confident in you showing up.”

“Well, Four Eyes is best buds with Kuroo and that cat hasn’t liked me since middle school. You look beautiful by the way. I really am sorry about breaking your nose and giving you a concussion.” he remarked, scratching the back of his neck. I pressed a gentle finger to the bridge of my nose then stated, “Don’t worry about it. Neither of us could really do anything about this. You’re a persistent asshole, though. Why did you ask me out for dinner?”

He paused at the question and answered, “I thought you were pretty. And I like that you didn’t let me be an asshole. At least, not without a fight.” I laughed, shaking his head, and chirped, “You thought I was hot while I was being a bitch? Are you a masochist or something?”

“More of a sadist, if I’m being honest.” he blurted out, playing with my fingers. My eyes widened at his bluntness then he leaned forward with a remark, “But that can wait until after dinner. What would you like?”

We glanced over the menu and I found myself studying Daishou. His hair was relatively short, barely hanging on his forehead and it looked soft until the ramen shop’s lights. Green eyes flickered back and forth over the options and my gaze continued down to petal pink lips. His tongue flicked out and I’m surprised to see that he has a tongue ring, with fangs in place of normal canines.

“Snake bastard… I thought Kyotani was being a dick, not being serious.” I mumbled, reaching to cup his face. He startled at the sudden touch and his eyebrows furrowed together, asking, “Can I help you with something?”

“Fangs… you have fangs.” I breathed, focused on his mouth. He laughed at the awe in my voice then replied, “I was born with them. I got my tongue pierced right after college on a bet.” He wiggled his tongue afterwards and returned his attention to the menu as the server approached our table.

“Hello! What can I get for you?” I turned with a smile as I gave my order then dropped my hand away from Daishou’s face so he could answer. Once she wrote down our selected meals, she gave a small bow and informed us that our food would soon be out.

“I’m sorry. You must think that I’m a crazy person for grabbing your face like that.” I apologized, burying my face in my hands. He laughed at my embarrassment and tugged my hands down before he chimed, “It’s okay, I thought it was cute. Honestly, a lot of people are turned off by the fangs. Something about how it’ll hurt if I kiss them. So it’s nice to have someone fascinated by them.”

“I really like it actually. It looks really good.” I murmured, a shy smile stretching across my face. He smiled in return then asked, “So how did you end up as the trainer for the Frogs?” I let out a laugh and answered, “I used to go to Aoba Johnson with Kentarou and went to college with Tsuki. When they joined the Frogs, I heard they were hiring an athletic trainer so I put in an app. Now I’m here and stuck with three blond idiots.”

“Hey I’m not an idiot!” a growl interrupted, jerking our attention to the table behind us. Three men sat there with awful disguises and I could feel my fury beginning to bubble.

“What the hell are you three doing here?” I spat, jerking out of my seat. Daishou started at Kyotani, Kanji, and Kei, the two glaring at Kentarou for blowing their cover.

“Idiot! They haven’t even had dinner yet and now they know we’re here!” Kei hissed, slapping his teammate on the shoulder. I slammed my hands on their table then demanded, “Why are you here?! Which one of you morons thought of this bright idea?”

“Group effort?” Kogane supplied, ducking his head to avoid my glare. Our server returned with our food, with concern across her face then Daishou stated, “Could we get our food to go? Please? We had something come up and can’t stay to eat.” Kei turned with a bitter expression then asked, “Do you think that I would let you go on a date with him by yourself?”

“Yes! I’m a grown adult and I figured you would at least trust me enough to watch over myself! Daishou-san, I am so sorry for this! I didn’t think these three would be this dumb. My apartment isn’t too far from here if you’re still wanting to go on this date?” I asked, turning my attention back to the wing spiker.

He gave a grin and answered, “I would love to. I’ve already paid so I’m ready to go when you are.” The trio began to protest as we walked out of the shop and I shot a glare over my shoulder, hissing, “You follow us and I will end you.” They settled back in their chairs and sighed, shaking their heads.

I turned back to Daishou and he wrapped an arm around my waist, murmuring, “I think we make a pretty amazing couple, what do you think?” I leaned into his side and said, “I think you’re right.”

[immortalcoelacanth]

HLVRAI Oneshot: A Goodnight (Kiss) Passport Check

*kicks down door*

FUCK I HAVE FALLEN INTO ANOTHER FANDOM AND CANNOT GET OUT! I would like to blame my friends (you know who you are) for dragging me into this pit and causing me to get inspired to write things, so BEHOLD!

A FLUFF ONESHOT BASED ON THE ABSCOND AU CREATED BY @godros(not that you really need to know about that AU for context as it’s just... fluff, but check it out if you’re interested!)

Word count: 1412

Summary: Even in his dreams, Benrey just had to check Gordon’s passport. 

Gordon was, to put it bluntly, exhausted. 

Aside from his typical work, he had also been more involved in the lives of his… friends. 

Could he call them that? Friends? Technically they were nothing more than data and code, but they felt real. They engaged with him, spoke with him, and acted like they all cared about him in their own way. 

Even Bubby, who never failed to point out how much he dragged the Science Team down at times, expressed his own concern when he faltered or got “hurt”. 

Always with a near excessive amount of cursing, but it was concern nonetheless!

And then there was Benrey. 

The asshole troll who was always asking about his passport or playing games with him on the Playstation. His snide comments and quips were intermingled with jokes, making it challenging to read his emotions and figure out how he actually felt about things. 

Benrey was an enigma of sorts, someone who enraged and intrigued Gordon. As such it was all the more emotionally draining when interacting with the AI, leaving him mentally and physically exhausted. 

Hey, moving your arms around a bunch might be great for building up muscle, but doing such a thing for a long period of time made them feel like led. Plus, there was the struggle of trying to get his gear off after every session and clean up any messes he made, he still needed to replace that lamp after one of his earlier sessions...

So, it was no surprise when Gordon passed out at his desk, head buried in his arms as he snored away. The monitor in front of him was shut off, all computing tasks done for the day. His VR gear was strewn around the desk here and there, and all was silent in the room. 

Silent, that is, until the monitor slowly turned back on. 

The screen glowed with a faint light, showing nothing but a grey expanse. Movement happened somewhere beyond it, causing the screen to ripple as though it were made of water. A disturbing sight made all the more worrisome as a pair of hands appeared. 

First poking at the fluid barrier, causing it to ripple further before eventually reaching through to the sleeping man beyond. Gordon was still snoring away, completely unaware of what was going on as one of the hands poked at his face while the other picked up a lock of his hair and gently felt it. 

Seeing that the man did not wake up from the touch, the owner of the hands decided to kick things up a notch. Both of Gordon’s forearms were gripped, not too tightly, and he was yanked through the screen. 

Nothing broke or tore, there were no sounds of pain of electrical malfunctions. All was as silent and peaceful as it had previously been.

On this side of the screen, that is, but on the other side things were not quite as calm. Benrey stood over the still sleeping leader of the Science Team, arms crossed and grinning to himself as he took in the humorous sight before him. 

Gordon was crumpled over and somewhat folded in half as he continued to sleep, oblivious to everything that had happened. Suppressing a snicker, Benrey gently booted the slumbering man in the side and spoke. 

“nice landing, feetman.” 

Funnily enough, it was the butchering of his last name that caused Gordon’s eyes to snap open. He immediately noticed his predicament and flailed, resulting in him falling onto his side while Benrey started laughing loudly, smacking a hand against the front of his helmet as a smile took over his face. 

It was always Gordon who made him smile… 

A faint chill ran down his spine, Benrey’s good mood evaporating in an instant while the panicked man finally managed to detangle himself and stand up. He brushed off his clothes and looked at the empty space they were both in, a sea of grey. His brows narrowed in confusion. 

“Benrey? You-what happened? Where the hell is this?!”

“you’re… uh... dreaming, bro.” Benrey lazily waved his hands in the air while he spoke, as if to emphasize his point. “that’s pretty gay, you… you gaydon feetman now or somethin’?”

“DREAM-stOP TALKING ABOUT MY FEET!” If he was dreaming, Gordon was certain he would pop a blood vessel in no time if this conversation kept up. “And the only kind of dream I’d have with you in it would be a nightmare!” 

“ouch, bro… that’s kinda mean.” Despite the words, Benrey’s tone continued to be void of any emotion other than mild amusement, and it only continued to set Gordon off. 

“YOU’RE KIND OF MEAN! You keep harassing me for my passport and you KILLED all those other scientists and guards-”

“yeah well they… uh… suck at their jobs. i… i gotta fire bad employees bro-”

“WITH A GUN?!”

“ya it’s-it’s standard procedure and… uh… stuff. ask tommy about it later or whatever.”

Gordon pressed the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb, exhaling sharply as he felt a headache begin to build behind his eyes. “Okay, wonderful, lovely. Are there any other morally grey questions I need to ask?”

“nah but you uhhhh gotta show me your passport.”

And now Gordon was squatting on the ground, not able to fully process the request. “Well I told you I didn’t have it! And I’m apparently dreaming anyways! Do-do I need a dream passport or something?!”

“ya.”

His legs gave out under him, resulting in the exasperated man now sitting on the ground and staring up at Benrey in pure befuddlement and rage. “You-I don’t have it! When will you get that through your thick skull?”

“nah, you do.”

“I-WHAT?”

As Gordon contemplated everything leading up to this moment, and why in the world his mind had decided to torment him tonight, Benrey made his move. 

“i’ll, uh, check it for you. cause we’re… uh... bros’n stuff.”

Before he could ask what this checking would entail, and what Benrey was even checking in the first place, the security guard leaned down and pressed a quick kiss against Gordon’s lips. 

He was speechless. 

“mhm, everything’s… uh… up to code there.” Benrey noted, nodding to himself before sitting down beside the stunned man. An eternity seemed to pass before Gordon managed to speak up. 

“W-What was that?”

“i checked your passport, man. nothin’ special.”

“I…” Gordon sighed and buried his face in his hands. “I’m gonna stop questioning things because you never answer anything I ask and you’re the most obnoxious, unreliable person I’ve ever met-”

“you say somethin’ dude?”

“... No.” He muttered, thoroughly fed up with the situation. “I’m gonna go back to sleep and wake up back at my desk and everything’s gonna be perfectly fine and I won’t have you tormenting me. Yeah, that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“aw, lame. i thought we were gonna… uh, play some games.”

“Nope, sleeping now.”

“brooooooo i can’t believe you’re leaving me hanging like thiiiiiiiiis.”

“I’m not leaving you hanging since I never agreed to anything.”

“bro,” Benrey let out his own sigh, a stream of blue escaping his mouth and causing Gordon to yawn due to how close he was to the other man. 

Actually, had he gotten closer to him? Previously there had been some space between them, but now they were both shoulder to shoulder. Gordon blinked and tried to speak, but found a yawn escaping his mouth when he opened it. 

Damn, of course he felt like passing out when he wanted to ask questions. Stupid sweet voice… 

As if somehow knowing what Gordon was thinking about, Benrey let out a short laugh as the other man started leaning against him due to his growing exhaustion. 

“sweet dreams, gaydon feetman.”

When Gordon next awoke, he found himself seated in front of his computer as usual. The monitor was still off, everything was exactly where he had put it, and there was no sign of anything being disturbed. He stretched a bit, feeling his back pop as his bones cracked, before scratching his chin. 

“Huh, maybe it was a dream…”

Of course, during his next encounter with Benrey later on in the day he did notice a faint redness to the other’s cheeks and wondered all over again if that “passport check” had been real or not. 

And a much quieter part of him wanted to ask whether he had passed or not. 

[the-omni-princess]

Toys and Flowers

Author: @the-omni-princess

Summary: Insecurities and some badly written jokes can hurt, especially when they come from family. (Intrusive thoughts TW)

Pairing: Bucky x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 5.2K (It got away from me whoops)

Prompt:

“I am not a toy you can play with when you’re bored or lonely or horny. I am not the girl the guy gets at the end of the movie. I am not a fantasy. If you want me, earn me.” - Scandal

Warnings: Angst, Insecure reader, language, intrusive thoughts, unintentionally negative comments, Avengers kinda acting like dicks but they didn’t realize it, also a splash of anxiety, a happy ending I promise, Fluff

A/N:

A little bit of self-fulfillment whoops. Still new at this so please tell me what you think.

This sorta thing comes from my own experience with these thoughts, so I’m sorry if it doesn’t quite fit someone else’s. Anyway, if you’re having negative thoughts, like our dear reader, please go speak to someone. I made this way more angsty than I originally intended.

Prompt is bolded.

Written for @sunmoonandbucky

and their #1.5kconstellationswritingchallenge :D

[Read on Ao3!]

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

You were fed up. This had been going on for too long, going around and around in circles for too long. Jokes you could deal with. Insecurities brought to the forefront, teasing, crude one-liners, snide comments. When they came from strangers or from people you never necessarily liked you could deal with them. But when they came from the people you considered family? They hurt, and they hurt severely. Every comment, every glance, every joke sent a searing pain down your chest.

You knew it was most likely in good fun, after all, the Avengers were known to always toss quips at each other. They called Sam and Clint Birdie, teased Steve and Bucky about being old, and there was always some form of ribbing against Vision when he didn’t understand a meme despite being the literal embodiment of the internet. Yet despite all that, every joke that was aimed at you hurt you more than you care to admit.

Thwack. Thump. Every hit of your fists against the punching bag did little to help the anger in your chest, the anxiety, the hurt. Fighting back tears, you tried to block out the voices in your head reminding you of every joke you heard the others say as you kept hitting the bag. You thought you were overreacting, but then another jest meant to just be a poke in the ribs felt like a knife made of fire being pushed into your heart.

Sweat rolled down your back, it prickled at your neck, and you weren’t sure if the wetness on your cheeks was tears or sweat anymore. Sniffling, you paused, wiping your hot face with a towel, and downed half of your remaining water bottle. You sighed, fanning yourself with the towel, not that it helped the sweat clinging to your grey t-shirt or your gym shorts very well.

More comments swirled in your head, anxiety that you weren’t good enough to be an avenger started to creep back into your head, so you tossed the bottle and towel back to the ground and resumed punching. The comments were bad, but they were manageable. At least you thought so. Until a certain super-soldier, who you most definitely had a crush on, started to join in. You were happy he was starting to open up, but when his teasing started to join Sam’s the pain in your chest grew, along with the wall you built around yourself.

Burying yourself in paperwork, reports, and training, you did everything you could to not be in the Compound’s living room when you knew everyone else was there. You even tended to your outhouse garden more often than usual. Those thoughts are what brought you here, to the gym, to punch the shit out of a punching bag for the third time that day, instead of upstairs eating dinner with the rest of the team. It was too late to be out in the garden, your fairy lights you recently bought not fully installed yet, you were weeks ahead of paperwork, and there hadn’t been a new mission to report recently so your last hope was the gym.

Natasha was the first to notice your absences after you repeatedly started to miss dinners with the team and refused to say anything to her about it. “Has anyone seen Y/N today?” She suddenly questioned in the middle of dinner that Friday night, another dinner you were spending in the gym. Eyes all looked towards the redhead, as they started to realize you weren’t there again.

Tony was the first to speak up, sipping away at his drink “Passed by her on the way here, said she was heading to the gym.”

Steve was the next person to speak, hands fiddling with his fork, “But I saw her this morning at the gym, it was really early, and she seemed to tire herself out, why would she go back there so soon?”

Wanda then spoke up, “Her mind has been clouded recently, she blocks me out mentally, but she is blocking us all out as well.”

Sam gave her a confused look, unaware of what was the problem, “Why would she do that?”

“Because you idiots keep making fun of her,” Natasha snapped. She had seen the way you closed yourself off from a conversation the second a joke landed a low blow in your self-esteem. An off comment that maybe the new gal needed more training after she missed a shot during a mission. A quip about something new you were trying. Natasha noticed that not every joke had sent you spiraling, that most you were used to, and some truly were funny enough that you didn’t care, but she also noticed how close you had been to tears as you quickly excused yourself to your room after Bucky teased you the day prior.

Wanda looked up from her plate towards Natasha, the gears in her head practically visible as she connected the dots. “The boys’ comments and jokes about her fuel her anxiety!” She suddenly declared, and the room quickly silenced.

Sam’s eyebrows lifted, almost comically, “But she knows we are just having fun, right? We don’t mean any of it seriously, after all we make fun of the Olsen Twins for their age all the time, and Tinman for being slow.”

“Doesn’t mean the comments don’t hurt,” Bucky put his head in his hands, his own mind quickly filling in the blanks, finally noticing that the emotions in your face as you shuffled out of meetings and movie nights after a joke was betrayal and pain. He was quite acquainted with what pain looked like, and still he managed to miss it in you, though in hindsight he saw it now. The light leaving your eyes as Tony aimed a joke at you, your responding smile never reaching your eyes, your laugh sounding almost fake and forced before you practically sprinted towards your room muttering some excuse about being behind on mission reports.

“From what I’ve been noticing, not all the teasing seemed to affect her, but perhaps you were being a bit harsh on her when you said she needed more training after that mission last week Sam, or the comment about shirt yesterday Bucky,” Clint finally spoke up, having quietly observing everything from his spot on the windowsill couch.

“I was trying to compliment that shirt!” Bucky tried to defend, only to have Natasha snicker.

“’That’s an interesting choice’ is not a compliment,” Natasha glared at him, making him groan as he realized he had been acting like an ass towards you this entire time. “You know this all explains a lot, especially how she looked like she was seconds away from crying when Buckaroo here made some joke at her.” The man in question looked up, equal parts confused and upset. He had made you cry? Why would some joke, one that Sam had already said that didn’t elicit a response, get such a negative one when it came from him? Natasha snickered again, this time because Bucky looked like a kicked puppy. “You haven’t noticed oldie? Poor girl has had a crush on you practically since the moment she met you two years ago.” His heart stopped, then promptly dropped down into his stomach. He was making the girl he liked miserable and he didn’t even know it.

“You didn’t notice Bucky?” Wanda expressed almost remorse as she saw clouds of regret swirling in his head. “The extra cookies she hides away specifically for you, the coffee always ready for you in the morning, the small blushes when you look at her, the smile that lights up her face the second you actually compliment her?” The redhead was listing off the reasons he started to fall for you. The sweet girl, way too good for the world, for him, and the fiercest warrior out on a mission. You had missed that shot because Bucky’s cover would have been blown if your aim had been true. You had taken metaphorical bullets for him multiple times, always the first to defend him whenever someone came after him, especially whenever Ross or some Hydra goon started to monologue him on his past.

Shoving himself from the table, Bucky quickly stood, “I have to go fix this,” he muttered, mostly to himself, already rushing to the gym to find you.

“She’s stubborn, it’s not going to be that easy Bucky!” Steve tried calling out to his best friend, well aware of how Bucky felt about you. His comment fell on deaf ears and Bucky sprinted to the gym where you were still trying to lose yourself to your moves.

Jaws clenched, you kept swinging at the bag in front of you. You were tiring out, your exhausted mind probably catching up with your fatigued body. The gym door behind you swung open, making you jump, wide eyes locking onto a frantic looking Bucky. He looked disheveled, and you noticed his erratic breaths as if he ran here.

Suddenly hyper-aware of your own dishevelment, your body sweaty and tired from working out, you tried to make yourself smaller; quickly turning back to the bag, you swung at it again with new found energy. “What’s up, Buck?”

You could practically feel his eyes burning holes into the back of your head. “Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was soft, and, dare you to say it, pained. Your hands fell from the punching stance you had them up in, turning to face him with a puzzled look.

“Whatcha mean Bucky? What didn’t I tell you?”

“The intrusive thoughts Y/N… how much my comment about your shirt actually hurt you, really how many of the comments or jokes I made towards you hurt you.” Your body froze, completely caught off guard by him cornering you.

Feeling a bit petty and standoffish, you mustered your best death glare, though it no doubt probably did nothing towards the ex-assassin, “Why would I tell you?” Swiftly turning to grab your discarded water bottle and towel you muttered under your breath, “Why would I tell any of you?”

“Because we’re your family Y/N/N” he responded softly. Damn super soldier hearing. Chancing a glance towards him, you could see his hunched shoulders, his hands fidgeting with the end of his shirt.

His anxious body behavior only fueled you on, suddenly wanting to get out of this conversation as fast as possible yet wanting to confirm every negative thought in your head, you practically snarled at him. “Family don’t hurt each other… they shouldn’t hurt each other.” You whispered the last part, unexpectedly frozen where you stood.

You couldn’t look up at his face, fully aware he probably had some cute puppy dog look aimed your way. You couldn’t stand those looks, you knew your resolve would melt instantly if you looked towards them. His silence somehow hurt more than you thought it would. Your body finally getting with the idea of running from this, you turned away again, heading towards the door.

“Doll…” Bucky started, clearly, about to go on some tangent, you stopped him.

“No doll Bucky. I’m used to the comments… strangers, co-workers even, definitely kids when I was younger… I just thought they would stop eventually, along with these thoughts in my head, guess that was naive of me to think that.”

“Y/N please don’t do this, please, just let me explain. Fuck I didn’t mean those comments like that, Y/N, I tried to say it as a compliment. God, I really like you, and I’m terrible at speaking whenever you come around, and I didn’t mean it like the way it came out doll,” You didn’t hear him move, you just abruptly felt his hand around your wrist.

Pulling it back towards your body as if his touch burned you, you spun on your heels to face him. Rash and hotheaded as always, your words came out like venom aimed straight towards the man in front of you, “I am not a toy you can play with when you’re bored or lonely or horny. I am not the girl the guy gets at the end of the movie. I am not a fantasy. If you want me, earn me.” You were too quick with your harsh words to realize the full weight of his words, only reacting blindly to the hatred your mind had been building towards yourself and lashing it out towards Bucky. He looked as if he had been slapped in the face by your words. The truth was, you did like the pet names, especially from him, especially when they were on the back end of his praise for you when training or after a particularly good mission. However, your need for a punching bag or the need for these thoughts to not be focused on you for once, made you throw them at the one person in this entire compound you wanted to hurt the least.

You scrambled towards the door, trying to bite back your tears and keep your resolve. You didn’t look back as you rushed towards your room, knowing that if you took one look at the heartbroken man you left standing at the gym, you would sob at his feet. You shut the door behind you promptly sliding to the floor in your room, your back against the door. “FRIDAY, don’t let anyone in. For anything.” You called out, knowing the AI would catch it.

“Are you sure Ms. Y/L/N? My sensors are indicating your elevated heart rate and erratic breathing, it is recommended for me to contact Mr. Stark or the Med Bay.” The AI dutifully replied, making you cry out. You put your head in your hands, feeling the wetness of your cheeks, making you realize you were already crying. When did that happen?

“No! Please FRIDAY, please don’t let an-anyone in… Please. I don’t want them to see me like this.” Your speech slurred faintly, sniffling as you tried to get a hold of yourself. You just felt weak, too drained to shower or eat or even pull yourself from the floor you currently were residing. As your thoughts finally slowed you exhaled shakily, the anxiety and intrusive thoughts gone, leaving a blank mind except for a startling realization to what Bucky said before you snapped. “God, I really like you.”

You weren’t sure when you had fallen asleep, but considering the light hitting your eyes from the window, you figured it must have been a while ago. You shuffled to get comfortable in the sheets around you, desperate for a few more minutes of the nothingness of sleep. Wait… when did you go to bed? Hadn’t you fallen asleep on the floor? You sat up quickly, ignoring the burn in your eyes at the sudden light change as you surveyed the room. “FRIDAY? How did I get to bed last night?” You asked carefully, truthfully scared of the answer.

“Mr. Stark used his override code to enter your room shortly after you fell asleep. Sergeant Barnes put you in bed before returning to his own quarters.”

Groaning as you got out of bed, you realized you were still in your work-out clothes from the previous night, at least Bucky didn’t try to change you last night. Well, why would he? Your mind started to think as you headed for the bathroom to shower, suddenly grateful you woke up in your bed instead of on the floor. You suddenly froze, halfway to the bathroom door as you remembered one small detail of last night: “God, I really like you.”

Pushing away from the thoughts in your head, you quickly showered and got dressed. Going through routines helped the thoughts in your head from swirling around so much. You walked into the kitchen, grabbing a cereal bowl as you ignored how quiet it suddenly got when you walked in. Pouring all the necessary (and frankly colorful) ingredients and sitting down, you paused, spoon halfway to your mouth as you noticed most of the Avengers staring at you. “What?” You said it defensively, the simple word carrying a small amount of venom behind it.

Sam spoke up first, eyes locking with yours, “Y/N I’m sorry- no, no interrupting, eat your breakfast and let me say it, no running away Y/N/N” he spoke carefully, gentle yet clearly concerned. You gave him a wary look before starting to eat your cereal. Sam took that as an invitation to speak again. “I’m sorry, no, well yes, but we are all sorry. We didn’t realize the jokes we said were hurting you, and we hope you can forgive us and open up to us again. Y/N/N we miss seeing you around here. Your family but you’re avoiding us, we didn’t even realize what we said was causing you pain and behalf of all of us, even though most of it was my jokes, we are all sorry for making you feel like you weren’t a valuable part of this family.” You winced, hearing the guilt in his voice, conscious everyone was probably looking towards you as you stared at your cereal. “Because you are a valuable member of this family Y/N, and we miss seeing you happy.” That was the nail in the coffin, the tears that were bubbling in your eyes suddenly, but thankfully quietly, spilling down your face.

Sniffling, you looked up at Sam and the rest of the team, your view starting to get a bit blurry as tears clouded your vision. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys,” your eyes making a point of looking at Bucky. He looked like he hadn’t slept all night, hair mussed, his hand most likely running through it several times throughout the night. You quickly looked away before your resolve to finish your thoughts crumbled. “I thought I could just get past the thoughts, the words, the jokes, I was probably just hoping it would go away… thanks for being there, I know I can be kind of a mess, I’m not always perfect, but I’ll try to actually talk through these thoughts, and… feelings.” A few heads nodded, the tension dissolving in the room.

“Now, with the messy stuff outta the way, when you finish your breakfast, someone is requesting your presence at your garden kid,” You looked up at Tony, confused as you tried wiping your tears, happy you were talking through things for once instead of being rash. He shook his head, “No details coming out of me kid, just relaying the message.” He was quick to leave the room.

Your face must have looked perplexed still because Steve spoke up as he headed out as well, “Just trust us Y/N/N, you have a surprise waiting for you down there,” Steve knew how much you adored the greenhouse garden you had practically begged Tony to help you install when you became an Avenger. It had been the only thing you have ever asked of him, your small piece of comfort. Tending new flowers and growing herbs became a habit when you were younger, a positive way to keep yourself distracted from the thoughts in your head and the worries of the outside world.

The kitchen was now relatively empty, leaving a certain redheaded Russian alone with you. Natasha walked over, kissing your head motherly, “I’m always here to talk Malen'kiy,” she spoke softly, hugging you gently from the side. You rested your head against her, a faint smile on your face, your first real smile in a while.

“I know, thanks, Nat. I promise I’ll actually talk to you next time,” your voice was just as soft as you looked up adoringly at your practically adoptive sister. Nat had always been the one to know you the best. She knew you had these thoughts, always the clever one, but she didn’t realize they had become this bad.

“Now, hurry up and go to that garden you love before I have to kick your butt and drag you there myself,” You chuckled, smiling up at her as she playfully nudged your arm towards the door. Something was definitely going on. Three Avengers in cahoots to send you to your garden? Suspicious. You walked a little faster than usual down to your garden, wondering what was such a big deal that everyone really wanted you to go there.

The door’s open. That weird, I always close it. You thought as you approached the greenhouse. Walking inside you were flabbergasted, it looked completely different, in a totally good way. The weeds you had missed the other day were already uprooted, the floor swept, the fairy lights you had been dying to put up were already up and on. But what surprised you most were the new flowers that had lined the formerly empty new section you weren’t quite sure what to put there.

It was right beside the bench you used to read when you wanted to be alone after rough missions and no matter what plant you could think of, nothing ever felt right being put there. It would be the scent that would surround while you read, the light perfect there for reading, so you wanted something nice but none of your choices stuck. You already had those type of flowers, or it just felt wrong next to the bench, but the arrangement of flowers currently there now? They were perfect. Purple violets, purple lilacs, yellow daisies, red carnations, and hydrangeas.

Caught up in the new additions to your garden, you didn’t notice Bucky sitting on the bench beside the flowers at first. You knew the meaning of these new additions, but you weren’t quite sure what to say. “Did you do all of this?” you kept your voice low, eyes locking onto the sheepish blue eyes in front of you. Dark circles surrounded those beautiful eyes you tried so hard not to think about. He nodded slowly, a hopeful look in his eyes as he motioned for you to join him on the bench. “Last night… I couldn’t sleep… so I decided to do what you said I should do.”

“Which was?” you prompted, still a bit wary that this was some big joke against you.

“Earn you…” his eyes locked onto yours before he continued. “Y/N, I’m sorry for all the things I said, I know Sam did a big ‘forgive all’ sorta’ apology but I wanted to say I’m sorry personally. Y/N… I’m sorry, dreadfully, absolutely, completely, and utterly sorry.” He was biting his lower lip, anxiously fidgeting with the rings on his fingers as he waited for your response with bated breath.

You gulped faintly at the implications of what he was saying and one key phrase he had said last night was replaying in your head. “God, I really like you” Your eyes fell from his gaze, looking towards the flowers, did he even know what this all meant?

“Bucky, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how I felt, and I accept your apology about, well everything I guess. And thanks for fixing up the place,” you found the courage to say your thoughts, still locked onto the flowers. “Did you really not get any sleep just to do all of this for me?”

“Yes.” He said it quickly, with conviction, and when your attention snapped back to him, you noticed how nervous he seemed. Nodding faintly, you sat on the bench beside him, just out of his reach, he would have to scoot over to be near you.

You leaned against the arm of the bench, bent towards the new flowers. “They’re perfect by the way. I could never find a good combination of scents and colors for this spot, but you managed to do it beautifully.” You heard Bucky shuffle behind you, most likely still fidgeting, his metal fingers bumping against the metal of the rings on his right hand.

“Steve may have mentioned how he overheard you upset you were that you couldn’t figure out what to put there,” apprehensively he added, “Do you really like them?”

At that, you turned back towards him, grinning brightly at him. “They absolutely perfect Bucky.” You spoke with the same conviction he spoke earlier. Still gathering the nerve, you looked back towards the flowers, already enveloped by their scent, calming you as you spoke. “Do you know what each flower means?” Your voice was soft again, hopeful. That it wasn’t some accident he chose these specific flowers.

“Yes.” He answered simply. You turned towards him, his blue eyes, nervousness, and hopefulness evident in them.

“Then tell me,” you smiled warmly, feeling your cheeks warm up as he smiled back at you.

“Why do I have a feeling you already know?”

“Because I do… it’s just… some flowers can have multiple meanings, I want to know what you meant by each one.” You knew you were most definitely blushing at the moment, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care as he moved closer, thigh now pressed against your own. He started to point out each flower and he explained.

“Purple violets mean that the giver’s thoughts were, and I’m quoting the website here darling, ‘were occupied with love’ to the person they are giving it too,” you giggled, smiling up at him as he continued with a bit more confidence. “Purple lilacs symbolize the first emotions of love, yellow daisies mean anything from youthful beauty to loyal love to new beginnings, I was honestly aiming for all three, as they remind me of you.” You noticed how Bucky was now blushing, eyes turned to focus on the flowers, nervousness flooding him again. “Red carnations mean love, pride, and admiration, and finally the hydrangeas symbolize heartfelt emotions, but I like their second meaning more.” He paused, biting his lip again before continuing,

“That they can be used to express gratitude for being understood… Y/N, you’re amazing. You’re always kind, you’re never quick to judge but you're quick to protect, you’re fierce, whether it’s beating up bad guys or defending one of us. What I’m saying,” he finally looked back up at you, “I like you a lot Y/N. You showed me kindness and welcomed me here at the compound before I could even remember what either of those words meant anymore. You’re hot-headed, rash, too stubborn for your own good, quick to jump into a fight, you and Steve have that in common. But you’re also quick-witted, ambitious, and God I’m rambling, again aren’t I? I just… I wanted to show you some of the beauty you show me every time you walk through the door without even trying.” You couldn’t stop smiling as Bucky spoke, somewhere along the line you two had started holding hands and you most definitely weren’t letting go anytime soon. “I’ve fallen in love with you without you even trying doll.” He froze, realizing the pet name rolled so easily off his tongue, the same one that had upset you the night before.

You released one of his hands, gently placing it to cusp his jaw, “Bucky, I think I have some of my own confessions to make” your voice was soft, and it surprised you that you even could speak. Here was the man of your literal dreams confessing his love for you in the garden you had built from the ground up. “Before you panic, I actually like the pet names, I just… last night I was really wound up, and I lashed out at you, I’m sorry Buck...” He visibly softened at your words, elated he could go back to calling you that, but he still stared at your intertwined hand. “I really like you to…” his eyes shot up from to meet yours.

“Really?” If anyone knew that the formidable Winter Soldier had practically whimpered out that word, you knew Sam would never let Bucky live it down. You just smiled, standing and gently tugged him into the garden. You had a second bench, hidden amongst the thick foliage of the surrounding trees and vines. The bench was at the edge of a hidden circle opening, the circle was lined with rock and shells, the center filled with soft blankets and fluffy pillows. This was your favorite place to nap, the quiet secluded heart of the garden just hidden in the darkness, and away from the exit. Bucky hadn’t been the first to enter the garden, but he was the first you were willingly showing this part of it. It was your, or well our now you guessed, little secret. Fairy lights, these installed by you as the first batch you received, surrounded the circle.

You sat towards the edge of the circle, just a bit off from the bench, motioned him to join you on the fluffy pillows you sat on. He hesitantly sat beside you, close but cautious, unsure of what you were doing but trusting you completely. “Do you know why this small area is my favorite spot but is the one area of the entire garden I don’t let anyone into?” You asked softly, gently holding his soft yet calloused hands in your lap. He shook his head, intrigued but staying silent. You pointed towards the bush in front of you, small blue forget-me-nots dotting the bush. “They remind me of you.” You confided, looking towards him. His eyes gazed back towards you, full of admiration, awe, and, dare you to say, love. “There’s the obvious memory joke in there, but that’s not why they remind me of you. They symbolize a love brimming with memories, and every time I look at them I remember the hundreds of times your eyes look at me with such awe, like you can’t believe I’m real. No one’s ever looked at me like that before. Their color reminds me of your eyes, those ocean eyes I could get lost in if I’m not paying attention, the eyes I’m searching for during those boring briefs before meetings. They also symbolize how I don’t want you to forget about me one day.” You saw the emotions flash in those very eyes you could fall into as you spoke.

Bucky gently moved closer, his hands now cradling your jaw as he spoke. “I could never forget about you doll.” His words pushed you forward almost subconsciously, finally daring to get closer to the man you could see yourself falling in love with. Every second went by painfully slow as the two of you grew closer, until Bucky’s lips met with yours. You hummed happily, his thumbs rubbing soft circles against your cheeks as you finally kissed. Your hands found themselves at the nape of his neck, gently tugging at his hair as he deepened the kiss. You pulled away finally, suddenly very aware about the burning need in your lungs to breathe. Bucky, ever the super soldier, was the first to recover, grinning as he tried to catch his breath. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since forever.”

You laughed at that, biting your bottom lip, noticing how kiss swollen Bucky’s lips were. “Stop being cheesy and kiss me again Bucky, matte’ of fact, never stop kissing me,” You said softly, pulling him back for more. He smiled against your lips as you both finally felt content, surrounded by flowers and fairy lights.

[chibipika]

Random LC extra go! This is non-canon solely because it doesn’t quite fit in the timeline of events in Chapter 26.  But if Jade hadn’t gone to visit Stalker on her second day in Goldenrod, I could easily see this happening.

~~~~~

The sound of movement catches Starr’s ear from across the Pokécenter room.  She sits up, squinting at the darkness in confusion until her eyes adjust.  She sees Jade sitting up in her bed as well.  Starr opens her mouth to say something, but then freezes.  Jade’s knees are pulled up to her chest, arms clasped tightly around them, trembling all over.

...Oh.

Starr turns away, nails digging into her palms.  Just… just lie down and go back to sleep.  You’ll only make things worse.  This is only happening because you’re here.

Instead, she stands up, walks over, and sits on the edge of the other bed.  

“Another nightmare?”

It takes several seconds for Jade to respond.  She sniffles once, forcing her breathing to level out.  “Yeah.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“It’s nothing that we haven’t talked about before,” Jade says quietly.  Like she’s ashamed.  Like she’s the problem here.  You did this.  You did this.  You did this.

The silence is biting.  Starr screws her eyes shut, gripping the sheet, every inch of her wanting to evaporate.

“I’ve… I’ve been trying to think about that night like that was a different person,” Jade says.

“It wasn’t,” Starr replies immediately, the words acid on her tongue.  Jade winces, and Starr goes on, “That was me.  We can’t pretend that it wasn’t.”  It feels like shoving a knife through her own heart.  What you’re feeling is nothing compared to what she’s feeling.

Jade nods, face still half-hidden by her knees.  “...Yeah.”

The seconds crawl by.  Hating every word, she finally says, “Look.  If… if being around me is making it worse, then…”

“No.”

The reply catches her off guard.  Jade sniffles again, wiping away tears.  “It’s helping.  Being able to see you as… not that.  It helps.”

Starr exhales slowly, daring to let herself relax a bit.  She releases her death grip on the sheet and slowly takes Jade’s hand in hers.

“Okay.”

 ~~~~~

 “Hey.  Gotta admit I wasn’t expecting you to still have this number.”

Starr looks up to see Ajia walking toward her with the usual inappropriately cheerful expression.  She bites the urge to make a snide comment.  You called her here, don’t be an ass.

Instead, she mumbles something like, “Figured it would be useful to hold onto it.”  That makes it sound like you wanted to see her again, even after what happened last year.  She’s sure that Ajia’s going to jump on that, but she doesn’t.  

“Sorry to kind of… leave you hanging,” Ajia says awkwardly.  “After putting you through so much last week.”

You told her to leave back there.  Why is she apologizing for something that’s your fault.

Starr glances away.  “That’s not what I’m here to talk about.”

Ajia blinks.  “Oh.  Okay?”  She sits down on the bench next to her.

Now that Ajia’s here, talking to her suddenly feels impossible.  But it’s too late to pretend like nothing’s wrong.

“Jade and I decided to travel together.”

Ajia’s expression relaxes.  She thinks this is going to be a pleasant conversation.  “That’s great.”

“It’s not great,” Starr snaps.  “Being near me is obviously torture for her.”  Not that word, not that word.  “She can hardly look at me without flinching.  She’s constantly on-edge, having nightmares, waking up crying in the middle of the night.  All because of me.”

Ajia frowns.  “Because of you?”

Starr jerks her head up, sarcastic retort at the edge of her tongue, when she sees Ajia’s face.  She’s not being condescending.  Does she seriously not know?

“Jade never told you what happened, did she?”

Ajia pauses, choosing her words carefully.  “She did mention that your squad had ended the rebel team.  She didn’t go into detail, but… I got that it was pretty brutal.”

Starr sucks in a breath.  So Ajia doesn’t know, then.  Great, just great.  “Yeah, that was pretty fucked up too, but that’s not the main thing.”

There’s a pause.  Ajia’s clearly waiting for the rest of it.  Starr swallows back the bile and says, “She got captured on a mission.  My squad brought her in for interrogation.”

Ajia’s expression falters for just a second.  She’s already guessed.  You don’t have to say it.  You don’t have to say it.

Starr keeps talking anyway.  “They would’ve killed her.  You know that.  I had to come up with some reason to keep her alive without looking totally fucking suspicious.”  Excuses, excuses, excuses.

Ajia exhales slowly, tendons clenching in her hands in that way she does when she’s trying to keep her reactions subdued.  She thinks you’re a monster.  No, she knows.  She’s seen it firsthand.  It’s not like you never targeted her with that shit back then.  There was just never a chance for things to get that out of hand.

The silence lasts too long.  Ajia finally says, “So you tortured her.”

The words dig into Starr like knives, and she fights back the familiar urge to tear open her own skin.  “They were watching the whole time.  I didn’t have a choice.”

Liar.  You took things way further than you needed to.  You wanted to hurt her.  You thought she deserved it for putting you both in that position.

Ajia stiffens.  It actually looks like she’s having trouble coming up with what to say.  She finally settles on, “Where’s Jade now?

Starr glances away.  “I don’t know, probably still around the central Pokécenter.  I left before she woke up.”

There’s an awkward pause.  “You’re going back to her, right?”

“I shouldn’t.”

Ajia raises an eyebrow.  “I think she’d probably be pretty upset if you just vanished.”

“It’s for her own good.”

“…Kinda sounds more like you’re doing it to hurt yourself,” Ajia says, rubbing the back of her head.

“Yeah, well, what would you know.”  As if she hasn’t always been able to see right through you.

Ajia sighs, resting her elbows on her knees and looking out at the park surrounding them.  “Why do you think she chose to travel with you, then?”

“I don’t know, maybe she’s a fucking masochist or something,” Starr says as dismissively as she can.

Ajia gives her an unimpressed look, but there are bits of sympathy hiding underneath.  Wasted sympathy.  “It’s obviously important to her.   And I don’t think you’ll be able to make things better if you run away.”

“What makes you think I’m trying to put things right.”  What makes her think you even can put things right.  “I wanted to start things over with Jade because I wanted to pretend that that night never happened.  It was purely selfish.”

Ajia chuckles.  “Yeaaahh, uh… if that were true, we wouldn’t be talking right now.”

Why doesn’t Ajia just tell you what a piece of shit you are.  That would make everything easier.

“Why are you doing this, anyway?” Starr mutters.

“Because we’re friends.”

Starr lets out a sharp laugh.  “In what universe are we friends after all the shit I’ve pulled.”

Ajia takes a second to mull the question over.  “Probably the universe where you were willing to sacrifice your life for us.”

Starr scoffs under her breath, but doesn’t say anything.  Ajia folds her arms behind her head and says, “There’s gotta be something there if you were willing to do that.”

Starr folds her arms and looks away.  Any retorts that come to mind all feel hollow and pointless.  “I’m just… tired of hurting people,” she finally manages.

“I don’t think hurting yourself is much better.”

Starr bristles.  That’s not what you’re doing.  Not this time.  It’s not…

…What are you doing, then? How is this supposed to help Jade.  How is this supposed to help you.

She lets out a defeated sigh.  “Wanna… help me find her?”

Ajia beams.  “Sure.”

Why does she have to be so optimistic all the damn time.  It’s the worst.

It’s also the best.

[sian22redux]

Field of Dreams

Here we go!  No 2 in the fics I owe @nomadicpixel and @theycallmebecca.  Nomad asked for Steve and a relationship that is new and my brain said how about a little enemies to lovers everyone?  Not to worry it all works out in spectacularly happy fashion--but before that Y/N has a PR disaster to sort out and really, he’s a hard guy to forget, even if he is a little stubborn about Brooklyn. ^_^   

Part 1 of 2.  And obviously the tweets I’ve made and embedded here are not real, do not belong to any real account.  

---------

“Y/N have you seen this?”

Your harried Media VP, Stephanie, uncharacteristically dressed in a rumpled suit and no make-up, barges into your office, trailed by your harried looking PA.  It’s 7 am, mid-morning in LA, and you are jet-lagged; bleary eyed and something that passes for awake after two precious weeks at your New York research labs.  They were heaven, but now it’s back to routine, back to the long days that keep Fleur in Bloomberg’s list of Ones to Watch.

“What is it?” you ask, setting your latte down and rising to your feet just as the pair screech to a halt just before your desk.

From the look of things ‘routine’ will not be today’s best adjective.  Steph, a night-owl through and through, is never here this early.  Her face is flushed and her eyes red as she waves a piece of paper covered with a screen print in your direction.   “It’s a mess is what it is.  And how you should respond I have no idea.”      

No idea?

 Steph can finagle her way out of PR jams that reduce grown men to tears.  “Respond to what?”  With a sense of doom you take the paper from her outstretched hand and quickly scan the contents.  

‘Not shoot O’Malley twice?  What the ever-loving hell?!  

Steve Rogers—THE Steve Rogers—finally gets a twitter account and the first tweet he sends six months later trashes the Dodgers baseball team?!

Your Dodgers.  

“Why is he @CapRogers?” you ask, more than a little stunned as Steph looks on.

Her face is pale and her fingers shake.  No coffee yet this morning.  Mary, your brilliantly practical PA, settles on priorities and quickly hands her a steaming cup.  “Captain America was already taken.”

Of course.  It’s his first ever tweet and the one he’s pinned and everyone has already followed him.  No way any soul on Planet Earth has missed this missile. You scan a few of the 50,000 comments. They range from the politely encouraging <welcome Cap!> to the crassly supportive <F*ckin A!> to the downright militant <Get your own team pal>  

Oh god.  What a perfectly shitty time for this.  Fleur’s new board are well pleased that its initial public offering has gone viral but are still a little wary. Six months of thirty-six hour days and you are secure beyond your wildest dreams: number 25 on Forbes’s Top Thirty under Thirty; lauded in all the trade reports for your business acumen; working hard to turn your chemistry degree to more ground-breaking organic lines.  

It’s been tough but satisfying.  

Buying the Los Angeles Dodgers has been your one gift to yourself.  

It has not been without its bumps. A women in Major League Baseball’s old boys club has ruffled feathers amongst the owners and grey-haired stodgy boardrooms around the world.  You’ve heard it all.  The back-biting and the snide sideswipes.  The outright misogyny.  The threatened egos.  What does she think she’s doing?  What does she know about baseball?  Who does she think she is?

Oddly, the one group that hasn’t groused about the change has been the Dodger’s staff.  You’ve kept their pennant chasing front house crew.  Let the manager and coaching staff stay undisturbed.  Got to know the players and their families.  You love them.  And they are beginning to cautiously love you back. The team is your baby and while your instinct is to not let anyone give them stick, some battles aren’t worth taking on.  Especially from a national icon.

“We didn’t move them, perhaps we don’t need to be too direct,” you point out, hopefully passing the paper back.

“No way,” Steph shakes her auburn head.  “You are Fleur and Fleur is you.  It’s too critical a time.  Besides, if you don’t publically speak out the team might take it as a slight and the True Blue sure will.   He’s too visible a figure.  You’ll have to respond and support LA, show that you are in their corner.”

You groan.  She has a point.  TrueBlue are the diehard LA fans--a colourful and vocal lot—southern California through and through, and they are proud to have a woman owner.  You owe it to them.  

Well then.  You smooth your skirt and sit back down again, flip up your Macbook lid, hurriedly type a few pithy lines.  Steph comes around the back of your desk and scans them over your shoulder, bites her lip while reading.  “You sure it’s what you want, the pointed ref…?” but you nod firmly.  She said direct and this is that.

“Ok…”

There’s a satisfying whoosh as it flies out into the Twittersphere.

Two weeks and a lifetime in business later you pause to smooth down your red evening dress, set your shoulders back and stride forward into the barrage of cameras as you reach to shake the President’s outstretched hand.

It is her inaugural formal State Dinner.  Like the rest of your homeland you are pleased and proud she chose Justin Trudeau of Canada to be the first.  He is confident and always on point, a neighbour with an aligned agenda and you incline your head, almost as thrilled to meet him as her.  The handshake is brief. He jokingly asks in French if you will have the Canadien’s hockey game up on your phone as it isn’t even Spring Training yet (he has read his briefing book), and you laugh, saying that Los Angeles is your home now.  The Kings are King.

The resulting laughing group photos are snapped and Steph, you’re certain, will be wildly pleased.  

After half an hour of polite chat with several CEO’s you know, a quiet gong sounds and you, like the other luminaries, search for your seating card along the white expanse of silver and china-decked dinner table.  

Mme. Y/N Y/N is written in gold on elegant white card. Right next to a name that makes your stomach plummet through the floor.

Captain S. Rogers

Of course the White House has invited prominent expat Canadians.  Of course it has invited Americans Justin would like to meet.  

Oh god.  

You reach for your water glass just as the gold lattice chair pulls out.

“Miss Y/N.”  

A pair of inhumanely blue eyes wait for some acknowledgement and you nod, just a fraction, wondering how in the world you will navigate this.  Was it a joke by the President’s Chief of Staff?  Some kind of not so subtle message?  Or, more worrying, a comment that your pointed retort was not officially appreciated?

“Captain.”

The medal-garnished superhuman in a dress Army uniform takes off his cap and sits down.  Blushes faintly.  Runs a hand through perfectly trimmed blond hair and awkwardly clears his throat, making a blandly positive comment about the weather and décor.

The flowers?  Really? Who thought this was a good idea?

You do your best:  asking after the Avengers’ latest escapade, the health of Agent Hawkeye who is known to have been banged up, the adjustment of his friend.  You are CEO of a multinational beauty empire, formal events with strangers go with the turf, and so you are relieved to note the pleased surprise in Captain Rogers’ eyes.  Not everyone supports James Barnes’ parole.  You’d have thought that that will break the ice but as soon as the appetizer plates are whisked away he turns to his left and engages Canada’s Junior Minister for Defense in a discussion about NATO that lasts until dessert.  

What the?          

Beside you, the US Consel for Montreal looks suitably embarrassed, but there is nothing either of you can do. You pound back a few flutes of champagne and another quite good Whiskey Sour as the speeches arrive with coffee and dessert.  By the time the music starts up and the room applauds Justin’s smooth waltz with the President you are ready to make an escape, get something out of this mildly disastrous night by pigeonholing the head of Lauder for a little competitors chat, when a fresh-faced aide with Maple Leaf pin taps your silk-clad shoulder.

“Madame..”

“-oiselle,” you correct automatically.  

���Le Premier-Ministre serait honoré d'avoir une danse. »  

Of course you will.  You rise and follow the young man onto the dance floor, accept Justin’s outstretched hand and proceed spend a delightful ten minutes flirting with one of the handsomer and more chatty leaders in the world.  Thank heaven. As the cameras click you banter back and forth, relieved you took so much time on your wardrobe.  A sleek but stylish chignon. Marcasite studs. Louboutin heels and fall of red silk slashed to just above your knee.  You look good.  Tomorrow’s morning tweet of you both will likely get thousands of views you think, when a low voice comes off from your left.    

“May I cut in?”

“Of course, Captain.” Justin bows and drops your hand and you are swept up into the arms of the last person you thought would dance.

“Captain Rogers?”  My word his chest is broad. You take a deep breath and dare to look up into those eyes.  They look a little pained but hopeful. “Are you---?”

“Apologizing. Yes.” He quickly nods his head.  “Look, I’m new at this.  Never tried the social media thing before and I kinda..forgot..about the bigger repercussions.”

“Evidently.”  You take a breath, watching his brow furrow and quickly thinking of what to say.  “You are of course entitled to your opinion but blanket statements of where things belong are unfair to the players today. As their owner I have a duty to support them.”

“I know.  Look I didn’t mean to be hard on those guys.”  

The blue eyes droop.  He looks abashed and a little like a puppy taking an expected scolding and so you relent, search for something positive to say. “They’ll recover.  If LA is good at anything is it definitely bouncing back, Captain.“  

“Call me Steve.”

“Steve.”  He’s nodding, looking a little more confident. As he leads you (surprisingly smoothly for one so big) around the floor you start to relax a little. Chat about dancing as a lost art.  Admire the cut of his uniform and the straight line of his jaw.  He is, if anything, more handsome up close and personal, although there is just the faintest twinge of anxiety still in his face.  A Man of Out of Time.  Yes..and still adjusting to the world he’s landed in.     

Maybe you could be generous and try an olive branch.

“Brooklyn are still as famous today as they were then,” you say, squeezing the hand that holds onto yours.  The other at your waist is warm.  “The first team to break the colour barrier.  Nine World Series titles.  Cy Young pitchers and All Star MVPS.  You can be proud of all that they did. ”    

A sunshine smile warms his handsome face.  “I am! Of course I am.  Jeez, they were so much a part of our life Buck and I scrimped and saved every penny we could just to get into the nose-bleed seats.  75 cents was lunch for a week. If we couldn’t find it, we listened on the radio. Everyone did.  Young and old, rich and poor.  They played their games on Sundays so that working stiffs like me could go.  It was the only day we had off: a ticket and beer money was a treat.”

You’re seriously starting to enjoy yourself, listening to him reminisce.  This is a veritable soliloquay.  “Ebbet’s might have been shaped like a bandbox but it was a right-handed slugger’s dream.  McPhail was a genius.  Ladies’ Days for ten cents.  Half price if the temps’ got too high.  I miss it so. Hot wood slats and popcorn and warm beer.”

“The best.”  You grew up with baseball too.  The crazy cement white elephant that was The Big O where the Expos played.  Gary Carter and Bill "The Spaceman" Lee.  Hot, steamy summer nights near Montreal’s broad lazy river.  

But you’ve made the switch—LA are your boys now.  

“Dodger stadium is baseball’s beautiful showplace now,” you explain.  “We have tried to honour Brooklyn’s spirit—playing to win always and keeping the park accessible. There is even a pop-up museum to them.”

He stills and you fall just slightly behind the beat.  “A pop-up museum?”

“Yes.  It has old jerseys and ticket stubs and photos of the team.  It will run until the fall.”  

Steve looks far from impressed.  “That’s all? Nothing permanent? No one’s set up a display to stay?”

You stiffen a little in his big hands, beginning to be a little frustrated. “We do own the trademark. There are statues to Jackie Robinson and "P. W." Reese where the Brooklyn Cyclones play today.”

He snorts derisively.  “Heck that’s mnor league.  And Coney Island. Doesn’t count.  Ebbets Field and Flatbush were their heart and that’s all gone. They’re an ugly old apartment complex now.”        

A frustrated silence falls.  Some how you’ve fallen into it again and you can feel your ire rising.  He isn’t the only fan who’s had a team be traded.  Business is business. A team has to have support at the gate or it isn’t sustainable.  Some, like Brooklyn, move to greener pastures.  And some are forced to fold. 

You stop on the edge of the dance floor and pull back, looking him squarely in the face.  There’s a muscle jumping in his cheek and annoyance deepens the french flavour in your accent.  American icon or no, you’ve had enough with his pity party.   

“I miss the Expos just as much as you do Brooklyn.  My team was traded, too.   But I do try to be more balanced about reality.  I don’t go round trashing the Nats or complaining that Washington has no memorial for them.  At least your Dodgers kept their name!”

Steve blinks and a press camera clicks.  

You both drop hands when the music ends and retreat--him to the bar, and you to ladies room.  

Insufferable. Stubborn. (Gorgeous) Man.  

You try to put the experience behind you, get on with work and cheering on your team, but of course the world conspires to interfere.  

LA clinches their pennant run but the photo of you and Captain America looking daggers at each other tops the front page of every newspaper the next day.

[seenashwrite]

The Lore You Know (Part Five)

Status: Part 5 of 6 Word Count: 5.9K Category: Mini-Series, Mystery, On-The-Hunt, Humor, Behind-the-scenes Canon-Compliant Rating: 18+ [for language/sexual situations] Character(s)/Pairing(s): Sam x Reader/Female O.C. #1; Dean x Female O.C. #2; Reader/Female O.C. #1 x ??? (ahem-surprise!-ahem) Warnings: Coarse language; mild-to-moderate allusions to sex/activities of a sexual nature Author’s Note(s): The draft of this was lost, and this was to be completed a way long time ago, and boy howdy I’m sorry the muse didn’t hit me again til recently, but I hope you enjoy and that it was worth waiting for, one last part to go; see more post-story Overall Summary:  see Part One ; reminder: this takes place in early S11 Part Five Summary: The agent stumbles upon a discovery that seems too good to be true; Dean lands himself in real trouble; the waitress shows a different side; the agent finally reveals the truth behind her mission

                * ~ * The Lore You Know: Master Post * ~ *

WEDNESDAY

I slept like the dead that night, thanks to the fact that Sam didn't sleep in my room. He'd said something about not wanting to wake me up, though he did just that at half past the crack of dawn, when he came in and grabbed up his laptop and his bag, barely even looked at me. Well, that's not exactly true - he did at my admittedly snide goodbye.

"Cheer up, Sammy. It's Wednesday."

The door was slammed shut without another word.

I was still turning over the news from Wildcat in my mind. The trio of terror had most definitely gone rogue, and their stunt of turning my request for a touch of mayhem into a horror movie meant they were dunzo. The Recovery Team - which in this case, meant recovery of pieces because this was elimination-level shit - was supposedly en route, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be any time soon. I called Wildcat as I finished getting ready for the day, told him I was pulling rank, and Recovery should let me know once they had the goons cornered, hold off on the wham-boom til I gave the word.

"He won't like it," Wildcat advised.

"But you can get around him, can’t you? For now? Isn't he bopping around some other world, hunting for his X-marks-the-spot?" I replied. "C'mon. You're the best at covert shenanigans."

"And you are a control freak," Wildcat stated, but I heard him clicking away, putting in the team's orders, relating I was running point.

I finished applying my lipstick, rubbed my lips together, then made that pop sound just to piss him off; I grinned when I heard him sigh. "Kitty, I got no choice. Sam's onto me hard core. Got a feeling I'll need the distraction if I don't want this assignment to bloat and belly up."

"This better work. If he gets word, I wouldn't want to be in your Louboutins, my dear."

Wildcat's comment was perfectly timed, as I was right at that moment slipping them on. "Just make sure Recovery knows to keep those shitbirds corralled, no sedating darts, let the mania fly - and to keep out of sight of the Winchesters."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'm sending them on the prowl, which they’ll do, because I’ll share how my fantastic partner in covert crime has alerted me to the location of the creeps-of-the-week. General vicinity. Give or take."

"So it's to be a snipe hunt."

I picked up my keys, walking to the door as I answered. 

"Yup. I got work to do."

The boys took the bait, too pumped for the action to bother being pissed at me or question my saying I was going to follow a lead Wildcat had given me on the mara’s hidey-hole. I didn't have one, of course, and it didn’t matter since daylight hour evisceration wasn't her jam. What I was actually up to was boring as fuck, but a necessary bore - I was stuck in my car on an old-fashioned stake out, across the street from the waitress' house, waiting on her to emerge. I'd texted her under the guise of taking her to lunch, but got no answer, and there was no light on in the bedroom I knew to be hers; no doubt she was still asleep.

At least one roommate had returned to the roost, but I didn't get a glimpse of her until late afternoon, when she opened the front door, crossed her arms, and stared right into my eyes.

And when I looked into hers, I sat up straight, felt my eyebrow arch on its own. "Fuck me," I muttered.

As I walked across the street, she came out onto the small landing, closed the door behind her, re-crossed her arms. She was an absolute dish, tips to toes, tall and curvy, looked like she'd just hopped off a vintage Hollywood poster. It was a purposeful, polished presentation, one I appreciated, so much so I honestly didn't want to update the database with this newly encountered, mighty fine brand of mara.

To say I couldn't hardly get my head wrapped around this stroke of luck was the understatement of the goddamned century.

"You can call me Raquel," she said by way of introduction, didn't ask my name, and I didn't volunteer it.

"And our girl in there's working the Mansfield angle,” I replied. “Damn, now I kinda wanna meet the other roomies, who else we got? A Loren, a Monroe --- ooh, dare I hope --- a Lamarr?"

"You amuse me. You know why I look the way I look. Part and parcel of living alongside them. Which I enjoy more than hiding in the woods."

"Still. Didn't have to go bombshell to chum the waters. You got good taste." I gave her a lingering once-over, admiring more than just the perfectly fitted slacks and cashmere shell. "Beyond the Chanel, I mean."

"Likewise. Those shoes are in excellent condition for how old they are - though I could say the same for you."

"I'm real big on regular maintenance. Mind if we get down to business?"

"I've no business with you. I don't deal with your kind. I only want to know why you're camped outside of my home, yet doing nothing."

"Yeeeeah, but this may interest you - benefit you. I'd like to take a couple potential problems off your hands. And I'll throw in three super-powered square meals, team full of buffed after-dinner mints to sweeten the pot. All-male review."

"And what am I to do in return?"

I grinned. "Make a big fucking mess of main street tonight."

"I have plans tonight."

"That so? If you got another dirtbag lined up, well... you don't need my help, but I'd be up for a quick peep show. Never seen it go down in real time."

"I rarely go down."

My grin widened. "I wanna be like you when I grow up."

That earned me a wicked - but genuine - cackle, head thrown back and all. "Aren't you just a peach. I do take pleasure in a witty woman."

I tilted my head toward the house - and the waitress slumbering inside. "My experience with ol' Mansfield says you're in short supply. There's a not-so-good-head-on-her-shoulders joke somewhere in there, but I've been a little off my game."

"Your game seems quite on point from where I stand." She paused, returned the once-over. "So. Should I consider changing my plans for tonight, tell me: what's your pleasure? Traditional start? Or full gallop?"

"Hmmm. Mine? Given what you're working with ---" I took a step closer, ran a finger under the long string of pearls that landed right above her cleavage "--- may wanna come on the scene like Lady Godiva."

"That's how you'd have me come?"

Jesus. "Just considering, huh? I thought you didn't do business with my kind," I said, removing my hand, but letting it drift away slowly. That ultra-fine cashmere blend felt - dare I say it - heavenly.

"Are we still discussing business? Or I have I misread?"

I glanced at my watch. "We got a while til sundown." I looked back into those sharp, glinting eyes. "No business for hours. Not a man to deal with for miles."

Raquel brought a hand to my face, swiped a thumb across my lower lip then down, smearing the red lipstick to my chin, admiring her handiwork for a few breathless beats - breathless on my part, that is - before she met my gaze again, and responded.

"Give me a minute. I'll make sure the baby's fast asleep."

I couldn't say if it was when I was getting in some going-down, or if it was when Raquel was strapping up that the sleepy-time cocktail wore off and the waitress slipped out of the house, but the series of borderline belligerent texts from Dean sure pulled me out of a helluva afterglow.

The short version was that she'd gone to the restaurant for no good reason, then when her co-workers - the ones not on the slab -  started talking about the manager's murder and the subsequent massacre, the brain cells that managed to rub together opted to regale the soon-to-be-stunned folks with so much detail about said deaths that one of them called the cops. Thankfully, brain cells three and four kicked in, and Dean was her phone call after she'd been officially arrested following enough of a quote-unquote confession to convince the powers-that-be she was definitely involved, whether the ditz routine - or the nutbar routine, depending - was for show or not. I managed to shoot a text to Raquel in the time that it took Dean to get back to the motel and pick us up, telling her that we were running behind schedule, but she didn't text back, and there wasn't much time to dwell on it, because, well, Sam.

I knew when Sam made with the flirting and the come-ons that it was an act, didn't even need to check the tap to know he and Dean had made a plan that morning while they were out chasing the fake lead, all to try and get one over on me, go after the mara on their own after the cakewalk of dispatching the trio - presumptive arrogant dicks - wanting to keep me busy, even if it meant Sam had to do the dirty work while Dean went off alone to finish up the recon.

Which was bad. Very bad. Extremely bad.

Sam had barely gotten his mouth around a nipple when my brain started screeching out a red alert, and I sat up so quickly, he rolled off the bed, bumping his head on the night stand.

"It was a set!" I shouted.

"The hell?!" he shouted back, rubbing the bump.

"Last night," I answered, quickly getting dressed. "Dean. Where was he?"

"What?" Sam asked with a frown, getting to his feet.

"Cut the bullshit, Sam, this is serious!" I exclaimed, whipping back around. "Stop with the fuck-her-incoherent plan for a second, all right?"

"What?" he repeated, but there wasn't much of a question in his tone.

"I know that you know I'm not all what I've put myself out there to be, and I also know that you know that I know this right here isn’t anything legit, so listen up: you're right. Dean's right. I'm a liar. But I'm not lying now."

"Sure you aren't."

"Dean's in real danger."

I don't know what the expression on my face looked like, but Sam immediately stiffened and gulped - he'd heard me loud and clear. 

"Tell me," he said, hustling to get his clothes back on.

"You first - when Dean got laid last night, do you know who it was?"

Sam looked at me, puzzled. "The waitress was at the club ---"

"NO!" I yelled, threw one of his shoes at him, which he dodged. "Focus! In the car, dumbass! Who did he fuck in the car? Did he say a name? Did you see her, like was she the bartender at the restaurant, or was the medical examiner a chick, or ----"

"I don't underst ----"

Since he was officially being of no use to me, I bolted out of there, took a sharp left, started banging on the door of Dean’s room; the waitress finally opened it nigh on the twenty-thousandth pound, standing there cool as could be with that rat's nest of bleach piled atop her head, the near see-through joke of a blouse replaced by an old black tee of Dean's.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, sweetly, politely, even though there was a slight grunt underneath her words, seeing as how I'd shoved her ass to the side, plowing ahead to the bathroom where I rightly assumed the confirmation of my gut feeling was located.

"Oh fuck me," I said for the second - okay, more than that, but in this sense - time that day.

"I got almost all of my mascara off it," said the waitress, coming up behind me. "I didn't realize it was so nice."

She'd washed it out in the sink, that shirt-turned-snotrag that I’d found under the seat and handed to her earlier, and it was now hanging over the shower rod. It reeked of motel shampoo, and the mascara hadn't really come out, just gotten smudged around into grey stains that made the cream cardigan look like a jaundiced leopard. I reached up, pulled it down, closed my eyes briefly before I read the tag, even though I knew. I just fucking knew.

CHANEL

"It's, um, not yours, is it?" she asked.

I threw the cardigan into the tub as I turned to her with a look for asking such a dumbshit question, one I was now positive she knew the answer to, and not just because it was plain that I wouldn't touch Dean unless it was a proverbial gun-to-head situation.

She jumped slightly, the combo of the sharp splat of the clothing and the fierceness in my eyes rightly startling her. I took a small step forward. She took a big step back.

"Y-your... your eyes are... the, um... they look like how when... when sometimes my ex would take ----"

"Yeah, my pupils start to dial it up to eleven when I get scared or pissed, and I ain't been scared of anything in a long, long time, so guess where I'm at right now."

"Mad at me?"

I grabbed her by the neck, put her up against the wall, and she squirmed, clutched onto my wrist. I didn't choke her, nor did I lift her off the floor, but I had a damn good grip. She needed to get my message. Fast.

"Now I don't give three shits how you play it in front of Sam and Dean, or the rest of the human race for that matter, I really don't, but from here on you're dropping this dimbulb bunny shtick with me, because I get you're legitimately shit-for-brains and too stupid to breathe on most subjects, but not when it comes to people. You're pretty damn good at reading people, aren't you?"

Though she kept hold of my wrist, the halt in the squirming and the chagrined expression on her face was my answer.

"You navigate jobs like stripping and waitressing as pro as they come, and you handled those cops like a boss, and you summed up Dean in a hot second, knew exactly what fantasies to wrap him up in. How am I doing? Reading you?"

A barely-there shrug.

"Thought so. And you're crafty, I read all about how you got yourself out of the marriage to that asshole biker who liked to knock you around. Duke the Douche, your sister liked to call him, wasn’t that it?"

Widened eyes.

"Oh I did my homework on you, you think I wouldn't? So we're done with this sweet little ray of sunshine bullshit. I hate those small-dicked fuckers who hit women ---" I slid my grip up, pressed into her face hard with my fingertips "--- but I got a big dick, and I will break your jaw if the next words out of your mouth aren't in your real voice, and show some real brains, and have some real information, 'cause you don't start talking straight, you're not gonna talk at all, you got me, Malibu Barbie?"

She nodded best she was able, and I let her loose. As she sat on the bed, head dropped, posture slumped, she cleared her throat. And then she started picking at chipped polish on her thumb.

I huffed and crossed my arms. "We're on the clock here!”

Sam chose that moment to enter the room, opening his mouth to no doubt start yelling again, but the waitress beat him to it. Except it wasn't a yell that came out. What came out was a voice that was still light but less breathy, and a good quarter step down on the scales than what we'd heard so far.

"What do you wanna know?"

Sam's eyebrows shot up, looking from her, to me, then back again.

"When did Raquel get back in town?" I asked, getting right to it.

"I'm not sure when, exactly. I'd talked to her on the phone while I was at work the other night."

"We're gonna need to get some exactly. Was it when your manager was playing grab-ass?"

"Mmm-hmm. And I told her I was getting scared, being all alone. That the FBI was in town investigating those murders."

"And you told her about the murders? That they were your roommates’ boyfriends?"

"Uh-huh."

"And she made a beeline back, so you wouldn't be by yourself."

Another set of nods. "But she said she didn't want me to miss out on a good time, that I needed to get out of the house for some fun, get my mind off it, so she'd go with me to the club opening, hang around til I felt comfortable." The waitress paused and gasped. "She's okay, right? Did anything happen to Raquel? She was home when I left today..." A puzzled look briefly crossed her face. "I think she had company over, because I heard ----"

"Yeah, yeah, she's great, she's fine," I interrupted. I turned slightly to Sam, including him on the next level of my sleuthing. "I have the feeling that together, the two of you will fill in some big gaps. I want you ---" I pointed at the waitress "--- to tell everything Raquel said about last night, and you ---" my finger went in Sam's direction "--- to tell everything Dean said."

They both looked at me blankly.

"On your marks! Get set!" I prompted, and in my most threatening tone.

Sam went first. "Ah, well ---” He paused, glanced at the waitress. “Listen, I don’t want to hurt your feelings or anything, but Dean... he sometimes just ---”

The waitress cut him off. “It’s okay, Sam, I know he slept with somebody else. It’s not like we’re dating. Go ahead. Tell her whatever he said.”

And what Dean said was this: it seemed while Sam and I had been up to some legitimate dirty work the day prior, in the time between the morgue and the trio’s meltdown, Dean had decided to park himself at a bar and sulk over how the waitress was planning on having a ball without him. So after striking out with the hot co-ed bartender - god, just so unbelievably predictable - who'd reportedly called him "geezer", he took his bitter ass over to the club, despite the soiree being invitation-only. And he spotted someone more his age leaning against a light post to the side of the building, puffing on a pale pink Fantasia, someone who put that baby bartender to shame, someone who was an absolute dish, tips to toes, tall and curvy, looking like she'd just hopped off a vintage Hollywood poster.

And ol' Raquel knew him on sight, courtesy of the suck-face selfies the waitress had showed off of the two of them, bragging about what a tough guy he was, how charming, how he had all the right moves. Given the waitress' foul taste in men, and the way she was a damn dirtbag magnet in general, Raquel likely presumed Dean was one more in an ever-growing line. The waitress reported that Raquel hated the professor for stringing along roomie Monroe, and she loathed the long-time boyfriend of roomie Loren for stringing her along since junior high.

"Oh shit," I muttered, bringing a hand to my forehead. I'd inadvertently had two of the mara's prime targets taken out. At least she didn't know; if she had, she'd have likely tried to rail me in the not-so-fun way.

"Oh shit, what?" the waitress asked, and it broke me out of my thoughts.

"What came next? Did Raquel tell you she was leaving?" I asked as my reply.

"Mmm-hmm, because she’d met a guy. She said she’d stay if I was still nervous. But I told her it was okay, because my friends were..." the waitress began, but trailed off.

"They're dead, we know, gotta keep moving honeythighs," I said with a few snaps of my fingers, which caused Sam to glare at me as he sat on the bed next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. I sighed, opted to move her along without going full-tilt bitch. For now. “When did you know it was Dean - was it the sweater?”

Sam cut in, speaking to the waitress. "Time out - your roommate is the person who --- I don't ---" He looked to me. "She's the reason you think Dean's in trouble? I mean, you know this woman?"

"So do you.”

The waitress’ eyes grew wide as she stared at Sam. “You slept with Raquel, too?” Then, softly - “Wow.” Softer - “Ew.”

Sam frowned at her, then brought his eyes to mine with a look that said Spill it.

“You do. Well. You know her work," I said, hoping my return look conveyed my meaning, and boy howdy, did it.

Sam glanced down at himself, or rather, at his now-rumpled Fed gear. "Let me change," he told us, standing and rushing over to his bag.

"We'll be in the car," I replied, then gestured at our clearly clueless third wheel to gather up her stuff - and once we were settled, she started gathering some clues.

Leaning forward, resting folded arms on the back of the front seat, brow knit, she asked, "How did you know it was Raquel? I don't get how it has to do with Dean being in trouble. He's not in trouble with me. So you and Sam don't have to be upset on my account."

I fought the urge to pop her in her perpetually pouty lips, but instead just shifted to look at her. "I met the ol' girl earlier, noticed she was wearing the shell to that sweater set. Not many people dress like that around here. And it was crammed under the front seat, and he’d gotten his panties in a twist when Sam had put you in back last night. I put p-and-v together, like a good investigator does."

"But you investigate..."

The question trailed off and no babbles followed, so I took in the sight of myriad light bulbs firing up behind her eyes. "Go ahead.” I gave a quick point to the motel. “Apparently hair care's taking priority over certain death, we got a minute or two.”

“Is Raquel who you guys have been looking for? You think she did... that she's been murdering people when she was out of town? Because she wasn't? Wasn't out of town? She was in town? And she was ---"

"Yes. I'm saying Raquel came back in town and killed your manager."

"But she didn't kill the boyfriends or the people at ---"

"No."

"No?"

Shit. "Yes. They're, ah.... they fit her M.O. No to the club."

"’Cause she has an alibi,” the waitress said, glancing to her left, at the scene of Dean’s crime. Looking back up, she asked, “So Raquel’s, like, a for real serial killer?" A beat or two, a few of the bulbs ratcheting up the wattage."Oooh, orrrrrr...."

"Yeah. Or."

What felt like millennia of silence passed before the waitress spoke up again. "Can I ask you something? About something you said earlier?"

At that moment, Sam came out of the room, hair perfect, weapons bag thrown over a shoulder. I started the engine as I responded. "What?"

"You have a dick?"

I rolled my eyes. "Metaphor. Do I need to explain what a metaphor is?"

A sheepish look immediately hit her face. "Maybe?"

"Later."

WEDNESDAY, 5:38 p.m.

"You think she's going to kill Dean how she killed our other roommates' boyfriends, don't you?"

Sam and I looked up from our weapons assembly to stare at the waitress, surprised.

We'd broken into the diner on the modest main street, the one that had been our go-to lunch and late-night-dinner stop. They'd have normally been open and hopping, but the mayor had initiated a curfew; triple homicide plus mass murder'll light a fire under even the sleepiest of towns. It was a little extreme - everyone should be closed for business at 5:00, everyone should be locked in their houses at 8:00 - but it worked perfectly for me. I had no doubt my boss' attachés were in town, likely put their finger on the scale so that Recovery would have full run of the area.

"Do you think that's why she... why she did it?" the waitress added. "To see if he was a cheater? I told her we weren't serious."

"She's not your friend," Sam said, but gently.

"You think that's what it was, though, right?"

"Maybe she got the impression you like Dean more than you let on," Sam suggested, resulting in an instant down-turned look from the waitress as response, yet just as suddenly, she raised her head again, back to her bright, bubbly - and in this instance, clearly faked - persona.

"Hey, I bet you guys are hungry. Or, you will be after you're done... um, working. I'm gonna get going on some food, okay? Okay!"

She'd barely finished her sentence before turning and heading in the direction of the kitchen. I opened my mouth to call out and tell her not to bother, to just sit still for once. Sam put a hand on my arm.

"Let her feel useful," he advised.

I jerked my arm away, went back to looking over the arsenal we had laid out across the tables of three booths. Between the two of us, it was decently impressive. Impressive for most anything other than a mara of Raquel's caliber, anyway, that I made sure of - last thing I wanted was her incapacitated. Long as they worked her down to the level I could get her non-corporeal and pop her into that pandora gizmo (be still my heart, in-house coven and some FedEx-worthy transportation spell work), then I was gold.

"I don't know that our team will get here in time to nail the bitch, but this'll at least keep her busy, help you get Dean out of whatever bondage she's got him into," I commented. Lied. Whatever.

"So they are coming?" he asked.

"Oh yeah. Locked and loaded."

"Why do you think she'll go after Dean? Won't she have bigger issues to worry about, with them breathing down her neck?"

"What loyalty she thought Dean should have to Barbarella was beyond me, but suffice to say she took it for a test run, and he failed, and given that she couldn’t get her rocks off with the two long-time sources of her ire, it makes sense that the manager’s comeuppance was gore-a-palooza. Still. I met the broad, she's intense. No way that one asshole satisfied the craving. Especially since he wasn't actually involved with anyone at their Playboy mansion."

Sam nodded, began sticking various weapons on him, but when he started to put his jacket on, he noted me pulling out my case of toothpicks and froze. "Um, that's your prep work? You're not going to change clothes? Maybe bother with getting yourself locked and loaded?"

“Nope,” I replied, sticking the pick in my mouth and returning the case to my pocket. “I’m staying here with the waitress. Hold down the fort. Make sure she doesn’t add to the mess your brother’s gotten us in.”

He pulled his jacket on the rest of the way, straightened it with a sharp tug, and huffed as he ran a hand through his hair. Then he looked me dead in the eye, saying, "I could actually use your help, you know."

I shrugged. "She needs it more."

"Because you care so much about her," he shot back, the words coated in sarcasm.

"Has nothing to do with caring, it's just logical. You and Dean are a team, can practically read each others' minds. Like I told you before: it’s hunting 101. Limit liabilities in the field.”

“Thanks for the tutorial, it’s my first day.”

“I'd be a distraction. One of us could bite the dust."

"What, because I care so much about you?"

I snickered. "Oh honey, no. Because I care so much about me. It wouldn't matter if the sensible thing - you know, greater good and all that - meant you needed to handle some goon when another had Dean against the wall, you'd turn your back on what mattered just to rush to his side."

"Turn my back on... Right. Yeah. Since Dean doesn't matter."

"Are you leaving at any point in the next century? To scoop up whatever's left of Mr. What Matters?"

"You're a bitch," he muttered as he stormed by me, knocking into my shoulder on purpose.

"You’re a large-diameter dickhole," I muttered back; then, louder, as he walked out the door, I got in one final dig. "Have a stellar Wednesday! Fingers crossed it doesn’t turn out Tuesday!"

He shot me a bird without turning around.

I locked the door behind him, put the half-drawn blinds down all the way, and turned off all the lights except for the ones directly over the counter seating area, to make it look good for the waitress. She came out of the kitchen to find me taking off my suit jacket and hanging it on the hand-carved coat rack by the door. So, so quaint this joint - I hoped it'd catch on fire.

"We're closed!" she said, but when she saw it was me, a tiny frown hit her face. "Did I not hear the bell ding?"

"You did. Sam's off and running. It’s just us girls," I replied, walking over and plopping down on a stool. "So what's cooking?"

"Nothing yet, I'm just getting some burgers and a pie ready to go for when they come back."

"They may not come back."

"You think they'll leave without saying bye?"

I gave her a look. "What did I say about the playing dumb?"

She blinked a few times, then softly said, "Oh." After a pause, she added, "I guess it's a habit."

I took her in for a moment - minus the mascara still holding on from the night prior (fuck if I knew how, I'd have to ask her the brand), her face was clean of makeup, revealing a barely-there touch of freckles. Her hair was in a smooth ponytail, the clip-in extensions coming out when she took it down from the messy bun, and she looked fantastic. And I told her so.

She let out a near soap opera-level gasp. "Really? Seriously?"

"Lookit, if all that other shit makes you happy, I mean, you do you. But from where I sit, it doesn't seem to, and it seems like a real pain in the ass to deal with every day."

She snickered and nodded. "It's not cheap, either. But that’s what Dolly says. Takes a lot of money to look so cheap."

I grinned. "See, there? Smart cookie. You don't have to play dumb to be attractive. Trust me, the kind of men that attracts? The kind who don't even bother to remember your name? Not worth your time, anyway. I think you know that."

"Men like Dean?"

"Like Dean. He's a mess of trouble sewn into a sack of squirrel."

"You don't like him very much... I mean, the way you talk to him... talk about him..."

"I'm pushing him because he tends to get pulled off course by women, whether it’s chicks like you or his landfill of mommy issues, and I'll let you in on a secret: he's getting closer and closer to a real grade-A cunt back on the home front. He needs to get done with her so that he - and Sam - can really start getting down to business. Like I'm trying to get down to business. With you."

"I don't understand. I’m not playing dumb, I promise."

"I didn't come here for some creature, the mara wasn't my mission - neither were they, them being here was a surprise. A kinda nice one. See, my assignment was to get to you."

She eyed me warily. "What do you want with me? T-to... are y-you... gonna kill me?"

I laughed. "No, no, pumpkin - I try not to get my hands dirty nowadays. But I'll tell you another secret: I was behind the first two dirtbags taking dirt naps."

Her eyes got wide. "Are you really the creature? Not Raquel?"

"Oh she's the real deal. We knew about your roomies and their troubled love lives from profiling you, and her cover was way good. Don't get me started on our surveillance team."

"O-okay, I won't."

"That asshat manager of yours was an unplanned bonus, so was Raquel, but earmarking those other creeps as the ones to be taken out instead of some rando townsfolk was just me being... nice."

"You don't seem very nice."

I tapped her forehead with my finger. "See. Like I said. Smart. Ditch the dumb act for good. This looks prettier on you."

"But I don't get it - why'd you do that? Have them killed?"

"I wanted to scare you."

The waitress blanched. "It... it worked. But ---"

I reached out, took her hand. "I need you to go back home."

She stared at me, opened and closed her mouth a few times, then inhaled and exhaled a shaky breath which didn't do a thing to bring any color back to her cheeks.

"You need to patch up whatever went down between you and your sister. You know. The one who works at that low-rent wing joint called Cooter's, which should be getting sued any time now."

That got a response. "We haven't... it's been years."

"Your sis is roomies with a gal that my company's very interested in - but she's about to screw herself over with all the partying she's starting to do with said sister. She's gotta be as pure as a newborn babe... well, maybe not that clean, but at least on paper, she needs to be close if she's going to get her foot in the door with a politician who’s going to be a big damn deal. And you’re going to teach her how to be a class act."

"I don't know anything about ----"

"You will. Because I'm going to teach you."

The waitress pulled her hand away, took several slow steps back, shaking her head as she went.

I stood, began to walk around the counter. "Don't you think you've spent enough time on the run? Doesn't matter what name Dean calls you, 'cause it's not your real one."

Now her face flushed. "Well... I bet your name's not real either!"

"I bet you're right." I came to a stop right in front of her. “This gal is real, real important. And we don’t want your sister to play the part of mentor, we checked her out, and - no offense? - her idiot act is legit. There’s that, and the weed. She’s a space cadet, but you? You’re a diamond in the rough. Not to mention? You’ll be rewarded. Oh baby girl, will you ever.”

Another round of silence, some looking around at anything and everything that wasn’t me, and when she met my gaze again, I knew I had her when she asked, “So who is she?”

“Your new best friend is one Kelly Kline.”

The lights suddenly began flickering. Car alarms went off. I felt a small vibration up to my ankles as the ground briefly shook. Shouting floated our way from somewhere down the street. The Impala’s engine came and went. Then, in the not-so-far distance came the sound of galloping, and it got closer, and closer, and fast, the sharp clomps on the pavement indicating our favorite mare was not wasting any time.

“What is all that?” the waitress whispered.

I smiled, shot her a wink as I answered. 

“It’s showtime.”

Feedback makes my ❤️ go boom

See Nash Write : Master  |  See Nash Write : Mobile 

🏷️🏷️Wanna be tagged? Hit me up! 🏷️🏷️

Author’s Note #1: I am profusely sorry for the lateness of the completion of this story. The draft for the final parts was accidentally deleted, and then I had an out-of-the-blue thing, and then I lost my mojo on this story, blah-blah-biscuits, excuses and whatnots. Mea culpas all around, especially to the folks whose challenges this included. I won’t do this with challenges again, cross mah heart.

Author’s Note #2: My personal challenge was to see if I could seamlessly integrate more than a few prompts (okay, sooo… between y'all & some from my own challenge, it ended up around 20… what’re you staring at?) without the challengers feeling shorted & without you all noticing what they were. Why?

Even without the bolding of prompts that authors often include, sometimes they don’t feel like they “fit” with the writer’s typical style/cadence, at least for me. So see if you can guess them & be the judge of if I pulled it off.

The challengers are all being noted below, however the prompts won’t be revealed til the last installment. [There’s one that stretches throughout, and I didn’t want to ruin the ending!]

It is *not* my expectation the Challengers read this whole thing/beyond the part where their prompt(s) were (especially poor Melissa, whose prompt is the one that spans the entire shebang!), cross-my-heart!

Author’s Note #3: I’m also not gonna use the tags for all the challengers anymore because I’d given y’all the link to the master post way-back-when for inclusion in your challenge round-up posts/lists, hope that’s okay - besides, I’m finishing this up so late from when it started, I’m doubting you’re following your tags anymore. Did I mention I apologize? I’m *so* apologizing.

Author’s Note #4: All my stories (save the pure humor & goofy AU) are set in the same “universe”, and Top of the World readers may wanna pay attention to this one, in particular. ;) They’re getting an epilogue to this that contains some juicy behind-the-scenes tidbits in celebration of the completed first “season” and the premiere of season two later this summer, which is loooong overdue! (Wait, it’s August, is summer technically over? Okay, then, late summer/early fall. Eek.)

*~* The Challengers *~*

Featured in this part.....

a #Nash200

Featured in next (final!) part…..

@katymacsupernatural​ - #katys wish upon a star challenge [2/2]

@super-not-naturall​  - #Tristan’s 200 Follower Challenge

@hannahindie​ - #HanCelebratesWithPawnee

more #Nash200s

Previous parts….

@kas-not-cas​ - #Kas’ 2.5K dialogue challenge

@itswitchcraft-not-googlemaps​ - #GoldenGirls1.5k

@wideawakeandwriting​  - #randomwritingchallenge  

@katymacsupernatural - #katys wish upon a star challenge [1/2]

@cas-is-my-hero​ - #cas-is-my-hero 100 challenge

@kathaswings​  -  #Lina’s chiliad

@deansdirtyduchess​ [the artist FKA melissaj616] - #Melissa Celebrates!

@idreamofhazel​ - #hazels throwback challenge

…..and of course, #Nash200s

Also in past parts, the “JUST FOR KICKS” pair….

@theblackharrystyles [the artist FKA blackcaptainrogers, FFKA senselesssamii ] - #Samii gets scary

@impala-dreamer​  -  #Dreamer’s OP4A Challenge  

[This wasn’t their “real” entry, I just threw ‘em in because they honest-to-goodness happened to be close to things I’d wanted as dialogue anyhow!]

Tag List:

@impandagrl    @waywardjoy  @jalove-wecallhimdean  @jame-sbarnes  @just-another-busy-fangirl  @amanda-teaches  @fanforfanatic  @salt-n-burn-em-all  @thisgingerlikescoffee @cyrilconnelly  @rozadolphin @carryonmycobaltangel @ilsawasanacrobat  @klaineaholic  @helvonasche   @zepppie  @amionthetumbler @tankcupcakes  @littlegreenplasticsoldier  @emlostinwonderland  @michellethetvaddict  @theoriginalvicki  @ellen-reincarnated1967  @copperseraphim  @mrswhozeewhatsis  @crowleylovesyou  @bumbleball13  @anticipate1003  @raspberrymama  @lastactiontricia  @butiaintgonnaloveem

[8-beatstory]

8Beat Story Chapter 1 (game) summary

Some things to note: Since we assume the role of Teacher in my summaries I refer to Teacher as you. Excluding the chapters that have translations (which i have linked on here as well) these are just summaries based off of things I mainly remembered or interpreted so I’ll likely revise the summaries when I post the proper translation. If anything and you know what’s going on in the stories feel free to correct me!

Without further ado:

Episode 1 ver. 1  , Episode 1 ver. 2 (current version): Introduction chapter 

Episode 2: You somehow managed to do it even though you had no idea what was going on or anything about this and thanks to your help the girls procure their first victory! The second years are very happy about this and then explain to you what just happened. Hinata proposes that you become their beat manager while Ayame makes it very clear she’s distrustful of you.

----

Episode 3: You wake up to see Anri greeting you (How did she get in there we’ll never know~) You don’t remember her and she basically reminds you of yesterday and rushes you to come out. Everyone’s having breakfast at the cafeteria and is waiting for you including the Director. Hotaru snaps a pic of I presume her food and says it looks good today and Mei’s quiet. Then the Director pulls you aside and apologies and stuff and basically asks you to be their beat manager and you’re all like “I wanna support them ye!” so basically congrats you’re the beat manager now and Director says she has a small present to give you.

Episode 4: Director announces to the girls you’ll be their beat manager. The second years are happy and Ayame is still wary so Anri, who’s supportive of Ayame, decides reluctantly to be opposed to it because Ayame is. Yukina takes Ayame’s side too (I think) while Hotaru doesn’t care and just wants to go on Piko Piko Douga. Mei’s silent on the matter (I think Ayame and the first years leave?? but I could be wrong) then Anri laughs and offers you support. Hinata says it’ll all be okay and “let’s work hard together.”

Episode 5: (a personal favorite of mine because this one one of the chapters they go into more details about the functions of live battles so yay information!)

The second years offer their support and then go on to answer your questions on how everything works. Suzune gives (the most amazing) example of how a beat manager is basically like the conductor of an orchestra. Then they go on to explain concepts such as: live battles are online music battles that compete over performances. Half of the votes in these battles are determined by the audience and the other half by Mother. People all over the world can watch the battles online or on TV. There’s a regular battle stage and then an upper battle stage which is where Mother is and people can go to the upper battle stage if they win five consecutive victories. When you get there you can challenge Mother in a live battle. After that Hinata states something along the lines of since half the votes are humans it’s tough to win which is where Mei comes in (yay she speaks!) about how the possibility of them winning isn’t zero and she believes (in their team winning I presume) to which Hinata and Ayame agree though Ayame snide comments about how she’s not so sure about believing in you.

Episode 6: Apparently you’ve just finished your first official live battle with the girls as their beat manager and while you’re relieved you did it Ayame ain’t having it. It seems you messed up big time on something and the performance was cutting it close to being bad. Even Anri reluctantly agrees and says something about how she had to leave it up to Hinata for it to work out. Suzune and Akari shyly tell Ayame that they think she might be going a bit too far but she retaliates that with points such as you’re the beat manager that’s supposed to conduct them so you can’t get sloppy and declares how she just wants to win (which explains why she’s being so strict and worried about you messing up stuff for them). Hinata thinks that regardless Ayame’s being a bit too harsh to you and continues to defend you with Akari and Suzune’s help while Mei’s still quiet. Then Ayame counters with you should notice some of the girls are tired (Hotaru and Yukina are shown being tired) and you decide “we need to practice” which she kinda but kinda doesn’t agree with.

Time skip to the cafeteria where Ayame greets you but you notice she looks sad and don’t know what to do. Then you talk to the Director and she basically is all “aww that stinks” and you’re all “we need to practice” again.

Episode 7: It’s practice day and you come in to see Hinata and Suzune already there. Suzune’s helping Hinata with her singing practice and you’re just admiring from a distance. It’s at that point Akari surprises you from behind and yells at Suzune and Hinata that you’re peeping at them (I laughed so hard at this. Akari you jokester <3). They’re happy you’re there to practice with them. Then Hinata goes on to say how nostalgic this is and how you’ve already heard her song(sing?) before to which Akari and Suzune are surprised to learn that you both knew each other already, you’re also surprised since it seems you don’t remember or recognize her till then which makes her a little sad. Then... Mei speaks again! (Is she like watching them from a corner or through the window? Who knows~) Mei basically is all ominous and speaks abut how you and the second years are finally synching up but it’s not enough (cause duh you gotta be with all the girlies)

Episode 8: Anri asks if you’re free and you reply with a unsure “uhh...after I’m done writing a report after school yeah...?” so she tells you to meet her in her room later (in her charming way of pauses between words of course). Time skip and you meet her in the dormitory then lo and behold you end up not going to her room but to Ayame’s instead. Ayame of course is surprised by this because she had no idea and basically you both talk and start to get along because this is when she starts to trust you. You tell her something about her being perfect and she’s flattered by this (and in my opinion you basically see her for what she is; a some-what strict girl who means well and just wants to do/be her best for herself and those around her. She doesn’t mean to be so harsh it’s just she cares that much while at the same time being shy and bashful. Kinda like a best of both worlds sense) and I guess she seems to start understanding you and how you mean well too? So she’s all “let me make tea” and when she goes to do that Anri talks about her and then is all "sorry for being awkward and for the cramped room but Ayame is my best friend so be a firm teacher okay!" And Mei’s returns and seems to be ominously hanging out in the halls and I’m guessing eavesdropping because she goes on noting the progress you’re making.

Episode 9: Cafeteria time! Or, better yet, Noodles vs Ice Cream!? Choose your side! Hotaru’s on the noodle side and how yummy they are while Yukina opposes saying ice cream is tastier. Then you show up and they’re all “what are you doing here?”. You redirect the question and Yukina says she recently got back from work (but like come on Chronus if you haven’t while I was gone give us some of Yukina’s work I wanna see posters of her at work please) (also why is the BGM SO GOOD like man that rock) Then Hotaru’s all “oh snap can’t say I’m here for Piko Piko Douga” in her head while out loud she says “I’m studying...”. You don’t believe her (which I find hilarious) and she says your thoughts are written on your face (laughter increases x2). Then you end up talking to them and you’re on both side; go noodles and ice cream! (As much as I love Yukina I’m sorry but I’m on Hotaru’s side on that one. Still love you Yukina <3) And something about how you think it’s cool to give it your all on stuff you like and something about watching your meals. Then you wonder if you’ll be able to talk causally like that with everyone someday and realize you don’t know anything about Mei (finally acknowledgement about her lack of presence). Then again the ominous Mei returns to her secret observations and states how everyone’s forming bonds and now her with everyone will too or something like that.

Episode 10: (Woooo the Mei chapter) Director calls you in to tell you that it’s a bit sudden but she has to talk to you about Mei and reveals she’s an android and Mei’s all “yeah I’m just like the androids from all the live battles”. Then you ask and Director tells you that nobody knows except her, you, and of course Mei. Then you talk more and ask why is an android in a human team that’s trying to beat androids (a good question indeed Teacher) to which she says she wants to live battle with them and that isn’t a lie and then says the future of the music of this world is in your hands (geez no pressure Mei)

Episode 11: Seems like it’s practice time again but only you, Hinata, and Suzune are in the room. They tell you Akari’s running a bit late because of her dance practice (I think it’s so epic to learn that even though she’s a part of their team she does dancing on the side. It just goes to show how into dancing she is and like Yukina it shows that the girls do things outside of their group and that’s a-okay). You seem disheartened about almost everyone not being there but Hinata reassures you and says it’ll be fine. Then Suzune talks about music and androids and how she thinks that the music humans make is even better than androids and how you and Hinata are kind and how she wants to continue this with everyone. Hinata agrees and says how it’s all fun and she enjoys everything and wants to share that with everyone as well as you and ends her point with “lets practice. if we give it our all everyone will come” or something along those lines. Akari comes running in and apologizes for being late and explains herself then asks if you’re crying (lol) and you seem to be getting happier about the current situation.

Episode 12: Hinata at it again with the “it’s okay!” Then Ayame comes in and lectures you about being honest with mistakes and stuff followed by Anri who says that she needs to be honest with them too (you go Anri <3) to which Ayame gets all bashful and Anri goes on to explain they were late because of student counsel work. Hotaru follows and mutters how she apparently swung by to check on y’all but doesn’t approve of you and made it clear from the beginning (but in a totally tsundere way in my opinion). Yukina’s next and comes in exhausted and chastising you (I think because you said they’d be having practice last minute or something. I’m not sure). Now is Mei’s time where she’s all “everyone is here” and how she was waiting and that everyone’s power can make anything possible including reaching Mother. Then Akari interjects with a teasing “I knew it sensei you’re crying~” (cutie). Then it’s at this point that Ayame says that she doesn’t fully trust you but she understands where you’re coming from and how she’ll come to accept you little by little (so basically the whole harsh-ish sounding to bashful and wooo she verbally has accepted you!! Achievement unlocked!!!). Akari says something and Ayame stutters a “h-how rude!” (shikkeina!) which Mei mishears as “death penalty” (shikeina) to which Hotaru states she’s not right but not wrong (lol) and Hinata laughs (like I did) then wooo practice is officially on!

Episode 13: Seems like it was a huge success! Everyone seems content with practice and say it in their own ways and Mei’s all “I knew it...with these members...” (gurl what are your motives. I’m so close to calling Mei ominous-chan with these vibes). Director laughs (was she always there or did she just come in at some point? Again, who knows~) Then time skip and Ayame seems like she’s being picky with things (which is completely understandable when analyzing a practice *cough* I feel ya girl *cough*) and Hinata comes in with her reassurances and “let’s work together”. Then the girls end up explaining to you about BAN, which like the definition of the word basically means that if you lose a lot you can get banned from live battles and the girls seem to talk solemnly about this but then positive Hinata turns the tables around and the second years talk about how pumped they are to practice again while Hotaru doesn’t want to do it now and Ayame’s all “Teacher, you best be doing your best” or something like that and Anri and Yukina fall back on that while (Ominous-chan) Mei states she knew she wasn’t wrong.

END OF CHAPTER 1 WOO

[kirishwima]

The paladins + Allura + Coran are all under the effect of a truth serum that stops any sound from coming out if you try to say something you believe is a lie. Lance can hardly talk because of it

So it took 84 years and sheer strength to avoid procrastination, but here it is! :D 

i hope this prompt-turned-5K words is a good enough apology for the long delay TuT and thanks for the prompt! *****

Keith got on Lance’s nerves.

That wasn’t uncommon.

Them coming out of their lions after a hard day’s work, teasing grins and sly remarks rolling off of Lance, only to be met with glares and equally snarky comebacks from the Red Paladin, oftentimes evolving into shouting matches that had more bite to them then either boy would care to admit were often, usually ending with Shiro’s hand on each of their shoulders and a stern glare.

Today was no exception. They had all just gotten off of an infiltration mission, sneaking into some of the Garla Headquarters in search of information, both to help them in their fight against the injustice Garla had been spreading, but also to seek information on Pidge’s family’s whereabouts.

Lance took off his helmet the moment he stepped out of Blue, giving her a thankful pat onto the thick blue metal before stepping off, coming nearly face to face with Keith on his way back into the Castle from the hangar.

It didn’t take long for them to fall into their usual teasing rhythm, starting off with small remarks that got bigger and bigger by the minute, earning groans and slight warnings from the rest of the team.

Lance had all but lost it after one snide comment too many coming from Keith, the shorter boy never losing his composure, before Lance turned to him with a click of his tongue, the hand holding his helmet tightening into it’s grip.

“Oh yeah? Well I hate your ass and that stupid mullet!” is what Lance wanted to yell, scream his anger towards Keith, baring his teeth and furrowing his eyebrows in the process.Only, the words never managed to leave his throat, his mouth opening and closing to reveal no sound coming through.

Keith stared at him with a raised eyebrow, most likely wondering what the Blue paladin was up to this time.

Lance groaned and started again, trying to speak even louder, yet the words once again got lost, the only thing heard from him being an exasperated gasp.

Even the rest of the team got concerned at that, turning to the two arguing boys with worried looks.

“Lance?” Hunk inquired, a worry in his voice as he stepped closer to his best friend.He put a reluctant hand to Lance’s shoulder, the lanky boy refusing to turn and look at him, glare still fixated onto Keith.

“Hey buddy, did you catch a space cold? Does your throat hurt or something?” Hunk continued.

“N-no”, Lance turned to face him, he himself shocked at the sudden ease that he could speak with. “I just, I tried speaking and physically couldn’t. Kinda like something was stopping me.”

Lance turned back to glare at Keith about to yell another absurd accusation of witchcraft or something of the sorts-why else would he only be unable to insult Keith of all people?! , but Coran’s shriek stopped him cold in his tracks.

The older man all but run into the paladins, coming head first with Shiro’s chest armour.

“Paladins! Don’t take off your helmets! Do-Oh.” he exasperated, noticing they had all taken their helmets off, looking towards him with confused looks.

“I-ahem. I should explain then, shouldn’t I?” he asked, and frantically continued when he noticed the confused stares turning into irritation.

“Ah well see, Allura and I were running a few maintenance rounds around the ship, wanting to make sure everything works and the like and-heh” he shrugged, bringing a hand to wipe the gathering sweat on his forehead “this is an old ship you see, and some minor mishaps are bound to happen as you are already aware-“

“Coran. To the point, if you could?” Shiro interrupted, voice both worried and stern.

“Ah well, we were just cleaning up the lab room, there’s so much clatter from experiments left unfinished in there and-well, we didn’t really pay much mind to the mice running around until we heard a crash and-they broke the Verum Phialam.”

“The…what?” It was Lance that broke the short silence, each of them trying to take in what Coran was saying.

“The Verum Phialam-Just Verum for short, it was the latest Altean technology back in the day! Used for a more peaceful way of interrogation rather than the brutal methods other civilisations used. Just a drop of it and your lies would be caught dead in your throat! You could only speak if you said the truth.”

“You guys created a fully-working truth serum?!” Hunk squealed, bringing his head closer to Coran with an excited flutter of his eyelashes-leave it to Hunk to get excited over weird space alien caricatures Lance thought with a fond shake of his head.

“Alright, what does that have to do with our helmets?” Pidge asked, nudging herself forth to meet Coran, the paladins forming a semi circle around the man.

“Ah yes, well, see the Verum is an immediately evaporating substance. This was the sole side effect of the substance, since the moment it made contact with air it’d become a gas.”

“And you say the mice dropped a whole vial of it.” One look at Pidge and they could all see the cogs spinning beneath her glasses.

“Not just a vial-it was a whole darn glass flask of it! Enough to knock a whole pack of exogians out, and those weigh twice of Shiro’s weight each!” he gasped.

Shiro took no mind to the comment and continued, reaching to the same conclusion Pidge must’ve been getting at.

“So you and Allura were affected by this serum. And I’m assuming the gas made is way through the Castle’s vents?”

Coran nodded.“So we’re currently all affected by this Truth…Vial?”

Coran nodded again.

“Is it…dangerous?” Shiro continued, now worried for the well-being of his team.

“Oh goodness gracious, of course not! It does however highly affect your verbal communication, and with such a hefty dose released, it’s most likely going to affect us all for more than a few tocks.”

Shiro hummed at that, shrugging his shoulders with a soft sigh.

“Well, we can’t lie. There’s worse things we could’ve dealt with than a few hours of truth.” he shrugged, giving Coran a curt nod before heading through the door behind him and back into the Castle’s hallways.

They all eventually dispersed back into the Castle, Coran’s relief evident in the slump of his tense shoulders before he walked along, congratulating the team on another job well done.

Only Keith stayed a few feet behind, matching his pace to Lance’s.

Lance ignored him for a few, before the shit-eating-grin on his teammate’s face ticked him off.

“What?” he snided, not trusting himself to say much more now that he knew there was a Truth Serum-gas-whatever affecting them all.

“Nothing” Keith fringed innocence, looking up at Lance with a falsely sweet look, “I was just wondering what you were about to say before?”

Lance crinkled his nose in fury, turning to yell one more ‘I hate you and your dumb mullet’ Keith’s way, Verum-whatever be damned.

Through pained creaks, he managed to say a rather loud remark, one he’d never expected to utter.

“I-I…don’t….I don’t hate your mullet.”

He gasped, eyes equally wide as Keith’s, before he put a hand over his mouth and all but ran through the hall, leaving a shocked Keith behind, along with the rest of the team.

“Oh. Oh dear.” Coran muttered, a hand coming to twirl his moustache. “I wasn’t quite expecting that.”

“Expecting what?!” Keith croaked, evidently still shook from the transpired event.

“Well, at high dosages, mixed with an elevated emotional state, the Truth Vial can, potentially, cause someone to say the truth instead of the lie they’d wanted to say. First time I’ve seen it happen up close and personal however!” he gleamed.

The team muttered to themselves before carrying on through the hall, Keith meeting up with them after another moment of stillness and shock.

No one took notice of Pidge, the smaller paladin’s glasses gleaming with mischief.

****

By the time they’d all gathered to the control room, Allura had already finished the maintenance procedure, a giddy excitement in her steps.

“Paladins! Congratulations on a mission well done. I am very proud of you.” she beamed, clasping her hands in front of her chest.

“As you are all aware by now, Coran and I had an accident in the lab room concerning the Verum Phialae. I assure you it’s not going to cause any of you any physical harm, other than the inability to lie for a prolonged period of time.” she grinned, a certain mischief in the gleam of her eyes.

“Uh, princess? No offence, but you don’t really look upset about it like, at all” Lance shrugged, picking his words carefully and slowly after his previous mishap.

He was at least thankful that no one brought it back up, and prayed to any deity he could name that the truth serum-gas could potentially offer partial memory loss as a side effect.

She laughed, not trying to hide her obvious excitement over the course of events.

“I had always wanted to see the effects of this serum up close. There was never much reason to use it back in Altea, seeing how peaceful of a planet we were. I’m merely curious how this…adventure, will end up.” she sufficed, “And besides. This is a perfect chance to bond better as a team. I suggest we take full advantage of it!”

“You speak my language princess.”

Pidge, the most quiet of them all so far, tucked her glasses back in place with her index finger, a wide grin spreading on her lips.

“In fact,” Pidge continued, “I suggest we play some good old earthly games, to help with our…bonding” she sneered, making Hunk and Lance swallow nervously while looking at their friend-if their days in the Garrison taught them one thing, it was to not ever, ever, ever trust Pidge’s judgement when that grin took place on her face.

“Oh, that sounds wonderful!” Allura cheered, Coran following suit by her side. “What do you have in mind?”

“I’m glad you asked”, Pidge laughed, and Hunk and Lance could’ve sworn their should has ascended from their bodies right then and there.

This was not going to end well.

******

“But Coran”, she nagged, “Can’t we play this earth game first and have dinner later?”

“No can do princess,”, he replied, picking scoops of goo onto his spoon, “You all need to rest and nourish yourselves first! The Paladins did just come back from a gruelling mission, and you exerted quite a bit of energy to open and close up wormholes for them!”

She sighed, picking at her food goo in distaste.

“Don’t worry princess. We’ll all gather ‘round and play right after.” Pidge grinned around a spoonful of goo, her whole aura screaming of mischief.

Lance nudged Hunk, bringing a hand to cover his whispering into his best friend’s ear.

“On a scale of 1 to a billion, how terrified should we be that not only did Pidge convince Allura to play along, but she’s also not telling us what this game is?”

Hunk chewed, humming thoughtfully before turning to Lance with a grim face.

“I would say about a trillion, for sure. See that grin?” he nodded towards Pidge, not missing the batting of her eyelashes once she noticed them. “That’s the same grin that landed me into Iverson’s office for a whole two hours punishment for messing with Garrison tech.”

“No kidding” Lance laughed, leaning back on his chair, “That’s the grin that landed me in the Garrison pool at four am half-drunk and freezing!”

They laughed under their breaths, feeling the anxiety slowly ease off. So far there was little indication that the truth serum had affected any of them-there was no particular reason for anyone to lie, and Lance even found ways to crack jokes about their situation, putting his best puns to use.

Keith on the other hand remained silent, quietly observing the situation.Everyone was more or less back to normal, if you didn’t take much mind to Pidge’s evil plan and Allura’s giddiness.

Yet Shiro seemed awfully distracted, the older man seemingly more quiet than usual. The haunted look on his face made worry gnaw at Keith’s mind.

He softly turned to Shiro, his friend not even looking up to meet his eye, evidently distracted.

“Shiro.”

He hummed a noncommittal sound in response.

“Hey, Shiro?”

Shiro kept poking his goo, with no clear sign of having any intention of eating it, nor of hearing anything Keith said.

Keith brought a hand in front of Shiro’s face and shook it, knowing not to scare him by touching his shoulder when he was this distracted.

“Oh!” He took notice of the hand, now turning to Keith with wide eyes.

“Keith. Sorry, I was distracted.”

Keith snorted a laugh, easing up now that he had his friends’ attention.

“I could tell. What’s wrong?”

Shiro shook his head, opening his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

Keith stared in distaste.

“Ah, sorry. I’m-“

His voice squeaked, unable to finish his sentence.

Keith squinted, the rest of the team now catching on to the situation and turning their attention to Shiro from across the table.

“Shiro. Tell us what’s wrong.” Keith continued, hoping to convey his worry through the stern gaze he was giving him.

A look around the table offered no solace-everyone’s eyes were fixated onto him, with varying levels of worry.

Shiro sighed, bringing a hand to rub the bridge of his nose.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to say I’m fine, but I don’t really feel fine. At all.”

The team stared on, now fully concerned.

He clenched and unclenched his fists, bringing them down to his lap to fiddle with.

“It’s hard to get used to our situation, though I think that feeling’s mutual for all  of us. I just feel more torn today because of our mission.” he turned his gaze back to his friends, taking note of their sympathy and small nods, “It’s fine when we’re in our lions, but close combat always brings back flashbacks of what I had to face whilst being a Garla prisoner and…it’s hard.” he finished.

They all knew that Shiro was making himself vulnerable in that moment, easing out of his persona of the cool collected leader to bare his feelings to them.

“Shiro, it’s alright for you to not feel okay. No one is expecting you to be comfortable and at peace with the hardships you have been through.” Allura leaned closer to him from across the table, words soft yet firm.

“Yeah”, Lance continued, “No one’s expecting you to pretend to be okay. If you don’t feel well, just tell us!” he huffed, Hunk nodding along with an equally stern expression.

“You’re our friend. We all want you to share your feelings with us. So don’t just, bottle things up, okay?” Keith concluded, sighing with relief when Shiro nodded, a shy smile to his lips.

“Thank you guys.” he sighed, his ears reddening with an oncoming blush, “This-ah-this means a lot. Really.”

They all took a moment to let Shiro recompose himself, before Pidge spoke up, moving to get out of her seat with a loud push of her chair.

“Alright, speaking of vulnerability and bottled up emotions”, she smiled, “Who’s ready to play Truth or Dare?”

*****“Pidge, buddy, my dudette, I think this is less ‘Truth or Dare’ and more ‘Let’s all suffer because Pidge wants us to”

“Oh please, as if regular Truth or Dare is any better”, she chided, swatting his hand away from her as he poked her cheek with an unimpressed expression.

“Is it? I thought Truth or Dare is more like, either telling people who your crush is or making out with the person sitting across from you.”

Coran grimaced at that, looking towards Allura to see her sporting the same expression.

“Yeah, exactly, and that’s not our purpose here. Anyway, that’s what happens at drunken high school parties. We are stepping it up a notch, and taking full advantage of this truth serum in the meantime.” Pidge said, taking joy in seeing Lance’s expression falter.

“More like you taking full advantage on all of the blackmail material you have on us and making us admit it to each other.” Lance complained, folding his arms over his chest and huffing.

“Details, details” Pidge grinned, turning her attention to Allura and Coran isntead.

“So, princess, Coran, did you understand how to play this game?”

Allura hummed, leaning forward and tapping a finger onto her chin.

“So, we sit in a circle. We go around the circle, and each person picks another person to ask ‘Truth or Dare’ to. Yes?”

Pidge nodded before Coran cut in, the man only just leaning down to take a seat into the circle.

“And that person can choose to ask any dare or truth to their liking, yes?”

Pidge hummed again in response, glad to see the two Alteans enjoying the game already.

All of the paladins decided it’d be best to play an easier version of the game, for the sake of both the Alteans and for an easier flow of the game, deciding to discard the bottle and the ‘ask the person sitting across of you’ rules.

“Alright. Everyone in position?”

She took a look around, humming with content.

Their little circle started with her, sitting between Allura and Coran, Hunk sitting by Coran whilst Lance sat besides Hunk, Shiro sitting beside Allura with Keith sitting next to him, evidently leading to Lance sitting by Keith.

Pidge turned to Lance and grinned, already knowing who her first target would be.

A new fire burned into Lance’s eyes at the sight of that grin.No, no he would not let Pidge embarrass him. He would take the dares like a champ, and evade the truth questions to the best of his capabilities.

And when it was his turn to ask questions…he’d enjoy it as much as possible.

*****Going by age, they decided to let the youngest, Pidge, ask questions first.

“Lance.” she pinpointed immediately, looking across the circle towards him.

Hearing his name come from the shorter paladin made him groan, already disliking where this was going.

Pidge shushed him, flashing him with a toothy grin.

“Lance. Truth or Dare?”

Lance snorted, rolling his eyes.“Dare. Duh.”

“Predictable.” she sneered.

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘hot and reckless’?” he grinned back, turning to throw a wink to Allura who shook her head.

“Alright, alright, dare it is.”She hummed, pretending to think about what to do.Poor Lance had no idea he was perfectly following along to her grand evil plan.

“Lance, I dare you to get up, and sing the chorus of the first song that comes to mind.”

He eyed her with disbelief, even going as far as to raise an eyebrow.

“Really? That’s child’s play Pidge.”

She leaned back with her hand for support, giving him a half-sided smirk.

“I said the first song that comes to mind. Seeing how there’s a truth serum in effect, unless you sing that, you won’t be able to sing anything.”

His eyes widened at that, now catching everyone’s attention.

“Fine! Fine!” he yelled and stood up.

He tried to sing, but no sound came through.

Pidge laughed.

“Having some trouble there? You do know you’ll lose if you don’t sing right?”

“No! I’m-I’m fine. I’ll sing now.”

He looked down at that, a pout forming on his lips. “No one laugh okay?”They all looked on in anticipation.

What they were not expecting, was the entirety of the chorus of ‘Let it Go’, sang in perfect pitch and accurate lyrics, Lance even going as far as to twirl around in his spot for a dramatic effect.

He couldn’t blame them for laughing at that, really.

He sat back down with a furious blush.What he didn’t know was that Pidge had been softly humming the song’s tune all through their dinner, certain Lance would catch onto it and hum along.

I was right, he thought, this will be a long, long night.

****They carried on like that, Shiro usually opting for truth, feeling better now that he had shared his worries with the team, even letting them in on his first childhood crush-”Justin Timberlake”, he admitted in a low voice, “back in his NSYNC days”, and no one found it in them to comment on it, not when none of the humans on their team could possibly ever say they hadn’t also had a crush on the guy.Overall it was fun, and Allura and Coran seemed to enjoy the game more and more, Allura wasting no time in asking the most obscure, bizarre questions she could.

She didn’t even hesitate when Lance asked her who her favourite paladin is, winking at her in a flirtatious manner, only for her to flatly and calmly say ‘Hunk’, earning a confused blush from the boy.

“What”, she asked when everyone stared, “He’s nice, soft, and brings me cookies when I’m tired. Who wouldn’t love him?”They all agreed to that, Lance being the first to admit that Hunk was indeed completely and truly lovable, turning the boy in question into a flustered bubbly mess.

Eventually Lance started butting heads with Keith, both boys assigning more and more obscure dares to one another, until one round found them both wearing their clothes upside down, one of the mice balancing on Lance’s head whilst Keith’s hair was braided in two braids and Hunk’s bandana served as a make-shift eyepatch.

Pidge eventually had enough of the two, turning to Lance once again when her turn was up, and asking him another ‘truth or dare’

“Dare” was his obvious reply, despite his heaving breaths and disshelved state.

“Fine, then I dare you to say the truth, and only the truth, to what I ask you next!”

He tried arguing with her, saying that that was against the rules, until she every politely reminded him they had set no such rule before the game started, and therefore it really wasn’t against any rules.

He eventually groaned but agreed, dreading what she’d ask next.

“Alright then. Lance,” she started, the devilish gleam returning to her eyes, “Is it true that you stare at yourself in the mirror every night before you go to bed?”

He heart Keith snort besides him, turning to fix the boy with an angry stare.

“Don’t forget-we need the full truth, otherwise you lose.” she reminded him.

Lance sighed, turning to answer the question, yet his voice refused to cooperate. He fiddled with the hem of his jacket before he looked up and tried again, finding his voice just as gone as before.

Hunk fixed him with a sympathetic look, sharing an entire conversation with his friend by just looks alone.

Maybe you should just tell the truth, Hunk conveyed, and Lance huffed, trying to speak again but to no avail.

We’re all your friends Lance. Say the truth.

Lance fixed him with defeated sigh and stare that said Fine. Fine, I will, before turning to face Pidge again, the hand fiddling with his jacket now paling from the sheer strength he was holding onto the fabric with.

“I don’t stare at a mirror every night.”

“Yeah right” Pidge laughed, hearing small chuckles coming from everyone else.

“I don’t alright?!”

His voice got louder, his back arching straight with a profound emotion.

“I don’t. In fact, I try to avoid mirrors as much as I can, because every time I look into one all I see staring back at me is a failure, an ugly lanky excuse of a person that can’t do anything fucking right and-“He caught himself in the middle of his outbreak, finding all of his team staring back at him with big shocked eyes, and suddenly Lance’s anger was gone, replaced by a shiver coursing through all of his body, eyes burning and tears pooling into the corners of his eyes. Suddenly Lance had never felt smaller, bringing his head to his knees and curling in on himself, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze, see anyone’s pity.

A hand found its way onto his shoulder, and he only managed to look back for a moment, seeing Keith lean in closer to him.

“Lance,” he mumbled, his grip gently tightening, “Truth or Dare?”

He shifted at that, ready to yell What the fuck Keith?! to the boy, only to be met face to face with the most concerned expression he’d ever seen Keith wear, and realised what Keith was hinting at.

With a shaky intake of air, he closed his eyes.

“Truth.”

“Then, Lance. What…what do you think of yourself?”

Lance wanted to hide into his own skin, dig a hole onto the ground underneath him and disappear.

He tried to say he didn’t think all that much of himself, that he was just a regular boy with the same amount of pride and insecurities as any other person, but even that got hitched in his throat-due to the truth serum or the quiet sobs, he wasn’t sure.

He collected himself a moment after, bringing a sleeve to wipe the tears from his eyes.

“I know I act all high and mighty, and pretend to think that I’m the best or whatever, but I just..” he shrugged, feeling another hand-Hunks’ he realised, snake it way around his shoulders, “I’m just not. I always feel like I’m not good enough, like I’ll never amount to anything much. Like I’m only dragging this team down.”

He shook his head, a self-pitying smile on his lips.“I’m not even really good at anything. Each person on this team has their..their thing and I’m just here. Maybe I don’t have a spot here. Never felt like I belonged all that much in the Garrison either, nor in any group back in high-school. I just drifted along because if I stayed too close to someone for too long, they’d just figure out how weak I am and I-I don’t want others to pity me or think I’m helpless, even if that’s what I feel most of the time.”

He sighed, refusing to look away from his feet.“I guess I just act like I’m the best because I feel like I’m the worst.”

The hands around his shoulders tightened, met with an equally bruising force finding its way across his waist-Pidge had latched onto him, burying her head onto his shirt and mumbling soft apologies for making him say all that, followed by soft thank-you’s for being honest with them.

Allura leaned close, bringing a hand to tousle his hair and tell him that of course he’s a part of this team, the Blue Lion had chosen him and only him specifically to become her Paladin, that he has much more value then he deems himself to have. Shiro agreed, priding him for his calm strategic mind and shooting skills, making his heart drum when he said ‘You’re our sharpshooter Lance, and a dear friend. You’re part of this team.’Coran waited until the people around him dispersed, catching him into a tight hug and telling him to have more confidence in himself, that he’s a child of the universe and should never bring down his marvellous creation like that, before teasingly flicking his forehead and loudly whispering “Besides, Hunk may be Allura’s favourite Paladin, but you’re my favourite”, promptly followed by a sneaky look around, glad to find the rest of the team pretending to not have heard that.

Lance laughed at that, laughed enough to start crying again, letting Hunk nudge his side and ask him if he felt better now, for Lance to nod, tears still in his eyes, only with a smile far more real than ever before gracing his lips.

“Well” he sighed after finally composing himself enough to talk, “I’ve bared my biggest, deepest insecurities to you guys, so I think it’s fair to get something back.”

“It’s only fair” Hunk agreed, “Although there’s pretty much nothing I could share that’d be news for you guys.” he shrugged.

“I-“ Pidge started, still nestled close to Lance, “I do have something actually.”

They all focused onto her, Pidge sighing before settling for a grave expression.

“It’s true. My glasses are just for the cryptic aesthetic.”

“A-ha! I knew it!” Hunk screamed, pointing to her as if he’d just heard the biggest revelation of all times.

They abandoned their game of truth or dare, going around instead and sharing little things, from deep insecurities to the most obscure of information.

Hunk usually slept in Lance’s bed when they were kids, but stopped when one night Lance sleep-talked and said ‘It’s alright. The monsters don’t care much for human flesh anyway.’

Allura did indeed set the mice to follow the paladins around from time to time to come back to her with new gossip and blackmail material (a term she’d picked up from Pidge and very much liked, she said).

Coran was, in fact, not born with a moustache. It was however true, that he started growing one in hopes of having a moustache and beard as lavish as King Alfor’s.

Shiro had a stuffed bunny back home called Puga. He’d had it since he was three and refused to not pack it with him for college.

Pidge was afraid of spiders. Lance loved horror movies so much he purposely tried scaring himself sometimes. Hunk once tried smoking a cigarette but the smoke went all out through his nose and he coughed so hard he thought he died.

Even Keith reluctantly shared some information, he admitted that he was indeed aware that his hair was a mullet, that his jacket was tacky and not efficient as-well, as a jacket, even went as far as to admit how he actually did have a board dedicated to finding traces of the Mothman back in his shack.

There was one more thing, one little truth eating away at him, begging to come to the surface.He didn’t know if it was a truth that should ever see the light of day or not.

One stern look from Shiro though (the ‘stern brotherly look’, as Keith called it), told him otherwise.

It’s your chance. Go for it.

He shut his eyes and breathed in, looking back to the laughing group of friends.“I actually don’t hate you, Lance.”

That caught the boy mid-laugh, a hand in front of his mouth to cover the loud cheers that caught lodged in his throat, back leaning onto Hunk’s side.

He turned to Keith, smile nervous and eyes wide.

“I don’t hate you. I-if-if anything”, he felt the truth serum push the truth stuck in his chest for so long, urging it to come to the surface, “if anything, I actually like you. As in, I have a crush on you.”

There was complete silence for a moment, not even a pinprick of a breath to be heard.

“If we’re being honest right now…I don’t hate you either. At all. Even if I try and act like it.”Lance’s voice was shaky, his whole face flush and lips trembling.“If anything, I-I like you too.”

The room erupted with cheers and whistles as Keith stood and tugged Lance towards him, catching the wobbly boy with a tight embrace and a sheepish grin.

He inwardly blessed the mice and their clumsiness, the old Altean scientists for  their discovery of the truth serum-turned gas, for Allura’s decision on a Castle maintenance run.

He thanked the butterfly effect and his lucky stars for the sincere laugh vibrating onto his neck, cool hands gripping the fabric of his shirt and digging onto his back with a trembling excitement.

Keith thanked the universe for giving him friends like this; people he could lean onto and seek support, as much as they could seek shelter in him, people that would always be there for each other, through thick and thin.

He thanked the universe for giving him what he’d always wanted.

A family to call his own.

*****

I really really hope this isn’t as bad as i feel it is hahah TuT

I couldn’t help but throw in a dash of Klance in there, leave it to those two to make any situation sappy and romantic lol

Hope you liked this! :) (You can also read it on my ao3 if you’d prefer!)

[hotarubi-e]

Keep a steady hand on me

Request: Would you mind doing a fanfiction with our cute little pidge getting some bad stomach flu or something? Poisoning? And the team doesn't believe her (since they might think she's cramping or something) but it's really bad..if you'd like to do a pidge ship you can do whatever! I legit ship everyone with everyone

Summary: After a difficult mission, Pidge enjoys the feast set out for her and the other paladins by the local populace. But when she starts feeling sick and struggling to breathe, it becomes painfully obvious that something is not right. And as the others all think it’s ‘cramps’, Pidge is at serious risk of suffocation at the very least, unless she manages to explain.

It had been a long day, and Pidge was feeling more than a little worse for wear. Called to the bridge early in the morning, the Paladins had been alerted to the dire situation of a planet in a nearby quadrant. From what Pidge had picked up during the short meeting, Allura had hailed the royal family in order to establish a potential allegiance, only to discover the total annihilation of all members of power. Unsurprisingly, the planets occupation by the Galra had been a disturbing turn of events to the Alteans, and they had immediately deployed the lions and their pilots to return the planet to its rightful occupants.

The fight had been long and arduous, but thankfully the casualties had been almost exclusively Galra. But the pain of losing their rulers was still fresh in the resident species’ minds, and as such the presence of the Paladins of Voltron was a cause for celebration - anything, it seemed, to lighten the hearts of those grieving such a monumental loss.

And so the Paladins had obliged, agreeing to stay for a feast and tour of the once royal grounds, begrudgingly allowing the rampant disregard for personal space and rest, purely out of a desire to be kind. Even Keith, Pidge noticed with a grin sardonic and snide, but all at once fond and filled with a sort of familial pride she hadn’t felt in the longest time. He was trying his best to be nice, even if it did result in a look that appeared somewhere between bemused and terrified.

But, at least there was food - even if Pidge was beginning to feel distinctly sick. She didn’t even know what she was eating, and with a quick, bitter stab of her fork and an unhappy rumble of her belly, she swirled the contents of her plate around so that it might smush into a slightly smaller pile of gross. Contrary to her hopes, it failed.

‘You know, I’d love to spend a day with these guys and just like, talk to them about all the cool ingredients they have here,’ at some point during her somewhat dejected manhandling of her dinner, Hunk had sidled up to her and begun to observe her movements, a small glint of worry sparking in his eye. ‘I mean, they have so many interesting tubers and root vegetables - and don’t even get me started on the herb situation - but all they seem to use is that weird gold glow-y stuff and the yellow goo. And man do I not wanna ever see edible goo again,’ he chucked, rubbing a hand over his belly. Pidge grunted and returned to her stabbing.

‘Not like it can be any worse than what Coran made last week..’ she mused, remembering the wriggling brown tentacles of the ‘delicacy’ Coran had tried to feed them less than six days ago with contempt. It had not gone down well, and the mere thought of it was enough to trigger another gurgling rumble in her gut.

‘Oh man, that was nasty!’ Hunk’s face brightened in glee at the memory, and Pidge could only imagine that he was remembering the way Lance had nearly died of fright at the mere sight of the thing. ‘Hey - You okay, Pidge?’ he asked, quirking an eyebrow at her as she stared down into her dinner. ‘you seem kinda off..’

‘Huh? O-oh, yeah.. you know what, I think I’m gonna pass on the whole conversation thing, though, head back over to Green and take a look at her compression panels. I think they were malfunctioning after that last hit I took,’ Pidge dropped her plate by her side, shifting her weight from where she sat to the balls of her feet, standing in a quick jerk that nearly had her toppling.

‘Okay, whatever you say, dude,’ Hunk muttered, but as Pidge retreated into the distant trees in search of Green, he couldn’t quite take his eyes from her back. Something about the way she moved and spoke seemed off to him, and unsettled the nerves around his heart. But if she said she was fine, then fine she would be. Who was he, after all, to distrust the word of his Paladin friend?

Pidge pulled off the maintenance door from beneath Green’s leg, tongue sticking out slightly as she concentrated. She knew she had been unfairly brusque with Hunk before, but something in her gut was making her antsy. Almost as though everything she did, every move she made were dislodging something, shaking it around in her stomach like the cube inside a magic eight ball. She had felt fine earlier, during the fight, but since settling down for the night of festivities, a feeling of ill ease had been growing in her.

It had started as a simple niggling in her gut, a dull ache surrounded by a feeling of disquiet, but over the last twenty minutes, it had grown into a very present sense of nausea. Most annoyingly for Pidge, though, was the tight feeling in her chest and throat, and the way her eyes felt like they were swelling shut.

Grunting, she dropped the maintenance door onto the ground and poked her head inside the crevice, squinting in the relative blackness. She could make out a few flashing lights that definitely should not have been doing that, but as she reached out a hand to test the wiring, a violent pang in her stomach launched her forwards and into the rim of metal running around her chest.

Pidge swore heavily, panting as she fought to regain the wind that had been knocked from her, but it was as though no matter how deep a breath she drew in, no air reached her lungs. Rather, it seemed to stay its course somewhere in her neck, lodging in the centre of her trachea.

Panic bubbled to the surface of her skin, and she dropped down from the hatch onto Green’s foot, just catching herself before hitting the ground.

‘W-what the hell was that..?’ her voice came out vaguely distant, as though it had been trapped somewhere inside of her, cutting it off before it was fully released. Breathing heavy, scared breaths, Pidge scrambled to her feet and ran for the clearing filled with people, doing everything in her power to suppress any further attempts at mutiny from her traitorous stomach.

By the time she finally found Shiro, she was so winded that she had to pause for a moment, clutching his arm to get his attention. And when she had finally regained enough breath to speak, all that came out was a wheeze.

‘Something’s wrong..’ she huffed, staring up into his concern filled eyes.

‘Pidge? What is it? Are you hurt?’

She shook her head, desperately gesturing towards her stomach. But as she did, Shiro’s eyes blew wide and a gentle blush spread like fire across his cheeks. ‘My belly.. it’s cramping like, so much.. I fell of Green’s leg - I never fall off Green. Well, I mean, aside from that time I tried to calibrate her cloaking device and -‘

‘Woah, okay, Pidge, you’re rambling,’ Shiro smiled, raising his hands in what he hoped was a calming display. ‘So, y-you’re, uh.. cramping? I mean.. I don’t really think I’m the best to talk to about this, you know?’ he scratched the back of his neck, nervous. ‘Maybe Allura would be better for this?’

‘Wait - what?’ Pidge’s face scrunched up against Shiro’s words, confusion muddling her mind. But another pang shooting through her stomach was enough to distract her from the nonsensical nature of Shiro’s comment, as she fought to stay on her feet.

‘Pidge?! Pidge, maybe you should sit down. D-do you.. have anything for this?’

‘Why the hell would I have anything for this, when I don’t even know what this is?!’ In the space of seconds, Pidge’s brain went from confused to pissed, and as Shiro just gestured weakly towards her lower half, she realised there would be no pulling the anger back. The man was clearly a moron. ‘Wait.. do you.. think I’m menstruating..?’ she narrowed her eyes, daring Shiro to nod.

The blush that had been subtle at first, seemed to explode like a super nova across Shiro’s face, and with an awkward cough he nodded, confirming Pidge’s worst fears. Of course, any mention of a cramp and that automatically ruled out any and all options but periods. But before she could school Shiro on the error of his ways, another voice drifted into the fray.

‘Hey, Shiro? Is everything okay?’ Keith asked, taking a step towards them from behind the nearest tree. Pidge wouldn’t have been surprised to find that he had been hiding, using the abundant foliage as a cover for his escape.

‘Uh, that’s a little bit of a sensitive topic, Keith,’ Shiro sighed, turning to speak more privately, as though fearful of the repercussions should they be overheard. ‘She’s, uh.. got her time of the month,’

‘Huh? Her what -? Oh. ..Oh! O-okay, yeah.. erm, s-sorry to hear that, Pidge?’

‘Oh my God..’ Pidge lamented, but yet another burst of pain from her belly had her doubling over before she could offer any further comment. She heard Keith wince vaguely from somewhere above.

‘Damn.. that looks.. unpleasant..’

‘…Understatement..’ She breathed, struggling to stay upright as pang after pang of nauseating pain ran through her. To her horror, it was followed shortly by another wave of suffocating tightness in her throat, and gasping for breath, she stared imploringly up into Shiro’s now fearful face. ‘C-castle..’ she winced. ‘y-you gotta get me to t-the castle..’

‘Okay, okay, Pidge, just try to relax, alright? As soon as we get you there, we’ll get Allura and she’ll -‘

‘No!’ Pidge shook her head, desperately trying to convey her meaning as Shiro lifted her from the ground, careful to keep her steady as he carried her through the air. ‘No, you.. you don’t understand, this isn’t..-!’

‘It’s okay, Pidge,’ Keith soothed, jogging by Shiro’s side, following them to the castle ship parked a short distance away in a large, open cleaning. ‘It’ll be alright, trust us - we’ll get you to Allura,’

Pidge tried to reply, to tell them that it wasn’t Allura who could solve her problem, but her trachea was tightening at a terrifying rate, and she knew that no words would escape her throat. So she just lay still against Shiro’s chest, hoping beyond hope that when they finally did find Allura, she would figure it out. And the sooner that happened, the better - Pidge’s eyesight was starting to go black.

She lost time. One moment they were in the forrest, next she was on the ground, fretful hands and despairing faces all swirling above her. The voices belonging to the faces she could see swam in her ears like a kaleidoscope of noise, focusing in and then fading out, but one voice picked up above the others and stuck in her mind, consoling.

‘Guys, I dunno what you think cramps look like, but that’s not it, trust me,’ Lance. The voice belonged to Lance, and with it, bought a clarity to the others as well, honing Pidge’s senses on reality.

‘Then what the hell is this? ..And anyway, how do you know what cramps look like?!’ Keith. Of course - temperamental and fierce, but deep down just concerned and caring.

‘Dude, you know I’ve got a big family - I’ve got a whole bunch of sisters, and literally every week one of ‘em’ll be complaining about being on,’

Pidge heard no reply, and assumed he had shut Keith up. At any other time or place, Pidge would have snickered at that, enjoying the banterous discourse diving the Paladins, but as it was, she found herself incapable of concern. Her stomach was in agony.

With a sharp cry, she rolled to her side, struggling past the swelling in her neck to bring up the vomit that was forcing its way out. She closed her eyes tight against on onslaught, no desire to see the flood splashing mercilessly against the ground.

‘Okay, seriously guys, what the hell is wrong with her?!’ Lance called, his voice a distant anchor that Pidge tried everything to cling onto to, to hold with everything she had. ‘Pidge? Pidge! Answer us, Goddamnit!’

‘Lance, lay off - you gotta give her some air, buddy,’ Shiro. Pidge felt his hands against her throat, one soft and warming, the other metal, cold to the touch and heavy on her skin. ‘Her throat’s swollen. Looks like an allergic reaction - what’s she eaten?’

‘Uh, j-just.. that goo stuff, with the glowing gold topping..’ She felt Hunk more than heard him, but his tight hand on her shoulder seemed to steady her breathes, weak and nauseous as they were.

‘Wait - what?! She ate that?!’

Pidge couldn’t figure out quite why Keith sounded so upset, but it worried her, a low, unhappy keen letting itself from her teeth in response. Shiro shushed her gently, hands rubbing circles, soothing and slow across her gut.

‘What’s wrong with her eating that? Everyone did,’

‘Lance, it’s made of pollen - the locals here eat it as a delicacy, they were telling me all about it earlier. I thought..- I thought they’d have let you all know, I -…’

Shiro’s hands still a second, pulling a whine like thunder from Pidge’s aching chest, and a pant, sharp and agonising soon followed suit. ‘Sorry, Pidge. Keith - why couldn’t Pidge eat the pollen?’

‘..She’s allergic to it, Shiro.. remember? She has hay fever, and I guess.. well maybe seeing as she ingested so much of it, maybe..’

‘Maybe it made her sick..’ Shiro finished for him just as another spill of vomit slid unobstructed from Pidge’s lips. ‘Okay.. okay, Lance, run ahead to the castle, take Hunk with you and set up a healing pod. Keith, go and find Coran and Allura - we need to call this party off and see to Pidge. I’ll get her back onto the ship,’

‘Got it,’

‘Leave it to me,’

‘Yes sir,’

She was hoisted into the air once again, and into Shiro’s chest she shivered, feeling not for the first time thankful for the men around her. Slow and oblivious they may have been, but hearts the size of empires lay behind their ribs, and intentions so good they were blinding.

But best of all, they were always there, just sat waiting to keep Pidge steady, and that was more than she could ever have dared to dream of.

[victorianimmortal]

my recent and glorious accomplisment

@thehomosexualistagenda @browherenew @corrupted-by-aftg

Remember that game I mentioned as one of the reasons I’m partially leaving Tumblr for a bit? Here’s what I posted about it a couple weeks ago:

The plot so far seems to be based around the concept of the multiverse as it affects memories. (I know, the multiverse–and tachyons were mentioned!) We, we being all of the teams involved, are supposed to try to become lab assistants for a [fake] professor here at the college who’s studying where the “hot spots” of fermion and tachyon entanglement are.) There’s all sorts of mystery, code breaking, and espionage involved, and it’s completely taken over my life.

It’s over. In fact, we just won. And I definitely want to get this story down--here seems like the best place, especially considering it feels exactly like The Flash. Under the cut if you want to hear about it. This got pretty long—there’s a lot of story. It’s 4000 words long; I’m sorry.

Okay. We show up to this fake (just assume everything is fake from here on out) talk last Saturday night, a talk by Professor Christopher Lugo, a theoretical physics professor. The chair of the theoretical physics department, Kerry Goss, introduces him, a couple of his lab assistants such as Alex Terry, Lugo’s wife Libby, and an ambiguously named person from the Ethics Board. Also present is Professor Aileen Snaut, an ethics professor who took an interest in Lugo’s research.

At the talk, Lugo tells us about what he’s researching. Apparently, the multiverse theory is real, and our universe is occasionally colliding with another one. When this happens, particles (particularly fermions and tachyons) can pass through, become entangled, and, in a “temporal pop”, suddenly unentangle, causing changes in our universe. Areas where this is particularly prevalent are called hotspots.

“Are these hotspots dangerous at all? Have their effects on humans been measured?” Snaut asks.

“No. I don’t know. I’m fine. My lab assistants are all fine,” Lugo says.

At the end of the talk, Lugo tells anyone who might be interested in becoming one of his lab assistants to email Alex. We do so, and, at a suggestion in their response, friend them on Facebook as well. They add us to a Facebook group filled with physics memes posted by Lugo’s lab assistants. 

Then things get exciting. Part one: the false emails. This was a veritable epidemic at the beginning of last week--we’d get an email that purported to be from one of Lugo’s assistants and not be able to tell whether it was real or not. Messaging the appropriate lab assistant, or checking the contact information on their Facebook pages, typically solved that problem. Our group was actually the cause of a couple fakes (we managed to eliminate a team that way, but all’s fair, right?).

Part two, the real part—Alex emails us with a bunch of pictures and says that Lugo’s wife took them. Apparently, Lugo thinks that the pictures don’t quite reflect reality, and they might be indicative of hotspots. We need to find these places on campus, take more pictures, and determine whether anything changed. Surprise, surprise--seven out of eight of the pictures have differences. We email our findings to Alex and wait for the next task.

The next task, as it happens, doesn’t come from Alex at all. Eryn Hall, another of Lugo’s assistants, posts a video on the Facebook group. She’d been waiting to meet with Lugo, as he’s her advisor, but someone barges into his office before she can. Enter Aileen Snaut. An abbreviated transcript:

“Have you heard of Aiden Murgel?” she asks.

“Sure, I read his research,” Lugo says. “He was looking into the multiverse too.”

“And he stopped publishing in 2001.”

“Your point?”

“The stuff he was looking into seemed pretty dangerous.”

“You’re an ethics professor, not a physicist—”

“I have more experience in physics than you might think.”

“Look. Something happened to Aiden Murgel. Something I wouldn’t recommend repeating.”

(direct quote) “Sure. It was the fluorine, in the water—the government, right? JFK’s on the moon with a sniper rifle, and Elvis, and Tupac, right? They’re going to Atlantis, with Aiden Murgel, right now, to see what he knows about fucking multiverse theory. Get out of my office.”

Exit Aileen Snaut. Eryn posts this video and adds “Anyone heard of this Murgel guy? He’s not on Wikipedia.” Another lab assistant, Matt, comments “I know what you’re looking for, Eryn.”

Well. We’re not going to let that pass, so we message Matt and get back this:

Murgel's a fucking weirdo. His shit makes some kinda weird code. At least, the stuff I've found so far does. I’ve solved it. I’ve read it. But I’m not gonna tell you because what have you ever done for me? You can have the puzzle, though. When you’ve solved it (if you can), go talk to the library front desk supervisor, Joe, he’s a nicer guy than I am, and probably more helpful, too. He's usually in on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from like 3-10. Better hurry, don’t know how long it will be there. 

Looking to call? First, look just to the right of nothing. Next you'll need my personal favorite letter. It marks my favorite word. Or, in here, my favorite subject. Thirdly you'll need what once, twice and thrice have in common with effervesce but not with eternity. To fill slots four, five and six you will need something of a different stripe. If you take the midpoint of an election year, you'll have found it. The Penultimate is an ending. In fact, you just saw one and are about to see another. Lastly, the first perfect.

Solve that and it gets you #QC183.6, the call number for something in the library—turns out to be a folder. Inside is a 16-page paper written by Snaut, two recommendation letters written for her, and a journal entry from Aiden Murgel. Why all this is filed together, we don’t know, but we’ve been told Murgel likes codes, so…

Turns out the first letter of every sentence in his journal is a message—one that points pretty obviously to a couple of the hotspots we found with the last challenge. Specifically, a fountain next to one of the buildings. Message that to Matt and he’s an asshole and says to talk to Alex, message it to Alex and they tell us Lugo’ll be interested, email it to Lugo and he thanks us for the help, makes snide remarks about Snaut trying to sabotage his research, and says he’ll be in touch. In the interest of fully exploring our options, we email Snaut and ask why her things are filed with Murgel’s, and she says she’s uninterested in discussing Aiden Murgel further at this time.

It’s Wednesday by this point, and Lugo emails us later that night with a task: break into Snaut’s office and find out what she’s hiding. We accept, though one of us emails Snaut too and gains her reluctant approval. The time is set: 4:30 Thursday.

4:30 Thursday rolls around and our team, tense, enters the office. Then follows an hour and fifteen minutes of pure panic. There are numbers hidden all around the office, leading us to books on the shelf, but we can’t quite figure out the code, and the safe we’re certain it unlocks only allows three tries before locking for a few minutes (letting out an incessant, headache-inducing beep-beep-beep the whole time). Desperate, we email Lugo for help, and he sends Alex. They “don’t even want to know what you’re doing”, but help us figure out the code, just in time too (I’ll never forget the code: 629315). Entirely out of time, frantic to get out of there, I flip through the papers within and take pictures, gaining only bits of knowledge from each one—it’s correspondence between Snaut and another professor, Jo Haley—

They’re starting a relationship—

There’s a breakup note—

They’re becoming friends again—

But the last page…

The last page…

…is a name change form.

From Aiden Murgel to Aileen Snaut.

Okay. Okay, so she definitely does know about physics, then, and about what happened to Murgel. (For a little more context, Snaut is trans; the person playing her, I know in real life, she’s trans in real life. That’s not the surprise. But the fact that she’s Murgel…)

We email Lugo. We email Snaut. We get meetings set up with both of them on Saturday afternoon; Snaut first, Lugo second.

We meet with Snaut and it turns out there’s a bigger plot twist in store than just that she’s Murgel. Not only has she done research into this other universe and the hotspots, oh no.

She’s from that other universe.

Her mind, anyway. Turns out women in science aren’t really a thing in this other world, and she got fed up, so she used one of the hotspots and ran. Ran here. Somehow combined her mind with the mind of her counterpart here, Aiden Murgel (who still identified as male; he “didn’t know yet”), and started doing research on this end.

The hotspots, to absolutely nobody’s surprise, are dangerous. And Snaut’s crossing and Lugo’s continued research only exacerbated the problem. The collisions between the two universes (which Lugo calls Castor and Pollux, though which is which is unclear) are happening more frequently. The changes are getting larger. “If Lugo continues his research,” Snaut tells us, “it’s going to become irreversible.”

“So what do we do?”

“We have to stop his research.”

“And if we can’t?”

She hesitates. “Well, the other option might be to erase that other universe.”

We debrief at the convenient ice cream shop down the street, where I term the universes Earth-1 and Earth-2. The two people watching The Flash with me, currently halfway through season two, groan. But then we fall into a real discussion, because we’ve been trusting Snaut more than Lugo, who’s a bit of a dick, this whole time. But erasing a whole other universe? That’s… that’s bad. That’s supervillain levels of bad.

Curiously, there’s the ambiguously named person from the Ethics Board sitting outside the place we met with Snaut. Weird.

We meet with Lugo, who rolls his eyes at the idea that his research could be dangerous. He won’t stop, despite us relating Snaut’s concerns. We ask what exactly the goal of his research is, and his eyes light up.

“Temporal computing.”

We stare blankly.

“If you fire tachyons back and forth between the two universes, you can convey huge amounts of information. We can have almost infinite processing power.”

All right, fine. I’ve watched The Flash, I can accept fake science. We tell him about Snaut’s plan to destroy Earth-2.

“I do not condone mass murder. Write that down. And the only device capable of destroying the other universe is the computer in my lab. She’ll have to go through me and my lab assistants—and through you, I hope—if she wants to do that. This is a waste of time. I’ll be in touch.” He heads around the corner.

One of my friends, ever the extremist, frowns. “If she’s willing to destroy another universe, who’s to say she won’t hire an assassin to stop you?”

Lugo scoffs. As the elevator doors close: “On a professor’s salary?”

Fair point.

We don’t know who to trust, so we email everyone. Jo Haley, to notify her of Snaut’s plan. Kerry Goss, to get an email for the Ethics Board. The Ethics Board, to tell them just a bit of the complicated situation. Snaut, to ask a few more questions.

Then we receive a couple of emails from Jo. She responds to our initial email, saying that she’s certain there’s some misunderstanding about Snaut’s plan. And then, to everyone still in the game, she sends a trivia quiz for us to complete. Our team, working together over chat, solves it in a couple hours and sends her the screenshot of it completed. Time filling, that seems to be all it is. We have larger concerns.

Cut to an email late Sunday, from Goss, about a formal investigation being put on by the Ethics Board. We show up at 5:30 Monday and find that it’s not just us invited—it’s all the remaining teams. Not to mention Jo Haley, Kerry Goss, Libby Lugo, Alex Terry, Ambiguously Named Ethics Board Guy, and another lab assistant, Kira Fuller. The subject? Christopher Lugo. Who’s vanished. Along with his supercomputer.

It gets worse. Snaut isn’t the only one with some crazy plan involving Earth-1 and Earth-2. Lugo wants to merge the two universes into one. Libby’s scared and has no idea where he is. Alex insists that there’s no danger in his research and that, until they see some evidence, they’ll continue helping him. Goss has no idea what’s going on and is very upset about it. Ambiguously Named Ethics Board Guy doesn’t say a word, but they haven’t the whole game. Jo supports neither of the scientists’ plans and offhandedly suggests another alternative—move the two universes away from each other. Goss challenges us—“If anyone has any more information about what’s happening, speak up now.” No one does.

In brief bits of conversation with other teams after the hearing, it’s implied that there’s another journal of Aiden Murgel’s that we’re missing, and that there’s some map indicating another hotspot. We remain unconvinced of the reality of this, but the possibility is there.

So that’s where we land Tuesday morning—caught between Lugo’s plan to meld two universes and Snaut’s plan to destroy one. Either way, a full universe of people are going to die. In Snaut’s plan, it’s clearly Earth-2 (and a couple of probing emails prove she’s not backing down), but in Lugo’s, it’ll be a mixture. Information is preserved, Snaut has told us, so it’s probably the smarter of the two doppelgangers whose mind will end up in the resultant universe—Earth-0.

Then we get an email from Lugo. He refuses to tell us where he is, but promises to send some notes of his to decipher on Wednesday at 4:30. Every path to follow seems bad, but we can’t fall behind now. Especially because only the first four groups will get to advance.

This is our gateway into endgame. We brace ourselves.

Wednesday, 4:30. The email arrives. It’s gibberish, plain and simple, with repeated words and phrases and none of it really seems to mean anything. Of course, there are three gifs: Shakespeare writing, a blue light swooping around in an infinity symbol, and a bunch of quick-running clocks.

It takes an embarrassing amount of time to realize the connection: the infinite monkey theorem. It’s Thursday, and we’re off to the comic store. There, on a display case, we find a QR code. It links to a website with the prompt “A name of an author from the last clue” and a blank text box. Enter Shakespeare, and we’re rewarded with two images. They look like steps of a dance, and are labeled “Go dance Shutesbury Reel by David Kaynor, then walk it out.” Beneath each step of the dance are w, a, s, or d—except two of them, which have “ment” and “base” in that order. Basement, all right, and the wasd must be directions of some sort. We start poking around basements, not fully following the directions (what do we count by? Buildings? Street corners?) and eventually return empty-handed to our dorm.

On the dorm bulletin board, though, there’s another QR code. This one links to a different question-and-answer setup from the same website, asking only “The answer to the previous puzzle (one word, no punctuation)”. That’s too vague—clearly they want us solving these in order. Still, it means we might be able to find all the codes just by exploring campus. We set off on a grand adventure to check out the most obvious places: the library, the student union building, etc. Nothing found, we return to various dorms and continue to think.

Then, one of us discovers that the website these QR codes are hosted on? There’s a directory. It’s got all the questions and all the images, though there seem to be some red herrings in there; some of the puzzles are repeated in slightly different ways. Both can’t be real. Most likely, an attempt to keep us from doing what we just did.

Still, we get to work on all the easily discernible puzzles. Random guessing at the question seeming to come from the dance code, asking “what are the northernmost and easternmost streets you walked on”, gets us a logic puzzle asking about birds, locations, and activities.

By the time we receive it, another of us has already solved it via the pictures. Plug in the answer “Pelicans plotz in the pergola” and we see a crossword—also already solved.

The next question asks for a few of the crossword answers, and gives us a dice code with the clue H=(2)(6). Turns out, each blank die is a break between letters, and the sum of the dice in between the blanks corresponds to a letter, the standard 1-26. That actually yields an obvious location, a certain statue on campus.

Go there, and there’s a QR code and the keyword amaranth. Two questions are asked: “Read down the column of the previous clue”, and “Your favorite color”. Down the column of the dice clue is “khek”, and our favorite color, well, who cares what it was before—now, it’s amaranth.

The next puzzle has a large grid, with only a few blocks shaded in: a few forming a rectangle in blue near the left, and a single block closer to the bottom in red. Along the top and left side are lists of numbers, everything from 0 to 1,4 to 1,1,1,2,5,1 to 17. Weird. We stare at it for a while and then one of us, doing some googling, realizes it’s a nonogram; the numbers correspond to chains of filled-in blocks in that row or column. Plug it into a nonogram solver and it yields something that looks awfully familiar—a map of North Quad. The red indicates the statue where we found the last clue and the blue is a dorm.

Unfortunately, we explore that building thoroughly and there’s nothing there. We’re certain we’re right, so we email Lugo and all go to bed.

Next morning, Friday, there’s a reply, something vague about “probabilistic interference last night”. We snicker. That’d be gamerunner code for “someone took it down we’ll replace it right away.” We’d know—we took down a few QR codes ourselves. Still, we revisit the dorm and find a QR code right away. It asks for the keyword in the previous URL, and we enter “amaranth” again.

This is it. It has a picture of a fireplace, something in one of the academic buildings, and the instructions, “The machine is calibrated, and in the location above. Contact me with the keyword ‘topiary’ to arrange a time on Saturday to turn it on.”

We do so, also informing everyone else we’ve been in contact with during the game—Snaut, Libby, Alex, Jo. Lugo agrees to 3 pm Saturday. Snaut doesn’t reply. Neither does Libby. Alex says only that they’ll be there. Jo says she’s working on a plan and asks if we have any ideas.

Well.

My Flash fanfic-writing soul isn’t about to let that opportunity pass. With way too much time until Saturday at 3, I start thinking, and eventually email her back with a complex but airtight plan—assuming, that is, that we trust Earth-2 people not to destroy our universe when they realize they’re in danger. She points this out, and adds that, because Snaut’s move from Earth-2 to Earth-1 exacerbated the collisions, maybe sending something to Earth-2 would fix it.

“I just don’t know how we could do this or what we would send…” she says.

Unable to resist, I email back, “The question might not be what we send, but who…” and then immediately backtrack as though I was joking.

We show up. Friday. 4 pm—I know, I know. We got a call at 2:30, a real one from a gamerunner, requesting that we push the time back an hour. A few frantic texts and we agree.

Friday. 4 pm. We find Jo waiting outside on the steps, and eventually Alex joins us, letting us into the building. Lugo’s in there with some crazy machine, mostly constructed of wood and wires, with a desktop and keyboard sitting atop it, not to mention some weirdly colored chemicals.

He starts yelling at us not to touch anything, and something about how we have to be careful what we do around the machine to keep things from aligning wrong as the universes merge. Mostly this means we aren’t allowed access to phones, and instruction sheets for how to finish the calibrations, written by the poor, overworked Alex, have to be kept on the balcony above the main floor.

That said, we have limited time and we have to start the calibrations. Two of us run up to get the instructions and start shouting down at the others. One: line up the colored chemicals in a certain order. It’s just after we finish when Aileen bursts into the room and starts shouting at all of us to stop.

We don’t have time for that. Jo (after advising us to read all the way through the instructions) goes to talk to Aileen, Aileen tries confronting Lugo, something weird happens and Lugo’s hand seems to be experiencing the other universe? We have to keep going, though.

Ambiguously Named Ethics Board Guy, of course, says nothing.

We read all the way through the instructions and turns out Alex had an idea on the last page. They suggest that, if half of the steps for calibration are right, i.e., aligned to merge the two universes, and the other half are wrong in a very particular way, i.e., set to destroy Earth-2, maybe—maybe the two universes will be pushed parallel to each other. It might solve the problem.

Okay. Okay, but that still means we have to solve all the problems. They’re all puzzles, and it’ll take coordination. We start working to set up a grid of tiles. Getting them lined up correctly, when the instructions and the grid are a full floor apart, isn’t the easiest job in the world. Eventually, we get it done. The next step is a logic puzzle, one that’ll be far easier to solve by one person than by shouting. I tell everyone else to get to work on the next step, a cipher, while I puzzle out the logic. We reconvene once that’s done and keep working.

We have four of seven puzzles right now, one of which, according to the instructions, doesn’t actually have a ‘destroy’ setting. Time to get some things wrong.

There’s a Mandela effect challenge, and we struggle to remember what things actually look like in our universe. Easy enough—I nearly wrote a novel about the Mandela effect once.

Then come the hard two. Certain objects need to be set on a grid, and we have to decode a cipher whose keyword we can’t quite figure out. Time is running out—and then everything goes to hell.

Lugo and Aileen burst back into the room and yell at us to stop. Those of us on the balcony clatter down the stairs and we gather on the floor.

“What did you decide?” Jo asks.

We explain—“We’re doing half right and half wrong, it should push the universes apart, according to Alex, but we’re not done—”

“Okay.” Jo, pushing Lugo out of the way, enters the correct code on the machine, which immediately demands more information. She turns to me. “Remember what you said in your last email to me?”

It takes me a moment to remember, but I do. “You said—you said that pushing the universes apart might take an information transfer from here to there, but you didn’t know what. I said it might not be what… it might be who.”

My intrepid team member immediately volunteers, but Aileen (to whom all attention has already turned) shakes her head.

“…I came over to begin with. It started this whole thing. I have to go back.”

Jo, who clearly, clearly knows that there isn’t another option, nevertheless protests. “You can’t.”

“I have to.”

They’ve drifted toward each other; they clasp hands.

“Over there,” Jo says. “You have to find me. The other me. You have to find me and make me fall in love with you.”

Lugo complains in the background. Ambiguously Named Ethics Board Guy hovers ominously.

Aileen goes to the machine, grips the wire, screams, and falls to the ground. Jo scrambles to her side, sobbing.

A beat.

Then Aileen moves, turns over, looks confused and pushes away from Jo. “What…what’s happening?”

“Aileen…” Jo murmurs.

“Who’s Aileen? My name is Aiden Murgel.”

“Of course it is,” we whisper to each other.

Murgel stands and leaves.

“All that grant money, and all I have to show for it is a machine that goes swoosh?” Lugo demands.

Swoosh goes the machine.

Alex is freaking out in a corner somewhere.

Jo is still crying on the floor.

Ambiguously Named Ethics Board Guy crouches next to Jo and hands her a business card.

“Keep in touch,” they say.

[ruffoverthinksthings]

Do you think Jay and Evie are possible

Anything is possible WHEN YOUBELIEVE!

I’m sorry, it’s late and I need to be going to sleep soon. Anyway:

Speaking from a purely meta perspective, there is no ship that isnot allowed. You don’t need to have any existing chemistry withinthe show, you don’t need to have any “proof” that they couldwork out, and you definitely do not need to prove this to otherpeople with evidence, powerpoints, and independent peer reviews fromother shippers who do not have any potentially biased views, and/orconflicts of interest with you.

Shipping is not scientific research, it's a fun past time. Andthis is coming from a shipper that has, for reasons of having fun, shipped aLatina scientist with several other female characters across thelines of show, age, timeline, and even species, because they wantedto have a lot of fun making one particular character suffer.

(Honey Lemon with Elsa, Unikitty, Athena, Fluttershy, and GoGo, from Big Hero 6, Frozen, The LEGO Movie, Borderlands, and My Little Pony, for my fic “It’s Not Her Fault She Makes Girls Realize They’re Lesbians.)

From an in universe perspective: yes, it is also possible, and actually my first choice for Evie’s relationship choice if she and Doug don’t work out. (The latter of which is most likely, but I already gave my reasons way back when.)

If you, like me, ignore the book series for the most part, I headcanon that given the inherently small population and lack of choice on the Isle, most every VK has dated each other, or has dated someone else’s current beau and can offer them advice. With Evie in particular, though she was constantly setting her sights at whoever had the most physical goods and luxury (relative to the Isle) she could help herself to, she frequently cheated on them or had a very casual relationship with Jay whenever she wanted someone exciting, manly, and with very agile fingers.

I mean those both literally and as a sexual euphemism: Jay is a master of stealing alcohol, semi-decent food, and candles for romantic dinners, along with what follows if he can eat like a regular human being for about half-an-hour.

Post-Isle of the Lost and the vastly expanded opportunities in Auradon both for dating and just improving their lot in life, I imagine that the two of them will spend a lot of time being happily single, figuring out who they are and what they want in life independent of the influence of other people trying to shape them with their whims and desires, and just generally maturing.

For the purposes of this ship, I’d say Evie will find herself in the fashion world as an “Avante Garde” designer known for her incredibly striking, controversial, and many times risque pieces; or as a scientist for any field--it doesn’t really matter which, the point of it being that she works in a constant high stress environment where money, time, timing, public opinion, and sweet talking is constantly a concern, and she’s likely to butt heads with people who are very determined, very opinionated, and very, very, very unpleasant if you happen to prove that they’re wrong in an objective manner.

Jay, as always, will probably find himself as either a professional Tourney player or as part of the Royal Guard, now relevant once more as the VK population grows and the crime rate steadily ticks up from absolute zero. Basically, a job that is high octane, high stakes, with lots of physical activity, and it’s a question of “when” you are going to get injured on the job not “if.”

The two of them I’d imagine dating within their professional circles (it’s where most people meet their partners and dates, after all) in between rising up in their respective career ladders, but as they begin to carve out their niches, get their private offices, and the managers frothing at the mouth trying to get him to sign onto their teams or the high ranking titles, they start to realize something:

They REALLY don’t want ALL of their lives to just be their jobs, and the ways that their colleagues relax aren’t doing it for them. Evie finds the going out to bars, restaurants, and visiting art galleries just carries more of the schmoozing, gossiping, subtle backstabbing, and politeness that her regular job entails; and as Jay grows older, more mature, and starts to think about his life at large, he starts to realize that it’s NOT so fun to blow off steam by partying, drinking, and having one night stand after one night stand.

Things come to a head in a Romantic Comedy coincidence: someone just happens to make the wrong snide comment at Evie on the Day When Nothing Went Right, and in the process of trying to save a rival athlete/fellow partygoer from his own morning hangover stupidity, Jay gets hit by a car.

Evie has a very public blow-up that has her temporarily excommunicated from the high fashion community/the research facilities and laboratories for fear of scandal/”disruptive and toxic attitude affecting morale”, Jay comes out of the incident with just a mild limp, but is hospitalized and will be confined for the next couple of weeks by order of his boss/manager.

It just so happens that the Rotten Four and most of their AK friends are coming to Jay’s hospital room because they’re worried for him, but because they’re all also high-profile professionals at this point/King of the entire country/freelancers who need more commissions to keep paying for their really nice studio apartment, Evie is the only person left sitting next to him.

“Don’t you have important work that’s ‘going to revolutionize Auradon’ or something?” Jay asks.

“Normally, I would! But, since I just had a major meltdown in front of pretty much everyone who pays me to do it: no, no I don’t,” Evie replies as she’s sunk into the easy chair nearby.

Jay nods sympathetically. “Bad day?”

Evie cringes. “More like a whole string of bad days, bad nights, and bad things all piling up till a REALLY Bad Day lit the fuse.”

“Jesus--E, when was the last time you cut loose and let yourself relax?”

Evie sighs wistfully. “Too long ago. Definitely not last night like you did, though. I really hope that party was worth it.”

Jay cringes. “It wasn’t.”

Evie looks at him in surprise. “You? Not enjoying yourself at a party? How?”

Jay shrugs. “When I started being the combination chaperone/designated driver, I guess.”

The two of them pause.

“EVILNESS, I HATE my job SO MUCH right now!” Evie gripes. “And it’s fucked up, because I LOVE my work, but I have all these people I respect and admire professionally, but then they open their mouths and I have to resist the urge to tell them to just shut the fuck up...!”

“Oh man, I’m like that with the new guys all the time--all these fresh grads who think that just because they’re half my age they’re automatically better than me!”

“You’re not alone. I swear, there’s this one intern who is eying me like a hawk; I can see her imagining herself behind my desk, it’s creepy and annoying!”

“Kinda reminds me of Kingsley--might want to slow down on the ‘friendly suggestions’ there, bud.”

“Hah, at least he’s polite about it,” Evie spits.

The two of them spend another few moments in silence, feeling even worse than before.

“What happened to us, Jay?” Evie whispers quietly. “What the fuck happened to us?”

“We grew up. Life happened.”

“But it shouldn’t THIS bad! I shouldn’t be getting up in the morning excited to go to work then having second thoughts when I remember who I’ll be saying hi to on the way to my desk--”

“Get out,” Jay mumbles.

Evie stops. “Excuse me...?”

“We need to get out of here. This hospital, this city--”

“We need a vacation, stat.” Evie finishes.

Jay hums. “Damn right.” He gets up off his bed.

Evie sits up in her chair. “Woah, Jay, you sure you should be getting up?”

“I’m fine,” Jay says. “Everyone’s being keeping me in the hospital longer and longer since I turned 25, something about ‘being sure’ or some other paranoid bullcrap.”

“And they’re just going to let you walk out like this?”

“Hell no!” Jay replies as he walks over to his regular clothes in the corner. “Which is why I’m breaking out,” he says casually, grinning as he takes off the papergown.

Evie has seen worse several times over, so she’s unfazed. “And how are you going to do that? You didn’t break anything, sure, but you’re still not 100%.”

“Evie, Evie, Evie,” Jay says as he puts his pants back on, “What haven’t I been able to do if I had the perfect accomplice with me?”

Evie stands up from the chair, smiling and feeling genuinely excited for the first time in months. “Just tell me what I have to do...”

So the two of them engineer a hospital break, take off in Evie’s car, and go on a crosscountry roadtrip with the intent of enjoying a full 3 days at the bordertowns in Faraway, raising hell, rediscovering what’s important in their lives, running and hiding away from their bosses who now coincidentally, desperately need them back on the job, and spending a LOT of time learning about all the many ways they’ve changed for the better, and reacquainting themselves with Jay’s very agile fingers...

... Again, literally and as a sexual euphemism.

[mortivern]

Vera wouldn’t believe me when I said that I saw someone in Alola who reminded me so much of Mom. Her response? “People here are a little more chill, generally speaking, don’t you think?” So I stopped trying to convince her and let Olivia’s words and actions speak for themselves when we faced her for the Akala Island grand trial. Olivia’s got this steeliness at her core (just like my mom) that plays off of her genuine care and interest for people (also just like my mom). And intense eye contact! And these great smiles to go with it. Vera admitted she kinda saw it, especially in the look after we both walked away from the trial victorious—proud to see her mentees succeed, but with just a flicker of anxiety about being surpassed.

We were on our way to Konikoni to FINALLY get me some new shoes when we ran into Kio outside of the hair salon next door. Apparently she was on her way to the trial, too. I told her she’d be totally fine, since she picked a Water type as her starter. Kio and Vera were calmly avoiding each other’s eyes. So stupid, I really don’t know why they’re not talking. They haven’t seen each other in years, so I don’t know what recent drama could be causing this. NOR was I especially interested in getting in the middle of it, especially then and there. I asked Kio if she wanted to have a warmup battle before she headed on to her trial. And kiddo totally held her ground, too. That Herdier, Harriet, is a dogged little thing and took out a chunk of my team before Andre pulled through for us with the win. 

Vera then asked if Kio wanted to face off against her. To be honest I got so wrapped up in the battle that I had kind of forgotten she was there. She’d been standing off to the side. Studying, I guess. Kio said that she had five Pokemon while Vera only had three, so she’d pick three to make it fair. Vera shrugged. I had to remember later to let her know how rude that seemed. “Shrug. I could beat your five with my three.” Rude! But she did end up winning. That Persian of hers, Fitz, is tough, fast, and incredibly persistent. Kio is a better strategist than I had thought she would be, but seemed to be cut off at every pass. I probably should have let Vera battle first, not given her an opportunity to watch and learn Kio’s tactics. Ah well. Next time. The three of us poked around the clothes store, where I FINALLY got a new pair of purple and black sneakers and a purple leather backpack. I gladly handed over my old tennis shoes for the clerk to throw away. Good riddance.

Kio departed for her trial not long after, but at least she said goodbye this time. I guess she kind of had to, didn’t she, since we were right there? Vera and I headed to the Grand Hano Resort just down the road to see if there was a room available on a fluke, resolving to at least get drunk at their bar if not. We had barely stepped foot on the terrace when a kid came sprinting over, breathlessly shout-asking us if we wanted to attend a wedding. We looked around—no wedding party to be seen—but the kid seemed so excited and desperate that I didn’t feel like it was right to say no. Besides, we weren’t in any particular rush to get anywhere. We were each given leis to wear and a flower to hold and led over to a fountain, where a few other kids were standing around for what looked like two Pikachu getting married. There was a super short ceremony where one of the kids basically just said “now you can kiss the bride” and then they all ran away laughing afterwards. We both managed to at least wait until the end of the wedding to laugh. It was cute. I wonder if Vera will ever end up just pulling the trigger and getting married. I don’t know! And I don’t know about me, either. Not something on my horizon, personally.

Inside Vera tugged my sleeve and pointed to a man with huge green fashion bug-looking glasses; she told me that she had run into him on the road, where he had asked for her help in fending some Team Skull dingbats off of a random wild Slowpoke. He gestured for us to come over when he saw Vera, and smiled this leering smile at us. He introduced himself as Faba, the regional Aether Branch Chief. Totally self-important, smarmy douchebag. But he had heard of two folks who had just cleared the kahuna’s trial and, directly to Vera, said that he was sure that she had been one of them, and that he’d like to invite her as a guest to the Aether Paradise, a floating metal island in the middle of the ocean. Vera said as long as there was a place to relax once she got there and entry for me she would happily accompany him back. He seemed to hesitate for just half a second before going “yes, of course,” and leading us to this uber-slick speedboat with a gleaming golden Aether logo splashed across the front.

I’ve heard plenty about the Aether Foundation. They’ve always got a few top-secret research and projects cooking. I’ve heard they’re generally biologically focused—after all, Aether Paradise is supposed to be a sanctuary for Pokemon before they are rehabilitated—but I don’t know, I think it’s kind of weird that a sanctuary is doing so much research without publishing tons of findings. Doesn’t seem right if you ask me. Once we got there I was surprised at how sterile it was—stringent white and gray everywhere. A kindly woman named Wicke took us from Faba upstairs to the Sanctuary to meet the president, who she cooed would be “so excited” to meet two folks with such generosity and potential. I guess she was referring to Vera helping Faba out that one time, unless Aether has somehow been watching me while…well, I don’t even want to entertain that, to be honest. And seems kinda paranoid to assume a scientific research facility would be watching my movements. Mine! A tourist in these lands. Wearing flip flops until what feels like ten minutes ago. Not a reasonable thought by any stretch of the imagination.

The president’s name is Lusamine; she’s an aggressive fashion bitch, just like our dearest godfather-uncle Ruefayel. However, she’s got this veneer of “I care about each and every Pokemon and they are my children” that instantly set me on edge. I also didn’t love that she had this sorta snide comment about my shoes, especially since I just fuckin bought them, but what can you do with fashion bitches. I was about to respond when a literal hole tore itself open in midair and this jellyfish-looking creature emerged from a literal rift in space. Nobody knew what it was—not Lusamine, not Faba or Wicke, not even the Room Dex. Andre leapt at it ferociously and scared it back into the rift, which sealed up behind the creature. Lusamine insisted—demanded—that Vera and I get sent to Malie City on Ula’ula Island. No discussion. We were put on a small-sized catamaran ferry due for Malie City. Didn’t matter that it was the middle of the night: we were out. 

Vera doesn’t seem nervous on boats as she does on planes. Maybe it’s because we spent so much time on them growing up—Mom’s an avid boater—but it’s nice to see her so relaxed. I joined her out on the deck while she facetimed Julian and Leon (it’s mid-morning in Kalos, “perfect cartoon-watching time” as Leon put it) and said hello to my nephew and his dad before wandering to the top deck of the boat. I should be more excited about such an unprecedented encounter. It could prove incredibly fruitful for the scientific community.

I still don’t feel good about it. Any of it, really.