#come to think i was like. the only theatre kid in my lit class. which would explain a lot.
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Is this the time of year highschoolers are reading The Odyssey? Every year around these couple months I feel a deep desire to reread and talk about it like. All the time.
So I remember when I read it for school I was embarrassed bc we were supposed to make sticky notes annotations and I had 3x the amount of sticky notes as my classmates despite desperately trying to minimize them.
Also I always make a joke and use the "Nobody/No one" thing and nobody ever gets it ..... oh the irony ...... I'm gonna go listen to UDAD now I guess.....
#come to think i was like. the only theatre kid in my lit class. which would explain a lot.#i really liked mythology okay#it was like the romeo and juilet unit all over again..... i was so passionate.....#udad#the odyssey#oh actually i still have the exact copy i used in school! just like the hobbit and the outsiders! sick!#god my handwriting was terrible#it still is
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Do you have any hcs for Kaiser and/or Ness backstory?? I'm worried we won't have that much time left with them so I've been pondering, and Ness def gives me only child, middle class (maybe upper middle class), and lonely childhood vibes 😔 I feel like part of his obsession with Kaiser and a big part of his personality is accepting any and all crumbs of affection and recognition, which leads to an easy dependence on a sole model. I like to imagine though, while he didn't get to spend the most time with his parents especially as he started school, that he used to go mushroom and truffle hunting with his mom. I also see Ness as someone who likes or used to train as an ice skater!! I think it suits him and would be helped/lead to his flexible ankles. Also, has some kind of music background whether it's playing violin for a bit or being a choir boy.
He and Kaiser def have major theater kid energy, but I also see Ness as a lit nerd!! Used to be a bit of a snob about it too the little shit but he likes classics, mystery, and fantasy. Def see him as a LOTR fan while Kaiser doesn't know LOTR or Star Wars lmao.
And I think it'd be cute, if their friendship started more normally (though...who knows smh), that Kaiser and Ness used to talk about plays and musicals together. I think Ness would be a tragedy and romance fan (Cyrano de Bergarac, Medela, Titus Andronicus) while Kaiser loves EVERYTHINGGGG but is ofc a huge proponent of the classics, and is very pretentious about his personal meta and deep takes on them.
Also, between the two, only Ness knows some video games. Not a lot, but I think he would have played nintendo games like Kirby, Legend if Zelda (fave), and Mario and would know MegaMan, DOOM, some Resident Evil and such. I see him being given game consoles as a kid to make up for his parents not being there for him, which worked but the intent pushed Ness away from really enjoying video games to the fullest. But I think he'd have a soft spot for a lot of OSTs from different series, and with time, I think he could be a horror game fan but only now and then.
Meanwhile, Kaiser is like...bankrupt when it comes to video game knowledge and references. Anything he knows is from brief osmosis from being an attention seeker as a kid trying to make friends by lying out of his ass. If he ever were to play video games as a young adult, I think he might be interested in MMORPGs but his attention is short with them and he gets pissy if he's not instantly amazing at it. Which I see happening a lot bc I think video games would be a weakness for Kaiser lmao.
Sorry this ran rather long!! Ty for your time!!
hi nonnie!! no worries at all my apologies for replying so late. i have like, a few headcanons for our unhinged bastard münchen duo but some of them i plan on exploring in fics later on so i’ll be keeping those selfishly to myself for now sorry <3 but i feel like kaiser and ness won’t disappear on us any time soon!! we’ve already been with them for quite a while, and after the ubers game we’re still getting the pxg france match, so there’s plenty opportunity for us to learn about their backstories. imo they’re such interesting characters that it would be a waste - and if i can be so bold, bad story writing - not to explore their dynamics further in the manga. so i’m sure we’ll know more about them in due time!! but yeah it’s kinda criminal that their blue lock wiki pages have barely any trivia on them :((
sadly i’m not very well-versed in either theatre or video games but it seems like you def know your stuff!! and that’s really the beauty of hcs - that if it feels right for you why not own it? i can tell you’ve put a lot of thought and effort into mapping out their childhood and interests :)
so let me leave you with this lil brain nugget i’ve been pondering about: i really do wonder if it was ness who made kaiser into the self-obsessed bastard he is today. i feel like kaiser wasn’t born with a superiority complex. he was always good at football, but never thought too deeply about it until he met ness. ness was the original egoist. i mean, from his current skill set, he still surpasses isagi in many aspects. so it was ness who was really good at football, who didn’t have an equal until he saw kaiser play and it shattered his entire worldview, because just like isagi, he realised kaiser embodies that “perfect form of soccer.” and he made it look easy, effortless. so ness became obsessed and decided to devote himself to kaiser, who measured up to be the best in his eyes, and thus, slowly, kaiser started believing himself to be the emperor that ness made him out to be. wouldn’t you develop a god complex if someone was constantly at your beck and call and praised you for it? defended you against everyone who tried to stand in your way but ultimately failed? i’m pretty sure that’s not how their story will go but it is an intriguing food for thought no? (okay now that i'm reading this back it's low key giving a reonagi foil lol but i still stand by it)
i also wonder if kaiser’s rose tattoo has anything to do with his desire to leave bastard münchen but being unable to do so as of right now, hence the thorns symbolising that he is “shackled”. which means he’s looking for something or someone to set him free by “unlocking” the keyhole on his left hand. my guess is that isagi is definitely involved in that process somehow but we shall see!
#—ping! new message from (anon)#phew haven't done blue lock meta theorising in a while hehe so this def worked the cogs in my brain a bit#i'm also a bit behind on the manga so hopefully i'm not just talking utter nonsense lol#blue lock#michael kaiser#alexis ness
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15 Questions 15 Mutuals
tagged by my lovely friend @vcaudley!
Are you named after anyone? - to the best of my knowledge, no. i don’t know if this makes my family more or less imaginative.
When was the last time you cried? - yesterday, i think it was? or maybe the evening before. was reading a fucking excellent fic and it was sweet, and aching, and hollowed me out so thoroughly i felt like an echo of myself and i had to stare at a wall for about ten minutes while i pressed down on those emotional bruises until i could endure it. fantastic.
Do you have kids? - i don’t have human kittens (i do not want them), but i do have two year-old regular kittens, nearly a year old.
Do you use sarcasm a lot? - yes. i genuinely don’t think i could function without it. when texting i’m more careful, because i know being deadpan can be difficult to parse.
What sports do you play/have played? - for enjoyment, or as a team-building nightmare in school? i don’t sport for funsies--though i really do miss swimming. used to swim laps and had excellent endurance. in school i tried to play basketball, because it was Indiana and i am tall, but...it was not a good scene.
What's the first thing you notice about people? - overall body language and tone of voice. comes from having to gauge emotional weather of those around me. thanks, trauma!
What's your eye colour? - Green.
Scary movies or happy endings? - what kind of scary? like, Saw films (bleh)? or psychological thrillers (yes please)? and who doesn’t like a happy ending (not necessarily like that)? you ask me, not enough happy endings; everything is trying too damn hard to be grimdark and edgy and it makes me tired.
Any special talents? - improv and memorising stuff. i’m excellent at memorising. i can also make hella awesome costume jewelry.
Where were you born? - here. which is not there. it is potty little South Central PA.
What are your hobbies? - reading, knitting, making jewelry, leaving faintly unhinged feedback on fic authors’ works; pondering the lives of fictional characters; video games, nesting.
Do you have pets? - yep--two cats: Mochi and Soba. they are brothers, and menaces, and they delight in driving me bonkers and i adore them for it.
How tall are you? - drivers licence says 6′1″ but my posture is absolute shit, so i probably pop at only 6 feet.
Favourite subject in school? - tech theatre, speech, sociology, psych. i’d love to say literature but lit classes in Indiana are a fucking joke.
Dream job? - voice actor, hands down. possibly writing for video games, or maybe researching weird shit online and getting paid for it. i’d love to write full-time but i sadly do not have the self-discipline for it.
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I will happily appreciate it more because this is like my favorite aspect of his character.
Word association games are fantastic. Word games in general are lovely. If you've ever heard of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" you should look into it and also they play a word game called questions that we played in my AP Lit class and when I say Logan likes word games I mean in a way that he would win against everyone easily except maybe Janus but he'd eventually win by calling him out on rhetoric.
Not only is he a fan of poetry by extension he is also fluent in terms of rap music and that just makes me think of the "I like Eminem/I prefer Skittles" incorrect quote which is so fantastic to me, and man oh man I can only imagine the poetic prowess written by combination of Logan's affinity for it and Roman's generally poetic language gosh my goodness yes. If Logan participated in Slam Poetry that would be very cool.
Logan would win zip zap zop. This has nothing to do with the rest of this but Logan is the type of person to memorize the pattern and not even observe when being looked at and then demolishing the other sides when they desync and he doesn't. Yes.
Logan is so much more creative and intuitive than meets the eye like yes, he is smart, he is a very smart, organized, and calculated individual, but in word association games he would probably insist on using no repeats because he could keep coming up with new words. Poetry (and any form of writing to an extent) is an art form and Poetry is one of the most emotionally raw art forms. And (not to bring up theatre again) in theatre we did warm-ups and multiple of those improv warm-ups included playing variants of word associated games. Logan is a creative side, his purpose is defined as "The fact giver" or "the reason we win trivia night" or "the one who makes all the schedules and stifles the ideas" but no if anything he would add to the ideas and by separating the creative process from the logical thinking because they feel so contradictory they are separating something from Logan that is so important (and also displayed during the Christmas episode with all of them because yes, he thought he got a newspaper because "he likes to read hes a nerd" but actually it was a whole adventure that was well-thought out and deliberate like point-and-click games) and I think this post adequately displays that.
Sorry for the rant I just this is one of my favorite aspects of his character and you aren't kidding when you say that it's underappreciated.
No one in the Sanders Sides fandom appreciates Logan's appreciation of word association games and poetry.
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Where We Land [A.B.]
A/N: I've had this in my drafts pretty much since I started this blog but somehow never finished it, so here we are now. Enjoy some soft single dad Tito x student babysitter
Word count: 5739
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Babysitting Anthony Beauvillier’s son was not what you expected to do to make money during the last two years of your degree. It started as an accident, really, you were walking in the park when Alex ran into you, and a few days later you were coming over to watch him while his dad was at practice.
Alex had been an unexpected surprise with a girlfriend Tito had dated for less than a year. They weren’t really in love, but they got along well and moved in together for the sake of their baby. They figured out after the first year that they were cut out to be friends rather than a couple, there was nothing romantic between them. Tito kept on living with them to make it easier while Alex needed constant attention, and they agreed to live separately once he was grown enough to be moved between houses on weekends.
A car accident changed everything when Alex was only three. The boys ended up on their own, and Anthony wasn’t sure of how to deal with his son and career at the same time. The team was a priority, but it couldn’t be more important than his own child.
His family helped him a lot at the start, staying with him to watch over Alex, but after a few months they had to get back home. You filled in for them during the week, picking Alex up from school and watching him until his dad was home, but it was never more than that. Anthony still always made sure someone from his family could fly to New York whenever he had to leave for a roadie.
It wasn’t a sustainable option for anyone, but they were still grieving so his parents did everything they could to help out. It worked until Alex turned four, almost a year had passed since he lost his mother, and it was time for everyone to move on.
It was the reason Anthony was so anxious about leaving for this game. You would be the one watching Alex and he couldn’t stop himself from worrying. You were used to the little boy, you were there every day and they both trusted you, but it wasn’t the same. Still, Tito didn’t think he could find anyone better than you.
“Thanks for watching him for so long, there’s no one else I’d trust around here with him for three days,” Anthony sighed as he dropped his bags by the doorstep, quickly checking he wasn’t missing anything. He did his best to shake off the nerves of leaving his son with someone that wasn’t his parents. “Please call me if anything happens?”
“We’ll be fine,” You reassured him for the millionth time. “It’s only three days, he’ll be at school most of the time,”
It was a bit of a change for you because you weren’t used to the morning routine Alex had, but you knew you’d be fine. It wasn’t a long trip, and Tito would be back on Friday right after school ended, so you wouldn’t even have to go through the weekend alone.
“Yeah, I guess,” Tito nodded, his bottom lip still caught between his teeth. “I’m going to say goodbye to him, I’ll try not to wake him up,”
It was six in the morning, so you were already settled on his couch in your sweatpants, your own packed bag sitting near the dinner table. There was a blanket draped over your shoulders, and you were planning on watching Netflix until Alex woke up.
You were used to making yourself at home around Tito’s apartment, you respected boundaries, but he had already seen you bunched up in blankets with Alex a hundred times when you had movie nights together while he was busy. You hoped the little boy would stay asleep for a while, it was too early for you to function, and he already knew you’d be there instead of his dad for the next few days.
“Okay,” Tito walked back into the living room. “He’s still sleeping, he should stay in bed until you wake him up. I made him pick clothes last night to wear today, they’re on the chair in his room,”
“Alright, thank you,” You made a note of doing that tonight, you weren’t sure of how fussy he was with deciding what he wanted to wear, so it was safer to have it done the night before.
“The fridge is full,” Tito continued with the recommendations. “So you should be fine, but that’s in case you need to get anything, or if you two go out and you need to buy him something or whatever, you know I don’t care,” He handed you an envelope that you could only assume was full of cash. It wasn’t the first time he did that, and you always kept receipts and left the exact right amount in, he knew because he had counted the first couple of times. By now he had stopped checking, he really couldn’t care less even if you bought something for yourself, but the little stack of receipts was always there waiting for him.
“I don’t think we’ll need more groceries, you won’t be gone that long,” You knew the kitchen was stocked with the list of ingredients you sent him. You always managed to cook dinner with whatever he had in the fridge when he was late to come home, but he wanted to make sure you wouldn’t be missing anything while he was gone.
“Mmh, yeah, I guess. Make yourself at home in my room, okay? I changed the sheets after I woke up this morning, you can use whatever you need in the shower,” He went through the last few things he needed to tell you, and you nodded.
“Thank you,”
“Okay, Mat is picking me up,” He checked his phone when the screen lit up. “Call me if there’s absolutely anything,”
“How many times a day do I need to text you we’re okay to stop you from worrying?” You joked, trying to ease his mind.
“I’m just- I’m not used to this,” He bit his lip nervously, which wasn’t in his habits. You were used to seeing him confident. He always trusted you with Alex and went out for several nights without a second of worry, but this was different.
“I promise I’ll call if anything happens,” You reassured him again. “And just call me when you want to talk to him,”
“Okay, yeah, I’m really going now,” Anthony gave you a real smile. He knew you’d take care of Alex like he was your own.
“Good luck for the games!” You waved one last time before he closed the door.
.
After that first trip, your job as a babysitter began taking a lot more of your time. Anthony trusted you fully and left you without worrying any time he had to travel. Roadies were rarely long, and you managed juggling your classes and time on campus with your responsibilities towards Alex.
“Can we bake?” The little boy gave you his best puppy eyes, trying to distract you from an essay you were hoping to finish.
“If you ask politely,” You reminded him, tearing your eyes away from your laptop.
“Can we bake, please?” He asked again, knowing what was expected of him.
“Sure, Daddy will be home in an hour or two, do you want to bake him cookies?” You were sure the activity would keep you both busy until he was back, and Tito would appreciate the treat.
“Yes!”
“Alright, go wash your hands,” You nodded towards the bathroom and he ran there while you closed your laptop with a sigh. So much for getting work done.
You put your hair up before washing your hands at the kitchen sink, and Alex came back to join you soon after. You helped him put his small apron on, tying it behind his back for him. He wasn’t too clumsy for a kid, but he still lacked the coordination required for baking.
You measured out the ingredients for him and let him mix them together. He was a little slower than you would have been at it because his arms weren’t strong enough to mix fast, but you eventually ended up with a good enough batter.
“Alright, now the chocolate chips,” You poured them into the bowl and left Alex to check your phone.
Anthony just texted to tell you he was on his way from the airport, so you had just enough time to bake the cookies before he made it home.
“Alex!” You scolded with wide eyes when you found him with the spatula in his mouth, batter all over his face. “Put the spatula down in the sink,” You pointed to it, and he obeyed silently.
You knew from the guilty look he gave you that you wouldn’t need to say more than that. You helped him clean his face and then went on to put the first batch of cookies in the oven. Keeping Alex from trying to touch burning hot cookies took effort, but eventually they were cool enough for him to eat one while you stacked the rest on a plate
“Daddy!” Alex shouted as soon as the door opened, running to him before Tito even had a chance to drag his bags inside.
“There’s my boy,” He grinned as he picked the little boy up and hugged him tightly. “Did you just bake cookies?” He looked up at you and you nodded, smiling at the reunion.
“Chocolate chips!” The little boy yelled excitedly, holding on to his dad.
“Mmh, I’m not surprised,” Tito loved the smell of them, and he was sure they’d taste even better. “How was today?”
“It was good,” you smiled, finishing up in the kitchen and wiping counters to leave everything tidy. “What about you?”
“Busy but in a good way,” he came and reached for a cookie on the plate. “Much better now that I have this,” he bit into the sweet treat and hummed in appreciation. “You’re a wonder, can I hire you as a full time cook?”
“Oh so I could get paid for all of this?” You teased right back, hanging the tea towel back on the handle of the oven.
“You could if you weren’t so busy getting a degree,” he chuckled, watching as Alex came into the room. “I’m going to assume you’re not hungry, uh?” Tito asked the little boy because he was sure his little stomach wouldn’t handle a whole dinner after he had cookies.
“Only for cookies!” He exclaimed in response, making the two of you laugh out loud.
“That’s not how this works little man,” you ruffled his hair and went back to the living room to gather your things.
“You’ll want to take a detour behind the theatre,” Anthony advised as you finished putting your laptop away in your back. “There was an accident when I drove home, there’s going to be traffic,”
“I don’t want you to leave!” Alex ran over to you and clung onto your legs, stopping you in your way and making you look down.
“Alex,” Tito took his stern voice before you could say anything. “You can’t force her to stay like that. You have to ask.”
“Please stay,” The boy held onto your trousers and looked up at you with a pout on his face.
“I can hang around for dinner,” You answered before looking up at his dad to make sure that was okay. He nodded his agreement and you smiled. “How about you go show Daddy the drawing you did at school today while I see what I can make you two, mmh?”
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Sunlight streamed into Anthony’s room when you woke up. You yawned and sighed, stretching your arms over your head before sitting on the edge of the bed. You still had trouble believing how comfortable his bed was, so you never complained when he was away overnight and you got to stay for Alex. You weren’t sure if it was because of his mattress, or his pillow, or the fact that being cozy in his bed was the closest you’d get to being in his arms.
It was Sunday, so you had extra time to cook breakfast and nowhere to take Alex except the park after lunch if he wanted to go play. It was going to be a lazy day and you were going to start it with pancakes. You adjusted your pajamas that had gotten twisted around your body through the night and stepped out of the bedroom.
You stopped immediately when you noticed a man sitting on the couch. You could tell from the hair that it wasn’t Tito who could have come back early, but he was in an islanders hoodie so you guessed he was on the team.
“Um, hello?” You asked uneasily. You wished you at least got dressed when you got up.
“Hi, uh,” the man turned around and quickly realised you weren’t the person he was expecting to see. “I’m Mat,” he introduced himself. “Is Beau still sleeping or something?”
Now that you had a chance to get a good look at his face you easily recognised him from watching Anthony’s games.
“Oh,” You visibly relaxed. “You’re Mat, he’s not home right now. He’s helping a friend move a few hours away or something,”
“Oh, shit,” Mat realised why his best friend hadn’t texted back when he said he was on his way over. “You’re here for Alex,”
“Yeah,”
“Speak of the devil,” He grinned when a tiny figure appeared behind you.
“Uncle Mat!” The little boy yelled as he ran to him.
“Hi bud!” Mat picked him up easily, throwing him up into the air before letting him settle in his arms. “How good are you at skating now? Your dad told me you go and train every week, you’re going to be a professional soon!”
“Daddy said I can almost skate as fast as you!”
“Really?” Mat gasped excitedly. “You’re going to have to show me that,”
“After breakfast though,” You knew the little boy would get whiny if he didn’t eat before leaving.
“I got a new dinosaur!” Alex tugged on Mat’s sleeve to drag him to his room, and the man followed while gasping and asking questions whenever he needed to.
You shook your head and hurried back to Anthony’s room to change into your clothes before you could cook. Once in the kitchen, you decided to double the recipe you usually made for just you and Alex. If Mat ate like Tito you’d need at least that much.
It didn’t take long for you to start cooking them, and you placed syrup with some fruits on the kitchen island. Alex had recently developed an obsession for strawberries and would eat them with everything, so Tito had plenty of them in the fridge.
“Smells good in here,” Mat walked back in and hoisted Alex up on one of the stools.
“Strawberries!” He immediately grabbed the bowl with the red fruit and messily spooned some onto his plate.
“Pancakes too,” You slid two onto his plate.
He began eating without another word and you sighed, giving up on manners for the morning. You’d be a little more strict around lunch.
“Do you want some too?” You asked Mat, hoping for a positive answer otherwise you’d end up with breakfast for the next two days.
“Did you make these from scratch?” He looked at the batter you had made and watched as you expertly flipped them in the pan, revealing a perfect golden colour on the other side. You nodded and Mat beamed. “Yes please,” He grabbed a plate and the maple syrup, drowning the pancakes as soon as you dropped them on his plate. “So I guess the three of us are going skating?” He was still chewing when he asked his question, and Alex didn’t fail to notice.
“You can’t speak with your mouth full!” He scolded and you held back a laugh at the face Mat made. He clearly wasn’t too used to kids.
“You’re right little man,” He took a swig of his juice before answering. “Lemme start again, are we all going skating today?”
“I don’t know if I can just take Alex without Anthony,” you told Mat, who nodded understandingly.
“I’ve taken him a few times, Beau won’t mind,” he assured you, not knowing that you were awful at skating and actually broke your arm on the ice a few years ago. Deciding that Alex would be safe enough with a professional skater next to him even if you wouldn’t be able to do much to help him, you turned the heat off on the stove and agreed.
“Well, then I guess we’re going skating.”
……………………………........................................................................................
You sighed in relief after you closed the bedroom door as quietly as you could have. Alex has been inconsolable for hours and it was way past his bedtime, which meant you also had to stay up for longer than usual. You settled for cleaning the kitchen first, worrying your bottom lip between your teeth as you thought of what you should do.
Alex never talked about problems at school before, but what he had told you and cried about last night was worrying. You didn’t want to bother Anthony on the only night he was actually going out with his friends, he usually came straight home after games and remained with Alex on any other nights, but this was his child and you couldn’t just keep it to yourself.
You finished wiping the counters clean before taking your phone and settling for a text.
Alex had some trouble at school with a few kids, cried about it for a while, he just fell asleep. Thought I should let you know if you want to ask him about it tomorrow.
You kept it short and crashed on the couch with a quiet groan. You were exhausted, it was past midnight, and seeing Alex sad shattered your heart. Draping a blanket over yourself, you leaned back and eventually curled yourself up on your side to close your eyes and rest for a moment.
.
“You’re so whipped,” Mathew snickered as he watched his friend getting ready to leave already.
“I’m not,” Tito grumbled, putting his jacket on and pulling his keys out of his pocket. “I’m worried about Alex,” his jaw clenched as he felt the guilt wash over him. What kind of dad was he, going out with his friends instead of being there for his son when he was crying about his issues?
“He’s sleeping,” the other man argued, earning himself an icy glare. It was enough to shut him up, even if only for a few seconds.
“He’s my son,” Tito looked for his phone in his jacket pocket and realised it was in his jeans instead. “Something happened at school and he didn’t tell me. I need to be home.”
“Whatever you say,” Mat said in surrender before he turned serious again. “But just so you know, I’ve only spent a day with her and I can already tell you she’s wife material. Don’t let her slip away.”
On his way to his car Tito mentally cursed his friend with words he wouldn’t dare say in front of Alex, but Mat had brought up something he was not ready to talk about in the middle of a night that already held enough emotions. Maybe you were wife material, but it was Alex he was supposed to focus on right now, not on your laugh, your smile, that glimpse of mischief in your eyes that was hidden under shyness and professionalism when he was around.
“Dammit,” he muttered to himself.
He was home in ten minutes thanks to his friends who had agreed to meet at a bar that was close enough to his place, and he took a deep breath before pushing his key into the lock. There was no need for him to be so overly worried, you were good with Alex, and he was asleep now so Tito most likely wouldn’t get to talk to him until morning.
His heart squeezed when he spotted you curled up on the couch, seemingly fast asleep, if your lack of greeting was any indication. It was so late and you had told him about how stressed you were about the end of the semester and the exams you had to study for. The guilt of not being there for Alex was one thing, but now, seeing you like this on his couch also made him feel like he was failing you.
He couldn’t let you sleep so uncomfortably, but he couldn’t make you drive home either. Doing his best not to disturb you, Anthony crouched down and slid an arm behind your back and the other behind your knees. He wasn’t sure of how he was going to move you without waking you up, but with enough determination he eventually managed to lift you in his arms.
You usually always woke up when he came through the door, so he could only imagine how exhausted you were to remain asleep even when he moved you like this. His luck didn’t last much longer, as when he pushed the door to his bedroom a little too hard and caused it to hit the wall with a thump, you stirred and began to wake.
“What…” You blinked your eyes open, trying to figure out where you were.
“Shh, go back to sleep,” Tito whispered as he lowered you onto the mattress. He really wished you would listen to him, but if there was one thing he knew about you it was that you hated being an inconvenience.
“I should go home,” you tried to shake yourself awake, but even then your voice still came out drowsy and you couldn’t push off Tito getting you comfortable.
“It’s almost one am, you’re not going anywhere,” He pulled the covers over your body, tucking you in. “I’ll take the couch,”
“What? No, you can’t sleep on the couch,” you protested, miserably trying to push yourself up, but with a gentle hand on your shoulder Tito made you rest back against the pillow.
“I don’t mind, unless you’re comfortable sharing the bed,” he said the only thing that he knew would make you stay. If you weren’t going to make concessions when it came to him sleeping in his bed, then you’d just have to share, because there was no chance he was letting you drive or sleep on the couch.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Your eyes were already half closed and your body was limp under the covers, so Tito smiled softly and properly stood back up again.
By the time he had changed and spent a few minutes in the bathroom you were fast asleep again. Tito had a hard time reminding himself that this wasn’t normal, that you weren’t his, and that you being in his bed didn’t have to mean anything. He wished he could stop being so obsessed with you, but when he settled into the bed next to you he couldn’t bring himself to turn the lights off immediately. Instead, he took the time to study all of your features and felt himself fall a little deeper for you with every passing second.
.
“Stay,” was the first thing you heard when you tried to move the next morning.
The sound was unmistakably Tito’s voice, but it was deeper than what you were used to, and there was a resonance to it. It was only then that you realised your cheek was resting on his chest over his shirt. From there you became aware of the weight of his arms around you, of the heat of his hand that was resting on your lower back, of your legs tangled with his.
Your cheeks burned while you tried to decide what to do. Tito was clearly still half asleep, in fact you were pretty sure he only came back to consciousness to say that word before drifting right back into sleep. This gave you two options, either move and wake him up and pretend this was all an unfortunate accident while you slept, or stay in his arms and keep feeling all of these heavenly sensations.
The rational part of your mind was usually the one you listened to, but this morning your emotions were much stronger than usual. Still, to avoid an uncomfortable situation, you pulled away from his hold and tried your best to slip out on his arms unnoticed.
With the way you were tangled it was impossible for him not to notice, so just as you were making it to your own side of the bed, Tito opened his eyes to look at you.
“Morning,” he smiled lazily, cut off by a yawn and his hand coming up to cover his mouth.
“Hi,” you breathed out so quietly he almost didn’t hear you. “What time is it?” You knew there was a clock on his nightstand but you couldn’t read it from where you were.
“Early,” he shrugged without checking, but his expression faltered a second later when he looked over at the clock. “Shit. It’s past eight, Alex is going to get up.”
“Oh, we should move,” you said before catching yourself. “I mean, I should, I’m sorry.” You rolled over to sit on the side of the bed and lamely tried to fix your hair. You didn’t even know what you were apologising for, he did insist you should stay the night, after all.
“It’s okay,” Tito didn’t reach out to stop you from getting up, but he was dying to have you back in his arms. “I mean, I want you to stay, it’s just… Alex could walk in any minute, and I’m not sure I can answer the questions that’s going to raise.”
“Yeah, I get it, I can just head out now, thanks for letting me stay the night,” you were glad you fell asleep in leggins and not some more embarrassing (but even more comfortable) pajamas that you sometimes wore when you came here. At least you could just grab your things and go.
“I don’t actually want you to go,” Tito sat up and sighed, not knowing how to handle any of this. There were too many unspoken things between the two of you, the previous night and this morning were obviously more than platonic, but he couldn’t address it in a rush.
“I get it, really,” you gave him a tight smile and prepared to leave his room. You were so embarrassed that you wanted to crawl into a hole to hide. What were you going to do after this? How could you have stayed with him in his bed? And woken up on his chest on top of it all. Of course he was attractive, and of course you had fallen for him, but he was still your employer.
“Wait,” he hurried off the bed just fast enough to touch your wrist before you could go. Turning around to face him again made you swoon. How could he be so gorgeous in the morning? He was all softness and warmth and it was absolutely killing you. “Are you free tonight?” He took his chance, but you were so surprised by the question that it made you oblivious to what he meant.
“Do you need me to watch Alex?” You frowned, unsure of why he would need you when his mom was meant to arrive today to spend a few days with him and Alex.
“No, um, I thought maybe since my mom’s coming she could keep Alex for the night, and maybe you and I could go out to eat somewhere and we could talk about some stuff?”
“Oh,” you gaped like a fish for a few seconds before remembering to close your mouth. The awkwardness of the situation hit you both harder than ever then, you still had a hand on the handle, and your lack of smart answers did not help anything.
“I get it if you’re busy, or if you just think we should forget about this. I didn’t mean to make this uncomfortable.” Tito took a step back, a lot shyer than you had ever seen him, so you rapidly shook your head.
“No, um, actually I’m free, so,” you dropped your hand back to your side, shifting from foot to foot while smiles crept back on both of your faces.
“Pick you up at seven?” He offered so that you wouldn’t have to ramble more. You relaxed and gave him a steady nod as you replied.
“Seven works.”
……………………………........................................................................................
“Anthony, you’re buttoning your shirt wrong,” his mother noted, pretending to casually walk past the bathroom to check what he was doing.
“Dammit,” he muttered, seeing that she was right and undoing the few buttons he had already done to fix his mistake.
“Who’s the lucky girl?” She leaned against the doorframe to observe him.
“Mom, please,” he sighed. Focusing on dressing himself was hard enough, he didn’t know how well he’d be able to dodge her questions if she insisted. She knew him too well and could always read him like a book, but sometimes Tito just wanted to keep some things to himself.
“Alright, alright,” she pretended to give up but her scrutinizing gaze didn’t falter. “You don’t need to be so nervous, did you get her flowers?”
“No,” he huffed. “She’s allergic.”
“So you know each other well?”
The look he gave her was to remind her he was no idiot either. She could read him well, but he also knew all of her tricks to get him to talk, and this one hadn’t been subtle.
“I need to get going before I end up late,” he put an end to the conversation, adjusting his clothes one last time and checking his hair wasn’t out of place. “I shouldn’t be back too late, but don’t wait up, okay?” Tito kissed his mom’s cheek as he walked past her.
“Have fun,” she encouraged him as he walked through the door, and he answered with a nod and a little wave before he was off to what he hoped would be a nice date with you.
He was a wreck as he drove to meet you, scared that he was completely wrong. Did you really want to go on this date with him? He was the one who told you to stay the night, he held you through the night, and he was also the one to ask you out. Were you only doing this because you felt you had to?
He was only pulled out of his head once he reached your place. He couldn’t back out now, if there was only a slight chance that you really wanted this date Tito didn’t want to be the asshole that stood you up.
Little did he know that you were even more of a wreck, pacing around your apartment and wondering how the hell you were supposed to act. You almost jumped to the ceiling when you heard him buzz from the door of your building. There was no more time to overthink.
The car ride was awkward to say the least. Tito tried to start a few conversations, but they all died after three exchanges and he eventually settled for turning the radio on. It was still uncomfortable, but at least it wasn’t silent.
Neither of you said a thing as he stopped the car near a restaurant you remembered mentioning in passing a few times. The illuminated sign stood out in the low light of the evening, but even that couldn’t cheer you up. You were so worried you’d say the wrong thing that you ended up saying nothing at all and you couldn’t tell which option was worse.
“I’m sorry I just don’t know what we’re doing right now,” Tito eventually sighed, falling back against his seat. He had gotten so excited for this, and then so nervous. Now, he was just as lost as you looked, dumbfounded by his words. Somehow, he found the will to continue talking and laid it all out. “I just… I really like you, but I don’t know if you’re here because you work for me and I put you in an uncomfortable position, or if you actually want to be here, and we’ve never talked about any of this, and I swear things have never been weird between us before tonight so I don’t know why everything is so awkward now,” he went on and rambled for a minute, which was just enough time for you to manage a few words.
“I do want to be here,” you tried to reassure him, but your voice wasn’t very steady. It worked anyway, making him breathe out a relieved sigh.
“Okay,” Tito found the courage to turn his head to look at you, offering you a small smile as you met his eyes. This was new for both of you, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t going to work.
Knowing that words weren’t your thing, he held his hand out for you to take. You smiled as you laced your fingers through his, giving him a small reassuring squeeze. “I mean it’s not like we have nothing in common, right?” You tried, earning a quiet chuckle and a nod.
“Worst case the conversation can just fall back on Alex.”
The mention of the young boy was enough to make you smile, which made Tito’s heart swell. He didn’t think he could ever fall in love with someone while his son was so young, needing so much time, attention and care. That was his primary responsibility, and he didn’t believe anyone would truly and selflessly understand that. Yet here you were, caring for the little boy almost as often as he did. You understood. Tito could doubt that you loved him, but he couldn’t doubt that you loved Alex.
You remained there looking at each other for several moments. Maybe you didn’t need to be scared of having to explain how you felt about each other, maybe this silent communication was enough for now. Even when you began to imagine Tito might find your staring weird, he remained there, unwavering, his eyes on yours holding the same intensity.
“Ready?” He spoke softly as to not break the moment.
Your answer came without hesitation. “Ready.”
.
Please reblog and let me know what you thought!!
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#anthony beauvillier#tito beauvillier fic#fluff#anthony beauvillier fic#anthony beauvillier fluff#anthony beauvillier imagine#new york islanders#ny isles#tito beauvillier fluff#tito beauvillier imagine#tito beauvillier#nhl fic#nhl imagine#hockey fic#hockey imagine
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OBEY ME! LESSON 55 DETAILED SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION/THEORIES
*I wrote this days after the lesson was first posted and never bothered to go back and edit it so meaning there will be me theorizing about the next lesson as well
*I write a small para for each chapter and I write it immediately after finishing that chapter so there’ll be theorizing about the next chapter too
*I swear more than usual here
*Some of the dialogue is heavily plagiarized and a few is lifted directly from the story, the game is to figure which is which.
*Summaries and Discussions/theories for all the other lessons can be found on this blog under #obey me spoilers or #my theories or #my headcanons
OKAY! So first off the background for this is absolutely gorgeous and shows a real demon. You know the kind you’d imagine an actual demon to look like and everything’s dark (black, grey, brown) there’s a castle on a mountain like area with a narrow suspended pathway leading to it, there are crows flying around and a person in a robe pointing what looks like a lit wand at a snarling attacking demon, there are skulls and what looks like weapons on the ground and my favourite part: a person in a long robe, kneeling on the ground, covering the top of their face with their hands and wailing to the sky. It’s all tailor made to my taste and I love it! There’s one locked lesson.
It’s breakfast time and Asmo & Beel are heading to an all you can eat global sweet sampler, MC questions it and Asmo says you can get desserts from all over the world there and Asmo’s hoping to live stream it. Asmo invites MC but Mammon interjects asking them to come see “cute horsies” with him. “’Horsies.’ He’s so pretentious. Shut up, it’s the fucking horse race. ‘Horsies.’” Says Levi. Levi invites MC to a real life TSL themed escape room (that sounds really fun tbh), Satan invites them to come watch the sci-fi movie they were talking about, in their home theatre. (he’s actually watched it 3 times already but he read online theories about it and now he wants to see if he can catch the basis for those theories in the movie). They all start arguing about it (except Beel who’s just eating) when MC gets a text from Diavolo congratulating them on their 5th star and wishing them luck for the other 2 and inviting them to an amusement park date. Everyone – MC included – is kind of baffled by the one on one date with Diavolo. They ask any of the others if they want to tag along but they all refuse but Beel asks if MC can take Belphie along since he hasn’t really left the house in a while and Beel’s worried. MC texts asking if they can bring Belphie along too and Diavolo says the more the merrier and I just know this is gonna end in disaster like did Belphie ever even resolve all the problems he had with Diavolo back in S1?
Beel drags Asmo along to wake Belphie up because a.) he doesn’t want Asmo to leave to the sweets thing without him b.) they need all the help they can get to wake him up. MC suggests using force and Asmo happily volunteers to grab Belphie, turn him over and drop him on the ground, Beel says they can’t do this to poor Belphie cause Beel’s a sweetheart, and says the most force he’ll allow them to use is by tickling Belphie, which Asmo then does. It doesn’t work so Asmo says if they’re gonna use force they should do something like this right before he screams “ASMO DIIIIIIVE!!!” and jumps on top of Belphie as Beel protests and I love that despite what you’d assume from his aesthetic and despite what Asmo would like you to believe he’s a lot more rough and tumble and violent (I just really love the sweet with hidden edges trope as much as I love the jerk with a gooey centre trope). Belphie says ow and Asmo brightly and sweetly cheers that he woke up as if just seconds ago he hadn’t used a wrestling move on his sleeping baby brother. Beel says that though Belphie’s body is awake his mind isn’t (relatable), Beel fixes Belphie’s bedhead and Asmo complains that Belphie’s a stereotypical spoilt brat youngest child and says that Diavolo obviously would’ve wanted a one on one day with MC. Beel says he knows and it’s another reason he wanted Belphie to go. Asmo agrees saying that after everything if MC chooses their boss over any one of the seven guys MC actually lives with it’d feel wrong. Asmo tells Belphie to keep an eye on them and not let it turn into a “whirlwind romance”, Belphie just asks for his pillow and Asmo’s upset cause he doesn’t feel confident about the plan now. Poor Diavolo being constantly cockblocked
On the way Belphie complains about being forced to do this when his schedule is just as busy but MC says all he does is sleep and he says because naps are important to him and he takes them seriously. He wishes he could go back home and asks why of all the demons he had to be stuck with Diavolo (so guess those issues are still around good to know). MC asks if he still dislikes Diavolo cause of his fondness for humans and Belphie says he’s fully gotten over that whole human genocide phase which is great to have confirmed. They ask why he dislikes Diavolo – lots of reasons. He always thinks he’s right and expects to get his way about anything and everything and never listens to anyone’s opinions. He hadn’t bothered to listen to Belphie back when the exchange program had been proposed and Belphie was against it (and I mean to be fair back then Belphie was 100% okay with killing the entire human race for no reason other than the fact that he blamed them for Lilith’s death when really they had nothing to do with it and it was definitely the angels’ fault. I mean I don’t think I would have listened to him either and he really does have the spoilt youngest kid personality. I think out of all the brother’s Belphie’s the one who has the fondest memories of the Celestial Realm – probably helped by the fact that Lilith was still alive then – which is why he never blamed them for what happened and instead directed all his anger at the humans) Lucifer hadn’t let Belphie plead his case (what case Belphie!? That all humans should die!?) and that Diavolo’s surrounded by demons like Barbatos and Lucifer who shield him from criticism (and yeah I agree that this is true and that it’s a bad thing but Lucifer wasn’t shielding Diavolo from criticism when he refused to let Belphie plead his case, he was protecting Belphie cause if Diavolo found out Belphie wanted to kill humans he would have thrown him in jail like he did back at the end of S1 and MC you dumb fuck can you pls tell all this to Belphie) and that Diavolo doesn’t understand that he’s been saved from criticism and Belphie hates that about him and he shudders at the thought of spending the day with Diavolo. On the way they run into Simeon and tell him where they’re going, he says Luke’s been wanting to go there since he saw a ad for it and MC says they could take Luke along with them but he says Luke’s at a cooking class today but that he’d probably love to hear about it when he gets back. Simeon then takes off saying he has a meeting. Belphie goes to call after Simeon to tell him something and catches a glimpse of the person Simeon was supposed to meet. He’s surprised and says “Is that…” and when MC asks what’s wrong he said he must have just imagined it and that the person Simeon was meeting just looked really familiar and HOLY SHITTTTTTT GUYSSS rfhiefjoSJKWDLDADJSJ was I right are we really gonna get to see angels???? That’s the only explanation, right? It would have had to be Michael or even Raphael and there’s only a few lessons left and this and the next lesson are probably gonna focus on Diavolo and Belphie’s relationship and following the patter MC should get their 6th star next lesson, then the two lessons after that will be their final exam for the 7th star and then the last two lessons will focus on saying goodbye as the brothers go back to the Devildom and all that’s gonna have a lot going on but if they’re teasing the angels being here now could they manage to slip them in or will that be too much? I mean they’ll be introducing a whole new (or two whole new) character(s) and ahhh I’m rambling but pls I need the tension and angst between them and the brothers ok I’m done.
When they get there Belphie complains about how crowded it is and MC tries to look for Diavolo to which Belphie points to a group of fangirls surrounding Diavolo. Diavolo answers them sweetly and one of them says he’s even better looking irl and another shyly asks if he wants to walk around with them. Belphie cuts that short by barging in and asking Diavolo what’s going on, Diavolo happily greets Diavolo and one of the girls realises that Belphie called Diavolo ‘lord’. Diavolo apologises to them and said he’s already made plans with friends (and ugh he’s so sweet I love him just wanna give him a big hug I bet he gives great hugs), the girls are very understanding and sweet about it and they leave. Belphie’s a lil shit and says “Aww, too bad, Lord Diavolo. I’d hate to interrupt just as they were hitting on you…” and Diavolo laughs it off saying it wasn’t like that (and can Diavolo not understand sarcasm or does he just ignore it? Both seem highly likely) Belphie disagrees and says they were clearly hitting on him and Diavolo changes the subject and says he can’t believe Belphie actually came, MC explains why and Diavolo says it’s understandable that Beel was worried after Belphie hadn’t left the house in a week (Me, who hasn’t left the house in almost a year: :’) ) Belphie says he knows Diavolo wanted a date with MC but too bad cause now Belphie’s gonna third wheel them. Diavolo tells Belphie not to be ridiculous and that he’s happy that Belphie came (and the thing is other than a small twinge of disappointment this is probably the truth). Belphie says that it probably won’t be a good idea to go around calling him “Lord” Diavolo given the way the girls reacted, Diavolo says he can just call him by his name since he wouldn’t mind but Belphie says he himself would mind and anyway if Lucifer or Barbatos found out Belphie wasn’t using his proper title they’d kill him. So Belphie suggests a nickname which Diavolo’s really happy about and MC suggests DD (they can also suggest John or Cap’n), Diavolo adores it and asks them to call him it all the time hereafter (I want to give him a hug so badly). Diavolo then happily and with lots of exclamation points goes on to say that it’s time to let their hair down and that Barbatos had made minute to minute schedule for them to follow so that they could enjoy the park to the fullest and Belphie says he wants to go home
Diavolo keeps unsuccessfully trying to get Belphie to wear a themed headband and take a group photo, saying he also wants to wear the headband on a boat ride and the ferris wheel. Diavolo gives MC sad puppy dog eyes (which I’m sure he uses successfully on Lucifer regularly, but that don’t affect Barbatos at all) and MC can’t refuse, asking Belphie if there’s anything that’ll get him to change his mind. He says no but he’s not stopping the others from doing it, Diavolo says since they’re here as a group they all should do it, Belphie snaps saying he doesn’t like how Diavolo’s using MC as a tool to bend Belphie to his will and he says he’s going home. Diavolo tries to stop him but he marches off and Diavolo drags MC off to chase after Belphie. Diavolo grabs Belphie by the arm outside the park and begs for a chance to apologize, Belphie denies it and tries to free his arm. Diavolo refuses to let him go saying he should have listened to and considered Belphie’s opinions now as well as in the past, Belphie’s shocked and MC asks Belphie to just hear Diavolo out. He agrees but tells them not to have any expectations of what this’ll accomplish.
Belphie says he doesn’t want to wear the headband or take pics and that he’s only gonna ride what he wants to, Diavolo agrees with all that. He asks if Belphie will stay with them and Belphie agrees and Diavolo is just so brightly stupidly happy and I can completely understand how he was able to make Lucifer question his entire world view. Diavolo’s so happy he starts waving Belphie’s arm around unconsciously and then asks Belphie what rides he wants to go on as they make their way back inside, Belphie doesn’t answer instead he’s blushing and annoyed and asks Diavolo to let go of his hand. Belphie wants to ride ‘The Twisting Freefall of Death II’, MC & Diavolo would like to not freefall to their death thank you very much. Belphie quotes the ride as being, “the single most terrifying experience in the world where you’ll scream for mercy and receive none” Diavolo says, “Did you say scream for mercy…” Belphie happily agrees. Diavolo turns to his last hope, MC, and asks how they feel about this. I like to imagine that even MC has a line where their lacking self-preservation will kick in. Belphie just smiles saying it won’t actually kill them (this would have been more reassuring coming from someone who didn’t once murder MC but whatever.) They can also ask Diavolo how feels about it. After the ride Belphie’s cackling loudly and gushing about how great it was. He’s especially happy about the look on Diavolo’s face during the ride, saying he’s never seen it before (probably the look of a demon praying to God for mercy). MC can say that Belphie seemed to be having a lot of fun, cheer how the ride was the best or say they thought they were going to die. For the 3rd option Belphie very cheerfully says MC’s alive and ok. Belphie asks Diavolo how it was only to realise Diavolo’s missing. He fell off the ride at its highest peak. He’s dead.
They’ve tried texting Diavolo but he doesn’t read them. Belphie wonders what kind of person actually gets lost in an amusement park unless they’re 5. Then he says “…is that what it is? Is he actually 5 yrs old?” He remembers that mammon got lost in a park once too and says the only thing the two of them have in common is that they’re both basically children, They then run into my favourite character in the entire game – the butcher (is2g this man needs to become a recurring side character) who is here with his wife and daughter. He asks them if the rest of the harem is here too and Belphie lets him know that unfortunately they’re here with a new inductee who got lost. The butcher offers to help and asks for a description. MC says he’s the owner of the corvo hotel chain and the butcher wonders who the fuck are these people in the first place to know someone like that and then because the butcher’s the sweetest person alive he too starts worrying about diavolo, scared that he might have gotten kidnapped. Belphie says “there’s no one in the human world oh shit I mean THE WORLD. THE NORMAL WORLD ALL US HUMANS - BECAUSE WE ALL ARE HUMANS - LIVE IN” the butcher now probably used to how weird this cult is (because they definitely are a satanic cult with their extremely obvious demon names, how weird and unused to normal life they are, 7 of them being obviously infatuated by the eighth one but the butcher’s not gonna bring this up cause with the amount of meat they buy from him he could keep his family afloat for years AND pay for his daughters college tuition) ignores this and says he hasn’t seen Diavolo but advices them to check the information desk and ask them to page Diavolo over the loudspeakers. They thank him and Belphie promises to stop by with Beel later, the butcher says he’ll see him then and tells them to take care (I love this man). Barbatos text MC asking how they’re doing and which itinerary of his they’re following cause yes apparently he made more than one and telling them he trusts them to take care of diavolo (and I can’t believe it took me this long to realise Barbatos is a helicopter parent). MC leaves him on read. Lucifer then texts them saying Satan told him where they’d gone and telling them that since the two of them are with Diavolo he assumes he’s okay but just to clarify make sure nothing happens to Diavolo. MC leaves him on read. Belphie says that Barbatos and Lucifer are way too overprotective. Barbatos and MC then realise how fucked they are if either of them find out that they’ve lost diavolo and so decide to skip the whole loudspeaker thing.
They can decide if they want to check by the lake, the ferris wheel or the last ride they went in. He’s not at the lake and they choose to take a boat across the lake to get to the ferris wheel cause it’s faster than going around it. Belphie actually enjoys the boat ride and asks if the two of them can just enjoy themselves together for a bit instead of looking for Diavolo, MC says “I’m worried about Diavolo also can you not remember how fucked we are if we don’t find him”. Belphie gets jealous that MC seems to care more about Diavolo than him (they’re just been practical! If the roles were reversed they’d have shut Diavolo down to look for you!) and says that even they have a real soft spot for Diavolo (He’s like a giant golden retriever!!). There’s an announcement over the loudspeaker for MC and ‘Snoozy’ saying that DD’s waiting for them at the info desk. Belphie’s not happy about ‘snoozy’ (understandable)
#obey me spoilers#my theories#my headcanons#obey me#obey me!#swd obey me#shall we date? obey me!#obey me shall we date#obey me diavolo#om! diavolo#swd diavolo#shall we date diavolo#obey me belphegor#om belphegor#swd belphegor#shall we date belphegor#obey me belphie#om! belphie#swd belphie#shall we date belphie
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A3! Boys + My Stuffed Animals
Spring Troupe:
Sakuya
Gabriel
Gabriel is a small elephant with big ears that constantly make him fall over. He has a pink bowtie that says 'I Love You'
Makes Saku feel safe and Gabriel is a reminder to himself that he's loved and appreciated by everyone at Mankai.
Named after a friend from theatre class :)
Masumi
George Washington
George Washington is a tiger. He is small, but his arms are like those slap bracelets so you can wear him on your wrist (or let him hang on the side of shelf like I do).
So I got Georgy-Boy for easter 2020. i asked my friends for name ideas. They sent me stuff like 'Stripes'. I went offline for a few minutes and when I came back online I told my friends his name was George Washington.
//////////
Me: tiger has a name now
Friend: which name did you choose?
Me: his name is George Washington.
Friend: what the fuck. how'd you get George Washington?
//////////
Pretty sure he got the name bc I was listening to the Hamilton soundtrack.
Citron
Daniel
Daniel is mostly pink but has other pastel colors that look like watercolors. He's a unicorn. And a ketchain. And he's one of those dream lites, so he lights up. (He's supposed too anyway, but he's never lit up since i got him like 7 years ago at a yard sale).
Named after Daniel Howell (formerly danisnotonfire) [YouTube]
Tsuzuru
Lucifer
Lucifer is a small panda pillow pet. Very easy to travel with bc he fits in most backpacks.
My mom told me she wanted me to have a stuffed animal with a biblical name, i picked him up, looked her in the eye and said "His name is Lucifer." My mom tried to protest. "You said a biblical name, Mom. Lucifer is in the bible."
Itaru
Pao(???)
Pao is a panda. They are also a phone holder thingy. Like it'll hold your phone if you're watching movies or whatever.
Like 5-ish years old. Got them from a friend. They have a tag with their name on it, but I read it once and then just called them "the panda" for some reason instead of their actual name and now the tag is too faded to read the name, but i am 38% sure it says Pao or something close to that.
Chikage
Tsuki
Tsuki is a dinosaur. Tsuki is a sparkly dino. He's green rn, but if you brush your hand over him, the sparkles turn over and he becomes orange. I like green tho bc his tummy and the bottom of his feet are orange and so are his eyes.
Named after Tsukishima Kei (Haikyuu)
Summer Troupe:
Tenma
Hinata
Hinata is a narwhal. A bright orange narwhal. Infact he is the same color as Tenma's hair.
Named after Hinata Shoyo (Haikyuu) [bc its the same color as his hair. there is a theme with this narwhal and the anime boys i associate with them]
Yuki
Steve
Steve is a regular teddy bear, except he has a shirt that has pikachu on it. (the shirt was originally Tsuki's bc i got tsuki at a friends build a bear bday party, but it fits Steve better)
I just think Yuki would try new designs/color schemes/styles by making clothes for Steve to see how they look.
I got Steve from a claw machine (my bf at time won him for me just before we watched Endgame together.)
Named after Steve Rogers (Marvel)
Muku
Eeyore
Muku most definitely loves the Winnie the Pooh movies and I will fite for this hc. He gets my Eeyore. You know how Eeyore's tail is always going missing or falling off??? Eeyore's tail comes off (velcro) but its attached to his actual body with a string so it cant be misplaced.
Eeyore has a patch that says "official disney store" but i got him for $3 at a thrift store.
Misumi
Sherlock
Sherlock is a polar bear. Sherlock is very huggable. He makes Misumi feel safe. He has a hat and scarf (that don't come off. they are sewn on him)
the hat has a pom pom on top and the scarf has a pom pom on each end. the hat and scarf and the bottom of his feet have a blue/white plaid pattern.
Kazunari
Victor
Victor is a puppy and the first big stuffed animal of mine on the list! He's all tan and abt maybe 3-4 ft long. Victor lays pretty flat so he's comfy to lay/sit on. I think Kazu would like sitting or laying on him when drawing. Probably has him on his bed so he's like a giant pillow.
Victor is from Toys R Us. I got him last August-ish from my Aunt and Uncle who found him at a thrift store and thought I'd like him.
Named after Victor Nikiforov (Yuri On Ice)
Kumon
PJ
PJ is a small white tiger. He is also a ball. He can fit in one hand. When Kumon is thinking or stressed or bored (etc) he just lays on his back and tosses PJ up into the air.
When Kumon is laying on the floor tossing PJ, Misumi sits on the bed closest to where PJ is and tries to grab him (but only if Kumon is in a good mood and okay with it) It's a fun little game they made up they like to play.
Pretty sure he was named after KickthePJ (YouTube)
liber pls give us a pic with all of autumn i am begging
Autumn Troupe:
Banri
Sammy
Sammy is another one of my large stuffed animals. He is also a puppy, but unlike Victor he is sitting instead of laying. He's abt 2-3 ft tall. His fur is the same color as Banri's hair. Great to squeeze at anytime, but very therapeutic when you're in a bad mood. Has a heart on his ear.
i got him abt 7 years ago. I had just finished spn season 2 and was upset abt the finale and had no way to start season 3.
Named after Sam Winchester
Juza
Tiggs
Tiggs is a beanie baby tiger. Tiggs is a little larger than PJ (and not a ball). He's a regular orange tiger instead of a white tiger like PJ. He'd buy Kumon PJ so they could have matching stuffed animals. Small and very comforting to just hold/hug.
Omi
Benedict (Ben)
Benedict, also known as Ben, is a small koala. Just a little bigger than Tiggs. He has a heart on one of his feet (i think the right one). very soft. very fluffy.
Named after Benedict Cumberbatch (Actor)
Taichi
Dean
Dean is my largest stuffed animal. He is a dark brown teddy bear that's abt 4-ish ft tall. He can be put in a corner and used as like a bean bag chair, or he can lay down flat and be a good pillow like Victor can.
It's very fun to just wrap around him and squeeze as tight as you can. Especially in when your in a bad mood. Very comforting to cry into.
I got him a couple years ago at a thrift store.
Named after Dean Winchester (Supernatural)
Sakyo
Lev
Lev is a lion abt the size of a regular teddy bear (maybe slightly larger). I got him a thrift store so he's slightly worn out from age. He's mostly a pastel dark yellow-ish tan and his mane is dark brown. very huggable.
He's the stuffed animal I sleep with. Smells nice all the time, like the fabric softener.
Named after Lev Haiba (Haikyuu)
Sakoda
Emotional Support Iron Man
So Iron Man is small and he sparkles. He will hurt you/someone if thrown hard enough. Sakoda likes heroes bc they remind him of Sakyo they look cool. I'd hc that he got Iron Man from Sakyo when he was younger and its one of his most valued possessions and goes everywhere with him (or stays with Azamo or Sakyo at the dorm. Maybe Izumi or a couple others are on the list of who can watch over Iron Man.) Very protective of it.
Got the emotional support part of his name from a friend.
She saw Eddie Redmayne on a movie cover (think it was The Danish Girl) and started freaking out bc she loved him. I handed her the Iron Man and the next day she thanked me and said he was an Emotional Support Iron Man and the name stayed.
Azami
[Emotional Support] Spooder-Mon
Sakoda knew Azami as a kid. He most definitely got him the Spider-Man so they could have matching plushies.
Spider-Man is square and has little blob hands doing the web thingy. The tag said travel pillow, but he probably just chills by Azami's bed. When needed, Iron Man will be placed next to him if Sakoda can't take Iron Man with him.
I brought him to school one day and we had a bio test and all the people sitting around me passed him around and gave him a pat for good luck. We all got good grades and then he was dubbed as Emotional Support Spooder-Mon, but the Emotional Support title isnt part of his name (unlike the Iron Man).
i wanted guy in the pic, but i also wanted tsumu and hiso in the pic so you get 2 pics for winter
Winter Troupe:
Tsumugi
Phil
Phil is a zebra. He is a pillow pet zebra. Like Lucifer, Phil is also easy travel size. The bottom half of Phil is pink, so I refer to him as my pink zebra.
I just think it'd be cute to have Tsumugi with a pillow pet ok. I also thought he'd probably have has Phil for many years (since he was a kid) and Tasuku most definitely brings up things from when they were kids and shit.
//////////
Tasuku: you chose the pink zebra, and for what???
Tsumugi: its a very aesthetically pleasing pastel pink.
Tasuku: THERE WAS A DOG PILLOW PET RIGHT THERE AND IT WAS CUTER
Tsumugi: dont talk bad abt Phil.
the rest of mankai: ????????
//////////
I got phil before I got Lucifer many years ago. He was old when i got him and he is very old now. I love him so much.
Named after Phil Lester (AmazingPhil) [YouTube]
Tasuku
Cap
Cap is a husky. He was won from a claw machine with Steve.
There's just something abt the grey and white that gave me Tasuku vibes. Also, Cap's eyes are abt the same shade of blue as Tsumugi's and Tasuku knows this bc they are in love. Very squishy when hugged and with the way he sits, you could make it look like he's guarding something.
Named after Captain America (Marvel)
Homare
Ushijima (Ushi)
Ushijima, also called Ushi, is the last of my giant stuffed animals. He is abt 2-3 ft tall (like Sammy) and has a tail abt the same length.
Ushi is a raccoon thats mostly hot pink. Ushi's eyes are also pink and just abt the same shade as Homare's hair, although Ushi's fur is brighter by a few shades.
Ushi hurts when thrown/swung hard enough. Very fun to hug bc he's filled with beans (like beanie babies) so unlike all my other giant animals, he doesn't have to be fixed/adjusted after everytime you squeeze him. The tail has cotton tho and makes a good pillow.
Homare would definitely just see a 3 ft tall hot pink raccoon and claim it with no explanation.
Named after Ushijima Wakatoshi (Haikyuu)
Hisoka
Vladmir Dracula the 3rd (Vlad, Drac)
Vladmir Dracula the 3rd, who has many other names but usually goes by Vlad or Drac, is a vampire (surprise).
Vlad is a squishmallow thingy, and their tags say something abt them being able to be used as pillows, and thats why Hisoka gets Vlad.
Vlad is triangular in shape, with triangle ears, and triangle fangs, so I thought abt Misumi, but i figured Hisoka bc it's a pillow.
He's like the perfect travel size and he has a cape and a bowtie.
Named after Vlad the Impaler, the real life inspiration behind Dracula (my brother thought he was named after Vladmir Putin and I wanted to punch him for that but I was too busy laughing.)
Also named after Dracula, who was a vampire.
Idk where 'the 3rd' came from, but it's part of his name for forever.
Azuma
Sebastian
Sebastian is a dinosaur thats blue with a white tummy.
He's also a squishmallow, but he's bigger than Vlad by abt 2× as wide, so he'd be harder to carry around, which is why Hisoka got Vlad instead. Being a squishmallow means he looks more blob than dinosaur and i love it.
His tag said his name was Dominic or something, but I named him Sebastian before I actually checked the tag, so he's Sebastian.
Named after Sebastian (Black Butler) and Sebastian Stan (Actor)
Guy
Moriarty
Moriarty is my other polar bear. I got him with Sherlock and named him Moriarty bc Moriarty is Sherlock's nemesis.
He's just a plain white bear thats very huggable and adorable. I usually have a bowtie on him bc it makes him look fancy.
Guy would like him bc he's plain white and very fluffy.
#a3! act! addict! actors!#spring troupe#summer troupe#autumn troupe#winter troupe#sakuya sakuma#masumi usui#citron#tsuzuru minagi#itaru chigasaki#chikage utsuki#tenma sumeragi#yuki rurikawa#muku sakisaka#misumi ikaruga#kazunari miyoshi#kumon hyodo#banri settsu#juza hyodo#omi fushimi#taichi nanao#sakyo furuichi#ken sakoda#azami izumida#tsumugi tsukioka#tasuku takato#homare arisugawa#hisoka mikage#azuma yukishiro#guy a3
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Eat the Rich: Classism in the UK Entertainment Industry
Ohnotheydidnt Jan. 2020: To take you back a few years ago, right when HP was coming to an end, there was HP Blue-ray bonus documentary where Emma claimed to have come from a poor family. How she got pencils as gifts for her bday and how her dad didn’t afford to send her to the school she went to. This post is a great addition to posts I’ve made a few years ago about how Emma wasn’t actually poor growing up. You can find the posts here.
# TimesYa Grammar Kween Emmione Granger has come a long way since her # HeForShe days, taking the criticisms levelled towards her white feminism to heart and upping her activist game. Since that B.A. in English lit from Brown has gotta go somewhere, one only has to look as far as her Twitter and Instagram feeds (I appreciate that she at least uses her massive platform to lend exposure to women of colour, Ireland’s abortion rights, workplace harassment and from someone who has struggled brutally with gender dysphoria, trans visibility��no sarcasm there). Though once upon a time, Justin Bieber’s Disney Doll was under the impression that she could persuade her legion of fans she enjoyed an ordinary upbringing. Notably, in 2009/10 during a set interview for Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (included in the four-disk Blu-Ray bonus documentary When Harry Left Hogwarts) she presented herself in a vulnerable light, stating that when her parents divorced when she was five years old her financial situation was “tight” (transcribed in the gifs below because the doc is no longer on YouTube, boo!).
YUUUSSS KWEEEN! Hermione is an ONTD member like the rest of us! Or *dot dot dot* is she? While her words sound inspiring and classy at face value and being the cute bae that she is she doesn’t deny she was well-educated, what is missing from her version of the tale and her carefully manufactured image, however, is that both the good sis’ parents are lawyers. From around 1995/96 until 2003, she attended the co-educational pre-prep and prep day and boarding institution, Lynams nursery and the Dragon School in Oxford (Tom Hiddlebum and his one shirt was also a pupil). The fees [applied to 2019/20] eat up as much as £31,686 for boarders and £21,768 for day pupils each schoolyear (there are three academic terms in British schooling). Circa 1999-2000, Emma was also a pupil at the Stagecoach Theatre Arts School Oxford Headington, a franchise part-time theatre school (about ten minutes away from the Dragon). According to their website, “The cost per term for Early Stages is £168 and for Main Stages it is £336.” This is simply a luxury skint kids cannot receive without a grant or hardship fund and based on one version of events Emma has told us, it was while she was in attendance at Stagecoach when she was spotted (along with other potentials) by the Potter casting team for the role of Hermione. (I also discovered through related Google searches that some other minor actors from the Potter series, particularly Daniel Radcliffe’s “son” Albus Potter and “mother” Little Lily Potter went to the Dragon School and Stagecoach in Oxford, respectively. “Lily” was even taught by Emma’s former drama teacher and principal, Maya Sprigg—which tells me this woman’s hustle is not a coincidence.) From there, Emma attended Headington until the age of 18, an independent girls’ day and boarding school. The admission fees for Upper 3-5 and Sixth Form day pupils [applied to 2019/20] is £6,090 per term (£18,270 a year); full boarders pay up to £36,630 a year. Last year, the cost for day pupils was £5,884 per term (£17.5k/yr.). In 2016 before the UK referendum, fees for boarders were roughly £28k a year. As for her parents’ professions, her father Chris Watson is Head of the CMS Technology, Media and Communications Group (he has a M.A. from the New College, Oxford). We also know from a December 2010 British Vogue interview that he owns a vineyard in France where Emma spent the summers as a child. Her mother Jacqueline “Jackie” (nee Luesby) joined the Smith & Williamson financial services firm in 2007 as a senior manager for their tax team in London (she previously worked for Morgan Cole, a commercial law firm in Oxford and from circa 1990-95 the tax team Ernst & Young, an accounting firm in Paris, Emma’s birthplace). In a September 2015 British Vogue interview, Emma confirmed her parents worked full-time: “My parents couldn’t take the time off; they had careers and they weren’t together. They couldn’t swap in and out like Rubert Grint’s [sic] and Dan Radcliff’s [sic] parents.” Emphasis on careers, not occupations.
My basic bitch research skills are unable to track down the estimated salaries of her parents’ positions, but the Great British Class Survey classifies lawyers (including telecommunication lawyers and solicitors) as “elite” and the average household income is placed at £89,000 a year. Me thinks her parents weren’t blowing through £89k on pasta, toast and beans. Post-Potter, Emma pulled in $3 to $15 million for 2017’s Beauty and the Beast (obviously, this was a decade ago, but in 2010 she was making around $32 million). In 2018, she donated £1 million ($1.4 million) to Justice and Equality, an anti-sexual harassment fund (disappointing however, the superior Emma Thompson only donated £500, GIRL?!). Guess she figured she should finally throw away pennies of that Potter money from her offshore accounts (‘cause you can’t take it with it you)? In 2019, her estimated net worth is $80 million (about £60.9 million). Before Hermione blessed her with bad hair, Emma was already the slaying Speak & Spell singing Disney princess we deserved. Although, it seems she has since educated herself and changed her tune. In 2018, she introduced Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race for her Goodreads book club, writing: “When I heard myself being called a ‘white feminist’ I didn’t understand. […] It would have been more useful to spend the time asking myself questions like: What are the ways I have benefited from being white? In what ways do I support and uphold a system that is structurally racist? How do my race, class and gender affect my perspective?” No one needs to award her brownie points and even if I (along with most of ONTD) am not fond of her tightly controlled PR image, it’s one step towards acknowledging she’s part of a structural, systematic problem and it’s more than what most privileged celebs are willing to do when called out. On the other hand, homegirl needs to be educated on tax evasion. In the meantime, the Oatmeal Queen is living her best life with her Pop Rocks.
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hi! i i was wondering if you could write a damian wayne x reader where they are soulmates and he rejects her at first but dick finds out and fluff ensues
Hell yeah you can!
It was a fun day at school. All of the theatre kids put on a play while the sports kids played sports I guess, I spent the entire time chilling by myself. It was how I liked it. I spent the entire day drawing which obviously felt like heaven that was until he came around. Damian showed up in the art room I know he like to draw as well so I didn’t say anything against it. But then when I slightly got bored I decided to draw on my arm. I drew a little rose that Grew into a tree I thought it looks nice personally. When I looked up though, Damien was watching me with this disgusted look on as I obviously I thought he was just judging me because I was writing on my own. But then I looked onto his arm and they’re sat the exact same drawings. Shit. I wanted to talk to him about it but he just stood up and ran. Rude. Every day I saw him in the art room and I tried and tried and tried to talk to him. He never even let me get a single word in. One day I cornered him in the art room
“ we need to talk”
“ about what tch”
I quickly picked up my pencil and draw little smile on my wrist. It appeared on his quickly.
“That”
“Honestly I don’t want to be your soulmate either. but we need to talk about it”
He stood up from where he was sitting and gave me the most terrifying glare I have ever seen.
“ you don’t get it though, I’m never going to fall in love with a loser like you. You can’t be my soulmate because my soulmate would actually be good at something not mediocre at drawing”
He then marched out of The art room, leaving me there to just sit in sorrow. How can anyone be that rude. Let alone someone who I’m supposed to fall in love with and someone who I’m supposed to spend the rest my life with. I decided then and there that I would never conform to society is ideal soulmate. I didn’t need someone to be happy. Especially someone who makes me feel like shit. Months go by And every time I see Damien in the hallways I just give him a scoff. I just hope one day he’ll feel as bad as how I felt in that moment. no one in their right mind to get to treat someone like that and get away with it.
Art class was hard because Damian was in my class and Miss worked out they were trouble is between us. She took it upon herself to “fix” us. One day she decided that she would start a project. You had to paint someone you admired. And it was in pairs. So obviously she paired me with the asshole.
“ Who inspires that cold dead heart of yours?” Harsh. I know. But my parents had raised me to believe your soulmate is someone who makes you feel happy and get here. If it none of those boxes harsh. I know. But my parents had raised me to believe your soulmate is someone who makes you feel happy and giddy. Damian fit none of those boxes.
“my heart is very much beating, thank you and I guess Robin.”
Blah!
“Yeah I guess, I definitely prefer Nightwing though, oh! but Red Robin is awesome!” His face goes to pure disgust at the mention of Red Robin.
“Drake would never let me forget it. I’d rather do Nightwing”
At least we came to an agreement? Yano he’s not that ba-
“ oh and stop with the drawing on yourself. I don’t need that on me”
Nope. I take it back he is a 10/10 butthole. I take out my pen and start drawing red robin all over my arms.
“ fine, keep drawing. Just no Red Robin.” I can make this arrangement work out. Missed calls out to everyone, that we have five minutes and it would be best if we work a bit at home.
“My house or yours?”
“Tch, my Manor. obviously”
TIME SKIPPY!
After school ended I started heading over to where Damian was waiting. He offered me a ride begrudgingly. To which I accepted. I expected to be riding home in a simple car. But I did not expect a freaking limo. We get into the car and Damian calls to the driver.
“Pennyworth! This is my partner I was telling you about, We will be working on our project at the home today” pennyworth? That’s a weird name. Maybe it’s his last name.
“ good evening Miss/Mr L/N my name is Alfred pennyworth. You may call me Alfred” I gave Alfred a small smile and thank him for the ride.
“You can you call me Y/N!” We went through most of the ride in complete silence. The only noise was the rare chatter between Alfred and Damian. When we pulled up to Damian’s house immediately recognised it as the Wayne Manor! I forgot he was a Wayne sometimes. He just acts so different to his father. We walk up to the door and hear gunshots. Obviously this scares me a little bit so I asked Damian what it was.
“That’s just Todd. You don’t need to be afraid of him” He says in a comforting voice? When we open the door I recognised Dick Grayson immediately. He may or may not of been my childhood crush, you’ll never know.
“ Grayson. This is my partner L/N. We will be working on a project from 4 to 8 pm. I expect no disturbances throughout this period of time.”Oh so he’s like that at home as well. Dick Grayson turns to me.
“Hi! And what is your name?”
“Y/n! I didn’t know you’d be here!” Out Walks Tim Drake. A distant friend of a friend.
“ honestly, I didn’t even know I’d be here until period four. It’s nice to see you Tim”
Tim then sees my arm Which still is covered with Red Robin
“ you are a fan of Red Robin?” He had an unnatural smile on. Like it looked like pure amusement mixed with doubt and a hint of sleep deprivation.
“Ye-“ before I could finish the sentence Damian grabs my arm and starts leading me to his room I think. Or the art room.
Dick’s POV
I noticed it when Damian grabbed their arm. I noticed the red robin drawn all over his arm too. Oh man. That explains when he came home awkward and semi Upset. I know he has a crush on them maybe they doesn’t have a crush on him. He would come home every day and just talk non-stop about them. Then one day he just stopped. He said at the start of that day that he would finally talk to them. And yet nothing happened. I turned to Tim to ask him
“Did you see what was on his arm?”
“Obviously, how could I ever miss this opportunity. He has red robin written all over his arm and drawn. I’m gonna have to thank Y/n”. After smacking him lightly. I go and try to find out what happened from Alfred. Tim goes back to his lair And does whatever he does when he’s hiding. I had to convince Jason to stop shooting so that Y/N would not think we are under attack. After a lot of digging and talking to everyone including Bruce and my lovely Barbara. I found out what happened. As the great big brother I am I had to get involved. I made a few calls and within minutes I had everything I needed.
“Damian! Y/n! Come downstairs we’re gonna watch a movie!” Obviously I picked out the most romantic movie we owned. It wasn’t really romantic but was the best thing we had.
“Grayson! We are working on the project! We are not watching a movie.” Okay time for plan b. I quickly run up the stairs and slam open the door. It turns out they were doing more than making a project. They were making a painting of me. There’s nothing more romantic than painting me. Well I think I still need to help out a bit. So I leave the movie there for them and ask if Y/N wanted to stay the night.
“I can’t, sorry, my mother would never agree.”
Y/n’s pov
I didn’t want to stay over because, my mother is a murderous people who does not like the idea of staying over boys house and I guess that’s the only reason. I mean Damien‘s bad but we have great conversations. Like before Dick came in we were having a fun conversation about why we admired night wing. Dick looked sad but he left.
“ anyway. Why do you not like Robin?��
“It’s not like I don’t like Robin. I just think he’s just a bit scary you know?” He nods.
“ why do you not like red robin?” This lit a fire in his eyes.
“ where do I get started. First of all he is incompetent, he thinks he’s great but he’s very shit.”
“Reminds me of you”
“ do not compare us”
“ or what?” He just laughs and as he was about to answer. Dick kicks open the door and starts talking about how he convinced my mother to let me stay over. I mean He probably could convince anyone anything. If he came up to me one day and said that the joker was actually Batman I’d immediately believe him.
I agree to stay over. And as I turned around I heard the door slam shut again. Sounds like dick had left. Damian looks at me with a sincere look.
“I want to apologise. I panicked and in the heat of the moment I said things I didn’t mean. One. I’d be honoured if you are my soulmate. Two. I don’t think your mediocre at drawing.”
Can’t say I expected that. But I don’t think he expected though was for me to forgive him.
“ Damian. I really like you and I think we could definitely work out as soulmates. If you are willing to try?” He smiles. this is the first time I’ve ever seen them smile and we have been in class together for almost 3 years.
“ can I, can I kiss you?”
I nod and lean into the kiss. Before our lips could touch though. Loud gunshots rock through the building again.
“Dam Todd.”
“ so I take it that the Waynes aren’t a normal family?”
“Nope” Tim says falling out of the ceiling.
#dc#dc x reader#tim drake#dick grayson#batfam#batfam x reader#damian wayne#damian wayne x reader#jason todd
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Summary: Lloyd Allen is sick and alone at his house. This is unacceptable.
Written for Day 7 of Shaperaverse week, for the prompt ‘Family, Home’ - and is a continuation of the theatre kids au in chapter 1! I had a blast writing for this event. Thank you for reading!!
-
Lloyd Allen is sick. Like, sick sick. Not the sort where he gets a runny nose and maybe a hoarse throat that clears up in a day.
No, this is the everything-at-once, Chernobyl-nuclear-fucking-meltdown-anthropomorphised kind of sick. He’s hot (and not in the good way that, as Kelis once put it, brings all the boys to the yard). His throat feels like someone attempted to make him swallow hot control rods (to continue the Chernobyl metaphor). About every facial orifice is leaking steadily. Looking at himself in the mirror is an experience akin to staring at the Elephant’s Foot.
To put it sparingly, he feels like shit.
And, he laments, lying on his side on the living room couch, today is the absolute worst day to fall sick.
Through half open eyes, he gazes at the clock hung on the wall, — an old-fashioned thing circled with Roman numerals, because everything about his dad is old fashioned, a trait that passed from father to son — ticking steadily to 10am, when rehearsal is slated to start.
He briefly considers pushing himself off the couch, wrapping himself in a warm coat, and going anyways. After all, they’re just starting to rehearse Janissary in earnest, having almost memorized the scripts and choreography and blocking, and it physically pains him to be absent just when the real work is about to begin.
On the other hand, he can’t have the entire cast be bedridden because of him.
Mulling over his choices, he doesn’t remember when exactly he blacked out, only to be woken up again by the vibrating of his phone on the floor next to him.
Groaning, he reaches out his hand to answer it, and the very action feels like moving through slow, thick honey. He manages, but by the time he brings the phone to his face, the call ends.
The too-bright display tells him he missed a call from Asha.
A slight smile crosses his face. Of course she’d be the first to call him.
He dials back, and she picks up right away. “Lloyd?” Her voice is high and hurried. “Thank goodness you picked up. Me and the others are so worried. Are you all right?”
Try to sound like nothing’s wrong. “I’m fi-achOO!”
Well, so much for that.
“Oh Lloyd, you’re sick?”
“That- that much is obvious, Asha.” He forces the words out through a stuck throat, and is too busy cringing as sneeze-gunk runs down his face (gross) to regret his curt tone.
She sucks in a breath. “Sorry, sorry, god I’m such an asshole. Is it a fever?”
He wants to tell her that the asshole is him, that she shouldn’t waste her breath on someone as ungrateful as he, but all he manages is a short, “Yeah.”
“And from the sound of it, a sore throat and a stuffy nose as well. Do you have a glass of water somewhere nearby? Do you feel well enough to see the doctor?”
“No, and… no.”
“Lloyd- “
“Sorry.”
“- stop- stop hating yourself for one second. I was going to say I can come over right now, if you want me to.”
That’s enough to snap him awake. “NO!” He pauses, wiping his nose. “No. Continue rehearsing, take over for me. I want everyone’s lines fully memorized by next week.”
Now it’s Asha’s turn to be the naysayer of the conversation. He listens, with some grim satisfaction, as she splutters on the phone. “M-me? You want me to be- bu-“
“I’m sick, remember?” He coughs once, for emphasis. “You have to do what I say.”
“Alright, alright. I’ll do my best, and I’ll let the others know you can’t make it. In the meantime, you’re sure you’re okay?”
“Yyyyes?”
“And you’re sure you’re getting enough water? Did you take a panadol? I could get some soup delivered to you-“
The rest of the conversation passes in a blurry haze. He vaguely remembers telling Asha to very much not waste precious rehearsal time by ordering food for him, and was it a fever-induced hallucination, or did he tell David to take over as narrator? Did he comfort the fraught third year until he no longer could, Asha finally stepping in to tell him to rest?
Well that he can certainly do. As Asha says something about sleeping in a cold place, he is already drifting off on the couch. He watches the (decidedly not cold) living room’s ceiling fan turn lazy circles, he murmurs a half-conscious ‘I love you’ to Asha, and he finally surrenders to unconsciousness.
-
Knock knock.
Knock knock knock.
“Lloyd? Are you there?”
What….
Lloyd stirs, and immediately regrets doing so. His hair sticks to the nape of his neck, and a layer of awful post-nap sweat coats his skin. Yet, despite the warm, stuffy air, he’s shivering, curling into himself, trying to figure out if the knocks on the door are figments of his fevered imagination.
“I think he’s still asleep.” The voices he hears are muffled, but definitely there. Is that David?
“Nothing else for it, we gotta pick the lock. I can use my hairpin.”
“Jill, NO!” His ears pick up Asha’s shrill soprano.
Michael’s telltale drawl comes next. “Doesn’t Lloyd keep a key outside the house somewhere? Was it the doormat, or the flowerpot…”
Lloyd’s eyes drift closed once again, until…
“LLOYD!!!” Two blurs bound toward him, but are quickly yanked back.
“Don’t crowd him! He’s way too warm as is.”
Lloyd rasps, “Asha... ? And Jill and Michael a.. And David? What are you all doing here?”
He feels himself being lifted, bridal style, and pressed against a sturdy chest, can feel the vibrations as Michael speaks. “We’re here’ta take care of our favourite stage manager, of course!”
“But.. you.. Rehearsals?”
“Done and dusted,” David says, hovering behind Michael as he carries Lloyd into the bedroom, depositing him gently on his soft mattress. “It went… not terribly, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Pfft, Davey here’s bein’ waaay too modest. As you predicted, he makes a pre-tty awesome narrator.”
David opens his mouth to protest, but Michael shushes him. “Go, set up the Switch so our boy Lloyd has somethin’ to entertain himself with once he’s feelin’ better.”
The obliging theatre techie in David wins out over his self-deprecating side, and he obediently trots off, leaving Michael in the room with a rather overwhelmed Lloyd.
“Don’t lie,” Lloyd begins, “was he really…”
“Yes.” Michael fishes out a thermometer from his backpack and takes Lloyd’s temperature. “Woof, 38 degrees. You’re burnin’ up. Aaanyways, David’s a little nervous, sure, I’ll let Asha fill you in on all the specific details, but he’s got potential. A loootta potential.”
Lloyd lets out a breath. “Good.”
“Now less talkin’, more tryna’ get better soon, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Lloyd gives a small nod.
The other boy pats his arm, and leaves Lloyd, giving room for Jill to breeze in, pushing cups of honey lemon and hot herbal tea and instructing him to drink, opening the windows to let the cool spring air in, and twining small flowers around his shelves and bedposts, before finally pulling his rolling study chair over to his bedside.
“Asha’s in overdrive,” she says conspiratorially, “been freaking out ever since the call. She tried to hide it, obviously, but we could tell. She’s, like, super worried about you, so real talk. Are you okay?”
The chamomile tea warms his throat as he drinks, and he finds his voice flowing freer than before. “I’m all right, really. Some irresponsible delinquent in my lit class came in with a flu, which no doubt passed on to me.”
“But you’ve never been sick before, at least, you haven’t been like the entire time we’ve known you!”
“When my immune system is down, it’s down, I suppose.”
Jill’s face pulls in a sympathetic pout. “Oof, that’s rough. Least it’s not anything serious. If it was something serious, you’d tell us, right?”
Lloyd must have paused too long, because Jill leans forward with sudden seriousness, necklaces adorned with tiny silver trinkets dangling in front of his face. “We care about you. I know Michael and I like to give you grief, but we really do. We’ve been friends for years now, and if something happened, it’d be like I lost my- my brother or something!”
His face heats. “Jill… I... of course. Of course I’d tell you. I care for you all greatly as well, even if I don’t show it.” His hand finds Jill’s. “Thank you, for saying that.”
She gives his hand a squeeze. “Just saying what we’re all thinking. I’m gonna go play Smash with Michael and David. You,” she stands up, tapping his shoulder lightly, “rest.”
“I will.”
She leaves Lloyd, a little confused at the interaction, though all that falls away when Asha enters the room, a bowl of hot ginseng chicken broth in hand.
“I’m sorry for being so curt on the phone, just now,” he blurts out.
Asha waves his apology off. “Water under the bridge. Eat up.”
Time passes, Lloyd savouring spoonfuls of soup as Asha sponges him with cold water, giving him a play-by-play of their rehearsal. The details remain hazy in his mind, though Lloyd does chuckle when his friend tells him of David forgetting he was so far downstage that he almost missed his cue and fell right off the raised platform, saved only when Michael yanked him backwards.
“That.. certainly explains why his shirt is hanging off of him a little looser than before.” Lloyd remarks.
Asha sweeps the finished bowl of soup from his grasp, replacing it with a glass of water and a Panadol. “Interesting that even with a fever, you notice how David’s shirt fits on him.”
It’s lucky that Lloyd only has the glass raised to his lips, else he would have done a spit-take. “Wh- what?!?? Who said anything about me staring at David’s shirt?! It’s just a- a casual observation, anyone would notice it!”
Asha grins. “Naturally, naturally.”
“What does that mean?!”
“Nothing!” She says breezily.
Lloyd stares at Asha, currently sending a text on her phone to someone. From the living room outside, he hears Jill snort.
Ordinarily, he would press, but as is, his information-overloaded brain begins to shut down once again.
“Sure,” he says finally.
Asha looks at him with surprise. “That it? You’re letting me off that easy?”
“ ‘m tired,” he simply says, sinking lower into his sheets. “I’ll ask again if I remember.”
Asha busies herself switching on the AC, drawing the curtains so they don’t let in the late afternoon sun. “Sleep, and properly this time, okay? We’ll be waiting outside for you once you wake up.”
“M’kay.” His eyes are already half-closed, watching Asha hover in the doorway.
“I love you, Lloyd.”
I really did say that on the phone, huh.
Nothing else for it, then. “Love you too.”
-
When Lloyd wakes, his senses come alive one at a time. He feels better than he did in the morning, the medicine doing its work so he’s no longer covered in a cold sweat. His nose is no longer stuffy, and the room’s cool air is permeated with the faint scent of chrysanthemum.
He sits up. It’s properly dark, now, and he can hear faint voices outside.
Gingerly, Lloyd pads out of his room, peeks around the entrance to the living room, and sees his friends, crammed together on the couch, whisper-screaming as Princess Peach beat the shit out of Link on the TV screen.
It’s hard to tell who it was who notices him standing in the shadows first, but it’s David who says, “Guys, Lloyd’s up!”, followed by a responding chorus of cheers from his friends.
His friends.
Is it his fever, or is the warmth he feels rushing through him as they make room on the couch coming from someplace else entirely?
Is him resting his head on David’s shoulder a result of fatigue, or… something else?
And is David tilting his head so it rests on his in turn coming from the same place too?
Later, they sit at the kitchen table, eating soupy noodles ordered in by Michael, and Lloyd wonders if it's the hunger from his previously light meals, or if the food, eaten as he sits surrounded by his friends, is the best he’s ever had?
Is it the thinking of his sickness-muddled mind, or is his house, filled with inane chatter and loud, boisterous laughter, so unlike the cold, quiet days spent with his father, more like a home to him than it ever was before?
And is it his imagination, or is this small group of theatre nerds truly his family? Family he never had, family that disappeared when his mother left?
Even after his father does return, frowning at the mess and noise, and his friends sheepishly clear the takeout boxes and unplug the switch and wash the dirty plates and cups, finally bidding him forlorn goodbyes and get-well-soons, the thoughts don’t go away.
Lloyd pops another pill and heads back to bed, sending a short ‘thank you’ in the main cast and crew group chat, switching off his phone as he sees the wall of responding texts and stickers flooding in.
He settles his sheets back around him, catches sight of evidence that the afternoon and evening truly happened - flowers adding a splash of colour to the space, a scribbled ‘gws’ post-it from David on his bedside table.
Lloyd Allen goes back to sleep with a small smile. After all, the sooner he gets better, the sooner he can return to the theatre. The sooner he can see his family. The sooner he can come home.
#new albion#shaperaverse#paul shapera#sorry i cranked this out at like 1 am and dont have the energy to edit it so#here take it#prompt week was kinda intense but like. fun! never wrote this much in such a short span of time b4 dlkjfas kinda proud tbh
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frame the halves and call them brothers
remus centric, 2,935 wc, ao3
remus meets janus, who proceeds to psychoanalyze him (and virgil is exhausted)
Remus did not wake up early. Or rather, he didn’t like waking up early, not usually. But that morning, Remus woke up with an excited buzz despite the fact he was awake before 8am on a Saturday. He rushed to get dressed, slipping on a flannel that was two sizes too big and had rips in the wrong places, a pair of black pants (the ones Patton loved to describe as his church pants since they were so ‘holey’), and his pair of blue ladder laced Doc Martens. Looking at himself in the mirror he couldn’t help but grin. Contrary to popular belief, Remus took a great deal of pride in his appearance, and to him, looking like the definition of the word ‘punk’ made him very content and happy.
His mom sat at the kitchen table, already in her uniform for one of her jobs. Remus walked over to her and bent down to plant a kiss on her cheek.
“Good morning, sweetheart.” She greeted him.
“Morning.” He replied with a smile that showed off his chipped tooth.
“You’re extra excitable this morning.” She commented and stood from her seat.
“What can I say, I love facing the consequences of my actions.” Remus said, opening a granola bar and following his mom to the front door. She rolled her eyes with a chuckle and grabbed her keys from the hook by the door. The ride to the school was quiet. Remus knew she was still pissed at him, even more so at Virgil and was not excited for him to be around the kid who beat him up. They pulled up to the school and just as Remus opened the door to leave she spoke.
“Please behave yourself, mijo.” She sounded exhausted and looked the part as well. Remus’s stomach knotted when he realized just how tired her whole existence was. He nodded, not trusting himself to talk, and left the car. He watched her pull away with a sort of sadness. He quickly shook away whatever he was feeling and entered the high school. He walked into the gym where Mr. Young was waiting along with a few other students. Remus noted he didn’t see Virgil, meaning he was early to something for once. He sat down on the bleachers and shortly after Virgil walked in with someone Remus vaguely recognized from a few of his classes. The two walked over to Remus.
“I just don’t understand how you can be stupid enough to also get detention.” Virgil said to the kid next to him.
“I don’t think it’s fair,” The other person spoke, “Writing on the bathroom stalls shouldn’t result in this kind of punishment.”
“You wrote ‘fuck 12’, Janus, what the hell did you think would happen?” Virgil asked incredulously.
“Well I didn’t think I would get caught.” The kid, Janus, replied in a grumble.
“You making fun of me for being a wannabe punk when your boyfriend acts like that is kinda fucked up, Hot Topic.” Remus said, inserting himself into the conversation. Virgil gagged while the other kid made a face of pure disgust.
“Never say that ever again, we’re brothers.” Virgil said.
“Oh, fuck, sorry I couldn’t really tell,” Remus said looking from one to the other, “I’m guessing you’re step brothers or something?”
“Actually, we’re twins, I just happened to get all the melanin,” Janus stated and then gestured to the left side of his face where splotches of pale skin stood in a contrast to the rest of his dark complexion, “Virge did have some kind of influence though.”
Remus nodded in understanding and Virgil looked at him with a scrutinizing gaze.
“Please tell me you don’t actually believe that.” Virgil spoke in a desperate tone. Remus laughed a little too hard.
“I know I’m dumb but I’m not stupid.” Remus said. Virgil put his head in his hands and mumbled something Remus interpreted as ‘I want to go home’. He lifted his head and looked from Janus to Remus. He leaned closer to Remus and lowered his voice.
“My brother kinda hates you for punching me.”
“It’s ok,” Remus spoke in a similar hushed tone, “My brother hates me for punching you, too.” Virgil raised his eyebrow but didn’t question any further, to which Remus was thankful. Roman wasn’t a fun topic to talk about unless Remus was making fun of him and right now, even thinking about him was making him upset.
“Ok, kids,” Mr. Young addressed the less than 10 people in the room, “Each of you will be cleaning up the campus. We have proctors all around campus so don’t do anything that will get you into even more trouble. Come grab a trash bag and gloves and hop to it.” He gestured to the pile of garbage bags and boxes of gloves. Each of the kids shuffled over and grabbed their supplies.
Once they were outside, Remus, Virgil, and Janus stuck together and picked up the same area in relative silence. Remus bent down to pick up a half eaten sandwich when he noticed Janus’s shoes; blue ladder laced Doc Martens. He grinned and fully stood up.
“You killed a cop, too?” Remus practically shouted the question and gained the attention of the two boys, along with a few bewildered looks from surrounding students.
“Excuse me?!” Virgil asked, his voice going up an octave or two. Janus looked down at Remus’s boots and then his own, a knowing look on his face.
“Seeing as how this little shit,” Janus nodded in the direction of Virgil, “Beat the fuck out of you, I seriously doubt you killed a cop.” Remus barked out a laugh.
“Half-pint has some moves you wouldn’t believe.” Remus pointed to his tooth and Janus moved closer to get a better look.
“The little raccoon did that?” He asked with amusement in his voice. Remus nodded.
“He pulled my head back and smashed my face into the ground,” Remus recounted the moment with a sense of nostalgia in his voice, “My mouth just so happened to be open.”
“You don’t sound angry about it.”
“Because I’m not,” The grin in his voice was evident, “I’ve always wanted to get into a fight and now I have a way of remembering it.” Janus gave a small smile and Remus counted that as a win.
“Is your nose ok?” Virgil asked.
“It’s fine, kid, no need to feel guilty.” Remus reassured him. It was feeling a whole lot better than the day before, the bruising made it look a lot worse than it felt.
“I still can’t believe you did that, bub.” Janus spoke with pride as he ruffled Virgil’s hair, “I raised you well.”
“You’re barley even a year older than me shut the fuck up.” Virgil’s voice didn’t actually hold any malice.
“Oh, you’re older than us?” Remus asked, adding, “I could have sworn I’ve seen you in some of my classes.”
“Oh, no me and you are the same age,” Janus said with a shit eating grin on his face, “V here skipped a grade so he’s a little baby.” Janus had turned on his baby voice and squished Virgil’s face.
“Get the fuck away from me.” Virgil said and swatted his hands away.
“Awww, little piss baby.” Remus cooed.
“I hate both of you so much.” Virgil said, giving each of them a pointed look.
“You know you love me.” Janus said and wrapped his arms around his younger brother, swaying a little from side to side. Virgil mumbled something into his shirt that made Janus chuckle. Remus watched them and felt a little part of his chest ache.
“You’re not so bad, Remus.” Janus said, letting go of Virgil.
“I’m all sorts of bad, but I appreciate it.” Remus said.
They finished cleaning with a lot more talking and joking around. Remus felt happy having people to interact with who were brand new to his life. It was like a breath of fresh air. Once they were dismissed, Remus walked to the front of the school with the two brothers.
“Do you wanna go over to the gas station?” Janus asked him.
“I don’t have any money on me.” Remus said, shifting on his feet.
“Don’t worry about it, V can buy you a slushie.” Janus said, already walking in the direction of the nearby 7/11.
“Why do I have to buy it?”
“You’re the one who beat the shit out of him, it’s the least you can do.” Janus said and winked to Remus. He snorted. Janus looked over at him and squinted, searching for something in his face.
“I’m flattered, really, but it’s awfully rude to stare.” Remus said.
“You look familiar.” Janus mumbled. Then his face lit up, “You do theatre, right?” Remus groaned.
“No, that’s my brother.” He couldn’t help the disgust evident in his voice.
“Oh, are you two twins?” He asked.
“Sadly, yes.” Remus responded.
“You don’t seem very fond of him.” Remus bit the inside of his cheek.
“We just have a complicated history.” He said. Virgil and Janus both raised an eyebrow and maybe Janus’s joke about them being twins wasn’t too far off.
“Aren’t twins supposed to be, like, super close and shit?” Virgil asked.
“Virgil.” Janus said his name like a warning.
“No, it’s fine, Roman and I are just,” Remus paused to think of a way to describe their dichotomy, “different. He’s the golden boy and I’m clearly not.” Remus said and gestured to himself.
“Comparison creates a divide and causes nothing but harm.” Janus told him.
“That’s the thing,” Remus was starting to get angry, “I was never the one to start comparing. It was our dad who always favored Roman. Roman who does nothing for himself; he people pleases and has no sense of an actual identity. But because he can follow the rules he’s the good twin.” Remus hit the crosswalk button harder than necessary.
“You seem a lot more interesting.” Virgil said
“Agreed.” Remus gritted through his teeth.
“So then, why are you jealous of him?” Janus asked. Remus turned to him.
“I’m not jealous of him.”
“Yes you are.” He stated
“Janus likes to psychoanalyze everyone.” Virgil informed Remus. The crosswalk flashed the little picture of the man walking and the three boys imitated the motion.
Remus thought about what Janus said as the two boys started a conversation of their own. Was he jealous of Roman? There was no way. Roman was self absorbed and egotistical, but only on surface level. He and Roman may not get along too well but they knew each other like the back of their hand. Remus knew how insecure Roman was, always scared of losing his good image, letting himself hide away parts of himself to look less weird. Remus was happier, Remus was unabashedly himself. So, why was he jealous of Roman?
“You ok, Rem?” Virgil asked, successfully gaining his attention.
“Oh, uh, yeah I’m fine.” Remus responded. Virgil nodded and followed Janus inside the 7/11. Remus walked in after him.
“What flavor do you want?” Virgil asked, grabbing a cup and a lid.
“Mix the blue and the Coke.” Virgil made an audible noise of disgust but complied. He wandered over to the chip aisle and Remus went to the back where Janus looked at the cold drinks.
“You never answered my question.” Janus spoke, not taking his eyes away from the energy drinks in front of him.
“I don’t really have an answer for you, I don’t know why I am. If you asked my therapist it probably has something to do with my dad.”
“That’s what all therapists say.” Janus opened the case and crouched down, picking up two cans of Monster.
“I mean, they aren’t wrong, dads are just like that.” Remus accepted one of the cans.
“I wouldn’t know, I grew up with two moms.”
“That’s why you’re so put together, no trauma of having a father.” Remus said. Janus laughed and Remus decided it was one of the prettiest sounds he’d ever heard.
“Why do you need a Monster if you also have a slushie?” Virgil asked, exasperated.
“Extra energy.” He replied, handing him the drink. Virgil rolled his eyes and went up to the counter.
“I don’t think Roman is as boring as you think.” Janus said.
“You know him?” Remus asked.
“I’ve spoken with him a few times, he’s very active in theatre and so am I.”
“So you knew I wasn’t him?” Remus asked.
“He’s interesting in his own way,” Janus avoided Remus’s question, “I think you need to give him a chance.”
“Easy for you to say, you and Virgil seem like perfect siblings.” Remus knew he sounded bratty but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“When I first met him, I absolutely hated him,” Janus started, “I was 11 and suddenly I had a younger brother. I was in a new home and the only familiar part of my life was my mom and even then she had split her time between me and Virgil. I didn’t want anything to do with him. I thought he was weird and too quiet. Poor kid just had anxiety and me and my mom moving in did nothing to help. I had to give him a chance and once I did, we found we were similar in our own ways, but more importantly, we were different. Now, I can’t imagine a life where he isn’t my brother.” Remus looked at Janus in awe.
“Give Roman a chance, he may be completely different than you but what’s so bad about that?” Janus gave him a smile that on anyone else would look disingenuous but with him it was the most open expression Remus had ever seen on anyone. Remus could only nod.
“Is J getting all philosophical on you?” Virgil joined Remus’s side as Janus went to pay, “I keep telling him not to do that to people. He’s so weird.” There was a smile on his face as he spoke, as if just the mention of his brother made him happy.
“You’re one to talk.” Remus knocked Virgil’s shoulder with his own.
“I know the kid who brought a worm into class, claiming it to be his pet is not lecturing me about being weird right now.” Virgil said and Remus laughed.
“I forgot about that, I miss that little guy.” Virgil rolled his eyes with a certain fondness in his expression. He handed Remus his drinks as Janus joined the two. They walked back to the front of the school to wait for Virgil and Janus’s mom.
“It was nice meeting you, Remus, we should hang out again.” Janus said as a way of goodbye. Virgil waved and off the two boys were. Remus stood up and started his walk to his house. He didn’t live too far away and was at his house in less than 20 minutes. He entered the house and found Roman sitting in the living room, watching something on TV.
“Didn’t detention get out like, an hour and a half ago?” Roman asked and eyed the slushie and can of Monster in his hand, a sort of sadness in his eyes.
“I went to 7/11 with Emo and Janus.” He said and walked over to him.
“You know Janus?” Roman asked in surprise.
“I met him today, those two are actually brothers.” Remus laughed at Roman’s disbelieving expression. “I know, it’s a small world.” He handed Roman the Monster. He took it hesitantly.
“I’m glad you had fun.” He said and opened the drink. They were quiet for a few minutes, Remus joining him on the couch and half paying attention to what Roman had put on the TV (it was Hannah Montana; he only watched that when he needed a distraction).
“Why were you so mad when I got into that fight?” Remus finally asked. Roman chewed on his lip in thought before finally responding, voice soft.
“Because I didn’t want you to get hurt. And I didn’t want you doing something you would regret and beat yourself up about later.” Remus felt a pang in his heart.
“You saying you actually care about me?” Remus meant for it to come out as a joke, but the way his voice cracked and went quieter just made it sound pathetic.
“Of course I care about you, you’re my brother.”
Remus took in a deep breath and sipped from his drink.
“I’m sorry.” He said after a pause.
“Dude, are you ok?” Roman’s voice was filled with worry. Remus managed a breathy laugh.
“Yeah, I am. Thank you for the concern, Ro,” Remus smiled at him, “It means a lot.” Remus kept his voice low so it wouldn’t crack, so it wouldn’t push pressure on his throat, so he wouldn’t cry. Roman nodded and turned back towards the TV.
Remus knew it was going to be hard. Roman had always been this ideal his dad set for him, more of an idea than a person. And Remus thought, maybe, he’d always hold some kind of resentment towards him. But Janus was right. Roman was different in almost every way, but he was still himself. In the same way Remus was himself. Eventually, he would come to accept that, but for now, Remus was content watching Hannah Montana on their couch, on the verge of tears, Roman’s head somewhere else entirely. They were a collective mess of trauma but at the end of the day they were still brothers and Remus couldn’t imagine it any other way.
#remus sanders#roman sanders#virgil sanders#janus sanders#remus sanders angst#creativtwins angst#sanders sides#sanders sides fanfic#hs au#remus and janus use the lace code#blue means acab/killed a cop#remus and janus are literally the whole 'gay kids meet each other and after 5 minutes overshare'#virgil and jnaus being brothers is my favorite thing btw#this fic was suppossed to b way fluffier#and only suppossed to b virgil janus and remus#but i have an idea for a fic w just the three of them#and it wont have heavy angst lol
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(requested by anonymous; a continuation of this)
“49...50.” Hoshiguma lifted up Ch’en’s bar as she completed her set. “Alright, looking good.”
“If I only...did 30...would you say the...same thing?” Her partner stood up, taking deep breaths.
Hoshi shrugged. “If you did more weight each rep.”
“Fair. I’ve got to get ready for my shift.” She kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll call you when I’m heading home.”
“Don’t work too hard.” Hoshiguma watched her head off to the locker room, whistling just as Ch’en walked past Saria coming the other way, and chuckled when her fiance spun around to give her a glare. Classic Ch’en.
Saria walked up to her as she was racking on more weight. “Good afternoon, Hoshiguma.”
“Afternoon, Saria.” She smiled. “Where’s your wife?”
“At her office; If I could drag her in here, believe me, I would. How’ve you been?”
Hoshi laid down on the bench to start her set. “Can’t complain - got engaged, have a regular assignment here on-base and a raise to go with it, and my fiance is spending less time at work doing more than she reasonably should. You? Oh, and while you’re here, mind spotting me?”
“Ready when you are.” As the oni began pumping her iron, Saria answered her other question. “Silence and I are still working out a few issues; we both got used to being alone after awhile, so there are times we argue more than we really should after all this time. Ifrit has a friend now - the Caprinae girl, um...what’s her name...”
“Eyjafalla,” Hoshiguma grunted.
Saria nodded. “Right, right. 35, by the way. She asked me the other day if I’d let her go to a geology forum with Eyja next month, and I told her to make a leave request with the Doctor, and Silence got mad at me.”
“Why?” She set her bar back on the rest after 66 reps. “Ifrit’s not that young...and Eyja needs someone with her because of her sensory issues.”
“That’s what I told her. She didn’t like that.”
Hoshi shook her head. “Well, can’t help you there. Ch’en got onto me the other night for ambushing her in the kitchen when she got home and started making a snack.”
“Tell me about it,” Saria commiserated. “It’s not my fault she works long hours, nor is it really hers, and if she’d let me tire her out a bit before bed, she’d sleep better, anyway.”
“Oh, that wasn’t the issue. I got jelly on her pants.”
She took a moment to process that. “Did it stain?”
“I guess?” Hoshiguma shrugged. “They looked fine to me.”
“Silence and I are both careful about that sort of thing; want me to give you some tips?”
She nodded. “Sure, sure...but first, do you want a turn on the bench?”
“As nice as it is to talk to you, that is why I’m here,” Saria replied. “Just tell me when I get to 100.”
“100? Damnit, I should have kept going...”
-
The next week, Saria and Hoshiguma met up again, this time in the locker room after working out in different parts of the gym. “Hey, Saria. Still no Silence?”
“Dobermann found someone to start a yoga class, so in a way, she is coming to the gym.” She chuckled to herself. “Are you and Ch’en busy this evening? The wife and I were thinking we could do a couples’ watch of the film that’s coming out tonight.”
“What film?”
Saria blinked. “You don’t know about The Devil’s Own Luck?”
“Oh, that one.” Hoshiguma shook her head. “Heard of it, never thought about going to see it. Ch’en and I are a diehard action movie couple.”
“Even when you’re off-duty?”
Hoshi grinned. “Especially when we’re off-duty. There’s another one coming out in a couple weeks, one of FEater’s, actually. Supposed to be an action/rom-com mix about a martial arts instructor falling in love with a student whose family runs a competing dojo. Maybe we could do that?”
“I’ll ask her when I get home tonight.” Saria sighed as she finished repacking her gym bag. “You ever thought about having kids?”
“A little bit hard to do considering my choice of life partner, isn’t it?”
She rolled her eyes. “Have you ever thought about adopting, then?”
“I...no.” Hoshiguma was pulling on her boots. “Ch’en and I both work the sort of job that I don’t want to put a kid through. Why?”
“I need a babysitter for a few months from now, wanted to see if you’d be up for it.”
Hoshi’s eyes lit up. “I can watch Ifrit for a while. How long?”
“A week? Silence and I want to go on a couples’ retreat the Doctor’s sponsoring.” Saria watched her for a moment. “You changed your tune rather fast.”
“Oh, the couples’ retreat, right...we’re going on that one, too. I mean, I’ll take care of a kid for a bit, no problem, it’s just taking care of one fulll-time that’s an issue. Don’t want them scared one of their moms is gonna come home in a bodybag on a school night if I can help it.”
She nodded. “I can understand that. Hmm...Guess I’ll ask Flamebringer and Lena if they’ll do it. Silence should be done by now, so I’m going to head out.”
“Don’t forget, Punch to the Chest with me and Ch’en this next Friday.”
“I won’t.” As Saria left the locker room, she prepared herself. ‘Question is, does this mean I’m still going to the theatre tonight, or...’
-
“I had no idea FEater could act,” Silence noted as she left the theatre, arm-in-arm with Saria.
Next to her, Ch’en’s eyes lit up. “You should see her in Unwanted Visitors. She plays the maid in that movie, and you would never recognize her.”
“I’ve seen that movie,” the doctor replied, “and I certainly didn’t. She did her own stunts, I assume?”
“Of course. In that one scene, actually...”
As they carried on, Saria and Hoshi shared a glance on the other side. “Another convert,” the oni smiled.
“I’m hoping this will motivate her to come with me to the gym.” She flipped her hair back. “Thanks for inviting us.”
“Any time. Hey, Ch’en, are we going to the bar after this?”
Muttering from the other side. “Maybe later? Saria, can I borrow Silence to go gi-shopping?”
“Gi-shopping?” Saria shrugged. “Go ahead.”
“Thank you, darling. I’ll see you later tonight.” Silence squeezed her wife’s hand before following Ch’en in another direction.
Hoshiguma sighed. “Well, I’m heading to the bar. You wanna come along?”
“Sure - I could use a drink.”
“Just one?” She smiled. “If you say so.”
Saria glared at her - not at full power, just enough to be felt. “I meant at least one...but I’d rather not smell like beer after we’re done.”
“Fair. Tell you what - I’ll buy.”
“No, I’ll pay for myself.” She patted her pocket. “You and Ch’en bought the tickets, after all.”
Hoshi shrugged. “Suit yourself.” They made their way to Hoshiguma’s usual place, each ordered a beer, and settled into a pair of bar stools.
“They hit it off surprisingly well, didn’t they?” Saria noted before taking a long swig.
“It makes sense to me,” she admittted. “Ch’en’s closer to the two of you than I am, personality-wise.”
Her drinking buddy gave her a sideways glance. “You think I’m more like Ch’en than you?”
“Home is where the heart is, and hers is at the office like the two of you. Mine’s here.” For the first time that evening, Hoshiguma’s eyes were downcast, tracing grains in the bar’s wooden counter.
“I wouldn’t say my heart’s at the office,” Saria protested. “Silence, I’d agree, lives in her office even off-duty, but I don’t stay long hours to finish a project I started that day unless it needs to be done.”
The oni looked back at her. “But you still have an office, right?”
“I have a lab.”
“Well, I don’t have a place like that.” Hoshi’s eyes returned to the counter. “I work patrols around the building that rarely start and stop in the same place two days in a row, so the only places I see more than twice a week are my apartment and this bar. Ch’en doesn’t get it, and I doubt either of you would, so you’re closer to Ch’en than me.”
She shook her head. “Where are you going with this?”
“That’s another thing: you, Silence, and Ch’en all care about appearances more than I do. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve been watching TV, spilled a drink on my shirt, and let it sit there until the next time I do laundry. It just doesn’t come to mind.”
“Hoshi, are you alright?” Saria set her beer to the side. “I haven’t heard you talk like this since we first met.”
She nodded. “I know you haven’t...Saria, do you know what scares me the most?”
“Losing Ch’en?”
“...Sort of.” Hoshiguma sighed. “You ever buried someone before?”
Saria shook her head. “I’ve had patients die on me, but the bodies were usually cremated after death. Too dangerous to the environment to bury, if I’m honest...which I should have taken as a sign earlier than I did.”
“Alright, well let me tell you: it sucks. The whole time you’re digging, you’re reliving the time you spent with them - the bad moments stick longer than the good moments, and the regrets stick for weeks and months after you put them in the ground. Worse than all that, though, is when you’ve set them in the hole, and you throw that first shovelful of dirt on top...because that’s the moment you realize they’re really gone. I’m scared of that moment more than I am of dying myself.”
“I can understand that.” She finished her first beer and flashed the bartender a single finger. “I don’t want to imagine living without Silence again.”
Hoshi shook her head. “It’s not even that...I don’t want to have any regrets about not having spent more time with her, but if she’s married to her work, then...can she really be married to me, too?”
“...I’d never thought of it like that before.”
“It’s all I’ve thought about since buying her a ring.” She sighed. “Maybe we were wrong about all of this.”
Saria punched her in the shoulder. “Stop it.”
“Huh? Did you just-”
“Look at me, Hoshi.” There was suddenly a fire in her eyes. “Can you look me in the eye and say you don’t love Ch’en?”
Hoshiguma’s brow furrowed. “You punched me.”
“Hoshi.”
“You know damn well I never could.” She had a realization. “Is that why you and Silence work?”
Saria laughed. “I wouldn't say that. We made our bed, and we lie in it every night after we come home at around 11, dead tired, but too comfortable with each other to find something else. Not that I’d ever want to.”
“Yeah...You ever catch yourself window-shopping?”
“Hell, Silence and I have both caught each other doing it.” She chuckled. “A couple of times, we watched the same person as they walked past us. Got to the point we’d talk about them after the fact, actually. Why do you ask?”
Hoshiguma downed her third beer, staring at it for a moment, before she continued. “Ever look at me like that?”
“Yeah, I’ll admit to that. You’re a good woman and a good-looking one.”
“Right back at you.” Hoshi looked back at her. “Silence ever say something like that?”
Saria nodded. “Had a whole talk about you and Ch’en both.”
“...Tonight, when Ch’en gets back from her shopping trip, she and I are gonna need to have a talk. Thanks for being honest with me, Saria.”
“Of course.” She held her bottle out to Hoshiguma. “I’ll never be anything but honest with you. You have my word.”
Hoshi extended her hand out, and their bottles made a satisfying clink. “To honesty, and mutual appreciation of good women.”
“Hear-hear.”
#arknights#saria (arknights)#hoshiguma (arknights)#the request was 'hoshi and saria together' maybe friends maybe more#so we got a bit of both sides of the coin in this one#arknights fic
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college boyfriend!markhyuk au series: II (donghyuk’s pathway)
a universe in which roommates!markhyuk meet each other's s/o in class
markhyuk are roommates, my/n and dy/n are roommates, mark and dy/n take classes together and so do donghyuk and my/n — how will their fates intertwine?
genre: fluff pairings: platonic!mark+dy/n format: dotpoint AU universe: non idol, college best friend warning: a lil swearing (best get used to it lol)
masterlist
or click here to continue your friendship with paediatrics!haechan!
I ⇤ | II | ⇥ III
II: relationship consolidation.. it’s platonic i swear
the fellowship continues (mark + dy/n)
so the month that follows your first meeting
is full of
a mixture of crackheadedness and tortured artist vibes
a lot of it is sending lit memes and other shit to each other at 2am when u have an 8am the next morning and yelling at each other for keeping u up so late but then laughing again at whatever the ridiculous punchline was
“to quote shakespeare’s hamlet, act v, scene ii, line 270: no”
/deep inhale/ /unhinged laughter/
that’s your inside joke for a whole two weeks mark couldn’t get the numbers right the first few times uwu poor confused thing but he got it after a while so good on him
in the second class after the first day, you try your best to find in him the crowd of people lining up to go into the lecture theatre but you can’t and it’s almost time to go in and—
oop you’re getting swept by the current of the masses
you still try to look for him even then
and luckily your attempts pay off !bc you do see him further up the stairs
,, but he’s
,.talking to another person, sitting in a seat on the end of the row
slightly disappointed that you can’t sit together and get to know him better and hopefully become friends but !! still optimistic that you’ll just make new friends
you file into an empty seat near his row a little further down the stairs from where he was sitting
you take out your materials and start to go over your notes from the day before when
someone plops himself down on the seat next to you
you look up and before you can smile in greeting, you recognise
it’s mark!!
he says “heyyy” in that rlly soft voice idk if you’ve seen the vid of him going ʰᶦ but that’s the voice he uses here
and you’re like “oh hi! wait i thought i saw you sitting over there” pointing behind u
and he’s like “oh i just met a friend and i was saving his girlfriend’s seat haha.. she just arrived so they kicked me out and i saw u and !!yeah”
and u nod at him like “nice nice i thought you ditched me” jokingly ofc
“no no i was actually trying to find you but.. you’re too short”
“i’m what”
/whispers/ “i’m sorry omg don’t kill me pls”
/stands up straighter to assert dominance/ “say that again, marcus. say that again”
ajsagdfo cuties
“ok then should we meet somewhere before the lectures”
so you decide on the benches outside the building as Your Spot™
the lecture’s just an introduction to the first text in the syllabus bc . second class
and so there’s quite a bit of note taking,, naturally
mark forgets what the prof says before he can write it down and this particular prof, you learn, is prone to talking fast and then switching the lecture slides before anyone can write anything important down
poor mark is doing a lot of looking up at the slides and then down at his notebook and :(((
so r u but u seem to have better memory than him so u either have the lecture slides up if you’re a typer with your notes or manage to write your notes and still listen to the prof if you’re a writer idk yalls preferences so
meanwhile mark whispers under his breath,, half to himself
“what” don’t we all,, mark.. don’t we all
and he does that a few times so you look over and he’s written barely anything so at that point he’s almost just resorted to listening to the prof and not taking notes at all
then he seems to catch himself and he starts writing down whatever key terms the prof is spewing and you realise
kid’s blanking out lmfao
so you tell him you’ll send your notes over to him after class and he’s like !! R U SURE im so sorry im not used to this sPEED and i can’t put my hand up and ask him to slow down someone else has to do that
and u just nod and tell him it’s all g
so class ends and you wave goodbye (confirming to meet at the benches next week too) to go to your tutorial class that happens to be right after the lecture and so does he,,
and this is your thought process for the next five or so minutes:
there’s only one exit so surely he’s only going outside and not the same way as me
oh look he’s going the same way as me.. i’m sure he’s just going to another building ooh that’s a pretty cool tree
hey we can walk to our next classes together and then split up where we have to go in different directions
is he turning left or right left or right i’m going left left or right left or—wait oh cool
ah there’s a bunch of classes in this building too surely he’s on a different floor. see he’s going up the stairs—wait he’s going up the stairs.. so am i..,,,
nah surely he’s going up another floor
wait if he’s going up another floor.. why isn’t he going on the elevator
does he have a fear of enclosed spaces
does he have childhood trauma in an elevator
maybe he keeps fit by climbing stairs
lol this is my floor, be funny if..
hang on a second
HANG ON A SECOND
“HANG ON A SECOND” that wasn’t one of your thoughts btw that was. out loud
very loud
and he turns around, startled at your voice again
looking up from his phone and eyes getting wider than they were in their initial reaction
“wHAT THE—WAIT HOLD UP HOLD UP HOLD UP—”
he’s giggling at this point bc it’s so funny to him
“HOLD—YOU’RE?? in this tute too??”
“are we??—”
“—in the same class?” yall say that in unison bc that’s the proliferation of a Wholesome Friendship™ right there
u laugh bc wow this is my new best friend
“this is crazyyy”
“yeah what the f..” he highkey cuts himself off bc i mean day 2 guys
but then you
“exactly what the fuck...”
lmfao he knows then that it’s ok to swear with you
n e ways
y’all keep talking until your tutor arrives and lets you in the class
ofc you sit next to each other in the tute as well
you have a great time and class ends quicker than you thought bc you’re having fun and that’s always gewd
so the next few weeks u’re just vibing with each other
walking to class together after ur lectures
walking each other to other classes
studying together in the library in your spare time catching up on content and exploring ideas discussed in tutes for your shakespearean sonnets class
"o romeo, romeo, wherefore were thou and juliet teenage dumbfucks”
he couldn’t stop laughing at that for three days straight
“t..teENAGE /wheeze/ dUMBFUCKS HAHAHAHAHA”
getting pretty close basically
sharing hobbies and music tastes (u find out he plays guitar and it’s the biggest possession he brought into his dorm from his house and listens to frank ocean and john mayer a lot, watches fullmetal alchemist)
sometimes you’ll come to meet him at the benches full on catwalking down the path with your airpods in and resting bitch face on listening to some dope shit while the crowd parts for you and he’s just like O.O
how is she friends with me
he thinks you’re so cool it’s cute
but he’s also alr convinced himself that you’re so out of his league he highkey won’t dare try and make a move
n e ways
he sees ur airpods and he’s like “aren’t you afraid you’re gonna lose them one day”
and you just look at him and go “do i look like a fool, marcus”
he laughs so hard at that
complaining to you abt his roommate in real time over text like
marcus the fool 🤡: “dude he’s whining at me to ‘play with him’ i don’t want to play with him”
marcus the fool 🤡: “now he’s getting jealous of u”
marcus the fool 🤡: “he asks who u think u r”
you: “tell him i would fight him”
marcus the fool 🤡: “he says u won’t win”
you: “bet”
marcus the fool 🤡: “i told him u don’t need to fight for my attention bc uve alr got it”
marcus the fool 🤡: “now he’s fake crying”
marcus the fool 🤡: “he’s telling me to leave the house and leave the kids”
you: “am i a homewrecker now”
marcus the fool 🤡: “he calls u a homewrecker”
you: “tell him i’ll kiss it better”
one day like a month or so into your friendship
you rush to the benches with that look on your face that says you’re about to murder someone which usually disappears when you see him and take out your airpods bc rbf
so he ,, approaches with caution ,,, easy does it,,
yes he’s wondering if it’s your time of month
ngl it åctually was which makes things worse
t e n t a t i v e l y he asks on the way into the lecture theatre
“hey dy/n u ok?? u look.. ok nvm”
bc u lowkey glared at him but u didn’t mean to i swear u just looked at him but u were alr in a bad mood
so ure like “sorry yes i’m fine i didn’t have my coffee today so i may be a bit cranky”
“what happened? u sleep in or smth”
“yeah i slept at 4 last night”
“wHY did u do that”
“idK but i was running late just now and the line at the cafe was so long i stood in line for five minutes and i said nop class is abt to start”
“oh okey”
this keeps bugging him all throughout the lecture
so he turns to u when the lecture is over and he’s like
“u have another lecture next right”
“yes marcus i have another lecture that you’re taking with me”
“come ditch with me i’ll shout u a coffee”
“what really”
“for sure, we can catch up on the lecture in the library tonight”
and you remember that you’d made plans with your roommate my/n to go to the library that night anyway so you agree and let him know
so he’s like “oh rlly? can i bring my roomie along too he probs doesn’t have other plans anyway i hear they’re doing some kind of project so he better not be going anywhere” with a lil frown uwu angery mark
“sure don’t see why not. we’ll all study together”
“nice i’ll let him know”
“cool”
cool
u see where i’m going with this
waggles eyebrows
wink wink nudge nudge
click here to continue your friendship with paediatrics!haechan!
I ⇤ | II | ⇥ III
#dreamwritersnet#neohours#neowriters#nct au#markhyuck au#nct 127 au#nct dream au#nct x reader#markhyuck x reader#nct 127 x reader#nct dream x reader#mark x reader#haechan x reader#donghyuck x reader#Mark AU#haechan au#donghyuck au#nct college#nct college au#eng lit mark#paediatrics haechan
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Les Miserables Stonewall AU
Just hear me out for a moment: Les Mis AU taking place in 1969 Manhattan. June, if we want to be specific. Why June? Stonewall.
So my school does these trips every few years that are always a big deal. A really big deal. As in, a month in the Galapagos Islands. It got canceled cause of covid but still, y'all get my point, right?
I also came across these two amazing drawings the other day. I don't know either of the artists so if you do, please let me know so that I can credit them. Not my art
The art and the trip gave me the idea. Because look, pretty much the entire fandom ships e/R. And then there's Courf and Ferre, and everyone else. I'll list them all later.
So we end up with les amis in Manhattan during the Stonewall riots and protests. Obviously, they're going to get themselves caught up in it, right?
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There are two ways I might want to go with this. They're both good and they could both work out well but I'm not sure which one I'd rather use.
1) they're just all students at the same university who happen to be going on the trip together. Obviously, some of them would already know each other (like R has been completely in love with Enj for years) but realistically, you don't know everyone who goes to your school
2) all of them are part of the drama/theatre club. This one might work out in the sense that they're all going to Broadway to watch a performance or perform themselves (Phantom maybe?), and that the theatre club has become an accidental hidden magnet for closed queers. Tbh that's what it's like at my school and why I'm in drama.
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And here are basically all of the character roles.
Enjolras - Social equality/civics minor. He hasn't yet decided if he wants to pursue a higher degree in the same field or try something else. Often in detention or something because he gets into fights all the time. If he sees a bully picking on a kid, he will not hesitate to kick the bully's ass into next week. He's that one person that you'd go to if you had a problem, kinda like a school vigilante. A girl being harassed? Talk to Enjy and the man will never bother her again. He organizes a bunch of rallies and protests for what he believes in. Should've probably been suspended or expelled a while ago, for all the people he's hurt, but the teachers and school board know why he does it and know that he keeps the other students safe. Still manages to get really good grades, as long as he gets a bit of help from Ferre or Courf (and they're glad to help him study or smth)
Grantaire - slightly sketchy fine arts and music double major. He's a composer and his music is beautiful, and so are his paintings, but while he's amazing in those classes, he's just barely scraping by in the more 'academic' classes he's taking. Everyone knows him as 'the problem kid' but not in the same way as Enjy. R gets into fights and stuff too, but not exactly for good reasons. Has a drinking problem and has turned up to class drunk on a few occasions. Always carries around a sketchbook. He's completely in love with Enjy, and while the two of them aren't exactly friends, Enj likes him a lot more than most of the other students, since he's actually taken the time to get to know Grantaire personally rather than just as 'that one drunk problem kid who's about to flunk out.' Really sarcastic and sassy.
Combeferre - (y'all, I said his name with the E at the end kinda like 'ferreh' for so fucking long before someone decided to say it rhymed with Javert). Philosophy minor, lit major. He's probably on the student representation board. That one kid that manages to be a total nerd who literally corrects the dictionary for fun yet is still one of the coolest kids in the school. Everyone seems to think he's cool and composed and calm, and they're not wrong, but he's mentally screaming the loudest of all of them when it comes to finals or something. He's a bit of a perfectionist and knows it, but he's also used to being able to easily pass his classes. How do I describe this... he's outwardly composed but internally a mess. A lot of kids known as 'the smart one' who are overachievers and have teachers who praise their work, etc, are. Internally screaming 24/7. Believe me, I know what it's like.
Courfeyrac - he's the only mutual friend of everyone in the group. He's a literal ray of sunshine and always will go out of his way to say hello to someone and ask how they're doing that day, and check up on someone who's looking down. He's really good with kids and people in general. Might run a tutoring group or something because I've always thought he'd make a really good teacher. (Just imagine Courf as an elementary school teacher or something. Carrying little kids around on his shoulders, helping them with art projects, and hanging them up all over the classroom. He'd be kind and patient and funny and everyone would love him. Just- elementary teacher Courf). Best friends with Combeferre. Probably Jvj's aide or TA or something.
Marius - I think we all know him. He just Pontmercys his way through university and has a massive crush on this one girl who sits across the aisle from him in one of his classes. She's pretty and brave and smart and outspoken, and he admires her. Eponine, his good friend, sees this crush and convinces him to talk to her. He has a brilliant idea to ask her for help with homework and just botches up the entire thing and kinda embarrasses himself, (cue Eponine facepalming in the background) but she thinks it's sweet, and they end up becoming friends.
Eponine - honestly I don't know what I want to do with her. I know she's another student on the trip, but I only have the vaguest ideas of how she fits into the group, and even that is more of a vibe, rather than something I can put down in words. Used to have a sister that her parents often abused and used. Ponine did her best to shelter Cosette from their parents, but she didn't always succeed. However, she was able to get help and get her sister taken away. Their parents turned on Ponine instead. Her little brother ended up running away, but she wasn't able to. Eventually, she stops going home at night, sleeping at school instead. Professor Valjean found her outside his classroom one time when he finally left at like 2 in the morning after being stuck there grading papers. He ended up taking her home with him.
Cosette - Eponine's "sister". I will insist on these two getting along and being best friends, regardless of how you want to interpret their canon relationship. Imma just call them sisters, since they were raised that way. Eventually, she's taken away from the abusive household she lived in as a child. Soon she was sent to be fostered with a man who later became a university professor. Much to her surprise, she was reunited with her sister in a class and found out what had happened to Eponine in her absence. She quietly brought the issue up to her adopted father.
Valjean - history prof, and the supervising teacher for the trip. I call him Jvj and pronounce it sort of like 'Jivvy' and yes I know that's not even how it would be said and that it's weird af but I will live and die by that nickname. He's that one professor that everyone loves. While he never brings it up, his house is a second home to Eponine and Gavroche, ever since he found Ponine sleeping on a bench outside his classroom (Cosette may or may not have set this up so that he would find her), and now he has three children instead of just Cosette. By the end of the trip, he ends up with like 20 students who all treat him like he's their father.
Javert - ex-military school dean. He's coming on the trip as well because the school's two biggest problem students - Enj and R - are going on the trip and he doesn't trust Jvj to keep them in line. Everyone knows there's some sort of drama between him and one of the history professors, but no one can figure out the story between the two of them.
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Oh well look at me, totally ignoring the thing I said about them all not knowing each other. Welp. And yeah, I know I'm not being the most brick-accurate when it comes to their personalities or whatever, but I'm trying to keep the main feel of each of them while modifying it in a way that works for what I'm trying to write. And look if y'all want to make suggestions about roles for the other amis please go ahead cause I only really have theories for a few of them.
So anyway on to the actual plot.
They all settle in and the next day, they're kinda just let loose in the city to explore. Look we all know that Grantaire is probably going to try to find a bar or a pub or something. The thing is... he ends up at the Stonewall Inn. For y'all that don't know, it was a bar that mainly catered to members of the LGBT+ community. For the first time, he's kinda like 'there are... other people like me? I'm not some sort of a freak for being a man who's in love with another man?' and all that. Through some turn of events, Enj and R (maybe even a group of them?) end up there the next night. I remember reading this thing about since how common police raids and in order to avoid undercover police (*glares at Jav*) there were all sorts of safety measures in place and to be allowed in, they had to 'look gay' and you can bet R takes full advantage of the fact that he's there with Enj to get in.
The police conduct a surprise raid on the bar, and it explodes from just a regular thing into a massive deal, with a massive crowd of spectators. It quickly becomes more and more heated and eventually violent. They fight back against the police because you know neither of them would ever go quietly. Enj and R end up getting arrested together before everything goes insanely out of control, and if anyone else from their group was there, they manage to get away. In prison, Enjy talks to R about the whole deal. Through that conversation, they discuss the LGBT+ movement (though I can't remember if it was called that at the time) and Enjy eventually admits he's not straight, and one of the reasons he ended up becoming the School Vigilante is because he used to be tormented for it, and taught himself how to fight back. He refuses to let anyone else go through the same suffering for it. His protection soon extended to anyone being bullied and picked on, not just fellow queer people. The two of them decide that something has to be done, and this is the start of something massive. Enj tells R that he'll be going back whenever they get released, and Grantaire agrees to go with him.
Jav and Jvj come and negotiate for the release of the two of them since they're visiting French students and all that. When they get back to the place they're staying, I imagine they get a massive yelling-at from Ferre and Courf and Ponine. None of them know the full story, only that the two of them were caught in a bar and got arrested. I'm not sure how old all of them are in this... they're all over 18 in the novel (if I've done my math right) so they weren't arrested for being underage, so there are all sorts of rumors flying around about the two of them.
The next day, someone, I'm not sure who, overhears the two of them discussing what happened the night before, though they've both agreed not to mention anything personal about each other, in case that exact situation of being overheard occurs. However, the person who listens in on them goes to the rest of the group and talks about the protests, and eventually come to the decision that yes, what's happening is a massive deal, and they kinda all want to be part of it? Even if not all of them are part of the community, like Marius and Cosette, they're all very supportive allies and agree to join in these protests. Enj and R try to sneak out when they're confronted with the rest of the students. The two of them think the others are going to try to stop them until Courf steps up and says "like hell we're letting you do this alone,"
They all meet up before the Stonewall, joining a crowd of over a thousand people, surging against the police cordons. The bar itself has smashed windows and looks like someone tried to burn it, but it's still defiantly staying open. R gets his hands on a bunch of rainbow spray paint and joins in a group grafitting walls and buildings. Is grafitting even a word? Grafitti-ing? I dunno. But I had to look up when spray paint was invented and began being used and now I can tell you all about the history of aerosol. Being a writer, right?
They stick around for the rest of the week, joining in various rallies and protests at night, participating in the actual point of their trip during the day. Jav and Jvj obviously know what their students are doing, but they’ve both decided to not mention it at all.
One morning after the group has been out all night, they all escape the chaos and catch rides to Central Park? Maybe? I’ll have to see if that’s even possible. More research, yay!
Anyway, probably Central Park. I don’t really care how improbable it is rn. And we just get a series of shots of all the couples together who’ve found each other.
Enjolras and Grantaire, Courfeyrac and Combeferre, Joly and Bossuet, Bahorel and Feully, Maruis and Cosette. I’m going for lesbian or ace Eponine. Maybe both? If anyone else has suggestions, please lemme know.
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The only problem is, will I ever get around to actually writing this? No, probably not.
Sorry for the long post! Look I get that people feel weird leaving long replies or whatever but I promise you it's totally okay. More responses = me being more likely to actually write this, please and thank you! I'll probably come back to this someday and see if I can update it and add even more ideas and stuff to it, because I feel like I could turn this into a pretty cool fic, if anyone's even interested in it. Thank you so much, everyone!
#les mis#les miserables#au#alternate universe#stonewall#stonewall riots#history#enjolras#grantaire#courfeyrac#combeferre#enjoltaire#courferre#les amis#les amis de l'abc#marius#cosette#eponine
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Three Days ~ 28
~*~Sebastian~*~
Emma left soft kisses on my stomach before laying on her side, propped on her elbow. I opened my eyes when she brushed a lock of hair off my sweaty forehead. "Feel better?"
I let out a weak laugh before I spoke. "I feel fucking fantastic."
She kissed my cheek, "Good."
"What can I do for you?" I had ideas but was more than happy to let her pick.
"Nothing. Relax and enjoy the after-effects."
Unexpected answer. I pushed her onto her back, put my head on her shoulder, and wrapped around her. "Cuddle me." I love a good cuddle.
She kissed my head, "Any damn time, Basti-an.”
Oh, I liked her using the Romanian pronunciation of my name mixed with what’s become my sex name. Hell, I liked her saying my name any way. She tickled my back and arm while I did exactly as she’d said, relaxed and enjoyed the after-effects.
I guess Emma thought I’d fallen asleep. She spoke quietly, "Are you awake?"
"Mmm hmm"
"What are you doing?"
"Staying in the moment. Focusing on what I can feel, see, smell, taste, and touch. It's a calming technique, but I find it good for staying present and enjoying a moment. Solidifying it in memory."
"You're trying to create a sense memory of your latest blow job?"
I looked up her with a glare, "It was a very good blow job."
"Thank you."
"I think I should be thanking you." I moved up beside her and kissed her, long and slow. She hummed her approval. "Tell me about your first kiss?"
She took a deep breath, sighed, and fluttered her eyelashes, "First kiss." She looked at me with a smile and I felt my stomach do what her eyelashes had. "I was in eighth grade. We were under the bleachers at a football game. Everyone made out under the bleachers at football games."
I interrupted, "Don't things fall on you?" Gross.
Emma laughed, "Definitely. You have to get there early to get a good spot kinda behind the bleachers against the fence. Less privacy, but less trash."
"Everything's a tradeoff. Sorry, go on. Oh, what's his name?"
"Chris. Blonde hair, blue eyes, tall, and skinny. He was a new kid. I hadn't really noticed him even though he was in my homeroom. My best friend was too, so we chattered like magpies nonstop. It was maybe the third day of school and we were all lined up to turn in our paperwork. Someone kept flipping my ponytail." She laughed with the memory. "I spun around saying ‘What the hell, Oh, hi. Why do you keep doing that?’ He said because he thought I was pretty and he wanted to talk to me."
"Very smooth for an eighth-grader."
"He was from California."
I fought a smile and nodded, "Of course, makes sense."
"From there it was meeting at lockers, walking to class, texts, and even passing notes. We'd meet at football games on Friday nights. Second game we went under the bleachers. My best friend had already been making out with her boyfriend and she'd told me all about it and how to do it." She closed her eyes, "He put both his hands on my face and kissed me. I was completely nervous. I remember that shock when our tongues first touched." She opened her eyes and looked at me. "Clearly not his first kiss."
"Well, he was from California." We both laughed. "Don't stop, what's the rest of the story."
"A lot of making out under bleachers and in movie theatres. Then in February he asked Sheila to homecoming dance. I broke up with him."
"Ouch."
She rolled her eyes, "Heartbroken. Months later he sent me a note saying it was the biggest mistake of his life. Very middle school melodramatic. Moved back to California in the summer. Except for the end part it was a good puppy love." Her eyes lit up like she just remembered something. "Still have the notes."
"No, you don't!" I half yelled and sat up in the bed. Seriously, she did not keep notes from a high school first love.
"I do.” She got up and went to a small wooden box on the dresser, digging around a little before coming back to the bed. I was sitting crossed legged and she draped a leg over mine, scooting in close where I could see. "This is the first." She unfolded it and pointed to a scribbled part at the bottom, “I don’t care how long it is as long as you write.”. She opened another and pointed to the bottom, "First time he told me, well, wrote in a note, that he loved me." Last one was longer. "This is worse than I remember."
There was a PS at the end that said “I’ll always love you.” Who even writes notes? I mean, it was a long time ago, but nobody’s written notes in forever. "It's actually very sweet."
"Yeah, it was. I’ve had good boyfriends until they weren't, but you can’t judge a relationship by the end. I always thought it was because I wasn't willing to settle."
I felt the shift when my face went serious. I tried for a sweet smile. I swear, we seem to always go from these silly nothing conversations to some intense deep thing. "Did you? Have you?"
"I don't think so. There were bad dates or things were off after a couple of dates and I ended it, but good relationships." I screwed up my face, "Might be an overstatement as there's only been two."
“You weed out the bad ones."
"Sure, we'll go with that." I had questions and thankfully she went on. “My mother would say I’m too picky and too quick to reject someone. I disagree. I don’t understand keeping dating someone you really don’t like most things about, are arguing with all the time, or have no connection with. Not at the beginning. I’m not going to invest time in something that’s already not very good.”
“I don’t disagree with you. If there’s no connection why go on. It’s either there or it isn’t. I mean, I guess in the case of friends who become more, well, no because there was a friendship connection. It took maybe two minutes for me to know I wanted to know you better.” I crossed my fingers, "Not a weed."
She ran my fingers down my chest, "Not a weed." She kissed me softly, "Your first kiss."
I looked at her strangely, "You don't know?"
“How would I know anything about this?
Ok, I’ll go with it. "I was ten. Mom had asked an older neighbor to keep an eye on me back and forth to school. One day she asked if I'd ever kissed a girl and if I wanted to. Yes, yes, I did. So, she kissed me. You're going to ask how much older. She was sixteen."
She hissed in a breath between clenched teeth. "Eww!"
"I know, I know." I held his hands up. "I mean current me knows, but ten-year-old me felt like he was a fucking god." I chuckled, "Completely wrong, but I’m supporting ten-year-old me. He didn't feel exploited, he felt blessed."
"The supposed victim, and I hate the word victim, gets to decide if the joke or comment was sexual harassment. So, ten-year-old you can choose inappropriate, but fun kiss." She cut her eyes toward me, “Just a kiss?"
I smiled, "Just a kiss. I can’t believe you didn't know this story."
"How would I know about your first kiss?"
"Internet. People magazine. Podcast. My friend had a podcast and I was on to get him some traffic. Felt like us talking, which it was supposed to, and we talked about firsts."
She made a face and huffed out a breath, "The internet holds a treasure trove of information that everyone besides me knows. I feel behind."
"I like that you're behind. We get to know each other on an even level. I can't look you up and know all sorts of things."
Emma flinched. "I see your point and I won't be reading any past interviews. We start at today. Well, Friday."
"Really?"
"Absolutely. Not fair I can find out anything and you have to ask."
“Thank you."
She waved me away, "No problem." I kissed her and she was smirking when I pulled away. "How about first kiss with a girl you actually liked?"
"Ha ha, that went better, but not as sweet as yours. It was the cast party for the school play. We'd been flirting all through rehearsal whenever we could. We weren't in many scenes together. Someone had spiked the punch so I had some liquid courage. We were slow dancing to something by Savage Garden and during the chorus, I kissed her. It was good, but I learned my tongue and my feet do not work at the same time. They trip over and step on things."
"Noted. Steel toed dancing shoes. Did she become someone special?"
"Not at the time. It was a one-night party. I was only a Sophomore and she was a year ahead."
"You have a thing for older women."
"Maybe. We didn't date that year. It was maybe half way through her Senior year when something clicked. We had plans. I'd join her at NYU the next year. My senior year I went up there a lot. She had three roommates. My parents were always home. Any time I could get together enough money we'd rent a hotel room to have sex." I laughed," First time I ran out and got us Happy Meals after."
"Aw, you bought her dinner."
"After the hotel it was the best I could do."
"Hey, I didn't get a Happy Meal."
"No, my mother made you dinner before we had sex."
“True.” Her voice sang, “How was it?"
I couldn’t help but laugh, “Faster than I thought. Took very little time really." She was snickering. "It got better."
"I can attest to this."
"Thanks. It was good, we were in love, and we'd be in the same school next year. Until I decided to go to Rutgers. Not far away, like an hour by train, but we both wanted to be doing things at our schools. We decided to see other people. We kept in touch and occasionally hooked up. Then I spent a year in London and by the time I came back she was gone. Went to law school in California."
Emma opened her eyes wide, "Maybe she and Chris hooked up! Our exes living a fairytale in a place that doesn’t have snow."
"Anything is possible. And what about your first time?"
"My sixteenth birthday." Her turn to smirk, "That's what I wanted for my birthday. I didn't have a boyfriend, but there was a party that weekend. He was a Senior. Nice guy. We had a class together, so I knew him. It was a house party and we found an open room. The sex was good, he knew what he was doing. Never regretted going for experience over waiting for the right guy. Amy was the exact opposite and couldn't believe I lost my virginity to someone I didn't love or at least close. I didn't get the big deal. Sex and love don't always go together."
"No, they don't. How did you not care what everyone thought so young? I still struggle."
"I had the other problem. I had to learn to take other people's opinions into account as possibly valid. I wasn't selfish or mean, but I had definite opinions and if you wanted to change it you better have data. Then I dated a lawyer for a couple of years and realized how obnoxious that was."
"A relationship you came out of better than you were before."
She held her hands above her head and looked up, "I am a unicorn. Better after a breakup. Doesn't equate sex and love and can cook."
I laughed as I wrapped my arms around her, "You are one of a kind."
"A unicorn."
"Fine, you're a unicorn.” I like how pauses are filled up with kisses now. “Translates to you tend to be stubborn and I tend to overthink. We’re gonna have some fun arguments."
"I don't fight to win, I fight to fix it, to find solutions."
I threw my head back, "You had a good therapist."
I was greeted with a quirked eyebrow, "Is at a problem?"
I held my hands up in surrender, "No. I bought my therapist a new couch. It wasn’t that comfortable and I was spending a lot of time on."
We leaned into each other, laughing. "Mines PRN now, maybe every couple months, more if I need."
"I’m working through some stuff."
"I wonder what our therapists’ would think about this?"
"Haha, she'll love that I impulsively asked out a stranger. Still need to work on overthinking thing."
"Trevor would question the wisdom of you being in my home, but would love me just having fun and going for it."
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The King’s Assassin
Jongin is a king and you are an assassin. Instead of killing him, you end up marrying him (─‿‿─) How unfortunate.
The scaffolding was grand, hiding whatever was behind it. You waited outside patiently with your carrying case. Jongin would be finished soon, but you still asked to see him as soon as possible because you wanted to get ready for your classes in the evening.
You stared up at the monstrous building, wondering what could be inside that held Jongin’s attention for the past three months.
“Hello, my dear wife,” a low voice tickled your ear.
You tried ducking away but somehow Jongin’s arms still managed to pick you up off the ground.
You tried not to laugh too loudly as he spun you around. “We’ve been married for almost a year. When are you going to stop calling me that?”
“All right.” He put your feet back on the gravel and leaned in for a kiss. “Hey, you.”
You gave him a look. “’Hey, you’ right back at’cha.”
His smile was broad as he ran a hand through his hair. “What was so important that my wife asked the groundskeeper to pull me out here five minutes before the work day ended?” he teased.
You felt only a little bit guilty about that. “You don’t have to be working in there,” you said with a pout towards the door that led behind the scaffolding.
He slung an arm around your shoulders and pulled you in. “It’s always nice to work with the people who rely on us. Besides, they could always use an extra hand.”
Jongin was right. Even though he was the king, the people loved him because he always got involved with what his people were doing. He connected with them and listened to their stories.
It was the reason you ended up marrying him without a fight.
“Well,” you said as you pulled out a sachet from your carrying case. “I have these for you.”
His brows furrowed as he untied the string that held the bag closed. “What is it?”
“I was preparing the students’ meals with Nana today.” Nana was the grandmother of one of the town’s best chefs. “We made these dried fruit strips that you told me about.”
Jongin’s face lit up as he pulled out a dark red candied strip.
“You said you couldn’t find anybody who sold them anymore, right?”
He nodded and stuffed the whole snack in his mouth. “It’s just as I remembered it,” he said with a muffled groan.
You were surprised that he wasn’t cringing from all the sugar. “I wrote down the recipe so we can always have some at home.” You patted your carrying case.
He pulled you in and buried his nose in your neck, causing you to squirm a little from the ticklish sensation. “Thank you, my dear wife.”
You held back the eye roll.
“Come,” he said, pulling you towards the door as men shuffled out. “I want to show you our progress.”
You hesitated. “Are you sure?” He had been keeping this project a secret for so long that you hadn’t expected to be shown anything until news came out to the general public.
He tucked your hand in the crook of his elbow. “It’s for you.”
This time, you were the one that was confused. “For me?” Suddenly, your interest piqued and you followed eagerly after him.
“Remember our trip to the south?”
You nodded, looking around as he led you through the threshold and into a grand hall. “How could I forget?”
It was a trip that was planned right after your wedding, when you were still wary about your new husband. But he was a newly-crowned king and he had to toot his wife to the land.
The crowds called the tour “The Killer Wife” which was a little morbid and odd, but you didn’t mind.
You were busy thinking about how your whole life had changed unexpectedly.
“Do you remember what you asked to do whenever we had free time?”
You thought for a bit and then pieced out your answer slowly. “To watch...plays?”
“Mhmm.” Jongin nodded as he pulled open an ornate oak door. “We must have hit every theatre along the grand river.”
You nudged his side. “You enjoyed it, too.”
He didn’t say anything, but you saw his little smile. “Instead of travelling to all those theatres, I thought we could bring them here.”
No.
No way.
Your breath caught as he pulled back a heavy blood-red curtain. You rushed to the edge of the balcony and looked down in awe. Below your footsteps was a giant ampitheatre with enough seats to fit hundreds and a stage big enough to invite a circus troupe.
“I want to showcase local talent here and bring in acts from around the land, even across the river.” Jongin came to stand beside you, gnawing casually on the fruit snacks as if this wasn’t a huge deal. “And you’ll have the best seat in the house.”
You turned and saw two grand thrones behind you.
Your lip quivered. Even with years of training to keep your emotions in check, you had a hard time holding your tears back around Jongin.
He tugged on your wrist and sat down, pulling you into his lap. “Right here,” he teased.
“Jongin,” you began, but your words got caught in your throat.
His hands tucked you into his chest and he kissed the top of your head. “Do you like it?” he murmured as if he was unsure.
You nodded with great enthusiasm. Of course you liked it! You just couldn’t get the words out.
He tilted your chin up and gently pressed a kiss to your lips. You melted at his sweet gesture and wrapped an arm around his neck to deepen the kiss.
Jongin backed away an inch. “Don’t get carried away,” he said, his hands skimming your hips. “You have a classes to teach this evening.”
“We can be quick,” you replied and kissed him again, running your fingers along the collar of his shirt. The fabric was sticking to him from the sweat he had built up after working all day. You couldn’t wait to get it off.
He chuckled. “If your students knew the kind of filthy things their king did to their beloved teacher, I’d have all their swords in my neck.”
“They love you too much to do that, Jongin,” you reassured him as you helped him pull off his shirt.
As do I, you thought.
-
You took a swig of water from your canteen as you tucked your swords away in the leather case.
“Bye, ma’am!” one of your students called from across the courtyard.
You waved with a pile of envelopes in your hand. “Goodbye! Thank you for the card!”
It was the end of the season and there would be no more classes until after the fall harvest. The students had been kind enough to make cards and bring sweets from home to share.
You had wanted to save the cards until you got home, but you couldn’t help opening one right now. Some of the kids could barely write, but you loved to see their creativity and artwork. There were definitely a few kids in this class that had outstanding potential, and they were all eager to participate in class.
You were going to miss this group.
You sat down on the bench and pulled out an envelope that had no name on it.
Your blood ran cold as you read the few words on the otherwise empty card.
Leave him tonight, or he will die.
- B
You turned the card over in your suddenly clammy hands.
This wasn’t happening.
It had been a year since you had married Jongin; there was no way your brothers out to get him now.
Looking around, you wondered if anybody was here with you, but all was empty.
You bit your lip, thinking.
A year ago, you had been sent into town by your brothers on an elaborate mission to assassinate the king. He was in need of a wife and had called in eligible women for a week of parties.
You attended with the intention to slit his throat, not marry the man.
However, the more time you had spent with him, the thought of pulling a sword on him was impossible. He was sweet and thoughtful, carefree yet had so much purpose in life.
You had almost left the castle emptyhanded on the last night when he found you with a sword in each hand.
It was an uncomfortable confrontation, one that you didn’t like to relive because you had tackled him and pointed a knife at his neck while he laid on the ground.
He didn’t even fight you.
You thought you could get it over with—cut his throat open, end the mission, and move on with your life. But you couldn’t.
Your brothers would have called you weak. It would have been the cherry on the cake for your father, who had never fully trusted your skills simply because you were a girl who begged to carry on the centuries-long family tradition and learn how to fight. You were too girly that you could be taught to fight but could not kill.
You remembered your hands being as shaky as they were now and dropping the swords and crawling off Jongin’s back.
You couldn’t look him in the eye as he sat up. All you wanted to do was hide because you had known you had to die. An attempt at assassinating the king was a death sentence for anybody.
Maybe that was why your father had insisted on sending you.
“I’m marrying you,” Jongin had declared while the two of you sat on the cold ground outside his stables.
You weren’t able to process his words for a long time. You had asked him if he was actually a mad man. A masochist. Or perhaps he was torturing you.
You remembered asking him to kill you because you couldn’t even stand yourself for your actions.
He had taken you to your rooms instead, watching over the servants as they helped you get ready for bed. And then he sat on a chair and watched you lay in bed all night.
It did feel like torture because you couldn’t sleep a wink. Too many thoughts were racing through your head, including the fear that Jongin could take revenge and kill you in your sleep.
In the depth of the night, after you had tossed and turned for the millionth time, he told you he had married you for strategic reasons. Keeping the assassin close meant if you ever killed him, everybody would know. And if anybody else killed him, they would likely be associated with you.
And so he had brought you around his entire kingdom, making sure everyone knew that you were from a family of assassins and that you were a genius with swords. The people feared you at first, but then their opinions shifted.
They saw you as a protector of their king.
You hadn’t known what to make of it at first, but you were welcomed and appreciated for your skills for the first time in your life. And somehow, day by day, you had come to love the man who said he married you as a strategy.
And now you needed to give it all up.
You didn’t want to, but you knew your brothers. They were warning you. They wanted their sister back after you gained fame. You needed to work for the family or else.
You couldn’t put Jongin’s life at risk.
You began packing your swords away, hating yourself and everything you stood for.
-
You had spent the last hour slowly inching away from Jongin’s arms. You had started the night complaining that it was too hot and that you couldn’t stand cuddling too close despite how much you wanted to. He didn’t question you even after having had two hours of rough heated sex prior to heading for bed.
You lifted the fingers that still lingered on your waist and slowly crawled off the bed, making sure not to shift the weight at all. Gently, you set his hand down and gave his thumb the tiniest rub.
You watched for a second as your husband slept peacefully, the moonlight illuminating his handsome face and the breeze from the window ruffling his hair just slightly.
A chill ran up your spine as you thought about your escape. You really needed to come up with better excuses too because the night wasn’t warm at all.
Quietly, you grabbed your cloak and carrying case from behind the chaise and sneaked out the door.
You pressed a palm to your eyes as tears threatened to push out. You didn’t have time to cry. You had to leave.
You pulled the cloak around your shift and tugged the hood over your eyes as you climbed down the servant’s staircase and out the back door.
The night was clear and you thanked your maker as you silently tread down the cobblestone into town. It was a bit of a walk, but you hadn’t lost your stealth and stamina in the past year as you taught many sword fighting lessons per week.
There were only a few lit lanterns here or there when you reached town, mostly for the pubs and taverns. You stayed in the shadows to avoid being seen even though you saw some familiar faces.
You ducked down alleyways, staying away from big streets as you mapped out your way to the gates. You were glad you had accompanied Jongin on so many trips to town because you knew this place like the back of your hand.
Once you left the gates though, you would never be back.
You pushed the thoughts away and moved forward, the gates coming into view with every step.
The steps felt like lead.
You made sure your hood was pulled down low before you came into view of the iron gate. Looking around, you could see five guards. Nobody should give you any trouble, but it was still odd to have a lone woman leaving town at this time of night.
It might have to come down to knocking these boys out.
You approached with your shoulders pulled back, trying to appear as if you had a real purpose in leaving so late.
Slowly, the guards crept away from their post.
“Miss, are you looking to go somewhere?”
You gave a mental groan. You knew that voice. It was one of your best students who had recently gotten a job with the military.
Why did he have to be stationed here tonight?
You didn’t want to have to knock him unconscious.
You stayed silent, walking forward only until you were steps away from the gate and the soldiers were flanking all sides. They were almost close enough now that you could take them down in one swoop. Just one step closer...
This had to be done quick, or else—
“Stand down, boys.”
You stiffened at the voice that came from behind you.
“Your Majesty!” one of the soldiers dropped to one knee as the others did one by one.
You didn’t dare turn around as an arm snaked around your waist. “I promised my wife we would go do some forest training tonight. She was so eager that she beat me to it.” His hand held you tight enough that you couldn’t run away.
“Of course, Your Majesty! We will open the gates right away.”
The guards ran back to their posts, shouting orders. Then the gates suddenly opened wide.
“After you,” Jongin whispered, “my dear wife.”
-
The two of you were deep into the forest before either of you said a word.
You spun around, out of his grip, and took a few steps back. Jongin held his ground.
“You need to get away from me,” you warned.
He crossed his arms, unfazed. “Why?”
You couldn’t say the truth because he would simply pull you back and his life would still be in danger. He needed to get rid of you. “Because...” You clenched your fists under the heavy sleeves of your cloak. “Because I don’t want this anymore. I don’t love you.”
Jongin stood there, still as the night. You could see his jaw tighten, but that was the only indication that he had heard your words.
“I don’t love you, Jongin,” you pushed the sentence through your teeth. “I was forced into the marriage by circumstance and I’ve had enough of it.”
A tense moment passed by and you could feel your knees getting wobbly as he stared down at you. “That’s not how you acted a few hours ago when I had you in bed.”
Your fingernails dug into your palm as you tried not to think about that. He was right, you had practically clung to him that night. But things were different now. “It’s not that hard to sell my body for safety,” you spat out.
He bristled as if you had stabbed him through the heart. “So you don’t want me,” he said as if confirming a fact.
You forced yourself to give a steady nod even as your heart threatened to crack into a million pieces.
“And you never did want me.”
You swallowed. “Never.”
He needed to leave. He needed to leave now and stop watching you because you were about to break down and weep.
You flinched when you heard an explosion in the distance. You followed Jongin’s wide gaze behind you. A tower was lit up in flames.
It was the castle.
And the tower was where you slept with Jongin every night.
There was no way around it. Your brothers had planned on killing Jongin whether you were near him or not.
Your hands shook as you grabbed Jongin’s arm, pulling him behind you.
“You need to hide.” Your voice threatened to break. Too much was happening tonight and you didn’t know if you could save him or not. Not if your brothers were armed with so much as a bomb.
You were used to close combat and maybe a few long distance weapons.
But a bomb? That was new.
You found a wide tree trunk with a huge burrow at its roots. “Get inside.” You pushed your husband into the hole, following behind him. “We need to stay here for tonight.”
“In a tree?”
You arranged your limbs so you could sit next to him. “Yes. Once they find out that you haven’t been killed, they will be looking for you.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
You licked your cracked lips, realizing how scared you really were as the quiet of the night settled in. “My brothers.” You couldn’t see the castle from here, but you could guess that everyone was awake and scrambling for their lives.
All because Jongin had married you.
You needed a plan, fast. You couldn’t risk the lives of all these people.
You didn’t realize you were pressing your cheek on Jongin’s shoulder until you felt his fingers rubbing small circles along your back. “You shouldn’t be the one comforting me,” you said even as you pressed closer.
“Because you don’t love me?” he asked even as he continued with his caresses.
Now you really hated yourself. “Because you’re the one they are after, not me.”
A long moment passed as you worried your lip and shifted your weight to get more comfortable. It was going to be a long night.
“I’ve been a target ever since I was born,” Jongin said nonchalantly. “It is a part of my life.”
“It shouldn’t be,” you refuted.
“It shouldn’t, but it is.” He pulled you onto his lap and you didn’t have the energy to fight him. The hole was small and your butt hurt from sitting on rocks. “That’s why I married you. Now sleep, my dear wife. It is going to be a long night.”
You didn’t fight him as he curled his fingers around yours. Your only job was to stay awake and watch for any movement in the night.
You ignored the voice inside of you that insisted you tell Jongin that you do love him. His words were kind, but he sounded sad and tired.
But you still had plans to leave because you couldn’t jeopardize the lives of all these people you had come to love in the last year.
You wanted to rip your hair out in frustration.
One night at a time, first.
Your eyelids were heavy as you heard the faint whistle.
“Did you hear that?” you asked in a light whisper as you reached for the sword in your boot.
“Hear what?”
Maybe you had imagined it. Maybe the fear and fatigue was getting to you. It had been years since you had trained with your brothers, coordinating attacks using little whistles. Maybe your ears were playing tricks with you.
But then you heard the click.
You flew into action, throwing your carrying case across your back as you turned in Jongin’s lap.
You tucked his head to your chest and hoped for the best. Hoped that the wooden case would give you enough coverage that whatever weapon they used would only pierce your body and not his.
You felt the pain in your shoulder and stifled a cry.
Shakily, you looked down and saw the arrow embedded in the tree trunk, pinning you there by the shoulder.
Faintly, you heard Jongin screaming your name.
You stopped yourself from screaming by concentrating on Jongin’s face. The black was creeping into your vision quickly. You were going to pass out very soon and you knew you only had a few breaths left.
Behind you, you heard shouts and swords clanging. You hoped Jongin’s guards and soldiers had come because you weren’t going to be able to protect Jongin anymore.
You struggled to focus on Jongin’s eyes as he cupped your face. He was saying something with tears running down his face. You wanted to tell him not to cry but you needed to get the most important words out first.
“I love you,” you choked out. “You know that, right?”
He had to know. He had to, or else you wouldn’t be able to die peacefully. You shoulder hurt like a beast and you wanted to be free from the pain.
“No. No, no! No, you can’t.” You heard his voice even though you weren’t sure if you were looking at him anymore.
But I do. I really love you. “I do.” You hoped he heard your last words before you lost consciousness.
-
You watched as Jongin walked away again.
You didn’t understand.
All you wanted to do was bring him snacks and tell him about the stories that Nana had told you. You wanted to protect him and do practise some basic sword training with him.
But Jongin kept turning away.
You tried to grab at his hand that always seemed so close. Maybe if you held on tight enough, he would stay.
But he never did.
You went back to sleep, wondering how you could get to him again.
-
You woke up and you weren’t in Jongin’s arms.
That was strange.
Was it because you hadn’t wanted his arms around you the last time you were in bed with him?
“I knew you were up to something when you didn’t snuggle with me that night,” a voice said.
Ah, that was why.
Well, then you just needed to find Jongin and cuddle with him to make sure he never let you go.
Where was he?
-
A huge pain ran down your arm and you found yourself pinned to a tree. You screamed and thrashed because you knew Jongin was next on the kill list.
You needed to be next to him but this goddamn arrow was stopping you.
You cried yourself to sleep because you couldn’t find him.
-
You woke up, this time in your bedroom. It was warm and there was a nice breeze coming through the window.
You needed to find Jongin.
You looked around the room and he was there, sitting on the chair beside your bed. His eyes were closed and you wanted to call his name but you couldn’t find your voice.
You had to get to him before he disappeared again.
Even though your shoulder was killing you, you sat up, groaning as you slid off the bed.
Jongin’s eyes snapped open and you could see the red veins in them.
Had he slept at all last night?
He caught you by the arms as you crawled into his lap.
“You’re here,” you croaked with your hoarse morning voice.
And he was shaking.
You curled on his lap, so happy that you had finally reached him.
“Of course I’m here,” he said, sounding just as tired as you. “Did you hear me?”
You looked up, confused at why he was crying. “No, what did you say? Wait, no, have you eaten yet? You are starting to look thin.” You touched his cheek that seemed to have sunken in, made worse by the dark circles under his eyes.
He barked out a laugh. “I haven’t eaten in a week.”
“Why not?” You shot up but he held you in his lap. “You weren’t working on the theatre this whole time, were you?”
He laughed again, burying his face in your neck. “My dear, dear wife.”
“Jongin.” You ran a hand through his ruffled hair. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “How is your shoulder feeling?”
You grimaced. “Like a mother.”
He laughed again, tightening his arms around you. “I told you to heal quickly because you had to come to the theatre with me.”
“Oh, you did? Of course I’m coming!”
“And we have to make those fruit strips with the recipe that Nana gave you.”
You nodded as a few memories came back. They seemed to be recent yet so long ago at the same time.
Jongin gave you a little kiss on your nose. “And I have to love you.”
“I...”
He shook his head. “You don’t have to say it.”
All of a sudden, everything came back to you. Your shoulder throbbed as you looked down and saw that you were heavily bandaged. But the pain wasn’t as bad as remembering all the hurtful words you had said.
“Jongin, I...” you stumbled on your words as he kissed you again. “I love you. I’m so sorry.”
He tilted your chin up to look at him. “I’m just glad I didn’t lose you.”
How could you have thought to run away from this man? You realized in your fevered dreams that you never wanted to leave his side.
“I’m here now,” you reassured him. “I’m not leaving.”
“Never again,” he said, pulling you in. “You nearly killed me, my dear assassin wife.”
---
ಥ‿ಥ How long has it been since I’ve written something with no explicit sex scenes? I’ve really been in the mood for some angst and suffering so I hope I delivered! Thank you for reading and have a great weekend :D
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